Chapter Text
Peter is never letting someone else book a hotel room for him. When he gave Juniper his card seven months ago and told her to just ‘get anything that will work’ he didn’t think she would get him a literal penthouse room in the most luxurious hotel in the city, why would he? It’s literally only a 3 night stay to handle a routine meeting, but noooooo, she decided that he needed white couches and a whole water feature. (Who puts a waterfall in a hotel room anyways?) The view is lovely however, all tall buildings and light pollution that reminds Peter a little too much of his own home. Peter doesn’t know what he was expecting exactly but San Francisco's… nice? Honestly it really looks like a tiny New York and maybe also a sunnier Chicago. Or it would if it wasn’t for the hills. The whole city is essentially built like a giant roller coaster, which isn’t helped by the fact that the people there decided, for some reason, to drive like the streets were flat: just full throttle all the time, only slowing down for traffic.
It’s also not helped by the fact that Jason apparently has an inert hatred for traffic regulations, which he claims is ‘a gotham thing’. (Peter is 100% certain that's just an excuse Gothamites use for everything and not true at all.)
“Please, Jason, I am begging you, can we just walk to the meeting… it would barely take twenty minutes…”
Jason, which Peter is convinced at this point is doing this purely to annoy him, just smirks and continues checking over the bike helmet. (Peter had made the mistake of telling Jason the static on the radios was grating on his hearing and now the man had seemingly made it his personal mission to fix it.)
“Jason, come on…”
Jason puts the helmet down. “It’s an eight minute drive, I think you’ll survive."
“Not with the way you drive, I won't!”
“Asshole.” Jason grabs the closest thing (which happens to be an empty yogurt cup) and tosses it at Peter, who just catches it.
Peter, feeling petty, blows a raspberry at him. This seems to be a mistake as Jason's previously slightly irked look turns determined.
“That’s it, you’re on.” The man, who is nothing short of 200 pounds of pure muscle, leaps over the couch between them and sprints at Peter with the clear intention of tackling him to the ground.
Peter, starting to get used to Jason’s bullshit by now, jumps left and tucks into a roll to avoid him. Not being under any illusions that Jason will stop at anything short of success, he immediately leaps another step back, and not a second too soon as the other man kicks his leg out in an attempt to knock him off his feet.
Both men stop, eyes locked into each other in a knowing complicity that leans into a rivalry. They only give themselves a half a second of respite though before they’re moving again, leaping over and around furniture in an acrobatic display that would leave ballet dancers perplexed.Apparently vigilantes get really pent up on vacation.
Peter, being rustier and less trained than Jason, is the first to misstep in this dance. His foot catches on the corner of one of the tables, and, knowing damn well he can’t correct his landing without using his super strength and risking breaking something (and losing his deposit, again) he lets Jason pull him down all the way, not putting much more than a token fight as the taller man pins him to the ground.
“Got ya.”
Peter laughs. They’re both panting, which goes to shows on lax they’ve been getting during the past month.
“Does that mean we have to take the motorcycle?”
Jason opens his mouth to answer, but gets interrupted by the sound of someone clearing their throat from somewhere around the doorway.
They both go stiff, not having expected anyone else to have access to the room, much less be able to sneak up on them. Jason shifts, whether to get in a better position to fight or to protect Peter is unclear, but Peter grabs his wrist before he can reach for the switchblade in his shoe.
“I do hope I am not interrupting anything.” A masculine voice calls out, and Peter, embarrassingly enough, recognizes Mr Treton, one of his newer board members.
(SHIT, shit,shit,shit,shit,shit,shit—)
The man walks forward, his step echoing loudly to Peter’s sensitive hearing, until he’s coming around the corner and freezing dead in his tracks when he finally makes eye contact with Peter. Peter, his boss, who is currently being pinned to the floor by Jason. The older gentleman’s jaw seems to slack at the sight, his eyes widening in surprise as Peter feels his face start to burn.
“Mister Treton, how.. hum, how nice? What are you— I mean, how can I help you?” That’s it, Peter is going to die. Just bury him now and save him the pain.
Jason, who is still straddling him (like oh my god get off, my reputation will never recover) has the absolute nerve to laugh. Laugh! Like it's not 100% his fault Peter is even in this position to begin with.
“Oh, yes, of course… I was sent to retrieve you for the function, Mr Stark.”
“Right…”
“Of course, sir…”
The three men stare at each other awkwardly for a few seconds (well, Mr Terton and Peter do, Jason just looks amused and vaguely suspicious) before Peter clears his throat.
“Ok, well, that's great, just,” He takes a deep breath, forcing a smile “Fantastic. Sooo, how about you give me like two minutes, and I will meet you in the lobby, good?”
Mr Terton blinks at him for a few seconds before seemingly regaining his composure. “Yes, of course, sir, I shall see you downstairs.” He nods, mostly to himself, offers a tiny twitch of the month that resembles a smile and rushes out of the room with a speed that is frankly impressive for his age.
His step clatter against the floor and Peter strains his ear to hear the door close before letting out a sigh of relief and letting his head fall back against the floor.
“Oh my god…”
“You know you really shouldn’t do that, it's the easiest way to get a concussion.”
Peter snaps his head back up to glare at Jason, despite knowing damn well that will do nothing to discourage the man. “Shut up. This is your fault.”
“And how, exactly, is you embarrassing yourself my fault?”
“Jason. You are actively sitting on me.”
Jason chuckles, but does finally get off of him. “I guess that answers the transportation question then.”
“Yeah, I guess it does…”
Jason looks him over with an odd look. “You don’t seem convinced.”
Peter shakes his head. “This feels… off.”
“What do you mean?”
He gets up and dust himself off, more out of reflex than anything considering the floor is spotless.
“Well, first of all, nobody called ahead to warn me. Also, I knew that man, but I certainly didn’t know he had an access key to this room, and on top of that I don't know why a board member would come to pick me up himself instead of a secretary.”
Peter turns towards Jason, half expecting him to call him paranoid, but instead he finds the man deep in thought, his eye gaining an analytic gleam to them. “He was a board member?”
Peter nods. “Yeah, Andrew Terton. He’s on the general board of Stark industry, but I've only met him in person maybe a half dozen times since he's in charge of the San Francisco branch and doesn’t often leave the city.”
Jason nods. “And now he has blackmail on you.”
“Hey!”
“Sorry, sorry,” He doesn’t sound even remotely sorry, “So what do you want to do?”
Peter bites his lip, unsure if he’s about to do something incredibly stupid. “Would you, I mean, could you come along to the meeting? I know you were just going to drop me off and sightsee for a bit, but I think I'd feel better knowing you were close.”
“Yeah, of course.”
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If the Terton fellow is surprised to see Jason following behind his boss like a lost duckling, he doesn’t show it. He simply kindly opens the door for them both and gets into the passenger seat.
The ride is short, just under ten minutes, and soon enough they’re standing in front of a big shiny glass tower, with the name ‘Stark’ splayed across the side in huge light up lettering.
Jason whistles. “I didn’t realize you had spare towers, Rapunzle.”
“I didn’t build this one, just bought it out from Lexcorp.”
Jason feels a smile spreading across his face as they walk through the glass doors. “Shut up, you did not.”
Peter’s grin morphs to match Jason’s “Oh, I did. And I only had to remove two creepy lab facilities to make it usable for the company.”
“You, honestly, have a death wish.”
Peter shakes his head and rolls his eyes, but doesn’t rebuff the claim.
The group gets into an elevator at the back that required three security checks (and got Jason a lot of dirty looks behind Peter's back) to ride up to the top floor, where the meeting room apparently is. The whole ordeal is done in extremely awkward silence that has Jason’s respect for Tim’s putting up of WE growing, because after about ten minutes it's already starting to get on Jason's nerves badly enough he almost wants to cheer when the elevator stops.
The relief is short lived however as they get swarmed by executives almost as soon as they step out and Jason watches (in admittedly a little aw) as Peter’s perfect business man face falls into place and he starts directing people around with impressive skill. In about five minutes the twenty-something people are seated around a large table that's gaudy enough to make Jason wonder if it was bought from Lex with the building and Peter is giving him one last nod before the doors are closing and Jason finds himself alone in the hallway.
Peter had asked him on the ride over if he wanted to sit in the meeting, since it would apparently be ‘easy enough’ to get him the proper clearing, but Jason had turned him down. He had sat in with one of Bruce’s meetings back when he was about 13, and at the time he had been really excited at the prospect, but the meeting had dragged on so long and the topics were so boring that he had rather quickly realized exactly why Dick had turned down the succession of WE at the first chance he got. (He didn't know he remembered that…)
Anyhow, Jason is alone, in the hallway… with no supervision…. Surely there’s something to do. There's only one door, facing the elevator, it's one of those huge mahogany pieces that every rich man seems to want, and the space itself is more of a room than a conventional hallway. It’s shaped like a half circle with glass along the entire curved wall and the elevator in the middle of the section, which makes Jason realize the entire floor is just circular, with the dividing wall in the middle being the only one without windows. The view isn't too bad either, considering he’s in one of the tallest buildings around. There’s a few potted plants, chairs and couches as well as a kitchenette (a very fancy one at that, almost like a coffee bar), and all in all it mostly looks like a fancified version of a waiting room.
The hair on the back of Jason’s neck rises when he hears the quiet click of a door followed by the sound of careful footsteps, but he keeps his body forcibly relaxed as Terton joins him by the window, the older man’s gaze overlooking the city below.
“The original owner used this room as his office, but Mr Stark had us convert it into a meeting room. Said it would be a shame for only one person to enjoy this sight.” There's a slight bitterness to his tone, one Jason doesn’t think a normal person would pick up on.
“It’s just like him, always thinking about the group before the individuals.” Jason chances a glance at the older man, trying to gauge his reaction. Something about him is putting Jason on edge and he can’t tell what.
“Yes,” The man answers behind clatched teeth, “he takes good care of his employees.”
Jason almost laughs. Almost. “You don’t sound convinced.”
The man smiles at him bitterly, and Jason can’t help but answer with a smirk. It’s so obvious this man is only here for money. Hell, he’s probably trying to mooch of Peter.
“You have quite the nerves, young man.”
“I’m from Gotham.”
The man’s eyes widen for a fraction, and Jason idly wonders if he recognizes him.
“Gotham?” Terton speaks with so much disdain it has Jason clenching his fist to avoid decking him. Sure, Gotham might be a shithole, but it’s his shithole. “That certainly explains things.”
“And what the hell is that supposed to mean?”
The man huffs. “I know this might be difficult for someone of your… standing to understand, but Mr Stark isn’t a man you can control. And your insistence on following him makes it clear you feel entitled to his time, but you really should know—”
Jason cuts him off with a laugh. It’s short and cruel. “I’m gonna stop you right there buddy, because my relationship with your boss is frankly none of your fucking business.”
Terton huffs again. (He must really like doing that)“Relationship? You must be out of your mind young man. Mr Stark doesn’t care about the likes of you, you do not even exist on the same social plane.”
“Have you ever actually met Peter?”
The man clenches his teeth so hard his jaw cracks. “Of course I have, son. Do you really think I would have been trusted with this branch of the company if I hadn't?”
He puffs his chest out like a rooster, squaring his shoulder like that’ll somehow intimidate Jason.
“Actually, Miss Harison had originally asked Mr Benvils to handle the extension, I only offered you the position following his retirement because of your previous work with him and the trust I had in your expertise,” Peter looks Terton up and down in mild discus, like the sight of the man’s reddening face and flaring nostrils personally offends him, “I see now that was a mistake.”
He comes over to Jason’s side, easily sliding an arm around his waist. Jason looks from the hand to Peter in slight confusion, but the man simply winks. “What do you think, love, is he worth keeping?”
Jason, recognizing the mischievous glint in Peter's eyes, hums. “I don’t think this kind of behaviour is befitting of our image.”
Terton, whose face was starting to pale at the insinuation, whispers a quiet ‘our?’. Peter smiles like the cat who got the cream: all teeth and malice.
“Oh, I'm sorry, were you not properly introduced earlier?” He lifts his hand to rub it up and down Jason's arm, most likely purely to bring attention to their proximity. “This is my husband, Jason Todd-Wayne.”
Jason stiffens at his given name, but he can’ t deny, despite his feelings regarding Bruce, that the look on Terton’s face when he realizes Jason isn't just a play thing or a random nobody is worth it. (Especially when he feels Peter squeeze his arm, as if to silently apologize for the discomfort.) So he grins viciously and sticks his hand out in a mockery of a respectful handshake.
“Nice to meet you. Terton, was it?”
The man gulps. “Ni—nice to meet you si—ir.”
Peter lets go of Jason to clap his hands together in the fakest show of cheer Jason has ever seen (which is impressive considering how much time he’s spent with Dick) and smiles. “Great. Now that that's done… I’m starving. Jason, dear?”
Jason turns to walk towards the elevator almost theatrically and gives Peter his arm. “Yes, darling.”
Peter takes it with about the same dramatic flare, but before they can start walking away, he turns his head back to Terton, who was clearly already thinking he was off the hook. “Oh, and you’re fired.”
The man's face turns impossibly wither as they actually make for the elevator, and Jason swears he hears the man’s knees hit the carpet as the doors close.
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Peter makes eye contact with Jason through the crowd and just about manages to send him a reassuring nod before the door swings shut. There's scrambling and murmurs around him, but it all dies down to silence when he sits down, nobody wanting to seem impolite. Peter takes a second to skim the group, mentally taking note of everyone present. He doesn’t actually know these people, having only met most of them less than half a dozen times in his life, but he’s long made a habit of memorizing employee files (just the general stuff though, like age, name, pronouns and allergies).
Terton stands up to give his welcome speech, his tone proud as he lists off the branch's accomplishments (oddly vaguely, though), but Peter stops listening when his eyes catch on a stranger’s face. There are actually a few faces he doesn’t recognize, but whilst the others were all clearly secretaries and assistants, this man is clearly not. The careful sweep of his hair, almost arrogant tilt of his chin and precise cut of his suit are a dead giveaway. Terton, either having finished his ass kissing or having noticed Peter's lack of attention, turns to the man Peter was eyeing.
“Ah,” Terton manages to sound derivative with a single sound, “I see you’ve noticed our guest… This here is Mister Patterson, he’s from Wayne enterprise.”
Peter hums, not letting an ounce of his surprises show on his face “It's a pleasure.”
The man smiles, it looks off. “The pleasure is all mine.”
Terton clears his throat. “He is actually the reason I called you all the way here in person, you see—”
“Really? I was under the impression that this meeting was just an ordinary routine one.”
Actually, Peter knows it was. Juniper had sent him the whole plan for the day when they’d confirmed this meeting a few months ago, and Wayne Enterprise had never been mentioned.
Terton sputters a little, probably offended at being cut off but not willing to talk back to his boss. “Well, yes… that, hum, was originally the case, however Wayne Enterprise approached our office specifically to request this meeting and the opportunity was too perfect not too…”
Peter nods, admittedly condescendingly, at Terton before turning to the ‘messenger’ who had now taken out his briefcase and looked ready to start giving a thirty slide presentation on business building in the age of technology. “Mister Patterson, to what do we owe this visit?”
“Wayne Enterprise has a partnership proposition for you.” He pulls out a flyer. A flyer. (Tony would have flipped his shit if he had seen this.) And hands him to Peter.
( “He’ll take it, I don't like being handed things.”
“No, seriously. Happy? Happy, this lovely lady has something for you.)
Peter, feeling a little petty from being kept out of the loop about this whole Wayne Enterprise thing, decides that now is the perfect opportunity to pull a Tony (™), so he straightens his back stables his hands together and lifts his chin ever so slightly.
“No thanks.”
The man looks utterly confused, so peter tacks on.
“I don’t do paper in my business… or being handed things,” He nods his head to Nadia Seltch, Terton’s secretary (who’s actually the one running this branch, maybe Peter should make her post official.), “She’ll take it though.”
The woman, probably shocked at being addressed, sharply lifts her head from her notes. “Oh, hum, yes, of course.”
Terton clears his throat. “Actually, as director of this branch I should b—”
“I think she’ll handle it just fine, thank you.” Ok, maybe Peter should turn down the sass a little. (Although MJ certainly would be proud of him…)
He’s always hated this side of business, all the snubbing and judgement he had to deal with gave him migraines more often than not, but he had learned the necessity of it all and found that Tony had been right in all his lessons. There really is no use being nice to people who’ll look down on you, so he might as well match them, despite the fact that he feels like Aunt May would rip his head off for it. Or maybe Tony’s, she’d find a way to make it his fault.
Terton smiles tightly, his face twitching all over like he’s fighting very hard not to argue.
The WE envoy hesitantly hands Nadia the papers and looks back at Peter like he’s asking for permission to continue. Peter nods.
“As you might know, WE is one of the leading companies worldwide in data processing and networking management.” He takes a breath. “Although we work largely with corporations and multinationals, we also work with individuals, especially in our community.” The man, whose name Peter legitimately forgot and sincerely doesn’t care to remember, spits the end of his sentence out with such obvious disdain it has Peter almost sneering.
Peter knows, for a fact, that Wayne Enterprise cares for Gotham. He’s heard about their programs and the literal lives they’ve saved, they're literally the only company who works to actually help the less fortunate residents of Gotham, hell, they’re probably the only reason half of them have internet, let alone jobs and he respects the hell out of it, but this man, this individual they sent to talk to him, he doesn’t care. Barely two words out of his mouth and Peter can already tell he would rather eradicate the poor with small pox covered blankets than actually help them, and it makes him livid. Irrational maybe. But sue him, he’ll work with WE when they start respecting him enough to send him someone who cares about their causes. (Ha, maybe all that Stark pettiness is irreditaire. Although he’s not actually related to Tony, so maybe not.)
“No. I didn’t know that,but we are not currently looking to develop in that direction.”
Terton literally shoots out of his seat. “With all do respect, Mister Stark, Wayne Enterprise is offeri—”
“Mister Terton,” Peter hates having to play bad cop, but when push comes to shove, “Take a breather please.”
The man splutters for a second but leaves the room without complaint, probably sensing the coldness of Peter's tone.
“Now,” Peter turns back to the man and puts on his best Tony ‘you know who I am’ Stark mask and says: “I have a lot of respect for your company, but we are not looking to invest time into those kind of endeavour at the moment, as we are currently working on quite a few projects. I am very sorry you travelled all this way for nothing, though.” which is essentially business talk for ‘fuck off’.
“Thank you for your time.” The man pushes the sentence out through gritted teeth.
Peter rises out of his seat in tandem with the a-hole and offers his hand to shake.
“Let me walk you out.” The offer is far from kind and everyone in the room can hear it.
The man however, has no choice but to accept as Peter clasps him over the shoulder and walks him to the door. On his way out though, he bends down to Nadia as he passes her and whispers a quick ‘finish without me’ that she answers with a nod. The door swings open on silent hinges and Peter catches a quick glimpse of Jason standing next to the windows with Terton, but he ignores that for now. (His super hearing does pick up their conversation however.)
“Mr Stark, I do actually have something I need to,hum, give you?” The man sounds oddly small now, like he just realizes Peter isn’t exactly on his side.
He hums in answer, barely resisting the urge to turn his head at the sound of Jason’s voice.
“I’m gonna stop you right there buddy, because my relationship with your boss is frankly none of your fucking business.”
(What are they talking about? What happened earlier? Is Terton trying to blackmail him? Would he sink that low? It's not like Peter would really care if this came out to the press…)
“I, hum, I was instructed by Mister Drake-Wayne to get this to you.” He pushes an envelope towards Peter, and the brunette notices a slight tremble to his hands. (Did he really scare him that badly?)
Peter grabs the envelope, not really even paying attention as Terton answers with a sort of huff before answering.
“Relationship? You must be out of your mind young man. Mr Stark doesn’t care about the likes of you, you do not even exist on the same social plane.”
“You should go now.” Peter is aware his voice probably comes out a lot rougher than it should, but it fits with the whole act he’s been putting on against what’s his name, so he doesn’t attempt to correct himself as his interlocutor pales and all but jumps into the elevator.
“Have you ever actually met Peter?”
Jason sounds downright pissed, almost enough to make Peter start wondering if the windows are reinforced enough to withstand a trained vigilante forcibly defenestrating someone through them. And then start wondering how hard it would be to make the scene out to be an accident.
“Of course I have, son. Do you really think I would have been trusted with this branch of the company if I hadn't?”
(Alright, that’s enough, better not to find out.)
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“You know this is probably the most expensive ice cream in San Francisco, right?”
Peter shrugs and lifts his cone up to lick the ice cream that's threatening to drip onto his hand. “I always wanted to get ice cream from a zoo.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know, I guess kid me just thought it’d taste better than the normal one or something.”
Jason lifts an eyebrow over his own cone. “And?”
“All I'm gonna say is I'm not disappointed.”
All in all it’s a pretty good day for ice cream. The sun is beating down on them and since it's 2 pm on a weekday in April, the zoo is relatively empty. The demon child would like it, it's a lot nicer then the ones in Gotham, with huge enclosures and almost every animal you could think of, most of them rescues.
“I went to disney with bruce when I was thirteen, I remember begging him for ice cream.”
Peter smiles, it's nostalgic, like he’s reminiscing about a similar experience. “Did you get it?”
“Nope, B just said it was overpriced cheap shit, and that Alfi could make it better.”
“What a spoilsport.”
Jason chuckles. “Yeah, he’s really great at parties.”
Jason isn’t really sure why he’s talking about Bruce, but it’s been a while since he’s been able to think about his adoptive father fondly, if with a slight bitterness (he really did want that ice cream after all).
“I’ve never actually been to Disney. I think Tony wanted to take Harley and I once, but it never happened.”
“Seriously? You get adopted by a billionaire and he doesn’t even have the decency to take you to the happiest place on earth,” Jason shakes his head dramatically, “and I thought Bruce was bad…”
Peter laughs. “Tony’s a trillionaire, actually.”
“And now you sound like B.”
“Hey!”
Jason smirks. It really has been a while since he’s felt like this. It hits him again, just how quiet the green has been since he left Vegas. Right now, he can’t even feel the usual grip it has on his mind, the fog that usually blurs his memory… there’s no anger there, even when he thinks about Bruce, just… remembrance. A little nostalgia maybe, a bittersweetness as he thinks about just how much has changed between them.
It’s been a long time since he’s thought about that kid, the Jason that ran through crime alley like he owned it, taking what he needed and snarling at anybody who dared to tell him it wasn’t his to take. The kid that sat on Bruce’s shoulder convinced he would never drop him, who hid in Batman’s cape like the world couldn’t touch him in there. And maybe, just maybe, he misses that kid right now.
So he does what he always does when confronted with his own emotions, he deflects. “Oh my god, it’s you.”
“Huh?” Peter turns to look at him with wide eyes, and it takes everything in Jason not to laugh at the smudge of vanilla smearing his cheek.
“Look.” Jason points at one of the lions, the one that is significantly smaller than all the others.
“Hey! I’m not that short!”