First of all, I just have to say again, WOW. I know of said that once before, but I still cannot express how excited and grateful I am that so many people have taken an interest in this story. As I write this, this story stands at 107 follows and 71 favorites, all in less than five days. That's INSANE. So thank you guys so much for that.
Now, I wanted to address this last update but I got so excited to post that I forgot xD I've had a handful of people ask me if this is going to lead into Civil War or where it sits in the timeline, and from my mindset, this is a complete AU, so no. It will not lead into CW or any of the canon events. If you want a story that follows canon, the Spider-Man is where to be for that (and the intro to CW is actually going up TODAY, as soon as I'm done here).Tony has had some of his past experiences, although admittedly I haven't sat down and catalogued out how much would have happened before this story takes place because it's not going to be relevant, at least as far as I know right now. Also, a few people commented that Peter wouldn't be 17 as a sophomore. If you look again, May says (or at least she was supposed to, I may have typoed, it happens) that he's almost 17. And it's entirely normal to be right around 16 at the end of one's sophomore year.
With that out of the way, I just want to say a huge THANK YOU again to everyone! And also that I can't keep up with posting every single day if the reviews keep coming the way they are, so since there's a hundred and some of you now, I gotta bump the early update number to 20 xD sorry folks. If the number keeps growing I may have to bump it up again, but for now, that's where it is. So... I hope you enjoy, and... GO! ;)
Saying goodbye to May was weird. Almost surreal. She gave him a long hug and made him promise to call at least every other day, then turned to Tony and gave him a stern look. "Take care of him."
Tony nodded, giving her a mock salute. "Scouts honor." He looked at Peter. "Ready, kid?"
"As I'll ever be." He didn't know what else to say.
"Alright. Out we go then." Tony turned on his heel and stepped out of the apartment. Peter followed, waving one last time to his aunt before the apartment door closed behind them and she was gone.
They walked the few minutes to the car in silence. Peter's stomach was doing somersaults the whole time. This was the first time he'd actually been alone with the man, and his nerves were suddenly through the roof again.
Well, technically it wasn't the first time. They'd met once before, but that was Spider-Man and Iron Man, not Tony Stark and Peter Parker. Tony may have been the same in and out of his suit, but Peter was not. And the key difference was that Peter didn't want his identity to be revealed, even - or perhaps especially - to Tony.
Maybe that was why his nerves were through the roof. Even though they barely knew each other, it felt like he was lying by not telling him who he was, knowing that they had met before in different circumstances. But he couldn't fathom just randomly bringing it up in conversation, either. Besides, Tony was just intense to be around. And he couldn't decide if he should be scared of what would happen if he found out or not. He didn't seem like the type of person you wanted to make angry; but he did seem like the type of person who would be angry if they found out information had been withheld from them.
Tony's voice snapped him out of his thoughts. "Don't."
Peter's head shot up. "Hm?" Out of habit, he had opened the back door to the car and tossed his bag in, and was about to slide in himself when Stark spoke.
"You can ride in the front, you know. You're a big kid." Tony raised an eyebrow at him over the car, then slid into the driver's seat.
Oh. He was so used to riding in taxis that he hadn't even considered that. Shrugging a bit, he left his bag in the back and closed the door, then got in the passenger seat.
He could feel Tony's eyes on him, waiting, as he settled in and put his belt on. Hardly waiting for it to fully click, the billionaire spared a brief glance in his mirrors to confirm he was clear before flying into the street.
Startled, Peter gripped the armrests on either side of him to steady himself. Holy shit, he drove like a maniac! He had to close his eyes and steady himself a bit to be sure he wasn't going to either throw up or say something stupid.
When he opened his eyes again, he could feel that Tony was looking at him. "What?" His tone came out sharper than he'd intended, but his heart was still beating pretty fast in his chest.
"Don't throw up in my car, kid." Maybe not the best response, but the intentions were good in saying something. He was less worried about the vomit itself than why the kid looked that way. "You alright? You can't be having second thoughts already."
"About the internship? No. About riding with you instead of walking? Maybe a little." Still holding on to the armrest for dear life with one arm, he brought the other up to run through his hair. "With all due respect, sir, you drive like a maniac." At least you do now that my aunt isn't in the car.
Tony chuckled, seeming to guess his unspoken thought. "We weren't going near as far and it wasn't near as late. No point in trying if I couldn't even get to full speed before we stopped again. Anyway, are you going to keep calling me that every time you speak to me? Because I was fairly certain I'd told you to cut it out." He wasn't a huge fan of being called "Mr. Stark" - in his mind, that was his father - but he also really hated being called sir. Especially repeatedly. With the exception of very few circumstances, most of which involved him and women and things way too inappropriate to tell the kid.
Peter just shrugged. "I don't know what else to call you, Mr. Stark."
He suddenly realized he didn't know what he wanted him to call him either. Typically he insisted anyone close to him call him his given name, but they definitely weren't there yet. "I don't know. Call me… boss, or something. Anything is better than that. You're a smart kid, you'll figure something out." He paused, glancing over at him again. Whether it was nerves or something else entirely, he didn't seem to want to talk much. He gathered from what he'd seen of him - at dinner with his aunt, talking to Miss Potts, their interactions at the interview - that Peter not talking much was a rare thing indeed, but he wasn't good enough with discerning emotions to be able to tell exactly why, and thus didn't know what to say to fix it.
See, this was why he didn't deal with kids. They were too moody and complicated - teenagers especially. He sighed. Fine. The kid would come out with it in due time. Either that, or their time together would be mostly occupied by music to fill the silence.
Speaking of which… Tony reached out and turned on the radio, turning it up loud enough to do exactly that but leaving it low enough that he could still hear the kid if he said something.
Peter had little intention of saying anything, in truth. It occurred to him that if he hadn't spoken so little to Tony when they'd met before, he'd have been busted before he could walk out of his office that first day. He did have some self preservation instinct, then. But every time they spoke now, it was a risk of jogging Tony's memories. Especially when they were alone. Especially if he moved too fast or grabbed something too hard - like the armrests he was carefully monitoring his grip on - or worse, snapped at something that overloaded his heightened senses, like the fact that driving this fast was enough to upset his stomach because he could genuinely sense how fast they were going and everything they were passing and it was just giving him general motion sickness, or that damned music that Tony had turned up and he had to concentrate on not making a face at the intensity of. He liked Led Zeppelin, but right now, it was just too much for him.
His grip tightened on the armrest, and his heightened senses managed to pick up on the slight crack before he could damage the armrest enough for it to actually snap. He forced his grip to relax, taking a deep breath and turning his gaze out the window. Logically he knew he couldn't avoid talking to him forever, but he would still have to be careful.
Hearing his intake of breath, Tony glanced at him again, turning the radio down a little bit so he didn't have to yell over it. His driving couldn't be bothering him that badly, surely? "You do realize I fly through the air in a metal suit at speeds five times this, don't you?"
Peter managed to make himself look at him, and he had to admit he was surprised at the mild tinge of concern he saw in his eyes. "This isn't your suit, Mr. Stark. It's not made to withstand the damage, and there's no AI here to cover our asses."
He saw Tony's eyebrows shoot up, and he regretted the words as soon as they were out of his mouth. Was the AI in Tony's suit even common knowledge? Shit. Maybe he actually didn't have any preservation instinct.
"How do you know so much about my suits?" Tony found he wasn't really alarmed as much as curious to where he'd gotten his information.
"I…" Peter fumbled for a response for a moment. "I'm just an admirer of it. Most of the details about it can be found as a matter of public record. Witness reports and such. Plus, I wasn't entirely sure what I was going to be required to do so I did a little research in the case I actually got the job." It wasn't all exactly untrue. Most of the details he'd said could be found in old police reports, and he actually had done some research into his suit in the past. It just wasn't recently.
"Hmm." Stark didn't say anything, and Peter let his gaze wander back out the window, knowing his face would be what gave him away under pressure. Tony's face, on the other hand, gave nothing away, and he had no idea what the elder man was thinking. He only hoped that that was a true enough sounding excuse. If he pressed…
But, whatever Stark was thinking, he didn't share, and he didn't press him for more details, either, much to his relief. The rest of the ride to the tower passed in a blur, as they were both lost in their own thoughts.
When Tony finally pulled into the garage - tires squealing as he slid into a parking spot at high speed - Peter couldn't get out of the car fast enough. Minding his strength, he quickly threw the door open and hopped out, leaning heavily against the car and trying to get a handle on the sensory overload and his motion sickness before Mr. Stark could get out and notice.
He had all of about two seconds to regulate his breathing before Stark shut off the car and got out. He could feel the elder man's eyes boring into him again immediately, and he quickly turned, opening the car door and grabbing his bag out. When he straightened and closed the door again, Stark was still waiting, looking at him like a puzzle he was trying to figure out. "Ready?" he asked him. Peter just nodded, and Stark motioned for him to follow, so he did. They walked to the far end of the garage and got in an elevator. "Jarvis," Stark said suddenly, and Peter jumped, but quickly realized he wasn't talking to him. "Is Pepper asleep?"
"Checking," the robotic voice of the AI answered into the elevator. A moment later, it spoke again. "She appears to be. Would you like me to wake her up?"
"No. Leave her sleep. I guess she'll just find out in the morning." Tony sighed. It wasn't worth waking her up, even if the look on her face would probably be priceless. The elevator stopped, and he glanced back at Peter again. "Alright. Come on. I'll show you where you're sleeping for the night."
Peter nodded, following him out and looking around. So the AI that was in his suit was the AI that powered everything around them as well? He couldn't help but find it fascinating.
Tony walked through most of the floor without paying any attention to his surroundings - he did live there, after all. Peter, on the other hand, took everything in, so much so that when Tony stopped he almost walked right into his back. Thankfully, he caught himself, and the elder man either didn't realize or was ignoring how close he'd gotten. He unlocked the door they'd stopped in front of and pushed it open. "Here you are, home sweet home. Now I gotta be in California for a meeting by one, their time, so we need to arrive a bit before that, so we'll be leaving here for the jet at eight am sharp. I don't care if you get up at five til so long as you're in the kitchen and ready to leave on time. Got it?"
Peter nodded. "Will do, Mr. Stark."
"Alright. Goodnight, then." Tony left without another word, heading down the hall to his quarters.
Peter stepped inside the room, closing the door and looking around slowly. He'd just made his way over and flopped down on the bed when a blue light suddenly winked on, and a holographic scanner ran over him without warning. Oh. So the AI was installed in every room of the house then. That was interesting.
He found it a lot less interesting when the AI suddenly spoke again.
"Scanning complete. Welcome to Stark Tower, Spider-Man. I'm pleased to see you've recovered from your previous injury."
Peter froze, then bolted up. "What did you just say?"
"Your injuries have all healed since the last time we met, Mr. Parker. Or should I scan again to be sure?"
"No! I just... " It was AI, it was a computer; how did it know? "How did you know?" He couldn't make his voice go above a whisper.
"If you recall, Mr. Parker, Mr. Stark had me scan you for injuries at the sight of your last encounter. My database has records of your height, weight, facial structure for facial recognition-"
This was too much. "Okay, I get it, thank you. Does Mr. Stark know?" He couldn't know. Surely he would have said something as soon as they were alone if he did, right?
"Not to my knowledge, Peter. Would you like me to ask him?"
"No!" He stopped, making a conscious effort to control his voice. "I would very much appreciate it if you didn't tell him."
The AI was quiet for a minute, as if calculating if this was possible. Apparently, that was exactly what it was doing. "Lying is not an ability within my programming, Mr. Parker. I shall have to alert Mr. Stark in the morning, as he has set his room to do not disturb protocol at the moment."
"No! It's not lying, honestly! It's only lying if he asks you and you tell him that I'm not the Spider-Man. Yeah? Check the definition." He sounded desperate, and he knew it. It was a wild thought, telling Jarvis to check the definition, and he wasn't entirely sure what he was hoping to accomplish. Well, he did, but he didn't really know if it would work.
Again, that half-second pause as the AI calculated. "Definition of lying: the act of telling a lie. Definition of lie: an intentionally false statement."
"See? It's only a lie if he asks."
The AI considered this for a moment. "Indeed, what you are saying doesn't mesh with the direct definition of a lie. I shall tell him only if he asks, then."
"Thank you, Jarvis." Peter flopped back on the bed, putting a hand over his chest. For a split second, he had worried he might have a panic attack. And he honestly had no idea why. Some part of him really thought that Stark would be mad if he found out that he was Spider-Man, and he honestly wasn't entirely sure why. Because they'd met before? Because he was deceiving him the same way he did everyone else? Because it made him feel as though he knew something Stark didn't and he was afraid he wouldn't like that? Because it made him seem as though his interest was more in him as a hero than as seriously wanting to learn from him in a business aspect?
He just wasn't ready to tell him yet. He'd brought his suit more as a comfort than anything, knowing that he couldn't really use it in these circumstances or Stark would figure him out for sure. It was good to know he had it, though. Stark had called one thing right without even realizing it - it was like a comfort object to him.
Sighing, he laid back in the bed for a moment and stared at the ceiling. He knew he should get up, maybe shower, at least change into some pajamas, but he just couldn't bring himself to get up again. After Jarvis had scared the living daylights out of him on top of everything else, he was just ready for bed.
He just had time to think that he would never fall asleep after all the excitement and nerves of the day and the ones that were still roiling around in him before he conked out.
I forgot to add this when I originally posted this chapter, but I'm going to add it now because I don't want to wait because I forgot again. I want to give a HUGE thank you to mischiefiswritten for not exactly betaing all my Marvel stuff but helping me with plot and characterization and just generally when I'm not sure of myself. All the things I have in store from this story have only developed as well as they have because of her help, so thanks again, and check her out on tumblr if you're interested!