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BRUCE
Bruce Banner, like everyone else, knew that Tony Stark wasn’t a particularly warm and fuzzy person. He tended to diffuse emotionally charged situation with sarcasm and humor, and was basically allergic to showing his feelings.
That’s why Peter Parker was such a pleasant surprise.
“Banner,” Tony said one day as he walked in with coffee in one hand and the teen following close behind. “Peter’s going to help us out today.”
Bruce nodded his head, accepting that. It wasn’t a rare occurrence for Peter to assist them in the lab, especially recently, but after taking a closer look at the kid’s face, Bruce realized something was wrong. He didn’t have the usual buzzing energy he had when he came to work.
“You alright, Peter?” Bruce asked when he sat down at one of the tables glumly.
“Peter’s pouting,” Tony answered.
“Am not!”
“Are too. You’ve been bummed about something ever since you got home from school- yeah, I noticed- and you’re going to tell me about it right now.”
Peter’s eyes shifted down, and Bruce grew nervous. The kid looked fragile right now, and Tony didn’t do fragile. He was blunt and tough.
“It’s nothing,” Peter mumbled.
Tony gave Bruce a look that he read as can you believe this kid before he said, “Pete. Something’s up. Talk to me.” And his voice… was soft. It had Bruce frowning in confusion.
The tone seemed to be enough for Peter because he cracked. “I just… you can’t be mad at me, okay?” He waited for Tony to nod before continuing. “I sort of… I failed a bio test.”
Bruce almost laughed, thinking the kid was joking. Who cares about one high school test? Everyone had their off days, and what’s one test to someone who’s pretty much helped save the world?”
It was when Peter continued that Bruce realized he wasn’t kidding. “That’s one of my subjects, you know? And- and I know you’re probably disappointed or something, because you always talk about how I need to take my studies seriously, and now I’m probably never going to get in a good college, and I should just drop out now because I’m never going to amount to anything.” At some point during Peter’s frantic rant, he realized just how young the boy was. He truly believed everything he was saying, and judging by how thick his voice had gotten towards the end, he was taking it hard.
Tony walked over to Peter, and Bruce braced himself for a slap on the back with a casual, “Toughen up,” or maybe, “It’s no big deal,” but Tony didn’t do either. Instead he slung an arm around Peter’s shoulder and told the kid to look at him.
“I’m not mad or disappointed, Pete,” he said when they locked eyes. “Everyone fails a test here or there. It’s probably my fault for keeping you here so long.”
Peter started shaking his head. “No, no, Mr. Stark, it wasn’t-”
“Bottom line is that it’s okay. I guarantee you you’re still the smartest little bastard at that school, and colleges are going to be clamoring for you, even with one lousy test score.” Peter’s face was a little bit brighter but he still looked unconvinced. “I promise you that no one’s mad, no one thinks any less of you, and you’ll crush the next one. I won’t keep you here later than 10pm, and we’re going to take breaks. In fact, we’re not working today.”
Peter finally laughed a little. “Tony, it’s fine-”
“Nope. Go on upstairs and order that pizza you like. We’re watching a movie tonight and then you’re getting a full night’s rest. Okay?”
Peter was full on smiling when he said, “Okay,” and hopped off his chair. Tony ruffled his hair when he walked past him to go upstairs.
“I’ll be up in a minute!” Tony called after him and Peter gave him a thumbs up.
Bruce was grinning widely at him when he turned to him. “I’ve never seen you like that.”
“Shut up,” Tony said with an eye roll.
“No, it was very paternal. Would I get punched in the face if I said it was cute?”
“Yes, so can it, Banner.” Bruce laughed when Tony exited the lab to go upstairs where Peter was waiting for him.
NATASHA
Natasha would be lying if she said she didn’t have a soft spot for Peter Parker. The bright eyed kid had the ability to turn their worst days around, and every one of them cared for him.
She hadn’t realized how much Tony in particular cared for him until one night when Peter’s suit went on the fritz and his vitals dropped out, only they didn’t know it was his spider suit that was malfunctioning. They thought they’d just witnessed Peter Parker die.
“FRIDAY,” Tony said thickly into the heavy silence, “pull up Peter’s coordinates.”
“No coordinates found.”
“FRIDAY!” he yelled. “Give me the damn coordinates!”
“No coordinates found, sir.” The AI’s voice sounded as sympathetic as a robot could sound.
“No, no, no, no,” Tony muttered, his breaths getting stuttered. “He was just patrolling. He was just patrolling.”
“Tony,” she said, trying to hold it together herself. “Tony, you’re not breathing.”
“No, he’s not breathing! He’s not breathing, Tasha!” Tony’s voice cracked on her name. “My kid’s not breathing.” He quickly turned and his fist collided with the wall.
“Tony! Stop!” She grabbed him by the shoulder, away from the wall, and he fought her for only a second before all the fight in him evaporated and he fell into her arms.
“I can’t- he can’t-” he cried out, but before she could respond, FRIDAY spoke up.
“Peter Parker is entering the building.” Tony couldn’t have pulled away any quicker if he tried. He didn’t even reply, just ran over to where the elevator was opening and a sheepish Peter Parker entered the room.
“Hey, Mr. Stark, sorry about the suit but- Tony? Are you okay?”
Tony pulled him into a hug and Natasha felt relief rush throughout her own body. He was alive. He was okay. He was here.
“You,” Tony started but his voice cracked again, so he cleared his throat before continuing. “You cannot do that to me again. Unless you want to be responsible for my poor heart giving out way before my time, then you cannot do that, Pete.”
Peter looked slightly confused. “I- I don’t know what happened. My suit got electrocuted-”
“Excuse me?”
“-and it suddenly went offline. Oh wait.” His eyes widened as he put the pieces together. “My suit went offline.”
“Yeah, kid, we thought you just bit it.” The anguished tone in his voice had Natasha’s heart beating painfully, and she thought back to Tony’s, My kid’s not breathing. His kid.
“I’m so sorry, Mr. Stark. I tried to get here as quick as possible, I really did.”
Tony hugged him again. “It’s okay. It’s not your fault. Just don’t- don’t do it again.”
“I won’t.”
Natasha walked over a rubbed the guys’ shoulders. “I’m glad you’re okay, Peter. Gave us a scare.”
“Must be weird being the one that’s scared for once instead of doing the scaring,” he said with a smirk.
She shoved him a little. “Yes. I don’t like it, so listen to Tony and don’t do it again.”
Tasha heard Tony say, “Now tell me just exactly how you managed to electrocute yourself,” and Peter’s nervous chuckle as she walked away.
STEVE
“What do you mean she said no?” Steve heard Tony say incredulously as he walked into the kitchen, where he sat with Peter.
“I mean, she said no,” Peter said, throwing his hands in the air. “I don’t know what to tell you!”
“Why would she say no?” Tony sounded so genuinely confused that Steve had no other choice but to insert himself in the conversation.
“What’s going on?”
Peter turned to Tony and said, “Tony, don’t-”
“Michelle rejected him!”
“Dammit,” Peter scrunched his face. “You don’t tell Captain America about my love life, Mr. Stark! I even specifically said so! What did I say? I said, ‘Tony, if I tell you this, you can’t tell the others.’ And what did I say after that?” Tony just rolled his eyes. “I said, ‘Especially Captain America.’”
Tony waved him off. “You idolize him too much, kid.”
“So who’s Michelle?” Steve cut in with an amused smile, noticing how Peter was ready to scold Tony some more.
“She’s-”
Peter cut off Tony. “She’s a girl from my school that I maybe have a little crush on. It’s no big deal.” Tony’s scoff indicated that it might not have been as small of a crush as Peter led on. “And I asked her to dinner and she said no.”
“Which is crazy, by the way,” Tony jumped back in.
“Tell me about her,” Steve said before he went on to hear an almost thirty minute ramble about the perfect girl from Peter’s school that he tried to ask out. “Well,” he cut Peter off when he paused for a breath. “Do you want my totally objective opinion?”
Peter’s eyes widened. “Yes!”
“From the sound of it, she’s a pretty laid back girl and you asked her to one of the fanciest restaurants in New York. Just ask her to go for a burger or something. She’ll probably say yes.”
There was a brief pause before both Peter and Tony started talking at the same time.
“Oh!’
“That’s what it is-”
“-makes sense, really.”
Steve laughed. “Try that out. If she says no again, then you ask her straight up if she’d rather do something else, and if she says no to that, I’m sorry to say it’s time you give up.”
Peter was bouncing excitedly. “No, it makes total sense! That’s why we were so confused, because she’d told me she wanted to go out, but when I actually did it, she said no.”
“I told you, Pete!” Tony said. “It’s not you.” Peter grinned at him as he rubbed his shoulder a little, and Steve’s heart warmed. He hadn’t seen Tony this happy in quite some time. It was nice.
A few hours later when Steve got Tony alone, he teasingly said, “Helping Peter with girl troubles, huh?”
“You and I both know damn well I’d help that kid with just about any troubles he could ever have,” Tony said with a casual chuckle before walking away, leaving a slightly shocked Steve standing there. The shock wore off after a minute when he thought back to how Tony was around Peter, and then it wasn’t actually shocking after all, not with knowing how much Tony loved the kid.
CLINT
When Clint met up with the rest of the Avengers after the war with Thanos, he was shocked to see that Tony had practically adopted the spider kid. It started off as a joke, really, that Peter was Tony’s son, but one day Clint walked into the living room when Tony frantically was startled from his nap, screaming, “No!”
“Whoa, Tony, you alright?” he quickly asked the man still panting on the couch.
“I- I need-” He grabbed his phone from the table and started shakily dialing a number. He pressed the phone to his ear as Clint watched on, and after a minute, he let out the breath he was holding. “Peter,” he said, relieved, and Clint realized what had just happened. “No, everything’s alright. I just- yep. Yeah, it was a bad one.” A pause. “Can you just- can you tell me about your day?”
Clint stood still for the next fifteen minutes, watching as Tony’s tense body relaxed with each passing second as he listened to the kid on the other line.
Eventually he said, “Thanks, Pete. No, it’s fine, you don’t-”
FRIDAY’s voice suddenly chirped up from around them. “Peter Parker is entering the building.” Tony shook his head, laughing a little.
“You didn’t have to come over, kid.”
“Yes, I did.” Clint suddenly heard Peter’s voice when the elevator opened. “You’d do the same for me.” He glanced back at Clint. “Hey, Clint.”
“Hey, Parker,” he replied.
Peter just walked over to where Tony was laying and pulled out his bag. “I brought over some movies I figured we could watch. They’re mostly just comedies, but I did sneak Alien in there.” Tony laughed. “You want to watch with us, Clint?”
That’s how Clint found himself watching a movie with Peter and Tony when he probably should’ve been training. Although, watching a movie probably wasn’t accurate. He was mostly watching Tony, who was watching Peter. That kid meant more to Tony than Clint had even guessed.
When Peter crashed about halfway through the movie, he slumped against Tony, and Tony didn’t hesitated to wrap an arm around his shoulder. It was only minutes later that Tony started grumbling about the kid getting drool on his shirt.
“You don’t mind,” Clint said knowingly.
“No,” Tony agreed. “I don’t.”
If Clint took a picture after the movie ended of the two of them both peacefully asleep with the reassurance of the others’ heartbeat pounding next to them, then they’d just have to find out when they woke up and saw it in the Avengers group chat.
And if Tony set it as his background, well, then the others wouldn’t have to know that particular detail at all.