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Tony Stark never expected to be quarantined in Stark Tower for several months in 2020, but, well, he supposed there were worse places to be locked inside than a skyscraper in the centre of New York. The Tower has been quiet and empty for the months of government-enforced lockdown, which was quite jarring when you compared it to how it normally was, bustling with people doing business. And, of course, all of the Avengers had moved out to the Compound so he was living in the Tower solely with Pepper and his own sanity. Which was short-lived, as it turned out.
Honestly, Tony had thought the whole pandemic thing could have been fixed if he’d invited all of the smart viral scientists over to the Tower and got them working on a vaccine, stat. But apparently that was against the rules. He maintained that if Bruce Banner had been on-planet, he would have solved the whole thing within three weeks. His science buddy was just too powerful for this world.
After three weeks, Tony had gotten so bored that he’d acquired another PHD, something he swore he would never do after the dreaded years in the nineties where he’d accumulated them like they were real estate. Someone had dared to diss him on Twitter by saying that he didn’t deserve a doctorate, and instead of presenting them with the ones he already had, Tony had decided he wanted one more. What was the harm, after all?
And then he’d smashed a wall up after doing a particularly dangerous experiment, which obviously couldn’t be fixed because, hey, pandemic. No builders around to fix walls in a skyscraper! So they’d had to sack off that R&D lab from being used until they could get builders in, but hell, there were so many damn labs in the building that it didn’t make a shred of difference.
Apparently, he wasn’t good at “dealing with his own company” for so long, according to Pepper, who was being driven crazy spending so much time with him and his increasingly dangerous exploits. Most people, it turned out, were just baking banana bread and shit. That sounded boring. Luckily, he knew someone else who was just as chaotic and probably decently bored. He had been right in his assumption, so before he knew it, Peter Parker started quarantining with them in the Tower. May’s apartment had gotten boring, it was too small for a teenager to thrive in. There were no crimes happening because everyone was inside, so he didn’t even get to patrol as Spiderman.
They co-existed surprisingly well. When Peter wasn’t in Zoom call for class, he was working with Tony in the labs to improve Stark Industries projects as well as Avengers ones. They joked that he was actually doing an internship now, pulling his weight at the Tower, and all it had taken was a global pandemic. Tony liked the kid, and liked his company. He hoped Peter felt the same way.
One random weekday morning, Peter wandered into the kitchen with his headphones on. They both had their own routine in the morning (Pepper didn’t count, because she’d been in her office since six in the morning, whereas Peter and Tony’s morning commenced at about eight) and Tony wasn’t going to be the one to initiate conversation. He’d learnt, over the last few weeks, that talking to a teenager in the morning was like talking to himself before he had any coffee — in short, it was a no go. Tony himself had been awake since four, and had had his first coffee at 4:34 in the morning. It wasn’t healthy, but hey, he didn’t have anywhere to be.
“Who needs a coffee?” Peter said under his breath, quietly. It was surprisingly melodious, for Peter, but the lockdown was making people do some weird shit, and it was early, so he wasn’t one to judge. Tony was about to interject and say that he wanted one when Peter continued, “Cause I’m doing a run. I’m writing down the orders now for everyone.”
Everyone seemed like an excessive statement, considering it was literally just Tony in the room, and hell, the only other person in the whole skyscraper was Pepper, but Tony stopped himself from making a snarky comment, instead opening his mouth again to say, “Black, you know how I like it,” but, before he could, he was yet again interrupted as Peter continued to murmur.
“The coffee is free, just like me,” Peter muttered. “I’m an unpaid intern.”
Tony’s eyebrows shot up in alarm from the other side of the room. Unpaid intern? Was that what he thought of himself? Just an intern?
He knew they’d joked about it but surely Peter knew better than to assume he was only an intern in Tony’s eyes? Sure, he’d worked on their line of new prosthetics, and had basically singlehandedly engineered the newest release of the Starkphone…oh shit, Peter practically was an ‘unpaid intern’. He’d done so much for the company and Tony had never paid him a cent! After all that work.
Tony had thought it was ridiculous, but it was true. Peter literally was an unpaid intern. Tony felt horrible — had he been mistreating Peter this whole time, getting him to do this work, and not even thinking about paying him? He was a teenager, who should probably be focusing on his studies, but Peter was always just so happy to help out that he hadn’t thought to question it when they’d shifted from working on Spiderman tech to working on projects for the company.
“Sorting papers, running around,” Peter clicked his fingers, grabbing a cereal bar from the cupboard. They’d tried to get him to eat breakfast, but Peter had told them that every time he tried to have a full meal in the morning, he would always feel ill. So instead, Tony made him have a cereal bar and some fresh fruit at about 10am. That was his job — Tony would cut up the fruit and bring it over to Pete, mid-lesson. He stayed out of shot though, as Peter didn’t want people knowing he was living with Tony Stark. Probably a smart move.
“Sitting in the meeting room, not making a sound.”
Oh god, they had made him sit in meeting rooms and not talk to anyone. Well, they hadn’t made him, Peter had asked to sit in on some meetings with board members and clients. He’d been very professional about it all, and had claimed it would enable him to get to know the company and its employees better, but still. Peter could have made a sound if he’d wanted to — god, Tony hoped that Peter wasn’t unhappy about all of this, hoped he knew that he was practically Tony’s son, at least in his eyes.
But Peter wasn’t done. He bit off part of the cereal bar and continued. “Barely people, somehow legal,” Barely people? Tony almost had to do a double take, he was so alarmed. Jesus Christ, this was bad! Did Peter think that Tony didn’t consider him a person, just an opportunity to get free labour? Dear god! He needed to do something, and quick.
“Unpaid intern.” Peter muttered again, walking towards the exit of the kitchen, “You work all day…” and then Peter left the kitchen, muttering further lyrics under his breath that Tony couldn’t hear because he’d left hearing range. Tony had half a mind to jump up and follow Peter, apologise. That would have been the normal thing to do. Go after the kid, demand for his forgiveness. But he was Tony Stark, which meant he certainly wasn’t going to do the normal thing.
Tony ran a hand through his hair and got up to make himself another coffee. He was stressed, and it was only 8:30 in the morning. The day had hardly started yet. He had some adjustments to make, and stat.
By the time it was 10 am (or, on Tony’s clock of the day, fruit o’clock), Tony had done several things. The first was to call May and ask if Peter had a bank account, probably an odd request without the context. When the answer had been no, because Peter had no need for one, Tony had set one up. He had the legal right because he’d been registered as one of Peter’s official guardians several months ago, just in case anything went wrong and Tony needed to make an important decision on Peter’s behalf. Tony then transferred over twice the annual sum that an official Stark Industries intern got paid, just to cover all bases. It was only fair, and if you really thought about it, Peter definitely deserved more. He wasn’t an intern, he was practically a manager, with all of the changes to major projects that he had implemented.
The second thing he did was think about updating his will. He hadn’t changed his will in years, not since he’d written Obadiah out of it and made sure that everything would end up going to Pepper. Since then, he hadn’t really thought about it. But he got up the document on his computer, and added Peter Parker in as a new inheritee. He gave the kid the legal ownership of all the suits, and also bequested him the company and all his assets if Pepper was also gone. He would send it off to his lawyer to get certified and properly changed once Peter had agreed. It wasn’t the done thing to add someone to your will without telling them, after all.
He gave Peter his fruit, and was going to initiate a conversation with him about the whole…well, unpaid intern thing. The kid was in Calculus, but he didn’t really need to be listening because Mr Harrington taught what had to be the easiest derivatives Tony had ever seen, and Peter could literally do them with his eyes shut. But just as Tony was about to speak, Peter quickly shushed him and unmuted his microphone.
“The answer is the third one, Mr Harrington,” He said, and then glanced up at Tony, as if to ask what was bothering him. They had a silent language, now, something that developed after hours in the lab and weeks spent living with each other. Tony loved him so much.
Tony just smiled and patted Peter on the shoulder. “I’ll speak to you later.”
There was a flash of concern on peter’s face, but it was quickly replaced by a smile up at Tony. He then glanced back to his computer, listened to the teacher and promptly pulled out an exercise book. Tony grinned without meaning to, stealing Peter’s empty glass of water which he had replaced with another alongside the fruit, and moved towards the door.
“Offer still stands to use the lab’s holograms instead of paper,” Tony reminded him. When Peter had first moved in, Tony had suggested that he used the lab for his school work. It had all the best kinds of tech in it, after all, and Peter was well equipped to be using the holograms and FRIDAY to do his wok. But Peter elected to use an empty office, instead, which Tony could understand. It was less suspicious.
“That’s a bit difficult to turn in a photo of my assignment, Mr Stark!” Peter called as Tony left the room.
Okay, so, Peter didn’t seem emotionally traumatised or anything…he seemed happy? So, was he….okay with being an unpaid intern? That seemed problematic at best. Tony pondered it for a second, and decided that Peter was just so genuinely selfless that he probably thought it was still a good deal, which is why he hadn’t brought up the idea of payment with Tony. It was an awfully Peter thing to be doing.
Tony prepared about a thousand different apologies in his brain for the rest of the afternoon. He thought about bringing it up over lunch, but Pepper was present for that, and in all of his scenarios, he’d kind of envisioned it being just him and Peter. Pepper being there really threw off what he was planning on saying. But he and Peter had lab time planned for after Peter was done with school, so he just sat on the sofa (extremely bored), thinking about what he was going to say.
Peter eventually came speeding out of his office with a grin, “I’m finally done!”
“Did you do your homework?” Tony asked.
“Homework free week, Mr Stark,” Peter smirked. “They said some bullshit about staying away from screens or something.”
“Oh?” Tony quirked one of his eyebrows. “Perfect, that means I get to steal you for longer.”
“No, Mr Stark!” Peter said jokingly, holding up his hands. “You can’t deny me an education!”
Tony smiled, but internally he was just adding it to the list of things he had to apologise for. He technically was stealing Peter away from learning, even if the stuff they were doing was productive in some way.
But instead, he swallowed, hard, and said, “Come on, squirt.”
They messed around with an Iron Man suit in the lab until Tony could buck up the courage. He eventually put down his spanner and said, “Pete.”
Peter looked up at him expectantly, pencil in his mouth, motor oil stain on his cheek and Tony loved him so much, dear god, this kid. But they had a serious discussion to have.
“I need to talk to you.”
Hell, Tony watched as Peter’s face fell into concern, and he didn’t try to mask it this time. He blinked, once, twice, waited. He was going to let Tony lead the conversation.
“Something you said this morning— it made me realise some stuff.” Tony rubbed one of his eyes.
“Oh?” Peter croaked. “What—what was it?” He was frowning, as though he didn’t know what Tony was referring to. Jeez, did the kid not remember?
“Well, you were talking about— about your work here. You were saying some stuff about how you have to be quiet in the meetings, and have to do all of this work, and that we don’t even pay you,” Tony shook his head, “And it just made me realise, that we don't actually pay you for the work you do for us. Or really do much. So I was thinking about changing that, and also just saying thank you so much, for well…for everything.”
Tony faltered. Peter's face was confused. It was like he really had no clue what Tony was talking about. He hesitated, then continued, trying to trigger Pete’s memory. “You remember right? You were saying uhh, what did you call yourself—oh! Unpaid intern.”
Peter’s face unclouded from its confusion. There was a sort of clarity that swept through his face. “Mr Stark, that— oh my god,” He covered his face with one hand. “Oh my god, you actually thought—” Peter started chuckling, still covering his face. He couldn’t meet Tony’s eyes.
Tony was thoroughly confused. “What?”
“I was singing a song,” Peter explained, “It’s a song called Unpaid Intern, it’s by Bo Burnham. He’s a comedian. I wasn’t—you thought I was complaining about not being paid?!”
“You weren’t?” Tony asked, blinking more times than normal.
“No! Of course not!” Peter stared at him with an incredulous look. “And what did you mean…changing that?”
“Well,” Tony coughed. “This is embarrassing.”
“Mr Stark,” Peter raised an eyebrow. “What did you do?”
Tony sat back in his chair, trying to stop his face from reddening in the way he knew it probably was. “So….you don’t actually need the bank account…that I spent hours setting up for you today.”
“What?” Peter’s jaw dropped. “You made me a bank account?! Did you put money in it?”
“No,” Tony lied. Peter raised his other eyebrow as though he didn’t believe him.
“I can’t believe you thought I was complaining about you, oh my god that’s so embarrassing,” Peter shook his head, “But also, so fucking funny.”
Tony was embarrassed. He didn’t think bringing up the will now was a good idea, not when he was essentially being roasted for making Peter a bank account. Okay, he was never going to do anything nice ever again, not if this was the result of it. Nope. Never. He was going to disown Peter. May could have him back, full-time. He didn’t want the kid anymore.
Then he looked at Peter, whose eyes were wide with joy and amusement, the motor oil stain still on his cheek, in his element, and he softened again. Okay, the kid could stay. Tony loved him too much to let him go.
“May I ask why Mr Burnham decided to write a song about unpaid interns?” Tony asked, his mouth twitching at the corners. Now he knew that Peter was actually perfectly happy and not concerned for his rights as an intern, he was beginning to find some amusement in the situation, even if it made him look stupid. Like, really stupid.
“I’m not actually…sure,” Peter shrugged. “Just part of his new comedy special, Inside. It’s pretty good.”
“Right, well,” Tony clapped his hands together. “I’m not feeling like being productive tonight, and as you think the songs are catchy enough to be singing around the house, I guess we should just watch it.”
“Really?” Peter brightened up. It was worth it to see the kid smile. He’d really do anything to see the kid smile.
“Yup. Let’s go, squirt,” Tony chucked all of his tools on the workbench. They could come back to Mark 74 later. This couldn’t wait.
“Just wait until you hear Bezos I,” Peter commented with a smile as he pressed play. Tony’s mouth quirked up in delight as Peter explained that there were, in fact, two songs solely devoted to shitting on Jeffrey Bezos. This was going to be fun.
Three weeks later, Tony still cannot get fucking Bezos I out of his head.