12:00 p.m.

Mr. Stark put his hand through the tear in the suit. "Okay genius. The mandatory requirement for fixing this is telling me how you managed to destroy it in the first place."

Peter swallowed. His hands wrapped around each other but they wouldn't stay still on his lap. Looking around the lab, he tried his best to avoid the billionaire.

The lab was huge, bigger than their entire apartment or maybe their entire floor. Equipment decorated every surface. Several items he knew from magazines. Ned would drag him to Barnes and Noble and they would drool over the science section, pointing at the new tech. Many of those things were here. More than a few of those were taken next to the face of Tony Stark.

Now Peter sat on a bar tool in front of the man himself. This wasn't intimidating at all.

Mr. Stark waggled his fingers through the suit's hole and let go of the fabric. It slipped down and pooled around his elbow. The expectant look on his face was heavy and probably a hundred percent annoyed.

Peter was back in normal clothes. Ned had met him in a back alley with his backpack and a very excited monologue about how much fun that was. Changing and sprinting through the streets, he had barely made it to the tower on time.

The suit flatten underneath Mr. Stark's hands on the worktable as his eyebrows continued to rise. "Still waiting kid. This 'emergency service' overrode my lunch. I had a tuna sandwich and the beautiful sound of silence waiting for me." He pulled the suit over the table's mannequin and spread out the damage, his fingers running across the fabric as if he was tracing arteries.

"How did you manage to disconnect a main seam, rip open the pressurized cooling system and almost completely sever the suit from a secondary power source? Also, why is there electricity damage?"

"Hit by a taxi?" Peter offered it up waveringly.

"I weaved kelvar into this fabric. You're going to have to try harder, kid." Mr. Stark's voice rose as he pulled up Karen. The clips of his life were shown in a sterile straight line.

No dice. Peter tucked his toes under the foot pedals and pulled against them. "Well, I clipped against it when I was swinging."

"I'll figure it out myself then." The clips hummed through the 2 a.m. fight without any comment.

It was only a matter of time before he found the library bathroom stuff. Who knew what Karen recorded but he didn't want to find out. Having Mr. Stark discover that it was only through Jess' kindness that allowed Peter to save his identity was not a conversation he wanted to have.

He swallowed. He would have to do better.

"Well, the taxi did make a little rip but," Peter said and Tony stopped the reel in a blurry moment that wasn't at the library. Good. He continued, hoping that this would work. "When I was trying to change, later, I was in a hurry. The suit caught on my pre-cal book in my backpack. That's when the tear got big."

"It made a pretty big ripping noise." Peter winced and stared at the floor. He probably didn't need to add that detail. It actually only made it worse.

"The truth comes out."

Out of the corner of his eye, the Spider-Man's footage minimized. Karen chirped and disappeared. Muscles in Peter's back unknitted themselves. The seat creaked under Peter. His feet pulled on the metal footrests and they were bending. Peter carefully untucked his toes and placed his shoes flat.

Tony sighed and crossed his arms glaring at the suit. He drummed his fingers against his arms and stepped back to a computer nearby.

"Pre-cal was a pain in my butt thirtyish years ago and here we are again." Mr. Stark tapped a few keys without looking and two robotic arms swung in to work on the fabric.

Peter really didn't need the guilt that he felt. "It was an honest mistake."

He waived as he moved away from the machines. "I know I said that Peter needed to hit the books more often but I didn't think that Spider-Man would have to pay for it."

"Mr. Stark-"

The billionaire dropped a hand on his shoulder smiling as he walked by. "Can't you take a joke? Come on. This is going to take a second. Let's eat."

"Sir?" Peter spun in the chair as the hand hung on until it dragged off.

"What?" He unlocked the sliding door. "You don't like Pepper's tuna sandwiches?"

They ended up on Tony Stark's private porch with a view that Peter thought only he had the honor of seeing. The city rolled out all around them almost like a LEGO set. The buildings themselves were beginning to look indistinct and hazy in a way that sewed them together in a beautiful metallic mountain.

The small table was full of food and Peter was happy to sit with his soda and stare out at the view for the next hour.

Tony took another bite of his sandwich, eyeballing him. "So tell me about Spider-Man's newest terrors. What do you know about them?"

"They're organized and primarily they use drones to take away artwork." Peter tore a bite out of his bread.

"Wowo. I could have read that one in a tweet, before they upped the character limit," Tony said, "Come on, tell me what you think all of this is about. Did you even find out their band name?"

"I'm not sure." Peter shrugged. "I didn't do much digging. I was busy with other stuff."

"'Busy with other stuff"?" Tony let out a fake gasp. "Oh no, Peter Parker getting distracted with a plus one?"

"No, no, no, no. You don't understand." Peter would have sworn that the breeze had stopped and all the air was being strategically removed from around him.

"A damsel for distress?"

"Mr. Star-"

"No, that's old fashioned now." He took a quick slip of his drink but was still clearly on a role. "What about a kick-ass lady? You found yourself one of those?"

"No. You-"

"'No'? Not one of those?"

"If you-"

"A Romeo?"

"Pleas-"

"A prince in shining armor?"

"W-"

"It's alright if that's true. I didn't mean to de-closet you. Is that the youth's term now?"

"Mr. Stark, I like girls!" Peter interrupted him so loudly that it echoed back in his ears. Tony's amused face was his response. His chest rose and fell with suppressed laughter as he took another drink of water.

It took all of Peter's strength to not melt into a puddle of embarrassment and slide off the balcony. Instead he resorted to pushing his plate aside, folding his arms on the table and burying his head in them.

"Come on champ. Eat up. You'll find the right one someday."

"I'm going to die here now."

"Teenage angst didn't do anybody good except painters and artists. Especially superheroes. Performance issues." The absolute smugness in that tone made him press his head further into his arm. A breeze tickled through his hair.

Stark's statement faded away into the atmosphere. The chair squealed as Tony leaned back in it and crunched on potato chips. Why did Peter have to shout that? Couldn't he have just said it calmly? Could he have not said it at all? Tony probably thought that he was a blabbering idiot now. He probably regretted having him eat lunch with him now. Something like this would never happen again. Maybe he would even take away his suit again.

Car horns sounded off in the distance. There were no sirens, not that Spider-Man could do anything about it at the moment.

"Hey. Kid. Earth to the fourteen-year-old?"

"I'm fifteen." Peter mumbled and raised his head just enough that he could see Mr. Stark's face. Most of the delight was gone but a flash of it rose up at his correction. He took another bite of his sandwich.

"Your baddies call themselves the Statues of History. They've got a Twitter page."

That got him sitting up. "Really?"

"Yeah. Dumb name. Silly branding. They even have a logo and you can buy a t-shirt on Redbubble." Tony slid his phone across the table. A Twitter page was pulled up. The profile photo was the bronze lady from last night. The bio stated: Reminding Americans what it feels like to be subjected to thefts of history.

"What Gaston Lachaise's Floating Figure has to do with any of this, I am not sure. I don't want to commit the brain cells to it."

"Oh wow," Peter breathed as he scrolled down to see only three tweets. The first one stated: Let Americans create their own history. The second was a photo of the statue in some dark basement without a description. The newest one was posted a couple of hours ago. It only asked a question: Guess what's next?

Tony plucked the phone from him. "It's cute."

"This is great. We can trace it back and everything will be solved." Peter reached for the phone again. Tony dropped it in his pocket.

"They're using ungodly layers of VPNs and reverse proxies," Tony replied, "but I'm way ahead of you. FRIDAY had a field day and I know exactly where their little hidey hole is."

The grin grew across his face. They were going into a mission together again. He had been dreaming of this for a really long time.

"But I won't let you copy my notes. I want you to figure it out on your own. This is small time stuff. Iron Man isn't going to tango with ants." He waved a potato chip. "That's more up your alley."

"Thanks Mr. Stark." The disappointment was bitter in his throat and the words were so quiet that Peter thought at first that Tony might have not have heard him.

"No problem. I'm all about personal growth." The phone lit up in his pocket and he pulled it out. "Hey. Look at this young timer."

He showed his phone. It was a live feed of the Natural History Museum. Somebody was attempting to steal a T-Rex skull.

"It's time to get to work, Spider-Man."


I may have finished Red, White and Royal Blue right when I was writing this chapter and that might have completely fueled Tony's conversation about girlfriends. :)

I forgot to finish editing this during the week and had to finish this with my Saturday morning cup of coffee. Not too bad to do. This chapter is relatively easy.

What do you think?

Stay safe.

Thank you for reading as always.

-Quin