Chapter Text
Peter was excited, because one: school had ended, and two: he was going to get to spend the whole summer with Tony at Avengers Tower. May was doing some volunteer hospital work around the country for the summer, and Tony agreed to let him stay at the Tower during that time. Ever since Peter stopped the Vulture and Tony gave him back his suit, they’d grown closer. Peter would go over to the Tower on the weekends or even some days after school and help Tony in his lab. Sometimes he’d stay for dinner, they’d watch a movie, and sometimes Peter even stayed overnight in his own room in the Tower. Tony mentored him, in superhero life and in teenager life, and became a prominent father figure to Peter. Peter even accidentally called him ‘Dad’ a couple times, like that one scene from Brooklyn Nine-Nine.
Happy picked Peter up from his last day of school and drove to the Tower. The kid’s suitcases and bags from his apartment in Queens were already packed into the trunk of the black Audi SUV. Peter was glad Tony decided not to sell Avengers Tower after all, because Peter would hate to have to drive for 3 hours back and forth between upstate NY and the city to go do Spider-Man stuff this whole summer. The Tower was right in the middle of Manhattan, so Peter would just have to swing out his bedroom window. Peter wondered why it was still called Avengers Tower, though, since most of the Avengers had moved out of the building ever since Cap and his friends went rogue the previous year. The only Avenger left living in the Tower was Tony. Vision lived there for a bit at first after the Civil War, Peter knew, but then he left to go find Wanda. It wasn’t completely loney for Tony though, because Pepper lived with him, and Rhodey came to visit often. And of course, he had Peter too.
Happy pulled up to the front of the Tower, unloaded Peter’s bags, and helped him carry them to the private elevator. They went up to top floor - Tony’s personal floor - where Peter’s room was. Peter was still a little stunned that his room was on Tony’s floor, and not with the rest of the Avengers’ dorms. Well, he used to have a room in the Avengers’ dorms, but then Tony found out about his nightmares and moved him up to a room on his personal floor. That way Tony would be closer to him in case Peter ever needed him after waking up from a nightmare. Peter had said it wasn’t necessary, but Tony insisted.
After dropping off his bags and thanking Happy, Peter ran back to the elevator and asked FRIDAY where Mr. Stark was.
“Boss is in the common room on the main Avengers level. Would you like me to take you there?” The AI’s voice rang through the elevator.
“Yes please!” Peter said. He was so excited for this summer. He and Mr. Stark were gonna build so much stuff in the lab and make so many upgrades to their suits and watch so many movies maybe Ned and MJ could even come over and maybe Shuri would come visit from Wakanda and maybe-
The elevator doors opened into the common room. Tony was nowhere to be found, but sitting on the couches in the lounge area were the Rogue Avengers - Steve, Natasha, Sam, Bucky, Clint, Wanda with Vision - all of them, just there, casually sitting on the couches. They fell silent as they saw the elevator open and Peter standing inside.
Peter blinked. Then he screamed.
“OH MY GOD! Oh my god! The Avengers are here! They’re back!” He ran to the couches. “H-Hi! I-I’m Peter! Wow, it’s so awesome to finally meet all of you for real!”
The Rogue Avengers stared at the teenage boy in front of them. They were too stunned to speak.
Luckily, Peter never shut up. “I can’t believe you’re all here! This is so cool! That means the pardon must have finally gone through! Speaking of which, um, where’s-”
“Tony?” Steve spoke up and finished Peter’s sentence. “He just went to get his coffee. He forgot to bring it up from his lab.”
“He left the room literally a second before the elevator opened,” Natasha added.
“Oh, that makes sense why FRIDAY told me that he was here,” Peter said.
The rogues looked stunned again, because they thought only Tony, Pepper, Happy, and the Avengers we able to talk to FRIDAY.
“Anyway, Peter,” Steve continued to say, “Who… exactly are you, kid?”
“Oh! Right! I’m-” Peter cut himself off. He was about to say he was Spider-Man, but he didn’t know if he should reveal his identity or not. After more than a few seconds of hesitation, he thought it was better to play it safe and go with the cover story. “I’m, uh, Mr. Stark’s personal intern.”
“Right,” Steve said, not sounding convinced. The other Avengers didn’t looked too convinced either. Whoops. Peter hoped his voice didn’t give him away and they they didn’t suspect anything.
The sound of footsteps drew near, and in the next moment Tony had entered the room, coffee in hand. “Ok, I’m back-”
Tony froze. He looked between the Avengers and Peter, then put a hand to his worried-looking face. “Right. Pete, sorry, I forgot to tell you-”
“Mr. Stark! This is awesome! The Avengers are here!” Peter ran up to Tony so he was next to him. “So that means the pardon went through?”
“Yeah, kid, it did. Sorry I forgot to tell you. They just arrived a few hours ago while you were at school. How was your last day, by the way?”
“It was boring, we never do anything the last day of school, and anyway- ” Peter turned back to the Avengers, “this is way more interesting than school!”
“Peter, calm down,” Tony placed a hand on Peter’s shoulder. He felt how Peter was vibrating with excitement. “Did you eat today?”
“Yeah, I had breakfast.”
“Did you eat lunch?”
“No, they didn’t have anything even remotely edible today. School lunch is gross.”
“Go to fridge and get something to eat before you pass out.” Tony pointed towards the kitchen connected to the lounge area of the common room.
Peter sucked his teeth. “Oh my god, I’m not gonna pass out! You’re so dramatic. Besides, I wanna meet the Avengers!”
“You’ll have plenty of time to meet them after you eat a grilled cheese, young man.” Tony took Peter’s shoulders, turned him to face the kitchen, then pushed him lightly. “I gotta talk to them first anyway. Now go eat!”
“OK, OK!” Peter said and scampered off to the kitchen area.
Tony turned back to the Avengers and let out an exhale. “So that was Peter.”
“Yeah, Peter your ‘personal intern’?” Clint said with a bit of sass in his voice and making air quotes. The the rest of the rogues also looked at Tony suspiciously.
“Yeah, he is,” Tony said, looking confused back at them.
“Bullshit, Tony,” Clint continued. “I have kids, and I know dad behavior when I see it.”
Tony blinked multiple consecutive times, processing the statement. “Excuse me?”
“Tony,” Steve said now, “how long have you had a son? And how come we’ve never known about him?”
“Yeah,” Clint spoke again, “I thought I was the only one with a secret family. Turns out you’ve had one longer than me!”
“He’s not-”
“He’s a terrible liar, Tony,” Natasha said. “You wouldn’t even need my expert spy skills to notice. He hesitated for a long time before telling us who he was, trying to think of a cover story.”
Tony placed a hand to his forehead. That was about Spider-Man, wasn’t it? Peter didn’t know if he should tell them that he was Spider-Man, so he hesitated and went with the intern cover story. And now the Avengers think he’s Tony’s son because of that. “Didn’t you guys hear him call me Mr. Stark? Did he ever call me Dad?”
“He didn’t get the chance to call you anything before we asked him who he was,” Steve said. “He only started to call you Mr. Stark once he said he was your intern.”
“And he was able to use FRIDAY,” Sam added. “I don’t think a kid that was just some intern could do that.”
“Tony, when I say you showed some dad behavior,” Clint started to say again, “I mean you really did.” The other Avengers nodded and made sounds of agreement. “You hit all the nails on their heads. You asked him about school, you told him to go eat, you even called him ‘young man’! You really expect us to believe he’s only your intern?”
Tony didn’t know what to say. Did he really say all that? He did, didn’t he? Damn, that really was some dad behavior. He didn’t realize he was that close to Peter. It warmed his heart, honestly, that they could be mistaken as father and son. Tony didn’t admit it to Peter, but the boy was like a son to him. Tony loved to mentor him and help him with homework and suit upgrades. He enjoyed Peter’s company when he stayed for dinner and when they watched movies and TV together. He didn’t mind helping Peter calm down from his nightmares, or helping him after he got hurt while out on patrol. If fact, he wanted to help. He wanted to help and protect Peter in any way possible. He wanted to make sure Peter was always safe and happy.
In a way, Peter was Tony’s son, in all but blood. Peter had even accidentally called him ‘Dad’ once or twice and then had gotten really embarrassed about it afterwards. When that happened, Tony just laughed and said he was flattered, ruffling the kid’s hair. They had similar hair, now that Tony thought about it. Peter’s was more curly than Tony’s, but they were both similar shades of brown. And Peter’s eyes were also a similar brown color to Tony’s eyes.
Tony got an idea.
His back straightened a little with confidence, and his lips curled into a smile. The Rogue Avengers had returned, and he’d forgive them for what had happened a year ago with the whole ‘Civil War’ thing, but that didn’t mean they were best friends again. After what they - especially Steve - did to betray his trust, Tony thought he had permission to mess with them a little.
“Fine, you got me,” Tony threw his hands up in defeat, channeling the best Oscar-worthy acting he could do to look convincing. “Peter’s my son.”
The Rogue Avengers looked satisfied. Tony looked to Vision, who was the only one on the couches that knew the truth, but Vision gave Tony a little smile and nodded. Very subtly, without the others noticing, he made a zipping and locking gesture across his lips.
“Why didn’t you ever tell us?” Steve asked.
“Yeah. He could’ve babysat my little rascals,” Clint added.
“I’ve wanted to give Peter the chance to live a normal teenage life.” Tony, unlike Peter, was an excellent liar, and sounded very convincing. He decided to bring in a little pathos to this fake backstory. “When I was a kid, my father paraded me around as his poster boy ‘wonderchild’. I was in newspapers, on TV, everywhere. I was a celebrity from birth. I didn’t want Peter to have to experience that. He goes to school with the fake last name ‘Parker’ and gets to live life as a normal teenager. Sure, he had to sacrifice being able to meet you guys, but he was able to deal with that.”
“How old is he?” Natasha asked.
“FIfteen. He’ll be sixteen this August.”
Nat squinted. “You haven’t been with Pepper for anywhere close to fifteen years.”
Uh oh. Well, time to lie again. “He’s not Pepper’s.”
“Then whose is he?”
“Listen, you guys know my crazy past,” Tony flung his hands up at his sides. “I fooled around with a lot of people. One day I got a woman pregnant. She gave me the baby and left, never to be seen again.”
“So you’ve raised him all on your own since then? Damn, you’re really good at keeping this secret,” Sam said.
“Yep, all on my own since he was a baby,” Tony said, smiling proudly. He’d really convinced them.
“That’s a lie.”
Tony and the other Avengers turned to see Peter had returned, stuffing the last bite of a grilled cheese sandwich into his mouth. Tony got a bit nervous.
“You didn’t raise me on your own. Stop taking all the credit, Dad,” Peter walked over to Tony. “There’s this woman named May who lives in Queens - I call her Aunt May cuz she’s basically an aunt to me. She’s helped us out a lot. Her last name’s Parker, so that’s why my fake last name for school is Parker.”
Tony let out a barely noticeable sigh of relief and smiled. Not only was Peter going along with the lie without Tony even asking him - and actually being a good liar for once - but also Peter had just called him ‘Dad’ in doing so. That made his heart swell with a kind of paternal pride and happiness that he rarely felt. It was nice.
“Right, right, I suppose May has helped out a lot,” Tony said, ruffling the boy’s hair. He turned back to the Rogue Avengers. “Now are you guys done interrogating me? God, you finally come back and I’m immediately bombarded with questions about my personal life.”
“Yeah, sorry about that, Tony,” Clint said, smiling a bit. “I’m not mad you didn’t tell us. I get it. I’m just excited to get to know Peter now.”
The other Avengers said similar statements expressing their excitement to get to know Peter.
“Ok, ok, fine,” Tony said, turning to Peter. “Go kiddo. Bombard them with your fanboy questions now.”
“Yes! I’ve waited so long!” Peter returned to his state of excitement from when he first walked into the common room through the elevator. He sat on one of the empty couches and began talking a mile a minute, fanboying over each Avenger and asking them all kinds of questions. Tony just smiled and sat next to his son.
⎊ ⎊ ⎊
At the end of the day, once the sky had gotten dark, it was time for everyone to go to bed. The Avengers went to their bedrooms on their floors and Tony and Peter took the elevator up to the top floor. It was the first time they were alone together for the whole day. They looked at each other, then both immediately started laughing.
“Oh my god!” Peter said. “They really believe us!”
“They do, kid,” Tony slung an arm around Peter’s shoulders. “We got them good. I thought you weren’t gonna go along with me at first.”
“Nah, I could hear you guys from the kitchen. My super-hearing let me hear it all loud and clear. I can’t believe they really thought I was your son!”
“Well, it’s not that hard to believe. You’re already basically a son to me.”
Peter looked up at Tony, eyes wide. “Y-You really, uh, you really mean that?”
Tony smiled at the kid’s reaction. He looked so overwhelmingly happy, like it was everything he ever wanted to hear. “Of course, kiddo.”
Peter grinned. “Wow. Thanks. You’re, uh, you're a pretty good father figure, b-by the way.”
Tony chuckled. “Well, I already know that. You’ve called me ‘Dad’ by accident before.”
“Oh my god stoooooppp don’t bring those times up! I was so embarrassed!”
Tony laughed again. “No reason to be embarrassed about it. How was it like calling me ‘Dad’ all day today? Was that weird?”
“No no, it was fine,” Peter said, looking a little sheepish. He didn’t want to admit it to Tony, but it actually felt really normal to call him ‘Dad’, like it came naturally.
The elevator dinged and the doors opened. Peter stepped out. “How long are we gonna keep this up?”
Tony followed. “Let’s see if it can last all summer while you’re here.”
Peter grinned widely, half excited-looking and half mischievous-looking. “Awesome.”
“Yeah, now go to bed. It’s late.”
“Ok,” Peter started to walk in the direction of his room. “Goodnight, Mr. Stark.”
The formal title caught Tony a little by surprise. He was so used to Peter referring to him as his father all day that he forgot he didn’t normally address Tony like that. To be honest, it made his heart hurt a little that Peter felt the need to called him ‘Mr. Stark’ when they weren’t around the other Avengers, but it only made sense. Why would Peter call him ‘Dad’ when it was just the two of them in the room? Peter wasn’t his actual son.
Why did Tony feel like he wanted Peter to be his actual son?
He gave a small smile and waved to Peter as he walked away. “Goodnight, kid.”