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Tony had been holed up in his workshop for so long that he’d forgotten what actual human faces looked like when Pepper unlocked the door and stalked up to him, her face displeased. He blinked, recognising her presence, and then his eyes slid back to the hologram in front of him, displaying the blueprints of a gauntlet.
Acknowledging her presence was probably the polite thing to do, but Tony Stark had never been known for his etiquette.
Pepper stood, staring at him for several moments before speaking.
“Right, get up,” Pepper crossed her arms. “You’re going out.”
“Out,” Tony repeated mutely, still staring at his hologram and not recognising the words she was saying.
“Yes, out,” Pepper told him. “We need eggs, we don’t have any.”
That caught his attention, and he looked up at her. She was putting on a face—it was pretend disappointment in him, but she was actually just concerned, he could tell the true undertones.
“Just get JARVIS to add them to the shopping list,” Tony mumbled, his gaze dropping to the floor. Seeing that concern always made him feel guilty for his lab binges.
“I need them now, making omelettes for dinner,” Pepper replied.
“Dinner?” Tony asked. How had time passed so quickly—he’d sworn it had been the morning last time he’d checked the clock.
“It’s eight pm,” Pepper clarified as he glanced at the corner of his computer screen.
“Right,” Tony stuttered. “And you want me to…go and buy eggs.”
He was Tony Stark. He hadn’t bought groceries in—well, not since he was a college student, and now here his girlfriend was asking him to actually leave the Tower to pick up a bunch of eggs. His plans for the evening—hours left of work on Mark 56—had been derailed, and he could tell Pepper wasn’t going to take no for an answer.
Tony stood up, dazed, and closed down his hologram with the wave of a hand. His brain was still slightly fuzzy—stuck in work mode, formulas swimming around his mind.
“You’re going,” Pepper commented with a tone of surprise, raising an eyebrow.
“I’m going,” Tony nodded, reaching out for his coat. It was winter, after all. He slid it over his shoulders.
“Alright,” Pepper blinked, let him leave. “I’ll see you when you get back.”
Tony said nothing, walking to the elevator and then it was down, down, down to the ground floor. He ignored the Stark Industries employees who were leaving to go home, instead pushing his hood up and strolling out into the cold.
Tony Stark hated two things about winter. First, the bitter cold of it. It was unpleasant to walk around New York at the best of times—the recognition, the traffic, the danger—but when it was cold, that unpleasantness tripled. And second, the wetness of winter. It was only rain that evening, and it was mostly absorbed by his coat, but ever since Afghanistan, he’d hated that feeling: anything from slight dampness to soaking wet. The occasional raindrop dripped onto his face, and he still flinched every time.
He walked onto a bridge—FRIDAY telling him that crossing it was the best place to get eggs that was still open—and stared out onto East River.
That was when he saw it.
There was a teenage boy, there, flailing in the depth of the river, his hands reaching to hold onto anything, but finding nothing. He was drowning. Tony’s heart skipped a beat as he watched the boy struggle to stay afloat. Tony rushed to the side of the bridge, clutching onto the barrier and peering below, scanning for boats. There was one—surely they could try and rescue the kid.
“HELP HIM,” Tony shouted, as loud as he could, to the boat below him, gesturing wildly, waving his hands in large motions to attract their attention. But they’d already sailed on by past the drowning boy, and in any case, Tony’s voice wasn’t loud enough for them to hear because of the cars driving past him.
It was a quiet bridge—he’d picked it for a reason, not wanting to get stopped by any people passing by who recognised his face. All he’d wanted to do was fucking buy some eggs. He glanced around wildly—hoping, praying that there was someone there who could help, maybe the police, maybe some famous swimmer would just so happen to be walking by. Even a good samaritan—someone better for this job than Tony Fucking Stark, a man with a medically-certified phobia of water.
But because life didn’t work like that, there was, of course, no-one but him who knew there was a kid drowning there. Shit, shit, the kid was going to drown a painful death, because it sure as hell didn’t look like he could swim.
All of these realisations were had in about five seconds and he swallowed harshly, taking his shoes off, decision made. He spoke into his watch. “FRI, if I jump in here, will I die from impact?”
The AI’s voice played through his timepiece. “Boss, based off your continued reaction to showers even now and the panic attack you had when the Avengers asked for a pool in the Tower, I would not suggest—”
Tony interrupted, already stripping off his coat and jumper. “Will I die if I try and save that kid?”
FRIDAY didn’t hesitate. “No, but—”
Tony stripped off his trousers—jeans tended to weigh you down in water, he knew that much. It would be easier, the less he was wearing.
“Call Happy, FRI, get him to drive here ASAP,” Tony instructed as he leapt over the side of the bridge, resting his feet on the small ledge on the other side. “And tell Pepper I might be a while with those eggs.”
Then he jumped, the wind hitting his face as he fell down toward the river, his t-shirt flapping and he took a deep breath as—
SPLASH
Contact was made and he was plunged under the water, holding his breath. The fear hit him almost instantaneously as his head went under, and he had to do everything he could not to go straight into a panic attack. Every inch of his body was wet, and he had no escape, and he was submerged—no.
No, he had a mission to accomplish. He wasn’t Tony Stark, afraid of water, not now. There was no room for Tony Stark here. This was a job for Iron Man, the hero, the Avenger. He had a boy to save, so he swum up to the surface as quick as he could and searched the water, locating the teenager.
The river was relatively fast moving, but he could still see the boy’s figure as he swum toward it. He’d stopped struggling, and was sinking into the river, clearly accepting his fate.
“KID,” Tony yelled, hoping to help him surface again, to assure him that there was someone there to save him.
But his head had disappeared under the water, and Tony cursed, plunging his head back into the water much to the discontent of every cell in his body, which seemed to be screaming at him to get the fuck out of the water right now you idiot you have PTSD.
He swum faster than he ever had before, not that he’d ever had a motivation to swim as fast as he was swimming before. His head kept ducking out of the water to breathe, an uneven movement because he was out of practise with how swimming and breathing went together.
Tony pushed through it, getting to where the kid had been originally and then diving down into the depth of the river to pull him up. He quickly found his limp hand—eyes burning with the river water—and pulled him up to the surface with a strong grip on the kid’s wrist.
“Hey, kid, I gotcha,” Tony told him, repeating it. “I’ve got you.”
The kid spluttered, coughing, not focusing on his face as he coughed into the water. Tony didn’t want to let him go.
Tony scanned his eyes over to the edge of the river—there was a ladder they could use to get to the nearest ground, a small grass space. They’d wait for Happy there, Tony decided. The kid was still coughing, but he was pretty sure that he hadn’t been submerged long enough for it to cause permanent damage, and he’d get FRIDAY to run a full scan later.
“We have to get you to the surface,” Tony said, his breath coming quick and fast from having to tread water and keep a good grip on the kid so he didn’t sink again. The teenager he was holding nodded, still not having looked at his face, still panicked.
“Kid, I gotta ask,” Tony focused on him. “Can you swim?”
“I can’t,” the kid shook his head, his voice breathy and fast as he apologised. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, no-one ever taught me, I never got taught.”
“It’s okay,” Tony told him, wincing (because the kid wasn’t making eye contact with him and therefore wouldn’t be able to see). Would have made it a hell of a lot easier, sure, but it was okay that the kid couldn’t swim. They could do this. Tony was just fine.
He’d never rescued someone from the water before, but he swum on his back and pulled the kid’s body with him, thanking whatever tiny bit of luck there was that the kid was fully conscious and that he wouldn’t have to do CPR. They soon reached the riverbank and Tony supported the kid through clambering up the ladder, which proved to be a challenge. Despite that, they both managed to collapse onto the grass, breathing heavily.
And then there it was—the panic, quick and fast. Right on time.
“God,” Tony breathed, one hand over his face as the start of his attack set in. His hand was shaking, and any attempt to stop it would be futile. Panic attack had been nice enough not to happen whilst he was in the heat of the moment, but there was no avoiding it entirely. He’d been expecting one in any case.
The kid, however, seemed just fine as he turned to look at his rescuer and finally clocked who Tony was.
“You’re Tony Stark,” the kid said breathlessly, that same tone of wonder that people had when they met Iron Man for the first time. He rarely got that amount of reverence when it was him behind the suit. Most people liked to disconnect the shiny metal hero with the Merchant of Death weapons-manufacturer.
Tony was pretty good at handling the fame—hell, who was he kidding, he was Tony Stark, he’d been taught to sign an autograph the day he’d learnt how to write. He was born for handling fame, handling people’s reactions. But not when he was in the middle of a panic attack. The kid would have to wait for his autograph.
“Yeah, yeah, I am, just give me a moment,” he breathed, holding up a finger. “Just a moment.”
Tony was staring at the floor, panting, clutching at his chest. He had the urge to rip off his soaked t-shirt to check the arc reactor, but then the kid would see his scars, and that wasn’t on the cards. No-one was supposed to see that.
The kid seemed to actually heed his advice, had given Tony the moment he needed, which was more than he’d expected. Most kids weren’t like that, they were rude, pushy. Most people were like that. Never gave him any space, always wanted his attention. That was part of the gig of being a superhero, though. Not getting privacy.
Tony let out a shaky breath, then slid his hands down to wring out his t-shirt. He tried a breathing exercise, but he was still wet so it wasn’t going to work, and when he closed his eyes all he could imagine was being submerged under water, the firm hand on the back of his head pushing him into the tank of dirty water, all swirling memories of Afghanistan—
“Oh, god,” Tony breathed, falling, his hand catching on the grass, clutching into it, as he landed on his knees.
The kid was right there, obviously concerned, because hello, a celebrity was falling apart in front of him—god if he leaked this to the press, Tony was going to put the boy back in the river without a single regret. But whilst most people would touch him, get up close and personal, the kid kept far back and asked. “Are you okay, Mr Stark?”
Breathing exercises weren’t working, nothing was going to work. He couldn’t work through this by himself.
“Can you distract me?” Tony gasped, still shaking. “Say something. Anything. Talk about something other than…”
Something other than water.
“Right. Right,” The kid nodded. “Uh—You’re Tony Stark,” the kid repeated from before, clearly a precursor to a conversation he wanted to have. It was still reverent—which was kind of endearing.
“Call me Tony,” Tony suggested, his breath still coming fast and short. “And you are?”
It was probably a good idea to know the name of the kid he’d just prevented from drowning. And besides, nice to call him by his actual name instead of just, “the kid’’.
“Peter,” The boy told him quickly. “Peter Parker, sir. You saved my life.”
“Yeah, well,” Tony shivered, said bitterly. “All in a day’s work.”
He was an Avenger, after all.
“You’re off duty, you don’t have the suit on you.” Peter swallowed. “You didn’t have to—I know you don’t like it. Water.”
Tony froze—just a second—to stare up at the kid. He was sure there was a flash of surprise passing over his own face.
“How the hell do you know that?” Tony asked. It wasn’t exactly public knowledge that he didn’t like water. In fact, it was pretty personal information. He hadn’t even told all of his teammates. And true—the kid could have figured it out by the fact that he was having a panic attack after going into a river. But the way he’d phrased it implied that he’d known before this whole debacle.
Peter looked sheepishly at the ground. “I’m kind of a fan.”
Oh, right.
“Of the Avengers?”
He’d met a couple of those. Superfans, who knew all sorts of weird things that even Tony didn't know about his own team. Like which hospital Clint was born in, or Natasha’s favourite brand of herbal tea. Or Steve’s—well, no, actually Tony knew pretty much everything about Steve. Even the superfans couldn’t out rival his knowledge. He’d been the Captain America fan, back in the day.
Peter looked sheepish, though. He clarified: “Uh—of you.”
“Of me?” Tony had met fans—of course he’d met fans, but most of them came in the form of people who were fans of the Avengers generally, or of heroes. It was rarely him, specifically, and if it was him…then they tended to be people who wanted to sleep with him, not teenagers looking up to him. Tony Stark was not an idol for anyone, and especially not young people.
So, no, surely the kid was just saying that because he was starstruck and meeting a celebrity. Tony couldn’t blame him, really. If it had been Steve saving him from the river, he’d have pretended to be a Captain America fan. It wasn't that deep.
Tony, however, was a petty little shit and wanted to call him out on it, which meant it was time for a quick fire round of questions.
“When’s my birthday?” He shot at Peter.
“29th May 1970,” Peter said back without blinking or taking a second to think about it.
Okay, so he knew his stuff. Tony frowned for a second, noticed that his hand had slowed in its shaking, and then asked his next question. “What school did I go to when I was a kid?”
He was expecting the kid to say MIT, so then Tony could call him out for taking the cop-out route. What he wasn’t expecting was a comprehensive list of his entire education history.
“You were homeschooled until you were 7 and then sent to Phillips Academy in Massachusetts, an all-boys boarding school until you were 14 when you enrolled in MIT.”
“Jesus, you sound like Wikipedia,” Tony replied, stunned. Holy shit, this kid was actually a fan of him. He was as bad as 15 year old Tony had been with Captain America.
“Sorry,” Peter stared at the ground, a light blush on his cheeks. Tony felt a rush of guilt.
“No, it’s alright. That’s…cool. So, I gotta ask, I mean…why me? There’s….” Tony let out a bitter chuckle. “There’s a lot of people who are better idols than me, kid, I mean. Cap’s right there. Thor. Any of the other Avengers.”
“Captain America is cool,” Peter wrung his hands together, and then sighed. “But that’s not—he’s. Look, you’re….I just think you’re amazing, I mean. You’re a world-renowned genius, you make all your suits from scratch, you come up with ideas that completely changed the way renewable energy is seen, and from what I’ve read, that hardly took any actual effort. You invented a new element—”
“Reinvented, technically,’ Tony corrected.
“Besides the point,” Peter shook his head. “For a kid who grew up with science as his main love, superheroes second…you’re the natural choice to idolise.”
Tony blinked at that—unsure of quite how to respond to all of the nice things the kid had said—and then deflected, asking another question. “You’re a science nerd?”
“Yeah, that’s actually kind of how I ended up in this situation, you see my school was doing a trip on a boat—the one that sailed past, uh. We were doing experiments on the plants they find in the river, pollution and stuff.”
“At this time of night?” Tony commented, skeptical.
Peter shrugged. “School budget. It’s cheaper to hire a boat at this time of night.”
Tony’s eyebrows shot up. Jesus, the education system was fucked. That was a whole new level of low. And it had resulted in—
“Wait, so, what, you fell in?” Tony asked, blinking as Peter nodded. “Did no-one notice?”
“Yeah, apparently not. My one friend couldn’t make it, he’s sick,” Peter explained. “And the teacher was focusing on the experiment.”
“You could’ve drowned,” Tony shook his head. “I hope your parents are going to sue the school for this.”
“My parents are dead,” Peter told him, matter-of-factly.
Tony’s eyebrows raised again, saying nothing. Maybe him and this kid were more alike than he’d originally thought. Orphans, science nerds, having one friend in the whole world (yeah, Tony had heard that). He bet the kid was super smart, too. He just gave off a genius kind of vibe, even if it was more understated than Tony had been about it at that age. Tony could already tell that Peter was a nicer kid than he’d been.
“And my aunt—we won’t. Uh. Sue.” Peter made it sound more like they couldn’t.
He made a split-second vow to himself that he wouldn’t let this kid vanish before his eyes. Even if it didn't lead to anything (he heard Pepper’s voice in his head, saying you can’t just offer to mentor a random kid you just met, Tony), he’d make sure that there was an anonymous donation for his college fund, enough to get him through those years.
Hell, the kid could be a future asset to Stark Industries. He was just thinking about the company. Totally just the company.
Peter sighed. “I guess I should head off, now, right? Thank you, so much, really. I appreciate it. And it was amazing to meet you.”
Tony stared as Peter took a couple of steps toward the pathway. “Uh, kid, where are you going?”
“I was just going to…walk to where the boat is going to end up, tell them I didn’t drown?” Peter informed him, staring down at the river. “Pretty sure my phone’s bust, so I can’t text anyone, or I’d just go home now.”
Tony rolled his eyes dramatically, and spoke into his watch. “FRI, can you alert Peter’s teacher that he’s incompetent and inform him of the situation?”
FRIDAY agreed, and got to work doing so.
“There, sorted, kid,” Tony shook his head. “You’re not walking anywhere, Jesus, not like that, you’ll be freezing. Wait for my driver, we’ll sort you out.”
Peter didn’t make any protest, although he looked like he wanted to. Tony assumed that his own face was warning enough to stop Peter from making any sort of defence.
Peter was still in his dripping wet clothes—they both were, and were still shivering when Happy arrived in the limo by the side of the road. Peter’s jaw dropped open as he took in the sight, but Tony grinned at the familiar sight and rapped on the window.
“Happy,” Tony said breathlessly as he wound it down. “Please tell me we still have those blankets in the trunk?”
Happy’s face was a picture as he took in the scene: first confusion, then concern when he saw how wet Tony was. Then outright shock when he caught sight of Peter, but he pushed past it quick enough to nod and open the trunk with his key. Tony made a clicking noise with his mouth and winked, speeding to the back of the car and chucking Peter a blanket. They bundled up with more blankets in the back seat of the limo, and Tony instructed Happy to take them to the Tower.
“You don’t mind, do you?” He asked the kid.
“Mind?” Peter said, in a strangled sort of way.
“I promise I’m not kidnapping you,” He pulled out one of the spare phones, one of the ones he kept in the limo in case he needed it. It didn’t have any data on it, but it was relatively sleek, one of the newer models of Starkphone. “Hey, look, your aunt will probably get worried if the school call her, right? Let’s take a selfie, show her you’re safe and sound, then you can send it to her.”
He was totally not using it as an excuse to get a photo with the kid. Because if he’d been offered the opportunity to have a conversation with Steve when he was a teenager obsessing with him, the first thing he would have asked for was a photo. Some people found it too impolite to actually ask, though, so he was doing the asking instead. Hey—it was healing his inner child, alright?
Peter let out a squeak as they took the selfie, as though he couldn’t believe this was even happening to him. Tony did a peace sign and his signature smile, whilst the kid pulled a grin from ear to ear. It was a nice picture.
Tony passed him the phone to get him to send it to his aunt. Peter spent a minute typing into the phone, presumably explaining the situation, and then passed the phone back to him.
Tony frowned and didn’t take it. “Why are you giving it back to me?” He shook his head. “It’s yours, keep it.”
“Mr Stark—” Peter blinked, still holding out the phone.
“I’m pretty sure I told you to call me Tony,” Tony sighed. “Your phone is busted, you said it yourself, you’ll need a new one after all that dip in the river. I have tons. Take the phone.”
“But this is the latest model,” Peter spluttered.
Tony shrugged. “I’m serious, I have so many, just keep it.”
Peter stared at it as though it was made of gold, and then tucked it into his pocket without any further protest. It didn’t take them long to get back to the Tower, and the heating and blankets had helped warm them both up, even if their clothes were still wet. Peter’s presence had managed to entirely stop his panic attack, from his kind words and easy distraction technique. Tony was stunned at how effective it had been.
They got out of the limo.
Peter kicked his feet on the floor. “I can get home from here, sir I don’t need to come in, thank you for every—”
“What, leave now and miss out on the chance to get free Iron Man merchandise?” Tony fake-mocked. “A true Tony Stark fan would never miss out on that opportunity.”
Peter glanced up and bit his lip like he really, really wanted to say yes to that.
“Happy can drive you home after,” Tony offered. For some reason, he really wanted the kid to stay. He couldn’t explain it.
“Alright,” Peter allowed, letting a small smile cross onto his face. He was practically buzzing as they walked into the Tower, taking pictures of the most mundane things. The elevator took ages to go up to the penthouse, so Tony got Peter to take more selfies of them, this time a whole bunch of silly ones where they made funny faces. He plunged down the urge to ruffle the kid’s hair.
Tony was happy, he realised, as he felt the soft smile. He was enjoying spending time with the kid. It was revolutionary. Honestly, was that all he had to do to boost his serotonin levels? Go outside to buy some eggs—oh, shit, the eggs. Tony winced.
Eh. He’d saved a kid from drowning, that would definitely let him off the hook in Pepper’s book.
“Hey Pep,” Tony greeted as the elevator doors opened, revealing the penthouse. “Forgot the eggs. Brought a kid instead. Promise I’ll clean up the mess we left in the elevator.”
Pepper stared for a moment, gaze shifting between both Tony and then Peter, both of them still sopping wet with river water. He thought she might say something like, “Jesus Christ, you’re both soaking,” or question why in fact he’d bought a child back to their penthouse, but instead she took a deep breath and murmured, “Right, I guess we’ll have the linguine instead then.”
They did have linguine, and Tony made sure Peter went home with a full stomach and dry clothes—Iron Man merchandise, of course, he hadn’t been lying. The kid had thanked him about thirty separate times, for the rescue and the pick-up and the message to his teacher, and then the phone, and the meal, etc, etc. He was possibly the nicest kid Tony had ever met. Tony had toyed with the idea of giving Peter his business card—which had his work contact number on it. Then he’d bit the bullet and had instead added his personal phone number into Peter’s contacts, under the strict guidance that he would never leak it to the internet.
He was left grinning as Happy drove the kid off to his address in Queens, a light feeling settling over him as he watched them disappear into the darkness. His brain was spinning with thoughts of a future mentorship, of spending time with the brown-haired boy who reminded him ever so much of himself at that age. Peter Parker, who’d managed to singlehandedly make Tony Stark forget about his omnipresent fear of water.