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The point of view blurred by crocodile tears

Summary:

Tony loves Peter, the kind of love that only a true father feels for his child, the love that makes a person capable of anything.
This made him a bad person? It depends on the point of view.

Notes:

(See the end of the work for notes.)

Chapter 1: Tears

Chapter Text

Only him knows everything that happened in his life.
Everything that he been through wasn't something easy to forget but he tried his best to do that.
Tony knows that he made a million of mistakes in his life but this was only him trying to get it right.

Everything that he did was for love.

Love to his son.

The love that one father feels for his child makes a person capable of anything.

This made him a bad person? It depends on the point of view.
He is not a monster, he is just a father.
A father who is capable of anything to defend his son and their happiness together.

The thing that he remembers the most about that fateful day was that he was crying and he was never the kind of person who cried he wasn't allowed to do it by his father most of his life and learned the old tactic of "bottling it up until one day it explodes" and it's been working really well.
He only have three strong memories of crying: When his father teached him the first rule about being a Stark, at his parents funeral and in that fateful day.

"Stark men don't cry."

When he heard that for that first time, he was just a child. But he knew that he already have a failed. He failed to sastify his father because he was crying. And he heard that phrase again and again almost everyday until his teens years when he finally stopped crying and proceed to fighting, fighting at a lost case that was Howard Stark, Tony would never be enough for him and their relationship was ruined even before it started.

This didn't make things with Howard any easier, they fighted until the night that his parents die.
He didn't shed a tear when he recognize the bodies because it didn't even felt real, one moment they were there (in some way) and in a heartbeat they are gone forever.
The realization only would come when he saw the caskets being put into the ground, when he realized that it was truly over.
Then he cried because he was lost without anyone to guide him.
If exists a Heaven and a Hell, Tony is sure that wherever Howard is looking at him, he is disappointed at him, even if was his funeral his father would never accept one single tear of Tony.

"Act like a man, Anthony!"

At first he tried to be his father's definition of a man but then he noticed that acting the opposite would bringing him more attention, that didn't changed much things between them, Tony was never good for his dad so why keep trying? At least he was getting some attention, good or bad, attention is a form of care, and he needed to feel that someone would take care of him. And Howard did that.
His father wasn't the best, he didn't hold his hand one single time, he never made things easier or lighter to Tony in any way but he guided him by his screams and beatings, he always showed what to do in his own way.
This was affection.

His Mother was gone too, she tried her best but she never really invested her time trying to help or understand what he was feeling but she loved him and for Tony that was enough.

But in that moment he was utterly alone without no one to show him how to live, he was just a kid. He could scream at the world and at his father that he wasn't but he was.
Tony Stark, the immature, spoiled, genially wicked and overall a needy brat that now was alone without anybody that was really his family, there was Obie but just wasn't the same. It's not like his parents were anyway better.
The only thing that Tony really craves in all his life was a family.
So he would never let himself feel this way again. It wasn't for the sake for building a family, bond with other people. No. It was for the sake of him not feeling lost again, be the provider and guide for someone who needed him, he wanted to feel needed.
This can sounds selfish but it's not.
Tony would be helping someone after all.

And then the fateful day happened.

The firemen stared at him like he was a poor wretch.

The look when a person feel sorry for someone and don't know what to do to help so they just stared at them trying to comprehend the situation, he knows that look very well.
Oh, the problematic rich orphan that Tony was (and still is) noticed how the poor souls who wasn't interested in draining every single drop of his blood looked at him in this way, like he was a lost child.

Tony was just there, crying his lungs out and rocking his baby boy who slept the whole the time, Peter wasn't a crybaby after all.
His son was everything that matters now, everything that is left for him.
He lost his Pepper, he lost the love of his life because of the stupid fire. He had to make a choice: Go to Peter's room or their room, he decided for Peter, he was just a baby, he thought that maybe Pepper could meet them and escape, he screamed for her and nothing.
She was gone. They didn't tell him yet but he just know.
But he made his choice.
And now everything that is left is Peter.
He was failure for almost everyone but Peter.
Peter still there and Tony would never let him go, never.

Never.