Growing Up

17 Years Old

The first thing Tony noticed about Peter as he came running into the compound was that the kid was running. He happened to know Peter had taken a pretty nasty hit two nights ago while on patrol, so for him to be running anywhere must mean he was either in serious trouble or something had been deemed extremely important in his mind. There was no time to ask which is was before the kid was searching through the mail on the countertop.

"What's going on, Pete?" Tony asked, looking up from his laptop.

Peter mumbled something under his breath and when Tony told him to speak up, Peter waved him off.

"Whoa, if mail is suddenly more important than your father, I'll tell the mailman to just stop bringing it."

"There should be a letter for me," Peter answered shortly, sparing a glance up at Tony.

Tony returned to his computer, a small grin on his face, no longer focused on the work in front of him.

"Has Vision been grabbing my mail?"

"What kind of letter are you looking for?" Tony asked. Peter groaned and threw the mail on the countertop before shuffling over to the living room and crashing down in one of the empty couches. "Is it a letter from MJ? I didn't think kids these days wrote letters. I thought they just texted."

"It's not from MJ, dad," Peter muttered. He scowled out the window at the overcast sky as Tony rolled his eyes.

"Then was it from MIT?" Tony questioned.

Peter's head snapped in his direction so fast Tony wondered how the kid didn't get whiplash. Pretending to still be invested in his laptop work, Tony said, "Yeah, I saw one. I thought it was just spam, though, and gave it to Dummy to shred."

With a shrug, he spared a glance at Peter. The kid looked horror-stricken.

"You what?" he yelled.

Tony struggled to remain indifferent.

"Where is he? Tell me he hasn't shredded it yet," Peter begged.

"He might still be down in the lab," Tony suggested. Before Tony could get any more words out, Peter jumped up from the couch and raced down the lab.

Tony chuckled and asked FRIDAY to time how long it took Peter to reach the lab. Three seconds after his request, FRIDAY announced that Peter had arrived.

"Bring up audio and visual," Tony instructed, "I wanna see his reaction."

FRIDAY took control of Tony's laptop and brought up the video feed of Peter crouching down beside Dummy. Sure enough, the robot had Peter's letter, but he was definitely not shredding it. Tony had told him to protect it, so protect it he did. In fact, it took Peter a good few minutes before he successfully got the letter away from Dummy.

As soon as Peter got the letter, he ripped it open and Dummy wailed in distress. Peter's eyes scanned the page, but he wasn't really taking in the words. When he got to the bottom of the letter, he realised he hadn't been paying attention and would need to start all over again.

There! At the top of the letter were the words 'we are delighted to' and that was all Peter needed. He let out a happy squeal, jumping around in a circle before turning and racing out of the lab to go tell Tony the news.

"So, what's the verdict?" Tony asked as he closed his laptop. "Are they sending you a 'sorry for not accepting you' package any time soon?"

Peter knew, though, based on the smile on Tony's face that he knew the answer. Shoving the letter into his dad's hand, Peter continued his happy jump around the room. As Tony set the letter on the coffee table, he found himself wrapped up in a hug.

"You didn't pull anything, did you?" Peter asked as he pulled away. Tony shook his head with a grin.

"I knew I wouldn't need to," he replied. Peter rolled his eyes then snatched up the letter as his dad said, "We're having a party tonight, by the way, to celebrate. Balloons, banners, the whole sha-bang!"

But Peter was already far down the hall and racing to tell the rest of the team.

* * * * *

The party consisted of just the team and Pepper at the compound. Peter didn't mind, though. Any friends he would have invited would be too shocked around the Avengers to be any fun, even Ned who had met them quite a few times by now.

"Hey, Peter?"

The party was winding down as Peter felt himself growing tired, but everyone was still chatting in the living room with drinks.

"Hmm?" Peter hummed, glancing at his dad.

Tony motioned for him to follow then got up and left the room. Frowning, Peter forced himself to stand up and follow Tony down the hall to wherever they were going.

Peter was surprised to find Tony taking him to the roof. They rarely went up there and Tony had never really allowed Peter to go without someone else with him, especially before finding out the kid was Spider-Man. Nonetheless, Peter sat down beside Tony on the edge of the roof and found himself looking out across the compound towards the forest.

"You know, when I got accepted to MIT, I was so excited," Tony murmured.

Peter glanced at his dad, worried about where the conversation was about to go. It didn't sound like it was a discussion for a party.

"For the first time in my life," Tony continued, "I could leave. My dad didn't want to move to be nearby, but I wanted to be in the dorm."

Oh, this was one of those discussions. A discussion that made Peter feel bad for how his dad had grown up and want nothing more than to make it better.

"I just wanted to let you know that if you wanted to dorm too, I would understand."

Peter could have been shot and he would have been less surprised than what he had just heard his dad say.

"I also want you to know that I would be more than willing to move closer to MIT if you wanted me to be close. But it's your choice, of course. I don't want to push anything on—"

His dad never got to finish his sentence. Before he could, Peter threw himself in his arms and hugged him tightly.

"Can we really move?" Peter asked, pulling away hesitantly. "Not that I don't like it here—I love it! It's just—I didn't know how to tell you that I didn't want to be in the dorm and if I had to then I would probably go somewhere closer."

Tony smiled and hugged Peter again who didn't resist.

"Of course we can move, Underoos," Tony replied, "In fact, I even had a house that I was just waiting to make an offer on."

Peter grinned but didn't pull away from Tony.

"I love you, dad," he said, voice muffled against Tony's chest.

"I love you too, kiddo. And I'm so, so proud of you."