Chapter Text
This is a terrible plan and everything hurts and he’s going to die before graduating and he should've listened to Tony and stayed in bed, is what takes up most of Peter’s thought process. He’s currently stuck in some sad sewage duct by the building’s underground parking lot, just a few feet away from what could very possibly be a combination of lethal chemicals. Come to think of it, he’s not sure how safe the fumes he’s inhaling are, either. He should probably crawl up faster. He would’ve, too, if every inch of him weren’t aching to collapse.
It’s dark down here, only the faint glow of scarcely placed fluorescent tubes emitting a greenish light through which Peter can make out certain vague shapes. The air smells of something heavy, acidic and salty at the same time, a scent that rises up to the bridge of his nose and burns a little. Though his mouth stays firmly shut, his throat starts feeling a little dry in a way that has nothing to do with a lack of hydration, and the inside of his ears sting with a tolerable but definitely distracting kind of pinch. His every movement is accentuated by a definite clenching of several sore muscles along his upper arms and thighs, and every so often he’ll make a wrong move and a sharp pain will shoot up from his ribs, causing him to hiss faintly at the sensation.
“You’re close, Peter,” MJ says into his ear through the wireless piece every time she hears him, “You’re really close to the building’s entrance.”
“Ho-How close?” he whispers.
“Your tracker’s just twenty-three feet away from the closest pipe connecting to a lab. Just twenty-three feet, Peter.”
“Twenty-three feet away,” he tell himself and takes another agonizing series of steps towards the direction MJ’s pointed him at. “Crawling is so-so much harder than walking.”
“You think?”
“Everything h-hurts. Is Ned still there?”
“Right next to me,” she assures, before: “Hey, dumbass, change your channel back to Peter’s.”
“I’m here,” booms his voice into Peter’s com immediately. “You good?”
“I can feel all 700 of my muscles,” he jokes. “How’s May?”
“Forcibly out with Pepper, still. No news from them, yet. You sure you’re good? I can tell the colonel to come help you out right away.”
“They’re alre-already doing their thing up th-there,” he says, taking another few steps forwards. Just a little under fifteen feet, now. “‘M good. Give it back to MJ. Go do your thing.”
“You sure?”
“Help the others, Ned.”
The line goes silent for a while, and Peter knows that Ned’s changed frequencies like he was told to. Now, whether Michelle tuned back in, or if she ever tuned out, is a mystery. He think of calling out for her as he takes a couple more steps, the tube he has to take into the building just out of his reach now, when he makes the crucial mistake of looking down.
Peter’s learned to control his fear of heights; he really has. He’s Spiderman, for heaven’s sake. It’s a part of his job. Sometimes, his breath will still hitch and his legs will still quiver on especially tall buildings, but otherwise, he’s learned to control himself, and well. Yet, as he accidentally chances a glance downward onto the flow of unidentified liquids just barely beneath him, he feels his entire body tremble with fear. The dark, sludge-like goo under him suddenly hardens into hard, dark concrete, and he swears he feels the distance between himself and the ground grow while he struggles to catch his breath. Peter closes his eyes, inhaling deeply, and makes a move to take his next step when someone grabs his arms, holding onto it as they hang off his body, their strange but unmistakable shouts of fear ringing through the tunnel. Eyes still pressed shut, Peter desperately shushes the person, but they keep yelling, their shouts growing more fearful, wilder by the second. Sweaty glove-clad hands hold onto the stranger’s and Peter risks a look down, blood freezing in his veins when he’s met with Turtleneck’s bloody, lifeless form hanging down from where their hands connect. He doesn’t know what to do. Does he pull him up? Does he drop him? Did Turtleneck survive? Every thought he’s ever had suddenly makes its way to the forefront of his conscience, turning around in an incomprehensible hodgepodge of sounds Peter knows he should recognize but cannot seem to focus on, and now the concrete ground looks like it’s rising up to meet him, faster than it had gone down and Turtleneck’s body is gone and Peter’s hand is covered in blood and he can’t seem to breathe anymore and Mr. Stark, please, please help me, please and--
“Pete? Peter, do you need me to call Tony?”
“I killed him,” Peter chokes out, “I should’ve held on but he bit me and I was so surprised and he died, MJ.”
“Who?”
“The-the guy Kingpin sent after me. The guy… the one with the turtleneck.”
“Peter, just a few steps more, okay? Just a few more and then you and I can talk about it, alright? You can do it, okay? Just-just count the steps, okay? Is that alright?”
“I killed him.”
“Peter, I’m telling Ned to put Tony on.”
“Don’t tell Ned.”
“Is he alright?” Ned asks her, concerned. “I’m going to talk to him.”
“No,” she breathes, “He doesn’t want to tell you.”
The hurt on his face nearly shatters her, and all she can really do is place a hand on top of his in consolation. Wordlessly, he takes a step back, eyes still trained on her.
“Peter, just take a breath, okay?” she urgently whispers into her com, maintaining eye-contact with Ned. “Tell me what’s wrong. Ned won’t hear, I promise. He won’t hear.”
“He’ll hate m-me,” comes the reply within a dry sob, “Him and May, they’ll ha-hate me.”
“They could never, okay? Just talk to me.”
“I killed a guy.”
She doesn’t know how to react to that, exactly, but something about the fear, the regret in his voice as he says it tells her all she needs to know about the subject. She knows him. She trusts him. She settles on helping him move.
“Okay, now take a step.”
“I-I can’t.”
“One step, Peter.”
She hears grunting on the other end, and then silence.
“Okay, okay. One step.”
“Do you want to tell me anything else?” she tries. “Anything you want to say to me.”
“He… bit my arm. I was holding him and he bit me and I let go.”
“One more step.”
“He chose to do it.”
“Okay.”
“I should’ve saved him.”
“You couldn’t have.”
“We can’t save everyone.”
“Unfortunately not.”
“I’ll tell Ned once we’re all back home.”
“Ned would like that very much. You moving?”
“Y-yeah. Being a superhero is hard.” He’s breathing better now, albeit a little faster than she deems normal, but his voice has more substance to it, more cadence. It’s no longer a whisper.
“I know, Peter. I know.”
“I…” he starts, before pausing,and it’s like she can hear the adrenaline pumping through him when he says his next words: “I sort of like you.”
She stops breathing. Resumes. Smiles. Softly laughs. “We’ll talk about it later.”
“This is probably not the best way to say it.”
“It’s horrible, actually.”
“We’ll r-really talk about it? That’s something you wanna do?”
She inhales. Exhales. “Yeah. Yeah, that’s something I want to do, loser. Just-just do your thing and get back here and we’ll… discuss.”
Really, they will. It’s a conversation long overdue.
The line goes dead again, for a little longer this time, though Michelle swears she can hear his faint breathing.
“I’m in.”
“Good. I’m proud.”
“Thanks.”
She smiles, though she knows he can’t see her, and throws Ned a relieved thumbs up.
He doesn’t know how long he stays huddled in that narrow tunnel, but it’s evident, once he manages to crawl out of it and into a restroom connected to one of the offices, that he missed quite a bit. The lights have been turned off around the establishment, save for the emergency bulbs at the end of every corridor, and there is a single man, occasionally a pair, maybe, roaming every accessible surface of the place. The first couple are subdued easily, going down before they could even react to his presence, and then there’s a trio that causes him trouble, but he manages to web their mouths shut before they can every spread the word, so he thinks he’s doing well enough, considering.
He’s made it up to the third floor, now, the stupid disruptor Ned had given him to place inside the tower weighing heavy under his suit as he tries to find a suitable place to put it, out of enemy view.
He turns into a fairly secluded corridor and sees a man suspiciously walk out of a room before hurriedly closing the door, almost as if he knew that Peter’s prying eyes would be looking for whatever’s inside once he left the vicinity. He stops for a second, motionless, and it might be that Kingpin is saying something into their earpieces, because almost immediately afterwards, he scurries out the other end of the hallway, not even bothering to notice Peter weakly hiding behind a conveniently placed plant.
“Karen, is he out?”
“Activating Advanced Reconnaissance Mode,” her voice rings, and the images of a silhouette riding up the elevator play inside Peter’s mask. “He’s going up.”
“Nice,” he whispers, before tapping twice on his own earpiece. “MJ? You there?”
“Have been the whole time. What’s up?”
“Can you tell me what the room two doors down from me is?”
He hears her quietly hum in concentration, just like she ever so often does when actually having to think about something. “Oh, that’s their control room. That’s convenient. Electrical panels and camera feed and all that stuff.”
“Anything emitting a radio signal? Anything that would tamper with Tony’s suit?”
“Just their communication sets, as far as I can understand it. Let me put Ned on the line.”
“I’m not talking to him,” Ned’s voice rings loud and clear into the com, and Peter can practically see the pout he’s sporting.
“Ned,” he hisses as quietly as he can manage it, “This isnot the time.”
“I’m mad at you.”
“I understand that.”
“You’re gonna tell me eventually, right?”
“As soon as we’re back home,” he promises, crawling closer to the room. “Is that a good place to put your disruptor?”
“It’s a great place to put it,” Ned replies enthusiastically. “They’ll never think of looking there. Okay, Peter, there are three guys in there. One of them seems to be coding something and the other two are watching the cameras. You just have to take them out and place the disruptor right under their table, okay? Then you can join Stark. I’ll take it from there.”
“Won’t they see me coming?”
“Be quick. Be effortless. Be invisible. Like a spider.”
He doesn’t dignify that with a reply, but rather simply crawls along the pale grey walls and gently reaches for the door’s handle in a vain attempt to push it open without being noticed. It slides with an embarrassing creak.?
They’re looking straight at him when he peeps his head into view, and he manages an awkward smile in return.
“Hey guys!”
They unfortunately don’t seem to share his friendly sentiments, and he can almost feel it, the way one of them opens their mouths just slightly, like times slowed down just so that Peter can raise an arm and shoot a web at his face, shutting his mouth while he brings his other arm up and blasts the other two up against the wall - albeit more forcefully than he’d intended to.
“I’m not much of a fan of listening to others, if you get my drift. Much more of a straight-up talker. My best friend doesn’t seem to mind it, though.”
He flashes them a smile he knows they can’t see and pulls a chair out, taking a seat in front of one of the screens. “What am I doing?”
“Place it right there, anywhere in the room. I can get rid of cameras, radios, phones, WiFi… the whole lot. Anything connected to their server, I can shut down and extract. Then that’s it for me. We’ll have all the evidence we need against him.”
Peter nods and gets up, turning to the guys once more. “Sometimes I forget how smart nerds are. Don’t you? They’re pretty dope,” he says, “Also I’m going to have turn off the lights for a bit.”
He can see the beginnings of confusion build upon their faces, but it doesn’t last long. He rapidly shoots a web grenade above one of their heads, then another, and then one more until they can no longer see what he’s doing. Confident in the strength of his webs, knowing full well those guys have three hours to chill in there, he crouches down and places Ned’s weird device under the table, far behind a mass of wires he doesn’t have time to track the purpose of.
“I’ll see you in a few!” he carefully whispers before exiting, making sure to shut the door as he makes his way to the staircase at the end of the hall.
“Is that all you need?”
“Yep,” MJ says, “He’s working on it. You can go join the battle up. They’re both still up there, but it’s not looking too good. I think they’re messing with the suits.”
“Do I need to be subtle about it?”
“Not anymore,” she teases, “Go crazy, Tiger.”
“‘M on it.”
And go crazy he does. Now, don’t get him wrong, Peter’s not entirely a big fan of vandalism, per se, and he’s sure that a lot of great work does happen within the laboratories in this building -- Fisk Pharmaceuticals did make quite a name on the news, some while back -- but something about the fact that this big ol’ ugly guy had the galls to kidnap his May and threaten her really does its job excusing the fact that he rams into the building’s glass windows, shattering them to pieces as he jumps out, immediately turning around and shooting a web to the metal framing about ten floors above. He swings over to where he can see two metal figures amongst a thousand flickering, smoking lights. He shoots a web again, this time much closer to the fire. Crawling up against the glass panels, thankful that Kingpin’s guys are basically useless and haven’t somehow seem him yet, he calls out for MJ again.
“Hey, Michelle?”
“Yep?”
“Are their coms still working?”
“Nope, both disconnected. If you get any closer, yours will be, too.”
“Is there anyway you think we can subdue them?”
“Subdue, no. Contain, probably.”
“Alright.”
He crawls higher, closer to the thunderous show of gunshots and flare blasts. Watching the endless sea of men right above him bathing Tony and Mr. Rhodes in firelight. He takes a few steps closer, and there’s a sudden, long buzzing sound inside his mask while the data displayed at his retinas flashes on and off. He doesn’t try to call out for her; he knows MJ can no longer hear him.
He sighs. There’s no way he can get through to them without becoming a bullet-needle-cushion. He briefly contemplates going in and taking the guys down from behind, but there’s simply no way that would work. There’s one of him and so, so many of them. And with guns, no less. Seriously, how many pistols do these people have? Shouldn’t there be like a limit to it or something? This is just plain unfair. He pauses, thinks it through, thinks it through again, and slowly, carefully, begins crawling upwards. Does he have a plan? Absolutely not. Is he going to find a way to help Tony and Colonel Rhodes? You can bet all your collective asses.
He’s still crawling when he sees the guy, the bastard in the goddamn blue suit whose eyes widen as he sees him, stuck to the window, and he’s much quicker than Peter is, pulling a gun out -- yeah, that’s right, another gun -- and firing it like it’s second nature.
That shouldn’t be second nature. These people are broken.
Time seems to slow down, then, for Spiderman. He sees the bullet coming, feels it by the way his brain flashes white again, as if the danger wasn’t obvious, but before he can make a move for it, the cursed piece of metal hits his body with a clang, piercing through the -- no, wait, deflected by the suit.
Oh. Oh. Tony had apparently forgotten to mention this. This makes his job so much easier. This is epic. He loves this. He is so over the moon right now. He should probably go help out.
Wordlessly, he shoots a single web at the guy, trapping him against the wall behind him, and runs straight into the fire. The repeated assault feels like it’s hailing, but sideways and harder, somehow, but he does already have bruised -- or broken, most likely broken -- ribs, a swollen sternum, a burning lip, a stinging hip, and a pretty bad fear of ceilings, and it all helps him numb out the pain as he swings close to Tony and kicks him out of the way the bullets are pouring.
“There!” he yells, “now you can see!”
He can’t hear Tony call him names, but he likes to think there are several inventive ones coming out of his mouth as he hurriedly increases the power of his thrusters, painfully pushing through the gunfire to knock a bunch of guys out.
Immediately, he feels himself being yanked upward and out of the fire’s path, and with a quick glance upward sees Colonel Rhodes pull him out with a firm gauntlet to the shoulder.
“He didn’t need saving,” his somewhat godly voice reverberates. “That was a window for you to sneak in from the back.”
Oh, you’ve got to be kidding him.
“It wasn’t very obvious!” he yells back.
“I don’t know, he probably thought you’d get it.”
Well, no point in dwelling on it now. Peter quickly scans the scene, vision still compromised by the dozens of bullets showering over him and Mr. Rhodes like they’re for free, and turns back towards him.
“Okay, here’s the plan: we go in, seal every exit on and off the level. Try to keep the fight as contained as possible.”
“They’re open firing out a glass wall!”
“Then we go in and make sure they don’t anymore. If we can keep ‘em all close, it’ll be easier to knock ‘em out than to just shoot back from here.”
Even amidst the flashing white lights all around him, he sees the Colonel nod above him and they charge forward to join Tony. He shoots a web out that grapples onto some steel framing above the now-shattered glass and propels himself out of Mr. Rhodes’ grasp, landing a solid kick to some baddie’s face on his way in. He can no longer make out any sound other than a hundred startled gasps, shouts, and grunts that envelop him from every side and angle, and it’s just now that he realizes the extent to which his suit usually aids him in trying to focus.
It’s hard to concentrate on any one person and/or thing, so he does what he does best -- winging it. Or, more specifically, webbing it. He can see Tony and Mr. Rhodes doing their part thing in his periphery, and once he’s sure he’s deflected enough of the traffic from the windows, he turns his back towards the men, and stares at the giant hole where beautiful glass panes used to be. He shoots one, two, three, four, five web grenades, barricading the floor level from the inside and only giving it the occasional pause when a dude or two try to shoot their shot at him.
By the end of it, his ribs still sting, his breathing is heavy an abnormal amount, and there is no longer any light filtering through to the now obscure corridor, but with his two allies sealing the remaining exits with nanites, there’s only so much Kingpin and his men can do against them. They’re bulletproof and away from citizens. There’s basically no threat.
And then there is. There’s, you know, the guy who’s basically the reason for all of this. The big bald guy? The guy who beat Peter to a pulp just two nights ago? Yeah, him, Kingpin. He’s coming his way, and he looks real angry, and he’s got a fist up now and --
“Pete, for God’s sake, taser web!” Tony’s voice manages to reach him from amidst the chaos, and Peter does as he’s told, shooting the guy’s face as if on instinct, watching him as he trembles slightly at the contact, pushed back a couple feet with the impact of the shot. But he manages to get up, veins bulging as he tries to get the sticky substance off him. Peter doesn’t miss a beat; he shoots another web, this time at his right arm, and then one to his left, pushing him back with every strike. With every web, he grows bolder, shooting to cover every part of the guy’s ginormous body before he can recover, you know, just in case he’s strong enough to get through the first five. Some guys come at him during the process, but other than the occasional bang at his back and that one guy who had a hand on the back of his neck before Tony yanked him away -- bless his poor soul -- it’s no longer a challenge to make his way through the crowd.
When he’s sure that the old man is secured against the wall, his hands unable to reach or call for for anything, he joins his mentors in trapping, immobilizing, or knocking out those of the men still standing.
It takes a couple more minutes of shooting, grunting, yelling, and deflecting, but eventually, they manage to immobilize them all. The room seems almost eerily quiet in comparison to its roaring sounds just a few moments ago, though his mask’s still buzzing, and other than Tony, the colonel, and himself, no man n the room is able to move a muscle.
“So,” Tony starts, looking right at Peter, “what do we do with them?”
“Why -- what, you’re asking me?”
“Your guy, your call,” he says. “We should have everything we need to incarcerate him back home, if that’s what you want to do. We can also strap him up and ship him to Wyoming. I wouldn’t personally encourage killing, but that’s also an option.”
“No one is killing anybody.” “I know, but it’s good to give the kid options.”
“Can we lock him up but make sure his businesses still run?”
They both stare at him like he’s said the most unexpected thing, and Mr. Rhodes actually takes a few steps towards him while Tony looks at him with what could either be pride or dumbfoundedness, he can’t tell. He likes to think it’s a bit of both.
“We don’t know who inherits his company, but if someone decent does, then possibly.”
“Can-can we try to do that? I mean, he might be a giant douche, but he is doing some pretty amazing stuff for people like me.”
“What do you mean, ‘people like you?’”
“You know… people who aren’t billionaires.”
Whatever Tony might have wanted to say stays lodged in his throat, because of fucking course Peter would think this way. Of course he’d think of the people Fisk’s work benefits over the fact that he almost died at his hands less than two nights ago. Of course.
“We’ll hash out the details later,” he finally says. “Let’s get these guys locked up first. Rhodey, call Ross.”
The holding cells are dark and blue in more than just the literal sense. They reek of sadness and isolation. They smell like dollar-brand Dettol. And, you know, they’re scary.
Peter’s probably not supposed to be here, but no explicit orders to keep out were given, so he’s not not allowed. He slowly makes his way past the army of former blue-suit-guys, now stripped down to a white t-shirt and ugly beige pants. Some of them seem like they’re practically growling at him when he walks by, but others seem… unbothered. Relieved, maybe. Worried. Confused. Grateful.
He makes his way to the end of the large room, watching Kingpin’s back against the glass. They’ve found his heirs, his wife and his 17 year-old son William, but the call that was made turned up no response. Tony and Ross are still trying. How successful they’ll be, no one can tell.
“You’re not a bad guy, you know,” Peter says to the huge man’s back, startled when he turns around immediately. Even held captive, he exudes power, like raindrops ask for permission before landing on him and birds stop singing when he walks by. His posture is immaculate, and if Peter subconsciously tries to imitate it, then that’s no one’s business but his. “I know you were trying to do good things.”
“You don’t understand anything about me, Spiderman.”
“Peter is fine,” he weakly says, “and I do know. You’re trying to help the little guy. You’re doing exactly what Tony is.”
“Tony Stark is nothing like I am!” he roars, banging his fists on the glass that separates them, and Peter takes several steps back at the scare. “He has power and money. He throws around his toys in the name of charity and lets people worship him! And for what? For stopping one gunman a day? Thousands of people die here every day, Spiderman. The only way to stop this injustice is to strip those with too much power of that which they can hold over others. Your Tony Stark does the opposite.”
“He believes in second chances.”
“And I believe in change. Tony Stark is but a puppeteer, playing the entire world at the tug of his strings. He knows no kindness. He would never give his satin slippers to a homeless man. His solution to violence is to arm the other guy. Can’t you see, Spiderman? He is spinning web upon web of lies. He is no savior.”
A subtle anger boils through Peter, rising within him like a storm contained within his body, and still, he manages to keep his composure and his voice steady as he addresses him:
“But neither are you.”
“I have dedicated my entire life to bringing this city to its full potential.”
“I’ve known you a week and you’ve abducted three people.”
“A small price to pay for growth.”
“No!” Peter finds himself yelling, “No! It’s not a price, it’s people! People are not some sort of… collateral damage! You can’t use them like little chess pawns and drop them when they’re no longer needed! That’s-that’s the difference between you and Tony. You both want the same thing, but at least he has the decency to find worth in people. To make them feel like he cares whether they live or die. That’s what builds a city that functions. People who feel like they’re being given what they deserve. Not some bully like you!”
“I am not a bully!”
“Well,” Peter says, taking a deep breath and stepping backward, “you’re no hero.”
He turns around and makes his way to the exit, ignoring the captive men’s looks of awe as he dashes past them. He shouldn’t have come here. Kingpin won’t change. Kingpin doesn’t really care. He’s blinded by rage Peter will never understand. Peter keeps walking, shoving the disappointment building within him down with every step. Why had he come here? What is he trying to achieve? At the door, before leaving, he pauses, swallows, and looks back just once.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t understand you. And I’m sorry your family couldn’t, either.”
Why does he feel so guilty about this?
He doesn’t see Kingpin after that. He’s shipped off to some other facility, as are his men. Peter doesn’t know much else about it.
They try contacting his family for two months to no avail. Without someone to run it, all of Fisk Enterprises was seized by the bank, but Tony and Mr. Rhodes have since then made a proposal to make the businesses public. Peter gave them both a hug when they first told him, a couple weeks ago, though they refuse to share any other information regarding the case until a definitive verdict is reached. He guesses he’s alright with that.
May, for her part, surprisingly does not forbid him from carrying on being Spiderman like he feared she would. She’s still a little worried, yes, and maybe leaning slightly more toward the neurotic side than she ever has before, but Peter can excuse that. If anyone has the right to coddle him, it’s her. He understands that. What he doesn’t understand is the sudden change of behaviour in Tony. Tony, who calls him a lot more often. Tony, who’ll occasionally pick him up after school if they have somewhere to be right after. Tony, who hugs him more and messes his hair up a whole lot. Once, when he was really tired, Peter swears he heard him say he loves him. It’s an unusual side he gets to see of him, though not an unwelcome one. Quite the opposite, really. This Tony, Peter thinks, might just be his favourite one. He’s very helpful, very present.
He told Ned and May about Turtleneck. They do not hate him. Instead, when he confessed, they held him tight and sandwiched him between them on the couch as the three of them watched The Godfather and awfully tried to recite scenes as they were playing.
He and Michelle had their talk, too. It was awkward for the first few seconds, a series of shy confessions and awkward jokes and hands that didn’t know where to place themselves, but then she kissed him and asked if he wanted to grab sandwiches from Delmar’s new shop. Things went significantly better after that. (Except when Ned found out. The teasing still hasn’t ended. Peter’s no longer sure it ever will.)
All in all, he guesses, it all ended up pretty alright.
“Welcome, Peter,” FRIDAY’s voice greets like it always does, and Peter throws a wink and nod at the air before running in and reaching for the picture frames that Pepper had had put up after MJ, of all people, had once said that they would help liven the place up. He reaches for his bag and unzips it, finding the cutouts he’s looking for and pulling them out, a roll of scotch tape ready to be used. “Will you be staying tonight?”
He’s taken to sleep over at the tower a lot more often, too. May and Pepper will occasionally spend a Ladies’ Night, but most often, it’s just him helping Tony in the workshop or watching documentaries with Pepper late at night and deciding to make use of his bedroom. (He’s had MJ there a couple of times, and once, when Tony caught them, he lowered his gaze and mumbled something about “be safe” and “I’ll need Michelle’s prints so she has access.”)
“Nah, not tonight,” he answers. “I’ve got to go to the movies with Ned tonight. I just had something to take care of.”
“Well, I believe Mr. Stark would enjoy your presence in the workshop soon. He’s working on your suit.”
“I’ll come tomorrow if I can,” he says, and, a few minutes later, putting the roll of tape back in his bag, sprints out.
He gets the call as soon as leaves the theatre, and, fighting his urge to laugh, he picks up.
“Peter, I swear to God, did you just place cutouts of Shrek’s face over every picture of me in the common lounge?”
Peter lets his laugh escape him, holding onto Ned as he doubles over. What he should’ve said and didn’t is: “Just wait until you hear your alarm clock tomorrow.”
(Never in his life had Tony ever pictured himself waking up at five in the morning to the sound Smash Mouth. Oh, that boy is so done now.)