"Merry Christmas!" Tony said the second Peter walked into the kitchen, still rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. The delicious smell emanating from the kitchen had woken him up and eventually enticed him to leave the sleepy comfort of his warm bed.

"Merry Christmas." He said back with a smile. His dad's joy was infectious. He plopped down on one of the kitchen stools and watched as Tony finished making pancakes.

"How'd you sleep?" Tony glanced over at him and smirked at his impressive bed head.

"Good." He shrugged. He'd had another nightmare about Ross, but it hadn't been terrible, and he'd been able to fall asleep right afterward, so he didn't think Tony needed to know about it. He didn't want to risk upsetting him on Christmas.

Tony flipped the pancake off the pan and piled it on top of five others already stacked on a plate. Before pouring the batter for the next pancake, he placed the plate in front of Peter, along with the maple syrup. "Here. Breakfast is served."

"Festive." Peter commented with a smile. The pancakes had green and red sprinkles intermixed in the batter.

"Tis the season." Tony said and turned back to the stove.

Peter shook his head in amusement and couldn't help but ask through a mouthful of pancake, "So once Christmas is over are you going to stop wearing that god awful hat or are you planning on dressing as Santa full time?"

The corner of Tony's mouth turned up as he patted the Santa hat perched on top of his head as if he'd forgotten it was there. "What? This thing? I suppose it'll have to go back into retirement until next Christmas. I don't think I have the gut or the facial hair to pull off the Saint Nick thing."

"Hmm." Peter cocked his head to the side and eyed his dad up and down as if considering it.

"Not funny." Tony waved the batter covered spatula at him and went back to his pancakes. "Keep it up and just see if you get any presents from Santa."

Peter twisted in his stool to glance into the living room. "Huh. Looks like he already came and left all the presents."

Bright, holiday themed packages overflowed under the tree. Peter really hoped they weren't all for him. If they were, it was way too much.

"Yeah well Santa giveth so Santa can taketh away." Tony joked and flipped the pancake in front of him.

Peter had purchased only a couple of presents that were under the tree. The big one he'd gotten for his dad wasn't there yet. The papers declaring his new name, that Pepper had handed to him a few days ago, still sat wrapped in shiny red paper tied in gold ribbon underneath his bed.

"Those aren't all for me, are they?" He asked after he swallowed his next bite, the plate of pancakes in front of him almost half gone already.

"You'll have to see." Tony answered cryptically with a smug smile.

He shook his head. "That's too much."

"Hey if I want to spoil my kid that's my prerogative. And since this is our first Christmas together, I had a lot of Christmases I missed that I had to make up for."

"So you went overboard." Peter sighed in resignation.

"Maybe just a little." Tony turned the stove off and took his plate with a measly two pancakes over to the stool next to Peter, ruffling his hair as he walked by. "But don't worry. They're not all for you. Some of them are for the team."

"Good."

"But most of them are for you."

Peter groaned.

Tony went back to eating his pancakes with a self satisfied smirk.

Peter knew arguing about the presents would be pointless, so he didn't even try. "So, what's the plan for today?" He asked instead.

Tony finished the bite of pancake in his mouth and answered, "Well first, I thought we'd have this amazing breakfast I slaved over."

Peter snorted.

"And then we can open some presents." Tony grinned. "Everyone wants to do a big Christmas dinner thing tonight, but until then, we have the day to ourselves to do whatever you want. I probably should've asked you this earlier, but did you and May have any traditions you want to celebrate?"

"Like what?" He asked, curious instead of hurt by the mention of his aunt.

"Like, do I need to change into a suit and have FRIDAY find a church nearby for us to go to?" His dad asked jokingly but Peter could tell he meant it.

"Oh." He shook his head. "No. We didn't do anything like that."

"Ok." Tony gave him a nod but seemed to be waiting for him to say more.

"Um, usually we'd open most of our presents on Christmas Eve, but there were a few we'd open on Christmas morning. From Santa." He clarified. Even after he'd gotten old enough to know Santa wasn't real, May and Ben had refused to give up the tradition so Peter had started giving them small presents 'from Santa' as well, no matter how much they complained that he shouldn't.

Tony's face twisted. "Sorry kid. I should've asked about all this stuff earlier. We could've opened presents last night."

"No, it's fine." Peter reassured him. He didn't mind. He actually kind of liked that they were doing things a little differently. It made it easier. "Last night was fun. I've never made Christmas cookies before."

Tony still had a look on his face like he'd just eaten something sour, but he nodded. "Ok. What else do you usually do?"

"Oh. Well, after presents, we'd eat breakfast, and then we'd just sit around the apartment and watch Christmas movies all day." He shrugged. "And we'd eat cookies, store bought ones, and hot chocolate and stuff. Sometimes we'd play board games." His brow furrowed slightly as he just remembered that. "But we kind of did that more when Ben was around."

"Eating junk food and watching movies sounds like exactly the kind of thing I can do." Tony nodded and went back to eating his pancakes.

"I mean we don't have to do that." Peter said, pushing the last pieces of syrup doused pancake around on his plate.

"Ok. Do you want to do something else?"

"Like what?"

"I don't know." Tony gave him a one shoulder shrug and kept eating. "Whatever you want kiddo."

Peter pushed the pancake mush around some more and thought about it. There wasn't anything he could think of that he wanted to do.

"What did you use to do for Christmas?" He asked.

"Me?" Tony let out a dark chuckle. "Back before I had myself more together, you don't want to know. It wasn't exactly PG-13 friendly and it wasn't happy."

Peter's felt his cheeks heat. That wasn't what he'd meant. He was very aware of the escapades his dad used to get up to before he became Ironman and turned his life around.

"No that's not… I meant when you were a kid. Did your family have any traditions?" He tried not to shrink back from asking the question. Tony never talked about his parents, and Rhodey and a few of the others had made enough vague comments here and there for Peter to catch on to the fact that Tony hadn't had the most idyllic childhood.

"When I was a kid…" Tony mumbled to himself as he considered it. Peter thought he looked thoughtful instead of irritated, so the question didn't seem to have been a mistake. "When I was really young sometimes my mom's parents would visit since my dad didn't have any family left. But by the time I was ten or so they were both gone, so it'd either be just the three of us at home, or we'd jet off somewhere for a vacation. Mom liked to do that. If we were at home, though, we'd have breakfast and then my mom would drag us to the morning church service. She was Italian, and very Catholic." Tony paused to give him a smile.

"I didn't know that."

"Yeah. Dad and I hated going ,but we did it for her. She used to tell us we were lucky she wasn't making us go to midnight mass." Tony let out a short laugh. "I remember I hated having to dress up on a day that was supposed to be a holiday. And I was always starving because we didn't eat breakfast until we got back home. And then we'd open presents." Tony paused to take another bite of pancakes and he shook his head. "That's one thing I can say. There was never any shortage of presents."

Peter nodded. He could imagine.

"And then we'd usually go to the sitting room and Dad would read, and I'd mess with some new toy or gadget, and my mom would play the piano. Christmas music usually. And sometimes she'd make me play."

"You play the piano?" Peter asked, surprised.

"Yeah." Tony smiled, and it looked like he was trying not to laugh at him. "You didn't know that?"

"No." He frowned. "You don't even own a piano. Do you?" He glanced around the room as if it were possible his dad actually had a piano and he'd just never noticed it before.

Tony chuckled. "No, I don't anymore, but I used to. At the house in Malibu. It was a nice one."

Peter figured it was probably more than nice. Everything Tony owned was ungodly expensive, and Peter had heard of pianos that cost upwards of $50,000. Flash's dad had gotten one for his mom for some anniversary and Flash hadn't stopped bragging about it for a week.

Tony quirked his head to the side as if just remembering something. "But then I threw it at a helicopter."

"What?" He asked in surprise.

"And then the house got destroyed." Tony continued, patting syrup from his mouth with a napkin. "And I never replaced it." He finished with a shrug.

Peter blinked, trying to take all that in. He had to be talking about the attack the Mandarin had made on his house. Well, not actually the Mandarin, but the tech guy pretending to be the Mandarin. But that'd been a long time ago.

"Why not?" He asked. If he could play the piano, he couldn't imagine not having one around, especially if he were someone like Tony who had the space for it and could definitely afford it.

"I just never got around to it."

Peter's eyebrows pinched together. He sensed there might be something more to it than that but he didn't want to push.

"Ok… So, can we get a piano now?"

Tony blinked. "Do you play?"

"No. I always wanted to learn but it was too expensive. It'd be cool to listen to you, though."

His dad's expression softened and he gave his shoulder a squeeze. "I'll teach you."

"Oh no, you don't have to."

"I want to."

"Ok." He agreed quietly with a small smile.

"Then how about this? Next year you can play me some Christmas songs."

His smile widened. "I don't know if I'll be good enough by then."

"Sure you will."

"Ok but only if you play too."

A slight shadow seemed to cross his dad's face even as he smiled. "Deal."

"It can be our new tradition." Peter added, remembering how they got on the topic of the piano in the first place. "Along with Christmas sprinkle pancakes." He shoved the last soggy piece into his mouth. "Mmm."

"Good, huh?" Tony finished the remaining couple bites of his own stack.

"Delicious."

"So, presents and then movies on the couch?" Tony suggested as he took their plates to the dishwasher. "You sure there's nothing else you want to do?"

He thought about it again. He just wanted to spend time with his dad. His family. It was what Christmas was all about. May and Ben had drilled that into him when he'd been younger and as he'd gotten older he'd realized the truth of it on his own. Even though he'd lost so many people in his family, he still had a family. A group of people that might not be related to him, but genuinely cared about him just the same. And he had a dad that loved him. Not everyone had that at Christmas. He considered himself lucky.

"Wait. I know what I want to do." He said as the idea struck him.

"What?"

"Do you think we could go to some group homes and do a meet and greet with the kids? Maybe hand out some presents?"

"You and me?"

"Ironman and Spiderman." He clarified. He knew going out as Tony and Peter right now wouldn't work since they were supposed to be keeping their father son relationship secret.

Tony's brow furrowed as he considered it.

"I know it's really last minute, and I guess I don't even know where we'd get the presents…"

"That's not the problem."

"Ok. Um, what is?"

"If it's just you and me and somehow in the future the press finds out about us, it wouldn't take much for them to connect you to Spiderman, especially if they catch us out together on Christmas day."

"Oh. I didn't think of that." It kind of bothered him that he hadn't. Honestly, he hadn't been as worried about the whole press thing lately. It'd died down and he figured if they just keep being careful then no one would ever find out Tony had adopted him.

"Let me see if anyone else on the team wants to tag along." Tony suggested, pulling out his phone to shoot off some texts. "We can even pair off and go to different group homes, so it'll still be me and you, but this way it won't be as suspicious if anything ever comes up."

"That sounds good." Peter nodded.

Once Tony finished texting, he stared at him with a warm twinkle in his eyes.

"What? Why are you looking at me like that?"

"You're a good kid."

Peter shrugged and looked over his shoulder at the tree to cover his blush. He still wasn't good at taking compliments. "So…presents?" He asked with an eager smile.

"Presents." Tony agreed with a nod.

"This is too much." Peter said for what felt like the millionth time as he finished opening his last present. "You got me way too much stuff."

"I've never heard a kid complain so much about getting presents. Is this normal? I don't think it's normal. Do I need to have you checked out?"

Peter rolled his eyes.

"Do you like it?" Tony asked with a grin that'd been plastered to his face ever since Peter had started opening presents.

"I love it." Peter turned over the Star Wars Super Star Destroyer Lego box in his hands, examining the picture on the front. "But it's still too much."

Peter put it down and glanced over at the rest of his present haul, trying to keep his head from spinning. Sometimes he forgot his dad was a literal billionaire but this had reminded him. Tony had gotten him not one, but three, really expensive Lego sets along with the newest Playstation video game console that hadn't even been released on the market yet, some video games to go with it, more nice clothes than he knew what to do with, a pair of sunglasses that looked like they cost more than his entire wardrobe, and a brand new laptop.

"Just let me spoil you this time. I'll do better next year."

Peter snorted. "Yeah right."

He set the Lego box down by the others and stood from his spot on the floor to walk over to the couch to give his dad a hug. "Thank you."

"You're welcome kid."

"Sorry I didn't really get you much. You're really hard to buy for."

"I love everything you got me. Don't worry." Tony gave him a squeeze and patted his back.

"Um, actually I have one more present for you." Peter said, pulling away from the hug.

"Oh did I miss one?" Tony glanced back over at the tree.

"No. It's not under the tree. It's in my room. Let me go get it." He bounded off the couch to his room, excitement warring with nerves.

"A secret present you had to hide from me? Now I'm definitely intrigued." Tony called out after him.

Peter laughed even as his heart started to race, nerves winning out. It took no time at all to grab the gift adorned in red and gold from under his bed and bring it back out to the living room. He deposited it onto Tony's lap with little fanfare, just an insecure smile, before sitting down on the couch next to his dad.

"First of all, I love the wrap job. Why didn't you do all my presents in my color scheme?" Tony joked, clearly trying to lessen Peter's anxiety.

"Because they're not Christmas colors, and this one's not just a Christmas present. I mean it is…but it isn't." Peter tried not to trip over his words as he explained.

"Now I'm even more curious." Tony eyed the present in his lap.

"Open it."

Tony pulled the ribbon off, flipped the present over and slid a finger through the crease of wrapping paper taped together at the back. Peter swallowed hard as his dad removed the paper from the simple thin white box. Tony glanced up at him briefly before he lifted the lid off. He quirked his head in confusion at the sight of the stack of papers.

"This looks like something Pepper would give me for Christmas." He joked and then started pulling the papers out of the box. "What do we have here?"

"Um it's…" Peter trailed off as he took the papers and flipped them to the end part where it would be clearer to his dad, skipping over all the other wordy legalese. He handed the papers back and pointed. "Read this part."

Tony frowned but studied the papers in his hand as Peter studied him. He could tell the exact moment his dad realized what the papers meant. His eyebrows flew up and his mouth opened in shock as his head whipped over to look at him.

"Peter." Tony said and Peter didn't know if it was a good or a bad thing that he sounded gutted. Hopefully good.

"Do you like it? I um—"

Before he could say anything else, Tony wrapped an arm around him and pulled him into his chest, kissing the top of his head roughly. "I love it. I can't even tell you how much I love it. But kid, you didn't have to do this."

Peter pulled back a little so he could look up at him, and he could see his dad was tearing up. "I know. I wanted to."

"It's… I…" Tony shook his head when he couldn't figure out what to say.

"Wow. I don't know if I've ever seen you speechless before." Peter teased, nerves receding because he'd obviously done a good job with the present. He hadn't overstepped.

Tony looked back down at the papers in his hands and read the name printed there. "Peter Parker Stark. It has a nice ring to it."

"That's what Pepper said."

"Pepper helped you?"

"Yeah she was great. She actually had to sneak some of the pages in for you to sign when she gave you some other SI paperwork. Good thing you never read anything, right? Um, I hope that was ok…"

"It's more than ok." Tony smiled at him, eyes crinkling at the corners, still shining with unshed tears.

"Good because you are seriously hard to buy for."

Tony laughed.

"Now I really am your son." He teased.

Tony wrapped him back up in a hug. "You were already my son, with or without my name."

"Yeah I know." And he did. "But it's still kind of nice, isn't it?"

"Very." Tony kissed his hair again. "I love you kid."

"I love you too."

"Best Christmas present ever."

"Good." Peter smiled and closed his eyes as he relaxed into Tony's side.

Tony gave him another loving squeeze with the arm he had draped across his shoulders. "Merry Christmas kid."

"Merry Christmas Dad."

A/N: Thanks so much for all the lovely comments! I hope you enjoyed some more fluff with this chapter - a chapter about my favorite holiday (Xmas) during the week of my second favorite holiday (Halloween). Everyone keep staying safe out there!