Irondad and Spiderson One-Shots

Grocery Shopping

"Woah look at this. They have Cheetos Mac n' cheese?" Peter held up the box, shaking it. "It sounds so gross. But like, I kinda wanna try it." He tossed the box back in the pile.

"Then grab a box."

"Huh?"

Tony's eyes flicked up from his phone. Peter was blinking, head tilted in question, at him. "You said you wanted to try it. So throw it in the cart."

"I can- I'm allowed to get it?"

"Sure why not."

"I dunno." A pause. "You sure? It's prolly gross and a waste of money."

"Kid, I don't care. If you want something, just throw it in the cart."

"So... I can get anything I want?"

Finally, Tony fully looked up from his phone with a heavy sigh. "I'm not sure what you're not understanding. We're shopping for food, so if you want something, get it. I don't care." With that, his eyes dipped to his screen once more.

A moment of quiet passed then there was the sound of a box being placed in the cart. "Cool, thanks Mr. Stark."

"Yeah sure, whatever, let's get moving."

And so their grocery shopping adventure ensued. Tony mindlessly steering the cart and crashing into someone or something every so often because he wasn't looking. In his defence, he was trying to finish plans for a new suit upgrade. The kid swinging around out there in nothing but paper-thin spandex was scaring the shit out of him. At the very least, he needed some bullet protection. So no, Tony wasn't in the mood to shop for random crap.

He was thankful the kid had agreed to come with, so he could grab all the stuff they needed and let Tony work in peace. Or so that had been the plan. 

But Tony's plans never seemed to go that way they were supposed to, did they?

In his defence, he'd never gone shopping with the kid, so he hadn't been aware of what he was getting himself into.

"Woah! Look at this-" something was shoved in Tony's face and he was forced back a step. Blinking, a bag of white blobs came into focus. "What-"

"I don't know!" The bag pulled away and Peter peered at it with great intensity. "The name and stuff is in Japanese. I think they're, like, rice sacs filled with... meat? Question mark?" His head snapped up to look at Tony, eyes sparkling with a cross between happiness and insanity. "Should we try them?"

Tony made the executive decision to put his phone away for good. "Uh..."

"Awesome!" The kid tossed the bag into the cart, which Tony finally actually looked at.

The groceries that Tony had on the list were sitting in the corner of the cart.

The rest of the cart held a pile of miscellaneous items ranging from Cheetos Mac n' cheese to caramel waffle coffee creamer (the kid didn't even drink coffee) to a jar of pickled eggs to whatever it was he just tossed in the cart.

Christ.

When he said the kid could get whatever he wanted, he didn't expect him to want every mildly interesting thing that he saw. Morgan never did that.

"Uh, kid-" He was gone. The kid had disappeared. "Where the...?"

"Mr. Stark!" He came sliding out of the far aisle, an excited smile plastered to his face and a giant prickly fruit in his arms. He bounded over to Tony. "Look at this: it's apparently called a Durian. This old lady told me that when you open them, they smell like gasoline and they have 'flesh-like fruit meat' inside that vegans eat all the time." He dumped it in the pile. "We gotta try it!"

Tony blinked again, for the first time in his life at a loss for words. "Gasoline...?"

"Yeah!" The kid bounced on the balls of his feet, eyes excitedly scouring everything in sight. "Can we get a few boxes of pizza pockets? And some Eggos? Ooo and dunkaroos? Also they have, like, blue cheese at the dairy and meat department thingy. Also they have this thing called mascarpone? I don't even know what that is but it sounds so weird and apparently you use it for cheesecake. Can we make a cheesecake? What if we made a Cheetos cheesecake? That'd be so gross. I wanna try it? Should we try it? Also I found that baking soda on your list, it's down this aisle." With that, he sped away, once more skidding out of sight.

Tony eyes dipped to the giant prickly gasoline meat fruit.

Parenting was hard, ok?

Maybe- maybe being on his phone for so long was a bad idea, what with missing the start of this... madness.

The kid came skidding up to the cart once more, tossing an orange box in the corner of actual groceries. "Baking soda! What else is on the list? Do we need this?"

Tony peered at the item held out towards him. "Uh, n-no. We don't need chocolate covered crickets..."

The kid's face fell and he pulled them back, frowning at them. "Oh. Well, can we get them anyway? I wanna prank Pepper and Morgan by sneaking one of them into their foo- I mean, I wanna, uh, try them... myself..."

Tony pinched the bridge of his nose. He couldn't lie, he liked the sound of that prank, but he also was supposed to be a responsible adult who says 'no' to stuff like this.

There was a pause. "I thought you said I could get anything..."

Tony sighed, defeated. "I did."

The kid beamed and tossed the crickets into the cart. "Yeah!"

Tony watched helplessly as the kid sped away for the hundredth time. "What have I done...?"

. . .

"What is going on here? Why did I just see a jar of pickled eggs and a giant spiky fruit thing in our kitchen?"

Tony cringed at the sound of his wife's voice carrying through the study doorway. Blowing a raspberry, Tony spun in his chair. "So... I brought the kid shopping and... told him... he could get... anything he wanted..."

Pepper blinked at him. "And he got pickled eggs...?"

"Yeah and, uh... some other stuff. Lots of other stuff. Pretty sure he bought everything in the store."

"Tony, you're supposed to say no."

"I know! But I already told him he could get anything, I just didn't expect him to buy... everything."

Pepper sighed and plopped down on the couch. "Morgan doesn't buy 'everything.'"

"I know!" Tony leaned forward, gesturing emphatically in agreement. "She just gets burgers and buns."

Pepper shook her head. "He grew up poor, right? Maybe he just got overly excited that he could buy anything."

"Huh. Maybe. He's also just weird."

"Tony-"

"You should have seen him. He was running all over the place. It was like every time he stopped, he'd see something shiny and get whisked away just as fast." Tony bobbed his head. "I am 97 percent sure he has ADHD at this point."

"I could see that."

"Did he talk to you about the Cheeto cheesecake yet?"

A pause. "What?"

"Nothing. I've got it handled." He smirked. "How'd you like your pancake this morning? The kid helped me make it. Used a... special ingredient."

Pepper squinted suspiciously at him. "It was good, why?"

Unable to hide his smirk, Tony shrugged. "Just curious."

"Uh huh. Right."

"Well, I gotta go figure out how to bake a disgusting cheesecake." Planting a quick kiss on his wife's cheek, Tony sped out the door.  "Love ya."