InsaneJournal

Who: Peter Parker & Tony Stark
What: A Talk between Iron-Father and Spider-Son
When: Some time shortly after this
Rating/Warnings: Green

It had been a while since Tony donned a suit and flown out to Queens. He missed flying. It was one of the biggest perks of being Iron Man, was being able to fly wherever he wanted, whenever he wanted. Being grounded from that really sucked.

As for the reason for this visit, Tony wasn't really looking forward to a disappointed teenager. He only hoped that the kid could understand what he was aiming at when he ended The Avengers over the radio. That disappointment was already palpable.

He landed the repaired Mach Forty-Seven on the roof of the building they were meeting on with a loud clank, the faceplate of the helmet retracting up into the housing so Tony's face showed. He was glad he had heat in this thing, because it was a balmy forty-something degrees. He hoped the kid bundled up and then blinked a few times, wondering when the hell he started to worry about Peter Parker bundling up.

"Ok? Weird," Tony muttered, as he waited for Peter to show up.

Peter found his way to the roof a few minutes after Mr Stark had arrived. He hadn’t bothered wrapping up too much as he didn’t think the conversation would be that long. What was there to say anyway? ’Sorry, kid, but the Avengers are no more and won’t be anymore. Honestly? This is the best thing, it’s good you didn’t join us. Fourteen, fifteen - however old you are is too young to be made redundant anyway.’

Zipping up his hoodie, he pushed the door to the rooftop open and flipped his hood up, walking over to where he could see Mr Stark in the Iron Man suit. Did he call him Iron Man when he was all suited up like that? Probably. Iron Man was on the roof of his building. Two years ago, Peter would have been beside himself with excitement but now he was… a little less? It was still cool and Ned would be so furious with him for not telling him that he had a meeting with Iron Man because Iron Man. But he’d deal with that problem later on.

“Sorry, had to explain to May I wasn’t going out to get punched or thrown off a bridge this time,” he said, rubbing his hand through his hair under the hood and then tugging his sleeves down over his hands. He didn’t want to sound like a petulant kid but right now he felt like one. He felt like he’d been all amped up to prove himself to be part of something and now that had been taken away from him and he wasn’t okay with that.

Oh yeah, Tony now realized while looking at Peter that it was a punch to the gut. One he hadn't even realized before he went blurting that out, and now that he did? He felt a pang of regret.

"It's ok, kid. You're here now. Looking like you're going to freeze your ass off."

And that was as much as he was going to vocalize worrying about it. For now. He had a heating system but this kid didn't, so he better get to the point.

"All right, so I've got some explaining to do. Listen up and let's get this out of the way. Yes, the Avengers are buried. I'll be honest with you, it wasn't working out and it was an army of me. And with the blame game going on? I don't want that touching you. I don't want it touching your aunt, either. There'd be a ton of scrutiny on you, all of the time. People would tail you. Bad guys showing up twenty-four seven. I tried taking a vacation with Pep, a few months ago? Guess what. Some maniac in a super tank showed up and blew up half the building. On our vacation. In another country. Unfun."

Tony reached out and even though he was in an armored suit, gave Peter a surprisingly gentle Iron Man pit pat on the shoulder.

"I know you don't want that. I don't want that for you. And I don't want every government playing the blame game at the Avengers as an entity. We don't need it anymore. Because we have a secret network. And you're already a part of that and have the freedom to move around more."

Tony held both arms out, like he was gesturing all around him. At a bigger picture that only he and Peter were privileged enough to see.

“I don’t get why I couldn’t be part of the Avengers and keep my secret identity. You went public, I wouldn’t do that. I couldn’t do that. No one cares who I am anyway. It’s not like there’s a reddit about trying to find out my identity like there-” Peter cut himself off, folding his arms and sticking his hands under his armpits, as much because he was chilly as it was a defensive posture. He wasn’t about to tell Mr Stark that he and Ned had been trawling Reddit and some gruesomely dark corners of the internet trying to understand what was out there and what people knew about the other Avengers. Apparently, quite a lot. There was still quite the fascination and some of the things he’d seen said about the female Avengers had made his eyes bleed. If eyes were able to bleed.

He cleared his throat and reminded himself that it was a good thing that people weren’t obsessed with trying to find out his secret identity and that he definitely didn’t want that. Didn’t want that kind of attention.

He drew in a breath as Tony talked and just shrugged a shoulder. “The network’s just for the people that got punched by the timeline,” he pointed out. “What about everyone else who hasn’t been punched by the timeline?”

He understood that the network was a way for them to communicate but it wasn’t the same. It wasn’t the same as being part of something so much bigger and better. Something that saved the world. And that was what he wanted to do. He wanted to be like Iron Man, like Captain America. He wanted to do the right thing. On a big scale. To stop other people dying, to stop them from- to stop losing people. “It’s not the same, Mr Stark.”

Tony gave Peter one of those warning stares like he better not go there, because he was skimming through Reddit and Twitter, and had Friday monitoring for keywords. He was sure there was some sort of link there about what was going on with the weapons. And some of the things that were said about the female Avengers were enough to make even Tony Stark - noted hedonist - want to burn his eyeballs out with napalm.

"People care who you are," Tony said, the armor whirring as he bent forward to get Peter to look him in the eyes. "It's not meant to be the same. Because things can't stay the same. It was broken, and I was just trying to patch things up as I went. You aren't a patch. You're a part of something bigger. It's the Avengers Network so we can try to help everyone out there from whatever's coming at us all."

He waved one hand around to indicate the city around them. Hell, maybe even the entire planet they were on.

"I know you're pissed at me. Guess what? It was still the right thing to do," he explained to Peter, standing up straight. "Because all the Accords did was put a big federal target marker on everyone who signed. You read what happened to Thor, right? You know how they tried to blow me up? I don't want that to be you. The Feds would know who you and May were, the moment you signed up. So that's why all of you? Now you're like the Secret Avengers. Congratulations. Welcome to the secret superhero team. You can still help all these people, and you can help each other. And yeah, I do think it's better that way. For everyone else, for your aunt, and for you. I don't want any more targets on anyone's backs. I sure as hell don't want one on your back."

He was going to have a coronary if that happened, he sweared to god. He hoped that Peter would understand why it needed done, even if right now it probably stung to have that taken away. But there wasn't much there left to offer the kid, anyway. Other than him, and Vision, who hadn't been around since the timeline anomaly first made itself apparent.

Peter chose wisely not to comment on the fact that he probably already had a target on his back from having stopped a couple of guys with big guns a couple of weeks back. One of the guys got away with the weapons, but he’d managed to get a location. Well, the Lady Sif had managed to get a location. So he knew where he needed to go, and they would be going together to stop them. And hopefully at least remove their stash of weapons.

It was a start, right?

He cleared his throat and shrugged his shoulders. “It’s still not-” he bit back on saying that it wasn’t the same because that was the point.

Rocking up onto his toes, Peter asked the question that had slowly been burning on his mind for a while. “So… if they’re that bad… why did you sign them?”

Tony didn't even hesitate. When you made a mistake, you owned up to it. You tried to fix it. He wasn't beyond some grandstanding and obstinance, but he also wasn't about to do the wrong thing in front of a teenager. Not if he wanted Peter to be better than he was.

"Because I made a dumb mistake," he fessed up, without a second's hesitation. "Wow, there's a lot of reasons. I knew it was a mistake, when I went to talk to Captain freakin' America. I thought there was still some good in it, or some good things in it. I thought I had more leverage to make adjustments, than what I was given afterward. It's complex, and I goofed. I do that sometimes. It's why Sokovia happened."

Tony hadn't missed anything, because he was watching that kid like a hawk. "It's still not...what. Go ahead and say it. You know I'm not gonna mince words. Maybe drop kick them. Blow them up. Fly them to Mars on Elon's next space adventure...."

Tony rolled his eyes upward and made a 'ehhhh' sound, like any of those were an option.

Peter stuck his hands in his pockets and leaned backwards against a large pipe that stuck out of the roof of the building. He looked at Mr Stark for a moment, long and hard like he was trying to figure out what he wanted his reaction to be. Honestly, he had no idea. He wasn’t sure that he had been expecting Mr Stark to admit that the Accords were a mistake. He felt embarrassed, delayed embarrassment sure but still embarrassment. He’d run in to help because Mr Stark had asked him, because he thought it had been the right thing to do but… but had it? And should Mr Stark have involved him at all back then if he just wanted to keep Peter out of it now?

He rubbed his hand over his face and then returned it to his pocket again, shrugging his shoulders.

“I get that you wanna keep me safe,” he said finally, “It’s not that I don’t understand that.” It wasn’t what he had been intending on saying before, but it worked now. “‘Cause I do. But I think I’m gonna have to do the dangerous stuff. So… if I’m part of this secret thing… you’re gonna actually call me, right? It won’t be like before…?” He met Mr Stark’s eyes, trying desperately not to look like a hopeful kid. He hoped he was successful.

Mr. Stark should not have involved Mr. Parker in that at all, but he was desperate to do what he thought was the right thing and recognized that same attitude in Peter, the desire to do what he thought was right. It was after the airport went all sorts of wrong, that Tony realized what the Accords could do, when he saw Wanda at the Raft with a shock collar and straight jacket on. If he could reverse time, he would have. If he could have punched Ross in the teeth, he would have. Woulda, coulda, shoulda.

Instead, Tony was pressing his mouth into a hard line of frustration at himself and that he dragged Parker into any of it, and he felt guilty all over again. For another thing he had done.

He tried to think of a way to put things so Peter might know he was wanted and important, but also not go down some sort of reckless road that Tony would have gone down, if he was the same age.

"You know, when I asked you come to Germany, I didn't know how wrong it was either. I wanted to do what was right. I know you do too. So yeah, you're going to get called on. Some stuff's probably gonna be dangerous. I don't know what's going to happen, but we both know what you can do. I just...kid, I don't want you dive bombing into every dangerous situation. Not on your own. If you know something's dangerous or wrong, give a shout out. Even if you have to text Happy. Or have Karen get ahold of me. Got it?"

Peter smiled, “I got it, Mr Stark,” he said, “I won’t let you down.” It was clear he still had a lot to prove: he needed to prove that he was trustworthy, that this was the right choice to be made. That trusting him to be there when he was needed and that Peter would get on with what was necessary in the interim was the right decision.

He rubbed the back of his neck, pushing off his hood and exposing himself to the cool breeze. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up due to the cold.

“I mean, I got shoved off a bridge a few weeks back and I’m in no hurry to do that again.”

Tony was smiling up until the point where being pushed off a bridge was mentioned, and his head looked like it was about to twist off his neck and fly off into the cosmos while lit on fire. He scrunched up his face because that hurt both his neck and his brain.

"Ok, hold up a sec....what?" Tony wondered if he could find out who did it and rocket punch their faces in, but that probably wasn't the right response. The kid was obviously all right, if he was standing there without his hood on, out in the cold. "Just...okay, tell me how you got shoved off a bridge." Oh, right, that's not the only thing. "And put your hood up. Damn. It's cold out."

He looked away like it wasn't a big deal. Don't make a big deal out of that. It's nothing.

Peter looked at Mr Stark for a moment like he’d grown a second head before just tugging his hood up against the chill in the air. Frustratingly, despite all the cool things that had happened to him after he’d been bitten by that (possibly radioactive, he still wasn’t sure on that) spider, immunity to temperature changes was one thing that he hadn’t developed and therefore he did still feel the cold as keenly as a skinny sixteen year old would. If not more so because he was pretty skinny. May had said that to him; no meat on his bones. It was why she’d taken to feeding him more. Or possibly because she was hoping he might become horribly obese and then he wouldn’t be able to go outside and fight crime.

He rocked up on his toes and shrugged. “You know, stopping a bad guy, he shoved me off the bridge.” It wasn’t a big deal, he hadn’t really been all that hurt. “And then I met this guy called Frank who walked me home.”

He knew that look and patently ignored it. If Tony Stark wanted to grow a second head, he probably could do that. And he had been the recipient of that sort of staring at, since age....forever ago. He's immune to it now.

"That's great. Glad you had someone to walk you home, too. But can you try not to get shoved off bridges, or, you know, shot at? Because there's some anti-superhero sentiment out there, and I don't want you getting smashed with a giant newspaper. Look. I gotta go work on some upgrades but....."

He took a good long look at this well-meaning, good-hearted kid standing there before him, and tried to ignore a stab of guilt. They were all caught up in this mess of a timeline, but it was his fault that he dragged this kid into his mess. So he felt responsible. Even so, he knew what Peter could do, and it was some truly amazing stuff. If anyone should be an Avenger, maybe it was a sixteen-year-old from Queens, who tried too hard to be good. That's why Tony reached out one arm, pointed a couple fingers in a makeshift sword, and tapped the kid on one shoulder and then the other. Like he was knighting him.

"You know what? Now you're a Secret Avenger. Go forth and protect the world," Tony said, "but don't be a dumbass about it."

This qualifies as a Stark brand pearl of wisdom.