Spider-Son & Iron Dad two shots

old man girlbosses in the kitchen

Spooktober 07: Comfort

"Ughhhhhh," Peter moped into the kitchen and haphazardly slugged his backpack on the floor. "Mr. Stark, you're not gonna believe the week I had today. It just sucked. It was bad."

Tony hunmed acknowledgingly into his coffee. He dropped his phone on the counter and looked up to give the kid his full attention. "Was the chemistry test giving you any problems?"

"No," Peter screwed his nose up. "No, that was fine. Chemistry's, like, my best subject. You know that."

Tony did know that; but that test was the only thing on his mental list of Peter's schedule that could have possibly stressed him out. This is because he also knew the kid had a tendency of slacking off on his best subjects to do "more important" things.

"What was it then?"

Peter threw open the fridge and pulled a Capri-Sun from a horribly disfigured box. He stabbed the straw through the top and sat down with an annoyed look on his face. "I don't even know! It's like, Murphy's law kicked in or something. Parker luck. Whatever. It was out to get me this whole week, everything that could have went wrong, went wrong."

"Do tell," Tony said, smiling faintly.

Being entirely frank, Tony hadn't had the best week either. Not that anything did go wrong, but it was just a series of mundane tasks and office visits and meetings— the kind of stuff Tony had been avoiding the past several months all suddenly stacked in one fell swoop.

Sure, he could have avoided it. He could have snuck out of the building, made some dramatic escape or made a show of having something better to do, but he was trying to be more responsible lately. (It definitely had nothing to do with the fact he had been trying to prove to Pepper that he indeed was adult enough to take care of a living, breathing, child.)

"So first," Peter said. He subsequently paused and took a large gulp of his kidified juice drink. God forbid this kid ever turned twenty-one. "First, I totally bombed like, several quizzes this week— it was all small stuff, and it was mistakes like forgetting to label angles and whatever, but I had to spend so much time redoing them that I got behind on English—"

Oh, the woes of a high schooler. Good thing Tony never will and never had related to that.

He listened to Peter babble on for a few more minutes about trivial things, and honestly, as annoyed as the teen looked, he was just happy that Peter's problems didn't extend to the usual list of conundrums. The usual list being stabbings, robberies gone wrong, crime, gunshots, nightmares, pretty much all the bad of humanity in a neat little spidery-bow.

In some messy way, it was relieving to hear— As much hardship as Peter went through, he still had the same struggles as any other kid.

Nevertheless, struggles are struggles. And Tony loved fixing things.

"Lucky you," Tony set his mug down. "I have the perfect fix for this. It's actually the perfect fix for anything."

Peter gave him a very teenage expression, half an eyeroll and all the sass in the world worked into the disbelieving uptick of his brow. "The perfect fix, Mr. Stark? Really?"

"Yeah." Tony cracked his knuckles and clapped his hands together. He wandered into the pantry. "This is the only thing I can cook, and I do mean that literally."

"Now I'm really having doubts," Peter said sarcastically.

"Okay, I'm gonna need you to tone down the attitude," Tony said, spinning around and pointing his finger accusingly in the air. "The kitchen is not big enough for two girlbosses, Peter."

He relished in the way the kid crumbled, physically cringing and burying his face into his hands.

"Mr. Stark," Peter pleaded desperately. "Please. Please, don't say 'girlboss' ever again."

"The Twitter taught me," Tony goaded. He pulled out ingredients— wasn't much. Just pasta, butter, and shredded Parmesan. Some garlic. Salt. Pepper. Nothing at all fancy, because he's notorious for being the one to burn water. "I'm young and hip, Peter."

He took a pot out and filled it with tap water, and then put it on the burner.

"Okay," Peter sighed heavily. "I don't know what you're making, but I know nothing you would know how to make, needs to cook at that high of a temperature."

"Wow," Tony said blankly. "First off, I'm boiling the water. Second off, everyone knows that if you turn the temp up, shit cooks faster."

"Have you ever thought of going on Worst Cooks In America?"

"I'm going to pretend, for your sake of course, that I didn't hear you say that."

He cranked the salt into the water pot and then dumped the pasta in. Then he dumped the butter he took out into a bowl, and shoved it into the microwave. He turned around and gave Peter a grin.

It is a wonder how Peter had the audacity to act like he knew what good cooked food looked like. Tony's been over to the Parker residence for family dinners. He knew the night always ended with pizza boxes or Thai takeout, and the smell of a kitchen almost on fire.

He of course did not voice this, but he had the comeback in his back pocket in case the brat (affectionate) had any more plans of insulting his incredible cooking portfolio.

The cooked pasta went into a strainer, except for a small portion of water which he dutifully left in the pot. In went everything else, the butter, the seasonings, the Parmesan. It smelt just how it did the last time he made it, which admittedly a very, very long time ago. Maybe college. He was getting old.

He scooped the pasta into two bowls and carried it over with some silverware, setting it on the counter with a dull 'clink.'

"There we go," Tony said proudly. "I give you, my half-assed cacio e pepe."

"You're Italian," Peter narrowed his eyes. "Like, even more than I am. Surely you know that 'half-assed' isn't exactly how they... do things."

Tony shrugged. He sat back at the counter and pushed the pasta around with his fork. "My mom tried very hard to teach me to cook. She realized pretty soon that would be an impossible task, so she allowed shortcuts. Said with the saddest smile I've ever seen that she'd rather I know how to feed myself than nothing else."

Peter looked at him curiously for a moment, as if he wanted to ask more but didn't want to push any further. His gaze wasn't sympathetic exactly, at least, not in the way most people's were whenever he brought up his mom. Tony realized, with an uncomfortable wave, that if anybody understood what it was like it would be this kid.

Tony reached over and ruffled his hand through Peter's hair. A fond smile was on his face as he explained: "She always made it for me when I was having a bad day. It was my favourite, so she eventually taught me how to make it."

Peter scooped a forkful into his mouth. After a moment, he nodded serenely. "Okay, this is really good. Mrs. Stark had a really good recipe."

"Yeah," Tony murmured his agreement, eating half of his own bowl. "Is it doing the trick? No more mopey teenager?"

Peter nodded, his cheeks shamelessly puffed out like a chipmunk as he shoveled food into his mouth. Tony snorted.

The two finished their meal in silence, and when all that was left was the scraping of ceramic and silver, Peter spoke up again.

"Would—" Peter trailed off quietly. He cleared his throat. "Could you teach me? How to make it?"

Tony's heart swelled. He gave him another grin, albeit much softer, something proud hidden in the way his eyes twinkled at the edges.

"Of course, kid."

a/n: i love pasta and i want some so badly now but it is, unfortuantely, 10:42pm