So, fair warning: this is another almost five thousand word chapter. It's big because a lot happens in it, but I couldn't bear to split it up. It didn't feel right to do so. So lots of revelations and news in this chapter. We get to hear about the villain for the first time! Be gentle with me; it's my first time trying to create a supervillain, okay? It'll be a few chapters yet before we officially meet him, though.
Anyway, I won't ramble too much. There's enough to read and have to process here. Thanks so much for all the wonderful love and reviews, and I hope you guys enjoy!
Tony knew he'd made the right choice.
Both by bringing the kid and talking to him in the car. Now that they'd addressed most of the tension he felt was there, it seemed a lot more likely that they would get stuff done this summer. And he felt a lot better about it himself; he no longer felt like he had to watch what he said or how he behaved as much, and when he'd left Peter in the car, he'd seemed altogether more relaxed.
It was a shame he'd had to leave him in the car, though. But there wasn't much he could do about it. He had to go in and change for his meeting, then get on the road that direction. The military base where he had to meet up with Rhodes was some distance away, and he couldn't keep him waiting when it was something as serious as what this sounded.
So he went in to change and left him with Pepper, knowing she wouldn't mind. She was better at giving the grand tour than he was anyway.
Normally to meet with Rhodes he'd just show up casual, and, if he was being honest, probably late. But this sounded like a bigger issue, and Rhodes didn't work on big issues alone. That meant this would be a military debriefing, which meant he had to dress and act like it, unfortunately.
It was a good excuse to break out his suits, though. Both of the attire and flying varieties.
When he was dressed and ready to go, he stepped into his newest suit and let it encase him, then went out onto the balcony and took off.
A short flight later, he was touching down on the airstrip of the military base.
"What, no blazing guns this time?" He retracted the mask, looking over the group that had started heading towards him the minute he touched down. He couldn't help remembering the last time he'd flown here in the suit. They'd tried to shoot him out of the sky until he got close enough for them to figure out who he was, and even then, it was only because Rhodey called them off.
Rhodes appeared from the middle of the group, clasping his outstretched hands. "No, this time I had them warned ahead of time."
"Thanks. I appreciate that." Tony grinned at his old friend and let his arms drop. "How goes it, Rhodey?"
"It's been better," the officer admitted, putting a hand on his shoulder and steering him inside. "Come on. Let's get inside, put that suit up, then we can talk."
Tony simply nodded and let him lead him in. He'd been here many a time before, with and without Rhodey, but that was back when he still made weapons for the military. He had only been here a few times since then, and generally it was when they needed his help with something, typically something technical - he had agreed to help them with the disarmament and such of weapons, but never building them - or if he had to debrief them about something he had done, usually without their permission. But it had been several months, and while he wasn't exactly nervous, he wasn't exactly in his comfort zone being back here, either.
Rhodes managed to disperse most of the people and get them alone into a small conference room. Once the door had locked behind them, Tony stepped out of the suit and approached Rhodes. "Care to tell me what's going on, now? And what's with the low tech vibe?" The room they were in didn't appear to have any tech at all, not even a projector like they used to use to do presentations.
"The low tech vibe is exactly why I asked you to come down," Rhodey told him. He glanced at the suit. "Tell me that thing is off."
Tony frowned. "Is it glowing?"
"No."
"Then it's off." He crossed his arms over his chest. "What's going on?"
"Your phone?" Rhodey asked, ignoring his question.
"Is one of the most secure devices on the planet, Rhodey. Why?" He didn't like where this was going. He also didn't like all these questions, and the fact that they were alone. He'd debriefed Rhodey on private business before like this, but only when it was private, and he had never had to come all the way out here to do it. If this was military business, where was the rest of the military?
Rhodes sighed, rubbing his temple. "Because I don't know if anything is secure anymore, Tony." He glanced around again, double checking to make sure there were no cameras or places for peeping ears to be hiding. "Look, I'm sorry for the secrecy and the paranoia. But this whole thing is classified - upper level clearance only. The only reason I was able to convince them to let me bring you into it is because of your technical skill and the fact that if this guy ever shows his face for real you'll probably be brought into it either way."
Probably. Villains had a way of finding him. "Fair. So what is it this time?"
Rhodey settled into one of the chairs, sighing slightly. "He calls himself Malware." He handed him a file.
Tony took it, sitting in the chair opposite him and opening it. "So this is a tech thing. Is he a hacker?" That would explain the lack of tech, certainly.
"Yes and no. I don't actually know what he does exactly, but he's got some hackers for sure." He studied Tony as he cracked open the file, scanning the reports there. "There was nothing, and then he was just everywhere. A small city to the south loses wifi for a few days. A few traffic lights in major intersections fail. Hacking of a few young companies. Things that can be easily explained, mistakes on someone else's part. Then things started getting bigger. A whole metropolitan loses power. Big companies experiencing hacking and information leaks, losing control of their systems. Data being wiped. Security going down. Cell towers being made unfunctional. There was no warning and then it was all happening at once. And every time he strikes it gets bigger."
"And you're sure all these things were the same guy?" Tony flipped through the papers, looking over the reports. Rhodey had only touched on the surface of the incidents that had happened. It had literally went from a town losing wifi to attacks against powerful agents in a matter of days.
"Considering he claimed them all, I'd say so," Rhodey told him.
He glanced up, frowning a bit, then looked down again, pulling out a picture and raising his eyebrows. "He's got a suit." He studied the picture closely - the grey metal look, sort of like his first suit, making a body around him. Again, not dissimilar to his armor, but different in structure, and definitely in power. "It looks like a cheap knockoff of my armor."
"It's anything but, from what we've seen in the videos. It's pretty high tech. I couldn't tell you what it's made out of, but he has a whole system built into it. You might even be impressed by some of the things he can do with it."
"Mine does too. And I doubt it," he murmured, setting the picture down and looking at him. "So, what do you want from me, Rhodey? To fight him?"
"Not exactly. Not yet, at least." Rhodey leaned forward. "We need help finding him, and I'm afraid we were attacked the other day. In and out; our security and servers in turn were down for about fifteen minutes. Then it was just gone. We haven't found anything, but…"
"You're afraid your security is compromised," Tony completed. He exhaled a small breath. "I could try, but…"
"If you do, you're the next target," Rhodey warned. "But he's already said that what comes next is big. He's not intending to stop, and he could throw California into chaos on a large scale if he continues the way he is now. Or even the whole country, depending on his scale. I don't know what the end goal is, but it can't be good."
"Do villains ever really need an end goal besides mass destruction and chaos?" he countered. He closed the file. "I'll see what I can do, but I need all the information I can get. Can I see the footage you have?"
Rhodey shook his head, looking down. "He only sent two videos, and both spontaneously combusted the devices we viewed them on and themselves. I can't show you anything."
He sighed. That was just perfect. Nothing for him to analyze. He was sure he had reports of what had happened in the videos in this file, of course, but he preferred to see it first hand. That way he could look for and hopefully pick up on little hints and tells that someone else might not catch. "How have you kept this contained up til now?" If this was high level clearance, they were definitely trying to keep the information contained. And if it was all across California, that would have taken some doing.
"We've been letting people believe exactly what it was we believed. It's all random. No connections, no proof that there's any need to be worried." He rubbed his forehead. "All telling the public would do is cause mass hysteria, especially considering we don't know how to stop him yet."
That was true enough. It was only luck that kept all these incidents from being widespread enough at once for it to have caused mass hysteria - or strategy on the part of the villain. The thought made him make a face involuntarily. That could never be good. If this guy had claimed it to the military, then he was definitely planning something big. And the only reason he would be trying to keep it down low from the public - or making it easy for the military to do so - was if he had some big reveal planned. And those were never coupled with anything good either.
"Do you know anything about how he's doing it? Has he been spotted at any of these places, in any of these areas?" He pushed the thoughts away to focus on Rhodes. He meant it when he said he would need all the information he could get. The less he had to find for himself, the less attention he would draw to himself… hopefully, at least.
"No sightings of him aside from the videos he sent us. Apparently he's taking a hands-off approach at the moment." Smart. If he stayed in his hidey-hole, he couldn't get cornered and captured before any of his big plans were set into motion. "As for how he's doing it… your guess is as good as mine right now, if not better. You know more about hacking than I do."
"So basically you want me to do everything for you?" Tony quirked an eyebrow at him. To be fair, they did give him a file, but from the sounds of it, it didn't hold much that was going to help. He could read the video reports, and then he'd basically be on the same page as them.
Rhodey gave him a pained look. "I'm sorry, man. I am. But I can't trust any of these guys around here, not the way I trust you. Besides, most of them aren't allowed to know the details, and even those that are can't do much here when we can't trust the systems to be safe to use. That's part of the reason I pushed to bring you into it in the first place. You're most suited to the job, and we both know you'll end up having to face this guy eventually, so we may as well communicate here and make it easier on both of us."
Tony made a face again, flipping through the file once more before tossing it back down. "Yeah, yeah. I already agreed to help; you don't have to flatter me." He huffed. "Fine. But from now on you come to me for communication purposes. I got too much on my plate to keep flying out here to give you reports."
"Yeah, like your little intern?"
Tony paused halfway to his suit, turning on his heel to look at him. "How did you… never mind. You probably talk to Pepper more these days than you do me. I guess I shouldn't be surprised." He rolled his eyes, stepping into the suit. "She never does withhold the information I want her to."
"Was it supposed to be a secret?" Rhodey raised an eyebrow at him.
"Not exactly, but that doesn't mean I want it to be public knowledge, either." The suit closed around him, and he went back over to grab the file. "You might have guessed, but it wasn't exactly my idea."
"Well, that one didn't take a genius to figure out. Still, I'm glad to hear it. Maybe it won't be so bad. You might even learn something from him." Rhodey stood up too.
Tony glanced up at him, glad the suit mask now concealed his face. He wasn't sure if that was a dig - if Pepper had told him the kid had managed to find an error in his work, he wouldn't be surprised - or if it was just Rhodey trying to be funny, but he wasn't too keen on admitting that if he didn't already know. "Maybe," he allowed, leaving it at that.
Rhodey just nodded and sighed. "Come on. I'll show you out."
Between the talk with Rhodey and the travel time back and forth, Tony arrived back at the mansion in the early evening. He landed on the balcony and headed straight down to the workshop, putting his suit away and making his way over to his desk. It was a mess, of course, as always. The desk down here was more for mechanical stuff than paperwork and such, but he tended to come down here to do work when he didn't want to be disturbed or didn't want people seeing what he was doing. The office upstairs was still just his, but it was less of a private workspace than this one. And the kind of research he was about to do definitely needed to be done in private.
But first, there was another matter he wanted to attend to. And it was better that he do it now, when he was sure that his servers were still secure, rather than waiting until after he started pissing off an apparently skilled hacker.
He sat down at his desk, kicking his feet up on it and pulling up the holographic screen. "You up, Jarvis?"
"For you, sir, always," the AI responded immediately. "What can I do for you today?"
"I have several promises to fulfill, it seems, and each gets more dangerous as I go down the list, so let's start with the safest ones." He put his hands behind his head, leaning back in the seat. "Bring up everything you have on Peter Parker."
"Digging into our favorite intern a bit, are we?" Jarvis asked as hits started popping up all around him.
"I don't know about favorite just yet," Tony murmured, scanning through them. "But do tell me all about him."
"If he's the only intern, doesn't that automatically make him the favorite?"
"Not in my book. Now let's hear it."
He almost wondered if it was possible for the AI to sound exasperated as he started talking. "Peter Benjamin Parker. 16 years old. Birthday August 10, 2001. Rising junior at Midtown School of Science and Technology. Permanent address in downtown Queens, New York. Lives with his guardian, May Parker, since the death of both of his parents in a plane crash and more recently an uncle to a suspected mugging-gone-wrong."
Tony sighed, rubbing his forehead. Of course, Pepper was right - he'd known she was, but hearing it still somehow made it seem more solid, more awful. So the aunt was literally all he had left. Even his uncle was dead. It explained a lot of what he'd seen, if not necessarily in a good way. "Any records of him?"
"None criminal in nature. Several news appearances, though."
"Show me," he ordered.
The screen cleared most of the hits but for a few, highlighting several newspaper or online articles with the kid's name or face. "Most are school related, sir." All the ones that were flashed once, drawing his attention to them. A few grade recognitions, a handful of after school activities - band, robotics, Decathlon, all of which seemed to be reports on good showings at varying competitive levels. Odd, since the kid had admitted to quitting robotics. He couldn't fathom the reasons behind that if he was as good as them as he seemed to be.
Jarvis's voice snapped him out of his thoughts. "Some of them, however, are not."
All the school related articles disappeared, leaving about six other entries on screen. Three of them were obituaries - those of his mother, father, and uncle. One of them was an article about the plane crash that killed his parents. The other two were about the death of his uncle.
Tony enlarged the last three, scanning through them. The article about his parents' plane crash revealed little - saying, in essence, that it was an unfortunate accident and that people were killed. He knew enough about most plane crashes and what caused them to suspect that most of what it said was bullshit, but there was little he could do about it without proof. Before he could dwell on it too much, he forced himself to turn to the article about his uncle. What he read was enough to make his stomach churn slightly.
The first article was vague, detailing only the suspected scenario around what had happened. It didn't name any names, but it was clear that the article was about the same thing as the other one that did confirm Ben's name and what had happened, when put together. That wasn't what caught his eye, though.
The mention of Peter was so vague that no one else would likely have picked up on it while reading the article. But knowing who it was about was enough to make him sure that the mention was about Peter.
Two people had been rushed to the hospital. Two had been attacked. One adult… and one child. The child sustained injuries but survived. The adult did not.
The realization hit him like a slap in the face.
Peter had been there.
He'd been the one to call the police. He'd sat there and waited for them. He'd watched his uncle die.
The thought in and of itself was enough to make him feel slightly nauseous. So this kid had enough emotional baggage to rival his own. Glorious.
"Is there anything else you'd like to see, sir?"
Tony swallowed down his nausea and shook his head. "No thanks. Let's switch it up a little." He got up, moving over to his fridge and grabbing a water. Normally he didn't drink much of it, but it seemed like the best choice to settle his stomach, if not exactly the best for his nerves. But he knew there would be hell to pay if Pepper caught him drinking with the kid in the house. "Bring up my case files on the Spiderling."
"You are aware his public name is Spider-Man, aren't you, sir?"
Tony took a drink of his water and snorted. "While I'm perfectly aware of what the media calls him, I'm going to continue to call him whatever I feel like, and since I'm about 98 percent certain he's not even old enough to drink, I'm not going to be calling him a man any time soon."
"Suit yourself." The files on Peter began disappearing, being replaced by everything he had gathered on the crime fighting vigilante. "It's been approximately a month and eighteen days since you accessed these files, sir. Can I ask what renewed your interest?"
"The kid, actually." He took another drink. "Anything new to add since then?" He'd set up a system to tag all mentions of the spider creature on all major news and video platforms.
"About twenty big ones." Again the screen shifted everything else to the side to focus on what the AI had said. "A handful of new YouTube videos. Some news segments in papers and on tv about various crimes he stopped."
Tony scanned them, finding nothing interesting and shifting his focus to the videos. "I see," he murmured, more to himself than anything.
"Sir, what about the kid peaked your interest in the Spider-Man again?"
The question came out of nowhere, and it almost sounded… hesitant? He frowned. Sometimes he forgot he programmed the AI to have those capabilities. They didn't show much, which made it all the more confusing when it did. "He said he met him once. Saved him from a falling elevator," Tony muttered, swirling his water around. "Do we have anything on that, actually?"
"Some of the footage made it onto the news, so yes." All the other hits disappeared except for news articles related to that incident, and a few clips of video footage, presumably from witnesses or building security.
Tony enlarged all the videos with actual clips of the Spider-Man, leaning back and stroking his chin. "He's not very big at all, is he?" he mused.
"Based on our previous encounter, it's safe to say not." Jarvis projected a holographic model of Spider-Man off to the side of the videos with his estimated measurements. Tony studied it, giving it a spin with his finger. A few inches less than six foot sounded about right. He did come up to about his shoulder… around the same height as the kid, come to think of it.
As soon as the thought occurred to him, something clicked, and he froze. No. He couldn't be that blind, could he? And surely the Spiderling couldn't be that young. It made no sense. Why would a kid like him decide pull on a onesie and make an alter ego? Where would he have gotten the tech? It was ridiculous, and yet…
Yet it explained so much, when he put it all together. The reluctance to talk and the fact he seemed afraid of him were because they'd met before and because he was presumably terrified he'd figure him out. The overprotectiveness shared between him and the aunt - with the history of his family, it could definitely explain a lot, including some of his motives in doing it. His willingness to jump to the defense and the way he'd seemingly taken offense at what he'd said in the car would make sense if it had been him he'd unknowingly been criticizing. It even explained why he had quit something he was so good at, and the fact he'd fumbled in telling him why. It was to have more time for these little excursions, not family stuff, as he'd tried to say.
What it didn't explain was how. He'd worked with him once, and it had only taken one run-in to tell that the kid was more than his gadgets and gizmos. Sure, the webs were artificial - he'd gotten a look at the shooters around his wrists when he'd been checking him for injuries - but the way he seemed to sense everything the moment it focused on him, those heightened senses, that was something you couldn't just make. That was in him. And that was incredibly weird, because Tony only knew a handful of people with honest-to-God abilities or powers that was in them and not the result of training or technology, and all of them had either been involved in accidents or experiments. How in the hell would this kid have gotten wrapped up in something like that? It seemed unfathomable.
"Jarvis," he said suddenly, "Is Pepper back yet?"
"Miss Potts arrived back shortly before you did. I believe she's getting ready to make dinner."
"Send her down here." He took his feet off his desk and straightened, clearing away the holographic screen. So the kid fit the profile for sure, but there were some details he couldn't pinpoint, not yet. But there was one surefire way to find out. A little test. Something to force the kid to reveal himself - or at least make him believe he had to. Not that he'd ever actually put Pepper in danger. But Peter didn't necessarily need to know that.
He couldn't help the grin that grew into his face at the thought, turning back to Jarvis again. "Where is Peter, Jarvis?"
"In the gym, sir." Jarvis opened the camera in the corner without having to be asked. Tony nodded, rubbing his jaw. Peter was in the corner, going at a punching bag without remorse. He couldn't help the grin from growing a little more as his eyes alighted on something in the corner. The kid was making this almost too easy.
Pepper came down the stairs a minute later, letting herself in the workshop. "Tony?"
"In here." He waved her back to his desk, his eyes still on the feed from several floors above.
Pepper walked over, frowning slightly when she saw what he was looking at. "What's going on?"
"I need you to do me a favor."