Congratulations, it's a Boy
Chapter 12
Summary:
May makes a decision.
"Woo, yes! Take that, Laser Face!"
Sitting beside May in a viewing area a safe distance away, Tony watched as Peter webbed a flying drone, sticking it to the gym wall before continuing his swinging motion towards an elevated platform. He landed with a backflip, and then called out.
"May! Did you see that? I totally- whoa!" Peter leapt away as another drone shot at him.
"Yep, I saw it. Great job, Peter!" Then she addressed Tony without taking her eyes from where her nephew was working out in the new Avengers facility.
"I still can't believe the things he can do… the way he can move."
Tony nodded in agreement.
It hadn't taken long for May to agree to bring Peter out to the compound for a tour. She seemed like the kind of person who liked things settled; she didn't like indecision hanging over her head. And from the way things had been going so far, Tony was fairly sure that she was going to agree to let Peter keep the suit, even if she imposed some limitations.
"This is probably the most rousing game of laser tag you've ever seen." He smirked, watching Peter catch another drone before it could hit him with a beam of light.
"He's so fast… I mean… the drones can't even touch him. Is it… is this on a beginner's setting for him?"
"Ah, no. Actually, this is the standard setting the others train with. Most manage to avoid the drones because of their sheer experience. Or they analyze the tactical pattern the drones are using and adjust accordingly. Peter just seems to be aware of them as needed. It's almost as if he senses them coming."
"Is that- is that possible? Can he predict them?"
Tony shrugged, watching Peter hang upside down from the ceiling as he took aim at another drone. "I don't know. He's never trained here before - I don't have enough data to analyze. But he's avoiding them just fine on his first run through. Most of the others got tagged at least once their first times."
He'd long suspected that Peter had some form of limited precognition when it came to danger. His reaction times were lightning fast, and in some of the footage he'd seen, it almost seemed as if the kid was reacting to something as it happened rather than right after. Of course, he'd be learning a lot more about what Peter was capable of if May agreed to let him take the internship.
"What gets me is how much fun he seems to be having. I've never seen him like this. It's like he was born for it." May swiped a tear from her cheek. "He'd- he'd never be able to give this up, would he?"
Tony was tempted to shrug again because how was he supposed to know? He was sitting next to someone who'd known Peter upclose his whole life. Tony couldn't compete.
"I don't know," he answered instead.
He didn't know, but he sure as hell had a feeling. It was the same feeling he'd had when Iron Man had actually become a viable thing and not just a flying escape bucket he'd put together in a desert out of desperation. He'd flown halfway across the world and he'd utterly destroyed the terrorist camp that had held him hostage, liberating a village full of innocent people. He'd known then that he and Iron Man were one and the same.
He thought he saw the same understanding in Peter, especially after the he'd stopped Toomes. It hadn't mattered then to Peter that he was without the suit; he was Spider-Man, and he was going to stop something bad from happening no matter what. He'd said he was nothing without the suit, but he'd proved himself, and everyone else, wrong. Tony doubted the kid was ever going to stop now.
-0-0-0-0-0-
Later that day Peter was at one of Tony's work stations in the lab checking out holographic images of various Iron Man designs. Tony had let him look, but he'd made him promise to hold all his questions until the end. Partly so he and May could talk, and partly because he was fairly sure that if Peter had enough time to examine everything, he'd be able to answer most of his own questions.
They sat just outside the lab, a plate of banana bread between them - and because Tony hadn't been able to resist - tea.
"You know," May started, "it's funny. I never really paid much attention to Spider-Man stories before, but ever since I found out… it's like it's all I ever hear about."
"Well, you're in the neighborhood."
"Someone I work with told me her daughter was almost mugged, but Spider-Man stopped it. Swooped in and stuck her attacker to a building. I've also heard stories about Spider-Man stopping robberies and helping senior citizens carry their groceries. Apparently, he even jumped in front of a car before it could hit a bus. And it didn't hurt him. I saw that one on the internet."
"I saw that one, too. The impact didn't even phase him."
"He really is amazing."
"He is."
May turned from where she'd been staring vacantly in Peter's direction on the other side of the glass, and faced Tony fully. "There's something you need to understand."
"Okay…"
"This… event. The spider, the… infection. Whatever it was that changed him. It didn't really change him." She put her hands out in front of her, as if to ward off a potential argument. "I mean, it changed him physically, but this- this- running around helping people? This seeing a need and wanting to do something about it? That's who Peter's always been. Now he just…"
"Has the ability to do something about it," Tony finished quietly.
And that was one of the huge differences between him and Peter, Tony realized. Peter had grown up wanting to help people. For him, getting these powers had meant finally having the tools to do what he'd wanted to do all along.
Tony had grown up wanting to be better. He'd wanted to be the smartest, and invent the best computers, or weapons, or whatever he put his mind to. It didn't matter that there really wasn't much competition; he was always competing with himself. He was consumed by the desire to constantly improve upon whatever had come before.
Helping people hadn't even been in the picture. Not until he'd woken up to the fact that he was the one who'd been helping to hurt people all along.
The kid had grown up knowing what Tony had taken a lifetime to learn.
May looked back toward Peter. "I hate this. I hate the idea of him facing dangerous people - people who want to hurt him."
She held up a finger as if to stop Tony from answering.
"But I'm also so damn proud of him. I can hardly believe… he's been at this for months. Just helping people. No recognition, no praise, no payment… he's fifteen, for god's sake! He-" She swiped a tear off her cheek. "He's helped so many people. He's made a real difference in the neighborhood."
"You raised him right."
Peter burst from the lab door. "I think I get why the ankle repulsors are- May, what's wrong?"
Tony watched as May stood, blinking back tears before any more could fall. "I'm just really proud of you, Peter."
Peter accepted a hug from his aunt and then stepped back with a hopeful look on his face. "Does that mean…?"
"No."
Peter's face fell.
"You can't do what you were doing, not anymore. But…"
And just the way she trailed off must've been a signal to Peter, because he immediately perked up.
"But, I might be okay with you keeping the suit under certain conditions."
Peter was nodding before May even had the whole sentence out. "Yeah, of course."
May ticked off on her fingers. "First, no sneaking around. I want to know what's going on all the time. Second, no staying out late on a school night. Until you graduate, school is the priority. Third, nothing too dangerous. I mean it. No serious, big-time crime. No bad guys that blow up parts of the city. You leave that for someone else."
Peter was nodding so quickly that Tony had to wonder if he'd even heard the conditions, or if he was so eager to keep the suit that it didn't matter what he had to agree to.
"Uh, I think I can help with the first one. The suit has a tracker." Tony pinned Peter with a look that he hoped conveyed the fact that he expected Peter to leave the tracker in this time. "I can put a simple app on a tablet that would allow you to see where the suit - Peter - is at any time, as well as call him right on his display whether he has his phone with him or not."
-0-0-0-0-0-
And that's how the Parkers ended up returning home from their very first trip to the compound with brand new Stark gear.
He'd given May a tablet that would interface seamlessly with the suit. He'd given Peter a laptop so he could peruse the Spider suit schematics at his leisure, and eventually maybe have some input.
And May had agreed to let Peter come out to the compound twice a month.
The internship was officially on.
-0-0-0-0-0-
A couple of weeks later, Peter was back at the compound for the weekend. May had opted not to come, saying she was going to take the weekend off.
Tony suspected that having Peter report to her was a little more time consuming than she thought it'd be.
Peter arrived anxious to get moving so he spent Friday evening working out in the gym. He'd requested that Friday record his session so they could analyze it afterwards, so Peter spent part of Saturday watching the playback and asking about the ways the drone program could be altered.
"Mr. Stark? Do you think I could have access to the drone program files? Just so I could try a few things?"
"Yeah, sure. Make a copy before you make changes, though. Safe computing and all that."
Tony watched Peter nod vigorously. "Absolutely! I definitely won't overwrite anything, I promise."
Not that he was going to tell Peter, but it really didn't matter. Tony had his own backups in case Peter accidentally messed anything up, but it was a good habit for him to have.
The kid was surprisingly proficient with computers, despite having had nothing but some public school classes to learn from. Tony suspected he was a genius or pretty close to it, but per his parents wishes, he'd never been tested. From what he'd gathered, the Parkers had noticed Peter's intellect early on, but had wanted him to have as normal a childhood as possible.
Tony felt a twinge of guilt. 'Normal' had definitely gone out the window. Then again, he doubted the Parkers had ever imagined that Peter would gain super strength and agility and take up vigilantism all before he turned 16.
Dinners were a little awkward at first. Tony wasn't sure how far he could push this 'get to know each other' thing before Peter began to suspect that there was more to this than a simple internship. The kid wasn't stupid. Luckily, he was still so hyped about being at the compound that he didn't seem to think anything of the fact that so far it'd mostly just been the two of them, and Tony had done most of the cooking himself.
Not that he'd advertised it. Typically, Peter was off doing something in the lab while Tony threw something together in the kitchen. Despite popular belief, he actually did know how to cook. It was like kindergarden-level chemistry: you just had to understand how substances interacted with each other under certain conditions, and combine them to get the desired result. Easy.
Saturday night Peter was still every bit as enthusiastic about… everything. Tony was beginning to suspect it was the kid's default setting.
"So Mr. Stark, I was wondering… do I have full access to the Spider-Man suit files?"
Tony glanced up from his spaghetti, careful to keep his expression neutral because he knew that's all it would take to get Peter to start -
"Not that there's a problem with the suit, because there's no problem at all. It's perfect, really. I just wanted to look at some of the systems. Just, you know, study them? I don't want to change anything."
-over explaining himself. At a rapid pace.
Tony was tempted to caution Peter about bogging himself down with too many projects at the same time. He'd already been given access to the basic suit schematics and was already looking at the drone program Tony used in the gym, and the drone guidance system in general.
Of course, Tony liked to have several different projects open at once and bounce between them whenever the mood struck - he could understand that particular way of operating. Maybe Peter was the same way.
Directing his attention vaguely over Peter's shoulder, Tony said, "Friday, go ahead and give Peter access to the private server."
"Access granted."
Then before the kid could launch into a thousand-word expression of gratitude, he addressed Peter. "There's a lot of stuff in there - the Iron Man files, your suit files, the drone files… don't let yourself get sucked in. You have to concentrate on school or May will have both our hides."
"Absolutely, yeah. School is important." Peter was nodding for emphasis.
"And keep it to yourself, okay? I don't want to find out that the robotics club at your school suddenly has repulsor technology."
"Yeah, no, I'll keep it to myself! Of course. I don't even take the Stark computer to school."
"Alright then. Knock yourself out, kid."
