Found

They had one bag. One singular bag, each, to their name. It consisted of about two pairs of jeans, two pairs of sleep pants, and a handful of t-shirts. There were a few person items in there: pictures of their aunt and uncle, a music box of Penny’s, a watch of Peter’s, but they owned literally next to nothing.

They didn’t complain about anything, even when their hesitation was plain on their face as Pepper and Tony dumped more clothing than they could wear in year and took every interest they mentioned to decorate their rooms. Their manners were impeccable, always saying ma’am and sir, please and thank you. Peter never hesitated to offer help around the house, they kept their rooms clean, and Penny always offered to make dinner.

It absolutely killed Tony and Pepper because they didn’t act like teenagers, they acted like guests. As much as they told themselves they would warm up and eventually seem themselves as family, it just hurt that it wasn’t immediately clear. They just kept reminding each other that they couldn’t to into a family overnight. While their feelings and love for Peter and Penny were still there, the twins had vague pieces of memories at best.

After a week, the twins did start to calm a bit. They didn’t immediately stop what they were doing when Tony or Pepper walked into the room to offer assistance with anything, they started to speak them more normally, their smiles came easier and more relaxed. They started to laugh more freely and even tell jokes.

After two weeks, Peter was joining Tony in the lab after his own online homework was done. Tony was blown away by his brilliance. He casually asked if Penny would be interested in joining them and Peter seemed unready to answer the question. By the end of the week he found out that Penny would love to join them but she didn’t feel comfortable around adult men, even with Peter nearby.

So during the third week, Pepper brought her work down to the lab and casually made herself busy. Penny eventually made her way down and joined the chaos that was Tony’s workshop. Much to his pleasure, she was just as brilliant as her brother in incredibly different ways.

They really were just great kids.

Peter and Penny decide Monday morning they were going to make breakfast for Tony and Pepper for their first day back at work. By Peter and Penny making breakfast, it mostly meant Penny doing the cooking and Peter setting the table.

By now cooking in the Stark kitchen was second nature. As many times as they had assure Penny that there was no need for her to cook, she was used to cooking for families. Ben worked second shift most of the time and Aunt May was a terrible cook, so
from the time she could use the stove, she did most of the cooking in the house. It went along with her through foster homes where it was much less enjoyable. But here it felt like home again.

The elevator door opened to a mumbling man in a dark suit looking thoroughly pissed. He didn’t even so much as glance toward them before making a hard right and going straight toward Tony and Pepper’s room. “Tony, get your ass out of bed! I’ve been trying to get ahold of you for three days and I know you’ve been screening my calls!”

“Boss’s room has been sound proofed by request. He cannot hear you, Coronel Rhodes,” chimed the ever-friendly FRIDAY from above.

Rhodey gave an incredulous look at the ceiling. “Wha-why? Who sound proofed the room?”

Before FRIDAY could answer Peter piped up. “Uh, I asked her to.” Rhodey spun around so quickly he could have given himself whiplash and stared at the two teenagers.

“We’re not exactly known for being quiet and it’s their first day back to work so we didn’t- um- we just wanted to get as much sleep as possible, Mr. Coronel Rhodes- War Machine, Sir.”

Penny shot a look at her brother before rolling her eyes. He looked like his knees were going to give out at the sight of the veteran/superhero.

Rhodey probably would have smirked at the kid if he wasn’t so damn confused as to why there were two teenagers standing in Tony’s kitchen. He looked them over again, feeling as though something was familiar about them. “Sorry, but who the hell are you two?”

“I’m Penny, that soon to be puddle is Peter.”

Rhodey hummed but then stopped. Penny and Peter. As in Penelope and Peter Stark? “Whoa, wait, you’re-“ he pointed an accusatory finger at them that seemed to have no effect on Penny as she continued to place French toast in the frying pan, but Peter looked like he was going to faint. “You’re Tony’s kids?”

“So we’ve been told.”

Yeah, that girl was Tony Stark's child. She had the attitude of a Stark through and through. At least the boy seemed to be humble.

“Platypus, leave them be,” Tony appeared in the doorway of his bedroom, hair ruffled and still in his pajamas. “The girl can kill you with a single look. What’s happening to Pete?”

“He’s never met a superhero that hasn’t told him he’s his long lost father,” Penny deadpanned making Pepper snort as she pushed past Tony and headed straight for the coffee pot.

Tony gave Penny a nonplus look. “Please ignore that one, she’s not a morning person.”

Peter seemed to choose that moment to get his wits about him and rush over to Rhodey. “It’s a real honor to meet you, sir. You’re just, well, super cool, and in my opinion super underrated. People don’t give you enough credit for all that you do.”

It seemed that Rhodey’s chest puffed out just a bit as he clapped a hand down on Peter’s shoulder, giving Penny a glare. “I always like Peter better. He was always friendlier, even as a kid.”

Pepper tutted as she pointed a finger at Rhodey. “Play nice. Penny and Peter just have their own personalities and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.”

Peter and Penny snorted. “That’s what May used to say too,” Peter told her, seeming unaffected by bringing up their aunt’s name. “But usually when someone was someone was complaining about one of us not being enough like the other one. Penny not being sweet enough or me not being outgoing enough.”

The idea of people comparing her two children made Pepper’s blood run hot for a moment but she quickly smothered it as Penny offered her a smile and poured her coffee. The attitude the girl possessed was a front, of protection so that they wouldn’t hurt her.

Penny seemed to trust women, especially strong women. She mimicked the traits of strong women when she was scared: straightened her posture, leveled her tone, directed her eye contact. But men she did not trust. First line of defense was the attitude.

Peter was softer all around. He was eager to trust as much as he was afraid to. While Penny was already in some ways clinging to Pepper, Peter played a game of back and forth with them. It seemed every step forward there was a step back, but Tony was the one making the most progress. They both loved science and they could spend the entire day in the lab. Tony would let him help with his suits and Peter would just ramble on the science about it, why he found it amazing. Hours would pass and Pepper would send down snacks but eventually have to call them back for dinner. They both would be on cloud nine for the rest of the evening.

“But when did this happen?” Rhodey asked, motioning toward the two teens again. Penny was back to studiously ignoring him while Peter was still staring at him in awe.

“Three ish weeks ago? Actually, four tomorrow,” Tony stated, giving Pepper a quick kiss as she passed him a cup of coffee.

Four weeks? He had talked to him at least six times in the last three weeks and he had mentioned nothing about the fact he had literally gotten his children back.

“Okay,” Rhodey drew out the word, side eyeing his best friend. “Any reason you didn’t tell me?”

Peter and Penny glanced at Tony who was paying extremely little attention to their guest. He sat in the barstool next to Peter with his Starkpad in hand, flipping through the morning news. The only answer he seemed to be willing to provide the man was a one shoulder shrug.

“Coronel Rhodes, can I get you some coffee?” Penny asked, deciding to take it upon herself to act like a civil human being since her father was going to act like a child. “And would you like to join us for breakfast? I don’t mind making enough for one more.”

The look of total betrayal on Tony’s face was priceless as Pepper beamed at her with pride. “I’m so glad being hopelessly rude is not an inherent trait,” Pepper teased as she helped Penny.

Peter quickly set one more place at the table (on the other side of him of course) for their guest before he could even refuse. “Come on, Coronel Rhodes. It’s not everyday we get to have breakfast with a superhero!”

The cheeky grin Peter wore had all but Tony giggling. He pointed a finger at the boy. “You wound me, boy. I expect these things from your sister, not you.”

Rhodey couldn’t help but feel the lightness in the air as he watched Tony and Pepper interact with these kids. Before there was a darkness that hungover them, a darkness that they carried ever since they lost Peter and Penelope, but it was gone. Four weeks they had been together and already there was a family chemistry building.

They wanted time to be a family.

The thought hit him suddenly as he saw Tony pull Peter in and ruffle his hair and the bacon grease pop sending Penny jumping into Pepper who both laughed. They didn’t need other people coming in and encroaching on them learning how to be around each other, learning how to just be themselves with one another.

Unexpectedly he felt bad for even joining them for breakfast, but by the look on Peter’s face when he talk to him, they didn’t mind his company in the least.

“You know,” he said swallowing a bite of French toast, “you guys use to call me Uncle Rhodey.”

Peter’s eyes got the size of saucers while Penny wrinkled her nose and smiled. “Uncle Rhodey?” she repeated, trying it out on her tongue. “Kinda sounds like my uncle is in a motorcycle gang.”

That had Tony almost choking on his coffee as he barked a laugh.

But Peter shook his head. “No! I like it! Uncle Rhodey, that’s so cool!”

His sister rolled her eyes. “You only think it’s cool because you can now say you are related to two superheroes, nerd.”

The boy didn’t even try to deny it.

After four weeks of near constant supervision, it felt amazing to dive head first off the balcony in their spider suits. Admittedly it probably wasn’t the best idea since their web fluid had been sitting at room temperature untouched for the better part of that four weeks and they had never tested the shelf life. So far so good. They hadn’t fallen to their deaths yet.

It was clear Queen’s had noticed their absence. Several people on the street stopped to wave at them as they went by, calling out them. Everyone always teased Peter for his awkward sweatshirt and sweats while Penny wore a spandex jumpsuit of sorts with a jacket.

“Spider Guy! Spider Girl! Haven’t seen you around! Thought you left us!” A black man with a heavy Brooklyn accent called from across the street as they helped an old lady with her groceries into her apartment building.

“Nah,” Peter called back as Penny tried to refuse the hard butterscotch candies the lady was trying to shove into her pockets. “We just moved. Had to get settled in.”

The man gave an upward nod as he continued to smile. “It’s good to have ya back. Come by my shop at lunch! I still owe you for keeping those punks from stealing my car.”

“Sorry man, can’t. Promised my sister Delmar’s for lunch. Best sandwich’s in Queens!”

The man shook his head but kept his easy going smile as Penny pulled Peter away by the arm. “Fine, but next time you’re in the mood for barbeque you come to me!”

Penny and Peter laughed good naturedly as they both shot their web shooters toward the sky and swung away. Spider-Man and Spider-Woman were out and about again. The wind felt good cutting through their masks as they swung through the city, almost as if they were flying. They knew they couldn’t stay out long. A few hours at best, but they were going to make the most of it.

They saved several bikes from getting stolen, caught a guy running away with a woman’s purse, helped an old man change his tire, and some other lack luster tasks.

Peter flopped down on the roof top across the street from Delmar’s, his mask pulled up above his mouth and half-eaten sandwich in hand. “This is boring. All the good stuff happens in the evening.”

“Yeah, tell that to Pepper and Tony. I’m sure they’ll let us come to Queens at night to fend off muggers and car jackers from the common man,” Penny deadpanned as she took a bite of her own sandwich.

They both stared out over buildings at nothing in particular. It had been a really great day. It felt like before. None of their foster homes cared where they were as long as they did their chores and were back by curfew. Pepper and Tony hovered. A lot. While it was nice to be so loved, it was hard to keep the whole superhero thing a secret.

“We could tell them,” Peter suggested, but not sounding completely sure in his own words. “Tony is a superhero. He may understand.”

Penny didn’t immediately argue. She had thought a lot about this as well. Logistically, he was right. While she was not the superhero fan he was, she did her own research on the mentality of heroes when Peter suggested they use their powers to help people. Being a superhero was not a selfish act, it was a need to help people. It was sacrificial and surely since Tony was one himself he would understand that it wasn’t something that Peter and Penny could just give up doing.

But then again, they were so-so-so protective. Peter and Penny had to ask FRIDAY all of her protocols just to find out if she was going to rat them out the moment they left the house.

Peter glanced at his sister, his brows raised. “Woah, you’re actually considering it aren’t you.”

A heavy breath fell from her lungs as she shrugged. “Honestly if we want to do this, I don’t see how we can sneak past an AI, a genius dad, and a mom who lived with Tony Stark’s shit for entirely too long.”

Peter snorted but there wasn’t much humor to it. His gaze turned back toward the skyline as he also sighed. “We probably need to just test the water, right? Break it to them slowly or something?”

“How do you break ‘We have superpowers’ slowly?”

That was a very good question. Peter thought for a second as he slowly chewed a bite of his sandwich. “Maybe,” he swallowed the bite and shrugged, “maybe we just tell them we have superpowers and then tell them that we’re Spider-Man and Spider-Woman?”

The sandwich wrapper in Penny’s hand crumpled loudly as she stood. “Yeah, cause that’s not going to go over like a lead balloon. Let’s just go see Ned before we get locked in the tower for the rest of our lives.”

At least that sounded like a good idea.

Ned Leeds had been Peter’s best friend since kindergarten. He was a round dark complexed boy who was easily excitable and extremely annoying to Penny, but today she and Peter were both just happy to see a familiar face.

They climbed the six stories up the fire escape and tapped on the window. Instantly the curtains were thrown back to reveal the giddy face as Ned rushed to open the window. It had been three months since they last saw him and Peter could swear he had gotten a bit taller.

Ned practically pulled Peter through the window as he bear hugged him, leaving Penny to climb over the cluttered computer desk and deposit herself onto the beanbag chair in the corner of the room. She yelped when her butt found a several Legos already in her seat and cursed Ned for his inability to clean up after himself.

“Oh my God! I thought you guys were dead! You just dropped off the radar!” Ned began letting go of Peter to pace across his room. “Just poof! You say you had to lay low for a while because your foster dad is a jerk then I don’t hear from you! Then some kid at school says you got arrested? No offense guys but you both would die in there! Then you just call yesterday, out of nowhere and ask if I could cut class this afternoon. Like, what the hell? What the hell, guys?”

Penny huffed and crossed her arms while Peter raised his hands to try and placate his friend. “We’re fine! Really, we just wanted to see you, tell you we’re okay. And that we have a home now. A real home. We’re even starting Midtown next semester.”

The boy’s eyes lit up again as he rushed Peter for another hug. “Oh God! That’s great! You’re going to love it! A home? Where? Did you get adopted?”

Adopted, that would be the simple term. Honestly, they weren’t sure what the legal term was going to be. “Not exactly adopted,” Peter began trying to pry his friend off. “But you’re going to freak out when I tell you. First off, do you still have that chest of stuff we asked you to hold on to? We want to take it to our new parents.”

Furrowing his brow, Ned nodded and motioned vaguely toward his closet. “Yeah, yeah. It’s in there. But tell me. How do you like your new home? Are your new parents nice? Do they know about the spidery stuff?”

Trying to take a relaxing breath, Penny cursed herself for ever allowing Peter to let Ned find out about their secret. Sure, it was helpful to have a place in the city they could go that wasn’t a foster home to change out of their gear, but he annoyed the piss out her. Instead of listening to their conversation, she decided to get the trunk from his closet.

It was a rather large trunk, so it couldn’t be hard to find. It had to take up a large part of the floor space of his closet.

And it did, but it was buried under pile of clothes, Legos, action figures, board game pieces, and every other thing that could possibly live in a teenage boy’s room. With a growl, she gave the trunk a sharp tug and ignored the sound of everything else hitting the ground as the pulled the trunk up off the ground and out of the closet. Superior strength had its benefits.

“OH MY GOD! TONY STARK IS YOUR DAD?”

Christ.

Pepper was more than ready to be home. She managed to wrap her board meeting up in record time and for the first time in history was leaving the office before her husband. It was nice that the office was literally down floors below her home. One would think that meant she could take an hour and grab lunch with her children, but that would mean having an hour without someone in her office, which did not happen ever.

So by four-thirty, she was shoving people out of her office and heading for the private elevator. They would order in tonight, that way Penny wouldn’t need to make dinner no matter how often she said she didn’t mind doing it, and Pepper was going to hug them the moment she saw them.

God she missed them. As much as she loved being CEO, a part of her wanted to take more time off just to be with them, learn more about them. She missed ten years, she didn’t want to miss anymore.

Logically, she knew this feeling would pass, and while she knew she didn’t have to work she loved working and would regret terribly giving it up. Not to mention she would judge any other CEO terribly because she knew no one could run her family’s company as well as her.

Shaking her head, she refocused herself as the elevator doors opened to the pent house. Instantly she was a little thrown off by the emptiness of the main room. Typically this was where Penny and Peter set up camp for the day. Peter would play videogames while Penny read on her Starkpad. It was entirely possible they were in their rooms.

“Peter? Penny? I’m home,” she called as she continued her way inside, depositing her briefcase on the bar.

“Welcome home, Mrs. Stark,” FRIDAY greeted pleasantly from above. “Peter and Penny have left for the day.”

Pepper’s head jerked up toward the voice. “What do you mean ‘left’?”

“They stated they had errands to run and would return before your usual time of arrival home from work: six PM.”

A mix of anxiety and anger rushed through Pepper’s veins as she felt her heart rate increase. “Did they say where they were going?”

“I did not ask.”

Pepper could feel her face growing hot as she pulled her phone out of her pocket and fished her laptop out of her bag. She held her phone between her shoulder and ear as she furiously typed on her laptop, pulling up the Starkphone Locater.

“Yes, dear?” Tony purred, sounding like he had been in the middle of something he was clearly glad she interrupted.

“Peter and Penny aren’t here,” she informed him, her voice hard and focused as the watched the computer work.

“What?” The playfulness in his voice was gone. She had his full attention.

“FRIDAY says they left and planned to be back before I got home, but I don’t know if I want to wait. According to Penny’s phone they’re in an apartment in Queens.”

“I’ll send Happy there. I’m pulling it up now and I’ll send it to him.”

Pepper stopped and looked up from the computer. Maybe this wasn’t a good idea. It wasn’t like they were running away. They were planning on coming back. They just needed to get out for a minute.

They weren’t small children. They were teenagers. Teenagers who grew up a lot differently than they probably would have raised them and they were used to having freedom and privacy. Oh God, they probably felt so suffocated the last few weeks and had taken it like champs.

“No,” Pepper stated, letting out a sigh and closing her laptop. “No, don’t. Just let them come home on their own time.”

There was a long silence on the other end of the phone. “Are you sure, Pep? Happy can throw them in the trunk and get them home in half an hour.”

A humorless chuckle cracked out her throat. “And they’d hate us for it. They need some room to breathe, Tony. They’re teenagers.”

She ended the call before he could hear the choke on the single sob. They were teenagers. They weren’t little children anymore, they were learning how to be adults now and she was robbed of her chance to hover on the playground, to kiss scraped knees, to host slumber parties and paint toenails.

While she wanted those days back, she couldn't get them. She had to raise the teenagers she had and not the children she wanted.

Superior strength was handy, but lugging a five foot trunk from Queens to the tower was a nightmare. They looked like they were moving a dead body. At one point they were really tempted to call a cab but then they realized it didn’t fit in the back of the cab either.

“At least it’s not heavy?” Peter offered as they shoved it into the elevator, ripping off his mask.

“Say that one more time and I going to punch you.” Penny pulled off her own mask and popped a piece of the butterscotch candy the old lady had shoved at her into her mouth and glared straight ahead. “You better hope Tony and Pepper don’t watch YouTube as many people had to video Spider-Man and Spider-Woman carrying this thing down the sidewalk.”

“Just pick up your side,” Peter grumped back as the elevator door opened.

Peter took the lead as Penny lifted the back. After only a few steps, Peter stopped having Penny nearly run over him.

“Christ Peter, what the he—”

She looked past him to see Tony and Pepper standing at the bar, both with their arms crossed and their brows furrowed.

Oh, this certainly wasn’t good.

Carefully they sat down the trunk and moved to be next to each other, absently finding one another’s hands.

There were several things Tony and Pepper took notice of. The most noticeable was the giant chest they were caring. It looked to be solid wood, so definitely not light, but the twins didn’t seem to have any trouble carrying it. They weren’t even breaking a sweat. The other very noticeable bit was their attire. Peter looked like he just walked off set of some low budget action film where Penny may have been a stunt double.

The last thing they noticed, and perhaps the thing that got to them the most, was the twin’s sudden look of fear at the sight of them and the need to find each other. They had seen it before when they were in the police station weeks ago. It was like they were afraid Tony and Pepper were going to send them away.

“Where were you?” Tony asked, his voice firm as he stared hard into the twins, staying firm despite the emotion that shook him briefly.

“Queens.” The answers came quick and crisp from Penny’s mouth as she held fiercely onto her brother’s hand.

At least they weren’t lying, Tony thought as he slowly moved closer. “What were you doing in Queens?”

“Visiting our friend.” This time Peter spoke. He seemed to move up just a bit, angling himself between Tony and Penny.

Tony’s brow raised just a bit. “Does this friend have a name?”

“Ned Leeds. We’ve known him since kindergarten.”

Tony hummed and glanced over his shoulder at Pepper who was only watching silently. She had been abnormally quiet since he had gotten home and even now just seemed to be staring anxiously between him and their kids.

“What’s in the case?”

Both kids moved closer to the trunk. “Stuff,” they said in unison. Peter kept his eye contact while Penny seemed to look toward Pepper.

His eyes narrowed. Okay, he’d come back to that one. “What’s up with the getups? No offense kid but you look pretty dumb.”

That had Peter pulling a face and Penny suppressing a grin. Letting out a breath Peter raised both his hands in front of him. “Look, we didn’t leave to cause problem, we actually left to make less of them. Can we call a truce for like, twenty minutes and if you still want to yell at us you can?”

Tony squinted at him for a long moment then shrugged. “What the heck. I’m not really good at this stuff anyway. As long as we agree if there are no really great reasons for this disappearing act you both are grounded for a week. And I will figure out what grounded consists of when I think of it.”

Peter rolled his eyes as he motioned for Penny to take the other end of the trunk again and they carried it into the living room.

Pepper and Tony took a seat on the couch as the twins fumbled with the rolling lock. “It’s Ben’s birthday!” Penny hissed as she stuck a finger in only to get swatted away. “You have the year wrong!”

“I do not!”

“Yes you do!” Peter tugged on the lock and nothing happened, making his sister look smug. “It’s a six not an eight, dummy.”

He shoved her back and she shoved him too. They started to shove shoulders, both fumbling for the lock.

“Children!” Pepper scolded lightly ceasing the activity before they had a full blown shoving war on their hands. Both twins looked up with a light blush on their cheeks and smiled at her shyly. She couldn’t help but smile back and it was enough to lift her spirit at least a little.

Finally the trunk clicked open and Peter and Penny opened it. Tony and Pepper weren’t sure what they expected, but they couldn’t have expected what they recieved. It was a well organized trunk labeled from Kindergarten to seventh grade. One side was Penny’s, one side was Peter’s and on the lid was a collage of photos. Peter, Penny, Ben and May just being a family.

Pepper immediately got on her knees to get closer.

“We thought, in case we ever got adopted, someone might want this,” Penny explained, moving over so that Pepper could get a good look at everything. “May kept all our school projects and pictures. First and last day of school pictures too. All kinds of stuff. She just really like to make sure everything was always documented for memories.”

Penny reached out and touched a picture of Peter and Penny dressed up for Halloween. Peter was dressed up as Iron Man, holding his hand out ready to blast his sister who was dressed up as FBI Agent Dana Scully. They couldn’t have been older than eight or nine.

“Our friend Ned was holding onto it for us,” Peter explained. “But trust me, we couldn’t take you to his house.”

Penny groaned and shook her head. “My ears are still ringing from him just finding out that Tony Stark is our dad.”

Tony grinned as he joined his wife on the floor, reaching into the trunk and taking out one of the photo albums. He flipped through it, admiring how it was clear how very loved they were even if it wasn’t by them. May and Ben Parker, while not their parents clearly did right by them.

“Okay,” Tony stated nodding approving. “I get it. I like it. But what about the dumb clothes.”

By the look on the twins’ faces, they had hoped the trunk would be enough of a distraction to maybe put a pin in that. Penny took a deep breath as she rubbed the back of her neck and glanced at her brother.

“Okay, so want me to rip off the bandaid or try to make this as painless as possible?”

Pepper and Tony glanced between each other before the stood up, closing the trunk as they did so. They were back in defensive posture.

“Living with Tony, rip off the bandaid, kiddo. It’s easier on everyone,” Pepper informed them but already looked exhausted.

The twins exchanged looks again and Peter motioned his hand out as if it was Penny’s job now to break the news. “Have you ever heard of Spider-Man and Spider-Woman?”

Both Pepper and Tony looked confused but then a realization slowly came across Tony’s face. “Actually yeah, vaguely. Two vigilante super kids. FRIDAY pinged them about four months ago but then they went MIA--- wait…”

Penny and Peter both smile guiltily as Tony stared at them and Pepper immediately walked past them toward the kitchen mumbling about needing wine.

“You’re the spider kids? But you’re actual kids. They were supposed to be in college not barely in high school!”

“We didn’t choose these powers,” Peter told him quietly, but seriously. “But when we got them, we had just lost our aunt and uncle and were getting beat up every day in the foster system. We had the ability to help people so we did.”

“We didn’t have to tell you,” Penny stated, her tone more severe than her brother. “We could have lied. We’ve lied to protect ourselves a lot, but we thought you of all people would understand. You’re Iron Man.”

Tony flinched. For a brief moment there he thought she would say he was their father. That they wouldn’t lie because they trusted him, but that was wishful thinking on his part. There was trust building, the trunk proved that, but sometimes the things they said he just wished they said differently.

“I hear you, just give me a minute,” Tony snapped effectively silencing the twins.

Peter quickly obeyed, his eyes wide as if waiting for Tony’s approval while Penny glared.

“Of course, we understand.”

The three of them whipped around to see Pepper standing at the bar. She pushed an unopened bottle of wine further away from herself and looked at her children.

“You can’t change who you are. I wanted to change your father a lot. It killed me to watch him throw himself in harm's way over and over again, but eventually I had to accept that it’s part of who he is, a part that I love about him even though it scares me.” She smiled softly at Tony and he quirked a smile back.

“But right now, you both are going to change clothes. We’re going to order some food. You’re dad is probably going to plan some more stylish and safer suits for you both, and then we’re going to sit and check out everything in that trunk. Is that clear?”

Peter and Penny smiled brightly at her, both darting across the room and straight into her arm.

She looked up at Tony in surprise who only continued to smile at her. He gave her a mock salute as he pulled his cellphone out of his pocket and immediately started to build a diagram for the next Spider Suits.