Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Tony Stark was many things. A father is not one of them. 

At least that’s what he tells himself. The hospital that called him says the kid is his. Confirmed with a dna test and everything. The mother died in childbirth, and there's the sad thing. The mother had a living relative. Keyword: had. They died a month before the child was born, now Tony is the only living relative for the child. He thought about putting the child up for adoption, but his best friend Rhodey shut that down quickly. If he was anything like his father, he would be a genius. The woman was also under the same category, he didn’t know that at the time though. She apparently was a leading researcher in cancer research. Not anymore, cause she’s dead now.

Something he feels awful for on top of everything. She never told him about the child, even after he wanted to ‘catch up’ as he called it. She never did accept that however, now he knows why. She was carrying his kid, and didn’t want to freak him out. Good that did right? He’s freaking out right now. He decided he would take this child, and no one will know about him save for very few people. People he actually trusts. At the hospital he had the staff sign NDAs, no one was to mention anything about this unless he makes a public statement in the future and even then they probably won’t anyway. He doubts he’ll make any public statement though. He also named Rhodey the kid’s godfather. Rhodey’s Mom also came with, she naturally filled the roll of God.. grandmother? It’d be easier to call her the grandmother in all honesty. And Rhodey just.. Uncle? Happy also came with, being his personal body guard. He wasn’t known for liking kids, but he’d have to make an exception. 

They were surprised when he told them Stane can’t know about the child. Who he still has yet to come up with a name for. They understood that Stane is a bit much and likely would rather have Tony give the kid up. Kids are distractions and Stane can’t have Tony distracted. Stane was already upset he was locked out of the workshop at the Malibu home and any workshop Tony worked at. Stane can deal with it. The kid was small, he also had heterochromia. Like his mother, something he actually remembered about her, and why he wanted to ‘catch up’. Her eyes were beautiful, and he has inherited that. The left was green, while the right was blue. 

He settled on a name, Peter Anthony Stark. His mother’s name was Mary, he had to honor the woman somehow and this is how. Maybe if he decides the public is worthy of knowing of his existence, he would make a foundation as well. The obvious choice would be to help her life’s work. Cancer research. He’d come up with stuff later. Rhodey liked it, but also knew he had picked that order so it would be PAS. He didn’t deny it, he knew he’d get bullied about it if someone found out. Then those bullies will get a stern talking to by his uncle, and Rhodey rolled his eyes. He still had a smile on his face.

They took him back to Malibu. One of the guest rooms that were never used would be converted into his room. He was glad it was sort of out of the way, not near the master bedroom, but still close by. JARVIS ordered new furnishings for a nursery, it would arrive in a few hours. While the kid was asleep, also hooked a security panel onto the door. Normally, it wouldn’t be necessary. All the bedrooms could be locked down and this would help with that. He opted also to make it so only Tony, Rhodey or Happy could enter the room. Biometric locks and codes, along with overrides in case of emergencies. JARVIS also was updated to give any alert on the baby. Rhodey demanded it be called the Baby Monitor Protocol . Tony agreed , albeit reluctantly. He also had Peter in the system as Underoos . Flagged as a higher priority than himself, and the doors would only open if the threat was neutralized (killed) and with at least 2 clearance codes from the 3. It’d help if there was a 4th option, but for now it’d have to do. A few days later the room was a high tech nursery. Luckily Happy was convinced to stay at the house for the first few years. Till he was at least old enough to talk, and could ask JARVIS for stuff instead. School was another issue. He wanted this kid to have a normal life. Perhaps a fake name? Peter Anthony Parker would be his cover. Any teachers would sign NDAs and what not. He likely wouldn’t go to the school, and just have Happy pick him up instead.

Either way, Tony would burn the world for this kid. He knew it now. He refused to be like his own father. Distant, cold, unloving. No. He would tell this kid he loved him everyday for the rest of his life. He started this tradition after the nursery was complete. JARVIS would remind him as well, in case he forgot. Something he hoped he would never do. Maybe that should indicate to him he is a father. He’d drop the playboy title now, but wouldn’t squash anything indicating he did. 

The first few years were fine. Peter was 4 now, and would start school soon. He couldn’t think about that right now. Tony was more impressed that this receptionist informed him that he’d make a mistake.

“What do you mean?” He questioned her, holding his hand out to stop Happy from dragging her away.

“In this statement, you added a few extra zeros. Would've cost the company thousands.” She explained. She said it with fire, with confidence. He liked that.

“I see, Well thank you Pepper.” 

“It’s Virginia.” She started walking away.

“Wait.” He demanded, she stopped and turned around. “Where do you work?”

“I’m just a receptionist.” She said curiously 

“Yeah. Not anymore.” He stated

“What? Are you firin-”

“Nope. You’re my new personal assistant.” He interrupted her

“No.” She said, exasperated.

“No?”

“No! Everyone- Everyone knows you sleep with every PA.”

“No I don’t.” He shrugged.  “They just say that after quitting. They hardly stick around for a week before quitting. No one has the guts to come in here and say I made a mistake.” He pointed at her “You did, I need you. I don’t care what anyone says. You ignore them, it’s not their business.” 

“I’ll… Think about it.” 

“You can make me get things done. Expect an email.” He shrugged and sat back down. She left after that. Happy was upset. Then he explained why he needed her. “She would’ve had this in her hands for a few seconds. Tops. I noticed the error and decided to inform me. She said it would cost the company thousands. But looking at it again, it's more like millions. We’d have to let people go. Families would lose a good source of income. It’d be a domino effect. I might get kicked off the board for such a mistake, and lose my rights as CEO.” He explained. “She saved the company, possibly hundreds of families and me. Tell me you aren’t a little impressed?” 

Happy sighed, “Okay yeah, I’m impressed. Still, are you sure about her being your PA?”

“I need her. She saw an error, and opted to go directly to the source. She could’ve gone to her boss, she chose a direct approach.” He looked impressed, and maybe Happy was a little too. Tony started sending forms for her to sign the next day. He constantly bugged her for about a month straight before she finally agreed. She got into the job easily, making him do stuff he normally wouldn’t do. Like going to meetings. He wasn’t always on time, but he at least started to show up now. He informed her that it was a win. She said it would be if he got there on time. Like she set a goal or something. A thing to strive for, get Tony to a meeting on time. Seems like a big ask, but eventually it might happen. 

Tony Stark is many things, a father now appears to be one of them. His son will start school soon, and he is terrified. Terrified that if the world knew of him, they would hurt him. Or use him to hurt Tony. He settled on a cover name, Peter Anthony Parker. Happy, Rhodey and himself are listed as emergency contacts. The school can’t say anything. Agreeing to sign NDAs, a whole process he didn’t want to do. He did it anyway, for his son is everything to him. Weird right? 

Unfortunately for him, he didn’t realise it at the time, but he was slowly pushing his own son out of his life. He didn’t notice, no one really did. He still cared, sure, but it wasn’t the same. He spiraled. Reminders of his father, what he was told. How he acted, how he perceived himself shifted. He never noticed. Something he’ll regret later. Rhodey was busy on missions, Happy couldn’t stay around much. Tony? He was losing focus, Obediah was trying to get him back to work. He didn’t know how long it’d last. 

Years later, Peter is 7 years old. His dad is THE Tony Stark. A very busy man. Peter knows that of course. His “friends” don’t know about Tony Stark. Why would they? He is a multibillionaire that makes weapons for a living. The only mentions of him are of his grandfather, Howard Stark who only comes up in his history class. (Boring!) It is his worst subject after all. Why bother with the past? Even then, it's very briefly brought up. Kids learning about WWII is probably not a good thing in 2nd grade after all. Either way, Peter is bored. School is boring. Life is also boring. His dad doesn’t show up often anymore. Only Uncle Happy. Happy is a very unhappy man. Which he guesses the name is chosen by his dad for irony’s sake and nothing more. Uncle Rhodey comes by sometimes too. He is cooler than Happy, as he tends to take him for ice cream or donuts. Rhodey makes him try a new flavor every time they get ice cream, in hopes he will abandon his favorite, mint chocolate chip. Everytime they get donuts, he always asks if they have made a mint chocolate chip yet. The answer is always no, because people are cowards. 

He doesn’t call people cowards of course, that would be rude. He does say it to his Uncle Rhodey every time though. Who always laughs and agrees. He suspects he doesn’t actually agree, but loves the joke instead. Maybe when he is older he will open his own donut shop and make it himself. He tells Rhodey this, who laughs and says he’d make his dad proud and his grandfather pissed. That makes him giggle, because everything he’s heard about his granddad makes him upset. He’s glad he’s never met him. He may be smart, but going to MIT at 14? Not something he wants to do. He likes going through every grade, even if he knows everything already…. Expect english and history. But history is dumb, and English is.. Well he speaks it! Why must he learn about it? Whatever. Rhodey helped him learn Spanish (enough to understand it at least) and some Italian, he can understand some of it and make basic conversation. He was hoping to learn the rest from his dad, but he is busy so Rhodey helps him whenever he comes over.

Speaking of, Rhodey was supposed to pick him up today. Instead it was Uncle Happy. “Wheres Uncle Rhodey?” He asked with a frown on his face. “I wanted ice cream today. He said he’d make me try pistachio.”

He got a raised eyebrow from the rearview mirror. “Rhodey had some sh- stuff to do with your dad today. He was waiting at the airport for nearly 2 hours.”

“When will he learn to get the schedule from Auntie Pep? He gives him the wrong time all the time!” He giggled.

“Does he really?” 

“Yeah, but you can’t tell him!” He laughed. “Its supposed to be funny. That’s what dad says anyway.”

“Alright. I get it. Anyway we can get Ice cream real quick. Then I’ll get your dad and we’ll come home.” Happy gave a smirk in the rearview mirror, then changed course toward the ice cream shop on the way home. Peter frowns when he spots the Mansion. He remembers seeing a lady talking to Auntie Pep. 

“You must be the famous Pepper Potts.” 

“Indeed I am.” She smiled.

 “After all these years Tony still has you pick up dry cleaning.”

“I do anything and everything that Mr. Stark requires, including occasionally taking out the trash. Will that be all?” She gave her signature fake smile. The one given to every lady like this along with angry execs and military personnel (never rhodey though) He remembers laughing when that lady got in the car.

“That is the best one yet, Auntie Pepper!” He informed her. 

“It was, wasn't it?” She smiled. “Come on, your dad was waiting to say bye before he left.”

“Okay!”

When they got home, he had finished his cone and left to find his dad. He assumed he’d be in his workshop, but he saw Pepper on the couch, her eyes were red. Her face is puffy. Not a good sign.

“Auntie Pep? What’s wrong?”

She was startled, but still spoke up. “Your uh, your dad is missing. He was taken today in Afghanistan.” She was still crying a bit. Peter didn’t know what to do. How to react, he simply shut down. He doesn’t even remember Pepper calling for him before he hit the floor.

Chapter Text

Dad was missing for almost 3 months now. Uncle Happy had moved me to his house, as Stane was constantly visiting Auntie Pepper. He never liked “Uncle” Stane all that much. He just had felt off. He could never place why. He also suspects that he is why Dad was getting distant lately. Being forced to work and what not. He frowned at that thought. He thought  that no one could get dad to do anything he didn’t want to do, so why did he let Uncle Stane do that. Sure he wasn’t allowed out of his room while he was, but he could hear him when he asked JARVIS to know what they were talking about.

He was in school right now, his teacher going over some multiplication. He was bored of that. He had just done an introduction into calculus with his dad before he got kidnapped. His teachers are upset that he wasn’t paying attention, but they understand. They know he isn’t Peter Parker, which he loves and hates. Parker was the last name of his mom. He didn’t know much about her, Dad didn’t let him know much about her. He knew she had a brother, but that was when he asked JARVIS about her. Apparently dad had no clue about that. Maybe he could convince J to contact them? He doubts Uncle Happy would be okay with that.

Speaking of, Happy was picking him up today. And school is almost over, so hopefully they can get some ice cream or something. Maybe burgers? He thought about asking for some on the way home. On his way toward parent pick up, he saw the car. He was surprised when he saw Pepper standing there. He ran up to her and gave her a hug. “Auntie Pepper!” He said excitedly. “You never pick me up! Unless daddy is in trouble!” He frowned. “Is he-?”

“He’s fine, promise. Come on.” She smiled. She helped him up (damn his short legs) and got in the passenger seat. “Alright let’s go.” She instructed Happy, who was driving. He nodded and started driving off. He was brought to a military base, they parked for a moment and this huge plane came down, skidding to a stop along the runway. Happy drove up closer to it, parked again and started getting out. “You.” Pepper got his attention. “Stay here.” she instructed. I nodded and she got out.

The ramp lowered, dad was in a wheelchair, Uncle Rhodey had helped him up and walked him down. After he got in the car, he sat in the back, and hugged him tight. “I thought about you everyday, bambino. You kept me going, had to get back to you.” he told me, he kissed the top of my head.

“Where to sir?”

“The hospital please, Happy.” Pepper instructed.

“No.” Dad said quickly.

“No?” Pepper turned around to stare at him. “Tony you have to. The doctor has to look at you.”

“I don’t have to do anything. I’ve been in captivity for three months. There are three things I want to do. I want an American cheeseburger, to give bambino here like a million hugs-”

“Daaad!” I groaned, embarrassed.

“-and the other-”

“That’s enough of that.” Pepper shook her head.

“-Is not what you think. I want you to call for a press conference now.”

“Call for a press conference? What on Earth for?” 

“Hogan. Drive. Cheeseburger first.” He ignored her. I wonder if he is okay. The drive was boring. He didn’t answer any questions from either of them. Only when we stopped for cheeseburgers did he answer, with his order. He ate in silence as we continued toward the main office. I’ve never been here so it did look cool, at least. I saw Obadiah standing out there, waiting for dad most likely. “Of course he is here.” He grumbled to himself.

“Tony!” He said excitedly. As he gave a hug. “We were going to meet at the hospital.”

“No, I’m fine.” He waved them off. Pepper got out and walked over toward my side. She opened the door and I stepped out. She crouched down to get on my level.

“Stick close to me? Alright?” Her voice was soft, but her tone didn’t leave room for argument.

“Okay.” I nodded. She took my hand to hold onto. We followed Dad and Obadiah into the conference area. It was held in the lobby. She sighed as she watched them both weave through the crowd. I could tell it was of relief, at least.

“Ms Potts?” Someone asked from her side. 

“Yes?” She said looking over to him.

“Can I speak to you for a moment?” He looked suspicious. No idea how. 

“I’m not part of the press conference, but it’s about to begin right now.” 

“I’m not a reporter. I’m Agent Phil Coulson, with the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division.”

“That’s quite a mouthful.” I told him. “You should work on that.”

“I know. We’re working on it.” He smiled down at me.

“You know we’ve been approached already by the DOD, the FBI, the CIA-”

“We’re a separate division with a more specific focus. We need to debrief Mr. Stark about the circumstances of his escape.” He explained, handing her a card.

“I’ll put something in the book, shall I?” She smiled, one that was either annoyed or interested. I couldn't quite tell yet.

“Thank you.” He had a genuine smile. “Who’s this?”

“Oh! That’s-”

“I’m Peter, Mr. Coulson.” I explained happily. Sometimes it’s fun to mess with Auntie Pepper, dad is right.

“Peter, honey, we don’t go telling strangers our names.” She frowned. Mr. Coulson walked away after that.

“Sorry aunt Pepper.” I frowned. “Dad said it's fun to mess with you, only sometimes though. You didn’t hear it from me!”

“Of course, sweetie.” She shook her head.

“What did he get you?” I asked her, but she had started to sit, along with everyone else in the room. I looked over confused.

Uncle Rhodey walked over to join us. “What’s up with the love-in?” He asked curiously. 

“Don’t look at me. I don't know what he’s up to.” She explained.

Dad started talking. He mumbled something to Obadiah, then loudly to everyone else. “I never got to say goodbye to my father-” I looked up at him, and saw him looking at me. “There’s questions that I would have asked him. I would ask him how he felt about what this company did. If he was conflicted, if he ever had doubts. Or maybe he was every inch the man we all remember from the newsreels. I saw young Americans killed by the very weapons I created to defend them and protect them. And I saw that I had become part of a system that is comfortable with zero accountability.” There were some people in the front that raised their hands. He pointed at someone.

“What happened over there?” he asked.

“I had my eyes opened.” He said standing up. “I came to realize that I have more to offer this world than just making things that blow up. And that is why effective immediately, I am shutting down the weapons manufacturing division of Stark International until such a time as I can decide what the future of the company will be-” he was interrupted by everyone standing up and asking questions. He started walking through the crowd.

-30 minutes after the conference…

Dad went off somewhere, and Aunt Pepper drove me home. The house was the same as when I left it. I thought as we were walking inside. Aunt Pepper opened the door, ignoring her phone that was blowing up in her pockets. As we stepped inside, JARVIS greeted us. “ Good afternoon, Ms. Potts, Mr. Stark .” His voice rang out. I smiled, and looked up at the ceiling.

“Hi Uncle J!”

“Hello, Jarvis.”

“ The news of the shut down of the weapons division, has certainly made- ”

“Jarvis, I’d rather not right now.” Pepper sighed.

“ Of course, Ms. Potts. ” 

“Come on!” I said, dragging her toward the couch. 

“What?” 

“We’re gonna watch something. Duh.” I explained, as we sat down. “Dad said he hates watching them. Uncle J?”

“ Bringing up a nature documentary playlist. Shall we begin where you left off? ”

“WE! Uncle J! We!”

“ Forgive me sir, where we left off. ”

“Tony hates watching… nature documentaries?”

“Not really! He just says that. I know he does like watching them, just with me. But at Uncle Happy’s house I was watching some while he- JARVIS watched them with me when Happy couldn’t be home.” I shrugged.

“Okay. Which one is this?”

“It’s about meerkats!”

-Later that night…

“ Stark Industries! I got one recommendation. Abandon ship! Does the Hindenburg ring any bells? Let me show ya, the new Stark Industries business plan! Look, that's a weapons company that doesn’t make weapons!! ” So glad the kid was at school right now, couldn’t have him watch this crap.

“ How big are your hands? ” Tony’s voice came through the tablet next to me.

“What?” I asked, muting the tv audio.

“ How big are your hands? ”

“I don’t understand why-”

“ Get down here I need you .” he instructed. I sighed, placed the laptop on the coffee table and headed down into the lab. I saw him leaning back on a chair, his shirt off and wires hooked up to him. He was holding a glowing thing, staring at me. I entered the code to enter. “Hey. Let's see ‘em. Show me your hands. Oh wow they are small. Very petite, indeed. I just need your uh help for a sec.”

“Oh god is that thing keeping you alive?”

“It was. It is now an antique.” He held up the other glowing thing. “This is what will be keeping me alive for the foreseeable future. I’m swapping it out for an upgraded unit and I just ran into a little speed bump.”

“Speed bump? What does that mean?”

“It’s nothing. There’s an exposed wire under this device. And it’s contacting the socket wall and causing a little bit of a short. It’s fine.” He yanked the thing out of his chest.

“What do you want me to do?”

“Put that over there it is irrelevant. I want you to reach in and you’re just gonna gently lift the wire out.”

“Is it safe?” I asked nervously.

“Yeah. it’s like Operation. you just don’t let it touch the socket wall or it goes beep.” he explained gesturing at the metal in his chest.

“What do you- what’s Operation ?”

“It’s just a game, never mind. Just gently lift the wire.”

“I don’t think I’m qualified to do this.” I retracted my hand.

“No, you’re fine. You’re the most capable, qualified, trustworthy person I’ve ever met. You’re gonna do great. Why else do you think I trust you with Peter? You’re gonna do great.”

“Okay, okay… oh god there’s pus!”

“It’s not pus. It’s an inorganic plasmic discharge from the device, not from my body.”

“It smells!”

“Yeah it does. Copper wire. The copper wire you got it? Don’t let it- AH!” don’t let it touch you when you’re coming up.”

“Sorry, I’m sorry!”

“Okay, now make sure that when you pull it out, you don’-t there’s a magnet at the end of it! That was it. You just pulled it out. Don't put it back in!”

“What’s wrong?” 

“Nothing, I’m just going into cardiac arrest ‘cause you yanked it out like a trout-”

“What! I thought you said this was safe!’

“We gotta hurry. Take this. You gotta switch it out really quick.”

“Tony? It’s going to be okay, okay?” I followed his instructions and connected everything, eventually he was able to adjust it himself. “Don’t ever, ever, ever, ever ask me to do anything like that ever again.”

“But I don’t have anyone but you?” we stared at each other for a bit. “Unless you want bambino to do that? I feel like he’d panic then get an asthma attack then-”

“Okay! Okay!” I sighed. “What do you want me to do with… this?” I said holding the old device.

“That? Destroy it. Incinerate it.”

“You don’t want to keep it?”

“Pepper, I’ve been called many things. Nostalgic is not one of them.”

“Will that be all, Mr. Stark?”

“That will be all, Ms. Potts.” he turned to one of his robots. “Hey, butterfingers, come here. What’s all this stuff doing on top of my desk? That’s my phone, that’s a picture of my dad. All that right there is garbage.” he explained. I started walking off. An idea came to me. 

-The next day…

Dad never takes me anywhere, but when he pulled me out of school, requesting help on a project I figured it must be important. We went to where Uncle Rhodey was working. He wanted to get him on the project too, so it must be extra important!

“-in my experience, no unmanned aerial vehicle will ever trump a pilot’s instinct, his insight, that ability to look into a situation beyond the obvious and discern its outcome or a pilot’s judgement.”

“Colonel? Why not a pilot without a plane?” Dad called out to him. We were holding hands as we walked around. I was looking around at all the planes.

“Look who fell out of the sky. Mr. Tony Stark.”

“Speaking of manned or unmanned, you gotta get him to tell you about the time he guessed wrong at spring break. Just remember that, spring break 1987. That lovely lady you woke up with, what was his name?” He said and I giggled.

“Don’t do that, they’ll believe you. Give us a couple of minutes.” He said to the guys. “I’m surprised, I swear I didn’t expect to see you walking around so soon. Good to see you, Pete.” I waved at him.

“I’m doing a little better than walking. Rhodey, I’m- we’re working on something big. We came to talk to you. We want you to be a part of it.” 

“You’re about to make a whole lot of people around here really happy. ‘Cause that little stunt at the press conference, that was a doozy.”

“This is not for the military. I’m not- It's different.”

“What? You’re a humanitarian now or something?” he frowned.

“I need you to listen to me.”

“No, what you need is time to get your mind right.” He sounded upset. “I’m serious. It’s nice seeing you, Tony, Peter.”

“Come by sometime Uncle Rhodey!” I called toward him, as he walked off. He then turned around, still walking away saying he would. “That sucked.” 

“Yeah, bambino. It did. C’mon, buddy, we don’t need him for this.” He smiled, picking me up and holding me by his hips.

“Can we get ice cream?” 

“Of course, what kind?” 

“Well Uncle Rhodey wanted me to try a new flavor this time! But I like mint chocolate chip!

“Well, it sounds like we’re getting mint chocolate chip.”

Chapter Text

Back in the garage, dad had set me down on his chair as he powered up his holomat. A mat he rolled across a desk that was cleared off. He started first by drawing up the schematics of some armor, it looked like. It looked very bulky. “JARVIS you up?

“ For you, sirs, always. ”

“I’d like to open a new project file, indexed as Mark II.” He explained before selecting the armor and with a stylist and dragging it over to the holomat.

“ Shall I store this on the Stark Industries Central Database? ”

“I actually don’t know who to trust right now. Until further notice why don’t we keep everything on my private server.” He walked over to examine the now 3d projected schematic. I got up and looked at it in awe.

“ Working on a secret project, are we, sir?

“What is it?” I asked him as he messed with the projection.

“It’s armor.” He smiled. “I don’t want this winding up in the wrong hands. Maybe in mine it could actually do some good.” He worked on the blueprint for about an hour, some boots with a thruster on the bottom. He had me assemble some one while he and DUM-E worked on another. I was a little upset that I didn’t get DUM-E, but it’s okay. He was using a soldering iron as he made adjustments. He was arguing with him as he messed with it more. 

“Dad?” 

“Yeah, underoos?” he asked, not looking up.

I smiled at the nickname. “I finished mine, you got to make the final adjustments though.”

“Can’t you?” He said looking up finally.

“Yeah, but Auntie Pepper said and I quote; He is forbidden from using the soldering iron until you are at least 16 or I will have your dad’s head. Cause I burnt my hand that one time, remember?”

“You are so right. Leave it there. I’ll be over in a second.”

DUM-E was on extinguisher duty, U was recording, and I was standing on the other side of the garage, to watch from afar. “Okay, let’s do this right. Start mark half a meter, and back and center. Dummy look alive, and stand by for fire safety. U, roll it. Okay. Activate hand controls. We’re gonna start off nice and easy. We’re gonna see if 10% thrust capacity achieves lift. And 3, 2, 1.” he was shot upside down hitting part of the wall leading up to the ceiling. He then promptly fell down onto the ground and groaned up in pain.

“DAD!” I said running over toward him. DUM-E sprayed at him with the fire extinguisher. I burst into laughter when he did.

“My own son, laughing at my misery!” Dad groaned from the ground.

We started working on flight stabilizers after that. They were to go around his arms. Unfortunately I couldn’t help with this one, since it required an adult’s arm. I could at least help with some of the stuff, like handing him tools. Eventually Pepper came down. “I’ve been buzzing you. Did you hear the intercom?”

“Yeah everythings- what?”

“Obadiah is upstairs. What would you like me to tell him?”

“Great, great, I’ll be right up.” he lifted the arm off where it was being held up.

“I thought you said you were done making weapons?” Pepper asked him.

“It is-”

“It’s a flight stabilizer!” I explained excitedly, running up to stand next to her.

“It’s completely harmless.” He followed up. He pressed a button to power it up. It shot out a powerful blast knocking him over. Pepper quickly covered me with her body. “I didn’t expect that.”

“Get that off.” She instructed. “Then upstairs, both of you.”

“Yes Aunt Pepper!” I smiled.

I followed dad upstairs, and heard the piano being played. I thought that was weird, auntie Pepper didn’t play anymore, maybe she would like to again. “How it’d go?” Dad asked as we approached the living room. Obadiah glanced up at him then at me. “It went that bad, huh?” 

“Just because I brought pizza from New York doesn’t it mean it went bad. It would have been better if you were there.” He said as he finished playing. Dad handed me a slice.

“Uh-uh. You told me to lay low. That’s what I've been doing.” he said between bites. “I lay low, and you take care of all…” he trailed off and wiped his mouth.

“Come on. In public. The press. This was a board of directors meeting.” he explained walking over and sitting next to him. I had found myself next to Auntie Pepper, not really trusting him.

“This was- This was a board of directors meeting?”

“The board is claiming you have posttraumatic stress. They’re filling an injunction.” He explained with a frown.

“A what?”

“They want to lock you out.”

‘Why ‘cause the stocks dipped 40 points? We knew that was gonna happen.”

“Fifty-six and a half.” Pepper corrected.

Dad turned to her, upset. “It doesn’t matter. We own the controlling interest in the company.”

“Tony, the board has rights too. They’re making the case that you and your new direction aren't in the company’s best interest.”

“I’m being responsible! That’s a new direction for me, for the company. I mean, me on the company’s behalf being responsible for the way that- This is great.” he said, grabbing the pizza and standing up to leave.

“Oh come on. Tony. Tony.”

“I’ll be in the shop.”

“Hey, hey! Hey Tony. Listen. I’m trying to turn this thing around, but you gotta give me something. Something to pitch them. Let me have the engineers analyze that. You know, draw up some specs.” He chased after him.

“No.”

“It’ll give me a bone to throw the boys in New York!”

“No. No, absolutely not. This one stays with me. That’s it, Obie. Forget it.”

“Well this stays with me then. Go on, take a piece.” He offered by opening up the box.

“Thank you.” he said, grabbing a piece and walking off. 

“Do you mind if I come down there and see what you’re doing?” He called after him.

“Goodnight Obie.”

He turned to look at me. I frowned. “So… what's your name?”

“Um.” I looked over at Pepper.

“He’s none of your concern, Obadiah.” She said sternly, knowing full well I didn’t trust him much. “C’mon. It’s way past your bedtime.” She grabbed my hand, and led me upstairs.

School was boring, as usual, Dad worked on his project for a bit without me. He said he didn’t want to, but I should stay in school still. Education is important to him. At least I learn some stuff. Like History, English or Music. Stuff I don’t really know about all that much. The only real free time I got was during math time. I was above basically everyone there. At a college level, or was it university? Maybe I’d ask Uncle Happy later. I was heading to the parent drop off/pick up. I saw the familiar car that Uncle Happy uses. Something not fancy, but it was “discrete” as he called it. I’m sure it’s armored, knowing dad. I opened the door and slid inside. “Hi Uncle Happy!”

“Hey, kid.” He greeted me. “Put your seat belt on.”

“I always do! You know that.”

“Just making sure.” He smiled at me from the rear view mirror. 

“So… did you know my mom had a brother?” I asked, staring out the window.

He spat out his coffee. “What?”

“Yeah! I asked Uncle J about her. He didn’t say much, just that she loved me. So I asked if she had any family besides us. He said to give him a moment, then that she has a brother.”

“Why did- what?”

“Well cause dad never talked about her before. I wanted to know more.” I shrugged.

He sighed. “I didn’t know she had a brother, no. What’s his name?”

“J said it was Benjamin Franklin Parker.” I explained. “J also said he has a wife, Maybelle Isabella Parker. Do you think dad would be up for meeting them?”

“Maybe some day. We’ll see.” He smiled. We drove in silence for a bit, before ending up at the house again. Where he walked me inside. He said that he had some other stuff to do before leaving. I walked up to my room and put my bag in there before heading down stairs to the kitchen. I looked around for snacks for a bit, before finding something. I went back up to my room to eat while I did school work. I fell asleep soon after.

The sky was bright blue, I was sitting outside by the pool. Mom was talking to Uncle Obie. He was comforting her, ensuring that they would find him soon. He said she should go lay down, clear her head. He walked her upstairs and I knew he’d come to suggest the same soon. I watched them go upstairs and wondered if dad was okay. I turned around and a man with a metal arm was standing in front of me. “Who-” was all I could say before he bolted toward me and covered my mouth with his metal hand, a cloth pressed against my face. I tried screaming, but before I knew it everything went black.

“The Soldier retrieved the asset. No one knew he was gone. Stane gave the perfect window of opportunity as promised.”

“Yes, now all he has to do is hold his end of the bargain.”

“Of course, now we agreed with Stane that we’d deal with it.”

“He assumed we would kill and dispose of the body still?”

“We used a drug that slowed his vitals enough so he’d appear dead. He will wake up soon… in fact” that person splashed water on my face. “He appears to be awake now…. Did they complete the assignment?”

“Yes. We motivated Dr. Parker to speed up the process. It’ll be here in a few days. It’s already headed toward us.”

“Good. Soon we will have the ultimate weapon. Begin the process.”

“Sir? The body is too weak to begin a process like tha-” a gunshot rang out along with a thud.

“I said begin the process.”

“Harpy. You and I both know he will die in this process. Let it arrive first. It’ll ensure he will survive… that is if he survives it.”

“Fine.”

I groaned as I sat up. What was that? A bizarre dream? Weird. I pulled the covers off and started heading down stairs for a glass of water. I heard a crash and turned around to see a hole in the roof… and floor. I ran over to the hole, cause I’m a Stark and that’s a smart thing to do. Run to the new hole in your floor. I saw DUM-E spraying something down with his fire extinguisher. “Oh my god! Dad?!” I yelled out and ran downstairs. 

As he got out of his “high tech prosthesis” I went upstairs to get him an icepack, per his request. He wandered back to his desk, and saw the box that Auntie Pepper brought him earlier… like 11 days ago. He set the coffee down. About to walk off and drink it before he saw the note. He opened it and it was the old ARC, in a glass case. With an inscription. Proof Tony Stark has a heart I smiled at it. “I figured she would do something like that.”

“Yeah? What are you doing up, anyway?”

“It's hard to stay asleep when there is a man in a tin can falling through the floor… and roof.” I shrugged.

“Fair point. C’mon need your help with something.” He walked back over toward his desk. Pulling up the data for his high tech prosthesis . “Notes. Main transducer feels sluggish at plus 40 altitude. Hull pressurization is problematic. I’m thinking icing is the probable factor.”

“ A very astute observation, sir. Perhaps if you intend to visit other planets, we should improve the ecosystems. ”

“Connect to the SYS. CO. reconfigure the shell metals. Use the gold titanium alloy from the seraphim tactical satellite-”

“That’ll ensure the fuselage integrity while maintaining power-to-weight ratio!” I interrupted excitedly.

“Yeah, it will.” He smiled.

“ Shall I render using the proposed specifications? ”

“Yeah J!”

He grinned at me. “You heard the boss.”

“ Of course. ”

“ Tonight’s red-hot red carpet is right here at the Disney Concert Hall, where Tony Stark’s third annual benefit for the Firefighter’s Family Fund has become the place for L.A’s high society.” the tv was on in the background.

“JARVIS we get an invite for that?” He asked, looking over at the TV.

“ I have no record of an invitation, sir .”

“Hasn’t been seen in public since his bizarre and highly controversial press conference. Some claim he’s suffering from posttraumatic stress and has been bedridden for weeks. Whatever the case may be, no one expects an appearance from him tonight.”

“You are going aren’t you?”

“You know me, Stark. Gotta make an entrance.”

“ The render is complete. ” JARVIS interrupted. We looked at the screen together. He raised his eyebrow at me.

“Uncle J?”

“ Yes, sir ?” I looked around for some inspiration. Before spotting the car Dad was working in the morning before he got kidnapped. I smirked.

“Throw some hot-rod red in there.” I suggested. Dad ruffled my hair.

“ Yes, that should help your father keep a low profile .” JARVIS said, and if he could have sarcasm, this statement would be drowned in it. “ The render is complete. ”

“Hey, I like it. Fabricate it. Paint it.” 

“ Commencing automated assembly. The estimated completion time is five hours .”

“Don’t wait up for me, honey.” Dad said standing up. “C’mon underoos. We got a party to crash.”

“Can you even do that at your own party?” I asked curiously as I followed him. He barked out a laugh at that.

Chapter Text

Of course, dad drove the most expansive, loud car ever to the party. He had me sit behind him. We talked about school a bit, what I liked, what I disliked. He laughed when I said math, cause I knew everything already. And laughed louder when I was bored in the history segments cause I didn’t really care about them all that much. He said that he wants to move to New York  eventually, and make the home in Malibu a vacation home instead. I shrugged, saying it could be interesting. He said he wanted to reopen the expo some day. I beamed at that, and the look in his eyes said he should do it sooner than he thought he would. As we pulled up to the venue. He parked in the street, a valet stepped out toward the back of the car. Before he got out, he looked at me in the rear-view mirror. “Stick with me. Got it?”

“Got it.” I nodded. He winked at me and stepped out. Opening his car door. Closing it and stepping toward my door. Opening it too. The valet nodded at us, he looked excited at driving a sports car, or whatever this car was. Tony snapped his fingers and patted his thigh. A single to take his hand and not let go. The crowd hadn’t noticed us yet. I stuck as close as I could. The crowd started freaking out as we walked passed. Dad had a confidence I could never have as he just ignored the small crowd. 

“Hey, Tony, remember me?” some lady asked.

“Sure don’t.” he said and just strutted past like he didn’t just insult this poor woman. At least it wasn’t as bad as the lady Auntie Pepper said she was just taking out the trash for dad. I remember she was livid at that. Eventually he walked up to Obidiah. “What’s the world coming to when we gotta crash our own party?” he frowned.

He laughed, one that had a hint of bitterness and annoyance. Odd. “Look at you. Hey what a surprise.”

“We’ll see you inside.”

“Hey. Listen. Take it slow, all right? I think I got the board right where we want ‘em.”

“You got it. Just cabin fever. I’ll just be a minute.” I would roll my eyes at what Obidiah said, but dad dragged me off and inside. I didn’t get much of a chance to look around before we headed to the bar. “Give me a sprite. I’m starving.” I let out a breath I didn’t realise I was holding. Afraid he’d start drinking again. He looked at me. “Never again, I promised. Remember?”

I nodded. “I want a sprite too please!”

“Mr. Stark?” The agent guy from a place with too long a name was here too. Convenient.

“Yeah?”

“Agent Coulson.”

“Oh yeah, yeah yeah. The guy from the uh-”

“Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division."

“You need a new name for that.” I informed him, again.

“Yeah, I hear that a lot. Listen, I know this must be a trying time for you, but we need to debrief you. There’s still a lot of unanswered questions, and time can be a factor with these things. Let’s just put something on the books. How about the 24th at 7:00 p.m. at Stark Industries.” 

Dad held his hand out. “Tell you what. You got it. You’re absolutely right. Well, uh- I’m going to go to my assistant and we’ll make a date.” I rolled my eyes, he didn’t hear him at all. We walked over toward Auntie Pepper. “You look fantastic! I didn’t recognize you.”

She turned around startled. “What are you doing here?”

“Avoding government agents.” I smirked at him. She smiled at me.

“Where did you get the dress?” He asked, ignoring me.

“Oh. It was a birthday present.” She said sarcastically.

“It’s great.”

“From you, actually.”

“Well I got great taste.” He replied, equally sarcastic. I glanced between them.

“You guys should dance.” I said, feeling a mischievous mood. They both turned to stare at me. Both spouting nonsense replies. Before I rolled my eyes. “Well, then let’s dance then. Auntie Pepper.” she sighed and took my hand. Dad followed us, a smirk on his face. As we stopped I accidentally shoved her a bit so dad would catch her and they started dancing. I stuck close by, amused.

“Am I making you uncomfortable?”

“No. No. I always forget to wear deodorant and dance with my boss. i n front of everyone that I work with in a dress with no back.” she said nervously.

“You look great and you smell great.”

“Oh god.” she complained.

“But I could fire you if that would take the edge off.”

“I- I actually don’t think that you could tie your shoes without me.” She stated, and I had to agree with her.

“I’d make it a week.” I snorted at that.

“Really? What’s your social security number?”

“Five.”

“Five?” I laughed.

“You’re missing a couple of digits there.” Pepper rolled her eyes.

“Yeah, the other eight.”

“I got her for the other eight.” He shrugged. They danced for another minute before I even felt the uncomfortable tension. “How about a little air?”

“Yes, I need some air.” She cleared her throat. We walked out onto the balcony. “That was totally weird.”

“Totally harmless.”

“It was totally not harmless, by the way.”

He shrugged. “We’re dancing. No one’s even watching.”

“Everybody who I work with- no, you know why?”

“I think you lost objectivity. I think they just- people- we just danced.”

“No! It was not just a dance. You don’t understand because you’re you. And everybody knows exactly who you are, and how you ar- were with girls and all of that, which is completely fine. But, you know, then me, you’re my boss, and I’m dancing with you-” She rambled.

“I don’t think it was taken that way.”

“-Because it makes me look like the one who’s trying to, you know-”

“I just think you’re overstating it.”

“-and we’re here, and then I’m wearing this ridiculous dress, and then we were dancing like that and-” she stopped and they stared at each other a bit longer. They leaned closer together, I blushed and looked away. “I would like a drink, please.” I looked back toward them. They hadn’t, which made me frown.

“Got it. Okay.”

“I would like a vod- a virginia martini, please.”

“Okay.”

“Very dry with olives, a lot of olives. Like at least three olives.” She explained. He nodded and walked back inside. “You.” She addressed me. I looked up at her.

“Yes, auntie?” I smiled shyly.

“Don’t.” She sighed. “You are a mischievous little gremlin, you know that?”

“What ever do you mean?”

“Oh god. You’re gonna grow up, and you’re gonna be getting into all sorts of trouble aren't you?” she groaned, rubbing her face.

“C’mon. At least I’d be better than him at my age, right?”

“Yes. but worse in a different way, I just know it.” She smiled.

“Sorry in advance if that’s the case, Auntie.” 

“I wouldn’t have it any other way, Mr. Stark.” She winked. “Go make sure your dad isn’t getting into trouble. And sweetie? Sorry about uh, wanting alcohol. It slipped my mind.”

“It’s okay.” I smiled. “I’ll go find him.” I nodded. I walked back into the building, and saw him talking to the woman Auntie Pepper passive aggressively called trash. I smirked to myself. “Time to take out the trash.” I saw him holding some photos, going through them he looked up at her, some frustration in his face. Not at her, at what she showed him. I frowned more as he stormed out. I headed back toward Pepper instead.

The door opened and she turned around, expecting dad too, but frowned when I wasn’t with him. “Where’s-”

“The trash lady-”

“Trash lady?”

“You told her you take out the trash for dad.” I explained quickly. She rolled her eyes. “She came by and showed him some photos. He had an angry look on his face before storming off somewhere.” 

“ Of course he did .” she muttered. “C’mon sweetie. Let’s get you home.” she said, holding out her hand. I took it and we headed home, in her car. When we got there, he wasn’t home. She frowned. “I’m sure he’ll be back in the morning.”

“Okay.” I frowned at the empty garage. “Oh! Tell um Dr. Scotts my inhaler is running low, please.”

“Yes, of course. I’ll call him right now.” She nodded, pulling out her phone. “Sleep, don’t pull a Tony and stay awake all night please.” I nodded and headed upstairs.

In the morning I followed Pepper down into the garage. We stopped to gawk at the many arms surrounding dad, and pulling off his high tech prosthesis . Jarvis was telling him to hold still. “What’s going on here?” 

“Let’s face it. This is not the worst thing you’ve caught me doing.”

“Are those bullet holes?”

“ High tech prosthesis huh?” I said sarcastically, the same time Pepper asked if they were bullet holes.

“No-”

“Don’t lie!” She demanded.

“C’mon, dad. She isn’t dumb.” I agreed with her sentiment.

“Fine, yes they are bullet holes.” he sighed.

After about an hour of arguing, Pepper and I went upstairs, ate dinner and went to sleep. In the morning, I got ready for the day, and since it was the weekend I headed downstairs to find Pepper making some breakfast. She handed me French Toast, and we ate at the kitchen island together. She turned to look at the piano, or rather where the piano used to be, and frowned. I looked over to where she was looking. “Oh yeah, he dropped through the roof and into the garage.” I explained. She sighed, shaking her head. “Wonder what he’s up to now?”

We walked down stairs to see him messing with the suit. He looked up when he saw us. “Hey. Are you busy? Mind if I send you guys on an errand? You’re going to hack into the mainframe and you’re going to retrieve all the recent shipping manifests. This is a lock chip. This’ll get you in. It’s probably under executive files. If not, they probably put on a ghost drive, in which case you need to look for the lowest numeric heading.”

“And what do you plan to do with this information if I bring it back here?” she frowned.

“Same drill. They’ve been dealing under the table, and I’m going to stop them. I’m going to find my weapons and destroy them.”

“Tony.” She scoffed. “You know that I would help you with anything, but I cannot help you if you’re going to start all of this again.”

“There is nothing except this. There’s no art opening. There is no benefit. There is nothing to sign. There is the next mission and nothing else.” He stated, angrily. I frowned at him.

“Is that so? Well, then, I quit.” She said tossing the lock chip onto the desk. I agreed with her. I didn’t want to watch him do this.

“You stood by my side all these years while I reaped the benefits of destruction. And now that I’m trying to protect the people that I put in harm’s way, you’re going to walk out?”

“You’re going to kill yourself, Dad.” I said hotly, tears forming in my eyes.

Pepper pointed at me. “Exactly. I’m not going to be a part of this.”

“I shouldn’t be alive, unless it was for a reason.” he said sitting down. “I’m not crazy, Pepper. I just finally know what I have to do. And I know in my heart that it’s right.”

She sighed, and walked back toward the desk. Picking up the lock chip. “You’re all I have, too, you know.” 

“Please be careful, dad.” I said following her.

“I promise, bambino.” He yelled after me.

We exited the elevator and headed toward Obadiah's office. She opened the door and closed it quietly behind her as I stepped in. I headed over to the computer. And turned it on. She sat in the chair, and plugged the chip in. It briefly flashed WARNING!: Security Breach. Before going away and opening up. It scanned the files before stating it found a ghost drive. It pulled up a few folders. It showed a few files. The Jericho missiles, and shipping manifests. Then it brought up Sector 16 . It looked like a bigger version of dad’s suit. “Sector 16?” She muttered. “What are you up to Obadiah?”

“I knew something was off about him.” I frowned.

“I always thought so-” we were interrupted by a video playing. It was a group of men holding guns with a guy that had a bag over his head in the center. They pulled off the bag, it was dad! I gasped slightly, while Pepper typed in a command to translate.

“You did not tell us that the target you paid us to kill was the great Tony Stark. As you can see, Obadiah Stane, your deception and lies will cost you dearly. The price to kill Tony Stark has just gone up."

Pepper typed in a command to copy everything. “So, what are we going to do about this?” A voice called out toward us. It was him, Stane. Great. I sat up on the desk. “Hmm? I know what you’re going through, Pepper.” he said coldly. He pulled out a flask. I frowned at it. “Ah, Tony. He always gets the good stuff, doesn’t he.” he smiled, sniffing at the flask. As he poured, Pepper hid the chip and hit the screensaver. “I was so happy when he came home. It was like he came back from the dead.” cause he did, asshole . I thought bitterly. “Now I realize… Well, Tony never really did come home, did he? He left a part of himself in that cave. Breaks my heart.”

“Well, he’s a complicated person. He’s been through a lot. I think he’ll be all right.”

“You are a very rare woman. Tony doesn’t know how lucky he is.” 

“Thank you. Thanks.” She exhaled. And started getting up. “We’d better get back there.” She said, grabbing the newspaper and the chip.

“Is that today's paper?”

“Yes.” She answered.

He walked over holding out his hand. “Do you mind?”

“Not at all.”

“Puzzle.”

“Of course.” She smiled.

“Take care.” We hurried out of the room and back toward the elevator. We were walking down some stairs when someone called for her.

“Ms. Potts? Did you forget about our appointment?”

“Nope, right now. Come with me. We’re going to have it right now.” She said quickly. “Walk with me. I'm going to give you the meeting of your life.” She said nervously. In the car Mr. Coulson was asking questions. “Stane.” She interrupted. “Obadiah Stane, he ordered the hit on Tony.”

“I see. Anything else?”

“He’s building a suit. Somewhere in the ARC reactor building. Sector 16.” I explained.

“Okay. Got it. I’ll call for some backup, you get a hold of Mr. Stark and warn him.”

“Of course. Pete? You gotta call him.” she said reach backwards holding out her phone.

“Got it.” I dialed his number. Waiting for him to answer. “Dad? Hello? Are you there?” I frowned when the call was hung up. “He answered, then immediately hung up.”

“Great. Fantastic. “ She sighed.

I was looking around, my phone was ringing. I found it under some pillows, and I answered “ Dad? Dad are you there- ” I couldn’t respond, as a high-pitched sound rendered me paralyzed. Someone took the phone and hung up.

“Breathe. Easy, Easy.” Obadiah said, leaning me back on the couch. “You remember this one, right? It’s a shame the government didn’t approve it. There’s so many applications for causing short-term paralysis.” He grabbed my face to get him to look at him. “Ah, Tony. When I, uh, ordered the hit on you, I was worried that I was killing the golden goose-” He grabbed a device, probably designed to take the ARC out of my chest. “But, you see, it was just fate that you survived that.” The device clamped onto the arc and he started pulling it out. “You had one last golden egg to give.” He grinned at me. “Do you really think that just because you have an idea that it belongs to you? Your father helped give us the atomic bomb. Now what kind of world would it be today if he was as selfish as you?” He yanked out the rest of the ARC. “Oh it’s beautiful.” He examined it. “Oh, Tony, this is your Ninth Symphony.” he said sitting next to me. “Oh what a masterpiece, look at that. This is your legacy. A new generation of weapons with this at its heart. Weapons that will help steer the world back on course, put the balance of power in our hands. The right hands.”

“Wish you could see my prototype. It’s not as conservative as yours.” He placed it into a case. “I have no idea how you’ve hidden a son from me for all these years. Maybe one day, I’ll tell him about you… when he’s run out of his usefulness as you have.” leave him alone you bastard. I’ll kill you! I screamed in my head. “Too bad you had to involve Pepper in this. I would have preferred that she lived.” He sighed and walked off.

“ What do you mean Obadiah paid to have your dad killed? Pete slow down- ”

“No you don’t understand! You have to go find dad!”

“ Where is he now? ” 

“I don’t know, he isn’t answering his phone. Please make sure he’s okay!”

“ Okay. I’m on my way now. ”

“Thanks Uncle Rhodey!” I handed the phone back to Pepper. 

“I know a shortcut.” She addressed the agents following us. “You. have someone keep an eye on him.”

“Of course, Ms. Potts.” He nodded and turned to an agent. “You. keep an eye on the kid. You lose sight of him for even a second you’re fired.”

“Yes, sir.” The agent nodded. 

In the elevator down into the workshop, I leaned against the wall. I stumbled over to the door, opening it. And fell onto the ground immediately. Shoving stuff out of the way. I used a box to try and reach for the case. But fell over immediately. I heard some beeping and looked over to see DUM-E had grabbed the case. I looked up at him, “Good boy.” And smashed the glass. I quickly got the arc reactor and stuffed it into my chest.

“Tony! You okay?” someone called out to me and pulled me over. It was Rhodey, thankfully.

“Where’s Pete? And Pepper?”

“They're fine. They're with five agents, about to agent Obadiah. 

“That’s not gonna be enough.” I said quickly. He helped me up.

We pulled into the parking lot in front of the ARC Reactor building. “Stay in the car!” Pepper yelled at me.” And getting out. The 4 other agents followed her inside.

“So, what do you do?” I asked hesitantly. The agent looked over at me, but ignored me. “I hope you know, I am sorry.” I sighed and pressed against his arm. A taser, like the ones clowns used, but actually meant to tase. Designed by dad and made to look like a watch. All I had to do was pull it down onto my hand, flip it around and press it against someone and it’d tase them instantly. “Sorry I got you fired!” I shouted as I closed the door. I placed the taserwatch against the security lock, and it fired it, letting me open the door. I ran inside after them. Looking around for Sector 16. I spotted it, the door already blown open.

“ Looks like you were right, he was building a suit. ” I heard one of them talking.

“ I thought it’d be bigger?” Pepper questioned. They spread out more. I was about to go inside, then I heard gunshots and explosions. And Started running away instead. Eventually Pepper caught up to me as I exited the building. “You were supposed to stay in the-” She was interrupted by her phone going off. “Tony! Tony, are you okay?’

“ I’m fine- how are -”

“Obadiah has gone insane! He’s built a suit-”

“ I know- listen, you better get out of there right now? You understand?” She turned around as the ground broke open and a giant suit came out of it. 

“Where do you think you’re going?” his voice echoed out. “Your services are no longer required.”

“STANE!” Dad’s voice yelled out. He turned toward it and opened fire. But he was slammed into and went back through the ground. We heard the fighting that continued. Before we saw the two of them started flying up toward the sky.

“Of course! The icing problem!”

“Icing problem?” Pepper looked over at me.

“Dad’s suit, it’s made of a gold-titanium alloy, the same used in the seraphim tactical satellite. His suit isn’t, so it’s gonna ice up.” I explained while looking up at them. “I don’t think it’s gonna be enough.” We saw them coming back down. Dad landed on the roof. 

“ Potts? ”

“Tony! Oh my god are you okay?”

“ I’m almost out of power. I’ve got to get out of this thing. ” another crash on the roof. “ Nice try! ” Obadiah’s voice rang out. I could hear the fighting up there.

“ Potts? ”

“Tony!?”

“ This isn’t working, we’re gonna have to overload the reactor and blast the roof. ”

“Well how are you gonna do that?”

“ You guys will have to do it. Underoos can show you how. When I get clear of the roof, you’re gonna hit the master bypass button. It’s gonna fry everything up here. ”

“Okay. C’mon kid.” She held my hand as we walked inside. “Walk me through it.”

Central console, open up all the circuits.” I explained. She handed me the phone as she started flipping the switches. “We’re doing it now.”

“ Okay, make sure I’m clear of the roof, first bambino. I can buy you sometime.” 

I heard something hit the glass and looked up to see dad up there. His crushed helmet landed next to him. 

“It’s ready Tony! Get off the roof!” Pepper yelled out. Bullets sprayed out at him, he used part of his suit to protect his head. He fell down and held onto part of the supports of the glass. “Tony!”

“DAD!”

“Pepper! Time to hit the button!” He yelled back down at us.

“You told me not to!”

“Just do it!”

“YOU”LL DIE!” I screamed at him.

“Push it!” He insisted. Pepper pressed it and a blast of the electricity shot outward. Pepper grabbed my hand and ran out of the building. I heard clanking as something big fell into the reactor. Following a giant explosion.

“ Iron Man . That’s kind of catchy, has a nice ring to it. Even if it’s not technically accurate. The suit’s made of a gold-titanium alloy. But it’s kind of evocative, the imagery, anyway.” Dad said, reading the newspaper.

“Here’s your alibi.” Mr. Coulson said, handing some cards. “You were on your yacht. We have port papers that put you in Avalon all night, and sworn statements from 50 of your guests.”

“See I was thinking maybe we should say it was just Pepper, me and bambino over there, alone on the island.” He suggested. Pepper ripped off a band aid, venting her frustration by doing so. I snorted at that.

“That’s what happened.” Mr. Coulson said toward the papers. “Just read it word for word.”

“There’s nothing on Stane here.”

“That’s being handled. He’s on vacation. Small aircraft have such a poor safety record.” He shrugged.

“But what about the whole cover story that it’s a bodyguard? He’s my- I mean, is that- that’s kind of flimsy, don’t you think?” He seemed put off by the idea.

“This isn’t my first rodeo, Mr. Stark. Just stick to the official statement and soon, this will all be behind you.” He turned toward the TV behind Pepper. “You’ve got 90 seconds.” then he started walking off.

“Oh Agent Coulson?” Pepper walked over to him. “I just wanted to say thank you for all your help.”

“That’s what we do. You’ll be hearing from us.”

I looked up asking, “From the Strategic Homeland and -”

“Just call us, SHIELD” he interrupted me, then walked away.

“Let’s get this show on the road.” Pepper said, grabbing dad’s suit jacket.

“You know, it’s actually not that bad. Even I don't think I’m Iron Man.” He said.

“You’re not Iron Man.” Pepper rolled her eyes.

“Alright, suit yourself.” He said with the cards in between his teeth. “You know, if I were Iron Man, I’d have this girlfriend and a son who knew my true identity. They’d be a wreck, constantly worrying that I was gonna die, yet so proud of the man I’d become. The girl would be wildly conflicted which would only make her more-” he cleared his throat. “Crazy about me. Tell me you never think about that night?”

“What night?”

“You know.” He smirked.

“Are you talking about the night you guys danced and went up to the roof, and then you went downstairs to get her a drink and left us there by ourselves?” I raised my eyebrow at him. 

“Mhm.”

“Thought so.” she said putting a handkerchief in his coat pocket. “Will that be all Mr. Stark?”

“Yes, that will be all Ms. Potts.”

“Get a room.” I said walking out. I found myself in the conference room, but not up at the stage. I saw Mr. Coulson was talking with someone, so I ‘wandered’ over to him. As I came up next to him, it looked like a red haired lady. “Hi, Mr. Coulson.”

He looked over at me. “Hello, Mister-”

“Oh! I, don’t call me that here.” I interrupted. “He doesn’t like the world knowing about me.” I explained.

“Understandable, given what happened, you know.” The red-haired lady said.

“Yeah. What’s your name?” I looked at her curiously. 

“You can call me Nat.” She smiled.

“No.”

“No?” Mr. Coulson and ‘Nat’ asked in unison.

“No. Dad raised me to be polite. It’s Mr. Coulson and?”

“Rushman.” She said quickly, a bit too quickly.

“Right, of course.. Ms. Rushman .” I examined her skeptically. 

“ Why do I feel like I’m failing a test?” She turned to ask Mr. Coulson in Russian.

“ Cause you currently are. ” I responded in Russian, a giant smirk on my face.

“ I’m sorry, Mr. Stark, but do you honestly expect us to believe that was a body guard in a suit that conveniently appeared, despite the fact that you- ” the reporter lady that Pepper addressed as trash was speaking again.

“Great. Can’t wait for Aunt Pepper to take out the trash again.” I mumbled to myself. Mr. Coulson snorted at that, and when I turned to look at them, Ms. Rushman was looking like she was trying hard not to laugh.

“ I know that it’s confusing. It is one thing to question the official story, and another thing entirely to make wild accusations, or insinuate that I’m a superhero. ” Dad interrupted.

“ I didn’t say you were a superhero .” 

“ Didn’t?Well, good, because that would be outlandish and fantastic ." He responded.

“Oh no.” I sighed.

“What?” Mr. Coulson asked quickly.

“ I’m just not the hero type. Clearly. With this laundry list of character defects, all the mistakes I've made, largely public. ” He was stopped by Uncle Rhodey leaning over to his ear, probably telling him to stick to the cards. “ The truth is… that I would protect my son with my life, because I am Iron Man. ”

Chapter Text

-1 month after Tony announced he was Iron Man

Dad announcing he was Iron Man was such a Tony Stark move. What I didn’t expect was the fact that he also announced that he had a SON. which was when Mr. Coulson and Ms. Rushman had quickly got me out of the room. Online, there was speculation about me EVERYWHERE. I was a bit overwhelmed at the idea. There were no pictures of me online anywhere, thankfully. Save for very blurry photos from when I was with dad when he first got back, or at the charity event. Basically all that was announced was the fact that I exist, which was weird. Happy started to bring me in through the garage at the Malibu house. It was certainly a change. I got my own Wikipedia page. It was basically empty, save for what was known about me. A speculation on my age (around 7-10) and that’s it. Dad avoided talking about me at anything public. He’d deflect with random facts about SI instead. Like that SI had started looking into upgrading the ARC reactors or something.

One thing he did was make a non profit foundation. He named it The Mary Stark Foundation which was something he wanted to do for a long time apparently. He talked about Mom finally. Her name was Mary Teresa Parker. She was a well respected scientist studying cancer, in hopes of finding a cure. He didn’t know much about her, just that she was a lead researcher in the field. He wanted to speak with her again, but she had always declined. He didn’t know why till.. Well I was born. 

According to the doctors, she said if anything happened, to call the father. That’s how he found out. Because she died, giving birth to me. “What happened?”

“Complications. They had to perform an emergency C-Section. She had asthma, like you do. During labor she started having an attack. They tried to save the both of you, but… Listen, bambino. Don’t blame yourself for this. It’s just a thing that happens, okay?”

“Okay.” I sniffled, as he pulled me into a hug.

“You have her eyes.” 

“You’ve said.” I smiled.

“I know.” He kissed the top of my head. “Tell you what. There’s this guy, he asked for some input on some stuff… I figured I’d go and see what’s up.”

“What’s his name?”

“Well you may have heard of him, it’s Bruce Banner-”

“Oh my god! You’re meeting THE Bruce Banner?!” 

“WE, bambino. WE are gonna meet him.”

“YES!” I cheered. “I have questions for him! I was trying to replicate the experiment he did in his Princeton paper.” I said quickly.

“Of course, you can ask him soon. We leave in the morning. We’ll be gone for the week.”

“What about school?” I frowned.

“You’re going on a vacation that has been planned for a few months.” He lied. “School knows who I remember? And they can’t say anything or I’ll sue them so hard they will have to demolish the school.”

“Please don’t demolish the school.” 

“Fine. But the entire faculty-”

“Dad!”

“Okay, okay.” He relented. “Let’s go pack!”

“Okay!”

-The next day…

The lab was amazing, I was looking around in awe, dad ruffled my hair. I attempted to duck out of the way, but he suddenly scooped me up and into his arms. I  giggled a bit as he brought me over to someone hunched over, looking into a microscope. THE Doctor Bruce Banner. I gasped when I saw him. Dad cleared his throat. 

He turned around suddenly, holding a hand to his chest. “Oh my god.” he breathed out. “Sorry I didn’t hear you come in.”

“Your assistant said you’d say that.”

“Sorry. Nice to finally meet you, Dr. Stark.” he held his hand out to shake.

“The pleasure is all mine, Dr Banner.” Dad shook his hand back. “This is my son. You are among the very few to know his face, and name.”

“Nice to meet you.”

“Dr. Banner!” I said excitedly. “Do you use the dual-core spectral analysis method to study adaptive biointerfaces in stress-reactive environments? Or did you swap for something else?”

“Oh no.” dad mumbled.

“What? That paper came out a few months ago.”

“It was so cool! I was reading it! Dad complained about it to Aunt Pepper for a few weeks. I convinced him to let me try it eventually.” I smiled.

“I’m impressed you understood it, what did you say your name was?”

“Peter.” Dad answered. “He had questions, I was hoping he would wait till after introductions.” 

“Sorry!” I apologized. “What are you working on now?”

“Oh, well I was working on some spiders over here.” He walked over to a terrarium. “It’s a sort of… I was attempting to merge all sorts of spiders into one. Right now this is the only one. The rest didn’t exactly… survive.”

“So cool.” I whispered as I stared at it.

“Yeah… don’t get too close. It’s radioactive.”

“What?” Dad turned to look at him.

“Awesome!” I said at the same time dad said what ?

“Yeah, the radiation turned out to help it… I don’t know, survive? I blasted the eggs with some varying radiations. This one is the only one to hatch.” He explained. “It’s very interesting, but unfortunately right now the spider isn’t much more than a side hobby. I managed to extract some venom, and got it being analyzed right now, but my main work is, well I’ll show you.” he said, leading us away.

“It’s an attempt at recreating the super soldier serum.” Dad said observing the machine.

“Yes. The formula I think is close, but I mostly requested your help building the chamber.” Dr Banner explained. “Your father worked with the original creator of the formula to build the chamber, so I figured I’d ask you to help? If you don’t want too I understand of course-”

“Well, why not? I always sort of stood in Steve’s shadow growing up. My dad always compared me to him, no idea why.” 

“I’m very sorry to hear that, Mr-”

“Please. Call me Tony.” Dad interrupted. “Kiddo? Don’t wander off, please!” He called me. I nodded and sat down on the office chair nearby. They started working on the machine for a bit. Eventually stopping as dad yelped out pulling his hand back.

“You okay?”

“Dad?”

“Yeah, sorry. I cut my hand on part of the machine. Sorry.” He said quickly.

“That looks bad.” Dr. Banner examined it. “I’m getting a first aid kit. Stay here!” he started walking off.

“Pete, toss me that hand towel will you?” He gestured toward the towel next to me. I did as he asked, and he wrapped his hand with it to stop the bleeding for now. I heard Dr. Banner coming back to examine his hand. He cleaned it and wrapped it quickly.

“It’ll need stitches.” He stated.

“Right.” He said getting up “Very sorry we couldn’t work on this more.”

“It’s fine. I don’t think I’ll need you again anytime soon. You go get that checked out all right?” Dr. Banner instructed.

“C’mon kiddo.” He said quickly. I followed him but slipped on something on the ground, catching myself on something, before that something fell over too, glass shattering around me. “Peter!” Dad yelled out. 

“Ow.” I groaned as he helped me up.  I felt a sharp pain on my left hand. “OW!” I yelled loudly. Holding my hand up. I stared in horror to see the spider from the terrarium on my hand, clearly having just bit me.

“Bruce!” Dad yelled out, before knocking the spider off and placing it quickly in a jar. Sealing it shut.

“What? Are you okay?” He said running over.

“Please tell me that venom is almost done being analyzed! The spider it-”

“Shit. Quickly, come with me!” Dad scoped me up and followed him.

“Dad?” I said quietly. “I don’t feel so good”

“Stay with me, Peter! Pete-”

I woke up with a headache… more like a body ache. Everything hurts. Like my body is on fire. I opened my eyes to see a blinding light. I could hear a heartbeat monitor and other varying machines nearby. I attempted to sit up, before being gently pushed back down. “Not yet, underoos.” Dad's voice spoke softly. “Let Dr. Banner know he’s awake?” he said to someone else. The door was opened and closed.

“Dad?” I asked, my voice horse, and sitting up.

“Hey, bambino. You scared us pretty bad.” he handed me some water.

“Sorry.” I said after taking a sip.

“It’s fine. Bruce mostly is relieved you’re okay. The venom should’ve killed you… if the spider actually had  a decent amount at the time.”

“What happened anyway?” 

“The spider… Bruce, recently extracted the venom, so it wasn’t much used. Otherwise it would have killed you. At least the normal amount would have. You got about a quarter of it instead. You’ve been asleep for 2 days and-”

“And you’ve been improving everyday.” Dr Banner interrupted.

“What does that mean?”

“Means… Well, the venom of any animal tends to attack the DNA and alter it. This leads to the after effects, not to mention it’s normally combined with other deadly things like neurotoxins and stuff. As seen in most spiders in Australia. This attacked your DNA too… but in a way I could have never imagined.” I stared at him as he explained, and my confused face led to him explaining more, “It’s… cured your asthma. And by the looks of things, your eyesight too.”

I touched my hands to my face, my glasses were missing… “Weird.”

“Cured his asthma?” Dad asked.

“Yes. Look here.” he pointed toward a screen keeping track of everything going on. “Your lungs, they are showing no signs of asthma. Like you’ve never had it.”

“Awesome.” I whispered.

“One less thing to worry about” dad breathed out.

“Of course there is one thing that worries me.”

“What?”

“His DNA, it’s constantly evolving. The sample I had to examine changed noticeably in the first 15 minutes. Upon further investigation it’s been doing that constantly. Not to mention his blood is radioactive now.”

“Cool!”

“So, keep him out of hospitals.”

“That is probably a good idea… I can check on him again in a few months if you’d like?” 

“Yes, please.” Dad nodded.

“What about the spider?” I wondered aloud. Dad looked over at Dr Banner.

“I… I killed it. Sorry Peter. I didn’t want it to hurt anyone else. I did it after you became stable.” He explained. “I kind of wished I didn’t now. Examining the venom and possible side effects would have been handy.”

“Okay.” I frowned. “When can I go home?”

“You seem perfectly healthy now, so your dad can take you home. Here’s my number, in case anything happens.” He said handing dad a card. 

“Thank you, Bruce. See you again sometime?”

“That’d be nice. Maybe I’ll be a super soldier by then.” He smiled.

-2 months later…

So far, no observed changes. Expect an increased appetite. Other than that, nothing. Dad was invited to some science gala. The same one he’s been invited to every year. He never let me go with him, except this year, I got to go. I was excited, but dad said he didn’t want the public to see me so he would just have me arrive as a random guest kid. He didn’t bribe the venue security…. So he says. But when I entered they just let me pass with no questions asked. I knew he lied about that. I wandered around, slightly bored, before settling on just standing near one of the snack bars. I grabbed a plate and sort of stood nearby, leaning against a wall. 

“Never see you before.” Another kid said as he approached me. I looked up at him. He had some auburn/blonde hair, like the two colors combined into one, reminding me of Aunt Pepper a bit. He wore a dark green suit that screamed rich snob, but the way he carried himself suggested otherwise. He was a little pale, but not sickly pale. He was… just cute.

“Uhm- I-”

“Your eyes are beautiful.” He observed, when he got closer. I blushed a bit.

“My Mother’s.” I said ,a bit flustered. “You are?”

“Harry, Harry Osborn.” He said, extending his hand to shake.

“Osborn?” I muttered to myself, as I shook his hand “That sounds familiar…”

“Well, my dad is Norman Osborn. CEO of Oscorp.” He shrugged. “Dad in blood only. He hardly shows up at the house… penthouse?” he said a bit confused at the end. “Either way he’s basically gone, constantly getting milk or whatever CEO’s do these days.”

I snorted. “Well, mine went to get some for 3 months.”

“Oh, sorry about that.”

“Oh no, you misunderstand. He was kidnapped.” I waved him off. He looked up at me in surprise.

“You’re the mysterious son.” he said in awe. “I was wondering if you’d show up at all.”

“He doesn’t want the public to know about me.” I shrugged. “It’s fine. I like getting to pretend to be a normal kid.”

“Lucky you got the choice too.” He said leaning against the wall with me. “So, your name?”

“Peter.” I smiled. “Stark to my family and friends. Parker to strangers.”

“Well, Peter Parker. Nice to meet you.” 

“You can call me Peter Stark, if you’d like.” I blushed.

“Yeah, but then I’d totally blow your cover if I did.. That is if we ever end up talking in public. Pretty sure my dad and yours are like rivals or something dumb.”

“Well, guess we’d just have to not talk in public then.” I suggested. Harry turned to stare at me wide eyed. “What?”

“Oh! You meant like- Nevermind.” He said turning away, his face slightly red. I stared at him confused.

“Give me your phone.” I said quickly. He did, after unlocking it. I entered my phone number. “There, now we can talk and our dads won’t have to know.” Harry looked at his new contact Peter S. Parker .

“S? Really?” He sighed.

“I couldn’t think of something else!” I defended myself.

“Well, why not your actual middle initial.” he rolled his eyes. 

“Well, then it’d be B, at least for that name.” I shrugged.

“B?”

“Benjamin. He is my mom’s brother. They don’t know about me… I was hoping to meet them someday.”

“I hope you do. Keep in touch. Parker .” he smirked and walked away. I opened my phone to text JARVIS, who was installed on my phone.

Uncle J

Don’t tell dad about him!

About you meeting Harry Osborn?

Yes!

Please! He seems nice!

I will refrain from telling Mr. Stark until you wish to tell him yourself.

Thanks Uncle J!

Of course, Peter.

♥️

I noticed that he edited the message, changing Harry Osborn to [REDACTED] which made me smile. I mingled around for another 15 minutes before Happy texted me to head out back to get picked up. I saw Harry staring at me from across the way as I left. I waved slightly at him before leaving, a smile on my face.

Chapter Text

-3 Years later

The news spread like wild fire. Tony Stark was Iron Man, and had a son. The speculation on me was starting to grow wild too, illegitimate or a ‘bastard’ son whatever that meant. Some even speculated I was adopted or was just a cover for the fact that dad announced he was a superhero. I was browsing Twitter on the hashtags #IronKid and #Starksson it was… bizarre. Dad’s Wikipedia page was updated too. I was listed as Tony Stark’s Son, and no other information was given. My mom got a wikipedia page too. Just “Mary Stark” and that the Mary Stark Foundation was named after her, along with its goal/cause: Raising funds to further Cancer Research. I was proud of that at least. Though I knew that they were never married. It was likely a cover to further bury me in a mystery.

Auntie Pepper was both annoyed, frustrated and proud that he had announced everything. I’m pretty sure she had yelled at him for a few hours when we got home, I didn’t watch cause she had asked me to go upstairs so she could “discuss” something with my dad. I did ask JARVIS to play the audio feed though. That was entertaining. After the first month Dad had me come to fundraisers and what not, but only as some random kid that shows up. He never interacted with me, which was upsetting at first. I understood why, of course, just wish he was brave enough to do so.

In the end it wasn’t so bad, I got to meet someone my age. We had texted a lot, and JARVIS kept to his word that he wouldn’t tell Dad. He found it “amusing” which is so cool! The fact that he is evolving to understand emotions and even be capable of feeling them was awesome. Sure, he was still learning, but it was awesome all the same. School was still boring. I had expressed this to Harry, who had agreed, but admitted that it was good to get away from his dad. It seems he disliked, or just straight up hated, his dad. I never could fully understand why and apologized for that. He said it’s fine, and doesn’t expect me to. He did say that he wouldn’t be surprised if my dad understood what he meant. I asked what he meant by that but he said that wasn’t for him to answer.

Anyway, the Stark Expo. Dad announced in December that he was going to be reopening it all year round, next year. Which is exciting! I remember when he brought the Expo model out. He said I could mess with it, but to place whatever I found back where I found it. I didn’t really mess with it much. Eventually after the planning was done he leaned it up against the wall in his office and tossed a cover over it. And finally as the opening day came up, he had to rehearse the opening.

Some speech about how it’s a pleasure to open the expo again and blah blah blah. Dad was bored half way through the rehearsal. Which was the first one. “What would you like to do instead?” Pepper sighed.

“I don’t know. It feels.. Like cleaning up. For the conference a while ago.” He shrugged.

“It’s not supposed to be, Tony.” She rolled her eyes, then turned to me. “Any ideas, sweetheart?”

I looked up from my homework and thought for a moment. “Well… dad likes to make an entrance doesn’t he?”

“What are you suggesting?” She smiled.

The music was loud, because dad has yet to lose his eardrums. I was off to the side of the stage with Pepper. At the beat drop he slammed down onto the stage. Lifting his arms up in a pose, as well letting the arms disassemble his armor to put away. The dancers were cool, if a bit… exposed. “Isn't it cold?” I asked Pepper as they started walking away.

“Yes, but the movement keeps them warm.” She explained. “Let’s hear this speech of his now.” 

“Oh, It’s good to be back!” He clapped. “You missed me? Blow something up? I already did that. I’m not saying the world is enjoying its longest period of uninterpreted years of peace because of me. I’m not saying that from the ashes captivity, never has a greater phoenix metaphor been personified in human history. I’m not saying that Uncle Sam can kick back on a lawn chair, sipping on an ice tea because I haven’t come across anyone who’s man enough to go toe-to-toe with me on my best day! Please, it’s not about me. It’s not about you. It’s not even about us. It’s about Legacy. It’s what we choose to leave behind for future generations, and that’s why for the next year and for the first time since 1974 the best and brightest men and women of nations and corporations the world over will pool their resources, share their collective vision, to leave behind a brighter future. It’s not about us! Therefore what I’m saying, if I’m saying anything is welcome back to the Stark Expo! And now making a special guest appearance from the great beyond. Please welcome my father, Howard.” Dad then walked offstage, while the video played. And a thought crossed my mind.

“ Everything is achievable through technology.  Better living, robust health, and for the first time in human history, the possibility of world peace. So, from all of us here at Stark Industries , I would like to personally introduce you to the City of the Future. Technology holds infinite possibilities for mankind, and will one day rid society of all its ills. Soon technology will affect the way you live your life everyday. No more tedious work, leaving more time for leisure activities and enjoying the sweet life. The Stark Expo, welcome. ” Howard’s video ends. But I was too distracted to listen, besides I’ve seen it enough during the rehearsals. I pulled out my phone to text Harry.

A Raccoon Pretending to be human

Are you watching the news?

I’m worried about my dad, he’s been acting I don’t know.. Off?

Any ideas?

He keeps this small device to himself, but I have yet to see what it actually is.

I knew Harry wouldn’t respond right away, but hopefully soon. I followed Pepper back toward the car she was taking a different car from Tony. She got a call from Happy, saying that Tony was summoned to D.C. I rolled my eyes. Pepper said she would have me wait in a hotel nearby, but that I could watch. “Thanks, Pepper. You know I love watching Dad make old people upset.”

“I know. Just remember that when your dad is old too, okay?” She joked.

“I’m pretty sure when I turn into a teenager in a few years he’s gonna complain about all the grey hairs he’s getting from me.” 

“You’re probably right.”

At the hotel, with Happy watching over me. I had turned on the TV to watch the summoning. Dad was currently talking to Pepper, who was telling him to turn around. “Mr. Stark?”

“Yes, dear?” He joked, and the court room laughed, save for the people on the committee. 

“Can I have your attention?”

“Abosuletly.” He blinked at him.

“Do you or do you not possess a specialized weapon?” The senator asked.

“I do not.”

“You do not?”

“Well, it would depend on how you describe the word weapon .”

“The Iron Man weapon.” 

“My device does not fit that description.” 

“Well- how would you describe it?”

“I would describe it by defining it as what it is, Senator.”

“As?” the senator prompted.

“It’s a high tech prosthesis.” He said simply, and the court laughed at that again. I did too. “That is- That’s actually the most apt description I can make of it.”

“It's a weapon, it’s a weapon. Mr. Stark.”

“Please, if your priority was actually the well-being of the American citizen-”

“My priority is to get the Iron Man weapon turned over to the people of the United States of America.”

“Well you can forget it. I am Iron Man. The suit and I are one. To turn over the Iron Man suit would be to turn over myself. Which is tantamount to indentured servitude or prostitution, depending on what state you’re in. You can’t have it.”

“I’m not expert-”

“In prostitution? Of course not, you're a senator. Come on.” he joked. 

“Happy?”

“Yeah kid?” he called out from the kitchen. 

“What’s prostitution?”

“What?!” He yelled back, running into the room.

“What’s-”

“No, I heard you. Where did you hear that from?” He demanded.

“Dad said it on TV.” I shrugged.

“God damnit Tony.” He muttered to himself.  “I’m not answering that. You can ask Pepper or your dad later.” He said walking off.

“You know who THE expert? Your dad. Howard Stark.” I looked back to see Justin Hammer talking, and rolled my eyes. “Really a father to us all, and to the military-industrial age. Let’s just be clear. He was no flower child. He was a lion. We all know why we’re here, in the last six months, Anthony Stark has created a sword with untold possibility.  And yet he insists it’s a shield. He asks us to trust him as we cower behind it. I wish I were comforted, Anthony, I really do. I’d love to leave  my door unlocked when I leave the house, but this ain’t Canada.  We live in a world of grave threats. Threats Mr. Stark will not always be able to foresee. Thank you. God bless Iron Man, God Bless America.”

“That is well said, Mr. Hammer. The committee would now like to invite Lieutenant Colonel James Rhodes to the chamber.”

“Rhodey? What?” Dad went to shake his hand, they talked for a moment before going back to sit.

“I have before me, a complete report on the Iron Man weapon, compiled by Colonel Rhodes. And, Colonel, for the record, can you please read page 57, paragraph four?”  I rolled my eyes, taking something out of context is such a desperate move.

“You’re requesting that I read specific selections from my report, Senator?” At least Uncle Rhodey agrees with me.

“Yes, sir.”

“It was my understanding that I was going to be testifying in a much more comprehensive and detailed manner.”

“I understand. A lot of things have changed today.” The Senator was probably upset it was not going as planned, so now he requests such a  bizarre and roundabout way to try and turn it into his favor.

“So you do understand that reading a single paragraph out of context does not reflect the summary of my final-”

“Just read it, Colonel. I do, thank you.”

“Very well. ‘As he does not operate within any definable branch of government, Iron Man presents a potential threat to the security of both the nation and her interests.’ I did, however, go on to summarize the benefits of Iron man far outweigh the liabilities. And that it would be in our interest to fold Mr. Stark into the existing chain of command, Senator.”

“I’m not a joiner, but I’ll consider the Secretary of Defense if you ask nicely. We can amend the hours a bit.” 

“I would like to go and show the imagery that’s connected to your report.”

“I believe it is somewhat premature to reveal these images to the general public at the time.”

“With all due respect, Colonel, I understand. And if you could just narrate those for us, we’d be very grateful.”

“Let’s have the images. ‘Intelligence suggests that the devices seen in these photos are, in fact, attempts at making manned copies of Mr. Stark’s suit. This has been corroborated by our allies and local intelligence on the ground, indicating that these suits are quite possibly at this moment operational.”

“Hold on one second, buddy. Let me see something here. Oh! Boy, I’m good. I commandeered your screens. I need them. Time for a little transparency. Now, let’s see what’s really going on.”

“What is he doing?”

“If you will direct your attention to said screens- I bel;ieve that’s North Korea.” There was a bulky suit that fell over and started shooting, killing a camera man.

“Can you turn that off? Take it off?

“Iran.” There was an explosion and some debris landed on the camera man, likely killing him too. “No grave immediate threat here. Is that Justin Hammer? How did Hammer get in the game?” it was Hammer instructing someone in a suit, “Justin you’re on TV, focus up!” Eventually the pilot of the suit twisted to the left, before screaming out in pain. Hammer responded in ‘oh shit. Oh shit!’ before he unplugged the tv.

“Wow. yeah, I’d say most countries are 5-10 years away.. Hammer Industries, 20.”

“I’d like to point out that the test pilot survived.”

“I think we're done, is the point that he’s making. I don’t think there’s any reason-”

“The point is, you're welcome? I guess?”

“For what?”

“Because I’m your nuclear deterrent. It’s working. We’re safe. America is secure. You want my property, you can’t have it. But I did you a big favor.” He stood up and turned around. “I’ve successfully privatized world peace.” he said, holding up peace signs. “What more do you want? For now! I tried to play ball with these ass-clowns.”

“F- you Mr. Stark. F- You buddy. We’re adjourned. We’re adjourned for the day.”

“Okay.” He smiled, and blew kisses at the senator.

“You’ve been a delight.” The senator said sarcastically. Dad walked back toward a camera

“My bond is with the people. And I will serve this great nation at the pleasure of myself. IF there’s one thing I’ve proven, is that you can count on me-” The tv turned off suddenly. I looked up to see Happy holding the remote.

“Okay, let's head home, kid.” He sighed.

Chapter Text

Dad was doing his thing in the garage, Pepper was making a meal while I sat and did some homework. As she set the stove to simmer, she pulled her tablet out and was reading through some emails. Judging by her expression, something just made her upset. And she started marching down to the garage. I frowned and followed her, not before asking JARVIS to keep an eye on the food. She was already in there shouting at him. He was walking around and messing with his holograms. Tossing one like a skeebal. I entered my code before entering to hear their conversation.

“-To say our collection considering the time that I put in, over 8 years, curating that.” Pepper argued. Did he sell her modern art collection? Seriously?

“It was a tax write-off. I needed that.” He shrugged.

“You know about 8,011 things that I really need to talk to you about.”

“Hey, DUM-E.” He patted the robot. “Stop spacing out the Bridgeport is already machining that part.”

“The Expo is a gigantic waste of time.” Pepper said standing in front of him trying to get his attention.

“I need you to wear a surgical mask until you’re feeling better. Is that okay?” He instructed before patting her shoulder and walking off.

“That’s rude.” I said walking over to them.

“There is nothing more important than the Expo. It’s my primary point of concern.”

“The Expo is your ego gone crazy.” 

“Wow. Look at that.” he said, holding up a portrait of Iron Man. “That’s modern art. That’s going up.”

“You have got to be kidding me.” Pepper and I said at the same time.

“I’m putting this up right now. This is Vital.” He started, and started walking off. I ignored them, sort of tuning them out to look around the lab a bit. I was at dad’s desk where there was a box of something and a small device. Curiously, I picked up the device, it read Blood Toxicity Level and it was at 24%. Which is odd. As I was about to open the woodbox Tony said something that had caught my attention. “I’m trying to make you CEO! Why won't you let me?”

“Have you been drinking?”

“Uh, chlorophyll.” He answered. Which is what exactly? “I hereby irrevocably appoint you chairman and CEO of Stark Industries, effective immediately. Yeah. Done deal. Okay?” he patted her arm and walked over to DUM-E who had acquired drinks. “I have actually given this  fair amount of thought, believe it or not. Doing a bit of headhunting, so to speak, trying to figure out who a worthy successor would be, before Peter can take the wheel. Then I realized-” he popped the champagne cork out. “-it’s you. It’s always been you. I thought there’d be a legal issue, but actually I’m capable of appointing my successor. My successor being you. Congratulations? Just take it.”

“I don’t know what to think.”

“Don’t think, just drink.” He insisted.I wandered over to sit by them. Before I could even sit fully, JARVIS interrupted.

“ Sir, I should let you know that the food Ms. Potts was cooking is about to be finished. ”

“I got it.” He said, before Pepper could even stand up. He quickly walked out and up the stairs. She just sat there in shock.

“I always figured he’d pick you.”

“What?”

“Well you know the company better than anyone, except him of course. You’ve been running it more and more every day. Even before… you know. So, of course he’d pick you.”

“I- I guess.” She was still processing everything. “Wouldn’t you rather-”

“No.”

“No?”

“I mean, sure I’d love to run the company and stuff. But look at what it did to him. I’d rather just… I don’t know, let someone else run it and just be me.” I shrugged. “Dad talks about legacy a lot. And I think that has to do with his dad. I don’t know much about my own grandfather, you know? Dad refuses to talk about him, and the only one capable of doing it is Uncle Rhodey who won’t say anything about him either. Likely cause Dad told him to, or cause he won’t be nice about it? I don’t know. In the end? Stark Industries is our legacy now, and we can do whatever we want with it.”

“How very mature of you, Peter.” 

“Well, someone has to be mature when you aren’t here.” I chuckled. She laughed too.

Watching dad in the gym was hilarious, as always. I was doing gymnastics while we waited for Pepper to get back with the notary. I was totally not using my spider powers I’ve developed over the last 3 years to be better at it. Nope. No way. Of course, if I was actually interested in doing actual gymnastics I would have to refrain from using it (it would be cheating!) Anyway, I’ve noticed that I was increasing my muscle mass very fast. Unfortunately the gym wasn’t high enough to try out the webshooters I developed. Dad was impressed by the webbing too, I also had developed spinnerets on my wrists. The non organic webbing was used with the webshooters. Dad had made over 237 different settings, and said he was making more too. It was a bit much. But he said better to have it and not need it then to need it and not have it. So who am I to argue?

I heard Pepper and the Notary approaching so I opted to stop messing around and take a break to watch Happy and dad box. “The Notary is here. Can you please come sign the paperwork?” Pepper called out as she entered the gym. I turned to look at her with a smile on my face. “Hey kiddo.” She said as she stopped next to where I was sitting. 

“Hi Aunt Pepper.” 

“I promise this is the only time I will ask you to sign over your company!” Pepper shouted at dad.

“He gets distracted easily.” I sighed.

“Don’t I know it.” She agreed. The Notary had entered the gym. I turned to look at her and was perplexed to see ‘Miss Rushman’ as she had called herself. Wasn’t she with Mr. Coulson? I looked at her suspiciously, and she had the audacity to wink at me. As she walked over to us she had held up the document for Pepper to sign. 

“I need you to initial each box.” She informed Pepper. I heard some quick punches before Happy said that’s it I’m done.

“What’s your name lady?” Dad asked her.

“Rushman. Natalie Rushman.” She responded.

“Front and center. Into the church.” He instructed.

“No. You’re seriously not gonna ask-”

“If it pleases the court, which it does.”

“It’s no problem.” Ms Rushman said rather simply, before walking over to dad’s ‘court’ and entering. As she entered dad took a drink of his weird drink he’s been having over the last few weeks.

“What?” he said as he was done. “Can you give her a lesson?” he asked Happy. He joined Pepper on the seat. “Who is she?” 

“She is from legal. And she is a potentially a vey expensive sexual harassment lawsuit. I don’t need you ogling her like that.”

“I need a new assistant boss.”

“Yes, and I’ve got three excellent potential candidates. They’re lined up and ready to meet you.”

“I don’t have time to meet. I need someone now. I feel like it’s her.”

“No it’s not.” Pepper stated, annoyed. I watched Happy and Ms Rushman chat a bit before dad asked how he spelled her name. “What are you gonna google her now?”

“Hm? I thought I was ogling her.” He said scrolling through her career history. “Oh, wow. Very, very impressive individual. She’s fluent in French, Italian, Russian, and Latin. Who speaks Latin?”

“No one speaks Latin, it's a dead language.” I said.

“No one speaks Latin?”

“You can read Latin,or  you can write Latin but you can’t speak Latin.” Pepper continued.

“Did you model in Tokyo? ‘Cause she modeled in Tokyo. I need her, she’s got everything I need.” Dad said. I rolled my eyes. I looked over at the ‘court’ right as Happy said rule one never take your eyes off your opponent- before getting flipped onto his back.

“Oh my god!” Pepper said, startled. “Happy!”

“That’s what I’m talking about.” Dad said impressed.

“I just slipped.” Happy grunted as he got up.

“You did?”

“Yeah.”

“Looks like a TKO to me.” Dad said, tapping the bell.

“Just- I need your impression.” She said as she got down from the boxing ring.

“You have a quiet reserve. I don’t know, you have an old soul.” Dad explained.

“I meant your fingerprint.” Ms. Rushman corrected, holding up her documents.

“Right.” He sighed. He quickly gave the fingerprint.

“So, how are we doing?” Pepper asked, walking over.

“Great. Just wrapping up. Hey. You’re the boss” He smiled.

“Will that be all, Mr. Stark?”

“No.”

“Yes, that will be all, Ms. Rushman.” Pepper interrupted. Ms. Rushman started walking out, on the way out she winked at me. Which only raises more questions.

“I want one.” Dad asked Pepper.

“No.” She turned to glare at him.

-A few days later…

“Remind me why I’m in Monaco when I should be at school?” I complained.

“Uh, cause you’re gonna watch the race with me?” Dad rolled his eyes. He was up front with Happy while Pepper was sitting next to me. 

“I guarantee this is gonna be boring.” I grumbled.

“10 bucks says you're wrong.” Dad challenged me.

“Enough.” Pepper interrupted. “Peter, sweetie, put these on.” she said, handing me sunglasses. I inspected them a bit, before putting them on.

“Did you have to get us matching ones?” 

“Your dad bought them, not me.” She smirked, though I think she thought it was cute.

“I have exquisite taste, what do you mean underoos?”

“Your favorite t-shirt is an ac/dc shirt that you got like 50 years ago.” I retorted, causing Happy and Pepper to laugh.

“50?!” Dad said exasperated. “How old do you think I am?”

“I dunno… 57?” I joked, I know he is  40, but the reactions Pepper and Happy gave were worth the possible punishments.

“What about Happy? Or Pepper?”

“Happy’s gotta be like 78.” I smiled, causing Tony to laugh with Pepper this time.

“What the hell?” He complained.

“You act grumpy all the time.” I shrugged. 

“And Pep?”

“Easy, she’s 38.”

“Why does she get special treatment?” Happy demands.

“Cause she’s my favorite.” I shrugged, causing her to smile at me. Tony laughed, and muttered same, kid . We stopped in front of the venue where we were gonna watch the race. Dad got out holding up a peace sign, while Happy got out and opened Pepper’s door while dad opened mine. I wasn’t worried about cameras that much, dad put a little device on my tie that would distort my face. Along with the sunglasses I felt rather at ease coming here.

“You know, it’s Europe, whatever happens within the next 20 minutes just go with it.” Dad told Pepper.

“Go with it? Go with what?” She questioned.

“Mr. Stark?” Ms. Rushman greeted us.

“Hey.”

“Hello, How was your flight?” She had a fake smile, at least it looked fake.

“Excellent, boy it’s nice to see you.”

“We have one photographer from the ACM, if you don’t mind.” She started, a server walked up handing out drinks for Pepper and him, she quickly took them out of their hands. 

“When did this happen?” Pepper glared at him.

“You made me do it.”

“You made me do what?”

“You quit.” He ignored her. “Smile. Look right there. Stop acting constipated. Don’t flare your nostrils.”

“You are so predictable. That’s the amazing thing.” Pepper gritted out.

“Right this way.” Ms. Rushman interrupted.  

“You look fantastic.” Dad said, following her. I rolled my eyes, but trailed behind as well.

“Why, thank you very much.”

“But that’s unprofessional. What’s on the docket?”

“You have a 9:30 dinner.”

“Perfect, I'll be there at 11:00.” 

“Absolutely.” She nodded. I felt a little bad for her, she clearly had no idea what Pepper went through as his PA.

“Is this us?” He asked, pointing at a corner table.

“It can be.” She stated.

“Great. Make it us.” He said simply

“Okay.” She turned to a server, where I noticed a familiar face…

“Mr. Osborn.” Dad greeted, with a tone that was filled with hate.

“Mr. Stark.” Mr. Osborn greeted back, tone filled with the same level of hate. He turned to Pepper. “Congratulations on the promotion, Ms. Potts.”

“Thank you.” She smiled. She was way more civil than the two. Clearly having no care for their weird rivalry. They don’t even work in the same field! I noticed Harry was here too, we opted to ‘ignore’ each other in public, lest we face the wrath of some over protective fathers. “I’m sorry for your loss.” I thought briefly of what she meant, then I remembered that his dad, Amberson Osborn, had recently passed.

“Thank you.” He actually smiled. THE Norman Osborn smiled. I must have traveled to another dimension. I looked over at Harry, who must be having the same thoughts as me.

“And that’s enough of that.” Dad interrupted, dragging Pepper off. I followed. “You want a message?”

“Oh god.” Pepper sighed. “No, I don’t want a massage.”

“I’ll have Natalie make an appointment.”

“I don’t want Natalie to do anything.”

“By the way, I didn’t mean to spring this on you.”

“Thank you very much.” They stopped at a bar.

“Green is not your best color.”

“Oh please.” Pepper rolled her eyes.

“Anthony? Is that you? Hey, pal.” Justin Hammer said, peaking his head over toward us and walking over.

“My least favorite person on Earth, Justin Hammer.” Dad complained.

“How are you doing? You’re not the only rich guy here with a fancy car. You know Christine Everhart from Vanity Fair? You guys know each other?” He said pointing over at her. My mind supplies, The Trash Lady! But I don’t say out loud.

“Hi!” She greeted us.

“Yes, roughly.” Dad agreed, he probably forgot all about her.

“We do.” She smiled.

“BTW, big story. The new CEO of Stark Industries. Congratulations.” Hammer said, pointing at Pepper.

“I know. I know. My editor will kill me if I don’t grab a quote for our Powerful Woman issue. Can I?” 

“Oh! Sure.”

“She’s actually doing a big spread on me for Vanity Fair. I thought I’d throw her a bone.” He explained, and no one asked. “Right?”

“Yes.”

“Well, she did quite a spread on Tony last year.” Pepper joked. I had to stop myself from laughing.

“And she wrote a story as well.” Dad continued.

“It was very impressive.” Pepper deadpanned.

“That was good.” Dad was trying to stop from laughing.

“Very well done.”

“Thank you.” She said uncomfortable.

“I’m gonna go wash.” Pepper stated before walking off.

“Don’t leave me.” Tony begged. 

“Hey buddy. How you doing?” Hammer said, patting his shoulder and holding him in place.

“I’m doing alright.” Dad lied. Trash Lady was trying to ask questions while Hammer was trying to get a good photo from the photographer.

She finally got their attention. “Listen, is it the first time you’ve seen each other since the Senate?”

“Uh, since he got his contract revoked.” Dad pointed at Hammer.

“Actually, it’s on hold.” Hammer corrected.

“That’s not what I heard. What’s the difference between "hold" and " canceled"? The truth” Dad asked, walking over to a table. I just stood next to him, know he was probably gonna leave soon

“No. The truth is-” he smacked at the recorder the trash lady was holding. “Why don’t we put that away. The truth is, I’m actually hoping to present something at your Expo.” Hammer said.

“Well, if you invent something that works, I’ll make sure I get you a slot.” Dad deadpanned, I snorted, which caused him to smirk, and Hammer to glare at me.

“Mr. Stark? Your table is ready.” Ms. Rushman walked up to us. We quickly followed her. Dad joked that Hammer needed a slot. He excused himself to the bathroom before leaving us at the table. 

I went to check on him and he had just come out. “Oh! Follow me.” He instructed. I frowned, but obliged his request. He led me out to the track and had me sit in the stands. Then disappeared again. Only to reappear wearing the racing suit and walking out onto the track. I used my enhanced hearing to focus on him. He hopped the barrier and had started telling the driver to leave and that he will be driving instead. “Whats the use of having, and owning, a racecar… if you don’t drive it?” He said plainly. The crowd agreed with him. As the final checks were being done, I got a weird feeling down my neck. I looked around confused, before spotting one of the workers walking with some extra confidence for some reason. As the race started, he started heading toward the barrier, before pushing it open, and closing it behind him. He ignored some of the cars before flipping off his helmet and pulling the jacket apart.. Revealing an ARC reactor strapped to his chest. He flicked something down from the sleeves, and the jacket started burning up, revealing a whip… powered by an ARC reactor. As the next car approached, he slashed at it, cutting it apart. It tumbled around a bit before sticking up on the fence.

The tingling started up again before I saw dad’s car head straight for him. The guy cut at the front of the car, slicing threw it, causing dad to tumble around a bit too. He eventually skidded across the track before getting stuck on the parts of the car earlier. AS more cars approached, one stopped to avoid hitting him, which caused other cars to crash into it. This guy ignored the cars exploding and flying over him, which was really cool, if not scary. I started making my way down toward dad’s car. Jumping down from the stands ignoring the protests of the people around me. When the guy got closer he slashed the car again, but dad wasn’t there. Dad was behind him, he smacked him with a piece of metal. The metal was slapped out of his hand and he dodged more attacks. The feeling again, and dad quickly jumped up the fence. I stumbled back as the guy was hit by the car Happy was driving. “Hey kid.” He breathed out before hoping down. “Hey! Were you heading for me or him?” He asked Happy.

“I was trying to scare him!” Happy yelled back.

“Cause I can’t tell!”

“Are you out of your mind?!” Pepper screamed.

“Better security!” He pointed at her.

“Get in the car right now! Both of you!” 

“I was attacked!”

“Get in the car!” Happy yelled.

“You’re CEO. Better security measures. God it’s embarrassing.” He complained, walking over to the side door. I had gotten around the fence by sprint to a gate and was heading to the car, dad opened the door for me. “First vacation in 2 years.” Dad grumbled. That sensation again, as I was about to step past him, the car door was sliced off! Dad quickly shoved me behind him. Happy quickly reserved and slammed into him again. “Hit him again!” Dad yelled, and Happy obliged. They were yelling at each other to give Tony the case. Eventually he slashed down the middle of the car. Pepper was screaming more, I scrambled to my feet looking for something to help. The guy slashed at the side of the car. Dad screamed more for the case before Pepper finally tossed it onto the road. He tapped the bottom, and it started to unfold. He lifted it onto him and it assembled around him. He pushed the car away and turned toward him. He aimed at him, but was slashed away. The repulsor was damaged so he used his other hand. The whip guy blocked each attack with his whips. He wrapped a hand, then his neck and tossed him around a bit. I tossed a piece of metal at him. He turned to look at me, then raised a whip at me. As he was about to swing, dad yanked on his other hand, causing him to miss. He started wrapping the armor around the whip and got closer before tossing him over head and yanking the ARC reactor out. The guy spat out blood, and laughed like a manic. “You lose!” He laughed, “You lose!” now laughing like a manic. Now the thought crosses my mind… What exactly did dad lose?

Chapter Text

Leaving the race track was a blur. Pepper was sitting near me while Happy went to get another car. I don’t even remember getting into the car and arriving at the airport and we waited on dad’s plane. Pepper said he went to see the guy that attacked him. I nodded and just leaned against her shoulder and fell asleep, by the time I woke up we were already in the air. The TV Pepper was watching was the news. I groaned and sat up, mumbling “Mute.” Pepper looked over at me, a small smile on her face.

“A good sleep?” 

“Yes, actually” I replied, after considering it. “I find it easier to sleep in odd positions now.”

“That’s interesting, think it’s something to do with the bite?” She looked genuinely curious, normally she doesn’t ask about the powers, but I’m glad she is now.

“Maybe. I dunno. I’d ask Dr. Banner but he’s… missing.” I shrugged. “Where’s dad?”

“Right here.” He said coming out of the back. He placed a tray on the table next to Pepper.

“What is that?” She looked at it dubiously.

“It’s your in-flight meal.” He answered by taking the cover off.

“Did you just make that?” 

“Yeah. Where do you think I’ve been for three hours?” 

“Tony? What are you not telling us?” She looked at him with a worried expression on her face.

He sat in silence for a moment, then “I don’t want to go home. Let’s cancel my birthday party and- uh, We’re in Europe let’s got to Venice, Cipriani. Remember?”

Pepper scoffed. “Oh yeah.”

“It’s a great place to… be healthy.” Healthy? What does he mean by that?

“I don’t think this is the right time. We’re in kind of a mess.”

“Well maybe that's why it’s the best time.” He countered.

“Well. I think as the CEO I need to show up.”

“As CEO, you are entitled to a leave.”

“A leave?” I asked bewildered.

“A company retreat.”

“A retreat? During a time like this?” Pepper seemed exhausted.

“Well, I’m just saying, to recharge our batteries and figure it all out.” He explained, but it didn’t really explain much.

“Not everyone runs on batteries, Tony.” Pepper said softly. After we landed and returned home, I checked my phone to find Harry had texted.

a raccoon pretending to be human

Peter!

Are you okay?

I went to look for you after a bit.

Only to see your dad fighting someone with

these crazy whips and you tossing stuff at him!

Just are you okay?

LMK please!

I’m okay.

Sorry I didn’t respond right away.

Fell asleep on the plane before we took off.

I’m back home now.

Dad is acting weird, again.

Any ideas?

Peter! It’s good to hear from you!

Also you are the only person I know that 

falls asleep on a plane before it takes off!

Shut up! 🙄

Back to your dad, explain in more detail?

He’s been… odd.

Odder than what you’ve probably heard of on TV

On the plane after waking up, he asked us to go on

a company retreat!

And said that Venice or Caprine is a good place to be ‘healthy’

That’s hard to imagine…

A company retreat to be healthy?

Peter, it sounds like he thinks he is dying.

What?

How?

That doesn’t make sense!

My grandfather had wanted to go visit places

with us a few weeks before he was admitted to the hospital.

He ended up dying a few days afterward.

That can’t be right!

The doctors believed he had been thinking

he was going to die soon so he made us go with him.

Which if you think my father is bad, imagine his father.

That was the worst family vacation ever.

I’m sorry.

I wish I could’ve gone with you or something!

Yeah then they’d have questions about you.

True, I guess.

My dad didn’t want to do his birthday party this year.

And you know how much he likes his parties.

Sounds like he wanted to spend his last birthday

with people he cares about instead of a bunch 

of strangers.

Maybe you’re right.

If you ever need somewhere to go… My mom has her own 

apartment I can take you to. 

She’s out of the country right now.

Just let me know you’re on the way first?

Thanks for the offer, Harry.

I’ll let you know.

Maybe pack a bag just in case.

Wait, isn't this apartment in NYC?

Yeah. Just um.. Idk take a train?

A train. From California. To New York?

Or a plane!

A plane, probably…

I’m gonna go, the party is gonna start soon.

You are actually gonna be there for that?

No, I’m hiding in my room.

It gets loud.

Right, of course.

Don’t drink!

I snorted at his last message. Why would I drink at the age of 9? Weirdo. Either way, I packed an emergency bag. I thought about what to take. Clothes? Yes. Toiletries? Yes. Phone? Yes… but I opened it up and removed the tracker I know dad installed in the casing. I also grabbed the device Dad used to scramble my face from cameras. I opted to take it as well, but not before checking if it had any trackers as well. Luckily it didn’t. I also had put my wallet in there too. Dad could find out where I was if I used the card that definitely has way too much money for a 10 year old. So I first would have to find an ATM and get cash. Then it’d be about getting a ticket to New York. I figured I’d just wing it if it comes to that. I heard the music start up. I figured the party was starting then. “Uncle J?”

“ Yes, sir? ”

“If… hypothetically, I were to leave. Would you tell dad?”

“ I am obligated to inform your father if he asks. Why? ”

“I… I’m worried about him. If he’s okay. I don’t- I don’t want to watch him die. You care about my well-being right?”

“ Of course I do, Peter. My programming by your father lists you as a higher priority than him. ”

“So.. if you linked to my phone, would you stay with me? Even if I leave?”

“ Is this still hypothetical? ”

I opened my mouth but closed it considering his question. “Yes.” I answered.

“ And, hypothetically of course, I would not inform Mr. Stark about your location should you leave the premises? ” 

I smirked. “Yeah. Exactly Uncle J!” I heard the music abruptly stop. I turned toward the door, curiously. “Um, Jarvis?”

“ I’m only going to say this once. Get out. ” I heard Rhodey’s voice boom out. “ You don’t deserve to wear one of these! Shut it down! ”

“ Goldstein? ”

“ Yes, Mr. Stark? ”

“ Give me a phat beat to kick my buddy’s ass to .” I sighed. Before glancing at the bag. 

“Jarvis?”

“ Yes, sir? ”

“You on my phone?”

“ Yes, I am. ”

“Good. We’re leaving.” I frowned. Grabbing the bag. I opened the window, seeing people run off. Luckily my room was in a place easily climbed down from. I quickly got onto the roof, and left the window open. As I landed on the lawn I heard my bedroom door open, following the clicking of heels. Pepper.

“Peter?” She asked into an empty room. I didn’t look back. I just kept going. “Peter!?” I heard her yell out. I already tuned her out. I kept walking. I found myself at a bus stop that was about to leave. I managed to get on the bus before it took off.

“Where to?” The driver asked, ignoring the fact that I am a child.

“LAX.” I said.

“$35.” He informed me. I nodded, and paid. Before finding a place to sit. I muted my phone and ignored the calls from Pepper. I opened my texts with Harry.

a raccoon pretending to be a human

I’m on the way. Heading to LAX now. 

Send address over? Expect me in at least 7ish hours?

Ok. Let me know where you’re landing.

See you soon?

Yeah. Soon.

The bus ride was uneventful. Traffic wasn’t bad, considering it’s LA. I managed to get a ticket to JFK in NYC. Waiting to board was mind numbingly boring as well. The flight even more so. It was interesting. Sure, people were making sure I was fine. I was required to be with someone the entire time, being only 9. I was asked questions, which I ignored. Saying stranger danger and what not. About 5 hours later I told Harry I was here. He said he was on his way. Which confused me. Can Harry drive? At 9 years old? Weird, but useful I guess. He said to meet at a park he gave an address to. I found myself sitting on a swing waiting. It was cold. I forgot to pack a warm coat. I texted JARVIS.

Uncle J

Is everyone okay? What happened after I left?

It’s good to see you landed safely, Peter. Your father lost

to Colonel Rhodes. Who confiscated the Mark II.

Pepper has attempted to contact you as well. You have 

139 missed calls from her. 

I frowned. Of course Pepper was worried. I just hope she’ll forgive me for leaving her. I heard footsteps heading toward me. I looked up to see Harry, and someone I didn’t recognize. “Hey.” I greeted.

“Hey, yourself.” He said sitting on the swing next to me. “Total emo kid vibes by the way.”

“What?”

“You’re out here sitting on a swing by yourself, at like 5 in the morning. Emo kid vibes.” He explained. 

“Right.” I rolled my eyes. “Whose your friend?” I asked, looking over at the lady he was with.

“Oh! Right. That’s my mom.”

I perked up. “Nice to meet you, Mrs. Osborn.” 

“So you’re the boy Harry has been texting almost everyday?” She asked, walking over. 

“Yeah. Peter. Peter Parker.” I smiled.

“It’s nice to meet you.” 

“I thought you said she was out of the country?”

“She had a change of plans. Came home early. Norman went out of the country to fill her place.” He explained with a shrug.

“Besides, it's nice to meet Harry's friends. Not that Norman would approve.” She winked at me. “Let’s go. You can stay at the apartment I own.”

“Why do you have it?” I wondered aloud.

“I had it before I met Norman. I’ve kept it ever since. Just felt like it I suppose.” She explained as we walked toward the car. The apartment was nice. Near the top of the building. On the 28th floor. It was big. Open. But it looked like a home. It looked lived in, unlike the Malibu house I was so used to. The only place that looked lived in was my bedroom. Something Harry related too. Who lived in the penthouse of Oscorp Tower. Only the bedrooms looked actually lived in. Cluttered shelves and the like. He shared pictures before. But he didn’t show his room, I only ever saw it when we did video calls occasionally. Mrs. Osborn’s apartment was much better. Harry had a room here, but his dad did not. I wondered if there was a specific reason for that. I was always too afraid to ask. Emily allowed me to stay in a guest room. Shaking her head when I said the couch was fine. Harry said that’d be rude, when they have a perfectly open guest room. I fell asleep wondering if dad was okay.

To say she was frustrated was an understatement. Of course Fury wouldn’t let her kill Vanko. It’d blow her cover. Well, now that’s biting his ass cause Vanko is ‘dead’ or at least, they think he is. But a quick hack into security cams showed otherwise. Someone wanted Vanko. Who? No clue. Either way, Pepper Potts was on to her now. She avoided her, and left the party. She reported to Fury what happened. That’s when she learned the kid ran away. “I’ll find him.” She stated.

“No. You won’t. You have to maintain cover at Stark Industries.” Fury countered. “We are already looking. The minute we find him, I’ll let you know.”

“Fine.” She relented. “Just so you know. If you let me kill Vanko we wouldn’t have to worry about where he is right now.” She informed him before walking off.

“Romanov.” 

“Yes Fury?”

“We need you for something with Stark.”

“Got it.”

Waking up to the smell of something being cooked was not something Peter was used to. Normally Dad just ordered something. That’s when I remembered that I wasn’t home. I sat up quickly and remembered I was at Mrs. Osborn's’ place. I wandered out into the hall, following the smell of food. Only to find Mrs. Osborn making eggs and waffles. “Good morning.” I mumbled rubbing my eyes.

“Good morning! I hope you don’t mind waffles.” She said, pressing the waffle iron down.

“I actually prefer them. Dad thinks they are an abomination or something." I shrugged.

“Well, he has poor taste.” She laughed. “Can you go and wake Harry? Almost done here.”

“Yeah.” I nodded before walking over toward the bedrooms. I listened, trying to focus on the heartbeats. Something I thought was awesome, but freaked dad… and well everyone out. I found Harry’s room and knocked before opening after no response. I smiled at his room. Star Wars posters, along with Stark Trek. Batman and other various comic posters also adorned the walls. I walked over to his bed, contemplating how to wake him. I opted to just drag the blanket off, hoping I pull him with it. 

“Ah! Cold” He yelped, trying to reach for the blanket.

“Your mom said I should wake you up. She made breakfast.”

“Waffles?” He mumbled.

“Yeah. C’mon.” I said dropping the blanket and leaving. I sat at the table. She had plated some for me. But she left it blank so I could put my own toppings on.

“Coffee?” She asked. Coming over with some mugs.

“Can’t have.” I said. Spiders and caffeine don’t mix. I learned that the hard way… when I walked on the ceiling of the garage for an hour. Dad had begged me to come down and when I did I promptly fell asleep. “Unless you want me to sleep in an hour.” I shrugged.

“What?”  She looked at me curiously.

“Oh! Um… Nothing.” I blushed. She had got me water instead, which I was thankful for. We ate in a peaceful silence. She had to leave for work at Oscorp, but had called Harry out of school for the week. After she left we played mario cart for a bit, before getting bored of that. 

“Let’s do something else.” 

“Okay… like what?” 

“Hm. What’s something you’ve always wanted to do?” 

“Oh! Uh…” I thought about it, and only one answer came to my mind. “I’ve always wanted to meet my Uncle.” I shrugged.

“What?”

Chapter Text

We found ourselves in front of the building where my mom’s brother lived. Along with his wife. I was nervous. Incredibly nervous. Would they like me? Would they even recognize me? Dad always said I had my mom’s eyes. Would he notice? And put two and two together? Harry nudged me out of my thoughts. “We can’t stand here all day. You may not exactly be a well known celebrity, hiding your face and all, but I am. Let’s just go inside. What’s the worst that could happen?”

“They hate me and want nothing to do with me before tossing me out and calling Dad to come and get me?” 

“Is that really the worst case scenario in your head?” He looked at me with a raised eyebrow.

“Yes.”

“Overthinker much? C’mon let’s just go.” He sighed and tugged on my arm.

“Fine.” As we entered, I double checked Jarvis' message about where they are. The apartment number and everything. We took the elevator up to the 3rd floor, and found apartment number 19. I knocked on it. Harry gave an encouraging smile. It was opened by an Italian woman. This must be May Parker. “Hi, I’m-”

“Mary’s son? Right?” She interrupted. I nodded. “You have her eyes.” She explained. “We knew she was pregnant… but we haven’t heard from her in years.”

“Oh. I- I’m sorry she died giving birth to me.” I frowned, tears in my eyes. I was pulled into a hug by her. They were like Pepper’s. Warm and comforting.

“It’s okay, sweetheart. Ben was told that she died. We assumed it was during childbirth.” She explained. “Why don’t you come inside?” She offered and we accepted. Looking around, it was.. Nice. Homey. I liked it at least. “So… who's your friend?”

“Harry. Harry Osborn.” He extended his hand, which she shook.

“Bet Stark loves the fact you’re best friends with him.” She laughed.

“Neither of our parents have any idea we know each other.” I explained. Which she nodded in understanding. “I um.. There’s a lot to explain.”

“I bet. Why else would you be here with your dad’s rival’s kid.” She patted next to her on the couch. Harry took an arm chair but mostly stayed quiet. “Start from the top, kiddo. Ben is working right now, just us.”

So I did. The worry when dad was kidnapped. The relief when he was found. The annoyance and worry when he said I existed. Meeting Dr. Bruce Banner. The Spider. Meeting Harry for the first time. And now, the idea that dad might be dying. The signs. Leaving him, Pepper, Happy and Rhodey behind. She asked about the spider when I first mentioned it. Harry looked curious too, but didn’t say anything. I forgot he didn’t know. I explained at first, I was sick for a few days. When I woke up, I had lost my asthma. A few months later, I was sick again. My eyes were better. My hearing was better. All my senses had dialed up to 11. I explained that I could focus on things. Like heartbeats. And smells. Dad’s was irregular all the time. Pepper’s was steady, calm and soothing to listen to. About two weeks after that, I got sick again. I was able to stick to any surface, climb on walls. Walk on the ceiling. Another few weeks. Sick. I developed spinnerets on my wrists. I also was getting hungry more. My metabolism has increased. I noticed it was easier to build muscle. Or I at least think it is. 

After explaining everything. May was just happy I wanted to meet her and Ben. They didn't know who the dad was, but when Tony Stark announced a son, and a few days later announced a non-profit named Mary Stark Foundation. They knew. Mary never told them who the dad was. But they knew they weren’t married. They figured it out when the foundation was to raise money for cancer research. Mary’s field of expertise. When Ben came home, he hugged me. His hugs were strong, and comforting. I explained everything again. He found it both worrisome and intriguing. They gave me their numbers. Ben was a cop, and couldn’t answer all the time. He insisted he will answer when he gets the chance. May was a nurse, who said the same. After that, Harry and I walked back to Mrs. Osborn’s apartment. Where we stayed for the next few days. 

“Isn’t that Stark Expo here in Queens?” Harry asked suddenly.

“Yeah? Why?”

“We should go.”

“Why?”

“Well. I want to go. And maybe you can meet with your dad again?”

“I don’t-”

“Peter. You have to go back eventually.” He insisted.

“Fine. Let’s go tomorrow night.” I rolled my eyes. “You want to make your dad upset don’t you?”

“You caught me.” He laughed. “No, he’s busy tomorrow night. Leaving town. Mom’s going with him. I’ll just stick with you.”

“We should wear some disguises.”

“Like what?”

“I’m so glad you asked.” I smirked.

“I regret letting you choose the disguise.” He complained, muffled by the Iron Man Mask. He adjusted it a bit before deciding that it was fine. We had both put on masks and just stayed next to each other. We were waiting for the show to start. Apparently some idiot let Justin Hamer get a slot at the expo. And we wanted to see what terrible invention he had brought. Harry joked that it was gonna be the suit that was gonna cripple the person inside (again). Either way it was bound to go wrong somehow. We just didn’t know how yet.

His presentation was interesting, at least. What surprised me the most was that Uncle Rhodey had showed up in a newly outfitted suit. It wasn’t dad’s work that’s for sure. It looked… sloppy almost. Rushed, even. Odd. The drones noticeably had arc reactors. Which only one other person besides dad could make. Vanko. Great. This is gonna end badly isn’t it. I heard the roar of thrusters and looked up to see dad land on the stage. Which means he has the same idea. Vanko is up to something. “Harry?” I said hesitantly. Something didn’t seem right. But what?

“Peter?” He turned to look at me.

“We have to leave.” I said, grabbing his arm. “Quickly!” I insisted, he followed as quick as he could.

“Why are we leaving?”

“I just- I just got a bad feeling something is gonna happen.” I said as we got outside. 

“What? Why? How?”

“When I was- um- You know? I’ve started like- feeling danger or something? I don-” I was interrupted by the sounds of screams and gun fire. I turned to look at the pavilion. Where people were running out and the drones were shooting at people, along with chasing dad around. “C’mon hurry!” I said pulling him away further. When a drone spotted the two of us. We stopped and stared at it. I put my hand up with the fake gauntlet, and closed my eyes. When something landed behind us. Dad, I thought. I heard the repulsor charge up and a blast. I jumped a bit when I heard it shoot. I opened my eyes to see the drone blasted away.

“Nice work, kids.” Dad said before flying off again.

Harry grabbed my arm and started pulling me away. “C’mon lets get out of here!” He shouted as he led me away. 

I found myself back at May’s apartment. Harry and I had run all the way. May hugged us when she opened the door. She knew we were going to the expo, and was worried when she saw the drones start attacking. Emily had come over to grab Harry. I got May’s number, and Ben’s. Who I had yet to meet. Eventually I found myself back at the Malibu mansion. Jarvis greeted me as I entered. I noticed that the floor was.. More destroyed than I had remembered it being. Wires and things had been tossed down through the hole. I went down into the garage to find why, when I noticed the contraption. “Jarvis?”

“Yes, sir?”

“What’s that?”

“A prismatic accelerator. Your father used it to synthesize a new element to replace the palladium core in the ARC Reactor.”

“Palladium core?” I mumbled, before considering why he needed a new core, let alone the need to create a new element for it. “Why did he need to?”

“I don’t believe I am allowed to share such information with you at this time.”

“Well you don’t have to- um, speak it, just show me?”

“Very well.” He brought up screens. The many simulated trials of every known element to replace the Palladium used in the ARC. None came close to the necessary requirements. Then the reasoning. The palladium was poisoning him. That’s why he was drinking chlorophyll, in hopes of counteracting the poison. The prolonged use of the suit was killing him, speeding up the process. That’s the device he had been carrying with him as well. To measure his blood toxicity. Everything started clicking into place. He was dying. And he didn’t tell anyone?

“Jarvis?”

“Yes. sir?”

“Where did dad come up with the new element?”

“Your grandfather had left instructions to create it. The 1974 Stark Expo model was a blueprint.”

“What? How?” He brought up a holographic recording of dad messing with a projection of the expo.

“How many buildings are there?”

“Am I to include the Belgian waffle stands?”

“It was rhetorical, just show me.” He instructed. He spun it around before flipping it upward to be vertical. “Uh-huh. Um. What does that look like to you, Jarvis? Not unlike an atom. In which case the nucleus would be here.” He pointed at the Earth structure. “Highlight the unisphere.” it glowed, and he enlarged it. “Lose the foot paths. Get rid of ‘em.”

“What is it you are trying to achieve, sir?”

“I’md discovering- correction. I’m re-discovering a new element.” He explained before pondering for another moment. “Lose the landscaping, the shrubbery, the trees. Parking lots, exits, entrances.” He instructed, flicking everything away. “Strutcure the protons and the neutrons using the pavilions as a framework.” He waited for Jarvis to work his magic and when it was completed. He threw his arms up, being in the center of the projection. “Dead for almost 20 years, and still taking me to school.” He smiled, spinning around in his chair. Before chuckling and clapping his hands together.

“The proposed element should serve as an available replacement for palladium.”

“Thanks, Dad.”

“Unfortunately, It is impossible to synthesize.” That’s when the recording ended. “Your father then spent the next few hours building the prismatic accelerator. He successfully created the new element.”

“Show me the element?” I asked, and he projected the element that dad made from the Expo model. I pulled it toward me and looked at it. “What did dad call it?”

“He did not name it yet.”

“What’s the point of re-discovering a new element and not even naming it? Did my grandfather name it?”

“I believe Howard Stark was attempting to mimic something rather than create a brand new element.”

“Mimic? Mimic what?”

“The notes your father uploaded suggest he was attempting to mimic something called the Tesseract."

“What?” I said bewildered. In theory, a Tesseract is a 4-dimensional geometry shape. Something we can’t observe, being in the 3rd dimension. Of course, this isn’t exactly what the notes are referring to. “Bring up the notes.” I instructed. I started reading through them. The Tesseract was apparently an energy source. Found in the ocean searching for- Captain America. Steve Rogers. My grandfather believed him to be alive. Or it seemed, rather hoped he was. In the search of the ocean floor he found it. I brought it up to the surface and started studying it. Apparently during the war an organization called Hydra used it to power weapons. Howard wanted to use it to power the world. His partner, Anton Vanko wanted to use it to make weapons. Something this ‘Hydra’ would have done. So he had him deported, but listed the reasoning as “a way to get rich.” But his notes held the truth. I frowned. I was about to ask for more information when I heard a plate drop. I turned to see dad standing there, door to the garage open, Pepper behind him. He ran up to me and scooped me up in a hug. 

“I’m so sorry!” He cried as he squeezed me. “I’m so sorry! I was so worried about you!” He babbled on. Pepper came over and hugged me as well. She cried as she hugged us both. They were both crying and apologizing. I was trying to hold back my own tears, but was failing miserably. After we calmed down, dad asked: “Why did you leave?”

“Because- ‘Cause you started drinking again. You- you promised you wouldn’t” I explained between hiccups. Tony frowned, his face full of regret. 

“I’m sorry.” He apologized again. “I won’t touch another drop again. I mean it this time.” he promised, pulling me into another hug. I hoped he kept this promise this time.

Chapter Text

I was bored. And a bored Stark tends to lead to.. Whatever this was. The idea was relatively simple. The execution? Way more complex than I had thought. I mean, sneaking a friend into the house has got to be something kids do right? Well, teens normally, but still! Harry was bored, and had recently appeared in San Francisco for Oscorp shenanigans. He requested we do something. Unfortunately I had forgotten that our dads don’t exactly like each other. So of course, I snuck Harry into my room while dad was away. Jarvis had found it ‘humorous’ that I was doing this. Sure, they had started the remodel of the Stark Tower a bit ago, but I wanted to be included in that! So as revenge I snuck my dad’s rival’s son into my bedroom, and Jarvis acted as if nothing was wrong because he was convinced (tricked) that as having a higher priority then dad means I can override his protocols. Though I’m sure it’s simply because he has been evolving as an A.I. Either way, Harry wanted to see the web shooters I made, cause the ones from my wrists freaked him out a little bit. Though he admits it’s cool, he was still processing that information.

So of course he asked to try them on. And being the brilliant mind of a Stark, I let him. Which led to the situation I was in now. Stuck to the ceiling along with my best friend ‘cause the canister holding the webbing exploded. Which conveniently led to the discovery that the fluid has a limited shelf life before it gets risky to use. The fluid will just start to expand. I would’ve told Jarvis to make a note of that, if my mouth wasn’t covered by the webbing. Luckily, Harry’s wasn’t. Which he used to mostly laugh at the absurdity of the situation. 

“I mean- It’s pretty funny.” He said as his laughter died. “But um- How do we get- You know?” he asked helpfully.

“I’m afraid that the fluid dissolves in 4 hours. Or the dissolvent could be used to speed up the process. I’ve instructed DUM-E to bring up the can and spray it at you both, but he seemed to have gotten stuck, as there isn’t an elevator up to this floor.”

“That’s so helpful.” Harry grumbled. “Wait, you said earlier that the fluid was, what? Expired? How long does it take for it to dissolve then?” 

“Calculations show that it will dissolve quicker, but by how much I am unsure.”

“Oh. Great.” Harry said, bored. “How long till Mr. Stark comes home?”

“Mr. Stark will be returning home in a few days to collect Peter for the final calculations of the remodel.”

“That’s good, I guess.” Harry was just waiting now. “Is there anyone that isn’t Mr. Stark, that could help?”

“Colonel Rhodes is currently off duty and is available.”

He glanced over at my face to see if it’s okay if he can come help. I had to think about it for a moment. Would he tell dad? Or would I have to convince him not to? Either way, it would probably be best to get down from here now. I tried my best to nod at him. Thankfully he did see. “Yeah, ask if he can drop by?” Harry asked Jarvis. 

“The Colonel has been informed and said he’ll be here in about an hour.”

“Cool. Just an hour.” Harry mumbled again. Though if it was one thing I learned from his texts, it was that he wasn’t good at waiting. I was starting to plan out how to explain myself to Uncle Rhodey. I couldn’t exactly lie to him. I’ve been told frequently that I’m a bad liar. So the truth is it is. I mean, I told dad about May. At first he was… worried I had met a random stranger, despite the relation. After about an hour of convincing him that she was nice. He had even met her briefly when he went over to New York City to start the remodel. He had offered a new apartment for them apparently, which they declined. Though May said that the building acquired a new owner the next day and asked if it was dad, which I told her it probably was. He had lowered rent a bit, improved the lobby, the security, and the overall building. Every apartment had gotten new appliances. And just in general better furniture as well. May complained about it, but Ben (who I’ve only met over the phone) had said would she like to go back to the 1.2k a month on rent? Which was apparently lowered to about just $730. Apparently that was below the average. So May had relented, but was mostly impressed that he was so generous.

That’s when I also learned that they owned a house somewhere upstate New York, by a lake. It was on a large plot of land, and Ben and my mom’s grandparents had bought it, and it had passed down through the family. It was currently in Ben’s ownership, but would have gone to mom since she was the older sibling. Their dad had recently passed, so that’s why it was Ben’s now. He had brain cancer. Their mom had died of lung cancer a bit after Ben was born. So I started to suspect the reasoning behind mom’s research was because of their mom. Anyway, back to the house. They were having trouble, apparently some butthead was trying to buy it off them. He wanted to build something there. After they brought it up with Dad, he insisted he help with it. I think it took around 3 hours of discussion before they came to an agreement. Dad was going too-

“Peter!” Harry shouted, pulling me out of my thoughts. I looked over at him. “Your ceiling said Mr. Rhodes is gonna be here soon!” I nodded as best I could. I strained my ears to listen for Uncle Rhodey. I heard him pause by the stairs, probably noticing DUM-E who was still trying to get up. He convinced the robot to give him the dissolvent and started walking upstairs. Before knocking on the door, and stepping inside. “Hi Mr. Rhodes!” Harry called out. He looked up to see us stuck to the ceiling. He bursted out laughing. “It is very funny, yes, but I’m hungry and would like to eat soon, preferably something my father did not order. He has terrible taste in food.” He complained. Which only made him laugh harder. As his laughter died down he moved the mattress under me. And sprayed the dissolvent. It fell apart quickly and I fell down onto the mattress.

“Thank you, Uncle Rhodey.” I hugged him after getting up. “Now let’s get thing 2 down.” I said quickly. Moving the mattress over. Rhodey sprayed the webbing around him, and it fell apart quickly, letting him fall onto the mattress. 

“Not how I imagined the first time in your bed, Peter.” Harry joked. My face reddened and Rhodey howled in laughter.

“Oh I like you!” He said catching his breath. “At first, I was worried, but now? I see no reason to be.” He smiled and patted his shoulder. 

“Please don’t tell dad!”

“You mean you haven’t told- Peter. Probably your first friend, and you haven’t told your dad?”

“Well I know he hates his dad! And I was just worried he’d hate him too, by association.” I explained.

“I understand, I do. But I think he’ll get over it ‘cause it’s you, Pete. He’d be happy you made a friend and hell, he may find it hilarious that you two are friends at all. You know the whole Stark vs Osborn thing was started by Howard and Amberson right? After Howard died, Tony tried to reconcile, but it was Norman who shut him down. Now the grandkids decided to say fu- screw that and be best friends. I bet Howard is squirming in anger wherever he is.” Rhodey smiled, and pulled me into a hug.

“Thanks, Rhodey.” I hugged him back. 

“Yeah, Mr. Rhodes. Thanks for, I dunno being a decent human being.” Harry smiled.

“Least I can do, Harry. Now you said you were hungry?” He rubbed his hands together, clearly wanting to spend a lot on whatever credit card dad left lying around. Maybe he was right, and dad would be okay with this.

Dad was in fact, not okay with this. No, he was overjoyed by the news. He was glad I not only made a friend, but made a friend with Harry Osborn. He said that Harry is welcomed to whatever home he owns, if he ever needs an escape. Which was extended to his mom as well, when he heard she was also, in fact, a decent human being. They never told Norman. Silently agreeing that he can find out (hopefully never) and just deal with it when (if) he does. Did I silently hope he died soon? No!

Okay maybe I hoped he died of natural reasons and not some ‘freak’ accident. Either way, I was just glad I didn’t have to hide Harry anymore. Unfortunately, Harry returned to his father and was headed back to NYC. Luckily, I was headed there soon too, as dad had dubbed the tower ‘kid friendly’ and was heading back to Cali to come get me. He wanted help with something at the tower, which I was thankful for. I was happy to help with SI stuff! So I just hoped this little field trip, as dad dubbed it, would go smoothly.

Chapter Text

Dad was out in the suit, out at the powerline. He and Pepper were adjusting some stuff while dad was doing his thing. She was bare foot, which Peter found disturbing. The floor was cold! But she insisted she was fine. And he starts to think she was replaced by a lizard person, which wouldn’t make sense. Lizards are cold blooded so wouldn’t they hate the cold floor? He was distracting himself. Lizard people aren’t real. He just ignored this train of thought and walked over to her, and started helping adjust levels. She ruffled his hair, and held a glass of water, which he happily took. The screen pinged, signaling that dad had called. “Good to go on this end, the rest is up to you two.”

“You disconnected the transmission lines? Are we off the grid?” Pepper asked, wanting to make sure.

“Stark Tower is going to become a beacon for self-sustaining clean energy.” He replied.

“Well, assuming the ARC reactor takes over and it actually works.”

“I assume.” He insisted. “Light her up.”

Pepper had pressed the buttons, and the lights inside turned on. “How does it look?” I asked, curious.

“Like Christmas, but with more me.” I snorted at that comment.

“We’ve got to go wider on the public awareness campaign. You need to do some press. I’m in DC tomorrow, I’m working on the zoning of the next 3 buildings-”

“Pepper, you’re killing me. The moment, remember? Enjoy the moment?” Dad interrupted, which is rude. She’s right.

 “Get in here and I will.” She was smiling, and I faked gagged at that. She only laughed.

“Sir, Agent Coulson, of SHIELD is on the line.” JARVIS spoke up. I frowned, what did Mr. Coulson want?

“I’m not in. I’m actually out.” He answered, his suit being taken apart on the platform.

“Sir, I’m afraid he’s insisting.”

“Grow a spine, JARVIS. I got a date.” Dad continued walking over toward us. Pepper and I were looking at the screens.

“Levels are holding steady, I think.” She was eyeing the data, looking for anything wrong.

“Of course they are. I was directly involved. Which brings me to my next question; "How does it feel to be a genius?”

“Wel, I really wouldn’t know, would I?” She smiled, turning around to face him.

“What do you mean? All this came from you.” He gestured at himself.

“No, all this came from that.” She tapped on the ARC. 

“Give yourself some credit. Please. Stark Tower is your baby. Give yourself 12% of the credit.”

“12%?” She said, annoyed. Nice one, dad.

“An argument can be made for 15!” He was digging himself a grave.

“12%? Of my baby?” She started walking away.

“Well, I did all the heavy lifting.” Just stop. You're making it worse. “Litteraly, I lifted the heavy things. And, sorry, but the security snafu? That was on you.”

“Dad. You’re making it worse.”  I helpfully informed him. 

He turned to face me “My private elevator-”

“You mean our elevator?” Pepper and I said at the same time.

“-It was teeming with sweaty workmen.” He sat next to us, Pepper was pouring some cider. “I’m gonna pay for that comment about percentages in some subtle way, later aren't I?”

“It’s not going to be that subtle.” Pepper informed him.

“You should’ve stopped talking after Stark Tower is your baby.” I suggested.

“Why is he smarter than you?” Pepper smiled at me.

“I mean, you easily get 60%, Pepper. You picked out all the furniture, the architectural details, not to mention the logistics.”

“Thank you, sweetheart.” She winked at me. 

“Betrayed! By my son and girlfriend.” Dad said exasperated. “Tell you what. The next building is gonna say Potts on the tower.”

“On the lease.” She suggested. Moving to clink their cups together.

He pulled his back, “Call your mom, can you bunk over?”

“Sir, the telephone. I’m afraid my protocols are being overridden.” Jarvis spoke up.

“Mr. Stark? We need to talk.” Mr. Coulson spoke up from the phone.

Dad sighed. “You have reached the life model decoy of Tony Stark. Please leave a message.” he said to the phone. Pepper chuckled. I held in my laugher.

“This is urgent.”

“Then leave it urgently.” He suggested. And the elevator opened up, revealing Mr. Coulson. “Secruity breach! It’s on you.” 

“Mr. Stark.”

“Phil! Come in!” Pepper smiled walking over.

“Phil?” Dad questioned.

“I can’t stay.”

“Uh, his first name is Agent.” Dad said, perplexed. It’s actually Phil, but you didn’t pay attention did you?

“Come on in. We’re celebrating.” Pepper ignored him. Which is why he should leave. I thought dryly.

“Which is why he can’t stay.” Dad gritted out. Exactly!

“We need you to look this over, as soon as possible.” Mr. Coulson held out something.

“I don’t like to be handed things.”

“That’s fine, because I love being handed things.” Pepper spoke up. “So, let’s trade.” She handed Mr. Coulson her glass, where she got the tablet(?) thing, then traded the tablet(?) to Dad and took his glass. “Thank you.”

“Official consulting hours are between 8 and 5 every other Thursday.”

“This isn’t a consultation.”

“Is this about the Avengers?” Pepper paused, “Which I know nothing about.” she said quickly.

Dad scoffed. “The Avengers Initiative was scrapped, I thought. And I didn’t even qualify.”

“I didn’t know that either.”

“Yes. Apparently, I’m volatile, self-obsessed, and don't play well with others.” Dad walked over to the desk to start taking a look at whatever that thing was holding.

“That I did know.” Pepper smiled.

“This isn’t about personality profiles anymore.” Mr. Coulson explained.

“Whatever. Ms. Potts, Stark, got a second?” He called us over. We walked over to him. “You know, I thought we were having a moment.”

“I was having 12% of a moment.” Pepper said sarcastically. I offered a high five, which she accepted. “This seems serious. Phil’s pretty shaken.”

“How would you know if it’s- Why is he Phil?” He glanced at her.

“What is all this?” I asked. And he made all the screens appear around us. I looked around in a bit of awe.

“I’m going to take the jet to DC tonight.” Pepper spoke up after looking around.

“Tomorrow.” Dad pleaded.

“You have homework. You have a lot of homework.” Pepper said, looking around.

“Well, what if I didn’t?” He offered. I doubt he’ll sleep much.

“If you didn’t? You mean when you’ve finished?” She looked at him, then whispered something into his ear I did not really want to hear.

“Gross.” 

“Square deal. Fly safe.” Dad responded. They kissed, then she turned to ask Mr. Coulson if he’s driving by LaGuardia. He said he could. Pepper asked about the cellist, and booed when he said she moved back to Portland. I frowned, I was kind of rooting for that. I walked up next to dad as he picked up the hologram of the Tesseract. 

“That’s what the ARC is based on right?” I asked.

“How did- Yes, it is. It’s not a coincidence it’s in these files.” He pondered a bit. “Wonder what else SHIELD is hiding.”

“Not like you have an A.I that can probably hack into their database and get all that information.” I smirked.

“You make an excellent point.” He winked.

Chapter Text

“Are you absolutely sure I can come with you?” I asked, boarding the plane that was gonna take me to wherever the SHIELD headquarters is. Dad had Mr. Coulson pick me up and was gonna go grab his suit. 

“Anything happens to him, it’s your head, Phil.” Dad pointed at him.

“Don’t worry Mr. Stark. He’s going to be in the safest hands beside your own.” Mr. Coulson gave a reassuring smile. Dad hugged me and started heading back toward the Tower. Mr. Coulson strapped me in and motioned for the pilot to start taking off. He sat next to me. “So? What do you think?”

“What do you mean?”

“The Quinjet. It was originally your grandfather’s design, but we altered it a bit.” 

“Oh.” I looked around for a moment. “I dunno. It’s cool. I’m used to my dad’s planes though. Or the ones Uncle Rhodey takes me sometimes! Wait- You didn’t hear that last part!” 

“What last part?” He winked. After arriving at the SHIELD HQ (which was a flying aircraft carrier!) Mr. Coulson waited with me for my dad to get back. He showed me the Captain America trading card collection he had. They were in very good condition. He had asked him to sign them, but he had yet to do so. He had me wait in a room and told me not to leave. After which he stepped out, and was answering a call of some kind. I opted not to listen in and instead just waited in the awkward silence. I got my phone out to ask JARVIS about dad, to which he answered he was on his way here.

About another 30 minutes and dad showed up. “Hey bambino.” He greeted me. “Let’s go meet everyone.” He picked me up and started giving me a piggyback ride. I wasn’t on his shoulders though, as I would’ve hit my head on the doors. We walked a bit and Mr. Coulson and Dad were talking about the cellist that moved back to Portland. Dad was encouraging him to try again. As we came up to wherever we were going I overheard voices. “He killed 80 people in 2 days.”

“He’s adopted.”

“I think it’s about the mechanics. Iridium. What do they need the iridium for?” 

“It’s a stabilizing agent.” Dad said loudly, then turned to Mr. Coulson. “I’m just saying, pick a weekend, I’ll fly you to Portland. Keep love alive.” Mr. Coulson thanked him, then he spoke out to the room again. “It means the portal won’t collapse on itself like it did at SHIELD. No hard feelings Point Break. You’ve got a mean swing.” He patted his arm as best he could. I stared at him in awe. “Also, it means the portal can open as wide and stay as open as long as Loki likes.” He kneeled down and had me get off his back as he stopped at the control panels. “Raise the mizzenmast. Jib the topsails.” He said loudly. I giggled a bit. “That man is playing Galaga!” He declared pointing at someone. “Thought we wouldn’t notice. But we did.”

“Can I play?” I whispered to dad. 

“No. We have science to do.” He looked a little sorry. He covered one of his eyes and frowned. “How does Fury even see these?”

“He turns.” Some lady said, sounding a little annoyed.

“Sounds exhausting.” He nudged me. He moved to look at one of the displays, and started messing with it. “The rest of the raw materials Agent Barton can get his hands on pretty easily. The only major component he still needs is-”

“A power source! Of high-energy density!” I interrupted, excitedly.

“Correct.” Dad beamed at me. He continued messing with the monitor. “Something to kick start the cube. Right, Peter?” 

“Yeah!” I cheered. Dad smiled even more at me.

“When did you become an expert in thermonuclear astrophysics?” The lady who said Mr. Fury turns asked. She looked still annoyed though.

“Last night, didn't we Peter?” He placed his hand on my shoulder.

“Mhm! It was fun!” I smiled at her.

“The packet. Selvig’s notes, the extraction theory papers. Am I the only one who did the readings?” Dad asked, a bit annoyed.

“Does Loki need any particular kind of power source?” Captain America asked, looking between us. 

“He would have to heat the cube to 120 million Kelvin just to break through the Coulomb barrier.” Dr Banner answered.

“Dad!” I whispered, “It’s Dr. Banner!” He walked us over to him.

“Unless Selvig has figured out how to stabilize the quantum tunneling effect.” Dad responded to Dr. Banner.

“Well, if he could do that, he could achieve heavy ion fusion-” Dr. Banner smiled at us.  “-at any reactor on the planet.”

“Finally, someone who speaks English.” Dad joked.

“Is that what just happened?” The captain muttered. 

Dad walked up to shake Dr. Banner’s hand. “Good to see you again, Dr. Banner. Your recent work on antielectron collision is unparalleled.”

“It’s so cool.” I agreed.

“And we are huge fans of the way you lose control and turn into an enormous green rage-monster.” Dad! What the heck!

Dr. Banner pressed his lips together. “Thanks.”

“Dr. Banner is only here to track the cube.” Mr. Fury said loudly as he entered the room. “I was hoping you might join him.” then looked at me. “Who is that?”

“Don’t tell me you forgot about my assistant.” dad said defensively. “He goes with me everywhere.”

“Hi.” I waved at him. “I like your helicarrier.”

Fury just gave dad a single nod, “Thanks” as he started speaking again, Dad got me to piggyback ride him again. I put my chin on his shoulder.

“You remember what you got to do, kiddo?” He whispered to me.

“Yep.” I whispered back. “Listen. Stay close. Don’t touch anything that glows. If anything happens, find a safe space and web up anything that comes near me.” I recited.

“That’s my boy.” He smiled. “I won’t let anything happen to you.”

“I know.” I felt sleepy. “They don’t want me here. I can hear them.”

“I want you here. That’s all that matters.” Dad insisted.

“I did.” Captain America said loudly. “I understood that reference.”

Dad rolled his eyes. “Shall we play, Doctor?” He addressed Dr. Banner.

“This way, sir.” He gestured to the corridor. As they walked along he glanced at me again. “Good to see you both again.”

“Good to see you too, Dr. Banner.” I smiled at him.

“Please, Peter, just Bruce is fine.” He smiled back.

“Can I get your autograph?”

“What?” He looked a bit scared.

“He has a collection going.” Dad said, trying to stop from laughing.

“I’d love to.” Bruce said, smiling.

“Yes!”

In the lab he set me down next to the case he brought with him. He had me start setting it up. Bruce was scanning the glowy stick, They were conversing about it. Similar to the gamma readings from Selvig’s notes. He had said it would take weeks to process though.

“If Pete bypasses their main frame and direct route to the Homer cluster we can clock this at around 600 teraflops.” Dad suggested, and I got to work on that.

“All I packed was a toothbrush.” Bruce laughed.

“You should come by Stark Tower sometime. Top 10 floors, all R&D. You’d love it. It’s candy land.”

“I don’t know, last time I was in New York I sort of broke Harlem.”

“Well, I promise a stress free environment.” Dad offered. “No tension, no surprises.” he said, then proceeded to surprise him by zapping him with something.

“Hey!” I heard a voice yell out.

“Nothing?” Dad said, surprised.

“Are you nuts?” it was the Captain

“Jury’s out.” He said to him, “You really have got a lid on it haven’t you? What’s your secret? Mellow jazz, bongo, drums, huge bag of weed?”

“Is everything a joke to you?” He asked, annoyed.

“Funny things are.” He pointed at him.

“Threatening the safety of everyone on this ship isn’t funny.” He said more annoyed. “No offense, Doc.”

“It’s fine. I wouldn’t have come aboard if I couldn’t handle pointy things.” Bruce said, still focused on his work.

“You’re tip-toeing, big man. You need to strut.” 

“And you need to focus on the problem, Mr. Stark.”

“Do you think I’m not? Why did Fury call us in? Why now? Why not before? What isn’t he telling us? I can’t do the equation unless I have all the variables.” Dad shrugged.

“You think Fury’s hiding something?” 

“He’s a spy. Captain, he’s the spy. His secrets have secrets.” He pointed out. “It's bugging him too, isn’t it?” He gestured at Bruce.

“Uh- I just want to finish my work here and-”

“Doctor?” Captain prompted.

He sighed, and took off his glasses. “A warm light for all mankind. Loki’s jab at Fury about the Cube.”

“I heard it.” The captain nodded.

“Well, I think that was meant for you.” He pointed at dad. He shoved a bag of blueberries and Bruce did a whatever gesture at him and grabbed one. “Even if Barton didn’t tell Loki about the tower, it was still all over the news.”

“The Stark Tower? That big, ugly-” he paused, realizing there were two Starks in the room. “-building in New York?” 

“It’s powered by an arc reactor, a self-sustaining energy source.” He continued. “That building will run itself for, what, a year?”

“It’s just the prototype.” Dad said. “I’m kind of the only name in clean energy right now. That’s what he’s getting at.” he explained to cap.

“So, why didn’t SHIELD bring him in on the Tesseract project? And, what are they doing in the energy business in the first place?”

“I should probably look into that. Once my decryption program finishes breaking into all of SHIELD’s secure files.”

“I’m sorry. Did you say-”

“JARVIS has been running it since I hit the bridge. Peter is already sifting through it, despite not knowing until we got here.” He gestured at me. I looked up sheepishly, my face was warm. “In a few hours, we’ll know every dirty secret SHIELD has ever tried to hide. Blueberry?” 

“Yet you’re confused why they didn't want you around.”

“An intelligence organization that fears intelligence? Historically not that awesome.” I pointed out. Dad smiled at me for that.

“I think Loki’s trying to wind us up.” Cap said, ignoring my last point. “This is a man who means to start a war, and if we don’t stay focused, he’ll succeed. We have orders. We should follow them.” What? Are we all soldiers now cause we’re here? Doesn’t make sense. Dad’s no soldier. Same with me, and Bruce. If anything we are just non-military personnel.

“Following isn’t really my style.”

“And you’re all about style aren’t you?” He snarked.

“Of the people in this room. Who is A; not of use, and B; wearing a spangly outfit.” Dad countered.

“Steve, tell me none of this smells a little funky to you?” Bruce asked him. 

He looked at him, then a bit frustrated, “Just find the cube.” and walked out.

“That went well.” I said as he left. They continued their work.

“That’s the guy my dad never shut up about? I’m wondering if they should’ve kept him on ice.” Dad said annoyed.

Bruce huffed a bit. “Guy’s not wrong about Loki. He does have the jump on us.”

“What he’s got is an acme dynamite kit. It’s gonna blow up in his face. And, I’m going to be there when it does.” Dad said. Walking over to me and checking on how I was doing.

“Yeah? I’ll read all about it.” Bruce smiled.. He slid something from his screen over to mine.

“Uh-huh. Or you'll be suiting up with the rest of us.” Dad countered.

He chuckled. “You see, I don’t get a suit of armor. I’m exposed. Like a nerve. It’s a nightmare.” 

“You know, I’ve got a cluster of shrapnel trying every second to crawl its way into my heart.” I frowned, as he said that. I hated being reminded of that. He ruffled my hair as an apology. “This-” he tapped the arc reactor on his chest. “-stops it. This little circle of light, it’s part of me now. Not just armor. It’s a terrible privilege.”

“But you can control it.” Bruce countered.

“Because I learned how.” 

“It's different.”

“Hey, I read all about your accident. That much gamma exposure should have killed you.”

“So you’re saying that the Hulk- The other guy saved my life? That’s nice. That’s a nice sentiment. Saved it for what?”

“Guess we’ll find out.” I said.

He turned to me and frowned.. “You may not enjoy that.” 

“And you just might.” Dad replied easily.

Chapter Text

“There are not many people that can sneak up on me.” He said, stopping his pacing.

“But you figured I’d come.” I already knew the answer. Which is why I came now.

“After.” He said. “After whatever tortures Fury could concoct, you would appear as a friend, as a balm. And I would cooperate.”

“I want to know what you’ve done to Agent Barton.”

“I would say I’ve expanded his mind.”

“And once you’ve won.” I started walking toward him. “Once you’re king of the mountain, what happens to his mind?”

“Oh. Is this love, Agent Romanov?”

“Love is for children. I owe him a debt.”

“Tell me.”

“Before I worked for SHIELD, I, uh- Well, I made a name for myself. I have a very specific skill set. I didn’t care who I used it for, or on. I got on SHIELD’s radar in a bad way. Agent Barton was sent to kill me. He made a different call.” I told him a very simplified version of the story.

“And what will you do if I vow to spare him?”

“Not let you out.”

He grinned, “Oh no, but I like this. Your world is in the balance, and you bargain for one man.”

“Regimes fall everyday. I tend not to weep over that. I’m Russian. Or I was.” I informed him.

“And what are you now?” 

“It’s really not that complicated. I got red in the ledger, and I like to wipe it out.”

“Can you? Can you wipe out that much red? Drakov's daughter, Sao Paulo, The hospital fire? Barton told me everything.” He got up and started walking over to me. I started making a face of fear, not that I was actually afraid. “Your ledger is dripping. It’s gushing red, and you think saving a man no more virtuous than yourself will change anything? This is the basest sentimentality. This is a child at prayer. Pathetic! You lie and kill, in the service of lairs and killers. You pretend to be separate, to have your own code. Something that makes up for the horrors. But they are part of you. And they will never go away” He slammed his fist on the glass. “I won’t touch Barton, not until I make him kill you. Slowly, intimately, in every way he knows you fear. Then he’ll wake just long enough to see his good work, and when he screams I’ll split his skull.” I turned to face away from him, pretending to cry. “This is my bargain, you mewling quim.”

“You’re a monster.”

He laughed. “Oh no. You brought the monster.” Bingo.

“So, Banner? That’s your play.”

“What?” He said with a confused look on his face.

I started walking away. “Loki means to unleash the Hulk. Keep Banner in the lab. I’m on my way.” I said into my ear piece. I stopped to look at him. “Thank you, for your cooperation.” I then left, headed for Banner’s lab.

------

“What are you doing Mr. Stark?” Fury said walking into the lab. I looked up over at him, but kept watching the screen that’s tracking the Cube.

“Uh, kind of been wondering the same thing about you.” Dad countered.

“You’re supposed to be locating the Tesseract.”

“We are. The model’s locked and we’re sweeping for the signature now.” Bruce countered. “When we get a hit  we’ll have the location within half a mile.” He pointed over at me. I waved when he turned to look at me.

“Yeah, then you get your Cube back. No muss, no fuss.” He was interrupted when the screen pinged a bit. “What is Phase 2?”

A loud clang, and I saw cap placing a gun on the desk. “Phase 2 is SHIELD uses the Cube to make weapons. Sorry, the computer was moving a little slow for me.”

“Rogers, we gathered everything related to the Tesseract. This does not mean we’re making-”

“I’m sorry Nick.” Dad loudly interrupted, turning his screen to show him. “What were you lying?”

“I was the wrong director. The world hasn’t changed a bit.” Cap frowned at him.

“Did you know about this?” Bruce asked Nat when she entered.

“You want to think about removing yourself from this environment, Doctor?” Natasha asked when she entered the room

“I was in Calcutta. I was pretty well removed.” Bruce reminded them.

“Loki is manipulating you.” She stated.

“And you’ve been doing what, exactly?”

“You didn’t come here because I bat my eyelashes at you.”

“Yes, and I’m not leaving cause you suddenly get a little twitchy. I’d like to know why SHIELD is using the Tesseract to build weapons of mass destruction.” Bruce demanded.

“Because of him.” Fury answered, pointing at Thor.

“Me?” Thor questioned. Dad looked on curiously too.

“Last year, Earth had a visitor from another planet who had a grudge match that leveled a small town.” Fury started explaining. “We learned that not only are we not alone, we are hopelessly, hilariously, outgunned.”

“My people want nothing but peace with your planet.” Thor said appalled. 

“But you’re not the only people out there, are you? And you’re not the only threat. The world’s filled up with people who can’t be matched, that can’t be controlled.”

“Like you control the Cube?” The captain asked.

“Your work with the Tesseract is what drew Loki to it, and his allies. It is a signal to all the realms that the Earth is ready for a higher form of war.” Thor explained angrily.

“A Higher form?”

“You forced our hand. We had to come up something-”

“A nuclear deterrent." Dad cuts in “Because that always calms everything right down.”

“Remind me again how you made your fortune Stark?” Fury points out. I frowned. Something isn’t right.

The Captain turned to stare at dad. “I’m sure if he still made weapons Stark would be neck-deep-”

“Wait wait. Hold on. How is this now about me?”

“I’m sorry, isn’t everything?”

“I thought humans were more evolved than this.”

“Excuse me, did we come to your planet and blow stuff up?” Fury says, and an argument ensues. It was getting loud, and the constant humming coming from somewhere was ringing in my ears. I covered them and started leaving the room and no one noticed me leave it seemed. Something isn’t right. I just can’t tell what. I wandered the hallways a bit before being stopped by someone.

“What are you doing?” They asked, I glanced up and it was Mr. Coulson!

“It’s loud. The humming. The arguing. The yelling.” I informed him.

“Humming?” He looked at me curiously. “What could be-” he was cut off by an explosion. He pulled me close to him to protect me. Nothing was around us. “Come with me!” He instructed. I started following him. I heard people talking on his comms. “You.” He turned to me as we approached a door. He opened it with a thumbprint and retinal scan. “Stay here.” He instructs as he grabs something. 

“What’s that?” I asked.

“A gun.” He helpfully informs. “Stay. Here.” he says and leaves. I opted not to listen to those instructions as he left and I heard he was gone. I headed back to the lab where everyone was missing. I leapt onto the ceiling and stuck to it. Hiding and watching for anyone to come close. Eventually I saw Thor and Hulk fighting in here, the hair on the back of my neck stood up, and I looked over at the window to see a jet. It started shooting at hulk. Thor dove out of the way of the bullets and Hulk jumped out toward the plane. “Idiot.” I mumbled while the plane started to fall out of the sky.

------

The helicarrier was starting to level out. I knew dad was on his way back. I could hear people rattling off orders over communication. But something shut everyone up. “Agent Coulson is down.” Fury cuts through the chatter.

“The medical team is on its way to your location.” Someone responded.

“They’re here. They called it.”

After a while dad was calling out my name “Peter!?”

“Peter?!” I heard the Captain call too. As they entered the lab where they last saw me I attached to a web and lowered myself down.

“Peter!”

“I’m okay.” I told him. “That was loud.” 

He scooped me up in his arms, my chest against his. He kissed the top of my head. “I’m glad you’re okay.”

“That was a really bumpy ride.” I say sleepily.

“You’re telling me?” He chuckles. “Was it worth it to see Bruce again?”

“Totally.” I nodded. “He turned into the hulk” I frowned.

“How’d he do that?” The Captain asks. 

“Story for another day.” He answers. “Let’s get you out of here.” 

“Okay. I’m gonna take a nap.” I said and before he can even respond I’m already asleep. Dreaming of being in Disneyworld, the happiest place on Earth…

Chapter Text

I woke up in a bed, which is odd because I remember  being on the helicarrier last. As I sat up I noticed it wasn’t my bed. I got out, and opened the door quietly. I could hear two heartbeats in the room, or rather apartment, as it seemed. “Hello?” I called out. I heard footsteps, somewhat heavy boots. And found myself face to face with someone.

“Hey, Peter. Nice to meet you.” He greeted, holding out his hand. “I’m your uncle ben.” he smiles.

“Nice to meet you.” I grumbled, shaking his hand and rubbing my eyes with the other. I followed him into the living room, and seeing May on the couch, the news playing. “Hey Aunt May.” I greeted, sitting next to her.

“Hey kiddo.” She ruffled my hair. “Sleep okay?”

“Yeah.” I nodded, leaning on her shoulder. Ben sits on her other side. “When did I get here?”

“Your dad dropped you off, said to keep an eye on you, then flew off, again.”

“Oh.”

“Mhm. So we’re to keep you here till he deals with whatever gots him spooked.” Ben nods. 

“Loki.” I mumble.

“What?”

“Loki. He has this fancy cube that my grandad based the ARC reactor off. He wants to use it to open a portal and cause an alien invasion.” I informed them.

“Right.” May says skeptical. 

“C’mon May. If Thor is real, Loki is too.” Ben says. Something loud booms that sounds out and stops us from discussing. We turn toward the sound, then at the TV.  Like I said, a giant portal in the sky, aliens pouring out of it.

“Told you.” I said, a bit sarcastic. Ben laughed, and when May turned to him with a what the hell look on her face.

“What? He did.” He says between laughter. He stops and says “We shouldn’t stay here.” He says getting up. He walks over toward their room. May quickly follows, dragging me along. I see him changing out of his shirt and into a police uniform. He puts on his holster, vest and whatever else he has. “Okay. Here’s the deal, you two head for the subway.” He says checking his gun. “Stay close to the stairs. But don’t come back up till I call.” He instructs as we start heading out. May grabs her own pistol, and puts it in her purse. We head out and down the stairs of the apartment. 

As we step outside we see people running away. May starts leading me toward the subway and Ben starts yelling at people to get into the subways. He starts heading toward the battle, his radio going off saying they are setting up a perimeter at 39th. As we enter the subway I hear thunder and see lighting shoot down at the Empire State building and surrounding it, then being shot up and at the portal “So cool.” I mumble as May drags me down into the subway.

I pull out my phone and start messaging Harry, asking if he’s alright.

A raccoon pretending to be a human

Hey! Are you okay? 

You’re not in the city are you?

No, I’m not. 

We had just landed at LAX.

Why?

Don’t turn on the news.

There is NOT an alien invasion going on.

WHAT!?

Promise, there is not an alien invasion going on.

Peter, the news is already covering it.

Also I turned on the news as soon as you 

said that so good job.

Haha um.

Don’t worry about that! 

:D

Peter.

Are you in the city right now!?

No….

That’s so convincing.

I know! Right?

Don’t die.

It’d suck to lose my only friend.

Don’t worry. I’m hiding

 in the subway with my Aunt May.

After pocketing my phone and looking up from where we were, May continued to lead me away from the entrance. The aliens hadn’t reached this far in the city, but they were still terrifying. May sat us down on a bench and just held me close. “Don’t worry, kiddo. I bet your dad is going to take care of them for you.” She whispers in my ear. 

“He will.” I agree. “I hope he doesn’t do anything dumb.”

“I highly doubt that he will.” She smiles.

Turns out, he did do something dumb. And that was flying a nuke through the portal with no guarantee he’d make it back. I’m so glad he did, because I have no idea what I would have done otherwise. After shackling Loki, dad had started escorting him with Thor to Asgard. They were stopped by some old guy that I didn’t trust. Sue me, but Stane left a bad impression and now I don’t trust any old people. Once they got out of that situation the team met at central park to see Thor and Loki off. Dad suggested they should stay with us, after a remodel on the Tower. To which everyone agreed. Thor said he would return eventually, but would very much like to visit again. 

“Are we really going to have them stay with us?” I ask as Dad and Pepper bring out a whole table to work on a new blueprint for the tower. 

“I don’t see why not?” he shrugs. Pepper just chuckles. “I mean, save for Thor, I don’t know if any have a real place to stay.”

“Hm. I dunno, Mr. Barton gives the vibe of having a secret family no one else knows about.” I say joining them at the holotable.

“Yeah? Well, 10 bucks says you're wrong.” He smirks, and swipes away the top floor. “So, Pep? Any ideas?”

She smirks. “I got 12% of an idea.” 

“I’m never going to live that down am I?” He groans.

“Nope.” We say laughing. And all is good in the world.

Chapter Text

— Clint —

If you told Clint that Tony Stark had a son, he would’ve believed you. Everyone saw the press conference when he announced that he was Iron Man. And that he became Iron Man because of his son. But if you told him that Tony Stark was a decent father as well? He would’ve laughed, and maybe called you crazy. He wasn’t dumb. Howard Stark was a brilliant scientist. The man who helped put together the atomic bomb. And to members of SHIELD, a founder of it. The media talked about him a lot, but never mentioned his son. Clint suspected that perhaps it was because the home life wasn’t the best. And well, perhaps he was right. But the fact that his son was a better father than him? He didn’t believe that…. Until he saw it for himself.

The tower was going to be a lot of things, The Avenger’s headquarters, a place to stay and gather after missions. A home to some, who may not have one. He thought of Steve mostly for that part, and Banner. But to the Starks, it was home. Tony had requested his presence at the tower, and he figured they’d talk about how to plan it out or something.. Not.. whatever this was. 

“Please. Just keep an eye on him.” Stark begged as he nudged his son forward toward him. “He keeps climbing in places he’s not supposed to be.”

“But-”

“If I hear I’m just exploring one more time, you’re gonna stay back in California till this is done.” Stark interrupts. “Take him!” and he walked off.

“So… you’re Peter, right?”

“An astute observation, Legolas.” He smiles. “He doesn’t like me exploring the construction site.”

Clint snorts at that. “Yeah, well he’s a dad. And we are pretty high up. Not your average construction site.”

“I suppose.” He shrugs. “Come on! This way” He demands and pulls him along, to a holotable out of the way. He taps it on and it pulls up the upcoming floor plan. “Dad was going to make you guys draw straws or something dumb for picking your rooms, but that’s old fashioned. Instead, you get first pick, cause you were here first!”

“Right, well, tell me about each room.” He suggests, and it reminds him of his kids when they talk about something they’re excited about.

“Okay, so dad obviously demands he gets the biggest one, at least that's what he’ll say. Instead he’s gonna give it to me ‘cause he did it back in California." He explains quickly. “But, he’ll get the one closest to that. So those two are off limits. But-” he points at a room that is getting a giant window. “-this room is gonna have some big windows, and since you’re Hawkeye, you gotta have it!”

“I’m Hawkeye?”

“Duh.” He rolls his eyes. “Better than Legolas. Pretty sure that’s copyrighted anyway. And the window can open up! And I can crawl along the outside and sneak in and we can play videogames together! Cause you seem like someone who actually has an idea of what kids like.”

“You’re right. I am.” He grins. “I bet you’d like Mario kart.”

“I do!” He says adamantly. “Dad is a sore loser, and it's not fun beating him anymore. Though it is way more fun when Uncle Rhodey is visiting and laughs at him.”

“Right, of course.” He nods, like the kid is sharing the wisdom of the universe.

“Exactly! So, if you pick this room we could totally play Mario kart while dad is too busy ignoring SI.” 

“Sure, kid. Whatever you want.” and the look that he gives him is like Clint hung the moon.

— Steve —

Steve wasn’t sure how quickly the tower would be finished, but he was hoping soon. He’s grown tired of SHIELD monitoring him at his apartment, likely 24/7. So he was really hoping it’d be soon, soon. Though Stark said they wouldn’t spend the first Christmas together as it wouldn’t be done quite then but that was fine. Stark at least helped by getting him a new apartment. Unfortunately for him, he was pretty sure it was watched a few weeks after he moved in. Which was fine. What he wasn’t expecting was Stark's kid to be just… sitting on his couch scrolling through that.. Tablet? Was that what it was called? Either way, it startled him a bit. “Hey, kid.. What are you doing here?” 

“Hey, Mr. Captain America, sir!” he greets happily. “Dad, was in DC for something at SHIELD, and I was bored. So, I hacked into their servers and found where you lived and decided to visit.”

“You just.. Hacked into their servers?” He pauses as he is grabbing a cup.

“Yeah. It was way easier than I thought it’d be.” He frowns, and Steve fills the cup with water “Anyway, your apartment is bugged, but since you’re here, I turned it off for now so we can chat! Super secret stuff.” 

“Sure, what’d you want to talk about?” He says hesitantly.

“So, the tower. Dad was upset that I let Mr. Barton chose his room when he visited the other day, and now its your turn!” He gets straight into it, and the floor plan pops up from his tablet. “Mr. Barton is here!” He points at a room, close to the two largest. “And I figured you’d like to be here-” He points at a room near the hallway. “-it’s closer to the main living area. I know you like to go on runs and stuff, and dad is building a decent gym in the tower too, so it’d be easy for you to get too! Unfortunately the extra rooms means you might not have a neighbor though.”

“That’s, fine Peter.” He smiles a bit. “Thank you for suggesting that. I’d like it.”

“Cool!” He grins. “Next, you totally gotta go with a modern 70s aesthetic. I know you weren’t around in the 70s, being a capsicle and all.. But it would at least feel familiar enough to you! And the modern touch would keep you in the current times!” He explains and the screen flickers and shows some examples of what he was talking about. “I mean, sure, orange is objectively the worst color. I think we could pull it off with a darker blue-” Steve grins, and it reminds him of Howard a bit. The adjustment to the uniform was a darker blue than he had originally colored it. Not having a darker shade at the time he did. “-I mean, for someone who wears the America flag on their body for their job, I’d like to think you like the darker shades instead of the lighter ones” 

“Peter?” He stops his rambling.

“Yes?”

“It’s a good idea, thank you.” He smiles. And the grin on the kid’s face makes him grin too… It’s then that he realises that Peter could take over the world with that smile, and Steve would easily stand by him if he did.

— Natasha —

Natasha is NOT going soft. Clint would say she is in denial, and she was in fact going soft. She would smack him everytime he said it… but would never deny it. I mean, how exactly is anyone supposed to not ‘go soft’ around Stark’s kid. Every time he smiles, she swears everyone else in the room does too, even a small smirk. It’s like a hypnotizing trap, and it’s already caught her. She didn’t really see the two interact much, but she was secretly hoping that when the tower was finished she would. 

When the kid called her up, in the middle of a mission, it reminded her of how Coulson did the same. “Hey, listen bucko, I can easily send left over Stark Jericho missiles to your location before you leave the room. Put the lady on the phone.” was what she overheard before the guy put it to her ear.

“Hello?” She’s not smiling at all.

“Hey! Ms. Rushman!“ He teases. “He’s totally giving you everything isn’t he? Anyway I don’t care about that much. I need you to come over.”

“What? I’m work-”

“Working. I know.” He interrupts “He’s totally spilled the beans. Anyway, dad is gone over to New York, and Pepper is in the office. Happy is with her too, and Uncle Rhod-”

“Kid. What’s wrong?”

“I’m bored. And Alone.” He sounded a bit sad. Can’t have that.

“Let me put you on hold.” She sighs. And nods at the guy to do so. When he gets close she kicks his crotch back, and breaks free from the chair. It takes about 3 minutes to subdue them. Before she’s walking out of the building.

When she reaches the front door, she can hear JARVIS’s voice going off. “Sir, I believe Mr. Stark said to not open the door for anyone.”

“Uncle J, you know Dad would remotely pilot a suit and blast any intruders before they make it off the driveway.” He sighs as he opens the door. “Hello!” He smiles, and she can’t help but smile too.

“Hey, squirt.”

“Come on!” He drags her in. “Uncle J ordered pizza. It’ll be here soon. Maybe when the tower’s done we can- Oh!” He drags her over to the counter and reaches his tablet. “Mr. Rogers and Mr. Barton already picked their rooms, but I figured since you’re here, we can pick yours now!” He smiles and displays the floor plan. “Mr. Rogers is over here, he wanted to be able to get to the Gym and elevator quickly. Mr. Barton is here! He said we can play videogames like Mario kart when dad is busy ignoring SI!” He explains with a smile. “I think you’d like it here!” he points at the room across from Clint “It’s near Mr. Barton. I think Thor could be next to Mr. Rogers, or maybe Dr. Banner? Anyway, if you go here, we can totally play pranks on others. The vent system is easy to squeeze in, and we can have superspy meetings here!” He points at a large intersection of vents. “It’ll be easy to block out sound from other rooms, cause Dad already has plans for that. and-” the kid rambles on and on, and it puts a smile on her face.

Natasha is going soft, and it’s this kid's fault. At first, she thought it’d be Clint’s kid’s fault, but now it’s Stark’s. He was so sure that they’d all be friends, and she was positive he’d be the exact reason this team was going to turn into a family. The tower can’t be finished soon enough.

— Bruce —

When Bruce visited the Stark’s home in California to check up on Peter’s changes, he didn’t expect there’d be many different ones. So far he’d been getting stronger, and more muscle mass. His eyesight kept improving, along with hearing and sense of smell. It was good he had developed a way to ‘tune out of things’ as he put it. There was an occasional sensory overload, where everything was dialed up to 15. That’s how the kid put it. Everything was at 11 all the time, but when these sensory overloads happen, it goes to 15. Bruce wasn’t exactly qualified to make medications for an enchanted individual, but he was determined to do so. For Peter, at least. 

When Tony had called a day before he was visiting for this check up, he said that Peter’s mouth was hurting, and that his lips were swollen. Bruce had left that very night. Picked up by a SI private jet. He was greeted by Pepper, who was flying back anyway. They talked a bit, and Bruce shared some of his current progress on the medication for Peter. When they got to the house and down into the in-home hospital room, he started his exam.

“Peter appears to be growing fangs.” He notes out loud.

“Fangs?” the 3 of them ask at the same time.

“Yes, fangs.” He nods, and pokes just to the side of his nostrils. Peter winces a bit. “And, I suspect venom glands.”

“Cool.” Peter whispers, but his mouth must hurt when he speaks, because he puts his hand to and rubs at it a bit.

“Don’t. You’ll irritate it.” Bruce smacks his hand away lightly. “I’ll need you to open your mouth, for a moment Peter.” he asks calmly. Peter does so and it must hurt to open as wide as he is, but it lets him get a good idea of what's going on. “The glands formed above your mouth, where you’d typically find such things in snakes or other animals with venom.” He smirks a bit, “Like spiders.”

“Cool. Great. Awesome.” Tony breathes out. “But uh what do we do about it?”

‘Well, his teeth, or more accurately, his fangs are new, baby teeth possibly. So, teething toys could be your best bet… teeth aren’t my area of expertise.” He sighs, and takes off his glasses, and Peter closes his mouth. “I suspect, once they’re fully developed, they’d fall out, like any other baby teeth, and you’d get adult ones. We’d have to gather some venom and see how deadly it is.. And possibly develop an antidote if necessary.” He explains, taking off his gloves.

Tony nods, and Pepper makes notes. Jarvis was probably already noting everything he’s said already, but better safe then sorry. “Sorry, underoos. Can’t speak till your swelling goes down and your fangs are done growing.” Tony claps him on the back. “Thanks, Bruce.”

“Anytime, Tony.” He nods. “Hopefully the next check up is in the tower.” Bruce ruffles his hair, and Peter giggles. “I’ll do some research for next time too.”

“That’d be a huge help. Thank you Dr. Banner.” Pepper sighs in relief. 

“Please, just Bruce is fine.” He says casually. “Anyway, let me know when the swelling has stopped and he can talk without it hurting, then I can drop by and gather some venom. In the meantime, I’ll start looking into how to create antivenoms just in case.”

Peter hops off the exam table, and hugs him, then stares at Tony. Asking something with his eyes rather than his words. Pepper snorts, while Tony just groans. “Fine, since you can’t talk.” He rolls his eyes. “Bruce, where would you like to room?” Tony asks, as they start leaving the room. 

Bruce smiles. “Well, that depends. Where is everyone else?” and Peter giggles again. Maybe living with the team wouldn't be so bad after all.

Chapter Text

Dad would always say he hates New York City, but I knew that wasn’t true. He doesn’t really love the city, but more of just has a general dislike for it. Since we were moving into the Tower in a few months, he made the “difficult” decision of preparing me by signing me up for a school in NYC instead. We’d return to Malibu for winter break, and hopefully we’ll move into the tower before long. (Spoiler Alert: We didn’t) So, naturally I wanted to try something new at this school. I would walk there and take public transportation. Dad, of course, denied this idea at first… until basically everyone pointed out that no one knew what I look like. So it was relatively safe. He insists I wear something so he can track me and what not. So that was the only downside.

That didn’t stop my mood from having some new freedom. He agreed that Happy would drop me off, as well as pick me up a bit away from the train station. We lived in Manhattan, but the school was in Queens. So the subway was the more ideal choice. On the first day, I had texted Harry about this, and he was a little jealous. Saying his dad still forced him to take the chauffeur everywhere. (And rarely drives himself!) So it was a bit funny. Over this text, I also discovered that we were going to the same school. How exciting! I promised to find him before the day starts, and to address me by the fake last name given. Which he said was fine.

Walking the rest of the way from the station was relatively quiet. For being in a city that is. I sat on a bench near the front entrance and waited. All the kids strode past me, heading to the gymnasium for the first assembly. Some parents lingered in the dropoff/pickup lane till they saw their kids go inside. I saw a relatively expensive car down at the end of the lane. A kid suddenly got out quickly. If I strained my ears I could hear the driver yelling at him, but the kid ignored it. I recognized him instantly. I could feel my excitement growing, and my fangs popped out. I frowned a bit. They tend to stay retracted and look like normal canines. Expect when I feel relatively strong emotions where they just… pop up? Down? Whatever. I focused on calming down, and felt them retract. “Hey there, person I’ve never seen before.” I heard him greet me. I opened my eyes and smiled. (Not showing teeth cause the fangs were still down slightly)

“Hello there.” I reply, standing up.

“General Kenobi.” Harry says, amused. I giggled a bit. “So, can’t wait to see how ‘different’ middle school is compared to elementary.”

I shrug. “I mean, I think the only differences are the number of teachers. And maybe the size of the school.”

“Whatever. Can’t wait to ace every test and get bored.” He frowns as he opens the door. “I mean, wasn’t elementary boring to you too?”

“Yeah, it was.” I snort. “Dad always pulled me out every other week to do something fun.”

“Lucky.” 

“I guess, but it was the only thing holding my grades down really. The bad attendance.” We sit next to each other on the bleachers. I spot a larger kid getting picked on by this other kid with curly hair. I frown and just watch them a bit.

“What is it?” Harry asks next to me, he follows my gaze and spots it too, just as it ends. The curly haired kid walks off, smug. While the larger kid just looks a bit sad. “Bullies are the worst.” 

I nod. “My dad hates bullies.”

“Well, he is pretty smart.”

—

I was fortunate enough to get almost every class with Harry. We did get the kid that was bullied earlier too, and the assigned seating had placed us all nearby. Few teachers actually didn’t have assigned seating. But he threatened to do it if people got too rowdy. We learned the kid’s name, Edward Leeds, but he preferred Ned. He didn’t even realize who Harry was till the curly haired kid from earlier tried sitting with us at lunch.

“So, how’d you get friends with Osborn’s kid, Leeds?” He asks standing on the other side of the table.

“Osborn’s- oh!” Ned turned to him. “I had no idea. That’s really cool.” 

Harry shrugs. “Not really. I’d much prefer to not be his kid.”

The curly haired kid looks perplexed. “Why not?”

“Try having an overprotective father, who doesn’t even pay attention to you anyway.” Harry glares. The curly haired kid scoffs, and walks off. “Ignore him, Ned.”

“It’s whatever. His dad is kind of rich too.” Ned just shrugs. “So, um…”

“Ask away.” Harry shrugs. “I don’t mind, really. Just.. no questions about him.”

Ned nods. “Okay. So, I read that Oscorp is working on a limb regrowth… serum? Or something.”

Harry does smile a bit at that. “They are. Dr. Connors, I believe her name is. She lost her left arm on a tour… She was a field medic, I think. Anyway, she hasn’t made any significant progress on that. When he heard about her work, he offered to fund the project. So far she’s been just studying the cells from a variety of stuff. Mostly reptiles.”

“That’s so cool!” Ned whispers excitedly. And I would agree with him. That does sound cool. “What’s the end goal of that research?”

Harry ponders a bit. “I think it’s just… to help people who have lost limbs. Legs, arms. Or even organs potentially. I’ve met her a few times, and she even speculated that eventually, given the right amount of time, we could replace damaged parts by removing it, and letting this serum regrow it instead. Her first example was eyes.”

“Eyes are a lot more difficult to replace though.” I point out. They both look at me puzzled. “Well, they aren’t recognized by the immune system, for one. It’s bizarre. If your immune system finds your eyes, it’ll just attack.”

“That’s really interesting.” Harry looks like he’s contemplating how exactly we could replace/regrow an eye now.

Ned looks like he’s thinking the same. “Maybe it’s wiser to just make artificial ones for that.” He suggests. Harry seems to agree. After lunch, we learn the kid that bullied Ned earlier name. Eugene Thompson. He had requested to be called Flash though. And it was evident as to why. He was quickest to raise his hand to answer. He did tend to get most questions wrong though. Which was funny. After school, Ned provided his number, and we added him to a group chat. 

As I get off the subway platform and continue walking to meet Happy, I ignore the buzzing in my pocket. I smile to myself. Hopefully Happy will be happy (ha!) to know I made another friend… Wait, he did know about the first one right?

Chapter Text

“Dad. Please stop and just wait for JARVIS to calibrate-”

He ignored me, like the last Forty-Five times“ Ow.” 

“Forty-Six.” Correction, Forty-Six. “Forty-Seven.” And now, Forty-Seven. “Sir, please may I request just a few hours to calibrate-”

“Nope. Forty-Eight.” He ignored us again and injected himself with his micro-repeater implants. “Micro-repeater implanting sequence complete.”

“As you wish, sir. Mini Sir and I have compiled a safety briefing for you to also ignore.”

“Which I will.” He turns to DUM-E whose dad has placed a DUNCE cap on him. “All right, let's do this. DUM-E. Hi, DUM-E. How did you get that cap on your head? You earned it.” He gets up and walks over to him. “Hey. Hey!” and hits one of the punching bags with the arms on it on his way past. “What are you doing out of the corner? You know what you did.” he points over to where he just was. “Blood on my mat. Handle it.”

“Sir, may I remind you that you’ve been awake for nearly 72 hours?”

“Dad!” I exclaim. “You were supposed to go to sleep days ago!”  He ignores my comment and walks up to U and starts speaking to his suits.

“Focus up ladies. I am pleased to announce the arrival of your bouncing, bad-ass baby brother.” He points at U again. “Start tight and then go wide. Stamp date and time. Mark 42 Autonomous prehensile propulsion suit test. Initialize sequence. Jarvis. Drop my needle.” A remix of jingle bells starts playing as he starts attempting to summon his suit to him. The gauntlets fly and attach easily. The shoulder piece makes him stumble a bit, and I get an idea.

“Okay, Jarvis. I think he gots it, send ‘em all.” I call out loud enough for dad to hear, and he turns with a surprise look, that turns into a grin. He catches the leg easily. Another piece flies by him and smashes into glass behind him.

“A bit fast, slow it down.” He says quickly, before blocking a piece from hitting him a bit too hard.  It ricochets and hits the roof instead.

“Nah, Jarvis. Speed it up!” I yell as more pieces fly and he catches them with relative ease. The mask flies and hits the record player, cutting the music. 

“Come on. I ain’t scared of you.” He says confident. The mask flies and smacks into the table making it upside down. He uses the thrusters to flip so he can catch the mask upside down and slams a fist down onto the platform he was on. “I’m the best.” I can hear the smirk in his voice. And as he looks up a bit, DUM-E frees the piece that was lodged into the glass earlier, and it flies and collapses with him knocking him over and the armor comes apart. I laugh out loud.

“As always sir, it’s a pleasure watching you work.” and I laugh even louder.

When we turned on the TV, I was shocked to see the broadcast was interrupted. “Some people call me a terrorist. I consider myself a teacher. America. Ready for another lesson? In 1864, in Sand Creek, Colorado the US military waited until the friendly Chenyenne braves had all gone hunting. Waited to attack and slaughter the families left behind. And claim their land. 39 hours ago, The Ali Al Salem Air Base in Kuwait was attacked. I-I-I did that. A quaint military church filled with wives and children, of course. The soldiers were out on maneuvers. The Braves were away. President Ellis. You continue to resist my attempts to educate you, sir. And now you’ve missed me again. You know who I am. You don’t know where I am. And you’ll never see me coming.”

When it returned, most media outlets were talking about The Mandarin. After which President Ellis had made a statement. “Central to my administration’s response to this terrorist event is a newly minted resource. I know him as Colonel James Rhodes.-” I look up at the TV. “Uncle Rhodey?” “-The American people will soon know him as the Iron Patriot.”

---

“It tested well with focus groups, all right?” He sighed after we grilled him about it.

“I am Iron Patriot!” dad said in a gruffly voice. “It sucks.”

“Listen. War Machine was a little too aggressive. All right? This sends a better message.” His tone indicates he doesn’t really like it either.

“Uncle Rhodey. I’m gonna have to hand the Favorite Uncle title to Happy at this rate.” I tease. He glares at me while dad laughs.

“Sorry, Pete, but orders are orders.” 

“Well, your orders suck dick.”

“Woah!” They both exclaim. “Language. Peter.” Dad finishes with a small smirk. “You’ve been hanging out with the wrong crowd, clearly.” He jokes. “Got to call Mr. Lyman’s mom. Or maybe Ned’s? Tell ‘em you can’t hang out with them anymore.” I smile as he slips up. He’s been calling Ned, Ted for the past few months despite claiming to never remember his name or whatever crazy excuse he can come up with.

“Right, cause a conversation with Emily would just go so well wouldn’t it?” I roll my eyes.

He addresses Rhodey instead of me, and asks the question both in our minds. “So, what’s really going on? With the Mandarin.” he takes off his glasses. “Seriously, can we talk about this guy?”

“It’s classified information, Tony,” he whispers. “Okay, there have been nine bombings. The public only knows about three. But here’s the thing, nobody can ID a device. There’s no bomb casings.”

“You know I can help. Just ask.”

“We.” I correct.

“No. You-” He points at me. “Are enjoying a nice winter break, for once. Pep’s orders.” He turns back to Rhodey. “I got a ton of new tech. I got a prehensile suit. I got bomb disposal. Catches explosions mid-air.”

He contemplates for a second. “When’s the last time you got a good night’s sleep?” He asks instead.

“Over 89 hours ago.” I answer, knowing he’d spout some nonsense.

He glares at Tony. “People are concerned about you, Tony. I’m concerned about you. Hell, your kid is concerned about you…. I thought you wouldn’t pull a Howard on him.” He hisses at the end.

“Don’t.” He glares.

He glares right back. “You told me that if you even took a single step toward becoming like him with Peter, that I’d be allowed to smack some sense into you.” 

“You going to come at me like that?” He half growls.

“No, look I’m not trying to be a dick-” He pauses as some kids walk up to us. “-tator.”

“Do you mind signing my drawing?” A girl asks.

“If Richard doesn’t mind. Are you alright with this, Dick?” He says, his voice filled with amusement. Rhodey scoffs. And I roll my eyes. “What’s your name?”

“Erin.”

He looks at the little kid with glasses. “I loved you in A Christmas Story by the way.” He jokes.

He leans in to whisper at him. “Listen, the pentagon is scared. After New York, Aliens… come on. They need to look strong. Stopping the Mandarin is a priority, but it’s not-”

“It’s not superhero business. I get it.”

“No it’s not. Quite Frankly, it’s American business.”

“That’s why I said I got it.” He broke the crayon and his heart rate started to go up extremely high.

“How did you get out of the wormhole?” The little kid asks quickly. Which apparently set him off and he started to stumble out of the diner. Mumbling that he has to check on his suit. When he got inside it he took a knee instantly. He asked Jarvis to check on him. After nothing, Jarvis gave his diagnosis.

“My Diagnosis is that you’ve experienced a severe anxiety attack.”

He paused for a moment before saying “Me?” Rhodey tapped on his helmet, saying this isn’t a good look. He suddenly stood up “Sorry, man I got to split.” he says as he takes off… without me. Rhodey sighs. And rubs his face. 

“Come on.” He gestures for me to follow him. We go back in and pay for the food before heading back out to his car, where he drives me home.

---

When She made Happy Head of Security she didn’t think he’d take his job so seriously. Tony calls him Forehead of Security, a nickname earned by his terrible understanding of tech. Everywhere he walks he tells people to wear the badges. And a rise of staff complaints went up by 136% in the first week alone. Right now it’s at 300%, a point she intends on informing him of. Right now he was spouting some nonsense about cleaning robots. “So you’re suggesting that I replace the entire janitorial staff with robots.” I ask as I sign something.

“What I’m saying is that the human element of human resources is our biggest point of vulnerability. We should start phasing it out immediately.”

“What?”

“Excuse me, Bambi, you should be wearing a badge.”

“Did you just say that?” I stop him from walking by getting his attention. “Happy? Okay. I am thrilled that you are now the Head of Security. Okay? It is the perfect position for you. However, since you’ve taken the post we’ve had a rise in staff complaints of 300%.”

“Thank you.”

I shake my head. “That’s not a complement.”

“It’s not a com- It is a compliment. Clearly someone is trying to hide something!” he insists.

“I-” 

“Excuse me. Ms Potts, your 4 O’Clock is here.” My Secretary interrupts me.

“Did you clear this 4 O’Clock with me?” Happy examines her.

“Thank you.” I say to her, “Happy, we’ll talk about this later, but right now, I have to go deal with this very annoying thing.”

“How so?” He questions as he follows.

I sigh. “I used to work with him and he used to ask me out all the time, so it’s a little awkward.”

“I don’t like the sound of that.” He says following me into the office

When I see Killian again, he looks nothing like I remember. “Pepper.” He smiles.

“Killian?”

“You look great.” He says tossing a book back onto the couch.

“God, you- you look great.” I stammer out. “I- I can’t- what on Earth have you been doing?”

“Nothing fancy. Just five years in the hands of physical therapists.” He shrugs. “And please, call me Aldrich.”

“Uh, you were supposed to be issued a security badge.” Happy interrupts.

“Happy, it’s okay. We’re good.” I turn to him.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. Stand down.”

“Okay. I’m going to linger right here.” He says walking out.

“It’s very nice to see you, Killian.” I say walking further into the offices. “So, what are you here for?” I prompt him.

“After years of dodging on immoral biotech research, my think tank now has a little something in the pipeline. It’s an idea we like to call EXTREMIS.” He explains as he puts something next to his ear. “I’m going to turn your lights down.” and he holds out 3 metal spheres. “Regard the human brain.” He says as he rolls them across the table. They stop and turn on a projection. “Uh- Wait, hold on, hold on. That’s the universe. My bad. But if I do that-” He changes something on the remote, and it displays a projection of a brain. “That’s the brain. Strangely mimetic, though, wouldn’t you say?” 

“Wow, that’s amazing.”

“Thanks. It’s mine.”

“What?”

“This, you're inside my head. It’s a-” He taps on the thing behind his ear. “It’s a live feed. Come on up, I’ll prove it to you.” He says, and helps me up. “Now, pinch my arm. I can take it. Pinch me.” he insists. 

As I do, a part of the projection lights up. “What is that?”

“It's the primary somatosensory cortex. It’s the brain's pain center.” He points behind me. “But this is what I wanted to show you. He pulls at the projection and it zooms in. “Now, EXTREMIS harnesses our bioelectrical potential and it goes here. This is essentially an empty slot and what this tells us is that our mind, our entire DNA in fact, is destined to be upgraded.” 

“Wow.” I exclaim in wonder.

Chapter Text

About two days after Dad’s panic attack, I joined Pepper at SI to help with some intern’s projects. Happy was busy stalking someone. Though he insisted it was not stalking. Either way, at around 6:30 Pepper had come down to the lab to take us home. The ride was quiet. She asked a few questions about what I worked on. If the Interns were nice. My thoughts on the projects we worked on. I had pulled out a tablet and worked on some stuff that can be done remotely. Dona, an intern I had worked with today, asked if I could double check her work after she left for the day. Which I had almost forgotten to do, if JARVIS had not texted me saying to do so. I did it in the car while answering her questions.

“Any new complaints about Happy?” She asks, turning the last turn home.

“No. Mostly the same. Oh! But a new nickname came up.” I giggled as I remembered it.

“Oh, yeah? What’s it this time?”

“Head of Paranoia I believe it was. I still think Dad’s is best though. Or Harry’s. He calls him Head of the Badges Department.” I laugh remembering Harry’s reaction to Happy’s tendencies.

“I like both of those.” She chuckles. “So… how much do you want to bet your dad has already eaten?” 

I think for another moment. “I bet 35 he has already eaten, and he is in the garage.”

She sighs, “You’re probably right.” As we pull into the driveway we spot a giant stuffed rabbit. Pepper blinks at it a bit, before grabbing her bag and steps out of the car and stares at it.

“That’s… something.” I say staring at it. Pepper just sighs and walks inside.

“Sorry we’re late, we were just- What what the- What is that?” she asks as we spot dad in the suit, legs crossed on the couch. “You’re wearing this in the house now? What is that, like, mark 15?”

“Uh, yeah. Something like that. You know, everybody needs a hobby.” He says, and I hear his voice also coming from downstairs… oh. He is in so much trouble.

“Oh, and you have to wear your hobby in the living room?” She asks, taking off her shoes.

“Just breaking it in. You know, it;s always a little pinchy in the gooey bag at first, so.” He says with a little shake. I roll my eyes. Pepper laughs. “Well, hey, did you see your Christmas present?”

“Yes, I did. I- I don’t know how I could've missed that Christmas present. Is it gonna fit through the door?” She asks, picking up drawings of Iron Man

“That’s actually a good question, I got a team of guys coming tomorrow. They’re gonna blow out that wall.”

“Okay.”

“Tense? Good day? Huh?” he asks and starts messaging her shoulders. “Ooh, shoulders, a little knotty. Naughty girl. I don’t want to harp on this, but did you like the custom rabbit?”

“Did I like it?”

“Nailed it right?” 

“I appreciate the thought, very much.” She stands up and faces him. “So, why don’t you lift up that face mask and give me a kiss?”

He imitates a computer beeping.. “Huh. Yep. Damn it, no can do. You want to just kiss it on the- the facial slit?”

“Uh-huh” She says unimpressed. “Well, why don’t I run down to the garage and see if I can’t find a crowbar to jimmy that thing open.” She says heading down the stairs already.

“Crowbar yeah… oh! Expect there’s been a radiation leak!”

“I’ll take my chances.” She ignores him. I chuckle, and just head upstairs to my room. Knowing the ensuing argument was bound to be… interesting. I headed into my bathroom and decided to shower.

—

“I admit it! My fault. Sorry.” He calls out before I’m back up the stairs. And if I know Tony, is that he’s saying he’s sorry, like that specifically, I know he means it. “I’m a piping hot mess. It’s been going on for a while. I haven’t said anything… Nothing’s been the same since New York.”

“Oh, really? I didn’t notice that at all.” I say sarcastically. 

“You experience things. And then they’re over, and you still can’t explain them?” He shrugs. “Gods, aliens, other dimensions. I’m just a man in a can. The only reason I haven’t cracked up is probably because you moved in. Which is great. I love you. I’m lucky… But honey, I can’t sleep. You got to bed, I come down here. I do what I know.” he gestures behind him. “I tinker. I-” he sighs and sits down. “Threat is imminent. And I have to protect the two things that I can’t live without.” he gestures at me and up at the ceiling. “That’s you, and Peter. And my suits, they’re, uh-”

“Machines.”

“They’re part of me.” He insists.

“A distraction.”

“Maybe.” At least he somewhat agrees. I walk over to him, and press his head down, and take off his headpiece. “I’m going to take a shower.”

“Okay.”

I turn to glare at him. “And you’re gonna join me.”

“Better.” He taps onto the table he’s sitting on.

—

I awake with a jolt, holding my hands up defensively. “Shh. It’s me.” Pepper whispers. She climbs into my bed. 

“Wha-?” I mumble out.

“Your dad.. Nevermind. Go back to sleep.” She shushes. She pulls me into a hug and I drift back off.

—

“We used to come here all the time, back when we were kids.” I explain to a little girl, who couldn’t be older than 8, or maybe 9? She looked around in wonder, finding the camp ground interesting.

“It’s so cool here Petey!” She exclaims. The smile on my face hurts. Is this really a dream?

“Yeah, and I can show you where he dived off a cliff to catch me later.” Harry winks at her. “He screamed like a little girl that day.”

“Har!” I smack his arm. How could he throw me under the bus like that?!

“Why did he scream though?” The little girl questions. Harry breaks into a fit of laughter. I hear Dad in the distance laughing too. Emily and May(?) are as well. Pepper- no, mom, is at least attempting to hold back any laughter. 

“Cause he cared about me.” Harry makes it sound simple. No, I’d die without you. I think to myself. Wait, what?

“Okay, that’s enough. We have to pitch the tents now.” I inform them. The little girl frowns and says that it’s daddies job to do that. I just ruffle her hair. “Well, Mo, it’s cause you were really young and wouldn’t be able to help much. That’s why it was dad’s job.”

“Was?” She said incredulously.

“Was. Don’t you want to prove that you can help in dad’s workshop?” I whisper to her. Sure, it’s cheating, but the way her face lights up is well worth it. She runs off to help in anyway she can, and it makes the smile on my face hurt even more.

“You’re so good with kids.” Harry sighs, leaning his chin on my shoulders and hugging me from behind.

“Years of practice with ______-___. “ I remind him. 

“I bet ____ could help us with something.” He nudges me.

I frown “Last time you did that, you collapsed from exhaustion and didn’t wake up for a day.” 

“It was worth it, to see her actually happy. She’s retired from the life. Works with __. ______ and is studying under him.” He explains, holding me tighter. “I mean, c’mon Pete wouldn- Peter? Something lik- Peter! for us? PETER!”

I sit up quickly and grab hold of the closest thing to me. “Peter?” Pepper’s voice is scared, but she’s trying to keep calm.

“I-” I’m cut off by a coughing fit. She rushes over to the nightstand and pulls out my old inhaler. Would that even work anymore? I think to myself. She shoves it in my mouth and instructs me to hold my breath for 4 seconds.

“Exhale, slowly.” She instructs calmly. “Do you need another?” she holds it up again afterward. I shake my head no and fall back onto my pillows again.

“I thought I didn’t have that anymore.” I complain. I hear the door thrust open.

“Are you okay?” Dad asks quickly, a bit out of breath himself. He must have ran from the garage.

“Yeah.” I say, and hold a thumbs up.

“JARVIS?” Pepper asks, hesitant.

“It appears the young sir’s body reacted to a nightmare by inducing an asthma attack. However, any further scans appear to indicate that he does not have asthma, and hasn’t had it since the spider bite. It appears to be a purely defensive response.”

“So my body tries to kill me when I’m having a nightmare?” I frown, cause how does that even work?

“No. Your body reacted to your nightmare. My current theory is that it was waking you up, after Ms. Potts could not.”

I turned to Pepper, “You were trying to wake me up?”

She nods. “I was coming to wake you for breakfast, but you were shifting a lot in your sleep. When I asked JARVIS, he said you were having a nightmare.

“But it wasn’t a nightmare.” I frown. “It was-” why can’t I remember it? “It was- uh-” I just had an actually good dream, for once, and I can’t even remember it? The more I try to remember, the more my head hurts. Why can’t I remember? Who was the little girl?

“Peter!” Pepper gets my attention again. “Are you okay?”

“I- I think so.” I nod. “So, what's for breakfast?” I changed the topic. The eyes on me are getting uncomfortable. They both look even more concerned, but ignore it seeing that I didn’t want to talk about it. We had french toast. Pepper makes the best french toast. Even better when she can make fresh bread. Harry’s is better, sorry mom! A voice rings in my head, that sounds like me. What?

Right as we finish breakfast JARVIS brings us some bad news. “Mr. Hogan is in the hospital.” 

And that’s where we found ourselves. Happy’s hospital room. Along with another Mandarin message. His threat was obvious this time. He was going after the president next. The nurse had come in to check on him again, she had a small smile on her face when she saw me sitting next to his bed. “You his son?” She asked.

“No, mine.” Dad answers.

“Oh, forgive me.”

“It’s fine.” He shrugs. “Mind leaving this on?” he points at the TV. “Sunday nights. PBS. Downton Abbey.”

“It’s his show. He thinks it's elegant.” I explain, holding one of his hands.

Dad nods. “Oh, and don’t let anyone in here without a badge. He’s a stickler for that thing. MY guys won’t let anyone in here without it.” He says. “I’ll be back later, okay?” He addresses me next.

“Okay.” I don’t even take my eyes off Happy. The nurse does her final checks and says if I need anything to press a button, and that she’ll be back in another few hours to check on him again. When I’m alone with him, I contemplate what to say. “Happy… I- I don’t know if you’ll hear me, but some people can, so it’s worth a shot… You have to get better. So you can drive me to school again, despite the fact you always complain about it. I know you smile whenever you see me walking out the doors. You hide it when I open the door… You do care about my day too, even if you put the divider up not even halfway through the car ride. You listen for my excitement… I think. And whenever I have a bad day you obviously tell dad, or Pepper ‘cause when we get home one of them is waiting, and they always cheer me up… So.. you have to get better, because who’s gonna tell them if I have a bad day?” I feel my eyes sting with tears. “If you don’t get better, you’ll lose the favorite uncle battle with Rhodey… and I know you guys like fighting for that, because it always gets me to laugh. I see the look you guys share whenever I do after one of your stupid fights… So please, get better? For me?”

Chapter Text

“Hey, Mr. Stark, When is somebody gonna kill this guy?” Somebody asked loudly, and it made him stop, and turn around to face him.

“Is that what you want?” He asked, staring into the camera. “Here’s a little holiday greeting that I’ve been wanting to send to Mandarin. I just didn’t know how to phrase it until now. My name is Tony Stark and I’m not afraid of you. I know you’re a coward.” He takes off his glasses. “So I’ved decided that you just died, pal. I’m gonna come get the body. There’s no politics here, it’s just good old fashioned revenge. There’s no Pentagon, it’s just you and me. And on the off chance you’re a man, here’s my home address. 10880 Maluby Point. 90265. I’ll leave the door unlocked.” He snatches the phone out of the guy’s hand. “That’s what you wanted, right?” He tossed the phone into a wall. “Bill me.” he told him, and got in the car and sped off, ignoring the other reporters.

Back home, he had Jarvis compile a database on the Mandarin. Which was completed when he got home and down into the garage. “I’ve compiled a Mandarin database for you sir, drawn from SHIELD, FBI and CIA intercepts. Initiating virtual crime scene reconstruction.” 

He stepped up and looked around. “Okay. What have we got here? The name is an ancient Chinese war mantle meaning advisor to the king. South American insurgency tactics. Talks like a Baptist preacher. There’s a lot of pageantry going on here. Lots of theatre. Close.” He clasped his hand together, and the reports vanished.

“The heat from the blast was an excess of 3,00 degrees Celsius. Any subjects within 12.5 yards were vaporised instantly.”

“No bomb parts found in a three-mile radius of the Chinese Theatre?”

“No, sir.”

He frowns. “Talk to me, Happy.” he says and JARVIS models where he was on the ground, and he takes the direction of his eyes and points toward something, he walks over and lifts the part of the scene up. “When is a bomb not a bomb?” He mumbles to himself. He slides sections of the debris away, before a set of dog tags appears. He picks up the dog tags, and sets it in front of him. “Any military victims?” 

“Not according to public record, sir.”

“Bring up the thermogenic signatures again.” He instructs and climbs on to crates and sits down, looking down at the map of the U.S.A.

“The Oracle cloud has completed analysis. Accessing satellites and plotting the last 12 months of thermogenic occurrences now.”

He looks over them for a moment. “Take away everywhere there’s been a Mandarin attack.” He says and only 10 points left. Some were irrelevant, to low of a heat signature, but there was one, that had an excess of 3,000 °C. He points at it, “That. Are you sure that’s not one of his?” “It predates any known Mandarin attack. The incident was the use of a bomb to assist a suicide.” “Bring her around.” “The heat signature is remarkably similar. 3,000 °C” “You ever been to Tennessee Jarvis?” “Creating a flight plan for Tennessee.” He swipes away, and the virtual crime scene goes away. Ding-dong! He looks and makes a face. “Are we still at ding-dong? We’re supposed to be on tota-.” he bangs the container he’s sitting on twice. “-security lockdown. Come on, I threatened a terrorist. Who is that?”

“There is only so much I can do, sir, when you give the world’s press your home address.” He puts on the the Mark 42 and heads upstairs. The lady is let in, barely enters before he stops her.“Right there’s fine.” he stares at her, and she makes a face at him, one he doesn’t understand. “You’re not the Mandarin. Are you?”

“You don’t remember.” She laughs. “Why am I not surprised?”

“Don’t take it personally. I don’t remember what I had for breakfast.” I offer as a makeshift apology.  “Guten-free waffles, sir.” Jarvis reminds me. “That’s right.”

“Okay, look I need to be alone with you, someplace not here. It’s urgent.” She says quickly.

“Normally, I’d go for that sort of thing, but now I’m in a committed relationship, and have a son to take care of.” He says walking off. “It’s-” he’s interrupted by a bag falling from above him. Another falls. “With her.” he says and steps out of his suit.

“Tony! Is somebody there?” 

“Yeah. It’s Maya Hansen. Old botanist pal. That I used to know, barely.” He walks away, then whispers to her. “Please tell me there is a 12 year old kid waiting in the car that I’ve never met.”

“He’s 13.” She says. “No, I need your help.” She says instead, right that was sarcasm. 

I frown at her. “But, what for? Why now?”

“Because I read the papers and frankly, I don’t think you’ll last the week.”

“I’ll be fine.” I insist.

“I’m sorry, with Happy in the hospital, I didn’t know we were expecting guests.” Pepper says as she joins us.

“We weren’t.” 

“-And old girlfriends.”

“-She’s not, really.” 

“No, not really. I- It was just one night.”

“Yep.” I nod.

“That’s how you did it, isn’t it?”

“It was a great night.”

“Yep. Well, you know.. You saved yourself a world of pain.” She looks at Maya.

“What?”

“I’m sure.” Maya agreed.

“Trust me.” She turns to look at me now, “We’re going out of town.”

“Okay. We’ve been through this. Nope.”

“Yep!”

“The man says no.”

“Immediately and indefinitely.” She yells.

“Great idea. Let’s go.” Maya agrees and starts grabbing Peppers’ bags.

“I’m sorry, that’s a terrible idea. Please don’t touch her bags.” I yell at her.

“Tony, this is how normal people behave.” 

“I can’t protect you out there!”

Maya points at the giant rabbit. “Is.. is that normal?”

“Sadly, that is very normal.”

“Yes, this is normal! It’s a big bunny, relax about it!” I say frustrated.

“Calm down!”

“I got this for you!”

“I’m aware of that!”

“You still haven’t even told me you liked it!” 

“I don’t like it!”

“I asked you three- You don’t like it.”

“We are leaving this house! That’s not even up for discussion.”

“Guys. Can we um-”

“What?”

“Do we need to worry about that?” She points at the TV screen, and a missile is head for the house! I turn around to see it crash through the window, and as I am blasted away at the explosion I motion for the Mark 42 to cover Pepper. I crash into a wall, and start to sit up. I notice the ceiling cracking above me and Pepper covers me with herself.

“I got you.” She says after the mask lifts up, and I make a mental note to build her a set for herself later.

“I got you first. Like I said we can’t stay here.” I get up  and more missiles crash through the window knocking me over the couch. “Move! I’m right behind you!” I yell at her, and she stares at me worried. “Stop stopping, Get her. Get outside!” I gesture at Maya. “Go!” She closes the mask and runs for the door, helping Maya through. More missiles are shot and they hit below the house on the cliffside. I roll and catch myself on a support beam, my feet break through the glass. “Sir, Ms Potts is clear of the structure.” Jarvis informs me. I point toward the door, then back at myself. The armor starts flying toward me and starts encasing me. A bullet hits my back right where a piece had attached. “Jarvis! Where’s my flight power?”

I latch on a ledge from the crumbling floor. “Working on it, sir, this is a prototype.” I try to aim a missile at the chopters, but of course, it is a prototype. A piano is sliding down toward me, and I let go of the ledge, and blast the piano with the repulsors at a chopper. It crashes into it and it falls. “That’s one.” “Sir, the suit is not combat ready.” Jarvis reminds me as I try and get the missile out of the arm. I manage to open the compartment and toss it at another chopper  and blast it mid air. “That’s two!” I smile at myself, then frown as the chopper crashes down toward me. “Oh.” I say and try to run. The explosion makes me land in the garage and I spot DUM-E looking down at it’s old arm, it makes a whirring noise, and it falls down along with the rest of the garage. I fall down with it, and a cable wraps around my neck and pulls me down with the debris. I giant concrete slap lands on me after I get the cable off my neck. I reach a hand out but it’s hard to move it. “Sir, take a deep breath.” Jarvis instruct and I do. The gauntlet that was sticking out detaches itself then I feel it come back and it reattached to me. “Flight power restored.” and we blast out of the water. 

I blank for a moment and can hear an alarm ringing. “Sir? Sir!” “all right, kill the alarm. I got it.” I say blinking my eyes open. “That’s the emergency alert triggered by the power dropping below 5%.” Jarvis says and wait what? “Oh!” I yell out as I crash onto a car then skidding off it and flying through a bunch of trees.  I roll over and onto my back. I take off the mask and realize it's snowing. “It’s snowing, right? Where are we, upstate?” “We are five miles outside of Rose Hill, Tennessee." “Why?!” Jarvis. Not my idea. What are we doing here? This is thousands of miles away! I gotta get Pepper.. I gotta get Peter.. I gotta..” “I prepared a flight plan, this was the location.” “Who asked you?” I sigh. “Open the suit.” “I- I think I might be malfunctioning, sir.” “Open it, J.” I sit up and it’s freezing. “Ugh. That’s brisk.” Take a bit of snow and rub it on my arm. “Maybe i’ll just cozy back up-” “I actually think I need to sleep now, sir.” “Jarvis. Jarvis? Don’t leave me buddy.” I frown and start dragging the suit along with me. I stop at a gas station. I take a jacket off a wooden statue and get in the phone booth. 

Stark secure server. Now transferring to all known receivers. The automated voice says. “Bambino, Pepper, it’s me. I’ve got a lot of apologies to make and not a lot of time. So… First off, I’m so sorry I put you in harm's way, Pep. That was selfish and stupid, and it won’t happen again. And Bambino, stay at Happy’s place. The house isn’t safe, and sorry about all your stuff. Pep, it’s Christmastime and the rabbit’s too big. Done. Sorry… And I’m sorry to both of you cause I can’t come home yet. I need to find this guy. You guys gotta stay safe, that's all I know. I just stole a poncho from a wooden Indian…. I love you both. I’ll be back, promise.”

—

When the news covered the attack on the house, I just stared in horror. The news helicopter had fled quickly and only covered the aftermath. Almost the entire thing had been blown off the cliffside and into the water below. I realized it wasn’t safe to return, and quickly left the hospital. But where to go? Maybe Jarvis would have an idea. I pulled out my phone and called him…. And it… rang? It never rings before. Jarvis always answers instantly! I frown as it eventually goes through. “Uncle J?” I ask curiously. “Greet-ngs, Min- Si- how ca- as-ts yo-” I frown more. His voice is patchy. That’s not normal. “J, I need a place to-” “Sor- Mi- -ir, -n’t he- -ou. Mal-un-ing.” the call ends. And I figure the next best option is to call Harry, but before I can pull up his contact a notification pops up. Stark Secure Server: One new Message. Transmitted to all known receivers. I find a quiet place in the hospital, and press play. “Bambino, Pepper, it’s me.-” I hear dad’s voice and smile a little. I listen to his message. He said to stay at Happy’s place, and that’s where I’ll go now, I guess. I find it again on google maps, and follow it’s direction by using bus routes and a walk.

I find his apartment, and think of how to enter it this time. Happy had keys of course, but never gave us any copies. He’s also on a higher floor with a balcony- The balcony! Of course. I walk to the side of the building with it, and was thankful it was night time. I use my spinnerets and shoot a web up high and pull myself up onto the wall. I crawl along, avoiding windows and the like and as I approach the balcony I hear voices. What? 

“Yeah, well the boss's orders said the kid will try this place. If his plan is going to work, we need the kid and the girl.” A man says. A stranger. Great.

“How is he so sure he’ll come here?” A woman says.

“Doesn’t matter.. Wait. Hear that?” The man says. I frown, they couldn’t hear me could they? “Someone's coming. Hide!” He hisses at the lady, and I hear them start to scramble around. Before they can even find a place, the door bursts open. I look over the railing of the balcony and to see who it was.

“Freeze!” Natasha says, point guns at the intruders. I smile as I see her. “Where’s the kid?” She demands. Looking between them. I hear a voice off her comm “He’s on the balcony, behind the railing.” I realise it’s Mr. Barton’s voice! I turn around and try to find him. “Deal with the two, I’ll get him out of there!” He instructs her. 

“What kid?” The man asks, innocently. Something…is off about them. 

“Quiet.” She growls. “You two are under arrest. Attempted kidnapping, breaking and entering. You can come quietly, or we can do this the hard way.” The two glance at each other, and smile. A really, really creepy one. Then their fists glow. What the hell!? I go to jump over the balcony to help, and as I do an arrow flies past me, and strikes one of them through the shoulder. They yell out in pain and the other turns to look. Nat opens fire on him, and he sort of just… tanks the bullets. Each wound glows, like lava, and disappears. “Cap?” She says quickly. He’s here too!? Another arrow, and it lands into the guy. The girl snaps the arrow off, and her shoulder glows. The wound patched itself! I hear footsteps, and look toward the door. And see Steve charge through, he tosses a shield at the girl, who smacks it away, it bounces off a wall then falls to the ground.

The ensuing fight was a bit of a clusterfuck. Steve beating down on the girl, while Nat pummels the guy with more and more bullets. I web the shield over to me and toss it at Steve, who catches it and smacks the girl away, she crashed through a wall. He turns and tosses the shield at the man, who had reached for Nat, and it cuts straight through his arm! “Holy shit!” I shout, startled. 

“Language.” Steve says quickly. Nat and I look at him like he’s crazy, before anyone can reply, the man stands up and his arm is regrowing?! It glows, like how the girl did earlier, but before it can finish the rest of him glows too. And time feels like it slows down, I web Nat and Steve, pulling them as hard as I can. They fly over the balcony, and I jump over, following them, and web onto them again and swing down and onto the side of the building a several stories down. The apartment explodes, shaking the building. I lean against the wall, catching my breath.

“Thanks, Squirt.” Nat sighs. Leaning her head back against the wall. “Nifty trick you got there.” 

I look up toward the now smoking apartment… It reminded me of the scene of the Chinese Theater that Happy was at. I crawl down and snap the webs apart and lower them down to the ground. “Why were you guys there?” I ask when we’re on solid ground. I stumble and Nat quickly catches me. 

“Fury caught a rumor that someone was going to try and kidnap you.” Steve explained. He nods at Natasha “Natasha caught wind of that and we came to see for ourselves.” He taps onto his ear. “Barton, meet us at the rendezvous.” 

I hear his reply. “Got it, does the kid need a place to stay?”

“I’ll find out, for you.” Is his Reply. He turns to me about to ask, but I interrupt him.

“I do, yes.” I say sleepily. Not sleeping last night since Happy’s been to the hospital was probably not the best. Before they can even ask anything, I fall asleep.

Chapter Text

Natasha has gone soft. There, she admits it. But if you had a knife to her throat, gun to her head. She’d never confess that. She’d take that to the grave. But you look at this kid, and tell her not to go soft? That’s basically psychological torture. To the kid. Maybe. (Definitely not her.)

Either way, Peter was currently asleep. She was so glad she convinced Fury to get a safe house for her in California now. As that’s where they are currently. Some random place that’s close to the Stark’s old place, and close to Hogan’s hospital. She was glad she decided to check out Hogan’s place herself. Steve and Clint were quick to come too. Then Clint goes and tells her the kid was sticking to the balcony's wall. First off, what the hell kid? How’d he do that? Secondly, Steve wasn’t as surprised to hear that information. And he wasn’t as surprised to see him quickly jump over that railing and pull them both out and off the balcony and onto the apartment complex’s wall. He had saved them both.

He had used this weird webbing. Which she has seen a lot, and it didn’t freak her out that much. It was still slightly disturbing. Then he just fell asleep. She had quickly caught him, and his hand just grabbed her shoulder as she did. It was also stuck to her shoulder. When they had gotten to the Quinjet and to a SHIELD base in LA, they had gotten a car and headed for the safe house near Stark’s home.

She had managed to pry his fingers off her shoulder, and Steve carried him inside and set him on the couch. He left to help with a call Fury had for him, and She and Clint had stayed behind. Clint was texting someone. Probably Laura. Probably checking on how the kids were doing. She was just flipping through a newspaper. Something to do with her hands. Maybe she should pick up reading?

—

“Freeze!” A kid’s voice calls out, and I hold up my hands in surrender. “Don’t move.” He insists.

“You got me.” I say quickly. I examine the kid, he’s holding a potato gun. He reminds me of Peter. “Nice potato gun. Barrel’s a little long. Between that and the wide gauge it’s gonna diminish your FPS.” I explain and he shoots it at a glass. “And now you’re out of ammo.”

“What’s that thing on your chest?” He demands.

“It’s an electromagnet. You should know, you got a box of them right here.” I explain, tapping on the box. 

“What does it power?” The kid is smart, at least. I lean and flick on a table lamp, and point it at the suit behind me. Stepping out of the way so the kid can see. “Oh, my god! That- That’s- Is that Iron Man?” The kid looks at me in awe.

“Technically, I am.” I correct.

“Technically, you’re dead.” He says shoving a newspaper onto my chest. The main story reads Mandarin Attack: Stark Presumed Dead. 

“Valid point.” 

“What happened to him?” the kid asks, getting on the couch the suit was sitting on to get a better look. 

“Life. I built him, I take care of him.” I answer, tossing the newspaper away. “I’ll fix him.”

“Like a mechanic?" He asks, looking at me. He reminded me of Peter so much.

“Yeah.” I agree with his assessment.

“Hmm. If I was building Iron man and War Machine-”

“It’s Iron Patriot now.” I correct, and I still disagree with the name change.

“That’s way cooler!”

“No it’s not.” 

“Anyways, I would have added in- um- the retro-”

“Retro-reflective panels?”

“To make him stealth mode.” The kid nods, agreeing. And it reminds me of Peter again. He had suggested it once. “Retro-reflective panels would be so cool, dad! I was trying to make DUM-E’s nephew a little stealth spider drone!” “I don’t need a stealth spider drone giving me a heart attack, bambino.” “But dad!” “Banish the bambi eyes, please. I have a heart condition.” “I’ll just ask Pepper for a pet spider then.” “You were saying something about a stealth spider drone?”

“You want a stealth mode? That’s actually a good idea. Maybe I’ll build one.” I make a mental note that the next suit will be a stealth suit, and to get Droney’s a stealth upgrade. The kid breaks a finger off. “Not a good idea! What are you doing? You’re gonna break his finger?”

“Sorry.” He frowns, but he still inspects it.

“Are you?” I say a little loud. “Don’t worry I’ll fix it.” I decide I need to change the topic. “So uh who’s home?”

He doesn’t look at me, but answers. “Well, my mom already left for the diner and Dad went to 7-11 to get scratches. I guess he won, because that was six years ago.” And that doesn’t break my heart. Nope.

“Which happens. Dads leave. No need to be a pussy about it. Here’s what I need.” He looks up at me, finally paying attention now. “A laptop, a digital watch, a cell phone, and the pneumatic actuator from your bazooka over there, a map of town, a big spring and a tuna fish sandwich.”

“What’s in it for me?” Okay, I like this kid already.

“Salvation. What’s his name?”

“Who?”

“The kid that bullies you at school.” I say, making each word clearer than the last. “What’s his name?”

“How’d you know that?”

“Cause I got a kid who was bullied at school.” I answer simply. If I recall that discovery correctly, Pepper had been so pissed I considered killing the kid as a mercy. Rhodey and Happy weren’t any better. Is it bad that I handled that situation better than them? I wonder. “I got just the thing.” I opened up part of the suit and took out something for him. “This is a pinata for cricket. Just kidding, it's a very powerful weapon. Point it away from your face, press the button on the top, it discourages bullying.” I had given Peter a watch that shocks people when he first started public school… and he only used it twice. Once on (a now ex) shield agent, and on the electronic lock for the arc reactor building. “Non-lethal, just to cover one’s ass. Deal?” I wave it around a bit. “Deal? What do you say?”

“Deal.” He inspects it as he takes it.

“What’s your name?”

“Harley. And you’re…” He trails off.

“The mechanic.” I suggest, but that doesn’t seem right. “Tony.” thats better. “You know what keeps going through my head? Where’s my sandwich?” I say jokingly, but I am rather hungary.

—

It wasn’t long before rescue teams arrived. Fire crew, search and rescue and all sorts of things she couldn’t name all of them. She had been handed an old helmet they found. They had asked if he used that one during the attack. She said no, it was one of the old ones. She just stood there, looking over the cliff edge. It felt like days, but in the back of her mind she knew it was only hours. She pressed the forehead of the helmet to hers. She heard a faint beeping when she did. A frown on her face as she turned it over to look inside. A red light blinking. She flipped it again and it adjusted to expand as she put it over her head. When it was on, the HUD had light up, but it was glitchy. An automated voice spoke. “Stark secure server. Retinal scan verified.” after a moment a new voice came up. “Bambino, Pepper, it’s me. I’ve got a lot of apologies to make and not a lot of time. So… First off, I’m so sorry I put you in harm's way, Pep. That was selfish and stupid, and it won’t happen again.” I smile, hearing his voice. “And Bambino, stay at Happy’s place. The house isn’t safe, and sorry about all your stuff. Pep, it’s Christmastime and the rabbit’s too big. Done. Sorry… And I’m sorry to both of you cause I can’t come home yet. I need to find this guy. You guys gotta stay safe, that's all I know. I just stole a poncho from a wooden Indian…. I love you both. I’ll be back, promise.” 

So that explains where Peter is. He figures she can get the woman that had come to him today, go get Peter and get answers. After a moment of silence in the car driving toward Happy’s place, she finally spoke up. “Why were you at the house tonight?” She demands. “What was so important that you had to speak to Tony?” 

“I think that my boss is working for the Mandarin.” She answers. Oh my god. What? “So if you still want to talk about it, I suggest that we get ourselves someplace safe.”

“Your boss works for the Mandarin, you think?” She sounds crazy. “But Tony says you’re a botanist. So-”

“That figures. What I actually am is a biological DNA coder running a team of 40 out of a privately funded think tank. But sure, you can call me a botanist.” She interrupts. Okay. What? 

“Does this boss of yours, does he have a name?” I ask, hesitant. I’m also afraid of the answer.

“Yeah, Aldrich Killian.” She answers. What. The. Fuck.

“What the fuck?” I shout, voicing my thoughts.

—

Harley had gotten everything I requested. The spring was rusty. The watch was a Dora the explorer watch, and the sandwich was decent, at least. Everything else was fine. We were going to investigate the bomb site of this town. Harley heard stories about it, at least. 

“She’s six! And it's a limited edition!” He informed me after my complaint at the watch. “When can we talk about New York?” he asks again.

“Maybe never. Relax about it.”

“What about the avengers? Can we talk about them?” He asks instead.

“I dunno. Later. Hey, kid, give me a little space.” I say. We come to a stop in front of the bomb site. “What’s the official story here?”

“I guess this guy named Chad Davis used to live roundabouts. He won a bunch of metals in the army… and one day, folks said he went crazy and made, you know, a bomb. Then he blew himself up, right here.” Harley explains. I examine the shadows of the victims.

Only 5 shadows? “Six People died?” Just got to make sure. “Including Chad Davis?”

“Yeah.”

“That doesn’t make sense.” I say, crouching down next to him. “Think about it. Six dead. Only five shadows.”

“Yeah. People said these shadows are the marks of souls going to heaven.” He offers an explanation. Guess it makes sense, from a religious point of view. “Expect the bomb guy. He went to hell, on account of he didn’t get a shadow. That’s why there’s only five.”

“Do you buy that?”

“It’s what everyone says.” He shrugs. “You know what this crate reminds me of?”

“No idea. I’m not- I don’t care.”

“That giant wormhole in, um, in New York. Does it remind you?”

“That’s manipulative. I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Are they coming back? The aliens?” He asked worried.

I hope not, but I suspect that yes, they are. “Maybe.” I say instead. “Can you stop?” I raise my voice. I take a deep breath. “Remember what I told you, that I have an anxiety issue?”

“Does this subject make you edgy?”

“A little bit.” A lot. “Can I just catch my breath, for a second.”

“Are there bad guys in Rose Hill? Do you need a plastic bag to breathe into? Do you have medication?”

“No.”

“Do you need to be on it?”

“Probably.”

“Do you have PTSD?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Are you going completely mental? I can stop. Do you want me to stop?”

“Remember when I said stop doing that? I swear to god you’re going to freak me out?” I say frustrated. “Oh man you did it didn’t you? Are you happy now?” I say getting up and leaving. The kid follows me. I don’t hear what he’s saying. As he flies toward the portal, JARVIS Speaks up before the turn. “Sir, Shall I try the young sir?” “Might as well.” I say. He dials for his phone. He doesn’t answer. Why didn’t he answer? Did he get hurt? May had promised to take care of him. Ben had promised to take care of him. He flies through the portal and lets go of the nuke, it flies toward the giant space ship in the distance. The explosion is massive. There was no shockwave. Just the massive ball of plasma as it expands. The suit had launched his shoulder pads off and he hadn’t realized it at that moment, but that had given him a push back through the portal. He had closed his eyes, expecting to die then. Disintegrated by the explosion.

“What the hell was that?” He asks and I put a handful of snow into my face before tossing it at him.

“Your fault. You spazzed me out.” I gasp out. “Okay, back to business. Where were we? The guy who died? Relatives? Mom? Mrs. Davis? Where is she?”

“Where she always is.”

“See? Now you’re being helpful.” I take another deep breath. “And where is this place she’s always at?”

—

I bumped into a lady on my way into the bar, and she had dropped her wallet. “Uh- Sorry. Lady?” I pick up her wallet and hand it to her.

“Thank you.” She says calmly. Her face has been scared by something.

“Nice haircut. It suits you.” 

“Nice watch.” She says sarcastically. Knowing I was staring at her scares.

“Yeah. A limited edition.” I reply easily.

“Oh I don’t doubt it. Well, have a good evening.” She says and walks away.

I find her sitting by herself. “Mrs. Davis? Mind if I join you?”

“Free country.” she shrugs. As I sit, she sits up straighter. “All right. Where would you like to start?”

Weird. But okay. “I just want to say, I’m sorry about your loss. I want to know what you think happened.”

She looks skeptical. “Look, I brought your damn file. You take it, go.” She tosses it at me. “Whatever was in here, he wanted no part of it.” 

“Clearly you’re waiting for someone else. Huh? Supposed to meet someone here?”

“Yeah.” She watches me as I read it all.

I scan through it. A name that pops up that I recognize. I had called Happy. He was talking about how we had met the scientist in ‘99 in Switzerland. He had mentioned a shifty guy that was with him. I had thought he was just paranoid. But the name with his file. Taggart. He was with Killian. “Mrs. Davis, your son didn’t kill himself.” I say quickly to her. She looked surprised. “I guarantee you, he didn’t kill anyone. Someone used him.”

“What?”

“As a weapon.” 

“You’re not the person that I called after all, are you?” She whispered.

Someone slammed a badge down on the table. “Actually I am.” the scared lady says. She quickly put my arm behind my back and slammed me onto the table. I grabbed the dog tags on the table and put them in my pocket.

“Hey what’s going on here?” Someone calls out.

“It's called an arrest.” She said, then slammed me onto the ground. “Sherif, is it? Home land security, we good here?”

“No, we're not good. I’ll need a little more information than that.”

“Well, I think it’s a little above your pay grade.” She scoffs. I saw Mrs. Davis looked at me. I jerked my head, and she slid the file away from her.

“Yeah? Well, don’t you get on the horn to Nashville and, uh, upgrade me? ”

“All right. You know what? I was hoping to do this the smart way, but uh, the fun way is always good.” She strolls up to him. Her hand glows as she holds the badge in her hand.

“Deputy, get this woman-” He screams as she shoves the burning badge into his face. She then sticks her hand through his stomach and pulls the Deputy's pistol. And proceeds to shoot them both.

I run out of the bar and call toward her. “Hey, hot wings, you want to parry? Come on, you and me, let’s go.” I run off and spot Taggart. He holds a coffee cup up at me before tossing it away and pulls out a gun. He shoots and misses. I hide behind a car, and find a guy just lying there. “Crazy huh?” He nods. I jump through a window. I stand up and the lady from earlier is holding a shotgun. I turn around and leap over the counter. I peek over it to try and spot her. But she’s right next to me. She slams me on up and onto the wall. Then flips me onto the counter. She grabs my face and she heats up her hands. 

Using a shelf below the counter top, I leap over the back window counter, the handcuffs she placed on me over her neck. Her neck heats up and it breaks the handcuffs. I slide a bottle of gasoline across the floor, and kick the heated handcuffs onto it. Making it ignite. I rush over to the microwave and place the dog tags into it and a few buttons to make it start. I stare at the door. “You’ve walked right into this one, I’ve dated hotter chicks then you.” She stumbles through the door.

“That’s all you got? A cheap trick and a cheezy one liner?” She says. I take the hose off the gas for the stove. I open the door to the back.

“Sweetheart, that could be the name of my autobiography.” I joke and close the door, behind me as I run toward an ice bag container thing. Using the door as a shield. The explosion was massive, and sent her flying into a powerline. I turn around as a hear metal groaning. Taggart had heated up a support beam of a water tower. I run into a christmas tree farm, and into a fence. I get caught under the debris.

“Let me go!” I hear Harley say.

“Help me. Help me!” He mocks. He sets him down, and holds him in place. “Anyway. Hey kid, what would you like for Christmas?”

“Mr. Stark, I am so sorry!” 

“Oh. No, no no. I think he was trying to say, I want my goddamn file.” 

“It’s not your fault kid.” I nod at him. “Remember what I told you about bullies?”  His face lights up. And he takes it out of his pocket and aims it at his face. The bright flash makes him stumble back. “You like that, Westworld?” I yell at him. He gets back up and stares at me. “Thats the thing about smart guys. We always cover our ass.” I flip down a repulsor, it charges up and he looks shocked as I blast his face. Unfortunately it’s only good for one shot. I get my foot unstuck and walk up to him. I steal his keys, and head back to the bar and grab the file. I head back for his car.

“You’re welcome.” Harley says walking up to me.

“For what? Did I miss something?”

“Me, saving your life.” he pats my arm.

“Yeah. A, I saved you first. B, thanks. Sort of. And C, if you do someone a solid, don’t be a yutz. All right? Just play it cool. Otherwise you come off grandiose.” I say instead. I unlock Westworld’s car.

“Unlike you?” He says. I pause and stare at him. “Admit it, you need me. We’re connected.”

“What I need is for you to go home, be with your mom, keep your trap shut, guard the suit, and stay connected to the telephone because if I call, you better pick up. Okay? Can you feel that? We’re done here.” I pat his arm. “Move out of the way, or I’m gonna run you over. Bye kid.” I say getting in the car. After turning it on, I roll down the window. “I’m sorry, kid. You did good.” I praise.

He still frowns. “So now you’re just gonna leave me here? Like my dad?” 

“Yeah.” I nod. Really I’m going to go take care of the Mandarin, and then send you shit for Christmas and hope you don’t turn out like me. “Wait, you’re guilt tripping me aren’t you?”

“I’m cold.” He says, holding his arms close to him.

“Yeah.” I mimic his voice. “You know how I can tell? Because we’re connected.” I say stepping on the gas.

Chapter Text

“Mr. President. Only two lessons remain. And I intend to finish this before Christmas morning. Meet Thomas Richards. Good Strong name. Good strong job. Thomas, here, is an accountant for the Roxxon Oil Corporation. But I’m sure he’s a really good guy. I’m going to shoot him in the head,-” the guy cries out, screaming no! “-live on your television in 30 seconds. The number on this telephone is in your cell phone. Exciting, isn’t it, imagining how it got there? America, if the president calls me in the next half-minute, Tom lives. Go!” It’s only a few seconds before the telephone rings. The man looks relieved. The ring goes on for another few seconds before the man is shot anyway. “There’s just one lesson left, President Ellis. So run away, hide, kiss your children goodbye. Because nothing! Not your army, not your red white and blue attack dog can save you! I’ll see you soon.”

—

He just busted down a door to the potential origin point of the Mandarin Broadcast. “Don’t move!” He demands. Everyone is silent, and a ring tone starts going off. “Uh- Hang on a second.” he taps onto his ear. “Hello?”

“Have you ever had a chick straddling you and look up and suddenly she’s glowing from the inside out, kind of a bright orange?”

“Yeah, I’ve had that. Who is this?”

“It’s me pal. Now, last time I went missing, if I remember correctly, you came looking for me. What are you doing?” He smiles as he realizes its Tony.

“A little knock and talk, making friends in Pakistan. What are you doing?”

“Your redesign, your big rebrand, that was AIM, right?”

“Yeah?” 

He grunts, frustrated. “I’m gonna find a heavy-duty comm sat right now, I need your login.”

“It’s the same as it’s always been, WarMachine68.”

“And password please?”

“Well, look, I gotta change it every time you hack in, Tony.”

“It’s not the ‘80s, nobody says ‘hack’ anymore. Give me your login.”

“WarMachineRockx, with an X, with all caps” he sighs. A guy laughs behind him and the gun his back aims at him.

Tony laughs. “That is so much better than Iron Patriot.”

—

The kid had been asleep for a decent amount of time. Watching him was easy. He didn’t move much. He didn't need anything. The problem arose when he did wake up. Clint had figured since Stark drank coffee like it was water, the kid must have as well. At first he just drank it like a normal person. Sipping on it as he woke up. In about 7 minutes (Yes, she timed it.) he had downed his cup, and started just walking around the apartment. Talking about how he though it was and she quotes “So lit that he had saved her and Mr. America, sir!” We watched him walk, sprint and crawl across the apartment. Talking about so many different topics. Ranging from questions about Clint’s arrows, to if Mr. America, sir had seen Star Wars yet. When Steve had made the mistake of saying no, hadn’t. He had gone on about how it was the best thing ever.

Now, she knew Steve had a lot of catching up to do. But when he asked about how the warp drive could work. Peter had paused all his actions, turned to face him and exclaimed “That’s Star TREK MR. America, sir! TREK! Not WARS! You are such a boomer, Mr. America, sir! And you’re not even a boomer!” 

And maybe, just maybe, that had gotten her to laugh. Hell, Clint was laughing his ass off. Of course, he had turned to stare at her. His eyes wide, and full of delight. “I made Ms. Romanov laugh!" he said excitedly. All that excitement stopped when he suddenly dropped from the ceiling and onto the couch. He fell asleep again. 

It may have caused all of them to panic. And after a quick call from Bruce, he had chuckled, and explained that Peter can’t have caffeine… or mint. Which is also when they had all learned he had become enhanced. Bruce had been acting as his physician for the past few years. (Notably a while after he had gone into hiding after becoming the Hulk for the first time.) He had been observing his changes, and marking them on a secure SI server provided by Stark.

Safe to say everyone remembered not to feed the Spiderling caffeine after that.

Apparently it wasn’t all that harmless, it had just made him hyperactive. Emphasis on hyper. He would crash after about 40 minutes and be sleepy. The only real deadly thing to him was mint. (It was deadly to spiders, and used to drive them away.) Upon that revelation, they had more questions.

“What else can you tell us, Doctor?” Steve asked, a curious tone in his voice.

“He developed fangs last year.” Bruce had apparently thought it was a reasonable thing to say.

Clint had spat out his drink. “Did you say fangs?”

“Yes, along with venom glands. It’s very remarkable.”

“What?” Steve looked dumbfounded.

“He stores venom in sacs, or glands, in his cheeks. I’ve actually studied it a bit. It’s paralyzing and extremely deadly.” 

“Paralyzing?” She mutters aloud.

“Yes! It was able to kill a lab mouse in a few seconds. I suspect it’d kill a fully grown Human Male in under 10 minutes in the right dosages.” Bruce replied happily. “The paralyzing effect had locked up the mice in a second. I suspect on a human male it’d take full effect in 3 minutes.”

“That’s” Steve trails off.

“Badass.” Clint decides. Steve turns to him, appalled. “What? It is.”

They stand there in silence for about a minute just staring at the kid.. “Anything more interesting to add, Bruce?” She breaks the silence.

“Yes, actually. His blood is radioactive.”

“What?!” They all shout at the same time.

Somehow that didn’t wake him up.

—

He had found himself in Miami, Florida, at the location Harley provided. He had killed the guards and entered the house. He stunned the guard talking to the hooker, took the gun and shushed her. She just laughed and pointed finger guns at him. He went into a bedroom, and tossed the blanket aside only to find it with two hookers as well. He shushed them as well, turned when he heard a toilet flush. He hid behind the weird privacy thing as a man came out. Mandarin. “I wouldn’t go in there for another 20 minutes.” He said as he walked over to a night stand. “Now, which one of you is Venessa?”

“That would be me.”

“Ah, Nessie. Did you know that fortune cookies aren’t even Chinese?” He laughed. I looked around the corner at him, confused, appalled and just.. Mostly confused. “They’re made by Americans, based on a Japanese recipe.”

“Hey!” I say pointing a gun at him. He turns and holds his hands up in surrender.

“Bloody hell. Bloody hell.”

“Don’t move.”

“I’m not moving. You want something? Take it. Although, the guns are all fake, because those wankers wouldn’t trust me with the real ones.” He says quickly.

“What?”

“Hey, do you fancy either of the birds?”

“Heard enough. You’re not him. The Mandarin, the real guy. Where is he?” I cock the gun, “Where!” I yell. 

“Whoa, whoa, whoa. He’s here. He’s here, but he’s not here.” He says running and sitting down in a chair.

“What do you mean?”

“It's complicated. Hey, it’s complicated.”

“It is. Un-complicate it. Ladies? Get out of the bed. Get into the bathroom.” He instructs and he goes and locks the door on them. Feeling sorry a tiny bit as they are grossed out by the smell. He spots him crawling away and he shoots near him. He stops and goes back into his seat.

“My names Trevor, Trevor Slattery”

“What are you?” I ask. “What are you, a decoy? You’re a double, right?”

“What, like an understudy? No, absolutely not.” He says. I point the gun at him. “Don’t hurt the face! I’m an actor.”

“You got a minute to live, fill it with words.” I instruct.

“It’s just a role. The Mandarin, see it’s not real.”

“Then how did you get here, Trevor?”

“Well, I, um, had a little problem with substances. And I ended up things, no two ways about it, in the street, that I man shouldn’t do.”

“Next.” I roll my eyes.

“Than, they approached me about the role, and they knew about the drugs.”

“What did they say, they’d get you off them?”

“They said they’d give me more! They gave me things. They gave me this palace. They gave me plastic surgery. They gave me things.” 

“Did you just nod off? Hey.” I kick him.

“And a lovely speed boat! And, he needed someone. To take credit for some accidental explosions.”

“He? Killian?”

“Killian.”

“He created you.”

“He created me.”

“Custom-made terror threat.”

“Yes! Yes! His think tank thinked it up! The pathology of a serial killer. The manipulation of Western iconography. Are you ready for another lesson? Blah blah blah.” He held out a can toward me. I shook my head no. “Of course, with my performance, it brought the character to life.”

“Your performance? Where people died?”

“No, they didn’t. Look around you! The costumes, green screen. Honestly, I wasn’t on location for half this stuff. And when I was, it was movie magic, love.”

“I’m sorry, but I got a best friend who’s in a coma, and he might not wake up. So you’re gonna have to answer for that. You’re still going down pal. You under-” I stop, realizing he’s staringa t someone behind me. I turn around and Taggart knocks me out cold.

—

I groan as I wake up. “Okay.” I spot Maya sitting at a desk.

“Just like old times, huh?” She says sarcastically. 

“Oh, yeah. With zip ties. It’s a ball.” I reply equally as sarcastically.

“It wasn’t my idea.” 

I roll my eyes “Okay. So you took Killian’s card.”

“I took his money.” She insists.

“And here you are 13 years later, in a dungeon.” 

“No.”

“Yeah.”

“No, you’re in a dungeon. I’m free to go.”

“Yeah.” I mutter, not really believing her. 

She gets up and walks over toward me. “A lot happened, Tony. But I’m close. EXTREMIS is practically stabilised.”

“I’m telling you it isn’t.” I shout at her. “I’m on the street. People are going bang. They’re painting the walls. Maya, you're kidding yourself.”

She holds up the card from before. “Then help me fix it.” she flips the card, showing an equation.

“Did I do that?”

“Yes.”

“I remember the night, not the morning. Is this what you’ve been chasing around?”

“You don’t remember?” She says, frustrated.

“I can’t help you. You used to have a moral psychology. You used to have ideals. You wanted to help people. Now look at you. I get to wake up every morning with someone who-” I trail off, thinking of how to end that sentence. “-still has their soul.” She stares at me for a bit, something is going on in her mind. “Get me out of here. Come on.”

A new voice speaks as she walks away. “You know what my old man used to say to me? One of his favorites, of many sayings. The earlier bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.”

“You’re not still pissed at the Switzerland thing, are you?”

“How could I be pissed at you, Tony? You gave me the greatest gift that anybody’s ever given to me. Desperation. If you think back to Switzerland, you said you’d meet me on the rooftop, right? Well, for the first 20 minutes, I actually thought you’d show up. And the next hour- I considered taking that one-step shortcut to the lobby. If you know what I mean.”

“Honestly, I’m still trying to figure out what happened to the first mouse.”

“But as I looked out, over that city. Nobody knew I was there, nobody could see me, no one was even looking. I had a thought that would guide me for years to come. Anonymity, Tony.” He smiles. “Thanks to you, it’s been my mantra ever since, right? You simply rule from behind the scenes. Because, the second you give evil a face, A bin Laden, a Gaddafi, a Mandarin, you hand the people a target.”

“You’re something else.”

“You have met him, I assume.”

“Yeah, Sir Laurence Oblivier.”

“I know he’s a little over the top sometimes. It’s not entirely my fault. He has a tendon- He’s a stage actor. They say his Lear was the toast of Croydon, wherever that is. Anyway, the point is, ever since that big due with the hammer fell out of the sky. Subtlety has kind of had its day.”

“What’s next for you in your world?”

“Well, I wanted to repay you the selfsame gift that you so graciously imparted to me.” He holds up his hand, a rolls 3 little balls on the floor and presses a button on a controller. An holographic image of Pepper pops up. No. “Desperation.” She’s glowing, like the EXTREMIS people. “Of course, we had planned for another candidate to join her.” He smirks. “We’ll find him soon.”

“You don’t mess with mama bear.” I growl.

“This is live-” he ignores me. “-and I’m not sure if you can tell, but at this moment, the body is trying to decide whether to accept EXTREMIS or just give up.  And if it gives up, I have to say the detonation is quite spectacular. But until that point, it’s really just a lot of pain.” He clicks the remote again, and the image appears. “We haven’t even talked about salary yet.” He says and walks up to me. His hand clamps around my throat. “What kind of perk package are you thinking of? Hold on, hold on.” He turns around to face Maya.

“I said let him go.” She yells, holding a thing that’ll probably inject EXTREMIS into her.

“Maya. What are you doing?”

“1200 CCs. A dose half of this size, I’m dead.” She says.

He faces me. “It’s times like this my temper is tested somewhat. Maya, give me the injector.” 

“If I die, Killian, what happens to your soldiers? What happens to your product?”

“We’re not doing this, okay?”

“What happens to you? What happens if you go too hot?” He turns around to face me, and shoots her.

“The good news is, a high level position has just been vacated.” He says. 

“You are a manic.” 

“No, I’m a visionary. But I do own a manic. And he takes the stage tonight.” He says as he leaves.

—

I heard the beeping of a watch going off. Armor is charged. I realize. One of the guards picks it up. “Careful, there. It's a limited edition.” I warn him. He smacks it around a bit. “Hey, uh, Ponytail Express. What’s the millage count between Tennessee and Miami?”

He smiles, “832 miles.”

“Very nice.” I say a bit impressed.

“I’m good like that.” He says to his buddy. “Can you, uh, stop that?”

“Break it, you bought it.” I warn again. He drops it on the ground and stomps on it.

“I think I bought it.”

“Okay, that wasn’t mine to give away. That belongs to my friend’s sister.” I say angry. “And that’s why, I’m gonna kill you first.”

“What are you gonna do to me?”

“You’ll see.”

“You’re zip-tied to a bed.”

“This!” I exclaim, and motion with my arms to call the suit. “That!” They both looked so, so scared. “Trust me, you’re gonna be in a puddle of blood on the ground in Five, Four, Three, COME ON!, Two.”

“How did we get this shift?”

“I’m gonna give you a chance to escape. Put down your weapons. Tie yourselves to those chairs. I’ll let you live. In five, four, Bang!” The bed frame rattles. “You should be gone by now. Should’ve already been gone.”

“Wow. I am beyond terrified.”

“Here it comes. Three, Four.”

“Shut up.”

“Five, four, three, two, one!” I yell as my gauntlet crashes through a window. Smackling a guy. “Told ya.” I blast the guy that broke the watch first. And smack the other guy with the fist. A leg piece comes through and I kick him away, grabbing his gun and turning to aim it at the door. “Where’s the rest?” I frown. I shoot at the stair case, the blast startling the guards charging at me. I fly up a bit, but spin out of control without for a moment. I fly back down toward the desk, and blast at them. The gun runs out of ammo quickly. I toss it aside and blast at a guy in a side corridor. I jump on to my back and blast up at them again. Activating both thrusters, I slide across the floor and up in the air, I stop myself from hitting the wall, and spin around, landing up by the first two guys. I lean away as the guy from the side corridor shoots at his buddy.

I blast at him, it misses, and I aim the gauntlet behind me at the guy he had just shot. He crashes up into the wall. I maneuver the other guy’s gun in front of me and try to wrestle it out of his hand. I stomp on his foot, and he screams. I managed to make him pull the trigger then fly back into the wall, disarm him and turn to aim at the guy below me. “Honestly, I hate working here. They are so weird.” He says his hands up in surrender. He tosses his gun away and runs. 

As I start leaving more of the suit shows up. “Ah! Better late than never.” I say as more and more attach to me. When I get outside almost the entire suit is back. Expect the face mask. “Not this time. Not the face!” I shout, grabbing the mask, and putting it on myself. “Ah, good to be back. Hello, by the way.” “Oh, hello, sir.” Jarvis greets me.

I spot the Iron Patriot armor flying off in the distance. “Let's go!” I say, trying to fly. The thrusters aren’t working. Greet. “Oh crap.” I start walking around the compound. A phone call, pops up and Jarvis answers.

“Tony!?”

“Rhodey, please tell me that was you in the suit?”

“No. You got yours?”

“Uh- Mmm. kind of. Main house, as fast as you can. Somebody I’d like you to meet.”

“Got it.”

Chapter Text

“This is the Mandarin?” Rhodey asks, appalled. 

“Yeah. I know, it’s- it’s embarrassing.” I say.

“Hi, Trevor. Trevor Slattery.” Trevor introduces himself again. “I know, I’m shorter in person. A bit smaller. Everyone says that. But, um, hey, if you’re here to arrest me, there’s some people I’d like to roll on-”

“Here’s how it works, Meryl Streep.” I interrupted him. “You tell him where Pepper is and he’ll stop doing it.”

“Doing what?” He asks, and Rhodey presses the gun barrel to his ear. It was hot, cause he had just shot people. “Okay! I get it! I don’t know about Pepper, but I know about the plan.”

“Spill.”

“Do you know what they did to my suit?”

“What? No. But I know it’s happening off the coast. Something to do with a big boat. I can take you there.” He screams suddenly and chants something I can’t be bothered to figure out.

“Tony, I swear to god, I’m gonna blow his face off.”

“Oh! And this next bit may include the vice president as well. Is that important?”

“Somewhat.”

Rhodey nods. “Yeah, a little bit.” I gesture for him to come over to me.

“So?”

“What are we gonna do? I mean, we don’t have any transport.” He sighs.

I turn to Trevor. “Hey, Ringo, didn’t you say something about a  lovely speed boat?”

—

They lost the kid.

I mean, technically, Clint was with him last! So really, Natasha couldn’t be blamed for this. She had gone to get something to eat for them. Steve had asked if we had it handled, and we thought we did. Well when she entered the safehouse with a few bags of takeout, and found Clint unconscious on the ground she rushed over to help him up. “Clint?” She shouts as she picks him up. 

He groans as he sits up. “What?”

“Where’s Peter?” She demands.

He takes a second to recombulate. “Shit! The kid- He zapped me with his watch!” 

“What do you mean, he zapped you with his watch!?” She shouts.

“A few minutes after you left, he looked at me and said; Sorry Mr. Barton. Then he turned his watch so its in his palm and pressed it on my arm.”

“God damnit, Peter.” She grunts and quickly pulls out her phone. Fury could track him, right? 

He answers after it rings for a second. “Agent Romanov-”

“We lost the kid.” She interrupts, putting him on speaker.

Silence for a few moments, then; “He’s on a plane to Pensacola.”

“What?”

—

“If he’s right about the location, we’re about twenty minutes from where Pepper is.” I tell him, looking around.

“We also have to figure out this vice president thing.” Rhodey reminds me.

“Right. I wonder who I’m calling right now. Oh, it’s the vice president.” I say showing him my phone. He rolls his eyes.

“Hello?”

“Sir, this is Tony Stark.”

“Welcome back to the land of the living.”

“We believe you’re about to be drawn into the Mandarin campaign. We gotta get you somewhere safe as soon as possible.” I explain quickly.

“Mr. Stark, I’m about to eat honey-roast ham, surrounded by the Agency’s finest. The president’s safe on Air Force One with Colonel Rhodes. I think we’re good here.”

“Sir, this is Colonel Rhodes." Rhodey interrupts. "They’re using the Iron Patriot as  a Trojan horse. They’re gonna take out the president somehow. We have to immediately alert that plane.”

“Okay, I’m on it. I’ll have security lock it down. If need be, they can have F-22s in the air in 30 seconds. Thank you, Colonel.”

“Rhodes and Stark out.” He puts the radio down and looks at me. “We gotta make a decision. We can either save the president, or Pepper. We can’t do both.”

“Sir, I have an update from Malibu. The cranes have finally arrived and the cellar doors are being cleared as we speak.”

“And what about the suit I’m wearing?” I ask.

“The armor is now at 92%”

“That’s going to have to do.” I sigh. I get out the remote control system. “Ready to see something cool?” I grin to him.

—

Okay, so maybe this was a bad idea. I mean, hacking a SI private jet was easy, and going to where he had tracked her phone's last location. Of course when it landed he knew that he had registered the plane under Pepper’s name. So of course someone had come to greet the CEO of SI at the airport. He had tased her, just like Mr. Barton then may have used her car to drive to where she was. He found himself at a ship yard. 

He was sneaking around, crawling around. He heard shots fired, and he glanced over and saw Dad and Uncle Rhodey hiding behind a metal box. Rhodey stood up and shot the light that was on them. He heard the roar of thrusters in the distance. He turned and saw all the suits flying in. He smirked. And continued crawling toward where Pepper was. He put on a remote control device to listen in. “Take ‘em to church!” Dad says, his arms up in the air. 

A suit had crashed into the ground exploding. “J, get Igor to steady this thing!” I instruct.

“Jarvis, get- Underoos?” Dad asks, worried.

“Uh, that’s not a suit’s name!.” I say quickly, ignoring him.

“Peter?” Rhodey asks too. 

“Heartbreaker, help red snapper out!” I yell out, ignoring him as I crawl toward where Pepper was. Unfortunately Red snapper had crashed into a large oil barrel storage, the barrels shooting up like missiles. “Dad, Pepper is in the control room!” I yell out. I enter into the control room through the door. “Pepper!?” I yell, asking for her.

Dad follows in through a hole in the wall. “See what happens when I hang out with my ex-girlfriends?” He jokes as he spots her.

“You’re such a jerk.” She groans. 

He goes to lift the debris off her. “Don’t!” we both shout. He does, and reaches for her instead. As he gets hold of her hand, a flaming hand comes up through the floor. And rips apart dad’s arc reactor.  “Holy shit!” I yelp scrambling back.

“Is this guy bothering you?” He asks Pepper. He rushes over toward him. “Don’t get up!” He hisses as he sits over him. He heats up his hand and presses it onto the suit. 

“Is it hot in there? Stuck? Do you feel a little stuck? Like a little turtle? Cooking in his little turtle suit?” He smiles creepily. 

“Dad.”

“Tony.”

“They're watching.” He smiles, more insanely at him. “I think you should close your eyes. Close your eyes, you don’t want to see this.” A blade pops out of the arm and he cuts off his arm.

“Yeah you take a minute.” Dad says. 

“Gross!” I gag, looking away. The arm heats up and Pepper falls through the floor. She lands on something below. “Mom!” I yell and run out the door. I jump onto the platform she’s on as it starts moving. “Holy shit, are you okay?” I ask, worried.

“Peter.” She gasps. “You shouldn’t be here.”

“Well, I’m here.” I say. I use the web to secure her to me. “Hold on!” I instruct, and start lifting debris off her. I spotted dad headed for us. “Dad’s almost here.” I say. “And he’s gonna get you out of here.” I promise. Something shifts again. 

“Pep! I got you. Relax, I got you! Just look at me!” He says as he reaches for her. “Honey, I can’t reach any further and you can’t stay there. All right? You’ve got to let go. You’ve got to let go! I’ll catch you, I promise!” He reaches for her again.

The platform shifts again, and it feels like the world slows down. Mom Pepper begins to fall, and I jump down after her. Save her. Save mom! I think to myself. I secured her with a web on her stomach, and shot another one out toward the platform below dad. She’s stopped briefly, before a shot rings out in my ears, it cuts the web holding her. I watch her figure fall into a giant fire pit. “MOM!” I yell, turning away.

“A shame. I would have caught her.” Killian says, tossing a gun away. Dad charges at him, and slides under him and stands back up. Stepping into a suit. He attacks him with everything he has. He’s slammed onto his back after he broke off a gauntlet. Killian charges at him and gets ready to slam his fist through him. I web onto his back, and pull him back. Dad had ejected out of that suit, and another caught him. He slammed into him and they went up a level. I quickly chased after them. Killian had scratched at his armor, leaving broken parts in it. As dad tried to kick him, he caught his leg.

He tried to cut the leg off and then smacked it onto him after Dad got his leg out. “Well, here we are. On the roof.” He says, and goes to cut at him again. Dad ejects backward and onto a platform below.

“Dad!” I yell as he falls.

“Mark 42 in bound!” Jarvis says.

“I’ll be damned. The prodigal son returns.” He says and gets up and sticks his arm toward it. The suit bumps into something and falls apart. “Whatever.”

“You really didn’t deserve her, Tony. A pity. I was so close to having her perfect.” He sighs and jumps down onto the same platform.

“Okay, okay, wait, wait, wait!” Dad says quickly. “Slow down! Slow down! You’re right. I don’t deserve her.” He says. “Here’s where you’re wrong.” 

“She was already perfect!” I shout and jump in front of him, kicking him backwards as dad shoves the Mark 42 onto him.  

“Jarvis? Do us a favor and blow Mark 42.” Dad says, and he grabs my arm and jumps off the platform and slides down a support beam. The explosion starts knocking down the rig. I stumble down, following dad. He jumps off and a suit catches him. The suit is in pieces, and he manages to catch a bit of railing before falling down the rest of the way. He catches me after I fall away from him and slows our fall. He covers me with his body as more debris falls. When we roll over we spot the Mark 42 helmet land near us.

We stare at it for a bit and the helmet cracks, the mask falling off. I let out a breath I didn't know I was holding as nothing was inside. I turn and spot Killian stumbling toward us. “No more false faces. You said you wanted Mandarin. You’re looking right at him. It was always me, Tony. Right from the start. I am the Mandarin!” He yells, and is smacked away by Pepper with a giant pipe.

“Mom!” I say upon seeing her.

“I got nothing.” Dad says at the same time. 

They both look at me, shocked. “What? What did I say?”

I hear a suit approaching and we all turn to look at it. “Jarvis, the subject of my 12 O’Clock is not a target, disengage!” Dad yells, but his ear piece fell out. Pepper dodges the blast then looks at him, grunts. “What? Oh are you mad at me!?” She jumps off his knee, stuffs her arm through the suit, slams it down. Then stuffs her arm back through the suit into the gauntlet, turns and slams Killian away. She then kicks a missile toward him and blasts it with the repulsor.

“Holy shit!” I shouted.

“Honey?” Dad says cautiously.

“That was badass!” I yell excitedly.

“Oh my god.” She gasps, turning back toward us. “That was really violent.”

“You just scared the devil out of me I thought you were-”

“I was dead. Why? Because I fell 200 feet?” She catches her breath more. “Who’s the hot mess now?” She jokes.

“Still debatable.” I say.

“Probably tipping your way a little bit-” Dad continues off of me. “why don’t you dress like this at home? Sport bra, the whole deal.”

“You know, I think I understand why you don’t want to give up the suits.” She says, looking at herself. “What am I gonna complain about now?”

“It’s still dad. You’ll think of something.” I say, walking up to her to go for a hug.

“No! Don’t touch me! I’m gonna burn you!”

Dad pats her arm. “Don’t worry about it. Not hot.”

“Am I gonna be okay?”

“No.” I say, they both stare at me, confused. “You’re in a relationship with dad. Everything will never be okay.”

—

“As promised, I got Pepper sorted out. Took some tinkering. Then I thought to myself, why stop there? Of course there are people who say progress is dangerous. But I bet none of those idiots never had to live with a chest full of shrapnel. And now, neither will I. Let me tell you, that was the best sleep I had in years.” I say. “Happy woke up a few days after that. Right before New Years. Peter was really excited about that. And I did send a bunch of stuff to Harley as a late Christmas present. Even got his sister a new watch. Since the last one was broken.”

“I went back to Malibu, and got DUM-E and U fished out. Peter had demanded we, and by we I mean I, save them.” I pause, and think of how to finish this. “So, if I were to wrap this up, tie it with a bow, or whatever- I guess I’d say, my armor, it was never a distraction, or a hobby. It was a cocoon. And now, I’m a changed man. You can take away my house. All my tricks and toys. One thing you can’t take away? I am Iron Man…. You know, and thank you. By the way, for listening. There’s something about getting it off my chest and getting it out there in the atmosphere instead of holding this in. I mean this is what gets people sick.”

“Wow. I had no idea, you were such a  good listener. To be able to share all my intimate thoughts and experiences with someone? It just cuts the weight of it in half. You know? It’s like a snake swallowing its own tail. Everything comes full circle. The fact that you’ve been able to help me process this-” I turn to stare at Bruce. “You with me?”

“I- was yeah.” He stammers out.

“Were you actively napping?" 

“I- I drifted” 

“Where did I lose you?” I ask.

“I- Uh- elevator in Switzerland.” He admits. That was like, hours ago.

I frown at him. “So you’ve heard none of it?” 

“I’m sorry. I’m not that kind of doctor.” He frowns. “I’m not a therapist. It’s not my training.”

“So?”

“I don’t have any-”

“What? The time?”

“Temperament.” He says instead. That reminds me of my Dad

“You know what, now that I think about it. Ugh! God. My original wound. 1983. I’m 14 years old, and I still have a Nanny? That was weird.” I say. “Okay, so let me set the scene-” I’m cut off by Jarvis. “Sir, mini sir will be out of school soon. Ms. Potts informs me that she is unable to pick him up today.” I sigh. “You got it, Jarvis.” I turn to Bruce. “Okay, Tomorrow, same time works for you right?” I ask, already walking out.

“Tony I-”

“Great, works for me too.” I yell back already out the door of his lab.

Chapter Text

When he asked dad for a suit for his abilities, he hadn’t thought he’d go all out on it. He thought it’d be simpler. Like the Mark 2. And okay, maybe that suit was pretty complex still, but his point still stands! Dad had first asked for something to base it off of, and he produced a tight fit (Onesie as dad called it) suit that was made of clothing that he squeezed into. The tighter fit felt nice, and it had helped with senses… But that was mostly in the mask. A really tight balaclava with a pair of goggles strapped inside them. Dad then asked Steve to draw something for me, and he never let me see the picture. But I knew dad had used it as a base.

When it was done, it looked so cool. It could adjust itself to fit my form, and was made with a strong material. Meant to withstand the stress of being stretched and what not. The eyes were expressive, and could widen or narrow. Not to mention the web shooters and HUD. He showed me how to build an AI as well. We had worked on a few spares before, but he wanted me to develop this one on my own. He helped with a very simple framework, but encouraged me to work on the rest on my own.

As further practice with AI work, he had me help with the spares he had. I named one F.R.I.D.A.Y. Which had stood for; Female Replacement Intelligent Digital Assistance Youth. I chose an Irish accent for her.

Dad said after a few years of training, I could go out in that suit around New York and help the city. He had dubbed said suit Underoos Mark II in reference to it technically being a second suit of mine. The makeshift web shooters from before would go stick with the Mark I. Dad had hidden the suit away somewhere, to make sure I wouldn’t go out and about with it.

When we moved into the tower, not everyone stayed there 24/7. Steve still went to whatever apartment in D.C he had. (He apparently goes for runs in the morning a lot.) Nat was someone who stayed a lot. Same with Bruce. Clint visited often, but was never around as much. Further making me suspect he has some secret family. Dad still refused to believe that, and the bet that he does or doesn’t had gone from $20 to about $1,400. We raised it every time we discussed it.

Dad had been reluctant to let Harry visit the Tower. He would only let him visit when everyone else was away, ensuring they didn’t come snooping around. Since Nat and Bruce stuck around a lot, it was very rare. 

Today though, Nat was off doing something with Steve. Bruce was out giving a speech about a research paper. It was just Dad, Pepper and I at the tower. (Uncle Rhodey was deployed on a mission, and Uncle Happy was out running errands.) So when I had brought the question up if Harry could visit, dad had said yes. Pepper had some meetings to do later today but was willing to meet him briefly. She whispered at me that she’d drag Dad to a few.

Of course he had been snuck inside through the private garage. Happy had picked him up and dropped him off. He had to stop by the tower anyway, he forgot some stuff. I waited on the couch eagerly waiting for the elevator to come up.

“You’re like a puppy waiting for its owner to come home.” Dad teases. 

“Am not!” I glare at him.

“Yeah. You are.” He smirks again.

“Tony.” Pepper scolds. “Ignore him, Peter.”

I stuck my tongue out at dad, and quickly turned after hearing the elevator approaching our floor. I ignored dad’s teasing as I rushed over to the elevator door. When the doors opened, Harry walked out nervous but perked up upon seeing me. “Hey, Harry!” I greet eagerly and grab his wrist and yank him toward Dad and Pepper.

“Hey Peter.” He laughed as I dragged him away. We stopped by the couch where Dad was pretending to read a magazine. “Hello, Mr. Stark. Ms. Potts.” He waves.

“Hello, Harry.” Pepper smiles. “How was the ride over?”

“It was good, thanks.”

“Happy is a bad driver, don’t need to lie about it.” Dad says sarcastically. Pepper smacks his head with a wadded up newspaper. “Ow!” He glares at her. She nods her head toward him. “Hello, Harry.” He smiles, but not his paparazzi smile, no it was a genuine one. “Nice to meet you, officially.” He stands and sticks his hand out for him to shake.

“You too, Mr. Stark.” He says, shaking his hand.

“It’s just, Tony.” He corrects. “Anyway, Pepper is dragging me to a bunch of meetings so you have free reign. JARVIS will keep an eye on you, and if you need anything, ask him.” He pats his shoulder. 

“Thank you, Mr. Sta- Tony.” 

“Come on, Tony.” Pepper stands up. “We’ve got a meeting with the board soon. Nice to meet you, Harry.” 

We watch them walk toward the elevator, dad and Pepper in a whisper argument that I don’t bother to listen in on. As the door closes, I turn to him. “C’mon, this way!” I grab his wrist and start pulling him away. I give him a quick tour. “The rooms are this way. The first door is Steve’s-”

“Like, Captain America Steve?” 

“Yeah! But he insists I call him Steve. Apparently Clint, yes that Clint, had gave me some coffee and I had called him Mr. America, Sir.” I laughed. “Then they all insisted I call them my Aunt and Uncles.” 

“That’s really cool.” He smiles, we stop by Steve’s room.

“This is Steve’s room! He likes being close to the elevator so he can go down the elevator easily. To the gym, or his morning runs. Across from him is Thor’s room, he stopped by to decorate briefly, but quickly returned to Asgard! Then Bruce is in between the two empty rooms. Clint is here! And Natasha’s is here.” I explained excitedly. I continued dragging him around. “This is my room!” I say as we enter. It was decorated with a bunch of posters. Star Wars, Star Trek, a few comic book ones and one of each Avenger. Along with a big group photo I convinced them to take. Dad, Pepper and I were in the middle, Steve and Nat to the right while Thor and Bruce on the left. 

“This is really cool, Peter.” He said observing it all. He eyed the video game consoles. “What should we play first?” He smirks at me.

We chose Mario Kart, and played for a few hours before swapping to Super Smash Bros. Then we got bored of that and I had convinced him to come to the Superspy Hideout as I called it. Clint had joined Nat and I in what dad called a ‘Trio of gremlins’ . We were planning to prank dad for that but covering him in glitter. “You should make a glitter canon.” Harry suggests with a grin.

“That would be such a good idea!” I write it down on our whiteboard filled with ideas for various things. “We sooo have to do that now. Maybe Uncle Clint would like a glitter arrow too.”

“I can’t wait to be sniped by a glitter arrow.” Harry says sarcastically. 

“Maybe not then.” I grimace at the idea of being covered in glitter. 

“So, Black Widow is a chaos seeking gremlin? Somehow that doesn’t surprise me.” He giggles, and it is so cute…. Wait what.

“Clint keeps saying she’s gone soft… She always hits him with one of her widow bites for that.” I tell him. “She’s never denied it though.”

—

It was only a few days after Harry left that it had dawned on him: He had a crush on Harry. He’s noticed things. His senses, which were always dialed up to 11, felt like they dialed down. He could relax around him. It was similar to when he was around dad and Pepper. (And if he slipped and called her mom, no one would acknowledge it. But he’d always noticed how everyone freezes for a moment when he does.) He felt safe, secure, protected around dad and Pepper. Around Harry he felt safe, secure, protected (and a desire to protect him, but he wouldn’t worry about that) and love. Sure, he feels loved around dad and Pepper, he knows that they do love him. But he’s never felt love like this. Like that. Is this what dad feels when Pepper’s around? He wonders.

He could talk about something so absurd with him and he would take the topic seriously. Like earlier today, they talked (argued) about if the government owned the rights to Captain America’s shield. Or if it was Steve himself, or his grandfather, Howard Stark. Harry had said that it’s Steve’s, because Howard had gifted the shield to him. While Peter had countered that it must be Howard’s because had the Vibranium and made the shield so technically it could be Dad’s.

Then the discussion (argument) had turned into if the shield was like a crown, being owned by a Monarchy. Would Peter gain rights to the shield if Dad died? If Peter (hypothetically) died, would that monarchy end, unless another heir was born? Harry said he’d kill that heir and gain the rights by bigger army diplomacy. Then he’d end that new monarchy by destroying the shield, effectively ending the discussion. (argument)

He was a little upset that he didn’t stick around long enough for dinner. Pepper made this amazing shepherd’s pie recipe. Though she didn’t use lamb for it, which would technically make it a cottage pie but that sounds dumb. She had stopped by in the kitchen to check on it, and add things but left quickly afterward. 

He was always impressed by how she had easily balanced work and life. She kept to such a strict schedule since becoming CEO. Stopping at 6:00PM, finishing whatever she was working on (Or save the work, close everything down if it’d take longer than 2 minutes.) and head down stairs where she’d either order takeout for whoever was around or make dinner. She always made dinner on Wednesdays and Saturdays. (She stops at 4:30PM on weekends.)

As it was currently Saturday, she had opted to make her shepherd’s pie. He had nicknamed it Pepper’s Pie and when he told her that, she laughed and said that yes, it was a perfect name for it.

Dad was in the lab, working on a prototype phone he’d called the Starkphone. Which, does he really have to stamp his name on everything? Pepper had said yes, yes he does. He was sitting on the kitchen island, because the bar stools suck working on his AI while he waited. He wanted dad to make a space for him by the windows opposite the lab, so he’d have a private escape, but dad had marked it on the todo list, but hadn’t gotten around to it yet. 

“Peter, you know you can just sit on the stools, right?” Pepper says, not turning around from what she was doing. He can hear the frown in her voice.

“The stools suck.” I inform her. “All bar stools suck.” 

“Right. Well, maybe your dad can make a set of bar stools you’d actually enjoy.” She chuckles.

“Maybe.” I shrug, but continue writing out code. He’d still need a name for this AI. He didn’t really want the name to be an acronym, but dad always did it. Dad had also said to do his own thing, because he wants him to be better. Whatever that means. “It smells really good, Pepper.” I say dreamily. 

“Thanks sweetheart.” I can hear her voice lighten. “Get DUM-E to spray your dad so he can come down and eat. It’s just about ready.” She says. I grin, save my work and sprint toward the lab. “No running in the house!” Pepper yells after me. I giggled, but obeyed her request. 

When I entered the lab, dad was nose deep in fiddling with the prototype starkphone. He had decided that when the next phone would come out, it’d be called the Starkphone Mark II and I had complained that not everything needs to be named like that. He just said it’d be a part of the branding… Even Pepper rolled her eyes at that.