If They Knew All About You

by MsHermia

Tony Stark made it through the disaster with Ultron. He wants to keep himself and the team together but relationships are strained and tempers are running high. Peter Parker is on top of the world. After a few shitty years, losing his parents and then his Uncle, and still living in a crappy little apartment with his Aunt, he might have just found his mission in life. #AU #Irondad

10. TOA The Mission in Manhattan - Chapter 9

Chapter 9 - The One After The Mission in Manhattan

Wilson slammed his fist on the conference table.

"What the fuck were you thinking, Stark?"

"I was thinking that I'm not going to leave a terrorist alone in the middle of a Manhattan street to chase after the guy who'd just helped us out while I'm still holding an undefined biochemical weapon in my hand. What the fuck were you thinking?"

"Following the team leader's orders?! We don't know the dude! He has powers we need to know about!"

"Really? You're going with that? Sounds a bit like something Ross would say..." Tony shot a glance over to Natasha who had been quietly observing them during the entirety of the debrief.

"Tony, we need to know, who this guy is!" Rogers looked up at him, his chin was still resting on his hand. He was giving Tony one of those 'I'm not angry, I'm disappointed'- looks, that Tony sometimes suspected were his real superpower.

"There's plenty of time to find out who he is. That was not the time or the place! Taking care of the city is always the number one priority, not chasing after our allies!"

"He's not our ally!" Rogers still looked at him like he was 5 years old.

"He sure was helpful today!"

"He butted in while we were trying to thwart a biochemical terror attack, Tony!"

He threw up his hands at Rogers remark, groaned in frustration. "Please. They had us pushed into a corner. Any further escalation might have resulted in civilian casualties. He did us a favor."

"We don't know, what his motivation is!"

"Come on, Rogers. You're just pissed that he caught us one of the assholes while the one you were chasing gave you the slip!" Rogers' eyes narrowed as Tony crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair. "Or is it more about the Spiderling giving you the slip as well?"

Tony couldn't suppress a smirk and an eye-roll at Rogers' offended expression.

"Fuck you, Stark!" Wilson had gotten up out of his chair and pointed a finger at him. "What's the matter with you! How are you defending this guy over your team? You're supposed to have our backs!"

"I am having your backs! I'm letting you know, that you're being douche bags, who need to get their heads out of their asses to realizes the big picture here!" He tilted his head at Wilson, still leaning back in his chair. "It's what friends do. Letting you know, when you're being a jackass."

"Well, the jackass department would be your area of expertise, Stark!" Wilson turned to head for the door of the conference room.

"Sam, sit!" Natasha shot a silencing glace over to a snicker from Wanda then looked back and forth between him and Wilson. "Are we done with the pissing match? Get your ass back in that chair, Sam." She turned to Tony. "The Spider-dude is a liability. We don't know anything about him and that needs to change. He doesn't seem to know all that much about what he's doing himself and that is a problem, too. But Tony is right." She turned to Rogers. "He helped. We might have been in real trouble if he hadn't shown up. That is the part we should actually be focusing on! We only came out on top because we were lucky today and had help that we didn't arrange for. That can't happen again!"

Wilson scowled at her. "Wanda and Vision were just about to back us up. We'd have been fine!"

She turned back to him. "Speculating what could have been is useless right now. Tony is right, catching the Spider was not a priority. Bringing him in by force is not in our best interest. Focusing on the threat at hand was important." She turned to look at Rogers again. "Catching the terrorists was the mission."

"We don't know if he was in on it with them! How did he even know about what was going on? It's suspicious."

"Steve, I think the fact that he helped to keep them from setting off their substance speaks for itself."

Tense silence settled between them until Natasha spoke up again. "We should have cut off their escape route back to the bridge right away. The strategy was flawed." Her glance rested on Rogers. "We will learn from this. We will do better as a team in the future." She leaned back, her eyes still on Rogers. "We do have three of them in custody. That's three new sources of information. We'll learn. We'll be better."

Rogers nodded. "Fine."

"Tony!" His eyes shot over to her. "What do you know about the Spider-dude?"

He mulled over his interactions with the Spiderling for a moment. "I've seen him twice after his run-in with Potts. I thought... I thought it was suspicious..." Rogers looked up at him in surprise, but Tony just shrugged. "Him turning up just as she needed help. It seemed a little too convenient. So, first I had Friday check him out. Everything she could, videos, mentions of his abilities, similar instances to Potts' situation. Everything I found was mostly on petty crime, pickpockets, car thieves, those kinda things. All Queens-based with a pretty obvious routine." Tony cleared his throat. "I just wanted to be sure, that Pepper was not a target, so I made the trip over to Queens, checked him out in person. He stopped a burglary in process, wrapped two burglars up in his, well, web stuff. Then we had a short chat. It seemed like he genuinely didn't know that it was Potts he'd helped out that afternoon. I don't think he was lying. That was that." He drummed his fingers on the table and looked up at Natasha.

"So, today was the second time you've come across him?"

He held her stare. "Second time would have been the next day when he showed up at the tower and made me jump out of my skin." He flashed her a smile.

"He came up to the tower?" The alarm in Rogers' voice was more than obvious. "What did he want?"

Tony kept his eyes for a moment longer on Natasha before he turned to look at Rogers, fighting the urge to bite his lip. "Nothing." He shrugged. "Payback for me showing up on his rooftop, I assume."

Rogers shook his head, but Wilson beat him to the punch. "And you seriously bought that?"

"Enlighten me, Wilson. What do you think his master plan is?"

"You need to take this seriously, Tony!" Rogers could stare at him all he wanted. He was not going to break. He didn't even do anything wrong!

"He's just a young guy trying to show off." Their facial expressions screamed of skepticism. He rolled his eyes. "Fine. What do you want me to do about it?"

Rogers was still staring at him from across the table. "You can't keep this kind of information from us, Tony!"

"I'm not purposefully keeping any information from you! Up until he showed up today, all of what I just told you was irrelevant chatter. I'm not going to start writing a diary so you can browse through everything I do, Rogers."

"Tony..." His head shot back over to Natasha. "Is there anything else?"

He shook his head. "No."

Natasha's eyes were still on him. Her spy instincts had surely picked up on his bouncing leg and restrained himself, settled both feet firmly on the ground. There was no way he was going to fill them in on the little detail that he'd been boozed up a little too much when he had sought out the Spiderling that first night. Not even Nat would let that kind of recklessness slide. It must have been the display he had put on that night what had opened up the door for the Spiderling. That gave the guy the guts to crawl up to his penthouse. A ballsy move. Sure, the dude had some weird powers and an upper body strength that most man would kill for... But he was still Iron Man…

"Alright then. We need you to go and get him for us."

"Come on, Nat..."

Rogers jumped at that. "This is not up for discussion, Tony! We can't have a young man jump around the city like that unchecked and unwilling to cooperate!"

Tony shook his head in frustration. "You guys are playing this all wrong. He has some weird powers, that could help us out down the road and we need all the help that we can get. Bringing him in like one of those terrorists and interrogating him is not gonna earn us any trust!"

"It's not his trust I'm worried about!" Of course, Rogers disapproved of Tony's non-compliance. "Where do you think his weird powers came from? Did he experiment on himself or did someone make him into the weapon he is? We cannot sit back on this! Someone with an agenda is behind this and we need to be prepared! If he turns out to be an ally, we will get to it, when we get to it. But this is not the time for that! We can't throw our trust at someone like that!"

Tony shot a glance over at Nat, but he could tell that he was outnumbered on this. His eyes dropped to the table in front of him. "Fine. I'll see what I can do."

---

Tony had his back against his desk. A number of graphs and calculation sheets were projected in front of him in the middle of the lab. His head bend, eyes closed, he was deep in thought. He needed to clear his head. Push out the day's events and the confrontation with his team that had followed. Work was always a great distraction and he was willing his mind to focus on the calibrations of the new minimalist gadgets he had designed to be kept on his person for emergency situations. Ever since the fight with Aldrich Killian he had been trying to implement a trimmed down version of the suit that he could keep on himself at all times, that would give him a chance to fight until the full suit could arrive if called for.

"Boss, someone's knocking on the window."

Tony's head shot up and listened intently until his face turned into a confused frown. "FRI, you drunk? The lab doesn't have windows."

"Someone is knocking on the living room window of Stark Tower."

He turned his head up to the ceiling and narrowed his eyes. "Has someone been messing with your sensors?"

"Negative, Boss. Security scans were executed as scheduled and returned no suspicious results."

"Just to be clear. You're telling me that someone is knocking on the living room window of my penthouse on the 68th floor of the Tower?"

"Correct, Boss."

He tried one last time, "From the outside?"

"Yes, Sir."

With a sigh, he stood up straight. "Well, pull up the security cam feed of the balcony then, I swear if this turns out to be window clea-"

He stopped. His calculations had disappeared and the projection that FRIDAY had pulled up in its place in the middle of his lab showed three different angles of the balcony and living room glassfront of his penthouse. With the reflection of Manhattan's night lights in the windows he could make out a person, whose torso was leaning against the glass, legs spread out on the floor.

"Zoom in cam 5B and turn on the lights, FRIDAY." With the exterior floodlights and the indoor living room lighting turned up, Tony recognized Spider-Man right away. He was holding his side and there was an ominous dark spot forming beneath him. His body had jerked slightly as the bright lights illuminated the balcony, but there was not much movement coming from him now.

"Urgh, shit..." Tony muttered. "FRI, turn on the audio feed and ask him what the hell he thinks he's doing up there."

His speakers blared with white noise from the high winds outside the building. Tony could make out FRIDAY's question quite clearly though.

"Good evening, Spider-Man. Mr. Stark would like to inquire about the reason for your visit tonight."

Tony studied the feed for any sign of movement from the man on the floor. He had jerked in surprise as FRIDAY's voice echoed across the balcony. To her question, he just lightly lifted his hand and let a fresh stream of blood run down his side. As he placed his hand back on the wound, Tony called for the suit.

"Tell him, I'm on my way over. 7 Minutes." His thrusters started immediately. The suit guided itself out of the narrow emergency shaft he'd put in the lab. "Might make it in 6."

En route down from upstate New York along the Hudson, Tony had instructed FRIDAY to dim the headlights on the balcony. Still, the platform he had designed for easy Iron Man access was sufficiently illuminated to make an easy landing. The suit retracted right as his feet touched the floor. He took a few hurried steps over to the slumped down figure, who had by now slid to his side. His right shoulder touched the balcony floor now, while the right arm was still snaked around his abdomen.

"Spiderling..." He was careful not to let his voice give away his nerves. "How nice of you to drop by. Didn't I ask you to use the front door?"

Tony crouched down beside him, his hand hovered over the spot on his left side that Spider-Man still had his right hand pressed on. Up close he could take in the state of the suit. It was ripped in multiple places and his face mask had abrasions with patches soaked in dark blood that looked like the side of his head had been dragged across the street. He hadn't made any attempt to get up when Tony had arrived. He… shit… he might not even be able to stand on his own.

"Do you think you can stand?"

A short shake of the head was the Spiderling's first acknowledgment of Tony's presence on the balcony.

"I'm gonna go ahead and assume that if you wanted a hospital, you'd have knocked on their window and wouldn't have climbed all the way up to the 68th floor of my building."

"No...no hospital..." His voice gave Tony chills. He sounded small and weak, very much like he had reached all of his limits.

Tony let out a long breath. "Yeah, alright. I'll... Let's get you inside. FRIDAY, doors." How was he even gonna do that?

"Okay...okay, I will..." his hands still hovered over the beaten body "I'll try to lift you from your right. This will probably hurt..."

Tony's arm came around the man's right shoulder, braced him, then tried to heave him up.

A soft whimper made Tony freeze in surprise. "Sorry, buddy..." he muttered, a quick glance over to the masked face as he released the pressure on the shoulder. "Erm, well... how about we get you popped up against the window first, so I can have a look at your side…"

Tony moved his hand away from the shoulder to the right side of the Spiderling's torso. The constant quiver of the man's body made his heart pound in his ears. He just had to push through it and ignored another small whimper. Tony slowly dragged him up into a sitting position.

"Here we go, you're good...Just stay like this, try not to fall over."

Tony stood up and turned towards the Penthouse. One thing he had learned rather quickly when he became an Avenger was that he always had to have a firm idea of where the first aid kits were stored in any of his facilities, so he was back at Spider-Man's side right away.

"Okay, just a fair warning: none of my PhDs are in medicine." He moved the Spiderling's hand off the wound, pressed a wound dressing firmly onto it and secured it in place with a bandage tightly wrapped around his abdomen. "I have picked up a few things along the way though. I understand that you're in pain, but I will need to move you out of this wind and look at these wounds of yours." Tony slung Spider-Man's right arm around his own shoulder. "Okay, I'll count to three then I'll pull you up. Try to get your legs underneath yourself and we will take it from there." After a sharp nod from the man, Tony counted to three and lifted him up, a little surprised how light he was considering that he had witnessed Spider-Man's strength in action. "Careful now. I gotcha..."

Inside Tony maneuvered him onto the living room table.

"Alright. Let's see what we are dealing with. FRIDAY, a little more light."

"Certainly, Boss."

Spider-Man jerked at FRIDAY's response and tried to push himself up on the table. Tony had a firm hand on his shoulder but even the sorry state he was in, Tony was clearly outmatched in strength. "Ooookay buddy, calm down. It's just my AI. Nothing to worry about. You're alright." Tony took hold of his right arm. The sudden rise had left Spider-Man swaying. If the dude slipped and fell he could make this a lot worse. "Alright. You're alright." Tony muttered again and again. When the Spiderling had lain back down on the table, Tony went to grab the first aid kit.

He had to focus now. That abdominal wound first. It would probably need stitches. If it needed more than a few stitches, well... he'd deal with that when they got to it.

Tony cut the bandages, removed the wound dressing and replaced it with a fresh one. He took a deep breath and braced himself before he pressed the dressing firmly into the wound to soak up all the blood that was still oozing out of it and compressed the blood vessels. Spider-Man jerked away. His body shivered with pain.

"I need you to lie still for a moment, so I can look at it."

After a couple of small nods from the Spiderling, Tony increased the pressure on the wound again, then quickly took off the dressing. The compression gave him a moment to look at the wound without it being covered with blood. A couple of seconds later a new stream rushed down Spider-Man's side and Tony pressed a fresh wound dressing firmly onto it.

He muttered as low "sorry" as Spider-Man took in a sharp breath and tried to wiggle away from the pressure. His body jerked and turned under Tony's hand. He looked up at the masked face.

"Someone knifed you." It wasn't really a question. Tony had assumed as much by the long and heavy bleeder. The wound was quite distinct and had confirmed his suspicion.

A short nod came from the man on the table. He looked pitiful, gasping for air, body strained with pain. Tony patted his arm with his other hand.

"It's okay, I think this is something we'll be able to deal with. I should be able to stitch this up for you. It's quite deep, but from what I can tell there are no major vessels or organs around the area. We should be able to deal with this with a couple of stitches and a proper pressure bandage..." Tony reapplied a bandage as he was talking. "I will get you some pain killers to take the edge off, unless... " He stopped looking back up into Spider-Man's masked face. "You're not allergic or something, right? Addicted to painkillers? Something I should worry about?"

Spider-Man shook his head.

"You sure?"

He croaked "not an addict" and added "no allergies".

"Good."

Tony went to get some water and the Ibuprofen capsules. They wouldn't help a lot, but it was all he had on hand and he could hope for a strong placebo. He put the glass on the table and handed him the capsules. Spider-Man lifted his mask just enough to swallow the painkillers and take a gulp of the water, then pulled his mask back into place immediately. Tony glanced up and down his body. So many cuts and scrapes, all the places the suit was torn.

He swallowed his anger at the state of the vigilante in front of him and shifted closer. His hand hovered over some of the worse cuts. "It'll be at least 20 minutes till the meds kick in. I'd rather not poke around that slash on your side any more before that." He bit his lip. "You're not going to like this, but you have quite a few cuts, that we will have to take care of in addition to that." Tony looked right at him. "Your face looks like someone dragged you all the way down Broadway by your feet. That mask will have to come off."

Spider-Man shook his head, pressed out a firm "No!"

Tony narrowed his eyes. "There's still blood running down from those cuts on your face. It's honestly not a good look and battle scars are not as attractive as they seem in the movies, believe me. We have 20 minutes. Might as well get those taken care of."

Another breathy "No!"

Urgh, great. Stubbornness must be a deciding factor on anyone stupid enough to dabble into the Superhero business. "You came here for help. And honestly, you are in desperate need of it. So, let me!"

Spider-Man shook his head from one side to the other again and again.

"You don't want people to know who you are, fine. I'll keep my trap shut. I know what it's like to... well, actually no, I went and told a whole room full of reporters that I'm Iron Man. But I understand. You don't want the authorities or some weird agencies breathing down your neck and poking at your Spider-Web-Slinging-Super-Strength, trying to figure out where that weird web stuff is coming out of you exactly and not everyone has a multi-billion company to stand up to those vultures. I get that. Believe me, I do."

Spider-Man listened to him intently, his hands pressed against the table as he steadied his quivering body.

"But obviously you were desperate enough to crawl all the way up here and ask for help. So, let me help."

Spider-Man was silence, his head still. Tony had hit a nerve. When the man finally spoke, his voice was no more than a shallow whisper.

"You owe me... you said... you said, you owed me..."

Tony's face hardened, but he nodded. "Yes. I said that. I owe you. And I'm prepared to stand by my word."

"Nobody... nobody can know." His voice was shaking. He was breathing heavily through his clearly still persistent pain.

"I understand."

"You don't tell. Nobody... nobody-

"Yes, fine. I won't tell anyone anything about you."

"Swear it."

"Come one, dude..."

Spider-Man stayed silent, just stared at him. Urgh, fine. Tony threw up his hands in surrender. "Fine. I swear."

At that Spider-Man's body almost seemed to relax. It left Tony with nausea as it only amplified the shaking in his muscles. He gave a slight nod. "Okay." He lifted his hand up to his mask. He didn't touch the fabric. His hands trembled as if he was pushing against an invisible barrier "I... I don't think I can..."

"You have my word."

Spider-Man's hand still hovered over the edge of his mask. He gave a small nod and tucked at the fabric. Quite quickly he stopped and a sharp gasp escaped him. Tony grasped his hands and steadied them. The blood that was oozing out of the scrapes on his face had already started to clot on the wounds' edges and the fabric had gotten stuck to the scurf.

"It's okay. It's only crusted over a bit. I… I'll get a cloth and some water and free the fabric. Just… just don't tug at it or it'll rip your skin even deeper."

Tony returned with some warm water and a washcloth. He was careful not to cause the Spiderling any more pain as he separated the fabric from the wounds. Spider-Man just lay there, surrendered to his predicament and endured the procedure silently.

After a few minutes, the mask started to come free and Tony slowly lifted it off the man's face. Too focused on the wounds it took him a moment to take in that face in front of him. Those eyes that stared right at him wide with uncertainty and fear. His mouth fell open and Tony just stood there, staring at the face of a boy. A fucking boy.

Tony cleared his throat, but his voice wouldn't come. He took in the youth of that face for a couple more seconds but he'd already made up his mind.

"FRIDAY. Ambulance. Now!"

The boy's eyes widened even more in surprise. How could anyone's eyes even physically do that? "No..." he croaked and tried to lift himself off the table.

By reflex, Tony put his arm on his and did his best to hold the kid down, but it was useless. He was only human after all and that kid had some serious super-human strength in him, bashed up and bruised as he was.

"You, stay down!" Tony exclaimed through gritted teeth, but he took a step back, as that ridiculously juvenile face burned itself into his retina.

"ETA 7 minutes, Boss."

The Spiderling jerked back, his glace went up to the ceiling, then back to Tony. "Don't...don't do this."

Tony kept his face emotionless when at the same time his heart was beating like a jackhammer.

"Please... Mr. Stark... Sir, you promised..." the boy clearly tried his best to hold back tears "You owe me. You... you said it. You owe me." With every word, the boy's breathing grew heavier.

Tony kept his eyes firmly on the boy, willed his face not to twitch. He couldn't afford any form of weakness, not now. "I make those kinds of deals with grown-ups," Tony spit. "I'm not making deals with kids!"

"For... Miss Potts. You said you own me. For her. You..." His eyes drilled into Tony, pleading. "You gave me your word."

"No..." Tony murmured. "I can't..." and when he finally found his voice he added "You're just a boy! What the fuck were you thinking?! Putting yourself in this kind of a mess?!"

"Please, Sir..."

Panic was rising within Tony or rather had risen to a point where he was so close to drift into an actual panic attack. He had to turn away from the kid, hands over his head in frustration.

This could not be happening!

"They'll take me away from... from my family." The boy was unable to hold back his tears any longer. "If they take me, I... I'm never going home. You... you gave me your word."

Tony shot him a glace. This wasn't fair. He'd had no idea to what kind of madness he had agreed to. He couldn't let a boy walk around New York City jumping off buildings, taking down robbers and muggers and getting stabbed and whatnot in the process! A boy that was lying on his living room table with a slashed up abdomen. Blood seeped through the bandage Tony had applied as he just lay there, pain pouring out of his every pore.

"I'm sorry, kid."

The boy's eyes stayed on Tony for another second. He took in what Tony had told him. he would have to realize that the only sensible-

Suddenly the kid's glance darted over to the window and the balcony door.

"Oh hell no! FRI-" He had to duck as a spider web was flung in his direction. His reflexes would have been useless but the Spiderling's aim was definitely off. "Stop!"

The kid pushed himself up and reached for his mask. He came up short and his pained gasp as the movement stretched his wounds made Tony stir and tap his watch. The boy was frantic, sent another web towards Tony, who just ducked and let it fly over his head. He crawled closer to where Tony had put down the face mask.

"I said, STOP!" The boy froze now. Tony's voice filtered by the Iron Man suit did usually add another level of authority. He planted himself between the door and the boy. His gaze didn't waver from the Spiderling as he was crouched on his living room table and tears rolled down his face, terror in his eyes.

"FRIDAY, door. And call off the EMT."

The boy gave a small sob as the balcony door swung shut behind Tony.

"The paramedics have been informed that their assistance is no longer required."

"Fine," Tony threw up his hand in a defensive manner and lifted his faceplate. "No more web shooting and escape attempts. I'll stitch up that wound of yours and we'll talk."

The boy quickly nodded, his face still wet and full of fear.

With a deep breath on Tony's part as the kid muttered a quiet "Okay." he let the suit retract itself.

"You better have one hell of an explanation for this."

(author's note: thank you guys, for reading and your comments :) )