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Peter was, for once, actually happy that he always got dropped off in the private garage, and that he could take the private (faster) elevator up to the penthouse. Usually, he preferred going in like a regular person, not liking how fancy it was. At the end of the day, he was just a regular guy, he didn’t really feel like he deserved all that privilege. Today, though, he felt like he would explode if he had to talk to anyone. He had an incredibly overstimulating day at school, and would really enjoy just laying down in his bed, covering his head with a blanket. He’s also pretty pissed off that he lived on the 92nd floor of a building. He was usually not that claustrophobic, but it was so much worse when he was this overstimulated.
When the elevator finally reached his floor, Friday had seemingly noticed his issue, deciding to not announce that he’d made it, simply just letting Peter walk out, carefully drop his bag, and make a beeline for his bedroom. Nobody else bothered him either, Tony probably being in the lab, and Pepper, who was reading on the couch, knew him well enough by now that she let him take some time in his room.
Peter crashed onto his bed, kicking off his shoes, before hiding under his blankets, with the intention of blocking out any light that made it past his blinds, or any sounds that made it past the soundproof walls. His enhanced senses meant that even with the best soundproofing there was, he would still manage to hear small sounds coming from all around.
He starts feeling better after a while, no longer feeling like every small sound was a knife digging into his skull, or like every small bit of light would blind him. He uncurled from the blanket, and changed out of his school clothes, into his favourite pair of sweatpants and his comfort hoodie, he’s honestly kind of surprised he didn’t do that earlier, and grabs his headphones off his desk. He puts them on, and thinks for a second about what he’d do next.
“Friday, where’s d- Mr. Stark?” He decides to ask, thinking that if he’s in the lab, he could join him for the afternoon. “Boss is in the lab, Peter, however, Pepper instructed me to tell you to eat something once you got up.” A somewhat robotic voice answered from the ceiling. Peter pouted, knowing that Friday would absolutely tell Pepper if he went to the lab anyway, and then he would so not be allowed back in there for at least a week. He sighed, walking to the kitchen to see what kind of food they still had in the fridge. Peter looks in the fridge, seeing nothing that he likes except for a large bag of lettuce. He could order food, he’s sure nobody would mind, but he really doesn’t want to bother having to wait for it. He grabs the bag of lettuce, and turns around, only to bump into The one and only Captain America. That was the one downside of wearing his headphones, people could actually sneak up on him, even when he didn’t have the noise cancelling on. “Hi Mr. Steve Rogers Captain America sir.” Peter stumbled, still slightly too out of it to mask properly. Steve just chuckled, “just Steve, kid.” he looked at what peter was holding, “Whacha doing with that lettuce? I didn’t know you could cook?” Peter laughed sheepishly, “I can’t- Pepper said I should eat something before going to the lab so, lettuce.” Steve smiled “You know you could just order food right? I’m sure Tony won’t mind?” Peter just scowled at him, and left the kitchen to go eat his lettuce in peace.
He would’ve gone down to the lab, but Tony still had a strict ‘no food in the lab’ rule, and while Peter’s relatively sure he would make an exception if he asked nicely, he really didn’t wanna bother. So instead, he ends up on the couch next to Pepper. She reaches over and carefully ruffles his hair, not touching him too much, or too long. “So, how was school?” Peter just sighs, and answers, in typical teenager fashion, “it was fine.” Pepper smiles, knowing she wasn’t really gonna get more out of him today. “Well, I’m glad you’re eating something at least.” Peter smiles, as much as he gets annoyed with her for not letting him go down to the lab, he knows she does it because she cares about him.
They sit there in silence for a while, Peter munching on his lettuce. After a few minutes Cap came in, having some snack from one of the cupboards Peter forgot about. He sighed, slightly annoyed, but quite enjoying his lettuce, actually. Steve chuckled at the sight of Peter shoving lettuce into his mouth while staring at him. He’s pretty sure Peter doesn’t even know that he’s doing it. He can’t help but smile fondly.
Peter’s not sure why Steve is laughing at him- but he’s pretty sure he doesn’t have any malicious intent, so he lets it go, focusing on finishing his lettuce so he can go work in the lab.
He has no idea how long it actually takes him to finish his lettuce -he doesn’t really care- he’s just happy he can go down to the lab, waving to Pepper and Steve, who have started a casual conversation, on his way to the elevator.
He had Friday take him down to Tony's lab, which could probably be considered their shared lab at this point. Peter walked up to the door, and was entirely unsurprised when Tony instantly turned off the music, (well, it was probably friday’s doing, but he had to give her permission for that) Friday had probably told Tony that he was overstimulated, so Tony made sure to not be too loud. “Hey kid, how was school?” Tony smiled, looking up from where he was working on an iron man suit on the other side of the room. Peter just waved, ignoring his question, and walked over to his desk.
The lab was a large room, taking up almost an entire floor, the only other stuff on the floor being some storage space, and a small bathroom. The lab was split into three parts, one part being mostly empty, for whenever they worked on something that took up a lot of space, or something that was likely to explode. They also used it as a testing space from time to time, although the more destructive tests were usually done in one of the actual test rooms next to the downstairs lab. The other two parts were fairly similar, both having several desks covered in various kinds of clutter, but they were both used for different purposes. The part closest to the entrance was mostly used for various different SI projects, and other projects that while still being confidential, wouldn’t be too bad if someone were to walk in and see. The area at the back of the room, though, was almost exclusively used for Avengers stuff, and a couple of other projects that were highly confidential, some to the point where only Tony and Peter would be allowed to see them. This area also had the ability to be closed off entirely, either by curtains in an emergency, or by retractable walls if they had more time. They only very rarely had to use either of them, barely anyone other than Tony or Peter ever went into their lab, knowing how protective both of them got over it. The few times someone did come into the lab, it was either an avenger who had come to pick up some new or improved gear, so the avenger’s stuff wasn’t off limits to them, or someone that only hung out by the entrance and didn’t actually get to see anything.
The lab also had the ability to lock the doors, and cover all of the windows, by simply giving a single command to Friday. There were also several couches in various places around the room, for whenever one of them forgot to sleep for several days, and passed out at their desk. (it happened more often than you’d expect from two geniuses)
Right now, Peter was just gonna be working on some relatively small SI projects, and some other personal projects, but none of them were confidential, so he worked at his desk closer to the entrance. Peter had two of his own desks, one close to the entrance, for whenever Tony gave him some SI projects to work on, or he wanted to work on some other project, serious or not, that wasn’t Avengers related. His other desk was at the very back of the room- or well, it was 4 desks pushed together because he very quickly ran out of space when he had just one, His desk was currently covered in a spider-man suit he was upgrading, as well as several containers of web fluid with different formulas, and just a bunch of other random junk, mostly spider-man related, but also some stuff for other avengers that he was working on personally.
Tony also had some of his own desks- well, technically he owned all of them, but he had a couple that he worked on specifically, but Peter was still invited over to work on something there pretty regularly. Tony also had a desk that was just entirely covered in paperwork. Peter wasn’t sure if the pile had ever been touched in the two years that he’d worked there. He thinks Pepper might replace the pile when it’s been there for too long, but he really has no idea. He doesn’t want to risk asking Tony either, just in case he decides to make Peter deal with them.
The point is- Peter and Tony shared almost all of the lab- realistically, even the parts that were either Peter’s or Tony’s were used by the other, with permission.
Several hours passed without Peter noticing, finishing at least 4 SI projects, helping out a couple of Interns over text, and testing some stuff for a personal project of his. Peter is just debating asking Tony for help with a small part that he was getting confused by, when he got jumpscared by Friday telling both of them it was way past time to get dinner, and Pepper was starting to get pretty annoyed at them.
Peter took a few seconds to recover, not expecting to be pulled out of his thoughts so suddenly. He looks over to where Tony was working, only to notice that he’d moved to a desk way closer to him. Peter isn’t really surprised- he tends to get so hyperfocused on his work that he doesn’t notice anything going on around him. He knows Tony is very similar- so he isn’t entirely surprised that he still seems to be working, not having noticed friday.
Peter walks over to his desk, and taps him on the shoulder after watching him work for a couple seconds “Mr. Stark, Friday called for dinner- I think if we take much longer Pepper’s gonna ban both of us from the lab.” Peter had already checked his phone for the time- it was almost 10pm. Tony startles, dropping what he was working on, luckily not breaking anything, “Jesus kid, give me some warning next time” Peter sighed. “Friday literally just did that, at full volume and everything. It’s not my fault you were so absorbed in your work.” Tony looked surprised, but chuckled after a second “wow, it has been a while since i’ve gotten that obsessed-” he reached over to ruffle peter’s hair “alright kid, let’s go get some dinner before Pepper grounds us. Thai?” Peter smiled, and nodded, knowing that Friday would instantly order their regular, and it would probably be delivered by the time they finished cleaning up.
Peter and Tony walked over to the elevator, chatting about the projects that they worked on that day, which pretty quickly devolved into both of them info dumping on each other. Neither of them minded, though, they enjoyed listening to each other talk. By the time they got to the penthouse, they were both talking too fast for anyone else to understand. They walked into the living room, where Pepper and May were watching some tv show, neither of them bothering to try to understand whatever they were talking about.
The two of them were so engrossed in their conversation that they almost just kept walking into the hallway instead of stopping at the kitchen where their food was waiting. Pepper had to yell out to the two of them for them to notice, before shaking her head and muttering something about geniuses and forgetting to take care of themselves. Peter chuckled slightly at that, getting a confused look from Tony, who hadn’t heard a thing. “Don’t worry about it Mr. Stark- just funny thoughts” Tony sighed, having long since given up on getting Peter to call him Tony. They continued their chatter, although they did slow down a bit while eating- mostly just to actually take a bite. Peter always found it funny that he ate over twice as much as Tony did. But y'know- enhanced metabolism and all that.
Peter spent almost all of his weekend in the lab, he usually did, but this time, he also barely slept- he didn’t want to take away from his time in the lab by doing his homework- so he did that at night. He also spends a decent amount of his night working on a new fidget he’s making- He’s wanted a very specific thing for a long time, and he only recently remembered that he can totally be the one to make that.
Now, Peter was pretty used to being sleep deprived- he usually did his spiderman activities- and he handles it really well. Even when he only got about 4 hours of sleep over an entire weekend. And he was handling it well- until he passed out on his desk on sunday. Peter’s only 16- which means people tend to go all ‘parent mode’ on him whenever he does something dumb. He tried very hard to never pass out in the lab- he knows that will absolutely get him banned from the lab for several days. So, Tony’s pretty surprised when he hears a bang coming from the desk next to him, and looks over to find a passed out Peter.
Tony can’t help but smile fondly at the sight of the teen peacefully napping on his desk. After a few seconds, he sighs softly, walking over to the teen, carefully removing the tools and bits of metal he’s still clutching in his hands. Peter groans softly at the disturbance in his sleep, Tony freezing for a second, worried that he woke Peter up, but Peter just shifts slightly in his sleep, and Tony continues to pull on the screwdriver Peter has clutched in his left hand, successfully removing it without waking him up. Tony thinks about what to do for a second, not sure if he should move him to the couch in the lab, or up to the living room. He decides that the kid probably hasn’t been sleeping properly- so they should take the rest of the day off, and just have a movie night. Besides, he’d checked the time, and it was pretty close to dinner, so they’d be going up pretty soon anyway.
Tony carefully picked Peter up, one arm under his knees, and one supporting his shoulders and neck. He walks over to the lab doors, very glad that his building was controlled by an AI so he wouldn’t have to figure out how to open the door while holding a child. He couldn’t help but quietly thank Friday as she closed the doors behind them, and opened the elevator doors.
When they got to the living room, Tony was glad that there was no one else there, he really didn’t feel like having to deal with any more dad comments from his friends. He smiled slightly at the thought- they weren’t fully wrong- but he decided to ignore that and put Peter down on the couch, covering him in a blanket. He could’ve put him in his bed, of course, but he wasn’t about to let the kid go to bed without eating something first. He’s tempted to wake Peter up to ask what he wanted for dinner- but decided against it, remembering how he’d mentioned he was craving pizza earlier. He quietly told Friday to order them pizza, trusting her to turn her volume down without him asking. He texted Pepper to let her know their dinner plans, knowing that she was in a meeting, not wanting her to bother asking him about dinner later. Tony sat on the couch next to Peter, letting him rest his head on his lap. Tony waited for their pizzas to arrive, softly stroking the teen’s hair.
Eventually, a drone carrying their pizza boxes flew into the room from the shaft next to the elevator made especially for this purpose. Tony took their pizzas and thanked the drone, sending it back downstairs. He put the pizzas on the coffee table, crouching down next to Peter, softly shaking his shoulder to wake him up. “Hey kid, wake up, it’s dinner time” Tony said softly.
Peter blinked open his eyes, confused for a second, then seeing Tony sitting before him, and remembering what happened. Tony smiled, “good morning kid.” Peter sighed, “I’m so grounded, aren’t I?” Tony chuckled at that, “Yeah- falling asleep in the lab is still a safety hazard, as adorable as you are when you’re asleep, I can’t risk you injuring yourself.” Peter frowned at being called adorable, before noticing the pizzas on the table, all anger instantly vanishing. “You got pizza! Hell yeah!” Peter cheered, sitting up, a lot less tired after his relatively short nap. They ended up watching several star wars movies after finishing their pizzas, Peter falling asleep halfway through the third one. Tony continued stroking his hair like before.
When Pepper finally got done with her work, at around midnight, she walked into the living room to find Peter and Tony asleep on the couch, Peter covered by a blanket, his head in Tony’s lap, and Tony with his hand in peter’s hair, quietly snoring in what looks like a very uncomfortable position. Star Wars is still playing on the tv. Pepper smiles, asking Friday to please take a picture, and send it to her, before turning off the tv. She would have left both of them sleeping there, but she knew that they would be incredibly sore the next morning if they slept there all night. She carefully woke up Tony, letting him carry Peter to his bedroom, before joining her in theirs.