It's one of those days when Tony can't help but grab his hair and ground his teeth, wondering where did it all go wrong.

His life is a time loop. Forget finding the ends, forget searching his way out, because there is no way he's able to find the end of the line. It's just going to repeat itself over, and he can't find the button to exit this nightmare.

No matter what he's doing, he's churning out his demons as fast as they are being taken care of. When he's the one with the big stick, people die, families broken apart, and it's like he's somehow in center of the world, because how is he breeding this much catastrophe?

He literally made Ultron. The suit of armor around the world, the solution to world peace, and look how that turned out. Couple hundred people dead as a doorknob lying six feet underground, and Sokovia utterly destroyed.

Even if you take the creepy dreams into account, Tony still had a hand stuck in the twisted machinery called fate. He was the one who created the Scarlet Witch. His weapons that were once his nuclear deterrent, what did they cause?

If people create their own demons, and Tony can't seem to stop the flow of enemies, then what sort of monster does that make him?

Conflict breeds catastrophe.

He is conflict.

And the closer people get to him, the more they can sniff it out. When he was a toddler, he literally bathed in conflict, watched as Howard and his mom screamed at each other and studied the way how smiles were plastered on SI competitors. The first lesson he learnt in the business world was that vipers only lose if another viper outsmarted them.

He grew fangs and created poison. Sank his fangs into others and drained out their usefulness because that's what he's always been taught.

Conflict is his hometown. He thrives in conflict, excels at riling people up at the right moment so he can get the most information out of them. And people realize that as soon as they cross the invisible line into Tony's heart. Some people tell Tony to embrace his talent. Others frown disapprovingly, and try to get him to change his tempo.

But one thing's for certain. People flee once they realize how utterly irreparable Tony is. And if they do have enough guts to stick around long enough, fate decides to flip him the bird and wipe all the strays out.

Again, it's a time loop.

First it's his mom, and her sweet piano melodies, then it's the real Jarvis and his mothering, and then it's the bravest person he knows, Yinsen, who dies to a burst of gunfire. Then Obadiah shows his real face, and then the remains of Agent's bloody Captain America cards get slammed on the table, and then somehow Pepper's gone too. Then it's the other Jarvis, his AI and companion, who sacrifices himself just so Tony could use him to create Vision, and then still, half the Avengers leave to be with Cap, and Rhodey's down and crippled.

Even when Pepper does return eventually, he's already got plans to build higher walls around his heart. Because no one, absolutely no one's going to strut and slam the door in Tony's face again. Only he's allowed to do that because hello, it's Tony's home.

No more mi casa es tu casa sort of thing, because he's the boss.

When Tony feels a huge spike of panic at the motionless body covered in spandex on the pavement ground, he knows he's in big trouble.

God, he's met the kid for like what, two hours in total?

But his mind isn't occupied on that, because he's busy calculating distances and strengths instead, and he's not letting Peter out of his sight until he's certain that nothing has happened. His fall reminds him too much of Rhodey's smoking shell plummeting to earth, like a shooting star.

In fact, Rhodey's exactly like a fallen angel, because seriously, he's dealt with the Tony Stark for decades, and for some reason, hasn't gone completely insane yet.

Or at least, it doesn't seem like he's gone insane, unless Tony counts the time when Rhodey accidentally drank a mug of coffee from Tony's special stash. He still has the video available for blackmail.

His calculations finally slow down, and Tony lets out an inaudible sigh of relief because Peter's probably not going to die anytime soon. Or at least, not on his watch for now. But those broken ribs… those really look painful, ouch.

"Kid, wake up."

Peter's eyes shoot open, and Tony has to grab his flailing arms, because his eyes are so filled with fear that it makes Tony feel a bit sick at the thought of what Peter was feeling.

"Calm down kid, it's me. Same sides."

The animalistic fear recedes from Peter's eyes. "Oh… oh, okay." He takes in a gulp of air, but his breathing noticeably calmed down, and… "Hey man."

Tony gives him one of his looks that feel suspiciously like the ones Pepper gives to him, but it doesn't seem to work with the helmet covering his face. "Stay down kid. You're done for today."

Peter manages to look scandalized, which is a miracle since he's still wearing half of the spider mask. "Mister Stark, I'm not done yet."

"Well now you are."

Great, he's actually mothering the kid now.

Now, whenever he isn't drowning himself in lab work, or slightly overdosing on caffeine, he's reading all the messages Peter sends about his "friendly neighborhood spider" thing or whatever it is.

He has to grin at some of the more… interesting scenes that Peter helped out with. Webbing a guy who was just trying to get inside his own car? Now that was classic.

He can't bring himself to respond though, because it feels a lot more like attachment that way, and he can't allow anyone else through his door.

It's like the whole phrase of "see no evil, speak no evil, and hear no evil" because if he doesn't respond, maybe Peter would finally realize that he would be better without him. Tony's not going to let him be one of his victims, not this time.

But for now, he's content to read Peter's messages when he's forcing himself to stay awake with coffee and work, because the nightmares keep pouring into his sleep. His dreams are all about the coldness of space, the snow and the sand, and hands prodding at the hole in his chest.

No one's with him anymore, and maybe it's better that he dreams alone because he's done so much mistakes and everyone else is paying for it.

Then there's the ferry incident. Peter's finally stopped messaging him, which he obviously doesn't care about, not one bit, and Tony has the suit.

He still can't come to terms with how close Peter actually faced death.

He also can't help remembering the "I'm nothing without this suit" plead from Peter, and it's disconcerting to how… familiar that statement is.

Tony can't let Peter fall down the same whirlpool, so voila, no more suit, because Peter has to realize that he is much, much more than a lousy piece of fabric with a bunch of fancy coding. He's learnt the lesson himself only when he actually broke in the (fake) Mandarin's house and completely showed how badass he was. Maybe Peter could do the same thing.

Of course, it would be under much more safer conditions, because he doesn't want to ruin the kid like he always manages to do with other people.

But he's still going to add some more adjustments to the suit, perhaps create a new suit altogether, just in case. It never hurts to be extra cautious at times, although he might be going a bit overboard with the new suit when he adds extra legs.

And of course, fate just has to come and cackle in his face because Happy phones him a couple of months later and "Hey boss, I think your kid just dive-bombed a plane into an amusement park that got hijacked by Vulture."

What. The. Hell.

Happy hurriedly hangs up.

The next day, news reports talk about the destruction of the amusement park and the collapse of a warehouse, and god, nearly the whole beach is on fire.

He can't ignore Peter anymore, because it's obviously not working, and it would be all Tony's fault again if he actually died because he was wearing one of his flimsy homemade things. Maybe actually raising Peter's self-confidence rather than shoving him in a situation without protection would be a better idea, and he can't help but mentally slap himself for taking away the suit in the first place.

Well, now he's going to try for the more "hands on approach" because he would do anything for the kid. Which honestly, absolutely terrifies him.

Trust feels like the hands of Obadiah digging into his chest, and the sharp pain of a shield shattering his reactor. It's full of the smiles of spies and partners and businessmen, and prickles with slow sensation of freezing to death.

But he's willing to risk going through that again because Peter is his kid, and no one is allowed to take away his stuff, even when the end of the world is near and the skies are raining hellfire and ash.

Hehe, see what I did there with the last sentence? I tried adding a bunch of references in this chapter, because Tony has a ton of good ones, but hopefully he's still in character. Anyways, thanks whoever faved, reviewed, and followed; I love reading what you guys think of the chapters.