Work Text:
Bzzz. Bzzz. Bzzz.
Three sharp vibrations buzz against Walter Higgins’ back pocket while he mans his post near the front entrance of Stark Industries Tower. He’s been waiting on that call all morning, and a brief glance at the watch on his wrist tells him it’s right on schedule.
“Hey, Reg. Landlord’s calling. You still good to cover for a sec?” he calls toward the security desk behind him.
“Yeah, man. Go ahead,” Reggie says easily, slipping out from behind the desk and heading over to take Walter’s place by the doors.
Walter steps outside, already pressing the green answer button and lifting the phone toward his ear.
“Hey, Jo—”
The words die in his throat.
Even over the noise of Midtown traffic, he can hear the commotion barreling toward the Tower entrance before he fully processes what he’s seeing.
Reporters.
Photographers.
At least twenty of them. Maybe more.
And trapped in the middle of them?
Peter Parker-Stark.
Walter’s stomach drops in a way he schools immediately beneath years of practiced composure. He ends the call without another word and slides the phone back into his pocket.
It’s impossible not to recognize the kid after the security briefings they’d all sat through courtesy of Happy Hogan. There’s an entire section dedicated to Peter in the Tower security protocols. Updated photos. Threat assessment notes.
Knowing what the boss’s kid looks like is considered mandatory information if you enjoy continued employment at Stark Industries.
Especially after two guards stopped Peter at the entrance months back because they didn’t recognize him without Tony or Pepper present. Happy had looked about two seconds away from homicide during that meeting afterward.
No one’s made that mistake since.
Which means this situation unfolding in front of the building right now is very, very bad. Because the media is absolutely not supposed to be anywhere near Peter Parker-Stark. They’re not supposed to know he’s Tony’s son. Every Stark employee signs enough NDAs to qualify as psychological warfare. A handful of them specifically regarding Peter. Tony Stark might tolerate headlines about himself, but his son is another story entirely.
And if there’s one thing Walter’s learned in eight years inside this building, it’s that Tony Stark becomes terrifyingly efficient when protecting that kid.
So yes, the landlord call matters. But letting the boss’s son get swarmed on Tower property?
That is the kind of thing that gets people fired.
“Hey! Back up — move!” Walter barks, already moving toward the crowd.
He shoulders past two photographers hard enough to nearly knock one sideways. Another reporter stumbles when Walter wedges himself between them and Peter.
The kid looks overwhelmed. Not panicked exactly, but cornered. Peter’s clearly trying not to make a scene. Trying not to escalate. Which, frankly, only makes the reporters bolder.
“Peter!”
“Mr. Stark!”
“Is it true?”
“What’s it like being Tony Stark’s son?”
“Did the Avengers know before the public?”
“Peter, over here!”
The questions overlap into one giant wall of noise and camera shutters. Walter’s mildly impressed Peter hasn’t bolted yet. Most fifteen year olds would.
Hell, most adults would.
Cameras flash relentlessly, turning the curly-haired boy beside him into fractured snapshots of light and color as Walter forces his way through the crowd toward him. His elbow juts out sharply, knocking recording devices away from greedy hands while his shoulder collides with reporters trying to shove closer. Every single one of them seems desperate for a piece of Peter Parker.
Didn’t they understand the kid didn’t belong to them?
“I said: get the fuck away from the kid if you know what’s good for you,” Walter growls, the words sharpened with enough venom to cut glass.
That finally earns him something.
The hands retreat slightly, the crowd wavering back a step or two, but the shouting doesn’t stop. Questions still fire from every direction, camera shutters still snapping rapid-fire like gunshots. One particularly reckless reporter lunges forward anyway, hand shooting toward Peter’s arm.
Peter immediately curls closer into Walter’s side, instinctively recognizing he’s not the threat here.
And before Walter can really think about it, he’s moving.
His hand clamps around the reporter’s wrist and twists hard. Too hard. The angle bends wrong beneath his grip until a sickening snap cracks through the air.
The noise silences the crowd in a way his threats never could.
For one surreal moment, the entire street goes still. No yelling. No camera flashes. Just stunned silence sitting over the sidewalk despite the constant sounds of New York traffic nearby.
“You broke my hand!” the reporter finally screams, cradling the limb against his chest.
Walter opens his mouth, prepared to spit something back, but the familiar whine of repulsors overhead cuts through the moment instantly.
Every head tilts upward.
Iron Man tends to have that effect on people.
Red and gold descends from above, likely from one of the Tower’s upper exits, though the angle makes it impossible to tell. The suit lands hard on the concrete between Peter and the crowd with a metallic thunk powerful enough that Walter feels the vibration through the soles of his shoes.
Iron Man straightens slowly. Deliberately. Threat radiates off him in waves. Nothing even has to be said. The crowd immediately recoils several more feet backward, parting around him on instinct alone.
“Oh look,” Tony Stark remarks dryly as the helmet retracts into the suit, “you do have some sense.”
The second there’s an opening, Peter all but springs toward him. Not dramatically, not clingy exactly, but immediate enough. The kid tucks himself beside Tony without hesitation, and Tony’s metal-clad arm curls around him automatically, protective and practiced.
From everything Walter’s observed over the past few months, Peter never struck him as the type to hide behind his dad. But then again, being mobbed by reporters outside your home probably changes the equation a little.
For a brief moment, it’s like the rest of the street ceases to exist.
Tony looks down at Peter immediately, checking him over quietly. His voice drops too low for Walter to fully catch, but Peter answers with a tight nod. The whole exchange is painfully genuine.
And apparently one of the photographers thinks so too, because another camera flash suddenly bursts across the sidewalk.
Tony’s head snaps upward. The warmth disappears instantly.
If looks alone could kill, there’d be bodies lining the street right now.
“Y’know the funny thing about modern day reporters?” Tony asks conversationally, though not a single person seems brave enough to answer him.
“What? No takers?” Tony looks around at the crowd, one brow arching sharply. “I’ll tell you then. You all take your pictures and notes on digital products these days.”
Peter seems to piece together where his father is going before anyone else does, if the look on his face is anything to go by. He settles a fraction closer into Tony’s side, shoulders loosening just slightly.
“And would you look at that,” Tony continues, grinning wide enough that it looks more like baring teeth. “We’re less than a hundred feet away from the most technologically superior company in the world.”
A holographic display flickers to life over the metal plating of his forearm. Tony taps across it casually, almost lazily.
The reporter beside Walter lets out a strangled noise when his phone abruptly dies in his hand. Walter glances right just in time to see another camera screen glitch violently before going black too. Then another. And another.
Within seconds, panic starts rippling through the crowd.
“My AI is currently deleting any and all traces of my son from your devices,” Tony announces smoothly. “And look — before you say ‘that’s illegal,’” he mocks in a high, nasally voice, “you should really consider thanking me.”
No one speaks.
Mostly because everyone’s too busy frantically mashing buttons on dead electronics.
“Because if you posted these or shared them,” Tony continues, voice sharpening beneath the humor, “you’d actually be the ones breaking the law. Photographs of a minor without consent? Super illegal, guys.” He gestures vaguely toward the Tower behind them. “And the army of lawyers inside that building? They’d sue you into dust. So really, I’m doing you all a favor.”
Walter almost admires it. The ease of it. The performance.
Tony Stark has always known how to command a room, but moments like this make it obvious why people follow him into literal battle.
With that, Tony flashes the crowd one final blindingly white grin and glances down toward Peter.
Peter nods once.
The helmet slides smoothly back over Tony’s face as his arm tightens securely around Peter’s waist. Peter immediately grabs onto him in return, fingers curling into the metal plating like second nature. Comfortable. Familiar.
“Your devices will turn back on in an hour,” Tony’s voice crackles through the suit speakers.
Then the repulsors ignite. The suit lifts clean off the pavement, carrying Peter with him as they rocket upward alongside the Tower. Walter tracks them automatically, eyes following the streak of red and gold until they disappear through some upper level entry point too high up to make out clearly from the street below.
For several long seconds, nobody moves. The reporters and photographers just stand there staring upward, shell shocked and furious all at once. Then the muttering starts. Angry voices overlap while people smack uselessly at dead phones and frozen cameras, trying to force them back to life.
A pointless effort.
Tony Stark never does anything halfway. Especially not when Peter’s involved. That boy is simultaneously the man’s greatest strength and the single biggest vulnerability Walter’s ever seen.
As the crowd finally begins dispersing, Walter turns back toward the Tower. Through the glass lobby doors, he can already see several security employees hovering near the entrance pretending not to watch him too closely. Reggie included.
At least now the guy knew Walter hadn’t ditched him over some fake phone call.
The second Walter steps back inside, questions start flying at him from every direction.
“What the hell happened out there?”
“Did Stark seriously brick all their devices?”
“Is Tiny okay?”
Walter shrugs out of his security jacket slowly, deliberately casual despite the adrenaline still humming through his bloodstream.
“Media got too aggressive with the boss’s kid,” he says simply. “Mr. Stark handled it.”
Which, technically, is true. It’s the same story he repeats over and over again as coworkers continue to ask.
That is, until a familiar AI voice crackles through the lobby speakers.
Not ATLAS.
Mr. Stark’s personal AI.
“Mr. Higgins, the Boss has requested your presence in her office,” FRIDAY says in her smooth Irish lilt.
Walter stills for half a second.
He’s not stupid. He knows exactly what this is about. There’s no universe where getting summoned upstairs forty minutes after a public incident involving Tony Stark’s kid is unrelated. The only real question is whether he’s in trouble.
Because technically, he’d protected Peter. That part was undeniable. But he’d also snapped a reporter’s wrist in broad daylight, in front of approximately three dozen cameras before Tony nuked the footage. Stark Industries probably frowned on security guards breaking civilian bones on the sidewalk.
Still… he doesn’t exactly feel doomed.
The elevator ride up is silent. It doesn’t stop once for any other employee, which tells him FRIDAY’s overriding the normal system entirely. By the time the doors slide open, Walter’s already mentally rehearsing half a dozen explanations just in case.
The assistants seated outside the hallway glance up the second he steps off the elevator. One of them offers him a polite smile and gestures toward the double wooden doors at the very end.
“Go right in.”
Inside, Pepper Potts sits behind the massive desk at the center of the office while Tony leans against the side of it, arms crossed loosely over his chest. Happy Hogan stands near the windows like a particularly intimidating gargoyle.
And Peter’s there too sitting in a chair beside Pepper.
That surprises him the most.
“Mr. Higgins,” Pepper says smoothly, gesturing toward one of the chairs across from her desk, “why don’t you have a seat?”
No one looks angry.
If anything, Peter looks openly relieved to see him, though Walter suspects that has more to do with the fact he physically dragged reporters off the kid less than an hour ago. Tony’s expression is unreadable in that distinctly Tony Stark sort of way where amusement and annoyance always seem to exist simultaneously.
Walter lowers himself carefully into the chair.
“First of all,” Pepper begins, folding her hands neatly atop the desk, “we want to extend our gratitude for stepping in and keeping Peter safe this afternoon.”
Tony immediately points at him with a grin. “Personally? Huge fan of the wrist break. Exceptional form.”
Walter lets out a weak, uncertain chuckle, not entirely convinced laughing along with assault allegations is the correct move here.
“Of course,” he says carefully. “Even off property, I understand how important your son’s safety is.”
His eyes flick briefly toward Peter as he says it. Peter shifts awkwardly in his seat, clearly still embarrassed by the entire media circus.
“And that,” Tony says, pointing at Walter again like he’s making a dramatic courtroom revelation, “is exactly why we’ve spent the last forty-five minutes with Happy over here combing through every inch of your file and inspecting your entire life.”
Walter freezes.
Not outwardly. Decades of security work keep most of it off his face, but internally every alarm bell in his body starts screaming all at once.
Logically, there’s nothing horrible for them to find. He knows this. Still, hearing Tony Stark casually announce that they’ve been digging through his life makes something cold settle unpleasantly at the base of his spine.
“Tony,” Pepper warns with an exasperated sigh before looking back toward Walter. “What he means is that after reviewing your history and ensuring there weren’t any concerns, we’d like to offer you a promotion.”
That catches him completely off guard.
His confusion must show immediately because Tony snorts quietly.
“With what happened outside today,” Tony says, “it’s pretty obvious we’re not gonna be able to keep the kid hidden from the media forever.”
At that, his expression softens slightly as he glances toward Peter. There’s guilt there too, buried underneath the sarcasm and bravado.
“We knew this was coming,” Peter says softly, offering Tony a reassuring smile. “It’s okay, Dad.”
Tony returns the smile instantly, shoulders loosening just a fraction before he continues.
“So with that in mind, Peter needs a security detail. Not a full-fledged one,” Tony says quickly, glancing toward Peter again in a way that makes it painfully obvious this has been an argument before, “I know he’s not a little kid. But after today, we’re realizing he needs more protection getting to and from places.”
Peter sinks lower into his chair with the expression of someone who has already lost this debate at least six separate times.
“And while Happy would obviously be our first choice,” Pepper steps in smoothly, “with his responsibilities as Head of Security here, we can’t realistically add something this extensive onto his workload.”
Walter nods slowly, piecing it together before asking, “So I’d be splitting my time between Tower security and acting as Peter’s bodyguard?”
“Exactly,” Happy answers before either Tony or Pepper can. His gaze pins Walter sharply, heavy and assessing in a way that feels distinctly different from the others. “And I’m sticking my neck out for you here.”
The words land heavier than they probably should.
“You’ve been a good employee for eight years,” Happy continues. “Reliable. Kept your head down. And after what happened today, I can’t think of anyone better for the spot.”
And really… Walter’s almost touched by it.
Breaking into the inner circle around the Starks isn’t easy. Most employees spend decades orbiting this company and never get closer than awkward elevator small talk with Pepper Potts. Walter’s spent nearly a decade carefully building trust brick by brick, and now here it is sitting right in front of him.
“We did find a couple things we wanted clarification on,” Pepper says, flicking her fingers through a holographic screen until an old mugshot appears suspended above her desk.
Walter’s stomach tightens immediately despite himself.
Nineteen years old. Drunk. Suny Albany. Red eyes and a busted lip from mouthing off to a cop outside some frat party.
“Tell us about this,” Pepper says calmly.
Walter exhales slowly through his nose before answering.
“I was being a stupid teenager upstate,” he says easily. “A bunch of us drove drunk after a party. I got arrested. Learned my lesson.” His shoulders lift faintly in a shrug. “Haven’t done anything like that since, I swear.”
Tony, Pepper, and Happy all exchange one of those silent conversations families are weirdly good at having where no one actually needs to be speaking.
Finally Tony gestures vaguely. “I’m not exactly in a position to judge people for terrible alcohol-related decision making.”
“Yeah, we’ve all seen the video of you peeing in the suit,” Peter mutters with a visible shudder.
Tony snaps toward him so fast Walter almost laughs.
“You’ve seen that?” Tony demands, horrified.
Peter stares at him blankly. “Dad. Everyone’s seen it. It’s literally one of the most embarrassing videos on the internet.”
Tony points accusingly at absolutely no one. “That video should’ve died in 2011.”
“It did not,” Happy says dryly.
“We’re getting off track,” Pepper cuts in, though there’s the faintest hint of amusement tugging at her mouth now. She dismisses the mugshot with another flick of her wrist. “Point being, between that and a parking ticket from last May, you’re relatively squeaky clean. Which we like.”
Walter nods once, careful to keep his expression measured instead of too eager.
“So,” Pepper says, folding her hands together again, “if you want the position, it’s yours.”
Walter smiles. Controlled. Grateful. Honest enough to pass inspection.
“I’ll take it.”