The warm, champagne glow of the lights glides across the fine-finished mahogany double doors as they're opened. The quiet murmur they contained moments before bursts out into the hallway and Peter believes if Mr. Stark's hand hadn't been on his shoulder he would've stumbled back from the impact. Women in dresses glistening as much as the overhanging crystal chandeliers and men in suits a touch less expensive than the material Peter has been tailored into scatter around the expansive ballroom talking, laughing (or pretending to), and dancing to the soft conversation the jazz band off in the corner creates with their instruments.

It's a lively scene, the most Peter has been apart of even back before the end of November, and he finds himself tugging at the pressed white collar digging into his neck. He hears Mr. Stark give a soft chuckle from beside him, his spider senses allowing him to pick it up over everything else. He drops his hand, worried that if the billionaire is poking fun at him the other people in the room will eat him alive for whatever he's doing wrong. He side-eyes him, trying to gauge the older man's actions in hopes of scotching the disapproving looks down up turned noses he's certain to receive. The man catches his gaze with almost the same approval that his aunt and uncle use to give that it forces Peter to provide his own bow tie an embarrassed adjustment.

"It's fine as long as you stop messing with it," Mr. Stark comments with one side of his mouth doing a quick curve upwards.

"It doesn't feel fine," Peter mumbles while turning his head experimentally.

The other side of Mr. Stark's mouth curves to even out the other. "It's a bow tie, Peter, not a neck brace. Just act natural."

"Okay, well maybe you should think about that when you're tying one. This thing is choking me," he leans closer to the man standing at his side so he can whisper-yell his displeasure. "And natural is not wearing one of these to begin with."

A man in an unfortunate burgundy vest with shimmering paisley print of the same hue gestures them into the ballroom. Mr. Stark nods while ushering a reluctant Peter forward causing the boy to nearly end up stepping on the billionaire's finely shined shoes. "Learn to adapt, kid."

Peter knows that it's supposed to be an encouragement, knows that all the important things that Mr. Stark has to say come with a physicality whether it be the signing of the Stark name or a squeeze of the shoulder. Yet, when he feels the weight of the man's hand recede from the stitched seem on the top of his suit jacket and the words finally sink in, it feels more like a sharp slap to the face.

Peter's entire life has unfolded in the practice of adaptation and being told otherwise gives him reason to pull away from Mr. Stark. "I'm fine," he says as sure of the fact as he can be. An odd look passes over the mechanic's face, one that maybe he hadn't meant to show considering how quickly he masks it when a woman in a long, silk dress waltzes over. She shouts, "Tony!" as if the emerald green of her gown or the way the garment barely contains her cleavage wasn't enough to gain the man's attention. It doesn't capture Peter's though, not entirely. He's too preoccupied searching for the man he came with, because he's disappeared.

Make no mistake, Mr. Stark isn't a Houdini or a Romanoff, but here and now Peter believes he's better than the both of them combined. He's still standing in the same place, yet Peter does not recognize him. This isn't the man he rode in the car with, or the one who helped him tie his bow tie before they left the tower. Not the one that promised that Happy was outside with the car if at any point Peter wanted to leave, and definitely not the man that signed on the dotted line to be his guardian when the state of New York attempted to put him into foster care the day after his aunt died.

His lungs can't seem to get enough air while the members of the jazz band up on stage seem to have too much of it. Their quick tempo floods his ears, stays there like a trapped moth batting its wings against his eardrums. The mouths above him move off beat, the woman's stained red lips too close to Tony's for Peter to be able to read what he's saying to her.

His fingers twitch, trying to find a pace somewhere, somehow until they can't and he raises them to pull at his ears instead. It must catch the attention of the woman pressing her body up against Mr. Stark, but he doesn't understand why. He's been around the billionaire long enough to know that anyone in Mr. Stark's orbit rarely breaches the circle of light that comes with the man's fame. He should be no different.

But he is. He always is. Always has been different.

"Peter." His name cuts through everything, because he hadn't expected to be addressed by it by people with names worth more than the little sum of money Uncle Ben and Aunt May had saved to send him to college with. "Peter."

When he hears his name again, it grounds him. It pushes back the concert music to a volume close to what plays from Captain Roger's record player in his room at the compound and he finds himself wishing he were there instead of here.

"Hey, you with me?" Peter blinks and finds himself face to face with Mr. Stark, his Mr. Stark, and swallows hard against the thought of having any claim of the billionaire in front of him. "Peter? Say something."

"Y-yeah. Sorry, I-I just…," he trails off, catching sight of diamonds shining in the light somewhere around the older man's side. Tracing the shine, he finds the arm of the woman in the green dress snaked around Mr. Stark's possessively. He follows the tanned-skin, slender expanse of her arm up until he can finally see her face. She's pretty everywhere Pepper isn't and Peter has a hard time finding a flaw with Pepper, inside and out. "I've never been to such a…f-fancy-" he cuts himself off when he notices the woman's mouth turn into a snide grin. "I-I mean exquisite party before. S-sorry, I'll just um…"

He looks to Mr. Stark hoping the man will tell him what to do, but the woman wraps her arms around the older man and tugs him close. "My,my, Stark, he is adorable!" The billionaire smiles at her as he sips on a glass of champagne that Peter doesn't remember seeing him order. They stumble a bit together as the woman keeps latched onto him and says, "It's so nice of you to help him the way you are. I honestly couldn't believe it when I heard you give the press conference a few months ago, but I can see why you would want to sharpen him up."

Peter feels the blood that had rushed up into his face and ears moments ago drain as quickly as it came, because Tony Stark was in front of him. The man he'd heard about on news stations and in celebrity magazines, the man of all the rumors that spread amongst the people who are unqualified to understand how his brain works or unable to stand in his orbit. The billionaire playboy with a penchant for alcohol and grandiose gestures without a care for who they affect.

Peter has always hated those people for forcing that kind of reputation on a man that they didn't even know. When he was seven, he knew without a shadow of a doubt that Iron Man and Mr. Stark were more than whatever the latest tabloid said he was, more than what Uncle Ben mumbled he was when Peter rambled on and on about how much he wanted to be like Mr. Stark when he grew up and no one else.

But here he is at fifteen, standing in front of the man he took more time admiring than he did the man that raised him and he knows he was wrong, knows that he was just another person unqualified and unable to truly understand Tony Stark.

He starts to back away, but Tony untangles himself from the woman with a wiggle of eyebrows promising her something more later on and then turns his attention to him. The man's hand reaches out for Peter's shoulder, but he jerks back instead. Tony's face gets that weird look again, the one he'd masked earlier, but it stays there on display for Peter, and Peter only, as he tilts sideways just a touch to be eye level with him.

There's a part of Peter that knows he's being unfair, irrational even, but it's so far buried underneath everything else that all he can think of is how much he hates this.

"I'll….I need to go to the restroom. Excuse me."

Two Hours Earlier

Tony had been nervous, nerve-wracked actually, by the time he found Peter sitting outside on the landing pad doing his homework. So much so, that he had decided to just go back inside but a gust of wind stole one of Peter's papers and it raced in his direction. The kid turned around to make chase of it, but stopped when he saw Tony reaching down to pick it up from where he'd trapped it with his shoe.

"Oh, thanks Mr. Stark! That has all my equations on it for calculus. I don't need to write them out to solve the problems, but Mr. Picklesimer won't accept any assignments without us showing our work."

"I still can't believe you have a teacher named Mr. Picklesimer. Are you sure you didn't just make that up? Like it's a foreign name and you and your friends just can't pronounce it?" Tony asked, holding out the paper to Peter after skimming over it.

"No, it's his real name," Peter laughed quietly while tucking the paper in his math book and shoving that in his backpack. "He's quite proud of it, actually. Something about his Dutch ancestors making barrels or something, I'm not really sure. Hopefully, they were barreling pickles, otherwise that's just silly."

"Yes, that's what makes that name so silly," Tony mocked him fondly. "Anyway, it's about that time and in order to be fashionably late… need to leave in an hour." He purposely skipped over the pronoun on the last part and hoped Peter hadn't noticed, but of course the kid had.

"I….I'll go, Mr. Stark."

"You don't have to. I'm not being….pushy." Or controlling, he thought to himself with Pepper's latest tirade in the back of his mind. "I just thought you might like to tag along instead of being cooped up here."

Peter glanced over his shoulder at the expansive view of New York and then back to Tony. "I…I don't think this," he said, tossing his arms out to gesture around him "is considered cooping, but I..I still want to go with you."

"Yeah, okay."

So he'd hurried him to get dressed, tossed him some gel to slick down the curls in his hair, and told Happy to help him with his bow tie after learning the kid had never tied one. Tony had watched from afar as he put on his cufflinks and felt a bit of something where the arc reactor used to be when Happy reached for the material around Peter's neck as the kid drooped helplessly in the armchair in the corner.

"No, no. Never mind Happy, I'll do it. You probably tie how Wikihow tells you."

"Not true, Sir. I've even mastered the twisted knot."

"Not in front of the kid, Happy." Tony smacked the man's arm with a wicked grin, delighting in an outright laugh when it took Happy a few more seconds than it should have to understand the sexual joke.

"I'll be out front waiting," Happy groused.

Tony felt the laugh lines in his face pull tight, refusing to let loose even when he reached for Peter's hanging bow tie. He shuffled the material around and underneath the shirt collar for no other reason than to stretch out the moment, trying to rid his mind of all the memories he wished he had of his father doing this with him. He gave a soft chuckle between them when Peter's neck kept moving with every nervous swallow. "My nanny taught me how to tie these."

He doesn't know why he said it, but Peter stilled, Adam's apple and all, so Tony kept going. Well, sort of. "Sang a song and everything. I'll spare your sensitive spider ears. Not because my singing is bad. I have the voice of an angel. The song's terrible. But," he stopped short to wiggle his finished work into place, "I know the art of bow tying because of it."

"That's..that's c-cool, Mr. Stark. Thanks," Peter supplied, giving it an experimental tug and failing to hide how uncomfortable he was in it. The kid started to walk out of the room, but Tony lightly smacked his arm with the back of his hand.

"Hey, where do you think you're going? You've tied no bow tie. Lesson isn't over, get back here, James Bond. God, you're so not Bond. More like….Agent Q."

"I don't think he wears a bow tie," Peter countered as he dragged himself back over to the arm chair.

"Precisely the point. Now, nuh-uh," Tony shooed the kid away from plopping down in the chair and sat there himself. Peter awkwardly stood where Tony maneuvered him to stand directly in front of the chair. "You're going to tie mine."

"But why does James Bond need Agent Q to tie his bow tie?"

"Woah, hold up. I'm not James Bond in this analogy."

"Then who are you?"

"I'm me. I mean really, I'm way more badass than Bond."

"U-um, okay, Mr. Stark, but I…I don't know how to tie this," Peter fumbled with the material in his hands, anxious in the way that Tony used to be when he couldn't quite tell if his father was teasing or testing him.

"Which is why you're going to learn while tying mine," Tony explained as if he'd said it a million times. Peter's eyes nearly bugged out of his head.

Tony gives his bow tie a quick once over with his fingers at the memory from earlier in the evening while letting his ribs take the brunt of his weight against the side of the bar top. There's an empty seat at the end, but he fears that if he stays in one place too long he'll be caught in another brain-deadening conversation, and he really needs to find Peter.

He gives the bartender a desperate wave and is rewarded with a concoction that he knocks back in seconds. He tosses a bill he doesn't bother to check at the working man and turns around to scan the crowd. He sees Celia on the arm of another man already, the old gentleman's fingers tugging at the edges of her green dress as she giggles.

"Jealous?"

Pepper's voice cuts through to him more quickly than the drink he'd been served mere moments ago.

"I am," he admits eyeing the size of the drink in her hand. "That's more alcohol than I've had this week."

"Me drinking you under the table? Never thought I'd see the day," she teases, but let's her face go soft in the way that Tony's never been able to look away from. "But I'm glad I have. It's…a good look for you."

He doesn't know what to say, can never say all the right things to the only woman who deserves to hear them and so she gives that warm laugh of hers and straightens her thin shoulders. "Well, speaking of, where is Peter? I thought you said he was coming?"

"Yeah! He's here," Tony assures, a bit too quick he realizes so he leans back against the bar. "Somewhere."

"You lost him?"

"He's fifteen. I didn't lose him. He said he had to take a piss or something. Honestly, he's probably getting off in there after seeing all this fake cleavage around."

"Tony! God!" Pepper yells at him and smacks him with her clutch. "Don't say things like that about him. It's just… not right. Seriously, go find him."

"Here's a thought, why don't you go find him," Tony suggests, deciding to give another wave to the bartender as he turns around to lean his arm on the bar.

"After what you just told me, why would I want to? Not that I believe that Peter is doing that mind you- oh my God why did you even have to say that- but why are you suggesting that I do?" Pepper inquires while sitting down on the stool that just became vacant beside them.

"Oh, no reason." The drink in his hand feels too heavy when it's slid across the bar at him so he drums his fingers against the glass idly playing with the condensation on the sides. Pepper's hand finds the glass without her eyes leaving his face, her fingers slotting perfectly in the space of his twitching ones. She tugs the glass away from him with no strength at all as if she knows he'll give it up without a fight. She shouldn't expect that though, because he never bowed out of a drink for her before.

"What's going on, Tony?" Her voice is soft, but it hits him hard. Hits him right where it hurt every time he ever did wrong by her, because he's somehow doing it again.

"I…I think he's avoiding me. Peter. He just…freaked out or something when we got here. He popped up every once in a while, but every time I managed to free myself from the plastic society I couldn't find him."

"What did you do?"

"Other than pretend to like these people for the advancement of my company, nothing."

She sighs, and her shoulders droop with an exhaustion she shouldn't have. "Did you talk to him about this before you came?"

"About the party? No, I blindfolded him and brought him here. Hazing, initiation, all that of that. Yes, of course I did. He said he wanted to come."

"No, not the party. I'm talking about Tony at the party. He's never really been around for that side of you."

"What am I? Jekyll and Hyde?"

"To a kid who needs some stability in his life? Yes."

Tony's face pales at what feels like the speed of a droplet of water running down the side of his glass in Pepper's hand.

"Tony, just go find him and talk to him."

"Well, maybe you could find him before I-"

"He's your kid, Tony. Not mine," her tall frame towers over him as she stands and gives him that look that they both know means that he's upset her but doesn't know how. He pulls his discarded drink towards him as she walks away. He wants to drink it, wants it like he's doesn't remember wanting anything more.

But he pushes the drink away and leaves it sitting there like room temperature tap water because he needs to find Peter.

The fluorescent light of the bathroom seems to magnify every problem Peter feels on his skin, makes it so that the elderly man standing at the sinks looking at him in the mirror like he's taking up valuable space knows that he didn't save his uncle or take better care of his aunt, knows that he worshiped a man he didn't know over the one that knew him best. He rushes to the last stall, slamming the door with as much force as he can without using his enhanced strength. He twists the lock in place, tugs at it a couple of times to make sure the door won't betray him before falling back against the cold tile and melting to the floor.

His suit isn't meant for a kid as broken as he is so it creases in all the wrong places as he folds in on himself. The bow tie suffocates him when he rests his head on his bent knees. Clawing at the material, his fingers try to undo it and everything else that led him to this moment. His efforts are fruitless until he rips the tie into pieces and it's laying in his hands. His breaths come easier, but they are harder to give away.

His eyes water freely, race down his cheeks until they soak the rim of his collar like a victory lap. He doesn't understand why he's crying until he hears the elderly man in the bathroom exit and he's left alone. He knows that's how it should be, knows that he can't possibly deserve another person in his life when he has rid himself of every single one that's been there before. But it hurts somewhere deep in his chest he didn't know it could hurt and he slams his fist into the door, because why didn't he feel this when his parents died, or Uncle Ben, or Aunt May?

He punches the door again, unsure if it's the stall door that's starting to give way or the bones in his hand, so he keeps on pummeling it until he can be sure. A fire suddenly erupts in his hand and up through his arm and he pulls it to his chest to keep it all to himself, to keep the destruction from reaching anyone else.

He doesn't know how long he sits there, long enough though that his cheeks are crusted and the chill from the wall has sunken into his bones. The door opens with a quiet swish of air that glides across the marble floor. The footsteps that follow aren't nearly as graceful and there's a metallic click to their pace.

"Um, Peter? Are you in here?"

The boy sucks in a breath and folds into himself as much as his tuxedo and throbbing hand will allow, because no.

"Peter, it's Rhodes. Tony's looking for you."

Tony. Why on Earth would that man be looking for him? Peter feels anger start to curl his stinging fingers and chokes down the cry or yell trying to bubble up out of his throat. His anger is misplaced, he knows, but he's in too many pieces to try and pin it on himself where it belongs.

Rhodes is standing just outside his door, black braces on his legs casting a shiny reflection on the marble he stands on. "I'm going to sit if you don't mind. I could use a break, too." The Colonel's legs stretch out against the floor with a slight squeak and long sigh. "Hard isn't it?"

Peter stares at the braces on the man's legs underneath the door between them while hugging his own. He remembers feeling sick when he'd heard about Colonel Rhodes' injury after the fight at the hanger in Germany, but now he just feels numb. It feels like none of it matters because the man may have lost something then but he has it now. It just isn't fair, because everything Peter has lost he'll never get back.

"It's just for show, kid."

And Peter feels nauseous again, can't believe that he ever pitied this man.

"Tony, I mean," and oh, he's talking about Mr. Stark. "The celebrity persona and all of it, just isn't him, is it?" Rhodes' voice settles around the spacious bathroom like the way the sound of water pouring into a sink does. Peter leans his head back against the tile and closes his eyes. "It used to be. Back before what happened to him in Afghanistan."

Peter's eyes open before he can decide that's what he wants to do, because he's heard the stories, but not the details. "It….changed him, Peter. Not all of him, but….enough. Peter? Are you listening?"

He wishes he wasn't but, "Yeah."

"He's still….Mr. Stark," and the way Rhodes says that name like it only belongs to Peter and he needs permission to say it makes the boy shuffle away from the door between them as if that isn't enough. He hears the implication, feels it being tied to him in a way that Uncle Ben and Aunt May were when they had already decided against having children. "He's just got to be something different for all these people than what he is for you. For us."

Peter leans his head against the porcelain rim of the toilet, unfazed by what could be on the surface because he's already sick.

Another gust of cold air blows across the floor with the swinging of the entrance door.

"Rhodey?"

Peter shoves himself in between the toilet and the wall, rests his arm on the rim before burying his head back down in the crease of his elbow. There's the slide of leg braces against marble and dancing shadows of movement accompanied by whispers he can't decipher on account of the water rushing in the pipes from a flush in the ladies room on the opposite side of the wall.

There's another swing of the door that feels like it takes all of the air out instead of letting more in and a soft click of a lock before a tentative, "Peter?" escapes out into the room.

He doesn't know how to answer, doesn't know if he should answer to that name because he doesn't want to be that kid anymore, the one with dead parents and dead everything that comes into his life. But he's trapped in here, in the bathroom, in this life and his name is only thing that seems to free him from everything in his head.

"Y-yeah?"

"Is…." Mr. Stark's voice is faint, whispering where it used to dominate the air. Peter can see the tips of his shoes come to stand just before the door as if he knows that it's a line he shouldn't cross. "Is there anything I can do?" He may not cross the line, but he leans against it, dropping his head against the door so it muffles his voice that much more.

Peter used to believe there wasn't anything Mr. Stark couldn't do, and it's not fair to think otherwise but, "I….I d-don't know."

Silence coats the air thick like a smog you shouldn't breathe in.

"Let me try." Peter doesn't understand how his lack of faith equals to the desperation in Mr. Stark's voice. He can solve any equation in his head, but this one. "Please."

He doesn't really know how they got here. One minute he's pulling a fifteen year old kid from a bathroom stall and the next he's sitting across from him at the dingiest diner they could find at eleven thirty at night.

The buzz from the neon sign on the window is a constant current of noise underneath the sizzle of the grill back behind the counter. The blinking red light of the open sign casts shadows across Peter's wrinkled, white dress shirt in a rhythm competing against the soft rock playing on the jukebox at the end of the establishment. The boy across from him fiddles with the paper wrapper of his straw, folding it and unfolding it, then ripping it into tiny little pieces before scooting the pile of shavings off to the end of the table near the wall. One of the morsels gets stuck on his arm where his sleeves are rolled up near to his elbows and he brushes it off with his bruised - not broken thanks to enhanced healing- hand, watching it float down to land on his jacket waded up in the booth. He lets it stay there.

"What can I get you, darlin'?" Tony doesn't need to smell the cigarette smoke clinging to the waitress to know she's a smoker. Her voice is rough and nearly hoarse, but she's smiling softly at Peter like he's the twelve year old kid that he looks while dragging up a chair to the end of their booth. She sits down, cautious of her aged and aching joints, tired in a way that Howard never displayed publicly. She gives Peter her full attention, pointing out specials on the menu that she likes herself and it's so kind that it has Peter grinning shyly up at her like if she's ever in trouble, or just needs help with her groceries, he'll be there in the full Spider-Man get up to help her.

Tony feels a smile in his mouth, but he doesn't want to show it, afraid that somehow he'll steal this woman's attention away from the kid. Sinking back into his side of the booth, he drapes an arm across the back and watches as the waitress somehow gets Peter to agree to the double burger and cheese fries even though he still looks green, and asks her if he can have extra pickles. A part of him stores that away for later, like something he'd ask F.R.I.D.A.Y. to do, and contemplates if Howard were standing right here, right now, if he'd know what Tony likes on his burger or not.

The waitress, Marge according to her name tag, says, "Sure thing, sugar," as she twists in her chair in Tony's direction. She's still looking down at her notepad, scribbling the symbol that means extra pickles when she adds, "And what about you, Stark?"

Tony shouldn't be surprised, this woman is the epitome of eyes-in-the-back-of-your-head. Peter glances up at him a bit worried for reasons Tony doesn't understand, and he wonders if he would understand if his father had ever brought him here like he'd always silently hoped that he would. Just the two of them. Father and son.

He grins at her, says he'll have the same exact thing even though he finds the taste of pickles nauseating, but he thinks maybe that's the right thing to do, thinks he would have liked to have his father agree to whatever he picked for dinner just once.

"And can you get us two large milkshakes? Peter, what flavor do you want?"

The kid does that nervous stuttering thing where sounds come out but nothing actually makes sense so Tony orders one of each three classic flavors so he'll stop. Marge stares at Tony long and hard before writing it down and walking away. Only when she's done pushing her chair back to the table it belonged to, does Tony turn his attention back to Peter.

"M-Mr. Stark…that's..that's unnecessary, I'm really not that hungr-"

"No sweat. Drink it if you want it," he waves him off, but then crosses his arms on the table and leans his weight against them. Peter is pale and his hair is damp with a nervous sweat that shouldn't be there, and maybe Tony is going about this all wrong. Maybe it's not enough to do all the things Howard never did. "That just means you'll have to answer all of my questions."

"Um…uh, ha w-what do, what do you mean?" Peter asks, crossing his arms nervously, but not leaning on the tabletop.

Rain starts to tap against the window, washing away the dirt of the city that had gathered there throughout the day and Tony wishes it would wash away the last few seconds, or maybe everything from his day. He wants to turn and look at it, wants to pretend like none of this is happening like Peter seems to be doing as he stares at the droplets running down the length of the window to gather at the bottom of the frame. But he knows,knows what that means, what that does to a person and when Peter had caught a glimpse of it at the party, saw the remnants of the Tony after-his-parents-died Stark, he freaked out.

"I mean…. - used to do play this game, well…wasn't really a game she always let me win as some sort of reversed psychology mind trick to get me talking, but we'd used to do this thing where whoever finished their milkshake first got to ask any three questions they wanted. No matter what it was, and the other had to answer with nothing but honesty."

He knows he left out her name, her title, because somehow it feels like he shouldn't share it, shouldn't let it out in the open of a dingy diner to roam free.

"Who?"

Tony blinks at Peter, wondering if it's okay to let this kid have more memories of people already gone, but for the first time in a long time it feels like she isn't, like she's right here beside him. There's a weight in his chest that comes with it, one that he has to fight against to take a breath, but if he can manage it she might stay. She might sit with them, listen to Peter and know how smart he is, how his heart is as big as hers. She won't care that the kid's name isn't Stark, or that he doesn't resemble Tony or, God forbid Howard. She won't care that she never got to hold him as a baby, or drop him off at school, or pick him up from the nurse's office when he got sick. She won't care, because she'll see how much he means to Tony without any of it, and Peter will mean that much to her, too.

He wants her to be here, wants Peter to have proof that there's some good in Tony somewhere and it all came from her. "My mom."

Peter nods, takes in that revelation like he can see her, too. "O-okay. We can do that."

Marge drops off the milkshakes like they weigh nothing even though they are thick and bubbling over the rim. Tony chooses a chocolate one out of the six between them, tugs it to him like he has less muscle mass than Marge because it feels like a metric ton due to everything that's about to come with it.

By the time Peter decides on strawberry flavor, Tony isn't sure if he wants to win or lose but when the kid sticks three straws in the top of his milkshake Tony goes for a single one and sips slowly when Peter says go.

Peter's face is scrunched in pain at the freeze-brain award for first place, but he's doing an odd little combination of laughing and groaning that pulls at the laugh lines of the older man's face.

"Alright, Frosty," he chuckles while pushing the empty glasses to the end of the table for Marge. "Let's have them. First question."

Peter does a mantra of okays while rubbing out the last of his headache, but when it's gone he realizes he hasn't thought of a question. "Um….alright…well… how about -"

"Nope. Stop," Tony says, even though he wants the kid to waste one, wants it to be something silly like if he prefers chocolate milkshakes over strawberry, but his mother never let him do that so he can't either. "Take your time. It has to be a good one. Don't waste it. Anything, kid."

Peter gets a little more doe-eyed which Tony didn't think was possible, and stays silent until Marge brings their food. The older man eats a bit quicker than usual, hoping to avoid a big flavor of pickles and also because he knows if Peter asks the right questions he probably won't be hungry afterwards.

Meanwhile, Peter nudges his fries around. He mops up cheese with one only to spread it on another and by the time Tony gets ready to tell him to eat or his questions are revoked he pops one in his mouth and says, "Alright M-Mr. Stark, I got one."

Tony nods him on, trying to swallow before it comes.

"Does…does it bother you….that people think that you're…just, you know Tony Stark? Like they don't get this," Peter gestures between them," side of you so they just think you're that guy at the party with the girls and drinks and stuff?"

Tony had expected something Stark-family related, hell his beef with Captain America related, or honestly, Afghanistan. Not this. He takes another bite of his burger, a big slice of pickle taking away the cheese, and finds himself….satisfied. "I'm going to answer you honestly, but I need clarification from you before I can. Is that okay? Otherwise, you can ask another, have a redo."

"N-no, it's fine. Go on."

"Does it bother you?" Peter tenses like maybe he shouldn't be allowed that question without having finished his milkshake first, but then throws two fries into his mouth drenched in ketchup and cheese.

"Yeah. I mean, it did at first. Like when I was kid and stuff, but now…I get it. I just…I'm not a fan of that Tony Stark t-to be honest."

Tony nods, considers the fact that he didn't even need to win the advantage for this kid to be so honest with him and thinks maybe he's doing something right to prevent this kid from becoming him. "It doesn't bother me. The tabloids and all that stuff, after a certain point it just becomes entertaining. They love it, too, or they wouldn't talk about me so much."

Peter nods, twisting his brows together to think of another question because that's as much of an honest answer as he expected. The older man drops his burger on his plate and wipes his hands on a napkin. "But what would bother me, is if Rhodey, or Pep, or …or Cap or any of those guys thought that that's all I was. There was a time they did, and I was, but I….proved them wrong. It took a long time, and it was not easy on my part because I'm…I'm a little messed up from a lot of things, and sometimes maybe they forget, or sometimes I do, too. But Peter?"

The boy's gaze is guarded as if he somehow knows that Tony sat here years ago and asked his mother the exact same question, knows that his father never proved to Tony that he was anything more that the great Howard Stark that would be in history books. Tony thinks maybe his mother had lied then, and only once, to spare him the disappointment or the pain she never really knew the amount of inside of him. He doesn't want that for Peter, doesn't want to tell him things that only spare him in this moment and not the next.

He has a hard time finding the words, because even though he knew what he wanted his mother to tell him back then, he's lived a life of far greater troubles to still want the same thing now.

"I-I know you're not, Mr. Stark," Peter assures, even though Tony hasn't said anything else. "It just…I wasn't expecting it is all and then, one thing led to another and I-I freaked out…I do that..a lot kind of because well…. Mr. Stark?"

"Hmm?" And that's all Tony can say because he can't fathom how Peter came to be his, how he's the only person left to hold this kid together in a world falling apart.

"I….I'm a little messed up from a lot of things, too."

A/N: This story is also on AO3. For some reason, I have trouble uploading chapters on so AO3 is uploaded/updated first. Sorry for the delay.