Chapter Text
It starts with a crazy coincidence along Garden State Parkway. Tony is cruising from Atlantic City back to New York. It’s Friday evening, late, dark, drizzling rain, the road is almost empty. Up ahead, he spots the silhouette of a lone figure walking, hood up. He turns when Tony gets closer, lifts a hopeful thumb.
Tony has never in his life picked up a hitchhiker and he isn’t about to start today. Especially one who isn’t even carrying a backpack. That just screams ‘recently escaped convict’.
Until the headlights of Tony’s car hit the boy’s pale face, and…
Holy shit. That’s Peter Parker.
He needs one more second to process that and then slams the brakes. The car comes to a grinding halt, the seatbelt catching him. He belatedly checks his rearview mirror for cars coming up from behind. Then he swings his arm around the passenger seat, puts the car in reverse and hightails it back to where the boy is standing with his arm still half-raised. He rolls the window down. Peter’s mouth hangs open. “Wow. Love the enthusiasm!” He steps closer and leans down. “That’s a nice— Holy shit. You’re Tony Stark!”
Tony pushes his sunglasses down. “You want a ride?”
“For real?”
“For realsies.”
Peter fumbles with the doorhandle and slides into the seat. “Thank you, sir!” He pulls his hood back, grins brightly, wipes his face with his sleeve. The rain isn’t too bad, but who knows how long the kid has been walking.
Tony turns up the heat, then tugs at his own seatbelt with a meaningful look. “Click it or ticket, kid.”
His unexpected passenger buckles up. “Thank you for stopping,” he says. “This is… I can’t believe this.”
Tony seconds that.
“My name’s Peter, by the way.”
“Right.” He swerves back onto the road. Peter Parker. Spider-Man. Tony sniffed out his identity only a few weeks ago and has been stalking him from a distance ever since, going back and forth and back and forth on whether he should confront the kid, figure out his deal, strike a deal on his webfluid. It’s been a very welcome distraction from the perfect storm of incompetence that is the rest of his life right now.
This is a sign. It has to be.
“How was your day, sir?” Peter asks brightly.
“Below par. Where you headed?”
“New York. Preferably Queens, but anywhere in that direction is fine. Beggars can’t be choosers and stuff.”
Queens. 20 Ingram Street. Tony has this kid’s home address ingrained in his brain. Which is a miracle, because he doesn’t even remember what he had for breakfast this morning. Something crunchy.
Peter is wriggling his feet out of his shoes, like he is at a friend’s house where he has been a million times before. “I read articles about you this week.”
“Terrific.” He tries to sound chipperly, casual. Tony’s private life has been splashed across the front pages of every tabloid in existence in the past week. When he and Pepper decided to take a break on their relationship, they had hoped to keep it quiet, secure themselves some space to breathe and think. He isn’t sure who snitched, but tabloids were squealing about their break-up within twenty-four hours. Privacy is not a privilege he has ever had.
“Yeah.” Peter draws one leg up and wraps his arms around it. “One was about the green technology grant you got for new battery storage designs. And the other was an interview where you explained your idea for AI-powered generators in every home. I really liked that one, because I once built an AI thermostat for my uncle to save money on the electricity bill.”
Oh. Those articles.
“What are you working on right now? Like, what is the coolest thing you’re working on?”
“Nothing. Hit a bit of an engineering block.” He feels an itch to build and create, but nothing is getting off the ground. He’s been lacking focus, flow. Pepper.
“We can’t have that, Mr. Stark,” Peter says, almost sternly. “Do you want me to pitch ideas? I have millions of them, and some of them aren’t even stupid.”
“I bet.” Tony wouldn’t mind picking the brain that created Spider-Man’s webshooters. He has been meandering, aimless, accepting random invitations from companies, universities, and local governments in the hopes of somehow stumbling upon something compelling. He drove to Atlantic city today to see their plans for an offshore wind farm and found the entire experience mind-numbingly tedious. But this… this does pique his interest.
“I want to build a wheelchair that can climb stairs.”
Tony huffs out a laugh.
“You know,” Peter tugs up his socks until the heels align with his heels and order is restored, “when I’m feeling uninspired, I usually find that the problem is pressure, and I need to pretend like no one in the world is going to see what I’m doing.”
“That’s a real Dalai Lama sales pitch. You’re like a… a walking fortune cookie.”
“Hah. Walking fortune cookies. Another great engineering idea.”
They drive on, New York skyscrapers looming in the distance, and against all odds this short final stretch of highway turns into the most interesting part of Tony’s day. Peter talks about robots with a sense of smell, and lamps that can cure allergies, and Tony remembers that feeling of coming up with crazy concepts, the eureka moments, and feeling the freedom to just go ham with it.
“Anywhere here is fine,” Peter says as the tunnel spits them out in Manhattan where neon signs reflect brightly against wet roads. He wriggles his feet back into his shoes. “Thank you so much, I still can’t— None of my friends are going to believe me.” And yet, he doesn’t even ask for a selfie.
“I really don’t mind swinging by Queens.”
“I can’t possibly take up more of famous Tony Stark’s time. You have polar bears to save. Look, there’s a parking spot right there, you could just…”
If he doesn’t speak up now, it will be a hundred times harder to do it later. He slows the car down and turns it almost diagonally into the parking space, one wheel hitting the curb. He turns in his seat. Peter already opens his mouth, no doubt to thank him once again, but Tony cuts him off. “Listen. I’m gonna say something that will freak you out. Keep your shirt on, okay?”
Peter’s smile wavers.
“I know you’re Spider-Man.”
Peter’s smile drops away entirely. His face becomes difficult to read. Slowly without breaking eye contact, his hand goes for the doorhandle; like he is backing away from a wild animal.
“Don’t panic. Same team, right?”
“I don’t know,” Peter says slowly. “This is a real, uh, supervillain scenario right here. Have you been following me around?”
“No, not at all. Just some minor online stalking.” He holds his thumb and index finger close together to show exactly how minor. “But today was a complete coincidence.”
“Online stalking.”
“My girlfriend left me a week ago. So I cannot technically be blamed for anything illegal I did since then. I’m a victim of circumstance.”
“Is that how it works?” Peter is smiling again, at least. His hand drops away from the door handle. “And what did you find out?”
“Spider-Man loves mango milkshakes from the East River Sugar Shack. He can often be seen relaxing on top of the North Shore Towers. And he was spotted visiting the grave of a Nancy Thurwatcher no less than three times this month. Who is she?”
“Questions, questions,” Peter says, crossing his arms with a smirk. “At least buy me dinner first, Mr. Stark. Or a mango milkshake.”
“I think your tech is pretty cool. But if we worked on it together, it would be even cooler.”
“Together. What does that mean?”
“If you swing by the tower tomorrow, I can pitch a few ideas.”
Peter laughs, but it comes out a little weird. His eyes are dancing around Tony’s face. He is clearly not sure what to make of the situation.
Tony clears his throat and leans back. “You know what. I’m overassertive. I know. It was probably number six on the list of reasons why my girlfriend walked out.” He pats his pocket. “Let me just, uh, give you my number, and you can think it over. And if you never drop me a message, no hard feelings. I’m thick-skinned, I think I can get over being ghosted by a teenager. And please let me drive you home. Queens is still miles away. I know your address too, by the way. I’m happy to swing by Ingram Street and drop you off on the doorstep.”
“I think I’m gonna go to my girlfriend’s place, actually.”
“Whatever you need. Give me a street name, miss Daisy, and I’ll drive.”
Peter takes a breath in, but then pauses, before finally saying: “You’re really nice.” He says it like it’s a surprising fun fact he just learned about jellyfish or something. “And, no. I mean, just give me a second to process all this. I was still processing that I was even in the same car as you to begin with. Are you actually inviting me to come to Avengers Tower tomorrow?”
Tony gives a shrug. He doesn’t see how it’s a big deal. “You’re Spider-Man.”
“That would be… That would be awesome.”
-
He has 3287 unread emails. Probably number four on the list of reasons why Pepper walked out on him. He listlessly scrolls through the latest arrivals under the dim light of his bedside table lamp.
We need your signatures on—
Please find attached my notes from today’s—
I remind you once again that—
Tony, What the hell am I supposed to do with—
There is a feeling he can’t name, buzzing right underneath his skin. Pepper used to talk him through the most important changes and decisions made in the company, every evening before going to bed. Without her, he has literally no idea where to even start. It feels physically impossible to open a single email.
Because he is absolutely terrible at doing what he is told.
His work has always given him gratification. He really should push himself to engage with it more, fit back into the company, find his focus. That’s how he’ll get back into that flow he loves, instead of… whatever he is doing now— bobbing face down in the duckweed. Somewhere within these emails lies his most primal drive to invent, create, improve, share with the world. He just needs to find it again.
Tomorrow.
-
Peter is supposed to come by at eleven. Tony makes sure to be up well in time, at a prompt 10:52. He shrugs into the same clothes he wore yesterday. He’ll shave tomorrow, he thinks as he rubs his chin.
The space he carved out for himself at Avengers Tower is smaller than people would probably expect from him. His bedroom shares a wall with the open kitchen, and he perks up when he hears FRIDAY turn on the coffee maker. “Good, good, good,” he mutters to himself, and attempts to flatten his hair as he follows the scent of freshly ground beans.
He is on his second cup when he watches the sign above the elevator light up. An arrow indicating someone on their way up. He leans his hip against the counter and waits.
The doors slide open, revealing two people. Peter is smiling brightly. Happy is scowling deeply. When their eyes land on Tony, that smile widens and that scowl deepens.
Peter shuffles forward. “Hi, Mr. Stark!” He is wearing a coat this time. And carries an offensively bright neon-yellow backpack that seems to make his forehead of security want to squint whenever he looks Peter’s way.
“Tony,” Happy says stiffly. “This young man claims to have been invited by you personally.” Tony has learned to read Happy’s expressions. That one is disapproval, and it’s highly familiar.
“Peter is helping me out in the workshop today.”
“Why?”
“Uh.” Tony has enough presence of mind not to carelessly throw Peter’s alternative identity around. “He won a competition.”
Happy’s expression flickers, grows tense. “I did not approve any competition that included a trip to Avengers Tower.”
“Okay. Well. If we had theoretically organized a competition, he would definitely have won it. He’s got good ideas. So, I invited him.”
“Why wasn’t I informed?”
“I don’t know. I can’t just invite people? I’m not four years old, Happy.”
“When we went over our safety regulations, once again I might add, earlier this month—"
Tony waves a hand. “Don’t. Ugh. Happy, don’t start. That meeting traumatized me.”
“Yeah, no kidding. You threw a tantrum like I’ve never seen before. Have you informed him of the standard protocol for guests at the tower?”
“I… What’s our standard protocol?”
Happy glowers at him. “I will be running a background check.”
“Okay,” Tony says, voice instantly dripping with cynicism. “Good job protecting me from the scary teenager.”
“What are you planning to do in the workshop?”
“Build stuff.”
“Like what?” Happy pushes.
A self destruct button for the whole tower, Tony wants to say, just to be petty.
“Walking fortune cookies,” Peter says instead.
Happy narrows his eyes.
“Yeah,” Tony agrees. “What the kid said. And a wheelchair that can climb stairs.”
“Tony.” That’s the dangerous voice. Usually, it would mean be careful or I’ll involve Pepper, but Happy no longer has that threat in his back pocket.
“Look, Hap, I don’t know. We’re gonna be freestyling.”
Happy purses his lips, then changes angles. “You weren’t at the shareholders meeting.”
“At our… When was that?”
“It just ended. Ronda says people are concerned about the benchmarks on your latest hydrogen fuel project. They’ve seen very little tangible progress.”
Ronda always was Pepper’s second in command and has now taken over her job. A job that mostly involves appeasing board members and shareholders. Usually by attempting to glue the snippets of concrete work Tony provides here and there into a coherent story that seems like it has a sensible plan behind it. “Oh. Yeah,” Tony says. “I’ll get right on that.”
“Great,” Happy says, with a face like he doesn’t believe it for a second. An entirely correct assumption on his part. “As for the kid, very well, I suppose he can stay until four, which is when I’m clocking off, as you’ll remember, so I can drive to the airport to pick up—"
“Yeah, yeah, we all know about your exceptional doctors-without-borders-girlfriend.”
-
“Woah. Messy,” Peter says as his gaze drifts around the workshop.
Tony splutters. “Excuse me? I was looking for something a bit closer to awed reverence. Look at that atomic absorption spectrophotometer. Top of the line. Not even on the shelves yet!”
“There’s a banana peel on it.”
“Fine, I see your point. Probably number nine on the list of reasons why my girlfriend walked out. Did you bring your suit?”
“Yeah,” Peter says, and tugs at the straps of his yellow backpack.
“Whip it out, let’s get cracking.”
Peter doesn’t seem to be in as much of a hurry. He takes the banana peel off the spectrophotometer and chucks it in a nearby trashcan. “At least you’re eating fruit, I guess.” He pulls his sleeve further down and uses it to wipe the banana smudges away.
“Happy made me eat that. It was traumatizing, bananas are gross. The texture is way off. Like chewing on a turd.”
Peter pulls a face at him, then lets the backpack slide off his shoulders and places it on a nearby workbench before turning away again.
“Phew,” Tony says, unzipping it. “Smart move on that choice of color, kid. A great way to stop it from getting stolen. Anyone who looks directly at this backpack for too long will go blind.” He pulls out the suit, tests the fabric between his fingers. It looks as basic up close as it had on all the camera footage. The webshooters are something, though. Tony picks two up, lets them roll around in the palm of his hand. “Is there a spring system in— Kid, would you stop doing that?”
Peter turns to look up at him. He is holding a crushed can in one hand and an empty crisp packet in the other.
“I didn’t bring you here to clean. Is there a spring system in these?”
Peter grabs an empty paper cup. “Like, a latch mechanism, I guess.” He grabs some scrunched up pieces of paper. “That was, like, one of my first ever engineering obsessions, trying to find out how a ballpoint pen works, you know, clicking it.” He grabs a napkin. “The shooters are heavily inspired by that. I really like pens.”
“Peter. Stop cleaning.”
“Oh, I’m charging for this,” Peter says. “I’m like a very expensive mechanic. It’s triple time to do house calls on the weekend, you know.” He gives a grin. “And I’m sorry, Mr. Stark, but you and Virginia Potts were always my OTP. So if cleaning this place gets you two back together…”
“I’ll get charged for child labor. Papzz are always trying to find something to pin on me. Don’t you go giving them ideas. Just get over here and explain these webshooters.”
Peter dumps everything he gathered into the trashcan and moves to his side. He takes one webshooter, handling it with practised ease. “It’s super multifunctional, Mr. Stark. There’s two formulas in the tubes, look, you can kinda see the difference in how shimmery they are. One is sticky, the other less sticky. I have different combinations, see these buttons? It’s my transport around the city. It helps me tie up bad guys, repair broken stuff. And this button blows it out all wide and netty, like a parachute. In case I fall from way up high and don’t have anything to latch onto.But I’ll be totally honest, I mostly use this function to make myself a hammock when I want to take a nap.”
Tony hums. “Fri. Remind me to put a hammock-feature in my suit, too.”
“Noted,” Friday says.
Peter snorts. “Sure. As long as you have a parachute.”
“Shall I add that as well, boss?” Friday asks.
“Meh.”
Peter stares, lowering the webshooter. “You… have no parachute in your suit? Mr. Stark! What if it malfunctions in midair?”
“Please. That won’t happen, because it’s Stark Tech.”
“Icarussss,” Peter says, setting the webshooter back on the table. “We are so building a parachute into your suit. Right now.”
“Wha—We’re here to look at your tech, Spidey, not mine.”
“We’ll look at my tech when yours is in order,” Peter says firmly. He shoves everything back into his backpack and closes the zipper. “Where’s your suit?”
-
“Boss,” Friday says. “Daily reminder to have lunch.”
Tony wipes his forehead with the back of his wrist, glances at his watch. They’ve been tinkering with his suit for almost two hours. Peter’s backpack lays forgotten on the workbench. When Tony is in a flow like this he generally disregards Friday’s reminders, but… “Kid. You want lunch?”
“I brought a sandwich, sir,” Peter murmurs, distracted. He has taken a soldering iron to the shoulder plates. In the new design, they can be manually unlatched in case of emergency, letting a parachute unfold.
“A sandwich?”
“Coleslaw.”
“Yeah, no,” Tony says. “Nu-uh. We don’t live on coleslaw sandwiches in my workshop. You like Greek food? Thai? Mexican? Expand your horizons a bit, for once.”
Peter looks indignant. “What makes you think I never expand my horizons?”
“I don’t know. You told me you like pens.”
“Only because a lot of them have my last name written on them. Have you heard of nominative determinism?”
“No, it sounds riveting.”
Peter smiles an indulgent smile, like Tony is a child. “I like Thai.”
“Friday, let’s make that happen.”
-
Happy returns to the workshop right as they are putting the finishing touches on Tony’s not-at-all-necessary parachute feature. His gaze wanders around the workshop. He looks displeased; more than usual, even. “Time to go,” he says brusquely, tone leaving no room for argument.
Tony tries, anyway. “He can bunk over. I have a guest room, you know.”
“Oh gosh, yes,” Peter says. “I bet you guys have the nicest showers. And a little minty chocolate on the pillow. I don’t eat mint, but it’s the thought that counts.”
“Mr. Parker,” Happy says. “Move.”
Sheesh. Rude. “Okay, you definitely owe me a rematch,” Tony says, pointing at Peter with a pair of pliers. “We didn’t even get around to your, uh, stuff. You sneaky side tracker.”
Peter says nothing to that, just smiles again. “Can I take this?” he lifts the white plastic bag with leftover Thai food.
“Afraid I’ll leave a mess, otherwise? Yeah, go ahead.”
Peter grabs the leftovers and his backpack. “This was awesome,” he says earnestly. “Thank you, sir.”
“I’ll be in touch.”
Peter smiles brightly. Happy scowls. The day has come full circle.
-
Tony puts the tools away and does a final inspection on his suit. Watches a video on how pens are made. And then he cleans up the workshop because, yeah. Doesn’t hurt. Pepper never nagged him about it, but she’s tidy, sophisticated. It probably wasn’t her favorite thing about him. Though he struggles to imagine what was her favorite thing about him.
He’s scrolling through his 3341 unread emails when Happy returns. “Tony.”
Ugh. That tone of voice again. “What now?”
“Did you actually let him work on your suit? You gave him your phone number? Tony, who the hell is that kid?”
Tony rubs his forehead and thinks about how much easier this would all be if he could tell Happy about Spider-Man. “Please tell me you didn’t turn the car ride home into an interrogation.”
Happy lifts his chin. “No. We made small talk.”
Small talk. With Happy, who has the demeanour of a drill sergeant on a good day. “Your small talk is another person’s cross-examination.”
“I’m thinking about your safety, Tony.”
“He’s, what, fifteen, Hogan!”
“Just turned sixteen, actually. He recently got his learner’s permit. See? We made small talk. He said you picked him up from the side of the road last night and that’s the first time you met. That’s insanity, Tony. Don’t get me wrong, I prefer this over binge-drinking, but I’m still gonna go ahead and label this a ‘cry for help’.”
“I’m not insane. He’s a smart kid. He’s got good ideas. I just wanted to see what he could do, you know, snatch him up before to competition gets him. Purely an economical expedient. He built a parachute into my suit today. Barely needed any direction from me to do it, too.”
Happy hums thoughtfully, finally seeming a tad less suspicious. “Pepper will appreciate that,” he says. And then his body goes still.
“Yeah. I’m sure she would have,” Tony bites out.
“Tony…”
“Never mind. Just. Are we done here?”
“Am I gonna see that kid again?”
“Probably. Can you give him a security badge or something? That gives him access to everywhere?”
“No, Tony, I cannot give some teenager a badge with access to everywhere.”
“Well, in that case you’ve just graduated to being completely useless to me. Congrats, many happy returns, go pick up your amazing girlfriend, goodbye.”
He watches Happy leave, and knows he’s being an asshole. Whatever. Happy will get over it. It’s part of his job description. Tony makes enemies easily and friends slowly.
He turns his attention to his tablet and scrolls up and down a few times. He closes his email and instead googles how to take your job more seriously. A list pops up. Number seven on that list is ‘stay humble’. Whelp. That’s a lost cause. He’ll have to try something else.
-
When he scrolls through the news the next morning, he sees a tiny article on how Spider-Man saved a man who drove his car into East River this morning at 5 AM. He would usually just skim over the title, but this time he clicks to read. And then he sends a link of the article to Happy, who has always been pretty indifferent about Spider-Man. Maybe if Tony gets him to like the super-hero, he’ll be more on board if he ever finds out…
Happy sends back a question mark.
-
He calls Peter the next evening. He can hear engines running, cars honking impatiently in the background. “You busy?”
“No I’m… just walking. Wow. You called me.”
“You owe me a rematch. I’m calling to collect. When can I expect you at the tower?”
“Uh,” Peter lets out a laugh that sounds incredulous, tentative, hopeful. “I’m…”
“Whenever, kid. Today’s fine, even.”
“Today… Mr. Stark. It’s past midnight.”
Oh. Right. It is. Tony has never been good at keeping track of time. “You still answered your phone.”
“Yeah, it’s you.”
“Well, come on. Give me a day and time. My workshop’s gotten pretty messy over the last days so I could use your cleaning expertise.”
Peter gives that particular laugh again.
“That was a joke,” Tony clarifies.
“I have school tomorrow. And the day after. The tower is pretty far from—”
“I’ll have Hogan pick you up.”
“Oh. Great,” Peter says, with something in his tone Tony can’t interpret yet.
-
Happy, looking resigned at his fate, delivers one brightly smiling Peter Parker to his kitchen the next day around four.
“I’m out of blueberries,” Tony says as he pours a second cup of coffee.
“Hello to you, too,” Happy says. “And thanks for informing me, you head of security, about your grocery wishes. I would suggest alternatives, but the last time I tried to make you eat yoghurt you practically had a meltdown, so…”
“Mr. Stark, I saw the Falcon in the lobby! I waved at him and he waved back.” Peter dumps his backpack on the table. “Do the other Avengers actually live in the tower? Why haven’t I seen them here?”
“They live one floor below me, where they belong.” Tony pushes the second cup of coffee into the kid’s hands.
“I’ve never had coffee,” Peter says, looking dubious.
“It’s an acquired taste, start acquiring.”
Happy plucks the cup out of Peter’s hands. “What are you working on today?” he asks, voice deceptively casual.
“Dunno,” Tony says. “We could build a vending machine? I’ve always wanted a vending machine down in my workshop, with all sorts of goodies. Except you don’t have to pay to get it out.”
“That’s a cupboard.” Happy says. “What you’re describing is a cupboard.”
“Okay,” Tony says. “Wanna build a cupboard with me, kid?”
Peter smiles brightly. “Only if it can climb stairs.”
Happy grumbles at them.
-
“There. Look at you go.” The large monitor against the wall is projecting the screen of Tony’s tablet. A video of Spider-Man doing breast strokes through the river. Not a common sight. “Didn’t know spiders were such good swimmers.”
“Some species of spider can walk on water,” Peter says. “Unfortunately, not a superpower I inherited. Imagine those headlines.” He pauses in front of the monitor, studying it. “That video doesn’t even match the article! The car I dragged from the river the other day was only about four inches into the water, I didn’t swim across an entire river. This is probably from last summer, when that boat got stuck under a bridge.”
“Welcome to modern day journalism,” Tony says, “where no one cares about being factually correct as long as they can make it seem like they got an exclusive.”
“There’s still good journalists out there, Mr. Stark,” Peter argues earnestly.
Tony huffs and saunters away. Last night he got another near-coronary when all news outlets were suddenly clamoring that recently single Virginia Potts already scored herself ‘a hot new date’. Until he saw the pictures and realized it was just her walking through the park with her brother.
And something else this morning is throwing him off, though he can’t figure out— Ah, yes, he thinks as he idly opens and shuts the fridge for the third time this morning. He has no blueberries. How is he supposed to function under these conditions?
“Third time in the last two weeks that someone’s car malfunctions right by that bit of boulevard,” Peter says. He’s still looking at the screen. “The streetlights were out, too. I think something around there is, like, scrambling electronic systems.”
“But Spider-Man is on the case, hm?” Tony turns his attention towards the yellow backpack on his workbench. Finally, he’ll be able to properly get his hands on—
“Mr. Stark, what’s that?” Peter sounds affronted.
Tony glances up to see the kid poking at a corner of the large screen. Not at the news article, but at the icon for Tony’s email software, showing 3482 unread emails in tiny, angry, red numbers. Tony raises a single eyebrow. “I don’t follow.”
“This… This is… All the unread emails of the entire world are in your inbox right now, Mr. Stark! We have to clean this up, or we’ll make the whole internet crash. There’s so many unread emails here, they’ll create a black hole that will gobble everything else up like a much scarier version of Kardashian’s butt. Say goodbye to ‘Charlie bit my finger’!”
“It’s my work. I’ll get around to it.”
“You’ll get around,” Peter says, “to three thousand unread emails.” There’s something about his voice. Is he mocking?
“This is my job, and I love my job.” He opens his inbox and lets his eyes drift past the latest arrivals. “Look at all these, uh, hardworking people, bringing my ideas to fruition.” He can’t bring himself to open a single email, though. Because he is absolutely terrible at doing what he is told.
“Unsubscribing from weekly newsletters would be a start.” Peter is still looking at the monitor. His eyes dance across the screen. “All your latest start-up digest emails went unread.”
“Because I don’t want to spend my evening hate-browsing other people’s inventions.”
“I see that you opened the newsletter from ‘Birdie Nest Community Orchard’, though.”
“That’s… different.” Tony taps the screen, and the newsletter with the bright red font appears on the large monitor.
“This June, we successfully released 38 healthy captive-bred Marsh rice rats,” Peter cites. “Aw. Cute.”
“Yes,” Tony says. “Cute.”
Peter holds out an impervious hand. “Can I unsubscribe you from start-up digest?”
Tony hands over the tablet. “I’ll allow it.”
-
By the time Happy returns to the workshop to drive Peter home, Peter has filtered through all of Tony’s emails, sorted them into folders by year, unsubscribed him from several newsletters and deleted those emails. He spent the entire time mumbling ‘my god, oh my god’ under his breath.
Tony’s inbox now has 2743 unread emails.
Tony has still barely touched the Spider-Man suit, and didn’t get to eat a single blueberry.
-
Peter start sending him messages about his Spider-Man missions. Stuff about lost dogs and trash cans and burritos. And today, a vehement promise that he’s still looking into that little patch of road by East River where cars keep malfunctioning.
Yeah, good job, kid Tony sends back absent-mindedly. He crashed on the sofa in his workshop, one hand around the neck of a bottle. It has been two weeks since he last saw Pepper, and this morning Ronda asked him for updates on his latest projects, painfully reminding Tony that he doesn’t have any to give her. He is most definitely not going to today’s board-meeting-slash-dog-and-pony-show, just so he can cringe through her attempts to make it seem like he’s still got a functioning brain in his noggin. And the kid’s incessant messages keep distracting him from his number one job for today: wallowing in self-pity.
He should have given him Happy’s number instead.
Drinking won’t fix anything, he thinks, and he takes another swig.
-
Before he knows it, Peter is around again. He brings apples. “Know what these are, Mr. Stark?” he asks, holding one up, eyes sparkling with mischief. Definitely mocking; Tony is starting to recognize it.
“Very funny. You sound like my ex. She has similar issues with my lifestyle.”
Peter’s eyes stray to the empty bottle of mother’s ruin on the table in front of him. “Does she.”
Tony points. “That was already half-empty before today.”
“Half, huh?” Peter takes the bottle away. Tony lays his head back and listens to the kid rummaging around the workshop, glass clinking against glass. A door opening. More rummaging. And then a godawful unholy sound that has Tony groaning in protest and rolling over, craning his neck to find the source.
Peter has taken out a vacuum cleaner. He yanks it along and goes all around the shabby sofa Tony is lying on. Tony buries his head under his arms.
The sound finally dies away.
“Oh my god,” Tony immediately complains. “Can’t a guy have a meltdown in peace? Never had a hangover?”
“I’m sixteen!”
“Your point being?”
“Eat your apple,” Peter says. “I’ll get you some coffee, too. No — it’s too late for coffee. I’ll get you some water.” His footsteps die away.
Tony must have fallen asleep, because the next thing he knows, he blinks up at a ceiling that is tinted orange from the sun streaming in. Morning sun? Evening sun? Someone threw a blanket over him — the navy-blue checkered one he has had since he was a kid — and wriggled off his shoes, left a glass of water on the table.
That someone is sitting at a nearby workbench, peering through a microscope.
“Watcha doing?” Tony asks. Peter jolts in his seat. He leans back a little, giving Tony an appraising look. Apparently satisfied with what he sees, he turns back to the microscope. “I’ve studied my webfluid through a microscope before, but not through one this good!”
“Lemme have a peek.” Tony rolls off the couch and shuffles closer. Peter leans to one side and Tony squints through the microscope. The nanostructure of the webfluid shows a setae-like texture that definitely explains how it can manage to be so adhesive. “Hey, you patented this yet, kid?”
“If I do that, I might as well unmask myself on the evening news. Anonymous patents don’t exist.”
“Point taken.” Tony rubs his chin. Winces a bit at the rough, sandpaper feeling. “Hey. I’m gonna have a quick shower. And a shave.”
“Sure.”
“It’s not, uh. I don’t have a drinking problem or anything. I just took a day. And I forgot you’d be coming by.”
Peter looks up at him with a small frown. “It’s okay, Mr. Stark. I mean. It’s your house.”
Tony retreats back to his room, showers, towels himself off, looks in the mirror and slaps himself roughly on the cheeks a few times. He could probably find a way to let Peter have his anonymous patent, he thinks as he turns on his razor. He could call in some favors.
Refreshed, he steps back into the bedroom. He finds a clean undershirt and kicks the old one into a corner. He pokes his hands through the sleeves of a navy-blue blouse and opens his bedroom, and Happy is right there, looming in the hallway.
“Jesus,” Tony stumbles back, clutches his chest. “Give a man a warning, Hogan!”
“Peter is down in the workshop,” Happy says without preamble. “Without supervision.”
“I thought we were past this. Didn’t you run your background check? Is he a dangerous ex-convict? You know, most people start a conversation with a ‘hello’.”
“I’ve literally never heard you say ‘hello’. You greeted me the other day by listing the symptoms for a heart attack.”
“I had a health scare, and you jumping out at me every time I open a door isn’t helping.” Tony pushes past him, still buttoning up his blouse.
Happy starts following him. “I thought you hated kids.”
“I do, but he’s smart. I can put up with him for a little while. For science.”
“Did he stay the night? How long has he been here?”
“I, uh, lost track a bit. What day is it?”
“Saturday, early morning,” Happy says through gritted teeth. “And you missed another board meeting.”
“Saturday morning. Perfect. Go get us some breakfast. Something crunchy.”
“Tony—”
“Chop, chop.” Tony wafts at him and picks up his own pace.
Peter is still more or less where Tony left him; peering through a microscope. The canisters of web-fluid are gone, though.
“Mr. Hogan came in, suddenly,” Peter says. “Looking all ominous. I hid my webshooters, like, super-fast.”
Tony shakes a hand through his still-damp hair. “I sent him out to get us breakfast. But we should make a plan to get that man to like you.”
Peter turns away from the microscope. “I’m all ears.”
“Bribery is always step one. Get him a one-hundred-dollar gift card from Dunkin’ donuts.”
“Okay. Can I borrow ninety-eight dollars?”
Tony snorts. “I’ll sort something out.”
“I could have made us breakfast, Mr. Stark,” Peter says. “I’m really good at making poached eggs, you like poached eggs?”
“I don’t know. Is it gross? I don’t like gross food. Texture is important. I need breakfast food that crunches.”
“We can put it on toast. You know how to make a poached egg? I’ll teach you, sometime. The trick is to add a little vinegar.”
-
Later, after Peter has gone home, Tony pours out every bottle of liquor he has left into the sink and orders a hundred-dollar gift card from Dunkin’ Donuts.
-
“D’you think we should try to contact him?” Sam asks.
They’re in the elevator together, and Sam is shamelessly breathing into Tony’s ear and gawking over his shoulder at the screen of his phone. Another article about Spider-Man. He was spotted visiting the grave of Nancy Thurwatcher again. FRIDAY never found a single connection between Peter Parker and this mysterious lady. Tony doesn’t like loose ends.
“I can smell what you had for dinner two days ago, Wilson,” he says.
Sam laughs, like he thinks Tony is kidding, but he does relax back against the side of the elevator and Tony feels the muscles in his back untense a smidgen.
“We’re all having dinner together tonight,” Sam says. “Clint’s in town. Wanna join? Nat is cooking, which will be a guaranteed disaster.”
“You make it sound so appetizing.” Tony has never been good at knowing when he isn’t wanted, so he usually plays it safe and assumes it’s ‘always’.
“You joining us?”
There are two things Tony hates more than anything. The first is not being given a choice in what food he eats. The second is average-sized groups of people. He can deal with crowds; they’re easy to become invisible in. He can deal with one or two people. But average-sized groups are just plain unnatural, to the point where Tony is convinced that Archeologists will discover sooner or later that prehistoric hunter-gatherers never lived in groups as widely presumed, but each walked the earth alone.
“Stark?” Sam says.
He breathes out and puts his phone away. “Sorry. I was thinking about hunter-gatherers. No, you don’t need to contact Spider-Man.”
“That wasn’t my last question.”
“Well, it was one of them.”
“We practically live together, it seems weird that you never join us for dinner. You know you’re welcome anytime, right?”
He has never been invited before, though. Is it pity, because Pepper is gone? It’s hard to tell. Tony hasn’t yet learned to read Wilson’s expressions.
“Hunter-gatherers make for great conversation,” Wilson continues. Okay. Definitely teasing.
“You’re all cavemen, so I suppose it would.”
Sam throws his head back and laughs, and a moment later the elevator doors mercifully slide open on the Avengers’ floor. “Welcome anytime,” he repeats, and strolls out.
Dodged a bullet.
-
Peter becomes bolder and more resolute about handling Tony’s affairs. “Why are you even getting all these emails,” he says with a frown as he swipes through Tony’s tablet. “This— Please find attached the notes from today’s PR meeting. Do you like PR, sir?”
Tony is face down on the couch in his workshop, one hand grazing the floor as he churlishly reflects on his life choices and the pitiful state of the world in general. “What’s that stand for, again?”
Peter sends him a look that Tony can’t read yet. “Why are they emailing you their notes if you don’t want read them?”
“Well, see, I’m sort of in charge of everything. The head honcho. The top banana.”
“You have thousands of unread emails. But the company is still functioning, right?”
“As far as I know. I don’t talk to people a lot. But our company Instagram account is doing excellent.”
“So apparently they don’t actually need you for most of this. Can’t you just… I don’t know, I’m not a manager type. But can’t you just tell people to sort out their own shit without cc’ing you about every time they fart?”
Tony gives an empty, huffed laugh. “It’s my job. And I love my job. My work makes me happy. I just gotta… gotta get back into it. I’m in a slump. This is the whole reason why I keep inviting you up here, so I can look at your tech and get inspired! And you keep sidetracking the whole thing. If you really think about it, if Stark Industries goes belly-up, it’s your fault.”
Peter’s mouth quirks into a smile. “My apologies.”
Tony rubs his eyes. “I got you that gift card for Dunkin Donuts, by the way. It’s by my keyboard.”
He really needs Happy to get on board with this thing, so he can go back to glaring at Tony about all the other stuff he disapproves of.
“I’m sorry,” Happy had said when Tony complained about it again this morning. “Am I not being friendly enough for a security guard? You want me to hold the kid’s hand and do a little jig together and work out a secret handshake?”
“Oh my god,” Tony said. “Yes, to all of that.”
-
Peter is starting to become a part of his décor, his presence in the workshop becomes habitual, his stream of messages about his Spider-Man missions are annoying but somehow also comforting because they are regular like clockwork. Tony likes having things that he can count on.
He tries to remember to eat whenever the kid is around. Dinner in the evenings, breakfast on weekend days when they’ve lost track of time and accidentally stay up all night. He is also trying his hardest to get the kid addicted to coffee like a normal person, whenever Happy isn’t looking.
Peter shows him how to poach eggs one morning, and how to make macarons another.
“Those are essentially two of the hardest things to cook,” Happy says with a scoff when he sees the state of the kitchen afterwards. “You couldn’t have started Tony off with pancakes?”
“We’ll do pancakes next,” Peter says.
“I’m here to take you home.”
“But we—”
“Move, Mr. Parker.”
There are days in the kitchen, but most days are spent in the workshop. They add a hammock feature to the Iron Man suit and a new webshooter combination to the Spider-Man suit, they compare the mechanics of different pens, and Peter sorts through his emails. “Don’t worry. I won’t touch your subscription to the Birdie Nest Community Orchard.”
Tony tends to forget if he even invited the kid or if he just shows up; not that it matters much to him.
It matters to Happy, though. He comes into the workshop one evening and snatches Tony’s tablet out of Peter’s hands like he caught his puppy chewing on his favorite shoe. Happy turns his glower on Tony. “What are you doing?”
“Cleaning!” Tony says, because wonder of wonders, he is. With honest-to-god soap and everything. He doesn’t understand Happy’s problem: this kid very clearly has a good influence on him.
“Are you letting him answer you emails?” Happy asks. He is beginning to sound not just annoyed but exasperated.
“I think he can take over the company when I retire. Effective next Monday.”
Peter chuckles.
Happy doesn’t. “And did you throw out all your whiskey? Some of those bottles were worth hundreds of dollars, you couldn’t have given some to me?”
“If I buy you some good whiskey, will you leave us alone?”
“I’m here to take the kid home.”
Peter makes grabby hands for the tablet. “But Mr. Stark still has unread—"
Happy holds it out of his reach. “Mr. Parker. Move.”
-
“Listen,” Happy says when he returns. “As nice as it is to see you taking someone under your wing—”
“I think it’s far more accurate to say he’s taken me under his wing.” Tony is going around his workshop with a feather duster that he apparently owns.
Happy follows him around as he swipes the dust of his printer, his microscope, Dum-E. “Tony, do you know anything at all about that boy?”
“I know he likes pens.”
“Tony—"
Tony turns to him and pokes him with the feather duster. “Seriously. What do you have against the kid?”
“I have nothing against him. I’m worried.”
“He’s not a corporate spy.”
“That’s not what I’m worried about.”
“I have 257 unread emails. That’s two five seven, Hogan.”
“I don’t follow.”
“My point is, lay off him. He is my emotional-support teenager, which is a legally recognized thing, my therapist said so, and I think it’s really, uh, inappropriate for you to try and stop my healing process and cancel my therapy.”
“But don’t you think—”
“I want tacos for dinner. Crunchy. Chop chop.”
-
Peter is there again on Saturday. Tony is pretty sure he invited him, this time. He makes the kid pancakes for dinner. He actually created food with his bare hands, using nothing but flour, eggs and willpower. Or perhaps ‘desperation’ is a better description.
“Not bad for a first time,” Peter says as he chomps one down. “Can’t we invite your, uh, room—roommates, Avengers people for dinner sometime? It would be so awesome to meet them.”
“I’m not having dinner with a bunch of cavemen.”
Peter looks disappointed. “Aren’t you guys all friends? Like, all together in a whatsapp group. Sharing memes and gossip.”
“Gossip,” Tony breathes, disgusted. “Yep. They no doubt have a group together. Imagine the brainless tripe I’d be exposed to if I were a part of it.”
“You have an arrogance issue,” Peter informs him casually.
“I’m pretty self-loathing, actually.”
“Arrogance and self-loathing are not opposites; they go hand in hand.”
“All right, fortune cookie. My bad attitude keeps me young, you know.”
They go to the workshop where Tony sits down to take a look at Dum-E. His arm seems to have lost full mobility after a recent over-enthusiastic fire extinguisher incident.
Peter kicks off his shoes, plugs in his own phone charger, stretches out on the sofa, grabs Tony’s tablet to dig through his inbox. He looks entirely at home here, everything he does is done with practiced ease. “Let’s get to the nub of the matter here,” he says, flinging his feet up on the armrest. “What do you like so much about the Birdie Nest Community Orchard?”
“Is that a joke?”
“Not at all. You keep opening their emails. You said your work makes you happy. But you never want to read the emails about your own work. You just want to read about the orchard. Why?”
“They got this whole food-waste concept going, promoting sustainability, and fighting poverty at the same time. I don’t know. Sometimes I think about calling them up and offering to fund them.”
“So why don’t you?”
“And my work does make me happy. I took what I loved doing — coming up with ideas — and built an entire company around it.”
“It sounds to me like your work used to make you happy, but then it slowly grew into something different without you really noticing. And now you’re stuck meeting benchmarks that other people set for you and answering brain-numbing emails all day.”
Tony breathes out and focuses on the circuit board buried between the wires in Dum-E’s upper arm. He remembers building Dum-E, experimenting, failing, achieving. How long has it truly been since he has been in that flow state? He’ll happily spend hours working on any idea he can think of, no matter how silly it seems. But when someone tells him to do that same thing, when it becomes part of the corporate strategy, it suddenly becomes physically impossible to work on it. Because he is absolutely terrible at doing what he is told.
Yeah, the kid might be on to something. “Fortune cookie,” he mutters. Peter grins.
-
Time, once again, moves in funny ways. Tony designs a new sprocket for Dum-E and has the 3D printer spit it out, and when he looks up it’s suddenly 2 AM and Peter is snoring on the sofa, his arm crooked at an awkward angle.
Tony hums. He slumps down in an office chair and rotates his shoulder, digs his thumb into the sore muscles and tendons.
He opens the most recent newsletter from the Birdie Nest Community Orchard and reads every word.
-
Peter wakes him up. He fell asleep with his cheek resting on a mouse pad.
“Morning,” Peter says. His clothes are crumpled but his smile is bright.
“Coffee,” Tony grunts.
They go to the kitchen. Tony heats up some of last night’s pancakes. Peter spears one with his fork and drags it through a puddle of syrup.
Tony opens himself a packet of blueberries and asks the most important question of all: “So. Who’s Nancy Thurwatcher?”
Peter’s eyes flick up at him, then back down. “I don’t know.”
“You visit her grave all the time.”
“I don’t know who she is,” Peter says, clipped. “And that’s the honest answer.”
“So—"
Peter puts his fork down. “I should go home, I guess.”
Did Tony push too much? “Happy can drive you.”
“No. Mr. Stark, I…” Peter shifts in his chair. “I really tried to make nice with him and everything. But Mr. Hogan keeps asking me all these questions and I just… I’d rather take the bus, really.”
“He means well,” Tony says. “But I gotcha. Listen. Forget the bus. I’ll find someone else to drive you home.”
“Thank you, Mr. Stark,” Peter murmurs. “I don’t think I’ve said this a lot, but I really—I really appreciate being able to come here and tinker and build stuff, and all that. Seriously. Thank you.”
“Oh, it’s quid pro quo, really. You’re convenient to have around.”
Peter nods, giving a small smile. “I try.”
-
Somehow, every time Tony thinks he found a shiny new gadget, it gets ruined one way or another; the feature becomes a bug.
Happy is annoyingly often the one who ruins things for him. He appears in his kitchen less than half an hour after the kid left. The plate of pancakes is still on the table and Happy rips off a piece and pops it into his mouth. “Hng. Tastes like rotten eggs and depression.”
“Armchair critic.”
“I’m an excellent cook, actually. Not like you would know. You never bother to ask.”
“Salty mood?”
“I don’t think you know a single detail about my personal life.”
Tony licks the spoon he was holding to give himself more time to think. “You have a dog? I’m pretty sure you have a dog.”
“Had. Until a year ago.”
“Still counts. And you have a girlfriend. Doctors without borders girlfriend. You never shut up about her.”
“If I never shut up about her, what’s her name?”
“…Mary?”
Happy sends him a flat look.
“The kid liked my pancakes. That’s the only endorsement I need.”
“He must really look up to you, then,” Happy mutters, and then his eyebrows dip into a frown. “When was the kid here?”
“Last night. This morning. He left his phone charger in the workshop, remind me to get it back to him.”
Happy plants his fists on the table and leans in. His angry glower is back at full force. “Why didn’t I know he was here?”
“He probably sneaked past you, disguised as a puppy.”
“Tony. Why didn’t I drive him home?”
“I gave that job to Amanda. You’re freaking him out with your constant interrogations. He gave you the gift card, right? Whatever happened to good old-fashioned bribery?”
“I don’t know about any gift card. Do you know why I’m interrogating him?”
Honestly, the dramatics of this man. “No, enlighten me. What’s he done that makes him such a big security threat?”
“Tony, use your brain for once in your life. Peter crashed on your sofa? Again? Does his grandfather even know? Have you ever spoken to that man at all?”
Tony’s brain is drawing a blank. “Huh— Who? What’s his grandfather got to do with it?”
“That’s who he lives with,” Happy says through gritted teeth. “His parents died, and so did his uncle. Do you know anything at all about this kid’s home life? Do you know how much trouble you could get into if it turns out his grandfather doesn’t know he’s staying here half the time?”
Tony waves the spoon around, suddenly feeling uncomfortable. “Whoever he is. I’m sure Peter drops him a message.”
“How can you be sure? You know nothing about him.”
“Because it’s common sense. Why wouldn’t he let his grandpa know where he is?”
“I don’t know, maybe because he spends unusual amounts of time here instead of at home, eats your food, sleeps on your shabby sofa, and the moment I started prodding him about his homelife he asked you to get him a different driver? Any of those seem like warning signs to you?”
Bug. Bug in the system. Tony takes a step back until his back hits the stove, crosses his arms. “What are you saying?”
“Be a little less self-obsessed and actually see that kid. Step out of this universe you call ‘me’. Why do I always need to point out to you how humans are supposed to interact? You can’t invite a teenager into you home all the time without taking some modicum of responsibility for his well-being.”
“Like making him pancakes?”
“Like asking if everything is okay at home.”
“Can’t you just fix it?”
Happy’s mouth flattens disapprovingly.
“Don’t give me that look. I’m not a babysitter, I’m not a social worker. I invited him here to pick his brain, I didn’t sign up for family drama. If—If something is wrong then that’s not… You know what, you’re right. He’s a minor, and when he’s here, I’m responsible. So, I probably shouldn’t invite him anymore. The whole thing was a bad idea, okay, point taken. I have work to do, work to focus on. It was stupid.”
“I didn’t say—"
“He left his phone charger here. Just go deliver that back to him, and tell him it’s been nice working with him, and good luck in all his future endeavors. That sort of stuff.”
He drops the spoon into the sink and practically flees the kitchen.
-
Pepper sends him a message. A tentative How have you been? and something mundane about the weather. It makes that feeling that has been buzzing right under his skin even worse. It might be loneliness. Tony sits with the phone in his hands and asks FRIDAY to give him a list of one hundred possible replies. None of them feel right, and he ends up not replying at all.