Promotions Aren't Always A Good Thing

Tony drove home late that night, after he had carried the sleeping teen on his chest and gently deposited him into his room. He used a feather light touch to brush curls off his face and lay the blankets over him before checking May was alright, bidding her a goodnight and taking the lift downstairs.

One wall of the mirror was curved at an odd angle, but he payed it no mind as he stepped out and walked to his car.

The mechanic spent the remainder of his night in the lab, working on designs for Peter’s new phone, staring at the table blankly and mulling over exactly how he was supposed to tell the kid that they were biologically related.

His phone buzzed from beside him, breaking his unfocused stupor, and he picked it up while one fist rubbed lazily at his eye, the contact name ‘May’ blurred slightly as he blinked.

‘I’m heading to work now but feel free to stop by any time today. Pete has school though, so you could pop over in the afternoon to see how he’s doing.’

He sent a reply and wasted no time as he got himself a cup of coffee and planned to spend the rest of that day working on Peter’s phone.

----

Peter was quietly closing his bedroom door behind him, fully dressed and ready for school, when his brain finally registered the T.V’s white noise, signalling Carter was awake already. He contemplated crawling back under his covers and hoping the man forgot he existed for a day, but that was never going to work.

Of course, it never worked.

“I’m waiting.” Carter’s voice barked from the living room, the T.V volume adjusting so no matter how hard he tried, Peter’s footsteps would always be audible as he slowly walked down the hall toward the man, his head hung. “Sit down,” he stepped shakily past the doorway of the hall, so he was situated in the middle of the room before following the demand and perching himself as far away from the man who was taking up a selfish amount of space on the three-seater. “Take off your shirt,” he said evenly, looking Peter in the face without a hint of humour in his expression.

“W – what?” Carter expected the reaction, or at least Peter assumed he did, judging by the speed at which he threw the remote across the couch at him as he spluttered confusedly. The remote clipped his shoulder but didn’t hurt as much as it did make him flinch before cowering further in on himself. “U – uh, w – why do I need t –”

“Take your shirt off and stop asking questions or it’s going to hurt a whole lot more.” Peter’s fingers danced at the bottom of his shirt and hoodie, he clutched the fabric and thought seriously about how willing he really was to avoid the unnecessary pain. Considering he was still limping from last night, the lump on his head had barely gotten better and his body was still littered with unhealed contusions, he was leaning towards compliance. The unbothered look on Carter’s face was slowly giving way to a more impatient and unimpressed frown. The longer Peter took to finally pull the layers off and set them down on the arm of the couch hesitantly, the further the man’s glare spread.

“I – is this my punishment?” He asked nervously, praying the man would leave it at crippling insecurity and humiliation as his pale, wounded and too-skinny torso was exposed.

“Absolutely not,” the man said gruffly after laughing unkindly at the teen’s unease. Carter stood from the couch, smirking when he noticed Peter shuffling himself further into the corner of his cushion in fear. “You know exactly why you’re getting this,” he drawled as something long and black unrolled down towards the ground menacingly. “You deserve it too, brat.”

The belt unfurled from where it must have been rolled in his hand, the buckle hit the floor with a clang that prompted Peter to take a terrified, breathy inhale. It was long, leather, dark and matte black as it dragged along the wood floors while Carter slid forward, his gaze staying locked unfalteringly on Peter’s now quivering form. The sharp edges of the buckle grated along the floor and made horrible scraping noises that made the boy shudder in thought of it lashing across his own skin.

“W – wait, n – no, that’s – that’s… it’s too dangerous,” he shuffled backward until he slipped off the couch, his trembling legs barely holding him in a standing position as he retreated further away from the clothing article he had never known could be so debilitatingly frightening. “C – Carter please don’t… I – I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” His bare skin hit the wall and he gasped wetly, not at all surprised to see that he was already spilling tears from the pure terror of the situation.

“I’ve called the school to let them know you ‘weren’t feeling well.’ You won’t be getting your phone back to call Stark and by the time May gets home I want you in bed, asleep.” Peter hiccupped and held his hands out in surrender, hoping the man would take pity on his obvious fear as he weakly tried to block himself from the blows he knew would inevitably rain down.

But, of course, again, it never worked.

----

One of the worrying things was that, in the beginning, as Carter loomed over him and raised his hand, fight or flight instincts would kick in and flood Peter’s system with enough adrenaline that he bolted for the door. But now, as the belt finished snaking across the wood and Carter was fisting a hand into his hair and throwing him to the floor, chest down, he wasn’t filled with the sudden strength to run, he was brimming with burning tears as his entire body shut down and froze up. His instincts had grown from ‘flee,’ to what they were now, ‘coil into the smallest ball and sob as you wait the pain out.’

“Stop cowering or it’ll end up hitting you somewhere visible,” he felt the boot pressing into the small of his back, forcing his chest downward and exposing more of his back. Hot breath smelt of the coffee bought with his lunch money as it fanned across his shoulders when Carter bent down to whisper closer to his ears. “And we wouldn’t want that now, would we Peter? Think of poor May with a black eye and imagine Tony Stark, the superhero, getting backhanded by someone like me.”

Peter choked on a sob at the thought, gritting his teeth to both hold back his cries and force himself to push through the beating for Tony and May. He whimpered feebly as he heard the resounding crack of the belt as Carter snapped it together pointedly. The teen’s forehead was pressed against the floorboards, his fists clenched as he braced himself for the blows, the effort to keep every muscle tensed in advance made his entire body tremble with shudders. “If you scream and tip off any of the neighbours, I’ll make sure the next time someone phones in a complaint it won’t be about your screaming.” Peter’s lip wobbled as his eyes streamed fresh tears at the implication of May being hurt instead of him.

The boy didn’t have enough awareness to notice as Carter’s breath left his shoulders, and the faint noise of his shirt moving wouldn’t have given him enough of a warning before the mans arm was raised above his head and bringing the belt down across the sensitive flesh of Peter’s back.

----

Carter was relentlessly burning through the fury that had built up over the past few days and nights where the teen had spent time with Tony, but to Peter, nothing could justify the brutality of the belt.

The lacerations etched angry, scarlet lines which zigzagged across the surface of his back. The multiple contusions weren’t worryingly deep, but in some places, where the metal buckle had struck down and torn skin, there were messy smears of blood surrounding each outline. The cuts that sunk deep enough to draw blood beaded up, and each time Peter jolted away before being roughly tugged back, they smudged more across his skin. His nails scrabbled at the floor, digging into wood as his fingers tried to pull him away from the hot, agonising pain that he had been so horribly unprepared for.

Carter’s warning about his screaming set an icy chill down his spine, so he resorted to broken sobs. When it grew to be too much, and he felt a scream bubbling in his throat, he buried his mouth over his own arm and allowed it to muffle his howling and wailing to a volume that was hopefully quiet enough to let the neighbours continue sleeping.

By the eighth hit, Peter had diminished to a snivelling, mewling, sobbing puddle on the floor of the living room. By the fifteenth, he was gasping for air, choking on breaths that wouldn’t come as stars danced around his head, cruelling imitating Tony’s galaxy projector he used to so often use for comfort. After another minute or so, he had lost count of the hits and was resigning to let the darkness consume him in a tsunami which he hoped would wash away the pain with it.

----

Tony blinked warily as he finally clipped the case onto Peter’s new phone. He knew it was far from perfect, he had promised the kid they would both work on a new one in the lab, but he just needed a temporary ‘first draft’ model, because the idea of the teen not having any way of calling or texting him didn’t sit right for some reason.

That reason had a name, Carter. Something about the way that man would glance at Peter, or the way he had noted on several occasions how the boy stiffened and stepped closer to his side as the man spoke, triggered alarms in Tony’s head. He had denied it for long enough, he had grown more paranoid when it came to Peter’s wellbeing after he found out about the panic attacks, but he was almost certain he wasn’t just connecting random dots in his head anymore.

He took the liberty of driving to the apartment, just so he could see Peter with the phone himself, instead of trusting someone else to make sure the kid got it. The door was locked and there was no answer, it was almost midday, Peter would have been at school and Carter was either out or sleeping, so he made the decision to fly the phone into the boy’s room using a smaller droid carrier he had yet to test outside the lab.

The pocket-sized drone worked beautifully, he piloted it from his car, up through the fire escape, into the middle of the hall, in which he may have minorly lost his orientation from the shorter height he was used to, but he tilted the camera either way. One shot showed a small view of the T.V screen, which was turned off, the arm of the couch, which Peter had unsurprisingly left his hoodie draped over, and a tiny glimpse of the dust that hadn’t been vacuumed up for at least half a week.

The mechanic tilted the drone in the opposite direction, completely unaware that if he had piloted it past the living room doorway, he would have had a perfect shot of Peter, still lying unconscious with a bloodied back and tear-stained cheeks.

Tony locked the little droid forward and let it drift down the hallway to Peter’s bedroom door, which was thankfully ajar. He deposited the phone, snug in its Iron Man case and sleek packaging, adorned with the same red and gold bow he used for all the kid’s gifts, on the bed. He pressed a small button on the screen and a yellow sticky note fell beside the box before the droid slipped back out the fire escape, almost as if it had never been there in the first place.

----

When Peter woke up, he firstly noticed how numb his cheek felt from being rested against the floorboards for hours. He basked silently in the few seconds between waking up and his brain finally registering the pain in his back. The moment the pure agony caught up with his somewhat frayed senses, he cried out, fresh tears welling up while he writhed on the floor, almost as if struggling could pull him away from the pain. He hated himself for not trying to run as soon as he saw the belt, he hated how pathetic he looked and felt, he blamed himself for everything because he knew he should have found some way to prevent things from getting so much worse. How was he ever supposed to tell Tony, now that things had been going on for so long, was it his fault now too? Should he have said something the first time Carter shoved past him, the first time the man cut him off and told him to go away, or even the first night they met, when the handshake had been a little too firm?

Regardless of how much he thought back to when he should have said something, Carter’s shift started earlier that day, he would get home a few hours after May and would have the next day off completely.

He hated it when Carter had days off.

Peter waited until the man had walked past him, dealt the usual sneer of disgust as he stepped over the weak, motionless form and let the door swing shut behind him. The blood had begun to dry stickily and crust to the boy’s skin as it darkened, only then did he pull himself along the floor and into the bathroom. The shower’s spray would have been to unbearable, so Peter dampened a washcloth and drizzled the water over his shoulders, letting it drip down his back and fall into the tub in little red splatters. When enough of the crusted blood had washed down the drain, he slumped against the tub and sobbed for an hour, letting himself air dry as he imagined all the ways he could have just stopped this before it had progressed to being so much worse than he could easily handle.

Eventually, he used a towel railing to pull himself to his feet, then proceeded to stagger down to his room. He froze as he saw a shiny red box with a familiar red and gold bow taped to the top. Peter’s trembling fingers plucked a sticky note from his pillow and wiped away the tears from his eyes, so he could make out the writing.

‘Hey Pete, just threw together a simple design that we can work on together next time you visit the workshop. I used the new drone/droid thing I told you about last time to deliver it though, just because you were at school and Carter must have been out when I came over. Gimme a call when you get this, just so I know it works, and so I can check in to see how you’re doing.’

Peter huffed a happy breath from his nose as he saw the mechanic had signed the letter off with a doodle of the Iron Man mask instead of his name. Hope burst in his chest as he realised because Tony had used the drone, Carter wouldn’t have known he had gotten the phone, so there was no way he could possibly take it away from him. The teen carefully detached the bow from the box and disposed of the packaging quickly, hiding the bow in his bedside table where he had kept all of them since the first time Tony had found the wrapping. He had stuck it all over anything he got Peter ever since, loving the tackiness of it.

He ran his fingers over the case, another Iron Man themed object he now owned. Peter had once asked for an Iron Man hoodie for Christmas to be ironic, because he kept trying to tell Tony he didn’t need anything. The billionaire hadn’t stopped asking, so he asked for a licensed Iron Man hoodie to be funny, but Tony had just laughed, then went ahead to buy essentially every single hoodie with Iron Man on it. Peter cycled through all of them, he hadn’t believed it when the man had dumped them all on his bed and watched him dig through the pile, giggling in disbelief.

His heart sunk slightly when he remembered at least four of those hoodies were currently shoved under his mattress, bloodstains lining their insides to the point where he was too afraid to put them in the wash for fear of May seeing them.

His fingers were hovering over the only contact loaded into the phone when he realised it was only two thirty, he was still supposed to be in school at that time, so there was no way he could call Tony without having to explain why he wasn’t in class.

Peter crawled under his covers and stared at the phone screen blankly until the clock reached three thirty, then he pressed Tony’s contact with trembling fingers. There were barely even two rings before Tony picked up.

“Hey kiddo, phone working okay for you?” The comforting voice unpacked all of the boy’s emotions, it made him feel safer, warmer, reminding him that the man who always picked up the phone would drop everything to save him from Carter if he were to ever be honest.

But then again, could he even backtrack now and tell the truth? Wouldn’t it shatter the trust they both had with each other?

“P - please...” his voice cracked, tears still continuing to drip down his face and roll onto the blankets he had buried himself under. “C - C - Cn’ you tell me ‘bout your day please?” He kept his voice to barely a whisper, forcing the words to come out so quiet that they would be silent to anybody not sitting in the room with him. Carter was surely at work by now, so he was in the apartment alone, but the almost constant fear forced his pitch to stay low.

“I will, I will Pete I promise, but can you tell me what happened? Was it something at school that triggered you?” Tony sent an email off to Pepper without a second thought as he heard Peter’s shaking voice, his meetings were cancelled with the click of a button and he was already mentally calculating what time he would be going to the apartment tomorrow. He couldn’t listen to his kid sounding like this and then not check up on him. “Peter you just need to talk to me a little bit then I can make it okay, you gotta tell me what’s wrong so I can help.”

“I – I don’t know, I – I got scared o – on the walk h – home. Too many p – people walking, I thought one of th – them was gonna…” He trailed off, unable to say the words and finish the blatant lie, but Tony assumed he was too afraid to talk about how uneasy walking through the streets made him after seeing his uncle shot.

Liar, liar, liar, you’re lying to Tony and he’ll never forgive you.

“Okay, okay that’s perfectly fine buddy. How bad is it, panic attack bad? You want me to come over now? I can come over right now if you need me too.”

Carter had specifically told him to be in bed when May got home, and Peter knew that if the man found out Tony had visited the apartment, he would take the belt out again.

Once was enough. Peter couldn’t handle the belt. He couldn’t.

“N – no, it – it’s okay. I ju – just wanna hear about y – your day please.”

TonyTonyTony. Tony will make it better.

Tony felt like he was blabbering on about nothing, but if his nonsense helped Peter, he would talk about useless things for eternity. He would always do that, because he would do anything for Peter, he would do anything for his son.

For Peter, unlike the other occasions where he would call after a bad day, the pain didn’t ease all the way like he wanted it to, the aching burn wouldn’t even soften at all, but yet again, Tony launched into a step by step recount of everything he had done that day, without hesitation. Despite the crippling burn of the welts covering his back and the raw marks where the belt had whipped his skin, he burrowed himself further under the covers and rested his head against a pillow while he listened to Tony’s voice.

----

Tony spoke for who knows how long, but when he could finally hear Peter’s small puffs of air transition into longer, more even sighs of sleep, he whispered a gentle goodnight and hoped the boy had heard it somewhere in his dreams as the call clicked off softly.

----

May let him stay home the next day, when she crept into his room the next morning and saw how pale he was, how tired he was, she insisted, and he didn’t bother arguing. He wouldn’t have been able to walk to school without collapsing anyway. She must have texted Tony to let him know Peter was staying at home, because the mechanic drove himself over and knocked at ten in the morning. Peter knew because Carter opened the door to his room and hissed for him to stay silent, whispering threats before answering the door.

The walls of the apartment were thin, they were so thin, and Peter just wished that they weren’t. Because even sitting, curled up under his desk in his room, he could still hear Tony arriving. He could hear his father-figure asking for him, he could hear as his abuser put on a horrifically realistic tone of sympathy and lied.

Somewhere in his mind, he wondered if he was really any better than Carter, all the lies he had been spewing ever since that first slap added up, and he felt as if the putrid untruthfulness of May’s boyfriend wasn’t really any different than him.

“He went out for a walk, not sure when he’ll be back, I think he may be getting fresh air, apparently he wasn’t feeling that well this morning.” The walls are still too thin, he can hear the sadness and longing in Tony’s voice when he replied.

“Oh, alright then. Could you let him know I stopped by, tell him I said hi?” The emotion in his voice was so, so raw, Peter could feel his chest burning and the fiery lump in his throat ripping as he choked back a sob and forced himself not to fall into another panic attack.

“Of course, I’d love to.” God, he knew what that tone in Carter’s voice meant. He knows what was going to happen as soon as the door closed, and Tony began to walk down the hall. “Have a good one Stark,” the man called, then the sound of the door closing, and Peter felt his whole torso constricting in on itself as he pulled his knees tighter to himself.

The sound of footsteps nearing his room, his door being pushed open, the sight of Carter’s booted feet coming forward and stopping directly in front of him. “Under the desk, really? Pathetic. This is the fourth time this month so far. Big shot won’t take the hint and back off, huh? He really wants to keep dropping by…” Carter stomped his foot cruelly and grinned when it earnt him a petrified wail from Peter’s shaking form. “I don’t think I trust you enough to see him without blabbing, either that or you’ll be stupid enough to flash some more of those bruises you earnt yourself.” He holds in a whimper, desperately wishing it was the weekend, so May would be here. “Don’t even try it with those petty noises, you knew you’d be punished for spending time with Stark.”

Peter thought the belt had been punishment enough.

Without warning, Carter’s boot flew forward and caught Peter’s shin, it slammed into him and made his head jerk backward into the wall. Another one managed to collide with his wrist, and he fell on his side with the loss of support the limb had given him. He wished he hadn’t fallen, because now the kicks were smashing his ribs and stomach, one of them even landed on his collarbone and left a smudge of dirt across his neck when it was reared back for another blow. Peter’s mind screamed at him while he took the blows and shook with silent sobs.

‘Call for Tony, call out for Tony! He wouldn’t have even made it to the elevator yet, you can end this now. End this now! Get help, make the pain stop. Make everything bad go away, call Tony!’

He gasped as he felt something in his chest crack brutally and then a fierce pain engulfed him entirely, his vision whiting out for a moment. A whimper was involuntarily torn from his throat as the boot crushed down in the same place and his body exploded with the searing sensation.

“T – To – Tony…” He breathed out between sobs, gasping for air and regretting it immediately when the scorching pain flared up even more. His call was weak at best, a pitiful whine blown out at a volume he thought only he could hear.

Unfortunately, he was wrong.

“Don’t fucking speak,” Carter hissed, landing a kick again but keeping it pressed against Peter’s chest, leaning more and more of his weight onto it with each word. “If you even whisper a word about any of this to Stark or May, I swear…” He trailed off before shoving more weight down through his foot, making Peter choke on the unrelenting agony.

This was the time the man expected an answer from him, he had learnt that keeping silent wouldn’t end well for him. But no matter how much he wanted to speak, it hurt too much, the flames licked every inch of him and the edges of the room fizzled darker with every hacked syllable he forced out.

“I kn – know. I know. I – I – I wo – won’t, I s – swear.” He coughed when the boot lifted and curled further in on himself when he saw the disgusted sneer cross Carter’s face. The man leaned down and threw his fist into the side of Peter’s face before he finally left the room, much like how the teen realised Tony must have been leaving the building around that same time.

He couldn’t fathom the fact that he was just beaten within an inch of unconsciousness while possibly the only person who could save him from this walked down the hall. He let himself cry, great heaving sobs that only served to aggravate his now definitely broken ribs. Hours later, after his weeping died away, he crawled to the bathroom, locking the door behind him and slumping over the toilet seat. He retched from the pain but only his tears fell into the toilet bowl, his stomach already empty from not eating anything that day or the previous one.

----

The next time Tony visited, only a day later, May wasn’t home again. He refused to keep waiting, the more he showed up and got denied, the more suspecting he grew of Carter. Peter hadn’t been answering his phone much, he knew the boy hadn’t been at school the day before, and yet he was told by May’s boyfriend that he hadn’t been at home either.

“Oh, hey Carter, just stopping by to see Pete, he home?” The man’s face twisted slightly, and he looked put out for a moment while he paused, before he started to speak.

“Actually he’s –” Tony decided he was done with the continuous suspicious denial of Peter being home, so he cut Carter off for long enough to hear a dulled noise. It seemed to have been humming from inside the apartment, and he recognised the almost mute beat as a song Peter often played when he eventually got a turn to choose the music in the workshop.

“Yeah, I can hear his music from here, mind if I just say hi quickly?” Tony was going inside whether he was given permission or not, but he thought it would be beneficial to at least pretend to wait for an answer. Carter looked like he was torn between just shutting the door and arguing, but eventually the billionaire gave up on waiting ad merely stepped past the man and into the apartment.

“Prick,” he heard a not so under-the-breath name from Carter, which he paid no mind to as he crossed through the living room and into the hallway. Tony headed straight for Peter’s room, where the music was playing quietly, almost silent. He knocked respectfully, and the sound immediately shut off, followed by Peter’s timid stutter.

“S – sorry, I’ll keep I – it off,” the mechanic stepped into the bedroom and answered warmly, wanting nothing more than to just pull the kid out of his chair and apologise for not merely shoving past Carter sooner in the week.

“Hey, sorry, just me kiddo.” Peter was sat at his desk with the hood of his large sweatshirt pulled up over his head, he didn’t even turn in his chair when he spoke. His voice was hoarse, almost like he had been crying, and it made Tony’s heart squeeze in uncomfortable worry.

“O – oh. Sorry, h – hey Tony.” He walked to stand by the boy’s side, looking at the homework spread out over his desk.

“Whatcha working on squirt?” He tilted a page and skimmed an interested eye over the notes and equations that covered majority of the paper. The white sheet was scribbled with various coloured pens and highlighters for various sequences of numbers, it would look hectic to anyone else, but to Tony, it looked like something only his son would understand.

“N – not much, just some math notes I need t – to go over.” Peter didn’t say that if he wanted dinner he was required to complete insane hours of study. Instead, he stayed quiet and tried not to think about how he couldn’t hear the T.V playing anymore and kept his head down.

“Aren’t you hot all cooped up in here?” Tony fussed as he leant forward to pull the hood down and ruffle Peter’s curls fondly. The hood fell around the teen’s neck, and Tony’s finger had barely brushed the first strand of hair when he saw it. “Pete! what the hell?” The boy flinched, turning further away defensively, but he spun the chair around, so they were looking straight at each other.

From the better angle, Tony had a perfect view of the disgustingly dark staining that mottled the skin around Peter’s eye while the boy began to fumble over his words to explain it away like he always seemed to do.

“I – I’m sorry, I k – know it looks bad b – but it’s just –” He had only just started stuttering out the usual excuse, backed up by a weak smile, before he was cut off abruptly by the same voice that made his spine shiver in fear.

“Stark.” Peter jerked violently and twisted his neck around suddenly, his wide eyes swivelled to stare at the doorway where Carter stood. He shuffled in his chair, so the hand Tony had rested on his shoulder fell away. He had picked up on how much more aggressive the beatings were when Tony’s affection was evident or displayed.

“Hey, sorry if I was loud, I was just getting a look at the black eye Peter h –” Tony’s half-assed apology was thick and barely placating, but he grit his teeth together when he was rudely interrupted.

“No, it’s fine, didn’t mean to interrupt,” Carter said, cutting Tony off and highlighting the irrelevance of his apology. Peter turned away in his chair and went back to looking over his notes, holding the pen in his hand which had begun to shake.

He could see Tony in the reflection of his laptop screen, but Carter had already noticed how concernedly the mechanic looked at the boy and took matters into his own hands. “So, Stark, I was thinking, Peter has study he needs to do, and we didn’t exactly get off on the right foot, Tuesday night. May’s getting home later tonight and I thought we could get some lunch, get to know each other a little better. Maybe sort out the issues we have.” Peter ducked his head when his name was mentioned, going back to scribbling something on his page. Tony scrunched his nose at the use of his last name and didn’t feel at all happy letting the subject of Peter’s eye drop.

“I just came to visit the kid for a while, I’m heading off soon, so –”

“May mentioned, with how close you two were, and with her promotion I’m at home a lot more when you drop by, she thought it would be nice if we knew each other better, for her sake.” The lies Carter spilled were heavy, and the false care in his voice made Peter cower more in his chair, because he knew what the fake niceties meant for him, once they were alone again. The man smiled, and Tony couldn’t see the true darkness behind the expression, but nonetheless, he still disliked the way Peter was tensing and looking further away.

Agreeing to lunch with Carter was the last thing Tony wanted to do right now, he didn’t trust the man, he didn’t like the way Peter seemed to tense up around him. But, if May wanted it, and Peter could get some time to himself while he was out with Carter, maybe it wasn’t such a horrible idea, perhaps he could figure out the whole story of what happened on Tuesday night when the two had gone out to pick up dinner.

“Uh… yeah sure. Why not, I guess, if it’s for May. I’ll just say bye to Pete really quick,” he looked to Carter pointedly, but the man made no move to leave the doorway like Tony wanted him too. He said goodbye to Peter regardless, all too aware of the extra presence hovering impatiently in the room. “Make sure you eat something kiddo, I can get you something while we’re out if you want though. Don’t overwork yourself,” he ghosted a finger over Peter’s eye and tutted lightly. “Don’t think I’m not gonna hear the whole story behind that buddy, you want anything while I’m out?”

“I’m okay, th – thank you though,” Peter fidgeted nervously, his fingers twining and untwining with themselves as he fiddled with his pen, like he had more to say. Tony hesitated for a moment, waiting to see if the boy wanted to say anything else, before he stood from the bed and walked towards the door, where Carter had pushed off from.

Just as Tony stood to leave, and Carter finally turned away from his doorway, Peter forced himself to do what he ached for, despite his back still stinging horribly and his whole body protesting the sudden movement. He jumped up from the chair gracelessly and threw himself into Tony’s chest, wrapping his arms around the mechanic’s middle and hugging him tightly, gripping him subtly for support as he felt his ribs screaming in protest. “Th – thank you, f – for coming to see me,” the teen whispered, taking shallow breaths through the pain and choosing instead to focus on Tony’s warmth.

The billionaire hugged back after a moment of shock and indecision. When he leaned his chin down to rest atop the boy’s curls, he picked up on Carter’s reflection in Peter’s laptop. The man’s eyes were on them both, he was watching the embrace with something like warning in his eyes, which had locked onto Peter admonishingly. The kid slid out of the hug quickly and looked down at the floor to hide the submissive look on his face. He didn’t know why he let himself do that, he didn’t fully comprehend how much that hug meant, but he did understand what Carter could do to him as punishment once they were alone again. “S – sorry, I – I’ll let you go get lunch n – now,” he apologised involuntarily and felt his face heat up. When he turned and shuffled back to his chair, Tony noticed the limp that he was taking great effort in trying to conceal.

“Hey, don’t be sorry, I care about you, okay?” Before Peter could respond, Carter was tapping his fingers against the doorframe, making the teen flinch and hurrying Tony up, despite the irritated look he was shot.

“Let’s not fluff around too much, I wanted lunch, not dinner,” he said with a grin that Peter knew wasn’t friendly. The boy didn’t even try to fix Tony with an unconvincing smile as he walked out the door behind Carter.

----

Tony couldn’t get the picture of Peter’s shiner out of his head the entire drive to the restaurant, which was predominantly spend in awkward silence. Carter had chosen the restaurant, he insisted on using his own car and didn’t even bother to attempt breaking the silence as he drove.

The man had horrible manners, he was borderline rude at all times, he made underhanded comments and his face peeled back into a sneer more often than not, but none of those isolated qualities were what peaked Tony’s dislike. What he really hated about Carter was how none of those traits were ever displayed around May, in fact, the man was sickly-sweet around her, and possibly the largest issue, was that Peter had never seemed to warm to the man either, and Peter warmed to almost every new person he was introduced to, because he was kind-hearted and loveable. Why Carter seemed to have a distaste to the boy had never been clear to Tony, who had spent his life adoring the kid since the day they met. From nerdy science shirts, large, hazel eyes and honey-chocolate curls, Peter had meant everything to him since day one, onwards.

At the restaurant, the conversation between him and Carter stayed light, awkward and particularly strained at times, but what Tony found odd was the fact that whenever he tried to bring Peter up in any way, each time Carter would hurry the subject along or dismiss it completely. He remembered the night of Peter’s thirteenth birthday, the night he first met Carter, the man hadn’t seemed all too interested in any of Peter’s hobbies or interests, but at least he had looked like he was trying to pay attention. But now, the disinterest seemed to have morphed into undeniable dislike and avoidance, not to mention the fact that he seemed to hate talking about Peter at all.

“Okay cut the bullshit for a second here,” he snapped, halfway through their meal and after the third consecutive time Carter had dismissed any talk about Peter. “I want to know exactly what happened to his eye, and don’t even think about changing the subject here, because that kid means a lot, and I don’t tolerate seeing him hurt.” He leaned back in his seat, folding his arms and watching the man across from him, trying not to imagine how amazing it would be if May just kicked him to the curb already. “Cough it up, explain to me, why Peter is now sporting a pretty undeniable shiner? Huh?” Carter looked unimpressed with the line of questioning, but unlike what Tony had thought would happen, he didn’t seem all too fussed about it.

“Eh, mentioned something about a kid at school pushing him ‘round a bit,” he shovelled the last piece of steak into his mouth and wiped it with his thumb, leaning back similar to how Tony had. “To be completely honest, it doesn’t surprise me, he’s pretty scrawny, unathletic, doesn’t play any sport, it was really only a matter of time till he would start to get picked on, especially as a kid like him.” Tony narrowed his eyes accusingly, pinching his lips together and tilting his head as he fumed inside.

“I’d watch how you spoke about him. How do you think May would react if she knew the shit you talked about her nephew?” Carter merely shrugged, a poorly hidden smug expression crossing his face. “If we’re being completely honest here, you don’t deserve either of them,” Tony watched the man’s eyebrow raise in question, and he gladly proceeded to explain exactly what he meant. “May is an amazing woman, she works full time, raises a perfect kid all on her own, supports both of them and puts a roof over their heads. Peter, as you should well know by now, is the most intellectual, fourteen-year-old genius I’ve ever seen, he keeps up with me easily in the lab, breezes through advanced schooling, great manners, willingly helps May with anything she needs, and has the common decency to put up with your sorry ass. Neither of them deserve someone like you soiling their lives, and I think you know that. I don’t care how happy May seemed at first, but I can tell you now, unless you start treating Peter with the same respect you give her, she’s going to leave you to rot on the streets.” Tony crumpled his napkin and threw it on his plate, standing abruptly and straightening his jacket, “I’m making a call, wait for the cheque,” he said without any warmth.

He walked to the bathrooms, his teeth still grinding together as he leant against a sink and took out his phone, scrolling down to Peter’s name and typing out a message he hoped the boy would see.

‘Hey, I want you to know, about earlier, I do care kiddo. I drop by because I want to check up on you and see how you’re doing. You don’t need to thank me for that.’

Unsurprisingly, he didn’t get a response.

When he came back to the table, the cheque had been delivered and Carter obviously hadn’t made any move to pay. Tony threw his card inside the book and tried not to think about how casual Carter was, despite the mouthful he had just dumped on the man. He had assumed there would be a hostile and defensive reaction, but if anything, Carter was sinking back into his sickly-sweet persona.

The drive back was tense, they didn’t have anything to talk about, especially considering the only thing they had in common was Peter, and that subject point wasn’t well received, to say the least. Carter pulled up and began to say a goodbye, acting as if he didn’t want Tony coming back up to the apartment, which he definitely would be.

“I’m just grabbing something from my car, then I’m heading up right behind you.” Tony received a poorly concealed eye-roll but was ultimately glad when, after hesitating for a moment, Carter begrudgingly walked into the building and left him alone.

He unlocked his car and slid into the passenger side, flipped open the glove compartment and rifled around until he found a tiny, emergency microphone that he had once needed for a mission. The hero was just thankful that he had been too lazy to take it out of the car after the single time he used it. Just before he closed the door he pulled out an old tube of Arnica cream for Peter’s black eye and pocketed it.

Tony moved quickly, the longer he took to get up to the apartment, the more time Carter was up there, alone, with Peter.

He walked to the elevator and jabbed the buttons hurriedly, chewing at the inside of his cheek and hiding the microphone in his sleeve surreptitiously. The mirror was still warped oddly, someone must have walked backwards into it, he figured it was an eager couple who couldn’t wait to get to their room, he had been there before.

When he got to the apartment he couldn’t see Carter lounging on the couch like he expected, but he heard the man’s low voice coming from Peter’s room. He followed the hushed voice and walked quicker than he normally needed to. When he pushed open the door, where it was sat partly ajar, he saw Peter, still sat at his desk with Carter leaning his hands on the arms of the chair, almost as if he were trapping the boy in. The teen was visibly shaking as Tony stepped into the room, Carter jerked backward so quickly that the chair wobbled, and Peter gasped in fright, wincing when he leaned forwards instinctually to steady himself.

“I didn’t think you were actually coming back up,” Carter muttered, brushing imaginary wrinkles from his shirt with annoyance mixed into his voice.

“Well, like I said, I just needed to get something from my car, then I’d be right behind you.” Tony punctuated his words and moved to stand between Peter, watching the man intently and quirking his elbow in case he needed to shield the boy. Natasha would be proud his first instinct was to dip his knee and lift his elbow subtly, it gave him a faster reaction time if the man were to lunge at him unexpectedly. Carter clenched his jaw and shrugged, straightening up and trying to shoot the teen a smile that was supposed to make Tony forget what he might’ve seen.

“It was a good lunch, but Peter still has work to finish,” Carter bit, the fabricated smile beginning to melt away as Tony challenged his authority.

“That’s fine. I’m not staying, just saying bye,” the two men stared at each other, Tony squaring his chest and refusing to back down until Carter did. Tension hung thickly in the room, like a heavy fog surrounding the two men while Peter still cowered beneath them, not making eye contact as he shivered anxiously. After a moment, Carter did step to the side, moving to the door so Tony could stand beside Peter’s desk, although he stayed in the doorway and waited, hovering rudely and making Tony want to say something about it. “Hey kiddo, I figured you need this more than I do at the moment,” he put the small bottle of Arnica cream on the desk and smiled softly, not missing the way it wasn’t returned. From what he could see, Peter seemed terrified, and when he looked from the bottle to Tony, the light caught his eyes and they glistened, reflecting the lamp with a watery stare as if he were holding back tears.

“Th – thank y –” He began shakily, before he was cut off.

“Where’d you get that from?” Carter interrupted harshly. Tony was barely able to supress the urge to glare at him. His teeth grated against each other and his fists clenched, picturing himself physically shoving the man from the room, so he could say a real goodbye to his kid and explain the plan he was busy formulating.

“I keep it in my car, for if I ever get banged up in my suit during a fight.” He used the subtle nod towards the Iron Man armour in hopes of getting the man to back off, it didn’t seem to work, only succeeding to make his teeth grind together more. Carter never seemed phased by mentions of Iron Man, not that he would know exactly how easy it would be for the armour to tear him apart if he really wanted to.

“Thank you, r – really Tony…” Peter looked like he wanted to say more, but his chair turned slightly, and he made eye contact with Carter. Tony didn’t see the look the boy was met with, but he wished he had, because Peter’s lip started to tremble, and he turned back to face him quickly. “Th – thank you, b – but I really need to get more w – work done before dinner…” He turned away guiltily, facing his desk, the watery look in his eyes was so much more obvious now and he looked like he was barely able to hold back the tears.

“It was nice, it’s getting late now, so…” Carter nodded to the door expectantly and Tony couldn’t hold back his scowl. He leant down without hesitation and pulled Peter into a hug, squeezing him tightly and taking note of how the sudden contact made the kid squeak in fright and tense up before he quickly relaxed into the embrace, squeezing back just as tightly. He held on as if his life depended on it and buried his wince in Tony shoulder as he felt the growing pressure on his ribs.

When Tony was certain that the back of Peter’s chair covered his movements, he slid a hand under the desk and stuck the microphone in place firmly, tapping twice to activate it while silently praying he was somehow way off base, and it wouldn’t pick anything bad up. The boy didn’t notice, thinking Tony was just leaning into the hug more.

They held onto each other for a short while longer before there was a sharp noise as Carter cleared his throat incisively. He tapped at the screen of his watch tersely as the two broke apart and led Tony to the door, but not before he turned to look back and glimpse Peter staring after him. The teen bit his lower lip as his whole chin trembled, and perhaps it was a trick of the light, but Tony thought he may have seen a single tear escape and begin to trail down his cheek silently. He could hear the petrified and shaky voice call out softly once he was in the living room, being guided towards the door.

“I – I love you,” Peter said hoarsely, almost too quietly to hear from his bedroom. Tony didn’t have time to respond before Carter was clapping him on the shoulder and using the ‘friendly’ pat to persuade him out of the apartment.

“That was fun, we should do it again, Stark.” He didn’t get a chance to reply to Peter or Carter as the door swung shut and he walked back down to his car in a daze, the words ringing in his ears, ‘I love you.’

Him and Peter were close, they had been since the first night they’d met, and the young child had shyly asked if he would keep coming over. Anytime they were tinkering in the workshop or lounging around and watching a movie, all he wanted to do was tell him the truth about their biological relation. The worry, that he would inadvertently be hauling Peter into the spotlight with him or that it would ruin the already paternal-like relationship they had, was always eating away at him and preventing the truth from spilling.

They never said they loved each other, they never even really spoke about their relationship. It had just become a regular thing, Peter coming to the lab every week or two, Tony dropping by the apartment and seeing how the kid was doing more frequently. The thought of anything bad happening to Peter, to his son, made him feel physically sick, it hurt to even imagine.

As soon as he reached the car, he was sliding the listening piece into his ear slowly, absolutely terrified of what he might hear.

It was silent.

Not completely silent, but the sounds he dreaded weren’t there. He could hear the scratch of Peter’s pen against paper and his still slightly shaky breaths. The occasional sad sniffle made him clench the steering wheel as he drove home, but other than that, it stayed bearable. The desperate urge to turn around and storm back up into Peter’s room just so he could grab him, hold tight again and tell him that he loved him too, was all consuming. He strained to see if he could make out any background noise, the T.V, the fridge opening, or Carter making dinner, but there wasn’t anything else, so he assumed Peter had closed his door. It stayed that way the entire length of Tony’s drive home, and only when he got inside and slumped in his own lab chair did anything change.

In all honestly, he was growing more nervous the longer the normality stretched on, because if nothing happened and Tony had been wrong, the device would be a major invasion of Peter’s privacy, especially given that it was inside his bedroom. However, the doubt hadn’t grown enough to the point where he began toying with the idea of taking the ear piece out, because he was stopped by a new sound.

Tony heard a particularly frightened sounding sob from Peter, which made him sit up and grip the edge of his work bench, then the feed was picking up the sound of deliberately heavy footsteps growing closer to the teen’s room.

The boy’s breathing picked up rapidly, almost to the point of hyperventilating, then there was a bang like someone was slamming their fists onto the door to the room. He heard the desk chair rock as Peter assumingly jumped in fright, followed by a small cry of fear and the sound of a door being forced open filled the ear piece. There was the sound of the kid starting to stammer a weak plea before he was cut off abruptly by a much stronger, more furious voice.

“W – w – wait –”

“What the fuck was all that, huh? ‘I l – love you?’ ‘Th – th – thanks for visiting m – me?’” Carter cruelly mocked Peter’s stutter, which Tony knew only grew noticeable when he was afraid or overexcited. The fact that the stammering was only increasing around May’s boyfriend was becoming clearer now. “God, you are the most see-through, pathetic excuse of a kid, aren’t you?” The stomping stopped right by the desk and Tony pressed his teeth against each other so hard that he thought they may crack under the pressure he was exerting.

“C – Carter, p – please…” He was begging quietly, his voice wavering on every word from the terror. Tony wanted to tear the man’s head from his shoulders and watch him rot in a jail cell.

Tony stood up, a murderous look filling his eyes as he strode to the centre of his lab and left his chair spinning in a lazy circle as DUM-E whirred in curiosity. He outstretched his limbs in an eerie sense of calm brought forth by the bubbling rage that was seemingly only continuing to grow within him.

“Suit,” he said evenly, his brow lowering into an intently focused glare. The metal flew towards him and attached to his form, the faceplate locking on and the screen display lighting up as he powered everything up fully.

“Shut up. Shut up! You’re such a fucking baby around Stark, wanting hugs and getting all excited when he ‘stops by.’” Peter whimpered softly, and Tony’s state of calm cracked slightly as he snarled at the sound of his kid’s distress. “You think, that just because you aunt knows Tony Stark, you deserve all his stupid presents? Yeah? You think you fucking deserve to be spoilt?”

There was a muffled gasp that sounded as if Peter’s head had been turned away from the mic, and an image of Carter fisting his hand in the boy’s curls to yank his neck back roughly, filled Tony’s mind. “This is why I don’t bother to put food on your plate or give you lunch money and drive you home from school, because Stark will just take you out. He’ll get you a meal, drive you around in his fancy cars and buy you a bunch of stupid shit, you don’t even need!”

Of course he would, if that’s what Peter wanted, Tony would do it in a heartbeat. If Peter felt like ice cream, they would stop for ice cream. Hell, if Peter wanted to own every ice cream store in Queens, Tony would buy them all. Because that was his kid, his son deserved the world, and more.

But Peter didn’t get the world. He got dealt the worst hand in life, his mother and adoptive father died, his uncle was shot, his aunt’s boyfriend abused him, he got pushed around at school and he still skipped through life with a dopey smile on his face and his heart worn on his sleeve. He was the kindest person Tony had ever met, and yet people took advantage of him, they left him cold, vulnerable, exposed, and he was left to pick up the pieces and cradle them to his heart like no child should ever have to.

Peter’s sobs had increased, it sounded like he was heaving through the tears, whimpering every so often and sucking in violent breaths. “Fucking Arnica cream?” There was the sound of nails on wood, like somebody was picking up the bottle he had given the teen, then a crash and the rustling of plastic as if it had been thrown in the bin. “It’s garbage, just like you,” Carter yelled as he threw it, then his voice dropped lower as he hissed, the sound picking up closer to the device as he presumably leaned in. “You know you got that little mark on your face because you acted like a brat, so you don’t get to make it go away. I’ll just give you another one next time you decide to sneak off out the fire exit.” Peter let out a pained whine and sniffled again, louder this time. “Stark thinks winning a little science fair means you deserve this?” There was a slamming sound, and he assumed it was Peter’s laptop being clapped shut. “You get rewarded for shit-all? I will continue doing this each time you get pampered for no reason,” Carter’s threat was followed by Peter’s gasp.

“N – no! Please!” Then, there was a smashing sound and something skittering across the desk and onto the floor. It sounded like the laptop being broken into pieces. There was a moment of quiet, then Peter sucked in a breath and spoke with a tremor, “y – you’re j – just jealous of T – Tony.”

“No kid… don’t defend me,” Tony whispered into the emptiness of the workshop. He flinched, jolting from within his suit when there was a resounding slap and he could hear Peter cry out in pain. He growled audibly and diverted power to the thrustors.

“Don’t you ever talk back! I’m not even your fucking father and I need to teach you how to behave properly.” The noise of someone’s hand crashing down onto the desk and then a whoosh of muffled staticky noise filled his ear. Tony burst into the sky during the period of silence, mind reeling as he tried to figure out what the noise had been. Had the desk snapped in two? Oh god… did the mic dislodge? There was a rustle and then Carter’s voice was crisper and clearer than before, he spoke threateningly quietly. “What. Is. This?” He demanded lowly.

“I – I – I don’t – I don’t know… please, I s – swear, I have no idea what th – that –” He could hear Peter yelp and then another slamming noise, followed by a second cry of pain and more sobbing, even closer to the point of hysteria now. “No! N – no please, please! I don’t – I don’t kno –” For every slap and hit Tony could hear through the ear piece, he increased his speed.

“It’s a fucking mic!” Carter yelled so loudly that the audio crackled slightly, and Tony winced at the volume. “How long have you had this hidden there? You planning on telling someone about all this, huh? Huh!” There was a shaky gasp and it sounded like Peter was painfully trying to form words before the man snapped at him viciously. “Well you aren’t ever going to show anyone this now, you aren’t going to show anyone anything, ever again.”

Tony heard a scream of pain that sent horrible chills throughout his body, and it could have been real, it could have been the fury melting words together, but he could have sworn that Peter was screaming for him.

“No – o! Please, help! Ton –” And then the audio cut out completely as Carter presumably crushed the device under his foot or in his fist.

The silence in his ear felt deafening, and the longer he went without being able to hear Peter’s breaths, the more panicked he grew. His suit was bursting through the sky at the highest speed he could increase it to, but it didn’t feel like enough. He had just heard his son being slapped and thrown against his desk as he pleaded and sobbed through the pain of it all.

Millions of questions were flooding through his head at speeds he couldn’t decipher them all. His skull was ablaze with a flurry of emotions that threatened to drown him, and if he didn’t have such a clear goal in his mind, he would have fallen out of the sky as a panic attack washed over him. But the absolute fury that pounded through his every fibre was too strong to be thrown off course by a pitiful panic attack, not when he had his son to save from a monster who was about to discover exactly what a metal fist to the face felt like.

After what was definitely still too long, he landed the suit right outside the building, sprinted inside, barely even waiting for the metal to disengage from his form as he made for the elevator. If he thought the ride while he was holding the Arnica cream had been horrible, this one was worse than hell. The warped mirror didn’t seem so innocent anymore, and the bump on the back of Peter’s head last Tuesday night was beginning to seem a lot less accidental than he was originally told.

When he got to the right level, the lack of any noise coming from the apartment was even more terrifying than he could have ever imagined. The door was locked when he tried the handle fruitlessly, but it only took him four kicks until it busted open and he was stumbling into the living room through the open frame. “Peter! Pete, where are you?” There was absolute silence and he felt an icy dread, pooling and seeping up his spine when there was no response to his panicked calls. “Carter! Where’s Peter? Where is he!” He yelled, not caring if the neighbours heard as he forced his limbs forward and careened down the hallways to Peter’s room. “What the hell did you do to him?”

The door hung open, loose on its hinges and adorned with two fist-sized holes through the wood. He heard a horrifyingly shaky and breathy whimper and didn’t hesitate a moment before bursting into the room immediately. “Oh god… Peter!”

There were pieces of laptop scattered across the room and shards of glass lying amongst them. The Arnica cream had split open on the far side of the room and the entire bin it was lying beside had tipped over sideways, Tony could see the contents half strewn over the floor. Almost all of the rubbish was bandage packaging and empty bags that must have once held ice.

So, Carter’s abuse hadn’t been a recent development then…

The desk lamp was lying on the floor, cracked where it had hit the ground, the contents of Peter’s desk were scattered across the room and some of the math notes were stained with drops of red. The half-crushed mic was on the floor next to the desk, and Tony pocketed it without hesitation. The chair was unsteady on its wheels and it barely held up the form slumped in it.

Tony jumped forward to see the teen. His head was turned away, lying flat against the desk with his arms thrown wildly over the wood, which was covered in marks suggesting nails had scrabbled over the surface. His clothing was rumpled, stained with crimson, and his hair looked like someone had grabbed him by those dark honey locks, because it stuck up in all directions and the front of his head was sticky with blood as if it had been slammed against something harshly enough to split the flesh. Over the side of Peter’s face that Tony could see, he was covered in welts and marks which would definitely morph to horrific discolouration. His hairline trickled blood, there was a cut just below his eyebrow and his lip was split in two places. Where his head rested against the desk, the wood was slowly being covered in a growing puddle of blood. “Oh my god…”

Tony gently lifted Peter’s slumped form, moving him from the desk by leaning him back in the chair and trying to assess the wounds. His face was a bloodied mess, his nose was still trickling blood steadily and it was beginning to drip down his chin and trail in paths along the column of his neck.

The black eye he had was even worse, it looked like someone had hit him repeatedly in the same spot, it was starting to swell shut to the point where he may not be able to open it fully. His soft face was twisted in pain and Tony felt sick. His stomach was twisting and his mind was screaming, ‘your fault, your fault, your fault.’

When he leant Peter back against the desk chair, the boy startled from unconsciousness and whimpered loudly, gripping the mechanics wrist and choking on a strained and congested sob. His frail body practically writhed as he woke to the sensation of hands on him, convulsing away and shaking drops of blood over himself until his glazed eyes followed the hands up to the eyes of who was holding him steady.

“T – T – Ton… Tony?” He mewled weakly, his voice cracking on the words. The only thing that cut through the mess of blood and contusions were the many tear tracks that ran down the boy’s cheeks like raindrops against a car window.

“Holy shit, Peter my flight was only six minutes… what the hell happened?” He tucked a finger up into his sleeve and gingerly wiped some of the blood from a cut that was leaking towards the teen’s good eye, or more accurately, his less bad eye.

Tony felt as if his entire being was seeping paternal instincts as he looked into the brown eyes that were so full of hurt. He traced the pad of his thumb just above Peter’s eyebrow, wiping away the trickle of blood which could have clouded his sight. He could feel the empathetic pain squeezing his heart and throat while he watched the teen still sucking in unsteady and too-rapid breaths.

“H – he f – found… Th – the mic you l – le – left.” Peter sniffled and winced in pain as scrunching his nose irritated the injuries. His good eye twitched when the fabric of Tony’s shirt dabbed away the drop of blood that slowly fell closer to his lash line. “H – he went o – out the f – f – fire esc – escape when he h – heard you l – l – landing the suit…” his breath whistled and Tony had the cruel realisation that there was a hand shaped mark slowly beginning to form over Peter’s throat. He mentally berated himself for not thinking to power the thrustors down on the suit before he landed, so it would have been more silent.

The boy’s voice broke and came out in a haunted whisper when he murmured his next words quietly. “H – h – he was t – try – trying to k – k – kill me…” He sobbed, and the tears began to fall again as he pitched forward, but Tony caught him in an embrace while guilt raided his heart.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry Pete, I should’ve – god, I shouldn’t have left, I should have stayed and done something the first time you were too quiet…” He was lightly stroking the curls at the nape of the teen’s neck and hating himself for not preventing all of this. For not stopping his son’s pain. How could he have missed this? How could he have not figured this out so much sooner?

If he hadn’t thought to use the mic, how much longer would this have gone on? Would he have ever saved his kid from this? Or would he have been too late… Peter said Carter was trying to kill him, was it because he found the mic, or was it because of how hard Tony had come down on him at lunch?

“N – no… s’ not your f – fault.” Peter’s whole body was trembling, he was smearing blood over Tony’s shirt, but he didn’t care in the slightest as he pulled the sobbing boy closer in his arms. He relished in the feeling of the breath pulling in and out of Peter’s chest, alive, alive, alive.

Carter hadn’t killed him. His son was okay. He was breathing. Alive.

“I’m sorry, god I’m so, so fucking sorry Peter… I could’ve protected you from this,” he didn’t know when his own eyes had welled up, but he was burying his nose in Peter’s curls and holding the back of his head tightly, so the teen’s face was nestled safely into his neck.

“N – no, you c – c – couldn’t h – have… I lied t – to you, a – and hid s – stuff.” He gagged on another clogged, heaving sob and began a heart-breaking litany of apologies. “I – I’m sorry, I’m sorry I lied, I’m s – so sorry I lied to you. H – he was g – gonna h – hurt you if I s – said any… anything. H – he threatened t – to hurt y – you and May if I told the t – t – truth.” He took a very shaky breath and Tony could feel his body rattle and stutter with the effort to pull in enough air, almost like a well-used can of spray paint. “I j – just wan – wanted to pr – protect you n’ May… that’s why I lied, but I’m s – s – sorry! I’m s – so, so sorry…” He felt as Peter’s lip shook, an indication that he wanted to say something else, he stayed silent when the boy did whisper the shaken admission, “I c – can’t lose a – another f – father figure…” His body racked with sobs and his cries were muffled from where he was slumped against Tony.

He finally said it. Peter called him a father figure.

Despite the loving, adoring burn that flickered deep beside his heart, he knew he needed to put it in a box to the side for now, because his kid was bloody and hurt and needed help.

“Pete… no, no, don’t be sorry, it’s okay, it’s okay. I can protect myself, I can protect May I’m Iron Man, shit Petey… you’re – you’re just a kid… I – I could have saved you.” He pressed a kiss to Peter’s head and pulled him closer. They stayed still for a few more moments, letting Peter soak in the physical contact and try to steady his breathing while Tony tried not to hyper focus on the fact that it was one of the first times he had ever kissed Peter’s forehead.

“T – Tony… it h – h – hurts,” he could feel his heart fracturing more as he lifted Peter carefully, cradling the back of his head as if it needed support like a young child.

“Shh, it’s okay, I know, I know, I’m getting you to a hospital.” He paused at the broken doorway to the boy’s room, realising he only had his suit with him and nothing else. He couldn’t carry Peter in his suit, not when he was so fragile and in need of real comfort, not the cold exterior of his suit. “Okay, I need to call an ambulance for you, alright?” He kept walking until he could gently lay Peter out on the couch, his back supported by the arm rest, “Shh, shh, I’m calling an ambulance and they’ll be here really soon, I promise.”

He dialled the emergency number and asked for an ambulance immediately, not giving the gruesome details but simply muttering “ch – child abuse… teenager’s been attacked and… he isn’t breathing properly, please just – just come quickly.” Once he listed off the address, he hung up and dropped to his knees beside the couch, cupping the less wounded side of Peter’s face softly and holding one of his trembling hands. “H – hey kiddo, they’re on their way now, it’s not gonna hurt for much longer, okay?” Peter keened and leaned into the touch, he fell so quickly that he would have tilted off the side of the couch if Tony hadn’t caught him. The boy whined when the hand on his face went away and he leaned further forward to try and catch the mechanics fingers again.

“P – p – please… I j – just need – I need –”

“Okay, okay, I’m here, I’m right here Peter.” He moved further into the teen’s eyeline and smiled reassuringly.

“N – no, please y – you don’t understand… M – May’s never home a – and I – I just… please, I need t – to –” Tony understood, he knew May’s new work hours meant that she was barely at home when Peter was, he knew that the change of her shifts meant he was alone with Carter all the time and when he was at work, May would be asleep for her next shift.

Peter must have been starved of any affection, it was why he had clung to Tony those few times, shaking and gripping at the hug like it was all he ever got, and that’s exactly what was happening. He needed physical affection right now, more than ever before, because May didn’t have the time, she didn’t know what was happening in her home while she wasn’t there, and her boyfriend offered nothing except violence and abuse. Not to mention, that no matter how much Tony may love his kid, he had walls up and issues of his own, some days were bad, he could barely handle touch from those he trusted, let alone strangers, and Peter understood, he always knew when it was a bad day.

But while Tony’s bad days meant no touch, Peter’s bad days meant he needed to be held, he needed to feel loved and he dissolved into any physical affection he was offered.

“Shh, shh Pete I know, I know what you need, I understand,” Tony rested his front on the couch beside the teen and pulled him in, so they were embracing again. The boy melted into the gentle touch and whimpered happily, tension he had been holding for far too long finally fading away. He sighed and curled closer to Tony, murmuring his thanks and continuing to apologise for everything he thought he had done wrong.

He hushed away all of his kid’s apologies before remembering what had been nagging at him since he left the apartment. He pulled back but kept both his hands rested lightly on the sides of Peter’s face. “Hey kiddo…” The boy sniffled at the loss of contact but fluttered his eyes open to look back at Tony and meet his gaze. “I love you too,” he said meaningfully, pressing as much sincerity into the words as he could. Peter looked taken aback for a moment, then he was pulled closer again and was sobbing into the mechanics shoulder.

Tony loved him. Tony didn’t hate him, he wasn’t angry, he didn’t think Peter was pathetic or disappointing. Tony loved him too.

----

It didn’t take long for the medics to arrive, they had brought a stretcher up with them and they carefully manoeuvred the boy onto it. Tony kept pace right alongside them and held Peter’s hand the whole way down to the ambulance, only turning away to grab his suit which compacted into a briefcase as he passed. He clambered into the back of the vehicle with the teen, watching the medics attaching monitors onto the small form.

One of them had cut off the hoodie and was strategically pressing down on certain areas of the chest, to check for issues in the ribs. Tony felt sick again as he saw the various tinted, shaped bruises and wounds that were blemished across the fair skin. The most upsetting thing was the fact that not all of them were fresh, most were fading yellows and greens, as if they had been there for days, weeks, possibly even months. A particularly dark wound wrapped around his slim wrists, which had been absent of the watch for some time, and Tony’s mind conjured the image of the teen being held still, pinned down helplessly by his hands.

“Alright, we’re administering you something for the pain now, but you need to take some deep breaths even though it hurts for the moment.” The mechanic had been on enough missions to know that you were only asked to take deep breaths when you had broken ribs, to prevent pneumonia.

“O – okay,” Peter sucked in shaky breaths obediently and winced when he did so. The ride to the hospital was quick, the paramedics were good at their jobs, getting the boy sorted out and prepped for the doctors while keeping him calm. Tony followed alongside the stretcher through the parking lot and halls until one of the nurses stopped him outside the operating theatre, telling him that he needed to let the doctors do their job and stay in the waiting room. She promised to deliver any news about Peter’s condition to him when she could.

“I’ll be there when you wake up, I promise kiddo,” he said to the teen while his bed continued to roll further into the hospital. The boy opened his mouth to reply but another paramedic put a hand on his shoulder and instructed his breathing until they were out of sight.

----

Tony carried himself outside into the parking lot, stepping around to lean against a pillar and taking his phone out. The rough concrete rubbed up against his shirt, but he couldn’t care any less then he did in that moment, he was too focussed on trying to figure out how he would tell May. As much as he didn’t want to have to shove anybody else into the pool of guilt he as drowning in, she had the right to know what was happening.

There were plenty of rings before her voicemail crackled over the line and he sighed before hanging up and dialling again. Luckily, she answered, her voice was strained, and he could hear plenty of background noises but couldn’t find the concentration to work out where she was.

“Tony?” He sighed again and wiped his eyes with the back of his hand before answering.

“May, listen I know you’re working but there’s a situa –”

“I’m not working, there was a minor accident and Carter called me down to the hospital as his emergency contact.” His mouth fell agape, and he hurriedly swivelled around until he found the name of the hospital he was currently standing outside.

Not Forest Hills, please be somewhere else, Peter’s safe now, nobody can change that.

“What hospital? May I need to know what hospital you’re at, now.” He squeezed the handle of his briefcase as the picture of Carter leering over Peter’s desk chair hardened in his mind and he needed to take a steadying breath.

“Uh, it’s just Long Island Jewish Forest Hills, why? Why are you freaking out Tony? Carter’s going to be fine, he just got into a car cr –” He felt like he was seeing stars, but he could hear his feet pounding on the linoleum floors as he ran to the nearest desk and gripped the counter feverishly. The phone was pressed to his chest, away from his ear for a moment so he could talk freely.

“I want May Parker’s room; what room is she in? She’s an emergency contact, please.” The woman behind the counter frowned, minimised her tab and pushed her glasses up slowly. She typed something in and raised an eyebrow at his white knuckled grip.

“Room fourteen, she came in with a Carter –”

“Thanks,” Tony put the phone in between his shoulder and ear as he grabbed a map and walked down the hall with all the swiftness of someone who was late to work. “Okay May, I need you to listen very carefully to me. Take me off speaker phone if I’m on it,” he took a door to a stairwell and jogged up the stairs two at a time. “Now make an excuse and step out of Carter’s room, I don’t care if he wants you to stay. Get. Out.” He had walked up two levels and put the map in his mouth while he shouldered open the door to the right floor, spitting it back out and letting it flutter into a bin as he followed the numbers starting from room eight and following the hall until he was outside room fourteen. He heard muffled voices and then May was stepping out into the hallway and pocketing her phone as she saw him.

“Tony, what’s going on? I need to be in there with Carter, he has a broken wrist from the crash –”

“He hit Peter.” He levelled his stare as May processed the information slowly, her reaction time delayed.

“I’m sorry, he what?” She lowered her voice and he pulled her arm gently to guide them both further away from the closed door.

Hehurtmykid, hehurtmyson, hehurttheonlythingIlove.

“I went to the apartment and Peter had a black eye, Carter made me go out for lunch with him and everything felt wrong, he was being really aggressive, wouldn’t leave me alone with Peter or anything. I hid a mic in Peter’s room before I left… I uh, I thought it might pick something up and it…” He trailed off, his head pounding with Peter’s sobs of fear as the background soundscape for the vicious echo of a hand being brought down on his innocent face.

“Tony, what did you hear, what the hell did he do to Peter?” He could see in her eyes the seething, coiled resentment unfurling in her head, ready to lash out.

“I didn’t hear everything, he found the mic before I could get to the apartment… May, he – he was… Carter was trying to kill him.” He heard his voice crack and he willed away the lump in his throat, trying to stay stoic until that man was nowhere near his child, let alone the same hospital, two floors away.

May’s entire demeanour darkened violently, and Tony knew that no matter how composed May normally was in the face of grief, she was about ready to snap. Her face was paler than before, lips pressed into a hard line and arms straightened at her side, fists clenched so much that her hands trembled.

“Tony,” she started calmly, gripping onto the leash which held back her wrath with undeniable strength. “I’m going to need you to call the police and have him arrested, I’m taking a moment alone with him,” he had the emergency contact number ready to dial but he held May’s stare, warning in his eyes.

“You can do what you want, but I’m not leaving you alone with him,” she glared, but it wasn’t directed at Tony.

----

He leaned against the doorway, the police already on their way as he continued to watch the back of May’s head as she screamed.

It had started out somewhat composed, she was yelling about trust, something along the lines of letting the man into her home, trusting him to treat Peter with the same dignity he treated her with. By now, the woman’s speech had dissolved into solely curses Tony didn’t think he could ever repeat.

He understood enough Italian to know that what she was shouting probably would have gotten her arrested in some countries.

Tony had gotten the first hit in, a heavy palm shoved into Carter’s nose sent a satisfying crack from underneath his hand before blood began to gush down the man’s face. He had gripped the obviously broken wrist and hissed graphic depictions of what he could accomplish with the suit on, but then May was laying a somehow placating hand on his back and he gladly stepped aside to let her calm exterior finally give way to the absolute hell she was about to unleash.

Carter’s cheek had formed a red handprint and there was a cut on his cheekbone from one of May’s rings. He was sat upright in the bed, his eyes bulging as he frantically jabbed the call button. Tony could hear doctors and nurses as they streamed down the hall and burst into the room alongside three uniformed officers, pulling May and Tony away despite the woman still screaming obscenities in Italian at Carter.

“Ma’am, please, I’m going to need you to step outside please, the authorities will handle this.” She pushed a nurse’s hand from her shoulder and eyed the closed door for what must have been the eighth time.

“Don’t you ma’am me, I want him arrested right now, I don’t care if you need to cast his wrist or set his nose, he tried to kill my nephew!” The nurse caught one of the doctor’s eyes and looked to him helplessly.

“They’re detaining him now but legally we have to provide sufficient medical care before they can take him to the police station.” Tony took out his phone and pulled out the mic, he twisted a few pieces together and slipped the device into the small slot on the side of his phone.

“Give that to the cops in there with him, you can fix his nose and wrist from the station. Listen to what’s on that mic and then get him out of this hospital or I won’t hesitate to drag him out of here myself.” The doctor eyed his briefcase and snapped his mouth closed, opening a hand so Tony could drop the phone into his hand.

“I, um, I – I’ll do that now then Sir,” he nodded to the nurse wordlessly and slid into the room with the police and Carter.

“Do you need me to dress you hand for you Sir?” He waved the nurse off and stood beside May as they waited. Not even ten minutes passed before Carter was being led from the room, his wrists behind his back, a well-deserved crooked nose and his upper lip smeared with congealed blood. He was frowning, but without any leverage his glare had no real heat to it as he was walked down the hallway.

----

May huffed indignantly and her shoes clicked against the floor as she followed Tony down to the waiting area after they had watched Carter get loaded into the back of a police car. He silently led her to the chairs and made her sit down before handing her a paper cup of water, which she didn’t drink from.

“I can’t believe I let this happen,” she whispered, staring blankly at her feet without bothering to wipe the tears that had begun to well.

“It wasn’t your fault, you couldn’t have known May. You were working all day and neither of us knew what Carter was really doing all day.” He rubbed his hands together and ran one through his hair messily before picking at the dried blood on his shirt. Peter’s dried blood. “God, he was apologising to me, he kept saying he was sorry, he said it was his fault for lying.” Tony slumped in the waiting room chair and rested his head in his hands, wondering how the hell he got in this situation. His biological son was in the emergency room because he wasn’t smart enough to figure out what was happening sooner.

“H – how bad was he?” He squeezed May’s shoulder and they both sat in solemn silence until he answered her.

“He was having trouble breathing, s – so many old injuries when they cut off his sweatshirt, all over his arms and chest. They rushed him off pretty quickly, the nurse said she’d give me updates but… I – I don’t know how long it’ll be.”

I don’t care how long it is, I’ll wait here. I won’t leave your side and I won’t miss anything like this again, I won’t let anyone lay a finger on you Peter. I love you.