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“Boss, Peter is on his way up, but can I recommend you meet him at the elevator?”
Tony rubbed at his tired eyes with a few not-so-clean fingers. He’d been up most of the night working on one of the last complications with his nanotech suit. It was working, just not as reliably as he required. “What’s going on, honey?”
“He is carrying an excessive amount of books, and keeps dropping them. If you don’t help him, I estimate it will take him an extra 3.75 minutes to reach the workshop. And according to what he’s been muttering, he may end up throwing them all through the window. With his strength levels, he might actually succeed, even with the ballistic glass.” FRIDAY actually sounded a bit worried. What in the world was that kid up to now?
Tony headed out towards the elevator, hands casually tucked in his pockets, and was soon rewarded with the sight of his kid crouching down to try to pick up two big books that had just fallen. (Apparently not for the first time.)
“Hey, Mr. Stark? What are you doing h—crap.” He was just placing the errant volumes on the top of his giant stack as he stepped out of the elevator when two books he’d wedged in between his arms and the rest of the stack jumped ship. As he leaned to try to catch them with his quick reflexes, the whole tower exploded from the center and there were suddenly books everywhere.
“Kid, what in the actual—”
“This is the stupidest assignment ever!” Peter interrupted with a wail, dropping his bag and kneeling down to start reassembling his leaning tower of knowledge.
Tony’s eyes widened at Peter’s uncharacteristic outburst, and he knelt down next to the upset teenager. He set a hand lightly at the back of the frustrated boy’s neck, squeezing slightly, and then rubbed a comforting circle before he started to help with the clean-up. “The Springer Handbook of Robotics?” he asked in confusion. “Probabilistic Robotics? Pete, what is all this?”
Peter had the stack mostly gathered, and seemed to be trying to redistribute them, taking into account size, rigidity, and possibly the slickness of each cover.
“Ms. Meyer said she doesn’t want us using online resources on this big research paper. We have to use books, actual physical journal articles, and more than one three-dimensional source instead. So I checked out lots of the books they had at the school library on robotics, but where am I supposed to find the other stuff? What is this, 1999?” He spat out that last question incredulously, sounding a little bit like his head might explode.
Tony eyed his young protégé sympathetically, but raised a skeptical eyebrow. “I’ll have you know we were already using online resources in 1999. But yes, that’s a little more difficult now. Can I help you carry this stuff?”
“I guess.” Peter sounded deflated now that he’d let some of his frustrations out. “Happy offered to help, but he seemed busy, and I thought I had it. I can take the books.” He picked up his backpack and absentmindedly offered it to Tony while he looked at his stack, probably trying to decide if there was a better way to stack everything.
Tony accepted the bag and abruptly found himself tipping forward into Peter, almost taking both of them to the ground. He’d been unprepared for its weight. “Holy cow, Pete! This thing weighs as much as another person! What have you got in there?” He reached for the bag again, ready to brace himself and lift with his legs, but Peter stopped him with a hand to his arm.
“Sorry, I forgot! I put a bunch of books in there, too. No, don’t try to pick it up. I’ll take the bag, and if you could maybe take half of the books? So they don’t slide around so much?” Peter lifted the backpack easily and slung it onto his shoulders. The seams of the bag were feeling those books way more than the super-powered teenager was. Peter was lucky Tony had bought that particular backpack instead of May. There was no way a Wal-Mart special would have stood up to the punishment Peter was putting it through.
Tony obediently took the top half of Peter’s stack, and they carried everything to the lab and stacked it all near Peter’s workstation.
“Why did you check out so many?” Tony asked, still unsure what the boy was thinking. Was he going to read them all before starting on the paper?
“I don’t know! I panicked! What if what I need to source was in one of the ones I didn’t check out, and someone else checked them out instead? But the books are due back in two weeks, and the paper isn’t due for four, and what if there’s something I need after I turn them back in, and—”
“Peter, breathe!” Tony interrupted. The kid did, his flow of words temporarily paused.
“So panic-borrowing is a thing, huh?” Tony tried to keep the smirk off his face, but wasn’t quite successful. Peter gave him a flat look. “You know Amazon exists, right? When you figure out which ones are actually useful, just order them.”
‘Mr. Stark, have you seen how much most of these cost?” Peter groaned, palming his face in frustration. “I mean, some of them seem really cool, and I actually would like to have a few. Actually, I did talk to Mr. Delmar about working for him like ten hours a week, because I really should have a job at my age, cause May said she’d only pay my part of the car insurance for six months, and other stuff is kinda expensive too, but he’s not sure if he’s going hire someone yet, but the pizza place around the corner might be hiring, and I think I’d be good at that, so—”
“I swear Peter, if you don’t start breathing, I am going to revoke your speaking privileges for the next hour.” Tony wanted to laugh, but he couldn’t when the crazed monologue was coming from stress instead of from excitement, like it usually did.
Peter glared at him, but stopped talking and took a few exaggerated breaths, his eyes snarking Tony just as easily as his mouth could have. Tony took advantage of the boy’s momentary silence.
“As for the job, that’s a hard pass. You barely have time to keep up with school, AcaDec, patrolling, and our internship. I refuse to give up any more time with you,” Tony said firmly, “and your aunt shouldn’t have to either.” Peter somehow looked both obstinate and a little bit touched at his outburst.
“Actually, just today I talked to your school, and so did HR, and there’s no rule anymore that your internship can’t be paid when it counts for credit. So retroactively effective as of the first of this month, you’re making the same hourly wage as any other intern here. We just have to be careful not to put more than 18 hours hours in a school week, or child labor laws kick in,” he teased.
Peter’s mouth gaped open. “Mr. Stark?”
“Yeeeah, that’s what they call me.” Tony thought he might have broken his intern. He wasn’t even blinking. Actually, now that Peter was finally holding still, he noticed the teenager didn’t look so good. There were circles under his eyes, and they were a little glassy.
“But, Mr. Stark! The suit! My Spider-man suit! That’s worth way more than anything you could pay me! I can’t take more; I really can’t!” His eyes were narrowing, and Tony could tell he was about to buckle down for a particularly ridiculous argument. He cut him off again with a hand swipe.
“I already talked to your aunt. I already talked to your school. SI doesn’t do unpaid internships. It’s not up for discussion. Plus, there are some benefits that kick in when you’re working more than thirty hours a week for me on non school weeks. You gonna tell May you turned that down?”
Peter rolled his eyes. “You know I can’t go to a regular doctor anyway. You already take care of all the medical stuff here or at the Compound,” he protested weakly, at least seeing the irony of his own argument.
“But now it’ll be official, and she can drop the extra coverage she pays for as your responsible parental figure,” Tony pointed out. “And you really want to start a fight about how you’re even more valuable to me and to this company than most of the regular interns? Because I will.”
Peter sighed, the frustration visibly draining from him. “Thank you, sir,” he finally gave in, swallowing his own pride on May’s behalf, as Tony knew he would. It was kind of cheating, but he had zero qualms if it got the kid to accept a paycheck that would reduce the financial stress he and May were under. Peter rubbed roughly at his eyes in a gesture that was far too familiar to the older genius—an echo of his own earlier actions.
“Pete, when’s the last time you slept?”
“When’s the last time you slept?” Peter fired back with an attitude as he dropped his hand away from his face. Yeah, his kid was even more sleep-deprived than usual, and like a two-year-old who had missed too many naps, he was cranky. And probably hungry.
“Touché,” Tony admitted easily. Peter knew he didn’t sleep well sometimes. He walked over to the mini-fridge and grabbed a protein drink. He caught the boy’s eye and tossed it towards him. “No more talking until that’s gone, Spider-bite.” Peter sulked a little bit, but dutifully drank the whole thing within a few minutes. Tony should have noticed he’d been too distracted to get his usual after-school snack.
“So what’s the plan?” Tony asked doubtfully, turning towards the book infestation. It had been decades since he had to use physical sources, and now he mostly just cited himself if he published. It was easier that way, and usually more accurate.
“I don’t know!” Peter said, coming over to peer at some of the titles. He was starting to sound a little panicky again. His eyes were wide, his pupils fluctuating a little, and Tony was pretty sure his fingers were making a visible dent in the solid table edge he was braced on.
Tony sighed. “C’mere, kid.” Peter gave him a weird look, but warily walked over towards him. Tony opened his arms, and Peter sighed as he let the older man gather him in for a long hug. There may have been a sniff or two into his shoulder, but he politely ignored it.
“What’s your paper on, bud?” Tony asked while Peter’s face was still buried in his shoulder. The kid was even letting Tony hold some of his weight, which spoke of the exhaustion he wouldn’t admit to.
Peter pulled back and wiped surreptitiously at his eyes. “I haven’t narrowed it down yet,” he said, sounding a little calmer, “but I think I want to write about niche uses for modern-day robotics.
“Ah,” Tony smiled. “You know, I think I have just the 3-D reference for you. As for all these books,” he said, peering at them distastefully, “FRI, be a dear and scan these titles. If we don’t own them, grab the digital versions and put them all in a holo box for Peter so he can do keyword searches as he figures out what he needs to reference.”
Peter’s eyes were wide. “But Mr. Stark, isn’t that kinda cheating?”
“Not at all. We’re still using the books. And I probably have some physical journal articles somewhere in all this junk, too. Or we’ll find them online and order the paper copies if it makes you feel better. I think I get what she’s trying to teach you, but one thing I can’t handle is inefficiency. And using physical books when a searchable option and AI assistants are available is a waste of your VIP brain cells.”
Peter still looked doubtful, but he didn’t resist Tony as his mentor ushered him towards the door.
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“Wow!”
Tony pulled covers off a few things and shook off the light layer of dust. “Yeah? I guess I didn’t realize you’d never been up here,” he said, looking around the room. The sun was getting lower in the sky and casting some interesting shadows. Tony felt like if he turned around quickly enough he might catch an echo of a certain Asgardian trickster, or maybe Thor and Steve low-key trying to outdo each other in some pseudo competition. Bruce always favored the far corner over there, and Tony had noticed and installed an auxiliary holo table, so the scientist could pull projects up when he got bored or overwhelmed. He missed Bruce, especially.
“Tony?”
He shook his head to clear the memories. “Hmm?” Peter was walking out towards the landing pad behind the giant “STARK” he’d replaced when he’d decided to keep the Tower after all. FRIDAY obligingly opened the door, and the teen glanced over to him for permission. He nodded, and followed the boy outside.
“I mean, I’ve never officially been up here,” Peter said, sounding a bit guilty, “but I may have sat up here a time or two and just thought about all the cool things that happened like right here…”
Tony smirked. “FRIDAY?”
“Fourteen times, Boss,” she said, amusement apparent in her slightly electronic tone.
“FRIDAY!” said Peter indignantly. “I thought we were friends!”
“We are, Peter, or I would have informed Boss, and initiated spider-repelling measures,” she said blandly.
Peter’s face after that was a picture of pique, and Tony couldn’t resist ruffling his hair teasingly. Usually the boy ducked away, but this time he leaned into his touch. Tony raised his eyebrows and pulled the boy into a side hug for a moment. He was more tired and/or upset than he’d realized. Well, they’d keep it short out here and see if he could con him into early dinner and a movie on the couch. May wouldn’t mind if he stayed over. He’d been busy this Wednesday with an after-school thing, so Tony hadn’t really seen him since his slight fiasco of a field trip last week.
“So you said you had an idea for one of my 3-D sources?” Peter said hopefully, obviously having an idea where this was going.
“Well, you don’t get much more niche than a multi-million dollar robotic system that just does one thing, I’d think,” Tony said. “Well, two things.” Peter nodded excitedly in anticipation.
“I haven’t used this suit in several years,” he cautioned. “Theoretically everything should still work, but I haven’t spent much time up here; almost none since we almost sold the Tower, which is why it still looks like a storage room in there.”
“Let’s find out,” Peter said, almost vibrating in place, his exhaustion completely forgotten.
“You have your webshooters? You might need to rescue me if this suit malfunctions and yeets me off the Tower.”
“Aww, Mr. Stark,” Peter cooed teasingly, activating the mechanical webshooter he wore for emergencies, “you said ‘yeet.’ Correctly, too.”
Tony gave him a quelling look. “Activate, FRI,” he said, bravely stepping out along the landing pad as the Mark VI (really the VI ½, since he’d re-machined the armor after it was damaged by the helicarrier) formed around him. Peter followed along a few steps behind, staying just out of the way while he observed closely. Some of the actions were a little sticky, but Tony felt a little thrill when the armor actually did finish forming correctly around him. Man this stuff was heavy. It was crazy how quickly he forgot, being used to the newer versions, and especially his nanotech now.
“Pretty cool, huh, Spider-kid?”
Peter curled his lips momentarily at the diminutive, but it was immediately swallowed with awe. “That. was. amazing,” he breathed.
Tony laughed, enjoying his excitement. “Ready for the dismount?”
Peter nodded eagerly, and Tony used his repulsors to jet up into the air, then did a quick flip, landing in an easy walking motion as the same mechanics started disassembling his armor as he moved.
Peter was so enthralled that he was walking sideways and almost backwards as he watched the robotic disassembly. Tony was focused on the mechanics and was noting slight hesitations from some of the unused gear, and therefore didn’t notice Peter getting way too close to the edge. As Tony glanced up, the kid took one more step backwards. He yelped and disappeared as he fell into thin air.
“Peter!” Tony yelled, trying to jump after him. But he was only partially encased in the suit, which meant no thruster control, and it wouldn’t let go of his legs until the robotic arms finished disassembling all the panels, which took precious seconds. This. This was one reason he’d kept working on getting his suits better, faster, more seamless, less useless in the very moments they were needed. By the time he was fully free a few seconds later, a very flustered, red-cheeked teenager had flipped back up onto the deck with the help of his webshooter, which he’d thankfully left fully-assembled.
“Are you kidding me right now?” Tony growled, pulling the kid roughly into his arms, hanging on for dear life. He knew Peter hadn’t been in any real danger, since he had a working web shooter, but watching his kid unexpectedly disappear over the edge had shaved a year or two off his life just now.
Peter laughed weakly. “Sorry! I’m… just, sorry.”
“You’re gonna be sorry when I lock you in the penthouse ‘til you’re twenty-one, just so you can’t do anything stupid and die on my watch,” Tony retorted without heat.
The boy had the temerity to giggle into his shoulder. “Are you going to let go of me?”
“No.”
“What if I said I’m hungry.”
Tony sighed, kissed the top of the boy’s head roughly, and let go enough to steer him towards the door.
“Wait! Can’t I see how it works a few more times? I promise to stay right here, far away from the edge! I’ll even sit down!”
“Fine,” Tony sighed. “FRIDAY, our usual order from Gino’s.” Then he turned to demonstrate the process again at quarter- and half-speeds so Peter could see how the different mechanisms worked. It should have been tedious, but fielding all the younger genius’s questions and explaining why he had made certain decisions, and how he had changed different parts of the suit for the Mark VII kept them busy until the pizza arrived.
Tony tried to coax Peter inside, away from the edges again, but the kid pulled out those stupid puppy-dog eyes and a heartfelt “ Please, Tony?” and soon he found himself sitting against the outside glass eating pizza while they watched the last rays of sunset unfold from the busy city. They watched the lights come on in a slow wave, and Peter chattered aimlessly about school, and friends, and May, and the four cute dogs he’d gotten to pet that week. His stress seemed mostly gone for now, but the longer they sat and ate, the quieter he got, and a few yawns started slipping out.
Finally, when the sky had gotten as dark as it ever did in the city, Peter relented and they regrouped in the penthouse. It was Tony’s turn to choose the movie.
“I can’t believe you’ve never seen Undercover Blues, Pete. It’s a classic comedy.”
“Classic as in old.” Having been informed of the sleepover plans, (though he always rolled his eyes when Tony called it that) Peter had changed into sweats and a t-shirt, and had returned clutching a pillow and accidentally trailing one of his favorite blue blankets.
“It’s not that old, Linus,” Tony snarked, patting the couch cushion. Peter didn’t hesitate to settle in right next to him, feet crowding Tony’s on the recliner part of his seat, since Peter’s didn’t have one. He yawned frequently, but managed to stay awake through the whole movie,, especially since he was laughing a lot. Tony loved laughing with Peter, especially when he had the chance to introduce him to things he’d never seen. For his second choice, though, Tony pulled out the big guns: The Philadelphia Story, which was not only black and white, but had so much dialogue, it was bound to work like a lullaby for the sleepy Spider-kid.
“Why don’t you lay down, Pete?” he urged, nudging the pillow the boy was holding to his chest. Peter resisted at first, but within ten minutes he was flat next to Tony, and ten more minutes of Tony stroking his (finally growing) curls softly, he was dead to the world. Tony listened to Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant’s verbal sparring match for a little longer as he rested his eyes, but soon he was drifting, too.
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He woke briefly a few hours later when Pepper pressed a kiss to his forehead, and he felt her cover them both with blankets. Peter’s head was tucked in close to his side, and he could feel the kid breathing softly under his hand.
“Want me to come in to bed?” he managed to ask his smiling fiancée, mostly intelligibly.
“Not if you’re comfortable here. You guys haven’t had a sleepover in a while,” she gently teased him, running her fingers lightly through his hair.
Tony grinned, eyes still closed. “He hates when I call it that.”
“Which is why you do it,” she scolded, leaning down to kiss him properly. “Go back to sleep, love. If you’re lucky, maybe I’ll even make breakfast.”
“Pancakes?” said a sleepy voice to their right.
Pepper laughed lightly. “Of course, sweetheart. All the pancakes you can eat.” She stroked Peter’s hair lightly, too, before straightening back up.
“Don’t tell him that! Have you seen this kid eat?”
“And then we’re gonna cheat on my paper,” mumbled Peter with a smile.
“What?” she asked Tony, an eyebrow raised.
“Don’t listen to him. He’s just sleep-talking. Or maybe dreaming or something.”
She gave him a knowing look and sighed in exasperation. “Love you, Tony.”
“Love you, Pep.” Then as she walked away, he insisted, “It’s really not cheating. Promise.”
Her amused laugh drifted back down the hall.
“You’re going to get me in trouble, mister,” he scolded the teen, his voice fond and his fingers soft in the kid’s hair, hoping to put him right back to sleep.
“Mmm-hhm. ‘s fun.”
This kid.
“If you’re not asleep by the time I count to ten, you’d better pretend you are.”
Peter’s sleepy laugh warmed his heart, and it wasn’t too long after the allotted ten seconds that they were both drifting back towards some much-needed rest.