I apologize for the later-than-usual chapter. See, I watched Iron Man 3 (it was awesome) and after the post-IM3 bliss wore off, I realized that the movie had used AIM and it probably wouldn't be the best idea to have my AIM differ from IM3!AIM too much. So I had to edit my story plan a bit. I also changed 'Accelerated Industries' from the last chapter to Advanced Idea Mechanics, as it should be.

But while this AIM will take some elements from the movie, it still will be different, as some things I can't and don't want to change at this point.

Chapter 3: Screw The Doctors

Tony flicked a finger over the tablet in front of him, scrapping a blueprint. It would be too bulky, and only had a sixty-two percent chance of successfully masking the energy emission output of the suit.

He sighed gustily.

It had been a few days since he had woken up at the SHIELD medical facility. The second day, the SHIELD medical personnel had reluctantly allowed him the use of his tablet after he had started fiddling around with the medical equipment in his boredom.

Tony hadn't fiddled with anything essential to his continued survival, of course. He wasn't stupid.

Still, a tablet wasn't nearly as good as the holograms back in the Tower. Luckily, he was steadily getting better, and he was certain that in a day or so, he would be healthy enough to walk himself out the facility and to the Tower.

Tony opened a new blueprint file; it was the eighth he had started. He was getting closer to the answer, but he was still not close enough.

He stared at the blue screen, willing a new idea to come to him.

A knock sounded on his room's door, interrupting his concentration. Tony looked up reluctantly.

"You can come in," Tony said, the undertones of a grumble in his voice. It was likely one of the medical personnel, wanting to do yet another inane test to see how injured he was.

The door swung open silently, revealing someone a bit too tall and muscled to just be one of the medical personnel.

"Steve!" Tony greeted, grinning. Steve, with his accelerated healing and not as serious injuries, had gotten out of the hospital the day before. Inwardly, he noted Steve's displeased expression and annoyed demeanour with a silent groan. "What brings you to my humble abode?"

"We need to talk," Steve said frankly.

"I'd probably be more worried about this if we were dating," Tony shot flippantly.

Steve ignored Tony's comment, as he was wont to do.

"It's about Peter," Steve continued, his arms crossing.

"Oh, great, Peter." Tony grumbled. He rolled his eyes. "Trust me, I'm in no mood for another lecture, and what we do is none of your business. I don't need to 'take responsibility', as you put it, because he doesn't want it. He doesn't want me to take responsibility because he already had a good father figure and doesn't need someone else butting in. Anything else?"

"Not that." Steve shook his head. "I'm talking about how you helped him hack into a company."

"Oh. That." Tony scowled. "How'd you find out?"

"Peter was talking to Bruce about it," Steve replied. He pinned Tony with a disappointed look. "Why would you help him do that? By all rights, I should report him."

"But you won't?" Tony said, voicing his statement as a question. He was relatively sure that Steve would stay mum, but you never knew.

"Why?" Steve repeated, sidestepping the question.

Tony sighed. Obviously, he wasn't getting any answers until he gave some.

"I've mentioned how Peter had his own father figure, right?" Tony said, leaning back on the bed. He waited for a nod from Steve before continuing. "I'm talking about Ben Parker, Peter's uncle. Hell knows Peter looks up to him enough. I'm not, in any way, talking about Richard Parker."

Steve stayed quiet, likely confused but willing to wait for Tony to explain himself.

"Richard Parker..." Tony scoffed derisively. "He was a former SHIELD biologist. When he quit, he moved onto OsCorp- and another company, apparently. And when that other company said 'Hey! We kinda need you to do some tests on your kid. Could'ya do it?', he agreed."

Steve's eyes widened in horror.

Tony gritted his teeth, forcing his voice to stay level. He was pissed at Richard, really pissed, even though he knew that it was probably not a good idea to be mad at the dead. As far as Richard had known, Peter had been his kid, and he should've treated him as such. While Tony wasn't exactly familiar with good parenting, he knew well enough that 'experimentation' wasn't part of it. If Tony had raise-

- Nope. No. He wasn't going to think of 'what if' scenarios. That was a road best not taken. Peter was a good kid that was not related to him in any way and this anger was just a normal reaction to hearing about Richard.

"So, Peter's spidey powers are the result of a little experimentation, not just because of a genetically modified spider's bite," Tony said flippantly. He snorted in derision. "With the guy who should've been his father being a douche who experimented on him, and his biological father being, well, me, I say that it's a good thing that this Ben was around."

"So then, the reason why Peter..." Steve trailed off, an understanding look on his face.

"The company he hacked into was OsCorp. He hoped that there would be info on Richard Parker- and his motives," Tony explained, nodding. "I don't know if there was any information yet, though. He hasn't visited."

Tony narrowed his eyes at Steve.

"Tell me, Steve, would you have stopped him from trying to figure out why the man who should've been his father had decided to do human experimentation on his two-year-old self?"

Steve rubbed his forehead, his gaze falling to the ground.

"Fine," Steve said shortly, his hand falling from his forehead. "I see it your way. But I still think that there were better ways. What if Peter starts to hack into things on a whim, not when it's really, completely necessary?"

"What, you mean if he becomes like me?" Tony smirked. "I don't really see the problem with wanton hacking- as long as you don't get caught- but trust me when I say Peter wouldn't do that. He's not that type of person."

Steve hummed, a doubtful note to the sound.

"Look, why do I have to be the good role model?" Tony complained. "If you're that concerned with me being a corrupting influence or whatever, be an opposing influence yourself. You're Captain America. Should be easy enough."

"Maybe I will," Steve shot back.

Tony whistled in surprise. "Really? Well, that's convenient, I guess. By the way, Peter thinks you hate him."

"Pardon?" Steve said dumbly. He frowned, his brow furrowing. "I don't- but I suppose maybe he would think-"

"Au revoir then, Steve, if you're done." Tony picked up his tablet. He had thought up a few ways he could greatly improve the success rate of the device sometime during their conversation. "Sorry, but I want to get a viable blueprint ready for when I go back to the Tower tomorrow."

"The doctors-"

"Screw the doctors, Steve," Tony said sharply. "We don't know who sent those robots just yet, but if I don't figure out a way to block their attack, I can't fight and your shield will be useless. We don't know when or where something else with this tech will appear, and I need to finish this device before then. Capisce?"

Steve, to Tony's relief, didn't argue further.

"Okay," he said simply. "I'll see you tomorrow then."

"Good." Tony grumbled, turning his attention back to his tablet. He barely noticed as Steve left.

"It's been a while since we've sat down and had dinner together, hasn't it?" Norman said, a bland smile on his face.

Harry has no interest in this petty small talk, but he nodded and smiled anyways. He took a bite of the steak in front of him. The food was good, at least.

"How are you doing in school?" Norman asked, presumably because he couldn't think of anything else to say.

Understandable, really. Harry doubted that his father even knew what type of music he liked to listen to.

"Good, I suppose," Harry answered shortly.

"Midtown Science is supposed to have one of the best science programs out there," Norman noted.

"I've only been there for a few days. I wouldn't know just yet," Harry said diplomatically.

"I suppose public school is a big change for you," Norman commented. "How are your fellow students?"

Harry shrugged. "Fine, I guess."

"Well, I left a thousand dollars in your bank account," Norman continued. "That should be enough money to go... hang out with students you befriend at school, or whatever adolescents do nowadays."

"Thanks," Harry said simply.

An awkward silence permeated the air. Harry had no interest in bringing up any possible conversation topics, and Norman had apparently already exhausted his meager repertoire of conversation starters.

"I am your father, Harry, and I do care for you," Norman said carefully. "My malady may have made it difficult to be... there for you... but that is no longer a problem."

Harry held back a groan at the sound of Norman's words. He had hoped that he wouldn't have to talk for the rest of dinner, let alone about crap like that.

Luckily, at that moment, he was saved from having to respond to Norman's statement. Perhaps God hadn't abandoned him after all.

"Mr. Osborn?" Bernard said, nervously standing in the doorway of the dining room. He was holding a phone in his right hand. "I'm sorry to interrupt, but this seems urgent. There may have been a security breach at OsCorp."

Norman scowled as he got up from the table, chair loudly scraping the floor. "I'm sorry, Harry, but I have to deal with this. Bernard, give me the phone."

Harry didn't bother with a farewell, given that Norman was already out the door before he could even open his mouth.

"Father of the year, seriously," Harry muttered to himself. He stuffed a forkful of carrots into his mouth ill-temperedly.

Osborn stormed into the tech department of OsCorp Tower, his fists clenching and unclenching systematically. He grabbed the first unfortunate employee that he spotted by the collar.

"Tell me, what am I paying you for?" Osborn growled. The employee in his hand gulped audibly, his face paling further by the second. "Because I don't think it was to let my company's database get ihacked/i!"

"That is, I-I'm afraid th-that, um," the employee stammered out. His mouth clenched shut at the sight of Osborn's darkening face.

"It's not his department, Mr. Osborn," another employee said smoothly, walking up to Osborn. "He isn't in charge of firewalls."

"Then who do I have to blame for this?" Osborn snapped, letting go of the first employee's collar. "You, I presume?"

"You must understand, Mr. Osborn, that our firewalls are top-of-the-line," the other employee placated. "They could almost contest the government's security. In order to break past it, well, the hacker must've been either a genius or on the inside."

"Are you saying that we have a mole?" Osborn demanded, a dangerous glint in his eye.

"I'm saying it's a possibility," the employee corrected. "We don't know for certain."

"I don't care about that, understood? Just find out who it is, and quickly," Osborn hissed. "Unless you want to lose your job, of course."

"Well, the thing is, Mr. Osborn, it's not that easy," the employee said delicately. "The problem is, we have no idea when the hacker broke in. We may be able to find the origin, with enough time, but we doubt that the hacker would be stupid enough not to do a job in a public place. Without the appropriate timeframe, it may be nigh impossible to-"

"-why can't you figure out when the hacker broke in?" Osborn cut in.

"We only know that a hacker hacked into the database because of our biweekly check of the firewalls today," the employee explained. "We know that the hacker must've hacked in sometime during the past two weeks, but nothing else."

"Why would you only check once every two weeks?" Osborn growled.

"It's very time consuming, and our firewalls were very good..." the employee trailed off.

"From now on, check everyday. You may have forgotten, but our top competitor is led by a man lauded as one of the top geniuses of the decade," Osborn snapped, his eyes flashing.

"We don't think it was Stark Industries that hacked us." the employee was quick to refute Osborn's theory. "The files we think the hacker accessed don't lend credence to that theory, and we don't think that SI would want to hack OsCorp anyways."

"You're treading on thin ground," Osborn said coldly. "Explain."

"Mr. Osborn, the hacker seemed to have looked at the files on you and your son," the employee said hastily. "If a competitor had hacked in, they would have no motive to access those files; they would hightail it to the files on our newest projects."

Osborn schooled his face into neutrality at the news. No need for his employees to talk.

"You have a month," Osborn said, his voice revealing nothing of his inner thoughts. "One month to find the hacker, or you and everyone involved with OsCorp's security is fired."

The employee gave Osborn a curt nod. "Understood. But, Mr. Osborn, we may need more employees to tackle both the daily verification of the firewalls and the search for the hacker."

"I'll supply them," Osborn said, waving a hand dismissively. "Keep in mind they might replace you if you don't do well."

"Of course. I'll get us all started right now," the employee said. He headed into the middle of the room and started to give some orders.

Osborn didn't bother to stay. He knew that his threat would be enough to motivate his employees to work properly. He strode out of the room, gritting his teeth.

It was them, he knew it. Who else would even try? Who else would have the skill? They wanted something to hold over him, but he wouldn't let them.

But he couldn't use the serum just yet. Not until it was properly tested. Until it was, however, he still had other things he could do to retaliate. And retaliate he would.

I would've had this up yesterday, but I was in a semi-catatonic state after the dual cliffhangers of the Supernatural and Arrow finales. XD

Anywho, I promise to publish the next chapter faster. :)