Spider-Son & Iron Dad two shots

Stitch to Stitch

a/n: i know i have to say it everytime i post, but i pinky-PROMISE i will get to all of these uploads— my mom just underwent a spinal surgery, and i've been struggling with some of my own declining physical health stuff, so. i'm juggling a little bit more this year than previous spooktobers, but i WILL complete the calendar 😈 thank u all for ur continued patience and support, u guys make this bearable  

Spooktober 16: Thread

Tony hummed, scanning his eyes over the paper sheet. "What time is it?"

Across from him, Peter with his ratty sneakers propped up on his lab desk. On his lap, his equally torn up backpack, to which he'd been keeping a steady concentration on for the past five minutes.

Peter looked away from whatever he's fidgeting with. "Es la cuatro son las."

Tony nodded a few times. He looked down to a different one. "How old are you?"

"Tengo dieciséis años," Peter answered.

"Nice, good," Tony said absently. "Where are you from? Do you still live there?"

"Soy de Forest Hills, Queens. Vivo en Astoria ahora."

"What's your name? Who are your pa— well, that's not—" Tony snorted. "This isn't orphan inclusive. I'm switching it up a bit. What's your family's names?"

Peter burst with a surprised laughter and shook his head. "Alright. Uh, yo me llamo es Peter Parker, mi tia es May Parker, y por alguna razón mi contacto de emergencia es Tony Stark."

Tony paused, and looked up at him with narrowed eyes. "Not sure what you said there, but I recognized my name. What, you making fun of me?"

"I dunno. Guess you'll have to learn high-school Spanish if you wanna keep up," Peter grinned.

"Unbelievable. I'm sitting here, quizzing you for your quiz, and you're making fun of me. Unbelievable." Tony clicked his tongue. "I'm older than you, I don't need to sit here and take this."

"I mean, you can stand if you want."

"God, you're annoying."

Peter snickered. "Alright, alright, sorry."

Peter leaned over his legs to grab a pair of scissors that always lay untouched in a dedicated pencil mug sitting on the desk. He snipped something from his backpack.

"What the hell are you doing?" Tony asked finally, amusement evident in his tone. He tossed the paper full of test questions back on the desk. "Doesn't that thing have enough holes? Is this you finally giving me permission to buy you a new one?"

"I'm not cutting holes into my backpack!" Peter defended, his eyes wide. He turned in his chair so Tony could see better. "I'm fixing them, thank you very much."

In his lap, a spool of red string, and a needle, which was stuck carefully into the fabric of his jeans. Tony raised an eyebrow.

"You're sewing?" He asked. "You sew? Clothes?"

"Well, yeah," Peter's face twisted up, his tone betraying how much of a teenager he really was. He said it as if this were an obvious conclusion to come to. Yeah, Mr. Stark. Everybody knows how to fix their own clothes. Duh. Get with the times, old man.

Tony's mind does a curious, nauseating thing, in which he's reminded of a very vivid memory— one that you could almost taste, feel, hear— the worst kind.

His mother, next to the fireplace, her features glowing in pale yellow light. Humming a Patsy Cline song and swiftly working a needle in and out through the hem of a skirt. When he was younger always wanted to learn; if for nothing else to have a reason to stay sitting by his mom's side for just a little longer, as many more minutes he could stretch out before his dad noticed he wasn't working.

His dad would, of course, not have his son learning to sew. "That's not a man's job, and that's especially not a rich man's job. Why the hell would you want to learn that? You think I worked this hard my whole damn life for you to sew clothes like your grandmother? Does this company mean nothing to you? Tony, do you hear me? Are you even listening? Anthony!"

Peter looked up from his backpack, frowning momentarily. "Mr. Stark? Are you okay?"

He shook himself out of his memories and cleared his throat. "Yeah. All good. Just, lost in thought, nothing important. Who taught you to sew?"

"May," Peter said, relaxing. He gave a small, reminiscent smile as he explained. "She wanted a helper. Ben always lost shirt buttons, and... yeah. I mean, it's a good skill to have. And it helped me make my first suit, too."

Tony hummed, thinking back to the shoddy sweatsuit with a newfound sense of fondness. He had always assumed that the kid made it, but with the added visual— Peter with his tongue stuck between his teeth, his eyebrows drawn deeply as he kept a laser focus on each even, patient thread loop— everything he did was something to be so proud of.

"Does it take you a long time?" Tony asked curiously. His mom was able to knock out an entire quilt in a day and a half if she was really stressed out.

(Obadiah convinced him to donate them, after it happened. For the charity kids, he said, and the seventeen-year old Stark in all his grief and stubbornness packed them all the same day. He wish he'd kept them. He wish he had kept at least one.)

"This doesn't," Peter said easily. "Just a few stitches. There's just a lot of holes, and I wanna make sure the thread is strong enough for my books and stuff, so I'm going over it a few times. It's making it take longer."

"Oh, neat," Tony said, trying to sound as supportive as he could. He didn't know what Peter was talking about, fully. He had no idea what the normal time would be for 'just a few stitches', but Hell and Heaven forbid if he was gonna give Peter even the slightest impression that he didn't care about it.

Peter finished, apparently, because he snipped off the thread and turned his backpack over to Tony, revealing something far more useable than what the kid walked in with. He grinned like he was showing off a trophy. "See?"

"Oh yeah, very nice," Tony said, squinting. He moved forward on the office chair, the wheels rolling on the concrete, and got a better look. Bright red thread, more or less evenly spaced, all in thick stitches horizontal across various seams.  "That looks great, Pete."

Peter snorted and dropped his backpack carelessly to the floor. "Thanks. I mean, the main thing is that it gets the job done, but it's always a plus when it actually looks good. I ran out of my black thread though, so..."

As he was talking, he began to pack his sewing stuff away.

"My shirt's got a hole in it," Tony blurted. The kid paused. "I mean, if you wanna stitch something for me. It's an old shirt. Ratty old thing from college."

Tony didn't remember when the old shirt got the hole in it. It was probably moths, and he left it at that, because it really didn't matter— it's an ancient thing with a hole in it. Time's only job is to age things. It didn't matter. Tony didn't even care about the shirt, really.

He offered it only because of the way he watched Peter light up after. Always happy to help. Always happy to share the things that made him happy. Tony's heart felt suddenly so warm.

"Oh!" Peter clipped the lid back open. "Yeah, sure! Right now?"

"I mean, if you got nothing better to do," Tony smiled. "Would you mind?"

Peter shook his head. "No, not at all! I can fix it really quickly. You shouldn't even see the red, I'll do an invisible stitch—"

So, Tony retrieved the shirt. Somewhere between listening to the kid excitedly explain how to sew from the inside-out to hide a thread, and how to best put the thread through the needle, he feels another part of his childhood knit itself back together— stitch by stitch.