Bots and Bathrooms
“Jeez, you’re killing me here Cap,” there was a clanging sound that reverberated through the comm line. “Just aim for the back of their heads, where the neck meets the skull, it’s the weakest point and you can easily sever the power core.” Tony grinned lopsidedly from within the suit as he watched Steve doing exactly that, completely beheading two bots with the flick of his wrist as his shield bounced back to his magnetised glove. “Told you,” he teased with smugness clinging to his tone.
“Sure, like I wouldn’t have figured that out on my own,” Steve rolled over the hood of a car and kicked a third bot hard enough to send it smacking into a telephone pole and cracking the eye lens. “You might just want to fight on the ground for this one, these things are spreading out too much for my liking, we need someone on civilian duty,” Tony landed with a thud a few feet away from the soldier, blasting the four closest threats and grinning as he saw Clint atop a nearby building. The archer was making quick work of his arrow supply, he was efficient, the bots’ necks were so exposed as they focused on Tony and Steve that Clint was taking them out with one effective shot.
“I sure as hell won’t be dealing with getting them out of the way, they’ll flock me,” Tony deflected. If Clint hadn’t been so busy grappling with a bot that had found its way to the building he was perched on, he would have rolled his eyes.
“Whose fault was it that you decided to tell the world you were Iron Man, huh?” Steve shot back, blasting the bot that Sam had been defiantly hand-to-handing with for the past few minutes and resisted the urge to poke his tongue out like a child.
“Stop arguing, I’m swamped about a block over from you, but someone’s got to deal with civilians, they’re first priority.” Natasha bent down, letting the bot that had charged her roll gracelessly over her back before she elegantly straightened and brought the back of her elbow down on its weak point, hearing the satisfying crunch as the power source line snapped and the computerized red glow to its eyes powered down as it crumpled to the ground.
The comm line stayed silent as everyone focused on the fight for a moment more before it crackled as another signal buzzed in.
“I’m on civilians,” a voice the team recognised called as Tony’s eyebrow quirked. The mechanic was the only one who seemed to have heard the painfully obvious youth in the pitch of that voice, and he momentarily let himself become distracted as Steve was attacked, from three separate sides, to his right. “I’m heading down closer to where you guys are, the bots are more spread out. I should be able to clear more of the people hiding in shops that way.”
Tony focused on paving a pathway through the small waves of bots while he listened to the distinguishable thwip, thwip, thwip of Peter’s webs. After what must have been only a few minutes, he saw the familiar flash of red and blue arcing between the buildings before swinging on a lamppost and beginning to usher civilians out backdoors and through alleyways to the safest point. Him and Steve, with a helpful few arrows from Clint, managed to clear majority of Central Park and began to work their way across the shops Peter had emptied till they were back-to-back with Natasha, Sam and Rhodey.
“Hey Mr. Stark, Karen did a scan and I think I’ve got everyone cleared, I’m headed over to your position now.” Tony could hear Peter’s feet scuffing the pavement as he assumingly pulled himself into the air with the newer webs they had synthesised last week.
“Uh, actually I think we’re pretty handled over here Spidey,” he clicked their comms onto a private line for a second. “You should get back to school, but you did good,” the praise made Peter smile behind his mask, but it dropped after a moment as he began to gnaw at the inside of his cheek.
“I wasn’t… I wasn’t actually at school today,” Tony ducked when Steve called for him to, and a disk of red, white and blue flew over his head, successfully taking out a bot that had been in his blind spot. He switched his comm onto the open line briefly to shout a thank you from over the whirring of his repulsors.
“What’s your ETA Spider-Man?” Rhodey swung his armour-clad arm and sent a bot smacking into a parked car, almost feeling bad about the cracked windscreen and hoping whoever owned it had insurance.
“I’m a couple blocks away, should be less than two minutes,” Peter’s voice wasn’t puffed at all and Tony regretted to admit that he was occasionally at awe with how much web slinging the little hero could do before he even began to show signs of exhaustion.
“Tony can your scanners figure out how many more of these things there are?” There was a bang from his left and he turned in time to see a relatively sized dent in the back of Sam’s compacted wingsuit along with a few unsavoury words that he figured Cap wouldn’t want to hear. “I’m good,” the man assured after he paused to take down the bot that must have put the dent there. “Just figure out how many there are.”
“F.R.I reckons there’s at least another eighty or so, won’t take too long if Rhodes and I take to the sky, your suit functional?” He diverted some firepower to his thrustors and hovered just above the fray, eyeing the damage.
“Uh, yeah, they’re just getting a bit aggressive man.” He noticed Clint taking out one of the bots that had somehow crawled its way onto Steve’s back and the soldier hit the ground to shake it loose with a grunt. A tire popped abruptly from where Natasha was behind them, and Tony, with his higher vantage point, saw as even she took a well-placed but non-serious hit to her side as multiple bots filled the place she had just taken the first one down in.
“Getting a bit feisty down there, huh?” Rhodey nodded as he joined the Iron Man armour in the sky, firing a few low-impact missals into the outskirts of the conflict, blowing at least seven or eight bots to pieces.
“Here now guys,” Tony turned in the air to see Spider-Man sweep past him and to the group. The kid immediately began webbing stray bots in place as he flipped around the hand-to-hand confrontations, aiming web grenades and even busting out a taser web where he could.
“Stay alert kid, keep it tame,” he joked as he watched Peter darting through the bots as best he could, dodging random attacks before retaliating with hard-hitting kicks and more webs.
The mechanic’s attention fluttered back to where Steve and Clint were beginning to become out numbered and Natasha had diverted her tactics to short range taser disks and a few knives. “Sam can you and Rhodey get further down so we can isolate these batches a bit more, we’re starting to clump together.”
The two men stretched out the containment of the fight and things didn’t ease up as much as Tony would have liked. Natasha had grouped in with Clint and Steve, who were now firmly stood in a circle, clipping bots who got too close and slowly cutting down the numbers while Sam and Rhodey were flying around the bottleneck and beginning to drop more firepower into the thicker patches of bots. He glanced below and frowned as he saw Peter, who was almost backed up against the brick wall of a shop as several bots ground against each other in their haste to snap the rapidly weakening webs the boy had shot.
“Tony!” He dropped back to the street and shot a beam at Steve’s awaiting shield, letting it rebound straight back off and knock down multiple bots as Clint somehow managed to peg two of his own with one arrow.
There was a clattering a few feet away and he glimpsed a garbage can spilling bags of trash over the pavement as Peter leapt overtop it and shoulder-rolled back to his feet, immediately shooting a web and pulling himself halfway up the shop wall. He was about to fly in to take out the bots that had by now snapped the web keeping them in place, but Peter seemed to have a plan in mind as they all surged forward at once to try and reach him. The boy dropped from the side of the building, falling just in front of them, meters away from hitting the ground. At seemingly the last moment, he webbed to a lamppost and swung himself feet first into the group of bots, sending them all sprawling across the sidewalk like pins at a bowling alley.
Tony shook his head fondly as he heard the accustomed childish, but endearing, whoop of joy the kid made. He doubled back to help with the last wave of bots and became indulged in that as he flew through the main upsurge of them, blasting multiple and focusing on predominantly aiming for the weak spot as he worked through them.
“Okay guys, Sam and I finished off the bottleneck, you guys have the last few on you now, then we’re done.” Rhodey’s comm clicked off and Tony knew his faceplate had probably flipped open.
“I got the last three from my side coming your way Cap,” Steve nodded an affirmative as his shield connected back with his hand and he shouldered it quickly. Clint took one out, he got the last two and Natasha severed the power source on one they had missed.
For a moment after Tony landed beside the three, they merely took time to survey the area for any bots they may have happened to overlook. Nothing stirred aside from Rhodey and Sam landing a few feet away, the satisfied looks on their faces said they had done their own check as they flew over.
“Okay, everyone good here?” Steve checked over Sam’s wingsuit a bit more thoroughly as Clint picked up a few stray arrows and Natasha pocketed a small blade.
“Shit!” There was a muffled scuffling noise and then a heavy clap as something hit the concrete around the corner, Tony perked up as he recognised the voice, yet again.
“That’s P – Spidey!” He called as his suit carried him over to where the teen was just pulling himself up off the ground, at the back of a dingy alleyway behind the shop he had climbed only a few minutes beforehand. “Hey, you good kid?” Peter rubbed the back of his head and shot a final web at a bot that lay jerking on the ground a few feet away.
“Y – yeah, I’m good, I’m fine. Just dropped down out of nowhere, took me off-guard, sorry.” His foot toed the still bot and he shrugged with finality, the mask eyes tilting to squint up at Tony’s faceplate.
“It’s fine,” he flipped the faceplate and looked back at Peter, who’s mask decidedly stayed on until the rest of the Avengers weren’t stood around the corner. “You mind heading back to the tower with me?” Peter’s head quirked upward, and Tony watched the lenses of his mask widen slightly. “If you didn’t come from school, and you’re free, I wanna do another batch of that web fluid.” He wagged a finger in the direction of a quickly dissolving web that stuck against the bricks as they walked out of the alley, “they didn’t seem strong enough, I mean, they didn’t hold those bots for very long.”
“Uh, yeah, sorry about that. I don’t know if I used enough from the canister to keep them in place, should’ve probably just used more.” Tony didn’t miss the way Peter seemed to shoulder the blame, despite the fact that one, it was decidedly not his fault, and two, there wasn’t even a major issue in the first place. He did a final glance around before making eye contact with Steve, wordlessly checking if he was fine to head back now that everything was clear, and they only needed clean up to do their job.
“You cool with sticking around for Happy, or did you want to swing back?” Peter fiddled with his web shooter distractedly before looking up.
“I’ll, uhm – I’ll just wait for Hap,” he rocked back and forth on his ankles and when Tony snapped the faceplate shut again he stepped back, letting the man burst off into the sky as he flew back to the tower.
The teen absently changed his web canisters, his cheeks flushing as the familiar post-adrenaline bout of anxiousness rolled in. He pressed the pads of his thumbs together awkwardly before deciding to just scurry back up the side of the shop building and hang by himself on the roof while he waited for Happy to arrive.
Flushed cheeks is exactly the kind of thing he liked having the mask on for, like a second layer of skin that hid the nervous tremors and stopped him from chewing his nails like a nervous wreck. Because he didn’t have anything to be nervous about, not here and not now at least.
He hated his stupid body hormones, why couldn’t his Spidey-sense just figure itself out and mark Tony down as the exact opposite of a threat? Probably because it’s still frayed from earlier today, his head supplied, unhelpfully.
----
Happy only took about twenty odd minutes to drop him back at the tower, and Peter spent three more in the bathroom, pulling on jeans and a t-shirt as he jumped on one leg to pull the suit off his last foot.
“Took your time Underoos,” he fumbled with his access card as Tony twiddled a pen in his hand, a sheet of basic web formulas propped in front of him at the lab table.
“Sorry, I uhm, y – yeah,” he clenched and unclenched his hands at his sides, unable to contain the continuous buzzing in his skull as he shuffled from one foot to the other, desperately containing the urge to run.
“You sure you’re good Pete?” He tore his eyes up from his scuffed sneakers and nodded, probably a bit too vehemently but that was normal. Well, it was normal for him, to everyone else he was just an annoyance.
Or a spazz, it didn’t exactly matter, he was just whatever Flash decided to label him for the day.
“Yeah I’m fine,” he felt over-exposed without the mask, his face was flushing again as he thought too much about it, he needed a distraction from himself, from the phantom taught feeling of breathlessness which was all in his head. “So, what’s the deal with the webs… are you – are we going to change the formula up a bit?”
“Yep, can’t exactly sacrifice strength for elasticity in your industry, can we?”
“Yeah,” he huffed a laugh that sounded too unenthusiastic to his own ears, “yeah, uh, not the most – most ideal… situation, I guess.” Idiot. Idiot. What did Flash say the other day at decathlon practice, yeah, ‘shut it Parker, we’re trying to concentrate and all you’re doing is blathering like an idiot.’ “Wouldn’t wanna snap a web during patrol, huh,” making it worse. Making it so much worse, stop talking, stop talki –
“So, you’re sure that hit wasn’t a bit much, nothing broken?” Changing subject, okay. Tony changed the subject on you, it means he wants to move on. Because you’re rambling… as usual, no surprise there.
“Yeah, yeah, for sure,” he mumbled, wondering whether he should stay standing where he was and continue to look like a poorly structured statue of himself or if it would be better to pull out the chair and just sit down.
The thought of actually making his feet move sounded horrible, let alone having to pull out the chair, tuck the edges of his shirt in when he sat and then having to try and not fidget too much unless he wanted to draw unwanted attention to himself…
“Yeah?” Tony asked worriedly. What, what was Mr. Stark asking? Oh, the question, he asked a question, what was the question? Why wouldn’t you pay attention, you look so rude now. This is why you keep the mask on, so much more focused when the mask’s on.
“I mean, no, no I’m – I’m good. It was fine, I’m fine.” Tony levelled him with a stare that made him want to turn away to hide the pinkness he could feel crawling into his cheeks.
‘You’re blushing like a girl, Penis.’
After what felt like an eternity, the mechanic finally dropped the gaze, a concentrated frown picking up on his features as he fiddled with a test tube and handed Peter a pair of safety goggles. He pushed the chair beside him out from under the desk, a clear invitation to sit.
The teen wandered over stiffly, hating the way he could feel his back arching forward as he pulled himself in and sat down. Peter always caught himself doing that, curling further into himself to avoid attention, to submit before people found a reason to target him. He froze up slightly and forced himself to finally settle in place, so he wouldn’t fidget anymore.
“So, how come you skipped out on school today?” Peter picked at the hem of his shirt and looked down, his head bowed as the thought of looking up and seeming too invested in the conversation worried him, at least it did when he was beside Tony, who always seemed evenly lax and steady as he spoke. God knows how he managed to.
“It was just kinda a free day, nobody really had classes and there were just a bunch of activities and tents set up on the field… May called the school to let them know I wasn’t going, the school was fine with it, I didn’t miss any classes or anything.”
I can’t go, not after last year. Too many people, too much stimuli, can’t fight back even if things go bad like last time.
“That the uh – what do you call it? Uh… festival day?” Tony tilted his head, waiting for an answer. Speak words, use your words, just answer him so he doesn’t ask what’s so wrong with festival day…
“Uh y – yeah, festival day…” There was a pause where neither of them spoke, but Peter felt like he was still obliged to draw out the conversation. “How did… how’d you know about festival day?” Tony put something into a glass beaker and scribbled notes on the paper beside him before answering.
“There were fliers around Midtown, I saw them and figured you’d be there with your friends toda –”
“Friend,” Peter corrected quietly. Friend as is singular. Nobody else is nice enough to call a friend.
“C’mon, you’ve got more that just Ted.” Tony probed, still dripping various solutions into the beaker as he spoke.
“Ned, and no Mr. Stark, I don’t.” Unless you count someone who punches you in the gut everyday after gym class as a friend, I’m by myself aside from the one person who doesn’t treat me like the social equivalent of May’s leftovers. “I – I’m sorry I just… I just try to keep to myself is all, m’ not good with… social stuff, I guess.” Why did you tell him that? He’s Tony Stark, press conferences every other day, he’s lived his whole life around reporters and interviewers, he’ll think you’re pathetic.
“That’s normal, ‘specially since the bite I’m guessing, with all the noise and stuff.” Tony didn’t look up from where he was scrawling a new formula underneath the old one.
“Yeah… yeah probably.” How could he understand? “Thanks,” he murmured, touching a curled-out finger to the edge of his safety goggles. Tony hummed as if to ask, ‘for what?’ But Peter was already shifting the finger underneath his goggles and rubbing the small space under his eyes as unnoticeably as he could.
Tony chose that moment to look up, he caught the watery reflection of the light, the wetness on Peter’s fingers which he hurriedly moved to wipe away on his pant legs. He had the decency to let Peter at least try and cover the fact that he was openly crying for a moment before he put the beaker aside and turned in his chair, a gentle, reassuring hand touching the boy’s knee lightly.
“You wanna talk Pete?” He pulled off his goggles completely and put them on the bench, lifting the heel of his hand and rubbing it over both his eyes as he shook his head and tried to hide how much his shoulders were shaking in an attempt to muffle the wet sobs his body wanted to push out.
“No, I – I just – I’m fine, I’m sorry… I’m good, I just need to u – use the bathroom please.” His voice came out so soft that it was barely audible, but Tony smiled lightly and squeezed his knee before letting him up and watching him with an empathetic look on his face as the teen drifted to the bathrooms in the hallway.
----
Peter locked the bathroom door behind him, his eyes squeezing shut as he switched off the lights and blinked as his headache began to recede slightly. He tried to ignore the tear-stained glimpse of himself he caught in the mirror as he made his way to the sinks.
‘Crying, Parker? You’re such a baby.’
He drowned out the memory as he cupped his hands together and pulled water from the tap to his face, letting it drop over his forehead before running over his cheeks and lashes. Peter sighed, heavily, before patting his face dry with a paper towel and leaning against the wall, his head tilted up to the roof where the lights were off. He sniffled and wiped a damp spot over his cheek with the cuff of his sleeve and muttered to himself as he flicked the lights back on, winced and walked out the door, avoiding the mirror as he went, “why am I like this?”
Peter walked down the hallway slowly, trying not to think about how much respect he had probably just lost from his mentor, rushing out of the lab in the middle of a project only to lock himself in the bathroom and cry like he was at school.
“H – hi… sorry,” he murmured faintly, keeping his head down and eyes trained on the ground as he shuffled back to his seat, unconsciously scooting his body to the far side of the chair, away from where Tony could reach him.
“All good kid, you let me know if anything’s up, okay?” Tony replied, his voice earnest, despite the way Peter hadn’t looked up from the floor yet, and only responded by nodding his head feebly.
The rest of the afternoon was relatively uneventful, Peter stayed mildly drawn into himself, Tony continued to act ordinarily, giving the boy a sense of normality and as an undercover way of letting him know it was fine, he wasn’t mad or upset in any way. But regardless of his attempted closure for the teen, Peter still looked somewhat relieved when it hit his curfew and he smiled weakly, thanked Tony for helping him with the new web fluid, and proceeded to swing back home.