The Assist
“Hey, so I was thinking I could wear the suit when I saw the guys today,” Peter suggested as he was eating breakfast with Tony.
Tony raised his eyebrows. “Oh yeah? You wanna tell them about you-know-what?”
Peter tilted his head from side to side. “I’m not sure yet. I think I might want to tell them at some point but maybe just for now I meet them as Spider-Man and we just keep me separate? Like don’t tell them yet, just while I still make my mind up.”
Tony nodded. “Okay, we can do that. I can get everyone in the gym for a training session and Spidey can turn up to that if he wants? We can always say that you went to Ned’s or something to do homework or work on Lego or whatever.” Peter took another bite of his waffle and chewed it slowly.
“Yeah, that works. That way I can sorta I don’t know—I can train with them?”
Tony grinned. “Yeah, Pete, you can show them just how strong you are. You can go full pelt at Cap and floor him and take all the credit and they’ll spend weeks bugging me about who you are and then you can just subtly be like ‘oh yeah, that was me by the way’.” Tony chuckled and Peter let out a laugh. “If we go to the lab I can put in a voice changer thing, maybe lower it so that it doesn’t sound like you and it’s not so obvious when you talk to them?”
“That would be great!”
Tony leaned over and ruffled Peter’s hair until he swatted his hand away.
They spent the rest of the morning and some of the early afternoon down in the lab with the suit, installing new tech so that Peter’s voice would be lowered, masking his identity from the Avengers. It wasn’t like interrogation mode, more like what a regular guy would sound like once he’d hit puberty. Apparently that hadn’t happened for Peter yet. He was a late bloomer when it came to the voice register.
He tried it out with Tony.
“See? That sounds great! Totally can’t tell that it’s you!” Tony held his arms out in a ‘how amazing am I?’ gesture and Peter rolled his eyes but he was secretly really excited.
“This is great, Mr Stark! They’re not gonna know a thing!”
Tony clapped his hands together. “Right, let’s get this show on the road, shall we? FRIDAY?”
Yes, Boss?
“Send a message out to the whole team. Training session in the gym in fifteen minutes.” It wasn’t unusual to have spontaneous sessions, so it wouldn’t be too out of question for Tony to do something like this.
Message sent, Sir. All Avengers convening in the gym.
“You ready?” Tony turned to Peter, who was a little nervous and was buzzing with energy. It was fine. He just needed to hit something. Or someone.
“Yeah, this is gonna be fine, right? Not crazy at all, it’s not like this is the first time they’ve seen Spider-Man, I literally fought them in Germany this is fine. This is just in the Avengers’ special training gym in Stark Tower and they know me as in know Peter Parker so I have to make sure that I’m not too obvious and I need to keep the pop culture references to a minimum—mostly cause Steve won’t understand them but also cause they know me, you know? Maybe that would be too much and they’d—”
“Kid, breathe.” Tony placed both his hands on Peter’s shoulders, silencing him. “Everything’s gonna be fine. We got this covered. Maybe just talk as little as possible. Even though I put that new update in your suit, you rant when you’re nervous and they’re gonna pick up on that. The less words, the better, got it?”
Peter took a deep breath and nodded.
“Alright, let’s get to it.”
The whole team was waiting for them when they got to the floor that the gym was on. Peter slipped out of the window at the end of the corridor, prepping for his grand entrance. It also meant that Spider-Man hadn’t been in the building cause that would bring up a whole other lot of questions for Tony like what their situation was and Peter didn’t need those sorts of questions. Peter was nervous enough as it was.
He stuck onto the side of the building and edged along until he was on one of the tinted windows of the gym. He tuned out the noise of traffic and wind and focused on Tony’s voice through the glass. It was thick glass, bullet proof, the lot, but Peter’s super hearing was better. He grinned when he heard his cue.
“Underoos!” Tony called from inside the gym and the window below slid open. Peter swung in and landed in his signature Spider-Man pose on the padded floor of the gym. He looked up to see a lot of eyes staring down at him.
There were a lot of eyes.
Steve was the first to greet him.
“Queens,” he said, holding a hand out that Peter took and stood up.
“Mr Captain America, Sir. It’s good to see you again.” Peter managed to stutter out and Steve’s brown knitted together. Did the kid’s voice sound a little different?
“It’s just Steve or Cap, enough with the titles, kid.”
Peter nodded. “Right, right. Got it.”
“So, Stark, what’s Spider-Boy doing here?” Sam asked and Peter huffed in annoyance.
“I thought it was time he started coming to training sessions with us, getting to know the team a little. And it’s Spider-Man, Bird Number 2. Show the kid some respect, he could kick your ass.” Tony warned and Peter felt satisfied and happy that Tony had defended him.
“Kinda hard to get to know him when we don’t know who he is, Tony.” Steve pointed out and Tony held his hands up.
“Look, that’s not down to me. If he doesn’t want you guys knowing who he is, that’s completely up to him, and you’d better respect that. Maybe when he starts to trust you he’ll take off the mask. But until then, no badgering him, alright?” Tony’s eyes scanned around the whole group and he was met with reluctant nods. “Okay then, let’s get to it.”
Cap led them through the training regime that he’d worked on, the team pairing up and sparring with each other. Peter started off fighting Sam. Apparently they wanted to ‘ease him into it’, whatever the hell that meant. All Peter took from that was that everyone thought Sam was the weakest of the group. Anyway, all the ‘easing’ that was being done was Peter easing Sam to the ground as he flipped him over his shoulder and onto the mat, winding him.
“Oh, that’s how it’s gonna be, is it?” Sam groaned, getting up from the floor holding his stomach. “Alright, then. Let’s see what you got.”
He continued to spar with Sam until the man gave up, eventually wheezing on the floor. Peter looked up triumphantly and searched the room for Tony, who was leaning up against the wall.
“Look, Mr Stark, I won!” Peter cheered and Tony smiled at him, nodding his head.
“Well done, Underoos.”
Peter turned around to Steve, who was fighting Wanda, and Nat, who was fighting Bucky. Steve stopped to shift everyone around, changing the pairings again.
“Alright, Queens, let’s see what you’ve got.” He said, beckoning Peter over. He glanced over at Tony, who narrowed his eyes and gave him a firm nod. He could do this. He had to prove to everyone else and to himself that he could defend Mr Stark if he needed to, that he could take down their team leader to keep his guardian safe.
“O-Okay, Cap.” He hoped the voice changer was working because in his head, Peter sounded like a scared little kid having to call the takeout place on his own for the first time.
Cap lifted the ropes of the ring for him and Peter slid under them, bounding up on his toes to keep himself warm. If he was hyping himself up in his head at the same time, well, nobody needed to know that, did they?
To be fair, he held his own. Every punch Cap threw at him Peter caught, returning a few of his own and sometimes even planting one. He grew satisfied when Steve started to get a little sweaty, panting a little. Peter was much younger and lighter than him, and could jump high. Steve was big and muscly and heavy. He could throw a punch that could knock you out, but he wasn’t especially light on his feet in close-range combat. That was something Peter took advantage of.
In a manoeuvre that Peter had practiced, he placed an uppercut to Steve’s jaw and as his head snapped back, slid through his legs and placed a kick to the back of his knee. Steve fell to one knee and Peter slung a web at the back of his shoulder, pulling him down to the floor.
Cap hit the floor with a thud and Peter smiled with satisfaction.
“Ooh, Cap’s on the canvas! Cap’s on the canvas!” Tony called from the other end of the gym and everyone else stopped sparring to see that indeed yes, Cap was in fact on the canvas.
Steve let out a chuckle and groaned as he stood back up. Peter lifted his fists to carry on fighting but Cap waved him off.
“That’s enough for tonight, Queens.” Peter immediately turned around to Tony and flung his arms up, having his own little Rocky moment, bouncing on his toes.
“Mr Stark, I won!” He said again and Tony let out a laugh.
“I saw, congrats, kid. Not many people can say that they’ve beaten Captain America.”
Nat’s eyes narrowed at him. “Yeah well, we’ll see what happens next time when he goes up against me.”
Suddenly, Peter’s brief fleeting moment of joy was just that. Brief. And fleeting.
The sheer fear that Peter felt about the possibility of sparring with Natasha was incomparable to everything else he’d ever felt. He swallowed harshly and prayed for death.
“Alright, Underoos, you gotta be getting back?” Tony called and Peter snapped out of it. Tony gave him a look and Peter suddenly remembered what he was supposed to be doing.
“Uh—yeah! Yeah, I gotta get back to Queens. It-it was nice to meet you guys, though. R-Real nice. I’ll see you soon.” And with that Peter bolted for the window that slid open. Tony chuckled to himself when half the team had heart attacks (as well as him) watching the kid fall out the window before slinging a web onto the next skyscraper.
“Damn, Stark. Who the hell is that kid?” Sam said, his hand working a knot out in his back.
“I told you, Wilson, I’m not telling. It’s up to him.”
“He seems familiar,” Nat said, her eyes still on the window that had now closed.
“Well he was on your side, right? You’ve talked to him before?” Steve asked and Nat shook her head.
“No, Tony said that he had someone else and that was it. I saw him for the first time when you guys did when we were at the airport. I’ve never talked to the kid.” Tony began to fidget with something in his hands as Nat talked. “But he seems familiar. Not his voice or anything, just—like the way he—”
“Like the way he acts? Like how he’s full of energy and chatty?” Wanda finished and Nat nodded. “I got that too. Strange.”
“How old is he, Tony?” Steve asked.
Tony babbled for a little, trying not to say anything of real importance. “I don’t know, the kid doesn’t tell me anything,” is what he settled on.
“But is he in college or something?” Nat asked.
Tony shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know, Romanoff. I don’t know what you want me to say, the kid didn’t tell me his whole life story.”
“Seems a little odd that he doesn’t tell you anything, given the fact that you’re the only one he’s spoken to properly and you’ve seen him without his mask on. You know who he is.” Sam pointed out and Tony was getting more nervous by the second.
And that’s when FRIDAY saved the day.
Boss, Peter would like me to let you know that he’s back from Ned’s and would like to speak to you.
Tony let out a breath in relief. He clapped his hands tighter, shrugging his shoulders, his persona and confidence coming back to him.
“Well then, duty calls. Good session guys.” Without another word, he left the gym and took the elevator back up to the penthouse.
“So how do you think it went?” Peter asked nervously. He was waiting for Tony on the sofa in the living area and the man joined him, plopping himself down next to him and slinging his arm around Peter’s shoulders.
“I mean the fighting was pretty impressive, Pete.” Peter grinned and Tony ruffled his hair affectionately.
“And did they—did they say anything about me?”
Tony took a breath. “Nat was a little suspicious. She said you seemed familiar. Not from your voice but from the way you act. They didn’t say anything about you though, so I think you’re safe.”
Peter was immediately worried.
“Oh god, they’re gonna figure it out, aren’t they? They ‘re gonna start asking me questions about everything and I—”
“Peter, chill. Everything’s gonna be alright. They ask you anything, you just brush it off completely, okay?” Peter nodded.
“Do you think I should just tell them? I mean, would it be okay if I just told them? Like would they do anything?”
Tony thought for a moment. “They might get angry with me for letting a fourteen-year-old be on the team and bringing you into a fight that wasn’t yours to fight. But they won’t be angry with you. And they won’t tell a soul if you asked them not to. They can keep a secret, I promise you.”
Peter nodded slowly. “I—I might need a little time to think about it.”
“That’s fine, buddy. Take all the time that you need.”
They didn’t have all that long, it turned out, because twenty minutes later the alarm went off and everyone had to assemble. There was some sort of threat in Uptown Manhattan.
“Are you kidding me? Are you actually having me on? Can we really not have a break?” Tony was shouting around the penthouse as he called his suit to himself. The jet was being prepared on the loading dock on the roof.
“Can I come?” Peter asked, excitedly. “I can help, I promise! I’ll be good!”
Tony shook his head immediately. “No, Underoos. You stay right here where I know you’re safe. This is different, Pete, it’s a little outside of Spider-Man’s pay grade.”
“But what about if you get hurt!” He rushed out and Tony paused for a minute, giving him a sad smile.
“How about I patch you into comms? You can hear everything that’s going on from the safe space of our luxury penthouse?” Tony suggested and Peter folded his arms across his chest.
“I could help, you know. I’m strong.” Peter pouted and Tony’s heart melted at how cute he was right now.
“I know you could, kiddo. But this isn’t your fight. This is weird shit, this is too much for you. I don’t need to be worried about you, I need to know that you’re safe here waiting for me, okay?” Tony rested his hand on Peter’s shoulder.
Peter let out a huff, still not happy about it. But then the suit arrived and encased Tony’s body and Peter didn’t really have a choice anymore as the man was getting into the elevator to go up to the roof.
“I’ll be back soon, buddy. FRIDAY, patch into the comms so the kid can keep on track with us.”
Yes, Boss.
“And call Helen Cho. Have her get a team on standby just in case.” The elevator doors slid shut.
Of course.
The doors opened and Tony joined the rush of people getting in the jet. He wasn’t going in the jet since he could fly and it was pretty close, but Nat, Wanda, Steve and Bucky needed transport. Wilson and Vision could fly.
“We all connected?” Steve asked and there was a chorus of ‘yes’ as people patched through to the comms. “Alright, let’s get down there and see what the hell’s going on.”
Weird hybrid people. That was a new one.
Tony tried to get a good look at them but they were a blur—one seemed to have blades for arms, another was literally a blur he was running so fast, and one was—a giant??
They were from Earth, apparently, because no wormhole had spontaneously opened, for which Tony was thankful. He wasn’t sure he could handle a flashback right now. It was already starting to seem like deja vu.
There weren’t as many of them as there were aliens a few years ago.
But they were still getting their arses kicked.
“These guys are OsCorp,” Nat spoke. “Their belts—that’s the logo. Norman Osborn’s up to some weird shit again.”
Tony cursed. “When will people learn not to mess with science. I know hybrid people sound great but come on, imagine trying to do anything when your arms are freaking blades!”
“Stark! You wanna call your Spider-Guy?” Sam asked through the comms.
“Not his fight!” Tony called back.
“Whether it’s his fight or not, we’re getting closer to Queens so it’s gonna become his fight!” Sam grunted as he took another hit. “At this point I’ll be surprised if he doesn’t turn up off his own back!”
“Spider-Man stays out of this.” Tony said finally and that was the end of that. “FRI, open a private line with Pete.”
“Are you okay?!” Peter’s worried voice immediately filled the speakers in Tony’s helmet.
“I’m okay, kiddo. We’re doing okay.” Tony fired another blast at one of them, grabbed it’s pointy electric stick weapon and head-butted them. They crumpled to the ground and Tony blasted them again for good measure.
“Are you sure? The news coverage, it—it looks bad.” Tony recognised the tone of the kid’s voice.
“Absolutely not, kid. Do not put on the suit, you hear me?”
“But Mr Stark, I can help!” Peter whined, making him sound like a toddler. Tony shook his head even though he knew Peter couldn’t see him. “And Sam’s right! You’re getting closer to Queens, it would be weird if Spider-Man didn’t show up!”
“Peter Benjamin Parker, you leave that suit alone. You stay at home, okay?”
The line disconnected and Tony swore.
“FRIDAY, reconnect now!”
I’m sorry, Boss, but Peter has declined your call.
He swore again. If the kid came out to help, he was going to kill him.
Peter pulled on the Spider-Man suit for the second time that day. He knew Tony was going to be mad at him for it but he couldn’t just wait there at the tower while everyone else on the team was fighting. Someone could get seriously hurt!
When you can do the things that I can, and you don’t, and then the bad things happen, they happen because of you.
His own words echoed in his mind from the first time he’d met Tony. He could do this. He had to do this. He had to help. Because he could.
Peter leapt out of the window on the penthouse and Karen mapped out the quickest route for him to the action.
“Karen, connect to the Avengers.”
Immediately his ears were filled with the sounds of fighting and grunts coming from his half a dozen teammates.
“S-Spider-Man here, Cap.” Peter said, thankful for the voice update once again.
“Hey, kid. Can you get in those buildings and see if they’ve been evacuated?” Steve asked and Tony spluttered.
“Kid, I told you not to come.” Tony said and Peter could tell he was mad. “I told you we could handle this.”
“Mr Stark, I—”
“We need the help, Tony.” Cap cut in.
There were a couple of moment of tense silence.
“Alright, fine. But you stay on the outskirts, okay? You help the people, I don’t want you anywhere near these guys. You got it?” Tony gave him instructions and even though Peter wasn’t especially happy with them, he figured it was a fair compromise.
“Okay, Mr Stark, I got it.”
Peter tried to get it.
He really did.
But apparently he didn’t.
Peter had done as he was told and had helped to evacuate the people from the buildings surrounding the alien attack. Some buildings were on fire, he’d taken kids out of windows and lowered them to the ground, he’d herded groups of people off in the direction of the police, who were setting up a perimeter. He helped support the caved in ceiling of one floor of a building long enough so that a young couple could get down the stairs and out onto the street.
He did what he was told.
It wasn’t his fault that this web canister ran out.
Okay well maybe it was, but in Peter’s defence… he didn’t know it was going to run out.
So Peter fell about a hundred feet between two buildings and crash landed in an alley way, hitting his head on the floor. And then one of the weirder looking people came up to him—it was the guy with blades for arms. Neat.
Almost definitely badly concussed, Peter tried to fight him. He managed to get a few punches in but with no webbing left he had little alternative. The dude managed to stab him with a weird glowing blade in the side and Peter let out a yelp.
“Underoos? You okay?” Tony’s worried voice came over the comm and Peter groaned.
The dude went in to stab him again but Peter grabbed (the handle??) his elbow and twisted so that the blade popped out of the socket. He then grabbed it and stabbed the guy in the chest. He collapsed before him and Peter groaned, lying back down on the ground.
“Uhh,” Peter let out another groan. His hand went to his side and when it came back bloody he whimpered. “I—I was lightly stabbed.”
Tony’s outrage was immediate. “I’m sorry, lightly stabbed?! Kid, what happened? Where are you?” Tony started to really panic but Peter’s vision was becoming blurry and he couldn’t form coherent words anymore.
Boss, Spider-Man is down.
“What?!” Tony gasped, panicked. “What do you mean he’s down? What happened?”
It seems his canisters ran out of webbing and he fell over 100 feet and hit his head and then he was stabbed. He is currently unconscious.
Tony made a mental note to try and add a little more feeling into FRIDAY’s programming cause this stating the obvious without regard for emotion was grating.
“Take me to him.” Tony spat out and he left the battle.
“Tony, we need help—” Steve began, but Tony cut him off.
“Spider-Man’s down, Steve, I’ve gotta get to him. He’s been hurt.” His words were clipped and harsh, but he felt like he was justified. He tried to keep his voice level as he spoke, not wanting to give anything away about who Spider-Man really was.
Steve let out a sigh in exasperation. “Fine. Check him out, ship him off and then get back here. There’s still a lot of these guys.”
Cap’s total disregard of Peter (even though he didn’t know it was Peter) angered Tony even more, but he bit his tongue. He had bigger problems right now, ripping Steve’s head off (and Sam’s, for that matter) could wait until Tony found Peter and made sure he wasn’t going to, you know, die.
Tony spotted Peter sprawled out in a dirty alley a few blocks from the action. There was the body of one of the weird hybrid people next to him, the stabby stick of death between them both. Tony landed hurriedly and kicked away the other body. He pulled Peter up and placed his head in his lap. He tugged the Spider-Man mask off.
“Come on, kid, wake up for me.” Tony encouraged, running his hands through Peter’s hair. He cringed when his hand came back covered in blood. Right. Concussion. “Come on,” Tony pled desperately. “FRIDAY, tell Helen she’s got incoming. Send her a list of his injuries.
Helen was the only other person aside from Pepper, Rhodey, Happy and Tony that actually knew who Peter was. She’d helped them out of more than one sticky situation. Tony really needed to give her a huge raise. Colossal.
Peter let out a groan and Tony’s eyes snapped back to him. “Kid? You with me?”
“M’sr S’ark?” Peter groaned and Tony breathed a sigh of relief. He was alive, at the very least.
“Yeah, it’s me. You got hurt, kid. I’m gonna get you back to Helen.”
“‘M ‘kay,” Peter didn’t open his eyes as Tony stood up, lifting Peter into his arms.
“I’m taking Spider-Man back to the tower to see Helen, he’s really hurt.” Tony spoke into the comms.
Nat answered before Steve could. “Okay, we won’t be long behind you, I don’t think. Vision just blew a load of them up with his head. Could’ve been helpful half an hour ago but whatever.”
“Alright, I’ll see you guys back at the tower.”
Tony didn’t waste another second, the suit powering up and shooting them both off into the sky towards the tower. Tony was thankful they weren’t too far away. It was moments like this he missed having Bruce there for emergency triage.
The window slide open for Tony on the floor of the Med-Bay and he landed in the corridor. Helen was already there waiting for him with a gurney.
“FRIDAY sent me his injuries. Do you need the suit?”
Tony shook his head. He didn’t need the suit, he could make him another one. Not that the kid would be using it for the next few weeks. He was so grounded.
“Alright, we’ll do what we can. I’ll have FRIDAY let you know when we’re done and he’s in recovery.” Tony’s hands shook and Helen noticed. She placed her hand on his shoulder and his head snapped up to hers. “He’s gonna be okay, Tony. These are pretty routine injuries. We just have to keep an eye on him and make sure they don’t get worse. Stab wounds, concussions, broken ribs; we’ve dealt with them all before. Peter has dealt with them all before, okay?”
Tony nodded and cleared his throat. “Thanks, Helen. I—I need to go talk to the team.” He was going to give Steve a piece of his mind is what he was going to do. He was furious.
“Like I said, I’ll let you know when he’s in recovery.” With that, Helen walked off in the direction they’d wheeled Peter.
Boss, the Avengers have arrived back at the tower. They are requesting an update on Spider-Man.
Tony scoffed. An update? Yeah, an update is what they were going to get.
He rode the elevator up to the penthouse where everyone was waiting for him. He walked to the kitchen without saying a word to them and started brewing a pot of coffee. Everyone gathered around the kitchen island.
“How’s Spider-Man doing? Is he okay? Look, I’m sorry he got hurt but we needed him—” Sam was the first one to ask, which somehow angered Tony even further.
Tony surged forward, grabbing Sam by the neck and pushing him up against the closest wall. “Don’t you even speak about Spider-Man. Do you know what just happened? Do you know what you just did?” Tony snarled, fixing a murderous glare on Sam to the point where everyone was a little concerned. They hadn’t seen this side of Tony before, not directed towards the team. Never towards the team. Not even in Germany. Not even in Siberia.
“Tony,” Steve put on his warning voice, “Tony, put Sam down.” There was another beat. “I know you’re angry and you’re upset, but put Sam down.”
Reluctantly, Tony let go of Sam’s throat and Sam moved away from him, massaging the area. Tony looked around the room, still almost vibrating with anger. He wheeled around to face everyone and placed a hand on the island countertop.
“My son is hurt, and if he dies, that’s on you.” He spat out, freezing almost immediately.
He’d just done what he said he’d never do.
He’d given away Peter’s secret.