When Peter is born, his mother cries. She brushes the curls off his forehead and kisses his cheek and vows that she’ll do everything she can to make sure he stays young and small and innocent.
His father calls Ben, his best friend, his brother, and Ben cries a little too when he hears. Ben and his girlfriend, May, show up a few hours later and Peter is hugged and cuddled and worshiped.
-
When Peter turns one, his mother is there to cut his cake. But his father is off somewhere, rubbing shoulders with important businessmen on some work trip.
Peter doesn’t care. He’s not old enough to know what a birthday is. He’s not even old enough to know that the man holding him is Ben, not his father.
He just knows that he likes cake.
-
When Peter turns four, both his parents are out of town. It’s hard work, trying to make a name in a business like science.
But Ben buys him a Han Solo figurine and May makes him a cake, so all in all it’s a pretty good birthday.
-
When Peter turns six, it’s only two weeks after the plane crash. May makes a cake. No one touches it. She tosses it out, later, after Peter’s gone to bed.
-
When Peter turns eight, Ben gives him a plastic Iron Man mask and surprises him with tickets to the Stark Expo. And sure, robots invade and try to kill people. But that’s okay. Because Peter puts out his hand and Iron Man helps him blast a robot, and Peter learns for the first time how good it feels to help people.
-
When Peter turns nine, May hugs him tiredly before she leaves for work. Ben ruffles his hair and promises they’ll eat cake later.
At school, Peter’s new friend Ned gives him a half a cookie and a juice box.
When he gets home, his babysitter, Skip, gives him a smile with those perfect white teeth and leans in close to whisper in his ear. Happy birthday, Einstein, says Skip. And then Skip pushes a little and says things to him and makes him cry. It’s happened before, of course, But it’s worse that day, because it’s Peter’s birthday and all he wanted was some cake.
And later, when he blows out the candles on his cake, he wishes he could be strong enough to push the hands away.
He gets strong, years later. By then, he’s forgotten his wish. He just remembers that the cake was red velvet.
-
When Peter turns fourteen, it’s his first birthday without Ben. May makes a cake and they eat it in silence, and Peter thinks about breaking the silence.
He thinks about telling May about the cute boy in Spanish, the one who’s definitely making him question his sexuality (but he likes Liz, doesn’t he? So what’s that all about?)
He thinks about telling her about how Ben’s death is his fault. How Peter can do things, now. Things like climb on walls and lift cars and grate cheese on his abs.
“Can I have another piece of cake?” is all he says.
May doesn’t push him. She’s good like that.
-
When Peter is sixteen, May kisses him absently on the way to work and promises him a Star Wars marathon when she gets home. (And cake. Peter likes cake.)
Peter goes to Tony’s lab after school, and Tony gives him a watch that has Karen and lasers and stores webs in a secret compartment.
(It also has a panic button. And instant kill mode. Peter doesn’t know how to thank Tony, so he just hugs him. Tony ruffles his hair affectionately and then has Dum-ee pat him on the back.)
-
On Peter’s seventeenth birthday, May stays with friends because she can’t stop crying.
Tony goes down to his lab with a piece of cake and a pistol and the taste of ash in his mouth.
He almost decides to eat a bullet instead of the cake. He actually has the gun shoved in his mouth, ready to pull the trigger, ready to see Peter again so he can wish him a happy birthday. But he stops himself, waits
a second, because this isn’t how Iron Man is supposed to go out.
Tony takes a bite of cake and calls Captain Marvel. Because if anyone can get Peter back for him, it’s her.
-
It’s just the three of them, on Peter’s eighteenth birthday. No work, no internship, no school.
They sit on the couch and eat cake. They watch random episodes of Brooklyn 99 and How I Met Your Mother.
“Do you like Robin with Ted or Barney?” May asks Tony, and he can’t stop himself from rolling his eyes. But Peter is watching him carefully, and Tony knows if he picks wrong he’s going to pay dearly for his sins.
If only fans could see the great Tony Stark reduced to a speculating TV-binge-watcher.
“Kevin,” he says, because that’s a pretty safe answer. “Or the Naked Man. They were cute together.”
Peter chokes on his cake. Tony guesses he picked wrong.
“How about you?” Tony asks, nudging Peter. “Who do you like her with?”
Peter’s eyes are so shiny. His hair falls in delicate curls around his face, and he ducks away when Tony reaches out to ruffle it. Teenagers.
“I like Ted, but he’s a little obsessive,” says Peter. “I liked Don, but he wasn’t good enough for her in the end. I guess I liked Kevin, too. But not as much as I like cake.”
“Yeah,” says Tony thoughtfully, helping himself to another slice. “I like cake, too.”