Peter
Peter is so pissed. He can’t even remember the last time he was this mad as he storms out of the tower. And he doesn’t even know who he’s mad at, but he’s pretty sure it’s himself. He was trying his very best to be nice to Stark the whole afternoon, and then he had to go and ruin it because he wasn’t careful enough.
He really thinks that Stark bought his excuse that the bruises were Spider-Man related. Not “Bill got drunk last night and decided to take all his drunken anger out on Peter” related. He can’t believe he was that careless and let his guard down. First he let slip that stupid shit about needing to cook to be valuable, he’s positive that was probably worrying. And now the bruises. He’s going to have to be really careful in the future to keep Stark from figuring it out, if the man even wants him to come back that is.
Once he gets a ways away from the tower and his anger has faded, he starts to feel a little bad for the way he acted. In his defense, Stark was also acting like an ass, and if someone is a jerk to him, he’s a jerk back. That’s how this works.
And then the man kicked him out of the lab and said he didn’t trust him! Which, Peter supposes, he did hack into a suit that Stark didn’t have to make him. He’s sure that wasn’t part of SHIELD’s deal. That really was just Stark trying to look out for him in his own weird way. Ugh. Why does everything have to be so complicated.
He still has a while before he’s supposed to be home and a spider suit in his backpack. He gave Stark back the credit card in his fit of anger, which he’s already regretting considering he hasn’t eaten today. He didn’t even get some of the pie he helped make. But Stark didn’t ask him for the suit back, so he’ll just hold onto it until he does. It was pretty useful after all.
He ducks into an empty alleyway and changes out of his clothes and into the comfortable red and blue suit. Lastly, he tucks his backpack with his clothes behind the dumpster and pulls the mask on over his face.
“Good afternoon, Peter.” A friendly female voice greets him from the mask.
“Hi, Karen!” Peter responds as he jumps up on the closest brick wall and starts climbing. Karen is a new addition to his suit that he unlocked when Ned turned off the training wheels program. Peter isn’t exactly sure what all she can do, but she ran him through a little tutorial of all his new features now that the training wheels protocol is off, and she helps him find where the crime is happening, and she’s just generally nice to talk to. Stark didn’t give her a name, so he just picked one he thought was nice.
“Would you like me to assist you in finding criminal activity, Peter?”
“Yes, please! And I have to be home by 6, so can you set me a reminder for around 5:30?”
“Of course. Now, if you make a left on Washington Street up ahead, it seems an ATM robbery is in progress there.”
“Nice, I’ll head there now. And oh, can you call Ned for me? He might want in on this.”
Another great feature Karen provides, she can call people without a phone. That’s definitely very useful, especially because Ned has been wanting to be included on Peter’s patrols since he found out about Spider-Man. Karen can even connect Peter’s mask to Ned’s computer screen, so he can see what Peter sees.
Ned didn’t pick up the call, but Peter knows he’s probably busy with helping his family prep for tomorrow. Peter was kind of jealous of his friend. Ned invited him to his Thanksgiving, but Peter turned him down. It just wouldn’t be the same, so he’d rather just hole himself away in his room all day instead. The Patterson’s aren’t celebrating Thanksgiving, which Peter was honestly a little grateful for because he’d be cooking the whole meal and then he’d get in big trouble if it wasn’t perfect. He could go without that kind of Thanksgiving.
He rounds a corner and sees exactly what Karen told him to expect. There were 3 people in front of the ATM from what he could see. He climbs to the top of a building and jumps across the rooftops until he’s directly above them. It appears to be a man being held at gunpoint from behind by two other people. One of them has a gun to the man’s back and is forcing him to withdraw money, while the other one is on lookout.
Peter doesn’t think he can get the gun away while it’s still at that man’s back, so he thinks maybe a distraction would be his best bet.
He sees a crumbled piece of brick next to him on the roof, and drops it down so it lands directly on the trash can lid in the alley below, out of site of the men, but it sure makes a loud crash.
“What was that?” The man with the gun calls to his lookout.
“I don’t know, man! It came from that alley.” A female voice responds.
“Well, go see what it is!” The man yells, digging the gun into his victim’s back. “And you, hurry the fuck up before I decide you’re too much work to keep around.”
Peter can see the poor man’s fingers shaking as he pushes the buttons on the ATM.
As soon as the woman gets around the corner to the alley, Peter leaps down silently and webs her to the wall, webbing her mouth closed when she tries to yell to her friend. He then rushes out into the street quickly.
“Hey!” He shouts to the man with the gun. “In the middle of the day, man? Really? And without a mask even? You know these ATMs all have cameras nowadays.”
The man whips around quickly at the sound of his voice, pulling the civilian with him, gun still at his back.
“Back off Spider-Man or the dude gets a bullet through the spine.”
Peter raises his hands in defeat. “Okay, okay. Look I’m not even doing anything. We’re just talking like civilized people.”
“Okay, well if we’re talking then you can tell me what you did with my partner, asshole.” The man demands.
Oh her?” Peter asks, pointing over to the alley. “She’s fine, just found herself in a bit of a sticky situation, if you know what I mean.” He tells the man with a laugh.
The guy scowls at him, and in a split second of poor judgement, he pulls the gun away from the man’s back and points it at Peter. In that second, Peter shoots a web with perfect accuracy and yanks the gun out of the man’s hands, leaving him unarmed. The guy releases the victim and tries to make a run for it, but Peter is way too fast. He webs one of his feet to the ground and trips him, so the man falls flat on his face on the sidewalk, before webbing his torso to the ground as well.
He walks back to the man who the two criminals were attempting to rob, and found that he’d fallen to the ground when the man let go of him. Peter reaches out a hand to help the man up, which he willingly takes.
“Th-thank you s-so much Spider-Man.” The man stutters out. He seems pretty shaken up.
“You’re very welcome. What’s your name?” Peter asks in his most friendly manner.
“Umm, Matthew, Spider-Man.”
“Do you have a cell phone on you Matthew?” He asks.
“Um, yeah, here.” He says, holding the phone out to Peter.
Peter takes a step back from the man’s outstretched hand.
“I want you to take that and call the police to come pick these guys up. I won’t leave you alone, but the police can’t see me. I’ll watch over you from that rooftop to make sure you’re safe until they get here. Okay?” He says calmly.
The man nods nervously, already dialing and holding the phone up to his ear as he watches Peter climb up the building. He waves to him from the top, then ducks down so he isn’t seen. Within a few minutes, Peter hears sirens and observes as the police sit the man down to get his statement and drag the one man off the sidewalk.
“There’s another one over there. Spider-Man took them out and saved me.” He hears the man he rescued tell the police and point to the alleyway where he webbed up the woman.
He stays just until they collect both of the criminals, and then he swings away off the opposite side of the building so he isn’t seen.
“Okay, Karen. What’s next?”
-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_
The following Wednesday, after that horrible Thanksgiving break was over, Peter was really regretting his last day with Stark. It’s not that he really cares about the guy that much, he’s only known him a month after all, but he’s kind of sad that he’s just going to leave school and go back to the foster home. He wouldn’t say he was looking forward to his Wednesday afternoons, but they were definitely something to break up the monotony.
His break really sucked. He patrolled when he could, and those times were nice, but all the other times he was just back at the apartment getting shoved around by his foster parents. He held his tongue enough to not earn himself any really bad punishments, but he got the belt one day and just generally hit and shoved and teased the rest. Now, his break from them in the middle of the week was over.
Peter is planning on just rushing out the door and getting to patrol after the bell rings. Bill and Diane aren’t expecting him home for a few hours since he didn’t tell them that he freaked out on Tony Stark and stormed out the door last time he was there. He didn’t even want to imagine what is going to happen when they find out that he lost them an extra source of income.
Unfortunately, the universe has other plans for him then patrol when the bell finally rings signaling the end of school.
“Hey, Parker!” He hears as soon as his feet hit the sidewalk outside of the school front doors.
Peter groans internally. McDaniels again? What a dick head. What is Peter going to have to do to get this guy off his back?
“What do you want, Derek?” He asks without turning around. He feels Derek’s hand with his spider sense before it hits his shoulder and spins him around to face him. Derek has teamed up with a few of the senior football players it seems like. How does he even know these guys?
“My friends and I were just wondering why that fancy car that comes to pick you up every week isn’t here? Have a fall out with your dealer or something?” The other boy asks accusingly.
Peter shakes his head. “I don’t use, dickwad, now let me go.” He tries to pull himself away from Derek’s grip, but one of the bigger boys slides behind him and holds him in place. As Spider-Man, he can easily take these guys, but he’s not sure he’ll be able to get out of this one as Peter without giving himself away.
The football guy grips Peter’s arms at the elbows, holding them behind his back.
“See, that’s where we disagree, Parker.” Derek says, getting right in Peter’s face. Peter can feel the boy’s spit hitting him with every word. Disgusting. He really hopes he’ll be allowed a shower when he gets back to the apartment.
“I don’t care if you use or not, but you’ve clearly got a dealer, and we want in on whatever you’ve got. Grab his pack.” He says to the boy holding Peter back.
“Hey!” Peter exclaims, trying to pull out of the boys arms without revealing himself. He can’t let them look in that backpack. His spider suit is right in the main pocket. “I just told you assholes I don’t have anything!”
One of the other guys steps up and punches Peter in the stomach hard, knocking the wind from him. They drop Peter to the ground as he coughs and tries to catch his breath, and one of them yanks away his pack.
“No!” He chokes out, trying to reach for it, but he’s still coughing and there are way more of them then there are of him.
“Hey! Get away from him you little punks.” Peter hears a voice call from outside the circle of football players surrounding him.
A couple of the boys get yanked back hard, and Peter is very relieved to see Happy in his full suit and sunglasses coming to his rescue. He made these guys look tiny, and Peter can tell they know it. A few of them back away, including Derek, who is the smallest of them all. Happy holds his hand out expectantly to the one hanging on to Peter’s backpack. The kid hands it over like it’s going to explode, and then backs away quickly.
Happy holds a hand out to Peter, which he eagerly takes, and helps him off the ground, dusting off the back of his shirt where he hit the ground. He hands Peter the bag and turns back to the group.
“Now, you listen here you little pieces of shit. This kid is under the personal protection of Tony Stark, so if you want any sort of future for yourselves, you won’t come near him again. Tony Stark isn’t a man you want to mess with. He can ruin your entire lives with one phone call and he won’t even think twice about it. If Peter says one thing about any of you in the future, you’re done. Understand?”
Everyone around goes completely white as a sheet and starts nodding enthusiastically.
“I need a verbal confirmation.” Happy growls.
“Yes, sir!” Choruses loudly all around.
“You make go.” Happy says dismissively, and all the boys scramble away as fast as they possible can.
Peter can’t help it, he starts laughing uncontrollably.
“Oh my god, Happy. That was the best thing I’ve ever seen.” He says through his chuckles.
Happy smirks, clearly pleased with Peter’s reaction.
“You okay, kid?” He asks after a moment, looking at Peter with concern.
Peter shrugs. “Yeah I’m fine, Happy. I could’ve taken them easy. I just didn’t know how to do it without looking suspicious, you know?”
Happy nods. “Yeah, I know. Come on, let’s get out of these miserable place.” And he gestures towards his usual car.
“But…I didn’t think I’d be going today.” Peter says a little hesitantly as they get in the car.
“Why would that be?” Happy wonders.
Peter’s eyes go down to the floor. “Well…I kind of did something that made him really angry last week and then I stormed out. I figured he wouldn’t want me to come back.”
Happy responds as he pulls away from the school and onto the main road. “I don’t know anything about that, but I confirmed with him earlier today and he said he wanted me to come pick you up if that makes you feel any better. If I know anything about Tony, whatever happened was probably partially his fault as well.”
Peter chuckles, but it sure doesn’t feel genuine. Now that he’s in the car and on his way, he’s starting to feel a little nervous. He spends the entire ride pretty quiet until they pull into the parking garage.
“Hey, Peter.” Happy says from the front seat, waiting for Peter to look at him in the rearview mirror. “You’re thinking about this too much. I can practically hear it from up here. Just relax. Do you want me to walk up with you?”
Peter considers for a moment, but ends up telling Happy no thanks to his offer and gets in the elevator alone.
He tries to stop worrying like Happy told him. What does he care about Stark’s opinion anyways? He doesn’t care about anyone’s opinion, thank you very much. But what if Stark only called him back here to take his suit back? What if he’s going to arrest him for violating the accords by leaving the other day? What if-
His spiraling thoughts are cut off short by the elevator opening up into Tony’s lab. The man is alone today. He’s not sure where Rhodey is. Maybe he went back to DC or wherever Stark said he works.
Stark looks up when he walks in, and he doesn’t look to angry yet. Peter will have to just assess the situation as it goes. He thinks he can make it through one of those windows pretty easily if things start to go awry.
“Hey, Pete. Come on in.” Stark says, waving him forward. The man looks him over while Peter walks over to sit down on the chair next to his.
“Happy told me what happened with those assholes at your school. You alright, kiddo?”
Peter squints his eyes in suspicion. “Yeah, fine.” He decides to let the kiddo go, just this once, since he’s still feeling guilty.
They look at each other in silence for a long moment before Peter breaks it.
“I didn’t think you’d want me back today.” Peter says, trying to sound confident, but he’s positive he’s failing.
Tony cocks his head to the side. “I didn’t think you’d want to come back. Yet here we are.”
Peter shrugs noncommittally. “Well, you know, I like Happy and I didn’t him to get in trouble for not doing his job, soo…” Peter’s sentence awkwardly trails off and his eyes are looking anywhere but Mr. Stark’s.
“So does that mean you’re still pissed?” Stark asks.
Peter shrugs again, before making a split second decision to actually tell the man the truth for once. “I don’t know if I was ever even angry with you.”
“Yeah?” Stark asks hopefully.
“Yeah.”
“Either way, angry or not, I’m sorry for yelling at you last week. I was really angry, and I still am a bit, but I shouldn’t have lost my temper with you like that.”
Peter finally looks Mr. Stark in the eye, and he can tell that the man is being genuine. He’s really not used to all of these genuine, nonmanipulative apologies. He doesn’t really know what to do with this.
“Well thanks, I guess. I’m sorry I yelled too, and stormed out.”
“I’m sorry I told you to leave.”
Peter nods. “Okay. Forgiven” He says holding out his hand to Tony. The man glances at it for a second before shaking it in agreement.
“Forgiven.” The man repeats with a small smile.
“Great.” Peter lets out a breath he feels like he’s been holding onto for a week. “Then can we stop with all this sappy apology shit?” He asks, acting annoyed, but he actually really appreciates how much of an effort Mr. Stark is making. Most people would’ve just given up on him by now. It feels really good that Mr. Stark is actually trying.
Tony shakes his head. “Not quite, Underoos. We have one more problem.”
Peter’s mind immediately goes back into panic mode. “Problem? What problem?”
“The problem of what we’re going to do now that you’ve hacked the suit.”
Oh boy. Peter knew this would come up, but he’s still not happy about it. He puts all his focus into not arguing immediately and letting the man finish what he’s saying.
“I realize that we have very different opinions as to what safety features are a necessary part of your spider suit, so I wanted to have a calm, open discussion that will end with something we’re both okay with.”
Peter whistles, impressed. “Damn, Stark. Did you get in trouble with Rhodey or something?”
“Not important.” Stark snaps. “Now start talking about your feelings or something.”
Peter giggles. “Feelings or something?”
Tony chuckles along with him, giving his shoulder a gentle nudge. “I don’t know, kid, Rhodey and I didn’t get that far. Just tell me why you did what you did.”
Peter crosses his arms. “I just don’t like the idea of my suit sending you a report every time I get a scratch. I think it’s ridiculous for us both. You don’t need to know about every bruise I get. That’s like, my private information getting sent to you automatically without my permission, and you’re tracking me on top of that. I just don’t like it.”
Tony nods. “Okay, understood. I don’t like you completely disabling the tracker and the injury reports, because if something happens to you, and you’re lying on the pavement somewhere after getting shot, I would have no idea and no way to help you.”
“I don’t see why you worry so much about me getting a serious injury like that. It’s never happened before. I’m good at what I do. I feel like you don’t trust me to be able to be Spider-Man alone, even though it’s what I was doing way before you came along.” Peter fires back.
“It’s not about trust, bud.” Tony responds. “Of course I trust you to be out there saving people. It’s why I gave you the suit and why I offered to train you in the first place. If I didn’t think you were good enough, I wouldn’t be trying to help. Anyone has the risk of getting hurt, even really experienced people like the others on the team. The reason we join a team instead of working solo is so other people have our backs when we’re out there. I’m just trying to have yours.”
Peter shuffles his feet on the ground beneath his chair, thinking. What Mr. Stark said does make sense. He may have powers, but he’s not invincible. And it would be nice to have some security while he’s out in the city.
“I guess that makes sense.” He finally says. “But I want to have control of when and what the suit sends you.”
“I can understand that.” Tony responds. “I think we can make that work, but only if you promise to call me when something is life threatening or too much for you to handle on your own.”
Peter nods enthusiastically. “I can do that. I promise. How will I get ahold of you, though? Can Karen call you?”
Tony looks very confused. “Karen? Who’s Karen?”
Peter chuckles, a little embarrassed. “Oh, Karen is what I named the AI you put in my suit.”
“You turned on the AI?” Tony asks accusingly. “You turned off the training wheels protocol?!”
Peter’s eyes widen and he feels his face redden as he realizes his mistake. “Umm…no?”
Mr. Stark just drops his head into his hands and groans in frustration. “I swear, Peter, I never had grey hairs before you came along. You’re the cause of all of them.”
“You sure have a lot of them for them all being from me.” Peter responds sassily.
Mr. Stark lifts his head up and glares at him. “Exactly. That’s how stressful my life has been with you in it. I guess if you’ve already had it off training wheels protocol then I can’t really turn it back on, so enjoy I suppose. And yes, Karen can call my phone from your suit.”
Peter beams at him. “Thanks, Mr. Stark! You won’t regret this, I promise.”
“I better not.” The man says sternly. “Why don’t you get out your suit and we can work on it together today? We need to replace the tracker so I can access it in an emergency, and we’re going to reprogram Karen to notify me of injuries only if you’ve already fallen unconscious and can no longer decide for yourself. Is that okay with you?”
Peter nods. “Yeah, I think this is an acceptable compromise.”
He snatches his suit up out of his backpack and drops it on the table in front of them, letting Tony connect it to his computer.
“This is all pretty impressive stuff you managed to do, Pete. I didn’t realize you were this good with code.” Mr. Stark says once he’s looked at the changes.
Peter shakes his head. “I’m not really. It was never really my thing. My friend Ned did this for me. Don’t get mad at him or anything though. I made him do it.”
Tony huffs a laugh. “Damn, you and your little friend make quite a team it seems. Don’t worry, I won’t do anything bad to Ned. I might harass him a little built though if I ever meet him.”
Peter chuckles. “Go easy on him. He’s, like, obsessed with you. It’ll break him if he thinks you don’t like him.”
“Okay, okay, I’ll try to be nice. No promises though. Now if you didn’t do all of this, then scoot closer and I’ll walk you through what we’re doing. You know the basics I assume?”
Peter nods again. “Yeah, Ned’s tried to teach me code a few times, but it’s just never really stuck. I know a little bit though.”
Mr. Stark proceeds to walk him through the changes Ned made and how to fix it to do what they had talked about. He shows Peter the tracker that he uses, which Peter did already see when he removed it last time, and shows Peter how that works as well before helping him install it back in the suit. This is all very good for Peter and his lack of trust, because he can see exactly what’s programmed into his suit now, and he knows Mr. Stark is telling him the truth.
His mentor is letting him scroll through other parts of his suit’s programming, just to see it and become familiar with it, when Friday comes over the speakers.
“Boss, it appears the Avengers are on their way to the city and are requesting your presence as well.”
“What seems to be the problem, dear?” Mr. Stark asks her.
“There appears to be some kind of large, enhanced, humanoid figure causing destruction downtown. The city has requested the assistance of the team including yourself.”
As she’s speaking, she pulls up a video from a news station of a huge, hulk-like creature with two horns on his head rampaging through downtown, throwing cars and and crumbling buildings.
“Well, Pete. Grab your suit. It looks like we’re needed.” Mr. Stark says to him. Peter unhooks his suit and rushes into the bathroom to change really quick. Meanwhile, Mr. Stark pushes something on his chest and his armor immediately starts forming around him.
“Let us out, Fri.” The man says to his AI.
Peter hurries back out in his suit as a portion of one of the walls of the lab lowers down, away from them, forming a balcony exposed to the outside.
“Sweet.” Peter mumbles to himself. He pulls his mask on as he runs out the door.
“Race you there, Mr. Stark!” And he leaps out into the open air. He free falls until he gets closer to the lower buildings. Stark tower is by far the tallest around. Then, he shoots out some webs and speeds into the city.
“Karen, take me to that Rhino guy, please.”
“Of course, Peter.” Karen replies happily. “Stay on this course. I’ll tell you when to turn, but you should hear the altercation by then.”
He hears Mr. Stark’s suit in the distance, and when he glances up at the sky, the man is shooting past him, way up in the air.
All of a sudden, he hears Mr. Stark’s voice from inside his suit.
“You’re gonna have to speed it up a bit if you’re going to win this race, Underoos.”
Peter scowls, but he does in fact speed up.
“You’re using altitudes to your advantage. That’s cheating.” Peter says back to him, assuming this communication link Mr. Stark has set up isn’t a one way street.
“No, it’s called using my resources.” He hears Mr. Stark reply.
Soon enough, Peter can see fighting in the distance. It looks like the team is already there.
“Hey, Pete. Tell Karen to connect you to the team comms so you can hear what’s going on.” Mr. Stark says as they approach the battle.
“Okay. Karen, can you connect me to the team comms, please?”
She doesn’t respond, but all of a sudden he can hear the rest of the group speaking as well.
“Your saviors have arrived.” Mr. Stark announces to them as they join the fray.
“Hey, Tony! Spider-Man, thanks for coming along! We might need you both.” Peter hears Steve call out.
It looks like rhino guy has stopped his rampage through the streets to deal with the superheroes trying to stop him, but it doesn’t look like they’re anything more than an annoyance yet. Peter can see Steve and Nat on the ground, successfully distracting it. Sam is flying around, trying to shoot it, and Hawkeye is up on a building, hitting it dead on with different kinds of arrows, but nothing seems to be getting through the suit that he’s wearing. Tony joins in with some repulser blasts, still nothing. It doesn’t look like Thor is here. He’s probably off world again for something.
Peter swings in and tries to web the guy up, but he’s way too strong. He breaks straight through Peter’s webs, picks up a car, and launches it at him. He dodges the vehicle, catches it with a web, and launches it back at the guy, hitting him square in the side of the head. It rocks him a little bit, but he quickly shakes it off and lets out an angry roar in Peter’s direction.
Steve throws his shield at the Rhino, turning his focus back towards him. While the Rhino is looking away, Peter sees a bunch of civilians still around who are trying to get away unseen. He lets Steve distract the Rhino while he starts grabbing people and swinging them to safety, waving off their thanks to hurry back into the action.
One rogue chunk of building thrown by the huge monster makes its way straight towards Peter and a small group of people, and he jumps in front and catches it before it can hit them. It wasn’t that hard, but he can feel his muscles straining. He gave Stark his card back last week and it was Thanksgiving break, so he really hasn’t eaten very much at all. He can definitely feel the difference.
“Peter, you doing okay, kid?” Mr. Stark asks over their link. He can tell it’s not in the full team comms, and he’s grateful for it.
“Yeah I’m good, Mr. Stark.” He responds, hoping his voice doesn’t sound strained as he hustles all of the people to safety. “Just getting all of these civilians out of the way.”
“You’re doing good work, Pete. Keep it up.” Mr. Stark tell him. He feels pride blooming in his chest, and he doesn’t have any extra energy to feel embarrassed about it or squash the feeling back down. It gives him an energy boost, and now that he’s gotten all of the people away from harm, he swings back to the main battle.
The creature doesn’t look like he’s been affected at all by their fighting. Peter tries the webs again. He comes in quick and latches onto the Rhino’s arm with a web. He keeps the momentum going and swings around and around in a circle, wrapping the guy up tightly in webs.
It holds him for about 3 seconds, which is longer than Peter has seen anything keep this guy down yet. However, when he breaks out, he’s even angrier than before and it’s directed entirely at Peter. Rhino starts throwing everything he can find around him directly at Peter. Peter is instinctively dodging and catching and throwing things back. It’s all happening so quickly. He latches onto a large piece of rubble and turns around to launch it back at the Rhino, but the beast had started charging him when Peter was distracted.
He manages to grab Peter around the middle and throw him hard into the side of one of the further off buildings. He hits his head and crumples to the ground. He doesn’t lose consciousness, but he definitely hurts a little bit.
“Peter!” He hears Mr. Stark yell through his head injury fog. Suddenly, the man is at his side, sitting him up against the building. His faceplate drops and he pulls off Peter’s mask so they can see each other.
Peter can feel Mr. Stark’s fingers on his head, checking for bleeding, before they go to his chin, holding his head carefully in place so he can look at Peter’s eyes, probably checking for concussion symptoms. Peter tries his best to keep his eyelids from drooping. He’s so tired all of a sudden.
“Are you alright, kiddo?” Mr. Stark asks with so much concern, snapping Peter out of his sleepy state. He looks up at the man, and sees so much concern and worry in his eyes. Wow. Mr. Stark is actually worried about him. He really looks concerned. It’s been a really long time since someone was genuinely concerned about Peter’s wellbeing.
“Hey, snap out of it, Pete.” Mr. Stark says gently as he notices Peter drifting off again.
“I’m good!” Peter says, eyes snapping open again, finally coming out of the haze of hitting his head that hard. “I’m good Mr. Stark. A little foggy, but I’ll be fine.”
Peter can feel Mr. Stark’s gauntlet covered fingers running through his hair. It feels kind of nice. He doesn’t really want it to stop, but he’s suddenly remembering there are more important things.
His eyes shoot back to the battle, and he realizes they need to get back ASAP. He tries to stand quickly, which is a bad idea. He’s a little bit dizzy and he has to lean against the building.
“Whoa there, bud.” Mr. Stark says. “Don’t even think about it. You’re benched for the rest of the fight.”
“What?!” Peter asks incredulously. “You’re kidding me! Mr. Stark, I can fight!”
“I know you can.” Mr. Stark agrees. “And you did. You did good, and you saved a lot of people today, but you need to know when to stop. And look,” he says, pointing towards the team. “They don’t even need us. They convinced Bruce to get on the field.”
Peter turns his head so he can see the fight, and sure enough, a large green Hulk is currently throwing this Rhino guy around like a rag doll. He also sees Natasha on the ground with Steve, and it looks like she’s helping him wrap up his ankle. If that thing hurt Captain America as well, then there’s no shame in Peter getting injured and leaving.
“Now,” Tony continues, “let’s let them handle the clean up, and get you back to the tower, okay?”
Peter looks longingly at the fighting one more time before conceding that yes, they do have it handled without him. He sighs. “Okay, sure. Let’s go.”
Mr. Stark has him stick to his back while he’s flying, after Peter adamantly refused to be carried. That would’ve been humiliating. Flying on Iron Man’s back though is just incredible. Peter has never seen the city from this high before. He’s never been in an airplane or anything like that before.
By the time the landed on the balcony to Mr. Stark’s penthouse, Peter has completely cheered up from being injured.
“Wow, Mr. Stark!” Peter exclaims, jumping off the man’s back and practically skipping inside. “That was so amazing! You get to do that like every day!”
“Finally admitting Iron Man is cooler than Spider-Man?” The older man asks with a smirk.
“In your dream.” Peter replies. “If you could trying web swinging, you’d be just as impressed.”
Tony snorts. “Yeah, sure. Now hop up.” He says when they reach the kitchen, patting the countertop. Peter sits where he’s instructed as Tony digs around in some drawers.
“Think fast.” He calls, and Peter sticks a hand out and catches whatever Mr. Stark threw without even thinking. It was one of the enhanced granola bars that were in his room at the compound.
He starts eating and Tony comes back with a flashlight and starts shining it in his eyes.
“Is this really necessary?” Peter asks with his mouth full of food, wincing away from the light.
“I need to check to see if you have a concussion. Do you have a headache? Dizziness? Vertigo? Lightheaded? Blurry vision?”
Peter shakes his head. “None of the above. I just felt a little fuzzy right when I hit the building, but I feel fine now. I’ll probably get out with just some bruises.”
Mr. Stark is still inspecting his head. “Friday, you concur?” He asks out loud.
“Yes, boss. Peter’s assessment is correct.”
“Okay, fine.” He concedes, letting go of Peter’s head. “We need to get you back soon anyways if you’re going to make it home on time.”
Peter pulls out his phone and glances at the time. “Oh shit. We gotta go.”
“Okay, you grab your stuff and meet me in the garage. I’ll take you back. It’ll take too long to wait for Happy.”
Peter hops off the counter and runs back down to the lab, changes as fast as possible, shoves his things into his backpack, and makes it into the garage at record speed. He’s really starting to be able to find his way around the tower pretty well without Friday’s help. Well, the few floors he’s been on anyway.
He sees Mr. Stark leaning on a car Peter is sure he doesn’t want to know the price of, and they both slide inside. Mr. Stark takes off as soon as Peter’s seatbelt clicks closed.
“Still feeling okay?” The man asks him once they’re on the road.
“Yeah, still feeling good.” Peter responds, trying to fix his unreasonably messy hair in the mirror.
“Here, take these.” Tony tells him, handing him a partially rolled up paper bag.
“What’s this?” Peter asks, although he’s already ripping the bag open. Inside, he sees the credit card that he left last week, and a small cardboard box. He slides the card into his backpack and pulls the box out.
He opens one side and dumps the contents into his lap, and it’s a brand new Starkphone and charger.
“Whoa. A Starkphone? What for?” He asks excitedly, looking it over and turning it on. This is probably the most expensive gift he’s ever received, not counting the spider suit.
“Your other phone looks like shit. That’s what for.” The man responds. “This thing will work much better for you. It’s the newest model, practically indestructible.”
Peter stares at his new toy for a moment, the original excitement leaving him. “I really don’t know if I can accept this, Mr. Stark. You already gave me a suit and you’re paying for my food. This just seems really unnecessary.”
Mr. Stark is already shaking his head when Peter starts talking. “Seriously, kid, you choose now to be polite? Just take the damn thing. It’ll give me some piece of mind for you not to be walking around with some little flip phone from 2005, okay?”
Peter thinks on it for a moment before deciding. Would it be okay to accept the phone? He already has one that works fine. What if Mr. Stark starts to think that Peter is only being nicer to him because he keeps giving him nice gifts?
“Kid, stop thinking about it so hard and just accept the gift. It’s literally my company. These things are free for me. My number is in there already. Put your little friend Ted’s in there and spend way too much time texting him like a normal teenager. That’s what I want you to do.”
Peter finally nods and put the phone with the card in his backpack pocket. “Fine, if you feel that strongly about my flip phone, I’ll take this one. But I don’t need it. I was perfectly fine with my other one. Plus, Ned got it for me. That’s his name. Ned. Say it with me.”
“Ted? Ed? Uhh…Jed?” The man asks.
“Mr. Staaark.” Peter whines, laughing. “God, you’re so embarrassing.”
“Me? Tony Stark? Embarrassing? You take that back you little shit. I’m the coolest person you’ll ever know. All the tabloids say it and they’re always right.”
Peter giggles again, but definitely doesn’t retract his statement. In retaliation, Mr. Stark reaches across the center console and starts ruffling up the hair that he just worked so hard to try to get flat before he got back to the Patterson’s.
“Hey, cut that out, old man!” He yells, laughing hysterically.
“Take it back!” Tony yells back.
“Fine, fine! You’re not embarrassing! Now stooop!” Peter gets out through his laughter.
Tony relents his attack. “There we go. That’s better.” The man says as Peter frantically tries to fix his hair again. “The natural order of the world has been restored.”
Peter snorts, but his mood is instantly soured when he realizes that they’re already back at his apartment. He tried not to let the disappointment show on his face.
Tony pulls up to the curb and puts the car in park. He dramatically pulls up his sleeve to reveal his watch. “Well, would you look at that. Right on time with a few minutes to spare. I’ll see you next Wednesday, right Pete?”
“Yep, next Wednesday!” Peter responds as he gets out of the car. He shuts his door and waves to his mentor as he drives away.
Peter drags his feet all the way to the door of the apartment, wondering for the first time why he has to wait so long in between visits to the tower. This is going to be a long week.