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He's having an unusually early night, already deep in the clutches of sleep, when his phone rings.
Groaning, he throws a pillow over his face. It does little to blot out the irritating noise, and he feels himself being yanked back to consciousness before he wants to be there.
"You have an incoming call, Boss," FRIDAY helpfully supplies, like he wouldn't know from the annoying trilling happening right next to his ear. "It's May Parker."
That finally catches his half-there consciousness, and he squints up at the ceiling before reaching blindly for the phone on his bedside table, fingers scrambling before finally locating it.
"May?" He answers, voice still full of sleep.
"Tony." She sounds frazzled, and Tony's attention immediately snags on it. One thing, and one thing only, is capable of frazzling May Parker. It's one of the very same things capable of frazzling Tony. "Hey. Um. Have you seen Peter? It's way past his curfew and he hasn't texted me back, at all. Usually he's so good about that, I'm- I'm getting worried-"
"Whoa, whoa, hold on, let me check-"
Peter Parker being MIA is a damn good way to ensure that Tony's unusually early night comes to a screeching halt. It's probably the best fucking way.
"Fri," he demands, phone still pressed to his ear. He can hear May's slightly panicked breathing on the other hand, and it takes everything in him not to follow her lead right down to a panic attack of his own. "Can you track Pete?"
He tosses his cashmere sheets to the side, throwing his legs to the floor. He offers up a silent gratitide that Pepper is in Hong Kong for the week, dealing with shareholder shit, and not currently here to be subjected to his shit, of which is never-ending.
He's already halfway out of the room, the Iron Man armor incoming, when FRIDAY responds. "It appears that Peter is currently in the Spider-suit."
Tony falters in his tracks. "Hurt?"
"Hurt?" May echoes through the speaker, her voice pitching in volume.
"I detect no injuries."
"Hear that?" He comforts May, hearing the telltale sound of metal whooshing down the hall. He braces himself for the imminent arrival, pooling his legs wide. "No injuries."
He catches her irritated huff of air as the metal begins to pool over his skin, swallowing his flesh. When he flexes his fingers, they're encased in steel. "Thanks, Tony. I'm gonna have to ground him- he wasn't even supposed to go patrolling tonight. We agreed. He was supposed to be with his friends."
"I'll go get him," Tony offers "Send him home to you so you can deal out some of that patented Parker retribution-"
"Oh, no," May interjects quickly. "I wouldn't ask you to do that, it's almost midnight-"
"I'm already going," Tony announces, throwing open the doors that lead out to the adjoining launch pad. He feels the faceplate descend over his features, the last of his suit falling into place. Immediately, both Peter's location and vitals pop into existence on the left-hand corner of his screen. He flexes his fingers once more before plunging face-first off the launch pad.
May sighs again, her call automatically switching to the ear-piece in his suit. "Good luck."
⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯
No matter how many times Tony sees it, finding Peter sitting on the very edge of a 34 story building is enough to make his stomach swoop.
He knows Peter is perfectly capable of catching himself if he were to somehow plummet, he knows the Spider-suit has an automatic parachute deploy function that activates if Peter is ever unable to thwip himself to safety, he knows the kid is strong as titanium, as fucking spider's silk, that a fall from this height probably wouldn't kill him regardless, but still.
Still.
Something about rooftops and certain Spider-kid's hanging off of them make him feel a little unsettled.
"Hey there, Spider-Man," he greets, letting his ironclad feet touch down on the open expanse of rooftop behind the kid. He can see the skyline of New York in front of him, all the twinkling lights, the crescent moon, all of it framing Peter in its luminescence. "How many rules are you actively breaking-"
His words fade away to silence as Peter finally turns to greet him, fixing Tony with the horrifying sight of red-rimmed eyes and teary cheeks.
"Pete?" He falters where he's standing, suddenly very, very disillusioned with the idea of the kid dangling his legs off the ledge of a building, fucking spider's silk or not.
"H-hey, Mister Stark," Peter offers, his voice scratchy and raw. He drops his eyes away before turning back around, staring out at the skyline of New York with slumped shoulders.
"What's wrong?" He breathes, still frozen to the spot. His brain is coming up with all sorts of implications that he's decidedly not a fan of. "Are you- are you hurt?"
Peter shrugs, offering up a soft, broken, "I'm not hurt."
It doesn't calm the rapidly swirling storm of his anxiety, Peter's telltale distress wrapping around them both and teetering a little too close to the edge. He forces himself to take a deep breath before disengaging the suit, asking a very carefully constructed, "Is there a reason you're up here, bud?"
"Just." Peter takes a breath of his own, staggered and stunted. Tony can see the kid fumbling with the mask clutched in his hands, nervously wringing it. "A bad night, I guess. I just wanted to patrol for awhile."
"Okay," Tony allows. He orders a hushed, "FRIDAY, sentry," before all but tiptoeing across the concrete rooftop, terrified the whole time that his very footfalls might chase the kid over the edge. Pete's never- he's not like that, he'd never do something like that, but Tony's not really thinking clearly anymore. Not with the kid upset.
Peter doesn't move, and Tony gingerly eases himself down on the ledge next to him. He glances down at the freefall below, the world spinning. His breath hitches at it, just once, but he's able to bite back the panic fairly easily. He knows, intuitively, that Peter would never let him fall. It's a trust he's not used to placing in other people, and it leaves him nearly as dizzy as looking down at the distant ground does.
He looks over at Peter, the kid's familiar side profile. There's a stray tear still trailing slowly down his cheek. "Why's it a bad night?"
Peter shrugs again, keeping his gaze fixed pointedly out at the moon and all the buildings under it. With fresh horror, Tony watches another crop of tears spring to the kid's eyes and spill over.
Peter's voice is nearly a whisper when he responds. "I think I messed everything up."
Tony frowns. "Of course you didn't. And even if you did, I'd fix it. That's my schtick."
"Can't fix it," Peter mutters, clutching the Spider mask tightly in his hand.
"Try me," Tony offers.
Peter sighs, the sound rough as sandpaper. "It's just- stupid. And embarrassing. I don't know."
"It's not stupid if it's bothering you," Tony tells him earnestly. Anything that bothers Peter is automatically a matter of the utmost importance; Peter's tears might as well be tsunamis, his trembling hands earthquakes.
"It's- embarrassing," Peter repeats, glancing at Tony out of the corner of his eye.
"I've been caught in every compromising situation known to man, oftentimes on film. There's nothing, and I mean nothing, kid, that you can say that will make me judge you."
Peter bites his lip, before giving one last defeated sigh. "It's- I was hanging out with MJ tonight. We were- kissing. And- stuff."
Tony's eyebrows arch to the moon, and he has to force his face back to careful indifference. "Okay?" He hedges, completely out of his element. He does not want to have to deliver an unscripted Birds-and-the-Bees talk tonight. No sirree. That's May Parker's job, and Tony is wholly and completely unqualified.
He'll still do it, obviously, but with great chagrin.
"Well, we didn't," Peter says. "Obviously. Because I- freaked out. Big time." The hands fumbling with the mask clench down tightly, and Peter's next sentence comes out raspy and broken. "I just flipped. And. Um. I, like, ran away."
Tony flounders for a minute. "Well, you don't ever gotta do something you don't wanna do, Pete-"
"I thought I wanted to," Peter whispers back, brokenly. "And then I just couldn't."
"You're still young," Tony implores quickly. "Tonight wasn't the night, college is preferable anyway-"
He feels a little false championing fucking abstinence to the kid, when he started tumbling into beds at the ripe age of thirteen, but he wants better for Peter. He wants the kid to be loved and cherished and most importantly, safe, in all things. Even- this. Especially- this.
He's swimming in parental apprehension when Peter speaks again, voice nearly mute. His face flicks up to Tony's with a kind of raw pain that the man can recall seeing only a handful of times before. Each time is like an imprint in Tony's head, a cataclysmic world event. He feels his chest tighten at it.
"I'm all messed up, Mister Stark."
"Messed up? Christ, you're not, sometimes things just don't work out, hormones and shit-" Tony cringes. He. Is. Shit. At. This.
"You don't understand." Peter's face drops away again, down to the abysm of a fall beneath them. And Peter might be stronger then spider's silk, he might be the most capable person Tony knows, but the sight of it sends Tony's heart galloping.
"Then make me understand," he pleads.
Peter pulls in a harsh breath, his next words skewed with such blatant self-anger that Tony shirks back. "It's me! I'm messed up! I can't even- be with MJ right, because- because of-"
"Because of?" Tony prods gently, even as horrible understanding starts to rear up, settling over his bones like another layer of skin.
"Because of him."
The words are faint, nearly inaudible, but Tony catches them nonetheless. He knows him. He knows that monster that Peter is speaking of, the one he only ever speaks of in hushed whispers, the one that haunted Peter's early childhood years like a goddamn ghoul, the one that Tony personally assured was locked into the deepest hell pit of a prison that the United States could offer.
The one that has Peter hanging out on the edge of a building.
Yes, Tony knows him.
More importantly though, he knows Peter.
Perfect, amazing Peter who would give the shirt off his back to help anyone who needed it. Peter, who fights crime in his spare time and still manages to show up to AcaDec meetings so he doesn't disapoint his team. Peter who would never, ever, let Tony fall to his death off the side of a building.
"That's bullshit," he says, ineloquently.
Peter swallows. "It's not."
"It is," Tony insists. "Christ, you're a person, Pete. People are allowed to have off-nights-"
"This is- it's so stupid, like, this shouldn't even affect me-"
"Why not?" Tony retorts. "Why shouldn't it? What makes you immune to the human experience?"
Peter sighs. "I should be better."
Tony closes his eyes. "You're already the best, kid."
"No."
"Yes."
"No-"
"Yes. And I'm the adult so I'm automatically right-"
Peter snorts, shaking his head. It's not quite a laugh but it's still a million times better then the kid's heartbreaking sniffling and self-deprecation.
"You're literally my favorite kid," Tony continues, staring intently at the kid's side profile in the moonlight. He counts the illuminated freckles like stars, an entire galaxy written on the kid's face. He's priceless, priceless, and Tony wishes that the kid could see it himself. "And I don't even like kids, so that's a high honor. It would be physically impossible for me to like you if you weren't the best kid in the world."
Peter angles his top half Tony's direction, staring up with hopeful, rapt attention. Tony suddenly feels like he's playing the most important game of Jeopardy that's ever existed. And he may be wholly and completely unqualified for this, but Peter trusts him despite it and that means everything.
"What happened- then," he continues carefully, watching as Peter tenses. They don't talk about it much, only around it, and usually that's enough. It's not a problem, Peter assures, it's not something that affects his daily life anymore.
Until it does. And Peter starts hanging out on rooftops while crying.
"It doesn't change that. It doesn't subtract at all from the amazing person you are. Hell, I don't think anything ever could. It doesn't make you messed up."
Peter winces at his own words, parroted back.
"And if MJ is half as good as you say she is, then she'll know that, too."
Peter looks heartbreakingly hopeful. "You think so?"
Tony chuckles, even if it feels a little empty. "I know so. I'm always right."
Peter doesn't laugh at the lame joke, his gaze sliding back out to the skyline before them, a contemplative look on his face. Tony lets the silence reign for a moment, gathering his own tumultuous thoughts in it.
"I'm sorry," Peter finally says, still staring straight ahead. "For worrying you and making you come all the way out here.
"I was up anyway." The lie rolls smoothly off his tongue. He'd wake from a fucking coma if Peter needed him. "You're gonna have hell to pay with Auntie Hottie, though."
Peter nods. "I probably deserve it."
Tony's heart cinches at the tone, the melancholy waver in it, the severed lines of spider's silk. He sighs. "How about I put in a good word for you? See if she'll let you stay the night at the Tower?"
Peter looks at him. "I don't wanna bother you-"
"Nonsense," Tony argues immediately. His fingers crawl forward, across the cobblestone edge, until they're tangling with Peter's of their own accord. He fights the urge to physically yank the kid off the edge, trying to find contentment and safety in the simple touch. "It's literally impossible for you to bother me."
"Thanks," Peter whispers, squeezing Tony's fingers.
Tony wishes, not for the first time, that the him that haunts Peter's memories, the one they only ever speak of in hushed tones, was dead. He wishes he could kill the memory as well as the monster himself.
He can't though. He can't change what was, can't reattach the spider's silk web that fractured under the weight of Peter's suffering.
So he does the only thing he can think of, squeezing Peter's fingers back. The fall doesn't seem so far with Peter on his right. When he speaks again, his voice is soft.
"Anytime, kid."