Tony was in a deep sleep, something that was rare for him.

He usually didn't sleep enough to have dreams- maybe a small one, a happy one, only to be polluted by nightmares later on in the night. Though tonight, it was peaceful. Feeling refreshed, he of course decided he was sleeping in and taking in every second of peace he could because who the hell knows when it's going to happen again?

Though, his plans were interrupted by a paw to the stomach.

Which wasn't his favorite thing to wake up to but hey, unlike good sleep, it wasn't out of the norm anymore.

He groans and watches as the bigger dog gallops out of his bedroom. She throws another glance back at him with a grin and a quick "woof" before she runs off again.

"I'm coming, I'm coming," Tony groans. He tosses his blankets off to the side and a gust of cool air sweeps over him. He staggers over to his drawers, feeling now his old bones creak with protest, and he throws on an old, age-softened t-shirt.

Pepper hums behind him, smiling, "Morning. I can't remember the last time you were up before me."

"Yeah, thanks to the dog stepping on me to get me up. Speaking of," Tony narrows his eyes, "why'd she leave you alone?"

She shrugs and turns over in the bed.
"Dunno. Maybe because she's your dog."

"Peter's dog," he corrects grumpily.

"You bought her."

"You approved."

She raises an eyebrow.
"After you bought her." "Touché."

It'd been over 2 months since Tony and Peter came home with Tessa. She'd grown a lot, and her already huge amount of energy grew as well. She ran around the tower a lot and bowled over anyone that stood in her way. Her tiny figure had a shit ton of strength.

She wasn't exactly the favorite downstairs on the Interns' floor due to an incident with her knocking over an entire table of papers.

Why FRIDAY let her in the elevator to begin with, he didn't know. (Also, who puts important documents on a plastic foldable table? What is it, a 10 year old's birthday party? It's a multi-million dollar company for Christ's sake he has a reputation to uphold)

"Hey Pete." Tony smiled softly and ruffled his kid's hair, who had been laying upside-down on the couch, phone in hand. A video played quietly on the speakers.

"Hey Tony."

Tessa pranced over and licked his face messily, making Peter pull away. "Aw gross," he giggled, pushing her nose away and pulling himself upward into a normal sitting position.

Peter's doing a little better. Day by day, his smile grows just a little bit wider. Some days are worse than others, littered by guilt and sadness and sleepless nights, but there are good ones too. Tony tries to focus on that.

Peter still looks tired a lot, still sad at times when memories of May pop up in his mind. It'll get better though- he is getting better.

The dog helps too- really helps. She drags Peter out of bed when he doesn't want to- Tony sympathises with that though, as he's a victim of her early morning enthusiasm too. But she makes him smile and in the end, that's all that matters. Tony truly does believe getting Peter a dog was hands down the best decision he ever made.

He brushes his knuckles against Peter's chin softly to get his attention.
"How're we doing this morning?"

"Ok," he hums. "You're up early."

Tony sits down next to him.

"Yeah, thanks to that living alarm clock over there."

Tessa looks up at him and huffs, stomping her foot.

"I swear she knows what we're saying," he mutters.

"I wouldn't be surprised." Peter holds out a hand for her to sniff before he scratches behind her ear.

"You know what we're saying, right Tess?" His already (frankly) pubescent, squeaky voice goes up a few octaves, turning into the playful tone he reserves just for Tessa.

She yips.

"Well that's not terrifying at all." "Tony you have robots that know what you're saying. I think a dog that understands a few words is a little less terrifying than that." "...True."

Pepper emerges from the bedroom, stretching.

She makes her way over to her boys and leans down and kisses Peter's forehead. "Morning Pete."

Tessa gets excited at Pepper's presence and runs over to her, tapping her feet.

"Good morning honey," she coos.

"What am I, chopped liver?" "Yes," she replies, pecking Tony on the lips. "You should get ready. We agreed you'd go to a few meetings today."

He groans. "C'mon Pep, Ross is a waste of time." "I agree but you have to go. You've only got two more back-to-back after that for SI around 2:00 though. I'll meet you there."

Tony sighs and pulls himself up off the couch. "Alright I'll be back later this afternoon then." He flicks a stray strand of Peter's messy hair, earning an grin from the kid. "Bye Pete."

"Bye."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Dude it's crazy! You're everywhere!"

"Wait actually?"

"Yeah! You think you could live with Mr. Stark and not be famous!? No way! People are going crazy about how he has a kid and a dog now. We've only got like two pictures of Tessa and everyone's a fan."

Peter grinned down at his dog, who was pressed at his side. "Hear that Tess? You've got fans."

Her tail thumped against the bed as Peter looked back at his phone.

"Wait- but- He hasn't done a press conference or anything yet." MJ's face comes in closer to the camera, a sympathetic look on her face. "I think someone from the shelter you went to leaked the first video. Another when you guys were taking a walk a few weeks ago."

Peter's eyebrows furrowed. He saw that picture of them walking in a park close by the tower. That was when Tony had been trying to get him up out of bed and he'd finally succeeded after some pushing and prodding. The picture showed Peter's slightly hunched form, and Tony's hand on his shoulder comfortingly. He wasn't happy the photo had gotten out. It was a private moment between the two of them but... this was something he'd have to get used to.

"I'm sorry man, it was a real asshole move not giving you guys any privacy. Ms. Potts definitely put out a post about leaving them alone for a family emergency."

"She did?" "Mhm."

"...It's fine. It'll blow over eventually."

"When it does, are you coming back to school?"

"Ned," MJ snapped. "We were going to ask him that another time."

"What?"

That's not the part that scared him though.

"We were going to ask you when you planned to come back to school."

"When you're ready," MJ added.

Peter gave a small smile. He'd thought about going back to school a little bit. Though he didn't have to worry about missing work over the Christmas break he spent in bed, there was a lot of work he'd have to make up. After all, he'd been gone a few months. "I-I think I might be ready to go back soon. Like really soon. I'll talk to Tony about it." "Really? Ok, ok awesome. So awesome!"

"We really miss you loser. See you."

"See you guys."

Peter sighed and flopped onto his back.

He smiled to himself.

He thinks he wants to go back to school.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Tony?"

"Hm?"

"I have a question."

"Hit me."

"...Do you think I should- um... go back to school?"

Tony swivels his chair around to face Peter, a soft expression he only wore around few people on his face. "Only if you think you're ready, kiddo."

"I-I think I'm... MJ and Ned were talking to me about it and I want to go back but- I just don't know how everything's gonna be. I- ... What if everything's different? What if it changes again?"

"Pete... everything will change," he sighs, looking as if it makes him miserable to admit.

Peter bites the inside of his cheek anxiously, looking away. "I know... I just don't know what to... I'm tired of stuff changing all the time." He runs a hand down his face and drops into his seat. He thinks about Ben with a lump in his throat. His parents. May.

He swallows, "I'm just...I want to go back. I'm scared though. I shouldn't be scared."

Spider-Man isn't supposed to be scared.

Tony scoots closer to Peter and puts an arm around him. The action helps his frazzled mind calm down, feeling Tony's cheek resting against his head.

"Not that my opinion really matters here but... I think it'll be fine," Tony says lightheartedly, a glint in his eye. "Change isn't always bad. It might be something to get used to but you're a tough kid."

Peter laughs as Tony nudges his shoulder softly.

"You want to go Monday and see how you like it? If you're not ready yet, we can wait. Hell, I can have Happy wait outside all day and whenever you feel like it's too much, send him a text and you can walk right out of there."

He makes a face. "Happy wouldn't do that." "He would. He likes you, kid. Besides, he works for me. He's getting paid by doing whatever I tell him to. I tell him to get his ass up at 4AM and fly to Paris to get me some fancy coffee and a croissant, he's doing that because I'm paying him to. Not that I would make him do that but you get the point. You'll adapt but it'll just take some time."

"What if... what if I don't?"

"Well, you can drop the Tony and call me professor Stark cause I'm more than qualified to do anything I want. Besides, we have everything we need here and more. I think I'd be a great teacher anyway."

Peter laughs and looks away. He knows Tony was just saying that for his comfort but it was nice of him to provide an answer to Peter's worries.

"Ok. Ok Yeah... that sounds good."

Tony smiles softly at him. "I'm really proud of you Pete."

He grins up at his mentor. "Thanks Tony."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Tony arches his back, groaning at the crack it makes.

He's been sitting in his lab for too long.

"FRI, what time is it?"

"It is 11:30PM sir."

He was honestly expecting it to be a lot later considering just how tired he was. Since he got back from those meetings he'd been busy keeping watch on the other half of the avengers, hacking cameras to keep Ross off their back. Because yes, the idiots kept finding the worst disguises possible and walked in front of multiple surveillance cameras. He wasn't about to let them get arrested doing something that stupid.

Everything that went down may have been hurtful, it may have ripped the team apart, but they were still his friends. He didn't think they deserved the raft.

He loved them, though, he wouldn't admit that.

"Is Peter awake?"

"Yes boss."

His body protested as he pushed himself up off the chair and made his way to Peter's room. He rapped on it gently, only opening it when he heard a muffled 'Come in.'

"Hey Pete."

A bark sounded from under the sheets.

Tony laughed, "Hey Tess."

He sits down on the edge of Peter's bed and puts his hand on his knee.

"Whats up?"

"Nothing," he hums, "Just been texting Ned and MJ. They're excited I'm coming back."

Tony felt his heart melt at the small smile on his kid. He may be nervous but it would all work out. Peter likes school. He'll come to like it again.

"That's good. I wanted to let you know kiddie, I have a pretty long meeting tomorrow so Pep volunteered to take you school shopping. It's probably better her than me anyway. She knows the best things to get. Also, I'm indecisive, I'd end up buying everything."

Peter nods, "Ok- wait I have stuff for school."

"Pete, with your history of loosing backpacks, we'll probably need eight of everything." "True... what's the meeting for? You've been going to a lot of them lately."

Tony groaned and let himself fall against the mattress.

"Just Ross. A couple of his guys too. He's been trying to uh- get the location of the team and also talk about rules he wants to add to the accords... I don't even think that's allowed."

"Oh... do you have their..?"

"I didn't have their location for a while but with him and his team trying to snoop them out from wherever they're hiding, I found the idiots on a few surveillance cameras. Since then, I've been hacking wherever FRIDAY finds them."

"Woah. But uh-... I thought they were criminals."

"Yeah, well, they are because of what they did but...we all fought. We were all idiots. Every single one of us destroyed that airport. I mean, look at what I did. I brought a 14 year old to fight my friends for me-" Peter's quick to cut him off. "If you didn't I wouldn't know you though."

Tony allows himself to smile softly at his kid.

"Yeah... that's true. But just because they didn't agree with the accords didn't exactly make them wrong enough for the raft. That place is for supervillains. After reading through the fine print, I realized Ross' demands were too much but I just- I was guilty for all the people that had died under our protection and I thought maybe this would fix something. I still think we need to be kept in check and normal rules should apply to us but - uh- I think... I think maybe if we tried, we could come to an agreement. A meeting in the middle type thing."

Peter grins up at him.
"I think you could do it Mr. Stark."

Tony suddenly feels better.

"Thanks kiddie."