Chapter 2:

The next couple of hours passed in a blur of officers, and other people asking him questions, about literally everything: what he was doing with Hank (why don't they already know that?), what happened to his parents and aunt and uncle (not a very nice trip down memory lane, and again, why don't they know this?). At one point they had him pee in a cup, to test for drugs. Luckily he was clean, as to be expected.

Peter's mind was going at a million miles an hour, all kinds of questions soaring through his head. But the most prominent question that worried him was: 'what is going to happen to me?'.

He was told to go wait on a chair to wait for somebody, he didn't know who.

A woman crouched in front him "You must be Peter" she said with a sweet-sounding voice "My name is Helen, I'm your social worker"

Of course, she is, Peter thought, barely holding in a sigh and eye roll. He had some experience with social workers, they were always the bearers of bad news, he figured today wasn't going to be an exception.

"H-hi…" Peter looked up to her, maybe this one wasn't so bad, she didn't seem like the pitying or the mean type, she looked genuinely nice. With her red hair and a faint smile on her lips, as if somebody had just told her a joke but she had almost perfected the art of looking serious.

"Do you think that there is a room somewhere here we could borrow, so we can talk a bit?" She asked as if Peter would know the answer to that question. She didn't wait for him to answer "I'll go ask".

And she was gone, light on her feet, she walked over to an officer standing somewhere close by. They exchanged some words, occasionally glancing over to Peter who was still slumped in a chair.

In the end, Helen nodded to the officer, what seemed like a thank you and walked back over to Peter. "Come on, they have a room for us" she gestured with her head in the direction of a door on the other end of the corridor.

Peter figured he might as well follow her, so he stood up and was glad when his legs didn't give out under him. He felt weakened by the lack of food in his system. He didn't have anything to eat and was growing increasingly more and more hungry.

"Sit down, please," Helen said after they entered the room, gesturing to one of the chairs that stood in what seemed like an interrogation room.

She saw him hesitate, even if it was just for a brief second. "Don't worry, you have nothing to worry about"

Peter felt kind of ashamed that he was so easy to read, but also kind of happy that she wanted to comfort him. That was quite nice. He was still hesitant to sit in the chair but did it anyway. If Helen noticed, she didn't say anything about it.

"So I wanted to talk to you about a couple of things, first off: why do you have a black eye?"

Well okay, that was not really expected, to be honest, Peter had forgotten that it was even there. With all that was going on, the state of his face had slipped his mind for a moment. His heart pounded in his chest. Damn, was there even use in trying to lie?

"I ran into a door?" shit now he was making it sound like a question, that wasn't his intention. It seemed as Helen also noticed this, but his eyes were glued stubbornly to the floor so he couldn't see her reaction. He refused to look her in the eye, afraid of what he might find.

"Really?" her voice sounded harsh, almost like Peter offended her in some way by telling her that. He shrunk, trying to make himself smaller and he hoped desperately that he didn't make her mad. "Because you're making it sound a lot like a question."

That was what he was afraid of, of course, she would notice. It's not like he's such an amazing liar.

"Could you please tell me what really happened?" she asked, polite again but now with a sharp edge to her voice.

"Yes," He sighed lightly "I'm sorry."

"That's okay, just tell me what you can do okay? Every little bit will help"

"I didn't run into a door"

"I figured." She states with that faint smile back on her lips. "So what or I guess rather who gave you that black eye?" She asked, serious again.

"Hank," Peter whispered, his voice cracked. But he wouldn't cry, he won't be that weak and cry over a couple of bruises. He just kept staring at his shoes, too afraid to see the look in Helen's eyes.

"Okay… I'm sorry about that Peter. But could you please tell me, was this the first time he did something like this?"

Peter shook his head, unable to speak anymore.

Helen sighed "Okay, good job for telling me this, Peter." she paused for a second before adding "Are you hurt any more right now?" After Peter nodded again and after some consideration, she asked: "Could you point me where?"

Peter pointed at his ribs but felt like he should say something. "It's really not that bad." He decided to say.

"Peter, you're not gonna like this but we have to take some pictures of you, of your injuries. This is to make sure that Hank will be properly handled for what he did to you."

Peter sighed, he felt hopeless, there was nothing he could do anyway. Nobody would listen to him anyway. It wouldn't matter what he said. They will get their way. Peter just has to listen. He should just stop being a baby. But, he would still not meet Helen's eyes. "If you really have to…"

"Yes, we really do"

"Okay"

Tony's POV:

The last time he was at one of these was such a long time ago. Luckily this time he was at the right side of the law, and not behind the bars like he was with most of the last cases. He wasn't happy to be here though, would much rather have these officers come to him but they told him that that wasn't an option if you want to talk to the Chief of police.

He just needed to ask him if it was cool if he did some renovations on public property. Nothing too huge but it may ruin the view of a couple of buildings.

He walked through the door and walked over to the front desk. "Hi, I'm here to talk to Chief Abbet. She's expecting me."

"All right," the man behind the desk said "just let me check with him first. You can sit in the waiting area over there." He gestured to the other side of the room were a couple of chairs stood in the corner.

On one of them sat a scrawny looking teenager, so Tony felt reluctant to go sit near him but oh well, it's not like he had much of a choice. And the kid was probably not dangerous, otherwise, he would not be sitting here. Not like the kid looked like he was capable of doing anything, he was quite thin and looked absolutely miserable.

He sat down and pulled out his phone, but something stopped him from actually turning it on. He looked over at the teenager who was just staring at his shoes and not making eye contact with him. The boy didn't even acknowledge that a pretty famous person was sitting next to him, something most boys his age would freak out sitting next to iron man.

Something about this boy seemed oddly familiar but he was not quite able to put his finger on it. After a couple of seconds he figured that if it was important, he would have remembered the kid.

He got a notification about an e-mail from Pepper on his phone and decided that now was as good as a time as any to check it. He couldn't focus on what the e-mail said, the boy next to him grabbing all his attention.

Get your shit together Tony, it's just a kid, he has nothing to do with you. Tony thought and tried to focus on the e-mail. It had some information about the event he was supposed to speak at tomorrow, some high school student would win an internship at Stark industries. To be fair that would be a great opportunity for high school kids. Tony just hoped that he didn't have to do much with this kid. He would just have them work somewhere else in the building, Tony didn't think he would be the best influence on a kid.

The e-mail contained some pointers on what he was supposed to speak about tomorrow and the name of the kid who was going to win the internship. Peter Parker. The picture attached to the name seemed familiar in a way Tony couldn't place right away. But then it hit him: this kid in the picture is the exact same boy as the boy in the picture.

Obviously, he couldn't just stay silent, it wasn't the right thing to do and frankly, he was far too curious to see what a kid was doing at the police station at this hour or at all.

AN: Anddd, that was it for today, I hope you liked this chapter! We'll see where it leads next because honestly I, myself have no clue yet XD.