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Peter knows he’s in trouble when the soft whirring of turned up repulsors ist fast approaching and he can’t do much else but stay exactly where he’s been for the past ten minutes and cling to the narrow ledge on the wall right outside his classroom window. Multiple stories off the ground. In the middle of freaking December in what feels like a couple of dozen degrees below freezing. He swears he’s even seen the very first snow flake of the year and he’s never been less happy about it.
Suffice to say, he’s cold.
And he is probably about to get his ass handed to him if the slightly tinny sound of his name is anything to go by.
“H-hi M-m-mister St-stark,“ he greets with an awkward wave of an unhealthily blue hand. “Whazzup?”
Tony doesn’t answer and Peter would bet his lunch money that, if the Iron-Man mask had the same features his does, its eyes would be narrowed to slits right now. Nonetheless he holds up an arm for Peter to hold onto and to rescue him. Like a kitten from a tree.
He tries not to think about what consequences this will have for his standing among fellow students and, really, humans for the rest of his existence on earth and clings to the surprisingly warm armor, the second Iron-Man is close enough to get a hold of him.
“You’re so warm,” he shudders and leans his head against the warm metal casing to absorb as much warmth as he possibly can. “On a scale of one to ten how likely is it that this is one of your fancy remotely-steered suits and you’re not actually here?”
The faceplate unclips and lifts in a swift motion and Tony’s no-nonsense face comes into view. “Zero, kid,” he replies shortly, “hope you didn’t bet anything on that.”
“Nope,” he sighs in resignation to his fate and once they hit the ground he stumbles away from Tony – or at least tries to stumble away from him. Before he can move his frozen limbs out of arm’s reach, though, Tony has already tapped his arc reactor once to disperse the suits nanites back into their housing unit, has ripped the entire thing off his chest and unceremoniously stuck it to Peter’s way-too-thin-for-freezing-temperatures Midtown sweatshirt.
“F.R.I.D.A.Y. assemble suit and engage heaters until he’s reached something resembling a body temperature,” he curtly orders and pulls his hooded jacket closer around his shoulders.
Peter’s about to protest everything about this statement but is cut off by an Iron-Man suit sans face mask assembling around his trembling frame. “This is so cool,” he exclaims with blue lips and red cheeks and then interrupts his own fan-boying. “And warm,” he sighs contently and lets himself plop down onto the grass in front of his high school.
This would undoubtedly leave an Iron-Man shaped patch on their front-lawn but he couldn’t care less right now.
Partly, because his body is still battling hypothermia and partly because Tony looks really, really mad. Not exactly ferry-incident-level mad but somehow the worry in his eyes makes him feel even worse.
“Sorry?” he tries, more mumbles into the suit. He’s sitting up, his legs sprawled out on the lawn and Tony is towering over him rubbing his hands together in an effort to keep warm. He has half a mind to tell him to take his suit back so he wouldn’t be cold but he very clearly feels every muscle contraction as his body slowly but surely realizes just how cold it has been and tries to adjust to more viable living conditions.
Tony sighs. “And what exactly are you sorry for?”
“Uh, making you rescue me from hanging outside a school window?”
This time Tony combines his sigh with a weary rub of the bridge of his nose. “And why were you hanging outside your school window?”
“That’s kind of a long story.”
“We have time,” he prompts, “Happy needs at least another ten minutes to get through traffic with the car.” He looks around them cautiously, realizing that bystanders and reporters are already starting to assemble around them and shrugs. “Make that 20 if he’s behind the media circus.”
“Oh god,” Peter groans and covers his face with the gloved hand that, thankfully, does not include a repulsor – he silently thanks F.R.I.D.A.Y.’s foresight and good decision making. “I will never live this done ever. My entire life will be reduced to this point in time right now.”
“Don’t you think you’re being a little dramatic right now?” Tony shoots back, almost sounding amused, but still pulling him up at his elbow with surprising force and strongly leading them both to the front door of the building that has also started to attract to attract spectators – students and teachers alike.
“No, no, no,” Peter tries to protest, “I will not step foot into that building with this suit on.”
“Oh, so now you care about who sees you?” Tony levels him with an unimpressed stare but tells his A.I. to disengage the nanites anyway. Before Peter can acclaim that victory, though, he pulls off his own jacket and shoves it into his chest. “Wear that. Keep the housing unit on. F.R.I.D.A.Y. will be monitoring your vitals and the second she thinks something is wrong, you’re suiting up. Understood?”
“Now that you’re out of danger of acute demise. Tell me that story.”
“Not in the hallway,” he hushes him as if them being seen together in his school’s hallway has any impact on anything after everything that has just happened. Still, he takes Tony by his elbow – he actually flinches when Peter’s cold hand touches his skin which is just plain rude – and now he’s the one dragging him somewhere. Precisely, the men’s room.
“Now, this is weird,” Tony notes and positions himself in front of the door so to stop anyone else from entering. He is standing upright, feet apart a little wider than shoulder-width and arms crossed in front of his chest. Once he’s visually swept the bathroom and focusses back on a still shivering Peter, though, he relaxes and drops his arms to his side and softens his gaze.
Peter is trying to gain enough control of his trembling limbs to slip into the sweatshirt that’s promising warmth but it’s really hard and he’s really cold.
“Hey buddy,” Tony interrupts his jittery movements gently, “Do you want to put the suit back on?”
He looks up, bites his lip and realizes everything outside his body is even colder so he shrugs sheepishly. “How much of my remaining coolness do you think that would destroy?”
Tony grins. “None, kid. After the stunt you just pulled you’ve got nothing left. F.R.I.D.A.Y. engage suit and heaters.”
Peter really, really wants to quip back but the second the warmth engulfs him he simply sighs in content.
“Thank you so, so much. You’re a literal life saver, Mister Stark.”
“Yes,” Tony agrees drily, “I literally am. Now, since I will undoubtedly have to speak to someone from your school and, worse, your aunt at some point, please do tell me how the hell you ended up freezing to death outside your classroom window.”
“Okay, so,” Peter is about to clasp his hands together, realizes that that might be weird while wearing the Iron-Man suit, does it anyway and completely loses track of his thoughts because Man, this is so cool.
“Sorry, sorry,” he grins sheepishly when Tony clears his throat pointedly and is glad when, rather than mad, the man seems amused at his antics. At least his stalling worked! “Okay, so I did my homework.”
“Outside a five-story window…”
Peter glares. “No, I did my homework last night in my bedroom,” he clarifies, “And it was supposed to be collected first thing after lunch. So, I left some of my stuff, like my notes and pens in the room ‘cause we’d just be back in like half an hour, right? But,” he sighs heavily, “When I got back from lunch my homework had vanished.”
Tony raises an eyebrow at the dramatic gesturing Peter decides to go with but otherwise doesn’t interrupt him, clearly eager to get to the bottom of the reason why the heck Peter was chilling (ha!) outside a five-story window. And, truth be told, he’s also glad Peter isn’t freaking out about the reporters as much as he feared and that there’s finally color returning to his face. Also, and he’s not gonna tell anyone this ever, the kid is cute when he’s telling stories.
“Of course, I know that homework doesn’t just cease to exist.”
“And I’m very glad that you do,” Tony intercepts matter-of-factly, “Or that internship would be hard to pull off.”
Peter shrugs. “I think that ship might’ve sailed with your rescue mission, honestly.”
Tony pauses at that. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, uh, I don’t know? But I think so,” he smiles shyly, “It really is better than freezing to death and, honestly, at least now everyone knows you actually know my name. Or so they think until they hear you never refer to me by it ever.” He points out with an exaggerated sigh but, if he’s being honest, he’s actually fine. A lot finer than he thought he would be if this ever happened. He’s glad when Tony accepts his words with a tiny nod of encouragement and a soft grin at the completely justified call-out.
Honestly, that coupled with the suit’s warmth, actually already feels like a hug to him. He’s got to tell Tony “We’re-not-there-yet” Stark about that! But, back to the story he was telling.
“Anyway, so I went looking for my homework and I got really nervous about having forgotten it but then Flash makes kind of a weird comment on me not going to find it in time? Honestly, he went a little Bond-villain on that one. And, anyway, long story short he somehow found my homework and hid it outside the window. He taped it to the wall somehow.”
“So,” Tony tries, exasperated incomprehension clear in the single syllable, “You climbed out of the window to retrieve your homework and just… stayed there? Outside the window?”
“I mean,” Peter sends him a toothy grin, “Retrieve is a pretty big word. I just climbed outside to save it so I wouldn’t fail the class. Which seemed like the smartest idea at the time. I’m starting to reconsider my assessment, though.”
Suddenly, the nanites retract into the small housing unit on his chest and he gasps. “This is so cool.”
“Yeah,” Tony agrees but doesn’t look half as awed by the blue light as Peter is, “Are you feeling better? All warmed up?”
“Yes, toasty,” he beams but does not even think about getting out of the extra sweatshirt he’s wearing, instead opting to cuddle into it further now that his external heating unit is powered down.
“Anyway, I climbed out, saved my notes and I threw them back in but then before I could climb back in, someone had locked the window and I was kind of trapped.” He can see Tony is dying to interrupt so he beats him to it. “Of course, I tried to knock and everything but, I don’t know, no one heard me? Or they didn’t care? And I couldn’t very well just climb down there and let everyone know I’m,” he lowers his voice, “You-Know-Who.”
Tony doesn’t even dignify that with a response, he’s kind of hung up on all the rest of the sentence. “So, you just stayed there? Hanging from a five-story window freezing to death?”
“I can see why you’re mad,” Peter tries to mollify him, “But in my defense, I really think I made the best out of a bad situation. I’m so glad you showed up, though. Especially because Flash will be so mad that you showed up.”
“Right,” Tony seems to be thinking, “Who’s that Flash guy again?” And it’s in that exact moment that Peter realizes the error of his ways.
“No,” he tries to interject before anything can happen, “Flash’s just a stupid guy and – oh my, the time,” he looks at his watch-less wrist, “I bet Happy must be there and we better get going. You know how mad he gets when he’s kept waiting.”
“This is not over,” Tony threatens under his breath but does steer them both back to the hallway and out the main doors. “We will have a long talk about bullies and how to not let yourself get locked out of windows by them, capisce?”
“I can’t wait,” Peter replies and beams up at him – a mixture of nerves, recovering from hypothermia and just being happy that Tony cares enough. And, anyway, if he’s gonna get involuntarily photographed, he’s at least going to be looking nice.
Aunt May raised no sour patch.
(Technically, she raised someone who’d rather freeze to death than reveal his secret identity but that’s neither here nor there.)