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“Anthony Edward Stark!” Sam’s voice rang out through the common room as his heavy footsteps marched in.
Tony didn’t bother looking up from his StarkPad, a little proud of the anger he somehow evoked in the man’s voice.
“‘Sup?” he called over his shoulder.
A moment later, Sam was standing in front of him, arms crossed and stern glare boring into him. Tony finally put the StarkPad casually aside, looking up at Sam with a smile.
“What’s up,” Sam ground out, “is that we seriously need to talk about how you treat your employees.”
Tony’s face fell, searching Sam’s face for some sign of joking. He took pride in how well his employees were treated, if something was wrong, he should know it. He regularly asked for anonymous input from his people on how to improve the Stark Industries work environment and took nearly every suggestion. He thought they were happy working here, were they not?
“How so?” he asked casually.
Then, Sam turned and reached behind him, pushing a small figure forward with a gentle but firm hand.
In front of him, Peter Parker stood, shoulders hunched, eyes glued to the floor. His face was flushed a deep red and his hands were fidgeting urgently with the seam of his shirt.
“Peter?” Tony’s heart was suddenly pounding, fear and guilt crawling up his throat as his mind raced to think of what he could have done to make Peter of all people unhappy to work with him and so scared of confronting him.
Sam kept a steady hand on Peter’s shoulder, but the boy stayed just as tense, avoiding Tony’s eyes at all costs.
Sam’s voice was softer as he regarded the boy fidgeting under his gaze, but steady, a hint of anger towards Tony still making its way through his controlled tone.
“I went to the roof for patrol and found him standing on the edge. Luckily I grabbed him in time but I nearly didn’t. How the hell are you running your business to cause a kid to want to jump?” Sam demanded, tightening his arm around Peter protectively.
“Oh,” Tony breathed. So that’s what caused this little show.
His panic fell away and he had to try his hardest to hold back his laugh. “Kid? What happened?” he asked cautiously, though his lips twitched up as he fought against his smile.
Peter finally met his eyes with a panicked, pleading look.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Stark. I was just-! You know…”
Tony raised his eyebrows, curious to see the kid try to work his way out of this one and finding more amusement than he should from the whole situation.
“...enjoying the view?” Peter finished weakly, voice pitching up as he fiddled with his hands, trying desperately to avoid looking at anyone.
“He begged me not to tell you, Stark. What the hell are you doing to your employees? Hell, he probably shouldn’t even be allowed to work here! What is he, twelve?”
“Fourteen,” Peter corrected with a quiet grumble as Tony suddenly burst into laughter.
“Stark! You think this is funny?” Sam demanded.
“I mean, yeah” he wheezed, pretending to wipe away a tear. When Sam glared at him, he tried to straighten his face, clasping his hands in front of him and tilting his head downward, trying to fight the smile tugging at his lips.
“No,” he said, voice low and somber. “Of course not. This is not funny at all, this is very serious.”
He turned to Peter, expression set in a faux stern concern. “Peter, I’m sincerely sorry that I have been forcing you to be worked into the ground so much that you felt the only option for escape was jumping off the roof. Might I ask what it was in particular that drove you to such… drastic measures?”
Peter glared back for a minute, face bright red, before something shifted in his eyes that made Tony blanch. A grin spread across the boy’s face, one Tony recognized very well as his Fine, you want to play it like that? Face.
He was was so fucked.
The boy stared at Tony, locking their gazes and forcing Tony to watch as Peter let his grin drop, lip trembling as his eyes welled with tears, before he turned back to Sam, who wasn’t able to see the shift from where he was standing behind Peter.
When he turned around, he burst into tears, scrubbing his eyes pitifully with his fists.
“I just- I work so hard and I’m here all the time and Mr. Stark is just never satisfied! I don’t have time to do anything besides work and school because he just keeps making me stay overtime way late into the night, sometimes working the entire night without any chance for a break!” he cried, flinging his arms out in frustration. “And I don’t have any friends any more because this job just isolated me so much, I had no time to hang out with them and my Aunt works nights so I haven’t even seen her in two months and I’m just so tired and he won’t let me stop,” he wailed. Tears were streaming down his cheeks now as he sniffled loudly, keeping his head turned down to the floor to hide the way a smile kept tugging at his lips. Every laugh that bubbled up was morphed into a sob with expert manipulation.
“I can’t quit, I really need the money for school and to help my Aunt pay for food and rent. She works so hard and I just want to help her and take some stress away from her but every time I try to ask for time off to hang out with her or do anything for school Mr. Stark just threatens to cut my pay or fire me and I- I can’t do it anymore!” His breath was hitching in pitiful sobs as his shoulders shook.
That little shit.
Peter knew damn well that Tony was, in fact, the one trying to drag him out of the lab at four in the morning and force him to go home and sleep. He was also the one who set very strict work hours for Peter to prevent him from unintentionally socially isolating himself, buried in his own work – though Peter often fought to work longer hours. He was also the one constantly begging Peter to accept a higher paycheck so he didn’t have to worry about any financial issues.
He was just straight up lying. And Sam believed it!
Tony narrowed his eyes further every time the boy ducked his head further to hide the way his lips were flicking upwards into a smile. That evil little demon was totally manipulating them! Tony had a feeling he could control his tears and those big doe eyes alone were plenty effective in getting his way but this was a whole new level of manipulation he was discovering from his intern. The kid had Sam — the same man who complained about ‘that annoying little spider-brat’ for two weeks straight after their first mission together — unknowingly rubbing soothing circles over the same brat’s trembling shoulders.
He couldn’t help but feel a little proud.
That is, until Sam turned his furious gaze back to Tony.
“Friday, call Steve in here, please.” The man’s voice was eerily calm, even as he shot daggers at Tony with his gaze.
A few seconds later, Steve stepped in through the doors, jotting something down in the notebook in his hand. “Hey, Sam. I was just headed to the theater. What’s up?” he asked distractedly, before flipping the notebook closed and finally looking up. He froze, taking in the stand off happening between Sam and Tony in front of him, a shaking, sniffling kid in the middle being comforted by Sam.
“I need to… have a word with Tony.” His glare never left the man’s face as he spoke through gritted teeth, before he tilted his head to the boy in front of him.“Can you keep Peter company?”
“Of course,” Steve replied, though the two men ignored the bewilderment clear in his voice and expression. Steve sighed and walked over to the couch, patting the seat next to him in invitation.
Peter hesitated a moment before sitting down gingerly next to him, wiping his face with his sleeves.
As Sam’s tight grip on his arm yanked him out of the room, Tony heard Steve asking about what his favorite movie was, followed by Peter immediately losing his ability to keep his act up in favor of ranting about Star Wars. Tony couldn’t hold back his snort.
Apparently, though, that was the wrong thing to do at that moment, because the door slammed behind him and a fist connected hard with his jaw, snapping his head to the side.
“What the fuck, Wilson!” he yelped, cradling his jaw as he stared back at the man.
“I don’t know what the fuck is wrong with you right now, Stark, but the way you are handling this situation is appalling!” His voice raised to a shout as he gestured wildly. “That is a vulnerable kid in there sobbing because of shit you put him through, and you just laughed at it! You deserve far more than just a good decking.”
At that moment, the door flew open and Peter raced into the room, planting himself between the two men and holding his hands out placatingly towards Sam.
“Woah woah woah! I’m sorry! I lied! He’s a perfectly fine boss, it was a lie!” he spat out, eyes wide and chest heaving with panicked panting.
Sam paused, fury giving way to confusion as he looked down at the frantic kid. “What?”
“I’m Spider-Man! That’s why you found me on the roof. I was about to go on patrol and panicked when you caught me because I didn’t want anyone to know my identity so I just didn’t really say anything and then Mr. Stark was being super difficult and not helping me at all so I decided to mess with him a little and lie!”
“You cannot seriously be pinning this on me right now, kid,” Tony groaned, rubbing his jaw even though it didn’t actually hurt all that much anymore, tamping down a smile at Peter’s panicked gaze flicking over it.
“No! Well- I mean no! Definitely not. I’m sorry, Mr. Stark. I didn’t realize it would get this far, I thought it would be… funny?” Peter winced slightly, rubbing the back of his neck as he stared at the ground, mumbling out a sheepish “sorry.”
Tony heaved a long, loud sigh before he yanked Peter towards him, ruffling his hair with an amused smirk. “I gotta give it to ya, kid. It was pretty funny. Up until the sucker punch part. You put on quite the show there.”
Peter turned beet red but didn’t say anything, keeping his eyes on the ground.
Sam stepped closer, holding a hand out looking utterly perplexed.
“Wait- hold up. You lied? That was a lie- that was acting?” he demanded, staring at Peter as the boy turned even redder. Then, Sam’s eyes widened as he fully processed what Tony said.
“You’re Spiderman?” he shrieked.
“It’s actually Spider-Man. With a hyphen. I can hear that you’re not saying the hyphen.” Peter mumbled, chancing a glance up at Sam’s face. When he saw the expression, he dropped his gaze fast. “Yup, right. Not the right moment for that. Sorry.”
Sam stayed frozen for a long time, just staring at the boy leaning into Tony’s side, avoiding all eye contact as if he hadn’t just been acting the fuck out of a mental breakdown purely out of spite.
He groaned, dragging a hand down his face. “This makes so much sense.”
Peter lifted his head, opening his mouth to say something — which almost definitely would not have helped the situation — but Sam just held up a hand to stop him, marching past the fidgety boy and smirking billionaire. “Nope. I need to not hear anything from the two of you for at least five business days or I will be the one taking a trip to the roof.”
Peter fought the urge to point out that all of this had started because of Sam doing precisely that. Tony clamped a hand over his mouth to stop him as the urge won out. They watched him leave in silence, listening for the whir of the elevator taking him probably far, far away, before bursting out into laughter.