"No. Absolutely not." Peter said as he stormed out.
"Kid. Peter. Wait. Come back here." Tony called out from behind him.
Peter just kept walking. He'd had enough. He'd sat in meetings all day with people telling him what he could and couldn't do from now on, and now Tony expected him to give up what little privacy he had left. Well, he wasn't going to do it.
He made it to the elevator before Tony caught up to him.
"Home FRIDAY." He ordered and crossed his arms, watching as Tony made it in just before the elevator doors closed.
"Ok I understand you're upset." His dad held both his palms up in a placating manner.
"Good work. I am." Peter stared straight ahead, refusing to look at him. How could he think this was a good idea?
"Ok but be honest here. Don't you think you might be overreacting just a teensy tiny little bit?"
"No!" He definitely wasn't. "You and I both know I don't need a bodyguard, Tony! I'm Spiderman!" It felt good to finally say it after sitting through a meeting with the head of SI security for the past hour where the man had looked at him like he was a meek little victim waiting to happen.
"Yes, I know that. And you know that. But no one else does and if you want to keep it that way this is what we have to do."
Peter huffed.
"I'm doing what I'd do if you were a normal kid and—"
"So I'm not normal now?" Peter sniped, not even sure why he was picking a fight.
"You know what I mean." Tony didn't rise to the bait. "And if you were a normal kid you'd need a fulltime body guard. So everyone is going to expect that."
Peter rolled his eyes and stepped out of the elevator as soon as the doors had widened enough in front of him. Tony followed a step behind him, still talking. "You're my son and now everyone knows. And I'm sorry. I'm sorry for that. You know I'd take that part back if I could, but I can't. And now that everyone knows, there are going to be people gunning for you to get to me. That's just reality now. And I know you can take care of yourself, but the rest of the world doesn't know that and if I leave you visibly unprotected it's going to be asking for trouble."
Peter fell forward onto the couch and shoved his head into one of the pillows. "But I don't want a bodyguard." He complained but the initial anger he'd felt had started to dissipate. He could sort of see where Tony was coming from. Even though it still sucked.
"I know. I get it. You've only said it about twenty times now. Any more and you're going to hurt Happy's feelings." Tony said.
Peter frowned before turning to look up at his dad. "Happy? What are you talking about?"
"Happy's going to be your bodyguard. What? You think I'd trust anyone else?" Tony quirked an eyebrow at him.
"Happy?" Peter repeated, more to himself this time as he turned back into the pillow and rolled the idea over in his head. That wasn't as bad as what he'd been imaging. He and Happy almost sort of kind of got along now. Although he still didn't want the man in all his business, but if it was between him and a complete stranger, he supposed this was the better option.
"So," Tony interrupted his musings as he picked up Peter's feet so he could slide under them to sit at the end of the couch. "Does it being Happy make it better or worse?"
"Better." Peter admitted. "But I'm still not happy about it."
"I know."
"I guess I can accept it on one condition."
"Yeah? What's that?" Tony asked.
"I get to see the look on Happy's face when you tell him has to be my bodyguard now."
Tony let out a surprised laugh. "Deal."
Peter settled back in bed and opened his laptop. It'd been a long day and the last thing he wanted to do was read what was being said about him, but he couldn't stop himself. He was like the moon and the information nestled under his fingertips was the Earth. He was helplessly stuck in its gravity. After a few minutes of browsing the plethora of article headlines, he decided there was nothing new out there, just numerous reiterations of the same thing. Information about his background and speculation on his and Tony's relationship littered the internet now.
He exited out of the google search window and closed his computer with a sigh, setting it to the side and pulling his phone out of his pocket. He wasn't big into social media. He had an Instagram account and a Twitter account, but he'd only posted once or twice on Twitter before losing interest in it, and he rarely posted pictures on Instagram, which was apparently a good thing according to Alex, SI's media guy, because it meant they didn't have to go through and purge anything.
He clicked on the Instagram icon on his phone. He couldn't even remember the last time he'd checked it. He'd gotten it when everyone else was into it, but he hadn't seen the point. He already knew what was going on in the lives of the people he cared about and they knew the same about him. Worrying about posting idyllic pictures of his life just seemed like extra work and an unnecessary added stressor on top of all the other things he already had to worry about.
The home screen popped up and when he clicked on his profile icon his jaw dropped.
459,432 followers.
"Holy shit!" Peter gripped his hair. He really should've made his account private, but he'd never anticipated anything like this happening.
"Oh god oh god oh god." He clicked through the photos he had up to make sure there wasn't anything too embarrassing. Luckily they were all fairly benign. And boring, if he was being honest. Alex had told him they were all fine, but pictures that risked embarrassing his dad and his company were different than pictures that made him look like a loser.
His inbox was overflowing with DM's. He didn't even know what to do about it besides ignore them, but he really wanted to make them go away. Maybe Alex could help him.
If his Instagram account looked like this, he could only guess his Twitter account would be exactly the same.
He rubbed a hand down his face and let out a groan.
His phone buzzed next to his leg. Ned's name flashed across the screen.
"Hey man what's up?" Peter answered.
"Listen, I don't want to freak you out, but have you been on Instagram lately?"
Peter's eyebrows pulled together. "I was just looking at it. Do you have ESP or something?"
"No I wish." Ned sounded so sad about it that Peter let out a short laugh. "Anyway, isn't it crazy?"
"Everything's kind of crazy right now." Peter sighed.
"Yeah, but like dude you have almost half a million followers!"
"I know." Peter groaned. "It's terrible!"
"Are you crazy?! Why is it terrible?"
"Why? Um because I don't want absolute strangers knowing everything about my life."
"You have like twenty pictures on there." Ned scoffed. "I wouldn't exactly call that knowing everything."
"Yeah." He sighed, trying to figure out how to put how he was feeling into words. "I guess I just I don't like the idea of people only being interested in me because I know Tony."
"I mean you don't just know him. He's kind of your dad now." Ned reminded.
"Yeah but I'm nobody. I'm just me, Peter Parker. Or, I guess Peter Stark." Peter gave his head a shake at the slip up. "If they're interested in Tony then they should follow him."
"I'm sure they do." Ned said. "But you're not nobody. You're you know who."
"But they don't know that." Peter argued. "To them I'm just this kid with a famous dad."
"Tony Stark." Ned said slowly as if Peter didn't understand. "Tony Stark's your dad. That's kind of a big deal."
"It shouldn't be." He frowned. "I just think it's weird that a bunch of complete strangers want to follow pictures of some random kid."
"Dude, you're not some random kid. You're Ironman's kid!"
"So?" Peter complained even though as the word came out of his mouth he knew how ridiculous it sounded.
"So? So?" Ned's voice kept increasing in pitch. Peter winced. "You're dad's a legit superhero. And he's the coolest, richest, most famous guy in the world. Even if you were biologically his, people would be curious about you. But you're not. He chose you which makes you even more interesting. Everyone wants to know about you."
"You mean they want to know what makes me so special that Tony Stark would want to adopt me?" Peter scoffed.
"Well kind of. Even though it sounds bad when you say it like that."
Peter sighed.
"I just want everything to go back to normal." He said and didn't realize how true that actually was until the words had left his mouth.
"I wouldn't say your life was ever exactly normal."
"I know. I mean I wish things could just go back to the way they were before." His tone came out more wistful than he'd meant it to.
"I don't think that's going to happen."
"I know." He sighed.
"Unless you can somehow invent time travel and go back and keep all of this from happening."
Peter scoffed.
"But if Tony Stark hasn't figured out time travel yet, I don't think you have much hope. No offense man."
At least that got a small chuckle out of him. "Right."
"If it helps, I really am sorry."
"I know." Peter rubbed at eyes that were oddly burning. No. He wouldn't cry. He wouldn't.
A few long seconds passed in silence.
"You know what else sucks?"
"What?"
"Tony's making me have a bodyguard."
"No way."
"Yeah and guess who it is."
"Who?"
"Happy."
"Seriously?"
"Mmhm."
Ned tried to hold back a chuckle. "I guess it could be worse?"
"Shut up."
Ned burst out laughing and Peter finally cracked a smile.
"He's going to hate that." Ned added when he'd finally calmed down enough to talk again.
"Believe me, I know."
"So you're going to have a middle aged shadow the entire time you're at school." Ned actually sounded a little put out now. "Kind of puts a cramp on your social life."
"What social life?" Peter joked. He got along with everyone but Ned and MJ were the only two classmates he'd consider his real friends. "And I think you're being generous calling him middle aged."
"Don't let him hear you say that." Ned warned.
"Please. I'm not scared of Happy."
"Yeah but you probably want to stay on his good side. He's going to be with you. At school. All the time. Like he's going to figure stuff out. Stuff that you probably don't want him to tell Tony about."
Peter's brow furrowed. "Like what?"
"MJ." Ned said simply.
"You only know about that because I told you."
"Please Peter. Give me some credit. It's obvious how much you like her."
"It is?" His heart swooped. "Do you think she knows?"
"Probably. Doesn't she know like everything?"
"Yes." Peter ran a hand down his face.
"You should just ask her to prom. If she says yes then she probably likes you back."
"I know. I'm thinking about it. I've got some time."
Ned hummed to let him know how much he believed that.
"Anyway, Happy finding out about MJ wouldn't be the end of the world. Tony teases me for it already."
"Ok then what about Flash?"
Peter shrugged. "He doesn't bother me as much anymore."
"True but he doesn't exactly leave you alone either."
That was fair. He didn't. But Peter could ignore the little snippy comments compared to what the bullying had been like before.
"If anything, Happy might help. He's the one that scared him into being nicer to me at the beginning of the year."
"I guess. Maybe it won't be so bad then."
"Maybe." But somehow he doubted it.
A/N: Happy Friday! I know this chapter is a little shorter than usual but I just wanted to post what I had as soon as I could so you guys didn't have to wait so long. Also I'm of the millennial generation and never jumped on the social media bandwagon besides facebook long long ago, so if anything seems off/wrong about the Twitter or Instagram descriptions I apologize but I don't have experience with either.