Tony adjusted the cuffs of his sleeves and pressed a reaffirming hand against his sunglasses, assuring that they were properly in place for the third time in as many minutes.
He was still seated in his car, having seamlessly parked it in the lot a few minutes prior, and his gaze scanned across the apartment units on the third floor of the building, locking in on the one that matched that to the address he'd uncovered after more work than he deemed should've been necessary.
The ping he'd gotten after the call the day before had worked as well as it could've, locking in on the building with a precision that belied his and FRIDAY's combined expertise, but it'd taken a bit more finagling to worm out the exact address.
Instead of keying in on the IP of the phone - which, seeing as to how the kid was clearly using a different one than the last time, wouldn't have worked nearly as well as he'd like - he'd went towards the subscription plan instead. The phone was clearly a burner for the second and third calls, and those tended to have unique communication markers, so, through something of a process of elimination coupled with knowing the basic highlights of the router, he'd managed to narrow the address down to one amongst the building's. It was listed under a fake name, which both did and didn't surprise him, and he'd decided to just leave it at that. He could admit that he was a bit hopped up on the mystery of it - it definitely didn't have anything to do with him being bored. No, not at all. He readily acknowledged that Pepper would definitely have his head on a pike if she heard about this one.
Regardless, here he was.
He clicked open his gleaming black Ferrari's door with a smooth movement and slammed it shut as he stepped outside, the car automatically locking behind him with a single, crisp chirp.
He shoved his hands in his pockets with his usual flair of blasé nonchalance and sauntered over to the elevator, which, of course, was out of order. Fantastic.
He heaved a small breath and headed for the stairs instead, keeping up his steady swagger as he climbed the steps, each one ringing out with a dull echo through the empty stairwell. It almost sounded like a series of warning bells, Tony mused to himself, but he didn't turn back, the double edged sword known at his obstinacy rearing its head.
No, this kid was an enigma, one that Tony very much wanted to figure out.
From that first call, in which the kid gave Tony a suitable appreciation for his more… down to Earth friends, to the next, where he gave Tony just as much of a heart attack as the first - because why the hell is a kid who still gets voice cracks have a bullet lodged in his side?! - and to the final one, which was honestly more amusing than anything, Tony was hooked.
Hooked on what, exactly, was more difficult to discern.
The thing was, Tony didn't particularly like kids. That's not to say he hated them or anything, or even disliked them, but he tended to feel rather stifled around them, to put it lightly. Pepper had oh so eloquently put it as 'you don't really seem comfortable around children.' Meanwhile, Rhodes had decided on the blunt route and decidedly informed him: 'You suck with kids.'
Tony had been quite rightfully offended, mostly because, hello, thank you, except I'm already well aware that I act like one of those child snatchers parents warn their kids about thanks to the fact that I have absolutely no clue how to interact with the little ankle-biters who constantly have unidentifiable stains on their person and do not understand the meaning of 'don't touch,' which inevitably ends up with me asking them questions to get them to shoo that seem to always backfire like: 'want some candy?' because of course things can't be straightforward, can they?
But. Anyways. The point was, Tony was aware.
So the situation he'd been recently presented with was at least somewhat confounding, but he'd been able to come up with a few theories as to why he wasn't hissing like a vampire subjected to the light at the thought of being in the presence of a youth.
For one, the kid was very, very obviously atypical. As in, he deviated from the norm. Tony suspected that most kids didn't call up their pals to ask how to remove a bullet from themselves; he strongly hoped that that wasn't a new trend or something equally moronic. So that was one thing: the kid didn't go off crying - which would've been perfectly reasonable for any age, really, when subjected to being shot - but instead called a definitely non-medical professional through his mugger's phone.
And that was another thing: Tony highly doubted that some random low level criminal had managed to soup up their phone to the level that it put a wedge in Tony's own hacking, and, coupled with the kid's own admittance to having done as much, well, it was clear that the kid had done as much. As in, he'd finagled some random phone to spit out completely impossible-to-be-true addresses - one of which definitely did not make Tony snort into his coffee - and that shut down the connection when Tony made a breakthrough. He had a suspicion that the kid used the SIM card for it; those could be transferred between phones quick enough.
The third thing, the one which Tony would be steadfastly keeping to himself so as to not ruin his image, was that the kid was just… really easy to talk to. In a straightforward way - no other meaning to it. In all three of the calls - and Tony could hardly process that that's all the communication that they'd had - it felt like talking to someone he'd known for years. The kid had such an easygoing attitude without being obnoxious about it, and he wasn't afraid to throw back whatever Tony lobbed at him. It was… nice, he could admit - in the safety of his one mind.
And finally - most importantly, in some ways - the kid wasn't one of those teeny children - *cough* menaces *cough* - who made horrifyingly demanding grabby hands with sticky fingers contaminated with who-knows-what from who-knows-where who Tony would have to reluctantly pick up and give a couple little bounces in his arms so they'd calm down and not wail louder than a tornado siren going off and hopefully not stab him in the eye or pull at his goatee with their pudgy little fingers.
And, alright, sure, Tony had definitely had more than an idle day dream or two about having kids, especially since he had someone to contemplate about having them with now, but it'd be a cold day in hell for him to voice those anytime soon. He needed many things - including, but definitely not limited to, therapy, stability, less palpable aversion towards people under two feet tall due to his own admittedly lack of social adeptness when not in a business situation, a lack of alcohol dependency, and a decreased amount of daily threats to his life - before he let those thoughts cross his brain to mouth filter.
Not that that was in any way relevant considering that the kid was in fact a teenager - hopefully - and not even one of those snobby upper class ones he had to deal with at galas and resolutely denied he himself ever was.
Tony gave a solid shake of his head, coming out of his thoughts as he alighted on the third floor.
The unit - apartment number 324 - was only a few doors down from the stairwell, and Tony had to struggle, very slightly, to keep his pace steady as he sauntered to it, coming to a stop right in front and facing towards it with a swift turn of his heel. He raised his hand, gave an imperious sniff, and knocked - two sharp raps against the wood.
Then he slid his hands back into his pockets and waited, gauntlets only a finger's brush away because he sure was something but he certainly wasn't a complete idiot.
There was the sound of thudding footsteps on creaky floors, then a muffled curse after a thump-like bang, before the door was flung open to reveal-
A man. A very full grown man of African American descent, with a five o'clock shadow, a head of coiled hair about an inch or two tall, a short sleeve shirt that fit on his frame just a bit loosely, and a long, thin, golden chained necklace.
Tony had a single moment to process this information and then internally castigate himself over not having thought about the kid's guardians - likely because he hadn't wanted to process how a kid's parents hadn't taken any notice of their son having been shot - before the man fainted dead away.
The guy's head banged into the wall on his left loud enough to make Tony wince and start forward, but he couldn't really do much before the man slid the rest of the way to the ground in a completely gormless lump.
Well, Tony thought to himself, leaning down to heft the man into a semi-upright position and checking his breathing, that certainly could've gone better.
.
Peter lifted up from where he'd been hunched over at his desk and scribbling at his physics homework, a light shiver lancing down his spine. He tilted his head.
Maybe he should turn up the AC.
He paused for a moment longer but felt nothing more, so he shrugged, leaned over his desk once again, and set back to work.
