Chapter Text
Tony had always been a light sleeper.
It always got worse after he’d experienced some trauma. First Afghanistan, then New York, Ultron, Thanos. The list went on and on. But what mattered was that anything could wake Tony.
Especially the sound of a not-alarm-clock alarm going off at 2 AM.
Instantly, Tony was up and he shot into an upright position. “F.R.I? What’s happening?”
F.R.I.D.A.Y’s voice glitched when she responded. “Intru- 389- systems failing-”
Peter. Tony thought, his heart speeding up as he remembered that he and his protege were the only ones in the compound. Pepper was in Toronto, Bruce had gone to find Helen Cho in South Korea, and the Avengers were all out in different places in the world that Tony didn’t care to recall. All he could think of was getting to Peter.
He stumbled out of the bed and to his feet, quickly slipping his into the shoes on the side of his bed. He raced towards his bedroom door and threw it open, ready to sprint down the hall to Peter’s room and get the kid as far away from whatever was happening as possible.
But just as he stepped out of the door, the sound of something exploding and falling filled his ears. Looking up, he saw a piece of the fucking roof falling.
Without thinking, Tony jumped backwards, the debris barely missing him.
“What the fuck?!” Tony shouted. “F.R.I.D.A.Y?! What the fuck is going on?!”
“Armed intruders- approximately 478 people on compo- Boss I’m going-”
His AI’s voice cut out, and Tony shouted her name a few more times, but got no response. So, Tony tried another name that had to say something back.
“Peter?!” Tony yelled down the hallway. “Peter, where are you?! Answer me right now, that’s an order!”
Nothing. Maybe he hadn’t heard him. Tony made his way around the fallen roof and ignored another explosion from somewhere else in the building. He finally reached Peter’s door, throwing it open so hard that it was surprising the hinges didn’t break.
His eyes frantically searched the room for any sign of a superpowered tee. His bed was empty, the sheets thrown off as if he’d rushed out of the bed as Tony had. Or like someone had grabbed him.
No.
“PETER?!” Tony screamed. “Kid, wherever you are, come out right now!”
Still nothing. No, no, no, he had to be okay. He had to be around somewhere, hiding from whoever was attacking the compound. Which led to the elephant in the room: who was attacking the compound and why?
He couldn’t call for a suit because F.R.I.D.A.Y was down, and he’d given Rogers his nanite housing unit during his meltdown almost three months ago. He’d have to go find Peter, and get a suit himself.
Trying not to panic at the thought of what could have happened to Peter, Tony went back to the fallen roof and yanked out a loose metal rod sticking out of the rubble. Holding it over his shoulder like a baseball bat, he walked forward slowly and listened carefully to the sounds around, praying he’d hear some sound that alerted him to Peter’s presence and safety. But instead, he heard another explosion and what sounded like hundreds of voices screaming outside.
Gripping the rod tighter, Tony turned the corner of the hallway where he knew there was a small window. He silently went over to it, looking out of it with one eye, which nearly popped out of his head when he saw what was outside.
Hundreds of people, all spread around the compound grounds, hurling what looked to be homemade explosives. Most of them were yelling things Tony couldn’t understand, and he could see some of them were about to break the bulletproof glass at the front entrance of the main building.
“ Fuck. ” Tony whispered. He needed to get to Peter and his suit now.
Throwing silence to the wind, Tony ran down another hallway. “Peter?! Goddammit kid, just answer me, please!”
The lack of a response was making Tony physically sick. All of the explosions weren’t helping either. The thought of Peter being caught in one of them made him want to cry. He couldn’t lose the kid to whoever these assholes were. He wasn’t allowed to die. Tony had said so. So therefore, he couldn’t die.
But the sinking feeling that something had happened to Peter, for real this time, made his whole body start to tremble. Just like when Peter had disappeared while Tony was asleep, when he went back out as Spider-man for the first time, and when his suit had gone offline last month.
“Shit.” Tony gasped, leaning against the wall, anxiety and panic taking over. He’d never panic like this normally, but Peter was in this compound somewhere. Or maybe he wasn’t. Maybe he’d been blown up, or the mob outside had taken him and beaten him to death, or-
A sound other than his own fast breathing, an explosion, or the angry shouts outside filled Tony’s ears. It was the sound of a door opening. Ahead of him was a janitor’s closet, and the door was barely an inch open. A hand stuck out of it, gesturing Tony to come closer.
Could that be- Tony prayed it was who he thought it was. If it was anyone else, he would clobber them to death with his metal rod in less than a minute.
Getting back steady on his feet and holding up the rod, Tony slowly went towards the closet, prepared to either tackle someone with a hug or beat someone senseless. He hoped it was the former.
Reaching the door, Tony took a deep breath before yanking it open, and almost crying when he saw a wide-eyed face staring at him with his hands up.
“Oh, Pete.” Tony said, relief dripping from his voice as he dropped the rod and hugged the kid. Peter gripped him right back, and Tony was more than a little surprised to feel the boy’s hands shaking. After a moment, he pulled back, holding Peter’s forearms. “Are you alright?”
Peter nodded a little too quickly. “I’m fine. My sixth sense thing went off in the middle of the night, so I went to go check it out, and then F.R.I.D.A.Y got shut down, so I went in here to try and come up with what to do.”
“Why didn’t you come and get me?”
Peter bit his lip. “I-I kinda freaked out a little. I couldn’t think. There are so many people out there- and our suits are downstairs, and if those people find out I’m Spider-man- I’m sorry, this is stupid, this is just… a lot.”
Of course Peter would be panicking. He was a kid, having to face a mob of people that he wouldn’t dare harm. Tony would be worried if he wasn’t panicking.
“Kid, listen to me.” Tony said, getting Peter to look at him. “It isn’t stupid. This is scary. You think I’m not terrified right now? I am. You have every right to be scared. You just can’t let that fear take over. I learned that every time you did something that scared the shit out of me.”
Peter gulped. “Okay, okay. But we still need a plan. There are like, a million pissed-off people out there.”
“Almost 500, F.R.I said, before she went offline.”
“Still! How are we supposed to get to our suits? They probably already made it in by now.”
“You’re right. And we also can’t let these people know who you are. Which is why you’re staying here.”
Tony didn’t see any other reasonable option. He had to keep Peter safe, no matter what the cost. He could stop robbers or pickpockets, but not what seemed to be a fucking army.
Peter, being Peter, had to protest. “What? No! You can’t take them on all by yourself! You need Spider-man!”
“And I need Peter safe more!” He gripped the kid’s shoulders. “Peter, please. Promise me you’ll stay away. Just hide until backup comes. The rest of the Avengers will get word that F.R.I.D.A.Y shut down, so they’ll be here soon. But until then, I need you to stay safe and hidden.”
“But-”
“Peter. Please. ”
The complete and utter desperation in Tony’s voice seemed to get through to Peter. He still looked upset, but there was also an understanding in his features. He sighed, nodding. “Please be careful.”
Tony tucked Peter against his chest once more. “I will. I promise.”
Releasing Peter, Tony patted his shoulder and picked up the metal rod. “Be safe, kid.”
And before Peter could change his mind about staying back, Tony walked out the door and shut it behind him.
---
Peter changed his mind less than a minute later.
Tony didn’t have a suit, he didn’t have powers, and there was an angry mob outside blowing stuff up left and right. Peter wasn’t going to just sit in this honestly disgusting janitor’s closet and let his mentor die. But he also couldn’t show he was Spider-man. He had to do something.
Another explosion echoed outside, and Peter let out a shaky breath, trying to come up with what to do. His Spider-Sense wasn’t saying anything about there being people near him, so he still had some time.
Option 1: He could try and find Tony in order to get a hold of his suit. However, he’d seen some of the mob outside carrying guns, and they had probably had made it into the compound already. One wrong move, and he was dead.
Option 2: He actually stayed in the closet, but risked Tony dying and himself being discovered and dying.
Option 3: He tried to make it to a generator or computer to get F.R.I.D.A.Y back online. It was risky, but it was a way to get all the defenses of the compound up and running.
Yeah. Peter liked Option 3.
Okay, the emergency generators were in the basement, but the mob had probably cut them off somehow. He had to find a way to get them back on.
This totally wouldn’t backfire. Totally.
Peter looked around and grabbed a wrench that he saw on one to the weirdly wet shelves. He made the decision right then that he wouldn’t use his powers unless absolutely necessary, so it was good to have some sort of weapon on him.
Trying to forget how likely it was that he would die, Peter opened the door and sprinted down the hall to the nearest stairway.
It was annoying as hell to have to run down so many flights of stairs, but that thought only lasted until Peter reached the third. Because that’s when he heard fairly close yelling and footsteps from above him. Shit, shit, shit.
He picked up the speed, jumping down multiple stairs at a time. His mind trailed to Tony. If the mob had gotten in, then there was a good chance they had found Tony before he could make it to a suit. But Tony was a genius. Nothing could have happened to him… right?
Holy crap, was this how Tony felt about him all the time? Now he felt bad about all times he’d done something Tony didn’t want him to do.
At last, he reached the basement. Even further below it was a bomb shelter, but the level he was on was where the emergency generators were. He’d never been down here, but Tony had offhandedly mentioned it in conversation, so he knew it was down here somewhere.
But right as he stepped off the last stair, his Spider-Sense started going insane. He expected the basement to be dark as hell, but Peter could very clearly see six or seven flashlights, and even more guns, pointed directly at him.
Peter counted 6 men, and 3 women in front of him, all dressed in black and looker absolutely pissed.
Oh God, he was screwed.
“Drop the wrench, kid.” One of the women said. “Don’t think that we care that you’re like, twelve.”
“I’m sixteen.” Peter muttered. One of the men didn’t seem to like that, because he fired his gun, and the bullet shot right past Peter’s head and into the wall behind him.
Okay, so it seemed these guys were fine with killing a kid. Not great.
Peter hated the sound the wrench made when he dropped it. He held his hands up to show he was unarmed.
Okay, okay, now was probably the time to go Spider-man. There were nine guns pointed at him, and he was alone. He could take out nine people. But they would know who he was, and then-
Something slammed into the back of Peter’s head, hard, and he couldn’t think anymore.
---
Yeah, Tony wasn’t getting to his suit any time soon.
Those assholes had completely blocked off the way into Tony’s workshop where all his suits were. He’d have to hope they’d eventually start to dwindle away or that he could find some way to get F.R.I.D.A.Y back online. But for now, Tony would just have to go get Peter and get somewhere safe. Like the bomb shelter. He felt like such an idiot for not thinking of it before. He’d forgotten the compound had a bomb shelter when people were hurling bombs at him.
Wow. What a genius you are, Tony.
Tony made his way through the debris and back to the janitor’s closet, trying to work out how they could get to the bomb shelter unnoticed.
Grabbing the door handle and opening the closet, Tony began to explain his plan. “Okay, okay, we can’t get to the suits right now, but there’s a bomb shelter about 4 feet under the basement. Probably should have gone there first, but my genius brain decided to forget-”
But before Tony could get into the actual plan, he lost his voice. Because the closet was empty.
It was fucking empty.
No, no, no, it couldn’t be empty. Peter had said he’d stay in here. That he’d stay safe. Tony looked around the room, praying he was missing something. But the closet was tiny. And Peter clearly wasn’t in it.
“No, no, God, please, no.” Tony gasped, suddenly unable to use his feet. He grabbed one of the shelves and held his chest, trying to ease away the panic. Tears filled his eyes, and his breaths came out short and almost in sobs.
But even after Tony got his breathing back on track, the panic remained.
Because this time, he may have lost Peter for good.