Chapter 8
Days turned into weeks turned into months where the father and son duo found a comfortable routine. Peter would go over for dinner once a week, and sleep over once a month. That was enough for Tony to be satisfied, and for Peter to feel like he wasn’t being overwhelmed. Peter said he would think over the internship, and give Tony an answer closer to the summer
Now it was closer to summer, where Peter’s high school days were numbered, and his night patrols were no longer cold and brutal. Not only was summer around the corner, but so was change. May had planned a graduation party, Wade had showered him in graduation presents, and Tony no doubt would do something for it too. College was looming over him, the thought of it comforting because he wouldn’t be stuck on the same schedule.
Peter had finally taken the laptop from Tony, finding the tracker and shutting it down the minute he was on the subway. Tony laughed when he saw that the location had gone offline. It helped with school work, and it certainly helped with all of his college activities. He’d picked his classes, deferred freshman housing as he and Wade were going to stay in the same crummy apartment they’d been living in, and looked through minors.
One major thing that had happened was that Ned found out he was Spiderman. Along with that, he found out that he was dating Wade. After the interview of a lifetime, Ned teetering between freaking out and fangirling, Wade and Ned met. Peter was nervous, albeit a little relieved that he could stop hiding his alter ego from one of his lifelong best friends. The mistake came when Peter mentioned Tony’s offer to work for him.
“Dude!” Ned exclaimed, standing up quickly. They were both in his apartment, watching the new Star Wars as Wade finished their patrols. “You have to work for him! Stark Industry is really up and coming with their new AI algorithm, something that…” Ned went off, and Peter silently cursed at himself. He shouldn’t have said anything, because Ned of course didn’t know the part where Tony only offered him the job because he was his son.
Peter debated the idea of telling Ned about Tony being his father for a good .5 seconds before he decided absolutely not.
“I know, I know.” Peter tried to dismiss him, but Ned continued on.
“I didn’t even see any of those internships open online! After they came to our school for that assembly-” Peter felt a shiver climb his spine. “I looked it up and there wasn’t even anything about it online! He must really like you as Spiderman-” Peter cut him off.
“Tony doesn’t know I’m Spiderman. I haven’t even met Tony, it was just his company that offered the position. We had to interview after the assembly, and I guess I was offered the position. They only had one.”
Ned’s eyes squinted suspiciously at him.
“You mean to tell me that Tony Stark doesn’t know that you’re Spiderman and he just offered Peter a position at Stark Industries?” Peter’s heart sped up, and he nervously shifted in his seat on the couch.
“Yeah.” Peter tried, and Ned flailed his arms.
“You are so lucky!” Ned yelled, pumping his arms up and down, and relief spread through Peter.
“If you don’t take it, I’ll kill you!”
~
A phone call woke Peter up one Saturday night. It was "Tony’s Sleepover Saturday" as Wade liked to call it, they had gotten some pizza and watched a movie before Peter went to bed. He rubbed his eyes as he answered his phone that laid next to him in his bed.
“Wade?” Peter whispered, and there was a loud noise on the other line. Peter sat up in bed, adrenaline immediately rushing down his body.
“Pete!” Wade started on the other side of the phone. “Something’s happening. I think Loki released these aliens in Times Square and it’s a fucking mess-” Wade cut himself off, obviously doing some hand on hand combat. Peter was out of bed and rifling in his overnight tote bag at the side of his bed.
“Wade, I will get over there as soon as possible.” Peter was halfway into his suit already.
“Wait!” Wade exclaimed, getting somewhere safe so he could have a moment to talk.
“Clint just got in touch with Tony. Stay safe until Tony leaves, I don’t want him figuring anything out.” Fear struck Peter’s chest as he realized he was, in fact, sleeping in Stark Towers and that Tony could come in at any moment. He’d already searched the room for any video cameras, which would be seriously low of Tony, so he knew that he was safe.
“Okay.” Peter whispered into the phone, as he heard commotion outside of his room. He jumped back into bed. “I’ll be there as soon as I can.” He hung up the phone and immediately pretended to be asleep.
Not two minutes later, there was a frantic knock on his door. Tony opened the door before an answer, Peter sat up in bed, and feigned waking up.
“Pete,” Tony spoke quickly. “Something’s happening in Times Square that Steve and I need to go to. Will you stay here?” Tony asked, but it sounded much more like a command. Tony did not want Peter leaving and getting hurt.
Peter nodded his head, staying quiet. Tony gave him an expectant look, but when Peter said nothing, he continued.
“Don’t leave. Stay right here, okay? I’ll be back as soon as I can.” Tony finished, and Peter nodded with wide eyes. Tony thought that he looked a little scared, and his heart lurched out to him. Peter was not scared though, he was ready to be in action.
“It’ll be okay, I promise.” Tony spoke softly. “It’s far enough away that we’ll be able to contain it there.” With that, Tony was out of there, presumably to get suited up and ready to go.
Peter jumped out of bed again, pulling up the rest of his suit, zipping it up in the back. This was good adrenaline. It had been a couple of weeks since he’d had a good fight, and the nervousness of being around Tony while he was Iron Man had dwindled due to some enhancements on his mask.
He’d added a voice disguiser, and added a new type of mesh that automatically healed over any exposed skin, so if his mask became torn, he would at least remain anonymous. He just had to be careful about getting hurt.
He snuck out of one of the floor-to-ceiling windows, only hard to get out of because the window could only open to an angle. He left the window open, remembering which side of the building it was on, and ensuring safe passage back once the fight was finished. Times Square was only a few short blocks away, and Peter was there before he knew it.
Loki had indeed opened a portal into a different dimension and released a bunch of odd looking purple aliens. There were multiple, wreaking havoc around one of the most populated areas in New York City. Peter flipped on his comms.
“Wade.” He spoke into the channel, and he heard some commotion on the other side.
“Pete!” Wade chanted into their private comms. “I’m near Joe’s Pizza! In a pretty fucked up position, if there’s-” The comms went out and Peter was already off in that direction. He found Wade cornered by four aliens, and he helped fight them off. Once they were in the clear, Wade slung his arm over Peter’s shoulder.
“Nice to see you, sweet cheeks.” Peter rolled his eyes under his mask as Wade pulled him tighter. “Thought daddy would keep you locked up.” Peter huffed.
“He tried.” They laughed and then went into action.
The fight was intense. Peter had never seen these types of aliens before, and he hadn't worked this hard in a good couple of months. It was an all hands on deck kind of situation: Peter couldn’t even count the heroes there. He definitely saw Clint and Natasha at some point. Of course Steve and Tony. Wolverine had shown up and then promptly disappeared. Thor was around, but mostly hunting for Loki instead of helping with the aliens.
The overall scuffle ended early in the morning, sun kissing the sides of the buildings. Loki hadn’t been found, but the aliens were essentially all cleaned up. The damage to the city was moderate, a couple of buildings would definitely have to cash in on their superheroes insurance. Peter was tired, exhausted even, but not too hurt. A couple scrapes here and there, maybe a cut on his calf.
Wade and him usually made a good pair when they were fighting, and they were able to take out a good portion of all of the aliens, so it was natural that everyone wanted to celebrate.
They stood in a circle of debrief, Peter finally able to see everybody that was there. Clint, Natasha, Steve, Thor, Stephen, Bruce, Wanda and his father were the ones that stayed to the end. Wade stood next to him, finally excited to be a part of the group.
“I’ve just contacted JARVIS to tell him to get breakfast ready for us at the tower. Everybody is invited.” Tony’s eyes from his half-exposed face stayed on Wade for a minute who started cheering, but ultimately didn’t follow up saying he couldn’t come.
Peter panicked a bit. There was no way he could go to this breakfast, which he normally did, now that he was supposed to be back in bed and back in his room. If he wasn’t there, Tony would have a heart attack and then send the whole city looking for him.
“Gotta run.” Peter jumped up and didn’t allow any time for questions. His webs clung to the skyscraper and he pulled himself along as he turned his comms with Wade back on.
“Slow them down.” He said, trying to catch his breath as he made his way as quickly as he could back to the tower. It took overall six minutes, but with Wade’s constant updates he knew that the others were not too far behind him. He climbed back through his window, and just barely got it closed before Wade was whispering that they were there.
Peter jumped into bed, ripped his mask off, shoved it under his pillow, and pulled the covers above his head. There was a soft knock at the door, and Peter listened as it quietly opened. There was a brief second where Peter could feel Tony looking at him, and then he heard a sigh of relief from that direction. The door closed.
Peter let out a shaky breath, silently overjoyed that he was able to pull it off. He tugged at the suit, sticky with sweat and other unknown fluids, quietly getting up out of bed to clean himself off in the bathroom. He didn’t turn on the shower, for risk of his father hearing him, but he made sure that his suit was neatly tucked away into one of his backpack pockets and zipped. Peter got back into bed and promptly fell asleep.
The sleep did not last long, however, when a feeling nagging at the base of his head woke him up. It was the classic after-fight beginnings of a migraine, and Peter sat up in bed. The stress would sometimes bring these on, and there’d been many times that Wade would have to nurse him as he recovered. If he got a cup of coffee and a good four tylenol, he could usually ward them off.
It was 9:00 am, only four hours after the fight had ended. He usually didn't sleep in like this at Tony's, up at seven to help make breakfast and spend a little bit more time before he left for the day. He hoped that Tony wouldn't put too much thought into it.
He got out of bed, threw on a t-shirt, some sweatpants, and socks and found himself padding to the door and opening it.
He was met with a sight that he had already seen once today, a group of people "debriefing". Everyone who was there from this morning still lounged around Tony’s living room, eating and talking and drinking. How on Earth were they still here?! And why didn't Peter think about it before he left the safety of his room?!
Peter’s breath caught in his throat as he caught Wade’s attention. He could see the momentary panic that Wade experienced. There was a second where Wade looked to be thoughtful before he immediately slammed the glass of mimosa he had onto the floor. The shattering noise broke the chatter.
Everyone turned to Wade, giving Peter a second to escape, but not before Tony had the chance to see him.
“Peter!” Tony exclaimed excitedly, as he walked towards him. He still had half of his iron-suit on, and Peter could tell that he’d had a good couple of mimosas before he’d woken up.
“Hi Tony.” Peter greeted him shyly, as everyone’s eyes went to him. Tony wrapped his arm around Peter’s shoulder, bringing him into his body.
“Everybody! This is my-” Tony suddenly cut himself off, realizing that this would for sure be breaking Peter’s boundaries if he introduced him as his son. Peter momentarily went through all of the people in the room, knowing that everyone there had an NDA signed and he was probably okay to be Tony’s son in front of them. It didn’t make him very happy, though.
“You’ve got a new boy toy, Tony?!” Wade exclaimed, trying to diffuse the situation, but overall sounding like a creep. Peter’s eyes shot him daggers as harsh as Tony’s.
“Son.” Peter eventually blurted out, and he could hear a couple of gasps around the room. There was a little bit of a bustle, but eventually Steve followed up.
“They found each other through a DNA match about a year ago. Peter is a wonderful boy and we’re glad you get to meet him.” That helped the tension that was in the room, and some more questions followed.
“How old are you?” Clint asked, and Peter couldn’t help the blush that climbed his cheeks.
“Seventeen.”
“Are you intelligent?” Thor.
Peter laughed. “Kinda-”
“Do you live here now?” Bruce asked, and Peter shook his head to that one.
“What’s your favorite color?” Wade asked, and Peter scrunched his nose at him.
“Red.”
“Who’s your mother-” Thor started but Tony cut that one off.
“No reason to ask that, Abercrombie catalog.” That got people laughing, and finally the attention was off of Peter. Steve came over to set his hand on Peter's back.
“Good morning Peter, sorry for the commotion. Just decompressing after a big one last night.” He didn’t need to tell Peter twice.
“You okay?” Steve inquired, eyes really looking Peter over. He was a little paler, cheeks flushed in something that was not embarrassing. The circles under his eyes were darker, too. Peter’s heart thumped in his chest.
“Yeah.” Peter croaked, headache really biting at the back of his neck. “Just need some tylenol.” Steve went off to the bathroom as someone shoved a cup in Peter’s hand. Peter turned to look, and it was Wade handing him a mug full of black coffee, and Peter wordlessly thanked him.
“Wade! He's only seventeen, he doesn't need a mimosa, and you are seriously the last person on EARTH I would ever let give my son a drink! You vile, di-”
“Relax, shellhead! It’s just coffee. Guy looks like he needs it.” Peter squinted his eyes again.
"Should help the headache." Peter nodded, trying to get both Tony and Wade off of his back. He could feel Wade lingering for a second before he got the hint.
"Well with THAT development, I think it's best we all go. Goodbye, C3PO and minions!"