A/N: Here is the final prompt fill! It's crazy to think it's been a whole month and thank you all so much for continuing to support me and leave comments behind and everything, it means so much. It's my first time back into the world of writing after many many years of putting it in the back burner, and I've enjoyed this challenge so much. It's going to feel super strange not pumping out one prompt fill per day, but it was fun while it lasted! I have loads of WIP that will be getting uploaded/updated after I take a couple of days off of writing, so keep an eye out for those! Hope you enjoy :) x
As Tony weaved in and out between the buildings of midtown Manhattan, he was keeping an eye on Peter's suit. More precisely, the dashcam-like footage feed that relayed from Peter's mask into Tony's HUD. Even though he'd seen Peter navigating the concrete jungle like a spider monkey before, he still internally braced himself to see the kid crash face-first into a block of apartments or miss a web altogether and fall a couple hundred feet.
What worried Tony the most though, was watching combat through Peter's eyes. The sheer quantity of near misses... it made Tony flinch when he was paying too much attention to Peter's camera feed and not enough to Tony's reality in front of his own eyes.
As Tony took a left down a nearby alleyway, he saw Steve fending off seven of the strange creatures. They looked like a cousin of the Chitauri, but instead of the skin being a sickly shade of pale green - or yellow, none of them could come to an agreement - they were a dark red. It was almost sickening to look at; their skin looked permanently slick with blood, and Tony was going to have to get his hearing checked after the piercing cries he'd been hearing nonstop for the last two hours.
Landing as gracefully as he could in the tight space, he joined Steve in the fray. Tony was having some serious déjà-vu as he used Steve's shield to ricochet a repulsor beam into two of the creatures. They crumpled to a heap on the ground, a sizzling hole occupying the space where their shoulder joints used to be.
When they got to the final one in the alley, Tony was able to get a really good look at it now that he wasn't being assaulted from all sides. Its eyes gleamed a bright yellow, reptilian slits staring through him coldly. The maw on the creature was longer than its Chitauri (maybe) relative, and its teeth began to gnash with feral vigour as it approached the two men. One perfectly aimed miniature missile to the jugular had it go completely limp as the life left its eyes.
"Thanks," Steve breathed. He was beginning to tire, especially after the two hour mark of keeping the fight going. The creatures seemed to keep coming with no sign of slowing down and while Steve didn't want to admit that he was beginning to feel the exhaustion, Tony could tell. They'd known each other for long enough to recognise the signs.
"Anything for you, sweetcheeks," Tony shot back, voice dripping with satire. Taking off once more, he heard Steve over the comms.
"You just had to make it weird, didn't you." Steve didn't frame it as a question.
About two streets over, Tony could hear the Hulk's angered roars and the sound of more of Tony's money needing to be thrown at post-Avengers infrastructure repairs.
Natasha was doing some motorcycle-based groundwork, S.H.I.E.L.D having finally give the agent a vehicle with built-in weaponry. Watching Natasha at work was like watching the sea part as the waves of the alien threat were mowed down ruthlessly in her path.
At present, Clint was sitting on the back of the bike facing backwards towards the swam that was in pursuit. Each arrow fired found its mark. Tony groaned internally as Clint used an explosive arrow right down the centre of the street, and he watched as slabs of concrete went flying.
As they moved rapidly south, they entered the Financial District in the lowest portion of Manhattan. On Tony's right, there was The Battery park, which eventually ended to become the Upper Bay. The large body of water gave Tony a distinct form of Peter-induced Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. All he could see was the bisected Ferry, and Peter crash landing a plane which gave Tony more grey hairs than he'd bargained for by his age. All good things came in threes, Tony noted wryly, and the current situation seemed like a perfect time and place to complete the Trilogy of Unfortunate Events.
The team could really use Thor. The Asgardian was off-world and the dense swarm of snarling reptilians would be disposed of much more easily with a solid bout of guided thunder from the god.
As Tony watched the erratic throng of blood-red skin surge through the streets, he passively noted that they were heading straight for him. The way that they were perfectly lined up prompted Tony to pursue what would be a very expensive course of action.
"F.R.I.D.A.Y, reroute power to the main RT."
"As you wish, Boss."
He felt the repulsors in charge of flight weaken slightly as any excess or temporarily unnecessary power was routed into the centre chest piece's reactor. The unibeam that stemmed from it was powerful but would be taxing on the suit. But, there wouldn't be another opportunity again to hit hundreds all at once as they funnelled and bottlenecked their way in.
"The power is done rerouting to the primary Repulsor Transmitter."
Tony lined up the beam as best as he could down the road, but just before the blast left his chest plate, a blur of red swung immediately in front of him. Tony didn't have time to panic or wonder what the hell that was before the unibeam sailed straight through the centre of the swarm and wiped out what F.R.I.D.A.Y told him was about seventy-five per cent of his target. He faintly recalled seeing his own Iron Man suit reflected in Peter's monitor in that fraction of a second.
Turning to his left, he saw Peter staring at the slightly smoking path of alien bodies left in the street in the wake of the blast.
"Hey kid, you wanna explain what the hell that was? I could have killed you!" Tony's helmet dematerialised, revealing an expression laced with a combination of concern and fury.
Peter immediately jumped on the defensive, hearing the aggravated undertone in Tony's words. "I'm sorry! I promise-"
"I don't want your promises, Pete, I just don't want you playing Tarzan right in front of a deadly weapon," Tony sighed, rubbing a metal-clad hand down his face. "If you die, that's on me."
"Sorry, Mr Stark." Although Tony couldn't read Peter's expression through his mask, Peter's eyes were downcast. As much as Tony wanted to be irritated at the kid sometimes, he couldn't bring himself to at that moment. At least disaster number three hadn't come to pass...yet.
Walking over to where Peter stood, Tony clapped a hand on Peter's shoulder and squeezed. "You're doing great, kid."
Peter watched as Tony's helmet rematerialised once more and followed the red and gold as Tony flew back towards the centre of the fight. Peter smiled to himself behind the mask, and as he swung back towards his teammates, he softly whispered to himself: "You're doing great, Peter...you're doing great."