Iron Dad One Shots (mcu)

"Nice Work, Kid."

"What's all this?" Peter hummed absently. Tony looked over Peter's shoulder to see all of the stained and crumpled papers Peter was sifting through in a drawer.

"Hey, kid! No snooping through my stuff." He reached over to slam the drawer shut but Peter had already gathered most of the papers in his hands.

"Mr. Stark, you literally put a webcam and tracker in my suit. Which is super creepy by the way. What if someone bad killed you and got into all your stuff? They'd know where to find me and kill me too! That's just poor planning on your part." Peter chastised as he jumped on ceiling to avoid Tony's grabby hands.

"Right, because right after bad guys kill Tony Stark the first thing they're gonna do is hunt down the kid in spandex that helps old ladies cross the street."

"Okay, first of all, ow," Peter put his hand to his chest in mock offense, "and second of all, are these drawings yours? Cause I mean, no offense but they're not great. I mean the coloring is way outside the lines and I'm pretty sure Thor isn't that buff—"

Tony rolled eyes. "They aren't mine, genius."

"Hey! I'm just giving some constructive criticism. No need to be ashamed."

"Shut up and do actual work or you're fired."

The kid kept snickering and filing through the old papers. It was funny — when Peter first started coming over weekly to work with him, he was too afraid to even mention anything outside of Spider-Man and Iron Man, and now he was stealing his shit and getting scuff marks on his ceiling.

Of course, Tony didn't mind the lack of work being done. He wanted to take a break anyway.

"Woah... Is this...?" The laughter in Peter's voice had vanished. He looked stunned.

"Hm?"

Peter fell from the ceiling and landed not-so-gracefully on his back. He pushed himself up, seemingly unfazed, and continued to gaze at the wrinkled up paper. His eyes were searching the whole page as if he was looking for something in it.

"This... I drew this. This is my drawing. I was... Oh man, I must've been eight when I drew this. You really still have it?"

Tony blinked, mind trying to keep up with Peter's sudden change of moods. His voice sounded sad, maybe like it was on the verge of tears, but his vibrant face and eyes screamed happiness.

Tony took it from his hands (this time Peter had given it without a fight) and looked at the drawing. Iron Man was beating up robots with red eyes next to what looked like a smaller version of the superhero. A large speech bubble drawn in crayon was next to Iron Man spelling out "Nice Work!" in uneven but surprisingly clear handwriting. At the top of the paper was, lo and behold, Peter's full name and the date 5-7-10. Tony had forgotten all about it.

"That was after the Stark Expo! Oh my gosh, I can't believe you still have that."

Tony gaped. "You were that kid in the Iron Man mask? The one that tried to fight Hammer's insane robot?"

"You remember that?! That was the best day of my life! I was obsessed with becoming the next Iron Man after that. I wrote you tons of stupid letters and pictures, but I never thought you actually cared about them..." He beamed, looking like a little kid at Disney World.

"Cared about them? Kid, I thought you were the coolest. I loved reading your letters. They're probably all still in that drawer somewhere."

"Tony Stark thought I was the coolest..." he mumbled incredulously. "This is literally the best day of my entire life. Nothing can top this."

Tony laughed at his little fanboy. "Yeah yeah. Just put the papers back, you pest."

"Nope. Not until you say it."

Tony blinked. "Say what?"

"Say, 'nice work, kid.'"

"Oh my god."

"Come on! It'll be awesome. Wait wait wait— let me get my phone first." He pulled out his phone and fiddled with it for a second before pointing at Tony. "Okay."

Tony chuckled and averted his eyes. His mind was still stuck in that day. He hadn't thought much about the kid he'd saved, but how much would have been lost if he'd been a second too late? What if he hadn't noticed him? What if he'd lost Peter Parker before even knowing about the amazing, genius, happy kid he was?

"Mr. Stark? Mr. Staaaaaark? My phone is almost out of storage, I can't take a video longer than two minutes."

Well — fuck the what ifs. Peter was here right now.

"Nice work, kiddo."

He squealed and excitedly started tapping on his phone. "Technically it isn't kiddo, but I'll take it. Oh man, I gotta send this to Ned."

"You're such a loser." Tony snickered.

"Well, I learned from the best."

Yeah, he thought as he crumpled up Peter's drawing and threw it at him,  fuck the what ifs.