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It all started because Peter thought he could jumpscare Tony, and that was the worst thing about all of it. So light-hearted, so dumb, so stupid. They were at the Compound for a session in Tony’s workshop, and Peter made a comment about heading back home to May because it was getting late. He’d gotten up, ready to wander down to the kitchen ad grab a snack, then wait in a nearby cupboard or something until Tony would walk past, and then he’d jump out and scare him.
Tony had nodded, blissfully unaware of Peter’s plan, and waved him off with a promise to see him as soon as possible, wishing him a safe journey home. Happy, of course, would be waiting for Peter’s call to drive him home, which Peter wasn’t actually expecting to do for several hours. But Tony thought that Happy would be driving him home immediately, which was why he didn’t come out to wave him off properly.
Peter grinned, grabbing his backpack as though he was actually leaving and speeding into the kitchen. He drained a glass of water—they tended to neglect most basic bodily functions when in the lab. Then he grabbed a cereal bar from the snack cupboard and munched it down, leaving his backpack with his cell phone in it tucked into one of the cupboard to hide it from Tony’s view. None of the other Avengers were around—all on missions, or on holiday, etc, so he was able to enact his plan without interference.
He ran back to the lab, keeping his steps light so Tony wouldn’t hear a thing—although he’d already gotten his loud music (ACDC, most likely) playing, now that Peter had left and it wouldn’t hurt his sensitive ears.
Now to find a place to hide.
His eyes darted around before focusing on the storage room next to the workshop and yanking the door open. Jesus, the door was heavy—pretty much made out of solid metal.
Peter peered inside. It was pretty empty, full of spare parts for Tony to fix up the Avengers tools, which explained the solid metal door. Hmm, it didn’t seem like the best hiding place with such a heavy door, and he vaguely remembered Tony saying something about this particular room, but surely it wasn’t that important. He was about to shut it and find a different hiding place, but then Peter heard a rustling noise from the workshop and panicked, thinking it was going to be Tony, ruining his whole jumpscare, so he moved into the storage room and let the door shut behind him, encasing him in the small area.
He sighed in relief. Problem sorted. If he just waited a couple of minutes, then Tony would be safely settled and Peter could listen out for the next time he walked past, so he could properly give him a fright.
His eyes were adjusting to the dark pretty quickly, and there was a light glow from one of the boxes, which kept the storage room visible enough. It turned out they were glowsticks—which made Peter chuckle, because why did Tony keep glowsticks in his storage room, before he realised that they weren’t glowsticks, they were actually containers holding some kind of fluorescent chemical. Peter swallowed, and stood away from them. It was probably not great to be in a room full of chemicals. Maybe that was why there was a big metal door.
He was starting to regret his choice of hiding place, and backed up to the door, reaching for the handle to open it up and relocate, when he realised there wasn’t one. There was no handle on the inside of the door.
“Oh shit,” Peter muttered, scrabbling at the flat surface of the door. “Shit, shit, shit.”
Pushing at the door was in vain, because it was so heavy that it wouldn’t move an inch without a handle there to help. He tried again—and again, and then stepped back, sweating from the effort. He’d put in all his weight, and he was strong.
“Tony!” Peter shouted, as loud as he possibly could, but it was no use. He knew just as well that all of the rooms on this side of the Compound were soundproof, because they needed the workshop to be. And even if they hadn’t been, Tony would be playing his music so loud that there was no use.
“FRIDAY?” He called out, a last, desperate hope. Peter didn’t have his phone, or anything to get him out of there. “FRI?”
There was no response, and Peter let out a choked noise. The AI clearly didn’t have any signal in the storage closet, so Peter was stuck. Stuck, in a room that was cold and dark and small, so small, with only a single cereal bar to his name.
Peter shivered, and slid to the floor, keeping away from the chemicals.
—
“Boss, your phone is ringing,” FRIDAY informed him about three hours after Peter had left. Tony hadn’t left the workshop since the kid left, busy with a new project of his. He smoothed the frown off his face and glanced down at his phone.
May was calling him. He picked it up, wiping some of the metal residue off his hand as he clicked the receive call button.
“Are you keeping Peter for the night?” She said when he answered, and Tony blinked in confusion.
“Uh…what do you mean?”
He’d sent Peter back to her, so, no, he wasn’t having him over for the night. Happy had driven him home, and that had been several hours ago.
“Well, normally you call when he stays over,” May prompted, her tone light and casual, almost humoured. “But I know how it gets, in the workshop, distracted. You probably don’t even know what time it is.”
“It’s, uhh,” Tony pulled his phone back to look at the time. “9:07.”
Yeah, Peter had gone home at six-ish. Hours ago.
“Thank you for that,” May chuckled. “So is that a yes?”
“Oh—uh, no,” Tony’s brain was still firmly in lab-mode, not really in the being able to speak normally stage yet, his mind still swimming with messy formulas and ideas to plan out. His mental capabilities were working slowly, remembering how to be a person. “He went back with Happy, hours ago.”
“So he’s patrolling,” May sighed, the sigh of a parent. “I thought we agreed he couldn’t patrol after a lab session, he has to take the night off?”
“We did,” Tony frowned. Peter hadn’t said anything about patrolling, but that didn’t mean it was impossible. Sometimes he did that—went against their rules. Maybe he’d felt the need to patrol, tonight. “Huh. He didn’t say…”
“Yeah, well, teenager,” May said, and he could just tell that she was shrugging on the other end of the line. It had been difficult, learning how to co-parent with the kid’s aunt. He’d blanched at the idea of it, at first—he wasn’t a parent, he wasn’t even trying to be a parent, he was a mentor, and a bad mentor…but somehow it had worked out that way.
He wasn’t good at it, but it was….it had been nice, in the last couple of weeks, whilst it had settled out. Taking Peter to go and watch baseball games, doing lab sessions together. Hearing him chattering about how he aced his science tests, Tony completely enraptured by it. They’d hugged, properly, the other day, and Tony had almost cried after the kid said, “Love you, see you later.”
He loved the kid to pieces, of course.
Tony smiled fondly, and then shook his head. Back to business. “Well, do you want to remind him of that restriction or shall I?”
They traded off being the stern parent. Although May did a better job than him. All Peter had to do was show Tony his puppy eyes and he gave in.
“I’ll be bad cop today,” May said. “He can’t be out much longer, he normally sticks to the back at 10pm rule.”
That was true. Despite pushing some boundaries, Peter was, at heart, a good kid and knew it gave them both heart palpitations when he stayed out as late as he did. He would be back from his patrol before the clock struck ten, for sure.
Tony let out a breath. “Alright. Let me know how it goes?”
“Will do,” May told him. “Speak to you later, Tony.”
“Bye, May.”
Tony hung up the phone and went back to tinkering. Then he yawned, stretched his arms out—they clicked at the elbows, which made him wince—and stood up. He’d been sat down too long, working. He needed to fill his stomach with something edible. As much as he didn’t want to eat or prepare any actual food, his body wasn’t able to function without it.
He hummed to himself as he walked down the corridor, some light tune that reminded him of sitting at a piano with his mother when he was five years old and still got parental attention. Tony pattered into the kitchen and made himself a PB&J—not having the energy to cook anything special. He left himself a spoonful of peanut butter and dangled it in his mouth as he walked back to the lab with his sandwich in hand. Tony took a few bites, quenching the hunger and cracking his neck.
Then he went back to work.
After what felt like about three minutes, his phone rang again.
“It’s 10:30,” May told him as Tony answered the call, not letting him get a word in edgeways.
Tony blinked. Had time passed that quickly? Hadn’t it just been nine o’clock?
“How did it go?” Tony mumbled, presuming it was a follow-up call to the previous one. His brain was treacle—hardly processing the conversation as he had it. Work-mode, still. He closed his eyes and leant back in his chair slowly.
“No, Tony, it’s 10:30, he’s not back yet.”
That made Tony’s eyes shoot open. He wasn’t back yet? Peter never did that. He always came back before the 10pm mark, and it was half an hour after that. “Has he sent you any messages?”
“Nothing,” May replied, her voice laced with concern, and Tony’s heart stuttered in his chest. He sat up from his relaxed position.
The kid wasn’t at the Compound, wasn’t at home. He was out in the streets of New York past 10pm. Was he injured? God—Tony should have been keeping an eye on the news, was there some kind of supervillain out there? Had Peter been defeated in combat? What if he was dying, what if—
Okay, okay, no, Tony couldn’t panic. He couldn’t. That wouldn’t be helpful to anyone, especially not Peter. He swallowed, shoving the thoughts out of his brain and stood up from his seat.
Tony pushed his thumb and forefinger over his eyes as he asked, “Hey, FRI, is Karen active?”
Karen had GPS, and active health monitoring systems. If she was still on—God, Tony hoped no-one had been able to disable Karen—and Peter was injured, Tony should have gotten some kind of notification. Even so, it was best to check with her before anything.
FRIDAY replied promptly: “No, the suit is currently in Peter’s bedroom. It has been deactivated all evening.”
Tony felt his heart drop into his stomach, and May let out a whoosh of breath on the other end of the line, equally panicked.
Deactivated. Not on patrol. Peter was roaming the streets of New York without the suit, at ten thirty at night. Shit, shit, shit.
“Tony,” May stuttered. “Please tell me you know where he is.”
Tony stared at the floor, silent. He had no idea. “Have you called him?”
Stupid question. Stupid, stupid. Of course she’s called him, you idiot.
“I’ve tried. Seven times,” She replied, panicked. “He isn’t answering, Tony.”
“Okay, okay,” Tony nodded, feeling his hands start to shake, and put May on speakerphone. It looked bad, he wasn’t going to lie. Peter on the streets of New York City, presumably alone, not answering his cell phone, not on patrol, just…missing. “I…uh, I’m going to go and talk to Happy. Keep trying to get through to him, I gotta—”
“Call me back when you’ve spoken to him,” May demanded. “I’m going to call Ned and MJ as well.”
Good plan—speak to his friends. That was—smart. May was smart. Tony was an idiot, idiot, dumbass. He’d done this, it was his fault. He’d let the kid go without even giving him a proper goodbye, and now he was…no.
No. Happy would have dropped him off right by the apartment, or in his local area, somewhere in Queens. Maybe the kid was just at Delmar’s, and giving them all a fright.
Tony’s treacherous brain had already leapt to mental pictures of Peter being pulled into a van—flashes of masked men smashing his phone to pieces and driving the kid away from safety. It made bile rise in his throat, so he shook his head.
He stumbled out of his workshop, stabilising himself by walking alongside the wall. His bare hand passed over the painted wall and then the metal door of the storage cabinet as he walked past it, the one with the broken door. He continued moving that way, balanced on the wall for stability until he found his way to the living room, where Happy was sat watching Downton Abbey, a tub of ice cream in his lap.
“Happy.” Tony blinked, and staggered toward him. “Happy, you gave the kid a lift home earlier, right?”
Happy’s spoon clattered out of his hand, falling into the open ice cream tub. His gaze was still semi-focused on the show as he replied, “What? No—kid’s still here, isn’t he?”
Tony let out an involuntary keening noise, his throat tight. Oh god, oh god. Tony’s done it. He’s actually done it. He’s lost his kid.
Happy turned to stare at him in alarm at that noise, moving off the sofa before Tony could fall to the ground in pieces. His loyal driver caught him at the elbow, dragging him gently to perch on the sofa.
“Peter’s gone?” Happy asked, close to him, gaze darting around his face.
“He left—hours ago—and May thought he was on patrol, or with me, and I thought you’d driven him back but you’re here and he’s—he’s—” Tony’s breath hitched. “He must have left, ready to leave, distracted, and then someone must have taken him, I—”
Happy shook his head, interrupting. “Why would anyone take Peter?”
“I don’t know, Happy, maybe they found out his identity, or—or they saw a kid outside of the Avengers Compound and decided he’d be good leverage,” Tony put his head in his hands. “It’s all my fault.”
All his fault, all his fault. He’d invited the kid round to work on some things in the ‘shop and he’d gotten nabbed by some crazy psychos—
“Okay, we don’t know any of this for sure,” Happy reminded him. “He’s probably completely fine, not kidnapped, and this is all just an overreaction to a very explainable problem. Maybe his phone died.”
“Then where the hell is he, Hap?” Tony hissed, not meaning for it to come out as harsh as it did. “How did he get back into the city? How is he anywhere other than here in this building? Peter can’t go undetected in this building for three hours, so he’s not here!”
“I don’t know where he is, Tones. Can you track his location—I thought you guys talked about that the other day?” Happy queried.
“I can track the suit, not his location without it, and he’s not in the suit, we checked,” Tony shook his head. “I can’t—I—”
His breath was fast, his heart still racing as his brain was a string of thoughts about losing the kid and how much of a disappointment he was for not looking after him.
“It’s going to be okay,” Happy said soothingly. “I’m sure the kid’s fine, totally fine.”
But what if he isn’t? What if he’s just fucked Peter up for life by not waving him off properly? When Tony was trapped in Afghanistan for those three months, he’d come out of it permanently traumatised. Tony’s heart thudded in his chest. That couldn’t happen to Peter—it just couldn’t.
“What do you need from me?” Happy asked, seeing him not capable of responding properly.
Tony closed his eyes and thought for a moment. What did he need, in this moment?
“I think—“ Tony swallowed. “I need Rhodey. I need Rhodey here, now.”
Rhodey was a comforting presence, but also, smart, strategic, and Air Force. Tony nodded, numb. He needed Rhodey.
“Call him. Pass me your phone.”
Tony did so, hands shaking, and Happy clicked on the contact named Honeybear. He pressed the little ‘on speaker’ button as he did so. Rhodey was quick to answer, and even quicker to dismiss him. “Tony, this isn't a good time, I’m in a meeting with—”
Tony interjected. He didn’t have time fort that. “Rhodey, I need you, now.”
“Okay,” Rhodey took it in his stride easily, abandoning all thoughts of the meeting he was in. “Okay, what do you need?”
“Compound. It’s Peter. He’s—” Tony took a sharp breath in before continuing, “—missing.”
“I’m a five minute flight away,” Rhodey told him, clearly in the process of suiting up as he did so, and he didn’t waste a moment. “What can I do for you?”
Tony didn’t hesitate either. “Get all Avengers in the local area back here, stat.”
He needed them to be searching New York in place of him.
Rhodey paused, considering. “Tony, some of them are on mission—”
Tony practically growled back, “I don’t care, they’re stake-outs, they can wait. Get them back here.”
“They’re missions,” Rhodey said, ever the committed military official.
“This is urgent.” Tony told him, jaw hardening. His eyes scanned Happy’s face, daring anyone to challenge him. “This is Peter.”
“Okay,” Rhodey was flying now—he’d gone silent for a moment whilst taking off, and Tony could hear the familiar roar of flight in the background. “I’ll get on that. Can you give me the rundown of the situation?”
Tony did, trying to stop his hands from shaking and Rhodey was silent for a moment.
Then he said, “How do you know he’s left the building at all?”
“What?” Tony blinked.
Rhodey continued asking. “Have you searched it?”
“The Compound?” Tony paused. “He can’t be here—it’s been hours, Rhodey.”
Peter couldn’t be here, there was no way. He was hyperactive at the best of times, and he would have been by himself for three hours, roaming around in the Avengers Compound. Happy would have seen him, or heard him. Heck—Tony would have heard him. Last time Peter had been left to himself in the Compound, he’d managed to set off three different fire alarms. There was no way he’d been sat peacefully in a room for three hours.
Besides, he’d told Tony he was leaving. He’d said It’s late, I should go. May will be home from work soon. No, surely he couldn’t still be in the Compound, it wouldn’t make sense.
Rhodey made a comment. “A good proportion of missing kids are found in their own homes.”
Tony stopped himself from snarling back, and how many of those were found dead. Not a helpful comment in the slightest, and it would only make his anxiety skyrocket more than it already had.
“I need you to search the house, Tony,” Rhodey instructed. “Look everywhere he could possibly be, search every room.”
Tony argued, “It seems like a waste of time, if someone’s grabbed him—”
“Trust me,” Rhodes said, firmly. “I’ll be there in five.”
And then he hung up, leaving Tony staring at Happy.
“I’m going to start in the kitchen, sweep through,” Happy suggested, pulling himself off the couch. Tony stayed, reluctant to follow through with Rhodey’s idea. He wanted to fly off in a suit himself and start scanning New York for Peter.
Peter, who could be taken hostage, somewhere in a dark room, alone and afraid, people deciding whether or not to send a ransom note—
“Uh, alright,” Tony nodded, swallowing harshly.
Happy paced away, and Tony stood up from the sofa. He searched about three rooms before realising—hello, he had an omniscient AI who monitored the Compound and all of its rooms 24/7. That could speed things up and prove that Peter wasn’t in the building, that they were all wasting time when they could be doing productive things like finding empty warehouses.
“FRIDAY, is he here?” Tony asked, and then shook himself. As smart as the AI was at times, she wasn’t omnipotent, and there was no way she could know who he was referring to with that comment. “Peter. Is he…can you pull up the footage of him leaving the Compound this afternoon?”
“This afternoon,” FRIDAY said, and then hesitated. Most AIs couldn’t hesitate, but then, Tony’s AIs had always been slightly different to most. “Boss, this afternoon?”
“Yes, this afternoon,” Tony replied frustratedly.
“There is no footage of that,” FRIDAY informed him.
Tony sighed and ran a hand through his hair. They’d gotten his security cameras as well? Jesus, these people were ruthless. “Did the people who took him mess with the security system somehow?”
“No. The systems are functioning perfectly,” FRIDAY corrected. “Peter has not left the building.”
He froze, his hand still in his hair, halfway through pushing it back. Rhodey had been right. Rhodey had been right, and Peter was still in the building.
“Where is he?” Tony asked his AI, knowing she’d be able to track his last movements faster than him searching the entire house.
Happy ran back in midway through him asking, holding up Peter’s backpack. “It was in the kitchen.”
Tony swallowed harshly, and reached out for it. He pulled open the bag to see all of Pete’s schoolbooks—as well as his phone. He didn’t have his phone. Clicking on the display, he saw the numerous missed calls and texts from May that Peter obviously hadn’t seen.
FRIDAY spoke. “I have detected Peter’s last recorded movements to be in the corridor to the workshop, boss. He then entered Storage Room 1A.”
Tony’s head snapped up, Peter’s phone clattering to the floor as it fell from his hand.
“1A?” Tony’s voice was hoarse. “Oh, god, Peter.”
Happy had turned to stare at him, asking what was wrong, but Tony was already running out of the lounge to go to Storage Room 1A. Oh god, oh god, oh god. He had to go.
Storage Room 1A was where he stored the stuff he used for Avengers tech. He kept all sorts of things in there—Clint’s arrow tips, various blades-in-progress for Natasha, fabric for Steve’s uniform, but he’d just put in the recent shipment of Zinc Sulphide and sulphate in there. They were for Bruce more than for him, but had gone in Storage Room 1A as a temporary measure until the other storage room was more freed up. Zinc sulphate. Exposure to chemicals like that for a three hour period could cause…Tony didn’t want to be thinking it, but he couldn’t help it either.
Respiratory irritation, nausea, vomiting, stomach aches, dizziness…death.
Tony picked up the pace and sprinted to the storage room, pulling open the metal door with all of his weight. It was heavy—much too heavy, for security reasons, and there was no doorknob on the inside of the room. It was something Tony had noticed, but had never bothered to fix, because it didn’t matter that much. He rarely went into Storage Room 1A, and if he was doing heavy lifting then he got DUM-E to be the doorstop.
Regret shot through him, alongside the overwhelming panic. He should have fixed it before something bad—this—happened. Tony thrust open the metal door and instantly saw Peter, curled up in a heap on the floor. He stepped into the room and let Happy catch the door before it closed on both of them.
As he stepped into it, he inhaled, checking to see if there was an overly chemical odor. It seemed fine, but you could never truly know. Peter could have zinc sulphate residue in his chest. Tony rushed to the floor, holding up Peter’s head so it didn’t touch the concrete ground and placed it on his lap gently.
“Peter,” Tony whispered, his heart racing fast. He checked his pulse—which was there, thank god.
He patted Peter’s face—the boy was unconscious, and freezing to touch. It was cold in the room, and he’d been there for three hours. It wasn’t a surprise that he’d passed out, but he needed to be conscious.
Peter’s eyes fluttered awake, and his whole body jerked as his eyes focused on Tony.
“T—Tony,” Peter breathed, forgetting the honorific of Mr Stark in his state.
“Take it easy, kid,” Tony muttered back. “We gotta move you out of here, okay, I’m just going to shift you around for a second.”
He didn’t lift Peter up—it was more like dragging, but he tried to be as gentle as possible. Happy helped pull his legs as Tony pulled the upper half of his body until they were in the corridor of the Compound—which still had a hard floor, but at least it was heated, unlike the storage room.
Happy let the door to Storage Room 1A shut, and Peter let out a breath. Tony glanced at it, horrified. The room was soundproofed, like all of the rooms in the building, so if Peter had been calling out for him that whole time…Tony wouldn’t have heard a thing.
He closed his eyes for a brief second, wondering how he’d let this happen, and then steadied himself. No time now for self-blame—he had to focus on Peter, whose eyes were searching Tony’s face to read his reaction.
“You ‘kay, Mr Stark?” Peter asked, shivering, and shit, how the hell was the kid asking whether he was okay? He wasn’t the one who’d been locked in a cupboard for hours.
“I’m good,” Tony told him, lying through his teeth. This was the closest he’d been to a heart attack in several months—his heart was beating irregularly. “How are you feeling, Pete?”
“I don’t feel great, Mr Stark,” Peter frowned. “It’s all…dizzy, and I need…”
He touched his lips absentmindedly. They were dry—of course they were, Peter hadn’t had any liquids in the past three hours.
“DUM-E, water,” Tony called out, loud enough that it would echo into the workshop, and DUM-E came running with a glass of water, passing it to Tony without spilling much of it. Tony let Peter sip at it slightly. Not too fast—that wouldn’t end well.
Happy coughed, slightly, drawing Tony’s attention back to him. He’d been solely focused on Peter.
“Call May,” Tony said, breathlessly. Peter was mostly on his lap, and he ran a hand through the boy’s hair—it was damp with cold sweat, and he was still shivering. He rocked the kid back and forth gently, not wanting to let him go. “Tell her I’ve got him. And grab some blankets, I don’t want to risk moving him yet but we need to warm him up.”
Happy nodded jerkily and went back to find his phone.
Tony remembered something else, and called out to Happy: “Oh, and can you call Rhodey, too? Say thanks, we got him and that he was right.”
He left those tasks in Happy’s trustworthy hands, and went back to looking after Peter. He looked much better after drinking some of the water, but Tony pressed his palm to Peter’s forehead and it was still clammy.
“What were you doing in there, Pete?” Tony asked softly. That was what he was still confused about—why was Peter in the closet at all, when he’d said he was planning on going home.
“Tryna—tryin to scare you,” Peter mumbled, shaking his head. “Jumpscare prank, it was dumb, I’m sorry.”
“Oh, kid,” Tony whispered, and pulled him close into a hug. Peter relaxed into the hold and stopped shivering for a moment.
Well it certainly had scared the shit out of him, even if it wasn’t the way Peter had intended to scare him.
Happy passed some blankets silently, holding the phone to his ear and retreated from the corridor again. Tony figured he was talking to May, from the expression on his face. Tony tucked a blanket around Peter’s shoulders, and Peter pulled it tighter around him.
“I’m sorry,” Peter said again, his gaze dropping to the floor, ashamed. “Is—did May call? I didn’t mean for this to happen, sorry.”
“Don’t apologise,” Tony shook his head. “It’s not—I should have—look, it’s not your fault, alright? Everything’s fine, you’re fine, you’re here, I’ve got you, it’s all fine.”
“You’ve got me,” Peter repeated, a small smile crossing his face.
“Saying that,” Tony sighed, knowing his next sentence wasn’t going to go down well. “We’re going to have to take you down to Medical soon, alright? We gotta be sure that you’re actually okay, not just assume you’re fine.”
Peter froze in his arms—maybe that had been too soon to mention it. He hated having to go to Medical, it always freaked the kid out. But he didn’t make any noise of protest, just nodded slowly. “Okay.”
“I’ll be right there with you,” Tony reminded him, and Peter nodded with more conviction.
Happy returned then, the phone hanging to his side. “Rhodes is bringing May here, he’s going to fly by and get her.”
Tony had a momentary mental image of May flying across New York whilst clutching War Machine and blinked. She hated flying—as she’d told Tony many times—so that was going to go down wonderfully. Hopefully Rhodey would be kind and not do any loops.
After a quick check from Dr Cho, Tony was finally able to breathe easy as Helen informed him that Peter was completely fine and there would be no lasting effects from the exposure to chemicals. As long as he stayed warm and rested, he would be recover perfectly fine, it had mostly been the cold that had affected him.
“I’ll get you next time,” Peter sighed, and Tony shot him a weird look. They were sat on the couch, waiting for May to arrive with Rhodey.
“Jumpscaring you,” the kid clarified, and Tony raised an eyebrow.
“You reckon?” He teased. “I’m the king of jumpscares, I’ll have you know, so you’ll have to give it your all.”
“I’ll give…my best shot,” Peter mumbled back, his eyes blinking slowly and his head falling onto Tony’s shoulder. He was exhausted, and Tony wasn’t surprised. That was how May and Rhodey found them, on the couch with Peter’s head resting on Tony’s shoulder. Tony stared apologetically at May, trying to convey with all he could just how sorry he was for the stress and panic of the evening, but her eyes were twinkling. She wasn’t mad—there was no blame being passed around. Rhodey was smiling too, so all was well and Tony was able to lay his head back on the sofa cushion and pass out.
Needless to say, the first thing Tony did the next day was to order for a doorknob fitting for Storage Room 1A. He wasn’t ever going to let anyone be locked in there again.