My take on idk-bruh-20's irondad fic ideas #128: Fic where, after a security incident in which some bozo accused Peter of trespassing at Stark Tower, Happy holds an emergency briefing for the entire SI security team.
The topic of the briefing? The absolutely untouchable, vital-to-know-if-you-want-to-keep-your-job level of importance of one Peter Parker.
:)
Daren's strange afternoon started with an odd request from Happy Hogan shortly after lunch. Daren hadn't often spoken with SI's head of security personally, but as an Executive Assistant as SI, he'd been in his orbit frequently enough to recognize his voice.
"Anderson?"
"Yes, sir?"
"I have something I'd like you to do for me. Pepper suggested you, and okayed clearing your afternoon."
"Okay."
"I want you to make up one of those PowerPoint thingies for an emergency meeting I want to have this afternoon with the whole security team."
"Okay, what time is that?"
"Mmm, I think four'll work. Can you do that?"
"I should be able to, sir. Do you have an outline for me?"
"Not really. Basically, I just want you to put together slides of reasons why they shouldn't harass Peter as he comes and goes if they want to keep their job. He's going to be in and out more while he's staying here, and I want it to make an impression on them."
"Ah, I see."
"And I'm sure I don't even need to say it, but can you do it in a way that doesn't make anyone suspect his, uh… night job?"
"Of course, sir. I'll get on it. About how long do you want it to be?"
"Uh, as long as it needs to be? How should I know?" the man asked gruffly.
"Perfect. I'll take care of it," Daren assured him.
"Good. This is the third time something like this has happened," Mr. Hogan said, almost under his breath.
That made more sense. There were many low-level interns who could have created the PowerPoint, given a set of facts, but the reason Mr. Hogan had been allowed to escalate it to Daren had a lot to do with the EA's experience with and knowledge of Tony Stark's protégé, Peter Parker, and even of Peter's alternate identity as Spider-man. They probably didn't want anyone else in the Tower poking into Tony's relationship with him, or the real reasons the teen was only rarely seen in the lobby, though he spent plenty of time in the upper levels of the Tower. They didn't need more people knowing it was because he often arrived by window.
Daren knew Happy was referring to the security snafu from last night. Peter had tried to enter through the lobby just as public hours were ending, and a new-ish hire had given him the runaround, even daring to put his hands on the boy and shoving him out the front door before Peter even had a chance to invoke FRIDAY or get the attention of someone who knew him. It had been a hard enough push that Peter had hit the ground on his knees.
Daren had heard Mr. Stark ranting about it just this morning, and it had taken Ms. Potts a few minutes of soothing, and then a few gentle threats to get him to back off and let Mr. Hogan handle it.
Peter even had a security badge, he was just really bad about losing it, and hadn't thought to take it with him when he went out to grab a sandwich for dinner yesterday evening. But Ms. Potts hadn't been on-site to step in and save the guard's job in time, even if she'd wanted to. Daren (and everyone else in the executive suite) had watched the security footage from the altercation this morning. The guard had been unnecessarily rough, and Daren frowned again, thinking that his hold had probably hurt the kid, though he'd be unlikely to complain. His moonlighting hours as Spider-man made him a little too quick to brush off something that slight. But that didn't mean it was okay.
The former guard was probably lucky that Mr. Stark had been off-site with Ms. Potts, and that Peter had called Mr. Hogan instead when he'd been thrown out. Daren knew PR was grateful that had been the case. He'd seen the barely-camouflaged inter-office this morning about it. Mr. Stark's reaction might have been splashy enough to get a headline somewhere if he'd been there.
On the lobby footage, he'd seen Mr. Hogan arrive (who knows where in the Tower he'd been) and stomp outside, before returning with Peter tucked under his arm (That had raised some eyebrows. Mr. Hogan was not normally a tactile person.) and barking out the guard's name.
Peter had been trying to talk Mr. Hogan out of something, but he'd just shoved him (gently) into the Stark's private elevator and told him to go to Medbay immediately to get checked out, no ifs, ands, or buts. Peter had sighed in the full-body way that only teenagers can, but had complied. And then their head of security had sent the guard (Gordon Mitchell) packing.
Daren sighed, and opened up his laptop. This might be a little tricky. How to help convince the entire Tower security squad the boy wasn't someone to mess with, without starting too many rumors or drawing unwanted attention?
"Hey Andrea?" he raised his voice. Their workspaces were quasi-offices, but the open-air design in their area made communication between them easy. "I'm indisposed for the rest of the afternoon, I guess, assigned to help with Mr. Hogan's project of the day."
"Sounds good. Nothing pressing today anyway. You'd better be done before tomorrow, though! Ms. Potts has that big meeting with the Libyan investors.
"Yeah, no problem."
Daren engaged the privacy glass on his office walls and got to work.
Happy Hogan knocked briefly on the wall before entering Daren's office. "Hey, Anderson? You said it's done?"
"Yes, I believe so. Would you like to see it before I to e-mail it to you, or—"
Mr. Hogan grimaced. "I can never figure those things out. I can probably find an intern to run it for me, though, if you want, while you present?"
"I believe Peter's upstairs, if you want me to ask him," Daren couldn't resist offering, then he had a twinge of situational panic. What if Mr. Hogan didn't realize he was teasing? Stupid, Daren, just think for a moment before—
But the older man almost smiled, and shook his head. "Yeah, that would be entertaining, right? Little punk could use some honest, boring work occasionally," he said, affection leaking through his complaint.
"I'm happy to do it," Daren offered quickly. "I don't have any other obligations this afternoon."
"Really?" Mr. Hogan smiled gratefully. "That's great. Just, uh, meet me in the meeting room next to the security office downstairs in 20 minutes then? Unless you need extra time to set up?"
"No, that's fine. Presentation connections are seamless throughout the building," Daren said, appreciating FRIDAY and Starktech in his head as he did. He suppressed a shiver at the tech nightmares that had gone on at one of the first jobs he'd worked. They'd spent half their time trying to get everything to work together.
Mr. Hogan's face dropped into a more serious expression again as he turned and headed out. Daren listened to his parting conversation with his co-worker.
"Andrea, badge."
"Mr. Hogan, I'm at my desk! I'm not even walking around!" His fellow EA wasn't rude, but she definitely sounded annoyed.
"Badge!"
Daren didn't try to suppress a smirk. Some things never changed.
Daren walked into the back of the room as the security personnel were getting settled into their seats. He could hear the conversation of two closest to him. They were not impressed that they'd been asked to come in for this even though they weren't working today.
Finally, everyone was in place (about 30 of them) and Mr. Hogan stepped to the front of the room.
"Thanks for coming on short notice. We've had a lot of new hires in the last several months. Coming to this meeting is a great idea, because the information presented here will help you remain employed with Stark Industries. If that interests you, please raise your hand."
They all dutifully raised their hands.
"You might notice that Mr. Mitchell isn't here to raise his hand. He is no longer employed by SI. Does anyone know why?"
A woman Daren had seen, but didn't know, raised her hand tentatively. "Because he got rough with a kid last night?"
"Because he got rough with Peter last night," another long-time guard (Ramirez, Daren's memory supplied) in the row in front of Daren muttered. Bingo.
Mr. Hogan continued, speaking to the first guard. "That's right, Ms. Wang. He did get rough with a kid. Which may have been means for termination no matter what. But on paper, it looked like the right decision to refuse him entry, am I right?" Mr. Hogan didn't pause for validation. "It was after public hours, the guard didn't recognize him, and most importantly, he had no badge." (Daren saw Mr. Hogan's nostrils flare slightly at this, but honestly, Parker was a lost cause.)
A few were nodding their heads cautiously, probably wondering what the issue had been then. A few others were shaking their heads.
"So why was I so upset? Does anyone know?" Mr. Hogan asked faux-patiently. His fingers were silently tapping against his pockets in agitation.
Murphy, a fixture on the lobby's nighttime shift, raised his chin. "Cause that's Stark's kid."
Whispers broke out throughout the room, and Daren kept track of how many heads he saw nodding. Really just a handful.
"Stark has a kid?"
Mr. Hogan finally showed an emotion other than bottled frustration, and he looked unsure how to proceed.
"Daren? Your turn. Daren Anderson, ladies and gentlemen, one of our EA's."
Daren probably didn't need an introduction to most of the security members. Most of them knew the EA's by name, if not by face, since they were Ms. Potts' (and occasionally Mr. Stark's) hands and voice throughout the company so often.
"Hey everyone," Daren said calmly as he walked to the front of the room. His public speaking skills was getting better. All the practice was starting to pay off, finally. Not a hint of a waver, though he did feel nervous. This was important, though.
"First, phones in your pockets or bags, please. FRIDAY is going to temporarily disable all non-medical electronics for the duration of the presentation, as we don't want any secondhand photos or video leaving this room."
That got their attention. There were a few surprised looks, but it was in their employee handbook that SI reserved the right to do that at times, and a few who were holding their phones put them away.
"FRIDAY, lights?"
More quiet muttering as the Tower's AI darkened the room and projected a screen flush against the wall.
"Slide one, please."
The picture was a nice head-and-shoulders shot of Peter, next to a side view taken at some point during the last year. Daren had found FRIDAY had quite the collection when he'd asked her for some specific images.
"This is Peter Parker, the teenager Mr. Mitchell threw out of the Tower last night. Peter is 16 years old, and a student at Midtown Tech. He is also currently staying at the Tower while his family is out of town."
The speculative whispers grew abruptly.
"Why is it important for you to memorize this face? Slide."
The new picture was of Mr. Stark at a conference. He was obviously the speaker, but what the slide was focused on was Peter, standing at a laptop in the background, running Tony's presentation.
"Despite the fact that SI doesn't take high school interns, I can assure that Mr. Parker is both an intern here, and is also still in high school. So he is still a minor, and is accordingly protected," Daren said, looking firmly around the room.
"This picture is from a conference in Seattle a few months ago, where Mr. Parker was running tech for the keynote presentation. Not only is Mr. Parker an intern at SI, but he is Tony Stark's personal intern. Slide."
The next picture was one FRIDAY had taken of Mr. Stark and Peter working on a car in casual, grease-riddled clothes. For those familiar with the entire Tower, it was obviously Stark's personal garage.
"The reason many of you have never seen this particular intern, is because he only occasionally uses the front lobby entrance. He is more likely to arrive through one of the private entrances, especially since he is frequently picked up from school by Mr. Hogan, or even by Mr. Stark himself. He spends the majority of his time in the upper levels, helping out in Lab 1A." They all knew that was Mr. Stark's personal lab designation.
Daren assessed the group's reaction for a moment. Some looked completely floored, while other, more-seasoned employees only looked interested in actual information about Stark's slightly-mysterious intern.
"Slide."
The next slide showed Mr. Stark and Peter working together in Stark's lab.
"Though it's tempting for everyone to speculate why Mr. Stark has Mr. Parker working with him, you can stop. They're not biologically related, or have any other secret connection, nefarious or otherwise. It's because young Mr. Parker is brilliant, and Mr. Stark values him on a professional level. I've personally seen him in action, solving things some of our better employees have struggled with. Despite his age, he deserves to be here. Slide."
The next slide was is a picture of Peter standing with Mr. Stark and Ms. Potts at the company holiday party in their coordinating colors. Peter looked a little nervous, and Mr. Stark's hand was on the boy's shoulder, his proud gaze easy to read. Really, the three of them looked like the perfect little family.
"Despite all that, I can promise that Mr. Stark is also very attached to his intern, and an extremely efficient way to get fired from SI is to do something to hurt or otherwise mistreat Mr. Parker. Also, while "intern" is his official title, I would say that anyone who anticipates being with the company long-term would do well to keep an eye out for this kid, and make sure you're nice to him. It's not hard; he's quite pleasant. Slide."
Lots of eyebrow raises at that last comment. They should know, though.
This time there was a picture of Peter with his friends, Ned Leeds and Michelle Jones.
"At times, he may have other people with him. You also shouldn't question or harass them. They have their own clearance levels, and Peter works out any visitors he brings in personally with FRIDAY and with Mr. Stark. Slide."
The last picture showed Peter sleeping in Medbay. FRIDAY had said it wasn't Spider-man related, but when Peter had had a bad case of the flu. He'd just gotten dehydrated, and needed some fluids for a few hours in the middle of the night. But Mr. Stark was there, too, asleep in a chair next to the bed, arms folding across his chest, worried lines etched into his forehead.
It was a very parental picture, and Daren had selected it on purpose (and had gotten approval from Ms. Potts before sharing it).
"FRIDAY? You have protective protocols. Can you tell us about your priorities, or is that classified?"
"The list is classified, but an exception was made for this meeting. Peter Parker is at the top of the priority list."
"Thanks, FRIDAY." He turned and looked across the room again.
"If you weren't already aware, I hope this has helped educate you, and I hope that you'll be passing this information on to new hires. End presentation."
FRIDAY turned the lights back on, but Daren wasn't quite done.
"Before you leave, think very carefully about your NDA's. Everything you've heard or seen at this briefing is covered by section 17-C. That's all, thank you."
Mr. Hogan replaced him at the front of the room.
"Any questions?" His glower did not invite any. No one moved.
"Remember those NDA's, and remember to be very careful how you handle anyone. I probably would have fired Mitchell if he had left bruises like that on any kid; the fact that it was Mr. Stark's kid was just the point of no return. You're all dismissed. Make sure you clock out, those who were in just for the meeting."
Just then FRIDAY pinged in Daren's earpiece.
"Daren, speaking of Peter, he's curious if you have a little time to help him and his friends with some details on the Rise Up charity."
Daren checked his watch. "Yeah, I've still got an hour. Tell him I'll be up in just a few minutes."
Ten minutes later Daren walked into the rec room on the executive floor where Peter and his friends, Ned, and Michelle were huddled around a holo board. Daren could see lots of applications open from at-risk youth who were seeking funds for different STEM endeavors, and it looked like the teens mostly had them sorted through.
"Mr. Parker, Mr. Leeds, Ms. Jones," Daren greeted politely.
Peter's face screwed up a little. " Please just call me Peter, Daren. We've talked about this."
"Us, too," Ned said. "That's weird. You're not that much older than us."
Daren felt the side of his mouth quirk. Well, that wasn't completely true, but he'd give it to him.
"Sorry, Peter," Daren said. "I forget occasionally." Peter gave him a doubtful look. Daren was an excellent EA partially because he seldom forgot things.
"I'm quite happy being called Ms. Jones," Michelle piped up from the other side of Peter. "I could use a little respect in my life," she said with an elegant lift of her chin and a side-eye at the boys next to her.
Ned just stared at her, perplexed, while Peter let out a little nervous giggle. It was obvious to everyone that he was interested in his pretty friend. Daren wondered if he'd ever get up the courage to act on it.
"Of course, Ms. Jones," Daren said smoothly. "Now, what can I help you all with?"
Michelle let a tiny smile form as Peter popped to his feet and reached for a set of virtual files.
"There are the ones that we've determined are most pressing and we want to fund. But we still have some money left over in this month's budget to do two to three more, and we wanted your opinion. Would you mind looking over these five and giving us your opinion?
He "handed" the applications to Daren, who took a seat on a stool next to the table while he looked through the virtual papers. Peter, Ned, and Michelle each took one of the applications in their first set and started attaching the necessary approvals and funds, which Karen and FRIDAY would push through.
When Daren was done, about ten minutes later, Peter was still finishing up, but Ned was laying across the couch behind the table, and Michelle had pulled out a book: The Tale of Despereaux. Good choice.
"I'd say that 221, 248, and 250 would be my choices."
"Hey, those are the same ones we picked," Ned said happily.
Daren waved the files away and sat back.
"If you'd already picked some, why did you ask me to look at them again? Ms. Potts has been very pleased with your work so far, and you three hardly need oversight in this process."
Peter bit his lip and rubbed at the back of his head. "Um…"
"We needed a fourth for ping pong," Michelle said, not looking up from her book. "You were the mostly likely candidate, and FRIDAY said you weren't busy."
"Ah," Daren said. These kids, seriously. "I suppose that's true this afternoon, which is unusual," he said, trying to look severe.
Peter drooped slightly, like Daren's little nephew did when Daren didn't have time to play with him. He may be almost 17, but Stark's kid still had the puppy-dog eyes that did things to your heart. If FRIDAY had suggested him, Daren assumed that he wasn't needed for anything more important.
"Okay, whose team am I on?"
Ned sat up and Peter's face brightened, his posture straightening.
"Seriously? Yes!" he exclaimed, practically bouncing out of his seat and heading for the ping pong table in the back corner. Ned hopped up as well, yelling "Daren's on my team!" Michelle calmly put her book down and moved to join them.
"We're still going to beat you," Michelle said.
"I say Peter has to do it one-handed," Ned countered. "Or blind-folded?"
"Like that will help."
"Guys," Peter broke it up. "Let's just do to ten, then maybe we can play 'Around the World?'"
"Yeah!" Ned agreed.
Daren took off his suit jacket and carefully laid it over the couch. His phone pinged and he glanced at it. It was from Mr. Stark.
Pepper and I are going to grab some dinner if you're okay with babysitting duty?
Babysitting duty, huh? His job was so weird sometimes.
I'm off at 6, but we're good until then. Is that okay?
Yep. Just lock up before you leave.?
And his bosses were weird. But he liked them, and mostly, he loved working here.
He squared up across from the boy he assumed would (officially) be one of his bosses one day and grinned in challenge.
"You're going down!" Ned trash-talked, full of misplaced optimism.
Daren just smiled. No one was in danger, there weren't any PR disasters, and there were no big events looming. He realized that his yardstick for a good day was a little bizarre, too, after working here for several years. But really, there were worse things to do on a Thursday afternoon than school a couple of kids and Spider-man in ping pong.