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Y’know how Pete tried to compliment mj? (‘…You look pretty..’ ‘Therefore I have value?’)

Y’know?

Peter, later on in their relationship, as the absolutely pretty boy he is, would use that same line on her.

Tony, who was in a coma when those two kids got together. Is terrified of Michelle….and very confused by why this boy is saying ‘And therefore I have value?’ Every time his girlfriend, who is also pretty but just doesn’t try—neither of them do—, compliments him.

May? May knows. Happy knows. Pepper knows. Mj knows. Peter knows.

Tony does not.

Also, Tony is very confused by the relationship.

Michelle Jones-Watson, sure she’s very smart, pretty—even if she prefers to look like a hobo, is a cynical young girl. Dry dark humor. Chronically unimpressed. Into dark shit. Obsessed with true crime.

Peter Parker, awkward. Frantic. Overly-energetic.

They’re total opposites.

Tony, had thought maybe the kid would have some crush on a sweet nice girl. Like…that Gwen kid.

Not her. Who, Peter had apparently confessed to by giving her a Black Dahlia necklace. From Italy. While they were in Venice.

Y’know, like the murder.

Even now, years later. She still wears it. Everyday.

In the back of his mind tony is like ‘I was in on the verge of death, in a coma, and the freshly resurrected kid apparently decides to get a girlfriend??’

It’s like the plot of a campy indie movie.

One day, Tony feeling nostalgic—lies, it was Jarvis’ birthday. Tells the kid about Jarvis.

The man who was his father, not Obadiah. Not Howard.

Jarvis.

No, not the AI. The butler. Yes, there was a butler.

That’s who Jarvis, the AI, was based off of.

How Jarvis was the man Howard never was. The man who fathered and taught him. When Obadiah and Howard abused.

Tony’s hurt when the kid doesn’t listen. Just sketches mindlessly on his sketchbook, with the occasional ‘uh-huh’s, and ‘mhm’s

He doesn’t show how hurt he is the kid didn’t listen.

He just thought that maybe…maybe, the kid of all people, would understand grief.

Especially over a father that technically wasn’t biological.

Y’kniw, the man, the myth, the legend? Ben Parker?

Next day, after the kid went home yesterday. He walks into the lab.

Outside the window, he sees a piece of paper, attached to the outside of the window.

With webs.

The kid?

The paper was white, folded in three. With a heart, few smileys, and a few stars on the outside. Signed with a spider symbol.

He sends one of the Iron Man suits to go grab it.

And once they bring it back, he rips open the tape, and—

Oh.

Fuck.

It’s a drawing, an accurate one.

A good one.

Of Jarvis.

From the details he gave the kid yesterday.

Oh.

So that’s what he was sketching.

AND TONY CALLING MORGAN HIS SECOND CHANCE BECAUSE PETER WAS HIS FIRST???

I feel like not a lot of people acknowledge the sheer in-your-face subtext of how those four heartbreaking words about Peter where the first thing Tony had said to Steve In years.

Also, *the* kid. Not Peter, not Spider-Man. The kid.

Might I even go so far as to say, Steve’s ‘Tony, we lost’ is partially why Tony later blows up on Steve in the movie—, pre-time-skip?

Tony first says ‘I couldn’t stop him’

Steve replies ‘Neither could I’

Then, Tony gets vulnerable. Something he never does, especially not with Steve, especially not after everything.

After Steve knew—, knew Bucky killed his parents. And didn’t tell Tony, and then left him stranded in Siberia.

But it’s Peter, and he needed to tell someone. It doesn’t matter that it’s Steve, it just matters that it was Peter.

So he actively made them stop walking, and actually look at eachother so he can say this.

Physically forcing them to stop walking, because this information is too heavy to be said casually without breaking stride. He stops, so Steve will stop. He looks at Steve, eye contact.

Tony is weakened, injured, dehydrated, and starved. And has died even, for a bit. Due to lack of oxygen.

So, right now he needs medical attention.

So malnourished Nebula and Steve had to actively help him walk.

But he stops, he makes them stop walking. And he looks in the eyes of the man who kept the secret of his parents death. For years. And tells him.

So when Tony says ‘I lost the kid’ he says it slowly, nodding slightly.

Then Steve says ‘Tony, we lost’ and Tony frowns and looks confused.

Tony having reminders of Peter in his own home? The photo sat high and visible In their daily life, in the kitchen above the sink, next to a picture of Howard and Maria Stark?

Morgan surely saw the picture at the very least once, a picture of her daddy and a boy, next to a picture of grandpa and grandma.

A boy with daddy who vaguely resembles daddy enough. Enough for her to assume in her little five-year-old mind maybe ‘This boy looks a bit like daddy, and his picture is with grandma and grandpa. He must be my brother.’

Tony, without hesitation, calling Morgan his second chance?? When the avengers (Steve, Nat, and Scott) approached him with the time heist idea?

About the second chance to bring everyone back?

(‘I got my second chance right here, Cap. Can’t roll the dice on it.)

One glance, one single glance at the picture he took with the kid for the coverup, the ruse, of an internship to cover up the boys illegal activities.

A glance at that silly half-assed picture with the upside down certificate and the bunny ears.

And that’s all it took for him to get the nudge into figuring out time travel.

I can’t help but think, he must wonder what it would’ve been like if he ever gave the young child a real internship.

A real mentorship.

Happy blatantly stating to Peter that he doesn’t believe Tony would’ve done—wouldn’t have gone through with what he did if Tony didn’t know Peter would’ve been here after Tony was gone.

They were not that close when we saw them during homecoming, but are notably closer in Infinity War and Endgame. Even bantering lightly.

I can’t help but wonder what happened in that year we didn’t see.

After Peter had rejected the offer, thinking it was a test. And promptly, accidentally, unknowingly, prompting Tony’s proposal to pepper.

Tony is a man who learns from his mistakes, so I don’t doubt he was definitely more hands-on, after viewing how badly the distant mentor thing went.

Awe wait I just realized this as I’m actively typing this out💔 the 17A protocol? When the nano suit was launched bc Pete was losing oxygen as the ship pulled him into the atmosphere???

Omgg Noo what if since Peter was sixteen…17A stood for that literally. What if it was a gift for his seventeenth birthday💔💔