He got up, pulling Peter up into his arms when he did. The little boy went willingly – eagerly, even.

"I thought it was a clarinet?"

"Well… I might be wrong. Now that you mention it, it does kind of look a little bit like a piano..." He set Peter down on one side and took the other, the looked at him, expectantly, when he took hold of an edge of the wrapping paper that was covering it. "Ready?"

"Yeah."

"Go."

They ripped into the paper with gusto, and between the two of them soon had it unwrapped, paper littering the floor in various sizes. Sure enough, it was, indeed, a piano. A beautiful black baby grand, with a matching seat.

"It's nice," Peter said, running his fingers along the side.

"Yeah, it is." Tony had unwrapped the bench while Peter had finished with the legs, and he sat down, patting the seat beside him. "My mom used to play the piano," he told Peter.

"She did?" he asked, climbing up to sit beside him, but watching him.

"Yup. We'd sit together, sometimes, like this, and she'd show me how to play."

"Sounds nice."

"It was." He opened the top, propping it up, and then reached in and pulled out a manilla envelope. "Let me ask you something…"

"What?"

"What would you think if I wanted to keep you?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, I don't want to be just your foster dad, anymore, buddy," Tony told him. "I was thinking that maybe I could be your real dad. Legally, anyway."

Peter frowned.

"I don't understand."

"Because I'm not saying it right." He was pretty nervous, after all, and the carefully prepared speech that he'd gone over a million times in his head before going to sleep the night before had been forgotten. "I really like you, Peter. Even more than like. I love having you here, with me. I think you're a great guy, and you're alone, and I'm alone, and I was thinking that if I were to maybe adopt you, then neither of us had to be alone, anymore."

"You want to adopt me?"

"I do," Tony confirmed. "You know what that means, right?"

"Like people adopt babies."

"Right. But it doesn't have to be a baby. It can be anyone they love. I lie in bed thinking about you, sometimes," he said, brushing his hand along Peter's hair, pushing it away from his forehead. "And I worry that someone from the state might decide that you should be moved to a different foster home, and the thought of them taking you away from me, again, makes me ache inside. So, if I were to adopt you, they couldn't ever take you away from me, again. No one could."

"I'd be your son?"

"In every way possible, yes. I mean, I know I'm not your biological dad, but I love you. I want you to stay with me. Forever."

Peter's expression was a mixture of hope and awe.

"You could do that?"

"We could," Tony said. "If you wanted to…"

Peter's eyes widened, as something suddenly dawned on him.

"Then I wouldn't have to move, again, would I?"

"Not unless we wanted to…" Tony gathered Peter into his arms, pulling him up onto his lap. "What do you think of the idea?"

"I'd be your son?" He repeated, as if he couldn't believe the concept.

Or maybe just the idea that Tony wanted that as much as Peter did.

"You would," Stark confirmed, feeling his eyes sting with tears at just how amazed Peter sounded at the thought. It was almost humbling to realize anyone wanted him that badly, really. Or to think that he was worthy of that kind of wonder. "And I'd be your dad. What do you think?"

There was a sniff.

"I'd like that, Tony. More than anything."

They were quiet for a long time, just holding onto each other, but Stark's rear was getting numb from the hard piano seat. He squeezed Peter, tightly, for a moment, before releasing him, and found that he had to clear his throat around the lump that had somehow found its way there. With Peter still on his lap, he reached for the manilla envelope, so similar to the one that the boy kept in his backpack, and show it to him.

"These are the papers," he told him. "I wasn't going to sign them until you said yes, but I'm assuming it's safe to do so, now?"

Peter nodded.

"You can use my pen," he offered. "The one Santa brought me in my stocking."

"Thank you."

Peter slid off the piano bench, and Tony got to his feet. He went into the kitchen and stood at the island, watching as Peter went to get the pen set from the coffee table and bring it over. The little boy climbed into his special chair and watched, almost breathlessly, as Tony pulled a thick stack of papers from the envelope.

"That's a lot of stuff to sign."

"I'd sign a million more if that's what it took," Tony assured him, making Peter smile.

He took the pen from Peter and began on the first page, working his way through them, methodically, reading everything quickly, just to make sure there weren't any provisions or exclusions that had him being forced to give Peter back to the state's care for any reason. The billionaire smiled when he saw that Pepper had thoughtfully added a single sheet of paper into the middle of the stack. It was official-looking, but not a part of the actual document, and Tony signed the top line, dating it.

Then he set it in front of Peter.

"What's this?" Peter asked.

"You have to sign, too," Tony told him. "Saying that you want to be my son."

The boy took the pen and scrawled his name on the line next to the red x that had been placed there.

"Wow…"

Stark smiled, watching with almost as much awe as Peter. He took the paper back and set that one to the side, then went to work on the others, again, while Peter watched, breathlessly.

"That's the last of it," Tony finally said, crossing the last t with a flourish. "Pepper will turn these in, and a judge will sign off on it, and then you're my son."

"When will that happen?"

"I'll see what she's doing, later, and she can see if there's a judge that has a kid who wants a Christmas visit from Ironman to make up for pulling him or her away from whatever they're doing, today. How does that sound?"

"Great."

"Yeah." Tony hesitated. "You have to decide something, though. A couple of somethings, really, but one is pretty important, so I want you to think about it for a bit, okay?"

"What is it?"

"Well…" Tony said, putting the papers back in the envelope – except the one that Peter had signed, too. He set that one on top of the envelope. "Just because you're my son, it doesn't mean that you have to stop being Peter Parker. You get to decide what you want to be called."

"What do you mean?"

"You can keep being Peter Parker," Tony explained. "Or you can decide to have your last name changed to mine, and you can be Peter Stark."

"I can?"

"If you want."

"Peter Stark sounds pretty neat, doesn't it?"

"It sounds incredible," the man agreed. "But think about it, okay?"

Peter nodded.

"You said a couple of things…" he reminded Tony. "What else do I have to decide?"

"I know you don't like to move," Tony said. "But I was thinking that you might like living in a house better than an apartment, and that we might look for a place to move to. Somewhere with some grass and maybe a tree for you to climb in the summer."

"And a swimming pool in the back yard?"

"That could be arranged."

Peter hesitated.

"What about JARVIS?"

"What about him?"

"He'd come, too?"

"Of course. We couldn't leave JARVIS behind."

"Wow."

Peter wrapped his arms around himself, but Tony picked him up and wrapped his arms around the boy.

"I love you, Peter."

The boy hugged him, close, tucking his face against Tony's neck.

"I love you, too."