Grand Tour

After school on Tuesday, a black car waited at the curb of Midtown. The window was rolled down, and when Peter met eyes with the driver, recognition seemed to register in the man's eyes.

"Peter Parker?" he called.

He walked over to the car. "Yeah, that's me."

"I'm Happy Hogan. Stark's driver. Get in back." He gestured to the backseat with a thumb.

This was it. He was going to see him again...It had been four painstaking days of waiting and wondering how his life was about to change, and this was the first domino.

He'd spent the school day Friday realizing it was some kind of lie that he wrote Parker after his first name on the tops of his papers. The weekend he'd sat around and hung out a little with Ned, but he hadn't wanted to tell his friend yet. He was waiting till something made it more official—maybe staying his first night at the tower. Monday, he'd grown antsy. He still hadn't heard from Tony, and he had no way of contacting him. He wondered if there was more the Avengers had had to do after their mission—maybe statements they had to give to the police. Or maybe cleanup, or debriefing, or something else that would explain his four-day absence.

Without thinking about it, he got in the car and pulled out his phone to text May.

Tony's driver picked me up from school. Don't know when I'll be home yet, but I'll let you know

"So you're his kid, huh?" Happy asked, studying him in the rear-view mirror.

He felt like he should defend or justify it somehow, but there was no way to without showing him the DNA report. "Yeah."

The man nodded. "I'm guessing you inherited his genius, since Midtown's a pretty good school."

"I mean, I like science and stuff, so I guess a little."

Happy snorted. "He told me you were freakishly modest."

Peter smiled out the window. He'd talked about him? Did he mention he was clumsy and split his head open on the ground, too?

The rest of the ride was quiet. They pulled into a private parking garage underground, the car being enveloped by the dark, and Peter was let off near an elevator with glowing blue buttons. "Thanks for the ride, Mr. Hogan."

The driver snorted. "No one calls me that. Happy's fine, kid."

"Okay. Bye, Happy." He waved and the man drove off.

His stomach flew a little as the elevator rose up a couple dozen stories to the penthouse. Tony was waiting for him this time when he got up.

"Hey, Pete."

Peter walked in, clutching the straps of his backpack nervously. "Hey, Mr. Stark." Where did these sudden nerves come from?

"Tony's fine, kid."

Oh…okay. That was cool.

"How was school?"

"It was good. I do have to tell you something though."

"Uh oh."

"No, it's fine, it's just...I couldn't keep it a secret from my aunt. She pretty much knew something was up as soon as I walked in the door."

Tony's expression was curious, his lip turning up. He must've realized that meant Peter had gone home happy that day. Peter decided he'd leave out the tidbit about him glowing.

"Eh, that's alright, you've saved me from having to give the hard talk. I should thank you."

Peter wasn't so sure the hard talk was over. "Mm, she was a little mad at you though."

Tony's face pinched. "Yeah, I'd be mad at me too. I should've involved her from the start. I'm sorry about that." He put an arm around Peter's shoulders and led him to the kitchen, waving to the cupboards. "It's free rein, kid. Grab a snack, and then I'll give you the grand tour."

Peter went for the pantry, pulling out a protein bar and then returning to follow the man down the hall.

"Sorry it took so long to bring you back here," Tony apologized. "We had another little mission come up over the weekend."

"It's fine." He waved it off.

"In my defense, I did prep the place for you, so it's Peter-certified." He led him to the second door on the left of the hall. "This is your room."

He pushed open the door and Peter followed him inside, gaping at the size of the space. "Woah." He took in the TV on the wall, the large attached bathroom, and the queen-sized bed. Everything was in neutral shades of white, black, and navy blue.

"I would've decorated it too, but I realized I have no idea what you like."

"It's fine. This is amazing. It's like the size of our apartment," he joked, and Tony looked pleased.

"I'm glad you like it."

They went back out into the hall, and Tony pointed to the door directly across the hall. "My room's there. And then here," he opened the door to the left of that, "is my office on this floor." Peter peered inside, seeing a pretty basic office space and a desk littered with papers.

Back along the hallway, Tony pointed out a couple more guest bedrooms to the right of Peter's room. "Sometimes the Avengers are too tired to make it back to their floor and they'll crash here. You'll get used to seeing their lazy butts where they shouldn't be." They finished in the living room. "This is where I spend most of my time when I'm here. We sometimes have team meetings in here, or throw dinners. Though usually I'll go down to the Avengers floor instead of making everyone come up here. Because I'm generous that way." Peter grinned. "And I think that's it. I'll show you the Avengers floor some other time when we go to meet the team, and of course the MedBay you've already seen."

Peter winced. "Hah—yeah."

"So, any questions?" Tony clapped his hands together.

He blinked and glanced around the room. "Um, I don't think so."

"Alright. If you do, just ask me or Friday. She knows the answers better than me. You've met her, right?"

"Yeah, yeah. She's amazing." Peter finished his protein bar and walked to the kitchen to throw the wrapper away.

"Oh, trash is on the other side of the island—there," Tony pointed.

When Peter came back, he remembered the one thing May had tasked him with.

"Oh, I do have one question, actually."

"Yeah?"

"Can I...I mean, May wants your number. Just to work everything out and be able to contact you, and I told her I'd ask."

Tony stopped right there and held out his hand. "Gimme your phone, I'll put it in."

Peter's chest went warm. He pulled his phone out of his pocket, unlocking it and navigating to the new contact screen. He handed it to him.

Tony typed in a string of numbers, exited out of the app, then handed it back. Before Peter could take it, though, the man pulled it back toward him. "Oh, no. Are you one of those Star Wars nerds?" he said, catching sight of his AT-AT wallpaper.

Peter tried to get the phone back with a little force, his glasses suddenly resting heavier on his face. "Maybe."

"Hey, to each their own. Sam and Bucky are going to love geeking out with you."

"You mean The Falcon? And the Winter Soldier? They like Star Wars?"

Tony shook his head. "Here we go."

—

Later that night, back in Queens, Peter went to his contacts on his phone and started scrolling to find Tony. He needed to send his number to May, and he also wanted to verify that it had actually happened—that it hadn't been some dream.

There it was, under the Ts.

Tony

He clicked on the contact, and there was a New York area number. He tapped on the message button and started typing.

Hey, it's Peter. Now you have my number

Just a few seconds later, he got a reply.

Hey. Is May taking it okay? We still need to have that group chat.

Yeah, she's good, Peter typed. She still thinks you're way too rich to be a good person, but I'm vouching for you.

She sounds like a character.

Oh yeah. But I think you'll like her.

Hey, how does Thursday work? I'll pick you up from school.

That works

Okay. I'll see you then, then

See you

He got ready for bed and then crawled under his covers, body going limp as he got comfy on his side. He fell asleep with his phone by his head.