"Of course he listened to you. Sometimes you give pretty decent advice, Stark, surprised you didn't realize know that about yourself." She turned to face him, crossing her legs beneath her as he sprawled out, his eyes up on the ceiling and feet on the floor. She used to lay on Steve's bed in exactly that position to talk like this, when there were things to say that you knew needed to be said out loud, when you didn't necessarily want to make eye contact as you said them. It was a sort of halfway place to go, between being alone and letting another person inside the moment with you.
Of course Peter had kept it up. She'd seen the way he looked at Tony in Germany, that absolute hero worship. What it had meant to this kid to know that Tony Stark had looked at him and seen something special. How much he'd wanted to make him proud. And Tony had known what to do with that, that was the other thing. He knew how to guide a budding baby superhero.
It tugged something at her heart, that the thing Tony had wanted most of all was to teach Peter about limits. About pacing himself, learning to walk before he tried to run. Absolutely nothing of which Tony himself had done, or anyone else they knew, and here he was: the stuff he wished he'd known how to do or been able to do, passing it on as a lesson. Recognizing what the right choice was and highlighting it for someone else, even if he hadn't followed it quite to the letter. Responsible adulting, Clint would probably say, and it was as good a phrase as any. Like he'd been trying on being a dad before he'd become an official one.
"You've been doing this superhero gig a long time," she added. "If I was a teenager, I'd probably have taken tips from you."