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Peter Parker wasn’t worried about the field trip at all. No way, Jose.

Tony Stark didn’t even know him. Well, he knew Spider-Man, but that was different! Spider-Man was ‘an adult.’ Or at least, more adult than Peter Parker was. And either way, it was futile to think that the owner of Stark Industries would even show up at Peter’s high school field trip.

The school wasn’t paying for it, it had been an award: something that probably didn’t even cross Tony’s desk.

In fact, he was so not worried for the field trip that he’d been staring at his Spidey-Suit for a solid thirty minutes wondering if going out on patrol the night before would somehow give him away. It shouldn’t, unless he got hurt of course, but Peter’s brain was going too fast for him to think rationally.

In the end, Peter gave in. He had so much nervous energy that he didn’t know what to do with, so patrolling was a good way to get it out of his system. Much better than sitting all alone in his room until he felt the urge to jump out his window and go swinging, suit-be-damned.

He told Aunt May that he was going to bed after finishing up a few homework problems that, in reality, had long been solved and put on his suit.

The first swing always felt incredible. Like coming home after a long day and changing into comfy clothes. Or, maybe not, that was a bad analogy, it didn’t have enough adrenaline. Whatever the feeling was like, it felt freeing. A smile that no one would ever see overtook his face as he carried himself to the next building.

His euphoria was quickly overtaken by pure focus as he heard a scream coming from two blocks over.

The rest of the night went like that. He would go about helping people, and in between he’d simply enjoy the nice night. Soon enough, all of his anxieties went away.

“Hey, Karen,” he asked into his mask, “Is there anything else serious going on that I should know about?”

Karen let out a thinking noise, probably sorting through police records and Peter patiently waited, “There are no crimes, but Tony Stark has requested your presence at the tower once your patrol is done. Should I tell him you are heading over now?”

Anxiety shot through Peter’s body yet again. What if Tony had figured it out? What if he took the suit away? Peter knew that would be a harsh move but it had almost happened before at the ferry. If Peter hadn’t stayed in touch with the billionaire, well- he didn’t want to think about what would have happened.

“Um, do you know what he wants?” Peter asked gingerly.

“He has not specified anything, Spider-Man.”

The vigilante pursed his lips, “Fine, you can tell him I’m heading over. But not for long!” Peter promised before swinging his way to the tower.

Peter was pretty sure he’d never entered the tower through a normal door. He always opted for the windows. It would be pretty surreal if Spider-Man, full suit and everything, just waltzed through the Stark lobby. Karen informed him that Tony was in the kitchen so he took the window on the North-East. It pushed open with no resistance and he had FRIDAY to thank for that.

“Tony? Karen told me you wanted something from me?” he asked, walking up to the kitchen island. The other hero was trying his hand at a smoothie and Peter had definitely never seen one that color. He wisely made no comment on it.

“Oh, Spidey. Do you want some smoothie?” Tony offered. Peter quickly politely declined, “Okay, whatever floats your boat. And actually, I wanted to ask you two things. Wait, three.”

Peter rolled him eyes in his mask and inwardly regretted that the older man couldn’t tell, “Okay, but I can’t be here long, I’ve got to wake up early tomorrow for my-“

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, your boring job at “Who Cares,” that’s part of my question. I’ve been talking to Pepper about this, but, would you quit your job and work here at Stark Industries?” Tony asked and it was one of the last things Peter had expected.

“Um, I’m sorry, can you repeat that, Tony?” Despite his enhanced hearing, Peter was positive he didn’t hear Tony correctly at all.

“You heard me, right. You take off your mask, and sign this contract,” he started, pointing at a holographic page that FRIDAY had likely pulled up, “You’ve got a job here at Stark Industries.”

Peter focused on the holographic page to read what was on the contract and his eyes widened, “That’s- That’s a lot of money. Why are you even offering this?”

“Don’t think I haven’t seen your designs, Spidey. They’d be great to have under the Stark patent and sold in our stores. You’re a bona fide genius. Even Pep thinks so.”

Peter was definitely blushing, “I’m sorry, Tony, I really can’t accept,” the man’s whole face dropped in confusion, he probably wasn’t used to people saying ‘no’ to him, but Peter was only a Sophomore! In high school! “Could you maybe wait, like, I dunno, six years?”

“Six years? What kinda indentured servitude are you in with that other job? I’ll happily buy out your contract,” the man added.

Peter quickly shook his head, “Can you please drop it? I really like my job,” he said weakly, even if Peter would have loved to join SI and leave school, “What else did you wanna ask me?”

This time Tony rolled his eyes (though he didn’t do it as well as Peter, obviously), “Well, the first one is about upgrades for your suit, do you have any? ‘Cause I do, and I’d like to work on them with you, maybe this weekend? Are you free?”

“I do! And this weekend works great for me!” Peter’s heart was beating quickly. He always loved working in the lab with Tony but usually it was Tony working and Spider-Man working, respectfully. They hadn’t yet worked in the lab as Tony and Spider-Man, working together. This would be the best weekend ever! “What else did you want?”

Tony smiled back at Peter, even if he couldn’t see Peter’s face, “Well, Pepper is making me do this thing tomorrow for a bunch of high-schoolers,” Peter’s heart dropped, was this it? Is this how everything ended? But Tony continued, “probably my worst enemies, even if they are nerdy high-schoolers. Anyway, I’m terrible with kids but you seem like you’d be pretty good with them. And your fans do tend to be younger than mine, would you wanna help me out with them? I’ll pay you enough to miss whatever shitty job you’re doing for a day.”

Peter’s heart rose back up, Tony didn’t suspect him at all, “I really can’t, I’ve got, ummm, we’ve got an important thing at work tomorrow, definitely cannot miss it, sorry.”

“An important thing, huh?” Tony’s eyebrows quirked.

“A board meeting!” Peter blurted out when the words finally came to him, “A board meeting,” he repeated a bit more quietly.

“Sure, kid. Well, nice job with patrol tonight, I’ll be going back to my lab,” he said, grabbing his horrible looking smoothie on the way out, “Feel free to help yourself to the kitchen and I’ll see you this weekend,” he added before the man was gone.

Peter was always astounded by how much trust the billionaire gave him in his house, but he figured if he had a crazy smart AI in his ceiling he wouldn’t be too worried either. Though he felt reluctant about it, Peter peeked in the fridge and grabbed what looked to be leftover spaghetti. Surely, Tony wouldn’t miss it too much, right?

Peter was practically starving from his patrol. Usually he liked to keep cash on the suit so he could stop and grab a hot dog or a sandwich from Delmar’s, but he’d totally forgot to restock his money pocket.

Peter didn’t bother to heat it up before digging in.

Before he could finish, none other than Pepper Potts walked in. He quickly pulled down his mask, risking getting marinara on the inside, to talk with her. Luckily the bottom half of his face wasn’t enough to out him as a minor, but without the voice modifier in his mask his secret would be gone pretty quickly.

“Don’t worry, you can keep eating. I won’t ask you any questions requiring actual intellect,” she joked, and Peter listened to her, “Did Tony show you the contract?” she started off with. Peter nodded his head, the extra-long noodle hanging out of his mouth bounced with him.

“And you don’t want it?” she asked skeptically, he shook his head, “What was it? Was the money not enough? Do you not want to sell your products? Or-“ At this point Peter was shaking his head very intensely. He finished off the last bite and pulled down the mask.

“None of that, Miss Potts, I really would love to work here, and the contract looked great. But I told Tony that you guys would have to wait, like, six years. I’m in the middle of something that I can’t really get out of, and until I finish it, I’m pretty much unhirable,” he felt the tips of his fingers dig into the nape of his neck as he got nervous. She was way too determined to learn as much as she could about his personal life.

When he caught Miss Potts looking at his nervous tic he quickly dropped his arm and turned to clean out the dishes he’d used.

Pepper squinted at him, she was honestly one of Peter’s biggest risks as she was the most likely to figure out his identity, which was scary, “Unhirable, you say? Is it your background? Are you on parole?”

“What?” Peter blurted out loudly, “Do you really think I could be a criminal, Miss Potts? And be able to sneak out as Spider-Man on parole?” He started viciously scrubbing the container that had held the pasta.

She shrugged, “I suppose not, but it was a better guess than nothing. I can’t really think about anything that’s holding you back from working for us, Spider-Man. Other than your secret identity, of course, but it couldn’t be anything about who you are that’s keep you back, right?” she asked, not very subtly.

Peter froze, this is exactly why Miss Potts was his biggest risk. She was always trying to find out who he was. He originally thought that would be Tony but he’d been very wrong. Pepper didn’t like not knowing things, so she was constantly trying to get any hint she could. Other than straight up asking him, of course.

“Of course not, Miss Potts. Good luck with the high school tomorrow, I can only imagine the tower will be in chaos,” he joked, “Teenagers can be a handful, I would know.”   

He could feel Miss Pott’s eyes on him the whole way out of the tower.

Peter barely made it to school on time. Everyone had already been mostly loaded into the bus; luckily, Ned had saved a seat for him. Peter plopped right down next to his friend and was very thankful that he didn’t have to suffer through his anxiety in silence.

“You must be pretty nervous, huh?” Ned asked with a slight grin on his face, “Meeting Tony Stark as Spider-Man is probably pretty different than meeting Tony Stark as Peter Parker, huh?”

Peter was quick to shush his friend, “Ned, not so loud,” he whined, “And yeah, I was feeling pretty fine until Tony told me he’d end up hijacking our field trip. Can’t we just have a normal tour for once?”

Ned put a hand on Peter’s shoulder, “I dunno man, I’m pretty excited for the field trip. It probably helps that I don’t have to hide a secret identity though. Can’t really give you any other advice than just be a normal high schooler, I guess?”

Peter deadpanned, “Wow Ned, thanks for the advice. Literally nothing about me screams ‘normal high schooler.’”

“Eh, you’ll manage somehow.” His friend said with a casual shrug.

The vigilante let his head sink into his palms, “This is going to go horribly, I can just feel it.”

Ned gave him a pitying look and artfully changed the topic, they spent the rest of the trip talking about the working Lego car that had been in the news lately.

When the bus arrived at the tower, all of the students steadily streamed out into the front lobby. Peter and Ned were the last out. When he finally took a look around, he saw Miss Potts standing in the back corner, behind the security desk, giving a careful eye to his class. Or rather, his teachers.

Peter tried to ignore her glance, it couldn’t mean anything, right?

Their tour guide ended up being a nice woman named Macy. She wasn’t wearing what was usually thought of as business attire, but jeans and a t-shirt. She seemed to be a college student.

“Just as a final warning, the only time you can touch anything in the labs is for our last activity where you get to try your own hand at building. Your teacher should be handing out what will serve as your day passes. They’ll expire at the end of the day but for now, they’ll serve to let us keep track of your group. You’ll go through the metal detector and FRIDAY, the AI in the building, will take a body scan of you,” she explained.

Peter grabbed his pass. It was simple, with nothing other than the SI logo in white on a black background. He put the lanyard around his neck and walked through the scanner. A red light filtered over his body as FRIDAY took a scan of him.

And then he was officially in, and for the first time ever it was through the front door.

When he looked over to where Pepper had been, she was gone.

“Okay kids, we’re gonna start in the museum. Though the word ‘museum’ is probably pushing it. It’s more like a collection of artifacts from suits of the Avengers, original weapons, and even one of the first arc reactors,” she said, keeping up with her cheery tone. Peter wasn’t quite sure how she did it.

Peter had never been this low in the tower before, so he was actually enjoying the tour and all it offered. The ‘museum’ had been interesting to see and there was even one of his suits -ripped and bloody- stuck in the case.

He marveled at the old Iron Man suits and winced when he saw the all too familiar Chitauri weapons. Almost too soon, they got to the final stage which was where Tony was supposed to show up.

Flash was, of course, being as annoying as ever, but Peter had gotten pretty good at tuning out his insults. He was feeling too anxious to worry about what the other teen had to say. That is, until Tony Stark heard it.

“I’m sorry, what did you just call this young man?” the billionaire came into the room asking.

Chills went down Peter’s back and he turned around to see Flash not looking too well, “Uh, I- nothing!” the teen tried to claim.

Tony chuckled, “Sure, kid. Either way, I don’t want you participating in this last activity. Doubt a bully could do too well anyway,” he joked and Peter’s cheeks burned red, no one had ever stood up for him before other than Ned and MJ. Especially not an adult.

Tony gave Peter a pat on his back and started going into his most likely practiced spiel. Peter was only half listening but the gist of it all was to build something that you think would help everyday people, they had a solid two hours.

Peter and Ned got to work at the same table but weren’t working together like other students were. With Tony’s playlist playing in the background he fell into a steady rhythm and finished with a little bit of extra time.

Overall, he was proud of his project. It was something he’d been thinking about for a while and had often seen his Aunt May struggling with.

At the end, Tony himself went around the room and asked them about their projects, their processes, and their purposes. He had been in a meeting the whole while they were building so he went into the room blind.

Peter stumbled over his words when explaining his project and was probably red in the face. He dropped ‘Mr. Starks’ all over his sentences as it was one of the only things keeping him from falling into the familiar banter he was used to as Spider-Man. When he finally looked up from explaining, Tony had a slight grin on his face that he dropped the second he noticed Peter looking at him.

Once he was done with the whole room, he called for everyone’s attention, “Nice job, I wasn’t expecting this much from kids your age. But you all clearly came here prepared,” Tony looked down to something in his pocket, a note card? He looked up just as quickly as he’d looked down and Peter did his best to stop himself from laughing, “I can’t wait to see where you all go in this big world. You are all winners today, but since I have to choose, the big prize is going to Peter Parker! A personal internship with your’s truly for three months.”

Peter’s jaw dropped, this was not what he needed right now. He looks around the room at all of his shocked peers and even sees Miss Potts’ through the window. If he turned it down it would be too suspicious, “Ahaha, that’s so cool,” he said, not so convincingly.       

Tony gave him a look.    

Luckily, Ned stepped in for him, “Wow really? Peter is just so excited, he must’ve gone into shock or something,“ he gave Peter a hard elbow on his ribs, “Right, Peter?”

That was enough for Peter to snap back into the moment, “Oh definitely, working at SI has always been a dream for me, thank you for this opportunity To- Mr. Stark,” he said with what he hoped was an inconspicuous smile.

It was a Saturday, but Peter had woken up early regardless. When May asked him where he was going, he responded with the library. But the second he was out, he shuffled to get his Spidey-Suit on and secured before taking off to Stark Tower.

As usual, he went through a window. This time he went through the one in the lab only to find that Tony wasn’t there yet.

He made his way out of the lab and found the engineer asleep at the table, a Stark tablet in front of him. He felt his guts turn, Tony probably hadn’t slept at all last night.

He walked over and as gently as he could, put an arm on Tony’s shoulder. Like a bullet, the man shot awake and almost fell out of the stool he was sitting in, “Whoa!” he shouted before taking in Peter’s presence.

“Oh shit,” he said bluntly.

“What, am I that easy to forget, Tony?” Peter joked but felt his heart clench. He watched the billionaire struggle to form some words before letting out a chuckle, “Chill, it’s okay, what were you working on? Catching up on some TV show?”

Tony gave him a deadpan stare but Peter held his ground, “Actually, I have a personal intern now, so I was setting up some projects to work on with him. But don’t worry I can still work with you so-“              

Before Tony could say another word, Peter spoke up, “FRIDAY, how much sleep did Tony get last night?”

She answered quickly, “Two hours.”

Peter rolled his eyes, “You’re gonna end up soldering yourself again. And don’t try to deny it, I’ve seen you do it before.”

“You came all the way over here, we have to do something, I’m not that rude of a host,” he promised, Peter squinted at him as if trying to determine if he was telling the truth, “We can put on a movie, that can be a happy medium, right?”

“Do I get to choose then?”

“Nah, we’re gonna get some Star Trek into you no matter how much you protest,” he said with a laugh.

And sure, it went against everything he believed in, but he could put up with Star Trek if it was with his mentor. 

The next Monday he was at school was really weird. People had started… talking to him. Where before, he’d get ignored in the halls, break, and lunch, now it was like people were always crowding him. He hadn’t even started the internship and people were already asking him questions upon questions about Tony.

Of course, he knew the answers to a lot of them from his time as Spider-Man, but all the attention felt wrong. They obviously didn’t care about him or the fact that they’d all turned a blind eye to his treatment of bullying.

Thankfully, he had Ned and MJ. They were friends he knew he could trust. MJ sent them all running with a glare during lunch and Peter finally felt like he could breathe.

He slumped over on the cafeteria table, “How did this get so out of control? I wish I could go back to just being ignored.”

“Dude, only you would think that,” Ned said bluntly.

“Nah, MJ probably feel the same way, right?” he asked carefully, sending puppy eyes her way. MJ just looked at him and then back at her book, he took that as a yes, “And even if I did actually want to be friends with them, I don’t have any time! Between the internship, being friends with you guys, decathlon, and y’know, my schedule is pretty packed.”

Ned pouted, “But popularity!” he shook his head solemnly, “Something you’ll never appreciate.”

Things mostly died down after lunch and Decathlon was mostly fine, except for the part where Peter could feel Flash’s glare on him every time he got a question right. What did the other teen expect?

When he knew Peter was close enough to hear he said, loudly, “If I’d designed something, I’m sure I’d be the one with an internship,” to his gaggle of friends.

Peter rolled his eyes and moved on. It didn’t matter what Flash thought, he had so many things to re-plan. He’d have to change his patrolling hours to account for the extra hours he’d be spending at the Tower.

For the internship, he’d be spending a total of six to nine hours there spread out over three days a week, at least according to the email Miss Potts had sent him. In her post-script she’d added on that he could spend extra hours but he wouldn’t be getting paid for them.

Which brought up another crazy part of the whole thing: he was getting paid! He could buy a new camera, a gift for May, or just help support what he called his ‘Spidey-Budget.’ It was a little box he had where he stored money for extra food for his metabolism and, embarrassingly, notebooks and backpacks and pens.

He knows he loses those things a lot and he doesn’t want to keep troubling his aunt with buying these things for him. Since she got a raise along with committing more hours at the hospital, they’ve been a lot better off (not rich, obviously), but Peter would rather they save that extra money rather than waste it on stupid things like school supplies.

Once Decathlon was over, Peter was out the door like a bull towards red and heading toward Stark tower. He was tempted to swing over but didn’t want to seem suspicious by getting there too quickly so he opted for the subway.

This, as he found out, had been a mistake. Halfway through the ride there was a loud screeching sound and the cars all stopped. They weren’t at any stop and the PA stayed silent.

Usually Peter could’ve just blamed it on his typical Parker luck and pass it off as a mechanical malfunction, but then his Spidey-Sense went off. If he was in trouble, then everyone else was too. The car was crowded enough that he could make his escape relatively unnoticed.

He pried open the doors and jumped down below the subway. He stuck his backpack to the dirty subway wall with webs and quickly changed into his outfit.

After that was done, he crawled alongside the tunnel to the front of the train. There, he found what definitely looked like a villain. Someone out of a comic book or something. They had metal armor all around their arms and legs, like a partial Iron Man suit: something Tony had started then abandoned for something better.

“Hey, you!” he called for lack of anything to call them, “You can’t just stop the subway, everyone’s got places to be.”

The man turned to him with a manic grin on his face, “What’s this? A spider riding the subway?” His voice sent shivers down Peter’s back. It held a slight drawl like honey oozing out of a wound. He talked like a predator trying to lure its prey into a trap for the kill.

Peter was seriously getting the creeps from this dude, “I don’t know what’s going on with you, but keep your mania away from the subway.”

He tilted his head a bit to the side, “I was just trying out my pretty, new enhancers. But I like that word, Mania. I think that’s what I’d like to be called, Spidey-Boy.”

Had Peter seriously just named a supervillain? That was kinda awesome but also a bit nerve-wracking, he quickly grumbled out a “It’s Spider-Man. How about we wrap this up?” And with that he shot a web towards the man’s metal covered foot.

At soon as it landed, the webs melted away, “Maybe next time,” the villain pondered, his eyes looking askance. Out of nowhere, a smoke bomb went off and when the tunnel cleared again, ‘Mania’ was nowhere to be seen.

Peter let out a sigh before turning to examine the subway. It looked like, on top of being majorly dented in front, it had also been pushed into the tracks a bit.

He grabbed the front of the train and lifted it with all of his strength before pulling it just a bit forward to the undamaged tracks. He gave it a pat and jumped on top so he could run to where he’d stashed his backpack. He’d just barely grabbed it and hopped back on top before the subway was starting back up again, going much slower than usual.

At this rate, Peter was going to be late to the internship. He got off at the next stop and ignoring all the New Yorkers who took note of him on top of the subway car, made his way to the tower via webs. He pulled into an alleyway to change into his normal clothes, comb out his hair the best he could without a mirror, and make sure he hadn’t lost anything out of his backpack.

Somehow, it was all there.

As fast as he can, he rushes into the tower. His first stop is the front desk where his teachers had previously checked them all in.

At the front desk was Macy. He walked up and gave her a shy wave, “Hi Macy, I’m uh- I’m here for the internship? I didn’t mean to be late but-“

“Don’t worry, Peter, right?” she asked.

“Yeah, Peter Parker,” he said gratefully, and waited for her to stop rummaging through the drawers in the desk to dig up his pass. She handed it over and gave him instructions for getting to the lab he’d be working in.

The second he got into his elevator he let out a deep breath, “Hey FRIDAY,” he greeted, now that he was alone.

“Hello Peter Parker,” she said back, and the elevator started moving upwards, “Boss has been eagerly awaiting your arrival.”

Peter started to feel a little bit guilty, but it was unwarranted. What else could he have done?

He stewed deeply in his thoughts until he got to the top where Tony was awaiting, clearly trying to look as nonchalant as possible. It wasn’t really working. Especially since Peter, as Spider-Man, had seen how excited Tony was for this, or at least, for having a fun loophole around doing actual work.

“Hi, Mr. Stark, I’m so sorry I’m late. My subway got crashed by some kind of villain,” when he saw the man’s momentary look of panic he quickly added on to his sentence, “But Spider-Man was there and chased them off and righted the subway so I’m okay!”

“That’s good to hear, so, Spider-Man, huh?”

“Um, yeah, I didn’t see him up close since he took off once we got to the next station, but he was really cool!” Peter said, cringing a little. It felt gross to talk about himself like this.

“Ever valiant, I see. I have to say, that after myself, of course, Spider-Man is probably my favorite hero.”

Out of who else, though? Peter couldn’t help but think. After the Accords, there weren’t many superheroes left. He left that unsaid, “Really? I think Iron Man is definitely my favorite,” Peter joked and watched Tony get a satisfied look on his face, “What are we going to do for the internship?”

There was a glint in Tony’s eye, but Peter made no comment on it. Then the man proceeded to pull out an entire binder of projects they could work on ranging from Stark Industry designs to just fun ideas. Peter was pretty sure he’d caught a glimpse of some Iron Man schematics in there.

The plan was that they’d choose a random page every day and see how far they got with that project. Of course, if they didn’t finish it that day, they could choose to continue it the next, but the whole point was that they had a lot of options and variety.

Peter was impressed with it all. Tony had really put a lot of effort into this. He’d seen the consequence of Tony’s effort firsthand as Spider-Man.

“This is just a little something I put together,” Tony said, trying to play it off.

“Really? It’s pretty big, you must have spent a lot of time on it.”

Tony looked away, “It was nothing, really.”

Peter pursed his lips. He knew he wasn’t going to get anywhere with the billionaire so he left it at that, “Thank you, Mr. Stark, even if you just put it together like that, it means a lot to me.”

“You know you don’t have to call me ‘Mr. Stark’ or whatever, right? It makes me feel old.”

“Haha, no I insist, you’re technically my boss, right? I don’t think I’d be comfortable calling you To- anything else,” Peter asserted. But really, it was quite the opposite. If he started calling Tony ‘Tony’ as Peter Parker, he’d fall into being way too casual with the older man.

He couldn’t forget that he wasn’t Spider-Man during this internship and that’s what Tony vs Mr. Stark did for him. It made a barrier between his two lives.

That first day, Tony gave him a very unnecessary tour of the lab he’d been in tens of times before (not that the billionaire knew that), a list of safety precautions Peter knew Tony never followed and had never been given to Spider-Man, and they worked on improving Peter’s tiny invention from the contest during the field trip.

It was nice to talk to Tony about his actual life. When he was Spider-Man he often had to weave lies around his day to day work and personal stories.

Also, when Peter wasn’t constantly interrogating Tony about himself, Tony was prompting Peter to tell him more: which Peter hadn’t really expected. Sure, Tony was good at conversation with Spider-Man, but that’s because he thought Spider-Man was an adult.

Peter, on the other hand, was still a kid. So, he was surprised when Tony fell into easy small talk with him. Especially small talk that didn’t feel forced at all.  For a man who claimed high schoolers as his natural enemies, he was doing pretty well in conversation with one.

Once he was about ready to ‘go home’ (which really meant eat dinner with his aunt and start his Spider-Man patrol), Miss Potts called him into her office. Peter’s first thought was that she finally figured it out. He walked into her office with his hand at the back of his neck. What else could she possibly want to talk about? It had to be Spider-Man.

“Ah, Peter, take a seat. How did your first day go?” She asked sweetly but all Peter could think was that this had to be a trap of sorts.

“It went well, Mr. Stark is super nice and working with him was fun.”

“That’s really good to hear. I actually called you here to go over a few things regarding your internship, especially publicity,” Miss Potts handed him a few forms, “Making a high school internship program has been in the talks for a while, you’re a trial of sorts. If you could get these signed by a guardian, so we can use pictures of you and Tony working together for the program, that’d be great.”

Peter relaxed into his seat, of course she wanted to talk about the internship. She had no reason to believe Peter Parker was Spider-Man. Last she thought, Spider-Man was an ex-convict, going from that to high schooler was a pretty steep jump.

They talked for another solid twenty minutes about the program and Peter agreed to report back to her on what worked and what didn’t.

The second he left the building. A wash of relief came over him. No one suspected him to be Spider-Man. How long could he keep this up?

He hadn’t seen Tony as Spider-Man for a while. Despite their equal interest in upgrading the Spidey-suit They’d both been busy with the internship and personal lives. Peter had definitely been cutting into Spider-Man time to make time to hang out with his friends since the internship was growing ever consuming.

It wasn’t that he didn’t like spending time at the Tower. In fact, he’d been averaging more hours than the internship required or paid him for. But it was getting a bit overwhelming having to balance the three facets of his life. Spider-Man, his friends and family, and the internship were a lot to manage and he couldn’t exactly drop any of them.

He’d been doing his best and it took Tony inviting Spider-Man to the tower for Peter to realize he hadn’t visited in a while as his alter ego.

Tony was sitting at the counter with a beer. He looked like he’d just walked away from an explosion, which was actually pretty likely when Peter thought about it.

“Hey, Mr.- umm, Tony,” Peter tried to say casually, obviously it didn’t work.

“Spidey! And Mr. Tony, huh? That’s a new one,” he mused, “You want a beer?”

Peter shook his head, he really didn’t. He shouldn’t be taking advantage of his cover as Spider-Man to get alcohol. That would just be wrong, “Alcohol doesn’t work on me, remember?”

“Right, your crazy fast metabolism and everything, right?”

Peter just nodded, “So what’s up with the look you’ve got going on?” Peter asked, mentioning to Tony’s everything.

Tony rolled his eyes, hard, “The reason I called you over, actually. I was working on a formula for something I want to try out in my suit, but chemistry definitely isn’t my strong suit, as you can tell.”

Peter laughed, “So there’s no big threat or anything? Just lab mistakes?” he asked and Tony nodded his head.

“Just lab mistakes,” he said a bit sadly.

Tony was lonely. That much had been obvious to Peter for a while. He went from living with, or at least being surrounded by, the Avengers, but after they all split up, it was just Tony, Pepper, and Rhodey. And Peter, he supposes. Would Peter count as two people? The intern and the hero?

Probably not.

“Don’t you have an intern for that?”  Peter joked.

“I suppose so, but I was getting impatient. Peter only comes on weekdays and while I’m sure that he could figure this out in a flash, I didn’t want to wait. Plus, I thought you might find it interesting,” Tony admitted, giving Peter a pat on the back.

“Well then, what’s keeping us? Peter asked, and they headed into the lab. Tony’s beer was left forgotten.

Right before Peter could add the final chemical, FRIDAY interrupted them, “Boss, Spider-Man, there is a villain lose on the cusp between Queens and Manhattan that might require your attention.”

Peter looked up from the beaker quick as he could, “You finish this off, it probably won’t explode. I’ll swing over right away FRI, could you send me more accurate coordinates?” he requested and the location popped up in his mask.

When he got there, the villain was none other than the newly-dubbed ‘Mania.’ Peter wasn’t exactly happy to see him. This time however, his metal appendages seemed to have blades attached.

Those didn’t look fun at all. The villain was tossing parked cars across the street creating a block up in the traffic and so much damaged property. If Peter was lucky, which he never was, the Daily Bugle wouldn’t try to pin this all on him.

“Mania, what are you doing around here? I thought we agreed that causing collateral damage was not the best way to test your inventions?” he asked, before webbing the villain’s left arm and pulling it towards him. Mania’s free arm dropped the car it had been holding as Peter started to overpower him.

He used it to cut the taut webbing and he started charging the vigilante. Peter quickly shot a web and pulled himself out of the way before jumping back towards the street. The appendages, while fast, weren’t fast enough. Peter ducked past them and put a super powered punch on Mania’s face, knocking him back a few feet before he used his arms to tumble away safely.

Peter was about to go in for another one when he heard crying coming from his left. There was an overturned car, except this one hadn’t been empty.

Inside were two people, a mother and a daughter. But Peter didn’t think the mother had made it. He started walking towards it and his Spidey-Sense went off like a bullet. But he’d been too distracted by the cries to consciously notice it.

He dodged subconsciously, but it hadn’t been enough. One of the blades sliced open his left arm and blood was leaking down his suit. This wasn’t good at all. He turned as quick as he could and landed a kick on the villain’s abdomen.

Then there was the familiar whirring of Iron Man’s thrusters and Mania shuffled away and down a sewer grate. Peter headed over to the car with the little girl in it. As carefully as he could, he pulled her through the shattered window and his arms got even more scratched by the broken glass.

“Hey, kid, what’s your name?” He subtly looked her over to make sure she hadn’t been too scratched up by the glass, despite knowing his arms had taken it all on.

She sniffed, tears were freely flowing down her face, “My name’s Sophia, is my mommy going to be okay?” she asked.

“We’ll have Iron Man check on her, okay? For now, we gotta get you to a hospital, sounds good?” he asked, still holding her in his arms. She nodded slowly, “Then hold tight,” he said, shifting her to his right arm.

“Tony! I’m going to take her to the hospital, can you, can you check on her mom?” he asked softly, fully knowing that it wasn’t likely she’d made it. He did his best to ignore the knot in his chest and hoped that the girl’s mother wasn’t all that she had.

The hospital was a blur. He handed Sophia over to a doctor and was relieved to hear that her dad was on his way. He felt obligated to wait for him to arrive.

While he waited, he got a call from Tony. He picked up instantly, “Tony? Is she-“

There was a long sigh on Tony’s side, “No, according to FRIDAY, she was dead on impact,” he said remorsefully.

Peter’s hands clenched into fists and his nails pressed through his suit into his palms. He knew that it was unlikely that she was alive, but he’d wanted to have hope. If not for the mom, then for Sophia.

He knew what it was like to lose a parent: to be left all alone with no clear direction.

“Fuck,” he breathed into his mask. He felt a sudden red-hot anger towards Mania. He was causing all of this havoc for fun? Peter had dealt with a variety of criminals during his time as Spider-Man, but the people he dealt with usually had a reason. Queens wasn’t exactly the wealthiest place in New York and people were just trying to survive.

Mania on the other hand, he was destroying and killing for nothing. He obviously had resources and he wasn’t looking to take down an Avenger, he just wanted to lose control.

Peter stewed in his anger for thirty minutes in the waiting room, still clad in his Spidey-Suit, until Sophia’s father arrived.

He was breathing heavily and the second he saw Spider-Man, his breath hitched.

Peter walked over to the man and suddenly he felt all too young.

“Haley- Sophia’s mom, was she- is she?” he asked frantically.

Peter shook his head, “Only Sophia made it, I’m so sorry for your loss,” he watched as the man’s face crumpled and his shoulders started shaking. Not knowing what else to do, Peter took him into a hug and the man didn’t pull away, “You and your daughter are going to need each other now more than ever, you’re going to be okay.”

After what felt like an awkwardly long time to Peter, the dad pulled away from him, “Thank you for saving my little girl, Spider-Man,” was all he said before taking a deep breath, wiping his face of tears, and straightening his back. Peter watched helplessly as he turned away to go find his daughter.

Sometimes being Spider-Man was just too much.

Peter called in sick to his internship that Monday. On top of the grief he was feeling for everyone affected by the attack his arm wasn’t healing as quickly as he’d hoped it would. The smaller scratches had healed quickly but the deep wound from Mania was still taking its time. He’d tried taping it together with steri-strips he picked up from a convenience store, but it was still unreliable in strength.

He didn’t want to be in the lab and accidentally drop something or mess up a project because of the wound.

School had been hard. Everywhere he went, people were talking about Mania and the damage he’d done. Peter had almost thrown up when he heard people saying they thought he looked cool.

He knew they wouldn’t be saying that if they’d seen how distraught Sophia’s father had been. The mother, Haley, hadn’t even been the only casualty. Five people died. Five families were in mourning because of Mania. As the day grew on, Peter was finding it harder and harder to smile.

Without Ned, he didn’t know what he’d do.

“Did you know someone in the Mania attack, Peter?” MJ had asked him bluntly in the middle of lunch.

His whole body jolted and he stared at her with wide eyes, “Why do you ask?”

“Every time someone mentions it, you freeze up. That’d only happen if you had something to do with it, or you knew someone caught up in it,” she answered.

Peter looked down at his cafeteria meal, “I was there,” he admitted quietly. He could never lie to MJ. At least, lie well.

“It just, makes me angry that he’d do those things and people think he’s cool. He’s a murderer,” Peter hissed out.

Ned put a hand on Peter’s shoulder, right above his wound, “Peter’s right, maybe we should drop the subject, MJ?” he asked pointedly. Peter didn’t know what he’d do if Ned didn’t know he was Spider-Man.

Peter let out a sigh, “No, it’s okay, Ned.”

Ned took him into a hug and Peter sank into the familiar warmth. When they pulled away, MJ was staring at him with calculating eyes, before she tossed him a drawing.

“I hope you feel better,” she ground out before leaving the table.

Peter picked up the piece of paper and it was, surprisingly, a picture of Tony Stark. He looked a bit remorseful in the picture and his eyes held a sadness that felt so familiar. He tucked it carefully in his backpack.

“Do you want to hang out after school, Ned? We can do homework, or-“

“What about your internship?”

“I didn’t feel like I could go today. I called in, so don’t worry.”

Ned gave him a lopsided grin, “Whatever you say, Peter.”

When the rest of the day went without fail or anxiety, Peter felt at ease for the first time in a while.

Enhanced hearing was really a great thing to have when seeking out ‘petty crimes.’ He could hear what other people didn’t want to, but from blocks away.

Of course, even with his superpowers he couldn’t stop everything, not for want of trying, but because as muggings and ‘disagreements’ tended to go, people would only yell during or after the attack. It made him wish there was a way to get places faster.

When Peter heard a lady cry out, in what seemed to be pain, he swung over to the alley way she was in as fast as possible. She’d already been stabbed and it looked like the guy was going for another one even as blood dripped down from her torso and pooled beneath her.

Peter kicked him back and crouched down next to the lady, “You’re going to be okay, let’s get you to a hospital.” He walked her to the end of the alley way before turning to web the guy to the wall.

However, the guy was already charging at him, knife in hand, screaming nonsense. Peter took a fighting stance before realizing that the man was going for the lady again. The man just barely passed him and Peter pivoted and leaped in the middle of them.

That heroic moved earned him a knife in the back of his shoulder, “Didn’t anyone ever tell you not to run with knives?” he grunted out before pushing him to the wall and webbing his hands over his head.

He pressed a hand to his ear, uselessly, and spoke to Karen, “Can you call the police for me, Karen?” The hand at his ear was a move he’d picked up after people started looking at him weird for talking to no one. People were more likely to believe he had an earpiece in rather than an ever-present AI in his suit.

“On it,” she responded promptly.

Peter took the knife out of the man’s clenched hand and threw it back in the alley.

He walked over to the lady, “Guess we both need to go to the hospital now,” he joked, despite the pain in his back. He definitely couldn’t carry and swing with a civilian like this and she was looking pretty pale.

He picked her up princess style and had her head and torso side on his left, the unstabbed shoulder. It was all but necessary. The hospital was only two blocks away, not worth calling an ambulance for. Especially when she would likely have to pay for it and he could get her there in the same amount of time.

The walk felt much too long, but he managed and handed her off to a nurse armed with a gurney. The nurse asked if she could help him too, but he couldn’t accept, knowing she could get in trouble for it.

Not feeling too up to swinging over to Stark Tower, he pulled out his metro card (which he always kept in his phone case) and boarded the subway with his full suit on and blood trailing behind him. As long as no psychos stopped his subway again, he’d be fine.

Once he got there, he shot a web up to the top and walked up the side of the building. Thankfully it was nighttime, so no one was up late inside to see him walking and he didn’t get any weird looks.

Once he got to the top, FRIDAY opened the window for him, and he slid through the narrow opening. He saw the shadow of a person in the kitchen and headed there.

It wasn’t Mr. Stark, like he’d been expecting, but Pepper Potts. Shit.

“Oh, hey, Miss Potts,” he greeted and watched her turn to face him in all his bloody glory. Well, maybe she couldn’t see the bloody part yet because it hadn’t dripped down onto their tile floor, but same difference.

“Spider-Man, what are you doing here?” she asked inquisitively, “And if you’re here for Tony, he isn’t in right now. He’s all the way in China for some investment deals, he volunteered to take some of the work off my back. But he’ll be back tomorrow.”

“Oh, um, is there anyone in the med bay, right now?” She gave him a look and he wobbled on his feet a little bit, “I got stabbed a little, and usually I can take care of it on my own but it’s on my back and I-“

“It’s okay, I can’t believe you usually do it yourself. I can help you, no problem.”

“Are you sure there’s no trouble? Cause, I can-“ he faltered, there was no one else he could turn to, he didn’t like to involve Ned in the gory parts of being Spider-Man. But that was mostly because Ned could hardly stand to look at blood.

Miss Potts rolled her eyes, “You think I haven’t patched up my own fair number of wounds? I’ve known Tony longer than he’s been Iron Man.”

Peter blushed under his mask, “Okay then, um, but warning! I kinda left the knife in, I can pull it out now but,”

“No! Spider-Man, no, you don’t have to pull it out. You’re just going to hurt yourself more.”

He laughed, “Yeah, that sounds about right. So, to the med-bay?”

She nodded and led the way.

The whole ordeal was pretty painful. She expertly pulled the knife out with no hesitation and soaked up his blood with an arsenal of clean towels. Once the blood stopped soaking every towel she used, she cleaned it with some water before running some hydrogen peroxide over it.

Peter held himself from swearing too much but hissed when the alcohol got poured in.

Because of his super healing, it’d hurt him more to put stitches in when he wouldn’t need them in two days so they taped it together and put a crazy amount of gauze around it. Spider-Man would have to be cancelled for the next few days but Peter Parker’s life would go on.

“Thank you so much Miss Potts, I don’t know what I would’ve done had you not been here.”

It was no problem, Spider-Man, and call me Pepper. After patching you back up, I feel like we’re past ‘Miss Potts.’

Peter blushed again and hung his head, “Yeah, I guess so. Can’t believe I did this on a Sunday,” he lamented.

“Are you going to be okay at work?”

Peter’s back straightened. Tony and him were supposed to keep working on this really interesting project and he wouldn’t have canceled for even two stab wounds. Shit.

“As long as I don’t bleed through my shirt or anything, I’ll be fine,” he joked and Pepper gave him another look. He shivered, “Don’t worry Miss, I mean, Pepper. I’ve gone to sch- work, with much worse!” he tried to assure her.

“Don’t think that makes me feel any better, I don’t care how important your work is, but you need to take care of yourself,” she said sternly.

So, she had caught onto his mistake. Hopefully, she just assumed he was in college. He ducked his head yet again, “Okay, Pepper.”

“And you shouldn’t be patching yourself up. Tony and I are both willing to help you, whatever you need,” Peter shifted uncomfortably, and she continued, “I’m serious, Spider-Man. Knowing that you’ll come to us will help me sleep better. I was always restless when Tony refused to rely on me despite him often needing it.”

Peter was starting to feel a bit guilty. Had he been making them worry by not coming to them about these things? “I’m sorry, I’ll do better.”

Pepper let out a sigh, “Thank you, Spider-Man. How about we start right now?”

Peter turned to face her with a jerk, “What do you mean right now? And start what?”

“Hmm, well, help you expand your efforts. A lot of things you pick up are just from your hearing and sight, right? Maybe we could do something to expand on that.”

“Uh, you mean like an app?” Peter ventured.

“See, already a great idea. How could an app help you?” She asked sincerely, and Peter never thought that he’d be having a product design conversation with Pepper Potts of all people.

Peter thought about it for a second. Right now, all he could think of was having a link to the police radio. That’s how he started originally, but when he brought the idea up to Tony it was ‘too illegal.’ All he wanted was a way to- oh! “What if there was a report section, where, when I’m on patrol, people can report things that the police might not be able to get to quickly?

Suddenly, Pepper was writing on a notepad she’d seemingly pulled out of thin air while Peter had been thinking. They traded ideas about things that could go on the app for a few minutes until they came to what felt like a natural end, “Anything else that’s important?”

Suddenly getting a bit shy, Peter added, “It’s not exactly important, but I used to be really into photography before my schedule got to be so much, but maybe a place to post pictures I take as Spider-Man?”

Pepper gave him a soft smile, “I don’t know, that sounds pretty important to me,” she said before adding it to her notes. Peter blushed but didn’t say anything further, “I’ll get my best people on it,” she promised with a wink.

The next day, waking up was pretty bad. While his shoulder didn’t sting with pain, it sure as heck throbbed with it. Every movement he made was accompanied by a deep ache in his shoulder. Only sometimes would he feel sharp pain, but it was almost preferred.

He ate a giant breakfast that morning and May looked at him like he was crazy. He shrugged her off and picked up three sandwiches at Delmar’s. His healing always cut into his stomach so he knew he’d need to eat a lot to keep it up today. He hadn’t looked at the wound since he’d gotten it, but he was figuring it would still be pretty open.

He decided he’d put on some new gauze when he went to school, no way was he risking May finding blood in the bathroom.

The second he got to school, he ducked into the single-person bathroom at the far end of the school. It was in an area where there weren’t many classes which is why they hadn’t added more restrooms.

The change went well. The tape was still holding, thankfully, but the old gauze looked horrible. He dumped it in the trashcan and covered it with a few napkins. He didn’t get to look at how the wound was healing but he’d be fine without it.

His first class ended up being History so he sat in the back and worked on eating one of his sandwiches. Ned, who had been stuck in the front because someone took the chair (that Peter had saved) next to Peter, was constantly looking back at him, confused.

It took thirty minutes for Ned to send him a text.

Ned

Peter, you good?

Why are you sitting in the back?

Peter didn’t respond via text but when Ned looked back at him for the last time, he gave him a shrug and made a motion for ‘headache.’ Ned nodded solemnly and they continued with the lesson.

When Peter had first got his Spider-powers he’d get a lot of headaches from not being used to his new senses.

Whenever those happened, he would sit in the back and Ned would often join him despite how they usually snagged seats near the front. Of course, he hadn’t needed to sit in the back for a while so that’s why Ned was probably confused.

They met up after class and Ned almost gave him what, in Ned’s view, would’ve been a gentle pat on the back, but in reality would’ve exasperated Peter’s ache. He quickly dodged in the guise of heading to his locker. He grabbed some books and shoved them in his bag.

Then they were splitting ways and heading to their separate classes. But not before Ned made sure Peter would text him if he needed anything.

Peter was glad he had such a good friend.

By the end of school, his wound was starting to scab over and had some light bruising around it.

Of course, Flash also decided that was a perfect time to ‘bump’ into Peter from the back, pushing their shoulders together and subsequently splitting his scab open, undoing all the work his body had been doing that day.

Peter shot a glare back at Flash before continuing his way. When he pulled his shirt a little bit over his shoulder, his suspicions were confirmed, he’d bled through it. Wasn’t that just great?

Thankfully, the scab didn’t split open too much and there was only a little bit of blood on his blue shirt. Maybe no one would notice?

Surprisingly, he was in the all-clear for most of his internship. Macy didn’t notice when he walked past her, FRIDAY didn’t call him out during the scan, and Tony didn’t even think to check. They just started working on their project.

After all of their weeks working together, they’d fallen into a flow.

That flow was just barely disrupted when Pepper walked into the lab from the door behind them, holding an iced latte.

Peter turned his head and felt a cold fear wash over him. She probably knew and that was why she was here.

“Hey boys,” she greeted, “I was wondering if you could add a project into your repository?” she asked sweetly.

That got Tony’s attention, “What is it, Pep?”

“I was talking with Spider-Man yesterday, and was wondering if you guys could work on an app for him? I have a few ideas written down that you could implement into it,” she said and held out a list that looked a lot longer than what she had when Peter last talked with her.

“Of course, Miss Potts,” Peter said.

She started walked over and Peter watched, almost in slow motion, as she tripped over nothing and started tumbling down. Peter was over there in a second. He caught her and her coffee. But when he caught the coffee with his hand, he squeezed a little bit too hard and it went all over his shirt.

Now he had two stains to worry about.

None of the coffee got past him onto the lab table and Tony was laughing inconsolably, “Mr. Stark, this isn’t funny!” he said, to no avail. The man kept laughing.

“Peter, I’m so sorry. Let’s get you changed. Tony probably has something lying around that you can have,” Miss Potts said, leading him out of the room.

Peter would have argued but the coffee made him feel sticky and gross. She took him up the elevator and into their penthouse, “You can clean off in the shower, I’ll go get you a shirt. Feel free to use the towels in there.”

Peter closed the door and took a fast shower, not even getting his hair wet, just washing off the latte while being careful not to get his wound wet. He didn’t have any extra gauze with him. When he was done, he toweled off and changed back into his pants. Then he didn’t really know what to do. Feeling unsure, he wrung out his coffee-soaked shirt into the shower, washed the coffee down the drain with a little bit of water and cautiously stepped outside of the bathroom.

 The second he exited the bathroom, Pepper started to walk over with a new shirt. “Oh, you’re done already, Peter?”

“Yeah, I wanted to get back to our project,” he said sheepishly. He grabbed the shirt from her and turned to pull it over his head.

“Understandable, Spider-Man,” she said calmly and Peter whipped around with the shirt finally pulled down.

He groaned, “Of course, you would figure it out.”

She rolled her eyes, “Like you’re subtle. Though, to be honest, I had started thinking you were a teacher, not a kid.” She stressed. That explained her presence at the field trip, he supposed.

“Are you gonna tell Tony?” he asked, feeling a little bit pitiable.

She looked at him for a few seconds, “Why don’t you tell him?” she inquired. They walked over to the kitchen counter and took a seat.

“I just- well for one, I don’t want him to freak out, y’know? I feel like he’d start to feel bad about it or something,” she nodded slowly, “And two, I want him to take me seriously. If he knew I was a kid, I- Would he still want to fight beside me? Or would he respect me?” Peter asked, voicing his fears.

“Like you don’t act like a kid when you’re in the suit,” Pepper started, and Peter’s heart sunk, “Okay, that came out wrong but what I’m trying to say is that the only thing keeping Tony thinking you’re an adult is that weird voice modulator in your suit. And that hasn’t changed his respect for you.”

“On top of respecting Spider-Man, he also holds Peter Parker in pretty high regard,” she continued, “I think, that even if you tell him you’re Spider-Man, once he gets over his little panic, he’ll be incredibly proud.”

That gave Peter a lot to think about, “Then, I’ll think about telling him, okay?”

“Until then, my lips are sealed,” Pepper promised with a smile. And Peter smiled back.

It was then that FRIDAY spoke up, “Peter, Boss is requesting you back in the lab as soon as possible.”

Both of them laughed and Peter stood up, “Guess that’s my queue to leave, thanks for talking with me Miss Potts,”

“Ah ah ah, call me Pepper,” she said with a grin. He blushed like he had last time she made the request except this time she could see it.

When he got down to the lab, Tony greeted him with a smile, “Never struck you as someone with good fashion taste, Peter. But nice choice with the Gucci.”

Peter looked down at the shirt he was wearing with a panicked expression, “This is Gucci?” he screamed, sure enough there was the brand, “I really didn’t mean to wear this Mr. Stark, Pepper cho-“

“Calm down, kiddo. I wasn’t wearing it anyway.”

The whole time they were in the lab, Peter did his best to not get it dirty. When he got home and asked if you could wash Gucci like you washed normal clothes, May nearly dropped her phone in shock.

The app was nearly done, and Peter had never been more excited. He’d learned so much through this project. Coding had always been mostly Ned’s thing but Peter had always been really interested in it.

He worked on it as Spider-Man and as Peter and was slowly working up the courage and the words to tell Tony that Peter is Spider-Man. Or would Spider-Man is Peter work better?

It was almost harder, the closer he got to Tony. They’d been spending more time together than ever and Peter couldn’t count on both hands how many times he’d been talking to the man and almost called him ‘dad.’ Every time it happened, he wanted to yeet himself out of the tower in embarrassment.

Tony hadn’t noticed yet but Peter was on pretty thin ice. He knew family didn’t have to be by blood, but it did have to be mutual and Tony probably only saw him as a way to get away from his actual work. One day, the internship would be over and Peter would just be a blip in Tony’s memory while Spider-Man remained.

That is, unless Peter told him about who he was.

Which brought him back to the root of all his other problems: how to tell Tony. When he wasn’t swinging around New York, hanging out with friends or his Aunt, or doing homework, his mind was on what words would work best.

Because while he couldn’t tell Tony how he saw him as a father-figure, he could at least be honest with him.

With the app a day away from completion, Peter had swung over as Spider-Man to put the final touches on it.

When he got there, Tony was staring down into what seemed to be a cold cup of coffee. He was probably thinking about something deep.

“Tony?” he asked, and even through the voice modulator, his voice sounded shaky and unsure.

The man turned to look at him and gave him a weary smile, “Hey Spidey, you here to finish up the app? Let’s head down,” he said before he downed the entire cup of coffee.

“Are you doing okay?” Peter asked cautiously, once they got to the lab.

“I’ve just got a lot on my mind. We should just work on the app right now, that’s some important stuff,” Tony said with a pat on Peter’s back.

Peter grumbled about it under his mask but didn’t say anything further. He just let himself get in the groove of coding. The first time they launched it without any bugs ended up being a celebration. Tony wrapped an arm around Peter’s shoulders in a hug and he thought his heart might burst.

“This is so cool, Tony! How are we going to get people to use it, though?” he asked curiously.

“Don’t worry about that, I’ll put my people and we should have it up within two weeks or so,” he offered.

“I guess the coding was the easy part, huh?”

Tony scoffed, “You’re talking like you did most of the code, that was all Peter. He’s too smart for his own good.”

Peter’s face turned red inside his mask, “Haha, I guess you’re right. And actually, this timing is pretty good because I’ve got a -uhhhh- a business trip to go on this coming week.” Spider-Man admitted.

It had been May’s idea. They were going to go to Boston to visit May’s parents and have a fun vacation. It would be one of their first vacations since Ben died, they could finally afford it and take the time out of their schedules.

Peter had already brought it up to Tony as himself but had been unsure how to tell Tony as Spider-Man. A business trip had been the best thing he could come up with. Which was kind of stupid but what else could he do?

Peter had been planning to tell Tony as Peter after they were done with the app. There was no reason he couldn’t do it as Spider-Man, but he just felt like doing it as Peter would work out better for him. Or be more comfortable for him? He wasn’t too sure.

“Both you and my intern are gonna be gone at the same time? Whatever shall I do?” Tony asked, a bit dramatically as he laid himself out on the table, face down.

Peter rolled his eyes, “Somehow, I think you’ll manage, Tony. How about we go back to the kitchen and talk about your problem?”

“You still haven’t let go of that, huh? You’re just too heroic, Spidey.”

“I’ve been told,” he said, before leading the way. He didn’t mention that the people telling him that were usually villains and mocking him.

Tony grabbed a beer before looking back at Peter, “You want-“

“When are you going to learn to stop asking? Do you have any soda?” he asked, knowing that Tony kept some in the fridge for Peter.

“For you?” Tony asked, squinting at him, “Fine,” he relented, before tossing a Dr. Pepper over to him.

Peter flopped over the back of the couch before sitting in it normally. Tony came and took a seat next to him, “It’s about Peter,” Peter’s heart nearly stopped as his mind went to literally anything he could’ve done wrong, “You two have never met, right?” Peter shook his head stiffly, “You two would probably get along really well,” he said, “It’s a shame your schedules never matched up.”

“What’s up with Peter?” he asked carefully, not wanting to assume something bad had happened.

Tony sighed and took a sip of his beer. Peter’s Dr. Pepper laid untouched on the table. “Pepper gave me the end date for his internship, it’s coming up a lot sooner than I had thoughtfour. It’s been going well so we’re going to start having more high school interns. I won’t be working with them like Peter but-“

Peter really hoped he wasn’t off with this but “Do you not want it to be over?” he ventured.

“I don’t. I want him to keep being my intern and when Pepper asked why, well, I guess I’ve started seeing him as my kid,” Tony admitted, “He makes me want to be better.”

Peter was suddenly very thirsty, he broke open the bottle and lifted up his mask to take a long sip.

“And believe me, I’ve never seen myself as a dad before or any kind of ‘father-figure.’ But this kid, there’s just something about him. If any of the Rogue Avengers saw me when I’m with him, they’d probably laugh their asses off. But sometimes, I don’t want him to go home, a crazy part of me wishes the Tower were his home.”

“You should tell him, it might mean a lot that you want to be his family,” Peter said, because it would mean a lot to him.

Tony just rolled his eyes, “Kid’s already got a family. His Aunt May.”

How could such a smart man be so dumb sometimes, Peter couldn’t fathom, “Why does that mean you can’t be his family too?”

Tony took another sip of his beer and seemed to be deep in thought, “When did you get to be so wise, Spidey?”

Peter thought about his aunt, who despite not being related to him by blood still took care of him as if he were her own, “Probably when I realized that blood doesn’t dictate family.”

“I’ll have to think about that, maybe one day I’ll be as smart as you Spidey.”

“Hah, you wish.”

The trip to Boston had been going great. May’s parents were as sweet as always, the city was lively and they saw all kinds of cool things. But the entire time Peter couldn’t stop thinking about Tony and what he’d said to Spider-Man.

When he revealed his identity to Tony, how would it go? Would Tony still think of Peter that way? Or would he be angry because Peter lied? Or maybe Tony wouldn’t want to think of Spider-Man that way?

Peter’s new biggest fear was that Tony would take back everything he said.

So he tried to enjoy everything like he wanted to but that fear lingered at the back of his mind.

Nearing the end of the trip, Aunt May finally brought it up during their café breakfast, “Peter, what’s been up with you? Are you not enjoying the trip?” she asked, concerned.

Peter’s face went bright red at being caught, he’d been trying to be subtle about it. Obviously, that hadn’t worked. Since he couldn’t tell her anything about Spider-Man, he had to improvise, “Recently, I heard Tony tell Spider-Man that he saw me like a son. And, I see him like that too, I guess,” Peter’s words died off. He didn’t really know how to make his fears seem sensible without talking about Spider-Man.

“It’s okay to see your mentor as a son, I totally understand,” May joked to lighten the mood.

“May-“ Peter whined, “you know what I meant,” he said with a laugh, “I just, it feels weird to even think about telling him that I see him as a father figure,” he admitted, shifting a bit in his chair, “What if he changes his mind?”

“Honey, knowing you, no one could ever change their mind about that,” she tried to reassure him.

He looked down at his hands, “You don’t think it’s- it’s too soon?”

May’s expression softened and she leaned over to wrap one of his hands in her own, “Is this about Ben?”

Peter’s everything stilled. Was it? The thought hadn’t come up in his worries but- No. Tony and Ben were such different yet equally important figures in his life. And Ben had never turned him away or changed his mind or stopped loving him.

But Peter also didn’t believe he could. They were family, blood. Then again, May was his family and had never changed her mind. What was Peter’s problem? Why did his throat close up when he thought about telling Tony?

He’d born witness to Tony’s most inner thoughts. How could he think that Tony wouldn’t want him around just because he was Spider-Man?

Spider-Man was Tony’s friend. But also, Peter. Was it because he was thinking about Spider-Man and Peter as different people? That was always something he struggled with.

“No, it’s not Ben. I’m worried that once I open up, he’ll change his mind,” he put simply.

“So, it’s not a new problem at all, huh?”

Peter looked up at her, feeling a bit confused, “What do you mean? It feels pretty new.”

May sighed, “I guess you wouldn’t remember, because you were so young, but you went through the same thing when you came to live with Ben and me,” she paused, deep in thought, “It was cute, but terribly sad. Despite knowing us before the crash, you did a whole personality wipe after your parents died, and we think it was because you were living with us instead of just hanging out for a few days while your parents were on some business trip or the other.”

“What was I like?” Peter asked, furrowing his brow. He really couldn’t remember.

“The perfect kid, essentially. You ate everything offered, even food we knew you hated, never asked for any toys, started being super independent, and your room was always in perfect order. It was like you thought that, if you acted like yourself, we would send you away. It was depressing. You also stopped talking about science as much, you tried to force yourself to like the things we liked, and you were so silent.”

“It was a mix of all the things going on in your life of course, but it scared us. Ben was worried that you wouldn’t start acting like yourself again,” she gave his hand a light squeeze, “I still remember when you finally started opening back up. You came home from school and asked Ben to help you with your science project. I’m pretty sure he started to cry, out of joy of course,” she said nostalgically.

Peter let that sit in his mind for a bit. Maybe all of his fears were unwarranted. It wasn’t like he acted any differently as Spider-Man, just a bit more confident and casual. Right?

He nodded along with his thoughts, “You don’t think Tony’s going to change his mind?”

“Not in a million years. I don’t know the man like you do, but I do know what it’s like to have a kid and I could never turn you away,” she said with a smile.

Peter gave her a smile and she stood up to give him a tight hug and a kiss on his head, “I love you, Peter.”

“I love you too, May.” Maybe he’d have to tell two people that he was Spider-Man, “Do you have any more sagely tips?” he asked, once they’d both pulled away.

“Don’t do it at work,” she said almost immediately, when Peter looked at her in confusion she elaborated, “This is a whole new part of both of your lives. It’s going to be so much more than your internship,” she promised.

That seemed to make sense, “Should I ask him now?”

“Yeah, but hurry up or we’ll miss our museum ticket pass time,” she said with a grin. Peter took it as, ‘Take as much time as you need,’ instead.

You

Hey, Mr. Stark. When I get back can we catch lunch together or something?

I have something to tell you.

Tony

Sure, kid. I have something to tell you too.

Peter waited nervously in the American themed diner. He was sitting at a table all the way in the back and was already working on his strawberry milkshake. The whole day at school he’d been so anxious that he ended up coming straight to the diner and got there thirty minutes early. Whoops.

Tony wasn’t supposed to be here for another five minutes and that gave Peter the perfect amount of time to finish his train of thoughts and anxiety. Today, he was going to tell Tony that he’s been Spider-Man this whole time.

And maybe, that would lead to a conversation about what Tony had said to him just last week. He tried to keep May’s advice in mind and stop his leg from shaking, but to no avail. At this rate, his leg might just fall off his body, which would not be ideal.

One minute until they were supposed to meet and Tony walked in looking as conspicuous as ever with his dark sunglasses. At least he wasn’t decked out in a full suit. He was wearing more casual clothes, like Peter had seen him in often. He barely looked around for a second before spotting Peter. But maybe that was because the teen was waving his arms like a crazy person.

Tony walked over in a confident manner and with smooth strides. He wasn’t smiling and that sent shivers down Peter’s spine. Once he got to the table he grinned a bit, but Peter still felt like something was off.

“Hey kid,” he greeted before taking off his sunglasses.

“Hi, Mr. Stark! How was your week?” Peter asked cordially.

Tony shrugged, “Probably not as exciting as your’s.” Peter laughed awkwardly before,

“I have something to tell you,” they blurted out at the same time. Peter stared at Tony with wide eyes. Who would go first?

Tony made a motion for Peter to keep talking, and so he did his best, “I’ve been meaning to tell you this for a while, but better late than never, right?” he asked with a chuckle, Tony stared on, “Well, I am-“

“Hey y’all! Anything you guys want to order?” A waitress asked, popping out right at the worst time.

Peter shoved his head in his hands and resisted the urge to groan, but Tony went with it, “I’ll have some waffles and eggs, and whatever the kid wants,” he said.

The teen resolutely listed off his order and did not look at the waitress’s surely shocked face when she ended up serving Tony Stark. He’d been so close to telling him. Why did waiters always have the worst timing? They only ever came when Peter was in the middle of eating or in the middle of conversation.

Once she was gone, the seriousness of the conversation came back in tenfold. This was really happening. Tony was going to know who he is.

Peter locked eyes with the billionaire who’d been so much like a dad to him lately. There was no way out of this. Either he told him now or his internship would end with neither of them saying anything. Tony didn’t exactly have a penchant for listening to Spider-Man.

“Peter, it’s okay to take your time,” Tony assured him.

“I see you as a father figure!” Peter blurted out seconds later. But wait! That wasn’t what he wanted to say at all. This was the worst way to start the conversation.

Tony just nodded, “I know, I actually figure- wait, what did you say?”

“Nothing!” Peter insisted, “That’s not what I meant to tell you,” he said, earning an inquisitive look from Tony, “I meant to say that I’m Spider-Man,” he said, the whole fiasco and previous anxiety felt useless at this point. He’d been worrying for that reveal? “Wait, why did you say, ‘I know’?

“Because I already knew you were Spider-Man,” Tony said plainly. But how long? That gave Peter nothing.

Between stammers, he managed to get out, “Did Pepper tell you?” He didn’t really think she would’ve done something like that unless it were dire, but he wanted to make sure.

Tony’s eyes practically bulged out of his head, “Pepper knew?” he didn’t give Peter time to respond, “Silly question, of course she knew. I actually figured it out in the middle of making you a new suit, you’re welcome by the way; I asked FRIDAY for the most recent body scan we had of you and lo and behold it was labeled Peter Parker. Guess those security scans at the front desk are actually worth something. Did you tell Pepper?”

Peter crossed his arms at that, “I can’t believe FRIDAY would out me like that, and, no. She figured it out by herself. Didn’t even need an AI to help her,” he said, sticking his tongue out, “Which is pretty valid, she is the smartest person I know after all.”

“I hate that I can’t argue against that,” Tony said with a slight pout.

“So, is it okay? Are you angry?” Peter asked, feeling a bit shy, Tony just shot him a confused look, “That I’m Spider-Man,” Peter elaborated.

Tony scowled, “Is that why it took you so long to tell me? You thought that I wouldn’t want you around anymore? Or that I’d be angry? I’m only upset that you were worried I’d have an adverse reaction. Do you know how long I’ve been trying to get you to meet yourself? So, of course, it’s okay, Peter,” Tony stressed, “I’m astounded by your bravery. It’d be impossible for me to not be proud of you.”

Peter jolted in his seat, “You’re proud of me?”

Tony looked away for a second before locking Peter’s eyes with his own, “I thought we had this conversation already, I think of you as my kid, of course I’m proud of you. As Peter Parker and as Spider-Man.”

The teen let a smile overtake his face, “Wow, so it’s okay for me to think of you as a-“

“Yes,” Tony said, rolling his eyes to the max, “And to clarify from our last conversation, your personal internship will continue, but we will have a few more high schoolers in the building,” he said with a wink.

“That works for-“

“And here are your meals, hope you two enjoy!” The waitress said cheerily, but in a forced manner.

They thanked her and dug in. Peter couldn’t imagine the conversation going any other way.

The next few weeks are hard for both Peter and Tony. The internship is still going well. They joke around a bit more and are still just as close. Tony is falling into acting more like a dad.

However, Peter’s moonlighting as a vigilante is not going as smoothly. If he had a quarter for every time Tony called to ‘check in on him,’ Peter would probably be richer than the billionaire himself.

Peter really hadn’t expected the man to get this overprotective. He’d expected the caution around Peter, but Tony should know by now that Spider-Man usually had it all figured out.

Peter tried explaining this to him. He tried explaining that Spider-Man wasn’t suddenly Peter, he’d been Peter the whole time. That meant that he didn’t need this level of coddling. Peter could understand a bit more wariness from the man, but it was really getting out of hand.

Suddenly, Tony is checking in with Peter about every bruise and actually watching the recordings from the suit to make sure he isn’t getting hurt and not telling Tony. It’s ridiculous. Even Pepper couldn’t persuade the billionaire to let go of it all for a while.

It gets worse when Peter gets a scratch on his face. He bled through the opened mask and was in a little bit of pain, but honestly, it wasn’t really bothering him. The wound wasn’t deep, despite being from a knife and Peter felt like he could handle it. Apparently, Tony couldn’t.

He’d been planning to head to the Tower after his patrol and patch it up with the necessary aids, but Tony had other ideas.

Around twenty minutes after he’d been minorly wounded, Iron Man showed up on Spider-Man’s route. Peter scowled beneath his mask and Tony came stumbling out, looking over Peter and basically fretting.

“Tony-“ Peter whined, “This is so unnecessary, I’ll head to the Tower later, okay?”

Tony scowled right back at him, “P- Spidey, you should be taking better care of yourself. It’s best to patch these things up sooner rather than later.”

There was a crowd gathering around them and Peter wanted to go and slam his head against the closest wall. Why was he like this?

“No way, you’re freaking out a lot more than necessary, go back, I’ll see you later,” Peter tried to convince him. It was to no avail.

Tony took a few steps back into his suit with a suspicious look. Peter breathed a sigh of relief as the suit closed around him and got ready to take off himself, but quickly than he could think, Iron Man had picked him up and was shooting to the Tower.

Honestly, Peter should’ve seen it coming.

They went through the motions of resistance and bull headedness, but eventually Tony got Peter to the Med Bay. But it wasn’t before they bumped into Pepper.

“Oh no! Did Peter get stabbed again?”

Clearly, this was the wrong thing to say, “Stabbed?” Tony all but shrieked.

“Calm down, Pepper helped me patch it up. And she didn’t freak out at all. Which is why I keep telling you that you’re overreacting.”

Tony deadpanned, “Ha ha, very funny. We’re going to be talking about that later.”

Peter took off his mask and rolled his eyes yet again as Tony fussed over the scratch.

Thankfully, Pepper seemed to be on Peter’s side and she berated Tony for dragging Peter in for something so minor. As Peter left, his face all cleaned up and his mask back on, he had a sinking feeling in his gut.

Did Tony not trust Spider-Man anymore? Did he ever trust Peter? Those thoughts sat with him for the remainder of his patrol. Peter’s still been doing this for a long time, he knows how to take care of himself. Mostly.

He was a living a twisted version of the fears he had before he and Tony had their talk at the diner. Tony still cared about him as Peter and Spider-Man, but somehow his trust was fading. Or it was getting overpowered by something else.

“There, all patched up,” Tony announced, and Peter rolled his eyes. Maybe he should bring it up to Tony? Or was this the wrong time?

He thought over his conversations with Pepper and May, having a serious conversation could be really important about things and it was often better to be transparent.

“Hey, Tony?” he asked carefully.

The man turns to him from where he’s throwing away the bandage wrappers, “Yeah kid, what is it?”

Peter opened his mouth to speak, but before he could, FRIDAY’s voice came through the ceiling, “Boss, Mania has been spotted a few blocks from the tower,” she reported.

The two heroes made meaningful eye contact and then they were running out of the med bay. Peter pulled on his mask and Tony went in another direction to don one of his suits. Peter was quickly jumping out of an open window and letting Karen direct him towards the villain.

It wasn’t a far distance to swing. Mania was standing in the middle of the road and screaming for him and Tony by their alter names.

The villain had added a laser to his armor and was using it to tear up the buildings. Luckily, it was late at night so there weren’t many people around. Peter quickly swooped down and grabbed a teen his age from the street and helped her get around the corner.

She mumbled out a thanks before taking off down the street. Peter repeated that with a few more civilians and somehow Mania didn’t see him.

When Peter returned back to fight Mania, Tony was there; he almost looked like he was struggling. Peter easily swung into the fight to give assistance.

The Iron Man mask turned to look at him mid fight, “Spider-Man, go help the civilians, I’ve got the fight handled!” But that moment of distraction was enough for Mania to blast him back into a building nearly a block away.

“Shit,” Peter swore, he shot a few webs at the villains feet in a feeble attempt to slow him down and swung over to Tony, “Are you okay?”

The lights in the mask flickered for a quick second before coming back strong, “I’m fine, kid, but you should go. I don’t want you getting-“

“Yeah? And you’re being stupid! You were fine with me fighting before you knew I was me. Do you not trust me anymore or something?”

Tony faltered for a second, “Of course I trust you Peter but-“

“There should be no ‘but’ at the end of that sentence. I’m still Spider-Man, the same hero you’ve always known so just let me help you Tony! I can take care of myself and you need to get over this fear because I’m not going to stop being a her,” he said sternly before helping Tony off the ground.

Tony took a breath, before patting Peter on the back, “You’re right kid. I’ve been an idiot. Now let’s take care of this psycho together.”

And as Peter swings behind Tony he knows that while they’ll have their rough patches sometimes and encounter realizations while adjusting, Tony will always be there for him and Peter is always happy to return the gesture.