Chapter Text
how was i supposed to know that something wasn't right here?
(britney spears, ...baby one more time).
TONY Stark was having a good day. After a well-deserved vacation with Pepper to Fernando de Noronha, an island in Brazil, his fiancée had agreed to move into the penthouse again. It only cost him eight months, twelve days, and five hours of doing his best to finish the SI paperwork on time, nice dinners in that Italian restaurant she loved, and some romantic gestures here and there to convince her to get back to their place, but it was all worth it.
During that time of cleaning and rebuilding his life, the man decided to swallow up his pride and call Peter Parker - the only young adult he allowed in his life, because why not? The kid was intelligent, kind, and above all: he never got sick. Never.
It was amazing, really, what a single spider bite had done to his metabolism and body defenses. And that meant the lack of germs, snot anything remotely gross around him.
The boy may have refused to join the Avengers, but accepted in a heartbeat the offer to come into the tower twice a week to tinker in the lab, fix whatever problems his suit may have, and well… start that mentoring program they came up with in the first place. Guilt might have had something to do with the offer, but two months into the new routine their relationship was getting progressively better, and Peter sleeping in on Friday nights and then proceeding to stay during the rest of the weekend was no surprise to Tony’s inner circle anymore. Pepper loved the boy and made that very clear when she took the matter of designing his room into her own hands, nearly giving Peter a heart attack when he crossed the door and was met with a room that any teenager would dream of. At least a teenager like Peter Parker.
The most memorable moment, however, was when the boy spotted the walls. Painted in three different shades of blue, they were adorned by two Star Wars and Back to the Future posters, signed by none other than Mark Hamill and Michael J. Fox themselves. It was at that moment, too, when Tony thought that maybe the boy was more than an intern his life. He was family. And maybe, just maybe, he loved him too. He just wouldn’t admit to anyone.
Bad habits die hard, but not when you are trying to get your fiancée back. If that's the case, you walk on line and don't even hesitate in finishing for the day when your AI alerts you that it's time for dinner.
No, Pepper wasn’t in town. She had traveled earlier that morning to Shanghai, decided to put an end to the bullshit conversations and close the deal about the expansions once and for all, tired of the endless negotiations with the board and the foreign partners. Tony didn’t want her to leave, because one: it would take a week for her to come back, and two: she looked so hot with that determined look on her face. Might as well use that determination for something else. More private. More romantic. More… pleasing. But it didn’t matter.
So that’s why he was going to have dinner with Rhodey and Bruce, both having recently arrived in New York after some time off the radar, too busy and too full of stories to catch up in that nice Brazilian place.
God, he couldn’t wait to bring Peter there. The boy would love açaí.
But in the meantime, his usual buddies would do. Spiderling was probably spiderlinging through Queens anyway… he could catch up with Underoos the next evening, on his first lab day after Tony’s trip to Brazil and Pepper’s moving in. Nothing had happened with him in those two weeks, and it wasn’t like a couple of hours would make a difference. With that thought in mind, he went to his room.
And things went downhill from there.
PETER Parker woke up in a bad mood, and it didn’t get better throughout the day. First of all, his alarm didn't ring - maybe the fact that pieces of it were on the ground now would be a clue, so he slept more than he should. May and Happy were a thing and as if this wasn’t weird and disgusting enough, Pepper decided to take them with her to Shanghai. To be fair, her argument was reasonable: His aunt had worked through the winter break, getting some credits in the hotel - she’d been promoted to manager the week before Christmas and of course, she did a fantastic job of handling the chaos, saving the ass of Mr. Dough, the owner, and also having a little more room to breathe financially. Aunt May was too proud to accept help from the Starks, but with her paygrade increasing and Peter now having a mysterious life-long supply of food in Mr. Delmar - he suspected his mentor had something to do with it -, the Parker household was brighter.
Not having a pile of bills would do that to you.
But while some people went on vacations and others were in love, it was like cupid had decided to put couples all around him. Including his best friend, who started dating Betty of all people after a field trip upstate, when the school bus had broken and they had what Ned described as a ‘bonding experience’.
And in the midst of all that, sat Peter Parker, the curly-haired boy from Queens. Who was late for school, hungry, and with a detention paper in his hands, meaning he couldn’t go out as Spider-Man during the evening. Great. He would have to compensate by staying after midnight, but it wasn’t like May would be at home to scold him… right? Besides, tomorrow was lab day with Mr. Stark, meaning he most likely would fall into the curfew rules again. One last night with freedom sounded like a good idea.
16 hours later
"Hey! This wasn’t very nice of you, dude.” As he dodged another beam of light, Peter webbed his way to the top of the building, thinking of how fuzzy his eyesight was. The boy hadn’t eaten much that day, sharing a slice of pizza with Ned in the cafeteria because he’d forgotten to bring anything to school, either food or money. His body burned through before the detention even started, and he only had the time to grab one sandwich from Mr. Delmar - smooched down, really flat. - and go to a rooftop before Karen was alerting him of an occurrence two blocks away. Since then, he almost didn’t stop.
Helping an old lady cross the street, stopping a purse robbery, saving a kid from a kidnapper in an alley… his day had been busy. It was past midnight and he was flirting with the idea of going home when Karen alerted him of some cranky dudes in what seemed like an illegal transaction of weapons, something he was not a fan of. Toomes had traumatized him with this for a lifetime and he was extremely tired, but duty called. Just this last one, he said to himself.
Now he was getting chased by three guys with distinctly alien tech - how in HELL those guys had their hands in that? - and trying to come up with something to subside them as quickly as possible. The thought of a warm bed never sounded more endearing.
Peter took a deep breath to compose himself before coming down again to deal with the two criminals that were preventing him from getting to his bed. Wait, two? He webbed the third guy by the trash can, didn’t he? His memories were beginning to muddle in his head by now. Deciding that it didn’t matter, Peter prepared to jump just when he heard something behind him. When he turned around, ever so slowly, all he saw was a yellow beam of light hitting him square in the chest. Then the world turned black.
“Welcome home, Mr. Stark.” FRIDAY greeted as he stepped out of the elevator into the living room, taking his shoes off and cracking his neck. “You have three missed alerts from Karen, the last one being from six minutes ago.”
Shit.
“What happened? How are his vitals?” He asked frantically, getting his shoes on again and already preparing to call for a suit.
“Mr. Parker's heart rate is currently sitting at 150 beats per minute, with his respiratory rate increasing significantly and going as far as 40 breaths per minute at this very moment.”
“And what does that mean?”
“He needs help, Sir.” the AI answered in a clipped tone, increasing the panic that started growing in Tony’s chest from the very moment he was informed of the missed alerts. “If I may be of assistance, Mr. Parker's location was tracked and sent to one of your suits, ready to engage in a rescue operation. You only need to approve and the control panel will be displayed in the living room projector.”
“No, no…” Tony replied in a hush, gulping down audibly and taking long strides towards the platform in the penthouse. “I’ll go this time. ETA?”
“Very well. The Estimated Time of Arrival appears to be 6 minutes from now.”
“Make it 3.” Feeling the suit closing around his body, the man turned the faceplate down and flew to the marked location, monitoring the vitals of the boy constantly, getting more worried by the minute with the fact that he wasn’t moving. The vitals were spiked through the roof and the boy was sitting still, which was not like him at all . Only then Tony noticed it was past midnight, and Peter was supposed to be at home a long time ago - he knew he should have picked him up at the tower right away. He knew it! Of course, something was bound to happen.
Reaching the destined location, the man searched for a sign of a body laying on the ground, getting nothing in response but darkness. Just as he was about to ask for a thermal image scan, a piercing cry reached his ears. Oddly enough, on the very place Peter Parker was supposed to be. The sound grew louder as he walked towards the point marked on the rooftop, and the man got more confused by the moment. He thought the kid had gone through the voice-changing phase already when he first met him. His voice was really that close to a falsetto?
Finally spotting a bundle of clothes that looked way too much like the Spider-Man suit he’d repaired with the boy two weeks ago, he noticed something was moving under it. Something small. Disengaging from the suit and crouching down, Tony Stark was taken by surprise with the realization that what was moving was, in fact, a body. Ignoring his instincts, the man took the bundle in his arms and removed the mask from the figure, meeting a round face with a mop of brown curls on top and wide-doe eyes that looked at him as if Christmas had come early. The boy miraculously stopped wailing and as he looked at the tear-stained face of the kid, the realization hit him square in the face. The words that came out of the little Spider-Man in his hands only confirmed his suspicions.
“M’ Sta’k?”
Oh God.