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Chapter Text

He sat on the right side of the auditorium. The view was horrible and he had to scoot up to the very edge of his seat for a chance to see just something. Anything at all. He peeked through the gap between two giant seniors right in front of him.

"Do you think it's only her or is Tony Stark gonna show up too?" Ned didn't so much whisper as shout into his ear to be heard over the sound system.

Just a second later something hit him in the head. Urgh. It didn't hurt all that much, probably just the school paper, but this was uncalled for. He turned and scowled into the row behind him, trying to figure out which asshole had made his head ring. That just earned him another swat with the paper.

"Hey!" he hissed but sobered immediately as he looked into MJ's emotionless face. "I didn't even..." Another swat.

"URGH!" he turned back around. Focus. Pepper Potts was right down there, speaking on the importance of STEM education in furthering social mobility and he'd actually wanted to listen to this. Stark Industries wanted to assist schools to put more of a focus on Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. That would make them one of the leading supporters of public schools in the industry.

"In addition to the financial support, Stark Industries will be offering new and advanced equipment to the schools that are willing to expand their STEM courses."

Holy shit... Peter could already picture the state of the art laboratories they could install in the school and the things he could work on there. A whole new set of possibilities would open up to him with access to that kind of technology. But Ms. Potts wasn't done.

"We will be offering individual internships to the brightest and most striving students among you. There is no set limit to the number of interns we will accept."

A murmur went through the students. An internship with SI would pimp anyone's college application. And knowing Tony Stark, there might even be some money in it. He was notorious about despising unpaid work. Even with those giants in front of him, Peter could sense Ms. Potts smirking. Could be that her reaction was simply that obvious, even from his vantage point. More likely, it was his Spidey-senses picking up her expression from this far off. 

"Let me add though, that Tony Stark will personally be approving interns that his team wants to take on." She laughed at the sudden silence that fell in the room. "Yeah, you better make those applications count."

He sighed. Dang. Those internships sounded like a sweet, sweet deal. But he couldn't risk to bring his Spidey skillz anywhere near Stark Industries. Someone there might figure out that he... Nope. Was not gonna happen.

After a short goodbye, Ms. Potts left the stage. Peter jumped up immediately, bit a short "Bye!" to Ned and literally ran for the door. He had left his web fluid in the lab when they were hoarded out of their classes for the "special presentation".  That had been a close call. He definitely had to retrieve the evidence and his equipment. Luckily, his had been one of the last classes that had been lead into the auditorium. Sure, sitting this far in the back of the room had sucked, but at least it left him with the possibility of a quick exit.

The lab was on the other side of the building. He wasn't really supposed to be going towards the labs at this time of day. Getting caught and thrown out by some wandering teacher would have been incredibly inconvenient so he hurried along as quietly as possible. Classes were dismissed for the day and most of the students were on their way to the main entrance on the opposite side of the building. All in all, he was unlikely to be seen, but Peter was always on the lookout.

Once he got to the room, he grabbed his stuff, fastened the web shooters and with nobody around on this side of the school he simply slipped out of the window on the second floor. Jumping the southern wall on that very side of the school was the fastest way to get home. He would avoid having to walk all the way back to the main entrance, possibly running into Flash on the way, and he didn't have to circle back around half the school building to get to the street leading home. Really a win-win in every way.

The tricky part was getting over the southern wall without being seen. He groaned because he was an idiot. The mask was back at home with his suit. He had left it there on purpose trying to discourage himself from too much Spider-Man-ing too close to the school, where people could identify him. It had seemed like a great idea at the time. Of course, the irony of him being far more likely to be recognized shooting webs and jumping walls in plain daylight right at the edge of his school without his mask, struck him with the force of a cartoon anvil now.

Whatever. He quickly shot a glance over his shoulder. He was not gonna walk all the way back around the school now, so here went nothing. Juvenility gave him wings as he sprinted towards the wall and jumped high only to have his Spidey-senses spike up. He came to a full stop on top of the wall and cursed under his breath. Of course, he had jumped right into the beginning of a crime scene that was basically made for Spidey. Two sketchy looking dudes creeping up on a woman on the other side of the wall, not far from where he was clinging to the top of the wall. Her back was turned to him, so were the backs of the sketchy dudes. She was on the phone, not paying attention to the particular alleyway, she had wandered into. And he didn't bring the damn suit. Urgh. But what was he gonna do? As the creeps crept closer there really was only one choice: he had to help!

He double-checked his web shooters, swinging over to the building opposite the wall behind the backs of the creeps. He was careful to keep enough distance to them so he would stay out of clear sight. The danger of being identified was real. But the closer he was the better his aim. He really needed to put some long-distance target practice on the calendar. He was in position when the lady turned. The creeps charged right at her. But she didn't scream. That's what they usually did. She just stood there, letting her shoulders drop like she couldn't believe this was actually happening right now.

Lucky for the lady though, the creeps were not as close as they had probably hoped to be when jumping her. Peter had ample time to jump over to the next building, shoot a couple of webs at them that left them stuck to the wall and then ducked into the afternoon shade of the building top. The lady glanced up in his direction, surprised and still unmoving, but she shouldn't be able to see him up there in the shade. As a car pulled up right next to her, she still stood her ground looking up right at him. Uh-oh... Maybe he had been less inconspicuous than he thought? He stepped back further into the shadow but then she opened the door of the car which carried her off towards Manhattan.

##

It was 7:00 pm on a Thursday. One of Tony Stark's prime working hours. The prime working hours that were not to be disturbed. By no one. His prime working hours had been the main reasons he had missed hundreds of dinner dates in the past. Had just gotten too caught up in his lab. Uncountable times the minutes had just ticked by and next time he checked it had been 9 pm already. This was supposed to be his time. So, when his phone rang, he jumped. FRIDAY permitting a call to ring out on his phone at this time?

"Yes?" He called out to the room, trusting FRIDAY to put the call on speaker.

"It's Happy."

"What's wrong?"

"I...I'm sorry."

With a loud clang, the wirecutter he had been holding came to rest on the work desk.

"What for? What happened?"

A short impulse on his watch was enough to call the suit to form around him at once.

"Where are you?"

"Ok, calm down. Everything is fine now. I just couldn't call before."

"You fucking kidding me? Don't call me before 8 pm for things that can wait." He let the suit retract itself and picked the wirecutter back up.

"It's about Pepper."

Tony froze. God, he was glad this wasn't a video call cause his face had just flinched to an extent that would have been hard to explain to Happy. He tried to keep his voice as passive as possible.

"What about her?"

"She...listen, I told her to stay put and I would come and get her, but she wandered off to meet me and I just...all these moms in Volvos were blocking the main and the side entrance. They weren't even supposed to be there because school really wasn't even supposed to be out for another 20 minutes, but I just couldn't-"

"Happy. OH my god. Just tell me what the fuck happened." His heart was beating in his throat, his anxiety threatened to be overtaken annoyance. Why was he calling now?!

"Two dudes tried to attack Pepper and -"

"Wait, what??"

"Tony, I took every precaution but the exits were just jammed and then Pepper refused to wait, cause the students were starting to storm out of the auditorium and-"

"Are you telling me right now, that my head of security was incapable of picking up my CEO at a high school without her being attacked by random men?"

"She just didn't wait for me! She headed for the other side of the school and I couldn't turn around-"

"My god, Happy, where the fuck is this school? South LA? Watts? Is she ok?"

"Em. No. I mean, yes. She's fine. We - erm. No, we're not in LA, I picked her up at a STEM school in Queens."

A cold shiver ran down Tony's spine. "Of course you're in Queen. I - hem - I knew that." He facepalmed and walked over to his couch, fell into the cushions and pressed one of the pillows over his face to let out a frustrated moan.

"Tony, there's more... I didn't stop them. I got there and the two dudes were literally sticking to the wall. Pepper told me someone shot some kind of sticky web stuff towards them when they came for her. She is... I think she suspects that you have something to do with this. We're on the way to the Compound."

"Someone shot some kind of sticky web stuff at the dudes attacking her?"

"Yeah, we just left them there actually, stuck to the wall after I called the cops."

"And she thinks, that was me?"

"Uh-huh."

"Well. Fuck."

Chapter Text

Tony had abandoned the lab. If he was going to get a talking-to from Pepper today, he definitely needed some nourishment. The common room kitchen would do, there should be some Chinese food in the fridge that he had left there last night - or sometime in the morning. When he walked in the TV was blaring. Maybe he’d just be in luck and it would drown out any clattering from his kitchen stopover. Clint had been bombarding him with emails about adjustments to his bow all week. Chances were - if spotted - Tony might not get out of there without a detailed presentation on precisely which bow feature from which umpteenth bow version Hawkeye wanted to add to the newest model that he really needed ASAP as if he'd be likely to just get killed while on mission without it. Like he wasn't retired or something.

Where the hell did all the food go?

"Urgh!" he muttered under his breath. His chinese from last night was gone and everything left that didn't require at least 40 minutes of food preparation, cleaning, slicing and actually cooking things was some super healthy looking vegetable(?) fry thingy. Probably another one of Visions food projects, that Tony was not touching with a 10-foot pole. He was ordered to get rid of the fridge in his lab after Rogers decided that meals were to be eaten together as it was part of the team-building experience. Maybe he could just have FRIDAY disguise a small fridge as some kind of computer-like looking thingy with lots of cables coming out of it, that Steve was never going to want to touch anyway. Really the only sensible choice left at this point, if he didn't want to be stuck having to order new take out every night. Especially at this time of the day. He was starving and urgh, people. Just no.

Worst case scenario was Rogers bashing the shit out of his fridge decoy because he'd suspect Tony was working on another Super Bot. He probably should just have FRIDAY order something every night. He'd have food and the gang would be less of a pain in the ass about him "actively" avoiding team-building-hour by installing his own fridge, just cause he wanted to have something around, he'd actually want to eat.

"FRI, chicken fried rice. Add some egg rolls. Whoever can be here fast. And make that a daily task," he muttered.

"Boss, a standing daily takeout order is incompatible with the health program implemented by Miss Potts in October 20-." FRIDAY's voice was echoing through the common area.

"Override." Tony interrupted her "And for fuck's sake SHUUUSH!"

Too late though, Barton was already whooping at the sight of him, crawled over the back of the couch like a long-lost friend had just shown up out of the blue.

Well, wasn't that just great.

"Boss, by your instructions from April 2013 given to JARVIS and re-implemented in my coding on May 2nd, 2015 overriding Miss Potts' health program will result in a shut down of the lab and your offices at the Compound and the Tower for 10 days. The override attempt will also be cataloged and forwarded to Miss Potts."

"Oh, you gotta be kidding me. Just order it for right now then!" He’d have to check for a backdoor in the coding that he was pretty sure he'd left open.

"Food is on the way, Boss."

Tony turned back around to the fridge and grabbed himself a beer. A lager might make what he assumed the next hour would look like a bit more bearable.

"You know, we already ate." Clint chuckled when he approached the kitchen counter "Pepper is running quite a tight ship around here, huh?"

"Clint." Tony gave a curt nod. "Isn't your wife missing you by any chance?"

"Hey, don't be so testy." He clapped Tony on the shoulder. "I really just dropped by to say hi to everyone and see how the team was getting on without me. Received the email I send you?"

"Which one...?" Tony muttered.

Clint didn't even seem to register that Tony had said anything and just kept blabbering on about the seams on his bow's handgrip and how the different angles they had experimented with attaching it in the past had affected his perfect hitting accuracy.

"Listen, Clint, why don't you drop by some time next week and we can look at... all this in the lab. Today is really not a great time." Tony interrupted.

"Oh come on. I'm here, you're here. Let's just sort it out now and I can take a new baby home tomorrow and everyone can happily cross off something from their to-do list."

Tony swallowed his annoyance. He shot a short glance over to the sofa. Rogers was watching their exchange. Duh. He really, really could do without the Captain’s latest team unity speech. And Pepper was on the way. Urgh, what was it with these people and their lectures? Speaking of the devil. The familiar click-clack of her heels coming down the hallway was echoing in the kitchen.

"Boss, Miss Potts is here to see you."

"Peppeeer..." Clint greeted her then turned back to Tony and shrugged. "Fine, I'll drop by the lab in the morning."

"Clint. Aren't you supposed to be at some undisclosed location having dinner with your family?"

"Oh, I think I'm getting on their nerves already," he laughed.

Pepper raised her eyebrows at that and turned to Tony. "Daily Chinese orders? I have FRIDAY stack this fridge with Prime Rib Eye and every organically farmed kind of vegetable you eat basically daily and you want to get a recurring order of chicken fried rice and egg rolls EVERY night?" She frowned at him. "Are you trying to deflect from stalking me earlier today?"

Tony gave her a look. "Please, if I'd be stalking you, you'd never even know."

"Great. So, you recruited someone? You need someone better."

"I'm not having you followed. This is really insulting, Potts. I'd have thought you have a higher opinion of my stealth mode."

"What's going on? Are you guys fighting?" Rogers chimed in from the couch. Tony rolled his eyes. He really didn’t need Cap to butt in on this.

"We're fine, get back to your cream cake. You don't want to mess up that pastry or the whole thing will just collapse. You know structural integrity and stuff," he hollered across the room. In a lower voice, he added. "Potts, let's take this to the lab, yes?"

Clint kept looking back and forth between Pepper and Tony, smirking: "You are fighting. What's going on? Did he miss the dinner res again?"

Pepper studied Tony for a moment. His hands were starting to sweat and he didn’t really know what he usually did with his hands anymore, so he used both of them to hold onto his beer. She pursed her lips and turned to Barton: "So, you just happen to be in town today, huh? Did you add any web-slinging projectiles to your quiver lately? Picked up some freelancing work?"

Clint flinched back from the counter.

Ha! That’s what you got from budding in where nobody invited you!

Tony just about managed to suppress a smirk. Falling on Pepper's bad side was a bad bad idea. "What? No! I don't do webs!" He pushed himself off the counter and strolled over to the other Avengers. "I like my explosions. Sticky stuff just clogs up my quiver." He turned back around towards her. "I assume it does. I wouldn't know of course, since I don't do sticky stuff!" He spun back towards his mates his eyes wide, mouthing a silent scream that had Wanda snickering in the back. Suddenly though he came to a halt and turned around to face Pepper again.

"Hold on, sticky web stuff?" he said all of a sudden getting back into this discussion again. "Did this by any chance include a dude swinging on said webs? Where were you when you saw the sticky stuff?"

Tony cut in, "Barton, you know what this is?"

Pepper had her arms crossed, high-heel tapping on the tiled floor.

"It's probably the Spider-dude!" Clint turned to Tony, eyes wide. Was this supposed to mean something to him? "People have been posting videos on youtube of this dude swinging around on these liana-like looking white strings and roping up pickpockets and car thieves. Cooper actually asked me if he was one of us, but it looks more like a neighborhood watch situation. Quite entertaining. It's like someone set Tarzan loose in Queens."

"Oh, I've seen those!" Sam called out from the other end of the room. He pulled out his phone and walked up to Tony and Pepper. "Hold on, I'll just google "spider dude" and here..." he handed the phone over to Pepper.

Tony had his eyes on her but kept his distance until she handed him the phone. The video quality was abysmal but Tony could make out a little red dude swinging down from the top of a building going after a hooded figure. It looked like he fired an actual gigantic spider web towards the guy running down the street, which made him stick to the building.

"Huh."

"And you're telling me this is the first time you've seen this?" Pepper asked, eyebrows raised.

"Potts, I'm telling you, I have nothing to do with this!"

It was starting to get insulting. They might not be on the best terms right now, but he wasn't in the habit of lying to her. Occasionally stretching the truth by keeping a couple of details from her, yeah. No outright lies though.

"FRIDAY does Mr. Stark keep any files on a web-slinging crime-fighting Spider person?"

"Are you for real?"

"I have no record of a web-slinging, crime-fighting Spider person, Ma'am."

Tony just gave her a look, tossed the phone on the counter and made his way down to the lab.

Her heels echoed down the corridor. She was close behind him. At least she was reasonable enough not to speak right now. Not until it was just them. He’d have a hard time keeping his frustration bottled up until they reached the lab if she tried to justify her distrust right here.

The door closed behind them. His beer still in hand he considered just flinging himself down on the couch to watch her try to justify what she had just accused him of. He could just stare her down from down there until she did apologize. It was a rather unusual occurrence that Pepper would be the one making excuses to him. He had a much more impressive track record of pissing her off by not making date night or blowing something up that she had wanted to remain intact. But they were not in that place right now, where some softly whispered promises of betterment and light intimate touches would charm forgiveness out of the other one. Fighting with Pepper now was not going to end in hugs and kisses. So he put down his beer, turned towards her and held himself tall and straight, arms crossed, to weather what was about to go down between them.

"You didn't even tell them that we have broken up?"

"Really Potts, that's the part you want to focus on right now?"

"Yeah, it is! What are you trying to do here? I said I'd give you space to tell them on your own terms after you hadn't even told Rhodey!"

"I was going to tell him! This is just not the kind of news I wanted to discuss on the phone!"

"So I'm just supposed to not talk to him until your schedules line up again?"

"He's my friend, Potts. You have no right to take him!"

"Oh... my god, I'm not taking him. I've known Rhodey for... you know what. No. I'm not doing this!" She stared at him.

"Fine by me. How about we get straight to the part where you apologize to me for accusing me of STALKING you!" he spat back at her.

She narrowed her eyes and his pulse quickening from a mixure of annoyance and glee.

Oh, she just hated being wrong. But that victorious grin that was trying to work its way onto his lips might get him in trouble.

"You really want to stick to this story?"

"I will absolutely be sticking to the truth if that's what you mean by 'story'", he glared.

"So there just happened to by a crime-fighting Spider loose in Queens at the same time a couple of dudes came around the corner to steal my purse or something? You really want me to believe that?"

"For fuck's sake, Potts! I didn't even know you were on the East Coast, let alone in Queens! Of all the places Queens is really one of the last ones I'd go looking for you. If I had orchestrated anything, it would have been in LA!"

She looked him up and down, frowning. Her expression softened. She turned her back then, arms slack on her sides. For a moment he thought she might just leave until he heard her voice all soft and warm again.

"You really thought I wouldn't check up on you today, Tony?"

"I… no." He cleared his throat, shaking his head. What… were they still talking about the same thing? "No, I didn't… I didn't expect you to be here at all." He let out a sigh. "Honestly, Potts, I didn't know you're even in town. I…" he closed his eyes for a second. He needed to not say too much here. But… but it was still Pepper. "If I'd known… maybe… maybe I'd have been tempted to check up on you." He rolled his eyes when she turned back to him, her eyebrows raised. "Fine. Yeah, I probably would have checked up on you. Not by proxy though. I'd never send a web-shooting weirdo after you."

She gave a small chuckle before getting awfully quiet. "I'm sorry." There. She said it.There it was, his victory over Pepper Potts. A bitter-sweet win. A few months ago this would have felt great. He’d relished in this moment. But now. Well.

He looked right at her, took in the dark circles under her eyes, her hunched shoulders. A cross-country flight and a long day exuding CEO charisma to who knows how many random people would do that to anyone, even Pepper Potts. Not the only long day this month surely.

"You shouldn't have come all this way. I'm fine."

"No, you're not." Her response came quick and soft.

"Even if I wasn't. You said it yourself. We're broken up, Potts. You're not my… my girlfriend. And you haven't been my PA in years. This is not your mess to deal with anymore."

She let that sink in for a moment. "Fine. You don't 'need me'" she air-quoted, wariness swinging in her voice.

He clenched his jaw when her eyes bore into his. She stepped towards him, her hands first hovering over him then slowly tracing down his arms. Her right finding its way to lie flat against his chest, her left softly caressing his fingers edging him on, coaxing his fingers to curl around hers.

"Don't!" he whispered.

But she leaned in closer. Her breath brushed his neck, her eyes on his face and his mind and body wanted nothing more than to lean into her, hold her against him and forget that whole messy shit show that was his life right now. His life without Pepper.

"What if I needed to see you today, just to—"

"No." His voice came out low and a lot sharper than he had thought his throat capable of while standing so close to her. "No, Pepper. You don't get to do this." He was still frozen, his eyes trying to find hers. What was she doing? Why would she...

She was looking right at him and raised her hands to cup his face. No. Too much. He took several steps back, glaring at her.

"What the fuck, Pepper?!"

For a moment her legs almost looked like they were moving, but she stayed frozen in place, her hands still raised, her face expressionless, unmoving.

"Are you seriously saying no to sex right now? Have I lost my edge?" Her voice took on a very un-Pepper-like nonchalance and Tony just stared at her, stunned.

Her arms dropped down to her side and-

Oh… Oh… my god.

"It's a little insulting that you think sleeping with me is going to make me forget about Aiden."

"I wasn't going for making you forget ..." she responded dryly.

"Ok, scratch that. Very, very insulting!" His pulse was back up, his temper rising.

She took his beer off the table, drank a couple of sips and turned back to him, eyes staring right at him.

"I've only known two faces of Tony Stark on February 25th since 2005. Black out drunk Tony, who will have to be tracked down and then carried home from some VIP party extravaganza, or sexed out Tony, who will be falling asleep in bed next to me after a different kind of night-long overexertion. I'm not going back to searching the clubs for you."

He stared at her open-mouthed. "So what, your master plan is having sex with me once a year to get me over my son's disappearance?"

She shrugged. "It's illegal to hire someone to do it."

"Wow. Very edgy, Potts." She was baiting him. Holy shit, she was trying to get a rise out of him - emotionally as well as physically it seemed.

"Nope. Not doing this. You will leave." He pointed towards the door.

She just stood there, looking at him. He wasn’t going to cave. He wasn’t. He couldn’t. It was wrong. It was wrong, right? Urgh.

"Now, Potts! Get the fuck out!"

Pepper kept looking at him for another moment before she let her head fall, chin resting on her chest and closed her eyes. Oh… no.

"Maybe... maybe you really don't need the company tonight. Maybe I don't know you as well as I thought I did after all..." she whispered. She took a little step towards him, just a small one. "But I need you, Tony. Tonight. Please."
Tears fell down her lashes onto her blouse. This… this was serious. She… she meant this. There was truth in this. She wouldn’t lie. Not when it came to Aiden. Seeing her like that, his pulse picked up, painfully and fast. She just stood there, waiting. But he couldn't open this door again. He wouldn't.

"I can't," he said firmly and took another couple of steps backing away from her. "I won't."

Distance. Physical distance was the key. It's what they said, right? Seeing things from a different vantage point made you realize a different truth. Whatever genuine heartache Pepper still carried about the disappearance of his son on his second birthday, this stunt was supposed to be for his benefit much more than it was for hers.

"I know you're lying, Potts. I'm sure you think of him and you..." he cleared his throat " I'd never... never accuse you of not missing him. I know you're trying to do something fucking noble here, but I'm not your charity case. You don't get to pick me up and cuddle me once a year like a lost toy you just remembered you once owned."

The emotions seeping out of her now left him cold. "Go back to LA, Potts."

A quick tap on his watch and his suit was assembling around him.

Chapter Text

Peter was sitting in one of his regular spots, up on top of a building a couple of blocks from his Aunt's apartment looking out into the dark streets of Queens. His legs dangled over the edge of the building. It had been a quiet night. His suit-less pursuit on his way home from school had really been the most exciting part of the day. The whole week really. And hanging out on top of a building in late February with only his suit and not much action made the cold creep into his bones. He kept rubbing his hands together and flexed his legs to keep his muscles somewhat warm. Maybe he should be proud. Maybe his crime-fighting was actually having an effect on his borough. Well, it was also a possibility that the thieves simply avoided the blocks he had been hanging out at most frequently. He should probably change up his routine a bit. He let out a deep breath. He did love that spot in particular though. The view from up there down the streets toward Manhattan was just stunning.

Manhattan. If crime in Queens was slow he could always expand his territory a bit. Why should only Queens benefit from his mad skillz? There had to be quite a few muggers strolling through Manhattan, picking tourists' pockets and locals' alike. And let's be honest, many New York City tourists were clueless and reckless, too obvious in their ignorance and too blinded by all the shiny neon signs to keep track of their belongings. And the dimmest among them were walking around craning their necks at all the skyscrapers all over Manhattan. Time Square must be a gold mine for pickpockets with all those people pushed up close against each other staring up into the sky. To be swinging among those shiny billboards... Well, one day. A boy still had to have dreams. He chuckled at his owns thoughts.

Tonight was about Queens though and with that, he cast his glance down from the shiny skyscrapers in the distance back to his neighborhood streets. There had to be someone who was up to no good.

"Come on, criminals..." he mumbled.

He really needed to move or he'd be freeze to the edge of this building. He had brought a canteen with hot tea, but at this point, the winter weather was creeping into his bones.

Bingo!

Someone was looking suspiciously careful up and down the street while his wool-capped buddy disappeared in an alleyway just behind him. Peter made his way closer to the scene, jumped from one rooftop to the next. He was hiding in the shadow of the night. The dudes were operating on the opposite side of the street though. The creeping around that back ally did look like they were his kind of criminals, but they technically hadn't demonstrated any outright illegal behavior. He had to get to the other side of the street for a closer look. While he was getting the hang of this and the tell-tale signs were very clear, he had made a couple of embarrassing misjudgments. He might have webbed up the occasional hipster dude to his car only realizing too late that the dude had simply locked his keys inside his own car. So he had turned down the profiling and focused a bit more on observing continuous suspicious behavior before jumping into action.

He waited for Scout-Dude to turn and look back into the alley towards Wool Cap to cast his web. Swinging himself to the other side of the street was the trickiest part. If they saw him, the game was up. If he would startle folks who were just passing by or happened to look out of their window, well, same thing. He kept himself low on the rooftop after he stuck the landing on the other side. He felt out the vibe of the street and listened for any rushed movements or hushed voices that would tell him that he'd been discovered. He'd been way too indiscreet in the past. Sure, there wasn't really a way to stop a car slamming into a school bus discreetly... but the videos of Spider-Man people were posting on the internet were piling up. It was getting out of hand. He actually created a couple dozen youtube profiles just so he could comment on some of the videos pointing out "obvious errors" and the "sloppy animation" that proved that "the Spider-Man was totally fake". He would rather want to stay a myth and work in the shadows. Creeping up on criminals was so much harder when you had a cheering fan base all over Queens.

He was crouched down on the roof and slowly leaned over the edge of the building. The alleyway was right underneath him and there was Wool Cap hard at work.

Well, was this him trying to pop out the window frame or was he just trying to be a helpful neighbor cleaning off all these spider webs with that crowbar of his?

"Ok, this one is being pretty obvious about his intentions..." Peter muttered to himself. Wool-Cap had managed to pop one side of the windows out of its frame when Peter made his move. He shot a web, ripping the crowbar out of his hand. By the time Wool Cap looked up, a second web was already flying in his direction, pinned him to the ground and muffled his surprised yelp. Peter was fast to make his way down the wall into the alley.

"It's really bad manners not to use the door, buddy!"

His feet planted firmly on the ground, he waited for Scout-Dude to lean back into the alley's opening to see what the kerfuffle was about.

"Hi, there!" Peter's web hit him squarely in the chest. "So nice of you to join us..." He pulled Scout-Dude towards him and immobilized him on the ground right next to Wool Cap.

"Ha, well. That wasn't so hard was it." He chuckled, with both incapacitated burglars lying at his feet. Now what? "No one is going to find you all the way down here though, huh? But we don't want you to freeze solid..." An incomprehensible muffle came from the two wannabe thieves.

He clapped his hands together. "Ok, let me think... I could just drag you there, but that wouldn't be very kind, would it? Well, neither was trying to pop open that window frame, eh?" He gave them the wink and the gun. Wool-Cap and Scout-Dude just looked at him, eyes wide open and stunned not just by Peter's web muzzle. He tapped his foot. "Man, tough crowd today."

He looked back towards the street, then back up to the rooftop.

"I guess, I could just web-burrito you up and then roll you...?" he mused.

In the end, he decided for the kinder alternative after he had rolled them up nicely in a web-wrap, he just flung first Scout-Dude over his shoulder and carried him over to the main street. By the time he had picked up Wool Cap and returned to the ally opening, Scout-Dude had already rolled himself over to the sidewalk. Peter popped Wool-Cap against the building. He had left a handwritten note saying "I'm a burglar. Please call the cops so they can pick me up. You can find my crowbar and the broken window down the alley on the left." on Scout-Dude and would just have to trust that the bypassing pedestrians would follow the instructions and call the cops. With three strong jumps along the wall, he made his way back up to the roof. A short glance down into the street revealed a couple of pedestrians already gathered around the two dudes. He nodded to himself for a job well done. He'd better make his way back to his look-out on that side of the street for now. Crossing the road further down would give him a better chance to remain undiscovered.

A couple of streets down he swung over to his earlier outpost to collect his canteen and the backpack that he had left up there. He landed with a squat and unbent slowly. Something was wrong. The hair on his arms had started to rise. He wasn't alone.

Someone was ... eating.

His eyes shifted to either side and landed on a figure sitting on the floor at the other side of the rooftop, munching on what looked like a... burger? He felt his throat contract.

Ohhh, fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

He stood frozen like a deer in headlights for what felt like minutes until Tony Stark, mouth still half-full with the latest burger bite, muffled "So, you're the Spiderling..."

Peter's body still wouldn't move. His mind was trapped between flight and willing his deepest fanboy fantasy to come true. Holy shit, all he could do was just stand there.

"Crime-fighting Spider? Web-slinging onesie dude?"

"Spider... Spider-man.", he finally responded internally cursing himself for how pathetically weak his voice sounded. He cleared his throat, putting some more force into it. "Mr. Stark... how nice of you to drop by..."

Stark stuffed the last piece of burger into his mouth and got up to his feet. His faceplate was open. That was a good sign, right? Maybe Iron Man wasn't there to kick his ass. He could only hope.

"Huh... Spider-Man..." he muffled around his burger. "Well, if ya say so..."

Peter shifted nervously, mentally shuffling through what he had been up to that week. How the hell had he popped up on Iron Man's radar and how much trouble he was in here?

"So, you just happened to be in the neighborhood?"

"Not exactly..."

Peter nodded, forcing himself not to audibly swallow that giant lump that was forming in his throat. "Okay... so... anything, in particular, I can help you with tonight?" He cringed. He sounded like an amateur hustler. May was going to murder him if she has to pick him up at a police station.

"What's ur deal?"

Peter blinked, letting the question sink in. "My deal?"

"Yeah, what's this thing you're up to here?"

"I'm not up to anything, Sir. Just... you know, the occasional neighborly assistance." He tried to keep his voice in check, so his nerves wouldn't make him sound like a squeaky 10-year-old.

"So, it's more of a part-time gig than your actual day job."

"Erm... I guess, so..."

"So, ya don't just hang out on buildings all day waiting for pretty girls to rescue and... and... bad boys to... like... glue to places..." Stark had pulled out another burger from... somewhere and started munching away.

Peter was slightly stunned. What on earth was going on? "I'm not sur-"

"So, you just happened to be hanging out around my girl today and happened to be in the right place at the right time. Nothing suspicious there, right?" Stark crossed his arms, burger still in hand.

Peter's mind was racing. What... what the hell was happening? "I'm sorry, I'm not sure... your girl?"

Stark gave an exaggerated groan, throwing his arms into the air "Fine. Former girl. Whatever. Let's not be anal about it..."

If his mind hadn't been stunned into absolute puzzlement already, this would have certainly done it. As Peter was just gaping at him, Tony Stark stuffed another piece of burger in his mouth and continued to muffle. "Not saying ya don't have some moves. Weird moves. But not bad. Sticking to buildings. That can come in handy. Is it only buildings you stick to or can it be just like anything? I mean... that'd be annoying..." he started laughing. "Hahaha, do you like get stuck to things by accident? Pushing a revolving door and you just have to go for a spin?" Stark was bending over laughing, banging his hand against his thigh.

Peter blinked. Gaping at the man. "Are you drunk?"

Stark was still roaring with laughter. Wiping tears from his eyes.

Oh... Good... God... He was completely smashed...

"I'm sorry..." Stark tried to catch his breath, "but just the thought of you, going round and round and... in that onesie..." knee-slapping, roaring laughter ensued.

Peter blinked again. For a second he was tempted to look around. Maybe he'd find some hidden cameras. This could not be happening. It had to be a prank.

"Are you for real right now?"

Stark hiccuped, wiping at his eyes. "Sorry..." another snort. "Okay... " He let out a long breath, shook off the laughter. "So, Spiderling. I ask again. What's ur deal?"

Peter kneaded his fingers for something to distract himself. When he realized it, he stopped and consciously brought his arms to his sides and straightened his back. "I just want to help people."

"Huh." Stark took another bite off the burger.

"I do! I just help when I see people need it and... How the hell did you even find me?"

"Cross-referenced some youtube videos. You need a new routine."

Peter gaped. "You figured out where I was by looking at a bunch of videos on youtube?"

Stark shrugged. "I had my AI analyze a pattern and made an educated guess."

An uneasy feeling crept up in him. Fine, he had gotten a little lazy with changing up his crime-hunting spots, but had he really been that predictable?

"Bit of an amateur move really." Stark looked up and pointed his burger at him. "Or a very calculated maneuver. Part of your little agenda? Did you want to be found?"

Peter crossed his arms. Ok, this was not the time to get offended, but he couldn't really keep the pout off his face. Good thing he had that face mask.

"I... no. I was just trying to be helpful. To people."

Stark studied him, letting his gaze wander up and down all over Peter. He dropped his arms at Stark's stare, nervously shifting his weight from one foot to the other.

"You're sticking to your little story then, that you just happened to come across Pepper Potts today as she just happened to be attacked by a couple of low-lives."

"What? Yes! I mean... no, I have no idea, what you're even talking about!" He rummaged his memory. "I mean, there was a lady today by my-" He faked a sudden cough. Oopsie, focus, damn it. "by that school. I guess... I guess, maybe... maybe it was Miss Potts. But I wouldn't know. I... I don't ask people for their names before I help them..."

Stark still stared at him, head tilted to the side. Peter shifted his weighted again, forcing himself to keep his arms still at his side and not fidget so much.

"I don't. It must have really just been a coincidence. And I don't have an agenda. I just... I just want to help."

Peter bit his lip, praying that Stark's boozed up mind had him not register the slip-up, as the other man stared at him for another moment. Stark then crumpled up his burger wrapping, a little hatch on his suit opened, where he disposed of it.

"Alright then." He brushed off the rest of the burger from his gauntlets, let his facemask close shut and turned around.

"Wait!", Peter called out, taking a step forward.

Stark turned back and lifted his face mask up again, eyebrows raised. "Yes? You have something to add?"

"I... no. I just... Was that it?"

"Yup."

"You just wanted to know if I had been following Miss Potts?"

Stark shrugged. "I figured you didn't. You seem to be hanging out around that school a lot." He stared at him unblinkingly.

Peter gulped.

"But I had some time to kill, so I figured no harm done in asking you straight up."

"So, you just dropped by... to talk."

"Yup. And now I'm done talking. So, laters!" Stark turned around again, thrusters starting up.

"Wait!"

"Urgh, whattt." He killed the thrusters but his faceplate staying closed.

"Should you be flying home this..." Ermm, what was a nicer way he could phrase 'shit-faced'? "Erm... you know, after having a few drinks..."

Stark just shrugged.

"I mean, you carry a lot of explosives, right? Like... a lot."

"So?" Peter frowned at the indifference swinging in his voice. "Let's not pretend like people don't expect me to blow myself up at some point..." and he added muttering "and looking forward to that."

Peter blinked. "That's not true. People love you. They trust you. They-"

"They care, as long as it's their necks you're saving. As soon as you happen to flatten their car in the process, the gratefulness comes with a claim for compensation and a mandatory apology tour." Stark gave a humorless laugh. "Oh and don't dare to break their stuff if it's their neighbor's neck you're saving. Then those damage claims just keep flying in as action lawsuits."

Silence settled between them. Peter absently scratched the back of his hand, biting his lip.

"Mr. Stark," Peter tried in a quiet voice "Are you ok?"

The other man just cleared his throat. "Sure. Peachy."

Peter looked at his feet. He didn't need his Spider-senses to tell that Tony Stark was harboring some dark demons. How... He was Tony Stark. He was Earth's greatest defender, billionaire, engineer, inventor. He was like the coolest guy on the planet. Peter looked up at him. He should tell him, right? Maybe he just had a bad day and he really needed someone to tell him-

"I'm actually... I'll be taking off."

"Wait, Mr. Stark. I could... I could..." Help... no... Make sure he'd get home okay? Maybe... call him a cab? 

Stark waved him off. "Nothing to worry about, I've been bashed up to near unconsciousness in the suit more than once. I'd have probably ended up in a big ball of flames long ago if my AI didn't have such an excellent guiding system. And to think they praise Tesla for their mediocre autopilot." Stark gave a short nod. "Well, I'll be keeping an eye on you, Spiderling. Don't do anything stupid."

Stark turned and took off, leaving Peter behind on the roof. His eyes followed Iron Man's firey trail. "And who exactly is keeping an eye out for you, Mr. Stark...", he sighed.

Chapter Text

There was something to be said for a bed that stood on the 68th floor of a highrise. Very little of the noise that was so signifying for New York City, for Manhattan especially, could reach him up there. It might even be cozy if the room hasn't been that bright. God, he missed Jarvis. He hadn't really slept all that much. A few hours of passed out drunken rest, but a splitting headache wouldn't let him fall back to sleep. He had some painkillers in the drawer on his nightstand. Those might have taken care of it but he relished the soft hammering of his head. Sweet punishment for his weakness and his pathetic drunken outing. What the fuck had he been thinking? Pepper was probably out of her mind with worry and pissed as hell that he had just taken off. It likely hadn't helped that he had ordered FRIDAY to rejected any incoming calls until further notice when he had bolted from the Compound the night before. He turned and came to rest on his side. The view over the Manhattan Skyline was spectacular as ever. The sky was clear and the winter air so clean he could almost see the earth's curvature from up there. With most of the rooms on his personal floors were still messed up from that Ultron fiasco, he had avoided coming back to the Tower for quite a while. Even his teammates' constant presence at the Compound and everything that came with it, had been more bearable than the sight of the destruction. He'd never even implemented FRIDAY in the penthouse. The loss of JARVIS was still too fresh. Sure. Vision. But that wasn't the same.

At his arrival the night before, the absence of an AI in the penthouse turned out to be a relief though. He had no desire to turn on the lights. Honestly, he wasn't even sure there were any light switches installed. JARVIS had been managing the Tower and Tony didn't need anyone but him to turn on whatever he wanted whenever he wanted. Walking through the ruins of what he and Pepper had built was a lot more bearable in the dark. But now it was morning. Sunlight was streaming in from the outside and with no AI to dim the windows all that was left for him was to face a new day. Tony's glance was still directed at the windows but his eyes were glazed over. He wasn't really focussing on anything. The urge to pick up his phone kept popping into his mind, again and again, only to be blicked away. He could feel it lying behind him next to his pillow, just waiting to be picked up. 5 more minutes. 5 more minutes of peace. His phone was where FRIDAY was waiting to tell him that he had a million missed messages. Well, probably... He bit his lip. Or maybe there weren't any messages and that scenario where Pepper stayed behind to make sure he was okay after he basically told her to piss off to LA was all in his mind. She had left before.

Well, if she hadn't left right when he had told her to leave to Compound, the pathetic display he had put on last night would certainly have done the trick in the meantime. Urgh. He closed his eyes and rubbed his hands over his face. A couple more minutes of the sweet pain piercing his brain. He needed that. He deserved that. With another deep sigh, he dropped his hand from his face, turned around and looked at his phone, reality just lying in wait.

"Alright, FRIDAY. What did I miss?"

"Sir, it's 9:24 am. There are 64 missed calls in your log, I have messages left with 51 of those calls. 48 of the calls were received from Miss Potts, 11 calls from Colonel Rhodes, 2 from Mr. Barton and the most recent 3 from Captain Rogers."

Tony grit his teeth. A sudden rush of relief came over him. Nope. He turned to lie on his back and ran his hands through his hair, fingers knotting around the strands of hair. No, he didn't get to feel happy that he had managed to keep his friends up all night trying to reach him. What the fuck was wrong with him...

"FRIDAY, is Potts still at the Compound?"

"Boss, my sensors at the Compound have placed Miss Potts in your lab for the last 13 hours."

He closed his eyes and exhaled deeply. Jackass.

"Tell her I'm fine." His voice low. "Tell her I can't see her today, but that I'll be in touch."

Coward.

He stared up at the ceiling until FRIDAY's voice once again blared from his phone.

"Boss, Miss Potts told me to thank you for the timely and detailed update."

FRIDAY fell silent. Great. Even his AI was unimpressed by his performance last night. He sighed. At least he found himself in the right place to wallow in his misery some more. He could flagellate himself about how much of a wimp he was by avoiding to call Pepper or Rhodey. All. Day. Long. Well, at least all morning. Reality at the Compound could wait a couple more hours. The damage was done anyway.

He picked up a fresh shirt from his closet - well, fresh minus all the drywall dust that was courtesy of Ultron - and took a stroll around the penthouse. He hadn't really cataloged any of the damage on this floor. The floors beneath the penthouse were all managed by SI - minus his personal lab - and so Pepper had hired people who took care of clearing those areas. The damage there had been minimal thank goodness. Up here, it felt too personal to let SI staff handle it. Maybe it really was time to just get on with it and rebuild. Start a new chapter. He was barefoot as he walked up to the open space that combined living room and kitchen, careful not to step into anything sharp. He tried the tabs on the sink, but the water was turned off. Huh. He leaned over the counter and worked his hand between the coffeemaker and the wall. The power switch had been deactivated and with a flip, the coffeemaker came back to life. Thank god for small mercies. He bent down and rummaged through the cupboards. Tadaa! Pepper always stored bottled water everywhere. Always prepared for the apocalypse. He swallowed hard. Who could blame her?

Tony watched the water chortle from the bottle into the coffeemaker's water tank. He grabbed a cup through the broken glass door of the wall cupboard, careful not to cut himself. Protecting his hand with the hem of his shirt he wiped off splinters and shards from the porcelain before he placed it on the coffeemaker's tray.

I <3 Iron Man.

His eyes lingered on the print. He'd given this to Pepper as a joke. Because what was more hilarious than gifting your own merchandise to your girlfriend. This was supposed to be their baby. The Tower. They'd rebuilt it after the Invasion. He bit his lip when the wormhole flashed before his eyes at the mere memory of the incident. After everything, it had made them stronger then. Rebuilding their penthouse... He had wanted it to be a bridge for them to rebuild themselves. Their relationship. But the structural damage the last months had left them with now seemed irreparable.

"Too little, too late, Stark..." he muttered to himself. He checked on the beans then started the machine up. "Let's just get on with it..."

Coffee in hand, Tony found himself a headset and let FRIDAY write down his notes. All this shit had to be cleared out. Most of the rooms seemed ok-ish. A few walls had to be redone completely. An hour of mindless cataloging. He'd have to return with some equipment. Implementing FRIDAY would have to be one of the top priorities. He needed her there for everything to work more efficiently. The prospect of replacing JARVIS in the Tower though... Was he really there yet?

Structural work first.

It was almost noon when Tony landed on the roof of the Compound. He'd confirmed with FRIDAY that Pepper Potts had left shortly after the AI had delivered his message to the lab. Just to be on the safe side Tony had waited a little while longer though. To be extra sure.

Coward.

At least he had called Rhodey before he had left for the Compound. Sure, it hadn't been his version of fun when his best friend screamed into his ear for a full 15 minutes while Tony was lying on his stomach head resting on the pillow that still distinctly smelled like Pepper. Rhodey had called him out on all the irresponsible, childish bullshit that Tony was too old and too clever to pull. Nothing he hadn't heard before.

"What the hell, man?! I thought we were past this."

"Past this?" Tony responded quietly.

"You know what I mean." Rhodey cleared his throat. "Look, Tony, nobody would ever expect you not to be hung up on losing your child. But—"

"But he's been lost for years. Let's just put up a stone in his memory somewhere and move on."

"That's not—" Rhodey groaned in frustration. "Don't put words in my mouth, that's not what I was going to say!"

"Well, it's what you suggested in the past," Tony murmured.

Rhodey stayed silent and Tony instantly regretted that he had called him about this in the first place. "Sorry..."

"You know that's not what I meant... not now and not back then and you know that."

Tony added quietly, "But it's what you think. Aiden's dead. And I should accept that."

"I'd really rather be having this conversation face to face," Rhodey said with a sigh.

Tony's hand tightly wrapped itself into the sheets of his bed. Yeah... Denial had a bit of a different ring to it.

"What happened, man? I thought..." Another frustrated huff of air came through the speaker. "The last few years you were... you seemed to be doing so well."

Tony shook his head slightly, still digesting that particular revelation from last night. "Apparently Potts has been distracting me with sex for the past 4 or 5 years."

"Come on now, don't be an ass."

"Her words, not mine."

"No fucking way, she said that to you?"

"She showed up yesterday and basically threw herself at me."

"Get outta here... No way in hell that happened!"

"Come on, would I be lying to you?" His tone playful, he really needed to lighten the mood a bit.

But the line stayed quiet. For a brief moment, Tony closed his eyes and bit the insides of his cheeks so he wouldn't curse out loud. The honest answer was yes. Yes, he would lie to Rhodey about his relationship with Pepper. He had in fact been doing a lot of that lately, had omitted all the fights and frustrations that had been building up between Potts and him including their eventual break-up.

"I'm sorry I wasn't there last night, Tones. I should have realized... How about I come by this weekend? We could just hang out. Nintendo, some beers? We could talk..." Rhodey suggested, "or not."

"Yeah, sure. You're always welcome here, you know that."

More silence from Rhodey's end. Tony swore he could hear his friend's brain working all the way from D.C.

"It's fine, Honeybear. You don't have to treat me with kid gloves. You don't have to tell me that everything's going to be okay and that we'll find Aiden and how we'll be living together happily ever after. It's not 2005 and I know, you don't believe we will. That's fine. I get it."

"I'm sorry, buddy."

"Me too."

"I have to take off, but I'll call you tonight, alright? I want to hear more about what's going on with you and we'll set up a time for Saturday night. You better pick up or I'll be mad."

Tony gave a dry laugh. "Sure, I'll be waiting for your call, Platypus."

Silence rang in his ears after he hung up. He sat on his bed in his room looking out into the city. All those people down there in the street. These people with their lives going about their business just like that. Just living. Around him, there was only silence. Silence in the wake of destruction. Ruin. Loss.

The trip to the Compound had his pulse pick up. The same couldn't be said for his spirits. He arrived on the roof and made his way to his living quarters. A quick shower was definitely of the essence. Then he could probably distract himself with a bit of light work until his head stopped hurting. Before he had even time to take off his shoes, FRIDAY informed him that Barton had been hanging around his lab all morning and was requesting his presence.

"Urgh... just tell him I have a thing. I can't make it."

"Will do, Boss."

Tony made his way into the bathroom.

"Boss, he's insisting."

"Then insist harder."

The shower's warm water was pouring down on his back and he moved his stand a bit to let it run over his face and chest. As if it could completely engulf him and just shut out everything around him. His head was buzzing and at this point, it had to be more than last night's booze.

Urgh, forget about yesterday. Yesterday didn't matter anymore. Nothing he could change about it. Today's about today.

He let out a deep breath. It was the last week of the month and that would mean he could just do some scheduling. He would have to look over what got done in February and what short time deadlines had to be met in the coming weeks. Some bigger SI projects were in the pipeline for next month that had to be set up, some updates for Avengers were undoubtedly going to land on his desk as well.

Freshened up, he got himself another coffee from the kitchen and headed down to the lab. To his annoyance, a particularly persistent archer was still sitting on the ground in front of the entrance to his lab.

Just great. "Seriously, FRIDAY. You had one job to do.", he muttered.

"There he is!" Barton was positively shouting down the hall.

"Come on Clint... I told you, I have a thing. I don't have time to tinker with your equipment."

An impish smile crossed Barton's face. "Like you could ever say no to tinkering with my equipment..." He wiggled his eyebrows.

Tony rolled his eyes with a groan. He was really not in the mood for his antics today. "Basically anytime next week. But not today!"

"Come on, Tony! I promised Lila we could try it out over the weekend!"

"Well, first of all, don't make promises like that to your kid. Some of us aren't retired and have an actual schedule to keep to. And secondly, don't let your kid play with that bow! It's a highly sensitive, very deadly weapon!"

Tony opened the door to the lab and strode over to the workbench with Clint on his heels.

"Okay, fine. How about I help you with whatever you're doing today then? And that way you're finished real fast and then we can just hang out!" Clint's hand shot up, requesting a high-five.

Tony turned towards him. His face slack, he just stared at him.

"You know you want toooo!" Clint kept waving his hand around expectantly, waiting for Tony's hand to meet his.

Tony shook his head and turned back to his workbench. He pulled up his project sheet, that was now projected above the desk in front of him.

Clint moaned. "If you don't want to work on the bow, that's fine. We can just hang out or something. Have a couple of beers. Maybe... maybe... play a little... I don't know... Wii? Nintendo? I will even let you pick the first game."

"Seriously, Barton, I have stuff to do. Why are you..." he gasped and turned around. "Someone put you up to this!"

Clint's face lost his ear to ear grin and took on a look of pure innocence.

"Nooo, we just haven't been hanging out in like forever, so..."

"Uhhh, baaad spy! Spill, who was it? Cap?"

Clint crossed his arms.

"Can't have been Pepper... might be Fury, but why would he care now."

"Come on, Stark. Nobody put me up to this."

Tony's eyebrows shot up.

"I'm serious. I... " Clint shuffled his feet uncomfortably. "I know Pepper hasn't been around a lot lately. I wasn't sure if she'd be here for, you know... so I wanted to drop by just to be sure that someone was... I don't even know. I mean... I do know that you can have a hard time with..." Clint blew out a breath and looked down at his feet. "Listen, I'm not good with all the touchy-feely stuff and all the talking about... things. And stuff. When Pepper showed up, I mean, of course, she would for you. Of course. But I was just relieved, but then you skipped off to somewhere last night and she didn't know where you were and got all, well... and I just..." He looked up at Tony. "I know, we don't usually do this. You and I. But, I'm a dad and of all of these emotionally stunted misfits that make up this team, I guess, I'm the only one that might get what you're going through."

Tony bit his lip just so his chin wouldn't drop.

"I'm not... I mean, of course, I can't really imagine... I couldn't begin to..." Barton let out another frustrated breath and found a spot on the ceiling to stare at. "What I do know, is that I wouldn't stop. Ever. I wouldn't stop looking and I wouldn't stop obsessing. And when everyone else is moving on, it would make it even worse... Drive me insane, the not-knowing." His eyes found Tony's again. "They don't get it. They couldn't. But... I think... I think I can. In a way. So, I'm here."

Tony just stared at him. When Clint didn't seem to want to add anything else, he cleared his throat. "That. Wow." Tony cleared his throat again. "That was quite a speech."

"I practiced in the car."

Tony snorted. "I... I'm not really sure, what to say."

Clint shrugged. "It's fine. You don't... I..."

"No, it's..."

They both stopped talking.

"Sorry, I made this awkward."

Tony rolled his eyes at the ceiling. "Okay, fine. Bow."

Fists shot up in winning celebration as Clint let out a hoot.

"You know, if this was some elaborate scheme to make me work on your stuff... well, then I'm impressed," Tony chuckled.

Clint clapped him on the shoulder. "Meant every word."

With a quick shake of the head, Tony closed his project sheet and pulled up the calibrations for Clint's bow.

They worked side by side for a couple of hours. Tony went back and forth between old models and newer adaptations. Clint's descriptions were truly helpful. The archer described the changes in behavior when he was handling the different versions. Every so often Clint made a trip to the kitchen. The sleepless night still clung to Tony, but the steady caffeine supply certainly helped. Then they had FRIDAY order some sandwiches from a nearby deli for a late lunch. Technically a very late breakfast for Tony.

"Okay, I'll admit... This was fun."

Clint had a smug grin on his face. "See, I told you, you missed me!"

Tony snorted as he took another bite. They kept eating in silence until Clint gave a low "hem". Tony's eyes shot up but Clint still stared at the sandwich. "So, other than distracting you... If there're any leads or... or... clues ... asses to kick to get to the leads..."

Tony swallowed his bite. He carefully picked at the wrapper to get another clear bite. "There's... we haven't really had any leads. Not for a while."

Clint just nodded but didn't look up.

"Not many to begin with and..." Tony's mind flashed back to the evidence catalog that was burnt into his mind. A lot of empty arrays on that form, especially in the eyewitness category. And the forensic category. No security footage. No one saw...

He cleared his throat. "There was... a child trafficking bust a couple of years ago when they thought that they could uncover some new information," he said quietly. "Nobody ever wanted anything, I mean, you'd think... at least as soon as they'd realize that... who..." Tony shook his head.

"So, you think it was random."

Tony looked up. "What do you mean?"

"Wrong place, wrong time. They just took him. Not realizing, who they were taking."

"That's what they told us. And that's what made sense at first. No note, no calls, no blackmailer, nobody asking for money or blueprints or SI stock, nothing. Even after weeks and months."

"Huh. Weird. Doesn't make any sense if they were after money. Selling kids. And if not for the money why go to the lengths of stealing your kid."

"Yeah, thanks for the insight..." Tony cut in dryly.

Clint looked up meeting his eyes. "Sorry, I didn't mean—"

"It's alright." Tony sighed. "I've been over this a million times. It never made sense. That's the most frustrating part. If I could figure out the motive, I'd figure out the culprit. Figure out him... or them, well..." Tony took another bite.

Clint nodded. They finished their lunch in silence and when Clint returned from another coffee run, Tony was bent over their latest changes to the bow's handhold again. He made some final adjustments and then handed the bow over.

"Thanks, man."

Tony was already putting away his tools, closed the open files, made sure they were filed in the correct project folders.

"You know, you're always welcome to drop by the farm. When tempers run too high at the Compound or something. The kids always love to see you."

"I'm thinking one Avenger is enough for your wife to deal with."

Clint chuckled.

"Or does she need some farm antiques fixed again?"

"In Laura's book, there's always something to be fixed." Clint laughed.

Tony bit his lip and gave a short nod. "I'll actually be moving back to the Tower."

"Oh?"

"Just... it's time."

Clint patted his shoulder. "Well, that's quite the project to keep yourself busy." He stood behind Tony, waiting, he bobbed back and forth on his feet. "I guess, I'll be taking off."

Tony turned around and leaned against his desk. "Alright, well..."

Barton cleared his throat. "Yeah..."

"Thanks, Clint. This was... very unexpected," he laughed.

Clint returned his grin. "Don't make this all awkward now. I'll see you around, buddy."

When Clint had left, Tony took a seat on his desk chair. He pulled up the blueprints of the Tower, looked up different notes the SI crew had put down concerning the cleanup.

"Alright, FRIDAY. Get ready for a major remodel..."

##

As the sun set on that Friday night, Peter Parker and his canteen filled with warm tea were sitting on top of yet another apartment building in Queens. His feet were freezing but his hands clasped the hot beverage. A couple of blocks south of his usual spot his attention was once again pulled in by the lights over Manhattan. His eyes wandered over the Empire State Building, the Chrysler Building and just behind it came to rest on Stark Tower.

Chapter Text

Still in the lab, Tony was spread out on the couch, massaging his temples. His headache was mostly gone. His limbs didn’t feel any heavier than usual anymore. He was pretty much out of the woods when it came to the physical effects of his hangover. There was still some damage control to be done though. Like calling Pepper. But that was not gonna happen tonight. Besides the point that she probably wouldn’t pick up anyway, just the thought of hearing her voice made him cringe. Maybe tomorrow, after his night with Rhodey. He hadn't left the lab ever since entering that morning with Clint. His focus was on the blueprints with a short break that he used to actually update his worksheet for March.

"FRIDAY, time?"

"It's 7:50 pm, Sir."

He let out a long breath. "Alright, how about you back up all of this." He closed the Tower project. "You should be able to access the mainframe in the Penthouse at least remotely now. Make sure I have a copy of all this over there."

"Of course, Boss."

"Thanks, girl. I'll be off to get some dinner. Let me know if there's any delay in the data transfer before I leave for the Tower."

"Yes, Sir."

Tony wandered through the hallways towards the kitchen, pondering dinner. The Team should have eaten by now, so chances were that he’d have the kitchen to himself. Maybe he’d have more luck with them keeping to themselves in the common area today. Or delivery? And have it delivered to the Tower? He would definitely have his peace over there. At least in terms of people. He could always try some of the healthy fridge stuff. Might appease Potts somewhat at least.

He walked into the room and kept his head down. The other Avengers had gathered on the couches. Roaring laughter echoed through the common room. Their eyes were all fixed on the screen in front of them. Tony opened the fridge and stared inside for a full 5 minutes. What would go with what here exactly? He pulled out the vegetable drawers one by one. Eggplants, romanesco, some funky looking root veggies. He had no idea how to even prepare half of this stuff and no patience to do 20 minutes of cleaning and chopping. There were scampi in the freezer, which would do. Pasta would be fast and easy and he’d seen some fresh spinach in one of those drawers. Add a bit of cream. Voila. Simple but elegant. And most importantly: fast!

As soon as he started rattling with the pots and pans, boiling water for the pasta and preparing the scampi for frying, he did inevitably draw attention to himself. It took Rogers only a couple of minutes to heave himself off the sofa and stalk over to him.

Leaning over the kitchen counter, the Captain grabbed an apple, bit off an impressive piece and muttered, "You missed practice."

Tony really didn’t feel like burning his dinner. He only gave him a short glance. "Sorry, I had a thing at the Tower."

"At the Tower?"

"Yup, kinda last minute. Didn't really... erm... anticipate the trip. Should have called, sorry."

"Is something going on with you?"

Tony sighed, stabbing at the shrimp in the pan. "I'm fine, Cap. You know I can't make it to every training. We have an agreement, don't we?

"Yeah, the agreement is you call, if you can't make it."

Tony stayed quiet for a moment and swallowed his annoyance. Most of all, because Rogers had a point. He should have just fucking called and avoided the lecture.

"I said, I'm sorry."

Rogers nodded. "So, you and Pepper..."

"Let me stop you right there. I actually have something to tell you." He turned all the way, back straight and arms crossed.

"Oh?"

"Yes, actually part of the reason I didn't make it to practice this morning. The Tower."

"Yes?"

"I'm redoing my floors at the Tower."

Steve stood up straight, his eyes blinking rapidly. "Oh... how come?"

Tony tapped his fingers on his arm. "Well, they needed a little work ever since things went down there—"

"You mean ever since you set Ultron loose?"

"Okay, I didn't set Ultron loose. He more or less set himself loose."

Steve raised his eyebrows, "Well... that's—"

"Actually,” he uncrossed his arm and held up his hands effectively stopping Rogers rebuttal, “that doesn't matter to this story, so let's just skip this argument.” He turned and quickly stirred the scampi and added the spinach. “I'm redoing some rooms and I will be moving back there as soon as it's done."

"You're moving back to the Tower? But why?"

Wow, were they really going to play this particular game? He turned to look at Rogers.

"Because we're driving each other crazy, Steve. I can't handle it anymore!"

"Tony, come on now! We're a team! We have to stick together, grow together. If you'd just turn up to more of the group—"

"Stop." Tony dropped the spatula and held up both his hands again. "It's not gonna happen. It's not for me."

Steve pursed his lips. "That's really disappointing, Tony. We want you here."

"Of course you do," Tony murmured "Listen, it's really gonna be a stress relief for everyone. You guys don't have to worry about whether I'll remember to show up for practice and I don't have to feel guilty for forgetting to go."

"Hm..." Steve leaned back against the tabletop, fingers drumming against the surface. His face was sporting the very best version of his signature I’m-not-angry-I’m-just-disappointed look. "I guess... I mean, it's your decision. But we will miss you at the Compound."

Tony turned back to his pasta and made a face at the scampi.

"What about the equipment?"

"What about it?"

"Well, if something breaks during practice or a mission, we can't just drop it off at the lab anymore if you're at the Tower. How do you want to handle that?"

Tony stirred his pasta and turned down the heat. "I guess, you can still drop it off as you would now. The lab’s not going anywhere. Just log it with FRIDAY. Then I'll put a date in the diary for when I can come over and have a look at it. That's what happens now as well anyways."

"But what if we need something to be fixed faster than that?"

"I guess, you'd just let me know it's an emergency."

"But what if you're out?"

Tony turned back. "Come on, Steve. I'm out plenty now as well. I'm not chained to that lab."

"Could have fooled me..." Rogers mumbled.

Tony shot him a dirty look.

"Well, alright. Do you have a time frame for when you assume you'll be packing up your things?"

"I'll let you know."

Rogers turned away, muttering to himself, "Of course you will..."

Tony bit his lip and gave his head a short shake. Food. He needed food. He took a deep breath, strained the pasta water. Almost done. He definitely had to take a picture once he was done, just so that he had some evidence when he called Pepper eventually.

#

The weather over New York City was just as chilly as it had been the night before and Peter's tally was just as unimpressive as it had been all of the rest of the week. Today he'd only apprehended a couple of pickpockets. Not even a carjacker. Maybe it was the weather after all and not just his amateurish patrolling routine. That's had Stark called it… an amateur move.

Urgh. What did he know... He was just this... this... well... basically the coolest Superhero ever. Peter pouted and took a bite of the chocolate bar he'd brought as a motivational goodie.

Well, some superhero Stark was, flying around the city smashed in search of innocent teenagers. He took another bite of the chocolate bar, his eyes wandering over to the Manhattan Skyline. In Stark’s defense, he didn’t really know that Peter was 14... His eyes were fixed on Stark Tower.

“Urgh, come on Peter.” He shook his head and drew his eyes back to his own streets. Stark was fine.

He was gazing down into the streets of Queens. Maybe it was too early on this Friday night for people to be out and about. He dug around in the pouch he had fashioned into his suit for his phone and sighed. It wasn't even 9 pm. Most partygoers were still getting ready to go clubbing, couples going out for dinner would be sitting in their nice restaurants. Their heated, cozy restaurants...

“This blows.” He stuffed the last piece of chocolate into his mouth.

Just as he let his gaze wander down the street something caught his eye. A huge shooting star was coming down over Manhattan, squarely taking aim for...

"That's not a shooting star, that's Iron Man landing at Stark Tower, you dumb-ass," he muttered to himself. He stretched his leg and watched the Tower in the distance, while he stowed away the phone.

"You know, where there's always something going on... Manhattan." he grinned to himself, swinging his legs back and forth, still sitting on the edge of the building. He could totally expand his services...

“It’s not like anyone here is gonna miss me..." he looked up and down the street. "Nope, nobody gonna miss me patrolling here."

He jumped up on the ledge, did a couple of jumping jacks to warm up his muscles and swung his way over to the next building. He only needed to swing a few blocks to the north to get to the Queensboro Bridge. He crossed the East River, swinging underneath the bridge - which was probably the most fun he had had swinging in weeks. When he made it to the other side, he swung another block and planted himself on top of one of the buildings. Must have been somewhere on 1st Avenue.  He could already see Stark Tower in the distance. First though, he’d do some work. Crime-fighting should definitely come first and then - if he had done well - he'd reward himself and satisfy his curiosity. Really, it was part of his job to make sure the people in his borough were doing ok. And since he had just extended his services to Manhattan, it’d be downright negligent not to check up on Stark. Not 'check-up' check-up, just… well, to see what Stark was up to.

It took him less than an hour to tie up 5 pickpockets, 3 carjackers, 2 burglars and another 2 shoplifters between 57th and 49th street. He'd not been this productive in Queens all week! One of the ladies, whose purse he had returned, even bought him a hot dog! Sure, it was a little… well, mushy. But hey, that was basically pay for a job well done. He was sitting up on the rooftop of a hotel on Lexington Avenue, only a couple blocks away from the Tower. He munched on his hot dog, craning his neck to look up into the higher floors of the Tower. It didn't do him much good since he was a little too close and from his vantage point, there really wasn't much to see. Certainly not whether Stark was roaming around in the upper levels.

But unless he had taken a car back to the new Avengers facility in upstate New York, where he’d probably flown in from, he must still be up there. Iron Man sure hadn't been sighted soaring across the sky again since Peter had been sitting on that rooftop in Queens.

###

In bed, not having bothered to dim the windows, Tony had turned his face towards the light, eyes still closed. It had been a knock at the bedroom door that had roused him.

"Yes..." he croaked.

The door opened and an unstrung Pepper Potts walked into the room. Her eyes didn’t meet his apart from a short flicker up that seemed to confirm her assumption that he'd still be in bed.

"Mr. Stark, Detective Roberts arrived a couple of minutes ago and is asking to speak to you. He's waiting in the downstairs parlor."

Tony stretched out his arms before one hand came down and rubbed the bridge of his nose."What time is it?"

"Sir, it's 8:52 am. Today is Friday, April 21st, 2006."

"Thanks, JARVIS."

Tony leaned over to the other side of the bed and let his hand softly glide down the naked woman's back lying next to him. For a moment he closed his eyes, cleared his mind of every single thought and just enjoyed the soft skin underneath his fingers and sighed before he pulled back his sheet. He put on some boxers and a morning coat, then glanced up. Ms. Potts was still waiting in the doorway of the room.

He slightly brushed against her when he walked out of the room. "Take care of this Pepper, will you..." indicating the bedroom.

"Of course, Mr. Stark."

He glanced over his shoulder. She was still behind him, following him.

"JARVIS will let me know when she wakes up or would you rather I wake her and throw her out right away?"

He stopped abruptly and turned on his heel to face her. Eyes open wide his spin made her stop in her tracks as well. "Do I look, like I'm in the mood for sass from you today, Potts?"

Her eyelids fluttered and she took a step back, avoiding his eyes. "No, Sir. I'm sorry."

He fastened the waistbelt on his morning coat and turned back around. Long and hurried strides took him towards the parlor where the detective was waiting. His ears were filled with the beat of his pulse that had already spiked when Pepper had announced the guest and was nowhere near settling down. With every step that brought him closer, it only intensified. She was still following in his wake, though the characteristic clicking and clacking of her heals was muffled. She was probably literally tip-toeing along behind him, trying to be as unprovoking as possible. But Tony couldn’t care about that now.

He strode into the parlor, not much mind paid to his ruffled appearance. "Detective Roberts..." He shook the man's hand and nodded at the two policemen who accompanied the detective.

"Mr. Stark. I'm sorry to be barging into your home without so much as a call."

"Not at all, Sir. Should we take a seat?" Tony's voice vibrated with nerves. He'd be surprised by his own indifference to his lack of collectedness if this had been the first time the detective had walked into his home unannounced. Or maybe this not being an isolated incidence is what should make him feel embarrassed about his inability to keep his composure. "Some coffee maybe?"

"I'm afraid we won't be staying long, Mr. Stark. But yes, please do take a seat."

Tony's lung deflated as the detective motioned for him to sit down on his own couch while the man planted himself in front of Tony. He cast his eyes down as he sat, nodding slightly for the Detective to begin.

"It's not good news, I'm afraid. We did find the body of a young boy close to Wildwood Canyon Park, north of Burbank." The detective cleared his throat. "We had to run some tests as the... the body had been there for what we estimate to be a few months."

Tony nodded slowly, his breathing still shallow. There was nothing he could do but sit and listen.

"There were no personal items, so we used a DNA sample to identify the boy. It was not a match for your son."

He closed his eyes and nodded again.

"We didn't want you to read about this and worry. The department is still doing—"

"Yes." Tony got up. "You're doing what you can. I understand."

"Mr. Stark, I'm sorry—"

"Thank you. Thank you for taking the time out of... of what I'm sure is a busy day for you."

The Detectives eyes darted over to Pepper, who stood in the entrance to the room, dabbing at her eyes.

"Is there anything else, I can help you with today, Detective," Tony asked, not bothered to keep the flatness out of his voice. He was about done with this.

"The evidence we have collected so far..." the Detective cleared his voice again. "Every indicator points towards this being connected with the 5 other cases of boys aged 2 to 4 years that went missing since 2005. We have still not added Aiden to the list of what we strongly assume is the work of a serial offender even though his abduction seems to follow a similar pattern because... well..."

Tony crossed his arms. "Because no body, no evidence," he added evenly.

Detective Robert mostly ignored that Tony had even spoken. "We are confident that we can learn from this case. Any new inside can lead to more understanding of this pattern, which can help us find your son."

"Can help you find my son's body." Tony was staring at the Detective. The coward wouldn’t even look at him.

"I'm very sorry, Mr. Stark. The odds -" the Detective began, his eyes still glued to the notes he was clutching.

"Yeah, I know about the odds. Is that it?"

"Yes, Mr. Stark. I'm sorry, we couldn't bring you better news."

Tony turned. "Thank you as always, gentlemen. Potts..." He motioned to the policemen when he passed her. He bit his lip hard as he took the stairs down to the workshop. With every step, his anger and pain took another step into his heart. He winced and tasted blood when his feet hit the landing. He cursed out loud and hammered his code into the touchpad.

It took another hour for Pepper to turn up in the workshop. He was still in his boxers and robe working on his 1932 Ford Flathead Roadster. 

"Just put it on the desk," he murmured from underneath the car.

"It's... just coffee and some clothes," her voice small.

"Desk."

"Yes, Sir."

She quickly took the couple of steps over to his desk. There was some rustling as she put down whatever it was she had brought down for him. Then there was silence.

"Anything else, Miss Potts?"

He heard her sniffle and some unidentifiable mumble.

"Can you speak up?"

"I'm sorry, Sir." she sniffed more clearly.

"Stop apologizing."

"Yes, Mr. Stark." Again, her voice so weak he could barely make out her answer.

He sighed once and rolled himself out from underneath the car. He sat up and shot a look over to where she stood, shuffling from one foot to the other next to his desk.

"Potts, I need you to stop. No more moping, no more apologizing. You need to stop."

He sighed as her face twitched. She was trying really hard to fight back tears.

He looked away and sighed. "Pepper, I can't stand it anymore. Do you want me to fire you?"

"Yes, Sir," she sniffed.

What now? If he hadn't still been sitting down this probably would have floored him. He reached for the rug next to him and cleaned off the grease and dirt that was stuck to his hands. He got up slowly and took some time to walk over to where she was standing, giving her space as she finished blowing her nose and dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief.

"You want me to fire you?" He was still a few feet away from her, didn’t want to crowd her in.

"Yes, Sir," she nodded. Her voice still shook with emotion. He stuffed his hands into the pockets of his robe.

"Are you going to tell me why?"

Another tear fell off her lashes faster than her hand could reach up to conceal it.

"You know why."

He shook his head. "Nope. You want to be fired, you say it."

Her eyes were still locked on the ground in front of her. He didn't rush her but he wouldn't just let her go like that.

"It's my fault." He bit his lip and pulled a face as the cut from earlier broke back up. Pepper still wasn’t looking up though. "I shouldn't be working for you anymore. You need someone... someone... competent and reliable. Someone you can trust."

Tony sighed but still kept his distance. "You know that's bullshit. Nobody is more competent and reliable than you."

"I let you down. I should have quit months ago. I'm—" she stopped herself.

"Look at me, Pepper."

She dabbed at her eyes again before she met his.

"We've had this talk. I don't blame you."

Pepper looked away immediately and just gave a humorless huff. "Yes, you do."

He grit his teeth "When I say -"

"Shut up, Tony.” Her eyes were red and fiery when she looked back up. Her face drawn in pain, “You trusted me with your son and someone took him while I was supposed to look out for him. Only an idiot would not blame me." She drew a sharp breath, eyes back at her spot on the ground. "And you're not an idiot."

He clenched his hands into fists. "Well, thanks. No, I'm not, which is how I know that you're not reckless, you're not careless."

"I turned my back and he got taken!"

Pepper raising her voice at him was unsettling, to say the least. How long had she been beating herself up like that? "You turned your back because there were two Nannies watching him."

"Who I had hired."

"Jeez, Pepper! Do you need me to get you a cross and some nails in here or would you rather carry it all the way up to San Antonio so we can crucify you for the whole mob to see."

She shook her head but stayed silent. Tony closed the distance between them with two steps and clasped her shoulders.

"Pepper... you need to stop."

"I can't do this anymore. Just… just fire me."

He pulled her into a hug. "I don't blame you, Pep. I swear, I don't and you need to stop blaming yourself."

One of his hands held her steady and pressed against him at the small of her back. The other softly rubbed her back, drawing small circles between her shoulder blades. Her head came to rest on his shoulder and he just let her cry. “I promise I don’t blame you, Pep. I never will.” His hand came up and ran through her long hair, then slowly stroked along her neck. She was all he had now. If she…if she were to leave he wouldn’t know what to do with himself. Only as her tears fell onto his collarbone did he remember that he was still only in boxers and his robe. He took a deep breath willing his body not to give her another reason to leave.

"I need you, Pep. I'd be lost without you." He closed his eyes. He was such a selfish bastard. She wasn’t happy here. Who could blame her? Tony shifted slightly which made her pull back and reach for another handkerchief. He quickly readjusted his robe, silently cursing the messy display he put on, then cleared his throat.

"If you really don't want to stay, I... of course I understand." He gestured around the workshop with a final motion to himself. "I know, this is a lot to keep up with."

She blew her nose. Still not looking directly at him. "How can you trust me, Tony. After everything. If I -"

"Let's not do 'what-if's alright? You think I don't have any 'what if's?” He shook his head, rubbing his brow. “What if we'd just taken him for a week to Aspen like you told me to or if I'd at least told you to stick to the location at the beach? What if I'd actually been there? What if I had stuck to the one promise I had made my son and hadn't gone into a fucking board meeting on his birthday?" He tried his best to keep his voice from rising once more. "You're not the only one with regrets, Pepper."

She nodded quietly, then shrugged her shoulders and looked up at him. "It's not your fault," she offered.

Tony gave a dry chuckle. "Man, that phrase really doesn't do anything for me."

"Ditto."

They stood in silence for a bit.

“I’ll never not be sorry, Tony.”

He nodded, then gave a short shrug. “Just help me find him then.”

She looked up at him, brow furrowed. “What… I mean, of course, I will, but how-“

“JARVIS is decrypting the LAPD’s files right now. These idiots are useless. I should have done this myself months ago!”

Her mouth fell open and he braced himself. Hacking police files was illegal and Pepper Potts did not do illegal. But they just stood in silence, her eyes on him, until she cleared her throat.

"You better put some clothes on."

"Hey, are you scolding me? I thought we were having a moment?!"

She rolled her eyes. "Moment's over."

"Are you still trying to make me fire you?" He stared at her. There was no beating around the bush with Pepper. He had to know where she was at.

Her eyes still held the same sadness but she shook her head. "No. Not today."

“Are you gonna call Detective twerp and tell on me?”

She bit her lip. “Just tell me how I can help.”

He smiled and pointed at the car behind him. "Right now, I really need a scrub nurse. What do you think about giving the 1932 Ford a more fiery look?"

She laughed and rubbed the last of her tears from her face. "I'm not a mechanic, Tony."

"You're clever. You'll learn! JARVIS, an update when you’re done."

“Will do, Sir.”

###

Tony sifted through the dust of his living room, brushing off picture frames. He'd been staring at a particular picture of him and Pepper in the workshop, covered in orange paint in front of his 1932 Ford Flathead Roadster. The car was destroyed along with his LA Mansion. For a moment at the time he had considered fishing the remains of the car out of the Pacific, but he wasn't sure if he could stomach the destruction after everything they had been through with Aldrich Killian. Some things better stayed buried. Not this picture though. Not this memory of Pepper and him.

He dusted it off, carrying it over to his desk.

"FRIDAY, we need a few new frames in here."

"I will put it on the list, Boss."

He looked up and his heart skipped a beat, a very unmanly scream fought its way out of his throat as he staggered back from the windows.

"Oh my god..."

That little freak in his red and blue onesie was pressing his face against the window and waved at him.

"You gotta be fucking kidding me. FRIDAY, what happened to the little head's up when there are people lurking outside the window that we discussed?"

"I'm sorry, Boss. You haven't implemented my sensors at the Tower yet."

"Right..." He walked over to the balcony door, sticking his had outside. "What the hell do you think you're doing?"

"Hi there, Mr. Stark. I... um... I happened to be in the neighborhood and thought I'd chec-" he coughed slightly "erm, thought I'd have a look what you're up to."

"Are you trying to babysit me?"

"Noooo. Just, you know. Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man, hanging out in the area. I saw there still was light on, so..."

Tony's brows shot up, but he chuckled. "Fine. Come on in. You want a drink?"

The Spiderling hesitated but followed Tony through the door to the inside of the Tower.

"I'm good, thanks."

Tony shook his head and walked towards his liquor cabinet, that was miraculously still intact.

"Wow, Mr. Stark. What happened here? Party gotten a little out of hand?"

"Hostile AI wrecking havoc."

Tony poured himself a glass as the other man took in a sharp breath. "Ultron's doing? Yikes."

"Yup. So, Spiderling. Any particular reason, I owe this visit to."

He clapped his hands together and looked in Tony's direction. "Not really, like I said—"

"Yeah, yeah." His back leaned against the cabinet Tony tilted his head. "The light's were on. How's Brooklyn?"

"Queens. I live in Queens."

"Oh, so you do live there."

"Erm." The guy shifted from one foot to the other.

Tony could have sworn that he had hit a sore spot, but with that mask, there was no telling. He took a sip of his drink.

"Spit it out, what do you want?"

"Honestly, just wanted to see how you were doing. It's not every day someone intercepts me on patrol and you seemed a little... a little..."

"A little..?" Tony looked at him expectantly.

"Well, it doesn't matter. You're obviously fine now, so... you know, I guess..." he pointed back to the door and retreated a couple of steps.

"Hold it, Spiderling." The guy froze. Well, at least someone still listened to him. He took another sip, then kept his eyes on the amber liquid as it swirled in the glass. "I understand why you're here and being the gentleman I am, I'm not going to beat around the bush with you. You came all this way and it's only fair. So, what do I owe you?"

"Owe me?" The Spider unfroze. He awkwardly crossed his arms and tilted his head in turn.

Tony's eyes were back on the other man and he studied every little movement. That damn mask made it really difficult to read him. "Yes, I owe you. You had Miss Potts' back. I'm in your debt for protecting what's most precious to me. So, spit it out. What do you want."

The Spiderling’s head tilted to the other side when he cleared his throat. "Well... I... um. Nothing in particular would... come to mind right now. It's... erm..."

"Just staking your claim. That's fine." Tony nipped at his Scotch again, eyes fixed on the stranger in his penthouse. "A debt is a debt and I'm good for it."

The Spiderling nodded somewhat hesitantly "Well, that's great news."

Tony flashed a smile and stood up straight. "Great doing business with you. Now, off to Brooklyn you go."

"Queens."

"Yeah, yeah. Next time, use the front door. I don't appreciate people hanging off of my living room windows." He shooed him out the balcony door and turned back to his disaster of a living room before he froze, spun around and called out of the balcony door.

"You wouldn't have wanted to use the..." He looked up and down the balcony. No Spiderling to be found. "elevator," he finished quietly.

"Oh well..." He closed the door and downed the rest of his drink. "So, FRIDAY, what's missing to get those sensors up and running?"

Chapter Text

"You're behind, honey bear..."

"Nope, nope, nope, just a sec..."

"Nuh-uh, you're never gonna... shit..shitshitshiiit."

"Bye, bye, loser!"

Tony jumped off the couch, pressing the keys with all the force he could muster.

"Fuck, damn it, GAH!" He threw the controller across the room and he turned to Rhodey. "You're supposed to be here to make me feel better. I hope you're ashamed of yourself!"

Rhodey, on the other hand, was roaring with laughter - holding his stomach, crying sort of laughter - at the sight of Tony all flustered.

"I am so not! I said we should hang out, not that I'll let you win just to make you feel better!"

"FRIDAY! Transcript!"

"Boss, I'm afraid pulling up the telephone transcript would not work out in your favor."

That set Rhodey off for another roar of laughter.

"Really? Do I have anybody left on my team?" Tony let himself fall back onto to sofa.

"Aww, come here..." Rhodey reached for him and tried to plant a kiss on his cheek.

"Nope. Nope. Come on now!" Tony struggled against Rhodey's grip.

"Fine." He let go and leaned over the armrest to fish a couple of beers out of the cooler. "We really need to talk about your logistics here. What happened to the fridge?"

"I'm not allowed a fridge." He shrugged, sat up straight on the couch and mimed a headmaster pose including accusingly raised index finger. "Food is to be consumed in the common area and small talk is to be made with one's team members for an optimal bonding experience."

"You're kidding..."

Tony opened his beer with a pop. "Nope." He popped the 'p' aping his beer.

"Well, moving back to the Tower makes more sense now. What's the time frame on that?"

Tony took a sip, shrugging his shoulders. "I've done some cleanup yesterday, but I really want to restructure the penthouse. It's all very open and I'm kind of over that. I've really started to appreciate doors again." He raised his brows suggestively at Rhodey and then rolled his eyes taking another sip of the beer.

"I bet. So where are you at so far?"

"I've implemented FRIDAY earlier today. Connected her to the sensors I had in place from JARVIS already."

Rhodey looked up at him, eyebrows knitted close together. "You never implemented FRIDAY at the Tower?"

Tony shook his head. "No, I guess... It's like having the new kid move into the dead kid's room."

"JARVIS is not really dead though."

"Well, he's not exactly alive either. Sure, he's part of Vision's makeup. But that's not the same."

Rhodey nodded. "How did it go then?"

"Honestly, it was fine. I actually got a motivation boost last night, when the Spiderling was suddenly clinging to the window of the penthouse."

His friend snorted and coughed on his drink, beer dripping out of his nose and splattered all over his chin.

"Dude...gross!" Tony shook a few droplets of liquid off his arm.

Between a couple more coughs, Rhodey stuttered. "What's a Spiderling? And what is it doing clinging to the windows of your skyscraper?"

"It's this dude...FRIDAY pull up those Spider-Man videos."

Rhodey's eyebrows shot up as he watched and listened to Tony's story about a man who could stick to buildings and shot spider-webs from his wrists.

"So, is it a gimmick?"

"Not sure."

"Like, does that white stuff come from inside his arm?" Rhodey wrinkled his nose. "That's nasty!"

"Don't know."

"Tony, how are you not freaked out by this?"

He shrugged and leaned back on the couch, beer still in hand. "I think he's kinda cool."

"What's happening? Dude, you should be all over this, figuring out what the guy wants and if he's a threat."

Tony gave another shrug "He's been tying up purse thieves and carjackers. I don't think there's much for us to worry about."

Rhodey's looked, nose pinched, absentmindedly scratching the back of his neck. "So why was he up there?"

"Apparently he's attracted by light."

"Why are you speaking in code?"

Tony chuckled. "I guess it was payback, I kinda ambushed him on Thursday night."

Rhodey's mouth fell open. "That's where you were all night?"

"Not all night. We had a little chat. He..." Tony took another sip of his beer. "Well, he actually helped Potts out of a delicate spot."

"He happened to help out Pepper?” Rhodey’s eyebrows shot up even more. “Yeah, that doesn't sound fishy at all!"

Tony sighed "I know. So, I checked it out. Checked him out. I had FRIDAY do a bit of analysis of his patterns, sightings, eyewitness accounts, the whole shebang." He shrugged. "He doesn't seem like a criminal mastermind as far as I can tell. I'll keep an eye on it."

"Huh. Alright then. Speaking of Pepper..."

Tony rolled his eyes.

"Have you talked to her?"

"Mhm."

"Recently?"

"Yeah sure, we had a very amicable chat the other day..."

"I'm talking recently as in the last 36h."

Tony sighed. "I called. She doesn't answer." Rhodey grimaced and quietly sipped his beer. "She's pissed. I get it."

"That she is."

"Did you talk to her?"

"I'm not getting in the middle of this."

"Fine by me. So, about my Mario Cart revenge-"

"Nope, we're not done."

Tony groaned. "Come on, Rhodey. What do you want me to say? I fucked up. It's not the first time. Won't be the last. She'll get over it."

"She's worried, Tony. We're both worried."

"Nothing new about that either." He got up and walked all the way to the other side of the lab and retrieved the controller.

"I'll be coming back to New York more frequently. Bit more training units."

"I don't need a babysitter, Platypus."

"I'm not babysitting. I'm your friend. Friends spend time together. More than we have recently."

"Fine. I can live with that." Tony dropped back onto the couch.

"Good."

"Good."

"Can we get back to me kicking your ass at Nintendo now?"

"It amazes me, how your brain works..." Rhodey laughed. "A true genius' mind..."

##

A grey, wet Monday morning was darkening Peter's day. After he had reveled in a high over the weekend courtesy of his amazing Friday night, his mood quickly spiraled down. He'd hunted villains in freaking Manhattan and climbed a huge skyscraper from the outside. Hell, he'd been offered a Scotch - or something -  by Tony Stark, made small talk and exchanged favors. His life had gotten freaking amazing. For about a day.

He was bursting with excitement, dying to talk to someone about what had happened to him. But he couldn't. Nobody knew. Nobody could know! Even May had commented on his good mood and he had been so close to telling her, but there was no way. She would just freak out. She'd probably ground him for the next century or two. He was absentmindedly clicking away on his pen and stared over to Ned. Telling Ned. He'd freak out too. Like, a lot. The possibility that he’d let something slip were… well… enormous. There was the benefit that people most likely wouldn’t pay all that much attention to Ned geeking out, so even if he'd let something slip…

Peter sighed. He kinda missed his window of opportunity there though. Ned kept going on and on about Spider-Man. He frequently wanted to theorize and Peter had stubbornly feigned disinterest and oblivion one too many times. Or ten. Ned would be mad. Peter had kept this to himself for so long and -

"Mr. Parker!"

Peter sat up straight and dropped his pen.

"Now that I finally have your full attention, what can you tell me about today's Leap Day?"

Peter blinked and rummaged his brain. "Erm. On Leap Day it's a custom that women propose to men."

Mrs. Warren pursed her lips. "I was really talking about the astronomical significance. This is a school for Science and Technology after all."

A balled up piece of paper hit him in the side of the head. He turned and stared into Flash's face. "LOSER!" He mouthed and Peter's head shot back to the front.

"Ms. Jones?"

"One solar year lasts for approximately 365 days and 6 hours. To account for the extra hours accumulated as a result of the 365-day Gregorian calendar our society adopted, an additional day is added every four years to prevent an otherwise unavoidable shift in our seasons and the accompanying confusion that would cause. February 29th is added every four years to align the calendar with the Sun's apparent position."

Michelle turned towards him and gave him an unfazed look. He pouted and dove under the table for his pen.

 He had known that…

"Mr. Parker!"

Peter shot up. With a loud bang, he hit his head on the tabletop in the process.

"What consequences arise from a Leap Day being added every four years, Mr. Parker?"

Peter rubbed the back of his head. Come on, focus… "The... erm. There are people born on a Leap Day, that will have to... erm... Different countries determine February 28 or March 1st for when people come of age because when they turn 18 or 21 -"

"We're still talking about science here, Mr. Parker." She turned away from him. "Mr. Leeds."

"A Solar year is not exactly 365 days and 6 hours long. Adding one day every 4 years means an excess of about 44 minutes for every year or 3 extra days every 400 years. To compensate that three days are removed from the calendar every 400 years."

"Very good, Mr. Leeds." Ned shot him a questioning look, but Peter just shrugged.

"Mr. Parker, last chance at redemption for you: How is this adjustment implemented?"

Peter cleared his throat. "The general rule of a leap year occurring every 4 years is suspended for selected years. A year divisible by 100 is not a Leap Year unless it is also divisible by 400."

"Can you give me an example."

"The years 2000 and 2400 are Leap Years while 2100, 2200 and 2300 won't be."

"Glad to have you back, Mr. Parker."

Peter fell back in his chair and bit back a deep sigh as he stared down at his notes.

This is torture...

##

Tony was lying on his back, panting. He used his arms to block another one of Natasha's blows. Quickly he rolled to the side, got onto his knees before he leaned back to doge her and then he was back up on his feet.

"Come on now, Tony, that was the easy part." She teased him to come closer, to put in a counter strike. "You never gonna get me on the mat if all you do is duck down."

Tony circled her, kept his arms up. She’d have to think of something better. A bit of chatter was not gonna be enough to distract him.

"Come on, old man. Show me what you got."

He kept focusing on the movement of her legs, two steps to the right, half a step back. She could bait him all she wanted. Attacking Natasha would only leave him pinned down on the mat. And not in a good way.

"We're not on the mat yet, Nat."

She jumped towards him as soon he had opened his mouth. Predictable. He jumped out of her way and turned back towards her, as she sailed past him. She fell into a light run, once she realized she'd missed him and shook out her arm.

"Seriously Tony, do you want to train or do you want to dance around in a circle for half an hour." She walked back towards him, annoyance clearly detectable in her voice.

"Hey, I'm trying to survive here. I attack you, I'm done. And, in time, so is one of my spinal disks."

"What's going on?" Rogers walked over from the other side of the gym.

Natasha shook her head. "We're fine, Steve."

They took positions again, circling each other.

"Alright, let's see some action." Rogers had his arms crossed and still studied their encounter.

Great. He had to keep his eyes on Natasha's step sequence. He’d need to find an in. There had to be a pattern. Some way she would give away her next move. Last time when her legs-.

"Come on, guys." Rogers clapped his hands.

Right away Natasha stepped towards him, then brought her leg up into a back-turn as she aimed a kick at Tony. Once again he dodged her leg and stayed up on his feet.

"Come on, Tony! You can't wait forever! You have to attack at some point!" Rogers prodded him.

He feigned a step forward and jumped to the side as soon as Natasha answered his movement with a leap towards him. Tony ducked to the other side. If he managed to circle her from behind he might… Nope. She was just too fast.

"Put more energy into it!"

Tony rolled his eyes, dropped his arms and turned towards Rogers. "Dude, can you maybe -"

Just as he had turned, Natasha had launched into another attack and kicked him square into the chest. It rushed all the air out of his lungs and he crashed to the ground, Natasha on top of him. His head hit the mat, his eyes widened and he gasped for air. Natasha climbed of him quickly as he was still panting and coughing for oxygen. A deep sting in his chest already grew into a sharp pain.

Rogers had let out a yell and jabbered something that didn't make it all the way into Tony's consciousness. Natasha kneeled next to him, a hand on his shoulder.

"Tony, are you ok?"

He looked up at her, his body still in shock from the forceful impact and struggled to even out his breathing. He gave a short nod, laid back and closed his eyes. Urgh… That hurt. Breathing through the pain didn’t really do anything for him so he decided to go for the path of distraction. He focused on the noise which turned out to be a bad idea.

"What the hell was that? Can you take this seriously for once in your life, Tony?"

"Shut up, Rogers." His voice raw and croaking. His lung still burned.

"What was that? You're supposed to spar, not procrastinate till practice is over."

"Shut up, Rogers!" He repeated, his voice a little steadier.

"It's disrespectful!"

"Oh my god." He groaned and opened his eyes. He popped himself up on his lower arms and glared at Rogers. "I'm waiting for her to make a mistake. It's the only way I can get her. She's faster and more agile than me and completely unpredictable."

"Great, is that what we have to look forward to fighting alongside you? You'll just be waiting around for the bad guys to make some mistakes?"

"Usually I have a little more firepower at my disposal to launch an attack," he gritted his teeth. Asshole.

"You can't always rely on your suit, Tony!" Natasha chimed in.

"Which is, why I'm not in it right now..." Were they serious right now? How was he supposed to overpower the superspy in close combat?!

Rogers still loomed over him, arms crossed and glared down at him disapprovingly. "Well, I assume you're done for the day."

He turned and walked back to the other side of the gym where Wanda and Sam had stopped and watched what was going on. "Just keep going guys. The rest of us is not done yet."

Tony threw his arms up in defeat. Just great. Natasha bent down and offered him a hand up.

"I'm sorry. Just say something before you fall out of position next time."

He bit his tongue and swallowed the testy retort that was already forming in his mind.

"You good?"

"Peachy."

He stalked out of the gym towards his bedroom. Oh, all the kinds of ways he could spend the day kicking Rogers' ass. He walked in and started to throw his clothes off in a huff, but winced when he pulled the shirt over his head. A glance in the mirror revealed an angry-looking red blotch on his chest that was going to develop into a nice, big bruise. He poked around the area and tested out the pain level. Nothing too severe, his sternum felt like it was okay, only the scars left from the Arc looked angrier than usual, their white tissue more pronounced against the darker tone his skin was taking on. He closed his eyes, rubbing his face.

He had to just let it go. He couldn’t change it, no point in obsessing about it.

He opened his eyes and stared at himself in the mirror. That would bruise properly. He sighed and lifted his gaze from his chest to look into his own eyes.

"Just... let it go."

He stepped into the shower and let the hot water engulf his body. His brain just needed to shut up!

Half an hour later he was sitting behind his desk and stared at his phone. 11:15 am on a Monday was no time for Potts to be free to talk so he might as well save the call for later. He didn't trust his mood anyway and he certainly didn't need another conversation with Pepper to turn confrontational.

"FRIDAY has any response come in from the contractors you contacted regarding the penthouse remodel?"

"There is one offer, Sir. But I recommend waiting for additional responses. The proposal seems quite overpriced including an excessive amount of hours."

"More than you calculated, I assume?"

"About 2.3 times the hours I estimate necessary for the remodel, Boss."

"Well, we can't be everybody's golden goose. Let's wait for the other proposals then."

"Sir, Miss Romanov is waiting in front of the lab, asking to be admitted."

Tony sighed. "Let her in, tell her I'm upstairs." He jumped out of his chair.

"She's on her way, Sir."

"Thanks, FRI."

Tony cleared some of the SI documents off the table and threw them into his desk drawer along with the ice pack, that he had been pressing onto his chest. There was a key to lock them on his desk somewhere… He was confident that Natasha would find her way into those if she was out for SI intel, but that was no reason to make it easy for her.

"You up there?"

"Yup." He'd just cleared the shelf space behind him of any obvious documents that could have potential NDAs connected to them and turned to see her walk up the steps from the lab.

"I don't think I've ever been up here. Is this your secret man cave?"

"I usually make it a rule not to invite people up here. The board encourages me to keep SI business at arm's length from the Superhumans."

Natasha shrugged, "Not a Superhuman."

"Yeah, well that's debatable."

She smirked and indicated the plate and cups she was carrying. "I brought coffee and sandwiches..."

"Well, in that case, I'm inclined to make an exception." He sat back down and reached for the cup she'd just placed on the desk in front of him.

"Uh-uh, first things first, how's your chest." She swatted his hand away.

"It's fine." He reached out once more and again her hand pushed his away from the coffee mug.

"Come on, let me see!"

"Ha! Yeah, that's not happening."

"Don't be a baby, take that shirt off and let me see."

"Natasha, no."

"Don't be such a prude!"

He felt a flush creeping up his neck.

"I'm in a crime-fighting boy band, whose members feel the need run around shirtless every time they even slightly exercise. Believe me, a shirtless dude does not faze me at this point."

He crossed his arms in front of him and leaned back in his chair. "I told you, it's fine. I checked it earlier. No harm done."

She narrowed her eyes. "If I let you have the coffee first, will you tell me why you're being weird about this?"

"The only weird thing is your obsession to have me take my shirt off." He shook his head, leaning back in the chair.

"Tony, I hurt you. I'm sorry. Let me help."

He leaned forward. "Coffee first!"

She smiled and slid the cup over to his side of the desk. He took a gulp and pointed her towards the chair on the other side of the desk. Natasha just sat there, watching him, waiting.

"Stop analyzing me."

"I'm not."

"Liar."

"No more than usual..."

He sighed and got up. "Fine. Let's get this over with." He grabbed the bottom of his shirt, carefully working himself out of it, determined not to let any discomfort show. Natasha got up and stepped around the desk to have a closer look.

She grimaced, pinching her nose. "How's your sternum."

"It's fine." He shifted a bit, certain that she was taking in more than just the angry redness of the bruise. Maybe it was his nerves but the scar tissue from the Arc seemed to stand out even more than it did in his bathroom earlier.

"Nothing cracked?"

"I don't think so." She didn't touch him. That was a relief. She ended up shrugging and only pointed back to his shirt.

"I'm going to save my breath about seeing a doctor if it doesn't improve over the next couple of days. You should at least ice it though."

His shirt pulled back on, Tony let himself fall back into his chair. He unlocked the top drawer and fished out the ice pack.

"Aw, Tony! You're hiding your ice pack from me? Not sure if I should be touched or offended..." She offered him the plate with the sandwiches she had brought.

They sat in silence for a minute eating and drinking their coffee.

"You don't have to hang out here just because you feel guilty, you know."

"I don't feel guilty. I'm just sorry. Different story."

"I see. Sorry, I wasn't aware of that distinction..."

"We spared, you got hurt. It happens. You can't let Steve get under your skin like that, Tony. I know the team's had a few rough months and Steve's team-building missions aren't necessarily your cup of tea, but we need you on this team. They need to know that you have their backs."

Tony shook his head. "I have their backs! I've always had their backs."

"I know that, but you know how the guys tick. You're an anomaly to them. They don't understand how you work - honestly, few people do - and Bruce isn't here..." She bit her lip. "He isn't here to buffer it anymore."

Tony stared at his coffee. He really didn’t want to snap at her but his temper wasn’t easy to control. "Is this where you tell me not to move back to the Tower?"

"No, actually, I think, it's a good idea, as long as you don't use it as an excuse to stay hidden in your lab over there even more than you currently are here."

"I already told Rogers. I'm still going to keep a lab at the Compound to work on the Equipment and things."

Natasha nodded. "Good. You guys need to get your shit together."

He drummed his finger and bit the inside of his cheeks. He was keeping his shit to himself if only certain other people wouldn’t-

"Tony."

"Yes, I understand."

"Look at me!"

He did, lips pressed flat.

"I'm not saying this is all you. Not by a long shot. It's not all just them either though."

He nodded, his eyes back on the cup. "Understood."

She got up. "I'll talk to Steve. I'll try to buffer you, but I need you to pull your own weight."

"I'm trying."

She nodded. "Good. I'll see you for practice tomorrow."

His eyes shot back up at her.

"Conference room 2B. Bring a pen. We'll be going over your close combat technique."

Chapter Text

It had been a long week for Peter. His frustration had continually been building up and every day turned out crappier than the previous one. His mind constantly wanted to drift off even now as he read through his notes from biology class. Well, Ned's notes. Peter never really was the kind of student who had to sit down and study. He was lucky enough to just pick up most of the facts by listening in class, which came in handy with all the afternoons and evenings he spent with Spider-Man patrols. His level of frustration was directly proportionate to his listening abilities though, it seemed. After the embarrassing episode in Mrs. Warren's class, he'd been called out repeatedly by different teachers throughout the week for daydreaming. He wasn't really daydreaming though, he'd been building his case. He was bursting with his big secret. He needed to talk to someone - really anyone – but first had to try and figure out the best way to tell Ned or May. It was driving him mad. The constant tension and worry that he would let something slip. Everything he had experienced unload his stories on or bounce his questions off.

For more than a week he had mulled over his speeches to May and Ned in his head, there was one thing he'd realized though. He didn't know enough. He didn't really understand what had happened to him - well, apart from the obvious result of the radioactive spider bite that had left him with spider powers, somehow. But he had no idea what had actually happened to his body. If he were to tell Ned he’d be sure of one thing: he’d be bombarded with a million questions about his powers and what it meant and how it worked and how it felt. And he didn’t have a single answer to any of it. No, it just wasn’t an option. As much as all the secrecy started to bother him, he first had to find some more answers.

Now, telling May would not just mean a million questions in addition to a thousand reproachful scoldings. If he ever wanted to even start to work on getting May's blessing to keep his Spider-Man career going, he would definitely have to be able to answer some of those questions. So far, he'd really just gone with the flow. He tested out his strength and his boundaries. He had no idea if his powers were at all evolving or changing. Was he as strong as he had been that first time he had surprised himself with actually being able to lift a car? He was healing faster now than he had before the bite. A lot faster. Any scratch would be gone in a few hours. He had cut his finger helping May prepare dinner the other week. It had hurt like hell and the cut had been deep enough to send May running for the first-aid kit.

"Let me see that." May hurried back from the bathroom, first-aid kit in hand.

"It's fine, I can do it!"

"Don't be silly, show me!"

He took off the paper towel he'd been pressing on his left index finger and let her take his hand.

"Oh, god! Put that towel back on your finger and put some pressure on it!" She opened the kit, cursed under her breath. With shaky hands, see her shuffled through the limited material still left in the box.

"It's fine, May! It'll stop bleeding on its own in a bit!"

"You, be quiet!" She took a deep breath and Peter groaned in frustration.

"Seriously, May, I know you can't stand blood. It'll be fine."

She had found a piece of wound-dressing and a small roll of gauze.

"Finger!"

He rolled his eyes and stretched out his left hand towards her. She dragged him closer to the kitchen sink and turned on the water. After she had tested the temperature she eased his finger under the soft stream and swallowed hard eyes on the blood flowing out of his wound as it mixed with the water. "Does that hurt?"

"It stings a little, but it's not too bad."

"Alright." She held his hand and turned his finger from side to side to clean the wound. Peter could feel it throbbing and took a deep breath, careful to be quiet about it. He struggled to keep a straight face. May would freak out if he let this get to him. It did sting. He'd dealt with small scrapes and the odd bump since becoming Spider-Man. Especially in the beginning when he was still figuring out his strength, his clumsiness earned him a few scraped knees and bruises when he occasionally got knocked against a building wall before he was able to completely control his swinging. Nothing too serious though. Nothing too hurtful. And the injuries disappeared within a few hours. As he was watching the blood flow freely from the deep cut in his finger, he truly realized for the first time since he had started his crime-fighting that a proper injury, if something were to pierce his skin… It would hurt. A lot. His Spidey-powers were no help here. They didn't dull the pain. The longer he looked at his finger, the stronger the sting seemed to get. Were his senses amplifying the pain?

"Peter, are you alright? You've gone all white!" Her hand softly ruffled his hair, then wandered down cupping his face. "Should we take you to the emergency room? Get this stitched up?"

"No!" He shook his head and pulled his hand back. The blood-soaked paper towel tightly in his hand, he quickly covered the finger with it. "It's just a small cut. I'll be fine!"

It would heal super quick. There was absolutely no way he'd let May pay a ridiculous emergency room bill for something that his healing factor would handle in no time!

"It's pretty deep, Peter. It will probably scar."

"It's just a cut."

May bit her lip and studied him. "Alright then." She reached for his hand again, carefully applied the wound dressing and then wrapped it with gauze.

"We'll look at it in the morning. If there's any sign of infection, we'll go straight to the doctor."

Peter's eye widened. "It's... it'll be just fine!" He had no idea how fast this cut would heal, but he assumed fast enough that May would get mighty suspicious come morning time if his finger happened to look almost untouched.

"Go sit down, honey. I'll finish dinner."

That night he could hardly sleep at all. His alarm was set to 5:30. That would give him an hour before May got up, but he just couldn't go to sleep. His mind mulled over all the possibilities again and again. Well, the two possibilities he could come up with to keep May in the dark about his accelerated healing speed. He could either leave the apartment before she was properly awake and would remember that she wanted to check his finger or he would have to, well, recreate the wound. Take that knife from the kitchen counter and slice up his own finger deep enough to convince May. His heart would race just at the thought and a shiver ran through his body. A glance to his bedside table told him that it was 1:20 am. He was slowly stroking his finger, before he softly pressed onto the wound. It was still tender and the cut throbbed slightly, but there was no telling how far along the healing process had gotten. It was still covered by gauze and he wasn’t really into the idea to take it off. What if the cut was gone come morning. He gasped for air. He would have to run for the kitchen and grab the knife to cut his finger. What if the panic had made him forget which finger was injured in the first place?

"Stop it." His voice shook. He needed calm the eff down.

In the morning Peter just couldn’t do it. His head would fill with the beat of his erratic heart and he couldn’t stop his hands from shaking. Just the thought of pulling back the gauze... no! By the time May got up, he was already dressed for school, really just waiting for her to come out of her bedroom so he could shout a quick "Totally forgot, early project meeting with Ned!" and dash from the apartment before May could even answer. It took him another 30 minutes and a nice morning sandwich from Delmar's to muster up the nerve to take off the bandage.

A red line was still clearly visible, but the wound had completely dried up and was almost closed. He had let out a shaky breath and bit the nails on his right hand. All he could do was to just stare at the finger. Come evening, there wouldn't be much of a wound left for May to inspect. Unless...

His head propped up in his right hand, Peter had his elbow resting on his desk. He had abandoned his biology notes to stare at his left index finger. No scar, no nothing that reminded of the incident from a few weeks ago. Nothing that would suggest that he had cut this finger what had felt like to the bone. In the rational part of his mind, he knew that it hadn't been that deep of a cut, but to his panicked brain, that's what it had felt like. Definitely deep enough that is would have taken a normal person a couple of weeks to heal. In his panic to keep May in the dark, he had reopened that wound twice a day for over a week. It was probably the most messed up thing he'd done since he had become Spider-Man. Well, the most messed up thing he had done, period. May could never find out about that particular incident. Even if he could muster up the courage to tell her about his Spidey-powers, this little anecdote was too much.

He wasn't sure if his healing had changed since he had first developed his enhancements. If it had improved over time or if his powers came in all at once. There was no way to tell and his healing factor was definitely not among the things he would poke around in his quest for answers. The less he needed that particular skill, the better.

He could test out his strength and his agility and then just assume whatever increase or decrease he could record over time would be directly related to his healing factor as well. More important would be to figure out if the bite had changed his human makeup, his core. He reached over for Ned’s biology notes on the discovery of the DNA Double Helix. This would have to be his starting point.

##

Tony was sitting outside on the platform of his Penthouse, coffee in hand. He'd been discussing the remodel with two different contractors all morning and most of the afternoon. It hadn't been hard to pick out the more qualified one, or rather the one who would promise to deliver results promptly. A little bonus incentive had persuaded the man to start the next day. Never let it be said that money can't buy happiness. His own floors in the tower with all the personal freedom of movement that entailed was all the happiness he could wish for right now. His plan was unfolding nicely and with the little extra financial injection, the groundwork would be done in about a week. It was only a few walls and a proper paint job after all. He turned back around and headed inside. It was only March and up on the 68th floor, the wind tended to be chilly.

"FRIDAY, I'm going to need a few suggestions on what furniture to buy."

"Of course, Sir. I can research the latest interior design blogs and trade fair articles for current trends."

"Hmm..."

"I could also forward you additional information on room arrangements corresponding to the latest scientific findings concerning its influence on mood and personality attributes."

"Didn't we redo SI HQ in LA last year?"

"Yes, Sir. Miss Potts oversaw most of the remodel and the coordination of the interior design. I can inform her about your desire to-"

"No!"

"Very well, Sir."

"Just... just send me the list of the furniture she bought... I just want to browse through it."

"Will do, Boss."

Tony looked down at his phone. It had been over a week. He'd tried to call her last Saturday, but she hadn't answered. He had tried again before Rhodey came to visit. Honestly, he hadn't been surprised when she hadn't picked up. At first Tony had been glad when the call went to voicemail and he hadn't bothered to leave a message. He had not really been ready to talk to her and she had all the right in the world to still be pissed. He had called again on Sunday, Monday, Tuesday... every day for over a week. He sighed. After a week, on Saturday he had left the first voicemail, had asked her to call him back, told her he didn't want to apologize via her answering machine. But she hadn't. He'd tried again every day at noon and after the evening news when he'd be less likely to disturb her routine.

Just as he was about to put the phone back into his pocket if rang and Rogers face popped up on the screen.

"Urgh..."

"Boss, we have a code B1."

He picked up the call at once. "Rogers, shoot."

"Subject we've been monitoring. Biochemical. Van heading west from Queens towards Manhattan, probably Queensboro Bridge. Target assumed to be the subway. Lexington Avenue station on 59th street most convenient on the route."

The suit had assembled around Tony.

"I'm at the Tower, only a minute trip for me."

"We're leaving the Compound in a couple of minutes. I need you to wait."

"Wait? Are you serious?"

"You can't handle this on your own. They might set it off prematurely if they know we're onto them!"

"Yeah, cause the Quinjet will be super low key. Come on, Cap!"

"The Quinjet can be cloaked. We're boarding now. Stay out of sight!"

Rogers hung up and left Tony planted in the living room of the penthouse in the Iron Man suit. Okay… what was the most inconspicuous way that he could get himself 17 blocks to the north?

"FRI, did we get any tracking data from the team to monitor the subject?" He went outside onto the platform, his gaze towards Queens. "And, also, the team?"

"Not so far, Boss."

Tony opened up the channel to the team com "Cap, do you read me?"

Radio silence. They were not in range then. Yet. He paced up and down the platform.

"Screw this." He jumped off to the southern side of the tower, circled around it and headed up Park Avenue. He kept himself high enough to be out of sight of the pedestrians and slow enough not to cause too much attention. The high Manhattan buildings to his right covered him for the eyes of anyone coming from the east.

"Guys, do you read me?" He made it 57th street in about a minute and had landed on the Four Seasons only a couple blocks from the subway station he assumed Rogers had been talking about.

"FRIDAY, pick out any vans coming over the bridge."

"Will do, Boss."

"Guys?"

"Tony, we read you." Natasha's voice came through, still crackling. "We're about 10 miles out. Slowing down for final approach."

"I'm on top of the Four Season. What am I looking for?"

Rogers gave him the update. "White Van, no markings. 4 people. It's heading toward the bridge. Stay put for now, Tony."

"Alright, Cap. Mind sending over the tracking info?"

"Sam is sending you the data we have."

Just then the van appeared on the interface of his helmet.

"FRIDAY calculates that they are three minutes out."

"We're here. Will leave the Quinjet cloaked overhead the station." Nat’s voice was strained as she was focused on the different levers and buttons to get the Quinjet in position.

"Vision, get yourself down underground in case they try to run down the steps before we can get to all of them. Sam, I want you popped up on one of the middle sized buildings overhead the entrance to the station. Wanda, you're taking the other side. Nat and I will get down onto the sidewalk. Tony, any way you can make your way over here without causing a scene among the pedestrian?"

"Well, I managed to come up Park just fine..."

"Alright, I want you to stay on the corner of Park in case we miscalculated and they continue further west. If they do, engage. Wait for my sign though. Otherwise, we'll need to you get the civilians out of our way."

"Copy that." Tony sighed and made his way off the Four Seasons further to the north. "They're on the bridge now."

"Alright, everyone. Sam, Wanda, give us a heads up when you have eyes on them."

A short "Copy, in position." came through from Wanda. Sam's drone showed up on Tony's radar.

"Redwing has eyes on them. Scanning now. 4 dudes, alright. They all have breathing masks with them. Two of them carry what looks like vials. One might be a decoy. They're coming off the bridge now, should get off the feeder any moment."

"Everyone in place?" The team confirmed their positions. Tony had made it to 59th street, staying high, he once again used the building on the corner as a shield.

"They're here Cap," Sam spoke in a low but clear voice.

"Copy, I have eyes on them as well. We need to find the weapon before we engage. Wanda?"

"Van parked across the street. They're getting out."

"Tall dude, leather Jacket is #1 one. The other tall dude with no hair has the second."

"Wanda, you keep an eye out for those vials to appear. Secure them when you can."

Then everything happened super fast. Bald, tall guy broke away from the group and headed towards the stairs that lead down to the subway. Natasha was on his heel, immediately warned Vision so they could trap him between them. Cap, Sam, and Wanda engage the other three and Wanda tried to immobilize Leather-Jacket. As soon as Tony could tell that they were made by the terrorists, he swooped in, stopped and diverted traffic. He urged people to run into the other direction as he got closer to the action.

"We got the bald guy. Got the vial, clear liquid, probably the decoy." Nat was breathing heavily.

"I'm tying him to the handrail on the stairs. Natasha is making her way up to the street." Visions voice, in contrast, was the personification of calm.

"Did anyone inform the authorities to halt the subway line?" Tony had almost made it to Cap and Wanda. Sam flew overhead them. Maybe he would have circled around them, but the men had pulled out guns and backtracked slowly towards the bridge.

"Not the time, Tony." Not the time? Was Cap serio- An explosion rocked the street and set the cars in front of them on fire.

"They pulled out the grenades."

"You didn't say anything about grenades, Sam!"

"Sorry, Cap. Grenades were implied."

Tony shot quickly toward the smoke, the suits scanners outlined moving bodies even though his own view was obstructed by smoke.

"They're pulling in people." Tony updated the others.

"He's right, 7 civilians now lined around them as shields. They keep moving towards the bridge." Sam had landed on top of The Home Depot and peered through the smoke.
 
"Wanda, any chance you can access that vial?"

"Sorry, Steve. It's fastened somewhere and won't budge."

"We need to get those people out!" Tony could feel Rogers follow behind him. "Tony, what do you see?"

"Two of them are threatening the civilians, one of them Leather-Jacket. The third is pulling more people in."

"Distract them and Wanda and I will get the people out!"

"Distract them how? I go at them, they might set off the device!"

"Guys, something's happening." Sam pulled their attention back towards the terrorists turned kidnappers. Tony had just made it through the smoke, Rogers on his heals.

"Nat, where are you at?"

"I'm on your left, have eyes on them. Wanda's hovering somewhere above me. Fuck, this is getting tricky."

Tony had his eyes still fixed on the group in front of him when Leather-Jacket stepped out in front of the crowd of hostages. He dragged a young woman by her neck, vial pressed against her face. His henchmen still fired shots towards Wilson and Wanda above them.

"Avengers," his voice cold and mocking, "How about you fuck off and everyone here gets to go home in one piece?"

Tony forced out the breath he had just realized he had been holding when Rogers' voice came quietly over the comm.

"Wanda, any chance of getting that vial?" Another round of bullets delayed her answer to Rogers question.

"He's gripping it too tightly. If I interfere, he might just smash it right there. Vis, can you get around them?"

"Certainly!"

"Wait, Vision. If we have someone shot out from behind them, it might escalate the situation." Steve was right behind him now. "Tony, what do we do?"

The comm stayed quiet then. Tony mulled the situation over. Shit, there was no obvious path here. He could take them out execution-style but there was always a chance that the vial got smashed. If they would back off, Leather-Jacket might just strap on his mask, smash it and run for it. They couldn't advance any further or he might smash it either way in a panic and sacrifice himself in the process, so they stayed put.

"Seriously, Cap, now you come to me for advice on a maneuver?"

Rogers huffed. "We need to do something!"

"I'm aware of that!" Tony gritted his teeth. His glance wandered over the buildings to their right side. "They're only a few feet from the crossing to 3rd Avenue. They'll probably want to move further down and then we’ll have the other two guys disappearing off to somewhere while we're kept here by Leather-Jacket. He'll give them a head start and pop that vial, probably put on his mask and take his chances to outrun us through the hostages." Tony took a deep breath and added in a low voice. "We have to engage, now."

Rogers’ huff echoed through the comm. "We engage now and those hostages will die and who knows how many more as this is swept across town."

"We wait and they'll probably die anyway and we let the terrorists escape to do it again." Tony flexed his muscles and got the suit into positions to strike. "I'll set up a headshot. Wanda could try to contain whatever's in that vial if he does crack it before I get to him."

"I don't know if I can do that."

"Well, give it your best shot."

"Tony, you can't -" Rogers had taken a step towards him but froze when he realized. There was a commotion among the hostages. Leather-Jacket turned and looked back and forth. Before either of the Avengers could react he was covered in a cocoon-like an oversized caterpillar.
The Avengers minus Tony were just as stunned as the hostages and actually missed a beat to follow the other two now escaping terrorists. Oh boy… Tony blew out a deep breath and shot forward. “Come on, guys!” He shooed the remaining hostages out of the way and made them run towards the subway for cover. The henchmen skedaddled towards 3rd Avenue, headed into different directions while they kept up the firestorm to shield themselves. One of them threw another grenade not into the direction of the Avengers but towards the bridge. Their target dodged the grenade. Spider-Man then pinned the shell onto the street behind him and ducked at it exploded. The man dropped his arms, turned and stared at the hole the grenade had left in the middle of the road.

"I got this Cap, go after them!"

"Vision, Wanda, make your way to the left. Sam, come with me!"

Tony focused on Leather-Jacket and the woman who still stood right next to him.

"Nat, we need a perimeter," he quietly told her over the comm as he landed right in front of the terrorist and his young hostage.

Natasha was right behind him, shouting orders at the law enforcement officers that had shown up, as he let his face mask retract. "Hey, young lady, you'll be just fine, alright. Deep breaths." He gave her what he hoped looked like a confident nod. The asshole had his legs and left arm webbed to the road and was immobilized. The other arm and the vial inside his hand glued to the girl. Just then did Tony realize that the girl too had been webbed to the street and to her kidnapper.

"Hey, Spiderling! Snap out of it and get over here!"

Spider-Man flinched before he tore his glance from the hole in the ground and the burning cars around him. He rolled back and forth on his feet before he took a few slow and small steps over to where Natasha now tried to soothe the girl. Tony pulled at the web on her arm but got nowhere.

"Mr. Stark... Good to see you again." Nat's head shot up at Tony, her brow furrowed.

"We need to get this off. I really don't want to use the laser around her."

"She needs to stay still, ‘til you get that vial out of his hand first." Spider-Man kept his distance from them. As he spoke his eyes wandered up and down the street. "If that thing in his hand is what it seems to be, all these people need to get away fast."

The girl's eyes widened and her breathing started to border on hyperventilating.

"Thanks for that, Captain Obvious." Nat's voice came low and venomous. "Tony, what is going on here."

Tony shook his head and her a look. Now was not the time! The gauntlet on his right hand retracted now as well and he cupped the girl's face. "Alright, breath with me. You're okay. We'll get you out of this, alright." He mimicked a couple of deep breaths until he saw the Spiderling come closer.

He put a hand on the girl's shoulder and awkwardly patted it twice. "He can't move his hand. I webbed it so he can't smash it or drop it." Then he looked up at Tony and tilted his head a bit.

Great. He couldn’t drop it as long as he was glued in place. Glued to her. When they would free her, they would also free him.

Just great.

Chapter Text

If someone had told Peter that morning, that he'd be fighting alongside the Avengers just because he followed a tingling of his Spidey-senses after school... Yeah, sure, he'd had a couple of unreal run-ins with Tony Stark over the last two weeks, but this here... He was literally helping out the Avengers. And he was shaking in his boots for every second of it.

Mr. Stark was looking at him expectantly as if he was supposed to know how to get them out of this pickle. He'd glued the dude to the girl because that had felt like it would be the only way to keep the dude from dropping what - judging from his threatening use of the thing and the Avengers' reactions - was some kind of a weapon. But that was it. He had no idea where to go from there. Meanwhile, Black Widow looked at him as if she was going to murder him in cold blood as soon as he'd turn his back. Luckily his mask was covering the shade of white his face had turned.

"Nat, why don't you stay with the girl. We'll be right back." Peter gulped. Stark walked up to him and shoved him out of earshot of the two webbed up figures.

"What did you do?"

Peter bit his lip, hoping that his voice wouldn't betray him and show his insecurity. "You mean, besides trying to help you guys out?"

Stark took hold of his arm, turning Peter to face him. "What did you do with his hand, genius!"

"I..." Peter shifted his weight, very conscious of Iron Man holding him by his arm. "I made sure he can't flex his hand and then immobilized him."

"Why can we not just get the web off her face? Is it going to unravel the hold on him if we do?"

"I... I don't know."

"How can you not know?"

"I'm not usually the one who unties them."

"So you're telling me that you have no idea how your... your equipment works?" The frustration apparent in Stark's voice.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Stark. I was just trying to -"

"Yeah, I know. I know." Stark exhaled. "Tell me what you do know. What would you expect to happen when we free her."

"There is tension on the strands. They balance each other out. If we cut one side, the stress on the individual strings changes and it would probably at least partially implode on itself. I don't think it'd be enough for him to free his hand and drop it. Whatever it is. But I think... I think the web would relax enough for him to be able to crush the vial and I assume... I assume we don't want that."

"No..." Stark let got of him and rubbed his face with the still repulsor-less hand, "We don't want that." He sighed, mumbling under his breath. "Could just cut off the hand. He can't flex it if it's not attached to his arm."

Peter's eyes widened and his jaw dropped. Not that anyone would know, thanks to the mask. Apparently, his shock was obvious enough to register with Stark though, for he rolled his eyes and shook his head slightly. "It was a joke. Get a grip."

Peters jaw slammed shut and he felt stupid. He left young and dumb and completely overwhelmed by the situation. Stark next question didn't help.

"Well, what would you do? Any suggestions on how we get out of this one?"

Peter just stared at the ground, scratching his arm, mumbling some incomprehensible mash-up of "Don't know" and "Sorry" and "not sure".

Stark turned away from him in frustration, staring at the girl and guy as if they held the answer. Peter could sense Black Widow approaching.

"Cap wants an update. Wanda and Vision caught one of them, Steve and Sam are still on the chase."

Stark sighed deeply, rubbing his hand across his face once more. "He's going to somehow put this mess on me, isn't he?"

That caught Peter's attention. He looked up at the pair of them and found Black Widows eyes resting on himself. She turned her back towards him and spoke in a low voice, clearly thinking that Peter wouldn't be able to hear her.

"Have you been meeting up with the Spider-dude? Without telling us?"

Stark shook his head. "I checked him out after his run-in with Potts. That's it."

"Tony, I'm not sure how I'm supposed to keep you in their good graces if you keep stuff like this to yourself!"

"I'm not consciously excluding anyone from some kind of secret mission here. I was looking out for Peeper, that's it. Not a big deal."

At that Peter could see Black Widow turn back towards him and he tried to make himself look as unsuspicious and non-listening as possible. Peter could feel her eyes on himself, studying him again. She turned back facing Stark.

"What's the plan here, Tony. The girl is freaking out."

"We need to get the vial without giving him a chance to smash it in the process. Freeing her before getting it doesn't seem to be an option because it's unclear what loosening the webs enough to get her off will do to the immobilizing effect it has on his hand."

"Cut off the hand and be done with it?"

Peter's eyes shot up at both of them as Black Widow just gave a shrug. "Shouldn't have been running around with biochemical weapons if he wants to keep all his limbs."

"Yeah, I don't think cutting off hands in the middle of the street between Lexington and 3rd is the kind of publicity the Avengers need right now." While Peter felt relief at Stark's words, he was surely hoping that bad press was not the only thing holding him back from this particular approach. "We just need to find a way to secure the hand. Really shouldn't be all this complicated."

Peter hastily spoke up at this, desperate to offer a solution that meant everyone would walk away with all their body parts attached. "He can't drop it, even if the web loosens when the girl's freed. His hand is webbed up tightly enough to prevent that. So, all we need to worry about is him not closing his hand. I could work some web around his fingers, pulling them back. That should keep him from smashing it."

He kept his eyes on Tony, who nodded and shrugged at Black Widow.

"Sounds like a plan to me."

Peter could still feel Black Widows eyes on himself though. "Are you seriously gonna trust this dude, Tony?"

Stark shrugged again. "No reason, why he should get involved just to screw us over." His eyebrows shot up, seemingly expecting an answer from Peter.

"I... no... I won't. Of course not, Mr. Stark."

The woman's expression didn't change though. "Never heard that one before..."

Stark turned back to the two webbed up figures though, beckoning Peter to follow along.

"Spiderling, your turn."

Peter stepped up to the guy, carefully spinning out some web-strings, trying to keep the web shooters from being on display for the two Avengers behind him. Black Widow stepped around the pair to look at Peter's work intently as he was slowly working the web through the layers in place around the guy's hand without damaging them.

Once everything was in place, he held onto the web, pulling at it just enough that the dude wouldn't be able to flex his hand.

"Alright. This should do it. You can get her out."

"Should do it?" Black Widow shot another look at Stark, clearly questioning the wisdom of entrusting Peter with this task.

"It'll be fine. Just free her and then we can get the vial." Her hostility was getting on Peter's nerves. He'd done nothing but help people for months. Why was she insisting on thinking the worst of him?!

While the plan working didn't necessarily surprise him, it sure filled him with relief. Mr. Stark used a blade from his suit to cut the girl free, who was escorted off to the waiting EMT by the Widow.

Peter and Stark were in the middle of freeing the vial when she was back, ordering Peter to stay away.

"Chill, Nat."

"We don't need him this close by." She turned to Peter again. "I said, you stay back!"

"Fine, fine. I'm not even..." Peter huffed, retreating a few steps, his grip still firm on the web securing the guy's hand. He tried to suppress his frustration when he heard the Widow speak again. Her voice low, in a whisper, and surely not suppose to reach his ears, but thank you, Spidey-senses, he could hear her just fine.

"When we got this sorted, you need to bring the Spider-dude in! Steve will want to debrief him. It'll earn you a few points if you help him out with this, without being prompted by them."

Peter's eyes shot over to Stark who didn't seem to show a reaction at all.

"Tony!"

"I heard you. Little busy here." Stark's teeth were clenched.

Peter wasn't sure if that stemmed from sheer concentration on the job at hand or came in response to her. Nevertheless, he couldn't help but gulp at the prospect of being brought in by Iron Man. They had a deal, that Stark owed him. A deal that Peter had technically never asked for but that sure would come in handy right about now. It wasn't all that clear though if Stark would follow through on that when it was his own team asking for Peter's head on a platter. The only sensible thing was to get out of there as soon as possible.

The second Peter saw the vial safe in Stark's hands, he shot a web at the building behind himself, dropped the web he was still holding and lunged himself off the ground. He could hear the Widow call after him, while he was climbing the building, trying to think of the optimal escape route. He couldn't really head off to Queens right now, risking the Avengers tailing him.

His mind was focused on his possible escape route when he had climbed about halfway up the building and was suddenly stopped by a kite? A miniature glider? Something hovering right in front of him, that enabled a kind of scanner? Peter reacted instinctively and webbed up the kite, which dropped to the ground immediately. He had just launched into a swing to make his way down the street towards the river when the Falcon crashed into him in midair, leaving him squashed between the wall of the building and the Avenger. Peter struggled to free his arm, to pull himself out from under the Falcon.

"Don't you put your hands on my stuff!"

"Technically, my hands weren't on it." Peter pushed him off, freeing his arms, and set off swinging further along the building, trying to escape the situation. He shot a web at one of the buildings on the other side of the street. Heading south to take a detour through Brooklyn seemed to be the safest option with the Falcon on his heels. Mid-swing he felt his web snap, leaving him falling in the middle of the street. His quick reflexes saved him just in time and he managed to catch himself before crashing to the ground. A quick glance over his shoulder told him that Stark and Black Widow hadn't moved and the Falcon was still hovering above him.

"There's nowhere to run, Spider. Better safe us all the headache and just come quietly!"

"That doesn't really work for me. Maybe another day..." he shot a series of webs towards the Falcon, more as a distraction to give himself some cover to run. He kept walking backward, still firing webs at him. Staying closer to the ground would give the guy less of an advantage over Peter. He was too vulnerable climbing up high with the Avenger being able to fly. So Peter turned and ran around the street corner squarely smashing into what felt like a brick wall but turned out to be another Avenger.

"Not so fast, Spider."

"Sorry, Captain. Fast is the only speed I know." He shackled Captain America's hands, turning in time to shoot another web towards the Falcon and then sprinted down 3rd Avenue. With a low swing, he brought himself to the other side of the street, ducking into the next street. He was faster swinging through the streets than running and Manhattan's street canyons were optimal for that. He never hovered more than a  few feet over the ground, only swinging higher if there were cars or other obstacles he needed to avoid. He could still feel the Falcon following behind him.

Think, Peter. How do you lose a bird? How do you lose a bird?

He shot a glance behind him. He had a bit of a head start, but the Bird-Guy was only a few seconds behind him.

Let's just find an open door. He can't follow into a building if I close the door in his face! And then... then... I guess, creep out somewhere? He swung around another corner. Pick the wrong building and you might be trapped...

Peter's heart was racing, not from physical exhaustion but from nerves. He could hear it beating in his ears. He was scared to be caught. Scared of them finding out who he was. For a second his thoughts lingered on the prospect of being interrogated by Captain America and the Falcon and he could feel his body starting to shake and his eyes stinging with tears. Fear. He took a deep breath, trying to focus on the task at hand. Focus, Peter!

"They're not gonna catch you. They're not gonna catch you." He kept repeating it quietly while cutting around corners, crossing over the traffic on the streets and willing his mind to focus on finding a way out of this. He shot another glace behind him.

The wings are huge. He can only really glide through wider streets.

At this point, Peter had no idea where he was. The only thing that mattered was finding a narrow alleyway. A small gap between two buildings. Something, anything he could slip through where the Bird-Guy couldn't follow. He had swung around two more corners till he spotted a narrow gap between two buildings. He made a beeline for it, fitting through the narrow gap comfortably. He hurried down the path, then started climbing the wall and halting in the middle of it, pressing himself against a window, his feet resting on the sill. His eyes darted back and forth between the front and the back of the building as well as the top. The Bird-Guy - that's what Peter would be calling him from now on, that name scaring him a lot less than "The Falcon" - would try to approach him somehow.

Sure enough, Peter could sense movement on the top of the building. It was getting darker but he had no illusions. The Bird-Guy was bound to have some form of technology - probably Stark-tech - that would allow him to see Peter even in pitch darkness.

"What's up, Spider? Getting tired? Need a little rest"

Peter tried to slow down his breathing, but he knew very well, that it wasn't physical exhaustion that made his heart beat this fast and his breath come out fast and shallow.

Think, Peter! Now what?

"I mean sure, we can just wait here for backup to show up and drag you out of there. Or you can make it easier on yourself and just come in nice and quietly."

Bird-Guy mentioned backup because he was trying to make him run again, hoping to grab him once he came out of the ally. Peter knew that much. But the possibility of backup Avengers was not to be taken lightly. Peter had to lure him down to him somehow. The narrow ally would be an advantage for him over the Bird-Guy.

"What are you hassling on me for? Shouldn't you been looking for the terrorist henchman?"

"I have my orders and right now that means bringing you in!"

"Well, if you're gonna be doing as good a job on me as you have on the bad guys, I guess I don't need to be worried!"

Silence from above him told Peter that he'd hit a nerve.

"Seriously, two of you couldn't keep track of one guy running away on foot?"

"I was gonna be nice about bringing you in, Spider. There is a less gentle version of this if you want to push it!"

Peter's pulse quickened some more. This is insane. You are so dead.

"Gentle? You took a shot at me!"

"At your sticky stuff. Believe me, you'd feel the difference if I had been aiming at you."

"Is that what you told the terrorist before you lost him?"

Peter could see the Bird-Guy lean over the edge of the building above him.

"You really are pissing me off now. Last chance to come quietly or I'll come and get you myself!"

Peter stayed quiet, hoping this really had been enough to provoke the Bird-Dude into close combat. In the narrow gap between these two buildings, Peter's strength and agility would be a massive advantage.

Only a few moments later the Bird-Dude actually shot down into the narrow gap. The window Peter was standing in would have shielded him at least partially from the attack, but all he really needed was a clear shot at the dude. As he sailed down towards Peter, a web Peter aimed for him caught him, enclosing him like a sack of flour and with a second web Peter glued the bundle to the side of the wall.

"Thanks for that, Bird-Dude. You mentioned your Avenger buddies are coming, so I'm sure they'll pick you off the wall in no time."

"Sooner or later, I'll get you, you little freak!"

Peter's face fell a little, disappointed by the cheap shot, but his adrenaline urged him on and he skipped out of the narrow alley, his escape from the possibly following Avengers in mind.
He'd been hiding on a lower level fire escape a few blocks away from where he'd left the Bird-Dude for about an hour and a half now. His body felt stiff and frozen but his heart still hadn't slowed all the way down yet. He was still terrified to check if the coast was clear. The Avengers were working with tech he couldn't even dream up. They were bound to find him. It was only a matter of time. As soon as he moved some kind of motion sensor would probably be alerted. His Spidey-senses still kept flaring up and he was sure they were still looking for him.


Every time his thoughts went down that path his heart rate quickened again and he tried to think of Delmar's sandwiches and his warm comfy bedroom to calm his nerves. It took another 20 minutes for his need to get home to overtake his anxiety and he slowly climbed down into the alleyway. He wasn't sure where exactly he was. He had to find a street sign or at least a clear view of one of Manhattan's famous landmarks, that would give him an indication of where he was and in which direction he needed to head. He was determined to stay close to the ground even contemplating climbing into the subway tunnels and crawling along the ceiling to get back to Queens when he turned a corner and ran into something. Or rather someone.  

For a second he had a flashback to his earlier bump in with Captain America, but this guy was a lot softer and went right to the ground as Peter ran into him.

"Oh gosh, sorry, dude! My bad, I didn't mean to -"

Hands grabbed him by the shoulders and the surprising turn of events made him freeze up just enough that they managed to push him down to the ground. He rolled himself over meaning to web up his attackers when he felt a couple of steel cap boots make contact with his ribs. Someone grabbed his feet and dragged him across the ground towards a door while someone else was trying to restrain his arms with more kicks being aimed at his torso and head. Pain and shock made him freeze up and it was that moment when he realized that it wasn't the threat of looming Avengers that had driven his senses up the wall. He tried to shut up his brain that was scolding him for his foolishness willing his Spidey-senses to take control and help him to get out of this mess.

He became more conscious of his surroundings, sensing 6 guys at a minimum. He kicked off two of them holding his legs first and then struggled to get control of his arms. By the time he had thrown off the guy holding his right arm, more hands were grabbing his legs and yanked him across the concrete. He managed to shoot a web at the guy holding his second arm but the pull on his legs made him lose control of his upper body and he couldn't react in time to keep his head from slamming into the ground. He groaned and kicked, wildly firing at his attackers but his webs wouldn't come. His head was throbbing and he wound himself from side to side to shake off the attack, while he was still trying to make his web shooters work until he realized that the right had run out of fluid and the left was almost empty as well. More kicks hit his chest but he managed to get himself back to his feet and punch the lights out of the two who had been holding him by his arms.

Just as he was about to turn to face the rest, his Spidey-senses flared up in alarm urging him into evasive action. Mid-turn he sidestepped to the right but not enough to avoid the knife aimed at his abdomen. A sharp pain ran through him as it struck his left side, but this time his body didn't freeze at all. A quick succession of kicks and punches had the guy drop the knife though not before Peter felt him leave a few additional cuts on his arms. Three down, three more to go but he knew he was in trouble. He took a second to reach for his side and the amount of blood his hand was covered in from touching his wound made him light-headed. Without another thought, he stepped back from his attackers towards the wall of the building and started climbing.

He reached the top of the building collapsing onto his back. Instinctively his hand went back onto the wound on his side trying to stop the bleeding. With every deep breath he took, blood was oozing past his fingers. The pain started to seep through his entire body.

He cast his eyes up to the Manhattan night sky, pure despair weighing him down, his body transfixed with pain.

Chapter Text

Wilson slammed his fist on the conference table in frustration.

"What the fuck were you thinking, Stark?"

"I was thinking that I'm not going to leave a terrorist alone in the middle of a Manhattan street to chase after the guy who'd just helped us out while I'm still holding an undefined biochemical weapon in my hand. What the fuck were you thinking?"

"Following the team leader's orders?! We don't know the dude! He has powers we need to know about!"

"Really? You're going with that? Sounds a bit like something Ross would say..." Tony shot a glance over to Natasha who had been quietly observing them during the entirety of the debrief.

"Tony, we need to know, who this guy is!" Rogers looked up at Tony, his chin was still resting on his hand. He was giving Tony one of those 'I'm not angry, I'm disappointed'- looks, that Tony sometimes suspected were his real superpower.

"There's plenty of time to find out who he is. That was not the time or the place! Taking care of the city is always the number one priority, not chasing after our allies!"

"He's not our ally!" Rogers was still looking at him like he was 5 years old.

"He sure was helpful today!"

"He butted in while we were trying to thwart a biochemical terror attack, Tony!"

Throwing up his hands at Rogers remark, Tony groaned in frustration. "Please. They had us pushed into a corner. Any further escalation might have resulted in civilian casualties. He did us a favor."

"We don't know, what his motivation is!"

"Come on, Rogers. You're just pissed that he caught us one of the assholes while the one you were chasing gave you the slip!" Rogers' eyes narrowed as Tony crossed his arms, leaning back. "Or is it more about the Spiderling giving you the slip as well?"

Tony couldn't suppress a smirk and an eye-roll at Rogers offended expression.

"Fuck you, Stark! What's the matter with you! How are you defending this guy over your team? You're supposed to have our backs!" Wilson had gotten up out of his chair, pointing a finger at him.

"I am having your backs! I'm letting you know, that you're being douche bags, who need to get their heads out of their asses to realizes the big picture here!" He tilted his head at Wilson, still leaning back in his chair. "It's what friends do. Letting you know, when you're being a jackass."

"Well, the jackass department would be your area of expertise, Stark!" Wilson turned to head for the door of the conference room.

"Sam, sit!" Natasha shot a silencing glace over to a snickering Wanda then looked back and forth between him and Wilson. "Are we done with the pissing match? Get your ass back in that chair, Sam." She turned to Tony. "The Spider-dude is a liability. We don't know anything about him and that needs to change. He doesn't seem to know all that much about what he's doing himself and that is a problem, too. But Tony is right." She turned to Rogers. "He helped. We might have been in real trouble, if he hadn't shown up. That is the part we should actually be focusing on! We only came out on top because we were lucky today and had help that we didn't arranged for. That can't happen again!"

Wilson scowled at her. "Wanda and Vision were just about to back us up. We'd have been fine!"

She turned back to him. "Speculating what could have been is useless right now. Tony is right, catching the Spider was not a priority. Bringing him in by force is not in our best interest. Focusing on the threat at hand was important." She turned to look at Rogers again. "Catching the terrorists was the mission."

"We don't know if he was in on it with them! How did he even know about what was going on? It's suspicious."

"Steve, I think the fact that he helped to keep them from setting off their substance speaks for itself."

Tense silence settled between them until Natasha spoke up again. "We should have cut off their escape route back to the bridge right away. The strategy was flawed." Her glance rested on Rogers. "We will learn from this. We will do better as a team in the future." She leaned back, her eyes still on Rogers. "We do have three of them in custody. That's three new sources of information. We'll learn. We'll be better."

Rogers nodded. "Fine."

"Tony!" His eyes shot over to her. "What do you know about the Spider-dude?"

He mulled over his interactions with the Spiderling for a moment. "I've seen him twice after his run-in with Potts. I thought... I thought it was suspicious..." Rogers looked up at him in surprise, but Tony just shrugged. "Him turning up just as she needed help. It seemed a little too convenient. So first I had Friday check him out. Everything she could, videos, mentions of his abilities, similar instances to Potts' situation. Everything I found was mostly on petty crime, pickpockets, car thieves, those kind of things. All Queens-based with a pretty obvious routine." Tony cleared his throat. "I just wanted to be sure, that Pepper was not a target, so I made the trip over to Queens, checking him out in person. He stopped a burglary in process, wrapped two burglars up in his, well, web stuff. Then we had a short chat. It seemed like he genuinely didn't know that it was Potts he'd helped out that afternoon. I don't think he was lying. That was that." He drummed his fingers on the table, looking up at Natasha.

"So, today was the second time you've come across him?"

He held her stare. "Second time would have been the next day, when he showed up at the tower, making me jump out of my skin." He flashed her a smile.

"He came up to the tower?" The alarm in Rogers' voice was easily detectable. "What did he want?"

Tony kept his eyes on Natasha for a moment longer before turning to look at Rogers, fighting the urge to bite his lip. "Nothing." He shrugged. "Payback for me showing up on his rooftop, I assume."

Rogers shook his head, but Wilson beat him to the punch. "And you seriously bought that?"

"Enlighten me, Wilson. What do you think his master plan is?"

"You need to take this seriously, Tony!" Rogers' eyes were trying to stare him down.

"He's just a young guy trying to show off." Tony could tell by the facial expressions around him, that the others had their doubts about that. "Fine. What do you want me to do about it?"

Rogers was still staring at him from across the table. "You can't keep this kind of information from us, Tony!"

"I'm not purposefully keeping any information from you! Up until he showed up today, all of what I just told you was irrelevant chatter. I'm not going to start writing a diary so you can browse through everything I do, Rogers."

"Tony..." His head shot back over to Natasha. "Is there anything else?"

He shook his head. "No."

Natasha was still looking at him, her spy instincts obviously picking up on something he wasn't saying, but there was no way he was going to fill them in on the little detail that he'd been boozed up a little too much when he had sought out the Spiderling that first night. Not even Nat would let that kind of recklessness slide. He was sure that his display that night was what had opened up the door for the Spiderling to have the guts to crawl up to his penthouse. A ballsy move that Tony still kind of admired. Sure, the dude had some weird powers and an upper body strength that most man would kill for... But I'm still Iron Man.

"Alright then. We need you to go and get him for us."

"Come on, Nat..."

Rogers jumped at that. "This is not up for discussion, Tony! We can't have a young man jump around the city like that unchecked and unwilling to cooperate!"

Tony shook his head in frustration. "You guys are playing this all wrong. He has some weird powers, that could help us out down the road and we need all the help that we can get. Bringing him in like one of those terrorists and interrogating him is not gonna earn us any trust!"

"It's not his trust I'm worried about!" Rogers disapproval of Tony's non-compliance was palpable. "Where do you think his weird powers came from? Did he experiment on himself or did someone make him into the weapon he is? We cannot sit back on this! Someone with an agenda is behind this and we need to be prepared! If he turns out to be an ally, we will get to it, when we get to it. But this is not the time for that! We can't throw our trust at someone like that!"

Tony shot a glance over at Nat, but he could tell that he was outnumbered on this. His eyes dropped to the table in front of him. "Fine. I'll see what I can do."

##

Tony had his back against his desk. A number of graphs and calculation sheets were projected in front of him in the middle of the lab. His head bend, eyes closed, he was deep in thought trying to distract himself from the day's events and the confrontation with his team that had followed. Work was always a great distraction and he was willing his mind to focus on figuring out the calibrations of the new minimalist gadgets he had designed to be kept on his person for emergency situations. Ever since fighting Aldrich Killian he had been trying to implement a trimmed down version of the suit that he could keep on himself at all times, that would give him a chance to fight until the full suit could arrive if called for.

"Boss, someone's knocking on the window."

Tony's head shot up and listened intently until his face turned into a confused frown. "FRI, you drunk? The lab doesn't have windows."

"Someone is knocking on the living room window of Stark Tower."

He turned his head up to the ceiling glaring at her. "Has someone been messing with your sensors?"

"Negative, Boss. Security scans were executed as scheduled and returned no suspicious results."

"Just to be clear. You're telling me that someone is knocking on the living room window of my penthouse on the 68th floor of the Tower?"

"Correct, Boss."

He tried one last time, "From the outside?"

"Yes, Sir."

With a sigh, he stood up straight. "Well, pull up the security cam feed of the balcony then, I swear if this turns out to be window clea-"

He stopped. His calculations had disappeared and the projection that FRIDAY had pulled up in its place in the middle of his lab showed three different angles of the balcony and living room glass front of his penthouse. With the night lights of Manhattan reflecting in the windows he could make out a person, who's torso was leaning against the glass, legs spread out on the floor.

"Zoom in cam 5B and turn on the lights, FRIDAY." With the exterior floodlights and the indoor living room lighting turned up, Tony recognized Spider-Man right away. He was holding his side and there was an ominous dark spot forming beneath him. His body had jerked slightly as the bright lights illuminated the balcony, but there was not much movement coming from him now.

"Urgh, shit..." Tony muttered. "FRI, turn on the audio feed and ask him what the hell he thinks he'd doing up there."

His speakers were blaring with white noise from the high winds outside the building. Tony could make out FRIDAY's question quite clearly though.

"Good evening, Spider-Man. Mr. Stark would like to inquire about the reason for your visit tonight."

Tony was studying the feed for any sign of movement from the man on the floor. He had jerked in surprise as FRIDAY's voice started echoing across the balcony. To her question, he just lightly lifted his hand letting a fresh stream of blood run down his side. As he placed his hand back on the wound, Tony called for the suit.

"Tell him, I'm on my way over. 7 Minutes." His thrusters started immediately, the suit guiding itself out of the narrow emergency shaft he'd put in the lab. "Might make it in 6."

En route flying down from upstate New York along the Hudson, Tony had instructed FRIDAY to dim the headlights on the balcony. Still, the platform he had designed for easy Iron Man access was sufficiently illuminated to make an easy landing. The suit retracted right as his feet touched the floor. He took a few hurried steps over to the slumped down figure, who had by now slid to his side, his right shoulder touching the balcony floor, while the right arm was still snaked around his abdomen.

"Spiderling..." keeping his voice casual "How nice of you to drop by. Didn't I ask you to use the front door?"

Tony crouched down beside him, his hand hovering over the spot on his left side that Spider-Man still had his right hand pressed on. Up close he could clearly see that the suit was ripped in multiple places and his face mask had abrasions with patches soaked in dark blood that looked like the side of his head had been dragged across the street. He didn't make any attempt of getting up when Tony had arrived and Tony wondered if he would even be able to stand on his own.

"Do you think you can stand?"

A short shake of the head was the Spiderling's first acknowledgment of Tony's presence on the balcony.

"I'm gonna go ahead and assume that if you wanted a hospital, you'd have knocked on their window and wouldn't have climbed all the way up to the 68th floor of my building."

"No...no hospital..." His voice gave Tony chills. He sounded small and weak, very much like he had reached the limit of what he was able to stand.

Tony let out a long breath. "Yeah, alright. I'll... Let's get you inside. FRIDAY, doors." He tried to figure out how he should try and lift him up.

"Okay...okay, I will..." his hands still hovering over the beaten body "I'll try to lift you from your right. This will probably hurt..."

Tony's arm came around the man's right shoulder, bracing him, trying to heave him up.

A soft whimper made Tony freeze in surprise. "Sorry, buddy..." he muttered glancing over to the masked face as he quickly released the pressure on the shoulder. "Erm, well... how about we get you popped up against the window first, so I can have a look at your side."

Tony moved his hand away from the shoulder to the right side of the Spiderling's torso, where he noticed the constant quiver of his body. Pushing through it and trying to ignore another small whimper, Tony slowly pushed him up into a sitting position.

"Here we go, you're good...Just stay like this, try not to fall over."

Tony stood up quickly. Becoming an Avenger meant having a firm idea where the first aid kits were stored in any of his facilities, so he was back at Spider-Man's side right away.

"Okay, just a fair warning: none of my PhDs are in medicine." He moved the Spiderling's hand off the wound and pressed a wound dressing firmly onto it and securing it in place by wrapping a bandage tightly around his abdomen. "I have picked up a few things along the way though. I understand that you're in pain, but I will need to move you out of this wind and look at these wounds of yours." Tony moved to his side, slinging Spider-Man's right arm around his own shoulder. "Okay, I'll count to three then I'll pull you up. Try to get your legs underneath yourself and we will take it from there." After a sharp nod from the man, Tony counted to three and lifted him up, a little surprised how light he was having witnessed Spider-Man's strength in action. "Careful now. I gotcha..."

Inside Tony maneuvered him onto the living room table.

"Alright. Let's see what we are dealing with. FRIDAY, a little more light."

"Certainly, Boss."

Spider-Man jerked at FRIDAY's response trying to push himself up on the table. Tony had a firm hand on his shoulder but even with the Spiderling being in the sorry state he was, Tony was clearly outmatch in strength. "Ooookay buddy, calm down. It's just my AI. Nothing to worry about. You're alright." Tony took hold of his right arm, trying to steady him as the sudden rise had left Spider-Man swaying. "Alright. You're alright." he kept muttering. Having helped him to lie back down on the table, Tony went to grab the first aid kit.

Focus now.

That abdominal wound had to come first. He'd have to figure out what could be done about that. Would probably need stitches. If it did need more than a few stitches, well... he'd deal with that when he got to it.

Tony cut the bandages, removed the wound dressing and replaced it with a fresh one, pressing it firmly into the wound to soak up the blood still oozing out of it and to compress the blood vessels. Spider-Man tried to move away, shivering with pain.

"I need you to lie still for a moment, so I can look at it."

After a couple of small nods from the Spiderling, Tony increased the pressure on the wound again, then quickly took off the dressing. The compression gave him a moment to look at the wound without it being covered with blood. A couple of seconds later a new stream was rushing down Spider-Man's side and Tony pressed a fresh wound dressing firmly onto it.

He muttered as low "sorry" as Spider-Man took in a sharp breath and tried to remove the pressure again by trying to turn his body away from Tony's hand. "I will get you some Ibuprofen is a minute. They do take a bit to kick in but I don't have anything better around." He looked up at the masked face.

"Someone knifed you." It wasn't really a question. Tony had assumed as much judging by the long and heavy bleeder and the wound was quite distinct and had confirmed his suspicion.

A short nod came from the man on the table. Tony patted his arm with his other hand.

"It's okay, I think this is something we'll be able to deal with. I should be able to stitch this up for you. It's quite deep, but from what I can tell there are no major vessels or organs around the area. We should be able to deal with this with a couple of stitches and a proper pressure bandaging.." Tony reapplied a bandage as he was talking. "I will get you some pain killers to take the edge off, unless... " He stopped looking back up into Spider-Man's masked face. "You're not allergic or something, right? Addicted to painkillers? Something I should worry about?"

Spider-Man shook his head.

"You sure?"

He croaked "not an addict" and added "no allergies".

"Good."

Tony went to get some water and the Ibuprofen capsules. He put the glass on the table and handed him the capsules. Spider-Man lifted his mask just enough to swallow the painkillers and take a gulp of the water, then pulled his mask back into place immediately. Tony glanced up and down his body, taking in all the cuts and scrapes, all the places where the suit was torn.

He shifted, hovering his hand over some of the worse cuts. "It'll be at least 20 minutes till the meds kick in. I'd rather not poke around that slash on your side any more before that." He bit his lip. "You're not going to like this, but you have quite a few cuts, that we will have to take care of in addition to that." Tony looked right at him. "Your face looks like someone dragged you all the way down Broadway by your feet. That mask will have to come off."

Spider-Man shook his head pressing out a firm "No!"

Tony narrowed his eyes. "There's still blood running down from those cuts on your face. It's honestly not a good look and battle scars are not as attractive as they seem in the movies, believe me. We have 20 minutes. Might as well get those taken care of."

Another breathy "No!"

Tony let out an impatient sniff. "You came here for help. And honestly, you are in desperate need of it. So let me!"

Spider-Man kept shaking his head from one side to the other.

"You don't want people to know who you are, fine. I'll keep my trap shut. I know what it's like to... well, actually no, I went and told a whole room full of reporters that I'm Iron Man. But I understand. You don't want the authorities or some weird agencies breathing down your neck and poking at your Spider-Web-Slinging-Super-Strength, trying to figure out where that weird web stuff is coming out of you exactly and not everyone has a multi-billion company to stand up to those vultures. I get that. Believe me, I do."

Spider-Man listened to him intently, his hands pressed against the table steadying himself.

"But obviously you were desperate enough to crawl all the way up here and ask for help. So let me help."

Spider-Man's silence told him that he had hit a nerve. When he finally spoke, his voice was no more than a whisper.

"You owe me... you said... you said, you owed me..."

Tony's face hardened, but he nodded. "Yes. I said that. I owe you. And I'm prepared to stand by my word."

"Nobody... nobody can know." His voice was shaking. He was clearly breathing heavily through his still persistent pain.

"I understand."

"You don't tell. Nobody... nobody—"

"Yes, fine. I won't tell anyone anything about you."

"Swear it."

"Come on, dude..."

When Spider-Man stayed silent, just staring at him, Tony threw up his hands in surrender, rolling his eyes. "Fine. I swear."

At that Spider-Man's body almost seemed to relax, making the shaking in his muscles only more pronounced. He gave a slight nod. "Okay." He lifted his hand up to his mask, but apparently, he doubted his decision right away. "I... I don't think I... I can..."

"You have my word."

Spider-Man's hand were still hovering over the edge of his mask. He gave a small nod and tucked at the fabric starting to lift it further off his face. Quite quickly he stopped, a sharp gasp escaping him. Tony reached for his hands to keep them in place. A closer look told him that the blood oozing out of the scrapes on his face had already started to clot on the wounds' edges and the fabric had gotten stuck to the scurf.

"I'll get a cloth and some water. The mask seems to have started to clot to your wounds. We'll have to get the scab wet to loosen the clotted areas and free the fabric, otherwise removing the mask will rip your skin even deeper."

Tony returned with some warm water and a washcloth, carefully trying to separate the fabric from the wounds without causing too much pain. Spider-Man seemed to have surrendered to his predicament and endured the procedure silently.

After a few minutes, the mask started to come free and Tony slowly lifted it off the man's face. Too focused on the wounds it took him a moment to take in that face in front of him. Those eyes staring right at him wide with uncertainty and fear. His mouth fell open and Tony just stood there, staring at the face of a boy.

Tony cleared his throat, but his voice wouldn't come. He took in the youth of that face for a couple more seconds but he'd already made up his mind.

"FRIDAY. Ambulance. Now!"

The boy's eyes widened even more in surprise and Tony wasn't sure how that was even physically possible.

"No..." he croaked and tried to lift himself off the table.

By reflex, Tony tried to hold the kid down, but it was useless. He was only human after all and that kid had some serious super-human strength in him, bashed up and bruised as he was.

"You, stay down!" Tony exclaimed through gritted teeth, but he took a step back, still staring at that ridiculously juvenile face.

"ETA 7 minutes, Boss."

The Spiderling jerked back, his glace going up to the ceiling to where the AIs voice was coming from, then back to Tony. "Don't...don't do this."

Tony kept his face emotionless.

"Please... Mr. Stark... Sir, you promised..." The boy was clearly trying his best to hold back tears. "You owe me. You... you said it. You owe me." With every word, the boy's breathing grew heavier.

Tony kept his eyes firmly on the boy, willing his face not to twitch. "I make those kinds of deals with grown-ups." Tony spit. "I'm not making deals with kids!"

"For... Miss Potts. You said you owe me. For her. You..." His eyes were boring into Tony, pleading. "You gave me your word."

"No..." Tony murmured.  "I can't..." and finding his voice he added "You're just a boy! What the fuck were you thinking, putting yourself in this kind of a mess?!"

"Please, Sir..."

Panic was rising within Tony or rather had risen to a point where he was close to drifting into an actual panic attack. He had to turn away from the kid, hands over his head in frustration.

This could not be happening!

"They'll take me away from.... from my family." The boy was unable to hold back his tears any longer. "If they take me, I... I'm never going home. You... you gave me your word."

Tony shot him a glace. This wasn't fair. He'd had no idea to what kind of madness he was agreeing to. He can't let a boy walk around New York City jumping off buildings, taking down robbers and muggers and getting stabbed and whatnot in the process! A boy that was lying on his living room table with a slashed up abdomen, blood seeping through the bandage he'd applied, pain pouring out of his every pore.

"I'm sorry, kid."

The boy's eyes stayed on Tony for another second. Taking in what he was saying. Then darting over to the window and the balcony door.

"Oh hell no! FRI-" He had to duck as a spider web was flung in his direction. His reflexes would have been useless but the Spiderling's aim was definitely off. "Stop!"

The kid pushed himself up, reaching for his mask, but coming up short and letting out a pained gasp as the movement stretched his wounds. He was frantic, sending another web towards Tony, who just ducked and let it fly over his head while crawling closer to where Tony had put down the face mask.

"I said, STOP!" The boy froze now being confronted with Tony's voice filtered by the Iron Man suit. He had summoned it, planting himself between the door and the boy. Tony stared at the Spiderling, crouched on his living room table, tears rolling down his face, terror in his eyes.

"FRIDAY, door. And call off the EMT."

The boy gave a small sob as the balcony door swung shut behind Tony.

"The paramedics have been informed that their assistance is no longer required."

"Fine," Tony threw up his hand in a defensive manner and lifted his faceplate. "No more web-shooting and escape attempts. I'll stitch up that wound of yours and we'll talk."

The boy quickly nodded, his face still wet and full of fear.

With a deep breath on Tony's part as the kid muttered a quiet "Okay." he let the suit retract itself.

"You better have one hell of an explanation for this."

Chapter Text

The room was mostly quiet. Thankfully. There were only two settings Tony liked to work with. Music blasting or dead silence. He was bent over one of his workbench drawers and rummaged around the content. He was looking for a particular set of tiny screwdrivers to dismantle Dum-E's control unit since the idiot had managed to spill water all over himself when he tried to refill the tank of the coffee maker. Something had shorted and Tony had narrowed the faulty wire down to a particular control unit that he probably hadn't touched since college.

"I know they're here somewhere..." He closed his eyes and tried to picture where he had seen those damn screwdrivers last. Had definitely used them when he had added those cooling pads to-

"Sir-"

"Shoosh, not now!" His face was resting in his hands and he felt like he was almost there, almost had the image called up in his mind of where he'd seen them last. If not that drawer, they must be-

"Sir, the little master is restless."

Tony stood straight at once, his eyes darted to the monitor he had installed at the end of his workbench. And on the fridge. And also next to the workshop door. A quick blue pulsing light meant his son was restless in his bed. A quick glance at his watch told him it was 2:17 am. As he looked back up towards the monitor it turned orange. Distress.

"Thanks, JARVIS." He grabbed a towel from the workbench in front of him to roughly wipe off the worst of the dirt from his hands and hurried towards the door. He patted Dum-E in passing and mumbled a low "Sorry, buddy. I'll be back in a bit." and as he reached the stairs he took two at a time to get up from the basement to the second floor. In front of the door, he paused, took a couple of deep breaths to calm down his pulse and put an ear to the door, listened to what was happening inside.

There was some rustling and a soft whimper. This was no good. He’d need to work on a better monitoring system.

Slowly and quietly he pushed down the handle of the door. His son's room was dark, the curtains drawn close. Only a little moonlight was shining in through a gap between the window edge and the curtain, but it was enough for Tony to guide himself to the bed. As he kneeled down at the head of the bed, Aiden's eyes were still closed but he was tossing about, murmuring and breathing heavily, hands shot up to cover his face.

Tony lightly placed a hand on his son's chest, his voice low and warm.

"It's alright, baby. You're alright."

He was still restless and as Tony's hand on his chest kept him from throwing himself from one side to the other, he was now tossing his head from side to side. Quickly Tony's other hand came up to first cup his face, then ran through his soft brown hair.

"Wake up, Addy. I'm right here. Come on, darling."

His thumb was caressing Aiden's temple and Tony kept speaking to him, his voice still low, when Aiden's eyes flew open. He tried to focus on the ceiling above him then frantically moved his eyes around the room.

"It's alright, Addy. I'm here. I'm right here."

At that, Aiden looked right at him, still not really seeing him. His short high-pitched scream made Tony freeze just for a moment. Aiden jerked away from him and started crying in earnest and while Tony’s heart jumped at the desperate sound he wouldn’t let it phase him. This wasn't the first time he was by his son's bedside in the middle of the night. Not the first time he had woken from a nightmare. According to the pediatrician, this was a normal way for toddlers to process all the new impressions the world made on them every day. They were quite frequent in 2 to 5 year-olds and Aiden being just a couple months shy of two years old might have been a bit ahead of the curve, but then so had Tony been. First circuit board at 4, first engine at 6. A Stark being ahead of the curve was the norm after all.

Or so he was determined to tell himself.

Just a nightmare. Nothing to freak out about.

Deep breaths to keep his heart rate even, to radiate calmness. His hand was resting on his son's chest and he continuously spoke to Aiden, softly whispered reassurances. It took another minute for the boy to come out of his panic and actually recognize Tony. Still crying, his little hands grabbed for his dad's arms and Tony lifted his son towards himself, held him close to his chest.

"It's alright, baby. You're alright." He hugged the boy in his arms as one of his hands rubbed slow circles onto his back.

Aiden's hands were tightly twisted into Tony's shirt, his face pressed against his father's chest. Tony concentrated on his boy's breathing, his own heartbeat in check. His chest was rising and falling and his son mimicked his rhythm and gradually recovered from the nightly scare. As his breathing grew less erratic and his tears ebbed off, Tony closed his eyes. Almost there. His technique still worked.

"There you go." His hand combed through Aiden's locks and he craned his neck to see his son's face. His eyes were closed. Maybe he could just get him to fall asleep again. Slowly Tony lifted him up, laid him back down onto the bed, but Aiden stiffened in his arms and clung even closer to him.

"No... Daddy... No..." His voice only a whisper and still husky from crying.  

He hugged his son close to his chest and stood up just enough to maneuver himself onto the bed, Aiden still securely in his arms. His face remained nuzzled into Tony's shirt.

"It's alright, darling. I'm here."

He ran his hand through his son's hair, coaxing him back to sleep.

"I'll be right here."

###

Initially, the shock of the situation, as well as the adrenaline rushing through his body, had kept the worst of the pain at bay. Peter had been stranded on a rooftop, bleeding heavily and almost ready to embrace the pain that was paralyzing him. He’d pass out any moment. It was just too much, his consciousness was fading fast. His head fell back and then he saw the lights. His eyes had focused on Stark Tower that rose up only about a block away from him. The sight had filled him with purpose and sheer refusal to bleed out from such a dumb mistake had given him the strength to get up. To get help. To seek out someone, he could possibly trust. Who would understand? When he had reached the penthouse, knew that help was on the way, the level of adrenaline in his blood that had lent him strength quickly fell. Pain was now filling him up in its place. He had never felt pain like that before.

When his mask was lifted off his face, when he pleaded his case to Tony Stark, that pain was put out of his mind again with adrenaline charging through him once more. He still felt tense. He had sought out Iron Man in the hope of help. But really, what did he even know about the guy? What if he’d sell him out after all? But the truth was that Peter didn't have anywhere else to go. This was his best shot. Stark had helped him to lie back down on the table and was now treating the cuts on his face. Peter had his head turned to the side. That way Stark had better access to the left side of his face. His racing pulse made it hard for him to focus on what Stark was doing. Not that it mattered much. He just had to stay still, had to hold his emotions at bay. That was what he concentrated on. His eyes were cast down, unfocused. Neither of them had said much for the last few minutes, ever since Peter had settled back onto the table. The odd instruction on how and when to turn his face. But it was only a matter of time till Stark would put the pressure on him, Peter knew that much.

There was a particularly deep cut on his cheek and he really had no idea how he would even begin to explain that to May. But that was something he could figure out later. Right now he needed to find a way how he would get back home. If she found out that he was moonlighting as Spider-Man… no. Absolutely not, was not going to happen. No.

He'd known that taking the mask off in front of Stark was a risk and at the same time it was his only option. Stark was the only safe-ish haven his condition had allowed him to reach and with the man's reckless and authority-defying reputation Peter really had hoped for a little more leniency and understanding from him. But the initial reaction Stark had shown - initial freak-out might be more on point - made Peter less certain that he'd get out of this with his secret identity intact.

"How's the pain?"

Peter jerked slightly and immediately felt stupid. Stark had been right there all this time. He really had to get a grip. "It's... it's alright."

"Oh yeah? So, it's just the pleasure of my company that has you clinging to the edge of the table and trembling like a leaf?"

His eyes stung with tears again. Pain, frustration, embarrassment. He bit his lip and rapidly blinked his lashes to keep the tears from falling.

"You need to stop lying to me, kid. I can't help you if you keep lying. Look at me!"

His eyes darted up to meet Stark's. He did feel truly helpless and pathetic.

"Don't expect any help coming from me if you keep lying. Final warning."

"Yes, Sir."

"Then let me ask again: How's the pain?" Stark raised his eyebrows at him expectantly.

Peter swallowed hard, which in turn send a shiver through his body that caused another wave of pain to shoot through him. "Pretty much... the same."

Stark frowned and checked his watch. "It's been 20 minutes, maybe if we give it—"

"It's... unlikely to... to change... with the pills. I think... I think they aren't... strong enough for my meta... for my metabolism," Peter offered as an explanation.

Stark's eyes narrowed on him. "Because you're a child and children have a faster metabolism than adults?"

Peter closed his eyes in frustration before he slowly shook his head.

"How old are you?"

He looked back up at Stark and willed his face to be serious and strong. "I'm 14."

Stark stared at him, his lips a thin line. "What did I just say about your aversion to the truth and how you really, really need to overcome it?!"

Peter clenched both his hand into fists. "I'm 14!"

"Yeah... you look like your Hogwarts letter is still in the mail!"

His fist banged down on the table and frustration made his tears overflow at last. "I'm not lying!"

"Fine." Stark's eyes were still fixed on him. "Let's pretend for now that's true. What happened?"

Peter cast his eyes back down to the floor, rubbing his hand across his face. He'd been stupid and didn't pay enough attention to where he was going is what happened.

"I had the Falcon on my tail and after shaking him off-"

"After gluing him to the side of a building, you mean?" Peter's eyes shot back up but Stark's expression hadn't changed. "I'm not talking about tonight. You say you have an increased metabolism. You're fast. You're strong. The super-human kind. That weird web stuff you're shooting around. You've been active for a few months at best. Maybe I'm reading you wrong and these ... powers are something you actively sought out, but you don't seem like the mad professor type, experimenting on yourself. So, something happened to you. Probably quite recently."

Peter bit his lip, hesitating for a moment. Here it was. Stark wanted some answers and Peter had not yet decided how much he was willing to disclose.

"Flashy internship. Something bit me. I got sick. Then, I got better."

"What bit you?"

That made him laugh. To his own surprise, a short dry chuckle and regret along with a sharp wave of pain shot through him.

"Three guesses..."

"Did you actually see the thing or are you jumping to the obvious conclusion?"

Peter shrugged. "Saw it. Shook it off. Smashed it... with my notes." He was breathing heavily through the pain, his head had fallen back onto the table, eyes trying to find a point at the ceiling to stare at. Maybe the exhaustion in combination with the pain would just make him pass out after all. That was one way to keep some of his secrets.

"Any more where that one came from?"

"Don't know."

"Alright." Stark's gaze wandered back to his wound. "Alright. Well, I guess there's no reason for you to lie about the pills being useless with you." He shrugged. "Any medical equipment and drugs I have access to are at the Compound along with some rather pissed-off Avengers."

Peter's pulse was hammering in his ears, his hold on the table stiffened again when he looked up to find that Stark was studying his face.

"They also have these kinds of things at the hospital."

"No... please, Mr. Stark..."

He sighed. "What about your family? Do they know about your after-school activities?"

Peter managed to suppress another dry laugh to spare himself another wave of pain courtesy of his abdomen.

"No one knows."

Stark sighed again. "I'm not sure how you expect this to go. Let's say I stitch you up while you wiggle around from the pain of doing this without any anesthesia. Do you know how long a wound like that takes to heal? You'll have to monitor it, redress it, keep infection out."

"I heal fast."

"Oh yeah? I don't see your wound stitching itself up. This isn't just a scratch that will fade over night."

"I'll manage."

"You can't even keep yourself up on your own two feet! You think your parents won't notice?"

"I'll... I'll... think of something!"

"Of some more lies. Of course, you will. Why am I not surprised."

Peter grit his teeth. "I'm not... I don't lie to... I just..."

"Omit the truth. Sure. Trying semantics on me is not going to work."

"It's... I have to keep this to myself, okay?! She'd freak out if she knew and I can't..." Peter bit his tongue. He needed to shut the hell up. He already said too much.

"Your mother?"

He hesitated, then nodded.

"You're not great at that lying thing. Not even remotely as good as you seem to think you are."

Peter looked up at him. He felt his face heat up and tried his best to shake the embarrassment writing all over his face. He hadn't been lying though. May might not be his mother, not biologically, but she was the closest thing he had. The only mother he could remember. 

"Do those 'parents'"  Stark's hands air-quoting the word "of your's just not give a shit about you to notice all your 'truth omitting' or are you better at this without all the blood loss. What are we dealing with here, deadbeat parents or half-dead Spider?"

Not deadbeat, only dead... Peter kept his eyes up on the ceiling, stared straight ahead, his teeth pressed together. Stark’s tactic was more than obvious. He was fishing for information and Peter was not going to give him the satisfaction. That trick would not get a rise out of him.

"Gotta say, that mask was a great idea. That face of yours is like glass. You really think I can't see you trying to come up with some more lies?"

Peter closed his eyes in frustration. Anger and despair pulsed through him stronger and stronger and he tried to push the feelings down.

"I shouldn't have... come here. I'll just... I'll just go."

Stark snorted. "Oh, yeah? Where exactly is it that you'll go and why didn't you go there before you came up here bleeding all over my penthouse?"

Peter's hands shot up and covered his face. How could he have been so careless? How had he screwed up this bad? He was in so much trouble. If May found out… What was he going to do? Hopelessness and fear slowly but surely leaked into every cell of his body. He couldn’t fall apart, not in front of Tony Stark. He tried to cling to the little dignity he had left but he was fighting a losing battle. His heart rate quickened. His breathing was shallow and fast, but still it seemed not fast enough. He wasn't getting enough air. His body started to shiver uncontrollably while his mind lost the battle against his anxiety and was swept up with an all-consuming sense of hopelessness.

Peter's hands had wandered from his face down to his neck and chest as he was tried to breathe. Panic triggered by the lack of oxygen was rising inside him. He jerked in surprise when he felt a hand settle on his arm. It was Stark who had stepped closer to the table. Peter's eyes shot over to him and he could tell that the man's lips were moving but his brain just wouldn't process whatever it was he said. All he could focus on was that pressure on his chest, a weight that seemed to crush his lungs, made it impossible to draw a breath. Then Stark yanked one of Peter's hands off his throat. He placed it squarely on his own chest right above his heart. Peter winced. He seemed to have lost control over his own limbs. His eyes were locked on his own hand that was pressed against Stark's chest. At first, his glance was simply transfixed by the visual of the slow rise and fall of the man's chest but gradually his other senses came back to him. He could feel the hold Stark had of his arm, the body heat radiating from his chest. The only thing he felt really.

"Alright, kid. Take it easy now."

His eyes wandered upwards from his hand to Stark's face, stopped at his lips. He tried to grasp what Stark was saying.

"Just breath. You're alright."

Peter was panting, his lungs burned. "I... I can't... I can't..."

"Yes, you can. You just have to get out of your own head and focus."

Peter's glance shifted from Stark back to his own chest. The way his second hand was clawing on the damaged fabric of the suit seemed to be controlled by a foreign power and surely not by himself. He had no control over the rapid rise and fall of his chest either.

"Hey, Spiderling. Look at me!"

Stark jerked on the arm he was still holding and Peter pried his eyes away from his body to look up at the man standing next to him.

"It's alright. You're having an anxiety attack. You're safe here. You'll be fine."

Was he though? He had no control over what was going to happen with him. He was on his own. He-

"Hey!"

Peter's eyes shot back to Stark's face. He hadn't even realized that his glance had wandered up to the ceiling.

"I'm telling you, you will be alright. We'll figure this out."

Stark studied his face for a reaction.

"You can feel my pulse, right?"

Peter's gaze dropped down to his hand again. Stark was still holding it firmly pressed against his chest. His heartbeat was strong and steady and once Peter had felt it, his ears picked up the beat as well.

"Yes." Peter nodded, not sure if his body actually did as he told it.

"Alright. That's good. Just focus on that one thing."

Little by little, his own body was mimicking the rhythm. The hand on his chest unclench from the fabric of his suit little by little.

"There you go." 

As Peter's breathing evened out, his senses came back strong. He could feel the wetness on his face. Stark's hold of his arm had lifted considerably and with some hesitation, Peter pulled his hand back from the man's grip and tried to wipe the tears off his face.

Stark crossed his arms, studied him in silence while Peter tried to collect himself. He had had some nightmare's that he struggled with after Ben died, that would wake him and leave him panting and sweating in the middle of the night. But nothing like this. Never something as intense as what he just experienced.

"Thank you."

Peter's voice still shook and the words almost inaudible. He was mortified how he had just completely lost it. In front of Stark of all people.

"I don't know..." His voice shook. "I'm... I'm sorry... I don't-"

"Okay, let's not do that." Stark uncrossed his arms and held out his hands in a calming gesture. "We don't want you to spiral down again, alright? It's fine."

"I'm sorry-" Peter stopped and looked up at Stark who'd reached out to take hold of his arm again.

"Listen to me, kid." Stark face unblinking but not unkind. "You're not the first to have an anxiety attack in here, alright."

Peter swallowed hard, his voice hoarse and small.

"I don't know what to do." 

Stark patted his shoulder lightly.

"I'll get that suture kit and we'll stitch you back together. And then we'll take it from there."

Peter sniffed and cast his eyes down to his chest.

"Hey, kid!"

He looked back up at Stark.

"We'll figure it out, Spiderling."

Stark had turned, about to walk away.

"Peter."

Just like that, Stark stopped and turned enough to look at him, eyebrows raised. "Excuse me?"

He cleared his throat. "My name... is Peter. You never... you never asked."

Stark shrugged. "I figured you'd just lie."

His face was heating up, but Stark just chuckled and turned away again to go and grab the suture kit.

Chapter Text

Tony's hands were resting on the cold porcelain of his bathroom sink. His eyes cast down, unfocused, as he stared at the space somewhere between the faucet and the tiled wall. His mind was focused on his breathing, long deep breaths to push down the queasy feeling in his stomach. He reached for the tap, splashed some water on his face and rubbed his hands sharply across it. A creative amount of curse words fell out of his mouth, too low and muffled by his hands to even reach his own ears. He looked up and stared at his own reflection in the mirror.

This was a horrible idea. He was no physician! Stitching up a wound on himself was one thing. This was insane. And reckless. Irresponsible.

He groaned, “Did I mention insane?” He was in way over his head...

The kid was right to be scared of a trip to the hospital though. If Tony would drag him there and they figured out that the kid was an enhanced... He had no idea if pointers to the kid's powers would pop up in some way when the hospital would test his blood type to give him a possible transfusion, which they were bound to do.

Shit… Should he test the kid's blood in case he needed a transfusion? In case Tony screwed this up royally?

Well, he had no idea how to set up a blood transfusion anyway, so probably a no on that one. If he wasn't able to stop the bleeding by stitching up the wound...

Fuck... Fuck. Fuck. Fuck!

His fists pounded the sink in frustration. Tony had gotten next to nothing out of him. He needed parents' names, relatives, friends... just someone. Someone that could weigh the boy's current state and health risks versus the danger of him ending up in government custody. Anyone but him who could make this decision.

And it wasn't just the boy's safety that was at stake here. If the hospital would connect the dots, they'd inform the police, who would inform the government and Ross would have a field day with Tony’s involvement with a vigilante. He had been working hard enough as it was to keep the Avengers out of trouble with the officials, careful not to give them any ammunition they could use against his team. He could absolutely not be caught trying to smuggle the Spiderling past the authorities. But Tony couldn't give him up to them either. Not with Ross still in charge. He couldn't have that on his conscience. He wouldn't.

The Compound then. FRIDAY might be able to sneak them in. He'd have access to more supplies, medical staff, and antibiotics. But Tony wasn't entirely sure of the Compound staff's loyalty. Sure, he was the one paying their salaries, but when it came to social skills and unintelligent small talk, Rogers and especially Wilson had him beat. The blame for Ultron was still squarely put on Tony as well, which hadn't left him on the best terms with Helen Cho. Rogers surely would find some way to put the blame that Spider-Man turned out to be an under-aged kid on him somehow. Especially if that particular bit of information was snitched to him by the Compound staff.

Tony shifted on his feet and ran a hand through his hair. He wasn’t in control of this situation at all and he was not ok with that. Too much that he didn’t know about this boy. The rest of the team was pissed off already that they were outplayed that afternoon. That they almost messed it up. There was no telling on how much of the fault they'd pass of to the kid and then him by association. If anyone knew about being passed the blame for a fuck-up it would be him. Chances were that kind of heat would break the kid.

Well, it followed that he would have to deal with those stitches on his own for now.

He stood up straight, slid the mirror to the side, which revealed a collection of bandages, medical tape, and disinfectants as well as his suture kit. After another deep sigh, he reached for the kit, gloves and for some of the other supplies that would come in handy. As he made his way back to the living room, his patient was still stretched out on the table where Tony had left him. He knelt down next to him, the supplies still firmly in his hands. The dressing he had applied to the his side was already soaked again. A small stream of blood had seeped through the bandage and was slowly flowing down his side and pooling beneath the kid on the table.

"Alright then."

The kid’s big frightened eyes were really not helpful at all. Tony laid out the supplies. He squeezed his hands into fists so they wouldn’t tremble.

Just breathe. He had done stitches before. He could do this. It'd be fine.

When his voice felt steady enough he turned to the kid once more.

"You might want to look somewhere else while I'm doing this. Anticipating every stitch and seeing yourself bleed will only make this worse."

The boy... Peter. He nodded and whispered a soft "okay" before he turned his head away from him. Tony had laid out everything he needed. Needle. Sutures. Antiseptic solution. Additional dressings to soak up the blood and swab the wound. He reached for the bandage that was tightly wrapped around Peter's abdomen but stopped.

"Peter." Tony waited for the kid to look back up at him. He studied his battered face, his eyes glassy from pain and tears. "This is going to hurt. Are you sure that there's nobody I can call for you? Relatives? A friend? Someone to be here with you. You don't have to do this alone." For the short moment that Peter hesitated, Tony actually got his hopes up, but then he shook his head, only bit his lip and turned his head to stare at something on the other side of the room.

"Just... just do it."

Tony cast his own eyes up to the ceiling for a moment. He’d never given much credence to religion, but he’d love some of that surety and support someone else might gain from sending out a prayer in this kind of a situation. There was nothing to be gained from questioning his decision at this point though. He was stuck with the risky path he'd been pushed on by the kid. He cut the bandage and parts of the onesie, carefully peeled off the dressing and the fabric around it. Blood was still seeping out of the cut. Not the fast rush that he had found when he had inspected the Spiderling's wound earlier that night though. There was still a considerable amount of blood, only thicker, flowing less urgently.

"Alright. There is quite a bit of clotting in your blood already." He pressed a new dressing onto the wound. "That's finally some good news. We might actually get away with this..."

Peter's hands were clinging to the edge of the table. He only gave a soft nod as a response.

"I will use some antiseptic solution to clean the cut. This might sting a little." He soaked one of the dressings but hesitated. He turned to look at the kid, who was still staring at the wall on the other side of the room.

"I'm sorry. That's a lie. This will hurt a lot. You can..." A deep sigh escaped him when the kid's eyes darted towards his. "It's fine to scream. It tends to help."

There was no point in dragging this out. The boy did scream. Tony tried to be fast about it, but he needed to be thorough. But he couldn't risk any kind of contamination of the skin, any germs that the needle could possibly drag into the wound when he stitched it up. He'd not make Peter suffer through all this pain only to have him die from sepsis or blood poisoning within the week.

As much as the kid’s screams made his stomach turn, this would still be the easy part. Now that the wound was prepped, the margins of it gaping open, a slow stream of blood continuously flowing down Peter's side and the needle positioned, he could actually feel bile rise in his throat. It was ridiculous. He'd injured and killed people and aliens. He'd stitched up the odd cut on his own body, especially in his early Iron Man days. But this was different. The setting almost intimate. Yes, he was going to help the kid, but he'd also make him suffer the unfiltered agony of sewing together an already painfully screaming part of his body. Tony's hands shook. He had vastly underestimated what adrenaline and the shock of an injury did to his own body. Natural pain management that made him capable of handling this kind of stuff by himself. Piercing the ripped skin of someone else. Someone he was trying to help. A boy.

He had to get a fucking grip.

With a deep breath, Tony made an effort to ground himself when Peter's abdomen suddenly started to shake a little more than before. He gritted his teeth. The kid was sobbing and that was not helping him deal with his anxiety or the task at hand or really with any of this. Against his better judgment, his eyes shot up to Peter's face, only to realize that he was not sobbing at all. He was chuckling.

For a moment Tony thought that this turn of events had actually rendered him speechless. He narrowed his eyes at the kid and cleared his throat.

"Are you laughing?" 

The Spiderling was breathing heavily through the pain, that this obviously caused him.

"Sorry..." He took another breath, one of his hands came to rest on his stomach, pressed down on it in hopes of stopping the tremors.

"What the fuck..."

"Sorry... I just..." He took another deep breath. "I just had to think... about how my... my... parents would totally... totally sue you... if you... argh..." he chuckled again, but his face contracted with the pain it caused him. "if you screw this... this up. And how... urgh." His hand pressed down on his stomach again. "How rich we'll... we'll be."

"Are you fucking kidding me right now?"

Peter had turned his head to the ceiling, eyes closed. Tears ran steadily down his face.

"I'll... I'll totally buy... one of those... tacky... sports cars..."

Tony only shook his head in disbelieve. He'd seen many things, injuries, pain, in the past 8 years as Iron Man but this...

"You know, kid, you'd not be the first one trying to squeeze some money out of me."

"Ha..."

Tony could actually feel the corners of his mouth wanting to rise in response.

"If I had a dollar for every time someone tried to sue me for I'd... oh wait. I already am a billionaire. My bad."

The Spiderling laughed, but still held his stomach.

"Pete, take a breath. You need to stay still now."

The kid opened his eyes and looked right at him.

"Tell me... about the... the most... ridiculous one."

"The most ridiculous lawsuit?"

Peter nodded before he turned his gaze up to a spot on the ceiling.

"Goodness. There are so many. Honestly, I wouldn't even know about all of them. Most of the time they don't make it much further than my lawyer's office. Potts would sometimes pass along some of the crazier ones for entertainment purposes."

He wasn't sure how deliberate the kid's behavior was, or if it was a conscious decision on his part at all. Maybe the pain had made him delirious. Maybe he had just started talking to keep his mind off the needle that Tony had aimed at his abdomen. Either way, the kid's body finally relaxed and the tremors in his own hands became less pronounced.

"There was this one lady."

He brought the needle closer to the wound margin and pressed it through his skin. Peter twitched underneath his hands, a deep gasp escaped him, but Tony kept his eyes firmly on the wound and kept up a steady flow of words. A distraction from this impossible situation they were both desperate for.

"That was really one of the first ones after I became Iron Man. I'd fought with... well... I had this fight with this guy who was trying to kill me in Downtown LA. At one point he used random cars as missiles trying to flatten me."

He managed to have the needle pierce the other side of the wound's margin, extracted it completely and tied a knot with the suture thread.

That was number one.

"I'm not talking parked cars. He just picked them off the road as they were passing, people still in them, and threw them at me. That was... that was really early on. I hadn't even come out to the world as Iron Man at that point."

The needle pierced Peter's skin again. He moaned through gritted teeth.

"So, I caught one of the cars and it had this family inside."  He tied the second knot. "I balance it, held it right above my head and then the lady just starts hitting the gas."

The third stitch made the Spiderling scream out.

"Obviously that made me fall over. And with them on top of me."

Tony kept up the story. He hadn’t even thought of that night in forever and wrecked his brain for as many details as he could remember from that fight. Save the identity of his opponent. That was one of the few secrets he had actually managed to keep quiet about over the years.

By the 11th stitch, Peter was sobbing heavily and Tony did have to stop. He put a dressing over the last part of the wound that still gaped open. The kid would need a minute to collect himself. His hand came to rest on the Spiderling's upper arm. There wasn’t much comfort from the pain he could give Peter.

"It's okay, kid. We're almost done. A couple more, then you made it."

Peter covered his face with his hands, shaking from silent sobs. Tony gave him a couple more minutes to calm down. An allusion of calm really. That wound was already agitated and it didn’t matter if they’d wait 5 minutes or 10, it would do neither of them any good at this point, but only draw out the inevitable.

"It's only three more stitches, then we're done."

Peter nodded. "Tell.. tell me... why..."

"Well, the stitches shouldn't be too far apart to keep the pressure even on the tissue around-"

"No." Peter took a deep breath. "Why... why they sued."

Tony frowned. He let out a deep breath and forced some calm and warmth into his voice. "Oh... Well." He got back into position and continue with the sutures. "The bottom of their car did not do too well when it was thrown into Iron Man."

He pierced the skin once more and the kid's whole abdomen shook from pain in reaction to it.

"So, after I couldn't keep my mouth shut and had to tell everyone about how I'm Iron Man, the car owner, of course, put two and two together and decided that I should pay for a new car, emotional distress, and some medical bills."

He tied another knot, his monologue a flimsy barrier between himself and Peter's whimpers.

"So, they dragged me to court. Well, not that I went myself."

He worked as fast as he dared. He needed this to be over with, preferably without screwing it up.

"I send my lawyers to the first hearing, armed with a recording of the fight from the suit's point of view."

He shook his head as he tied another knot. Only one more to go.

"That family was lucky to be alive. And so was I."

Peter's abdomen was vibrating violently from his heavy breathing and the tremors of pain that shot through him.

"The last one, kid. We're almost there."

He let one of his hands rest on Peter's torso for another moment, waiting. Those shivers would have to ease off. The Spiderling had his face buried in his hands and was not even trying to hide his sobs anymore.

"Pete..."

Tony reached for his arm, but the kid didn't react. Maybe he should just skip the last stitch, give him a night of rest, maybe take another go at it in the morning. No… he couldn't risk an unevenly distributed pressure on the wound. The stitches were holding for now, but any inadvertent movement, another panic attack or even if he woke from a trauma-infused nightmare could change that if the stitches were skimped. There was no way that Tony would risk them tearing Peter's flesh because he had been sloppy.

"Hey kid, look at me."

Tony tightened the grip on his arm. Slowly, Peter let his hands fall, his face pale.

"You... you... done?"

He could only manage a whisper and Tony fought his own pulse that jumped right up again. But he would not let his own weakness make this potentially worse for the kid.

"One more. I need you to try and stay still."

Peter gasped for air, his cheeks wet with tears.

"It's just one more, but I can't do it like this. I don't want to hurt you."

The sound that escaped the kid could have been a sob as well as a laugh. This was ridiculous of course. Tony had done nothing but cause him pain for the past 20 minutes. He patted his shoulder encouragingly.

"Take a deep breath and just hold it. And then we're done."

The Spiderling nodded, breathed in deep as Tony turned back to the wound. It engaged the muscles just enough to calm the tremor in his abdomen and allowed Tony to hit the right spot. As soon as the needle pierced the kid's skin he cried out again and all the air left his lungs with a scream.

"There we go."

Another wave of shivers ran through the Spiderling, but Tony had managed to place the suture well enough. His hand found Peter's arm again, patted it once more. One more time, Tony directed him to hold his breath, so he could tie the last knot. Peter lay panting and stared at the sutures. He only hissed when Tony used an antiseptic swab to clean the area once more before he covered it with a new wound dressing.

Tony felt light-headed, elated that this was over. He had no idea if it would be enough for the kid to heal. The thought that it wouldn’t be left his hands wet with nervous sweat. He used the bandages to roughly clean Peter's blood off the table, discarded the used supplies and headed for the bar. He really needed a drink and picked up some water for the kid on the way.

"FRIDAY, we could probably do with some soup for the boy. Beef broth or something. Find someone who delivers something fresh and fast."

"On it, Boss."

Tony walked back to the table, set the water down next to the kid, then let himself fall onto the couch.

"And Chicken Fried Rice with some Egg Rolls."

"Right away, Sir."

He took a deep gulp of his whiskey.

"Do we have any dark chocolate lying around?"

"Not that I'm aware of, Sir. There might be food left in one of the communal kitchens on a different level, but I have no access to those parts of the building presently."

"Order some of that as well."

"Yes, Sir."

He took another gulp of his drink before he looked over to the kid on the table in front of him. Peter still had his eyes firmly locked on the ceiling and wiped his face from time to time.

"Boss, I send the orders out and there is a call waiting for you."

"Thanks, FRI."

He fished his phone out of his pocket and Natasha's face popped up on the display. He sighed and glanced over to the kid.

"I'll have to take this..." He stood up. Before he walked off he opened the water bottle for him. "Drink something. Food will be here soon."

The kid nodded weakly.

"I'll be right back."

He didn’t pick up the call before he had reached his bedroom.

"What do you want?"

"Don't you have that telephone etiquette down to a T!"

"Seriously, Nat. What's up."

"I wanted to talk."

"Right now?"

"Yes, right now. I'm outside the lab. Just open the damn door."

Tony suppressed a groan and thought of an imaginative amount of curse words he'd like to utter at that.

"Don't be a baby!"

"I'm not..."

"I can hear you bitch and moan all the way out here. We need to talk."

"I'm not in the lab."

Well, that shut her up.

"Nat..."

"Just a little stunned. Are you looking for the Spider already?"

Tony rolled his eyes. He stepped closer to his bedroom windows, further away from the door that led out to the living room.

"No, I'm not looking for the Spider."

He tried to reign in his snark to not accidentally overemphasize the "looking" part of that sentence.

"Are you out drinking again?"

He let himself fall onto his bed and placed the empty whiskey glass onto the bedside table.

"Is there a point to this conversation?"

"Listen, Tony, I know you're pissed, but you need to meet me halfway here."

"I'm not pissed. I'm just busy. Can we do this tomorrow?"

"You said the Spider-dude had a routine that was easy to crack. He might still be out there..."

"Not tonight. We can't drag him anywhere tonight. Let's talk about this tomorrow!"

"Why are you whispering?"

He sat up straight on the bed. "What? I'm not... I... I just have company."

"Pepper is in LA."

"Jesus, Nat. Not that kind of company."

"Where the hell are you?"

"I'm in Manhattan and now I have to go. We will deal with this tomorrow!"

"Urgh, fine!"

She hung up before he could. His face rested in his hands. It was quite the pickle he had gotten himself into with the Spider-Boy. As he got back to the living room, he found the kid had sat up on the table.

"Jeeze, kid. Where do you think you're going?"

Peter turned to him, clearly uncomfortable.

"Getting a bit sore on that tabletop, hm?"

He hesitated when Tony offered him a hand to get off the table.

"The couch will probably be easier on your back."

He kept his hand stretched out towards him and frowned when the kid still hesitated to accept the help.

"Boss, the delivery is on its way up in the elevator."

"Thanks, FRI. Come one, kid."

He stepped a little closer, put his arm around Peter's back, which did prompt the Spiderling to hold onto his shoulder. Tony helped him over to the couch, a pillow popped up against the armrest to support his back, he had stretched his legs out on the couch. The kid was still in what remained of his torn onesie, He should probably try to find some clothes that could somewhat fit a boy like him. For now, he picked up a blanket from the other end of the couch. Just in time, he stopped himself from actually covering the kid with it. This was all starting to feel a little awkward. The degree of mothering to which Tony was apparently secretly capable of came as a bit of a shock. So, he just left the blanket within reach for him, just in case, he did want it. Peter had grabbed it to cover his legs and most of his upper body when Tony returned from the elevator with the food containers in hand. Both of them stayed quiet while Tony unpacked the delivery, carefully handed the Spiderling the soup as well as the chocolate.

They sat. They ate. The atmosphere had taken a turn for the awkward silence. The kid might just be exhausted from the whole ordeal, but it felt like there was more to it. Tony glanced over at Peter again and again, but he had his eyes fixed on that beef broth. He might just have trouble with the broth as his hands were still shaking considerably.

"You alright there?"

"Yeah... yeah."

And they were back to more silence.

Great.

Then Peter did look up at him.

"Why didn't you... just... just get them a new car?"

"Excuse me?"

"You have all this... money and, and... all this tech. And they... they just happened to be... in the wrong place at the wrong time. Why not just give them a break?"

"Because if they sue me and I just give them stuff, there're about 300 million other people who'd suddenly need some new stuff too."

"Right."

The kid cast his eyes back down to his soup. Tony bit his lip for a moment as he studied him, then tilted his head before he turned back to his food.

"They were alright, you know..."

"Yeah, okay."

"In fact, they happened to win tickets to this morning talk show in LA just a couple of weeks later."

He looked up from his food and found the kid staring at him again.

"Yeah, I think the lady had to participate in some kind of..." he screwed up his face like he tried to remember some far off detail of the anecdote. "charades... or a word quiz kinda thing. Apparently, she got a new car and a few thousand dollars out of it."

He cast his eyes back down to the food and scooped up some more of his Fried Rice.

"You... you gave them a car... after all?"

Tony kept his eyes down on the food.

"They won it. In a talk show game."

"I don't... I don't understand."

Tony looked up as Peter was rubbing at his eyes. He stood up and walked over to the couch and took the broth out of the Spiderling's hands.

"That's alright. You need to rest anyway."

"Just... why... why not just tell them..."

"Sometimes, some people deserve a lucky break. Most people can handle a lucky break a lot better than charity."

He patted the kid's shoulder and walked over to the next room into the kitchen to put away the food. By the time he got back, the Spiderling had nodded off.

So, Tony and his phone made themselves comfortable in the armchair opposite the couch again.

Chapter Text

Sitting in his chair, Tony pondered the situation he had gotten himself into. An injured minor lying on his couch that a Super Soldier and his entourage were looking for, in fact, had demanded of him to bring in for questioning. He knew there was exactly one choice to be made here. One choice that was responsible and right. A 14-year-old boy could not jump around New York like that. He'd go and get himself killed, case in point his current state. Plus, Tony was part of a team and he should be pulling his weight. The only right choice was to get Peter to the Compound.

But then why did it feel like such a bad choice to make...

Tony bit his lip. His eyes darted up from his phone over to the kid on his couch. He almost dropped the device when he found Peter staring back at him. The Spiderling had woken up.

Averting his eyes, Peter cleared his throat. "What time is it?" He looked around the living room, probably in search of a clock.

"Why? Do you have places to be?"

The Spiderling rolled his eyes at him.

"Did you just roll your eyes at me?"

The kid's hands came up to cover his face and with that the red flush that was creeping up from his neck.

"FRIDAY, time?"

"It's 12:35 am, Sir."

The Spiderling sat up on the couch with a start and immediately curled inwardly towards his knife wound.

"Seriously, kid!" Tony actually jumped up out of the chair himself. "I'd really appreciated it if you didn't pull out your stitches!"

Peter groaned and hid his face behind his pulled-up knees.

"You alright?"

"Yeah... yeah..."

"Did it feel like something ripped?"

"No... It's..." His voice still sounded pained it's alright."

"I..." Tony cleared his throat, sitting back down. "I found some stuff for you to wear. There's a room down the hall, where you can sleep."

Peter looked up at him, biting his lip.

"Again... if there's someone I should be calling..." He raised his eyebrows at him expectantly, phone still in hand.

Peter let himself fall back against the pillow. He stared at the hands in his lap, nervously picking at his fingernails.

Tony's fingers twitched no matter how steady he tried to keep them. At least he managed to suppress the urge to drum them against his phone.

"You're going to bring me to them, aren't you?"

His eyebrows shot up in surprise. "I... yeah... I mean I guess... If you tell me who-"

"To the Avengers." The kid swallowed hard, his eyes still cast down to his hands. "They... they want you to... to bring me in and... and you're gonna do that..." The kid's eyes turned to him. "You're planning to do that... in the morning... aren't you?"

Tony sat up straight. Alright, he had not expected the boy to be this perceptive. Or maybe he'd just let himself be blinded by his own hope to get out of this whole thing without getting sued over child endangerment. If the kid just told him about his family, Tony could hand him over to them and possibly pretend he didn't know anything about any of this.

"Listen, kid—"

Peter sat back up - considerably more carefully - just as Tony started speaking, fists clenched, eyes wide and pleading. "Mr. Stark. Please..."

"Okay, hold on for a moment."

"...I swear I'll stay out of trouble..."

"I haven't really decided..."

"...I won't ever show up—"

"Peter!"

He stopped, let his head drop and rest in his hands with a deep sigh.

"They just want to talk."

The kid looked up at him again, his face balled up in frustration. "They chased me through half of Manhattan."

Tony shrugged. "Well, they really... really wanted to talk."

"You know, how you freaked out... when you found out... If they find out—"

"Oh, Cap will blow a gasket."

"Mr. Stark, please..."

"You put yourself on the map today, kid. I'm not sure how you expect me to help you with this. Eventually, they'll find you and there's literally nothing I can do about that."

Peter let his head drop again and buried it in his hands.

"It's not gonna be a disaster. They..." Tony sighed, rubbing his neck. "I don't think they would hand you over to the authorities. They just want to know that you're not a threat."

The kid's head shot up, his eyes red and glistening, obviously trying to hold back tears. "Can't you just tell them, that I'm not? Please, Mr. Stark..."

Tony leaned back in his armchair and laughed. "What makes you think they'd take my word for it?"

"You're Iron Man!"

Tony sobered up. He fixed the kid with a stare. "And what makes you think, that I don't believe you to be a threat?"

Peter's mouth slammed shut. He swallowed, confusion overtaking the pleading look his face had been sporting just before.

"But... you know... I told you... I just want to help."

Tony shifted in his chair. He slowly leaned forward, fixing the kid with a stare. "You refuse to tell me anything about yourself. Who you are, why you're doing this, where you belong, who your family is if you even have one." He shook his head. "What if that cut had been a little deeper, huh? What if you'd bled out on my balcony tonight, leaving me with no idea who to call and who to inform? You run around this town like you're invincible when you're not!"

As he got up from his chair Tony slid his phone into his pants' pocket. Arms now crossed, he turned towards the window and paced back and forth. "I know nothing about you and you're determined to keep as much about yourself from me as you can." With a sharp turn, he faced Peter again. "But I'm supposed to trust you? You want me to stick my neck out and make them some kind of guarantee about your character? About your intentions?" Tony looked him up and down, huddled on his couch. "Tell me why! Why do you do this?"

He waited for Peter to answer, but the Spiderling just shook his head in confusion, dabbing at his eyes.

"I don't... I don't get it," Tony sighed. "You're a kid. You're supposed to obsess about social media and music... movies... video games... and run around with your little friends. And yet you put yourself in a ridiculous amount of danger. Why?"

Peter wasn't looking up, just fiddling with the blanket. "I..." The kid cleared his throat. His hand flew up to his eyes again, rubbing at them. "I've had these... powers... for six months." The kid threw his head back and blinked rapidly. "I can't tell people, that I'm different. I can't tell my friends or... or my family. It just... it would change everything."

"Look around you, Spiderling. It's too late for that. Everything has already changed. You need to stop going down this road or you'll have to live with the consequences!"

The kid was still staring at his hands, avoiding Tony's eyes.

"I... I don't think, I can." The kid swallowed and slowly shook his head. "When you... When you can do the things that I can, but you don't... and then the bad things happen..." His eyes drifted off his hands up to Tony. "Then they happen because of you."

Tony blew out a breath and turned away from him back towards the windows. He let his hands run through his hair and brought more distance between himself and Peter. He'd grown soft. This whole mess he had somehow slipped into wanting to protect Pepper. He should have stayed out of all of this.

"Jeez, kid." He turned, staring at him from across the room. "You're killing me. Couldn't you have just turned out to be some attention-seeking jackass-y little troublemaker?" He swung back around, his back to the kid, but he could still see him in the reflection of the window as Peter shuffled uncomfortably on the couch. "Fuck. Fuck. Fuck." His voice low, eyes not straying from the kid, as he crossed his arms.

He knew that Nat was right. He'd have to give them something on Spider-Man. They wouldn't let this go. But, damn, that kid was likable. So likable it was actually suspicious because he didn't just find people likable. Maybe with the exception of Pepper. He usually had to work for it to even tolerate most people in his space.

"Sir, there's a call waiting for you."

"Just take a message, FRI."

"It's Miss Potts calling."

He groaned, turning on his heel.

Speaking of the devil. Wonderful. Of course, now she'd call...

"You!" He pointed at the kid. "You stay put. We're not done here. I'll be right back."

His eyes still fixed on the Spiderling he walked towards his bedroom. He fished his phone out of his pocket on the way.

"Did you hear what I said?"

"Yes, Sir."

"And what was that?"

"I'll... I'll stay put."

"FRIDAY." Tony's eyes didn't stray from Peter. "Keep an eye on him."

"Yes, Sir."

He took a deep breath, a shiver of anxiety ran down his spine as he entered his bedroom and picked up the call.

"Hi, Potts."

"Mr. Stark..."

He let out a nervous chuckle.

"That bad, huh?"

He hated doing this over the phone. He thought about switching this to a video call so he would at least be able to work off of her body language, but decided against it. Pepper would usually video call him and the fact that she didn't was telling in itself. It had taken long enough to get her on the phone in the first place. He couldn't screw this up.

"Yes, I'd say so."

"Pepper, I'm sorry." He paced up and down along the windowfront of the bedroom. "I should have picked up the phone. I should have known, that you were worried. I'm sorry."

"I've waited for you to call me."

He stopped, his forehead wrinkled into a frown.

"I... I did. I called every day for a week and a half."

"Not today you didn't. I've been looking at reports from that terrorist attack in Manhattan all day..."

"Oh, Pepper..."

"I know, we're broken up and the last couple of months have been tough, but we're still supposed to be friends, Tony! At the very least I'm still your CEO!"

"I'm sorry, Pep. I... Things today were a little crazy and-"

"Things with you are always crazy!"

"I'm sorry..."

She stayed quiet on the other end of the line and Tony let himself fall onto the bed. How did he fuck up like this again and again? He aimed for a more lighthearted tone to mellow the conversation.

"God, Potts. When we broke up I really thought that at least you wouldn't have to worry about these kinds of things anymore."

"I saw pictures from today. From the... scene."

Tony was massaging his temples with one hand. There had been a bit of fire back and forth, a couple of grenades. Had the site looked that bad? When they had left the NYPD to handle the reopening of the street he had taken a quick assessment of the situation but—

"Seems like Spider-Man helped you out."

Tony sat up straight. At last the icy turn her voice had taken struck him with full force.

"Pepper—"

"You lied to me."

"I didn't..."

"You said you'd never even met the guy!"

"Pepper, I hadn't."

His heart cramped painfully. If she had been in the room with him he might have been able to calm her but like this... What idiot even came up with fucking telephones? Some conversations were just never meant to be had any other way than face to face.

"You even had FRIDAY lie to my face!"

"Can you let me explain this for a second?"

"Let me guess, he just happened to show up and you had nothing to do with it?"

"I went to see him on the night you came to the Compound." He waited a moment for her to interject, but she didn't. "I didn't know anything about him before you told me about what happened to you. Then I got worried about someone targeting you." He was desperate for her to understand but Pepper was still quiet on the other end of the line. "I checked him out then. I didn't lie to you. I would never lie to you about something that is this important."

"Why didn't you just tell me that that's where you were going? Why is getting any information out of you always such a struggle, Tony?"

"I called you. I tried to talk to you!"

"The next day! After I was up all night trying to find you. I called and called you! I left messages. I called Rhodey. I even tried to make FRIDAY tell me about your location! You couldn't even be bothered to send a text?"

"I'm sorry."

"Stop saying that."

He got back up. He had no solution for this. He didn't even know where to begin. It was impossible to stay still so he paced around the room again.

"Tell me what to do, Pepper. I don't know... I don't know how to fix this, other than telling you that I'm sorry."

He was still pacing but there was only silence on the other end of the line.

"Pepper, just talk to me."

"I don't know. I don't know how you can fix this. I don't know if there is even anything to fix at this point."

"Come on, don't say that..."

"I have an early day tomorrow."

"Pepper, please... Don't. I—"

"Goodnight, Tony."

"Pepper—"

He looked down at his phone screen, but she'd already disconnected the call. He threw the phone against the opposite wall of the room and turned to punch his first again the glass of the window. He cursed wildly before he quickly went around the bed to pick the phone back up. He dialed Pepper's number. The call only went to voicemail. The first and the second and also the third time. He sat down on the bed and rested his face in his hands. He was gonna fix this. Somehow. He didn't know how, but he'd find a way. He just had to. 

#

Peter was still huddled on the sofa in Tony Stark's penthouse. He could hear that the man had picked up the call and just like before he could hear his side of the conversation just fine. He forced himself to stop. Listening in on his conversation with Miss Potts seemed like more of an intrusion of Stark's privacy. In this case, there was very little room to excuse his eavesdropping with a healthy sense of self-preservation. He reached for the clothes that Stark had left for him at the end of the couch.

0:35 in the morning. Probably 0:50 am by now. A little more than three hours till May would get off her night shift. If she came home and only found an empty room with Peter nowhere in sight, it wouldn't matter what Stark or the Avengers had in store for him. She'd just track him down and kill him. And then probably revive him just so she could kill him a second time after she'd found out what kind of trouble Peter had gotten himself into.

She couldn't find out. Not like this. He couldn't let that happen.

Peter's gaze went up to the ceiling. That was where the lady's voice had come from. It was probably some kind of AI. Not even Tony Stark would have a PA sitting around all day catering to his every whim. Or would he? Was someone actually watching him? He cast his eyes down. He had to leave. He had to get home. Maybe Stark was right and he'd gone too far. Maybe his life was bound to change completely now, just like he had known it must one day after he'd discovered his powers. But not like this. Not with the Avengers showing up on May's doorstep. If there was a chance that he could keep things normal a little while longer, maybe calmly let May in on his secret then he had to try. He had to leave.

Sure, Stark would probably be pissed, but between May and the looming threat of the Avengers what else was he supposed to do? He couldn't just sit there like a scared little boy and wait for things to fall into place. Last time he went for that approach, he'd lost Ben. He wouldn't give up without a fight. He'd go home and spend time with May and Ned. With the decathlon team and go to prom. He might have to lay low for a bit, but there was still time to fix this. There had to be.

He took a deep breath before he slowly moved his legs down to the floor. His wounds still hurt. He could feel the throbbing of the cut in his abdomen. The cut on his face still stung as well. Most of the smaller abrasions and cuts were either on the mend or simply drowned out by those two serious wounds. With the few hours of sleep he had gotten at the Tower, he certainly felt a little better. Strong enough to get home... Well, he had to try. Standing up was the worst part. He tried to put most of the strain on his right side, tried to engage his abdominal muscles as little as possible. Once he was on his feet, the pain subsided and he felt more confident. He made his way over to the table where Stark had stitched him up and picked up his mask. The fabric was bloody and torn, but it was the best and only way to keep his face hidden once he made it to the outside of the Tower.

He took a deep breath, braced himself before he carefully walked over to the balcony door. There were no handles. He had no idea how to open it. He casts a shy look up to the ceiling. The door had fallen shut when Stark had instructed the lady - the AI? -   to close it. Maybe it wasn't even possible to just open it manually...

"Well." Another deep breath and he took his courage in both hands. "Here goes nothing."

He pressed his shaking hands against the glass, pushed his weight against the door, but nothing happened. The door didn't move. He peered into the direction of where Stark had disappeared to. Quickly he turned back. Deep breaths. He would not think about what Stark might do if he found him trying to jailbreak his penthouse. The panic attack he'd had earlier was still vividly on his mind and he could not let himself go back to that place of despair but his pulse had picked up anyway. There was bound to be some kind of alarm that would go off any second. His eyes flickered up to the ceiling but nothing happened. He pushed again, tried to slide it to one side then the other. Nothing.

"Well, that was anti-climactic." He stepped back, taking his hands off the glass.

Now what?

Again, his glance went up to the ceiling. He bit his lip. He didn't really have much to lose.

"Excuse me, lady... erm... FRIDAY? Would you mind opening the door for me? I'd... I'd really like some fresh air..." he grimaced at the high-pitched, nervous voice and the pathetic words coming out of his mouth.

"I'm sorry, Spider-Man. Access to the outside deck is limited to people with A1 authorization only."

Fuck.

He turned to face the room, leaned his back against the window.

"For open-air visitor access, I recommend the recreational viewing platforms situated on the 25th or 50th-floor Sky Lobbies."

His eyes shot back up to the ceiling.

"Could you... Would you mind calling the elevator for me?"

"Right away."

Peter's heart rate spiked and he made his way over to the elevator as fast and quietly as possible, ignoring the pain that pierced him with every step. The doors opened right when he reached them. Panting, he stepped inside. Where the hell were the buttons? There was only an access card scanner, a handprint pad, and an emergency switch were attached to the elevator's wall. He spoke up once more.

"Erm... FRIDAY. Could you... could you bring me to the 25th-floor sky lobby? Please?"

"Certainly, Spider-Man. Please be advised, to regain access to your current floor - Penthouse 68 - authorization will have to be granted by a person with A1 level clearance. I would be happy to let Mr. Stark know about—"

"No!" He cleared his throat. "That's... that's alright. I don't want to disturb his call. We can... we can just tell him when I want to come back up again."

"Very well, Spider-Man."

The doors closed and a soft shiver went down Peter's spine as the elevator raced to the 25th floor.

#

Tony was lying on his bed, thinking, calculating. He could probably find a reason why he had to go to LA. There was bound to be stuff that R&D at the LA headquarters had been haranguing him about, that he'd put off. Pepper would probably know that it was just a ruse to see her, but he'd still feel like saving face in front of everyone who wasn't Pepper. First, he had to get things around New York in order though.

He got up and walked towards the living room, phone in hand, scrolling through his calendar. Early next week would probably work. It'd give her time to cool down and he would have a few days to figure out what to do with his spider problem.

"Alright, kid. It's been a long day. How about..." He'd looked up and found the couch empty. He looked around the room. The clothes he'd laid out for Peter were gone. As was his mask.

Oh, hell no...

"FRIDAY, please tell me that you showed the kid to the guest room..."

"Spider-Man was asking for fresh air. I directed him to the Sky Lobbies that are accessible for visitors without security clearance."

Tony turned towards the elevator, pulse racing.

"Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Why would you do that? I told you to keep an eye on him!"

"Boss, all his movement has been recorded and cataloged as long as he was in reach of my sensors or the tower's security surveillance system. He went to the Sky Lobby on the 25th floor and scaled the balustrade 20 minutes ago where he then moved outside of the tower's surveillance range."

He stopped in his tracks and groaned in frustration. He was gone. There was no point in looking at an empty viewing platform on the 25th floor.

"Shit. Why the fuck did you not alert me that he went down to the 25th floor?"

"I'm sorry, Boss. Protocol 'Pepperony' is currently activated, dictating that you are not to be disturbed while on a phone call with Miss Potts unless the city or world are literally or figuratively on fire."

He shook his head in frustration.

"Access all the security footage we have on that floor between the elevator and the viewing platform from the last 30 minutes send it to my phone."

That damn kid.

Chapter Text

It was 3 am by the time Tony returned to the Compound. He had spent over an hour cleaning the penthouse, 40 minutes of that outside on the balcony at sub-zero temperatures scrubbing the floor on his hands and knees. A pool of the kid's blood had been half dried and half-frozen to the tiled floor of his balcony that seemed almost like a punishment for his foolishness. He also learned why you're not supposed to clean glass windows in winter. The damn cleaning product just kept freezing to the window front and actually enlarging the splashes of red, the bloody handprints the Spiderling's had left when he had been knocking on the penthouse windows.

That damn kid.

It had taken him multiple attempts to get rid of the blood. Granted, the windows weren't exactly clean, but at least the traces of blood were gone. Now it only looked like someone had unsuccessfully tried to remove a couple of bird droppings. For now, that had to be good enough. The construction team he had hired was supposed to arrive by 7 am and he didn't want to deal with any stories that were bound to make their way into the tabloids if the workers were to show up on his floor and find blood all over the place. Postponing the construction would have been an option but he needed to get out of the Compound. That peace and quiet away from team-building exercises and Super Soldiers' reproachful glances, he needed that badly. That was a priority he was not willing to postpone.

He didn't bother to use the main entrance when he arrived at the Compound. Their usual running routine would kick off just before 6 am. So it was unlikely that any of them would be up and about at 3 am, but Tony was not going to take any chances. He let FRIDAY guide the suit through his emergency door right into the lab.

"Alright, FRIDAY, pull up the video files from the Tower as well as the analysis we did on the Spiderling in February. See if you can tell what side of the building he climbed down on."

His suit had retracted itself and he sat down at his desk. The holographic keyboard popped up right in front of him.

"The files are being processed right now, Sir."

"Do we have access to any of the security footage from the streets around the Tower so we can see which way he went?"

Queens might have been the obvious guess, but there was always the possibility that the kid was clever enough not to go where Tony would definitely check.

"Sir, there are cameras that could have picked him up. However, we do not have access to those recordings, officially."

"Okay, let's not break any laws until we hit a dead end. Tell me -"

A strong knock on the door silenced him mid-sentence.

"FRI?"

"Captain Rogers is asking to see you, Boss."

"Blank!"

At once the files and calculations about Spider-Man's past movements that FRIDAY had projected in the middle of the room disappeared along with the keyboard.

"Good girl, open the door for the good Captain, would you."

"We have intel from Switzerland. We're leaving now!"

Tony's eyes widened and he shot up from his chair.

"Is it the same weapon signature as it was today?"

By the time Rogers had made it halfway through the lab to stand next to him, Tony had reached into the large bottom drawer of his desk for his go-bag.

"What?" Rogers shook his head in confusion. "No, it's intel on Bucky. We have footage of what is probably him and also a few eyewitnesses lined up."

Tony's chest deflated. His bag hit the ground with a soft bang.

"Woah, Cap. First of all, you almost gave me a heart attack. Second: That's a horrible idea!"

Rogers shook his head in confusion.

"Why?"

"Well, mostly cause you stormed in here like the country was gonna explode any second."

He shook his head again, his expression changing from confusion to annoyance.

"Why is it a bad idea?"

"Because it's Switzerland!"

"So?"

"One does not simply fly a jet into Switzerland..." He suppressed a cocky smirk realizing that Rogers probably wouldn't get the joke and continued "They are a bit touchy about having foreign agents in their country."

Tony sat back down in his chair while Rogers crossed his arms.

"We're not going as American agents though."

"Yeah..." Tony screwed up his face incredulously. "I don't think they'll see it like that."

"We haven't had a lead in months! This is all we have and I have to follow up on it!"

"Listen to me, Steve. Flying into any country without informing their government of our intervention is risky and I'm assuming from who we're following here that is the plan, right? To keep this under the radar again?" Rogers only gave a curt nod of confirmation.

"We can't screw with Switzerland, Cap! They don't fuck around when it comes to their sovereignty and they are powerful!"

"We don't have time to discuss this. We might only get one shot here and I already made the decision. I'm taking Sam, Nat, and Wanda."

"Steve..."

"We need you to represent the team at the debrief with the national, state and city advisory board tomorrow regarding the operation in Manhattan."

Tony's jaw dropped as Rogers dropped a folder on his desk.

"You can't be serious."

"Tony, we need you with this!"

"You want me to walk in there on my own? After the closest call, we've had in the city in years?"

"We stopped them, didn't we?"

"Well, barely..."

Rogers turned towards the exit as Tony flicked through the documents.

"Are there some talking points in here as well, in case you guys get shot down over Switzerland?"

"I need to go, Tony. We'll be on radio silence as soon as we get in European radar range."

With fast steps, Rogers exited the lab leaving Tony with a folder to study and a brewing headache.

##

Peter had made it to the apartment with less than 30 minutes to spare. His progress had been slow and painful. By the time he had climbed the wall to his bedroom he was absolutely exhausted. He managed to find an oversized band-aid in the small stash of supplies he had carefully collected over the past months. There was the odd item he had taken from friends' bathrooms or the school nurse so he wouldn't have to spend the little pocket money he had on medical supplies. Said band-aid now covered the gash on the left side of his face. Mr. Stark had taped the cut, but that wasn't good enough for Peter. He needed the cut to be covered up in its entirety. If nobody could see it, nobody would register how fast it was healing. He didn't really have a reference for a cut like that on his face. Hopefully, it would heal just as fast as the smaller cuts and bruises that he had suffered here and there in the past. He sure as hell wasn't going to reopen this one to mimic regular people's healing time. Applying the band-aid was the only thing he could stomach after the day's events. He crawled under the covers, hadn't even bothered to change out of Mr. Stark's clothes. Worst case scenario it'd take too long with his body aching all over or that he wouldn't hide them well enough from May in the dark. Or that it would hurt again when he would try to take off the clothes. He felt his pulse pick up just thinking about the pain.

Nope. No, no, no...

Peter took a deep breath and closed his eyes. Happy thoughts. He'd have to think happy thoughts, distract himself. Another panic attack would be incredibly inconvenient right now. So, he thought of sunshine and summer and how he totally wanted to try out water skiing. He was exhausted and not falling asleep was a struggle, but he couldn't sleep yet. May would check on him when she got home, which would be any minute now. There couldn't be anything to tip her off, no clues for her to pick up on. He'd placed his face strategically onto the pillow, propped up his head just enough that the wound on his face wasn't touching the bed, because pain, but was at the same time obstructed from view, because May. All he wanted was to lie on his right side and draw himself into a fetal position. He was quite sure that his body would promptly do exactly that when he would let himself fall asleep. But that wasn't an option right now, because May...

So for now, Peter had to try and stay awake. He was lying on his back, face turned to the side, sheets pulled up all the way to his chin so they hid Stark's clothes.

He heard May before she even put the key into the lock. He had heard the elevator move and that just had to be her. When her key was pushed into the lock, he took a deep breath and turned his head a little further to the left. Maybe this angle looked a little too unnatural... He turned back a bit. Eyes closed, his breathing sounded weirdly loud and forced. How did he usually breathe? Surely not as fast as he did right then. His heart hammered away in his chest and he was sure that even without any enhanced senses May must be hearing it all the way from the living room. Another deep breath to calm himself as her steps echoed down the corridor getting closer to his room. He willed his body to relax and not to look too suspicious.

She opened the door and for a moment she just stood there. There was a hot flush that crept from his neck all the way into his face. It would be too dark for her to see that though, right? But she didn't move further into the room, just whispering a low "Goodnight, honey.”, backed out of the room and closed the bedroom door.

##

There was a constant drumming, a dull rhythmic sound, that was going to drive Tony up the wall. He was surrounded by city officials, the Governor, a couple of Senators and Congress(wo)men as well as members of the NYPD, FDNY, and some National Security advisors. They were well into the 7th hour of a meeting that didn't seem to want to end. Currently, he was sitting through the rant of another security advisor to the chief staff person of he didn't even know. If they'd at least be a little creative but no, it was the same lecture about decorum, responsibility, accountability and so on and so forth. He was pretty sure that he had heard that exact speech at least four times already in this meeting alone. Had these men compared notes and stolen passages from each other or had they all simply googled "speech on accountability" and thnt printed out the first result that had popped up?

Either way, even if the dude would have had something of substance to say, Tony would have had a hard time concentrating on the rant. Someone was being annoying as fuck, drumming away under the table. His money was on the small bald dude three seats down from him whose hands had disappeared underneath the table and his pen was nowhere in sight.

Dude with the pen in the conference room. Bingo. Case closed.

"Mr. Stark?"

Tony looked up. Right, terrorists. Manhattan. He forced his thoughts to pivot back to the topic at hand. The colored glasses he was wearing were supposed to give him a bit of cover, but there was a possibility that his head had started to tilt over to his shoulder far enough to make him look suspiciously absent. Mentally at least. Chances were low that he'd get out of this room any time soon. He sat up straight and suppressed the urge to stretch out his arms to relax the muscles in his back.

"Do you understand, why that is a problem for us?" The security advisor to the chief staff–person had his eyes narrowed. Tony swallowed his amusement. Please, he'd gotten those kinds of stares for decades. They had to step up their game if they were planning on guilt-tripping him.

"I can see that you're frustrated with the current process. I'm still waiting for a suggestion on how it is supposed to be improved."

The dude's fist hit the table. "It's not a process! It's simply you doing whatever you want at any given time!"

Tony's eyebrows shot up behind his glasses. Tsk, tsk, tsk. So little stamina, so easily tossing one strategy out of the window, swinging for intimidation now. Were they not aware who they are talking to?

"Well, if that was true, I'd certainly not be sitting here getting yelled at for 7 hours after saving a few million citizens in Manhattan yesterday."

"Mr. Stark..." Congresswoman Alicia Davis spoke up. A wave of her hand silenced the former speaker. "Of course New York is grateful for your assistance..."

"Oh 'assistance', is it..." Tony rolled his eyes, his voice only a low mumble.

"...but I'm sure you can understand our concerns. We want to be included in the decision-making process to weigh the risks and benefits for our constituents."

"Congresswomen Davis, like I have said before," He really tried not to over-stress the 'before' part of that sentence even though he felt like he'd been having the same conversation over and over again today. "We are absolutely happy to work with you on these issues, but situations like the one in question here, require fast and immediate action. I can assure you that we have enough on our plates that we will only directly and immediately engage in situations where the threats to human life are so severe and imminent that the government departments would be unable to stop them. We are perfectly happy to leave any other problems that the NYPD or the Military or whoever responsible can handle by themselves for the relevant authorities to actually do handle with their own expertise."

"Oh yeah?! Well, that's not what we have been experiencing!" Big, mustache dude – judging by the uniform he was wearing from the NYPD – banged his fist on the table and glared at Tony.

"Excuse me?" That Alpha male line these dudes constantly pushed was seriously getting on his nerves.

"You have been sending in your Spider guy, screwing us all over Queens and even Manhattan! Is that what you call 'leaving things' to the 'relevant authorities'?"

Behind his glasses, Tony rolled his eyes so far he was sure he could actually feel his eye muscles strain – if that even was a thing.

That damn kid.

##

Peter was on his way home from another glorious day at school. It was getting harder and harder to remember why he still kept his not-so-new found powers quiet. Sure, he wanted to keep his life the way it had always been. That was the mature thing to do, right? But with idiots like Flash who ruined a huge portion of his school days that approach now seemed less and less logical. He sighed and strolled out of one of the school's side entrances. It wasn't his usual direct route to get home. This way he'd only have to jump a smaller fence on the eastern side of the school grounds though, not the wall to the south of the school. Jumping the fence was still quicker than if he left through the front entrance and he was less likely to run into anyone that he would have rather avoided, including Ned. Ned who'd been very inquisitive about the band-aid on his face and the stiffness of his movements in general. With a glance first to the left and then to the right, he was confident that nobody was around to see him. All it took was a little bend in the knees to gather momentum and he took a leap over the fence. His body still ached from the beating it had taken two days ago. The fence had been the right choice. There was no way that he could have managed the wall with a quick jump. Even this shallow jump was a challenge for his still-healing knife wound. Pain shot through his abdomen when his feet came down on the other side of the wall. The impact left him paralyzed and he took a few deep breaths while he cowered on the ground for a moment and waited for the pain to subside. He panted slowly and deeply before he lifted himself up.

"Alright... just shake it off..." His voice was only a quiet murmur to himself as he felt a shiver run through his body. "You're good. You're great. Okay, then." Home. That was all he needed. Just to get home. There were a couple of spots on his route where he could pick up some comfort food, but really he just wanted to get into his room, close the blinds and simply mope.

"You're not pathetic. You just need a break. Everyone needs a break at some point."

And talking to yourself is totally not pathetic either. Lots of people do it. Probably.

Maybe he was too weak for all this, specifically for the consequences that came with crime-fighting. But right now that didn't matter. He was too strung out, too close to his breaking point to even think about that out in the open. Physically that night in Manhattan had shown him his limits. He was not untouchable and apparently he had had to learn that the hard way. But while his body was slowly healing it was his mind that was strung to a point he could barely handle. There was a sense of dread that followed him around. He avoided alleyways he'd not have thought about crossing through twice just a week ago. It felt like his Spidey-senses had failed him, hadn't properly tipped him off about what kind of danger he had been in two nights ago. Or maybe he'd just gotten too cocky and narcissistic with his focus on the Avengers for the alarm bells to register. How was he supposed to trust himself? He couldn't... not until he decided what exactly had gone wrong. The mere thought of that night gave him shivers though. He couldn't think about it. Not yet. And then he felt guilty as well. His senses had, again and again, picked up incidents over the last couple of days, but his injuries and his mental weakness just wouldn't allow him to help the people that needed him.

The night at Stark Tower still worried him, too. Sure, Stark didn't know anything about him, only his first name, but the man had found him in the middle of Queens by looking at a few youtube videos. When he had left – well, let's be honest, fled – the Tower, he had left the remnants of his suit behind, only grabbed his mask. The web-shooters had still been attached to his wrists. He had exposed himself, said too much. He knew that. But what else could he have done? There was no one else. He couldn't tell anybody and trusting Stark... well, Peter didn't trust him, he had needed someone that was not gonna sell him out right away. That whole night at the Tower had been crazy and even though Stark had called off the EMTs when he found out, it still complicated things to a degree that unnerved Peter. Unnerved might be putting it a little bit too casual. It petrified him.

If he hadn't skipped out on Stark, May would have only found his empty bed when she got home from work. That just hadn't been a viable option. Plus, it was the only shot he had to keep himself safe. He wasn't sure if Stark would have actually handed him over to the other Avengers, but the risk was too high for him to stay and find out. It was the only way, even if it meant that he had broken his promise, had left even though he had given his word to stay put. A breach of confidence like that would not be something that Tony Stark would take lightly.

"Screw it!" He turned left instead of continuing down the street to get home. It was a detour, but he needed to make a stop at Delmar's. Today's mood required a special treat.

With his usual order in hand, he made it back to the apartment in record time. He crashed into his bedroom, threw his backpack into the corner of the room, closed the blinds and slid to the floor. Sandwich first. Maybe it would be enough of a pick-me-up to get him to finally change that wound dressing himself. He hadn't dared to touch it and the longer he waited the worse he felt the dread burn in his chest. Healing factor aside, it was unlikely that he was immune to wound infections. He should have changed it last night or at the latest when he had gotten up that morning. But truth be told, he was scared. Scared it would hurt. Scared how it would look like.

Peter put his half-eaten sandwich aside and strode into the bathroom. It was time. To his surprise, the first-aid kit had been exchanged with a new one, still shrink-wrapped.

He groaned. "This is just great. I open this and May will give me a week's worth of not-so-subtle interrogations to figure out why I broke this open." He rubbed his face in frustration. May was still in the dark about the extend of his injuries. It had never been as hard as it had been the day before to keep it like that. Granted, usually, his injuries weren't as visible and as severe as they were this time. She'd still been at home when he got back from school and of course, the first thing she did was question him about the band-aid on his face. He tried to keep her away from it, but she just wouldn't let it go.

###

"Just let me look at it for a moment..."

"May, come on. It's nothing..."

She tried to hold onto his arm and turn him towards her.

"What happened?"

"Nothing..."

"Well, you don't put a band-aid on your face for nothing. Or did you join some Rapper cult without telling me?"

"What? No..."

"Come here!"

He was frozen to the spot while she slowly peeled the band-aid off his cheek, careful not to hurt him. She bit her lip while Peter studied her out of the corner of his eye. He had no idea what the cut would look like. He'd been too nervous to check.

"Oh, Peter..." She sighed deeply, caressing his other cheek. "What the hell did you do?" She frowned and got close to look at the cut. "Did someone tape this for you?"

He looked away from her. "No. No... I taped it."

"You taped a cut on your own face?" She frowned, still holding firmly onto him. "When did you learn to do that?"

"We had this class. They... it's part of the... you know."

May frowned at him. "No, I don't know. What class is this?"

"It's like... a voluntary thing, for students who... who want to get a Learner's Permit. You know. Public safety kinda thing."

Her expression softened. "You want to get a Learner's Permit?"

Peter shook his head and shrugged. "No, just.. you know, I thought. Just in case."

"Honey, we don't have a car."

"I know, I know..."

She sighed again. "So, are you gonna tell me how you cut your face or do I need to resort to other less pleasant methods than just asking you?"

He shrugged her hands off his face and stepped away from her, turning his back in the process.

"Peter... what's going on?"

"Nothing! I just..." He swallowed hard and closed his eyes in frustration. "It's just embarrassing."

"Was that supposed to discourage my curiosity?"

He knew she was trying to brighten the mood and it didn't help with his nerves.

He groaned. "I just... I was... looking at something on my phone and I didn't see where I was going... and I walked into something. It's not a big deal."

He wasn't in the habit of openly lying to her and he did feel horrible about it. But this was the only way. He knew that there was no other option at this time.

"You walked into... something? Face first?"

"I know, it's stupid. I just wasn't—"

"Peter, look at me."

He sighed and turned around to face her. She had narrowed her eyes at him.

"You'd tell me if someone had done this to you right? Someone at school?"

"Yeah. Yeah. Of course. It's not like that..." He couldn't quite meet her eyes. That was a mistake and he knew it. Mr. Stark had been right. He was a liar. And he was horrible at it.

"Alright. If that's what happened..."

"Yes, that's what happened." She knew. She must have known that he was lying. He looked up at her and met her eyes at last. "It's really not a big deal. I'll be fine."

He did try to mean that last part at least.

Of course, it really was quite a big deal and he wasn't really fine, but May had let it go. For now. So, there was no point in worrying about that, but he couldn't afford to give her any more clues to pick apart. He avoided his own face in the mirror as he closed the cabinet door. His stash didn't include any of the bandages he'd need for this, but he could run down to the pharmacy. He still had a bit of pocket money left and really how much could a first-aid kit cost? He might have to skip out on a couple of the after-school snacks. But if it meant that he could avoid tipping off May even further it would be worth it. She was like a dog with a bone. Once she got a whiff that something was up, there was no getting her to drop it. He would have to do what he could so he didn't give her any more ammunition.

Going down to the drugstore was really the only sensible choice. He picked up some wound pads, some antibiotic ointment, and bandages. When he was about to pay, his senses tingled and just by reflex he almost ran out of the store. No! He stopped himself and only looked up out of the glass windows towards the street for a second before bringing his focus back down to his medical supplies.

He was still paying for the last time he jumped without looking. He had to keep his damn feet still.

After he handed over the money, Peter rushed out of the store, but he just couldn't help himself. He scanned the street. On the opposite side of the road was a young woman crying, but there were people there, talking to her.

There. She was fine.

Peter looked down at his feet and walked back towards the apartment. Back in his room, he threw the medical supplies on top of his school bag before he let himself fall onto his bed. He made a face as his abdomen ached and reached for his half-eaten sandwich. He took a bite, eyes locked on the ceiling of the room. Usually, that would help. Usually, it was only when he closed his eyes that images of his patrol or the bullies or on the worst days Ben would pop up in his mind. Usually. Not so much now. Again and again, his thoughts strayed to the fight in Manhattan. Memories flashed in and out in front of him, memories from a night that were etched into his brain. Or the girl would pop up. The girl who had been crying on the other side of the road The girl who he hadn't helped.

Then with a sudden force, his head turned almost on instinct as he heard a key slide into the lock of the front door. He jumped up off the bed and cursed as he felt that deep ache in his side once more.

"Peter, honey, are you home?"

May... What? What time was it?

He darted towards his medical supplies, flung them onto his bed and used his sheet to cover them up. Idiot that he was he had dragged his feet on dealing with his wound and now May was home. Shit.

"Peter?"

He turned towards her, as she knocked and opened the door.

"Yeah, May, Hi! I didn't... didn't realize it's this late."

"It's not. I changed shifts with Gina and came home early, hoping you'd be home so we can spend some time together. I've hardly seen you all week!"

She stepped closer to him, her face lined with obvious worry. She turned his injured cheek towards herself, one hand under his chin.

"It doesn't look as bad as I remembered..." She frowned for a moment but then her face relaxed and her hand cupped his face. "How about some pasta? I'll need your expert skills at the chopping board." She ruffled his hair. "You okay, honey?"

"Yeah... I'm..." He smiled at her. "Pasta would be great."

Peter followed her into the kitchen. It really wasn't a complicated recipe, he could have probably even managed to prepare everything on his own. With the size of their kitchen that would have been more practical. They kept bumping into each other, having to move the other one out of the way to reach a bowl or open a drawer. But it was May. It was comfort being so close to the one person he knew loved him more than anyone. It picked up his spirits, the genuine care she radiated, a soft hand on his shoulder, a lame joke about his tomato cutting technique.

They sat down at the table and he told her about school. Not the nasty parts, that made his head hurt. He really didn't want to steal this moment of coziness from himself. He told her about the Academic Decathlon, the advanced science courses. They were starting to delve into genetics. They had already covered the basic theory, Mendel's laws, the double helix structure of DNA. He told her about the experiments they were scheduled to perform on DNA samples in a few weeks at the end of the semester. He bit his tongue when he thought about that plan he had to compare his own DNA to the test subjects they were going to work on in class. He was dying to find out if the bite had messed with his DNA in any obvious form.

Peter wasn't sure how much of the science talk May actually got. He tried to explain about antiparallel DNA strands and cell division, but she seemed happy to just listen and he was glad to just keep talking. He was helping to dry the dishes while simultaneously scrolling through his Netflix list and offered May different movie choices for the evening's entertainment.

"Peter!" May finally managed to interrupt his rambling about why the fact that The Shawshank Redemption was such an important piece of cinematic history should trump the minor annoyance that it was technically rated R even though an R rating really only meant that under 17-year-olds should watch it in the company of an adult and her being there would totally meet those conditions.

"Peter, the door!" May indicated the foam of the dishwater dripping off her hands. "Do you mind?"

"Oh, yeah. Sure." He hadn't even heard anyone knock. He walked over and opened the door. His insides froze so fast his jaw didn't even have a chance to fall open as he was looking straight at Tony Stark.

Maybe shutting the door right in his face wasn't the most charming way to go about it, but it was really all he could do to keep himself from having a panic attack right there in the doorway. His mind had just stopped working and was trapped somewhere between fight and flight. Stark cleared his throat on the other side of the door and there was another knock.

Fuck. Fuck.Fuck.Fuck.Fuck.Fuck.No.No.No.No.No.

He glanced back towards his room. He had to run. Fast. Just get out of the apartment, then... then he would... He would just live in the shadows. Nobody would ever get to him. Just him and the law and...

"Peter?" May's voice echoed from the kitchen. His pulse quickened even more, his heart raced at a dangerous inhuman speed. He couldn't leave May. A shiver ran down his spine at the thought of her finding his room empty with him just gone. She only had him and he only had her. Losing him would break her. There really was only one choice he could live with in this situation. She was going to find out. A shaky breath left his throat. This was bound to happen someday, he knew that. He just wasn't prepared for that day to be today. He should have prepared better for this. Another knock, this one faster, harder, clearly less patient than the one before.

"Peter!"

He willed his voice to sound at least somewhat normal but it came out high-pitched and shaky. "Yeah, on it."

Reachind for the doorknob, his hands seemed to move in slow motion before he opened the door wide. Stark had crossed his arms, his eyes narrowed.

"Don't they teach you kids basic manners these days?"

Peter was still holding onto the doorknob, clung to it for some form of support.

Stark's eyes widened. His eyebrows shot up, as he looked at Peter expectantly for another moment. Then he let his arms drop and mimicked Peter's usual fast-rolling vernacular.

"Good evening, Mr. Stark. How nice of you to drop by! So sorry, I had to leave in a flash the other day. Totally forgot to say bye or at least leave a thank-you note. Oopsie."

Stark narrowed his eyes on him again and all Peter could do was avoid his glare and stare at the carpet in the hallway behind Stark.

"Hey, kid!"

At Stark's sharp tone of voice, Peter shot a glance back up to him "I'm sorry, Sir," he whispered almost inaudibly. "Please. Please, don't—"

"This is where you politely ask me to come inside." Stark still stared at him.

Peter could barely hear him over the loud thump of his own heart, that muffled everything around him. "Please, Sir. You don't understand—"

With a grunt, Stark rolled his eyes. "Fine." He wedged himself through the open door and by reflex Peter reached out and grabbed his arm.

"Don't! Please..."

Stark leaned closer to him, his voice low but powerful. "Running out on me was a mistake, kid. I told you, there would be consequences if you try to screw me over." In a much louder cheerful tone, he continued. "Now, why don't you introduce me to your lovely family!"

Chapter Text

Strolling into a room like he owned the place was something Tony had mastered a long time ago. That part and charming the unusually attractive May Parker was really the easy part of this whole trip to the Parker's. He could turn up the charm like no other. He introduced himself to her, graciously ignoring the shocked expression she just hadn't been able to wipe off of her face ever since he had walked into the kitchen.

"I'm sure Peter has told you all about the internships that Stark industry is offering to students all over the country."

Dishwater was still dripping off her hands but at least that gave him an excuse to get around the shaking hands part of introductions that he so despised. Open-mouthed she turned to Peter, shaking her head.

"No... no... I'm not sure..."

Tony turned to the kid, hands resting in his pockets. "What's that, Peter? Keeping things from family." He tilted his head in a mocking fashion, but the kid was quiet, mostly staring at May Parker.

"The September Foundation. A new project I've been working on with my CEO for the last few months. We're looking for the brightest and most extraordinary students this young generation has to offer." He turned to Peter, flashing his most charming smile at him. "I'm not sure if Peter learned about the program when Ms. Potts held her presentation at Midtown High a couple of weeks ago or if our national outreach program got to him first, but my team was very impressed with his application."

The kid swallowed hard, digesting the effortless lie Tony had just given to Parker. If she had been looking at Peter she might have gotten suspicious. The kid really did have a face of glass. How he managed to fool her all this time was a mystery to Tony. But May Parker was hanging on Tony's every word. After all, Tony knew how to captivate the attention of a room. Any room really.

"That's... wow..." At last, she turned to Peter, staring at him with wide eyes. "Peter, that is amazing."

The kid had the good sense to blush and stare at his feet. As soon as May turned around to look for a towel to dry off her hands, Peter looked up at Tony, his face a giant question mark. Tony just arched his eyebrows and kept talking.

"We're in the final rounds of the application process for this year and I'm sure you understand that we are very selective with the candidates we do pick."

"Of course. Yes."

He turned to Parker, gesturing at the kid. "Can I have 5 minutes with him? Do you mind?"

"No, of course," she breathed. "Go ahead."

The kid's bedroom door had just shut behind him when the kid turned to face him.

"Mr. Stark, I'm sorry, I—"

"Oh, shut up. No, you're not."

Peter flinched away from him, dropping his glance to the floor once again.

"What the fuck were you thinking? You go from having a panic attack and being too fragile to walk on your own to climbing down 25 stories on the outside wall of a building?"

Peter was wringing his hands in front of himself, staring down at them.

"Seriously, do you have any amount of self-preservation left in there?" He starting pacing back and forth in front of the kid. "Did you actually think that I wouldn't find you? In all of Queens? That I wouldn't find your school or your name in the student registry?"

Still staring down at his hands, Peter was frozen in his spot.

"Look at me, kid!" Tony stopped pacing and waited for Peter to collect himself enough to look up to him. "Do you think I made you sit through 14 stitches without anesthesia just so you can bash your head open on the pavement in front of my tower?"

Peter lowered his eyes again. Catching himself at it, he looked back up at Tony and whispered a soft "no."

Shaking his head in frustration, Tony's focus was fixed on the cut on Peter's cheek. It did look significantly better than it had two days ago. Maybe the kid's healing factor was more elevated than Tony had expected after all. "How are your stitches doing?"

Now the Spiderling did look away, taking a further step back. Tony's eyebrows shot up, dread rising inside him again for the first time since he'd finally found Peter's home address.

"Talk to me, Pete. What happened?"

He shook his head. "Nothing. Nothing. It's fine."

"Don't bullshit me, kid. What's wrong with it?"

"I... I don't know. I haven't... I haven't really..." Peter bit his lip, shaking his head again.

"Show me."

The kid's eyes widened and he wanted to protest, but Tony fixed him with a stare that made Peter step back even further. Slowly his hands wandered down to the hem of his sweatshirt and lifted one side of it up. Tony's face fell and he stepped closer. It was still the same bandage that he had applied 2 days ago.

"Jeezes, kid..." His eyes wandered over the blood that had seeped through the dressing and had now crusted over the most part of the bandage. He was at a loss for words. There were multiple layers of dressing and bandages that were now all sticking together and clotted to the wound. Tony took a deep breath and reached for Peter's hand that was still holding the hem of his shirt and pulled it down, the sweater falling back over the blood-clotted bandage. He quietly turned around, walking himself back to the other end of the room, one hand rubbing his temples.

Alright. Now was not the time to be freaking out.

"I... I couldn't, yesterday. And today... I... I got all the stuff, but then May came home early and—"

Tony held up his hand, signaling Peter to stop talking.

"I'm sorry, I just..." The kid let out a shaky breath. "What's... what's gonna happen now?"

Tony bit his lip and turned back around to face the kid. He tried to get his temper under control as well as the voice in the back of his head telling him that he needed to check that wound for infections asap.

"This is what is going to happen: You will pack a few of your things and then we'll drive upstate to the Comp-"

"Sir, please-"

"Na-ahah! This is where you zip it and listen!"

The kid gave a small nod, struggling to keep his head high and not to look away from Tony's stare.

"We will be driving upstate to the Compound for the weekend. We'll... we'll take care of that." He pointed at the kid's abdomen. "And then we'll figure out what to do with you."

Peter's nerves were visibly on edge. He was wringing his hands, eyes cast back to the ground.

"What if... what if I were to... to refuse."

He was shaking, grabbing hold of the desk behind him to keep himself steady. The sleeves of the kid's sweatshirt were long enough to hide his web-shooters. Tony hadn't really had the time earlier to take a closer look at those - one of the things that was definitely on the agenda for the weekend - but even with the oblivion May Parker seemed to have going when it came to the Spiderling, it was unlikely that the kid would be so careless to wear them for dinner with her. So he tilted his head, lifting his own arm and tucked at his sleeve to expose his watch.

"We can always go a few rounds if you'd want me to catch you. I doubt it'd be too difficult with your current health situation, but let's save us both the trouble."

The kid swallowed hard, eyes as round as saucers. Fine, Tony hadn't actually managed to integrate his whole suit in one of the watches yet and even if he had, he sure as hell wouldn't have walked into a building block full of civilians armed to the teeth. But the kid didn't know that. He could call the suit and the tower wasn't too far off. If the kid decided he wanted to be all bold right now, it'd definitely be a pain in the ass to catch him. 

"Listen, kid, I'm not looking for this to turn into some kind of big confrontation. I do need you to come to the Compound with me though. We have things to discuss and we have things to figure out. I'd rather do this the easy way."

Peter's emotions were getting the better of him. His hands shot up to his face, trying to shield it from Tony. He did feel for the kid, but there was no way around this. They had to do some major damage control.

"Can I..." Peter cleared his throat. "Can I ask a question?"

With a sigh, Tony checked his watch. "Yes, but you better hurry. Our 5 minutes are almost up."

Eyes glistering with the wetness of wiping away his tears, Peter glanced up at him. "I don't... I don't understand why you told May about the foundation... and the internship. Why.... why didn't you tell her, that I'm... that I'm..." Peter shook his head slightly and closed his eyes to struggle through the words. "...that I'm Spider-Man?"

Tony shrugged and crossed his arms in front of himself. "Mostly because I think that's your job."

"And if I come with you, you wouldn't tell her about... you know... about me... about what happened?"

"For now."

The kid's hand shot up and run nervously over his face. "So, if I did something to piss you off..."

Tony suppressed a chuckle. "I mean if you pissing me off would be the yardstick I'd use here, I should be out there right now, spilling some beans."

Still frowning, Peter glanced at him. "Why aren't you? I don't... I don't understand."

Tony sighed and shrugged again. "Well, I would hate to go back on my word."

"But you said, you don't make deals with... with teenagers, I thought..."

"Listen, kid. In all honesty, I think that she has a right to hear all of this coming from you. You want to be all grown up and chase bad guys then you also have to be mature enough not to lie to the people who love you! She deserves better from you."

Peter's face turned red as he retreated even further away from Tony, now heavily leaning onto his desk. Of course, all that was a blatant lie. He wouldn't hesitate to go back on his word to the kid if he had to, not just because that promise was made under false pretenses. Sure, he'd prefer to keep his word even under the circumstances it was given, but what he really needed was for this boy to trust him. Plus, the kid himself should definitely be the one to come clean to her, not just for her sake but mostly for his own. Secrets like that were a burden to carry and there wasn't much for Tony to gain here by exposing him. Even if the Spiderling were to come clean, it was unreasonable to think that May Parker - however hot - had the capabilities to keep the NYPD off Peter's back. But it would certainly take a huge amount of responsibility away from Tony, which wouldn't be the worst thing.

"I'm generally not wild about the idea of handing you over to the authorities, mostly because I've had to deal with a few of them over the last years and I don't want you falling into one of the weird ones' hands being dangled over my head at some point in the future. I'm not all that eager to be carrying the responsibility for some super-human teenager around with me all day, every day either. But I think you do want to use your powers for something good and if that's the case, I'd be willing to help you out."

"Help me out how?"

Tony shrugged. "One of those things we'd have to figure out."

The kid nodded slowly, the wheels clearly starting to turn in his head.

"Mr. Stark, you really don't need to—"

"Oh, I think I do."

"I know, I've made some... I made some mistakes. I shouldn't have come to Manhattan. I should have stayed in my neighborhood and..."

"Okay, stop."

"...I could just go back and look after things here..."

"Nope."

"...and you would never, never hear from me again."

"Kid, stop! No. That is not an option!"

Peter took a step towards him. "Please, Sir—"

Tony uncrossed his arms, signaling him to stop talking. "Peter, there is no version of this where I let a 14-year-old kid go crime-fighting without anyone keeping out an eye for you! You refuse to tell anyone about what you've been up to and I agreed to keep your secret. For now, that's where we're at. I'll give you a shot to do this right. Tell her and we'll take it from there, but this is not something you can do alone."

"Why not?" The Spiderling ran his hands through his hair in frustration, stepping away from Tony back to his desk. "You do it!"

Tony's eyebrows shot up and the kid's eyes widened, visibly surprised by his own outburst. "I'm sorry, I didn't-"

"Is that what you think?" Tony shook his head in confusion. "That I don't have help? That I'm managing all the Avengers crap on my own?" He shook his head again, with a laugh. "Kid, I don't. I've always had help. I would have been dead three times over if I'd been on my own out there."

"Oh." Peter's eyes were fixed on him, blinking, not really seeing him. "I didn't..." He frowned. "So, if I come with you, you'd... you'd help me fight crime?"

"If you come with me now without making a fuss, then I'd go ahead and figure out if I can trust you. I'd figure out if you can handle all of this. The whole superhero business is not just about enhanced abilities and strength, there's a lot of bullshit you'd have to deal with and if I figure out that you can't handle all of this, I'm not just gonna stand by."

"So, if I were to screw up—"

"No, Pete. This is not about you screwing up. However, if you try to screw me over, if you think you can get some shit past me and I won't know..."

"...then you'll tell my... May."

Tony blinked, narrowing his eyes. "No. Then I'll pick you up and deliver you to the NYPD's headquarter myself."

He waited for the Spiderling to nod again in resignation.

"Okay." Peter swallowed hard, biting his lip. "What if I tell May... if I tell May right now? If... if she knew, then someone would look out for me, right? And you wouldn't have to... to deal with all this."

Tony crossed his arms again. "I guess. Sure, that would be an option. I mean, there would still be a couple of things to hash out. But yeah, okay. If that's what you want to do. Fine."

The Spiderling nodded slowly, staring at his feet. "Then... okay... I guess... I guess I'll tell May." He looked up at Tony, face pale, hands nervously tugging his sweater further down. "I mean, I was gonna tell her anyway... at some point... just... just the timing was never... well and she is just so worried and we've already—"

"No need for excuses, kid. Let's just get on with it."

Tony turned and reached for the door.

"Wait. Wait..." Peter held out his hands, stopping him.

"Another question?"

"No. I just. I need a minute."

Tony did let go of the door handle. He put his hands in his pockets and studied Peter for another moment.

"I just.." He blew out a breath. "Okay."

Peter walked past him, reached for the handle, preparing to open the door. He struggled with this. Tony laid his hand on top of Peter's, pressed down the handle and pushed the door wide open.

"After you, kid."

Peter nodded slowly and started walking towards the living room like he was on his way to the gallows. May Parker was waiting, pacing back and forth, and headed straight for Peter when she saw him reappear from his room. She quietly whispered something to him, but the kid just shook his head and pointed to the couch, indicating for her to sit. She looked up with a frown, gaze shifting to Tony, whose face was sporting his most impassive Stark mask. Keeping to the back of the room, he was leaning against the wall, because he wasn't part of this. This conversation was between the kid and his... well, family. He was only there to supervise that the kid would stick to his end of the deal and actually tell her. If anything, Tony was the incredibly responsible adult here. The one, who actually caught the kid doing things kids weren't supposed to do. Like getting stabbed. She should have realized that the boy had been sneaking out months ago. Hell, how she didn't realize that the kid was a walking medical emergency was...

Tony shook his head slightly in an attempt to stop his thoughts from going off the deep end and refocused on the scene in front of him. Peter was still standing in front of her, shifting from one foot to the other.

"May, there's something I..." He cleared his throat, looking down at his feet. "I've been meaning to... to tell you, but... listen..." He cleared his throat again. His hand shifted from holding onto the hem of his sweatshirt, went to scratch the back of his neck and returned to his front wringing his other hand. "It's... erm... The thing is..."

"Peter, you're freaking me out here." She turned around again, looking at Tony, then back to Peter. "What the hell's going on?"

"The thing is... I... I should have told you about this earlier, but..." He swallowed hard. "but I just thought that... that I had more time and..." He looked up at her and his face fell. He didn't blink, just stared at her before straightening his back. "The... the final round for the... internship is a... is a lab test and it's this weekend and I didn't realize, but now you took time off work and I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. But I... I have to go with Mr. Stark because it starts now. The... the test starts tonight. And I'm so sorry. But I... I have to go with Mr. Stark."

The kid looked up, meeting his eyes, but Tony just stood there, frozen. His chin might have dropped but he wouldn't know because he couldn't feel his face. Damn it. Peter had already made the right choice in agreeing to tell her. Tony had thought he had gotten away with this, doing the right thing without having to go back on his word. Sure, he would have done that if necessary, but he preferred keeping his word, even if he hadn't really been aware of all the variables at the time. The kid's gaze shifted down to Parker again and Tony dimly realized that she was speaking.

"Oh, that's... wow, that really is short notice. I don't understand why you never... you never said anything and I..." She turned around, facing Tony who had gathered the little self-control he had left to put his Stark-PR-mask into place. "Where exactly is this going to be. I mean, a little bit of time to think about this would have been really great."

Tony was about to say something when the kid spoke up again.

"It's really my fault, May. I'm so sorry. I didn't... I didn't want to make a big deal out of this and you know it's supposed to be short notice and all to make it fair for everyone and I just... I just didn't realize it was this short notice and—"

"So, where exactly are you going?"

"The... erm... There's a research facility upstate and that's where the... the test is. I'll be back on Sunday." The Spiderling looked up at him with a lot more determination than Tony had thought him capable of. "Right, Mr. Stark? I'll be back home on Sunday."

Tony flashed a smile at Parker, who was still looking over her shoulder at him. "Yes. I'll have him back home on Sunday."

Chapter Text

Peter's eyes were fixed on the tinted windows of Stark's Bentley. Lights and buildings were flying by outside but he couldn't concentrate on that. He was too busy trying to keep his emotions in check, his breathing leveled and his mind from going into overdrive. He'd been a complete mess for the past few days. Never should he have ever set foot into Manhattan in the first place. He should have cherished his simple neighborhood problems, should have been happy that he had helped crime simmer down. But he just couldn't resist. He had to tempt fate and now he was reaping the consequences. Stark was sitting next to him, typing away on his tablet. Peter had lost all sense of time. Had they been driving for 15 minutes? or 20? 30? He kept wringing his hands, forcing himself to keep them low on his lap and trying to smother the urge to rub his wrists. The first thing Stark had made him do when they had gotten into the car was to hand over his web-shooters.

After his pathetic performance where instead of telling her about his secret identity he had told May he would have to leave for an internship lab test with Stark, he had run off to pack. Putting on the web-shooters was the first thing he did when he was back in his room. Stuffing the medical supplies and the clothes Stark had given him at the Tower into his backpack was a close second. He was fast enough to get those things out of the way before May came to see him in his room.

###

"Peter, what the hell is going on?" She stood close behind him, her voice low.

He grabbed a couple of shirts and socks from his wardrobe, hiding his face from her. "I'm sorry, May. I don't know why I didn't tell you, I guess I just didn't want to jinx it, I-"

"Peter, look at me." She grabbed him by the shoulder and made him turn around to face her. "What are you not telling me? Why have I never heard of this internship program."

He met her eyes, trying to keep the guilt off his face. "I'm sorry, I didn't tell you. I was just... I never thought I'd even get this far. I'm only a Sophomore..." With two steps he was at his desk, opening the top drawer and pulling out the leaflet for the internship. They had been lying around all over the labs ever since Pepper Potts had visited Midtown High. He'd never even considered to apply, not after what had happened to him at Oscorp, but MJ had caught him staring at the flyers and teased him endlessly, so he had taken one, simply out of spite. He handed it to May and continued packing.

"I don't... I don't understand... Why did he want to talk to you alone? What is going on?"

"The internship is a big deal, May. I... I..." Think, Peter, think! "I mentioned the two weeks I was at Oscorp in my application and... and there might be an issue with the NDA I signed there."

She placed her hand on his shoulder, turning him towards her again. "Are you in trouble? Tell me quick!"

"No, I don't think so. He... he said... he said, he would look into it and that we'd figure something out."

Fine, it was a terrible excuse. May let go of him. Her frown deepened as she unfolded the flyer, reading through the information. Peter turned back to his wardrobe to finish up packing. The benefit of him being a model teenager, who was never getting into trouble and who was never in the habit of lying to her - up until the incident - had created sufficient padding for him from her suspicions. May had never had a reason to doubt that he was telling the truth before. The two of them had always been close, even more so after Ben had died. She trusted him and he was outright exploiting that fact. He did feel bad. He hated breaking her trust like that, but at the end of the day, he was doing it to protect her. To shield her from all the worry and the stress and... it just had to be this way. He couldn't tell her. He just couldn't.

"This says there's a form that has to be filled out by a parent or guardian."

"Right." He cleared his throat to give himself a second to think. "That... that's the other thing. I... They were missing some of the paperwork and I guess they need to make sure that everything's... everything's okay with you and because I didn't tell you and they... he wanted to know why I didn't tell you and it's just stupid, I just didn't want to make such a big deal out of it and I thought I'd have enough time to tell you if things got serious, but... but it just happened so quickly and-"

She reached out for him, cupping his face with on hand, eyes shortly lingering on the cut as she was stroking his cheek.

"Are you sure about this?"

"Yes." He nodded, reaching for her hand and squeezing it, trying his best to smile reassuringly. "It's a once in a lifetime kind of opportunity."

He turned away from her, grabbing his backpack and headed for the living room before she could reach out to hug him. There was no way that his abdomen would be able to take May holding him close.

###

Peter flinched in surprise when Stark shoved the tablet into his hands.

"Does that read like a standard student permission slip?"

Peter looked down at the tablet and frowned. "Did you just write this?"

"I copy and pasted some stuff off the internet." He gaped at Stark, who just shrugged. "She asked for the permission slip she would need to sign. Can hardly send her the one we have on file."

"Oh, I... I'm sorry, I didn't-"

"The official internship program doesn't really include any 'overnight retreats' for 'admission tests'," Stark interrupted, air-quoting the additions he had made to the document "and since you decided to keep lying to your family, this is where we're at."

Peter looked down, his face pink but otherwise ignoring the dig at May, and read through the document. He shrugged, handing it back. "Yeah, that looks alright to me, but I'm no legal expert."

"Believe me, the last thing I want to do is run your case past my legal experts." Stark looked away from him, his focus back on the device, so Peter leaned back in his seat again, staring back at the window. "Alright, that's that." He put the tablet away, turning back to Peter. "Are you gonna tell me what happened back there or is it one of those things that I get to worm out of you?"

Peter inhaled deeply, fighting the urge to roll his eyes at Stark. He thought it had been pretty obvious what had happened 'back there'. "I just couldn't do it."

"Well, thank you, Captain Obvious. Worming it out of you it is then..."

Peter did sigh at that, rubbing a couple of fingers over his forehead. "You saw what happened! She was freaking out before I had even started to tell her anything."

"Oh, please. You put any teenager in front of their parent sporting the guilty look that you had going on and they would freak out. Hell, if you'd look at me that way, I'd freak out too."

"She's not my parent." His face was growing hot, not quite sure if it was annoyance or shame. He kept his face turned away from him, staring out into the night.

Stark stayed quiet for a moment. "She's looking after you, responsible for you. She obviously worries about you. That's basically the same thing."

"It's not." He spat the words back. "You only get one set of parents and mine are dead, so no. She's not my parent." He swallowed hard, surprised by his outburst. Spoken out loud his words seemed a lot harsher than they had sounded in his head. Stark stayed quiet and Peter could feel his eyes resting on him. His face was growing hotter and a new wave of guilt swept over him, forcing his glance back down to his hands, resting in his lap.

"I didn't mean it like that. May is... May is all the family I have and I love her, but she's not my parent. She's my legal guardian. There's a reason why they have a special word for that." He kept staring down into his lap, his voice fast and low, shaking with anger. Peter was annoyed with himself. Annoyed with Stark for bringing it up. There was a hot ball of rage in his stomach and while he wasn't sure why he was reacting so strongly, this was just nobody else's business. Nobody except for him and May got to define what they were to each other and he shouldn't have to defend himself to Stark on this of all the things he'd messed up with. This was none of his business. "You don't just replace someone's parents. It's just not the same thing, no matter how close you get, it's different. It's not the same thing, okay?! You don't understand what it means to-"

Peter stopped himself, slamming his mouth shut. Stark was still quietly sitting next to him while Peter now had the sudden wish for the Earth to open up and swallow him already. He risked a short glance over at Stark, before turning back to the window feeling his face burn up even more strongly than before, but Stark was only frowning at him. Peter couldn't detect any anger in his features at all and for some reason that made him feel even worse.

"I'm... I'm so sorry, Sir. I didn't mean to... to imply, that—"

"That's enough." Stark's voice was surprisingly cheerful. "You're annoyed and angry. I get it. It'd be annoyed and angry too if I'd just chickened out of telling the one person I consider to be family about the reckless kamikaze operation I've been running for the past six months."

Peter shot a quick look over to him and Stark was still only wearing a slight frown on his face. "My... my aunt, she... she'd never allow it." He blurted out quietly, starring back down to his hands. "She'd be too scared for me. She wouldn't understand."

"No, I suppose she wouldn't."

He turned to Stark, trying to keep the desperation out of his voice. "I don't want to be lying to her. I never asked for any of this."

Stark met his eyes, holding his stare. "Are you trying to convince me with that or yourself?"

Peter leaned back again, sighing in frustration.

"It's fine, kid. I already know that you're out of your depth here, otherwise, you wouldn't have ended up with a stab wound on my balcony. That was a bitch to clean up by the way."

Peter's eyes shot over to Stark. He hadn't even considered the fact that Stark would have to clean up after him.

"I'm sorry, I didn't-"

Stark signaled him to stop. "Alright, let me get this straight. You didn't tell her the truth after all, because you were scared that she wouldn't let you continue with all of this." Stark gestured lightly in Peter's general direction. "So... to avoid having to lie to her about continuing your Spiderling-ing in case your aunt tells you to stop if you were to tell her about it, you just decided to continue to lie to her about it in the first place, so she can't ask you to stop... because if she can't ask you to stop, you then wouldn't have to lie to her about you still Spiderling-ing anyways."

Peter frowned and opened his mouth to respond, only to shut it again.

"Yeah, alright. I see why you'd be annoyed with yourself." Stark's gaze shifted to the window. "We're here. Just follow me. We'll go to my workshop to look at your stitches."

Peter stared ahead, eyes fixed on the separation screen that was isolating them from the driver. He was mulling over Stark's words. He had lied to May. At some point his whole thing about not telling her the whole truth had changed to him outright bold-faced lying to her about the internship and Stark, only so he wouldn't have to lie to her if she were to forbid him to keep up the crime-fighting. He was such an idiot. This wasn't just a white lie anymore. He wasn't just bending the truth, omitting some of the facts. Somewhere along the way, he had gotten so comfortable with lying to her, that he had ended up in this mess. Peter did have a choice who to trust and he had picked Stark over May. He swallowed hard, a shiver running down his spine. She would never forgive him for this. He just... he just ruined every chance of telling her down the line. If she found out... After everything, she had done for him.

"Hey, kid! You coming?" Peter hadn't even noticed that Stark had already gotten out. Sticking his head back in the car through the open door, he frowned. "You look a little pale, are you still in pain?"

Peter turned away from him to open the door on his right side. "I'm fine."

He got out of the car. They were parked in front of a huge complex. There were no other buildings around them but the light coming from what Peter assumed must be the Avengers Compound illuminated a large area around them. The Avengers Compound. He swallowed hard. There was no point in worrying about his lies to May. For all he knew, he could piss off Stark or one of the Superheros in that building and would find himself in some kind of special confinement indefinitely. He glanced over at Stark who was strolling towards the entrance.

"Get your bag, let's go!"

The driver had opened the trunk, holding out Peter's backpack. Reluctantly he took it, slowly placing it on his right shoulder before following Stark into the building. There was no way around it. He had picked this path and he would have to deal with whatever Stark would throw at him. If push came to shove he might have to fight his way out of there to freedom. After all, he had escaped them before.

He was slow to follow, but he made a point of trying to remember as much as he could about the doors in the lobby and how many corridors forked off in different directions. That whole complex was a freaking maze.

"Are you trying to figure out an escape route?"

Peter flinched, feeling heat rise on his cheeks and hoping his face wasn't flushing as severely as it felt like it was. "No. No. Just... looking around." But Stark only shot him a disbelieving look in response, so he cleared his throat. "It seems a little empty."

"Well, it's Friday night. We do try to let our staff have some form of a normal social life." He turned, frowning at Peter. "I'd have thought you'd appreciate having less of an audience."

"I do! I do..." Peter tightened the grip of on his backpack, hastening his step to get closer to Stark and lowered his voice. "Are the... the others... are they waiting for us?"

Stark came to a sudden halt. Peter had been walking at an angle closely behind Stark but managed to stop himself from running into him. Squinting at him over his shoulder, Stark looked him up and down.

"What are you talking about?"

Peter only blinked, thinking back on what he had just said, wondering how he could have been misunderstood. "The others... the other Avengers?"

Stark turned all the way to face him, simultaneously taking a step back, studying Peter from a greater distance. "Wait, you think I brought you here for a team debrief?"

Now it was Peter's turn to frown. "Well, yeah. I mean, you brought me to the Avengers Compound. Why else would you bring me here?"

Stark crossed his arms, a sly smirk appearing on his lips. "You thought I'd brought you in to be questioned by the Avengers and you came without being dragged here kicking and screaming?" Stark gave a short laugh and a shake of the head. "Quite the cojones on you, kid." Peter blushed at that, sheepishly scratching his head. "Come on, the workshop is this way." Doors to their left opened just when they arrived at the entrance. "They're out of the country, kid. And I have a hoard of construction workers redoing my floors at the Tower." He laughed again. "No wonder that you were dragging your feet." He shook his head, looking over to Peter. "When I said, we had to figure things out, I meant you and me. I told you, I'd keep your secret."

"For now..." Peter added before he could stop himself. He shot a nervous glance over to Stark,

"For now."

#

Tony had made the kid lay down on a gurney he'd organized from the med bay. Slowly, Peter had worked off his sweater and shirt and now only had a sheet wrapped around the upper part of his body to keep him warm and a large towel keeping his pants from being soaked. The bandage still covered the kid's abdomen, though Tony had cut them in the back so he could pull off layer by layer. He had started to soak it with wet towels to loosen the clotted dressings. The kid had been quiet and somber during the whole process and Tony wasn't really inclined to chat right then either. He was anxious to see what he was going to find under that bandage, prepared to go as slow as was necessary not to rip anything around the wound.

Thankfully, Peter wasn't running a fever and while his careful and stiff movements still spoke volumes, Tony was hoping that those were simply a symptom of him not being healed yet instead of an indication that the wound was festering. An infection would not just make this whole "figuring stuff out" thing a lot more complicated to keep under wraps, it would also double the shame he felt about taking his eyes of the wounded Spiderling in the Tower when he had already shown that he was a flight risk.  He had walked over to his workstation, checking his phone for messages. FRIDAY knew to inform him of the important ones, right now that would be any word coming in from Pepper or Rogers. He was still trying to clear messages from the last couple of days though, some of them including appendixes and follow-ups to the meeting from the day before. That meeting was one of the more pressing points he had to discuss with the kid.

He figured that he might get two painful points off the agenda at once. So when he walked back over to the kid and started pulling off the wet towels he had wrapped around him, Tony decided to bring him up to speed. 

"You may or may not be aware of this but I had the pleasure to spend all day in a meeting with a bunch of officials from the state and the city yesterday ." He dropped the wet towels in a bucket he'd placed next to the gurney to soak them again. "And some national security advisors. They were all very interested and very invested in what exactly had been going on with that terror attack on Wednesday." Peter's eyes widen even more. He carefully peeled away the top layer of the bandages. "Does the name Chief Daniel Clarke ring any bells with you?"

"N-no..."

"Well, that's the name of the Chief of the Department for the NYPD and he's quite a fan."

Peter frowned. "Oh, he is?"

Tony lightly tugged on the next bandage but it was still clotted to the underlying layers, so he bent down to retrieve a wet towel out of the bucket and placed it back on the mangled wound dressing.

"Well, not of mine. And not technically of yours either. He is a great fan of the idea of the Avengers rounding you up and handing you over to the authorities though."

A flush was creeping up into Peter's face and he flinched away from Tony, who had to grab him by the upper arm to keep him on the gurney, the wet towels flying off him.

"Wh-What?"

"Get back on the stretcher, kid!" 

Peter blinked, frozen with half of his body hanging in midair, before carefully scooching back over onto the gurney. Tony picked the towels off the floor, throwing them out of the way, scowling at the mess. Maybe he had overestimated the kid's nonchalance when it came to the Avengers, after Peter's admission that he had thought they'd be waiting for him at the Compound. Maybe he hadn't been ballsy and strong after all but simply too paralyzed in the face of certain doom to fight it.

"Are you good to stay put or do I have to prepare myself for more of the skipping bunny routine?"

"I'm sorry." He only mumbled the words and to Tony's surprise, the constant apologies annoyed him a lot more than the kid's rebelling spirits.

"Just... try to keep it together a bit. I already told you, I'm trying to figure this out for you."

"Yes... thank you. I'm sorry, I didn't-"

"Oh my god. Stop apologizing. I've heard the word 'sorry' come out of your mouth so many times in the last few days, it has really lost all meaning at this point."

The kid swallowed what Tony was sure had been another apology just in time and at last, settled back properly onto the stretcher, head leaned back down, eyes carefully avoiding Tony's eye line. Tony picked up another wet towel from the bucket and put it in place over the dressing.

"Anyways... The dude made quite the presentation yesterday on how much you've been interfering in their work over the past few months."

Again, the Spiderling swallowed hard, eyes back on Tony.

"But, I'm only trying to help. I don't understand. Why would they be mad?"

Tony sighed at the naivety of the boy. It became more and more apparent to him how young the kid really was. Even more so, how idealistic he had been thinking of all the crime-fighting he had been doing.

"They don't care that you are actually trying to help people, kid." Reaching for a dry towel he gestured for Peter to raise his back a bit so he could replace the dripping wet sheet he was now lying on. "At least an alarming number of them aren't. A lot of these people don't train and aspire for those kinds of jobs because they have a great desire to be outstanding public servants. They don't give a shit, about what's actually helping and what isn't." He let the dressing soak and walked over to one of his cabinets, grabbing a handful of fresh towels he could soak. "They are in it for the power those positions hold, even in the lower ranks. The power they have over other people, over civilians. And the higher they rise in rank, the more power they get. Unfortunately, it's often the ones that are solely led by their desire for more and more power that end up in those leadership positions. And that's what we have here. An overachiever in the position of department head, not because of his great will to serve the community but because of the great ego boost it gives him to fuck with other people's lives."

He looked up at the kid whose face had adapted an unreadable expression, which in itself was confusing to Tony who so far had had no problem deciphering Peter's glass face.

"And here I thought I was the only one that could make your face radiate that much disapproval..."

Tony barely made out the words for the kid's voice was too low. Suddenly, it struck him that Peter was actually trying to suppress a smile and to his own shock, Tony realized that this was the first time he'd actually seen Peter's face portrait something other than worry, fear or pain. He narrowed his eyes in mock accusation, hand dramatically placed on his hip. "I really hope you don't think this is funny..."

The corners of Peter's mouth twitched. "I wouldn't dare to, Sir."

Tony sighed. "We had to deal with the idiot after the Invasion in 2012. His rank wasn't this high back then and he never sat in any of the meetings we had with the city, but he ranked high enough to be a major pain in the ass when it came to publicly shifting the blame to us. That he managed to rise this high in the department says quite a bit about the politics that are at play here and undercurrents in law enforcement. Down the line, that can actually become dangerous not just for you be for every enhanced individual so we have to be careful in how to deal with it."

The shadow of the kid's smile had disappeared again and he was looking up at Tony, frowning. "So, you're saying law enforcement is... is a threat to everyone who's different? A danger to the Avengers?"

"I'm saying some of them are trying to pit us against each other." He picked the wet towels off Peter's abdomen to continue his work on the wound. "And I'm not having it."

Chapter Text

His legs were moving even though he couldn't remember having started to walk. He didn't even know why he was walking or where he was going. It was dark. Pitch black. He… he should be able to see. What was happening? His senses were supposed to guide him, but he couldn't see. Still, he put one foot in front of the other. All this was just so wrong. He should stop walking and try to get his bearings, be more careful. Fear was starting to fill his heart, slowly creeping down his neck and spine, but his feet just kept on going forward, confident in the dark.

His hands moved up to his face but there was no mask. He felt only skin. That meant that there shouldn't be anything in his way, nothing to dull his senses, but still. All he saw was darkness.

His eyes moved up to the ceiling. He couldn't tell how much space there was above his head, which was odd and uncomfortable. Was there even a ceiling above him or was he looking at a dark sky? There were no stars but it might just be a cloudy night. Not recognizing what kind of environment he was in, felt alarming. Maybe he was in a maze of some sort.

His eyes still cast up above he squarely walked into something solid. It didn't hurt though and only slightly startled him. Then he felt someone's hands on his jacket, dragging him forward, slamming him into the ground. His mind went into overdrive, trying to focus on the person in front of him, trying to see and to react, but his body just didn't seem capable of catching up with the rapid course of events. As if he had lost all control of his body. He felt kicks hitting the side of his body, feet shuffling around him. He rolled over in pain. There were more kicks to his back, more and more all over his body. He wanted to fend off the attack, but his arms were too slow and he just couldn't get up. His head was ringing with pain and disorientation. He was dizzy, everything hurt and just as he looked up he could finally see something in the haze of darkness. The edge of a knife glistening as if hit by a single ray of light before it was buried in his abdomen.

Pain. There was so much pain. Like his mind registered every single cell being torn as the knife cut through his flesh. His mouth fell open, he felt his vocal cords vibrate but there was no sound. There should be sound. His throat ached and his ears should be ringing with his screams.

All of a sudden, he sat up. There was light all around him and he squeezed his eyes, blinking against the brightness. He was in bed in a room he didn't recognize. Panicked his hand went down to his abdomen, expecting a thick, red stream of blood but there was only fabric. He reached under his shirt and found more soft fabric. He blinked rapidly, still panting, and cast his eyes down. White bandages covered his stomach. He swallowed hard, cringing as his throat contracted and burned. The hand on his abdomen wandered up to his throat and softly rubbed at the skin as he closed his eyes again to shut out the bright light. He tried to control his breathing, keeping his eyes closed, he tried to focus on calming his nerves.

You're alright. You're fine. It's alright.

He could feel a throbbing in his throat, the stab wound pulsing with his heartbeat.

"Mr. Parker, it seems that you experienced a nightmare."

Peter's eyes flew open and he glanced up to the ceiling. Right. The Compound. He was at the Avengers Compound.

"Mr. Stark wanted me to remind you that hot drinks and sandwiches are readily available for you in the communal kitchen down the corridor to the left of your room. If you require any further assistance, please do ask."

He cleared his throat. "Thank-Thank you." Then he closed his eyes again and took a few deep breaths. Hot chocolate might not be the worst idea. He laid back on the bed and rubbed a hand across his face. It had only been a dream. Which was fine. That was to be expected. He went through something traumatic, of course, that would come with nightmares. This wasn't his first traumatic 'experience'. He knew the drill.

Still. His hands were wet, his heart was still pounding fast and strong in his chest. It didn't matter how far removed he physically was from where it had all happened, how irrational it had been. He was still scared. The realization sent a shiver down his spine, a tingling that went all the way down his limbs into his fingertips, down his legs and tickling the soles of his feet.

He knew his fear was overinflated by his sleep-deprived mind and his trauma. He wasn't in any imminent danger. His hand wandered down once again, lifted up his shirt and came to rest on top of the stab wound. Earlier that night, Stark had pulled off the blood clotted bandages one by one, exposing the wound lying beneath it. He had been paralyzed by dread and anxiety. He just really, really hadn't wanted to look at it. Sure, he should be able to trust his healing factor, but he had never been wounded that severely before. He didn't know if he was safe from infection and the thought of seeing his skin all torn and shredded. In his fear, he had almost convinced himself that he was going to see red streaks growing from the wound towards his heart, signifiers of sepsis and blood poisoning.

###

His eyes had been moist with imminent tears. He had closed them, had bit down hard on the inside of his lip. He'd probably taste blood if he'd clench his jaw any tighter. Maybe that would actually be a welcome distraction from the fear of what Stark was uncovering. For a while he had been talking about the meeting he had attended with the city council, mirroring the chitchat he had rattled off during the initial dressing of the wound. Peter had been quick to engage, desperate to pull his thoughts away from the cut in his abdomen, his rising pulse and the constant shiver in his limbs. But then he just couldn't keep talking. He was just scared that his voice wouldn't hold up if he'd speak and he couldn't really focus on Stark's story either. His mind was simply flooded with dread.

Peter could feel how the layers of dressing were pulled back. Less and less fabric was left to cover his wound. Layer after layer got soaked to loosen up and was then pulled off him. It didn't necessarily hurt. It sure didn't feel comfortable either though. It reminded him of the night at the Tower, feeling exposed and vulnerable. When Stark pulled off the last bit of bandage, Peter distinctly felt every inch of his skin being exposed to the cold air of the lab. He opened his eyes reluctantly, his gaze fixed on Stark's face as he inspected his wound. Stark reached for a dry towel, carefully cleaned off the excess moisture and clotted blood. Peter studied his face but Stark kept his expression carefully neutral. The same however wasn't true for Stark's pulse. Peter had identified a fast beat that had increased over the course of the procedure. Possibly, Stark was nervous to find out how much Peter had screwed up this time and how difficult a spot he'd have to maneuver them out of. Peter had focused on the steadily elevating beat, using it to guide his own nerves. But with the last layer of dressing gone, the expected spike in Stark's heart rate had failed to register with him. He took a deep breath in an attempt to steady his own pulse. Maybe he really wasn't dying after all. Maybe—

"I'm going to use some antiseptic solution on this now. I'm not sure, how sensitive your skin is going to be, but the majority of the scab has softened and peeled away with the bandages, so it's most likely going to burn just as much as it did before." Stark had reached for the antiseptic solution and a clean piece of gauze, his eyes now on Peter's face. "Same rules apply as last time. This will hurt. You have nothing to win here by trying to pretend like it doesn't."

Peter blinked away the moisture in his eyes and tightened his grip on the edge of the gurney. He gave a short nod in acknowledgment, then dropped his head back down and fixed his eyes on a spot at the ceiling. He gasped as the antiseptic solution burned his flesh and did as he was told, not even trying to suppress the scream that came rushing out of his throat. His arms were shaking from the vise-like grip he had on the edge of the gurney, desperately trying to hold himself in place. He didn't want to jump off the gurney again. He wanted to be stronger than that. Stark's hand was on his lower arm, squeezing it tightly. Peter looked over at him but his eyes were still fixed on his wound. He swallowed deeply and closed his eyes for another couple of heartbeats. When he opened them again he followed Stark's gaze down to his own abdomen. He was dabbing at it with a fresh piece of wound dressing. He let go of Peter's arm and lifted the piece of fabric for Peter to see.

"It's not too bad, kid." His hand hovered over it, indicating small tears in his skin where droplets of blood and lymph were quickly forming again. "As the wound clotted to the dressing and you kept moving, it continuously opened up again, that's where all these smaller chaps are from."

Peter nodded. Yeah, maybe he shouldn't have jumped over that school fence. That had hurt. Best to keep this particular moronic move to himself.

"The redness around it just means that it's agitated, which isn't much of a surprise judging by the way you've treated it so far." Peter's face was hot. He lifted his eyes up at Stark and found him looking right at him. "You got lucky, kid. You got very lucky that there's no infection, no serious complication. You can't allow yourself to take risks like that in the future."

Peter cast his eyes back down to the wound and nodded.

"You do heal fast. That cut on your face will be gone by the end of the weekend. But this here," Stark pointed at the stab wound, "you'll have to take care of that every day, probably for another week, redress it, or it will tear open again and again."

Peter nodded again and whispered a soft "Okay."

Stark looked up at him. "Do you know how to do that?"

"Just... just take off the bandage and... and put new gauze on it?"

Stark arched his brows and proceeded in talking Peter through what to do step by step.

"If you change it frequently and don't over-exhaust it, the scab won't break open like this. That means the dressing won't stick to the wound and disinfecting it won't hurt as much."

Peter nodded and carefully sat up with Stark's assistance.

Stark had offered to call it a day, to show Peter to a room so he could rest and they could continue their talk in the morning. Peter had been more than happy to accept. He had still been exhausted from the night of the attack and barely managed to stay awake long enough to change into his pajama pants and shirt before he had collapsed onto the bed, his sleep restless and then finally broken by the nightmare.

A hot drink did sound like a good idea. Food sounded great as well. He got up careful with his injury, pulled on his shoes and a jacket before he opened the door to the hallway and stuck his head out. He checked either side of the corridor before he turned to his left and walked towards the kitchen. The fact that the Avengers were not around still buzzed in the back of his mind. He had tried to brace himself for the inevitable confrontation after Stark had shown up on his doorstep and had laid out the limited amount of options that were at Peter's disposal. He had dreaded dealing with the fallout and it did give him some sense of calmness that they were not at the Compound. Still, that was only temporary relief. He would have to face them eventually.

Not today though and not tomorrow. And he was grateful for every break he could get.

The first thing he noticed in the kitchen was the display of the microwave. 1:23 am it read in bright red numbers. He'd been asleep for about 3 hours then. Well, asleep was a bit of a stretch. He felt everything but rested. Peter screened the automatic coffee maker for hot chocolate options and once he'd figured out the right key sequence he opened up the fridge. There were a few more food options than just a few sandwiches stockpiled in there. He blinked at the variety of meat and vegetables - some of them he'd not even know the name of - until he spotted an egg-salad sandwich on one of the shelves. He reached for his hot chocolate and looked back and forth from the kitchen to the hallway in the direction of the room he had just left. Was he supposed to eat in the room Stark had assigned him to or right there in the kitchen area? Maybe food wasn't even allowed in the rooms.

After a moment of uncertainty, he cleared his throat and turned his eyes up to the ceiling.

"Excuse me, Miss FRIDAY, am I... am I supposed to eat here or..."

"You're welcome to sit and eat at the couch set in front of you, in the dining area," a section of the room lit up revealing a long table "or in your assigned bedroom. Mr. Stark is currently in the lab. You are also welcome to join him there if you would like some company."

"Oh, okay. That's... thank you." He shut himself up and took a couple of steps towards the couch right in front of him and carefully lowered himself down, trying to be mindful of his injury. He sat and ate. His thoughts drifted back to his nightmare and he shook his head every time he realized his mind went in that direction. He sat quietly for a bit, then leaned back into the cushions after he had finished the sandwich, clutching the cup of hot chocolate. The warm sweet liquid worked like a band-aid for his soul.

While he was determined to keep his thoughts away from the incident (and from the nightmare), he did ponder the events it had led to. Exposing his identity to Tony Stark and all the consequences that had. He had been shocked when Stark had turned up at his door and confused and suspicious when he didn't insist on informing May about everything Peter had been up to. With all the things Peter had screwed up, all the mistakes, all the reckless behavior. Everything considered, Stark had been kind and at times almost comforting. Peter shook his head, trying to clear his mind. Stark wanted Peter to trust him. He knew that. He might have made some stupid ass mistakes but he wasn't an idiot. Stark had told him that people were trying to pit enhanced individuals against each other and Stark was trying his best to avoid trouble and as long as Peter's allegiance brought him more benefits than it had drawbacks, it was safe probably for Peter to trust him.

Having someone as powerful as Stark in his corner was a major asset. Peter didn't have any influence, any protection. His powers could only get him so far. Getting Stark to trust him, highlighting that he would be of use as an ally, would have to be Peter's main focus. To keep himself safe and to keep May safe.

"FRIDAY, what's Mr. Stark doing in the lab?"

"He is fixing the world one broken connection at a time."

"Oh." Peter frowned. The AI was either developing a lot more snark or that had been a direct quote.

Peter got off the sofa, cleaned up after himself and headed down the hallway on the other side of the kitchen. The corridors in front of him kept lighting up. That could really only be Friday guiding the way. He would have certainly gotten lost if he had tried to find the way back to the lab on his own. Then he turned a corner and finally recognized the door in the distance as the entrance to the lab, but there was no light shining through into the corridor. Friday had confirmed that Mr. Stark was still there though. Maybe he should just turn around and go back to the room. He was still exhausted. He could really do with the sleep. But there was no telling of what he would see if he closed his eyes. And besides, Peter had to earn Stark's trust and for that he'd have to show up and for once leave some positive impressions. So he stood in front of the lab, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. Should he knock or— Never mind. The door slid open, flooding him and the hallway in bright light. Stark was in the middle of the lab, bend over his workbench. He buried his hands deep in his pockets and walked into the room.

This was awkward. He had no idea what to say. Not a clue. Maybe showing up like this in the middle of the night like a lost little baby was sending the exact opposite message of what he wanted to convey. He'd stopped a few feet away from Stark and uncomfortably shuffled his feet underneath himself. Now what?

"Could you bring that 3/16" wrench over here?"

"The... yeah, sure." Peter took a few long strides towards the workbench and found the wrench right away at the end of the table. He walked up to Stark, tool in hand.

"Just put it down over here." He patted a spot on the desk to his right, so Peter stepped around him and quickly placed the wrench on the smooth surface. "I'm also going to need additional wire. First cabin from the left, second drawer. The No. 2 copper."

Peter breathed a low "okay" and went to open the drawer. He pulled out the roll of wire and turned it over in his hand. Was he supposed to cut off a piece of it? Probably not. He just put it down next to the spot where he'd left the wrench.

"I was looking at your web-shooters earlier... 1.5 hex. Pull out the large top drawer, second cabinet." Peter opened the drawer and found the largest assortment of screwdrivers he'd ever seen. He froze for a moment, stunned by the sheer amount of resources in front of him. Quickly he reached for the 1.5 hex when Stark continued. "The underlining design isn't too shabby, but you're in desperate need of an upgrade."

Peter huffed and suppressed a smirk. "Is that going to be part of that deal?"

Stark looked over to him. "Maybe."

He bit his lip, not sure how far he would get to take the banter with Stark. "If I don't piss you off?"

Tilting his head to the side, Stark studied him. ".3 hex." He turned back to the control unit in front of him and cut off a piece of the copper wire. "Not pissing me off is a given."

Peter gnawed on his lip. He opened the drawer once again and grabbed the screwdriver.

"You did make them yourself, I presume."

Peter nodded to himself, eyes fixed on what Stark was doing. "Yeah, I did."

"What about the web stuff. How do you do that?"

"I utilized some of the chem class' resources."

Stark snorted. "You're stealing from your classroom?"

"It's mostly stuff they have us use in class anyway." He felt his cheeks burn. "I do bring some additional stuff, that the school wouldn't really have in stock."

"Well, that will need to change." Stark put down the screwdriver and started to reassemble the unit. "We can't have you stealing from the school."

Peter stayed quiet, eyes still on Stark's hands at work, when he picked up the unit and handed it to him.

"You wanna do the honors?" He pointed to what looked like an oversized robotic arm and Peter frowned, turning the box over in his hands.

"I'm not sure..."

"It's pretty straight forward, two connectors, 3 internal fixing points, an additional 5 to close the case and secure everything neatly. Should be easy to figure out for the kid who built this." Peter looked up to see Stark now lounging on his chair as he held up one of the web-shooters.

Ah. So, this was less of a "helping out" scenario and more of a test. Peter turned the unit over in his hands. His pulse had picked up for a moment, but Stark was right. When he stepped up to the robot and looked at what he had in front of himself, it really was pretty straight forward. While the unit had a few different ports, probably left there after different attempts to get the best possible arrangement, it was quite obvious which ones were live and had to be linked to the loose connectors. This wasn't so bad. Less than 5 minutes later he'd closed up the exterior hatch and secured the remaining screws. He turned to Stark and held out the screwdriver to him, feeling damn well pleased with himself.

"There you go."

"That was it?" Stark refused to take the screwdriver from his hand and raised his brows at him.

Peter frowned. He turned back to look at the thing. "Yeah, that was it. Like you said, it was pretty straight forward." Stark had pursed his lips at the robot when Peter turned back around. He looked over to him indicating the robot.

"Really, you're gonna leave it at that?" He crossed his arms and just looked at him expectantly.

Peter turned back again, his mind went over everything that Stark had listed: two connectors, 3 internal fixing points, an additional 5 to close the case. He had done all that. What the hell was he missing? His hands started to sweat. This was a test. He probably did everything he was supposed to and Stark was simply testing his confidence... right?

"I... yeah. That... that was everything!"

Stark sighed and got up out of his chair. Peter was frozen to his spot as he walked towards him. He reached out to the side of the case. Confused Peter's eyes followed his hand and his face fell as he saw Stark flip a switch on the far bottom of the case.

"I can't believe you made me get up for that."

The robot started initializing and chirping as Peter groaned and threw his head back in resignation. "Well, that wasn't on the list you gave me!"

"The list was just the essentials. I'm always gonna need you to think one step further than that." Peter scowled, crossing his arms. Stark took one look at him and laughed. "Come on, that was a great lesson! I'm gonna be awesome at this."

Of course, there had been a trick in this. He'd probably have to prepare for there always being a second layer of whatever Stark was asking of him.

"Alright, Dummy, how about some tea!"

Peter's eyes shot up at that. Did he just—

Stark saw him gape and only waved him off. "I was talking to him." He pointed at the robot.

"It has a name?"

"He has a name."

Peter had to smirk at the affection in his voice. At his gesture, he followed Stark over to the large sofa and sat down. The robot followed them shortly afterward holding two cups of steaming tea. Peter was careful to dislodge it from his claw without burning himself or spilling it over Stark's bot. Stark blew at his own cup and took a small sip. He screwed up his face and then shrugged.

"What do you think?"

Peter blinked at him, before blowing on his own cup, and took his time to taste the brew. Brew was an adequate description. What the— What was that? It'd take a whole lot of imagination to categorize it as 'tea'.

He grimaced and glanced down at the cup. "What the hell is this?"

Stark took another sip. "I'd say nettle and maybe anise." He laughed as Peter shook his head. "The last batch tasted like swept-up pine needles. This is a definite improvement." He turned to the bot. "Good job, Dum-E! Go recharge." Peter frowned at Stark's smile as the bot chirped and buzzed driving itself to the other end of the lab. Just then he realized that there was another bot lined up next to Dum-E's charging station.

"That's U."

Peter turned to him in confusion. "Are those... are those more AIs?"

"Well, not really. They are..." He sighed. "They are some early projects from when I was at MIT."

"Huh." Peter turned back to look over to the robots lined up next to each other. He'd not really figured Stark to be the sentimental type, fixing college projects on a Friday night. They both stayed quiet for a bit, Stark still sipping his 'tea'. So what now? Was he supposed to wait till Stark released him back to his room? Or was he expected to read the room and offer to leave? He looked down at the cup in his hand, not sure if Stark would be offended if he didn't drink it.

"It's normal, you know. When you go through something traumatic. Sleeplessness." Stark's eyes were still fixed on the cup in front of him. "Do you want to talk about it?"

Peter blinked at him, his mind utterly thrown for a loop. "I..." His hands clutched the cup a little tighter. "No. No, not really."

"You should try to get some sleep then," Stark suggested with a solemn nod.

Peter was quiet for a moment. He didn't really want that either. "Are you?"

Stark's lips curled into a smirk. "I don't do well with sleep."

"Well, do you want to talk about it?"

He shot a quick glance at him. Maybe this had been too far. But Stark only laughed. Weirdly, Peter found that he hadn't even been all together kidding. But was that really a thing? Stark had said that he needed help, too. But did Iron Man really sit down and tell people about this part of being a superhero? The trauma, the nightmares?

Well, he had just said that it was normal. He must have been referring to the nightmare. Surely, Stark's AI was monitoring him and kept him informed about what Peter was doing. He had ordered her to watch him at the Tower when Peter had dashed and he was under no illusion that Stark would be trusting him anymore at this stage, not after he had run. So, he'd be aware that Peter had woken up screaming on the top of his lungs. His throat still felt raw and he just barely resisted the impulse to rub it as he was thinking about it again. Stark had also alluded to panic attacks when Peter was falling apart at the Tower, basically claimed he had had them in his penthouse just the same.

"I stopped you. The night it happened." Peter looked up as Stark's words were echoing through the otherwise quiet lab. He had been lost so deeply in his thoughts that he hadn't realized that Stark had fallen silent himself, how he had put down the cup on the table in front of them. "You were about to tell me, how you were attacked and I stopped you." Stark turned in his seat to face him. "I shouldn't have done that. I... I regret doing that. I should have let you talk. I'm sorry."

Peter had to look away from him. The intensity of Stark's words hit him unprepared. "That's... that's fine. You don't..." He shook his head, nervously scratching his face. "You don't have to... to worry about that."

"I disagree."

Eyes still cast down, Peter huffed in dry amusement. Unsure what to do he actually took another sip from his cup and yuck, right. Nessel and Annis. He frowned at the cup and a shiver went through him, as the hot liquid ran down his throat actually easing his raw skin.

"You can tell me now."

He put the cup down and leaned back, his arms crossed. "It's fine. I don't really want to talk about it. I'm fine."

For a moment, Stark stayed quiet and Peter almost convinced himself that he would let it go. "You're not fine, kid. You know that. You're not dumb. You know, that you're not fine." His voice was low, almost sympathetic, but Peter was careful to keep his eyes cast down. He didn't want this. He didn't want to remember. "Just tell me."

Peter bit his lip and sniffed a dry laugh. "Is that an order, Sir?"

"It can be. But I'd rather have you come to the realization that it's a necessity to help you get over what happened without me having to excessively force the issue. To understand what happened. To learn from it." Stark's response lacked any undercurrent of duress, but Peter was sure that Stark would make hearing about that night a condition for any future help he'd offer if Peter were to refuse his request.

"Maybe... maybe we could do this... tomorrow. I just... I need some time... I can't..." A quick glance confirmed that Stark's eyes fixed on him. Peter swallowed deeply as Stark tilted his head only vaguely to the side and kept his eyes on him expectantly. He swallowed again, his throat dry and pulled his own eyes away from Stark. First, he looked down to his hands, then reached for the cup again, desperate to occupy himself with something. His stalling was only met with silence, no long argument, no vast emotionally manipulative speech like May would use on him. Only silence and what seemed like the certainty that Peter would eventually talk was radiating from Stark.

It happened to be a most effective method. He felt his own resolve melting away, the awkwardness of the quiet room made him want to talk, just to make things less awkward. He knew exactly what Stark was doing, but he couldn't help it. He'd have to tell him at some point. Anything to make sitting in that lab less excruciating.

"I didn't pay attention. I thought... I had been laying low for a bit, after ditching the Falcon, but I knew there was danger out there. I sensed it, I... I can sense things like that." He shot a short glance over to Stark before he cast his eyes down to the cup again. His expression hadn't changed, his eyes still set on Peter unblinkingly.

"I thought... I thought that someone from... from your team was probably still looking for me and it would only be a matter of time till they found me if I didn't move. And I... I just wanted to get home. So, I left. I was thinking about what route to take, trying to make sure that I wouldn't lead anyone back home. I turned a corner too quickly and walked into a group of people. Just... just random criminals, I guess. They attacked me and I didn't react fast enough cause I was preoccupied with... well. I just didn't pay attention."

Once more he took a sip of the robot's brew, another quick look to the side catching a glimpse of Stark's reaction.

"You ran out of whatever powers those shooters," Stark added matter of factly.

Peter frowned in surprise. "How do you know that?"

"When I told Friday to call the EMTs and you tried to run, one of them wasn't working. I looked at them earlier tonight, there doesn't seem to be anything wrong with either of them. Maybe I'm wrong but it doesn't seem to me like you'd have been in any condition to fix them already if one of them had been broken."

Peter nodded, eyes cast down at his cup again. "I didn't touch them since that night. Yeah, the web fluid had run out." He bit his lip, shaking his head at his own foolishness. "I'd used some of it up patrolling, then most of it tying up that dude in the street in Manhattan. Some more when I was running from the Falcon." He shrugged, still avoiding Stark's glance. "I wasn't prepared for that day. I'd never used that much fluid in that short amount of time." He swallowed another sip of the hot liquid. "I did have back up fluid on me. I just... I didn't check... I didn't realize, how much I'd used."

He fell silent peering down into the cup. The panic he had felt when he was lying on the ground trying to defend himself and one of the web-shooters just didn't want to work threatened to rush over him again. He swallowed another deep gulp of the tea and shook it off with a quick jerk of his head.

"It took me a bit to realize that I'd run out. When I did, I focused on trying to knock them out, to get them off me. I got maybe 2 out of 6 when one of the guys behind me pulled out a knife. I..." He shook his head again. The details of what had happened then were a blur. "I don't really know how maybe... maybe my senses came back to me and that's how I sidestepped him. To avoid the knife the best I could. I don't... I don't really know."

"What do you mean, 'your senses came back to you'?"

Peter cast a short glance over to Stark again, then looked away. "It's... when whatever happened happened... when I was... bitten. It's like my senses were dialed up to 11. I can... I can feel things, I can see things far off, just everything is more intense."

"You can feel when someone pulls out a knife behind your back?"

He looked over at Stark, shaking his head. How would he even explain what he felt? He had no idea how any of that even worked. "No, it's more like... I didn't know it was a knife, but I knew that there was danger behind me and it's... I don't know how to explain it. It's like a weird kind of instinct where my body just knows what to do. How to avoid danger. Or..." Peter shrugged and turned his eyes down again. "Or that's what I thought. I'm not so sure anymore."

"Is that how you turned up at the scene at Lexington Avenue?"

Peter looked up right into Stark's stunned face. "Yeah... yeah, my senses were flaring up, so I knew something was happening. And so I decided... yeah."

"And so you decided to try and help."

Peter nodded, head bowed low.

"And now, you don't trust your instincts anymore? Because you got hurt."

Again, Peter nodded.

"Pete, look at me." Reluctantly he turned his eyes back on Stark, met his gaze full on. "It seems to me those... senses work just fine. From what you just told me, you'd be dead without them." Peter bit his lip, mulling that over. "Heightened senses... let me guess. Your hearing is probably quite remarkable as well," Stark asked.

A red flush crept up into his face. "Mr. Stark, I'm sorry, I-"

He gestured for Peter to stop talking. "You were listening to me when I was on the phone."

Peter swallowed hard, but he nodded. "You said... you said: We can't drag him anywhere tonight. and I... I just assumed—"

"You assumed I'd wait a day to bring you to the Compound, to hand you over to the team."

Peter nodded affirmatively.

"So, that's why you ran?" Stark shook his head in open confusion. "If you listened, then you'd have known that I didn't tell them that you were at the Tower. I didn't even tell them that I was at the Tower."

Peter sighed, eyes back on his cup. "Not in that conversation, you didn't. But I didn't... there would have been other ways... without me overhearing." He bit his lip. How honest would he need to be with Stark, how open? How much should he be telling him? "It was part of the reason, yes. But... it was May. I had to get back before she came home from work. I couldn't... I couldn't let her find out like that. She'd have freaked out if I'd been gone and—"

"Alright, stop. I get it. I'm still not happy about what you did." Stark leaned back into the cushions, his arms crossed. "You understand, that we need to trust each other for this to work, right?"

"Yes, Sir. I know. I promise, I—"

"Na-ah-ah! Don't promise me stuff you're not going to be able to keep."

Peter looked up at him, his pulse at an all-time high for this conversation.

"I don't need you to promise me some idealistic level of candor that you're destined to fail at some point anyway." Stark was looking right at him and Peter could tell that he'd better not look away from him now. "I'll certainly have my secrets and there'll be times when I won't tell you everything you might want to know. And I won't expect anything else from you either. Having secrets is not a crime. It's not even a disqualifier for a good alliance. What I do expect from you are loyalty and honesty. There'll be no exceptions. There will be no room for lies, no room for rigging the system by trying to get things past me you know I'd not allow. Not even just a little bit. Not if I'm supposed to trust you. No bending the truth, no omitting parts of the story. If I ask you for information and there's something you don't want to tell me, you will say so. If you have a good reason to have a secret, I won't press you for details. And I will promise to do the same."

Peter looked down at the cup he was still holding and saw the liquid vibrate in his shaking hands. He quickly set the cup down on the table and clasped his own hands to keep them steady.

"Does that sound fair to you?"

"Yes, Sir." He looked up at Stark, his voice shaking with nerves. "I do promise that."

Chapter Text

The workshop was a bit of a mess. Well, not the whole workshop. Most of it was centered around his main workbench and the extendable panel on the wall that held most of the components he had worked on for 'Project S' so far. Yeah... no. 'Project S' was a dumb name. He'd have to come up with something better. Tony's gaze rested on the open panel. He had taken a break from actually crafting the different parts, the net of flexible sensors that would spread across the whole suit and not just take in data but was also re-enforced to lent extra protection. But it was the digital side of things that he was focused on for now. The programming would have to be en point. There was no room - absolutely no room - for mistakes or miscalculations. This wasn't one of his self-experiments.

"How about 'Project Sojourner'?"

"Is this supposed to be a secret code, so only you understand the reference, or are others supposed to get the joke, Sir?"

He rolled his eyes to the ceiling. "What's with the snark, FRIDAY? Did I do something to upset you, darling?"

"Not at all, Boss. It's always a delight to be working with you."

Tony just huffed, fell back into his chair and spun around. The holo-keyboard shone in bright blue colors hovering a few inches over the surface of the workbench. The code was projected right in front of him. The kid would probably need an AI to work the full capacity of the suit. That would come later though. For now, he'd only get access to the essentials. Safety was of the utmost importance. He couldn't risk that boy getting stabbed again or worse. Not on Tony's watch. He highlighted about 95% of the code he had written so far.

"FRIDAY, put all this into a new file." A second projection popped up next to the original one. "We'll just call that one '3A training wheels' for now."

"How about the other file, Boss?"

"Save it under '3A part II' and then close that file... for now. We'll really have to focus on setting up the basic functionality first."

He'd seen the kid at work a couple of times. The most common danger when he was out and about would probably be falling off something. If he lost hold of the web for some reason or if it got cut or something distracted him. Yeah. The parachute would definitely have to stay in the training wheels program. He should be able to think of a few other things to soften a fall though. Just in case. And something that would alert him about sharp objects. Even if the kid's senses or his... like the feeling-danger intuition thingy he had even with that some alert system might help him filter through all the sensory input and pinpoint specific dangers and weapons faster.

Tony had probably questioned him about those senses of his maybe three or four more times that weekend after Peter had initially told him about his special abilities. It didn't help that Peter himself didn't really have a clue what exactly had happened to him, what the exact implications for his body were. All the information he had been given was very vague. Tony might have been inclined to think that he was just feigning ignorance but he was way too easy to read. That much had been obvious the first time that Peter had taken off the mask when he was almost delirious with pain and lay bleeding on Tony's living room table.

"Sir, Miss Romanoff is at the door."

Tony rubbed a hand across his face. He felt nasty. Not just sweaty and greasy, but gross in general. He usually didn't really care about the grease all that much. He had it on good authority that he actually looked pretty hot in a bit of grease. Damn, he still hadn't set aside time to fucking go to LA and see Pepper.

"FRIDAY, you were supposed to remind me to set a date for LA."

"I did, Sir."

He pulled up the hem of his shirt and roughly rubbed the fabric across his face. Well, he was a long way away from 'a bit of grease' currently.

"I also reminded you to stop working, take a shower and sleep, but you repeatedly ignored me."

"Is that why you're this bitchy?" he mumbled under his breath.

FRIDAY didn't answer though she had definitely heard him. He could have sworn that she actually huffed even though he never programmed her to know how to huff.

"Sir, Miss Romanoff—"

"Yeah, yeah, I heard you the first time, FRI."

"I'm sorry, Sir. It seemed to me like you were preoccupied with your body odor."

"You really are upset with me, aren't you?" He got off his chair and put some of the tools away that looked more like he would need them to work on a secret big tech-y project instead of fixing one of the bots or putting something together for R&D.

"No more than usual, Sir."

He shook his head at her antics. Maybe he'd have to rethink giving his AIs this much of a personality. He really had enough people in his life that liked to boss him around. He was supposed to be the boss, damn it.

"Lock up panel 3A, then let her in."

"Of course, Boss."

He pulled his focus back to the tools laid out in front of him on the workbench. He put away enough of them to hide the complexity of his new project but left some of them lying around so it wouldn't look like he was actively trying to hide something from her. A short glance confirmed that FRIDAY had closed the panel on the opposite wall. He had only just turned away from the panel when the lab doors opened with a low hiss.

"Shit, Tony... How long have you been in here? Might want to crack a window..." She didn't even look like she hadn't seen a proper bathroom or gotten a good night's sleep since Thursday. Not fair.

"Nat. Stop insulting my vent system. Are we at war with Switzerland yet?"

"Please. They had no idea we were even there. Seriously though... you look like shit." She made a show of taking a sniff in his general direction and wrinkled her nose playful disgust. "How long did you lock yourself in here?"

It took all his remaining concentration skills not to pout at her. "I didn't lock myself in here. I had things to do. I have things to do. What time is it?"

"3 pm." She casually leaned against to workbench. It was subtle but after all these years, Tony had learned to tell when Natasha was gathering information. Casual glances noting and categorizing changes around the room. Chances were that she didn't care too much that Tony knew what she was doing. That she had just let down her guard in front of him and that's why he could tell. They were on the same team after all. Of course, there was also the possibility that she simply slipped in those obvious tells to keep him in the dark about all the times she was actually seriously trying to get in-tell on him. For Fury most likely. Not that it mattered. She wouldn't find out anything about his new little secret project.

"Huh. How come you're back early? I thought you wouldn't be back until tonight. Did something go wrong?"

She frowned. "We're late, actually. Tony, it's Wednesday."

"Oh, it's... Oh." Fuck. He spun around and grabbed a few more tools but then dropped them onto the workbench again.

Natasha sighed, "We had to check out a few additional—"

"Right. I gotta go. Dum-E, put those away, will ya!"

"Tony, come—I get that you're... uncomfortable with the whole thing. I really do. Steve is just—"

"Seriously, I need to go." He walked straight past her to the stairs in the back of his workshop. He took the steps two at a time and quickly made his way up to his office space.

"Let's just—" He could barely hear her start the sentence only to drop it when he was clearly out of earshot. A quick look over his shoulder confirmed that she hadn't followed him to the office.

"FRI, seriously. It's Wednesday?!" Tony pulled out a couple of drawers. He'd left them in there somewhere.

"Sir, I told you that it was time to take a shower and sleep but you—"

"Yeah, yeah. I just— Here we go." He pocketed the web-shooters and made his way back down into the shop. Natasha hadn't moved from her spot at the workbench. He really didn't have time to think about their Bucky-hunting-trip right now. As long as they hadn't pissed off a foreign government he didn't need to know about their extracurricular activities. Paying for them was sufficient involvement for his taste.

"Steve's just trying to make things right," she tried again.

"I'm aware of Cap's general driving incentive. I gotta go. I got a... an intern that'll show up at the Tower in like an hour and—"

"I know all of this is a lot. It sucks, I get that. I get that even if he's just a Hydra tool he—"

"Nat!" He pulled up his hands and gestured for her to stop. "Just... can you not? Right now? We can do all this later. Unless there is something concerning national security or... global security or something else I need to know about this minute, all of this can wait. I need to find a shower. I got—"

"Wait, did you just say that you got an intern? When the hell did you get an intern?"

"What are you talking about, I've always had—"

She shook her head and pulled a face. "Don't try to pull this one on me. You don't have interns."

"Of course, I do!" Well, technically he didn't, personally, but that didn't matter. They'd had interns at SI and he did occasionally meet with them. Well, see them. In the hallway. At a distance. A very great distance.

"Like someone that you supervise? In your lab? Is that even safe?"

"Nat, this is SI business. Are you actually trying to tell me how to run my fucking company right now?" She had actually gotten him to stop in his tracks. It was completely beside the point that he was technically not quite truthful but for all she knew, this was still about his company.

"You're not running your company. Pepper is running your company!"

He rolled his eyes and just waved her off. "Either way, you certainly aren't and I didn't ask for your advice, did I?"

"So, you're trying to get back onto Pepper's good side. She still mad?" The know-it-all certainty on her face annoyed him even more than her line of questioning.

"Everything I do is to get on Pepper's good side." He pointedly ignored her question. No need to state the obvious or ponder on how much trouble their officially still existing but unofficially dead-as-a-doornail relationship really was.

Natasha's eyebrows shot up. 

"Fine," he shrugged. "I do tend to strive for not pissing her off at least."

"Well—"

"Seriously, Nat. I don't need a lecture on Pepper."

"Okay, I get it." She threw up her hands in a defensive gesture. "I really just wanted to check in with you. How did things go with the NYC authorities?"

"Things went fine. No thanks to any of you." He took off towards the lab doors. "I'll fill you in at the next team meeting."

The doors opened for him, but he turned and looked back at Natasha. She still hadn't moved, arms crossed in front of her. What was she even thinking? Like he'd let her stay in the lab on her own.

"Come on. Let's go!"

"You're being weird. More so than usual." She dropped her arms in a shrug and stalked towards him. "You know, you can talk to me."

"I'm not being weird."

"Tony..." She stepped out of the room and FRIDAY sealed the lab behind her.

He didn't even bother to react to her accusation. "Have FRIDAY make a date in the diary for the team debrief."

He had shit to do. The kid would show up in about an hour and he probably looked like he'd been living on the streets since Sunday. Not the kind of authority vibe he was going for. How was it fucking Wednesday already? He distinctly remembered that it was only two nights that he worked after Peter had left on Sunday.

That whole weekend had flown by in a rush. That first night, Friday night, he had still been quite pissed with the kid. Properly pissed with him actually. He had absolutely not enjoyed sewing him up when he had shown up at the Tower. He was a mechanic, not a doctor, damn it. Not that he wasn't resourceful, but from all the stuff he'd had to deal with since he had started his superhero career, stitching up a 14-year-old kid without so much as anesthesia had certainly been on the bottom of things he had enjoyed about the whole Iron Man deal. The very, very bottom. Then it turned out that Peter hadn't even bothered to look after the fucking thing.

He had been annoyed to no end and then... and then the little shit went ahead and woke up screaming from a nightmare. Because someone had tried to stab him. After he'd helped them prevent hundreds if not thousands of civilian deaths from a terror plot and after being chased down by Wilson like a common thief, the kid had been stabbed and almost bled out.

Shit, when Tony was 14, his biggest problem had been whether he'd have to share his room at MIT or if his folks would get him a proper place to live at by himself. Sure, there was the odd kidnapping attempt or blackmailer, nothing like this though. Not at 14. And then there was that dickhead at the NYPD. This whole thing was really hitting all of Tony's sweet spots from civil disobedience to rebellious philanthropy. Sure, the kid would be a great asset. But as far as Tony could tell he was also doing things for the right reasons. In the end, that'd probably be even more crucial.

###

They had sat down in the common room on Saturday morning. Tony wasn't really one to have any kind of breakfast that exceeded a couple of cups of coffee, but the fridge was stocked and with the team still on mission and Vision somewhere in Canada following a lead from the NYC terror plot, everyone was out. So, they might as well eat and talk.

Tony had been worried that the whole thing would be super weird. He had no idea how to deal with a teenager but it was crucial to learn more about the Spiderling. It turned out to be a great idea for the kid seemed to run on food. As soon as Tony had put down some scrambled eggs and fried bacon in front of him, he just wouldn't stop talking.

"—and it really is super ridiculous. Why would they put these kinds of konimeters in the labs in the first place? First of all we can hardly get them out of the room let alone down three sets of staircases to get them in the streets so we can get proper readings on the emissions and even if we would they aren't even specifically calibrated to extract P10 particles which was the whole point of the end of term project."

When the kid did need to breathe Tony actually managed to get in a couple of sentences. "Are you trying to tell me that they spend my money on bullshit equipment or are you trying to get me to give them more money for better equipment? I can't quite tell."

Peter blushed. "I... No. I... I didn't mean it like that." His eyes were fixed on the plate in front of him. They had been the whole time. While Tony was watching him, determined to figure out what made the kid tick, the Spiderling never once glanced up at him. "It's... of course we're lucky to have anything to even start to understand how the whole process even—"

"Hey, kid." Tony just managed to hide a grin as Peter stopped talking and looked up at last. "I'm just messing with you. I get that it sucks to work with outdated equipment, but they all have their kinks and sometimes you learn more by beating those out of them and work your way around it."

Peter poked at the last of the egg on his plate, eyes turned away from Tony again.

"Did you?"

Peter squinted up at him. "Did we what, Sir?"

"Did you find a way around your problem?"

Peter shrugged and bit his lip before he answered. "We changed the premise of the test series and just opened the window and took samples during different times of the day."

Tony did laugh at that. "Perfect. Any reliable findings? Maybe I can bring you to my next meeting with the mayor and convince him to finally invest in our clean energy technology."

"Consistently high exposure, extreme amplitude during rush hour. As was to be expected." Still staring at his place, he pushed the food back and forth.

Tony sighed. "Alright, I'm sorry for bringing down the mood. I didn't mean to make you feel bad about your rant. I too hate shitty equipment."

"It's not—" The kid shook his head and only mumbled a "never mind" before he shoved the last bit of food into his mouth.

With another sigh, Tony got up from the table and put away the rest of the food before engaging the cleaning bots. When Peter was sufficiently sated they wandered down to the lab. Tony had made sure that the web-shooters were out of the kid's reach. While he didn't think that the flight risk was particularly high at that point, there was no reason to temptation. There was always a chance that he had another set somewhere, but with his limited resources it was a slim one. Tony was determined to keep him from any kind of Spider-Man-ing until they had hashed out a few of the finer points of their... well... deal. Plus, the kid still had some healing to do.

The web-shooters safely out of reach, they spend the day on the web fluid. Until late in the afternoon Peter had talked Tony through the process, how he had come up with the fluid in the first place, the different trial and errors, some theories he wanted to try out to strengthen the web, make it last longer or fly further.

"From what I found, the more range I get the more the resilience suffers. I've also tried different batches of endurance in terms of the duration. The fluid I use now will dissolve after about 2 hours." He pointed to a certain part in the formula that triggered that specific attribute. They had used the holo-screen to map out the formula. That had the added bonus that Tony could have FRIDAY save and analyze everything right away.

Tony nodded along. "So right now, you use one batch at a time, right? You load up the web-shooters and then you gotta use whatever batch you have in there."

"Exactly." Tony had let Peter sit in his own chair. He didn't mind standing and the kid really shouldn't be on his feet all day with that wound of his. "I mean, it'd be great to choose between different fluids depending on the situation I'm in during a fight or a chase or if I just try to get from point a to point b, but of course that would require a much more complex shooter than I build."

"It sure would." Tony archived that thought for later. That would definitely be something he had to look into.

"I do have a lot more notes on all this." He fiddled with his fingers, staring ahead. "I just... I didn't think that... that we'd be doing all this. I mean, I know you said you wanted to figure stuff out and I just didn't think that it would—"

"Pete. It's fine. You've already given me a lot to think about here. Just bring the notes next time."

His eyes shot over to him. "I... Nex—next time. Of... of course... I just... I'll just bring them. Next time."

Tony blinked at him. Had he not been clear about that? "You do realize that if we want to use the internship as your cover you'll have to show up in the lab occasionally."

Peter's mouth fell open. "Oh."

"Oh?" Tony's eyebrows shot up. "Is that a problem?"

"No!" The kid sat up straight. "No, of course not, Mr. Stark. I... I just thought... I thought that was supposed to cover the... erm... the time I would be patrolling."

Patrolling. Right. "Right. I mean, partially. Once you're actually healed. I guess, yeah. I definitely want you in the lab once a week though. Maybe twice in the beginning until we get the hang of things."

Peter's eyes widened. "You... you want me to come out to the Compound? Twice a week? But..." The kid's fingers did a nervous dance on the work surface in front of him. "But what about..." he gulped and added with a small whisper. "about the Avengers."

"They're not like Beetlejuice, kid." Tony did his best not to roll his eyes at the display of pure paranoia Peter harbored for the team. "They won't magically pop up if you utter their name."

The kid's face turned scarlet red and he gave it a few short shakes from one side to the other, so Tony only waved him off.

"I mean like... like Voldemort."

"Mr. Stark, I know who Beetlejuice is."

"Well, good. At least some of you youngsters appreciate the classics I guess."

Peter ignored his remark completely and just kept on shaking his head, a twitch in his shoulder added another level of bewilderment. "That's not... Won't they get suspicious? If I show up here all the time, won't they start wondering and ask questions? What if they find out? What if they dig a little deeper and realize that—"

"Pete, first of all, you won't be able to run from them forever." Tony raised his hands in a soothing gesture. "I'm not saying I'll tell them. I'm just saying. They are bound to find out at some point." He did take pity on the kid when his knuckles turned white from how hard he was holding onto the table to stop himself from shaking. "You don't have to be scared of them, Pete. I know you got off on the wrong foot, but they are not your enemies."

The kid tried his best to nod along to Tony's words but it was plain to see that he was not just wary of the eventual meeting but positively terrified.

"Either way, that won't be an issue. I'll be at the Tower most of the time anyway. It's a lot closer for you. You'll just meet me there."

That did make him look up. "The... the Tower?"

"What, you don't like the Tower either?"

"No, not at all." He let go of the workbench at last and fiddled with the seam of his shirt. "It's..." He shook his head and muttered another "never mind".

"You keep doing that." Tony's eyes were still firmly set on the kid, studying him. "You do this thing where you're in the middle of saying something and then shut yourself up."

"It's..." He shook his head again. "I know, I talk too much."

"Who told you that?"

Peter just shrugged a half-heartened laugh. "It's not polite when— People don't like it when you dump word-vomit on them."

"Well, fuck those people." There you go, that got his attention. Round brown eyes stared up at Tony, hands now frozen in his lab.

"What about the Tower?"

Peter shook himself out of his trance and blinked a couple of times before he spoke. "The... the project I told you about. The emissions project. That wasn't really our first choice. We were gonna work on a clean energy analysis and, well..."

"And there's only one name in clean energy right now." Tony pursed his lips.

"That's right. So, yeah. I mean, the Tower it's... it's really something."

"It sure is. That's one of the reasons why we don't want school groups in there." Tony had crossed his arms. They did get field trip inquiries all the time and he got the fascination, but there was just no way.

"Yeah. I know." Peter cleared his throat and very obviously swallowed another part of his response.

"I mean you're officially an SI intern now." Tony shrugged. "Or you will be by some time tonight when I have hacked my own company's system to falsify your application and verify your credentials."

Peter's face turned red and he shifted in his seat.

"That's not gonna be the kind of thing we'd do on the first day, but I guess... once things have settled down..." Peter's head shot up and he stared at Tony, eyes wide in wonder. "I don't see a reason why you shouldn't get to take a look at the arc."

"That... Mr. Stark, that would be amazing!"

"You can't write your paper on it."

"No, I mean, sure. That... of course. I understand."

"Good. That's settled then. You'll come by the Tower on Wednesdays and then maybe every other Friday."

He nodded, his fingers back to giddily fiddling with the hem of his shirt.

"FRI, have you put that in the diary?"

"Sure did, Boss."

He couldn't help but smile at the amazement that radiated from Peter whenever he got FRIDAY involved. Most people were sceptical if not outright suspicious but after the initial shock of meeting her, Peter had been positively beaming whenever the AI would engage with them. Maybe that was just this new generation with their phones and their tablets attached to them they didn't scare so easily when it came to technology. Or maybe the Spiderling was just a bit different.

Tony couldn't help but wink at FRIDAY's camera right above them before he turned his attention back to Peter. "Let's get back to your web-fluid then."

The kid was clever, there was no denying that. Really clever. So clever in fact that it left Tony flabbergasted how many shitty situations he had gotten himself into in such a short amount of time. Juvenility. That naive enthusiasm. Not really anything that he could get judgmental about. Who knew how many stupid reckless tight spots Tony would have landed himself in if his father hadn't beaten the carefree jump-before-looking mentality out of him. His father and Obie.

Hell, there had been plenty regardless.

Peter only had May Parker in his life. The parents long gone. Ben Parker murdered. That much Tony had figured out. And the kid had Parker wrapped around his little finger with that innocent schoolboy routine. The charm and the cheek. Not that Tony had seen much of that first hand, mere glimpses of it. But he'd seen the videos. Spider-Man on his patrols. The naive enthusiasm. The kid had some gall, dripping with snark and sarcasm. No, he hadn't seen that first hand. He'd only seen what the cheek and snark, the happy-go-lucky attitude had gotten him into. The pain. The fear. The despair.

He'd have to remember that. Working with the kid was easy. He had great intuition. Knew how to work a problem. When all that teenage naiveté and cheek would creep back to the surface Tony would have to remember how Peter had looked, beaten and broken. He'd have to remember what had happened when nobody had had the kid's back. When nobody had pulled him back from the edge that teenage naiveté mixed with supernatural powers were surely bound to pull him back to eventually.

Chapter Text

His eyes were glued to the notes in front of him, but the constant tick-tick-tick of the clock above the classroom door was inescapable, Spider-senses or not. As if he wasn't counting the seconds for the school day to be over already. And dreading it at the same time.

He had of course been to the Tower before. A couple of times in fact. While he still couldn't quite grasp where that overwhelming courage had come from that Friday night when he had climbed all the way up to the penthouse to repay Tony Stark's visit, the second time had been a lot more humbling. He absentmindedly scratched at the bandages still covering his abdomen underneath his shirt. There was a distinct tingling. By his medical expertise - fine, from what google said - that was supposed to mean that his wound was healing. A good sign, right? And his wound had improved considerably since the weekend. Thankfully. And Peter had been mindful to keep it clean and cared for. He had promised he would and he was going to stick to the deal he had made with Mr. Stark. As long as he stuck to the deal he would be fine.

Still, the prospect of walking into the Tower in full daylight, as an official intern, Mr. Stark's personal intern, it filled him with dread. It was damn awesome of course. On the surface, everyone would think that he was there helping Tony Stark. Working with Iron Man. But he knew the truth. He was there so Stark could keep an eye on him. Keep him in check. It was a... well, not really a punishment. He wouldn't go that far. Probation. That's what it was. He was watched and evaluated. And if he managed to stay on his best behavior he would get to be Spider-Man again. If he screwed up, well. He wasn't going to screw up.

The subway ride over to Manhattan was tedious. He hadn't been on that line in forever. There was never any reason for him to go to Manhattan. All that was there, were overprices shops and a whole bunch of tourists and rich people. No need to get out of Queens. Well, there was some crime in Manhattan of course, but he hadn't taken the train to get over the river for that. The cart he was in was packed. A few children laughing at fart jokes. A group of guys reenacting some kind of sporting event. The two girls sitting right next to him were sharing a set of headphones and Ariana Grande's voice echoed in his head like someone was trying to drill through his skull. A lady screeching into her phone on the other end of the cart. Everything was just too close, too loud, too much!

When the train finally got to Grand Central - 42nd Street, he jumped out as soon as the doors opened up. The amount of people on the platform was even worse than on the train, but Peter was quick to dodge people and fast to exit the station. Stark Tower was only a street from where he stepped out into the open air. He had to crane his head to look all the way up to Tony Stark's floors from where he stood on the sidewalk.

Just as he was about to turn the corner to the main entrance the soft vibrations of his phone pulled him from his thoughts. Private number. Huh. Who'd call him from an unknown number on a Wednesday afternoon? Probably one of those telemarketing agencies. He'd been so careful to check all the apps that Ned would send him to check out for possible data phishing. But he had barely canceled the call when his phone was vibrating again with another call. He stared at the words written across the screen in bold capital letters.

"PRIVATE NUMBER"

The letters kept flashing along with the vibration of the phone. His thumb hovered over the button to cancel the call. Something was off. Hadn't he read something about those kinds of telemarketing calls? Weren't they legally required to display their own number now? A split-second later his thumb hit the green receiver on the screen instead. He watched the letters disappear and a bright white timer flash up instead.

00:01

00:02

00:03

He shook himself out of his trance and swiftly held the phone to his ear.

"He—Hello?"

"Where the hell are you?!"

"I—I am at—" Peter shook his head and the surprise that had him freeze up from his bones. "Who is this?"

"Who the fuck do you think would be calling you right now to find out where the hell you are, Parker?!"

"I..." He gulped at the harsh voice ringing in his ear. "Mr. — Mr. Stark?"

"Bingo. What the hell, kid? My driver just called. He's been waiting in front of your house for more than 30 minutes. And you have yet to show your face. Where the hell are you?"

"I—I'm at—at the Tower, Sir." With a suppressed cough he tried to somewhat clear his throat. "I—I was just about to walk into the building."

"Oh."

"I didn't—I didn't go home after school, Sir. I didn't think I'd mak—"

"Fine. Just get up here."

The call was disconnected before Peter even had a chance to respond. Dumbfounded his hand fell away from his ear and the screen of his phone lit up again.

0:43

Less than a minute. And it had taken all of two seconds for his heart rate to spike and his hands to sweat. His face was probably fiery red. It sure felt like it was. Had he missed something? Had he spaced out to marvel at the exciting mess that he had gotten himself into and not listened? Mr. Stark hadn't used that voice on him since that night Peter got hurt. Since he had found out that Peter was only... well, Peter. Mr. Stark was—

Mr. Stark!

Peter jolted upright. His eyes flew up towards the high floors of the Tower again, but only for a second. Mr. Stark was waiting for him. He really needed to get a move on. He quickly turned the corner. Maybe a little too quick for a regular teenager, but that wasn't important now. Plus, his head was hurting. All the people on the train and then the traffic. Cars honking. Phones ringing. Chatter all around him. The huge glass doors that separated the Tower from the outside world would have intimidated him mere minutes ago but now seemed like a welcome relief for his worn-out senses. He headed straight for the main entrance, but came to a sudden stop when a huge man blocked his way right as Peter's hand went for the handle of the door.

"And where do you think you're going?"

"I..." Peter's eyes up wandered up the comically huge torso 'til they settled on the man's face, drawn in annoyance. "Excuse me, Sir. I... I have an appointment."

The security guard's eyebrows didn't even twitch. "With Iron Man himself, I'm sure." He waved to a street corner on the other side of the crossing. "Merch's sold over there. Now skedaddle." 

"But I— I'm an intern and I really need to—"

"Where's your name tag? Access card?" The guard's eyes narrowed on him as Peter's mouth fell open without response. Shit. The man in front of him broadened his shoulders and seemed to grow another foot, forcing Peter to take a step back from the door.

"Do I look like I want to hear a story, kid? Shoo!"

It seemed like the mood was a little strained all around the Tower today. Mr. Stark certainly sounded like he was about to break out his armor and hunt Peter down. The guy in front of him didn't seem all that thrilled with his day either and people around them were starting to notice the scene, including the two police officers that hung out just a few feet away from them. Damn, he really needed to get to Mr. Stark's lab on time. Peter tried to stay as calm and collected as the situation allowed which mostly meant deep breaths to keep the flush out of his face and his body from trembling with nerves.

"Please, if you could just let Mr. Stark know that—"

"Alright, bucko. Not having any of that. Hey!" He waved and got the undivided attention of the two officers right away. "Murphy, you need one for your quota?"

Peter took a couple of steps back from the entrance, eyes wide. What was wrong with people? His mind was swimming with overstimulation and he had to bite his tongue hard not to curse the guy out. As huge as the guy was, Peter would totally be able to take him. Hell, he could take all three of them. Damn, arrogant—

He backtracked another few steps and tore his eyes off the security guard's smug face.

Shit.

Shit. Shit. Shit.

With hasty steps, Peter retreated and turned the next corner, not even bothering to look back. He took refuge in a cove next to a service entrance, his back leaned against the cold wall. His head stung painfully as he let it fall back against the solid surface behind him, eyes trailing up to the top of the building. It was quieter in that little cove. There was less traffic on that side street than in front of the main entrance and it came as a welcome relief to his senses. Deep breaths. He was alright. Just needed to think. As his mind quieted down and his muscles relaxed from the overstimulation, his eyes focused on a different part of the building a lot further down than Mr. Stark's floors on top of the Tower. Was that...

He leaned out of the cove and shot a quick look up and down the street to either side. Yeah, that confirmed it. This was the part of the building that Peter had made his escape from that night. That night he had gotten hurt. And right there above him was the viewing platform on the 25th floor. He shrugged to move the straps of his backpack further up on his shoulders, then tightened them. A swift hand pulled up the hood from his jacket. He turned his face towards the wall as a further precaution.

What else was he supposed to do? They wouldn't let him get inside of the building. Mr. Stark was already pissed and there was no way for Peter to contact him. He only wished he still had his suit. Or at least his mask. Both were damaged beyond repair though. This was the only way! He hadn't really done any major Spider-Man-ing, that jump over the school fence the previous week, which had hurt. A lot. His hand snaked underneath his jacket and came to rest on the bandages. A couple of deep breaths later he decided he would be fine. He could do this. With steady and strong movements, Peter scaled the first few levels of the building.

There was a bit of a sting in his abdomen every time he pulled himself a bit further up the wall, but nothing he couldn't handle. He'd be fine. He was careful to stay as close to the wall as possible. People usually didn't look up to the level where he was climbing to. To the very top of the skyscrapers sure, that's what the tourists came to NYC for after all, but not down to where he was aiming at, the 25th level. And real New Yorkers, they certainly wouldn't crane their necks at all!

He was halfway up when there was a distinct vibration coming from his jacket's pocket. He cursed, locking his stronger right hand tight to the wall of the building and quickly reached for his phone.

Private Number.

Well, wasn't that just wonderful? He leveled his breathing and with that his nerves as best as he could and answered the call.

"Hello?"

"You said you were right outside the building."

"Mr. Stark, Sir... yes. Yes, I mean, I am. I just, erm... I ran into a bit of a problem and—"

"And you thought the best way to solve that problem would be by scaling the side of my building? In broad daylight?"

"I... I'm sorry, I didn't realize that—"

"That I would have installed sensors to monitor the outside of my building after you made it a habit to crawl up and down the exterior walls? Well, I'm glad I'm not predictable."

"I'm—"

"Get down the damn building, kid! And don't let anyone fucking see you!"

"Yes, Sir. The problem is I— Hello? Mr. Stark?"

Peter looked back at the screen of his phone.

0:34

Well, that was even shorter than the first call. Peter groaned. How the hell was he supposed to get through the front door without Mr. Marty-you-need-another-one-for-your-quota security guy out front? Maybe if he climbed a couple more stories Mr. Stark would just call back again and he could explain? But that would be going against a direct order. Probably not the best idea.

He pocketed his phone and quickly made his way back down to the pavement. He let his senses roam, tried to filter out all the big city noises and focus on if there were any prying eyes on him, but all he could sense was an unbalanced mix of everything. Everything around him was amplified and it was impossible for him to pick out a single impulse from the entangled mass. He still couldn't trust his senses. Even though Mr. Stark had said that he should thank them. That without his senses... that they might have saved him and without them, he might have— urgh. What did Stark know? He didn't even know what it was like! Sure, he was Iron Man and all, but that was a suit. He didn't know what it was like when something takes over when something changes. His senses were off. He broke them. Somehow... somehow something must have changed. He couldn't rely on them.

So when he reached the sidewalk, he kept his head down, eyes on the ground, hoping he had stayed unseen. He didn't waste any time and made it back to the main entrance as fast as he could. All he needed was another security guy guarding the entrance. That was all. There had to be more than one damn— oh. He had looked up and shot a quick glance in the direction of the door. He might have never recognized him if it hadn't been for that weekend at the Compound. He wasn't decked out in the kind of three-piece-suit that the public would know him in. The washed-out jeans, vintage AC/DC shirt, and a simple grey jacket made him look almost human. But that was definitely Mr. Stark, arms crossed staring daggers at him from across the street. Not even the one signature item he wore - the dark-colored sunglasses - could hide that stare. Peter jumped into action and was by his side in mere seconds.

"I'm so sorry, Sir. I was almost inside the building but they wouldn't let me through the do—woah!"

A large hand clasped the back of his jacket. He was actually too perplexed to react when he was pulled back away from Mr. Stark.

"Hey, bucko! I thought I told you to stay the hell away!" Peter blinked up into the face of the giant from before.

"Hey!" Mr. Stark had followed, arms now by his side and his face turned from annoyance into mild shock.

"Nothing to worry about, Sir. I'm on it," the guy said, blocking Peter from view.

"Yeah, you're on my intern, bucko." Mr. Stark stepped closer to them, reaching for Peter's arm and forcefully tore him out of the security guard's hold.

The guy had let go of Peter, eyes wide. "I... No. Sir, you're mistaken. Interns only come here on Tuesdays and Thursdays."

"Not this one," Mr. Stark snarled.

"Sir, he doesn't even have an access card! All interns were handed security ID cards to access the laboratory floors on the Tower. This is—" He reached out for Peter again, but Mr. Stark built himself up in front of him, then turned to Peter.

"Peter, do you have an access card?"

"I..." He looked right at Mr. Stark. What the hell was he supposed to say to that? Stark knew very well that he hadn't. "I... I'm not..." Mr. Stark gave a subtle shake of his head and Peter jumped on it. "No. Nobody gave me an access card yet."

Mr. Stark turned back to the guy and threw up his hands as if the situation was all cleared up. "If he doesn't have an access card then let's go inside and issue one for him. Chop, chop!"

"Sir, that... I can't just hand out access cards. I need a directive from corporate to issue a new one."

"Look at me." Mr. Stark stood tall, stare fixed on the security guy. "How much more corporate do you think it gets?"

The dude just blinked at him, dumbfounded. "I... I don't—"

"Inside! Now!" Mr. Stark's voice was low but icy. He sent a quick look up and down the street, confirming that the little scene hadn't been noticed by anyone standing by.

The dude huffed, shot Peter an angry glance and then walked towards the front entrance.

"Come on, kid."

To say that Peter was stunned would have been the understatement of the month. And it's been quite a month.

"I'm so sorry, Mr. Stark," he whispered to him. "I really tried to get there on time but—"

Mr. Stark quickly cut him off. "Not now."

The giant walked ahead of them, swiftly opened the door and held it wide ajar for Mr. Stark and with another annoyed glance at Peter he kept it open even for him. The lobby was, well, huge. An atrium with multiple levels of open walkways and seating areas and on the back wall a whole league of elevators. They had walked about halfway into the lobby when they stopped at a large marble desk. The giant had already walked around it and furiously typed away on the keyboard in front of him. There were security barriers right next to them, blocking the way to the elevator.

Security guy sighed, shaking his head. "Sir, there's nothing I can do here. I can't just activate a security pass without the proper paperwork. And all the paperwork for the new interns was already processed two weeks ago."

"Just check the damn file. Peter Parker. The paperwork is there," Mr. Stark ordered.

"Sir, that is impo— oh." The guy typed some more and opened one of the drawers behind the desk. The rustling of a printer echoed through the otherwise quiet lobby. The guy cleared his throat and slapped a stack of papers on the desk in front of Peter. "Read that, then sign on the bottom of the last page." He slammed a pen on top of the stack of papers.

Peter's hands were still shaking with nerves as he reached for the stack and started to read.

"You gotta be kidding me, kid. Just sign the damn thing and let's go!"

Peter looked up at Mr. Stark, eyes wide and throat dry. "But—but Sir, what if—"

"I'll email you a copy. Come one."

"Al—alright. Yeah, okay." Quickly Peter pulled the last page from the stack and hastily put his signature on it.

"Perfect. Access card?" Mr. Stark's focus was back on his security guy, who handed him a black unmarked chip and a name tag that had Peter's name and, oh god, last year's yearbook picture on it. Where the hell did that come from? He pressed both items into Peter's hand and guided him towards the security barrier.

All Peter could do was mumble a low "thank you" in the general direction of the security guard and then follow Mr. Stark to the elevator, that was already waiting for them.  No sooner had he set both feet into the elevator car that the doors closed behind him and Mr. Stark let out a deep breath.

"Bring us up to the lab, FRI."

"Will do, Boss."

Peter busied himself with staring at his feet, head bowed low. Was this now the time that he was supposed to apologize? His eyes flickered up at Mr. Stark and he found him staring straight at him. Peter's mouth fell open. He stared back, but not a single sound seemed to want to come over his lips. Mr. Stark's eyebrows shot up and he made a show of throwing up his arm, pulling back the sleeve of his jacket and glaring at his watch.

"It's 4:07 pm."

"I'm so sorry, Sir. I got here as fast as I could but then the guy wouldn't let me in and they were gonna arrest me and I don't—"

The elevator doors opened and once again, Peter lost the ability to form words. The lab was not just massive but shiny and brand new.

"Seriously, kid. Exactly why I send you a car! To avoid all that bullshit."

"I... I'm sorry, I didn't... I didn't—" He quickly followed Mr. Stark out of the elevator.

"It's fine. I get it. You went straight to the subway." Mr. Stark turned on his heels and stared at Peter. "You did take the subway, right? You didn't, like, swing your way here?"

"I... No, Sir. You..." Peter cleared his throat. "You still have my web-shooters."

"That's right." Mr. Stark took off his glasses and rubbed a hand across his face. He, wow, he looked like, well. A lot worse than he had on the weekend.

"You also told me, I'm not allowed to. So... yeah... no... I took the subway."

"Good." He opened one of the drawers on the workbench in front of him, shuffling through a bunch of loose electronic parts.

Peter bit his lip, his eyes still on the dark lines underneath Mr. Stark's eyes. "Sir, if—it this is a bad time, I could—"

"Not a bad time." With a thump, Mr. Stark placed his phone onto the workbench. He made a weird movement with his arm and the projection of a keyboard was pulled up right in front of him. Peter's jaw dropped as Mr. Stark started typing and two more screens popped up one displaying an array of folders, the other a string of code.

"I can't believe you tried to climb up my building. Again! What if someone saw you up there, huh?"

"I'm sorry, Sir. I didn't... I didn't know what else to do. You were already mad because of your driver and I didn't—"

"You can't climb up buildings in Manhattan in broad daylight, Pete. Especially not mine." Mr. Stark put in a few commands, shaking his head as he did so.

"Yes, Sir. I'm sorry."

The phone in front of them flashed to life. Mr. Stark grabbed it, then held it out to Peter.

"Don't do it again. This is encrypted. My number is on there so you can reach me."

Peter blinked a couple of times, looked down to the phone, then back up to Mr. Stark's face. His eyebrows shot up expectantly. Peter shot forward and took the phone from his hand.

"I... thank you. Thank you, Sir."

"The number is for emergencies."

"I... I understand."

"You use an access code on this, no finger prints or anything else like that. Something only you know."

"Yes, Mr. Stark."

"No birthdays, no '12345678', no 'password', a completely random string of letters and numbers," he said, pointing at the phone, eyebrows still raised.

Peter did laugh at that. "Yes, Sir. Thank you."

"Alright then." Mr. Stark cracked his neck and stretched his arms. "I can send you to get coffee, right? I mean, you're officially an intern now. Interns get coffee."

Peter shrugged. "I mean, I've never made coffee before."

"You just push the little bottom next to where it says 'coffee' on the machine. I'm sure you'll manage." Mr. Stark pointed at the small adjacent kitchenette. "Get whatever you want for yourself. Then we'll look at your bandages before we start on the web fluid."

They had been in the lab for maybe an hour, not much longer. It had taken Peter a bit of time to get over the initial nervousness, but once the inspection of his wound had turned out to positively surprise Mr. Stark, Peter felt his nerves ebb away. It suddenly was easier to focus again, his senses didn't spin all over the place. And once they had gotten to work it was easy to settle into a rhythm. He had brought his notebook, which held months of different web-fluid tests. He had already covered the most important characteristics that he had adjusted to his advantage but Stark was just as interested in the dead ends. The things that hadn't worked.

"You haven't really written much on the fluid reacting with the web-shooters." Mr. Stark had the notebook in hand, scanned a page, turned it, scanned the next one until he reached the end of Peter's notes.

"There has never really been a problem."

"Ah, you wrote that this one was easier to extract from the shooters than the others."

Peter looked over to Stark and checked what version he was on. "Yeah. I remember that one."

"So, was easier better or worse?"

"It felt almost slippery. I used way too much webbing with that one because it just slipped out of the shooters so easily."

"Would it be more efficient if you could better regulate the amount of fluid?"

Peter shrugged. "Maybe. It's just a matter of habit I guess. I could have tried to adjust the web-shooters so the handling would be more sensitive, react faster, but at the time it didn't seem efficient to do that."

Mr. Stark looked up at him. "Because you would have had to stay off the streets for a couple of days to make the adjustment?"

Peter looked away but smirked, pulling his shoulders up again. "I guess. Also if I couldn't have made it work, I'd have had to undo all the changes and, well. Yeah, I didn't really know how many days that might keep me from helping people out."

"Always the good of the people at heart." Mr. Stark took another sip off his 4th mug of coffee. "Well, well, we'll see about that. FRI, scan that page for me, will you."

"Right away, Boss."

He shoved the notebook into Peter's hand and a beam of turquoise lights moved up and down the book in his hands.

"Alright. We'll be trying out that one. I stocked up on the supplies you put down." He gestured to one of the walls. "FRIDAY, open panel C12. Go ahead kid, get out the stuff we need for this."

His notebook still in hand, Peter headed over to the wall. The panel had opened to three huge drawers full of all the chemical supplies he'd need for the web fluid. There was so much it, his chemistry teacher would kill for a stock like that.

"Sir, Captain Rogers is at the door, requesting entry."

Peter shot up, back straight, and only barely managed to hold onto the canister of Glycine in his hands. He stared at Mr. Stark then quickly turned to look at the windows. There was no way to open them though. Maybe if used something really heavy to break one of them. His ears were ringing.

"Pete, calm down." Mr. Stark had taken a couple of steps in his direction but had stopped. "FRIDAY, tell him to come back later."

Canister of Glycine still in hand, Peter clutched at it as if it would be of any use to him. He had nothing to defend himself, no suit, no web-shooters, only his senses, and his strength.

"Kid, he doesn't know who you are. Just calm down."

Peter's pulse was racing. "You—you didn't—you didn't call him?"

"Of course not." Mr. Stark stretched his arms out in what was supposed to be a soothing manner. "I do know where you live. I wouldn't risk my brand new lab to catch you off guard."

"Sir, Captain Rogers insists on seeing you right away. He says it's urgent."

"Urgh." Mr. Stark turned to stare at the elevator, then back at Peter. "Put that back and close the panel. Then get... wait, take this." He opened up a drawer underneath the workbench and pulled out a Starkpad. He unlocked it swiftly and pulled up the notes app. "Just sit over there and look busy." He pulled out another drawer and scattered a few tools and materials over the workbench. "Just don't look so suspicious. You're just an intern. You have paperwork."

"Right." Peter nodded, then quickly put everything back inside the panel and closed it before he picked up the tablet and walked over to the desk that Mr. Stark had pointed to at the other end of the room. He had just sat down in the chair when Mr. Stark called for FRIDAY to open the elevator doors for the Captain.

Chapter Text

Tony picked up a piece of the random pile of parts that he had scattered all over his workbench. He quickly went to unscrew the first screw he could find. It wasn't like Rogers would be able to tell that the parts in front of him didn't belong to each other at all, some old armor, some old tablet, he might actually recognize the engine piece that lay smack in the middle of the heap, so Tony quickly put it back into the drawer.

The elevator doors buzzed open. At least he wasn't in full Captain America uniform. He had changed into jeans and a tight workout shirt. Tony wouldn't be surprised if he had actually jogged from the Compound to the Tower. His eyes went down to the piece of junk in his hand again.

"What up, Cap?"

Rogers stepped up all the way to Tony's workbench before he spoke up. "I was looking for you at the Compound. We need to talk."

"Can't Cap. Little busy. I can drop by the Compound later tonight."

"This is urgent."

"Then I'll drop by urgently. Tonight."

Rogers huffed and shifted his stance from one foot to the other. His voice was low and Tony tried to ignore the short looks that the Captain sent into the corner where Peter sat and made himself look busy typing on the tablet.

"There's a kid sitting in your lab, Tony," he said, his voice low.

"I'm aware."

"I mean, Nat mentioned an intern, but I thought... Did you get a kid in here just to prove a point?"

Tony rolled his eyes at him. "Seriously, Cap?"

Rogers had the good manners to look embarrassed by his own question. "Sorry, it's just... I've never seen you with an intern and this... This doesn't seem safe. You're usually so careful to keep your Iron Man technology out of other people's hands."

"That's not what we're working on. It might shock you, Cap, but the Avengers are not actually my day job. It's more of a hobby really."

"Don't be an ass."

Tony dropped his hands and both the screwdriver and the piece of tablet landed on the tabletop with a low bang. "I'm being an ass? You just accused me of dragging a kid off the street and into my lab to prove a point to Nat," he whispered completely ignoring the fact that Peter would likely be able to hear them either way. He could only hope that the kid was so paralyzed that he would try to drown out their voices.

"Right." Rogers bit his lip. Then he cleared his throat and called out, "Hi, there."

Tony swallowed deep and shot a quick look over his shoulder in Peter's direction, who had frozen stiff in his seat.

"The kid's working, Cap. Let him be."

Rogers frowned at him. "I'm just being polite." He looked back over to Peter. "Hi. I'm Steve."

Tony turned again and found the kid staring, mouth soundlessly gaping open. He cleared his throat again. "Listen, we're in the middle of—"

He turned to the Captain who had a brilliant smile plastered on his face, nodding encouragingly before he dropped his voice to interrupt Tony. "What's wrong with him? He looks freaked out. Did you like ground him or something?"

"What?" Tony whispered back out of reflex. "Of course not. Nothing's wrong with him."

"How you doing? Learning a lot?" Steve called out louder in Peter's direction.

Oh, this was so not how Tony wanted things to go. Peter was still cowering in his chair, spooked by the sheer presence of Captain America.

"Come on, Cap. You intimidate him."

"What? I don't. Kids love me."

"You're an Avenger."

"Exactly! And so are you."

"Yeah, but I'm a lot less impressive out of the Iron Man suit, while you are... well, look at you, Cap."

Rogers actually looked himself up and down. "I help people, Tony. I'm not a threat to anyone." Rogers shot another look over to Peter, who was still staring at the two of them, then another one at Tony. Trying to move his lips as little as possible he whispered in Tony's direction. "Are you sure that he'd alright? He looks really pale."

Tony groaned. "Hey kid, come and say Hi, will you."

Peter's mouth fell open all the way.

"It's fine," Rogers called and waved him over. "You don't have to be nervous."

He was only trying to be nice, Tony knew that. He just wanted to be a good guy. It's not like he could have known why Peter was trying to keep his distance. Slowly, he rose out of his chair and stalked over to them. Hands buried deep inside his hoodie's pockets, eyes anywhere but Rogers. He got closer but came to a stop a considerable length away from them.

"Hi there." Rogers tried again.

"Um... Hello."

"It's nice to meet you..." The Captain arched his brows in expectation.

"This is Peter," Tony added quickly.

"Ah, nice to meet you, Peter."

Rogers stretched his hand out for Peter to shake. Peter shot a glance over at Tony and Tony just shrugged and nudged his head towards Rogers. Surprisingly obediently, he stepped a little closer and shook Rogers' hand, eyes still lowered.

"Peter seems like a clever fellow. You can look after things for a bit, right son? I just gotta hijack Tony here for a few minutes."

Oh nice try, Cap. "It's Peter's first day, Steve. You suggesting I let a minor unattended in the lab on his first day? Legal would have a field day with me."

Rogers turned to face him. "10 minutes. 20 tops. Come on, we really need to talk about... you know. The thing we talked about before I left for..." Rogers' eyes shot over to the kid then back to Tony. "For you know where."

"You're giving me a headache, Cap. I'll be at the Compound at 8."

"How about this, Peter could go and get himself a soda or something. Take a little break?"

Peter's head shot up at that. His puppy eyes literally begging Tony to let him go and hide. That little traitor.

"Urgh. Fine. Closest cafeteria is on the 53rd floor. Don't forget your access card." Peter turned on his heel and headed for his backpack to retrieve his pass, then hurried to the elevator.

"Just a moment, Cap." Tony stepped up to Peter and lowered his voice out of earshot of Rogers. "You have the phone I gave you, yeah?" Peter nodded, eyes on the floor in front of him. "FRIDAY will let you know when to come back up. They'll scan your ID at the café. Just get whatever you want, alright?"

"Thank you, Mr. Stark."

"Yeah, whatever."

Tony cleared his throat as the door to the elevator opened. He turned and stalked back towards Rogers, who called out a cheery "Bye, Peter."

"Bye... Bye, Mr. Rogers," Peter mumbled.

As soon as the doors closed, Rogers started with his speech. "Listen, I know you didn't like that we send you to the meeting with the city council on your own."

Tony let himself fall onto one of the sofas by the wall next to the kitchenette with a sigh. "What gave me away?"

"Come on, you know what we went to do was time crucial. We couldn't wait and neither could that debrief with the city." Rogers stepped closer to him.

"We're in the middle of dealing with the aftermath of a terror plot in Manhattan, one we almost botched and you guys fuck off to Switzerland. Come one, Steve. That was a bullshit move and you know it."

Rogers pursed his lips. "It was important."

"Yeah, to you. I get that you want to help your buddy, but you can't put your hobby above our responsibilities to the people—"

"It's not a hobby!" Rogers interjected.

"—the people in this town. This whole country really. We lose face as a team when it's just me who turns up to these things. And more often than not it's just me who turns up to those things!"

"That's not true and you know it. We've all been trying to help with the aftermath of those big fights."

"Oh yeah?" Tony sat up, arms braced on the sofa. "If I remember correctly after Ultron you stayed at the Compound, training."

Rogers huffed. "To be fair, Ultron was mostly on you, so really I don't think it's the responsibility of the team to do damage control in that case. We were busy prepping for—"

"You don't think it's the responsibility of the team to have my back?"

"That's not— Of course we have your back, Tony. Come on, you know that."

Tony shook his head and let himself fall back into the cushions. "Let's get this over with. What about the debrief do you urgently need to know?"

Rogers blinked at him, eyes his special shade of disappointed. "Don't do that."

"Do what, Steve?"

"Don't act like we don't care about you. We do. It just, sometimes... sometimes things are more complicated and we have to do things that are more pressing and we can't be everywhere all at once."

"Right." Tony bit the inside of his cheek and swallowed the bitchy response that was already forming in his mind. "Again, now that you made me stop working and had me throw my intern out of the room. What's the urgent information you need so I can get back to my job?"

Rogers crossed his arms and stared at the floor, head shaking from one side to the other.

"You really don't have to be like that."

"Excuse me?"

"You complain that we left you alone with this. Then I make it a priority to come and talk to you first thing after we get back and that's not good either! I just can't win with you."

Tony looked up at him, his jaw dropped open. "Are you serious right now? You ditch me, then you storm into my lab and demand that I make time for you right away."

Rogers huffed again. "Well, it's important."

"I know, which is why you should have been there in the first place," Tony snarled back. "A week later it's not a matter of life and death anymore."

The Captain had his arms crossed, eyes on the floor. Tony couldn't take it anymore, he stood up and walked into the kitchenette.

"Come on, Tony. Are you seriously just leaving while we're in the middle of this?"

Tony rolled his eyes, back still turned to Rogers. "I'm making coffee. You want one?"

"I..." Rogers shuffled from one foot to the other behind him. "I guess, yeah."

"Espresso? Coffee Crema? Americano? Machiatto? Cappuccino? Latte?" Tony turned and looked up at him, the Captain's face pulled into a moody grimace. Tony threw his hands up in defeat. "Sorry, of course. Americano. What was I thinking?"

"A latte would be fine." Rogers sighed. "Thank you."

They stood in silence, the machine's noises of grinding the beans and heating the water drowning out Tony's thoughts that were screaming at a louder than inside voice volume. He took Steve's latte as well as his own espresso and turned back to him, pushed the drink into his hand then sat back down.

After another moment of silence, he looked up to the Captain. "I mean most of this is in my notes, but Steve, things are getting hairy. There were at least 35 officials from all kinds of different government agencies, local, state and national levels at that meeting. They tried to paint us as boundaryless, as interfering where we have no jurisdiction. They are just waiting for us to make a mistake and that day we were damn close to a major fuck up. These people... We challenge their power. They are just waiting for a chance to take us out so they can get back to business as usual."

With a deep breath, he stared him down, his tone painstakingly placatory. "Tony these people are civil servants who dedicate their lives to the wellbeing of—"

Tony almost spilled the hot espresso all over himself as he got up from his seat. "Damn it, Steve. Shut up and listen to what I'm telling you."

Rogers face twisted into a snarl. "Don't tell me to shut up, Tony!"

"Listen to me when I tell you, maybe not all of them, but a dangerous amount in high-ranking positions is not out to protect the people. They are out for power and we challenge that power."

"That's..." Rogers sighed. "I'm sure there is the odd crooked politician who would—"

"Cap, you need to trust me on this."

"I always trust you!"

"No, you don't," Tony responded in a bitter tone he just couldn't help. "But that doesn't matter right now. I need you to hear me on this. We need to be careful. They are planting mistrust and doubt in our abilities and motives. And it's not just a couple of guys."

"Okay, I believe you." Rogers took a sip of his coffee, looking anywhere but at Tony.

"They think we're working with the Spiderling." He hadn't wanted to bring up Peter but he'd have to at some point and he stood a better chance in a one-on-one with Rogers than in a room with the whole team contradicting him. "They want us to reign him in."

Rogers did spill his latte at that. "I told you we need to find that guy! I told you he would be trouble."

"He saved our asses, Steve. I did the research. The guy usually only engages with petty crime and there's no reason to think he'd ever get near a scene where we're involved ever again. Not after Wilson chased him through the streets as a thank you for helping us out that first time around."

"He's a liability. We need to—"

"Did you actually listen to anything I just told you? They want us to fight amongst ourselves."

"He's not one of us!"

"The Spiderling is not a villain or even a questionable guy. They see him as a threat because he's different."

Rogers sat his cup down. "You don't know that."

Tony downed his espresso in one sip, the hot liquid burning his throat. He put down the cup, then threw his hand up in frustration. "Come on, Steve. He's just a kid."

Rogers' eyebrows knitted themselves together in a frown. "Just a kid?"

Urgh, damn it, Stark. "I mean, he's just a young guy. From what I can tell, from the mentions online, he'd been active for a few months. He's not important."

"If the government wants us to—"

Tony raised his voice again. "It's not important, Cap! We need to forget about all that shit and focus on the big picture. On the threat that is out there that only we can handle. That every damn agency would be completely outmatched by. That's what's important."

"We can't ignore what is happening around us." Rogers' voice was low and serious, a clear contrast to Tony's agitation.

"I'm not saying we should, but we also need to prioritize the important things." He made an effort to bring his voice down, to sound reasonable and calm despite his level of frustration. "Like finding out where Bruce went. Like establishing active contact with the outside world. We know what's out there now."

"We suspect what's out there," Rogers retorted quietly. 

"I saw what's out there. New York, Loki, the Tesseract, that Stone in Visions head. Those aren't coincidences. You just need to trust me on this."

Rogers nodded. "Fine. Alright. I hear you." He picked up the mug again and downed what was left of the content in one go. "We'll talk about this with the team. Tonight. 8 pm."

"Fine. I'll be there." 

Rogers left his mug on the couch's adjacent table next to Tony's and walked over to the elevator without another word. FRIDAY, being the good girl that she was, had the car waiting and closed the doors as soon as the Captain had set foot into the elevator. Tony groaned. His elbows propped up on his thighs he leaned forward and buried his face in his hands. This could have gone worse. Sure. It also could have gone better. He rubbed a hand across his eyes actively trying to get into a better headspace. 

"Sir, the Captain left the building."

Tony didn't have it in him to answer her. 

I hear you. I trust you.

Did he though? Doubtful. Very doubtful. Tony could only hope that they wouldn't overrun him with their narrow mindedness in that meeting. He could probably do with some backup.

"FRI, send a message to Rhodey. Ask him if he can make it to the Compound till 8 tonight. I need him there." He took a look at his watch. 5:42 pm. "Tell him I wouldn't ask if it wasn't important." 

"Sure thing, Boss."

"And then send a message to the kid. He can come back up." He stood up and grabbed both Rogers' mug and his own espresso cup and dumped them in the kitchenette.

"Peter Parker is on his way. Colonel Rhodes will try to make it by 8 pm."

"Thanks, girl."

Tony sighed as he remembered the mess on his workbench. He grabbed the tools and the random parts of different machines strewn about the tabletop and put them back into the drawers they belonged in. When the elevator door opened they revealed a nervous Peter Parker, wringing his own hands as he looked around the lab.

Tony swallowed his mood. "I mean, I told FRIDAY to tell you that he left."

"I know," he whispered.

"Just don't believe me?" He couldn't help but let the annoyance slip into his tone. He was really sick of people assuming that he was lying or even bending the truth when he had never been in the habit of lying. He never even had much reason to. Hell, he couldn't even lie about being Iron Man when SHIELD begged him to do so.

"I'm sorry. Of course, I do. It's just... I didn't... When he showed up, I just, I didn't know what to do and..." Peter stepped closer watching as Tony put away the last pieces from the workbench.

"Right." Tony didn't look up until the last part was back in its appointed place. The kid looked sad. This was ridiculous. They had actually gotten into a nice atmosphere before Rogers had shown up.

Peter didn't look up as he spoke. "I'm sorry, Sir. I just... I didn't want to tip him off and I didn't know if he—"

"Pete, just... it's okay." Tony ran a hand through his hair, rubbing his fingers against his skull. Not that that would do anything for his throbbing brain.

"I... I'm sorry. I'll get my stuff. I'm—"

"I already told you last weekend. You need to stop apologizing all the time, kid." His face turned a light shade of crimson, but Tony opted to ignore that. "Just... yeah just get your stuff."

Tony turned back to the workbench. With a simple motion of his hand, he had FRIDAY pull up the holographic keyboard. A couple of lines of code later he had pulled up the project on the web fluid. When Peter's footsteps stopped at the other end of the table Tony looked up to find he had put on his jacket and shouldered his backpack. Tony's eyebrows arched almost disappearing under the slightly disheveled hair hanging onto his forehead.

"What.. what are you doing, Mr. Stark?" The kid's eyes had widened and focussed on his own handwriting that was now projected at a larger than human scale in the middle of the lab.

"I was getting back to what we were working on before Captain Fantastic strolled in and put a damper on things."

"Oh," was all he had to say to that.

"What are you doing? Unless you're hiding the Glycerin in your backpack that's not really the 'stuff' I thought you were gonna get."

The corners of the kid's mouth actually moved at that. He quickly discarded his backpack and jacket on the sofa next to the kitchenette and walked up to the wall panel that held the chemical ingredients Tony had bought. He bent down and after a little hesitation, he pushed then pulled at the panel then pushed again. When the panel stayed shut, Peter turned and threw a questioning look at him.

"If you ask nicely, I'm sure FRIDAY will help out."

He bit his lip. "FRIDAY, would you please open this panel here? The... the one with the ingredients for the web fluid, please?"

"It would be my pleasure, Peter."

The kid beamed as the door flew opened. He shot a little look in Tony's direction like he was trying to apologize for being too excited and it made Tony despise whoever had taught the kid that there was something wrong about expressing the unironic joy for the things that he so clearly loved to do.

Tony turned his back to the kid worried that the sadness he felt at whoever had messed with the kid's spirits would show too plainly. He bent down and collected a few test tubes and laboratory flasks from the bottom drawer. Packed with 5 or 6 different bottles at once Peter walked back over to Tony and carefully placed all of them onto the workbench. 

"Alright then." Tony rubbed his hand together and cracked his neck. Enough moping. He needed to get his head in the game. He had an Avengers meeting coming up that night that already made his head spin. He might as well enjoy the kid showing off his stuff. 

"Go ahead then, Pete. Walk me through it."

"Me?" His eyes were on Tony, round and open.

"Well, duh. This is your formula, is it not?"

"I... yes. Yes, of course, it is."

Tony shrugged. "Well, show me."

Peter beamed again and reached for one of the flasks. He quickly checked his own notes projected now in front of them. It was a very different image than the Peter he had seen so far. The kid who despite his superior powers seemed unsure and timid most of the time. Apologetic and always afraid to offend. This looked a lot more like the Spider-Man in the youtube clips that Tony had binge-watched whenever he had been stuck on something in the lab over the last few days and needed to air out his mind. 

Peter added one ingredient one after the other always careful to point out how this exact formula differed from the one he had currently used in the web-shooters. He used a little iron rod to stir the mix and after a bit of bubbling and sizzling, he pulled the rod out, a myriad of tiny long web strings clinging to it. Tony offered for them to make two more batches varying from the first one and Peter eagerly agreed. 

"The problem was usually space. I couldn't do this at home and at my desk in school I only had so much space. It would have been difficult to have fresh batches side by side like this," Peter explained.

Tony's mouth gaped. "Wait, you did this at your desk? During school?"

"Yeah, well, sometimes in a free period if the room wasn't locked." He shrugged. "The school has an alarm so I could hardly break in after hours."

"Jeezes, kid..." Tony shook his head in disbelief. He stirred the third batch and then stretched his arm in a wide circle iron rod still in hand, pulling long strings of web in its wake.

Peter had his hands on the second batch. "The fresher the web fluid is the easier it is to fire it and the longer the web keeps its structural integrity. If it's too old it'll clog the shooters."

They bottled all three batched and Tony left them in one of the desks drawers labeled with different batch numbers.

The kid was ready to leave, jacket pulled on, backpack strapped to his back. He stood in the middle of the room, head bowed. What now? He'd been doing so good. The smallest things seemed to push the kid into a melancholy low.

Tony crossed his arms and leaned his back against the table. "What is it now?"

His head shot up. "Huh?"

"You're brooding over something."

With a frown, Peter shook his head. "I..." he looked down to his hands again then shrugged and held up his ID pass for the Tower. "This has my yearbook photo on it."

"It does."

Peter's hand had sunken back down and he lowered his eye at it.

"Is that a problem?" Tony asked, exaggerated cheerfulness swinging in his voice.

"No, I... I guess not. It's just..." He didn't look up, only turned the card over in his hand, spinning it back and forth. "Where the hell did you even get this?"

Tony's eyebrows shot up. It took a few short moments for Peter to look up at him and at once his face fell from a soft puzzlement into mild shock. "Sorry, I mean..." He squeezed his eyes shut and gave his head a couple of short shakes, then looked back at Tony eyes wide. "Where... where did you even get the photo?" 

"Your school has a lousy firewall." Tony shrugged. "It's how I found you after you ditched me. I told you how I found your school record, didn't I?"

"Erm..." Peter scratched the side of his nose. "I don't... I guess. Maybe."

"When I came to your apartment."

Peter grimaced. "I do remember you coming to the apartment."

"Well, that's where I got it."

That school record had been a goldmine. Almost everything was in there: not just pictures but his address, birth certificate, social security number, information on his family, or what was left of it, health record - though that was outdated with the spider powers -, extracurriculars, his academic record as well as psychology reports by his teachers. 

"That..." Peter looked down at the ground. "Isn't what's in there a bit... you know..."

"Private?" Tony offered.

He looked up at him. "I mean... yeah."

"Maybe you shouldn't have ditched me then?"

Peter lowered his eyes to the pass in his hand again.

"It is, Pete. Which is why I only looked at what I needed to find you."

Tony really hadn't looked at all of that in detail because a) he had other things to do and b) it did feel a bit like poking into someone's personal life and god knows his personal life had been poked at since he was born. Peter still had his eyes cast down.

"You understand why I had to look for you, right?" Tony tried to keep his voice soft without making it patronizing.

"Yeah, I guess..." Peter shrugged.

"I'll see you on Friday then."

"Yes, Sir."

"Take care of that cut of yours."

Peter's nose wrinkled as he screwed up his face at that.

"It's looking a lot better, kid. Just don't ignore it because you think it'll just heal on its own, alright?"

"I won't, Mr. Stark."

Tony breathed out a deep sigh. "Off you go then. You sure you don't want a car? It's pretty dark outside already."

"Mr. Stark, I can stop a car doing 40 miles per hour only with my hands." The kid gave a smug little smile at that and it seemed a note as good as to end the day on. Peter gave a short wave before he disappeared into the elevator. "Bye, Mr. Stark."

"Bye, kid," Tony called over his shoulder. "FRIDAY, time?"

"It's 7:12 pm, Sir."

That was enough time to get to the Compound, take a shower and then battle his way through that dreaded Avengers meeting. He put away the last few things on the workbench.

"You think he had a good time, FRI? Not sure if I'm any good at this mentoring thing."

"Why don't you ask Peter, Boss. He would seem to be a better person to judge your mentoring skills."

Tony waved her off and stalked towards the elevator. "Yeah, 'cause that's not desperate at all. Just get me upstairs, girl." 

"As you wish, Boss."

A few minutes later on the 68th floor, Tony stepped onto the outside landing and only seconds later the Iron Man suit enclosed him completely.

Chapter Text

The wind was lashing against the giant windows behind him. It howled like it was trying to tear the house apart brick by brick. It was pitch black around him. The darkness of the room should have been soothing, but there was a distinct throbbing just underneath the surface of his skull that didn't allow for any kind of relaxation. A throbbing that underlined that he shouldn't be lying there. He should be up and about. He should be doing shit. All these idiots were completely incompetent. He was the only one that could get shit done. And that's what he should go and do right that instance.

He tried to wrangle himself out of the couch cushions but was trapped by the fluffy surface like a turtle that had fallen onto its back. He trashed about, tried to wiggle back and forth spilling whiskey all over himself.

Right. He was still holding the glass. Fucking glass. 

He tossed it across the room and as it hit the tiled floor of his living room it shattered into a million pieces. Urgh, fuck's sake! The crash made his head explode.

Maybe it wasn't his inner voice that had his brain throbbing like that. Maybe it was the booze. Well, only one remedy for that: more booze.

The table next to him was easier to get to and he blindly patted for the familiar feel of the bottle but got his hands on a glass instead. Of course, there was a second glass sitting right there on the table. Tony Stark always had a contingency plan for a drink. He fumbled around the table some more till he almost knocked over the whiskey bottle.

He poured the liquid into the glass. For the most part. Fuck the darkness. He could pour a dink in his sleep, plus only an imbecile would drink whiskey straight from the bottle. Let alone 4000 Dollar plus Whiskey. And if he took a sip right from it before he one-handedly tried to push the cork back onto the neck of the bottle, then nobody had to know. Just as he had dumped the bottle somewhere between the cushions the overhead lights lit up like the sun.

"Fuck, JARV'S, turn 'ff the fuckin' lights. Fuck's sake."

"Yes, Sir."

Darkness enclosed him once more. He closed his eyes for a moment, then brought his lips to the glass and took a deep gulp. Just that second the lights came back on again. Tony tried to swallow quickly but some of the liquor found its way into his windpipe by mistake. He doubled over coughing, his vocal cords burning, spilling whiskey all over himself as he shook from the coughs.

"Tony, what in the world..."

He couldn't stop coughing. His hand clawed at his throat, tears stung in his eyes. Then a series of forceful blows hit his back.

"Stop—" He coughed some more. "Pepper, stop—"

She stopped her assault on his back, one hand still held onto his arm.

"Oh my god, Tony. Are you alright? What is—" 

"I..." he forced out another series of coughs, eyes slowly adjusting to the light in the room. "Fine. I... 'm fine."

Her hand let go of him. "Jeez, you reek."

"So?" He made an effort to suppress the burn of his lungs and glanced over to the glass in his hand instead. At least he hadn't spilled all of it, so he took another gulp.

"Tony, stop." 

She reached for the glass but he was not that out of it yet. He held it as far away from her as he could manage, just like the responsible grown-up that he was.

"Tony, give it to me. This... You can't be serious with this. Come one now."

He shrugged. "What? No' like anyone's 'ere 'ho's gonna care."

"Stop it!"

He did glance over at her at that. She didn't sound mad. Usually when he fucked up - which, well, it had been a while - but usually she would be mad. This... no. She could keep her damn pity.

"Why, huh? Why shoul' I?" Not like anyone is gonna give a fuck.

"Tony, please. Please, just..." She rubbed a hand across her face. "Just give me the glass, come on."

He rolled his eyes at her, downed the rest of the whiskey with a couple of big swallows and held out the empty glass for her to take.

"That's super mature, Tony." She took the glass and placed it on the table out of his reach. "What's that? Did you smash a glass against the wall?"

"'round."

"Excuse me?"

"No' the 'all. Jus' the 'round."

He felt her eyes on him, judging him. She had no right to fucking judge him. Nobody had a right to fucking judge him. Least of all Pepper Potts.

"Jus' fuckin' go. 'm fine." He was. He was fucking fine. Peachy. Why wouldn't he be? Fucking police department had done all they could. What more was he supposed to get? 

"Tony, please just let me help. I'll help you get back upstairs. You have to be at the office tomorrow morning. The annual assembly of the board is tomorrow and... Tony, we can't postpone it again. Please, I know this is difficult, but please, just.. just let me help you get to bed. And tomorrow... tomorrow is another day and we'll take it from there."

"Pfft." He reached for the bottle that was buried between the cushions. "Sen' Obi..." The old farts could assemble all they wanted. He didn't give a shit.

"No!" She did manage to rip the bottle out of his hand this time. "You gotta be kidding me, enough! I know you're hurting, but this... this isn't helping anyone! None of this is going to bring Aiden back, Tony. He... He'll—"

"Fuck 'ff, Potts. Jus' fuck 'ff."

###

Tony leaned back into the couch cushions, a glass of whiskey in one hand, a bottle of 50-year-old Glenglassaugh in the other. Bottled in 1965. 4200 Dollars apiece. This stuff was older than him. He pushed the bottle onto the table next to him. He really needed to get a new comfort brand. There were too many memories tied to this one. Memories he had no interest in reliving.

Rhodey had already left. He had a training exercise scheduled the next morning. Maybe Tony should have just flown back to the Tower, but there were still some rooms that were under construction on his floor and the crew would show up early, so he had stayed at the Compound after "the meeting" instead.

Honestly, while things could have gone better, they certainly could have gone worse. That much was true. Maybe there was a certain amount of remorse that they had left Tony to his own devices with the debrief by the city. Nobody screamed excessively, nobody acted irrationally, or more so than usual. 

Maybe having Rhodey there had been the key, despite the jab from Wilson about Tony calling in the cavalry.

"FRI, how's my calculation coming together?"

"There are 7 minutes and 18 seconds left to process the adjustments, Sir."

The cavalry jab had been a bit of a low blow if he really thought about it, but maybe worst of all was that it had worked. Or was that best of all? He couldn't quite decide if it was a good thing or a bad thing that the atmosphere had shifted so drastically compared to the meeting they had had right after the terror attack. Less blame-shifting, fewer raised voices. Maybe it was simply the time that had passed between the attack and the meeting. Maybe that had been enough to have calmed everyone's tempers. Maybe it hadn't been about Tony's cavalry at all.

"I think we all agree that things could have gone better that day," Rogers had said, eyes moving across the room. "We should have had a better grip on their contact with the civilians. We can't let them goat us into a hostage situation."

Tony's eyes were on the folder in front of him, his notes from the meeting with the authorities. 

"Wanda and Vision were just about to engage. We could have handled things," Wilson threw in.

Natasha groaned from the seat on Tony's left. "Speculating about this after the fact will get us nowhere."

"I know that," Wilson bit back. "Still, we don't know—"

"That's right," Roger stopped him. "We don't know. What we do know is that they were playing our weakness against us, using human shields. We will have to look into a strategy to get civilians away from the scene more efficiently."

"But we did do that." Wilson chimed in again. "Wasn't that what Stark was doing?"

Tony looked up and found the eyes of the team squarely on himself. "I did."

"Well..." Wilson shrugged.

"I can't very well carry them all out of the way at once. I diverted traffic and showed them where—"

"Tony is right." He looked up at Rogers who had cut him off, a little stunned. "He can't be in two places at once and we should have circled them more efficiently, should have come at them from two sides." 

Well, would you look at that...

"I could try to lift people out," Wanda offered.

"No," Rogers shook his head, his fingers drumming a random rhythm on the table in front of him. "You're the only one who can contain more dangerous elements of an attack. We needed you focused on the vials. I will..." His fingers hammered against the table a couple more times before he stopped. "I will look into this. See how we can improve our effectiveness. Nat, how about the men we have in custody."

Natasha sat up in her chair. "I'm still working on the main guy, but the other two talked." She sighed, hands interlaced in front of her on the table. "They didn't help all that much though, other than confirming some of our intel. The operation was definitively tied to Crossbones and both have confirmed a trip to Africa. Unfortunately, neither of them seemed to know that Africa is a continent, not a country, so it's not gonna help us narrow down the location we need."

"What do we know about the larger HYDRA bases in Africa?" Rogers asked.

"Listen, I can't say all that much about this," Rhodey cleared his throat and send a look in Tony's direction that screamed Top Secret classified government business. "But one thing I'm just gonna put out there for you to... well, think about: How do you guys know that Rumlow is still on HYDRA's payroll?"

"Rumlow is not with HYDRA anymore?" Wilson asked.

"I didn't say that," Rhodey said and nodded his head two times.

Tony bit his lip and shrugged. "He needs money. Makes sense that he would look for mercenary work to pay the bills."

Rogers shook his head. "HYDRA has always moonlighted as mercenaries. One doesn't necessarily cancel out the other."

Rhodey tilted his head at the Captain, then pursed his lips and raised his eyebrows.

"What?" Rogers asked, slightly irritated. "They have. It's not just confirmed by the documents of the—"

"Steve, he's saying Rumlow no longer has his allegiances with HYDRA," Tony cut in. "He's saying he can't tell you why because clearance but we should look at Rumlow as an independent actor."

"I didn't say any of that. I just asked a question." Rhodey nodded his head in Tony's direction, conveying a silent 'This, thank you.'

"You know, Rhodey, they have a well-respected community center over in Poughkeepsie. It's less than a 20-minute ride, less than 15 if Cap is driving and rumor has it that they have a very well frequented 'acting in the round' course there on Thursday nights." Nat leaned forward to look around Tony and sent Rhodey a beaming smile. "I feel like you would fit in perfectly."

Rhodey's features didn't move. "Thanks, Nat. Coming from you, that's a real compliment."  He pulled up his lips into a wide, toothy, fake-ass smile.

Tony just rolled his eyes. "Alright, children. Africa? Anyone have anything more specific?" 

At that point, he had taken out his phone and projected a map of Africa floating above the conference table. The team's discussions on balancing the validity of all the collected intel were generally the smoothest part of their meetings and the same was true at that one as well. It hadn't been until Wilson had brought the Spiderling back up, that things had gotten a little more heated.

"I'm telling you, Wilson, there is no benefit for us if we hunt the Spider-Man." Tony insisted again. In all honesty, even if he hadn't known what he did know about Peter, it was still the worst idea for them to flex their muscles and try to capture the Spiderling and force him into an interrogation. 

"You just said that even the chief of the NYPD wants us to do exactly that," Wilson countered.

Tony took a deep breath, desperate to keep his cool. "Yes, and that's one of the reasons why we need to be careful."

Wilson opened his mouth to argue against that but Rogers gestured for him to stop. "Tony said, that there are vibes in those government agencies that want to pit us against each other." 

"Come on, Rhodey. It's the NYPD for god's sake!" Wilson crossed his arms. Rhodey shrugged, his arms raised in a 'so what' kind of way.

"Even if I'm wrong with that suspicion," Tony started begrudgingly because he wasn't wrong. "Even if they're just worried about the Spider guy, there's no indication that he is a threat that we need to deal with and it's not in our interest to push him into opposing us. We've got more important issues at hand."

"So we just ignore that he butted into our mission?" Wilson called out.

Tony folded his hands in front of himself, eyes on Rogers, ignoring Wilson. "You wanted me to find him. I can do that. He'd not resurfaced since that night in Manhattan." That much was actually true. The kid had listened and stayed off the streets. Thank goodness. "When he pops back up, I'll find him and I'll go and talk to him."

Rogers frowned, fingers of his left hand back at it, drumming a steady rhythm on the table in front of him. "I don't know about this, Tony. We don't know this guy and we can't let people walk all over us without any consequences."

Tony swallowed the testy retort that was on the tip of his tongue. "There is an argument to be made that he didn't so much 'walk all over us' but helped us so Rumlow's crew didn't walk all over us."

"We could have absolutely managed without—" Wilson started again.

"Alright." Tony cut him off. "I get it. It would have been a cakewalk if he hadn't jumped it." Wilson just huffed in annoyance at that. "Either way, he's usually involved in stopping local petty crime. Let's not go overboard here. Let's just... I'll seek him out. I'll talk to him and if he doesn't give me the information we want, we can still hunt him down and bring him in."

Rogers had his eyes on Tony, elbow of his other arm resting on the table, chin propped up in his hand.

"It's not the worst idea," Natasha spoke up. "Tony has talked to him before and he'll be more agreeable on neutral ground." She shrugged, "And Tony's right. If he isn't, we can still change tactics."

"Mr. Stark brings up an important point." The team's attention turned to Vision. "It is a sound approach not to escalate the situation unless we have to. I could accompany Mr. Stark on his assignment."

Tony grimaced "Less of an assignment, more of an errand." Also, hell no. For all Tony knew Vision would scan the kid's vitals or something or worst case scenario analyze Tony's actual relation to the kid, maybe even read his mind if Vision got suspicious. Peter might have many talents, putting on an act was not one of them. "I don't know, buddy. We just decided not to bring out the big guns on the first visit."

"Very well." Vision nodded. "Maybe then Sam could accompany you. He can fly so it would be a—"

"Hey, whoa," Wilson called out "How is my name the first that comes to mind in the 'not the big guns' category."

"I am sorry, Sam. I did not mean any disrespect," Vision's tone was so dry, Tony sometimes wondered if he had mastered sarcasm after all and was just trolling all of them.

Tony was careful to keep the edge out of his own voice. "No offense, Wilson, but you chased the guy for how many blocks? Not really the atmosphere I was going for either."

"I'll go then." 

Tony did freeze for a moment before he turned to look at Natasha.

She shrugged. "I was with you during the fight. Makes sense that I come with you on this."

"Right." Tony cleared his throat and forced an aura of unfazed indifference into his posture. Best case scenario had been Rhodey, but he wasn't on hand in NYC on short notice. Well, best case scenario would have been that Tony 'went' by himself. With Nat, he'd have to stage an actual rendezvous and she would be able to read the kid, would certainly try to analyze him, but she was still only human and he had to still seem reasonable. "Makes sense to me."

And that had been that. They had agreed and now Tony only had to figure out when the Spiderling would resurface. He'd have to give the kid some time to adjust to their new arrangement, to trust him. He couldn't risk that Peter tripped himself up in front of Natasha. Urgh, this would haunt him until it was dealt with. He took a sip of his Whiskey, his other was massaging small circles onto his temples. 

"Sir, the process is complete. The result shows a 7.2% improvement in processing speed with a simultaneous reduction of battery usage of 2.1%"

"Damn, that's not even half the impact I was going for on battery life." He sighed. "Alright, shelf it for now and add it to the project list. How many entries does that make for this quarter?" 

"The list contains 78 entries, Sir."

Tony took another sip of whiskey. "That's less than last quarter, right?"

"A decrease from last quarter of 4% but an increase to last year's first quarter of 8.6%"

"That's good enough. Format it and send it over to Potts' office."

"Would you like me to add a note, Sir?"

He brought the glass back to his lips and mulled that one over. She still hadn't answered his calls. He'd have to go down there to talk to her, he knew that much. But LA was not a day trip unless he took the suit which he wasn't supposed to outside of emergencies. NYC was one thing, cross country a different matter. This wasn't about them though. This was business and she was still his CEO. 

"Projection FQ1 2016. Add the relation to last year and last quarter. Sign TS." 

He emptied the glass. Bedtime.

##

It was 11:45 am. Another 30 minutes till lunchtime and Peter was starving. A constant these days. On a good day, his Spidey-powers had cranked up his metabolism and increased his calorie intake by up to 150%, the last week had been way worse. He had been eating constantly. All-day long. The thing was, he had never dealt with a serious injury before so he had nothing to compare it to, but he was absolutely certain that it would have to be connected to the energy his body needed to heal. He'd been sneaking power bars and snacks into class that he was discreetly munching on whenever he could, but he was in the middle of Mrs. Warren's class and she would definitely call him out on it. He could wait. 

It was only 30 minutes till lunch break after all.

His eyes were resting on the notebook in front of him. His laptop was once again out of commission and since he'd been at the Tower the day before he hadn't really had the time to fix it. Not that he was going to complain. That trip to the Tower had been... Well, it had been all over the place, started pretty stressful and just as it had turned out to be kinda fun Captain America had shown up. Peter was still proud, that he hadn't lost his shit. At least not completely. Sure, he had skipped out of that room as soon as the opportunity presented itself. And he had felt a little guilty as he had been sitting in the cafeteria, 23 levels between him and that conversation Mr. Stark was having with Captain America. That really hadn't seemed like a conversation he had wanted to be in the middle of or even a silent bystander to. They had seemed so curt with each other and Peter had no idea why. And did he want to find out why? Not really. The Avengers were heroes. Disregarding that time that the Falcon had chased him through the streets of Manhattan and the general panic that paralyzed him whenever he thought of them now, they were still the Avengers. They were a team. Earths mightiest defenders.

In a fairer world, things should have gone so much differently. He would have shown up in that street in Manhattan. They would have been struggling with these bad guys just as they had and he would have saved the day. Helped them out and earned their approval. Their respect. They would have thanked him and invited him for a beer and he would have waved them off with a cool phrase.

'I'll take a rain-check. Queens still needs me.'

He cringed. Maybe not that. His pencil flew over the page in front of him drawing out the delicate lines of a certain shield with a big star in the center of it.

'My shift's not over. Another day.'

Urgh, no. Well, it would have come to him in the moment for sure. And then they would have thanked him for his help and he would have gone home. 

But that's not what had happened. At all.

Dang, his stomach was acting up. He knew that little feeling. It was getting ready to growl at any moment. He shifted in his seat trying to suppress it but no, instead he had to fake a cough to cover the embarrassingly loud rumble that cried out from his stomach. He quickly got a piece of candy out of his coat pocket, carefully unwrapped it though every tiny rustle made his eyes fly up to the front of the class. Mrs. Warren had a strict no snacking policy and he could do without the lecture on it. This wouldn't be his first offense. He coughed again and as his hand flew up to his mouth he maneuvered the piece of candy into his mouth. 

Ha, Mrs. Warren hadn't even turned around. He lost the ear-to-ear grin though when he smugly turned to his side and found MJ stare at him, eyebrows raised in open disapproval. Oops. Well, she wasn't going to tell. Hopefully. She might give him shit for it after class, but that he could live with.

The stealthy candy routine had dragged him completely out of his daydream. That was probably for the best. He studied the blackboard. Right, light refraction. 

"Dispersion causes prisms and rainbows to divide white light into its constituent spectral colors," Mrs. Warren's voice rang from the front of the classroom.

He let himself be swept up by the teacher's explanations, took some notes and as the candy's sugar flooded his system it was easy to take in the details and notes on the subject. The added bonus was that time went by so much faster. 

12:12 pm. Three minutes till lunch break. He was almost there.

"Ah, yes, one more thing," Mrs. Warren had shuffled through the papers on her desk. "Yesterday, we have received word from Stark Industries. I'm sure you all remember the presentation Ms. Potts gave on the company's new internship program. I know some of you applied through the school for one of those spots. Well, they informed us that they have taken on one of our students."

Peter had frozen in his seat. Damn, he had known that a couple of students from his AP physics class had applied, and a bunch of the seniors as well, and as great as that was for them, he really didn't want to run into any of them at the Tower by accident. He was sick of making up excuses. 

"Some of you might have already heard it from Mr. Parker himself, but of course the school wants to officially congratulate you, Peter. We're all very proud."

Peter couldn't feel his face. He wasn't quite sure if he could usually feel his face. Maybe this was the status quo, but oh. Oh.

He blinked at Mrs. Warren who led a round of applause in his honor. His gaze shifted to Flash who just stared at him, arms crossed, face drawn in puzzlement and mild disgust and then Peter winced as Ned shoved his shoulder.

"Dude, what?"

Peter looked at him. Oh, no. The ringing of the bell broke up the applause from his classmates. 

"Mr. Parker, if you could just hang back for a minute," Mrs. Warren called out to him over the noise of the class grabbing their things and heading off to lunch.

He turned back to Ned, whose mouth was still open in shock.

"I... I'll see you at lunch," he mumbled in his best friend's direction before he quickly grabbed his stuff and walked up to the teacher's desk.

"Mr. Parker, congratulations!" Mrs. Warren stretched out her hand for Peter to shake and he automatically took it and slowly shook it, just staring at their hands, almost forgetting to let go. What the hell was he going to tell Ned?

"We were so surprised to hear the news. You must be very proud. I just... I wanted to..." Peter looked up at her as she cleared her throat, her eyes on the back of the room where the last students shuffled out of the room. "Peter, I'm just a little surprised. We have been trying to be as supportive as possible to students who wanted to apply for the program and I..." She looked over at him, her features soft, eyebrows knitted together. "You know I would have been happy to help you with this. You're a very bright young man and I just wanted to make sure that you know that you don't have to work through these things on your own. That's what your teachers are here for. I mean, that's why I'm here. To help."

Peter's eyes widened. "Oh, yeah, no, of course." He tightened the hold on his backpack. "That's, Mrs. Warren I... I just... I just, erm..." Dang it, Mr. Stark, a head's up to this would have been nice! "I just didn't even think that I had a chance to get in at all. I mean, so many students applied and it just seemed a little silly to think that I... I mean of all the people who applied, you know... I mean, yeah. I just... I just thought I try and didn't even think this far ahead."

"I see." She looked a little sad. This was awful. 

He scrambled for some kind of explanation that might make sense. "I mean, I just didn't want to waste your time with it, because, the odds, especially as a sophomore, were just so, you know, unrealistic."

"Peter, I would always be happy to help. Just, you know, for any future application, you can always come to me for a letter of recommendation." 

Her concern was so sincere, he was a little touched. "Thank you, Mrs. Warren. That's... thank you." 

"The email said that you pitched a project about clean energy. That sounds fascinating. Maybe you can tell the class about it at some point? When you've gotten a hang of things?"

"Erm... I... yeah..." Peter pressed out a smile. "Yeah, sure. That'd... that'd be great!"

"Alright then. I'll let you get to lunch. Congratulations again, Peter."

Peter nodded, thanked her again before he got out of there as fast as possible. 

So, now the school knew. This was great. Just great. He was starving but he made a beeline for his locker instead of the lunch hall. Ned was waiting for him there and he would have questions. Many, many questions. And Peter had no answers to any of them. No answers he could share that was.

He quickly put in the combination to his locker. The door was a little stuck and he had to take a step back and shake the tension from his arms for a moment. His whole body was buzzing with adrenaline. This was what he got for not telling Ned sooner. For avoiding him ever since the little... little incident in Manhattan. He just didn't know how. How were you supposed to tell your best friend about the Stark internship that you had never applied for? Especially when Ned knew that he had never applied because Peter usually told him everything? Everything that didn't involve weird spider bites.

He rubbed his hands over his face.

Breathe. Just breathe. He could do this. He could think of something. Ned would believe him because, well, it was Ned. He'd never suspect that Peter was lying. 

His heart stung at the thought. This was an awful thing to think. His eyes were closed, his hands had wandered to his ear and partially blocked the buzz of the students around him. His pulse was coming down. He'd just have to think this through. He could do this. 

Another deep breath and he reached for the locker door, careful to just pull it loose where it was stuck, not to pull it off its hinges in his agitation. First things first, he unwrapped one of the power bars. There was still a whole stack in his locker and he'd be able to think a lot better if that rumble of his stomach was under control.

He had told May that he had not told her, because he hadn't known if he would even be accepted. That one wouldn't be enough with Ned. Unless he could convince him that he hadn't even known that he had gotten the internship until Mrs. Warren had just told them. No. That seemed a little out there. He took another bite, the sweet, sweet carbohydrates flooding his system. Food was the best thing. The very, very best thing. 

He hadn't told Ned because, because, because...

"Hi, Penis!" Peter cringed as Flash's voice echoed through the hallway. "How the hell did you pull that stunt, huh?" Flash walked up to him, arms crossed, and looked him up and down in open disgust. "Do you really think anyone would buy that SI took you on? You of all people? You gonna make up some bullshit about meeting Tony Stark next?"

Peter wasn't going to give him the satisfaction. If he won't engage with Flash, he'd just go away. At some point. Or at least that's what all those leaflets said.

Flash was getting closer and it took all of Peter's self-control not to take a step back. "Probably just going to be 'too much work' again like your fake internship at Oscorp, right? Not enough time for a fancy internship, poor baby. Anything to get people's attention. You're shameless, Penis."

Well, thank you, Flash.

Peter didn't even look at the guy as he pushed his locker shut and headed straight for the lunch hall. The line wasn't that long so he could quickly pick up a try with some fish fingers, fries and a small bowl with 3 apple slices. The school was really worried about healthy food, and the apple slices made all the difference. But he only cared that it was food at this point. Tray in hand it wasn't hard to find Ned in their usual spot, quietly picking at his food.

"Hey..."

"Oh, hey Peter." He didn't look up at him. Okay, this was even worse than overexcited Ned.

"Listen, Ned. I'm sorry, I didn't tell you. It all just happened so quickly and then—" Peter stopped as Ned looked up at him, eyes open and vulnerable, mouth drawn in sadness. 

He should tell him. He should just tell him everything right now. He could trust Ned. They had been best friends since, well, as long as he remembered living in Queens. This just sucked. All the lies, all the excuses. This wasn't him. It was gonna eat him up inside. One day he would just blurt something out and everything would come crashing down around him.

He took in a deep breath. No. No, he couldn't tell him. He couldn't. It was just... It wasn't safe. It wasn't safe for any of them to know. The more people knew the higher the risk that someone would find out who could use it against him. That everyone found out. Peter couldn't let that happen, not just for his own sake, but if people found out about his secret, that would put his family and friends in danger. He couldn't live with that, so it had to be this way. It had to be the lie. For now.

Peter let himself fall into the chair next to Ned.

"Why didn't you just tell me? You've been so weird, avoiding me all week. You didn't even answer my text on the weekend if you wanted to come over." 

Peter kept his voice low, out of earshot of the other students. "I'm sorry, okay? Just... After that disaster with Oscorp, I just wanted to keep this to myself till I knew that things would work out. I didn't even know that they'd tell the school about it." 

Ned shook his head, eyes still on his food. "But Oscorp was months ago."

"Yeah and I still haven't heard the end of it from Flash. I just... I'm just sick of it."

Ned did look up at that. "He's an ass."

"Yeah, he is," Peter agreed and then inhaled a few fries.

"So, you've really been to the Stark Industries building? Can you like... just walk in there now?"

Peter looked up at his friend. "They gave me an access pass and everything."

Ned's eyes went wide. "That's so cool!"

Peter shrugged, "I mean it's only valid for the times I'm actually scheduled to be there. I can't just like walk in there whenever I want."

"But still..."

"Yeah..."

"So cool! What are the labs like? Did you like take photos? They will probably not let you take photos, right? I mean, god, don't take photos, maybe they'll like kick you out if you do."

Peter did smile at that. "It's huge and they have just about everything you could even think of. It's crazy, I mean just compared to the robotics lab it's like another planet." 

"Oh my god, you know I just realized when you're there you could like totally be in the same building as Tony Stark. I mean, I don't think the Avengers are there a lot anymore but just last week I saw this video..." Ned pulled out his phone and scrolled through the youtube app.

"I mean, I don't know about that..." Peter was going to go to hell for this. All the lies. 

"Look at this." Ned had pulled up a video of the Manhattan skyline with what looked like an enormous shooting star flying across the night sky. "He's totally flying to the Tower there. I read that people have seen building crews walk in and out of it and this one blog said that there was a contractor who talked about like a crazy extension that Tony Stark wanted to build up there on the top floors because he had trashed the whole floor during like a super out of control party but that he was really stingy on paying for it and just gave the job to the company that rolled out the cheapest offer. That's crazy, right? Just imagine he's up there like telling people what walls to blow out while you're in his lab."

Peter shook his head. "Stark Industry's lab." That shooting Iron Man across the New York sky was a familiar sight. He had actually witnessed a very similar view just a couple of weeks ago. Just before his very first visit to Stark Tower.

"I mean, you'd think that of all the people in New York, Tony Stark would just pay the people he hired good money. He's a billionaire, he has like so much money." 

Peter frowned. That didn't sound right at all. "What do you mean that he trashed the floor? I mean, he hasn't even really been there since the whole Ultron thing."

"Oh, you think? Is that what people are saying at the Tower? I mean, none of the Avengers have been in the city a lot, right? That would make sense. Wow, do you think like he was avoiding the Tower because he feels guilty? I mean, people say that he went crazy with Ultron, right?"

Peter looked up from his food. "That's not right. It can't have been Mr. Stark's fault. The Avengers work together on these things. They are a team." But were they still? Maybe there was something true about that. Tensions between Mr. Stark and Captain America had certainly been high. But no, it couldn't be. Mr. Stark wasn't that kind of guy. That kind of guy would have never helped Peter out like he had. He would have dropped him off at the next hospital or worse, the next precinct. Peter picked at his food, eyes on his plate. 

"People have been speaking really well of Mr. Stark at the Tower. Like, that he is very generous and... and really looks out for people."

"Seriously, Penis?" Flash popped up behind him at the worst moment. "Already making shit up about your fake internship?"  

"Get lost, Flash!" Ned spat over his shoulder.

"Nobody believes you, loser."

Peter kept his head down and sighed with relief as one of the teachers came close enough on his rounds through the lunch hall to scare Flash off.

"Just ignore him. He's just jealous," Ned said.

"Yeah, I know. He's just an ass."

"Oh hey, with that internship? Do you like get paid to work for them?"

Peter shook his head. "What? No, I mean, I'm just... you know, it's just like a learning experience kinda things."

Ned frowned. "Really? Didn't they say it's like really well funded? It's a bit shitty that he wouldn't pay his interns, right?"

Peter bit his lip. Oh shit, how well was the internship funded? Miss Potts had said something about grants for projects, right? "I mean, I can like eat in the cafeteria and just put it on the access card."

Ned's mouth fell open. "Wow, that's so cool!"

"And I think... I think they like fund research things."

"Wow, maybe they'll even let you see the arc reactor!"

Peter nodded, eyes on his plate. "Yeah... yeah, maybe."

Chapter Text

Tony's Friday had been of his regular brand of hectic, the way his Fridays usually looked like. Last-minute questions and dead-end fluttering in from the R&D labs of things that should really be done before the weekend and people got stuck on and needed quick input for. So Tony jumped from one project to the next and never really had time to get into his own project. As soon as he had set foot into the Tower he had to deal with some final questions the building crew had and almost an hour later when he finally made it to the lab FRIDAY was ready to flood him with message requests.

It was past 3 pm by the time he had actually managed to work through the most pressing issues and got to breathe a little. 

"Have we heard back from Potts at all, FRI?"

"She sent her regards for the detailed quarterly report around noon, Boss."

Tony rolled his eyes. "Detailed report my ass." He closed the last document concerning a microchip the LA branch was working on. "Alright, I'll look into more of those messages tonight. Just notify the remaining working-groups that they will have to wait till Monday unless they're in on the weekend."

"Right away, Sir."

He let out a deep breath and pressed the heels of his hands against his temples before he rubbed them across his eyes. 

"Open up last night's version of the new operating system. Urgh, I need some coffee." 

"I'm afraid I can't brew any coffee for you right now, Sir. The water tank needs to be refilled."

He shook his head in annoyance. "Didn't I do that like an hour ago?"

"No, Boss. I told you it needs refilling about an hour ago when you asked for coffee and you opted for an energy drink instead."

Right. Now that she mentioned it... He really needed to move Dum-E and U to the Tower.

"Alright then, just get me to section 5.2 C on the document for now."

He sat back down in his chair and blinked a couple of times before he focused on the projection in front of him. Something was still sucking out more battery than it should and it had to be display related. No other component could be that—

"Boss, Peter Parker has entered the building."

"What already? What time is it?"

"3:29 pm, Sir."

"Alright. I still need to finish this, but you can let him up."

He leaned back in his chair again. Of course, he had his day torpedoed by the most predictable onslaught of message requests. He had really wanted to get some more of this done so he'd have a clear head for the Sojourner project with the kid. He scanned the code, looking. Looking for something that looked like it was off. He'd know what it was as soon as he'd see it. 

The elevator doors opened to the lab and Peter called out with a quite cheery "Hello, Mr. Stark."

Tony just waved in the kid's general direction and kept scanning the document. The shuffle of Peter's feet came to a halt just next to his workbench. 

"I just need a few more minutes for this, kid. Can you go and put some water into the coffee maker?"

"Yeah, okay." He shuffled off towards the kitchenette and Tony could hear the kid's backpack and jacket rustle as he flung it onto the sofa.

This was not gonna work. He already knew when he opened the file that he wouldn't finish this before the kid showed up but he would have at least liked to have some new variables for FRIDAY to run while they were working on the suit. 

"FRIDAY said you asked for coffee but she only made an espresso, so..."

Tony almost jumped out of his chair. "God, kid. Don't creep up on a man with a heart condition like that."

Peter stood right in front of him, the little cup protectively cradled in his hands. "You have a heart condition?"

Tony did look at him at that and grimaced before he waved off the comment. "I'm just being dramatic."

"Oh, okay." He pulled an apologetic face in return and held out the cup for Tony.

Tony's eyes flickered from the kid to the cup, but he just jerked his head at his workbench. "Just put it down on the table for now."

Peter nodded and quickly set it down next to him.

"Alright, FRI, just close it up. I'll have another look later on."

"Yes, Boss."

"Alright kid, how about you then?" Tony took the cup and threw back the hot dark liquid in one go, relishing in the sweet burn in his throat. "Got here alright?"

"You told my school." The words shot out of him like he'd been waiting for this all week.

Tony looked up from the espresso cup in his hand and frowned. "Excuse me?"

"My school, they know about the 'internship'", he air-quoted. "My teacher told me you emailed them and then called me out on it in front of the whole class!" The kid's eyes were wide, face flushed and Tony was... confused.

"Called you out?"

"Well, she told everyone. The whole class."

And that was a bad thing because... he frowned at the kid. "First of all, I didn't email anyone."

"Well, they know and you told me to trust you and then you let me walk into—"

"Second of all..." Tony's eyebrows arched up until Peter fell silent. "All internships have to be co-signed by the school just like we needed the permission slip from your aunt. So yeah, I guess the school would know. I told you I added the records to the SI files and the school probably got notified in the process."

"Well, they all think I work for you now. Or, well, not all of them. But she told the whole class. So, most of them believe it."

"And lastly," he raised the volume of his voice to talk over Peter's rant. "I kinda fail to see what's so bad about your school knowing that you scored one of the most prestigious internships in the country."

The kid did stay quiet at that and lowered his eyes to the floor. Tony just shook his head, still processing the avalanche of words that had just hit him. 

"And what do you mean, most of them believe it?"

Peter just shrugged.

"Well?" 

"Well, the others think I'm lying about it."

"What?" Tony put the cup down on the workbench and took in the kid's apologetic shrug. "What kind of idiot thinks that you can lie about an internship after the school was notified by the company?"

"I mean, it doesn't even matter," Peter mumbles, eyes still not meeting Tony's. "It's just... a bit of a warning would have really been great."

"And what good would that have done?" He crossed his arms, studying the kid closely. 

"I mean, then I could have told my friends or... or even my teacher. She was all hurt and confused about why I didn't come to her for help with the application. And..." The kid just shook his head and gnawed on his lip. "It just sucked, is all."

Tony sighed and got out of his chair. He gave Peter a couple of pats on the shoulder. "I would have warned you if I'd known that was gonna happen. I have no interest in any of this catching you off guard and exposing you, alright? I'm a little too tied up in all this to blow it up in my own face on purpose, kid."

Peter nodded and shot a quick look at him. 

"Alright then." Tony gave the kid's back one last pat. "I do have something that's gonna brighten your mood. FRIDAY, open Project Sojourner 5A.1 for us."

"Right away, boss."

The kid frowned. "Sojourner... like the Mars rover?"

"Exactly like the Mars rover," Tony smirked.

The lab was immediately illuminated with the projection of the training wheels program Tony had put together for the Spider-suit, but his eyes weren't on the projection but on Peter. He couldn't help but smile when his face went slack, his jaw opened more and more with every moment he looked up at the projection and his big brown eyes widened so much that, a weak reflection of the projected plans flickered in the kid's eyes.

"Not bad, huh?"

Peter's eyes moved over the plans, his head slowly tilting in wonder. "I... This..."

Tony chuckled and then turned to face the plans as well. "Yeah, I know. I do have that effect on people."

"But this is..." Peter shook his head slowly from side to side. "When you said..."

"This will take a while, Pete. It's not a project that's done in a week."

"Ha!" Peter belted out.

"But you're still healing anyway and now that you're all happy and stunned, let me give you the damper that comes with this."

The kid's mouth slammed shut and whipped around to look at Tony, eyes still wide but filled with less wonder and more sudden alert.

"Now, don't freak out..."

"Oh no..." he gasped.

"...but after my meeting with the team on Wednesday..."

"No, no, no, no, no!" Peter threw his hands up in horror.

"...they decided that they don't want me to bring you in."

"No, I... wait, what?" His hands dropped slightly, his forehead drawn into a frown.

"Instead they want me to question you on why you were in Manhattan and tell you not to get involved in our missions without asking."

Peter blinked at him. "Oh, well." The wheels were turning in the kid's head. "That's... I mean, that's not—"

"Aaaand, they want me to bring the Black Widow to the 'interview'", Tony added.

And that was where he lost him. "No, no way! You can't! She'll know! She's a freaking spy, she'll know right away and I can't, please, Mr. Stark, please, I mean we could, I don't know, I could—"

"Alright, Pete, take a breath." Tony grabbed him by the shoulders and made him sit down in his own chair. "The alternative would have been Wilson or Vision and Vision would have smelled the underaged pheromones on your head or something."

Peter scowled at him. 

"Wilson might not be all that bright but he would have been the most likely to escalate the situation and I can't punch him in the face to give you time to skedaddle." 

The kid did smirk at that. "You would punch the Falcon in the face?"

"To stop him from dragging you to Compound?" Tony shrugged. "I'd at least consider it."

Peter just shook his head and looked down onto his hands.

"Building the suit will take a few weeks."

"A few weeks?" The kid looked up at him, all the excitement blown away at once.

"Yes, a few weeks. This is not a weekend project and I do have a couple of other things on my plate as well." 

"I can help though!" 

"Oh, you better believe you will help. Still, we need a bit of time for this. I told the team I will monitor your movements and track you down when you pop up on the radar again."

Peter bit his lip. "So, the sooner I go out on patrol, the sooner you drag me to see the Black Widow."

"Natasha is not a danger to you, alright. She just wants to make sure you're not a threat and we have some time to get you accustomed to this plan, alright?"

The kid nodded. It was gonna be okay. Tony could get the suit done by mid-April and then squeeze another couple of weeks out of them when he would "calculate" the kid's "new routine" so they could "intercept" him. By then, things would have quieted down. Who knew, maybe they'd be occupied by who knew what by then and they'd all but forget about the kid. 

"How about we put some work into your new suit then?"

Peter smirked and nodded. Yeah, they'd do alright working like this for a while.

##

Peter was spread out across his twin bed, lying on his back, legs propped up against the wall. His right hand had crawled underneath his shirt and had come to rest on the soft slightly raised skin of the scar tissue on his abdomen. His eyes were on the ceiling and his brain was doing nothing. Absolutely nothing. He was so damn bored. He couldn't even remember what he used to do with his afternoons before he became Spider-Man.

He'd done his homework. He had fixed what had turned out to be another loose connection on his laptop's memory slots. He had put some moisturizing wound-salve-stuff on the scar tissue of his stab wound to ease the strain and he had been staring at the ceiling for 30 minutes trying to remember what it felt like to do a backflip in midair while swinging from one street side to the other.

He missed it so much it hurt. Every cell in his body ached for that freedom and fun. Oh god, all the fun. The sense of accomplishment he had felt after a successful patrol.

He rubbed both hands across his face. He had to get his mind off of this. He was 5 minutes away from pulling on a black sweater, scarf, and hat and just going for it. And he couldn't. He really, really couldn't. Mr. Stark would kill him. Probably literally. Peter would be dead and gone before he even saw it coming especially...

He groaned into the palms of his hands.

Especially with his senses still acting out. He had climbed about 12 stories on the outside of Stark Tower about a week ago on the first day of his internship which had been dumb, to begin with without even a mask to hide his face but man, that had felt good. Until it hadn't. Until his senses had gone haywire. And he didn't know why. It wasn't an isolated incidence either. He'd felt a similar sense of overwhelming sensory input on some of the subway rides over to Manhattan. He was almost certain that is got worse when the pain or his anxiety had spiked. That must be what triggered his sensory overload, what ran down his defenses and left his senses bare to the world. Like the first 10 days after the spider bite, that had been torture. Worse even than that night of the, well, the incident. He could only hope that nothing would ever be as bad as those first days had been.

But he hadn't been in much pain when he had climbed the Tower. Or in the subway on the ride over and still... It wasn't that he was scared. He wasn't. Point was, he couldn't trust his senses right now. Something was triggering him and he would have to figure out what. Preferably when he wasn't hanging off a building.

The other day he had gotten so bad he had actually sneaked out of his window and just scaled a couple of walls of the buildings a couple of blocks from their apartment. It was a miserable rainy day and 2 am so nobody was around, but it had been liberating to feel the air rush through his hair again, the thrill the long drop send through his body before he landed with both feet on the ground. He had only jumped from somewhere between the second and third story, and no flips or tricks or other artistic figures were involved. He really wasn't scared, just... just cautious. But still, even that had been fun.

The only thing that kind of took his mind of things were the hours he spent in the workshop with Mr. Stark. He did miss the crime-fighting and he felt guilty that he wasn't helping people, but there was also this dread creeping up on him that once Mr. Stark was done with the suit, his time in that lab might be over.

##

Anytime Tony would get fixed on a new project the days in the lab could easily just fade into each other. Usually, Pepper would be able to pull him out of a working spree, but well, that ship had sailed. But while he'd always been accustomed to short periods of sleep and extended periods of tinkering those extended shifts would usually take their toll on him after some time. But with that boy walking in and out of his lab every other day, Tony was forced to somewhat keep his shit together and look like an adult. The things the kid had been working on in the lab quickly turned from Spider-Man stuff into actual SI projects. Tony had originally really only wanted to keep an eye on the teenage vigilante to keep him from killing himself and causing trouble in the city. It had never occurred to Tony that the 'internship' would turn into an actual internship. They had worked on Peter's suit and sure that had been something Tony had expected to be in the cards when he sought the kid out, though he had quite successfully kept the kid out of some of the more intricate features he was designing for the Spider-suit. The safety stuff, the extras for different forms of combat, active and reactive features, the advanced coding... It quickly turned into such a complex system that Peter would have a hard time coordinating all the things that Tony had in mind for the suit when he would actually be using it.

This was probably the kind of thing people meant when they talked about dads going overboard with his sons' science fair projects. Of course Tony didn't—  

He shook the thought from his head. Nope, not going there. 

Suit. Complexity. There was an easy-ish fix and that was programming an AI to help Peter control the suit. It wouldn't have to have the complex structure that FRIDAY had, just enough to guide him. But even Tony Stark didn't program an independent AI in a week. He needed the suit to implement it so the kid had to wait for his first outing with the new suit. Not that he knew what exactly he was waiting for. He would have access to the training wheel system and every other underlying feature would either operate automatically or have to wait till he trusted Peter with it. There was a time and place for when you could tell a 14-year-old kid exactly what the enhanced features on his superhero suit were and that time would be when the kid turned 21. Maybe 18. Or at least 16. Well, Tony would have to see how things went. 

That's where the SI projects had come in to keep Peter's mind off what exactly was taking so long. Peter had shown up Wednesdays and Fridays in the first couple of weeks and when Tony had run out of things for the kid to tinker with on the Spider-suit on that Friday, he had requested Peter's help on the next Starkpad prototype Tony had been working on instead. And, jeez, the kid was into that techy stuff. It had been almost 10 pm by the time Tony had insisted that his driver would bring Peter home, Spider-senses or not. They were doing okay on school nights, but the Friday after that it was even past 11 pm by the time Tony thought to check his watch.

"Damn it, your aunt is going to kill me!" Tony groaned. "FRIDAY, get me the car. I want Larry to drive him."

"But Mr. Stark, we're not done," Peter moaned. "You just said, it's only like an hour, two tops and I really want to see how you implement a flat cable this tiny with the graphic card and still stretch it all the way to the processor!"

"It'll be almost midnight by the time Larry drops you off, Pete! You should have been home three hours ago."

"Please, Sir! I could... I mean..." The dark brown puppy eyes were more effective than his Spider-senses. "May really won't mind and you don't have to worry at all. You don't have to keep your driver up because of me either. I totally know how to get home and it's not like it gets dark in Manhattan anyway. And we're almost done."

Tony scratched the back of his neck. It'd be so much easier if having the kid in the lab wasn't such a ridiculous stress relief. He never usually tolerated other people in his space, especially the lab. The only exception had been Bruce. There was probably an argument to be made that the break from Pepper had left Tony craving a certain amount of human interaction. As much as he could tell himself that he preferred his workshop as a solitary work environment, there had been a powerful constant with him for over a decade of his adult life wherever he went. Pepper. 

Was Tony actually comparing the Spiderling's companionship to the place that Pepper had in his heart? God, that was equal parts creepy and weird for a grown man to think about. He looked up at Peter, who still refused to get his stuff, a tight grip on the .3 hex screwdriver in his hand.

Oh, whatever.

"You call your aunt!" Tony pointed a finger at him, eyes narrowed.

Peter bit his lip. "I kinda texted her like  2 hours ago."

Tony's eyebrows shot up. "So, she already knows that you're working late? She is gonna send me a really long letter of complaint, right? Or put the cops on me for breaking child labor laws."

Peter shot a short glance in his direction. "I... I kinda told her that I'm at my friend Ned's house," he said. 

"Peter!" At least the kid had the decency to look ashamed of himself. 

"What? She's happy I'm safe. And I am."

Tony just sent him a look because, right, Iron Man's workshop was a super safe place for a kid to hang out at.

"She thinks I'm spending the night at Ned's and I can just climb in the window when I get home and sleep in on a Saturday morning while she leaves early for work. It's a win-win for everyone." 

"Sure, as long as CPS doesn't find out and has me arrested." 

Peter turned to him, pointing the screwdriver at him in a way too adult manner. "You know, it's really not fair that I would have to go and miss out on learning things just because someone somewhere decided how long someone my age can be asked to pay attention or not. I'm totally fine concentrating for more than a couple of hours."

Tony narrowed his eyes on him. "That's so not what child labor laws are about."

Peter just shrugged and leaned over the workbench, eyes on the interior life of the table they had been working on. "For labor laws to apply you'd actually have to pay me first," he mumbled.

Tony's jaw dropped. "That's quite the attitude on you, young man!"

He just smirked and send an almost shy glance in Tony's direction. "I'm not wrong though, am I." But then he just shrugged, eyes back on the project. "I'm sorry, I was just kidding. I mean, it's fine. It's not like I earned my place in the internship program anyway. It'd not be fair compared to everyone else who—"

"You kidding me, right?"

Peter turned and looked at him, his face sporting a distinct apologetic earnestly. "I know what kind of effort students have to put into their applications to get accepted into this program, Mr. Stark. I mean, it's not like this is the real—" He gave his head a short but forceful shake. "I've already learned so much. I don't... I didn't mean to sound like I'm complaining." 

"Pete, I'm building you a multimillion-dollar crime-fighting suit. If you pool every cent every single intern makes in this building for a whole year or two probably five it wouldn't—”

"I know. I know. It's just..." He shook his head again. "I know. Thank you."

Tony sighed. "It's not gonna be much longer. There's still a few... It has to be perfect before you can use it. I can't have it fail when you're swinging from one building to the next."

"I know, Mr. Stark." Peter tapped the rounded end of the screwdriver on the metallic surface of the workshop a couple of times. "I just... I understand."

"You miss it." 

Peter nodded. "I do."

"Soon, alright?"

He had only nodded again. The fact that they would have to schedule their meeting with Natasha as soon as Peter regularly went out on patrol again also helped to keep the heat off of Tony to finish faster. It wasn't like he was stalling on finishing it. He wasn't. He wasn't in a rush to have the kid hunt down burglars either though.

Peter watched every single move Tony made attaching the last few elements onto the tablet's motherboard. Tony did let him solder on the last couple of connections, guiding him to the right spots, pointing out where to be careful, not that Peter had needed it. He was a natural.

It was 3 am by the time Tony told FRIDAY to close off the last note on the project. Peter had spent the last hour or so nestled on the couch by the kitchenette, legs drawn up to his chest. He'd been nodding off in his seat while they documented the internal cabling of the tablet, but was outright denying that he was even a little bit tired. 

"Really, Mr. Stark," he had insisted. He had really, really just closed his eyes very briefly to visualize and remember the work they had done. He wasn't tired at all. Yeah, right... Tony had suggested they move to the sofa for some tea and note-taking instead. 5 minutes later after Tony had fetched two pots of tea from the kitchenette, he had found the kid fast asleep on the couch and had simply moved back to his desk to finish the last of the documentation.

This wasn't normal. This wasn't him. He was getting attached. He was getting attached in a way he shouldn't be.

He crouched down next to the couch and softly shook his shoulder. 

"Come on, Pete. This is no place to spend the night. Your back would kill you in the morning."

Peter rolled to the side and gave a big yawn, eyes still closed. "Back problems are for old people, Mr. Stark."

Tony chuckled. "I'm serious, come on. The guest room upstairs is a lot more comfortable."

"Wait..." He opened his eyes and blinked against the bright lights of the lab. "The guest room?"

"Come on, now. You can head home tomorrow." 

He put away the last of his things while the kid still seemed to need a couple of minutes to brace himself for the walk from the couch to his bed for the night.

"Mr. Stark?"

"Yeah, Pete?"

"Why did you call it 'Project Sojourner'?"

Tony frowned. "You already know that. You... you understood the reference right away."

"The Mars rover?"

Tony took the new Starkpad prototype and locked it into one of the wall panels.

"Yeah, the Mars rover."

"But... but why?"

He walked back over to the sofa and held out his hand to help the drowsy kid off the couch.

"Pathfinder's little sidekick. Come on now."

They got onto the elevator and Peter squinted against the bright light.

"Dim it down to 60%, FRI," Tony called out to the AI.

"Thanks," the kid mumbled. "So..." he rubbed a hand across his face and didn't even try to hide a wide yawn. "So, I'm your little sidekick?"

Tony turned towards him and looked him up and down. "I mean you're little."

"Pfft..." Peter followed him out of the elevator into the penthouse.

"And you're definitely not the main act."

"I can stop a car with only my hands, Mr. Stark."

Tony chuckled. "Yeah, you mentioned that. Room's down there, second door on the right. Ask FRIDAY if you need anything."

"Thanks, Mr. Stark," Peter mumbled and staggered down the hallway. "Night..."

"Night, Pete," Tony whispered. 

The remodel had been completed a couple of weeks prior and - pathetically - the kid was the first one staying over since. Tony didn't really want to think too hard on what that said about his miserable social life. But what else was to be expected if he spent his Friday nights in the lab with the kid.

This wouldn't do. Another week and the Spider-suit would be finished and then Peter would spend his nights on patrol again. Tony really needed to get a life. 

As he lay in bed, eyes on the dark ceiling above him, his thoughts just wouldn't stop spiraling.

"FRI, let me know if the kid wanders around the penthouse."

"Of course, Boss."

"And FRIDAY, run new analytics on every piece of information stored in AES03 subfolder 'all the shit' on my private server. Then list every police report, every complaint to CPS or local authorities that involves kidnapping, child abuse, child endangerment or child trafficking from 2005 to today and cross-reference it with all the information we already have."

"Very well, Sir. Where do you want me to file the results?"

Tony closed his eyes and took a couple of deep breaths. 

"Keep it in AES03, new folder 'last one'."

Chapter Text

Mondays always had a weird vibe to them. Even before Peter had started his secret Spider-Man career, Mondays had always been weird. The mix of the fresh start into a new week dampened by the long school schedule filled almost entirely with absolutely overrated subjects like Spanish or Social Studies and, of course, PE. Sure, there was the tiny bright spot of the physics class in the middle of all of the boring stuff, but suffering through PE more than balanced the scale, tipped it toward sucking really. He hadn't been a fan of PE even before the bite though for a completely different reason. 

Back then his body had been so weak that every single task in that class had left him feeling like a waste of space. Like he couldn't even do the simplest task. But faking his uselessness on the rope or during sit-ups now seemed even worse. He always had to be on guard not to just do something ridiculously supernatural, catching a ball that spun in his direction at such a speed that it would be unreasonable for Peter to catch it, jumping too high, turning too fast by instinct. Or anything else that a scrawny 14-year-old nerd shouldn't be able to pull off. 

Yeah, Mondays sucked. But then Mondays were also academic decathlon days. Of all the extracurriculars he used to attend, decathlon was now the only one he hadn't quit yet.

"Are you really not gonna come back to robotics, Peter?" Ned whispered.

Peter shook his head, eyes on the questions in front of him.

"I mean, I get that the lab at the Tower must be so much better but we always had so much fun working on that stuff together."

"I know, Ned. I just don't have the time right now," Peter whispered back.

That was partially true. He had been fading out the afternoon activities over the last couple of weeks, had spent more and more time at the Tower. Those hours in the workshop where he could just tinker with Mr. Stark, where nobody yelled any insults at him, where he didn't have to pretend to be somebody else. Like the other day when Mr. Stark had put his water glass down at a weird angle and the glass had tumbled. The water almost spilled over the whole battery of microchips they had laid out and taken notes on. But Peter had just reached out and caught the glass with ease. Mr. Stark had cracked a joke and they had just moved on. Kept working. No surprised glances, no awkwardness that Peter would later analyze in detail, wondering if he had given himself away. Mr. Stark just knew and it wasn't a big deal anymore.

"Well, how about you come over tomorrow after your thing with May for an hour or so. I've got the basic bones of the Death Star knocked out already and we said that we wanted to do it together."

"I can't, Ned. I have this project at the Tower that I need to finish tomorrow to meet the deadline. I'll probably be there until 7, at least." Peter crossed off the last couple of questions on the sheet in front of him, a selection of 5 remaining to be added to the pool of topics in preparations for nationals. Just in time for MJ popped up behind them, demanding their results.

"But... but do you go to the Tower on Tuesdays now as well? And what about May? Don't you guys have your day tomorrow? Don't you usually go down to the pier and—"

"Oh shit!" He threw his hands up and covered his face.

"Mr. Parker, please keep your enthusiasm in check," Mr. Harrington called out to him.

"Sorry, Sir," Peter mumbled and sank further down into his chair. Holy shit, how could he? How could he have not remembered?

"Dude, did you forget?" 

Peter didn't turn to look at Ned. He didn't need to see his friend's eyes widened in shock, the distinct disbelieve in his voice was shameful enough.

Ned scooted closer to him, his voice a low whisper. "Did you tell May you're not gonna go?"

"I didn't forget, okay?" He spat out. "I just... I must have mixed up... I must have—"

"I'm sure it'll be fine, Peter. Just tell them and ask to postpone the deadline to another day. I'm sure they'd understand."

Peter shook his head. "I can't. I said I would finish that project. I can't... I can't make up excuses just because a commitment I made doesn't fit into my social calendar." He took out his phone and pulled up May's contact. His old, battered knock-off android phone. He could hardly show up at school with a brand new Stark phone.

"It's not an excuse, it's like... a family emergency thingy."

"It's not an emergency, Ned."

He pulled up the text message history between himself and his aunt.

Running a little late.

Don't wait for me, I ate at Ned's.

Sorry, can't make dinner, I'm a little stuck with this thing.

I'm going over to Ned's after school. See you tonight.

Staying at Ned's for the night.

A whole list of excuses. A whole list of lies and he'd only been working with Mr. Stark for a month. Well, the suit would be ready soon. It must be. Mr. Stark had told him he was almost done and then who knew when he would get to work in the lab again. Or if Mr. Stark would invite him back at all. He needed to soak up as much experience as the man would let him until then.

Hi, about tomorrow. I know we usually go down to the pier, but I have this deadline I need to meet with the project I'm working on and—

"Peter, you with us?"

His face heated up at Liz's voice. He hid his phone underneath the table and just nodded at her. "Yeah, sure."

"Alright, so this practice round is only about a third of the categories that were selected for nationals," she continued and as soon as her attention was elsewhere, Peter had his eyes back on his phone.

—and I just wanted to—

He took a deep breath and closed his eyes for a second before he deleted the last couple of words.

—and I think it's just not gonna work out tomorrow but we can always go another day. 

Sent.

"Dude, are you really not gonna go?"

Peter shrugged. "What does it matter if we do this tomorrow or on the weekend?"

"I mean, I guess." Ned scratched the side of his face, awkwardly looking back and forth between Peter and different random parts of the room.

By instinct, Peter looked at his phone again and saw the ominous one-liner, May's reply.

We'll talk about it tonight.

Great. Just great.

##

Tony had always been a great worker. An exceptional worker. He had been developing his own tech before most kids celebrated their first day of school. His ability to filter out everything around him and focus only on the one thing in front of him made his work so exceptional. Sure he could run in circles around the tiniest problems drowning out everything else until they were solved. But that was what made the results so perfect. The tiny, tiny hiccup with that was that his brain just couldn't be trained into recognizing a deadline as anything more than a distraction that had to ignored with all the rest of the useless noise. He just couldn't help it. The projects were done when he deemed them to be done and that was that. Discussion over.

Then about a month ago this amazing thing had happened. He had basically bullied this Spider-kid to work with him so Tony could make sure that Peter didn't go out and get himself killed but what had happened then—

Oh god, he already sounded like one of those viral stories the kid seemed to have an endless supply of. 

And nobody could believe what happened then.

What had happened was that this kid that he had almost literally picked off of the streets - fine the stone floor of his penthouse balcony - this little stray he had taken in had streamlined his workflow. The kid helped with the odd task and finished some things while Tony was occupied by other projects or request but it wasn't the second pair of hands that had made this all go so much fast. The kid was like some magic elixir that just drew Tony's focus right to where it should be. It was only April 19th and with the new microchip he was implementing and the new exterior the kid was bending into the right fit, they would finish the amount of work today that Tony had managed to deliver in the whole month of March. And March had been a good month.      

Or he assumed they'd still meet that goal today. If Tony would be able to concentrate on that microchip in front of him, because there was something that this super amazing brain of his couldn't seem to filter out: the noise of almost violent banging of metal on metal that came from Peter's workbench just behind him. Repeated, violent banging. 

Tony blew out a deep breath, eyebrows raised. "Do you need help with that?"

"No, I got it," Peter mumbled.

Tony shook himself, then pulled his focus back to the core of the Starkpad on the tabletop in front of him. He didn't even get to re-aim the soldering bolt to the microchip he was just about to connect when the banging from Peter's workstation made him once again stop in his tracks in bafflement.

"You sure you don't need a hand?"

"I can get a fucking screw out of the damn thing on my own, thank you," Peter spat out.

Tony looked up from the workbench into the empty space in front of him, stunned into silence. Had he just heard that right?

"I'm sorry, Mr. Stark. I didn't... I shouldn't have said that. I... I didn't mean it like that."

Tony spun around. Peter was bent over the desk just a few feet away from him, his back distinctly turned to Tony. "Something bothering you?"

"No."

Tony raised his eyebrows in doubt. "So, you're just in a teenage mad-at-the-world kind of phase?"

With a grunt, Peter let his hands fall onto the top of the workbench, the tools in his hands crashing onto the surface with a loud clang. Tony crossed his arms, staring at the kid.

"I'm just not in the mood to chat." Peter picked up the screwdriver again, relentlessly picking at one of the connectors.

Tony just blinked at him in confusion. "That's a first. Maybe include the profanities into your non-chatting mood." 

Teenagers. What did he know... He could play that game of emotional blackmail too. Hell, he invented that game. He shook the strain from his arms and positioned himself back in front of his project, soldering bolt in hand, his own back now pointedly turned to the kid. 

"Fine. I get it. You still don't trust me."

Peter let out an exhausted groan. "It's not that."

Tony shrugged, eyes still on his project as the kid behind him shuffled from one foot to the other.

"It's not what you think."

Was it ever. 

"Girl trouble?" Tony asked innocently,

"Oh my god..."

"Boy trouble?"

"Seriously, just stop. It's not..." The Spiderling stopped talking and groaned again before he continued. "May asked me to meet her today after school. She wanted me to postpone today's workshop session."

"Oh?" Tony straightened up and turned at last, eyes on the kid who was still heavily leaning on his workstation. He had been hogging a ridiculous amount of the kid's time. He should have really reigned in the hours before this.

"It's... it's the anniversary of my parents' accident. She... Usually, we go to put down like... flowers or something."

Tony frowned. Wait, his parents' accident? 

"Shit, Pete, why didn't you just tell me?" He did his best to keep the edge out of his voice. What the hell did the kid think of him? "We could have just rescheduled."

"I didn't want to reschedule. I want to work on this." He indicated the project right in front of him.

"You could have come by after. Or tomorrow."

"I didn't—" Peter sighed and put the tools down again, this time a little gentler than before. "I hate it, okay? I don't understand what the point is. I don't need to stare at a random spot on the water somewhere to remember them. I can remember them just fine."

Tony stayed quiet. This was definitely not what he had expected and he was way out of his comfort zone. He should absolutely not engage the kid on that kind of emotional baggage. Not under any circumstances.

Oh, fuck it.

"Do you? Do you remember them?" Tony asked, careful not to let too much sympathy sink into his voice. The kid didn't want his pity. That much was clear.

"Of course I do," he hissed at Tony. "They were my parents."

"Pete, come on..." Tony sighed, scratching his head. He was way out of his depth here. He hadn't even known that the kid knew who his "real" parents were, it sure hadn't been in the file Tony had hacked, let alone the crucial clue that they were dead and how they had died. Tony was usually busy enough trying to sort out his own shit, definitely not qualified to deal with teenage angst about dead parents. Sure, he was kind of an expert in the dead-parents-department, but he was absolutely not gonna go there.

"Just... I really don't want to talk about this," Peter said.

"Alright. That's fine. I was just wondering if I did something and you're pissed at me or..." Tony bit his lip. "Listen, if you don't want to go, that's fine. We can just keep working. If you do want to go, you should. I'm not gonna stop you."

"I'm not pissed at you!" The Spiderling didn't even look at him. Maybe Tony should send him back home but then he couldn't blame the kid for looking for some distractions on a date like that.  

"Well... alright then. Great." Tony turned back to his desk and mumbled a low "could have fooled me..." under his breath.

"I am NOT. Can you just drop it?!"

The kid's enhanced hearing was the bane of Tony's existence. Only second to his big mouth. He turned, ready to surrender and just drop the whole thing.

"Alright, look, I didn't mean to—"

"I don't give a fuck what you meant by it. I told you to drop it!"

The kid was red in the face, eyes deep dark oceans of anger, fists balled. His words hit Tony with an unexpected force. He straightened his back eyes on Peter. 

"Hey, that's enough. You get to be pissed off, that your parents are dead. You don't get to scream at me for it, alright? You have a problem, we can talk about that. But we're not doing teenage mood swings in here, understood?"

"Well, fuck this then." The kid dropped the screwdriver onto the workbench, then crossed the room and grabbed his backpack.

All Tony could do for the moment was stand there, open-mouthed somewhere between shock and amazement. The kid had just cursed him out. Like, right to his face. Twice. What the hell was... Just as Peter was about to reach the elevator, Tony cleared his throat. 

"Er, FRIDAY, lockdown lab."

The room darkened at once as titanium barriers came down and covered the window front as well as the elevator door. Then the overhead lighting brightened and illuminated every corner of the room.

"Lockdown complete."

"What..." Peter flinched back from the door before he turned and stared at Tony, eyes fiery and wet. "You said I could go, so I'm going!" He screwed up his face and rubbed at his temple.

"Not like that you're not." Forehead furrowed, Tony stepped closer to him but still kept his distance.

"I just wanna leave!" The kid's face twitching in anger or was that pain?

"I can see that, but you're not in control and you have superhuman strength. Honestly not comfortable with you in the streets like that. How about you calm down and we just talk about—"

"I don't want to talk! LET ME OUT!"

Tony's heart gave a painful squeeze in reaction to the pure despair swinging in the kid's voice. With a desperate breath, Peter turned and banged his fist against the titanium barrier that covered the elevator shaft. For a moment, Tony was worried that the kid's strength might dent the titanium, that he might be stronger than Tony realized or even worse hurt himself, but there was no heart in those swings. After a couple of them, Peter's hand just flew down and covered his mouth instead. The muffled sobs pushed Tony into action at last. He did walk over to the kid but still stayed a couple of feet away. The hand that covered his mouth moved up over his eyes instead and he slumped forward, braced himself against the barrier when his other hand started pounding against the side of his head.

"Pete, stop that. What on earth—"

"It's too much. Too much." He groaned and sobbed, both hands now covering his eyes then his right drummed against his head again.

"Tell me what to do, Pete. I don't know..." Holy shit. This was a fucking nightmare. "I don't know how to help you."

"Too much... just... turn it off."

Turn it off? What— Oh. "FRIDAY, lights to 20%."

The room fell into darkness. Not total darkness but Tony's eyes would need a little bit of time to get used to the low lighting.

"Lights at 20%, Sir."

He took another step towards him. "That better, Pete?"

Peter had stilled, his breathing shallow and erratic, but not as desperate and pained.

"I didn't—I didn't want this. I didn't want to do this. I just—" 

The kid stood there, his back turned to Tony. One hand on the barrier, heavily leaning against it. His whole torso was heaving with forceful breaths. But as restless as Peter was it didn't seem like he was having a panic attack and Tony didn't want to overstep, didn't want to trigger whatever this had just been. Whatever had just happened to the boy. It took a few moments before Peter pushed himself off the titanium wall and turned around towards Tony, head bowed low. Even in the darkness, Tony could make out how puffy and pleading the eyes were that turned to him after another couple of deep breaths. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I didn't—I didn't mean that. I didn't want to do that."

Tony did step forward then and grabbed the kid's shoulder, squeezed it gently. He shook with silent sobs muffled by his own hand, his head had fallen back down to his chest. This was pure agony, to see him hurting like this. What was he supposed to do? This wasn't Tony's area of expertise. He didn't want to overwhelm the kid, didn't want to rebuff him either. Tentatively, his hand gave Peter's shoulder a soft pull and that was all the encouragement the kid needed to step closer to him and fling his arms around Tony's torso.

"You're alright, buddy." Tony's arms slowly wrapped themselves around his small frame, his eyes now adjusted to the darkness were locked on the sweaty handprints and tears the kid had left on the metal surface of the barrier. "Just calm down for me, okay? You're alright."

The kid shook with every breath, whispering "sorry"s and "I didn't mean to"s over and over again against Tony's chest. All Tony could do was hold him, take deep breaths and tell the Spiderling how everything would be alright. 

Like he'd know. Like Tony had any authority to tell him that things would get better. That it would get easier. That he would be fine. Tony didn't know that. How could he know? 

14. The boy was only 14. So much younger than Tony had been when he had lost his own parents. Something he had miserably failed to deal with even though he had been an adult. Legally at least. But there was nothing to be done about it. The kid's parents were gone. A finality that Tony knew all too well. He had been pretty sure that Peter was aware of his situation. After all, he still called his adoptive mother "May", had referred to at least a couple of times as his "aunt", not "mom", no matter how young he had been when he had been adopted. The amended birth certificate was part of Peter's school file, but Tony had no idea how Peter even knew his real parents and how he knew what had happened to them. An accident, apparently. 

He rested his cheek against the kid's head, his hair tickling Tony's nose. Peter's breathing was getting steadier, but his arms were still wrapped around Tony like a spider monkey. Tony swallowed hard. He couldn't do this. It wasn't his place. The kid's past was none of his business.

What was his business was the kid's present. He'd taken on that responsibility like the fool he was so he had to step up.

He carefully untangled Peter's arms from his body, grabbed him by the shoulders and slowly pulled him away from himself. The kid's hand shot up and he wiped the tears from his face, eyes still glued to the floor. Tony's right hand cupped his face, made him turn his head slightly down, cradled in Tony's hand. His left brushed the hair out of the kid's face and then softly probed the side of it.

"Does your head hurt?" His voice was low and he made an effort to keep the tone dry.

"Yeah..." the kid whispered. "Just... yeah, a bit." Tony's hands stilled at once. "Not... not when you do that. Just... just generally."

"Generally as in all the time?" That would not be a good sign.

"No just... sometimes. Today. Not... not always."

Tony's thumb rubbed back and forth across the kid's temple to the middle of his forehead and back, pressure low but consistent. "You hit yourself and not too gently, kid." 

"Yeah." His eyes had fallen shut and his head rested heavily on Tony's hand. 

"Why did you do that?"

"I... it wouldn't stop... I... I couldn't... I couldn't..."

Tony frowned. "What wouldn't stop, Pete?"

"It's..." He took a couple of deep breaths, his chest heavily rising and falling and for a moment there Tony thought he was about to pass out. "It's my senses."

The kid didn't move a muscle. He just stood there, eyes closed, arms dangling by his side as if all that was keeping him upright was his head resting in Tony's hand. Tony's other hand was drawing large circles across the kid's forehead, focusing on the spot where Peter had hit himself, apparently to make his body stop whatever it was that it had done.

"Does this help?"

"Mmmh. Yeah."

"What happened with your senses, buddy? What happened?"

"Mmmh." The kid pulled up his shoulders with a shudder. He twitched and goosebumps popped up on the skin underneath Tony's fingers. Tony could just about stop the gasp that was building in his throat as he watched the hairs on Peter's arm stand like a wave and then settle back down a few moments later. "They're dialed all the way... all the way to 11." 

"Just now?"

"No. No, all the time. They're at 11... all the time." 

"But it only hurts sometimes?"

"Mmmh... yeah. Sometimes. Sometimes it's like... like they're exposed. Like a nerve. And then... and then I feel it." 

"You feel what, buddy?"

"Everything."

Tony tried to slow his thoughts.

Deep breaths. Calm down.

Exposed like a nerve. He had heard that one before. 

"Can you walk, kid? Think you can make it to the couch?"

Peter's head twitched and he opened his eyes at last. "Yeah. Yeah, alright."

He started off faster than Tony was prepared for. He just lifted his head from Tony's hand, his gaze drifted to the sofa and then he was off.

"Woah, now, hold up, kid!" Tony slung his arm around him and got a hold of Peter's lower arm in an attempt to hold him upright but the kid appeared to be fine. He walked a straight line right for the couch and then fell into the cushions.  

"'m fine." Peter waved him off. "Just, I'm sorry. I think... I think I'm fine now."

Tony had the kid stay on the couch and went to the kitchen. He got a cup of tea. Herbal and hot. He pushed the pot into Peter's hands and sat down next to him. The kid was quiet now, eyes on the cup. Where was he even gonna start to unravel all of this? 

"It's not gonna happen again, Sir. I'm... I'm so sorry. I... I promise I'm not—"

"Remember what we said about promising things, kid?" He shot a quick glance over to the kid, who still had his eyes on the tea, head bowed low. 

"You said not to promise you things I couldn't keep."

Tony nodded. "Do you know what just happened there? Why your... your senses—why you reacted the way you did?"

The kid's head sank a little lower if that was possible. "No... no, I... I'm sorry, I don't know what—"

"And if you don't know," Tony started a little louder, talking over him. "If you don't know what caused you or—or your senses to freak out like that, then do you think you should promise that it won't happen again?"

"No," the Spiderling whispered.

Tony nodded slowly. He let the silence settle between them, waited for the kid to take the next step. Waited for him to know what the next step would be. Tony cast his eyes up to the ceiling slowly blew out a deep breath before he spoke up again.

"So, now what?"

Peter ran a shaky hand over his eyes and ran his fingers up and down the bridge of his nose a couple of times. "I... I don't know, Sir."

Tony sighed. "Come on, kid. You're in trouble. You don't know how to deal with it. What do you do?"

His fingers played along on the rim of the teacup and he gave his head a little shake before he shot a look from under his lashes in Tony's direction. 

"Pete, you ask for help." He turned his head in Tony's direction at last and his wet eyes met Tony's. Tony just pursed his lips and dramatically rolled his eyes. "I don't know, maybe if you think really hard you might be able to think of someone you know who might know a thing or two about out of control super-human abilities."

"You're... you're gonna help me?" The kid blinked his wet lashes at him. 

Tony's lung deflated at the look of utter hopeful loss on the kid's face. Wasn't that what he had been doing all along? Was he really this shitty at this whole mentor thing that the kid didn't realize that this was exactly the problem Tony would help him with?

"Yeah, Pete. Of course, I'll help you."

The kid bit his lip and looked away from him. "How... how can you even help me with this?"

"We analyze how often this has happened. When. Where. If there were any correlating factors. Then we formulate a hypothesis and test out solutions." Tony shrugged. "Or in other words we just science the shit out of this."

Peter snorted at that and wiped his hand across his face a couple of times before he shot a small smile in Tony's direction. "You're really into Mars, aren't you?" He quickly looked down at the cup of tea in his hand and took a large sip.

Tony couldn't help but smirk. "Hey, I'm a fan of mostly every time the government spent a lot of money to save Matt Damon."

The kid did laugh at that and Tony clapped a hand on his shoulder. He did have an ace in his pocket to get the kid's spirits back up. A little incentive.

"I actually had this little thing planned for today, for when we were done with those two projects we wanted to finish. But... I mean, I guess under the circumstances I'm not sure..."

Peter's eyebrows shot up. "You... you had a little thing planned?"

"Yeah, just the general fit of this thing I wanted you to test out."

The kid sat up straight, eyes wide. "You... you're done? You're done with it?"

"Not done done. A couple of kinks to iron out, no pun intended, but I thought it might be time to do a short test run." Peter gasped and Tony quickly added. "In a very controlled environment."

"Oh... oh my god. Please, Mr. Stark. Please, I'll be so careful."

Tony bit his lip, thinking. "Is your aunt at work tomorrow afternoon?"

"What?" Peter shook his head and frowned before he nodded. "Yeah. Yeah, she works late on Wednesdays."

Tony mulled that over. "Alright. We test the fit today and you can jump around the lap with it for a bit." The kid's eyes positively radiated at that. "But, I want you back here tomorrow, alright?" Peter nodded before Tony had even finished the sentence. "And till tomorrow I want you to take notes on every single time these senses of your's have been acting up, alright?"

The kid's smile faded a bit. "Yeah, okay." 

"We need to figure out how you can control them, Pete. You need to be able to reign yourself in, to be in control when you go back out there."

The kid's eyes dropped for a moment, but then he just nodded.

Tony got up from the sofa and strolled over to the far off wall. "Hey, you think you'll be alright if I turn the lab back into its regular friendly non-bunker look?" 

He turned and found the kid smiling again. "Yeah," Peter shrugged. "I think that should be fine."

Tony gave him a thumbs up and turned back towards the wall.

"Alright, FRI, you heard Spider-Man. Cancel the lockdown protocol and then open panel 6B for me."

"Right away, boss."

##

There was something about spring that Tony couldn't quite put his finger on. Even from up there as he stood at the window front of his workshop in the Tower, more than 700 feet above the city, he could just tell. You couldn't smell the blooming magnolias from up there. No buzzing bees, no birds chirping happily away, none of those tacky telltale signs nature liked to slap everyone in the face with. Still, there was an urgency to the vibe of the city, a cheerful excitement of life awakening all over the place that traveled through Manhattan's concrete jungle up to the sky. All the way up to where Tony was leaning against the cold glass of the window looking down on all of them with their chipper attitude.

He flipped his phone back and forth in his hand, eyes on the people below him. Not that there were any details to be made out from up there.

Pepper Potts had called him.

She had called and he hadn't answered because fuck her sending him nothing but one-worded notes for over a month and then calling him out of the blue. He hadn't even really done anything to deserve the way she had been freezing him out. He had tried again and again. He had tried to call. He had tried to make appointments in LA but for some reason, everybody in R&D at HQ was suddenly totally fine without him. They would usually fall over each other to have him visit their workstations. But in the past weeks, they suddenly were all super fine without him there. This was Potts' doing. He knew that and she knew that he knew that.

Weeks of brief generic messages and then she called without so much as a warning. He had stared at the incoming call on his phone for what had felt like minutes until FRIDAY had taken a message. 

Call me.

Pfft. Yeah right. It was 10:30 am in LA. What could be so urgent that she called him during morning office hours?

Call me.

Fat chance. He flipped his phone, again and again, rotating it in his hand. He should call her back. She was his CEO. He should be a grown-up about this and just call her back. That would show her.

"FRIDAY, remind me to call Potts tonight, 10 pm."

"Will do, Boss."

He still had a full day ahead of himself. The session the day before had gone a little different than what Tony had expected and he hadn't finished the project he thought they'd get done. Instead... Well, instead he had to dive a little deeper into his mentor role than he had ever expected to. Than he had ever wanted to. But the kid was his responsibility now. He brought that on himself that night he had decided to rather indulge the vigilante dreams of a 14-year-old instead of doing the grown-up thing of dropping him off at a hospital, informing his guardian and offering help to deal with the authorities. No, he had dived right into a bottomless pool of new problems like the reckless genius billionaire philanthropist he was. Maybe he should leave the genius up for—

"Sir, Miss Potts is on the line."

His blood ran cold. A second call from Potts within a window of under 10 minutes. He pulled his phone from his pocket and answered the call without another thought.

"Pepper, what's wrong?"

"Who the hell is Peter Parker?"

Tony's jaw dropped to the floor.

Ohhh, whomp, whomp.

Chapter Text

"Tony, who the hell is Peter Parker?"

His hand shot up and roughly rubbed across his temple. "Potts, I heard you the first time you asked."

"Then answer me. I've seen the hours, Tony. What is going on?"

His eyes went up to the ceiling, narrowing on one of the cameras up there. FRIDAY had better not screwed him over on this. He swiped his arm in the familiar pattern and started up the projection of his server's filesystem.

"Potts, you're the one who told me the foundation would need my personal involvement to be meaningful and I agreed, so what exactly is the issue here?"

Tony pulled up the Tower's file system, went to human resources and scrolled through the names. Peter Parker, right where he had put it. 

"You have an intern in your lab two days a week who spends all his hours either in your lab and in the cafeteria!"

He skimmed Peter's logged hours for the last weeks. No stays in the lab that exceeded three hours. No logs of the trips to his private floor. No school day that had Peter stay later than 7 pm. Good, so at least FRIDAY hadn't openly defied his order and kept Peter's extra hours off the books.

"So? What is your issue here, Potts? You don't want the kid to go to the cafeteria? I know you've always been pushy with me but usually, it was to get me to take a break not—"

"Why do you have a 14-year-old kid in your lab, Tony?"

He had to tread carefully here. One wrong step and she'd latch onto it. "Because he's an intern?"

"You don't like interns."

"Are you trying to tell me that you don't want me to work with the interns?"

"Have you worked with any other interns?"

He rolled his eyes. "No."

"What are you doing with this one then?"

"I like this one, okay?"

"Tony..." She sighed and he could picture her as if she was right in front of him, head braced in one of her hands, her thumb rubbing across the skin between her eyebrows trying to flatten out the wrinkles he was giving her.  

"Are you complaining about my numbers? About my productivity?"

"No, I—"

"Then I'm not sure why you called me to yell at me about this! You think there's someone else in the Tower who could teach him more than I could, huh? You wanna call Peter and ask him if he'd rather spend some of his hours being mentored by someone else?" 

"Being mentored?"

Urgh. There it was. He had better not let her sink her teeth into that one. "You know what I mean."

"I'm sure the kid is thrilled to hang out in Iron Man's workshop."

"Why do you say that like it's a bad thing, Potts? "

"The kids are there to learn, not to entertain you in the lab."

"Thanks, dear, your faith in me as a professional engineer is humbling."

"Tony—" 

"I'm not up to anything other than getting my stuff done and putting my weight behind the September foundation. Like we discussed."

He was going to go to hell for this but they probably had a spot on hold for him anyway. He couldn't tell her. Pepper would freak and he couldn't give the kid away. Not now. At least she'd have a legit reason to be pissed at him concerning the Spider-Kid if she ever found out.

"This is not what we discussed," she said, voice low but powerful. "Sometimes you seem to forget that I know you, Tony. I know you better than anyone, better than you know yourself. I know your struggling with this, but—"

"Stop psycho-analyzing me, Potts. I'm not interested in your pity," he growled into the receiver.

"I don't— That's not what—" 

"You're the one who left, Pepper. You wanted us to stick to the professional side of this relationship, then fucking act like it." He closed his eyes and centered himself. No. No, he wasn't playing. "If you think it's in the kid's best interest to spend some of his time at the Tower interning for someone that isn't me, that's your call, Potts. You go for it. You call Peter and tell him but you better come up with a better reason than because you just know I'm trouble for why the possibility to learn from me should be taken away from him and why he should spend his time interning for one of the low-level engineers in R&D instead. Because your gut feeling is not gonna cut it with this."

"Tony, please, just talk to me."

"There's nothing left for us to talk about, Miss Potts. I think you made that abundantly clear over the last few weeks."

"Stop that," she said, her tone more than sincere.

He bit his lip. It didn't matter. It didn't matter now. "Me? I should stop what exactly? You ghosted me for a month, Pepper. You're my CEO and you couldn't be bothered to pick up the phone when I called."

"You didn't call me because I'm your CEO. You called me because we used to date. Don't drag the company into this!"

"You're the one who's on the phone yelling at me about company business," he yelled back. "I'm sick and tired of fighting with you about every single thing."

"If you would talk to me maybe we wouldn't have to fight all the time."

He balled his fist in frustration, fighting to keep himself from hitting the wall next to him. "I tried to talk to you. You're the one who froze me out."

"Because you left me behind to worry about if you would turn up dead in a ditch somewhere, lying to me about putting a stalker on my heels."

"I wasn't Pepper, I—" He sighed and tried to reign in his temper. "I can't do this. I don't want to do this anymore."

"Then just tell me. Tell me what's going on." The despair in her voice hit him hard. He really couldn't deal with this anymore.

"I'm letting you go. That's what you wanted, wasn't it? To be free from all the drama."

"You—"

Her breathing hitched and he could tell by the complete silence on the other line that she had muted her microphone. He leaned against the wall and slowly slid down until he came to sit on the cold tiled floor. It was only a few seconds of absolute silence and he could make out the return of her labored breathing just before she spoke up again.

"Are you firing me?"

"What? Pepper, no." He took a deep breath, his nerves still on fire. "No. I mean, I would understand if you... if you decided to leave the company, but no. You're an amazing CEO. I'd never fire you. But I'm letting go of you. I... We said we would stay friends but this isn't working. This is worse than it was before. It's not working."

"Tony, I... I'm sorry." She couldn't keep the emotions out of her voice any longer. She didn't even try to hide the way her voice hitched with every other breath. "I... I overstepped. I'm sorry."

"It's alright, Potts. You'll be alright. LA is huge and far away. You'll find someone new for your dance card."

"I don't want this, Tony. I'm sorry."

He swallowed the emotions rising in his throat. "Just... we better stick to the memos for now. For work."

"Tony—" 

"I'll talk to you at the next quarterly summary meeting, I guess."

He said goodbye before she could argue any further and let his head fall back against the wall. He pulled his knees up and buried his head into his hands. This was the right thing to do. He was just stringing her along with all his drama and she didn't deserve that. And he didn't deserve this either, the limbo. The heartache. 

A clean cut. A clean cut and 2500 miles between them. That should do it.

He took a few deep breaths, trying to center himself. She'd be pissed at him for this. Once the first emotional response settled she'd be pissed. But that wasn't new. She had been pissed for weeks. Well... months. But she would never air the drama with the kid. Not even now. That was just not how Pepper Potts rolled. Even if she held onto that initial suspicion she'd never actively bust Tony either. Not in any way that would hurt him. After all, they weren't fighting because they hated each other. It was too much love, not too little. Too much love, too much fear, too many aliens and terrorists in Tony's part-time job. It was just too much for them to handle, but that didn't mean... it didn't mean that she cared any less. That she loved him any less. 

Right?

He struggled back to his feet. "FRI, windows 10%. Open panel A1."

"Yes, Boss."

He took the glasses off the mounting from the open panel and fastened the sensors on his skull.

"Activate projection sensors, FRI."

The blue glow of the projectors illuminated the whole workshop, but their alignment focused on a 10 by 14 feet area at the far end of the room, an empty space just by the windows. Tony stepped up to the very edge of it. He closed his eyes and leaned into the soft pressure of the sensors on his scalp. He knew exactly which memory he was searching for. He could see it clearly in front of him, the living room in the old Malibu house. The fireplace to the left, the long couch in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the Pacific. They had only had those smaller side tables then, the center of the room an open space covered by a thick square carpet. 

The sensors were running hot on his skin, working at full capacity. The effort it took to call up the image made him gasp. It didn't hurt as much as there was an overwhelming emotional charge due to the process.

He'd done this before. He'd done this a lot. Countless hours that were needed to finalize functionality on the Binarily Augmented Retro-Framing technology. But when Tony opened his eyes the holographic illusion in front of him still left him in awe every time. They were right there in front of him, so real, if he didn't know any better he could have sworn that he would be able to just reach out and touch them. This had been very real after all, once. Years ago, but that memory was still etched into his brain as if it had been yesterday.

He had heard them laughing, the sound echoing through the house had reached him as soon as he had opened the door of the workshop in the basement. He'd been careful not to make any sound as he took two steps at a time until he reached the landing on the ground floor. Pepper's high-heels stood abandoned by the edge of the carpet. She sat on the ground in front of the couch, barefoot, legs stretched out wide. Just in front of her holding onto her shoulder stood Aiden. His collection of building bricks was scattered across the floor and he had only eyes for the tall tower in front of him.

Tony had stayed quiet, had just watched them. His son and the woman he wasn't supposed to fall for. The only woman he couldn't afford to screw around with. She laughed as she stretched over to her left and reached for one of the red bricks as instructed by his son.

"Up here?"

"No, there," he pointed to the little side tower closer to Pepper's left. 

"Hm, but don't you want to build this one a bit higher as well?" She asked innocently pointing at the tallest part of the building. 

"No, no! Other side!"

She laughed and apologized, then carefully placed the brick on top of one of the side buildings. Aiden beamed and excitedly shuffled from one foot to the other, eyes searching for the next step.

The epitome of domesticity. A dream he'd never have dared to speak of.

Pepper had looked up then and seen him, the soft smile never leaving her lips, if anything it might have widened a bit. The projection of his 11 year younger self returned the smile.

"Where's Lisa?"

"I send her home early. She had a couple of long weekends and really deserved an early day."

"Daddy, look!" His son didn't even turn to him, spellbound by his own creation. "Pepper helped."

She shook her head. "I didn't do much, only followed the foreman's instructions."

"Of course. Gotta let the pro handle the design, Pep." Tony walked over and sat himself down next to Pepper, one hand resting on his son's back who studied and analyzed his building, switched out a yellow brick for a blue one and then added more stones on top of it. Tony braced himself on the carpet balanced on his other hand, close to where Pepper's rested. They laughed and watched and helped out whenever instructed by Aiden to do so, their hands on the carpet brushing against each other again and again until eventually, Tony reached for hers, his fingers clasping hers. He looked up at Pepper as she returned the soft squeeze, her thumb drawing soft circles across his own hand. 

None of that last part had happened of course. In reality, he had sat down on the other side of Aiden's tower and sent Pepper home after a couple of minutes of friendly chatter. It hadn't mattered how much he had wanted her there, how much he had wanted her to be in his life, he couldn't afford that risk because he needed her in Aiden's life. He couldn't give their relationship a shot because if he screwed things up - and given his track record that was more so a question of when not if - when Tony would screw things up Aiden might lose the closest relationship in his life other than to Tony, the closest thing he had to a mom.  

So Tony had stayed away. Those fantasies about a family life with Pepper and his son hadn't mattered. How much he had been falling for her, how much he had already loved her then hadn't mattered. All that mattered had been Aiden, what he had needed, what would keep him safe and happy. Everything else had taken a backseat. 

That pretty picture in front of him, him next to Pepper united as a family, it was a fantasy. His 'what if'. What might have been if he had taken that step a mere week before he had lost his son and his whole world had come shattering down? What if he hadn't been scared of what he might lose for Aiden and instead gained it all? What if he had ignored the doubts and had told Pepper that night. Had told her that he loved her, that he needed her in his life as more than his PA. Would he have gone into work that day of his son's birthday? Into that meeting? Would he have maybe left early? Maybe he would have been there to protect his son, to protect his family.

It still made his heart ache and what he was doing sure wasn't healthy. Maybe one day he would actually find the right way to look at this scene, the right way to deal with his grief. Or maybe he had been wrong and B.A.R.F. was just a toy that sent 600 Million Dollars down the drain. 

Tony gave himself a couple more minutes to bask in the self-inflicted pain in his heart when he watched the younger projection of himself ruffle Aiden's messy hair with a laugh and how his fingers had intertwined with Pepper's all the way now.

"Alright, enough." He shook his head and pulled the device off his head. "Turn it off, FRI."

"Yes, Sir."

He rubbed the moisture from his face with both his hand. It was over. He'd have to let it go. 

"Dum-E, I want a double espresso, black. Pull up the schematics on Peter's suit, FRIDAY." 

He had stuff to do before the kid showed up.

##

Just before 3:30 pm, Peter had found his way into the Tower. It had been less of a bad day than the day before, or the day before that. Things with May were still tense. She had been at the apartment by the time he made it home and dinner was waiting but there wasn't really much for them to talk about. She was upset, he got that. But at the end of the day, he was old enough to decide how he wanted to deal with the death of his parents. Shouldn't it be about what felt right for him? Of course, May had known them longer than he had. A lot longer. So maybe it wasn't fair that he made this all about himself when she had lost her brother-in-law and sister-in-law. Sometimes Peter didn't even know if the memories he had of them were actual memories or just something his brain concocted off some old photographs his Aunt and Uncle had shown him. 

That night he'd been lying awake thinking not so much about his parents, but about Ben. It hadn't occurred to him with all the Spider-Man and internship stuff going on that May maybe hadn't been all that upset about the fact that it had been the anniversary of his parents passing, but that it had been the first year that Ben wasn't with them for it. That was when it really hit him what a giant asshole he had been. How much he had really let her down. 

He got up, out of his bed sometime between 1 am and 2 am when he couldn't bear it anymore. He stood in front of her door, paced up and down for another 30 odd minutes before he found his courage to softly knock. When there was no answer after the second try, he blew caution to the wind and quietly opened the door. The curtains were drawn but at least for this, he could rely on his senses to see. He was fast and quiet but when he slipped into the bed she jolted awake after all.

"Peter? What... Are you okay? What's going on?"

He didn't trust his voice to answer at all. He just rolled over to her and buried his face against her. Her arms held him close at once and he tried so hard not to shake.

"I'm... I'm sorry, May... I'm sorry, I didn't... I didn't..."

"Shhh, it's okay, Peter. Just... it's okay."

The next morning he could tell that things weren't forgiven and forgotten. There was still a distinct amount of tension in the air, but she did ruffle his hair and kiss his temple just before he went out the door. Progress, right?

The whole ordeal still lay heavy on his heart as he rode the elevator up to the 67th floor and that wasn't all. The notes Mr. Stark had asked him to make on every incident when his senses had acted up weighed his backpack down like he was carrying around boulders. 

"Bad day?" was the first thing Mr. Stark asked when Peter sat foot into the workshop. 

He just shrugged. "I've had better weeks." 

He sighed. "Well, let me add on a little. Don't be surprised if you get a phone call from Miss Potts in the foreseeable future."

Peter's jaw dropped. "What? What did I do?"

"Oh," Mr. Stark waved him off. "It's nothing you did."

Peter dropped his backpack to the floor, his lung deflating. "Well, then... what did you do?"

He shot him a warning look. "I didn't do anything other than maybe faking your logged hours so I won't get in trouble with the law."

Peter gasped. "And she found out?"

"No, not even that. She just... " Mr. Stark blew out his breath. "She might call you and ask you if you wouldn't like to spend some of your hours in one of the labs that the other interns work in."

"The other interns?" Peter frowned. "Why would I want to do that?"

"Listen, she's a bit suspicious because... well, let's just say even with the adapted hour sheet you spend a little more time in my lab than interns usually do."

"Huh." Peter grimaced. "Okay... How much time did your interns usually spend in the lab with you."

"They didn't."

He frowned. "They didn't?"

"No."

Peter shook his head again, trying to grasp what Mr. Stark was saying. "They didn't spend time in your lab?"

Mr. Stark looked up at him and slightly tilted his head with a look on his face that if Peter didn't know better could have totally been the kind of look Mr. Stark would also give a cute puppy.

"I don't have interns, kid."

Peter looked away for a moment and mulled that one over. Yeah, no, he had nothing. 

"I don't understand."

"Stark industry has interns, who work in Stark Industry labs, taught by Stark Industry employees. I usually keep my distance from those labs."

"Oh." Peter's mind was blank.

"They definitely do not spend all their hours in my lab. Or any of their hours really. Ever."

"Right."

Mr. Stark shrugged. "It doesn't really matter. She was a bit, you know, confused. So, I just... I wanted you to know that she might call you. Just so you're not caught off guard. She has no real reason to suspect anything about you, nothing Spiderling related she would know about. So if she does call, just play it cool. You can tell her about the projects we worked on, the SI projects. Just don't tell her that I let you stay past 7 pm." He looked at Peter intently. "Definitely don't tell her that you fell asleep on the sofa in the workshop at 2 am."

"Alright." Peter nodded like he understood which he didn't really. Mr. Stark didn't usually have an intern, but... "I mean, I won't be here a lot after today anyway, right?"

Mr. Stark didn't look at him, just put some tools away, sorting things into the drawers of his workbench. "Yeah, right. Anyway. Now you know. Let's get on with things. First things first, did you write down what we discussed yesterday?"

Peter cleared his throat. "I... yeah... Yeah, I did." 

He dropped his stuff on the couch by the kitchenette and took the notebook from his backpack. His pulse picked up right away. This wouldn't be fun. But maybe... maybe they'd get somewhere. Maybe they could figure out how he could get his senses into order again. 

Peter sat down on one of the chairs next to Mr. Stark, his hands sweaty, his heartbeat fast in his ears. He told him about the night in that dark ally again, how he wasn't really able to focus, how every cell in his body was just under constant stress and he couldn't really tell all the sensory input apart anymore. He told him about the subway rides and those moments in school when sometimes during the lunch break in the cafeteria or in the hallways between classes, things seemed so much louder than they usually were, how his head would ring and his skin would prickle.

"Then what do you do?" Mr. Stark asked quietly. 

Peter shrugged. "Just maybe find a quiet place, dark place. Somewhere in like the... the basement or... or an abandoned classroom."

"When I turned off the lights yesterday, that's when it stopped?"

Peter nodded.

"But when you were on the subway, it wasn't the light, it was the noise that bothered you?"

"I mean, maybe. I... I can't really tell in the moment. I guess, maybe it was the noise but it wasn't any louder than usually. It just. It just felt different."

"Mhhh..." Mr. Stark tapped his fingers on the surface of the table. 

"There's... there's also, erm, you... you remember the first day? When... when they wouldn't let me into the building?"

He looked up at him, eyebrows knitted together. "When you tried to climb the Tower?"

Peter's face heated up. "I... I mean, yeah. I... I got to maybe the 12th floor and then you called. There wasn't really anything else, no noise, just regular daylight and still, I... I tried to feel out the area around me and it just, everything was just bundled up into each other. I couldn't... I couldn't really tell anything anymore."

Mr. Stark nodded, eyes on the tabletop of the workbench. "You know, I erm..." He sighed and ran a hand across his face. "During a panic attack, for me, the worst thing is always that I don't feel like I'm in control. It's usually not really a rational reaction, it just pulls up this panic and my brain doesn't know how to deal with all that input." He cleared his throat. "I think... maybe... yesterday, you were a little overwhelmed, right? You... lost control because you couldn't get your thoughts in order. I was too much."  

Peter bit the inside of his cheeks and just whispered a soft "yeah".

"I think the same thing is probably true for your senses. It's all connected. You need to be in control of your body but you also need to trust your instincts to take over in the right moments. From what you told me about the attack, it seems like you don't really trust yourself to make that distinction anymore, Pete."

He tried to swallow the lump in his throat and nodded.

"Yesterday you said, it feels like your nerves are exposed in those moments."

"Right," Peter breathed.

"You know, Bruce Banner once told me, that's what the Hulk feels like to him. Like he's exposed, like a nerve."

Peter looked up at him, eyes wide. "He... he did?"

Mr. Stark met his eyes and nodded. "I'm not sure if there's any parallel between the gamma radiation he was hit with and your spider bite, but I think it comes down to two things and that's you have to learn to focus on your senses, one at a time, cut out the background noise and you have to trust yourself. Trust your instincts and your body. That's probably what saved you from that bite. It's probably what saved you from that attack."

Peter looked down to his hands and he couldn't help but flinch slightly when Mr. Starks hand squeezed his shoulder.

"I build you the best safety net I could come up with, Pete, but if you can't learn to trust yourself again it won't do all that much good. You need to let go of that fear."

"But how?" he whispered, eyes still lowered. 

"Just one step at a time."

Chapter Text

There were no words to describe how good Peter felt as the mild spring air rushed past him with every swing he took through the streets of Queens. 

He'd had some bad days in the last couple of months. Some serious lows. The day he got stabbed. The day Mr. Stark had discovered his true identity and turned up on his doorstep, scaring the living shit out of Peter. He had seen the life he had known already going down the drain, though that whole affair had turned out to be less of a curse than Peter could have ever known. Then that day in Mr. Stark's lab where Peter had lost every little inch of self-control. Every one of these days had made him feel like his life would be over like he had screwed things up to a degree that wasn't salvageable.

But he had come back from it or was on the way to come back from all that anyway. With small steps, just like Mr. Stark had said. Cats and balloon animals that got stuck in the high tree branches, a guy with a flat tire and no tire lever who needed a hand, people on their smartphones almost walking into traffic, the odd purse snatched away from an old lady. It built up his confidence and after two weeks he was back to scaling buildings without so much as a second thought, backflipped off them and swung from one side to the other almost like he had never stopped.

The suit Mr. Stark had built him was so incredibly intuitive. His webs flew further and hit targets with more precision. Still, on the outside the suit was basically indistinguishable from his old one. Some new videos of him had already popped up now that he was patrolling again. He had been anxiously awaiting those, hoping to compare them to the old ones and it had taken no time at all till the first clips showed up on twitter. People seemed to have missed him and that was honestly a comforting thought. Peter had checked out every photo, every clip and there was no way that people would be able to tell that he was wearing a different suit. No comments about it at all. Things were looking up.

And that dreaded phone call from Pepper Potts had never come either. Sure, there had been a weird survey thingy that Mrs. Warren had asked him to fill out. Apparently some formality from Stark Industries checking up on the progress of the internship. How much he was learning if he liked his instructor. General stuff like that. The only downer was that his time in the lab in reality had dramatically decreased. He was really only supposed to show up once a week now for a quick checkup and some new web fluid. Other than that he only checked in with Mr. Stark via text. Sure, he had a lot more free time again when he wasn't on patrol, but he missed the work. It had been fun and he had learned a lot, but he couldn't blame Mr. Stark. He'd already done so much and he deserved to have his peace and quiet back, his lab to himself.

Talking about peace and quiet, this wasn't the day for it. He had had his hopes that maybe everyone would just forget about him, but as soon as he was back out and about, as cool as it was that people were talking about him again, all the videos they posted, it became quite clear that they would have to set up that meeting with the Black Widow. 

Peter stood on the ledge of a building a couple of blocks off Queens Boulevard, East of Calvary Cemetery. He had just swung over a few moments ago a little behind schedule even though he had headed out early, just to be sure to get there on time. But then he had gotten sidetracked by this guy, who had been about to cut through the lock on a couple of e-bikes. Well, Peter couldn't let that slide, could he? And he hadn't thought it would take all that long, but he was still a bit out of practice, a bit slow to react. It was one thing when it was just him swinging through the streets, but as soon as there was involvement from one of those petty criminals, Peter was still a little hesitant. He still found himself question his instincts all the time and that was a problem. It slowed him down and because of it, the dude had almost slipped through his fingers. Then he had made an unbelievable accurate shot. The updated web-shooters that they had added to the suit just the week before were a technological marvel. The precision and distance he could get out of those things had rendered him speechless. And that was saying something for Peter Parker.

Though it had taken the guy almost getting away and Peter's thoughts being overrun by his instincts to profit off the range of those shooters. He had needed to get out of his head and as soon as he had, as soon as he had just reacted on his instincts and stopped trying to plan out what to do, he had made that impossible shot and caught the thief. Mr. Stark had told him to trust himself and he just needed to listen, because Mr. Stark was right. Almost all the time. It was annoying as hell but true.

The little detour had made Peter dangerously late for the rendezvous. He'd probably get an earful for that later, but at least it would seem a little less set up, right? Though it was of course. A setup. They had gone over the details of what Peter should be expecting to happen multiple times. So often in fact, he had gotten nervous about whether he would be able to pull all this off naturally. He could only hope that it didn't show in his posture that he could sense them approaching from behind long before they called out for him because of course, he could sense them linger in the shadows of the building. He had felt their presence as soon as he had set foot on that rooftop, if not mid-swing.

"Evening, Spiderling." Mr. Stark called out.

A shudder went through him even though Peter had known they would be waiting for him. He slowly turned and let his body react to the tingling of his skin. Just a small step back that should have him look surprised and tentative, a little closer to the edge of the building.

"Mr. Stark." Peter's eyes traveled over to Natasha Romanoff who stepped up next to him. "Out with a friend?"

He tilted his head and smirked at Peter. "You remember the Black Widow."

"Hard to forget," Peter mumbled not at all disingenuous.

Romanoff's face didn't twitch. She narrowed her eyes on him, slowly looking him up and down.

Peter cleared his throat. He couldn't see any weapons on her but that didn't mean she wasn't armed. Mr. Stark had assured him multiple times that she wouldn't try to detain him, but those were still two Avengers right in front of him who had sought him out in the dark on an empty rooftop.

"What is it, casual Friday at the office? Your suit in the shop?"

Mr. Stark pursed his lips and Peter wasn't sure if this was for show or if he really was on shaky ground with the attitude he put on, but he had been working on that line all day and nobody could see the smirk on his lips anyway.

"We're here for a chat, actually."

Peter cleared his throat. "Well, I'll leave you guys to it then. I've got this thing anyway..." He pointed over his shoulder in the general direction of Queens.

Before he could turn and pretend to leave Mr. Stark quickly spoke up. "A chat with you, Underoos."

"Oh." Peter looked back and forth between them. "Well, you should call my secretary and she'll put a date in the—"

"That's enough now," the Widow spoke up, a scary vibe of finality ringing in her voice. "What were you doing in Manhattan, the day of the attack."

"Erm..." Peter had spiked the moment Romanoff opened her mouth. She was one scary lady. He swallowed his nerves and shot a short glance in Mr. Stark's direction that he immediately regretted. He was on his own for this one. Mr. Stark couldn't help him right now. Wouldn't. So Peter looked up at the sky instead and the rooftops on either side of them, avoiding her sharp gaze. "I mean, I just happened to be in the neighborhood. Looked like you were in need of assistance."

Romanoff narrowed his eyes on him some more and took a step closer. She was studying his every move. This would have to be what it felt like to lie in an x-ray machine.

"You just happened to be around," she put out, openly disbelieving.

Peter shrugged. "I was hanging out close to the bridge. Heard the explosions. Sounded like something was going down."

"We have a request from the NYPD to bring you in," Mr. Stark pointed out.

Peter knew that of course but just the thought that they would hand him over to the police department still send a shiver down his spine. They wouldn't do that. Mr. Stark had said they wouldn't really do that. This was all just for show, but still... "I... I respectfully decline."

The Widows expression hadn't changed, she hadn't even tried to step closer and yet the tone of her voice got thoroughly under his skin. "That's not for you to decide, Spider."

Peter couldn't help but scratch the back of his neck. "I was... I was just trying to help. I didn't mean to—"

He looked up and both of them stood frozen. The distinct vibrations of a mobile phone echoed across the rooftop. Two phones, actually. Both of them reached for their pockets, phones in hand. The Widow had her eyes on Mr. Stark and nudged her head towards Peter and retreated into the shadows but of course, that wouldn't stop Peter from hearing what—

"Hey, Spiderling." Mr. Stark had taken a couple of steps closer to him. "That call is really none of your concern."

Oh, he had meant that one. But that was easier said than done. She was still close enough that if he'd really concentrate he'd even be able to hear the other person on the phone. It wasn't too hard to block that part out and though her responses were scattered and monosyllable, to Peter's ears it was like she was speaking right next to him.

"How many?" Her back was turned to them and Peter found her voice just drew him in, made his eyes swing back into her direction time and time again. "I can. An hour maybe."

"Kid!" Mr. Stark snarled under his breath.

"She's right there!" Peter whispered back, his face drawn into a scowl under the mask that Mr. Stark thankfully wouldn't be able to see. "What do you want me to do? Cover my ears?"

"For starters."

Peter tilted his head in open annoyance at that. It wasn't his fault that his hearing was excellent. He just had time to pull himself together when the Widow hung up the call and turned back to them.

"We have to go. Spider, you were lucky that day, I hope you know that. We will not tolerate any further meddling in our affairs."

"Right." Peter breathed out.

"Tony." Romanoff nudged her head for him to follow her and Mr. Stark did without another look at Peter. Both Avengers simply turned and left him there.

It took him a couple of minutes till he pulled himself out of the defensive headspace. So, then... then that was it? They were gone and... well, that had turned out to be rather anti-climactic. He was supposed to meet Mr. Stark back at the Tower in about an hour and a half to go over how the meet up went. But honestly, Peter wasn't sure what exactly they'd have to analyze. This had been, well, this had been a cakewalk. What had he even been so afraid of all this time?

He could totally squeeze in about an hour of patrolling around Queens before he had to make his way to the Tower and he had a few lost weeks of crime-fighting to make up for. 

##

They had left the kid and headed for the car. This could have gone worse. A lot worse. Peter had done well, a healthy mix of confidence and anxiety. Tony let himself fall into the passenger seat and pulled out his phone right as Natasha started the engine.

"Any more details from that call?" He asked, eyes on his phone. He'd only seen the memo line of the mission call. 

She turned around and checked the street before she sped out into traffic.

"A bunch of targets lit up simultaneously."

"I can always just call another car, Nat. Then you could head right back to the Compound. You don't really have to drive me by the Tower."

"It's fine. There's a guy in R&D I have to speak to before we head off on the mission."

His eyebrows shot up and he glanced at her. "What do you need to talk to one of my R&D guys for?"

Her eyes stayed fixed on the road, her mouth shut.

Tony gasped. "Are you hooking up with people from my staff?"

"Of course that's the first thing your mind goes to."

"Nat, don't confuse my staff. They're smart, but not socially skilled enough to date a spy."

Again, no answer.

"Fine, keep your secrets then," he shrugged, then pulled up the mission memo on his phone. "Sudan, Gabon, Cameroon, and Nigeria? That's quite a few spots to hit. You'll be gone for weeks on this."

Again, she didn't answer, eyes on the road.

"I'm just saying," he tried again. "We still haven't ruled out any more attacks on the homeland, have we?"

"Crossbones needs new supplies, new weapons. He burned his South American connections."

"Right." Tony grimaced at the name. He hated it when she used it. It made Rumlow sound so much more badass and important than he was. Sure, he was a pain and a threat and they needed to get him locked up in a dark, dark cell, but they had bigger things they should spend their time on. Of course, the faster they got the guy, the faster they'd be able to focus on that global threat looming off-planet.

"You'll have Vision to help you keep an eye on things. And Rhodey," she added like an afterthought.

Of course, she would. Rhodey was helpful in a fight but difficult to get access to. There had to be clear cut intel to call on him. Tony scrolled through the list of cities, towns and possible terrorist outposts on the memo. They'd have to spy out every single location to collect enough information if they even wanted to begin to understand which ones held the weapons that Rumlow was targeting. They really could be gone for up to a month on that mission. Not like he'd miss the team meetings but they were not really prepared for a long mission like that. Too little structure at home for when most of the team would be gone this long. Too many unknown variables, missing details for the mission itself. And there were no agreements over US military engagements with any of these countries.

"Maybe you should leave Wanda behind. Her powers will attract attention and you need to stay off their radar."

Natasha shook her head. "Steve says we need her to contain the weapons."

"Maybe—"

"Tony, there's no other option. We can't let Rumlow get his hands on those supplies. It's that easy. There is no alternative."

He blew out his breath and shot a glance out the window. They were just coming off the Queensborough Bridge, a couple of blocks from where they had just about managed to foil Rumlow's latest attack a few weeks prior. Thanks to the kid.

"Yeah, I know. I know. Just... you know."

"We'll be careful. We always are."

He kept his mouth shut for the rest of the ride, eyes on his phone, thoughts circling around the weeks to come. She drove them down into the darkness of the Tower's parking garage. Phone in hand Tony headed for the elevator. There was stuff he still had to do. The kid was supposed to drop by later to talk about how things went during the rendezvous but they'd have to postpone that to the next day, or the day after that. There was shit he had to get done in order with most of the team about to head off.

"Upstairs, FRI."

The doors closed behind him. He opened a different file on his phone, the Compound's staff sheet. He'd have to spend more time upstate, keep an eye on things. Or he could get Agent Hill to do it. Probably a mix of both. The elevator doors opened to his penthouse.

"FRI, get me a meeting with Agent Hill. Tell her I need her on location supervising the Compound. Do I have time tomorrow morning?"

"I will contact her right away, Boss. You have variable time slots that can be moved or adapted between 9 am and 11:45 am tomorrow morning."

"Right."

"Hill's already at the Compound, Tony."

He flinched and turned to make sure his ears weren't betraying him. Damn, he hadn't even noticed that Natasha had gotten on the elevator with him.

"Jeez, Nat." He shook his head and headed for the coffee maker. "Didn't you say you needed to talk to an R&D guy?"

"I do. My R&D guy, actually."

He froze as the tone of her voice crashed over him. Her R&D guy?

"You build the spider a suit."

Tony's heart gave a painful jump like someone had just kicked it into a higher gear. He kept his back turned to her, willed his pulse to pipe down.

"Excuse me?"

"I said, you build the spider a suit."

He made an effort to clench his jaw and keep it from falling open. How? How could she know? He had been so careful to make the fabric look just as flimsy as the material Peter had used. 

"Nat, I... erm, what—"

"Think long and hard about what you're going say to me now."

Tony did turn to face her at that. Her face was blank, eyebrows slightly knitted together but no clear indication for him where he stood with her. This... fuck. This was not how he had seen this play out.

"Listen, I—"

"You lied to us." Her eyes were dark and unblinking.

He shook his head. "I did not."

She dropped the calm at that. "You fucking did, Tony. God, I can't believe you've been this stupid! How am I supposed to help you if you shoot yourself in the foot like that."

"I didn't lie to you! Not once. I just... yeah, I guess I kept some details to myself, but I didn't lie!"

"Don't try to talk your way out of this with me of all people. You've been working with the Spider-Man and you didn't say a fucking word about it." She ran a hand through her hair, eyes now clearly burning with anger. "And you did lie. I asked you! I asked you right after that damn day in Manhattan to tell us what you know!"

"And I did. I told you everything that I did know at that point."

"Great, Tony, just fantastic."

"He came to the Tower that night and—"

"I seriously don't even know if I want to hear any of your excuses. You messed up. Big time." Fighting with Natasha was not like fighting with anyone else. She didn't turn away in frustration, she was in his face, watching every little twitch he made at her words. "This is a big fucking mess and now I either get to throw you under the bus or I get to lie about what you know to the team. This was a fucking stupid stunt to pull!"

Tony had his arms crossed, eyes on the floor. "He showed up at the Tower bleeding out from a stab wound the night of the mission in Manhattan. Sam had chased him around and I felt bad about it because that was just such a dumb move—"

"I don't think you get to judge people for their dumb moves anymore," she bit out.

He only groaned. "You know what I mean."

Natasha closed her eyes with a shake of her head and sighed, "It was a fucking dumb move. So what, you secretly nursed him back to health? Jeez, Tony."

He cleared his throat. "I stitched him up and then he ditched me."

"He ditched you? You let the guy ditch you?"

He shot her a glance. He really didn't need that kind of attitude. "I had all the windows locked as well as access to the lobby but he took the elevator to one of the viewing platforms and crawled down the side of the building."

"He crawled down the side of the building right after he was stabbed?" There was a note of respect swinging in her voice that Tony was entirely uncomfortable with.

"I really don't want to get into this."

"Do you know who he is? I mean, who he really is?"

He mulled that one over for a moment then looked up at her. "Yes."

"Jeez, Tony."

"He's just a kid. He's strong but he's naive and enthusiastic, intimidated by the team."

Natasha shook her head and finally turned away from him. She let herself fall into the cushions of the couch with a groan.

"You have to tell them, you know that, right?"

"He's just a kid, Nat."

"It doesn't matter. This could... this could be disastrous. If this comes out at the wrong time... Tony, I don't think they would listen and I can't really blame them either. If they find out that you kept this from them it would underline their worst assumptions. That whole thing with Ultron will come up again, you know that. We'd have to go through all that bullshit all over again."

"I do know that." He scratched the back of his neck. This was going to be trouble. He didn't want to go back on his word to the kid, but if he didn't he risked a rift within the Avengers they might never get over. He couldn't let that happen either. The world relied on them. He knew what was out there waiting for them somewhere in the galaxy and he needed the team if Earth wanted to even stand a chance against all of it. "I know I have to tell them. I just... He's just a kid, Nat. He needs some time is all."

She groaned. "You should have told us when you found out. You should have just told us and all of the secrecy bullshit could have been avoided. Hell, you would have actually had them trust you more!"

"Oh please," he rolled his eyes at her. "Like that would have changed anything. Cap doesn't trust me as far as he can throw me."

"Tony, that's not true." 

"You know what, you're right. He could throw me quite a lot further with those ridiculous super serum arms than he trusts me."

She pursed her lips, eyes locked on him. "Steve might have had some strong disagreements with you, but he trusts you."

"Not enough that he would have let the Spiderling just be. They were feral after that mission, completely unreasonable and you know it," Tony argued.

"You make it sound like they'd devour him if they'd get their hands on him."

"He came out to help us and Wilson chased him through the streets, which made the Spiderling hide in some alleyway where he got stabbed and almost bled out. He's scared, can you blame him?"

"I'm not blaming him, I'm blaming you."

He couldn't help but smirk at that. "Of course you are."

She looked at him, quietly studying him before she shook her head in resignation. "I can't believe you build him a fucking suit. Could you be more obvious?"

He crossed his arms. "He was jumping around in a onesie that got shredded the instance it came into contact with a somewhat sharp blade. What else was I gonna do?"

"What do I know..." She ran a hand across her face, massaging the bridge of her nose. "Ground him?"

"I'm not his babysitter."

"Could have fooled me," she muttered and Tony scowled at her. "You can't just build people superhero suits, Tony."

He narrowed his eyes on her. "Yeah, right, how are those new Bites working out for ya?"

"That's different and you know it." She shook her head, then shrugged. "Great actually. The balance is off the charts."

"Well, you're welcome." He gave an exaggerated bow in front of her. "How the hell did you even figure this out. The suit's perfect."

"Please," she rolled her eyes. "You think I can't spot your craftsmanship from a mile away? I'm insulted."

"That almost sounded like a compliment, Nat. You're losing your edge."

She rubbed both hands across her face. Her chest rose and fall with deep steady breaths.

"You trust him, don't you."

Tony shrugged. That wasn't the point. "I have no reason to mistrust him."

She didn't answer, let her hands fall down onto her thighs and only stared into space. With a regular person, he could have probably seen wheels turning in their head, eyes moving as they would jump from one thought to the next. Not with Natasha. With her, there was nothing to read, but he knew her well enough to tell what that face on her meant. He knew she was working things over in her mind. That was just who she was.

He sighed and gave another shrug. "I was going to tell you. Eventually."

"I have to get back to the Compound, Tony. Now. We need to leave and..." She looked up at him. "I'm not gonna tell them. Not now. We need to focus on the mission."

Tony nodded, trying to keep his own pulse from jumping at her statement. "Thank you."

"As soon as we're back, you'll come clean."

"Alright."

"No excuses, no stories. You'll tell them. You'll apologize."

"Alright, alright. I will."

She shook her head again before she got up and headed for the elevator. Tony ruffled a hand through his hair as he watched her leave. As soon as the elevator doors had closed he buried his head in his hands and groaned loudly, airing all of his frustration.

"FRIDAY, send the kid a message. He's to stay away from the Tower tonight and has to get off the streets immediately. Tell him I mean it. I want him to lay low for a couple of days until I contact him again."

"Right away, Boss."

Chapter Text

Things for Tony usually happened in sets of threes. If one thing went terribly wrong he usually didn't have to wait too long for numbers two and three to follow along. In fact, this time number one and two had happened in quick succession of each other. The mission call to Africa, which meant he would be left in charge of things at the Compound and overseeing US operations. He hadn't even started to process what that would mean for his already packed schedule when Natasha had gone ahead and figured out his whole thing with the kid. Well, not the whole thing. Not yet. But she knew enough. The rest would likely only be a matter of time. 

The team was always going to find out at some point, but he had really hoped that he'd have more time. More time to get the kid's trust. More time for the dynamics in the team to calm down a bit. More time that Peter could just digest everything that had happened to him in the last few weeks between his less than optimal first encounter with the Avengers and the trauma that followed. The kid had potential, that much was obvious but he'd need training and he had some growing up to do, possibly some turning 18, though it was clear that he was itching to get out and do more and with his strength and superhuman abilities there was little to stop him.

The first time Peter had tried on the suit, that day in the lab just after he had completely fallen apart, Tony had watched with a weird mix of reservation and amazement how the kid's demeanor had changed, his eyes brightened, shoulders squared and head held high after he had swung around the lab for a while and shot some webs for target practice. The purpose was a part of him. Peter was good at this.

Well, Tony still had some time till he'd have to tell the team. That also meant he still had some time till Peter had to know that Tony would have to tell the team. Another week or two for the kid to bask in his ignorance. Then a couple of weeks to give him time to come to terms with the reality of the situation. When the team would come back from the mission Tony would have to bring him to the Compound so they could have their talk. 

Peter would be fine. He would be. Probably. Tony might get them to accept the kid's request for his secret identity. Hopefully. The whole thing about Spider-Man being a 14-year-old kid would not go over well. At all. Neither would Tony tolerating an underaged vigilante and arguably supporting him in continuing.

It had been less than a day after the first two things happened when problem number three came around the corner. FRIDAY had forwarded an urgent deadline request from the Stark Industry headquarters in LA. One of their top three clients threatened to walk away from a deal in digital storage capacity, claiming a better offer from HT Solutions - formerly known as Hammer Industries and since bought by a Chinese investor. They were looking for a 7.5% increase in capacity or they would walk their investment all the way to Asia. 

7.5% wasn't undoable - with time and research - but the deadline was just a week away. That would have been ambitious even if his team hadn't just left him in charge of the Compound while they went to another continent. It became even more complicated when after the first three days, that had left Tony with only a couple of hours of sleep each, the added data dumps from Africa were coming in steady. The team traveled lightly and analysis of the intel was mostly done by FRIDAY. They uncovered a good portion of data, movements between different camps and messages that needed decrypting from the first few targets in the outskirts of al-Faschir in Sudan.

"Transmission from locations 4 and 5 did not match the signature at all," Tony read off the graphic that was gradually extended by FRIDAY with different data signatures. 

"But 4 and 5 do match each other, right?" Roger's voice was booming through the lab and even without the 11th espresso that day, Tony wouldn't have had a problem to follow his words.

His eyes wandered back and forth across the graphic. "Most of them do. There is a third signature that actually seems to match another receiver, but that one has not shown up in any of the readings you send along."

"We're thinking they use both locations to communicate with bases across the border. There could be a connection with a splinter group from Nigeria," Rogers explained.

Tony shook his head. "I can't pin down the destination from what I have here. If you get me an area limited to about 60 square miles I can run analysis and possibly find a match but even that could take up to a day or more. We're talking about multiple million data sets a day over the timeframe of a few weeks. You need to down the area first or the number of signals would just be too high. I might find something eventually, but not in a reasonable timeframe."

"It might be some time before we will have that information. I'll keep you posted. I gotta go. Nat's waiting."

"Alright, Cap. Don't get caught!"

Tony hung up and ran both hands over his face. 

"Boss, you have a 5 pm deadline set for phase 2.2."

Tony sighed, "Alright then. Open up the documentation. What time is it now?"

"It's 3:28 pm, Sir."

"Oh, for fuck's sake."

"While you were on the phone there were also two missed calls from Mr. Gordon's desk of the Research and Development LA division categorised as urgent, one call from Miss Potts' office confirming they received the update on phase 1.4 that was initialized successfully, an update from Ms. Hill on Vision's progress at the abandoned facility in Blacksburg, Virginia, and another call from Mrs. Turner on a problem with the two Arc Reactor installation sites in Orlando awaiting your response at your earliest convenience but before 7pm tonight as well as two text messages from Peter Parker still waiting for response."

Tony rubbed circles across both his temples simultaneously. Where was he even to start on this? 

"Tell Gordon I'm wired in for the next 30 minutes. Tell him I'll call, 4 pm Eastern sharp, and he can have 2 minutes and 30 seconds. Also, remind me to call him at 4 pm sharp. Tell Orlando I'll call them at 6:50 pm unless it's about the groundwater runoff, then have them send the specs and have them call me at 5:15 pm."

"Will do, Boss. There is also a low-level alert about the amount of sleep you missed in the last 84 hours. I must strongly advise you to take a break, eat and sleep at the earliest possibility."

Tony waved her off. "Remind me about that again on Friday, girl."

"Sir, today is Saturday."

He groaned. "Just open up those documents on phase 2.2, FRI."

"What about Peter Parker, Sir?"

Tony shook his head. 

"Just tell him I'll get back to him." 

His eyes moved across the projection, looking for the line in the code he had FRIDAY mark before he had taken the incoming call from Rogers. 

He cleared his throat before adding, "And tell him to stay low and not to fall out of the sky."

##

It had been more than a week since that rendezvous with the Black Widow. Longer than that since he had been at the Tower. He had gone home that day and like Mr. Stark had asked, he just stayed low to the ground for a couple of days, only went out at night so he was less likely to get caught by civilians' camera phones. Mr. Stark had canceled their meet up and hadn't set a new one, had hardly responded to Peter's texts at all. It had been 8 days since he'd been at the Tower and even though he rationed his supply, he had run out of web fluid two nights ago on his right shooter. At first, he was going to stop his patrols. He texted Mr. Sark again but just wouldn't get a reply. So he went out anyway. It was good training, right? Relying on only one of his arms. Maybe he wouldn't have been hurt that night in that alley if he would have known how to deal with using only one shooter. If he hadn't frozen up. The one left only worked for a couple more hours though and had run out the next day. No web fluid meant basically no patrolling. He could still do stuff but he relied on the web-shooters for a quick escape. For wrapping up the thieves and criminals. 

Peter had been two seconds away from just brewing new web fluid during his chem class. He had messaged Mr. Stark on the weekend, then again on Monday when the first shooter ran out and again on Tuesday, had asked if it was okay now to come by the Tower but Mr. Stark hadn't responded. It wouldn't even have been a big deal to brew a batch in class. He had done it countless times and nobody had ever caught him.

But Mr. Stark had said not to steal from the school supplies, so instead, Peter set out for Manhattan after school. It was a Wednesday and Wednesdays had usually been internships days for Peter. Well, almost every day had been an internship day for a couple of those weeks that Mr. Stark had worked on the suit, but - officially - Wednesdays and Fridays were the days they had agreed on. Then he had gotten the suit and his hours were cut down. He was really only supposed to drop by to maintain the suit and make new web fluid.

Peter took the subway, the familiar connection he hurried to make after school was out. Then the few short minutes it took him to walk from the station to the Tower. He stopped just as he turned the corner, eyes on the main entrance. What if Mr. Stark had revoked his access? Or if he didn't even have any form of standing access like he had thought and Mr. Stark had only ever just informed FRIDAY that he was coming and now that he hadn't asked Peter to come to the Tower, or at least confirmed the appointment, what if Peter would set off some kind of alarm with his access card? Maybe he should just call him? But Mr. Stark might not even answer. Just like he hadn't with most of Peter's texts. Plus, Peter had already made it to the Tower and he really needed that batch of web fluid. He might as well go inside.

He hadn't felt this nervous walking up to the building since the first day when security had almost handed him over to the police. He walked in undisturbed this time though. They knew his face by now. He'd been in and out of the Tower plenty of times. He was familiar with the hollow echo his footsteps made on the marvel floor of the lobby. And nobody heard how loudly his heart was beating as he held up his access card to the scanner at security. The green light flashed up in seconds and he couldn't quite believe it. There he was, the elevator opening for him at the far side of the wall.

He stepped inside and waited a moment for the doors to close. 

"Hi, FRIDAY."

"Hello, Peter. Good to have you back."

He smiled up at her camera. "I'm happy to be back, too. Is... erm... do you think you can get me to the lab upstairs?"

His stomach exploded with the familiar tingle as the elevator sped up to the 67th floor. The doors opened into the lab and he was actually a little surprised to see Mr. Stark right there in the middle of the room. The presence of Mr. Stark in his own lab in his own Tower sure wasn't a surprise in itself, but the lab... Well, the lab.

There was stuff spread out on every available surface. Tools lying around, empty coffee cups scattered on every table, a small stack of used dishes on the ground next to the couch. Peter kicked a screwdriver across the floor when he stepped out of the elevator and it rolled into the middle of the room, only stopped by one of the workbenches. His jaw dropped and there was absolutely nothing he could even think to say. He had expected Mr. Stark to be busy. This was a different level of busy. Of course, there had to be an urgent reason as to why he had responded so sparsely to Peter's messages or at all, really. Peter wasn't stupid, something had been in the works that day Mr. Stark and Natasha Romanoff had met Peter in Queens. But this... This did not at all look like what he had expected.

"Erm... Mr. Stark?"

He turned around, hair wild, sticking into different directions. His face looked like he hadn't seen any daylight since the last time Peter had seen him. Or a pillow.

"Pete?" His eyes were wide, socket wrench in one hand, pliers in the other. "What are you doing here?"

Peter had to force his jaw shut so he would stop gaping at the scene in front of him. "I asked FRIDAY if she could bring me up. I've run out of fluid and I haven't really heard from you for over a week so..." he speed-talked, then shook his head at Mr. Stark. "What... what happened here?"

Mr. Stark looked to either side of himself like he just now noticed the chaos around him. "Been quite a week."

"Yeah... yeah, looks like it," Peter mumbled.

Mr. Stark ran the back of his hand across his eyes. "Listen, this is not a good time. Maybe just... just come back on... FRI, what day is it?"

"It's Wednesday, May 11th, Sir."

Peter took another couple of steps into the lab. "Mr. Stark, are you okay?"

"Me? Peachy." He flashed a smile, the one you'd find on magazine covers, then scratched his head with the handle of the pliers as Peter walked closer.

"Is that the tablet we finished last week?"

Mr. Stark looked at the tools in his hands and then over his shoulder at the parts on the workbench.

"Uhm, yeah. There... I need to rearrange the layout because..." He shook his head. "Listen, Pete. Things are a bit crazy. Come by... come by on Saturday." He shook his head again. "FRIDAY, do I have time on Saturday?"

"You're at the Compound on Saturday, Boss."

"Alright, Sunday then." He turned back towards Peter. "Sunday we can... we can look at the... Why are you here again?"

Peter swallowed and looked back and forth between Mr. Stark and the open mayhem around them. "I... Are you sure, you're okay? I mean, I could... If you need a hand..."

Mr. Stark's face softened. "Pete, listen. That's... You're a good kid, but I don't have time to explain stuff. I need to be done with this like the day before yesterday and really I just—"

"I could... I could just put some of the stuff away," Peter interrupted. "If you want? You... you need some space to work. Maybe get you some food? You..." Peter frowned. "Sir, you look like shit."

Mr. Stark barked out a laugh that seemed a lot more genuine than the picture-perfect smile he had flashed before. 

"And honestly, so does the workshop. Where's Dum-E?" He turned to look around the lab but the bot was resting in his charging station.

"He... He kept dropping things and then smashed the cups in the dishwasher it— " Mr. Stark shook his head again. "Just, yeah, if you want to you can just have a look at what needs to... needs to..." He gestured at the general direction of the kitchenette, then the table that stood against the wall, before his eyes fell onto the workstation that Peter had been working at for the last few weeks.

"Don't worry about it, Sir." Peter had already dropped his bag next to the sofa. "You can just get back to the layout and I'll take care of some of the things over there."

The sofa itself had a few empty cups and a mountain of power bar wrappers spread over one end and a crumpled-up blanket thrown over the other side like someone had been living on it. Peter frowned at the mess then found that Mr. Stark was still looking at him.

"It's... There were a lot of things that I—"

"I'll take care of it, Sir. Just... just get back to that tablet."

Some of the tension fell off Mr. Stark's face and to Peter's horror it made the lines around his eyes and mouth, the bags under his eye stand out even more.

"Thanks, kid."

Peter wandered into the kitchen first. There were broken plates and cups in the sink as well as in the dishwasher, puddles of spilled liquid that Peter hoped was just coffee on the countertop, a bunch of coffee beans and candy scattered all over the place. Yeah, he had to clean up that stuff before he could bring any kind of order to the lab. He carefully extracted the shards first from the sink, then the dishwasher and stacked it with the remaining dirty dishes from the kitchen that were still intact. Then he made his way back into the workshop, collected the dishes spread out all across that room.

Mr. Stark was bent over his table, talking to FRIDAY, cursing out his tools. His mood was foul, that much was obvious. Peter had seen him angry and agitated before, that first car ride to the Compound came to mind, or even that time he had found out how old Peter was. A shudder went through him and he had to shake off the memory of that day. 

This was different though. 

"For fuck's sake, the .8 hex, FRIDAY." 

"Boss, you dropped the .8 hex screwdriver."

But Mr. Stark just went on and on, his head somewhere else completely. "It was just here. I just had it." Mr. Stark yanked at the drawers, opening them one after the other. 

Peter quickly put down the 4 cups he was carrying on the coffee table next to the sofa. He went over to what in his head he had come to call his workbench. There is was, the screwdriver he had accidentally kicked across the room earlier. Peter picked it up and quickly walked over to Mr. Stark.

"I think you might have dropped this earlier, Sir. It was across the room by the elevator when I came in." 

He placed the tool down on the table next to the open case of the Stark tablet.

"That... thanks, kid. I knew I'd just had this." Mr. Stark didn't look at him. Just shook his head and picked up the screwdriver. He loosened the mounting of the graphic card, carefully dislodged the ultra-thin cable that connected it to the memory unit. Next, he would... Peter's eyes wandered across the table. 

"Pete, actually, I need the—"

Peter put down the small narrow nose pliers and the drift punch next to the tablet. It did make him look up at last. 

"Yeah, that." 

Peter shrugged. "You know, I was here when you put this together in the first place."

"You were, huh?" Mr. Stark smirked at him. "I need the wire cutter. And get the flat cable. It's somewhere in the..." He turned and looked back and forth between the two other workbenches.

"I got it, Mr. Stark. Why are you taking all of this apart again anyway?"

He sighed. "The new design was supposed to be more efficient in the layout so the users could later decide to add—"

"...to add more memory and/or storage capacity later on. Yeah, Sir. I know that part."

"Right. Well, we had a company build a new assembly system to produce these and instead of sticking to the design I gave them, they messed up and aligned the interior layout completely mirrored but kept all the outlets the same. So I need to update the prototype."

Peter frowned as he watched Mr. Stark's hands that reattached the pieces in a different order. "Can't they just change the machine?"

"They can," he cleared his throat. "But I was told that from an economical aspect it would be more efficient to change the prototype because we lose 8 Million Dollars for every day the assembly line is not producing anything. And building a new assembly machine would take about a month."

"Wow." That was more money in a day than Peter could ever dream of making in a lifetime. "But... wait if you put the graphic card over there, then you'll lose the whole effect of the added capacity!"

Mr. Stark sighed. "Preaching to the choir, Pete."

"You should sue them."

"Yeah, but suing them is not gonna magically make the machine do what it's supposed to do."

"Well, that sucks."

Mr. Stark chuckled and with that Peter moved on to deal with the remaining chaos. It was almost 7 by the time he went down to the cafeteria and got them both some dinner. He also took the pile of dishes from the cafeteria and returned them with an awkward apology. They sat down at Peter's workbench and he listened to Mr. Stark talking himself through the third phase adaptations of a digital storage concept and different forms of compressing data.

"...because people so far have just been looking at it diagonally or linear or in a chaos structure, but what they failed to see is that all of them can be implemented in combination with each other and that's what makes it so efficient. I mean I hadn't thought of all that either until like two nights ago when I dropped all the M&M's and coffee beans in the kitchen and then realized that with the pattern of the tiles it kind of... well, it was a bit of a Newton moment, just with M&Ms instead of an apple," he shrugged. "Not that I would ever compare myself to Newton."

Peter snorted. "Of course you wouldn't, Mr. Stark."

"I mean Newton was only scratching the surface, right? This... this could be... Well. Hey," he pointed his fork at Peter. "You better not steal my idea, kid. I don't want to have to chase you around the block."

"Of course not!" Peter smirked. "What was that about implementing the diagonal layer again? I think my tape recorder didn't quite get that part."

Mr. Stark narrowed his eyes on him but the mock dismay was palpable. "Where did you pick up that lip, kid. We really need to work on your manners!"

Peter laughed and shoved the last bite of pasta into his mouth.

"Anyway," Mr. Stark continued, "the best part is actually, that it doesn't just help with the capacity but it individualizes the decryption process to a degree that is ridiculously hard to crack."

Peter shook his head in wonder. How could Mr. Stark even keep that many details in his brain all at once? Peter might have a knack for remembering the odd bit of trivia and sure he had hoarded some knowledge in robotics and engineering and the odd coding over the last few years, but the level to which Mr. Stark could just grasp something in a complexity like that was something that, well, he was a one-in-a-generation kind of guy. It had been amazing to have someone like Mr. Stark teaching him. Not that Peter didn't love that he could go back out again, patrol again. It was a different kind of thrill. But the days, the few weeks where he had solely concentrated on the engineering and the projects in the lab, it had been, well, special. Something he never thought—

"Pete?"

Peter looked up and blinked at him. "Huh?"

"I asked why you came by." Mr. Stark frowned. "You okay? Did something happen?"

"Oh, yeah, no. Nothing happened. I just..." Peter waved off the question and babbled on. "I ran out of web fluid and you didn't really answer my texts and, well, I just thought I know we don't really do the internship days anymore and like, that's fine and all, I understand that you don't have the time and you've done so much for me already, but I just... you said not to make it at school anymore and so I just thought I drop by and maybe... maybe you'd be in and maybe I could just make a batch."

"Shit, of course. I mean, damn, I hadn't even..." Mr. Stark's eyes widened. "Wait, you... did you just say that we don't do the internship days anymore because I don't have the time for it?" 

Peter looked up at him and frowned. "Well, yeah. I mean, you're busy and I get that. It's not like it's a real internship or anything so, I—"

"Okay, stop for a second." Mr. Stark gave his head a subtle shake then looked back at Peter. "You're telling me you wanted to continue with the actual internship? Like in you coming to the Tower twice a week and work on the SI stuff?"

Was that a trick question? Peter looked at him and tried to decipher the sarcasm but the questioning look on his face seemed to be absolutely sincere.

"Well, duh. You're Tony Stark. Learning from you is like..." Peter rolled his eyes and shrugged. "Like learning from Newton."

Mr. Stark barked out a laugh and Peter couldn't help the smirk on his face either. 

"But I get it, you got stuff to do and I—"

"Alright, shut up about my schedule for a second. You never kept me from getting my stuff done. Actually quite—" Mr. Stark stopped himself and literally shook that thought from his head. "You're saying you want to reinstate your internship days? You want to come in on Wednesdays and Fridays, twice a week and work on those projects?"

Peter bit his lip, fighting with the urge to look away and blush. "Yes?"

"There are conditions to that Pete, you do know that, right?" 

Mr. Stark raised his eyebrows at him expectantly and Peter nodded quickly.

"Of... of course, Sir! Of course, I understand."

He narrowed his eyes on him. "The first one is you better keep the Newton comparisons coming."

Peter snorted and Mr. Stark's face reciprocated with a smile.

"I'm fine with Galilei and Da Vinci, too."

"I'll make a list so I'm prepared."

Peter's face hurt from how wide his lips stretched in a smile but Mr. Stark crossed his arm, eyes still narrowed not letting up. 

"The delivery has to be absolutely natural though. You gotta make me believe you really mean it." 

"I'm gonna practice at home in front of the mirror then!"

"I'm gonna allow merchandise as a bribe on special occasions like if you want to get in on the really cool projects."

"I'll try my best, Sir," Peter smirked. 

Mr. Stark sighed and nodded once. "Alright, about your Spiderling-ing." The look on his face was a lot more believably sincere. "Definitely don't brew that stuff at school. I'm glad you came by here instead, Pete. Seriously, that could get both of us in a hell of a lot of trouble."

"I know, I know." He shrugged. "I mean, I didn't."

Mr. Stark ran a hand through his hair. "Wednesday or Fridays, those days still good for you?"

Peter nodded, eyes on the plate in front of him.

"Alright, FRI, just keep Pete's access to my lab open for Wednesdays and Fridays so he can make his web fluid if I don't happen to be around."

Peter sat up in his chair. What was happening now? "Sir, you can't just give me access to the lab."

Mr. Stark frowned. "Why the hell not?" He drummed his fingers on the table then shrugged. "She'll just sniper you if you touch something you're not supposed to, how about that?" 

He tilted his head to the side and there was absolutely no telling how serious he was about that. Peter gulped and nodded, eyes wide.

"FRIDAY, you got that? Put it in the diary."

"Right away, Boss."

"Alright, buddy. Go, do your thing. I have a diagonal chaos structure with a linear pattern to implement into my coding."

Peter quickly gathered up the plates and carried them into the kitchen. Mr. Stark called after him for some coffee and Peter couldn't help the giant smile that was plastered on his face. He could have it both then, the internship and the neighborhood Spider-Man-ing. It was all almost too good to be true. Sure, he'd still have to keep most of this from basically everyone he knew, but still this... This was brilliant.

##

The kid had been coming in on Wednesday and Fridays and that one Saturday he had even come out to the Compound. Peter even ended up staying the night so he could be there when they finished the last steps of the microchip implementation. 

And Tony fucking loved it. Having the kid in the lab got him off the edge like nothing else had ever managed to. All he had to do was not to think too hard about the psychological reasons of why that was. A first-year psychology student could work out what he was doing. Hell, the average Dr. Phil viewer would know what was up here. 

He knew exactly why it felt so good to have the kid around and that reason gave him equal parts nausea and heat flashes whenever he thought about it, so he didn't. It was just a symptom. It wasn't why he was doing all this. He hadn't given up on his son. He would never give up on Aiden. He was looking. FRIDAY was looking, but 800.000 missing kids in the US every year with an average of 157 pieces of information per case and that over 11 years, about 1,4 trillion information sources to dissect and analyze. For the US alone. He could have been dragged to Canada, South America, Eastern Europe, Australia, New Zealand, maybe even parts of Asia. But Tony was looking. He wouldn't stop. He'd have to find him someday. Someday something would pop up that would blow this whole thing wide open and then he'd know. At least, he'd know.

He wasn't trying to replace his son with Peter, even if his stupid brain sometimes made him believe that. He wasn't playing the boy's father figure, more like a nice uncle... urgh, no. That just sounded super wrong. A cool older brother? Tony grimaced. Not good either. Friendly older science guide... urgh.

"FRIDAY, what do you call it when one person gives a younger or like less experienced person a lot of wise help and advice?" 

"That's called being a mentor, Boss."

"Huh. I guess that's what they call it."

He shrugged. That was fine by him. He was the kid's mentor then. That sounded good enough. 

A mentor who still hadn't informed his mentee about a particular touchy piece of information that might make that particular mentee want to strangle his mentor. Or at least ditch him and emigrate to Canada. Or maybe Australia. They did have a lot of spiders, he'd fit right in.

Tony sighed. He'd tell Peter about Nat figuring things out, he would. The team would still be in Africa for a couple more weeks, but he had to do it soon so the kid would have some time to come to terms with meeting the team after all. It would be fine. They would be mad at Tony and that was alright as well. He kept something from them and he'd suffer through another "sometimes my teammates don't tell me things" speech from Cap, but at least things would be out in the open. Or most of them anyway. 

After he was back from Boston. He had the speech at the MIT planned. He had the presentation planned. BARF was working as it should.

"FRI, any information from Miss Potts on when she'll fly into Boston yet?"

"There are no flights to the East Coast scheduled in Miss Potts' calendar, Boss."

Tony groaned. Now she was just being petty.

"Send her a memo and remind her that she is the head of the September Foundation and we are about to give out the biggest stipend in American fucking history, which wouldn't have happened without her."

"Right away, Sir."

"Wait." Tony closed his eyes and exhaled till his lungs were empty. "Just... don't curse at her. She doesn't like that." 

Boston first. Then he'd tell the kid and they'd make a plan.

Chapter Text

There was tranquility, a sense of peace that came with watching the snow fall. Unless you were trapped in an endless circle of futility, then watching the snow fall silently creating layer upon layer as far as the eye could see just added to that feeling of utter uselessness. That's what all his efforts had been, useless.

"Tony?"

He turned around towards the door, hadn't even noticed that Pepper had walked into the room.

"I just talked to one of the agents. There is a retired officer who lives a couple of hours outside of Kyiv, who has overseen all the cases of national and international trafficking up until July when he retired. He would be happy to talk to us about the Kamenev lead and the cases that were connected with the ring."

He looked away from her. They had been in Ukraine for two weeks and they had nothing to show for their efforts. Only dead ends.  Just like Vancouver, Warsaw, Barcelona, Dubai, Montevideo, Santiago, Mexico City. Off the top of his head. Every private investigator they had met told them the same thing. Children trafficked from the US to Ukraine were always connected to kidnapping cases where the perpetrators angled for money, information, access to something, some kind of ransom.

But nobody had ever made contact. Nobody had ever asked Tony for money or weapons or trade secrets, nothing. 2 years, 9 months, 29 days. Nothing. Nobody ever asked for anything in exchange so he could get his son back. Most likely... most likely this wasn't it. The details didn't fit. But neither did they fit with any of the other leads. What was he supposed to do? Give up?

He cleared his throat. "You think we should give it a shot? Or are they just sucking as much money out of us as possible?"

"Either way, they definitely are trying to get the most money out of this they can." Pepper kept her distance. "That doesn't matter though, does it? You won't sleep for the foreseeable future if we don't drive out there and talk to the guy, wondering if it would have uncovered something. Probably wouldn't let it go 'til we came back and met with the man if we don't go now."

"I won't sleep until Aiden's home anyway, no matter what the guy has to say."

That wasn't all that true. A good bottle of whiskey could actually make him forget for a bit and let him sleep. He didn't have to point that out to Pepper though, she knew.

"I guess, we should go then."

Tony nodded, eyes on the white snow blankets on the trees outside. A couple of hours outside of Kyiv. That meant four or five hours of traveling, maybe more. They might get stuck in a snowbank on one of the rural country roads again and would have to wait for someone that would pick them up or pull their car out of the snow. That could cost them even more time. Then it would probably be another hour maybe two that they'd spend talking to this former officer. Tony checked his watch. 4:00 pm. Even if they'd left right away they likely wouldn't be back in time to fly out back to the states that same day. They'd have to wait until traffic control would open the runway the next morning. 17 hours of flight time. That would get them home sometime in the afternoon on the next day. Most likely Pepper was just trying to keep him out of his house for Christmas morning.

"We probably won't make the take-off window for today then," he pointed out.

"Probably not." She stayed quiet for another moment. "I already talked to traffic control. We could get another spot in the flight order tomorrow morning at 9:30."

Tony nodded. He was right then. She likely thought that seeing the guy was pointless. She likely thought that if they left for LA now, after chasing lead after lead for months and months, after this very last one would come to nothing as well, that spending Christmas morning in an empty house in Malibu would be too much. That the third Christmas morning at home without Aiden after all their attempts to find him had failed would simply be too much.

Odds were that she was right. Odds were that Tony might not come back from this. Maybe he could deal with this sitting on a plane with Pepper, nobody else around. Maybe he would be able to deal with that. Maybe if they would get home in the late afternoon and he would spend the next week drinking until his brain finally shut up, maybe she would feel better about it, thinking it could have been worse. Maybe he could wake up on New Years Day and look at everything from a different perspective, find another way. 2008 would be the year. 2008 would be when Tony would turn all of this around. He could feel it. He really could. Things would turn around.

Maybe that thought, that hope would be enough to pretend that the next few hours were something more than Pepper simply trying to keep him alive.

He turned and nodded at her. "Fine, let's go then."

###

Tony had never been a good sleeper. Even as a kid, but the drama he had lived through over the year sure hadn't helped. He didn't sleep all that well in his own bed just because his brain so rarely wanted to shut off. He slept even worse when he wasn't in his own bed. So he heard the phone ring right away.

4:51 am.

That's when he got the call and put on that wireless earpiece.

4:51 am.

By 4:52 am he had turned on the news coverage in his hotel room.

By 4:53 he knew that nothing would be the same now. Everything was gonna change. This was too big. Too public. Too foreign for the average citizen to grasp. One too many. Too big, too public and completely out of their hands to handle.

Even Natasha sounded tired and beat on the other end of the line. "Steve and Sam are double-checking right now but we're pretty sure that we've gotten everyone evacuated." 

Everyone that was still alive she meant.

"How many?" He tried to keep the tone light, matter-of-factly, and not let judgment seep into his voice. This wasn't the time to lay on. This was bad enough as things stood.

"Too many."

"One is too many, Nat. What's your estimate." He walked up and down in front of the muted TV. The live footage showed Redwing still circling the building, still looking for victims trapped in the burning high-rise.

"I don't know, Tony."

"Well, take a guess!"

"I don't know!" she yelled, her breathing labored and deep. "Three people died from falling debris, another 11 are in critical condition but that's just what happened on the outside of the building. Six stories that are severely affected, 4 to 6 units each that were completely destroyed on the south side. There's no way to know how many people were in there. Could be somewhere between 20 or 30 or up to 150."

Tony had to sit. He had to breath. Up to 150 victims.

"It was an accident, Tony."

He cleared his throat. "Yeah, you said that."

"Because that's what it was." 

Her tone was sharp and he couldn't blame her. This was gonna be a hard one for them to navigate. Natasha knew that and she knew that Tony knew that as well. He let himself fall back into the cushions of his sofa, his lung deflating.

"How's Wanda?"

Natasha took a moment, maybe to look over her should and get a visual of the girl, though Tony doubted she'd even need to check.

"Devasted."

Tony rubbed the bridge of his nose. They'd need to come home fast. Right away.

Natasha sighed. "She was trying to shield people in the market. She was trying to keep everyone safe."

Tony still had his eyes close, fingers rubbing across his forehead. "She was trying to keep the market safe, I guess. She was trying to save Cap."

"Come on, Tony..."

"Hey, I don't blame her for that." He shook his head. "I would never blame her for that, but you know how they will spin this."

The line stayed quiet and he took her silence as an acknowledgement. They'd have to get ahead of this somehow if that was even still possible. Make... arrangements, amends. But first of all, they had to make sure this wouldn't escalate any further.

"You need to get back to US soil, pronto," Tony told her.

"Steve wants to make sure search and rescue are concluded and clean-up is manned appropriately before we prepare to fly back to the US."

Tony sighed, "Nat, the last thing we need is news coverage of Nigerian military trying to apprehend you guys and Steve or Wanda fighting their way out."

"Steve or Wanda," she repeated her tone flat.

"They're both enhanced. People view them differently. You know that."

Her tone was flat. "It doesn't make it right."

"It also doesn't change the fact that that's how things stand right now." 

It wouldn't help them to pretend. Things were what they were. People weren't rational with these sorts of things, but Nat was still in the open denial phase of it all.

"How many more people would have died if we hadn't intervened? How many would have—"

"Just stop!" He jumped off the couch, rubbed both hands roughly across his face, then readjusted the earpiece. The team didn't even know how much public opinion had turned against them yet. The steady rise of accusations and questions over their conduct in Sokovia, lingering resentment from the communities all over the globe where the Avengers had been involved in some form or the other. The lady that had sought him out after his speech the day before, talking about her dead son. Her dead human aid worker of a son. "You think you need to lecture me on this? It doesn't matter. It didn't matter with New York. It didn't matter with London, Washington or Sokovia. It doesn't matter now. Get out of there and get out fast."

She huffed out a deep breath. "The others won't like this."

"None of us like this," Tony snarled. "None us want any of this. Still, we have to deal with the reality of the situation."

The phone on the table in front of him buzzed with a second call. His heart gave a painful jump. This was gonna be bad.

"Ross is calling me, Nat. I gotta go."

"I'm sorry, Tony." Her voice grave. "We were careful, I swear we were as careful as we could not to make any waves."

Ross's name flashed on the screen. He couldn't really find any solace in her vow, though she sounded sincere and she probably was. They'd be in a world of trouble with this.

"I know," he sighed. "Just get home."

##

The issue with Pete's senses was, that he couldn't just turn them off. There were those times when that was a problem due to the painful overstimulation, the piercing pain that would come with that. But most of the time it wasn't the pain that was the issue, it was just hearing everyone talk all the time. There were 2.977 students in his school. Plus faculty members. And all of them were talking. All. The. Time.

It was annoying on the best of days. It made the hair on his neck stand up one a day like this one. After what happened in Lagos, Nigeria. A day when speculation and accusations about enhanced individuals were thrown around among the students and teacher so openly and carelessly like there wasn't an enhanced individual among them, listening. Hearing them all. Because as far as the school was concerned, there wasn't. As far as everyone around him was concerned he was just Peter Parker. But what the school did know was that he was officially an intern at Stark Industries. And that made him guilty by association.

While people weren't outright hostile to his face, he could feel their eyes on his back. While people didn't really say much to him or in his proximity, while they mostly avoided him, they didn't know that he could hear every word they whispered behind his back. Down the corridor. On the other side of the cafeteria.

"They all probably know at Stark Industries when the Avengers have these missions."

"Law enforcement will probably question all of them, find out what they knew and when."

"But I mean, Iron Man wasn't even there. It wasn't really Tony Stark's fault."

"Knowledge of a crime and not reporting it is a crime as well. They will totally raid that place."

"They are a team. If one of them messes up, they all mess up."

"And Stark should have known. Who lets a freak like that witch walk around like that."

"She's not even American. I bet she doesn't even have a visa."

"They're not gonna let her back into the country, right? Just send her back where she came from."

"How would they even arrest her? All these freaks they could take over just like that."

"Yeah, we couldn't even defend ourselves."

"I thought Captain America was supposed to protect us. How could he let her come here?"

"And Tony Stark lets them all stay in his Tower!"

"They could be up to anything."

Peter swallowed, face hidden behind the door of his locker. There was nothing he could do. He couldn't correct them, he couldn't engage. He just had to stay calm. Mr. Stark had told him to just stay calm. Not to draw any attention to himself.

He pulled out the Stark Phone hiding it between himself and his locker's door and went through the messages.

I'm sure you've seen what happened. Be calm. Stay off the streets. Keep a low profile. I'll be in touch.

Mr. Stark had sent another one just a minute after that first one.

No patrolling.

Like Peter wouldn't have gotten that from the first message. He would have, though he might have stretched the interpretation a bit and done some minor cases just to keep his mind off things. Maybe he would have, if it hadn't been for the talk at the school. The talk on the streets. People were even less guarded about their opinions out there, not taking any heed when they walked past Peter. Why would they? He had just been a kid on his way to school.

"Those freaks have no respect."

"They just do whatever they want."

"They act like they're above the law."

"Something really needs to be done about them."

"Hey, Peter."

Peter jumped and dropped the Stark Phone into his bag.

"Hey, Ned. You alright?"

"All of this is crazy, right?"

Peter quickly shut the door of his locker, Spanish book in hand.

"Yeah. Super crazy."

Ned walked closely beside him, his voice low. "Do you know if any of this is going to affect your internship at all? Are you still going to go in? Like to the Tower?"

That was the million-dollar question. "I don't really know. I mean, I didn't get a message that I shouldn't come in but I'm just not sure if people are even gonna be there."

Well, "people" would probably be there. If Mr. Stark would be there was another question. It was Wednesday. He generally would have gone to the Tower because Mr. Stark should be getting back from Boston some time today, but then he got those messages to lay low in the morning. Mr. Stark would probably have to deal with the fallout of this and if Mr. Stark wasn't going to be in the lab, Peter would probably not have anything to do there. He wasn't supposed to go on patrol so he didn't really have to stock up web fluid either.

"That's so crazy," Ned said.

"Yeah," Peter nodded along.

Ned leaned closer and dropped his voice even more. "Do you think Tony Stark will hand the Scarlet Witch over to the authorities? Everyone says they will put her in prison, but can they even? She can just blow herself right out of there, right?"

Peter shook his head. "He wouldn't."

"Hmm." Ned shrugged as they made their way into the classroom. They sat down at their bench and Ned leaned over to him again.

"But so many people died. Someone has to be held responsible for that, right?" Ned asked again.

71 deaths and counting. The thought made Peter sick to his stomach. "They wouldn't lock her up. It was an accident."

The two girls in the row in front of them, Ashley and Tara, were discussing Wanda Maximoff as well. Of course, they were. The whole school only had one topic to gossip about.

"I'm sure the government has some cells in a bunker somewhere where they can put her," Tara shrugged, back turned to Peter and Ned. "I mean, it's been almost 4 years since the invasion, 6 years since the Hulk destroyed Harlem. They must have come up with something by now!"

Peter closed his eyes. He tried to focus. He had to focus on something else. Another sense or another conversation, but Ashley's voice just drilled itself into his head.

"But they have to catch her first."

"Maybe they will send Iron Man to catch her!" Tara giggled.

Ashley gasped. "Maybe they'll send Captain America to catch her!"

"Don't be stupid." Jackson turned around on his seat in front of them, leaning against the girls' desk. "Captain America would be goo if it hadn't been for her. He'd just let her escape."

"I'm telling you," Tara lightly slapped Ashley's arm. "Iron Man will catch her and then they'll put her in a bunker somewhere."

"Mr. Stark wouldn't do that!" Peter couldn't hold back any longer. He had tried, but his heart rate had gone through the roof. They were so wrong. They had no idea how wrong they even were. "Mr. Stark would never do that!"

"You still trying to convince people that you know Tony Stark, Penis? You're such a loser."

Peter flinched. Naturally, this was when Flash showed his face. Peter's timing was impeccable as always. But the girls didn't even care. They turned to Peter now, eyes round and sparkling with excitement.

"You really think so, Peter? What have people been saying at the Tower?" Tara asked.

"Yeah, have you been talking about this with people from the Tower? I mean she killed so many people, they have to do something, right? It's not right. She's not even a normal like human being."

He tried to hold onto the edge of the table, tried to get his anger in check, his temper to calm and his mind to focus on anything but how much he hated everything they said. He was supposed to keep his head down.

"It was an accident," he bit out through closed teeth.

Tara rolled her eye. "Only the most predictable accident ever. That's what happens when a freak like her is allowed to just run wild. People died."

"Yeah," Jackson chimed in as well. "People died. Someone has to pay for that. And who better than that abomination!"

Peter didn't even know when he had gotten to his feet. His muscles were shaking with adrenalin. Ned reached for him but Peter didn't even feel his friend's hand on his arm trying to pull him back down into his seat. He looked at the girls, Jackson, that shitty grin on Flash's face. Peter was out of the room before he knew it. Out of the building before he could even pause to think. He turned around and there were students at the windows, staring at him.

He just had to get out of there. His skin was prickling, his head swimming. They were pointing at him, whispering stuff to each other and he couldn't, he couldn't go back in there. He was off the school property faster than his brain could make up its mind on where to go but his feet carried him right to the subway station anyway. He didn't even hesitate, got on the train like a zombie on autopilot.

It was early in the day. Bright daylight. Anyone could see him. He had only pulled on the mask, not wanting to stop and strip to get into his suit. Anyone could have seen him change. But he just had to get somewhere safe. He couldn't walk into the front entrance. They knew that he was supposed to be at school. They would ask questions and he couldn't. He couldn't deal with that now. He needed somewhere quiet, somewhere safe where nobody could get to him. And nobody would get into the Tower. Nobody that Mr. Stark didn't want to have in the Tower would get into the Tower. He pressed his hands against the warm concrete wall, hoping it would anchor him, but his fingers still shook, his mind was still racing. He just had to get up there and be quick about it. The faster he went the smaller the chance that somebody would see him.

He was panting by the time he made it up to the balcony of the penthouse. His body was shaking. What was he gonna do? What was he even doing? He flinched in surprise when FRIDAY's voice echoed across the open space.

"Peter, Mr. Stark has been informed of your arrival. He is inquiring if you are injured."

"No," he whispered. "No injuries. Just... just... I can't... I can't really..." He swallowed. He couldn't breathe. At least it felt like he couldn't breathe. His arms were shaking, his legs were shaking. He was breathing though. He knew consciously that he was breathing in and out but it was like his brain didn't care, didn't really register that. The Stark Phone was vibrating in his backpack. His hands just wouldn't calm down, didn't stop trembling and it was hard to even get a hold of the zipper on his backpack because of how numb his fingers were.

Mr. Stark didn't even bother with any greetings. "You're not hurt?"

"No. I... I just—" His voice was shaking.

"Just breath, Pete. What happened?"

"I... nothing...nothing really happened, I just. I just didn't know where... I couldn't go anywhere else, I... I'm sorry. I know I shouldn't have... I know you don't want me to—"

"Just breathe, alright. Get inside. Get into your room. FRIDAY will block out the daylight and you'll stay there until I get to the Tower."

The door that led into the living area opened without further prompting.

"I'm sorry, Sir, I—"

"I'll be there in about an hour. Tell FRIDAY if you need anything."

The call was hung up before he could even respond. Peter had sat down on the stone tiles at some point, even though he wasn't quite sure when. He threw his head back and took a deep breath in through his mouth, and out again. Another big inhale and exhale. His legs were still shaking, head still swimming from all the voices, all the conversations he hadn't been able to shut out, but he got himself to his feet, through the door, then down the corridor and into the room, second door on the right.

The sheets on the bed smelled like they had just come out of the dryer and he buried his head underneath the pillow. His knees were pulled up high and he rolled his whole body into a fetal position.

The room was dark, the bed felt like comfort and he was safe. His heart rate came down slowly but surely. He felt more and more like himself. Of course the more his body and mind came back to their normal state, the more ridiculous he felt. He'd skipped school. He skipped school because some girls in his class were trash-talking his boss. Well, his mentor. He'd not just skipped the classes he'd just run out of there. They would send May a note over this. He'd probably have to go to the principles office first things the next day, apologize and get a strike, maybe detention right away and for what? Because some girls were gossiping about his mentor. He was such a baby.

He didn't know how long he'd been lying there but just then there had been sounds coming from the living room area.

Mr. Stark had gotten in then. That or it was a SWAT team that infiltrated the Tower, looking for the Scarlet Witch. He couldn't help a nervous giggle escape him. Hopefully FRIDAY would have warned him, if the government really did try to raid the Tower. No, it was Mr. Stark. He heard how him asked FRIDAY whether Peter was asleep. Then there was a light knock on the door.

"Yeah," Peter breathed out.

The door flew open at once at his mentor strode into the room, eyes on him.

"What happened?"

Peter sat up and pulled his knees up to his chest. He had been an idiot, been a big baby was what had happened. He'd run and come here and Mr. Stark surely had better things to do than—

"Pete? Come on now. You're here. You don't just drop by like this. Especially not on a day like today. What happened?"

Mr. Stark's whole posture was tense, his face drawn in concern or anger. Something. Peter took a couple of deep breaths. They had been talking about him, his mentor, gossiping. That wasn't a good enough reason. That was a stupid reason to be upset. So many people judged the Avengers, judged Mr. Stark on a daily basis. Peter had no business getting upset and storming out of school over that. But he had. He got upset and then his senses had gone haywire and he couldn't...

He shook the thought from his head. "I... I don't know, it just. I couldn't stay there any longer. My... my senses were..."

Mr. Stark came a bit closer. "You had another one? Another episode?" 

Peter only shrugged.

"Pete, come on..." He stepped from one foot to the other. "I need to know what's going on in that head of yours. I really..." he sighed. "I want you to be safe and I don't want to be an ass about this but I kind of have this massive international incident to take care of so please, just spit out what happened and we'll..." He sighed again and let all the air out of his lungs as he sat down on the bed next to Peter. "Just tell me, alright?"

"It's stupid. I was just stupid." Peter whispered. "I shouldn't have—"

"You're not stupid, kid. What happened?"

Peter had his arms wrapped around his knees, chin resting against his thighs. "You're not really gonna hand Wanda Maximoff over to the government, right Sir?"

He shot a quick glance at his mentor and Mr. Stark's features softened. "Of course not, buddy. She'll be at the Compound." Mr. Stark rubbed a hand across his face. "That's what people've been saying? That we'll give up one of our own to be locked up by the government?"

Peter couldn't meet his eyes. Yeah, that's what people had been saying. Among other things.

"You know, Cap would probably emigrate to Canada before he'd see any of his team locked up."

Peter puffed out a breath, his fingers picked at each other, his gaze still low. "They called her a freak. How she's... how she's not even human." Mr. Stark had frozen next to him. "How the government should put her away in a bunker somewhere. How she's... an abomination."

"Nobody is gonna put Wanda in a bunker, alright. Nobody." His hand reached for Pete's arm and gripped it tightly. "And nobody is gonna put you in a bunker either. You're not a freak."

That was it, wasn't it? Everything they had said about Wanda Maximoff they could be saying about him just as easily. One wrong step, one mistake. One incident when he was in the wrong place at the wrong time and it would be him they'd want to put in a bunker cell somewhere.

"I just climbed up 68 stories on the outside of your building. Just me. No tricks, no gadgets." Peter was trying to hold back the tears burning in his eyes. He buried his face against his thighs. Mr. Stark only sighed, his hand came up to pat Peter's back.

"You're not a freak, Pete. You're... You can do things others can't, sure, but you're just a boy like anyone else, buddy. They don't even know what they're talking about. They're just ignorant and stupid. Just because they don't understand."

Peter looked up at him no longer able to keep his shaking voice to himself, to hide his wet eyes. "She didn't even... she was just trying to help. To save people. Still they want to lock her up because... because of an accident. It's not her fault! It's the terrorist who did this. They did this and they... people at school and... and on the street they all... they all say the same thing."

Mr. Stark put his arm around Peter's shoulders and pulled him close. It was ridiculous how good that felt. Peter's cheek came to rest against his collarbone, the fabric of his dress shirt cool and soft against Peter's skin. With his left hand, he held onto Mr. Stark's arm as if he might leave if Peter wouldn't hold him there.  

"People are afraid of things they don't know, Pete." Mr. Stark said softly. "Things they don't understand. It's an instinct. It's..." He sighed his left hand rubbing up and down Peter's arm. "Hell, some people can't even deal with people who look different or sound different, speak a different language or... all this is alien to them. It freaks them out. But that's on them, Pete, not on you. You're just a boy, alright. And you're safe. I'll keep you safe. I will. As long as I am around you're always safe with me."

Peter wiped a hand across his face and Mr. Stark squeezed him close against him, his chin resting on top of Peter's head.

"That could have been me," Peter whispered. "In Manhattan that day. With that vial thing. If I would have made a mistake..."

"Yeah." Mr. Stark nodded slightly against Peter's head. "But it wasn't. We got away with it that day. We were lucky or..." His chest rose with a deep breath. "Things just happened to work out that day. There's always a danger that something goes wrong just because it does. Sometimes you can do everything perfectly right and still, things don't work out. The stakes we deal in, Pete, they are always high. But if we don't go out there and try to stop them when we could have, well..."

"Then what happens to them is on us," Peter mumbled.

"It's never on you kid, you hear me? Never." Mr. Stark squeezed his arm almost painfully strong. "It's always on the bad guy, never on you. All we can do is try and help." 

Peter had his eyes closed and just listened, let himself be swept away by the vibrations in his mentor's chest, his words that tried to make sense of the world. Mr. Stark still rubbed his arm and again Peter was struck by how comfortable, how secure he felt with the man who so many people just wrote off as an egocentric, self-important ass. They had no idea.

"How much trouble are you gonna be in with your school?"

"I don't really know," Peter whispered.

Mr. Stark rubbed his arm again, then patted his shoulder. "I have to leave for DC in a couple of hours but... let me just... I'm gonna order some food, alright? And we'll talk things through, figure out what to do about your school." 

He could feel how Mr. Stark craned his head, looked at him, but Peter wasn't quite ready to let go. He still clung to his mentor's arm, head buried against his chest like an eight-year-old.

"Anything else on your mind, kid?"

Peter bit his lip and opened his eyes just a bit. "I'm sorry I climbed up here in the middle of the day when you told me not to."

He held his breath. There were rules to this, Mr. Stark helping him, covering for him and he had broken a big one. 

"Alright then."

He had expected Mr. Stark to disentangle his hands from his own arm and get off the bed, give him at least a reproachful look, a bit of a lecture on what would happen if people found out, but he didn't. Mr. Stark only sighed and his chin came to rest on the top of Peter's head again, a gentle pressure that anchored him. Peter's eyes closed all on their own. He just couldn't tear himself away from his chest rising and falling with every breath, the rhythmic beat of his heart almost like a lifeline tethering Peter to reality. 

Chapter Text

Peter had been exceptionally wary with everything going on in his life. There had been a part of him that regretted running, skipping out on school, especially while he was sat in detention the next day. At the same time, he'd do it all over again. He had spent a few hours with Mr. Stark talking things through. His nerves had calmed down, his senses were alert but mellow. Of course he had felt bad. A creeping but very persisting sense of guilt over stealing Mr. Stark's time and energy. He really had bigger fish to fry. But Peter just couldn't pass up on that sense of peace and safety that came naturally with the attention and care his mentor was giving him. Just the way Mr. Stark made sure that he was okay.

Yeah, he was a selfish ass like that.

"I can't get you out of detention," Mr. Stark had told him. "Even under different circumstances, I'd rather not."

"I know. That's fine. I didn't even think you could or... or would. I don't... I don't really mind. I mean..." Peter shrugged. "It's not that I wouldn't be able to think of anything better to do with my time but I guess I can't really patrol right now anyway."

"Things have to cool down, Pete."

He swallowed, eyes on his plate. "Yes, I know. I get that."

"Then why are you pouting?"

Peter gave his head a little shake. "I'm not pouting."

Mr. Stark's eyebrows shot up and Peter shook his head again. He wasn't was he? He'd deal with the school. People there already thought that he was weird anyway. Sure it might be another thing for Flash to pick on him for, but really that wasn't what was on his mind. He was poking around his stir fry, pushing the pieces of chicken back and forth, eyes on the table in front of him, then blew out a deep breath.

"They'll send a notification to my aunt." 

There was a stretch of silence before Mr. Stark cleared his throat. "Well, yeah. I guess they will." Then more silence. 

Yeah, Peter had figured that Mr. Stark wouldn't be able to help much with that particular problem. 

"Maybe... maybe it's time, Pete. Maybe it's time to tell her about all this."

Peter's eyes shot up at him, round and wide. He almost dropped the chopsticks. "No, I... I can't."

"She's gonna have to find out at some point."

Did she? "But not now. She'd freak out! Especially with everything going on right now. I might give her a stroke or something."

"Pete, I'm gonna be..." Mr. Stark sighed. "I might not be around as much with all of this. You might find that you'll need someone to talk to and I won't be here."

Peter looked up at him. "But.. but you said..." he frowned, then felt the heat rise to his face at what he had been about to say. Mr. Stark had said he'd keep him safe. That he'd have a place to go to, but, well, if his mentor wasn't around, if he was too busy to drop everything just because Peter was having a nervous breakdown... Of course he couldn't. He wasn't Peter's babysitter. He was freaking Iron Man and the world needed him. 

"Come on, kid, don't give me that look."

"No, I... I get it. You have responsibilities and with everything I... of course I understand."

"It's not about me, Pete. It's not that I..." he cleared his throat. "I don't know how things are gonna progress after today and while you can always come here and stay safe in the lab if something happens, if you run into any issues, I just can't promise that I will be here for it every time, alright? 

He couldn't look up at Mr. Stark. He just couldn't. He'd first have to get his heartbeat under control, not let his breathing get out of hand. His eyes did sting and if he would look up, Mr. Stark would know and Peter might not be able to keep it together. But he had to. He had to keep a lit on things, not be a burden.

"I get that you're scared of what she'll say or do if she finds out, Pete. And that you want to protect her. But telling her will always be easier than having her find out by accident."

Peter just nodded, eyes still on the table. "Yeah, I'll... I'll think about it."

"You do that," Mr. Stark sighed.

Peter had thought about it. Briefly and had then stuck with his first instinct: telling May would be a suicide mission. Hell, even without the international conflict that was growing more and more intense, threatening to break out in full force against the Avengers. He'd have to be crazy to tell her in that kind of political climate. And that afternoon when he had gotten back to the apartment, his assumptions had been proven right.

He got there later that he had promised he would. Had spend some time just walking around Queens. Not patrolling or anything. He had promised Mr. Stark to keep a low profile and hadn't tried anything. Well, there was this one thing. But he had only climbed a medium-sized tree and fished out a ball that had gotten stuck in the upper branches. It had made a couple of kids jump up and down with joy and Peter had made sure that he did everything in a very human fashion. No weird moves. No impressive jumps or anything.

May was home by the time he got to the apartment. She had tried to call 6 times and he had only sent one text message in response. Had told her he was fine and that he'd be home by 4 pm. Of course she would be waiting for him. Still, he'd taken his time. There was no rush. He'd get his lecture no matter if he was on time or not. 

Sounds of clinking dishes came from the kitchen though those would have been hardly audible for a normal person for the TV in the living room was on, volume up high enough it so it could be heard in every corner of the apartment. The chatter of the reporters made Peter's skin crawl. The accusations against the Avengers, the speculations about what had actually happened and the giddy expression on their faces. To them, it was like Christmas had come early. They came up with one conspiracy theory after the other. And then of course the images. Grainy and shaky mobile phone footage of a fireball exploding in the middle of the market that was then catapulted into the air and hit the building. High-resolution close-up shots of the burning building. Footage of the Avengers themselves, their faces grim and visibly full of shock. The interviews with freaked out victims and onlookers. The news media was turning a tragedy into a perverse gawker's fantasy. 

"Finally! I called you a dozen times! Where the hell were you?"

He flinched as May's yelled loud enough to be heard on top of the news report and tore his eyes away from the TV but careful not to look directly at her.

"Hi May..." 

"Hi? That's all you've got to say?" She stepped up close to him. "Are you alright?" 

Both her hands rose to his face, cradled his head softly, her eyes searching his, searching his face for clues, injuries, just something. Peter still couldn't quite look at her. She'd be mad. He had expected that. She'd be worried too and that would probably be worse.

"What happened, Peter? This isn't like you at all. You're not a kid that just skips school."

He shrugged and bit his lip. Her hands were still cradling his face and there was such a deep familiarity and such comfort in the gesture that it made him doubt his initial decision. Maybe he should just tell her, just to get it over with? She'd be mad, but she was mad already anyway. And she'd be worried but at least he wouldn't be lying to her anymore. At least he could stop keeping secrets and thinking up excuses to mislead the most important person in his life. Because that's what she was. There was nobody more important in his life than May and still, he couldn't find the courage to tell her, to come clean. It wasn't just about what he was doing though, the crime-fighting. It was who he was now. What he was now. 

She'd still love him, despite everything he was now, right? Everything he had become. He might have changed. Some things about him might have changed but he was still Peter. 

Right?

She sighed and shot a glance over at the TV before she let go of his face and picked up the remote. As she muted the gossipy screeching from the 24h news channel the apartment suddenly felt a little colder. The silence got under Peter's skin and he had to actively feel out for some white noise, some signs of normal city life penetrating the walls from the streets and the neighboring apartments.

"Ned said you left school when the kids in your class spread around stories about the Avengers. About.. about what happened today. Is that true?"

Peter cleared his throat. "You talked to Ned?"

"Of course I did. You wouldn't call me back. I called every single person I could think of who might know where you are."

Well, she didn't. Not everyone. She didn't call the Tower, or at least not the person at the Tower he had been with.

"Peter, what happened? Where have you been all day?"

He let the question sink in for just a moment and threw caution to the wind. "I was at the Tower, actually."

She blinked at him, lost for words for what felt like a whole minute but probably was closer to a few seconds. "At the Tower?"

"Yeah, I..." Peter ruffled a hand through his hair. His arms felt like a useless extension and only in the way. "After I left school I went to the Tower."

"Did they—did they call you? Did they ask you to come in? I... I called them, too."

"You called someone at the Tower?"

"I talked to someone at the front desk and they said you hadn't logged in. That you weren't in the building and I—"

"Nobody called me, May. I got out of school and I... I just went there to clear my head. Have something to do."

"You had something to do at school, Peter. School."

He looked away from her. "I'm sorry, May. I just couldn't... I couldn't stay there, I... Everyone was talking and they have no idea what they're even talking about and I couldn't... I was just... scared. Scared I might say something I shouldn't." He swallowed hard and pressed out the lie like he was almost used to by now. "With the NDA and everything. I thought I might... I might say something I shouldn't."

May had her eyes on him, clearly studying him suspiciously. Throwing the NDA out there as a deterrent had been Mr. Stark's idea for how to deal with his teachers actually. 

"You... you know things about this?" She waved at the muted TV next to them. "About all this? They told you about the Avengers operation in Africa?" 

Peter shook his head. "Well, no. Not those things. Stark Industries things. People were just talking shit about Mr. Stark and... and people at the Tower and they are all so wrong. They know nothing about how things really are at the Tower. Nothing at all!"

She looked at him a bit sideways, quietly digesting what he had just brought up as somewhat of an explanation for his rather out-of-character conduct that day.

"You can talk to me. You know that. That NDA doesn't matter. Not for us, alright? If there's something they asked you to keep quiet about, something you're uncomfortable with. You can always—"

"It's nothing like that, they... Honestly, they... they've been great. Really, really great."

"Peter, I called them. I asked them if you were there and they told me no." 

Her tone was harsh and it wasn't all that clear if she just didn't believe him or if she questioned the morals of Stark industries. Of course, the receptionist would tell May that he wasn't in the building. After all, Peter hadn't exactly used the front door to get in. 

"They wouldn't know. I... I was with Mr. Stark, not in the... in the intern lab," he said, his voice lower than he was comfortable to admit.

"You were with Tony Stark today?"

"I was."

"He knew you were skipping school and he just what, let you hideout there?" Her tone had turned sharp. That really wasn't the reaction Peter had been going for.

"Come on, May..."

"Come on what? I don't care if your classmates are mean to Tony Stark! That's not an excuse for you to run off, you hear me? It's unacceptable!"

Peter looked away from her, down to the floor, arms crossed in front of him.

"I get that you look at those people like they are the world's mightiest saviors, Peter, but the reality is a little different. Look at what they did!" She pointed at the TV. The channel was still airing footage of the burning building in Nigeria. "Their actions got people killed. They need to take responsibility and you do not get to run out of your classroom in a huff because people are calling them out."

"And how many people would have died if they hadn't been there, huh?" he blurted out. "What if that bomb had gone off in the market? What if the terrorist had gotten their hands on another chemical weapon?"

"Is that the excuse Tony Stark will be using?" She just shook her head. "Those hypotheticals don't matter. People died." May looked over at the TV, then back at Peter. "Maybe it's time. The year's almost over and you'll be on break. You could, you could just find a summer job that's a little less, well, exciting."

Peter frowned at her. "A summer job? I already have a summer job with Mr. Stark." Okay, the job part might be a bit of a stretch, but he never said anything about getting paid. He got a multimillion-dollar suit but that was hardly gonna be something to sway May with.

Her face slack. "Wait, you'll continue with the internship while you're on break?"

"Of course I will!"

"Stark offered you a paid summer job?"

Urgh, there it was. "Well, we haven't really talked about the money part of it," he shrugged and with an afterthought added "Yet."

Mr. Stark wouldn't pay him. That was not even a pipe dream Peter had, not even something he was hoping for. If anything he was doing his part in working off some of the money that went into his suit. At least in his mind, that's what he was doing.  

"You haven't even told me about that."

He shrugged. "Well, are you planning to forbid me to work there?"

"You know I don't want to do that." She sighed. "But it's not like we're rolling in money, Peter. I would never expect you to put finding a summer job that pays well over one benefiting your education, but honestly, Stark Industries not paying their intern does not really sit right with me." 

Peter crossed his arms and looked away from her, back turned to the muted TV. How was he gonna get out of this one? He had never considered that May actually wouldn't like Mr. Stark. Maybe that shouldn't surprise him as much as it did. Peter had kept his talk of what happened in the Tower to a minimum, for obvious reasons. Sure, he had told her about how much fun he had working on the projects, not giving much detail on the projects themselves and filling up space in the story with engineering jargon. He couldn't tell May about all the things Mr. Stark had really done for him. The times Peter had been freaking out about his senses or god forbid, how he had taken care of Peter's injuries. But even the little things, how Mr. Stark would put him in a car when it was late and dark outside so Peter would get home safely, even though he was Spider-Man. How he'd let him stay way into the night so Peter could watch and help with the big projects he wanted to stick around for. How Mr. Stark would let him stay over at the Tower or even the Compound when it had gotten really late and ordered in breakfast even though Mr. Stark hardly ever had anything else but coffee before noon. Even that May couldn't know about because it would mean telling her that he was staying hours upon hours longer at the Tower, technically working when he had told her he'd really been hanging out with Ned. 

So it shouldn't be a surprise how she didn't like Mr. Stark. And what was more she didn't seem to like any of them. Just the way she shot glances at the TV, her arms crossed, eyes narrowed. She was judging them The way she talked about the Avengers, the whole thing about their responsibilities. It wasn't about that, was it? About who was responsible. It was about assigning blame. 

And it was clear who May blamed for all of this. That meant... that meant he couldn't tell her.

He tore his eyes away from her, away from the TV and took off to his room. "I'll figure it out, okay?"

"Wait, where are you going?"

"Shower," he shot out over his shoulder just before he closed the door to his bedroom. He leaned against it, head fallen back, hitting it with an unsubtle bang. 

How was he gonna get out of this one? He needed the internship. Not just for Spider-Man-ing but also his own sanity. And he couldn't ask Mr. Stark for money, that was ridiculous. Maybe he'd find something else. Just a few hours a couple of times a week. Couldn't be another engineering spot or anything technical with a different company. That NDA wasn't something he had made up. It was a very real thing and he wasn't gonna risk anything when it was Stark Industries. There was a whole floor filled with lawyers at the Tower. Maybe a job in a café or something. It didn't have to be anything fancy, just something that paid a bit so he could contribute. It was a comprise. She couldn't say no to a compromise.

##

Tony had had some bad days in his life. The "trip" to Afghanistan came to mind. Pepper falling from that rig into the flames had him wanting to rip his heart out of his chest. The wormhole over New York City. Ultron. Sokovia. His Malibu house being blown up. Stane. The Expo. And of course, above all else, losing Aiden. He'd had enough bad days, bad weeks to fill multiple lifetimes. 

Still, that last week was up there.  

The backlash from Lagos had been greater than anything they had had to deal with before. New York had been bad. Sokovia had been bad. It all culminated in Lagos. Tony had gone to D.C., had tried to soften the blow while the team was on their way back to the US, but he hadn't been able to move the scale in the Avengers' favor. Ross had insisted to be taken to the Compound, to the team. Tony managed to delay him for a couple of days but, well, he was the Secretary of State. There was only so much Tony could do without risking even greater blowback.

The legislation Ross proposed was hardly something that the UN had come up with and drafted in just a couple of days, let alone the part where they had 117 countries agree on it. Things like that took time, but the mess in Nigeria presented the perfect platform, the perfect opportunity for them to turn the world and say: 

Look at them. Look at the mess. We won't allow this. 

Tony would have to lie to say that the Accords had come out of the blue. There were signs. He had known that they were on thin ice. The way they had spent the last years fighting Hydra as well as intergalactic threats had ruffled feathers all over the place, threatened certain people's monopoly on power. Had left people downright pissed off when the Avengers had made them look incompetent. Tony himself hadn't been shy about telling certain politicians or law officials to fuck themselves when they had wanted to use his tech, wanted to use him. None of that was much of an issue for them until they started making mistakes. And they had made some very public mistakes. It wasn't just the crossing borders without other countries' permission, or even just notifying them. The people didn't trust them anymore. They didn't trust that the Avengers were fighting for them and not just fighting to be fighting. Worst of all, they had a point. There was truth in the people's fears that were being used against them. If there were no rules for them, if they were boundary-less, then they were no better than the bad guys.

The morning Tony had spent with Peter at the Tower, listening to all the things that had been said at the kid's school, on the streets, only underlined that. Well, it had actually intensified the situation. People were past disgruntled and doubting them. The Avengers had lost the support of the public completely. That was a lot worse than Tony had actually thought things stood.

The weirdest part about all of this had been that Natasha had agreed with him, rather than with Steve. Had backed him up and actually signed the Accords. Had helped convince Wanda to just stay at the Compound for now where they could keep her safe until the dust settled. That was something. Though it hadn't changed much about Rogers' or Wilson's stance on the Accords. Or on anything really.

So he found himself in a military complex in Berlin after Rogers and Wilson went on an unauthorized Bucky-hunting-trip. Ross had been chewing him out on the phone. Like this was somehow Tony's fault. Like he had some kind of special subpoena power over what Rogers did.

"I'm sorry, Tony. If I see a situation pointed south, I just can't ignore it," Rogers had said. "Sometimes I wish I could."

Tony could only stare at him, the Captain so transparent in that lie. "No, you don't."

Rogers' lips curled up in a smile and he gave a little shrug. "No, I don't."

"We can't be doing this," Tony sighed. "I need you, Cap. I need you in this fight."

"I'm not saying it's impossible." The Captain had his eyes on the set of pens Tony had brought as a symbolic olive branch that was lying on the table in front of him. Rogers would have to sign. There was no other way out of this. Not after their chase through Bucharest. Rogers shrugged and looked up at Tony. "There would need to be safeguards."

"There will be. I've been telling you we can amend this, but only if we have a seat at the table." 

"What's gonna happen now then? What consequences does Ross want to see?"

Ross' list of consequences would be a hard sell, that much was clear. 

"You and Wilson sign. We make everything that happened yesterday official. Barnes is put into an American psych center instead of a Wakandan prison." He had his arms crossed, eyes firmly on Rogers. "We reinstate you and Wilson when the PR battle is dealt with. As well as Wanda."

"Wanda? What about Wanda?" The look on Rogers's face was all Tony needed to know that he was fighting a losing battle. Rogers would never make concessions when it came to the team.

"She's fine. She's at the Compound. She just... well, she'll just have to stay there for a bit."

"You locked up Wanda in the Compound?" 

"I didn't lock anyone up. Vision is keeping her company. She just needs to keep her head down until things have settled down."

"That's internment, Tony!"

He took a step closer, losing his temper at last. "Give me a break! I'm trying to keep her safe!" 

Rogers had turned away from him, the set of pens disregarded on the table. "Let me know how that works out for you."

They hadn't talked since. Hell had broken loose shortly after and Rogers and Wilson were gone. Had left chasing after Barnes. When what happened in their chase in Bucharest had been bad, this was an absolute disaster. A disaster that left Tony all out of option. Well, all but one. One very desperate one.

##

There was a certain moral dilemma Peter had found himself in. The news coverage of what had happened in Europe, the terror attack at the United Nations in Vienna and the involvement of the Avengers - or some of them at least - that had followed was dominating everything, including every conversation around him. The side effect of that was all the attention that was pulled away from him. It was like his little escape from class had been wiped from everyone's memory. Well, he still had to sit through the detention of course but considering the shit he had expected to get...

It was a horrible thing to think. His face heated up every time he found himself cherishing the peace and quiet it had brought him personally. People had died. Things looked even worse for the Avengers now and that definitely wasn't good news for Peter either. Their public image wold definitely affect him in due time. It already was considering he hadn't patrolled at all, had kept his head down. It had actually given him some time to properly hang out with Ned. Some Lego Death Star building and pointless chatter that wasn't about the Avengers had kept Peter somewhat sane. 

Ned certainly hadn't forgotten about Peter skipping class, about his outburst, but he was sensitive enough not to bring up the topic. Peter grimaced at the thought. Ned wasn't the subtle sort, more the falling-in-through-the-door type. For Ned not to question him at all meant that Peter had come across as truly crazed. He could only hope that with the summer break approaching everyone would just forget, including Ned.

The summer break was another issue he'd have to deal with. Or rather that summer job he had talked to May about. She wouldn't make him stop interning at Stark Industries if he found an additional regular job. That had been the compromise. The dumbest compromise ever but he was in no position to argue with her. One word from her and he'd lose his internship and thus his cover for Spider-Man. Not that much was happening in the Spider-Man department. He hadn't been out in days and it got harder and harder to quell the itch for a bit of action. 

A distraction was needed so he went on the search for that dreadful summer job. The job listings in the area were pulled on the laptop in front of him. A cashier job with a certain supermarket chain was the only thing that offered the kind of hours he was willing to do. He'd have to call them soon. The longer he waited the more likely it was that they would fill that position with someone else. Not that he was secretly rooting for that or anything. 

The phone vibrated in his pocket and it made him almost jump out of his chair up to the ceiling of his room in surprise. It wasn't his android, that one was always in silent mode. Why would the Stark phone be ringing? He quickly fished it out of his pocket. That. Oh. That was Mr. Stark calling him. Peter's mind went into overdrive. Shit, what had he done? What had he done that with everything going on Mr. Stark was calling him? Had he messed up somehow? Why else would Mr. Stark call him? He shook himself out of his panic. Ignoring the call wasn't going to help him one bit. He swallowed and took a deep breath before he answered the phone.

"Oh, erm, hi... Mr. Stark."

"Kid, I need you to get on a plane to Germany. ASAP."

Peter blinked a couple of times. Had he just heard that right? "Wh— Germany? Sir, are you alright? The news has been running footage from—"

"Yes, Germany. There's... the situation here is a bit... I need you here. Just, get to the Tower." Mr. Stark sounded on edge and Peter couldn't really blame him. Still, this was...

"Wow!" Peter's eyes widened as he heard the sound of his own voice. Oops. Had he just said that out loud? He cleared his throat. He really needed to keep the trembling out of his voice and sound a little more sure with himself. "I... Mr. Stark, I... I have school. I can't just—"

"What? Shouldn't you be on break?"

"Not for another 2 weeks." Dang, was he just ruining this for himself? Peter desperately needed some Spider-Man-ing time and if he was with Mr. Stark that should be safe, right?

"What could you possibly be doing in the last weeks that you'd be missing?"

Peter actually snorted at that. "I mean, you're barking up the wrong tree with that one, Sir." But there was no laugh on the other end of the line. Alright, maybe not the best situation to be joking, Parker. "I... Sir, they are pretty strict with attendance especially in the last few weeks because a lot of people take advantage of the fact that—"

"Don't worry about that. I'll draft something. Just... I need you here. You need to get on a plane like 3 hours ago."

Peter's mouth fell open. He just... he had just said it again. Mr. Stark needed him? That... just... "Yeah, sure. I mean, of course, Sir." Peter really needed to stop hyperventilating. He needed to play this like so much cooler than he was.

"Just grab your passport and get to the Tower."

"My—Sir, I... I don't have a passport."

"What? That was like... number 2 on the internship to-get list!"

"The... the internship to-get list?"

"Yeah, all the shit I need you to get so you're ready for whatever superhero stuff I throw at you. I'm sure I gave you a list."

"I—Sir, I don't... I don't think so. I... I'm not sure—"

He did hear a small chuckle on the other line at that. "Relax, Spiderling. Just get to the Tower. I'll sort everything out. But make sure you tell your aunt that you won't be home for a couple of nights."

"Alright, Sir." Great. There was that. May would love this.

"I..." Mr. Stark hesitated before he finished his thought. "Maybe don't mention the Germany part. You know, unless.—" He stopped speaking and sighed.

"You want me to purposefully omit a certain part of the story, Sir?" He hadn't been planning on telling May he was going to Germany, because duh, but Mr. Stark asking him to keep it quiet was another level of secrecy that they hadn't really delved into yet.

"Pete, I shouldn't ask you to do that. I know that. We're dealing with a... I shouldn't even ask you to come. I shouldn't. In fact, I don't want you to come. This is..." Mr. Stark's heavy breathing echoed in his ear, how he actively tried to control the air rushing through his lung. "This is not something I want you involved with. If I'm honest, I'd prefer you'd be as far away from this as possible, because if something—" He stopped himself again. "I wouldn't ask if there was another option but if you... If you want to stay put, stay out of this then you should. Absolutely and if you want to tell your aunt, of course you should."

"Oh god no, Sir. I'd be grounded until I'm in my 30s." He wasn't even joking with that one.

"Pete, that's not..." Another set of deep exhales rang through the line. "You're not helping."

"It's gonna be fine, Mr. Stark. I mean, that's our thing, right? You help me out, I help you out..."

Mr. Stark groaned, "I'm really trying to make a habit of this not becoming a thing..."

Peter couldn't help but giggle quietly. He was craving his suit. He was craving something to do, just anything to feel normal again.  "Come on, Mr. Stark. It'll be fun!"

Mr. Stark was quiet for another moment. "I don't know if fun is the right word. I..." He let all the air out of his lungs.

Peter bit his lip. Mr. Stark's reluctance finally clicked with Peter. It wasn't just going to be the two of them in Germany, was it? "There'll be trouble if I show up there, won't there? With... with the Avengers? They'll know then, right."

His mentor's tone was somber and heavy. He was worried about that,  no question about it. "That doesn't matter right now, Pete. They're not gonna... listen, this is not gonna be anything spectacular, alright?" The soft echo of Mr. Stark's footsteps from him pacing back and forth on the hard floor of wherever he was, rang through the line. "You might have to web the odd person up, but really I just need you as a number. That'll probably be enough. If there should be any real... resistance, I'll be there to deal with that. Most likely we'll have a chat and then we'll all go home, okay?" 

Peter bit his lip. That was all good and well, but he couldn't just pop up in Germany without people asking questions. 

"But if I show up, won't they... they'll know then that you and I, you know... That we know each other?"

Mr. Stark stayed quiet for a moment. "Listen, Pete, I should have told you about this sooner, but Natasha, she already knows."

Peter's jaw dropped. "Wh—what?"

"She figured it out as soon as she saw the suit."

Peter felt his throat close with panic. They knew? Had they known all this time?

"Listen, Pete," Mr. Stark sighed. "I know this sucks and I know you had a right to know about this. She kept it to herself though. It's only Natasha who knows."

"You... you don't know that," he whispered. "She might have told them. Maybe... maybe they all know who I am by now."

"She doesn't know who you are, alright? She knows that we, that you and I have had a bit more than a casual meeting on a rooftop somewhere in Queens. She knows that I built the suit and she also knows that I wouldn't have done that if I didn't trust you." 

With that, Peter's mind went blank. He... he what now? "Did you just say—"

"Just get to the Tower, alright?" Mr. Stark's voice had turned heavier. "She figured it out when she saw you in the suit. The others will as well when you're there with us, but that doesn't matter now. I know it worries you, Pete, but right now... right now, there are other things they'll focus on, okay?"

Peter stayed quiet for a few seconds and mulled that revelation over. Mr. Stark was probably right, most likely was right. After all, he knew his teammates a whole lot better than Peter did. Things right now were difficult and they had to stick together to get through it. This might open a path for Peter to reconcile with them, to have them trust him, that would happen under no other circumstances.

Chapter Text

It was a few small things. Small but telling now that Peter knew what to look for. The prickling in his fingertips, the hair on his arms, on his neck, that threatened to stand with every wave of sounds and smells rushing into the empty airport building. They couldn't be far off. They had to be somewhere close by. He could feel it.

But it wasn't just nerves, not just his senses. There was a vibe. Mr. Stark wanted him there. Flying him to Germany, having Peter stand by his side had been a big deal. He wouldn't have asked Peter to come if it hadn't been. This was important. It would be a statement, a pledge to the team in a way. A sign of commitment that Peter would stand with them.

He had been waiting for about 20 minutes. Had stolen into the empty airport hall quickly and quietly, always on the lookout for other signs of life. They were around there somewhere, but not close enough to notice him. He'd had another quick call from Mr. Stark when he was on the plane traveling to Germany. Instructions on where to go, what to do once he landed. His pulse had never been that high as he stepped onto the airstrip and then quickly ducked into the waiting car. He was studying every little commotion outside of the car through the darkened windows but nobody ever came close to him. Nobody ever approached the car at all until they were stopped at a gate leading off the premises. Peter's pulse was throbbing in his ears as two armed border patrol officers stepped up to the driver's side. There was a partition between where Peter sat and the driver's compartment and even though he could hear them just fine it didn't do anything to ease his nerves. They were not speaking English. German probably. Duh. If he had to make an educated guess, he'd say German. A small stack of documents was handed over to the officers and one of them strolled down to Peter's window, looked it up and down but never making out Peter's face through the tinted window. The guy gave up quickly and stepped back to his colleague who handed the documents back to the driver.

And that was it. They just left. And just like that Peter Parker had come to Germany.

He hadn't seen much of the country of course. He didn't even know if he was allowed to leave his hotel room, in any case, he didn't. Instead, he ordered a bunch of stuff from room service and just waited. The airport was just on the other side of the street. He could see the building from his window. It wouldn't take him long to get there, but it hadn't been time to get going just yet.

It was less than three hours that he had waited. It was a miracle that he hadn't already passed out from the exhaustive journey as well as the jet lag, but his nerves, the stress of it all kept him on edge. So when the text message from Mr. Stark - or likely FRIDAY - had arrived that it was time to go, Peter was more than ready to go. Ready just to get on with it.

They must have evacuated the airport in the last couple of hours for there was nobody around except a few border patrol officers on the far off fences that were easy to sidetrack. He had gotten inside the airport hall just like that and then he had been waiting. Listening. Feeling the place out and waiting for Mr. Stark to arrive.

The sound of the thrusters was distinct. It was still a little eerie to hear it like that, in real life. He'd only ever encountered Mr. Stark in the suit twice, the first time they'd met on that February night in Queens and then that one day in Manhattan. So when the man swept into the building and came to land a few feet away from him, it felt more like an audience with Iron Man than meeting up with his mentor.

"Spiderling." The armor gave a short nod. "This will all be rather straight forward. No-nonsense. You'll be on my comm."  

Peter just nodded along, careful to take in all the details, the instructions of where to go. Iron Man stood tall in front of him, but rigid. It might have just been the armor, all that metal. Or it might have been that the tension Peter could sense in his voice translated into the man's movements as well. It just wasn't the same talking to Mr. Stark like this, his voice muffled and a little metallic. Plus, when the man was in the suit it just conveyed another level of authority, a sense of power that paralyzed Peter.

"When you have the shield, just make sure that you stay out of the way, alright? Just stay back."

"Wait. Sir, I..." Peter shook his head. He must have just misheard him while he had pondered the Iron Man suit. "Wait, did you say take the shield? You want me to take the shield away from Captain America?"

"It's the fastest way to go about it. He won't expect it and without the shield, Cap's options are limited. When he's impaired the others will falter as well. We might just end this without much drama."

"End this?" Peter's voice came out a lot quieter than he had intended. End what? They were supposed to get Barnes into custody and present a united front. That was what this was about, wasn't it? But Iron Man's focus wasn't really on him. He was typing and swiping on the monitor on his lower arm. He was uncharacteristically quiet, probably rambling away for only FRIDAY to hear.

"Right." Peter flinched as Iron Man's voice echoed through the hall once more. "Just wait for my signal. When you have the shield, just stay back. Don't engage unless you have to. We're not there for a fight, alright? It's not gonna come to that but..." Iron Man adjusted his stance, the titanium legs of the suit moving with the man getting any closer to Peter. "But if it does, minimal contact. You stay back." He paused, but Peter couldn't bring himself to respond. "Pete, you hear me? You web them up, that's it."

Peter shook his head again. "Web them up? You... you mean the Winter Soldier?"

"Anyone who tries to make a break for it." The man's head swung to the side as if he was listening to someone else. "Alright, they are close by. On my sign, okay?"

Peter swallowed hard. "You mean the other Avengers? I... web them up?" Just the thought sent a cold shiver down his back.

"Exactly." Iron Man had turned and studied the airfield outside. "Rogers and Wilson. Barton showed up at the Compound and collected Wanda so it's likely that they'll make an appearance to help out Rogers. We need them to stand down and we need to get there fast."

"But.." He'd web them up and then what? They wouldn't be pleased about that, would they? "But then what? What are we gonna do then?"

"We'll detain them. Somewhere. Till everything is worked out."

"Detain them."

Peter had to take a step back. Involuntarily. This couldn't be happening. This... how could he say that? How could he suggest to lock them up? That's what they were supposed to stand up against together. Stop people from locking enhanced humans up just for being who they were.

"Pete?"

Peter couldn't look at him, gaze turned to the floor between them. He had said that he wouldn't... that the team wouldn't give up on each other and now... now what? They were on opposite sites?

"Hey Spiderling, take that mask off."

Then there was this thing about the man's voice, the way the Iron Man suit distorted it. It all felt weird and foreign.

"Pete..." Sounds of metal on metal and some hydraulic wheezing echoed through the empty airport hall as the man took a step towards him. "Listen, can you just take the mask off for—"

He stopped in his tracks as Peter retreated further. Peter couldn't shake that queasy feeling. It wasn't just that this felt different. That this was Iron Man in front of him, an authority so different from his mentor. It was also that Peter seemed to have slid into the middle of a fight he wasn't all too sure he was supposed to be in. But just then Iron Man's faceplate was lifted and drew Peter's focus straight to the man in front of him. Mr. Stark's face was right there. It was still him. Undiluted, true, it was him. 

But he didn't stop at that. He opened up his suit all the way and stepped out of it and by that even closer to Peter, leaving the suit behind. Just like that, it was his mentor who materialized in front of him. Simply Mr. Stark. Just him. Human. Completely vulnerable.

"Can you take that mask off, kid?"

Another wave of familiarity rushed over Peter and he nodded, hands quickly pulling at the fabric. Mr. Stark was right in front of him now, eyebrows knitted together.

"You okay?"

Peter couldn't help but shake his head. No, he wasn't. All this... all this seemed wrong. They shouldn't be doing this.

"It's normal to be scared, Pete. If you..." the man sighed. He clasped Peter's arm and gave it a bit of a squeeze. 

"I just... it's... all this is just—" His voice shook and he hated that.

"You can stay put here. You don't..." Mr. Stark interrupted.

"It's not that, I—" Peter tried again.

"If you don't think you're up to this..." His hand still on Peter's arm, holding him there right in front of him. "In fact, yes. Just... you'll just stay here, this, this is not —"

"You said—" Peter cleared his throat. His voice was low and way too squeaky. "You said you wouldn't do this. You said that... that nobody would get locked up."

Mr. Stark nodded, expression way too calm. "I did. I did say that."

Peter's eyes stung. "How... how can you... how can you... Mr. Stark, you said..." He blinked rapidly, trying to keep the frustration off his face. Out of his voice. "You're letting them divide you and you said... you told me—"

"I know what I said, Pete." He spoke quietly, collected. Like it was just another day in the lab and he was explaining something about a new tablet. "But that was before. That was different. We're past that point now. Steve made a choice knowing fully well that what he was doing was illegal. A choice that he can't take back. He chose to ignore the people he claims to protect. He—"

"Well, they are wrong! The people are wrong!" Peter burst out, louder now that he would usually dare to speak to in front of his mentor. The man let go of him then after all. "The Avengers, they are not bad. You know that. They are trying to help! The people are just wrong."

"Maybe."

"Maybe?" How could he just put this out there so calmly? Maybe the people were wrong? They were! The Avengers, they were just trying to help! Just like Peter was just trying to help. "Mr. Stark they just want to divide you. It's what you told me yourself! They are trying to put us against each other."

"I know that, kid." The man shook his head. "I do know that. Ross and his cronies. It's not just that though. They want us to fight so that they have the people's backing when they come after us one by one."

"They already are coming after us!" Peter clenched in his hand around the mask with no other output for the fury that was rising in his heart.

"Yes, because Rogers is letting Ross get to him," Mr. Stark sighed. "He's playing right into Ross' hands. That's why we need to stop this!"

"But all this only happened because the people don't want to listen, don't want to understand!"

"It doesn't matter, Pete. It's not how this works. Of course, Cap thinks he's right. And yes, he does have a point. We can't be instrumentalized by corrupt governments, but this is not the way to change that, to prevent that. We can't force the people to bow to our will. Well," Mr. Stark waved his hand like he wanted to wave away the thought. "Maybe we could, but what kind of 'heroes'" he air quoted, "would that make us? Ignoring them cause we think we know better and when they resist strong-arming them into submission because we can? That's no way to win anyone's trust." 

Peter wrapped his arms around himself at his mentor's words, broke the eye contact. Of course, that was true. He didn't want to use his strength against the people. That would make things only worse, if they would force themselves on people who didn't trust them to help.

Mr. Stark shrugged. "Without their trust, we're just the newest flavor of authoritarian elitist assholes. We're not above the law. We can't be above the law. And if the laws are wrong, then we try to change them. Try to make them better. That's how democracy works. If we have a seat at the table, we can convince people with arguments, not by beating them over the head with our truth till they see the light. That's how we roll. Cap..." Mr. Stark cleared his throat. "He thinks he is doing the right thing. He thinks he's standing up for what is right and that's what makes this so dangerous, him so dangerous. It has pushed us to a tipping point and if we don't stop this now... If I don't stop this now, there will be consequences for everyone. Not just him, not just Wanda or Wilson or fucking Barnes, there will be consequences for everyone who is different. Today will decide. Today will decide how things will be for us... For you."

Peter rubbed a hand across his face, trying to find his voice. There had to be another way. It couldn't just be a choice between fighting amongst themselves and fighting against the people. Neither of these options was good enough.

"Mr. Stark, I..." His arms tightened around his torso, gaze locked on the ground in front of him.

"Pete. Hey, look at me kid." When he did look up Mr. Stark was right in front of him, his eyes squarely on Peter, eyebrows knitted together. "It's alright. You..." The man studied his face, then reached for his hand, stilling it. Peter hadn't even noticed how his own hand had been rubbing up and down his arm, squeezing it, picking at the fabric of the suit. "You don't have to be afraid, alright? Just... It'll be alright."

"I do want to help, Sir. I do want to help you, I just—"

"You don't have to do that. It's fine. You can..." The man gave a short nod. His hand was warm on Peter's. "Yes. I shouldn't have... You'll just stay." 

Peter's eyes widened. "But... But Sir—"

"It's alright, Pete. You're safe here." Mr. Stark's gaze was not on Peter anymore but focused on something behind him, maybe on nothing. "Just stay right here and I'll come and get you when it's over." 

Mr. Stark squeezed his arm one more time, then returned to the suit. Mr. Stark called out a short "I'll see you after." and the suit hadn't even completely closed around him when it came back to life and shot out of the building the same way it had entered.

Peter couldn't quite help the sense of relief that ran through him at the option to stay away from that confrontation but as Iron Man left it was like someone had cut Peter's lifeline, drained the willpower from him, that had kept him on his feet. His lung deflated and his knees went wobbly. It's not that he didn't want to help. He wanted to. He should. The least he could do was to help Mr. Stark. Peter gave up on the pretense and gave in to the urge to curl into himself. His legs folded underneath him and he came to sit on the cold tiles of the airport floor, face buried in his hands. 

His mentor wasn't wrong. In fact, he was very much right. Peter was scared. He was really scared. It was not just the dread that rose in his heart when he thought of the last time he had seen the other Avengers in the flesh. Or most of them anyway. That day in Manhattan more than 3 months ago that had ended in so much pain. That had come with so many consequences. Had changed his life irreversibly. It was also the danger of the strain that Peter's presence would add to the situation altogether. 

It would only escalate the tension among the Avengers when Peter had been hoping for the exact opposite. Had been hoping that fighting alongside them this time would ease their suspicions of him. Would help them accept Peter as... well, maybe not as part of the team. That'd be a bit too ambitious. Just one of those unrealistic daydreams he'd indulge in during those particular boring Spanish classes. But maybe as an ally. As someone they could trust enough to just leave him be.

But all that was nothing more than a childish fantasy now. He'd have to face the real world, face the real struggle that his secret identity would entail. He couldn't afford to bask in his daydreams any longer. And he couldn't afford to close his eyes and ignore the real dangers this conflict among the Avengers would bring. 

It would be easy to just ignore everyone else and punch his way through the naysayers, at least for a while. It would be a lot harder to make people understand and reign in his own ego, to compromise on what he knew to be right for the sake of diplomacy. But just as there was a clear choice between the hard way and the easy one, there was also a clear choice here of what was right and what was wrong.

Mr. Stark was right with everything he had said. They couldn't force people into accepting them. They couldn't force them not to be afraid. That wouldn't work. They'd need them to listen but for that, they'd have to have a platform so they could argue their case. They had to win the people's trust back and that meant there had to be consequences when one of them would break the law.  

Rogers and Wilson had done just that. Had tried to deal with Barnes themselves because they thought they'd do better than anyone else despite the explicit orders of the police and military and every official administration not to. And then people had died. It didn't even matter if they had made a mistake or if it had been a tragic consequence. Only an investigation into what happened and how it could have been avoided would bring that to light but they refused to be judged by anyone else. Demanded autonomy to deal with their own actions. That's not how things worked in a fair society though. Nobody else would be given free rein in how to deal with the consequences of their actions either, so why should they?

After all, Rogers and Wilson hadn't just made a mistake either. They chose this path. Wanda Maximoff chose to leave the safety of the Compound and come to Germany to help Steve Rogers in bringing his own interpretation of justice. So did Hawkeye. What was happening to them now, what Mr. Stark was forced to do now was not because of what or who they were, but because of how they chose to act.

They were wrong. What they were doing was wrong and it didn't matter how terrified Peter was to meet them again, how scared to go up against them. It was the right thing to do. Helping Mr. Stark in this was the right thing to do for him and for everyone who was like him. It was the right path, the only path to convince the people that they were trying to protect them.

Peter closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He could do this. Deep breaths. He nodded to himself then pulled the mask over his head with one quick motion. His knees were still a little wobbly as he brought his legs back underneath him and rose from the cold hard ground. They'd intercept them outside between the two buildings. That's where Peter needed to go. He shot a web upwards and pulled himself to the ceiling. It was the least conspicuous place to be. People never expected anyone to wait for them on the ceiling. Carefully he crawled towards the exit. Some of those glass panels on the roof opened up to the outside. Quickly and quietly he slipped into the open air. 

He could feel them. They had been around before but their presence was now more prominent than ever. He had only been on the roof for a few minutes when Rogers strolled onto the airstrip towards a helicopter that was parked just in front of the building Peter was hiding on. Just as fast Mr. Stark swooped in and disabled the helicopter. He wasn't alone though. War Machine was right there with him. It didn't take long for the Black Panther and the Black Widow to come forward either.

"Wow, it's so weird how you run into people at the airport." Mr. Stark turned to War Machine and opened his faceplate "Don't you think that's weird?"

"Definitely weird," War Machine chimed in.

"Hear me out, Tony."

The Captain talked and they listened. For a while, it did look like Mr. Stark had been right. For a while, it looked like they wouldn't fight, that they would fix things among themselves, have Rogers see reason because they were still a team. It almost seemed that Rogers was on his own after all, but the longer Peter watched the exchange from the rooftop the more obvious it became that he wasn't. There was energy radiating across the area. People lying in waiting close by. He took a couple of deep breaths and then crawled a little closer to the edge of the building. 

Rogers was right there, the shield in his hand.  "You're after the wrong guy."

Mr. Stark shook his head. "Your judgment is askew. Your war buddy killed innocent people yesterday."

"And there are five more super soldiers just like him. I can't let the doctor find them first, Tony. I can't."

It wasn't going to happen. They wouldn't be able to convince him. Everything Mr. Stark had said, how Rogers thought he was right, how stubborn he was about being in the right, it was all true. And it would make any compromise with the team impossible. He wouldn't give in. Rogers gave a short nod and turned to the Black Widow, trying a different strategy. Just then, as Peter had his eyes on the shield he saw his own choice confirmed in Rogers's stubbornness. He had to stand with Mr. Stark. It was simply the right thing to do.

He shot a web at the shield, hit it squarely and used the ledge of the building as a lever. With a quick, strong pull, the shield flew towards him. Another web strategically placed on the side of the building helped him swing towards Mr. Stark. Peter caught the shield midair with ease and landed on one of the vehicles close to Mr. Stark and his teammates. The adrenaline surging through him made his legs shake. Enough so that his legs gave way and he landed in more of a crouched position. Only the height of the car he had landed on kept him elevated above the Avengers around them.

All eyes were on him and despite the dread, he felt as he was exposed in the presence of a bunch of super soldiers, super spies and so on, his eyes were on Mr. Stark.

"Underoos." His mentor eye twitched and he swallowed hard before his gaze went back to Rogers.

"Are you serious right now, Tony?" Rogers shook his head, jaw clenched. "You recruited the spider?"

"You gave me little choice in the matter, Cap." Mr. Stark had been moving around this whole time. "Dragging in Clint. 'Rescuing' Wanda from a place she doesn't even want to leave? A safe place." He made a point to take a couple more steps towards the Captain and planted himself between Peter and the Avenger. Rogers just huffed out a dry laugh. 

"Is that what you tell yourself at night?" Rogers sneered. "Is that how you justify going against your own team?"

"Give me a break, Rogers. I'm trying to keep you from tearing the Avengers apart!"

"You did that when you signed." The Captain's face was dark as he shot another look at Peter then turned to the Widow. "This really doesn't bother you, Nat? That he kept this from us?" The Captain flexed his fists. They almost seemed in search of the shield, empty without it. Rogers' eyes wandered back and forth between the Widow and Mr. Stark. Peter's hold on the shield was as tight as he could physically stand. 

Black Widow sighed. "I've known for weeks, Steve." She kept her eyes on Rogers, then shrugged it off. "It doesn't matter now. You know what is about to happen here. Do you really want to punch your way out of this one?"

"I don't believe you." Rogers had his eyes straight on her and a smirk on his own face that exuded confidence. "This bothers you, Nat, and you're right. It should."

She pursed her lips and readjusted her stance. Rogers was likely right. She had confronted Mr. Stark about it. It hadn't been either Mr. Stark's or Peter's intention that the Widow would find out, she just did.

"Alright, we're done." Mr. Stark stood tall in front of him, his voice carrying an icy authority that gave Peter goosebumps. "You're gonna turn Barnes over. You're gonna come with us. Now. Because it's us... or a squad of J-SOC guys with no compunction about being impolite." Mr. Stark shook his head and shuffled back and forth on his feet, his voice turned low. "Come on, Cap. You can still stop this." 

It happened all at once and Peter was not prepared for the commotion to start so close to him. All of a sudden his senses spiked and before he could do more than cry out a warning, something exploded from the shield in his hand. He let go in surprise and flipped off the car's roof he had been standing on.

The fight was ruthless. What had exploded on the shield just next to him had turned out to be another person in a suit, who could change his own size and had enormous strength. The fight turned a lot more intense than he would have expected even after his first experience with the Avengers. He stayed back at first and tried to contain some of the commotion. Barnes and Wilson were right in his path and Peter did his best to incapacitate them. He did manage to web them to the floor of the airport building before he went back out there, into the very center of the fight. 

There was a minimal amount of static in his ear before Mr. Stark's voice rang out strong and clear. "Pete, you keep your distance, you hear me?"

"I'm alright, Sir," Peter responded though that was a bit of an ambitious interpretation as a gas tanker explodes just next to him. He did cry out in alarm at that, hoping that the suit's comm hadn't transmitted his reaction. "I'm fine, Mr. Stark."

And he was alright-ish, swinging from one portion of the building to a plane nearby, jumping back and forth lending as much support to Mr. Stark and War Machine and even on occasion the Widow as he could manage. But it didn't take long for Captain America to pop up in Peter's proximity. Peter hesitated for a moment before he did step up. Mr. Stark was fighting the Scarlet Witch and Barton at the same time and Peter couldn't allow Rogers to add to their assault. All that was left for him to do was to engage Rogers himself. He went for the shield first, then his legs. It left Rogers on the floor and Peter out of breath with little more than a couple of car lengths between. 

"Listen, son, there's a lot going on here that you don't understand."

Rogers's pompous appeal made Peter's blood boil. "Mr. Stark said that you would say that."

The man just shrugged. "He say anything else?"

"That you're wrong." Peter's back straightened, his fists balled. "But you think you're right. That makes you dangerous."

Rogers pulled back his shoulders, head held high. "I guess he'd say that." Before Peter could do anything, the shield was flying into his direction again and destabilized the jet bridge above him. He just caught it in time before it flattened him underneath it. Rogers bolted so that was something. In all honesty, Peter would rather deal with a few tons of steel than Captain America. He managed to topple the jet bridge to the front of him and it came crashing down in a bloom of smoke. 

He wasn't done though. There was still some flight left inside him and Mr. Stark still needed him in this. 

"Just stay back, Pete." Mr. Stark's voice was in his mask's earpiece again, shaky and out of breath. "Web them up when they try to get away, alright? Don't... just... Just be careful." 

"I am, Mr. Stark." 

He was, at least trying to be. His fingers were numb though and his mind was jumping from one scenario to the next, making sure that he went after the right people as well. They were all Avengers after all, except for Barnes and the new dude, and it didn't come all that easy to him to pick out the right adversaries. 

The longer the fight went on the deeper the exhaustion hit him. His aim suffered and while his strength held up it cost him more and more energy to keep going. They had just managed to bring the huge little guy to fall when Peter found himself being blasted against a nearby wall. He might have passed out for a moment for he came back on the floor. His vision was swimming and his back ached. Just as he arched himself up, trying to find the strength to get back to his feet another one of them appeared above him. All Peter could do was swing his arms, trying his best to fend off the attacker.

"Hey, whoa, Pete! Same side, come on!"

Peter's fist stilled and he looked up, back still flat against the ground.

"You're done, kid! You stay down, alright? Just right here."

"Mr. Stark?" 

"You did well, Pete." His mentor had both hands on his shoulders, pressing him back down to the ground. "Stay down!"

Peter had wanted to argue but he didn't even have enough energy to get off his back. Mr. Stark's order rolled over him like sweet relief. Permission to rest. His chest was quickly rising and falling, his lungs burned. When he went to stick a hand underneath his mask to rub his face it hit him that it had been partially peeled off him and he quickly pulled it back into place.

There were still struggles in the distance but most of the sounds were tuned out by the throbbing of his heart that banged on and on in his ears. 

The next thing he noticed were sirens in the distance that got closer and closer. That wouldn't be a good sign. Sirens were never a good sign.

"Spider."

He jerked away from the voice and turned towards her, still panting.

"Black... Black Widow."

"Go!" She wasn't even looking at him, eyes fixed on something far off in the distance.

"I..." Peter's pulse had spiked up again, hammering away in his ears. "Where's Mr. Stark? I can't—"

"He has other things to take care of. Get out now! Don't let anyone see you."

He struggled to his feet then, stood opposite her. His hands were shaking but he kept his head held high. "No. I'm here with Mr. Stark."

Her stance didn't falter at all, nor did she give him the courtesy to at least look at him. "This place will be swarming with police in less than a minute. Unless you want to meet Lieutenant General Ross and give Tony a few more things to explain away, you'll leave." Her eyes did flicker towards him at last. "Now."

Peter's mouth was dry. "Mr. Stark," he called out. The comm should pick up his voice. Mr. Stark had said he'd keep him on his comm. "Mr. Stark!"

But there was no answer.

The Widow's eyes lingered on him for another moment. "Leave. Now."

"But—"

Peter never got to finish the sentence as she took off and sprinted towards the other side of the airfield. The airport around them was a mess. Mr. Stark was nowhere to be seen. The Black Panther had the Scarlet Witch and Hawkeye in custody close to the hangers, but the Black Widow disregarded all of them, including the new guy lying on the ground, ran right past him. She came to a halt just at the end of the premises, eyes fixed on something far off in the distance. Something had happened. The atmosphere around them had lost its urgency and shifted to a heavier dread.

Not just the destruction around them, there was something else.

Peter swallowed hard and stumbled a couple of steps backwards, retreating from the scene. He couldn't be seen. If they arrested him for this and found out about... about everything...

He had to get out now. Before it was too late. 

Chapter Text

There were moments when time just seemed to stand still for him. Only him. When everything around him was unfolding and he couldn't do a single thing to stop it. Maybe everyone had those kinds of moments in extreme situations. Maybe it was a thing. Maybe it just wasn't talked about because very few people experienced situations of severe stress in the frequency that Tony did. His life had been full of them, even when he was young. As a Stark, as a young kid born with that name, he had grown up with the explicit danger of what someone could do to him or his mother for the sake of money or influence. Extorting weapons or demanding new technology blueprints. The constant danger, the precautions, the limitations on where he could go, when and with whom. 

Money could buy you bodyguards. High walls. Strong doors. A certain sense of security. 

But no real security. He had learned that the hard way. He had learned how fickle that feeling was when his son was born. He had always been so careful, surrounded Aiden with all the protection he could, kept him with people he trusted and then the unthinkable happened. 

That had been the worst day of his life, without a doubt. But not the last disaster that he would experience. Those were a lot harder to rank though. How could anyone measure the pain between seeing your best friend fall to his certain death in the armor you build to protect him? Was that better or worse than not being able to save the love of your life from falling into a big pit of flames to her certain death? Was that more painful than the physical pain of open-heart surgery in the middle of the desert without proper anesthesia or being waterboarded? So many shitty things had happened to him over the years that it had become hard to even list them all.

Rhodey was up there though. Seeing his best friend shot out of the sky, his armor that was meant to protect him only dead weight pulling him to the ground. And Tony hadn't been fast enough. His suit had been no help at all.

There had been a certain freedom he gained by becoming Iron Man, when he became so strong that nobody could harm him. Well, not nobody. There were still plenty of people that could harm him and not just by proxy. Case in point. His current state.

The silence around him was deafening. There were only his heartbeat, a distinct ringing in his ears and his labored breathing that echoed off the walls of the bunker. Tony was lying on his back, sprawled out on the cold concrete floor somewhere in Siberia.

Again and again, the memories from the raft drifted up to the forefront of his mind. Not just some holding cells in a military complex or even somewhere underground. A fucking underwater prison. What kind of maniac would even come up with that? Cells lined not just with bulletproof glass but titanium bars to keep in monsters. Wanda wrapped in a straight jacket, a collar around her neck to suppress her powers. He had tried to protect them from exactly that, but they'd known better. Steve had known better.

Steve fucking Rogers. Mr. "sometimes-my-team-mates-don't-tell-me-things". For months, years, Tony had financed his joy rides to Hydra bunkers. Pathetically, he had thought they were trying to rid the world of a terror group when really they were just in search of Rogers' mind-warped BFF. Fucking killing-machine assassin. And damn Steve Rogers who didn't have the decency to tell him that his parents had not fallen victim to a road accident. No, they had been assassinated by Hydra. By the Winter Soldier. And Captain America had known all this time. Had played the morally superior altar boy while the man's best friend had murdered his mother. Had murdered Howard Stark, the original Captain America fanboy.

But Steve had always known better and the others had trusted him more than they had Tony. So now they were trapped under tons of Atlantic Ocean water and he was alone, trapped inside his own creation in the middle of nowhere, with nobody coming to get him. Nobody who even knew that he had gone to Siberia. 

They had lost, all of them. In every measurable metric.

Tony had managed to crawl further into the bunker, reached the shield that Rogers had dropped before he and Barnes had made their escape.

That shield doesn't belong to you.

You don't deserve it.

My father made that shield.

The last of the suit's emergency power had run out and left him stranded just there next to it. There was a manual release but he didn't dare press it. The breastplates of his suit were bulged in around the arc, had pierced his skin. If he would open up the suit, the metal would dislodge and he would probably bleed freely. He took a few shallow breaths, couldn't really move his neck to look down at the suit but his gauntlet covered fingers had come away covered in blood. There was no pain though, only stiffness in his face and neck, the ringing in his ears and a dull throbbing but mostly numbness in his left leg. No pain and a comfortable warmth that radiated from his torso when he should be freezing, screaming in pain. He was vaguely aware that he was passing in and out of consciousness, but there was no telling for how long he was out of it at a time. No way to tell if he had been lying there for minutes or hours. Every now and again a strong wave of nausea would hit him and every time it made his mind come back online. He would force himself to breathe through it, to suppress the feeling but it only multiplied the stars dancing in front of his eyes as well as the ringing in his ears.

He couldn't move his body, including his head. If he couldn't fight that feeling, if he would throw up, he might suffocate on his own vomit, which would make for a pretty unattractive corpse. It would only be a matter of time though. His strength was giving out. Chances were that he wouldn't get out of there alive. His helmet was crushed. There was no way for him to contact anyone. Even if FRIDAY's emergency protocol had been activated by the destruction of the arc, who was left to even get him? His team was in an underwater prison and even if they hadn't been they'd be on the run with Rogers. Vision was still out there but after everything, after what had happened in Leipzig and with his android status he'd have to wait for approval to come out. With all the Avengers gone and Rhodey, god... Rhodey. Tony closed his eyes tried for deep breaths to calm himself.

Vision would have to go through Ross. If Ross actually green-lit the operation, he'd also green light an investigation into what brought Tony out there in the first place and then they'd probably put him in a cell right next to his teammates. If he even lived to see that.

Maybe the release button wasn't the worst option. He'd pass out and that'd be that. No pain, no agony. He was already past that, shock numbing his system. He'd just pass. And maybe... maybe people were right and he'd go on. See his parents, maybe... maybe he'd see Aiden again. He took another breath, just as shallow as the one before. Maybe it would be better like this.

He wouldn't leave many people behind who'd mourn him after all. Pepper. Possibly Rhodey. Maybe Happy. He'd like to think Peter would be sad. The kid would be back on his own then. Tony never thought to put a contingency plan in place for him. Well, his ego had always been a monster on its own. But he should have thought of this happening. With everything he had lived through this end would not come as a surprise to anyone. He had promised he'd keep Peter safe. Now, well... Now, he might be out of time to do that.

Chapter Text

It was a bit of a miserable day in New York City. Not that Peter minded the rain all that much. It was a nice relief from the heat they had endured for most of the month and it was only June. It made riding the subway somewhat bearable. He was leaning against a grabpole, eyes focused on the raindrops that were pushed around by a mix of gravity and the airflow as the train rolled towards Manhattan. It helped to keep his senses in check, the focus on one single thing just like Mr. Stark had told him to practice. It helped to shut out the voices around him. Or at least drowned them out enough to downgrade them to bearable background noise. The number one topic people chatted about remained the same that it had been for days: the Avengers. Perspectives had changed a bit, become a little more measured. People knew now that a bunch of them were in custody. That Iron Man, War Machine, Black Panther and Vision had gone out there and fought the Rouges as they had been dubbed. He hadn't heard the Widow mentioned by anyone, which was odd. 

But none of these people knew what the price for all of that had been. None of them had an inkling of how severe Colonel Rhodes had been injured in the process. Nor did Peter, really. He had no idea what had actually happened. How fast the man would recover.

Peter had been waiting in his hotel room in Leipzig, waiting for Mr. Stark to tell him where to go. For someone to tell him what to do next. He hadn't heard from Mr. Stark at all since he had told Peter to stand down at the airport. Maybe he shouldn't have left? Maybe Mr. Stark thought that he had run out on him? Had he come back and Peter had just been gone? Maybe it was something else entirely. Maybe the man had not— 

Then the door to his hotel room had swung open and his mentor strode in, was quick to close the door behind him.

"Mr. Stark!" Peter had an urge to rush towards the man, to make sure that he was alright. That feeling of dread that had lingered around the airport still persistent in his very bones.

"Pete. You alright?"

The man looked exhausted, limbs stiff, body moving not as smoothly as he usually did. But it was his face that held most of the pain, his eyes deeper and darker than usual.

"I'm... yeah... yeah, I'm okay." He rubbed a hand awkwardly over his arm. His energy was still flat and he had caught a few bruises, a bit of a headache from that last fall. Other than that though he was okay.

"You got out okay? Nobody saw you?"

"No. I... no, nobody saw me."

Mr. Stark gave a short nod. "Good. Good thinking, kid."

"I..." Peter frowned. Had he not talked to the Widow yet? "It, well... It was the Black Widow. She told me to go. I mean, I was trying to talk to you, but the comm was off and I couldn't—"

"Natasha talked to you?" Mr. Stark's gaze was straight on him, eyebrows closely knitted together. "What did she say?"

Peter blinked. "She just told me that the police were on their way and that I should get out."

"That's it?" His voice was sharp, too sharp. 

"I... She said to leave. I tried to talk to you, but she said you were busy and that if I stayed Ross was gonna interview me and you'd have more explaining to do." 

"She said that to you?"

Peter nodded, eyes still wide.

"Huh." Mr. Stark gave his head a small shake. His gaze drifted off to somewhere in midair, eyebrows still pulled together in a deep frown. "I have a plane on hold for you. Not here. There's a regional airport nearby. Car will be here in 25 minutes." He cleared his throat, eyes back on Peter now and he took a couple of steps towards him. His hand landed lightly on Peter's shoulder as he looked him up and down, studying his hunched stance. "You sure you're alright? If you need medical—"

"I'm fine, Mr. Stark. I promise." The hand on his shoulder grounded him, gave him a sense of security that he had been lacking ever since he had boarded that plane to Germany. Ever since Mr. Stark had come to him at the Tower, really. "What happened, Sir?"

"What happened?" his mentor huffed out a couple of shallow breaths that almost seemed like a dry laugh. "You saw what happened. We disagreed."

Peter blinked at him. That wasn't what he was asking and Mr. Stark knew that. "Captain Rogers, he... he got away?"

"Rogers and Barnes."

Peter shook his head. No. That wasn't it. "What happened?"

The man's mouth twitched. "Who said something happened?"

Peter kept his gaze focused on him, unwilling to break eye contact. "My senses for one thing." He ignored the urge to shrug off the thought, not wanting to push Mr. Stark out of his space. "The onslaught of police and ambulances would be another clue."

Mr. Stark's face changed into the mask he wore so often in public and pulled his hand back from Peter's shoulder after all. "It's... nothing you need to worry about, Pete." 

"Sir?" Peter just stopped himself from reaching out for him. "Are you not... are you not gonna fly back, too?"

"I will. I just... Yes, I will."

That didn't sound like he was planning to leave very soon at all though. "Do you need to stay here? Are they... is it because of what happened?"

The man took a step back, retreating, capping the contact to Peter. "We can talk about this later. Now... now is not the time."

"Please, Sir. Just tell me, I—"

"I don't know, Peter." 

Mr. Stark's voice had a sharpness that Peter had rarely heard in it. Peter couldn't help but take a step back now as well. This... this must be bad. Mr. Stark kept his eyes on him and as Peter retreated further back the mask fell off his face within seconds. "Pete, listen it's..." He sighed again and looked away, his mouth pressed into a thin line. "Rhodey got hit. The suit... the suit lost power and he fell."

Peter swallowed hard. "He fell? How... how far? Is he... is he alright?"

"I don't know, Pete. I... I don't know," Mr. Stark's eyes were not on him, just focused on something behind him.

Peter turned to see and the airport was right there. Smoke was still rising from the wreckage they had left behind on that airfield. But that was not what Mr. Stark was looking at. His eyes were focussed on something further off in the field behind the airport. There were still a bunch of police cars who had closed off the area. Peter's breath caught in his throat. Was that where Colonel Rhodes had fallen? All the way out there?

"Is... Is that—"

"I have to get back to the airport," Mr. Stark's voice overrode his. "The transport leaves as soon as I get there. He's... he's alive and... and we'll know more when Helen checks him through at the Compound."

Peter shuffled from one foot to the other. "Can I... Can I not just come with you, Sir?" 

Mr. Stark met his eyes. "I need to stay with Rhodey. I'd take you, kid, of course I would, but there are too many people on that plane. You'll be safer on your own, once we left. You'll be alright."

Peter lowered his gaze. Mr. Stark had a point. He couldn't hang around other people that close to his mentor, intern or not. Those people weren't stupid and if the Black Widow was on that plane as well, she was bound to figure things out if Peter just showed up on that transport.

Mr. Stark stepped back up to Peter, put his hand back on his shoulder. "I need to look at that suit of yours, Pete. Come by the lab before you go back out there." 

Peter's eyebrows rose up along with his head and he looked straight at him. "I can go back on patrol?"

"Yes." Mr. Stark nodded to himself. "You should. We need to earn people's trust back and they do trust you, Pete."

He blinked at the man and his mouth dropped open. "You... you think the people trust me?" 

"Of course they do, kid." The expression on the man's face softened. "You made more of a personal impression on any of them than we could ever hope to." The corners of his mouth almost pulled into a smirk. "I guess it helps that your saves rarely come with the million-dollar damages our fights usually leave behind." His eyes shifted back out to the airport, smoke still blooming from the recently extinguished fires. "We need to check the suit first, though. I want to make sure. We need to run every test I can think of, check if it suffered any damage. In a few days. In a few days I think, alright?"

Peter took a couple of deep breaths to quell his excitement at the prospect of getting some of his routine back. This wasn't the time for it. "I'm sorry about Colonel Rhodes, Mr. Stark." Peter frowned, eyes on his mentor. "I'm sure he'll be okay."

The man's eyes were still on the ruined airport on the other side of the street. He gave a curt nod, then turned and went for the door. "I'll see you in a few days."

He had left Peter in that hotel room to wait for the car and just like on his trip to Germany, Peter had been alone on the return flight. He understood why of course. With Colonel Rhodes injuries. That was more important now. A wave of nausea hit him at the thought of what that fight in Leipzig had cost and he tightened the hold on his backpack. He hadn't talked to Mr. Stark since that day. Not really. Peter had sent a few short messages after he had gotten off the plane. Then another asking when to come by for the check-up and had just received a short "The usual time." But that had been a couple of days ago, that Wednesday night.

He set out to the Tower on the Friday right after school. It had only been a few days since the events in Germany. To think that just that Monday he had been on a different country was enough to blow his mind but the thought of what had transpired there still set his nerves on edge, made his skin prickle. There was excitement bubbling deep inside him, a longing to get back to his routine, sure. There was also that sense of dread that had stuck with him ever since he left the Leipzig airport. A deep throbbing sense of unease that just wouldn't go away.

It usually wasn't a particularly long trip from Queens to the Tower, but that day the train just kept stopping between stations, mumbled explanations by the conductor were lost to Peter as he was still deep in thought. He didn't mind the delay all that much. Not like he usually would. Was simultaneously wishing for time to go by faster to get on with it as well as hoping time would just slow down, give him a few more minutes to prepare. Getting to the Tower seemed to be tied in with all the dread that was clinging to him.

There was an unusual amount of commotion in the lobby. Granted, it was a Friday and Fridays were always busy as the week came to an end, but there were even reporters hanging around the main entrance. He made a beeline for security and kept his head low until the elevator doors closed behind him. 

"Hi FRIDAY, can you get me up to the lab."

"Yes, Peter."

The elevator shot up through the building climbing level after level.

"You let him know I'm here, right?" He checked his watch, but it wasn't all that bad. Maybe 15 minutes later than he usually got there. "There was an issue with the subway, something on the tracks. I could have gotten out but I didn't think he'd want that."

"Mr. Stark is currently not at the Tower."

Peter's eyes moved up to the ceiling. "He's not?" Shit, had he gotten his dates mixed up? "But he's back, right? He came back with Colonel Rhodes?"

"Mr. Stark is working on a project at the Compound."

"Shit." The lab opened up in front of him and Peter rubbed a hand across his face. "Shit, take me back down, FRIDAY."

Of course. Of course Mr. Stark was at the Compound! He was an idiot. That's where Colonel Rhodes was most likely being treated by the Avengers' medical team. That's where Mr. Stark would be. Damn, of course Mr. Stark would have meant for him to come to the Compound.

"FRIDAY, I need to get out there. What's the fastest way?"

"There is a car on standby."

Peter bit his lip. He always felt awkward taking advantage of Mr. Stark's drivers. He didn't want the man to think that he was taking these kinds of things for granted.

"Can... can you just ask him, if it's okay that I use one of the cars to get to the Compound?"

"Mr. Stark is currently unavailable."

"Damn, alright. How about... how long does the train take? Or the bus? There should be something I could take out there from Grand Central, right?"

"There is a connection to Esopus that leaves in 17 minutes. The train stops in Poughkeepsie where you need to get off and take the bus 709 to Esopus. From the bus stop, you will need to walk another 1.8 miles to the Compound."

Peter groaned. He wanted to get his suit back, wanted to get back out there. The odd save here and there and he would make sure they would trust him to help them. Mr. Stark was freaked out as it was though so the check-up had to happen first. Peter would just have to make sure he got there as quickly as possible. He didn't want to keep Mr. Stark waiting either. He'd probably be less annoyed if Peter would just use the car than if he didn't turn up for another two and a half hours.

"Mr. Stark wouldn't mind me using the car, right? I mean, he said that's why he hired the drivers. FRIDAY?"

"The car is always on standby and you are welcome to use it, Peter."

"Right. Alright then. Just... just tell him sorry. And that I'm on my way."

#

In contrast to the Tower, the Compound was quieter than he had seen it in a long time. The last time Peter had seen it this empty was probably the first time he had been there. That weekend when Mr. Stark had shown up on his doorstep and had then taken him out to the Compound. 

Peter made it into the building without meeting a single person. He had expected a little more commotion, even with some of the Avengers gone. Well, with most of them gone. Yes, they had put some of them in custody but Rogers and Barnes had escaped and Mr. Stark was sure to have his hands full with that, people nagging him about his progress. Peter had expected a lot of busy Compound employees running around with clear instructions on what to do. But no. There was hardly anyone around.

He made his way straight to the lab. The door to the lab opened for him right away. Peter quickly stepped into the room and the doors shut right behind him. The lab was quiet. No buzzing of the bots. No clinking of metal on metal, the familiar noises that would echo through the lab when Mr. Stark was working. The man was nowhere to be seen. Maybe he was upstairs in the office? That wasn't a good sign. If Mr. Stark was quiet that usually meant that he was brooding about something and that was hardly ever a good thing. It might also mean that he was annoyed or mad. With Peter going to the Tower first and the delays on the way, he was over an hour late. Even if something else had put his mentor in a bad mood, Peter being late wouldn't help.

He dropped his backpack next to the sofa that stood in the middle of the lab and dragged his feet as he walked up to the staircase in the back that led up to Mr. Stark's office.

"Mr. Stark?" he called up the stairs but the office was dark. The windows up there must have been blacked out.

"FRIDAY, where is he?"

"Mr. Stark is working on a project at the Compound."

Peter gave his head a subtle shake. "Well, he's not in the lab," he said to himself, then cast his eyes back to the ceiling. "FRIDAY, maybe a little more detail? What's he doing?"

"Mr. Stark is currently unavailable."

"Unavailable?" Peter frowned. "What does that mean? Where is he?"

"Mr. Stark is working on a project at the Compound. He is currently unavailable."

Peter shot a glare up to the ceiling. That was a bit of an exaggerated reaction to Peter being late. Mr. Stark wasn't usually petty like that.

"He doesn't even know I'm here, does he FRIDAY? Did he forget that I was coming by?"

"Mr. Stark did not forget about your appointment. Unfortunately, he is currently unavailable."

"What? Where is he then? Is he gonna meet me here?"

"Mr. Stark is working on a project at the Compound. He is currently unavailable."

"Yeah, you said that. What's with..." he shot another glance up to the ceiling. It wasn't like FRIDAY to be that repetitive. It wasn't like her not to tell him where Mr. Stark was either, even if he was busy. He was busy often enough even on the days that Peter would drop by the lab. "What's going on?"

"I am not at liberty to share this information with you at this point."

He shook his head in confusion. "Who are you at liberty to share this information with?"

"I am not at liberty to share this information with you at this point."

He stood in the middle of the lab and just stared into the open space. This wasn't just odd. This was creepy. Something was wrong, he could feel it. It was almost like someone had set up a —

"FRIDAY, where is Mr. Stark?"

"Mr. Stark is working on a project at the Compound."

"Why do you keep repeating the same sentences over and over again?"

"I am not at liberty to share this information with you at this point."

"Fuck." He rubbed both hands across his face. Mr. Stark didn't want to be found. That much was clear. Only question was... why?

His hands fell off his face as realization hit. 

Oh. 

Of course Mr. Stark would probably be in the medical wing, would be with Colonel Rhodes. Just the thought of the pain in his mentor's face as he spoke of his friend getting injured in the fight, the concern over if he'd be okay. And he would have put in a filter to keep FRIDAY from spilling that information. 

Mr. Stark did not forget about your appointment.  Unfortunately, he is currently unavailable.

He had heard that line before. Mr. Stark had literally made him use that line on some of the younger overeager engineers from the 36th floor who had shown up on the lab's door one day to ask for some of his time. It was FRIDAY's standard response to inquiries when the man was busy with something else. Peter sighed. He was fairly sure that Mr. Stark had absolutely forgotten that Peter was going to come to the lab today. That didn't bode too well for whatever state Colonel Rhodes was in. It also explained the empty Compound as well as the busy Tower. Mr. Stark would have shut the Compound off to the outside world, had shut himself off using FRIDAY as a shield so all the questions people had on the current situation of the Avengers, about Mr. Stark's responses to what had transpired went straight to the Tower.

The man was beating himself up for what had happened in Leipzig, was taking the blame like he seemed to do so often. With the team almost entirely gone, Colonel Rhodes injured, probably severely, Mr. Stark was alone in this. Like he had been after the incident in Lagos, after the one in Manhattan. Peter let himself fall onto the couch and buried his face in his hands. It wasn't right. Mr. Stark shouldn't have to deal with all this on his own. He needed people to help him deal with all this, he had said so himself. That day he had come to Peter's apartment, had lectured him in his own room about how nobody could do this hero business alone. How he would have been dead three times over if he would have had to deal with everything on his own. 

Well, he wasn't. Peter sat up. His fists clenched around the edge of the couch, fingers turning white from the stain. As long as he was around Mr. Stark wouldn't be alone in this. He wasn't going to let— A thought hit him. There might be a way to get around that filter the man had put on FRIDAY. An idea that was worth a shot.

"Hey, FRIDAY? Is Mr. Stark in the medical wing?"

"Mr. Stark is working on a project at the Compound."

Peter sighed. "Alright then, can you show me what way the medical wing is?"

"The Compound's medical wing is on the east side of the building. Please follow the indicated lights."

Well, at least the questions not directly concerning Mr. Stark still got a regular response from her. Peter carefully checked the hallway. There was nobody around though. The Compound was indeed unusually empty. His steps echoed off the concrete walls and maybe it was just his nerves, but they seemed to ring louder than usual. It wasn't that Peter wasn't allowed to walk around the Compound. He'd been here a bunch of times with Mr. Stark before but things seemed different that day. The atmosphere just a little eerie.

FRIDAY lead him all the way to the east side of the building. He hadn't been to the medical wing before, had always made a point to stay away from the places where he could run into other people at the Compound. People that weren't Mr. Stark. The less people knew about him the less inquiring questions he would potentially expose himself to. 

It only took him a few minutes to find the tract. FRIDAY's method of guiding him by the floor lights was reliable and quick until he hit a dead end. The doors that lead to the medical wing were closed. They didn't differ from any of the other automated doors around the Compound. Unlike those other doors in the building, they didn't open for him though which resulted in Peter almost walking into them headfirst. 

There was a handprint and retina scanner on the wall as well as an access card reader, the same kind of authorization check that the elevator in the Tower had. His access card was in the back pocket of his jeans. That one wouldn't help him here though. Mr. Stark had given him access to the labs and any checkpoint that would lie on the way, but this. No. There was no way it would work here. He could try of course. Worst case scenario, he'd trigger some kind of alarm. That sure would get him Mr. Stark's attention, but also everyone else's. 

"FRIDAY, do I have clearance to get to the medical wing?"

"Access to the Medial Wing is limited to essential personal only."

"I guess that's a no," he mumbled. The doors' privacy function was enabled and there was no way to know what was happening beyond them. He eyed the other doors that he had walked past on his way. He could probably try one of those rooms and then probably find an open window somewhere on the medical wing. There wouldn't be any access scanners on those, but the result would be the same. FRIDAY would know that he shouldn't be in there. 

He sighed and looked up at one of her cameras. "Can you let me in, FRIDAY? Please?"

"Peter, you have no access to this area of the Compound."

He bit the insides of his cheeks. His only choice was to convince her and that wouldn't be easy but he had a solid plan.

His eyes were still on her camera mounted in the middle of the corridor above the doors. "Come on, FRIDAY. I'm just gonna check on him quickly." 

"You have no access to this area of the Compound."

Alright then, he had this one ace up his sleeve and he'd just have to play it and hope for the best.

"Mr. Stark said that I'm always safe with him." He gave in to the urge to clasp his own hands and pick on his fingers, a nervous tick of his' she'd pick out right away. Something that she might interpret as anxiety that would get him his way. "You heard him. He did say that. I want to see him." He took a couple of shallow breaths, mimicking some of the symptoms he'd show when his senses would play up. "Please, FRIDAY. Please. I need to see him."

The doors stayed closed but FRIDAY's routine answer didn't ring out either.

"Please. You heard him say it. I know you did. He said he'd always make sure I was okay." He bit his lip, eyes still on her camera. "Please, FRI."

For a moment it was quiet and then without another word from FRIDAY the doors in front of him slid open. Peter let out a deep breath, careful to keep the victory grin off his face. Beyond lay a long corridor only illuminated by the dimmed spots near the floor. Just enough light to navigate comfortably but low enough to give the area a somber, deserted vibe. He stepped inside before FRIDAY would have second thoughts about bending the rules for him. Peter put one foot in front of the other and wandered down the corridor. He only came to a halt at the very end of it, where it forked off in two different directions. Just as the realization sunk in that he would never find Mr. Stark in this maze the floor lights to his right lit up a little brighter. FRIDAY. He cast his eyes up to her, a soft smile of thanks on his lips. 

She led him through the very heart of the medical wing, around a few corners until he found himself at a dead-end, a wide and heavy door in front of him. He hadn't really thought what he would do once he got there. Mr. Stark would not be easily persuaded to accept Peter's help. Peter had joked about it being their thing, helping each other out, but in reality there was a very clear power dynamic between them. The one where Mr. Stark held all the power and he had almost none. Peter shrugged off the thought. That didn't matter now. Mr. Stark needed help, someone that would have his back and Peter was here for all of it. After everything his mentor had helped him with, had done for him. The suit. The sense of security. Literally stitching him back together. 

It was the least he could do.

Suddenly a shiver pulled him from his thoughts. It went through him and out of pure instinct he took a couple of steps back, turned and retreated further until he found his back pressed against the wall behind him. His eyes shot back and forth between the door on his right-hand side and the corridor that had led him there on the other. He might have been able to convince FRIDAY, somewhat trick her into helping him. It was rather unlikely that the Compound's medical staff would come to a similar conclusion. They didn't know him. He had no clearance to be there. They'd just kick him right out. 

There was no decision-making process on his part, his body simply acted out of instinct. He jumped for the door and quickly pressed down the handle. His best shot was that Mr. Stark would just go with it and not have his employees kick him out. Peter stepped into the room and the door fell shut behind him. It took mere seconds for him to realized that Mr. Stark wasn't there. The room was empty except for Colonel Rhodes in his hospital bed, a gazillion number of tubes and machine tied to him. Peter was frozen to the spot, eyes on the door. They would turn the corner to the corridor and come in any second. He had to do something. He couldn't... he couldn't be found in the Colonel's hospital room on his own.

"Damn it FRIDAY," he hissed "Is this you trying to get me busted?"

There was nowhere for him to go. Nowhere to run. The door flew opened and Peter closed his eyes, braced himself. He'd be in so much trouble for this.   

There was silence at first, then a few hurried steps. Some rustling. Heavy breathing and... and strangled sobs.

Peter frowned then opened his eyes and found his face was only a couple of inches from a plain white wall. He blinked a couple of times. What the...? Slowly, carefully, he craned his neck and the world was turned on its head. Oh. That was the ceiling he had been looking at. He didn't remember jumping, but his senses must have kicked in. That did explain the lack of reaction in the room to his presence.

There was not enough time for him to collect himself, to look around and take in what was happening around him, for just a few moments later the door flew open once again. He kept as still as he could. The dimmed lights in the room were working in his favor and since the two people who had walked into the room both had their backs turned to him, he found the nerve to carefully crawl even further along the ceiling to the back of the room. There were a couple of wardrobes in the corner that left just enough of a gap to the ceiling for him to hide in the space between them.

He bit his lip so he wouldn't curse out loud. If there was anything worse than being found in this room in the first place it would be being found while he was crawling along the ceiling. Without the mask. Just him. He couldn't freak out about that. He couldn't. Deep breaths. He might be alright up there. People never looked up to the ceiling. He had found that to be true on multiple occasions. That was a comforting thought. Enough so that it cleared the panic in his bones just enough that he could make use of his brain again, assess the mess he had gotten himself into.  

Two women. It was two women that had entered the room. That much he could tell. One with shorter dark hair, clad in black leather clothes. The one who had been second to come into the room. He couldn't really make out much about the other one as she was crouched over the hospital bed.

"How is he?" The dark-haired woman asked.

The other one cleared her throat. "The surgery went as well as we could have hoped. We'll... " Her voice was heavy with emotion. "We'll know more if he wakes up."

"He will." Her tone just encouraging enough so she sounded sincere. "Pepper, he's been through worse than this." 

The breath in his throat caught and he instinctively shrunk further back into the gap between ceiling and wardrobe. That... that was Pepper Potts.

"We don't know that. We don't know anything." Her voice was rough, hardening with every word. "Why was he alone out there? Why?!"

Peter frowned. Alone? Miss Potts slowly detangled herself from the bed and rose to her feet, one hand wiping the tears off her face. That didn't make any sense. Colonel Rhodes hadn't been alone, he—

His mind went blank. As Miss Potts moved away, the vantage point high up on the wardrobe gave Peter a better look at the motionless figure in the hospital bed. That wasn't Colonel Rhodes. Where the hell had FRIDAY—

It hit him all at once. As he recognized the hair, the face despite the tubes. It was him. Mr. Stark was lying in that bed, face cut up and bruised, neck wrapped in heavy bandages, white sheets covering the rest of his body except for his arms. Not even a single tone left Peter's throat, the shock so deep every cell in his body was paralyzed. What? How? 

"I don't know, Pepper." The other woman bowed her head low for a deep breath then looked back at her. "We found Steve's shield with Tony."

Peter's heart gave another jump. Rogers? Miss Potts' eyes widened. "Steve Rogers was there? But... but how? Did they just run into each other? In the middle of nowhere in Siberia?"

The other woman exhaled deeply. "I don't know. There's no way to tell what happened. Steve wouldn't just leave the shield behind. Maybe if we accessed the suit's data, but FRIDAY wouldn't even let us get into the lab to keep the suit out of anyone else's view. I guess... I guess we could have one of Compound's head engineers try to access it, or bring it to the Tower. Someone Tony would trust."

Miss Potts reached for the man's hand, carefully entangled her fingers with his. "There is nobody Tony would trust enough to access that data. It'll be encrypted with multiple levels of security codes."

"Maybe if you asked FRIDAY? He'd trust you. She might access it for you."

She shook her head, her hand tightening on his. "Not with this. Not with his suits."

"He trusted you enough to send out the beacon to you."

"Those are old protocols. They were probably in place from before, because... probably because there was no other name he could replace mine with. Not with Rhodey..." She cleared her throat. "Not with Rhodey unavailable."

"It's worth a shot, isn't it?"

Miss Potts turned her eyes down at her hand that still held Mr. Stark's. "I'll have FRIDAY open the door to the lab at least." She took a couple of deep breaths before she looked back up at the other woman in front of her. "The suit should stay in there. In the lab. I'll ask FRIDAY to read out the data. It's not going to work though. Just... just meet me there. Give me... give me maybe an hour?"

Miss Potts turned back towards the bed. One of her arms snaked around her torso, the other hand still held onto Mr. Stark's. Behind her back, the other woman shuffled back and forth on her feet. 

"We don't really have an hour."   

"Why not?"

"It's Ross, Pepper. He's been trying to get in contact with Tony."  

Miss Potts head shot around, eyes wide. "You didn't tell him, did you?" 

"I didn't. I told you I wouldn't. But I can't stall him forever. He wants Steve and Barnes. He wants Tony to get them for him."

Miss Potts's eyes went back to Mr. Stark's face. "Ross can't know, Maria. He can't know. Tony signed the Accords. If they find out that he was in a fight without any mandate from the council, they'll put sanctions on him. They might even try to take the suits or... or..."

"Or put him in that bunker. Next to the other Avengers."

Miss Potts' eyes found the other woman's again, her features closed off. "He'd never approve of what Ross did to them. You know that."

The woman, Maria, shook her head and looked away from her. "That doesn't matter now. Ross is a problem we can't put off. We need to deal with him before he starts digging. You need to contact him, make up a story about SI or something."

"Fine." She turned her back to Maria, stepped closer to the hospital bed. "Alright, let's go then."

Miss Potts bent down and pressed her lips against the man's forehead, on the left side where his face showed the least amount of bruising. Peter was quick to look away. Heat shot up in his face. This was too private. Too personal. He should have never even witnessed that. He saw their movement out of the corner of his eyes. When he looked back up the door fell shut behind them.

Peter was still huddled on that wardrobe. His heart was racing as he listened to their footsteps, how they quickly walk away from the room down the hallway. His glance turned back to the man in the hospital bed on the other side of the room. Peter's mind was still blank, overwhelmed with shock and the onslaught of information that only brought up even more questions. His hands shook as he slowly descended from his hiding spot. How... how could this have happened? Rogers had gotten away. Mr. Stark was back in the US, he was on that transport with Colonel Rhodes, he had to have been. Why the hell would he go to Siberia?

Slow, small steps brought him closer and closer to the bed. Nausea rose in his throat. His mentor looked weak and beaten, his skin white as a ghost's, half his face covered by the breathing tube they had stuck down his throat. 

"What... what happened? Sir, I...." his chest burned, as did the tears in his eyes. "I don't understand. You were fine. You were fine!" His left hand shot up and covered his mouth just in time. Just before a deep sob could work its way out of his throat. Why hadn't he called on him? Why hadn't he let him help? Tears fell from his eyes onto his hand. He took another step forward, stood right next to the man now. Carefully his right hand reached for the man's arm. His skin was warm, much warmer than he had expected. Almost feverish. Peter's fingers curled around the man's wrist, fingertips feeling for his pulse.

It was still there. Shallow, but steady. That rhythm that had calmed him, anchored him only a few days ago, not at all as thundering and booming as it had been before. When Mr. Stark had taken care of him, given him shelter at the Tower without so much as a second thought. Peter's heart ached. He ached all over really, every cell in his body. How could this have happened? Why would Mr. Stark have gone out there on his own? At least the Black Widow should have been with him!

He inhaled deeply, rubbed a hand across his face, the other one still clasping his mentor's wrist. "You're the one who... who told me that nobody could do this whole... whole superhero business on their own," Peter whispered. "I would have come with you, Sir. You... you didn't have to do this alone."

Peter closed his eyes and slowly sank to the floor. His head came to rest against the mattress, fingertips still pressed on Mr. Stark's pulse point.

Chapter Text

Peter's life had gone to shit. It really had, not slowly but swiftly and thoroughly. In just a couple of weeks, he had gone from supported friendly neighborhood Spider-Man and happy Stark Industries intern to swiping toiletries, canned food, and cereal over the scanner of a cashier point while he worried about his comatose superhero mentor whose life was hanging in the balance. This was a nightmare. And it was only his first day of his new summer job. With everything that had happened the week before, with what had happened to Mr. Stark, he had almost forgotten about the upcoming change in his routine. 

This had been a horrible idea. It might be giving him some breathing room with Aunt May complaining about the internship, but he wasn't all that sure anymore, that this would be worth it. All the beeping, all the people talking around him, the weird smells that came from the fast-food counter close to the exit. He had picked Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays to work just to be sure that it wouldn't clash with his internship days. So, of course his first day had fallen on the first day of his summer recess. All that planning around his timetable with Mr. Stark now seemed a little redundant. His mentor was still unresponsive the last time he had been at the Compound, which had been the previous night. They hadn't even taken him off the breathing machine. Peter's heart gave a tight squeeze as the images of his mentor lying motionless in that room all alone flickered in front of his eyes. All wasn't well. It really, really wasn't. 

"Hey, those aren't mine!"

Peter shook himself out of his thoughts. "Sorry!" He stared at the monitor. There were a couple of cans with sliced pineapple on the older ladies tally now, that belonged to the next person in line. Heat shot in his face and his hands started to sweat. 

Shit. Shit, shit, shit! 

"Erm... I'm so sorry, Ma'am, I don't really know..." He turned around, looking for someone he could wave to for help, but nobody was paying any attention to him. His supervisor, who had shown him what to do, had her back turned to him and Peter was completely blanking on her name. You'd think those checkout registers should be super intuitive, but Peter would probably have an easier time programming one of these things than remembering which colored button did what. Nope, he wasn't going to wing this.

It took him forever and just before he was about to leave his booth and actually walk down to talk to her, his supervisor did notice him at last. People were already switching to other checkout counters and both ladies, that were waiting for his mistake to be corrected, were getting rather impatient.

"Just concentrate a little better, Peter." Zoey, that's what it was, Zoey told him. "You have to be a lot faster than this."

6 hours. It wasn't even the maximum a minor was allowed to work on a non-school day by law, but it was long enough. It was still a short day compared to the time he would usually spend working at his internship, but time just didn't want to pass at all while he was sitting behind that counter. So different to his time at the lab, which had always been everything but tedious. Not recently of course. Those past few days had been hard. He had gone back to the Compound every single day. To see Mr. Stark, obviously. Peter stayed with him as much as he could, not just to be there if he— when, when he would wake up. There was another issue he had been dealing with: his suit. He was still without an acceptable way to access the technology that was supposed to help him keep people safe. Sure, the suit itself would probably work even if Mr. Stark had been worried. That had just been him freaking out about the incident in Leipzig. And who could blame him? But there had been a different problem that had emerged that last Friday night. 

He had sat by Mr. Stark's bed for what had felt like hours, just staring at the ceiling, the walls or the man himself. His mentor's skin was incredibly pale. The only color came from the dark red wounds on his forehead, on the bridge of his nose and an array of smaller cuts on his cheekbones just above the mounting of the breathing tube. They blended in with the dark purple color of a bruise just below the man's left eye. There was nothing Peter could do to help. He'd been trying to at least say something, talk to him in an effort to, well, to what? He probably didn't even hear him. Still, there was a desperate urge in Peter's heart to have him know that he wasn't alone. 

He was pulled out of his thoughts by a shallow tingling of his senses. By sheer instinct, his back straightened and he shot a glance over his shoulder. That was right, there were still people out there. He still had no official authorization to be in that room, unless you'd count FRIDAY's trust that Mr. Stark would allow it. Odds were that the Compound personal or even Miss Potts would absolutely positively not count that. A quick glance to his phone made him realize that it had been less than an hour that he had spent in the room. An hour. That's what Pepper Potts had asked for. Mild nausea rose from deep down in his guts. She might come back. She would definitely come back and when she did, he'd be discovered after all.

"Is there another way out of here, FRIDAY?"

"I'm afraid not, Peter."

He blew out a deep breath. There was nowhere to go, nowhere to hide in those hallways. What if he were to run into someone, anyone? Compound personal or even Miss Potts herself? Or that other lady, Maria, who didn't look like she'd ask too many questions before she'd want to put him in a holding cell somewhere until she figured out how Peter had weaseled his way into the medical wing.

He slowly got off the floor. "How about the windows, FRIDAY? Can't you just open one and let me out? I could like... crawl back into Mr. Stark's office or something."

"I'm afraid all windows at the Compound are triple enforced and bolted. Plus, the alarm on the exterior wall would give you away as you lack the superiority to have me disable them."

"Great," he muttered. "Well, the hallway it is then." His gaze was fixed on his mentor for another moment. "I'll be back, Mr. Stark."

His walk back to the lab was quiet and thankfully a lot less eventful than he had feared. The Compound seemed almost abandoned and now he knew why. They must have sent people home, made sure that as little people as possible knew what had happened. How vulnerable they were with the Avengers gone, Colonel Rhodes injured and now Mr. Stark, who's recovery seemed to be unclear.

"He's gonna be fine," Peter muttered to himself. 

The door to the lab opened for him and with his first glance around the room his breath got stuck so deep in his throat, it felt like invisible hands were choking him. Just at the lefthand wall, only a few steps into the room lay the suit. Mr. Stark's Iron Man suit, or, well, what was left of it. The armor looked like an empty sardine can that had not been opened with the designed hedge but instead been peeled apart with sheer force. Like someone had taken a crowbar and peeled away layer after layer.

There was a fire, anger that started burning in his stomach as he stepped closer to the remnants of what had been meant to shield his mentor. What had failed to keep him safe for after all, underneath all that titanium he was only human. Peter's ears were ringing, the blood in his veins raging. He didn't even know if he wanted to cry at the sight or bash away at the useless heap of metal instead. Anger won out as he spotted Captain America's shield just behind the ruined suit, propped up against the wall

Rogers had really been there then. Rogers could have stopped this and he didn't. Peter built up momentum as he rushed forward and kicked the damn shield once, twice, three times, ignoring the sting in his knee as the shield held up against his ambush without as much as a wiggle. He cursed in frustration and turned away from both the shield and the ruined armor. His suit was what was important now. Maybe FRIDAY could check it and if she couldn't figure out how, well... he would just have to go for it. He couldn't sit back now. With Vision bound by the Accords, there was only Peter left. Nobody else in town could do anything about the threats looming out there. He just had to—

His blood froze in his veins. His backpack. He had dropped his backpack on the couch in the middle of the lab and now... now it was gone. A sudden rush of dizziness almost floored him. People had been in here dropping off the armor and now... and now his backpack, his suit—

"FRI—" Peter's voice was shaking, he was possibly hyperventilating. "FRIDAY, wher—where's my backpack?"

"Miss Potts took it and put it in the office upstairs."

His body reacted on instinct. In five long jumps, he was all the way across the room and took three stairs at a time ascending to the office. FRIDAY turned on the lights for him just as he made it up the stairs. He stumbled through the room, just couldn't see it. Where could it be? Where could she have put it?

His heart was pulsing like crazy. If she had opened the bag... If she had seen the suit... 

A wave of dread overcame him. Something was happening. Something wasn't right.

"FRIDAY, lights off." 

She did so right away and not a moment too soon. The buzzing of the lab door echoed all the way up into the office. 

"It's not that we wouldn't try it if—"

"I don't understand why Helen doesn't just use the cradle? She used it on Clint and from what I heard he looked actually better than before."

Peter had sunken to the floor and slowly made his way around the desk. This was getting out of hand. He could have very well still been down there. If they had shown up a few minutes earlier— He had to stop. He was freaking himself out when he really had to keep his pulse to slow down. It was hammering away like a freight train. Mrs. Potts and the Maria lady, he could tell that much. Just the two of them. Well, just...

"Pepper, the cradle grafts tissue. It's nerves and synaptic connectivity that were snapped in the Colonel's back. It's the injury to his neck, the resulting low oxygen levels Tony's brain had to deal with that keeps him in the coma. We can't graft synthetic nerves. Not yet. We certainly can't graft brain cells."

Miss Potts' breathing was heavy, even without his sense he'd be able to hear her clearly despite hiding up there. "There has to be something. We need to do something."

"Helen is doing—”

She interrupted Maria again, her steps loud and fast as she paced in the lab downstairs. "—everything she can. I know that."

"We just have to wait this out."

Miss Potts' voice was strained, her breathing heavy. "I can't just do nothing. There has to be something we can do."

"You can help me deflect. Help me find out what happened. Steve might still be out there somewhere. So is the Winter Soldier."

"And how could I do that?"

"I will go and debrief Sharon Carter tomorrow."

"Sharon Carter?" Miss Potts' tone changed to a higher, almost surprised expression.

"You know her?"

"I know of her. Peggy Carter was the only family Tony had left."

"Well, Sharon is under arrest. They are flying her into New York to stand trial."

"What?" She stopped pacing after all. There was very little movement in the lab at all. "Why?"

"She is the one that took the shield and wings. Presumably, she handed them over to Steve."

"My god, what is it with these people?" Peter crouched a little further into himself behind that desk at the harsh words echoed all the way up to him. "What do they think this is going to do? That the Accords will change if they box their way through a bunch of military and police departments?"

Maria sighed. "It doesn't matter, does it? We know the shield ended up with Tony in Siberia. She might have known where Steve was heading."

They both stayed quiet for a moment. A torturous long moment. The longer Peter waited for them to continue or leave the louder his own breathing sounded to him. He could not be busted in Mr. Stark's office.

"What do you want me to do then?" Miss Potts asked.

"We need to know more about what happened in Germany. I know, the Colonel is still in bad shape, but this might be time-critical." 

"Fine. I can... I can try to talk to him. I just... he doesn't know yet. About Tony. But I guess... I guess he'll notice and ask for him soon enough. What else? Can't FRIDAY find them? Can't we track them somehow?"

"I already looked into that. I looked into Sam's Wings and Natasha's Bites, but they seemed to have turned the trackers on the equipment off. I couldn't access any of the earlier recorded data either. That was all corrupted. I assume Natasha found a way into the system."

Peter's heart had jumped in his chest. Mr. Stark put trackers on the equipment he designed. Of course, he would. He rubbed circles into both his temples. Of course, he fucking would. If the Maria lady could access those, she would likely be able to access every piece of equipment. Including his suit. Peter swallowed hard. The Widow had messed with them? That was... odd. In the end, it didn't matter though. If Colonel Rhodes would tell them that Peter had been in Germany, they might start looking for him as well. 

Of course Mr. Stark would put a tracker on him. Peter hadn't even thought about that but it made perfect sense. 

He couldn't use the suit like that, not while other people had access to a tracking system that could expose him. That meant... he blew out a deep breath, trying to get his frustration in check. That meant, no Spider-Man-ing. His web-shooters were integrated into the suit now. He'd... he'd have to destroy the suit to get to them. Mr. Stark would kill him. Unless—

Miss Potts' voice rang through the rooms once more. "That's it? Rhodey and the data?"

"Anything you can do to keep Ross out of our hair..."

"I think we should be good for now. He can only demand Tony's presence for a code B2 or higher. I did stress that on the phone. If something big were to go down. Well, I could look into flying out a suit remotely, but that will take a bit of time to organize."

"Thank you, Pepper. I'll leave you to it then."

The door to the lab buzzed open and Maria's footsteps slowly faded out. One set of footsteps. That meant... that meant, Miss Potts had not left the lab. There was a low shuffle, rusty squeaks that followed. Mr. Stark's battered sofa. She had sat down. Then there was more silence. Peter had to strain his ears to hear it over the loud throbbing of his own pulse, desperate to know what was happening down below, but once he had picked up the sound, he couldn't unhear it. Couldn't ignore it even though he wanted to. Heavy breathing, a series of short and shallow sniffs. She was crying. Peter's own eyes stung at the realization. She was alone with this, scared for Mr. Stark, just like him. 

He had to pull himself together. There was a strong impulse in his soul that urged him to go down there. To keep neither of them alone in this. That was a pipedream though. He didn't even know her. There was no telling what she would do. If she would even believe him or give him the benefit of the doubt, time for him to explain. And what was he going to explain? That he was Mr. Stark's intern? That he was Spider-Man? Or both? How Mr. Stark had flown a 14-year-old with superpowers to Germany? No normal adult would be impressed by that story. None of them could ever understand.

So instead he stayed put. His tears were his own and nobody had to know about them as he was hunched behind Mr. Stark's desk in the dark. There was time for him to pull himself together while he waited. And he had to wait for quite a while. With no way out of there except through the lab he was trapped once again until finally, Miss Potts asked FRIDAY for an update on Mr. Stark.

"Heart rate at 45 BPM, blood pressure and breathing are stable. No change in his general condition."

"Alright." She sighed and cleared her throat. "Alright. Order me some dinner, will you? Pasta, FRIDAY. You know, from the place. Have it send to Tony's rooms."

"Of course, Ma'am."

Peter sat in his hiding place for a few more minutes after the doors had buzzed open and close before he got up and stretched his aching legs.

"FRIDAY, a heads-up would have been great."

"My apologies, Peter. There is no protocol for me to warn you from other people's movements within the Compound."

"Come on, FRIDAY. If someone were to find me, it's not just me who would get into trouble. Mr. Stark would get into trouble, too. So, if you help me, you're really helping Mr. Stark."

"Agreed."

He looked up at the dark ceiling in the general direction of where on the cameras was. Well, that would be helpful.

"Thanks, FRIDAY."

"Of course, Peter. Mr. Stark would want you to be safe."

He shot another glance up at her cameras, not really sure if she was making fun of him or if she was sincere. In the end, what did it matter? At least this way he could move a little more comfortable around the Compound.

"Hey FRIDAY, where exactly has Miss Potts put my backpack?"

"On the back wall, the second wardrobe from the left."

FRIDAY put the light on a low setting for him. He could make out the general layout of the room, but a little light would go a long way for him. There it was. His heart rate had picked up again as he pulled open the zipper on his backpack and a giant wave of relief washed over him. There is was, right where he had left it. That had been a close call. A couple of deep breaths and he felt better right away, anchored with that crucial part of himself back in his hands. He had stuff to do. They could not find out about him. They couldn't find him! That suit had been in his house for quite some time. If they found the data, they would find him.

Peter carefully tiptoed down the steps back into the lab. He leaned down and checked but Miss Potts really had gone and there was nobody else lingering there either. It took only a few quick strides for him to get across the room to Mr. Stark's main workbench. He would need a bit of stuff, a couple of cables. He had a soldering bolt at home that should do if he would really need one. A couple of the mini screwdrivers would come in handy too. They were a lot more delicate than anything he had lying around. Quickly he stuffed everything in his backpack then stopped for a moment and looked down at his loot. This was madness. The suit would be encrypted somehow. There was no way that he could just go ahead and get to all that data.

"FRIDAY, erase all the data that my suit recorded over the last couple of months."

"You have no authorization to access that data."

Peter bit his lip. "If people find out about Mr. Stark's—"

"You have no access to that data. Only Mr. Stark can access those protocols."

His eyebrows shot up. "Only Mr. Stark? Nobody else?" That might mean he wouldn't even have to hack the suit.

"Only Mr. Stark has access to the data unless the emergency protocol is activated."

"What's the emergency protocol?"

"You have no—"

"Alright, alright." 

He waved her off. Fine. He didn't think that would work but he had to at least try. There was a good chance that Mr. Stark had implemented a safety protocol that would alert someone if something happened. He had to be sure, to be safe that nobody could track him. It was past 7 pm already and if he wanted to make his curfew he'd have to leave rather sooner than later.

"I'll meet the car at the western exit, FRIDAY." He pulled the zipper shut and strapped the backpack securely in place. "Tell Mr. Stark..." There was a lump in his throat and no amount of swallowing could make it go away. "When nobody else is in the room, tell Mr. Stark, I'll come back. I'll come back every day till he wakes up, okay?"

"I'll tell him, Peter."

And he had been. Every day since, he had gone to the Tower and had one of Mr. Stark's cars drive him all the way out to the Compound. Even after he finished his first day at the new job despite the fatigue that stuck him to the bones, he went to spend some time sitting next to that bed. Nothing had changed since that first day. The room looked the same. Mr. Stark looked the same. Some of the bruises on his face might have faded a bit, but only slightly. May was at work. During the summer break, the hotel she was working at was always busy with tourists. With the 4th of July just around the corner they had at least two people on staff 24/7 which was stressful for his aunt for sure but it also gave him some breathing room in explaining where he was at any given time. It also gave him some space to work on the suit. Not that he was getting anywhere.

Peter sat on the floor next to Mr. Stark's bed. Legs spread out in front of him, the back of his head was resting on the mattress, eyes on the ceiling above. 

"I get that you wanted to keep the coding safe but did you have to make it so complicated, Sir? I've tried everything. Well, everything that I could think of so far. And everything that google could think of so far as well." 

He sighed. He wasn't getting anywhere. Every time he thought he might have found a back door. Bam. Access denied. Every trick in the book, every tactical decoding attempt failed. It was like Mr. Stark's tech was operating in a different universe than anyone else's. He arched his back and then swung around. His legs folded underneath him just as his arms did and he rested them on the bed, his cheek cushioned on top of them. The man still looked as pale as ever, breathing tube still fasted on his face. Even the flowers and fruit basket that surely Miss Potts had left on his bedside table didn't add much life to the room. 

"It's almost like instead of speaking English you just made up your own language. As if you just came up with something that nobody—"

His jaw fell open, eyes fixed on the apple that was balanced on top of that ridiculous fruit basket. Newton.

"Fuck," Peter whispered. He sat up straight. His eyes shot over to his mentor's face. "You're... you're like Newton. Diagonally. Linear. Chaos structure. Implemented in combination with each other. Holy Shit." He grasped the man's hand and squeezed it tight. "I... shit. I gotta go, Sir."

FRIDAY had the driver wait for him at the western gate of the Compound. His hands were shaking and he could hardly keep himself in his seat. This had to be it. It just had to be.

The drive back to town felt like it took an eternity. Back in his room, he pulled out the suit and his laptop from the hiding paces spread out across his room. Shaky fingers connected the cables and fitted every output carefully before he connected them to the mainframe. A deep breath. He had no idea if this would work. Every time he had sat down to try something new to crack the encryption, his pulse would spike. Mr. Stark might have added any number of alert systems and self-destruct buttons and he was bound to press one by accident at some point. It didn't matter though. He had to disable that tacker.

Diagonally. Linear. Chaos structure. How had he not remembered that crazy day in the lab?

His fingers brushed over the keyboard, entering one line of code after the other. This was it. Peter held his breath and pressed enter. Right away the room was flooded with light. Peter shrunk away, his first thought that he really did trigger some kind of alarm system. On second glance though it was the intertwined webbing all over the suit that had lit up. His laptop screen lit up in a similar blue light and an extensive file system had popped up.

"Holy shit," he muttered. "What the hell am I looking at?"

There were all kinds of folders, many many file names he didn't recognize at all.

"Holy shit," he muttered again. 

Aerial Escort 

AES03

Beta Testing Deadends

Iron Man

Iron League

...

He had found a backdoor alright, just not to his suit. Or not only the suit. This was Mr. Stark's server. His private server. 

Peter pulled his hands away from the keyboard as if it was hot lava. Shit. 

The suit had been a backdoor to Mr. Stark's private server. He had just hacked Mr. Stark's private server. His heart was racing, his pulse throbbing in his ears. He jumped up to his feet, shook out his hands and took a few steps back from the laptop. Holy shit. Mr. Stark would—

Peter shook his head, forcing his breathing calm the fuck down. Mr. Stark would never find out about this. And Peter... he would just not look at any of these files, only the programming of the suit. This was going to be fine. Everything was totally under control. Two steps and he was back at his laptop. It was quite an extensive list and he had to scroll for a bit until he found what he had been looking for. 

Project Sojourner

He ignored the shiver that ran down his spine and clicked on the folder. What did it matter? He had to turn off that tracker, get rid of the data that could expose him to people that couldn't find out about him. About how much Mr. Stark was involved in his vigilante work. 

The folder contained a little more than he had anticipated. There weren't just plans of the suit, the program code and collected data on his location. There were video files. A whole battery of video files. How... how was this possible?

He scrolled through them, then clicked on the last one of the list. His face was numb, eyes wide as he was looking at the familiar view of the Leipzig airport. The suit had recorded the fight. His body was frozen in shock, but only for a moment before he shook himself out of his trance and shut the video down. He couldn't watch that. Too much had happened that day. Too much had happened since. He had to get his head back to what was important.

The tracker.

There was a subfolder that contained the script. Three scripts actually. Hm. He pulled up the first one which turned out to be the basic skeleton of coding.

"Holy shit, Mr. Stark," he couldn't help but mumble. This was ridiculously advanced. Well, duh. Mr. Stark wrote this. Peter's coding skills were alright, but it had definitely always been his weakness compared to the engineering part of robotics. Mr. Stark had let him help with that part of the suit's creation, had talked him through the structure and the materials he was using. Not the coding though. The man had been weirdly secretive about it which, well, now made a lot of sense. 

Peter didn't have to understand all of this though. He just had to find that one line that controlled the tacker. There were a million different coding languages but a lot of them had similar element and once you knew your way around a couple of them, it was easier to learn the next. Sort of like with human languages. He didn't know the exact wording he was looking for, but he still went ahead and used the word search, just in case that Mr. Stark had named the algorithm after something obvious like "tracker" or "surveillance" but no luck. So instead, he scrolled through the lines, simply looking. Quite early on the "8A Training Wheels Program" caught his eye. He stared at the line, for some reason that rang a bell, but he wasn't quite sure why. It took him the better part of 30 minutes to find the line he was actually looking for.

The stress melted off him like an ice cream cone in the hot summer sun. Phew. This had happened a lot quicker than he would have thought. Well, the document wasn't all that long after all. It was pretty short actually. Less than a hundred lines. Peter frowned. That couldn't be all there was to the coding fo the suit. He saved the changes and closed the file, pulled the folder system back to the front of the desktop. 

8A Training Wheels Program

It was the second file in that folder. That was probably where most of the actual code for the shooter and stuff was implemented. Peter bit his lip as his eyes wandered down to the third file. 

8A part II

Huh. The curser of his mouse was hovering over the file name. Surely, it wouldn't hurt to just... just have a look. Just a learning experience that would give him a bit more insight into his suit. Peter hesitated another moment. Mr. Stark would kill him if he found out about this. He might get away explaining the tracker but this...

Did it really matter now? He just wouldn't ever tell him about this. If— When Mr. Stark would wake up, he'd just replace the line and nobody had to know. 

He took a deep breath. Screw it. 

##

His eyes were heavy. He'd been in and out of consciousness all day - at least he assumed that it was still the same day. He had only vaguely registered that this wasn't the first time he had woken in that bed. It wasn't his bed. That at least he could tell. Also that this wasn't the first time that he realized that he wasn't in his own bed. His surroundings, yes, his surroundings were familiar. He was at the Compound. The medical wing. Why, well... that was a different question. He had never managed to stay up long enough to enquire that part. Or maybe he did and only forgot. There was something different when he woke up this time though. His brain seemed to be a little more online than before.

He closed his eyes again just for a few seconds and felt out his body. Just a quick check what hurt and what didn't, but other than a little discomfort in his chest he didn't feel much at all. His limbs felt mostly numb and with light nausea stuck in his throat, he concluded they still had him on pain meds. Heavy pain meds in all likelihood. His left arm was propped up across his lower stomach, his fingers intertwined with someone else's. Huh. He couldn't really move his head properly but just a small squint to his left confirmed that it was Pepper lying next to him.

Her head was cushioned by her other hand, face snuggled up against Tony's upper arm. She was lying on her side, knees pulled up to a fetal position. That light pressure on his thigh came from Pepper's shins that were pressing up against him. There was just enough light for him to make out the dark circles under her eyes as well as the tear tracks on her face. He inhaled deeply and then let is lung deflate before he reached up with his right hand to untangle her fingers from his hand and free his arm. But as he reached up, his right arm tugged on something and there was a clash next to the bed. He couldn't help but flinch and Pepper sat up straight right next to him as if shots had been fired.

He looked up at her but her eyes were searching the floor next to his bed. When she did look at him her face softened.

"Hey, you're awake."

"Yeah," he breathed out low.

She quickly got off the bed and walked around it to the other side.

"What did you do? Did you pull out your IV?"

Tony's eyes flickered down to his arm. The cannula was still taped to the back of his right hand. Pepper bent down, picked an IV bag off the floor and hung it back up next to the bed. Well, that explained that noise. Then she took his hand and checked the tube.

"Did you try to get up?"

"No, jus'..." He looked away from her. He had just wanted to put his arm around her, hold her close. But that moment was gone now.

"Tony, look at me."

She crouched down next to the bed. His eyes did find hers but his lids still felt incredibly heavy. She quickly reached for his hand with one hand and cupped his face with the other.

"Hey, you're awake." Her lips pulled into a smile.

"Been up... before," he whispered.

Her fingers softly tugged into his hair, her thumb traced up and down his cheekbone.

"Yeah, they told me." There was a quiver in her voice that he hated. The one where she tried to keep her voice from shaking but couldn't quite manage to. It was a rare sound to hear from Pepper Potts. "I always missed you. By the time I made it here you'd already gone back to sleep."

She'd been here this whole time? Huh. 

"Wha' happ'nd?"

She frowned. "You don't remember?"

Her fingers still rubbed small circles onto the back of his hand. The motion was calming but also drawing his attention. What had happened? His mind was blank. In fact, the thought made the right side of his brain throb and he had to force himself not to give in to the urge to rub it. 

"You went to Siberia." 

He blinked at her, his mind still blank. "Siberia."

"FRIDAY send me a beacon."

A beacon. That wasn't good. That meant... that meant—

"You were stuck, on your own in a HYDRA bunker in Siberia."

HYDRA. A deep gasp left his throat and he twitched from the intensity that almost electrified his bones as the memories started to come back to him.

Siberia.

That HYDRA Bunker.

Steve Rogers.

"Tony..." Pepper held his hand in a tight grip, her voice distinctly panicked. "Tony, calm down for me. It's... It's alright. I got you."

His breathing was heavy and he struggled to open his eyes again. "You... you came an'... and go' me." 

"Well, I sent Agent Hill to get you. But yeah. Of course, of course I tried to find you."

Her hand on his face was warm which should probably worry him for Pepper's hands were usually always cold. Either she had changed her circulation or he... or his skin ran even colder than her hands.

"Thank you, Pep."

She bit her lip and visibly fought to keep a smile on her lips. "You really scared me, Tony." Her fingers softly ran over his face. "You were in really bad shape."

Yeah, he would have been. Probably still was judging by the fatigue in his very bones. They had pulled quite the number on him, but it wasn't just him who had suffered at the hands of their former teammates.

"Rhodey?"

She only looked at him for a moment, studying his face. "His surgery went as well as could be expected. He's awake, recovering and annoying the nurses. Demanding updates on you every hour."

That hadn't been the information he was looking for and she knew it. "How's... 's back?"

She didn't avoid his eyes, which he appreciated, because he didn't need to be treated with kid's gloves. She only shook her head. Rhodey really was paralyzed then. Tony was the one to look away from her at that, couldn't stand the sad expression on Pepper's face. She squeezed his hand but he could find no comfort in the gesture. In the end, Rhodey's injury was on him.

He cleared his throat "I... how bad?" His voice was weak, which didn't come as a surprise, it was still a major annoyance though.

"Shhh, you just focus on getting some rest, okay?"

He should have felt a shiver run down his back but his body was simply numb. That didn't help to ease the dread in his heart. It might just be the pain meds, it might be something else. He made sure to look straight at her when he asked again. "Pep. Please."

Her hand ran softly through his hair and her head gave a subtle shake of reluctance.

"Aside from the gazillion cuts and bruises..." Her eyes were on his forehead, one finger softly tracing the side of his face. "There is a bit of frostbite in your left foot, a dislocated kneecap with partial tears in a couple of the surrounding tendons. Severe concussion. Your neck is..." She took a deep breath and let her hand wander down the side of it until her hand came to rest on his left collarbone. "There was a lot of swelling, heavy bruising of the upper cervical vertebrae. It was pressing on your nerves and..." She paused again, her face solemn as her eyes found his. "And they were worried about the amount of oxygen still going to your brain."

"So 'm dumb now?" He raised an eyebrow at her, assuming his body actually followed any of the cues he gave it.

"It's not funny."

No suppressed smirk, no twinkle in her eye. This was entirely serious then. She had been properly scared. Still was. He swallowed a testy remark and couldn't keep his face from flinching at the weird feeling.

"Tony, are you in pain? Where does it hurt?" She had come closer, both hands now cradling his face, like she wanted to take off some of the burden his giant head put on his neck. Not that she could and he was in bed, his head resting on a pillow. She was just scared.

"No. Jus' numb." He squinted down at his body, then back up at her. "My chest. Feels..." He frowned, not sure what he felt. "Feels weird."

Pepper's hand let go of his face. She picked up his hand again. "Your suit was... was quite severely damaged around the arc reactor and... well, some of the... of the metal bent..." She swallowed hard. "It bent towards your chest and your sternum... it didn't take it so well. They had to reconstruct a part of your ribcage and... well." She sighed.

"Hm," he couldn't really nod with his neck wrapped up like that. He did turn his gaze away from her though, then closed his eyes briefly as a wave of nausea hit him.

"You alright? Should I get the Doctor?"

He kept his eyes close, determined to keep his body under control. Deep breath in. Deep breath out. Pepper squeezed his hands.

"Tony? What do you need?"

"Think I'm..." His brain was getting foggier. "Think 'm gonna sleep."

"Alright, darling." The pressure on his hands tightened. "Just rest, okay? I'll be here."

Tony couldn't quite find the strength to answer, to tell her not to worry. That he'd be fine. Probably.

Chapter Text

After Peter had been stabbed in a random ally way in Manhattan, during those weeks of healing and waiting around to do something productive outside of Mr. Stark's lab, he had often come to ponder the balance of freedom and safety. Before, he had felt invincible, as he had been swinging around the buildings of Queens, answering to no one but himself. Everything that happened, everything he did out on those streets happened because he willed it too. His power, his freedom was untouchable. Sure, the goggles on his head weren't as flashy and the material of his suit sometimes itched in the weirdest places, but nobody could tell him what to do. Nobody could hold him back.

All that was fun and games and he had certainly felt like a big shot superhero. Spider-Man, here to save the day. That illusion had come shattering down when he was attacked. When he thought he was going to die on that rooftop in Manhattan slowly bleeding out just because he hadn't paid attention to where he was going. The fall from his high horse was painful and humiliating. But he had been lucky. Lucky enough that Mr. Stark had taken pity on him. Had decided to help him out that night and even more so over the weeks that had followed, had given Peter guidance and support. Safety. Not just from the people who wanted to harm him, who saw their authority threatened by Peter's motivation to help, but even from his own team, from his friends, because Peter had not been ready to share his biggest secret with anyone else. In the darkest, loneliest nights he could even admit that the man was saving him a little from himself.

In those weeks when Peter had gained first an ally, then a mentor, maybe at some point even something like a friend? In those few weeks, his priorities had shifted dramatically. With every day his commitment to the alliance with Mr. Stark had grown and with that the underlying search for freedom and adventure was somewhat balanced out with a deep yearning for the stability and safety Mr. Stark had to offer. There was a sense of that freedome-spark that had come back to him when Mr. Stark had given the suit to him. The new feel of it, how fast and agile it was. That craving to feel invincible and free had stirred again.

None of that could hold a candle to the overwhelming rush of endorphins and adrenaline Peter felt the first time he took the suit out after he had enabled the new protocol. 576 web shooter combinations. Mr. Stark had gone completely overboard with those features and Peter was living for every second of it. He had spent hours trying out different settings in the woods beyond the Avengers Compound, had trained every day before and sometimes after he visited Mr. Stark. The city was no place to practice, not in the current climate. Not if he was supposed to impress the civilians, gain their trust back like Mr. Stark had asked. He could have done none of it without Karen. She was amazing.

It had been a week since he had hacked the suit. He had started to get with small things. Just to get back into the groove of things. Pulling people back onto the sidewalk when they didn't look before they stepped into the street, a few rescued balloons. On day three he had come across a robber on Greenpoint Avenue, just off 46th street. The temptation to take him out was just too strong and before Peter knew it he had followed the guy into the next building and had gotten himself into the middle of a heist in the Bank of America Financial Center. Seven guys with big guns and a few hostages. It had been the first chance to put the suit's rapid-fire to the test and just in the first couple of minutes, he took out three of them. It was safe to say that he hadn't felt that alive in a long time. That good about what he was doing. There was no question of loyalty, no weighing on who was right and who was wrong, no middle ground to argue about. These were criminals and he was there to stop them. So, he did.

Eleven civilians and five bank employees ran from the building unharmed when he web-wrapped up the last of the bank robbers. His job was done. The heist thwarted. No injuries to speak of. A success all around. Or it had been until Peter turned and stared down the barrel of yet another gun. 

"That's it, freak. Hands up and on your knees." 

Police. They had been fast. Faster than he had thought. He had heard the sirens, his senses had tingled alright but he thought that he had more time than this. Slowly, his fingers spread apart wide in a non-threatening gesture his arms rose above his head. 

"Erm... Hi there, Sir. Captain." Peter's pulse was high but he did his best to focus on his senses, calm his nerves so he could figure out how to get out of there. "I... erm... cleaned up a bit for you. Saving you a bit of trouble."

"That's Chief to you, freak." The man obviously wasn't impressed by Peter's work which did sting a little even though Mr. Stark had warned him about those higher-ups in the NYPD and their ambition to cling to power. A couple more guys were starting to advance into the atrium hall of the bank. "I said, on your knees!"

"Karen, what's the fastest way to get out of here." The mask was a blessing. Nobody around him was ever able to tell when he was communicating with his suit's AI. 

Different escape routes lit up in his head-up display as Karen analyzed the layout of the banks atrium, multiple exits and lighting up human signatures getting into position in different parts of the building. After just about two seconds of calculations one of those routes flashed up in green and the suit lady's calm voice rang in his ears.

"Pull yourself up to the second level, swing over the police officer in front of you and you will find a hallway that leads to an emergency exit where none of the police force is stationed as of yet. Make sure to tuck your legs close to your body when swinging up. I've calculated the man's reaction delay to .95 seconds. His bullet might still hit one of your legs if they are not pulled up high enough." 

Great, those were fabulous odds. "Thanks, Karen."

"Listen, Sir, I really..." He got out half the sentence to try and throw the man off when the webs shot up from his shooters and hit one of the ceiling beams above him. With a hard pull, Peter catapulted himself upwards towards the open balcony on the second level. He felt the shock wave of the bullet graze the sole of his foot, heat radiated from the friction on the fabric, before the shot even rang in his ears.

"Fuck, Karen? Status?" He hit the ground running, careful to follow the green track she laid out for him to follow. There was no pain, but that didn't really mean anything with the amounts of adrenaline that were pumping through his veins and he was too busy - and a little too scared - to check if he had left blood-red footprints in his wake.

"The bullet grazed the boot of your right foot. No injury detected. The suit absorbed the impact completely."

He swallowed the lump in his throat. Thank god. Or, well, he should thank Mr. Stark. And he would.

Peter made his escape over the rooftops of Queens. He went to the east, then up north until he hit the subway line where he got hold of one of the trains going east that took him further away from the scene as well as from his home, just in case someone had been able to follow. He lay low for a bit until he was sure that nobody was on his heels. That had sure been a lot more excitement than he had expected for 3:30 pm on a Thursday. Less than an hour later he was in the car on his way upstate. 

Every day he took the trip to the Compound. It had been weird and eerie the first day he sat with Mr. Stark. All he could do was stop himself from getting emotional when he wondered what happened. Again and again. Things got a little easier with every day. He just sat there and told the man about his day. About stuff, he'd been reading and watching. There had been a part of him that wanted to keep his crime-fighting stories to himself. His mentor would be mad if he found out that Peter had been on patrol without giving the man the chance to check the suit for malfunctions or problems. He did run those checks on the suit, but he wouldn't even pretend to himself that it would have been enough for Mr. Stark. His first impulse was to keep quiet about his secret patrols, but once he was in the room it had only taken about 10 minutes for him to crack and gush about the advanced setting of his suit for over an hour. It was the best, amazingly precise, so clever and helpful. 

So what, if there was a chance that Mr. Stark could actually hear him and get mad? Maybe he shouldn't have gone out by himself and gotten hurt like that. Then he would have had all the time in the world to check over Peter's suit. Maybe he was listening and would get so annoyed with Peter that he just had to wake up. 

It was a challenge for him, not to stay mad. Not to ponder the would've-could've that had caused this dilemma. It was a challenge to push down the anger and concentrate on the positive vibes, the hope that maybe soon, Mr. Stark would wake up again.

On day nine Peter opened the door to the room and he couldn't contain the surprised gasped as he looked at his mentor. The breathing tube was gone, replaced by a much smaller transparent tube attached to his nose. That... He took a few deep breaths as he stepped closer to the bed. That had to be a good sign. Right? It must be.

"It's a good thing, right FRIDAY?" He had sat down on the ground next to the bed, one hand clasped around his mentor's wrist, his index and middle finger pressed against Mr. Stark's pulse point. "It means that he's breathing on his own. It means that he will wake up soon, right?

"I have no further information on the subject, I'm afraid."

He shot an annoyed glance up to the ceiling, then turned back to his mentor, his eyes not leaving the man's face. FRIDAY was no use when it came to information on Mr. Stark's medical status, but Peter was sure. He could wake up at any moment. He absolutely could.

Only he didn't. No twitching, no signs of consciousness at all. Peter stayed longer than he should have to make his curfew in hopes that something would happen, that the man would just show one sign, any sign of waking up. It was 10 pm when Peter finally checked the time. Not that anyone was home to check up on him anyway. His aunt had left for a double shift that afternoon. She wouldn't be home by midday the next day. A Sunday night shift directly followed by the morning shift on a public holiday so she would be home in time for the fireworks. Yeah, tomorrow was the 4th of July. 

Peter kind of hated that he had been enough of a fanboy to know that it would be Steve Rogers' 98th birthday. Well, it wasn't a difficult date to remember. America's birthday and Captain America's birthday. He wondered what the 4th of July had been like in the 20s and 30s when Steve Rogers had just been a boy in Brooklyn. They probably didn't have all that many fireworks back in the day. The city went crazy with them now. Or that's what Uncle Ben used to say. They would always watch them blow up all around the city from their rooftop in Queens. This year would be their first 4th of July without him. So, yeah, there was that, too.

Peter's chin came to rest on his outstretched arm, fingers still curled around Mr. Stark's wrist. He had never had this with Uncle Ben. The waiting. The hoping. His uncle had just been gone. From one moment to the next, just like that. If Peter had gotten his shit together a little sooner, maybe he could have done something about it. Maybe Uncle Ben could have been one of those people he would have saved if he had just stepped up in time. Beyond all the lies and all the deceit, all the danger Peter had put himself in without his aunt knowing, would that be the worst thing of them all? When she would find out eventually. When she would ask for the details about his bite, about his abilities, would that question be on her mind? Why Peter hadn't done something? If he wanted to risk himself and save people, why hadn't he saved Ben?

A shiver shook Peter from head to toe and he rearranged his position, scooted closed to the bed, knees pulled tightly to his chest. They had never really talked about what had happened to Uncle Ben. Peter and his aunt. He knew of course. He had seen the shooter. He had heard the shots. Then he had run. Not to stop the guy, just... away. Scared and craven. 

They never really talked about his parents either. Sometimes Peter couldn't help but wonder what they would say. Would his mom be scared for him? Would his dad be proud? His aunt and uncle had never really spoken of them. That one day a year when they would put down flowers at the shore of the sea. He'd never been to their graves even, the drive up there had just never worked out. That one day a year. It was healthy, right? To move on. Not to be trapped by the past. It was nobody else's business anyway so why should they go out of their way to explain their personal stuff to other people? Just a few months ago that little old lady from the second floor had given him a pair of eggs she had borrowed from May and asked him to thank his mother. Well, so what... He knew who she meant. Peter had only ever told Ned one night when he had stayed over. And then Mr. Stark. He knew as well. A bit at least. Not that there was much to know. There weren't even really a lot of pictures of them around the house, just an old family photo from when Peter was maybe 5 or 6 that he kept in his desk drawer. There wasn't much to say about it, they were dead. Just like Ben. He couldn't change that. 

His eyes wandered up to his mentor's face. Mr. Stark was still here. And if he— when he would wake up, Peter could definitely be of help to keep it like that.

It was way past 11 pm when FRIDAY pulled him out of his thoughts as she announced Miss Potts' arrival at the Compound. He groaned when he saw the time. It would be close to 1 am by the time he would make it back to the city. And then he'd just leave again the next morning to come back out here so he could make it back to Queens by the time May got off work.

"Hey, FRIDAY?"

"Yes, Peter?"

"Do you think... you think it'd be okay if I stayed in the room for the night? You know, the one I sometimes stayed in? I mean, like... will you let me in there?"

"Your room is ready for you to use whenever you need it, Peter."

He bit his lip, his eyes on Mr. Stark. "Thank you, Sir," he whispered.

The night at the Compound was quiet and comfortable. He did sleep in until after 10 am. The Compound was still basically empty and while Peter still moved around with caution and avoided going near the lab or Mr. Stark's rooms just to lessen the chances that he would run into Miss Potts, he did dare to make a quick detour to the kitchen for breakfast. The fridge wasn't stocked to the brim like it usually was, but he still found a couple of sandwiches that he took with him to Mr. Stark's room in the medical wing. FRIDAY had confirmed that nobody was in the room and Peter tiptoed through the hallways as quietly and quickly as he could.

Mr. Stark looked peaceful and content. Peter could totally talk himself into how the man's face had a little more color in it already - though that was probably just because the cuts and bruises were healing and his face looked healthier in contrast. His blood pressure was up though, so was the count of his heartbeats per minute. He didn't need FRIDAY to tell him that. He could feel the rhythm underneath the man's skin. As glum as Peter's general mood was, that did pick up his spirits. While he had just been sitting there and brooded the night before, he felt a lot more like chatting in the morning.

So he told Mr. Stark about the fireworks display, what he expected to see. How Uncle Ben had always made a game of guessing the color of the next firework or the spot in the sky where the next one would explode. It was almost easier to talk to Mr. Stark now. Peter could actually finish a sentence and didn't have to worry about saying something dumb. No. He shook the thought from his head. That wasn't fair. Mr. Stark had let him talk. He'd just sit and listen when they would work on one of the projects. Would just listen to Peter's stories about patrolling in Queens, weird commercials or funny memes he had seen somewhere, sometimes even some of the stuff that had happened at school, good or bad. It had always been easy to talk to Mr. Stark.

The man would even chime in with his weird jokes, the no-bullshit comments when he was in a good mood.

Peter sighed when he realized that he had gotten lost in his thoughts once again. He didn't want to spiral down like he had the night before, dispelled the thoughts of what he would do if he would lose Mr. Stark. It couldn't happen. He was doing better and when things were back to normal, Peter would make sure that this didn't happen again. That Mr. Stark wouldn't just go out on his own and risk his neck for everyone else.

"You do have to wake up because... because if you don't then who would keep tally of all the cats I saved and measure them against the people I prevented from walking face-first into things. I'd have to tell May and then maybe we'd both be dead."

That was a little crude. Peter smirked. Mr. Stark would have probably liked that one. He wasn't dead. It was just a coma. Just. He'd wake up. He simply had to.

Peter had his arms folded on the bed, his head resting on top of them. His right hand loosely held a couple of his mentor's fingers, his thumb and index finger took turns rubbing soft circles on the back of the man's hand, along his fingers. It had felt a little weird at first but Mr. Stark had done the same thing for him whenever he'd been hurt or freaked. It was only right to give that comfort back now. Not that there was any way to know if he'd even feel it. If he even felt anything anymore.

"Peter, Miss Potts has just left Dr. Cho's office and is on the way to this room."

He jumped up at once. "Shit." The sandwich wrappers of his breakfast were still on the ground and he quickly picked them up to get rid of the evidence, leaving breadcrumbs on the floor in the process. "Damn it." He kicked them underneath the bed.

She was way too close. He had gone about this warning system of his all wrong. Should not have just asked if someone was in the room, but also who was close by. For fuck's sake. He quietly pulled open the door but heard her steps echo down from the hallway around the corner right away. Cursing under his breath, he closed the door again and quickly retreated to the back of the room. One jump was enough to get him to the top of the wardrobe and Peter was once more folded into that tiny space where he had hidden on the first day he had found his mentor. He could only hope that this would be a quick visit.

The moment the door opened he shrunk back as far as he could. His mouth was slightly open, keeping his breath controlled and quiet. It was only Miss Potts who entered, but he wasn't all that sure if that was likely to make her stay last longer or not.

"Tony?" Her voice was soft, the words were spoken before she had even reached the bed. There was a chair on the left side of the room, that Peter usually ignored. To him, it felt too official, too formal, but Miss Potts pulled it closer, as close to the bed as it would go before she sat down and took Mr. Stark's hand in one of hers, the other softly stroked up and down on his cheek. "Tony? Honey, do you hear me?"

The breath in Peter's throat got stuck, deep enough to choke him when Mr. Stark's hand seemed to actually close around hers and his head slowly tilted from left to right. His eyebrows moved, were pulled together then up almost all the way to his hairline and with them, his eyelids slid open.

Peter had to clasp both of his hands over his mouth to stifle the gasp of air his lungs had been determined to draw. He closed his eyes in the same motion, absolutely sure that they must have heard him but when he looked back up, Miss Potts had just leaned forward and was soothing Mr. Stark whose face was screwed up in agony as she helped him through a few deep coughs. Her right hand carefully swept the hair from his forehead then ran all the way through the man's hair.

"It's alright, Tony. Just breath. You're okay."

The man's eyes were closed but after a few raspy breaths he looked back up at her.

"Hey." Peter could hear the smile on her face just from the softness of her voice.

"Hi." Mr. Stark croaked back.

He was... Peter's lungs were urging him to hyperventilate but he couldn't let it happen. He pressed his eyes shut again, tried to think of something calming, anything. Mr. Stark's voice when he explained something about electronics. A quiet practice session with the decathlon team. May's apple pie. He couldn't freak out. Now was the absolute worst time for a panic attack. This... this was good. It didn't matter that his eyes stung, it was from relief, happiness. He was safely hidden as long as he stayed quiet and from what he could tell, from what his eyes had told him and he did open them up again just to be sure. Yes, if he could trust his eyes that meant... that meant that he was back. Mr. Stark was awake, eyes open even if still heavy-lidded, but open and responsive.

"H'w... how's Rhodey?"

She shook her head and sniffed with a low chuckle. "Good morning to you too, dear."

"Pep."

"He wants to come and see you today."

"Hm, 's not..." Mr. Stark closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "Not wha' I asked."

"I haven't seen him today, Tony. I assume he's obsessing over how you are. You two are like two pea in a pot."

Painfully slow Mr. Stark's eyes opened up again. "When... when's he gonna... gonna come by?"

Miss Potts sighed. "I'm not sure if he has any procedures or physical therapy on his schedule today. I'll check with him."

"Now?" Mr. Stark's eyebrows were pulled up and he almost... he almost looked like himself. 

He was really awake. There was euphoria streaming through Peter's body. He was happy and relieved and so so glad, but it wasn't just the tears that burned in his eyes. There was also a snug firm knot in his stomach. Something that lay underneath all that. With the relief rushing through his veins and evaporating on his skin, it lay bare what was underneath all that worry. The pain. The anger. The frustration. Peter shook the thoughts from his head. This wasn't the time. There would be time for it later when Mr. Stark was doing better. He could ask all the questions about everything that happened later. Could tell him what an idiot he'd been to go out there all alone. Peter bit his lip and blinked away the moisture in his eyes. Well, maybe he wouldn't say that. Not... not in so many words.

"I'll put it on the top of my to-do list, alright?" Miss Potts leaned back a bit, both hands now clasping his. "Do you need anything? Water?"

Mr. Stark gave a tiny shake to the side, eyes falling shut and staying closed for longer and longer intervals.

"How are you feeling? Do you hurt? Should I... should I get someone?"

"No, jus'..." he took a couple of deep breaths. "Just need s'me rest."

"I can still stay for a bit. Keep you some company."

"Hm..." The man's eyes were still closed. "Can you... the frame... frame in my office."

"The frame?"

"Drawer... third one."

"You want me to get a frame out of a drawer in your office?"

Mr. Stark's eyes slowly opened again. "Please."

"Of course. I can... yes, of course. I'll have a look." He had his eyes still on her, waiting. "Oh, you... you mean now?"

"Please, Pep," he whispered.

"Alright, I..." she stood up at once, the chair sliding back as she did. "Is it... will I just know it when I see it or..?"

His eyes hadn't really followed her, they were turned down to where her hand was still holding his. "Yeah... 's Addy," he said, almost inaudible.

She nodded quickly. "Of course, honey. I'll... I'll stop by Rhodey's room and then I'll get it right away." She bowed down and pressed a light kiss on the man's cheek, then put down his hand next to his body. "I'll be fast."

She was gone as quickly as she had entered the room. Right away as the door fell shut, Peter's mind was racing. Now what? He couldn't just pop up. He might give Mr. Stark a shock to the core and put him back in the coma. Or worse even, a heart attack or stroke or—

"I mus' be... be havin'... a fever dream." Peter twitched in surprise. His mentor's voice was not much more than a croak, his eyes still heavy-lidded, his gaze, however, was squarely on Peter. "My intern can't... can't seri'sly be hangin' from... from the f'kin' ceiling of my hospital room."

Peter's heart jumped but he couldn't help the small smile on his lips, maybe it was the euphoria that was pushing his brain to the edge of delirium. "Technically, you're not in a hospital, Sir."

"Ge' down fr'm there a' once!" Mr. Stark blurted out in a cheap imitation of his usually commanding voice. "Wha' if someb'dy had seen 'ou up there?"

Peter crawled a bit further into the room and then dropped off the ceiling. He landed on his feet, facing Mr. Stark. For a moment Peter wasn't sure what to do next. He played with his fingers, snipping them back and forth before he stepped closer to the bed.

"You wouldn't believe how little people look up to the ceiling of a room. They're less likely to find me up there. Did you actually see me?"

"Was lookin' righ' at 'ou, kid." He blinked a couple of times, fighting to keep his glance leveled. "You gasped." 

Peter gnawed on the inside of his cheek. He had. 

"Was jus'... matter of time... then she'd see 'ou."

He pulled the chair Miss Potts had vacated closer to the bed and slowly sat down. Mr. Stark's eyes followed him.

"I was always careful."

"A'ways?"

Peter looked away from him, dropped his eyes down to his hands, fingers picking at each other. All this time even with all the danger of being discovered he had known for sure that he was doing the right thing. Keeping Mr. Stark company, making sure that someone was by his side, had felt like the right thing to do. But now, now that his mentor was awake, had just sent out his friend-girlfriend-CEO-well what did he know what they were to each other. He had sent her on an errand to cover for Peter. And all of a sudden, he wasn't all that sure anymore if this had been the right thing to do. If he had any right or excuse to even be in that room.

"You a'ight, kid?"

"Me?" His voice was pitched high, way too childlike. "You gotta be fucking kidding me, Sir."

"Hm..." Mr. Stark frowned up at him. "Tha' was a dollar fo' the swear jar."

Peter's eyes stung. "That's not funny."

The corners of the man's mouth twitched. "Bit funny."

It wasn't and he knew it. It was not funny at all. This all of this—

"You mad, kid?"

He couldn't meet the man's eyes.

"Huh." Mr. Stark's breaths were slow but shallow. "You are..."

Peter shook his head, not that denial would help him. Of course, he was mad. But that didn't matter now. 

"What happened?"

His voice was rough. He just couldn't manage to keep the emotion out of it. Mr. Stark was just watching him, heavy lids closing every so often.

Peter tried again, tried to put more force into his words. "Sir, what happened?"

There was another moment of silence where the man just looked at him. "There 's a fight." He lost the focus of his gaze for a moment before he blinked again, his eyes glued to Peter's face. "I lost."

"What fight?"

Mr. Stark's head just gave a little shake, lips tight. "It 'oesn't matter."

"It matters to me. Why didn't you say something? You didn't have to go on your own. You should have just—"

"No."

Peter's breathing was heavy. He couldn't quite control the anger that was rushing through him. Anger not just at whoever had done this to his mentor, but that the man hadn't thought to ask for help.

"I could have helped you..."

"Stop..."

"...I mean," He did try to put on a sarcastic tone but he just couldn't help the temper that slipped into his voice. "I really thought we had this team thing going..."

"Pete..."

"....I thought that you'd trust me enough to—"

"Stop!" The man's voice was still low, but there was an edge to it that had made Peter stop mid-sentence. Mr. Stark swallowed and judging by the look on his face it wasn't a very pleasant motion. "No, Pete. 'm glad, you weren't there."

"But, Sir..." Peter couldn't stay in the chair any longer. This wasn't fair. How was he supposed to help if he didn't even know what was going on? Mr. Stark's eyes followed him as he paced back and forth.

The man's breathing turned heavier, faster. "You'd not be 'n this room, in this buildin' if I didn' trust you, kid."

Peter kept his distance. It had been different when Mr. Stark had been unconscious. He had still looked hurt and vulnerable, but also like he was just sleeping, resting to recover. This... The state of the man, how weak and beaten his movements were, hardly enough energy to keep his eyes open, it made Peter's stomach turn. It scared him to even be in his presence. To see him this vulnerable.

"Pete..." Mr. Stark's voice was so quiet it was difficult to follow despite Peter's enhanced hearing. "It's alright." He took a couple of deep breaths, eyes still on Peter. "It'll be alright."

"How... how can you even say that?" Peter whispered. He rubbed a hand across his face to forestall his tears from falling. He hated this, hated not having a better grip on his emotions. "You were in a coma. 10 days I... nobody knew if you were even gonna wake up. It's not alright. It's not!" He couldn't stop his voice from rising.

"10 days, huh?" Mr. Stark closed his eyes, only opened them again a few deep breaths later. "Well... 'ou... you should see... the other guy."

"Don't. Don't do that." Peter swallowed hard, his eyes more so on the bedframe than the man himself. "Don't try to brush this off like—"

"Peter, Miss Potts is preparing to return to Mr. Stark's room."

Peter swung around towards the door as if she was going to walk in there any moment.

"Made 'ourself feel... quite at home, hm?"

Heat shot into Peter's face. "It's... it's not like that, I just—"

"Don't wanna run... into Pepper." Mr. Stark took a couple of heavy breathy. "That's... sensible."

Peter shrugged. "Just tried to keep my head low."

"An' FRIDAY helped 'ou out?"

He nodded and send a quick shot up to one of FRIDAY's cameras. "Yeah... yeah, she's been a great help."

"Hm... goo' girl." His lids fell shut and for a moment it seemed like he had fallen asleep, but then he blinked them open again. "Better go, kid, unless..." Mr. Stark frowned at him. "No, 'ou should go." He gave a couple of small nod to himself "Come back... come back tomorrow an' we'll... we'll sort... sort the suit. I know... I know... said... we would. 'ou wanna get... back out."

Cold rushed through Peter's body. He almost twitched in response to the shiver that went down his spine. If Mr. Stark found out that Peter had been out there... had been in his files, snooped around on his private server... urgh, he didn't even want to imagine that. Plus, the next day would be a workday at the store for him. 

Peter looked up at the men and all that went right out of his mind. His anger, maybe not gone but certainly back on the backburner. His mentor was lying there, struggling to stay conscious. How was the suit the first thing he thought of?

"Sir, I think you may still need a few days till you can get back to the lab."

Mr. Stark pursed his lips, defiance radiating from him like he had just stepped into the lab with a new plan. "Can talk 'ou through wha' te do."

Peter bit his lip. The way the man just stubbornly clung to his ability to just do as he pleased filled Peter's heart with an equal amount of respect and worry. Anger from how careless he sometimes was with himself.

"It's fine, Mr. Stark. I... I can't tomorrow. I mean... I guess maybe later that day but you... you should rest anyway. We can... it's fine."

Mr. Stark narrowed his eyes on him "Didn't go out there... without the check-up, right? Pete, tell me 'ou—"

"No, Sir. I... I didn't." He wasn't lying. He wasn't. He had not gone out there before the suit wasn't checked properly. He could even meet the man's eyes without blushing. "I know you didn't want me to use it before it had been checked for defects."

The man's eyebrows narrowed even more at that. "What's t'morrow then?"

"I just... I gotta work tomorrow."

Mr. Stark just stared at him, his mouth opened a couple of times without any sound coming out of it. Then he cleared his throat, his voice still filled with confusion. "But... I'm... I'm here."

Peter shook his head. "No, not you, I... I have another job."

The man blinked at him, then his eyebrow shot up all the way. "You... you go' a job? Bu'—"

"Ms. Potts just left the lab and is on the way down here now."

"Shit. I... Sir, I gotta go. I'll tell FRIDAY when I'm on my way. Tomorrow evening. I can make it back by then." He was almost at the door.

"Pete—"

"Depends on my aunt's schedule." He reached for the door handle then turned back to look at his mentor. "I'm really glad you're back, Sir."

The man opened his mouth but before he could say anything, Peter was already out in the hallway.

Chapter Text

 Tony closed his eyes, took a few breaths that were supposed to be deep, filling his lungs, but turned out shallow and fast. A five-minute conversation with the kid and he was exhausted, ready to pass out again. He couldn't though. Pepper was on her way. Slow enough not to run into the kid, hopefully.

"Hi, FRI?" He coughed from the sting in his throat as he had raised his voice. "FRI, wha' I miss?"

"Welcome back, Boss. You've been unconscious for 10 days and 14 hours. I have been keeping a—"

"D'es anyone know? 'Bout Siberia? Wha'... what happ'nd?"

"Sir, the information on your movements as well as the connected vitals, the audio and video data of the 23rd of June have been encrypted and are currently stored on your private server."

He closed his eyes, an effort to center his thoughts, concentrate on what was important. On what he had to take care of.

"N'body... nobody knows then—" The cough that worked its way out of his throat wasn't so much painful as it was strangling. Yep, those had to be some heavy meds. "kn—knows who else w's... was in the... the bunker?"

"Miss Hill and her team brought back Captain Rogers' shield but have so far failed to gather any detailed information on what happened in the bunker."

Tony nodded, focused on his breathing. "Goo' girl, FRI."

It had to stay like that. He couldn't... he wouldn't do this. He couldn't bear to have all of this dragged back up, have everyone psychoanalyze him. It was in the past. He couldn't change what happened. Nobody could. There was no point in dwelling on the details... the details of Steve Rogers' fucking betrayal. The humiliation and pain... All the times Rogers had looked at him and unblushingly lied to his fucking—

The door opened softly, slow enough to give Tony a few seconds to get his spiraling thoughts in order. Pepper wasn't alone this time.

"Agent Hill," he whispered, trying to keep as much strength in his voice as he could muster.

"Mr. Stark."

"Hey..." Pepper's hand found his, warm fingers snaked around him and held it tight.

Agent Maria Hill had her arms crossed as she stood tall behind Pepper. "How are you feeling, Tony."

"People... keep asking me that. 'm startin' te think... 'm havin' a bad... bad hair day or somethin'..."

She cocked her head to the side and he avoided her glance. Yeah, he was overcompensation his physical state with his brilliant wit, what of it? Pepper had his eyes on him as well, eyebrows knitted together in worry and silent disapproval. They all acted like him getting hurt was the end of the world. Like they hadn't been here, multiple times. His eyes were heavy and he let them fall shut without hesitation. At least that way he didn't have to see the look at either of their faces.

"Tony, Maria has some questions, if you feel up for it."

He huffed. Of course, Agent Hill had questions. Maria, Pepper, Peter, everyone was just full of questions. He blinked a couple of times before he gave in to the exhaustion and let his eyes stay closed. His vision was starting to darken at the edges. He'd pass out soon. All this was too much. That was probably for the better. It would give him time to think of something. There was no way that the whole "because I said so" routine he had pulled on the kid would work on either of these women.

But there was something he wanted. Yes, he had sent Pepper on an errand on purpose but it wasn't a request he had just made up. He hadn't even had to think about it, just wanted it as soon as he could think of anything that wasn't Siberia and the state of his chest.

"No'..." He squinted at Pepper. "Not now. Pep, I..." He rubbed a hand across his face. Not yet, he couldn't pass out yet. His hand muffled his voice but Pepper would hear. "You... you go' it?"

"The erm..." She pulled her purse closer, then shot a glance over her shoulder. "Maria, maybe... maybe this is too soon for him. He needs some more rest."

"I understand that this is a lot, I do." Agent Hill's voice was low and way too reasonable. "There are some things we have to work out. The faster we know who was involved in—"

"Come back this afternoon." Pepper had risen from her chair, turned to her. "You've waited for 10 days. A few more hours are not going to matter. Tony needs rest, needs to regain some strength."

"Pepper, with all due respect, as the person who was left in charge of the Com—"

"You don't want to finish that sentence, believe me." Tony's eyes blinked open all the way at the icy tone of Pepper's voice. "None of this. Not the land, the building, the tiles you're standing on would even be here for the Avengers to use if it wasn't for Tony and Stark Industries. I know you have questions but right now, he needs rest. So, he'll get to rest."

They stared at each other for what felt like a good minute before Maria Hill inclined her head at Pepper. "I'll be back at three then." She pursed her lips but then did put in the effort to pull her mouth into a somewhat encouraging half-smile as she looked at him. "You rest. Regain your strength. It's good to have you back, Tony."

Only as the door closed behind Maria Hill did Pepper's shoulders move up and down with a few deep breaths.

"No' gon'a lie. Tha'... that was kin'a hot." Usually, he'd put more snark into his tone, but for now, he was happy to get out a somewhat fluent string of words. Pepper turned to him, an eyebrow pulled up and her mouth curling into a bit of a smile. Wasn't that a sight for sore eyes?

"It's not a hard sell, dear. You look like you'll pass out any minute anyway."

"Hm." He sure felt like it.

"I do want to know what happened. You're not going to just get away with no explanation." The frown on her forehead was back as she crossed her arms. "Your... your little friend was here."

Tony's heart skipped a beat. A surge of adrenaline pushed his brain into a more attentive state. He just about stopped his jaw from dropping but couldn't help but stutter out a quiet. "Wh-what?"

"The spider-guy." She sighed then pulled the chair closer to the bed again and sat down. "I found his backpack with the suit in your lab. And I don't even want to know how he got in and out of the Compound. I did tell FRIDAY to put the alert system to DC2."

Tony turned his gaze up to the ceiling for a moment, deep breaths to keep his brain going. He had set Peter's security level up to an A2 after the Lagos incident. Thank god he did get things right sometimes.

"I can't believe you build the guy a suit, Tony. If Ross finds out he's going to hound you for this."

He looked at her, tried to get his voice under control. "He been in touch? Ross?"

Pepper nodded. "Constantly on the first day, until I called him and reminded him that you don't actually work for him and that he has no right to pester you for anything lower than a code B2. It's been quiet since." She rubbed a finger across her forehead, like rubbing away an unpleasant thought. "I honestly expected him to make some shit up and call again, but we were lucky so far." Then she squinted at him from underneath her hand. "And don't change the subject."

"It's... bi' of a hostile climate fo' heroes out there... righ' now." 

She blew out a deep breath. "I guess it is. I still don't like that you take these kinds of risks. Not for yourself and not for other random people."

He would have shrugged if his shoulders hadn't felt like giant blocks of granite. "Par' of the job."

"Well, I don't like that job, either."

He drew in a few deep breaths, felt the urge to draw up the corner of his mouth in a smirk but then thought better of it. "I know, Pep."

For a moment, she just sat there, hands folded in her lap. There wasn't much to add to that part of the conversation for either of them. She didn't like that Tony put his life on the line like he had for the past few years. She hated it. Lost sleep, her appetite, way too much weight in the process. For the bad parts of it, he had found her crying in her office more than once. It was too much and he could accept that. But as long as that threat was still out there lurking in the shadows of space he couldn't drop this fight, couldn't just stand by and watch. So there had only been one conclusion to the destiny of their relationship. 

Pepper had broken it off, too exhausted to continue and he had hated every second of it. She was right, of course. It hadn't been healthy, the way she had been trying to cope with everything, especially after the whole Extremis debacle. 

She had been right and it didn't matter how much Tony loved her, how much he needed her. How much she loved him, too. Their relationship hadn't been working. It would destroy her and he would never let that happen.

"Pep?" She looked up at him at that. "Di' you find it?"

The frame appeared out of her bag like an anchor conjured out of thin air and Tony had to bite back a sigh as she pushed it into his waiting hands. The dark wood felt warm underneath his fingers. The frame had been his mother's. It had sat on her nightstand for years, containing one of the few candid photos that had existed of his family. A four-year-old Tony on his mom's lap, his dad bent down, pressing a kiss onto his wife's hair while his hands rested on Tony's shoulders. 

Tony had burned the picture. The night he had learned that his father had crashed his car into a fucking tree, killing the person he loved most in the world.

25 years he had blamed Howard for that. 25 years he had hated him. Howard had never been a particularly good father. Never really loving or attentive, preoccupied with bigger, more important things than a little boy. Tony had wanted to be better than that.  

His eyes stung and he rapidly blinked the frustration away. The frame now held a picture of him and Aiden. The first time he had held his son in the hospital. There were other pictures of them from that first week. Pepper had hired a professional photographer and those, those were beautiful pictures as well. But Pepper had taken this one. 

His fingers rubbed along the frame and the image of his mom came back to him, calling out for her husband, struggling with the Winter Soldier's hand around her neck. The frame slipped through his fingers and landed on his chest. He grunted at the impact and his stomach turned. For a terrifying moment, he thought he was going to throw up. His fingers were shaking as he desperately tried to take off the back of the frame.

"Tony?" 

Pepper's hands were warm and steady, slowed him, until he stopped his frantic attempts to dismantle the frame. One by one she pulled his fingers loose and then balanced the frame on her lap. The back came off easily in her hands and she carefully took out the picture. Tony couldn't help but stare at the soft expression on her face as she looked at the photograph, eyes moving back and forth, taking in every detail. 

"I've always loved this picture. It felt so wrong, taking it at the time, but now... now I'm glad that... that you have this." She bit her lip like she wanted to say more but decided not to and put the picture into Tony's hands instead.

For the longest time, frame and picture had been buried at the bottom of a drawer in his LA office. He had only moved it to a more accessible spot in his desk when they had gone to New York full time, after the Malibu house had been blown up. Then with him to the Compound, after Ultron. It's not that he looked at it a lot, but there was something about just having it close by. About having the option to look at it, whenever he wanted to, that was soothing for his soul. Shaky fingers moved across the photo, the little bundle in his arms. Aiden had been so small, so vulnerable. Hadn't even known, how much he had already lost.

Tony blinked away the moisture that stung in his eyes and quickly moved the picture underneath the sheets, where his hand held it in place just above his heart. Pepper reached for his hand on top of the covers and carefully squeezed away the soft tremor. Her other hand ran through his hair, along his scalp and he closed his eyes giving into the sensation.

He didn't know how much time had past when he woke up, but Pepper was gone. His hands had both slid down to his sides and he quickly checked for the picture, then moved it underneath his pillow instead. The last light of the day was fading outside the window. This had been a little than a nap.

"FRI," he whispered, his voice still terribly weak. "What's the time?"

"It's 8:04 pm, Boss."

He couldn't really enjoy his peace and quiet all that long. At least it gave him some time to get his story straight. It took less than 30 minutes for Agent Hill to turn up in his room again. At least Pepper was by her side as she entered, so he didn't have to tell the tale twice. He could always feign a certain amount of memory loss, but it would get him far. He mixed some facts into his story and that just had to be enough for them. They could always go and hunt down Rogers, get some details out of him, though Tony doubted that the supersoldier would show his face any time soon. He better not.

"Five super soldiers?"

"That's right," Tony whispered.

"And you killed them all."

"All... yeah, all dead."

"And the Hydra agents you fought? How many were there? And why did Steve leave his shield behind?"

Tony gave a small shrug. Yeah, he didn't really have a good explanation for that one. "Passed out. Don'... don' remember."

Maria sighed. "Come on, Tony. We've been screening the skies for Steve. He might be hurt, too. You have to remember something. How did you find Steve in the first place? Ross is still looking for him as well."

"Ask Wilson." Tony blinked at her and gave his head a couple of shakes. That was it from him. He was done, determined not to let the absolute disinterest about where Steve Rogers was and if he was hurt or not, slip into his features. 

"Do you have any way to get in contact with him?"

"No," he lied effortlessly. The last thing he wanted was any form of contact with Rogers. Ever. Fuck him. Fuck the whole lot of them.

Her fingers drummed on the tablet in her hands. She sighed audibly, her gaze straight on him. "Well, if that's all you remember..."

Tony grunted a mostly unrecognizable "yes" and Agent Hill couldn't do much more than take him at his word. Sure, there were ways to find out how much he had been lying about what had really happened in that cave, but none of them would get to that data. It was encrypted on his server. Not even Obi had managed to get into his files with the full engineering staff of Stark Industries at his disposal.

Maria Hill was one thing. Convincing Pepper was another. But Tony let his eyes fall shut again when she didn't say a word to question his story either. Instead, she left the room with Agent Hill only to return a few minutes later, pushing Rhodey's wheelchair in front of her.

His head was swimming with guilt. She knew him too well. Knew too well that what he had done to his best friend would be the best weapon against him. The best lever to get at all his secrets. Well, not this time. This was too personal. Humiliatingly personal. The truth behind his true defeat in that bunker was too much to share, even with them. The guilt of what happened to Rhodey would be enough to occupy him. He didn't need to get into another thing with them, another loss. Not now. After everything, this would surely break him, maybe beyond repair.

"I'm sorry, Rhodey."

"It's not your fault and you know that."

Did he now... Tony looked away from his friend. "My tech failed 'ou."

"Tones, I fell like a brick out of the sky. Without your tech, I'd be dead."

"Without my tech, 'ou 'd no' been in the sky in the fi'st place."

His voice was slurring heavier than before and it let a sense of weakness spread through him. Maybe he looked bad enough for them not to bother him on the details of Siberia. Maybe they would just believe him. 

Rhodey stayed a bit longer, determined to take some of that guilt off of Tony's shoulders. With moderate success. Pepper too stayed close, though kept a little more distance the more his mind started to settle into normalcy. Helen Cho stopped by and explained her treatment plan. Now that he was awake she could start a more aggressive approach on the regrowth of tissue that they had held back from during his coma. 

"It would have put too much stress on your body and even now we'll have to start slow, but I think we should get the first round of treatment done as soon as possible. Tonight, if you feel up to it."

"He's been out of the coma for only about a day, Helen." Pepper was hovering close to his bed, clearly signaling support while she tried to keep things between them friendly and less intimate. Even now her hand would twitch towards his, but she pulled it back just before her fingers brushed his skin.

"We'll start small. But the sooner we do, the better the chances of a smooth recovery will be. There will be less pain, which means fewer meds. You'll feel less foggy."

Tony nodded. "Fine. Okay." No point in dragging it out. The sooner they started the quicker he'd be on his feet, the smaller the chances that Ross would get wind of any of this.

Two sessions in the cradle. One that very night, another one early the next morning. Most of the time in between he had spent in bed, passed out, his body recovering from the procedure. Pepper brought him breakfast, if one wanted to call it that. Solid food was not in the cards yet. At least her smoothies were better than Dum-E's. She talked about the company for the most part, the projects and organizing she had done while he had been out of commission. They stayed away from their personal issues, from anything that could bring back the tension. This was a temporary holiday from their fighting. He knew that. She made an effort not to hit any sore spots, not to press him on anything they could argue about in earnest. 

It was past noon when he woke up from another nap and found himself alone in the room at last. Helen had been right, his head was clearer. He could think a little straighter. This was better. This was a lot better.

He tried to move his feet enough to sit up, but it seemed that he wasn't there yet. He was still stuck in that bed. A whole 10 minutes he spent just lying there, on his back, one hand shoved underneath his pillow, fingers trailing the picture he had hidden there. There were a whole lot of things waiting for him to be fixed as soon as he'd be able to get back to the lab. The suit was shredded. He'd have to rebuild, maybe redesign. The arc had been too vulnerable the way he had designed it. Nothing like Siberia could ever happen again. The way the faceplate was ripped off, his head exposed. He had been just been stranded right there. A major redesign would be—

"FRI—," he croaked, his voice only a rasp. Tony cleared his throat and tried again. "FRIDAY, is the kid on his way?" 

"Not yet, Sir. Peter is still at his summer job."

Tony did a double-take and stared up at the camera when the memory of their conversation slowly came back. The kid had mentioned a job, but honestly Tony had thought—

"The kid actually got another job?" He huffed. What the hell. "Why and... and where?"

"Peter is working at a store in Corona, Queens, on Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays from 7 am to 1 pm."

His hand was still buried underneath the pillow. His finger's traced the picture of him and Aiden, an effort to calm himself. Eyebrows closely knitted in confusion, his head was beginning to hurt. "But... why? Did he think I was actually dead or something?"

"I have no information on his motive, Sir. He has not spoken about that to you."

"Not spoken to me about that? He's been..." Tony gave his head a subtle shake. "He's been talking about his job? When was that?"

"The first time he mentioned it was on Monday, June 27th, when he had talked about his first day and subsequently on every other day that he had been working."

Tony could only blink, trying to take in what FRIDAY was saying.

"How often was he here?"

"Every day, boss."

His hand stilled and he pulled it out from underneath the pillow. The kid had come to the Compound every day? 

"Call him, FRI."

"I'm afraid, Peter's shift will not end for another 32 minutes, Sir."

Tony groaned. He didn't like this. He didn't like this job at a store thing one bit. With nothing left to do for him for another 32 minutes, he just tried to keep his thoughts away from how slowly the time was passing. Pepper had refused to bring him his phone or at least a tablet and there was no projection tech in this room for FRIDAY to be of help. He'd have to think of something, a workaround. He had shit to do. 

"Sir, calling Peter Parker now."

He huffed out a "finally" and it only took a few seconds for the kid to answer his phone.

"Mr. Stark? Is everything okay? Are you alright?"

"Why are you working in a supermarket?"

"I... what?"

"Why's my personal mini-genius intern work'n at a supermarket?"

"I, erm... Sir, I... I checked the internship papers and I didn't... I didn't find anything about any restriction for other jobs except for technology and information processing companies that would be in direct or indirect competition with—"

"Pete... stop!" Tony shook his head. His level of confusion had reached an all-time high. "Why di' you go an' look for another job in the first place?" But the kid stayed quiet and that never boded well. "Pete?"

"It's just..." Peter huffed in what almost sounded like annoyance. "It's just my aunt, she was like... It doesn't matter, Sir. It's not—"

"Kid, talk t' me b'fore I have to stalk you."

Peter blew out a deep breath and lowered his voice. He was still on the streets of the city, judging by the background noise. "She didn't like that I was doing the internship when there was no, well, no compensation." Tony had a hard time keeping up with how fast Peter was speaking and it only got worse the longer he talked. "I know, you built me the suit and all and I would never expect anything more than that, but I can't really tell her about the suit nor does it do much as a monetary addition to like the household and things, so as a compromise she agreed that if I wanted to keep the internship I had to find another summer job because it's just. Like... she just wanted me to and I guess it's not fair that with her working all the time—"

"God. Kid. Stop." Tony's head was throbbing. He wasn't sure where even to start with all that information. "Are you tryin' t' tell me you work as like a store clerk now to appease your aunt cause she thinks you're not gettin' paid for the internship?"

"I mean. Yeah... I guess. Yeah."

Urgh. What was he ever going to do with that kid? "Why didn't you just come to me and tell me that? It's not an issue, Pete. We can work something out."

"You don't.. you don't have to do that, Sir. I know how ridiculously expensive the suit is and with everything you've already done for me it's—"

"Stop." Fine, Tony had always been a little bit privileged... well, quite privileged, but he had not seen that one coming at all. "Don't be ridiculous, of course I—"

"It's fine, Mr. Stark."

It was not fine. Tony was such an idiot. Of course, his aunt would be miffed about an unpaid internship at a billionaire's company.

"Just don't worry about it, Sir. You just... you just get better and I'll... I'll come by later. If... I mean, if you want me to come by I can or I—"

"Pete. Yes. Come by the Compound. Ge'... get the suit ou' of my office first. Pepper said she—"

The kid's voice was a little high, his speech a little faster again. "I... That's okay. I got the suit with me."

"Oh, you do?" Of course, he did. He'd been to the Compound every day it seemed. Tony's insides cramped at the thought. He still didn't really know what to do with that revelation. "Pepper said she found it in the lab."

"I know, I'm sorry, I wasn't—"

"It's fine, Pete. She doesn'... doesn't know that you've been back here, is... it's fine." On the other end of the line, the kid stayed quiet. That was never a good sign. "I'll see you this afternoon then." Tony bit his lip. He'd be killing for a video feed right about now. "Pete?"

"She found it when they brought your suit in." His voice was quiet now, whispering into the receiver, careful not to be overheard. "You know I saw your suit, right? In the lab. Your suit and... and the shield."

Tony closed his eyes and swallowed a curse.

"Did you fight him? Was it... did he lure you there? Was he waiting 'til—”

"Pete, no." Tony sighed. "It w's nothing like that."

It was not just that he wasn't ready to talk about what happened, about the implications, the lies. Tony didn't even know if he would ever be ready to talk about that. Definitely not with Peter. And right now, what good would it do? What would be gained if he dragged the kid into the middle of this?

"What was it like then?" His voice was louder now, fiery. The background noise had almost disappeared. The kid must have ducked into an ally or something. "Did you go looking for him on your own? Why did he leave you if you were fighting on the same side?"

"That's enough, Pete. All this doesn't concern you. It's my business. I'll deal with—"

"But, Mr. Stark—"

"Stop! Enough!" His throat burned but at least he had gotten the kid to stop talking. "Alright, lis'n. You remember what our deal was?" The line stayed quiet and Tony took another deep breath. "Friendly neighborhood Spider-Man. That's our deal."

"Then why did you fly me all the way to Germany?"

Tony wrapped his hands into his sheets, balled his fists up. "I shouldn't have done that. I was wrong—"

"No, Sir. You needed help and I could help. It made perfect—"

"Peter, it was a mistake." The kid's stubborn attitude was new. And Tony couldn't say that he cared much for it. "I would have never brought you there if I'd known that this kind of a fight would emerge from it. You shouldn't have been there."

"But—"

"Peter, that's enough." Deep breaths. He had to breathe, bring down his pulse, his temper. It wasn't the kid's fault. He knew that. With everything that happened, Peter had no idea what he was even asking. He couldn't know what it would do to Tony to dissect all this with him.

The kid's voice was miserably low, not more than a whisper. "Are you seriously not gonna tell me what happened?"

"Tis of no consequence." The line was silent. For a second, a short fleeting moment he did contemplate the possibility to tell Peter. A cautionary tale that would keep the kid from any dumb moves, but no. It was too much. The kid was 14. This wasn't his fight. "I'll see you later, then."

"Yes, Sir."

Tony closed his eyes, hating this. But this was how it had to be. It was the responsible thing to do.

"Boss, the call was disconnected."

His hand wandered back underneath the pillow, search for that special something to anchor him. To make him feel like he was doing the right thing.

"Thanks, FRI. I figured as much." He stared up, eyes a little too tired to focus properly on the white wall above him. Then his gaze wandered further down to that small space on the back wall between the top of the wardrobe and ceiling where Peter had been hiding the day before. What else had the kid been up to while Tony had been busy giving his best impression of Sleeping Beauty? "FRI, scan the web for... for mentions of Spider-Man ov'r the las' ten days."

#

This was a whole truckload of bull shit. It wasn't fair and it was stupid on top of it. How was he ever supposed to help if he didn't even—

Urgh. He hammered his finger against the number 4 button in the elevator. Fucking bullshit secrecy. His back was pressed against the cold metal wall of the elevator car, arms crossed in front of him. This wasn't the end of this discussion. When he would get to the Compound, he'd make his point properly. He'd look right at Mr. Stark and tell him how illogical it was that - after everything - that he would keep Peter out of the loop on this. What was to be gained by him searching for answers in the dark when he could actually help?

He slammed the door of the apartment shut and flinched when part of the wall vibrated with the force he had used.

"Peter?"

"Yeah..." He screwed up his face, annoyed with his own carelessness. "Sorry. There was a draft."

"Can you come here for a moment?"

He threw his head back and both his hands roughly rubbed across his face. He just wanted to get to his room and mope. He was drained, too little sleep, that monotone job and on top of everything all the confusing emotions of having Mr. Stark back in the first place, mixed with annoyance and, honestly, the hurt that he would shut him out like that. How was he supposed to help if he didn't even know what—

"Peter?"

"Yeah, yeah, I'm coming."

May sat at the dinner table, eyes locked on her laptop screen. She never really spent a lot of time on it and she didn't look particularly happy. The blue light of the display rather deepened the lines on her face and darkened the rings under her eyes. She hadn't gotten much sleep either then and the last few days had been long ones for her.

He stepped a little closer. "Everything okay?"

"I... I'm not..."

May shook her head, then tapped back and forth on the touchpad, eyes still on the screen. Just a couple quick steps and he was next to her. It was the bank's website she was looking at.

"I got an email notification about a transaction. And it was..." She shook her head again, then looked up at him. "Stark Industries just paid us 6720 Dollars."

"Wh-what?" Peter's eyes widened. "That..." He leaned down and had another look at the lines on the bank statement. Between the many red numbers, all the withdraws and payments, there was one line on the very button that ended in a big green number. 6720 Dollars.

She cleared her throat. "At first I thought someone had stolen my credit card details or something because I didn't realize it was a deposit into the account, but... but it is. It's a direct transfer of 6720 Dollars."

He stared at the line, couldn't take his eyes off it.

"Why didn't you tell me that they were gonna pay you at the end of the semester and I mean, we have to call someone about this. This can't be right!"

"I... I don't..." He was stuttering. His brain did manage to realize that, but it wasn't processing this new information at all. What the hell was happening?

"Peter, they must have mixed up your hours with someone else's." She let out a frustrated sigh and his heart ached with how painful it would be to refund this. For both of them.

"I mean. We... I guess..." But this didn't make any sense. Why would someone just wire this to them? He didn't even have a contract that would grant him any wages, why would someone just— His face went slack. Oh... oh no, he didn't...

Peter pulled his phone out of his pocket and sure enough, there was a new notification. An email from Stark Industries. An icy, nauseating wave rushed through him as he clicked on it.

Dear Mr. Parker,

Your wages from March 16th to June 30th, 2016 have been deposited into your account.

You will find your timesheet attached to this notification. Please check for any discrepancies at your earliest convenience.

Sandra King
HR Employee Administrations Office

He opened the attachment and sure enough, it listed his hours from the past few months. The adapted hours. Every Wednesday and Friday with 3 hours each, Saturdays logged with the maximum of 8 hours. A total of 224 hours over 16 weeks.

He was pulled out of his trance by another notification, that popped up on the screen. A text message from Mr. Stark.

I don't do moonlighting with my intern.

It wasn't just confusion and nerves that vibrated through him. He pulled the attached timesheet back up. The document wasn't long but there was another number that he had his eyes locked onto now.

30.

$30 per hour.

That's what it said right there in black and white. He was making $8 an hour at the grocery store.

"Let me see this." She reached for the phone in his hand and he quickly pulled his hand away, but it was too late. "Whose... where did you get that phone?"

Heat rushed to his face. "It's, erm... from the... for the internship, if they... they gave me that, in case I—"

She was turning in over in her hands. "They gave a 14-year-old a thousand dollar cell phone?"

Peter swallowed hard. "I... I mean, it's part of the... the thing, the testing out prototype thingy-s and...." He blew out a deep breath.

"What if you lose it and someone sends it to like the tabloids or something? It there a fine on this? We can't—"

"No." He shook his head, hoping he was right. "No, it's nothing. Nothing like that."

She sighed, then scrolled through the document. "This says they pay you $30 per hour."

"Yes, I..." His face was burning. "I know, I saw that. I don't—"

"That... that's it then. Someone just used a wrong template or something. I don't remember anything specific in your contract. I'm going to have to check. We..." May's lips were pressed tight and Peter's heart stung. "I'll call them. Figure this out. We'll... Don't worry about it, honey." She didn't even look at him when she handed him back the phone. "Can you just forward me that. I'm... I'm gonna check on the food. Should be done in about 15 minutes."

"I... yeah... yeah, alright."

She disappeared in the kitchen and Peter didn't really know where to go from there, if he should apologize or tell her he would talk to them himself. He should. This wasn't on May, he... he would deal with this. Today. At the Compound. Or actually. He would just deal with that right now.

He hit the call button on Mr. Stark's number just as he closed the door to his bedroom.

"Hello, Peter. I'm afraid, Mr. Stark is currently not available."

He groaned. "Are you stuck on that message, FRIDAY? He just sent me a text a few minutes ago."

"He has company and is not at liberty to receive any calls right now."

"Well, when it's convenient, tell him he's insane. He can't give me that much money. He..." Peter lowered his voice to a whisper. "He already gave me a damn multimillion-dollar suit. Like, this... this is not reasonable and... and...." Peter let himself fall onto his bed, bit his lip and then simply closed his eyes in resignation. "This is not okay. Just... just tell him that this is not okay."

"I am happy to transmit your message as soon as Mr. Stark is free to receive it."

Peter hung up, eyes on the ceiling above him. Thankfully, May left him alone for a while longer, stewing in his room while either of them came to terms of what had just happened.

6720 Dollars. What was that? Hush money? Was that what was happening? Mr. Stark giving him some money so he would stop asking questions? Reaffirming each one's status in this messed-up relationship? It was insulting. Did he really think that would work? That he could throw some money at Peter and he'd just take it like a good boy and not what... not bother him anymore?

Lunch was a pain. His brain wouldn't shut up and May desperately tried to keep the mood light and cheerful, but Peter's heart was aching and the wheels in his head were spinning. She left him to get to work and he tried not to take his anger out on the dishes. All of this was ridiculous. He hated this.

He usually waited another 30 minutes after May left before he left the house, just in case she'd forgotten something, so he went back to his room dropped onto his twin bed, face first, buried in his pillow as he let out a guttural groan. He should be happy. He should be celebrating. Mr. Stark was awake and well-ish, but all he could think about was everything else. The why and how and who. Whatever had happened, he could handle this. He wasn't a kid anymore. These past days when Mr. Stark had been sick, in a coma from his stupid decision to go out there by himself, it had been Peter who had kept an eye out for the city. If he could handle the updated suit, he could—

Oh. His head shot to the side, eyes focused on the laptop that was sitting on his desk. There was another way. If Mr. Stark was refusing to tell him, he already knew where he would find his answers. For the better part of half an hour, he was just lying on his bed, half-heartedly trying to talk himself out of this. This could get him into a lot of trouble. A lot of trouble.

But what could get him into even more trouble was being blind-sighted by whatever fight it was, that Mr. Stark was in the middle of. Not just trouble for him, but for Mr. Stark as well. He was still bedridden. Who knew how long his recovery would take? It could be weeks or months and anything could happen in the meantime. If Peter didn't know what to look out for he—

He just had to. Mr. Stark didn't understand yet that he could handle this. Peter grew with his challenges and he would show him. Show him that he was so much more than just a kid.

Accessing the server still gave him chills. He had stayed clear of all these files like he had promised himself he would but this... these were special circumstances.

The Iron Man folder contained a lot more subfolders than the Spider-Man one did. A lot more. He did a quick search for video files, scanned them for the right time stamp and, well, there they were. Right there. He'd just... he'd just have to click on it and he would know.

He'd just do it. He'd just go for it, just a click and—

And everything was grey. All he could see on the screen was a whole lot of grey.

"What the..." he scooched closer to the laptop and strained his eyes, then moved the cursor a little a bit further down in the timeline.

What was he even looking— Oh. Those were waves. He was, yes, he was looking at the sea flying by underneath. Mr. Stark was flying. Again, he moved the cursor further along until the picture changed and his stomach turned.

There he was, Steve Rogers, looking straight at him.

Right behind him the Winter Soldier, his gun pointing directly at Mr. Stark.

Chapter Text

The room was dark when Tony came to. This kept happening to him. He would just close his eyes for a bit and by the time he would wake up, it'd be almost night time. Not that he had anywhere to be. No deadline, no appointment, except... right, the kid.

"FRI, is—"

He stopped as something stirred next to his bed. Peter.

The kid rose to his feet, his movements slow for the little spider's usual demeanor.

"Did I... did I wake you?"

"Nn'..." Tony rubbed a hand over his throat. Not that it did much for him. The breathing tube had left its mark on Tony's throat, it still felt rough. There was also the thick supportive bandage wrapped around his neck. The kind of injuries his neck sustained could not just be fixed with the cradle. They'd have to wait for the swelling around his spine to go down further on its own. That would take time.

A glass of water appeared in his field of vision and he looked up into the face of his intern. The water was cool, soothing the strain in his throat.

"Thanks, kid." He took another sip from the straw. "You didn't wake me."

Peter nodded, still holding onto the glass. His face was tense. Of course, he was still be miffed about the whole argument they had on the phone. Tony had expected that. Though there seemed to be more to it. More emotion than just annoyance. He could usually read the kid like an open book, but something was throwing him off.

"You still mad?"

The kid's jaw was moving like he was trying to bite his tongue but then decided not to. "You wired 6720 Dollars into my aunt's bank account."

Oh. That. "I did."

The kid's mouth worked soundlessly before he swallowed hard. "You can't do that."

"Why not?"

"Because it's crazy!" He slammed the water glass back on the table next to Tony's bed. His movements were a little more forceful than was strictly necessary. The glass rattled and swayed, but Peter was fast enough to keep it from spilling. "You can't just give me a bunch of money and think I will shut up about all of this."

Tony's eyebrows shot up. "Hm. Your tone sure 's changed."

"Mr. Stark you paid me twice what my aunt makes per hour. Do you not know how this looks?"

Tony frowned. "Like... like 'm happy with your work?"

"You need to send a correction." Peter had his arms crossed in front of him, but his eyes kept drifting away from Tony. "Take it back!"

His throat still hurt and when he cleared it, he was careful not to let that show on his face. Instead, he tried to move up a little in the bed, get into a somewhat more upright position. "That's ridic'lous. You worked more hours th'n I could even put... put on that timesheet." Peter groaned and turned away from him. "Wait. You' aunt earns 15 dollars an hour?" He tried to press himself up on his elbows at least. This whole thing where he was lying down, having to take the kid raging at him did not sit all that well with him.

Peter's hands were balled up in fists as he started pacing. "It's more when it's the weekend or... or night shifts. She... she's doing her best, there's just no— Stop that, Mr. Stark. You'll hurt yourself."

The kid rushed forward and got a hold of Tony's upper arm. Like his weight was nothing, Peter stabilized him enough to elevate the headrest and then prop up Tony's pillows behind his back before he let go of his arm.

"Pete..." Tony wanted to reach for him, but losing balance and possibly landing on his face next to the bed seemed like a bad idea. "It's not your aunt's fault that her employer 's an ass who doesn't pay her prop'rly."

"It's..." Peter shook his head. "It's not like that. He has a lot of people who work there and with the hotel being open 24 hours they have to make—"

"Okay, no. Stop. That's... that's not..." He wasn't going to get into a lesson on economics with the kid. "Pete, jus' take the damn money. If your aunt makes $15 an hour, 'ou both need it."

"We don't need your charity. I don't want it, okay? You can't bribe me to shut me up!"

Tony's jaw dropped and there was a coldness spreading through his veins at Peter's voice. He tried to keep his own temper low, not to give in to the frustration this all riled up in him. The kid was properly agitated, angry to a level that was new. Well, not entirely new, but scarcely presented itself. Not since that one day in the lab a few months ago. "Jus' breathe, Pete, a'right? It's no'... not charity. You worked hard. Long hours. More th'n I eve' ask' of 'ou." His speech was beginning to slur again and he tried to concentrate. Something was up.

"I didn't do that for the money. It was never about money! I just... I couldn't even..." The kid turned his back to him, kept more and more distance between them.

"Breathe, Pete." He might have to remind himself of that as well. If the kid had an episode now, there was nothing he could do. He couldn't even get out of bed to help him through it, hold him. "Just breathe. It's a paid internsh'p. You work f' me. It's not controversial."

"You already paid me. You made the suit for me. It's... this is too much." The kid was still pacing, not even looking at Tony. "You can't just do stuff like that. You can't just go ahead and do whatever you want without telling me. Without considering the consequence. That's not fair. I have to deal with whatever you decide to as well. What am I supposed to do if you don't even tell me—if I don't know what's coming? It's not fair."

Tony's lungs were burning, but he was still trying for breaths as deep and calm as he could manage. "Are we still talkin' about th' money?"

The kid had his back turned to Tony. His arms were wrapped around his torso like he was holding himself together.

"Pete, I need 'ou t' take a breath an... and ge' a grip on your temper. If you lose control of you... your senses now, I can't—"

"I'm fine." He turned and faced Tony, his eyes burning. "Stop making this about me. This is not about me!"

Tony gnawed on his lip, genuinely trying to suppress his own temper now. "List'n, if you want t' pick a fight, we can fight." Peter didn't budge. He was halfway across the room, but his shoulders were tensely pulled back, head still held high. He didn't back down even an inch. Tony tried to focus, to bundle his strength. "We can start with your stunt a' the Bank 'f America Financial Center."

His face did fall at that and his arms fell along with his face, swung loosely by his side, his feet stuck in place, not moving at all now.

"Go' anything t' say for yourself?"

A shallow shade of pink was slowly creeping up from the kid's neck. His voice a lot lower now, quietly pleading. "It's... Mr. Stark, it's not what you think. I made sure—"

"It's not wha' I think? Really? So, when I asked you if... if you'd been stupid enough t' go out there befo'... before I checked the suit an' you said no, you weren't lying?"

Tony's hands twisted around the sheet's fabric, fighting his frustrations hard not to overtake his emotions. The kid wasn't even listening. He was just staring at the ground. "Peter!"

His eyes shot up at Tony, round and wide. "I'm sorry, I—" He blinked a couple of time, then he stepped forward and bent down, reaching for—

Tony's breath caught in his throat as Peter picked up the picture that had fallen to the floor. One hand instinctively reached underneath his pillow, but— nothing. The kid had propped it up so Tony could sit a little more upright.

"Give me that!" He bit out, surprising himself with the decent amount of panic that had slipped into his voice.

Peter twitched at the tone of his voice then quickly stepped closer. Tony snatched it from his hand, carefully wiped the dust off it before he clutched it close. The sudden silence in the room was overwhelming. All Tony could hear was the erratic pulse of his own heart. He couldn't bring himself to look up, eyes glued to the sheets on his bed. The photo was sturdy in his hand, having never been taken out of the frame until just the day before. His eyes fell shut for just s second. This was ridiculous. He was completely overreacting. This... this wasn't a big deal. It was fine. There was nothing to freak out about. Aiden wasn't a dirty little secret. There was nothing wrong with Tony having a picture of his son on him.

He took a couple of deep breaths, eyes still cast down to where his hand covered most of the picture, pressed it against his chest. There was still a part of him that tried to keep Aiden to himself, not just because of the loss and the pain, but because he couldn't quite shake the feeling that he had to hold onto every single detail, hold every memory of his son close to his heart. That if he wouldn't, he might lose it all.

Irrational. Emotional. Broken. He'd been stuck in this state for years and if he was honest with himself he had never even had the desire to let any of it go. Even now, just the thought of the hole that letting go of that pain and heartache would leave him with, formed a knot in his stomach that made his blood run cold. The kid had retreated a few steps, his eyes wide and straight on Tony at first but he quickly turned his eyes down when Tony shot a glance in his direction.

"Sorry, kid, erm..." Tony cleared his throat. It wasn't that he didn't trust the kid. Of course he did. Over the last few months, Peter had proven his loyalties, sometimes more insistently than Tony was really okay with. But this was different. It was personal. This might open the door to something he wasn't really ready for.

"That's... that's my son."

Peter had stopped his fidgeting. He stood pretty motionless, still in about the same spot where the picture had fallen, his voice just as low as Tony's. "I... I didn't know that you have a son, Sir."

"It's..." His tongue felt heavy. The words just didn't really want to come out. He looked up at the kid. "It's complicated."

 Peter's innocence was painted on his face, shining clear and bright like a giant neon sign. The question of what had happened so plainly radiating from him, the reluctance to ask written in his eyes.

"Not... not that complicated actually." Tony sighed, his lungs deflating. "He... he's gone. He got taken, when he was very young."

"Oh, that's..." Peter's eyebrows were knitted closely together, fingers silently picking at each other. "I'm... I'm so sorry, Mr. Stark."

Tony gave a short nod, his teeth biting his lower lip. "It was a long time ago." He hesitated for a moment, the picture still closely pressed to his chest, painfully aware how Peter's eyes wandered down to it again and again before he caught himself and looked somewhere else. A sudden impulse had him stretch out his arm and he held out the picture for Peter so take. The kid only stared at his hand at first. Then as he realized, what was happening, he stepped closer to the bed again and carefully took the photograph. His head was bent down, hair falling into his face, hiding his eyes from Tony.

"You... you look really young in this," the kid said, eyes still on the picture.

Tony couldn't help but huff in a low chuckle. There was a faint red flush creeping into the kid's cheeks as he looked up.

"I'm... I'm so sorry, that sounded awful. I didn't mean that you look old now. I mean, older, but like not like crazy old, I—"

The cold dread in his chest ebbed away, replaced by a surge of warm affection for that hopelessly babbling kid in front of him. "It's fine, Pete." The smile on his face softened a bit. "It's been some years since this was taken."

The kid shot him an apologetic grimace then turned his eyes back to the picture.

It had been a long time. More than 13 years. Aiden would be 13 now. Not all that much younger than Peter was actually. Of course, if anyone would bother to really see the kid they'd notice that the Spiderling actually looked younger than he was. Before the spider bite, he must have seemed completely out of place among his peers. Now, at a casual glance he didn't look like a kid all that much, not even in those baggy shirts he wore to the lab. His abs and shoulders, the ridiculous muscle mass on his arm and legs, all that might fool people especially when he was jumping around in the suit. Made them think what they saw was a young adult. It sure had fooled Tony at first. The strength, the speed, the control he had over his body made it seem like he was older, but underneath that mask... the soft, curved lines of his face, the giddy energy, and that innocent puppy dog look in his eyes told a different story. He was still just a young boy. A young boy who'd already been through a lot.

Tony never really thought of Aiden as a teenager. How could he? When he closed his eyes and thought of his son he saw the round face of a 2-year-old toddler. The cheeky grin, little stubby legs. Those tiny toes when he would waddle across the carpet. To think of him as a teenager... His baby boy growing into an adult... That just underlined the one thing Tony didn't want to face. All the years, all the time he had missed. 

It beat the alternative of course. To think that Aiden might have never even gotten the chance to grow up at all, even without Tony. No, it was so much more bearable to keep the kid in his heart like he had known and loved him. Not to imagine what might have been, what could be. If there was one thing Tony had learned over the years, it was how little control he had over that anyway.

He was pulled out of his thoughts when Peter held out the photograph for him to take back. "I'm really sorry, Sir. I... I don't really know—"

"You don't have to say anything, Pete." He carefully tucked the picture underneath the sheets on the far side of the bed, desperate to change the subject. "Tell me what happened at that bank?"

The kid grimaced and ran a hand through his hair, nervously scratching his head. "I was... It was an accident. I didn't... It's not like I went out looking for something like that." His eyes were pleading, desperate for Tony to believe him. "I really wasn't, Sir. I was trying to stick to like... the small things, nothing flashy. Just... just trying to win back people's trust, like you said."

"Right." Tony pursed his lips. "Just like I said."

The kid's cheeks turned a faint red color. "I mean, you... you did say that. When we were—"

"I remember, kid." Careful to make clear, that that wasn't the part he was objecting to. "Go on."

"It was just one guy and I thought it wouldn't be a problem at all, but... well, it had seemed like it was just one guy. But it wasn't. There were six other guys waiting in the bank."

Tony's breath caught in his throat at the mental images his brain conjured up of the kid trying to fight off 7 grown men at once.

"It was fine." Peter spread out his arms, stopping him from interrupting. "The robbers weren't all that difficult to take out, but the NYPD showed up faster than I thought and then the chief shot at me but the suit it—"

"He what?" Tony's throat burned from the sudden outburst and he curled in on himself as a fit of coughs rolled over him.

"Mr. Stark!" The kid stepped closer, one hand on Tony's back, the other one bracing him by the shoulder so he wouldn't keel over. "Nothing happened, Sir. The bullet just brushed my foot but the suit absorbed the friction. It was not a big deal."

"They sho' at you?" His voice was weak, still recovering from the cough triggered down deep in his throat.

"Just... just the one guy. The chief guy." Peter's hand rubbed soothing circles into Tony's back and Tony was vaguely aware that he didn't like this dynamic where the kid was worried about him. Taking care of him. "He was a little hostile, but I got out there fast."

The chief guy... fucking Clarke. One day Tony was gonna punch that asshole in the face. Peter held up the glass of water for him. The cool liquid did help with his agitated throat.

"I'm sorry, Sir. I... I promise I checked the suit with FRIDAY. I didn't just ignore what you said, I promise."

Tony pushed the glass away, tried to get a grip of his voice. "You wan'ed to get back out there, I... I ge' that. But I asked you... Kid, I asked you if you'd been going on patrol."

"I... I'm sorry. I am. Mr. Stark please, I just... I just panicked and I didn't want you to get mad. You'd just woken up and I didn't—"

"Stop, it's..." Tony took a couple of deep breaths, shook his head at the kid's excuses. "I don't like this." He shot a sharp glance up in the kid's direction to make that clear. "Don't like it one bit but... I guess it is wha' it is. Jus'... just don't do something stupid like this again. I can't... can't have you lying to me, sneaking around behind my back. We all screw up, bu' you have to trust me, alright?" He reached for Peter's wrist and was taken aback as Peter looked up at him, his eyes deep dark pools of regret and embarrassment. He looked like he was about to cry. "Hey... buddy, come on..." A small tug on his arm was enough and Peter sat down on the bed and carefully settled his arms around him, his head on Tony's shoulder. His face was turned away, impossible for Tony to read. The kid simply held onto him. He was so close, Tony would hear how fast his heart was racing. "It's... It is what it is. You're forgiven, alright. I just... I need you to be careful."

Peter gave a few small nods and sniffed in a couple of breaths. Tony ruffled a hand through the kid's hair and silently thanked the universe and just in case any deity that might be listening after all, that Peter was unharmed and safe. This could have been bad, but Peter was fast and strong and clever. Tony would be happy to thank his lucky stars for that and beg them to keep it like that as often as they were willing to listen. The kid still held onto him and Tony took a deep breath, resting his cheek on the top of the kid's head. This could have been a lot worse. The thought struck him that in his arrogance Tony could have actually taken the kid with him to Siberia. It wasn't the first time that this horror scenario popped up in his head. The more he thought about it the sicker he felt just imagining the hypothetical what-if the Spiderling had been in the bunker with him.

They wouldn't have made it out alive. Peter at best. But Tony would have torn Barnes apart, as well as Rogers if they had even tried to put a finger on Peter and in return, Tony would have likely suffered even worse at their hands for it.

Tony tried to get his pulse under control, refused to let his body react with the shudder that was brewing underneath his skin. He couldn't dwell on this. It didn't happen and he sure wouldn't let them anywhere near the kid. Friendly neighborhood Spider-Man. Stark Industries intern. That was it until the kid had done some turning 21. Peter's arms were still slung tightly around him. He still seemed upset, so Tony allowed himself to keep the kid in his arms a little longer, held him close like he could protect him from all this craziness. He couldn't. He was sensible enough to know that. He couldn't even keep his own kid safe and that was before super soldiers and aliens had become part of his life. But he could at least try his best.

"There's a condition fo' the forgive 'n forget though." The kid went rigid in his arms. "You ditch tha' shop boy thing an' you're gonna keep the money, alright?"

At that, Peter pulled away at last, still balanced on the edge of the bed. "But... but Sir, it's..."

"This's not up fo' debate."

The kid looked down to his knees, gnawing on his lower lip. "You're not gonna shut me up by giving me money."

"It's not a bribe," Tony sighed. "There're a few zeros missin' for it te be a bribe, kid."

Peter pulled a face, his eyes unfocused, looking for something to counter with.

"Don't argue with me. I nee' peace and quiet." He had his eyebrows raised, lips pulled to the side in a smirk but the line didn't really land. Peter just stared down, fists clutching onto the edge of the bed. Tony frowned. "Kid, if you need to—"

"Fine. Okay." The kid's face was still drawn in a weird mixture of shame and sorrow.

"You know... the gen'ral consens's is that earning good money is a good thing."

Eyes still turned away from him, Peter nodded. "Thank you, Mr. Stark," he whispered.

Something was up. This wasn't like Peter. He might blush and radiate some teenage awkwardness but depressive almost shameful demure wasn't like him. A lot had happened in the past weeks. It was a lot to process and Peter didn't really have anyone to talk about all this, so maybe... maybe he just needed time. Tony was back now and he'd get this sorted. All they needed was a little time.

##

The vague shadows of houses and trees were racing by outside of the car's window. It was dark and while his night vision was pretty excellent he still couldn't really concentrate on anything out there in particular. He felt like shit. Like an idiot. This had been such a fucking dumb idea. He should have just minded his own damn business, but no. He just had to know. He just had to betray every ounce of trust Mr. Stark had put in him.

It hadn't just been a mission. It was personal. Deeply, deeply personal. Peter had thought about it, just coming clean. If he'd just told him right there, Mr. Stark would have been mad. He would have been really, really mad but maybe... maybe if he had confessed...

Roger's face popped up in front of his mental eye. The bald-faced lie on his lips. The lie he had told right to Mr. Stark's face. The betrayal in Mr. Stark's voice.

Peter really had been meaning to confess at first, to tell Mr. Stark what he'd done. There had been a chance that Mr. Stark would forgive him, eventually, if he had just come out and told him. But as he had sat in that room, his back leaned again the hospital bed, he lost his nerve. It wasn't just that he was scared of Mr. Stark's reaction. It was more than that. He'd betrayed his trust. Much like his team had and Peter just couldn't pile on. Mr. Stark had been through so much, had lost so much. More than Peter had even been aware of as he had found out today.

When he was back at the apartment, Peter had kind of forgotten about his patrol. Instead, he had googled Aiden Stark. There had been quite a bit of information, but most of it dated back years and Peter soon found out that most of it were embellished tales retold in tabloid after tabloid. He had spent a couple of hours on a Tony Stark fan forum reading a few threads were people had exchanged all kinds of theories on what had happened. He had a hard time telling what was gossip and what were actual facts but soon realized that actual facts were hard to come by. There was hardly anything, except for a couple of news articles from 2003 where the press seemed to have picked up on Mr. Stark having a son at all. There were no pictured except for the ones attached to the articles writing about Aiden's disappearance. Two pictures of a two-year-old toddler so the public could keep an eye out for the boy. The same two pictures were used again and again in other stories detailing Mr. Stark and Miss Potts' search that took them all over the globe. One of those had a picture of Mr. Stark next to it, taken somewhere in South America. Maybe people who didn't know him wouldn't be able to tell but Peter could see the pain written across the man's face all too plainly.

It made his stomach turn and he cursed himself out, closing all the different tabs he had opened in his search. This was private. He was being nosy and that wasn't okay. But as he shut the laptop and lay on his bed in the dark he couldn't help but let his thoughts drift back to Mr. Stark. To all the things that had happened to him, had scared him. It made a little more sense now why he tried to keep Peter away from the thick of the action, even if he was taking it too far. Peter was not a little boy. He was Spider-Man after all.

He had made up his mind that night though. There would be no way Peter could tell his mentor about what he had done. Ever. Peter would have to live with the guilt. A confession wouldn't absolve him. It would do nothing but hurt Mr. Stark and he couldn't do that. Not now.

Mr. Stark would never find out, Peter would make sure of it.

As the days went by it did seem like it would be easier to keep this secret than Peter had thought. Things still were a little rocky at first. He would travel out to the Compound on his regular lab days and also whenever May would work during the day. Late afternoons and evenings were for Spider-Man patrols. He had gotten May's blessing to drop the summer job at the store and after she had talked to about 4 different departments to make sure that they wouldn't owe Stark Industries any refund on his paycheck and that the hourly rate was approved for the kind of projects Peter helped out with, she let it go.

They both knew that the money would help a great deal but it wasn't hard to pick up the underlying irk that May harbored about what Peter's wage said about her own earnings. Originally, Peter had thought that with this all sorted out, May might warm a bit more to Mr. Stark. That it would make her not just tolerate but embrace the amount of time Peter would spend at the internship. That wasn't really the case though, hence he stuck to additional hours only when May was at work, or when he could use meeting his friends as a convenient excuse. He rarely used the latter though, just in case Ned or anyone from the decathlon team would bust his alibi.

The first couple of weeks Peter traveled out to the Compound, he still tried his best not to run into anyone. While Mr. Stark was still recovering in the medical wing his presence would have been highly suspicious and while Mr. Stark didn't necessarily seem to stress it, Peter had already decided on that strategy himself. He couldn't risk having to explain himself. Miss Potts went back to LA after about a week. That had definitely been helpful. After another week, Mr. Stark had been well enough - or stubborn enough, Peter hadn't really made his mind up about that - to move back to the Tower. That made things a little easier.

The minute Mr. Stark was back in the lab, he started working on leg braces for Colonel Rhodes and Peter was grateful for a complex project like that to take his mind off of things. It brought back some routine between the two of them. In the hours they spend leisurely working next to each other he almost felt normal again. Like they hadn't gone through this big dramatic event. Mr. Stark tried to talk to him about Germany a few times, probed for any lasting anxiety and trauma that Peter might have been left with. He would usually start by telling Peter about Colonel Rhodes' physical therapy and then pivot. 

The thing was, Germany was not what was weighing on Peter's heart. Yes, it had been quite the fight and everything that came from it was hard to stomach, but nothing could measure up to the cold dread he felt every time the image of Captain America's shield popped into his head. It was hard to avoid as well. Talk about the Rogues was still ongoing. Articles upon articles, memes, and gifs, they were difficult to escape and every time that Vibranium shield smashing into Mr. Stark's helmet flashed in front of his eyes, how it had caved in his mentor's chest.

He would get over it. It just... it would take some time but he'd just bleach all that from his brain. They were gone. They were irrelevant. At least that was he was telling himself. A lie that was harder and harder to stick to.

As much as he wanted to just slip back into his routine, things had changed and his perspective on some stuff had simply shifted. Every time he went out on patrol, he found himself missing some of those features he had so gotten used to in the week before Mr. Stark had woken from his coma. The web grenade and rapid-fire. He also kind of missed Karen. It was nice to have someone to talk to while he was on patrol and she was really cool and helpful and it made things so much easier and safer when he had her assistance. Not even Mr. Stark would be able to argue against that. He wanted Peter to stay safe and Karen definitely helped him to stay safer.

Eight days he managed to resist, then he got lost following a burglar into an underground maze of basements. It took him almost an hour of dragging the guy around till he found an open door to get back overground without having to bust out any windows or locked doors. It was ridiculous. Karen would have had him out of there in minutes. He promised himself, he'd only use it when he really needed it. He'd only use that one file. It would be fine.

It would be fine!

A few lines of code was all he needed and he had implemented direct access to the ghost drive on his phone. He would turn off the training wheels in emergencies. Just when he really needed it. It turned out... well, it turned out, he needed it a lot. 

Just a couple of taps on his phone and Karen with answers to questions he didn't even know to ask, was right there to help. It had to be that easy to access otherwise what good was it in an emergency. But now that he had opened that gate once more, it became harder and harder to resist the temptations to see what else what on that server. He had maneuvered himself into the most predictable tight spot imaginable.

It took another two weeks. He was at the Tower for his regular Wednesday lab day. It was not even lunchtime yet, they had just barely begun to work on the project for the day.

"Boss, there is an urgent call from Secretary Ross."

Mr. Stark froze. His eyes shot up to the ceiling, then to Peter.

"Kitchen. Go on. Stay quiet!"

Peter knew better than to argue. Secretary Ross was a sore spot with Mr. Stark. He hated him and Peter couldn't really blame him. Ross and his Accord policies had been a major factor in all of this Avengers mess. 

"Open the line, FRI."

Peter had his back against the kitchen counter, arms crossed, all he could see were the flickering lights of the video call. He could hear just fine though and Mr. Stark would have to know that. A couple of months ago, it would have flattered him immensely, that Mr. Stark was fine with Peter overhearing that conversation. Now though, there was always that silent betrayal in the back of his head, a little voice reminding him how he had broken his mentor's trust. How he had gone behind his back and just taken what he had no right to take.

"You have to get to the Raft, Stark. ASAP!"

Mr. Stark cleared his throat, his tone tense. "What seems to be the problem, Mr. Secretary?"

"We've lost contact. Rogers showed up!" Ross was agitated, if not even panicked. "The Rogues! They are gone."

His arms tightened around Peter's torso. They had escaped? His throat felt dry, his heartbeat spiked, but he couldn't freak out. He had to stay calm.

"What do you want me to do there, Ross? Look at your empty cells?"

The man's voice hadn't changed. It was tense but low and still quite calm. Peter's legs twitched. He had to stop himself from trying to sneak a peek at Mr. Stark's reaction.

"This is an emergency."

"This was an emergency. Me flying out to somewhere in the pacific isn't gonna magically bring them back."

"Stark, you can't refuse me. You signed the Accords, don't forget that."

"I did."

"This is a code B2!"

"Is it? You have the UN council's decision for me to intervene?"

Peter's hands grabbed the edge of the kitchen's countertop, physically restraining himself from intervening himself.

"It's... this is US business. I'm the Secretary of State and I order you to—"

"You have no authority to order me anywhere, Mr. Secretary. Only the United Nations' council does."

"Stark, I'm warning you! You can't just ignore my—"

"Get confirmation from the council, Ross. Don't bother me again until you do. FRI."

The light that had flickered in all the way to the kitchenette was turned off abruptly. Peter pushed himself away from the counter and carefully glanced around the corner in Mr. Stark's direction. The video stream was gone and Peter didn't hesitate to walk back out into the lab.

"Mr. Stark, are you really not gonna go?"

He was quiet for a moment, eyes on the project that had been left untouched in front of him. It would be a lie for Peter to pretend that he wasn't somewhat relieved that is mentor hadn't gone out there on a whim. He wasn't even 100% healed. 

"There's no point, Pete. They are gone."

"But... but shouldn't we at least—"

"WE will do absolutely nothing. I, however, will monitor this and have FRIDAY update me on the developments."

Mr. Stark didn't even give Peter the courtesy to look at him as he was lecturing him and it was starting to really nag Peter.

"Kid..." Peter flinched and tried to keep his face a little more neutral as he looked up at his mentor. "I don't want to have to remind you of our deal."

Peter made an effort not to have his hands ball into fists, to keep his body somewhat relaxed. "Yes, Sir."

Of course he didn't. Mr. Stark wanted to keep him as far away from them as possible. He wanted to handle all of this on his own when it had worked out so well the last time. Peter couldn't quite meet his eyes, his teeth worried as his lip as he strongly tried to keep the frustration out of his face. Mr. Stark could read him like an open book. He had proven that many times before and Peter was not in the mood for another of those lectures.

"Flat mirco cable needs to be soldered on right here." Mr. Stark pointed at the open wiring they had been working on just before Ross had phoned in. "You up for it?"

Peter nodded. He wasn't fooled. Mr. Stark was trying to change the subject, to distract him, but that wouldn't work. Peter would find his own way to stay up to date on all these developments. He wouldn't just stand by and do nothing. He was Spider-Man after all.

Chapter Text

The sun was starting to set in New York City. It had been a good day for Tony. Helen's therapy was more effective than anything he had ever experienced. It had only been 4 weeks since Siberia and he had already regained full mobility in his arms and shoulders. He still got a little winded because of the limited lung capacity. The general discomfort around his sternum was something he had gotten used to a long time ago. The doctors had completely reconstructed it when he had the arc taken out of his body. It had been painful then and the process this time had been similar. The cradle sure had proven helpful, superficial scar tissue on his chest was basically non-existent. Compared to the Jackson Pollock his chest had mimicked before, the area looked like it had never even seen a scalpel let alone an arc reactor housing unit. Or a vibranium shield. The cradle could only handle tissue though. That meant, the fusion of his own ribs and the artificial sternum Helen had woven into his chest took a little more patience,  but they were getting there.

His last 4 hours had been spent on a video conference call with Pepper, a couple of board members and two project managers from the R&D labs in LA. It had been the first time in months that he had talked to Pepper in a work setting, without wanting to rip his hair or heart out. Not counting the week right after he woke up from the incident in Siberia, of course. That didn't really count. He was sick, so she had gone easy on him. Sure, the call had been all work, but it was progress. It was the kind of relationship that they were meant to have. A friendly partnership between CEO and company owner. A friendship. Maybe again at some point.

He grabbed a beer from the fridge and sank into the cushions on the couch in his living room. How was it only Monday? That whole day had felt like a week. His chest was aching and there was a numbness in his fingers. A new - well old, but newly acquired - engine block was waiting to be put back together in the workshop. Something to tinker with just to clear his mind. It was only 8:30 pm after all. Against his better judgment, he took out his phone and pulled up the app he had implemented a couple of weeks prior. 

FRIDAY had been analyzing the Rogues' movements for him based on diverse data input from mentions on social media all the way to the low-level trackers that were still active on the Quinjet as well as some of Romanoff's and Rogers' equipment. The signal of the trackers was low. It was only meant to be picked up locally if they had to find one of them or even just the equipment during a fight when all other lines of communication would fail. It meant the data he received from the trackers was often corrupted and couldn't be pinned down precisely, but that also meant that Natasha hadn't picked up on the outgoing signal yet. It gave him a general idea of where they were at, or at least let him guess the general location of some of them. With the additional surveillance and social media pointers, there was one thing he could tell: they had been in North America for a few days now and just crossed the border from Canada into the USA that weekend. Tony bit his lip to stop himself from cursing out loud.

Fucking Rogers was getting closer and closer. Why could the idiot not just stay away?

It wasn't likely that they would show up in New York. Tony wouldn't put anything past Rogers but the crew was mostly out of funds. Most of them lost their equipment in the arrest in Germany. Hawkeye was of little use empty-handed and the Falcon probably hadn't grown wings in the Raft. They would need to remedy that situation before they could operate in any basic capacity. That was the only reason they would be in the states in the first place. The equipment was stored in a hangar somewhere outside of Washington D.C. operated by the government, but there was nothing Tony could do about deterring them. If he would tip off Ross then he'd basically admit that he had the technology to track the Rogues down. Ross was an asshole but not that much of an idiot that Tony could sell him a coincidental discovery of the gang. All that would do was make the asshole get approval from the UN council so he could force Tony to engage the Rogues and Tony wouldn't be able to deal with that. He couldn't face them. Not yet. What were you supposed to do if you had to look into the face of the guy who had lied about your parents' murder? The man who had protected their murderer. Who had almost killed him. Tony might never be ready for that but he sure wasn't now.

"Boss, sensor group SW04 is on alert. Code S007."

He frowned. "The kid?"

"Yes, Sir."

Quickly Tony jumped up from and walked towards the balcony, beer left disregarded on the table in front of him.

"He hurt?"

"The sensors on Spider-Man's suit indicate no damage or any kind of close body contact with an adversary in the last 48 hours."

FRIDAY opened the door for him to walk out onto the balcony. The Spiderling swung himself over the balustrade just as Tony stepped outside.

Tony crossed his arms in front of his chest, shielding his body. The wind was warm on that August evening but up on the 68th floor, it was still strong enough to bite uncomfortably through his clothes. 

"Hey kid, you alright?"

With a quick motion, Peter pulled off his mask and gave something between a nod and a shake of his head. Like he couldn't really decide on how to answer that question. He didn't look injured, which was definitely in the plus column, but he didn't usually drop by in full gear like this.

"Remember what we talked about? About not crawling up the side of my Tower? I have a nice elevator and you have an access card for it."

"I... Mr. Stark, I..." The kid didn't even seem to listen, his breathing shallow, voice low. Well, climbing 68 floors would do that to anyone, right? Peter seemed incapable to keep his feet still, attention not really on Tony as his eyes shifting over the Manhattan skyline. "Are you alright, Sir?"

"Me?" Tony frowned. "I'm... of course. Pete, what happened?"

He wasn't meeting Tony's eyes and both his hands were clutching the mask, wringing the fabric. "Nothing. Nothing happened. I just..." 

"Hey, kid." Tony stepped up to him and clasped him by the arm, pulling his attention away from the early evening sky. "Why shouldn't I be okay?" 

Peter's eyes were wide, his face pale and sweaty. "I... it's not... I don't know. I don't know, I just... I had to— You're up here on your own. I... I wanted to call, but I didn't. I wasn't sure if—"

"Just breathe, buddy. Come on." Tony kept his hand on Peter's arm and quickly lead him inside. The kid hardly ever stammered in his presence anymore. The last time he had climbed the Tower had been the day of the incident in Nigeria. Obviously, something was up, but Peter was notorious about needing additional motivation to spill the beans, at least when it came to the important things. There was always a certain restless energy coming from the kid. He was young and hyper and the Spider-senses probably didn't help with that. This was different though. There was something different about his vibe.

"Just take a breath and tell me what happened."

"Nothing... nothing happened." Tony dragged him all the way to the kitchen counter and pressed a bottle of water in his hand but the kid's attention didn't really seem to be in the room. "Something... something is going on."

"Is it your senses? Did something trigger you?" Tony couldn't see that blank-eyed panic in Peter, the lack of control that had so far been the prime indicators to him losing the grip of his senses. He was flushed and agitated but he was still in control. It was something like... like fear, not stress that radiated off him. "Kid, what do you mean, something is going on? Did you see something in the city?"

"No, it's... I..." The kid's cheeks were flushed and he still refused to meet Tony's eyes. "I—I can... I can just tell."

Tony reached out to get a hold of him, to pull him out of whatever was messing with his mind. "Pete, nothing is—"

"Boss, there is a call waiting for you."

"Not now, FRI. Just take a message, I'm—"

"It's a code B2 from Ross, Sir."

Tony blew out a curse. "I need to take this, kid. Just... Just go hide in your room for now. Try to calm down, alright? I don't want Ross to see you here."

"But, Sir—” Peter started forward

"Go on, kid!"

"No, please. Just let me—"

"Now, Pete!" He pointed down the corridor towards the door. The kid's face turned red, all shyness and confusion seemed forgotten as he took off with a huff, arms crossed and then slammed the door behind him. Tony couldn't get into this now though, he'd have to deal with Ross first. "Put him through, FRI."

The man's face popped up as a projection in front of him.

"Yes?" Tony did his best to keep the frustration out of his voice. There was no point in agitating the man.

"Stark, we need you in D.C. Get in that suit. Now!"

"What's going on?" Oh, for fuck's sake. Of all the days for Ross to actually pay attention, Tony could only hope that this was not what—

"The Rogues are here. Been sighted breaking into a military building just outside the city."

Tony bit the insides of his cheek to stop the groan that was building up in his very soul. Fucking Rogers. "I see."

"Get your ass here now, Stark!"

"Right away, Mr. Secretary," he bit out and waved the projection away.

Just as he had hung up on Ross the door to Peter's room flew open and the kid rushed back into the living room.

"Didn't I tell you to stay in there?" Tony snarled at him. It wasn't fair that Peter would have to deal with his frustration instead of Ross, but then what was ever fair?

"I'll come with you, Sir!"

"To D.C:? What, was there a radioactive bird bite or something you didn't tell me about?"

Peter's mouth slammed shut and he gritted his teeth. "I can... I can just hold onto you."

"Ha, the hell you will." Tony shook his head in irritation and made towards the kitchen island, his beer from earlier still disregarded on the living room table. Well, that was that for his quiet workshop night.

Peter followed on his heels. "I can. I will! You can't go after them alone."

"Not planning to," he muttered.

"I promise, I'll be careful. I'll listen to whatever you say but you can't—"

Tony turned towards him and made the kid stop in his tracks. "You want to show up in D.C. out in the open going after the other Avengers? You know how much trouble I went through to make sure that not a single spark of evidence of you fighting with us in Germany could be leaked to the public?"

"But..." The kid's hands were balled up into fists, his back straight with determination. "But I can help! I don't care if anyone sees me helping you!"

"Well, I care!" Tony tried to keep a lid on his tone, not to get angry at the defiance in the kid. "I've kept the committee and the Accords away from you for a reason, Pete. I can't do that if you're seen going against the others."

There was no way in hell he would allow the kid to get twisted up in this mess any more than he already was. It had been foolish to fly him to Leipzig in the first place. Fucking insane. He was just a kid, superpowers or not. Tony pocketed a few power bars from one of the kitchen drawers. This would be a long night.

"Sir, please! I can help you. Please, just let me help you! You don't have to—"

"No, Peter! You will not." He rounded on Peter, stepped closer to him than was technically necessary. "You will stay away from them, you hear me? If they show up anywhere near you, you will fucking run in the other direction as discretely and fast as possible. Are we clear?"

"But, Mr. Stark—"

"Friendly neighborhood Spider-Man, that's our deal!"

Peter had taken a step back from him but his eyes turned soft and big with what looked a lot like fear. "You can't go alone, Sir. Please, please you can't—"

Tony couldn't help but shudder at the panic in Peter's face. "They'll be gone by the time I even get there, alright?" He sighed and put a hand on the kid's shoulder, an attempt to defuse the situation, to calm the kid's nerves as much as his own if he was going to be honest about it, which he certainly wasn't planning to be. "Rogers is many things but he's not stupid enough to stick around long enough after Ross already got wind of him being in the country."

That wasn't even a lie, plus Tony would make sure to stall his own arrival. Even if the Rogues were thick enough to stick around for longer than anticipated, they should be gone by the time Tony would get there. He had absolutely no interest to have footage of him fighting the Rogues circulate on the internet and the news networks. He had no interest in fighting them in the first place. For all he cared, they had better stay as far away from each other as humanly possible.

"Mr. Stark?"

Tony looked up at Peter whose eyes had flickered down to Tony's chest. He pulled his hand back with a start, had not even noticed how he'd been rubbing it up and down the artificial sternum in his chest.

"You don't have to go, Mr. Stark. You're still healing. Please, just—"

Tony dropped his hand. "Actually, I do have to go. But you don't. And I'll be damned if I don't keep it that way."

"What if something happens and nobody is there to back you up?" The kid's breathing was turning frantic, his eyes wide. "What if they hurt you?"

"It's gonna be fine, Pete. There's not gonna be a fight."

"You said that in Germany as well," the kid whispered.

Tony blew out his breath and ran a hand through his hair. The kid's concerns were touching, truly, but this wasn't the time. He hated having to leave Peter like this, still unsure what had prompted him to drop by in the first place. He hated this whole mission in itself. The kid might even have a point. He shouldn't be flying into that mess. Especially when he was basically just hoping that it wouldn't end up in a confrontation, based on nothing more than his own assumptions. Flying into that mess on his own made his stomach turn. 

"Hi, FRI. Send a mission statement to Vision to meet me there." 

"Right away, Boss."

The kid looked up at him, eyes pointedly wet. "Pete, I want you to go home. Stay off the streets for tonight. Nothing is going to happen to me and you are safe at home, alright."

"Mr. Stark—"

"I don't want to hear it! You're not coming, end of discussion." Frustration was prickling up and down his spine, his fingers still awfully numb in contrast. He headed outside, towards the platform. "Go home and take the damn elevator!" A small wave was enough for FRIDAY to have the pieces of the Iron Man armor merge around him. He shot a last glance over his shoulder. "Car's on standby. Take that and keep your head down." And with that, he fired up his thrusters and took aim for the capital. 

##

The car ride back to Queens was one of the loneliest and most useless Peter had felt in probably ever. He hadn't felt this much like an 8-year-old little boy sent to his room without supper even when he had been an 8-year-old little boy. Mr. Stark had not even wanted to consider Peter's help. Had outride forbidden him to go. And with everything that had happened the last time Mr. Stark had gone on his own... 

Peter had tried his best. He had made it to the Tower in time. When Karen had shown him the Reddit post of what people were speculating to be the Rogues and managed to extract the location where it was taken, pinning them in Pennsylvania, Peter had jumped into action. He had been waiting for this, convinced it would happen at some point. Rogers would come back for his shield. Mr. Stark had stored it in one of the wall panels in the lab. Rogers wouldn't let that go. That shield was tied to who he was, to his very identity and Peter had been ready for when he would show up to reclaim it, but no. Apparently, he had miscalculated. The Rogues had gone on to D.C., not to New York.

Peter had been absolutely, positively determined to defy his mentor's order and accompany him anyway. But how was he gonna get to D.C.? He couldn't fly. He could have webbed himself to Mr. Stark but that would have been a) awkward and b) super inconvenient. He'd never gotten away with it either.

He had tried to get his mind off it, had gone out into the night anyway and let his frustration fuel the chase of a couple of car thieves. The tracker of his suit was simple enough to disable. Peter had switched from using the laptop to using his phone to access the secret server. It was a lot more flexible to work with. Now he could just turn the transmitter off and manually change the location of his suit to the coordinates of his bedroom, no matter where he was. It made the curfew Mr. Stark had set irrelevant and he could stay out as late as he liked. After all, he was on summer break and he didn't need kid-gloves. He certainly didn't need training wheels. He was Spider-Man after all.

Mr. Stark would never know. He was too busy with his solo missions anyway. Even if he did find out, Peter couldn't quite find it in himself to care. What was the point of all of this, of his strength, his speed and this ridiculous suit if he wasn't allowed to actually make a difference? Peter couldn't help but spiral down further and further into a dark mood. Couldn't help images from the fights in Germany and Siberia flickering up in his memory as he webbed-wrapped the two thieves who had tried to dodge him sprinting across Cypress Hills Cemetery. The catch didn't do anything for his mood though. Time to just head home and mope. It was bullshit. All of it. The Rogues. The authorities in the city as well as the country and the UN. All their bullying and power games. It wasn't fair. He wasn't going to allow these monsters to torment Mr. Stark any longer. He would find a way and when he did—

"Peter!"

He flinched back, the handle of the apartment door still in hand as May stormed from the living room towards the entrance. May? She was supposed to be at work!

"Where the hell have you been? I've been trying to call you for almost three hours! I called Ned, I called everyone in my contact list."

Peter could only blink at her. He had nothing. 

"I'm talking to you! Where were you?"

"I... erm..." Damn. He had put his phone on 'do not disturb' earlier that day and hadn't thought to change the settings after he had left the Tower. Had only turned off the suit's tracker. He had no excuse ready to go for her, except some form of the truth. "I... I was at the Tower, actually."

"It's Monday! You go to the Tower on Mondays now as well?"

Peter bit his lip. "Not... not every Monday, but there was a project that Mr. Stark was going to finish today and I really—"

"—you really wanted to watch." She had her arms crossed, eyes narrowed on him. "I want to know where you are going to be when you leave this house, Peter. You're 14 for god's sake! This is New York City!" 

He bit his lip, eyes on the floor, hoping it would translate more as shame than the annoyance that was actually rushing through him. "I'm sorry, May."

"I called you! Why do you have that phone if I can't even reach you on it?"

"I... I keep it on silent... in the lab." That wasn't a lie either. Mr. Stark would go out of his mind if every twitter notification on his phone would chime up with a cheerful 'bling!'. "I... I forgot to turn it back on, I'm sorry."

"Is this what you do while I'm at work and think you're safe at home?" She had turned her back, pacing up and down the living room. "I don't like this, Peter. I honestly don't like any of this."  

"I just forgot to tell you this morning. I'm sorry." He could feel the heat that rose to his cheeks at the blatant lie, but thankfully May was still pacing, only sending him short glances. "It's not like I'm out gambling or something. It's a great job and I just really wanted to go."

"I want you to succeed, honey. I do! More than anything! But our lives are very, very different from that of a Tony Stark. There are different rules for us. And there are definitely different rules for you!"

He shook his head, dismissing the implication. Like he didn't know that. There always seemed to be different rules for him than everyone else. Mr. Stark himself had just made that point very clear. 

"I wouldn't even know about this if my shift hadn't been cut short. Peter, I can't have you just do whatever you want without telling me." She stopped at last, eyes on him. "If this is the kind of conduct that is taught and encouraged over there, then maybe this isn't the best fit for you. If this is the kind of behavior you're coming away with from this internship, it's... it's unacceptable. I won't have it!"

"I said, I'm sorry! I promise it won't happen again. It was just... just a special occasion and I didn't know if this chance would come around again while I still got the chance to learn from them!"

"You've been spending a lot of time at that internship and I'm glad that you've got this opportunity and that they ended up valuing your time there. But maybe... maybe with the new school year approaching it'll be time to focus your schoolwork again."

His jaw dropped. He thought he had dealt with May's reluctance for the internship already! He had thought that all these suspicious feeling "You... you really want me to drop the internship?"

"Honey, you've been working for them all summer long. Honestly, I'm not comfortable with all the long days and all these nights you came home late. You're a student, not one of their employees."

He shook his head in bewilderment. "Right now, but... but when I'm done with high school maybe they'll... maybe they'll turn this into a full-time gig! May, Stark Industries is the biggest tech company in the world! Mr. Stark, he—"

"And what about college? I thought you wanted to get a degree in engineering or chemistry?"

"I..." He frowned and shuffled from one foot to the other. "I did. I mean, I do. And with a letter of recommendation from Stark Industries I could—"

"Peter, do you know how much work a degree like that is? You're 14! You have so much time. You can work for years and years, but you're only a teenager once! You only have now to do all the teenager-stuff."

"I... I do..." He shook his head in irritation, trying to fend off the uncomfortable truth she was trying to get at. "I do do teenager-stuff."

"Oh yeah? When was the last time you went out with your friends? Went to the cinema or out to the park? I can't even remember the last movie you raved about or the last time you had Ned over for dinner."

He scowled at her. He had just been to the park yesterday, stopped a guy from stealing two bicycles.

"I do go to the park! And I totally hang out with Ned like all the time."

Fine, most of the time she thought he was at Ned's, he actually was on patrol. And he couldn't really have Ned over when May was home because there was always the risk of Ned bringing up how often Peter really did ditch him in favor of the internship or patrolling. But May didn't know that so it was really unfair that she would use it against him without even knowing the full extent of his antisocial— He really needed to stop making the case against himself. It didn't matter. What he did was important, teenager or not.

"It's a lot of money, May. What they pay me now."

"And I'm glad they do. Finally." He cringed at the dryness of her voice. "But money can't buy back your youth."

"But it can pay for college!"

"So can a scholarship if you spend more time focusing on your schoolwork in the next year!"

He crossed his arms and stared at the carpet. There was no way he'd give up the internship. No way he'd even consider it. Not just the pretend part that he actually spent out Spider-Man-ing, but the hours with Mr. Stark in the lab as well. There was no way.

"Just think about it, okay? I don't like how they groom you into a little worker bee at that company."

He grimaced in annoyance at that. He'd been so careful to drop positive little stories about Mr. Stark again and again for the last few weeks but May's distrust just didn't seem to want to go away! "They aren't grooming me into anything. I like—"

"Peter, just think about it. I think it's time you cut back on the hours you spend there. I don't like what this is turning you into."

"That's not fair! I don't—”

"And this is exactly what I mean." She looked up at him, her gaze almost positively drilling into him and he had to force himself to withstand the urge to turn away from her. "You don't raise your voice to me, Peter. I'm responsible for you and you can be damn well sure that I won't tolerate you taking on any of Tony Stark's antics."

Frustration was burning in his eyes, but he couldn't let his mood ruin this. He forced his voice to stay low, reasonable. "Mr. Stark didn't even—"

"We're done talking about this!" She was determined. "Unless you want me to pull my consent altogether right away."

His jaw slammed shut. May couldn't be serious. His eyes stung and when he realized how close he was to actual tears he turned on his heel, stormed into his room and slammed the door shut behind himself. Head buried in his hands he leaned against the door, stifling a guttural groan. May did call out for him a couple of times to come back out before she sighed herself and started banging around with some dishes in the kitchen.

Peter flung himself face-first onto his bed. What was going on? He was slipping from one nightmare scenario into the next. He had been so careful after May had been conciliated with the paycheck they had received from the internship, so careful to paint a positive picture with every little interaction he could share about his work with Mr. Stark. How had she gotten so mad so quickly? She never usually spoke to Peter like that. 

There had only been one incident that had gotten him in serious trouble with his aunt and uncle over the years and that had been so long ago. He couldn't even really remember most of the details around it. It was before they had moved to New York, must have still been in New Hampshire. It had been about that one framed picture Peter had of himself and his parents. Peter had taken it out of the house and shown it to a few boys he was trying to befriend. May found out about it somehow and had been mad as hell. He had never seen her like that before and never since. She took the picture from him and the lecture on private family business and how it was never to be discussed with strangers, would live in Peter's memory forever. He had wanted to argue how the boys weren't strangers. That they were his friends. Julius's mom even worked in the principle's office of the school Peter had been supposed to attend in the fall. 

All of it had come as a shock to him. Ben hadn't been pleased with him either but it was May who had been properly mad. Soon it hadn't mattered though. Ben had found a new job in Queens and they had moved to New York City. A few weeks later for his birthday, Ben had returned the picture with a new small frame and told him just to keep it in his desk drawer.

Peter had made sure never to bring up his family's business to strangers again. Had gone out of his way not to upset May. Made sure he was the best-behaved kid May could ask for - well not counting the sneaking out and Spider-Man-ing. 

He had always been well behaved and polite. He had always listened to whoever he was supposed to listen to and where did that get him? Maybe all this polite obedience was nothing more than craven submission. Weakness. Those weren't qualities that a hero should hold onto. A wanna-be hero. That was more like it. He still had a long way to go before he could live up to that hero status.

His thoughts wandered back to Mr. Stark. Peter opened one social media app after the other, searching for any news about D.C. but there was nothing. It was driving him insane. The not-knowing. The wait. He buried his face between his arms, tempted to just let his frustration take over and scream into his pillow.

Instead, he picked up his phone again and went to the little short cut he had implemented. It was sick and wrong, but he couldn't help it. He had found the videos by accident. He had really just searched Mr. Stark's ghost drive for any backups of the video evidence of his patrols that he had been carefully erasing from the drive. All those videos that the suit recorded of him using all these featured that he technically wasn't even supposed to know about. It had been an accident, a mistake, but once he had started, once he had clicked on one of them, he just couldn't stop himself.

There were all these little home videos of Mr. Stark and his son stored on the server. Sometimes less than a minute long, obviously filmed intentionally by Mr. Stark or Miss Potts. Others were a lot longer, casual situations recorded by the AI that pre-dated FRIDAY. 

It was not just morbid curiosity, the thrill of learning more about Mr. Stark's human side. That wasn't even what affected Peter. It wasn't even that those private moments of baking Christmas cookies or playing with that little bot that followed them around the house had sated his curiosity after Peter had learned about the man's son in the first place. It wasn't even about Mr. Stark at all. It was how easily Peter's twisted mind could see himself in that young boy. It was all too easy. Aiden Stark was just a little dark-haired boy and it was the easiest thing in the world for Peter to imagine himself in those kinds of family moments with his own dad. How he might have played with him building little towers out of toy bricks. How his mom might have carried and tickled him just like Miss Potts had done with that little boy. Peter had none of that. No videos, no photos, barely even any memories of them. Except for that one picture. This could so easily have been how his life had looked like at one point.

Maybe all this was counter-intuitive. Maybe those videos should make him mad or sad or depressed but his twisted mind didn't work like that. He was addicted to these daydreams and they soothed something in Peter's very soul that he was too scared to really question. It was wrong. That much he knew. All of it. That he was on that server in the first place. Betraying Mr. Stark's trust. He hadn't set out to do this. He hadn't gone looking for this but after he had dipped a toe into that water it had turned into a bottomless vortex.

Peter shut off the clip he had been watching and instead went to the Spider-Man folder and carefully erased all the videos that would prove this very patrol that Mr. Stark had just outright forbidden. The thought crossed Peter's mind to look up any new backup videos the Iron Man suit might have recorded an hour or even minutes ago, but just at that moment, a news alert popped up on his phone.

"IRON MAN IN WASHINGTON, D.C. - POSSIBLE ROGUE AVENGERS SIGHTING SUSPECTED"

The article showed grainy footage of the Iron Man suit flying around a warehouse, conversing with Vision. None of them even pictured the Rogues. Mr. Stark should be safe then. For now.

Chapter Text

At first, Peter was a little confused. He didn't know if it was arrogance or sheer incompetence that was the Rogues' problem. Maybe they thought themselves invincible and didn't care all that much about people tracking their movements. Maybe they just lacked the general knowledge when it came to technology and the internet that they didn't realize the breadcrumbs they were leaving behind. It had been over a week that they had popped up in Northern America for the first time and since then they seemed to be omnipresent, a constant looming about every community. 

Mr. Stark had been busy dealing with Secretary Ross, so Peter had spent less time in the lab and more time on patrol. He also seized the opportunity to let May dote on him a bit. He made sure to help her prepare some of the meals, spend time with her after, just determined to ease her mind when it came to all the things she feared might change between them. They celebrated his birthday a good week after the Rogues had popped up for the first time. Wednesdays were internship days and he was kind of disappointed that Mr. Stark was too busy with whatever Ross had thought of this time. At least May couldn't complain about him spending his birthday at the Tower. She had come home early, around noon. Luckily he had immersed himself in Rogues-research and wasn't out patrolling or his efforts to appease May after the blowup the week before would have been for nothing.

"Is everything alright? Usually, Taylor tries to get you to work more hours rather than less."

She pressed a kiss against his temple in greeting. "Oh, it was nothing. Some security scare that ended up people overreacting, but the bar and restaurant had already cleared out. He knows that we have plans for your birthday and Josh will be fine on his own for the afternoon."

Peter frowned. "What security scare?"

She waved him off. "Someone thought they saw something which turned out to be nothing, but you know how things are right now."

That he did. He had the police show up on no less than 10 occasions the previous week while he was trying to help people. Some of those officers were alright, but he had been shot at another three times by over-eager cops. One incident had even brought out that damn police chief again. He had thought that things were improving and most people did welcome his help, but a lot of them were still on edge. Who could blame them? He sometimes had a hard time telling who was on which team, who was a threat and who wasn't and he was in the middle of the whole mess.

There wasn't much he could do about it except figure it out himself. Mr. Stark refused to even talk about anything related to the Rogues. Peter couldn't really blame him either, not after what the Rogues had done to him. Maybe he could blame Mr. Stark a little for excluding him entirely, but Peter was working on that. He'd prove to his mentor that he was ready and capable to stand up to them. That Peter had his back.

Peter's birthday turned out to be a great day despite all the underlying struggles around them. They went to his favorite Thai place and despite Peter's nerves, things went smoothly. Ned didn't make any suspicious comments about not seeing Peter enough, neither did May. They went to the movies after and he honestly couldn't even remember the last time he had been to the cinema. It's not that May didn't have a point about his social life suffering from all the crime-fighting and interning he had been doing over the last months, but he couldn't just think of himself. He had responsibilities. Responsibilities he had shied away from before at an enormous cost. If he hadn't maybe Ben would have still been there to celebrate his birthday with him.

May would never understand that though. Hell, if Mr. Stark had his reservations about letting Peter in on the big stuff, how would May ever cope with this? That was his lot to deal with and what kind of hero could he ever hope to become if he couldn't even deal with those domestic squabbles?

When they came home from the cinema, May went to bed and Peter sat around doing nothing in his room for a bit. He didn't feel like going to bed yet. He had contemplated going out on patrol but it was just too risky with May at home, just in case that she might want to check up on him. The day hadn't been all that emotional even with Ben not there with them. May had gone out of her way to keep things positive but he had felt the strain so he was sure that she had as well. His desk screamed of the investigation work he had done into the Rogues and he didn't want to think about that for this one night either. Instead, he just lay down on the floor and looked up to the ceiling, made an effort to clear his mind for once and relish in the good vibes of the day. From time to time, he checked his phone for new messages but there were no new notifications. Some kids from school had sent text messages in the morning or left comments on his social media accounts, but there was nothing from the one person he had been secretly waiting to hear from. He had more important things to do, of course. Peter was just an intern after all, he had to start reminding himself of that. He had to stop interpreting more into their bond than was actually—

There was a quiet knock on his window and Peter sat up like an arrow. A small drone was hovering on the other side of the glass, not unlike the surveillance spider-drone he had learned the emblem of his suit could turn into. He quickly jumped to his feet and opened the window. A small parcel was tied around the drone, swinging back and forth underneath it.

"Hi there," he breathed out nervously.

The little bot chirped, not unlike U or Dum-Y would.

"Is that for me?" 

His hand reached for the parcel after another chirp from the drone. It took off just as Peter had loosened its cargo. He settled back onto the floor and carefully untangled the brown wrapping paper and found a black box inside with a note on top.

Happy Birthday.
                – TS

Lip caught between his teeth, he put the little note aside and looked for the release to open the box. It unfolded into different layers displaying a 32 piece lightweight, non-magnetic, titanium tool kit. 

"Shit..." he mumbled under his breath. He took out the smallest flat screwdriver and turned it over in his hands. It was fashioned in the same design as Mr. Stark's own tools. There wasn't even a brand name on them. Peter had always assumed they were custom made. He put the screwdriver back and picked up his phone instead.

You're insane. It's way too much and you know it. 

He waited a second trying to come up with something meaningful to add but settled for a simple.

It's amazing. Thank you, Mr. Stark.

He didn't have to wait long for a response.

Need to live up to my eccentric reputation. I've worked hard for it. 

Then a second message popped up.

I'll see you on Friday.

Peter let himself fall back onto the carpet, eyes at his spot on the ceiling. He was absolutely looking forward to getting back into the lab. Those hours working with Mr. Stark had always been fun but he found it harder and harder to stay in the room for it. More often than not he was distracted thinking about the Rogues. It's not like he wasn't aware that Mr. Stark was completely capable and much more experienced in these things than he was, but he was still only human. He might act like he was invincible but he wasn't and nobody least of all he himself seemed to appreciate that fact.

It turned into a sleepless night, riddled with questions he couldn't answer and scenarios he had no solutions for. Peter wanted to do something, wanted to help somehow and the frustration of his ineffectiveness was keeping his brain from shutting down and sleep to come. He gave up at about 3 am and planted himself in front of his laptop, blanket wrapped around his shoulders. He had looked at that data what felt like a thousand times. He just couldn't find the line to connect the right dots. 

It wasn't until the next morning when he expanded his inquiries to more than just the US targets that he got suspicious. There were sightings including photographic evidence and sometimes eye witness accounts all over the globe. They were trying to hide in plain sight. That much became very clear to Peter. Instead of actually hiding and letting the authorities figure out a pattern when they did get caught, they were opting for a chaos theory that actively aimed to veil their true targets. 

He went for a different approach after that realization. If he would go for the chaos theory, he'd try to draw attention away from those places he'd really wanted to target. There were a couple of areas that they seemed to avoid at all costs. One of them was New York City. That might be a clue for one of two things. Either they were trying to avoid Mr. Stark or they were trying to draw him away from the city.

It took Peter another week until he figured out another clue. There had been a couple of false alarms in town, both of them in Brooklyn. Well, there had been more than a couple of instances where people had thought they might have seen the Rogues and in the end, it turned out to be a prank or someone just angling for a bit of attention. But Peter could pinpoint two specific occasions that were waved off as fake that he wasn't all too sure. There was little reliable information available for either of them but Peter had direct contact to a potential eyewitness.

"So, that security scare you talked about the other day." He had his eyes on the plate in front of him, speaking between bites. "Did they ever find out what really happened?"

May just shrugged. "It was nothing, Peter."

"But you said people left so they must have been really freaked out by something."

She sighed. "I really don't want you to get all invested in this, Peter. It's bad enough that you work in such close proximity to someone like Tony Stark."

His stomach cramped at the reference and the plain dislike May still harbored for his mentor. He couldn't blame her. She didn't know how different from those people Mr. Stark really was. She would probably adore him if she only knew how much Mr. Stark was really looking out for him.

"I'm not invested in this at all. Just curious what happened." 

"Nothing happened. Someone thought they had recognized one of the spies and it turned out to be the wrong person. Not even the right hair color. Everyone freaked out for nothing, the end. Are you going to eat that or do you just want to push it back and forth on your plate a little more?"

He looked up at her, his cheeks stinging with the feeling of being caught. "No, I... I'll still eat that."

"Alright then." May got up from her chair and carried her empty plate to the kitchen. "I gotta get going. Send me a text when you get back Ned's, alright?" She gave his hair a quick ruffle before she made her way out of the door for work.

Peter piled the rest of the food onto his plate and headed for his room. There was a bit more research waiting for him before he was going to head out to patrol.

##

There were times in life that sucked more than others. This was one of those times. Was he ever going to get out of this vicious circle between the corrupt higher-ups in the government and the unrelenting stubbornness of Rogers and his little friends? There had been a moment - a short but almost blissfully moment - where things had slowed down, where he'd been able to breathe but now, things just were steadily going downhill. While D.C. had been a bust for Ross and his agenda, that didn't really help Tony all that much. He had stalled long enough not to put himself in that awkward position of actually having to fight Captain America in the US capital where who-knew-how-many random people could stream the event live on social media.

Without his shield and without most of their weapons the Rogues had been less of a threat but unfortunately for Tony's stress level, while the shield was still safe in his lab, they had managed to get their hands on some of their equipment. Apparently, that had untied a knot in their plans. Dozens of sightings had been reported in North America as well as in Europe and Asia. Tony first assumed that they were looking for something, but the more information from these incidents became known the clearer it became that they were mostly focused on small missions. Hostage situations, organized crime. Most locations and targets aligned with the data FRIDAY had stored on the intel that Rogers and Romanoff had been focussing, when they weren't chasing the Winter Soldier.

They were still Avenging. And there was nothing Tony could see other than the fact that he was still the one dealing with the fallout for it.

Vision had stayed in D.C. for the past week, dealing with Ross. Officially, he was acting as a mediator between the Avengers - or what was left of them - and the government. Tony sure was grateful to him for offering to go, especially with how hard the past months had been on Vision. Many of the conflicts between the team had been built on emotional grounds. Betrayal. Deceit. Pain. Vision was still learning about all that. It was his biggest weakness in dealing with people but at the same time made him the best asset that Tony could wish for in the capital.

People didn't understand the android, misinterpreted his analytical make-up as purely a weakness. Had Vision been dependent only on himself, it definitely would have been, but the way the government officials, aids and advisors disregarded Vision's growing humanity, made them susceptible to one major mistake: they let down their guard around him. Their arrogance made them think they were oh-so-clever with their highbrow quips and jabs at Vision's expense. They were too arrogant to know they should fear Vision or at least Vision's perfect memory. He could recount every conversation to Tony word for word and Tony knew exactly how to read the undertones and what the underlying meanings of the sloppily hidden insinuations were.

Of course, there was the added danger that long time exposure to these idiots in D.C. would have very likely made Tony snap and just punch one of them in the face. Or two. Likely Ross. Both times. Vision was a safer option for the team. He was getting close. He would figure things out and bring Ross down. That was step one to his steep way out of all this mess.

"Is he not going to get in trouble if he needs to lie to them?" Rhodey was holding onto the wooden railing of the physical therapy equipment Tony had installed at the Compound.

Tony's face was pressed against the ground, recalibrating a couple of connections on Rhodey's left leg brace. "Nah. He doesn't really have to lie." He rolled himself over to the other side. "He knows that he is not allowed to tell them anything about what we talk about because it's confidential. If they were to ask him he just says that and they have to deal with it. It's actually a bonus because he will just tell them the same thing in the same tone no matter if they ask what I had for breakfast or what the new schematics for the updates on the Quinjet are. Alright, try it again."

Tony got back to his feet, still a little rusty himself but he had nothing to complain about considering what Rhodey had to go through because of him. Rhodey turned, hands both gripping the railing on either side of the walkway and carefully put one foot in front of the other. It was on the fifth step that he lost some of his balance and toppled forward but Tony was right there, ready to break his fall.

"I got you, just lean back a bit... there you go." 

Carefully, Rhodey let himself fall back and came to sit on the ground. His breathing was heavy, his shirt drenched with sweat. "That wasn't too bad, was it..."

"It's nowhere near where it's going to be, buddy. I promise it'll be so much better once we have everything—"

"Hey..." Rhodey squeezed his arm tightly and shook his head. "You don't have to do that, Tony. You don't need to sell this to me. I trust you."

Tony huffed out a doubtful laugh and went to get some water for his friend.

"We will get there when we get there," Rhodey called after him. "And if for some reason it shouldn't work, we'll just try something else." He took the water gratefully and swallowed half the bottle in one go, still somewhat breathless from the exercise. "How are things with the Spider guy?"

Tony shrugged. They were what they were. The kid was antsy to get out there and prove himself and Tony did his best to hold him as close to the ground as possible.

"Pepper said he was at the Compound while you were out of it."

"You're chatting with Pepper a lot, aren't you..."

"Only to complain about you, Tones."

He took the empty water bottle out of Rhodey's hand and binned it before he helped him to maneuver back into his wheelchair. 

"That sounds like something I should get offended by."

"I'm serious, Tony. If Ross finds out you work with that dude, shit's gonna hit the fan. They could order you to round him up and you'll have no choice but to go after him."

He shook his head, grateful that the way he was pushing the chair Rhodey couldn't see his face. That was the worst-case scenario. It wasn't like he was micromanaging the kid for fun.

"He won't find out."

"Well, what if he does? Can't you just get the guy to sign the Accords?"

"Nope. Not gonna happen. He's not even in the Accords jurisdiction and I'm not gonna force that piece of shit onto anyone if I can help it. As long as he sticks to his neighborhood, Ross doesn't get to care about him."

"What if they find out about Germany?"

"They won't, Rhodey. Plus, we're close. We'll get Ross before any of this even becomes an issue."

The data he had been able to compile with Vision's help was all circumstantial so far. He had partial intel on illegal bribes, human rights violations, the active manipulation of factual government protocols so they would support Ross' version of the Accords. Tony still needed that missing link that would bring all of this together, but it would only be a matter of time and he would find the essential lever to get Ross fired. Well, worst case fired, best case arrested and thrown behind bars. And it would be Tony's pleasure to personally fly out to D.C. and put those cuffs on the asshole himself.

With Ross out of the way, the corrupt system uprooted and eradicated, Tony would be able to concentrate on the real battle that was waiting out there.

Two weeks since the initial incident in D.C., Ross still haunted his day to day life. He was desperate to find Tony colluding with the Rogues, just looking for a reason that Tony would break the Accords and be at his mercy. With every little scene that the Rogues were involved in, Ross grew more and more insufferable. He called, sent Tony across the country and even across the ocean just because he could.

They had been on this particular call for a good 20 minutes and Tony was desperate to hang up, but the Rogues gave the secretary every ammunition he needed to hammer his propaganda through. They played right into the asshole's hands and Tony had a hard time keeping himself out of the line of fire.

"How many times, I don't know where the hell they are, Ross. I certainly won't fly to India to find out if those sightings have been real. It's a waste of my time."

"You are bound by the Accords, Stark! You have to do as the UN tells you to."

"Only in the event of an active threat."

"The Rogues are an active threat!"

Tony grabbed the edge of his workbench, desperately trying to keep a lid on his temper. "And when we find out where they actually are, I'll intercept them on grounds of the UN mandate."

"Listen, Stark, if you think I'm an idiot and you can just keep me in the dark about your little side project, you're terribly mistaken."

Tony resisted the urge to bite his lip and rub a hand across his face in order to shake his frustration with this idiot.

"You keep me way too busy with your treasure hunts to leave any time for side projects. It hardly leaves me with time for my actual day job."

"Your ego will be the end of you, Stark. You really think I don't know what you're doing with that Spider guy?"

Tony's stare was fixed on the projection of the asshole in front of him. "I assure you, Ross, I have no control over the Spider guy. He's a vigilante. He does whatever the fuck he wants. And last time I checked, delivering burglars and bicycle thieves to the police wasn't a crime."

"Come on, Stark. You really thought I wasn't going to find out that you sent your guy out to look for the Rouges while you stall me?"

"Excuse me? I did no such thing!"

Well, he certainly hadn't sent Peter places. If anything the opposite was true.

"I already have a team on the way, so you don't have to pretend to be all coy about this."

The hair on Tony's neck actually rose as a wave of dread rolled down his back. What the hell was the asshole even talking about? Quickly, discreetly he typed out a couple of lines for FRIDAY, making her display the current location of the kid, eyes firmly on the secretary.

"You should know by now that coy isn't really part of my repertoire, Ross."

FRIDAY had a short message plop up in the corner of the projection for him.

"Unable to determine location."

No, that... that was impossible. The suit was tracking Peter's every move. He looked back up at the projection of the secretary of state, the smug smile on his lips, defying arrogance in his eyes. 

Chapter Text

He had them. He knew that it would only be a matter of time until he'd find them. They were way too smug, way too burly not to attract attention. It had been clever to send out the Widow first, Peter would give them that, but in the end, it was inevitable for them to get caught out in the open.

He was in Brooklyn, only a block away from May's hotel. That was honestly the worst part about this scenario. He didn't want her anywhere near these people and a block was way too close for his liking. Hell, anywhere in the state of New York would be too close to his liking.

"So Tony just sends his underling in now?" Wilson clutched the fabric of his jacket in a show of fake hurt. "Does he not care for us anymore?"

"Nobody sent me here," Peter snarled.

Rogers waved a hand at Wilson, signaling him to stop.

"Just step out of the way, son." Rogers' voice was so calm it was almost insulting how little he was bothered by Peter's presence. "This doesn't concern you."

"Oh, you'll find that it does."

Rogers sighed and shot a glance at Wilson. "Why don't you go ahead and join Clint. I'll meet you in there in a minute."

Wilson looked Peter up and down before he just shrugged. The door into the building was only a few steps in front of them. They wouldn't have to get past Peter but they sure would have to get a whole lot closer. Of course, Peter could have simply taken them out one by one. let Wilson get away and go after him once he had dealt with Rogers first, but why chase the bird dude later if he was in front of him right there and then? As Wilson stepped forward, eyes still on Peter as he made his way to the doorway, Peter gave his wrists a short flick and shot a set of webs at him, shackling his ankles first, then wrapped one around his torso that pinned Wilson's arms snug to his body.

"The fuck!" Wilson wiggled his shoulders, trying to break free, but only managed to make himself lose his balance. Only Rogers' quick reaction kept him on his feet. 

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Rogers furiously tugged on the webs, his arms bulging but not even Captain America would be strong enough to tear Peter's webs apart like that. The batch was perfect. He had made sure that it was.

"What? You think you can just do whatever the fuck you want without any repercussions?" Peter shrugged. "Well, you can't." He took a step closer to them, hands balled into fists. "I'll make sure you pay for what you did."

"For what we did?" Roger huffed out a laugh. "What is it that we did, son? We fought to keep people safe. Isn't that what you claim to do?"

"You didn't though! You didn't keep them safe." Peter couldn't hold onto his temper. He should be collected, concentrate, but he had waited for this for too long. "You got them hurt, caused chaos and put everyone else who's like you... who's different... you put them in danger too!"

"Oh, did we? Do you know what they did to the team?" He helped Wilson to sit on the floor. "Where they kept them locked up before I got them out? Where Tony Stark helped to put them?"

He tried to control his voice, his temper. How could he in the face of such blatant arrogance? "Here's an idea, maybe don't break the law and you won't be put in jail."

"In jail? Is that what we call submarine bunkers and shock collars now?"

Peter's face twitched and he was once again thankful for the mask. Rogers' arms flexed again, his hands agitated. Probably phantom pains from the missing shield.

"That's where they'd put you too and you know it's true. They'd gladly lock all of us in there and drop the key in the deepest part of the ocean." The man's head was tilted to the side a bit, his eyes narrowed. "We're the same, you and I. We fight for the same thing, Spider-Man." 

"I'm nothing like you," he spat out. "I'd never do what you have done."

"You'd never fight to protect your team? The ones you love?" Rogers' shoulders shrugged. "Isn't that what you think you're doing right now?"

Peter's heart was beating in his throat. "No," he whispered and cursed himself for the weakness in his voice. "No!" he said again, this time stronger, the vibration of his voice fuelled by anger much more than fear. "I'd never do what you did."

Rogers sighed and lowered his head in what seemed to be less shame and more discontent. "I protected my brother. I freed my team. My conscience is clear, son."

"Conscience... Is that what you want to call it? Conscience? Do you even know what that is? You almost fucking killed him, you asshole!" He couldn't hold it back any longer, frustration burned in his eyes, his skin hot with rage. "How do you dare speak of your conscience when you left your teammate, someone that was supposed to be a friend behind to die on his own?!"

Rogers did take a step back at that. His eyes shifted to his left for just a moment but distinct enough that Peter noticed it. Hawkeye, arrow at the ready, was perched on a window sill two stories above them. Barton hesitated for just a second too long though and Peter shot a web to intercept the arrow first, then Barton himself. He grunted as the net struck him and pinned him against the window frame.

"Listen, Spider," Rogers had his arms stretched out in a calming gesture that was almost mockingly easeful. "I don't know what Stark has told you—”

"What he told me? He couldn't really tell me anything while I was waiting for him to wake from his coma."

Rogers took another step back, this time didn't hide the glance he sent up to Hawkeye. "That's not—"

"10 days," Peter snarled following Rogers' movement, taking a step towards him every time he retreated. "For 10 days we didn't even know if he was ever gonna wake up again, but I guess that's just the price you have to pay if you oppose the wise, omniscient Captain America. The pillar of morality. The man who has no qualms about beating his teammates into submission."

"That's not..." Rogers shook his head, eyes wide. "I didn't—"

"What? Do you really want to pretend that you're shocked? Do you want to pretend like you forgot that he's only human underneath all that titanium that breaks like paper under vibranium assault?"

"You need to calm down, Spider." Rogers held his arms out wide what was surely meant to be appeasing but every move the man-made just riled Peter up even more. "There was a fight, yes. But he was fine when I left. I would never—”

Peter couldn't take it any longer. "Karen, taser webs." He fired at Rogers, two, three webs in a row, but he was too angry to place them accurately, his movements too sloppy.

#

"Call him, FRI. Call him right now!"

"Satellite functions of the Spider-Man suit were disabled, Boss."

"Fuck. Fucking shit. Fuck, fuck, fuck!" His own suit assembled around him and he shot off the Tower's balcony into the New York City sky. "Scan the city. Hack the damn NYPD, I don't care. Just fucking find him!"

Tony had disconnected the call with Ross less than a second after he finally understood what was happening. He might make it in time. He was lucky that he was at the Tower, not the Compound. If they were anywhere in the city he might make it in time.

"Brooklyn, 14th Avenue on the corner of 51st street." 

The suit adjusted directions while FRIDAY was still talking before Tony could even move a finger let alone give her the order to do so.

"Our satellites have picked up the suit's signature energy pattern. Sir, It's the backyard of an old print shop."

"Break me through that coding into the kid's ear now, girl."

Buildings were racing past beneath him. It only took moments for him to get there. Brooklyn was just across the East River, a little further south past the zoo and a few blocks of residential areas. He had to be faster. He needed every second to get them out of there in time. Tony's pulse was throbbing in his ears as the suit smashed down in the backyard. All he could see was how close Rogers was to the kid. 

"Hate to break up the little reunion but everyone needs to go home now." 

All he wanted to do was grab the kid and fly out of there but he had no idea how close Ross' unit was. Rogers' eyes were dark, forehead furrowed at his sudden appearance until he ducked out of the way of one of Peter's webs.

"Spider-Man! Stand down now." He felt sick. This was going to cost them. "Get out of here, now!"

"Tony, just calm down for—"

"Shut up, Rogers." He was aware of just how much his voice was wavering, but there was nothing he could do about that now, about the fear of what they could do to the kid. Or even to him. Well, better him than Peter. He could only hope that the suit would distort his voice enough for that terror swinging along with every word to be unrecognizable.

Unfazed by what the sheer sight of him was doing to Tony's pulse, Rogers stepped closer, eyes intently on him. "Tony, we need this intel. People's lives are at stake."

"Didn't you hear him?" Peter yelled out. "Shut up, asshole."

"Boss, comms to the Spider-suit are open now."

"Leave. Leave right now. You hear me, Pete?" The kid visibly twitched as Tony's voice was projected right into his ear. "You get out right now! Ross' people will be here any minute."

Instead, Peter shot another web in the direction of Rogers but hit Wilson who had crept up behind him. Wilson shook and went to the ground with a thump, twitching as he fell. Tony stared at him, the sparkles that came off the strings striking in the dark alleyway. His jaw dropped. That was not a regular web. Taser-webs. The kid hadn't just turn off the tracker. This... this was a lot worse.

Before Tony could even react Peter jumped forward and shot a similar web at Rogers, but missed. Electric static buzzed as the web hit the back wall instead of Rogers.

"Peter!" The kid jerked as his loud scream was transmitted by the comm directly to the mask. "Stop! Fucking stop!"

"We can take them, Mr. Stark. They don't have the witch with them. We can take them out together." Peter ducked, just barely avoided the wooden pallet Rogers had thrown at him.

"Leave him be, Capsicle, I'm warning you." His hands were numb. "Ross's people are on their way right now, so unless you want to reacquaint yourselves with the Raft, I'd suggest—"

"On their way?" Wilson snarled, still too shaky to get to his feet, his arms still tied to his body. "Looks to me like they are already here."

"Peter!" Tony made sure only Peter could hear him. "Get your damn ass to the Tower. Now. Ross knows you're here." 

The kid did look up at that. 

"They are coming in from the South East and North Western streets, boss."

"North East's the way out," he told them, then looked at Peter. "Go, now!"

"I'm not gonna leave you alone with them!" He didn't even bother to use the comm but Tony was not gonna let the Rogues overhear more of their conversation than he had to.

"If they find both of us here, we'll be cellmates by tonight. Get the fuck out now!"

That seemed to sway Peter after all. Reluctant he pulled himself up to the rooftop of the building and disappeared behind it without another look at the Rogues.

"What?" Wilson spat out. "Running away, Stark? Afraid you can't take us all?"

"Sam, stop it. Let's just... let's just go." Rogers pulled out a knife and cut through the last of the spider webs.

"Is that really who you want to be Tony?" His eyes shot up to the side of the building where Barton too was working his way out of one of Peter's webs. "That the side of history, you want to be on?"

"That's enough, Clint." It looked almost like Rogers was going to step closer to Tony, say something but then they retreated into the shadows of the alleyway. 

Tony's pulse was racing, he was out of breath, felt like he'd just done a 5K after a long winter. "I need some fire, FRI."

Quickly, precisely, he melted away the remaining pieces of web, watched them frizzle up and disintegrate into their elementary components. The smoke had barely lifted when the SWAT team stormed around the corner. In his head-up display, FRIDAY was marking off snipers that appeared on the rooftops.

"A little late to the party, gentlemen. And ladies... I presume." His limbs were still trembling but with the suit, nobody would ever be able to tell.

"Chief, only Stark's here." The unit leader didn't even bother to address Tony, just pointed to four of his men. "You, down that ally. I want the whole perimeter secured." Then he tapped his helmet again. "Team Delta, search those rooms. Everything and everyone gets cataloged." He looked up at Tony and even with his face hidden behind the tinted visor of his helmet Tony could feel the aversion of the man pierce him to his very bones.

"FRI, tell me that the kid got out."

"Peter is currently crawling along the bottom of the Brooklyn bridge. He does not seem to be pursued by anyone."

"Tell him, parking garage and elevator. He can't be seen scaling the Tower."

"Right away, Sir."

The group of officers in front of him parted and the NYPD's chief stepped forward, an eyebrow raised as he looked around the backyard.

"Well, well, what's with the smoke?"

"Clarke. Your guess is as good as mine."

"Those almost look like spider webs up there on that window sill."

Tony didn't even bother to look where Clarke was pointing. "You'd know better than me, Chief."

He huffed a dry chuckle. "This was a close one, huh?" He stepped close to Tony, no visor hiding his contempt. "I'll get him. I've gotten close before. It's only a matter of time and it'll be my pleasure to make it a double deal."

Tony crooked his head to the side. "Not sure what you're implying here, Chief. You seem like you need a hobby. Too much work is not good for your soul." He looked around the place pointedly and sighed deeply. "Well, seems like there's nobody here for me to bring back for Ross. Darn. I guess I'll be on my way."

"Cut the crap, Stark." Clarke stepped a little closer to him but stayed at a respectable distance. "You're coming to the station with us. You have some explaining to do!"

"Do I? And on whose orders am I doing that?"

"Mine! My orders!" Clarke's face was turning red and despite all the adrenaline, all the terror that still rested in Tony's bones, he couldn't help but get some satisfaction out of the chief's desperate attempt to rule his power over him.

"Your orders? My, my, Chief Clarke. Is there an actual UN mandate those orders rest upon or did you just pull that authorization out of your ass?" Tony wouldn't even pretend that the sight of the chief's head this close to combustion wasn't a mental picture he would treasure for a long time, but the prize they would have to pay for this whole shitshow still wasn't worth that small personal triumph. "Well, gents, laters."

The thrusters of his suit ignited and he was out there just as fast as he had gone in.

#

Everything around him seemed way too calm. So much calmer than it should when his body was still vibrating with adrenaline and as the unique sounds of New York City's streets were still rushing in his ears. Even his heart was still racing as he paced up and down on the Tower's balcony, mask clutched in his hand. That too must be the adrenaline. Or maybe nerves. 

As the elevator doors had opened into the penthouse there had been a part of him that wanted to just go hide in his room, put his head under the covers and try to ignore the mess he had just made. He was in trouble. He knew that. So much trouble. He should have stayed out of sight. Knew very well that Mr. Stark didn't want him to engage. He should have never tampered with the suit, but how could he stand down when it came to the Rogues. After everything they had done.

The familiar sound of Iron Man's thrusters reached him on the balcony, reflected from the bottom to ceiling glass fronts lining the penthouse suite. The noise tore him out of his thoughts and echoed painfully in Peter's ears. The technical marvel of how FRIDAY systematically stripped the suit from Mr. Stark's body usually never failed to amaze him. But now, well, his mind was a little preoccupied with the situation he had landed himself in. Mr. Stark didn't even look up as he stepped off the landing platform onto the balcony. Then there was silence. A long silence. His mentor's breathing was deep, forcefully slow. Not good.

"Inside." Mr. Stark's voice was low. Not the calm low that Peter knew all too well from when he would explain something in the lab. No, a different kind of low, bottled up ready to burst. Peter jumped into action, followed him into the penthouse at a respectful distance. Not that that was gonna help him.

"We had a deal, kid."

Peter swallowed hard. "I... I know, Sir."

"I told you to stay out of the spotlight. I told you to stay away from them!"

"I know, Sir."

"What the fuck, Parker!"

Peter flinched. Mr. Stark's eyes were squarely on him now, furious. His hands flexing by his side.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Stark. I—"

"You disabled your tracker so you could intercept them without FRIDAY tipping me off when I specifically told you to stay the fuck away!"

Peter pulled himself together, looking for that flame of anger inside himself that had given him the courage to go after the Rogues in the first place.

"I tried to tell you but you wouldn't listen," Peter blurted out through gritted teeth. "I told you they would come and that I could help you and—"

"I listened, kid." His voice so low it gave Peter goosebumps. "That's why I kept the authorities occupied and as far away from them as possible."

"But... I don't—" he frowned, confused. 

"Not that I'd expect a 14-year-old kid to understand what the fuck is going on here."

Peter's eyes stung as his anger was bubbling up again. "I'm 15!"

"No, this is where you zip it, alright! The adult is talking!" Mr. Stark pulled back his shoulders, back straight and didn't give an inch. He had him locked with a stare that Peter hadn't seen on his face before and got even closer to Peter. "What do you think would happen if you have a superhero fight in the middle of Brooklyn? What if somebody had been hurt tonight because you decided that you want to have it out with Captain Spangles, huh? Just a bit of collateral?  A brick that hits an old lady? A building that collapses because a sack of meat smashes into the wrong part of it? What if somebody had died because in some fever dream you thought you could take on Rogers and Wilson and Barton, huh? That'd be on you."

The finger Mr. Stark was pointing at him made his chest hurt as if he'd actually been struck. The hair on his neck stood on edge. Mr. Stark had gotten so close and in his face, Peter was forced to take a few steps back. The angry force of his mentor's voice literally pushed him away.

"And what if you had died tonight, huh? What if you fell out of the sky and broke your back? Had your head smashed against a brick wall? What if you died after you hacked the very suit I build to protect you, thinking you could take on fucking Steve Rogers, huh?" Mr. Stark stopped and took a few breaths, an open attempt to reign in his temper. "I feel like that'd be on me and I don't need that on my conscience, Peter."  

"Sir, I... I just—"

But his mentor wasn't done.

"You think I don't know where they are? They fly around with my tech! But if Ross knows where they are he will make me round them up and put them in the damn raft."

"Good." Peter pursed his lips. He couldn't help himself.

"Excuse me?!"

He swallowed hard, not sorry at all. The Rogues had brought this on themselves. It was because of them that Peter as well as Mr. Stark himself had to fear the very people they were trying to protect. It was because of them that his mentor's best friend was relearning how to walk, that Mr. Stark had been in a coma for 10 long days. 

"Good! That's where they should be. They are criminals!"

The man's eyes narrowed. "That's not for you to decide."

Peter couldn't hold onto himself any longer, he had kept the anger he had harbored for them bottled up for weeks and it was finally overflowing. "Well, someone should decide! They are ruining the lives of everyone who is different. Because they don't want to listen to anyone they make us hide in the shadows. I'm not gonna stand by and just let them do it. I'm not! Not again. Nobody is going to die just because I waited too long to do something about it. They are not above the law. That's what you said yourself! They are not! And Rogers almost killed you! He left you to die! They need to pay for what they did."

Mr. Stark had fallen completely silent, his hand had fallen down with his arm dangling by his side. His eyes that had been narrowed on Peter in irritation went wide, his eyebrows up. Everything around them was quiet. It wasn't the adrenaline that blocked out everything around him as he had thought, no. There was just stunned silence. Silence and Mr. Stark's deep not so collected breaths that easily stuck out.

"What did you just say?"

"I..." Peter tried to swallow his nerves. What had he just said? "They... you were hurt. They... they should have had your back. They were your teammates and they didn't... didn't have your back!" The hair on the back of Peter's stood tall, electrified with tension. "They... Someone had to stop them. It's their fault. They didn't—"

"Why do you... No." Mr. Stark shook his head. "You said Rogers."

Peter's eyes widened. "I—I didn't mean—I mean you have the shield. I—I know you have the shield and—and the suit was destroyed. I mean it could only—it could only..." His mentor's eyes didn't waver from his face, dark and bottomless. His face slack, no sign of emotion. 

Oh god.

"You know." Mr. Stark whispered, his voice rough and dark. "How the fuck do you know, Parker."

Peter's heart jumped in his chest. He could deny it. He had to. Or make up something but he had to do it fast.

Mr. Stark took a deep breath, eyes narrowed. "I know. Rogers and Barnes know. How the fuck do you know?!"

Peter's lips moved but no words made their way out of his mouth. His mind was blank. How could he save this? What could he say to make this better and not worse? Maybe Rogers had said something? Maybe that's how he had figured it out? His mentor's eyes were still on him, his chest rising and falling with heavy breaths, lips pressed flat and Peter couldn't think. The disapproval in the man's eyes had him frozen. It was like nothing Peter had ever seen on him before, not even in Leipzig. Utter betrayal.

"There's no record of this, nothing! Only the—" Mr. Stark's face went blank. "The code for your suit is stored on my server. You... you snooped around on my private server." His voice had lost all of its anger just like his features.

"I... Mr. Stark, I wasn't—wasn't snooping, it just—" Peter felt close to hyperventilating. He hadn't gone looking for any of that. It had just kind of fallen into his lap. "I tried to—When you were in... in the coma, I just wanted to make sure that the suit—that I couldn't be found by any of the people who might—"

"FRIDAY, I want a list of everything Peter had access to when he hacked my system."

"Mr. Stark, I didn't—"

"List compiled, Sir."

Peter's eyes shot up to the projection in the middle of the penthouse's living room. The entire ghost drive that the suit's backdoor had granted him access to, was listed in front of him. Coding for his own suit, coding for the Iron Man suits, the nanotechnology research, notes and reports from private investigators, and of course, Mr. Stark's personal files. All the videos that had been stored on that secret server.

"I didn't—" He took a step closer to Mr. Stark, desperate for him to know what really happened. "Sir, I didn't look at most of this. I just—It was an accident. I didn't mean to find all of this. I just—I just wanted to make sure the suit couldn't be traced if anyone was going to access your systems while you were in the coma, I just—"

"FRIDAY, give me a list of the access data." His mentor wasn't even looking at him, eyes fixed on the projection.

"The list sorted by accesses count, Sir."

Peter gulped. He could even tell the disapproval carried in FRIDAY's voice. He had looked at a lot of that. He knew that. He shouldn't have but it was all right there and there was a perverse curiosity inside of him. He just hadn't been able to look away. The Iron Man suit's video files from the fight in the Siberian bunker were on the very top of the list. He hadn't been able to stop watching it, the images were burned into his retina. 21 times the counter said. Mr. Stark was silent. This was worse than when he had been shouting at him. This was so much worse.

"I'm so sorry, Sir. I..." He couldn't keep the tremor out of his voice. "It was an accident. I didn't want to find all this but you were... I couldn't talk to you about any of this and then you wouldn't tell me anything that happened and it—it was just right there. I'm sorry, Mr. Stark, please, I—"

"FRIDAY, last time Peter accessed this drive."

"Today at 1:05 pm he accessed Project Sojourner, activated protocol 11B-part2 and deactivated GPS tracking as well as the satellite connection."

Mr. Stark's breaths were long and deep, his eyes still fixed on the top of the list that FRIDAY displayed in front of them. Peter couldn't look at it though, he kept his eyes firmly on his mentor.

"How about the video files."

"Two days ago, Sir. August 13st."

Mr. Stark's eyes went over the file names. It wasn't just Siberia and Mr. Stark knew that. It was plain on his face. Mr. Stark knew what all of these file names meant, knew what it was that Peter had seen. 

"Mr... Mr. Stark, please. I'm sorry. I—"

"You lied to me."

Peter hadn't even realized that he was crying until his vision was blurring. "I wanted to tell you, Sir. I just, I didn't know how. I didn't know how to explain and—"

"Take off the suit."

Peter's heart stopped. "Sir—"

"Take. It off."

"Mr. Stark, please—please just let me explain." 

He turned to Peter at last, face carefully blank but the anger was tugging at the corners of his mouth, his eyes were dark, bottomless pools full of rage. "Explain? Explain why you went behind my back, lied to me, went out to confront Rogers against my explicit order not to, hacked my private server and poked around my personal files? My son's file? You think there is an explanation that would excuse any of this?"

Peter had to turn his gaze down to the floor. He couldn't bear the look on his face, because he knew that the man, that his mentor was right. There was no excuse. It was why he had tried to keep it quiet in the first place. Why he hadn't confessed to what he had done. It was a betrayal that few people would forgive and Tony Stark wasn't one of those people.

"I'm sorry, Sir." He forced his eyes back up, hoping that maybe his sincerity would be written all over his face just like he felt it was radiating from his very soul. "I know it was wrong. I... it was a mistake. If I could undo it I—"

"Don't even fucking try, Parker. Don't even— This ends here. It's over."