Being in the suit’s hardware was a no-no.
Big, Big no-no.
The only time Peter is allowed to work on the hardware in Peter’s suit is when Tony is right there beside him to teach him the intricate ways of a multi-million dollar not-so-much-spandex suit.
“Dude, I really don’t think we should be doing. Don’t you remember what Mr. Stark did to you last time we hacked into the suit?” Ned whispered despite the fact that they were alone in the library’s study room.
“Ned, seriously, he didn’t take the suit away because we hacked into it. We’re going to be fine.”
Well, maybe not. When Tony had heard that Peter and Ned had successfully hacked into the suit to take out the tracker, he was impressed... for about five minutes. Then came the lecture of irresponsible actions, and how they could have blown themselves up. So they most definitely shouldn’t be doing this.
But, Tony is out of country, which means Peter can’t fix the malfunctioning HUD. So things needed to be taken into his own hands. It’s not like he could really do his patrols without this suit, another rule. And Tony won’t be back for a few months and this is an emergency.
“Peter.”
“I don’t know what Tony expects me to do, Ned. The HUD is only really important and it needs to be fixed c’mon man, are we doing this or what?”
Ned hesitated his head moving from side to side before agreeing. He started hooking up a few wires from his laptop to the suit and Peter cheered, moving around the room. Once Ned was successfully connected to the mainframe Peter sat down right beside him.
Lines of code started to write themselves on the laptop screen, baring everything out in Tony’s made language. This was definitely more complex than the last time the two hacked in. He was always good at trying to fix previous mistakes, or now known as making sure two teens wouldn’t be able to hack into the suit a second time. Lucky for Peter, Tony had just started to teach him how to understand his personal language.
“This is not the same coding as last time. We really shouldn’t be in your suit, I can’t understand what any of this says.”
“Ned, we’re fine. Mr. Stark taught me how to read this. As long as we put what we need in the right spots it doesn’t need to be in his language, Karen will translate our part for us.”
Ned seemed to consider this for a moment. Trying to figure out if Peter was lying or not, which he mostly was. But he should know just enough for everything to be fine. Once you understand the basics the rest comes easy.
“Are you sure you know what this says?”
“Yeah, yeah, I know enough.”
“Alright.” Ned smiled. “Where do we start?”
The two started to work together, Peter pointing to different parts of the code, instructing Ned on where to put new codes in and what needed to be inputted and what was corrupted to get the HUD working again. Over an hour of making corrections to the code with minimal guessing on Peter’s part they had finally wrapped up what they were doing. Just as Ned went disconnected his laptop from the suit, the eye pieces started to flash red.
“No, no, no, no no! This isn’t good.” Peter mumbled, taking over the computer to try and fix whatever they did wrong.
“What did we do?”
Peter scanned over the coding trying to translate the little bit of coding he actually understood go figure out the problem. The code wrote itself too fast for Peter to stay caught up, with too many warnings riddled into it.
“We messed up, badly. Oh my god Mr. Stark is going to kill us.”
“And here I thought you were already dead, Roo. Want to explain to me why you’re suit alerted FRIDAY that you died? Or better yet why you are in the spidey suit despite that being on the No-No List.”
That was the not impressed voice. The ‘you’re in trouble’ voice. It was the ‘Peter Parker you’re in some deep shit and if you try bullshitting me you won’t like what happens next’ voice. Basically, it was a ‘I’m talking to May and you’ll be grounded’ voice and Peter knows he won’t be able to get out of this one.
Ned muttered out some swear words before recognizing that Tony Stark- Iron Man is leaning against the doorframe one ankle crossed over the other, one hand on his hip the other on his face. Tony was wearing a suit and had a deep set frown set across his face. This wasn’t good.
“I made it from China, Peter, in 20 minutes. China to New York in 20 minutes. I thought you were dead.” Tony’s voice was cold and business-like, it gave Peter chills. “I broke multiple laws, and records. I thought you were bleeding out on the street because you ran out of web fluid and couldn’t catch yourself. I was worried that someone took you and tortured you until your body just gave up. I have told you time and time again to not go into the suits mainframe without me present, and this is why, Peter.”
Tony’s hands were shaking, despite his best effort to conceal it, nearly impossible to notice if you weren’t well acquainted with him. One arm raised to tap a pattern where the arc reactor used to rest- a nervous tick that never died with removal of the machine. He chewed on his cheek and that’s when Peter realized Tony wasn’t angry.
Tony was worried, scared even but he showing it as anger. It was easier for him this way, they were in public and anger is better to show when there may be someone watching.
“Close the door Mr. Stark?” Peter asked, voice a few octaves too high. Ned kicked Peter’s leg, and Peter shoo’d Ned out of the room for the moment.
Tony raised his eyebrows stepping further into the room, as Ned stepped out, the door shutting behind them. As soon as it clicked, Tony took in a huge gulp of air.
“What in the ever-loving fuck, Parker? I thought you were dead. I pictured your dead body and tried to figure out what I’d tell your aunt. You can’t- don’t ever do that again. Jesus Christ, kid, you cannot do that, I don’t want to think you’re dead when you are fine again.”
The way Tony dropped into a squat was unsettling, his breathing uneven. His hands went straight into his hair, and after a few minutes Tony stood back up as if nothing anything happened.
“Right, I’m fine, more importantly you are alive. Don’t do that to me again, yeah?”
Peter couldn’t help but nod. “Yeah, of course. I’ll add it to the No-No List.”