~Ten Years Later~

Peter fishes the pair of keys out of his backpack, awkwardly shifting to try to keep his bag on his one shoulder while balancing the DVD player he had found in the dumpster on his way home from school. He pushes open the front door to their apartment, waving a quick hello to his neighbor sitting outside her front door across the hallway. He never learned her name, but she seems nice enough.

He shuts the door behind him, dropping his keys and the DVD player onto the dining room table and tossing his bag down against the wall. He pulls one of his earbuds out and calls out a greeting to his aunt.

"How was school?" she says from behind the wall to the living room as Peter passes through their mini kitchen. Peter can tell how strained her voice sounds without even seeing her face.

"It was fine," he replies, tucking his cracked iPod into his pocket and turning the corner. "There's this crazy car parked outside-"

He freezes upon seeing who else is in living room.

Tony Stark. Iron Man. The man Peter had seen on TV while growing up. The famous billionaire.

In his living room, sitting on his couch, talking to his aunt.

"Oh, Mister Parker," he greets easily, though there's a hint of pain that flickers behind his bruised eyes. Peter opts to ignore it. It's not his problem.

"What- What are you- Hey, I- I- I'm, um, I'm Peter," he stutters nervously, pulling out his other earbud and letting them dangle around his neck. He scuffs his pair of ratty sneakers against the hardwood floor, ignoring the warning look from his aunt at the nervous ticks. It's not his fault. How is he supposed to react to a superhero billionaire being in his apartment?

"Tony," he replies swiftly, waving the piece of dessert vaguely in his hand in some form of greeting. He offers a piece of smile, one that doesn't reach his eyes in any way, one that amplifies the pain behind his eyes. Peter doesn't know why he can catch it so easily. He shouldn't know this man's mannerisms.

"What- What are you doing here?" the teenager asks, swallowing thickly to try to hide his nerves. He shouldn't be this nervous, but he can't help it. He's always nervous meeting new people. Especially celebrities apparently.

"It's about time we met," Tony says. Peter ignores the small crack in Tony's voice. Maybe Tony's nervous meeting new people too... If Tony won't point out Peter's nerves, Peter won't point out his. It's only fair.

May offers a smile to Peter, one that tells him to calm down, but the nerves continue running high.

"I, um, I- Aren't you a little bit- a little busy, you know, to be meeting with me?" Peter asks. He scuffs his shoes some more on the ground and then shifts so he can fiddle with the hem of his sweater instead. He doesn't want to have to clean his scuff marks off his shoes and floor again. It's been a while since he's stuttered this bad. He's been getting better at controlling his nerves.

"I'm never too busy to-" Tony suddenly cuts himself off and takes a bite of the food. "This is really good walnut date loaf, May. Thank you."

May smiles, almost blushing under Tony's gaze. Peter can't help seeing the warning look in her face, he's learned all of her facial expressions. He's just never seen her use it towards anyone but him.

"Could we have a few minutes?" Tony asks, gesturing back to Peter almost absentmindedly as he keeps his attention focused on May who nods.

Peter nods as well, leading the way to his bedroom. He wishes he had listened to May's advice and cleaned up the night before, but he was busy studying for his algebra test. He regrets it now that he's leading a billionaire into the mess. Peter refuses to apologize for it though.

Tony walks straight into his room like he owns the place and nods at Peter's desk. "What do we have here? Retro tech? Thrift store? Salvation Army?"

"The dumpster, actually." Peter shoves down the embarrassment. Just because they don't have as much money, doesn't mean he needs to feel bad about it.

"You're a dumpster diver?" Tony says. It sounds like he meant to make it sound annoyed or shameful, but it just sounds sad. Like the last thing he wants is for Peter to have to go dumpster diving for technology.

Before Peter can even reply, Tony's pulling out a fancy phone and flicking up a projection.

"That's you, isn't it?" he says, watching as Spider-Man flies through the air on webbing. "Don't answer that. I know it is you."

Peter, despite being told not to answer, tries his best to deny every accusation, but Tony won't stop now that he's on a roll.

"Look at you go," he says, flipping his phone so the projection is the other direction. "Wow. Nice catch. Three thousand pounds, forty miles an hour? That's not easy."

"That's all fake, you know. It's- it's all on youtube, right? It's all done on computers and stuff."

Tony lets out a long, tired sigh and sits on Peter's desk chair, flicking off the projections and tucking away his phone.

"I'm not trying to accuse you of anything, Peter," he says, no longer sounding like the confident man from before. He just sounds tired. "I'm not trying to get you in trouble. I just want you to be safe. And that suit looks more like a onesie than a suit."

"It's not a onesie," Peter argues, staying defensive. He can't argue that he isn't Spider-Man, there's no way around that now, but he doesn't have to take shit from a billionaire who's had all the money in the world to make his suits.

Tony stands again and opens the hatch in the ceiling, letting the suit fall out. It hangs in between them on the rope for a good few seconds before Tony grabs it and tugs it down. He examines it for a moment while Peter stands awkwardly by the window, unsure what he's meant to do.

"Can you even see in these?" Tony asks, picking up the goggles and sliding them in front of his eyes. Peter almost prefers not being able to see the majority of his face, it makes the sympathetic ache in his chest disappear for just a moment before he tugs the suit away from Tony and shoves it into his closet.

"Yes, I can see in those!" he exclaims, before quickly lowering his voice again. "I can- I can see in those. It's just- My, um, my senses feel like they're dialled up to eleven all the time. They- They just- They help to filter out some of the input."

"You're in dire need of an upgrade," Tony says, looking at the little canister of webbing in his hand he had stolen from the suit just moments ago. "The tensile strength on this is crazy... Who manufactures it?"

He tosses it at Peter who catches it without even looking. "I do. Not that I don't love that you've decidedly stopped by my apartment and everything, but just- What are you doing here, Mister Stark?"

Despite Tony's great attempts to hide the flinch, Peter still catches it.

"Came to see the crime fighting spiderling. That can't be safe and as a superhero, you're my responsibility now."

"I'm really not," Peter says, sitting on the bed with a scrutinizing look at Tony. "Why are you really here? You need some extra hands to fight a war? Because if that's the case, I can't help you. Spider-Man exists to fight the little guy."

"Understood," Tony says, lifting his hands in the universal sign on peace. "I'm here to offer you an upgrade, Mister Parker. If you're going to be a vigilante, you should look the part."

He stands and crosses to the bed, eyes saddening a little bit more all of a sudden.

"What if I don't accept?" Peter asks.

"Then I tell your aunt that you're being unsafe on the streets like you are," Tony says. It's a threat, but it's said in no way threatening. "I'll be on my way then."

Peter tilts his head to the side, watching Tony stand and cross to the door.

"You're- You came all the way to Queens just to tell me you're making me a new suit?" Peter questions suspiciously. It can't just be that. He's Peter Parker. Nothing special. Nothing grand that would require a visit from Tony Stark.

"That's it, kid," Tony agrees. He opens Peter's bedroom door and offers another fractured smile. "If you need anything, give me a call. I don't want you getting hurt by yourself out there."

"Goodbye, Mister Stark," Peter murmurs.

If Peter notices Tony's watery eyes when he turns away, he doesn't mention it.

*

"He doesn't remember me at all," Tony says, blinking hard to rid himself of the threatening tears. He leans against the doorframe, scrubbing a hand over his face. "Nothing. No recognition at all."

May sighs, "I'm not surprised, Tony. He hasn't seen you in a decade. It's been ten years. I'm not surprised he doesn't remember you."

Music starts playing from where Peter's closed his bedroom door, not expecting Tony to stay and talk to his aunt. It's soft classical music that makes Tony's heart stutter miserably.

"I know... I know. I just- I- He's all grown up, May. I missed ten years of my kid's life. Fuck. I just- I didn't think-"

"I know, Tony," she mumbles, offering a gentle smile in return. "I know, but trust me when I tell you that he's happy, okay? He's okay. You didn't leave a bad impression on him."

"I just- After Afghanistan, I couldn't come back. I couldn't do that to him. I was a mess and- and I know I should've come before that, but it took me a year before I got sober and then the next few years, I spent convincing myself that he'd be better off without me," Tony explains weakly.

He hates that he missed so many years of his child's life. He hates that he didn't get to see Peter grow up like a parent's meant to. He hates that the last time he saw Peter, he was a little kid with bright eyes and a love for dinosaurs and chicken nuggets and ice cream. Little Peter with excitement to last him forever and smiley and giggly.

Now Peter's fifteen. He's a teenager now. He's still happy, Tony can guess. He's still Peter, but to Tony, he feels like a stranger. He doesn't know Peter anymore.

"Am I- Would it make things worse if I stuck around?" Tony asks, voice breaking miserably. It's the big question. Does he have to continue to keep his back turned? Peter always comes first, but it's going to hurt if the answer is that it'll hurt Peter for Tony to stick around.

"I don't know, Tony," May sighs, face falling. "I don't know. He thinks his parents abandoned him. We kept asking when his dad would come back for him and we'd always tell him that we didn't know, but hopefully it would be soon. We couldn't just crush his spirits, you know? And slowly but surely, he stopped asking entirely. He doesn't remember you anymore. You're just the man he's seen on TV since he was little. As terrible as it is to say, you're not his family anymore, Tony. If you want to be that again, you're going to have to put the effort in to regain his trust... You'll have to make that decision on your own."

Tony scrubs his hand over his face again. He's lost everything. Now he has a chance to start getting those pieces of his life back. He can get his kid back. He has this opportunity and he's not about to let it go. Not again.

"Would you be mad if I tried?" he asks again. "I don't want to get in the way of the life you've created-"

"Honestly, Tony? I want him to be happy. If you can make him happy, then make him happy. If you think you'll screw this up again, then just go and don't bother coming back. He's my kid now too, Tony, and I won't let him get hurt again."

Tony nods a few times, taking deep even breaths to ignore the awful twisting of his stomach and the headache that's forming behind his eyes.

"I'll see you around," he offers, knowing that this is the only option he can make.

She nods back. "I'll see you around then, Tony."

____

Okay so basically this isn't going to follow Civil War but it'll have the same sort of idea??

I'm ignoring most of Steve's plotline and saying that basically he's a regular dude like Natasha who joins Shield and becomes Captain America and the Avengers because he can and wants to do some good in the world to help out. It'll be explained more in the next chapter 

Tony's followed his movies

A1 and A2 happened

And it's now where Civil war is meant to be but it's not actually going to be Civil War.

That's probably really confusing but whatever I'll clear it all up in the next chapter y'all don't worry about it

Lyss