Monkey See, Monkey Don't Do

by PokeyDotes

People keep warning Peter that he needs to make good decisions, that he doesn't need to repeat Tony's mistakes. But what happens when Peter isn't the one repeating those mistakes? Or Peter thinks he's doing a pretty good job with the whole self-care thing. It's Tony everyone needs to be worried about.

"When I was your age, I spent my winter vacations having fun."

Peter kicked a stray tennis shoe out of the way, gave his aunt a mildly disbelieving scowl, and bent down to push the couch to the far wall. "You also had big hair and blue eyeliner," he said, "and this is fun."

"Everyone had big hair then," May defended, grabbing Peter's phone and using the camera to check that she didn't have lipstick on her teeth. She turned and gestured to the mattress Peter was dragging into the living room with a raised eyebrow. "And this isn't fun. It looks a lot like laziness."

"Do you want me to put on my suit and go patrolling?" Peter asked with a smile and a tone that May and Happy had informed him was pure smartass.

She narrowed her eyes and playfully patted his cheek. "Laziness it is then," she said before disappearing into her bedroom.

Peter rolled his eyes, dropped a handful of pillows onto the mattress and followed his aunt. She was piddling around the room, anxiously moving from her dresser to the full length mirror in the corner and back, glaring at the open jewelry box like it had betrayed her.

"It's eleven and a half hours if you count the extended footage," Peter informed her. He pulled open her closet door and reached for the spare quilt they kept on the top shelf. "That's not laziness, May. That's dedication."

May rolled her eyes and shrugged. "It just seems like, I don't know…" she frowned in thought as she stepped into a pair of high heeled shoes, "a waste of time?"

"Says the woman that once camped out for tickets to a Corey Hart concert."

"Okay, I'm going to need you to stop making references to how old I am and tell me how I look."

Peter turned to look at his aunt. She ran her fingers through her hair making sure it laid evenly on her shoulders, smoothed out the wrinkles in her dress, and placed her hands on her hips.

May had always been beautiful. It wasn't a secret. Peter had seen the pictures of her when she was younger, he remembered the way Ben used to look at her….the way people on the street still looked at her.

She had her hip cocked to the side, one leg bent and her head slightly tilted, just enough that her hair fell in long loose waves. The dress definitely…hugged her, but not in any way that would be indecent, or at least Peter didn't think so. She still looked like Aunt May, but he could tell she'd definitely made an effort.

"Good," he finally said, turning back to grab a few extra pillows off of her bed.

"Good?" she asked, sounding a little bit disappointed.

Peter looked back at the way her legs seemed just a tad bit longer than usual thanks to the shorter hem and pointed toes…"Do you want me to make it creepy?"

"No," she said quickly, taking in a deep breath and smoothing out her dress for the umpteenth time. She paused and looked back at Peter, her fingers running through her hair again, "but really, I look good?"

Peter took another look at his aunt, gave a reluctant shrug and said, "Mr. Stark would approve if that's what you're going for."

That seemed to knock May out of whatever insecure funk she'd been swimming in. "It's not Tony Stark I'm trying to impress."

Peter laughed at the look of annoyance on her face and took the stolen bedding into the living room to add to the pile. The mattress from his bottom bunk fit nicely in the space between the TV and the couch. He had blankets, pillows, snacks, and the extended edition DVDs for the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy.

All he needed now was for Ned and MJ to show up and for his aunt to leave and he was looking at a twelve-hour binge fest of food, friends, and film.

Not a bad way to start off the winter holidays.

Or to take his mind off of the fact that his aunt was going on date number two with an adjunct professor of American Literature.

"So…do you really like him?" Peter asked in what he hoped was a subtle, non-nosey, and completely unbothered tone. "Nathan, not Tony." Peter didn't really have an opinion either way. He'd met the man exactly once for a total of ten awkward seconds. There wasn't anything really impressive about him, but there also wasn't anything overwhelmingly sketchy either. At least, not enough to send Peter's Spidey-senses tingling.

May leaned against the doorway as she thought it through, her hands busily switching out earrings. "Yeah, I think I do. I mean…yeah." She gave Peter a small, shy smile, held it for a solid two seconds before her shoulders fell and her face crumpled into a worried, wrinkled frown. "Is it weird? Me dating again? It's weird isn't it?"

"Totally weird," Peter told her, summoning a convincing smile, "but not bad."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

She smiled again and managed to hold it before disappearing back into her room to finish getting ready.

Peter went about cooking frozen pizzas and popcorn and adding a few cans of soda to the freezer to try and make them chill quicker. The apartment fell into a quiet kind of comfortable, the only sounds being the footsteps from the neighbors upstairs and the pop, pop, poppop, pop of the popcorn in the microwave.

But then May checked her phone again, noticed there were no new messages, and slumped dramatically onto the couch. "God, I forgot how much I hated dating."

Peter grabbed the popcorn out of the microwave and frowned. "I thought you said you liked him?"

"I don't hate Nathan, I hate dating," May explained. She leaned against the armrest and propped her chin on her hand before sighing dramatically, "Having to get to know new people, letting them get to know you without scaring them off. Making sure they're not some demented psycho terrorist stealing classified alien technology to build illegal weapons to sell to the highest bidder."

Peter plopped down beside her and threw a piece of popcorn in his mouth. "Don't mock my pain, May. We've talked about this," he said in a bored, deadpan tone.

May laughed and leaned into Peter's side before kissing him right on the cheek. "I'm pretty sure Nathan isn't an evil villain hell-bent on world domination, so I should be good," she said, her thumb rubbing at the lipstick print on his cheek. She jumped when her phone chimed.

"Just know that I can physically break him."

May looked up from her phone and frowned. "Peter."

"Like literally."

"I highly doubt I'm going to need Spider-Man to come rescue me on a second date," she said, standing and grabbing her coat. She checked to make sure she still had her keys before bending down and planting another kiss on Peter's forehead. "But you're number one on speed dial if I need you," she added as she stepped over the nest of pillows and blankets taking over the floor and made her way to the door.

"I love you!" Peter called out unnecessarily loudly.

"You better!" May called back just as loudly before leaving. A few seconds went by before she opened the door again. "Also, sweetie, take out the trash before your friends get here. The apartment's starting to stink. Love you!"

Peter had enough time to take out the trash and finish off the first batch of popcorn before Ned and MJ arrived.

Then the first movie started, pillows and blankets were claimed, and the three of them set about getting comfortable, which for MJ meant claiming the couch all for herself and using Peter as a footrest. Which is exactly how May found them nearly four hours later.

Ned was lying on his stomach, his head near the TV. Peter was sitting with his back to the couch, MJ's foot resting on his shoulder as he snacked on what was left of the Oreos.

"How'd it go?" Peter asked, drawing everyone's attention away from Legolas and Gimli's banter.

May sighed, kicked off her shoes, and carefully stepped over Ned. "I think I like Nathan a little less than before," she said, plopping down next to Peter and stealing an Oreo.

"What happened?" Peter asked, movie forgotten.

May shrugged, twisted the cookie apart and licked at the cream filling. "Just…difference of opinions."

"Which means…?" Peter prompted, only to have MJ tap her foot against the side of his head.

"It means she doesn't want to talk about it," MJ said, earning a grateful smile from May, who reached forward, stole another one of Peter's Oreos and offered it to MJ.

"So no date number three?" Peter asked, pushing MJ's foot off his shoulder.

"No date number three."

MJ put her foot back.

Peter ignored it. "And…are you okay with that?"

"Yes," May said, sounding very sure. "Other fish in the sea, right?"

"Most definitely," Ned offered. "You're a catch, May."

"Thanks, Ned."

"You sure you're okay?" Peter whispered.

"Positive," May whispered back.

And they set about finishing the movie.

May made it through the Battle of Helm's Deep before she made Peter scoot over and promptly went to sleep. MJ was next.

Peter guessed he was next on the list because he couldn't remember anything after Frodo and Sam made it to Mordor. At least not until Ned began to frantically shake his shoulder.

"What the hell, Ned?"

"Tony Stark texted you."

"What?" Peter said, which prompted Ned to hold Peter's phone up. Right next to his face. Because, apparently Ned thought Peter wouldn't be able to see it if it wasn't an inch from his nose.

Peter blinked, closed one eye and squinted the other at the overly bright screen.

"Wanna help?" it said with a picture of a damaged Iron Man suit.

Ned actually squealed. Out loud. It was high-pitched and totally embarrassing, but Peter let it slide (partly because he was a good friend, but mostly because he was sort of close to doing something similar.)

"He's gonna let you help him fix his suit?!"

"I don't know. I mean, I guess?"

"I hate you a little bit. Like in a good way."

"A good way?"

"Like I hate you with love."

"It's called jealousy, Ned."

Peter pushed him away and moved to sit up. The sun was just starting to rise and a quick glance at the clock showed it was just after six in the morning. If Peter had to guess, he'd say he got about three hours sleep. Maybe.

The whole adrenaline spike at the prospect of getting to work on one of Tony's suits was seriously clashing with the expected sleep deprived grunge he should be feeling.

Not so much that he wasn't having difficulty processing his surroundings though. The TV was muted with an episode of Seinfeld playing in the background. A half-eaten bowl of cereal was sitting next to the TV, hinting that Ned had never gone to sleep.

MJ was crashed on the couch, her cheek pressed against the cushion, and a sleepy, slightly bloodshot eye was glaring at him.

"I hate you," she mumbled.

"No you don't. Go back to sleep."

"Fine," she grumbled and pushed herself into a sitting position. "But if you losers are going to play at being morning people, I'm gonna call dibs on the top bunk." She grabbed a pillow and May's old quilt, letting it drag behind her as she disappeared into Peter's room.

"Where's May?" Peter asked, noticing for the first time that his aunt wasn't where he'd last seen her.

"She woke up when The Return of the King ended and went to her room," Ned said, clearly having forgotten about his cereal because he was now rooting around the freezer for toaster strudels. "She wanted me to let you know that your dedication sucked."

"She's one to talk, she didn't even make it through the second movie," Peter muttered. He climbed to his feet, legs feeling somewhat wobbly as he walked over the mattress. He tripped over a pillow, caught himself on the armchair, and quietly pushed open May's door.

"May?"

She was asleep.

"May?" Peter crouched down next to the bed and gently shook her shoulder.

Her eyes flew open, her forehead wrinkling in concern as she looked around, voice somewhat slurred with sleep and worry. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," Peter quickly assured her. He put on his sweetest smile and adopted what he hoped was his best, most convincing, I've-been-good-please-let-me-have-my-way voice and asked, "Can I go hang out with Tony?"

May yawned, blinked a few times, and frowned. "What?"

"He wants me to help him fix his suit," Peter explained, showing May the text. He might have put it a little close to her face, much like Ned had done to him, but in Peter's defense, May wasn't wearing her glasses, and…yeah, he was excited.

May wasn't. She just stared at the phone, her frown morphing from one of confusion to one of near-sightedness as she tried to read the tiny print. "Huh…"

"Can I go?"

May blinked once more before pushing the phone out of the way and burying her face back in her pillow. Peter frowned until he heard a muffled and resigned, "What answer will let me go back to sleep?"

"Thanks, May!"

"Nothing that can result in death!" she added, finger waggling in the air blindly.

"Got it!" Peter agreed. He quickly typed back a reply to Tony, decided two emojis wasn't too much, and hit send.

"You're going?" Ned asked. He had stopped squeezing icing onto his strudel to look at Peter.

Peter grinned. "Yeah, I'm going."

"When? Now?" Ned looked at the pastry in his hand and then to the clock on the stove. "Do I need to leave?"

"Uh…I don't know." Peter looked back at the message Tony had sent, but there wasn't anything there about when …

"I don't think you're allowed to leave if you have a girl in your bed," Ned pointed out, "That's rude."

Peter looked towards his closed bedroom door and frowned. "I'm not about to wake her up and tell her she has to go. That's suicidal."

Turns out it wasn't an issue. Tony texted back letting him know that Happy would be by to pick him up later in the day, giving Peter enough time to scarf down a few toaster strudels of his own, clean up the mess they'd made the night before, and allow both May and MJ the chance to wake up on their own without risking himself bodily harm.

"Are you going to be staying the night?"

"Maybe. I mean, he said bring a bag."

"You are not allowed to leave the country."

"May, I probably won't even leave the lab."

"You'll forgive me if I don't completely believe you."

"To be fair, you totally knew I was going to Germany-,"

"Nope. We agreed I get to be right and win all arguments concerning your past extra-curriculars. It was in your plea deal."

Peter sighed, promised not to leave Manhattan without first asking permission and ran down seven flights of stairs to meet an unimpressed looking Happy.

"You got everything?"

"Yeah."

"You sure? Because I'm not turning around once we get going."

"I'm good. I've got everything."

And he did. He had a change of clothes, his phone, his charger, his suit (just in case), an extra pair of headphones, twenty dollars, and a notebook full of scribbled formulas he'd been working on to improve the shelf life of his web fluid.

He was ready.

Or as ready as he could be considering he didn't really know what to expect. There had been two rules when Peter was first allowed into the lab, and they hadn't changed since. The first, don't fuck anything up. The second, don't touch the suits.

Obviously, the second had been rescinded, but that still left the first to break.

But it wasn't likely to happen, or so Peter didn't think, not with Mr. Stark right there with him.

Tony Stark snored.

At least he did when he was passed out at a workbench, his head pillowed on folded arms and grease stained rags.

Peter smirked, twirled a screwdriver, and turned his attention back to dismantling the damaged repulsor glove. The majority of the Iron-Man suit was spread out across the lab, each and every little bolt, screw, and wire carefully removed and cataloged.

It was tedious work, somewhat monotonous in its repetition, but Peter loved it.

The text hadn't been a request to repair the suit, but to salvage parts.

"You're just going to take it apart?"

" We are going to take it apart," Tony had corrected, "And it's not like we're going to throw it away. Recycle, kid. Save the environment."

And yeah, that made sense, at least it did after Peter got to see the suit up close. Or what was left of it. It was a mess. The entire left side was dented in, parts of the armor completely torn away and missing, exposing burnt and melted wires within. It looked like a bomb had gone off inside the suit.

"Were you wearing it when this happened?" Peter asked.

Tony ignored the question, choosing instead to point Peter towards a toolbox. "Screwdriver to screw. Lefty loosey, righty tighty. Got it?"

Then music was turned on, a pot of coffee was brewed, and they went to work.

And apparently forgot to stop.

Peter yawned, popped his neck, turned the glove over, and continued working. It was some time later when the lab door opened. Peter looked up, screwdriver held between his teeth as he tried to gently pull a circuit board out of the glove with his fingers.

Pepper stood in the doorway, a look of surprise on her face. It was still weird seeing her in anything other than a tailored suit, her make-up professional, her hair neat and styled. But there she was, one of Tony's house robes hanging loosely over a pair of pajamas, her hair somewhat frizzy and tucked behind her ears.

Peter watched as she took in the mess that was the lab, her eyes tracing over the dismantled suit, the empty coffee cups, crushed energy drink cans, scattered tools, puddles of grease, and unconscious fiancé.

Her look of surprise morphed into a frown. She placed a hand on her hip, looked to Peter, and with a tilt of her head in Tony's direction, asked, "How long he been out?"

"He started snoring about ten minutes ago," Peter said, smiling as he set down his screwdriver and reached for the nearest cup of coffee. It was cold, not sweet enough, and a little on the stale side. It made Peter's jaw twinge and tickled his gag reflex, but it was caffeine and caffeine was life.

He was about to take another sip when Pepper stepped forward and gently grabbed the coffee cup. She set it to the side, grasped Peter's chin and looked at him with a somewhat studious glare. "Please tell me he's at least fed you," she said, eyes narrowed as she grabbed a towel off the work table and tried to wipe away a grease stain on Peter's forehead.

"I'm not a dog, Miss Potts."

"Pepper."

"I'm not a dog, Pepper ," he amended with a smile. "I can take care of myself."

She let the towel drop, quirked an eyebrow, and gave what Peter thought was a very challenging smirk. "So you've eaten then?"

Peter's smile fell. "Well, yeah…"

"When?" she asked. She folded her arms across her chest and raised her eyebrow higher. Definitely challenging.

Peter frowned. "I ate pizza at lunch," he said, pointing an oil-stained finger towards the empty pizza box next to Tony's head.

Pepper followed his finger, looked at the box, and sighed. "Peter, that was yesterday."

"What?"

"It's seven in the morning," she said, shaking her head. "You've been down here all night."

"Oh."

"Yeah."

Peter looked to the clock on the wall, the numbers 7:07 displayed in a clear, bright blue. "Huh." And because the universe had comedic timing, Peter's stomach decided 7:07 was a beautiful time to make itself known.

It was a little gurgle, more a gentle reminder than an all-out demand, but it was still loud. Loud enough for Pepper to hear.

That eyebrow fell as she rolled her eyes in exasperation. She sighed again, looked over her shoulder at the still snoring Tony Stark, and shook her head once more. "No," she said, lips pressing together in a stern, determined line. "Nope, this is not happening."

"What's not happening?" Peter asked, suddenly unsure and a little uncomfortable.

"This," she said, finger twirling in the air, gesturing to the space between Peter and Tony. "I am all for the mentoring- Junior Avenger-thing you've got going. It's good for you, it's good for him. But you are not going to start picking up his bad habits. Let's go."

She grabbed his wrist and began to pull him towards the door. Peter just went with it.

"Where are we going?"

"We are going upstairs. You are going to eat, shower, and then sleep."

"But it's morning."

"And you've been up for nearly two whole days, sweetie," she pointed out, her tone reminding him way too much of May. "Superhero rule number one: you've got to take care of yourself. You're not invincible."

"I know that," Peter assured her. He let himself be steered towards a barstool. He propped his elbows on the counter, frowned at the grease and sludge on his fingers, and hastily tucked them under the counter out of sight.

Pepper busied herself with pulling frozen waffles out of the freezer and muttering about irresponsible geniuses, bad influences, and something that sounded suspiciously like 'clones'.

Peter waited until she'd placed a handful of waffles into the toaster before breaking the silence. "I really didn't mean to lose track of time."

"I know," she said, voice sounding tired. "And that's the problem."

Peter felt the tips of his ears burn, his eyes momentarily widening before he decided to focus his attention on the granite countertop. "Sorry."

"Don't—no, Peter. I'm not mad at you," she said hurriedly. She made a movement as if to grab his arm, but stopped halfway through. She let her hands rest on the countertop instead, her manicured nails tapping out a fast and uneven rhythm as she frowned, the bridge of her nose crinkling as she sorted through her thoughts. Eventually, her shoulders fell, her head tilting to the side.

"I'm not even mad at Tony, I'm just…," she began, but stopped when the toaster made a rackety popping sound, signaling the waffles were done. She turned and grabbed two plates. "You're a lot like him you know?" she said after a few seconds of silence.

"Is that a bad thing?"

"Depends on who you ask, and when you ask it." Her smile was fond, her tone a mix of exasperation and playfulness. "Tony cares about people, he wants to be the hero, to save the world and do what's right," she said, pushing the plate of syrup drenched waffles towards Peter. "He just forgets to save himself sometimes, forgets that it takes more than caffeine and curiosity to keep a man going."

"Happy says it's a coping mechanism," Peter said, stabbing the top waffle and eating half of it in one bite. "That it's Mr. Stark's way of ignoring reality."

Pepper made a noise that sounded something like a dignified snort, her eyebrows rising as she nodded in reluctant agreement. "Coping mechanism, quirk, bad habit, take your pick." She used her fork to cut a small piece of waffle. "You ever hear the phrase 'Do as I say, not as I do'?"

"Repeatedly."

"It's good advice, but when it comes to Tony, treat it as gospel."

Peter ate four more waffles, showered, and then slept for fourteen hours.

Eventually he woke up, helped Tony clean up the mess they'd made and went about enjoying the remainder of his winter break.

Whereas past school vacations had included mostly video games, Netflix binges, last minute ten p.m. hot dog stand purchases, and sleeping until noon, this year was different. Obviously.

No school didn't necessarily mean no curfew, but it did mean he didn't have to be home by midnight.

So he'd stay out until one or two in the morning, come home, shower and sleep until he heard May getting ready for work and could smell the sweet, sweet scent of freshly brewed discount coffee.

Some mornings May would be running late and she'd barely have enough time to kiss him on the cheek, remind him to take chicken out of the freezer for dinner, and remember to grab her keys before she was out the door.

Other mornings she'd wake up early, lazily chew on a toaster strudel and ask, "So, what's on the agenda today?"

"Supposed to meet Ned at the Star Comics on Twenty-Third as soon as it opens so I can offer moral support while he tries to convince the owner to trade him the new Fire Fleet IV for his old copies of Doom Squad and a Fortune Raider action figure."

"Yeah...I don't know what any of that means," she'd say and take a sip of her coffee. "You planning on fighting any crime today?"

"Yep."

"What're the rules?"

"Don't die, and if I get shot, I'm grounded."

"Yep. I'm gonna shower and get ready for work, think you can fit a load of laundry in between your comic book thingy and saving the world?"

"Do I have to sort it first?"

"Just make sure you empty all the pockets before you wash everything. I don't need to spend another weekend trying to dissolve webbing out of the dryer filter again."

Then there were some days when he'd wake up before her, write a quick note saying he was getting an early start and stick it to the coffee pot before grabbing his suit, activating the heater, and heading out.

While the holidays always created a sort of mystical, magical atmosphere thanks to all the lights and music and never ending, god awful, cliche factory Christmas movies constantly on repeat, the holidays also, unfortunately, meant a rise in crime.

Crime inevitably got worse before and after Christmas. It never failed. The Parkers had witnessed it first hand, and while the majority of crimes were known to happen under the cover of darkness, Peter had been hearing more and more reports of muggings and robberies happening in broad daylight over the police scanner. Add that in with the influx of tourists that always seemed to arrive in droves the closer it got to New Year's Eve, pickpockets were out in full force.

Hence why he was currently balanced on the edge of a snow covered roof while he sipped a caramel macchiato with four shots of espresso as he watched shop owners open their stores and people sleepily and hurriedly go about their morning routines.

He had the edge of his mask pulled up, slowly blowing over the rim of his cup so he could sip his coffee without tasting pain when Karen informed him he had a phone call from May.

Peter didn't even have time to say 'hi' before May was asking, "Did you even come home last night?"

Peter frowned. "Didn't you get my note?"

"You mean the little post-it note that just said 'heading out early?"

"It also said 'love you'," Peter pointed out. "I even drew a little smiley face."

He heard May sigh and just knew she was standing there, brow pinched with a hand on her hip. "How much sleep did you get last night?" she asked.

"Enough," Peter lied. He took another sip of his coffee.

"Peter…" another sigh. "You're not going to be at the top of your game if you're not getting enough sleep. You've got to take care of yourself, sweetie."

"I am, May. I promise."

"How many shots of espresso did you get this morning?"

Peter looked down at his still steaming cup of coffee. "Uh…"

"Yeah, that's what I thought," she said, her tone turning smug, enough so that Peter could just hear a hint of a smile in her voice. "Caffeine is not self-care, Peter. You get home early tonight and you get a minimum of eight hours sleep. Deal?"

"Deal."

"Don't die, I love you."

"Ditto."

Peter finished his coffee, helped a man who slipped on an icy patch of sidewalk, and began swinging through the neighborhood, keeping an eye out for anyone that looked like they were up to no good.

It took most of the day, but he managed to stop two muggings, a car thief, and some guy who tried to rob a bodega with a knife.

All in all, it was a relatively quiet Wednesday morning. And while yes, less crime was relatively good news for the citizens of Queens, it also meant that Peter was bored. And a bored Peter was easily distracted, or at least that's the excuse he would give later. That...or he could always blame it on the wind, because just a few hours after sundown, the wind began to pick up. Little bursts of near hurricane force gales (slight exaggeration) were shrieking through the narrow streets, stirring up little tufts of freshly fallen snow and making the whole area look like one of those cheesy snowglobes vendors tried to sell to tourists.

And yeah, maybe the people down below had no problem save for having to pull their hats down lower and duck their chins to keep the cold off their cheeks, but Peter was nearly six stories up. The wind tended to get more unruly the higher off the ground you were. It was a fact.

Science.

So yeah, Peter was going to blame the wind for messing up his night rather than a significant lack of sleep and nothing to eat besides two corn dogs and a small bag of Flamin' Hot Cheetos that left an orange smear of cheeto dust across his left thigh from where he kept wiping his hands.

One second, he was flying through the air with the greatest of ease, momentum headed towards a thin railing, the next he was falling, his equilibrium so offline that he just flung out both arms in opposite directions, hoping one of them was aimed up and fired two webs simultaneously.

Surely, something would catch.

But no.

It didn't.

Because life sucked sometimes.

Peter landed hard, and before he could really catch his breath a small crowd of maybe seven people had swarmed him.

"Yo, bro. You okay?" one guy asked.

Peter took a deep breath, breathed out in relief when nothing felt truly broken and gave a shaky but somewhat confident thumbs up. Apparently, that was what the crowd had been waiting for, because the hushed silence immediately broke.

Everyone was suddenly talking at once. Two men reached down, grabbed Peter by the arms and hauled him to his feet before one of them continued to dust the snow off his shoulders.

And head.

And back.

And okay, fella. Back off. Thanks.

"Spidey, are you alright?" a woman asked just when a third man stepped forward, held up his phone and a peace sign and took a selfie with a still slightly shell-shocked Peter.

"Uh…" Peter mumbled.

He couldn't really get anything else out, because a girl that looked about his age stepped forward, phone in hand and asked, "So, you're like a mutant, right? Because if a normal person had done that, they'd be, you know, dead. Like dead dead."

"Not a mutant," Peter told her, finally finding his voice. He politely pushed his way between the selfie guy and the girl, quickly backing away from the tiny crowd. "And definitely not dead dead. Not even a little dead, so...uh. See ya," he trailed off as he turned, fired a web at the nearest street lamp and launched himself up into the air.

He kept going, not stopping until he was three blocks away. He landed on a roof, leaned against a rusted air conditioner unit and sighed. "Holy shit."

"Do you need me to call-" Karen began, but Peter quickly cut her off.

"No, we're not calling anybody," he declared, standing up as straight as he could. "We are all good. No calling anyone at-" he looked at his wrist, remembered he didn't have a watch and asked, "What time is it?"

"A quarter past eight," Karen answered.

"Yeah, we're not calling anybody at eight o'clock at night." He turned to walk towards the other side of the roof, and immediately stopped when he felt a slight pull in his left knee. "Karen, can you uh, can you tell if anything is broken?"

"No, Peter. From what I can tell nothing is broken, but-"

"No, you can stop there. No need for a 'but'."

"You're sure you do not need me to call Mr. Stark?"

"Totally sure," he said. He took a deep breath, the cold air making his lungs burn and resumed his trek across the snow dusted roof. "I'm totally fine. Not dead, nothing's broken and I'm walking on my own two feet-"

"With a limp," Karen reminded him (needlessly).

"With a limp," he conceded. "But still mobile, so...no rescue needed."

"Noted." And wow, okay, since when could a robot voice sound judgey?

"I'm fine," Peter insisted. When Karen didn't immediately reply, Peter frowned and added, "I am. "

"If you say so," Karen simply stated.

"I do."

"Okay."

Peter narrowed his eyes because he totally felt judged and jumped off the roof.

He made it home nearly twenty minutes later. May had left the window unlocked and the desk lamp on in his room, further proving why she was the best.

Peter hobbled in, tossed his mask on the desk and listened to see if he could hear anyone other than May.

He heard Law & Order .

He pushed the door open and was just about to announce his arrival when he noticed May lying on the couch, her jaw slack, her glasses crooked, her nose doing that little thing it did when she was on the edge of snoring.

Peter looked to the coffee table and saw a nearly full glass of wine and a plate smeared with red sauce cheese.

Very gently, he pulled her glasses off, slid the afghan off the back of the couch and made sure to cover her feet so her toes wouldn't get cold, turned off the TV, and tossed what was left of the lasagna sitting on the counter into the microwave, careful to make sure he stopped it before it beeped and woke May.

Three minutes later he was standing in front of the mirror hanging off his closet door, wearing nothing but his underwear, using a dirty t-shirt as an impromptu oven mitt to hold the still scorching bowl of lasagna as he tried to get a good look at the left side of his back.

It wasn't that bad, all things considered. He'd had worse. But admittedly, it looked like it hurt . And it did. A lot.

He finished the lasagna, swallowed a questionable amount of generic ibuprofen, and fell face first into the mattress.

When he woke up, it was nearly noon, May had already left for work, and the light on his phone was blinking hinting that he had at least one unread text waiting for him. He'd nearly forgotten about the fall until he reached over to grab his phone and felt a tight pull in the muscles along his left side.

"Shit," he mumbled into his pillow. He climbed out of bed, opened one sleep smeared eye and glanced at his reflection.

There was a bruise, there was no denying, but considering he had fallen nearly six stories, the bruise wasn't nearly as bad as it could have been. It was a nice, uneven spread of purples with two wide points that were so dark they were nearly black. The edges were already yellowing and Peter was willing to bet the whole thing would (hopefully) be gone by the end of the week.

He ignored the still flashing light on his phone and decided the overwhelming sense of hunger demanded his attention more than anything else and needed to be attended to immediately.

Almost anything.

Bathroom first.

Then food.

Twenty minutes later, Peter found himself cringing at the large number of texts from Ned while he tried to remember whether or not he'd asked the new guy to squish his sandwich. He'd already read the first two texts asking where he was and whether or not he'd made it home and was about to open up a third when the screen flashed and an image of Tony peering accusingly over the rim of a pair of yellow tinted glasses appeared.

He smiled politely as Mr. Delmar placed his sandwich in a bag and answered the phone.

"You know," Tony began, mimicking May and forgetting that normal people answered the phone with something that sounded like hello. "I specifically remember there being a conversation about injuries and hiding them."

Peter frowned, balanced the phone between his ear and shoulder, and tried to find a five dollar bill in his wallet. "What are you talking about?"

"Are you seriously about to pretend that you didn't fall five stories last night?"

Peter blinked, tried to smile as he paid for his sandwich, and whispered into the phone, "Karen told you about that?"

"Nope," Tony said, popping the P, "There's this thing called YouTube, and you're all over it, kid. Now, you want to try again?"

"I fell," Peter admitted, choosing wisely not to mention that it was more like six stories. He unwrapped his sandwich and took a big bite. "Bu' I'm fine. S'nothin' to w'rry ab't."

Tony didn't say anything, but the silence sounded disbelieving. Only Tony Stark could make silence sound judgmental. And maybe May. She could do it, too. And MJ.

"Mr. Stark?" Peter prompted when too many seconds went by.

"I'm trying to decide if I'm more appalled by your manners or by the fact that you actually expect me to believe that."

Peter swallowed the large bite. "Sorry," he said, using the back of his hand to wipe away mustard and pickle juice. "But I'm starving. I haven't eaten in forever."

"Exaggeration aside, it's good to see you're at least mobile, even if you do have a limp."

Peter stopped walking and spun around. A few people complained, one guy pushed him, but none of them were Tony. "Where are you?" Peter asked, turning to look the other way.

Tony didn't answer. At least, not with words. The sound of a car revving, its engine growling caught Peter's attention (along with everyone else's) as it pulled up alongside the sidewalk right next to Peter. The tinted window rolled down just enough that if Peter bent his knees and leaned forward, he could see a set of disappointed brown eyes peering at him over the edge of too expensive sunglasses.

Peter simply stared. "Uh…"

Tony rolled his eyes. "Kid, are you really gonna make me invite you in?"

"Uh…" Peter mumbled again as he wiped his hand on his shirt before opening the door and getting inside. "What are you doing here?"

"Making sure you're alive," Tony answered, putting the car in gear and speeding back into traffic. "May called, said there was a video of you plummeting to your pre-pubescent doom online and she hadn't seen you in two days."

"That's because she was already asleep when I got home," Peter explained, wrapping his sandwich back up before it could get crumbs all over the car. "And I talked to her on the phone. She knows I'm fine."

"She knows you're alive," Tony corrected. "Big difference from fine. And then there's the whole are you fine fine, or Peter Parker fine, which in my experience could mean anything from sleep deprived to missing a limb."

"Now who's exaggerating?"

"Just because it hasn't happened, doesn't mean you probably wouldn't try to play it off if it did. You'd probably say something stupid, like 'it's just a scratch'," Tony said, trying to imitate Peter at the end. "What's that show you made me watch? The messed up retailing of King Arthur?"

" Monty Python is not messed up."

"'It's just a flesh wound'. Isn't that what that guy says?" Tony continued, clearly unconcerned with Peter's indignation. "That's you."

Peter sighed, and slumped down in his seat. "I promise if anyone ever cuts off my limbs, I'll call you."

"That's all I ask," Tony said. "But seriously, what was the damage? I know it couldn't have been that bad because F.R.I.D.A.Y didn't alert me, but, kid, I saw the video."

"Then you saw where I got right back up, no problem."

"Little problem," Tony corrected. "You were definitely in pain. That much was obvious. But why the hell are you falling off buildings anyway?"

Peter shrugged and picked at the foil around his sandwich. "The railing was loose. I landed on it and it wobbled, and I just…" he shrugged again.

"And you didn't catch yourself because…," Tony prompted, slowing the car as a light turned red. He turned and looked at Peter, eyebrows raised expectantly.

Peter gave a noncommittal little wobble of his head and focused on the license plate of the car in front of them. "Just didn't react in time, I don't know."

"Try again," Tony ordered. "I saw the video, remember? You shot a web out when you started to fall."

"And it missed."

"You don't miss."

"Apparently, I do," Peter snapped. He sighed and closed his eyes. "Sorry, I just…"

The light turned green and Tony took another right as he made a sigh-like noise of his own, but whereas Peter's was apologetic, Tony's was tired and somewhat annoyed. "You gotta talk to me, kid. I can't read your mind, and if you're having problems-"

"I'm not having problems," Peter hurried to say. "I'm just…I was tired, and off my game. That was it. When the railing moved, I lost my balance and didn't get it back before I landed, but I'm fine."

Tony sent him a glare.

Peter mustered his best please believe me, I'm an angel face and said, "Honestly, my ego's hurt more than I am. I swear."

Tony clicked his tongue twice and tapped his thumb on the steering wheel. "Okay."

"Okay?"

"Okay," Tony repeated. "I believe you're not stupid enough to actually hide injuries that could be potentially life threatening."

"I'd hardly call a bruised buttcheek life threatening."

"Inventory time," Tony declared. "Injuries, list them."

Peter gave a one-shouldered shrug and admitted, "I messed up my knee, but it's getting better."

"And?" Tony prompted. He pressed the accelerator and cut off a small SUV with an Uber sticker in the window, earning a long honk of the horn and a middle finger. Tony returned the favor and kept driving. "Pretty sure you mentioned a bruised caboose ten seconds ago."

Peter sighed. "And everything from my butt to my shoulder was one big bruise, but—"

"But it's getting better," Tony finished, rolling his eyes. He put on his blinker and switched lanes before taking their fourth right turn since leaving the sandwich shop.

It didn't take a genius to know that four right turns meant they were going in a circle.

"Uh, where...exactly are we going?" Peter asked.

"No where," Tony answered. And left it at that.

"So, we're willingly just driving through Queens in the snow? At lunchtime? For no reason?" Peter might not be quite Bruce Banner level genius, but he was not your average idiot. "What's wrong?"

"What makes you think anything's wrong?" Tony asked, taking their fifth freaking right.

Peter turned in his seat, propped his elbow on the center console and narrowed his eyes. "You do know that that is exactly what people say when something's wrong and they're being suspicious about it, right?"

"Peter-"

"Tony."

Tony looked over and met Peter's eye before turning back to the snow dusted streets and tap tap tapping his thumb on the steering wheel again.

It was easy for Peter to see the exact moment of defeat, because Tony's entire demeanor just sort of...slouched. His shoulders drooped, one hand fell to the gear shift as his right knee fell to lean against the door.

Peter waited as Tony sped forward and slid into a small parking space in front of a Vietnamese restaurant with a burnt out neon sign that read Pho Sho .

Tony put the car in park, pulled off his glasses and started tracing his nail along the ear piece. "Have you uh, you been keeping up with the news?"

"You talking about all the weird disturbances happening all over Manhattan?" Peter asked, thinking back to the last thing he saw trending on Twitter. "I thought they were pranks gone wrong? Groups of kids hazing one another? Stuff like that."

Tony made a sound that kind of resembled a suppressed snort. "Disturbances. I forgot that's what they were calling them." He looked out the window at the line of cars passing by, honking their horns as they fought for the limited parking spaces and said, "I meant the world news."

Peter was fairly certain there was an earthquake somewhere in the Philippines and a controversial ruling on gay marriage in South America, but nothing really stood out in his memory. "Not really."

Tony didn't really look surprised. He didn't look judging either. So far so good. "There's been a few 'disturbances' abroad" he said, using the verbal equivalent of air quotes. "Cap and co. have taken the show on the road, so to speak."

"They left the country?" Peter asked.

Tony nodded. "Yep. Flew the coop. Off to play the hero elsewhere."

"You think they should have stayed?" Peter asked. The way Tony kept clenching his jaw and jutting it out to the side combined with the failed attempt at a casual and flippant tone was like a freaking flashing sign saying he wasn't happy about something.

"No, they needed to go," Tony quickly said. He was still looking out the window, squinting at the passers-by. "Whatever the hell is happening out there, it needs to stop and they're the ones to do it."

And then it just sort of clicked . "You wanted to go with them."

To Tony's credit, he didn't deny it. He just bobbed his head from side to side then looked down at his lap. Fingers still fiddling with his glasses. Still noticeably not looking at Peter. "Have you seen anything weird while you've been on patrol? And not I-live-in-Queens weird, but like see something, say something weird?

Peter tilted his head in that way MJ always said made him look like a confused puppy, and let the corner of his mouth quirk up into a small smile. "So not break-ins and muggings then?"

"No." Tony finally looked up and offered a little smirk of his own. "I'm talking about something a tad less little league."

Peter took a deep breath and sighed on a heavy huff of air, shook his head and said, "No. Pretty sure you'd have been the first to hear about it if I had."

Tony bobbed his head again, offered up another smile. "That's what I thought, just wanted to make sure."

Peter counted to four, waiting for Tony to say something else. He didn't.

"You're really not going to tell me what's going on?" Peter blurted out. "I'm assuming all the random property damage and closed off streets aren't because of pranks gone wrong and you're being hella vague about where the other Avengers took off to."

Tony put his glasses back on and calmly said, "That's because it's above your paygrade."

"Are you serio-"

"Yes," Tony snapped, tone a lot less calm. "Your jurisdiction ends the second you switch zip codes. Israel or Haiti or wherever else the gang's all spread off to is officially off limits."

"So much so that I can't even know about it?"

"Peter, I don't even know about it."

Peter opened his mouth to call bullshit but then he remembered he was trying to have a calm, mature conversation. "I'm not going to outright call you a liar-"

"That's wise."

"-but just know I'm not feeling the faith right now."

Tony scoffed. Then he did that weird two breaths in and hold it thing Peter had noticed Rhodey doing on occasions when he was stressed. "I need you to promise me something, okay?"

Peter narrowed his eyes. "Depends on what it is."

"I'm serious," Tony said.

"So am I," Peter said back.

Tony didn't look impressed. "I need you to be safe. Don't go outside Queens. Don't go looking for anything above your paygrade. And do not approach a situation unless you know with absolute certainty what's happening."

Again, Peter was not an idiot. Not even close. "Something's going on," he said, trying to see a tick or a tell that would give him some kind of hint as to what Tony was hiding. But there was nothing. "Or else you wouldn't be setting boundaries."

"I've always set boundaries," Tony pointed out. "You've just always chosen to ignore them. But right now, it's important you get your head out of your ass and actually listen to me. I've got Rhodey and Happy on standby, the rest of the gang is out of range, you understand? If something goes down, we have no backup. Got it?"

"Got it."

"Good." Tony seemed pleased, because he put the car in gear and pulled back out into traffic. Peter picked at the wrinkled foil wrapper on his forgotten sandwich and tried, like really, really tried to let it go.

But it wasn't the first time he'd failed at something.

"So...you do know what's happening?" Peter asked, trying to keep his tone casual, friendly.

"Vaguely, yes," Tony admitted.

Peter's casual tone leaned a little towards indignation when he asked, "But you're really not gonna tell me?"

The corners of Tony's mouth turned down. "Definitely not." The asshole didn't even have the decency to sound apologetic.

Peter rolled his eyes, slouched down in his seat and folded his arms, his attention deliberately focused on anything other than Tony.

Childish? Maybe. Sue him.

He could see Tony's reflection in the window. He watched as Tony looked Peter's way before looking up to the ceiling and muttering something that sounded suspiciously like, "For fuck's sake" before clearing his throat, and trying in a more friendly, slightly pleading tone.

"Look, school starts in what? Three days? Focus on that. Worry about grades, making sure you're getting enough sleep, and stop forgetting to eat. You're a teenage boy who burns more calories than a rampaging elephant on meth. You don't get to skip meals, accidentally or not."

Peter momentarily paused his pouting to give Tony a look that let him know his sanity was being questioned. "Weird analogy, but fair point. And for the record, I didn't skip any meals. I just overslept."

Tony waved a hand, clearly not seeing a difference. Can you say hypocrite? "And while you're at it," Tony continued, "Get up the nerve to ask out MJ and, no, don't look at me like that. Ned says the two of you are both clueless yet stupidly obvious. Just…" He sighed, slowed the car enough to let a taxi merge in front of him, then sighed again. "Kid, my sanity will benefit greatly if I know you're not getting in over your head trying to save the world without backup. I need to know you're safe so just...don't go looking for trouble and focus on being the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man. Okay?"

Peter was no longer slouching. "Ned said we were both clueless? When did he-"

"Peter, focus." Tony snapped his fingers in front of Peter's nose, his eyes leaving the road long enough to ensure he had Peter's attention. "What was the main point of what I just said?"

Peter frowned, but dutifully answered. "Stay safe and don't go looking for trouble I can't handle."

Peter wasn't sure what Tony had been expecting but it obviously wasn't that. Tony did a little double take, then looked back to the road, the sides of his mouth pulling tight into a pleasantly surprised little smirk. "Okay, yeah, that was...actually pretty on point. Good job."

Peter resumed his slouching. "I listen to you, you know."

"You hear me, I don't doubt that. But do you listen to me?" Now Tony was just being an ass. "No, you only listen about half the time."

See? Total ass.

"All kidding aside though," Tony continued, his tone making it clear just how serious he was being, "listen to me this time, okay?"

"You want me to stick to muggings and car thieves, promise to call you the second I see anything weird while also focusing on getting enough sleep and eating like a strung out elephant with the munchies. Does that about cover it?" Peter asked.

"I don't think that was exactly how I put it, but yeah, that about covers it." Tony pulled to a stop in front of Peter's building and frowned. "I feel like May would want me to add in something about keeping up your grades or...something."

Peter grabbed his sandwich and reached for the door handle. "I'll be sure to let her know you mentioned it, how about that?"

Tony dipped his chin and peered at Peter over the rim of his glasses. "Okay, I know you're being a smartass right now, but that would actually be really nice."

Peter snorted and got out of the car.

The next couple of weeks were relatively uneventful. Or at least Peter thought so.

They'd returned to school, the hectic rush of the holidays had died down, and the weirdest thing Peter had witnessed while out on Patrol was a drunk guy without any pants trying to serenade a tree, and since that firmly fell into the I live in Queens category of weird, Peter didn't bother Tony with it.

Peter woke up early, made it to school on time, answered Happy's near daily texts asking for a status report (something Peter was still trying to get used to), and made sure he made it home before curfew to work on homework.

He'd only had two tardies so far and had fallen asleep in class just once.

All in all, Peter thought he was doing pretty good.

Peter was wrong.

Ned let him know.

It was a Tuesday night. Normally, Peter would have been closer to home, keeping one eye on the time in order to make his curfew and the other watching the streets, ears straining for any signs of trouble.

But Mother Nature had thrown a tantrum and they all got a surprise snow day meaning Peter didn't have school.

The two feet of slush that had partially melted before the temperature dropped and solidified everything also meant it was too freaking cold to go outside. So, Spider-Man and the criminals all decided to take the night off.

It wasn't a spoken agreement, but Peter was pretty sure the bad guys would keep up their end of the bargain, which is why he found himself taking off his soaking wet shoes and graciously accepting a steaming cup of hot chocolate from Ned's grandmother.

Peter loved Ned's grandmother. She always put extra marshmallows in his hot chocolate.

She was also currently Peter's favorite Leeds family member because his supposed best friend was too busy staging a totally unnecessary intervention.

Peter was sitting on the floor, back to the bed, feet near the radiator as he tried to get feeling back in his frozen toes. "I distinctly remember us planning to stay up playing video games. That was the plan. We said it out loud and everything. We even invited MJ, but she said our plan sounded lame. Like, she even called it a plan."

Ned rolled his eyes and tossed Peter a pair of dry socks. "We're still gonna play games, but we're going to bed by eight."

Peter paused in pulling on one of the socks and glared. "Dude."

"Yeah, that's a bit extreme," Ned admitted. He sat down next to Peter, but pointedly kept the game controller out of reach, the TV off. "But you look like shit, man. I honestly thought you walked into school yesterday with two black eyes until I realized it was just bags dark as death because you haven't been sleeping."

"I've been sleeping," Peter mumbled into his hot chocolate. "But I still have to get homework done so-"

"So we're going to bed by nine," Ned finished, sounding as stern as Ned could sound.

Peter wiped the melted marshmallow fluff off his lip and glared again. "Did May put you up to this?"

Ned shook his head once and crossed his arms, a small smirk threatening to form. "Nope, Tony did."

"Tony Stark?" Peter just wanted clarification.

"Yep."

"Since when do you two talk?" Peter asked. He set his half-full mug to the side in case the overwhelming feeling of what the hell got out of hand. The last thing he wanted was boiling chocolate milk in his lap.

Whatever self control Ned had vanished because he dropped his arms and stopped trying to fight the little smirk. Dude was full on grinning ear to ear at this point. "Since he caught on to the fact that you're an idiot. And let me tell you, Peter, we've bonded. He's officially my new BFF."

Peter just stared. Yep, Nana Leeds was Peter's new favorite. "It was one phone call, Ned."

"Two phone calls," Ned proudly corrected, "And I want them both mentioned in my obituary when I die, but that's not the point. The point is that the freaking Avengers are having meetings about you, dude."

And okay, that was definitely new. "Tony said that?"

"Nah." Ned waved a hand and reached for his own mug. "I got that from Happy."

Peter frowned again. Because what the hell?

Ned slurped his cocoa, and looked up to find Peter's confused glare. "What? I'm connected," Ned defended. "But seriously. They're worried you're trying to take on too much at once."

Peter rolled his eyes and slumped back against the edge of the bed. "I can handle it, Ned."

"Can you?" Ned asked, sounding generally worried. "Dude, you're running on fumes."

Peter couldn't really argue with that, not without outright lying. He looked up to the ceiling, focused on the little dent in the tile where a twelve year old Peter and Ned had suffered a mishap with a potato launcher, and tried to think of the last time he had gotten a good and decent night's sleep that wasn't preceded by pure exhaustion brought on by a bought of pseudo-insomnia or an injury.

He was doing well on the whole school and homework front, he barely missed curfew anymore and if he did, he made sure Karen let May know ahead of time.

He made sure to eat and tried to cut his caffeine intake in half.

Tried.

Peter was still trying to mentally justify his actions, to find a way to prove that he was doing well with the whole taking care of himself thing when Ned sighed and said, "Peter, you're one of the smartest people I know, and I officially have Tony Stark saved as number three on my speed dial, so I know what smart looks like. That being said, you're also a colossal idiot sometimes."

Peter snorted, then realized. "...Only number three?"

"Well," Ned shrugged, "My mom's number one."

"Makes sense," Peter agreed. May was his number one.

"And you're number two…" Ned said, trailing off with another shrug, as if it were obvious why Tony Stark, Iron Man himself would only be number three on his speed dial.

Peter just blinked, then grinned and slowly fell sideways until his head was lying on Ned's shoulder. "You're smart too."

"I am," Ned agreed. He held out the extra game controller but cocked an eyebrow, waiting. "So listen to me."

Peter took in a deep breath and said, "I'll concede to a ten o'clock bedtime," which apparently was good enough for Ned.

Ned relinquished the controller and finally turned on the TV.

Peter was asleep before nine.

Between May and Ned, Tony and Happy and surprisingly Pepper, Peter managed to get a handle on the whole teenaged superhero lifestyle that didn't make him feel like dying.

He was sure to make time for his friends and family, balancing it well with school and patrol, and even started to get a minimum of 6 hours sleep each and every night. Mostly.

He even made sure to eat enough to satisfy his unusual metabolism, which with May's cooking should have earned him a frigging reward.

If anyone were to ask, Peter would give his self-care a solid eight out of ten.

So of course it was only a matter of time before something threw off his groove.

Fast forward a few Thursdays and Peter found himself politely debating the Second Amendment with a guy who had just been rehearsing his "stick 'em up" routine out loud down a dark and narrow alley. Like yeah, dude might be lowkey nervous and suffer from severe performance anxiety and we all have our little tricks for building up confidence but...robbery was still a crime. Throw in the gun and homeboy would be looking at a guaranteed felony offense.

Peter told him so.

The conversation was not going well.

"Okay, but listen, Dave. Can I call you Dave?" Peter asked from his perch atop the lamp post.

Maybe-Dave wrinkled his nose and became the human embodiment of WTF. "Uh, that's not-my name isn't Dave."

"Yeah, well when I asked what your name was, you wouldn't tell me," Peter pointed out. He jumped down, folded his arms across his chest and leaned back against the post. "Hence the name Dave. But seriously dude, can we speed this up? Curfew is in like twenty minutes and I've been promised mac and cheese for dinner."

"Look, man. I don't know what your deal is, but technically I haven't committed a crime yet," Dave-Peter was sticking with Dave-pointed out.

"True," Peter agreed. He pointed to the gun shaped lump in the man's coat pocket. "That's why I haven't taken that from you and strung you up like a sticky-fingered pinata. Yet."

Dave adjusted his coat, but made sure to keep his hand clear of his pocket. "I have a permit."

"So you've mentioned."

"I just think that-"

But whatever Dave just thought , Peter didn't get to hear because just then something went boom.

It was a few blocks away, but big enough to rattle the windows nearby and shake loose the inch or so of snow that was still settled on the lamp post.

Peter turned around to see a bright blue glow peeking over the buildings in the distance before it went dark. The sound of people yelling and car alarms blaring filled the air. So did Dave's voice.

"Nope," he said, rather succinctly. Peter turned around to see a white-faced Dave reaching into his coat pocket.

He was just about to fire a web and snatch the gun from Dave's grip but Dave was just full of surprises.

"Here," he said, shoving the gun into Peter's hand. "I'm out. I'm done. Forgive me, Father for I have sinned, don't bring that crazy shit down on me."

Peter just stood there, staring as Dave turned around, one arm pointed at an angle towards the distance. "You go do your thing, Spidey. I'm going home."

"Um…" Peter looked down to the gun then back to the man's retreating backside. "Thank you?" Peter called out.

He wanted to chase him, to make sure Dave didn't wake up tomorrow and decide to rob someone again, but the yells and car alarms were still echoing in the distance.

Plus Peter had Dave's gun so…

He dropped it in the after hours deposit box of the bank on the corner, silently hoping that the bank tellers were good, law abiding citizens who would turn in the gun and not...use it.

Then he took off.

"Hey, Karen?" he said, landing on a roof and peering into the distance. "Remember when Tony gave us the whole see something, say something speech?"

"Would you like for me to call him?" she asked.

"Maybe send him a text?" he suggested. "Make sure you point out that I am being a smart and responsible human being and staying a safe distance back. Maybe even lead with that."

"Sure thing, Peter."

Peter hopped to the next roof. He could see some people peering out their windows, trying to get a good look at what happened, but they all looked just as confused as he was.

He fully expected to see a disaster site, some form of destruction, but there wasn't really much to see. Peter was fairly certain this was where the blast had come from. At least, the large number of still blaring car alarms and shattered windshields suggested so.

But there wasn't really anything else.

No debris or bomb fragments. No scorched sidewalks or bloody bystanders.

Just scattered snow, dark street lamps, and rattled cars

He dropped down onto a fire escape and stared at the deserted street below. He might have jumped a wee bit when the window behind him opened up, spilling light out as a middle-aged woman leaned to the side to look at the sidewalk below.

"What is it?" she whispered. He barely heard her over the noise of the alarms still blaring and the sound of a siren in the distance.

"No idea," Peter whispered back. "Did you see anything?"

The woman shook her head. She opened her mouth like she was about to say something, but then closed it as her eyes widened and she simply pointed to Peter's chest.

Peter frowned and looked down.

And saw a bright blue dot of light sitting right over the spider emblem.

"Ah shit," he muttered just as he backflipped off the fire escape. He managed to fire a web at the escape a floor up and quickly pulled himself up and out of the way.

Good thing too, because a flash of light, like a freaking honest to god laser blaster flew through the air, right by the lady's window and crashed into a car below.

This blue light was obviously different than the first because it wasn't just a shattered window and scattered snow.

The entire driver's side door was dented in, the fiberglass melted and twisted and glowing with the heat of the blast.

"Karen?" Peter panted as he shot another web and pulled himself onto the roof. "Please tell me backup is on the way!"

He registered that she was speaking but couldn't really grasp what she was saying because as soon as he crawled over the edge of the roof, he caught sight of another blue dot of light, this one on his shoulder. He dropped, face planting onto the ice cold concrete roof as a laser zipped past him and took out the air conditioning unit at the opposite end of the building.

"What the hell is happening?" he cried, not really expecting an answer.

Karen gave him one though. "Someone appears to be shooting at you."

"Thanks, Karen. I hadn't noticed."

"I sense sarcasm," she said. "Why ask if you didn't want to know?"

"That's how sarcasm works." Peter army-crawled towards the door leading down into the safety of the building. "It's literally just sass and anger and rhetorical questions all rolled into one."

He was just about to reach for the handle when it lit up in a blue glow.

"Son of-" Peter had just enough time to turn his head and pull his hand back before the door exploded into a thousand hot, burning pieces.

Peter felt the pain. It wasn't bad and he wasn't too worried about how much damage was done, mostly because he was too busy being worried about how much damage there was left to do.

"Karen, can you tell where the blasts are coming from?" he asked, running towards the edge of the roof with every intention of jumping and putting a whole ass building between him and the shooter.

But you know, the world sucked sometimes.

He was two steps away when a small drone-like thing floated down in front of his face. It was small, cylindrical with two small sets of propellers, like if someone took a soda can, slapped a couple sets of blades on either side and then programmed it for death.

Peter stopped, stared, and just blinked at it.

Then it blinked back.

A small aperture began to open, a clear, bright, blue light pulsing out and aimed right at Peter's face.

Peter didn't think, he just moved.

He was falling through the air, twisting as he looked for something to grab onto to stop him from hitting the ground. He found it, flung out his wrist and crashed, rather gracelessly, into the brick facade of the building.

"Peter, let go," Karen ordered.

A year ago, Peter would have questioned her, would have asked why or something else just as stupid. But he'd like to think he'd learned a lot in the past year, mostly if nothing else, when Karen tells you to do something? Do it.

Peter let go and fell the remaining fifteen or so feet, the wall above his head blasting apart where another blue light from the soda can of death had landed.

Peter landed on his back and immediately fired a series of webs.

One tangled in the propeller and brought down the small drone, blue lights shooting off in random directions as it plummeted to the sidewalk.

Peter let his head drop down and let out a shaky breath. "Holy shit."

And then he heard it, the tell-tale sound of blasters coming to the rescue. "Better late than never," he muttered, and pushed himself up into a sitting position.

He fired one more web at the drone, making sure it couldn't open up that blue eye thing and fire off any more shots before he turned to greet his would-be savior.

Except when he turned his head, all he saw was a dark hand reaching for him before he was grabbed up beneath his arms and literally thrown to the side.

He slid across the street, coming to a hard stop against the rear tire of a minivan. He looked up expecting to see Iron Man.

What he found was an intimidating looking War Machine blasting at two separate drones, each emitting that same deadly pulse of blue.

The first one he hit on the first try. It exploded into a million and two tiny pieces as the second fired a blast that cut a little too close for comfort.

But while Rhodey was busy tackling that one, Peter saw another zooming through the air, aiming to take out Rhodey from behind.

For the second time that night, Peter didn't think. He took a deep breath and let instinct take control. It took three steps to reach the middle of the street, which was close enough for him to leap into the air, reach forward towards the drone just as it lit up blue, the little aperture opening and aiming, and SMACK !

Peter tackled it mid-air.

A split-second later and he would have been too late. The moment he touched the drone, it shifted its target to the left, just enough to graze Rhodey's armour.

And boy, was that thing hot.

Peter let go the moment he landed on the ground and immediately fired a web at it, but whereas the last time he managed to tangle a drone's propellers, this one latched on to the bottom of the cylindrical part. Which in hindsight, was probably not the best place to catch it…

Peter pulled as hard as he could, slamming his elbow into the ground as he tried to bring the drone down. One tingling funny-bone later, and the drone was bouncing around on the asphalt like a rabid ferret on a leash.

This should have been a good thing.

But it wasn't.

The drone's propellers scraped against the ground until it had spun around enough to be looking at Peter, that little aperture with the blue light slowly opening as it was an arm's length away from Peter's face.

"Oh shi-"

CRACK!

Rhodey's foot came down hard, crushing the drone and its angry light.

Peter just fell onto his back, and sighed. "Hey, Karen?"

"Yes, Peter?"

"Did I piss my pants?"

"No. You did not."

"Oh good. That's cool."

He opened his eyes to find Rhodey staring down at him, faceplate lifted, with something akin to a smile on his face.

"That was close," Peter panted. "Thank you."

"No problem, kid."

"So uh," Peter licked his lips and pushed himself up onto his elbows. "Not that I'm not happy to see you, because I'm pretty sure my face would be melted right now if you weren't here, but uh...where's Tony?"

The smile left Rhodey's face. "Probably pulling his hair out and driving Pepper mad if I had to guess."

"That still doesn't really answer my question."

One corner of Rhodey's mouth quirked up. "I guess it doesn't." He looked up as a blue light flashed to the side, but it was only a police car pulling up to the scene. "We should probably get back to the tower. Want a ride?"

Peter grinned, climbed to his suddenly sore and shaky legs, and gave the policemen a friendly wave goodbye as Rhodey dropped his faceplate and grabbed Peter by the arm.

It was a quick trip, way faster than swinging by webs and hella faster than the subway.

Peter landed on the terrace, and surprisingly Happy was the first one out to meet him.

"Good, you're alive," he said, turning back to yell over his shoulder, "Tony, it's confirmed! He's alive!"

"Yeah, Friday beat you to it, Hap. But thanks nonetheless." Tony stepped around Happy and immediately reached out and pulled Peter's mask off. "You good?"

"Yeah," Peter said, going with the flow and letting Tony grab his head and turn it to the side, "but what the hell were those things?"

"They're the ' disturbances ' that've been all over the city the last month," Rhodey kind of explained, earning a glare from Tony. Rhodey just glared back.

Tony turned his frown towards Peter and glared some more. "You're bleeding," he declared, "Why are you bleeding? Friday? You said he wasn't hit."

"He wasn't, boss," Friday pointed out. "Karen's informed me his injuries are most likely caused by shrapnel from an exploding door and are all minor."

"But he's still bleeding though," Pepper said from her spot near the door. "Why don't we take this inside?" She passed a stern look between Tony and Rhodey and added a calm but firm, "Gentlemen?"

"Fine," Tony snapped. He grabbed Peter's arm and pulled him inside, taking him straight to the bar where Pepper had pulled out one of the extensive first aid kits they kept hidden in almost every room.

She started cleaning away the sweat and blood, her hands gentle as she smiled softly. "It's just mostly scrapes," she said. She was looking at Peter as she said it, but Peter had a feeling it was more for Tony, and maybe Happy.

Peter didn't care. He could tell it wasn't that bad because it didn't hurt that bad.

That or he was still too hyped up on adrenaline to really register anything more than the overwhelming feeling of holy shit .

"So all the vandalism and pranks that have been in the news lately…" Peter began, turning his head so Pepper could swipe at the cuts on his neck but also so he could look at Tony who was once again not looking at Peter.

"Not vandalism or pranks," Rhodey confirmed. "Drones and minor incendiary devices have been popping up all over the place."

"Incendiary devices? You mean bombs?" Peter asked, his voice not squeaking at the end. "When were-no, I'm pretty sure bombs popping up in New York City would make the freaking news."

"We've been working to keep it out of the news," Pepper explained. She tossed the bloodied wipe into a garbage bin and turned towards Happy. "Speaking of…"

Happy pulled his phone out of his pocket and started dialing. "I'm on it," he said, and then walked back outside.

Peter was about to ask why they were keeping it out of the news, but apparently Tony had decided to finally look at him and caught on to what was about to happen because he spoke up.

"Okay, we're done."

Peter frowned and yelped, "What?" at the same time Pepper and Rhodey exasperatedly sighed, "Tony."

"No, he's not getting involved in this," Tony snapped, each word short and sharp, his tone low.

"He got involved the moment you showed up at his apartment and invited him to Germany," Rhodey told him, tone calm but firm.

Tony just shook his head and spun on his heel, his thumb running along his bottom lip. He looked pissed.

Rhodey and Pepper shared another look.

"Tony," Pepper began, but Tony spun back around, his eyes squinting in a way that had Peter half expecting him to whisper "Et tu, Brute?"

But he didn't.

In case you were wondering.

What he did say was a rushed and whispered, "Pep, don't. Okay? Not on this."

Pepper didn't say anything, but she didn't back down either. She stood staring at him, jaw clenched, shoulders squared, but silent.

It was Happy who spoke next. "Tony, we've got to tell him. They went after him. If they've moved on from you, then-"

"You don't know that's what's happened," Tony argued. "They could have just gotten close to him because they knew it would draw me out."

"Exactly, Tones," Rhodey said. He was still wearing the War Machine...Iron Patriot, whatever. He was still in his suit, the helmet gone as he took a step closer to his best friend. "It's no secret that Iron Man and Spider-Man have some weird buddy cop thing going on. People have whole damn blogs dedicated to tracking your movements. If they can't get to you or the others, he's the only one left. You have to tell him."

Tony cast a quick glance towards Peter then shook his head again. "You don't know what he's like, Rhodey. He's-"

"He's just like you, damn it!" Rhodey barked. It was the closest Peter had ever gotten to hearing the man yell.

Rhodey took another step forward and poked and armoured finger into Tony's chest. "He is just like you were back then, a nosey little shit of a genius who couldn't take no for an answer and hated being on the wrong side of a secret. Sound familiar?"

Peter was pretty sure both he and Tony had just been insulted, but he wasn't about to comment. Neither was Tony, but only because Rhodey wasn't done.

"Tell me, Tony, if it was you, if we were all keeping a secret and you knew we were, what would you do?"

Tony just continued to glare.

Rhodey wasn't impressed, and Peter was done.

Like done done.

"Okay," Peter said, sliding off the stool he'd been sitting on and drawing everyone's attention. "Someone needs to tell me what just happened because I almost had my ass handed to me by the Disney villain version of Alexa, and from the sound of it, that wasn't a one off."

"Just let it go," Tony ordered/pleaded.

Rhodey rolled his eyes then turned to Peter and asked, "Kid, you gonna just let this go?"

"I think we both know I'm not, but I'll say yes if it'll make you happy."

Pepper hid her smile behind her hand. Happy snorted.

Tony continued to glare.

"You know me, but I know him." Tony looked at Rhodey but jabbed an angry finger in Peter's direction. "He's gonna want to be involved and that's not happening."

"The kid's smart, Tony." Rhodey argued.

"The kid lets his emotions get in the way of his common sense," Tony argured back.

Peter gently pushed Tony's hand aside and said, "I almost had my face melted off twenty minutes ago. And like Col. Rhodes said, I'm already involved. And besides, you brought me to freaking Germany to fight Captain America and you had no problem with that."

"Just because I brought you doesn't mean I was okay with it. I was desperate and you were a Hail Mary," Tony said. "And this is different. Rogers wouldn't have killed you."

"So this situation is exponentially more dangerous?" Peter asked.

"Yes."

"So...wouldn't you think, maybe based on past, shared experiences, that it'd probably be best for me to know what was going on instead of you keeping half the information hidden simply because you aren't comfortable with the idea of me getting involved?" Peter asked. "Because I'm pretty sure the last time that happened my girlfriend's dad dropped a building on me and then he broke your plane."

It was Pepper who snorted this time. She turned around to hide her grin.

Tony just stared at Peter, mouth a thin line, eyes wide before he turned his head and hissed a defeated "Shit."

"It's like MIT all over again," Rhodey chuckled, rubbing his forehead in dismay.

"Fine." Tony took a few pacing steps, clapped his hands together and said, "Someone's trying to kill us. Me specifically it would seem, or at least the idiots still stateside are."

"Hardly idiots if we can't stop them," Happy mumbled.

"Stateside?" Peter was beyond confused.

The confusion must have been obvious because the next few minutes consisted of Tony and Rhodey taking turns filling Peter in on what had been happening in various states of anger, annoyance, and overall worry.

Apparently, someone had started planting small bombs and letting those flying little death drones loose in areas where Tony tended to be, each of them made with advanced, state of the art, highly classified technology that the general public shouldn't have been aware of. Hell, Tony hadn't even been aware of it until it tried to blow his head off.

At first, they thought it was just a coincidence, it had only happened twice and one of the other Avengers had been with him both times.

But then other attacks started popping up in other countries. Isolated incidents, the same technology but with a bigger, deadlier result.

The Avengers were asked to investigate, mostly because no one knew where the tech was coming from and even more importantly, the places being targeted didn't have the resources to combat airborne artillery whose ammunition was exploding rays of light.

So the Avengers took off to see what they could do.

The only reason Tony had stayed behind was because he'd been hurt in that second, assumedly "coincidental" attack. Something he'd failed to mention when he was lecturing Peter on being safe and staying out of trouble and keeping his head down.

They didn't realize the pattern until the third attack, when Tony was alone and a swarm of drones appeared out of nowhere.

After that, Tony wasn't allowed out alone anymore. Or he was , but he was highly advised against it.

But with Tony no longer in the cross hairs, the guy or men or whoever were responsible began getting creative, setting off devices and drones in random places throughout the city, aiming to draw Iron Man out.

Luckily, Rhodey was able to disarm the situation, usually with a little help from S.H.I.E.L.D. and Happy and Pepper, again with the help of S.H.I.E.L.D, were able to spin a story to the news outlets that had caught wind of explosions and property damage and reports of minor shrapnel wounds and burns.

Weeks later, barely any progress had been made, at home or abroad, prompting the bad guy to make his way to Queens.

"And you have no idea who it could be?" Peter asked.

"Nat called, said they found something that hinted that Hydra had been in Haiti shortly before the attacks began there," Tony explained. "But nothing concrete."

Peter thought about it, about the implications. Hydra was one of those things he'd only heard rumors of, never had the misfortune of actually encountering. And honestly, he'd kinda hoped it would stay that way.

But the alternative…

"I hope it is Hydra," he mumbled. And whoa, yeah, everyone was looking at him like he'd lost his marbles. "Chill," he said, "I just really don't like the idea of there being another super secret group of murderous psychopaths hellbent on misery and world domination sneaking through the shadows. One is scary enough."

"Amen," Happy agreed.

"So, what do we do now?" Peter asked.

Tony just raised his eyebrows, gestured to Peter and gave Rhodey a "See. I told you so" kind of look. Again, Peter was almost certain he was being insulted somehow.

"You're not getting involved," Tony repeated. "Not anymore than you already are."

Peter's jaw dropped. "Are you serious?"

"Kid, I'm not even involved anymore. Not like I want to be," Tony said. He gestured towards the ceiling and said, "I can't even leave the tower without getting Nick Fury on my ass! You know what's going on now, we'll keep you updated, but that's it."

Peter didn't like it, but he had to admit it sounded fair. Or it would have, if Tony had quit talking.

"And Spider-Man is officially benched."

"What!?"

"Sorry, Pete," Rhodey said, and he actually looked apologetic. "But I'm with Tony on this one. If this is Hydra and they've decided to go after Spider-Man, then it's best Spider-Man stays out of sight until we get the situation under control."

"You've been trying to get it under control for weeks!" Peter pointed out. "I've got school! I can't just stay under house arrest, locked in my apartment until S.H.I.E.L.D figures out what's going on!"

"Spider-Man is sidelined, not Peter Parker," Tony clarified. "You can still do whatever a nerdy sixteen year old boy does in the wild, as long as it doesn't involve Spider-Man."

Again, Peter wanted to argue. He really, really did.

But then the thought of those drones and the fact that he'd literally almost died at least twice popped into his head.

"Fine," Peter conceded. "But I want to stay up to date."

"I'll make sure you're kept in the loop," Rhodey said. "I promise."

Peter narrowed his eyes. "Like for real promise or just tell me what I want to hear to shut me up promise?"

Rhodey gave a soft smile and said, "Friday, can you send my phone number to Peter's phone, please?"

"Sure thing, honeybear," Friday answered.

Rhodey briefly closed his eyes, like he was looking for strength and then glared at Tony.

"Shut up. You know you love it," Tony said before turning to Peter and saying, "Go get changed. Happy's gonna take you home and I'm going to call May and clue her in on what's happening and see if I can convince her not to ground you until graduation for missing curfew."

Peter had completely forgotten all about curfew. He turned and looked at the nearest clock. "Oh shit!"

"Sweatpants and hoodie, kid. Chop, chop!" Tony ordered as he reached for his phone.

Ten minutes later, he was sitting in the passenger seat of Happy's car, staring at the buildings as they passed.

"You think the others are okay?" Peter eventually asked.

"The other Avengers?"

"Yeah. Have they been attacked like Tony and me?"

"They've been...busy. Getting them to split up like they did, that was…" Happy trailed off, like it hurt to potentially compliment the bad guys.

"Genius," Peter finished, but yeah, it was.

"Yeah. Which is bad. It'd be easier to catch them if they were stupid."

Peter leaned his head back and tried to think about how much his night had changed in less than an hour. One minute he's arguing with a guy who'd been planning to rob someone at gunpoint and the next he was-

"Whoa, I forgot about the gun!" Peter gasped suddenly, startling Happy and earning his fiftieth glare of the night.

"What gun?" Happy asked.

"This gun I took from this guy. Well, technically he gave it to me, but still," Peter explained. "I dropped it in the night deposit drop box of that bank on 73rd and Broadway."

"Why would you do that?"

"I couldn't just leave it webbed to the lamp post," Peter defended. "I've lost way too many backpacks that way."

Happy pinched the bridge of his nose, took a deep breath, and calmly placed both hands back on the wheel. "This guy you took it from, what's his name?"

Peter shrugged. "Not Dave."

Happy blinked for an unnecessarily long second then said, "That's not helpful, not even a little bit."

"That's all I got." Peter shrugged again. "He was white and sounded like he was more from Brooklyn than Queens."

"Still not helpful, but thanks for trying."

"Just make sure someone responsible finds the gun" Peter pleaded.

Happy made a noise that sounded somewhat agreeing and then they fell into silence. When they were pulling up to Peter's building, May's silhouette could be seen in the window, obviously watching for their arrival when Peter said, "Tony doesn't do well when he feels caged."

Several seconds passed before Happy responded. "No he doesn't. But knowing he's not going to have to worry about you will make it a little easier."

"You really think it's Hydra?"

"No idea," Happy admitted. "But this seems like the messed up bullshit they'd pull."

He leaned forward so he could see May and gave a friendly wave. "Just be careful, Parker. Your aunt isn't the only one who's worried about you."

Peter didn't get a lot of sleep that night.

But life went on.

He put his suit away, but kept his web shooters in his backpack, just in case.

"I don't like this," May said a few mornings later. She was standing in front of the living room window, coffee cup in hand as she looked out at the street below. "How do we know they don't know who you are? What's to stop them from, I don't know? Blowing up the school or-"

"Pretty sure if they knew who I was, they'd have done something by now," Peter assured her. Or tried to.

When she turned around she still had that worry line between her eyebrows. "You're being safe, right?"

"My suit's in the closet," Peter reminded her. "I haven't been out as Spider-Man in days."

"But you've still got your web shooters? What about pepper spray? Should I buy you pepper spray? Or a taser?"

"Pretty sure neither of those are allowed at school," Peter pointed out. "But May, I'm fine. Just, we gotta keep our heads down until Tony and the others figure this out."

That was what Peter kept telling himself. Tony would figure this out. There was no other option.

So Peter went to school. He took notes, worked through differential equations and tried to remember how to conjugate irregular verbs, all while trying not to think about death drones.

He pulled out his phone and checked his notifications. He half expected to see a news alert referencing another 'disturbance' in upper Manhattan, maybe something on the police scanner reddit thread about more 'vandalism' and spoiled rich kids who couldn't handle boredom.

But nothing.

"Okay students, phones off."

Peter looked up to see his Spanish teacher passing out quizzes.

"I catch you cheating, automatic fail. Your phone goes off in the middle of class, automatic twenty point deduction."

Peter checked one more time for any sign that something was happening, then turned his phone off.

An hour later, Peter found himself fighting through the swarm of students rushing to get out of school. He pulled his phone out of his pocket, turned it back on and was halfway to the subway entrance when he felt it vibrate.

Tony had texted him.

Immediately he stopped, earned a few growls from passers by and opened the text.

Oscar, Dr. Brown

That was it.

Peter frowned and texted back a quick "What?"

But Tony didn't respond. Peter checked the time on the text and it had been sent some time before, back when Peter was in the middle of his Spanish quiz.

He clicked on Tony's name and hit the call button. It rang a few times and then went to voicemail.

Peter frowned again and decided to call Happy. Happy answered on the first ring.

"Now is really not the best time, Parker," Happy greeted distractedly, and Peter was going to buy everyone he knew a book on phone etiquette.

"Do you know who Oscar or Dr. Brown are?" Peter asked.

"What?" Happy no longer sounded distracted.

"Mr. Stark just texted me-," Peter began to explain, but Happy quickly cut him off.

"Where are you?"

Peter looked up, squinting as he tried to recognize his surroundings. "Uh...still in Midtown. Why?"

"When did he send it?"

"Like an hour ago? I had a Spanish test and if our phones go off in the middle she takes off points. Happy, what's happening?"

"That's all he sent? Nothing else?" Happy asked.

"No, that was it. But what does it mean?"

"Just go home, Parker. Go straight home. I'll call you later."

"Happy-"

"Straight home. I'll call you." And then he hung up.

Peter tried calling back, but Happy didn't answer. "So much for keeping me in the freaking loop, " Peter hissed angrily at his phone.

He pressed the call button again and resumed walking. Once again, he got Happy's voicemail.

He made it to the subway and decided to try calling Tony again, just in case. Voicemail again.

But as soon as Peter hung up, his phone bzzzzzd again with another text.

Oscar; Dr. Brown .

Peter had called Pepper Potts exactly one time in his entire life, but that number was about to bump up to two.

He scrolled down, found her contact and hit 'call'.

She answered on the second ring. "Hello, Peter," she greeted.

"Hey Miss Potts," Peter licked his lips and looked nervously at the people crowded around him. He turned towards the nearest wall and quietly asked, "Do you know why Mr. Stark would be sending me weird text messages?"

"Oscar and Dr. Brown?" she asked.

"Yes!" Peter exclaimed, wincing as a few heads turned in his direction. "What does it mean?"

Pepper sighed and then explained, "They're code words."

"Like Code Blue when someone's heart stops or Code Pineapple when they need to evacuate a store?" Peter asked, trying to remember if Tony had told him about any special code words. He couldn't think of any.

"Something like that," Pepper confirmed. "Oscar means Tony's in trouble and Dr. Brown means he's asking for help. Friday has them programmed to send as distress signals."

"Tony's in trouble?"

"It would seem so," Pepper said. She sounded irritated and more than a little worried. "He snuck out sometime this morning and disabled Friday's general access into the mainframe. We're not totally locked out, but we can't track him and we have no idea where he is. Your texts are the first we've heard from him."

"Why would he just leave like that? He knows it was dangerous. He was very clear on that."

"Tony's always been a do as I say, not as I do kind of man," Pepper reminded him. "And he was right, it's dangerous, so please, Peter. Go home, stay safe, and we'll call you the second we know something. Rhodey's probably going to need backup so just...standby okay?"

And then she hung up.

Peter was really getting tired of people hanging up on him.

He leaned back, head bouncing softly on the brick wall as he thought about what was happening, tried to figure out when and why Tony decided to forgo all reason and go rogue.

His phone buzzed again.

Oscar; Dr. Brown.

Screw it.

Peter climbed back up the stairs leading to the street and called Ned.

"Ned, tell me you're home already!"

"Yeah, why?" Ned asked. Peter could hear Skyrim music in the background.

He looked around, made sure no one was paying him any attention and quickly explained what was happening, then finished with, "I need you to hack into Tony's phone and turn on that Friend Finder app I installed."

"Dude, he told me not to try and hack his systems anymore," Ned hissed, his voice doing that high pitched thing it did when he was stressed.

Same, Ned. Same.

"He said not to hack the suit," Peter clarified. "He didn't say anything about his phone."

"That sounds like one of your loopholes. Loopholes get us in trouble, Peter," Ned reminded him. "I specifically remember an entire situation where Steve Rogers and Tony Stark both yelled at you about loopholes."

Peter rolled his eyes and growled in frustration. "Dude, this could literally be life and death. And I'm not asking you to hack into the entire Stark mainframe. I'm just needing you to turn on the freaking app. Please."

There was silence on the other end of the phone. Peter stepped into an empty laundry mat and tried to convince himself he wasn't a terrible, manipulative friend. "Ned. Tony could be in real trouble. This could save his life. You could literally help save Iron Man's life."

More silence.

And then, "Damn it."

Peter grinned big and silently punched the air. He could hear typing and clicks on the other end of the line, Ned sniffing and then more typing.

"It's on," Ned said, sounding none-too-happy about it.

"I love you, Ned," Peter told him.

"You better, dude. Now go find Iron Man."

Peter hung up, and opened the Friend Finder app. Tony had seemed almost insulted when Peter suggested he install it on their phones.

"I don't need an app to find anyone, Pete. That's what I build Friday for."

"Yeah well, I don't have Friday and you won't let Karen track people for me, so we're downloading the app."

And they did.

And then never used it. Tony never even launched it as far as Peter knew. Until now, anyway.

Peter dialed Happy again, needing to tell him he might have found a way to track Tony without having to hack into Friday's system and bypass whatever mess Tony had made.

But the phone went straight to voicemail. Rude.

Fine. Happy wasn't going to answer his phone, then Peter was going to go to him. He was nearing Greenwich when his phone pinged. Not a buzz, but a ping.

He opened the screen to see a little number one in the corner of the Friend Finder app's icon. Peter's heart started to pound as he opened it and sure enough, Tony's phone was nearby. He was still in the city.

Or, at least his phone was. Peter clicked on the little map and saw a pulsing red dot two streets away.

"Holy shit."

He took off running. He bumped into a few people, but it was New York, so they just yelled at him and then went about their lives.

He stopped when he was standing across the street from where the little red dot showed Tony's phone should have been.

There was a large building with an underground garage. There wasn't really anything to hint at what the building was, but it didn't matter. Tony's phone was there. Peter knew it was, because the little red dot said so.

But then the little red dot started to move.

Peter looked up in time to see a line of dark vans and moving trucks emerging from the garage, all in a neat and orderly line as they pulled out onto the road. The dot moved with them.

"Are you kidding me," Peter muttered. He reached into his backpack, pulled out his web shooters, and started to run.

He waited until the last truck had pulled out and was passing by before he reached his hand out, stuck it to the back door and proceeded to climb onto the roof.

That was when he realized he had no plan.

"Way to go, Peter," he mumbled. "Very on brand."

He fired a few webs, securing his back pack to the roof, and reached for his phone.

Ned answered immediately.

"Ned, see if you can get a hold of Happy and get him to track my phone."

Ned was a smart guy, and Peter could tell that Ned knew or at least suspected what Peter was up to. "Peter…."

"Not a loophole, Ned." Peter laid on his back and tried to think sticky thoughts so he wouldn't fly off the roof of the truck that was steadily picking up speed. "This is me just blatantly ignoring their orders."

"You can't ignore them!"

"Pretty sure I can. Doing it right now," Peter said. They passed by a building with a balcony and a woman staring down at him like he'd lost his mind. "Kinda easy…..just please do this for me."

"Oh, I'm doing it, because I'm an awesome friend," Ned snapped, "but I want it on record that I hate this. A lot. I hate this a lot."

"It is officially on record."

"Good. I'll call you back."

He hung up and Peter tried to get a good look at their surroundings, realizing things would be so much easier if he had his suit.

Peter was used to seeing the city either from the air or from the ground, the top of a moving truck was a new perspective and it made things a wee bit disorienting. But then he recognized a familiar landmark and had just realized they were about to pass Washington Square when Ned called back.

"You know, I really thought after the whole Vulture fiasco, Happy would have learned to answer his fricking phone."

Of course. Peter slammed his head on the truck, realized it was probably a good idea not to draw attention to the fact that he was up there, and asked, "Did you call Pepper? Or Rhodey?"

"...No. I don't have their numbers," Ned pointed out, and then gasped, "Oh my god. Do you have James Rhodes' phone number?!"

"Yeah, you keep trying Happy. I'll call Rhodey."

"Peter, wait-"

Peter hung up and immediately dialed Rhodey's number. He answered on the second ring.

"Peter, I know you want to help, but until we figure out-"

"I found Tony's phone!" Peter yelled, trying to speak over the wind blowing over the speaker. "Sort of. I got a signal on it anyway."

"What? How?"

"That's not important. But can you track my phone?"

"Wh-are you going after it?" Rhodey asked. "Peter, you can't go after these guys, not without backup."

"Kinda hoping you would be the backup, hence the phone call," Peter said. "Would have happened sooner, but Happy isn't answering his phone."

"That's because he's on the phone trying to get a hold of someone who can hack back into FRIDAY," Rhodey explained.

"Tell him to call Ned," Peter said. "He can do it, or at least try to do it."

"No offense to your friend, but I doubt a high school stude-"

"He hacked my suit once, turned off all of Tony's failsafes."

There was a contemplative silence and then, "...we'll call Ned. Now where are you?"

Peter had no idea. "Just trace my phone, get Ned to do it if you don't know how."

"I went to MIT, kid," Rhodey said, sounding strangely like an irritated Tony, "I can trace a phone."

"Just saying…"

"Are you in danger?"

"Uh…" Peter was pretty certain the whole "sticky" thing was the only reason he hadn't flown off the roof and into mid-afternoon traffic, but in all honesty, he'd been in worse situations. "No. Not yet anyway."

"If I get high blood pressure, I'm blaming you."

"You've been best friends with Tony Stark for like fifty years," Peter pointed out. "I'm willing to bet a year's allowance that it was high before I was even born."

"How old do you think I am? And why are you heading to New Jersey?" Rhodey had obviously traced Peter's phone.

"I don't know. I'm not the one driving the truck."

"What truck?"

"The truck I'm currently on?" Peter clenched his eyes closed waiting for an explosion, but all that came was a judging silence and Peter just knew that the man was doing his calming exercises. "I can feel you taking deep breaths."

"They help calm me," Rhodey quietly defended. "Why are you on the truck?"

"Because the signal from Tony's phone is coming from inside it. Or maybe one of the ones in front of it. But it's here."

"...Did you see Tony?"

"Nope. Just the signal."

Peter heard Rhodey take more deep breaths, but nothing else.

So Peter decided to fill the silence. "Want to fill me in on what happened and why Friday is sending me distress signals?"

"Pepper was attacked, she's fine," Rhodey quickly explained, "but it scared Tony enough that-"

"That he decided to meet the bad guy head on." Peter knew something had to have happened to make Tony go off script.

"Alone. And without backup," Rhodey confirmed.

Peter decided to imitate Rhodey and do a couple of deep breaths. "Okay, I call dibs on rubbing it in his face that he's a big old hypocrite."

Rhodey scoffed and then said, "He took his suit."

"And you can't track that?"

"We can't do anything. Not with Tony's system anyway. I don't know what he did, but Pepper is going to have to get in line behind me because I'm going to hurt him. He's smarter than this. He knows better."

"He's letting emotions get in the way of common sense?" Peter asked cheekily.

Rhodey gave a soft chuckle. "Alright, you get dibs. But that vein on Happy's temple is doing that weird thing it does and Pepper's already talking divorce and they aren't even married yet. And he better hope they don't kill him, because if he dies from his own self-sacrificing stupidity, I will summon his ghost ass and force him to silently haunt every low-level, white bread, boardroom and make him listen to boring ass budget meetings for eternity."

Peter felt the truck pick up speed. "Are you on your way?"

"Almost. Keep your phone on and I'll follow the signal. I don't want them knowing I'm coming."

Peter lifted his head and saw the Holland Tunnel coming into view. "Oh, we're at the tunnel, I don't think my pho-" there was a beep and then silence. Peter looked at the screen and saw he'd lost signal. "Shit."

Okay, so Rhodey was coming. Peter officially had backup. Or he was gonna be Rhodey's backup...either way, he wasn't going to be alone with nothing but a pair of web shooters and his phone.

The tunnel was loud and the sounds of engines and car horns just echoed inside in a thunderous kind of way. Peter clenched his eyes shut and tried to focus on holding on to the top of the truck, silently wishing they'd hurry and get out of the tunnel.

And then they were, but that just meant that they were going faster. It also meant so were all of the other cars on the road.

When Peter turned fifteen, May had suddenly gotten really nervous with the idea of Peter getting his license.

"It's not that I don't trust you, sweetie," she had said, "It's that I don't trust all the other impatient idiots on the road."

Peter was starting to understand what she meant. One minute they're barreling down the motorway faster than Peter's comfortable with, the next the truck swerves, a series of angry car horns sound, Peter swore he heard the driver curse, and just as Peter got the ever so brilliant idea to lift his head and see if he could see what was happening, the truck swerved again.

So much so, that Peter loses his hold on the roof. He started sliding just as the truck hit the railing and Peter was airborne.

He shot out a web, slammed into the side of the truck, his hipbone screaming in pain as he clung to the edge of the truck. He looked up and felt his ghost leave his body when he saw that the truck was still riding the railing, sparks flying as it neared a massive sign detailing the name of the highway he was about to die on.

"Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit," he screeched as he reached out and oh so quickly swung to the back of the truck. There was a car a ways behind them, obviously having distanced themselves from whatever hellish trauma was unfolding between the truck Peter was on and the cars in the other lane.

Whatever that driver thought of seeing a guy fly off a truck and then stick to the side, Peter didn't care. All he cared about was breaking the lock on the truck door and diving into safety.

He dove inside, fired a web, and caught the door before it could fly wide open and potentially catch the attention of the driver. He pulled it closed and used the webbing still attached to it to tie it closed.

Then he turned around and realized he could barely see anything. The only light was the little bit that filtered in around the edge of the web closed door. Peter reached for his phone and slid his thumb across the screen, hissing when he felt something sharp.

He took a step back, held it up so the light from the door would shine on it and groaned. Apparently when he slammed into the truck, his phone had been caught in the middle. Where there used to be a few cracks there was now just destruction. The entire thing looked as though someone had taken a hammer to it.

He tried pressing the home screen but nothing happened. The shattered screen stayed black.

If he didn't die today, Peter was going to make a point in asking Dr. Strange if it were possible for people to be cursed.

Peter looked around. The truck was mostly empty. There were a few bags of what looked like industrial laundry and a few boxes filled with office supplies and dusty computer monitors.

Realizing that the truck no longer felt like it was careening towards death, Peter sat down and tried to get comfortable as he waited for the ride to end.

It took a while, but eventually the truck pulled to a stop. Peter listened as a series of voices began talking loudly, getting steadily louder as they approached the truck, some talking angrily, some laughing as they examined the damage on the truck's side.

Peter climbed to his feet and stared at the little gap of light at the bottom of the truck's broken door. "Please don't open the door, please don't open the door," he silently pleaded. "Please, please don't open the door.

They didn't.

Maybe he wasn't cursed after all.

The voices eventually got further away and Peter had to strain to hear. He could make out several different voices, way more than he was comfortable with. Some were speaking English with varying accents, others were speaking something that sounded like French.

Peter tried to remember if Hydra was mainly French or if he'd missed something.

Then he heard something that sounded like "Stark" and figured it'd probably be a good idea to pay attention.

There were a lot of slamming doors, the sound of someone using a key fob to beepbeep their car lock, and then silence.

Peter waited, slowly stepping closer to the slightly cracked door and trying to listen for anything. A voice, footsteps, another car.

Maybe the tell-tale sound of approaching War Machine blasters.

But there was nothing.

Slowly, Peter opened the door and peeked outside. He was in a gravel parking lot outside a large, concrete building that looked like it had been built with the sole intention of becoming an evil lair. Its whole aesthetic was concrete and bad decisions.

Peter climbed out, quietly pushed the door shut and tried his best to make it stay, then he slowly started to make his way towards the building.

He realized that his track record with just "winging it" didn't really go very well, and he probably needed a plan.

Unfortunately, he had no phone, only half a canister of web fluid left, no suit, no idea where he was, and he only just now realized that it was possible that without his phone working, Rhodey might not have been able to track him.

Well fuck.

Okay, time to wing a plan.

Step One: find a phone and call for help.

He'd figure out Step Two when he got there.

He found an unlocked door, slid inside and held his breath, focusing all of his attention on listening .

He could hear people talking in the distance, heard the roar of the heating system, and a steady hum of electrical equipment.

He didn't hear Tony.

So Peter started walking. Each step slow and guarded as he kept an ear out for anything useful.

Oh, like that.

Peter could hear typing. And typing meant a computer. And a computer meant he could send a distress signal of his own.

He climbed up the wall, pulled himself onto the ceiling, and slowly inched forward to the opened door.

There were two guys inside, each focused on a computer and each looking like they came out of the womb craving violence.

Peter sighed, rested his head on the ceiling tile, and decided Ned was probably right. He should have just gone home.

He checked the web fluid, cringed when he saw it was almost empty. He was an idiot. An unprepared idiot.

But he also had super strength and the element of surprise, so he reached forward, grabbed the top of the doorframe and swung in feet first and just punched the first guy right in the face.

He felt the guy's nose crunch and had turned, grabbed the second guy by the back of the head and slammed him face first into the desk before the first guy had time to fall to the floor.

Neither was moving.

Peter panicked for half a second, realized they were still breathing, and felt his knees go weak in relief.

He then patted them both down.

He found one set of keys, two knives, a gun, and a set of walkie-talkies.

No phone.

Not even one.

He looked to the top of the desks. Nothing. Not even a landline.

Peter gently pushed the second man on the floor and took his seat at the computer. And then frowned.

Everything was in French. He recognized a few words that looked similar in Spanish, but he had exactly zero idea what he was looking at.

Add in the fact that it appeared to be on a closed network with custom software.

"It'd be really nice to have Karen right about now," Peter mumbled as he bumbled his way through screens. If he had time, he could figure it out, he could probably hack it and send Happy or Ned a call for help.

But he didn't exactly have a lot of time, and the computer didn't even appear to have a web browser downloaded.

So he moved the men behind the desk, pocketed one of their walkie-talkies, keys, and both knives.

He just stared at the gun.

As a general rule, Peter didn't really like guns. But, he also didn't like the idea of dying so…

He figured out where the safety was, made sure it was on, and put the gun in the back waistband of his jeans.

Worse case scenario, he could always throw it at someone's face.

Then he closed the door, turned off the light, and climbed into the air vent.

He immediately felt claustrophobic. It was small, dusty, and the heat was on so he could already feel sweat forming beneath his arms and behind his knees.

"You better be alive," Peter whispered to an absent Tony.

Slowly, he made his way deeper and deeper into the building. Occasionally, he would come across a small group of men and he'd stop, staying as still as possible until they passed. Sometimes he would crawl for minutes and minutes without coming across anyone.

It was hard to hear with the whistle of the hot air passing by him and the sound of his heart pounding in his ears, but he would close his eyes, hold his breath and listen.

Eventually, it paid off. He'd just hit his knee on a raised screw in the vent and was in the process of biting his lip to keep from voicing his displeasure when he heard it. Someone a few rooms away said "Stark".

Peter army crawled as fast as he could without making a lot of noise and peered down through the vent grate.

He could only see the men's legs and they were speaking French again, but yep, there it was again.

" Something something Tony Stark, something something"

Then the man reached forward, and did something that sounded like rattling a locked door, which caused the other men to laugh.

Then they left.

If Tony was in that room, then that was a good sign. A really good sign. Because people generally didn't try to lock up dead guys.

Peter looked ahead but he didn't see a nearby vent.

Shit.

He listened again, made sure he didn't hear anyone nearby and promptly proceeded to try and quietly bash his way through the vent.

Admittedly, it could have gone better, but Peter was no longer in the vent and no one seemed to be coming to see what the loud thud was, so all in all, Peter was going to call it a win.

He then tackled the door, which comparatively speaking, was a hell of a lot easier.

Especially with super strength.

The inside of the room was dark, there was no furniture, no boxes or discarded lamps.

Just Tony.

He was lying on his back, the Iron Man helmet gone, his eyes closed.

He looked dead.

Peter lunged into the room, took in the broken and shattered suit and reached forward, fingers feeling his neck for a pulse.

It took a moment to find it, but that had more to do with Peter being so nervous and inexperienced with checking for pulses than anything else.

"Tony," Peter whispered, gently patting the man's cheek. "Come on, wake up."

But Tony didn't listen.

Peter was used to it.

"Come on."

Still nothing.

Peter did a quick inventory check. The arc reactor cracked, but still lit, if only dimmed. The rest of the suit…

It was clear that Tony had been hit by one of the death drones. Probably mid-flight if the damage was anything to go by.

Peter flashed back to the picture Tony had sent back at the beginning of the Christmas holidays, of the damage that suit had taken.

This was decidedly worse. And that was scary.

Tony's suits were made to take damage. Peter had seen them take bullets at point blank range and barely earn a scratch.

It had to be more than just a drone. Something big had to have caused this.

"Friday?" Peter asked. But like Tony, she was silent.

Peter hated risk assessments. They always meant choosing one bad decision over the other, but he didn't really have a choice, did he?

He could either stay here and hope Rhodey found them, or he could risk moving Tony and trying to get somewhere safe.

Peter thought back to the long line of trucks and vans he'd seen in the parking lot, to the many different groups of men and women he'd passed on his way to Tony. While he did have a set of keys, he has no idea which vehicle they went to and it wasn't like he could waltz into the parking lot, clicking a key fob while he dragged an unconscious Tony behind him.

That meant hiding or fighting, and he'd seen boy scouts in Queens who were better suited for battle than he was at the moment.

Yeah, they were gonna hide.

As gently as he could, he lifted Tony into a fireman's carry and exited the room, pulling the door closed behind him.

Peter suddenly missed the vent. He was sweating again, but now for a totally different reason. His heart was pounding, and he kept reaching forward to make sure Tony was still breathing.

He didn't know if the bad guys planned on checking in on Tony soon or not, but he wanted to be somewhere out of the way before then.

Eventually, he found somewhere that looked promising.

Yes, it looked to be a storage room, complete with a mop propped up in the corner that looked like it hadn't been used in decades, but it had a lock on the door, so it would do.

Peter eased them inside, locked the door, and gently laid Tony on the ground.

He still wasn't waking.

Peter paced the few steps the room allowed, ran both hands through his hair and pulled. "Okay, think. Think ."

Peter had found Tony and they were both still alive, but they still needed to call for help.

Step One: Find a phone

Step One and Half: Improvise.

Peter could do that. Okay, inventory time. He had two knives, a gun, a useless phone, and an even more useless set of keys.

And a walkie-talkie. That might actually come in handy.

Peter pulled it out of his pocket and switched it on, careful to make sure the sound wasn't too loud so as to draw attention to their hiding spot.

Hopefully, if they decided to do a prisoner check and learned they no longer had a prisoner, it'd be announced over the walkie-talkie. Otherwise, Peter was going to assume they weren't looking for them.

Next, he pulled out his phone. Yep, the screen was still destroyed.

But maybe the inside wasn't.

If he had a computer…

Peter looked to Tony and the shattered and charred red of the Iron Man suit.

The outside looked toast, but the arc reactor was still lit.

"You're just going to take it apart?" Peter asked

"We are going to take it apart," Tony had corrected, "And it's not like we're going to throw it away. Recycle, kid. Save the environment."

"And maybe save us," Peter muttered. He looked back down at the knives he'd taken and decided they would make a pretty good screwdriver.

"Screwdriver to screw. Lefty loosey, righty tighty. Got it?"

Carefully, Peter began pulling the suit apart, mindful not to jostle Tony anymore than was necessary. A couple of times Tony groaned, once he made a sound like a snore, but despite Peter urgently trying to wake him, the man remained unconscious.

Eventually Peter had enough of what he needed. Hopefully.

He started with his phone, popping off the screen and exposing the microprocessor and other bits inside.

Then he pulled forward the circuit board he'd salvaged from the suit. It was damaged and a little burnt, but still looked usable.

In theory.

The plan was to connect the two, use the reactor as a battery and the "brain" from the suit coupled with the undamaged amplifiers and satellite tuner from the phone to either A) jumpstart Friday and have her send out an SOS or B) get his phone working enough that Siri could call one of his contacts.

Of course that was assuming Peter could actually connect them and that nothing was too damaged.

He lost track of time, but eventually he had everything lined up. All he needed was a single copper wire and life would be golden.

And he knew the suit had one. The suit had hundreds of them, but they were delicate and easily snapped. Peter knew this because he kept overestimating his strength last time and Tony ended up with a coffee cup full of snapped and useless wires that would need to be melted down.

He needed to be careful. Very careful.

He crawled forward and started looking for a usable wire. He found it, all nice and in one piece, protected by a black cover.

Peter pinched the end of the wire and gently pulled, whispering a steady, pleading, "Don't break, don't break, don't break," which quickly turned into a quietly ecstatic hiss of "Oh my god, thank you!" as the wire pulled loose, exposing the copper ends beneath the black insulating cover. "You are the best little wire. 10/10, you are definitely my favorite right now."

He placed the wire onto the circuit board with the least amount of charring and frowned. "If I had a soldering iron, this would be eas...ier…" He trailed off as an idea slowly started to form. It was a bad idea, but Peter was used to those. He'd worked with less. He needed to fuse the wire into place, and to do that he needed heat, and the only available source of heat at the moment…

Tony's abandoned repulsor glove was just a few feet away. Peter looked to the glove, to Tony's slack, still decidedly unconscious face, then back to the glove. He narrowed his eyes, calculating. "I mean, the chances of me messing up so bad that something explodes is only like, what? Twelve percent?" He looked back to Tony. Dude still wasn't answering. "I'm gonna say ten, just cause I'm feeling optimistic."

Peter reached forward and grabbed the glove, wedging the tiny knife into the casing and went to work dismantling what he could. His hands shook as he exposed the tiny heating element. He gave a shaky sigh, and glanced towards Tony, hoping he'd magically awoken and was in the mood to offer some calming and comforting words of wisdom. But nope. Still out.

Peter looked back to the glove, furrowed his brow and in a deeper than necessary voice, and said, "You got this, kid. Just don't burn your face off." He placed the edge of the knife against the tiny coil. "Gee thanks, Mr. Stark. Great pep talk."

He took a deep breath and reached for the arc reactor. "Please don't burn your face off, Pete," he whispered to himself. He took one more deep breath as he thought through the math, tried to remember the number of electrons the reactor could generate and connected it to what was left of the partially dismantled glove. " Please don't burn your face off."

One more deep breath, just in case it was his last, and he activated the reactor.

At first, nothing happened. And then a crisp and clear voice said, "Hello, Peter. You got my messages."

"Friday !" Peter felt like crying, he was so happy. "Fri, I need you to call Col. Rhodes okay? Can you tell him where we are?"

She was quiet at first, like she was thinking. It was weird, Peter had never seen her not respond instantly.

"Of course," she said and then she was quiet again.

Peter was worried. He'd tried to salvage everything he could, tried to make it to where she'd have everything she'd need to do the task, but the truth of it was, he didn't know the mechanics of it as well as Tony.

Tony had created the machine, he knew each and every nut and bolt. Peter just knew a generalization of it all.

But apparently that was enough, because the next thing Peter heard was a faint and staticky voice coming from his phone's speaker.

"Peter?"

"Col. Rhodes?!" Peter whispered excitedly. "Can you hear me?"

"You found Tony?" Rhodey asked in answer. "Is he okay? Are you okay? Friday couldn't answer me."

"I'm fine, but Tony's unconscious, his suit's destroyed, and we're like in the middle of a freaking bad guy convention. I have no idea how many there are."

"Are you safe?" Rhodey asked, his voice momentarily cutting out.

"Safe-ish," Peter answered. "We're hiding in a closet. I don't think they've noticed Tony's missing yet."

"Don't move from that closet," Rhodey ordered. "I'm on my way. And Peter?"

"Yeah?"

"You do whatever you have to to stay safe. Okay?"

Peter thought of the gun tucked in his waistband. "Okay."

And then the phone cut off and it was quiet.

"Friday?"

"Yes, Peter?"

"Any chance you know what's wrong with Tony? Like how much should I be worried?"

There was more silent thinking, then "I'm sorry, Peter. I think the suit took on too much damage before I could get any proper readings."

"That's okay, Friday. Thanks." Then she was quiet too.

Peter decided he couldn't just sit and wait to be rescued. He needed something to do. So he grabbed his knife-turned-screwdriver, the remaining repulsor glove and his web shooters and went to work.

He'd just popped out the fluid canister when Tony groaned again. It was like the third time the guy had done it, so Peter didn't exactly expect much, but he did look up.

And found Tony looking back at him.

"Kid?"

"Thank god," Peter muttered. "I thought you were dying."

"Feels like I was," Tony groaned again. "Where are we?"

"Somewhere in New Jersey," Peter guessed. "That's all I know."

Tony groaned again and then looked around. He caught sight of his glove sitting in Peter's lap and pushed himself up until he was sitting and could lean against the wall. Frowning, he asked, "Whatcha doing?"

"Trying to save our asses," Peter answered. He loosened the seal on the canister and shoved it between the heater element and repulsor sleeve. "Your suit was trashed and I had to find a way to get Friday working again so she could send out an SOS to someone other than me."

Peter gestured to what was left of his phone and the dimmed arc reactor lying on the floor. Tony narrowed his eyes and tilted his head.

"You spliced the core with the satellite tuner?"

"Yep," Peter said with a bob of his head. He slipped his hand into the gauntlet and curled the fingers, molding the thing into a bulky fist. "Then connected it to the amplifiers and charged it with the reactor."

"Copper wiring?"

"Yep."

"Hmm," Tony hummed. Peter looked up to see a mildly impressed smirk.

"Hey, Fri?" Tony called.

"Yes, boss?" Friday answered. And then there was a pop, a hiss, and then the distinct smell of something burning.

Peter dropped the gauntlet and jumped forward, but it was too late. His phone was officially beyond saving. "Damn it!" he hissed.

Tony leaned forward as much as he could and said, "The electrons from the reactor over-"

"Overloaded the circuit, yeah," Peter confirmed. He tossed the phone to the side. "It's fried."

"Yeah, Apple's more suited for lithium ions, kid." He leaned back and placed a hand tenderly on his ribs.

"Well, I had to work with what I had," Peter defended. "But it did its job."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. Rhodey's on his way."

"Ah, my knight in shining War armour," Tony said with a smile. Then he tilted his head again and gestured towards Peter. "Speaking of armour, where the hell is your suit?"

"Spider-Man's on vacation, remember?" Peter said. "Hydra or whoever these guys are had me on their hit list so he got sidelined. You're stuck with Peter Parker for now."

Tony leaned forward again, frowning. "You came here without any gear?"

"You came here without any backup!" Peter pointed out, remembering at the last moment to keep his voice down.

"Okay, let's lose the sass-"

"Nope," Peter shook his head and stood up. He needed to pace or he was going to scream. "You are getting all the sass. All of it. Know why? Because for once, I'm not the one who screwed up."

Tony looked like he wanted to stand up, but thought better of it. "I didn't-"

"Yes," Peter said, cutting him off once more. "You did. And literally everyone else will agree."

Tony looked away, his head slowly shaking from side to side. "You don't know the whole story."

"Bad guys almost got Pepper, so you decided to take the fight to them" Peter said. "Did I miss anything?"

Tony tilted his head acknowledgingly and reluctantly admitted, "That about sums it up."

Peter ran his hand through his hair again, tugging at the little curls at the base of his neck. He sighed, tried to think of something to say, and settled on, "You're not alone, Tony. I thought you learned that a long time ago."

"I never said I was alone," Tony argued.

"Maybe not out loud," Peter conceded, "but actions speak louder than words."

"Jesus Christ, kid," Tony muttered, pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes. "Did May get you one of those self-help books or something?"

"Tony."

Tony dropped his hands and let his head fall back against the wall. "I was scared."

"You thought she was going to die. People do stupid things for family," Peter said, moving to sit next to Tony against the wall.

"I swore I wouldn't be the reason she died," Tony whispered.

Peter didn't know what to say. He'd made the same promise about May and his friends. He leaned back and winced when he felt the gun pressing into his spine.

He reached around, grabbed it, and handed it to Tony. "Here, you hold this."

When Tony didn't immediately take it, Peter looked up to see Tony staring at him with a confused sneer.

"Don't ask," Peter pleaded.

Tony took the gun and said, "Oh, I think we both know I'm gonna."

As if on cue, the walkie-talkie squeaked to life, a man's voice came through, garbled and squeaking but distinctly French.

"What are they saying?" Peter asked, turning the volume up.

Tony grabbed the walkie-talkie and held it near his ear. He listened then his eyebrows went up and he looked to Peter questioningly."Someone says they were attacked, that a guy came out of nowhere."

Peter bobbed his head. He'd almost forgotten about the two guys at the beginning. "Oh good, they're awake"

Tony continued to stare.

"What?" Peter asked defensively. "It's not like I killed them."

The walkie-talkie came to life again. More French, more angry tones, and then an unmistakable "Stark" thrown in amongst the sounds.

"They're going to check on me," Tony translated. There were a few heavy moments of silence and then the walkie-talkie exploded in more noise.

Peter didn't need Tony to translate to know they'd realized he was gone.

"They're doing a sweep," Tony informed him. "Going to look in every room, floor by floor. How far are we from where they had me?"

"Not far enough," Peter admitted. "Rhodey said to stay put."

"Rhodey is a smart man," Tony said. "But if he doesn't hurry…" he trailed off. He didn't need to finish the sentence. Peter knew what would happen.

Which is why he leaned forward and pulled the modified gauntlet glove into his lap. "This should buy us at least a little time," he said, reaching for the arc reactor that was still connected to the rewired circuit board. "We hook this up as a battery and then psshhoo ." Peter threw his hands out dramatically.

"What do you mean psshhoo ?" Tony asked, mimicking Peter's hand movements.

"It'll explode," Peter elaborated.

"Expl-," Tony stopped, blinked, then looked down at the fist shaped gauntlet. "Did you build a bomb?"

"Sort of?" Peter admitted. "But not like a molotov type bomb, more like the prank kind."

Tony narrowed his eyes. He looked cautious, but definitely interested. "Explain."

Peter turned the gauntlet so Tony could see the modifications he'd made. "I didn't have enough web fluid left to do more than web up maybe one guy, but I've discovered that when I'm making the mixture, if I let the heat get too high, the webbing expands and just sort of gets a little too sticky. Theoretically, the heat from the blaster should mix with what's left of the fluid and just…"

" Psshhoo ," Tony repeated, this time with a smile. "Like an irritating elephant's toothpaste."

"Exactly, they'll all be stuck in the webbing and we can make a break for it," Peter said, smiling back. Then his smile faltered. "Of course, the initial blast might still cause some injuries…"

"Don't feel guilty about that," Tony interrupted. "Pretty sure I've got at least one broken rib. They have it coming."

"Solving violence with violence are we?"

Tony snorted. "Peter, I have seen you pick up a car and throw it at somebody."

"Yeah, but they..." Peter trailed off and wrinkled his nose in defeat.

"'Had it coming?" Tony guessed. "Yeah, that's what I thought."

Peter just laughed and then leaned back, listening for the sound of approaching feet. At the moment, it was still quiet.

Tony shifted, cleared his throat and then said, "Pete?"

"Yeah?"

"Thanks for coming to get me."

Peter rubbed his thumb along the edge of the arc reactor still in his hand and shrugged. "It's what you would have done for me."

"Yeah," Tony said. "But you shouldn't have had to. I was an idiot."

"Yeah, you were," Peter agreed.

Tony bumped his arm with his elbow and said, "You could have pretended to disagree."

"Nah," Peter said, smiling. When Tony looked at him with a frown, Peter just smiled more. "I'm just saying, I distinctly remember you yelling at me for doing something similar."

Tony frowned, then admitted, "I vaguely remember a...discussion taking place."

"Like loud yelling," Peter reminded him. "Multiple times."

"Point made."

"Threatened to take the suit again."

Tony sighed dramatically then said, "You can stop now."

Peter shrugged. "All I'm saying is, if you expect me to take your advice and trust you when you need me to, then you can't go doing things you explicitly told me not to do."

"That's fair," Tony agreed with a nod.

"Or things I've done that you've yelled at me for doing," Peter continued.

Tony thought about it, then conceded, "...also fair."

Peter held up his hand, his thumb and forefinger barely an inch apart. "There's a little grey area in there."

"You're enjoying this," Tony accused.

Peter didn't argue. "Immensely."

Tony laughed, then winced as he pressed a hand to his rib. Peter was about to ask if he was okay, but the sound of footsteps and a slamming door cut him off.

He and Tony looked at one another.

"That thing ready to go?" Tony asked, chin jutting towards the gauntlet grenade.

"Just a twist of a wire and it's live," Peter confirmed. "Think you can stand up?"

"I don't really have any other choice," Tony pointed out. He reached out a hand and let Peter help pull him to his feet. He wobbled a bit, but over all he was vertical. He raised the gun and switched off the safety switch. "We jump out when they get close enough, you activate then launch the gauntlet, then we run like hell in the other direction. Clear?"

"Clear," Peter agreed. "But if you start lagging behind, you're not allowed to yell at me when I toss you over my shoulders like a flour sack and take off."

"Kid, if it's that or dying, I'm sure my ego will get over it."

"Good."

"Good."

They both stood there, fingers flexing.

When the sound of voices got close enough that they could hear what was being said, Tony nodded, reached for the handle and mouthed, "One...two... three !"

On two, Peter twisted the wire, syncing the arc reactor with the gauntlet and officially activating the "bomb".

On three, Tony pulled open the door and Peter stepped outside and launched it in the direction of the three men down the hall.

They looked confused. The guy in the front even reached out and caught the gauntlet.

Peter didn't wait to see what they would do next. Tony grabbed him by the collar, spun him around, and then they were both moving, Tony a little slower than Peter.

It didn't exactly make a psshhoo sound, but it was close. There was a click, then a hiss, then the unmistakable sound of web fluid shooting out and expanding in every direction.

Then then screams of pain and dismay.

"Come on," Peter yelled, turning and urging Tony to pick up his pace.

The walkie-talkie was going crazy now, but Tony didn't translate. He just clenched his jaw and focused on putting one foot in front of the other as fast as he could.

They reached the end of the hall and pushed their way through the large door at the end, immediately finding themselves in another hall, this one running perpendicular to the other.

"Any chance you know where we are?" Tony asked.

"Dude, I got to you through the air vents," Peter told him. "This is all new to me."

Tony nodded, like that was what he'd expected then turned left and started running again. His breath was kinda wheezy, but he was still going, feet steadily moving.

Peter could tell they were in the center of the building. There were no windows, nothing that would offer any hope of escape.

They made it to the end of the hall, but there was no door, just another hall that bisected the first, this one with no doors. "Are you kidding me?" Tony hissed. "How big is this building?"

"Too big," Peter answered. He grabbed Tony's arm and pulled. "But we have to keep moving, come on."

So they ran, their steps getting slower and slower because Tony couldn't keep up, no matter how stubborn and determined he was.

"My head is pounding," he grumbled as they neared the end of the third hall. "It's-" but he stopped when Peter held up his hand.

There were footsteps. Lots of them. "We have to go back," Peter whispered, but the sound of a door opening and slamming shut echoed up from the way they'd just come. Peter froze.

He looked to Tony, eyes wide. "What do we do? I can't fight them all. Now without my webs. It'd be different if it was hand to hand, but I'm pretty sure they're gonna have guns."

Tony looked angry. Peter had learned a long time ago that Tony's angry face was the same as his scared face.

Tony checked the gun in his hand, made sure a bullet was in the chamber, then met Peter's eye. "Can you tell how many there are?"

Peter closed his eyes and listened. The dense concrete walls made it hard, but it sounded like…"At least five, maybe six or seven? It's hard to tell."

"Okay," Tony said, nodding. "That's good. That's a doable number."

"Yeah?"

"Absolutely," Tony promised. "You do whatever little kung fu mojo you used on the first two guys earlier, and I'll just point and shoot."

Peter didn't particularly like that plan, but he also didn't like the idea of dying, so…"Okay, yeah. Yeah, I can do that."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

"Okay," Tony breathed, tightening his hold on his gun. He pointed the gun at the ground and placed his finger on the trigger.

Peter flexed his hands, hating the feeling of not having his web shooters. He'd never really had to fight without them before.

Tony met Peter's eye and once again began silently mouthing, "One...two…"

But before he could get to three, someone burst through one of the doors at the far end of the hall. Peter spun around just as Tony raised his gun. But the other guy was faster.

Peter tried to prepare for it, tried to guess where the bullet would go so he could move them out of the way first.

But then the floor in front of them caved in.

Or more precisely, War Machine busted through, dropping down to one knee before he raised one arm and fired, stopping the would-be assassin before he could get the first shot off.

Then in one fluid movement, he rose to his feet, turned towards Peter and Tony, and raised both arms.

Tony grabbed Peter by the collar and pulled him down to the floor, just as Rhodey fired more shots.

Peter lifted his head from the dust and debris covered floor to look behind him at the small group of men piled atop one another, their limbs all in a tangle.

When the dust cleared and Peter finally realized he wasn't about to die in the next few seconds, he climbed to his feet, pulling Tony up with him.

Rhodey let his faceplate open and he pointed an angry finger in Tony's direction and said, "You're grounded."

Tony just stepped forward and pulled Rhodey into a hug, suit armour and all.

Rhodey didn't hesitate. He hugged him back. Then he looked at Peter over Tony's shoulder and asked, "You okay?"

"Might have peed my pants a little, but yeah, I'm good." Peter gave him a thumbs up, and leaned forward, his hands resting on his knees as he tried to get his heart to slow down. "What took you so long?"

Rhodey laughed. "You can blame that on Fury," he said.

And that was when Peter registered the sound of distant gunfire. "S.H.I.E.L.D's here?" he asked.

"Yeah," Rhodey confirmed. "Because I don't go into dangerous situations without backup."

"Yeah, yeah," Tony whined, "Everybody can yell at me later. Let's just go home."

Peter couldn't agree more.

Then he remembered. "Wait, I've gotta get my backpack off the truck."

Rhodey and Tony shared a look, and then just laughed.

"What? It's got my chemistry homework in it. I'm not redoing that."

They retrieved Peter's backpack then waited as S.H.I.E.L.D finished rounding up the rest of the villains du jour. Information was relayed to the others abroad, and by the time night rolled around, S.H.I.E.L.D and the Avengers had made significant headway stopping the attacks and so called "disturbances" world wide.

Four hours after that, Peter found himself freshly showered and looking forward to an entire large double cheese, supreme pizza, and he intended to eat the entire thing all on his own.

He'd been checked out by medical, and given a clean bill of health. Nothing more than a few bruises, most of them unfortunately self-inflicted.

Tony however, was having his ass verbally handed to him by an intimidating looking nurse who didn't seem to care that Tony signed her paychecks.

"You want to drop dead, then be my guest," she said, "go ahead and leave this bed before your doctor says you can."

Tony seemed to figure it best not to argue. Between Rhodey, Happy, Pepper, and Nick Fury, Tony had heard just about every version of "you were an idiot" there was.

And Tony took them like a champ, only really arguing with Fury.

And a little with his nurse, but like was already said, he caved.

Peter smiled politely and stepped out of the way as the nurse passed by. Then he peeked his head into the room to find Tony fidgeting with the heart monitor on his chest.

"You know," Peter began, announcing his presence, "I've found nurses don't really like it when you play with those things."

Tony looked up. "I'm starting to think they don't really like anything."

"Nah," Peter disagreed, plopping down in a chair and propping his feet on the end of the bed. "You're just a terrible patient."

"Bullshit," Tony countered. "I'm a delight."

"Somehow, I doubt that."

Both Peter and Tony turned to see May standing in the door. She looked to Peter and gave a soft smile and a wink.

She'd already yelled at him, pointed out how he could have died, how she would have lost him all without knowing he was even in danger. She cried, yelled some more, and then pulled him into a bone cracking hug.

Then she kissed his forehead and told him she was proud of him.

Now she was standing here in the medbay, and Peter couldn't help but wonder if she was going to yell at Tony too.

She didn't, what she did do was say, "I'm glad you're okay," and she genuinely sounded like she meant it.

"Thanks," Tony said. "And uh, I'm sorry. For dragging him into it."

May smiled, then looked upwards like she was searching for the right thing to say. "Peter became Spider-Man before he met you. You gave him the suit, the tools he needed to be safe, but he'd already decided to be a hero the day my Ben died."

Peter pulled his feet off the bed. He just didn't feel like he could lounge back, pretending to be relaxed when May was talking about Ben.

She noticed and gave him another soft smile before turning back to Tony. "He's a hero, and he would have done the same for anyone. So while I agree with Pepper that you are a colossal idiot for doing what you did, I don't blame you for Peter getting involved."

She then walked into the room and leaned forward, kissing Tony right on the forehead, just like she did with Peter and said, "That boy has said goodbye to his mother, his father and his uncle. Don't make him say goodbye to you too."

Peter simply stared as Tony swallowed and quietly said, "Yes, ma'am."

May smiled again, and squeezed Tony's shoulder. "I really am glad you're okay." She then turned to Peter, and said "I'll call you when the pizza gets here."

Peter nodded, and returned his aunt's smile, and then she was gone.

The silence was deafening.

Tony popped his neck, adjusted the blanket over his knees, and then looked to the empty doorway.

"She's right, you know," Tony said, breaking the silence.

Peter didn't know which part of May's little speech he was referring to, so he just waited.

Tony picked at a loose string on his blanket then clarified, "You were a hero, long before I knocked on your door."

"Not a very good one," Peter mumbled. He was still thinking of everything May had said, about losing his parents, losing Ben.

"Nobody's good at it when they first start out," Tony declared. "And we all do it for different reasons, doesn't matter if they're good or not. We're a product of our surroundings and our history." He took a deep breath and then quoted, "No man's knowledge here can go beyond his experiences."

"John Locke," Peter said, recognizing the quote.

Tony's head shot up and he looked at Peter with deep confusion and even deeper surprise. At least until realization dawned.

"MJ?" he guessed.

"Yeah," Peter said, reaching up to rub the back of his neck. "She got us to watch a documentary."

Tony just nodded and let his head fall back against the pillow. "I've only known you a little while. You had fourteen years worth of experiences to shape who you were before I came along. You've had it rough, kid. But you've done really well with what you've been given."

He turned, made sure he had Peter's attention before he continued. "A lot of people who lost a loved one like you did, the way you did, would have wanted revenge, would have taken those super powers and gone to the dark side. You're a good person, Peter Parker."

"Thank you," Peter muttered, suddenly finding the hole on the hem of his shirt very interesting. "You're a good person too, Tony."

Tony laughed. He reached up and rubbed tiredly at his eyes. "I'm fucked up, kid," he said. "I've had way longer than fourteen years for my experiences to make an impression. And it wasn't until I literally looked death in the eyes, until other's pain directly affected me that I decided I needed to try to change."

"So?" Peter challenged. "It doesn't matter why we decided to do good, just that we did."

Tony blinked, then gave a self-deprecating sort of scoff. "When'd you learn to be so smart?"

"No idea, but it definitely wasn't from hanging around you."

Tony laughed again, winced and reached for his ribs, but kept laughing. "Touche, kid."