#22--May 5, 2019
Dad?
"Hey, kid, how was your day?" Tony asks, driving off when Peter jumps into the car.
"It was great! Had a Spanish test that I actually studied for, so that's good. We had an assembly today so classes were shorter than normal, which was even better. And--hey! Where are we going?" Peter asks, looking over at Tony as they don't head in the direction of the Compound.
"We," Tony says, flashing him a smile, "are going to this cute little Italian restaurant. And before you say anything, no, I am not going to let you pay, Peter, and don't you even think of choosing the cheapest item on the menu because this restaurant is not the most expensive place in the universe and I am literally a billionaire."
Peter's jaw clicks close from where he was going to bring up that exact thing. "What's it called?" he asks instead.
"La Regina," Tony says, looking over at Peter with a raised eyebrow. "You know what it means?" The kid scoffs, sounding offended that the man thinks that he doesn't know what the restaurant title means.
"The Queen," Peter tells him smugly. Peter had once let it slip that he knew Italian when he was little but he and his aunt hadn't gotten into the habit of speaking it when he started middle school. Tony, also needing to practice his Italian, offered to start speaking in Italian to the kid. Tony's teased Peter endlessly because it turns out that the kid is rustier than Tony was even though the last time the man spoke the language was over a decade ago.
"You sure about that?" Tony teases the kid, making Peter roll his eyes. "Guess where the restaurant is." Peter blinks at the sudden change.
"Um... Queens?" Peter asks, making Tony smirk at him.
"Nope, Brooklyn." Peter stares at him blankly for a few moments before Tony breaks his composure, laughing as Peter stares at him. "What? It is in Queens. And that was a good joke!"
"No, no it wasn't, Mr. Stark," Peter says before shaking his head. "That was such a dad joke."
"Well I'm not a dad, am I?" Tony snarks back at him. "How can it be a dad joke if I'm not a dad?" He rolls his eyes at Peter's burst of laughter, shoving his shoulder as he parks the car. "C'mon, let's go."
Peter jumps out of the car, excited, staring up at the restaurant. It's near a lot of the other fancy restaurants in Queens, restaurants that he and his aunt can't afford. Tony whistles to catch Peter's attention, throwing an arm over the kid's shoulders and pulling him into the restaurant door.
Tony talks with one of the staff as Peter looks at the interior. It's not long before the man's pulling him up the stairs nearby and into a more private room where there are fewer people to recognize Tony Stark. "This is a great little place, isn't it?" Tony says, picking up the menu and looking it over, Peter doing the same.
"It's really cool, Mr. Stark! Thanks for bringing me!" Peter says, grinning at his mentor and looking at the menu as well. "What are you thinking of getting? I'm thinking of... lasagna. What about you?" Tony raises an eyebrow at Peter's choice of food.
"What? No pizza?" Tony asks sarcastically. "I think I'll get the lasagna, too, then. And maybe a small pizza on the side." Peter hums at the choice, his eyes lighting up.
"Margherita of Naples?" Peter asks, making Tony nod his head.
"Great!" Tony says, clapping and rubbing his hands together, nodding to the waiter who had been standing off to the side waiting for them to make their choices. "Two lasagnas, a small Margherita of Naples pizza, and two waters, please." The waiter nods and immediately runs off, leaving Peter and Tony to themselves.
"So, what's the reason you brought me here?" Peter asks, leaning on his hand. Tony raises an eyebrow and him and Peter rolls his eyes. "Every time you've taken me to a restaurant you've either told me that you have a mission that I can't go on, a mission that I can go on, or something important has happened."
Tony shakes his head, mentally cursing the kid for being so smart. "Okay, nothing bad has happened, kid," Tony starts, ignoring Peter's sarcastic look. "Really, I'm not joking. It's just that I wanted to ask you something. Something important." Peter looks at Tony in slight worry, sitting up in his seat and looking at his mentor in concern.
"Is something wrong?" Peter asks immediately, eyes widening slightly.
"No! No, no, no, no, no. Nothing's wrong, Pete," Tony says, waving his hands back and forth slightly. "It's just that the Rogues have been pardoned and they'll be coming over to the Compound a few weeks after school ends for you." Tony hesitates for a few moments at Peter's furrowed eyebrows. "And I wanted to know if you wanted to spend the summer at the Compound with me. And before you say anything about your aunt, she's going on vacation with Happy."
Peter makes a slightly disgusted look. The two had been seeing each on the days that Peter stayed at the Compound. Tony had been asking the man to take May to work and back home and it seems like they've gotten to know each other over that time. Chuckling at Peter's look, Tony perks an eyebrow. "So what d'you say, kid? Wanna spend the summer over at the Compound? And don't worry about your aunt. She's already told me that you can spend the summer with us. So, what do you think?"
Peter's eyes light up as a grin grows on his face. "Of course! Oh my God, it's going to be so much fun! We can spend more time in the labs and I can go on more missions, and it's going to be so much fun!" Tony grins as the kid keeps chatting on about all of the things that they can do now that he'll be staying there full time, only stopping when the waiter, a different one this time, brings their food.
Tony nods to them and they both dig in, conversing about what they can do over the summer. Apparently, there's this MIT competition where kids in high school can join a science fair for a chance to win a scholarship to the school. And if Tony makes a mental note of that? Nobody needs to know.
Throughout eating their meal, everything is normal. It's only when Peter begins to eat the pizza that he worries. Peter frowns after finishing the first slice of the food, blinking in confusion. Tony puts down his fork, a heavy feeling settling in his stomach. "Pete, what's wrong?"
Peter shakes his head. "Dizzy," he murmurs, his chest beginning to heave. "C-Can't breathe. Some-somethin's wrong." When Peter begins to slump in his chair, Tony takes action.
"Hey, you!" Tony shouts at the nearby waiter, startling the kid. "Pack up our food for us, quickly!" Tony grabs Peter's wrist, feeling for a pulse, swearing under his breath as the waiter finishes packing up their food in take-out containers. "Here, keep the change," Tony says, activating his nanotech armor prototype and throwing a couple hundreds at the poor waiter. Grabbing his kid and the food, Tony flies off as quickly as he can, telling Friday to get someone to pick up his car for him.
It takes ten minutes to reach the Compound, a startling feat considering how far away it is from Queens. "What's wrong with him?" Helen asks as Tony flies into the medical wing, putting the kid on a bed. Tony shakes his head.
"I don't know, but I think he's been poisoned," Tony says, his voice coming out in a panic.
"Tell me the symptoms," the woman orders Tony, grabbing a q-tip to gather the kid's DNA. "Friday, run every possible test on this, will you? Do you have what he was eating, that would be helpful." Tony all but throws the take-out containers at the woman, who puts them in a machine that Tony recognizes as a mass spectrometer.
"He-He told me that he was dizzy," Tony stutters out, disengaging his suit and beginning to pace, keeping a careful eye on his half-conscious kid. "And that he couldn't breathe, but he was breathing fine. And he didn't say it though I know that he had a headache." Helen nods her head as she checks Peter's pupil dilation.
"Friday, what d'you got for us?" Helen asks the AI, looking over at the machine that can run every test possible on Peter's DNA.
"It appears that Mr. Parker has been poisoned with cyanide," she informs them, making Tony's face pale. "The best course of action would be to use the CYANOKIT." A cabinet door pops open, revealing the kit. Tony runs over to it, grabbing it as Helen gives the kid an IV line.
"Give it to me," Helen says, grabbing the small bottle. "Usually you'll administer the antidote over a fifteen minute period, though with Peter's abilities we can use it as an injection." (This is complete bullshit and false.) As she says this, she grabs a syringe, and puts it into the IV, pushing down the plunger.
Tony doesn't remove his eyes from Peter as the woman administers the antidote. "Okay, that's all?" Tony asks the woman as she begins cleaning everything up.
"Yep, that's all," the woman says, throwing the items away. "He'll be fine, though I'd advise you have the police investigate who gave you that pizza. That's what was poisoned." Tony nods his head. He already had the police notified when he flew over to the compound.
"Thanks, Helen," Tony calls out as she walks out of the room. She nods her head, closing the door and leaving the unconscious kid alone with him.
"Sir? If I may?" Friday says tentatively into the room.
"What's up, Fri?"
"Something came up when I analyzed Mr. Parker's DNA," the AI says, causing Tony to sit up in worry.
"What's wrong?" he asks, worry easily leaking into his voice.
"Nothing is wrong sir, though it appears that yours and Mr. Parker's DNA shares multiple similarities," she says, making Tony tense up and look up at the ceiling in confusion.
"What are you saying, Friday?"
"When Doctor Cho told me to run every test possible, I did," Friday informs the man. "That included a paternity test. And it appears that you and Mr. Parker share the same DNA. You and Mr. Parker appear to be father and son, Boss."
Tony freezes for a few minutes. "W-What? How is that possible? Peter's father died with his mother. I am not his father. That's impossible," Tony splutters.
"It is entirely possible, sir."
"You're telling me that I have a kid?" Tony asks. "That this kid," he gestures to Peter, "is mine."
"It appears so, Boss."
Tony's next statement is cut off by a very groggy sounded murmur. "Dad?" Peter says, his head lolling to the side to look at Tony. Tony freezes at the question. Peter's begun to call the man his dad, but now it has a different meaning. Because it is truer than either of them thought.
"Yes, Pete?" Tony asks.
"Are you my dad?" And shit the kid heard everything.
First of a series, I guess