Spider-Son & Iron Dad one shots

The Story of Iron Dad

A/n: my greatest fear? Probably that people will quiz me on my oneshots, because i men-in-black style lose my memory of writing the second I hit 'upload'

⚠️SAD story but good ending. tony uses dark humour at one point in the fic, but only for a small scene. panic attacks are mentioned.⚠️

Tony didn't know how he somehow started seriously working with this kid.

This dumb, yet so smart, kid.

Obviously he knew the kid was a genius. That's why he hired him. Well, that and the fact he was Spider-Man. Still, he didn't think they would remain in contact.

The first thing people think of when Tony Stark is mentioned, is the farthest from what Peter Parker thinks of him. Maybe that's why he keeps him around. Maybe that's why Pepper says a joking: "He's a good kid, maybe you'll learn from him," whenever she leaves the room.

Nevertheless, he doesn't make any motions to connect with the fourteen year old. And that's exactly why. Even if there was some sort of crazy villain showing up to wreak havoc, he wouldn't call Peter.

Peter was still a kid. And he can't put a kid in harms way. Not again. Not after the guilt he felt when leaving Harley in Tennessee.

None of these thoughts were exactly conscious, but they were there.

There was also the fact that Tony was admittedly in a terrible place. A dark place with thorns and no light ever being able to seek through the cracks. Peter, despite the trauma he had seen on his files, was optimistic and seemingly full of light. Tony wouldn't ever be the one to submit a happy person to his chaos.

The plan of staying back, shockingly, failed however. This was because of the aforementioned trait that Peter Parker stubbornly has.

The kid was SMART, but incredibly responsible when it came to the Spider-Man suit, and the Spider-Man suit only.

He had mentioned giving the daily reports as a joke, but he should have expected Peter to take it completely seriously. Tony pushed the kid away, of course he didn't understand Tony's humour.

Tony listened to the recordings some days but otherwise didn't care. He deleted quite a bit of them. (He would soon regret this decision, for purposes ranging from blackmail to grief). The messages were best listened to on dreary days where a touch of optimism was needed, no matter how annoying it can be.

And Good Lord, was this kid annoyingly optimistic. Tony remembers hearing one message where all he said was:

"So, I got nearly stabbed today, but like, it's cool. Whatever. It was a cool knife though! It like, sparkled or something. Actually, now that I think about it—"

Then he continued to talk about reflections of the sun on different kinds of metal for over five minutes before he realized that, oh hey, I'm still talking to voicemail.

He listened to that voice message about three times in one week, but nobody's really counting except FRIDAY.

So, he eventually got over his grievance with getting close to the now-fifteen year old. Tony will forever and always remember and cherish the look on Peter's face when he asked if Peter wanted to come over to his lab the next week.

It had taken quite a while for Tony to really warm up to the idea of having a child in his lab, but he let it go fast. Peter was careful with EVERYTHING in that room, and it was an honest miracle he hadn't broken something in the first week. Of course, there was always every other week after that to talk about, but for Peter's sake, Tony doesn't mention it.