Disclaimer: I sadly do not own the Marvel Universe (If I did, Tony would not be dead).

This is a story I've been thinking about writing for awhile and have now decided to just do it. It's one of those Tony and Peter find out they are father and son stories, and I know a lot of people write them but I hope mine feels unique to you guys.

A few notes. One: Tony has a bit of a panic attack in this chapter. I know some people can be triggered by it so I figured I'd give you a heads up.

Two: We shall be ignoring Endgame, it never happened because I literally can't deal with it. For me, I choose to believe that Tony survived the battle and decided to retire with Pepper and Morgan with Peter visiting regularly. That's what happened and no one will convince me otherwise.

Third: This story is set a few months after Spider-Man: Homecoming. So, Tony and Peter have already had a chance to start bonding, and Tony made Peter's internship a real thing.

And now...please enjoy :)

Chapter 1.
Rhodey Meets Peter.

Rhodey makes his way through the compound, not paying too much attention to where he's going, just politely nodding a hello to people who recognise him as he walks by.

It's been a few weeks since he's last seen Tony, and that's usually not a good sign. A quiet Tony was a Tony that was either drowning his anxiety in drink or was running on nearly fifty hours of no sleep and close to blowing himself up because of the sleep exhaustion.

Although, the first one was not as likely nowadays, as it seems like his friend has mostly given up drinking…which was a big shock to him when Tony had told him that he was cutting back on the alcohol. Proud, but shocked.

From the brief conversations he's had with Pepper, apparently Tony wasn't quiet because he's working himself to death…or at least not more then usual. No, he's been quiet because he's been preoccupied by an intern…a personal intern.

Which is odd because in all the years he's known his friend, Tony has always said that he'd never have an intern because they'd never keep up with him…however, according to Pepper, this intern and Tony are quite close, and Tony's not a fan of getting close to people.

Pepper didn't tell him much when he asked about the intern that had to be smart enough for Tony to work with. She mostly just said that he should see the intern and how Tony is with him, with his own eyes because he might not believe it otherwise. Which just makes him more intrigued by this mysterious intern.

He guesses that the intern is a bit on the young side, maybe late teens, because during the conversations with Pepper, the only other thing she would say about the intern was how adorable he is. Which again, make him all the more intrigued.

So, he figured it was time to meet this intern, especially since Tony is getting close to him. His friend has had enough people betray him, so even if the intern has Pepper's seal of approval, Rhodey needs to check this guy out for himself.

"Good evening, Colonel Rhodes" FRIDAY's voice rang out as Rhodey enters the elevator.

"Hey, FRI. Tony in his lab?" the question was rhetorical. When wasn't Tony in his lab.

"Yes, shall I take you to him?"

"Please" Rhodey leans against the wall of the elevator to take some of the wait off his leg braces. Most of the time they are fine, but if he walks around in them for a while, they start to get a little uncomfortable. Though, he much prefers having these leg braces to having a wheelchair.

The elevator doors open and Rhodey makes his way into Tony's personal lab.

"Hey, Tony Stank" Rhodey starts speaking as soon as he opens the door, "what's this I've been hearing abou-".

Rhodey freezes mid-step and mid-sentence when he see's Tony… or more accurately when he sees a kid sitting next to his friend.

…a kid that, when he and Tony look up at him entering the lab, looks freakishly like Tony did when he first met him back at MIT.

It may have been 30 years, give or take, since he met his best friend, but he'd never forget the first time that he met the skinny little kid that had a busted lip because he had mouthed off to one of the much older students.

He'd never forget that little face.

The face that he was suddenly seeing all over again…sat next to his best friend.

He has the same curls that Tony did when he was 15, before he started cutting his hair shorter to get rid of them in an attempt to stop looking as young. It was hard enough being 15 and in college, he didn't want to look as young as he was too. The kid also has the same freaking eyes as Tony. Big and brown, like bambi. Even their noses look almost the same.

He was seriously looking at 15-year-old Tony all over again.

When the hell did this happen, and why the hell didn't Tony call him and tell him that he found out that he has a kid?

"Honey-bear" Tony grins, "what are you doing here?"

"Figured I'd drop in" Rhodey slowly walks over to towards Tony and the kid, still trying to process just what the hell is going on.

Rhodey watches the kid's eyes go wide as he looks at him, "y-you're Colonel Rhodes… War Machine… It's amazing to meet you, Sir. You're just…you're awesome".

Tony rolls his eyes, but the grin stays firmly on his face, "you can just call him Rhodey, Pete…and he's not as awesome as me".

Peter snorts a laugh, "keep telling yourself that".

"You little shit. You've clearly gotten way to comfortable with me" Tony says with no heat in his voice, only fondness, and Rhodey watches completely fascinated by the scene, "what happened to the star-struck Peter who used to stutter when he saw me?"

"The star-struck Peter disappeared after you got attacked by Dum-e and the fire extinguisher…for the third time…in the same day".

"That stupid bot. I really am going to donate him one of these days" Tony grumbles and Dum-E lets out whiney beep from the corner of the room, "yes, I am, because your useless" Tony shakes his head as he turns back to Rhodey, "where were we?"

Rhodey points to Peter.

"Right, Honey-bear, this is Peter".

"It's nice to meet you, Peter" Rhodey smiles the boy.

"It's nice to meet you too…and I already said that…when you first came in…" Peters cheeks turn red in embarrassment as Tony smirks. He finds joy in the kid's embarrassment, and lucky for him the kid is easy to embarrass.

Before anyone can say anything else, Peter's phone rings and he fumbles to answer it, "Aunt May!... Uh…Oops, I guess we lost track of time..." Peter looks up at Tony, who looks at his watch and swears under his breath when he sees it past 7 and Peter was supposed to be back at his aunt's at 7 because it's a school night.

He fishes out his phone and sends a quick text to Happy, "Happy will take you back, he'll be waiting outside".

Peter nods and returns his attention to his phone, "I'm leaving now aunt May, be back soon" he moves to pick up his school bag, "and don't worry my homework it's all done. See you soon".

Peter puts his phone away and heads towards to elevator, "Bye Mr Stark, Colonel Rhodes. See you on Saturday".

"Cya kid, we'll finishes these then" Tony motions to the web-shooters that they had been working on, and then watches the boy leave with a soft smile on his face.

Once the elevator closes Rhodey turns to Tony, "he calls you Mr Stark?"

"Urgh, trust me. I've tried to get the kid to stop, but he refuses to call me anything but Mr Stark" Tony shakes his head, but the smile still on his face shows that he finds it more amusing than annoying, "I'm pretty sure he's doing it on purpose, because he's a little shit. Pepper doesn't believe me because she hasn't seen the snarky, little shit Peter yet. She's only seen the innocent, butter wouldn't melt Peter".

Rhodey just blinks at Tony, still trying to get his head around what just happened and that he wasn't told about Peter. He knows Tony can get carried away with things and then suddenly days have gone by without the man realising it…but forgetting to tell his best friend that he found out he has a kid?

"What?" Tony asks after a few moments of Rhodey just staring at him.

"You want to tell me why I wasn't told I had a nephew?"

"Your sister had another kid?" Tony's eyebrows frown in confusion.

"What? No".

"…then what are you talking about?"

"What am I talking about?" Rhodey stares at Tony incredulously, "Peter".

"What about Peter?"

"Are you purposely avoiding right now?"

"Avoiding what?"

"Why didn't you tell me you found out you had a kid?"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa" Tony's eyes go wide as he finally realises what Rhodey was talking about, "I don't have a…Peter he isn't mine. He's just my intern".

"He's the intern Pepper was talking about?"

"Yeah" Tony says like it should have been obvious.

"He's like 14".

"15 and he's a genius. He may even become smarter than me one day. He definitely has the potential to make the world a better place with his brain" Rhodey is finding it hard to believe that Peter still isn't Tony's kid because of how proud the man sounds as he talks about how smart the kid is, "I mean, he made and perfected his web formula by himself in his chemistry class".

"Web formula?" Rhodey frowns.

"Shit" Tony winces, he forgot that he never actually told Rhodey who was under the Spider mask. After what happened at the airport and the Siberia, he was more focused on just helping his friend get some legs. Plus, for the first couple of months he wasn't really too involved with Peter, only listening to the messages the kid left on Happy's phone.

"Tony" Rhodey says slowly.

"You remember that kid in Germany? Spider-Man?"

"No" Rhodey shakes his head, staring hard at the man, "do not tell me you brought a kid to a fight, Tony. A kid!"

Tony sighs, running a hand over his face, "trust me, I regret doing that. I just…at the time I wasn't thinking, I just wanted Rogers to stop trying to tear us apart and I figured if it look like he was outnumbered he would just let us take him in and we could work things out. And I figured that if a fight did happen, it wouldn't be a rough fight because we were supposed to be friends. Then the fight started getting rougher, and the kid got hit and went flying, so I sent him back to the hotel with Happy".

Rhodey closes his eyes and sighs, "it's still not okay that you brought a kid into something he wasn't apart of".

"I know, and like I said, I regret it".

The lab is quiet for a moment, and Rhodey can see just how guilty Tony is over bringing the kid to Germany. It's written plain as day in his eyes. So, he'll drop it for now as his friend is clearly beating himself up enough for the both of them and he already has a bad habit of self-deprecating, so there's no point in making him feel even worse.

"You said he made his web formula himself? So, it's not…coming from him? "Rhodey asks, genuinely curious, "did he just decide one day to become a superhero and theme it after spiders?"

Tony chuckles, "no, actually he got bit by a radioactive spider and, while shooting webs from his body isn't one of them, it gave him powers".

Rhodey looks at Tony for a moment and blinks, "wait…your serious?"

"As a heart attack" if Tony didn't know Peter, he would have called bullcrap on the kids' story. However, he does know Peter. "He was on a field trip to Oscorps" Tony rolls his nose up at Osbornes company, "and one of their little experiments escaped and decided to bite Pete" not really that surprising that Osborne has crappy health and safety in his labs. "He said that he was sick for about three or four days before waking up and feeling better than ever".

"And you said he got powers from the spider".

"Yeah, the kid can stick to walls like actual spiders. He likes to sit on the ceiling to do his homework, which is both amazing and terrifying to watch…mostly terrifying when its two in the morning and you just wanted to grab a glass of water from the kitchen and you look up to see the kid is just chilling on the ceiling reading a book, because he couldn't sleep" Tony shakes his head at the memory, "he's also faster and more agile then normal people, and he's as strong as Rogers is…maybe more, we haven't actually gotten around to testing that yet, which we really should".

"That little kid is as strong as Rogers? Damn" Rhodey can't lie, he's pretty impressed.

"He also has this…sixth sense, kinda thing. Him and his friend have named it his 'Spidey-sense', but it's basically like his body has an early warning system that alerts him to danger…which with the amount of trouble he seems to get into it's a damn good thing he has it".

"Huh…he's always seems to find trouble?" Rhodey smirks, "now why does that sound familiar?"

Tony rolls his eyes, "shut up, platypus".

"How did you find this kid anyway?"

Tony groans, "he was swinging around Queens, in a freakin onesie, fighting crime. A onesie!" Tony groans again, remembering how the stupidly unprotected Peters first suit was. "Even before everything that happened with the accords, I was looking into this Spider-guy that had been popping up. I figured I'd track him down and see if he wanted to be an avenger, but when I did track him down, I found out that Spider-Man was more like Spider-Boy. I decided to leave it a few years before talking to him about the avengers, but I did start making him a suit because the one he was using was just ridiculous" he'll admit, it wasn't too bad for a first suit…but still, it's a freakin onesie. "I thought that if the kid was going to go after bike thieves and what-not then he should at least be as safe as a vigilante can be, so-".

"So, you made him a suit with, I'm guessing, a whole bunch of safety features".

"Yep, I was going to give it to him and just let him continue on help the little people…but then the accords happened and Rogers…".

"And now…after Germany? I mean, you've made him your intern".

"For the first couple of months I stayed away and had Happy watch him-".

"Bet Happy loved that" Rhodey chuckles.

"Peter…is like an over excited puppy. He filled Happy's phone with texts and voicemails in the two months he was watching him. Anyway, me staying away…didn't really work out so well. Admittedly, he saved the day in the end, but still it got a little messy and I think I started talking like my dad at one point. Anyway, after his aunt found out about his little Spidey secret, and after she understandably yelled at me, we came to an arrangement. Every Wednesday after school Peter comes here to work in the lab for his internship, and every other weekend he also comes here to train, so he's better prepared and safer when he's out fighting crime".

"That's good" and rather responsible. He understands what Pepper meant when she said he had to see it for himself, "you said his aunt…what about his parents?"

"Died when he was about five or six, and then his uncle died last year too. His aunt is all he has left".

"Poor kid".

Tony stands up and stretches out a little, working out the knots that had formed as he and Peter had worked.

"So, you just decided to drop in?" Tony raises an eyebrow.

"I hadn't seen you in a few weeks, so I was getting worried about you. I had heard from Pepper that you had an intern, and I figured I should meet this guy…only for him to be Peter".

"Aww, Honey-bear" Tony coos, "it's sweet to know you care".

Rhodey just rolls his eyes, but a smile finds its way onto his face.

Tony sits back down on his stool, picking up the web-shooters and looking them over. He wasn't going to finish them because they are Peters and the boy liked working on his stuff, but he just wanted to make sure that what they had done so far looked good.

"Why did you automatically assume that just because I hang out with a kid, in a none creepy way, that he has to be my kid" Tony asks, confused as to why people seem to think that. When Vision had met Peter, the android thought the same thing too.

"You're kidding right?" Rhodey huffs as he takes a seat, "he's basically you".

"Just because he's smart-".

"I thought he was your kid before I found out he was smart".

Tony looks up at Rhodey and frowns, "then what did you mean when you said he's basically me?"

"How have you not noticed? I met you when you were the same age as Peter is now and looking at him is like I'm looking at 15-year-old you all over again. He has the same curls that you did before you copped them off, you got the same nose and my God…you have the same freakin eyes. Exactly the same. Peter looks almost like you did at his age" Rhodey points out, "now add on the fact that he's a genius and has a thing for finding trouble…".

Tony feels his heart pounding against his ribcage, "…he doesn't look like me".

Rhodey snorts, "trust me, I'll never forgot what you looked like when I first met you. Peter looks just like you did. He really looks like he could have been your kid".

Tony's eyes widen and his brain is thinking to fast to form proper thoughts, until one thing…one sentence sticks out, 'he kinda looks like you'. Pepper had said that first time she had met Peter. And then another one, 'the kid's self-preservation skill are about as good as yours'. Happy had said that after Peter had stopped the Vulture. 'He reminds me of you', that was Pepper again, she had said that after Peter had stayed over longer than normal a few Wednesdays ago and had dinner with them. 'You both have rather similar facial features', that's what Vision had said after he met him.

'He really looks like he could have been your kid'.

He couldn't have a kid…he'd ruin a kid. Break them.

No…no.

…no.

There was no way Tony could have a kid, especially one like Peter. The kid is way too good and pure to have come from isn't possible.

Plus, the chances that the random kid that he found from YouTube turning out to be his son? That sort of thing would be way too much of a coincidence, and it just doesn't happen.

Nope.

Anyway…loads of people have curly hair and brown eyes. The most common eye colour in the world is brown. It doesn't mean anything. And the kid's parents had been scientists, so of course Peter was going to be smart.

Okay, sure…Peter is the right age to line up with his playboy days.

…but even when he was drunk, he was still smart enough to use protection. He always uses protection.

Although, condoms are only 98% effective.

…no…no, no.

It's just…it's not possible.

It was all just a coincidence…it had to be…right?

"-ny. Tony, you need to breath" he can barely make out Rhodey's voice, which is strange because the man is sitting right next to him, "Tones, look at me okay. Try and focus on me, try and match my breathing".

His chest is feeling painfully tight.

"Come on Tony, copying my breathing" he feels Rhodey squeezing his shoulder.

Right…yeah, breathing is something he needs to do.

"Take a deep breath in and try and focus on me".

He finally manages to take a shuddery breath in.

"That's good, real good. Just copy me" Rhodey encourages him, and five minutes later Tony's panic attack has mostly gone.

"Sorry" Tony mutters, exhaustion starting to hit him.

"You have nothing to apologise for" Rhodey pats Tony shoulder.

"I just…I started remembering things that Pepper had said, and Happy and Vision…different things about how Peter is…".

"Like you" Rhodey says gently.

Tony nods.

"Tony, I could be wrong. Hell, I probably am wrong. Loads of people look like each other and have no relation to-".

"He was born during my playboy, party days…so it's not like it isn't impossible" Tony balls his hands into fists, squeezing so hard his knuckle start to turn white, "what if…it can't be possible for the random kid I'm mentoring to turn out to be…but what if he…"

"Tony-".

"I think I'm going to be sick" and Tony does look an odd shade.

Dum-E wheels over, waving a trash can around in his claw, almost knocking Tony in the head with it, in his hurry.

"Thank you, Dum-E" Rhodey grabs the trash can before the bot does actually hit either of them with it.

"Look, there's no point in getting freaked out over something that you don't even know is actually real" Rhodey says, trying to keep his friend calm.

"…you're right. I need to find out if it is real and then I can freak out".

"No, that's not quite what I-".

"F.R.I.D.A.Y, run Peter's blood against mine. I want to know if we're a match…paternally".

"Right away Boss".

It was lucky that he already had Peter's blood on record. He had one of the medical staff take Peter's blood a few weeks back, so that he and Peter could study it and see what changes the bite had made. He may not have a degree in genetics, but he knew enough and was fascinated to see what the spider had done.

"Tony, just wait for a second" Rhodey places both of his hands on Tony's shoulders, trying to keep him grounded.

"Why?"

"Because you need to just take a moment".

"I don't need a moment" Tony snaps, "I need to find out if Peters…"

Rhodey watches his friend try and get his breathing under control again. If he knew opening his big mouth would lead to this, he would've stayed quiet. Then again, if the boy really is Tony's…then the man has a right to know.

God, he wasn't expecting anything like this to happen when he woke up this morning. All he thought he was going to do today was talk to Tony's new intern. Now, instead, he's about to find out if he has a nephew or not.

Tony's about to find out if he has a son or not.

"Tones, you said Pepper had mentioned that Peter was like you" Rhodey says in a soft voice, hoping to keep Tony calm, "why didn't you think then that Peter could have been your kid?"

"When Pepper said it, it was like an off handed comment that neither of us thought much about" Tony runs a hand over his face, "and Pep didn't know me when I was 15, you did and your saying that he looks exactly like me".

"And like I said, a lot of people in the world look like each other, so Peter looking like you could mean nothing".

"Or it could mean everything".

"Yeah…it could" Rhodey agrees, the problem is, will Tony be able to handle it if Peter is his kid?

Personally, Rhodey knows Tony would make a good father. He's always had protective and caring instincts, even if they are usually buried deep for only a few to see. Just from the few minutes that he saw Tony and Peter interact, it was clear as day that Tony already cares for the kid, and tires to protect him with the new suit and the training.

However, he knows his friend will think that he'd be the worst father in the world. All because of Howard. The son of a bitch still messing with Tony's head from six feet under.

"Boss, I have the paternity results" F.R.I.D.A.Y's voice makes Tony freeze.

This is it.

Holy shit.

He definitely might be sick.

Rhodey squeezes Tony shoulder, letting his friend know he's right here for him, as Tony let's out a shaky breath, "and?"

"It's a match Boss, Peter is your son".

So, I hope you guys enjoyed the first chapter. Please favourite and follow my story, and give me a review to let me know what you thought.

Thanks for reading :)