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[ahollowman]

Tony Stark lost his mother at nineteen. He'd lost his father so many years before that.

It was a loss deep in his heart, but shallow in his memory, and thanks a fucking lot, Zemo, you manipulative piece of shit, and thanks a fucking lot, Anthony Stark, for being an inexcusable rube.

However many months in Darrow had scabbed it over, but the scars were still fresh and pink.

Anyway, it was all to say that Tony, while far from his most unstable, was probably not fully equipped to be legally responsible for a child, even of fifteen.

But God, who ever really was?

And the thought of Pete being taken in by anyone else made him reasonlessly upset and he was so not about to mentally unpack that. Peter might not even want that anyway, which would make all of he whole business moot anyway, and it might be a terrible idea anyway. Because he was Tony Stark.

So he knew he had to discuss it with someone.

Wanda? No. She would bury him, forever, before laughing herself to death and yeah he'd even deserve the humiliation because he'd put her under house arrest and defended it with a damn infinity pool.

Spider-Woman? She knew a Peter Parker. But she also had a vertain mistrust o Tony and from her stories, yes, Tony probably also deserved that. If he were in he place, he wold probably lobby to make Tony Stark illegal.

But there was Karen, and he'd known her longer than even Wanda at this point. So he asked to come over to talk and promised to bring dinner.

Which brouht him to her door, carrying a bag of Chinese food under one arm.

He knocked.

Comments

[itsdarkcorners]

Even without the promise of food, Karen would never have objected to having Tony over, unless she had her boyfriend here and they were, well, otherwise occupied. As it is, she'd already been planning to spend the night in getting some work done, and neither company nor dinner is something she can object to. Having been set up, for the time being, at the coffee table, some research laid out beside her laptop, she gets to her feet when she hears the knock on the door, smiling when she swings it open.

"Hey," she says, warm and easy, pushing one hand back through her hair. "Come on in." She might not know what, exactly, this is about, but that's no reason to be anything less than friendly about it. He wanted to come over to talk, suggesting that there is something, but that isn't saying much. "Thanks for bringing food, that smells amazing."

[ahollowman]

"It should. This is a bigger favor than you think it is, so I brought the good stuff. Including duck and sweet and spicy soft-shell crab."

He could afford it, of course, but his discretionary spending fund was limited, to say the least, compared to what it once had been. Karen was worth the discretion. Tony followed her in, gave her an awkward air kiss on the cheek over the bags, and then plunked them down on the coffee table. One of the bags rattled. He'd brought a six pack as well, a bright Chinese beer.

He liked Karen's apartment. Something about it always reminded him of his apartment in Boston, way back when.

Tony sat on the couch. He trapped his hands between his knees. He ws nerous, and they wanted to do his talking for him.

"So how's things? You look like you're doing better."

[itsdarkcorners]

"No more weird, sudden memories from home," Karen says with a slight, knowing smile, nodding in response. Grief is a funny thing, and it's not like hers has just vanished, but it's more bearable now, some weeks out, no longer quite so overwhelming. It isn't something that will ever just go away, the weight of it too much for that, but it's more manageable when she isn't being hit with it all at once. She's dealt with loss before, and at least here, she isn't on her own in doing so. "So, yeah, definitely better."

Looking over him for a moment, taking in his posture and his expression, she reaches then for the bag of food, starting to unload the containers. "Sweet and spicy soft-shell crab? Just how big a favor are we talking?"

[ahollowman]

"Bigger than a bread box, smaller than a yacht."

His mouth curled up at the corner. He divied up the napkins and utensils, giving himself another moment to consider how, exactly, he wanted to ask for her advice.

"So, uh. What do you know about the Sokovia Accords?"

To get actually fair, useful, intelligent advice, Karen really did need some background.

[itsdarkcorners]

"I know... some," Karen says, nodding slowly. "All of that was after my time, uh, originally, and then I remembered it with all that other shit. Not much more than what would have been basic media coverage or anything, though." Back home, in some life that couldn't really have been hers and yet that she remembers living, she'd done her research, of course, found out as much as she could, wrote about it, but there's only so much a civilian, even one with press credentials, can find out about conflicts involving superpowered humans, one of whom is the ruler of a small African country. There's plenty that was publicized, but she thinks he'll be able to guess roughly what she means without her having to repeat things he actually experienced back to him. "What about them?"

[ahollowman]

"Cap and I had a falling out. That is actually ... words are stupid, but we had more than a falling out. I signed the Accords, half of us didn't. Anyway, the point is, that dickhole Ross sent me to go collect the rest of them before they stepped in even more shit with the UN. But that's not even the point."

Even if Karen was a good friend, it felt strange talking about these things. To the uninvolved, it must have been some clash of very stupid titans over some Byzantine set of international laws. To Tony it was still ... a hurtful rubicon between friends, or people who used to be friends.

"Before I left for Germany, I looked for this kid. Spider-man. And he was just, a great kid. Just terrifyingly honest, kind, just disgustingly chock full of virtues that I mostly don't have. So we were buddies. And now he's ... here. Again."

He gave Karen a helpless look.

[itsdarkcorners]

Karen has always thought — or, well, she thought, and then remembered thinking, or something like that — that the Accords and the ensuing fallout weren't something for her to weigh in on. She said plenty of shit at the time, sure, and she's always had certain opinions on the occasional necessity of vigilante justice, but there was a story there that the rest of the world wasn't getting, that much was apparent. She didn't know any of the people involved then, anyway. They were figures who sometimes or more than sometimes made appearances on the news. Pitting Iron Man against Captain America was probably great for ratings. It certainly did well for the online content at work, a fact that she feels just a little gross about but obviously can't change.

That doesn't seem to be the point right now, anyway. Necessary backstory, but not what the conversation is ultimately centering around. Nodding along, she takes a bite of food before speaking, not wanting to let it get cold.

"I know of Spider-Man," she says, nodding. "Guy who swings around Queens, right?" Or maybe not guy, apparently; she gets the impression that Tony's calling him a kid isn't an understatement.

"So you want to be able to help him out?"

[ahollowman]

"He's fifteen," Tony blurted out before filling his mouth with vegetable lo mein. He chewed, shrugged.

"I mean, yeah, I want to be able to help him, but it's more than that. He needs more than that. He needs ... supervision, and direction, and someone to take care of him when he's sick and ... fill out his school forms and help make emergency medical decisions. He needs that. Regardless of whether or not I'm in the picture, he still needs that."

Tony paused, fingers splayed over his mouth as his expression grew shuttered and serious, thick lashes heavy over dark eyes.

"I'm all he's got right now. And he wants me there, in his life. But what if it's not me? What if I'm not the one? I'm just gonna screw him up."

Tony screwed everything up.

"He doesn't want to stay at the orphanage, but maybe he should?"

[itsdarkcorners]

Karen pauses, taking all of that in, sorting through the various options. It wouldn't be fair to answer something like this too hastily, too instinctively, without actually weighing what he's saying. Taking care of a teenager is no small thing, after all. If Tony were taking this lightly, she'd be really goddamn concerned. That doesn't seem to be the case, though, and it also isn't like this is some random teenager who's turned up and needs a place to stay. It's a fifteen-year-old kid with superpowers, someone who'd need all the things that any other kid would need, but something besides that, too. And that, she thinks, is something worth considering.

"Well, if it helps," she says, her words slow and careful, "I think most of the time, the people who screw other people up the most are the ones who aren't worried about screwing them up." She has to stop then, trying to make sure she hasn't tripped too much over her own words, but it seems right. She nods once to herself, then, before she continues. "And if it is you, then I think it's also important to remember that it won't be just you. There will be other people around, too. Who can help. Right now, his wanting you there, in his life—"

She huffs out a laugh; the bitterness behind it is carefully masked. "I didn't want shit to do with my parents. I think most teenagers don't want shit to do with the people taking care of them. Or not taking care of them, as the case may be. So if he wants that, that's... a good thing. That goes a long way."

[ahollowman]

"I miss mom every day. But my dad was a straight-up dick." He chuckled softly, before spooning plain white rice onto a styrofoam plate and covering it with his portion of the crab because it was going to get cold and that was just ... food abuse.

"I love the man, and he saved my life. But just an absolute dick."

He scratched at the back of his head with both hands.

"I think that's part of why I'm terrified. And because Pepper isn't here, and even if she was, she might not want to see me. And some days I feel like I can't decide what kind of socks I want to put on in the morning without her. So how can I decide what's best for him? But you're right. You're right. It takes a village, isnlt that a thing they say? So even if I'm the village idiot half the time ... there's still the rest of the damn village."

[itsdarkcorners]

"That is, in fact, a thing they say," Karen says with a nod, brow raising. "And you've got a hell of a village behind you, you know? You do a lot of good things, Tony. I know you might not... always think that, but you do. And the thing is, a lot of those decisions, you might not have to make. Definitely not his socks. Let him pick his own damn socks. But everything else, he gets some say in that, too. He's not a little kid. He probably just needs... support."

For a moment, she turns back to her food. It's a lot to take in, it really is, but the fact that he's concerned at all is, in a strange way, reassuring. If he were jumping into this without any reservations to speak of, then there would be a problem, but that's clearly not the case.

"And you'll have me, whenever you need to have a crisis about whatever. Not that I know all that much about teenagers, but I was one once, so maybe that counts?"

[ahollowman]

She was right. It hadn't occurred to him, but she was right. Tony had a bad habit. Tony had a whole lot of bad habits. But one of them was to constantly diminish his place in other people's lives.

It always seemed to him as if they were more important to him than he managed to be to them. Because of the way he was. Because he couldn't stop being him no matter how hard he tried. Siberia hadn't changed any of that. It had only entrenched the habit.

But she was right. God, she was so good.

"Sometimes I don't even know how I survive." He laughed.

There was Karen. But also Wanda, Peggy, Daniel, Jessica, Gwen. The list surely went on and on if he cared to start making it. If they didn't do it for Tony they'd do it for Pete. What sort of motherfucker wouldn't?

"I went to MIT when I was fourteen. I ... don't know if I ever actually was. Or maybe that's wrong. Maybe the issue is I'm still fourteen. Sometimes it feels like he's raising me. And then I miss Pep, because I need her, but that's wrong. I don't need her. I need to learn."

[itsdarkcorners]

"No one learns anything by themselves," Karen says, setting her fork down for a moment and reaching for Tony's hand. "Or all at once. Maybe there is shit you need to learn, yeah, things you never had a chance to, but no one's going to expect you to... I don't know, absorb all of that overnight or whatever. Whether you never were fourteen or you still are or some combination of the two." So much, it seems, comes back to that — trying not to be alone or realizing that there might be people to turn to or letting those people in despite wanting to protect them. Tony's here, at least, asking her for help, even if she's completely unqualified to give it. She cares, though, about him, deeply. Maybe that's enough.

He can support a fifteen-year-old superhero. She can support Tony. They're all a little out of their depth, barely treading water to stay afloat, but at least then none of them are alone in doing so. That's something.

"And that includes him. So if he wants that, then that says a lot, you know?"

[ahollowman]

Tony gave another quiet laugh, gripping the hand Karen had in his own. He covered them both with his other hand. Karen's hand was pale and lineless and made his look brown and square and covered in too many tiny scars. Not for the first time, he felt the weight of the last ten years. But he'd heard Karen's story, and knew she had a stronger wisdom than she gave herself credit for.

"You sure nobody's going to expect that? The newspapers at least have a habit of not cutting me any slack."

He let go of her hands with a sideways smile.

"That helped. Jesus, that helped. I should don that more often. Dumb shit happens when I make decisions on my lonesome. As I'm sure you're aware on account of the time I invited terrorists to come to my house and they did and everyone thought I was dead for like a week."

He reached for the six pack of beer, because now he definitely needed another.

[itsdarkcorners]

"Okay, well, they might," Karen allows, gently teasing. "But you do have at least one friend in the press who has your back." She'd like to hope, too, that Tony would know that she wouldn't hold back if she thought he was being monumentally fucking stupid. However accidentally she may have fallen into a career in journalism, she still takes it and the accompanying responsibility seriously, as much so in Darrow as she would have — as she did — in New York. There's no sense, though, in eviscerating someone for not living up to some impossibly high standard. Whatever else he may be, Tony is still a fucking human being, and no one is perfect.

Nudging his shoulder gently with her own, she reaches for one of the beers in turn. "And yeah, maybe let's not go repeating that incident anytime soon. Especially not if you're going to have a teenager living with you."

[ahollowman]

"Yeah, I figured I'd just skip doing the missile thing at all for the foreseeable future. It gets expensive."

And also, he'd regretted the decision the moment he was alone. He'd made the challenge in a fit of rage and pique. That was going to be the chapter name in his autobiography. A Fit Of Rage And Pique.

Tony finished his bottle before, despite himself, focusing on the carb-heavy lo mein. He planned on leaving Karen most of the leftovers anyway.

"Sorry I'm ... dragging you into weird shit. It's a lot to take, I know it is, just knowing me. But thank you for dragging me out of it once in a while. Plus I love your sofa."

[itsdarkcorners]

"It's okay," Karen says with a little huff of a laugh, absently twirling her bottle between her hands. "These past few years, between home and here, I think I've gotten pretty used to weird, anyway. It would feel weird if there weren't something weird." She's said before that she doesn't necessarily go looking for trouble, that it just has a tendency of finding her anyway, or maybe just that she can't ignore it. When it comes to weird shit, though, she knows full well that she's far more likely to wade into the middle of it than look away.

Besides, she would rather Tony come to her with whatever than shut her out. She can't claim that she ever thought she would be giving advice on a subject like this, but it's nice, really, that he thinks her opinion on the matter would be worthwhile. That they can have some normal shit mixed in with everything weird.

"And as far as weird goes, this barely even registers."