Chapter 6: The Elevator Behind the Door

Peter only had to wait a week for his next opportunity to sneak into the lab. Mr. Stark and May decided to have a date night, leaving home alone. He decided to actually use the lab and tinker with an idea he'd had for a long time now. He wanted to make a new kind of adhesive, as strong as superglue but dissolvable via another compound. Uncle Ben used to fix things with superglue all the time, and it always ended up irreversibly sticking to the wrong place. This substance, if it worked, would eliminate that problem. Until now, he'd never had the resources to explore the idea beyond running calculations in his head and sketching chemical reactions. Now with access to a state-of-the-art lab right in his house, he had no more excuses not to give this a solid try. He put on goggles and gloves, because while he was definitely breaking rules by coming down here, he wasn't stupid enough to do so without proper PPE.

Mr. Stark didn't label any of the cabinets or drawers in the lab—he probably had the entire layout memorized. Peter decidedly did not. He needed help finding supplies if he had any hope of getting this done before Mr. Stark and Aunt May got home.

"FRIDAY?"

"Yes, Peter?"

Despite knowing it was coming, he still jumped at the sudden noise. "Do you have salicylic acid, toluene, methanol, carbon tetrachloride, and ethyl acetate?" he asked hesitantly.

"The items you requested are located here," FRIDAY said. Right before his eyes, a holographic display appeared, showing a map of the lab with a few spots glowing brighter than the rest. Peter followed the map and gathered all the chemicals. He asked FRIDAY a few more questions to find other things, and then he was off. He tended to lose track of time when he worked, so he set an alarm to remind him to clean up and clear out of here before Mr. Stark and Aunt May were due home. They said they'd be out late, but Peter wasn't sure how Mr. Stark defined "late." He wasn't taking any chances.

Peter's first batch was so thick he almost broke the glass rod he tried to stir it with. The second was so runny he narrowly avoided spilling it as he carried it to the waste container. He took copious notes on the exact proportions of chemicals in each, and the flaws they presented with. Peter was just about to start on the next batch when a thump shook the room, nearly knocking over his graduated cylinder. He barely managed to steady it before it tipped over and shattered.

"FRIDAY, what was that?" he asked.

"I'm afraid that's classified."

"What?" Why would an AI that supposedly only Mr. Stark ever interacts with refuse to divulge information relevant to his house?

"The cause of the sound is classified information."

"Why?"

"Boss's orders."

That didn't satisfy Peter. The vibrations came from below, so he put away his chemistry supplies and began searching the lab for any sort of passage downwards. He didn't have to look far. The Iron Man armors on display each stood in front of an inset bearing the Stark Industries logo. Behind the Mark II, a seam split the inset down the middle like the door of an elevator.

"FRIDAY, open this elevator."

"The elevator is locked."

He should've known it wouldn't be that easy. Peter looked around for a control panel where he might enter a password, but found nothing. The walls on either side of the suit were plain. He scoured the entire lab, but still nothing that might allow him to open the door. Peter thought over everything he knew about Mr. Stark and the way his brain worked. He was clearly very hands-on, designing all these suits and all the Stark Industries tech. Maybe his secret basement didn't have a password in the traditional sense. Peter returned to the Mark II armor.

"This is about to be the dumbest idea I've ever had, or the best," he muttered. Peter stood on his tiptoes and pressed the arc reactor in the center of the suit's chest. The doors slid open silently. Quickly, he squeezed around the suit and into the elevator.

It contained only two buttons: up and down. Peter pressed down. The ride seemed to take forever; either the elevator was slow or whatever awaited him was really far underground. Knowing Mr. Stark, the latter seemed more likely. Peter shifted his weight from foot to foot as he descended farther and farther. If he got caught now, he'd be in even more trouble for breaching another level of security in Mr. Stark's personal lab. After a small eternity, the elevator dinged and the doors slid open. The sight that greeted him was the last thing Peter ever expected to find squirreled away in a doubly-secret bunker of Mr. Stark's mansion.

A breeze blew past him, so strong he stumbled backwards a few steps. The legs of a nearby table lit up red, and it slid across the floor all by itself to block the entrance to the elevator. Terrified, Peter backed into the corner and peered out beyond the doors. Across the table boxing him in stood three teenagers. A muscular blond boy held a giant silver shield protectively in front of a dark-haired girl and a lean, silver-haired boy. Red wisps flitted around the girl's fingertips, and the silver-hair boy looked ready to sprint at a moment's notice.

"Who are you?" the boy with the shield demanded.

"I'm—I'm Peter. Peter Parker," he stammered.

"How'd you get in here?"

"I took the elevator."

"Well, duh," snapped Silver Hair.

"Why are you here?" the girl asked.

"I was in the lab upstairs and I heard a thump. I wanted to investigate."

She turned to Shield Boy. "Mr. Stark told you not to throw the shield outside of the training room."

"He said he was going out! I didn't think anyone was home!"

"Well, clearly someone is!" shouted Silver Hair.

"Whoa, guys, calm down. I'm not a threat. I'm just Mr. Stark's…step-nephew." Saying it out loud still left a weird taste in his mouth. There didn't really exist a legitimate term for their relationship. Peter slowly ducked under the table and walked out of the elevator. The three teens shuffled backwards as he approached.

"Step-nephew?" Shield Boy furrowed his eyebrows.

"Yeah, it's weird. How do you know Mr. Stark?"

"He's our father," the girl said.

"What?!"

"Adopted," Silver Hair clarified.

That still took him completely by surprise. Mr. Stark had three adopted children that he kept in a super-secret basement? "Are you guys…prisoners?"

"What? No!" Shield Boy seemed downright enraged by the mere suggestion.

"Secrecy keeps us safe," the girl explained.

Peter had so many questions cascading through his brain at the moment that he could barely form a coherent sentence. Where did Mr. Stark get three adopted children? Why didn't he tell Peter and May about them? Why didn't he tell them about Peter? Why did they need to be kept safe in a secret basement? How did they cause that breeze and move the table without touching it? "Do you guys have superpowers?" he blurted out. Peter had only heard of such a thing in history books. Mr. Stark was the only real-life superhero around today, and all of his abilities came from technology.

None of the three answered. The girl clenched her fist and extinguished the red lights.

"Seriously, how'd you move that table?"

"That's classified," Shield Boy stated. Peter was sick of hearing that. He was also sick of referring to them as Silver Hair, Shield Boy, and the girl.

"Are your names classified?"

"I'm Steve. This is Wanda and Pietro," he nodded to the girl and Silver Hair in turn.

"Nice to meet you."

Peter's alarm went off. Steve immediately lifted the shield again and all three dove behind it. "Sorry! That's just my phone." He scrambled to turn it off. He'd given himself twenty minutes to clean up the lab and get lost. But now he didn't know what to do. There's no way he'd be able to hide from Mr. Stark and May the fact that he'd found three people living in their basement.

"They'll be home soon," Steve said.

"What do we do?" Wanda asked.

"I don't know. There's no protocol for this."

"We have to tell him," Peter said. "I don't know about you all, but there's no way I'll be able to keep this secret." He'd only kept the whole Iron Man thing a secret for a little bit, and it was eating him alive.

"He's right," Pietro agreed. "We can't just pretend this never happened."

"We could," Wanda suggested.

"If we don't snitch, FRIDAY will," Steve pointed out.

"She's here too?" Peter questioned.

"Yeah. FRIDAY, if we asked you to keep this interaction a secret from Mr. Stark, would you do it?" Steve asked.

"My protocols dictate that I must inform Boss of anything that could potentially jeopardize your anonymity. I'm afraid this qualifies."

Steve rested his fist against his mouth and began pacing.

"At this point, we should just all stay here and let him find us together," Pietro huffed, collapsing dramatically into the nearest chair. A whoosh of air, and he was still sitting in the exact same spot, but now sipping a Mountain Dew. There was no way that was accomplished with only human abilities.

"So you do have superpowers."

"Pietro!" Wanda scolded. "Dostanete nás do potíží."

He took another swig of his soda. "Cokoli."

Peter had no idea what language that was, but it sounded vaguely Eastern European. Wanda and Pietro locked eyes, silently challenging each other. "Break it up, you two," Steve chided. "We're all four going down with this ship."

"Mr. Stark and Mrs. Parker-Stark have returned from their dinner date," FRIDAY informed them.

"We're doomed," Pietro remarked.

If the superpowered humans thought they were doomed, Peter was doubly-doomed. Steve pushed the table back to its original position, then began pacing the floor in front of the elevator. "We're in so much trouble," he muttered. "We've never done anything this wrong before."

"Technically, we didn't do anything wrong," Pietro said. "Peter's the one who was snooping around where he shouldn't be."

That was…true. If anyone was getting punished for this, it would definitely be Peter. Steve suddenly stopped his pacing. "I hear footsteps."

Pietro raised his Mountain Dew as if giving a toast. "It was nice knowing you all."

Wanda smacked him across the bicep. "He's not going to kill us."

He might kill me, Peter thought. He certainly could if he wanted to. So could all three of these kids, he suspected. Peter couldn't tell exactly what each of their powers entailed—that was classified information, apparently—but it wouldn't take much to overpower him. He'd always been one of the scrawniest and slowest kids in gym class. His glasses prescription was a negative six, worse than anyone he'd ever met. Heck, most non-superpowered individuals could probably take him out without breaking a sweat.

The elevator dinged.

Steve stopped pacing a few steps away from the doors and held his breath. Wanda stared at the doors, twisting one of the rings on her finger. Pietro continued sipping at his Mountain Dew. Peter placed himself as far away from the other kids as possible without literally running away.

The doors opened. Mr. Stark saw Steve first, then Wanda, then Peter. His eyes immediately narrowed and he stormed out of the elevator. "How did you get down here?" he asked.

"I—I—I." Peter knew telling the truth was better than lying in this situation, but he couldn't bring himself to confess that he'd been snooping around in the lab that he wasn't even supposed to know existed.

"Peter." Mr. Stark's tone was sterner than he'd ever heard it before.

"I accidentally found your lab. I was in there and I heard a noise from below."

Mr. Stark crossed his arms and looked at each of his kids in turn. "And which one of you was that?"

"I threw the shield and hit the ceiling by accident," Steve confessed.

"I see. How'd you figure out how to work the elevator?"

Peter shrugged. "I just guessed."

"You guessed."

"Uh-huh."

"You broke into a top-secret lab…by guessing. And the other top-secret lab, you found accidentally."

Peter clasped his hands behind his back and dropped his gaze to the floor. "Yeah."

"I'm impressed."

"What?"

"I'm impressed you figured it out."

Peter waited for the other shoe to drop. Mr. Stark might be impressed with his ingenuity, but he had to be mad at Peter for uncovering two massive secrets. But even after a full twenty seconds of silence, no signs of anger appeared.

"So…what happens now?" Pietro asked.

Mr. Stark shook his head. "I knew you were a smart kid, but I thought I'd have at least a little bit more time before you found this place."

"You…expected me to find it?"

"I knew it was only a matter of time before you got curious. My lab upstairs is pretty obvious to anyone who's ever compared the exterior of the house to the interior floor map, and the elevator to here is visible to anyone looking hard enough."

"You're not…mad?"

Mr. Stark actually chuckled. "No. But if you breathe a word of this to anybody else, I will be."

"What about Aunt May?"

"Yes, that includes Aunt May."

"What?"

"The fewer people who know they exist, the safer they are."

"That's crazy. She's your wife, you can't not tell her that you have three children! She should've known about it before you married her."

Peter had never really raised his voice before, but May valued honesty more than anything and to learn that Mr. Stark blatantly disrespected that enraged him like nothing ever had before. Steve, Pietro, and Wanda shifted uncomfortably.

"You three," Mr. Stark said. "To your rooms."

Pietro raced them all out in an instant. Mr. Stark took a step towards Peter, and he instinctively took a step back to maintain the distance between them. "Peter. I keep the superpowered side of my life top secret for good reason. You know exactly why I do it; you said it to me the day of the wedding, remember?"

Peter remembered. He'd always reasoned that Iron Man kept his real identity a secret to protect himself and his loved ones. The world had always been cruel to superpowered individuals, so much so that they'd been wiped out in the nineteen forties—or so Peter thought. Even Iron Man, a hero born of tech instead of natural ability, often incurred the wrath of public opinion. Peter had spent far too many hours on Twitter and Reddit anonymously arguing with Iron Man antis. That still didn't forgive Mr. Stark asking Peter to lie to May.

"I understand why you keep this secret from the world. But May and I, we're family. We respect each other. We trust each other. With everything. I don't expect you to understand because it's clear from the twenty minutes I spent with your kids that they think of you more as a jailer than a father. If that's how you treat the people you adopt, you're crazy for thinking you could ever convince me to be one of them."

Peter wanted to storm off dramatically, but Mr. Stark stood between him and the elevator, and he didn't even know how to open it from this end. So, he waited for Mr. Stark to make the next move. The man stared at Peter, completely expressionless, before nodding once and turning to leave. Peter watched closely to learn how to operate the elevator from this end. It turned out there was a panel in the wall that one could press in like a button. Once the doors closed behind Mr. Stark, Peter had no idea what to do.

"You okay?" a voice asked. He turned around to find Steve, Pietro, and Wanda peering out from around the corner.

"I'm fine," he lied. He was emotionally exhausted and already dreading the inevitable follow-up conversation.

"Do you really think we treat him more like a jailer than a father?" Steve asked.

Peter nodded.

"I never knew my read dad. He died before I was born," Steve said.

"I remember Papa," Wanda said sadly.

"Me too," Pietro said.

"Mr. Stark is…very different."

"Yeah."

"When was the last time you left this basement?" Peter asked.

The three exchanged glances and shook their heads solemnly.

"You don't even know? That's basically child abuse."

Wanda shrugged. "It's for our safety. If anyone were to find out about our abilities…" she rolled a glowing red cloud of energy around her palm. Her gaze grew distant.

"They'd imprison us in a much less comfortable place," Pietro finished.

"Or worse," Steve added.

"How long since he adopted you?"

"Six years," said Wanda and Pietro.

"Thirteen for me," Steve said.

So they had barely a taste of normal childhood, if that. Peter sighed sadly. He thought his life was hard, losing his parents at age six and then Uncle Ben at fourteen. From the sound of it, these guys had it worse, even with superpowers.

"I'm so sorry."

Pietro shrugged. "It's not so bad here. We have everything we could ever need." He still sounded sad as he said it, like he knew exactly how much he was missing out on. Which he probably did, given he'd only been here for six years.

"And we're safe," Wanda added.

"What about friends?"

"We have each other," Steve said, wrapping a protective arm around his siblings' shoulders.

"And now we have you," Wanda added.

"We'll see about that. I don't know if Mr. Stark will let me come back here, after what I said to him."

"He probably needed to hear it."

Pietro nodded his agreement.

"You can always sneak in like you did this time," Steve reminded him.

"That's true. I'll see you guys later." Peter headed towards the elevator. How had his life become so complicated in such a short amount of time?

It feels good to finally have this out there. This whole story was founded on me thinking, "Wow, Mr Davenport from Lab Rats is really just a less cool, less funny, egotistical version of Tony Stark, isn't he?" So I decided to write a story with Peter Parker as a Leo figure, and chose a few Avengers to take the place of Adam, Bree, and Chase. But I couldn't tag this as a Lab Rats AU without spoiling it from the get go. Has anyone seen that show? Does it make you more or less excited to see where this is going?