To All Those Brave and Lovely

Pride

It's painfully obvious that Peter is looking for some sort of father figure in Tony, and its equally obvious that Tony cares about him more than he would if he was really "just an intern," but he holds Peter back at arms length, anyways, stopping their interactions with that weird hand on the shoulder thing and important looking coversations that Nora never got to join.  It's rediculous to watch, because Peter seems convinced that Tony finds him a little annoying and would rather not have him at the tower as often as he's beginnning to be, and Tony keeps insisting that he doesn't get to be involved in Peter's life anymore than he already is.

And Nora just thinks it's just stupid, but she doesn't really say anything about it than a few eye rolls and exasperated sighs that let them know that she' s pretty certain that she's right and they're wrong.  And there's an awful little part of her that hates to watch it, because then there's a little ache in her chest and a twisting knife of jealousy in her stomach, because she wants that, wishes that Tony would be her dad for real and not their strange parody of a father with invisible lines in the sand that she's trying desperately trying not to cross.  She looks at them and thinks I will never have that again, trying not to remember that she never had it in the first place.  

"You know you could stay right?"  She says, wandering down to the work shop after Peter had left.  Tony took a break from welding to check in on her, ask about Peter, see if there's anything she needed or if she was just hanging out.  He had walked in to talk to her earlier, and when he saw that Peter was there, had turned around and walked right back up.  "We wouldn't mind."

Tony doesn't answer.  They'd had this conversation before.  He and Cap had had this conversation before.  He and Pepper have this conversation a lot.  "Peter really looks up to you, Tony."  She settles down onto the couch, picks a book from the stack that had just magically appeared one day, and accepts the cup that DUM-E gave her, even though it he had mixed oil in with the coffee.  "It'd like, make his day."

Nora hadn't thought he had been listening, which is why she's so surprised when Tony joins them the next time she and Peter are watching tv.  They're watching some competition where everyone's making robots that Peter is really into, which Nora thinks is fair, since she made him sit through all three seasons of Hannibal.  

"You mind if I join?"  Tony says, with a very pointed look in her direction, and Nora turns away to hide a smile. 

Peter scrambles to sit up straight, tucking himself back into the corner and grinning. "Mr. Stark!"  He folds himself up so he looks like a pretzel, alternating between looking at the televions and smiling excceitedly at Nora.  "We want the guy with the mohawk to win."

Tony sits down beside Peter, looking grumpy and awkward, but Nora could tell that he was glad to be there.  "Call me Tony, kid."  It takes a few minutes, but Peter finally shifts into a position that looks close to normal, if not exactly relaxed.  "And it's totally going to be the girl who wins."

They watch most of the season together, because Peter just discovered the joys of binge watching and doesn't know when to stop.  He falls asleep around episode twelve, slumping voer sideways on Tony's shoulder, who initially looked terrified but relaxed eventually.  

"Hey.  Peter."  He had let him sit there long enough that Nora was sure that Tony had grown uncomfortable, because Tony was never one to sit still for more than ten minutes, and he'd been there for two hours without moving.  Nora had told him that he wasn't allowed to move, seeing as Peter doesn't get enough sleep as it is thanks to Tony's internship, which seemed to be strong enough reasoning to make him stay put.  "You got to wake up, okay?  I got to go."