chaigirl8

[chaigirl8]

Supervillain Playlist

By @chaigirl8 for @winter-turtle

Rating: Teen Relationships: Tony Stark & Peter Parker Characters: Tony Stark, Peter Parker, Steve Rogers, Pepper Potts

Summary: Tony Stark was on his way to becoming the coolest and awesomest supervillain New York City had ever known—until a pipsqueak in a onesie webbed him to a rooftop in Queens. Next thing he knew, he’d accidentally acquired an intern with puppy-dog eyes and a heart of gold. Which, as it turned out, was not compatible with his five-year supervillain career plan. 

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Tony didn’t set out to be the coolest and awesomest supervillain in town. It wasn’t as if he woke up one day and decided that it would be fun to wreak havoc on New York City. It happened quite by accident.

If anything, it was the fault of the Air Force pilot who managed to shoot him down on his first Iron Man test flight over the Hudson. (Not his finest hour, but thank God for near misses and water landings.) The nerve of that pilot had only inspired Tony to be showier on his future fly-bys. Though if you get right down to it, it was mainly the fault of an uptight Captain America, who called Iron Man a public threat over a tiny little incident involving a malfunctioning repulsor. (Really? Everybody hated that statue. He did the city a favor.)

After another incident or two—it’s not as if he’d destroyed public property that last time—he decided to embrace it. Life as a billionaire playboy philanthropist had become dull. Life as a secret supervillain had a certain undeniable appeal, if only to see the never-ending consternation on the lead Avenger’s pasty face.

He only encountered one obstacle to his leap into villainy: he couldn’t think of anything in particular that he wanted. He was pretty sure supervillains were supposed to have a goal, maybe a five-year plan. He was certainly not cut out to be a bank robber, art thief, or computer hacker. Oh, he could rise to those challenges, but where was the fun in stealth? He was in it to get noticed, not to get rich. He was already rich. He easily dismissed the idea of world domination or even city domination for the same reason. His influence as head of Stark Industries was already considerable; any more power sounded like an exhausting amount of work.

In fact, Tony could only vaguely admit to himself (and only to himself) that he had only every wanted one thing…and he doubted that being a supervillain would help him to find it. After all, if no one had ever learned to love billionaire Tony Stark, who could possibly come to love supervillain Iron Man?

No, love was out. Family was out. It always had been, for him. So he followed the time-tested method he’d resorted to since childhood: if you can’t earn their love, earn their attention.

And so Iron Man became the flashiest, most attention-worthy villain Captain America had ever had the misfortune to have a hand in creating. Even if, two years in to his nonexistent five-year plan, his only goal was to cause as much mayhem as possible and sit back to enjoy the show.

Which might explain why, on the day he met the newest superhero in town, he was sitting atop a rather cozy skyscraper enjoying the chaotic scene on the river below as the ferries’ speakers and communication frequencies were overwritten by Led Zeppelin. Honestly, they should be grateful to him for upping their coolness factor.

“Hey, bad guy! Stop whatever you’re doing and put your hands up!”

He turned his head without standing. His eyebrows rose at the sight before him, though he was sadly conscious of the fact that his mask hid his condescending face from the slim man in…were those pajamas? The man’s blue-and-red-clad arms were raised in front of him as if ready for a fight, though Tony couldn’t detect any weapons. A muttered command to Jarvis brought the answer, “No weapons detected, sir. However, there does appear to be a compound of unknown origin secured about his wrists.”

A compound of unknown origin? Now, that piqued his interest. Not that he was about to show it. He leaned back on his hands in a posture of unconcern and glanced back to the river. He snorted as he zoomed his vision in on a purple-faced ferry boat captain yelling into his phone. “J,” he muttered, “intercept that call with Whole Lotta Love.”

Jarvis’s “yes, sir” was drowned out by Pajama Guy. “I mean it! I called the police. You better not try anything sneaky!”

“Sneaky?” Tony finally answered. “I’m just enjoying the show. You’re the one sneaking up on people, Underoos. Where did you get that onesie, anyway? Early Halloween sale?”

“Hey! It’s not—” he squeaked and cleared his throat, then said in a deeper voice laced with annoyance, “It’s not a onesie.”

Tony swiveled his head again, studying the wannabe hero with a sharp gaze. “You’re a kid,” he said with certainty. The slight built, the squeaky voice and obvious attempt to sound older than he was, the homemade bid at dressing up like an Avenger. “How old are you, twelve?”

“N-no!” the kid protested quickly and not at all convincingly. “I-I’m not a kid!

“Yeah, sure, kid.” He waved a hand in dismissal. “Better hurry home before curfew.”

The kid looked about ready to stomp his foot, which made him slightly more interesting than the ferry boat overcorrecting in a zig-zag fashion through the water below.

Tony hopped to his feet, his metal boots clanging loudly on the roof, and ignored the way the kid immediately reared back into a defensive pose. Which, okay, the kid must do Pilates or something, because his balance was off the charts. And what was up with the way he held his middle fingers back up by his wrists? Was that some sort of sign language wannabe Avengers were communicating with these days?

“I know who you are,” squeaked the kid.

“Oh?”

“You’re the Iron Man.”

“Got it in one.”

Underoos cleared his throat and bounced on the balls of his feet before catching himself. Even then, Tony couldn’t help but notice that he had a rather fascinating ability to be thrumming with energy even while perfectly still. After a few seconds of silence, he blurted, “Was it really you who put those big sunglasses on the Statue of Liberty?” Tony smiled in fond remembrance, but the kid didn’t wait for an answer. “You know, there’s a reward for your capture.”

Just as when he’d first heard the reward announced, Tony wasn’t sure whether to grin that he’d achieved that level of villainy or annoyed that the reward was so low. “You gonna try to collect?”

The kid hesitated. “No? I mean—you’re a bad guy, you know that, right? And I-I’m a good guy, which means I need to stop you. It’s not about a reward.”

“Sure it isn’t,” Tony scoffed.

“It isn’t!” the kid insisted, with just enough indignation that it might be true.

Great. He’d stumbled upon a miniature Captain America. Be the good guy, do the right thing, bring in the bad guy, look after the little guy, truth, justice, and everything that was boring in the world. Tony glanced back at the river.

“I’m real sorry about this, or, I mean, I’m not, because-because you’re the bad guy, so-so you deserve it!”

“Wha—” He couldn’t move his arms. Or his legs. Was that…was that silly string coming out of the kid’s wrists? He tried to move but couldn’t, even with the super strength of his suit. “What is this stuff?” His curiosity mostly outweighed his annoyance at being stuck to the roof like a leashed animal.

“Webs. You’re webbed, Mr. Iron Man, sir, so you just sit tight and wait for the police.”

“Webs,” he repeated. “Like spider webs.” The spider emblem on the kid’s pajamas suddenly made a bit more sense. As did the compound of unknown origin. “So you’re…what? Spider Boy? Spiderling?”

The kid crossed his arms and said petulantly, “Spider-Man.”

“Right.” He fought to keep the amusement out of his modulated voice, something he found harder than expected. No one had amused him this much since before Rhodey had gone off on assignment last year. Unless he counted Happy, his eternally grumpy driver. He was always good for a chuckle. “So you picked up web fluid at the superhero store on fifth?”

“There’s a superhero store on…? Oh.” He scowled. Sure, his face was covered, but Tony had caused enough scowls in his life to know what one sounded like. “There’s no superhero store, is there?”

Tony grinned to himself. He would have shrugged if he could move. “Where’d you get it then?”

“I made it,” the kid said proudly before he seemed to remember he was in the middle of apprehending Iron Man. “Aren’t you even gonna try to get away?”

“Eh.” He tried to shrug again. This stuff really had no give. Fascinating. “So. Made it? Where? In your dad’s basement? How?”

“I…uh,” the kid scratched his hoodie-clad head. “I don’t think I should…tell you?”

Which was fine. Tony would find out. He always did. A kid who jumped onto rooftops, had amazing agility, confronted armed villains with faux spider webs, and created new compounds from scratch? He had officially become more interesting than the monument Tony was planning to relocate tomorrow.

“J? A little help here?” He immediately felt the effect of the suit’s lasers cutting through the webs.

“J? Who’s J?”

“Well. It’s been fun. Next time bring a juice box to share. I’ll bring tunes. So long, Spiderling.”

“Huh— Hey!” The kid didn’t react fast enough to web up Iron Man a second time, and Tony grinned as he flew away to the faint sound of, “It’s Spider-Man!”

It was ridiculously easy to find the spiderling’s civilian identity. All it took was a few days and a few surveillance drones. Peter Parker, age 14, freshman at Midtown School of Science and Technology. Which, okay, Tony was intrigued, especially after he hacked into the school’s records. This kid was smart. Like, genius-level smart. Maybe even close to Tony Stark-level smart. Which. Doubtful. But…maybe. To be determined.

The kid was also strong. Really, really strong. He hadn’t displayed his strength on the rooftop, but the drone footage was clear enough. The kid barely flinched as he stopped a car with his bare hands, then swung away on his ridiculously strong webs with no apparent injury to life or limb. A mutant, perhaps. An experiment, maybe.

The personal details told another unexpected story—orphan, no living relatives, resided in a group home—which was highly inconvenient to Tony, because it’s not like he wanted to feel sorry for the kid. His interest was purely professional. There was no room in his life of casual villainy to develop a soft spot for a random teenager with a sob story. Even if he related to it… No! No soft spot. Just…the need for a little bit of reconnaissance.

Offering the kid an internship happened by accident.

“You’re-you…M-mr. Stark! What-what-what’re you doing here?” He hadn’t anticipated the sheer excitement of two big brown eyes in a freckled baby face when he’d dropped by the group home unannounced. “I-I’m a huge fan, Mr. Stark! Your work on arc reactors. A-a-and your research into fusion technology, I-I mean—wow!” The kid was bouncing, for Pete’s sake. Tony couldn’t even help what he did next.

“You’ve been getting my emails, right?”

Tony left fifteen minutes later, having somehow acquired a high school intern. An intern with a secret identity who didn’t know that Tony knew said identity and also didn’t know that Tony had a secret identity of his own, rather high up on the Avengers’ most wanted list.

Yeah, this wasn’t going to end badly at all.

————————————

He hadn’t planned what to do with his new intern. The kid was there to satisfy Tony’s curiosity, not to provide any real benefit. And Tony couldn’t exactly tell him to get to work making some of that web formula to go along with the secret identity he supposedly didn’t know about.

Whatever. He entire personality was about winging it. It wasn’t likely to last more than a few days anyway, maybe a week or so. Just until Tony grew bored, which tended to happen fairly quickly when he latched onto a shiny new object or a fascinating new project. Just long enough to ease his curiosity about the high school nerd nerd with a genius intellect and upper arm strength that rivaled that new alien Avenger who’d been in the news lately, Bore…or was it Four? Zor? Whatever.

He hadn’t counted on the kid’s skill at raising Tony’s curiosity to new heights with each visit.

First it was the kid’s chirpy, “Hi, Mr. Stark!” every time he showed up after school, followed by some variation on, “Can I get you some coffee?” and, “Wow, are those the new conductors? Can I watch you redo the wiring? I was reading this article in Robot Monthly about how to lower the resistance, and it was so cool, but Mr. Harfield won’t let me take things apart anymore after the whole thing with the DVD player.”

Which. Really? How was Tony supposed to lose interest in the kid when he said things like that on a regular basis?

And then it was the kid’s never-ending optimism. To own the truth, Tony had figured that would be the first thing to annoy him. Overly optimistic people usually drove him up the wall. But…unlike most optimistic people Tony had personally met, the kid was so darn genuine. And Tony had looked up everything about him. He knew about the plane crash that had claimed his parents, the bullet that had claimed his uncle, and the cancer that had claimed his aunt. The kid lived in a freaking group home for “orphans and troubled youth.” Tony had already been on his way to a drinking problem at Peter’s age, and he frankly didn’t remember most of the few years following his own parents’ deaths, so how could the kid be so well-adjusted with his disaster of a life? How could he be so…so happy?

It merited further observation.

And so the days turned into weeks, and the weeks turned into months. Peter showed up, geeked out over being allowed in Tony’s lab, fetched coffee, and tinkered with random spare parts.

And Tony gave him a much-needed education in all things Cool and Awesome.

“Bon Jovi, kid. Bon Jovi,” Tony emphasized on a Thursday evening, two months after he had accidentally acquired an intern. He couldn’t help his scandalized expression. “Not Jon Bovine.”

“Oh. Yeah. Him,” Peter shrugged, not looking up from the broken robot arm he was re-wiring. “Well, I liked the song, but I think I like what Happy was playing in the car better. That really old one by YouTube? They seem cool.”

Tony whipped off his inside-sunglasses to gawk at the kid. “First of all, U2! It’s U2, kid. Second of all…U2? That Hogan guy is fired.” Seriously. His driver was annoying anyway. Except for when he did or said something that amused Tony…which, fine, was quite often and usually made him think in another life he might be able to make at least one friend besides Rhodey. But no dwelling on might-have-beens. Fired. Immediately.

“Hey, it wasn’t Happy’s fault! He wanted to play some song by someone named after a bug. Beetle? Or maybe there was more than one bug? Sounded weird, so he let me pick. YouTube sounded cooler.”

Tony had…no words. He stared in horrified silence, halfway through his plan to hack into Midtown High’s computer system to rewrite their entire Social Studies curriculum before he saw the corner of Peter’s eye twitch, followed by his lower lip. The kid ducked his head lower to hide his face, a lock of hair falling over his forehead.

“You,” Tony said incredulously. “You’re messing with me. Aren’t you?”

Peter couldn’t seem to hold in his grin any longer, meeting Tony’s eyes over the wires. “You’re so easy.”

Tony stared for another moment. Peter had barely gotten over his nervousness around him. He’d never teased him before. In fact, Tony couldn’t remember the last person who’d felt comfortable enough around Tony to tease him. Even Rhodey was typically the teasee, not the teaser. He felt…well, not unpleasant about it.

Peter’s grin faltered, and Tony acted fast, lobbing the first soft thing his hand grabbed onto directly at the hooligan’s head. The kid caught the sofa pillow easily and held it up as a shield, peeking over it with his grin back in place.

“You smile now. Just wait. You’re not coming back until you can recite the full playlist from each of the top five albums of every decade, 60’s through 90’s.” He pointed his finger threateningly at the kid’s curly head. “You’ll rue the day you made fun of true art.”

Peter giggled—an honest-to-God giggle—and Tony felt something weird in his chest. Nothing bad, like a heart attack, he decided. Just something…new and unexpected. That was the first time he had the inkling of a thought that he might have gotten in a bit over his head with this whole impulsive internship acquisition thing.

Their first road bump came on a Tuesday evening, almost four months after the impulsive internship acquisition. They were taking a break from their separate projects, Peter chewing on his third slice of pizza, Tony staring at him in very real outrage.

“What do you mean Iron Man isn’t a supervillain?”

Pete rolled his eyes, and Tony might have been pleased by how comfortable the teen had grown around him if not for the nonsense coming out of his mouth. “Well, it’s not like he really does anything, you know? Like, he never steals anything or hurts anyone. He just…pulls pranks. Ask some guys at my school—maybe most guys at my school—they’d say he’s a bona fide hero.”

Tony threw down his pizza slice, scandalized. “Iron Man is not a hero.”

“Well, no, obviously. But he’s not really a villain either, is he? Not, like, the bad kind, anyway.”

Tony scowled. He had the childish urge to command Peter to take it back. Instead, he gave the kid a bucket of his greasiest odds and ends to wash, then directed Jarvis to play Taylor Swift on repeat.

Yeah. Take that, doubters. Who’s not a supervillain now?

The kid hummed along cheerily, arms stained with grease, and for the first time, Tony shooed him out early.

He spent the rest of the evening brainstorming the most villainous things he could do.

Cause a citywide blackout? Nah, not if the tower had to be affected too. Plus, the chaos that would inevitably follow would be a pain to deal with.

Hack into the transportation system, stop all trains running to and from the city? Nah, too much mess. Besides, Tony was expecting a new shipment of items to improve the thrusters on his suit. Can’t hold that up. Which reminded him…he needed to finish prepping his suit for the improvement. Not for the first time, he caught himself thinking what Peter would have to say about a certain element of the suit’s design if Tony could tell him about it. The kid would love it, he was sure. His brown puppy eyes would get all big and he’d ask a million questions and he’d do his best not to ask to try it on, all the while bouncing up and down in that barely-there frenetic way he had that betrayed that trying it on was the main thing on his mind.

But back to the point. He could always kidnap the mayor, deposit him in Antarctica or something. Frostbite was kind of permanent though…and it’s not like Tony wanted to fly that far. Maybe he could simply kidnap his toupee or something. Toupeenap..?

He frowned.

Did the kid maybe have a point? Tony didn’t want to hurt anybody, not really. Didn’t want to steal anything, not anything of value, anyway. He hadn’t even gone out as Iron Man in a while. He’d worked on his suit, but he’d barely thought about supervillainy lately, and he hadn’t had the urge to so much as snatch Cap’s shield in weeks. He cracked a smile at the memory. That had been a fun day.

But could he truly consider himself a decent villain, much less a supervillain?

He glared at Dum-E, the only moving thing in the vicinity, and said, “I knew I should have put more thought into my five-year plan instead of winging it.”

Dum-E beeped and swiveled until his arm caught on the leg of Tony’s work desk and he beeped some more.

“Hunk of junk,” Tony muttered affectionately and dropped his head back onto the sofa. Maybe the kid was right. Maybe he wasn’t cut out to be a supervillain. Maybe—and this was a big maybe—he didn’t even really want to be the bad guy. Maybe he wanted to sit in his lab, tinker with robots, invent the next big thing, and trade banter with a kid whose heart was five sizes too big.

Maybe.

It merited further thought.

On a Thursday, nearly seven months to the day after Tony accidentally acquired an intern, his secret identity was found out.

It was inevitable, he would reflect later. The kid was spending so much time at the lab that Tony had begun allowing him access when he wasn’t there. The Iron Man suits were locked up tight behind his super-secret panel, not to mention protected by multiple layers of security, but he should have accounted for the lethal combination of Peter’s curiosity and his genius.

He found the kid standing in front of an open panel door, an Iron Man helmet in his hand, his wide brown eyes jumping up to track him as he entered the lab. The kid was clearly torn between sheepishness and nervousness. Tony casually leaned against the wall, hands in his pockets. It’s not like he planned to deny anything, so he waited.

Finally, Peter asked carefully, “You, um. You don’t just make the suits for, uh, Iron Man, do you?”

“Nope.” He popped the “p.” The door slid closed behind him, and Peter barely reacted. And, really? Tony had the urge to throw up his hands. Wasn’t the kid even a little bit afraid of his villain alter ego?

“Oh. Um. Yeah…okay.” The kid stared at the helmet in his hands for a long moment, then looked up with an excited glint in his eye. “Did you really steal Captain America’s shield?”

Tony threw up his hands and snatched away the helmet. “I’m a scary bad guy, kid! You’re supposed to be afraid for your life here.” He replaced the helmet in the wall and slid the panel closed.

Pete had the nerve to laugh, like he thought that the idea of Tony hurting him was a joke, but he stopped at Tony’s glare. He shifted awkwardly from one foot to the other, and darn the kid, his uncertain baby face was going to be Tony’s undoing one of these days.

After a long silence, Tony sighed. “I’m not gonna do anything to you, kid, jeez. It’s not like I don’t already know how you spend your evenings when you’re not here.”

Peter’s eyes grew comically wide. “I-I w-what—I don’t know what y-you—”

Tony pulled out his phone and within seconds had a video of Spider-Man projected into the air between them. “Look at you go. Wow, nice catch. Three thousand pounds, 40 miles an hour. It’s not easy. You got mad skills.”

“Tha-tha—but that’s all on YouTu—”

“Yeah, we’re not doing the denying thing tonight,” he swiped his hand through the air. “Follow my shining example here, kid, and own up to your super-secret identity.”

The kid shifted from one foot to the other with a deer in the headlights expression before his shoulders slumped in defeat. “How’d you find out?”

“You think I don’t look into people who web me onto rooftops?”

Peter gaped, then shut his mouth with a click. “You-you’ve known since the beginning?”

Tony confirmed with a nod and a swish of his hand, then headed for the mini fridge. Kid was going to need a beverage soon to keep from passing out due to shock overload.

“You didn’t tell…I mean, no one else knows, r-right?”

“Course not. Who’m I going to tell?” Tony tossed a Gatorade, and Pete caught it easily. “Besides, I like my secrets too. Obviously. I know how to keep them. Well…generally,” he waved at Peter as the obvious exception.

Peter strode closer, eyes wide, and set the Gatorade on the coffee table without opening it. “You can’t tell anyone. Please, promise. You don’t know what happens to kids like me in the system.”

Tony screwed the cap off a water bottle and took a swig before he responded with genuine curiosity, “No. I don’t. What happens to kids like you in the system?”

Pete halted and thought for a second. “I…don’t know? But it can’t be good, right? I mean, I’m already lucky I got to stay at my school and that Mr. Harfield let me do an internship. They find out I’m Spider-Man…” He shuddered. “Best case, they watch me crazy close and I never get to patrol again, and worst case, I disappear and show up in ten years as a brainwashed assassin working for some shadow government trying to take over the world.”

Tony stared and capped his water. “You watch too much TV, kid.”

“Mr. Stark, you can’t tell anyone,” Peter begged, and he looked about to cry with desperation, which. Pulling at the heart strings like that? It should be illegal.

“Kid.” Tony reached out tentatively and grabbed onto Peter’s shoulder when he didn’t move away. “Like I said, who am I gonna tell?”

“I know, but you’re—” He bit his lip to cut himself off, but Tony filled in the blank.

“The bad guy?”

“No! I mean…yes? But not, like, a bad bad guy…”

“Yeah. Believe me, kid, I know.” Tony rolled his eyes, squeezed the kid’s shoulder, and let go. He plopped himself down onto the sofa with a wry twist to his lips. “Not bad enough to be the bad guy, not good enough to be the good guy. Story of my life.” He raised his water in a mock salute and wished for a second that he hadn’t quit drinking.

Peter tentatively inched forward and slowly lowered himself onto the other side of the sofa. “You’re…done though, right? I mean, Iron Man hasn’t been seen in, like, months. People at school are placing bets on whether he’s dead or kidnapped or just off plotting how to paint the skyline neon green or something. But…you’re just, like, retired, yeah? You’re not the Iron Man anymore?”

Tony found himself unable to resist the hope in the kid’s voice. “Yeah, Pete. I’m retired,” he found himself saying and was surprised to find that he meant it. In fact, he felt lighter somehow. Huh. Imagine that.

Peter relaxed into the sofa, visibly relieved. “Then I won’t tell anyone your secret. Promise.”

Tony studied the kid’s profile for a long moment, then held out his water bottle. Peter looked at it in confusion and reached out as if to take it. “It’s a toast, kid,” Tony said in mock exasperation.

“Oh!” The kid scrambled for his Gatorade and knocked it against Tony’s water bottle before opening it and taking a sip. He relaxed into the sofa.

“Pete?”

“Yeah?”

“Your secret’s safe with me.”

Peter smiled, visibly relieved.

“But, kid,” he tilted his head until Peter met his eyes, “Spider-Man is in dire need of an upgrade.”

On a Saturday morning, eight and a half months after Tony accidentally acquired an intern, he watched on a live feed as Spider-Man was shot down over Manhattan. The kid had barely disappeared into the abyss between two buildings before Tony’s armor was assembling around him.

He should have maybe thought about heading into the fray, particularly as the kid had shown up to help the Avengers fight some crazy-looking alien dudes—so chances are he’d be shot at by everybody but Peter—but that was his kid falling head-first off of a building. Avengers and aliens or not, there was only one place Tony needed to be right now.

Unfortunately—or fortunately—the kid wasn’t where he had fallen. And apparently, he had removed the tracker from his suit, which they were going to have words about. Big words, he thought with a scowl. He didn’t have time to scour the city for him, as his arrival had drawn the attention of a couple hairy-looking alien dudes with attitude problems. He maneuvered away from the area and ducked into a fire escape.

“Jarvis, hack into the Avengers’ comms.”

“Connected, sir.”

“Anybody seen a Spider-Kid around here?”

There was a crackling silence, then, “Who the hell is this?” Tony knew Captain America’s voice, and that wasn’t it.

“Language,” grunted another voice, and yep—there was his favorite star-spangled person to rile up.

He didn’t know who the first voice was, and frankly, he didn’t care. “Is that a yes? Or a no? You’re gonna have to be more specific. Spider-Kid? Limber, sticky, awesome new suit? Anyone?”

“Um…I-Iron Man?” That voice he definitely knew, and the wave of relief caught him off guard. Almost as much as the alien laser beam he barely managed to dodge.

“Hey! I just polished this armor!” He shot after the alien with his repulsors and whooped as it went down. “Did anyone see that? Tell me someone saw that! Never mind. Spidey, you going to make it, or you bleeding out?”

“I’m fine, Mr—um, Iron Man, sir. I mean, I’ve had better days, but you know. Just a graze.”

Someone snorted, and another unidentified voice came on the line. “Stay off that graze if you want to keep both legs.”

Tony muted himself, then said a few choice words the good Captain would be sure to disapprove of. Not that he cared about that, per se. “J, send out the drones. Aerial footage of the area. Find Spider-Man. Now.”

“Right away, sir.”

He settled in to watch, which didn’t last long, as the ugly aliens kept spotting and picking on him. Before he knew it, he was blasting aliens on the outskirts of the battle…and kind of enjoying it? “Ha! Take that, Jabba!” This was more exhilarating than he’d expected. And actually, he was pretty good at blasting aliens, if he did say so himself.

For a while there was only blasting and grunts through the comms, then the first voice returned. “So we’re just ignoring that some random guy hijacked our battle?”

And, really? Some random guy? Tony almost unmuted to give Annoying Voice Guy an earful about how Iron Man wasn’t a random guy, but that wasn’t really the pertinent point now, was it? That big ugly alien dude who just tried to grab for Tony’s leg, that was a pretty pertinent point. He blasted him easily and swiveled toward the next threat.

“I’ll go on the record as being okay with it,” answered a woman’s voice, “so long as he stays on our side.”

“J, unmute,” Tony said, because that insult was going just a bit too far. “Hey! I’m not on your side! Jeez. I just don’t like being shot at.”

“Here, shoot this!” He reacted to the blur of movement on his left more so than to the woman’s order. He dodged the small craft that was hurtling toward him and picked off the alien who looked about to attack a black-clad redhead from behind.

“Thanks!” she replied as she piloted the vehicle toward the fray at the center of the battle.

He didn’t bother to respond, as Jarvis’s voice came with the pertinent point, “Spider-Man located, sir.”

“Tell me where, J.” He made his way that direction as quickly as the dwindling aliens would allow, and soon enough he was touching down in an alley and staring down the wrong end of an arrow.

An arrow? Really? Every superhero in New York was in dire need of an upgrade. Honestly.

“It’s okay, Hawkeye, he’s a friend,” piped up a familiar voice. A familiar voice that was far weaker than it should be.

He shoved past the guy with an arrow, who didn’t even have the sense to be wearing a mask, by the way, and knelt next to the kid. He took in the blood-soaked suit and tourniquet around the leg with forced even breaths.

“You said it was a graze!” he accused, grateful his voice modulator lowered the high pitch of his voice to just under embarrassing levels.

“It is,” the kid protested weakly. “I heal quick.” His face was white as a sheet, and he was clearly fighting to stay awake. And yeah, they were going to have even bigger words later about this.

“Hawkeye! On your six!” came a voice both in his ear and in surround sound from somewhere above them, and he shielded Peter with his body on instinct as burning lasers came at them. He felt the impact on his suit but couldn’t return fire without leaving Peter unprotected. Thankfully, the low-tech Avenger had killer aim, and so did his accomplice on the roof. He finally had the opening he needed to pivot and unleash both repulsors at the aliens. Within seconds, they were toast.

Robin Hood Guy spared a glance at the ugly smoking remains before focusing on Tony’s repulsors. “Sure, that works too.”

“I’m taking the kid,” Tony said in response.

“Not going to happen,” said a voice to their right, and when had Captain America arrived?

“Uh, yes. Yes, it is going to happen,” countered Tony, already gathering Peter in his arms. “I have access to the best medical care in the city. I’m not letting him bleed out while you fight E.T., and you’re not going to stop me with a bow and arrow or a star-spangled shield.”

They looked ready to try, Robin Hood pointing an arrow below Tony’s head, obviously about to go for one of the joints—he made a mental note to work on those potentially weak points in the armor—and Captain America raising his shield, when the kid slurred, “S’ok. Ms’r Sark won’t hur’ me.”

He could only hope the name had been too garbled to be understood, but he had the feeling from the two surprised faces that it had been understood just fine. Tony took off with Peter in his arms, and for whatever reason, the Avengers lowered their weapons and let him. Tony called Helen Cho, the only doctor he implicitly trusted, and Peter was barely conscious by the time Tony made it to the private medical rooms in his tower. He protested when Cho kicked him out, but it was a testament to how much he trusted her that he eventually left her to it.

However, sitting still was not in his nature. First, he checked the live feed of the battle, which seemed to be winding down. How the Avengers managed to take out the threat with barely any injuries was a puzzle, and one that didn’t concern him overmuch at the moment.

Next, he called Harfield, the supervisor at Peter’s group home. He’d never called before, hadn’t so much as talked to the guy since that first day he’d shown up, but it seemed the responsible thing to do. The man answered on the third ring.

“Tony Stark here. I’m calling about Peter.”

There was silence on the other line, then a tentative, “Peter? Parker?”

“Yes, Peter Parker,” he said impatiently, then reined himself in. It was hardly this man’s fault that Tony wanted to be on the other side of the door with Peter, not delivering bad news to his foster dad. “He won’t be home tonight. He stopped by the lab, slipped and injured his leg. He should be fine, no worries,” and he hoped he was telling the truth with that, “but he should stay in the medical room here overnight for observation. If that’s okay with you,” he tacked on, because it occurred to him that he was probably supposed to ask for permission from parental types, not order them around like employees.

Harfield was silent for another few seconds. “Uh, I’m sorry to hear that. But…Peter doesn’t live here anymore.”

Tony stopped his pacing. “What? He didn’t say anything. Wait, when?”

“Almost a month ago? You’ll want to call his caseworker, let CPS know. I’ll get you her number, hold on.” The sound of papers drifted through the phone, then he rattled off some numbers. Tony didn’t bother writing them down, knowing Jarvis would have transcribed them for him.

“He’s still at Midtown though, right? They didn’t move him that far away?” That genius school and Peter’s nerdy friends meant everything to him. The thought that he could be torn away from that… Any why didn’t he say anything to Tony? Sure, the kid had canceled a couple lab nights, and he’d been a bit quiet lately, but not worryingly so.

“I really can’t give you more information on his placement,” Harfield said kindly. “You’ll have to talk to CPS.”

The caseworker was only marginally helpful, though he did get permission to keep Peter overnight. And he found out that yes, Peter was now going to a different school. She wouldn’t say which one, but still. That was so not going to continue. The kid wasn’t even getting a decent trade off by being with a nice family with a picket fence and a dog. He was in another group home, and probably a crowded one, if he read between the lines. And Tony Stark was excellent at reading between the lines.

“Jarvis,” he said as soon as he hung up the phone. “Call my lawyer. Find out what I have to do to get a foster kid into a better placement. Text Cho to give me updates every 30 minutes if she wants to keep her job. And order me a venti black coffee from the Starbucks on the corner. Bonus points if that punk barista with the eternally bad mood delivers it personally.”

“Certainly, sir. And might I suggest that you revisit your idea to hire a human personal assistant?”

“Watch it, J. You’re expendable.”

“Yes, sir.”

He tapped his phone on his chin a few times. “Jarvis?”

“Yes, sir?”

“Do whatever it is people like me do when they want to hire a human personal assistant.”

“Right away, sir.”

He only had to wait an hour—a ridiculously long hour, helped only marginally by the entertaining scowl on the barista’s face as he handed over his coffee—for Cho to let him back into the med room. Peter was sleeping, his leg bandaged and slightly elevated.

“A sedative,” Cho explained. “A bit stronger than the usual due to his metabolism. It still might wear off sooner than later. He’ll be fine,” she assured him at his narrowed eyes. “Whatever hit him went clean through and didn’t hit anything major. He’ll be sore for a few days, and we’ll have to keep an eye on possible infection, but his body is already healing.” She looked thoughtfully at Peter. “Does his family know?”

“Doesn’t have any,” Tony sighed, and at her questioning look, explained simply, “Orphan. Group home.”

She nodded with pinched lips, like that explained everything, or anything whatsoever. “They probably don’t mean to be neglectful, but…”

His heart skipped at the implications of that one word. “But?” he prompted quickly.

“He needs to eat more. His metabolism. He’s probably getting enough food for an average teenager. But he’s not average, is he? He needs far more calories than he’s getting. His healing rate would likely be off the charts if he were receiving proper nutrition for his mutation.”

Tony stared at the kid. He didn’t look any different than when they’d met over eight months ago. He’d possibly grown an inch or two, and he’d always been skinny. But weren’t a lot of teenagers skinny? It’s what happened when kids got to that age where they started shooting up like weeds, isn’t it? He scratched his goatee and found that he didn’t know. His personal experience around teenagers was limited to one almost-fifteen-year-old with a huge heart, a genius IQ, and an enhanced metabolism.

“He needs to eat more,” repeated Cho, and she shot him a look. “And I don’t mean pizza and chips. Load up on the vegetables, to start. Add in fruit, whole grains, nuts, seeds, all the good things. Limit the sugar, add on plenty of healthy fats. Spring for the steak or salmon to go with, he’ll think it’s Christmas. Eating enough food will be new to him, so it may take him a while to gauge his own hunger and satiety levels. Don’t restrict his access to healthy foods and he’ll get there.”

He felt his eyebrows squish together as he raised his hands in protest. “Why are you instructing me on diet plans? I’m not the kid’s dad. Not even a distant cousin! I mean, not that I’ve done DNA testing…which, uh, no. I don’t think I want to know if I have any relatives in the woodwork.” He shuddered.

She smiled and gathered her things without answering his question, which, annoying. “He should be fine for now. I’ll be back tonight to check on him. If he wakes and is hungry, best to stick to bland food until we know how he’s doing with the pain medication.”

“You’re leaving?” He felt suddenly panicked. “What if he stops breathing? Or goes into cardiac arrest? I don’t know CPR. I could break the kid’s ribs.”

Cho had the nerve to smile again. “He’ll be fine. Blood loss looked worse than it was, and his body is recuperating well. He just needs rest at this point.” She was gone before he could think of another protest.

And okay, he could do this. Make the kid rest. Feed him crackers, not cake. Piece of cake…metaphorically.

It was not a piece of cake, as he found out an hour later.

“But, Mr. Stark, I feel fine!” Peter protested as Tony manhandled him back into bed. He was glad the kid had some concept of adult authority, as he was under no illusion that he would win if the kid put up a real fight.

“You were shot. In the leg. And you thought it would be a good idea to what? Go for a jog?”

“Of course not! Just…to the lab. C’mon, Mr. Stark,” he countered Tony’s exasperated huff, “the elevator is right there. And it’s boring here.”

“You’ve been awake for ten minutes.”

“Ten long minutes.”

“Fine. Stay,” he ordered and was gone before Peter could protest. Less than ten minutes later, he was pleased to find Peter waiting right where he’d left him. He dumped a small bin of broken electronics and bits of wire into his lap. “There. Have at it. Boredom be gone.” He pretended to be unaffected by Peter’s delighted smile and pulled up a chair to help him sort through the mess.

Forty minutes and nine discarded project ideas later, Peter was happily working on something that looked like a side of an old toaster when Tony got up the nerve to ask, “So. New school, huh?”

Peter stilled. Tony pretended not to notice as he kept working, bent over his wiring at the foot of Peter’s bed, and the kid slowly started working again, this time with fumbling fingers. “Um. Yeah,” he said quietly, then with forced cheer, “There’s a science fair coming up. I was thinking I might do something with the web fluid. Not, like, actual web fluid, more like play with the basic formulation. I bet I could come up with some sort of bandage or other type of adhesive. What do you think?”

“So. Hating the new school, huh?”

Peter’s fingers fumbled some more. “Um…no. No,” he said unconvincingly and wrinkled his nose. “It’s just…different? I’ll get used to it. It’s the middle of the school year, is all. Everybody’s got their friend groups already.” His shrug was a bit too deliberate and way too nonchalant.

“Kid,” Tony raised an eyebrow. “It’s okay to admit you hate things sometimes.”

They were silent for a while before Peter threw down the bent toaster piece and burst out with, “You know that’s a load of bull, right?”

Tony looked up, startled. He’d never seen such a hopeless look on Peter’s eternally optimistic face, and he answered with a lame, “What?”

“What good does hating things do? It’s not like hating it will change it. It’ll just make me miserable, and I’ll still be in the same place I started.” He started to draw his legs up, winced, and drew up his good leg only. Putting his arms around it and propping his chin on his knee, he said quietly, “I think I can make other people’s lives better. I hope so, anyway. It’s why I go out as Spider-Man, you know? He’s a hero. But not everybody gets a hero swooping in to save the day. And that’s…okay?” he said as if trying to convince himself. “It’s okay for life to not be perfect. I mean, it’s not like I don’t miss Ben and May, and it’s not like I like sharing a room with three other guys who snore and think it’s hilarious to put peanut butter in my shoes, and it’s not like I don’t miss Ned. I just don’t get how hating it all will make it be…I dunno, better.”

Tony sat back in his chair. Well, huh. He wasn’t used to this whole talking about life and feelings stuff. He was going to need a minute. Peter must have taken his silence for agreement or concession; he sighed and reached for the stupid toaster piece.

“It sucks, that’s why,” Tony said ineloquently, and yeah, he was aware that he was bad at this. “Life sucks, and sometimes you need to know that it sucks so that you know you don’t deserve it to suck. And if you know you don’t deserve the suck, then you can complain about it to people who can do something about it.”

“Like Miss Ashley?” Peter asked in a skeptical tone, then clarified, “CPS,” when Tony frowned in confusion, and oh right, that was the moderately helpful caseworker’s name.

“Like moi,” he said with an eye roll and a flick of his fingers. “Duh.”

He wasn’t imagining the spark of hope in the kid’s eyes and congratulated himself on his insight. “I’ve got some pull, kid, or at least I like to think so. We’ll work on it, get you back over to Midtown. Might take some time to find a new home, but they’re out there. And they don’t all involve peanut butter weirdness, and—ew. Please tell me you didn’t walk into my lab with peanut butter feet.” He mock shuddered in that way the kid usually loved, but that spark was gone now, and the kid just looked tired.

Still, he smiled, a sad, pathetic attempt at a smile, but a smile nonetheless, and said, “Thanks, Mr. Stark. That-that means a lot, that you’d help like that.” He bent over his project in a clear attempt to put an end to the conversation.

Tony wasn’t quite sure what he’d said wrong, but it was apparent that he had. And let’s face it—he typically said the wrong thing more the right thing, so he was pretty used to it. It just…didn’t seem to matter this much, usually. He was still puzzling over it half an hour later when they were interrupted from their silent fiddling with an unusual alert.

“Sir, a representative of SHIELD is here to see you.”

He frowned and ignored Peter’s curious glance. “SHIELD? What’s that?”

Jarvis paused, likely asking the agent himself, before answering, “Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division, sir.”

And, okay. Talk about a mouthful. “That’s fake. Please tell me that’s fake, Jarvis.”

A pause. “It appears to be a legitimate agency, sir, specializing in espionage, special law enforcement, and counter-terrorism. They oversee the Avengers Initiative.”

Peter perked up at that, and not in a good way. “Do you think they know?” he asked nervously, forgetting whatever he was doing with the toaster piece that looked more like a circuit board now.

“Yep.” Tony tossed aside his socket wrench. That’s it then. Robin Hood and Captain Spangles had heard his secret identity. SHIELD was here to confirm it, maybe arrest him. Strange that they’d only sent one agent. He looked at Peter and did a double take at his queasy face. “Wait, you mean do I think they know about you, or do I think they know about me?”

“Me. Oh. Do you think they know about you?”

It occurred to Tony that Peter might not remember his ill-advised, albeit slurred use of his name earlier that day, and he made the split-second decision not to remind him. The only thing sadder than kicked-puppy Peter Parker was guilty-conscience Peter Parker.

He shrugged. “Only one way to find out. I’ll be right back.”

“But what if they know? What’ll they do?” Peter’s eyes were wide and worried, and Tony didn’t even know which of them he was worried about, because the caring kid would probably be as worried for Tony as he was for himself anyway.

“It’ll all be fine, Underoos. Promise,” He squeezed Peter’s arm before he left the room, not sure if he meant that, but knowing that if they were going to do anything to the kid, it would be over his dead body. It would honestly be his preference to ignore SHIELD, make them seek him out, but in the case of not knowing what they knew… He pressed the button for the elevator. “Just one agent, J? Nobody else waiting in the wings?”

“One, sir. An Agent Steven Rogers. He is alone and unarmed.”

Must either be one heck of an agent, or arrest wasn’t on the itinerary after all. “Send him to the conference room on Floor 3.” That conference room was conveniently located next to a secure storage area for his spare bits of Iron Man weaponry. If he was going down, he’d at least like access to a gauntlet or two.

“I have directed him to the conference room, sir.”

“Thanks, J.”

He had barely entered the elevator, the doors shutting closed behind him, when Jarvis added, “Sir, per my observation parameters, I am compelled to inform you that Agent Rogers’ height, body mass, voice pitch, and speech patterns are consistent with those of the Avenger known as Captain America.”

And.

Just.

Oh.

Okay, one heck of an agent it was. He drew himself to his full height, brushed off his jeans, Metallica shirt, and sports coat, then transferred his favorite pair of sunglasses from his pocket to his nose. His first bona fide plain clothes meeting with Captain America wasn’t going to end with Tony Stark as the intimated one.

“Jarvis, secure my workshop. No one in or out except me. Not even the kid. And let me know the instant anybody else who may be a SHIELD agent or an Avenger enters the tower.”

“Certainly, sir.”

When he reached the glass-paneled conference room, Agent Steven Rogers was peering out the room’s window, giving Tony a couple seconds’ chance to observe him. He looked the part. Dark blond hair, beefy shoulders in a dark SHIELD-labeled suit, a ridiculously chiseled jaw, and a self-assured posture that conveyed that he was satisfied to wait however long Tony kept him. Which…it was tempting to test that, leave Cap waiting all day. Tempting, but…Tony was too curious.

“Not much of a view,” he said as he swung open the door. “You’ll find that on the upper floors. Still, there’s a nice fountain on the corner sidewalk if you crane your neck.”

Rogers swiveled without losing his composure and held out his hand. “Mr Stark. I’m Steve Rogers. Thank you for seeing me.”

Tony shook the firm hand as briefly as possible but didn’t invite the man to sit. Best to keep this as brief as possible. Besides, he didn’t miss the way Rogers subtly gave him a once over, as if sizing him up then and there. Yep, he was definitely keeping it brief. And playing it ignorant.

“So. Government guy, huh? Want an audit, you’ll have to call my tax guy. Not that I know who he is. Or she. Equal opportunity, all that. You want an audit, you’ll have to contact my CFO. Pretty sure I know who that is.”

“I’m from SHIELD, Mr. Stark,” said Rogers without so much as a blink. “I was hoping to speak with you about the individual known as Iron Man.”

Tony cocked his head. “Iron Man? Red guy, cool moves, scary villain. That guy?”

Rogers’s lips quirked up in an almost-smile. “Not too scary.”

And. Just. Really? “Didn’t you call him a public threat?” he asked, only just keeping a scowl from his face.

“When I first encountered him, probably,” Rogers shrugged. “I think that public menace is a bit more apropos. His type of threat is mainly of the accidental catastrophe variety, don’t you think?”

“Accidental catastrophe?” Tony repeated, appalled.

“One of these days, someone might get hurt from one of his stunts, but it’s been a while since I’ve thought he would intend for it to happen. Not that that excuses the possibility, of course.”

“Of course,” said Tony dumbly, thoroughly put out. Time to figure out how to get rid of the annoying Avenger, even if it meant drawing out an accusation. “And you’re questioning me because..?”

“I heard he retired.”

“Oh? Not that that’s not fascinating news, but I fail to see the connection.” He raised his hands in a wordless you’re sounding like an idiot suggestion, which Rogers, to his credit, ignored.

“Someone I recently met let it slip. I took the news as speculation. Iron Man hasn’t been seen in several months, after all. It didn’t occur to me that the source might have a reason to know, not until I realized earlier today that they were personally acquainted.”

If Tony were alone, he would have rolled his eyes. The kid sure was a talker, wasn’t he? Not that he blamed him for blabbing to the Avengers that he was out of the business. It’s not like he’d asked him to keep that part to himself. Still. He was definitely going to give him a hard time about it. Unless he pulled out those guilty puppy dog eyes again. Then he’d let it drop and order a pizza to make him happy again. No, not a pizza. Cho would kill him. Eh, yes, a pizza. They didn’t have to get one every time, but sometimes puppy dog eyes had to be eliminated with the best ammunition. But back to the point.

“Fascinating, really. I’m floored with excitement. Still failing to see the connection, agent.”

“Call me Steve,” said…Steve. Which. That was unexpected. Did he usually ask people to call him by his first name right before he was about to accuse them of being supervillains and try to arrest them? “And I think you might know the connection.” Aaand there it was. The accusation. It was kind of accusation-light though, definitely lost points on the execution.

Tony smirked his practiced smirk that gave nothing away. “I’m afraid you’ll have to be clear, Agent Steve. I know of a great many goings on in this city, not all of which you may be alluding to. I’d hate to spill state’s secrets because you lack clarity.”

Steve smirked right back, but whatever he was about to say was cut off by the opening of the conference room door. They both turned, and Tony froze as Peter hobbled in and stopped abruptly in the doorway.

“Um…hi? Everything okay in here?” He waved lamely, and Tony watched in horror as Steve took one look at Peter’s bandaged leg and snapped his gaze up to his face. By the surprise on Steve’s face, it was clear that he hadn’t known Spider-Man’s identity before, nor that he was a high school-aged kid, but he had certainly figured out both things now.

Tony sighed quietly and ran a hand over his eyes. “Kid, upstairs. Now,” he said calmly, because it’s not like he could cover this up with bluster now. The lead Avenger knew who both of them were, it was too obvious to keep up the charade, and the best he could do was talk him—or bribe him—into keeping quiet so Peter could live his life and Tony could help him to make it a halfway decent one.

“But—” He was cut off as Tony ushered him physically out the door, supporting his weight as best as he could. He deposited him carefully on the wall next to the elevator and pressed the button.

“Pete, I know you’re worried, but you’re injured. You can’t be up on that leg. I’ve got this handled.”

“Who’s he here for, you or me?” The kid asked, worried eyes on a point over Tony’s shoulder. A look over his own shoulder confirmed that Rogers could still see them, even if he probably couldn’t hear them from here. Unless he had super hearing or something. Which, seeing as he was a super-powered super soldier, was entirely possible and entirely inconvenient.

He spoke low, just in case. “He’s not here for anyone. Fine,” he answered the knowing look in Pete’s stubborn eyes, “he’s here for Iron Man. But Iron Man isn’t a thing anymore, so he’s not here for anyone. And he’s not leaving here with anyone. Got it?”

“But what if—”

“There are a lot of what ifs in life, kid, but this time there’s only one outcome. You’re going back to bed, I’m showing the SHIELD agent out, and I’ll be up shortly to read you a bedtime story.”

“A bedtime story?” Peter squinted and half-laughed at the same time, approximately the reaction Tony had been aiming for. “You know I’m fifteen, right?”

“Fourteen.”

“Almost fifteen.”

“Which. Is. Fourteen. We need to get you back in that fancy school so you can do math again.”

“How about I see your story and raise you a board game?”

“I don’t even own any board games.”

“What? Who doesn’t own board games?” Peter frowned in honest puzzlement, and Tony smiled as the elevator doors opened and he helped Peter limp inside.

“You limp yourself straight back to the room, got it?”

Peter huffed. “Fine. But Jarvis will tell me the minute the guy leaves, right?”

“Got that, J?”

“Of course, sir.”

The kid was trying to hide his worry as the elevator doors closed, but he wasn’t very good at it. Tony let out a breath and headed back to the conference room.

“I didn’t know you had a son,” said Steve before Tony could open his mouth. “You’d think every newspaper in the city would report on it if Tony Stark had a son.”

“I don’t. He’s an intern,” he said shortly.

“Seems pretty close for an intern.” And, really? Nosy much?

“SHIELD is employing reporters now? If you wanted an interview, I could have told you no from the get-go.”

Steve nodded and for the first time, looked a bit sheepish. He raked a hand through his hair and looked at Tony. “My apologies. That’s not why I’m here.”

“And yet, while we’re on the topic, if I so much as see that kid’s face or name in the news or even mentioned by anyone not connected to him personally, I will unleash hell on you, on SHIELD, and on any other colorful characters you like to hang around with. Just so we’re clear.”

Steve’s eyes widened in surprise, and Tony knew he had been understood. He wasn’t stupid enough to plainly state either of their secret-ish identities out loud, but he was done pretending he didn’t know exactly who Steve was and exactly why he was here.

After a moment of charged silence, Steve nodded and said evenly, “He seems like a good kid. I wouldn’t do anything to put him in harm’s way.”

“Then we won’t have a problem.” He clapped his hands together. “Well, that’s all I’ll have time for. Busy day, I’m sure you understand. I trust you can find your way out. Hint: the elevator will only take you back to the ground floor, so don’t be trying to play sneaky spy in here.”

“I have a message for Iron Man,” said Steve without moving.

Tony crossed his arms and waited, because it was a bit ridiculous to continue to deny it, wasn’t it, but it’s not like he was going to admit to it either.

Steve nodded, like he knew exactly what Tony was thinking, which he probably did, ridiculous all-knowing gaze of his, and said, “I wonder…if Iron Man has ever thought about joining up with the Avengers?”

Tony’s mouth fell open, and he couldn’t speak for a few seconds.

Steve filled in the silence. “He’s got skills. To maneuver in our fight today was no small thing. The suit, his hacking abilities, how long he’s managed to last without being caught…he’s obviously intelligent. Fury has a theory.”

“Fury,” he croaked and tried to decide how offended he should be here. They were supposed to be enemies. Captain America was supposed to be trying to arrest him, and he was supposed to be going for his gauntlets any minute now, and somewhere along the way he would steal that ridiculous shield that wasn’t even here right now, and Cap would get all red in the face and they’d have a grand battle all the way into Manhattan until Cap got back his shield and Tony got away and could fade back into retirement after a villainous job well done. Instead, was he—was Cap offering him a job? As a hero?

The nerve.

“My boss,” Steve explained. “He thinks Iron Man has all the signs of Classic Bored Rich Kid Syndrome, is that a real thing?” He scratched behind his ear and shrugged. “He says it’s a real thing and that Iron Man displays all the classic symptoms. I never know with Fury. Don’t get me wrong, I fought him tooth and nail when he first suggested bringing Iron Man in. The guy has skills, but the whole morally gray thing?” He frowned and waved his hand. “Not a fan.”

Well. That was at least one relief. He felt like stomping his feet and instead voiced the theme of his life lately: “Is nobody even a little bit afraid of Iron Man?” If it came out a bit whiny, it’s not like he could help it. His five-year plan was officially in the toilet at this point, what with retirement and all, but he liked to think he’d left at least a halfway decent villain legacy behind.

Steve didn’t seem to realize the gravity of the situation, merely quirked up a corner of his lips, put a business card on the table, and tapped it with his finger a couple times. “If he’s bored enough to consider it.” He paused for a moment, then nodded and turned to leave and didn’t even have the decency to watch his back for a repulsor beam. He paused at the elevator and turned half around. “He looks up to you, you know. I could tell. It’s good for a kid that age, having someone to look up to.”

Even if he looks up to an emotionally stunted supervillain who’s so bad at supervillainy that he gets an invite to join the hero team? Tony felt like asking but didn’t. What even was his life?

He had the feeling Steve was about to say something along the lines of don’t screw it up, but he didn’t. Instead, he stepped into the elevator, gave him a considering look, nodded, and said, “It was nice to meet you, Mr. Stark.” The elevators closed on his knowing eyes, and Tony leaned against the wall with a huff.

“Jarvis?”

“Yes, sir?”

“Tell me when Agent Rogers leaves the building, and alert me any time he enters the building in the future.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And Jarvis?”

“Sir?”

“Order some board games. Whatever’s most popular. Have them delivered ASAP.”

“Yes, sir.”

Peter only had the energy for a couple games, and then Cho was back and administering pain medication that had the kid nodding off before she’d made it back out the door. Tony watched him sleep for a while before he decided that might be creepy and picked up some of the discarded tools and metal bits to fiddle with. That lasted until his lawyer called and he had a fruitless conversation about his lack of sway with CPS and besides, the lack of available foster homes with white picket fences in New York City. Which was ridiculous. There had to be at least one. Maybe he could build one? And recruit a nice family to live there, give them a free dog and a closet full of board games?

He straightened Peter’s blanket. He was a good kid. Too good to be lost in the system. He was an actual hero, for crying out loud, and he was so genuine that Tony had given up on the idea that he’d eventually get bored of him. The kid had wormed his way into Tony’s heart, and that was no easy feat.

He sucked in a deep breath and let it out. He wanted…the same thing he had wanted when he’d taken up supervillainy as a runner-up option. Except now supervillainy had lost its appeal, and the yearning for love had a face and a name attached to it. He blinked at the realization and couldn’t help the path his mind meandered down.

It didn’t escape his notice, after all, that the kid’s love of the lab had always been at least partly due to his lack of excitement to go home. Even early on, he’d made up so many excuses to stay late that Tony had enlisted his drones to check out the group home, make sure there wasn’t some kind of abuse going on. But no. Some of the kids were jerks, sure, and it’s not like anybody there was going to tuck a teenager in at night or ask him how his day went. Not a big deal. Tony’s own parents had barely acknowledged him at that age. The kid just didn’t like it there, didn’t interact with the other kids much, was polite but distant to the caretakers. That was all quite understandable to Tony. It’s not like he liked to interact with most people either. If the kid wanted to dislike the place he lived, that was his own business.

But…he did seem to like Tony. Didn’t he? Maybe he’d rather live in a nice penthouse than in a group home..?

No. Tony rose to his feet and paced. It didn’t matter what he wanted or what the kid might think sounded cool in the moment. It’s not like he could reasonably take care of a kid. Or that any kid in his right mind would want Tony Stark for a father figure.

Okay, lots of kids would, probably. But only because of the money and the fame and the fancy cars. One day the kid would wake up and realize he’d gotten himself stuck to a recovering alcoholic narcissist who could barely take care of himself on a good day. And wouldn’t that be a crushing blow.

The thought of Pete’s face displaying such disappointment…

And yet. If anybody could build him a white picket fenced yard or buy him a dog to run around in it, a real live billionaire could. He’d probably be horrible at all the emotional stuff, but he could keep the kid physically safe and in the right school and give him more electronics than he could take apart and put back together in a lifetime. And he wasn’t so bad at making the kid laugh, which was part of the battle won already. Wasn’t it?

His heart was racing more than was probably healthy when he impulsively called out, “Jarvis?”

“Yes, sir?”

“Screen the personal assistant candidates for experience with kids. Teens. Experience with teens.”

“Would you like for me to hire a nanny, sir?”

“What?” He glared at the ceiling. “No. God, no. Just…make sure they don’t hate kids. Bonus points if they know what to do with one.”

The idea was taking root, and it was either the best idea or the worst idea he’d ever had. It was also the most terrifying idea he’d ever had, and that included his ill-fated idea to become a supervillain.

————————————

Nine months after he accidentally acquired an intern, he purposely acquired both a kid and a human personal assistant. One month after that, he was ganged up on for the first time. And…he didn’t hate it.

“You cannot play that song at a fifteen-year old’s birthday party,” Miss Potts insisted in a no-nonsense tone.

“Of course I can. It’s cool. Teenagers like to be cool. I may not have been one in a couple centuries, but that much hasn’t changed.”

“It has explicit lyrics,” she countered primly.

“It does not have explicit—oh,” he read what she was pointing at on her phone screen. “That’s kind of explicit.”

She gave him a look that said a thousand words and tapped a few times on her phone. “I’ve taken care of the catering and decorations and have taken the liberty of returning most of the presents you purchased.”

“Wait,” he snatched at her phone, which she dodged. “What’s wrong with what I bought?”

“He’s already close to being overwhelmed by everything you’ve given him this month ‘just because you want to,’” she put in air quotes.

“He loves his room. And clothes, and the entertainment system. And the sailboat. He said so.”

She shook her head like he should take back the sailboat or something, which. Ridiculous. In fact, maybe he should buy another. They could race each other.

“Miss Potts—”

“No. You are not getting him another sailboat.” And, okay. She was a witch or a super-powered mutant with mind-reading capabilities, he was certain of it. He would fire her, but she’d been working for him for a full month without annoying him yet, and that was some sort of record. Plus, she looked kind of cute in that bun, and she’d deftly brushed off his every attempt at flirting in a way he couldn’t help but respect. “No sailboat,” she repeated. “No horse. And definitely no sports car. He isn’t even old enough to drive. You know what you can get him?”

“A rock?” he groused sarcastically. “Maybe a ballpoint pen? Ooh, can I get him one with ink included? That sounds nifty.”

“A trip. You should get him a trip. Upstate or even to Paris, anywhere you think he’d like. Experiences are good for kids, and all he wants is to spend time with you.”

Which…wasn’t untrue—the kid was always wanting to be where he was—but was still a weird concept. Nobody in Tony’s life had wanted to spend all that much time with him, especially after getting to know him. The kid was stuck to him like glue, like he thought that if he let Tony out of his sight, Tony would have changed his mind about his living here and sent him packing back to the group home. Which wasn’t going to happen, obviously, but he had no idea how to convince Peter of that. It would just take time, he supposed.

“Paris, huh?”

“It’s one idea,” she agreed.

“Who’s going to Paris?” came a new voice, and speak of the adorable devil. Tony turned. It still made him feel good, seeing Peter entering their living room, kicking off his shoes, and making himself at home. He looked relaxed and happy, which in turn made Tony feel relaxed and happy. Funny how that worked.

“You want to, kid?”

“Want to what?” He stopped mid-step, eyes wide. “Wait. Go to Paris?”

“Sure, why not? See the Eiffel Tower, have some baguettes. What do you say?”

“Um.” His wide eyes shifted to Miss Potts, who smiled reassuringly at him, then back to Tony. “It sounds…cool? But, I mean, I haven’t even been to, like, forty-eight states yet, so, uh, something like Vermont or Maine would be cool too.”

“Maine,” Tony deadpanned. “You’d go to Bangor over Paris.”

“Yeah?” Peter shifted awkwardly on his feet, then took a seat on the sofa next to Tony. “Lobster. Moose. Lots of water. Sounds fun.”

He threw up his hands in mock horror. “Eiffel Tower and baguettes, defeated by lobster and moose and ‘lots of water.’”

Miss Potts was typing furiously on her phone. “I can rearrange a few things, clear your schedule for a week. If you leave the day after Peter’s birthday party, there is an opening at the Lighthouse Inn. Good reviews, high quality service, outstanding views of the shoreline.”

“Lighthouse Inn?” said Tony skeptically at the same time Peter grinned and said, “Really? Cool! Thanks, Pepper!”

“Pepper?” Tony raised an eyebrow. “Her first name is ‘Miss.’”

“I’ll research a few activities and the best places to see,” she said as she clickety-clacked her way out of the room.

And that was that. Peter beamed, and Tony supposed they were going to Maine next week. Which…sounded not half bad, as a matter of fact.

“Pete?”

“Yeah, Tony?” The kid looked over at him with contentment practically oozing out of him. It should have been more than Tony’s emotionally stunted self could reasonably handle, but he found himself unable to keep from grinning in response.

“I was thinking. About Iron Man.”

“Yeah?” Peter perked up.

They’d worked on quite a few improvements to Spider-Man’s suit over the past month, especially since Captain America had reached out with an offer to train with the team, but they’d also touched up the Iron Man suit a time or two. He may be retired from villainy, but he couldn’t quite take the Iron Man out of his soul. He was Iron Man, and if he couldn’t be the coolest, awesomest supervillain in town, maybe he could be the coolest and awesomest at something else.

“What do you think about Iron Man coming out of retirement? With a bit of rebranding. Maybe, I dunno, giving…the hero gig a try.” He averted his eyes, not sure he wanted to see the skepticism in his kid’s face, but he supposed he needn’t have worried. Peter was wrapping his arms around him in a hug before he knew what hit him. And, okay. He wasn’t quite used to this whole hugging thing, but this wasn’t the first time the kid had done it. He was demonstrative in a way Tony never had been with his own parents. Not that he was complaining. He wrapped his arms awkwardly back and breathed in his kid. He could probably get used to it.

“I think you’re already a hero,” said Peter, voice muffled against his neck, and when he pulled back, his cheeks were flushed with embarrassment. Still, he looked Tony full-on in the face when he said, “So I think you’d fit right in.”

Tony cleared his throat to rid his voice of those pesky emotions and patted Peter’s knee. “Okay. Okay, then. Maybe I will. You know, maybe. I’ll think about it.”

Peter smiled and settled in next to him. “Pizza and movie night?”

“Order the salad to go with,” he said, in case Cho had mind-reading capabilities too.

He’d think more about the superheroing idea tomorrow, maybe even come up with a five-year plan. But that would wait. Tonight, he was going eat pizza and watch a movie with his family. Work on becoming the coolest and awesomest dad in town. And. Didn’t that have a nice ring to it?

He smiled and put his arm around his kid, tugging him closer as the movie started to play.

#the friendly neighborhood exchange