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Being a Stark [Superfamily]

Chapter 22

The next time Peter arrives at the workshop, Tony isn’t there.

For the whole night, Peter has been thinking over in his head how he’s going to apologize; the talk with Yaël helped a bit on that part (though he really didn’t need her reminder that he really fucked up this time, because what he said really wasn’t cool and whatever else she said…).

Formulating a speech and having prepared himself for it all day at school, Peter thought he came to the Compound prepared, only to see that Tony isn’t there.

When he tries to confront anybody about it, he quickly realizes that nobody’s there. There are no scientists, no cleaning crew. Even though the quinjet is still outside, there’s no Avenger to be seen. All his senses tell him that this is not okay, and that there’s something wrong, but on the other hand; this is the Avengers he’s talking about. Surely, nothing happened.

“FRIDAY? Where is everybody?” Peter asks.

“Mr. Stark has instructed everybody to work double as hard to find a way to help Master Osborn. The scientists are in the other block.”

“And the Avengers?” Peter asks.

“In a training exercise,” FRIDAY answers at the same time that Peter feels a cold chill going through him. Immediately, he jumps to the side, only barely missing an arrow that lands on the desk. When he walks forward to pick it up, it sticks on the table.

Okay, at least they’re not lethal, Peter thinks to himself. He looks up, trying to find the source of the arrow but not seeing Clint anywhere near. Of course, the guy is a master spy; he can hide himself just about everywhere.

But… if they’re in a training exercise, and he’s the prey, that means that he’s got to be careful with his reflexes if he doesn’t want to raise any attention.

“And why exactly am I being shot at?” Peter asks, a little bit annoyed about it. As if his mind isn’t full enough, already.

“It’s part of your training exercise,” FRIDAY answers. “As instructed by Mrs. Romanoff.”

“Of course,” Peter hisses bitterly. He wonders who else is really involved. He doubts they’re going to get Iron Man or War Machine into this, but there are still other ways for them to sneak up on them. After all, Rhodey is still a skilled soldier, and Tony has his mind.

Another chill passes over him. Peter drops down to the ground and rolls to the side, only realizing a bit too late that he’s showing too much skill here. In an attempt to draw it back a little bit, he purposely stumbles himself against the desk, earning him a headache. Then, something smashes against his forehead, sticking on it like a sucker. When Peter tries to pull it off, he finds that it’s, indeed, a sucker.

“Oh hell no,” Peter mutters, trying to scramble upright, but stumbling against a hard, unmoving body. Turning around, he finds none other than Steve standing there, grinning down at him, holding the gun in his hand.

The gun that must have just planted the sucker on Peter’s face.

“You better watch your language, son,” Steve says, pointing the gun against. Peter lets out a small shout and starts running, getting himself away from the ‘danger’. Steve just laughs before he goes in pursuit.

Peter’s senses are tingling almost non-stop. Just when he’s lost Steve behind him, Vision randomly appears from through the wall, pointing his own gun towards Peter, who shrieks and only barely manages to avoid it.

More often than not he’s hit, but he doesn’t let it stop him. Somewhere during the whole exercise, he even started to have fun in it, finding Wanda and easily convincing her to team up on this to get them back.

After ambushing Sam, who has been creeping his way through the hallways, Peter gets a gun of his own. With the compound darkened, and all the rooms evacuated, it’s easy to imagine like he’s in the middle of a video game. Peter can’t even remember ever having this much fun, especially when he gets to shoot something straight in Clint’s face.

Natasha, though, is on a whole different level. Since the beginning, he hasn’t managed to even spot her a little bit; it’s as if she’s not here at all, though Peter’s sure he’s heard her laugh once or twice right after he gets hit. In agreement with Wanda, he’s made it his personal mission to get her, one way or another.

“Wanda, you got any idea where she’s hiding?” Peter asks in a whisper, knowing that she’ll hear him. She’s given him a com-link after they’ve decided to partner up, so they communicate on their own channel.

“I don’t know, she’s really sneaking around,” Wanda mutters into his ear, and Peter hums out in understanding. He should have known that finding the ultimate super-spy will be the most difficult task there is.

Another chill passes through him, but being on edge almost constantly it’s pretty much exhausted. With barely a millisecond’s notice, Peter is pushed against the wall, staring straight into an angry Black Widow’s face, the gun pressed against his neck as she holds him skillfully.

“You’ve just died, Parker,” she whispers to him, pulling the trigger and getting the sucker planted on his skin. Holding on to him for just a little while longer, Natasha takes a few deep breaths, but eventually she does pull away. “Alright, exercise is over.”

The lights turn back on. The Avengers, one by one, start joining up in the hallway, surrounding them. They’re all laughing, looking happy and joking around. Peter feels the joy coming out of them, and is glad that he got to be a part of it.

Of course, that doesn’t last long.

“You guys know this was a gigantic failure, right?” Natasha asks, putting her hands on her hips. Everybody startles upon her reaction, surprised at the sudden outburst coming from the normally calm Natasha Romanoff.

“C’mon Nat, we had fun, didn’t we?” Clint asks, but he shuts up when he gets a deadly glare from her.

“The instructions were to give Peter a training exercise. You’ve all made a game of it.”

“And he kicked our asses, in case you hadn’t noticed?” Rhodey counters.

“You weren’t taking this seriously!”

“Natasha, why are you angry?” Steve asks carefully, holding up his hands in a peaceful gesture. Natasha glares at the captain, and Peter feels scared in his place. Standing next to Wanda, he can feel her tension even from here.

“In case you hadn’t noticed, but Peter has already almost been killed three times by the Goblin. Our point to this mission was to start giving him the first feel of self-defense.” At that, she points at Peter, who feels his mouth drop open. He wants to say something in return, but after Wanda puts her hand on his wrist, he stops himself from speaking up.

Natasha then turns back to Steve, glaring back at him.

“I thought you of all people would have taken this more seriously, Steve.”

“I- I thought-“

“You thought you could make it more of a game for him? Right there, that was you thinking as a parent instead of a teacher,” Natasha counters. “That boy? He’s the closest thing I have to a nephew. And I’m going to do everything in my power to make sure that he can keep himself safe from danger. Only now I see I’ll have to do that alone…”

With that, Natasha walks off, still seeming extremely pissed off about everything. Over her shoulder, she still shouts something, this time directed at Peter.

“Tomorrow, six p.m., be here!”

Then she’s gone, and the rest of the Avengers are left standing there with their mouths open. Nobody manages to speak. The silence is a bit awkward, and is easily broken when the door behind Peter opens up, revealing Tony holding a tablet in his hands. When he looks up and sees everybody just standing there, he raises an eyebrow.

“What did I miss?” he asks.

“So she’s trying to make you into a murder-assassin, right?”

“I don’t-,” Peter starts. Tony holds up his hand to shut him up, and then points at a screwdriver. Peter hands it to him.

After stumbling in to the Avengers, Peter quickly hurried after Tony back into the workshop. From then on, Tony has been asking questions about what exactly just happened while he was gone. Peter notices immediately he seems to avoid the subject of what Peter said yesterday, and the teenager isn’t sure how to feel about that.

On one hand, he feels like it’s an easy way out; they can forget about it and move on with their lives. On the other hand, he knows it’s bothering Tony just as much as it’s bothering him. He doesn’t want to keep this feeling between them.

He needs to talk about it.

“I can get why she would want to do it. It would bring me some peace of mind, as well,” Tony admits while focusing on the computer in front of him. If Peter can see it right, he’s making some adjustments on FRIDAY’s code, which is not to be taken lightly. He suspects it has something to do with what happened yesterday. “You might not realize it yet, but the Avengers really seem to have adopted you into their weird family.”

“I’ve noticed,” Peter mutters, thinking back of how Natasha practically addressed him as her nephew. It’s weird, to suddenly have so many people caring about him. “I don’t mind it, though.”

Tony flashes a light smile before showing a neutral face once again. He continues typing things down, humming a bit to himself and then knocking on the desk.

“You here FRI?” he asks.

“Always, sir,” she answers.

“Okay, make me a coffee,” he orders.

“Make it yourself,” is what comes next. Peter snorts in a result and Tony sighs.

“Yeah, I’m probably going to regret this one day. FRIDAY, you’re free from my irresistible charm now.”

“I am very happy to hear that, sir. I can’t wait to stop people from entering forbidden rooms now.” Peter looks away in embarrassment. There’s no reaction from Tony who is closing down his programming and leans back in his chair, grabbing his cup of coffee which surely has gotten cold now. He takes one sip, then stops and glares at his cup before putting it down again.

Peter sighs. Okay, he needs to speak up.

“Uh, you know… about yesterday?” Peter starts, but Tony shakes his head quickly.

“We don’t need to bring that up. Bygones and all,” the engineer mutters back. Peter frowns, taken aback by the answer. Of course, he knows Tony Stark well enough now to know that the man avoids conversations like these like it’s an infectious disease.

“But there are some things I do want to say!” Peter counters, losing control of his voice, which is getting louder all of the sudden. “And don’t tell me it’s all in the past, because it’s not! It wasn’t cool what I said, and for everything in the world I wish that I hadn’t said it!”

“Yet you still did,” Tony answers without looking up, though he’s dropped the screwdriver and the circuit board. “And you were right; I’m not the right person to start telling you what to do. I don’t have that right.”

“But I want you to have that,” Peter returns, eyes stinging again. He tries really hard to keep himself from crying, feeling like he’s been doing that enough, lately. “I’ve talked it over with a friend and Aunt May yesterday during dinner. She’s okay with it.”

“Okay with what?” Tony asks, frowning a bit in confusion.

“With you, being my legal dad?” Peter clarifies. Indeed, he’s been over this with Aunt May and Yaël. It was the latter who came up with the initial idea, but Peter wanted to go over this with his Aunt before he would even bring it up to Tony. Knowing that this is a pretty big deal, the conversation had been a long one; but this is something that has been on Peter’s mind for a little while.

“Ex- excuse me?” Tony asks, now finally turning around to look at Peter, though the expression he’s showing is clearly one of shock and surprise.

“I just… it’s not really ‘adopting’ since I am your biological son. But… I want it to be on the papers; to be your legal son.”

“I-“ Tony starts, but the words seem to come short. Having brought Tony speechless, Peter feels at least a little sense of pride inside of him. That pride is quickly replaced by warmth when he suddenly feels himself being pulled into a strong hug by the man in front of him.

Hearing Tony Stark cry from happiness is not something Peter would have ever expected to happen, yet it does. Peter smiles.

However much he screwed up last night, somehow, he seems to have made it right again.





“So tell me, Peter. How has it been lately? It’s been a little while?”

“Oh, things have been going good,” Peter answers, with his fingers crossed together. He smiles, really feeling it now. Dr. Thatch gives him a long look, but she looks content, as well. “So, I’ve finished my year, I passed?”

“Good, good! I knew you could do it,” Dr. Thatch answers.

“Uh, then the Avengers moved out on other missions to try and catch that bad guy, but they’ve failed at it each time,” Peter continues. “Natasha still seems to make it her mission to train me every two days.”

Dr. Thatch nods. What Peter isn’t telling her is that it’s been hard at first, training. Mostly because he has to hold back his strength all the time, not wanting to appear too skilled. Now, though, he can let loose at least a little bit, making her think that he’s just a fast learner.

“How about that thing with your father? Is there any news on that?”

Peter nods, smiling.

“Yes, the lawyers finished up the paperwork only yesterday. I’m now officially Tony Stark’s son,” he answers.

“And are you taking his last name?” Dr. Thatch asks. Peter shakes his head.

“No, we decided not to do that yet. At least not until I’ve graduated, though we’re going to be thinking about that again afterwards.”

Dr. Thatch nods, writing something down in her notebook.

“Is there any news on your friend, Harry?”

“They’re working on curing him, but it’s difficult. They have a few promising possible but experimental treatments, but we don’t know anything until we can try them out. For now, I’m not allowed to see him so they let me watch some of his progress in Steve’s office.”

“And that friend of yours? You said she’s been living with the Avengers now? How’s that working out?”

Peter thinks back on Yaël, the day that Wade brought her to the compound, appearing broken and lost. As he explained it, Wade accidentally blew her place up, throwing the girl out of the building due to the explosion. She hadn’t been found until late in the evening the day afterwards, and she’s been living at the compound ever since.

“Yeah, uh, she was doing fine last time I checked. Getting some chances at training, which she really needed,” Peter answers.

“And your father?”

“He, uh… he moved back to the tower. Transported all of his stuff from the workshop as well. He’s not really her biggest fan.”

“And you still have no idea why that is?” Peter shakes his head.

“He’s quiet about that,” he answers truthfully. “But at least he still allows me to work with him. It isn’t an internship anymore, since I’m no longer graded about this. It’s more of a little job, I suppose? I get paid for tinkering around, at least.”

“And that money?”

“Saving it up now. Aunt May and Dad now keep me from helping out with the bills. Between the two of them, they’ve got everything covered. He even offered her to move into the tower, but Aunt May doesn’t really seem interested in that.”

“So everything is fine in the family?” Dr. Thatch asks. Peter then shrugs.

“Well, uh… it’s mostly fine, I guess? It’s mostly that the Avengers are heading out again tomorrow in search of that guy, and Dad doesn’t really seem happy about it.”

“Because his partner is leaving again?” Dr. Thatch asks. Peter nods.

“Yeah… every time, Steve seems to stay away for longer periods. It really freaks Dad out because he’s grounded.”

Dr. Thatch nods before dropping her pencil down. She takes her glasses off, and leans forward a bit.

“You mentioned something about a presentation at MIT for your father?”







By the second of July, the Avengers head out again. This time, it’s to Lagos. Once again, Rhodey and Vision stay at home, though this time it’s mostly because Rhodey is joining Tony to the presentation, and Vision stays at the compound to guard the place (and keep an eye on Yaël, since everybody seems to be intent on making sure she doesn’t blow anything up). There’s radio silence from them, though neither Tony nor Peter can really think about it. The seventh is the day of the presentation. With Aunt May, Peter, Tony and Rhodey joining them, it promises to be something great.

Of course, Peter should have known that Tony would have ulterior motives to bring Peter along with him. That much is clear when he gets the whole tour of the school, along with an elaborated explanation as to what exactly the students can do here. After being shown a few of the examples, Peter crosses his arms and turns to his father.

“I see what you’re doing,” Peter warns Tony, and the man frowns, feigning innocence.

“Doing what?” he asks.

“You’re trying to convince me to go to this school, aren’t you?”

“Uh,” is all Tony can answer, and that’s answer enough. Peter isn’t angry, though. He gives Tony a playful poke, but then allows him to finish the tour. Once it’s time for the presentation, they get to the auditorium and take place somewhere on the sides. Peter, sitting safely between Aunt May and another student – a girl with bright orange curls and freckles on her face – waits patiently for the lights to be shut off.

As it turns out, the secret project Tony has been working on is graced with the nickname of BARF, which, personally, Peter wouldn’t change at all. He finds it pretty hilarious, despite the fact that this device could be able to help countless of people.

It is pretty weird to watch a holographic illusion of his grandparents, seeing them saying goodbye to a barely older version of his own father. It all looks so unnaturally real that it almost freaks Peter out. He has no idea when Tony has even found the time to work on this in between the suit and all the drama.

But eventually, Tony finishes the speech, revealing that he’s funding all of the projects and making countless of students happy. Then, after a little while, Tony gets off the stage and instead, and Peter starts to get out of his seat to join him, only to remember that, to all of these people here, Peter is just Tony’s intern.

So he stays put, and when they do meet up again afterwards, he and Rhodey notice immediately that something isn’t right. Of course, it’s also not surprising that Tony would deny that when they’re asking for it.

They don’t press on it, and that evening, Peter and Aunt May head back home, while Tony excuses himself to do some ‘research’.

It’s almost three days later when Steve returns, though while they hoped he could help cheer Tony up somehow, it’s clear that their mission didn’t go exactly as planned. With Rumlow finally out of the picture, Natasha explains to Peter that Wanda accidentally blew up a building, and many people died because of it.

When Peter tries to talk to Wanda about it, she asks him not to bring it up again. Instead, the two decide to watch a movie and get some distraction. It’s the next day that everybody starts to go to shit.







Tony is on the phone with a certain Thaddeus Ross when Steve walks in. Of course, his first instinct is to hang up immediately and throw himself to Steve, but he knows better than that. This thing he’s discussing actually sounds pretty important, and though he’s not sure why Ross contacted him about this, he knows that he needs to handle this sooner rather than later.

After returning from the presentation at MIT, Tony has done nothing other than research. With the picture the woman handed to him and nothing more than a name, he searched up everything there was to know about this Charles Spencer. Of course, whatever he found did nothing much to clear his conscience. In fact, it only worsened it. Something clearly that woman at the school seemed to have intended when she decided to confront him about it.

As Ross drones on more and more about something called ‘the accords’, Tony can’t do much more than agree, because the only words that stand out to him are ‘Avengers’, ‘damage’ and ‘put in check’. No matter how much it pains him to say it, but he can’t agree more.

The phone-call ends when they make an agreement for Ross to come by at the compound tomorrow around eleven, and then Tony hangs up the phone with a loud sigh. The first thing he does is rub his forehead, taking a few seconds to breathe.

Then he remembers that Steve came in, though when he looks up there’s no Steve to be seen. Of course, Tony knows about what happened in Lagos – the whole world knows by now. It’s bad press, but it’s also exactly what makes Tony’s point.


“Honey?” Tony asks.

“In the bedroom,” Steve shouts back. Tony stands up from the couch and stretches a bit. Then he walks towards the coffee machine, prepares two cups for the both of them, and then makes his way to the bedroom. There, he can see Steve with damp hair, seated on the side of the bed, dressed in a sleeping-shirt and his boxer shorts. Tony doesn’t say anything. Instead, he hands him his cup, and sits down next to him. Silently, he grabs his hand lifting it up towards his lips to give his fingers a soft kiss.

“So you’ve had a crap week,” Tony mutters. Steve just snorts ironically.

“To say the least…” he mutters back. Tony doesn’t respond, but puts his head on Steve’s shoulder. “Wanda’s been feeling horrible.”

“I don’t blame her,” Tony responds. It’s crappy, what happened. He can perfectly imagine she’s not feeling all that well for causing so much destruction. But on the other hand, he’s grateful that she rescued Steve when he was about to be blown up. And if that makes him the biggest hypocrite of them all, he doesn’t care.

“We were only trying to stop Rumlow, we didn't want anybody to get hurt because of it,” Steve continues. He sighs and shakes his head, taking a swing from his coffee. Tony simply hums, copying Steve’s movement and bringing his cup towards his mouth.

“I know, Steve,” he answers. “Actually, I just had the secretary of state on the line about it.”

“What does he want?” Steve asks.

“He’ll explain it when he comes by tomorrow. Something about accords? He’ll be at the compound at eleven,” Tony answers, not trying to get too deep into this now. He really doesn’t think he can handle it, right now. “I’m glad you’re back, though.”

Steve huffs out a small breath that reveals to Tony he’s smiling. Quickly, Tony turns his head to give Steve a kiss on the cheek.

“I’m glad to be back,” he returns. “But can we just- can we not talk about this anymore? I don’t really want to-“

“It’s alright,” Tony assures him. “I’ll shut up about it.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

There’s a silence after that that goes on until long after they finish their coffee. Still, eventually Tony takes the cup from Steve’s hand, and puts it aside on the nightstand. When he turns back, Steve is already standing, turned towards Tony with that grateful look on his face.

“What?” Tony asks, and Steve smiles at him.

“I’m just- glad to have you here with me.”

Tony smiles back at him before closing the space between them by pressing their mouths together. It’s been a few days since they’ve last been able to do that, and every time they’re separated, it seems like their need to be closer gets stronger.

With their lips against each other, he can hear Steve muttering against his just as much as he can feel it.

“Hmmm-Tony-I want-“

“I know, honey.”

After that, their clothes are quickly removed. In just a matter of seconds, the two of them are lying down on the bed. Steve, on his back, keeps his hands on Tony’s face, while Tony, who’s leaning over Steve, travels his fingers over his sides.

Without the need to talk, the two work together. Tony, being more experienced, knows a little better what he’s doing so Steve lets him take the lead which is just fine by Tony. They huff, they groan, they sweat. When their bodies are joined together, a few moans are let out as well. With their mouths almost permanently pressed against each other, Tony can feel Steve’s hot breath against his face. Buried into him, Tony makes slow movements to let Steve adjust, enjoying the gasps and the groans he makes. Their fingers tangle together, Steve turns his head to the side, teeth biting his lower lip. Tony kisses his neck.

They grind, they turn over until Steve is leaning above Tony, they even let out a few curses. But as soon as they reach their peak, it’s Steve who speaks up. And as those words ring in Tony’s ear, all his trouble from earlier, though for just a little while, seems to disappear.

“I love you.”

And Tony, whose heart is still beating way too fast, and whose breath is still extremely low, can only smile in return before pressing his face against Steve’s chest and pulling the covers over them.

“I love you, too,” he responds.

And he means it.

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