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“Honeybear, what are you doing here?” Tony barely glanced up from the wiring in front of him to greet the man who had entered his lab, but Rhodey had known the mechanic for 30 years, he stopped being offended by tech getting more attention than him while they were still at MIT.
“We’re working on suit upgrades today, remember? We talked about it last time we had lunch.” A pinched expression crossed Tony’s face so briefly that if Rhodey didn’t know him so well he might have thought he imagined it. But that was definitely Tony’s I forgot something important face. He didn’t wear it as much as he used to, but Rhodes had seen it enough times for it to be instantly recognizable. “You forgot.” It was always better to be straightforward with Tony, beating around the bush would only lead to a tried arm and less information.
“No, just, uh, something came up. Can’t today, super busy, sorry Baby-cakes.” Tony offered him what Rhodey supposed was an apologetic smile and turned back to his work as if that was enough. Rhodey rolled his eyes, Tony was getting better but he still didn’t always value other people’s time the way he should.
“Tones, I came all the way down here from upstate and now you’re telling me you’re too busy for your best friend?”
Tony gave him a wounded look, “Wow, way to guilt trip me, Platypus. I’ve just got...stuff...going on.”
Shit, Platypus plus awful lying, Tony was hiding something. Rhodey’s demeanor softened, “Tony, are you okay? What’s going on?” And then the last time Tony withheld information from him popped into his mind and his tone became slightly more urgent, “Wait. You’re not dying, are you? I’m gonna be so pissed if you’re dying again.”
That got Tony’s attention as he finally turned on his stool to give Rhodey his full attention. He also rolled his eyes so far back Rhodey half expected them to get stuck like that.
“Get your panties out of a bunch, Honey-buns, seriously I’m just busy-”
“I’M NOT LATE!”
Now, Rhodey likes to think he’s pretty good at taking things in stride, and he knows Tony well enough that even the crazy shit doesn’t bother him anymore. The last time something about Tony’s life actually shocked him was when he’d called to tell Rhodey that he was inside a flying suit in the middle of an active war zone. He’d met gods and resurrected national heroes, and had some dude breath fire at him. All that to say it was no mean feat to surprise Colonel James Rhodes, but seeing a child come skidding into his best friend’s privet workshop, stopping at a lab table and throwing his backpack there like he owned the place just about did the job.
“See Mr. Stark, I’m totally on time, back me up FRIDAY.”
“Congratulations Mr. Parker, you are 47 seconds early.”
“See! Early! I told you I’d be fine swing-Holy shit.” The unknown kid finally stopped moving long enough to notice him. “You’re War Machine.” The wonder in his voice could only be matched by the gleam in his eyes, and as sweet as that was Rhodey was confused.
“Tony.” He started calmly as he glanced at his friend, “Why is there a child in your lab?”
“That’s Peter.” Tony said, as if that explained anything.
Rhodey fixed him with his best Not Amused look, “He’s 12, Tones.”
“Now Snookums,” Tony stood from his work station and threw an arm around Rhodey’s shoulders. “Don’t be rude. He’s 16.” Tony’s smile was too much, clearly he was enjoying this. “Peter, meet Rhodey, Rhodey, say hi to Peter.”
The kid, Peter, shook his hand. He held on for a little too long, but Rhodey had to admit he had a firm grip. “Mr. Col. Rhodes, Sir, it is such an honor to meet you.”
“Yeah, kid, a real pleasure.” He was endearing, that’s for sure. And while Rhodey couldn’t place him, he felt like he knew this kid from somewhere. “Ya know, you seem kinda familiar, have we met before?”
Peter’s eyes widened in what might have been shock or might have been panic, Rhodey couldn’t tell. The boy looked to Tony so Rhodey did too, but clearly the kid and him were having some sort of silent conversation because Tony just raised his eyebrows and sort of nodded his head in Rhodey’s direction. It was a little unnerving to not be able to tell what Tony was thinking but he and this kid seemed to be on the same wavelength.
Finally Peter spoke up, “Um, n-no Sir, but I, uh, I talk a lot, don’t know when to shut up that's me,” He gave a half-hearted chuckle, “so you’ve probably just heard me around before.”
Tony seemed to be appraising that declaration before apparently finding it sufficient and nodding his agreement. “He’s my intern.”
Rhodey’s brow furrowed as he looked between the pair. “Since when do you take interns? I thought talking to anyone with less than a Masters Degree gave you hives.”
Tony again rolled his eyes before turning back to whatever he had been working on before Rhodey had arrived. “Very funny, but the kid’s a genius. Goes Midtown School of Science and Technology, he’s on their national champion academic decathlon team, how many AP classes are you taking kid? Three?”
“Four, Mr. Stark but it’s really not a big deal. MJ’s taking five.” Color was rising on Peter’s cheeks as he shyly looked towards Rhodey as if to apologize for Tony’s praise.
“Good for her, but I’m talking you up here kid. He helps me design tech, bio-organic chemistry, and chemical engineering are more his strong suits, but I’m determined to turn him to electrical engineering. Though it would be easier if he hadn’t quit the robotics team.”
“You know I had to quit robotics to have time for the internship, Mr. Stark.” Rhodey wasn’t sure what was going on but Peter looked fully exasperated now, like he was used to Tony’s praise and was just embarrassed by it at this point. “Plus, I think working on the Iron Man suits is better practice than building a competition robot.”
Rhodey smirked, he might not have been ready for this new dynamic but clearly Tony and this kid were close. He figured there was one easy way to figure out if Tony had mentally adopted him yet or if he was still trying to pretend he could just be a mentor. “Well Peter, it sounds like you’ve got a bright future ahead of you. How are you planning on paying for college? Because a lot of the prestigious universities are quite expensive and the Armed Forces have great -”
“Nope! Nuh-uh!” Tony all but lunged off his seat, scrambling to cover Rhodey’s mouth in an attempt to get him to shut up. “Take your propaganda elsewhere, I’m paying for his college. Plus the kid gets in enough trouble as it is, last thing we need is him in an active war zone.” Alright, mentally adopted it is.
Peter had been laughing at Tony’s antics but reached forward to peel his hand from Rhodey’s face. “Sorry Col. Rhodes, but I think my Aunt would actually kill me if I enlisted.”
“Well it was worth a shot.” Rhodey smirked, but the kid seemed like he had a good heart, and if Peter had Tony as wrapped around his little finger as Rhodey expected he did, that was probably a good thing. “How about this, Tony promised me upgrades to the War Machine armor but he was about to blow me off for your internship, if you’re such a genius I don’t see why you can’t help. What do you say, Peter?”
Peter’s eyes lit up. Yeah, Rhodey decided, the kid’s okay.
*
There were robots in Queens. It said a lot about Rhodey’s life that this was actually a fairly routine Wednesday for him. They were about man-sized and looked like they were pulled straight from some 60s sci-fi show, whoever was doing this either had no imagination or a sense of humor. Probably the later, bad guys always liked to think they were funny. All-in-all the robots didn’t seem too dangerous but they had blades instead of hands and were terrorizing Flushings, so he had been called in. Blades didn’t matter much when you had a literal suit of armor.
He’d been on-sight for about 10 minutes and was just finishing up plans with local law enforcement when Tony’s ever-chipper voice filtered through his coms.
“Hey, Rhodey-Bear, what have I missed?”
“We’ve got a perimeter set up, police are working on getting civilians out, and you and I are on robot duty.” He punctuated the sentiment but ripping one of the robots’ heads off. Well, that seemed to be an effective disarming technique.
“Do we have any idea where these things came from?” Rhodey could see Tony flying overhead trying to assess the situation ahead of them.
“They seem to be crawling up from the sewers so I’d say that’s a good guess.”
“Oh goodie. My favorite. Alright you handle these bastards and FRIDAY and I’ll do a scan to see if we can’t pinpoint their place of origin; the less time I have to actually spend underground the better.”
Rhodes was about to give his confirmation when a streak of blue and red swung past him, kicking one of the robots square in the chest.
“I might be able to help with that!”
It wasn’t a huge surprise to see Spider-Man there, this tended to be his territory, but what threw Rhodey off was for some reason the guy was using a voice modulator. Even though Rhodey had only met him the once (if you could even call it that) in Germany, he was damn well sure that wasn’t the vigilante’s real voice. Mainly because it didn’t sound even remotely realistic. But before he had a chance to call the guy out on it, Tony cut in, his voice far more urgent and far less chipper than before.
“Spider-Man, what are you doing here? I thought you had a prior engagement.”
“Yeah, well my prior engagement got out early today, remember?”
“Only vaguely.” Tony sounded annoyed by this realization, which was...odd. “If you insist on staying you’re on civilian duty. Get Karen to find anyone that New York’s Finest have undoubtedly missed and get them out.”
Rhodey had several questions, including but not limited to: 1) Why didn’t Tony want Spider-Man’s help? 2) Why did Tony know Spider-Man’s schedule? And 3) Who was Karen? All those questions had to be put aside however when three more robots popped up in the time it took him to take down one. It would really be great if he wasn’t the only one fighting these things. “As noble as that is Tones, these things are appearing faster than I can take ‘em down.”
“Well then, we definitely don’t want any pedestrians in the area.” Damn, even in battle Tony wasn’t usually this short with him. “You have your orders Spider-Man.”
“Yeah, yeah. Let me know when you find their spawn point.”
What the hell just happened?
----
“I’ve got a read on where they’re coming from.” It had been about 15 minutes since Tony and Spider-Man had arrived, and although Rhodey wouldn’t admit it he was getting a little dinged up being the only one actually going hand-to-hand with these things. “It looks like there’s some sort of machinery underneath Roosevelt and 147th that’s pumping them out. Hopefully if I can shut it down there will be a kill switch for these robo-assholes.”
“Ya know, I could probably come in handy right about now.”
“Nope, too dangerous. Plus, engineering's my thing, remember?”
“Okay so pull up the feed from my suit and walk me through it.”
Rhodey wasn’t sure why Tony was so reluctant to let Spider-guy help but he was ready for this to be over and, like it or not, the Spider was their best course of action. “He’s right Tones, your suit might not be as bulky as mine but it’s still gonna be a tight fit down there.”
Tony was silent for a moment. “I don’t like it.”
“I mean I’m not particularly thrilled about wading around in a sewer either,” Even through the terrible voice modulation Rhodey could tell that Spider-Man was actually pumped about getting to be apart of the action. “But it’s the best plan we’ve got.”
“Fine,” Tony was clearly less enthusiastic, “but you do exactly as I say, and that includes getting out if I determine it’s too dangerous.”
“You got it, Mr. Stark.”
Mr. Stark?
----
“Found it!”
Tony had finally joined Rhodey fighting the robots but he was also splitting his attention attempting to guide Spider-dude through the sewers. Apparently he could pull up live video feed from the guy’s suit into his own. Rhodey knew that Tony had been helping the vigilante out here-and-there but he hadn’t realized just how protective his friend had gotten over Queen’s personal superhero.
“Don’t celebrate just yet Spider-Man, we still have to figure out how to shut these things down.”
“What am I looking for exactly?”
“I don’t know. Big red button. Giant switch labeled OFF.”
Rhodey grunted as he grabbed the nearest robot and threw it at one charging him, effectively stopping them both.
“Can’t I just destroy it?”
He repulsor blasted another, sending it crashing into the nearest building.
“That would stop it from making new ones but we have no guarantee it would stop the ones already up here. And we have no way of knowing how many are still in the sewers making their way further out.”
God he really wished these things weren’t bulletproof, this was just getting annoying.
“A simple no would have sufficed.”
“Think of it as a teaching moment. Wait! What’s that?” Rhodey noticed Tony stopped fighting beside him and had to blast a robot that was about to charge into his friend since he was clearly too distracted to notice.
“Looks like a control panel!”
“Alright Spider-Man, find the one that says off and get out of there.” Tony seemed content with that and turned back to the fight.
“Got it-” Spider-Man’s exclamation was cut off by guttural scream.
Tony stopped in his tracks. “Spider-Man report! Spider-Man?” Tony was in the air in an instant flying to where Spider-Man had gone underground. “Kid?!” Rhodey could hear the panic in his best friend's voice and made to follow him. “Peter, I swear to God, answer me right now.”
Wait, Peter?
“Wait, Peter?!” Rhodey flew faster, dammit if he was going to let the kid get hurt on his watch.
“I’m here, I’m fine, one of them snuck up on me is all. They should be off now.” Sure enough down on the street the robots started to shudder and fall, littering the pavement.
“Really, you’re fine? Because Karen is telling me you have a laceration of your side and two cracked ribs.” No wonder Tony had been trying to keep Spider-Man out of the fight, Rhodey had seen how he was with Peter.
“Like I said, it snuck up on me.” Tony and Rhodey landed in time to see Peter pulling himself out of the manhole, and sure enough, there was a gash on his left side that looked to reach from bellybutton to hipbone. Rhodey wasn’t sure how Peter was standing right now, let alone snarking back at Tony.
“Yeah, sure. I’m taking you to medical.” Tony was obviously not in the snarking mood. Rhodey had never seen his friend quite this paternal.
“No, Mr. Stark!” Peter whined. Full on whined, like a child protesting eating their vegetables.
Tony elected to ignore him, “You can handle this, right Rhodey?” Tony didn’t wait for his response as he picked the kid up by his armpits a flew off to the tower.
Rhodey wasn’t sure how he missed it, but his best friend had turned into a dad. He had a gut feeling that he was really hoping was wrong right about now.
----
It took about an hour and a half to get clean-up underway enough that Rhodey felt okay leaving, he might have stayed longer had it not been for the kid currently lying in Stark Tower’s medical wing.
FRIDAY guided him to one of the private practice rooms and unlocked the door so he could enter. Stepping into the room he noticed two things. One, Peter had changed out of his suit and now looked so much like a normal kid that the thought of him risking his life day in and day out was actually painful. And two, Tony was sitting at his bedside combing his fingers through Peter’s hair, only worsening the feeling in Rhodey’s gut.
“Hey, Spider-Man.”
“Hey, Col. Rhodes.” Peter gave Rhodey a shy look, and it was hard for the Colonel to connect this sweet kid with the quipping vigilante from the battlefield.
“Not that I would expect you to,” Tony spoke softly from his spot on Peter’s bed, “but no telling the kids identity. He likes it a secret, and I can’t say I disagree.”
Rhodey sighed, this needed to be confronted now. “Yeah about that, Tony, can I talk to you for a second?”
“Sure,” Tony eyed him questioningly but stood from his perch before turning back to Peter and giving his leg a reassuring pat. “We’ll be back in a sec, bud.”
The two men left the room and walked about halfway down the hall before Rhodey stopped, pulling them into an empty room.
Rhodey tried to make his posture as open as possible, he didn’t want Tony feeling interrogated and closing up on him. “Okay, Tony, be real with me - is he yours?”
“What?” The blatant confusion on Tony’s face probably would have been amusing in any other situation. “No, God, Rhodey, he’s not my kid.”
Tony made to push past him but Rhodey grabbed his arm, effectively stopping him from leaving the conversation. “I’m sorry, genius level intellect, big brown doe eyes, superhero with self-sacrifice complex - no clue where I got that idea from.”
Tony sighed, “I’m just his mentor, Rhodey.”
Rhodey searched his friend’s face, looking for any tell that he might be lying. Finding none, he dropped Tony’s arm. “Fine, he’s not yours, but then why are you mentoring a teenage superhero, instead of, I don’t know, sending him home to his Aunt to live like a normal kid.” He needed Tony to realize how serious this was. “You gave him a suit, Tones.”
Tony met his stare, somehow both confident and conflicted. “He was running around being an idiot well before I found him, I’m just protecting him. Trust me, I’d be more than happy if he decided to hang-up the hero gig, but he’s stubborn as hell. At least this way I can make sure he’s safe.”
“He’s 16, Tony.”
“Yeah, and he can catch a bus with his bare hands.” Tony’s posture deflated, it was evident he’d had this fight with himself before and had come to a conclusion he didn’t necessarily like. “He’s not like us, Rhodey. He doesn’t just have a suit and a flair for dramatics, he’s enhanced. He can’t just take off his armor and be a kid, he’s got abilities and for some reason, he thinks that means he needs to use them to save people.”
“He’s enhanced? Like Wanda?”
Tony sighed, he seemed to be doing that a lot lately. “Yeah, except he didn’t sign up for experimentation. He got bit by a fucked up spider and woke up with powers, hence the persona.” He paused, smirking. “Also, I should let you know that one of his powers is enhanced hearing and he has most definitely heard this entire conversation.”
Rhodey rolled his eyes, “For God’s sake.”
Tony laughed as Rhodey smacked him upside the head on his way out the door.
The two made their way back to Peter’s room, Rhodey didn’t bother asking FRIDAY to alert the kid. Apparently, he could hear them coming, so what’s the point?
“So you heard all that?” Rhodey raised an accusatory eyebrow at the teen.
Peter gave a weary smile, “Sorry, these rooms aren’t very soundproof.”
Rhodey just shook his head in response. “So who else knows about you?”
“Um, Mr. Stark, obviously, my Aunt May, and my best friend Ned. I think one of my other friends might know, but she hasn’t said anything so I’m not sure.”
“MJ knows?” Tony spoke from where he had retaken his position at Peter’s bed.
“Possibly? She’s kinda hard to read.”
“God, kid, it’s a miracle your whole school doesn’t know.”
Tony sounded so much like a tired dad Rhodey had to stop himself from laughing at his friend’s anguish. He decided instead it would probably be best to move the conversation along. “So what other abilities do you have?”
“Super hearing, strength, I stick to stuff now, I can like, climb buildings and stuff, before the bite I had asthma and needed glasses but I don’t now, that probably comes with the accelerated healing. Which, by the way,” the boy turned from Rhodey to give his mentor a pointed look, “means I’m probably good to go. I don’t know why I’m still here, the cut’s gone, you can’t even tell I got hit!”
“Uh-uh kid, you know the rules, you can’t leave until Cho gives the okay.”
Peter flopped back onto the bed, turning his head to give Rhodey a pleading look. “Colonel Rhodes, help me, I’m being kept against my will. You’re trained for hostage situations, right?”
Rhodes barked out a laugh at that, “My God, you two are precious. Ya know, Tones I’m a little offended you hid your kid from me for so long.”
Tony groaned, “I told you, he’s not mine.”
“Oh no,” Rhodey smirked, “you may not be his father, but you are definitely his dad.”
The look of confusion from before was back and Rhodey was correct, it was hilarious. “Those words don’t mean anything, you’re losing your mind, Pumpkin.”
Rhodey laughed, “Whatever you say, Peter knows what I’m talking about.” Sure enough, Peter was bright red and looking anywhere but Tony.
“Kid?” Tony’s head whipped back around to Peter as if betrayed.
“Welp, Uncle Rhodey’s gonna leave you two to have some bonding time,” He let out one last laugh at the pair in front of him before reaching for the door. “Feel better Peter.”