"Mr. Stark this is Peter, his mother died in a plane crash. We tested his DNA and found out that he is your biological son," The woman holding the boy's hand told Tony.
He didn't know what to say to this information so he just nodded. I mean, what do you say when somebody shows up to give you your son, who you didn't know existed for 4 years of his life.
After that, he signed some papers, and then some more. When the lady left he turned to his son, who was standing perfectly still, not sure what to do.
"Well, follow me, Pete," The older man said trying his best to be nice.
The boy didn't say anything but followed right behind Tony. Neither of them knew if and what to say so they stayed quiet until they reached Peter's room.
"This is where you will be staying," Tony opened the door to a room bigger than some houses, there were some toys here and there, but overall it looked like the fanciest hotel with no personal touches.
However for a small boy, the room was pretty amazing: "Thank you so much, Mr. Stark"
Tony smiled at the boy: "I'm glad you like it. I need to get back to work now. If you need anything ask Jarvis, he is an A.I."
Peter nodded, but then asked: "What's an A.I.?"
"It's a fancy machine that can think for itself," the man's voice was a bit annoyed even though he tried to hide it, "as I said, I have to get to work."
The man left and Peter was left alone in the huge room. He looked at all of the toys and decided to pass his time with those who said LEGO on them. The building was fun, but after a while, he started to get hungry. The boy didn't see a machine anywhere. That probably meant he had to find it, the four-year-old thought. He opened the door and stepped out in the corridor.
Peter didn't know where to look, so he decided to call for the robot: "Jarvis!"
"Yes, Peter?" A voice with a British accent came out of nowhere scaring Peter, who almost fell to the ground.
"Where are you?" The boy asked.
"I am in all of the buildings Mr. Stark owns as well as in most of the devices he uses daily."
"That is really cool!" The boy said, "Mr. Stark said that I can ask you if I need anything?"
"Yes, Peter, I am here to assist people around this tower including you."
"Um, thank you, Mr. Jarvis, could you please tell me where can I get some food?"
Jarvis lead Peter to the kitchen and told him that he could find some food in the fridge. Peter thanked him and for the rest of the day talked to the voice in the sealing while playing with his legos. In the evening Tony checked upon him.
"Jarvis, is Peter okey?"
"Yes, sir," The A.I. answered calmly.
"Tell him to go to sleep," The man said without looking up from his work, "Oh, and he probably has to wash his teeth."
"Will do, sir"
And that's how about two weeks passed by. Sometimes Tony would come to see Peter for a few minutes but then run off again. Sometimes Peter would get sad because his mother was gone, but Jarvis comforted him and found some jokes to tell him. And when Peter got lonely he talked to Jarvis, he didn't tell Tony how he felt. He was afraid that if Tony would get too annoyed with him, he would just leave him. But after two weeks Tony got a visitor, whose gest room was now Peter's.
Peter was now playing with some action figures. When a man walked in, the boy was expecting it to be Tony, so when he saw somebody else he got a bit afraid. So did the man who had just walked in. What was a little kid doing in Tony's private penthouse?
"Jarvis, tell Tony to get here right now!" The man said, before turning to the boy, "Hello, My name is Rhodey. What's yours?"
"I'm Peter," Peter still wasn't fully comfortable.
"How long have you been here, Peter?" The smaller boy was starting to trust Rhodey. The man's voice was calm and kind.
"Am, I don't remember, Mr. Rohdey," Peter wasn't sure what response he would get from the man.
"That's okey. Jarvis?"He squatted so he would be at the same level as Peter.
"He has been here for two weeks if I do not count today," The British voice announced.
Even though Rohdey wasn't all too happy to hear this he didn't have enough time to get angrier at Tony, because the man had shown up at the door.
"Hey, Rodes! Haven't seen you in a while," He smiled, "I see you've met my son."
"Your what now? Since when do you have a son? And why don't I know about him?" there were a lot of questions he wanted to be answered.
"My son, Peter, he is 4, but I found out about his existence about a month ago. Since you were busy with your military stuff I didn't want to bother you," Tony didn't look or feel guilty at the slightest.
That calmed Rhodey down a bit: "So how has parenting been treating you?"
"Good, Jarvis takes care of everything, and when I can I come here to check up on him," The man crossed his arms and leaned against the wall.
"And how often do you check up on him?" Asked Rodhey fearing the answer.
"Once in one or two days, or a few minutes. Why?"
Rhodey had to take a deep breath not to start yelling at his friend right there. He clenched his teeth: "I want to talk with Tony in private okey, Peter? We will be right back."
"Okey," The boy was a bit confused.
They walked out of the kid's room and Rodey dragged in his friend the next door, ordered for Jarvis to soundproof the room.
"You have seen him once a day, for few minutes? Do you know how damaging that is to a kid? Don't you remember your childhood? How your father was never around? Were you happy with that? No? Wel, you're acting just like him! You're neglecting your child! If you cannot be a parent, he probably has other relatives who can take care of him, if you can't! So either you find the time to spend with your son or I will find somebody who can find it!" Rhodey took another deep breath.
The realization hit Tony Stark like a truck. How did he not notice he was doing the same thing as his father?
"Okey, Rhodes, I will spend more time with him, in fact, I will take him to the lab right now!" Tony said with a bit of stubbornness, but mostly newfound motivation.
They walked back to Peter's room and found the boy in a middle of a conversation with Jarvis about whether legos or action figures were better. Rhodey looked at Tony with a mixture of 'Told you so' and 'I'm disappointed in you' looks.
"Hey, Pete, do you want to come to my lab with me?" Tony asked with a forced sweet voice.
"You have a lab, that so cool!" The boy's eyes sparkled.
They went down to the lab. When they entered Peter's eyes sparkled even brighter.
"Okey, Peter, you can look around, but don't under any circumstances touch anything!"
Peter nodded and while Tony returned to work the small boy wandered around. He noticed that some of the wires looked oddly like a human. If only he could move this one wire it would fully look like one. Peter reached up and moved one of the wires.
There was a loud noise and sparks of electricity jumped in different directions scaring Peter to fall to the ground. After a few seconds, the whole machine caught on fire. The automatic fire extinguisher put it out, but not before Tony noticed. He walked over to the boy who was still on the ground.
"Why did you touch it? I specifically told you not to touch anything! This took me a week to make! You could have gotten hurt and what would I do then? Huh?" The older man yelled at the boy.
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to, I'm sorry" the kid had just wanted to make a human from the wires.
"I'm sorry, won't fix my work, and I don't care if you didn't mean to! And..." He was cut off by Rhodey.
"That's enough! Peter come here," He took Peter by his arm and led the crying by out of the room.
11 years later.
"Hey, May!" Peter greeted his aunt over the music playing in his earphones
"How was school today?" Asked May.
"Okey," The teen answered, "There's this crazy car parked outside..."
"Oh, hello, Mr. Parker!" Tony Stark greeted.
Peter's mood changed to defensive automatically: "I think we should talk in my room," he said.
"Are you sure about that?" Asked May.
"Yeah," He wasn't.
When they entered the room Peter stood in front of the window facing Mr. Stark: "Why are you here?" He asked, but the question summoned all of the feelings he had been keeping locked for years, "You can't just show up here! You took me in and you ignored me, yelled at me, and then let me go. And I know it's not true now, but I was four then and the only thing I could think of was - what is wrong with me? Why doesn't my father want me? And if even my father doesn't love me what am I worth? You were supposed to be there! You were supposed to be my dad! But you couldn't even be a father. And now you come back expecting everything to be normal? Well, it won't be!"
The man was looking at his feet. The man who was considered the most arrogant and confident man in the world was looking at his feet. He waited for Peter to finish flinching time after time again.
"I'm sorry, I know I have no right to come back in your life, so I am asking you for permission. I am different now. I have changed and I want to make it up for you. I want to try again. Give me another chance. Please, give me another chance to be your dad." Tony's voice was calm but begging.
Peter calmed down a bit. He wanted a relationship with his dad, he wanted to forgive him, but he wasn't going to make it easy for the older man.
"Okey, I'll give you another chance, Mr. Stark!"
Tony flinched at the 'Mr. Stark' part. It felt cold, but he promised himself he would do anything to change it to 'dad'.