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ironspiderfics · 5 months

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turn this car around

by @iron--spider for @foreverday

Peter doesn’t know why he ever expects anything to be simple.

Simple isn’t even a word he knows anymore. Nothing is ever simple for Spider-Man, and he knows he sounds like he’s moaning and groaning and that a lot of people would give a lot of money to be in his position but they can keep it because it isn’t worth it because nothing is ever simple.

Sure, he saves people all the time, and that matters and it’s important, and sure, he has access to Tony and the Avengers and that’s something he would never trade, ever, not in a million years, but a lot of the time it feels like his Parker luck chemically combined with his Spider-Man luck, and that’s hit and miss at best and terrible at worst.

He can’t go into a public bathroom without the toilet overflowing. He can’t go on a date with MJ without his card being declined for no reason (except not paying attention to his automatic billing but it’s fine) and he can’t move from place to place without something falling into his path. Lost cat lost person lost backpack sudden storm sudden traffic something something anything everything.

Sometimes he feels like he’s cursed, sometimes he feels like simple and normal are things he’s never gonna know again, and sometimes he’s alright with that but then other times he’s stuck on the Red line train for an hour because someone is standing on the tracks holding up the trains with BAN SPIDER-MAN signs.

It’s Boston! Why is that even happening here? He only goes out as Spider-Man here every so often so there is really no need for protests—

It’s nonstop, nonstop, nonstop—

“Listen, it’s fine,” Tony says, as they walk out of the office. “It’s fine. It went well. It doesn’t matter.”

“It mattered,” Peter says, already nursing a headache, and of course his headaches are worse than normal people’s headaches and the only medicine that can actually help him is some workshop concoction that he’s out of right now. “It mattered. They looked at me weird.”

“They were looking at me,” Tony says, widening his eyes at him. “Everyone at MIT looks at me that way. You know that, there are too many incidents trailing after me, I’m always gonna get looks—the fountain incident, the disaster at Simmons Hall, the incident with the crab legs—all of this in my college tenure, by the way, nothing to do with Iron Man—”

“It can’t be that serious or you wouldn’t have volunteered to go with me to try and help me,” Peter says, glancing at him.

“My name’s still my name,” Tony says, shrugging at him. “Stark still carries weight—a little bit more around the midsection lately, too, we gotta get back in the ring—”

Peter snorts. “What? You are not gaining weight.”

“Tell Pepper that. Tell her that when she pats my stomach and says nothing and walks away—”

Peter laughs again, but it hurts his head, and he winces. He’s not at his thesis yet, not by a longshot, but he’s having the same issues at MIT that he was having in high school. Hard to juggle school work and Spider-Man work, seeing friends and team meetings and coming up with lies to cover what the team meetings actually are, and he’s got MJ and Ned helping him with that too, and maybe he just shouldn’t make friends, maybe he shouldn’t try to get lab time or grants and why is he even trying to ask for a grant with Tony Stark in the room, isn’t that like a bad look, asking for money with a billionaire beside him, and he’s thinking too much, again, and it’s making his headache worse—

“Hey,” Tony says, and he pats his shoulder. “Earth to Peter.”

Peter just grunts.

“It’s fine, but you should have let me pick you up,” Tony says, raising his eyebrows at him. He says it gently, because he knows Peter is still agonizing over it.

“I know,” Peter says, with a sigh so heavy he feels it in his gut. “You just can never tell—and I was out of your way—and I know the trains aren’t reliable in the first place but I was out of your way—”

“Kid,” Tony says, narrowing his eyes at him. “You’re never out of my way. You could be in Jersey and you wouldn’t be out of my way. That sounds bad. It’s the phrasing—you are always in my way—no, you’re—listen, I can always pick you up. Wherever you are, I can get you, I can pick you up, it’s not a question. You know that.”

He doesn’t say you should know that because it’s not a matter of should, Peter does know, he does, and he doesn’t know why he’s always banging up against it.

He just has a hard time letting people help him. Even though he needs a lot of help almost always.

“You do know that, correct?” Tony asks, as they make a beeline for the elevator. “You haven’t been mind-wiped in the interim—what is the interim, I saw you yesterday, last night, a mere matter of hours—”

“No,” Peter says, blowing out a breath, and he presses the down button to call the elevator. “No. No. Unless there were hidden spells in the calc homework to mind-wipe me by some hidden spell villain then no, I am—my brain is—my mind is intact.” He sighs again. Sometimes he just…talks too much.

The elevator arrives, and they get on it, and Tony is giving him this look. And he holds the look and keeps giving it, and Peter’s known Tony long enough to know that look. It isn’t disappointed, he’s more—regarding him. He knows the way Peter works, why he does the things he does, but he’s always gonna look at him and wonder when the other shoe is gonna drop. If he’ll ever just take charity—if he’ll ever stop thinking of it as charity and just something family does—

Because that’s what they are. Peter knows that. They’re family.

He didn’t accept that at first, either, and May’s little asides about how much she distrusted Tony didn’t help. But Tony started coming around a lot more often after all of the Vulture stuff, and they started having dinner together every Tuesday, and then that turned into dinner with Tony and May every Friday, and then that turned into lunch with Tony and MJ and Ned after school on Wednesdays, and soon enough Peter was at the new facility almost every weekend. And then May warmed up to Tony and then Peter and Tony started working in the workshop together and then the whole end of the world thing happened and Tony almost died—and Tony almost dying reminded Peter so much of Ben actually dying that he latched on like a tiny duckling and didn’t let go. And he gets embarrassed by a lot of things that he does but he’s not embarrassed of that, or of any of the time he spent by Tony’s bedside while he recovered. He remembers the crosswords, the sci-fi marathons, the two of them working on his MIT essay together. The long talks about anything and everything. Recovery. For both of them.

“You’re gonna get it,” Tony says, and he pats Peter’s shoulder again. “I looked at some of the other applicants and yours has the best optics—”

“Oh great,” Peter laughs. “Optics.”

“—and the best follow-through possibilities, helps pave your way, I’m attached to it, Rhodey’s on the backup—and he ate all those muffins within about thirty minutes, by the way, he still has to message you but they got him all hypnotized—”

Peter laughs again, and that brightens him up a little bit. “Oh good, I was worried because he didn’t say anything—”

“Oh no, that was the best thank you gift you could have gotten him—gone so quick he thought he blacked out—and there’s someone else who should be worrying about his waistline—”

Peter snorts again, shaking his head. The elevator dings and they walk out, heading through a busy atrium.

Tony slings an arm around Peter’s shoulders. “Stop thinking about the train,” he says. “It went well, it’s over now, let’s go to the Burger Company, huh? I can go for a good Killer Bee.”

Peter nods, wincing against the sun when they step out into it. But he immediately starts feeling more optimistic when he thinks about food. “Oh yeah,” he says. “Oh, the green monstah. Oh yeah.”

“I know Bruce still wants to get that copyrighted,” Tony says, as they veer towards the car.

“Just get him to make an appearance and they’ll add his name to it,” Peter says.

“Lunch next week,” Tony says. “I’ll get all of us in there. That’ll do it.”

And Peter hopes he’s invited to that, but he doesn’t say anything. They’ll be in Boston, he probably will be, but he’s not gonna say anything—and maybe that’s just the headache and the negativity talking—thinking—

Whatever. He stops thinking. He becomes full hamburger.

And they get in the car, so much better than the train, and Tony laughs and praises the way Peter laid out his proposal, his usage of the phrase polymerase chain reaction, and Peter tries so hard to turn his brain off. Tries to remain hamburger.

Fails to turn his brain off. Fails hamburger.

He thinks about all the work that’s gonna be on his plate if they do accept the proposal and give him the lab time and he’s thinking about that and he tries not to think about that. He tries not to rethink the things he does or plans to do a million times but then he winds up overthinking his overthinking. Thinks and thinks and thinks in a torrential tornado.

And the headache gets worse.

“Why do you always park in the same place when you park in these garages?” Peter asks, watching Tony maneuver to the second floor from the top of the parking garage closest to the burger place. “Is it like, specifically to piss Happy off? Because he prefers to be on the roof?”

Tony snorts, approaching the same spot he always parks in when they come here. Second to top floor, right back corner. Might as well have his name on it.

“I am a creature of habit in most things,” Tony says, letting the car pull into the spot on its own.

“I feel like that’s wrong,” Peter says, narrowing his eyes at him.

Tony clicks his tongue. “I am and I’m not,” he says, putting the car in park once it’s situated. “But yes. This has to do with Happy. An argument with Happy going on ten plus years ago and I’m so set in my point of view that I’ll just do what he doesn’t want me to do even if he isn’t with me. He checks the logs sometimes. That’s enough.”

Peter snorts, getting out of the car once Tony cuts the engine. “Yeah, okay,” Peter says, shutting the door. “Didn’t you guys also have some sort of grudge match over—”

“My Little Pony,” Tony says, with a withered sigh. “We’re not getting into that. It’s too complicated.”

Peter laughs to himself, shaking his head. He tries to imagine telling his past self that Iron Man was having debates with his bodyguard about parking spaces and My Little Pony, and, putting aside any space-time traveling he’d have to do to speak to his past self, he feels like he’d break Little Peter’s brain by saying My Little Pony and Iron Man in the same sentence. Also putting aside the whole ‘you’re good buddies with Iron Man’ thing.

And Peter gets his feeling.

That feeling that he gets, it takes hold of him, full body. Death grip.

The sort of high-pitched alarm in his head, goosebumps along his arms, his heart honing in on something he doesn’t know about yet—just the presence of it, the incoming, a bad possibility. And it mixes around in his mind like bubbles in a glass, and he winces and pinches the bridge of his nose.

“What?” Tony asks, concern rising in his voice, and he’s already halfway across the lot, close to the elevator they have to take down. “What, you okay—”

“Yeah,” Peter says, quickly massaging his thumbs into his forehead. “I’ve just, I’ve—all the worrying and stuff has just given me a really bad—”

And the ground gives way under his feet.

He doesn’t have a second to think about it, because the cement is collapsing and the upper floor is folding on top of them in big, broken-up pieces, and he hears the explosions and he can’t tell how far away they are or what the hell is happening and he doesn’t have his webshooters he doesn’t have his suit he doesn’t have anything, and Tony was too far ahead of him, he wasn’t right next to him he was a few feet away which is too far now it’s too far, and there’s already dust and debris and Peter can’t even see him anymore—but before it all comes crashing down he sees the glint of Tony’s watch—

And his brain isn’t working properly and it’s all happening too fast and he sees the glint of the watch and a flash of Tony’s face and Peter feels the dust coming and the heaviness bearing down, and while he still has room he grabs the back of the nearest car and he doesn’t know if it’s Tony’s car or not but he grabs and yanks and tosses in Tony’s direction, hoping he shields him and doesn't hit him, and then a big piece of cement is knocking into the back of Peter’s—

A wire pulled. Abrupt. Silence.

It’s dark. Dark.

Peter’s been in this situation way too many times.

Floating in the—dark in the pillow of his head in the dips of his mind while some—crazy villain asshole laughs and makes speeches and why make speeches when he’s in between knocked out and knocked in—can’t even hear it—can’t even quip back—half the fun of fighting with Spider-Man is the back and forth—

Floating, aching in the way where there’s a voodoo doll of him somewhere in the world, and someone is twisting it and stabbing it and stepping on it and pressing it underneath hot coals—

And he was thinking about luck—spidey luck—Parker luck—bad luck—lack of luck at all—what happened what happened what battle was in who was out to get him who blew him up—

He can feel himself wincing even though he doesn’t feel like he’s inside his body anymore—pancaked—and not in the sugar-coated way not in the dough way he’s far too solid for that—solid and bending and breaking in ways he’s not supposed to—

And worse yet he’s used to it—not surprised by it—hurting and pain but in the here we are again way—

And a pang of panic cuts through him because there might be—there probably are other—other people—other people in danger and he’s—he’s not—he’s—not ready no suit no webs trapped—

“Pete. Pete.”

He hears it above all the other muffled sounds.

A groan, a cough, they go with the voice, familiar voice, and Peter tries to get focused again he tries to get back into his brain but he sees his body floating in the darkness like a starfish in the air all four limbs akimbo and he’s spinning like a rotisserie chicken and he focuses on that for a long drawn-out moment and he starts to fade again—heavier and liquidy and starfish and white noise eating at him like old paper in an ancient attic—

“Peter. Pete, listen—buddy, focus—Christ, Jesus—Pete, you hear me right—”

Tony’s voice.

He was with Tony.

They were going to get burgers.

No battle just burgers just burgers and talking and My Little Pony and specific parking spots and the sudden sense of doom and explosion and what the fuck what the fuck why why what happened—

Peter plummets back into his body, like falling from a stupid donut spaceship into the shell of the earth and he lands back inside his own body and he lands hard and then there’s all the hurt, all of it, the hurt multiplying and pressure and pressure and pressure and—

The memory. Toomes. All of it on top of him and he was buried there, buried alive—

That memory tries to eat him.

He knows he got out back then he knows he did he got out he got himself out but it’s still a swamp in his head a swamp where he drowns where he drowns in the memory of it dragged down bogged down—years ago but still fresh like it was moments ago just moments but now this moment is that moment now—

Blood on the back of his head—

Concentrate—

“Peter,” Tony’s voice says, and it’s raspy, and he sounds like he’s hurt, and that makes Peter focus.

He opens his eyes. He’s smashed against the corner of some broken cement and he can feel the blood on the back of his head and he remembers the spidey sense the stupid tingle and it wasn’t the headache he should have known it wasn’t the headache and now it’s the headache and the results of an explosion and he’s pinned and smashed together on all sides and Tony—

Peter groans, trying to shift. “Tony—are you—are you okay—”

Peter can hear everything. The debris shifting and falling in on them and the sounds of his bones creaking and his breath coming in short bursts—

And Tony coughs. “Uh—let’s put a—pin in that—what about you—”

“Um, bad. I mean peachy.” Peter groans again. “Why did this—why—”

“Don’t know,” Tony grunts. “Friday says there were three more—three other people in here at the time of the—explosion, whatever the hell happened, they’re trapped too but they’re—not dead, not—sort of dire, it’s—Christ, goddamn explosion, Friday’s still—Jesus—” He starts coughing, and it doesn’t sound good. It sounds sick and bloody and Peter doesn’t know what the hell is going on.

He’s gotta get him out. Gotta get him and the others out. Gotta get—gotta—

But he’s trapped too, he’s trapped—

He tries to shift, and the weight is bearing down, and—

I’m down here, I’m down here—help—

He squeezes his eyes shut tight.

The memory tries to seep into his pores.

“Gonna be late for lunch,” Peter groans, trying to get his hands under him, trying to brace. He can barely see anything, there’s too much dust, too much shit everywhere. He grits his teeth, barely has his hands under him, but he pushes and tries. Focus focus focus.

“Pete, stop—stop—you’re not a good position—there’s a suit on the way—”

“Can—can you—can you see me—” He collapses back down again. He tries to breathe, but he’s pressed up against the ground—sandwiched between cement and cement and some car parts, a pipe somewhere, he can feel it sticking into his back—

“I can—I can see you, Pete, you’re—”

Peter is getting antsy now. He squeezes his eyes shut, tries to shimmy a little to his left, not even knowing if that’s the right fucking way to go, and Tony sounds close and far at the same time.

This definitely isn’t just structural damage, or faulty wiring, or anything like that—they park in this one a lot and Peter doesn’t even think it’s that old, so this is definitely an attack and people don’t know he’s Spider-Man so this is probably an attack on Tony and their plans were in flux today because they didn’t decide where they were gonna go after the meeting and he was late to the meeting so whatever this is couldn’t have been planted here unless the person was just waiting for them, or it could be some other shit some completely unrelated shit and his thoughts are up and down like a radio station that’s going out as they cross over the state line—

And he can’t shimmy, he can’t, he can barely get his hands under him to push, and when he moves his right arm it gets caught against a jagged edge of something and it’s cutting into his skin and he can’t move it back, and every breath is short and uneasy because he’s pressed down on either side, chest and back, and he squeezes his eyes shut tight.

“Okay,” he breathes, and he breathes out and he can’t get another breath in. “Okay, uh—uh—uh—did the car part I threw—I didn’t—I didn’t hit you—hit you, right—”

“No, it’s—I don’t know how the hell you did it but it’s right on top of me, it’s—it gave me room to move, it—it stopped anything from hitting me in the goddamn head, kid, thank you—”

“Good, good,” Peter breathes, hardly breathes, and he feels dizzy and he has to focus, he has to focus. He can hear Tony’s heart beating and it’s never great, considering everything his heart has been through in his life, but it worries him anyway—and Peter has to—he has to get him out—

He can’t hardly see anything—just blurry shapes, dust, broken things, more dust—

“Okay,” Peter grunts, trying not to gasp, because his chest can’t expand properly. “Okay, I gotta—I gotta get out of here—”

“Pete, I can’t—I can’t get to you, I’m trying, I can’t get—I just need you to relax, a suit is coming—”

And Peter knows that as soon as Tony’s inside the suit, he’s gonna get Peter out, and that’s gonna make Peter feel like shit, like the new hero that still needs help, just like he was in the beginning, when Tony first found him, and he’s past that, he’s way past that, and there are civilians in here trapped and soon there are gonna be other civilians in here trapped because there are always people off the street that think they can run in and fix things and help and usually they can’t, and a lot of the time the police come in and need help too, and Peter knows Tony will save him first and he can’t even help once he’s free because he’s stupid and he was running late before the train made him later and he doesn’t even have anything in his backpack so there’s no way he could even change and show up as Spider-Man and help, and worst case scenario Tony would dig him out and then the garage would collapse worse than it already has and kill the other people trapped in here or more explosions would go off and—

“Peter. Peter, hey. Hey.”

And Peter must have sounded distressed or something and he can feel the cut on his arm churning out blood and his breath is thready and he can’t move. He really can’t move.

“Okay,” he whispers, his voice strained. He tries to plan, he tries to—he’s gotta get in a good position and then he has to brace on his knee somehow and then he can lift but he has to be careful because Tony’s in here and there are other people in here–

“Pete, bud, you have to—you gotta relax, okay? Stop, it’s—it’s not all up to you, you’re—you’re not in a good spot, listen to me, you don’t have to—”

“Gotta get you out,” Peter says, and every word is drawn a mile out of his mouth, like sludge, and he’s getting dizzy. “You’re older this isn’t good for you—” He tries to say it all at once because maybe that’ll help but it doesn’t help, and he squeezes his eyes shut tight again.

Gasp, gasping—

The world spins and sparks in the dark. The dark, trying to lasso him, trying to drag him down.

“That argument is getting old, young buck,” Tony says. “Friday—Friday says suit’s almost here, it’s gonna be alright, just don’t—don’t move, I can hear you’re—having trouble breathing, Pete, you saved me from having to deal with that with your—quick thinking, so c’mon, listen to me now, let me help you, just focus on my voice—”

Peter wants to focus, but he’s getting so goddamn light-headed and he feels like the debris and dust is in his nose and he knows it’s in his eyes and he can taste it and the way he’s pinned he can’t even rub his eyes, and he’s too highly aware of the blood dripping, slipping down his arm—

“When the suit gets here don’t get me first,” Peter blurts out, and he doesn’t even mean to string the words together but he does, anyway, and they come out half-garbled, almost unintelligible. “Don’t, okay? Get yourself—yourself out, and then the civilians, and then—then me—”

“Peter…”

Peter tries to glance around, as much as he can—he bumps his chin on the cement, scrapes it, squints over in Tony’s direction—he can sort of see the back of the car he threw, greenish in color and covered in dust, and uneven planks of cement stacked like jenga blocks, and Peter blinks and the whole place turns over—

“The building isn’t moving, right?” he says, or he thinks he says it. Short breaths.

“No, Pete, just—stop talking, just relax, alright? Friday, are we incoming—”

Peter shouts, all squeaky. “Friday, send me a Spidey suit—a Spidey suit too—”

But he doesn’t even know how well his iron spider suit would hold up under this pressure. And he feels dizzier and dizzier and stupider with each passing second, and he tries to shift again. He’s gotta get out of here, he isn’t some random person going about his day he’s Spider-Man, and even if he doesn’t have his suit he’s extra strong he knows this he’s learned this lesson—he’s—he’s in the same position he was in when he learned this lesson and his chest feels like it’s caving in—

“Pete, relax, I’m—I’m getting you out—”

Peter swallows hard. “No, you gotta—once you get the suit you gotta prioritize—”

And then he hears it—the rush of something, like a cannon—tinkling robotic noises that take precedence in Peter’s mind over the shifting of the debris and the stuttering, panicky start-stop of Tony’s heart. And Peter lets out a sigh that squashes him more against the cement that’s sandwiching him in place, because the suit is here and Tony’s gonna be wearing it soon, the dual relief of Iron Man’s appearance and Tony’s safety. Peter knows he’s in a worse position than him right now, but Tony almost died before, in front of Peter’s eyes and followed by a long, languishing stay in the med bay, so Peter always puts Tony first, in his head.

He can’t lose him. He can’t. Not like Ben. Not when he has the power and strength to prevent it. No way.

“Okay,” Peter breathes, but then—

The suit pieces break into the spot where Peter is, wedging themselves between the concrete with tenacity, letting out little tiny bursts to fit better and form themselves around Peter—

“What?” Peter yells, hardly able to find the breath to do it. “Tony? No, no, not—not me—” And he gasps, the suit pieces continuing to make room, continuing to encase him—

“Pete, come on—” Tony says, and Peter squints over in that direction, and he can sort of see his eyes, he thinks, his hand outstretched.

“No, no,” Peter breathes, flushed with anger, and the suit forms and forms and blasts away the cement succinctly, building its chest plate. “No, Tony, you have to—you, you first, not me—”

Peter thinks he can see him shaking his head. “Kid, you’re more important—”

“No,” Peter yells, better now because he has more room to yell. “No, no, is there another one coming for you—”

“This was—the closest one I had, in a Boston safehouse, it’s from—way back around the time of the Mandarin situation—just get to safety, Peter, Christ, I need you safe—”

“Tony!” Peter yells again, his whole body on fire with pain and frustration, and sure, he’ll get to safety alright, once he gets Tony and the others out, and they still don’t even know what the hell is going on here but Peter is too insane now to even think straight—

And the suit forms completely, finally forms a helmet and a HUD comes to life—

And before Peter can even process it or say anything or yell out in red-faced anger again, he’s blasting out of there through one of the holes in the side of the garage, cement crumbling down into the space where he was trapped moments before.

And he’s flying away because there’s already a loaded trajectory in the goddamn suit he’s flying away—

And it’s giving him oxygen and it’s treating the wound on his arm and it seems like it’s working on repairing his hurts and getting him out of there at the same time—

But no, no way, no way he’s leaving Tony behind, stuck in an exploded fucking garage when some bad guy most likely fucking exploded it trying to get Iron Man—is he insane is he insane—

“Friday, Friday, where are we going? Where are we going?”

“Mr. Stark told me to take you to the compound, Peter, for medical attention,” Friday says. “SWAT teams and Boston police are on their way to—”

“Nope, nope, turn around,” Peter says, breathing in deeply. “Turn around. Turn this car around.” All he sees is open air and the opposite fucking direction of where he should be. “Friday.”

“I’m sorry, Peter, but Mr. Stark told me to get you to safety no matter what you said—”

When the hell did he have time to say all of that when Peter was passed out or did he just not hear him—

“Oh my God,” Peter grunts. “No. Are there—is there another suit coming for him? Is one on the way to get him?”

“I have nothing else in the air—”

“That makes no sense, Friday, he can’t get out, why would he do—you’ve gotta be wrong, you must be—it doesn’t make sense, why would he just save me and send me away and—is he just waiting for the cops, but—but—”

He knows he was not in a good place when the garage exploded, and he was pinned badly and flashing back to that moment in his life when he felt small and trapped and that didn’t help and he was all dizzy and lightheaded and shit, and that—did that just make Tony panic? Seeing him like that? Did that make him pick him above everything else?

Peter feels sick.

“No, nope,” Peter says, breathing and breathing because it was so hard to breathe before but now he’s got all the air in the world, and Tony is back there in the collapsed garage in a compromised position and there are civilians too and the bad guy could be anywhere and they don’t even know who the bad guy is and there might not be one but there probably is there’s probably more than one—

And Peter needs to get back there—

“Friday, uh, override—”

“Mr. Stark told me not to listen to any of your attempts to override—”

“Well, uh, he’s annoying, and also you have to listen to me right now because I’m driving—”

“Technically, I’m driving,” Friday says.

Peter tries to think. He knows he knows there are ways around Tony’s stupid controls, he knows he’s been in the room with Tony and Happy when they’ve put new protocols in and he knows he slipped some in there because he can’t trust Tony to protect himself ever, so he has to try and do it if he can, and he knows Happy saw him programming things and didn’t say anything because he worries about Tony too, they all worry about Tony, and they can’t all keep Peter as the priority just because he’s the youngest member of the team. That doesn’t make any sense, he’s stronger than half of them without his suit on so it doesn’t make any sense—

—and he’s just flying further and further away and he feels like he’s about to start panicking and freaking out worse than he already is and it’s like the suit can sense that of course it can it has access to his heart rate and his brain waves and—

He tries to think—what did he name them to make Tony think it was something he himself did and not something Peter slipped in there—

“Oh, uh, oh Peter P and the Gang—uh—what the hell did I call it, uh—Peter is in Distress Protocol, uh—what the hell is that song he likes oh my God—for those about to—wait, uh, Friday—Peter P, We Salute You protocol—that’s it, right? I enact that, I—that’s what I want, punch it in.”

“You would like to enact the Peter P, We Salute You protocol?”

He feels insane, because he’s just getting further and further away, and just having a super casual conversation with Tony’s AI.

“Yes,” Peter says. “Yes, that puts me in control, right? I’m in charge?”

“Yes, this protocol puts you in charge, because everyone else present has been compromised, and you have the ability to divert all other active heroes to the location of your choice,” Friday says.

“Oh wow,” Peter says. “Um. Hold on that, but uh, put me back in control of this suit and send another suit for Tony, no matter how far away it is, just send it on double speed, uh, double time—” And he needs to store some of his iron spider suits closer to where he lives now, God he’s so stupid—

“Peter P, We Salute You protocol has been enabled,” Friday says, and Peter unceremoniously drops out of the sky.

“Oh shit,” Peter says, flailing in the air. “Thrust—thrusters on—Friday, just help me fly over there, please, back to where Tony is—”

“Yes, Peter,” Friday says, and he watches the thrusters rise up on his feet and hands, and he turns around and zooms in that direction.

He hasn’t been in an Iron Man suit in a very long time. There was just the once, a couple years ago, when Tony sent it to him so he could hold up that falling train better, but that was only for a couple minutes and he was out of it again—

—and he swings all the time, sure, but this is flying, and it would be a lot more fun if the situation wasn’t so shitty—

And the garage is in sight and Peter can see the incoming police cars, still not close enough—

“Friday, can you scan for—um, okay, scan for the civilians in there and scan for Tony and scan for threats. And put all the results on the board—the screen. For me to see.” He swallows hard, feeling stupid, but he knows Tony’s suits are super intuitive so he tries not to show his feelings or feel them too hard.

“Got it,” Friday says. And she very subtly notes Peter’s heart rate in the corner of the screen, along with his own injuries and stats.

Peter raises his eyebrows. “Oh, I’m concussed too, okay, that—that makes sense,” he says, remembering his headache. He doesn’t see any bad guys yet in Friday’s scan, and the three civilians are still there, but one is crawling out. “They’re good, right? Those guys? They’re not dying?”

“No, the worst injury between the three of them is a broken leg,” Friday says. “They were on their way out of the garage when the blast occurred. But there are millions of dollars in other damages.”

“Figured,” Peter says. He dips down a little bit, and flies back up. Trying to get used to it. “Friday, connect me to Tony’s personal line where he was talking to you and setting up his little rescue mission here.”

“Connecting,” Friday says.

And it only rings once before Tony is picking up.

And he sounds pissed. “I see you—what the hell are you doing, why are you heading back here? How the hell did you—Pete, I sent you out of here to keep you safe, to get you better—”

Peter realizes he’s incoming faster than he may have intended and he probably didn’t need to be on the phone with him, because he’s swooping into the hole he left through, arriving quickly to start pulling debris away from where Tony is. “I don’t need to get better I need you,” Peter says, before he even really realizes he’s saying it.

Tony shakes his head at him incredulously.

Friday pipes in. “I will keep you informed of which pieces of debris should not be removed because moving them would cause more destruct—”

“Okay, okay,” Peter says, and he’s trying to be careful but his head is pounding worse now. And Tony is squinting up at him and he looks purely pissed off, but Peter doesn’t care.

“I sent you home,” Tony says, grimacing and trying to get himself out, now that Peter is here in the suit trying to do it. “I sent you away from the danger—”

“You had no right to do that,” Peter says, and he aims the repulsor at one of the bigger blocks of cement and blows it up. And maybe he did it with a little too much power because the pieces go everywhere and Friday lights it up red as the pieces fall back down like chunks of hail. Peter rushes forward and shields Tony from them, and gets bonked in the head for his own stupidity.

“I had every right,” Tony says, glaring at him when Peter steps back again and keeps trying to dig him out. “You’re young, you’re a kid—”

“I’m not a kid I’m gonna be twenty in six months—”

“That’s still a kid and either way you’re too goddamn important to me to let you lay there fucking suffering under piles of cement you couldn’t move because you couldn’t breathe because you were flashing back to what that goddamn asshole Toomes did to you—”

And Peter stops, and stares at him, and he’s getting teary-eyed.

“What?” Tony asks, cutting himself off. “I can’t see your face in there. All I see is me looking back at me.”

“That’s what I gotta deal with all the time,” Peter says, and he sniffles, and he shakes his head. “Lemme just get you out of here and get you out of the danger—”

He hears the sirens getting closer.

“Yeah and you were telling me if the suit was coming for me that I was supposed to go get the civilians first—do you remember saying that, because I remember you saying that, and I’m noticing you doing the exact same thing that you told me not to do—getting me out first—”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Peter says, and he blasts away another one of the pieces of debris that Friday has lit up green. He can’t acknowledge that right now. Or ever. And it doesn’t matter. He would have gotten himself out eventually if he would have just relaxed because he’s got superhuman strength. Tony has a superhuman brain but a normal person body. “And those dudes down there are probably like—Ben Affleck and Matt Damon and one of their friends, they’re fine—”

“Didn’t know we had such a high opinion of Ben Affleck and Matt Damon—”

Peter sees his opening, sees Tony’s legs come free when he moves another piece of cement, and he’s got his opportunity. He latches onto his arm and hauls him out, tugging him away from the debris clattering down. “I’m keeping an eye, it’s okay, I’ll go get them in a second, and I’ll get you an autograph if it’s them—”

“I already got their autograph,” Tony says, holding onto Peter’s iron arm to keep steady. “I put it up at the Christmas charity auction two years back, you need to keep up—”

And Peter gets that sharp sense again, that feeling, the tingle at the back of his neck and in his stomach and inside the storm in his head, and he doesn’t waste time doubting it this time around—he pushes Tony out of the way as gently as he can and starts racing towards it, that feeling, and then he’s hit with an explosion head-on that sends him flying out into the open air.

Alarms go off in his head and on the screen, and he’s on fire and the suit is trying to put it out and he regains control of the thrusters and flies up higher, trying to see straight. That one was smaller but it hit him head on, and he’s glancing around and trying to see where the hell it came from and what the fuck is happening, and his head is pounding even worse now, and the feeling the sense is dragging him one way but he looks down and—he has to make sure Tony is okay he has to—and he realizes their phone call is still connected because—

“Pete, I’m okay, I’m okay, get the hell out of here, I think they’re targeting me which means they’re targeting you because they think I’m in the suit—”

And that’s what Peter thought earlier, but now he knows it, and he’s gotta get Tony out of sight so whoever this is doesn’t realize what’s going on—

And his brain is working on overdrive, and he knows where this guy is because his whole body is pulling him to his left, in that direction—

And he flies back down, weaving around in the ruined garage, and he grabs Tony, flying away with him—

“What are you doing, Peter, goddamnit—” His hands scramble, trying to hold on.

Peter feels insane in this suit but he clutches at him, can’t drop him, can’t drop him. “Get the civilians out if you can and help out the cops and put a bag over your head or something but cut a hole in it so you can still breathe but—”

And Peter flies down and around, sets him down on the ground close to the location of the civilians, and he flies away before he’s really done talking to him because the suit is following his heart and his brain waves and maybe that’s not great, but anyway—

“Peter, Peter, just fly away, fly away, go stealth so he doesn’t see you—”

“Friday, scan for this guy—”

“You’re on the right path,” Friday says, and Peter sees him on the roof two blocks out, he’s headed right for him—Friday scans him, lights him up, and he’s some guy in tactical gear and a mask, and he’s alone, and what the hell—

“He must have been following us—Friday, disguise my voice make it sound like Tony’s—”

“Pete, goddamnit, no—”

But Peter is fully in his insane brain now. He thinks about Uncle Ben, the last time he smiled at him, those last moments and all the years after. He thinks about what he thought were Tony’s last moments, his wheezing breaths, and the slow and sure recovery. He thinks about every moment they’ve spent together and how Tony tried to save him today, how he said Peter was too important and he couldn’t see him suffering like that and he tried to save him and get him out of the line of danger, and he thinks about luck and bad luck and all the silly shit he was agonizing over before all of this happened, and he doesn’t feel so unlucky when he thinks about how much Tony cares about him.

And he has no idea what he’s doing but he gets Friday to hone in on this guy and he flies in and gets him with a side kick as if he’s swinging, even though he’s not, and he knocks him to the ground. Peter lands too, rushes after him and holds up both repulsors.

“Peter stop, stop—”

“Mute!” Peter says, and he can’t hear Tony anymore.

And the guy on the ground isn’t wearing his mask—

And he’s…a kid. A kid like Peter.

A kid Peter might even recognize.

“What the hell are you doing?” Peter yells, and he can hear his own voice coming out sounding like Tony’s. “Don’t you go to MIT?”

“You’d know!” the kid yells, scooting backwards. “You’re always there, specifically helping that Parker kid, making sure he’s got every opportunity while all the rest of us—”

Peter’s brain is exploding. “Are you literally kidding me? That’s why you’re targeting Tony and throwing bombs—why the hell are you doing this? You’re ruining your whole future—”

The kid looks at him, confused. “You said—targeting Tony—that’s not you, is it? That’s not Tony Stark in there—is that—are you the Parker kid in there? He put you in the suit to protect you, didn’t he? Jesus Christ—”

Peter bends down and nearly jumps down this kid’s throat. “Listen, you’re crazy, and—and—and—” He stutters, and doesn’t know what the hell to say.

So he just starts. Talking. “Yeah, it is me, and just because he’s helping me—Tony Stark is a family—for your information, he’s my biological father, and yes that’s a secret, and it’s not your business anyway, but now you know, and if your dad was Iron Man I’m sure he’d be helping you too, Tony has a very colorful past and I’m sure I’ve got other brothers and sisters and siblings running around out there, okay, but either way it’s not your business to be throwing bombs—where did you even get—did you make these on campus—”

“No,” the kid stammers, “that Shocker guy who hates Spider-Man helped me—”

“Oh my God,” Peter says, hanging his head. “Of all people—”

“Tony Stark is really your dad?” the kid asks.

And it hits Peter that he actually did say that. That’s the—that’s the thing he said. The hill he chose to die on.

His head hurts.

“Yes,” he says, because…whatever. “And he’s got multiple scholarship options that are super easy to apply for and get, and tons of—programs, with grant opportunities—how do you not know that? How do you get to the bomb-throwing level of crazy not knowing that?”

“I don’t know,” the kid says, and his eyes go a little glazed. “Everything else is—it’s so hard sometimes it’s so hard to stay on top and I see you around campus and he’s always there helping you but now I—now I know, I’m—Jesus, I’m so sorry, I—oh my God I blew up—did I kill anybody, did I—”

“No, thank God,” Peter says, stepping back, and he gets a notification on the screen that the police are on their way up the building. “The cops are coming. You really—you’re gonna need a good lawyer here, man, but we’ll—this isn’t great but I’ll talk to Tony—I’ll talk to my dad and we’ll—help you out, okay?”

He feels insane, this feels insane, like a canceled video game offshoot plotline, and he feels bad about this kid but he’s also pissed off about it and it’s annoying that the only reason he’s accepting it is because he thinks Peter is Tony’s secret lovechild.

So Peter simply flies away. He puts all the thrusters on minimum thrust and sort of drifts away over to where Tony is, next to the newly arrived ambulance and the three civilians, who aren’t Matt Damon and Ben Affleck and their friend, but they kinda look like them.

And Tony is talking up at him but he’s still muted inside the helmet but Peter can kind of hear him when he gets close enough.

“Kid. Kid. Dammit, I know you’re—you’re looking right at me, I can tell with the eyes. Kid. I swear to God—”

And Peter lands next to him, and Tony’s eyebrows are raised so high into his forehead that it looks like they’re ready to fly off.

“Friday can you let me out of the suit please?” Peter says, the words all strung together. He feels defeated, even though the both of them are still standing.

“Yes, Peter,” Friday says. “Captain America, Captain Marvel, Falcon, James Barnes, the Black Widow, and Doctor Strange have all been informed you need backup at this location. Should I tell them to stand down?”

“Oh, yeah,” Peter says. “They can—they can stand down.” The suit opens up then, and slowly starts chipping away until it becomes a little hovering thing, flying beside them.

Tony’s anger seems to simmer down when he sees Peter’s face, and it’s replaced with his patented brand of concern. “Are you alright?” he asks, touching Peter’s arm. “The police showed up, right? Did they get him? Who was it?”

Peter lets out a big breath, leaning forward and bracing his forehead on Tony’s shoulder.

“You’re okay, right?” Tony asks, gripping the back of Peter’s neck.

“Um,” Peter says, because that feels like a loaded question.

“Okay, let’s go,” Tony says, before Peter can say anything else. “Let’s go, I’ll talk to the cops remotely, they’re used to that with me.”

“Civilians are good, right?” Peter asks, still just kind of…leaning there.

“You’d know better than me—Fri, you talking to me now? Am I back in?” Tony asks, he glances around, back at the ambulance, which is closed now. Peter can’t hear her answer, and Tony ruffles his hair. “Yeah, everybody’s alright. Stark team incoming to deal with the damages—quick, c’mon, Happy’s down the street. Let’s go before someone grabs us—he got us burgers.”

“Did he actually—” Peter starts, pulling back and looking up at him, dazed.

Tony nods, and starts pulling him along before any of the cops can notice.

Happy always has a full first-aid kit in his car when he comes to pick them up. Peter doesn’t know if it’s always there, or if he sets it up when he’s heard about them getting into something, or if he just expects them to need it for some reason, even if they’re just having an afternoon lunch. But either way, it’s here, and Tony snaps an ice pack and wraps a paper towel around it. He gently puts it in Peter’s hand, and presses Peter’s hand and the ice pack up against his forehead.

Peter sighs, closing his eyes, and he slumps back against the corner of the backseat.

“So what now?” Happy asks. “Is what I’m hearing—”

“What are you hearing?” Tony asks. “What’s floating down the grapevine? What’s hitting every grape on its way down?”

And Peter knows he doesn’t know what exactly went on, because Peter hasn’t told him yet, but his tone is in defense of Peter anyway. Peter knows that tone. And his heart soars and sinks with the sound of it.

“Well. Well. I wouldn’t exactly call it public knowledge, but I was casually—casually watching Friday’s live downloads—”

“So he knows everything,” Peter grunts, “because he was spying on me—”

“I wasn’t spying on you, I was spying on Tony, which is my actual occupation—”

“Not your occupation,” Tony says, and Peter pops one eye open to see Tony pointing in Happy’s direction. “Not your job—”

“It is—”

“It’s not—”

“—but I was watching, casually, and then I realize it’s you in there, like Home Alone or something—”

They go over a bump, and Peter’s head screeches with the pain of it. He’s annoyed about everything, annoyed about the entire situation and the aftermath and all of it, and particularly annoyed that this headache decided to dig a trench and stay a while.

“I heard there were burgers in this car,” Peter says, and his voice comes out less commanding than he was hoping and more whiny and babyish. And he sighs.

Tony reaches over and grips his shoulder.

“There are,” Happy says. “There are burgers, and fries, and onion rings. In the front seat up here with me, strapped in safe and sound—”

“Okay well, let’s uh, let’s get to work,” Peter says, and he tries to shift a little bit but he just melts downward, the seatbelt cutting into his throat.

Peter closes his eyes again, trying to focus on the ice pack.

Tony sighs, and Peter can feel him scoot closer, leaning in to adjust the seatbelt so it doesn’t bother Peter as much.

“No, we’re heading to the safe house to eat—”

Peter flares up, and he can’t even clock why before he’s talking. “Why are we going to a safe house, are you expecting a student uprising against me—”

Happy scoffs twice in quick succession. “No, lunatic, but we don’t live here and I don’t feel like stuffing into your little apartment while we try to eat and you’re over there falling apart—”

“Okay,” Tony says, a little louder. “Okay. Let’s—let’s—”

Peter pulls the ice pack down. “That bomber was a kid that goes to MIT with me and apparently sees me and you and you helping me out and he got so mad that he went crazy and decided to link up with Shocker of all people to make bombs to kill you and maybe me so you couldn’t help me anymore.” And he hits himself in the face with the ice pack trying to put it back on his forehead. And he pulls it down again immediately. “And worst of all I feel bad about it that I drove this kid—”

“No, no,” Tony says, shaking his head. “No. You didn’t drive anybody anything. You can feel bad, sure, and he can be envious and want what you’ve got, sure, but as soon as someone starts contacting known supervillains and resorting to murder, they’re no longer in the realm of a normal response.”

“Yeah,” Happy says, “that’s an overreaction, why are we even worrying about that? This kid is a supervillain in the making, Peter, or was, now that you were able to—talk to him, briefly, we’ll help him out with his legal case too, right Tony?”

“If Peter wants—”

“That’ll really get him back on our side—”

Peter groans.

“Hey, bud,” Tony says, and he’s resting his arm on the back of the seat and holding Peter’s shoulder. “I’ll stop helping you so publicly if you’re worried about it, but I’ll have to come in wearing like, a disguise, maybe a beard, maybe some blue contact lenses—”

Peter snorts, pressing the ice pack to his forehead hard. “I don’t want you to stop helping me, not really, it’s just like—I know I’m in a good position I know I am I’m so grateful for it—”

Happy scoffs. “You don’t need to go doing all that,” he says. “You’re Tony’s little favorite, everybody knows it—”

“Not helping,” Tony says.

“It’s not anybody’s business who Peter gets help from,” Happy says. “Maybe if they were little spider people too, maybe it would be different.”

“It’s more than that,” Tony says, and Peter sighs and opens his eyes from behind the ice pack. He can see the look on Tony’s face behind his own wrist.

“I know,” Peter says, cracking his jaw. “We’re family.”

Tony smiles softly at him, like he’s happy to hear him acknowledge it without a big fight. “Yeah,” Tony says. “We are.”

Peter sighs, embarrassment creeping up the back of his neck. “And I might have—I might have gone slightly insane—to be fair the whole thing was crazy and I was in the Iron Man suit which was crazy and the whole like being trapped and hurt and you being hurt and like this kid and everything—”

“What?” Tony asks, cocking his head.

“I told him you were my dad and that’s why you were helping me,” Peter says, fast, and his head pulses with the thrum of his mistakes. “I said that. I said that I was your illegitimate child and that’s why you were helping me and I said that you also probably have more illegitimate children—Happy stop laughing—”

But both Happy and Tony are laughing, and Tony is laughing so hard that he leans down and presses his forehead to Peter’s shoulder.

“I already knew, obviously, because I was watching,” Happy says, hysterically laughing, “but it was just—he said it was such conviction—”

Peter shakes his head, groaning again.

“Okay, okay, simmer down,” Tony says, “he has his headache, he’s concussed. We’ve been through yet another trauma—”

“Right, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Happy says, clearing his throat, still giggling. “We’re almost there. We’re almost there.”

Tony ruffles Peter’s hair. “You’re nice, you know that? You’re a kind, caring individual and you don’t deserve this bullshit. Don’t ever think somebody trying to kill either one of us is something you should feel bad about, Pete, that’s their shitty decision and no reason they can give is good enough.”

Happy pipes up. “Like you told him, Peter, there are programs and scholarships—”

“You told him that?” Tony asks.

“Yeah—”

“Good, because it’s true,” Tony scoffs. “Half the kids at MIT have me paying for them in some capacity. I didn’t even pay for you, you got your own way in with your own hard work and in this instance I wasn’t providing any money either, just support—goddamnit, I’m getting trapped by it too—Peter, there’s no saying shit to these people. Anyone who resorts to Murder can’t really be argued with.”

Peter lets out a big breath, nodding.

And then they’re all quiet for the next couple minutes, Happy turning into a residential area and Tony doing something on his phone. He does it all one-handed, because he keeps his left on Peter’s shoulder.

And they eventually park at a nice house, and Peter’s head isn’t pounding as much anymore.

“Gonna go check and make sure everything’s set up, stay here for a second,” Happy says, getting out and shutting the door.

And Tony sighs, and slips his phone back into his pocket.

“What were you doing?” Peter asks, bringing the ice pack down again.

“Getting Helen on for a virtual scan with you—I mean us—informing May and MJ and Ned what the hell is going on—getting this dumbass kid a lawyer—setting up a few more little programs and money pots for the students at MIT so you don’t have to feel bad about it—”

And Peter feels stupidly emotional, and he shakes his head. “I don’t feel bad, I—it was just, uh, crazy, and it made me feel weird and angry and my brain had already been knocked around a good amount so, uh, but I’m—I feel—I’m lucky. I know I’m lucky. I’m just really lucky to—have you, and I know that, and I think everybody knows that.”

Because none of the rest of it really matters, when he thinks about it. None of the dumb stuff. Because he has amazing friends and family. Because when he needs anything, Tony Stark is there for him. No matter what.

“And some people wanna blow me up for it,” Peter says, snorting. “Or you. Both of us. I don’t know what the hell he was trying to do.”

The two of them laugh, shaking their heads.

And it hits Peter, really. Nothing is simple, no, but it doesn’t have to be. Because Tony will help him navigate it.

And Tony smiles at him, and pats his cheek. “I’m lucky too, my dear, illegitimate child—”

Peter sighs, squeezing his eyes shut. “Listen—”

“I cannot wait to watch that footage—”

“You are making fun of someone with a concussion—”

“I am a concussed person, making fun of someone with a concussion, we are the same—”

The door flies open.

Happy is standing there, stony-faced. “Hey. No emotional moments til we get the burgers out and I’m sitting there too.”

Tony and Peter both scoff, and Tony takes a hold of Peter’s left arm, and Happy grabs his right.

“Alright,” Tony says, “c’mon, buddy, we got a green monstah waiting for you and the others are on their way. Careful there—”

And they both help him get out of the car, and Tony keeps an arm around his shoulders as they head inside.

“Hap,” Tony says, “we gotta look through the protocols. There are too many loopholes for this one to jump through. We’re not running a tight enough ship here.”

“Hey,” Peter says, shooting him a look, “we woulda had worse problems if I had just flown home like a loser—”

“You muted my call,” Tony says. “We need a protocol that you can never my mute my calls. It’s simple. Easy. Not allowed.”

“Okay,” Peter says, as they follow Happy into the house. “Then I need a protocol that requires Friday to scan our brains and choose the one that’s making the more rational decision at the time—”

“Wow, okay,” Happy says, glancing back at them. “So nothing’s ever gonna get done.”

And they keep arguing about it, and Peter smells the food in the kitchen, and he knows nothing is ever simple nothing is ever easy whether they say it is, whether they hope it is, whether they want that more than anything else. And Peter knows they just slipped away from another near-miss and there’s tons of work to be done and they’ll probably be doing it for the rest of their lives.

But he knows he’s lucky. He’s so, so lucky.

“Okay,” Happy declares. “Well— my first protocol—Peter has to meet all the other illegitimate Starks—his brothers and sisters—within One Month, or Tony isn’t allowed any more burgers until this is rectified. Friday, you hear me? Friday?”

#irondad #iron dad #irondad fic #tony stark #peter parker #iron man #spider-man #works by iron spider #marvel fic #this one was so fun and different #i will love these two til the end of time

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