#ironson

For: @joyful-soul-collector not exactly what you were asking for but its the best I could do with the inspiration I had at the time

Ao3 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27195556

Rhodey had left them alone for ten seconds and now Tony and Peter had made a mess of the kitchen. 

“We just wanted to make you some cookies,” Peter said looking at his Dad pouting. He had somehow inherited his papa’s puppy dog look that made him seem more innocent than he was. 

“I guess since the two of you were making cookies I can let it slide,” Rhodey said, kissing Tony’s cheek before kissing his son’s forehead. Peter giggled as he said he was too old for forehead kisses.

“Your dad gives me forehead kisses,” Tony said.

“But you two are married, Papa,” Peter said. 

“Yes, but forehead kisses are for family,” Tony told his son. Peter nodded. 

Harley doesn’t know what having a dad is like.

The only dad he’s ever known walked out of his life the day he turned seven. On his birthday. April Fools, no less. Happy birthday to him, and April Fools, your dad’s never coming back. They were supposed to have cake, he remembers, because he remembers everything about that day, remembers how his dad kissed his mom on the cheek and took the beat-up pick-up truck to get the cake, remembers how he. Never. Came. Back.

Remembers how his mom didn’t cry.

Remembers how he didn’t cry, either.

Before he left, Jack Keener wasn’t much of a dad anyway. So. Maybe it was a good thing he left. With Jack gone, bruises don’t darken his mom’s skin anymore. She doesn’t go to bed crying anymore, except on the days when the mail comes at the end of the month, and she thinks Harley can’t hear her.

Even at seven, eight, nine, Harley knows how to comfort his mom. Chamomile tea, her favorite sweatshirt from college, and taking the bills away for her to look at in the morning. He goes through them once she falls asleep; he’s always been good with numbers. That doesn’t mean they make sense, not completely, but he knows she needs a new job, and he can figure out with a few calculations that they can’t afford the school she was talking about sending him to.

He tells her in the morning that he’s okay with public school.

Public school isn’t okay with him.

He has to hide the bruises from his mom, because he knows she’ll cry, and he doesn’t know how to comfort her when she’s crying about him, instead of numbers. Because numbers make sense. Harley doesn’t make sense.

That’s why he gets the bruises in the first place, after all.

No one knows he’s getting bullied; no one that cares about him, that is. The whole school knows. Macy Keener doesn’t.

And then. Someone breaks into the garage–his workshop, the only place where he can be himself–in the middle of winter, in the middle of the night, in the middle of Christmas break, the most stressful time of year for his mom. So he goes to investigate himself.

It’s Tony Stark.

And Tony Stark, somehow, knows that he’s getting bullied.

Tony Stark, somehow, looks at him, and understands.

Kiddo, he says, and kid, and Harls.

And Harley almost, almost, thinks that maybe this is what having a dad is like.

But then Tony leaves.

shania twain - soldier

finneas - shelter

Late, Father wishes Mr. Stark!