highlander_ii

"Did you get these for me?" Tony asked as he held up a package of cookies Peter had placed on the counter.

Peter turned from the refrigerator with a slight frown. "I got 'em for us. Movie snacks. They go well with popcorn." He tilted his head curiously. "Why?"

Tony shook his head. "Nothing." He put the package back on the counter, but kept his eyes on the cookies.

It sent him right back to his first year at MIT. He was studying with a classmate from some math class and they had had package of these fudge stripes cookies. Tony had loved them. He didn't know why – they were just little shortbread cookies coated in cheap chocolate – but he did.

When he went home for the summer that year, he'd asked his mom to get some. It was a simple request that should've been a simple addition to the grocery order. But his mom had refused, informing him they had a chef and a cook and one of them could make him any cookie he wanted.

He couldn't tell if his mom had something against packaged cookies or if this had been one of his parents' 'touch love' choices. But, after that firm, declarative 'no', Tony never asked again.

The next school break, he had a package of them he carried back from MIT – Rhodey has picked them up for him. He hadn't even gotten to open the package before they'd been thrown away by the cleaning staff.

He hadn't even tried to argue at that point. He just spent more and more of his time at home as far away from his parents as he could be. (Not entirely owing to the cookies, that was just one more thing in a longer list.) And he only ever ate the damned cookies at school.

After graduation, he'd moved on to other things and forgotten about the cookies. Alcohol, drugs, and sex filled his off-hours instead. Then he was suddenly CEO of the company and had other things to focus on. Cookies were so far out of his sphere by that point.

He hadn't even thought about them until seeing the package here in the kitchen just now.

"Tony, are you okay?" Peter asked.

"Of course," he said. "What else ya got?"

Peter gave him a confused frown. "You can eat those." He pointed to the cookies.

"No, it's fine."

"Tony, just eat the damned cookies."

He looked at Peter, then the cookies. "I haven't had these since I was at MIT," he said softly.

He saw Peter frowning him again. Then Peter said, "You're a billionaire and you haven't bought fudge stripe cookies since college? You could own your own Keebler factory."

Tony shrugged. What was he supposed to say? Apparently he needed to say something. The kid was just staring at him and it was making him uncomfortable. "My mother refused to get them for me," he said. Then he gave an abridged version of his MIT years.

When he finished, he found himself wrapped in Peter Parker. He hugged back. He needed it – even if he would only ever grudgingly admit it.

"You can have all of them," Peter told him.

That made him smile, a little sadly, but still a smile. "Thanks kid. I'm not going to eat all your cookies."

Peter leaned back, but still hung onto him. "You should have told me earlier."

"You shouldn't spend all your money on cookies for me."

Now Peter smirked at him. "I wouldn't. But I would've told you to buy your own."

"Truthfully? I hadn't thought about them at all until you brought them." He stepped away from Peter and slid onto a stool at the counter. He rubbed his face with a hand. "Sorry, kid. This is - "

"Hard?" Peter sat next to him, hand on his shoulder. "Hey, you don't have to tell me anything you don't want to."

"Yeah. Maybe someday." He sighed. "Go make your popcorn and we can watch the movie."

Before he stepped away, Peter opened the package of cookies, removed two, and placed them in Tony's hand. He didn't say a word.

Tony sighed. Did he want this memory back? He had loved these damned cookies and the friends at MIT he'd shared them with. But there were painful elements that came along too. Was he ready for that?