AN: Hey guys! I know: two chapters of a new story in one day? What is happening? I just thought that the first installment was so short that you guys deserved a little more!

As always, reviews make me super happy! For this story in particular, please leave me some prompts! You give me an idea, and I'll try to write it! I'll take literally anything from a vague idea to a detailed summary. Just throw them in the comments!


Peter woke up confused.

He didn't remember going to bed, yet here he was: shoes sitting neatly by his nightstand, covers tucked under his chin, and the smell of bacon drifting through his cracked doorway.

After a quick yawn, Peter casted his mind back to the night before. He remembered coming into the lab and greeting Tony. They'd both gotten tied up in their separate projects. At one point, his mentor had shoved a pizza in his face with a gruff order to eat before heading back to his work station. He'd messed with his web shooters for a while, and then he must have fallen asleep.

There was another memory after that, though. So blurry that he almost wasn't sure it was real.

Strong arms carrying him, and an unmistakable voice lowered in an uncharacteristically gentle tone. There were no visuals accompanying the scene. His eyes must have been closed. After all, he was pretty sure he'd been mostly asleep at the time. But he remembered it. He remembered his cheek pressed against a muscled shoulder and the smell of motor oil and cologne.

He remembered it, and he didn't know if he should feel mortified or flattered.

Tony Stark had carried him to bed. Like a child.

And now, apparently, he was making breakfast?

"Good morning, Mr. Parker."

Peter smiled. "Morning, F.R.I.D.A.Y.! How are you?"

"I am well." The AI was so advanced, that it always surprised Peter. Talking to her genuinely felt like talking to a real person. "Mr. Stark wanted me to inform you, once you had awoken, that you should come to the kitchen for breakfast."

So he was right, then. Tony was cooking breakfast. "I'll be right there."

He crawled out of bed, groaning slightly at the loss of warmth the expensive comforter provided. He quickly brushed his teeth, ran his fingers hastily through his sleep-mused hair, and changed into sweatpants and a nerdy science tee. They always made Mr. Stark smile in that way that was so rare, with his eyes crinkling at the corners and glistening with true amusement and maybe a trace of fondness.

Peter left his shoes where they were, socked feet padding down the hallway and into the massive living space.

"Nice of you to join me, kid."

Tony was leaning casually against the kitchen's breakfast bar. At the sight of Peter's t-shirt, he smiled widely.

"Nice shirt."

Peter smiled back in satisfaction. He knew Tony would like this one. Mission accomplished.

"Thanks. What're you cooking?"

"Bacon, eggs, pancakes. Just the usual breakfast stuff. Come sit down and I'll even let you have some."

The teenager laughed, hopping up onto one of the stools situated in front of the bar. "Thanks a ton, Mister Stark."

Tony just rolled his eyes. "Yeah, well, I can't have the press finding out that I regularly starve my interns. Bad publicity, and all that."

Next thing Peter knew, a plate piled high with about ten pancakes was pushed in front of him.

"Bacon'll be up in a minute or two. Eat up, Spider-kid. We've got a busy day ahead of us."

The teenager spoke around a mouthful of syrupy pancakes. "What're we doing?"

Tony shot Peter a look at his lack of manners, but otherwise didn't comment. "We're going shopping. Your sneakers look more like scrap fabric than actual shoes."

"Oh, wow, Mister Stark," Peter stuttered, caught off guard, "that's, that's super nice of you but, but I-I don't need you to buy me shoes."

The billionaire just raised an eyebrow as he added a plate of bacon and eggs to Peter's breakfast spread. "Yeah? You gonna go buy them yourself?"

Peter winced. He knew that his shoes were on their last legs, but he couldn't bring himself to ask May for new ones. They weren't poor, exactly, but he knew that his aunt had to work extra hours in order to make ends meet. As long as his shoes weren't too tattered to wear, he'd keep using them.

"I just…" Peter sighed, briefly debating whether or not he should actually reveal his reasoning behind keep the threadbare sneakers.

In the end, he settled on honesty. It was usually the best route. "They're expensive." He mumbled.

Tony stared. "You're telling me that you're wearing sneakers that were due for a date with a landfill months ago because you can't afford new ones?"

"We could probably afford some." Peter blushed. "I just… didn't want to ask."

Tony indignation softened into understanding. "Okay, kid. First things first, eat the breakfast I so lovingly made for you. Then, you and I are going on a little shopping trip. We'll get you shoes, shirts, jeans, the works."

"Mister St-"

"Nope. Nada. Zip it. Nothing you say is going to convince me otherwise. Call it payment for your internship."

Seeing that there was no way to get his mentor to change his mind, Peter opted to at least be polite. "Thank you, Mister Stark."

"See?" The older man said, smiling widely while taking a bite out of a slice of bacon. "Manners. They're important. At least, so I'm told."

Peter laughed.

Tony's smile only grew.

It was a good morning.


To Peter's surprise, Tony decided to drive himself rather then get Happy to take them.

"Do you drive a lot?" Peter asked, kicking off his tattered shoes and curling up in the Tesla Roadster's comfy leather seats.

Tony shrugged, easing the car out onto the road. "Whenever I can. It's therapeutic."

They were silent for most of the drive, but it wasn't uncomfortable. Peter found himself watching the buildings and people blur past through the window while Tony played a Def Leppard album in the background. Peter hadn't even noticed he'd started to sing along to one of the songs until Tony stopped the music suddenly.

"You know this song?" Tony asked, and Peter laughed brightly at the shock on his face.

"Yeah, of course I do."

Tony just stared at Peter for a moment, only looking back at the road when the light they were stopped at turned green.

His mentor pressed a few buttons on the steering wheel and the song restarted, volume increasing to a level that was just under uncomfortable to Peter's enhanced hearing.

And then he started singing along. Loudly.

Peter started at first, staring at his smirking mentor before realizing that he was offering an open invitation for the teenager to join in.

With a smile and a little giggle, he did.

When the chorus rolled around, Tony gave Peter's shoulder a playful shove and increased his volume, prompting Peter to do the same.

By the time the song finished, the pair was belting out the lyrics as loudly as possible. Their performance was only interrupted by the occasional breathless burst of laughter.

As the final beat faded into oblivion, Tony turned the dialed the music down to background noise again. Neither Peter nor Tony mentioned their impromptu jam session, but something in both of their eyes shined brighter.

Is this what having a dad is like?

Peter guessed so. He'd found himself looking up to Tony as a father figure rather than an idol more and more since his Homecoming fiasco. The man's unapproachable exterior seemed to melt away around the teenager. With Peter, Tony wasn't a billionaire. He was a mentor, a comforter, a friend, a father.

Peter expected the realization to frighten him.

It didn't.

It felt right.

Having been so lost in his thoughts, Peter didn't even realize they'd pulled up outside an expensive looking department store.

"You good, kid?" Tony asked, forehead wrinkled in thought. "You've been staring at me for a while now. Just drinking in my handsome face?"

The teenager laughed. "What handsome face?"

Tony faked indignation, throwing a dramatic hand over his heart. "You wound me!"

Peter just cackled.

"Alright, get out, you little heathen."

Peter scrambled out of the car, still chuckling a little, and skipped over to the driver's side before Tony could even get fully out of his seat.

"God," Tony groaned, shoving his door shut and locking the car, "I forgot how much energy you have. Next time we do this, I'm slipping sedatives in your apple juice."

The store was relatively empty, which was a relief for Peter. He wasn't entirely sure how he'd react to a gaggle of paparazzi and fans vying for Tony Stark's attention.

The girl working the checkout counter stared at them, star struck, before sputtering out her practiced greeting and telling them to let her know if they needed any help. Tony responded with suaveness that Peter was pretty sure he would never be able to imitate.

Within a few minutes, Peter was carrying a large pile of shirts, jeans, and a few dress pants. He tried to protest the latter, but Tony just shook him off, citing the possibility of Peter attending a few Stark Industries galas and parties as a reason for him needing them.

Tony demanded that Peter showed him every single piece, so the next half an hour was full of trying on clothes and dealing with Tony adjusting collars and tugging sleeves.

They ended up buying seven t-shirts, four dress shirts, five pairs of jeans, two pairs of dress pants, and a couple pairs of socks. Peter had balked at the price of some of the items, but Tony had shrugged it off, reminding the teenager gruffly that the title "billionaire" wasn't just for kicks.

They stashed the bags in the trunk of the car before heading into a shoe store a few storefronts down. There, Tony continued his ridiculous extravagance, buying Peter two Converse, a pair of Nike tennis shoes, and a pair of dress shoes whose price tag made the teenager's eyes pop out of his head.

After Peter voiced this thought on their way back to the car, Tony looked at him with a sigh.

"Kid, where do you usually buy your clothes, anyway?"

Peter blinked. "Thrift stores."

It was Tony's turn to look surprised. "Thrift stores?"

"Yeah!" Peter exclaimed. "Have you ever been?"

His mentor scoffed. "No, Peter. I've never been thrift shopping."

The teenager had an idea, and excitement rose in his chest at the thought. "Can we go?"

Tony stopped, one hand resting on the top of the trunk in preparation to pop it closed. "Go thrift shopping? Now?"

"Oh," Peter dropped his eyes to the ground, mistaking Tony's surprise for displeasure, "I'm sorry. I know you probably have other stuff to do, and you've already wasted a ton of time on me today anyway. I totally understand that you-"

"Do us both a favor and shut up, kid." Tony scoffed, rolling his eyes on impulse at the teenager's nervous rant. "I don't have anything else to do. I wasn't saying no. I was just surprised."

The excitement rekindled in his chest suddenly. "So we can go?"

Tony smiled. "Sure."

An exuberant gasp raced through Peter's throat. "Awesome! You're gonna love it, Mister Stark!"

The older man just laughed. "Get in, kid."

Peter scrambled to obey, tucking himself into the passenger's seat and immediately jittering.

"Alright, kid." Tony shifted the car into reverse, pulling out of his parking space effortlessly. "Point me in the direction of one of your fabled thrift stores."


Peter looked so excited.

Frankly, Tony didn't understand it. Why was the kid practically vibrating at the prospect of thumbing through dirty, second-hand shirts when he could buy perfectly new clothes almost anywhere else?

But Peter was excited, so Tony went along with it.

Thirty minutes after leaving the shoe store, he parked the car on the curb outside of a dingy thrift store in Queens. Peter grabbed the sleeve of his mentor's shirt and dragged him through the doors, bouncing on the balls of his feet as he went.

Tony laughed, and realized suddenly that he'd been doing a lot of that today. The kid's joy was contagious. It was impossible to keep up his prickly façade when Peter was around. If it was anyone else, it would scare him.

But it was Peter, so Tony couldn't feel anything but fondness.

"Look!" Peter exclaimed, pulling off Tony's black sunglasses and replacing them with an obnoxiously orange pair instead. "Aren't these awesome?!"

The older man took a look at himself in one of the foggy mirrors propped up against the wall and smiled. The glasses were awful.

But Peter had picked them out, and the kid was standing behind him with a grin splitting his face.

"Yeah, kid." Tony said, smiling back. "They're pretty cool, aren't they? Think I can pull them off?"

"Oh, yeah!" Peter said, nodding his head so enthusiastically that Tony worried he'd hurt his neck. "You can pull off anything."

Something warm rushed through his veins at the kid's words. There was nothing Peter didn't think Tony could do. It was humbling, in a way, to have someone believe in you and trust you to exclusion of everything else.

Needless to say, they went home with those sunglasses still planted firmly on the billionaire's face and that elated expression still stamped on Peter's.

It was totally worth it.


They'd put on the newest Star Trek movies when they got home, at Peter's request. Tony changed out of his suit and into a pair of sweats and a t-shirt. Peter just pulled on his pajamas and sat far closer to Tony than was strictly necessary.

They had ice cream for dinner. Tony grumbled something about the kid eating at least four vegetables the next day to make up for it, and Peter had just sassed him right back in the way only teenagers could.

In the middle of Khan's dramatic identity reveal during Star Trek: Into Darkness, Peter spoke up quietly.

"Thank you for carrying me to bed last night."

Tony pondered his next words carefully before he spoke them. "You remember that?"

"A little."

"I didn't think you were awake."

"I don't think I was. At least, not really."

There was a brief lull in the conversation. The only sound came from the space battle playing out on the TV.

"You didn't have to do that, you know."

Tony sighed. "I don't mind, kid. You should know that, by the way. You're never a problem, and I'll always make time for you."

He couldn't see Peter's smile, but he knew it was there.

"Thank you for today. I had a really good time."

"I did too, kid."

"Hey, Mister Stark?"

"Yes, Mister Parker?"

Peter groaned and dropped his head back against Tony's chest, looking up at his mentor beneath dark eyelashes. "You're not the person they think you are. You know that, don't you? You're so much better than what they say."

Tony knew that, logically, the media told terrible stories about him not because they were true, but because the drop of his name sold magazines and pushed up viewership. He told himself almost every day that it didn't reflect who he actually was.

And for a moment, Tony Stark let a teenage kid from Queens make him really believe it.


AN: For reference, the Def Leppard song is Pour Song Sugar on Me.

Thank you so much for reading!