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Peter had reached the point of exhaustion where even his exhaustion was exhausted.
Hearing colors and smelling sounds definitely did not seem like a good sign, so he decided swinging through New York might be a tad risky even for him. You know what they say, don’t drive and drink, don’t ride and text, don’t swing and sleep. Given the current state of soup his brain had morphed into, it was actually a surprisingly capable decision on his part. Perhaps the first and last. He admitted: he didn’t have the best track record of good ones.
He’d been awake long enough to see the sunset, see the full moon rise and descend, see the sunrise, see his chemistry exam, see the robotics demo, and see the end of his will to live.
By the time he boarded the train home from that one last barbaric trial, Peter Parker was running on half a granola bar, thirty minutes of sleep sixteen hours ago, and twenty‑three hours awake the day before. The sum total was stupid.
It was stupid.
He was stupid.
Everything was stupid.
The exact cocktail of stupid teenage spite that tended to either end with disaster, tears, or Connecticut. (Guess which one.)
After yesterday’s pretty hectic schedule, filled with the most classes out of the whole week plus Decathlon practice for upcoming regionals (MJ was not playing around and kept them extra time), he’d had the fantastic idea to still patrol. It was the kind of choice that made sense only to Peter, the kind that felt heroic at the time and catastrophically stupid in hindsight. Has he said stupid yet?
Meaning, he’d started this morning,- well, if you could call it morning,- by face‑planting into his pillow at four‑thirty AM after a patrol that felt suspiciously like the universe had personally scheduled every robbery in Queens just to spite him. Three break‑ins, a car chase, two guys fighting over a stolen bike, and one very confused raccoon stuck in a lady’s flowerpot. He’d crawled through his bedroom window with his suit ripped, his hair sticking up like he’d been electrocuted, and exactly thirty‑seven minutes before his alarm went off.
Because Peter was stupid.
And stupid Peter had a chemistry exam that very day.
Which he hadn’t fully studied for yet.
So, he’d slept for maybe half an hour in order to catch up on studying. Maybe half an hour. It felt more like a blink. A violent blink. Then came school. And the exam. And Ned, to make matters worse, pale and sniffly, telling him he was too sick to go anywhere after class (the sad truth). Peter, running on caffeine and bullheadedness, insisted he was fine (the sad lie) and would go by himself.
He was a Queens kid, and Queens kids didn’t get lost, they didn’t need babysitters or friends to pinch them awake while they traveled through New York. He’d been riding the subway since he was basically a toddler. He could navigate this entire city half‑asleep and upside down.
Which was good, because he was definitely half‑asleep (not fully, like he is now. He’s responsible. He knows where to draw the line.).
The robotics demo was in New Jersey. He and Ned had both signed up weeks ago. They’d been excited for weeks. They weren’t missing it. Well, Ned was. Poor Ned. But not Peter. No. That ticket had cost him money. So no. Not even if his eyelids felt like sandpaper and his backpack felt like it was full of bowling balls. Spider-Man could handle bowling balls.
So he went. Alone. Because Ned was dying (his words), and Peter was fine (his stupity).
The demo was incredible, the kind of incredible that made him forget he was tired. Drones zipped through obstacle courses, robot arms assembled microchips faster than his eyes could track, and a prototype exoskeleton had him breathing, "Ned would lose his marbles over this", under his breath. He asked questions. He took notes. He geeked out so hard one of the engineers even gave him a spare motor for all the enthusiasm.
But the demo also stretched into the evening, and the adrenaline that kept him upright burned off fast. By the time he stepped outside, the sky was dark, the streetlights were unbearably bright and his legs were jelly. His phone was at two percent. His brain was at zero.
May will kill me.
That was all his last surviving neuron could muster.
She knew he’d gone to the demo, of course she knew. Again, he was responsible. But he might have left out exactly how long it would last. He tried to send her a text, but his phone chose that very moment to give up and die, and so Peter was left not knowing whether it had actually sent.
He boarded the NJ Transit train back toward New York, slumping into one of the seats like gravity had magically doubled. He nodded off probably twice before the train even left the station, dropped his phone once and apologized to the floor. An old lady with a funny looking dog (animals really did look like their owners. Which of the two was older?) gave him a skeptical look. Peter was too far gone to feel judged. His head promptly slumped into his chest and he woke only when Penn Station was unnounced, and even then he felt like he was dreaming.
Penn Station greeted him like a slap followed by a slap. Fluorescent lights, crowds, noise, signs pointing everywhere and nowhere. Why were all these people here? Shouldn’t they be at home asleep? It was like 10 PM. Crazy.
On a normal day, Ned would be there. It would’ve come especially in hand this time, so he could poke Peter awake, steer him toward the subway, and say things like: “Dude, that’s Amtrak. We’re not going to Boston.” But Ned was sick. And Peter was alone. And his brain was basically mashed potatoes. No, soup. Mashed potato soup. Anyway, he followed a sign he thought said “Subway.” It did not say “Subway.”
It said “Tracks 13-20”.
Tomato tomato. Right?
He saw a train. He saw people boarding. He saw a seat.
He got on and sat down and closed his eyes.
And somewhere, probably very far away, the universe leaned back, smirked, and popped a popcorn in its celestial mouth. Then said, “let’s see how far away he gets.”
…
Peter woke because someone was gently shaking his shoulder.
"Kid? Hey, no homeless people on the train. Sorry. You have to leave.”
He blinked blearily, lifting his head off the subway window with a groan. Every muscle in his neck protested. For one blissfully confused second, he thought he'd made it home somehow.
“Nooo, ‘m home-ful.”
A yawn.
Then he noticed the empty train.
The fluorescent lights were dimmer. The carriage was silent. Outside, the platform stretched away into an uncanny darkness, almost deserted.
The transit employee who’d nudged him awake smiled apologetically.
"Well, either way, end of the line."
Peter rubbed his eyes. "Queens already?"
The man chuckled, looking almost sorry. "No, son..."
Peter stood, still half asleep, slung his backpack over one shoulder and stepped onto the platform.
A large sign hung above him.
| NEW HAVEN |
He stared at it.
And stared at it.
And stared at it some more.
You know, what he should have done before boarding, not after.
"Huh..." It took him another five full seconds before his sleep-deprived brain caught up. "Wait. Ah, no."
He looked back at the train, already closing its doors. Then at the sign. Then back at the train.
"That's... that's not- Hey. Hey, sir? This is not Queens!"
...
May Parker wasn’t the panicking type. She’d lived through enough late shifts, enough bloody emergencies, and at home, enough Parker-ness (tough luck) and close calls to know the difference between normal teenage lateness and actual trouble. And tonight, according to her parent-tingle, it was starting to feel suspiciously like the latter.
She checked the clock again.
11h48 PM
Peter should’ve been home hours ago.
She knew the robotics demo in New Jersey would end late, he’d told her eight, maybe eight-thirty. She knew that was Peter talk for ‘it will definitely end at nine’. But okay, no problem! She was a progressive aunt who allowed room for her kid to explore and grow and prove his responsibility to her. She’d even told herself not to worry if he took the later train. It was a long trip back to Queens, and he was responsible, and he was Peter (and someone else particularly strong), plus Peter always texted.
Except he hadn’t. Not once.
She tried calling him again.
Straight to voicemail.
Her stomach tightened. She didn’t want to be that kind of parent, the hovering and suffocating kind, but he was sixteen, baby-cheeked as hell, out of the city, and it was nearly midnight. Even when he patrolled, he always stopped home first or sent a quick message. He never stayed out this late without a word.
Running out of hair to pull, she turned her approach to the next best Peter-thing.
His best friend.
Frankly, how had she not thought of that sooner? Ned was practically an extension of Peter at this point. Besides, they’d gone together. That alone removed a weight off her chest.
Ned picked up sounding like he’d swallowed gravel and maybe a sock, “h‑hello?”
“Ned, sweetie, where are you and Peter?” She fired off, probably a bit too fast.
Ned sniffled so loudly she had to pull the phone away. “What? May... I’m in bed. I’m dying. Like, actually dying. I didn’t go to the demo. I couldn’t even stand up.”
May blinked. “You didn’t go?”
“No! I told Peter I was sick. I told him several times. He watched me go home by lunchtime. I even sent him a picture of my thermometer. He said ‘feel better’ and sent a funny Lego gif.”
May froze. Peter had told her Ned was going. He’d told her he wouldn’t be alone. A spark of irritation flared under her ribs, not at Ned, but at Peter, who apparently thought lying by omission was a valid safety strategy. She should’ve known. He got it from Richard, alright. The Parker men had a long, proud tradition of meaning well and communicating terribly.
She closed her eyes, breathed through it, and reminded herself that anger wasn’t useful right now.
“Okay, honey. Rest. Drink water. Feel better.”
Ned sniffled again. “If you find Peter, tell him he owes me a video of the coolest robot there. And it better not be blurry. I’m sick, not forgiving!”
She hung up and immediately moved on to her next hope. MJ, she knew the girl as, because Peter had started mentioning her too often. May suspected a crush, but as a cool aunt, she wouldn’t probe.
The reason why she called MJ was that hers was the Decathlon contact listed besides their teachers, and if Peter had reached out to anyone, it would be her. He didn’t have any more friends that she knew of, after all. MJ answered with an unimpressed tone which May had already gathered was normal for the girl, like she’d been interrupted while judging someone.
“Hello...?”
“Hi, Michelle, is it? Michelle Jones? I’m May Parker, one of your peer’s aunt. Sorry to bother you this late, sweetie. You didn’t happen to have heard anything from Peter Parker, did you?”
“No.” A beat. A lowering of tone. “Why?”
“He’s not home...”
MJ paused, and May could practically hear her eyebrows rising. “Well, we didn’t have any Decathlon training today. He should be.”
“I know.”
“He didn’t text me either.” The girl takes a moment to think. “Have you tried Ned Leeds? The two are, like, attached at the hip. Weird symbiote level of buddiness.”
Shaking her head even if MJ couldn’t see it, May sighed. “Already did. But he’s sick and Peter went on his own to this event. Ned’s heard nothing.”
MJ sounded annoyed, not at May, but at Peter, like he’d personally inconvenienced her by being missing. “Yeah, I heard them geek out about it. The robotics Demo at Jersey. He said it’d end around ten and that he’d be back by ten something, eleven.” Another pause. “It’s almost midnight. That’s... not great. But I really can’t tell you more.”
Around ten, uh? What happened to eight, Peter Benjamin Parker?
May’s stomach dropped another inch. “Alright. Thank you.”
MJ’s voice softened, just a little. “Let me know if you need anything. I can try Betty Brant or this kid, uh, Flash, who’s really a gossip queen, and ask if he’s seen him. But knowing the two, that feels like a super harsh Peter-punishment.”
May almost laughed. Almost. “No, that’s okay. Thank you, Michelle. I still have some options.”
MJ exhaled. “Hmm... well, good luck, then. He better be okay.”
Yeah, he better be.
May hung up, heart pounding harder now.
Peter wasn’t with Ned. Peter hadn’t contacted MJ. Peter wasn’t answering his phone. And it was pretty much midnight already.
She called Happy.
...
Happy Hogan was having what he would personally classify as a perfect evening, which for him meant: leftovers that didn’t taste like regret, a couch that didn’t squeak when he sat down, and a documentary about vintage cars playing at a volume that indicated he was absolutely going to fall asleep halfway through. He had his feet up, his drink cold, and his brain blissfully empty.
Well... okay, he was also thinking about May.
She smiled at me yesterday and I forgot how to breathe for a second.
They weren’t officially dating, but they weren’t not dating either. They were in that delicate, early stage where every conversation felt huge and every text made him check his phone twice. He liked her. A lot. More than he wanted to admit. And he liked Peter too, though he’d rather eat his own shoe than say that out loud. The kid was growing on him. Like ivy. Or mold. Or one of those stubborn plants that kept coming back no matter how many times you forgot to water it.
Happy sighed contentedly, sinking deeper into the couch.
Finally. Peace.
Then his phone buzzed.
He glanced at the screen.
May.
For all he liked to think about her, Happy did not like to see her name pop up at this hour. She never called at this hour. Which could only mean trouble.
Happy groaned into his hands. “No. No, no, no. Not tonight. Please let this be a normal call. Please let her ask about... I don’t know, recipes. Or taxes. Or maybe just some late night miracle phone courting. That would be nice. Just anything that doesn’t involve me leaving the house.”
He answered, trying to sound casual. “Hey, May.”
“Happy... Peter didn't come home.” Her voice was tight. Happy sat up so fast he nearly spilled his drink.
Bingo! Trouble.
“Not home yet, or not answering?”
“Both.”
Happy rubbed his face. “Okay, but... he’s probably fine. Maybe he grabbed food. Maybe he’s on a slow bus. Maybe ran out of webs. Maybe he’s-”
“Happy.”
Just one word, but the exact tone that made him shut up instantly.
He tried again, weaker. “I mean... no need to worry?”
Silence.
Happy could feel her stare through the phone. He could feel her disappointment. And he could feel the exact moment she decided he was going to get up and help whether he liked it or not.
He swallowed thickly.
“Okay. I’ll go look.”
“Thank you, Happy. I’m just really worried.”
“Yeah, sure. I’ll call you soon with news. Just stay at home in case he shows up.”
Call over, he stood up, muttering under his breath. “Great. Perfect. Midnight search party. Love this. Fantastic.” He grabbed his jacket, still grumbling. “I swear, kid, if you’re at some diner eating pancakes, I’m grounding you myself.”
But underneath the theatrics and chronic grumbling, Happy’s chest was about as tight as May’s voice had been. May sounded scared, and Happy hated when May sounded scared. Not only that, but as previously mentioned, he might also secretly have started to care about the kid. Just a little, really. He kind of owed Peter his job ever since the Vulture incident. Plus, the kid had this disturbing innate talent for worming his way into your heart. Happy would like to blame it on some obscure spider power he didn’t know about, but the kid’s blindingly radiantly saintly good heart made it difficult to.
He locked the door behind him, got down to the car, and started driving toward Queens.
He wasn’t worried. Okay? He wasn’t.
He was just… concerned. He was responsible. Invested. Especially in the kid’s aunt. Plus, his boss had technically instructed him to keep an eye on Spider-Boy. And Peter, well, Peter was sixteen. That did weigh some. Sixteen and alone. Sixteen and the kind of kid who would absolutely get in the worst trouble possible if he blinked wrong.
Okay, fine! He was worried!
But he wasn’t going to admit that out loud. (Not yet.)
So he checked the deli Peter liked. No Peter. He checked the bodega where Peter usually bought snacks on the way to school or patrol. No Peter. He checked all the streets and even went up to the rooftop Peter sometimes perched on when he needed quiet.
No Peter.
He tried calling him too, hopeful that, by some miracle, the kid would pick him up instead of his aunt.
Voicemail. Still off.
Happy gripped the steering wheel tighter.
Maybe he’d just missed him. Maybe Peter was already on his way home. Maybe May would call any second saying he’d walked through the door. As if reading his mind, his phone picked that very second to buzz.
See?
He answered instantly. “May?”
But her voice was even smaller now.
“Nothing yet… I was hoping you’d have something, but you never called.”
Happy’s stomach dropped. “I’m trying Midtown now.”
But Midtown yielded nothing either.
He drove faster, scanning sidewalks, bus stops, subway entrances. He even checked the alley behind that Thai place Peter and May liked, just in case the kid had decided to take a break and accidentally fallen asleep somewhere.
Nothing.
He called May again. “Only option left is the station.”
Obviously, the odds were even slimmer there. Sure, it was the one place they were certain Peter would have to pass through if he returned from New Jersey. And that was precisely the problem. If. Happy had the feeling that searching on their side of the map had been and would still be a waste of time. It all depended on whether or not Peter actually boarded the train back.
May’s voice cracked. Almost creepy, but she seemed to be thinking the same.
“Happy… what if he never even made it back?”
Happy didn’t answer right away. He didn’t trust his own voice. What he’d thought was just Peter being… Peter,- way in over his head, distracted, a walking disaster with a genius‑level IQ (why were geniuses so tiresome?),- had turned into something else entirely. Something that made his stomach drop and his hands go cold.
Man, this was one of those nights. The bad kind. The “Tony’s gonna lose his mind” kind.
Shit, he didn’t even want to think about telling Tony Stark that he lost the kid.
When he finally spoke, it was gentle. As gentle as possible. "Then we’ll find out where he did go.” You know, punctuated by the uneasiness of having suddenly remembered that, if in fact they didn’t, then he’d rightly have to inform Tony. And that would NOT be pretty.
“Oh, Peter…" She sighed, "I always knew one day he’d pay the price for that stupid alter-ego!”
“Don’t say that, May.”
He could hear her breathing unevenly. He hated that. He hated that she was scared. He hated that he couldn’t fix it.
“He’s still just a kid,” she whispered, the sudden burst of fight burning out surprisingly fast. “And it’s so late. And he’s out there alone.”
Happy pressed harder on the gas. “I know, May. But he's also tough and you know it.”
He glanced at the clock on the dashboard.
00h39 AM
Peter Parker was officially missing.
And Happy Hogan was officially done pretending he wasn’t worried.
...
1h50 AM
After getting scolded by Pepper and sentenced to bed like a misbehaving toddler, Tony was obviously still in the workshop, tail firmly between his legs and ‘totally doing that’ while actually hunched over a half‑built repulsor, soldering circuits like a raccoon caught stealing trash.
He’d just gotten the calibration to behave when his phone buzzed.
At first he jumped, thinking it was Pepper returning for the final round. He would not survive that. Looking over his shoulder and finding no such enraged strawberry-blond, Tony exhaled in relief and dived back to work. Just his phone. At that hour, FRIDAY was momentarily off for upgrades. He hadn’t heard his actual phone ring in a while.
Still, Tony didn’t even bother checking the screen. Only a handful of people ever called him at this hour. Pepper, Rhodey, and Happy. Pepper had already yelled at him and they lived under the same roof. Rhodey actually slept and had a job, like a functional human being. So, unless the world was ending, it was unlikely that it was him, and Tony hadn’t yet heard the screams of hell outside the tower.
That left one option. Happy was the only one who didn’t know better.
“Happy,” he answered, distracted, “my building better be on fire, or your building better be on fire, or you better be on fire, else I’m firing you.”
“Uh… yeah, okay, funny. Boss, look… we have a situation. A real one.”
Happy normally got jumpy after Tony threatened to fire him for sport, but this wasn’t his usual nervous‑laugh kind of jumpy. His voice came through distressed enough to make Tony blink twice.
“What?” He said, already annoyed. What was it now? What had been stolen? What had exploded? Who was suing them? “Why do you sound like you’re about to confess to a crime?”
Happy inhaled shakily. “Okay, so… don’t freak out.”
Tony rolled his eyes.
“Hap, obviously I’m gonna freak out if you tell me not to freak out. Just spit it out!”
“It’s Peter.”
See, that was precisely the word combo he had nightmares about. The word combo that invaded his melanin cells and drained the colour from his fine hair and goatee. ‘It’s’ followed by ‘Peter’. As in Peter Parker. As in his very personal disaster magnet. Personal problem child. Personal cardiac event in the making.
Tony paused, but only for a second.
He kept his tone light.
“Parker?” He tried, hoping against hope to be wrong.
Silly question. Obviously. How many other Peters could it be? How many other Peters could drive Happy to the edge of panic at 2 AM on a Thursday night? But still, it could be about Peter Snotgrass from I&R, right? His good faithful lead scientist with the suckiest Harry-Potter-round glasses ever made. The guy who once centrifuged his own ID badge. Or maybe Peter Dinklage, the only Peter Tony would trust to survive New York at this late hour. What could he be in need of? A Stark‑tech beard trimmer? A functioning robot dragon? Tony drew the line at weaponizable incest thrones.
“Yes.”
“What about him? Did he get stuck in a tree saving a cat again?” He kept his tone breezy, even as a quiet, unwelcome worry pressed at the back of his mind. Happy wouldn’t call for nothing. And it really wasn’t Peter Dinklage.
Well, actually, he would call for nothing. He had before. Happy tended to panic sometimes, which wasn’t exactly the best trait for a chief of security, he guessed, but Tony liked the personality the overboard anxiety provided his friend with. It made things interesting. It made Happy Happy.
So this probably wasn’t life or death.
Probably.
It might be. Or not.
But his stupid PTSD‑wired, hyper brain didn’t care about probably. It was already conjuring images he didn’t want: Peter possibly bleeding out in some alley, hurt, alone, after doing something stupid and heroic and entirely too brave for his own good.
Tony pushed the thought down hard, like slamming a door shut. He bolted it close, then did the same to any mental windows. He wasn’t going there. Nope. Keep working on the repulsor, Tony.
“He didn’t come home.”
Tony blinked again.
He hadn’t expected that.
For a split second, something cold flickered through his chest. But it wasn’t the worst‑case scenario his brain liked to throw at him, so he leaned back, secretly relieved.
Good, he thought, he’s not certainly bleeding out in some alley. Yet.
Still, irritation rose to fill the space worry tried to take. Why was Happy bothering him with this? He wasn’t Peter’s dad. Aunt Fine was in charge of curfew, not him. Why would he care if the kid took too long at his friend’s house, or got distracted by some baby pigeons on the way back from patrol and lost track of time (because, let’s face it, those were the likely reasons). He was supposed to be the mentor, the tech guy, sure, the “don’t die, kid” voice, but not the person who got midnight updates on Peter’s bedtime status. He didn’t care.
Seriously, he didn’t.
“So find him. That’s your job.”
Happy made a noise somewhere between a groan and a dying hyena. “I’ve been looking for hours! His aunt’s beside herself with worry.”
“Oh, so you two have been talking, huh?”
“Tony,” Happy cried.
Tony scoffed, letting denial and snark cover the worry pressing at his ribs. The friend hangout and the baby pigeons were a possibility, but so was the barging into some crime lord’s evil lair on his own and getting bonked in the head, captured, left to bleed out on some alley: hurt, alone, after doing something stupid and heroic and entirely too brave for his own good. You know, the Spider-Man side of the issue.
And he’s back on his damned soapbox...
“He’s on the baby-ish side, sure, but he can find his way home.”
Happy didn’t laugh. Happy hadn’t left the soapbox for a second.
“I think the kid might be in serious trouble.” And that was Happy’s serious voice. Okay, this was serious. Not a false alarm. Not a nice green dressed as fake red.
Peter Parker finally cashed in the inevitable‑disaster coupon Tony’d been waiting for any day now.
“He’s not answering his phone.” Happy’s voice cracked. “I checked everywhere. Everywhere he’d normally go. He’s not at school. He’s not at his friend’s. He’s not at the delis. He’s not anywhere. I honestly don’t think he’s even in Queens."
Tony shifted, effectively ditching the repulsor. He frowned.
“Why not Queens?” He spoke, slower now, suspicious. "Where else is he supposed to be?”
“New Jersey.”
“New Jersey?”
“Some robotics club, I don’t know! Said he’d be home by nine. No calls. No texts. No location. It’s been hours, Tony, hours, and you know how the kid is. He’s like honey for danger-flies, I swear, it’s unnatural! It’s like a bug to a bug zapper! Or, or like he’s allergic to normal! Or...”
His friend’s voice officially cracked the panic ceiling.
“I swear…" Tony exhaled. "So we’re actually filing the kid under 'missing person'.”
Happy didn’t answer immediately. Which was its own answer.
“I mean… unofficially?” The man said. “Yeah. Kind of.”
Tony’s jaw tightened.
He didn’t like that. He didn’t like any of this. It made him feel things he would rather not acknowledge nor name.
“Okay,” Tony muttered, snapping to action. He clapped his hands, and reached for his tablet.
He had a mission. He was the mentor, the tech guy, the “don’t die, kid” and for that, he had to actually find the kid and keep him from dying. Easy peasy. He wasn’t worried. It wasn’t unsettling at all, not even a little, to think about Peter Parker as a missing person. Nope. Not unsettling. Not the kind of thought that made his stomach drop into his shoes.
It reminded him of those crime shows Pepper liked to watch before bed. Those with dramatic reenactments and ominous music. He could practically see it: Peter’s face on some serial killer’s victim list, tragic monologue going on, grainy photo and absurdly young age written below for the whole world to see how much potential had been wasted.
“Jesus,” Tony muttered, shaking his head hard. “What the hell am I even thinking?”
Peter wasn’t a victim. He wasn’t on a list. He was Spider-Man and could catch a bus with his bare hands. He was just... on unknown whereabouts in unknown circumstances. Which was stupid. And unfair. And absolutely Pepper’s fault for watching those shows and letting them mess with his head instead.
“Fine. Fine. It’s fine. I can find him no problem.” His fingers practically flew over the screen. “FRIDAY, track the kid. Phone, suit, toothbrush, whatever he’s got on him.”
It took perhaps half a minute until FRIDAY chimed in. “Last phone signal registered in New Jersey at 10:12 PM, Jersey City Boulevard near the Liberty Science Center.”
That must've been right before his phone died (or got destroyed).
Tony nodded fast. “Great. Perfect. So he really isn’t in Queens, love that. Okay, FRIDAY, pull up the suit diagnostics and check for any crime reports or weird events in that area. If there was trouble, Spider-Disaster would’ve swung straight into it.”
Except…
“Boss, I’m afraid the suit has been offline for hours. Last registered location is Queens, May Parker’s apartment.”
“I’m sorry. What?” Tony blinked hard. “He left it at home?!”
Tony stared at the ceiling, where FRIDAY’s voice exited from, offended on a spiritual level, feeling like the universe had personally wronged him. Either that, or the kid had officially been sick in the head and not himself.
“He always has the suit,” he said, voice climbing fast. “He’s always in the suit. He lives for that suit. The suit protects his life. That’s the whole point of the suit. That’s the entire point. What do you mean he doesn’t have the suit? That’s-”
“Please stop saying suit,” Happy cut in. “You’re panicking.”
Right. Happy was still on the call, he’d forgotten. How had he forgotten?
“I’m not panicking,” Tony snapped. “I’m offended.”
“This is why I didn’t want to tell you. I knew you’d get all… all Tony over the kid.” His friend lamented.
And what did getting all Tony exactly mean?
Tony pinched the bridge of his nose. “Happy, what are you waiting for? A formal request? Get your ass to New Jersey and look for the kid already or you’re fired.”
Happy made a noise like a dying blender. “You can’t fire me for-”
“I’ll find a loophole," Tony said, and cut the call.
Maybe he’d been slightly harsher than usual, Tony felt almost sorry. But Happy was a grown man used to his antics and he knew they really didn’t get any better with missing Peter Parkers added on top of Tony’s list of problems.
Because this was worse.
So much worse.
If Peter got into trouble as Spider‑Man, that was one category of disaster,- a category Tony could handle, could predict, could fix.
But trouble as Peter Parker? As a civilian? No armor around him. No backup. No warning systems. No safety net. Perfect. Perfect. Why not wear a sign that says ‘please abduct me’ while he’s at it?
...
Tony had every screen in the workshop lit up like he was trying to hack the moon.
Street cams; park cams; traffic cams; hacked building feeds; hacked municipal servers; hacked things he was pretty sure weren’t meant to be hackable, all flickering in frantic loops as FRIDAY tried to stitch together a timeline. He, meanwhile, paced in tight, angry circles, grumbling to himself, hair sticking up like he’d been electrocuted by his own anxiety.
“Next angle,” he snapped.
The footage jumped: Peter walking fast down Jersey City Boulevard, backpack bouncing, hoodie up (he’d only identified him by the bright red high‑tops with white soles, loud enough to be seen from space. The poor things had been begging for retirement for months, and Tony had wanted to help them achieve that, but Peter was the most annoyingly unostentatious teenager in the world. They were scuffed from unplanned rooftop landings and bus-chases, the laces mismatched (one white, one red, because of course), and the toe on the left shoe had a tiny tear that sealed the deal on a particularly good feed.) Then another camera caught him cutting across the Liberty State Park paths. Then the station entrance.
Peter went inside, head down, and that’s the last Tony saw of him.
Because the feed died.
Tony stared at the blank screen like it’d just gained life and called him a moron.
FRIDAY explained, annoyingly calm: “Station cameras and electronics experienced a full malfunction starting at 10 PM. Hacker.”
Tony threw his hands up. “Of course they did.” It was like, wherever Peter went, bad luck followed him. Parker Luck, was it? Apparently contagious, and a pesky little curse. Amazing.
He zoomed out, pulling up a map, not one to give up.
“He made it inside. But we can’t see where he went. So far he hasn’t exited either station. So either he teleported or he’s a slippery little spider who decided to vanish into thin air like some kind of arachnid Houdini.”
Or he took the wrong train. Also a plausible hypothesis. Hadn’t Peter been taking trains his whole life. No, the axe murderer one was still top of the list. Or aliens.
Still, FRIDAY began running every possible route he could have taken. There were more stops than Tony had ever really thought about. Then again, he never really used public transportation in his life.
“FRIDAY, faster.”
“I am already running at maximum capacity.”
“Run at more maximum capacity.”
“That is not how maximum works, Boss.”
Tony groaned into both hands. “I hate cameras. I hate transit systems. I hate New Jersey. I hate-”
Thanks to his impending meltdown, he didn’t hear Pepper until she spoke.
“TONY!”
He jumped so hard he nearly took down some equipment.
Pepper stood in the doorway in pajama pants, hair in a bun, and the exact expression of a woman who had woken up to an empty bed and so the probability of a fiancé doing something catastrophically stupid.
“What,” she demanded, “are you doing? You said you were coming right up. That was hours ago!”
Tony gestured wildly at the screens. “Pep, I can explain-”
Pepper marched toward him like she was about to arrest him. Which he wouldn’t be complaining about any other time. “You’re hacking public infrastructure at four in the morning.”
“I’m calm! I’m super calm. This is important.”
“More important than sleep for someone with cardiac issues? You’re a disaster. What am I gonna do with you, Tony?”
Finally breaking out of her angry stupor, she seemed to notice just how agitated he looked. Far from the easy Tony she’d left to ‘finish up’ before heading to bed. She grabbed his chin and forced him to look at her.
“You’re vibrating… What happened?”
Tony cracked, “fine. I’m a disaster. The kid is missing.” He deflated.
“What?”
“Happy called me, panties in a twist. Apparently, Peter never made it home to his aunt.”
Pepper blinked. Yeah, that’d been his reaction as well. Easy to expect given the circumstances, hard to understand it’d actually happened.
“Well, have you found anything?”
“I’m trying.”
“How hard can it be to track one kid?”
“That’s what I’ve been asking myself this whole night!”
Tony looked close to ripping his own hair out. It was honestly impressive. Imagine a billionaire, a genius, arguably the smartest man alive and owner of technology that could probably locate a fruit fly in orbit,- unable to find one Queens kid in New Jersey. What a blow. How did Peter do it? It took talent. Terrible, infuriating talent.
Pepper’s anger softened, but only slightly. Instead, it sharpened into focus. She stepped beside him, eyes scanning the screens. “Okay, breathe. This is the first twenty‑four hours. Until that mark, we’ve got time.”
His eye twitched. Tony stared at her like she’d just told him the sun was made of cheese instead of the moon. “Pep, I love you but that is not helping. At all. That is anti‑help. That is negative help.”
Pepper ignored him, leaning closer to the footage.
“You’re trying Penn Station’s security feeds?”
Tony rubbed both hands down his face, almost in an attempt to erase it. “I would if they hadn’t stopped working at the exact, convenient period the kid might’ve been there. Puny hacker. Because of course they did. Because of course Parker Luck decided to throw a tantrum and take down half the country's railroad systems. Apparently it’s contagious, it’s affecting me too.”
Pepper frowned, tilting her head. “Parker luck…?”
“Something the kid keeps grumbling about. Apparently it runs in the family. Peter says all Parkers have it, but he’s the heir so he gets double. Some cosmic joke that follows them around. Bad luck.” He shrugged, glancing at the holograms like he’s not totally invested in the story. “It’s like the universe wakes up every morning and says, ‘let’s bully a Parker today.’”
When he turned back around, she was standing there just staring at him, unblinking. That single eyebrow raised that always drives him crazy.
“What?” He asked, sharper than he meant to. He’s not sure why he suddenly felt so defensive.
Pepper blinked once. “Nothing. Makes perfect sense.” (It absolutely did not.) She crossed her arms, chin tilting forward in that 'okayyyy, moving on before you combust' way she had.
“What else?”
“Private phone cameras and social media posts,” Tony said, starting to pace like a caffeinated squirrel. His hands waved widely about as he went. “People are always snapping and saying goodbye to each other at these places. Someone might’ve captured him too.”
Pepper’s nose twitched at that. Her CEO 'this is illegal and I don’t like it' twitch. But even she knew better than to tell him not to do something illegal right now. Not when Peter was missing. Not when Tony looked like he was about to start gnawing on the furniture any second now.
A brief moment of quiet settled.
Tony rubbed his face again, harder this time, like he was trying to reboot himself manually. What good was a genius if he was too tired to use the genius part?
Then, his fiancée hummed, like she’d just remembered something. “You’re staring at the station cameras like they’re going to magically resurrect. Use something else.”
Tony froze mid‑pace. “Something else?”
“See? If you’d come to bed when I told you to, you’d be the one doing the thinking now.” Pepper shook her head, then pointed at the station’s railroad map between New Jersey and Queens on one of the holograms. “His student transit card. Hack it. If he boarded anything, it might’ve pinged.”
Tony blinked. “Uh, I thought he used cash… Kid’s always counting his little coins before he leaves the lab.” He frowned. “Though it might be to buy food on the way home. I don’t understand why he doesn’t accept dinner here. We have a perfectly good chef.”
“Oh Tony.”
He looked up.
Pepper gave him a look that said you are a billionaire and sometimes it shows. “You didn’t think about the transit card because you haven’t taken public transportation since the Clinton administration, did you?”
Tony opened his mouth, closed it, then threw his hands up in surrender. “I- yep. But in my defense I’m tired. And stressed. And I’m rich, yes, thank you for the reminder.”
That earned him a soft, equally tired shake of head.
“Either way, while that’s a lovely idea, Parker Luck made it so a hacker attack on the railroads happened during that exact period, remember? It wasn't just the cameras that went off. Rest of their digital structure is dead too. No scanning, no pinging, no nothing. I can try the record, in case they’ve got that up by now but I doubt it.”
“In the meantime,” Pepper urged him on, “who knows, he might swipe his card somewhere else.”
“Not if he’s bleeding out in an alley. Well, he would’ve been done bleeding out by now- nope! Nope. Not saying that. Not thinking that.”
Pepper gave him a look. He couldn’t tell if it was exasperation of pity. A healthy mix of both.
“Hope, Tony. Have some faith in Peter.”
Tony pointed at her. “Don’t weaponize hope and faith against me. You know I value neither.”
Pepper raised a single eyebrow.
Tony sighed.
“Okay, okay. Thanks. Really. Pepper Potts-Stark. I swear, I’d kiss you right now if I weren’t trying to find a slithery, little arachnid who refuses to stay put.”
Pepper was the one sighing this time. “Please don’t call the boy slithery.” But a smile did emerge on her lips, because Tony was back to moving with vigor, dragging windows across the screen, pulling up transit databases, phone IDs, crowd‑tracking algorithms, things that probably violated seventeen federal laws. His usual.
“FRIDAY, hack the student card system. Let’s watch out for a complete Charlie Foxtrot kid‑shaped glitch in the Matrix.”
And FRIDAY began processing again.
That’s when Tony’s phone buzzed: Happy. Still making his way to New Jersey, still sounding like a man who had been awake since the invention of electricity.
But then again, for Peter Parker, hadn’t they all?
...
There were some experiences in life that truly humbled you. Connecticut was one of them.
His phone was dead, his backpack felt heavier than usual but ironically lacking his most key super useful essentials (suit), and his stupid bright red high‑tops (the ones Tony called radioactive clown sneakers) were soaked from stepping in a puddle outside the station.
He had tried to go home.
He really had.
After being woken up in New Haven, Peter had stood in the middle of the station for a couple minutes. Disbelief. He’d taken the wrong train so badly he’d crossed state lines. His stomach had dropped straight through the floor.
May was going to absolutely destroy him. Not in a ‘grounded for a week’ way, but in a ‘you are never leaving the house again without three backup plans and a GPS tracker, also let me pull on your ear’ way. No, she was going to absolutely annihilate him.
To help things, his phone was dead. Gone. Out for the count.
He couldn’t find the time anywhere on the station, (which was the first weird sign he should’ve noted), but it didn’t take a genius to know it was late late. He’d boarded back in New Jersey at around 22h16, probably hopefully please, and to get to this hellhole in freaking Connecticut... it must’ve taken him over two hours.
Meaning it was well past midnight.
Meaning he’d drooled his aunt’s trust in him away.
Insane. Stupidly insane! He’d never messed up a single train in his entire life. He’d been taking public transport since he was basically a zygote. He could navigate Queens upside down, blindfolded, and walking backwards. And now look at him: waking up in New Haven like some kind of newbie, a cautionary tale about sleep deprivation.
His stomach dropped. He pressed both hands over his face and groaned. Maybe he really did need to fix his sleep schedule. Maybe Ned was right. Maybe pulling all nighters wasn’t always “super productive”, it was how-you-accidentally-cross-state-lines-and-completely-vaporize-your-curfew.
That alone would’ve been enough to have him immediately regretting every life choice he’d made in the last twenty‑four hours. Plus, with a dead phone, Parker Luck was clearly laughing in his face. But then there was more.
Because the machines were down.
All of them.
Every single one.
He’d tried the card scanners, the ones you tap your transit card on. Dead. Screens decidedly very ill and on their way to dead. They were still glitching, flickering between CANCELED, static, and some stupid “funny” message he soon would understand was left by hackers:
| 404: YOUR TRAIN NOT FOUND :) |
It was absolutely not funny at that hour and in that situation.
Parker luck.
He groaned and went to find an actual human being, because maybe the universe would finally cut him a break. It did not.
The station worker he found looked half‑asleep and fully done with life.
“Bad luck, kid,” the guy said, rubbing his eyes. “Your train was one of the last ones running after the attack hit.”
Peter blinked. “Attack?”
The guy nodded, “yep. Signalization’s out. We’re entering the dead period, so not many people will be affected at least. Lucky.”
Peter stared at him. Lucky. Sure. Totally.
The guy shrugged. “Honestly don’t know when they’ll get systems back up. Can’t even sell a ticket… Hey, you look really young, what are you doing here at this hour? You homeless?”
Peter nearly choked. Why did everyone think he looked homeless?!
“No! No, I- I just, I got on the wrong train and…” He gestured helplessly at the glitching screens. “And now I’m here.”
The worker gave him a sympathetic wince, the kind adults give you when they really couldn’t be bothered to help. “Yikes. Well… good luck, kid.” And then he was promptly swallowed by a group of other angry commuters.
Peter wasn’t sure if that was encouragement or a warning. Probably both.
Parker Luck.
CANCELED. CANCELED. CANCELED.
Every single outbound train between midnight and who knows.
So Peter had been stuck.
He’d wandered around the station for a while, hoping something would magically fix itself. It didn’t. He’d tried to find an outlet to charge his phone, every single one was either broken, taped over, or occupied by someone sleeping on the floor. Oh, and he’d also forgotten his charger. He’d tried asking people if he could borrow one. No one had one that fit his ancient phone model. Serves him right for always denying Mr. Stark and his constant attempts at arming Peter with novel technology to the teeth.
In his defense, Peter did try asking people to burrow their phones. He wasn’t that hopeless, okay? But, apparently, he’d fallen asleep on the train out of Jersey and woken up in a social apocalypse. Out of the few and poor options presented, he’d first tried a guy who seemed to be asleep sitting upright, arms crossed like a vampire. Peter whispered “sir?” and the man didn’t even twitch.
The second person, a woman with a suitcase and a coffee, sped up the moment Peter said “hi-” like he was a mugger, or you know, a homeless kid.
He tried a third, a young dude with earbuds in, who pulled one out just long enough to say, “battery’s at 2%, sorry,” before putting it back in and pretending Peter didn’t exist.
The janitor told him he didn’t carry his phone at work. Who doesn't carry their phone at work in the 21st century?!
He’d also tried calling May from a payphone.
The payphone ate his coins.
Parker Luck. Parker Luck. Parker Luck.
He’d tried to hitchhike. May would flip if she found out, but what other options did he have? He didn’t have money for a cab. Besides, he’d hitchhiked before. On the the roof of cars and trucks as Spider-Man, sure, but how different could it be? (He’d thought of that too, but it seemed, other than his charger, his suit was also missing from his bag. Peter was sure he’d put it in that morning, but he’d been functioning with less than a brain cell, so he really hoped he’d simply forgotten it at home and not lost it somewhere for someone to find. Can you imagine a pickpocket pickpocketing the Spider-Man suit?! No… he’d have sensed that.)
Needless to say, people in New Haven were not collaborating, because no one stopped to offer him a ride. Not one car. Not even a pity slow‑down. Well… no one except for one sketchy old dude in a rust‑colored sedan who rolled up beside him with the window half‑down and the kind of smile that made Peter’s spider‑sense do the Macarena. He’d immediately snapped straight into that weird, overconfident Spidey mode he got when danger smelled wrong.
Channeling his best MJ, he leaned down to the window, grinned way too wide, and said, “hey, man. You ever heard of the Connecticut Skin‑Peeler? Just to make sure you’re not him. They say he only comes out before sunrise.” Then he tilted his head at an unnatural angle, full creepy‑doll, and whispered, “I think he’s close.”
The guy’s face was completely drained of color. Peter added a slow, deliberate wink for good measure. The sedan peeled out so fast Peter had to jump back to avoid getting his toes flattened. He stood there for a moment, hands on his hips, feeling both victorious and deeply embarrassed.
Hitchhiking attempt: terminated.
He sighed, shoved his hands into his hoodie pockets, and trudged back toward the station because clearly the universe wanted him nowhere near a moving vehicle that night.
By three AM, the station had very nearly completely emptied out. The late‑night crowd thinned until it was just less than a handful of equally stranded travelers, the janitor still mopping aggressively, and Peter sitting on a bench with his backpack hugged to his chest, trying not to fall asleep upright.
He’d eventually curled up behind one of the big support pillars, not exactly comfortable, but at least he wasn’t in the way. He’d used his hoodie as a pillow. He’d slept maybe forty minutes total, in tiny, uncomfortable bursts, waking up every now and then.
By four something AM, he was freezing, hungry, and very aware that May was probably having an equally awful night, if not worse. He’d forced himself to stay alert in order to try again to catch a train, the first morning train that would hopefully run.
He’d stood in line and he'd waited. He’d watched the by-now incomplete but back to life board. No train back to Jersey came. He waited some more. Another announcement:
“Attention passengers: the 5h32 AM service to New York is canceled due to ongoing system restoration. We apologize for the inconvenience.”
Peter had nearly cried.
Stood before turnstiles, he didn’t really think and still tried the scanner, because maybe, maybe, the universe would finally give him one tiny win. It did not. Peter slapped his student transit card against the dead reader once. Nothing. He tried again. Nothing. Third time. Nothing. Then he just kept going.
Tap. Tap. Tap‑tap‑tap.
Full gremlin mode. He even changed angles, like maybe the machine needed a better view of his suffering. At one point he whispered, “come on, man, work with me, manifest a train”, and tapped it harder, which earned him a side‑eye from a passing worker.
The scanner stayed dark, stubborn, and absolutely mocking him. Peter groaned and gave it one last dramatic swipe before walking away.
He’d asked an employee when the next train would run. The guy shrugged and said maybe 6h15, maybe seven, maybe later. The signals on the tracks were being stubborn and they were rebooting everything manually.
So Peter had wandered back to the bench, sat down, munched on some peanuts from a sad little packet he’d only recently managed to get from a vending machine and tried not to panic.
He was stuck in New Haven, wearing damp shoes, smelling like train station air, and running on forty minutes of sleep.
He rested his head against the wall and sighed.
“Parker Luck,” he muttered.
...
Pepper was right as always. All hail student transit cards.
…
Seeing Peter curled sideways on the bench with those horrible bright red clown shoes of his and ratty backpack as a pillow did things to Tony’s poor impulse control. For a moment, he couldn't quite tell whether it was struggling to keep him from hugging the kid ‘till tomorrow, or to keep him from strangling him to death. The mechanisms behind a hug were very similar to those of strangling, if you think about it.
He resorted to not bothering with subtlety and rewarded himself with a kick to the bench with the toe of his very expensive shoe, just hard enough to jolt Peter like he’d been tasered.
Peter shot upright with a noise that wasn’t very human, blinking wildly, hair sticking up and blearily looking around like he genuinely thought the bench had come alive and attacked him. Then he saw Tony, probably not looking much better, standing over him, hands on his hips and a gluch on his face like a man who found raccoons in his kitchen and knows exactly who left the door open.
“Rise and shine, Sleeping Beauty. Connecticut’s awful this time of the year.”
Peter blinked several times. Then, the lightbulb went on. “Oh,” he winced before smiling weakly. "… hi?"
Tony promptly pointed at him.
“Up. Now. Before I buy this station and ban you from it forever.”
He grabbed Peter’s backpack like it had personally offended him and began walking off, leaving Peter to dizzily stagger after him and hurry to carry it himself. “We’re leaving. I think I might’ve just lost the last three brain cells I had left. Still winning because you clearly have none.”
Peter finally won the tug-of-war game for his backpack. His cheeks couldn’t have been more red. “You… flew here?!”
Tony gestured sharply toward the exit. “Yes, Pete. I flew to Connecticut. Connecticut. Do you understand how much I hate Connecticut? I’m pretty sure it’s in my top five least favorite states now. Move.”
“You have a top five…?”
People were staring. Not subtle staring: full, open‑mouthed. Is that Tony Stark? He could read their thoughts. A couple near the ticket machines froze mid‑conversation. The sleepy dude from that night actually woke up. Someone whispered, “holy crap, that’s Iron Man, isn’t it?” and another whispered, “uh, why is he with that homeless kid?”, which made Peter want to crawl into the nearest trash can and live there forever.
Tony didn’t seem to notice or care; he just kept walking like he already owned the station. Meanwhile Peter, rumpled, peanut‑crumbed, hoodie‑wrinkled, looked exactly like the kind of stray a rare good-hearted billionaire might’ve picked up out of pity. He tugged his hood up, cheeks wildfires, wishing the floor would open up and swallow him before anyone started filming.
Eventually, they walked out. When they stepped outside and circled around some of the station, he caught the sun shyly beginning to peek over the horizon. And there it was, the Iron Man suit standing on the sidewalk, silently judging him like its owner.
“Oh my god,” Peter whispered, mortified. “You actually brought the suit.”
Tony threw his hands up. “What was I supposed to do, uh? Drive first? You were alone in another state. You’re like, twelve-”
“I’m almost sixteen-”
“-no one knew where you were all night. Your aunt thinks you’ve been kidnaped.”
That hit Peter like a sucker punch. His face burned, guilt flooding up so fast it made his throat tight. He could picture May pacing the apartment, calling hospitals, calling Ned, calling anyone, her voice shaking the way it did when she was scared but trying not to show it. He’d done that. He’d made her feel like that. His stomach twisted.
“I didn’t- I didn’t mean to!” He blurted, voice cracking wildly. “I swear, Mr. Stark, I didn’t… I just- I fell asleep and then the trains were down and I couldn’t call her. My phone died. I tried to ask around, but Parker Luck-”
He stopped, shoulders curling inward, eyes dropping to the ground. He felt awful. Worse than awful. He felt like the world’s biggest idiot. Like he’d failed the one person who trusted him most. He rubbed his sleeve over his face, trying to hide how miserable he looked.
Tony’s expression softened barely, but enough. “Yeah,” he said quietly, “I know you didn’t mean to. But she was terrified, kid.”
“I know… I screwed up. I never got the wrong train before, you know,the city’s my-”
“-jungle.” And Tony let out a long breath through his nose. Then he hooked a hand around the back of Peter’s hoodie and steered him toward one of those giant concrete flowerpots on the sidewalk, the kind meant to keep cars from ramming the building.
“Sit,” he ordered. Peter sat. Tony leaned against the edge, arms crossed. “If you were tired, you should’ve taken a break. A real one. Not on a moving public vehicle.”
Peter simply stared at his shoes.
“Even Happy was stressed out. Happy. That man’s blood pressure is already a battlefield, and you sent it into orbit.”
He tried to wince, (and part of him did feel genuinely sorry), but a tiny, reluctant smile still tugged at his mouth. It was a little funny. Just a little. Happy, who always tried to show he didn’t care.
“Oh.” Tony pointed at him. “You’re evil, ‘Roos.”
Peter rubbed his hands together.
“Must’ve been… a long night for everyone.”
Tony’s jaw tightened. He looked away.
“Yeah.” He looked at him sideways. “Clearly more for some. You look like you crawled out of a tornado. Have you heard about hairbrushes?”
Ouch. But yeah, he did, and he deserved that. He deserved worse. He swallowed hard, wishing he could rewind the entire night and do everything differently.
“How’d you find me?”
Tony sighed. “Your last turnstile swipe must’ve somehow pinged the rebooting system. I don’t know why it registered while offline, but some minutes ago it gave me a location. So I flew here.” He gestured vaguely at the sky. “Like a lunatic.”
Peter huffed a tired laugh. “Do you believe in Parker Luck now?”
“Yes. Yes, kid. I believe in Parker Luck. I also believe in gravity, taxes, and that you’re going to give me a heart attack soon.”
“What?”
“Nothing.”
Peter groaned and covered his face. “This is the worst day of my life.”
“Oh, trust me,” Tony said, “it’s in my top ten too.”
They stood there for a moment, the suit looming behind them like a disappointed parent. Peter shifted awkwardly.
“We’re, uh… just gonna stand here?”
Tony sighed. “Happy’s bringing the car. Traffic was crazy tonight.” Narrowing eyes. “We’re not flying home. I’m not hauling you under my arm like a suitcase. Those get misplaced, and frankly, you’ve hit your quota.
Peter winced. “Okay…”
And so they waited. A while. In silence. Awkward, painful silence. Peter eventually sat on the curb while Tony stood with his arms crossed, glaring at the rising sun as if it had personally wronged him. The suit stood behind them, glowing ominously.
At one point, Tony begrudgingly sat next to him. Peter eyed the billionaire, surprised to see him sit on the floor like that.
Another handful of minutes passed.
“You smell like peanuts.”
Peter blinked at him, slow and owlish. “It was either peanuts or despair.”
His exhaustion inevitably crept back in as they waited, heavier than before. He kept nodding off on the curb, head bobbing and chin dropping to his chest, then jerking awake whenever he caught himself falling. It happened over and over, a slow, miserable cycle he couldn’t fight. Every time he snapped upright, he felt Tony’s gaze on him from the side, but he was too tired to look over and risk earning himself another jab or mini‑lecture. So he stayed slumped, blinking slowly, losing the battle against sleep one head‑bob at a time.
Eventually, the sleek and expensive car rolled up to the curb, headlights slicing across the sidewalk. Tony and Peter both stood, Tony with the stiff annoyance of a man who’d been forced to visit New Haven; Peter with the slow wobble of a character who should be propped up by cartoon birds.
The sedan door opened and Happy stepped out.
From the other side of the car, all they saw at first was Happy’s face leaning over the roof: narrowed eyes, jaw tight, shaking his head slowly. Straight at Peter.
Happy rounded the car, pointed straight at him, and said: “You.”
Peter’s eyes widened. “Me…”
Happy stomped closer, looking rumpled, furious, and emotionally compromised. Maybe he skipped his skin care than night, because his eyebags were almost (almost but not quite) as big as Tony’s.
“You sanity‑destroying gremlin! Do you have any idea what you put people through tonight? I had to drive through New Jersey traffic. I missed my Hearts on Fire episode! The one where Ricardo finds out his twin brother is actually his cousin’s evil clone! Your aunt called me and was shaking so hard I could hear it through the phone. You’re lucky I’m trained in crisis calls!”
Peter blinked, thrown. That was a big info dump. But above of all…
“May called… you?”
Happy froze mid‑rant, realising he’d let his mouth run. He chokes, suddenly flustered. “I- well… she- we- we’re not… look, the point is you scared the hell out of her!”
Peter’s face crumpled anew with guilt.
Tony stepped in then, laying a hand on Peter’s shoulder. “Okay, Happy Boy, that’s enough. I already yelled at him. His aunt is gonna finish the job. Let’s just get inside before the paparazzi wake up. They’re morning birds. Like pigeons, but worse.”
Happy huffed, still glaring. “Fine. But I’m not done.”
Tony rolled his eyes. “Yeah, yeah. He knows. Get in the car.”
Peter climbed into the backseat, cheeks burning, still processing the fact that May had called Happy and trying to picture how exactly this whole mess had reached Tony’s ears. He couldn’t have just suddenly missed him, meaning one of the two had roped him in. Holy Moly, what an escalation of events!
At the same time, Happy slid into the driver’s seat, slammed the door, and immediately stared at Peter through the rearview mirror like he was trying to beam guilt directly into his soul.
Tony got in beside him on the backseat, shutting the door with a tired sigh.
The car started rolling.
Happy kept staring.
Peter sank lower in his seat.
The grumpy man finally tore his eyes from the mirror long enough to punch the GPS. “Queens… Queens,” he muttered, tapping in May’s address with the grim determination of someone who now had to face New York traffic at rush hour and deserved a medal.
Peter snapped awake like someone had hit a switch. He jerked upright, hoodie half twisted around him, and leaned forward to try and capture the driver’s attention. “Oh. Oh no, no, no- Happy, could you please drop me off at Midtown? I might still make some morning classes. I’ll talk to May later, I promise. Just let her know I’m okay.”
Tony didn’t even look at him. His hand reached out, swiftly pulling the teenager by the back of his hoodie like he was grabbing a puppy. “Nope. Absolutely not. Shut it. Sit tight. Snuggle the door. Go to sleep. Pick any of those options.”
Peter blinked at him, offended. “But-!”
Tony raised a finger. “Did you learn nothing? No classes for you today. Zero. Nada. You’re banned from academia until you’re not on the verge of going comatose and falling asleep during another commute. And before you argue, we’re stopping for burgers in a few minutes. I’ll wake you up. Don’t make me revoke your cheeseburger privileges. Don’t make me regret rescuing you.”
Peter grumbled something tragic and adolescent that sounded like, “I wasn’t rescued...”, but he did exactly what Tony told him: slumped sideways and pressed against the door, eyes half‑closed and hoodie bunched under his cheek.
A few minutes later, Happy pulled into a drive‑through. When he ordered several cheeseburgers at seven something AM, the workers looked judgy and confused until they saw Tony Stark in the passenger seat. Then they sold the cheeseburgers like theirs and their manager’s lives depended on it.
Peter inhaled his food like he’d been lost at sea. Tony joined him, not as avidly, simply because Tony Stark was physically incapable of refusing a cheeseburger ever. Happy declined with a grimace, muttering something about “cholesterol” and “it’s too early for this.”
Once the car was rolling again, Peter started dozing off. Every bump made his head smack the hard frame of the door. He winced, shifted, tried again, also smacked it again. Finally, he gave up, leaned the other way, and his head landed on Tony’s shoulder.
Tony froze.
His brain had to buffer for a second there. Some months ago he’d been dodging hugs from the kid like they were contagious. Now he had a whole teenager asleep on him like it was the most natural thing in the world.
His shoulder twitched, the reflex to shrug the kid off right there,- but he stopped it.
Instead, he shifted just slightly, angling himself so Peter’s head rested more fully on his shoulder, on the softer meatier part instead of the hard bony curve. (Just enough to make it comfortable.)
I’m letting him not concuss himself on the door. It’s responsible mentorship.
Happy saw it immediately in the mirror. Probably expected another reaction too. He raised an eyebrow.
Tony didn’t move. “Don’t tell anyone about this and I’ll give you a promotion.”
Happy kept staring. “You’re bribing me. I thought you wanted to fire me.”
Tony rolled his eyes. “I contain multitudes, Hap.”
As if on purpose Peter shifted, nuzzling in closer, completely unconscious. God, he’d be so embarrassed if he knew what he was doing.
Tony froze again, then exhaled slowly. “I’m a pillow now.”
“You like him, Boss.”
Tony glared. “I like peace and he’s providing it. Just drive, Big Guy.”
Happy snorted but obeyed.
Peter breathed slowly and even. Tony watched, almost carefully. Hours ago, he’d been worried sick. He’d thought the worst things. For some reason, the thought of never seeing Peter again had been nauseating. He could have been taken. Could have been hurt. Something other than responsibility for the kid had driven him crazy until he found him.
He’d never admit it, but it was nice. The weight of the kid there, warm, telling him he was safe. The drool was debatable, but it also didn’t bother him as much as he’d expected.
And Tony let Peter stay right where he was, because there he was for sure okay.
...
They stood on the sidewalk. Tony, Happy, May: three grown adults staring into the backseat like absolute idiots.
Peter was curled against the door again, hoodie smushed under his cheek, mouth slightly open, dead asleep like a tranquilized koala. Very much like a koala, a sticky one. Tony had struggled to unglue himself from the sleeping teenager.
May sighed. “So... about that tracking device you talked about?”
“Oh, implants are the way to go. You can put one in the spine, the hip, the shoulder, the foot, behind the ear. The external ones come in colors now. I got metallics, neons, limited‑edition holiday sets.”
Happy shook his head. “I can’t believe you’re planning surgical tracking options for a kid.”
Tony gestured at the drooling disaster on the backseat of his car. “Look at him. He’s a flight risk. I’m being proactive.”
Happy pointed at Peter. “If that thing ever pings in China one day, I am not driving there.”
Tony snorted. “China? Happy, please. Aim higher. This kid’s track record? We’re talking space.”
May sighed again. “Honestly? With his luck? Space sounds plausible.”
A group pause.
“So… who’s waking him up?”
“I carried him up the stairs until he was ten. I’m retired.”
“I’m not touching him. He drools.”
“Fine. I’ll poke him with a pen.”
And so the three of them, having aged at least ten years each, kept staring at Peter like idiots because he was finally safe and found and not in Conneticut.
“This may genuinely be the stupidest thing that's ever happened to him."
“Yet.”