Tony has been in situations that would probably make highly trained professional hitmen tremble. He has a high tolerance for bullshit and hardly anything seems to phase a person after they’ve sat through one of Pepper Potts’ three hour lectures about why you should not throw flower pots at members of the press. Tony genuinely thought that he might never experience fear again after that little escapade. What he didn’t expect was for his hands to be trembling and his heart to be pounding against his ribs at the thought of being left alone with May Parker.
Which, now he thinks about it, doesn’t make much sense because May Parker is a fiercely protective woman, and Tony has been having an illicit relationship with her teenage nephew for God knows how long. She has every right to be furious with him, and Tony would be lying if he said he didn’t expect her to tase him with the array of weapons she probably has hidden away somewhere in the apartment.
As it is, he’s perched on the edge of her sofa with his hands folded in his lap like a schoolboy being chastised. If the schoolboy had committed a moral sin, that is. She is sitting opposite him, legs crossed and elbows resting on her knees, propping her chin up. Her face is expressionless and she seems to be deep in thought. Tony desperately wants to leave but he’d be far more afraid of distracting her and pissing her off right now.
“So,” She says suddenly, startling Tony out of his own thoughts. Her eyes are trained on his now, empty of anything to give Tony an idea of how she’s feeling. He’s never not known how to act before and it’s majorly throwing him off.
“Let me get this straight. You, a middle aged man, have been sleeping with my sixteen year old nephew for months now, under the guise of an internship, after you met him working illegally in a strip club and decided to do nothing about it. Is that correct?”
Tony swallows nervously because, yes, almost every single aspect of that is the truth. Peter was working in a run down strip club as a fifteen year old with a perverted boss and dangerous, groping customers at every turn. And what did Tony do? He let Peter give him a dance after swearing to be a mature, responsible adult in the kid’s life.
Okay, maybe that’s taking it a bit too far. Mature and responsible not so much, but the adult part is still true. The only part of May’s statement that isn’t correct is the part about the internship being a guise for them to see each other, and even that Tony orchestrated for the purpose of getting to know the kid. Sure, Peter was crazy smart for his age and he earned his place at Star, Industries but somewhere in the back of his mind Tony has always known he wouldn’t have offered Peter a place there on that day in the tower if he hadn’t met him in the club a few days earlier.
Even so, he tries to explain this to May.
“Peter earned his internship.” He promises her. “He’s so smart and his idea was so well thought out that I couldn’t not give him a chance. Mrs Parker, I am so sorry that I lied to you, and I’m sorry if my behaviour ever caused Peter harm. But… I care about him a great deal, and I don’t expect you to ever forgive me but I hope that you can at least understand.”
May is silent for a long time. Tony is getting anxious again, watching her face and being unable to tell how she’s going to react. Just when he’s about to offer to leave and come back later - or possibly never show his face in her apartment again if that’s what she’d prefer - she shifts in her chair and sits back, exhaling slowly. Her body seems to sag, like all her energy has just left her, and she squeezes her eyes shut for the briefest of seconds.
“Mr Stark,” she starts wearily. “My fifteen year old nephew was working in a strip club for almost six months and I didn’t even know. He told me he was working in a cafe. When he started earning more money he just told me he picked up extra shifts, or he was given a raise. I believed him, because I didn’t want to see the truth. We’ve been struggling ever since my husband died and I projected my worries onto Peter. I’m the reason he felt like he had to get a job in the first place, and I didn’t even want to see that the job he got put him in a horribly dangerous situation.”
Tony is speechless. That doesn’t seem to be directed at him but he feels something in his chest tighten at the thought of Peter in danger, in pain. He knows exactly what May is thinking because he’s thought them himself.
“Thinking about all the terrible things that could have happened to him makes me feel sick. And I will never forgive myself for not seeing that things were wrong sooner, and I don’t know if I’ll ever forgive you for not telling me about this sooner. But Peter said himself, you make him happy. You protected him when I didn’t, and it’s probably because of you that he quit. I can’t say I’ll ever approve of you and him being together but I know that if I try to prevent it from happening then he’ll just find some elaborate way of making it happen. He’s already proven that he’s more mature than most adults I know.”
Tony nods in agreement, because that’s what he’s been telling himself for the past six or seven months— albeit to make himself feel better, but still.
“I would never want Peter to get hurt, and I will do everything in my power to stop that from happening. If you— if you say that you don’t want me to see Peter again… I’ll understand. But I believe Peter is more than capable of knowing his own limits, and if and when he decides he’s done with all of this then I’ll respect that.” Tony tells her, conscious that he doesn’t want to insult her but also wary of misleading her. The only thing that could keep him away from Peter now is if Peter said that he didn’t want to see Tony anymore. Anything else seems unimportant compared to the kid.
May nods, processing this.
“You have to understand, though,” she replies eventually. “Peter is my son, in every meaning of the word but biologically. I love him more than anything in the world and I will do anything to protect him. If that means breaking the law then I’m perfectly happy to do that. So I should warn you: if you ever hurt my son I don’t care how rich you are, I will make you regret it. Do you understand?”
Tony understands perfectly.
***
“Holy shit.” Peter exclaims when Tony steps outside twenty minutes later, breathing out a sigh of relief. “You’re still alive.”
“Of course.” Tony replies, reaching for Peter’s hand and holding it in his, running the pad of his thumb over Peter’s knuckles again and again until the boy blushes prettily. “We have work to do.”