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“Slight problem.”
When Tony said that, Peter knew they were in trouble. He turned toward his mentor in the darkness, but the only light was the glow of the arc reactor.
“I think...” there was a clang against the door of what was apparently the vault they were inside, “we might be stuck.”
“Did you try your lasers?”
“What do you think I’ve been doing?”
“But the other lasers?”
Tony snorted. “See if you can hear anything out there.”
Peter pressed his ear to the thick wall and listened.
“Collateral damage, Jerry,” a man was saying. “Don’t worry about it.”
“He’s enhanced! We don’t want him!”
“Relax,” said the other guy. “We’ll get Harry to bring the bug spray. It’s fine.”
“They saying anything?” Tony asked, right at Peter’s side.
“Shh!”
“If we lose Stark...” said Jerry.
“Would you chill?” Peter decided that guy should be called Larry. “It only works on Oscorp mutations, I told you. Stark won’t even sneeze.”
Peter stopped listening. “Hey Mr. Stark?”
“What are they up to?”
“They just want you, and their friend has some kind of poison that only works on people like me.”
Tony made a strange sound, and Peter found himself shoved against the wall as a result of his mentor’s clumsy attempt to grab him.
“Not here!” he corrected quickly, wincing a little at the iron grip on his arm. “He’s supposed to bring it.”
“Oh.” Tony’s sigh of relief was almost tangible, but Peter still found himself pulled awkwardly against his suit in what could be loosely defined as a hug. “How far out?”
“I don’t know!” Peter squirmed free just in time to feel the ground lurch under his feet. “Whoa!”
The entire vault shuddered and groaned, pitching like something was hoisting it into the air and sending Tony and Peter stumbling to keep their balance.
“What’ve they got, a crane out there?”
“Ow, hold on.” Peter stuck himself to the wall and caught hold of Tony’s arm to keep them from sliding in their swaying prison. “Probably putting us on a truck or something.”
He waited for the telltale jolt of the container being set down before letting go of Tony and pressing his ear to the wall again.
“Yeah, on our way, ETA half an hour.” Larry sounded like he was talking on the phone. “Bring the stuff.”
“Thirty minutes,” Peter relayed back to Tony. Thirty minutes was long enough to figure something out, surely. “Hey, I thought your lasers worked on everything.”
“Almost everything, and you’re welcome for saving your life back there.”
“Whatever, I saved you like three times last week.”
“Twice.”
“You counted?”
The truck rumbled to life under their feet, and Peter steadied himself with a hand on the wall again while it started to move. “So uh, how are we going to get out of here?”
“You said thirty minutes?”
“That’s what Larry said.”
“Larry?”
“The guy. Does anybody know we’re stuck?”
“No signal’s getting out.”
That did make sense. Peter folded his arms, trying to ignore the little flutter of unease in his chest. “So what’re we gonna do?”
“Thinking about it.”
He was officially getting nervous now, but he set his back against the wall and said nothing. Tony leaned beside him, his arc reactor the only source of light inside the vault. It was strangely comforting, and Peter stepped minutely closer.
Tony didn’t speak, but his rapid heartbeat definitely sounded like a bad sign.
“Mr. Stark?” Peter asked anyway.
Tony sighed deeply. “Well kid.” He draped an arm around Peter’s shoulders. “This is about to be the weirdest half hour plus a few of your life, so listen up.”
That was far from the most reassuring thing he had ever said, but Peter would take it. He leaned a little against his mentor’s side.
“You ever heard the tale of Jonah?”
Well of all the things he might have expected, it wasn’t that. “From the Bible?”
“That’s the one. Guy in a bad spot, saved from certain death by getting eaten?”
Peter forced a laugh. “I don’t think I like where this is going, Mr. Stark.”
“Well you probably won’t.” Tony’s hand fumbled slightly on his shoulder. “It’s a little unconventional, but hear me out, okay?”
“Okay?” Useless as stories sounded at the moment, it wasn’t like he had anything else to do.
“Right.” Tony cleared his throat, and Peter tried to ignore the fact that his own heart was beginning to race in response to his mentor’s.
“I have this… ability, think of it as the world’s most useless superpower- well, not entirely useless if it’s about to save your life, but that’s irrelevant. You following?”
“You have powers?”
“Kind of, but don’t go spreading this around. You’re part of a secret club now.”
“Cool,” said Peter. “What can you do?”
“See that’s the weird part.” Tony chuckled, but it sounded fake. “Just… let me finish before you run.”
“Okay.” Personally, Peter didn’t think anything could make him want run from Tony. Unless he could turn himself into a giant spider. Then he might run.
“They just want me, we know that, so what if, for all intents and purposes except ours, it was just me here?” said Tony, apparently ignoring how ominous that sounded as he plowed on. “I can… manipulate certain things. Body chemistry, in very specific ways, and I can make people smaller. No idea how. Like… magic, almost. Obviously not, but it’s a good analogy.”
Peter nodded, hoping he looked encouraging, not that Tony could probably see him.
“So I can do that to you. Make you small, I mean. And then, here comes the weird part, if I neutralize my stomach acid, I can keep you completely hidden, away from any poison gas or whatever they’re planning, and you’ll be safe.”
Peter froze. Surely he’d heard that wrong. Tony looked at him, eyes barely visible in the glow of the arc reactor.
“You good?”
“Yeah.” Peter swallowed. “Can we... No offense Mr. Stark, but what?”
“I know, I know, it’s freaky,” Tony’s hand rubbed vigorously up and down his arm like he thought he was cold. “You’ll be alright.”
“No, what’re you going to do?” Peter caught himself leaning away slightly, and he felt bad, but not bad enough to stop.
“Like I said, make you small, make sure you don’t die, and keep you with me until we can get out of here.”
“But, like, in you?”
“Yeah.” Tony gave his arm a squeeze. “Safely. Just for a while.”
“Okay.” Peter’s stomach turned an uncomfortable flip. “Okay cool. That’s cool, not terrifying at all.”
“Take a breath, kid.”
“You were joking, right?” Peter ignored the instruction. “That was a joke?”
“Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on how you look at it, no.”
“So you really wanna make me small and like, eat me?” He had never imagined a sentence like that ever coming out of his mouth with any degree of seriousness, especially not to Tony.
“Hey, I don’t want to; I have to. There’s a difference.”
“Okay, but you’re really...” Peter felt vaguely like throwing up. “You can really do that?”
“Uh-huh.”
Peter stole a look at his middle, just below the arc reactor. “Can we maybe think of a different plan?”
“You got one?”
“My mask filters smoke, right?”
“We have no idea what this stuff is. I’m not taking that chance.”
“Your mask?”
“Still not sure.”
“Then...” Peter looked wildly around the dark space in search of an idea, jumping when Tony readjusted his arm around his shoulders. “Wait! I’ll think of something, just gimme a minute.”
“Sure, but we don’t have many.”
“Just wait.” Peter’s voice betrayed him with a slight quiver.
Tony waited. Peter’s mind raced, ricocheting off the walls of the tiny room, frighteningly blank. He grasped for something, anything, any idea or beginning of a plan, but there was nothing, no matter how hard he tried. His breathing sped up right along with his thoughts.
Tony rubbed calm circles on Peter’s shoulder with his thumb. “Any ideas?”
“Wait.”
“I’m waiting.” Tony’s thumb never stopped rubbing the tension in his shoulder. “If we do go with my plan, just hypothetically of course, I’ve done this before. It’s perfectly safe.”
“Before?”
“I was made to swear an oath not to speak of it again, but it happened, and it was fine.”
In spite of everything, Peter’s curiosity perked up. “I have three guesses who-“
“You’d be right, but I’d get murdered, so let’s not.”
“Okay.” Peter resumed ransacking his brain for ideas, growing more and more desperate as none came.
“I hate to bring this up, but we’re a little short on time here,” said Tony.
Peter’s heart rate somehow doubled, as if it hadn’t already been racing before.
“I’m not necessarily asking you, but I would like it if we agreed.”
He needed a plan, but he couldn’t think. He looked at Tony again, at his armor-covered middle, barely visible in the darkness, and he shivered. “How would I get, I mean, how would you do... that?”
“Pretty simple. Just put you in my mouth and down you go.”
A violent shudder rocked Peter at his words. It felt like he might be breaking apart, or, much more likely, that he might be sick.
“You’re alright.” Tony squeezed him against his side. “It’s just me.”
“I really don’t wanna do this.”
“You really don’t wanna get poisoned, either.”
There wasn’t a good answer to that, and Peter turned quietly to wrap his arms around the man’s chest.
Tony hugged him back. “I wish we had another option, but I’m not seeing one.”
Peter wished he could disappear, tucking his face against Tony’s neck to hide there. He was warm and comforting and solid, until he swallowed, and Peter jumped away like he’d been burned.
“You all right?”
“Yep. Doing just... really awesome. Great.” He tried not to shudder again. “So are you gonna… eat me, or whatever now?”
“Okay, I’m not eating you, I’m hiding you, but yeah we’ve waited about as long as we can.”
“Yeah.” Peter felt his breathing speeding up, but he couldn’t stop it. “Okay, this is fine, it’s just-“
“Hey hey hey, whoa, easy.” Tony grabbed him by the shoulders and held him steady. “Easy.”
“Sorry.”
“No, you’re fine. Look at me.”
Peter looked at him. His face looked strange, covered in deep shadows from the light in his chest, but it was him.
“It’s gonna be fine. You’ll be safe, you can talk to me and I’ll hear you, and I’ll let you out as soon as the coast is clear. Nothing to worry about.” Tony gave his shoulders a squeeze. “You trust me?”
“I do! This is just... kind of a lot.”
“That’s okay. I’m going to make you smaller now, but I won’t do anything else yet.”
“Okay.” The word felt like signing his own death sentence. Peter shut his eyes.
It was a strange feeling. Like every part of him was being compressed from all sides, uncomfortable but not painful, until finally it stopped. He could feel the vibration of the truck much more clearly now, and when he opened his eyes, Tony filled his vision, casting a faint blue glow while he knelt over him.
He was huge, and Peter almost felt like running away, but the darkness around them was bigger and less familiar.
“Still me.” Tony must have noticed him gawking.
“You’re really big,” said Peter, as if that wasn’t obvious.
“Kinda have to be.” Tony laid his hand down, palm up, next to him. “You mind if I pick you up?”
He hesitated. Everything that happened now, it only brought him closer. There was no turning back.
“No surprises, promise. I need you as calm as possible.”
With his arms and legs trembling slightly, Peter climbed into Tony’s gauntlet and stuck himself to the metal as he was lifted up to about chest height for the giant man. He clung on, still not quite able to grasp what was happening, how small he really was.
“So we have to do this now,” said Tony. “What I need from you-“
“Wait!” Peter blurted. He couldn’t take his eyes off the vast expanse of metal in front of him. Tony himself was inside it, and then... “You’ll let me out, right?”
“That’s what I just said, as soon as it’s safe. You think I want an abnormally talkative parasite?”
That... was certainly a thought.
“Sorry,” said Tony, and he actually sounded guilty. “I’ll let you out. You know that.”
“And you’re sure you’re not gonna- I mean, it’s safe?”
“Totally safe. Okay?”
“Okay.” Peter hugged himself, almost wishing he could become even smaller and just disappear. “Sorry. I’m just like, really freaking out right now, and I don’t know if I can, um, I don’t-“
“Hold on,” said Tony. “It’s just me, remember? You’ll still be with me.”
Technically, that was true. Practically, it was far from comforting, but Peter nodded.
“Now what I need most of all is for you to stay calm,” said Tony. “No sticking to anything.”
Peter nodded again.
“I’m going to put you in my mouth, headfirst, lying down on your stomach. Keep your arms by your sides and don’t move.” He looked completely calm, something Peter found hard to believe, but reassuring all the same. “It might be a little rough, so count to eight and then you’ll be there. Hard part’s over.”
Peter didn’t want to think about where there was.
“Ready?”
“Okay,” he whispered.
“Brave kid,” said Tony. “Close your eyes.”
This was it. Peter squeezed his eyes shut and tried to remember how to breathe correctly.
Metal fingers closed around him and lifted him up, gentle yet irresistibly strong, and Peter fought the desire to curl in on himself when he felt Tony’s hot breath around him. He was placed carefully on a horrifically slimy surface that he didn’t want to think about, wrinkling up his nose at the overwhelming damp that soaked through his suit. His heart was ready to pound its way out of his chest and escape this nightmare, but he squeezed his arms to his sides like Tony had said.
The world pitched violently around him, and Peter squeaked as he began to slide. He moved to stop himself, too late, and his arms were trapped against him by a sudden squeeze. He was moving faster now, not sliding, but being squished and kneaded and squeezed, going down. Shuddering, he squirmed as much as he could under the pressure while he tried and failed to expand his chest enough for a deep breath. He needed to not think, or pretend it wasn’t happening, that he wasn’t really... a scared little sound escaped him as Tony’s muscles continued forcing him down.
It was the longest count of eight in his life before the crushing squeeze let up and he fell, tumbling and landing on an even softer and squishier surface. There he lay, struggling to regain his breath, not even daring to move or open his eyes.
“Kid?” Everything around him vibrated with Tony’s voice.
Tony. It was Tony.
“Mr. Stark?”
“You alright?”
“Sure.” That seemed like a good answer.
“Not very convincing, but I’ll take it.”
“I’m okay.” Peter sat up slowly, hating the way the soft floor moved almost to cradle him. “Just, you know, got eaten.”
“Minor concerns.” There was a muffled clang outside, probably Tony’s hand against the stomach of his suit. “You’re safe.”
“I know.”
Peter shivered in the sticky air. He did know, but it was all so very wrong. He hadn’t even tried opening his eyes yet, and it still felt wrong.
His mind went back to the sound he’d heard, Tony’s hand against his suit. He supposed he was inside the suit now, too, and he shivered again.
There were other sounds to be heard, too, most notably Tony’s heartbeat, a strong thud-thud, thud thud above him. Peter wasn’t sure if it was reassuring or not yet. On the one hand, Tony’s heart was generally a nice sound- it meant he was okay, it meant he was there, and that meant Peter would be okay, too. It sounded strange now, though, and the difference only served to remind Peter of where he was, inside Tony. He had to laugh slightly, usually if he was scared, he wanted nothing more than to be close to his mentor, but now… now might be a bit too close.
“Still doing okay?” Said mentor sounded anxious himself.
“Just getting used to it,” said Peter. “Being actually, like, in you, you know.”
Tony’s chuckle felt like it came from all around him.
“And I’m not scared, really, but it’s… it’s really weird.”
“I know it is. You’re doing great.”
“I’m scared I’ll freak out if I open my eyes.”
“Then keep ‘em closed,” said Tony. “It’s probably just dark anyway.”
Peter sat still, listening to Tony’s heart and the whoosh of his breathing, and the rush of blood in his veins while the feeling that he wasn’t supposed to be there grew. It felt like he was intruding, which he definitely was, but beyond that he almost felt like an enemy. Like Tony wanted him there, but his body might see him quite differently.
“Mr. Stark?” he asked, before he could stop himself.
“Yes?” The familiar voice immediately made him relax.
“Nothing.”
“Really?”
Something compelled Peter to tell him. “I just wanted to be sure it was... you, you know?”
“Who else would it be?”
“Not like that.” Peter struggled to organize his feeling into words. “I mean, I know it’s you, but it feels like I’m in here and you’re just out there, like if you really ate me. Which you did, but not actually, but I just feel kinda stuck and kinda… yeah.”
“Like I forgot you?”
“A little. Or like food, I guess.”
“Well you’re definitely not that,” said Tony. “Tell me more about that scary girl you like.”
Peter told him, and the conversation was enough of a distraction that he forgot why he was keeping his eyes closed. He gasped.
“Mr. Stark, you’re glowing!”
“Excuse me, I’m what?”
“Your reactor!”
It was dark, but a faint blue glow barely allowed Peter to see the space around him. Somehow, he forgot to be scared. Looking up, he could see the source, still faint but very visible above him.
“You can see it?”
“Yeah. It’s nice.”
“Nice?”
“A little bit.” Peter scowled at himself for bringing it up, but he continued anyway. “It’s the same as outside, almost, and that’s nice.”
“Glad you think s- oh, that stinks!”
Peter scrambled halfway to his feet, his heart racing again. “What’s happening?”
“Just saving you from the worst-smelling poison in existence.”
“Thanks.” Peter had almost forgotten about the poison, and it was weird to think about, being in the same place as before but sealed away where it couldn’t get him. “No offense, but it doesn’t smell too great here, either.”
“None taken. But you’d think they could at least make the stuff smell like lavender before it kills you.”
“Ha.”
It really was strange, Peter thought. Surrounded by something designed to kill him, but protected. Trapped in a place that should also probably kill him, but safe.
“Hey Mr. Stark?”
“Yeah kid?”
“Thanks for doing that.”
“So you’ve forgiven me?”
“I wasn’t mad! Just scared.”
“Past tense, I like it,” said Tony. “Not scared anymore?”
Peter looked around. All logic told him he shouldn’t be safe. All logic told him he shouldn’t be there at all, but there he was. Tony was there, too, and even though he was giant and everything was strange, it was still him. His heart sounded different, but it was there. Peter had almost grown accustomed to the new sound.
The arc reactor cast a faint glow around him, and Peter had never realized before how often he took comfort in its light. It was a constant wherever Tony was; it meant he was safe.
“Not scared.”