A/N Thank you so much for all you reviews, follows and favorites, everyone! They meant a lot to me! I'm really sorry it's taking me so long to work on this. I'm currently writing for National Novel Writing Month, so it's taking up a lot of my time and I haven't had time to work on Fanfiction much. But this was prewritten, and I have zero patience to save it for later, so behold the preview of the next chapter. I hope to have the whole thing finished before 2021, and posted. Sorry, guys! Hope you enjoy this little bit!

"Peter…"

Tony's voice died away. Peter was long gone. He started to get out of the wheelchair - he had to run after his kid - but it beeped ominously.

For the umpteenth time, Tony cursed his wheelchair. The thing was a technological marvel. Of course, Tony Stark would never have been satisfied with a simple rolling chair. As long as he had to be confined to one, (he only took it slightly better than that first time, right after Afghanistan), it would at least be a high-tech one. The chair had a joystick control system, an arc reactor power source, a built-in snack machine…pretty much anything a debilitated superhero could wish for.

Also a few things one wouldn't wish for. Like an alarm system Pepper had insisted on, letting her know instantly if he got out of it.

By the time he realized he could have just rolled after Peter, the kid was long gone.

Toy settled back into the chair, biting back a curse of frustration. Ever since the … time-travel discovery incident with Morgan, he'd been forced to restrain his tongue. No father wanted his five-year-old daughter using language like that.

But why the…heck was Peter pushing him away?

Had he done something?

The elevator chimed, and Tony realized he was still sitting right between the doors, preventing them from closing.

He glanced once more down the hall. No sign of Peter.

Tony rolled back into the elevator.

As the doors closed and the elevator began to rise, Tony ran his fingers through his hair in frustration. Living without Peter for five years had been almost unbearable. And now he had him back. By some miraculous marvel, Tony had kept his new family and found his old one. But now Peter couldn't even look at him!

"Friday, is Peter still in the Tower?"

"He has left the building, boss. In my last reading on him he left through the lobby out the north doors. Would you like me to connect to Karen and track down his location?"

Karen. Tony's mouth twitched into a smile at the thought of Peter's name for his AI. He opened his mouth, on the verge of telling Friday to do just that. But then he closed it with a snap. It was clear Peter didn't want to talk to him. He wouldn't make the kid get even angrier at him by invading his privacy.

"Boss?"

"No, Friday. Don't track him."

Tony sighed. He needed a distraction. Alcohol was out; it had been for a long time. He didn't want to face Pepper and Morgan right now, and the rest of the team was out of the question. Most of them weren't even around at the moment. Bruce was in Wakanda, still recovering from his injuries. Clint was reconnecting with his family. Steve was… wherever Steve was. Somewhere gone in time and space. Thor was with the Guardians, Bucky had also returned to Wakanda, Wanda had disappeared, still mourning for Vision, Carol had also disappeared, off to save some other planet, Strange was keeping an eye on his mystic mumbo-jumbo in his Sanctum, Sam and Scott were on a mission for S.H.E.I.L.D. and Natasha and T'Challa… Tony didn't want to think about it.

Distractions. The lab seemed as good a place as any. He needed to make some adjustments to his new prosthetic anyway.

Only after he'd had Friday drop him off at the proper floor did he realize what a terrible idea this was.

Tony sold the tower after the Avengers broke up. Too many memories there. But then Peter had shown up, and suddenly New York hadn't seemed to bad. So, he bought it back. Then Thanos happened, and Tony couldn't even look at the Tower without feeling like throwing up. So, he sold it again. Then they reversed the Snap. And as soon as Tony felt lucid in the hospital, he had Pepper buy it right back again.

Through all the buying and selling, Tony's lab floor had always stayed the same: floor 79. As soon as he left the hospital, Tony had outfitted it in all its former glory. This included the small corner of the lab that was Peter's, set up with a workbench, 3D printer, web-fluid chemicals and a manipulative hologram screen, among other things.

As Tony stepped into the lab now, he turned his eyes away from the one part of the lab that was collecting dust.

Sh…oot, he missed his kid.

If anyone had told 38-year-old Tony Stark that he would share a lab space with a teenager and enjoy it, he'd have laughed in their face. Howard had never let Tony anywhere near his work, and Tony had never thought of himself as good with kids.

But now, Tony would have given anything for a certain fifteen-year-old to take up his place in the lab. Just standing here brought back so many memories. Good ones.

-0-

Tony didn't even look up from his work as the elevator dinged. Ahh, yes. Today was Friday. He heard the sound of light footsteps and the thud of a backpack dropping to the floor.

3…2…1…

"Hey, Mr. Stark! Whatcha working on?"

Tony smiled to himself before looking up.

Curly hair, brown puppy-dog eyes and an enthusiastic grin greeted him. Peter Parker stood there in one of his bad science pun shirts that made Tony feel like groaning. (And also made him want one.) This one said, "You matter. Unless you multiply yourself by the speed of light squared…then you energy."

"Friday, turn down music volume fifty percent."

ACDC'S unholy screeching turned from screaming to yelling. It had taken six lab trips and three 'headaches' for Peter to admit to Tony that the loud music hurt his ears. Super hearing had its downsides.

Tony turned back to Peter. "Before you walked so brazenly into my lab, kid, I was working on this."

He held up a phone with its inner workings exposed.

Peter's eyes lit up. "Is that… Is that the newest SI phone?"

Tony tossed the phone over to Peter, who caught it. "Yep. Despite my excellent avoiding skills, every now and then I still have to actually work."

Peter turned the phone around, staring. "Wow! Isn't this supposed to get released next year?"

"Yes, that's the Si10X. You, Underoos, are holding some cutting-edge technology."

"This…this is so cool! Even when it is released, I don't know when I would get to hold one! We definitely couldn't aff… I mean, I won't be needing a new phone for a while."

Tony made a mental note to set it up so that Peter would 'win' a contest and receive a free Si10X.

"Yeah, anyway, R&D have been having some issues with firewalling and the security systems, so they sent it up for me to take a look."

Peter looked up eagerly. "What kind of problems? I actually don't know much about software programming."

Tony raised an eyebrow, then said, "That is a serious issue we'll have to remedy later. On second thought, maybe not ever. I've had enough issues with someone breaking into my suits and rerouting the software. Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but either you know plenty about software design, or you've been working with Ted again."

Peter had the decency to look embarrassed. "Ummm, that was me and Ned, Mr. Stark…"

Tony shrugged. "Whatever. Anyway, have you been having any issues with the suit lately?"

Peter turned red. "Just one, but it's really not that big of an issue, I was just going to fix it myself…"

"Let me see the suit," said Tony.

Reluctantly, Peter went over to his backpack, pulled out the suit and gave it to Tony. He held it up, examining it. There weren't any obvious issues that he could see. He'd run the internal diagnostics if Peter was too clammed up to give him details. He reached for the connector port on the spider symbol and froze. The billionaire slowly turned around to face Peter.

"Kid, I want you to look me in the eye and say six simple words. Just tell me, 'That's not a bullet hole, Tony.'"

Peter looked down at his shoes.

"Peter, I'm serious. Talk to me," Tony demanded. "Explanations are in order."

"Umm, well you might have seen on the news the other night that there was this crazy psycho who had some inexplicable urge to spill Spiderman's guts onto the pavement running around Queens?"

Tony blinked several times. "I missed that."

"Well, anyway, this guy called himself the Mole, which is a pretty lame name when you think about it, and he claimed he could smell my blood or something equally weird and creepy. I think he might have been enhanced? He was pretty strong. I accidently used the wrong web shooter combination and he busted right out of the single piece of webbing that hit him from the splitter web. I told you, by the way, you way overdid it with the web shooter combinations." Peter looked up and saw Tony's brows knit together. "Not that I'm not grateful, Mr. Stark, sir, I really am, I just…"

"Enough with the rambling, kid. You were saying?

"Well he had these really sharp claw things and also guns, and I was barely keeping out of his way, because I'd been up really late all week studying for our Spanish test, which is murder, Mr. Stark, how can schoolwork be harder than superheroing? It just isn't fair…"

"Underoos."

"Right. We were actually studying moles in biology and they have a really great sense of smell, but terrible eye sight. And also, really sharp claws that they use for digging. But this guy wasn't using his claws for digging, he was just trying to rip my chest open. Right, sorry, sir. So, I ended up making a… what do you call it? Right, a tactical retreat. That's it. And I had some scrapes from where he'd barely managed to slice me with those claws, but they weren't serious, Mr. Stark, I swear. So, I kind of smeared my blood on the suit, and then stuck it to the end of an alley with my webs. Except for the mask, which I kept on. It was kind of cold, actually. But anyway, the guy comes around the corner and shoots me. Well, suit me. Then he came closer, to rip me apart, I guess. Then I webbed him up properly, with a tazer web and then some super-sticky webs. And put the suit back on, of course."

Tony took a closer look at the suit and saw the remains of blood that Peter had clearly tried to wash away. How had he missed some of the slashes at the edges of the suit?

"Lift up your shirt."

"What?" asked a startled Peter.

"You heard me. I want to see those 'scratches'."

"Seriously, Mr. Stark, I swear they're gone!"

"Let. Me. See. Or we're going to the med bay."

Peter sighed dramatically, but pulled his shirt up, exposing more abs than Tony had ever had. The kid might even give Capsicle a run for his money. Tony carefully examined his chest, but Peter had told the truth. There were no signs of cuts or bullet wounds.

Tony sighed in relief. "Ok, kid. Put your shirt down."

Peter also sighed, but in exasperation. "I told you, didn't I? Sheesh, you're worse than Uncle B.." He cut himself off abruptly.

Tony's heart pushed hard against his rib cage. Had Peter just compared Tony to his uncle? Tony didn't know all the details, but he'd compiled a file on Peter before he'd contacted him as Spiderman. He'd seen that the boy had lost his uncle after he'd been shot. The kid had watched the man Tony assumed was his father figure bleed out. And now Peter was comparing the two of them?

Tony looked up at Peter to see the uncomfortable look on the teenager's face. Obviously, now was not the time to broach the subject. But he couldn't hold back the fondness in his smile as he clapped an arm on the kid's, his kid's, shoulder. Pretending he hadn't heard the last comment, he said instead,

"Regardless, Spiderling, you know I'm always around if you need back up, right?"

Peter looked up at him in surprise, and with a hint of doubt. "Really?" he asked.

Tony felt a wave of guilt hit him as he thought of how he hadn't been there for Spiderman during the Vulture mess. "I wasn't before," he said honestly. "But I intend to be now. Can't have some crazy badger ripping you in half, can I?"

Peter rolled his eyes. "It was a mole, Mr. Stark."

"Details. Who needs them? Now, my irresponsible mentee, we can fix the hole in the suit I so generously made for you later. First, I have to inform you on the simple nuances of programming."

-0-

Feeling his eyes sting, Tony turned his head away from that portion of the lab. Instead, he walked over to the work bench where he'd been working on his latest prosthesis model.

Thanks for reading! The rest will come soon!