Work Text:
Tony could not look at another end-of-year review.
He couldn’t.
His eyes were bleeding.
Well, no, they were only bloodshot, but still.
“I’m going to go take ten, take a walk,” he told Pepper, who nodded and flipped over the next page on the file she was currently looking at, lips pursed.
They always divided them, the stacks and stacks of “this person deserves a bonus” requests they received before the holidays.
The phrase “outstanding work ethic” no longer parsed with any meaning in his brain, he’d read it so many times.
It was obviously a good thing, but it seemed like a universal thing at this point. Did they employ anyone who didn’t have an “outstanding work ethic?” Did they employ anyone who owned a thesaurus?
The project descriptions were the best part, and Pepper always tossed the ones thick with schematics at him because he wouldn’t try to get out of the work, that way.
And also probably because she wouldn’t recognize a lying-murder-death-robot in the making from a thousand yards, you little bitch Beck, I see you, thought Tony angrily.
That particular “wow he’s amazing, pay him more money” proposal had been years ago, and he’d managed to head it off neatly, into BARF, the therapy program.
And take some petty revenge with the name change.
Most of the schematics he’d looked at today had been- slightly above average. Gooder than normal. Better than okay.
Nothing groundbreaking.
Nothing excellent.
Nothing breathtaking.
They’d all still be getting bonuses, of course.
SI had employee loyalty because as a company they tried to acknowledge when people were doing good things.
So everyone on that stack was getting a bonus, if Tony had to dig into his own pockets to provide it- which he wouldn’t. They’d made rave profits again this quarter. They were fine. Even though the coffee shop downstairs had switched to really, really expensive coffee beans made by a woman-led coalition that was fighting some overlord somewhere by using the profits to educate- someone. Children, maybe?
There were a lot of details he’d read in the last day. The women were definitely educating someone. Probably other women, because women were devious like that and he approved.
Go get ‘em, ladies!
“Speaking of coffee,” he muttered, eyeing up the elevator, followed immediately by, “JARVIS, ask Pep if she wants anything- tall or short; hot or iced.”
A short pause. Pepper’s amused voice filled the hallway, “Yes, please, Tony, my usual late-night.”
“Send that down, and my order, will you J?” asked Tony, jabbing at the elevator button out of habit- it didn’t do anything, obviously, as JARVIS controlled the elevator on every floor above 45 of the Tower. But there was something nice about shoving in the button and watching it glow as he waited.
“Very good, sir,” replied JARVIS smoothly.
The elevator doors opened smoothly and Tony stepped in with heavy feet. It was late, and he was tired; two things that often went together, these days.
He let his mind wander as the elevator sank down to the ground floor, and stepped out confidently to the left before remembering that his favorite coffee kiosk was closed, this late. He frowned before doing an abrupt about-face to take the right hallway, shoving his hands in his pockets and whistling, low and tuneless.
The Tower never closed, of course. That was part of the charm of being in New York. So the night receptionists smiled at him cheerfully and gave little waves, which he mirrored back at them in a much lazier fashion. Security guards nodded gravely to him, and he amused himself by nodding gravely back. Every so often, an intern or a project lead would scurry past, hell-bent on making deadline or erasing a mistake- who knew? Not Tony. Maybe Pepper. That was much more her bag.
His bag was filled with schematics and preventing murder-death-robots.
The coffees and their carrying tray were ready to go on the ledge of the kiosk. He dropped money in the cup- enough? He never knew, the coffee kiosks turned such a profit that anything less than a $500 tip felt like not enough for the people who worked them.
The ladies behind the counter seemed appreciative, so probably enough.
He’d wait to take his first sip until Pepper could take hers, he decided, feeling abruptly charitable with “we’re all in this together” solidarity for his CEO. If he couldn’t keep her happy, she’d go work for someone else and then he’d have to review both stacks all by himself and keep track of who the coffee growers were educating, thank you so very much, no.
JARVIS slid the door to the elevator open so that he didn’t have to jab the button and risk spilling the coffees on their delicate little tray with too much juggling, this late at night when half of his body was reminding him that he’d wasted his twenties and thirties pulling allnighters twisted into pretzel shapes for science and engineering.
Well, not wasted, obviously.
The science and the engineering had been good.
“Wait! Please! Hold the-!” called a frantic voice from down the hall.
Tony frowned. This wasn’t a very well-used or well-loved elevator- most people used the elevator banks that were centrally located rather than this elevator. But it was late at night. “JARVIS, hold,” he said quickly, and the doors paused before sliding back.
“Thanks,” puffed the man as he stumbled inside.
“No problem,” Tony replied, studying the oddity of a Stark employee- no, no, his badge said intern- huffing and puffing and running around the joint at well-past midnight on a weeknight. “Your boss really cracking the whip, huh?” he tried, as the man pushed the button for floor 37, which was the labs, what the hell? Maybe the guy had tried to sneak out between iterations of some time-sensitive experiment, and yeah, okay, Tony’d had to do some running for that reason in his life, he could see it.
The guy laughed, though, a bitter sound that made Tony do a double take and peer closer. “Something like that, yeah. I- really can’t afford to screw up again.”
“Screw up again?” asked Tony, trying to keep his tone casual, light, a stranger who was interested and willing to listen, not a company owner alarmed and wondering if he had to make heads roll tomorrow.
“I missed a couple of shifts- emergencies came up- last week, and so now- I mean-” the man mumbled, and then he swayed, in a way that looked- really not healthy, to Tony’s medically untrained eye. “I can’t lose this opportunity,” the man mumbled.
“I’m sure you won’t,” offered Tony, checking the name badge again- Parker, Peter- and promising the man silently that he absolutely would not.
Wait, Parker, Peter, that name- rang a bell.
Something-
He’d read something-
Why was that name so familiar?
Tony’s jumpstart for his memory was sitting on the tray he was holding, tendrils of sweet scent teasing him while he narrowed his eyes in thought.
The elevator entered the 30s and the man swayed forward, one hand slapping at the wall. “Shit, I- um- don’t-” the man muttered.
His face was alarmingly pale.
Tony felt a small amount of dread circle his heart as his brain attempted to kickstart itself without any chemical enhancements. “You should- you don’t look so hot, hotshot,” he tried, shifting so he was facing the other man head-on instead of standing side-by-side.
“Just- tired. Hungry,” said the man shortly.
Tony frowned. “Even the interns get lunchbreaks, around here,” he chided the man, while assessing if he needed to call someone, and- who? HR? It seemed ridiculous to get Olivia out of bed at this hour but he did pay her a ridiculous amount of money so that he could.
The man chuckled a humorless laugh that sounded just this side of hysteria. “Yeah, yes, of course. I’ll just- go on break. Breaks are very filling, super nutritious, don’t you think so?”
And then he swayed again, and announced, “I’m sitting down. I don’t- I’m just dizzy, don’t panic.”
Tony wasn’t panicking. He was actually considering being alarmed, maybe. Maybe he was a little alarmed.
“Sorry,” said the man, as the doors opened. “You- go ahead, to your floor, I’m- I have to sit here for a minute, low blood sugar or- or something. I’ll be fine though.”
The sickliest smile Tony had ever seen on a human face passed over the guy’s expression for a moment.
“Don’t worry,” Parker, Peter mumbled at Tony.
“Oh, too late, I’m worried,” Tony said. “And I’m about to be invasive. JARVIS, can I get a health scan of the guy in the elevator with me?”
“What?” yelped the man, his head whipping back, eyes widening with- fear?
“We’re allowed to do it, you signed a contract,” Tony informed him bluntly. It was probably true. It seemed like the kind of thing Pepper would organize in advance, knowing Tony as she did. “And you look like shit. JARVIS, take us to my office, please.”
“What? No, I- don’t-” stammered the man, heaving himself to his feet.
Tony, who’d watched a number of drunks manage the same feat, carefully and cautiously crouched down and set the tray- and its blessings of aroma and caffeine- on the elevator floor, straightening back up just in time to catch the man as he fell over.
“That’s the vasopressen,” he informed the man in a grunt, guiding the man’s body to the floor of the elevator. “And you, my friend, are out cold now,” he mused, gently laying the man’s head on the thin carpet and trying to not cringe at the germs and dirt the man would be picking up.
“Peter Parker,” he mused, as JARVIS began to toss health stats on screens against the walls of the elevator and the number above the door continued to climb, “what the hell happened to you?”
~~~
“Tony, what in the world,” began Pepper, as the doors slid open. Her eyes dropped to the floor of the elevator and her voice sharpened as she growled, “Tony, what the hell?”
“I didn’t roofie him,” Tony cut her off, angrily. “I didn’t do anything, you can ask JARVIS.”
“Indeed, Miss Potts, Sir caught Mr. Parker as he fainted,” JARVIS confirmed.
Tony grimaced and reached for the coffee as Pepper made shocked noises beside him, touching the young man’s clammy skin. “Tony,” she drawled, as he passed her the cup labeled with her name.
“He works here,” Tony said angrily. “He works for us, and he’s-”
“He’s so pale, and thin,” Pepper said unhappily. “Tony, is he sick? You should- you shouldn’t be here, your immune system-”
“Scans did not indicate any sign of infection, Miss Potts,” interrupted JARVIS. “Rather, all signs point to-”
“Malnutrition, dehydration, old bruising, and elevated cortisol levels in his brain,” Tony listed in a grim voice.
“I’ve run the check of footage, sir,” announced JARVIS. “Would you like it on display or summarized?”
“Summary in just a minute, but- better save all of it, J,” Tony instructed, waving a hand at Pepper. “Pep, we can’t just leave him here, give me a hand.”
“Tony!” hissed Pepper. “Take him to medical!”
“He needs food, water, and rest, and if we- I think if he’s been hiding- whatever- however long he’s been hiding- it- then- then if we take him to medical he might just- leave,” Tony told her, feeling his heart race as he thought of it. “Let’s just- he just fainted, that’s all. Let’s just keep everything- chill.”
“Chill,” she repeated in disbelief. She snorted, though, and shook her head, rolling her eyes in that wry way she had. “Only you, Tony.”
“We can take him to medical if we need to- that’s not off the table. Just- for now- JARVIS has his vitals up, let’s just- handle this without a lot of fuss.”
“Tony Stark, you are a PR nightmare, I can just see the headlines now,” she griped, as she folded herself down beside him. He blew out a breath he hadn’t been aware of holding. Good ol’ Pep. “You can’t seriously expect me to help you haul a body onto your couch, can you?”
“Okay, maybe not, but- JARVIS, have you done the other research analysis?”
“Yes, sir. Most fainting spells last only a few seconds, as the sudden change in position allows blood to once again easily reach the brain. As he didn’t hit his head, well done, sir, and his vitals are certainly looking much better, we may-”
The body beside them on the floor began to twitch and stir. A hand rose, and rubbed at the temple. “Uh, sorry,” wheezed the intern, trying to rock up onto one elbow. “Sorry, I- must be more, um, than I thought, that usually doesn’t-”
“Yeah, pull the other one,” quipped Tony. “You faint in elevators all the time, or just at the end of the fiscal year?” He grunted as he helped the man to stand, noting the efficient way Pepper took both coffees in her hands and rose to follow him. He kept a grip on the man’s bicep as he guided the younger man down the short entry hallway to his office, and the couch inside.
“Sit,” he ordered, and then released the intern to do just that.
“JARVIS, I’ll take that summary now,” he announced.
Pepper blew out an exasperated breath, probably at his high-handedness. Normally he’d attempt to modulate to keep his CEO happy, but there was no time for pleasantries- this was cards-on-the-table time.
“Mr. Parker is showing all of the hallmark signs of steady malnutrition that has reached a critical care phase. He has, in the past month, neither brought his lunch nor purchased one from any of the cafeterias on any of the levels of the Tower. He drinks adequate amounts of fluid to sustain his kidneys, but has lost, from my calculations, nearly 10% of his body mass since his initial sitting for his identification photograph.”
Tony’s eyes dropped down to stare at the photo on the badge in shock.
The rosy-cheeked, sparkling-eyed face looked almost fat, in contrast. Even the hair looked better. Springier.
Healthy.
“Why are you starving yourself?” Tony demanded. “Is this- we have counselors on staff, don’t we, Pepper? People who can help you, if that’s what you need.”
The younger man laughed, a bitter, rusty sound.
Pepper and Tony shared a frown.
“This isn’t a choice,” Peter spluttered, with a gesture that seemed to encompass his body, the three of them in Tony’s office, the Tower, and the entire world beyond it. “I’m doing my best,” he said, his voice cracking. “I just- I have a high metabolism and my Aunt-” he swallowed, hard, and dropped his gaze to the coffee table as he continued in a broken voice, “She was all I had. And I’m trying to save the condo but it’s complicated and I can’t live there right now, according to the lawyers and so-”
“Wait, wait, wait,” interrupted Tony. “You lost your Aunt and now you can’t live in her condo?”
“It’s- she raised me. My parents-” another swallow, as if the man was eating his grief in the most literal way possible, choking down all the tears and fears to force out words. “So she was all I had, and the courts have to- figure things out, the lawyers say. She- there were so many bills. So I can’t live there because it’s not mine, not yet. Maybe not- maybe not ever.”
“So you have no place to live,” sighed Pepper, her face sympathetic.
“None,” croaked the younger man. “I- none of my friends- they’re all in college. And I can’t- it’s complicated, but I can’t just live with someone.”
“So you’re homeless, and you’re an orphan, and you’re not eating enough to sustain your body, and you’re working for me, what the hell are we paying you? Peanuts? Pepper!” bellowed Tony, waving a hand at the younger man. “What the hell?”
“Mr. Parker is one of 27 unpaid interns working for the university placement program, sir,” JARVIS informed them solemnly.
“What the hell, Pepper!” yelped Tony, glaring at her.
Her eyebrows flew. “Obviously an issue that we will begin to correct as soon as we can,” she murmured with a quelling stare of her own, her chin lifted. “Had we been aware of unpaid internships, we would have corrected it sooner,” she added.
Tony blew out an angry breath. “Not good enough, it’ll take weeks. I know what those university contracts are like. They’re dragons and at the first hint of money they burst into lawyers. He needs a place to stay- food to eat- now, Pep.”
“Then, Mr. Stark,” she said, taking a slow sip of her coffee, widening her eyes with innocence, “why don’t you offer him your spare bedroom, upstairs?”
Peter immediately began to protest, waving his hands frantically in front of him, but Tony rocked back on his heels and blinked at her.
“It would work,” Tony declared, cutting over Peter’s voice. “It solves all the problems. I’m doing it. JARVIS, grab what you can on planning a good diet for him- I remember- something- from Bono, about rebuilding digestive systems, you can’t just reintroduce everything, you have to start small and something something- maybe reach out to Banner?”
“I’m on it, sir,” JARVIS assured him.
“And you-” Tony said, whirling and pointing a finger at Peter, whose mouth opened and closed like a fish. “You are going to eat everything we feed you, and bathe in one of my ridiculous showers with the stupidly expensive soap Pepper stocks them with, and sleep in my guest bedroom until your Aunt’s condo- or some other situation- comes along, do you hear me? It’s not charity, I’m buying you off so you don’t blab to the media that Stark Industries is the worst, Pepper will make you sign something, won’t you Pep?”
“We’ll figure something out,” Pepper told Peter wryly, taking another sip of her coffee. “I’m not sure that’s exactly how it’ll be phrased, but yes, Peter. This won’t be charity.”
“Peter Parker, Peter Parker- why the hell is your name on the tip of my tongue?” demanded Tony angrily.
“Yeltsin’s magnetic grappler,” replied Pepper, in the tone of someone who’d just placed the last piece of a very complicated puzzle. “That was you, correct? He sent you in for a bonus.”
“The grappler!” repeated Tony, his face lighting with delight. “Yes! That was it! I loved that schematic! Mostly his work, but he was sending it in for your contribution.”
“We approved it hours ago,” Pepper told Peter.
Peter, who buried his head in his hands and whose shoulders began to shake.
Tony looked over at Pepper in a panic. She considered him for a long moment over the rim of her cup and then smiled a very small, very tight smile. “Well,” she announced brightly, standing and sidling her way to the door. “I can see this is going to be a great opportunity for both of you. I’m heading over to my office to finish the approvals, Tony. You get him settled upstairs. Get some gentle food into him- I have absolute faith in JARVIS, Peter. Let him sleep in a bed. JARVIS, please mark Peter absent until Monday. That should give you enough time to build up some reserves. If not, we’ll give you another week, or two. While we draw up that contract,” she finished brightly, slipping through the door and down the hall while Tony made wordless urgent noises and Peter’s ragged breathing became more and more wet-sounding.
Which left Tony alone in a room with a crying man, a position he worked very, very hard to avoid.
What did you even say to a man this beaten down by life?
He should call Rogers. Rogers would know what to say.
Or Clint. He should call Clint.
Banner would know something very philosophical, hadn’t he worked in like, Calcutta in the slums or something? He’d know what to say to Peter.
Not Tony.
But he wanted to know what to say. God, he really did want to know what to say, to be the kind of guy that could comfort this shocked, shattered human being on his couch.
“You-” he began, before his throat closed with sheer panic. “You stay here,” he tried. “Lay down so your heart isn’t working so much, or something-” he’d heard that a lot, when the shrapnel had been inching toward his heart- laying flat meant the heart has less work to do, the muscles would do less stabilization work, the whole system could rest when horizontal- “and just- just wait. I’ll be back, we’ll get some food in you. Good food. The kind you can- keep down.”
“Why are you doing this?” the man asked in a broken, ragged voice, looking up at him with bloodshot eyes in that thin, pale face, his body all long lean limbs trying to tangle in on himself. He sounded like a kidnap victim pleading with his captor, Tony thought.
“Because… when I was wandering in the desert, hungry and tired and dehydrated and dying, someone came for me,” Tony told him, realizing as he said it that it wasn’t just a cobbled-together collection of nice words to make the other man feel less awkward about accepting, as he’d intended. The words were real, and connected to a deep well of feeling in his own soul. He blinked back those feelings and promised, “So I’m coming for you, to get you out of the desert, Peter. Let me.”
The other man took a shaky breath before nodding hesitantly, the look in his eyes something Tony would remember for the rest of his life, haunting and beautiful and fierce.
“Lay down,” Tony ordered. “I’ll be back.”
And then he left his office before he could see if the other man followed his orders.
~~~
Moving Peter into his penthouse was a series of learning experiences for Tony, from the first fearful minutes to the moments-later confusion of following JARVIS’s instructions on creating the patient’s first tray of rich broth and a JARVIS-approved smoothie.
“You have been eating?” Tony checked with Peter.
“Yeah, I- I’ve been eating what I can, when I can,” Peter agreed, eyeing up the warm soup with an avid stare.
“So it’s just your fast metabolism,” Tony drawled slowly, sliding the tray nearer as Peter levered himself upright on the sofa. “That’s- causing the problem.”
“Yeah, yes,” agreed Peter, reaching for the spoon slowly, as if expecting the tray to be taken from him at any point.
“Then JARVIS says we can skip some of the steps, maybe, but he’s not a doctor, Peter. Will you consent to be seen by Dr. Banner?”
“Bruce Banner?” breathed Peter, the spoon arrested half-way to his mouth.
“Yeah, Brucie-bear,” Tony said, grinning his most charming smile. “He’ll say he’s not that kind of doctor, but I don’t want the wizard here, he’s awful with his judgy eyes. And Bruce’s good with squishy science.”
Peter took the first mouthful and closed his eyes, clearly savoring the flavors.
Tony wished very briefly that JARVIS had allowed him the drip-feed option he’d argued with the AI about while he’d assembled the tray. This was going to be slow torture, spoonful by spoonful.
Neither Peter nor Tony spoke until half of the bowl had gotten into Peter and he tentatively reached for the shake.
“Yes,” Peter said, finally, making eye contact with Tony, cheeks still flushing at random moments with shame- or embarrassment? Tony wasn’t great at identifying the difference. “I’ll- I’ll work with Dr. Banner.”
“Great,” replied Tony. “He’s good at metabolisms, helped Cap and Bucky- well. When I say helped, I’m exaggerating, but he did. Something about their vitamins, I think. Magnesium? Something deficiency, because of the rapid metabolism. If he can do that, he can help you with- yours.”
“Good,” said Peter shortly, sucking on the straw, somehow managing to hollow the cheeks that were already so hollow and thin.
Tony stared at the happy, bright-eyed intern on Peter’s security badge.
There.
That was the next goal.
Get this man to look like that.
Whatever it took.
“I don’t think you should have another one,” he said, as Peter finished the shake. “That was- I think that was probably too much, anyway, for a first meal, but what the fuck. We’ll figure it out. Bruce’ll help, tomorrow. Let’s- let’s get you to bed.”
“Shower first,” breathed the other man. “Please, please, if you kick me out tomorrow, I’m so- I haven’t found a safe place to-”
“We have locker rooms,” Tony told him, horrified. “You can- everyone has access-”
“I’m not an employee, not really,” Peter told him quietly, his eyes wide and innocent. “Interns don’t have access to amenit-”
“Fix it,” Tony demanded. “JARVIS, you fix that, too. Tell Pepper.”
“Very good, sir,” murmured the AI.
“Can you try standing? Move slow, I’m- I’m right here,” said Tony, his anxiety about touching others- or letting others touch him- flaring to life.
But he’d already touched the other man. If Peter had anything, was sick with anything- was covered in anything, something JARVIS couldn’t pick up with a scan- Tony’d already been exposed. And the man was going to be living with him.
Peter could be an exception to that fear, like Pepper. Like Rhodey.
Tony turned the thought over and over in his mind until he could make it fit comfortably.
Peter Parker was another exception. It was okay to touch him, to let him touch Tony.
Tony offered his arm, then, because he could, and Peter accepted it with a mumble of shame, and they strolled- there was no speed in the movement, not enough forward motion to call it a walk- to the elevator banks again.
“I feel- better- already,” the other man said quietly, as they waited for JARVIS to bring the elevator back up again.
“No you don’t,” retorted Tony, annoyed by the false politeness. “But you will,” he added, in a quieter voice, almost a match for Peter’s quiet tone.
His eyes slid sideways to glance at Peter’s photo on his badge.
Peter-in-the-photo smiled happily up at him, trusting him. “You will,” he promised the man in the photo.
~~~
The next hurdle was how to get the other man a shower safely enough, but without invading too much privacy.
Eventually, Peter agreed to close supervision by JARVIS and Tony in the next room, ready to swoop in if his blood pressure dropped abruptly again.
Washed and shaved and dressed in a pair of scrubs that JARVIS delivered via bot from who-knew-what-corner of the Medical labs, Peter did look better.
Not anywhere near the man in the photo, of course.
But better.
“Okay, sleep, and then- then we work on eating more, the next couple of days. Eating, and getting you back in shape and then- whatever’s next,” Tony said.
Smiling like that, said a voice somewhere deep inside him.
He didn’t have the heart to quash it. Not this late at night.
He tucked the man into bed, and therefore caught the low sigh of wonder and relief.
It was Tony’s turn to swallow, hard, thinking of every five-star bed he’d ever thrown himself on top of.
“Go to sleep,” he told Peter gruffly. “No work tomorrow. Pepper will figure out the contract. But just- just work on feeling better, now.”
“Okay, Mr. Stark,” sighed the other man, clearly so exhausted he couldn’t even pretend to have the energy to keep himself awake, now that he had calories to process in his system and a clean, safe place to rest.
“Call me Tony,” suggested Tony. Because Peter was already on the okay-to-touch-and-be-touched list. It only made sense to keep all of those people on the same first-name basis, right? The man was going to be his roommate.
Yes. Good idea.
The other man made a face, but no reply, clearly dropping off into exhausted slumber right before Tony’s eyes.
Tony looked up at the clock, shocked to find that it wasn’t even much past 2 AM. Everything had changed, the world had shifted on its axis, and only an hour had passed, which was impossible.
Impossible.
In sleep, the man looked, not younger, but older, and much less healthy. So much of his animation must come from his mind, Tony thought wistfully, before shaking himself and tearing himself away. He grabbed another low-sugar, low-protein JARVIS-designed shake from the refrigerator, shoved it into a champagne bucket with some ice, and put it on the side table in Peter’s room. “Sleep well,” he whispered to the man, shoving back a desire to brush a lock of hair off the man’s forehead, and instead straightening to go finish his stack of approvals.
JARVIS would watch Peter while he slept. Tony could trust JARVIS to do a good job.
~~~
“It’s good for him,” laughed Pepper, days later.
“It is not, I’ve got anxiety!” Tony protested, opening his hands wide in supplication. “Please, Brucie-bear, I just- I almost killed him with toast, yesterday, please, just-”
“Tony,” drawled Bruce, taking off his glasses and wiping them with his shirt before putting them on again and squinting at Tony, a small smile playing on his lips the whole time, “you didn’t almost kill him.”
“I rushed it! I rush things, I rush people, I’m going to rush him, I’m rushing this conversation, you’ve met me, Bruce, please, just- take over?”
“No,” replied Bruce. A heartbeat pause during which Tony tried to gather his wits and his weapons, in this brand new battle, and then Bruce said quietly, “He’s doing much better, Tony. And he needs you. And I think- I think Pepper is right. This is good for you, too.”
“You’re all against me,” Tony gasped. “You talked to each other, before this!”
Pepper grinned at him and then shared a warmer smile with Bruce, the traitors. “Tony, he looks at you like you’re Florence Nightingale,” Pepper teased. “And you are taking good care of him. He is getting better.”
“Quite a bit better, actually, faster than all of my models, and actually, that’s why I wanted to talk to you,” Bruce said, as if abruptly reminded that he was a man of science standing in a lab and talking about things that couldn’t be charted. “JARVIS, will you throw up the- yes, thank you.”
Data spun out in bright colors- graphs, charts, test results, records.
The bright blue line for normal function was well below the bright red line of Parker, P. on every graph.
“I think you and your little houseguest need to have a chat, Tony,” murmured Bruce.
“I’ll- clear your schedule,” murmured Pepper, her eyes scanning the charts as if she couldn’t look away. Her expression shifted from fascinated to worried in a slow erosion. “Tony-”
“I’ve got it. I’ll- go talk to him, yes. Don’t anyone call Fury. JARVIS, lock this data, code Epsilon Twelve.” Tony stared as Bruce’s fingers danced in the air and a white line entwined around the red one unevenly, but closer than the blue baseline of normal human function.
Rogers, S.declared the white line’s label.
“Very good, sir,” intoned JARVIS, because the AI didn’t have a panic mode. Why would Tony have programmed him for panic? Useless emotion.
His own palms were clammy. Useless biological response.
“I- yes,” Tony repeated, straightening up. “Yes, I- I’m going to go talk to him. Right now. Or- when he wakes up.”
“I’m sending up two shakes with you, Tony,” said Bruce, nodding at the end of the counter. “Because if the data is good-” and they shared a heavy glance because of course the data was good- “-then we need to accelerate him with vitamin supplements before the system goes from repair/maintain to rebuild.”
He remembered that- how Roger’s body could survive everything, including starvation, as long as it was what Bruce called “super hybrid hibernation mode.” And he remembered, vividly, Bruce’s voice saying, “He’s in pain because the body can’t manufacture vitamins, Tony. It can repair damage- his immunoresponses are off the charts- but he needs magnesium, he needs vitamins, or his cells and systems are in a permanent breakdown spiral without the raw material to rebuild.”
“Right, yes,” Tony told Bruce, suppressing the panic that some idiot had programmed into humans at the bios level for no goddamn reason Tony could identify. “I’ll- make sure he drinks them.”
“Good. I’ll take your ten o’clock,” announced Pepper, straightening her skirt and nodding.
Tony nodded absently and headed for the elevator that would take him up the stairs, a smoothie in each hand.
~~~
Peter was asleep, which was good. He was asleep in a sunbeam, which was- also, probably, good? Vitamin D came from sunshine. So there was one vitamin down, then.
Tony sat gingerly on the chair across from the couch where Peter napped and watched the rise and fall of the other man’s chest, searching the slowly-thickening form for every sign of improvement, soothing himself that this was all okay.
He was Tony Stark. He was friends with Bruce Banner and Steve Rogers.
Peter Parker, whatever he was- would fit right in.
HIs mind whirled through all of the possibilities, all of the myriad origin stories for a nameless intern at SI enhanced with super soldier serum.
Peter’d been raised by his aunt, Tony knew that. They’d- talked- a little, in the last few days, about that fact.
Who had his father been? Or his mother? Tony- had his guesses, but he didn’t like any of them.
Peter did have that same stubborn head tilt as Steve- maybe they’d-
Unethical, sure, but when the technology had come out, in the 90s… that would fit with Peter’s date of birth… and Lord knew the US Army had tons of genetic samples from Rogers.
It would have taken some scientific black-hatting but- but- how else could you get a metabolism like Peter Parker’s? One that so closely mimicked the original super solider? Rogers himself had been an ice block under the Arctic… and the timing fit, dammit.
“I can hear you thinking,” grumbled Peter in a rough voice. “You’re tapping your fingers again, Tony.”
“Sorry, not sorry, you need to drink these shakes,” Tony replied, as the other man rolled over and blinked at him owlishly.
“Okay,” agreed Peter, sounding a little baffled as Tony passed him the first shake.
“Bruce- said there are anomalies,” Tony blurted out. “In- the samples. Your samples. You’re- um-”
-what if Peter didn’t know? Was there a good way to tell someone they weren’t, strictly speaking, human?
“Ah,” sighed Peter, frowning at the straw as if it were a real problem, when he had super-serum in his veins!
“So, where- I mean, did you know you’re enhanced?” asked Tony, before wincing. Rude, said Ana Jarvis’s voice in his memory.
“I- yes. It- was pretty obvious when it happened, hard to miss,” sighed Peter, rubbing his face and draining half of the shake in one very long, very distracting suck. “Is he saying- oh. OH. Advanced metabolism! That would explain why the food I was able to consume- can I see his numbers? I wondered why I was eating and still-”
“Peter Parker,” breathed Tony, “you knew you’re a super soldier?”
Peter stared at him with wide eyes, the straw dropping from his lips as they parted in obvious shock. “I’m not a soldier!” he protested, after a second. “I’m not- Tony, what the hell?”
“Well, what the hell, Peter?” returned Tony, waving the other shake around wildly.
“I got bit by a spider,” Peter explained, which was no explanation at all. “And then- this,” he said, gesturing at his form. “And Aunt May-” he swallowed, “-before I could-”
Tony stared at him, mind racing. Okay, so Peter knew. Peter knew he was enhanced, and he said he wasn’t a super soldier but he hadn’t spoken up about it which meant- what? What did it mean? Nothing. Confirmation that Peter was just who he appeared to be: a stubborn idiot who needed Tony’s help.
Tony sighed, shaking his head before grinning at Peter. “You really want me to go before the World Security Council with a bullshit, he got bit by a spider cover story? And then tell them, what, a dog ate my homework, too?”
“I’m not lying,” said Peter hotly, sitting up further, hunching around the dregs of the first shake. “I wouldn’t- I have no one to protect anymore, Tony, there’s no point in lying. Not about that!”
“Bit by a spider,” huffed Tony. “We’ll come up with something better, for the Council.” He passed over the second shake and gestured for Peter to give him back the empty plastic container of the first.
Peter sucked at the straw and then looked up at Tony with those big brown, melting-chocolate eyes. They made Tony melt, sometimes, when he least expected it. “So you’re- not mad?” he asked, obviously trying to look like he didn’t care.
“Mad you’re enhanced? No, I got the suit, I’m enhanced, too. Mad you’re clearly a lesser scientist than myself, if you lacked the basic curiosity to come up with a hypothesis about your dietary needs? Also no, we are men of metal, not of blood and bone. Mad I have to lie to the WSC? Hell no,” Tony stated with emphasis. “I’m actually looking forward to it. I wear the same tie, every time, I’m kind of hoping they catch on at some point but-” he sighed, relaxing back and trying to look bored, “no one can keep up with me, I guess.”
Peter hummed in false sympathy before hollowing his almost-plump cheeks sucking on the shake. “Must be rough,” he croaked, shrugging the shoulders that were wearing one of Tony’s old shirts, on Tony’s couch, in the penthouse suite of Tony’s tower.
Tony felt a grin stretch his face. “You have no idea, kid,” he told the other man.
Across from him, on the other couch, Peter’s own lips twisted into a wry grin that reminded Tony of Pepper and Bruce and Rhodey.
All of his closest friends shared the same smirking smile, the same mild exasperation and delight at Tony.
And now, Peter Parker.
“Drink up,” he told the other man. “We’re going back down the lab and I’m letting my green monster drain at least a gallon of your blood so we can get you whatever it is you’ll need to rebuild.”
Peter slurped the shake loudly and smiled back at him, straw still tucked between his lips. “Sounds fun,” he grunted.
Tony chuckled. “Yeah, you’re not allowed to be seduced by Bruce’s bio science, you hear me? Stick to robotics, the bio ones always end in screaming and shouting and it’s alive, it’s alive!”
“Not actually a deterrent,” Peter pointed out, holding up the empty shake glass and wiggling it at tony.
“Oh, sure, but then there’s the snot and viscera. You never get viscera with computer programs,” Tony said, “and rarely ever get snot.”
Peter seemed to consider this carefully as he rose to his feet- steadier than he had in the past few days, which reminded Tony that the man was getting better. “I’m sure there’s biological experiments I can run without viscera and snot,” he mused.
“Take it from me, Peter, I’ve been around a lot longer than you, they all end in someone saying, gross, that’s never coming out of this labcoat.”
Peter snorted, and they began their companionable amble to the elevator, Tony’s shoulder brushing up against Peter’s and his hands ready to catch the other man, if Peter looked like he needed it.
Obviously, Peter couldn’t be trusted to catch himself.
They’d pretty effectively proven that, hadn’t they?
~~~
Several days and a hundred, “hmmm… that’s weird” very scientific observations later, Tony was once again waiting on the bed in his guest bedroom for Peter to be done showering.
He was mulling over the Problem of Peter in his head, again.
Not the diet, they’d gotten that mostly figured out.
And not the lying-to-the-authorities, either. That was hardly a problem. More of a bonus, actually.
And not the other problems that had been drawn to his attention due to Peter, like the unpaid internship program and the interns’ lack of the same standard of living as other SI employees. In fact, he’d mostly reassigned those problems to Peter, in the last two days, because Peter better than anyone else could maybe work out a solution and could absolutely silence a boardroom, if need be. And Peter’s eyes had glowed bright with happiness at being given a project of his own.
There.
That was it.
That was the Problem of Peter.
A text, from Pepper: I’m not sending you to Dubai until we’re sure P is in mint condition, so stop asking.
Because he had asked.
A lot.
Tony winced and thumbed the screen off.
A lot, a lot.
This is good for you, Pepper repeated, over and over again.
It couldn’t possibly be good for any human to- to- worry so much about someone else, to be thrilled by their smile and scared when they faltered.
It couldn’t possibly be a good thing.
But Pepper and Bruce seemed pretty damn convinced it was doing Tony good.
“You’re getting attached,” he warned himself under his breath, shoving the phone in his pocket and twiddling his thumbs together, tapping out in Morse code Y-O-U-I-D-I-O-T three times over before switching it to N-O-T-S-A-F-E.
The water abruptly cut off.
The sound of a body rattling around the bathroom.
No, not the sound of just any body.
The sound of Peter.
Peter, who Tony had listened to every night for the last week straight, rattling around in the bathroom.
He’d dropped a canister of q-tips on the floor the second night and Tony had burst in, shocking both of them by shouting, “What the hell, Peter?!” when he’d seen the lack of blood and brains scattered all over the floor. His heart had been beating so dangerously that JARVIS had inquired if he needed his meditation exercises to assist in balancing his stress.
They’d stared at each other- Tony is his suit, Peter in his towel- until Peter had let out a nervous, hissing laugh, and said, “Yeah, J-man, let’s- we both need it, I bet. Go ahead and roll tape.”
And that had been the perfect thing, for that moment, JARVIS pumping in a deep, sonorous voice instructing them to breathe deeply and relax their shoulders, both of them laughing and snickering at each other as they cleaned up the cotton swabs on their hands and knees.
“Tony, thanks for-” Peter had said, his brown eyes looking so soft and his whole thin face looking exhausted if- if happy, “-for coming to catch me. Even if I didn’t fall.”
“This time,” Tony had reminded him. He’d wanted to say something stupid, even then, about how he’d be there every time, but-
But.
The Problem with Peter in a nutshell.
The patient was supposed to fall stupidly in love with the nurse, not the other way around.
The hero was supposed to save the victim and wander off into the sunset, brave and bold and never lonely. It was supposed to be the person they saved who worshiped them, from afar.
How Tony, to get it all wrong.
Not that he was stupidly in love.
Faintly, he caught the melody Peter was humming to himself, tonight, and tried to place it.
-and you can tell everybody, that this is your song-
Yeah, that’d always been one of Tony’s favorites to hum while brushing his teeth, too.
Maybe even his very favorite, given all the memories. He’d paid Elton $1500 to sing it for him, twice in a row, one of few times he’d run into the other man at three in the morning in a hotel. Elton had laughed and said Tony was far too pretty and far too young and far too rich for him, but he’d done it, he’d sung it through twice, just for Tony, his ringless fingers light on the hotel’s lobby piano. As far as Tony knew, he hadn’t minded at all when Tony’d been too drunk to say thank you and had instead wandered off, choking on his feelings.
He really should write the man a card or something. Explain how much the support had meant to him, how much he’d needed to hear it gets better at that time in his life.
-I hope you don’t mind, that I put down in words-
Peter might not be too rich, but he was far too pretty and far too young and far too- he needed Tony. It wasn’t fair, to burden him with- with expectations. It wasn’t ethical.
“Tony?” called Peter.
“Yeah?” asked Tony, standing up eagerly and walking to the bathroom door.
The Problem with Peter had nothing to do with Peter, after all.
“I had an idea, in the shower?” Peter told him cautiously.
“Shoot it at me,” Tony said confidently.
The guy had ideas all the time. He was a walking idea blizzard.
Peter took a deep breath, met his eyes in the mirror, and launched into another leap of creative genius that thrilled Tony to his core. It was so easy to nod along, to make encouraging noises, to ask critical questions, when the project was genuinely delightful.
The man still swayed if he stood upright for too long.
Speaking of-
“Okay, you’re out on your feet,” Tony interrupted, as Peter’s weight began to sag more and more on the counter in front of him. “Let’s go, slugger. Bed, and then you and I can hit the workshop tomorrow and make Pepper a very rich woman.”
Peter laughed hollowly, his eyes sliding closed almost immediately after his head hit the pillow.
“Hey, Tony?” he breathed, looking pale and small and frail.
“Yeah, Pete?” Tony asked quietly, feeling the night close in around them.
“Thanks for-” began Peter.
“Yeah, no, we’re not- we’re not doing that,” Tony interrupted him. “Go to sleep, you’re clearly wrung out and emotional.”
Peter rolled his eyes. “Okay, Tony,” he said, even quieter, his eyes so big in his face, so big and so fixed on Tony, so focused on Tony.
“Good night, Peter,” said Tony, tucking the blankets around Peter. He’d seen people do that in movies, as a kid, and he’d always wondered why, but now he got it. Stay here, stay safe, I got you, he wanted to say. But he wouldn’t, of course, so instead- he tucked the blankets.
“Night, Tony,” sighed Peter, and then, between one breath and the next, he was out.
Maybe they’d pushed it a little hard, today.
Still.
Tony’d caught them before they’d pushed too hard.
The urge to brush the hair back off of Peter’s face was so strong his hand actually lifted from the blanket and hovered in the air.
He forced himself to stand up, to walk out, to turn off the dim lights with a wave of his hand.
Peter’d pout if he worked on their project more that night, and none of the other things in the workshop called to him.
It could wait.
Tony turned, and headed to bed.
“Wake me up if he needs catching,” he told JARVIS.
“Very good, sir,” JARVIS replied.
~~~
Peter’s body, given the specialty diet concocted by Bruce and Peter putting their heads together and running around 1,400 tests, recovered quickly. And then filled out phenomenally, developing a six pack of abs that would make Fabio weep. Tony tried not to notice his body noticing Peter’s body but- but it took a lot of self-control.
And then the next surprise- Peter’s red-and-blue suit, and his black-and-blue nocturnal activities, and his very strong desire to return to both of them.
“People need me,” Peter protested hotly. “They need Spiderman, look at the crime rates since I haven’t patrolled, Tony!”
“They don’t need you, you need you- you’re going to get yourself killed!” Tony shot back, angrily. “You need equipment and armor and-”
“So make me those things,” Peter demanded. “So, let’s do that, Tony. Let’s- make me those things, whatever you want, whatever I need to do, to get back out there and to save people.”
Tony couldn’t actually stop him from diving off the helipad and swinging away on his biochemical ropes, he knew that by the light in Peter’s eyes, by the stubborn tilt to his chin.
But fuck if Peter was going to fall and Tony wasn’t going to be there to catch him. Peter wasn’t going out there in goddamn spanx and wishes, even if he did have a quarter-billion dollars of super serum in his bloodstream.
The tension between the two of them made the Spider Suit Project run at a breakneck pace, all hours of the day, both of them trading theories and ideas and time with the microwelding unit until the suit was- damn near perfect, if Tony said so himself.
Damn near perfect.
Deep in the code, Tony hid a protocol: CatchMeIfYouCan
JARVIS approved.
Hell, JARVIS helped him hide it, tucking it so deep in the suit’s coding the suit couldn’t be worn without it engaging, silently supervising, ever ready.
It would have to be enough, because there was nothing Tony could say to stop Peter, nothing he could do to convince Peter it wasn’t worth risking himself to save anyone else in the world.
It would have to be enough.
~~~
“Sir, you’re needed for a catch,” JARVIS announced, as the suit formed up around Tony.
“Ah, awkward,” Tony told the team he’d been inspecting, “but necessary. I’ll- I’ll email you, Hendricks, and we can reschedule or- send me your data-”
He hoped they’d caught that, as he dove through the nearest window, thrusters firing at full a half-second after he was in the clear.
“What’s the situation?” he demanded. “Let me in, JARVIS, don’t lead me blind.”
“I calculate the odds of success in Mr. Parker’s latest white knight adventure as very low, and getting lower,” JARVIS said snidely.
“Pull back on the attitude, JARVIS, he’s trying to help,” Tony said, although it had been his comment about white knights that had led to the AI assigning the term to Peter’s patrol.
Peter wasn’t supposed to patrol in the middle of the day, though.
“As you wish, sir,” agreed JARVIS, as a map appeared on Tony’s screen, glowing red dots marked as “baddie 1” and “baddie 2” moving slowly to circle the bright gold “P.Parker” triangle.
“Fuck me,” sighed Tony. “You’re feeding him the same intel?”
“Yes, when I can. They’ve got interference bursts-”
“Of course they do,” sighed Tony.
“ETA 30 seconds,” announced JARVIS solemnly.
Tony could see him, in the distance, swinging on the end of one of his webs like a performer on a trapeze, the Death Defying Idiot hovering over all of New York City, playing Skip to My Lou with skyscrapers and some kind of glowing drone. “I’m going to kill him,” Tony breathed.
“You’ll have to catch me first, Tony,” gasped Peter over the comms. “I need-”
Static, loud, obnoxious.
“You need a brain transplant,” muttered Tony bitterly, as he sized up the tactics and rejected JARVIS’s first two tactical plans as too conservative, not likely to get him close enough to the action to actually help Peter.
“-eard that, Tony!” yelped Peter.
“Good!” replied Tony. “I’m on your six, just- fuck-”
“-t of webbing, I need a ride-”
“Got it, let me just open my Uber app,” Tony quipped, his heart pounding as he fired the short-range missiles that JARVIS had programmed to seek the drones and destroy them.
Two of them would fly very, very close to Peter’s current trajectory.
“-op shooting at me! Friendly fire is-”
Tony grinned savagely and swooped into position, firing again, JARVIS increasing his high score as the first missiles hit their targets with a 60% kill rate, a little low but fair, as they hadn’t been stress tested with unknown drone technology before.
“-ony! Tony! On your ri-”
But there was already an alarm pulling him to the left, and then down, JARVIS working with him to pilot the suit briefly out of the way of a triplet set of drones that had- what? Banded together? What the hell had Peter gotten into?
“-ittle hot in this frying pan, you wanna make like bananas and spli-”
Yeah, that was a good idea.
His targeted minimissiles found the last of the drones just in time for him to realize he’d made a very bad miscalculation.
“-ony! Tony!” shouted Peter. “I’m out of webfluid!”
Which wasn’t a problem, Tony reassured himself, chasing the falling figure through the sky as it dropped and dropped and dropped.
It wasn’t a problem, because Tony was right here.
“Ooof!” complained Peter loudly. “Cut that close!”
“Caught you, though,” Tony told him smugly, aiming them back at the Tower and okaying the short-burst report to SHIELD that JARVIS had written documenting the fight and the drones’ capabilities for Fury.
“You always do,” Peter told him sweetly, before flipping out of his arms and giving him a heart attack, only to wrap himself around Tony’s back. “I hate the damsel carry,” he said quietly.
“Noted,” Tony told him. “No sainted aunt bridal carry for the jumping spider in designer pajamas, got it.”
Peter laughed, the sound over the coms everything Tony needed to hear, to get his stupid panicking heart to soothe itself back down to a normal, natural rhythm.
They’d eaten a victory snack while shouting theories at each other and ignoring calls from Rhodey and Fury and Steve Rogers himself. And after, they’d settled on the couch- sunlit and bright and reminding Tony of how Peter had used to drape himself across the surface of it and sleep bonelessly for hours.
“You caught me,” said Peter, his eyes shining.
Tony nodded, unable to turn this moment into a joke, unable to do anything but hope he survived it.
“I-” he began, and then had to clear his throat.
“You’re always catching me, Tony Stark,” said Peter quietly, shifting closer.
Retreat was for cowards. Tony held himself still.
“I never want you to stop,” Peter breathed.
And what the hell was he supposed to do? Declare himself a celibate hermit, find a manufacturer of sackcloth, and design a shack that was humble, sure, but could also handle his pet AI?
Not happening.
So when Peter kissed him, he kissed back, fervently and with all the devotion he’d bottled up- every tender moment, every soft and gentle touch he’d decided not to give.
“Tony, I think- I think I’m falling in love with you,” Peter gasped, after several long, sun-drenched minutes, where the only thing that mattered was making Peter make those shocked, happy little noises.
“Don’t worry, Pete,” Tony whispered, opening his eyes to look at Peter’s shocked, happy expression. “I’ll catch you.”