Born Of The Same Impulse
Summary: Barely five minutes into the past and Tony has already taken care of Ultron, thus prevented Sokovia, thus – hopefully – made sure that the Civil War would never happen. All things considered, he was doing pretty well!
Then he just had to look up his fellow superhero turned time traveller on the internet.
Star Surgeon Involved In Car Crash, Condition Unknown
Chapter 20
Vision was the first to return to the tower, mere hours after Tony and Rhodey had arrived. He caught them up on what had happened during their absence – an ambush of the people who'd been tailing Barnes, just like they'd assumed – and delivered messages from the others detailing their next course of action.
"Miss Romanoff has found a temporary safehouse," he explained, hovering above the ground as though he didn't know how not to, now that he had discovered the ability.
"Mr. Barnes has agreed to come with them for the moment, and they are planning to stay in hiding for the time being."
Tony nodded along slowly. "What about the others? Hate to break it to them, but people will notice half the Avengers disappearing."
"The Captain came to the same conclusion," Vision said. "They are intending to take shifts so as to not draw attention to their absence. Mr. Barton and Miss Romanoff are currently on their way back."
Which meant that Sam and Steve had taken the first turn staying with Barnes.
Taking turns in guarding (Protecting? Babysitting?) Barnes was a good, efficient plan. Tony wondered what it said about him that he felt the violent urge to rip it to shreds.
"Let me know if there's any news," he settled on, hoping that Vision wouldn't pick up on the clipped quality of his voice.
A week passed before Steve came back to the tower, worn down by the team's vigorous protests against letting him stay at the safehouse for longer.
Deep circles underlined his eyes when he stepped out of the elevator and Tony felt the urge to shove him towards the nearest vaguely horizontal surface for a nap.
Steve, responsible team leader that he was, had other plans. "Did anything happen while we were gone?" He dropped down opposite of Tony as though he genuinely planned to stay awake long enough for a briefing.
Even if Tony had planned on telling Steve the truth now, one look at Steve would have changed his mind. Steve had reunited with his best friend after having thought him dead for years – he didn't deserve having that time stolen from him. Not now, while there was still time to spare.
The Civil War was prevented and Thanos' arrival still years away, so Tony reasoned. He could give Steve a couple weeks to focus just on himself. To focus on Barnes.
"Tony?" Steve prompted when Tony didn't answer.
"Nothing that can't wait," Tony said, forcing his lips into a strained smile.
Steve noticed the strain – his brows furrowed – but the exhaustion won out. "Okay. Just... Keep me posted."
He only cemented Tony's decision. If Steve hadn't been seconds away from dropping where he stood, he would have definitely pressed.
Time trickled through Tony's hands like water. The team took turns keeping an eye on Barnes, and while his progress wasn't as fast – or steady – as Steve would have liked, he was slowly doing better.
Tony brought up the possibility of bringing him to the tower once or twice – unsuccessfully. Steve didn't want to force him to get involved (although he tried covering it up by claiming Barnes simply "wasn't ready yet") and while Tony objected to the argument, he realized that it was half-hearted at best. He knew that he should make more of an effort. He knew that if he genuinely tried, Steve wouldn't be able to keep him out of it for long.
Tony didn't force the issue, Steve didn't try to pressure him, and the rest of the team went along with a docility Tony learned to hate.
"You need to make up your mind," Stephen told him plainly, a couple weeks after their mission. "Either you want to get involved with Barnes or you want him to stay away."
"It's not about Barnes," Tony said, trying not to let his irritation get the better of him. "This is about Steve treating me like glass ever since I lost it in front of the team."
"You're not exactly making an effort to change his mind."
Tony frowned, swallowing down a comment he would almost definitely regret.
"If you'd just sit down for an hour and have a proper, thorough talk–"
"JARVIS," Tony interrupted, unwilling to keep up the conversation when clearly both of them had already made up their mind.
Stephen glared at him. He kept his thoughts to himself.
"Any news?" Tony was at a point where he almost prayed for a minor crisis to pose as a distraction.
"Perhaps, Sir." JARVIS – his knight in shining circuits – pulled up a holographic video. "I believe I've found something you've asked me to look for."
The amateur footage showed a busy crossroad framed with tall buildings, recorded on street-level and panning upwards to capture something far off the ground. Tony fought the urge to scoff at the quality. Whoever had recorded it clearly didn't own a StarkPhone.
"Is that... a person?" Stephen leaned forward, squinting at the blurry image of something scaling the building several dozen feet above the ground. Something red, vaguely human-shaped.
"Little troublemaker," Tony muttered, pretending like his mouth wasn't twitching into a smile.
He'd expected to hear news about Peter eventually. Tony didn't know when exactly he'd gotten his powers – just that he'd had them for a couple of months by the time their fight at the airport had rolled around. Sokovia was over and done with, and if he hadn't prevented the Civil War (hopefully for good), it would have begun roughly a couple weeks from now.
That put Peter at, what? Fourteen? Fifteen? Evidently old enough to swing through the city in pajamas and with experimental webs. If Tony didn't know that Peter had the brains to pull it off, he might have suffered an acute heart attack at the sight.
"Don't tell me." Stephen looked up from the video. "Is that the spider kid?"
"I can't think of anyone else swinging through the city in a red onesie." Tony nodded towards the screen, and Stephen looked back in time to watch Peter fling himself in front of a speeding car and save an elderly woman from being run over.
Stephen let out a breath. "Has he been like this from the start?"
"Anxiety-inducingly reckless and likely to drive me into an early stress-induced grave?" Tony shut down the video with a wave of his hand. "Yes. You should have seen him catch a car with his bare hands."
Luck, so it turned out, was on Tony's side for once. A brief Google search told him that Peter's school – being a high prestige faculty with large emphasis on science and technology – hosted science fairs and similar events several times every year. The most recent of them was just around the corner – and Peter's class would be part of it.
"Won't someone be suspicious Tony Stark shows up at some high school?"
"Why would they?" Tony asked. "I go to these things all the time. You should know, you've been going with me."
"Those were different," Stephen insisted. "A high school competition isn't exactly the place to look for cutting-edge innovation."
"You've clearly never been a fourteen-year-old high on caffeine and sleep deprivation left alone with a box full of spare parts."
Stephen raised his eyebrow. "I sincerely doubt you were a typical high school student."
Tony suppressed a grin and reopened the video clip. He paused it while Peter was mid-swing. "Those web shooters had to come from somewhere."
That gave Stephen a pause. "He made them himself?" he muttered, looking at the screen with new interest.
"Told you."
Stephen let out a hum and leaned back. "My point still stands. People will wonder if you show up out of nowhere to strike up a conversation with a student. I don't think putting attention on Peter is a good idea."
"Please. You underestimate me." Tony grabbed his phone and began mercilessly cancelling appointments for the day of the science fair. "I'll make a big deal of encouraging the new generation, stuff like that. I'll talk to enough kids so Peter won't stand out."
"Alright then. If you insist." Stephen shook his head mildly. "You're not going to try recruiting him, right?"
"What for? We took care of everything threatening up to this point." Tony paused. "Although something needs to be done about that costume. He's gonna get himself killed, going up against criminals in that get-up."
"And I suppose discouraging him from crime-fighting isn't an option?"
Tony snorted. "Have you met the kid?" They'd stand a better chance convincing Natasha to pick up knitting than discouraging Peter from helping people. That kid had a self-sacrificing complex bigger than Tony's trust issues.
"Do you want me to tag along?" Stephen asked.
Tony considered the offer. "Sure, why not. We've already got a reputation for going to these things. Might as well keep the streak going."
Besides, if necessary Stephen would be able to distract the other students to give Tony a moment or two alone with Peter. He doubted the kid would appreciate Tony outing him as Spider-Man – regardless of how bad he was at keeping his identity secret even without Tony's help.
To make space for the students' booths and visitors, Midtown High had cleared its gym – the largest room the school had to offer, and still not enough to make the science fair anything other than uncomfortably crowded.
"I don't remember science fairs being this well visited when I was a student," Stephen muttered, bumping into Tony when an overenthusiastic parent squeezed past him in a rush.
"The school's specialized in chemistry, physics, all that stuff," said Tony. "Science has a higher value here than in other schools."
"You're not going to talk to every student," Stephen asked, his voice mildly alarmed, "are you?"
"Don't worry. I wasn't planning to spend all day." Tony paused, peering through the crowded gym hall.
"Let's just work our way through," he decided, leading the way towards the nearest promising looking stall. "Stay close for now. You need to distract the other kids once we find Peter."
"And how do you propose I do that?" Stephen muttered, but followed suit.
Tony had to feign his interest in the students' work only partially. Some of the results were cute, a couple were clearly put together at the last second, and a handful were creative and innovative on a level that was impressive having come out of a student's hands and budget.
In other circumstances, Tony could have easily lost hours making his way from one student to the next. He wasn't just good with technology – he loved it.
This once, Tony wasn't absorbed in his passion. He perked up whenever he saw a strand of brown, messy hair or picked up bits and pieces of rambling explanations.
Back when he'd first arrived in the past, seeing his team for the first time had been a headache and a half. This was different. He'd been on great terms with Peter for the most part – after a hurdle or two caused by Tony's somewhat embarrassing learning curve of how to deal with a teenager – and there was no leftover tension caused by conflicts now erased by time.
The downside was that in stark contrast to the rest of the team, Peter didn't know Tony at all. Or well, he knew him – obviously – but he'd never exchanged a word with Tony before.
Even though it would mean muddling through the whole getting-to-know-each-other phase all over again, Tony supposed he ought to be grateful for the second chance and roll with it.
In retrospect, being recruited to fight one half of the Avengers couldn't have been the best first impression of meeting the team.
"Over there," Stephen muttered, extracting himself from a bundle of students all too happy to show him their biology-savvy work.
Tony followed his gaze and his heart leaped.
Peter and a couple of his classmates had tucked themselves away in a corner, somewhat removed from the hustle of the rest of the school. It was no wonder Tony hadn't spotted them up until now.
"Alright," he muttered, nudging Stephen not-so-subtly forwards. "Do your thing. Talk to them."
Stephen sent him a scathing look. He pointedly straightened the jacket Tony had poked – it wasn't even a particularly fancy one – and approached the partially-nervous, partially-bored looking group.
Tony left him to it and waited until he'd drawn in the kids' attention. If he was lucky, he'd finish the day with a baby spider in his contact list – preferably with his secret identity intact and not having drawn the connection between regular high school student Peter Parker and local superhero Tony Stark.
"Do you really think he's here?" Ned craned his neck, trying to peer over the crowd of people.
Betty was typing on her phone feverishly and at a speed that suggested she was texting half of Midtown High at the same time. "Nothing from Abe or Chris, but Yasmin says she saw him chatting up her chemistry lab partner a couple minutes ago."
Peter perked up at her words. He tried not so subtly to copy Ned – unsuccessfully. There were far too many people to pick out one single person among them.
"Oh please." Cindy scoffed. "You don't really think Tony Stark came all the way from Avengers Tower just to visit our science fair."
"He might have," Ned protested.
"Yeah." Peter gave up trying to get a better view by standing on his tiptoes. "He goes to these things all the time. Everybody knows that."
"But at a high school? Come on."
Peter tried not to let her words crush his hope. Cindy was probably right. Had anyone ever seen Mr. Stark go to anything below college-level conventions? Peter wasn't sure. Maybe a high school would be pretty boring for somebody constantly surrounded by cutting edge technology. Especially if that someone developed most of it himself.
"Excuse me."
Peter shook himself out of his thoughts and gave a polite smile to the man who'd approached them.
"I'm afraid I don't have a background in robotics," he said, inspecting their project out of narrowed eyes. "Can you walk me through it?"
They'd worked on their project as a group, and every one of them was able to explain their results. Betty already puffed out her chest, preparing to delve into the basic, simplified presentation they'd been tasked to prepare.
Peter left her to it, happy to stick to the background. He usually got a blast out of their science projects, but this year he'd been more than a little distracted.
"Hey, kid."
Peter startled at the new voice. "Uh. Hello."
"Nice work on the robot." A second guy nodded towards their project, where the others were still busy explaining their work. He wore a cap and sunglasses, even though the hall wasn't particularly bright.
"Um. Th-Thanks." Peter took a hesitant step back and tried to put on a polite smile. "My uh, group is doing our presentation right now. Do you want to listen?"
"Nah. To be honest, I didn't come here for the project." He threw Peter a conspiratorial look and took off his glasses.
Peter's eyes widened. "Betty was right," he blurted out, all prior reservations forgotten. "You're Tony S–"
"Am I? I hadn't noticed." Mr. Stark – Tony Stark! – reached out with one hand and looked around them warily.
Peter fell silent. The glasses and cap made sense now – Mr. Stark probably wanted to prevent being crowded. "If you're not here for the projects," Peter said, keeping his voice low, "then what are you doing here?"
"Actually," Mr. Stark said, "I'm here because of you."
Excitement quickly turned into foreboding. "Because of me?"
Mr. Stark's lip twitched. "It came to my attention that you've been dabbling in web design."
His foreboding made a sharp turn and warped into terror. "W-What? I'm not– What, what do you mean?"
Mr. Stark didn't dignify the attempt with a reply. He reached into his pocket and – after checking whether anybody was watching – showed Peter a YouTube video. Peter was on the thumbnail mid-swing and in costume.
"You're trying to tell me this is the first time you're seeing this?"
Peter let out a nervous chuckle. "Of course not. That guy's all over the internet."
Mr. Stark hummed. The silence stretched out and made Peter squirm. "Look, kid. You're not exactly being subtle here." He raised his hands when Peter opened his mouth to protest. "Relax. I'm not here to blow your cover. Just for some advice and an offer."
Peter's pinched his brows into a frown. "What advice?"
"You need to try harder if you want to keep your identity secret. You said it: there are videos popping up all over the internet. It's only a matter of time until someone else manages to connect the dots."
Peter's brows dipped further. "I'm sure that would be great advice if I was the one running around like some sort of superhero. Which I'm not." He hesitated. "And the offer?"
Mr. Stark hummed. "Wouldn't make much sense telling you if you're not the one I'm looking for, would it?"
He paused just long enough for Peter to open his mouth to object – although to what he was objecting, he wasn't entirely sure.
"I'm kidding, I'm kidding." Mr. Stark's smile dimmed somewhat. "Look, watching you jump around the city in your pajamas is giving me stomach pains."
Peter fought desperately not to bristle. "They're not– I'm, I'm sure that whoever that guy is, he put in a lot of effort into his costume. Sir."
Mr. Stark sobered up at that. "Sorry, kid. All I'm saying is that if you're– if that guy is planning to do more than help old ladies across the street, he's gonna need better protection."
Peter bit his lip, thinking of the mugging he'd interrupted last week. He hadn't been quick enough to dodge one of the hits, and the mugger's knife had sliced through the fabric of Peter's costume like it was butter.
Even if Mr. Stark was right, what was Peter supposed to do about it?
The conflict must have shown on Peter's face. Mr. Stark reached into his pocket and pulled out a small card. "It's my contact information. If you just so happen to stumble across our guy," he winked, "extend the offer, will you?"
Peter's eyes widened. "B-But– Mr. Stark, I–" Had he just gotten Tony Stark's number? Had Iron Man just offered to help him out with the whole superhero thing?
"Don't give that number to anyone else," Mr. Stark warned. "And better don't mention this, either. People might connect the dots."
"I– Yeah, I mean, I won't tell anyone, but–"
"Whoops. Looks like our time's up." Mr. Stark peered over Peter's shoulder.
He threw on a winning smile just as Betty's eyes locked onto him and squealed, "I knew it! You're Tony Stark!"
Mr. Stark was swept up by a wave of enthusiastic students not long after. Peter hung back, looking down at the business card and tracing the printed numbers with his thumb.
He'd spent the last few weeks desperately trying to hide his superpowers from everyone – his classmates, Ned, and Aunt May. Everything had gotten more stressful with the secret: school, the free time he now spent crime-fighting and even his life at home.
Peter let the card slide into his pocket and looked at Mr. Stark chatting with a couple of his classmates. He looked up, caught Peter's glance and sent him a quick grin before delving back into his discussion.
Maybe it wouldn't be so bad to have someone who knew.
A/N: Beta'd by the wonderful To Mockingbird, PyrothTenka and Igornerd.
