Work Text:
Underoos
Peter sits back behind the plane and a few boxes that are his cover. He sits crouched and watches as more and more of the Avengers start lining up around Mr. Stark in the Iron Man suit. He can hear what they’re saying but doesn’t focus too much on it, knowing it’s not his place to come in.
“Okay, there’s Captain America!” his voice is a hushed whisper, barely quiet enough to not blow his cover but not loud enough to contain his excitement. “Iron Man, Black Widow, woaahh...” he continues, his childish enthusiasm breaking through as more and more show up. “Who's that new guy?”
He doesn’t have anytime to ponder the question because Mr. Stark is calling out his cue. “Underoos!”
Hearing it shocks him for a second, the phone in his hand whips around to face him. He wanted to document this entire trip so he can watch it over and over again later. Just so that he can continue to believe it really happened. “Ouh, that’s me,” he says hurriedly to the camera. “I gotta go, gotta go!”
He sets the camera down, facing the way it was towards the group of people and jumps into frame, shooting out some web and grabs the shield, another strand wraps Captain America’s hands together. Holy crow, he didn’t think it would really work like that. He lands the flip, holding the shield - that is a lot lighter than he thought it would be, it’s amazing how much the metal can really deflect, he wondered what it was really made of - and looks out at everyone standing there.
“Hey everyone,” he tries to play it coolly after Mr. Stark reprimands him for talking too much. He nods his head and barely takes any offense, still blown away by how cool it is that he’s working for the Avengers!- erh, half of them, at least.
***
After the fight, Mr. Stark sent him back to his hotel room with Happy. The man didn’t seem too happy with the outcome of the fight - with that quinjet getting away and all - but he may have been mostly concerned for his friend.
Thinking about that causes Peter a little sadness and guilt. He could have helped! Shot some web to slow him down or give him a softer landing, who knows? Peter certainly doesn’t because he messed up and took a hard enough hit that hurt enough to take him down for a while. If only he’d stuck that landing a lot better - he’s Spider-man for goodness sake! - he wouldn’t have disappointed Tony Stark and could have helped his friend.
He’d hit the side of that Big Guy’s hand hard enough that he’d completely lost his sense of ground. Right up until he was hurling towards it fast enough to kill someone normal. That pile of boxes he’d landed on did nothing to break his fall and the blow to the head and back he’d suffered messed him up. He heard people around him continuing to fight, but he couldn’t really
breathe because the hit had pushed all of the air from his lungs completely.
It hurt so bad it blocked out everything else, his ears were ringing too loud and his vision went out. That may or may not be due to the mask that had somehow bunched up over his eyes to expose half of his face. He’d even tried to hit Mr. Stark when the man tried to check up on him.
Peter still felt the guilt on the car ride home. After telling him that he was done, the kid didn’t really see anymore of Tony after that. He tried not to feel bummed over that fact, he was sure he’d be seeing more of him. Especially if he was going to become an Avenger of his own!
“You okay, kid?” Happy asks him, looking through the rearview mirror as he pulls away from the airport parking lot.
The lights from the police cars that they drove by stabbed at Peter’s sensitive eyes, so he closed them with a groan. His head hurt and his back and torso ached from the amount of hits he’d taken. He was sure that under the suit, his body was littered with bruises that would be healed and almost completely gone by the time they got back to the hotel rooms - perks of the superhuman healing, he guesses.
“Yeah, I’ll be fine..” he sighs and leans his head against the window. This wasn’t a bus, he could press his heated head against the cool glass to help soothe his headache and not play the part of the ball on a paddle ball toy.
Happy doesn’t respond and they just drive in silence.
Just like he suspected earlier, the hour long car drive back to the hotel was enough time for him to start feeling better.
“Man, I wish you could have been there, it was so cool!” he was telling Happy as they pulled up the building they were staying one more night in. “And Mr. Stark was like-”
“Kid,” the driver puffed out. “I’m glad you're feeling better, but I don’t need to hear about it.”
His tone quieted Peter down. “Oh, okay,” he couldn’t help the disappointment seep into his voice. It didn’t seem like Happy cared though, so it was alright. Then he remembered his video diary! Was it still recording?
He picked up the phone from the seat next to him. The battery had died while recording, so Peter wasn’t sure how much it had captured on film. He barely even remembered grabbing it before getting in the car, or maybe Happy gave it to him? He was kind of focused on the pain of the fight on the way home. Either way, he plugs the phone back in when he gets back to his room and waits for it to charge.
While he waits, he takes a shower, stretches, explores the other parts of his room that he hadn’t known existed until right before they left. The longer he waited, the more energy he got back and the more excited he was to tell about his day. He didn’t care if he couldn’t ever show anyone - even if thinking about Ned’s reaction gave him great amounts of joy - he would watch it by himself so many times.
He can only wait until the phone reaches 12% before he’s turning it back on and flipping the camera on himself.
“It was the most amazing thing that’s ever happened!” he starts excitedly. He can’t contain his joy and happiness that was now boiling across his skin as he gestured madly, trying to recreate the day in his head. “So Mr. Stark was like ‘hey, underoos!’ and I just sort of flipped in and I stole Cap’s shield and was like ‘hey, what’s up everybody!” He was shaking the camera too much, but still didn’t care. He wasn’t going for quality production at that moment, he was just excited to tell someone about the greatest day in his life right now - even with that someone was just future him. He even went as far as changing his voices for different people, making himself sound cool and smooth because that is totally how he sounded earlier.
“And then-” somebody at the door stops him mid sentence. He heard them outside his room 0.2 seconds before they knocked. “Hey just a second!” he calls out. “Coming!!” he sets the phone down and rolls backwards, continuing with the momentum and flipping back onto his feet towards the door. He miscalculated how far away that was though, because his back hits the wall right as Happy opens the door to his motel room.
“Hey,” Peter says, a light tilt in his voice.
The man was in his hotel robe - woah, where did he get one and did Peter get one too? - and not looking too happy. The teenage boy leaned off the wall to look him in the eyes.
“We have thin walls here,” Happy was saying.
“Oh, my bad- uh..” Peter mumbles, realizing that maybe his voice was a little too loud for such a small space. “Sorry, I was just recording some stuff and wanted to talk about how cool today has been and it’s been one of the greatest moments of my life and so I guess I didn’t really know I was getting kinda loud while I was talking. Everything’s a bit loud for me anyway, spidey hearing and all that-”
“Kid,” Happy holds a hand up to stop the overly enthusiastic boy. The door was still open and he wasn’t sure how much everyone else could hear, also the kid was annoying to listen to right new door. “Just keep it down, okay?”
Peter nods quickly and looks around the room, a light blush staining his cheeks. He doesn’t want to get anyone in trouble at all, that’s never his intention. “Yeah, okay. I understand.”
“Good,” Happy turns and reaches for the doorknob to go back to his own room.
Peter was going to let him go, but then something occurred to the young boy. He had gone back to thinking about his day, but now he had a question. “Hey, Happy?”
An annoyed huff of breath that Peter ignored because it happened all the time around him, “yes?”
“What does ‘underoos’ mean?” He asked with a curious cock of his head. “It had been my cue that Mr. Stark used earlier today and we hadn’t really talked about what that would be beforehand, but I knew it was my cue because everything else wasn’t shouted like that word was. I just don’t know what it means and was wondering if, maybe, you would know?”
Happy shook his head and turned back around, he continued to walk out of the room. He threw a, “Google it,” over his shoulder before the door closed in the frame. Peter could hear him laughing as he walked back to his room and that confused the kid even more.
“Huh..” he walked back to his bed, jumping onto the mattress to grab his phone. He paused the still recording phone for the time being to bring up the Google search bar. What does underoos mean? is typed into the bar.
“Underoos is a brand of underwear made primarily for children by the Fruit of the Loom company, often mimicking the distinctive costume of a popular superhero…”
Peter blinked at his phone for a second. Was Mr. Stark calling him… underwear?
“Underoos?” Peter repeated to himself. “Children's superhero-themed underwear?”
There was a pause while it sank in, and then his laughter started. He threw his head back and his eyes crinkled closed with the force of his joy. He wasn’t sure why it was so funny, exactly, but maybe it was just him imaging the famous Tony Stark calling out “underoos” in the face of his enemies.
Well, ‘enemies’ was a strong word to use, but it didn’t matter at the moment to Peter. He couldn’t get over Mr. Stark calling him what he did. Even a couple of minutes later, after someone else would have laughed out the joke, he still giggled when thinking about it. This was definitely something future him needed to hear about.
He returned to the camera app on his phone and clicked record again. “So guess what I just found out, Mr. Stark called me underoos! And it’s funny because...”