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cauldronoflove · 7 years

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Ok so this is really obscure, but I've had this idea for a while now, and I'd love to see you work with it? Headcanons for a time travel AU in which Peter Parker is messing with Stark Tech and gets sent back to the 1940s? He could work with Peggy Carter in the SSR to solve the case and pretend to be her little brother. Plus in 2017 Tony and Steve working together to get him back. If you think it's weird or want to skip it no worries! If not, then thank you so much, I love your headcanons!!

i love this concept so much you dont even know?? but also okay i realized abt halfway through these 2.5k+ words that this wasnt exactly what you asked for and i feel kinda bad about that but i hope you still like it all the same!! also i wanna say thank you for thinking of me for this prompt im super flattered????

- peter wasnt technically supposed to be in the 4th basement of stark tower

- technically he was on his lunch break and was supposed to be using said time to both eat and work on his spanish homework

- but he'd heard these whispers from a couple of the older interns about some of the old stuff that mr. stark had thrown down there because he never had time to finish them and peter had an idea

- see, he's been wanting to move up a bit, have mr. stark trust him a little more, and what's better then maybe taking one of his old designs and making it better and making it work

- so thats why he's in the fourth basement of stark tower, trying to remember if he's had his tetanus shot because some of this stuff is seriously Old

- and then he stumbles onto this little pyramid shaped....doohickey

- its the only thing in 4 floors of Things that doesnt have a label or a file or a crude drawing taped to the front of it so now peter is Officially Curious

- he kinda fiddles with it for a few minutes until his phone beeps with his 'hey pete youre gonna be super late getting back to work again' alarm and he about drops this thing on the floor because like everyday the alarm scares him to death

- but because hes clumsy and because hes pete he actually does drop it and everything goes black

- but everything's fine because he wakes right back up and he's pretty sure that he electrocuted himself but thats happened dozens of times so he picks himself up and brushes himself off and realizes that he may have been out longer than he thought because theres fewer boxes in the room than before and geez his head hurts

- "are you quite alright?"

- oh god he mustve hit his head harder than he thought because that looks like

- "m-miss carter, no sorry, ma'am? oh, oh god i'm so sorry that was so rude, agent? agent ma'am?"

- "this is howard's fault isnt it"

- "howard? as in....oh god oh god"

- "do you know where you are?"

- peter parker loved a lot of things and one of those things was museums and one of those museums in particular had an exhibit on a certain mr. rogers and adjacent to that exhibit was a small plaque about the woman standing in front of him and oh god he was going to hyperventilate and throw up in front of a literal legend and hero at the same time

- "remind me to kill him later. right now lets get you something warm to drink, yes? maybe some new clothes, youre looking a little singed"

- flash forward half an hour and he's sitting in front of the agent carter sipping at some terribly bitter coffee while she pursed and unpursed her lips a few times

- (annnnd time skip back to present day)

- friday: mr stark theres a woman downstairs beating on the door asking for youtony, 47 names going through his head: ...go on

- enter may parker, in her pjs, fire in her eyes, carrying on the legacy of brunette women ready to end a stark's life

- "it is ten o'clock on a school night, i've talked to ned, i've talked to mj and liz, i've talked to every corner sub shop owner, i even had a nice long chat with pepper, yet no one could tell me anything so you better have answers as to where my nephew is anthony"

- and in that moment, tony stark's life flashed before his eyes

- "hey, friday, where is the kid?"

- "peter's vitals havent been detected since 1:32pm on floor D"

- tony: fu-

- (back to pete and peggy)

- so he's quickly caught her up on the gist of whats going on (aka he told her he's from 2017 ny and hed really just like to go home) and she's taking it surprisingly well, all nodding and hmm-ing and cursing howard stark under her breath, kinda how may is when tony does like.. anything

- but now shes leading him through their super secret base and he's trying not to stare because, has he mentioned, hes literally standing next to peggy carter

- "right, well, here's your cot. if you need anything, dugan can help you. he's that one, there, with the cigar. you get some rest and i'll find howard and see if we cant get your...issue squared away. oh, and whatever you do, dont accept anything dernier tries to give you, you've already blown up once today, i dont think you can afford another"

- present day

- tony's been working through the night, a marginally-more-than-slightly disgruntled may beside him, and an even-more-than-marginally-more-than-slightly peeved happy beside her

- ("how do you lose a teenage boy, tony" happy moans to his phone when he wakes up and sees all the missed calls and texts he has)

- good news: it only took like 2 1/2 hours and three shots of espresson for tony to figure out what happened to peter

- bad news: it wasnt even a Tony Stark Exclusive Design, it was a Howard Stark One-Time Use That Was Actually A Malfunction Design, he'd had several more coffees that werent even close to being strong enough, and he had a growing black eye from the punch may landed before happy could pull her away and calm her down (maybe that last part should be in the good news column)

- "so he's just stuck in the 40s alone, then" may surmises, rubbing at the tension headache in her temples

- tony doesnt respond because at this point he needs his other eye for miracle working and depth perception

- "well, probably not alone," happy begins. "i catalogued everything in that level, and that stuff came from one of howard's london facilities, so it was probably calibrated for that time, so he's probably with-"

- tony: "hap, please dont finish that sentence"

- may: "1940s london. so he's with steve, then, safe. with captain america. okay, i can handle that."

- tony: "no, ah, a little later than capsicle, probably"

- may: "so not safe with captain america"

- happy: "safe with agent carter, more likely"

- pete and peggy

- good news: pete made it through the night without being blown up by the howling commandoes

- bad news: once howard was finally located and sobered up, he explained that he hadnt built that particular device yet, so peter was kinda stuck

- peter wasnt coping well

- "i have a spanish test tomorrow! and a trig test on friday! and i'm supposed to hang out with ned on saturday, and then may's gonna kill me when i dont show up for sunday dinner, and shes gonna kill me in general because i never checked in because holy shit i never checked in!"

- howard: peggy he's crying what do i do

- peggy: do i have to do everything myself

- she advances on peter and takes his chin in her hand, locking eyes with him: peter, you know who i am, dont you?

- he nods as best as he can

- "then you must know that i'm going to do everything in my power and then some to get you back home, dont you?"

- "yes ma'am"

- "good. go take a walk while i talk to howard, and if anyone asks, youre my american brother in for a short visit." and then she pats him on the cheek and his soul kinda ascends then and there because agent carter just patted him on the cheek AND gave him permission to tell people he's her brother

- so he goes to take his walk but the thing is when he gets anxious, he likes to fiddle with the loose legos he keeps under his bed, building and rebuilding tiny structures to help ease his nerves

- needless to say, he's an Absolute Nervous Wreck while he waits for some kind of something from peggy or howard and there arent any legos to keep him busy

- so he kind of takes that walk right on down to the lab and starts poking around because even if he is a certified nervous wreck he's also thr most inquisitive little shit that ever did walk the earth

- peggy finds him two hours later with a pair of loose fitting goggles on his forehead, his sweater sleeves pushed up to his elbows, and some . substance on his hands

- "please dont tell me youre somehow howard's long lost son too," she says, taking his appearance in

- he shakes his head as the beakers in front of him emit a puff of green smoke directly into his already scrunched up face "no ma'am; it's just that mr. stark kinda has me on desk duty and never lets me get my hands dirty so i like to take every oppurtunity i can get"

- she nods, "good, because howard needs you to describe what you remember of the device, and then you and i are going to begin the slog through the logistics of it all"

- "ooooookay"

- which is how peter parker ends up sitting across from peggy carter, the both of them scribbling extremely advanced mathematics onto yellowing sheets of paper as howard stark tinkered with some spare parts he had lying around as he tried to construct a crude rendering of the device

- peggy mostly doesnt talk, actually, she hasnt spoken since explaining that shed picked her math skills up on an assignment shed once had where she learned she actually loved numbers and then howard had been letting her do calculations for him in her free time

- peter was too impressed to respond bc from what he gathered she'd only been on that mission for six months and she didnt have much free time which meant she'd had to pick it all up FAST

- anyway, they got at that for hours, until peter cant keep his eyes open and even howard is dwindling; peggy waves them both off to bed but stays and keeps scribbling away

- they repeat that routine for 3 days

- on the 5th night, after she waves them off, peter goes to his cot and he tosses and turns for hours, listening to the commandoes play poker and crack jokes, but he cant sleep

- finally he gets up and just starts walking, anywhere his feet take him

- coincidentally, his feet take him past what he quickly realizes is peggy's room

- "peter why are you still up? is everything all right?" she asks, pulling off these big hulking glasses that made him incredibly homesick because she reminds him so much of may in that moment, big glasses on, hunched over a book in her lap, hair pulled back out of her face

- and he apologizes, but she Knows something's terribly wrong, so she gets up and ushers him away from her doorway, and leads him down a hall or two and then theyre standing in an open space, and she's looking at him like shes trying to solve one of her equations

- "do you know how to throw a punch, peter"

- " whatever youre thinking i dont think its a good idea we dont have any gear and i dont want to get hurt-"

- she shakes her head and asks again, and he finally answers with a kinda

- "'kinda' will get you hurt; watch me" and she begins to demonstrate a few slow punches and he follows her movements and tries to copy them but hes a little sloppy but its ok because she corrects him and finally theyre just standing beside one another counting out punches when she asks "whats on your mind"

- and he doesnt even hesitate he just lets loose everything, how much he misses may and how terrible he feels that he cant get in touch with her, how much he misses ned and mj and liz, how much he misses his fire escape and the deli on the corner and the buildings and then he's crying again, but she gracefully doesnt point it out

- once he's done spitting out everything thats bothering him she gets this kind of sad smile and says, "you remind me of a man i knew. he cared so much about his friends, sometimes to the point of not even worrying about himself, whuch meant he was always in some sort of trouble, as you can imagine. but he always found his way out of a problem, even if he was the one who created it." she laughs slightly then. "i guess what i'm getting at is even if i cant get you back home, even if howard cant, i believe that youll figure it out."

- "are you comparing me to captain anerica right now because i'm already crying and i dont think i can take much more" he says through sniffles, his arms slack by his sides now

- she smiles and nods, keeping her stance, and peter feels an overwhelming sense of gratitude for this amazing woman who immediately helped him without much of a pause and who's made sure he was okay for the past 5 days and who's up at god knows what time showing him how to throw a punch and being his borderline therapist and he just wants to give her something in return

- "im not sure if im supposed to do this, because for all i know it could tear a hole in the fabric of time and space but i really want to show you this," he begins, pulling his wallet put of his pocket.

- he flicks the little photo holders out and theres may, and theres ned and mj and liz, and theres that cat he found that one time, and theres him and tony, and there, at the bottom, is the time he officially met steve after the whole fight thing and all

- "this was taken a couple months ago; well, a couple months for me, it's decades from now, but here," and he holds out his wallet for her to see and she looks over the photo curiously before she understands and a tear slips down her cheek and she smiles the most grand smile

- "thank you, peter" and she passes the wallet back and puts her hand on his shoulder and says "i promise i'll have you home in time for sunday dinner"

- and she does

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