IronDad One Shots // IronDad And SpiderSon

The Obvious Goes Unnoticed

Requested by @guineapigmaster1o1

   Peter Parker was one hundred percent done with this bullshit.

   Bullshit, meaning his secret identity. He had stopped caring completely about keeping it a secret, becoming more focused on finals than anything. Even though he knew he could pass the tests with purely his own intellect, that didn't stop Peter from hitting the books whenever he could. Sometimes quite literally, a few of the library's textbooks suffered from broken spines out of sheer anger that he was forced to pay for. This being the case for when Peter also went on patrol. He bought several books with him, and read them whenever he had a free second.

   When the media had found out, they had assumed he was studying for some kind of final in college, since he seemed too young for university. People had gone to twitter to tell Spider-Man to take a break to study using the hashtag #takeabreaksm.

   But Peter was worried about taking breaks, because there were lives to be saved, and purses to be kept, and banks to remain safe, and streets to be left civil. He couldn't drop everything for his tests and risk destroying the near perfect harmony he had created on the streets of Queens. No matter how much he wished he could, he just couldn't.

   But with all of the pressure of those really important tests that he absolutely had to ace, his consistency for taking the necessary precautions to keeping his identity a secret went completely out of the window, much like he did every afternoon.
  
   When May had realised that her nephew no longer cared about the only secret that he always used to constantly worry about, she had sat him down and gently talked to him in the way that she did to make him open up. If there was something bothering him, she could always get it out of him with patience and kindness. It worked on everyone (even Tony had admitted to being exhausted and an emotional wreck when it came to the kid but nobody would know this) so May didn't hesitate when asking him why he wasn't so concerned anymore.

   "It's just," he paused, thinking for the right words but evidently giving up. "What's the point anymore? If people are gonna find out my identity anyways then why bother keeping it a secret. I guess, it doesn't really help that I'm so distracted with studying but, like, I don't really wanna keep Spider-Man a secret anymore. It doesn't really make sense to me. I don't want the constant pressure of worrying of anyone knows who I am and who that person would tell." He paused when he realised he was rambling and instead sighed with defeat.

   "So, do you still wanna be Spider-Man?" A sense of concern wavered in her tone, much like how it usually sounded whenever she would talk to Peter. "Because if not, that's totally fine and completely up to you. But I just want you to remember that no matter what you chose; Spider-Man or no, I'll still love and support you, okay?"

    "No, no," he fumbled with his fingers, twirling them in between the fabric of his Green Lantern tee. "Don't get me wrong, I love swinging around Queens with the wind blowing at me, but I just don't want to worry about my secret identity so much. I honestly wouldn't mind if the world knew that I was Peter Parker, a kid with freaky powers that tries to help out the little guy, y'know?" May nodded and rested her nephew's head against her colorful new sweater that she knew he would find comforting.

   "Alright, Pete," she spoke softly, in a feeble effort to soothe the worked up kid to a hopeful point where he would begin to get drowsy and fall asleep. "You go be you in any way you want. And when you're ready, you can tell anyone and everyone that you're Spidey. But for now, let's just watch Young Sheldon." Just as hoped, Peter quickly fell asleep.

    May knuckled her eyes in exhaustion and sighed. She was worried what would possibly happen when Peter told people about Spider-Man. She knew he had quite a few enemies, and she knew that he couldn't always protect himself, but the world would be damned if she didn't try to make him safe as much as she possibly could.