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Afterwards, Peter barely remembered his escape. He knew he'd thrown about a hundred webs, careening through the city like a drunken leaf in a typhoon. There'd been blood in his eyes, and he couldn't catch his breath, and he'd smashed into the side of at least three buildings, crawling up the side of one while he shivered and panted and tried to stay conscious. Finally he'd seen the faded A on the old Tower landing pad, and he'd crashed onto it and rolled down some stairs before coming to a halt.
The last thing he'd seen was Tony's face surrounded by armor, his expression filled with horror. Instantly he'd known he was safe, and he'd promptly passed out.
Sometime later, he woke in a soft bed, no monitors or beeping like he'd expected.
"Sir, vital signs indicate Mr. Parker has begun to regain consciousness."
Peter knew that voice - it was JARVIS v2; he'd helped Tony rebuild the scaled-back version of the AI which ran the upstate compound.
"Kid?" At the sound of Tony's voice, Peter's whole body relaxed - or at least, the parts that hadn't been cut open and presumably stitched back together. He worked a little harder to open his eyes, and was rewarded with the sight of Tony in a chair beside his bed, leaning toward him.
"Hi," Peter said weakly, and Tony sagged with visible relief.
"What the hell, Parker? Were you fighting in a scissor factory?"
"It was a monster," Peter said. "With claws. Big claws. Slashy ones." He made a shhh shhh noise, which sounded absolutely nothing like the claws had sounded when they were ripping through his flesh as the monster tried to vivisect him.
"Clearly."
"It's still out there, I had to leave it," Peter said, and then another horrible thought occurred to him, and he tried to sit up. Tony grasped his shoulders and pushed him back gently, but Peter grabbed his wrist, gasping as he tugged the IV line in his arm. "Aunt May - I was supposed to be there for dinner-"
"Take it easy, I called May and told her you're helping me out on a project. A very long, difficult project - weeks of working in the lab with me, you know how she loves that. She has no idea you nearly got yourself killed. Again." Tony made no move to pull his hand free; instead, he covered Peter's hand with his own. "You're staying here until you can sit up without bleeding or wheezing."
"Not wheezing," Peter wheezed.
"Uh-huh. Shut it, spiderling, and get some rest." Tony patted his hand and sat back in the chair. Peter would have protested, but everything hurt - every damn thing, seriously - and he was asleep in moments.
**
The next time he woke, he was in actual pain - not the throbbing annoyance kind, but the knives-in-his-flesh kind. He frowned, unwilling to move if it was going to get worse once he did.
"Pardon me, Mr. Parker, but there is medication on the side table, which you should take with a full glass of water."
"Thanks," Peter said to the ceiling. He slowly turned on his side and grabbed the meds, valiantly holding back a whimper, then washed the pills down obediently with the water before sliding the glass back into place.
For the first time, he was able to take in where he was. It was a normal bedroom - as much as anything in the Avengers compound could be called normal. He still didn't have regular quarters there, so he supposed this was Tony's version of a guest room. Super-soft sheets and pillows, weird expensive art on the walls, a gas fire flickering in a sleek granite grate at the far end of the room, and a wall of windows to his right. Nothing but grey skies outside, filled with snow flurries.
Peter pushed back the sheet and stared down at his torso. He'd been neatly stitched and clipped and bandaged, but there were maybe twenty deep cuts there, more that he could feel on his back and legs, and a hell of a lot of bruises. His head hurt, too. He winced at what Tony must have thought. "Who stitched me up, JARVIS?"
"Dr. Cho was on-site to assist Mr. Stark with emergency care once he landed with you."
"Yeah, about that." Peter grunted with the effort of sitting up, and shoved a pillow behind him. "Was I really bloody?"
"Extremely so, I'm afraid. Mr. Stark was quite concerned."
"Really?" That perked him up a bit.
"Dr. Cho alleviated his distress once she had administered aid and ordered a transfusion and saline. Her instructions are that you're to rest and refrain from strenuous activities for one week."
"How's my suit?"
"Destroyed, unfortunately. I will have to create another."
"You're too good to me," Peter said. "Thanks a lot, I mean it."
"It's my pleasure." JARVIS paused, then added, "Mr. Stark is on his way; I've alerted him that you're awake."
"Was he pissed that I got myself hurt?" Peter asked, though he already knew the answer.
"He was alarmed," JARVIS said mildly, and that made Peter wince, too.
The door banged open, and Tony strode in, hands thrown out in front of him. "Frankenspider! You're awake! Maybe we should keep you away from Thor for a while, though."
"That's not nice," Peter said, though he was laughing a little anyway.
Tony sat down on the edge of the bed. "First things first: me and the Widow caught your little monster friend with the scissorhands and carted him away to secure confinement. So yay. Second thing, what in the hell were you doing out there alone? We've talked about this at length and I'm starting to feel that you may not be taking my advice seriously," Tony said, swatting him in the head. "Just because you're old enough to drink and know what all the settings are for your suit - congratulations on that, by the way - does not mean you go it alone with a superior foe."
"I thought I could handle it!"
"Famous last words, and both of us should know." Tony narrowed his eyes at Peter, and Peter drew the sheet up higher in response. "Me still being your nominal mentor means I am still always right and am to be consistently obeyed, or else I'll just let you bleed to death on my ex-roof. Got it?"
"You wouldn't let me bleed to death," Peter said, smiling at the way Tony was giving him a narrow-eyed squint.
"Yes I would. Okay, probably not, but let's get real, it's not like I had time to deliberate. Another few minutes and you would've been bled-out spider in snow." Tony pressed his index finger to the middle of Peter's forehead. "Take. Backup. Promise me!" He flicked Peter's head, and Peter sighed, and nodded.
"Okay, I promise. When I can. I will. I totally will."
"Why do I bother?" Tony asked no one in particular. "Put some clothes on and come get breakfast."
"I'm supposed to rest," Peter said, sinking back into the super-soft pillows and employing a much-practiced set of puppy dog eyes.
"Jesus," Tony murmured. "Those are lethal, put them away, I'll bring the bacon."
"Excellent."
**
Tony brought the bacon and an assortment of tools and tiny robots, all of which he dumped on the bed unceremoniously while gnawing a piece of turkey bacon - "Leftover mental debris from my Pepper Potts health-conscious menu," he said, a flash of pain crossing his face. Peter didn't know Ms. Potts that well, but she was obviously terrific and Tony still missed her like crazy, now that their engagement was apparently permanently off.
Peter had thought once or twice about offering advice about not being a dumbass when you love someone, but Tony would have verbally beaten him into next Tuesday for ovestepping, and also mocked him, and possibly never have spoken to him again, and that would have been terrible.
So sue him for wanting his friends to be happy. There were worse traits he could have.
It wasn't like his love life had given him a basis for offering advice. He'd screwed up everything he'd tried so far. Liz had stopped answering his texts right after she moved away, which was probably okay because he wanted to get past the fact her dad was a maniac, but he was only human. He and MJ couldn't seem to get it together for more than one date at a time, and every time he stood her up, she'd stop speaking to him for weeks. (Didn't stop him from coming back around; didn't stop her from accepting his invites, either.) He'd had a lot of sex in college, with an even distribution of guys and girls, but his mysterious sudden absences always ended any chance of real relationships.
Post-college, his one attempt at making out with one of Tony's actual (hot) Stark Industries interns had ended with Tony happening across them in the lab, cracking up, and shooing out Tommy the Intern with a warning not to trust boys who lurk in Stark labs.
"This lab is for actual experiments, Parker, not the sexual kind, and believe me, I'm not judging - if you knew half the things I've done in labs, but let's not speak of it - anyway, keep it in your pants while you're working!" Tony told him, eyeing his mussed hair. "Good taste in interns, by the way," he called over his shoulder, as he left Peter there, wilted hard-on and all.
Every time Peter thought about that afternoon - specifically, the way Tony had watched him with speculative looks the rest of the day, like he'd just discovered some new element that needed extensive cataloguing - Peter got warm all over. He had a similar reaction to Tony sprawling across his bed, passing robot bits to him in his awkward, 'I'm keeping the wounded company' way.
Peter pretended not to notice how attractive Tony was when he was talking about programming; he watched Tony's graceful hands instead, in constant motion, always building something new. Tiny robots took on life, in his hands. They were amazing hands. Peter imagined he might be able to do all sorts of fascinating things to Peter with them.
"Peter?" Tony's hands stilled, and Peter dragged his eyes up to Tony's, with effort. "You okay?"
"Uh." Peter struggled to find the thread of what he'd been saying, but it wasn't easy. It wasn't Tony's fault that he was suddenly hot. He'd probably always been hot, but Peter had been too preoccupied with school and studying and awkward age-appropriate dating and saving Queens to notice. It was getting a little bit harder to ignore, was all.
"Right, maybe it's time for a little break. Helen said she thought you were going to be down for the count a while."
"No no, I was just...thinking. About equations. Some stuff I want to try for my web fluid."
"Uh-huh." Tony eyed him, and went back to tinkering with the little doombot he was building, explaining all the nuances of its destructive capabilities. Handy for implanting in remotely controlled technology, in case of another Ultron situation.
Peter handed him tools, and made a few of his own adjustments to the doombot that kept climbing into his lap with its clumsy robot legs. It was nice, hanging out with Tony. Somewhere in that two hours, he noticed that Tony seemed...well, not happy, exactly, but...content, maybe? Like he might actually be having fun. Peter hadn't seen that in a while. Granted, the first time he met Tony, he had been bruised and sad and on a mission to capture one of his closest friends before said friend got himself and others killed, and things hadn't gotten much better from there, so there wasn't much of a baseline for comparison. But this was nice, being close and making robots and talking about flying.
Also, Tony was very attractive in his tight pants and tight shirt, and Peter was resolute in not noticing that whatsoever, because they had a strictly professional relationship that still involved Tony calling him 'kid' a lot and that was not conducive to all the things Peter wanted to be doing. Once he healed.
He was also distracted by the sudden realization that Tony had flown him all the way to the compound. He'd been in Tony's arms for however long that had taken, and he'd been too unconscious to know it. What a wasted opportunity.
He was going to be very good, and he was going to heal quickly. And then maybe, if he could figure out the difference between seductive and earnest, he was going to move Tony's interests in a new direction.
A gently-flung miniature wrench glanced off his thigh. "You listening, junior?"
"Every word," Peter said, and focused all his considerable attention on Tony's mouth.
**
It took two days for him to get out of bed without leaning on Tony or Happy. It would have been easy for Tony to rat Peter out to May, tell her he'd been mugged by a knife-wielding criminal, or - much worse - that he'd been punching above Spider-Man's weight class, and then pass Peter off into her tender ministrations. Which would have involved a lot of scolding, oatmeal, crying into his hair, and advice about safety for responsible superheroes. It was just how Aunt May rolled.
Instead, he was having Happy bring Peter meals in bed, and keep him company and watch random shows on PBS with him, which was kind of weird because Happy definitely had work to do. So it must be a personal favor, which was also weird, because Peter didn't think they were the kind of friends who rated personal favors. Or maybe they were; they'd been working together such as it was for six years, and Tony had always been there for him when things went sideways, whether it was random supervillains or tricky lines of code for a new project.
Peter liked to think he'd been there for Tony, too, but the truth was, he'd leaned on Tony for a lot of stuff but had never gotten too close. Tony didn't exactly invite people into his life.
Except maybe he did, in his own way. He'd made Peter stop calling him 'Mr. Stark' the day Peter graduated high school, and he'd opened the entire compound to him, whether or not Peter ever wanted to formally be an Avenger.
Peter was thinking about that on the third day of his recovery, as he wobbled over to the elevator and punched in the code for the floor containing Tony's lab. He'd known that code, and all its subsequent variations, since the third time he'd been in the compound. That had to mean something.
Tony was frowning at a set of graphs when Peter neared the door. He didn't notice Peter, so Peter leaned against the wall for a second and studied him. There were shadows under Tony's eyes. The guy worked harder than any three people Peter had ever known, including Peter. He looked thinner than the last time Peter had dropped by; Peter supposed that trying to help manage SHIELD, and keep other superheroes out of trouble for violating the Accords, was wearing on the guy.
"Oh, hey, get in here," Tony said, without looking up. "And take a load off, there's only so many times I can carry you to your bedchamber without the neighbors talking."
"You don't have any neighbors who aren't superheroes," Peter said, but he came in anyway, and planted himself on the nearest chair. "And the entire internet talks about you non-stop. So many memes, Tony, seriously."
"Well at least I'm good for something productive for the kids these days." Tony wiped a hand across his face. "How goes the healing?"
"Itchy." Peter rubbed absently at his chest. "But I'm feeling okay. Thanks for everything you've done."
"Can't exactly turn away a friend when I find them in a pool of blood. And hey, I can honestly say with you? I've never been tempted. Unlike some other heroes I know."
"What're you working on?" Peter asked, scooting the chair closer with one toe.
"Enhanced strength for the fibers in your suit, since apparently the last weave was a bit vulnerable to certain metals. Adamantium blended with vibranium, for one." Tony took a tiny blade and ran it over a patch of red fabric - since it was already ventilated, Peter gathered it was the old suit - and the fabric parted like butter under the blade. "Pretty much knew that you'd run into those at some point or other, given the threat level around here and what we've already faced."
"The fourth generation suit's been great, Tony. Not so much as a pulled thread for two years. Even the original suit I wore during the thing in Germany never tore."
"Remarkably, that makes me feel worse. You dodged a super-bullet there, kid. Or a super-claw. Super-talon. Whatever. The odds were not ever in your favor." Tony sighed and pushed back from the table. "JARVIS, can you weave a suit from the specs I just uploaded?"
"We have just enough vibranium to make the suit viable," JARVIS said. "Estimated time to completion, four days."
"That's a lot of sewing," Peter said.
"That's a lot of manufacturing, actually," Tony answered. "Try not to get kidnapped, because you'll be walking money in the new duds."
"No pressure or anything," Peter said, eyebrow raised.
"No pressure." Tony spun in a circle in his chair and threw down the stylus he'd been tapping on the table. "Let's get some dinner, and then maybe we can tinker with the tensile strength of your silly string."
They ate burgers and fries in the lab, with Dum-E fussing around the entire time at the dropped crumbs. When they were full, Peter ran a simulation on the webbing, and the two of them went straight down the science rabbit hole for several hours - until the moment Peter leaned over to jab at the 3D display of the molecular structure and felt something give.
"Ow," he gasped, one hand at his chest. Tony's solid body was right behind him, easing him back into the chair.
"Apparently chemistry is dangerous now." He ran a hand through Peter's hair gently, and then squeezed his shoulder. "Bedtime."
"I'm okay," Peter insisted, even though whatever he'd tugged too hard was now burning sharply. He took a couple shaky breaths, and Tony's hand tightened on his shoulder.
"What's up, science nerds?" Both heads swiveled toward the door, where Colonel Rhodes was standing, looking from one to the other of them with curiosity written all over his face.
"Hey Colonel Rhodes," Peter answered, frowning at the way his voice shook.
"Hey yourself, and why is it every time I come here, somebody looks like death warmed over?" He stepped forward into the room, and Tony's hand didn't budge from Peter's shoulder.
"At least this time it isn't you," Tony said. "Or me."
"Nice change of pace, I agree." Rhodes took Peter's hand and shook it, quite a bit more gently than usual. "You don't look so great, Peter."
"Nah, I'm good."
"Good to know Tony's influence on you doesn't extend to making you into a credible liar." Rhodes leveled a look at Tony, who finally threw both hands up and stepped back.
"Peter's just going to take a moment, and then he's going back to his quarters to rest. First though I am going to get his meds, so you two entertain yourselves. Without moving," he said, pointing a finger right in Peter's face.
Rhodes watched him go, then turned his perceptive gaze back to Peter. "Is this one of those situations where being around Tony Stark is dangerous to your health?"
Peter's eyes flicked down to Rhodes' legs before he could catch himself, and he swallowed hard. "I did what I do before I knew him," Peter said. "I'd do it if I'd never met him. Though to be honest, I might not have survived this long, if he hadn't mentored me."
"So you attract enough trouble on your own." Rhodes nodded. "Have to say, he seems happy when you're around. It's good for him to focus on stuff that isn't about what people can get out of him."
"He gives a lot," Peter said. He shifted in the chair to take the pressure off the cuts on his back. "He's done so much for me."
"I'm thinking that's mutual." Rhodes was still giving him that laser-gaze. "He's a guy without many real friends, or people who care about his feelings. Avengers don't count."
"They think they count."
"They think wrong." Rhodes looked over at the lab table, full of things Tony had built for people who had come to rely on them. "You're the only one Tony sought out to bring into his super-whatever orbit. If it weren't for you, Bruce, and Happy, I would be doing overtime."
Peter found himself smiling, and Rhodes' face relaxed when Peter said, "He's...I'm...he means a lot to me."
"Good." Rhodes levered himself up; sometimes that was the only tell about his injuries. "But maybe try to stay alive, huh? I think you mean a lot to him too, so he'd probably prefer it if you didn't die. I can only judge by how I feel every time he attempts to kill himself, and honestly, though I could have left him in the desert, I think I'm glad I rescued him. Don't tell him, though. When he's being stupid, I like to remind him about the moments where I wish I'd left him there."
"I'll never tell." Behind them, the elevator dinged; Tony was back. Peter got to his feet and weaved across the lab like a drunken mouse in a maze.
Rhodes came around the table and met him on the other side. "Need a hand? Cause if you fall down, I'm probably going to leave you there for Tony to pick up."
"Rhodey, don't be mean to the invalid." Tony appeared with a bottle of water in one hand and two pills in the other. "Take your medicine, Parker, and then go to bed."
"Okay," Peter said, and did as he was told. But he waved off Tony's attempts to help him to the elevator.
Tony waited until the doors slid open, then said, "Rest up, because this new suit is going to need testing, and I'm sure not putting it on."
"It's true, you don't have the booty for it," Rhodes agreed.
"Everyone's a critic," Tony said.
The grin stayed on Peter's face all the way upstairs.
**
Four days to receiving a new suit to break in was a lot of time to kill, when what Peter really wanted was to be back out there, flying around the city. But he knew his limitations - he'd had a lot of lessons in that area over the last few years - and so he started out cautiously, creeping out of bed to scurry up the interior walls of his quarters.
The first time he'd tried it, JARVIS had said, "Please be careful, Mr. Parker; it would be unfortunate if you were to aggravate your injuries," and the pronouncement startled him so much he lost his grip and hit the floor with a thud. Mercifully he was only halfway up the wall.
"Oh dear," JARVIS said. "That seemed as though it might have hurt."
After that, Peter went more slowly, and only hung out on the ceiling for about half an hour. Even that made him shake and sweat. The first two days, he scrambled down when he weakened and sat on the edge of the bed, trembling and nauseous, and around that time both days, Tony mysteriously appeared with some god-awful green smoothie, which he pressed into Peter's hands.
"Done any completely prohibited strenuous exercise today?" he asked, the third time it happened. Peter opened his mouth to deny it, and then looked down at his own chest, where streaks of blood were slowly oozing across his borrowed white T-shirt.
"I'm so sorry," he said, pressing a splayed hand over his own chest.
"You should be, that's a $12 generic t-shirt and I only have 99 more of them," Tony said. "Oh and then there's how you're going to double your own recovery time because you're a moron."
Peter hung his head. "It's hard to do nothing!"
"I'm aware of this," Tony said, "having had holes in my own chest once or twice. Therefore I can see keeping you from climbing the walls - see what I did there? - is going to require desperate measures."
Peter could feel himself going pale. "Such as?"
"Such as that," Tony said, pointing at the doorway, where Ned was hovering, a big white tub in his hands.
"Oh hey!" Peter said, grinning with relief. "Ned!" It was great to see him; Ned didn't have a lot of time for hanging out anymore, because he was working with a tech firm in Manhattan, and his skills were in high demand. Sometimes he worked up suit protocols for Peter, but Peter didn't tell Tony, because Ned liked being his super-secret guy in the chair. (Tony probably knew; Peter had stopped kidding himself that he could ever keep tech secrets in that way.)
"Hi Peter," Ned said. He seemed unsure of where to stare first: at Peter's bloodied shirt, or at Tony, who was sipping his own smoothie and staring back calmly at Ned from behind oversized, rose-tinted glasses.
"Please occupy his down time in ways unrelated to programming, superheroing, and other dangerous pastimes," Tony said, "or I will be forced to tie Peter to the bed, and let's just say this is not the circumstance under which I'd prefer to have that experiment."
Peter choked on his smoothie, and Ned's eyes grew so wide and round, the whites of them were visible all around.
"Parameters set? Great." Tony made a shooing motion toward Ned, who edged into the room, gaining speed as he passed Tony. Tony waved over his head as he left, and Ned gave a huge sigh of relief. Then he turned his attention to Peter.
"Why didn't you call me? I've been trying to get ahold of you for days, ever since I saw the news! Mr. Stark broke into your phone and called me back." Ned's expression was a study in worry. "That is NOT how I wanted to have my first conversation with Tony Stark!"
"Sorry," Peter said, truly contrite, as he gingerly peeled his T-shirt away from his chest. Ned was still harboring a secret desire to come on board at SI, eventually; he had a moneymaking program he was perfecting for the moment he got his chance to audition.
"Oh, man, that looks like it hurts so much," Ned said, face crinkling with anxiety.
"It's not too bad." Peter fished out another of Tony's t-shirts from the pile - an AC/DC shirt - and threw it on, wincing at the stinging from his wound. "I heal up pretty quick. Tony's mad because I'm pushing myself."
"I will never get used to you using Iron Man's first name. Anyway, he gave me this and told me to keep you busy." Ned patted the tub. "4,210 pieces: Old Avengers Tower with bonus Iron Legion."
"He has such a weird sense of humor," Peter said.
"About that," Ned said. He sat down on the floor and opened the lid on the tub. "Is there something going on between you two?"
"What? No. Something--? No." Peter fidgeted for a second, then sat down on the floor opposite him. "What, um, what do you mean?"
"Just, that joke about tying you to the bed." Ned began sorting pieces, but he was giving Peter a sly look out of the corner of his eye.
"He's kidding, obviously," Peter said. "He's super annoyed that I'm not following doctor's orders."
Ned was silent a second, and then he said, "Guess he cares about you." Then he added, "He's kind of hot, anyway. For an old guy."
"I guess." Peter shrugged awkwardly, because he really, really wasn't ready to have this conversation, but it was happening anyway. So he went with it. "I mean. Would it be weird?"
"Well, yeah," Ned said, "but weirder than anything else in your life? Not so much." Ned shoved a pile of pieces at him, and leaned closer to stage whisper, "Just tell me I can double date with Black Widow and we're good."
"Shut up!" Peter said, laughing. Not even three weeks before during a training exercise, Peter had had a very sincere discussion with Natasha Romanoff about the value of friendship with difficult people. Tony's name had come up consistently throughout, as example and maybe as a warning. It had left him confused, but pretty sure that being Natasha's friend would be almost as great as being Tony's friend. "You're not her type. She goes for big green guys."
"Ohhhh," Ned said. "Good to know." He paused. "Are all hot people attracted to irradiated superheroes? I need to make friends with a mad scientist."
Peter rolled his eyes and snapped two pieces together. 4,208 to go.
**
After a week, all but the two deepest gashes on Peter's chest had healed to raised red welts - causing Dr. Cho to perform a long battery of tests meant to determine his enhanced healing factor, for comparison purposes. Peter could move around pretty easily by the time Tony delivered his new suit with a flourish. It was folded inside a zip-lock bag decorated with snowmen -- the kind of bag someone's grandma might have put Christmas cookies in.
Peter looked at it, and looked at Tony, and his heart did a little flippy thing which caused him to blush. Tony smirked, like he had a magic window into Peter's innermost thoughts.
"Suit up," Tony said, "and let's get going."
The suit fit like a literal second skin; the metal-based weave was silky against his skin, and didn't catch on his wounds or chafe as he crawled around the room. When he slipped the vision-enhancing hood on, he felt like he was home. All the sensory input he had to manage on a normal day was channeled into the suit's sensors, and he was instantly sharper, more focused.
"Hello Peter," Karen said quietly in his ear, as she made all his systems available in the suit's HUD. "I'm pleased to see you're well, I've been worried about you."
"I'm great, Karen, and I've missed you!" He popped out of the access hatch on the lab level and crawled up the walls of windows to the roof. "You ready to try out the new digs?"
"Ready when you are."
"You sure you're ready for this?" Tony stood on the very edge of the roof, suited up except for his faceplate, and peered over at Peter, who was on the side of the building.
"Try to keep up," Peter answered, grinning despite the fact that Tony couldn't see it, and flung his first web. From there it was easy; he was swinging from corner to corner of the building, and then between side buildings and warehouses, hangars and watchtowers, letting instinct take over. He heard Tony lift off behind him, felt the push of air as Tony began circling, shooting down his strings.
The first one was easy; the second caught him off guard, because Tony was giving him no time at all to reconnect. A couple seconds of free-fall and he had it under control, catching the edge of a flagpole and then slinging himself back up toward the sky.
"Nice move," Tony said, firing a burst so close to Peter that his webbing singed. And so did his mask.
"Hey!" Peter catapulted himself back with a two-strand string designed for bungee-like moves. "I need the hair on my head!"
"Oh, grow up and take Rogaine like the rest of us." Tony fired two more bursts, and then he left off in favor of doing loop-de-loops around Peter as he went vertical over the top of a building. For a few minutes, they moved together around the compound, flying and swinging on parallel paths, and that joy of pure freedom flooded over Peter. This was what he loved, and Tony's tech had made it all better, from how the world looked to the calculations of tough angles his spider-senses couldn't compensate for.
They swung, and laughed, and flew, until Peter's arms began to ache. He made a small noise, and Tony pulled up short in the air, hovering near him.
"Time to call it a day," Tony said, looking back toward the main compound. "You going to be good to get back?"
Peter answered the question by swinging back the way they came. He took it easy this time though, calming down the acrobatics.
"Your heart rate is elevated and the edges of one of your wounds have separated," Karen said in a soft, reproving tone. "I recommend first aid right away."
"On it," Peter said, watching Iron Man swoop gracefully across his path.
When they both landed on the roof, Peter was breathing hard, and he stripped off his mask to a grin. Tony disengaged his face plate, and Peter thought he might never forget the look on his face - pride, and joy, and...yeah, that absolutely was NOT lust on Tony's face, nobody ever looked at Peter with lust. Especially not Tony Stark. So Peter turned his attention to the pressing matter of how his chest was splitting open. Again.
"I'm...I'm kind of..." Peter tripped the fasteners on the sleek, high-tech suit, and peeled it down to mid-chest. Sure enough, the biggest claw mark was oozing a little. He hissed when he poked at it.
"Yeah, no, stop picking at your scabs, or I'll have to put you in time-out. Time for bandaids and cocoa," Tony said. He disengaged the suit and stepped out, then slid a warm hand onto Peter's bare shoulder. "Inside, now."
From there it was basic first aid in the lab, with the little cauterizing tool Tony always kept handy. He could think of a thousand ways Tony might have needed to use that on himself, but he figured the only way to get those stories was to shut up and let himself be tended to. And he was right; once Tony had made sure the wound was sealed, he let loose with some stories. Good ones, involving crashing through the ceiling during a suit test, and renegade robots with a fire extinguisher compulsion.
"So. Aren't you overdue back at your graduate program?" Tony replaced the tool in its set, and Peter hoisted himself up on the counter. "Time to earn out on all those mechanical engineering scholarships."
Robotics had been Peter's idea; it had been the gateway to sleepless hours spent wallowing in nerd-dom with Tony. Over the last few years, with Tony's project-adjacent tutelage, Peter had worked his way through advanced aerodynamics, the basics of molecular biology Stark-style, and robotics - though to be fair, Peter had disassembled and reassembled the slightly scorched, salvaged Dum-E four or five times before they actually started on the solid robotics. Each time, he added a new set of commands, and made Dum-E resemble his name a little less.
Peter did like to show off for Tony, to earn the pride Tony had in his achievements. And to all appearances, Tony did like to watch. Mentor wasn't a role he'd ever embraced before, if Rhodes was to be believed, but Peter liked to stay in his orbit. Being smart. And annoying. And indispensable.
"Eventually. It's not like I can actually fall behind. I mean, not to be egotistical or anything, but I pretty much already know everything they're going over in my engineering and physics practicums this year, thanks to you."
"Lord knows we wouldn't want you to be egotistical, that'll never get you anywhere." Tony gave Peter a little smirk, which had the immediate impact of turning his insides to jelly.
Instead of giving that away, Peter smoothly leaned back on the counter - one arm slipping out from under him as he did so, but he recovered his balance like a pro - and asked nonchalantly, "So what else do you have to teach me?" Tony's gaze flicked down to Peter's chest, and then his abs, which Peter thought might have been involuntary, except for the context. And he was all about context. Right about then Peter blushed a deep pink from top of his head to his bare waist - he could feel it traveling - and said, "Well?"
The word startled Tony's eyes back up top, and he squared his shoulders against Peter's bravado. "What else do I have to teach you? Absolutely nothing related to nakedness," Tony answered, tugging up Peter's suit top with one hand while pretending not to look. "I'm far too fragile for this."
"Tony," Peter said, batting his hand aside. "I've been shot, stabbed, clawed, flattened by a goo-spewing alien, fallen out of the sky on a burning airplane, had a building fall on me two or three times, and been knocked out of the sky by Ant-Man. Also I've had sex. Once or twice. Okay, ten times. Maybe twelve. My point is, not a kid, really. All grown up and stuff."
"And stuff. Lord help me. Would you kindly cover your chest? JARVIS is old-fashioned."
"On the contrary, I've become quite immune to random nudity," JARVIS said. Tony glared at the ceiling.
Peter grinned. "Don't blame the AI, Mr. Stark, I'm onto you."
"Poor choice of words," Tony said. "The point here is, I am a well-known unrepentant playboy, and you're a grad student I'm responsible for, and we have work to do."
"When you got me into all this, you promised me better tech and the opportunity to do good, and also some fun," Peter sighed. "I had lots of fun the first couple years, and then it got serious. So serious. Like, all the time. I'm not complaining, but basically it's just Peter, build me this, Peter, math me that."
"That's what apprentices are for, young Jedi. To write, I don't know, treatises on the propensity of radioactive spiders to bite obnoxious high schoolers with hot aunts."
"Oh, so my aunt is hot, and I'm not hot?"
"Didn't say that," Tony said, shifting his feet around to avoid the quicksand that appeared to be opening up underneath him. "Let's face it, you're barely into your twenties and I'm...not."
"Still hot, though," Peter said, in yet another example of how his brain had disconnected from his body when he hit the second building on his way to bleed out at the Tower. But it was too late to backtrack now. He took a deep breath and met Tony's eyes, where he found amusement, but also more of that hard-to-define thing that meant Tony was listening to him. "I get that you're trying to make a big deal about how young I am. All the jokes, whatever. Okay, I'm young. But I've also done things most people my age could never understand, and we have that in common. And I know what I want, Tony. I've known for a long time, and now I'm ready to do something about it." He held Tony's gaze. "Are you?"
Tony backed up a few steps, eyes on Peter the entire time, and walked around the counter, headed straight for the expensive whiskey on the back table - which Peter had tried once. After he cauterized the part of his throat that had been burned out, he never tried it again. Tony poured himself a glass and took it to the window, putting his back to Peter. His body was a tense silhouette against the sky.
"I look at this compound, at the city, at the world, and I think, I can never make it all safe," Tony said. "And I think the same thing about you. You're not safe with me. On any level."
Peter hopped down from the counter, but kept his distance as he pointed out, "It's not your job to make me safe, though. You and me, we do what we do because we have to. And because we love it." He paused. "Unless you are talking about keeping yourself safe from me, which, that's kind of dumb, I think the damage is already done. You don't see me as a kid anymore, admit it."
Tony gave Peter the barest ghost of a smile, but it was the wrong kind of smile - sad - and sipped his drink. "And that right there proves how young you are. I mean, since we're speaking in metaphors, there's a whole thing about protection I was going to go into, but-"
"I don't need protecting anymore," Peter said, "but sometimes I think maybe you do."
"Okay, no, this is going downhill quickly," Tony said. He drained the glass and set it down, then turned to face Peter. "Talking ends badly, that's why I avoid it at all costs. But so does what you want to get into with me, Peter, and believe me, it's not like I haven't tried to make myself into a person where that isn't true."
"Right, but see, that's the thing," Peter said. "You're in dire need of a happiness upgrade. Systemic, top to bottom - 100 point restoration." He stepped into Tony's space, hoping like hell he wasn't going to get shoved away, and said, "I might have some ideas about what that looks like."
"This is the worst idea ever," Tony said softly.
"Maybe," Peter answered. "But you're talking to the guy who leapt off a building for the first time before he'd tested the weight-pull of his webbing, so take that for what it's worth."
All of a sudden, Tony's mouth covered his own, and - yeah, wow, that was a kiss, and it was an excellent kiss at that, soft and well-practiced, the taste of whiskey and salt, holy shit. So much sensory input flooded in at once - the sweat-soap-metal smell of Tony's skin, and the way Peter could sense the variable pressure of his hands on Peter's body, and the blood rushing through both their veins to their pounding hearts. He gasped, and Tony deepened the kiss.
And then he pulled back, and with one hand, gently pushed Peter away - not far, not even a full arm's length away. Breathing space, was all.
"I had a whole thing I was going to do," Peter said, barely able to look away from Tony's lips. "A whole seduction thing. I had plans. Stuff to build for you. I was going to wear a suit."
"Not that I don't appreciate the effort, but I'm an easy get. Apparently."
"Then what's-"
"One of us should be the mature adult here, and as we are both aware, that is rarely me. As Rhodey so bluntly reminded me."
So that's what was causing the hesitation. Peter had never thought of Tony as being a conscience-stricken kind of guy where getting laid was concerned, but he was starting to realize this was more complicated than he'd thought where the two of them were concerned. Tony had always had a moral compass, and he was actually paying attention to it - or to Rhodey's reading of it. So Peter went straight to the important point. "He thinks I'm good for you."
"True. But he doesn't think I'm good for you. A subtle but important distinction."
Peter pulled together his courage, which he'd been saving up for this moment, and stepped back in close to Tony, closing the distance. "Only I get to decide what's good for me. You're...really good for me. Really. Really good."
Tony's hands were on his hips; small shivers chased up and down Peter's spine. "This part is not in the mentoring job description, Parker," Tony said softly, his lips brushing Peter's ear.
"Kind of outgrown the mentoring thing. Ready to move on," Peter said, lifting his face defiantly. The moment he met Tony's eyes, he could see the barriers crashing down, and then Tony kissed him again, not gentle and not subtle. It was the hottest thing that had ever happened to Peter, and it felt...right. Exactly right, in the same scary ways that swinging from the tops of tall buildings felt right. There was freedom in the way Tony touched him.
In for a penny, in for a pound; Peter put his hands on Tony's shoulders and hitched his legs around Tony's waist, and Tony chuckled as he got his hands under Peter's ass.
"Okay, if I'm taking this seriously, the spiderpants have to go," Tony said, as Peter chased his mouth for another kiss.
"They are very expensive spiderpants, and they were a gift from my rich and mysterious benefactor."
"One, there hasn't been any mystery left about me since, oh, ever, and two, holy shit Parker what are you-"
"Please stop talking," Peter said, his hand firmly pressed against Tony's dick in a way that left no doubt about his intentions. Tony took two steps forward and deposited Peter on the edge of the counter, then stepped back, putting him and his dick just out of Peter's reach.
"Nope. We are taking this slow. As in, glacial. Ice age. As in, I am not going to be murdered in my sleep by your pissed-off aunt when she finds out I debauched her golden and perfect super-nephew. We need strategy. A plan."
"Uh, I thought you understood that some things were for telling Aunt May, and some things were definitely not for telling. Not. Like, ever. I mean, I would have kept the secret about the spider senses forever, it was an accident that she found out, but whatever -- and no telling about...this. Thing. Here." Peter gestured between them, eyebrows raised.
"Secrets are not conducive to a healthy relationship," Tony said, and then rolled his eyes back in his head so hard, Peter was afraid there might be brain damage. "My god I sound like fucking Rogers, I do not ever want to sound like that spangly pillar of righteousness."
"Then stop talking," Peter said, and pushed off the counter to tackle Tony - gently - onto the couch. When he had Tony sprawled out on the plush fabric, and was straddling his legs, he planted his hands on Tony's chest. Tony looked up at him, fond and annoyed, and that was it, Peter's heart did the little flippy thing, and he leaned in once more. This time, Tony's hands slid up his back, holding him close, and the kiss was just as excellent as the first two - maybe with more tongue, and a little more moaning.
When he reached for Tony's belt, Tony caught his hands and held them. "You need to be clear on what you're getting into," he said, thumb roving gently over Peter's knuckles. "I like you, Parker. Enough to not want to screw you up."
Or screw himself up, maybe. Peter didn't think it was crazy to believe Tony had been hurt a lot, and that was a weird thought, that he could be responsible for making sure that didn't happen with him. He turned his hand and clasped Tony's wrist.
"I'm not looking for anything from you," Peter said haltingly. "I know you, Tony. I get it. I just...like you too. Can't I just like you?"
"It's a start," Tony said. "But there are behaviors. Mine, to be clear. Because eventually we're going to sleep together..." He broke off there when Peter shivered, and pressed a hand to Peter's back, and a second later Peter was on his back on the couch, and Tony was hovering over him, giving him a hot dark look which made his spine melt a little, and the pain in his chest fade. "Yeah, we are definitely going to sleep together; I have almost no resolve to fall back on at this point in life. And then there'll be a moment where I'm going to fight the old pattern, and I might screw it up."
"What pattern?" Peter asked, trying and failing to get close enough to steal a kiss. Tony was a warm, wiry weight on top of him, and it was awesome.
"That pattern where after the deed is done, you go to sleep and I go off to tinker in some place far from where you are, and JARVIS politely asks you to leave when you wake up, and you wander off with unfulfilled longing for what you can never have."
"I already have it," Peter said. "Pretty sure I'll have it when we're done with whatever we're going to do, too."
Tony sighed; a moment later when Tony kissed him, he was sort of smiling, too. And that meant everything; that meant it wasn't just him, and even if he said or did something dumb and awkward and immature from that point forward - which was pretty much a given - he was going to get to see Tony smiling like that a lot. At him.
It was going to be worth it, no matter how long it lasted. This could all be good for Tony; Peter was going to make sure of it.
"But listen," Tony said. "Glacial pace, I mean it. Which means, not while you're healing. And don't get fussy when I disappear on you. I have work to do, and I don't know what this means yet. This is...this is going to take some adjustment."
"I have the codes to the lab," Peter said, "I know where to find you," and then he laughed, because Tony was rolling his eyes and kissing him at the same time, and oh, yeah. Best thing to happen to him since the day he decided to be Spider-Man. Maybe even better than swinging around the city.
Maybe. He'd need more points of comparison before deciding.
They went on like that for a while, Tony pressing into him, taking his mouth for more kisses, until most thoughts had fled from Peter's head. Then Tony sat back - reluctantly, Peter thought, since he could feel Tony's heart racing beneath his hands, and it was pretty great to know that was because of this - and put both feet on the ground. He rested his elbows on his knees and laced his fingers together, and took a deep breath.
"We are going to take a break, and I'm going to think about this," Tony said.
Peter sat up fast. "No, don't - don't think, why-"
"Because with age comes the luxury of deliberation," Tony answered. "I have the age, so I'm embracing it. And you need to rest and call your aunt, it's been a taxing day."
Peter swung his feet over and sat up, too, and nudged his shoulder into Tony's. "Nice touch, bringing up May at a time like this."
"You think so? I thought so." Tony leaned in for one more lingering kiss. "Go to it. Let me do my thing. I'll see you in the morning."
"All right." Peter got to his feet, a little unsteady, but aware of Tony's eyes on him. If Tony felt even a tenth of the giddy thing that was happening in Peter's belly, it was going to be okay, he was sure.
The completed Old Avengers Tower model was still on the floor of his quarters, with Iron Legion figures stuck to its sides. He smiled, picked up his phone, and texted Ned:
u agreed it really wouldn't be that weird right?
The answer was immediate: OMG ARE YOU BONING IRON MAN
Could be
The resulting flood of unicorn and flying heart stickers made Peter snort with laughter. He opened contacts and called May.
"Peter! It's so good to hear your voice! How is the project with Tony coming along?" She paused and added proudly, "You know he really can't get along without you, he said so himself."
"Did he?" Peter flopped back on the bed, a goofy grin on his face. "Wow."
This was going to be awesome.