Chapter Text
Meetings were the bane of Tony’s existence. He’d made Pepper the CEO so he no longer had to attend these things. That’s what he was grumbling to himself as he slipped away from the conference room on floor 86 of Stark Tower and over to his private elevator.
He had about an hour until his talk was scheduled. Talks were fine. He enjoyed talking science to a bunch of nerds. He did not enjoy listening to earnings reports from a bunch of pencil pushers.
Tony passed through a locked door to his private elevator, then mashed the button to call it. He wanted to spend his time down in his lab, tinkering with the topic of his talk: Nanobots. He looked around to make sure he hadn’t been followed. Mainly by Happy, but also by Pepper. Either of them would make him go back to the meeting.
The hallway behind him was blissfully empty.
When the elevator dinged open, he turned back to step in and paused there to blink at the occupant.
How was there an occupant in the elevator? In his private elevator? Meant to bring him up to his penthouse from any floor?
But the occupant was a kid. Tony scrunched up his nose and surveyed the kid for a second. He looked anxious, because he clearly recognized Tony. Who wouldn’t? He gripped his backpack straps tightly and took a step backward, as if making himself even smaller so Tony could fit into the elevator.
The elevator could fit fifteen people, so he definitely didn’t need to do that.
“Uh. Hello, Mr. Stark,” the kid said timidly, as he averted his eyes.
“Child,” Tony said coolly, as he stepped into the elevator. He turned to see where the kid was going and saw the light for the ground-floor lobby lit up. Tony could let the elevator go there first, then he’d tell it to take him back up to his lab.
The doors shut, and the elevator began descending slowly.
Tony crossed his arms and stood so the kid was in his peripheral as he asked, conversationally, “How’d you get on this elevator?”
“Sir?” The kid stuttered. “Uh, I pressed the button, and it came?”
“From where?” Tony asked. He was going to need to reprogram FRIDAY over this. The elevator wasn’t supposed to be accessible, so he hadn’t locked it down to his biometrics. That would change, now.
The kid shuffled from one foot to the other and said, “Oh. The roof. I was up there, uh, taking pictures.” He lifted the camera around his neck and showed it, as if that was proof.
“And how’d you get to the roof?” Tony asked. There was no roof access from any public part of the building.
“Uh, the elevator?” the kid asked. He sounded like he wasn’t sure, himself, how he got up there.
“Hmm,” Tony said. “Interesting that my private elevator took you to the roof and back without any sort of security alert.”
“Oh, crap,” the kid whispered.
“Oh, crap, indeed,” Tony mused, a smile tugging on his lips. He took his phone out and pulled up the cameras to see for himself how the kid got up there. A quick scan through the elevator’s camera showed the kid had not, in fact, used the elevator to get up to the roof. He did simply press the button from the roof to descend.
“So is this corporate espionage?” Tony asked, cutting his eyes over to the kid. “Do you work for Oscorp? Hammer?”
The kid’s face scrunched as he said, much more confidently than anything else he’d said, “Gross. I’ll be homeless before I work for literal supervillains.”
Tony’s lip quirked. He himself had been baffled that people continued to work at Hammer Industries after the Stark Expo ordeal.
But… how was Oscorp run by a supervillain? He was about to ask the kid to elaborate on that when he spoke up.
“I really was just taking pictures on the roof,” he said quickly, as he flipped his camera on and started flipping through the menus. He pushed the camera into Tony’s line of sight. “See?”
Sure enough, on the screen was a photo of the skyline from the top of Stark Tower. It was, at least, higher than the view from Tony’s penthouse, so he knew the kid hadn’t somehow been in there.
At least not while taking that photo.
How he even got up there was still a major question.
The hairs on the kid’s arms all stood at once, and Tony tilted his head to watch the goosebumps take over when the kid bolted upright. He looked around frantically and pushed himself back against the wall of the elevator.
Tony didn’t even have time to ask what the hell when a deafening boom sounded.
His ears started ringing as the elevator began falling fast. It had been going at a snail’s pace, which was annoying, but it was energy-saving during peak usage hours.
Now it was plummeting so fast, Tony had to grab onto the bars to keep his balance. He braced his body against the wall, but was preparing to completely go limp. His stomach felt like it was in his throat before not even a second later, another loud crash happened, followed by the sound of steel grinding against more steel.
Tony recognized the sound as the manual elevator catch he’d designed taking over and bringing the elevator to a complete stop.
His heart was pounding in his neck as Tony slowly let go of the bar and looked around the now-dead elevator. There was a battery powered emergency light on above him, giving him just enough light to see.
“Holy cow, what just happened,” the kid exclaimed.
“You tell me,” Tony snapped. He pulled his phone back out and tried to get in touch with FRIDAY. He knew they were somewhere near the ground floor, but he had no clue where.
FRIDAY would be able to deploy a suit to get him out of there.
“I didn’t do that,” the kid exclaimed. “Why would I try to kill myself? I have an AP chem test tomorrow; I can’t die now.”
Tony furrowed his brow and looked over at the kid. He was still pressed up into the corner, his hands on either wall beside him, as if still bracing himself in the fall. Tony shook his head and looked back down at his phone.
He’d let Happy figure out the kid’s deal later.
His phone, however, would not connect to anything. It wouldn’t even connect to the earpiece in his left ear.
The kid started messing with his camera again. “Mr Stark, sir? I think someone set off an EMP.” He pulled out his phone, then frowned deeply. “Yeah. All my tech is dead.”
Tony rolled his eyes and looked back down at his phone. It was still working fine. Plus, an EMP would not have caused the elevator to drop like that.
But, then again, Tony had designed his phone to be EMP-proof. He pulled his earpiece out of his ear, which was not EMP-proof, and found it was, in fact, dead.
“Shit,” Tony whispered. He squished the earpiece and tucked it into his pocket as he initiated a restart on his phone, in hopes of getting it back fully functional. “And you swear you’re not behind this? How’d you get on the roof? Maybe you’re an assassin here to kill me”
“Mr. Stark,” the kid said helplessly. “I was just here to listen to your talk on nanobots.”
Tony furrowed his brow and took in the kid’s appearance again. His shirt said Midtown School of Science and Technology, which Tony knew for a fact was a high school. Not a college.
Why was a high schooler there to listen to his talk? It was aimed at PhDs.
“Shouldn’t you be in school?” he asked.
“I, uh, skipped today,” the kid muttered.
Tony narrowed his eyes. “What’s your name?”
“Peter.”
“Peter what?” Tony asked firmly.
The kid shuffled from one foot to the other and looked away, as he grumbled, “Parker.”
“Hm. Well, Mr. Parker, I’m going to need you to sit over there and be quiet. Once we get out of this, security will have some questions for you.”
“Uh, okay,” Peter mumbled. He slipped his backpack off and sat down, criss-cross, right in the corner, his backpack clutched tightly in his lap.
“Mind if I check your bag?” Tony asked. For all he knew, the kid had the EMP in his bag. Or a weapon of some sort.
Peter wrapped his arms more tightly around the bag and said, “I do mind, yes.”
“That’s not suspicious at all,” Tony deadpanned.
“Why did I do this?” Peter whispered into his bag, as he buried his face into the fabric.
“I’m wondering the same thing,” Tony mused. His phone finally popped back to life, so Tony went back to trying to connect to FRIDAY’s servers. He’d EMP-proofed those, too, but it might take manually restarting them to get it all back online…
But he was stuck on this damn elevator.
“At least put your bag out of your reach,” Tony said, pointing to the opposite corner from him, “I need to turn my back to you, and I’m not doing that if you have that in your hands.”
“I don’t have weapons,” the kid exasperated, but he did at least let go of his bag and kick it across the elevator.
“Well, since you won’t let me check, I can’t know that for sure,” Tony said. But once the bag was out of reach, Tony pulled a pen light from his pocket and stepped over to the elevator control panel.
He jimmied the cover off the panel and shone the light inside to inspect all the wiring.
Everything looked fried.
“It’s probably not connected to the power source anymore, anyway,” Peter said from the floor behind Tony.
“Zip it, kid. I don’t need input from the peanut gallery.” Tony had designed the elevators himself. It could be connected to the power source still, regardless of the mechanical failure.
“Sorry,” Peter said softly. He sat back, and Tony could see his eyes taking in the wiring when Tony stepped back out of the way.
Tony messed with the wiring for several minutes longer before giving up. Without the tools, it didn’t matter.
He turned his attention to the door and tried getting his fingers between the two doors to pry it open. He braced his legs how Happy taught him, during their self defense lessons, and put as much muscle into it as he could. But the damn doors didn’t budge.
“Want me to help?” Peter said behind him. “See if together we can get it open?”
Tony huffed, “It’s not budging a bit.” A scrawny kid like Peter wasn’t going to add enough muscle to the equation to fix it.
“Well, maybe we could get it together,” Peter said.
Tony turned and looked at him. He was wearing a slightly-too-large t-shirt, so sure Tony couldn’t see if he had muscles, but Tony just didn’t see a kid that small having enough strength. “How much do you bench, kid?” Tony asked dryly.
“Uhhh, I’m not sure.”
“Mhm,” Tony said, rolling his eyes. “Fine. Come help.”
Peter got to his feet and put his fingers right up on the edge of the left door, while Tony tried to jam his fingers between from the right. He wasn’t sure how Peter could even get a grip from there, but he seemed confident. The worst that would happen was nothing, so whatever.
“Okay, on three,” Tony said.
“Ready,” Peter said.
Tony rolled his eyes again, but started counting. On three, the two of them started pulling.
After a second, there was a horrible noise, like a loud grinding. Something snapped, loudly, before the doors both jolted open.
Peter smiled widely, while Tony let go of the door and stared at them.
“How in the hell,” he muttered, as he tugged at the door a little and found it now slid back and forth without effort. He looked at Peter with a touch more scrutiny… but the kid still looked like a scrawny little twig.
That shouldn’t have even worked. The kid’s fingers hadn’t even curled around the edge of the door.
“Uh, teamwork makes the dream work?” Peter said with a forced laugh.
“Right,” Tony said, shooting Peter a wry look. He stared for a beat longer, then turned his attention to the wall the doors exposed.
Unfortunately, they were between floors. Tony tried sticking his head out, but there was less than an inch of space between the elevator and the wall.
Even with the doors open, they were still trapped.
Dammit. So close, yet so far. They’d have to wait for actual rescue, with equipment to break through the ceiling.
Peter looked up at the ceiling at the same time Tony did, and he pointed. “That’s an escape hatch.”
Tony rolled his eyes again. “Who do you think designed this elevator, kid? It’s meant for rescuers to open from above, for security reasons.”
He glanced over, expecting an argument, or another sassy comment, but the kid had gone pale. His eyes were darting around the room, and his breath had picked up.
Tony hesitated, then added, a little less sharply, “Don’t worry. They’ll come get us.”
Peter met his eyes and held them for a moment before he looked down at his arms and rubbed at them. He flinched, at what, Tony had no idea. “We can’t, Mr. Stark,” he stuttered. “We can’t stay here much longer. We’re sitting ducks.”
“Sitting ducks for whom,” Tony asked, scrutinizing the kid. What was he even stressing over?
“I don’t know,” Peter exclaimed. “Can’t you call a suit?”
“EMP, kid,” Tony said. As if he hadn’t thought of that himself. “My phone can’t reach the servers until I restart them.”
“Dammit,” the kid muttered. He rubbed at his arms again and looked around the elevator.
“Relax, kid. You’re too jumpy. Sure, we’re sitting ducks, but we’re protected sitting ducks. This is basically a panic room.”
“Whoever did this waited until you were in the elevator,” Peter said calmly. “You’re probably the target. I’m just collateral.”
Tony narrowed his eyes. How was the kid speaking so calmly when he looked so panicked? “And you would know this, because…?”
“I’m guessing,” Peter snapped. He rubbed at the back of his neck, and a stressed expression took over his face. “Okay. Dang it.” He looked back up at Tony, meeting his eyes. Something serious sparked in there. His eyes sharpened, and his shoulders squared, like he was about to face down an enemy.
It was a strange expression to see on a face that, three seconds ago, looked like a panicking twelve-year-old.
Tony felt himself go on edge.
But then the kid asked something that threw him for a loop.
“Can I trust you, Mr. Stark?”
Tony let out a short huff. “Yeah, kid,” he said dryly, as he crossed his arms. “You’re gonna be fine. If you’re not a secret supervillain—and I’m still on the fence about that—we’ll get you out of here in time for your chem test.”
“I’m not a supervillain,” Peter muttered. He took a few steps to his left and started pacing back and forth in the elevator. “Ugh. Okay.” He paused, then looked at Tony again, asking, “Can I tell you a secret?”
“Uh, sure?” Tony said. “Is it who you’re working for, or how you really got to the roof? Because I want both.”
“I’m not working for anyone,” Peter snapped. He took a deep breath, then paced again. “It’s, uh, yeah, related to the second part, though.”
“Hm, interesting,” Tony mused, his eyes tracking the kid’s anxious pacing, a little more closely now.
“It’s a secret,” Peter stressed. “You can’t tell anyone.”
“Cone of silence. Got it.” Tony would absolutely be telling Happy whatever it was, if this kid confessed to working for Hammer. Or Osborn?
Or HYDRA.
“I mean it,” Peter exclaimed. His voice was edging on panic, and it made Tony take a step back. “Okay, okay,” Peter said, as he ran his hands through his hair and paused in his pacing. “Specifically, you can’t tell SHIELD.”
Tony stilled, head tilting slightly as he took the kid in.
He wasn’t faking it. This kid was terrified of SHIELD. Panic was clearly taking over his entire body, as he was nearly hyperventilating, his arms fully engulfed in goosebumps.
“Now I’m intrigued,” Tony said. “We’re keeping secrets from SHIELD?”
“Is that a no?” the kid squeaked.
“No,” Tony said with a wry smile. “It’s a resounding yes. I love keeping secrets from SHIELD. It’s my favorite thing to do. They didn’t stop the government from trying to nuke New York or know half their people were HYDRA, and they still called me egotistical and narciss—”
“Mr. Stark,” Peter cut in.
“What’s the secret, kid? Spill. Are you an agent? Is SHIELD recruiting ten-year-olds now? Because if they are, I’m about to go punch Fury in his stupid face. You’re not HYDRA are you?”
“No, Mr. Stark,” Peter said with a breath, “I’m not either. I’m hiding from SHIELD.”
“Okay,” Tony said slowly. “Now I’m extra intrigued.”
“Ugh, it’s just—” Peter put his hands back in his hair and tugged slightly. His previously gelled back hair was now standing nearly straight up. He looked around frantically again, then forced himself to still.
“Kid,” Tony said, stepping closer. Peter didn’t flinch as Tony put his hands on his shoulders.
Actually, he took a calming breath and looked up at Tony. The confidence and seriousness was back in his eyes.
“Peter. Whatever it is, I’ve got you. Cone of silence. I’m gonna guess you’re about to tell me you’re enhanced.”
“Yeah, I guess,” Peter muttered, averting his eyes.
Tony squeezed his shoulders and let go. “Cool. What are we working with here? Strength? Is that how you broke open the doors?”
Peter took a long, deep breath, and cut his eyes up at Tony one last time, like he was making his decision. Then he knelt down, and—
Leapt.
Onto the ceiling.
“Huh,” Tony said, taking a step back, watching as Peter just… stuck to the ceiling.
Tony had only ever seen one person able to do that.
“Uh, yeah,” Peter stammered. “Hi. I’m Spider-Man.” He visibly swallowed, then turned his head to the escape hatch, where he punched it.
A loud boom echoed up the shaft, as the door hit the wall and clattered back down onto the roof of the elevator.
“Wow,” Tony said, staring as Peter climbed up and out the hatch. He stuck his head in and shot a web down to his bag, dragging it up to him. “You are a child.”
Peter stared at him, his head still sticking down into the elevator. He held a hand out to Tony and said, “Mr. Stark, we need to get out of here and far enough away from whatever is happening so you can call a suit.”
“Yeah,” Tony said quietly. He felt cemented to the ground, as he stared at the too-young face of Spider-Man. “Sorry, one second. I’m recalibrating.”
He’d been working alongside Spidey for… a year. At least. Spider-Man inserted himself into the Avengers missions all the time in New York.
It was to the point that if something was going down in New York, Tony planned for Spider-Man to involve himself. He’d come swinging in, shouting out lame puns and stupid pop-culture references as he pulled civilians away from the battle. Then he’d attach one of his webs to Tony’s suit and pull himself into the middle of the fight, like he had a damn death wish.
He’d guessed Spider-Man was young, but he’d profiled him to be 20-25. A college student, likely at NYU, or Columbia, based on his intelligence and proximity to Midtown.
The damn Midtown School of Science and Technology shirt felt mocking now.
How in the hell was Spider-Man a literal child? This child had jumped into Avengers things for a year. He’d gone up against literal terrorists with actual weapons.
This child—
“Mr. Stark,” Peter said frantically, “Please. We have to get out of here. My Spidey-Sense is going nuts.”
“Is that the goosebump thing?” Tony asked, as he looked back at the hand stretched out to him. He grasped it, and let the kid lift him through the hatch like Tony weighed nothing.
“Yes,” Peter said. “The danger is below us. Come on.”
Tony wrapped an arm around Peter’s shoulders while the kid secured an arm around his torso, as he shot his web up to the ceiling and started pulling them upward. Tony had done this with Spider-Man half a dozen times.
“We’re talking later,” Tony said, as he watched the web itself. It was a mechanical web, coming from a shooter around Peter’s wrists. He’d been wearing bracelets, but they definitely weren’t expanded out like this before.
Tony wanted to bring them to the lab and take them apart.
“Fine,” Peter huffed. “Don’t tell SHIELD.”
“This one is my penthouse,” Tony said, pointing to the doors just below the roof level.
Peter stopped them there and swung over, helping Tony get his footing at the base of the door. Then, somehow, Peter used his foot to force open the door.
His damn foot. While still dangling from the ceiling.
Tony hadn’t helped at all on that elevator door, had he?
“I’m not telling SHIELD a damn thing about a minor,” he grumbled, as he let the kid push him to his feet inside the penthouse. “I’m still pissed as hell they amended the Accords to say enhanced people had to fucking register like they were weapons. It’s bullshit. Why do you think I’ve never actually tried to bring you in after you help out?”
Peter swung into the room himself, then shut the door back behind them, before he webbed it shut.
“I’ve never really thought about it,” Peter said.
Tony led Peter through his apartment and out the back door, into his server room. “It’s because I don’t agree with it. Fury knows better than to push me on it. SHIELD is off the table. You and me, though? We are talking.”
“Okay,” Peter said, in an exasperated tone. “Just get a suit.”
“How’s that tingle doing now? Danger nearby?”
“It’s lessened up here, but it’s still near,” Peter grumbled. “And it’s called a Spidey-Sense.”
“Uh huh.” Tony typed in his override code and initiated the reboot sequence on the servers. “It’ll take about ten minutes for that,” he said. “We need to go up one more floor, for my suit.”
“I need to change into mine,” Peter said, as he slipped his backpack off his back.
“Nope,” Tony said sharply. “The cameras caught Peter Parker with me in the elevator. Spider-Man can’t appear while he disappears. You’re stuck as a civilian.”
“Oh for goodness sake,” Peter grumbled under his breath.
“That’s what happens when you break into Stark Tower as a civilian,” Tony said, smirking. He pushed open the door to his private stairwell and led the kid up.
“I didn’t break in,” Peter complained. “The elevator came. I really was just coming to your talk.”
Tony turned the corner and started up the last flight of steps as he hummed. “I suppose you climbed to the roof.”
“Swung.”
“And your suit is in your bag,” Tony said.
At least all of Peter’s suspiciousness made sense. And wasn’t nefarious… exactly.
Just clearly the doings of a kid.
“I’m taking you under my wings,” Tony announced as he pushed open the door to his tech room.
Peter followed close behind, making a stink face at Tony. “You don’t have wings.”
“Under my repulsors, how’s that? You are in dire need of a mentor.” Because someone needed to teach this kid how to keep his damn secret identity intact. He couldn’t go around being as suspicious as he’d been that afternoon. Not if he wanted to stay off the registration list.
“And tech upgrades,” Tony added. He should at least have something that was EMP-proof.
“I’m the one who did the rescuing here,” Peter grumbled, still following Tony through the maze of equipment until Tony found the manual restart switch. “Maybe I should take you under my wings.”
“Spiders don’t have wings,” Tony said with a smirk.
Peter shrugged. “Webs.”
Tony fiddled with the switches and watched as the servers started whirring to life. “You need a voice modulator,” he said absently. “Now that I know, I can hear the same voice. We need to fix that. You can’t have people you know recognize you based off your voice.”
“That would be sweet,” Peter said. Tony could hear a hint of a smile in his voice.
“And an emergency panic button,” Tony mumbled. “Can’t have a twelve-year-old get his ass shot and die in a dumpster somewhere.”
“I’m fifteen,” Peter snapped, half-heartedly.
So this kid was, what? A freshman? A sophomore? He was a literal infant.
How old was he when he started? Tony had been working alongside a toddler for a year.
“I’ve been a hero longer than you’ve been alive,” Tony grumbled. He cleared his throat and motioned with his head for Peter to follow him to his suits.
The main suits wouldn’t be accessible until the servers were back up and running, but his experimental suit should work fine.
“That’s not true,” Peter said. “I was six when you invented Iron Man.”
“Good grief, six,” Tony muttered. He cleared his throat and grabbed the wristband he’d been designing that held the nano-suit. “You’re an infant. You’ll be under my repulsors.”
Peter scowled at him, but didn’t respond, because at that moment Tony activated his wristband, and the nanobot suit slowly formed around his body.
The kid let out a breathless, “Wow,” as he watched.
“If you think that’s cool, wait until you see the finished product,” Tony said with a grin. He pointed toward the servers and said, “You know anything about computers?”
“Yeah, a bit,” Peter replied, with a roll of his eyes.
“I’m going to handle whatever the issue is. I need you here to make sure the servers come up. Once they’re operational, FRIDAY should pop on. She’ll likely ask you to identify yourself. Tell her to ask me.”
Peter bit his lip and asked, “Is she going to shoot me if she can’t get in touch with you?”
“Nah, kid. She doesn’t have a way to do that. At worst, she’ll lock the penthouse down. If FRIDAY isn’t up in eight minutes, restart the servers again.”
“Aye, aye, captain,” Peter said, as he turned back to the servers.
Tony narrowed his eyes. “I mean it. Stay here.”
“I heard you,” Peter said.
With a loud sigh, Tony closed the helmet around his face.
Unfortunately, he’d just have to trust the kid.
Which was absolutely not something he’d ever been able to do with Spidey. Spider-Man had a habit of doing what he felt was right, regardless of what anyone else told him.
Tony slipped out one of the emergency exit windows and shot down the exterior of the building, landing hard just outside the blown-out lobby windows.
There was screaming in the distance, as people continued to flee the building. A quick glance through the destroyed lobby showed Tony there were no civilian casualties… in there, at least.
“Boss!” Happy’s voice cut through the chaos, filled with relief.
Tony turned, scanning quickly, before turning his attention back to the threat ahead.
Deep inside the building, beyond the locked door to Tony’s private elevator, were fourteen gunmen. They were positioned around the shaft, unloading round after round into it from their machine guns.
Tony could hear the thud thud thud of bullets cutting through the metal flooring.
How did that damn kid sense that? He wondered, as he activated his HUD.
Fourteen targets were acquired, and his repulsors shot off in rapid succession.
Ten seconds later, fourteen targets were in a heap on the floor.
Tony spun back around, sweeping his eyes across the lobby again. There were three more targets on the ground in the lobby. The gun in Happy’s hand told Tony exactly who had handled them.
“How’d you get out of the elevator?” Happy asked breathlessly as he rushed to Tony’s side.
Tony lifted the faceplate and grimaced. “It’s a long story.”
“Boss,” FRIDAY cut in before Happy could demand more information, “There is an unknown entity in the server room.”
“Who?” Happy demanded, “Shit, get me up there.”
Holding a hand up to Happy, Tony said, “FRI, that’s Peter. He’s allowed. Tell him I’ll be up there in a minute. Everything is taken care of down here.”
“Who is Peter?” Happy demanded, his tone still on alert.
“Kid I found,” Tony said dismissively, scanning the lobby again. He was relieved to see no one else around. “Did everyone evacuate?”
Happy huffed, “Yes. Building is clear. Can we go back to you leaving a random kid in the server room?”
“He’s not fully random,” Tony said, looking back at Happy. He looked disheveled, and more stressed than Tony had caused in a while, but at least in one piece. “Trust me.”
“It’s hard to trust you when you keep running off and nearly getting killed.”
Tony smirked. “Come on. Let’s go get him before he does something stupid.” Like climb out of the building and swing away, before Tony could talk to him.
Dammit. How the hell was Spider-Man a damn kid?