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It’s Saturday night, and Tony has decided to spend it outside his workshop for once. His back aches a bit from being hunched over his lab work all day, so he heads up to the penthouse, grabs a snack and a can of soda, and settles onto the couch for a bit of TV.
Five minutes later, his phone rings. It’s Peter.
“This better be good,” he deadpans in lieu of a greeting. “You’re interrupting a Halloween Heist episode here.”
“Mr. Stark?” comes Peter’s scared voice, barely above a whisper.
Tony instantly pauses the TV and sits up.
“Yeah, kid, it’s me. What’s wrong?”
“I’m—I think I’m being followed. I was walking home from a party and…” His voice sounds close to tears. “There’s someone out there. But I can’t see them. I just—I think they want to hurt me.”
Tony is already on his feet.
“Fri, track his phone,” he says to his AI before addressing Peter again. “Did they see you, Pete? Can you hide somewhere until I arrive? I’m”—he looks at the map of Peter’s location that Friday has just projected—“three minutes out.”
“I’m hiding behind a dumpster. Whoever it is hasn’t found me yet. But please, Mr. Stark…hurry.”
Then the call disconnects.
The trip in Tony’s Iron Man suit takes a hair under three minutes. He spends the short flight trying to make sense of the situation while trying not to panic. Who could be following Peter? And how dangerous are they if Peter is too frightened to use his super powers to fight them? It’s the latter thought that keeps him from calling the police right away to meet him at the scene. There will probably just be more casualties if he does that. He desperately wants to call Peter back and keep him on the line, but doesn’t risk it. If Peter has forgotten to turn the sound off on his phone…
A moment later, he lands on the street in Queens where Peter should be located and looks around. There’s no one there, good guy or bad. Friday doesn’t detect any unusual movement or sounds in the vicinity. What’s going on?
He spots some large garbage dumpsters in the closest alleyway and hopes to God that Peter is still there, hiding behind one of them. He activates his thermal imaging sensors and confirms it: Peter is crouching behind the closest one, knees pulled up to his chest, rocking back and forth a little. Good—it means he’s still conscious.
Retracting his helmet, Tony approaches the dumpster.
“Pete,” he whispers, and hears Peter gasp. “It’s me.”
“Mr. Stark,” Peter whispers back.
Tony crosses the last few feet of distance between them and crouches down in front of Peter. In the dim light from a nearby streetlamp, he can see that the kid is terrified, eyes wide, face white as a sheet, arms wrapped tightly around his knees to make himself as small as possible.
“Thank God,” Peter breathes. “D-Did you see them? Did they see you? They’re hiding.”
“Hiding where?” asks Tony, confused. If Friday had noticed any bad guys lurking or hiding nearby, she would have said something.
Peter discreetly points toward a parked car near the alley. “Under there,” he whispers.
The vehicle he points to is a Smart car. Tony gets up to investigate, now thoroughly perplexed. It’s doubtful that more than one person could conceal themselves under this car without at least a foot or an elbow sticking out.
“Be careful,” Peter hisses as Tony cautiously approaches the car.
Tony raises his helmet so he can look at the infrared readings. Sure enough, there’s a warm body hiding under the car.
But not a human body; it’s much smaller than that. Though what it is, Tony can’t tell. It just appears on his display as a red and yellow heat gradient blob hiding behind one of the car’s front wheels. It may be small, but after the aliens, attack bots, and other bizarre shit Tony’s seen in his time, he’s perfectly aware that small doesn’t mean harmless.
“Fri, what do you read?” he whispers, kneeling down a few feet from the car, his back tense, his eyes watching closely for the slightest sign of movement.
“It’s a mammal.”
“Gee, thanks,” mutters Tony, rolling his eyes.
“I mean it’s not registering as alien or mechanical,” clarifies the AI. “Which is why I didn’t alert you about it immediately. In all likelihood, the animal is a—”
Just then, the infrared blob moves, fast. It lunges out from under the car and straight toward Tony, who’s still crouching only a few feet away. He lets out a shout of surprise and rocks backward on his heels, instantly charging his hand repulsor and aiming it at the creature, ready to defend himself.
But before he can take any action, the animal wall-kicks off his chest with a loud hiss and a distinctly feline shriek, lands on the pavement, and dashes away into the darkness, leaving Iron Man sitting on his ass on the sidewalk watching it go in disbelief.
“—Cat,” Friday finishes helpfully.
A cat. Just a fucking housecat. Tony lets himself fall onto his back, heaving a loud sigh full of relief and annoyance. Mostly annoyance. Is this a fucking joke? Well, Tony’s not laughing.
His heart still pounding from the scare, he stands up and retracts his helmet, striding over to Peter with an angry set to his jaw.
“Kid, you’ve got some serious explaining to do. You called me out here and scared me half to death over a cat?”
But he stops short when he sees Peter. Far from joking, or even just looking relieved that it was only a cat, the kid still looks terrified, and a little confused.
“A-a-a cat?” He frowns. “No, it was…dangerous. It wanted to hurt me, I know it, Mr. Stark. There’s gotta be something else there. Did you look under the right car? It was the Smart car.” He whispers the last sentence like it’s a secret.
Tony frowns. Why is the kid so sure something is out to get him? “Yeah, it was the Smart car. C’mere.” He motions for Peter to move forward so he can look around the corner of the dumpster. Peter doesn’t stand up, but scoots forward a little, eyes still wide with fear. “Alright, look.” A small but powerful flashlight pops out of one of the suit’s forearms and Tony points it toward the car, flooding the space under it with bright light. It’s definitely empty. “See?”
Peter looks, but instead of being reassured, his face slowly morphs into a sort of paranoid frown, like he suspects someone is playing an elaborate trick on him.
What the hell is this kid on?
He shines the flashlight toward Peter, and freezes when he catches sight of him in this better light. His pupils are dilated despite the brighter light, and his eyes are bloodshot.
Well shit. What is this kid on?
“Pete?” Tony says suspiciously, trying not to jump to conclusions just yet. “What was it you were doing when you called, again? Walking home from a party, was it?”
“Yeah…”
“And were there, by any chance, any drugs at this party?”
It takes a few seconds too long for Peter to plaster a (clearly fake) frown of confusion onto his face. Slow reaction time. Yep. Drugs.
“N-No. Of course not,” Peter says, eyes wide.
Tony scoffs, but stays calm. He’s determined not to get angry at Peter just now, not while he’s sitting in an alleyway high as balls and freaking out.
“Kid, even on the best of days, you’re a terrible liar.” Tony crouches down to be at Peter’s level, and makes a beckoning gesture with his hand. “C’mon, hit me with it. What did you take?”
“Nothing!” Peter insists, with no confidence in his tone.
Tony doesn’t acknowledge the reply. He’s pretty sure he already knows what Peter took—the signs are all there—but he wants confirmation. He sniffs the air. “Well, there’s no booze on your breath, so that rules out alcohol.” He squints a little to examine Peter’s face. “Cocaine or weed would explain your eyes. And since I really don’t think you’re dumb enough to do cocaine, that just leaves weed.”
Peter flinches and looks down. Bingo.
“But you don’t smell like smoke,” Tony continues. “So my money’s on edibles. Am I right?”
Peter doesn’t respond, but Tony doesn’t miss the look of surprise on his face at Tony’s deduction. And that’s response enough for him.
And now that Tony thinks of it, weed would also explain Peter’s overly-paranoid behaviour tonight, and how certain he was that he was being followed. Tony has seen this type of side effect before, a long time ago, though not quite this bad. Must be Peter’s super metabolism that’s heightened the effect.
“Oh my God,” Peter moans, lifting his head to face Tony again, and to Tony’s horror, tears start to well up in the kid’s eyes. “I’m so sorry Mr. Stark, do you hate me? Of course you hate me, I’m so sorry. I’ll give the suit back, you never have to see me ag—”
“Whoa, whoa, hey,” Tony interrupts gently. Yeah. He remembers this part too, the worrying that everyone you care about hates you. “I promise, kid, I’m not mad, and I don’t hate you.”
Peter doesn’t look convinced.
“Really,” continues Tony. “Trust me, there are a lot worse things you could’ve done at a party than pot. But I got bad news for you. Looks like your stoner days are gonna have to come to a premature end. You’re having a rare reaction to it.”
“I am?”
“’Fraid so. Not everyone gets happily blissed out on weed. Rhodey has the same issue. We sure learned that the hard way, at the very first college party we went to together. Forty people on a yacht in the Boston Harbor, and—”
Peter looks like he’s having trouble following. Tony realizes that now isn’t the greatest time for this conversation. He stands up.
“C’mon. Fly you back to the tower, you can sleep it off there.” He holds out a hand to help up Peter, who looks torn between fear and excitement at getting to fly across the city with Iron Man.
When they arrive at the penthouse a few minutes later, Tony steps out of his suit and heads to the kitchen sink to fill up a glass of water.
“Here.” He hands it to Peter. “Drink this, then go to bed. We can talk in the morning when you’re more sober and less scared of cats.” A slight smile tugs at his lips, but he resists the urge to make any real jokes at the kid’s expense, remembering how badly Rhodey took his teasing when he tried it that time.
Now that they’re back at the tower and out of danger (not that there was any to begin with), Peter is looking pretty guilty and embarrassed at the trouble he caused. He quickly drinks the water and turns to leave, seeming to just want this whole evening to be over with.
“Hey,” Tony calls before Peter disappears around the corner to the hallway. Peter stops and looks back at Tony a little warily. “I’m glad you called me. You can always call. OK?” He’s not sure his reassurance will cut through the kid’s paranoia, but he can’t help but say it anyway.
Peter hesitates, but then nods. “OK. Thanks, Mr. Stark.” He turns to leave.
When he’s gone, Tony heads back to the couch where his soda and snack are waiting, and resumes his episode of Brooklyn Nine-Nine.
He hopes he handled things right with Peter. If it was any other kid, Tony would probably be more concerned, but it doesn’t sound like Peter was looking for a wild night out tonight. More likely he just wanted to unwind with his friends. Still, Tony will talk to him in the morning to make sure. He certainly doesn’t want Peter to have to learn things the hard way like he did.
He drifts off to sleep before finding out who won the Halloween Heist.
A couple hours later, he awakens to the sound of a kitchen cupboard door quietly closing. He sits up to look over the back of the couch. Friday has dimmed the lights, but he can clearly make out Peter’s silhouette, which is now opening a second cupboard.
Making an educated guess about what Peter is looking for, Tony picks up his bag of Bugles. The sound makes the kid jump a little. “Looking for these?”
“Oh! Sorry, Mr. Stark. I thought you went to bed,” Peter whispers.
Tony brushes off his apology with a wave and beckons him over to the couch. Friday raises the light level slightly without prompting. “Got the munchies, huh?” he asks with a wink.
Peter blushes a little, but his hunger wins out and he comes to the couch anyway and takes the proffered bag, sitting down beside Tony. His eyes aren’t looking bloodshot anymore, and his sudden appetite for snacks seems to indicate that his high is wearing off.
He eats a few handfuls of Bugles without meeting Tony’s eye, and Tony realizes that Peter is still not convinced that he’s not in trouble for his activities that evening. Before Tony can say anything to reassure him, Peter suddenly speaks up.
“I’m really, really sorry about tonight, Mr. Stark. I shouldn’t have gone to that party. It was stupid. I just…I’ve been kinda stressed out lately, with patrolling, and college applications, and finals coming up. I thought this would be a way to relax for a change…”
“And instead, you got the scare of your life,” Tony finishes for him. He huffs a laugh and adds, “And so did I,” remembering his brief fear that he was being ambushed by some sort of miniature monster.
(Honestly though, that cat’s temperament did kind of put it in ‘monster’ category.)
“But listen, kid,” Tony continues. “I meant what I said earlier. I’m not mad, and there’s no need to apologize. You couldn’t have known that would happen.”
Peter’s shoulders relax a little as he realizes that the axe is not about to fall.
“Out of curiosity though, how much did you have?”
“Just a couple bites of a brownie!” Peter shrugs helplessly. “I thought I was being responsible by not having too much. I wanted to see the effect it would have on me first.”
Tony is impressed. “Wow. That is pretty responsible.” Definitely more responsible than he was the first time he tried drugs. He doesn’t say this aloud, however. “Must be your enhanced metabolism that amplified the negative side-effects. Sucks to be you,” he adds with a teasing smile, and Peter smiles back in spite of himself. But then Tony looks the kid in the eye, hoping to hammer home his next point. “So, knowing that, I hope you aren’t planning to experiment with any other drugs. Pot is one thing, but…I’ve been down that path before. You name it, I’ve probably taken it. I don’t regret all of it, but I do regret most of it. And I don’t have an enhanced metabolism. You? Best case scenario, you’ll probably end up in the hospital. Worst case…” He trails off and lets that thought remain incomplete.
But Peter is already shaking his head. “Oh, no, don’t worry, Mr. Stark. After tonight, I’m not curious at all anymore. That was awful.” He shudders. “I left the party early because I thought everyone there was plotting against me somehow. And then being convinced I was being followed. It was so real.”
“Oh, I know,” replies Tony with a chuckle. “Rhodey had almost the exact same reaction as you back when he first tried weed. Scared the shit out of me, too, until I realized what was going on.”
“What happened?” asks Peter, popping another handful of Bugles and listening with interest.
Tony chuckles at the memory. “He thought someone was planning to sink the party boat we were on. He had me convinced for a minute there, too. Until he accused me of being the one who wanted to sink it. That’s when I knew it was just the drugs talking. Of course we were still stuck on the boat for another three hours, so that was fun. Anyway, he swore off pot the next day and hasn’t touched it since. Swore off boats for a while, too, come to think of it.”
Peter scoffs. “Well, I’m with Rhodey, weed is one thing I’m swearing off for good.” He takes another handful of Bugles.
“Hey, save some of those for me,” Tony says, holding out his hand for some.
They chat a little more as they share the remainder of the bag. When it’s empty, Peter looks hopefully toward the kitchen.
“I, um, don’t suppose you have any other snacks?” he asks a little sheepishly.
Tony quirks an eyebrow. “Still hungry, huh? I guess super metabolism comes with super munchies.” He thinks a moment. “Oh yeah, Pepper made a pan of brownies this afternoon. They’re in the fridge. I’m sure she won’t mind if you have one.”
“Ugh, brownies.” Peter shudders. “OK, there are two things I’m swearing off.”