Chapter Text
Peter pauses on the sidewalk across the street. He looks up at the building towering over him; towering over everybody, making everything else insignificant. He has to crane his neck to spot, distantly, the word ‘STARK’ in neon letters near the roof. A name that, apparently, the whole city needs to see. Peter read online that Tony Stark made sure the building was precisely one inch higher than the Empire State Building. A man of superlatives.
It’s not how Peter remembers him, and that’s a little scary.
It’s all right. Everything will be all right.
He fiddles with the little toy figure in his pocket. His heart is in his throat. Around him, passersby keep passing by, like rivulets of water. Someone elbows him in the back and he steps closer to a trash can to not be in anyone’s way.
His feet hurt from walking all day with this heavy backpack. He has been in New York for hours, after a journey that span multiple days. Even though Tony was his entire reason for coming to this city, he put this moment off for reasons he can’t explain. He went scavenging, instead, eating all the free samples at a supermarket until they kicked him out. It was a force of habit; he has enough money on him. So he bought mint chip ice cream from a street vendor next, ate the ice cream, crushed up the cone and fed the crumbles to some pigeons. Someone yelled at him about not feeding the pigeons. So far, people in this city are kinda asshole-shaped.
This is not encouraging.
He forces himself to start moving again. Towards the crosswalk. Closer and closer to the broad, curved steps leading up to the revolving doors of Stark Industries. A balding man with a small trolley case marches up the steps and Peter follows behind him, slipping inside.
He steps into a lobby that is all shiny marble and chandeliers and chairs that are low to the ground and have weirdly deep seats. On a slowly revolving platform, someone is playing a grand piano. It may as well be raining gold coins in here and it wouldn’t make things any more extravagant.
The large reception desk is across the hall, right next to the rows of gates with metal detectors. The balding man has already trolleyed his trolley case right across the room and is talking to a receptionist. He receives a badge that he clips to his tie and he’s off.
That didn’t look so difficult.
Everything will be all right. Why wouldn’t it?
Peter doesn’t bother to straighten his jacket or flatten his hair. He knows he looks disheveled either way. He shuffles up to the desk, choosing a friendly looking young man with short curls and a broad smile that he flashes at Peter and asks: “How may I help you?”
Peter squints at his name tag. It says ‘Denzel’. Peter lifts his chin and says, in the most casual tone he can muster: “I’m here to see Tony Stark.”
Denzel laughs. A little louder than Peter thinks is strictly necessary. And then just says: “Um. No.”
“Yes!”
Denzel folds his hands together and smiles, in the way someone smiles when they decide to play along with the fantasy rules of some little kid’s game. “You have an appointment?”
“No.”
“I see. Do you want a signed photo? I can get you a signed photo,” he is already reaching under the desk where he no doubt has a whole stack just laying around.
“I want to see Tony Stark. I’m a … friend. He knows me.”
“I see,” Denzel says. “Then I’d suggest giving him a quick ring and he’ll arrange a visitor’s pass for you.”
“I don’t have his number. Anymore.”
“I see.”
“Can’t you just, like, pass a message? He’ll know me when he sees me.”
Denzel says no, and then says no about ten more times, no matter what angle Peter tries. He remains friendly throughout. Unlike the older man at the reception desk next to them, whose name tag Peter can’t read, but who begins throwing glares in his direction after a few minutes and finally says: “Sir. We’re going to have to request that you vacate the premises.”
Denzel looks annoyed at the interference. Probably, talking to Peter is the most interesting thing that happened to him today.
Peter curls his fingers around a ridge on the reception desk. “No.”
The older man’s impressive eyebrows dip into an equally impressive frown and he gives an almost imperceptible hand signal to a security guard nearby who had already been looking in their direction — probably from the moment Peter walked in here, sticking out like a sore thumb.
The security guard comes closer. “Is there a problem?”
“I’m here to see Mr. Stark,” Peter says, and doesn’t unclench his fingers from the ridge. He squints at the security guard’s name tag. It says ‘Jas’.
“He doesn’t have an appointment,” Denzel says in a loud whisper.
“It’s a four-one-three,” the other receptionist barks. Apparently teenagers showing up and claiming to be friends with Tony Stark is so common that they have a code for it.
“I’m here to see Tony,” Peter says. “He knows me.”
Jas says the same thing everyone else already said. That he needs to leave. Peter refuses three more times. And then Jas makes a movement like she wants to grab him by the arm but Peter quickly jerks away and makes a mad dash for the metal detectors.
-
And that’s how he ends up sitting in a small back room with a rectangular table and black plasticky chairs. His backpack was confiscated. There is a tall, slender guard standing by the door. Jas is next to him at the table, sifting through his wallet. “You got a lot of cash in here.”
“That’s mine!”
“Yeah, relax, kid. Peter.” She is looking at his ID. “Fourteen. And you got a lot of clothes in that backpack. You running away?”
“I’m on vacation. I’m staying here for the summer.”
“Here.”
“With Tony. I’ll be staying with Tony for the summer.”
“Hm.”
Peter crosses his arms. “Just ask him and you’ll see!”
“How do you know Mr. Stark, then?”
“He’s my dad.”
Jas chokes on her own breath and coughs, Peter’s ID fluttering to the table. “God.” She wipes her face. “Don’t just say stuff like that outta nowhere.” She shakes her head. “I’m on Tony Stark’s personal security detail most days, kid, I think I’d know it if Stark had a son.”
“What, you think he would publicly acknowledge it? You and your colleagues never made bets on how many illegitimate sons Tony Stark has out there?”
Jas looks at him for a while. “Get Mr. Hogan,” she then tells the other guard.
-
Mr. Hogan is a head shorter than the other security guards, but three times as broad. “Sorry,” Jas tells him apologetically as soon as he steps into the room. “It’s probably nothing. Err on the side of caution and all that.”
“Hmpf,” Mr. Hogan says, and glares at Peter. “What do you want?”
“To see Tony.”
“Why?”
“He’s my dad.”
“Try again.”
“Fine. He’s my spirit guide.”
“Call his parents and get him out of here,” Mr. Hogan says, already turning around.
“They’re in Malibu,” Peter says.
Mr. Hogan pauses, one hand on the door handle. “Friday?” he asks nonsensically.
Before Peter can ask for clarification, a voice sounds from overhead speakers. “Address confirmed, 1184 Langtown Road, Malibu.”
“Figured he was a runaway,” Jas says, nodding sagely.
The ceiling-voice is not done. “I will also confirm that there is no biological relationship between Peter Parker and Tony Stark. In fact, I have records of a paternity test that proves conclusively they are not father and son.”
Mr. Hogan’s eyes go wide as saucers. “You have,” he repeats, “a paternity test … in your records … for this kid?”
“Is this ‘Friday’ the new AI?” Peter asks. “What happened to Jarvis?”
Mr. Hogan stills at the mention of Jarvis. His gaze on Peter turns more calculating. “Get Ms. Potts,” he tells the other security guard.
-
Ms. Potts has very high heels and a frosty voice. Everything about her is rigid. She doesn’t even look at Peter. “What is this about?”
“The kid says he knows Tony.”
She taps her pen against her clipboard, her eyes not straying his way even a little bit. “Why is that relevant to me?”
Okay. Yeah. Peter doesn’t like her.
“He might not be entirely lying. Trying to figure out if we need to bother Tony with this.” He repeats the AI’s words to her.
Ms. Potts purses her lips, somehow looking even more impatient. “What does he want?”
“What do you want?” Mr. Hogan asks Peter, as if he is her translator.
“I’m gonna stay here for the summer. I’m on vacation.”
Ms. Potts lets out a single laugh that sounds more like a scoff. “Happy, this is ridiculous.”
“I’ve dealt with worse when it comes to Tony,” Mr. Hogan says, peering at Peter. He seems less hostile now than when he first walked in.
“Your name is Happy?” Peter asks.
A stifled laugh escapes Jas.
Ms. Potts sighs and pulls out a chair across the table from Peter. She lays the clipboard neatly to one side, caps her pen. And only then looks at him. “What is your endgame here, young man?”
Peter shrugs. “Slumber party.”
“How did you get to New York?”
“Train.”
“That takes two days.”
“Uhuh. Four, if you don’t have a ticket.” He only stole 523 dollars from Richard’s wallet. He wasn’t going to waste all that on train fare.
“Do your parents know you’re here?”
Peter grins and slouches in his seat. “Definitely.”
She looks at him like he is a mistake on her spreadsheet. “What makes you think Mr. Stark wants to see you?”
The words make him feel suddenly hollow, when he had been doing such a good job at pretending none of this really matters. He can feel his grin waver but strains to keep it in place. “He wants to see me. He is— He wants to see me. He knows me.”
“Mr. Stark knows a lot of people. Almost none of them are allowed to just drop in for a visit whenever they please, and certainly not if they attempt to force their way past security.”
“He knows me,” Peter says. “And I have nowhere else to stay. If you send me away, you’ll have to tell him my name and tell him you sent me out to spend the night on the streets. And I’ll probably die of hypothermia and get half-eaten by rats, and then he’ll be the one they call into the police station to identify my remains.”
Ms. Potts breathes out through her nose. “Go get Mr. Stark,” she says. And the security guard by the door leaves for the third time.
-
He fiddles with the little toy figure in his pocket. His fingers are trembling, which is stupid. It’s stupid. Everything will be fine. But every noise filtering through from the hallway still sends a spike of anxiety through him.
And then the door opens and Tony steps into the room. He is casually dressed, jeans and a sweater. He looks huggable. Something creaks in Peter’s chest as he looks up at him. Tony doesn’t look very different from the last time Peter spoke with him, but maybe that’s just because Peter has googled him regularly, or has seen him appear in his newsfeed. Tony spends a lot of time on social media, ridiculing or just plain attacking other public figures, and news outlets take great pleasure in reporting on it.
Tony pauses there, his hand still on the doorknob. His posture is slouched, almost like he is bored. He looks straight at Peter. “Huh,” he says, and releases the doorknob. “What the hell are you doing here?”
His fingers are tingling strangely. “I’m gonna stay here.”
“Come again?”
“I’m gonna stay with you. I’m on vacation. Summer break. I’m—I’m gonna stay in New York. With you. The whole summer.”
Tony looks completely baffled, but that’s okay. He’s just surprised, he will say yes, he will.
Tony turns to the scary lady. “Are you kidding me with this?”
“We just wanted to make sure—”
“Get rid of him,” Tony says. And leaves.
Ms. Potts brushes a hand down her skirt. Picks up the clipboard. “Get rid of him,” she tells Mr. Hogan. And leaves.
Mr. Hogan sighs and looks like he is going to say something else. But then he gestures at Jas. “Get rid of him.” And leaves.
The door slams a third time, but Peter hasn’t even processed the first. His throat feels laced shut, a lump rising with each breath. A hot pressure is building behind his eyes. This isn’t supposed to happen. Everything is supposed to be okay, happily ever after and all that.
“Sorry, kid,” Jas says. She actually seems apologetic. “Listen. I can get you a cup of coffee or something? Just stay put for a bit. Considering the circumstances, I’ll need to contact the police.”
“What?” Peter says, his voice cracking. His ears are buzzing strangely.
“No one is pressing charges. But you did imply your parents don’t know you are here and you got no place to stay, am I right?”
Peter should protest, make up a lie, that he was joking, that he can get a room in a hostel, she has seen how much money he has on him.
But he suddenly feels very tired, and he doesn’t say anything.
-
Pepper slips into his private elevator just before the doors close. She leans against the mirror and starts pulling her hair pins out and putting them back in. “Who was he?”
Tony stares at the number above the door slowly ticking up as the elevator ascends towards the penthouse. “Just some kid.”
Pepper throws him a look.
“Just some neighborhood kid who used to come over and break stuff in my house when I lived in Malibu.”
“That’s called vandalism, Tony.”
“It’s fine. He was a little kid. I haven’t seen him in about four, five years.” Pre-Afghanistan. It happens quite often that things that happened to him pre-Afghanistan feel like they happened to someone else. Like he has had the muted-down memories of some completely different person shoved into him. “He doesn’t matter.”
“Right. But you’ll tell me if I need to put out any PR fires.”
“I will not be dealing with any fires myself, so I can honestly promise you that I will. Gladly. But this is not a fire.”
“Yet.”
He looks at her hands as she twirls locks of her hair around her fingers and slides a bobby pin back in place. She has nice hands. “Go to dinner with me.”
“I’ll remind you that I made a checklist of everything that needs to happen before we can move forward with our relationship.”
“Yes, it’s very romantic.”
She smiles, because she probably does think it’s romantic. “You have not yet met all demands.”
“I’ll get right on that.”
“See that you do.” She presses the button for the floor they have almost reached, and the elevator slows down.
-
He steps out of the elevator and rounds the aquarium that mainly just serves as a room divider, since neither he nor Bruce are really into fish. It’s just the two of them, living in expansive luxury. Even Pepper refuses to come up here until Tony has checked at least four out of five boxes on her list. There are twenty fully furnished bedrooms on this floor. Eighteen of them are empty. There are five office spaces that go entirely unused since both Tony and Bruce prefer to spend their time in the workshop or the lab. There is a lounge area that extends to the kitchen, great for those extravagant dinner parties that they never host. There is a wall of floor-to-ceiling windows that offers a 180-degree, unobstructed view of the rugged panorama of the city. From up here, everything seems far away; it’s alienating.
All in all, it’s a great place to feel both at the top of the food chain and also not really part of it. Tony likes both of those things.
He steps down into the sunken living room.
“So, what was it about?” Bruce asks. He sits at one end of the giant corner couch, under the dim light of an antique lamp that he insisted on bringing in here and that clashes horribly with the modern design of the space.
“Nothing.” He slumps down on the couch.
“All right,” Bruce says, and goes back to his book about… Tony ducks his head to glance at the title… moss and lichen. Riveting, no doubt.
He doesn’t think about the kid.
He takes out his phone and goes right back to the important task he had at hand: reminding Kate Moss on Twitter that he has more vintage cars than her. He hasn’t had a good day unless his online arguments make it into the gossip section of some tabloid news outlet.
Bruce always tells him to stop going on social media, and Tony always retorts that at least he is still in touch with the world outside this tower. He’s pretty sure Bruce hasn’t left this building in months. Too afraid that something or someone will upset him and the other guy takes over. So afraid of getting angry that he won’t even glance at social media.
He types out another scathing message and hits send. He doesn’t think about the kid. “Sushi for dinner?”
“We had sushi last night.”
“So?”
“Right,” Bruce says. He always says ‘right’ when he actually disagrees with Tony but is too afraid to say anything, because he’d rather drink bleach than have to deal with any sort of conflict, no matter how minor. “Sure. Sushi is fine.”
“Right,” Tony mocks. He sends the order down to their restaurant on the 72nd floor. Extra shrimp, as always. His mother was allergic, which for some reason meant that Tony was never allowed to have it either. Once, as a teenager, he sneaked some shrimp onto his plate at a buffet and thought his father hadn’t noticed, but the moment they stepped into the car to head back home, Howard had turned in his seat and whacked him so hard that his right ear was ringing for at least an hour.
So now he orders shrimp whenever he has the opportunity, and revels in the idea that his father is turning in his grave somewhere.
He doesn’t think about the stupid kid. “So what’s new with moss and lichen, what’s the hot goss?”
Bruce doesn’t look up from his book. “Some colleagues found a species of lichen in Lapland that retains radionuclides in an unusual way which makes them safe for consumption by other animals when they reasonably should be poisonous. They’re sending me samples.”
“Hm.” He should have guessed it was somehow related to radioactivity. It’s funny how Bruce seems so inclined to study the exact field of science that also ruined his life. Tony prefers to forget all the worst moments of his life. Including the stupid kid. Definitely including Mary Fitzpatrick.
Hell, no. He does not think about Mary Fitzpatrick. Abort, abort. “So, uh, animals are eating this radioactive lichen, then?”
Bruce nods. “I may need to get a terrarium with grasshoppers in the lab to study the effects. Would you mind?”
Tony shrugs. “It’s your lab.”
Bruce spends a lot of time in their personal laboratory. Nearly all his time, in fact. Tony only goes there occasionally, so it feels like Bruce’s space. The lab is one floor below the penthouse, in the same wing as the labs of their other top chemists. The sort of top chemists who are such experts in their field that they literally get paid to just do whatever they want, with limitless funding available to them. Bruce is technically on that payroll, too. They answer to no one, only send an email to Tony directly whenever they think they came up with something interesting.
Pepper doesn’t like it much. She’s always asking him what they are working on, what Bruce is working on. She wants reports. But as much as Tony doesn’t know anything about running a company, he knows this is how you actually get to the good ideas; by not clipping people’s wings.
Bruce lives in the penthouse rent free, too. He vacuums the place every week, though, which is a lot more useful than rent, anyways.
He has sent out another handful of tweets when the elevator chimes from behind the aquarium, announcing the arrival of their dinner. Tony rolls off the couch and pushes to his feet. He saunters past the bar and rounds the aquarium. A security guard is patiently waiting in the elevator with a white paper bag. Tony recognizes her as the same woman who was sitting in the interrogation room downstairs when they called him in about the kid.
The kid.
He isn’t good at remembering faces, but apparently she’s on his personal security detail too, or she wouldn’t have access to the penthouse. He takes the paper bag from her and can’t stop himself from asking: “Is the kid gone?”
The security guard was about to press the button again, but pauses, glances up at him with a neutral expression. “I had him picked up by the police.”
“Okay. Good. That’s good.”
She gives a polite nod, her face carefully blank. She hits the button and the doors close.
-
“Buzz me in, you loser,” Natasha says, putting her mouth close to the intercom.
Sam buzzes her in.
It’s a small apartment in a nondescript building by a busy street. A place where you can be comfortably invisible.
Sam is waiting for her in the doorway when she reaches the seventh floor. “How did you find me? I haven’t even sent out any change of address notifications.”
“I’m annoyed it took me this long. You’ve been here… four days?”
“How do you know?”
She points. “I can tell by how many of your sneakers you got unpacked.”
“Some are better in the box. Mint condition.” He walks ahead of her and takes two mismatched mugs from the drainboard, rinses out his coffee carafe.
“Why’d you leave Brooklyn?”
Sam finds coffee filters. “The usual, people found it and started to badger me in the street. So I had to switch it up.” He still keeps his coffee in that same, yellowish, rusty tin. “Trying to lay low. I got cocky, you know. Sat on my balcony too much, sunbaking.”
Natasha nods. Housing is an issue when you’re an Avenger. Most of them come from simple backgrounds and don’t feel comfortable renting mansions with their own security team, especially considering they are supposed to be the security for this city, this country, at times the whole planet. But unfortunately, being an Avenger means being famous, and you can only live in a small overhead apartment for so long before some asshole makes your home address, your license plate and your favorite café freely available for anyone to find online, from toxic fans to paparazzi to dangerous criminals. Changing her hair color every two weeks seems to mostly do the trick for her. “I suggested to Tony the other day that maybe we should all move into the tower.”
“What’d he say?”
“Over my dead body.”
Sam snorts. “Not surprised.”
“I think it’s important for the team to bond more, but I don’t know how to get it done. Steve is hesitant about it and, I don’t know, he’s in charge.”
“I thought you were in charge.”
That’s just typical for the ragtag team of superheroes that they currently are. Even they don’t know who they are supposed to be. “I think I can get Tony on board.”
“I’ll happily bet you one hundred bucks that you cannot.”
Natasha clacks their empty mugs together. “Deal.”