Chapter Text
How hard could it really be to fake your own death?
Well, just a medical emergency would suffice, Tony supposed. A heart attack, maybe, given how regularly he liked to remind the rest of the Avengers about the delicate state of his cardiovascular system. Or perhaps just a mild dysrhythmia to explain away his immediate recovery as soon as he got away from this damned conference room.
The conference room, and Steve’s festive crime against Tony’s retinas.
Seriously, where had the guy who refused to learn what “the Google” was found a Captain America-themed Christmas sweater that was simultaneously red, white, blue, and such an alarming shade of green? No wonder Tony could barely focus on whatever the hell Fury was talking about.
Tony wasn’t even convinced this meeting required his presence. Steve had decided it did, however, and unfortunately Tony had to listen to Steve. For some godforsaken reason, someone had put Captain Spangles in charge of the Avengers, and now it was Tony who had to suffer the consequences.
Maybe Fury had been right when he’d originally rejected him from the Avengers Initiative for—how had SHIELD phrased it? —not playing well with others.
Tony couldn’t see it himself.
But Pepper insisted that listening to their fearless leader, even when he was wearing a headache-inducing sweater, was A, part of being a team player, and B, something Tony needed to work on. And Tony loved Pepper, so regrettably, he had to listen to her when she told him to listen to Steve.
Loving Pepper, however, didn’t make this meeting and less unbearable. This one, or any of the other meetings Tony was forced to attend because he was an Avenger. They were his own personal purgatory, his cross to bear, and other melodramatic metaphors that always made Pepper roll her eyes and joke that this was why the two of them weren’t soulmates.
“I’d never have a soulmate who was such an ass,” she often told him.
“No, but you’d agree to marry one,” had been Tony’s go-to response ever since she finally actually had.
Deciding that Pepper definitely wouldn’t be impressed if she learned he’d faked a medical emergency, Tony forced himself to tune back into Fury’s lecture.
In theory, this meeting had been of vague interest to Tony: possible recruits to the Avengers. Had. After fifteen minutes of discussing vigilantes’ possible character flaws, Tony had kind of tuned out. And, regrettably, he chose to tune back in just as a certain red-and-blue menace appeared on the next slide of Fury’s very fancy PowerPoint presentation.
Maybe facing Pepper’s wrath wouldn’t be so bad, Tony lamented as everyone turned to him.
“Stark,” said Fury, the first interesting thing to come out of his mouth today. “It’s been months. Are you any closer to finding Spider-Man’s identity?”
Right. The crime-fighting Spider-Man. Well, ‘Man’. The Spiderling wished. Head-to-toe spandex couldn’t hide when his voice cracked.
Tony knew Spider-Man was on his to-do list. It was just a lot of things were. Finding the guy’s identity was more of an ego thing to Tony, but, as a superhero, his ego wasn’t exactly withering.
“You know,” said Tony, “he’s surprisingly technologically literate, that one. FRIDAY’s got his YouTube notifications on, but he’s really scrambling that old signal. He could be posting from Siberia for all FRIDAY can find.”
Fury was unimpressed, but when wasn’t he? “You haven’t started.”
Tony sighed. “Look, I’ll get around to it. He’s not exactly going anywhere. And I highly doubt he’s going to crack and become a supervillain any time soon. I swear to God, if FRIDAY sends me a video of him failing to rescue a cat from a tree one more time—”
“I want results, Stark.”
“Don’t we all?”
Tony didn’t really understand why SHIELD wanted to recruit these vigilantes anyway. New recruits could throw the team’s whole dynamic off, especially given Tony was notoriously difficult to get along with. Tony also thought the animal kingdom was already well represented with Sam, Natasha, and Clint. Did they strictly need various cats, squirrels or, God forbid, spiders joining the team?
Thankfully, before Fury could rip into Tony again, Tony’s watch buzzed. It was Pepper, reminding him that he was scheduled to make an appearance in the R&D department in ten.
Tony stood. “Gonna have to cut you short, Nick. That was Pepper. I’ve got to run.”
Namedropping Pepper instantly lent his excuse more credibility, and Fury nodded his reluctant acknowledgment.
A smattering of goodbyes followed Tony out the door. He heaved a sigh of relief once finally free of that oppressive conference room, filing the meeting away in the back of his mind to never think about again. Maybe he’d actually remember to make some progress on Spider-Boy’s identity before the next one.
The beginnings of a headache twinged at Tony’s temples as he waited for the elevator. God damn it, Steve. As soon as he took that damn sweater off Tony was going to order FRIDAY to incinerate it.
The elevator arrived with a quiet ding.
When the doors opened, however, it was not the empty, quiet haven Tony had hoped for. Instead, a pale, slightly panicked teenager occupied one corner. There was a white visitor’s badge pinned to his plaid shirt and he nervously tugged at the shirt’s hem. His face went slack when he recognized Tony, that starstruck look Tony knew all too well. Tony waited for him to recover with a raised eyebrow. After a moment, the kid gathered himself and awkwardly stepped out of the way of the buttons.
Tony’s stomach swooped as the elevator started moving. In the mirror, he saw the teenager glance at him, eyebrows still screwed up in panic. Tony caught his eye.
“You good there? You’re looking a little green around the edges.”
The teenager startled. He smiled hesitantly before he apparently decided against it and schooled his features.
“Uh, yeah, it’s just… I got separated from my tour group and I ended up somewhere I don’t think I was meant to be, and I thought I’d gotten away with it and then literally Iron Man shows up. Iron Man. I’ve been sleeping in bedsheets with your face on them since I was nine.”
The kid went white a moment later.
“What the fuck,” he whispered to himself. “Oh my God, why the hell did I just tell him that?”
Tony snorted. “Don’t worry, kid. Reprimanding a teenager who wandered away from their tour group is a little below Iron Man’s pay grade. And given my track record of avoiding meetings, reporting you for not being where you’re meant to would be a little hypocritical of me.”
The kid nodded. He looked down at the floor and shuffled his feet.
“Um… Mr. Stark? Iron Man? Sir?”
Christ. “Just Tony’s fine, kid. Spit it out.”
“Right. Um… I don’t want to bother you, but since we’re both here, um, would you mind taking a selfie? My friends will never believe me when I say I met you. Um… if that’s okay?”
“Sure. Bring it in.”
Tony always liked to indulge the fans, especially the kids.
The kid smiled like he couldn’t believe Tony had said yes, and then he began rooting around in his backpack. Before he could pull out his phone, however, the elevator shuddered to an abrupt halt. The lights flickered and went out, as did the screen displaying their floor number. After a moment, emergency lighting washed the elevator in red LED light.
Tony frowned. Was that a power outage? In his building? That shouldn’t be able to happen.
He jabbed at the button to open the doors. Nothing happened.
The elevator was stuck.
Ignoring the kid, who was watching Tony awkwardly with his phone grasped in one hand, Tony tried the alert bell. After a few minutes with no response, Tony gave that up for lost and tapped his watch.
“FRIDAY?”
She didn’t respond, which also shouldn’t happen. That was two shouldn’t happens in a row and it made Tony’s stomach sink.
“Is something happening?”
Tony looked up from his watch. The kid was staring at him with a worried crease between his eyebrows, and one of his hands had crept up to rub at the back of his neck.
For a moment, Tony considered his usual tactic with young civilians—everything is fine, look, Iron Man is here, he’ll save the day—but he stopped himself. There was something perceptive and almost resigned in the kid’s eyes, as if he’d already caught on to Tony’s growing suspicions even before Tony was willing to admit to them.
By something, Tony knew the kid meant more than just the elevator getting stuck.
“Possibly,” said Tony, deciding not to condescend the kid’s intelligence. FRIDAY was still silent, so he dropped his wrist. “What’s your name, kid?”
“Uh, Peter.”
“Okay Uh, Peter.” Tony dug his fingers into his left arm, trying to remain poised for Peter’s sake. “Let’s hope your tour group isn’t missing you took much. And—uh, you’re not claustrophobic, are you?”
“No?”
“Oh, good. ‘cause we might be here for a while.”
The kid’s eyes widened.
“But not for too long!” Tony interjected. He didn’t want Peter to panic. Being trapped in an elevator with something possibly sinister happening was bad enough. He didn’t need to be trapped with a panicking civilian. “I’m working on it. I’ve got it.”
“You don’t look like you’ve got it. Your AI isn’t responding!”
Uh. What? No. Tony didn’t like that. Teenagers Tony was trying to keep safe should not be calling Tony out on his barely structurally stable lies.
Before Tony could defend himself, however, a nearby explosion cut him off. The entire elevator shuddered. Peter flinched and turned to Tony, eyes wide with fear. It brought out a protective instinct in Tony that he didn’t much care to examine.
“That sounded close,” said Peter, one hand braced against the wall.
“Felt it, too. Goddammit, I already had to renovate half the tower after the Chitauri.”
Tony sighed. This situation was rapidly spiraling, and he could already tell this kid was too intelligent to trust him if he kept spouting lies.
“Right. Well. You were correct. I haven’t got it. Well done, gold star for you. My AI isn’t responding, which shouldn’t be able to happen, and without her I can’t contact the rest of the Avengers.”
Peter nodded, eyes serious. You didn’t call the Avengers to rescue you from an elevator.
The kid went to speak but changed his mind and chewed his lip for a moment instead. “What… what should we do?”
“Give me your phone.”
Tony’s own phone had been strategically forgotten in his office, left to blink quietly with all the calls FRIDAY knew not to forward to his watch.
Peter was still holding his phone from their now forgotten selfie. The thing was cracked and looked old enough that it was a wonder it even had the processing power to make a phone call.
“I haven’t got signal,” Peter said as he handed it over.
Tony fiddled with Peter’s phone for a moment, but the kid was right. There was no way that hunk of junk was going to help him contact the team.
Tony groaned and handed the phone back to Peter. “I won’t hold that against it. That thing looks like it couldn’t get signal if you were standing under a tower. Hate to plug my own products, but—”
He was interrupted by a second explosion. This time, it was further away, but still close enough to rattle the floor. Tony gripped the support rail, cursing himself for being so eager to leave the meeting. Would it really have hurt to stare at Steve’s disgusting sweater for another minute if it meant he wouldn’t have been trapped in an elevator while someone tried to break his damn building?
Another explosion, even closer. Tony slammed against the wall, and, with a cry, Peter was knocked off his feet. Tony’s hand shot out to catch him—and the second Tony’s fingers brushed against Peter’s palm, a hot spark shot down Tony’s wrist. He gasped and reflexively yanked his hand backward; Peter landed on his ass and did the same thing. Hissing between his teeth, Peter cradled his arm against his chest.
Everything seemed to fade into slow motion. The burning heat faded out to a strange warmth beneath Tony’s skin, simmering behind his sternum. Endorphins shot through his bloodstream, and all Tony could focus on was the kid right in front of him.
No.
No—this—this wasn’t possible—
Tony’s usually great mind misfired. Intellectually, he knew what had just happened, but he didn’t believe it. He couldn’t believe it—this wasn’t something that happened to him. This was a distant dream, something he only ever witnessed second-hand—
“Oh my God,” Peter groaned from the floor. He pushed himself up to a sitting position and frowned to himself. “What the hell just—”
He yanked his sleeve down and cut himself off with a choked gasp.
A second later, his eyes shot up to meet Tony’s.
“Oh my—oh my God—!”
Head spinning, Tony yanked his own sleeve down, revealing the vein-streaked skin of his inner wrist. There written in youthful, spiky handwriting, was—
Peter Parker.
Only one word flitted back and forth across Tony’s mind.
“Soulmate,” Peter whispered, reverent. “You’re my—you’re my soulmate?”
Tony’s wrist snapped back down. He forced himself to look Peter in the eyes—to look his soulmate in the eyes—and try to come to terms with the fact that the greatest moment of his life had just happened, just then, and he was entirely uncertain what he was supposed to do now.
“I—” he stuttered. Him, Tony Stark, stuttering.
This far into his life, he’d long since given up hope of ever finding his soulmate. He’d convinced himself he was just one of the unlucky ones, and despite everything he’d given to the universe over the last few years, all the sacrifices he’d made as a superhero, the universe hadn’t decided to give him anything back.
And yet—and yet here he was. Here was Tony’s reward for changing his ways. His soulmate, in the flesh, the greatest gift the universe could ever have given him.
“I—”
Whatever Tony had been about to say was cut off by another explosion that rattled the elevator.
Right. Tony shook his head, like that could get rid of the dopamine coursing through his body. The greatest moment of his life, and yet outside the mirrored walls of this elevator, the Tower was still under attack.
“Okay,” he said gently, helping Peter back onto his feet. “Alright. Okay. Damn, kid—is this common for you? Giving people absolute heart attacks? Cause, Jeez—anyway. Biggest moment of our lives, kid, but I’m about to ruin it, okay? Trust me, I’m finding it pretty damn hard to think right now but we need to shelve this.”
“Right,” said Peter, nodding up at him earnestly.
If Tony had thought Peter looked at him like he’d hung the moon and stars before…
“Right,” Tony agreed. “Sorry to ruin the moment. Welcome to being associated with Iron Man, I guess. Goddamn. Biggest moment of my life and the Tower’s still under attack. Okay. I—Jesus, kid, you couldn’t have sent a memo or something to warn me you weren’t even born yet back when I was having midlife crises about never finding my soulmate?”
Shit. Goddammit. That was a little more personal than Tony had intended. That soulmate dopamine really was something, huh?
“I mean, I sent you fan mail,” Peter said. “Pretty sure I wrote my age on it. It’s your own fault if you didn’t read it.”
“You sent me fan mail?”
As soon as this was over, Tony would be sending someone to search the archive for that. If they even still had it. They’d better still have it.
Peter’s ears went red. “Look, I wasn’t kidding about the Iron Man bedsheets, okay?”
Tony couldn’t help but smile. “You’ll have to tell me where you got those things. I’m thinking Christmas gifts for all the Avengers.” Then Tony forced himself to set his jaw. “But for now—we need to get out of here, kid.”
Tony looked over the elevator again, as though the mirrored walls would offer any help.
“We need to get you to safety. That’s our number one goal, okay? Whether that means leaving you in a secure location within the Tower, or getting you outside and behind the safety barriers, I’m not sure yet. We’ll assess that as we go. Just—listen to me. I’ll figure it out when I figure it out, okay?”
“Listen to you, and don’t wander off, right?” Peter said with a wry grin.
“Yes. No wandering off. Don’t even think about it. We—we need to talk after this is all over. Exchange phone numbers, life stories, and all that.”
Peter looked up at Tony like he couldn’t believe the words coming out of his mouth.
“First thing’s first, I’m going to rewire this elevator and see if I can safely get us out. Alright?”
Peter nodded, his lips pressed together. Tony leaned over and ripped the control panel away from the elevator wall, revealing the exposed wiring underneath. He rolled up his sleeves and got to work, narrating for Peter’s sake as he worked.
“Rewiring an elevator should be pretty simple. For me. Do not try this at home, kiddo. I’ve shocked myself enough times on the suits that I’m immune, but that is not the human standard. I also would not recommend tampering with any elevator you are currently standing in, although hopefully that’s common sense—”
Tony was cut off by a sudden, metallic groaning. His eyes snapped up to the kid’s reflection in the mirror. Peter had his fingers wedged between the doors of the elevator, and his face was screwed up with effort.
“Um,” said Tony, turning to look over his shoulder. “What are you doing?”
Peter jumped and blinked at Tony innocently. “Uh, well, I think I can get the doors open.”
Tony glanced at Peter’s skinny arms. “You sure?”
“Yeah, I… I got it.”
And to Tony’s amazement, he did. The hydraulic doors tried to close on Peter a few times, but with a grunt of effort, Peter forced them open.
The grimy, oil-stained wall of the elevator shaft greeted them. Perfect.
Curse the upper floors’ high ceilings.
Tony glanced at Peter, mentally preparing himself to have to calm a panicking, claustrophobic teenager—but Peter’s head had already snapped upwards to look at the ceiling.
“There has to be an escape hatch!” he said determinedly.
Peter looked up at the ceiling, several feet above his head, and then smiled sheepishly at Tony.
“Mr. Stark, I… um, could you… I mean, would you mind—sorry, but I can’t quite reach—”
“Don’t give yourself an aneurysm, kid.”
Tony laced his hands together to give Peter a leg up. Peter took a moment to babble in embarrassment (“I can’t believe I’m about to step on Iron Man with my dirty sneakers! I’m so sorry!”) before he shrugged off his backpack and went for it (“And Iron Man is my soulmate!”). Tony lifted him, shooting pain through his aching knees, but after a moment Peter reached up and he must have grabbed ahold of something Tony couldn’t see, because his weight lifted slightly. A godsend for Tony’s joints, and he couldn’t help but groan.
“I’m so sorry!” cried Peter. His weight lifted even more. “Are you alright?”
Tony readjusted his footing. “Yeah, just—hurry up, kid. Chronic heart problems, and all that.”
“Oh my God!”
Peter used his free hand to hammer against the ceiling tiles, testing them until one finally gave a little. The kid pushed it inwards. Tony could hear him scrambling to release the hatch.
“Ugh, it won’t open!”
“That’s fine—let’s just—take a rain check—” Tony’s legs were beginning to shake.
Peter’s weight shifted and then there was a loud bang.
Did—did Peter just punch the ceiling? Was he trying to fight his way out of an elevator?
Whatever he’d done, it must have worked, because a moment later Peter whooped and climbed through.
“I did it!”
Peter disappeared through the ceiling tiles. His footsteps banged across the ceiling, and then he stuck his hand back down the gap. Tony passed up the kid’s backpack, warily eyeing the height of the ceiling.
Peter beckoned with the hand stuck through the ceiling tiles. “C’mon. Can you reach?”
“Yeah. Not sure if I’m gonna be able to climb up there, though.”
There was a long pause. “Don’t worry, Mr. Stark! Just grab my hand. I’ll pull you up.”
The kid’s arms definitely looked too skinny for that.
“You sure?”
“Yeah. I got you.”
Well then. “On your back be it.”
Tony reached for Peter’s hand. The kid’s grip was surprisingly strong, and to Tony’s astonishment, he lifted Tony out of the elevator without even breaking a sweat. Peter lightly deposited Tony on the grimy top of the elevator, all without even having the grace to make it look like he was straining.
“Mr. Stark, are you alright?” Peter fussed, biting his lower lip sheepishly. “Did I hurt you?”
“I’m fine, kid. Just—wow. Is your diet one hundred percent protein?”
Peter looked downright horrified by the mere suggestion. “No! I mean—what? What do you mean?”
“Never mind. You’re just making me feel frail.”
Was he really that old, that this skinny teenager had him beat for upper body strength? Was he so old that he’d forgotten he’d ever been as strong as Peter? Seriously, his memories of teenagerhood involved a lot of struggling through mandated fitness tests, not lifting grown men with one hand.
Tony shook the thought out of his mind. Priorities. Number one: Peter’s safety. And the top of a broken-down elevator was definitely not safe.
“C’mon, kid. Let’s go.”
Peter scooped up his backpack, which was now stained with black oil, and moved past Tony to force open the doors to the elevator shaft. Strobing red light poured through the gap, along with a screeching alarm that instantly aggravated the headache Tony had almost forgotten about. There was a bit of a step up into a long corridor of offices, but it was manageable.
Feeling rather useless, Tony stepped through the gap Peter had created, then helped the kid through after him. The elevator doors shut with a clang.
Resolution settled in Tony’s gut. Okay. The alarms going off meant that one of the Avengers had initiated lockdown, which wasn’t good news. That either meant the threat was completely spiraling out of control—or that they were panicking because Iron Man was still entirely unaccounted for.
Tony clenched his jaw as he drew up his plans, all the moving pieces struggling to fit together.
“Okay, kid,” Tony said, raising his voice to be heard over the alarms. “We’re closer to the top of the Tower than we are the bottom, so we’re going to find a staircase and head up, okay? Once we get to the penthouse, we’ll plan from there.”
Peter’s face lit up. “We’re going up to the Avengers penthouse?”
“Yep. You can take a look around, enjoy the sights. Take your pick of the spare rooms. Once the building isn’t under siege, we’ll look into getting it redecorated for you.”
Peter’s face lit up even more. “Yeah. Yeah—wow. You’re gonna let me sleep over?”
Tony raised an eyebrow, amused. “Soulmates, right?”
Peter hugged himself. “Wow. This is the greatest day of my life.”
“Let’s hope we can actually celebrate it sometime soon,” Tony said. He patted Peter’s shoulder and then set off down the corridor, ignoring the strobing lights and whining alarms. Peter followed behind. “Now—focus up. I can’t remember where the stairwells are on this floor, so we’re going to have to go look for them, and the building might be compromised. We could be running into unfriendlies any moment now, and they’re usually not that pleased to find Avengers. So I need you to be alert, okay?”
“Not like I have much choice but to be alert with this going on.”
Tony glanced back at Peter. The kid’s face was red and screwed up, and his hands were clamped over his ears.
“Hey. Are you alright?”
Peter jumped like he’d been caught committing a crime. “Uh—yeah! I’m, um, it’s just a little loud.”
Yeah. Tony’s headache was very much making itself known with every heartbeat.
“Manageably so? Because I can’t deactivate lockdown remotely without my AI, and the Avengers aren’t going to do it either until they know where I am. Believe me, it’s driving me nuts too.”
Peter gingerly pulled his hands away from his ears. “Uh—yeah. Yeah, I… I think I can handle it.”
“Sorry about that,” Tony said as they continued past various offices, all left in various states of disarray. The staff knew to head to saferooms as soon as lockdown was initiated. Tony didn’t know where the saferooms were—this building was too damn large to memorize every inch of it—and he was fast learning that he also didn’t know where the stairwells were.
“So,” Tony continued as they took another turn down another, identical corridor. “What was I saying? Oh, right. Staying alert. Just try and tune out the alarms. You’re with me, and I’m going to keep you safe, but this situation is unpredictable. So I need you to stay alert, and the moment anything happens—anything at all—I want you to get behind me, understood?”
Silence. Tony glanced at Peter. His lips were pressed together and he was resolutely avoiding Tony’s gaze.
Tony frowned. “What, kid? Spit it out.”
Peter chewed on his lower lip. “I… I don’t want anything to happen to you because of me, Mr. Stark. You’re Iron Man!”
Tony stopped walking. Was this kid serious? “You do know who Iron Man is, right? Those bed sheets weren’t an unwanted gift? It’s my job to protect kids like you are in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“But you might get hurt!”
“It doesn’t matter if I get hurt. I’m Iron Man. You, on the other hand, are a kid—”
“And you’re not Iron Man right now! You don’t have your suit. You’re just Tony Stark.”
Tony… was not sure what to make of that. But bless the universe for gifting him a soulmate who wasn’t afraid to talk back within minutes of meeting him.
“First of all,” Tony said, trying to buy himself time to think, “I resent the implication that I am ‘just’ anything—”
“You know what I mean,” Peter interrupted. “You don’t have powers. If you try to protect me, you’ll just get hurt. That’s not fair.”
Tony blinked at him.
“Peter,” he said slowly. “You don’t have to worry about me. You’re in my building, and we’re only in this situation because my security measures failed. Well, and because you wandered away from your tour group, but I promised to let that go. But it’s my fault you’re here, so it’s my job to get you to safety, okay?”
“But I don’t want you to get hurt because of me.”
Tony sighed deeply. “Kid. I’m the adult. And the superhero here. And your soulmate. This isn’t up for debate right now. If things start pointing south, you get behind me, because I’m not going to walk out of this knowing I let you get hurt. Capiche?”
Peter looked away, his jaw tightly clenched. For a long moment Tony thought he was going to argue again, but eventually he muttered a tight “okay” that sounded more like a “fuck you” to Tony.
Seriously, where did the universe find this kid?
Tony wouldn’t let this stubbornly selfless kid get hurt. He refused to have spent so many years longing for his soulmate, only to immediately fail to protect him.
Vowing to keep a close eye on the kid, Tony continued down the corridor.
“Come on, Pete. We’ve got to find the stairwell.”
Peter followed, his arms crossed across his chest. “Why aren’t your stairwells next to the elevators?”
“Yeah, yeah, everyone’s a critic,” Tony said, although he silently agreed. “They would have ruined the lobby’s chi. You should have suggested something when I was actually designing the building. How old would you have been then? Five? Six?”
“Ten,” Peter grumbled.
Tony smirked at Peter knowing off the top of his head when the Tower was built. And then his brain automatically did the math. Fifteen. He’d spent so long searching for someone who hadn’t even been born until Tony was thirty?
“I’m sure your expertise would have saved us both from a long and arduous trek through my air-conditioned Tower,” he said, trying to keep his voice steady as he struggled to come to terms with Peter’s age.
Peter smiled. “Well, if you ever wanna build another tower, I’m free for consultations outside of school hours and—uh. Yeah. Just don’t call me when I’m in school.”
“Noted.”
Peter grinned up at him, and then flinched as another explosion rocked the building, quickly followed by a deep rumble of thunder.
“Oh, perfect. The cavalry is here,” Tony commented as they approached a sharp corner. All the windows were shuttered, so he couldn’t tell what was going on outside, but that rumble of thunder was unmistakable. “Now if only hammer-wielding Norse gods came with a telepathy feature so we could call for an assist.”
Peter’s voice shot up several octaves. “Thor’s here?”
Tony scoffed. “I see where your loyalties lie. A Thor fan, huh? Try not to die and I’ll ask him to sign your autograph book, or whatever it is kids want these days. What was it earlier? A selfie?”
“I mean—wow. A selfie would be amazing.”
Tony turned to Peter, planning to tease him, but Peter’s face abruptly dropped and his gaze snapped to the side.
“Mr. Stark?”
“Yeah, kid?”
“Mr. Stark!”
Peter’s hands collided with Tony’s chest and violently shoved him backward. Tony hit the wall heavily just as gunfire rained down upon them from behind the corner. The sound was deafening, and Tony’s hands flew up to cover his ears.
Peter.
The gunfire stopped, and Tony grabbed out for Peter, desperate to put himself between Peter and their attackers. But Peter dodged past him just as three black-clad men burst from around the corner. Tony cried out. In warning or in fear, he wasn’t sure.
Before Tony had a chance to think, Peter threw his weight into the first attacker. His elbow caught the man in the windpipe and he hit the floor heavily.
“Kid—!”
The other two men were hot on the other’s heels, and Peter rose to meet them. The first went down with a sharp kick to the sternum, but the next managed to land a punch square on Peter’s face. The kid stumbled backward, stunned. Tony leaped forwards, lack of tech be damned, but Peter recovered before Tony could do anything and swept the man’s feet out from underneath him. He hit his head on the way down and went still.
Peter stumbled to a halt, panting. That seemed to be the last of them, but Tony’s heart was still pounding in his ringing ears. He almost felt like he might faint.
Tony rushed to Peter and grabbed him by the shoulders. Blood poured from Peter’s nose, and his eyes were watering.
“Are you okay?” Tony demanded.
Peter wiped beneath his nose and grimaced at the blood that stained the back of his hand. “I—I’m fine. I’ll be fine.”
Relieved that the kid was okay, Tony immediately felt heat rush to his face.
“Then what the hell was that?” he snapped. Peter flinched and went white. “I told you to stay behind me. I don’t know if you like to think yourself a hero or what, but you’re a teenager and when I tell you to stay behind me, you stay behind me.”
For a moment Tony thought Peter might start crying, but then his face twisted in anger. “I’m not gonna stand there and do nothing if I know I can help! I knew I could fight them, and I did! I kept you safe!”
“I told you, you don’t need to protect me. My priority is getting you out of here safe, back to your family so they don’t have to worry. Now I have to give you back hurt.”
“I’m not that hurt.” Peter’s voice was sullen.
“You shouldn’t be hurt at all. Your nose might be broken.”
Peter prodded it roughly. “It’s not,” he said, suppressing a wince.
“You—” He’d heard teenagers were difficult, but he hadn’t realized that was a guarantee and not a warning. “Look, kid. Pretend to be a hero all you want once you’re back with the kids from your class. Tell them you saved Iron Man’s life if you want. But right now you’re in danger and you need to do what I tell you.”
“But—I solved the problem! I stopped the bad guys!”
“You got lucky and now your nose is split halfway across your face. If you deliberately put yourself in danger, I can’t promise I’ll be able to protect you. Do you want me to get Thor to spend his afternoon scraping your guts off the floor? Because that’s where we’re headed unless you listen from now on. Capiche?”
Peter stared at the floor, scuffing his shoes. Eventually, he grumbled, “Capiche.”
Tony nodded. “Focus up. There might be more shooters on this floor. Let’s go.”
They walked with one of Tony’s hands on Peter’s shoulder, ready to pull him behind him at a moment’s notice.
“Where did you learn to fight, anyway?”
“Uh… karate?”
“Right.”
Thankfully, it didn’t take too long before they finally found the door to the stairwell. Tony held it open for Peter with a wry smile.
They climbed the stairs slowly, wary of how many flights they needed to take up to the penthouse. In the quiet of the stairwell, their footsteps seemed as loud as the gunshots from before.
“So,” said Tony, trying not to sound quite as out of breath as he truly was. “Karate, huh?”
Peter nearly missed a step. “Uh—yeah. Yeah, karate. I, uh, my aunt always says it’s good to have loads of extracurriculars. I’m actually on this field trip with my academic decathlon team. There’s about ten of us.” He paused. “I hope they’re not worried about me.” His voice picked up speed. “Oh my God. They’re so gonna be worried about me. They have no idea where I am. What if they’ve called my aunt and she thinks I’m dead?”
Oh, panicking wasn’t good. “Peter, it’s okay. You’re okay.”
Somehow, after that ridiculous display.
Peter pulled out his phone. “But my aunt doesn’t know that. She’s gonna be so mad.”
“She a worrier?”
“She’s… she’s beyond a worrier. I don’t have any signal, but if I did, my phone would just be, like, on fire.”
“Then let’s focus on getting you somewhere safe, and then you can give your aunt all the heart attacks you want when you tell her who your soulmate is.”
And I’ll give her one too when I tell her all about that stunt you pulled back there…
The penthouse levels required a passcode to access. When Peter realized they were nearly at the top, he perked up.
“How many private floors are there? Are you guys roommates? Do you all room together? Or do you have your own apartments? Or do you and Miss Potts get your own room and then everyone else is crammed into bunk beds in a guest room?”
Tony snorted. “How did you know we went with the bunk beds? Gotta save space, it’s only a penthouse.” He nodded to a door as they passed. “That’s Thor’s floor.”
Peter’s face lit up.
After two more flights of stairs—God, Tony missed elevators already—they arrived at the level of Tony’s workshop, which was one level below the main penthouse. Tony quickly entered the code and held the door open for Peter to step through. Peter’s mouth dropped open as they stepped into the lab, his eyes glowing blue with the reflected light of the various abandoned holoscreens that hovered around the lab.
“Mr. Stark, this is incredible! Is this where you make the suits?”
Tony gestured to a half-assembled suit strewn across a workbench. “This is the birthing suite. Or at least it was, until Pepper vetoed the name. We’re not here for the suits, though.”
He crossed the lab to the computers that hosted FRIDAY’s servers. It didn’t take him long to bring the AI back online, as whatever the attackers had done had simply turned her off, not done anything else to scramble her coding or prevent her from being brought back online.
“FRIDAY needs some time to wake up,” Tony said to Peter, who had been admiring the in-progress Iron Man suit the way one might admire the Mona Lisa. “Let’s see if we can get in contact with the team.”
The kid was obviously struggling to reel in his curiosity and excitement, and it was so endearing that Tony almost ignored the niggling thought in the back of his mind as they climbed the stairs up to the penthouse and stepped out into the grand living room.
It was as Tony’s eyes fell on the Chrysler building, fully visible through the floor-to-ceiling windows past the oversized Christmas tree, that it dawned on him.
Why wasn’t the penthouse locked down?
He’d entered the security code, but that was only basic security measures—
“Mr. Stark, move!”
A weight tackled Tony onto the floor behind a couch just as a gunshot exploded somewhere nearby. The weight landed heavily on top of Tony as, for the second time that day, bullets rained down upon them.
The weight was Peter, of course, his head resting on Tony’s chest just above the arc reactor. Tony grabbed him and rolled them over, pressing Peter closer to the safety of the couch as the gunfire tapered off, leaving Tony’s ears ringing.
He looked down at Peter. The kid’s eyes were blown wide in shock and his face had lost all color.
The expression was… wrong. All sorts of wrong.
Confused panic overcame Tony. His hand, the one he’d used to roll Peter over, was slick, and it slipped on something wet and warm and—
Oh.
Oh, shit.
Shit!
Tony stared at the red smeared across his hand in shock, then back at Peter. There was blood all across Peter’s arm, staining the fabric of his plaid shirt and pooling on the tiles beneath him.
Peter choked. Heavy footsteps pounded towards them as they both realized what had happened.
Peter had just taken a bullet for Tony.