#aslanscompass

Tony was working on the table behind him. If Peter were to describe this to himself from a few years ago, he would have been sure it was a dream. As it was, the only way Peter knew he was still there was from the intermittent clinks of tools being picked up and placed down. Their companionable silence was only broken by the soft music playing through FRIDAY’s speakers. It took Peter a while to admit Tony normally played music that was too loud for his enhanced senses, but once he did, Tony made sure to keep it at a comfortable level.  

They had just finished with their lunch break and Peter had snuck in another couple of slices of pizza back into the workshop despite Tony’s only-semi-joking glare. He continued to eat them as he worked on his project. His suit’s drone had been a little jerky the last time it flew, so he was hoping to get it back into working order by the time the night was over. A drop of sauce fell onto one of the bigger pieces and, without thinking, Peter licked his thumb and swiped it across the spill to clean it off. As a reward, he got a short, sharp shock from the piece. He hissed through his teeth.

“Bad…” he scolded, rubbing his thumb and forefinger together to try and get rid of the buzzy feeling. 

“Yeah, Pete?” Tony called from a few feet away. Peter looked up at the mention of his name just to see Tony freeze. 

“What’s up, Mr. Stark?” Peter cautiously asked, his forehead creasing. 

“You just called me Dad,” Tony spoke as if he was talking down a wild animal. Peter’s eyebrows flew upward. 

“I--” Peter blinked a few times. His brain was having a difficult time processing the words Tony said. He shook his head a bit, hoping to make sense of the situation. “No, I--”

“It’s okay kid, I know it must be weird having me be so involved in your life. I can back off if you want me to.” Tony took off his tinted glasses as he stood from his chair. 

“No, Mr. Stark--” Peter was about to say he wanted anything but that when Tony interrupted him, continuing with his rushed speech. 

“I don’t want you to think I’m replacing your father for you. Or your uncle, for that matter. I figured it was only a matter of time before this happened.” Peter felt like he was going to get whiplash from this conversation. Tony was starting to pace around his desk and Peter could tell he was getting anxious. 

“Only a matter of time? Listen, Mr. Stark--” Tony was a freight train. Peter couldn’t get a word in. 

“If you want to call me Dad, I’m okay with it. Really. It’ll just take some getting used to, but as I said, I’m trying to break the cycle of shame. There’ll be some ribbing from Rhodey, but I can handle that. I’ll make sure I get the brunt of it. Wait ‘till he sees me tell you about the time I caught him cuddling his pillow like a--”

“Tony!” Peter’s shriller-than-usual voice finally got his attention. Tony’s head snapped to Peter, his mouth hanging slightly open before he shut it with a click. Peter huffed out a breath before saying, “I didn’t call you Dad.”

Tony’s eyebrows drew together as he said, “No, you did. I just heard you say it.”

“I said bad, with a B. Droney shocked me.” Peter looked back over his shoulder at the offending piece of tech. This was all Droney’s fault. 

“I definitely heard Dad. FRIDAY?” They didn’t have to wait more than a second before FRIDAY came online. 

“Peter’s right, boss.” FRIDAY’s Irish lilt washed over the room and Tony slumped back into his chair. 

“Oh. Nevermind then, forget I said anything.” Tony cleared his throat and put his glasses back on before returning to the tools laying on his desk. 

Peter turned back around and looked at the drone guts in front of him. He tried to remember where he was at in the process, but couldn’t stop thinking about the way Tony looked at him when he thought he had called him Dad. For just a moment before he closed it off, Peter saw a look of pure affection and pride on his face. He could count on one hand the number of times he’s seen Tony look like that, and he wouldn’t need most of his fingers. 

The same piece shocked Peter again while he was lost in his thoughts. He made sure not to say anything out loud this time, instead just letting the slight zing make its way through the tip of his finger. 

Tony was the main male adult in Peter’s life. It didn’t help that he had looked up to him since even before he saved his life at the Stark Expo in 2010. Peter did see him as a father figure, but he couldn’t just say that to him. Tony’d probably be weirded out by the creepy Spider-Kid that’s overstepping his personal boundaries. He sighed. 

They had to talk about this. Peter knew how Tony avoided anything to do with emotions. If he didn’t say anything now, they would both just ignore it and never bring it up again. He had to bite the bullet. It was the mature thing to do-- May would be proud of him for being so adult. He chewed on the inside of his cheek as he thought about where to start. 

“Mr. Stark,” Tony looked up from his hands at the sound of Peter’s voice, “do you want me to call you Dad?”

There’s a dull clang as Tony loses his grip on the screwdriver he was holding. 

“Give a guy some warning, Pete,” he finally sputters, his voice reedier than normal.  

“You’re avoiding the question.”

“Yeah, I’m avoiding the question, it’s a big question!” Tony sputters out nervously, and Peter tries to hide his discomfort at the slight increase in volume. 

“That’s-- I’m not mad at you.” He lowers his voice back to a normal level. He sighs and runs a hand over his face, removing his glasses in the process. “Listen, you can call me whatever makes you comfortable. I just assumed that at some point, you’d call me Dad on accident. I did it to Jarvis a few times when I was younger, it’s nothing to be ashamed of. Plenty of tykes call their teachers Mom or Dad, and I’m certainly teaching you enough.”

“I’m not ashamed. I just haven’t called anyone Dad in almost a decade, so it’s not going to happen by accident.”

 A beat of silence. Peter hated the sad look that crossed Tony’s face when he alluded to his dead parents. There was only so much pity he could handle in one day. He pretended to be focused on the hem of his shirt so he didn’t have to look at Tony. 

“You still haven’t answered the question,” Peter murmured. 

He didn’t know why he was pushing this question so hard. What did he want Tony to say? It’s not like Peter wanted to call him Dad, he just… wanted some validation, he supposed. It was so hard to get a read on Tony. 

“I don’t know, Pete. I don’t know. Calling me Dad is a lot of pressure and I’m definitely not the ‘Dad-type.’” Tony punctuated his words with finger-quotes. He looked away from Peter and added in a lower voice, “For a while, I thought that I could be.” 

Peter looked back up to Tony to see him leaning over his desk. He looked tired. Peter had read the articles online about him and Captain America. He’d also read a few of the many stories published about Tony’s life. He knew that the people close to him kept slipping through his fingers. Peter didn’t want to be another name on that evergrowing list.

“I mean,” Peter let the words flow slowly out of his mouth, feeling the curve of every vowel, “you don’t have to be called Dad to be a big part of someone’s life. I never called Ben my dad and I don’t call May my mom, but they both still mean a lot to me even though I call them by their names.” 

He let his nervous words hang in the air, hoping that Tony would understand what he was saying without him having to explicitly say it. Tony was his family in a way that didn’t have a label on a standard family tree. He was paternal in an estranged uncle sort of way, with just a dash of older brother. Peter could already picture him being there for his graduation, his wedding, the birth of his child… But he’s only been actually spending time with him for a handful of months, so he couldn’t shove all of his emotional orphan-baggage onto him. He glanced up at Tony, expecting the worst. 

Tony was looking at him with warmth in his eyes. The tension in his shoulders had finally started to dissipate and he looked away with a small grin. Whatever message Tony had interpreted, he must have liked it. Peter found himself smiling in return. 

“Alright kid, back to work.” If Peter didn’t know better, he would have thought Tony was ignoring what he said. But he knew that Tony kept his cards close to his chest; he showed the majority of his affection without words. “I want that drone to be in ship-shape before you go on patrol again. Can’t have Queens’ favorite vigilante going around with a faulty suit, imagine what the press would say.”

Peter couldn’t suppress his smile as he turned back around and started working again. He was finally able to focus clearly on it. As he continued searching for the fault in the electronics, Tony started to hum along to the music. 

After a few hours had passed, Droney was finally flying smoothly around the lab. Peter was busy piloting it around the machinery when he felt Tony clap his hand on his shoulder. 

“Good work, kid.” Tony’s words caused a flush of pride in Peter’s chest. He mumbled a thank you. “And for what it’s worth, I like having someone else around in the lab. I’m looking forward to the rest of the summer.” Peter tried to control his inner child at being praised by Iron Man. He knew a statement in passing like that was the Tony Stark equivalent of singing praises from the rooftop. 

“I am too. I’ve just got that Decathalon field trip to MoMA next week, ‘cause they scheduled it for after school got out for some reason. But after that, I’ll be over here practically every day. I mean, if that’s cool with you. I don’t want to--” Tony cut him off with a slight squeeze on his shoulder.

“Kid, May and I already talked about it. You can come over whenever you want. God knows she deserves a break from putting up with a certain spiderling.” Peter huffed dramatically as Tony took his hand off of his shoulder and leaned against the desk. “Speaking of a certain spiderling, we need to take a break so you don’t get scoliosis, hunched over the table like that. What do you want to do? Your choice, as long as it involves a bit of movement.” 

Peter thought for a second before lighting up with an idea. 

“Do you want to go patrolling with me?” He hoped he didn’t come off as too excited. He leaned back in his chair casually (he hoped). Tony smiled knowingly at him. 

“I was thinking of something more along the lines of walking to the freezer to get some ice cream, but huh. Saving kittens from trees, helping with directions, returning bikes? I certainly don’t have anything better to do.” He gave Peter’s shoulder another pat before walking back to his own workspace where his nanotech housing unit sat. Peter couldn’t stop a grin from spreading across his face. 

“Go get your suit, Underoos. We’ve got some petty criminals to scare the bejeesus out of.”

Peter wasted no time in grabbing his backpack and finding a bathroom to change into his suit. Once it was on, he gave himself a moment to bask in the state of his life. He thought he would never recover from losing Ben. But now, about to fly around New York with Iron Man, he felt happy. Genuinely happy. He grinned at himself in the mirror from behind the mask before rushing out to meet up with Tony. He hoped summer would never end. 

He had all the time in the world.