Chapter Text
“Hey, hey! Ironman!”
Tony had seen a lot of Spider-Man costumes today, and quite frankly, they’d all been rather shit: obviously sewn together with scrap fabrics and seventh-grade reminders of bad style (e.g., bright blue leggings).
This one, however—it seemed like the real deal, almost. The lenses even moved with those same stilted shifts.
The cosplayer’s attitude, though, was just as terribly annoying as all the other fans’ had been. He suppressed a grin; he supposed that did fit with Spider-Man’s true personality.
“No time, kiddie.” He waved a dismissive hand. NYC Comic Con was something he’d been obliged to attend this year. Sign a few posters, smile for a few pictures, all that jazz. Pepper had insisted, something to do with a public scandal after he’d cussed out the Dutch prime minister. Really, he’d been hoping to offend the whole country while he’d been at it.
Damn that cursed dictionary and the word ‘slagroom’ for having intrigued him enough to delve into the language.
He’d have never imagined that that was what would have gotten him here, at dusty musty crusty Comic Con. Which was really just another word for ‘mega nerdy stinky stalker hangout’.
He supposed that didn’t roll off the tongue as nicely.
“I just wanted to say, your costume could use some work,” the cosplayer continued, and Tony’s pace came to a quick stop. He turned slowly, almost warily. He really hadn’t come here to cause another scandal, he didn’t want Pepper to have a heart attack, but come on. Was this brat really implying what Tony thought he was?
Having gotten his attention, the ripoff Spidey gestured at his face. “The beard is all patchy, could’ve colored that in a little better. Oh, and it’s supposed to be a little wonky, trust me, I’ve seen it up close. Looks ridiculous, it does!” The kid had a weird habit of falling into a British accent every few words.
“Oh, and the suit? It’s nice, really, but you should put something into the left pocket. Dude carries a little packet of peach rings with him everywhere he goes. Cute, innit?”
When Tony went to interrupt, a red gloved finger waved at his face condescendingly. “Ah, ah, ah. One more thing,” he said, sounding greatly amused. “You should bend your knees a little. He’s shorter than he looks on TV!”
When Tony’s expression grew stormy, the kid backed off. “Ah, sorry. Figures you wanna keep that quiet, eh, Mr. Flea?"
Tony’s brain short-circuited.
“Oh, you little shit—” he growled when he finally came back to his senses, but Spidey was already running off. Without thinking too much about it, he sprinted off after him, chasing the red-blue blur back into the crowds.
He pushed past all sorts of characters, only managing a barely-there apology when he knocked over a little Anakin Skywalker—probably for the best, he mused, grinning to himself briefly.
Just as he was catching up to Spider-Man—the real one, dammit—he rounded a corner only to be met with a sea of red heads.
Hundreds of Spider-Men turned their heads as he halted conspicuously at the threshold, white bug-eyes boring into him. God, that whole costume was rather creepy, now that he thought about it.
“Is that Tony Stark?”
This single comment caused a shit-storm to break out, shouts scattering over the room in an instant. Tony was certain it had been the real Spidey to break the silence.
“Ah, fuck,” he muttered, sweeping the crowd one last time in an attempt to make out the real vigilante, but he was forced to run for his life too soon, desperate fans throwing themselves at him eagerly.
He barely made it out, meeting the fresh air like a man reborn.
-
“You should feel lucky I’m not beating the shit out of you right now, Flik,” Tony grumbled a week later.
“Well excuse me for not feeling particularly lucky.” Spider-Man’s lenses turned upward with rigid motion. Tony guessed it was supposed to be an eyeroll.
They were standing side by side, on a street corner. The buildings surrounding them were largely turned to dust. Smog hung in the air, debris littering the streets. On the intersection ahead lay the cause of it all in a smoking heap—some guy with a grudge against Spidey who had decided to get his attention by going to town on New York with a lifetime’s worth of knives.
“We got the guy.” Tony attempted a shrug, but the gesture was just as awkward with the stiff suit as Spidey’s eyeroll had been.
“Mhm,” came the low hum beside him.
“What?” he asked, annoyed. He’d been watching Sherlock before all this—that actor looked oddly familiar—and was still dismayed to have been forced away from the show to assist the little rascal who had humiliated him at the Comic Con.
Said rascal shifted on his feet, swaying a little. “I think I’m bleeding out.”
Immediately on alert, Tony turned to look at the vigilante properly. “No you’re not.” The reply came to him instinctively as he put his hands on Spider-Man’s shoulder to turn him around. He swallowed as he looked at the bug’s side.
A dark, looming red was spreading across the brighter fabric of the suit.
“Maybe,” he agreed. Then, hotly, he snapped, “Why didn’t you mention this earlier? What happened?”
Spider-Man threw up a lazy hand, pointing at the broken down villain. “Whaddaya think happened, Mr. Genius?” His posture was starting to slouch, and Tony kept his hands on his shoulders as they both lowered to the ground.
“Well, I can professionally diagnose your snark is still intact,” Tony retorted, though he looked on worriedly as the vigilante leaned back on his elbows, visibly exhausted. Gloved fingers pressed loosely against the wound.
“FRIDAY, notify Cho there’s an enhanced individual incoming, flesh wound in the abdomen. Send over Spider-Man’s file.”
Spidey shook his head, looking up at Tony in alarm. “What’re you doing? Don’t do that.”
Jaw clenching, Tony pressed his own hands against the gash, ignoring the consequent groan from Spider-Man. “Not letting you bleed out here, kid.”
“S’not gonna happen,” came the expected protest. “Super healing,” the bug then supplied as explanation.
“I’m not taking any chances here, Flik,” Tony said, dismissing his surprise at Spider-Man’s honesty. The vigilante had never been very open about his enhancements; Tony still wasn’t sure if he could naturally stick to walls, or if that was just his suit. Though he did suspect super hearing after that encounter on the street all those weeks ago, where Spidey had mentioned his heartbeat.
“You can’t just—”
“Yes, I can.”
“That’s kidnapping,” Spider-Man informed him. “Did you know there’s, like, a thousand missing persons reports in New York monthly?”
Tony disregarded this, instead scooping Spider-Man’s lithe form up in his arms. The kid was light.
“Hey!”
“Keep pressure on the wound, bug.” They took off in the air, Tony’s grip firm. He looked down, glad to see the kid’s white lenses still open, but the wound was still bleeding freely. Spider-Man’s weak arm, slung around his stomach, did little to keep the blood back.
Rationally, he knew that Spidey would survive this—he hadn’t lost enough blood to die and they’d be at the tower in just under a minute, Cho would close the wound, supply some extra blood if need be, and they’d be back to ribbing and teasing each other in a few days. Spider-Man would go on about his pigeons and dislike for eggs, Tony would name him after ridiculous cartoon characters and lose his mind over that stupid purple newspaper.
But despite the statistics, the medical facts jumping to the forefront of his mind as he looked at the injury, he was scared. Like that night in the bodega when Spider-Man had collapsed, his first instinct was wild, primitive fear and a persistent worry.
He’d never really actively thought back to the days where the vigilante hadn’t been in his life yet, ever since their first meeting nine months ago. He had never tried to imagine what that would be like now. How it would feel to go without the unholy amount of quips and baffling rants on stupid topics such as octopi and pigeons every mission. Eating peach rings on rooftops alone because the bug had died by his side, in his arms.
His hands were shaking by the time he finally passed Spider-Man off to Cho at the tower. The kid’s lenses were closed now, but his chest was still rising steadily with every shallow breath.
“Don’t take his mask off,” he barely thought to say, and then the medical team was wheeling Spidey’s body off into the sterile white infirmary. He fought the urge to follow and collapsed onto the living room couch instead.
When had this happened? This sudden fierce care for a guy whose name he didn’t even know?
“Hey man.” Sam sauntered into the room, going to pour himself a cup of coffee by the kitchen island. “Mission go okay? Clint and I saw on the news; some guy with knives?”
Tony didn’t turn around to face him, feeling somewhat disconnected from the whole situation. The villain—right. He’d nearly forgotten. Could barely remember the fight. He felt like he could only remember that moment after, on the sidewalk. He’d joked about something. The Comic Con, maybe.
“I think I’m bleeding out.”
Oh, he thought, did he? God, how had Tony found himself caring for such an idiot?
“Yeah,” he managed to tell Sam, who then appeared in front of him. His coffee was steaming despite the warmth in the tower. Tony felt himself grow sweaty just at the thought of it. He preferred iced coffee in the summer.
“You good, Tony? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
He didn’t have the energy to put on a smile. “Spider-Man got hit,” he said. “Cho’s treating him right now.”
“Shit.” Sam’s eyes went wide. “He gonna be okay?”
Tony waved a dismissive hand, thinking that maybe if he acted like this hadn’t scared him as much as it had, it didn’t hold any power over him. “Sure. Pretty certain he has some sort of accelerated healing, anyway. He’ll be back to his web-slinging in no time.”
His fellow hero shrugged. “Still. He’s young, it’s…”
“Yeah,” he agreed, despite the sentence not having been finished. He knew what Sam was going to say: that it was disturbing, and frightening. Who knew just how young the vigilante was?
“Well, I’m sure he’s going to be all better with Cho’s care. Keep me in the loop, yeah?”
“‘Course.” Tony nodded when Sam raised his mug in goodbye.
Then, unable to help himself, he went down to the med bay and sat by Spider-Man’s bedside. The doctors had pulled down the upper half of the red-blue suit, leaving the mask and lower half on. On the boy’s abdomen was a white bandage, wrapped tight around his side and spotting red a little over the wound.
“We cleaned and treated the wound.” Helen Cho entered the room, checking the IV bag before turning to Tony. “It seems he has an accelerated metabolism. Our medications and painkillers are burning through his system at a frankly inhuman rate. It also means the wound will heal much faster, but we still gave him stitches, just to be sure. Rather avoid an infection than cure one, right?”
“Right.”
“He’ll wake up in a few hours, I’d say. You’re welcome to stay, of course, but do try not to disturb him.”
“Of course,” Tony agreed, and Cho left swiftly after checking up on Spidey’s vitals.
He had sat in enough hospital chairs to know the discomfort it caused, but readied himself to sit there for a few hours anyway. He wanted to be there when Spider-Man woke up, to assure him that no one had seen his face and that he would be okay.
So he waited.
-
“You know, you’re kinda like a dog.”
Tony lifted his gaze to see Spider-Man’s bug lenses open and directed at him. He put his Starkpad, on which he had been doing some work, to the side and bowed closer to the vigilante’s side. “You’re awake, finally.”
“Sadly,” the kid groaned as he pushed himself into a seated position. “Everything hurts a little.”
“That is generally what happens when you let yourself get stabbed,” Tony said, deadpan. “And back up—why am I a dog?”
“Airedale Terrier,” Spidey said without further explanation. “I didn’t let myself get stabbed, FYI. I was busy picking up a McDonalds bag.”
Tony shifted back in his seat, exasperation rushing through him. He was never quite sure when Spider-Man was joking and when he was being serious. “Why?” he humored the bug anyway.
Spidey shrugged. “Because littering is bad?”
“Well, obviously—”
“Did you take off my mask?”
He quickly shook his head. “‘Course not, kid.”
“Huh. Okay.” Spider-Man swung his legs over the bed and stood. “I’ll be going, then. Thanks, Mr. Stark!”
Before the vigilante could flee, Tony stood and put a firm hand on his shoulder. “Hold on a sec, Spiderling. You’re walking around with a stab wound.” He gestured to his abdomen, but Spider-Man merely patted a hand to the bandage.
“Dunno, I think it’s healed by now. Besides, I got… homework.”
“Homework? I’m gonna pretend you didn’t just say that.” He attempted to push Spider-Man back to the bed gently, filing the word ‘homework’ into the same mental drawer where ‘May’ had gone.
“I was lying, anyway. It’s summer.” Spidey’s resolve gave way, and Tony managed to direct him to the bed again, where the kid settled himself into a comfortable position.
“Wake me up in two hours, ‘kay? I need—” A loud yawn interrupted the sentence. “I need to get back on time for dinner.” It was clear that the low influx of drugs were still affecting Spider-Man, considering how much fairly personal information he was giving away. Tony only felt slightly bad.
“Sure, Flik. Night night.”
“G’night, Mr. Flea.”
-
When Tony came back an hour later, the infirmary was empty.
On the cabinet by the bed was a small note, which he opened to find a messy message, written in pen.
Thanks for the medical help, Mr. Stark! See you out there ;)
Tony ranted about it to a besumed Pepper.
“Would you like roasted or baked potatoes for dinner, Tony?” she asked when he was finished.
Tony stared at her.
“Roasted, please.”
-
Tony found an all too familiar purple newspaper taped to the outside of his bedroom window, the next morning. Which was absurd on its own, since his bedroom was on the 50th story. The article itself was baffling enough, too.
The Telaraña
CHAOS AT COMIC CON: ANAKIN SKYWALKER INJURES THREE
Hombre la Silla 08/05/25
At the comic con NYC last weekend, a suspect whose name I cannot yet disclose injured three people in an outbreak of utter, animalistic rage! The suspect was eight years old and dressed as Anakin Skywalker. Now, everyone who is the least bit cultured and has seen Star Wars knows how ironic it is that this cosplayer in particular had such an outbreak.
From trustworthy sources (read: me, cuz I was there!) we can establish that the suspect claimed a Tony Stark cosplayer had knocked him over, which had caused his candies to spill to the ground. The Tony Stark cosplayer reportedly had little talent for cosplaying, as his cosplay was horribly put together, and fled the scene immediately. He was later seen leaving the building with a tail of Spider-Man cosplayers.
If only the real Ironman had been there to prevent the Anakin cosplayer from biting his mother, father and sister. “They didn’t give me a new bag of candy,” said the defendant. The victims remain stable as of now.
Just know, people: Star Wars is more relevant than you’d think! There are true Darth Vaders among us…
Also, if you don’t know who Anakin Skywalker is… go watch Star Wars?? What the fuck.
He called his usual window-washing guys to remove it before Pepper read it.
They didn’t come in time.
She laughed at him.
And called him Chancellor Palpatine for the whole day.
-
“You did what?”
Peter wasn’t sure if MJ was amused or bemused. Or just plain unamused. Or maybe she hadn’t heard him properly. Her continually blank expression was hard to read at times.
“I taped Ned’s new article to Mr. Stark’s window,” he repeated dutifully, in case she really hadn’t heard him.
“You’re actually stupid.”
Unamused it was, then. “That’s what they tell me.”
“Don’t joke,” MJ snapped. She stirred her coffee angrily. As angrily as one could stir a cup of coffee, in any case. Peter took a sip of his own hot chocolate and let his eyes trail after a cat walking past the pavement outside.
“Peter.”
“Yeah-uh?” He looked at her over the rim of his mug.
“Do you want Stark to find out who you are?” She whisper-shouted, which Peter had not ever witnessed someone do before. It was such a contradictory term.
MJ looked around the café cautiously, but no one was near their little corner. It seemed that people naturally avoided sitting near two teenagers of the opposite sex—afraid to be caught next to a sudden avid make out, probably.
“No, no. Of course not. You’re totally overestimating him, Em. I’ve seen him try to set a table, trust me when I say he won’t be connecting any faraway dots anytime soon.”
“But the dots are there, and you’re placing them closer together,” she argued back, which was fair enough. But it was just so fun to mess with Mr. Stark! Ned thought so too—his latest article had been flipping hilarious.
“Alright,” he relented anyway, because MJ’s expression was turning really serious. “I’ll keep The Telaraña away from him, and I won’t get stabbed and pass out in front of him again.”
MJ lifted her head, eyes turning murderous.
“You did what?”
Shoot.
He hadn’t told her about that yet, had he?