Chapter 46 - Hide and Seek

Peter woke up with a start. The room was dark, but right away he could feel that he wasn't alone. He squinted to his right and sure enough, he could make out a silhouette in the chair next to his bed. Still heavy with sleep, his eyes needed to adjust but he had no problem telling who was sitting in that chair. He just needed a moment to accept that it was really him.

"Mr... Mr. Stark?"

Peter waited for an answer that didn't come. At first, he thought the man might have fallen asleep but that couldn't be it. His eyes were wide open. Peter tried to focus on the man's voice more than his silhouette. It was a little unnerving to have him just sit there.

"Sir, is... is everything okay, is—"

"How are you feeling?"

Peter gave his head a little shake. "How am I... I... Mr. Stark, what's wrong?" The man's eyes were somewhere else, not on him, maybe the room was too dark for him to see Peter anyway. "Why... why are you sitting here in the dark?"

"Didn't want to wake you." The man's eyes were still unfocused.

"Mr. Stark, it's... you're kinda freaking me out."

"Huh." He pulled a grimace. "It's a little creepy, right?"

Peter shook his head. "Yeah, I mean... why... what's happening?"

"I need to ask you something."

"O-oh...?" Peter's heart rate sped up at once, his pulse throbbing in his throat.

"When you hacked my server. When you shuffled through all these files—"

"Mr. Stark, I—"

"Just... just shut it for a minute, would you?"

Peter's heart bounced in his chest. The man's voice was heavy but not sharp enough to be angry, moreso impatient. Peter couldn't tear his eyes away from him probably because Mr. Stark was so obviously not looking at him, couldn't even see how frantically Peter's chest was heaving, how wide his eyes were just thinking of how he had gone behind his mentor's back.

"When you went through those files, those videos... those videos you watched. They were personal. You—" Mr. Stark closed his eyes, lips tightly pressed together. "Why? Why did you watch them?"

"I..." Peter tried to swallow the lump in his throat. "I don't know. I'm so sorry, Sir. I had no right to do that, I know I messed up. I'm so sorry."

"Not good enough." The man shook his head, his eyes blinked open and his head turned in Peter's direction, his eyes never focusing on him though. The man really had to be blind in the darkness. "Try again."

"I... I'm sorry—"

"Stop apologizing and tell me the truth. Was it just a dull nosy impulse? Just that?"

Peter didn't even really know why he did it. Why he had kept watching them. How was he supposed to explain something he didn't even understand himself? His eyes stung with just how disappointed he was in himself, how he had messed all this up so bad.

"It... I didn't mean to find them. I... I was just looking for video files from... from the patrols. I just... I... know now that the suit films every time I'm on patrol and—" He stopped himself. No reason to mention how he had tried to destroy all evidence of his betrayal, of how he had been hacking the Spider-suit. "But then... then those popped up and... I just... I couldn't stop myself. They... I don't know. I don't—"

Peter closed his eyes and the tears that had gathered in his lashes rolled down his cheeks. He swiped at them with a frustrated hand. He was always crying. Why was he always fucking crying? He kept his eyes pressed close. Maybe if he didn't see the man... Maybe the words would come to him then. The truth.

"I... I think maybe because... because I don't have anything like that... no... no videos, no photos with my parents, I..." He stopped himself as his voice was cutting out, tried to push the emotions away so that the words could come out instead. "I only have that one... that one picture with them. Everything else... I... I guess... I guess I just... it just made me think about how maybe... maybe what my parents would have been like when I... when I was little—"

Peter stopped as Mr. Stark's hand curled around his wrist, squeezing it tightly. He almost gasped at the strength with which the man held onto him.

"Kid, I..."

"Don't." Peter had his eyes on the man's hand, the fingers tightly pressed onto his skin. He didn't deserve any sympathy for what he'd done. It was no excuse. "I know it was wrong. I had no right... I should have never... I'm—" He bit his lip just in time before another 'sorry' could roll off his tongue.

"Tell me about them."

Peter froze for a moment, then looked up at the man, not sure if he had heard that right.

"Mary and Richard Parker?" Mr. Stark's voice was low, void of any emotion whatsoever. "That's them, right?"

"How... Yo—you know their names?"

Light streamed through the room as Mr. Stark lifted up his phone in the hand not holding onto Peter's arm and for the few second that the room was illuminated the man looked right at him, eyes locked with Peter's, his features drawn in a weird emotion that Peter had never seen on his face before. Then the phone went out and darkness swept over them once again, even darker as his eyes had been blinded by the light.

"I'm quite skilled with the googling." The words sounded very much like his mentor usually did, the dry snark, but his tone was off and it left Peter uncomfortably on edge. "Go on. Tell me."

"They... they died." It was the first thing that came to his mind when he thought of his parents. Even now, after so many years, just an everlasting shadow that hung over everything. "A few years ago."

"What do you remember?"

"I... yo—you mean... from that day?"

"Yeah, what do you remember?"

"I... erm..." Peter swallowed hard. His eyes stung. He usually tried to think about that as little as possible. "I was... erm... 6 I guess, closer... closer to 7. I... I was staying with my aunt and uncle that day and they... my parents, they just never... never came home. I... There was an accident."

"Is that what you remember or what someone told you?"

"I don't..." Peter frowned, eyes cast down to his hands. "I don't understand. Why... why are you asking me this?"

"We... I need to make sure I know everything... what they knew, when they knew it. Every reason they could have targeted you. That I don't miss anything."

His stomach dropped.

"I... I know... I know why."

"You... you do?" Mr. Stark's voice sounded odd, almost like he was about to swallow his tongue.

"The... erm... the internship. They said..." Peter pressed his eyes shut. He had tried to push those memories away, but Mr. Stark was right. To be safe, they had to know what their motives were and the few things that Peter did remember from that day were some of the only indications. The heavy, almost nervous breathing rhythm of his mentor didn't help with Peter's concentration. "They... they said..."

Leave it to fucking Stark to pick a freak as his favorite intern.

The man was shifting in the chair next to Peter's bed. "Kid... hey, you... you okay? Just—"

"I'm... I'm fine."

Mr. Stark's hand still held onto his arm. It was a comfort he didn't even deserve. They had gone after him because he was supposed to be Mr. Stark's favorite. His favorite intern. Heat was spreading up Peter's neck into his face, hidden from his mentor in the cover of darkness. He had ruined that. Ruined the trust Tony fucking Stark had put into him.

"They, erm... it's... it was the internship thing they... they thought that... that I was your favorite intern. I guess because of all the time I spent in the lab and they didn't know of course..." He hastened to add the one obvious flaw in their plan. "They didn't know of course that... what I did, that I... that I'm not your intern anymore and how I—"

"Hey, just breathe, buddy." Mr. Stark blew out a long breath. "Of course you are my favorite intern. There is literally no competition."

It was said in jest, Peter could tell that much. His tone was playful but the words still stung, teasing the fact how it was more circumstance than true affection that had Peter in that position. He was the only intern Mr. Stark even had. He'd win that hypothetical favorites contest by default, by simple lack of other contestants. It wasn't just that shameful understanding but also the sheer scope of how badly he had fucked things up that had his insights tighten and his lung gasp for air. Even with his spider-reflexes, he wasn't fast enough to cover his mouth before a humiliation whimper rang through the otherwise room. He tried to muffle the shaky exhales but it was no use.

He couldn't pull himself together even for a moment, just for a short conversation where he was simply supposed to answer some questions. The mattress moved and Mr. Stark's hand came to rest on his shoulder. He wiggled, shrunk away from the touch.

"Please, don't. I..." Peter's voice rang hollow, his nose stuffy from his rising emotions. "I don't—"

He stopped when the man's hands flinched back like it had been burned, but he couldn't look up, embarrassed about the fuss he made. Just like a little kid, he couldn't keep it together even for a few minutes, had put them in this awkward position instead. So pathetic that Mr. Stark felt compelled to comfort him even after the whole mess he had to get Peter out of. The man moved back to his chair like a shadow, quiet and slowly. Peter rubbed a hand across his face, doing his best to pull it together. His head hurt, the pain meds likely wearing off. Like a 5-year-old he pressed his eyes closed and pulled the sheet up to his chin, praying for everything to just go back to normal.


#


It didn't take long for the kid to fall back asleep but it was almost 4 am by the time Tony left the room. His head was spinning with everything that had happened in the last 48 hours. He didn't know what to think, didn't even know where to start in detangling this chaos.

The Compound was dark and quiet even for the limited amount of people that currently stayed and worked at the facility. Usually, FRIDAY would light up the passages of the corridor while he walked around the premise, but he had told her to keep the lights on low night-time operation. He didn't need them to find his way. When he stepped into the lab, the lights were turned down low as well. Natasha sat in Tony's chair at his workbench, reading through some documents on her tablet. He didn't see Pepper, not until he stepped closer and found her huddled on the workshop couch, only a blanket pulled over her as she slept.

Natasha didn't look up, not until he was close enough to hear her low voice.

"I got something. I looked into their peripheral contacts and—"

"The brother."

Natasha nodded, lips pressed flat. "Mary and Richard Parker."

Tony tried to keep his voice down, not just so his temper would stay in check also trying not the startle Pepper. "How did we not find them earlier? It's right there. It's right fucking there. It explains everything."

"It explains a lot." Natasha still scrolled through one of the documents on her tablet. "Not everything."

"You don't have to whisper." Pepper was struggling to sit upright on the sofa. "I... I'm up. I'm up."

She looked exhausted, which wasn't a surprise after her trip from LA just 24h before. "Pep, it's fine. It's 4 am. We can—"

"I'm up. It explains what?"

Natasha swiped her hand across the tablet and FRIDAY projected the picture of a couple in their late 30s for Pepper to see. "Mary and Richard Parker. Benjamin Parker's brother and his wife."

"It's them?" Pepper frowned. "They are dead?"

Natasha's focus was still on her tablet, still scrolling. "I can't find anything about what happened there. There is hardly any online record of them at all."

"And Addy, he thinks that's they..." She groaned as one of her hands tried to ease a cramp in her arm. That couch wasn't the best place to spent a night, Tony knew that from personal experience. "That Mary and Richard Parker were his parents?"

He cleared his throat and made a point not to stare at the picture of the couple. "Well, they were someone's parents."

His phone was swiftly unlocked and opened up the folder with the documents he had collected over the last few hours. It had been a difficult search, like Natasha he had found very little on the Parker's. There was one document though that had him intensely suspicious, especially in combination with some of the documents he had pulled from Peter's school record back in March. He projected the first one from his phone into the room for both women to see.

"There's a birth certificate that names him as Peter Stanley, lists parents as Rosita and Glen Stanley. Location fits. Date of Birth fits." He swiped to pull up the next file. "Adoption papers from November 2005. Adoptive parents' names listed are May and Benjamin Parker. Peter Benjamin Parker, born August 10th, 2001. I got this one from his school file when I first found out about his identity. They match the document of 'Peter Stanley'," he air-quoted.

Natasha stepped a little closer to the projection. "So, that's how they tried to hide him."

"Possibly."

She shot him a sideways glance. "Possibly?"

"I found a second set of adoption papers." Both Pepper and Natasha looked up at that and Tony brought up the next file. It hadn't been until he actually found and looked into the other Parker's that this particular set of documents popped up on FRIDAY's radar. "Adoption papers from September 2005 for Charles Richard Parker. There's a birth certificate that lists his parents as unknown, place of birth Belknap County in the state of New Hampshire. Adoptive parents Mary and Richard Parker. Date of birth December 17th, 2002."

Pepper's eyes widened and both her hands shot up to cover her mouth. He was sure she'd understood the connection right away but Natasha only looked back and forth between the two of them. "That's a lot closer, right? He was born in February, wasn't he? That's just 3 months."

Tony nodded. "February 25th, 2003." One of Pepper's hand snaked into his, squeezing it tightly. "December 17th is also the official anniversary of my parents' death."

Natasha's eyes flicked over to Tony then back to the date on the document. "Right."

"What do you mean, official anniversary?" Pepper hovered close next to him, but Tony avoided either of their eyes for very separate reasons.

Natasha came closer and squinted at the projection. "That's not a birth certificate though. It's a certificate of live birth."

"So?" Tony frowned as he read the title of the document once more. "What's the difference?"

"A birth certificate is issued by a government entity. A certificate of live birth basically means they simply acknowledge that he's alive. It doesn't hold any weight in proving someone's identity though."

"You mean it's what they used to hide who he really is."

She nodded and looked through the details on the form. "Very likely. Parents unknown, no hospital mentioned only a county in New Hampshire. It's something you usually find with a baby that's left at a fire station or baby hatch or something. With a kid that was abandoned, that doesn't seem to belong anywhere."

Anger coiled in Tony's stomach. His boy had been treated like nobody had wanted him when Tony had been slowly dying inside, longing to hold him in his arm again. He tried to unclench his jaw when it cracked from how tightly he gritted his teeth. Next to him, Pepper stepped from one foot to the other then blew out a long breath.

"Why go to that length?"

He shuddered at what she implied. They could have just killed him. It would have been easier. Why did they hide him instead?

"Does that matter right now?" He pulled his hand away from Peppers and went through the notes on his phone. "The kid told me that he knew his parents. He told me they died in an accident when he was 6 years old."

Natasha nodded. "Well, Mary and Richard Parker sure are dead. I checked out the social security numbers but there are no news sources for an accident. I can find out more, but probably not online. Old newspaper clippings from that New Hampshire community might be archived locally, few of them are digitalized." She had her tablet back in hand, swiping back and forth. "Laconia, New Hampshire is the county seat. There's a public library that might have clipping or I could check out the local paper's basements, or maybe if they somewhat arrived in this century they might have some stuff scanned and organized on a local computer in some rotten basement."

Pepper had her arms crossed. "That would take forever though."

Natasha's eyes were still on Tony. "I'll go right away. I'll be fast, maybe by tonight I—"

"Stop, that's—" Tony blew out a deep breath, trying to get a grip on the agitation in his veins, the amount of unease and nerves that were rushing through him. "The kid has been away since Friday. I've been texting May Parker from his number to keep her suspicions low but there is no point in dragging this out. She will know something is up."

"What..." Pepper softly reached for his arm. "What are you saying?"

Tony bit his lip then looked up at her. "Time's up for this to be researched in secret. I'll go and talk to her."

"Tony..." Natasha had put down the tablet, head tilted at him. "Let's not do anything rash right now."

"I need to know how to protect him and I can't do that if I don't know what I'm even protecting him from."

Pepper pulled on his arm, made him face her. "If you show up at her front door without the boy when he's supposed to be working with you, she'll know somethings up."

"She'll know that anyway when I grill her on her weird adoption history."

"Honey—"

Tony shook his head. "If Nat's right, if she's not a criminal mastermind, if this is... if this is something completely different and if she doesn't know anything about Aiden, then I need her to not make any waves, but I still need answers and I need the boy to be safe. I don't care how."

Natasha stayed quiet which was probably a good sign, but Pepper really didn't seem to like the plan.

"If you're right, if it's true that May Parker and her husband tried to keep something like this hushed up then she'll not just tell you."

"I'll make her."

"Tony, please just think about this for a moment."

"I have thought about this." He pulled his arm away from her, pocketed his phone. "Mary and Richard Parker are dead. Benjamin Parker is dead. Charles Parker seems to be called Peter now and the real Peter Parker just vanished into thin air?"

"It's the kid she lost."

They both fell quiet at Natasha's injection. Yes, that seemed to be the most likely scenario. It was his working theory as well.

"There seems to be only one person who can clear this up." He looked from one woman to the other. "Unless one of you has a better suggestion?"


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(author's note:

Thank you all for the lovely comments. Sadly, I still haven't gotten rid of my raised temp and am supposed to rest instead of pack and move. But all the lovely well-wishes sure made me happy. Thanks for that :)

I hope you enjoyed the chapter, the next one will be up shortly.)