Chapter Text
Happy gets the call at eleven o’clock on a Tuesday night. He’s sitting at the head of the table in a conference room in the compound, the entirety of Tony’s security detail in attendance. Tony is slated to appear at next week's Stark Foundation charity gala alongside Pepper, so there's lots to do before then.
But just as he’s in the middle of reiterating for the third time what he considers to be one of the most important points of the night, highlighting the most efficient escape routes on a map of the venue floor plan, his ringtone blares obnoxiously. He glances down to see Peter’s name flashing on the screen. Happy contemplates for a second before reaching down to hit decline, sending the kid to voicemail. As much as he truly does admire Peter for what he does as Spider-Man, things like walking young women home in the dark and stopping corner store robberies, he’s never exactly considered listening to blow by blow recounts of such incidents as particularly high on his must-do-list as head of security.
If the kid really needs someone, he’ll be calling Tony anyway. Especially since the two of them seem to be getting more buddy-buddy recently.
Tony's taken over nearly all personal communication with Peter, and although Happy can’t for the life of him figure out why Tony wants to do that, or even has the time to deal with the endless amounts of voicemails, it’s a job off his back so he had gladly forwarded Tony Peter’s number when he’d asked for it. Now, the only thing he has left to do is somehow convince Tony to battle the New York traffic and make the trip each Saturday morning all the way from Upstate down to Queens to fetch Peter for his internship, and he might finally have all his time free to focus on his actual job.
Happy watches his phone to make sure it doesn’t ring again before slipping it into his suit jacket pocket and looking back up to apologise briefly for the interruption. When he does, he quickly finds that half of his men look like mere they’re minutes away from nodding off so he resolves to wrap the rest of this up quickly so he can send them all home.
“We can see here that the fire door near the west stairwell won’t be ideal at all seeing as it leads directly out onto the main road. The fire door leading from the kitchen, however, is our best bet in an emergency situation. It leads out back instead, into the private parking lot which will mean that we can reconvene off public property,” Happy finishes his explanation, getting absolutely no response apart from something that sounds vaguely like a snore from the very end of the table. He sighs tiredly. “You know what? We’ll finish this off tomorrow morning,” Happy concedes, “but we still have the second level of the floor plan to strategise for, so I want everyone back here by eight o’clock sharp.”
There are a few vacant nods in his direction as everyone files out of the room, and Happy waits until the door clicks closed behind the last one before dropping his head into his hands and groaning.
Happy’s finally stepping out of the room five minutes later after having carefully folded and stored away all the maps and documentation that he’ll need to pull back out for when they pick back up tomorrow morning. He’s intent on heading up a few floors to collect his bag and making his way home when he runs into Tony, standing in front of the elevator. He's still wearing his suit, but his tie is loose around his neck and the top three buttons of his dress shirt are undone. He’s obviously just finished up something like a conference call. He barely even notices Happy approach him, too busy frowning intently at his phone.
“Hey Boss, everything okay?”
Tony glances up at the sound of his voice. Happy frowns at the worry evident on his face. “Oh yeah, nothing to worry about Hap. Well, at least not yet. Just wondering why I haven’t heard from Peter, that damn kid I swear.”
The elevator opens but neither of them steps into it. Happy swallows slightly. His phone displaying the ‘one new voicemail from Peter Parker,’ notification on the home screen suddenly feels slightly heavier in his pocket. “Were you expecting to?”
“I just - yeah, he was meant to be investigating these arms-dealer guys tonight, maybe importing assault rifles illegally or something, real low-grade black-market shit. Nothing like the Chitauri tech again, thank god. I didn’t particularly feel like having another heart attack tonight. Anyways, not important. What is important is that the kid told me that he’d let me know if it got hairy or when he got home, but so far he has managed to do exactly neither of those things.”
Happy isn’t sure whether he’s imagining the edge of worry to Tony’s tone because he’s had a long night. Even so, he immediately feels the slightest bit guilty for sending the kid to voicemail. “I had a call from him about an hour ago, so I’m sure he’s fine.”
“What?” Tony looks up from his phone sharply again. “Why the hell didn’t you just open with that Hogan? What did he say?”
“Chill Tony, I didn’t pick up, but I think he might have left a voicemail?”
“Why the hell didn’t you pick up?”
“You know what the kid’s like, half the time he’s just found a cat stuck up a tree or something. My main priority is to stop you from being shot, not listen to that,” Happy tries to reason but Tony doesn’t look any less unimpressed.
“Yeah well, lucky for you I deal with everything to do with him anyway now, so he shouldn’t have even been calling you in the first place but if he is, I want you to pick up.”
“Look," Happy says, trying to regain control of the situation. Tony is spiralling in a weird way that's unfamiliar to him. "Let’s just listen to the voicemail now if that will ease your mind a little bit, I have it right here.” Happy pulls his phone from his pocket as Tony shoots him a glare as if he’s insulted that Happy is insinuating that Tony needs his mind easing right now, as if he could potentially care about the kid.
He then proceeds to immediately counteract that by snatching Happy’s phone out of his hand and opening the voicemail. When he presses play, Peter’s voice, tinny-sounding from the phone speakers, fills the silent hallway.
“Uh, hey Happy. I know this is totally stupid and embarrassing, but I was doing a bit of snooping around these super sketchy arms guys tonight, actually they left not too long ago - I hid on the roof and got some super clear shots of their number plates as they drove away, I’ll get Karen to send them to F.R.I.D.A.Y - um, but anyway, I kinda might have managed to run out of web fluid and I didn't bring any extra canisters, which was dumb, and I’m pretty sure I’m way out towards the outskirts of town. I’d just walk but I think I landed funny on one of my ankles and it’s just the tiniest bit swollen, not a big deal but just a little bit sore, y’know? I guess I’m just asking for a ride, maybe, if you’re around? I know it’s late so I get if you're busy. Or asleep, probably. I mean, the buses start up around five or six am anyway, so I might be fine until then. I’m sure if I found a way back into the warehouse I'm at and called May to let her know, she might not freak out too bad, especially if I’m inside somewhere. Anyway, call me back. Thanks!”
Only Peter Parker could manage to sound so bright when he’s stranded at the edge of town, with his two options seemingly looking like spending the night in a black market assault rifle warehouse or walking miles back to Queens with a swollen ankle.
Listening to the voicemail clearly hasn’t put Tony’s mind at rest. In fact, he looks significantly more uneasy than he had before. Happy can’t quite make sense of it. Peter sounds fine, he’s had a lot worse than a sprained ankle before. “If you pull up his location and forward that to me, I’ll go get him,” Happy says, glad that he left his car keys in his pocket earlier. He steps forward to call the elevator for a second time.
“I’m coming with you,” Tony states as if it’s obvious.
“I know I should have picked up his call earlier and I will whenever he calls next, but you really don’t have to Boss, I’ve got him. You can trust me.”
“No, it’s - I,” Tony’s searching for the right words to say as Happy studies him, “I trust you. Obviously. Even when you don’t pick up the damn phone. But I’m responsible for him, so I’ll come with.” Tony’s face is set in the way it always does when he’s made up his mind so Happy just lets him follow him into the elevator as he punches in the code for the underground parking garage.
Tony’s twitchy as he sits in the passenger seat next to Happy. He’d given the kid a quick call to let him know that they were coming and that he could cancel his plans to break back into a weapons warehouse for overnight accomodation, before pulling up the tracker in Peter’s suit. He’d recited the address to Happy to enter into the GPS when they first got in the car, but even so he's rarely taking his eyes off the tiny red dot on his phone screen signalling Peter’s location. It's almost as if he thinks the second he pulls his eyes away for more than a few seconds at a time then Peter, or at least the digital approximation of his current whereabouts, might disappear.
Happy doesn’t mention it. He knows that Tony hates others calling him out when he’s stressed and wound up.
It takes them about forty minutes to reach the location that Tony has been so intently focusing on. Happy is expecting some sort of security to have to contend with, but a derelict looking chain-link fence on a slight lean is all there is. It looks like it might have been electrified once but that’s clearly a thing of the past.
Happy can just about make out Peter in the shadows, resting up against a wall of the dark building that must be the warehouse. He has his knees pulled up to his chest, and Happy hopes he has the common sense to have the heater that he knows Tony built into his suit turned on. It’s not particularly warm out tonight.
Tony has his hand on the door handle before Happy even has his foot on the break to pull up only a few meters away from where Peter is sitting. “At least let me put the damn thing in park, would you?” Happy admonishes, but he has to slam on the breaks anyway when Tony opens the door and makes to get out without listening to him.
By the time Happy’s pulled up the handbrake and climbed out of the car to do a sweep of the area to ensure they’re alone, Tony’s already offering a hand up to Peter.
“Ouch” Peter sucks in a sharp breath as he sets weight on his left ankle and Tony grimaces in clear concern.
“Yep, we’re definitely gonna have to get that one checked out, Pete.”
“Just a bit swollen, no biggie.”
“Yeah, well once we get back, we’ll get that suit off you and someone at medical will be the judge of that.”
Peter pouts in response. “I don’t need medical, promise.” Tony just rolls his eyes, but wraps his arms around the kid’s shoulder and helps him hobble over to the car. “Hey Happy,” Peter says, once they reach him. He throws what is obviously meant to be a smile in Happy’s direction, but it comes across as more of a wince. Happy returns it anyway.
“Hey, kid. Sorry I didn’t get your call right away,” He offers, and Peter opens his mouth to reply, probably with something polite and respectful because Peter still hasn’t quite worked up the nerve to give anyone apart from Tony the full extent of his sarcasm and wit, but Tony jumps in.
“Oh yeah, that’s something we need to talk about. Why on earth did you call Happy instead of me, Pete? You know the man’s hopeless at picking up phone calls.
Happy thinks that statement is slightly unfair and not entirely true. He’s not hopeless at picking up all phone calls, just Peter’s occasionally, when there are other, more pressing issues at hand.
Peter shrugs. “You said you had that thing tonight? That phone call thingy? With someone in China? You were complaining about it yesterday but I thought it sounded important, I didn’t want to interrupt or anything, so I thought it was better to just call Happy, I guess.”
“Yeah, no. You ever need me, you call me. I don’t care what I’m doing, or what you think I might be doing. Whatever shit you get into is on me, remember? I can’t help you sort it out if you don’t keep me filled in on what’s going on, kiddo.”
“Got it, Mister Stark.” Tony nods, satisfied with his concession before stepping back to help Peter slip into the car without putting any unnecessary weight on his ankle, before, much to Happy’s surprise, dropping right into the backseat next to him.
Tony must catch him staring because he glances up to meet his eyes. “What? I doubt I was very good company on the way over here, you won’t miss me now.”
Happy supposes he can’t argue with that so he just turns and shuts the door on the two of them. Once he’s sitting in the driver's seat, Tony’s fussing over trying to elevate Peter’s leg in his lap and Happy has to resist the urge to stare in the rearview mirror, because what the hell? Happy wonders whether his eyes are deceiving him.
But despite the mother-henning that seems to be occurring, Tony is less twitchy and far more collected. His phone is stowed somewhere back in his pocket. He doesn’t need to stare down at a tracker. He has Peter right next to him. That seems to settle something inside of him.
Happy starts the ignition and as he does, the partition begins to slip up. Before it can fully reach the top and block out his view, he’s sure he sees Tony wrap an arm around the kid and pull him right into his side, Peter leaning into the touch.
He tries not to dwell on it as he backs out of the lot and back onto the dark road, but his brows furrow anyway. He’s one of Tony’s oldest friends and his job as head of security is to be on top of everything, at all times, but for once, Happy's feeling hopelessly in the dark.