Chapter Text
“It seems we blotched this one.”
“Really? What gave it away?”
“Shut up, dude,” Tony mutters as he moves to the edge of the roof to glance down to the street below. “This wouldn’t have happened if you’d let me concentrate.”
Spider-Man joins him on the ledge. “I’m sorry, ‘concentrate’? I didn’t know that word was a part of your vocabulary. Maybe you meant ‘aggravate’? ‘Mutilate?’ ‘Annihilate’?”
“All right, smartass.”
“Nauseate…” Spider-Man quickly adds.
“All right, Emily Dickinson. Let’s just be glad no one got hurt,” Tony says, even as he is infrared-scanning the piles of rubble to make sure no one has gotten trapped underneath. He should have called for back-up on this one, but he really though it wouldn’t be a big deal. Just some idiot flying around on a hoverboard with a gun. Until it turned out that said gun caused shockwaves that could blast entire buildings apart.
“I’m glad you showed up,” he admits. “This is bad, but it could have been a lot worse. Of course, the press is going to claim otherwise.”
He turns towards Spider-Man now, looking into the brown eyes that peek back at him from behind a pair of silly black goggles.
“Why can’t you take off that stupid, stupid mask, underoos?”
“There are two reasons for it, Stark.” Spider-Man says. “The first reason is, I don’t want to, and the second happens to be that same reason also.”
Tony sighs, looking back down at the debris covering the streets down below. “I am one hundred percent going to blame you for this clusterfuck.”
“You are a real douchebag, you know that?”
“Yes,” Tony replies, smugly.
-
Pepper sighs a deep sigh as she clicks through the news. “That was an utter disaster. The press is having a field day.”
“It wasn’t my fault,” Tony defends. “That Spider-Guy never knows when to shut up. Just an incessant stream of nonsense. He distracted me.”
“Either way, your reputation took a blow,” Pepper tells him. “Nothing new. And just like the previous one hundred times, it will be fixed, of course. All we need is an inspired bit of good PR to get you back on that insanely high pedestal the public always puts you on. I’ve already set it up.”
“Set what up? What, am I going to make flower arrangements with the elderly? Organize a benefit for single mothers in Ethiopia?”
Pepper slides a piece of paper towards him. “Try an orphan. His name is Peter Parker. He lives in a group home. He is fifteen. He is exceptionally intelligent. He loves superheroes. And his biggest dream is to meet the great Tony Stark. He was brought to my attention a few weeks ago by some foundation that makes dreams come true, you know the type. I didn’t act on it then, because I didn’t want him to be disappointed when he met the real you.”
“Harsh, Pep.”
“I’m still worried about it, to be honest,” Pepper says. “We need the good publicity. But I’m worried you won’t be able to deal with him properly. Because…” She hesitates.
“Because?”
“Apparently he doesn’t talk much. Sometimes not at all. Trauma-related.”
Tony glances down at the piece of paper, and the picture attached to it. The kid has a wide smile and sparkling, brown eyes. He doesn’t look like an anxious or sad kid. But everyone copes with trauma in their own way. “All right. Set it up.”
Pepper raises her eyebrows. “That’s it? I thought you were going to be insufferable about this.”
“Please. A smart kid who doesn’t talk? Perfect combination. If only all my employees were like that.”
Pepper eyes him for a while, tapping her pen against the desk. “The last thing this boy needs is his big hero making fun of him.”
“You think I’ll make fun of a kid for having issues? You don’t exactly have a high opinion of me, do you?”
“You’re socially inept,” is Pepper’s unforgiving response. “You might not intend to make fun of him, but even just by being your sarcastic self, you can really throw people off.”
“Thanks for sugar-coating that for my benefit.”
-
Tony is briefed over the phone by Melissa, a particularly coarse social worker, the next day.
“Don’t sweat it,” she says through a crackling line. “Only thing you gotta remember is to not get all up on him about not talking. And don’t worry, really. Everyone thinks he’s all delicate because he’s so quiet, but he ain’t delicate at all, I’m telling ya. He can be a snarky little shit. He’s just subtle about it.”
Tony rubs his forehead. “All right, all right. How will I know what he wants to do? Does he… - are you in a tunnel or something? The connection is terrible – Does he write stuff down?”
“Nah, it’s not like that. He talks. It’s just he generally sticks to only a few words. As for what he wants to do… Literally anything you can think of, I can guarantee he’ll be all hot in the biscuit to do it with you. Can you hear me better now? I’m on my balcony. Smells of pigeons out here. He pretty much stopped talking after his aunt died.”
“Ah. He was close with her, then?”
“She raised him. His parents died in an airplane crash when he was nine. He moved in with his uncle and aunt. His uncle was shot last year, and his aunt died about half a year ago in a fire.”
“Jesus Christ,” Tony mumbles.
“Yeah, not all sunshine and rainbows. So thanks for doing this for him. Very altruistic of you.” There is a strange edge to her voice at that last sentence, and Tony has the feeling that she knows exactly why Tony agreed to meeting Peter in this particular moment.
-
It’s not as bad as Tony expects.
The boy is smiling ear to ear as he steps out of the car, brown eyes wide with excitement. He makes eye contact with Tony as they shake hands and he even murmurs something that sounds like a greeting.
Melissa is with him. While on the phone, Tony had imagined her as a tall, plump woman. But Melissa is short and slender, with long hair and long nails. Her voice is way too loud for someone that tiny. “Y’all ready for today?” She bellows.
“Yes, it’s going to be fun,” Tony promises.
Melissa pinches Peter’s arm. “You excited?”
Peter ducks his head as he nods.
“All right. Pick you up at four, or call me if you need me. Smell your later!” And just like that, she is gone.
“Want to come down to my lab?” Tony asks Peter.
Peter nods.
“I’ve been told you’re a smart kid. What’s your favorite subject?” Tony asks as they ascend the stairs towards the front entrance of the compound.
Peter pulls at his shirt. It has a print of two glass vials, both containing a chemical substance. One vial is telling the other: “I think you’re overreacting!”
Okay, so the kid really doesn’t talk. “You like chemistry?”
Peter nods with a small smile.
“I can work with that. I do work with that. Not always successfully. I almost blew up my lab just last week. You should have seen Pepper’s face – uh, she’s my fiancée. At least, I think she is. I tried proposing to her but she just sort of rolled her eyes. Come to think of it, I should get back to her about that.”
They reach Tony’s workshop and Tony flicks the light switch, bathing the room in fluorescent light. “Welcome to the best place on earth,” he says. “Apart from the Seychelles. I have a little mansion down there, it’s lovely. Haven’t been there in five years, with everything going on, so it might have completely caved in by now.”
Peter quietly steps into the workplace, his eyes scanning the whole room carefully. He points at Tony’s Iron Man suit on a table in the middle of the room.
Tony waves a hand. “Yeah, yeah. The suit. We’ll get to that. First, let me show you what I’m working on right now.” He puts his hands on Peter’s shoulders, steering him towards one of the workbenches. “You know Hawkeye? Of course you do. You know his arrows? Of course you do. I’m trying to make him a set of explosive arrows. The explosion should be remote controlled. So I need a stable explosive that will not detonate immediately when hitting something, but that will explode with an additional catalyst charge. And the explosion won’t do any damage without some form of accessory fragmentation. But obviously arrows are required to be light, so I can’t just stuff it full of C-4. Right? So I’m facing a problem.”
Peter carefully picks up the hollow metal arrow lying on the workbench, staring down at it, slowly turning it over in his hands. For a moment, Tony is entirely sure that the kid didn’t understand a word he just said.
“Hemispherical cavity metal detonators”, says Peter.
Tony blinks, needing a moment to process that, yes, the first words out of this kids’ mouth are in fact ‘hemispherical cavity metal detonators’. “You’re talking about the Munroe effect?”
Peter gives a slight nod.
“Christ, kid. They told me you were smart. They didn’t say you were a genius. You’re like a fun-size Thomas Edison.”
Peter shakes his head at that.
Tony quirks an eyebrow, folding his arms across. “No?”
“Tesla,” says Peter, a smirk appearing on his face.
Tony bursts out laughing. “Sure. Nikola Tesla. Either way, you’re fun-size, funsy.”
He glances down at the arrow in Peter’s hand, then back up at Peter. “Do you want to try and make the calculations?”
Peter’s face lights up as if Tony just offered him a slice of chocolate pie.
-
A message pops up on Tony’s screen. It’s from Pepper, reminding him to get the publicity sorted. Frankly, as soon as Tony heard the words ‘hemispherical cavity metal detonators’ he had sort of forgotten why Peter was really here.
Tony glances towards Peter, who is sitting on the other side of his large desk. He reaches out a leg and pokes Peter with his foot. “Hey kid. Don’t forget the Grainger Foundation. You gotta write a little message for their website about today. And we'll take a selfie together, too.”
His own calculations forgotten for a moment, Peter glances sideways at Tony’s screen. When Peter catches Tony looking back at him, he lifts his chin a little as if to say what are you up to?
“It’s hard to explain.”
Peter seems to accept that answer, dropping his eyes back down to his own work and continuing to scribble out numbers.
Tony leans back in his chair, tapping his fingers against his desk for a while, frustrated. “You know Spider-Man?” He then asks.
Peter makes eye-contact again, cocks his head, then slowly nods.
“You may have seen on the news that he’s been working with us lately. You might say he is on the team. Except he isn’t. Because we have no idea who he is and I don’t actually have a way to contact him. He just shows up, usually. I probably shouldn’t be telling you this. Ah, what am I saying? It’s not like you’ll tell anyone else.”
Peter smiles, dropping his pencil and leaning his head on his arms as he listens.
Tony points towards the screen. “I’ve been trying to create algorithms and find a pattern in his behavior, uncover his identity, but every time I feel like I’m getting close to him, his behavior suddenly changes completely. Either he is on to me and messing with me on purpose, or he has for some reason moved to a new neighborhood at least three times over the last six months.”
Peter frowns, leaning in. He reaches out and points his pencil towards the words ‘Predicting Criminal Behavior’ at the top of Tony’s screen. More specifically, at the word ‘criminal’.
“No, he’s not a criminal,” Tony agrees. “But if I’m going to put my life in someone’s hands, I want to know more about the guy than just that he’s terrible at making costumes.”
Peter chuckles. He stands up, moving over to Tony’s workbench.
Tony follows his movements for a while, before turning back to the screen and the infuriatingly chaotic collection of red dots all over the map of New York that indicate all past Spider-Man sightings in the city.
He blinks when Peter pops up next to him and places something tiny on the desk in front of him. “You’re suggesting a tracker?”
Peter sits down, giving Tony an expectant look.
Tony sighs, running a hand across his face. “I have thought about that. I’m sure I could find a way to stick one to his onesie. But I’m worried he’d notice it, and then we’ll never see him again. I don’t want to chase the guy away. I just want a name and a face. And I don’t want him to know that I know. Does that make sense?”
Peter shakes his head with a deadpan expression.
“Fair enough. At least you’re honest.” Tony picks up the tracker. “Hmmm. You know what, maybe I’ll rethink this. If I use a really small tracker, I bet I could get away with it. And it’ll definitely be effective. Thanks, kid. If this works, I’ll buy you a beer. Oh, shit, no. I’ll buy you a lemonade, I guess.”
Peter smiles.
-
Bruce comes by with cookies and drinks. “Pepper says you need a break,” he says, curiously eyeing Peter up and down. “Working hard?”
Peter turns his notebook towards Bruce and Bruce chuckles when he sees a cartoonish drawing of Tony in his Iron Man suit. “Hey, that’s quite good, kid.” He steps closer, taking the notebook from Peter’s hands and studying it.
“Yeah, yeah,” Tony mutters. “Encourage him. The snide little bastard.”
Peter just grins.
He takes his notebook back and Tony glances over to see Peter grab a green pencil and start on a drawing that is very obviously going to be the Hulk.
“You just don’t quit, do you? You’re like that Duracell bunny. It’s almost three thirty, though, so we should start wrapping this up.”
Peter looks up at him, the green pencil hovering above the paper. “Stay?” He asks.
Tony feels his heart skip a beat, a strangely protective feeling rising up in his chest. “You wanna stay a little longer?”
Peter nods with a hopeful expression. Tony takes out his phone.
Melissa picks up after only a single dial tone. “Y’ello?”
“Hey. It’s Tony Stark. Are you on your way here yet?”
“Just about to leave.”
“Can we give it a few more hours? We’re in the middle of a project and the kid is really caught up in it. He said he wants to stay.”
Melissa remains quiet for a little while. “I can do six o’clock,” she then says.
“Perfect.”
-
Peter’s ‘project’ results in the full range of Avengers being immortalized in a series of mildly insulting cartoons. After that, Tony explains his Spider-Man-algorithm in more detail, and Peter offers some interesting insights.
Before they know it, FRIDAY informs Tony that Melissa has arrived at the compound and is currently parking her car.
Peter hugs his notebook close to his chest, looking up at Tony with a wistful expression. “Thank you,” he whispers.
Tony swallows, squeezing Peter’s shoulder. “Thank you, kid. You did me a real solid. I had fun today. You have a very bright future ahead of you. Send me your CV after you graduate, okay?”
Peter nods, his eyes full of a gratitude that Tony doesn’t really feel he deserves.
-
Melissa rises from her seat in the entrance hall when Tony enters with Peter.
“Good times?” She asks Peter, and he nods fervently.
Melissa nods at Tony. “Thank you. I’ll have him send his report to the Grainger foundation over the weekend, so it’ll appear on their website sometime next week.”
“Is there any way he can stay for dinner?” Tony blurts out.
Melissa raises a single eyebrow.
“You can stay too, if you want,” Tony tells her. “I feel bad for making you drive out here. You like Thai food?”
“Thing is, I’m off the clock in about an hour,” Melissa says. “And I got four damn kids waiting for me at home. So I have to take him back to the group home, now.”
“He could stay the night,” Tony suggests. “Are you back on the clock tomorrow? I can have him dropped off at his school.”
Melissa gapes at him, before turning to Peter, pointing her thumb at Tony. “This guy holding you hostage? Blink twice if yes.”
Peter giggles.
“Let me talk to the kiddo for a moment,” Melissa says, beckoning Peter to walk with her.
Tony impatiently waits as Melissa has a hushed and mostly one-sided discussion with Peter on the other side of the entrance hall. He understands her dilemma. Hell, if he were in her position, he wouldn’t let a kid in his care spend the night with some billionaire who had a shady reputation at best. On the other hand, why pass up the opportunity to make a kid happy who really deserved it?
Melissa and Peter rejoin him. Melissa’s face is tight. “All right,” she says. “Joseph has the night shift. I need to clear this with him. If it’s okay with him, it’s okay with me. And if shit hits the fan tonight, for any reason, call him. Uh – that’s just my number, he takes over the phone. Also, I assume you can take care of stuff like PJ’s and a toothbrush? Because I ain’t driving up and down just for that.”
“Done,” Tony says quickly, lifting a hand to clap it down on Peter’s shoulder. “I’ll take care of him, promise.”
-
It’s only as Tony guides Peter towards the living area that he realizes the other Avengers haven’t had any heads-up about Peter’s quiet nature. Immediately, he feels out of his depth. Melissa had told him not bring up Peter’s mutism, but he can hardly waltz in with a kid who barely speaks and not offer an explanation.
They enter the living area and Tony finds Pepper, Wanda and Steve sitting around the table, all three of them turning to look at him. And his palms begin to sweat.
“Hi,” he says, his brain grasping for a good way to explain the situation. “Did someone order dinner yet? Because Peter and I want Thai food.”
Three sets of eyes blink at him.
Pepper comes to the rescue. “Is Peter staying for dinner?”
“Staying the night, actually.”
“Why don’t you go show him his bedroom, then?” Pepper asks pointedly.
Tony snaps to attention and makes eye-contact with Pepper. Pepper – yes. She can handle this. He hadn’t thought of that. “His bedroom. Good idea.” He says, squeezing Peter’s shoulder. “C’mon, Funsy. I’m putting you in a room next to Vision.”
He throws Pepper a look, and she gives a nod that says I got this.
Tony quickly marches Peter out of the room again, making a beeline for the bedrooms in the west wing.
“Happy is picking up some stuff for you. Anything specific you need? Because now would be the time to – uh – say it,” he finishes lamely.
Peter shakes his head. Of course.
“What do you like for breakfast? Eggs? Toast? Pancakes?”
“Everything,” says Peter, and Tony chuckles.
-
The Avengers are surprisingly tolerant about the sudden intruder into their home. Peter, for his part, is surprisingly relaxed about having dinner with a room full of Avengers. Tony finds himself staring contemplatively at the kid who is sitting on the floor, squished between Natasha and Bruce, and listening to some boring lecture by Bruce with rapt attention, while forking down a large serving of green curry chicken rice.
Melissa had been right. Peter is snarky as hell, in his own way. Nothing about the kid’s demeanor indicates that he is crippled by some form of anxiety that keeps him from speaking. Apart from the fact that – well – he doesn’t speak.
“What are you doing?” Pepper asks in a low voice later that evening, after she and Tony have moved into the kitchen to pack away the leftovers.
“I’m just – ah – working on good publicity.”
“Oh, I see,” says Pepper, her voice sounding strangely amused.
-
Tony digs up the remote from a bottom drawer somewhere. After only using voice commands for years, Tony is surprised he can still find it. He hands it to Peter so the kid can browse through the movies and pick one by himself.
The other Avengers have retreated back to their own rooms. Only Pepper is still in an armchair nearby, but she is focused on her novel.
Tony moves to the kitchen to microwave some popcorn. When he returns to the couch with a steaming bowl, Peter is looking up at him with a questioning gaze. Tony realizes that the kid has paused at the movie Ghostbusters and is now asking for his confirmation. “Golden oldie? Sure, Funsy. Sounds good.”
He puts the popcorn in Peter’s lap, making that wide grin appear on the kid’s face again.
“You are nice,” Peter whispers.
Tony turns to him, a faint smile on his face. “Thanks, kid. Not everyone would share that sentiment.”