Work Text:
At the funeral
Iron-Man died.
THE unbeatable Iron-Man was gone.. just like that. Not only was he a father to Morgan but he was practically a father to Peter too. Peter couldn't even listen to the speech Happy was giving, he just stared into the grass with tears dripping down his cheeks and falling onto the ground. When he finally snapped out of it and came back to reality, he heard Happy finish his speech, something along the lines of 'proof Tony Stark has a heart'-had.. a heart.
When the funeral service had finished, Peter didn't really know what to do, he didn't know anyone there except the Avengers and even the Avengers, he didn't know well. He was relatively close to Natasha but then well.. we won't go into that, but the thought made Peter tear up again.
"Hey kiddo, you okay?" A voice said whilst approaching Peter, it was Aunt May. Although, Aunt May was always reassuring and always knew what to say, Peter didn't really want to see anyone, he looked around for an escape.
"Uhh yep! I'm gonna go get something to pick on." He put on his most enthusiastic look but his voice cracked and his facade faltered. He walked towards the food bar with May's worried gaze following him before May could interrogate him.
The food bar had a long table, going from one end of the room to another and had many different spreads on different platters on them. On the other side of the room was an actual bar with light alcohol displayed. Small couches with miniature tables were dotted around the area and all Peter could hear were the soft whispers of Tony's loved ones trying not to burst. Peter picked up a few small things to pick on but took his own sweet time.
---
"So.. how did you know him?" An unfamiliar voice spoke from beside him. Peter looked up and saw a young boy, around his age, with light brown hair and big doe eyes.
"Uhm, mentor from work, I guess you could say. Uhh, how did you know him?"
"Old acquaintance." The mysterious boy said with a light chuckle in remembrance of his and Tony's old memories.
"I'm Harley by the way, Harley Keener."
"Peter. Peter Parker."
---
After Tony's death, Harley didn't take it well. He still lived in Tennessee but they were in frequent contact and spoke quite often. When he got a call from Tony's phone after what felt like ages since their last call, he was excited as usual, but the excitement quickly faded when Happy was on the other end of the phone bringing the bad news to him. He traveled to New York for the funeral but decided it would be a good idea and a fresh start to move to New York, he moved into a small apartment near the Avengers building right after Tony's death, living there for just short of a few weeks before the funeral happened.
After that, Harley thought of a way to honour Tony.
Blue prints and sketches covered the tables, all you could hear from Harley's little apartment were machines buzzing and tools drilling. He was constantly busy and stayed cooped up in his apartment for months, until he finally finished it.
Harley Keener had built an Iron-Man suit.
He didn't plan on taking Tony's place of course but he thought that building a suit to honour his legacy seemed fit.
---
Peter was walking home from school when the hairs at the back of his neck stood up. Peter felt a throbbing sensation in his head, not a pain but a sense, and immediately felt unnerved. After Tony's death, Peter had gotten migraines on the daily, so the throbbing was normal, but this time it was different. He turned around quicker than a starving mouse could grab a piece of cheese and ducked.
He looked up and there stood a giant insect approaching Peter at a rapid rate. Peter ran into the nearest alley which just happened to be insanely dark and creepy. He webbed his items to the wall after putting on his spidey suit as soon as he could and ran back out into the action.
This is easy work. Peter thought to himself. as he shot a web out to the insect. He quickly took the action away from the crowded city and took it to a more isolated area, so as not to harm any pedestrians or get (yet another) fine for damaging personal property. In no time, the giant insect was webbed up and hung from a street light, so it couldn't escape. Just as Peter was about to call damage control to get the pest out of civilian areas as soon as possible, the bug made a loud screech which caused him to drop his phone on the concrete floor as he instinctively lifted his hands to his ears to protect himself from the sound. He was already out of breath from fighting that thing and now he had a headache too, great.
He picked his phone up again and there was a large crack spread across it, black and white colours dotted the screen, even better, now he couldn't call damage control and had to find some other way to get them in contact without letting his eye off the pest. Shortly after the unimaginably high-pitched screech echoed throughout the city, the ground rumbled, as if it had an empty stomach. Out from the ground, emerged dozens of new pests, only slightly smaller than the larger one Peter had just defeated. That bug's dying action was to call an army of even more bugs before one bug-like superhero. So many bugs.. so many legs..
Dozens quickly turned to hundreds and they just kept emerging. As the number of pests in the city increased, the ones that were already above the floor headed Peter's way slowly as if they were zombies. Peter could easily take out one of these, 5? No problem. 10? Easy work. Even 15? A little tricky, but he could still manage to beat all of them. However, defeating hundreds of these creatures.. not even the amazing Spider-Man could do.
He fought off as many as he could, but only got rid of 13 of them before the rapidly increasingly large amount overwhelmed Peter. He could even swing his web and leave because 1) Peter Parker was many things, but he was not a quitter 2) The bugs towered him, leaving no room to swing away.
He just accepted his fate as they approached closer and closer and just as one of them was about to bite their thick stinger into Peter's neck, an unknown blast came from up high and when he opened his eyes again, the insect lay dead on the floor in front of him, blood spewing out from its corpse.
A few more blasts and the majority of the peats were gone, the others either went back into the mud or attempted to scatter away in fear, but just ended up with being hit with more blasts. A few got away but that was a problem for another day because Peter just wanted to know where the sound of the familiar, yet unknown, blasts were sourced from.
He looked up and was met with a red and gold iron suit, with a few blue accents rimming along the edges of the mask. Was that who he thought it was..?
Peter dropped to his knees in shock, Tony obviously couldn't have been raised from the dead all of a sudden, nothing could take back his death, so who was this mysterious figure?