"Mr. Stark, can you come look at this? I think there's a wire crossed somewhere, but I can't find it, and I've been looking at it for so long I think I'm starting to get dizzy."

Tony walks over, takes one look at the circuit board, and reconnects the faulty wire.

"Oh. Well that's kind of embarrassing."

"Don't sweat it," Tony says, looking at the clock, "it's way past two in the morning, you're probably just tired. I'm calling it for the night. Go grab a snack from the pantry and then it's time for bed, kiddo."

"Okay," Peter relents, far too tired to even protest, "G'night, Mr. Stark."

And there it is again, for the second time in less than five minutes.

Mr. Stark.

"Would it kill you to call me Tony?"

Peter raises an eyebrow, "Maybe."

"You pulled the word 'loquacious' out of your ass in scrabble the other night. I'm positive you can handle Tony. Four letters. Two syllables. I'll even spell it out for you: T-O-N-Y."

"Mm," he yawns, "but saying Tony is weird," he makes a face, "'cause your name is Ms'r Stark."

"Contrary to whatever belief you have in your head, my name actually is Tony."

"Nope."

"You call May by her first name."

"Well, yea," he says, as if it's obvious, "because she's always been Aunt May."

"You used to call Pep 'Ms. Potts', and now it's just Pepper," Tony points out.

"It's different."

God, this kid drove him up a wall sometimes.

"Different how?"

Peter scrunches his face up, as if in thought.

"I mean, I guess it's like… you know when people call their dad by their first name instead of dad, and it's just a little off? It's kinda like that."

Tony drops the tools in his hands with a thunk and stares at him.

"What?" Peter starts, looking confused, and then oh, oh, "not that–not that I think you're my dad, or anything," he quickly amends, the word dad feeling foreign on his lips.

"Enlighten me then, kid. What do you mean?"

Peter squeezes his eyes shut. He's too tired for this conversation; the usual filter on his mouth has long since been eroded away by sleepiness.

He wants to fight it, and yet… he's never really thought about it, why he refuses to call his mentor by anything other than Mr. Stark. He's certainly never voiced it.

"Well, I," he stutters, "I never really had a dad. I mean, he died when I was a baby, and I never really got used to calling anyone dad, or mom, for that matter."

Tony almost stops him, because something broken in Peter's eyes is shining through, and he hadn't meant to open up this can of worms when he'd started this whole thing, but Peter is determined to finish his train of thought.

"I never called Aunt May 'mom', because it didn't feel right, you know? But she is–or, at least, she's the closest thing I have to one. Calling her mom almost takes away from it, because that title doesn't really have any meaning for me. She's Aunt May," he says, simply, and Tony can hear the love and respect Peter puts behind her name, "and that's special. I don't know what having a mom is like, but I do know what having her is like."

He takes a breath before deciding to just go for it, "so she'll always be my Aunt May. Kinda like you'll always be Mr. Stark, to me. You're not my dad, but you're… something like that, I guess. Something special."

And somehow, right there, Peter Parker calling Tony 'Mr. Stark' carries more weight than it did before.

All the confidence Peter had moments before quickly dies away, and his eyes train on his shoes, "So is that… does that make sense? Do you still want me to call you Tony?"

Tony shakes his head and snaps out of his momentary daze, crossing the room in a few quick strides.

"No," he says, wrapping his arms tentatively around Peter, "no, kid, call me Mr. Stark for as long as you want. Come to think of it… I think–I think I kind of like it."