Chapter Text
Peter, you have someone waiting for you on the ‘billionaire’ rooftop.
“Oh no what does he want now” Peter says exasperated.
He hasn’t seen Tony in a hot minute, he has been recently preoccupied with more HYDRA stake outs. Ever since the monstruous disaster that cap created in DC, he realized HYDRA is everywhere. Peter mostly does his part when he come across them in NYC, but he knows this is Caps battle, so he doesn’t go after them. Tony has invited him to join in the stakeouts, just for fun, but Peter said no. Saving the world with the avengers was already pushing it for him. No need to go on random missions with them. It would taint the image he painted of Spider-Man for them.
To them Spider-man was an overpowered 25-year-old that had no life and choose to use it saving cats in trees.
Little did they know Spider-man was an 18-year-old with a death wish, who just recently graduated. He feels the responsibility of the city’s safety on his shoulders. A child whose childhood was consumed with grief instead of happiness. A kid whose innocence was ripped from him. A teenager who got bit by a radioactive spider. A human who has lost too much.
The first day of collage was a worldwide. A lot less overstimulating than high school. The headphones he designed that helped with his hearing was working overtime. Same with the glasses and contacts. The contacts were particularly difficult. But Peter was able to get there, and now he doesn’t look like a stuck up who wears sunglasses in class. Having a spaced-out schedule helped a lot with Spider-Maning.
ESU was very interesting, the double major in biochemistry and physics was keeping him entertained. Most of his classes didn’t have mandatory attendance or were very lenient with attendance so Peter was able to heal his injuries at home a lot better. Even with a full ride scholarship Peter was looking for jobs, to help May out and maybe in the future get his own place, or room with MJ, Ned and Harry.
Mj.
MJ and him is a recent development.
Peter finally plucked the courage to ask her out after months, maybe even years of tension. It was the week before prom, and unlike the hell homecoming was, prom went well. Great. Amazing even.
Ever since prom night they have been official. Peter was living his best life. He has everything he could dream of. Even if his dreams betray him most nights telling him this is all fake or he is putting his friends in danger. But that’s normal right?
What’s not normal is Peter and Tony ‘hanging out’.
Sure, sometimes they chit chat at the ‘billionaire rooftop’ as Peter has nicknamed it, but Spider-man could barely call Tony a coworker they were billions of miles away from friends, even accomplices.
So, he put on his suit, abandoning the physics project he was working on. Technically its due in a month and he is almost done with it, so he has nothing to worry about.
As Peter feels the familiar rush of wind in his ear as his mind wanders.
For some reason (his spider sense) he knows this meeting is different somehow. Not bad. Maybe even good. But it will be different.
Peter prepares himself for this, you never know what tony can pull out of his ass.
“Hey Karen?”
Yes, Peter
“Mind telling Tin Can I’m on my way?”
Of course, Peter. I must warn you, his suit if off. He stored it the second he landed. I don’t know if my message will reach him, but I’ll send an extra one to his phone.
“Thanks, Kare Bear.”
Throughout the years Karen has keeps Peter alive and healthy. Peter doesn’t know what he would do without her. She keeps Spider-man company on the endless hours of work, helps with new project ideas and tells him how to sew his wounds back together. He updates her code every few months, Ned usually helps, it’s his specialty after all. Ned made most of the unique and special areas of her code, but Peter is very proud of what he’s built, even if he stole the base from JARVIS Tonys AI.
Speaking of Tony, Peter can see him hunched over his phone, as he turns the corner. Starks leg is bouncing up and down, every few seconds he looks around, his heartrate is faster than normal, but it still has the familiar skip every few beats.
Even if he tells Tony he’s on his way, he tries his best to sneak up on him. At least give him a small run for his enormous amount money.
“Are you juggling on your right leg? Cuz if you are that’s a neat trick.” Peter points out, after silently landing a few feet behind Stark.
Tony jumps slightly before his shoulders slump, and turns around, “Its getting old kid, stop scaring me like that.”
“Never” Peter’s mouth moves into a dopey grin seen visible even with his new metal infused spandex mask thanks to Trever and him collaborating, creating a special fabric. “Why else would I come her to talk?”
“Maybe you want to hear from the smartest man on earth? Or you want Iron-man’s autograph?”
“I thought we agreed I was smarter than you? This is awkward now…” Spider-man starts to sit on the ledge Tonys legs are dangling from. “Spit it out.”
Peter has gotten used to reading people. Deadpool showed him how to do it with his eyes, Daredevil has shown his with his senses. Team red makes quite the team; he is happy with connecting the three together. He is always happy to help either of them. It was nice to help them out when the two other vigilantes first started but now, they are a unit. All of them learning and leaning on each other. They had their boundaries, but they worked well together.
Tony is always the easiest to read, his face gives everything away, but even with the iron man suit on he is easy to read. Being able to understand the small movements, the posture, breathing, heartbeat, the drop of sweat etc. gives everything away.
When Tony doesn’t respond, Peter pushes some more. “Come on dude I won’t nuke you just say it!”
“Ummm…” Tony gulps “I want to invite you to the lab, have us work on our shit together. You know what I mean, like a boy’s night. Andddd… ummm…. I want to give you this burner.” He pulls a mini stark phone out of his pocket. “Just in case” he smiles weakly. Tony seems more relaxed now that he spit out what he had been intending on saying but his muscles are still locked. Waiting for Spider-man’s response.
Spider-man just freezes.
Peter would fucking love to go to the lab.
Peter knows its probably important to have a backup means of communication, especially with THE iron man.
Spider-man doesn’t want either.
-
Spider-man freezes up.
The white of his lenses stops reacting to his eye movement, all his muscles freeze.
That’s when Tony knows he fucked up.
“Shit I’m sorry kid, just… Just forget it, have a good night.” He starts to stand up, knowing how the night will end.
Spider-man hand reaches out and grabs Tony’s arm.
“Sure.”
“What!?” Tony snaps his neck to look Spidey in the eye. “Did you just say YES?”
The bastard decides to just shrug. “I mean yea, as long as its chill. No JARVIS scans, no trying to get me to remove my mask... Just a lab day.”
“Yea of course kid.” Stark stares at Spider-man’s lenses for a second, preparing himself to ask, “What about the phone?”
“Pass it to me.”
“Um okay…” Tony unwraps his sweaty hands from it, dropping it in Spidey’s outstretched hand.
Immediately Spidey gets to work. Taking apart the phone, to remove anything unnecessary, then just as easily puts it back together. He then discards the extra parts by webbing them into the nearest trashcan.
“Well, what are you waiting for?” Spidey jumps on his feet, pockets the phone in one of his many seacret compartments, “Ill race you!” And just jumps of the roof top into the night.
-
“NED NED NED!!”
He screams into his mask at 4 am. Why? Well because he asked Karen to call Ned and tell him about the amazing night he had.
Ned responds groggily, his voice filled with sleep “wha…t”
Even in his tired state he knows just how excited Ned is. Ned is like his partner in crime; except he stays at home and Peter does all the crime fighting. Ned and him both share an obsession with the science genius. Peter hides it when he puts on the mask. But if Tony Stark were to ever talk to Peter Parker, he would be having a completely different reaction.
“Broooooo!” I literally just went to ‘hang out’ and have a ‘boys’ night with fucking Tony Stark in his personal lab in the tower. It was so fucking cool dude. I made a new version of my webs, taser webs. So, they send electrical charges when they land. It’s so cool. And Tony looked over Karen’s code. He was clearly impressed bro.”
“Dudddee” Ned says slowly waking up. The shift is heard in is voice, it’s still lower and slower but more attentive.
“And he gave me a burner phone. I have his number dude. I played it so cool dude. I was like ‘don’t bombard my phone w messages Tony. Ill block you.’ I was so sick.”
“No fucking way. Is it a stark phone?” Ned’s voice is faster, following his usual pace.
“Yes dude! I’m so taking it apart and analyzing it.”
“Dude I’m coming over right now if you do that.”
“No, no, it’s okay I’ll do it tomorrow, well technically today. Come over around 2 pm!”
“Okay! Ima go back to sleep! See you!”
“Good night!”
He hangs up. Peter still has around 10 blocks before he’ll go into an alleyway to change and then walk 8 more blocks home to Aunt Mays. Thank God she’s a heavy sleeper because Peter doesn’t know how he can spin this.
Spider-man is a decent liar; Peter is a horrible liar but a great deflector. He’s great at just slightly shifting the truth. But with Aunt May, Peter can’t do either. She always catches him. She’s not home that often as she has been traveling a lot for work, as it pays a little more. And now that Peter is in collage, she has been around the world not just the US. Peter is very proud of her, but he can’t help but miss her. That’s why he tries to spend as much time as he can with her when she is here. May is leaving on Sunday for 2 months; he has dinner planned with her every single day.