Before I Knew You

Author's Note: I just adore Tony and Peter so I deep dived into their fanfic and couldn't resist penning a story too. Hope someone out there wants to read this story and enjoys this first chapter.

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Chapter 1: Pet Project

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Entering the lab, Pepper Potts came up short at seeing Tony obsessively working on, not an Iron Man suit, but a lightweight Kevlar suit with a big spider emblem on it. "Awww, someone's a Spiderman fanboy."

"No. No. Not a fan," Tony contradicted a little too fiercely to be believed.

Smirking, Pepper drawled out in pure disbelief, "Rrrrreeeeaaaallllyyyy," as she ran her fingers down the incriminating spider symbol. "Could have fooled me."

"Ok, it's a Spiderman suit," Tony relented before he reiterated his early denial, "but it doesn't mean I'm a fan."

"Actually, it does. You hoping to trade his autograph for this suit that you lovingly made for him?" she teased, taking special enjoyment that Tony was in awe of someone else, which totally wasn't his style.

"Nuh-uh," Tony refuted. "Not lovingly. Generously, even brilliantly made, yes." Conveniently didn't mention that he had been obsessively working on it for two months.

Resting her chin on Tony's shoulder, Pepper studied the suit the love of her life was "generously, brilliantly but in no way lovingly" obsessed with making just right. "Do you know who's under the mask?"

Tony's expression read as an effrontery to his genius that she could even doubt that. "'Course I do."

"So FRIDAY figured it out," she innocently assumed, loved when she could get one over on Tony, which was rare.

He shifted on his feet before he came clean. "Ok, yes but I built her and tasked her with finding out that juicy tidbit so it's a joint discovery."

"Mmm hmmm," Obviously not giving him the full credit or even half credit he deserved. Circling around Tony, she inspected the suit, her fingers tracing the spider emblem. But was too invested in Tony's answer to her next question to not turn to watch his facial giveaways. "Did you already tell SHIELD his real name?"

A flash of sick horror telegraphed its way across Tony's features before he snapped emphatically, "Absolutely not!"

The forceful rebuttal got Pepper's full undivided attention. "So this isn't about strong arming him to sign the Accords?" At Tony's disgusted look, she pointed out, "You've been gung ho on selling them to Steve and the others, it's not a far leap to think you're recruiting for Ross and have Spiderman in your sights."

"I'm highly disturbed by your inference that I'm a salesman for the Accords and troubled deeply at your obviously low opinion of me," Tony retorted, trying to come off mocking instead of hurt. Damn the Accords! He didn't love 'em but they'd keep everyone out of prison and from being sued for lives lost and property damage. He was a numbers guy, knew even his wealth wouldn't be enough to satisfy all the lawsuits that would be generated if the Accords didn't mute the public outcry for justice.

Reading the real emotions under Tony's façade, Pepper put her hands on Tony's chest hoping to soothe the hurt her rash words had stirred up. "Easy, easy, Tony. I just want to know where your heart's at."

Tony kissed her gently on the lips. "With you."

Her lips turned up under his. "Right answer even if it is a deflection." Giving him a measuring look, she hazarded a guess of her own why Tony sounded so adverse to signing Spiderman up for the Accords. "You like him, Spiderman. Who he is in the suit and out of it."

"Never met either," Tony demurred. Tagged on 'Yet' thinking with anticipation of that future meeting.

But Pepper was smirking and shaking her head at his offhanded words. "You don't build things for people as favors or some work ethic. You do it to try and protect people." Her eyes went wide as her own deductions led to other revelations. "You think Spiderman's going to get hurt without this suit! That's why you're making it?!" Floored at the notion of Spiderman being hurt and more so that Tony's motivation was a protective one. Knew Tony was protective of very few people, liked to keep his sphere of people who could get close enough to hurt him to a bare minimum.

Tony stiffened under Pepper's hands, hadn't expected her to read the situation or him so well. It awed him even as it scared him, to be so transparent to her. Felt as if she'd "earned" the truth, not by her deductions but by the horror she felt at thinking Spiderman might get hurt, was vulnerable, needed the suit as protection. But then again, she always was the one with the big heart in their relationship. Which was way he was kind of super uncomfortable with all this, his worry for Spiderman, his notion to safeguard him. "He's already been hurt." Registered her shock and worry, pure hearted woman that she was.

Grabbing his Stark phone, he projected a video in the air before them. It showed Spiderman grabbing a bus that had plummeted off an overpass and settling it onto the highway below without even a broken headlight. He swung away amid the cries of appreciation from the bus riders. Then another video feed from another angle started, showed Spiderman landing on a roof but he didn't stick the landing, instead collapsed to the ground as he passed out.

Her hand having flown to her mouth in distress, Pepper beathed out, "Oh my gosh."

Tony quickly reassured her, "He'll be ok but.." his teeth clenched because ok was a relative word in this instance. "Besides him needing to know his limitations, he needs a better suit, one that's not a freaking hoodie and ski mask. One that can deflect bullets, knives, explosives, can cushion the impact of him holding up a couple tons of bus."

"Does he get hurt often?" Pepper asked even as she didn't want to know the answer, any more than she wanted to see Tony's array of bruises after one of Iron Man's missions. But she was a realist, had to be since Tony wasn't. He saw things needed to be done, yes, but didn't take into account the cost sometimes.

In answer to Pepper's question, Tony's hand did that waver from side to side thing. "When he is hurt, it doesn't usually keep him down for long."

Since she was also a numbers gal, she asked the question he wished she wouldn't. "What happened after he passed out on your video? Did someone help him? Is he doing this all on his own?"

They were the same questions Tony had wanted answers to, even if he didn't like his findings. "He got up not long after this but it was three days until he made another appearance."

Having heard torment in Tony's voice, she gently said, "I'm surprised that you didn't check up on him after seeing him collapse."

"Couldn't," Tony bit out angrily, all directed at himself. "I didn't know his identity at that point."

She knew Tony's heart had ached to go find this superhero and help him. "That's when you started making the suit for him…during those days when you weren't sure how hurt he was, couldn't help him."

"Aren't you miss smarty pants?" Tony jeered even as he was proud of her.

"I know you, Tony," she returned smugly, tapping his Arc Reactor. "That there's more to your heart than this."

"That's our little secret."

"So when are you giving him the suit?"

Uncertainly marred Tony's usually confident façade and he skirted around her to tinker with the suit. "When it's done," he ambiguously answered.

It raised Pepper's suspicious meter. She directed her next words to the ceiling. "FRIDAY, how long has the suit been completed?"

FRIDAY (that traitor) helpfully supplied, "Six days, four hours and three and half minutes."

"Hey! Your loyalty is supposed to be wholly to me," Tony protested.

FRIDAY apologized a moment later. "Sorry boss, just giving out the facts."

Pepper showcased a soft smile. "Awww. You're nervous to meet him. They say never meet your heroes because they'll disappoint you."

"He's not my hero. More like..my pet project," Tony clarified.

"Uh huh," Pepper was unconvinced, but she kissed him all the same. "You suck at lying to me….and to yourself."

SDMIRMSDMIRM

Peter was walking around on a broken leg, again. Though it wasn't as bad as the time he had broken his right leg, some ribs and his left ankle because he didn't bend the right way to brace himself to catch eight tons of falling bus. This superhero thing had a steep learning curve. Same with all the wacky things going on with his body.

That first night after he got bit by the spider, he honest to God thought he was dying. Lay in his bed, in agonizing pain, his very bones hurting and his skin feeling like it was on fire, would alight his mattress. And his hearing, it was all ear shattering screeches. He had curled in his bed, holding his arms over his ears, sobbed silently, unwilling to wake Ben or May. It was enough they had taken him in, raised him as best they could, he didn't need to put them through watching him die. Or waste more of their money taking him to the hospital for treatments he knew in his gut wouldn't do him any good. Better to die there in his room instead of racking up useless medical bills.

Yeah, he'd been that sure he was a goner. Had even wanted to die to just stop the rampant agony. But worse somehow than the physical pain, was how alone he felt. Like no one in the world would understand how he felt, that his very body was trying to metamorphosis into something. Ben already looked at him like he was a freak when he talked science on a normal scale.

Peter now felt ashamed that he had thought Ben wouldn't try to bridge the gap between them like he had always managed to do before. Wished that he had gone to him, to May, that night after the spider bite. They might have guided him how to better handle his new powers. Instead, he had made up his own rules of when and when not to use them. They might have warned him that there would be consequences for either choice. Instead, he had learned that truth with merciless brutality.

'If only I had given Ben a chance that last night for us to find middle ground.' Instead, he had said something he never should have and stormed out, ignored his uncle's call for him as he searched the neighborhood. Hid away like a spoiled bratty child.

The next time he saw Ben, he was bleeding out on the sidewalk. 'My fault,' Echoed in Peter's head, made his stomach tighten and his breath catch as the memories came, the guilt washed over him, nearly drowning him. And to tell May that…he couldn't. If she learned he was Spiderman, she would know he could have saved him. Should have. 'I'll lose her if she ever finds out.' Not like he'd lost his parents and Ben but in a way that might destroy him, of her revoking her love for him.

Someone hit a soccer ball off his head and he realized he'd zoned out, in Gym class. Of course that didn't go unnoticed by the bully of the day, Mark Hessey. Flash was his designated scholarly bully while Mark covered the shortfall in anything athletic.

"Space case, get in the game," Mark sneered, easily catching the ball that ricocheted off Peter's head.

Wishing he could unleash his Spiderman skills on Mark and put him in his place, Peter had to be satisfied with Mark being so disgusted with him that he walked across the Gym floor and took Peter's shot at the basketball net. Course he expertly sank it in, all net.

Thinking he could hang out on the sidelines, (though he wanted to crawl to the blenchers and got off his broken leg), he nearly jumped when the coach blew his whistle, inciting an instant migraine for Peter. "Parker! Since you think you're too good to play, go out and run the mile."

"The mile, sir?!" Peter's voice squeaked at his disbelief.

"Yeah, a mile. And run it, no walking," the coach stipulated, and Peter's heart sank. That was sure to do his leg wonders.

He just barely managed to run one loop around the track without his leg giving out under him. But he was in such pain his eyes were welling, and his stomach threatened to give up his breakfast. Part of him wanted to beg the coach to excuse him, confess his leg was injured, or say he was feeling sick. But an internal voice chided him viciously, 'Yeah go ahead, kick your feet up, take a break like you don't deserve this pain. Ben was in more pain in his last moments than you'll ever know and you're crying about a little shooting pain of your leg?! Pathetic.'

So instead of detouring to beg the coach for a pass on his punishment, Peter pushed himself to run faster. Told himself that he should be in agony. In his own self-punishment head space, he surpassed the mile marker without knowing it, startled when the coach whistled for him to come in off the field. He stumbled to a halt, his left leg feeling like rubber and his broken leg engulfed in a blazing fiery pain that shot up his entire right side. But he got moving, headed for the door that led inside, would have ran another mile if the coach hadn't stopped him.

He wasn't supposed to have an easy life, not after he'd let Ben die.

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TBC

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Please let me know if you would like more of this story. It's been my pet project for a few months now and I just had to share some of it to see if there is any interest.

Have a great day!

Cheryl W.

PS: I'm still going to finish my Stargate Atlantis story, just needed a tiny distraction to get my muse rejuvenated.