#( Consequences of being a friend with Peter - ending up adopting the whole responsibility thing ) | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

starkexposition · 4 years ago

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The Bachelor: Tony Stark Edition

Forced myself against my will, at gunpoint, to update this. Here it finally is.

Chapter 2: Electric Boogaloo

Rating: Teen/Mature, it's from college!Peter Parker's perspective Pairings: Tony/Steve, Tony/Strange, Tony/literally everyone, Happy/May, Peter/MJ, Peter/Black Cat, many token ships eventually Summary: One man. Twelve contestants. Several weeks in paradise. All through the horrified eyes of one sticky, adopted son.

“Mr. Stark…”

Most people have normal dreams.

“Can you hear me?”

Nice ones.

“It’s Peter.”

Weird ones.

“Hey.”

Bad ones.

“We won.”

Ones you forget.

“Mr. Stark…”

Or in my case, ones you wish you’d forget.

“We won, Mr. Stark.”

They say when you dream about a person, it’s because they’re dreaming about you, too.

“We won—you did it, Mr. Stark. You did it.”

That never explained why I kept dreaming about him when he was gone.

“I’m sorry, Tony.”

It was never different. Never had a different ending—never even a nightmare. Just the same weak eyes followed by the same labored breaths, every single dream. And each time, the woman who believed in him most would sit with him, hand held to his heart, and promise to him that everything would be okay. And with that, the man who never sleeps would find the peace to finally rest.

There was nothing like it. I had already been through my fair share by then—whether it was the plane crash, or Uncle Ben, or the girl that I loved… Mr. Stark was different. There was no regret, or blame; it was only the mission. The worst part about it was struggling with the selfish feeling that something had been taken away from me, all while balancing the pride that I felt in what he did for the whole universe—and most importantly, for the family that was built around him.

To us, it was a sacrifice. To Iron Man, it was a responsibility.

I guess that must be the reason it kept replaying in my dreams. It didn’t need amending because of the good that it caused, but hell—it kept coming back like a nightmare.

Even after he came back, most sleeps would end the same way: with everyone around us taking a knee for him as the air grew quiet in his passing, Captain Rogers would rise to his feet, place a hand on my shoulder, and say through watered eyes and a weakened smile:

“It was all for you.”

And with Pepper’s blessing, Steve would step forward and pick Tony up from where he laid, carefully carrying him back as Pepper, Rhodey, and myself would slowly walk alongside them.

Some nights, if I got lucky, I’d wake up before Steve’s words.

But not last night.

My brain managed to string out every last excruciating detail of the dream it possibly could in an effort to stay asleep and ignore the sound of repulsors powering down to a low hum beside me. But as they hovered nearby, the stinky air of New York was blown through the ventilation of my suit, which, unfortunately, can be stinky enough to wake you when you become aware of it. A figure took the place of the city’s rising sun, casting a shadow that darkened the scene and gifted me with my daily post-dream reminder...

“You know if you prefer this for your room and board situation, I’d be happy to take up the bill.”

Tony Stark lives.

Which is great. Quality of life really did improve when he came back—for myself, and others, too. Being adopted by him, however, kind of spiced things up a bit. From mentor to parent meant that I was proving myself to him from a parental standpoint, and that consequently resulted in me becoming far more relaxed with him. ‘Cause he’s kind of stuck with me now, you know?

But even in times like this particular morning, when I had a curfew the night before and had to get back to the house upstate by a certain time and specifically did not do so in favor of fighting crime and flirting with a kleptomaniac in a leather suit, I still don’t think I couldn’t be grateful for that fact even when I am abruptly woken from my slumber on a rusty fire escape in New York by Iron Man.

There was always something about those slitted glowing eyes in the faceplate that managed to relay the disappointment behind it so well.

“How’d you find me?” I asked as I kicked my leg up onto the platform, letting my eyes settle on the ladders above.

“Same way I always find you—” Beep-beep, beep-beep! Karen pulled up a GPS screen in my lenses that pinpointed my location, with an additional flashing blip for where the Iron Man suit was just a few feet away. “Installed another tracking device in your suit.”

I pulled off my mask and sat up quickly. “Really?”

“Yes, really,” he gestured to me, his tone dripping with annoyance. “I don’t have time to play hide-and-go-seek in the alleys and dumpsters of New York every time I need you.”

“I have a phone.”

“That you don’t answer.” Tony then tossed over my backpack that was webbed up on the dumpster below. “You know, you could be sleeping on a fire escape in Cambridge right now.”

“MIT doesn’t have MJ—” Oof. Too quick there, Pete. “Or-or Ned. Or May. Or… you?”

The face plate turned to stare at me with slitted eyes once again, Mr. Stark tilting his head. “I thought you broke up with MJ.”

Of course, he won’t ignore it.

“We broke up,” I corrected him, even though that was also technically wrong, but he definitely did not need to know that. “Besides, we’re fine. We’re friends.”

“When was the last time you spoke to her?”

“Last week,” I told him, pulling the mask over my face again.

Mr. Stark stayed silent, faceplate staring into my soul with those narrowed eyes as he waited for me.

“Okay, fine,” I sighed, swinging down from the escape, “a month ago.”

I shot a web to the wall of the building across from us, and like that, we were en route home.

“Ouch.” Naturally, Mr. Stark’s voice came in through the suit itself while he traveled closely behind me. “That bad, huh?”

“Not really,” I lied. “And I mean, we did try the whole friend thing. That’s not gone. It’s just that… well, sometimes when you break up, it makes it a lot harder to stay broken up when you try to be friends right away, you know?”

“So…” He paused for a moment, as we turned a corner to Avengers Mansion. “You’re not friends?”

I landed on the walkway and pushed my way inside. “I stressed her out too much. I’m just giving her space.”

Mr. Stark’s suit was entirely gone by the time he followed me into the kitchen of the mansion. Making a beeline to the coffee, he raised an eyebrow at me as he pulled the pot and two mugs for the both of us, fixing mine up with sugar before he poured. “That must be easy for you at least.”

“Never said it was.” I informed him as I rummaged around the refrigerator for something, anything with sustenance… Bingo. Pizza. The only consistency that truly exists within the Avengers is the ability to almost always find leftover pizza in the fridge. “But is that stuff ever really easy?”

“Well…” Tony’s voice raised suggestively as he circled around the counter and took a sip of his coffee. “It sure seems like it is now that you’ve got yourself a feline to keep you company.”

I came to a halt, cold pizza at my lips. “Seriously? I’m not talking about this with you.”

Tony cackled, sipping his coffee as he slipped from the kitchen to the elevator, finger pressed on the ‘open door’ button as he waited for me to gather my pizza and coffee to join him. Moments later, we were entering his workshop, which was remarkably as cluttered as I had seen it last. He walked through slowly, moving papers and hardware around to organize the place and put away his projects reluctantly, and each time he seemed lost in thought, staring at some weird looking, half-dismantled device, he would take a sip from his coffee before making his decision on what to do with whatever it was he was holding.

“All packed?” He asked as he pulled the mug from his lips, tossing something into the trash.

I gripped the mask in my hands and turned away from him to face one of the blueprints on the wall, pretending to read it. “Yeah. Absolutely.”

“Good,” he said. He stopped at the door to his office and looked at me with expectant eyes. “Well? Get dressed so we can go home.”

Before I could even turn away, the door to his office was shut behind him, the blue glow of his holograms flashing through the opaque glass of his office doors and windows. Whatever it was he was working on must not have required too much attention, as he was waiting impatiently for me by his car in the mansion’s garage only a few minutes later, toes tapping the ground while he leaned against the hideously orange supercar.

“Really?” I asked. “This one again?”

His eyes perked up over the rim of his glasses, eyebrows shooting up in offense. “Would you rather walk?”

I shook my head and walked over to the passengers side with Mr. Stark moving out of the way to the driver’s door. “I just think—” I got in, stuffing my bag by my feet, “—you could spice it up sometime. Maybe you could go red next. Or a matte black… now, that’d be nice. All electric, so smooth. Stealthy. It’d be great.”

Tony sat beside me, buckling his belt as he looked at me in disbelief again, “I’m sorry, can you even drive?”

I stared at him and waited for him to realize, but he just stared back. “I’m 19,” I reminded him.

“And?” He said as he started the car and drove closer to the garage door, allowing it to open automatically at his approach. “You never drive anywhere.”

His gaze looked past me then, encouraging mine to follow, and we both looked at the gray Audi that sat on the far right end of the mansion’s garage collecting dust. I looked back at Tony, ready to defend myself and my apparent preference for swinging as my primary mode of travel, but he just grinned and floored it, pulling us away from the mansion, the city, and to upstate New York.

* * *

Saturday nights at the Stark Residence meant one thing: family dinner. It wasn’t required, obviously, since most weekends I couldn’t make it home, and even if I could, I usually chose to not to, as I was 19, in college, had homework, Ned, and was constantly in an internalized battle of wanting to win my ex-girlfriend back and my unexplained desire to spend an unusual amount of time around one of my more recent torments in life:

Felicia Hardy.

And if I’m honest, I’ve probably spent more of my Saturday nights playing cat and mouse with Felicia than I have been doing homework or playing games with Ned. Only thing is, lately it has seemed more like she’s the cat and I’m the mouse—appropriate, since she is the Black Cat and all—despite that I have almost always been in pursuit of her. But my naivety always manages to lead me into falling for her traps and doing whatever it might be that she had planned for me—which, of course, almost always results in me failing to “catch” her.

What a shame.

Of course, that does exclude all of those nights where I did catch up to her. On the rooftops, quips and riddles, jabs and flirts, and the few times I got lucky enough for her to lift my mask up just enough to leave a…

How did I get started on Felicia again?

Right. Family dinners. Instead of seeing her. Just a prelude to the next few months. Did I even remember to say goodbye?

Sigh.

Anyway. Family dinners.

The only night of the week we managed to get (mostly) everyone together. Between Stark Industries and some Avengers work for Tony (remotely, of course, since the man really can’t help himself), Morgan in school and clubs, the vast Morgan Babysitting Unit (Rhodey, Maria Hill, Aunt May, and Happy mostly) trading off the rascal throughout the week, and of course, whatever Happy and May got up to in their free time (don’t remind me), Saturdays were usually the one time in the week that everyone tried their best to set aside for visiting with each other. You know, for Tony’s sake. While the ladies, including Tony’s new personal assistant, Charlotte, would split a bottle of wine as Happy and May cooked the meal together—Italiano, as they introduced it this particular time—the rest would buzz around the house, catching up on the week’s events and sharing laughs like a normal family would.

Normal.

Of course, with it being my first time home for dinner in a few months, most of the attention was on me during the meal—as Mr. Stark cleverly directed it to be, in an effort to avoid talking about the obvious circus that was set to begin the following day—with Rhodey and Maria mainly prying at me for school and hero related questions, but they were sure to cover every topic in the book, like the one I was hoping to avoid.

Girls.

Or, more specifically, MJ.

It took me going from my typical sarcasm to getting quiet and frustrated when the questions persisted for the conversation to finally fizzle out, bringing our dinner party to an end. Rhodey stood up from his seat beside me, resting a hand on my shoulder and squeezing it in understanding, as he grabbed his plate to leave. Everyone, apart from myself and May, began to disperse with him, heading to the kitchen with their empty plates.

I lifted a rogue spaghetti noodle above my face and caught it in my mouth between my tongue and teeth as Aunt May poured herself another glass of wine. She looked up at me as I practically inhaled the noodle, eyes slimming into an unamused look as she stared at me over the rim of her glass.

“This is our last dinner together for a while and you’re not even gonna use your manners?” She tilted her head, hair sliding down from her shoulder.

I made a face and shook my head, reaching for the spoon in the pan. “Not when it’s spaghetti night,” I shrugged in refusal, dumping a small second serving on my plate.

May eventually followed in suit, her eyes nervously checking up on me again and again. With a breath and returned eye contact, I braced myself for the inevitable questions—

“You’re all packed?”

“Yes.”

“Have your passport?”

“Yes.”

Her face fell and she leaned forward, brows furrowing in worry. “… Are you sure this is a good idea?”

“Of course not,” I said. “It was my idea to begin with.”

She lowered her voice. “I mean for Tony.”

“Well, why not?”

Aunt May stared at me for a couple seconds, noodles sliding off her fork back onto the plate. “I don’t know, he just… you know, this is a lot of publicity for someone who, you know… was dead—”

“—in a coma—”

“—less than a year ago,” May let out a sigh, her shoulders sinking. “Do you have to get technical with me?”

I set my fork down and sat back in my seat, biting my lip in frustration. “I don’t see what the big deal is.”

“Tony’s been back for, what? Seven months?” She crossed her arms.

“Publicly, yes, and it’s not like he really kept it much of a secret before that, anyway,” I said, crossing my arms back. “He’s been alive for almost two years. A lot can happen in two years. A person can grow.”

She let out another sigh of concern. “And you don’t think all of this is too much for him?”

“He’s two years old. Of course not,” I said, dropping another noodle into my mouth. “I was ready for that kind of attention when I was his age.”

“Peter…”

“Wasn’t I?”

“Peter.”

“Listen,” I sighed, “he agreed to it at his own risk. Besides, no matter what he does, publicity will follow. He knew this ahead of time. That’s why he waited until his rehab was over—he wanted to be ready. And if he says he’s ready…”

Her eyes looked over her glasses’ frames at me. “We both know he’s not ready.”

“You know, this might actually be good for him,” I offered. “A good way for him to kinda get back in it, you know? It’s like a nice, long vacation with a bunch of pretty people gawking over him. I honestly don’t see the problem with it.”

“A bunch of pretty people trying to use him for his money, maybe,” she started picking at her food again.

“That’s the life he always used to live, May. Which is why I think it could be good for him. Might teach him to have fun again—you know, center him,” I sat up in my chair again, picking up my fork and stuffing my face with more noodles. “Plus,” I said through chewing, “it’s good promotion.”

“Promotion for what?”

“I don’t know, really,” I swallowed my food at her look of distaste. “Something to do with clean something something. Something for the planet. Or something. He was talking about it with those fancy people from the network out at dinner the other night.”

“And you didn’t listen?”

I wound up more pasta and took another bite. “No, why would I?”

Aunt May stopped her movements and stared at me for a moment before continuing to scoop up the noodles. “Are you sure there’s nothing else you’re gonna need for the trip?”

“Positive,” I smiled.

“Alright,” she let out a sigh, “if you say so.”

I smirked a bit, and took another bite full. “Are you sure you’re gonna make it that long without me?”

She took a small piece of a noodle from her plate and chucked it at me. “Zip it, you. I’ll be fine.”

I peeled the noodle from my cheek and looked at it. “Man, Aunt May… Nice aim—” And with that, I launched the noodle back at her.

By the time Morgan and I had finished clean up duty, with me washing the dishes and her wiping down the table with a cloth I gave her, the adults had migrated to the lounge with another bottle of wine, loud chatter and laughter filling up the air around them. Tony was off with Charlotte, going over a checklist with her to ensure that he had everything he needed for the trip before our departure in the morning. I stopped Morgan before she headed upstairs, holding a finger to my lip to keep her quiet as I pulled the freezer door open for her, and before we knew it, we were sneaking upstairs to our rooms with a popsicle in Morgan’s hand and snacks in my own.

The crinkling noise a bag of potato chips makes as you open it is one of the most satisfying noises in the world. Especially in the safety of your own home—unabashedly opening up a new bag without holding back to muffle any sounds. Just that sweet, sweet tearing noise as the smell of greased up, salty potatoes fills your nostrils and momentarily takes the place of that super sweet tub of Ben & Jerry’s beside you. One plus about upgrading to a king sized bed is finally having the room to keep your food beside you as you lie there—it’s a great way to be lonely without entirely feeling lonely. For the most part. Except when you remember that you’re eating an whole pint of ice cream entirely by yourself, because that’s when it starts to hit you that you’re actually, seriously doing this and you really shouldn’t be—

“Really, Pete?”

I looked up from my snacks as I pulled out an earbud, my eyes meeting the unamused eyes of my father. “What?” I asked.

He closed the door behind himself as he walked closer, crossing his arms. “We just picked those up for the flight tomorrow and you’re already eating them?”

“I was hungry,” I told him before grabbing another chip.

“You’re supposed to be getting everything ready,” he grumbled.

“I am,” I said, pointing the chip towards the half-zipped suitcase on the floor, with shirt sleeves and socks and pants sticking out the sides… Well. I tried. “Over there.”

His gaze followed my potato chip to the suitcase and he walked over to it, opening it up to see the jumbled mess of clothes that I neatly tossed into the suitcase from my closet—which, mind you, was already half packed from the last field trip we took in school a month ago. Clever, I know. I mean, half of the clothes were dirty anyway, and a lot of them I just grabbed from my floor… so really, most of them were at least a smidgen dirty. Probably, like, 90% of them were dirty. But none of that really mattered, you see, because we are staying in an actual house while we’re there, and real houses always have washers and dryers, right?

Right?

That didn’t quite matter any longer either, as my father’s eyes fell into that absolutely terrifying “disappointed” look that I was unfortunately seeing a lot of as of late. But just as he went to close it, his eyes widened at the sight of something else and he knelt down to tug on a piece of cloth.

A red piece of cloth. And blue. And black. That turned out to be more than just a piece of cloth. And that was suddenly being dangled in my face for a split second before it was folded over my father’s arm.

“No suit,” his stern voice rang through the room as he turned back towards the door.

My eyes widened as I jumped from my bed, almost knocking over my ice cream, and I followed him out. “What do you mean ‘no suit’? I can’t just go away for that long without it—”

He opened the door, looking back at me. “And is that seriously how you’re taking care of this thing?” He pushed through, lifting the suit to his nose. “God, Pete, it smells…”

“Dad,” I pleaded, “I can’t leave without it.”

“Seriously. When’s the last time you sent Hap to get this thing dry-cleaned?” He turned back to look in my room, pointing at the suitcase as the door swung shut. “By the way, pal, one half-assed packing job isn’t gonna cut it. We’ll be gone the whole summer. Pack accordingly.”

I stopped in the hall as he continued up it with the suit still slung around his arm. “Dad, please,” I begged.

He began walking backwards, a smirk plastered to his lips. “No can do, kiddo,” he said. “You’re not supposed to work while you’re on vacation.”

And with that, he was gone, spending the rest of his evening with the usual entourage before they headed out to Happy’s place for the night.

I didn’t notice myself falling asleep. I wasn’t planning on it either—I don’t think I ever even rested my head for a second. But there I was; it was one o’clock, N64 fan roaring, half-eaten pint of ice cream melting accompanied by an opened bag of potato chips, and I had fallen asleep, controller still in hand. I peeled myself out of bed slowly, grabbing the snacks and heading downstairs to put them away in their respective places. As I was sealing away the tub of ice cream in the freezer, I noticed the door to the workshop downstairs slightly propped open, a faint glow coming from it and the distant voice of FRIDAY.

Curiosity killed the cat, right? Wish me luck.

Ever-so-thankful for my powers, I creaked the door open quietly and jumped up to the ceiling, slowly crawling down the spiral staircase until I finally reached the workshop. Everything was dark and put away apart from the desk, where Tony sat in his rolling chair, staring up at the blue holograms projected around him.

As though his breath had been hitched in his lungs for a long while, Tony let out a sharp sigh as he let go of his frozen stature, leaning forward in his seat. “Alright FRIDAY,” he pulled a pen from his desk and started scribbling on a piece of paper, “run the scans.”

“Certainly, boss,” FRIDAY said, and the holograms began pulling up hundreds, thousands—hell, even millions of files of footage. “Scanning all known devices now.”

Tony sat back in his seat again, jaw clenched in fear as hopeful eyes watched the projections around him. A sigh escaped his lips as he watched FRIDAY sort through the files, hurt filling the contortions of his face and… That’s when I noticed him.

How had I missed him?

“Come on,” Tony prayed, his eyes daring to well up into tears. “Come on, Cap.”

As files were sorted, discarded or scanned again and again, the screen running through images and clips so fast it hardly even flashed with the changes, the files were compared to an image presented to the right of them, none of them matching up with with the familiar head of blond hair that was almost damn near waiting for a match.

Years later, and Tony Stark was still searching for Steve Rogers.

I guess it sort of came as a surprise to me. He didn’t talk about Cap very often. If he did, it was usually short lived—it was never really something he chose to dwell on. And anytime someone tried to bring him up, he never spoke of their time together like it had the weight that I knew it did—like they were just some old buddies back in the day, and that was it. With everything going on in his life, I guess I just assumed he was a bit forced to move on from it.

Then again, when Tony came back—which, mind you, will forever be the most shocking moment of my entire life—one of the first things he asked about was Steve. Just to know if where he was… if he was okay. I was the one who told him he was gone, that he had brought the stones home, and was never to return.

He gave me a small nod when I told him, eyes drifting away from me, as he forced out a quiet, “okay, then.”

And that was it. That was all he ever asked about him. After he quickly regained his composure, Pepper ushered him away to get him some nourishment until they both finally decided it was time to wake Morgan up to see him again after seven long months apart.

I always wondered if Captain Rogers would have stayed if he knew Tony was coming back.

I guess that was part of the tragedy, wasn’t it? How could anyone have known that by some miracle he would come back? I hadn’t, Pepper hadn’t, nor did Rhodey, or Morgan, or Happy. There was no way Captain Rogers would have predicted that, either. He, like the rest of us, altered his life accordingly.

But if he got the chance to see what I was seeing, would he come back?

“I’m sorry, boss,” FRIDAY said solemnly. “The scans were unsuccessful.”

I suppose we’d never know.

Tony sat still, defeat stealing whatever energy he had left in him, as he tried desperately to understand the holograms before him. He stared for what felt like ages, breathing through the frown on his lips, swallowing back his guts here and there whenever he needed it. Finally, his eyelashes fluttered as he looked away from what was before him, energy joining him once again to neaten his paperwork. “Well, then,” he forced out, “let’s wrap it up for a while, shall we?”

He stood from his desk, picking up a mug of cold coffee and bringing it to his lips as he turned and started walking away, papers still in hand. He walked to a cabinet, dropping the papers into a file as he slowly lowered the mug, swallowing back his thoughts with his coffee.

“Would you like me to keep an open scan going while you’re gone?” FRIDAY inquired.

Tony’s eyes broke from wherever they had drifted, running in my direction on their way to look at the hologram—

Uh oh.

I managed to scurry back right as his head stopped its movement, hiding out of sight before his eyes flickered back over in my direction.

“Yeah,” he agreed. Footsteps. “Let me know if you find anything on your radar.”

Goose bumps. Skin tingling. Danger. Danger. Danger. I don’t think I’ve ever crawled on a ceiling faster than I did, barely making it to the door in time to leave it cracked where it was before he noticed it. It was faster to go out through the porch and up through my window than it was to run through that maze of a house, and I still only made it just in time to get under the covers before my father cracked open my door to check if I was sleeping. The pixelated N64 screen and controller by my hand was seemingly convincing enough, as he turned out the rest of my lights and left me to sleep.

* * *

To be honest, I wasn’t the most excited person when I realized that being adopted by Tony Stark also meant moving off to some cabin in the deep woods of upstate New York. The whole farm life thing never exactly appealed to me the way it did others, I guess. I was perfectly fine with living just a block away from my favorite hoagie joint, a couple blocks down from my best friend, the same part of town as the girl I sorely wanted back, and you know, the same city as the college that I attended daily. The drives back and forth from campus whenever I actually did make my way home only started to get better when I was actually doing them on my own, but they were still painfully long when Ned wasn’t able to join me for a weekend. And when your only entertainment for an entire weekend (or even week) is a six-year-old who is particularly obsessed with outsmarting you, Happy Hogan, and a video game that you somehow manage to fall asleep to while playing pretty much every night as of late, life can get pretty lonely up in the boonies.

Still, there was something to be said about waking up surrounded by nature instead of the city.

You’d be surprised as to just how calming it is for the morning sun’s glow to slowly enter your room, birds chirping in the trees outside your windows, wind chimes twinkling as a soothing voice peacefully rings throughout the four walls of your room…

“Everybody was kung fu fighting—” I don’t think I could have slapped my alarm any faster.

I attempted at covering my head with a pillow to block out the light, but the disturbance of voices downstairs disrupted my Sunday morning a bit early again—although this time, the voices seemed to amount to more of a crowd.

Great.

“Peter, your father will be arriving at your door in fifteen seconds,” Karen warned, lights brightening in my room as I hopped from my bed, placing in my earbuds. Like clockwork, the door creaked open as I paced my room in an effort to make myself seem busy.

“Pete.”

I pulled an earbud from my ear and glanced up at my father before heading to my closet. “You know, you should try knocking sometime.”

Mr. Stark trailed into my room behind me nonchalantly, looking around at the mess spread across the room as he picked up notebooks from my bed and placed them on my desk. “You say that like your alarm didn’t go off two minutes ago.”

“So?” I picked up the notebooks and moved them to my pile of schoolwork. “You never know—I could have been changing.”

He stopped in his tracks, his gaze tracing up to mine with a single eyebrow cocked up in disbelief. “Really?”

“What?”

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you in anything but pajamas before two on a weekend.” He forced back a smile. “Besides, my point stands, you weren’t doing anything embarrassing. Which, by the way—”

“—that’s not my point—”

“—what exactly was it that you were doing?” He turned on his heel, looking around my room. “And what is that smell? Garbage? Gym clothes? Dirty sheets?”

“Dad.”

“When’s the last time you changed your sheets?”

“Dad.”

“Can we get some windows open in here?”

“Of course,” Karen complied, the panel windows rotating open on command, the sound of the leaves following the breeze that filled the room.

“Much better,” he exhaled.

I collapsed on my bed again, then, placing the earbud back in my ear. “Do you always have to act like something died in here when you enter my room completely uninvited?”

“I’m saving your skin, you know. May is downstairs and if she smelled whatever’s going on in here, you’d have a much bigger problem on your hands.”

I jolted up in horror. “May? What is May still doing here—”

“I invited her,” he stated simply. “For Happy’s sake. Surprise.”

I scowled. “Don’t encourage them.”

“Which reminds me, where are your bags?”

“Bags?” My eyes then drifted to the very same suitcase from the night prior, just as untouched, half-full, and dirty as it was the last time my father told me to work on packing it.

My father followed my sight and immediately let out a sigh, his back to me, and I just knew the face that he was about to hit me with before he even managed to turn around. And then he did.

Here we go.

The look of unsurprised disbelief with a flavor of sheer, utter annoyance as his eyes rolled up to the ceiling.

Personally, this was my favorite look of disappointment from him. His “shocked” face that I always seem to get whenever I prove time and time again that he really should stop having any sort of faith in me being able to do anything that is not Avenger, homework, or video game. I mean, it’s only fair. To the both of us, really.

He finished his eye roll, those disappointed eyes falling to mine before he finally headed to the door. “Get dressed and be down in five. Say hi to the crew quickly and then please finish packing. We can’t be late for this.”

“We’re leaving today?”

“Seriously?” He was out the door in seconds, calling back, “How on earth are you more like me than I am like me these days?”

I jumped from my bed and grabbed a t-shirt that was folded on the top of my dresser, pulling it over my head as followed Mr. Stark down the hall, door clicking shut behind me. “How long until we leave?” I asked, catching up to him on the stairs.

“Around an hour.” He muttered, head tilting towards mine. “You definitely did not get dressed that quickly.”

“I’m not going in there alone,” I told him.

He halted about half-way down, looking me up and down in my sweatpants and Midtown gym shirt. His lips flattened into a line, the look of annoyance returning to his face. He then unbuttoned his suit jacket, turned, and shrugged. “Fine.” And as we finished our trek down the stairs, he expanded his arms grandly, cleared his throat, and projected an embarrassingly loud, “Everyone—Peter has finally decided to join us!”

Every pair of eyes in the room fell to mine.

… I brought this upon myself.

It was barely seconds before the only person from ABC that I actually recognized managed to catch my attention—and yes, there was, once again, a gray hair sitting intrusively on the blazer.

“Peter!” She exclaimed, peeling her way through the group to shake my hand. “Are you excited for the next few months?”

“Sure,” I offered, my eyes drifting from hers in search of Aunt May. I looked back at her, squinting a bit as I studied her face. “I’m sorry, I’m forgetting your name.”

“Nellie Freeman,” she reminded me. “I’m one of the producers for The Bachelor.”

“Uh huh,” I nodded my head. The whole bullshitting portion of this thing was already wearing on me, and I was only about… a sentence and a half into it. And it was obvious, as a rather awkward look of concern started to form on her face. “Look, I’m going to be honest with you, Ms. Freeman,” I sighed, slouching a bit. “I just rolled out of bed. I really just came down here for food before I get ready to leave.”

Nellie nodded then, stepping aside. “You should probably focus on that, Peter. And please, call me Nellie.”

“Okay.”

“We’ll find the chance to talk later, alright?” She said, clutching her mimosa close to her hair-intruding blazer.

I nodded, turning to make my way to the kitchen. “Okay, Ms. Freeman.”

And with that, I was free, and doing one of my favorite past times: rummaging the refrigerator for food. And as I rolled out each and every tray, drawer, compartment, searching high and low for just a little bit of cream cheese, I felt a very gentle tug at the hem of my shirt. I paused, raising my eyebrows to look down at the very soft, yet expectant face of a six-year-old, a small smile playing at her lips.

“Hi,” she said.

“Good Morgan,” I greeted her, stifling a laugh as she let out her usual giggle. “Staying out of trouble so far?”

“I need your help,” she said. She then waved for me to get close, so I did, crouching down and offering my ear to her. She cupped her hands, leaning close to whisper. “Can I have some of your root beer?” She asked, pulling back with an innocent look on her face.

“Maguna,” I sighed, turning towards her totally. “You do realize it’s still morning, right?”

“Yes,” she nodded.

“And that our father is right on the other side of that wall?”

She nodded again. “Yes.”

I raised my eyebrows again, pointing in the direction of our living room. “And that if he catches me giving you root beer at seven in the morning without asking his permission, he’ll get very mad at me?”

“Yes,” she said, this time with a single, big nod.

“I don’t know, kiddo,” I told her, standing up and pulling a bottle of root beer from the fridge, “not sure if it’s worth the punishment.”

She tapped my arm this time, tugging at my shirt afterwards. “Please?”

“Hmm,” I looked between my sister and the bottle of root beer in my hands. “Are you ready to leave yet?”

“Yes.”

“Good.” I set the bottle on the counter, along with the bagels and cream cheese, closing the fridge and crouching back down to meet her height. “Go on up to my room, then. I’ll bring some up to you when I finish getting my breakfast and you can play Mario Kart while I pack.”

And for the last hour that we spent in our home for the time being, my sister and I kept sanctuary up in my room, with Morgan sprawled out on my bed, trying to make sense of an N64 controller as I coached her on how to take out Bowser as revenge for his ruthless attack on her Luigi. My bags were carelessly tossed together in a matter of minutes, suit staying tucked away underneath heaps of clothes, and my Playstation carefully wrapped (and hidden) in clothes in my second suitcase, zipped away until further notice. I had bravely ventured downstairs to grab the next round of root beers, and the two of us were able to stay far away from any parental units paroling the household for the remainder of the hour—shocking, since Morgan’s got quite the big mouth when it comes to video games.

Packing the vans for our departure to the airport wasn’t chaotic until the rest of the black-blazer-with-a-stray-strand-of-gray-hair-obtrusively-standing-out-and-distracting-me-once-again people from ABC arrived. It went from packing up the car for a nice family vacation to me pretty much being sent up to my room to pack yet another whole bag with all of the items on their list of things that I had to bring for my “wardrobe” that I didn’t know were “required” for my nice, lovely, family vacation. And then came the labeling of each and every bag—which, of course, followed their security check of each and every bag.

That’s right. They brought security for us.

I know.

Anyway, I’m pretty sure the ridiculousness of checking Iron Man for safety threats was the tipping point of my sanity, so by about eight o’clock, I was lying in the middle of the driveway and tossing a rock up into the cloudy sky. At some point, Mr. Stark’s hand suddenly reached out and caught it and he looked down at me with a tired smile.

“You ready?”

I raised my eyebrows and caught the rock as my father dropped it. “Did my background check already make it in?”

“Funny,” he rolled his eyes as he reached down to grab my hand, pulling me up. “You should be praying that they don’t find it.”

“What do you mean?” I laughed, picking my backpack up from the curb as I followed him up the driveway to the big, black, spy-like SUVs. “Peter Parker is as threatening as Happy when he falls asleep on the couch after Thanksgiving dinner.”

His hand rested on my back as he guided me to an open door in one of the SUVs. “Have you read your high school disciplinary record?”

“No. That’s your job,” I grinned at him as I climbed in and slid to the end, grabbing the buckle.

“Yeah,” Mr. Stark’s eyes widened at the thought as he got in his seat beside me. “And your poor Aunt May’s.”

“Well, she knows about the whole… you know… Spidey thing, now, so it’s fine,” I said, shrugging. “I’m sure it explains a lot.”

Happy’s eyes met mine in the rearview mirror. “Yeah,” he grumbled. “Wait until you can’t use that excuse this summer.”

My jaw fell only slightly as I let out a chuckle. “No, no—not an excuse. I won’t need it, anyway. No suit, no hero antics, no need for doing anything absolutely stupid.”

Happy’s eyes looked up again in the mirror as he stopped at the end of our driveway. “The suit isn’t what causes you to be stupid.”

And with another small, Pikachu gasp escaping my lips and laughter bellowing from Aunt May and the man beside me, the window rolled up slowly, separating him and May from myself, Morgan, and our dad for the rest of the ride to the city.

The car ride inbound was far more easy-going than the last long one we had heading outbound, on our way home from my grand, very belated ‘adoption party’, where this whole Bachelor thingy began. I was silent, overwhelmed, sort of regretting the amount of root beer that I had consumed.

I think, like, five glasses, maybe? Full glasses, too. Like the big ones, not the little scotch glasses. All five, sitting in my stomach over every pothole and rock we ran over.

“Come to think of it, Pete, I didn’t really see you much tonight. Was it the nerves? Too many people?”

I nodded assuringly. “Too many people. Definitely.”

He eyed me in suspicion and then let out a sigh. “Listen, Pete. Don’t let this whole… moving into a multi-billionaire’s million dollar lakeside New York mansion thing scare you into thinking you have to respect me any better.”

“I think,” I narrowed my eyes as I stared at him in confusion, “I think just saying that… does?”

“What I’m trying to say is now that I’m officially your father and you’re officially my son, that weird, politeness type of respect isn’t necessary anymore,” he went on, looking forward at the street as Happy drove their car back to their home. “If anything, you should respect me less.”

“I feel like this is a test,” I told him.

“It is and it isn’t,” he grinned to himself. “Just be a normal kid, alright? No more Mr. Starks, no more asking permission for every single little thing. Just ask permission sometimes, when it’s necessary. And don’t call me ‘dad’ while wearing your suit. That’s when you call me ‘Mr. Stark’. Got it?”

And that was it. I’ll be honest, the whole transition from “Mr. Stark” to “Dad” hasn’t exactly been easy, but I think I’ve got it down.

For the most part.

Happy took a sharp turn then, breaking my thoughts as we went off of our course to the airport. “Sorry,” he shouted from the front seat.

“Mr. Stark…?” I muttered, staring out the windows in confusion. I looked at him and he raised an eyebrow expectantly. I realized my mistake but refused to correct it, staring back at him with my own eyebrows raised expectantly as the SUV pulled to a stop in front of the mansion, film crews piling out of one of the vans ahead. “What’s going on?”

“Showtime—” was all he said, before jumping out of the vehicle and heading over to the makeup artists, who, of course, swarmed him.

It was going to be a long summer. And it was only April.

The beauty of college was that the summer typically began in May, anyway, and with some teeth-pulling trips home away from the hyperactive, crime-filled city, I was able to set aside blocks of time to get my work done early in an effort to finish my semester earlier than most. I must say—midterms and finals all within two weeks of each other were not exactly the highlight of my college career so far, but finishing the semester by the start of April in exchange for an extended summer was pretty worth it.

Apart from the makeup brushes that were suddenly advancing on my face.

“Wait—” I held up my hands in defense, waving the brushes away. “No, no—not me, not my thing. I’m fine with—you know,” I gestured toward my face, “this.”

“It’s for lighting,” one of the artists argued.

“And that,” I said, slinging my backpack over my shoulder, “is what editing is for. Tell Ms. Freeman I said that.”

Like clockwork, Nellie Freeman ran towards me, calling my name. “Peter!” She said, excitedly, “Go on over to your father. Share a laugh with him.”

Share a laugh?

I was guided over to where he was and before I knew it, cameras were pointed at us in all directions as Mr. Stark put an arm around me and looked at me to chat, pointing to me. “Are you ready?” He asked, charming smile flashing on his face.

“No,” I said, forcing a smile, trying hard not to look at the camera. “How long do I have to do this?”

“Entire summer,” his smile grew proud.

My face fell.

“Remember, this was all your idea,” he let out a laugh then, and it was apparently enough to satisfy the cameras.

Worst moment of my life.

So far.

As a small part of the crew followed me around the front of the mansion—which, I had inferred was for their introduction to the show, as they were filming numerous angles of the mansion itself, as well as our family by the gates out front, and even a small moment of Tony driving out of the garage in yet another hideously orange supercar—the sound of a small explosion a couple blocks over rumbled through the streets. Myself and the camera people with me, who happened to be closest to the noise, all turned in fear as cop cars zipped up the street towards whatever it was.

My heart pounded a bit as the adrenaline came through my body with my senses and I looked at the crew urgently, “You should probably go distract Iron Man before you lose camera time with him.”

They took my advice.

Barely a minute later, I was in my suit, swinging through the streets of New York City.

Standard bank robbery: getaway car at the corner of the block waiting in drive, hold up in the lobby of the bank, gunmen standing guard outside, and my favorite—two pyromaniacs blowing a hole in the alleyway wall to gain outside access to the vault.

Minutes later, the vault guys were webbed to the brick walls of the alley, the gunmen were knocked out and webbed up, the two guys holding up inside were webbed together in a nice, snug hug, and the getaway car was stopped mid movement by me mere seconds after I had webbed up its passengers to street lights in their escape.

A standard day in New York City for Spider-Man.

Man, I was going to miss it. Genuinely. It was a hobby as much as it was a passion and a responsibility. It had its perks, of course, but swinging through the city, stopping to fight whatever crime was impending, and then getting back into the air moments later just to return to whatever I was doing, or like in many cases, to the backpack I webbed up to a dumpster in an alleyway a block away from the mansion. I undressed from my suit as quickly as possible and got back in the clothes I was wearing before, stuffing the suit into my backpack—

Spider sense. Spider sense. Behind you, Peter—Peter. Peter. Peter.

I turned quickly to see an old bearded man standing at the end of the alleyway by the sidewalk, staring at me as I stuffed the spider suit into my backpack.

I felt my cheeks burning red as the man just watched. “It’s not what it looks like, I promise,” I smiled nervously. “I just found it in the dumpster. It’s probably—it’s probably not even real.”

The old man let out a chuckle, approaching me slowly. “It’s okay, Peter,” he said with a smile. “You don’t need to worry.”

I froze in that moment, movements halted as I registered the voice and the way it said my name—yes. My name.

My name?

“How did you…” I trailed off as the main presented a large pouch to me, reluctantly taking it from him. I stared at the pouch and then up to those old, tired, glistening eyes. “Are you one of the wizards?”

“No,” he chuckled, shaking his head. “You might wanna grab a lab kit for that before you leave, by the way.”

And that was how my Breaking Bad career took off.

Kidding. Sort of. Hopefully. All that was in the bag from what I could tell was some old rusty gear and tech and a few pieces of paper to accompany the items. I looked up from the bag and back at the old man, who just watched with a pair of what seemed to be proud eyes.

I stared at him for a moment, trying to make sense of the familiarity in his eyes. “Who are you?”

The man’s face fell slightly for a moment and he placed a hand on my shoulder, dipping his head down a bit as he blinked slowly, lips curling into a smile once again. “You’ll see.”

The sound of repulsors taking off echoed through the streets, followed by the sound of flight, and both myself and the old man turned in its direction, looking up to the sky as Iron Man appeared over the rooftop.

He hovered there for a moment, silence dripping between us for a split second, before he finally let out a confused, “Pete?”

I widened my eyes. “I can explain,” I started, stepping towards him, “You see, I was helping this nice gentleman over here and—”

He flew passed me to where the man was, but as I turned around with him, the old man was gone.

Tony landed in his place, stepping towards the sidewalk slowly and looking around. “It doesn’t make sense…”

Okay, Peter. Time to be honest. I took a deep breath, “Well, to be honest, there was an explosion up the block, and it turned out to be a huge bank robbery, so I kind of had to step in and—”

“I said no suit.” He stated bluntly, but he was still distracted by our surroundings.

“I know. It’s just—it’s hard,” I confessed. “I’m sorry.”

Tony was silent in response; he was evidently listening to Friday as opposed to me, focusing in on whatever it was they were examining in the alleyway. Moments passed in silence, before he finally let out a sigh, “Alright, let’s go. We have a flight to catch.”

He lifted me from the ground, returning us to our group at the mansion a couple blocks over, cameras and all. The obligatory clips of the Iron Man suit removing itself from Tony that ABC insisted on filming bought me enough time to sneak into the mansion and snag one of the lab kits we had set aside for missions. I was able to slip it into the SUV by the time Tony finished with his numerous close-ups with the film crew.

The remainder of our morning once we actually arrived at the airport was just that. Cameras, interviews, weird filmed moments where we all chatted about absolutely nothing in an effort to seem like we were actually engaging in real conversations—then pause, break, and we were back to loading Mr. Stark’s private jets.

Yes. Jets. As in plural.

Because we weren’t going to fly with the ABC people, right? They had to be there waiting for us upon our arrival anyway.

Eyeroll.

It was only about eleven in the morning by the time we took off, but it felt like the day had been going on for hours already. The jet we were on, which was Mr. Stark’s newest of his hybrid engine class, had quarters for him, myself, and Morgan in the back, which were separated by the full bathrooms in between. It wasn’t long before I had passed out on my bed, the shades closing on the windows to leave me in a nice, quiet slumber…

“Pete, wake up,” My father’s voice called from the door to the cabin. I stirred a bit, covering my head with my pillow. “Shower quickly and get out here, we’re landing soon.”

Soon? Already? How long had I been asleep?

I sprung out of bed, heading to the bathrooms to shower in the circular full shower, washing up as fast as I could, before I dressed in some warm weather clothes and headed out to the cabin, natural sunlight blinding me a bit before I could see outside the windows at the…

Islands? Surrounded by turquoise… lagoons?

How long had I been asleep?

My father walked over to me, looking out the window alongside me with a grin on his face. “Welcome to Bora Bora, Peter.”

#the bachelor: tony stark edition #bachelor au #tony stark #peter parker #stevetony #stony #stony fic #stevetony fic #tony stark fic #endgame fix it #mine

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