AN: Hey guys! Welcome to the 5+1 that I've been working on. Should I be writing And You'll Blow Us All Away? Doing homework? Being a productive member of society? Yes! Am I going to stop writing this shit so I can do any of that? No!

So, uh, there are some spoilers for The Lion King ahead? And, frankly, if you haven't seen The Lion King yet, stop reading my fic and go watch that instead, okay?

Here we go!

Something was wrong with Peter.

Tony had come to expect a level of childlike enthusiasm from the kid. His arrival was almost always characterized by an explosion of energy and stumbling speech. Today, however, the teenager had only shot Tony a listless greeting before tossing his backpack onto the lab's couch and curling up to start on his Calculus homework.

Nope. Tony knew Peter, and that was not him.

"So, kid," the older man said, leaning casually against his workbench, "you gonna tell me what's wrong or do I have to guess?"

"Leave me alone, Mister Stark."

Holy shit. Did Peter just snap at him? His Peter? No fucking way.

"Whoa. Now I'm really curious."

"Seriously, Mister Stark, can you just leave it alone?"

"Nope. You know me. I've never left anything alone in the entire course of my life."

"Yeah, even if you fucking should."

Okay, and now the kid was cussing. Something was definitely very, very wrong. And Tony would be damned if he was going to let Peter suffer in silence, even if that's what he thought the kid thought he wanted.

"Hey, those words are for adults. Try again when you pay taxes. Now, you gonna to tell me what shoved a stick up your ass or do I have to call Aunt May and tell her you're being a little shit?"

The kid said nothing. He just kept staring angrily at his textbook, as if it was the root of all his problems.

Okay. New tactic.

Tony moved tentatively to the couch, sitting gingerly against the opposite arm as the teenager.

"Hey, kiddo. Look at me for a sec." Tony was surprised when Peter actually obeyed, staring at him with red-rimmed, watery eyes. "I just want to help. You know that, right?"

The comforting words felt foreign on his tongue, but the sentiment was genuine. That fact must have shone through since, within seconds, Peter deflated. His shoulders unwound, dropping down in tandem with a shuddering sigh.

"Ned invited me to a concert today."

Tony rolled the words over in his head for a second, dissecting them and searching for a reason why that information would cause Peter so much distress.

"Okay." He said slowly. "Want to enlighten me on why that's a bad thing?"

Peter huffed out a frustrated breath, and Tony panicked as he saw more tears well up in the teenager's eyes. "I-I… it isn't a bad thing. Not-not on its own."

The kid's next breath came out as a sob. Tony's hands made an aborted movement of comfort, falling short as the billionaire realized suddenly that he had no idea what to do with a crying child.

Shit.

"Whoa. Whoa. Okay. No big deal, Peter. No need to cry, right? Just talk it through with me, and I'll fix it, okay?"

"You can't, Tony. You can't."

"You don't know that. I'm a genius, remember? I fix things. I'm famous for it."

He got a watery laugh as a reward for his humor. "I can't go."

"To the concert?"

"Yeah."

"Why not?"

"Remember… remember when I told you that my senses were dialed to eleven when I got my powers?"

Tony nodded. "Yeah. Heightened hearing, sight, smell, and a weird sixth sense that kind of scares me, if I'm being honest."

"So can you imagine why a concert would be a terrible idea for me?"

And Tony could. He'd realized the problem as soon as he'd started listing Peter's various abilities.

Concerts were bright and loud. Very loud. And Peter flinched and covered his ears when Tony's car stereo was turned up only halfway. A concert, with its thrumming bass and strobe lighting, would be agony for the teenager.

"Oh, Peter."

The kid's sobs just ratcheted up a notch, evolving from the occasional hiccup into full body shaking.

"I-I'm s-so t-tired of being different. I just w-want t-to be a n-normal teenager sometimes, you know?"

"I know, kid." And Tony did know. He'd grown up as a little celebrity. Hell, the press had gathered outside his damn kindergarten on his first day of school. He could still remember the cameras being shoved in his face as he clung tightly to his Captain America lunchbox. The concept of normal had always lived on the outskirts of Tony Stark's worldview. Just close enough to see, but always lingering out of reach. "Believe me, I know."

God, why did everything Tony say only seem to make the kid cry harder?

"I hate this. I hate this. I hate this. I wish I wasn't Spider-Man. I wish it could all go away."

"Hush, Peter." Tony said, desperately wracking his brain for a solution. "Listen. I'm gonna fix this. I swear. Just… just give me a minute and it'll be all fixed up, okay? No big deal. Now just stop crying, okay? Please stop crying, Peter."

But Peter didn't stop crying. He just kept hiccuping as his face turned red with shame. "I-I'm sorry, M-Mister Stark."

"Shut up. No more apologizing. Yeah. No more talking, actually." He lunged up from the couch and began grabbed a series of tools, an old prototype for Clint's hearing aids, and a pair of technologically updated sunglasses from one of the storage lockers. He threw them onto the work table in a rush. "No more talking until I've fixed this."

He spent the next hour trying to block out the sounds of Peter's sobs as his tears slowly, painfully, dried up. By the end, Tony only had to suffer through the occasional sniffle. Each one bit like a knife.

"Here!" The billionaire exclaimed, spinning around with the souped-up hearing aids held in outstretched hands. Peter flinched a little at the suddenness of Tony's outburst. "Look! I fixed it."

Peter blinked, cheeks still blotchy from crying. "What… what is that?"

"Hearing aids. Except, they aren't hearing aids anymore. I tweaked them a bit. Now, they'll filter out background noise and bring audio input down to a comfortable level for Spider-boys." Tony tossed them into Peter's lap and pulled the pair of sunglasses off the table behind him. "And these will help with the visual overload. You'll look a little stupid, but it'll help with the flashing lights. I'll work on a pair of contact lenses that'll do the same thing, but it might take me a bit of tinkering to get it right. Call these a quick fix."

Peter took the glasses with shaky hands, staring at the reconfigured hearing aids and sunglasses with a look Tony couldn't quantify. Then, to the billionaire's horror, more tears started welling up in the kid's eyes.

"Peter! Peter, what's wrong? What did I do? I made you cry again. Shit. I'm an awful person. What is it? I'll-I'll-"

The kid just shook his head and gave a wet chuckle. "I'm not crying cause I'm sad, Mister Stark. I'm just… you know…" Peter trailed off for a moment, and then met his mentor's worried gaze with a shy smile. "Thank you."

All Tony could do was stare. Then, he shot the kid a cocky grin of his own.

"Yeah, kid. You're welcome."

There was something terrifyingly intimate about the look on Peter's face and the emotion warming the billionaire's chest that Tony had to escape.

"So, what concert are you going to see, anyway?"

Peter blushed a little, breaking the eye contact that had made Tony so uncomfortable just moments before. For a reason he couldn't explain, the loss of it made the billionaire's chest ache. "Oh, um, Owl City, actually."

"Owl City? Like, the band that had that Fireflies song?" Peter looked surprised at Tony's pop culture knowledge. He just rolled his eyes at the kid. "Yes, Peter. I'm down with the kids."

The teenager actually had the audacity to laugh at him. "Sure you are, Mister Stark."

"Is this how youth these days treat their elders?" Tony flopped down on the couch beside Peter with a dramatic groan. "The injustice."

The kid just giggled. "Can we watch a movie tonight?"

"Sure thing, kiddo. I bet I can get F.R.I.D.A.Y. to find you a Winnie The Pooh movie that's age appropriate."

Peter stuck his tongue out at his mentor and then looked contemplative for a second. "What was your favorite movie as a kid, Mister Stark?"

What a weird question. Still, apparently Tony couldn't deny this kid literally anything. "You promise not to tell Hawkeye, if you ever meet him?"

Peter looked confused, but consented. "Sure, Mister Stark."

"Robin Hood. You know, the animated one with all the little animals?"

A huge grin split Peter's face. "Yeah! I loved that movie!"

Tony couldn't pinpoint why the fact that he and Peter shared a favorite childhood movie made him feel so damn fuzzy on the inside.

"What was yours?" Tony inquired. "Your favorite movie as a kid, I mean."

"The Lion King." The kid's face lit up. "Have you ever seen it?"

Tony Stark had been 24 when The Lion King came out. His parents had only been dead for about three years, and he'd been too busy drinking and screwing his guilt away to pay much attention to a Disney movie made for children.

He didn't say any of this to the kid, of course. Instead, he just shook his head. "No, I haven't."

Peter was practically bouncing up and down on the couch now. When he spoke, his words tumbled over each other in their haste to escape his mouth. "Do you wanna watch it now? Can we?"

"Sounds like a plan, kiddo."

About an hour later, and they were watching Mufasa die.

"This is, uh, some heavy stuff for a kid's movie, huh?" Tony offered, wincing a little as Simba begged his father to wake up. He unconsciously tightened the arm he had over Peter's shoulders.

Suddenly, the kid shifted to look at him with wide, desperate eyes.

"Dad, come on. You gotta get up. Dad? We gotta go home."

"I-I don't think I like this movie, anymore."

Tony stared at Peter for a minute. The kid physically flinched when Simba started yelled for help.

"Help! Somebody! Anybody…"

When the little lion cub burrowed into his dead dad's chest and Peter unconsciously pressed himself against his mentor's side, Tony nearly shut the TV off.

Nearly.

Instead, he just caught the kid's eyes and gave him an easy smile.

"I swear I won't fall off a cliff. Besides, I'm Iron Man. If you don't remember, I can fly." He poked the kid's side. "And even if I couldn't, I've got Spider-Man to catch me."

Peter smiled, bright and full and easy. "Yeah. You do."

In the end, Tony really liked The Lion King.

AN: Tony Stark was born in 1970. That Robin Hood movie I mentioned was released in 1973. I used to watch that movie all the time during my childhood. I think my parents memorized every line. Poor souls. The things you do for your kids, huh? Tony Stark can probably relate.