Tony Stark. What is there to say about Tony Stark? A public icon, a public playboy. At least, that’s what society thought. You see, you can’t erase the past, but you can choose your future. That’s what Tony had learned in the years post mid life crisis. After so many years of feeling unhappy and covering it up with a smile and a drink, he wanted more. He needed more.
The people he was closest to in life were fleeting, he was losing whatever control he had left. Steve Rogers, his former friend, was now his enemy. Pepper Potts, well, who knew where she was. His days were lonely, his nights were lonelier. At least, that’s how his life was going until he met a kid. That’s when his life started to turn around.
He was never meant to get attached, it was merely a little backup in case things went horribly wrong in Germany. The deal was to give the kid a new suit, fly him to Germany, let him provide a little support, and then let him go back home. He never expected he’d hang around.
Thank god he did, though. After the fight between two sides of the accords, Tony was left broken. Peter was there to put him back together. Peter didn’t know he was falling apart, and yet he fixed him without even trying.
At some point or another, Tony had realized that Peter Parker may have become his best friend. No matter how much he told himself that he was just an intern, he knew subconsciously that he needed Peter. He had become his kid without even knowing.
They knew so much about each other, or at least, Tony knew a lot about him. He was healing, but he wasn’t ready to divulge his entire personal history. Peter didn’t seem to mind.
It was routine now. Peter would come by the compound on the weekends and after school some days, they’d work on whatever project they were investing all their time on, and Peter would go home. During those hours, that’s when Tony learned a lot about the kid. He could talk for hours it seemed.
Peter finally got out of his shell shock after a couple of months working with Tony. It was no secret that Iron Man was his idle, and Tony never though he would stop acting so weird around him. Now, Peter was no stranger. He made himself at home, he wasn’t afraid to talk to Tony. This made him surprisingly happy
This fact alone was what really worried Tony when Peter came into the workshop on a Friday afternoon with a shy and uncertain look on his face. It made Tony feel sick to his stomach. If Peter was quiet, something was wrong.
“Hey, kid.” He said when his head popped through the door.
“Hey Mr. Stark.” he said.
Something was definitely wrong. He almost always said Tony now.
“How have you been.”
“Uh, good I guess.” Peter replied as his eyes darted to the floor.
God, the tension was thick.
“Are you feeling ok kid? You don’t look so hot.” He said, hoping that he was only sick, or tired, or anything that wouldn’t make Tony want to go punch whoever could’ve caused the kid pain.
“I’m ok I guess, it’s just been a long day.” He said, setting his backpack down on the floor by the workshop door.
“Did anything happen today at school? You look a little weird.” Tony figured he could have worded that better, but it didn’t matter now.
“Like I said, it’s been a long day. Are we still working on my web shooters today?”
Tony knew he was deflecting, he knew all too damn well what that looked like. He decided to work around it and come back to the subject later. He realized that it wasn’t necessarily his business in the first place, but if it was anything Tony could help with, he was going to do his best to try.
They worked in relative silence for 30 minutes until he decided to take another crack at deciphering what was making Peter so off. He needed an approach first, though. He figured getting out of the stuffy workshop might work.
“Hey Pete, lets go get some ice cream.” Tony said without room for argument. Peter looked up from his work.
“Sure, I could use a break I guess, what kind do you have?” He asked, suddenly gaining interest and completely willing to abandon his work, which by itself was unusual for Peter. Tony didn’t think it would be that easy.
“It doesn’t matter what kind I have kiddo, we’re going to Baskin Robbins.” Peter looked uncertain for a moment, before something in him decided that it was fine.
“Whatever you say Tony,” He said, standing up from his stool and making small steps towards the door. “Are you going to call Happy?”
“Nah, I figured I could drive for once.”
“Oh ok, cool.”
Tony caught himself thinking, that was too simple, but at least he was setting up his chance to get to the bottom of Peters problem. Well, he assumed there was a problem, why would the kid act so weird if there wasn’t a problem?
They both walked down to the garage, and Tony though it might be nice to let Peter pick the car. Peter didn’t know much about cars though, so he picked a blue one that caught his eye. Tony made sure to wear a hat and sunglasses so that they could have a fighting chance of Tony not getting recognized immediately.
By that point, Peter wasn’t as quiet as when he first stepped in the workshop, but Tony could see right through him that something was bothering him, no matter how much he tried to cover it up.
As they drove through the busy streets, Peter didn’t say much. He didn’t tell Tony all about his day like he usually does, he didn’t try to show him any memes, he didn’t even scroll through his phone. He stared through the passenger window, and it reminded Tony of a sad scene in a cliche movie..
Tony was only waiting until they had ice cream before asking once again if Peter was really alright. After a few more minutes of driving, they had arrived at the Baskin Robbins and they hopped out of the car and went inside.
Tony held open the double doors for Peter who trailed behind and didn’t notice when the boy stopped in his tracks.
“It’s on me today kid.” He said. With no response he was prompted to turn around a face a deer caught in the tracks.
“Peter? What’s wrong?”
No response. Tony walked back towards Peter and the boy started to turn away and out the door, but Tony grabbed his shirt before he had the chance. Tony stooped down to face Peter at eye level.
“Pete, what’s going on.”
“Tony we have to go. Now.” he said as his body stood rigid.
“Pete I don’t understand-”
“Well if it isn’t Penis Parker?” a boy Tony had never seen before said from across the floor. Tony let go of Peter and turned around to face the speaker. A group of 3 boys were standing up and walking towards them. Tony looked at Peter, Peter looked at him with an urging look in is eyes.
“And just who are you?” Tony asked in a cold voice meant to scare them off.
“We’re just friends of Peter’s from school, right guys?” He said, looking back at his crew.
Tony had enough brain cells to realize that these were no friends of Peter’s.
“Come on Pete, just ignore them, let’s get some ice cream.” Peter kept his eyes at his feet as he shuffled along with Tony, staying close behind as they walked up to the counter
The employee smiled and greeted them, clearly oblivious to the showdown that was happening around them.
“What do you want Pete?” Tony asked, side eyeing the boys that still lingered around the store.
“Um,” he stalled, looking through the glass window to his options shyly. “Rainbow sherbet I guess.” he mumbled.
The three boys overheard and began to laugh.
“Figures,” the ‘leader’ said loud enough for everyone in the store to hear, although it wasn’t very busy. “Of course Fag Parker would pick rainbow ice cream.”
Peter didn’t budge. He was fighting the urge to cry, as well as to run. The only thing stopping him from bolting was the thought that the boys may block the doors faster than he could escape them. That would be worse than standing there and taking abuse.
He hadn’t realized Tony had left his side in his inner conflict. He was drawn away by the sound of a low, deep anger rising in his mentor’s voice.
“You listen to me, pipsqueak. You need to leave.” was all he said, even if he wanted to say more.
“You can’t make me.” the boy said defensively, crossing his arms as if staking his grounds. His backups took his side.
“I can too you little shit.” Tony took off his glasses and put them in his back pocket. Realization of his identity struck in each of the boy’s faces, but they had claimed their territory, they were in the point of no return. Tony held a cold, hard stare before pushing the boy backwards. He didn’t trip, but instead fired back at him, punching and pushing with all of his power. Though, a 16 year old boy couldn’t match a trained superhero.
Tony stood still, barely budging as a scrawny teenager fought at him. Finally, with Tony’s anger reaching a breaking point, he grabbed the kid by the collar, told him that “If you ever mess with my intern again, you’re going to be screwed.”, paid for Peter’s ice cream, and ushered Peter out the door. He didn’t look back, didn’t pay mind to the loud cursing of the teenagers as he unlocked the car doors and as they drove out of the parking lot.
If the car ride there was quiet, the car ride back was worse. Peter didn’t eat his ice cream. He wasn’t quite in the mood.
“Those were some real asshats back there.” Tony said to break the ice. He gained no response.
A few minutes later he tried again.
“Who were those kids?”
“Just,” he started, “just some boys from school.”
“Have they bothered you before?”
“...”
The silence told Tony all he needed to know. He didn’t follow up, he could see that Peter needed a break. The ice cream plan was meant to make him feel better, but it made things so much worse
A few more minutes were spent in silence when it was Peter’s turn to speak up.
“So I guess you know now, huh.” he said, not breaking his gaze from the passenger side window.
Tony took his eyes off the road for a brief second to look at the kid. He didn’t realize how broken his spirit was, and somehow it wasn’t any worse than how he was behaving earlier in the day. Was he really that blind?
“Know what?” he cautioned, directing his eyes back to the road. He was suddenly very glad that he had driven them instead of Happy.
There were a few more moments of silence.
“That I’m,” he hesitated, cringing at the words that were about to leave his lips. “That I’m a fag.”
Tony didn’t say anything immediately.
“Don’t say that word, Pete, especially not towards yourself.”
In the silence that followed, Tony noticed a muffled cry that got louder with each passing second.
“I’m sorry you have to see me like this, Mr Stark.” Peter said through tears, trying to hold back but failing miserably.
With perfect timing, he pulled into the compound garage and stopped the car.
“Hey, Pete, listen to me.” he said, wishing the arm rest wasn’t keeping him from pulling the boy into a hug. “Don’t ever be sorry for crying in front of other people. And don’t’ let those boys get to you, they’re just losers who have nothing better to do, okay?”
“But they’re right Mr. Stark!” he snapped in a hurry, wiping streaking tears from his face as he refused to look directly at his mentor. “I’m….I’m gay. I like boys. They weren’t lying.” Those sentence came out painfully, as if they were being ripped out of him
Tony was heartbroken. How could anyone hurt Peter Parker, of all people? He figured out quickly the boy was struggling with internalized homophobia, and the fact that those boys played off of it was sickening.
“Pete, look at me.” He waited until he complied. “There is nothing wrong with that, yeah? There is nothing wrong with being gay. Absolutely nothing. You know that, right?”
Peter didn’t reply, he was busy trying to stop his persistent crying.
“Are,” he paused, “are you sure?”
“Peter, I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life.”
There was a pause where Tony could tell Peter wanted to say something, but wasn’t sure if he should. He waited until he was ready. Peter wiped away another tear.
“...It, it wasn’t an easy realization. I went through a period where I just, i don’t know, hated myself most days. Some days are still like that. I guess I haven’t...come to terms with it, you know?” He stopped to wipe his face before continuing. “May doesn’t know.” he said while staring at the dashboard
That was the trigger to another wave of tears, and this time Tony couldn’t take not being able to hug the kid. He unbuckled his seat belt and got out of the car to walk around to the passenger side door and open it.
“Come here kid.” he said. Peter unbuckled and stepped out of the car, propping his ice cream cone in an empty cup holder and wiping the tears from his eyes. The boy was unexpectedly pulled into a tight hug, which reeled him into another round of tears.
“Don’t let anyone push you around. If they do, you know where to find me.”
“Thanks Mr. Stark”