Work Text:
Someone screamed in an alley down below; Spider-Man swung past.
He moved quickly, efficiently. His muscle memory and that sixth sense worked in tandem to keep him flying in smooth arcs between towering skyscrapers that reached towards the orange sky.
And, ahead of him, lit up brightly despite the early hour, was Avengers Tower.
His eyes fell upon its giant, glowing A.
No.
New York seemed abnormally loud beneath him, voices carrying from blocks away that no normal person would be able to hear—but then, this body wasn’t normal, was it?
The hyper-sensitive hearing, the unreleased strength in his limbs, that oh-so helpful sixth sense. That was the whole point. That’s what made this little catch so spectacular, so fortunate that he had stumbled upon their den and had been clueless as to what he would find inside. Powerless to stop them as, with a wave of golden light, he was theirs.
And, they thought with glee, the Avengers were equally clueless, completely unprepared for what was about to happen.
No no no, I won’t let you hurt them!
That was cute, that the boy thought he had any choice.
***
“Hey Katniss, given that you haven’t helped in any way, care to set the table?”
“I helped! I… supervised.”
“Well, you were present,” Tony said as he carried over a few glasses.
Clint grumbled, but began to lay out the crockery without further complaint. The open-plan kitchen-diner was busier than it had been in weeks, since today’s turnout for team dinner was surprisingly high. Tony had to squeeze past where Sam, already drinking, was crowded around the wine rack as he made his way to the table, narrowly avoiding dropping the glasses. Natasha and Steve had offered to cook, and Wanda and Vision had flown in from upstate, leaving them with an almost full house except for Bruce, who was abroad. They were just waiting on the kid to get back from patrol, and then they’d be able to eat.
Speak of the devil—FRIDAY alerted Tony to Peter’s arrival just seconds before he heard the elevator doors open. When Tony had finished setting out the glasses and Peter still hadn’t bounced in with some ridiculous story about his shenanigans on patrol, he glanced up, confused.
Peter was stood in the doorway, eerily still. Tony’s eyebrows tugged down at the way the kid’s whole body was drawn tight. His mask was still on, rendering his expression unreadable as he surveyed the kitchen.
The kid made eye contact with him, and Tony forced an easy smile.
“Ah, Pete! Just in time to not have to do any actual work.”
He expected Peter to respond with teasing of his own, but he didn’t—he didn’t even move. Instead, he continued to look around the room in a way that almost reminded Tony of Natasha, silently standing back to analyze what was happening around her when in an unfamiliar situation.
It was… concerning, to say the least.
Though he tried his hardest to pretend he had, the kid definitely hadn’t gotten over his hero-worship stage vis-à-vis the Avengers. And with Peter, his giddiness at being surrounded by his heroes manifested in seemingly infinite energy and a constant stream of stories to tell. For him to not immediately join them and launch into a conversation the minute he arrived, something must be wrong.
Had something happened on patrol?
Tony frowned. “Pete? You gonna join us?”
Peter’s gaze snapped back to Tony. The mask made it so damn hard to tell what the kid was feeling—he could be crying under there and Tony wouldn’t know. His body language wasn’t giving anything away either.
Several of the others glanced up, looking between Tony and Peter curiously.
After holding Tony’s gaze for a prolonged moment, Peter wordlessly turned and stalked away, his red and blue reflection in the floor-to-ceiling windows disappearing off towards the stairs.
Tony stared after him, sarcastic remark dying on his tongue.
“Tony?” Steve sounded as confused as Tony felt. “Is something wrong with Peter?”
He glanced Steve’s way. “I don’t know. I’m gonna go check on him.”
That got Sam to look up from his second glass of wine. “Or maybe he needs some space?” he suggested. “Kid looked pretty upset. And you know him, he never shuts up. He’d say what was wrong if he wanted to, wouldn’t he?”
Tony paused. May had warned him at the beginning of the summer that Peter, like any teenager, was going to have mood swings and difficult days. They’d mostly managed to avoid that so far—Peter’s excitement to be working with the Avengers was apparently the perfect cure for his bad moods—and Tony wasn’t exactly excited to find out how long that would last. God knows he didn’t know how to handle a grumpy teenager.
Still, Tony had to admit that the way Peter had been acting didn’t appear to be a bad mood. Tony’s best guess would be that something had happened on patrol—in which case, he would need to discuss it with the kid.
Eventually, the choice was taken out of his hands.
“Boss,” said FRIDAY, “Peter has just entered the lab.”
Tony frowned. Bad mood or unfortunate patrol notwithstanding, Peter knew that he wasn’t allowed in the lab unaccompanied. He’d have to go and deal with that anyway, and hopefully he’d be able to get Peter to admit what was wrong while he was there.
He sighed. “I’ll be right back,” he said with a glance at the rapidly-cooling lasagna on the counter. “Don’t wait for us.”
When he reached the lab, he stopped just across the threshold. Peter stood in the middle of the room with his back to the door, not moving. Tony frowned and took a cautious step towards him.
“Pete? Did something happen on patrol? It’s not like you to just walk off without giving us all a headache first. And you know you’re not allowed in here by yourself. Nothing personal, just a general rule— kid?”
He’d finally realized what it was the kid was standing in front of: a partially disassembled Iron Man suit, stretched out on a workbench where Tony had left it last night before crashing from exhaustion.
What the hell was going on with Peter? Tony had assumed he’d come in here to collect web fluid or something, not stare creepily at an Iron Man suit. “Kid, coming into the lab is one thing. The suits, too? Come on. Out with it. What’s going on?”
Slowly, Peter turned to look at him, the big white eyes of his suit expressionless as they stared. He cocked his head slightly as if sizing Tony up, then he backed up a few paces and braced himself.
“Uh, Kid?”
Quick as a snap, Peter flicked his wrist and shot a web at Tony’s chest. He used the web to yank Tony forwards, then jumped up and grabbed the ceiling with his hands. The kid swung his legs and kicked Tony in the center of his chest, hard enough to wind him. He had caught the knot of scars where the arc reactor used to sit, and it sent waves of pain radiating throughout Tony’s whole torso.
As he coughed, struggling to catch his breath, he noticed Peter reeling back for a punch out of the corner of his eye.
“FRIDAY!”
Tony shot an arm out to protect himself just as a gauntlet from the suit Peter had been examining attached itself to his wrist. He caught Peter’s punch, swallowing a cry of pain as the impact reverberated through his bones. Peter’s strength crumpled the metal, but Tony shot a blast that knocked Peter several feet away before he could crush Tony’s wrist.
Chest heaving and heat rising to his palms, Tony staggered backwards to put distance between himself and the kid. He ripped off the now broken gauntlet. Something collided with his back and he stumbled slightly as a suit assembled itself around him.
Tony fixed the kid with a stern glare, even as panic swirled in his chest. Something was very, very much wrong.
“You’re not Peter.”
Which meant that meant someone had done something to his kid. He couldn’t tell how bad the situation was yet (bad, it was very fucking bad because someone’s done something to Peter) and his heart stuttered at the worst-case scenarios that his mind immediately jumped to.
The person—was it Peter, and someone was inside his head? Was it someone wearing his suit? –gave no outward signs that Tony’s revelation shocked or concerned them.
That damn mask. It had never seemed unnerving before, because when Peter was in the suit he was normally bouncing on the balls of his feet with excitement for their mission or gesticulating as he spoke, wildly enough to make any Italian proud.
Stood still as this… person was now (not Peter, Peter would die before he willingly hurt anyone), Tony realized just how uncanny those big white eyes were.
The person leapt towards him without warning, and Tony raised a gauntlet and fired. The kid dodged but didn’t quite manage to jump out of the way in time and the thick metal band Tony had launched at him wrapped itself around one ankle.
Whoever this was still had Peter’s Spidey sense, then. And his stickiness, from when he had held the ceiling earlier.
“Who are you?” Tony snapped, firing another metal band—this one also missed and attached itself to a workbench, pulling the whole thing down. “What have you done with the kid?”
A punch caught him off guard; the face plate caved in and hot blood poured down the side of Tony’s face. He staggered and ripped the face plate off, but another blow to his head sent him crashing to the floor. Tony landed heavily, the clang! of the armor hitting tile resonating painfully in his head.
“Multiple lacerations detected,” warned FRIDAY. “I have alerted the rest of the team to Mr. Parker’s plight.”
“Thanks, girl,” Tony managed as he struggled to his feet, using his repulsors to stabilize himself. The kid was gone. He must have slipped past him while he was down. “Is it… is it Peter?”
FRIDAY took a moment before she responded. “Karen has not reported any outside forces tampering with the suit, and the biometrics of the wearer match Peter’s. However, Karen has reported that Peter encountered several individuals with unknown enhancements during patrol and has since been acting strangely.”
Tony gingerly pressed at the wound on his temple. “Strange is one word for it,” Tony said, his hand now covered in blood. “At least it’s Peter, though, and not someone else in his suit. Where is he, FRI?”
He soon realized that his question was redundant, because even from the lab he could hear the sounds of a fight somewhere in the penthouse. He followed them to the main living room, where carnage had broken out. Peter was suspended in midair by scarlet tendrils of energy, struggling for a moment before realizing that he wouldn’t be able to break free. Instead, he webbed Wanda and violently yanked her sideways. She crashed through the floor-to-ceiling windows. Shit!
Every muscle in Tony’s body tensed as he shot after her. She hadn’t fallen far, thanks to her magic, but she was covered in blood and glass. Tony grabbed her, repulsors fighting to keep them airborne, and flew her back up to the penthouse.
By the time Tony and Wanda landed safely, Peter was on the floor, restrained by Steve but thrashing wildly. Tony could see the sweat beading on Steve’s forehead as he struggled to keep Peter pinned. Natasha took advantage of the kid being momentarily immobilized and yanked his mask off his face.
The kid’s face was pale, all color drained from his cheeks. He was expressionless aside from his eyes, which were blown wide open in fear and immediately latched onto Tony’s.
Help me, they screamed.
And, Tony realized with horror, they were ringed with bright, glowing gold.
What the hell had the kid gotten himself mixed up with?
Wanda had noticed too. “I can help him,” she said, raising her hands which were already glowing scarlet.
But before she could do anything, Steve cried out in pain, and Peter slipped from his grip. The kid immediately jumped into action: he planted a kick in the center of Clint’s chest, drove an elbow into Sam’s face, then turned to Natasha, who dodged his punch and shocked him with her Widow Bites.
Peter fell to the floor, twitching. It was so much worse now that Tony could see Peter’s face—it screwed up slightly in pain, but there was nothing of Peter in the expression.
“Vis!” yelled Wanda.
Vision grabbed Peter and pulled him upright, one arm around his throat and the other pinning his arms to his sides. The kid struggled again, but Tony knew he wouldn’t be able to break free from Vision’s vibranium grip.
Peter’s golden eyes fixed on Wanda as she stepped forwards.
Tony watched with bated breath as Wanda’s hands glowed red, and then Peter’s face twisted up, seemingly in discomfort. His eyes lit up scarlet, then gold, a sunset battling in his eyes as Wanda fought to free him from whoever’s control he was under.
Peter clenched his eyes shut and cried out in pain. His voice cracked and panic stabbed through Tony’s sternum.
“Wanda—!” Tony had to shout to be heard over Peter’s screams.
“It’s working!” she gasped, voice thin with exertion. “He’s fighting it—”
Just as Peter’s screams became too much to bear, the kid suddenly went limp in Vision’s grip. Wanda staggered slightly and Tony grabbed her by the elbow to stabilize her, but his attention was fixed on Peter as Vision gently lowered him to the floor.
Tony threw himself down at Peter’s side. Tentatively, he reached a hand out to brush a sweaty lock of hair out of the kid’s face.
“Peter? Hey, kid? You with us, buddy?”
A crease appeared between Peter’s eyebrows, and he reached up to dig the heel of his hand into his forehead, groaning deep in his throat.
“Ugh,” he managed.
Not satisfied with that, Tony gently patted Peter’s face.
“Kid?”
Peter blinked his eyes open, and the tension drained from Tony’s limbs. The kid’s eyes were back to their usual brown.
Peter twitched his fingers a little, looking as though he was relishing the feeling of being able to control them himself, and then pushed himself up into a sitting position. He squinted up at Tony for a moment, then his eyes went wide and he buried in his face in his hands.
“Oh my God,” he groaned.
“Pete?” Tony said.
Peter ignored him. His head snapped up and he looked around the room. Tony followed his gaze as he took in how Wanda was streaked with blood, how Sam’s nose was busted, how Steve cradled one of his hands with the other. Then Peter’s eyes landed on Tony, and he knew the kid was looking at the blood pouring down his face.
Peter’s face crumpled with guilt.
“Oh, God,” he blurted. “Mr.—Wanda—Steve—Sam—I, I’m so sorry, I hurt you all! They… I tried not to, I—I tried so hard to hold them back, but I don’t know what they did, I couldn’t stop it—”
Tony had never been so glad to hear the kid’s rambling.
“Hey. It’s alright, Pete. No hard feelings.”
Peter didn’t look assured; his eyes shone with tears. “But… I hurt you. Mr. Stark, I really am so sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt anyone, but I couldn’t fight them off. I shouldn’t have even tried to fight them in the first place—”
“Hey,” Tony said, patting Peter’s shoulder. “Don’t apologize.” Just promise you’ll never do it again because I don’t think my heart can handle it. “Sometimes the bad guys get the best of us. Everyone has a story or two that we don’t come out of looking particularly heroic. It sucks, but you gotta accept it.”
“But I hurt you guys,” Peter whispered, because apparently this kid was determined to paint himself the villain when no-one else saw him that way.
Tony sighed. “Kid, some of us have done worse to each other even without the excuse of being mind-controlled at the time.”
“And besides, what’s a little mind-controlled attempted murder between friends?” said Clint, brightly.
Natasha shot him an unimpressed look.
The kid still looked like he wanted to go and publicly renounce himself as an Avenger for having hurt his heroes, so Tony patted his shoulder again.
“Come on, kid. It’s alright. We’ll get the Baby Monitor footage analyzed and see if we can’t take down your big baddie. That’s what, twice in a week now?”
By how Peter’s face fell, Tony immediately knew his teasing had been misplaced. Evidently, Peter didn’t want to be reminded of his little kidnapping ordeal in the wake of what he apparently viewed as another failure on his part.
Tony hadn’t been entirely kidding back then when he’d said he sometimes wished he could reprogram Peter like he could the AIs. The kid seemed to expect them to treat every little failure as a black mark on his record, and that if he made enough mistakes this whole Avenging-internship would be taken away from him. Sometimes Tony didn’t know how to explain to him that that wasn’t how this worked: they already trusted him and had faith in him—that was why Tony had made the offer in the first place. He didn’t have to earn their trust, and it wasn’t going to be taken away just like that.
This was the perfect time for Peter to make mistakes, to test his limits and find his superheroing comfort zone while the rest of the Avengers were here to protect him and take the fall for him. But the kid didn’t understand that—and boy did Tony wish he could just program it into Peter’s psyche.
“Hey,” Tony said, softly. “How about we deal with this ourselves, keep it off SHIELD’s records, okay? You’re real close to being approved to go on a mission with us. We’ll get this all cleaned up and we’ll see about Steve putting in a good word for you next time there’s an Accords meeting, okay?”
Peter’s face brightened. “Really? You’d do that for me?” he asked Steve.
Steve nodded. “You’re improving, and I think you’re ready. Hey, I don’t even have to hold back that much during training anymore,” he said with a teasing smile.
“Really? But… what about tonight? Doesn’t that prove I’m not ready?”
Tony resisted the urge to throttle Peter.
“It’s okay. Shit happens, squirt,” said Sam.
“Peter,” said Wanda quietly. “Whoever was controlling you, their magic is strong. I almost couldn’t break you free—if it were not for you fighting too, I don’t think I would have managed it. By yourself, without any powers that can protect you from magic, you would have had no way to defend yourself.”
Steve hummed. “But that’s not a sign of weakness. Everyone has situations they’re better equipped to deal with, and situations they’re all but useless in. That’s just the way life is. That’s why we work in a team, so we can protect and support each other as needed.”
Sam nodded. “And plus, shit happens sometimes.”
Steve glared at Sam, but Peter’s eyes brightened in understanding and he managed a weak smile.
“Okay,” he whispered.
Clint stuck his hand out, offering it to Peter, who took it and let Clint pull him to his feet.
“C’mon, kid,” Clint said, guiding Peter towards the kitchen. “While these weaklings go get checked out in the medbay, let’s go eat before the lasagna gets cold. And hey, how about I tell you all about what I was getting up to in the lead up to the Battle of New York…”
Tony watched them go, his muscles shaking from being tense for so long. After that scare, he was a little unwilling to let Peter out of his sight, but he pushed that feeling away. There was stuff to do—he should probably get his head wound seen to, or Steve would lecture him about self-care, again, and then—
Well, then he had a mind-controlled Spider-Kid to avenge.