Work Text:
Peter Parker’s Official Guide to: Not Blowing Up a Theme Park
Tony Stark is not easily surprised.
He has built his way out of imprisonment in Afghanistan, almost died because of some radioactive shit he put in his heart, saved the world from an alien invasion (multiple times), joined a team of glorified policemen in brightly coloured spandex, faked his death (multiple times), unofficially adopted a kid he found in a shack in Tennessee, almost destroyed the world (then saved it), built a super baby with another genius man, almost lost all his friends to the government, officially adopted a kid he found in the shack in Tennessee, and become a questionably good father.
It was safe to say that he had seen and been through a lot more than an average human.
He’s met even weirder people than him including ,but not exclusive to: an American war hero from the 40s who still punches aliens, a genius doctor with mean green anger issues, a literal god(s), a weird spy who likes living in his air ducts and throwing sticks, a scary Russian spy who he knows virtually nothing about, a man who dresses up in a metal bird costume and is somehow all their impromptu therapist, and another Russian spy from the 40s who was brainwashed by evil Russians/German scientists and lived with a richer than him kitty king in Africa. He’s also met a teenager with spider powers and a questionable moral compass.
And it was because of that last reason that Tony Stark was awestruck right now.
OoO
3 hours earlier...
Adopting Harley was never a question.
Tony knew that he wasn’t cut out to be a parent. He wasn’t cut out for a lot of things. He wasn’t responsible or sensible in his decisions. He was a recovering alcoholic. He had PTSD that was as big as the worm hole he’d gone into in 2012. Hell, Harley had seen him have a panic attack even before he adopted him because he didn’t have mostly anything in his life under control.
His dad had been borderline abusive and neglected him when he didn’t chastise him. Tony promised to never be like that when he signed the papers to adopt Harley. Harley said that was good enough. But Tony didn’t want to just be good enough. He was Tony Stark, he wasn’t good enough, he was usually the best at what he did (not really but that’s what he likes to believe).
Sure, he knew what being a parent entailed (thanks to Clint, Scott and about a million online parenting books). He knew that meant going to his science fairs (and they were cool cause he would go to that nerd school in Midtown and crush whatever nerd experiments were there because his kid was no dumbass), helping him through trauma (of losing his only family due to them walking out on a 15 year old kid in a shed in Rose Hill Tennessee), talking about girls (which he could do a lot of, but he didn’t think Pepper would appreciate him breeding a young Tony Stark- he hoped she wouldn’t mind him breeding their child into a hero like he is now but he knows he still has a lot of work to do before he warned that title), and occasionally chaperoning a field trip.
This year it was the back to school trip to Hershey Park for the decathlon team. They had just finished their summer competitions in Pittsburgh and to make some new friends at his school Harley decided to join the team for their summer activities before the school year. Michelle Jones and Ned Leeds recommended it (They were two interns at SI for the summer, but they were so brilliant that Tony and Pepper were gonna ask them to stay throughout the school year). Harley was initially nervous, so Tony said he’d tag along with them.
Tony would’ve rented the whole park out for the day, but he didn’t upon Harley’s request.
He would really regret not doing that in a few hours.
OoOoO
“Do I really have to go on this mission?”
Nick Fury rolled his eyes as he signalled to change lanes. Peter Parker was in his passenger seat slouching and playing an outdated game on his outdated consuel (“ It’s a DS you uncultured swine”-Peter Parker) . Poke-something that Fury didn’t care about. “I need an assist incase things go south, and I wanna see just how good your nose is.” Fury told him without looking at the boy. He knew Peter was pouting though.
Parker had been unofficially going on Avengers missions for about 3 months now. Fury didn’t know about Peter’s complete powerset yet. He knew that the kid had his weird sticky thing and superstrength and was unusually smart. He also knew about Peter’s enhanced senses, since they didn’t have a biological based sensor on the Avengers team, he could be an asset on stealth and retrieve missions. If his senses were as good as Fury thought they were.
This mission was low key. Some idiot decided to plant a bomb in a crowd dense area and they needed to find and stop it before it happened without causing a rise to panic. It by no mean entailed calling the Avengers but it was the perfect mission to find out more about how Peter Parker worked. At least by a standpoint.
“So this is all just like a test?” Peter asked sitting up a little, Fury could see out of the corner of his eye that the kid was looking at him with an inquisitive look that made him look like a puppy. Fury would never admit it, but the kid was adorable even though he didn’t know it. He was almost like a lost puppy when he didn’t know what to do (which wasn’t often) or had a question (he had a lot of questions, most of the time though they were stupid and asked only to piss him off). He was the definition of looks can be deceiving (and he thought that was Romanovs Job) because he was cute and unsuspecting but lethal. He looked like an average boring kid, never drawing attention to himself in public without his mask, but he was probably one of the most dangerous people on this planet.
And right now he was slouching in his chair trying to beat the Electric type gym leader in Pokémon:Black.
“Basically, plus I can’t use any mechanical scanners for this.” Fury said to him “And I’ve heard you’re better than a bloodhound.” Peter crossed his arms and pouted as he slumped back in his seat.
“That’s Red.” he grumbled and opened his game again. “Where are we going anyways?” Peter asked casually, spamming the A button to finish a move on the rodent on the screen.
“Hershey Park.” Fury responded.
Somehow Peter fell out of his seat.
OoOoO
Present…
Tony has a weak heart.
Again, things don’t usually surprise him but the things that do nearly give him a heart attack.
Aliens don’t give Tony heart attacks.
Seeing expensive bills don’t give Tony heart attacks.
Seeing Nick Fury and Peter Parker casually looking at Storm Runner gave him a fucking heart attack.
It’s not that he doesn’t like them (he doesn’t, but that’s not why his heart fucking stopped), it’s just that whenever Nick Fury is around, it always means someting really bad happened. And when Nick Fury was with Peter Parker (aka Spiderman) it meant some really really bad is going to happen. There aren’t a lot of things that get Spidey out of his comfy home of New York City, and Avengers mission were (the only) one of them. There was no way Nick Fury, the director of SHIELD, was taking Peter Parker, New York’s resident menace, to Hershey Park for a free day. Especially on the same day Tony Stark was there. It wasn’t a coincidence.
“Why did you drag me here?” He heard Fury ask the boy in an exasperated tone.
“You dragged me here, and if you’re gonna interrupt my Pokemon binge the least you can do is take me to see the birthplace of a vine.” Peter said ending his words with a dreamy tone as he looked up at the ride that shot off another round of tourists.
“The birthplace of a what ?” Fury asked and Tony rolled his eyes. He had a kid so he understood half of what he was saying (also he was the number one tech guy of the millennium. Of course he’d know what a vine is, he just didn’t understand the youths’ addiction to it).
“The birthplace- of heh- a ugh!” Peter huffed unable to believe Fury’s ignorance to whatever the hell he was talking about so much that he couldn’t speak for a minute “This is holy ground good sir . I will not have you tarnish it with your arrogance.” he stamped his foot lightly. Tony was a little surprised, he had never seen Parker act this much like a child.
Sure, Peter acted like a kid to them when they were in battle fields. Not listening to orders, making witty jokes, being a general nuisance. But for a teenager, he was actually quite mature when compared to others. This was the first time that Tony had actually seen him act like a child.
“Look kid, you need to come down from whatever high your on because we have an important mission to-” Fury was cut off by Stark casually strolling up and making his presence known.
“Ride?” Tony asked as he cut in and both males turned to him. Fury was unsurprised, Peter was a little confused but mostly unsurprised.
“Mr. Stark?” Peter asked at the same time as Fury greeted with a curt, drawn out “Stark.”
“Good afternoon gentlemen.” he greeted back in a mock pleasant tone. Peter looked back and forth between Fury and Tony facing off in a subtle standoff. They couldn’t draw attention to themselves but luckily this was a more secluded part of the park.
“Wait you knew he was gonna be here?” Peter asked, finally settling on Fury, who didn’t answer as he continued with his barrage of questions. “Then why am I here? Wait, why are you here?” he directed to Tony as he pointed at the man.
“Probably, don’t know, and fieldtrip.” Tony answered as he peered down at the kid who looked back up at him with slightly wide eyes. They almost reminded him of the innocent look of a normal kid (...okay that’s kind of sad.)
“Fieldtrip?” Peter asked as he cocked his head slightly. “But the school year hasn’t even started for your kid.” He told him. Tony bristled, how the fuck had he known that? Peter was an enigma, he knew things that he shouldn’t. Just like a lot of people in his life, more than he’d like to be comfortable with but what was he gonna do. There was just something about a kid knowing these things.
“How would you know that?” Tony narrowed his eyes and Peter shrugged vaguely. He didn’t seem that concerned or threatened by Tony’s suspicious gaze.
“Not that hard to find out.” Peter said and Tony looked at Fury with a raised brow.
“You sure he isn’t yours?” Tony asked to him, Fury glared at him“He’s got the arrogance down to the t .” he smirked smugly. The other man looked mildly impressed with his boldness, but mostly annoyed.
“Does he look like mine, Stark?” Fury asked with a raised brow and crossed arms. Tony held his hands up in surrender as a way to say fair enough. Peter looked slightly uncomfortable.
“What are you doing here?” Peter asked changing the subject back to the original topic.
“I could ask you the same thing Parker.” Tony crossed his arms and looked back down at the kid, he remained unwavered.
“I asked first.” he crossed his arms childishly the same way. He didn’t smile like he usually would though, he just remained looking inquisitive. It almost looked cute.
“Fieldtrip.” He huffed again. “Harley joined the decathlon team and they took a trip to Hershey after crushing that no name school in Pittsburg.” Tony said proudly and Peter paled a little. Tony couldn’t fathom why, but somehow it intrigued him.
“Midtown..decathlon…” he mumbled as Fury cut in smoothly as Parker seemed incapable of speaking in anything more than a mumble. Tony wished he knew what he said, because then he could use this trick more often.
“We are undercover. There were reports of an explosive being planted in one of the rides.” Fury said and it was Tony’s turn to pale “We believe on a timer, but we don’t know for when.” Fury continued as of Tony wasn’t rendered slightly speechless.
“Why would someone wanna blow up an amusement park?” Tony mumbled and Fury raised a brow. Tony glared at him but didn’t speak anymore so Fury could answer the question.
“Because someone was probably tipped off that you’d be here.” Fury said back like it was obvious. That made sense. Sometimes he hated being famous and hated by half the world. It was at times like these he regretted being an irresponsible man child for so long and getting people carelessly and unnecessarily hurt.
“Okay, so why didn’t you tell me. I could’ve had FRIDAY scan and evacuate the-” Tony started and only glanced at Parker. What could this kid do that he couldn’t do ten times better with a machine? Why would Fury bring him over any other agent? He was just a rebellious child.
“No can do. We don’t wanna cause a panic.” Fury said in his usual way “and you don’t have a very subtle way of doing things.” Fury said in a matter of fact way, but before Tony could retort Peter spoke in a low tone.
“Panic saves people Fury.” Peter mumbled and Tony didn’t have to like the kid to agree with him. Panic did save people and Tony was a naturally flashy person. He flew around in a metal suit for god sake, and how was Spiderman any less subtle. The colors he wore were two steps away from being neon.
“Yes, but also we already scanned the area. No read outs, so we have to use the old fashioned way.” Fury said and looked at Peter. Tony did the same with an incredible face.
“The old fashioned...?” Tony asked looking at Peter who huffed and crossed his arms again but looked away to the ground.
“Super senses.” Fury answered and Tony almost laughed out loud. It was hard because he was visibly holding it back and that seemed to upset Parker a little.
“How will super senses help you find a bomb?” he smirked and Peter glared.
“Actually, it would make sense to use it instead of scanning because the bomb couldn’t be a bomb at all but like an everyday mechanism that, when used incorrectly, could be a substitute for a bomb.” Peter said in a matter of fact way that only had Tony slightly impressed. “Besides Dare Devil smelled a bomb before my scanners could even boot up once. So there.” Peter turned slightly and huffed again.
“Okay, but how do your super senses factor in now?” Tony asked, not mentioning how Peters scanners may have been crap because they were probably made from scraps anyway. He didn’t want to admit that the Spider-Man gear was slightly impressive from being made out of junk though; kid had a talent. To bad it was wasted because he could’ve gone far with the right materials instead of trash.
“If it’s on purpose than something has to change.” Fury told him. Tony didn’t understand it but Peter picked up on it and explained.
“Like, if I were the bomber, and I’m not, I would rig one of these rides - which has a more than 600 horsepowers and are either powered by electricity or gasoline - with a less stable fuel or mix in some chemical to make it unstable.” Peter told him and Tony as only mildly concerned but mostly impressed. That was actually good thinking, like outside of the box. Guess that’s what you might expect from a borderline criminal but what was he gonna do?
“We think that the fuel or chemical won’t be released until later today, so it gives us time to find the ride and shut them down before that can happen.” Fury picked up with the impromptu mission briefing “We hacked into the system and found out what fuels the rides need so all we have to do is go around and find out what smells odd.” He glanced at Peter again.
“Okay, what do you need me to do?” Tony asked, hoping it would be nothing.
“Don’t ride anything, it might give our little arsonist a reason to strike.” Fury said and Peter smirked a little. Tony huffed. Jokes on them, this is what he wanted. But he also knew his anxiety would spike with the not knowing and if they did find the bomber then it was less than 50 percent chance that they’d actually tell him. So much for a relaxing day at the amusement park.
“Fine. I’m getting a cone.” he said and as he walked away he heard Peter mumble:
“Oh, that sounds good.” but he never heard him ask Fury for the food as the older man walked away leaving Peter to follow behind him like a lost puppy.
For the record, it was a damn good cone.
OoOoO
The next time they ran into Stark, Peter literally looked like a five year old in candy land.
The kid was looking every which way like there was something new every time. He looked up at every ride with the same enthusiasm even though he knew he couldn’t ride it. They stayed mostly in the shady unpopulated parts, and they may not have had access to the back entrances for ‘employees only’ but that didn’t stop them. Fury was a spy, he could get into a silly amusement park maintenance room. Parker wasn’t bad himself, although he insisted on not needing to go in he could smell the propine just fine from outside the door.
“Why are you do hyper Parker?” Fury asked in an irritable voice as he watched the kid look around in wonder. “I didn’t give you any sugar today.” he thought back, and he had made sure not to give the kid any food since he picked him up early this morning.
“I dunno, never been to an amusement park before.” he said as he bounced a little in his step, and that’s when Stark pulled up. The Great Bear was just around the corner and Tony was waiting in the shade sipping lemon water he had bought at one of the stands.
“That’s not obvious.” he grumbled and the two turned to him. Fury rolled his eyes and Peter remained unbothered.
“What are you doing here?” Fury put his hands on his hips. “You’re going to blow our cover.” he insisted, even though they knew it wasn’t true. Stark couldn’t blow Nick Fury’s cover if he tried. Tony shrugged in response.
“I can’t go on any rides.” he said and tilted his head down to look at Parker over the glasses. “Have you really never been on a rollercoaster before.”
“I’ve been on the Cyclone.” Peter mumbled as he ducked and blushed. Tony raised a brow, Fury rolled his eyes and stuck out his leg to wait for them to finish.
“Yeah, but what about amusement park?” Tony pressed a little and Peter looked up a little in thought then looked back at Stark with hesitant eyes.
“Does Coney Island count?” Peter asked tentatively. There was something sad behind his tone. Fury didn’t make it his business to know what that meant.
“Not in Summer, it’s basically a permanent Carnival in the summer.” Tony said to him with a nonchalant look. He was right, Coney Island was basically a glorified boardwalk.
“Then no.” Peter crossed his arms and huffed. Tony hummed a little and Fury didn’t like that sound. It meant that Stark was planning something and when he planned something that usually meant Fury had to clean up the mess he made afterward.
“This isn’t a joy ride Parker. You’re here to work.” Fury reminded the kid and he slumped only a little. Tony looked like he felt somewhat bad for him. “So get your head out of the clouds and pay attention, you haven’t been doing much but look at the ground and sky since we got here.” Peter glared at Fury.
“You woke me up at five and you didn’t even give me anything to eat today. I’m tired. ” Peter mumbled reminding his stomach that he went since yesterday without eating causing it to rumble. Damn his super metabolism. He knew Fury heard it and the man just scoffed. Tony got up and tutted at the man.
“No, no Fury. Now that’s bad parenting.” Tony mocked his scolding tone cause both Peter and Fury to glare at him.
“He/I doesn’t/don’t need to be parented.” Fury and Peter said respectively at the same time. Peter huffed at the end and Fury crossed his arms. Tony almost laughed at how similar they looked.
“Okay.” Tony held up his hands in surrender. “ But he needs some food he looks like he’s gonna keel over.” Tony pointed to the pale boy and Peter tried a light glare but Tony saw him press his arms into his stomach a bit more confirming his belief. Tony was no expert, but he was pretty sure the kid had a super metabolism, even if he didn’t he still had a teenager metabolism (which Tony knew from having a teen, was ravones ).
“Fine, go get yourself some food Parker.” Fury waved off but the child remained put. Fury raised a brow at him as Peter ducked his head.
“I don’t have any money.” he grumbled and Fury whirled at him full force. He looked pissed beyond belief, which was kind of stupid because it was just a (over priced) meal.
“Why didn’t you bring any money?” he nearly yelled at the kid, and the child retaliated by.
“You said it was a quick mission and I don’t exactly have the most lucrative job to waste my money on overpriced amusement park food! Have you seen the prices here, their jacked up 200%!” Peter pointed to his cup of lemonade “I mean he basically paid 8 dollars for a glas of ice water and half a lemon. How screwed up is that.” Peter snapped back. The kid did have a point.
“Ah, the price of fine dining.” Tony sipped his lemon water. Peter scoffed at him as he crossed his arms.
“It’s not fine ! I can make the same thing for less than 2 dollars and mass produce it.” Peter huffed and crossed his arms over his stomach again. Tony rolled his eyes.
“So you’ll starve to make a point?” Fury raised a brow. Peter looked a little more hesitant in that front but still responded.
“I always starve to make a point.” Peter huffed in usual manner. Fury rolled his eyes again at the teen.
“Whatever, at least your senses aren’t impacted by this and you can get back to your job.” Fury looked at Peter who had adopted a guilty blush on his face that made Tony want to laugh out loud. “You have got to be kidding me?!” The one eyed man fumed.
“It’s not my fault! Red takes the blood hound jobs, I don’t usually have to follow my senses this closely.” Peter tried to defend. “My senses are weird.” he said and looked to the ground to his left. There was something else in his tone. Tony was about to comment on it when Fury beat him to the punch.
“Whatever. You’re getting some food.” Fury stalked away to find something to eat and Peter rolled his eyes and followed him.
“Bye you two, have fun.” Tony mocked as they left. Peter turned a waved a little with a small smile on his face that Tony thought was weird but shrugged it off.
“I stole his credit card.” Peter mumbled as he caught up to the other man and gave it to Fury as he smirked.
“Nice job kid.”
OoOoO
It was 8 hours later that Tony noticed his credit card was missing.
By then most of the crowd had cleared out and Tony was on a hunt for one Peter Parker. The park was nearly cleared out because of closing time. It wasn’t that hard to find him as he was outside a deserted ride, looking at it like it had offended him. No one was anywhere in sight around him.
“Parker!” he yelled and stalked up to the boy.
“This is the last one.” he mumbled to himself as he looked down at his phone. Tony stopped.
“Parker?” he said more quietly as he came closer. The kid looked genuinely distraught. Peter glanced at him and handed his credit card over wordlessly.
“Thanks for lunch.” he mumbled distractedly.
“What’s wrong?” Tony asked taking the card without much thought.
“I’ve checked all the rides twice.” he mumbled more to himself. “I even scanned them all, but there is nothing weird about the rides. They are functioning completly normal and none of the fuel has been tampered with.” Peter said and then he went board stright.
“Where is Fury?” Tony asked and Peter slumped.
“He went to clear out the residents and called Hershey.” Peter answered “Today went normal except for a few maintanence errorsthat need the Park to close down early today.” Peter fed him the lie they told everyone.
“I should check if Midtown is evacuating.” Tony said to him and Peter nodded once before his back went boardstraight and he sprinted off to the left. Tony was bewildered and decided to run after him.
Man that kid could run fast. They ended up on the complete opposite side of the Park, near Fahrenheit . Peter looked up at the ride as it was about to go for it’s last go around. He put on a spiderman mask and pulled up his black hoodie and swung up onto the ride without a word. Tony called his suit to him but it’d take 15 seconds for it to arrive.
“What’s going on?” he asked as he logged into the comms and had FRIDAY hack into Peter’s link.
“I smell Aziroazide azide .” Peter said to him.
“Aziro… wait FRIDAY what the hell is that?!” he asked and Peter groaned and he could almost hear the kid roll his eyes in his tone.
“It’s a compound made mostly of Nitrogen with different ions.” Peter answered instead of FRIDAY.
“Yep, he’s right boss. It is mainly made in a lab in the Klapötke lab at Munich, it was to highlight their accomplishments in the field of nitrotetrazole oxides. It is highly explosive.” FRIDAY informed.
“Nitrogen is odorless though. How could you smell it?!” Tony asked
“Oh please.” Peter scoffed “I’m so stupid.” he heard the kid mumble to himself as he swung up to stop the 58 mile per hour ride. It had just reached the top of its climax when Peter pulled it back with his webs and the suit finally decended giving Tony five seconds to get into it. “I was checking for Carbon…” he beratted himself, Tony ignored it.
“FRIDAY scan.” he said as he flew over and before FRIDAY could confirm.
“At the bottom of the drop!” Peter said as if he wasn’t holding back a probably over thousand pounds of people and metal. Tony flew down and grabbed the box of distructive chemical.
“FRIDAY, manual override the car and activate the emergency brake.” The ride stopped trying to go forward and left the inhabentns screaming as Peter let go of his webs and swung down and Iron Man landed in front of the ride operator who was trying to make a getaway.
He ended up bumping into Nick Fury himself.
“Of course, it was Nitrogen.” came a voice as the man was pinned down by webs.
“I believe you have a lot of explaining to do.” Fury said and crossed his arms as Spiderman flipped down and Iron Man clanked behind him, the man cowered in fear.
“Man, I love this job!”
OoOoO
1 hour later...
“That’s so cool!” Ned said on the ride back.
“I can’t believe someone planted a bomb on the ride.” MJ replied. Tony had just finished regaling MJ, Ned and Harley on the tale of how Iron Man and Spider Man saved Hershey park.
“Not that! I meant that we were in the same vicinity as Spider Man for the whole day and didn’t even know it!” Ned said and Harley scoffed.
“He’s not as cool as Iron Man.” Tony smirked at his son and went back to pretending not to listen.
“Yeah, but Spiderman is so like...mysterious.” Ned said. Tony couldn’t help but think back to all of Peter’s weird reactions throughout the day. But even weirder, how he was willing spending it and having a kind of good time with Nick Fury. How he switched from a poor kid who couldn’t afford a smoothie to a superhero who didn’t let anyone deter him. Weird kid.
“He’s a mystery all right.”