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“I know what you’re doing, Mr. Stark.”
“Yeah, well, why don’t you have a good long think about it then and leave me alone.”
“Mr. Stark,” Peter whined, dragging out the name as he followed him into the elevator.
“My ears are going to start bleeding if you do that again. Go make LEGOs or do whatever it is you nerdy kids do when you’re bored and leave me alone. I have to go to this meeting.”
“First of all, rude. Second of all, what is this meeting?!” Peter glared at his mentor as he ignored him, pressing the button for the 90th floor. “Aha! It’s on the 90th floor! That’s where all the superhero business gets done.” Peter narrowed his eyes, examining Tony carefully. “Wait. Is this about the Avengers? Are you having a meeting with the Avengers?!” Peter’s voice was reaching dangerously high pitches again.
“Do you have nowhere better to be, Parker?”
“No! I mean, yes! I mean, are you meeting with the Avengers?”
“You’re in this tower all the time. So are they. Why are you freaking out about this?”
“Wait, so you are ?!”
“Yes, underoos. I’m having a meeting with the Avengers. It’s about our next mission. It will probably last for about 30 minutes. You can’t come.” Mr. Stark finally turned to look at Peter as the elevator reached the 70th floor.
Peter stared at him, his mouth gaping open. “You are actually the worst , Mr. Stark.”
Mr. Stark scoffed. “Am not. I literally just spent 2 hours in the lab with you. Can you not spend 30 minutes without me?”
“Oh, I can spend plenty of time without you. But meeting the Avengers?! I would sell several of my body parts to do that.”
“Wow. I bet Captain America is your favorite, isn’t he?”
“Absolutely not, Iron Man is my favorite. Thor is a close second, though.”
Mr. Stark just stared at Peter for a few minutes, for once appearing caught off guard. “I mean, uh, yeah, of course he’s your favorite. He’s the best. Oh, look, we’re here.” The elevator dinged and the doors slid open. “See ya, kid. Go to the lab and build an automatic banana peeler or something. Don’t you dare eavesdrop on the meeting either—I’ll have F.R.I.D.A.Y tell me if you do.” And with that, Mr. Stark stepped out of the elevator, leaving a flustered-looking Peter standing alone inside it.
“Wait, no, Mr. Stark! Why can’t I come? I won’t say anything! I’ll be the best, most boring, most quiet teenager ever! Please—”
The doors slid shut, and Tony sighed, a fond smile appearing on his face. This kid was gonna be the death of him.
~ ~ ~ ~
“Alright, Sam, anything to report?”
“Nah.”
Rhodey let out a long suffering sigh. “I swear, all of you are worse than Clint.”
“Hey, I turned in my report this time!” Clint objected, looking up from the Flappy Bird game he was playing on his phone.
“It was 3 sentences long.”
“Still a report.”
“See what I’m comparing you all too?! You’re better than this. Please. Ten sentences is all I’m asking. Just say what you did, what you got, and that you’re alive.” Rhodey dropped his file on the table.
“Alright, honey bear, we hear you,” Tony said, leaning back in his chair. “C’mon, people, do your paperwork or whatever.”
Rhodey glared at him. “You’re doing a horrible job of backing me up here.”
“Yeah, Tony, that was pretty bad. There’s a reason I’m the team leader instead of you,” Steve commented from the other side of the table, a devious little grin on his face.
“Wow. I’m going to need your shield back now. And all of the skittles I gave. Also, I won’t prank Clint with you now.”
Steve’s jaw dropped open. Bucky let out an amused snort.
“What?! But—but—but—”
“That’s what I thought. Alright, are we done here? Natasha, any news from shield?”
The red head shrugged, not looking up from her phone. “I wouldn’t know. Ask Rhodey.”
“No, don’t ask Rhodey. I’m done with this. Just know that if I don’t have a report from every one of you by the end of this week I will sic Pepper on you.” And with that, Rhodey stalked out of the room.
Before anyone could respond, though, F.R.I.D.A.Y’s voice echoed through the room. “Boss, The Kid has set off your Don’t Tell Pepper protocol in the lab.”
Tony froze as the rest of the Avengers heads snapped up, everyone’s attention suddenly completely focused on F.R.I.D.A.Y.
“F.R.I.D.A.Y, who’s the kid?” Clint demanded, his Flappy Bird falling to its death.
“Boss is the only one who can inform you of The Kid’s identity.”
“Great, thanks for that, F.R.I.D.A.Y,” Tony muttered under his breath, standing up from his seat. “Well, I have to go. Science stuff. Billionaire stuff. You don’t know how it is because none of you are as smart or as rich as I am. So, see you all tonight, bye—”
“Tony. Who’s the kid?” Steve interrupted him, standing up as well, looking more curious than Tony had ever seen him. Not even when Wanda had first shown him a meme.
“My intern,” he replied shortly.
“No, who is he really,” Natasha said, standing up as well, her arms crossed.
“My intern . Can I go now?”
“We’re coming with you,” Wanda declared, pushing her chair back from the table.
“Yeah, definitely. I want to meet this intern of yours.” Sam grinned.
Tony paused for a moment, trying to decide whether or not to fight this or just let it happen. I mean, Peter had said he wanted to meet them.
He was still going to hate him if he did this.
And that was all it took to cinch the deal.
“Sure. Let’s all take a field trip to Tony’s lab to watch his intern. Why not.”
“Wonderful! This should be fun,” Thor declared, standing up.
Of course Thor wanted to come too. The kid was gonna lose his mind.
A few seconds later Tony, Thor, Natasha, Clint, Bruce, Sam, Wanda, and Vision were all packed into the elevator, heading up to the 92nd floor. Tony had made Steve and Bucky take the stairs, and now was really hoping they didn’t get there before he did. He wanted to give Peter at least a bit of a warning before he had ten Avengers descend on him.
Thankfully, when the doors opened, there was no one outside. Well, no one but Peter.
In his current state, though, Peter was more than enough of a view.
He was sprawled out on his back in the middle of the lab, completely encased in a cocoon of his webs. There was even a spattering of web on his face.
Which was why he currently had no idea all of the Avengers were currently staring at him, open mouthed.
“Mr. Stark? Is that you?” Peter called, his voice muffled by the sticky white substance covering his mouth.”
“Yeah, kid, but—”
“Oh, thank goodness. I was trying to make a sort of web bomb thing, but I was gonna make it a stink bomb too, and so then I was tweaking the formula or whatever, and I may have accidentally put a bit too much of something in the tube, and it exploded all over me, which is sort of bad I guess, and now my arms are stuck and my legs are stuck and basically my whole body is stuck, plus I can’t really see, but it was a really cool explosion, so I think we could probably make a different kind of web bomb with this formula, and, um, yeah, that’s all the explanation I have. Oh, also, I was wondering—”
“Kid. Just. Stop talking.” Tony let out a long suffering sigh and reached up, taking his red tinted glasses off his face. “So. All of the Avengers are behind me.”
The webbed up body on the floor freezes.
There’s a long, torturous silence.
“Mr. Stark,” Peter’s voice is hoarse, absolute horror drenching every syllable he speaks.
“Yep. Thor looks really confused right now.”
“ Mr. Stark .”
Tony groaned and walked over to his disgraced intern. “Okay, where’s the web dissolving thingamabob?”
“Don’t get it. I’m going to stay like this forever. My shame is endless. I will never move again.”
“F.R.I.D.A.Y?”
“In The Kid’s second drawer at his desk.”
“Wonderful.”
Tony walked over and jerked the drawer open, purposely refusing to look back at the Avengers. Better to not know.
“No, Mr. Stark! I can’t face them now! I’m a disgrace. I’m an embarrassment.” Peter wailed as Tony began to dissolve the webs.
“Too bad. They wanted to meet you. I wanted to embarrass you. Here we are. Turns out I didn’t need to do anything—you do enough weird stuff on your own.”
“You are a horrible person. I hate you. This is bullying.”
“And you have the nerve to say you aren’t dramatic.”
“I’m not ! I’m just passionate.”
And with that, the last of the webs were dissolved, and Peter sat up, his face still bright red. Tony finally turns to see what the Avengers were doing this whole time.
Steve and Bucky had arrived at some point and were just looking very confused. Clint looked ecstatic. Bruce, Wanda, and Vision all looked fairly curious. Sam and Thor looked like they were trying not to laugh.
Natasha just looked like Natasha.
“Alright, so, this is my intern and local disaster, Peter Parker.”
“I’m never playing MarioKart with you again,” Peter muttered, his face somehow flushing even redder.