Chapter Text
The wormhole was above him, ready to swallow him up. JARVIS hadn’t been able to get Pepper on the phone in time. He wasn’t going to be able to say goodbye, but this was something he had to do… for Henry. For Pepper. Pepper was the one thing he had to hold on to… to keep him grounded in his search for Henry, and if he didn’t do this… if he couldn’t get the nuke into the black hole in time, then there would be no home for her to come back to. Worse than that, he wouldn’t be able to stop the Chitauri, and then there would be no world for her or Henry. This is the end of me.
Tony sat up, gasping for breath in the darkness, mind trying to find purchase on anything in the dark room to tell him where he was. Was he dead? Had the nuke exploded before he could get it into the wormhole?
A soft hand came out of the darkness and touched his arm, and he startled, jumping a little.
“Shh, I’m here.”
He took a deep breath, trying to steady himself. It was only Pepper. She always calmed him when he woke from one of these horrible nightmares… about the Battle of New York or Afghanistan, it didn’t matter. She was always there. It was one of the reasons he hated it when she was away on business trips. Then he was left to himself in his darkness, mind scrambling to find anything at all that would tell him it was all a nightmare… one he wasn’t still trapped in.
“Come here,” she said, and still breathing heavily, Tony laid back down, trying to will his body to stop shaking. She sounded like she was half asleep as she murmured that she loved him, that he was safe, that he was at home, and pulled him closer. He could hold on to the warmth of her body… to the tightness of her arm around his chest.
“Pepper?”
“Henry’s home,” she said. “You found him.”
He took a shuddering breath and stared at the dark ceiling. Henry’s home. I found him. It was always so disorienting waking up from nightmares like these. He’d had so many of these nightmares in the past, before he’d found Henry, that when he woke from them now he was confused and not always certain of where or when he was. Pepper always made sure to remind him.
He allowed himself to be hugged tightly by her for another minute, still trying to calm himself, before pulling away and pulling the covers off.
“Are you going to check on him?” she asked.
“Yeah.” Henry had been home for months now… since just before Thanksgiving. It was the end of May now, or at least, Tony thought it was. Every time he woke from a nightmare like this and Pepper reminded him that Henry was home, he still needed to see for himself… to be certain that finding his son wasn’t something he’d dreamed up.
Tony slipped out of the bedroom and into the dark living room of their penthouse at the top of Stark Tower. All was quiet as he crossed the living space in the darkness and went to the door leading into his son’s bedroom. He opened it just enough to see inside. Light from the LED lights and water cooling tubes inside Henry’s gaming pc on his desk illuminated the desk and part of the bed in a green glow, casting Henry’s face in light and shadow. He was there. Tony knew he was… he believed Pepper, but it was something he still had to see. To know. He backed out of the bedroom and shut the door quietly. Now he could sleep.
The brief trip across the penthouse and then back again seemed to have cleared his mind. He knew better than to try to fall asleep again while still thinking of whatever his nightmare had been about. Pepper was snoring softly as he climbed back under the covers. She was due to leave town in a couple of days, and Tony wasn’t looking forward to it. She was taking Happy with her too because Tony wanted her to have the extra security while she was doing business in Europe. That meant that it would just be him and Henry alone. Henry knew his father had nightmares and the occasional anxiety attack because Tony had told him, but he’d never yet seen it happen. Tony sighed heavily as he lay there in the darkness. If he had a choice he’d prefer to keep it that way. Henry had his own demons to deal with and didn’t need to worry about his father on top of that. It was Tony’s job to take care of Henry, not the other way around.
Closing his eyes, feeling like he wouldn’t be able to sleep anymore this night, Tony resigned himself to getting very little sleep for the next few weeks while Pepper was gone. When he woke from nightmares and she wasn’t there, the only way he knew how to cope was to throw himself into projects in his lab… upgrading his Iron Man suit, inventing new tech, or tinkering with his AIs to make them smarter and even more intuitive. He’d even considered putting an AI into Henry’s suit lately.
“You’re still awake,” Pepper said beside him. She must have woken up despite that he hadn’t been making any noise.
“I’m fine,” he said. “Just thinking.” Sometimes the problem with being a genius was that he couldn’t get his brain to shut off. He expected all sorts of new things to be coming out of the lab in the next few weeks. The R&D department would be thrilled.
* * *
Being grounded was getting old. It had been novel at first, having his father around all the time, and Henry couldn’t deny that he enjoyed spending time with the father he’d never realized was his. They had a lot of time to make up for, and Henry was more than willing to spend as much time with his father as he could. The problem with having his father around all the time however was that Henry couldn’t get out in his spider suit to explore the city as often as he would have liked. He’d made a deal with Happy under the table (and he suspected Pepper must have signed off on it at some point), for Happy not to pick him up on Mondays and Tuesdays after school so that Henry could suit up and swing around the city. Wednesdays were the days he spent walking around midtown or Queens with Ned and sometimes MJ, but other than that he never really got a chance to get out on his own and to just be Spider Man. His father hadn’t outright forbidden him to go out and do the things Spider Man did, but he’d discouraged it on multiple occasions. Henry would never get tired of his father’s presence, or building things with him in the lab, but he was starting to miss the freedom he’d had living with aunt May, who was always at work.
Having a parent around all the time meant he was getting grounded far more often than when he lived with aunt May. Aunt May used to ground him for things like being late to class if he was doing it consistently, or sneaking in and out late if she caught him (which had been rare when she did). His father however didn’t seem to care if Peter was tardy to class, or even if he skipped classes as long as his grades were staying up. Even then, rather than ground him his father only offered to help with his homework. What his father did seem intent on grounding him for, was anything that he perceived as Henry putting himself into danger, which unfortunately included most of Spider Man’s activities.
Most recently he’d been grounded for trying to step in and stop two robbers who were hooking up a chain from the back of a car to an outdoor ATM on the sidewalk outside a convenience store. Henry had webbed the two of them together and called the police, not realizing his father had some sort of system to scan police dispatch for any and all mentions of Spider Man’s activities. “They could have had a gun, or a knife. Sometimes it’s better to just call the police instead of inserting yourself into things,” his father had told him right before grounding him for a week. Henry just wanted to be like Iron Man, he always had, and while he enjoyed helping little old ladies across the street, or giving directions to lost tourists, that wasn’t the sort of thing he had envisioned for himself as Spider Man. Bank robberies were beneath Iron Man and the other Avengers, but if Henry didn’t start somewhere, he would never work his way up to fighting HYDRA, or Chitauri, or other massive threats. The citizens of New York, especially of the little neighborhood stores and pawn shops Spider Man frequently swung by seemed to appreciate his efforts at keeping crime down. His father however, did not.
Henry sighed as he lay in bed in his well lit bedroom. It was Sunday morning and he and his father had plans to go downtown to a bakery and coffee shop his father liked for breakfast. Happy and Pepper were gone, and aunt May had had to drive to Boston for some training, so it was just the two of them.
There was a knock on the door and Henry said, “Yeah, come in. I’m up, I’m getting up.” He sat up as his father opened the door.
“You can sleep in if you want, I’m not in any rush.”
“No, I’m getting up,” Henry said. He knew already that his father had been up for a couple of hours. While the walls were thick, his heightened hearing allowed him to hear things in the kitchen on the other side of his bedroom wall.
His father looked at his watch. “It’s nine. If we hurry we’ll catch the latest pastries coming out of the oven.”
Henry smiled as he got up and started looking for his hoodie. His father and Happy both knew the schedule for the bakery by heart. His father didn’t usually go down there himself, just because he didn’t care for people coming up to him when they recognized him, but he frequently took Henry and Ned out to eat wherever they wanted to go. Ned’s parents weren’t fond of letting Ned spend too much time away from home after school hours, but Tony had hinted at the possibility of a Stark Internship later on, and given Ned a Stark Phone (because Henry owed him). After that his parents had loosened up a little when it came time to him spending time at Stark Tower or going places after school with Henry.
Twenty minutes later, Henry and his father were walking out of the bakery with a bag of donuts and other pastries and two travel cups of steaming coffee.
“You don’t think I could get off a couple days early for good behavior do you?” Henry asked about his most recent grounding, raising his brows at his father as they stepped outside of the bakery.
“I guess that depends on if you learned your lesson or not.”
“I’d like to say yes,” Henry said.
“But you’re not making any promises,” Tony said with a little laugh.
“I just… wanna get out there,” Henry said. There wasn’t much he could say on a busy street like this. There were two dozen people passing them and others going in and out of the bakery. He couldn’t mention Spider Man by name since he was choosing to keep his identity a secret for now. He’d decided to keep Spider Man’s name a secret before because he thought aunt May wouldn’t let him continue going out as Spider Man. Now he felt like he had to because of his association with his father. Henry wanted to become an Avenger, but on his own merit, not because Spider Man was Iron Man’s son… at least in the eyes of the public anyway. He was hoping privately that his father would help him get into the Avengers as soon as possible.
They stopped to wait for a break in traffic so they could cross the street to where his father’s sports car was parked. “I know I won’t be able to stop you when you’re older,” his father said, not looking down at him. He took a sip of his coffee and then sniffed. “You’re still young though, and my responsibility. I wouldn’t let anything happen to-” both of them startled, and the hairs on Henry’s arms and the back of his neck were standing up on end at a sudden screech down the street.
Henry didn’t know what it was at first. It could have been a car rounding a corner too fast, or the whine of an engine about to fail, or half a dozen other things. It wasn’t until some sort of creature flying on a Chitauri glider blasted past him that his brain sprung into action and caught up with what his senses had heard.
The creature on the glider turned and shot something out of a Chitauri gun. It was like an orb of light. Whatever he was shooting at, he missed his target and hit the street in front of Henry and Tony.
Tony grabbed Henry and turned him so that Henry was facing away from the blast of debris as it flew up into the air. Some of it hit Henry’s cheek and face, but he knew his father’s back took the brunt of the damage.
A second later, before Henry and Tony could properly register what was happening, two men wearing brown robes screamed down the street after the creature. One of them appeared to be running on orange circles of light, and the other was using some sort of device to teleport from one spot to the next, allowing him to quickly pop in and out of existence all the way down the street after the creature. There was another blast from down the street as the creature failed to round a corner on the glider, and screams from people as more debris fell.
Henry tried to get out from under his father’s weight from where they lay on the sidewalk, surrounded by little chunks of concrete and rebar, but his father was holding onto his shirt.
“Stay put,” his father groaned.
“But-”
“It doesn’t involve us.” There was another blast, further away now, and more screams. “It doesn’t-” Tony groaned again, trying to pick himself up so he could sit on his knees, “involve you.”
Henry thought of struggling out of his father’s grasp and going anyway… felt like he had to follow the fray as it made its way across the city, but as the adrenaline slowly left his system he became aware that his face and arms hurt more than he would have expected them to. His eyes dropped down from where he’d been looking down the street and found his father, sitting on his hind end and rubbing the back of his bruised neck, his other hand still holding on to the back of Henry’s shirt.
“Are you ok?” Henry asked.
“It wasn’t the way I expected to spend Sunday morning,” he grumbled. Henry leaned forward to look at his father’s back and grimaced at the sight of blood. His shirt was torn in multiple places where concrete had hit him, and there was a big bruise spreading across the back of his neck. Henry tried to turn further to see if his father was hurt anywhere on his chest or face, but couldn’t because of how his father was gripping the back of his shirt.
“I’m not going anywhere,” Henry said.
“I know.”
“That means you can let go.”
“Let go of what?” Tony asked.
“Erm-” Henry tilted his head a little at his father, confused, and then pointed around his side to his back. Tony looked confused for a moment too and then realization dawned across his eyes.
“Right,” Tony said, letting go. “Sorry.”
Now free to move as he wanted, Henry twisted around to see the front of his father. He had a bruise above his eye and a little cut, and the front of one of his arms was bruised too. As he was looking over his father, his father was taking in his appearance as well.
“It’s a good thing Pepper’s gone,” Tony said, trying to get to his feet. Henry stood up first and helped him. “She’d be mad at the both of us for coming back looking like this.”
“Do you need the hospital?” Henry asked.
“I don’t think anything’s broken. Just- damn, what the hell was that?”
Henry raised his brows at him, gave a little grin and said, “Not too late to go find out.”
Tony held up his hand. “Let’s just get back to the tower and get ourselves sorted out.”
They turned to cross the now destroyed street and their eyes fell on the sports car. “I hate it when this happens,” Tony grumbled. The car was destroyed. A huge chunk of concrete had come down on the front hood, crushing the engine. The car looked like a taco.
“Bus stop’s the next street over,” Henry suggested. He knew the city’s bus lines well. He didn’t take the bus anymore, not since he’d moved into Stark Tower, but he didn’t mind taking them.
After making their way down one block (gingerly in Tony’s case), they got on a bus right as it pulled up. Henry had money in his pocket and paid for their fare, and then they sat down in the only empty seat near the middle.
“What the hell happened to you?” an Italian guy with slicked back hair asked from across the bus aisle. He looked like he could belong to a gang, but Henry had learned not to judge others by the way they looked. The city had such a huge diversity of people from different backgrounds, and Henry loved living there because of it.
“Erm-” Henry said, not sure how to explain it.
“Chitauri glider… wizards…” Tony trailed off, as if that was enough of an explanation.
“Yeah Iron Man?” the guy said, eying his bruises. He leaned forward in his seat to take in Henry’s bruises as well, and then he nodded and faced forward again. “Your secret’s safe with me.”
“What secret?” Tony asked with a frown.
“Tell your kid to zip his hoodie up all the way,” the guy said.
Henry’s eyes grew wide and he looked down at his chest. The red neck of his spider suit was sticking up underneath his t-shirt a little.
“It’s a turtleneck,” Henry said.
The guy snorted as the bus pulled up to his stop and he stood up. “Yeah, that’s what they all say.” He got off the bus and they continued on for three more stops without a word before they got off as well and walked the last two blocks to the tower.
When they were finally back in the penthouse, Tony led Peter down into the lab and got into a cabinet where he kept first aid supplies. Henry was surprised he had disinfectant, bandages, and other things of the sort in there, though he realized he shouldn’t be. His father sometimes made hilariously bad decisions when working on and testing new equipment. FRIDAY had shown Peter footage once from the now destroyed lab in the house in Malibu from when his father had first developed and tested the Iron Man suit. It had reminded Peter of his first weeks as Spider Man, trying to learn to swing on webs that weren’t quite springy enough and frequently falling and hurting himself.
“Sit,” his father said, and Henry took a seat at a workbench while his father sat beside him. “Where are you hurt?” he asked. His father really did look bad, and Henry noted that his lip was split as well, though it had stopped bleeding now.
“Just my face and arm,” Henry said. “You should be taken care of first. Are you sure you don’t want the hospital, I mean, you could-”
“I’m fine.” His father was scrutinizing the cut above Henry’s right eye and the bruise that was forming there now. He had a scrape along his left cheek as well. Tony poured some rubbing alcohol on a paper towel and began dabbing (painfully) at the scrapes on Henry’s face, cleaning away dried blood and disinfecting the wounds.
“Really, it’s good,” Henry said. If aunt May was there she could have taken care of them both. Working in the ER, she was used to seeing people with injuries just like theirs from car crashes and other accidents. He reached up and took the paper towel from his father and frowned. He wasn’t hurt bad enough to need to be taken care of… not like when the warehouse had come down on top of him. He could take care of his own cuts and bruises.
As his father struggled to pull his shirt off so he could start treating his own injuries, Henry frowned and said, “Why’d you do that? Why’d you throw yourself on top of me like that? You didn’t even have the Iron Man suit on.”
“Because you’re my kid. I’m not gonna let something bad happen to you.” He hissed, forgoing using a paper towel and pouring rubbing alcohol across his chest so it dripped down across the scrapes there. He handed the bottle to Henry and motioned towards his back. “Is there anything in the cuts?” he asked. “Dirt, or…” he trailed away as Henry went around behind him to look.
“Nothing. Just a lot of scrapes and bruises.”
“Pour it on them.”
“We could just use a paper towel.”
Tony only sat ready to get it over with though, and Henry bit his lip as he poured the rubbing alcohol over the scrapes across his back.
“Yep, yep, that stings,” his father said, sitting up straight. “FRIDAY, mirror.”
“Yes boss.” A holo came up and showed him his face. It wasn’t a mirror, but he had cameras all over his lab to record his experiments, and one was zoomed in on his cuts.
“You didn’t have to do it,” Henry said. He felt bad that his father had taken most of the blow from the explosion.
“Do what?”
“You didn’t have to throw yourself on top of me like that.”
“I fell,” he lied.
“I mean it. I can handle things.” Ever since the warehouse had collapsed, his father hadn’t treated him the same. Of course, it was barely a week after the collapse that Henry had gone to him and asked him if he was his missing son and found out the truth. That could explain some of it, but Henry worried that his father had lost confidence in him… that his father thought he was weak and needed protecting. Henry had been working hard in the gym one floor down for the last two months to bulk up, so he could prove to his father he was ready to be at his side when he put on the Iron Man suit. His father still didn’t want him out fighting crime though.
“Doesn’t matter,” his father said. “You can still get hurt. Your powers don’t protect you from that.”
Henry grumbled and Tony said, “I didn’t catch that.”
“I would have leapt out of the way.”
Tony stopped looking into the holographic feed of his face and dabbing at his split lip. He leaned out a little to the side to look around the holo so he could see Henry. “What part of, you’re my kid and I’d never let you get hurt didn’t you hear? You were thinking about pizza again, weren’t you? FRIDAY!”
“Yes boss.”
“No, dad, I’m not hungry. I heard you. I just want you to know I’m not… you know, I’m fourteen and a half and I have superpowers and I can take care of myself. I’m ready to get out there and fight. I don’t need to be looked after like that.”
Tony gave him a serious look and then a nod. He looked away briefly and Henry deflated a little. The words had sped out of his mouth so fast he couldn’t even remember what he had said.
“You do have super powers,” his father agreed. “Super agility, super speed, super senses, the ability to climb walls…” he looked around the holo at Henry again. “All things Spider Man needs.” He was quiet for a moment. “Look, you know I don’t do the emotional stuff well.”
Henry gave a little laugh. His father had told him that on numerous occasions, and Pepper had mentioned it to him as well.
Tony rubbed his forehead for a moment, eyes shut. “You’re not just Spider Man,” Tony said a moment later. “You’re my son first… and Spider Man second. If anything happened to you…” he trailed away and had a pained look on his face, though whether it was from his injuries or the thought of Henry getting hurt, Henry didn’t know.
“When that building collapsed on you I thought I was going to lose you before I ever even got to tell you who I was. My heart was racing so fast JARVIS thought I was having a heart attack.”
“I didn’t know.”
His father turned to another cabinet and pulled out a clean shirt. Apparently he kept a supply of these in the lab as well. He motioned for Henry to follow him out of the lab and into the living area. They went into the kitchen and Henry sat on a stool at the counter while his father pulled donuts out of a cupboard. He kept a supply of sweets around because he had a sweet tooth.
“Since ours are lying in the street somewhere,” Tony said, sliding the box of donuts across the counter to Henry.
“I bet the guy took them.”
“What guy?”
“The one on the Chitauri glider.”
Tony laughed. “I should track down the wizards that were chasing him and make them pay for my car.”
A few moments passed as they sat next to each other and ate their sugary breakfast, despite that it was nearly noon now. “Dad- I know you wanna protect me, and I don’t make that easy, and you said I’m Henry first, and Spider Man second… but I’m still Spider Man.” His father was watching him, and Henry took a breath after having sped through all of that. “I’m Spider Man too. Sometimes I gotta go after the bad guys and take them down.”
“Who were the bad guys out there today?”
“The guy on the glider.”
“Are you sure about that?”
“Well why would he be running if he was innocent?”
“What if he was running because he was innocent? What if the wizards following him were the bad guys?”
“Well-”
“The point is you don’t know because it didn’t involve you. No one asked for your help, and you just happened to be there. It wasn’t obvious who the players were and what was going on. Putting yourself into the middle of that without being invited is thoughtless.” Tony paused. “Geez, I never thought I’d be the one giving this speech instead of being on the receiving end of it.”
“Ok,” Henry said, though he didn’t look happy about it. It was more like he was trying to appease his father than was agreeing with him. Tony’s chest felt tight, like it had since the explosion an hour and a half ago. If he was in his suit right now JARVIS would tell him his heart was beating too quickly. He couldn’t shake the feeling that they had both escaped death when all they had wanted was to go out for coffee and donuts. It didn’t help that it had all happened outside one of the buildings that had been destroyed in the Battle of New York… one of the buildings that Tony sometimes had difficulty passing or going into because it tended to throw him into an anxiety attack. Usually Happy went in while Tony stayed in the car, or brought things from the bakery back to the penthouse for him. Now there was another thing to add to the list of reasons he didn’t like to go down there.
He excused himself and went into the bathroom for ten minutes so he could try to get a handle on the tightness in his chest. When he came back into the living area, Henry was playing video games on the huge holo TV above the fireplace. As his father sat down on the black leather couch next to him to play, Henry had no idea that Tony had spent ten minutes in the bathroom trying to focus enough to just breathe, so he didn’t hyperventilate.
* * *
What little fear Flash had had in November after having learned that Henry’s father was Iron Man, had dissipated by January. He had been humiliated in front of a crowd on the front steps, and several people had caught the entire incident on video. It hadn’t made it onto YouTube, but the video was still circulating around the school months later. That humiliation was enough to make him start in on Henry again.
It started little at first, like Flash was just testing the waters to see if Iron Man really would swoop in to do something to him. He brushed roughly past Henry and Ned in the halls between classes, and pretended to trip in the cafeteria with a tray full of food that spilled all over the front of Peter’s sweatshirt. When it became clear to him that Henry was still just Peter, and wouldn’t do anything about the bullying… wouldn’t tell the great Tony Stark, he started picking on him in full force again. He didn’t call him Penis Parker anymore, because Henry had done his best to drop the name Peter despite that kids at school, teachers, and aunt May sometimes forgot and still called him that. Instead he started pushing Henry as hard as he could into lockers or walls as he passed, laughing as he went, but never turning back to look at him. At other times he said nasty things to Henry, as he had since the start of the school year, and a couple times went so far as to knock Henry’s books out of his hands and then kick the fallen books down the hallway, making Henry have to work harder to collect them again.
“Peter,” Ned said, helping Henry pick up his fallen books as Flash walked down the hallway laughing, “when are you gonna do something about that?”
“Like what?” Henry asked.
“You could have a certain someone drop in on him and threaten him.”
“I don’t do that sort of thing,” MJ said, coming up behind them.
Henry smiled at her. She had been spending more time with them in the last few months, whether it was after school or in the cafeteria. Once she had even come up to the penthouse with he and Ned, and thankfully his father had played it cool and not embarrassed him in front of her.
“I was thinking about someone else,” Ned said, giving Henry a meaningful look. Henry knew he wasn’t talking about Iron Man.
“Well he could,” MJ said, “if he were a wimp. Luckily Peter can take care of his own battles.”
Henry’s face heated up. She thought he could stand up to Flash on his own? He could stand up to Flash, but she didn’t know that. She didn’t know he was Spider Man. “Yeah,” Peter said, “I could.”
“Then why don’t you?” MJ asked seriously, brow raised. “You could argue you’re letting people think you’re the bigger man and taking the high road. Is that what you’re doing Peter?”
He squirmed under her intense questioning stare for a moment. “I don’t need to fight him,” Henry said. “The school years almost over. Then I’ll be off in Europe or something and he’ll be stuck here being the miserable person he is.”
His father had talked about taking a trip to Europe, or California, or any number of places during the summer, and Henry wasn’t sure if he’d settled on where yet. Henry couldn’t say he wasn’t excited. Aside from when he had been little, and his parents… the Parker’s anyway, had had him, he’d never been outside of New York. He’d rarely ever been outside of New York City in his remembrance, and his father wanted to fix that.
“Uh Peter,” Ned said, “you’re taking us with you, right? I don’t wanna be stuck here being the miserable person I will be if I have to sit in the heat again for one more summer.”
Henry laughed. “Well he did say he’d take us wherever we wanted. We don’t have to wait til’ summer.” He had been too nervous to ask his father to take he and his friends farther than various places around town to this point. Despite living in Stark Tower and having new clothes and a huge room overlooking the city, Henry still wasn’t used to having money to spare, and the thought of jet-setting off for a weekend with his friends felt foreign to him.
“Well…” MJ trailed off, looking like she was uncomfortable with whatever she was about to say. “Where are we going then?”
“The big comic con in San Diego Peter,” Ned begged, “please.”
“Isn’t that in July?”
“Ok then how about-” Ned said, but MJ put up her hand to stop him.
“Peter should decide.”
“Me? Why?”
“It’s your money,” she said.
“What? No. No.” He shook his head. “It’s really not guys, I swear.”
“Dude, you’re his heir,” Ned said.
Henry gripped the strap of his backpack hard, wringing it in his hands. He knew he was, but he’d been trying not to think about the money aspect of that. He had a dad, and he was good with that. He didn’t need the money. It might be different if he had grown up there… had never been kidnapped to begin with, but… “Can we not talk about this guys?” He was struggling to feel like he was a Stark… like he belonged to that family at all. Pepper and Happy had more right to that money than he did. They’d stood by his father for all these years… all these years that Henry had missed. They had so many shared experiences that Henry would never have with them now. It bothered him when Pepper and his dad talked about past vacations, adventures, or other things they’d experienced together. It bothered Henry when Happy told him about the life his father had lived… without him.
Henry wasn’t really present for the rest of the day. He was there in his classes and in the cafeteria with his friends and teachers, but his mind had checked out. The first time that day that it snapped back into place was when his books went scattering (once again) across the floor. On any other day Henry might not have responded when Flash pushed past him laughing, knocking him into the metal lockers in the hall, just as he hadn’t responded when it had happened that morning. On this day though, Henry barely had control over his own emotions.
“Flash, you’re an ass, you know that?” Ned said.
Flash paused and laughed harder. “It’s not my fault Penis doesn’t have-” he stopped abruptly because Peter had punched him so hard he’d flown into the lockers and fell down, his own notebook falling to the ground and his notes scattering everywhere. Flash laid there dazed, blood coming out of his nose while several kids around them laughed. Flash had friends, but he wasn’t well liked by most of the students there, despite that Henry was the only one he bullied outright.
“Yeah Flash?” Ned said staring down at him. Henry was already walking away, picking up his books as he went. “How do you like that?” Ned’s laughter and MJ’s disapproval followed him down the hallway as he turned into a bathroom and went inside. It was empty because class was starting in a minute, and Henry leaned heavily on a sink, staring down into the stained porcelain.
“Peter?” the bathroom door edged open and MJ’s voice came in.
“Just a minute,” he said. “I just need a minute.”
“When you come out, the Principal is looking for you.” That had been fast. None of the teachers had ever said a word about Flash bullying him. Granted, none of them had seen it happening, but everyone in school knew it was. The teachers had to know too.
Still gripping the sides of the sink Henry looked into the mirror at himself. His face was still bruised from the incident Sunday. His father had more bruises, but they looked in similarly bad shape. As he looked at himself in the mirror, he tried to note other similarities between himself and his father. They looked alike, and now that Henry knew that, he took pleasure in noting the similarities in their noses, eyes, chins, and the similar wave in their hair every day. He wished he felt more like his father. More like Iron Man. He sighed. Nope… still just Henry.
The door opened again, but this time it wasn’t MJ.
“Peter,” the Principal said. He didn’t sound happy, and when Henry turned to look at him, he motioned with his hand for Henry to follow him out of the bathroom.
Down the hall and into the main office, they passed Flash, who was holding a wad of tissues up to his bloody nose and telling the school nurse, “He hit me, I was just standing there not doing anything and he hit me Mrs. Finnegan. Just like that!”
“That’s enough Mr. Thompson,” Principal Morita said, sounding irritated as he and Henry passed. Henry didn’t look at him as they did, eyes straight ahead. This wasn’t going to be good, and his only saving grace was that aunt May was out of town so she couldn’t come down here and yell at him. With Pepper and Happy gone, there was no one else to intercept the call from school except for his father. Henry had been so excited to be done being grounded too.
In the back of the main office, they went into the Principal's office and Henry sat down in the visitor’s chair. Mr. Morita sat down behind his desk and gave Henry a serious look. “It looks like you’ve had a rough week Parker, and it’s only Tuesday. What’s the rest of this week going to look like?”
Henry looked down. “I don’t know sir.”
“You know violence isn’t tolerated at this school. We’ve already called your father…” he trailed away, like he wasn’t certain it had been a good idea. “We tried your aunt and Mr. Hogan, but they didn’t answer.”
“Everyone’s out of town.”
“I see.”
Mr. Morita pointed at the bruises on Peter’s face. “I can only hope those aren’t from fighting.”
“They’re not.”
He sighed again. “Do you wanna tell me what happened with Flash?”
“Not really.” Henry wasn’t particularly proud of what he’d done, though at the same time, he wasn’t sorry, not in the least. Maybe Flash would leave him alone for what remained of the school year now.
There was a knock on the open office door and they both looked up. Henry’s stomach fell. His father was standing there. Henry couldn’t get a read on him. He couldn’t tell if he was irritated or didn’t care at all. Sometimes it was hard to tell with him like that.
“Mr. ah Stark, come in and have a seat,” Principal Morita said. He sat up a little straighter and straightened his tie. He looked nervous, but Henry didn’t think the man had anything to be nervous about. It wasn’t Henry’s first time in a Principal’s office over the years, but it was his first time for violence.
“What’s going on?” Tony asked, putting his hand on Henry’s shoulder as he came behind him and then took the seat next to him. He leaned back in the chair like it was the most comfortable chair he’d ever sat in and crossed his legs, resting his hand on his knee. “I was summoned in the middle of a business meeting and here I am,” he said, and Henry winced. So did the Principal.
“I’m sorry to have to have called you in,” Mr. Morita said, “unfortunately there was an incident with Peter.”
“Peter… Peter…” Tony said, shaking his head like he was trying to think. “Sorry, not ringing a bell.”
“Henry,” the principal corrected. “There was an incident with-”
“Would it have something to do with the kid in the office crying over a bloody nose?”
“As a matter a fact it does.”
Tony shook his head. “What’d he do, slip?”
“Peter- Henry punched him.”
Tony looked at Henry, then at the Principal, then back at Henry. “Really?” he asked. “You hit that kid?”
“Yes sir.”
“Stop that. Don’t call me that again, that’s insulting,” Tony told Henry. Henry tried not to look up at him. What was going on here? His father didn’t sound angry, but that didn’t necessarily mean anything yet. He sounded like he did when he entered a room full of people that he wasn’t close to, and his presence filled the room, like he owned it. This office was his now, despite that it wasn’t.
“All right,” Tony said, looking at Mr. Morita again, “are we done here?”
“Mr. Stark,” Mr. Morita said, trying to regain some control over the meeting, “violence is not tolerated at this school. Pet- Henry is going to have to face some consequences.”
“For hitting that kid in the hall,” Tony said. His voice didn’t sound friendly anymore.
“Flash Thompson, yes. His nose is broken. His parents are coming to collect him to take him to the hospital.”
Tony ignored him and turned to Henry again. “What’d he do kid?”
“Mr. Stark,” Mr. Morita said, but Tony held up his hand and said, “Excuse me, was I talking to you?” He turned back to Henry then.
“He knocked my books out of my arms this morning and knocked me into the lockers. Then after lunch he did it again.”
“The books, and the lockers,” Tony said, and Henry nodded. He turned back to Mr. Morita and said, “Ok, so Henry’s going to have consequences. Flash will have the same consequences, right? What’s the problem here?”
“Flash didn’t hurt Henry,” Mr. Morita said. “He won’t have any consequences.” He was looking deeply uncomfortable now.
“No?” Tony asked. “You don’t think he hurt Henry? Did you ask Henry or did you just assume?” He didn’t give Mr. Morita a chance to answer though. Instead he leaned forward in his chair towards the desk and said, “I know for a fact that you know about the bullying that’s been happening all year, because Mr. Leeds has reported it. So has Mr. Hogan, yet here we are, another day, another incident, and nothing’s been done about it. Tell me, Mr. Morita, how many times should this happen before Henry is allowed to defend himself? Hm? A dozen? Two dozen? Every day for the entire school year?”
“We’ve spoken to Flash on numerous occasions since it was reported Mr. Stark.”
Tony held a finger up and said, “Spoken to, but no consequences, am I right? You see, the natural consequences of being a bully are that some day, someone’s going to get sick and tired of the bullshit and fight back. Now he’s experienced a consequence, and if he really is as smart as he should be to get into this school, he’ll learn his lesson and leave Henry alone.” He shook his head and said, incredulous, “I can’t believe you pulled me in here for this.” Standing up, he touched Henry’s shoulder and said, “Come on Henry.” Henry stood up too.
“Mr. Stark, he’s suspended for one week.”
They were already walking out the door though and Tony was saying, “C’mon buddy, are you up for ice cream?”
They passed Flash on the way out, who was no longer pretending to cry and whimper. His eyes were wide and firmly fixed on Tony, but Tony ignored him and so did Henry. Henry’s mind was racing as they walked out the front doors and down the steps to his father’s car which was parked on the street. He wasn’t in trouble? His father didn’t care that he’d just been suspended? He got in and buckled up and his father pulled away and sped down the street.
They were a mile away from the school when Tony said, “Don’t do that to me again kid.”
“I’m sorry, I’ll make sure I don’t get into any more trouble this year, I’ll-”
“Not that,” his father said. “Don’t call me sir. My father was sir.” He shuddered and turned to give Henry a smile.
“I’m not-”
“In trouble? For defending yourself against a kid that was bullying you?”
Henry’s stomach dropped. He hadn’t exactly been defending himself.
“What? C’mon, what is it? What’s that look for?”
“I wasn’t- I mean, I wasn’t in danger or anything. He didn’t have me cornered. I wasn’t defending myself. Not exactly.” He closed his mouth, aware he was rambling.
“Why didn’t you tell me he was still bullying you?” Tony asked, pulling up to Delmars. Delmar had a softserve machine with vanilla ice cream that Peter liked. When the car was parked, they didn’t get out because his father was still waiting for an answer.
“It’s not exactly-” Henry paused. It wasn’t manly to let yourself get beat up at school. His father would never let himself get bullied like that.
“Whatever it’s not,” his father said, “here’s what it is.” Henry looked over at him. “It was self defense. Like I told the Principal, I won’t ever be mad at you for defending yourself. I’m surprised you waited this long. I will say, that you’re going to have to pull your punches if you’re going to be working out in the gym like you have been. With your reflexes and speed you could really hurt a regular jerk like Flash.”
“I was pulling my punch,” Henry said, and his dad laughed. For the first time that day Henry felt like smiling, and they got out of the car and went into Delmars.
Henry had always been one of Mr. Delmar’s favorite customers because of aunt May and because he came in nearly every day, but he’d become Mr. Delmar’s absolute favorite now that it was becoming more well known that Henry was Tony Stark’s long lost son and now that Tony was coming in on occasion with him.
“Hey Iron Man!” he shouted gleefully when they came in. Tony raised his hand in a wave, but ignored him as Henry went to the soft serve machine and Tony went to the wall of fridges looking for a soda. By the time Henry had filled two cones with vanilla ice cream and made his way to the counter, his father had brought up an armful of snacks, including twinkies, bags of chips, a Sprite and a Pepsi. Henry hoped it meant his dad was ready to settle in for a movie night or something.
“Whoa, road trip Mr. Stark?” Delmar asked as he started ringing up the purchase.
“That’s right,” he said, pulling out two twenty dollar bills.
“Road trip?” Henry asked, “Where are you going?”
“I thought we’d take a little trip upstate.”
Henry and Mr. Delmar both raised their eyebrows. “Whoa kid, looks like you’re gonna get to meet some of the Avengers.”
“Been there, done that,” Tony said sounding bored, as Delmar finished putting the snacks and sodas into a plastic bag.
“You never said,” Mr. Delmar said to Henry in an accusing way. He’d been asking Henry for all sorts of details in the last few months, and Henry had given him some details, but had grown tired of people asking him things like, “Have you ever seen Bruce Hulk out?” and, “Have you met Captain America yet?”
They left the convenience store and got back into the car.
“Why are we going upstate?” Henry asked.
Tony shrugged. “You’re out of school for a week, seems like a good time for a roadtrip to the compound, don’t you think? The compound has state of the art training facilities, and I’ve had them building something new out there the last month I thought you’d like to see.”
“What is it?”
“That’s a little hard to explain,” he said. “You’re gonna have to see it for yourself.”
They stopped by the tower and packed clothes and a project Tony had been working on, and then headed out. It was a three and a half hour drive to the compound, but Henry didn’t mind. His father had EDITH playing a long list of rock songs that Henry would consider old, but that he enjoyed nonetheless. It was different than what he and his friends listened to, but he’d grown to like Red Hot Chili Peppers, Goo Goo Dolls, Nirvana and Nine Inch Nails.
They stopped off for burgers and shakes for dinner when they were an hour away, and then when they were almost there they pulled off the road as the sun went down and his father pulled his car down to the edge of a lake.
“What are we doing?” Henry asked.
“Do we have to be doing anything? C’mon.” He got out of the car and surprised Henry by climbing up onto the hood and sitting on top of it. His father liked expensive cars… took great care in washing them and keeping them in good repair, but then he confused Henry (frequently) by doing things like this.
“C’mon, c’mon,” his dad urged, motioning for him to climb up onto the hood as well. Henry climbed up, trying hard not to scratch the car at all, and wondering if the hood would hold their weight or if it would get dented or damaged.
“It’s been a shitty week and it’s only Tuesday,” Tony said, echoing almost exactly what Mr. Morita had said to Henry earlier that day. “But sometimes shitty weeks get better when you spend time watching the sunset over a lake with your favorite person.”
“Where’s Pepper?” Henry asked with a laugh then, pretending to look around for her.
“I’m hurt,” Tony said, grabbing his chest in mock upset. “Your favorite person is Pepper?”
“No, your favorite person is Pepper,” Henry said.
“Well, she’ll be glad to hear that. Be sure to tell her that the next time you see her.” He leaned into Henry a little to nudge his shoulder and then said, “You’re my favorite person too you know. I’m allowed to have two.”
“And Happy?”
“He’s my second favorite.”
The sun sent dark pink and orange tones up into the sky and clouds as it went down, and the water sparkled with golden highlights.
“Did you just get tired of it? Of Flash?” his father asked when the sun had gone down fully and twilight had settled in on them.
Henry shook his head.
“No?”
“I’ve been tired of Flash from the start.”
“What was different about today?”
It took Henry long moments to decide if he was going to tell him or not, but his father gave him the time to think about it.
“MJ and Ned said something today that made me think is all. I was a little- off after that. Then Flash knocked my books out of my hands and shoved me for the second time in one day and I just- snapped.”
“What was it?”
“It’s dumb.”
“Try me.”
“You and Pepper, and Happy… you guys have been through so much together already. You have, I don’t know, it’s like a code that I’m not clued in on and don’t know the language to.” He stared out into the last of the remaining light on the horizon, knees up and wrists on top of them. “I missed all of it. I wasn’t a part of any of it.”
Tony stared out at the water as well, but he wasn’t really seeing it. He knew exactly how his son felt. 13 years had been robbed from them, and he still didn’t know by who, or why. He didn’t know what to say to him to make it better, because he didn’t know that it could be made better. He’d been focusing on spending as much time as he could with Henry now that he was back, and trying not to think about what time they’d lost. When he did, it made him angry, and sad, and made him feel like he had for all of these years… like Henry hadn’t been found yet and might never be.
Instead of saying something he didn’t know how to say, Tony put his hand on the back of Henry’s neck and then pulled him in sideways and wrapped him up in a hug. They sat silently like that for ten or so minutes before the air grew too cold to sit there any longer.
“C’mon, still got a little ways to go,” Tony said. “Why don’t you choose the songs for the rest of the trip?”
Henry smiled as they got back into the car and Tony started it up again. His father didn’t like most of the music he and Ned listened to, but Henry had found a new song on YouTube he thought his father might like and said, “EDITH, play Lose Yourself by Eminem.”
The music came out of the car speakers softly at first, but the beat picked up and began to thump as the lyrics started, 'Look… if you had one shot… one opportunity, to seize everything you ever wanted… one moment… would you capture it or just let it slip? Yo, his palms are sweaty, knees weak, arms are heavy, there’s vomit on his sweater already, mom’s spaghetti, he’s nervous, but on the surface he looks calm and ready- '
“Not bad,” Tony said, nodding along to the beat. “A few more months and I’ll have you fully indoctrinated.”
'Snap back to reality, oh there goes gravity, oh, there goes Rabbit, he choked he’s so mad, but he won’t give up that easy no, he won’t have it…'
As they got back on the road, Henry thought about the day… about his dad making Principal Morita feel like an idiot for not having handled Flash earlier, about loading up on snacks and driving across the state blaring loud music, and then just sitting and spending time together at the lake as the sun went down, just because it was quiet and they were trying to even out their shitty week a little. A literal breath of fresh air. Those were moments he and his dad had now… their own inside code that they could talk about or tell other people about. Something only the two of them would get, because only the two of them had been there.
When they rolled into the Avenger’s Compound forty five minutes later, Henry didn’t feel as lonely as he had earlier that day. He hadn’t even realized that he had been feeling alone until he didn’t anymore.
“I’m not grounded, right?” Henry asked as they got out and grabbed their bags.
“No.”
“Thanks dad.”
Tony grinned and said, “Just don’t call me sir again or you will be.”
“Right, yeah, I can do that.”
The Avenger’s Compound had different buildings, but the main building was a living area separated into two parts. Each part had its own large dormitory style rooms, a large kitchen, and large dining and living room. In the half of the main building where the core group of Avengers stayed and met, Tony had an office with two rooms next door. The two rooms were attached by a door and shared a bathroom. They’d stayed there together for Thanksgiving and then again at Christmas, but hadn’t been back since then because Henry had had school and Pepper and Tony had work to do.
His father threw his bag down on the large bed and flopped backwards into it and Henry went into the other room where there was a twin size bed, a desk, and a TV.
“What project did you grab out of the lab?” Henry asked a few minutes later when he came out in his pajama bottoms and a comfortable t-shirt.
“Nanotech. I should have it perfected soon.”
“The wristband armor?” Henry asked.
“That’s right. At the push of a button I should have the Iron Man armor without carrying around a briefcase or calling long distances for it.” Henry knew he had brought his Iron Man armor with him in a briefcase, but hadn’t brought it in yet from the trunk of the car.
He went into his father’s office to use his computer so he could access his school account and homework on the internet. Everything he was going to have to make up from the week-long suspension would be e-mailed to him so he could work on it at home. He wasn’t tired yet and figured now was a good time to start. He was hoping he could get a big chunk of the work done in the first couple of days and then relax the rest of the week.
“Here,” Tony said, coming into the office from the hallway. He handed him a transparent Stark Tablet, one of several he kept in his office and quarters there at the compound. “Use that. Transfer all your work to that and you can work on it wherever. It’s got a satellite uplink so you can even work on it in the car if you need to.”
“Thanks.”
With his homework downloaded and transferred to the tablet, Henry returned to his room and sat on the bed intending to get all of his pre-calculus work done first. That was what he was best at and could get through quickly. Just as he pulled up his first assignment and pulled the black stylus off the side of the tablet to start working out math problems, a message popped up on screen. His father was messaging him from the next room.
‘Try this while you work. It gets the creative juices flowing.’ There was a link, and Henry clicked it. A browser slid open to YouTube and a music video started playing through speakers in the walls. Henry smiled and settled in to do math. He could hear his dad singing in the next room.
* * *
She was always there when he dreamed of uncle Ben now. Peter couldn’t remember if she had been there before, when he’d had nightmares of Ben in the years after his murder. He knew she had been at the murder, standing there and watching, floating above the sidewalk on the corner across the street. Regardless of if he had dreamed of her before, he always dreamed of her now. He hadn’t known it was a girl until recently, but he was certain it was. He couldn’t see her face… feared in fact that she didn’t have a face, or perhaps had glowing red eyes, but all he could see under her hood was darkness. A shot rent the night, and uncle Ben was falling, falling. He was bleeding out and there was nothing Peter could do but stare at him.
The woman under the hood wanted something from him… was calling to him… was trying to pull him into the darkness with her, because that’s where she lived, in the dark recesses of Peter’s mind. She lived where uncle Ben had died, was lying in a puddle of blood, breathless with the exertion of staying alive. “Peter,” he said, reaching out for him. It was a warning. “Peter!” He was terrified of his uncle in a way he had never been before, not on that night or at any other time, because now his uncle had a hold of his foot and was dragging him towards the pool of blood… dragging him towards the hooded figure across the street. “PETER!”
Henry woke up thrashing in the darkness, aware that his own voice was raw from shouting. The last time his name had been called, it hadn’t been his uncle. He was in darkness though and feared he had finally been pulled through… was once again there in the nightmare that had been that night. He flailed, arms reaching out to grab the hooded figure, but the voice that came out of the darkness wasn’t hers, and the hands that grabbed him and pulled him close were calloused like his father’s.
“Hey, shh, it’s me, it’s me. You’re ok, you’re ok. It was a dream, it’s not real,” his father said. “FRIDAY, lights.”
The lights waved up in the bedroom and Henry sat tangled in blankets breathing heavily. His father was next to him on the edge of the bed, hugging him tightly. Henry had a feeling he’d done it to keep him from flailing too much and hitting him. He wondered if he already had hit him.
“Did I- did I smack you or something?”
“A little, it doesn’t matter.” He squeezed him tighter, probably because Henry was still shaking. They sat there like that for several minutes, not saying anything at all. At least Henry’s senses weren’t going haywire. It hadn’t been a panic attack, just a nightmare. It had been one hell of a nightmare though.
“Was it worse than last time?” his father asked. This same scene had played out a couple weeks before and his father and Pepper both had come into his room to make sure someone hadn’t broken in to murder him because he’d been shouting out loud.
“Yeah.”
“Wanna talk about it?”
Henry shook his head and his father didn’t let go.
“Can we-”
“What?”
“Can we watch a movie or something? I don’t wanna fall back into that same dream.” Henry had felt like he couldn’t get out of it. It had been so real! He swore the scent of blood and the city streets of New York was still lingering in his nose. It was like he had been there, and his father had pulled him back by waking him up.
“Yeah buddy, let’s watch a movie. Screen’s bigger in my room.”
Henry extricated himself from the tangle of blankets, grabbed the smaller softer blanket off the bed and wrapped himself up in it, and followed his dad through the door into his room. His dad found the TV remote and turned on the massive flat screen TV on the wall opposite the bed.
“I’m sorry,” Henry said as his father flipped through the channels and settled on a Sci Fi movie.
“Don’t be.”
Twenty minutes later and they were both asleep again, Henry lying across the foot of the bed wrapped in the soft blanket, and Tony propped up against several pillows at the headboard. FRIDAY sensed that they had fallen asleep and shut the TV off. Neither of them woke again until morning.
* * *
It turned out that what his dad had to show him was a new obstacle course that looked like it had been built just for someone who could sling webs and swing from building to building.
“Whoa,” Henry said the next morning after they’d had breakfast and walked over to one of the training buildings. It was the size of a large warehouse and had several sections, including a gymnasium with basketball hoops, because why not? The new obstacle course was in its own section, and Henry wondered if he was the first one who would get to use it.
“What do you think?” Tony asked. “I know it’s not the city, but it’s got a lot to do and should be helpful in a lot of different scenarios. FRIDAY, targets.”
“Targets initializing. Targets engaged. Would you like responsive or unresponsive targets?”
Several glowing green shapes appeared throughout the obstacle course, and when Henry looked harder he realized they were holos in the shapes of people.
“Let’s start with unresponsive,” Tony said.
“Targets ready.”
“See them?” Tony asked. “Those are the bad guys. Unresponsive means they don’t fire weapons at you. Throw something at them, hit them with a web, whatever, it will knock them out and they’ll go dark. FRIDAY will rack up points on the board. You can run the course however you want, start to finish, back to front, or just to see how quickly you can neutralize the threats, it doesn’t matter.”
“And I can do it right now?” Henry asked.
“Go for it. It’s ready to go.”
Henry didn’t have his spider suit on, but he didn’t need it just to swing through the course and knock out some targets. He had his web slingers on like he always did. The only time he didn’t keep them on was when he was sleeping or showering.
“FRIDAY, timer,” Tony said. A holo timer appeared over the center of the course high in the air, and Henry took off at a run, shooting a web out at a three story tall obstacle and flying through the air attached to it. He passed the first glowing target and shot out several webs, two of which missed. The third hit the target’s glowing face, and it went dark.
“This is awesome!” he shouted, and Tony crossed his arms and stood back while he watched his son swinging through the course. Five targets took him five minutes to neutralize, and when he’d taken out the last one, the timer stopped and FRIDAY let off a noise to let them know the course had been completed.
“Ready to go again? Next level?”
“Yeah this is great! I could do this all day!” Henry said with a smile. Tony was glad he could put a smile on his son’s face after the rough few days they’d had, and especially after he’d woken up screaming about uncle Ben in the middle of the night, thrashing and face wet with tears. He wished he could take Henry’s nightmares and panic attacks on for him, but there was nothing he could do aside from be there for him.
“FRIDAY, responsive targets.”
“Targets responsive. Targets ready.”
“These ones fight back,” Tony said, “be ready for them. They’re only set to level one right now. I’d suggest you don’t go up a level until FRIDAY says you’re ready.”
“Got it. Start the time FRIDAY.”
He swung off again, this time taking a different route. He passed a target he’d disabled easily before, but this time as he flew by it and shot a web off, the glowing holo target dodged and shot a green pulse of holo light at him. It hit Henry somewhere in the shoulder, even though he didn’t feel it because it was only a holo, and FRIDAY made a noise to signal the simulation was over.
“Why’d it stop? Did I die?”
“Chitauri pulser blast to the shoulder,” Tony said. “You didn’t die, but you would have if it had been real life. Now that you’ve seen what responsive targets do, go again.”
“Right.”
FRIDAY reset the course for him and Henry went again. He went five more times before he made it through the course without taking a knife, chitauri pulser blast or gunshot, and passed the course.
“That was only level one?” He asked, standing in front of Tony, out of breath.
“You wanna try level two?”
“Maybe after lunch,” Henry said, pulling his arm back and waving it in a circle as he gripped his shoulder.
“You need a medic?” There were several trained doctors and nurses on staff in one of the other buildings.
“No, just some ice. I slammed hard into the side of the apartment building on that last pass.”
“Then what we need is the kitchen,” Tony said. FRIDAY shut the course down and turned the lights off as they left the building and headed back towards the main building that held the living quarters.
“Who else is here this week?” Henry asked as they walked down a concrete path back to the main building.
“I saw Cap’s car, and I’m pretty sure Bruce has been here for the last few weeks. Everyone else is out on missions, except Clint, I think it was his wife’s birthday this week. I’m sure there are some minor Avengers around too.”
“How many are there now?”
“Of the junior team? Three.”
“Are they my age?”
“One of them is forty,” Tony said with a laugh. He had some powers that could be useful, but not for fighting. His main skill was being able to touch a computer system and follow the network to hack into any database just by using his mind. He was just dangerous enough to the government to want on their side, but not dangerous enough for SHIELD to lock away.
“Huh.”
“You know you could learn a lot from Cap,” Tony said, “if he’s not busy. You know where his office is, right? It’s on the other side of the living room and down the hall by his quarters.”
“What, erm- what should I ask him about?” Henry asked.
“Have him go back to the obstacle course with you and watch you go through level one. He’ll have all sorts of pointers.”
“Yeah, ok, I’ll do that.” Despite having met all of the main group of Avengers now, Henry was still uncertain about talking to most of them. Ned was always going on and on about Captain America and all the missions he’d been on. According to Ned, Captain America had practically won World War II for them, though Henry wasn’t sure if that was accurate. Henry liked all of the Avengers, but Iron Man was still his favorite. He liked Bruce, because he was easy going, and he wanted to work with Bruce in the lab, and he liked Clint, because Clint was one of the more normal people in the group and because he knew he was his dad’s friend. He figured if he could work up the courage to say something to Steve, he might as well, even if he would ramble on, because his father thought he could learn something from him, and because Ned would freak out when he heard about it.
* * *
Steve knew Tony was in because he’d seen his sports car parked out front. He hadn’t been to the compound in months, so Steve had been there coordinating missions in his place. He’d rather be out running missions himself, but there were several ops going on at once at the moment, and someone needed to stay back to make sure everyone had what they needed and could get backup if required. He was the backup for now since they were running a skeleton crew at the compound. Bruce had been his only company for weeks, aside from the occasional visits he got from some of the junior Avengers, who were spending most of their time training. Even most of them were out, visiting family or taking care of personal matters. It was good to have Tony back in the compound and he wondered how long he’d be staying.
He’d checked Tony’s office and quarters first, but couldn’t find him. Bruce hadn’t seen him, and from what he could tell, Iron Man hadn’t been seen taking off into the sky. The first sign he got that Tony really was there was his son, sitting on a couch in the living area in the afternoon working away on a Stark tablet.
“Hey, you seen your dad?”
Peter looked up and said, “Uh, yeah, he’s in his office.”
“Thanks kid.” He took in Peter’s bruised face and wondered what had happened. It looked like he’d been in a fight, and Steve wondered if the kid had been out doing something he shouldn’t. Tony had said the kid had snuck out in the spider suit a few times, and had even managed to bring a building down on himself at one point. The kid didn’t look that bad, but it was clear something had happened. He also had bags under his eyes like he hadn’t been sleeping.
Steve was ready to push Peter from his mind when he walked into Tony’s office, until he saw Tony’s bruised face.
“Geez, what happened to you?” Steve asked.
Tony looked up and snorted, “You don’t want to know, trust me. New York’s a scary place these days.”
Steve took a seat in one of the comfortable arm chairs in front of Tony’s desk and said, “How long are you back?”
“Just a week. How have things been going?”
Steve spent a few minutes filling him in on what ops were running, who was deployed where, and on a few of the missions they had finished up recently. Tony, like all the Avengers and SHIELD got a report of all completed missions, but Steve wasn’t sure if Tony ever read them unless it had to do with him directly.
“Saw your son out in the living area,” Steve said. He eyed Tony’s bruised and cut face again. “Isn’t school still in?”
“He got suspended.”
“Suspended? For how long? What happened?”
“For fighting. He broke a kid’s nose. The little shit deserved it. I’m glad Henry finally took care of it.”
“Aren’t his grades going to suffer not being at school for a week?”
“For some other kid maybe.” Tony was typing away at his computer and had been throughout the conversation. Steve wasn’t sure what he was working on, but it annoyed him to not have Tony’s full attention. It was just how Tony was however. He wondered if perhaps Peter hadn’t been getting into fights at school because Tony wasn’t giving his son his full attention.
“That fight where he get the bruises?”
Tony stopped typing and looked across the desk at Steve. He pointed to his own face and said, “Like I said, New York’s a scary place sometimes. There’s still Chitauri tech floating around the city and a couple dozen different groups trying to get their hands on it. Even that, whatever,” he waved his hand like he couldn’t think of the word, “wizard group… over on Bleeker Street, has been involved.”
“And that’s where you two got hurt?”
“That’d be it,” Tony said, going back to his computer.
“You know he’s just a kid Tony. He really shouldn’t be out there like this… fighting in the streets.”
Tony’s fingers paused over the keyboard again, the tap tap tapping noise of his fingers flying over the keys coming to a sudden halt. “Just what is it you think he’s been doing?” Tony asked.
“The two of you are covered in bruises. He’s your son Tony, not your protégé. You’re not supposed to be fighting criminals together. Maybe if you spent more time with him he wouldn’t be getting into fights in school and getting suspended. What are you gonna do if he gets expelled?”
“I’m sorry, are you somehow under the impression that he’s your son?” Tony asked.
“I’m just worried about him.”
“Don’t be.”
Neither of the two men inside the office seemed to realize that Henry was standing just outside, listening to the conversation that was quickly dissolving into a heated argument. Why didn’t his father shout? Why didn’t he do what he had done in Mr. Morita’s office the day before and make him feel like an idiot? Why didn’t he just set him straight on the things he’d asked about?
“Shouldn’t I be? It looks like he’s worn out, like he hasn’t slept in a couple days. This is the second time you’ve brought him here covered in bruises.”
Henry could hear that his father had gone back to typing on the keyboard, but he didn’t see how he could be in the middle of an argument. “It sounds an awful lot like you’re accusing me of being a poor father.”
“That’s not what I’m saying,” Steve said.
“Then what are you saying? Clearly you don’t approve. Gonna call Pepper and tell on me? CPS maybe?”
Come on! Just tell him he’s being an idiot! Henry screamed inside his head. Steve didn’t know what he was talking about. A few bruises didn’t mean his father was setting a bad example for him, and neither did getting suspended. It had only been six months since he’d gotten to know his father for the very first time, and he’d already done so much for Henry that Henry couldn’t imagine living without him. His father had been helping him get through panic attacks and nightmares, had been helping him refine his suit, had been helping him with his homework, and Flash, and Principle Morita, and working out in the gym and- Henry just couldn’t stand the thought of losing him somehow, of not being able to jam out to loud music and sit by a lake at sunset on the hood of his sports car.
The two men were talking again inside the office but Henry had missed some of it because his mind had been racing.
“What would your father say about how you’re raising him?”
Tony snorted and said, “You didn’t know my father when he was a father. Don’t pretend like he was some sort of saint. He was an ass on his best days.”
“Damn it Tony he’s your son! Why don’t you start acting like his father instead of his best friend. It’s not always about you and what you want.”
Henry took a couple steps back because he’d heard a chair scrape the floor inside the office, and footfalls coming out. Steve took two steps out of the office and startled when he turned and found Henry there glaring at him. He looked uncomfortable to see him there so close to the open office door where they’d been arguing.
“Hey Peter,” he said, face a little red. Maybe it was from the heat of the argument he’d just had, or maybe it was from guilt. Henry didn’t really care at this point.
“My name’s Henry.”
“Look, kid,” Steve reached up to rub the back of his neck. “You know you don’t have to be called that if you don’t want to, right? Just because that’s what he wants you to be called-”
“I want you to go by whatever name you want Peter. Your happiness is what’s important to me. Go by Spider Man or Spider Avenger, Peter, Henry, it doesn’t matter.” His father’s words from months before came back to him in that moment, and Henry’s eyes rose up angrily to meet Steve’s, and Steve looked startled to see such a fierce look when Henry was usually so mild mannered, and more often than not nervous and rambling. “You know something Steve, you’re really stupid sometimes.” Ned would hate Henry forever if he found out how Henry had talked to his idol, but Henry was too mad to care. “My father said I could learn a lot from you. It’s the first time I think he’s been wrong.”
“Kid-”
Henry stalked away toward the lab. What the hell was that? You can’t tell off Flash, but you can tell off Captain America!? He was mortified and angry in equal measures. The man would never train him now. As he went into the dark tech lab and asked FRIDAY to turn the lights up to 50%, Henry wondered if maybe he’d been able to talk to Steve that way because he’d already dealt a blow to Flash. Or maybe he’d only talked to him like that because his father hadn’t, and because he was confused.
“Hey Henry,” came Bruce’s gentle voice. Henry wasn’t sure how long he’d been sitting in the half lit lab trying to figure things out. It might have been a few minutes, or an hour.
“Uh, hey Mr. Banner.”
“Please kid, it’s Bruce, remember?”
“Ok, I can do that.”
“What are you working on?”
“Uh… just, you know, homework.” Except he hadn’t been, he’d been sitting there, and eavesdropping before that.
“You look terrible, you know that?”
“Erm, thanks?”
Bruce laughed. “Look like you just got told off or something. Argument with your old man? My father and I had some doozies when I was a teenager.”
“Not that either,” Henry said. He couldn’t remember a time yet when he’d argued with his father. The closest they’d come was Henry telling him he wanted to go out at night as Spider Man and his father telling him it was too dangerous. That hadn’t come anywhere close to what had just happened in his father’s office though, or even what had happened outside of it between Henry and Steve. “I mighta blacked out. I think I just yelled at Captain America and called him stupid.” Had he yelled? He didn’t think he had, but couldn’t remember now.
“Really? Sounds like you’re taking after Tony already.” Henry’s eyes came up to meet Bruce’s for the first time since he’d walked into the lab. “Hey, there you are,” Bruce said with a smile.
“They fight a lot?”
“All the time” Bruce said. “They’ve had some big ones. One time they almost came to blows. Steve kept telling your dad to put on the suit so it’d be a fair fight.”
“What happened?” Henry asked.
“We were on an airship and it was attacked. Your dad and Steve had to work together to keep the thing in the air or three hundred people were gonna die. Then aliens came out of a wormhole and by the end of the day the two of them were friends.”
“Right.” The Battle of New York. Henry had read about it in school and online. He’d even been there during the battle, but aside from the terror he’d experienced almost getting crushed by falling debris, he’d spent most of the battle huddled in the basement of Delmars with Delmar and a few other people from off the street. His dad didn’t like to talk about that day, so it was interesting having Bruce fill in some of the gaps that weren’t common knowledge.
Bruce told him the whole story from the beginning, of how they’d been recruited and the initial infighting, and about the death of an agent that turned out to still be alive later on.
“What were they fighting about this time?”
“Me,” Henry said, feeling a little guilty. “I just don’t get why my dad didn’t stand up and yell at him… he was irritated, but he didn’t seem that angry.”
“Did you ask him?” Bruce asked.
“I haven’t seen him yet.”
“Well, you know you’re welcome to stay in the lab the rest of the day with me if you want.”
Henry thanked him and went back to his homework, though he had trouble concentrating on it for the rest of the afternoon. Steve had been right about one thing, Henry was tired, both from the hour and a half of training he’d done on the obstacle course that morning and from his interrupted sleep the night before.
His father came and found him in the lab for dinner and they worked next to Bruce, each on their own projects for another hour, though no one talked about the argument, or about Steve. At seven Henry and his father returned to his father’s quarters and got ready to settle in for the night.
“You have something you wanna say to me?” Tony asked.
Henry turned to face him and tried to decipher if he was upset with him or not. Maybe he was. He wouldn’t be fighting with his friend if Henry hadn’t come with him to the compound.
“How about, hey dad, sorry for eavesdropping outside your office?”
“Sorry,” Henry said. “I won’t do that again.”
“Good to hear.” He paused and gave Henry a close looking over for a moment. “You all right? I heard what you said to Cap.”
“Why didn’t you tell him off? You didn’t even seem mad. You could have set him straight in about two seconds.”
Tony looked tired in that moment like Henry did. “I could have, but he wasn’t ready to listen. Steve’s father was-” he trailed off, looking for the right words. “Let’s just say Steve didn’t have the best childhood. He sees bruises or a kid out of school and is quick to see the things he went through in others, even if those things aren’t there.”
“But you still could have told him.”
“If Ned was upset and had the wrong idea about something, and you could set him straight, but it would mean a big blow out… a shouting match or a fist fight, would you set him straight on the facts?”
Henry opened his mouth to say he would, but he really had to stop and think about it for a moment. Ned was his best friend… up until MJ had started spending time with them, he had been Henry’s only friend. A fist fight with Ned wouldn’t end well for Ned for sure, but it would likely be the end of their friendship altogether. When Tony saw understanding come into Henry’s eyes, he said, “That’s why I didn’t push it. I’ve been there and done that with him a few times.”
“He’s just gonna go on believing you’re a-”
“Bad father?”
“Yeah. You’re not. Sometimes you’re the only reason I can even- breathe,” Henry said.
“I’ll take that,” Tony said. He pulled Henry into a hug. He would be lying if he told Henry he didn’t care if others believed he was a good father or a bad father. He’d spent so many years just wishing for his child back so he could be any kind of father at all, so long as he wasn’t the same kind of father as his own, or worse. He did care what the others on his team thought, and it had been upsetting to know that Steve had immediately jumped to the worst conclusions about him. He had Henry to think about though. He’d brought him up here to keep him occupied for the week… to let him burn off some energy in the obstacle course and to spend some time with him. If he got into a blowout with Steve on their first day there they’d have to leave, or else the week would be full of tension, and potentially more fighting later on. That wasn’t what he was there for.
“Go on, get pajamas on. We’ll turn on a movie unless you want help with your homework.”
“I’ve got most of it finished,” Henry said.
They didn’t see Steve for the rest of the week, despite that they knew he was still there. Henry spent a lot of time in the lab with Bruce, and time in the obstacle course with his father, who gave him great pointers that helped him get up to level three by the time they left to go back to the city Sunday afternoon.
His dad might not want to fight with Steve because they were friends, but Henry would gladly take up his mantle the next time he saw Captain America. In the meantime, Henry was just going to keep it under wraps from Ned that they’d had a confrontation at all. He didn’t want to be the one to bring Ned’s idol crashing down in front of his eyes.