Sweet Child O' Mine
It was indeed going to be a long one, Tony should have had a massive glass of water before this. Maybe it would have fought off the severe headache he was gonna leave with.
It was question after question after question, he knew that was the point but good god did these kids ever draw a blank? Apparently not.
Tony was drawn out of his thoughts by Rhodes nudging his shoulder. It was his turn for a question, of course. If he had to participate anylonger he was going to make it fun. He looked around the room for a moment before his eyes settled on the perfect person.
Flash
Tony all but smirked and and nodded his head towards flash, “you, red shirt, flush or flash or something what's your question?”
Flash momentarily looked embarrassed for standing up and clearing his throat, he straightened out his shirt and matched Tony's smirk. “My question isn't really about you, it's for you but you get it. See, i was just wondering as one does, what little miss penny parker over there had to do to get here, i mean obviously she didn't get this by being smart. So, just be straight with me. What'd she have to do?”
Before Tony could even comprehend what flash had said Harley was up and out of his seat , standing in front of Flash in no time. There was a brief moment of silence as everyone watched, holding their breaths and when Harley swung at him the whole class ran to one side of the room not wanting to get caught up in this. Flash was on the ground in no time and Harley was on top of him in even less. Harley had forgiven a lot. He had looked past things for pete's sake and he refused to do it again, he refused to let anyone talk about peter like that and he hoped flash would become a lesson for anyone thinking about it.
Before he could do any serious damage Tony was there pulling him off and dragging him to the Avengers so they could hold onto the younger boy. The moment Tony knew someone had a hold on Harley we were back in front of flash. The older man grabbed flash by his collar and pulled him up to his feet, he slammed him up against the wall and all but yelled “ i dont know what the fuck you are trying to imply but PETER is my SON, and i will not under and circumstance ever allow anyone tot alk to him or about him like that. Do you fucking understand me?” The question was punctuated by an added shove into the wall.
He dropped flash and called Happy, he didn't even register Natasha guiding the class out of the room as he spoke. He didn't notice the frighten looks or the shocked gasps, he didn't notice anything , if he didnt know any better hed think he was heading towards a panic attac until one thing crossed his mind.
Peter.
He called for Sam to watch flash until Happy got there and darted out of the room, straight to the bathroom. For some unknown reason Harley and Peter always ended up in the bathroom when things got dicey. And sure enough there they were,Tony walked in on Harley cradling a hyperventilating Peter on the floor, he crouched down in front of them and sighed.
“God Peter ,kid, I'm so sorry. I should have kicked him out ages ago. I should've never let him come in the first place. I'm so sorry , peter. And harley god i love you thank you for doing what i legally cannot. Really though, are you okay? Are either of you okay?" Tony's breath sped up as he rambled. All he could think was that someone hurt his kids in unimaginable ways and now he didn't know what to do anymore.Talk about having a one track mind, but it was not doing him any favors this time.
He wanted to take their pain and make it his own. He wanted to take all the bad in the world and put it behind him, be a human shield so they never have to know, see, feel any of it. He never wants them to have so much as to think a bad thought, he'd eat the bad thoughts, let them consume him, let everything bad live in him so they never even knew it was more than a dream.
He was snapped out of his thoughts as Harley and Peter brought him into a hug,each boy holding him as tightly as they could. They were too good. Too undeserving of this. They held each other for a while, despite being slightly awkward sitting on the bathroom floor.
Peter was the first to speak up, the first to move away too. He pushed himself against the wall and spoke up , “it's okay dad. I think I sorta saw it coming? I think my spidey senses know… when i'm gonna be hurt emotionally now ? i'm not sure, i just knew that something was wrong and then flash stood up and i instantly knew what was gonna happen. Weird, I know. I think I was supposed to hold Harley back but I was just so mad, I didn't try to stop him. I didn't try to stop either of you and I don't really know what to think of that.”
Harley shook his head and let go of Tony, turning towards peter. “Don't think anything of it. Sure, I probably shouldn't have done that but someone needed to be honest. And Tony didn't do anything really, but regardless i'm not sorry i did it, that fucker deserved it. And you deserved to see some sort of justice at least.”
He pulled Peter back into a hug and looked at Tony, unsure how to continue talking about this without pissing himself off more. He manages a small “you are kicking him out tho right ?”
Tony immediately nods,”happy is dragging him out as we speak.” he pauses for a moment before chuckling” i love you guys more than anything but my knees really aren't what they used to be. What do you say we get out of here and drag everyone off to lunch? Distract everyone with the food court again.”
Tony stands up and reaches his hands out for the boys to take so he can help pull them to their feet. Once everyone is up he leads them back outside and gathers all the students once again. The avengers already left aside from Natasha who was left to watch over the class. Flash was gone and Tony knew he would have to properly deal with that later but for now everyone needed food.
Tony clapped his hands together in front of the gathered group. “Alright !! I know everyone will have questions and I promise tomorrow I will address everything before you all leave. I am going to need some time to get everything figured out so for the rest of the day you guys get a sort of free reign. You will have access to a few empty R&D labs and the food court off course . Friday will explain everything further but for now let's go get food !”
He leads everyone down to the cafe announcing that this is where he leaves them before he pulls Peter and Harley to the side. He hugs them again and gives them the option to go up to the penthouse or stay with the class. Obviously, they go up to the penthouse dragging ned and Mj up with them.
Tony reluctantly left them in search of pepper. After probably far too long he finds her in an empty conference room, looking over too many papers. God, was he lucky to have her, she did more than anyone he knew. He needed to make sure she knew that soon, take her on a vacation or something but for now he sat down at the table beside her, this time the vibe was entirely different from that morning. He was careful and put together.
Obviously, Pepper instantly knew something was wrong. This time she looked up from her work immediately and gave Tony a quizzical look. “What's wrong? what happened?"
Tony sighed, dropped his head onto the table, not quite sure what to say to her yet. he wanted to scream and yell. he wanted to cry and laugh and celebrate and then scream and yell some more. he wanted to explain how happy he was that flash had finally pushed too far, and how devastated he was that it put his son in harm's way. he wanted to celebrate peters spidey sense getting stronger, but scream and cry because he shouldn't need it, and he certainly shouldn't know it was getting better because of that asshole. Too many things were Bouncing around his head and he just needed everything to stop.
so he just laid there looking at pepper. oh, how he could do that forever.