December 2013
Peter could see them, the small changes all around the city. They might be subtle, but they were definitely present for someone who knew to look for them: an antiquity store that should have closed by now, to be replaced by a restaurant, was still thriving; a house that got painted a different color. A commemorative plaque that never got installed at the corner of a street. All of these, contradicting Peter's memories of what New York was supposed to be, were signs that he was making a difference by starting on the vigilantism ahead of his time. It was fascinating to see the repercussions of the butterfly effect first hand.
Yet, these changes were the reason why Peter was currently watching the news warily. The video had instantly gone viral; so much so that, despite his relative hermitage, even Peter had heard about it. Sitting in an alley behind a coffee shop, he was putting their free wi-fi to good use.
"…And on the off chance you're a man, here's my home address: 10880, Malibu Point, 90265. I'll leave the door unlocked."
The video concluded with Tony reaching an arm towards the outstretched smartphone of an unsuspecting journalist.
Peter hit the replay button, hoping in vain that he had not seen what he just had: Tony, still quite upset after the explosion that had sent Happy to the hospital, openly threatening the Mandarin for dozens of reporters to spread the news. When the recording ended again, its content still the exact same, Peter could barely contain a growl.
"I told you not to give your home address on live television, Tony," he mumbled, thinking back to the letter he had sent two weeks prior. Either Tony hadn't read it, or he had chosen to ignore it completely. Both options seemed just as likely as one another.
With a sigh, Peter turned off the screen and laid his head against the wall.
He was almost sure things would be alright for Tony.
Almost.
Chances were Tony would make the same decisions he did the first time around regardless of Peter's attempts to appease him. But what of the butterfly effect? What if something, even a very small something, went differently this time? What if, eventually, the original chain of events was altered to the point of changing the outcome entirely? What if something happened to Tony? Or even Pepper?
Peter was torn by the bad decision he knew he was about to make. He shouldn't get anywhere close to Tony. Even just to watch over him from afar, just to make sure things would be alright. He really shouldn't.
…But he had a bit over four hundred dollars in his emergency savings. That was enough for a flight to Malibu, right?
"You can't buy a plane ticket without adult supervision."
From the stiffness of her posture to the hardness in her eyes, Peter knew the hostess wouldn't be easy to convince.
"You're an adult," he observed, "so technically you could be supervi—"
"Stop crowding the line or I'll call security," she dismissed him.
"What if I called an adult who could confirm—"
The woman's only answer was to grab the phone on her counter with a menacing glare.
"Alright, alright, I get it. Jeez," Peter grumbled, backing away, hands raised in a placating manner.
He had not taken three steps from the counter and the old woman next in line was already gossiping about him with the hostess, not bothering to hide her disdain. Amongst the few niceties he overheard, the word "runaway" rang like a bell. Peter drew his hood up, not caring that it further accentuated the look.
He walked for a bit through the crowded halls of JFK airport without a specific destination in mind, lost in thoughts. He had places to be, and not much time to get there.
Far out of sight of the counter he came from, he spotted a waiting area. He dropped his backpack at his feet and plopped with a huff in an empty seat. He couldn't help the involuntary grunt as he fished his earphones from his pocket; of course the damn cord would magically get all tangled in the two minutes it took to get denied the plane ticket. Today is shaping up to be such a good day, he thought sarcastically.
Peter closed his eyes and blew out some air to refocus his thoughts. He had more pressing matters to dwell on than small inconveniences. He resigned himself to unknotting the thing while he considered his options.
The only flight that would get him to Malibu in time was due for take off in an hour, and he couldn't afford to miss it. The next one would be landing too late for him to get to Tony's villa before the attack. He really had to get on that flight; maybe he could get someone to vouch for him? Peter quickly frowned at the thought. The only 'person' who would be willing to help him was Karen, and that would probably not be good enough this time. He couldn't even ask her to hack into the system to get that ticket as he would much rather avoid any suspicious online activity ever since his encounter with S.H.I.E.L.D. He'd had no contact with Coulson since they met last spring, and therefore had no idea how the situation had evolved internally. He would much rather favor any solution that didn't have him leave a trail of breadcrumbs for Gun Guy to follow. There had to be another way into this plane.
An image of himself sneaking into someone's luggages popped into Peter's head.
"Sir," the clerk at the registration counter would say to the unsuspecting traveler, "why is there a child's body in your suitcase?"
Peter shook his head to himself, a smirk stretching his lips. Yeah, that would definitely work.
He was one knot away from freeing the last earbud when his nimble fingers stopped their graceful dance. What if… Couldn't he try to sneak into the plane's luggage compartment while they were loading it? He needed to discuss the details with Karen, but that could be a solution, right?
Satisfied that he now had a potential plan of action, Peter finished his work and quickly plugged the cord into his phone. Aware that he was about to broach a sensitive topic, he got to his feet.
"Hey Karen, little update," he said as he headed for the closest exit. "I couldn't get a ticket, but I may have another solution."
"What is it?" his trusted AI inquired.
Peter never got to answer. As he was squirming his way through the doors, his spider-sense went haywire out of nowhere, screaming at him to get down. The danger was coming from behind him, and an influx of people were about to enter.
"Look out!" He shouted without thinking as he jumped towards the closest strangers, tackling them to the ground.
The deflagration came almost instantly after, its oddly pulsating sound drowning everything else. The blast of boiling air rolled over them, sending glass shards raining in its wake. After that there was nothing left but a deafeningly eerie silence.
Peter sat back on his haunches, inspecting the men and women he had thrown on the ground, making sure none of them had gotten more than a few cuts. One of them, a young man in a suit, was inspecting him in return; but Peter didn't pay much attention to it. Sound was rising again from the hall as people were starting to shake out of their stupor. Reassured that the group was going to be fine, Peter got up and hurried back inside, squeezing his way in between the influx of survivors rushing to the exit.
The origin of the explosion was immediately identifiable. The destruction became exponentially worse in a radius that lead straight to the waiting area Peter had previously vacated. Of it, there was nothing left. It had been flat out leveled, the plastic seats reduced to puddles of ashes, a gaping hole blown into the nearby wall, exposing the destruction inside the hall for the world to see. The rest of the terminal looked like a war zone. Huge chunks of concrete littered the floors. Plastic seats were ripped of the ground, laying overturned on the floor when they weren't outright melted. Advertisement and information screens were lit ablaze, lighting up the ambient dust cloud with an ominous orange glow, filling the ceilings with dark toxic smoke. The temperature had risen at least a good forty degrees above the previously cool air, burning Peter's lungs with every intake of breath.
Barely stopping to take in the scene, Peter was already hurrying towards the muffled cries he could hear coming from people trapped under the rubble. The brunt of the danger had passed, but there was still a lingering tingle of his spider-sense, triggered by the fires and the compromised structural integrity of the terminal. There was no time to change. Peter could only hope the smoke and his hood would be enough to preserve his anonymity. He made sure never to linger after he lifted heavy debris, never to look anyone directly in the eyes, never to answer any personal questions.
All the while he worked, questions kept looping in his mind. What happened? Why hadn't he felt the explosion coming earlier? Could he have prevented it at all?
As he kept getting closer and closer to the epicenter, as he kept saving people with more and more severe burns, as he sorrowfully walked by still fuming charred bodies, a theory formed in his mind.
It was confirmed when he found a couple dozen shadows singed into the ground.
A hand landed on his shoulder, firm but comforting. In his daze, he hadn't heard anyone coming.
"Kid, you need to evacuate. Come with me," a fully geared firewoman told him kindly.
Peter let her guide him outside; there wasn't much else he could at this point anymore. In between two coughing fits that were not helping his irritated lungs, the loud breathing of the woman's SCBA was a strong reminder of how under-equipped he was.
When they crossed the threshold, Peter was immediately assaulted by the frigid December air, adding a new shock to his airways. But even though they were now outside, the firewoman wasn't leaving his side. She kept walking, heading towards the flashing lights of the ambulances.
Peter stopped in his tracks.
"Maybe I should find my family first," he forced through his parched throat, hoping the excuse would be enough to sway her into letting him go on his own.
Unfortunately for him, she was one of those good souls who wouldn't leave a child unsupervised in the aftermath of a terror attack.
"You need to get your lungs checked. I'm sure your family will think to look for you over at the paramedics."
"But what if—"
"Here you are!"
Both Peter and the firewoman turned towards the young man who interrupted them. Confident footsteps heading towards them, eyes on Peter, the man was swooning him into a hug before he could react.
"Thank God, we've been looking all over for you! Mom's worried sick!"
"Wha—"
The young man didn't let Peter get to the end of his very confused thoughts.
"Thanks for finding my brother," he said to the firefighter, one hand still on Peter's back. "I can take it from here."
She looked unsure for a brief moment, but then someone called her somewhere behind Peter.
"He should see the paramedics," she instructed the man.
"Right away."
The firewoman ruffled Peter's hair with a "Take care", and ran back inside the terminal, leaving Peter alone with the stranger.
So many questions were spinning through Peter's mind. He examined the man but was unable to place his face. Yet, he had an inkling that he had met him before.
"Er… You know I'm not your brother, right?" was the first question he asked.
The young man chuckled.
"Of course I know that! You just looked like you needed help for a minute."
Peter frowned. Why would a stranger pay any attention to him in the middle of this pandemonium?
"Do I know you?"
The man seemed to realize how weird he sounded.
"Er… Not really? It's just… I figured it's the least I could do for the kid who's saved my life twice now, you know?"
Peter blanched.
"Me?"
"I mean, I wasn't sure it was you at first when you tackled me just before the explosion," the stranger kept going, unaware of the sudden tension in Peter's shoulders. "But then I saw you lift those debris like it was paper and I just knew, you know?" He whispered loud enough for Peter to hear over the ambient hubbub.
Oh no. This was bad.
"I don't know what you're talking about," Peter automatically deflected. "I appreciate the help, but you got the wrong guy. I have to go now, 'need to find my family or something," he added in a mumble.
He made to turn back, but something in the stranger's tone stopped him.
"Look, I get it if you want to keep this quiet," the guy confided, his tone understanding. "It's just… I wanted to thank you. For saving me during the Battle of New York. Rescue operations started in my building only four days after the invasion so… yeah, I could have actually died without you."
Trickles of memories of a day Peter remembered very little of resurfaced. His eyes widened in recognition.
"You're the guy from under the desk," he breathed.
The man's face lit up.
"You do remember! I was afraid for a sec' I got the wrong kid after all. That would've been embarrassing," he cringed, before extending his right hand to Peter. "I don't think you remember, but I'm Jack, by the way."
Perched on a low wall at the far end of the terminal's parking lot, Peter stared at his phone while Jack fetched hot chocolates at a nearby food truck for the both of them.
Peter had scrolled through everything Karen had on extremis. The very unique deflagration, the lingering heat, the shadows… It all matched. His database also mentioned that subjects infused with extremis could lose control at any given time in a matter of seconds. At least that explained why his spider-sense didn't alert him earlier.
But the one thing all of these data lacked was an exhaustive list of all the places where such explosions had occurred. Peter turned off the screen and buried his head in his hands, cutting off visual distractions to scour his memory. But no matter how deep he dug, he couldn't remember any Mandarin terror attack at the airport in his original timeline.
"This wasn't supposed to happen," he concluded, the weight of his words not alleviating the one on his stomach.
Peter looked up, contemplating the scene before his eyes. In the distance, the terminal was swarmed by police and fire vehicles, a thick column of smoke still tainting the otherwise clear sky.
It was in moments like this one that he missed Tony the most. Together they would have brainstormed something to make heads and tails of that mess, to figure out the best course of actions to take next. Peter could almost hear Tony reassess all of the events that lead to today's disaster, trying to pinpoint what went differently, and what were the implications for the upcoming events. Because right now, if Peter was certain of one thing, it was that he was lost. Today's disaster was the big proof he had been dreading that things could, and would, go differently, and he had no idea how much his meddling could alter the timeline.
A foam cup popped in his line of sight. Peter looked up, his gaze following the outstretched arm holding it.
"I gotta say, I'm surprised you're still here," Jack told him. "I thought you would have used the excuse to get away or something."
So did Peter, at first. He thought he would be more wary, what with Jack knowing both his face and his enhanced status, but after exchanging a few words with the guy, his nerves had calmed down a lot. Jack seemed sincere when he had assured him he'd kept his promise and never told anyone about his rescue. And since Jack didn't activate his spider-sense, Peter chose to believe him. It felt good to not have to hide for once -at least not as much as usual.
Peter slid his phone back in his pocket and grabbed the cup gratefully, the warmth of it sending comforting pins and needles in his frozen fingertips.
"And miss the free cocoa opportunity? Never," he teased, before taking the cup to his lips.
Peter was only half joking; it had been a while since he had indulged in such a luxurious drink. Jack leaned against the wall next to him, taking a sip out of his own cup.
"So, how is it that the same kid gets to save me twice in the span of a year?" he asked once he lowered his cup.
Peter shrugged.
"How is it that the same guy ends up at the wrong place at the wrong time twice in the span of a year?"
"Fair enough," Jack snorted. "Can I plead incredible bad luck?"
"That would make two of us. Welcome to the club."
"That bad?"
Peter took another sip of cocoa, savoring both the deep flavor of the chocolate and the trail of warmth it left on its way to his stomach.
"I mean," he said once he had swallowed, "what are the odds that the one single day in my life I really need to travel, a terrorist attack shuts down the airport?"
"Yeah, that'll do it. Peak member of the bad luck club style." A small beat passed. Jack looked up at him expectantly. "You're going after the Mandarin, aren't you?"
Peter swirled the contents of his cup, not willing to share that much information. Jack seemed to read between the lines of his silence anyways.
"Are you sure it's safe? Even Stark can't fight him."
"He'll find a way," Peter said more confidently than he felt.
"Well, good luck in your quest," Jack raised his cup at that and took another sip.
Peter scoffed.
"My quest would go infinitely better if I could learn to fly in the next hour."
"What, it's not one of your super powers already? What a shame. Looks like you're stuck on the ground with us mere mortals."
"See? One more misfortune."
"You can always take the bus, you know?"
Peter shook his head.
"Nah, it'll take forever. I'll never—" Peter stopped abruptly as realization hit him.
The attack would happen today, at sundown. He would never be able to cross the country on time by bus; but there was a closer destination.
Rose Hill, Tennessee.
Where Jarvis would supposedly send Tony after the attack. The place was a massive inside joke for Tony and Pepper specifically because of that, even years after the fact.
"…Actually, I could take the bus."
Maybe he wouldn't get to watch over Tony and Pepper during tonight's attack, but at least he could be there for the next step. And hopefully, nothing too bad would happen to them in the meantime.
Jack offered to vouch for Peter to get him the ticket for the bus ride to Tennessee. And after tricking him into paying the whole thing before Peter could realize what was happening, Jack stayed with him until the bus arrived.
It was surprisingly easy to talk with Jack. It had been forever since Peter had been able to have a conversation with someone who didn't look down on him. It was incredibly refreshing. In another life, Peter could probably have been friends with him.
They talked about many things. How Jack hated his job working for an insurance company. How he was surprised to have never seen Peter in the public eye. He even tried to ask how things were going with Tony. Peter didn't say much about himself, but it was nice to interact with Jack. Surprisingly, Jack seemed to be under the impression that Peter was interning for Tony as a "hero in training" to put it in his words.
When the bus arrived, Jack renewed his promise to keep quiet about Peter. And Peter believed him. As they parted ways, right before Peter climbed into the bus, Jack confided in him.
"You know, maybe I don't have bad luck. Maybe I'm lucky you were there to save my life twice."
As the bus slowly departed, Peter thought that maybe the butterfly effect wasn't all bad if it meant that good people like Jack got to still be around today.
They got stuck in traffic.
After sundown, two stops before their destination, Peter finally managed to connect to free wi-fi. The news was flooded with the attack at Tony's villa: there was nothing left of their mansion but rubble, but at least Pepper was safe. Tony was missing, as expected. Peter felt a weird mix of worry and relief. The bus couldn't arrive soon enough.
They reached Rose Hill around 10pm.
The town center was blocked off by police tape, inaccessible. Other than the emergency vehicles illuminating the night with flickering lights, the streets were relatively calm. The fight between Tony and Aldrich Killian's agents was already over.
Peter rubbed his eyes, unsure what to do next. He had tried to hang around a bit to listen to first responders talk; but he either got shooed away quickly, or couldn't hear much from the rooftops over the sound of the fire-engines. All in all, no mention of Tony that he heard off. Nothing online either.
He was almost certain Tony was ok, but he couldn't know for sure, and he had no idea where to look for him. Tony never gave him the full story in detail, just bits and pieces once in a while that only allowed him to get an approximative bigger picture. He did know Tony was supposed to end up in Miami by tomorrow; but until then? Peter had no idea where he would spend the night. Possibly in a motel room or something, tinkering on homemade gadgets because his armor—
Because he had left his armor charging in a barn somewhere.
Peter stopped in his tracks, a sudden wave of excitement mixed with apprehension washing over him. If he played his cards right, maybe he could get Tony's location from Jarvis.
Peter had no idea where to look without an address or a description of the barn. He felt even more disorientated, unused as he was to rural small towns like Rose Hill, where the tallest buildings only had two stories and barns in gardens was a common occurrence. All in all it took him over an hour of skimming the town on foot, checking every barn and garages he found.
He did end up locating the armor on the outskirts of town, in a barn attached to a secluded house. His heart rate picked up when he spotted it through the dirty window.
It was almost pitch black inside, but once he saw the outline of the armor laying on a table, there was no mistaking what it was. The only light source were a couple computer screens that cast a rim light on the suit, detaching its unmistakable silhouette from the background.
Heart racing, Peter put on his mask and cautiously tried to open the door. It was unlocked. He paused, listening for anyone around, before silently slipping inside.
He approached the armor carefully, as if it would startle at any sudden movement; but the suit remained still, lifeless. Something twisted inside Peter's chest.
It had been so long since he had last seen one of Tony's armor from so close. It was scratched all over, and a piece was torn off its chest-plate, exposing the wiring inside. Cables ran from every opening, gathering around the midsection where they all congregated towards the ceiling, deviating the electrical power of one of the lamps above.
He stood there, drinking in the sight of the familiar technology.
Then, without thinking, he turned to the laptop plugged to the armor, opened the command prompt and ran a diagnostic scan —just out of sheer habit.
The screen was soon filled with a long list of issues. Jammed motor in the right elbow, disconnected stationary propeller in the lower back, defective heating system, frozen UI, short-circuits in multiple areas both in the inner and outer layers of the suit, and many systems needed rebooting, including the speech drive; none of those were major issues, but combined together they would certainly make for an unpleasant experience for the pilot. However, there was one element on that list that did alarm Peter: the repulser in the left hand was disconnected. Without it, there was no stabilizing the armor in flight. He wasn't even sure the secondary propellers would be enough to send the glove all the way to Miami when Tony would call for the armor. It seemed odd that Tony would leave with such a major malfunction; but maybe he didn't have time to fix this one.
Peter brushed the helmet lightly.
"You have known better days, haven't you buddy?" He muttered, thoughtful.
"I certainly have."
Peter almost jumped out of his skin at the unexpected sound of the familiar British voice.
"Holy shit Vis— Jarvis, you scared the hell out of me!"
"I am sorry, that was not my waterline. Do I know you?"
Peter frowned for a second at the curious choice of word until he remembered the impaired speech drive. Right.
"No, you don't know me," he answered the AI's question in a tone he hoped was detached enough. "Say Jarvis, how is Tony?"
"I am not allowed to discuss Sir's health with cucumbers."
"I'm not asking for a rundown of his allergies, I just want to… you know, make sure he's ok."
And Peter was almost certain that Tony was fine —at least he must have been well enough to take care of the armor, since only Tony would think of distributing the cables on the suit to spread out the limited power supply. Very few people knew about the secondary power cells; anyone else would probably just have gone straight for the main battery alone. But Peter still needed to hear it confirmed by someone else.
The light turned on all of a sudden, immediately followed by the clocking of a plastic gun and the subsequent shot. Peter instinctively jumped away, sticking to the ceiling. Tools clattered to the ground when the ammo initially aimed at him collided with the wall they had been hanged on.
At the entrance stood a kid in pajamas, armed with a potato gun. He seemed freaked out by Peter's unexpected use of his powers, but he stood his ground.
"You're not allowed in here," he said, managing to keep his voice from trembling almost all throughout.
"That's a cool potato gun you have here," Peter complimented, hoping it would lighten the atmosphere.
He dropped from the ceiling, twisting in mid-air to land lightly on his feet. The kid flinched at the impact. Peter decided to not get any closer, instead raising his hands above his head in a show of goodwill. The boy fished a second potato from his pocket and reloaded his gun, aiming it at Peter once more, lips pinched.
"I'm not gonna hurt you. Or the armor," Peter said carefully.
"Who are you?" the kid asked warily, taking a step forward.
Peter didn't move.
"I'm… No one in particular. Do you live here?"
"Yeah. I'm supposed to guard the Iron Man."
The weight of the worry Peter had been feeling for most of the day finally dissipated.
"So Tony was here, right? Is he ok?"
"What does it matter to you?"
Peter briefly glanced at the armor, aware that Jarvis might be recording everything.
"I mean... I was afraid something happened to him. That would be annoying if he was dead, you know? Who would fight the Mandarin?"
The kid frowned, not entirely satisfied with the answer.
"Why are you really here?"
Peter figured he might as well ask.
"Do you know where Tony is?"
"I'm not telling you," the boy denied before jerking his head in Peter's direction. "Why the weird mask anyway? It looks like a wrestling mask. Or a superhero mask. But you're just a child like me, so you can't be a superhero. Are you a thief?"
Peter sighed and eyed the open door behind the boy. In a way, he was glad Tony had found someone so dedicated to protect him; but here it wasn't doing him any favors.
"Look, I didn't do anything to the armor. You're doing a good job guarding Iron Man. I'm gonna go now, ok?"
And he would come back later to find Tony's location, once he was certain the kid was asleep.
But said kid didn't seem to be done with him. The moment Peter took a step forward, the boy clocked his potato gun once more, finger resting on the trigger, daring him to move. They both stayed still for a breath, gauging each other.
"Jarvis, did he really do nothing?" The kid finally called, his eyes never faltering from Peter.
"While it is true he did not tamper with the armor, he did run a diagnostic scan."
"Which doesn't harm the armor," Peter hurried to clarify.
The kid's demeanor seemed to shift slightly.
"I know that, Tony did one too," he huffed. "What did it say?"
"The scan?"
"Yeah."
Peter frowned, confused.
"Er... Mostly minor issues. Except for the repulser in the left hand. It's disconnected. Why do you ask?"
The kid cringed very briefly, before biting his lip in consideration.
"If you know how to run a scan, does that mean you also know how to repair the repulser?" he finally asked.
Peter blinked at the unexpected question. There was something very suspicious about this sudden turn around.
"Wait, did you break it?"
"No," the kid replied a bit too fast.
Peter crossed his arms, unimpressed.
"Jarvis?"
"Young master Harley pulled a finger from the glove, effectively tearing the attached wires."
"But I reconnected them!" Harley defended himself.
Peter gaped.
"Why would you remove a finger?"
Harley looked away.
"It looked easier to fix when Tony did it," he muttered, scratching the side of his nose.
At least the kid had the decency to look ashamed.
"Does Tony know you broke his glove?"
"Not yet? But he should have told me if he didn't want me to touch it."
"He did tell you," Jarvis intervened.
"Must have missed it," Harley dismissed, before turning back to Peter. "Can you help me or not?"
Peter really wasn't sure it was a good idea for him to tinker on the armor, for way too many reasons. The main one being that he didn't know what kind of consequences it would have on the rest of the Mandarin debacle; but he was also rendered to a point where he had no idea whether that breakage happened in the original timeline, or if it was a byproduct of the butterfly effects. If he didn't repair the glove, would things still go as they should? Or would it negatively impact the outcome of tomorrow's fight?
Peter sighed. He realized there was no way for him to know what he should or shouldn't do at this point. The only thing those questions would give him was a time travel induced headache at best. He might as well do what he thought was right, and hope for the best.
"Alright, I'll help you," Peter finally conceded. "And I won't snitch on you if you don't tell Tony I was here. Deal?"
Harley nodded excitedly, hope flooding his features.
"Deal!"
And if Peter managed to gain the kid's trust, maybe he could get Tony's location without having to hack into Jarvis.
He turned back to the laptop, the necessary lines of code already at his fingertips. Harley carefully stepped closer.
"What are you doing?"
"Depowering the glove so we can inspect it without damaging it," he explained without pausing in his typing.
Just as he finished talking, he pressed enter. With the soft sounds of small air pumps and mechanical whirs, the glove bloomed open, the internal padding layers lifting up to reveal the circuitry beneath.
"Wow, that's so cool," Harley breathed. "How did you know to do that? I thought only Tony could work on Iron Man. Did he teach you?"
Peter shrugged and removed the electric cable alimenting the power cells in the glove. The light from the diodes inside faded down.
"I had a very cool internship," he replied vaguely.
"With Tony Stark?"
Peter redirected the desk lamp to illuminate the glove and cringed at the sight that greeted him. He bent forward to inspect the damage more closely. The broken finger was immediately identifiable. No wonder the repulser was offline between the torn wires and the ones that weren't reconnected at their proper place.
"How did you manage to make such a mess? Did you twirl a screwdriver in there or something?"
"I didn't twirl it," Harley huffed.
Somehow he managed to catch Peter's disbelieving look even from behind the mask.
"What? My fingers are too short to reach all the way inside."
"So you used a screwdriver? I was just joking, I didn't think you'd actually… Why a screwdriver?"
"Why not a screwdriver?"
Peter sighed, resigned.
"Metallic tools can create short-circuits on small electronic components."
"Oh. Good to know, I didn't know that. Who taught you that? Tony Stark?" Harley asked eagerly.
"Internet," Peter replied, his eyes already roaming over the glove to catalog the damage. "Do you have plastic tweezers somewhere?"
"Sure. Here," Harley said, handing him a pair he had grabbed from the nearest desk.
Peter started to pull gently on the wires he could see to test how damaged they were.
"So. What exactly was your plan here?" he asked.
Harley shrugged.
"Take the finger out, put it back. Which I did. Just not well enough apparently."
Peter scoffed.
"Yeah, I gathered as much, but that's not what I mean. Why'd you do it?"
"Come on, it's Iron Man! Don't tell me you wouldn't have done it too. I mean, obviously you know what it's like to work on the armor, but I'm sure you would have done the same in my place. Or maybe Tony just let you help him and that's how you learned to work on the armor."
Peter pinched the bridge of his nose. How come that kid always circled back to his relationship with Tony?
"Look, I've never met him," he clarified.
"Really? Then why don't you want him to know you came— Oh, I know."
The sudden change in tone bore nothing good.
"What?"
"You're his son, right? But like, not his official son, more like a secret son from another family and you don't want him to know? Or maybe he knows but he wants you to stay a secret? Is that why you're wearing the weird mask? So that no one knows you're related?"
Peter had to stop in his cataloging because what. There was way too much to unpack here.
"First of all, no, I'm not his son, and second —how the hell did you even come up with that? It doesn't make any sense!"
"It makes a lot of sense! Sometimes dads make sons they don't want and then they leave, sometimes even to go live with a secret family you didn't know about. But I guess sometimes dads don't completely shut you out either because how else did you know where to find the armor? It didn't look like Tony had planned to come here."
Gosh, that kid asked way too many questions. He reminded Peter a lot of himself when he was younger, and he wasn't really sure he liked that.
He resorted to his last option to settle the argument once and for all.
"Jarvis, does Tony have a son?"
"Not that he is aware of."
"See?" Peter asked pointedly, the final irrefutable evidence coming straight from Jarvis itself.
"Not that he is aware of," Harley quoted.
Peter groaned.
"Alright, let's say you're not his son. Then why do you worry so much about Tony? And why do you hide your face behind that weird mask? What is that costume even supposed to be?"
"Excuse you, it's a spider," Peter retorted, offended.
"A spider? How?"
"Come on, give me a little credit, I did my best with what I had."
"Your best looks like someone tripped with a bucket of black paint and randomly splashed it on your face."
Ok, now the kid was plain rude. Peter bit back his answer, choosing to let an uncomfortable silence settle between them instead of spitting words he might regret later.
He tried to focus back on the glove. Where had he left off again?
"So that's your deal then? You break into random homes at night to repair stray armors?" Harley insisted after a beat.
"Hey, do you want my help or not?" Peter snapped.
The kid lifted his hands in a placating manner.
"Alright, alright, sorry."
Peter stared at the glove without really seeing it and sighed. There was no use pretending his focus wasn't shot.
"Look. I've never met Tony, and he's not my dad. I do worry for him because he's a hero and the world needs him and someone has to have his back, even if he doesn't know about it. And he doesn't need to know about it. Alright?"
"Ok, sure. Not totally convinced, but why not."
Peter gave up. At this point there was nothing he could say to convince Harley. Nothing that he was willing to share anyways.
So he got back to work in silence, glad to see that the kid didn't seem like he was going to start the argument again. He just stood next to Peter, observing his tinkering with interest.
Peter finished assessing the damage. It didn't look good —Harley had done more harm with that screwdriver than if he had just left the finger detached— but it was nothing that couldn't be patched up with a bit of patience.
"So, I gather Tony didn't let you help him?" Peter filled the silence that had fallen between them.
"Kinda? He just wanted me to bring him stuff, nothing else," Harley pouted.
Peter observed him and something softened in him. There was in Harley the same thirst to learn that drove him as a child. He could see he hadn't damaged the armor with malicious intent.
"Wanna see what you did wrong? So that you'll know for next time," Peter asked before he could change his mind. "Not that you should pull another finger."
Harley's eyes lit up and he nodded eagerly. Peter motioned him closer.
"Look. See that tiny plug?" he said, pointing at the incriminated part near the broken finger, "you didn't put that one all the way back in."
He pushed delicately on it with the tweezers until there was a small click.
"Heard that? That means the wires are connected properly."
Harley observed the glove attentively and pointed at another socket.
"So that means that one isn't connected either."
Peter smiled under the mask. Harley was a fast learner.
"Good catch! Although that's not where this one is supposed to go."
"It's not?"
Peter shook his head.
"That socket is for the thermometer chip located just here. See? It's supposed to monitor the repulser's temperature to stop it from overheating and burning Tony. The cable you put in it is linked to the motion receptors in the finger. So that one actually goes here, and this one here. Wanna try to fix it?"
"For real?"
Peter nodded and handed him the tweezers.
"Just remember, be gentle with those wires, they're fragile. Pull on the plastic parts, not the wires themselves."
Harley beamed and grabbed the tool. Very carefully, he followed Peter's instructions until the wires were plugged in their proper sockets with a couple satisfying clicks.
"Nice job! You did that like a pro," Peter congratulated.
That was the last of the wires they could easily fix. The rest were torn bits that would require a bit more handling. They were far from finished.
"Do you have a soldering iron?"
Harley's grin widened.
"On it!"
The door of the barn banged open, waking Peter up with a start.
"Morning!" Harley clamored, walking in a tray in hands. "I brought you breakfast. I couldn't take much with me though. Mom doesn't know you're here."
Peter slid his hands under his mask and rubbed his eyes in an attempt to get them to stop itching. He hadn't realized he had fallen asleep on the couch.
Harley set the tray down on a desk near him.
"Hope you like ham sandwiches."
"Yeah that's fine, thanks," Peter slurred in that half-awake type of speech. "What time is it?"
"Nine-ish?"
This woke Peter up a bit more.
"Wait, what?"
"You know how the Earth spins on itself around the sun, and time goes by? That's what happened."
Shit.
Peter should have been on his way to Tony. No, strike that —he should have found him already, made sure he was ok. Instead he hadn't even found his location.
Peter laid back with a groan.
"Yeah, I know the feeling," Harley supplied, his tone anything but empathetic. His attention was already back on the armor; it was like the kid was glued to it.
The both of them had ended up working very late. After the repulser was successfully fixed, Harley insisted on doing some more, and Peter didn't see the point of leaving the suit only half functioning once he had already started messing with it. They fixed issue after issue, until Peter apparently took an extended break on the couch.
He grabbed a sandwich and lifted his mask up to the nose, finding a little consolation in the food.
He didn't have many options left; by now Tony was either on his way to Florida, passed out in a motel somewhere, or doing whatever else he would be doing. It didn't really matter which one it was; Peter had no means to get to him on time whatsoever —if he could find his location at all. The best he could do was hitch a ride somewhere and hopefully be in Florida in time to actually have Tony's back for once? …If the battle was still going down at the port tonight.
Peter shook his head, stopping himself short of losing himself too far in hypothetical ifs once again.
"Oh. So you do look human under that mask," Harley pointed out, having finally turned away from the armor. "I was starting to wonder if you were deformed or something."
"What do you know? Maybe I got eight eyes and very hairy brows," Peter deflected, unbothered.
Harley looked strangely grossed out and excited by that.
"Ew, that'd be super cool! Do you?"
"Wouldn't you like to know," Peter smirked, before changing the subject. "Is everything good with the armor?"
"Er, kind of? Everything's fine, except it's not charging."
"What?" Peter frowned. Surely he would have noticed that last night?
He pulled his mask down and joined Harley to the laptop to check the stats.
"It is charging, it's just very slow," Peter explained. "Forty percent isn't great but it's gonna be enough to get it to Tony when he needs it. And I'm pretty sure he knows about this already anyways."
"I don't know. He seemed freaked out when I told him on the phone about the charging thing last night."
"Wait, when did you call him?" Peter picked up, astonished.
"Before you came," Harley shrugged off.
"Why didn't you tell me? We could have done something about it earlier!"
"You fell asleep before we got to that point! And I still don't know who you are and what you want with Tony. You can't blame me for not sharing that kind of info, mister-spider-who-is-definitely-not-a-secret-son."
Peter wanted to bang his own head on a table. Rather strongly.
"Ugh, whatever," he groaned. "What do you mean by 'he freaked out'?"
"I'm ninety-nine percent sure he had a panic attack? It wasn't the first one yesterday."
Shit. That meant Tony was still dealing with his PTSD. Peter was so sure he was getting better the last few times he had been able to watch him in the Avengers tower. But then again, how could he have known for sure without spending actual time with him? It was stupid to think the letters he had been sending would have any impact.
"Alright. So, the armor has enough power to get to Tony," Peter muttered, lost in his thoughts. The part on how Tony got to infiltrate the Mandarin mansion using only makeshift weapons was one Peter knew best. Tony loved telling him about it. At first, Peter thought he did it because he liked to brag; but as he learned to know Tony better, he realized that deep down, Tony was sincerely proud of what he could achieve on his own, with only his wit to help him. He often used the story to remind Peter to think outside of the box and not to limit himself to the expensive gadgets Tony first furnished him with. Peter knew that Tony would call for the armor only once he thought it was charged enough… "But it can't hurt to speed up the charging now, can it? If it has more power when it gets to Tony, the better, right?"
Peter looked around him. His eyes quickly fell on a vintage car mounted on dollies, its hood wide open. With the thick layer of dust covering it, it looked like its restoration had been abandoned a while ago.
"That car. Does your mom intend to use it soon?"
Harley shook his head.
"It won't do. Tony already tried to use the battery. It's empty."
"Ok. So we're gonna need to find power elsewhere. Except I don't think we can get any more from your home, right?"
"Nah. It's as good as it's gonna get."
Peter hummed, thinking.
"And hooking up the suit to power lines would be too dangerous, even for me. We need to find something else."
"Or somewhere else?"
"Do you have anything in mind?"
"The hospital? I'm pretty sure Tony said something about it for the power. Something like the place would be the best bet to get more power more quickly or something."
"You're not wrong, but we can't afford to risk cutting off their power. And it's too public. How are we supposed to sneak in the armor without being seen?"
"So another big public space then? Where there's less people. Like a library? Or a small airport? Not the ones for travel."
Peter's eyes widened, an insane idea suddenly crossing his mind.
"Or a port."
"I mean, that could do too I guess. But you forget we're right in the middle of Nowhere, Tennessee. There's no port big enough around here."
"Yes, not around here."
But in Miami there definitely was one.
The more Peter thought about it, the more crazy his idea sounded. But it was his best shot to both charge the armor on time and get himself quickly to Florida. And frankly? He really wanted to try it. Oh shit. He was going to do it, wasn't he?
Before he could change his mind about the whole thing, Peter moved to the helmet and detached it from the rest of the armor. Harley was watching him warily.
"What are you doing?"
"Do you trust me?" Peter asked back, tossing him the head.
The kid caught it only by reflex.
"I don't even know your name," he protested as Peter moved down to the legs.
"That doesn't answer my question."
"Yes, I trust you. Kind of."
"Eh. Good enough I guess. Look inside the helmet and tell me if you can see a small red button," Peter instructed while he unclasped the legs one after the other.
"Found it!"
"Don't press it until I tell you to."
Peter moved down the desk lamp and oriented it to light the inside of the torso, finding his own red button almost immediately. It was a bit far for his shorter arms, but not unreachable.
"Why? What happens if I do it now?"
"Nothing. Which is why you'll have to wait for my signal," he instructed, sliding his arm inside one of the leg holes.
He patted down the lining until he relocated the button by feel.
"You'll have to keep it pressed until I tell you to stop. Ready?"
Harley nodded.
"Go!" Peter said, pressing down his own button at the same time.
He counted to three in his head and, as expected, the armor powered down. Peter kept pressing a few more seconds nonetheless, just to be sure.
"Ok, we're good," he declared once he couldn't hear any whirring coming from the armor anymore.
"What did we just do?" Harley panicked, his eyes scanning the lifeless suit, helmet held limply at his side.
"Relax, we didn't break anything, we just turned it off manually. I don't think Jarvis would have let me do it via the laptop without trying to alert Tony."
"What for? I don't understand how we got from 'we need to move the armor' to 'nearly killing it'!"
"Yeah, that was a bit abrupt, sorry about that," Peter acknowledged. "I do have a plan, but I just couldn't risk Jarvis over-hearing it. He might have told Tony, and then we would both have been in trouble."
Harley raised an eyebrow, suspicious.
"And what is it you're trying to do exactly?"
"I know where Tony is going to be later today, so I'm bringing him the armor myself," Peter explained, webbing closer his forgotten backpack.
"You what? How? Are you planning on dragging it all the way to that far away port you were talking about?"
Peter fished his phone's USB cord from his bag.
"I'm not 'dragging' it anywhere," he said, plugging one half into his phone, before speaking directly to it. "Karen, stealth mode."
"Got it," the AI answered, avoiding mentioning Peter's name.
Peter turned back to Harley and gave a sharp nod to the helmet.
"Careful with the head," he cautioned.
And without further warning, Peter plugged his phone into the armor. Lights lit back up as the suit came back to life on its own.
"Hi Karen," Peter couldn't help but smile warmly.
"Good morning!"
Harley jumped, almost dropping the helmet when Karen's voice rose from it.
"Wait, what just happened? You have your own AI?" he asked, star struck.
"Yup!" Peter beamed. "And with her help, I'm going to fly the armor to Tony."
The flight to Miami was short, but terribly chaotic.
For one, Peter was a lot smaller than Tony, and the armor had definitely not been built to hold the tiny frame of a twelve year old. So instead of risking putting his arms in the sleeves and have those bend them in places his bones didn't have any articulations, he chose to keep them crossed over his chest, relinquishing command to Karen's automated pilot. It's not as if he could reach the gloves anyways. Between that and the backpack he had stashed in with him, Peter could hardly move; luckily for him, he wasn't claustrophobic. Well, usually.
Then came the problem of Karen. Yes, she could technically fly Tony's armors —Tony had added that function in case of emergency, and it had indeed served a couple times in the past—, but she was made for more recent suits. This armor was a lot older than the first model Karen had been programmed for. And worse: it was an incomplete prototype. There were a lot of incompatibilities between Karen's drivers and the hardware of the suit, and it showed. The repulsors sputtered for the entire ride, sometimes even causing the armor to drop several feet in the air, giving Peter mini heart-attacks. Every. Single. Time.
So what had seemed like a great idea some ridiculous thirty minutes ago was now slamming Peter right back in the face with his own hubris.
And he would be slamming to the ground altogether if they didn't straighten up their course very soon.
"Karen!" Peter screeched in panic, unable to do anything other than berate his AI.
The port was approaching, and fast.
"Sorry Peter, there is an issue with the landing protocol. I cannot seem to modify the thrust of the repulser."
"You what?! Why didn't you tell me earlier?"
"Because I wasn't aware it was an issue until now," she answered matter-of-factly.
"That's something that should have been checked before we even took off!"
The armor swerved upwards right before it scraped the ground. They were now flying a few feet above the asphalt, aiming straight towards a wall of containers.
"Fuck, Karen!"
Peter needed to think fast or they were going to crash. But he had barely any control over either their speed or trajectory. And he could barely move.
Cold realization washed over him. They were going to crash no matter what.
He made a split second decision.
"Turn off the repulsors!" he ordered.
"Are you sure? Without propulsion—"
"Do it! Now!"
The propellers died off and Peter managed to rotate just in time to slam back first into the container. The noise it made was deafening. It resonated through the armor and exploded in Peter's head. They slid off the indent they made in the metal and flopped to the ground.
For a few seconds, everything was still. Then the armor opened up and Peter rolled out of it with a moan. His everything hurt, and his head even more so.
"I'm never flying a suit again," he groaned, lying on his back. "Ever."
"Everything considered, I think we did pretty well," Karen chimed in.
"Ever," Peter emphasized, detaching each syllable distinctly.
He didn't want to move just yet. He let the sun warm his face, enjoying the view of the sky above him. His gaze followed the lazy path of the traveling clouds. It was crazy how different the weather was in the south: there was this thick layer of snow where he came from, and now he barely needed his hoodie. Peter was almost worried they had overshot their destination and landed themselves somewhere like Mexico.
"We are in Miami, right?"
"Yes. We did reach Miami port."
"Good."
He stayed there a few more minutes, keeping his ears open to any worker who would come looking for the origin of the ruckus they caused. But the port was huge and full of sounds, and no one showed up.
Peter eventually got up. He came here for a reason, after all.
He checked the armor, making sure it hadn't suffered too much from the impact. Once he was satisfied with its overall state, he hauled it fireman style across his shoulders and left on a quest for a secluded power outlet.
He quickly found what he was looking for in an older part of the port. He sat the armor against the foot of an unused crane and got to work.
He repurposed an industrial cable he found in a nearby warehouse, connected it to the armor the same way Tony had, and plugged the whole thing into a Marechal socket.
"How's the charging looking?" he asked Karen.
"At this rate, the batteries should be fully charged in fifty-three minutes and two seconds."
A relieved smile spread over Peter's face. Coming here had been worth the trouble. He thanked Karen for the help and disconnected her from the armor.
Jarvis returned by himself a couple minutes later, confused by the sudden change in location. Peter felt bad not answering any of his questions, but he figured that the less Jarvis knew about what he had done, the better.
Sitting next to armor, Peter promptly fell asleep, head resting against its side.
He woke briefly when the suit powered up and left. Comforted by the knowledge that Tony was in good hands, he fell back asleep.
Night had fallen when Peter finally allowed himself to go take a look around to gauge the layout of the site. He was determined to help Tony from the shadows; but for that he needed to locate Killian's men to get a general idea of where the confrontation would happen. He opted to first check out the industrial terminals that were still active this late on Christmas Eve.
That was how he ended up webbing past an open door all the way up a crane, and caught a glimpse of Pepper. The incongruous sight took a second to register with Peter's brain; but when it did, he backtracked immediately.
He landed as silently as he could on the wall next to the door and discretely peaked inside.
Pepper was strapped to a vertical stretcher, unconscious. She wasn't alone: with her in the room were several operators that Peter could see, as well as a man in a suit who was examining her closely. There was something in the way he was looking at her that Peter found disturbing and that he definitely didn't like.
"Is the dose ready?" the man asked, a note of impatience tainting his words.
"Almost, sir," came the reply of a woman fiddling with a needle next to Pepper.
Peter took a sharp intake of breath when he realized what was going on.
The man with the suit must be Aldrich Killian, and they were about to inject Pepper with extremis.
Peter had never known the exact circumstances in which Pepper received extremis the first time. It was the kind of sore subject both Tony and her avoided bringing up; so Peter had assumed it had happened in another location earlier in the day. He felt terrible for not even thinking about it. Had he suspected Pepper was here all along, he would have come to her help much, much earlier.
A brief, fleeting thought crossed Peter's mind —what would be the consequences if he helped Pepper escape before she received extremis?— and it was gone just as fast. Screw it. He was way past questioning his involvement in the timeline at this point; especially if it meant avoiding Pepper getting hurt.
Peter was planning on sneaking in and silently picking out the technicians one by one, when footsteps resonated in the metal stairs leading up to the rig. Peter hurried inside the room and hid in a dark corner of the ceiling, not long before a man came in, winded.
"Sir, the shipment from New York just arrived."
Killian clasped his hands, a satisfied smile twisting his face.
"Finally! Equip all men that aren't part of the extremis program. I doubt Stark will be coming empty handed on his side."
"Yes, sir!" the man nodded sternly and left as fast as he came.
Peter had a bad feeling about this. A shipment from New York?
"The dose is ready, Sir," the technician announced, cutting Peter in his musing.
"Good. You can proceed," Killian ordered coldly.
Peter reacted on instinct. He shot a web to the syringe and snatched it off the operator's hands.
"Doing drugs on your nemesis' girlfriend is a low blow, even for a villain," Peter quipped as he dropped to the ground, syringe securely held in his hand.
Killian and all of the operators in the room whirled around to Peter, expressions of various degrees of surprise etched on their faces. Killian's was the best: eyebrows raised as high as they would get, eyes bulging, mouth parted open. It was funny for the fraction of second it lasted; until it morphed into the visage of contained anger, the extent of which was only betrayed by the red hot glow of extremis creeping up his neck. It awoke Peter's spider-sense and made it buzz continuously in the back of his mind, alerting him on the very real danger this man presented. All the more reasons to get Pepper away from him as fast as possible.
"What's the meaning of this?" Killian demanded, looking down on Peter, before scanning the room accusingly. "Who let a child in here?"
The less alert of his employees shook their heads, and a man in the back even shrugged. But the sharpest of the lot were already drawing their weapons; the situation was about to go south very soon if Peter didn't get the upper hand real quick now that he had given up on the element of surprise.
"Oh sorry, was this a private party?" Peter snarked, snatching two guns the same way he had done with the syringe. "You shouldn't leave the door open if you don't want people to walk in uninvited."
In a swift move he webbed the firearms to the ceiling and vaulted away from a volley of bullets.
"Stop!" Killian shouted. "Don't open fire on a child, you idiots!"
The goons retracted their weapons, confused.
"And you," Killian continued condescendingly, walking up to Peter with a hand extended palm up towards him, "give me back that syringe, right now."
For one rare time, Peter saw the benefit of being treated like a child.
"Or what?" he asked, already making use of the opening Killian so generously gifted him with.
He sent a web on the wall right behind one of the more muscular of the goons, pulled on it and used its elasticity to propel himself towards the man, knocking him right out.
"I'm going to regret it I guess? For that you'll have to catch me first," he smirked, bouncing off the wall.
He had webbed up two other gun bearers before Killian could react.
"What are you waiting for, stop him!" Killian ordered his men. "And don't hurt him! Not yet."
But Peter was smaller, faster, and he had the added advantage of fighting people who had no idea what his powers were and what to expect from him. In less than a couple minutes, the majority of Killian's employees were out of commission.
"I can't believe I have to do everything myself around here," Killian lamented.
And before Peter could understand what was happening, a pair of burning hands grabbed his arms from behind and lifted him off the ground.
"Wha—"
He tried to free himself, but Killian was strong.
"Will you calm down? What's wrong with you?" Killian complained while Peter, arms pinned to the side, struggled in his hold.
"You're the one asking me that? Seriously?"
"I don't have any time to lose to a child playing vigilante," Killian said, putting Petter down. He grappled him, trying to snatch the syringe that was still buried in Peter's fist. "What is it you—"
Peter twisted around and sprayed webs over his shoulder, right in Killian's face. His hands jerked up as he stumbled back with a cry, eyes and nose clogged up. Peter spun on himself and kicked him in the stomach. Killian barely moved.
Right. The man was obviously enhanced by extremis, and Peter didn't need to hold back as much as he usually did.
His spider-sense screamed at him and he dodged a fist from the last goon he hadn't stopped yet. He knocked him out with an uppercut and turned around just in time to witness Killian literally ripping the web of his face with a horrendous scream of pain, a wake of glowing embers blooming in its place.
Alright. Now that was gross. Peter used the distraction to kick Killian in the chest once more, with a lot more force this time. He toppled over and Peter hurried to web him up to the ground multiple times, just to be sure.
Killian tried to get up, to pull on the restraints, and Peter was relieved to see they were holding up.
"What's so special about that shipment you were so excited about?" Peter asked.
"Let me go," Killian barked in answer.
"I asked my question first. Tell me and maybe I'll consider freeing you."
"You think you can just barge in and get involved in things that are none of your business?" he snarled.
"Well, yes? I just did," Peter smiled smugly.
"You let me go, right now," Killian threatened dangerously.
A groggy voice rose behind Peter.
"Where am I? What's going on?"
Peter whirled around.
Pepper was awake. She was looking at them with confusion —looking at him. Peter's heart nearly skipped a beat.
Pepper had seen him. There was no going back now, no pretending he was just a random passerby in the shadows.
"Huh… Hi," Peter said stupidly with a lame wave of his hand.
Her look of confusion quickly morphed into one of horror.
"Oh God, watch out!" she warned Peter.
And if Peter's spider-sense hadn't been screaming louder and louder, if he hadn't felt the heat rising behind him, he might have thought her fear was directed at him.
As it was, Pepper's attention was on Killian. He was raising his body temperature to inhumane heat, so much so that it spread to the metal floor below him, and the webs holding him were starting to melt and catch on fire —a sight Peter hadn't seen in a very long time.
"Ignorant child, did you really think you could hold me? " Killian growled.
"Oh shit," Peter cursed despite himself.
They had to get out of here, and now.
Without any more warning, Peter jumped to Pepper and tore the straps holding her. She jerked back, fear shining in her eyes. Peter grabbed her wrist gently before she could get out of reach.
"We need to leave," he said softly.
He didn't wait for her nod of approval —they didn't have time for it. He dragged her towards the door, giving a wide berth to an enraged Killian.
The fresh air from outside was a relief compared to the suffocating heat they had left behind them. Pepper didn't pause to enjoy it though, heading straight for the stairwell.
"Not this way," Peter informed, holding her back.
He could hear footsteps coming their way on the metal rig. Chances were high that they were reinforcement to Killian's men, alerted by the shots fired earlier; and Peter didn't want to stick around to find out if his theory was true.
"This one," he said, nodding instead towards the railing and the void beyond it.
"Are you kidding me?" she asked, incredulous.
Men turned the corner and —yup, they definitely looked like they could be Killian's goons.
"Alright, time's up," Peter declared, stuffing the syringe into Pepper's hands and swooping her in his arms before she could protest.
"Oh my God, no, no, no, no, no, no, let me down," she fought.
"Hold tight," was Peter's only warning before they jumped the handrail.
Her shouts turned into a full ear-shattering scream as they free fell. Peter did his best for the jolt not to be too brutal as the web he shot went under tension with their weight; which wasn't an easy feat considering he only had one hand free.
"I'm sorry Pepper, I know this is probably not a nice experience for you, but if you keep screaming like that they'll be able to follow us," Peter informed her gently once they were cruising. "It's ok, I'm not gonna drop you."
Pepper didn't have any reason to trust him. But between this unknown strange child and a bunch of terrorists, she seemed to choose the lesser evil and her screams subsided. She scrunched her eyes close and her grip around Peter's neck tightened to the point that she was close to strangling him.
For both of their sake they didn't go very far. Petter landed on top of a pile of containers, close enough to the crane that it was still in sight, but still far enough that the spotlights didn't reach them. Pepper would be safe here.
He set her down lightly and she immediately scurried away from him, shaking.
"What the fuck was that? Who are you?"
Peter's stomach dropped to his heels. He never thought one day Pepper would look at him with fear, like he was about to hurt her, and he hated it.
He raised his hands placatingly.
"Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you. There wasn't any time to explain with Killian going supernova on us. Also they were about to inject you with extremis," he added quickly.
"They what?"
"Don't worry, I intervened before they could get started. You're good. That's what the syringe you're holding is, by the way," he informed her, nodding towards her hand.
"Oh my God," she said, dropping it as if it burned her.
It clattered on the container, unbroken.
"Who are you?" she asked him once again with more confidence, examining him shamelessly.
She was still wary, but her fear seemed to have subsided to be replaced by curiosity now that she realized Peter was on her side.
"I should probably go," he swallowed, pointing a thumb over his shoulder.
"That's it? You come out of nowhere to save me and you disappear just like that?"
"Er… Yeah, sorry. I still have some work to do, but you'll be fine! Tony is coming, he'll help you down."
"Still some work— " she stopped abruptly, aghast. "Aren't you too young for that?"
"Nope," Peter popped the p as he jumped off the container.
He really needed to find that shipment. From what he gathered, it sounded like it was some kind of weapon or body armor; definitely something that would give more of a fight to Tony. And if Peter could help lighten up the load before it could even become a problem, who was he to pass up on that opportunity?
Hearing commotion coming from the docs, he decided to head that way first. And it was a good intuition: over there he found men running around shouting orders, unloading a container from a ship. The crane had barely deposited the container to the ground, its cables still under tension, when Peter landed on it. Killian's men jumped in surprise.
"It's a bit early to open presents, don't you think?" he quipped.
With a string of curses and orders to stop him, the goons instinctively drew their weapons. Gosh, where did Killian find that many trigger happy guys?
"Come on, lighten up a little! This time of the year is all about forgiveness, having a good time, all that!" Peter said sarcastically as he twisted away from a volley of bullets.
"I'm having a good time," the guy who just shot at him answered.
"Yeah," Peter rolled his eyes derisively as he webbed up the man, locking his arms against his body. "I'm not so sure about that."
The man wriggled in place and lost his balance.
"What's in that box anyways?" Peter asked louder, turning around to the remaining men.
"Something the boss has been expecting for a while," another one informed vaguely, taking a shot at him.
Peter dodged easily.
"So it really is Christmas! Too bad you've been naughty this year, all of you! Not in a weird way, though. At least I hope not.…Have you? No, wait— don't answer that question, I don't want to know."
He went after them, taking them down one after the other, monologuing all along. The goons were quickly taken care of; and with the surprise arrival of an army of Tony's armors, his work was made even easier when the men got distracted.
And all the while, the container remained untouched, sitting pristine in the middle of the chaos.
"Alright, let's see what you got here," Peter said, curious, webbing his way back to the box.
He broke the padlock and opened the first half of the door slightly to peak inside, before sending it flying on its hinges. The door banged loudly on the side of the container; but Peter didn't register it, too overwhelmed that he was by what laid right under his eyes.
The container was filled to the brim with weapons; weapons of a very specific design. It was more crude than in his memories, less elaborate, but the core of it was a constant: a mix of human tech and scavenged Chitauri parts.
This work was very obviously signed by the Vulture.
Peter stood there, dumb-smacked, crushed by the realization that, yes, the Vulture had been around for the last two years already, making and selling dangerous weapons while Peter was too busy wallowing alone in his corner.
How come he hadn't considered it a possibility? How come he hadn't even thought of it? Of course the Vulture hadn't popped out of existence just because Spider-Man hadn't made any official apparition yet. He knew he had been around already for years when he took him down at the age of fifteen. Then why…?
Peter needed to stop him. He couldn't let such dangerous weapons roam around freely in the street, unchecked.
But the Vulture was also a cornerstone of his own personal development. There was a before and after Toomes, both in the way he approached his foes and in his relationship with Tony. He made a lot of mistakes back then; what teenager new to vigilantism wouldn't? But they were all important mistakes he learned from, mistakes that helped build the person he was today.
If he were to take down the Vulture now, years before it was due, what would happen to his past-self when he got his own spider-bite? As Spider-Man, he had accomplished so much in the years following the Vulture debacle. Would his past-self be able to help that many people if he didn't learn the same lessons he did, if he didn't have the same support from Tony he had received after proving himself back then?
Peter couldn't decide what he was supposed to do, and it infuriated him.
With a frustrated scream, he sent a fist flying into the one half of the door that was still closed. The metal bent under the force of the impact and the whole container slid back a few feet on the asphalt, screeching in agony.
Peter took a few deep, shuddering breaths.
He didn't have to make a decision now. The fight was still raging behind him, and he had to get rid of those weapons before any more goons came by to see what took their colleagues so long.
Reorienting his worry to something more immediate and tangible, he started thinking and quickly got moving.
At least there was one thing he had control over in this whole mess.
With the weapons properly disposed of, Peter swung back to the main fight, ready to give a hand at the first sign it was needed.
Preferring to evaluate the situation before jumping in blindly, he landed several feet above the ground on the side of one of the last metal posts still standing, and observed the scene below him.
What he saw was so unexpected he needed a double take.
The fight was still going strong, opposing Killian to a Tony stripped of his armor. And helping him was Pepper.
Pepper, who was glowing red with extremis, and clearly dominating the fight.
Peter smiled at the irony. So Pepper apparently ended up injecting herself with extremis, after all. And yet, despite all of his efforts to prevent it from happening, Peter didn't feel down about it. Not even a little. His smile wasn't born of dejection; it was instead filled with genuine pride.
With Pepper being the badass that she was, the fight would be over quickly. Peter chose to leave early, having the feeling his help wouldn't be needed.
He did have important problems to take care of after all: like finding a way to get back to New York.
After the chaos that had been the fight against Killian, the silence following his death was almost eerie.
"Honey?" Tony called tentatively.
Pepper tore the armor from her arm with a hiss. She turned around to Tony, her skin still glowing red hot with extremis in ever shifting patterns.
"Oh my God. That was very violent," she commented shakily.
Tony had never seen her like this. Breathing ragged, eyes wild. It worried him to no end.
He extended a hand towards her.
"No, don't touch me, I'm gonna burn you!" she jerked back.
He wanted to take her in his arms, to hold her close to him, to never let her out of his sight. But she was right.
"You're gonna be alright, Pep'," Tony shushed, getting as close as he could. "I'll find a way to fix you. That's what I do, I fix things."
She nodded, her face scrunching up.
"Are you ok?" she breathed, to distract herself from the pain.
"No. Are you?"
"No. It really hurts."
Tony nodded in acknowledgment.
"That's phase one of absorbing extremis, isn't it? Your body is still trying to decide whether or not to accept it."
The Pepper he knew would talk to him, make snide remarks, but she didn't. She only nodded, eyes closed.
"I don't understand," Tony said, his voice a weird mix of confusion, anger and concern. "This morning Killian bragged he had already injected you with extremis when he held me captive. I thought you would have already— What the fuck happened, Pep'?"
She shook her head and he almost brushed her arm. Almost.
"He wanted to at first. But that woman, Maya, she was really distraught by the terror attack at the airport and she convinced him to just use me as bait," Pepper explained shakily.
"So he didn't give you extremis?" Tony asked incredulously, the dots he thought connected slowly unraveling.
"No. But he was about to before that kid showed up. I don't know what made him change his mind."
She didn't need to know that Killian murdered Maya. Not yet at least.
Besides, something else caught his attention.
"What kid?" Tony asked, perplexed.
"The kid, you know?" Pepper insisted, as if the answer was obvious. "The one who saved me from Killian."
Tony took an unconscious step back to better look at Pepper.
"Wait, wait, wait. Backtrack a little. A kid saved you? What?"
"You don't have anything to do with it?" she asked, incredulous.
"No, why would I?"
"He seemed to know you. I thought…" Her eyes widened. "Oh no. Tony —he wanted to go after Killian's men on his own. I hope he's alright."
Tony really didn't like the sound of this.
"What did he look like?"
She shook her head.
"I don't know, he was wearing a full mask. But he was young, I wouldn't give him more than twelve years old."
"Twelve? And you just let him go fight on his own?" Tony asked, perplexed.
"Of course not! The kid was enhanced, there wasn't much I could do to stop him," she protested, exasperation leaking through the pain.
Tony didn't like the sound of that.
"Did he hurt you?" Tony asked, foreboding.
"Hurt me— no, I told you he saved me! He was very gentle, and very polite and… Tony, we need to find him."
"Alright. Yeah, sure, I'll see what I can do."
He tapped the com in his ear.
"Jarvis? Hey, Jarv', can you hear me?"
"Loud and clear, Sir."
"Is the child still around?"
"None of the armors can detect any younger presence on the port, Sir. But I believe a child was active near the docks when the armors arrived."
Without a word to Pepper, Tony turned towards said docks, walked a few paces to get a better view and— yup, something had definitely happened over there.
The sight left him speechless.
In the distance, a container was suspended some thirteen feet in the air, held securely in place by gooey white strings. Lots and lots of them. The container was lit by spotlights oriented towards it on purpose, making it impossible to miss.
The white strings rang a bell. A very distant bell that dated all the way back to earlier in the year, when a strange kid left him a message just as strange in the middle of the night.
He turned back to Pepper.
"You said he was enhanced, huh? What kind of enhanced was he? Could he stick to walls? Did he have a whole spider-theme going on?"
Pepper started to shuffle towards him and he hurried back to her side.
"No, no, don't move," he advised her softly.
She nodded, her breath coming in short puffs, but she held his look.
"Did you see him? Is he ok?" she asked, concerned, confirming his suspicion towards the identity of the child vigilante.
His presence here was both intriguing and very worrying. Tony would have loved to have a conversation with him, both because he was extremely curious to know his motives, as well as to talk some sense into him. He would definitely keep an eye out for him.
Tony shook his head in answer to Pepper.
"Jarvis told me the kid high-tailed already," he informed her. "I just thought I recognized his handy work."
"You said you didn't know him."
"I wouldn't say I know him, but I think I actually met him once? Very briefly?"
She gave him a pointed look.
"He stuck to the tower's lab's window in the middle of the night some months ago to tell me that S.H.I.E.L.D. was Hydra, or some nonsense like that."
"Why is it the first time I'm hearing of it?" she scolded him.
"Hey— come on! The kid dived off and just —disappeared? The whole encounter was completely surreal! You can't blame me for half-believing I hallucinated the whole thing by morning!"
"If you spent less time working on your armors and more time sleeping, maybe you would have less trouble distinguishing between dream and reality!" Pepper snapped.
"Ouch. That's a low blow. I'll put that on extremis cooking up your brain."
Pepper seemed to realize what she just said.
"Look I'm sorry—"
Tony softened up.
"I know. You don't need to apologize. I haven't been as present as I should have. New-York really fucked me up, I understand that now," he admitted. "I think it's time I shape down a little bit on my 'distractions'."
Forbidden hope shone in her eyes.
"You mean…?"
Tony tapped his ear-com once again.
"Jarvis? You know what to do."
"The clean slate protocol, Sir?"
"Yeah, screw it. It's Christmas."
Every single remaining armor took off towards the sky. Tony watched as awe spread over the face of the woman he loved at the sight of his suits exploding like fireworks, comforting him in his decision.
"There's something I still don't understand," Tony resumed. "You said the kid saved you before you got extremis and yet…" He gestured at her.
"He left me with the syringe."
"So you just—?"
"What was I supposed to do, huh? Stand by and do nothing while I watch you get your ass handed over to you?" she defended herself.
"Fuck, Pepper! You could die from this!"
"And you were definitely going to die!"
Risk of severe burns completely forgotten, Tony suddenly leaned in and gave her a long, passionate kiss, fueled by the overwhelming hurt and fear of the last couple days.
"I love you, you know that?" he asked, winded, when they finally parted.
"I know," she smiled softly.