As soon as class lets out, Peter jumps on the subway, heading to Stark Tower. Somehow the universe has been made aware of his trepidation about going there and decides that the best course of action is to make it the quickest commute of Peter's life. There isn't a single delay and it even skips one of the stops for some reason. The one day he wouldn't actually mind sitting on the subway for an hour and a half ignoring the spidey-sense is the one day that it only takes him approximately thirty-five minutes to go from the subway station by the school, to standing in front of the glass and steel giant dominating the skyline that is Stark Tower.
Once he works up the nerve to push past the glass doors and into the building, he lets his feet carry him straight to the elevator, where he gives the button a hard push to vent some of his building irritation. He's not sure what to expect, and that lack of foresight is what's killing him. Normally he has some sort of idea about what sort of speech he's going to be forced to listen to; this time he's absolutely clueless. The doors to the elevator at Peter's left slide open, and he waits for the few sharply dressed people to exit before he gets on all by himself.
" Good afternoon, Mr. Parker. It's nice to see you again," Friday says once the elevator doors have closed. Her tone is perky like usual, but underneath the cheerful veneer, there's something Peter can't quite pinpoint that hints at a bit of irritation. "Boss has requested that I take you to his office as soon as you got here."
" Great," Peter says, shrinking into his sweater just a little bit more. Being called into Tony's office is worse than the time he got called into the principal's office for trying to ditch class to go stop the crazy guy in Central Park with the robots. Usually Tony's more than happy to just meet in the lab where he spends 99% of his waking life, but if that isn't the case, then that means whatever kind of speech he's going to get is going to be serious.
Peter spends the entire elevator ride up doing his best to just melt into the mirrored walls, or disappear, or just do anything that might rescue him from having to face Tony. He's assuming that now Tony knows he's okay, that the worry has been used up, and Tony's going to go back to being pissed at him about anything from last night to the whole lying about working with Daredevil thing. Though to be fair, Tony was a lot more concerned about the Punisher than Daredevil, so if the speech takes a turn down that route it might not be so bad.
As the elevator doors finally slide open with a ding that resonates in Peter's soul, he forces his feet to drag him out of the relative safety of the elevator and into the open waters of the floor that contains the offices of all the Stark Industries officials. There's a woman standing at a desk in the absolutely pristine waiting area that the elevator bank opens onto. It looks like something out of a catalog, with all the white leather furniture and artfully crafted end tables, all elegantly accented with potted plants that must have their own team of gardeners for upkeep.
Peter swallows down his nerves and approaches the woman at the desk, who looks more than a little bit confused at seeing a school-child standing in the reception area for some of the most important people in one of the biggest companies in the world.
" Can I help you?" she asks pleasantly, giving Peter a once over.
He's suddenly very conscious of the small hole in his jeans, right by the pocket.
" Uh, I, uh, have a meeting with Mr. Stark?" Peter answers hesitantly, his tone making it come off as more of a question than a statement.
The woman's perfectly done eyebrows shoot up to her hairline, and she types a few things into the computer in front of her, before looking back at him with a slightly less skeptical expression on her face.
" Could I get your name, please?"
" Peter Parker."
A few more seconds of typing.
" Alright, Mr. Parker. If you take that door," she gestures to a door to their right, "it'll lead you to Mr. Stark's office. Check in with his secretary there."
Peter nods, only remembering to throw a muttered 'thanks' over his shoulder as the door is closing behind him.
The door leads down a hallway that screams wealth in the subtlest of ways with its fancy light fixtures and white marble floors. The hallway leads to another set of doors that, when opened, reveal a lavishly decorated waiting area containing no fewer than three water features. It's the one part of the Tower that Peter's ever found to be truly ostentatious—sure, Tony has expensive tastes, but even by his standards the area that he's claimed as his office is over the top. At first, Peter had thought that maybe the silk and brushed silver were Tony's way of covering some sort of insecurity when he met with people who demanded to see the Tony Stark, as opposed to the CEO of Stark Industries, but after some more consideration that didn't really make much sense. Peter's current working theory is that Tony's trying his best to make whoever it is he's meeting with feel as uncomfortable and out of place as is humanly possible, because that's certainly working on Peter now. If he'd been self-conscious of the hole in his jeans at the desk in the other waiting room, there aren't words for how he feels now, as he takes stock of every last bit of his appearance.
Peter approaches the desk in the middle of the room where a woman with jet black, perfectly straight hair is standing. She looks bored until she spots Peter and smiles at him.
" Good afternoon, Mr. Parker," she greets, typing something into the computer in front of her quickly.
" Hi," Peter replies awkwardly, suddenly a little worried that he's met the woman before and just doesn't remember her. That happens a lot.
" Go ahead and take a seat. Mr. Stark will be with you in just a few minutes," she assures with another smile. This one seems a little bit more… plastic.
Peter nods in response and walks over to one of the areas where a few chairs are set up on top of a rug that probably cost more than tuition to MIT. He feels his nerves continue to build up over the twenty minute period that he spends waiting there, checking his phone every few moments, and very pointedly ignoring the seventeen missed calls and voicemails that were left by May.
Peter gets pulled out of his near nervous breakdown by the sound of high heels clicking on marble approaching him. He looks up to see Tony's secretary standing there with a tablet under her arm.
" If you'll follow me, Mr. Stark can see you now," she says, and yep, that smile is definitely on the artificial end of the spectrum.
Peter manages to muster up an obviously weak smile in return as he gets up and follows behind her, letting his eyes catch on the flash of red on the soles of her shoes. They look like the kind Peter's seen Pepper wear once or twice, so he can only assume they're incredibly expensive. He tries even harder not to think about his scuffed tennis shoes and holey jeans.
The secretary opens the door to Tony's office like she's one of the suitcase models on Deal or No Deal, and Peter walks through it like a man heading to the gallows. The actual office is just as extravagant as the waiting room; one half of it is occupied by a large desk with two chairs in front of it, and the other half has a sitting area and a full bar. The entire wall across from the door is flush to the side of the building, so the windows offer a view straight out across the skyline. Peter kind of wants to jump out of one of those windows instead of staying here for this conversation.
" Hey, kid," Tony greets from where he's sitting at his desk, his feet kicked up on it, and a glass of what's probably whiskey in his hand. Peter wants to say something about day-drinking, but there's still hope that this conversation might actually go well.
" Hi, Mr. Stark," Peter replies, coming to sit in one of the chairs across from Tony's desk. When he isn't corrected to say 'Tony' instead, Peter's heart races just a little faster.
" I'm going to cut to the chase. You can't just go off like that," Tony says, setting his glass down on the desk in front of him and moving to sit in the chair properly. "We all thought you'd gotten killed, or kidnapped, or that something horrible happened to you."
" If I'd had the suit, then you would've been able to just track my location," Peter replies curtly, staring Tony down.
Tony narrows his eyes at Peter and just stares for a solid minute before something clicks. "Was this some kind of a ploy?"
"... What?" Peter wrinkles up his face a little bit, unsure of the exact implications of Tony's question. It sounds like… no, it can't be what it sounds like.
" A ploy. A ruse. An act," Tony elaborates, as he does his damndest to bore holes into Peter's soul with the eye contact he refuses to drop. "Make me worry about you, so that when you show up unharmed I give you the suit back and just hope you'll be safe with it."
Peter feels his jaw drop at that. It was exactly what it had sounded like. He'd tried to mentally prepare himself for a lot of things from Tony, but an accusation like that wasn't one of them.
" You really think I'm that manipulative?" he asks incredulously. There's a tinge of hurt in his voice that he just can't mask upon realizing that Tony truly thinks so little of him.
" I don't know, kid. I've got no idea what the hell it is that Daredevil's been teaching you."
" Not this again," Peter groans and rolls his eyes hard, slumping down in his chair slightly.
" Not what again, Peter? Tell me what it is that I'm doing that's so exhausting for you. Is it caring about you?" Tony doesn't snap at him, but it's a near thing.
" No! It's your—your, I don't know— hatred for people like me!"
" I don't hate you!"
" I didn't say you hated me—Jesus, do you ever listen, or do you just let me say something so you get the pleasure of hearing yourself reply!" Peter snaps. "I'm sick and tired of this crusade you've got going against people like me—and don't try to deny that I'm like them, because I am!"
" You are not like them, Peter," Tony argues back fiercely.
" But I am!" Peter contends, his voice dropping down into a vicious hiss. "This morning when I heard the news about what Mr. Castle did, do you know what I thought? I thought that maybe those guys that he killed deserved it. I didn't feel sorry for them. It scares me that I feel that way, but guess what? I can't change how I feel about that." Peter can only keep his voice down for a limited amount of time, and before he even realizes it, his volume is through the roof. "You keep bashing him and Daredevil like they're… like they're monsters or something, but they're not! They're good people, Mr. Stark. The last time you yelled at me, you said that they were gonna lead me to the bottom of a bottle, right? You're the one that's trying to turn day-drinking into an Olympic event!"
Peter snatches the glass of whiskey off of Tony's desk and stands up, gesturing with the crystal tumbler as he speaks. "I'm not saying that they're good at dealing with their trauma, but beating the shit out of bad guys is a lot more conducive to helping people than sitting in a skyscraper trying to drink your daddy issues away!" He takes a deep breath to try and reign himself in at least a little bit before he continues speaking. "Keep the suit—I don't care about it anymore. Nothing you can do will stop me from helping people. I did it before you found me, and I'm gonna do it again- this time my way, with my people!" Peter slams the glass down on Tony's desk, ignoring the way the drink sloshes over the rim and onto his hand. He gives one final glare to Tony, who's sitting speechless, so Peter tilts his chin up slightly in defiance before storming out of the office. The door slams shut behind with an incredibly satisfying sound.
The expression on the secretary's face as Peter walks past her desk definitely serves to show that she at least heard raised voices, and possibly heard more than that, but Peter can't be bothered to care as he makes his way back to the elevator. Part of him is sure he overreacted at least a little, but the other part is happy that he finally got to say all of that. And he meant it—every last word of it (even if the daddy issues comment was a bit harsh). He feels tense, and like there's an electric current running through him, but also like he might faint any second like some swooning Victorian-era lady.
Rather than pushing the button in the elevator to get back to the ground floor, he instead just pushes the close door button.
"Hey, Friday?" he asks.
"Yes, Mr. Parker?" the reply comes. She doesn't sound quite so peeved anymore.
"Where's Ms. Romanov?"
"She's in her apartment here. Would you like me to take you there?"
"Yeah- uh, yes please," Peter replies as he digs his nails into the palm of his hand. He just needs to be away from Tony.
There's the sound of the elevator heading up, and Peter leans his head against one of the cool walls for the few seconds it takes him to get to the right floor. The ding denoting the doors opening tells Peter to collect himself, and try and stop his hands from shaking (he's still not sure if that's with anger or with anxiety) as he walks toward the door a little bit down the hallway. Only a few seconds after he knocks, the door opens to reveal Natasha dressed in an oversized sweater and leggings. If Peter didn't know better, he'd say she looks soft. Gentle, even.
"Peter," she greets casually, opening the door a bit wider and gesturing for him to come in (which he immediately does).
"Hi, Ms. Romanov," he says quietly, as he glances around the apartment. He's only been there once or twice before, but it looks different than he remembers- homier, this time around.
"To what do I owe the pleasure?" she asks, shutting the door once Peter's inside. She begins leading him over to the area where a couch and matching loveseat are set up, by the large bank of windows that let the late afternoon light filter in and give everything a bit of a gold hue.
"I um… I wanted to ask you for some advice," Peter explains, though up until that moment he wasn't exactly sure why he'd come to Natasha of all people. His eye catches on an unattractive blue plastic pet carrier places beside a floor lamp and potted plant, and he wonders what kind of pet Black Widow would have gotten.
"Why me? You're certainly closer to Tony. And apparently, Daredevil went and got himself shot for you. Wouldn't you rather ask them?" she says in a measured tone, as she looks Peter over.
"You gave me good advice before," he explains quietly, a reluctant smile working its way onto his face when he hears a cat trill a split second before he sees Spatula stick her head out of the crate. She must recognize Peter at least a little, judging by the way she walks right up to him and starts winding around his ankles.
"I did?" Natasha asks, taking a seat back in an armchair that has a nice patch of sunlight on it for the moment.
"You told me to tell Mr. Stark about working with Daredevil before he could find out on his own." Peter plunks down on the couch across from Natasha, and the cat immediately jumps up to sit in his lap. She's less boney than he remembers her being, and the kittens that toddle out of the crate behind her are bigger than he thought they would be.
"If I remember correctly," Natasha says, sounding a little amused, "you didn't take that advice." Peter grimaces.
"Yeah, well, I wish that I had."
The quick response, which is bordering on snappish, causes a small rift of silence between them, which Natasha fills with an appraising glance at Peter while she deftly scoops up one of the kittens- Rolling Pin, if Peter recalls correctly. When she continues not to say anything, Peter sighs and lets his shoulders drop from where they've been hunched up near his ears.
"Tony refuses to understand why I might want to work with people like me, or that he has no say in who I do choose to work with."
Natasha makes a soft hum of acknowledgment and looks at Peter as she pets the kitten in her lap, and ignores the one that must be shredding her leg as it attempts to climb up to her lap.
Peter tries to return the look, but he doesn't quite make it. Another thirty seconds and he gives in and tells Natasha all the details of the first argument, the conversation he had with Tony at school earlier, and the fight that they'd had just before he came down to see her. She listens attentively, even as she detaches the kitten from her calf and plunks it into her lap alongside its sibling.
"I don't- I just," Peter huffs out an irritated sound, and runs his hands through his hair. "I don't know how to make him realize that it isn't his job to approve of what I do. It's not anyone's job to tell me what I can and can't do when I go out as Spider-Man- I mean, Tony wants me to stop being Spider-Man, and start being someone who's careful and risks civilians rather than himself, and I won't do that- I can't."
"It sounds like you're not going to change your mind on this," Natasha responds once Peter's finished. She gets an affirmative nod in response. "Then the only advice I can give you is to stick to it. Tony's stubborn, but you're right. He'll come around eventually. It's not his job to be your guardian or your parent. I think he's just bitter that Daredevil stepped into a space he'd been too afraid to occupy. Right now, he's acting like a child who had a toy he wasn't playing with taken by someone else."
"I'm the toy in that scenario?" Peter hopes he looks as disgruntled as he feels.
She nods.
"And all I can do is wait until he realizes himself that he's being unrealistic?"
Another nod.
"Oh."
"I know that probably wasn't the advice you were looking for, but it's what's going to work the best," Natasha says, carefully taking the kittens off her lap and setting them on the floor where they immediately begin bumbling around. She gets up and moves to Peter's side, laying a hand on his shoulder. "I'll talk to him if you'd like."
"It's alright, Ms. Romanov. I think… I think I got my point across alright on my own. He's a genius; I'm sure he can figure it out," Peter decides. "But now I have to go and get murdered by my aunt for disappearing last night and making her think I was dead or something."
Natasha's barely-there smile widens at Peter's last comment, and she gives an amused little huff. "I'm sure she won't kill you. Ground you until college? Maybe."
"I think I'll manage either way," Peter says with a smile as he gets up and heads to face the music.
Once he finds himself back down on the street, he can't really imagine sitting on the subway for half an hour or more with this much adrenaline and nervous energy coursing through him, so he just starts… running. It's definitely not the fastest or smartest way to get back home, but it's what he does.
When he walks through his front door a solid hour later, May's sitting on the couch with a book in her lap that she immediately drops upon his arrival. It's clear that she wasn't even trying to read it, and that she was just waiting for Peter to come home. Within approximately two seconds, Peter finds himself being crushed in a hug.
" Don't ever do that again," May mutters into Peter's hair before kissing his head and squeezing him even tighter. "What happened? Why didn't you come home, or call, or something?"
" Didn't Mr. Stark tell you?" Peter asks hesitantly. He'd been pretty damn sure that if Tony hadn't already, he would've called May to tell her about his nighttime excursions with Daredevil and Company, especially after that disastrous conversation they'd just had.
" Tony told me you were alive and at school this morning, and that's it," she answers as Peter finally manages to wriggle out of the death grip she'd been holding him in.
" I was out with a friend last night," Peter answers carefully.
" Okay, yeah I knew that too, Jessica Jones." May sighs at the shocked look this brings to Peter's face. "I know we both like to pretend like I have no idea what's happening with your life, and that the more I know the worse it is for both of us, but I think in this situation, you're going to have to be straight with me." May says, moving her hands in a 'come on' sort of gesture.
" But I thought you said he just told you—" Peter says, sounding a little bit dazed, and a lot more anxious than he had just five seconds prior.
" Yeah, that's all I know about today . I know you went to some bar with Jessica Jones to look for a missing person and found a human trafficking victim along the way. I also know that you go out at night all the time, and I know that Stark Industries doesn't have interns in anything below grad school," she says.
Peter frowns slightly at her minimization and deliberately ignores the thing that she's hinting at. "You can't just brush this off like that, Aunt May. She said someone owned her."
May sighs, and gives Peter an apologetic look, rubbing the space between her eyebrows tiredly. "I'm sorry baby, I didn't mean to make that sound small. I just want to know what happened after that."
May might as well hear the full story now. If she grounds him, then so be it. "I went to Daredevil to get him to help the other girls at the bar who were being trafficked."
Peter looks down at the ground to avoid the stare May is aiming at him that he can't quite figure out the emotions hiding behind.
"Wait—you went to Daredevil? You just… know where he is? Or were you wandering around in Hell's Kitchen at midnight going, 'hey Daredevil, I need help!'?"
" I didn't—no!" Peter takes another deep breath. He already snapped at Tony, who honestly probably deserved it at least a little, so he is most definitely not going to snap at his aunt. Who definitely does not deserve it. "I just… I work with him sometimes. I know where to find him, okay?"
" I'm sorry, did you just say you work with the guy that I hear horror stories about daily? The guy who is the main reason so many nurses are transferring over here? You work with him? What does that even mean?!" May sounds a little panicked at that, and Peter can't really blame her. He's heard some of the stories that May is referring to, and they don't paint Matt in the greatest light.
" He's not a bad person," Peter defends, a little surprised by his own vehemence. "He's teaching me how to fight and introducing me to other people like me who can help if I ever need it— he even got shot protecting me!"
May holds up her finger in a 'shush' gesture. "You got that close to being shot ?! When was this? When did this happen?"
" Like… a week ago?"
" Oh my God—Peter!" May whispers furiously, pulling at her hair. "You can't just—what happened?!"
" We were doing a thing, and Mr. Castle and I didn't realize this guy was going for his gun, but M-Daredevil did, and he shoved me out of the way and got shot instead," Peter explains as briefly as he possibly can. The memory of that night is still pretty upsetting, and he'd rather not rehash it in detail if he doesn't need to. There are a few moments of silence as he stares at the ground and waits for May's probably scalding response to come.
" Peter," May says in an almost serene voice that makes Peter's skin crawl. "Who's Mr. Castle?"
" Uhh…" Shit. Peter should not have mentioned him, "Frank?"
" Frank… Castle?"
Peter nods, still looking at the floor. He cringes at the beat of silence.
He has to cover his ears when May's shrill response comes. " The Punisher?! Are you actually—are you kidding? Please tell me you're joking! What the hell did Tony have to say about this?!"
" I think it was in the news," Peter replies, and nope, judging off the look on May's face, that definitely wasn't the right thing to say. "I mean, maybe?"
" I don't read the news about Spider-Man. I was hoping my own kid would tell me if he did anything newsworthy," she hisses back, glancing at the living-room wall that they share with an exceptionally nosey neighbor. "And you didn't answer me- what does Tony think about this?"
Well, now the nice plausible deniability between them about the true nature of his internship has been irreparably shattered, so Peter just sighs and runs his fingers through his hair. "He took the suit away. The day after it happened. If you're gonna lecture me about it, you should know first that Mr. Stark already yelled at me about it until I had a panic attack, so I think I've heard everything that can be said."
May suddenly looks furious. "He did what ?!"
The spidey-sense is not happy with that tone.
" Well, he didn't yell , I mean, MJ and Ned were in the other room, so he used his indoor voice, but we argued about it—" Peter backtracks, doing his best to quell May's wrath at least a little.
" He made you have a panic attack though?"
Peter hesitates a second before nodding.
" What the hell is wrong with him?!" May sounds the most pissed Peter thinks he's ever heard her. "You almost got shot, you saw your friend get shot, and he thought the best course of action was to make you feel so terrible that you had a panic attack?! After everything you've been through already-"
" Aunt May-" Peter cuts her off right then and there, because he does not want to talk about Ben, and he does not want to talk about what happened that night with Matt and Frank, because if he thinks about it for another second, then the sight of a head that looks like it was run through a meat grinder, and the sound of brains dribbling onto concrete out of what used to be a man's face are going to fill his mind.
He's trying to keep the frantic notes out of his voice, but the last thing Peter needs after today is May going after Tony like a mama bear, or to have another panic attack about something that he's been trying his damnedest to block out. "It's fine. I handled it. I'm okay- and you're not even gonna need to worry about me getting shot anymore because I'm getting a suit that isn't just spandex, okay?"
May looks like she wants to say something else on the topic of Tony, but she doesn't. Maybe she can tell how much the conversation is stressing him out. "How are you getting a new suit?" she asks instead, now sounding a bit more curious than angry, though her arms are still crossed over her chest.
" Uh, Daredevil introduced me to his suit guy. It should be ready this weekend so… I'll let you see it when I get it?" Peter tries hesitantly.
"Didn't you just say Daredevil got shot? Then his suit isn't bulletproof," she says, sounding a little concerned.
"It's mostly bulletproof. He just got hit at a weird angle," Peter assures sincerely.
May seems to be appeased by this, at least for the time being, and Peter doesn't think he's ever felt more relieved in his life. If necessary, he definitely could physically keep May away from her phone and prevent her from calling Tony to chew him out about the whole panic attack situation, but thankfully it doesn't seem like it'll come to that
" You definitely will. At you'll let me know what you're doing when you go out, okay?"
Peter nods again.
" I'm not gonna try and stop you doing what you do. You're Peter Parker, and you're Spider-Man, and I love you, and I know you'll never be able to go back to being just Peter. I accept that. I just want to be a part of both parts of your life. Okay? That's all I want."
Peter just pulls May into another tight hug, his face pressed against her shoulder. "Thank you." His voice is barely a whisper, and that only makes May squeeze him back tighter.
" You're welcome, sweetheart."
Peter gives her another smile before slinking off to his room and getting in bed. He's not dumb; he knows that May worries herself sick about him. When he'd first gotten his powers, May had noticed something was up with him, but she was graceful enough to never bring it up in conversation. She probably thought it has something to do with Ben since he'd died so soon after Peter was bitten. He knows that May still worries, even though she does her best to hide it. One day when he'd had to go look for something in her room he saw a prescription pill bottle on her nightstand and, being the nosey child he is, he decided to check google for what exactly Clonazepam was. The answer to that question had been anxiety and panic disorders. Maybe now that they've acknowledged the red and blue spandex clad elephant in the room, things will be easier. It helps Peter relax, and he drifts off quickly, exhausted.
Peter falls asleep in his jeans for the second time that day.