Archive of Our Own

“You know, Mr. Stark, I still think you’re more like Spock. You’re smart, obviously, and logical. You kick ass like no other supers in this country, but you’re also pretty nice. Caring, too, and genuine. It’s hard to find genuine people nowadays, don’t you agree?” Peter said from his spot on the couch as the end credits rolled on a wall-mounted television. The movie had just ended. 

The living area became his favourite part of Stark manor since Peter moved in for the summer break—he had shown up, unannounced, three days ago when school ended. After working without a break for eight years since Ben died, May gave in to Peter’s persistent nagging and agreed to go on a vacation with her sister. 

“She’s in Italy right now.” Peter had blurted out as soon as Tony answered the door with a surprised look on his face. “Can I crash here for a couple of weeks?” Peter rambled, already halfway through the door, and not giving his host any time to process the unexpected arrival. “I was, well—I was gonna stay with Ned, but he’s got family coming from out of town. Then, I thought I’d come here and...um...stay with you. You said—you said before I could come by sometimes and check out the lab. And, and I have a few ideas about the suit too.” 

Having known Tony for more than a year, Peter still fumbled over in the presence of the man he admired, both as a friend and a mentor. Tony wasn’t a cheerful family man like his dad, from what little Peter remembered of Richard Parker; Tony lacked Ben’s sweet, understanding temperament and May’s unconditional support, but the man did care about Peter in his own, eccentric ways—continuous, unprompted upgrades to the suit, putting Stark Industries’ sharpest minds at his disposal for his science projects. Tony cared. 

Seeing Tony’s vacant face on newsreels, as he left the U.N. headquarters day in and day out, Peter had concluded the man could also use the company. Sure, he was only half of Tony’s age, his experiences had been limited to swinging about the city, playing video games with Ned, nuking tacos with May, doing homework, but that was better than wandering around an empty property, chasing ghosts of the past. 

Consequences from the fallout between the Avengers had taken their toll, leaving Tony with dark circles under his eyes, his hair turned grey. Captain America’s new status as persona non grata in the country, and rumours that Iron Man had something to do with it, flipped public sentiment against Tony. People jeered at the briefest mentions of his name, and though he always flashed a practised smile for the cameras, they never reached his eyes. 

The unfairness of fickle-minded public opinion left Peter stewing, his frustrations dragged him into repeated skirmishes and detentions until the principal had called in May, and threatened to expel him. 

***

“Spock offers the best of both worlds," Peter continued from the sofa. "So do you.” 

The ‘argument’ had started at breakfast when Peter intercepted Tony as he reached for his coffee and shoved his phone at him, and insisted he complete Buzzfeed’s newest quiz— Which beloved Star Trek character are you? Getting between a sleep-ridden genius and his coffee was the first wrong move of the day. Tony’s annoyance grew when the quiz told him, his personality aligned more with Mr. Spock, the trustworthy science officer on board the starship Enterprise, instead of the golden-haired captain he grew up admiring: James Kirk. 

“No one even likes Spock,” Tony ranted, after chugging his espresso, scrambled eggs and bacon on his plate left untouched. “This quiz is fake. It’s bullshit, Parker. What part of me preferring iced teas and the beach indicate I’m anything like him? No, I don’t accept.” Peter had underestimated how much the revelation would upset his mentor. 

“He’s just a glorified teacher’s pet.” Tony paused and peered closer, his eyes narrowed with suspicion. “Who’d you get? The quiz, I assume you took it.” 

A flush of pink rose in Peter’s cheeks and he mumbled. “James Kirk.” 

Tony blinked. Then, he had burst into loud, harsh cackles of laughter as Peter worried the man would pop a vein from the way he doubled over, his body shaking with gurgling laughs. 

“You?” Tony said once he had regained a semblance of composure. “Kid, don’t take this the wrong way, but you are nothing like Kirk. You’re—I’m sorry to say, but you’re more like Spock.” Peter sat up, ready to protest but Tony held up a hand. 

“No, no you’re misunderstanding me. I don’t mean it as an insult. Spock’s always been, well— he’s been more of a ‘by the books’ kinda guy, smart, but not daring. Now Kirk, well, Kirk was a mad bastard who didn’t believe in no-win scenarios. Even when all the odds were stacked against him, when death seemed imminent, he always found a loophole. It’s—it’s brilliant, the way they wrote him.” 

Tony had spoken with a kind of reverence that made it obvious how much he admired the fictional hero. It illuminated a lot about Iron Man’s daring adventures, at least the ones Peter had been privy to know in details, where his hero stared down impossible odds and emerged victorious. Peter yearned to be like Iron Man, to stare at a no-win scenario in the face and win through the skin of his teeth. 

Before he could stop himself, Peter blurted out: “I think you’re cooler than James Kirk.” Something had shifted in Tony, all of his irritation at being bothered so early in the morning melted away, a warm smile took shape on his face as he reached forward and patted Peter’s back. 

“I am flattered, my young apprentice. But, it’s time you learned about our lord and saviour, Captain James Tiberius Kirk,” Tony said as he stood up. Gentle hands guided Peter towards the underground training room, where he had been practicing timed simulations taking down the Chitauri army. 

“Once we’re done with this, I am going to educate your young mind, kid, we'll start with my favourite, The Wrath of Khan , and you’ll see why James Kirk is simply the best of Star Trek,” Tony had promised. 

***

Peter craned his neck back and caught a glimpse of Tony in the kitchen, hunched over the counter, staring at the StarkPad in hand. He had left to take a phone call some time ago in the middle of their movie marathon. 

“Everything good, Mr. Stark?" Peter called out. "You’ve been staring at that thing for forty minutes now, and you missed the ending. I mean, I’m sure that’s important so, I guess, I’ll… I’ll pause here until you’re done.” 

Tony didn’t look up once from the tablet or gave any indication he heard him. 

“And they say my generation is addicted to our phones,” Peter muttered under his breath. 

He shuffled into the kitchen “What’s going on?”

Tony put the tablet down, stiff as a coil, his expression closed off, as if a million worries on his mind dragged him into a bottomless pit of despair—Peter knew it had become his default setting these days. 

“I’m sorry, kid. I gotta go do something important.” Tony cleared his throat, waved his hand about, and said, “There’s food in the fridge or ask Friday to order in, anything you like. I’m probably not going to be back tonight, so don’t wait up.” He gestured towards the living area, regret creeping from between creases on his forehead. “We’ll do season two tomorrow, okay?” 

A scripted apology with no explanations given deflated Peter’s enthusiasm. He nodded, masking the disappointment after looking forward to spending time with his mentor the whole day, outside of training or working in the lab. 

Tony collected the StarkPad and walked out. Whatever preoccupied his mind, it worried Peter. The split with the team had left Iron Man running a one-person superhero show, taking out the bad guys at night and juggling expectations of irate politicians during the day. Colonel Rhodes had returned to Philly for rehab and Vision left the upstate facility one morning, listless and heartbroken—as heartbroken as an android can be—and never came back. 

Peter ran after Tony, caught up with him at the staircase landing and rattled off: “Wait, Mr. Stark… Mr. Stark, is it a mission? Because if it is, I can help. You know it. I’ve been training really hard, I promise, and I’m getting, sir, Tony, my moves are good, really, really good, and please, let me help.”

Arms crossed, his brows furrowed and lips drawn thin, Tony gave Peter a once over, as though he contemplated taking up on the offer, measuring the pros and cons of doing so, calculation the variables in his mind until his lips curled upwards. 

“Okay Underoos, I suppose this mission is pretty straightforward. I’ll bring you on one condition, and I need your word right now. You’ll do everything I say, exactly the way I say it. If I tell you to drop everything and run, what do you do?”

Peter shuffled from one foot to another, hesitating. Making that kind of commitment wasn’t easy, not when he knew if the situation arose, he’d rather perish than abandon Mr. Stark in the enemy's hands. He mumbled a non-committal “hmm,” but Tony was onto him.

“Not good enough.”

“Fine.” Peter sighed. “I’ll… I’ll run.”

“Good. Suit up and meet me at sub-basement three in twenty minutes. Oh, and call your aunt before we leave.” 

***

Getting to the sub-basement proved to be a challenge. Peter’s knees shook as he took one clumsy step after another towards the elevator, skin buzzing in anticipation over his first formal mission that he prayed would involve a bit more action than beating up bodega robbers and intimidating local crime lords. 

Inside the car, he searched for the button to take him to his destination, but it wasn’t there. The lowest accessible floor was sub-basement one, where Tony kept his extensive collection of cars. Peter stood there confused, before Friday’s voice chimed in.

"Can I help you, Peter?"

Oh, right. He chuckled at his own stupidity—in his excitement, he had forgotten Tony’s house was controlled by an all-seeing, powerful artificial intelligence. 

“Uhh, yes. Hey, Friday, right?” 

"That’s right. What can I do for you?"

“I…Mr. Stark said to meet him in sub-basement three, but I can’t—”  

Friday cut him off. 

"Sub-basement three is for authorised personnel only. I’m checking your credentials… one moment… well, Mr. Stark’s given you access, so, heading to sub-basement three."

The elevator began its descent with a small jerk and Peter broke into a grin under the mask. “Best. Mansion. Ever.” 

When the doors opened, his jaws dropped. Sub-basement three turned out to be a massive underground hangar, the size of three football fields, or maybe longer. It housed three identical planes—the famous Quinjets, which the Avengers used for missions, and Peter had read all about them—and there was an empty spot for a fourth one. Beyond the Quinjets, a wide tunnel stretched further than Peter could see. It looked like a runway. 

Tony waited for him by the nearest jet, wearing armour. 

Peter strode towards Tony, his heart thrumming in his chest, blood and adrenaline pumping through his veins. Taking in a long, deep breath, he said, “Hey.”

“You’re late.” 

The mission sounded straightforward once Tony gave him the rundown: Hydra mercenaries had snatched the Chinese foreign minister’s son in broad daylight from his college campus two days ago. A lack of notes or calls for a ransom had set the intelligence community on high alert, the top brass grew worried enough to call for Iron Man's involvement. New intel reports that came through during their movie-marathon said the kid was being held at a remote, low-priority Hydra facility in the Nevada desert. 

“It’s a standard search-and-rescue. We go in, find the kid, get him out and come back. Do not engage unless we’re spotted. We’re not expecting a lot of hostiles, so it should be an easy enough job for two. With me so far?” Tony said, handing over the StarkPad. 

Peter skimmed through the contents on the device. Going to Nevada was nothing; if Tony ever asked, he was prepared to follow him to the farthest reaches of the galaxy. Something else bothered him, something he grappled to put to words. 

"This looks easy, but I have… I mean if you don’t mind, Mr. Stark, I have a question. Where… where did we get this intel from? I mean, who got the report and gave it to you? These are very detailed.”

“It’s a gift from our friends at Langley.” 

Peter paused at the revelation. Since when did the CIA get involved in Avengers business? When the Accords went into effect, two months after Peter’s excursion to Germany, the elected Council and its intelligence-gathering department ran point on every superhero business. He knew this because three days after his seventeenth birthday, Peter had signed the formal documents to continue his night patrols in Queens, unimpeded by the bureaucracy. Tony’s small army of lawyers had ensured his identity remained a secret from the Council—a fact that had enraged Secretary Ross to the point he threatened Tony with charges of treason. 

Secretary Ross was also ex-CIA. 

“Do you trust them? I mean, the CIA… they’re good, but they’ve done some pretty shady stuff before, haven’t they? And, if they’re just giving you this piece of intel, no quid pro quo, then—” Peter stammered, a sense of unease grew in his chest. 

“Uncle Sam’s desperate,” Tony said with the confident smirk of a man who knew, down to the last detail, how the game would play out. “The Chinese government is ready to declare war if this goes south. And, if we do this, it buys the Avengers a lot of goodwill in a lot of very important circles. We kind of need that to move forward. Desperately.”

“I don’t understand.”

Peter struggled to connect the dots over why the CIA would approach the Avengers if an imminent threat of war loomed over everyone's head. The Avengers, mighty as they sounded, had a dreadful track record when it came to deescalating tense situations. 

Metal hands clasped over Peter’s shoulders in a light grip. “You’re too young to understand this now, kid, but this is how you play politics. It's a win for us, trust me.” 

Before Peter could question Tony further, Tony guided him towards the ramp with a gentle shove. “Time to go now. You can read up on the rest of the files during the flight.” 

The Quinjet's interior resembled something straight out of a sci-fi film. Peter stared in awe at the cockpit; the dashboard displayed all kinds of aerial, environmental, and telemetry data, the instrument panel was categorised into sections—radar, comms, weapons—and there were frameless windscreen panels on either side for top-of-the-world views. 

Ned would have loved this, Peter thought. 

Tony manoeuvred the control wheel and throttle levers to guide the jet away from the hangar, towards the underground runway. “Here we go,” he said, winking, then pushed the lever. Jet engines roared to life and the aircraft zoomed forward in semi-darkness until it emerged from a tunnel that opened into a deserted water body. 

***

Peter spent the flight reading the rest of the files and, the more he learned about their mission, his apprehension grew. 

He knew about Hydra and what they were capable of: The group had persevered for centuries, watching the rise and fall of civilisations from the shadows, and had emerged only to stoke the fires of chaos and nudge the world towards anarchy. While he never faced them, not directly, anyway, he had taken out enough neighbourhood thugs to know that Iron Man and Spider-Man were not enough to infiltrate Hydra and stage a rescue. Someone, if not both of them and their target, was going to get hurt, or worse, killed. 

Next to him, Tony sagged in the pilot’s seat. The sight of his mentor soaking in uncertainty did little to boost Peter’s faltering confidence. 

Halfway to their destination, when the jet flew over Iowa, Tony put Peter to work by observing live satellite data of their coordinates. He scrutinised the still images pixel by pixel and things stopped making sense after the fifth picture. 

“Hey, Mr. Stark, umm, look at this. I’ve gone over them a few times and—it’s not making sense. At all.” 

Peter pointed at a tiny structure on the left corner of the screen, surrounded by nothing but wilderness. He moved to the next photo, then one after another, until he went through the dozen images he had been observing. 

“This is the coordinate they gave us. It’s too small to be a base and there’s nothing but desert everywhere. I am not suggesting that the intel is wrong, but… I mean, I guess it could also be a hangout for a Nazi death cult,” he said with a faltering laugh. 

Tony moved closer, his nose within touching distance of the glass. The longer he sifted through the pictures and stared at them, the bigger his frown grew. Rubbing a tired hand across his face, he said, “Friday, zoom in on the coordinate. I want to know what we’re looking at, get me visuals from all angles, closeups, interesting person number one caught on your camera. Everything.” 

"On it, boss… Sending images to the StarkPad now."

Instead of a Hydra base, it turned out to be an abandoned pit stop, no bigger than an average-sized bedroom, which appeared to have fallen into disrepair due to weather extremities and neglect. The cement had chipped away near the roof, exposing the brickwork; some of the windows were fitted with green bars, but the paint had faded with time, while others had shards of broken glass on them. Next to the pit stop stood the remains of what used to be a shade, reduced to only the rusty metal rods meant to hold the structure together.

In a fresh batch of photos that Friday sent, they spotted a water tank some feet away from the pit stop, and next to it was a small, raised platform with a single pipe embedded into it. Nothing about the coordinates scream Hydra. 

“I’m sorry, Mr. Stark,” Peter said in a low voice and shrunk in his seat. "Maybe they mixed up the location and we were probably meant to go to Omaha, instead."

Tony didn't respond as if he sat in deep thought, processing the hurdle that had cropped up before the mission even began. Doubt crept over as he narrowed his eyes and took out his phone. He moved to the back of the jet and spoke fast in a hushed, piercing tone. 

“There's nothing there, Dave," Tony said as he tore into whoever spoke from the other end of the line. “Don't feed me that agency bullshit. Damnit, man, I’ve got a rookie with me and I’m responsible for his safety. Fuck the government, but I’m not risking this mission and endangering the kid if you can’t give me anything more than your ‘95% certain’ crap. I saw the satellite images. There’s nothing there. You have two hours to give me something before I turn the jet around.” 

He hung up before Dave, whoever that was, could respond. The quiet, simmering rage radiating from Tony reminded Peter of the day on the rooftop when he had taken away the suit. It terrified him. 

They sat in silence as the jet toggled towards their destination. Peter shifted in discomfort. The seatbelt cut into the skin on his neck, just above the suit. 

Friday eased the razor-sharp tension inside the aircraft when chimed in: " Boss, I have news. I’ve been running some extra scans of the facility and I found something interesting ."

She projected the findings on the cockpit dashboard. As it turned out, the pit stop was a facade. Scan readings showed a narrow column originated from the dilapidated structure, ran some four hundred metres below ground and connected to a large, circular facility. The real Hydra base.

Its secrecy made Peter anxious. “Mr. Stark, should we get backup? If it’s an unimportant base why would they go through so much trouble to hide it? I know we won’t be outgunned or anything, because, man your armour packs a wallop. But we will be below ground. What if we lose contact with Friday or Karen? We’d be on our own in hostile territory.” 

Tony’s expression looked torn. On one hand, he seemed to have understood Peter’s thought process that led to his concerns. But there was something else, something out of sight, which influenced his decision to take a mission from the CIA in the first place. Peter wondered what they offered him in return and the obvious answer rang in his head: The chance to reunite his family. 

“Good observations, kid,” Tony said, patting his back. “We’ll make the call when we get there, okay?”

 ***

They landed on a clear patch of land some five kilometres away from the location, keeping their presence hidden for as long as possible. The jet’s built-in stealth-mode made it invisible on radars. Even as the engine went off, Tony made no move to get up; instead, his eyes bore into the instrument panel as if he was trying to communicate with it using telepathy. 

Tracing his gaze, Peter spotted the thing that had captured Tony’s attention: a simple, green button next to the panel of official communication channels. Its presence stuck out like a sore thumb. Before he could stop himself, he blurted out: “What’s that?”

Tony’s body language shifted in an instant, his expression turned cloudy as his shoulders stiffened, the transformation visible even under the armour. Turning away from the panel, he sighed. “It’s nothing. It doesn’t matter anymore.”

If Tony was an expert at deflecting, then Peter was the champion of stubbornness. 

“It’s fine if you don’t want to tell me, and I don’t want to make you uncomfortable or anything, but, Mr. Stark, we’re teammates. If we’re going to pull this off, I wish you’ll tell me things, you know. You see me as a kid and I admit I am nowhere as experienced as you are, but I’m not an idiot. I can handle things.” He paused. Then, “You don’t trust me.”

Peter knew it was a low blow, one that his mentor didn’t deserve while torn between undertaking a suspect mission or risk losing whatever concessions the CIA offered. But, Peter grew tired of being treated like a child, being shut of things—things that could save their lives, if he knew about them beforehand. If Iron Man trusted Spider-Man to watch his six, then, Peter needed Tony to believe in him too. He wanted the other man to square up and be upfront. 

To his surprise, Tony reached the same conclusion. 

“It’s a comms channel,” Tony said without preamble, but Peter knew enough to fill in the context. “I built it after they left, routed it through my private satellites so that it can’t be traced. I don’t know if it actually works because I’ve been sending them messages every night for six months but—”

Tony looked away. 

Peter felt like a jackass. 

Eventually, Tony rose to his feet as the helmet covered his face again. “I’m going to look around and make sure we’re not walking into a trap. You stay here and get ready. Bring the extra web-shooters and have Friday sync up with Karen.” 

Ten minutes elapsed, and Tony still hadn’t returned. Peter grew restless.  To ease his nerves, Friday offered to track Tony’s movements on the dashboard. Watching the blinking dot move from the left of the screen, to the right, back a dozen steps, then forward again, was reassuring, knowing that Iron Man was still there . 

Peter glanced at the green button and fragments of an idea took shape in his mind. He knew he would be overstepping boundaries, running the risk of either complicating things for Tony or ruining the relationship he has with his mentor. Either way, the risks paled in comparison to walking into a subterranean Hydra base with zero back-ups.

He pressed the button. Nothing happened for the first minute or so before he picked up a faint static sound echoing inside the jet—the channel was transmitting and Peter ran low on time. Tony would be done with his recon soon. 

Clearing his throat, Peter spoke: “Hello? Hi, hi can anyone hear me? I am… Spider-Man. We… umm… we met in Germany. Iron Man and I are on a mission in the Nevada desert. The coordinates to our location are—” He read out the numbers from memory. It remained a long shot that anyone would even listen to the message or risk arrest to come and rescue them if things went south. 

“We’re about to infiltrate a low-priority Hydra facility to rescue someone. But I don’t have a good feeling about this… I can’t really explain why or how , it’s just… I guess it’s a gut feeling. But I am scared we’re about to walk into a trap. Colonel Rhodes isn’t around to help and we don’t know where Vision is. We could… we could really use some backup. I promise this isn’t a trap. Mr. Stark doesn’t know I’m sending this message. Please. Help us. Spider-Man out.”

Peter waited another minute in case a response came through, but nothing happened. Sighing, he put on his mask and exited the jet just as Tony walked back towards him. Maybe, he thought, maybe his intuition was wrong this time, and the mission would go exactly as planned and they’d be back at Stark Manor in no time. 

“My scans detected less than ten life signs underground,” Tony said as he squared up in front of Peter. “I think we can take them, but I’m not going to force you to come, kid. Because you’re right, we are walking into unknown territory and there are too many variables to control. It’s dangerous, it could go downhill as soon as we step foot into the facility. So, if you want to stay here, I won’t hold it against you.” 

Peter studied Tony’s face, a mix of worry and determination was written across every line, every bit of creased skin. He knew what needed to be done. 

With every fibre in his body protesting against the decision, Peter gave Tony a thumbs up. He smiled. “Captain James Tiberius Kirk would never let a member of his crew go on a dangerous mission by himself. I am not letting you go in there alone, Mr. Stark. I’ve got your back. Let’s go kick ass.” 

***

Three armed Hydra agents guarded the above-ground pit stop. 

Tony subdued two of them with ease while Peter exchanged punches with the third until Karen stepped in and used the new electric stingers in his suit. Based on the interior design, it could’ve been once been a roadside convenience store for weary travellers running low on supplies. 

Stepping in, they found wooden countertops collecting layers of dust as old, if not older, than Peter. The shelves, at least the ones still intact, were empty. The door on the right would’ve been the storage unit when the pit stop was still operational, but now an ‘Out of Order’ sign hung on the doorknob. 

Peter’s intuition guided him towards that door, and as he stepped nearer, his ears picked up on the low thrum of working machinery. This is the elevator . Next to him, Tony reached the same conclusion.

“Stand back, kid. Could be booby-trapped,” he said, an armoured hand pressed over Peter’s chest, nudging him back to what he considered a safe distance. The door opened with little resistance as Tony checked every corner of the elevator car for traps and surprises. 

While Iron Man’s armour had a lengthy track record of taking hard knocks and coming off with only surface-level scratches, Peter’s suit wasn’t enough to even cover a strong blow to the chest. The elevator turned out to be tiny, it could barely fit two adults. Tony weighed 425 pounds with the suit on. 

Peter worried if the elevator’s integrity would hold, preventing them from plummeting to their deaths, if they both went in together, but entering a Hydra base one by one was suicide. 

“Do you think it’ll hold?” He asked as stepped in, pressing himself against a corner to make room for Iron Man. Tony closed the door behind him as they began their slow, rickety descent into the depths of the Earth. 

“I hope so.” The modulated voice did a decent job masking Tony’s insecurities. Still, Peter heard the traces of doubt and fear taking shape in Tony's mind. “When we come to a stop, there’s no telling what’s waiting for us down there. If there’s no welcoming party, we’ll need to disable cameras to keep our presence hidden as long as possible.” 

As the elevator went lower, Peter’s sense of dread grew. A thousand scenarios fluttered in and out of his mind: What if Hydra did wait for them with a welcoming party? What if they were shot on sight? The idea of dying in the middle of a barren wasteland, without ever seeing May or Ned again, made his stomach churn. What if the elevator gave way and they plunged the remaining hundred-odd metres to their deaths? What if—

Peter rolled his shoulders to loosen them. Nodding at Tony, he said, “Okay, got it. We’ll be… we’ll be okay. Tell me what to do.”

“You’re going to stay out of sight until I take out the cameras with this—” Tony held up a palm-sized cylindrical container. “It’s a very powerful pocket laser and it can destroy any surveillance cameras in a twenty-metre radius. When I give the signal later, keep your eyes closed.”

“And kid…” Tony placed a hand on Peter’s shoulder, flashed a tight smile. “We got this.” 

Few moments later, the elevator jerked to an abrupt halt, and the door opened with a ‘ding.’ Peter held his breath as he stared at the off-white wall on the other side of the corridor, waiting for something, anything to happen. Beside him, Tony crouched as low as the constrained space allowed, his arms outstretched, repulsors ready to fire at any sudden movements. When none came, Tony stepped out and Peter had only a moment’s notice before Iron Man’s modulated voice rang in the air: “Close your eyes Underoos.” 

Peter squeezed his eyes shut as a low-pitched shrill echoed off the walls. 

“The coast is clear now, you can come out.”

The underground Hydra base resembled a panopticon prison: the transparent elevator shaft stood in the middle of the structure, circled by a single, wide corridor, with doors placed at regular intervals that opened to the other parts of the facility.  It reminded Peter about the unfinished Lego Death Star in Ned’s room—guilt welled up in him as his mind wandered off to the nights he had blown his best friend off to go out on patrol. Damnit Peter, not now. Focus. Focus. Focusfocusfocus .

“Friday, scan for life forms,” Tony said. Nothing happened. He tapped his helmet once, twice, then he cursed. “Fuck. We’re too deep underground. She and Karen are not going to be of any help.” 

Peter grimaced under the mask, glad Tony couldn’t see his face. Something about the place felt off; he couldn’t put a pulse on it, but the silence was deafening, the lack of life or activity, eerie and unsettling. Then, he made the mistake of looking up at the elevator shaft and things started to click. 

“Hydra knows we’re here. Mr. Stark, even if the elevator didn’t give us away, they’re too smart to not have anticipated our arrival. I think we’re on the clock here.” 

Tony’s plan was simple: They’d find the control room and take command of it to make their tasks more manageable. They would smoke out every Hydra agent in the facility and subdue them. Then, they’d look for the Chinese minister’s son without setting off any alarms, grab him and get out before Hydra showed up with reinforcements. 

“Friday picked up nine life forms here in her last scan,” Tony said as they approached the first door. It led into a half-empty storage unit housing uniforms—grey t-shirts, black slacks, and combat boots. They walked back to the corridor. 

Finding the control room proved to be a challenge as they searched the facility blind. Without a map or guidance from their AIs, they went door to door, relying only on the armour’s sensors to detect sudden movements and unexpected heat signatures. 

Three Hydra agents snuck up from behind as they checked the sixth door. One of them fired at Peter, the bullet grazed the side of his neck and cracked the wall behind. Peter narrowly avoided the second projectile lodging itself in his skull. The high-pitched sounds of repulsor beams blasted through the corridor. The man sank to the floor, weightless and unmoving.

The other two turned on Tony. A hail of bullets knocked him back, but the armour deflected each shot. The slugs ricocheted off the metal. Another round of repulsor blasts took them down. Peter sprung into action when a fourth one came running from behind. He webbed him to the wall, and Tony blasted him unconscious. 

One by one, Hydra agents fell as Tony and Peter worked their way through the facility on their search for the control room. 

“How are you holding up?” Tony asked when they paused to catch their breath. 

Peter sighed. While trying to shrug off the near-death experience after almost being shot in the face, a new, deep-seated worry rose in his chest—the fear of one day returning home to May in a body bag instead of in Happy’s limo. He fiddled with the web-shooters to distract himself from the foreboding bubbling in his gut. 

A pair of gauntleted hands rested on his shoulders and steadied him. Peter started when he realised he was shaking and, not for the first time, the mask felt suffocating. 

“Look at me, Underoos. Our first mission together, and you’re already kicking ass. You got this all figured out, haven’t you, Mr. Spider-Man?” 

The sincerity in Tony’s voice sounded forced, but Peter appreciated the gesture, anyway. “Thanks, Mr. Stark,” he mumbled. 

An hour had passed since they had infiltrated the facility and, finally , they found the control room. It was empty. Wall-mounted monitors displayed footage from the closed-circuit cameras around the base. Two of the screens were blank—the cameras Tony had destroyed near the elevator. 

Peter observed the remaining screens. Besides the agents they encountered, the rest of the base was empty. Not a single person in sight, including their target. The control panel below the screens showed a holographic view of the facility, marking out the doors that led to the medical wing, the armoury, sleeping quarters and a cafeteria. 

“I don’t think the minister’s son is here, Mr. Stark, and the base looks like it’s been scrubbed clean,” he called out, but Tony appeared preoccupied.  

Tony's helmet retracted to reveal his frown. “We have a problem. My suit integrity is at 30% and falling fast. Let’s cut our losses and get out of here.” 

Peter nodded. As they walked out of the control room, he said, “What did they promise you? I mean, the CIA. You… you took the job for a reason, even without a proper team. Why?” 

“Because.” Tony hung his head low, like he was ashamed to admit the bounty they had promised him out loud. “They said if I did this, they’d let them come home.” 

The way back to the elevator was unencumbered. As they passed by the unconscious agents, Peter stopped in his tracks. He glanced between the man he had earlier webbed to the wall and Tony. Peter's unease grew more and more intense. Something still felt off, like the calm before the storm, before utter carnage tore through everything in its path. 

Peter ran the calculation in his head again: The CIA gave Tony bad intel that led him to an underground Hydra facility, unprepared, out of his depth and without Friday’s help. To secure his compliance, they dangled the one thing in front of him that he had wanted—to reunite the Avengers, to bring his friends home. Thaddeus Ross was ex-CIA. 

Peter’s eyes widened under the mask when it all clicked: This wasn’t about rescuing a foreign politician’s kidnapped son. It was about assassinating Tony Stark without anyone ever finding out. But how? The motive made sense. The means? Didn’t. 

“Tony—” The words died on his lips when he looked at his mentor standing with a hand on his head. From the looks of it, Tony also came to a realisation. 

“Peter,” he said, his voice tight with worry. “Friday scanned nine life forms in the facility. We took out eight back there.” 

The last piece of the puzzle fell into place, and Peter could finally breathe again. 

“The blind spot. Mr. Stark, we took out the cameras closest to the elevators. This corridor goes in a circle… sir… I think, no, I’m positive we’ll find the final agent there. But, that’s not the problem. I’m worried about what he’s planning to do because, this mission, Mr. Stark, this mission wasn’t ever about rescuing someone. It was about assassinating you. Secretary Ross is ex-CIA, I remember it from an article I read about his daughter. I… I think he’s trying to kill you.” 

Tony’s lips drew into a thin line.

“Come on, let’s go.” 

Turning the corner, they saw the lift door was open. The missing Hydra agent stood inside the car, decked from neck-to-hip in explosives, packing enough punch to bring down the entire shaft and leave Tony and Peter trapped in the facility. 

“He’s going to bury us,” Peter said, his voice shaking. So that was it, that was how he was going to go out—trapped in the bowels of the Earth until his last breath, then left to rot here, forgotten by everyone above ground. 

“No, he isn’t.” Tony’s helmet snapped back in place as he rose into the air and dove towards the elevator. 

The Hydra agent threw his head back and laughed. 

“Hail Hydra!” He pressed the circular disc in his hand. 

On instinct, Peter moved back several steps to avoid the force of the imminent blast. He screamed, “Tony, no! Get out. Get out, now!” The armour was already at 30% integrity, it wouldn’t survive the blast. 

Peter watched in horror as the elevator, Tony and the agent along with it, disappeared in a blinding flash of light. A massive ball of fire and metal belched towards him its force hurtling him back as smoke and dust filled the corridor. Sharp, biting pain spread across his back and he tasted blood in his mouth. Lying on his back, Peter craned his neck to look for Tony among the carnage until exhaustion pulled him under. 

***

Awareness crawled back to Peter’s body and, along with it, came violent, throbbing pain as if someone had tried to crack his skull. With a sharp intake of breath, he opened his eyes to the wreckage left behind by the blast. The elevator had been reduced to large chunks of burnt metal, loose cables, and fried electrical wiring scattered across the floor; the shaft had caved under piles of rocks, sealing off their only way back to the surface. 

Most of the hallway lights in the vicinity were destroyed by the explosion, and the ones that survived flickered on and off. Without a watch, it was hard to tell how much time had passed since Peter got knocked out, but the fire at the blast site had mostly burned out, leaving embers in its wake. 

Sitting up was a challenge as aching muscles in Peter’s body protested against any sudden movements. His eyes searched the carnage for Tony and found him near a pile of rocks that blocked the shaft. 

Tony’s armour took most of the damage. Parts of it had broken away under pressure and heat from the blast, leaving him exposed in a grey undersuit. Dozens of small cuts peppered his face and neck. 

Peter tried to rouse Tony with gentle taps to his cheek. “Mr. Stark? Hey… come on, Mr. Stark, wake up. It’s me, Peter. Peter Parker. We’re tea—we’re teammates. You’re fine, you’re going to be fine… umm… we need… we need to find a way out. Mr. Stark, please… that’s it, come on, open your eyes.” 

The unease returned, crawling up from the back of his spine as Peter’s mind rattled off one terrifying possibility after another.

What if the injuries Mr. Stark sustained were too great? Peter would have to watch the man die. He’d have to hear Mr. Stark’s dying breath, listen to the final beat of his heart before it stopped. Forever.

What if Hydra came back? He remembered the dude with the metal arm, Captain America’s friend. The news had called him a brainwashed Hydra puppet, but Peter had read all about his heroics during the war at the Smithsonian. 

I don’t want to be anyone’s puppet.

What if Mr. Stark turned into a zombie? Having watched every film ever created about the undead, Peter couldn’t stop his active imagination from wandering. He chortled. Once he did, he couldn’t stop. He guffawed until he ran out of breath, imagining himself running around the base being chased by a reanimated armoured corpse. 

No no no no no stop. This isn’t the time —

He sobered up as soon as he heard a low groan. The sense of dread melted away.

“Mr. Stark,” Peter said, placing a hand over the arc reactor. It hummed quietly under his touch, and even though Tony didn’t need it anymore to survive, the fact that it still worked offered a sliver of comfort. Looking down, he saw Tony staring at him. He broke into a smile. “There you are. You really scared me for a second there. Come on, sir, we… we gotta figure things out. They beat us in the first round, but we’re the Avengers. Well, I mean… you’re the Avenger, and I’m just the trainee, but Spider-Man’s got a mean reputation too. Just ask anyone in Queens and they’ll—”

“Peter.”

He stopped babbling and snapped to attention. “Yes?”

“Need to get out of the armour. Hatch on the side. Arc reactor.” Tony struggled to form coherent sentences, but Peter understood the instructions perfectly. 

The armour retracted inside the chest plate. Nanotech. Cool —Peter shook his head. Admiration would have to wait because the two damp patches on the undersuit, one on Tony’s left shoulder, the other near the pelvis meant at least two deep wounds that needed fixing. Then, Peter noticed a piece of armour, about the size of his fist, lodged in Tony’s right thigh. 

“Mr. Stark, you have… you have a piece of armour sticking from your leg.” 

Tony rolled his eyes. Gritting his teeth, he said, “Thanks, Underoos. I wouldn’t have noticed otherwise.”

Peter blushed. 

But all the blood left his cheeks as soon as he remembered what they had learned in Biology: the shrapnel was lodged close to the femoral artery. One wrong move and Tony would bleed to death in five minutes. 

Peter rubbed his temples. When he had woken up that morning, all he wanted was to have a nice breakfast, courtesy of Tony’s impeccable household staff, and spend the day with his mentor fanboying about everything Star Trek, so when he went back to Queens at the end of his vacation, he could convince Ned to also become a Trekkie. 

Instead, they were both about to die, disposed of, like the unfortunate “Red Shirts*.” He bit back a laugh once he realized they both wore red armour. 

“Help me up kid,” Tony said. “We have to go back to the medbay.” 

They had passed by the door that opened into the medical wing earlier. Peter knew it from memory as he helped Tony to his feet, letting the injured man rest most of his weight on his bony shoulders. “Relax, Mr. Stark,” he said, sliding an arm around Tony’s back. “You can lean more if you want, sir. I can take it. I’m… well you know since I got my powers, I can—”

“Stop a moving a car with bare hands, I know. It’s why I recruited you.” 

Peter smiled. 

On their way to the medical wing, they passed the Hydra agents they had subdued earlier—each man laid on the floor, unmoving, as if in deep slumber. Some of them had traces of foamy saliva in the corners of their mouths. Peter focused on the path ahead, forcing himself to ignore the fact that none of the men had heartbeats. 

For an ancient death cult, Hydra kept a reasonably well-stocked supply of medicine. Peter helped Tony onto one of the hospital beds and rummaged through the cabinets for clean wipes and bandages to treat the lacerations. There was also the ‘small’ matter of removing the shrapnel before Tony either died from blood loss or infection. He found a drawer full of surgical supplies: scissors, surgical blades, knives, scalpels, forceps and retractors. Each of them served a purpose, but in Peter’s inexperienced and untrained hands, they became useless. He needed to find something, anything, to extract the shrapnel without worsening Tony’s injury. 

“You look like you know what you’re doing,” Tony said as he observed Peter from the bed.

“I know some basic stuff. I… uhh, well, this is kind of embarrassing and I promise this doesn’t always happen, but I, well I got detention last year. And, umm, well as punishment they sent me to a First Aid course.” Peter gripped the back of his wrist, smiling at the memory. “Finished top of the class. May got the certificate frame and… well if you ever visit, she’ll tell you about it. So, yeah, well, I guess I can bandage a wound.” 

Tony rubbed a hand along his uninjured leg. “Good. We need to worry about this,” he said, pointing at the shrapnel sticking out of his flesh. “There’s no way to tell if it nicked the artery. If it did, I’m dead as soon as we take it out. If we leave it in, it could get infected and I’m still dead.”

The choices sucked. Peter hated the resigned look on Tony’s face, like it wasn’t the first time the odds were so overwhelmingly stacked against him. Ned had once joked that it wasn’t an Avengers gig unless someone was dying. Something about the way Tony looked at him unsettled Peter; as if Tony was about to ask for something that Peter couldn’t, he wouldn't give. 

“What are you going to do, Mr. Stark?”

“How steady are your hands?”

Peter’s puzzled expression morphed into a glare once the implications behind Tony’s words became apparent. 

“Is this a joke? None of this is funny, Mr. Stark.” 

Tony sat on the bed with his arms crossed, his back straight, pale as a sheet. “I’m not laughing.” 

Hovering at death’s door, that man was still trying to teach Peter. Under normal circumstances, he’d have admired his mentor’s single-minded determination.

“You… Mr. Stark, you… you can’t ask me to do that. I’m not going to do it, sir… I’m… I don’t want your blood on my hands. I can’t have that on my conscience, that… that you died because I couldn’t…" He stood straighter. "I won't do it.”

“Do you or do you not want to be an Avenger?”

It had to be a trick question. It had to. 

“Yes. But not like this—”

“This is part of the deal, kid. It’s not all about catching the bad guy and saving the day. Sometimes, you gotta make tough choices. Right now,  our options are shit. Crapola. If we do nothing, we’re never getting out. You help me get this thing out, we have a 50-50 shot at seeing daylight again.”

Tony sounded raw. It reminded Peter of the day his recklessness almost sank the Staten Island ferry. Tony had called the subsequent reprimand a moment of ‘tough love,’ but the anxiety of losing the suit, losing access to the Avengers, to Tony, had almost destroyed Peter. 

He had been prepared to lose his life to take down the Vulture if that meant Tony would’ve been proud of his heroism. 

Since that day, Peter had weighed the consequences of every decision he had taken as Spider-Man, meticulous calculation and planning went into every bad guy he had taken down. He had reworked the equations over and over again until the odds turned in his favour. For all of the maths he did, Peter never once factored in the variable of losing Tony Stark for good. 

He walked closer and stood next to Tony.

“All right, I’ll… I’ll do it, but, Mr. Stark, you need to help me, I can’t do this by myself.”

Peter scrubbed his hands clean until the skin turned red, and Tony pulled off what was left of the armour. Their plan was simple: as gently as he could, Peter would pull out the shrapnel. If the wound bled too fast, they would use one of the gauntlets at its lowest setting to cauterise the laceration. They would then clean it and wrap it in a bandage. 

Peter tied a tourniquet above the wound on  Tony’s thigh as his mentor braced himself for a world of pain. 

“Well… here goes nothing,” Peter said.

With a swift tug, the shrapnel came loose. Blood gushed out of the gaping wound. Tony screamed—and Peter panicked. Shit. The hard part of the operation remained. Peter slid the gauntlet onto his arm,  pointed it at the messy area of exposed flesh and the thick blood. If Tony miscalculated the gauntlet’s charge, it would blow his leg off—

I’m going to be known as the guy who crippled Tony Stark.

The Daily Bugle, which had already declared Spider-Man ‘Queens’ Enemy No 1’ two months ago, would have a field day when the news spread. 

At least Mr. Stark would still be alive.

Peter pressed down on the gauntlet, and a flash of repulsor beam melted the wound closed. He let out a long, deep breath only to notice Tony had passed out. Peter used the opportunity to clean and bandage the area. They cleared the first hurdle—getting the shrapnel out. The next one was going to be a lot harder: Keeping it from getting infected. 

While Tony slept, Peter left the medbay to explore the rest of the facility. He stopped by one of the storage units they found before the explosion and changed out of his bloodied suit into a grey t-shirt and slacks. The bathrooms in the facility, thankfully, had running water. He stepped under the freezing cold spray and washed away the dried blood, dirt, and grime. 

“How did we get to this point?” He muttered under his breath. “Mr. Stark…he’s…he’s counting on me. I can’t let him die. Come on, Peter, you can do better. You  have to do better. He…he saved you so many times. This time, he needs to be saved. And it’s you. You have to save him. You must .”

But the odds seemed unbeatable. Even if he managed to keep Tony alive long enough for him to recover, the sparse resources left at the facility would eventually run out. He wondered if his call for help had been heard, if someone, anyone, was on the way to get them out, or would they be stuck there, lost to the world forever?

The game was rigged from the start. It couldn’t be won unless it was never about winning—

Peter turned off the water. 

He found the door that opened to the cafeteria on the other end of the circular hallway. While the freezers were empty, the pantry had a decent sampling of bagels, biscuits, soup, and, to his surprise, boxes of cheerios. Hydra goons were weird. If they rationed the food, it could sustain them a little over two weeks before they starved. 

Pulling up a chair, Peter tore into a packet of crackers and wolfed them down under a minute. In all of the day’s excitement and close brushes with death, he had forgotten how hungry he was. The temptation to open a second, a third, and even a fourth packet grew along with the grumbles in his stomach. 

In an effort to distract himself, he grabbed the suit from the adjacent chair and double-tapped the spider. 

“Karen?”

The disembodied voice of his AI filtered out from inside the suit. “ Hi, Peter. ”

“Hey. It’s…uh…it’s good to hear your voice. Can you…are you connected to the internet?”

“ I’m trying to connect but I cannot find a signal. We must be out of range. I’m trying our last known location and my data says we went to Nevada at 12:03 a.m. ” 

Peter closed. “We did. Yeah. We’re, we’re still here.” 

“ I do not understand .”

“We’re about 3—no, I think 400 metres below ground. Mr. Stark’s suit got damaged in a…uh..in a blast.”

“ That explains why I cannot locate Friday. Or anyone. I am sorry, Peter. Can I help with anything else? ”

“Just…just stay with me…okay? I don’t…I don’t want to be alone.”

“ Of course. I will be here when you need me. ”

“Thanks, Karen.” 

When the hunger became too much to handle, Peter grabbed food for Tony, and returned to the medbay. 

***

The longer they stayed trapped, untethered from the world above, the harder it became to keep track of time. Peter couldn’t tell when the day ended and a new one began. So, he did what any ‘logical’ person would do: He invented a new way of tracking time, using Tony. 

After his wounds had stopped bleeding, Tony mostly slept, waking up only for food, toilet, and medication. Every time he roused, Peter scratched a line on the infirmary wall using a spare scalpel. Each line represented eight hours and four in a row counted a day. By his estimation, which Peter had an inexplicable amount of faith in, they had been imprisoned at the facility for three days. 

Peter had started giving Tony generous doses of painkillers to keep him comfortable. What he was doing was probably illegal in at least half the states, if not more, but without having to listen to the man writhe in constant pain, Peter could think clearly and, maybe, he’d find a way out of the seemingly no-win scenario both of them had landed in.

He was going to beat the odds, or die trying. 

“Mr. Stark’s counting on me. Come on, Peter…you can do this. You can do this, this is just like an exam. You’ve aced hundreds of exams, it’s like riding a bike. Keep calm, solve the easy ones first, do the hard ones later. Keep an eye on the time. Come on, Peter. Come on, Spider-Man. Come on, Spider-Man. Come on, Spider-Man!” He blew out a puff of air and got to work.

Karen scanned for any satellite uplink she could find, however faint or insecure, with instructions to call for help. Her searches proved futile, but Peter held onto hope. Inside the control room, he went through hundreds of old closed-circuit tapes of Hydra agents working, training, murdering as he searched each video for clues to an alternate exit. That, also, proved futile. 

Peter rubbed his eyes. They had been itching for two days, and the last time he looked in the mirror, his eyes were small and bloodshot. Most of the cuts and lesions on his body had healed, including the nagging discomfort in his left ankle. Studying the markings he scribbled on the infirmary wall, they had been missing for just over a week. Or longer, Peter couldn’t tell because Tony slept all the damn time.

For most of the first week, keeping Tony’s wounds cleaned and bandaged to prevent infection remained Priority Number One. As the colour returned to the man’s face, along with it came an insatiable appetite as his body healed. It created a new worry for Peter—at the rate they went through their dwindling rations, they were going to run out of food in a week. Taking stock of what they had left in the cafeteria, Peter found three cans of soup, a box of plain crackers, an unopened can of tuna and two stale bagels. This is not good. This is so not good .

While starving to death sounded unpleasant, there were quicker options in the armoury—Peter banished the thought as quickly as it floated into his mind. He refused to fail, refused to accept that the road ended for him in an unimpressive underground bunker, instead of the White House, shaking hands with the President, accepting a medal of honour for his services as Spider-Man. One way or another, Peter promised to get himself and Tony out.

He returned to the medbay with the bagels.

“Hey, Mr. Stark, wake up.” Peter nudged Tony. “You need to eat. I brought bread, I know it’s what we had yesterday too, but come on, get up, please. You’ll feel a lot better once you’ve eaten.” He pressed a palm over Tony’s forehead; the skin was cool. So far, so good .

Tony stirred from his sleep, groggy and disoriented. With Peter’s help, he sat up, on the bed and in a grey t-shirt that slipped off his shoulders. He looked small and vulnerable, his hair had lost its usual sheen and his beard had turned whiter than Peter remembered. 

“Here you go.” Peter pushed a paper plate towards him and said nothing when he chowed down both bagels. Tony had no idea about their dire food situation.

Medicines also started running out fast, leaving them down to the last strip of painkillers. Peter had reduced Tony’s doses over the last couple of days and heard not a sound from him. Either his pain was gone or he became an expert at hiding it. Whether it was due to fatigue or guilt, Tony had become a man of few words, a jarring realisation for Peter who had grown accustomed to his hyperverbal manner of speaking. 

Stretching back in his chair by Tony’s bed, Peter said, “You know what I miss about the surface? Swinging. It’s just so—”

“Liberating,” Tony said in a low, raspy voice.

Peter nodded. “I think my personal best was 22 swings at one go. It was also the day Spider-Man acquired a new enemy: J. Jonah Jameson, editor of the Daily Bugle.” 

“Jameson is an idiot.” 

“I don’t know about that but he’s convinced a lot of people in the neighbourhood that I’m a menace.”

Tony scoffed. “If we ever get out of here, remind me to buy his paper.”

Peter snorted. Classic Tony Stark . He bit back a smile.  “Thanks, Mr. Stark. I appreciate the offer, I really do, but I support the free press. Let him say whatever he wants, it—I don’t let it bother me. I actually learned that from you, the way you handle the tabloids when they run wild. I admire that.”

“Kid—” Tony glanced down. If there was one thing Peter had learned spending time with the man, it was that his mentor was an expert at blaming himself. From the way he sagged into the bed, there was no doubt in Peter’s mind whom Tony held responsible for the mess they had found themselves in.

“Hey, tell me about Afghanistan.” 

Tony’s head snapped up as his expression hardened. On a normal day, under normal circumstances, that was a touchy subject, out of bounds for most reporters and business partners. Peter knew well enough to never ask about Afghanistan so casually, with such reckless abandon, but from the looks of things, they weren’t going anywhere. It was just them and their impending dooms, which made many things, including Afghanistan fair game. 

“I know, I know you don’t like to talk about what happened. Believe me. But—we’re probably going to die here, right? So, let’s swap stories. Make us forget how screwed we are.” He flashed a shy smile. “Please? I—I totally understand if you don’t want to though, so it’s fine…”

***

Later, when Tony fell asleep again, Peter couldn’t decide what had surprised him more: His own boldness in asking Tony Stark to relive the worst three months of his life or him, actually obliging Peter and telling him about how a good man named Yinsen saw there was more to Tony than just blowing shit up and gave up everything to get him out of that cursed cave alive.

Peter eventually left the medbay and strolled down the corridor to the armoury. He had avoided going in there since their ordeal began, but he knew contingencies had to be created if the cavalry didn’t show up on time. Or if at all. Most of the weapons there had been cleared out except for a handful of loaded AR-15s and, of all things, a rocket launcher. He picked up one of the semi-automatics, the rifle’s weight heavy in his hands, and wondered how many lives it had prematurely extinguished. 

He thought about the night his life had changed forever, all because of a Glock 19 in the hands of the wrong person: It had rained all evening, which left his seven-year-old in a cranky mood as May struggled to keep him entertained until Ben returned. His uncle was running late from work. The call had come past his bedtime, but he remembered the grim-faced police officer at the front door because he had heard May’s anguished howl and ran out of his room to console her. 

“Miss you, Ben. I miss you so much.” 

Maybe, he’d get to see him soon. No. We are NOT failing, we're not giving up.

“Fuck,” he muttered. Dropping the rifle, he ran out of the armoury and it felt like a weight was lifted from his chest. 

But, that tightness returned as soon as he entered the infirmary and found Tony’s bed empty. His first thought was Hydra—in the time Peter spent at the armoury, they had returned to snatch Tony.

Kidnapping Iron Man would command a lot of leverage; he’d fetch a good ransom from his company, his public presence could win Hydra political leverage over the superhero community. “Crap. How could you be so stupid, Peter,” he muttered as panic rose in his chest. 

He set off to search the rest of the facility, going from door to door until he reached the cafeteria. His worries dissipated. 

Tony stood observing what was left of their ration, his body language stiff and closed-off. 

“There you are, Mr. Stark,” Peter said, with his hands on his hips, like a parent about to tell their child off for misbehaving. “You aren’t supposed to be walking around just yet. The injuries are still healing. What are you doing here?”

Tony leaned into the nearest table for support. 

“When were you going to tell me?” The cold, repressed anger in Tony’s voice made Peter shudder. Getting into a confrontation when their days were probably numbered didn’t sound like a bright idea. If he had to admit defeat and die, he wasn’t about to do it without being on speaking terms with his favourite superhero.

So, he played dumb. “Tell you what?”

“For fuck’s sake, Peter,” Tony shouted. Glassy brown eyes bore into him. 

“You’re smarter than that. When were you going to tell me we are running low on food and that you were starving yourself by giving up your portions?” 

Probably never .

Peter blushed and stared at an empty shelf by the corner, he ran a hand through his hair. Confrontations made him awkward. “Not…not every meal. I am doing just fine, I don’t eat that much anyway. Stop fussing over it, Mr. Stark, you’re starting to sound like May.”

“Fussing? Fussing ? You are a child. I am supposed to be the adult here, I should be giving you my portions, kid, not the other way round. I’m—I should be looking after you, I’m supposed to tell you everything’s going to be okay, and we’re going to be okay, and—” Tony ran out of breath. He sank to the floor, his grip on the table trembling. 

Peter rushed to his side in an instant, sliding an arm around his back to steady him. 

“I am sorry, Underoos. I am so sorry for dragging you into my mess. They just wanted me, you are not supposed to be here. It can’t end like this for you.” 

When Peter was younger, if anyone had told him even superheroes cried, he’d have called them an idiot. Watching the way Tony’s eyes well up as he sank further to the floor, it shattered a great number of illusions in Peter’s life, starting with the crushing realisation that Iron Man wasn’t so invincible after all. If Iron Man also cried, really, what hope was there left for Spider-Man?

“Come on, Mr. Stark. Let’s get you back to bed.” 

***

When the time came for their next meal, Tony refused to eat until Peter sat down with his bowl of soup. His protests fell on deaf ears and he forced himself to slurp watered-down clam chowder that set off his gag reflex. It smelled like the New York subway during summer, it tasted worse. 

“This is disgusting. When we get out of here, Mr. Stark I need you to sue the company for emotional damage.” The remark earned him a full-bellied laugh. “Well, you’re in a better mood.” 

“Thanks to you,” Tony said. His smile was contagious and Peter found himself grinning. “I’m serious, Pete, you saved my life and no matter how this ends, I want you to know that. Without you, I wouldn’t have lasted this long.”

Peter regretted not recording the confession. Genuine compliments from Tony ‘I am the king of tough love’ Stark, who once forced him to buy a cheap t-shirt and floral pajamas and demanded he change out of the Spider-Man suit in a McDonald’s bathroom, were like urban legends: Everyone said they existed, and by everyone, Peter meant Happy Hogan, but no one ever knew where to find them. 

“Since you’re in a better mood, I guess now is as good a time to tell you this.” He stared heavenwards in a moment of supplication as Tony narrowed his eyes. “Back on the jet, I—I sent out a call for help on the green channel. I don’t know if anyone listened to my transmissions but there's still a slim chance they might come.”

Tony’s smile vanished, he shifted his gaze away from Peter and stared at the foot of the bed. His laugh turned mirthless,   “They’re not coming.”

“Why not? It’s Hydra. Everyone hates Hydra.”

“Hydra, AIM, Ross, doesn’t matter. They’d be stupid to risk coming back, especially for a bunch of guys who beat them up in Germany and put them in prison.” 

Peter hated the hopelessness in Tony’s voice. “You don’t know that.”

Tony sighed. 

“Kid, this is not my first rodeo. While I appreciate your foresight, you need to understand we’re on our own. Unless we find some secret underground exit out of here, this is probably the end for us. No one’s expecting us back. Rhodey doesn’t know I took this mission, gosh, he’d have talked me out of it. So would Pepper—actually, I’m not even sure what continent she’s in right now. Maybe your aunt will notice when she’s back and will file a missing person’s report and someone will finally realise we’re gone. But it’ll be too late for us.” 

Peter crossed his arms.

“We’ll see.” 

After Tony fell asleep, Peter returned to the control room again and sank into one of the chairs, putting his legs up on the control panel. His back hurt and he couldn’t remember the last time he had a restful sleep. Live feeds on the closed-circuit monitors showed nothing, no movements, not even the slightest flicker of light, just the still eeriness of the facility. One of the screens displayed footage from inside the infirmary—Tony lay on his side, unmoving. If Peter didn’t any better, he’d have thought the other man had already died. 

Rubbing a hand over his face, Peter closed his eyes. 

His mind wandered off again, his thoughts settling on Ned. Funny, charming Ned, his best friend for as long as he could—he missed him. He missed him a lot . They had never gone this long without communicating; surely, he’d have noticed Peter’s absence and told someone about it. 

The thought of dying unsettled Peter. Day by day, the utter hopelessness of their situation weighed on his determination to succeed, to win, to overcome unbeatable odds by changing not just the variables, but the goddamn equation itself. He had stopped tracking time a while back and the only indication he had that the Earth still spins around the Sun was from the length of his and Tony’s hair, and the overgrown shape of his mentor’s beard. 

Eyes closed, he imagined what it’d be like to die thousands of miles from home, buried so far below ground that they’d have to bring more than just shovels to dig him up. Would anyone even tell May what had happened or would she spend the rest of her life wondering why he never came back to her? When he became Spider-Man, he had promised he would always go back to her. Peter wondered with him gone, would Ned ever finish the Lego Death Star as it lay sitting in his room, collecting dust. 

Unable to bear the room’s deafening silence, he reached for Karen. 

“Still no signal?” He asked even though he knew the answer. 

“ I’m afraid not. We are still too deep underground .” 

Peter swore he heard a hint of sympathy in her tone. 

“Thanks, Karen.”

Minutes ticked by and Peter’s eyes drooped closed. 

He jerked awake and winced at the crick in his neck from the awkward angle he slept in, dreaming about being chased around the facility by a zombie Iron Man. The familiar tightness in his chest, the one he had felt as soon as they set off for the mission, came back. His heart thrummed against his ribs.

Just a nightmare, Peter. Keep yourself together, man . 

Checking the monitors, he found Tony still motionless in bed, which did little to ease his newfound sense of foreboding—The bone-deep growls from his dreams rang in his ears. 

Screw this. I am not going out like this. Neither is Tony . 

Hopping to his feet, he strode out of the control room to the cafeteria to pick up breakfast: they were down to their final bits of rations, two packets of plain crackers. 

“Rise and shine, Mr. Stark,” Peter said, walking into the medbay.

When Tony didn’t stir, Peter immediately knew something was wrong. Taking stock of the room, everything appeared to be in order, except the handful of ants crawling on the floor where he had spilt a drop of soup. But, a pinprick sensation in his gut gave him pause. He inhaled, trying to force more air into his lungs. 

“Tony?”

Peter moved closer and it felt like someone had just punched him in the gut. 

Tony shivered under the blanket, radiating heat like a lit hearth on a winter morning, his skin pale and clammy. 

No, no, nonono .

He sprang into action and prepared a cold compress to bring the fever down. He pressed the cool cloth to Tony’s forehead once, twice, before the other man shrieked, delirious, bordering on mania, as his mouth hung open, wide and rigid. The abruptness of the yell almost toppled the bowl of water from Peter’s lap. Leaning in, he squeezed Tony’s uninjured shoulder, trying to reassure him. “Hey, hey, Mr. Stark. What’s wrong?”

Tony stuttered, forcing the words out of his lips. “H—hurts.”

“Where?”

“Leg.”

Fear gripped Peter’s spine, spread along his back like wildfire. The implication of the fever hung over him, like an ominous raincloud, placed there to remind him of his failures. Despite his best efforts as he cleaned and dressed the area, twice a day, the wound became infected, with no way to stop its spread. They were out of painkillers, food, and now options. The infection was Tony’s death warrant, hand-delivered to Peter in the form of watching his friend, his mentor, shiver to his demise under the blanket. 

When Tony’s breathing evened out, Peter returned to the site of the explosion for the first time since it happened. He had avoided going near it or even glancing in that direction every time he passed by, on his way to the other parts of the facility. The blast had destroyed most of the agent who had blown himself up, but a rotting stench made Peter’s nose crinkle. 

It didn’t stop him from trying to clear the debris and rocks with his bare hands until his nail turned bloody, his knuckles full of abrasions. His efforts failed to make a dent on the blockade. Frustrated, Peter punched one of the bigger rocks; a small crack appeared on the surface and suddenly he couldn’t stop hitting it, over and over and over, reducing it to a half-a-dozen smaller rocks. 

He wanted to scream. 

Hours ticked by but Tony’s fever showed no signs of breaking. It consumed him inch by inch as he lay writhing on the bed, in a sweaty, restless slumber, waiting for the end. When Peter tried to change the bandage, he nearly retched: the skin and tissues around the cauterised area had turned necrotic and leaked puss all over Tony’s thigh. It smelled putrid. He dropped the last clean bandage on the bed, there was no use for it anymore, not when the countdown to the end had started. 

“I’m sorry, Tony. I am so sorry. I tried.”

Peter sank into the chair by the bed and continued to apply a cold compress, hoping it’d provide the other man even the slightest comfort in his final moments. He kept his attention focused on the task at hand because he didn’t trust his mind not to wander off and imagine what awaited him in the coming days: Alone, buried in a cold, unfeeling hell pit, holding the rotting corpse of his hero. 

Fathers and uncles and mentors had a way of waltzing into Peter’s life, unannounced; they upended his expectations, taught him how to write his first letters, or how to catch his first fish, and sometimes, they even made him a top-of-the-line superhero suit with zero expectations in return. And, just when Peter got used to them, started embracing their presence, they left, swift as evening’s wind. 

“I really hoped you’d be different. I thought, maybe, I…I thought I could save you, Mr. Stark. I wasn’t around to save dad or Ben, but with you, with Spider-Man, I thought I had a shot.” Peter’s voice cracked. “But you’re…you’re leaving too, and I don’t know if I can start all over again. I really didn’t want to fail.” 

The tears fell on his lap. On the bed, Tony stopped struggling, still and white as the first snow on a winter morning. 

“I’ve helped a lot of people in the neighbourhood. Stopped plenty of crimes, but none of it matters, not when you can’t save one of your own.” Peter held his head in his hands. “May keeps telling me to look on the bright side, and I did, I really did, but look where it got us. It’s a fucking joke.”

Tony’s lack of protest at Peter’s use of profanity cut deeper than any bullet.

“Maybe May and Ned are better off without me.” Peter hesitated to admit out loud the next part, not when he had been so sure help was on the way. 

“I don’t think I’m making out of here either. I was…I was certain they’d come, you know. They’re your friends, your team—”

Another explosion, bigger than the first one that got them stuck, rocked the facility as alarms went off, blaring all over the place.

Peter ran to the control room in a state of panic, searched for clues, anything, on the closed-circuit monitors. Nothing appeared out of the ordinary, except some of the lights on screens 3 and 6 flickered. There was no one at the cafeteria or the armoury or the medbay—his eyes settled on the blank screens, they were connected to the cameras Tony had destroyed before. The blindspot. It had screwed them over once, and now—the thought of Hydra returning set Peter’s nerves on edge. Tony was a goner and he’d rather go down fighting before letting himself be taken as prisoner. 

He tiptoed out into the corridor and went around the back, slipping into the armoury undetected. Picking up an AR-15, Peter stalked out, ready to fight. He had never fired a gun but how hard could it be? The plan formed fast in his mind: He’d fire the gun and take down as many Hydra goons as he could before they ended his life. It was a good plan, plain, simple and effective. 

As Peter neared the destroyed elevator shaft, he smelled a whiff of fresh air, crackling with electricity, and petrichor.  Voices murmured amongst each other; he recognised every one of them. 

“Where are they?” A man with a grave voice asked. 

A woman responded. “I don’t know. This place looks abandoned. Sure you heard it right?”

The man’s temper wore thin. “I know what I heard! The kid is counting on us. Tony is counting on us. We are not turning our backs on them again. Everyone split up and search the place, I am not leaving without them.”

“Steve,” the woman reasoned. Unlike the man, her composure was ironclad and the calmness in her voice soothed Peter. “I’m not trying to pick a fight here, but what if the distress call was a setup, and it was meant to lure you here? Ross still wants you dead.” 

Silence descended over the hallway. The tension was palpable. Before it built up to the point of rupture, another man stepped in. His voice sounded deep and regal. “Then, we stand and fight.”

Someone else interjected. “Easy for you to say, you’re not even from this planet and I’d like to see them try and arrest you.”

“Guys, focus. We need to find Tony and Spider-Man.”

“Can we even trust this Spider guy anyway? Last I remember, he was kicking our asses.”

The first man interjected. “I trust him with my life, Hawkeye.”

That was all the affirmation Peter needed as he stepped out from the shadows and rushed towards the party. They immediately raised their weapons at him: Cap held up his shield, Thor’s hammer hummed in his outstretched hand, Natasha pointed a gun at him and Clint aimed an arrow. Next to them, Bruce Banner appeared comically small and out of his depth.

Cap stepped forward.

“It’s okay, son. Put the rifle down, we’re here to help. You’re Spider-Man, aren’t you? You made the call.”

It dawned on Peter that it was the first time they saw him without the mask. He still wore a grey t-shirt and slacks. He dropped the AR-15 and sank to his knees; for all he knew, help arrived a little too late. “Peter Parker,” he said, his voice heavy with resignation. “My name is Peter Parker.” 

Cap knelt in front of him until they were at eye level. “Peter, my name is Steve. We’re here to help. Where’s Tony?”

Behind Cap, Clint muttered in disbelief. “Jesus, he’s literally a child.” 

The weight of trying to survive hundreds of feet below ground, watching his mentor succumb to his injuries, came crashing down. Peter heaved and broke into choked sobs as Cap put an arm around him. “Help him, Cap,” he whispered. “He doesn’t have long and I…I did everything I could, but the infection won’t stop spreading.”

Another figure knelt next to Peter. Bruce. “Come on, kid,” he said with a gentle, reassuring smile, tugging at his arm. “Let’s go save him together.” 

***

Epilogue

One month later…

Peter dropped off the books at the library and took the longer route back to the apartment, relishing the burning warmth of the midday sun on his skin. Since the Avengers swooped in at the last moment to rescue him and Tony from the subterranean Hydra base, Peter spent most of his time outdoors, soaking in the fresh air even though the summer’s heat made the sidewalks smell like piss and sewage.

***

On the way to the hospital, he had learned they spent more than three weeks at the facility—from his seat on the Quinjet, where his head had drooped sideways to rest on Thor’s arm, with not a word of protest from the god, Peter punched the air. His arbitrary measurement of time, using Tony’s sleep patterns, had been pretty damn accurate after all. 

But, what had felt better was when Captain America came over and knelt in front of him, held his hands while radiating so much guilt and sadness, it overwhelmed Peter. 

“Kid, I don’t know how to thank you,” the Captain had said in a low, trembling voice. Since the jet had taken off, Peter noticed the way Captain America stared at the back of the plane every five minutes, where Tony rested on a medical bed, hooked on to an IV. Bruce had treated him on board using the jet’s medical kit and they had managed to bring the fever down to a less dangerous level. 

“Bruce says the extent of Tony’s injuries, it’s nothing short of a miracle he lasted long enough for us to get there. All thanks to you.”

Peter exhaled, closed his eyes and remembered watching his mentor’s slow crawl towards death’s door. Grateful as he had been for the rescue, the Avengers had cut it too close—what if the infection had spread faster? What if Hydra came back to finish the job? What if the facility had collapsed altogether and buried them under the rubble?  “No offense but—” The words pushed their way out of his lips in a hushed whisper. “You guys are really bad at rescues. I sent…I called for backup three weeks ago, before we went in. What took you guys so long?”

The Captain had hung his head in shame and Peter had gotten his answer. 

Tony’s words rang in his ears: “ They’d be stupid to risk coming back, especially for a bunch of guys who beat them up and put them in prison. ” 

Peter had shifted away from his rescuers and sank into the seat closest to Tony. Though unconscious, the steady rise and fall of Tony’s chest and the rhythmic beating of his heart, audible only to Peter’s heightened hearing, comforted him. Reaching out, Peter had held onto his mentor’s hand and whispered, “We did it, Mr. Stark. We beat the odds, sir. We won. James Kirk would’ve been proud.” 

***

Peter paused outside the apartment, stared at the black limousine parked by the curb earning curious stares from passers-by. Its sight made him grin so hard his face hurt as he sprang up the stairs towards the flat. Inside, he found May and Happy engaged in an animated discussion, the way their hands gestured in the air, the bright smile on May’s face as she twirled her hair— was she flirting?!

Peter coughed from the doorway to announce his presence. 

Happy tensed a little, barely a flinch, invisible to untrained eyes, but Peter noticed. Just like he saw the way a blush crept up May’s face as she shrank away from Happy to a more socially acceptable distance between two adults sharing a sofa. 

“What’s up, Hap? You here for me or my aunt?”

“Don’t get too cocky, kid,” Happy said, a scowl formed on his lips. Peter adored Happy for his crass, uncompromising, and, sometimes, downright rude temperament. Peter could’ve stopped an alien invasion by himself and, still, Happy would tell him off for bothering him. Being one of Tony’s closest friends had turned Happy into a jaded, cynical asshole when it came to superheroes. Peter loved it. 

“How’s Mr. Stark?”

Happy grumbled. “Fine. Get your things, he’s asked me to take you to the Manor. 10 minutes or you’re taking the train.”

Peter glanced at May. She had returned from her vacation in high spirits only to discover her nephew had been missing for three weeks. She filed the police reports, just like Tony had predicted, and spent most of her waking hours waiting inside the neighbourhood precinct, as she held onto her dwindling ration of hope. 

But, in the end, Peter had come back to her—just like he promised. After he held her in his arms as violent sobs racked her whole body, May had regained enough of her composure to forbid Peter from going on patrol for the rest of the summer. 

“You okay with me going to see Mr. Stark? 

Peter prayed she wouldn’t say no. He hadn’t seen Tony since the rescue—his mentor had spent most of his time recovering at the hospital. 

“Yeah, of course.” May rose to her feet. “I made some date and walnut loaf for him. Give me a minute, I’ll pack it.”

One minute turned into twenty as May packed a full bag of food for Tony. 

While waiting for her, Peter turned to Happy. “The Avengers come back yet?” 

“Yeah, they’re in the upstate facility.”

In the weeks since they had faced certain death, Peter woke up one morning to a New York Times expose, which sent shockwaves through the country. The newspaper had uncovered an insidious plan within the U.S. government to make Tony Stark disappear for good, and seize control of the Avengers initiative right from under the U.N.’s nose. Attempting to assassinate a public figure like Tony, then botching it and getting caught, proved to be a public relations nightmare. 

In the report’s wake,  Thaddeus Ross had called a press conference to take the fall, revealed himself as the mastermind who kidnapped the Chinese foreign minister’s son, lured Tony into a Hydra base with the promise of dropping all charges against Steve Rogers and his friends in return. 

While everyone tried to process the confessions from the Secretary of State, Steve Rogers had turned himself in. After hours of negotiations, he met the U.N. at the halfway mark and agreed to sit out on international missions in exchange for not signing the documents. 

“Colonel Rhodes?”

Happy shook his head. “Next month. But he won’t be going on missions anytime soon.”

Peter contemplated in silence on the car ride to the Manor. He worried about the state of Tony’s leg, the last time he had inspected the wound, skin and tissue around the area turned necrotic. The infection’s effects remained another cause for worry—Peter had seen enough war documentaries to understand the horrors of amputation. 

As the limo turned a corner and the mansion came into view, Peter rolled down the window and looked out: A scene of pure chaos. Dozens of news trucks parked along the curb while tens of reports stood outside the tall, wrought-iron gates waiting to catch a glimpse of some form of activity inside. 

“Uhh, Happy, how are we—I don’t really—” Peter broke off and forced himself to breathe. Calm down. Deep breaths. In. Hold. Out. Again. In. Hold. Out.

“Relax, Peter, we’re going from the back,” he said. The limo turned left, away from the chorus of reporters and drove on for another twenty minutes until Peter recognised the tunnel and the water body from where the Quinjet had taken flight. 

“Just how big is Mr. Stark’s house?” 

Happy chuckled. 

***

Peter sat at the same spot on the couch the last time he visited. Mr. Stark sat on the adjacent armchair while they watched his favourite film— The Wrath of Khan —before the phone call had set things in motion. Thinking about the base, the crippling hopelessness that floated in the still, dead air, Peter shuddered. It—

He picked up the soft, steady ticks of a walking stick on marble before Tony appeared. The colour had returned to his cheeks,  though his hair turned greyer than Peter remembered.

“Mr. Stark!” Peter shouted in less than dignified tone, rushed forward and threw his arms around his mentor. “You’re okay, sir. You’re…you’re okay.”

He guided Tony to the sofa. 

“How are you doing, kid?” 

“Good. Just, great. Umm, May’s kinda grounded me. So, no patrols for now.” 

Tony grinned. “I heard. And I agree. Enjoy what’s left of your vacation.” 

Peter glanced at Tony’s leg; he wore loose-fitted pajamas, but from what Peter saw, both of his legs looked human. He stumbled on the question he wanted to ask, whichever way he phrased it rang as insensitive in his mind. 

“They saved it,” Tony said, tapped his healing leg and put Peter at ease. “The doctor told me I was lucky to have survived at all.”

Peter’s face fell, every day it dawned on him how close they had come to their ends. 

“I told him, I survived because I had a hell of a teammate.” Peter’s head snapped up. Tony continued. “Yeah, this guy kept his cool, treated my injuries and changed the bandages every day, kept me fed, and, more than that, he didn’t let me fall into despair.” 

Silence hung overhead as Peter processed Tony’s words, he found them overwhelming. His eyes welled up and he stared at his lap, bit into his lips and balled his palms into fists to hold onto his composure. 

“Mr. Stark, I—”

“You saved my life, Pete. If it weren’t for you, instead of sitting here with you, I’d be lying in a morgue.”

Peter fixed his gaze on the carpet. 

He spoke in a muted voice. “I told myself I wasn’t gonna lose you like I lost my parents and Ben. I know, I know it’s kinda weird to say this because, because we’ve only known each other for a year, but you’re kind of…like my work dad. I look up to you.” Peter shrunk in his seat, mortified. 

Did I just say that out loud? Holy crap, Peter . 

Peter half-expected Tony to laugh in his face or throw him out for overstepping their professional Avenger-trainee Avenger relationship. Instead, the other man shifted closer and patted Peter’s back. 

“You’re a good kid, Peter. But, I am not a good role model. I…I don’t even know how to be someone’s mentor, let alone be their work dad. My carelessness almost got you killed on your first mission. You kept telling me we shouldn’t go down there on our own, and I didn’t listen. If you hadn’t called for backup, we’d be dead.” Tony held his head in his hands and sighed, his shaky voice betraying feelings of insecurity. “When we were down there, it took me far too long to figure out you weren’t eating because we ran low on food. You were the adult down there and I—I am not fit to be your mentor.”

“You’re wrong,” Peter shook his head, he shifted on the couch to face Tony, eyes glossy. “That’s where you’re wrong Mr. Stark. I didn’t give up down there because I knew Iron Man would never give up. He would laugh in the face of a no-win scenario and find a loophole. He always finds a way.”

Tony eyes turned glossy as he fought back tears. Peter pushed ahead, determined to say his piece. 

“Do you know what I can never forget? I stayed home that day, when the aliens came. May and I hid under my bed, scared out of our minds because they were terrifying. I didn’t want them to eat me or May. And then, we waited. We waited for an hour when she turned on the radio and they said Iron Man saved the day. He risked his life and went through the wormhole with a nuke on his back and the next minute, every alien in the city dropped dead. Mr. Stark, Iron Man never gave up when the aliens came in force. He fought and found a way to beat the odds.” Peter placed a hand on Tony’s shoulder. “Are you Iron Man, Mr. Stark?”

“Peter—”

“Please. I don’t know the first thing about being a superhero. Everything I’ve done so far has worked out because of sheer dumb luck. I need someone to guide me, sir. May has too much on her plate, I can’t dump this on her too.”

Tony craned his neck back and exhaled.

“All right, Spider-Man,” he said a moment later, some of the usual cheeriness returned to his voice. “I officially adopt you as my work kid. Now, first thing’s first, needless to say, you’ve proved yourself to be an exemplary team player and an asset.” The corners of Tony’s mouth turned up. “I am going to be out of commission for three months and the team needs a substitute. My vote went to you.”

Peter slid to the edge of his seat, his ears finding it hard to believe what they heard. 

“But I’ve decided to take a longer break. Being Iron Man is…a privilege, it's a terrible privilege, one that I need to step from for a while. So, when I’m gone, Rhodey’s going to keep our merry band of fugitives and alien gods and a Hulk in shape. He needs a deputy, someone who can keep him sane so that he doesn’t bother me on vacation. Your name ended up at the top of the list, although, Rhodey is a picky bastard, so the list was pretty short to begin with. Following me so far?” 

If Tony was a measure of chaos, Colonel Rhodes was the personification of calm and serenity. Peter hadn’t met the Colonel since Germany, but he had read all about him—Ned wouldn’t stop talking about War Machine and once, they had gone an entire week without speaking to each other, after getting into a fight about which armour had superior firepower. Peter had asked Tony, and showed up in the evening at Ned’s place with an apology cake in hand. 

“You want me to be Colonel Rhodes’ second in command? But, Mr. Stark, I am a teenager and rookie. Captain America would never agree to this.”

Tony beamed, as if he had been waiting for Peter to ask about what the rest of the team had to say about the unexpected promotion. 

“It was Steve’s idea. Whatever he saw down there clearly impressed him enough to suggest it. Thor backed him on that. So, you’re the team’s new deputy. They’ll listen to you, kid. The team needs a fresh start, a fresh perspective. And you’re the solution. It’s you, you’re our future.” 

Before Peter could stew in the implications of the bombshell Tony had just dropped on him, Friday chimed in from overhead.

“ Boss, it’s 2p.m. You asked for a reminder of the time. ”

“Thanks, Friday.” Tony reached for the TV remote on the coffee table in front and turned it on. 

Peter watched as it connected to his personal server and pulled out a curated playlist: Star Trek. He grinned as Tony pulled up the episodes for the first season of the original series and queued them up. 

“Up for a marathon, kid?” 

“You bet.” 

Tony hit play, and as the Star Trek theme began playing, he turned to Peter. 

“I was right before. You are nothing like James Kirk, you’re better. Because you’re real and, if you say this out loud to anyone I will end you Underoos, but you’re my hero. Because you saved my life and that’s what heroes do.”

Peter stared at the screen as the episode began, unable to hide the wide grin plastered all over his face. 

***

They made it through the six episodes of the first season when Tony’s phone rang. Peter glanced between his mentor and the television, the next episode already loaded, ready to play, his mind wandered off to the last time it had happened. 

He shuddered at the thought. Outside, the afternoon had folded into evening as, one by one, the reporters left. 

The phone continued ringing. 

“Who’s that?” Peter asked, unable to contain his curiosity. 

Tony’s face split into a smile. “My lawyers.” 

“Oh.” A pause, then, “Are you getting sued?” 

“On the contrary, I am suing.” 

Peter sat up straight. From everything he had read about Tony, even before they met, what impressed him most was the man’s ability to let personal insults and defamation towards his name, his character, go uncontested. Tabloids ran salacious headlines about his supposed mistresses, boyfriends, secret, torrid love affairs, but Tony never gave them the satisfaction of getting a rise out of him. 

“Who are you suing? You never sue, you let the National Enquirer literally call you a royal homewrecking wench before because Thor moved into your tower.” 

Tony threw his head back with a full-bellied laugh. “I still have that page framed somewhere.”

Peter asked again, more insistent. As a work son, he reasoned he had every right to know who his work dad prepared to bury. “Who are you suing?” 

“The Daily Bugle.” 

“No. What. Why? ” It didn’t make sense. Sure, the Bugle was a thorn on his side, it ran smear campaigns about Spider-Man every other week, and once, Jonah had offered a three grand reward for his true identity. But, the Bugle was just a small-town tabloid, its readership in the low thousands. Setting Tony’s small army of lawyers on them seemed a little unnecessary. 

“Don’t you have bigger fish to fry? The government did try to assassinate you, you could probably bankrupt the Treasury with a lawsuit.” 

Tony shrugged. “I could, and maybe I’ll look into it. My enmity with the Bugle is personal.” 

“I don’t follow.” 

“They’ve been spewing a lot of shit about my son, and what kind of dad would I be if I let that slide?” 

—FIN—