Archive of Our Own

Tony always loved a good mystery and Peter Parker never failed to deliver.

In fact, Peter Parker was turning out to be one of the most intriguing enigmas he had ever encountered. Which was saying, like, a lot. Tony was a genius, after all.

From the first day he took the young teenager under his wing as an intern, Tony had half-knowingly, half-unknowingly signed up to spend a whole lot more time with the incredibly manly Spider-Man, both working on upgrading the whooping 15 year old’s high tech spandex suit (bye-bye dumpster fished pajamas, thank god) and, at some point, indulging in some good quality time sciencing. The internship had been Pepper’s idea, sure, as a way for the kid to fill in the gaps in his high-school presences sheet. However, after just a few brief meetings in his lab, Tony had realised that the kid was truly hiding the fattest IQ Tony’d seen in many years, under all that thick-headedness of course.

Of course, he’d known Peter was smart. No one built web-shooters with spares and scrapes from dumpsters and high-school computer parts just like that, not to mention the chemical composition of the webs themselves. Tony may or may not have hacked Midtown’s security cameras before recruiting the then 14 year old to the whole Germany fiasco- the kid was mixing reagents and stirring them in a pot inside a drawer by his feet while taking notes and pretending to be mildly interested in what his Chemistry teacher babbled on and on about. Tony’d actually been… He’d been… impressed.

It’s not an easy feat- impressing Tony Stark. He’d had to give it to the kid. Tony was kind of a jerk when it came to giving others the time of his day.

Anyway, Pepper Pots had arrived at his desk some day. Signing papers was never Tony’s thing, so he’d been in a bad mood already, having spent good part of the afternoon doing just that. She knew it, of course. That’s why her words didn’t come out as the ghost of a question. No, they left no room for argument. It wasn’t an invitation. It was a fact.

“You’re giving that Peter kid an official internship here at Stark Enterprises,” was her declaration.

Tony had frowned, then scowled, then looked up at her.

Sure, the kid was cute, with his overly exaggerated manners and general lack of snot and foul odors. Sure, he’d like the chance to dissect and study that little yet undeveloped brain, squeeze it like a big knowledge-sponge - in a crazy scientist metaphor, of course, nothing more.

Sure, the kid was a hugger, and a kid.

Sure, absolutely not happening. No. Kids. No. Não. Nien.

“No.”

“Yes.”

“His aunt already knows ‘bout the whole alter-ego deal. Trust me, her voicemail was crystal clear on that. Kid doesn’t need any more excuses to skip third-grade.”

Pepper merely blinked tiredly at him.

“I know you didn’t have the most normal high-school experience, Tony, so I’m going to explain this very slowly. His aunt knows. The principal does not. He skips, he’s marked absent. Too many absences, no world-renowned name to get in the university he very clearly deserves.” Tony opens his mouth at that, but she shushes him right away, “he wasn’t going to stop before you gave him the suit, he’s surely not stopping after it. Difference is, you’re involved now. Congratulations. It’s a boy. Now sign these.”

It had gone something like that.

Their first meeting was kind of awkward. Tony still reeling from Cap and Germany. The kid making a very honorable yet clear effort at not drooling over every single high tech device in Tony’s lab/garage- and on Tony himself as well, let’s be honest.

With time, though, that went away and Tony found himself growing fonder and fonder of the boy. He’d never expected to make friends with a 10 year old at such an older age (or any age really, even when he had been 10 himself), but Peter Parker was simply a box of surprises. A pleasant one even. And once they’d gotten the ice out of the way, it was clear they were made from the same metal. Both geniuses. Both with the bad habit of thinking too much (came with the rest of the package, Tony guessed). Both with a guilt complex the size of Manhattan.

That was where Tony drew the line, though. Because Peter Parker was also good. Pure good. Tony wanted in no way to pollute that soft, tender heart with his demons. So there was a line, a line of closeness and familiarity he couldn’t let either of them cross.

And it was precisely that line, the line he’d drawn between them, the line that would be so faint to the naked eye in the future- but still there- that prevented him from delving to the bottom of the particular mystery the boy posed on a daily basis.

(A line that he would eventually come to regret.)

See… There was a perpetual enigmatic aura that surrounded the boy. There was something about Peter, an air of secrecy and hidden depths, that piqued Tony's curiosity like nothing else.

He’d started noting them down.

The incidents.

As the days turned into weeks and then months, Tony found himself becoming more and more intrigued by Peter's behavior. The boy was frequently late to their scheduled sessions. (Who in their right mind would leave Tony Stark waiting? A baby-faced teenager from Queens, it turns out.) Sometimes, when Tony’s curiosity was peeked (and he was definitely NOT worrying), he’d check on the suit. It wasn’t the times Peter was in it, swinging about the city, that confused him.

It was when he wasn’t.

When he wasn’t… yet still arrived late- if he arrived at all- with the oddest injuries that earned sky-high eyebrows from Tony’s part. Still, whenever he questioned Peter about them, the answers were always vague and evasive.

"Late again, huh?" Tony remarks one afternoon as Peter rushes into the lab, a sheepish grin on his face.

"Yeah, sorry, Mr. Stark. Traffic was crazy. Bus got held back, then I lost the subway and had to wait for the next one," Peter replies, his eyes darting away.

“Y’know I could have Happy drive you, kiddo. Right?” Tony starts again, fully aware of the answer he’ll get.

Peter’s eyes turn to twin full moons as he frantically takes to waving in a placating manner in front of him. His head is shaking so fast Tony would worry about him getting whiplash if he hadn’t already seen the kid catch a bus with his bare hands.

“Oh, no no no. Mr. Stark. Don’t do that, no need, really, please no-” then, the kid coughs, “not that I don’t like Happy! I do! He’s very… er, happy…?” Peter sighs, “I do completely fine with the subway and the bus, Mr. Stark. Been doing it my whole life, y’know, New York’s my-“

“Yeah, yeah kid. New York’s your jungle. Been there, done that. Now you want to get your hands on some hydrogen batteries or should we keep to discussing my chief of security? I think he’d be very happy to know how highly you think-“

Peter nearly jumps in his place, face burning with a grateful yet clearly embarrassed smile. God, it was so easy to rile him up. Tony’s so not going to heaven when he inevitably kicks the bucket playing genius billionaire Iron-Man phillantropist.

“Sure, hm… I’ll just…” the kid motions towards his usual bag drop off spot of choice.

Tony nods, his hands fidgeting with the micro-chip he’d been tearing apart as he waited. He watches as the kid goes around him, dropping his school bag on a lab bench near their working area. As he does, Tony’s keen eyes easily catch sight of the tear in the teenager’s sleeve, the fabric bunching up nearly to his elbow for a brief moment, revealing the iconic web-shooters and pale skin- magically marred with a grip like pattern of bruises.

Tony double checks. He does. Then he glances at his computer, eyeing the pop-up that always, well, pops up whenever Peter Parker submerges in spandex and Spider-man comes out to swing around. The kid hadn’t gone out with the suit yet that day. Tony checks again.

And double checks.

"What's with the bruises, kid?" He gestures towards the faint marks on Peter's arm.

Peter's eyes widen slightly, and he quickly pulls down at his sleeves.

"Oh, these? I, uh, had a… little accident while trying out a… new exercise routine. You know, for extra stamina. Yeah…"

Tony squints at him skeptically, an exercise routine that involves getting grabbed by the arms, huh? Interesting choice."

Peter chuckles nervously, his cheeks flushing, “yeah, well, you know, I'm still figuring things out..."

Tony would like to say he believes him. He’d like to say he’s foolish enough to believe an ounce of such bullshit. He’d really like that. It’s hard to, tough, when there’s not much of a lie to believe in. See, a lie includes a minimum level of effort to guise it as truth. This right here? This was Peter Parker at his best. This was the kid that somehow had managed to not out himself to the world the moment he slipped on some red and blue hoodie, added a pair of swimming googles to the outfit and decided to fight crime. This is a not even half assed bunch of words spewed without a single thought involved in the process of their making.

What Tony does- to calm his own already mentioned bigger-than-his-fortune guilt complex- is think: teenage clumsiness, surely just teenage clumsiness. He decides not to press further. He knew the kid had his own secrets, just like everyone else on the team. (Oh, wait. What team?) Just like Tony.

“Sure, Underoos. Now, get over here and figure this out instead, sound cool? What am I doing wrong? Careful, it’s a test. Actually it’s not… but it could be-”

‘There’s a line.’ Tony reminds himself. ‘There will always be a line.’

…

It was a bright weekend morning at Stark Tower, the sun's rays filtering through the windows of the lab. Tony was engrossed in his work when Peter rushed in, his usual late arrival accompanied by a sheepish grin and the very very annoying sound of sneakers screeching across polished tile.

"Hey, Mr. Stark! Sorry I'm late," Peter says, a hint of breathlessness in his voice, "again… Traffic was insane."

Tony looks up, studying Peter's disheveled appearance. "Traffic again,huh?” He takes a peek at the suit’s pop-up in his smart-watch- the kid had been in it for his usual 9 am patrol until not even 5 minutes ago. Maybe he should start worrying about when Peter was in the suit too, “in the air? Because I'm pretty sure your web-swinging skills would've helped with that."

Peter chuckles nervously, rubbing the back of his neck, "yeah, about that... I kind of got caught up in something on the way here."

Tony arches an eyebrow, “caught up in something? You do realize we have an internship to get through, right? I have to deliver a report on the projects you’ve developed by the end of the year, or bye bye justification for your impressive collection of absences."

Peter's expression turns earnest, “of course, Mr. Stark! I'll make up for it, I promise."

Tony returns to his work, knowing he doesn’t have it in himself to drill into the kid. He doesn’t even have the right to. The rate at which he got stuff done with Peter around was crazy, so crazy Tony sometimes even forgot his daily 5th coffee when they worked the whole day. Whatever Peter was hiding- that the anxious, surprisingly adult side of Tony couldn’t help but insist wasn’t good- that prompted the time he missed from their scheduled sessions, the kid made up for it with effectiveness and yield. Oh, to be young and unburned out. Though he did juggle the whole Spider-Man deal, something 15 year old Tony could never: yet another bonus point for the kid’s case.

“Fine. I’m not even asking. Just get your spider-butt over here, Underoos. We’re writing code today.”

The size of the dramatic sigh that followed was criminal. Tony found himself unable to stop the satisfied smirk growing on his lips.

…

Over the next few weeks, Tony's curiosity only grew.

Peter's excuses for his lateness became increasingly creative, ranging from helping lost tourists to rescuing cats from trees to returning a “rageful, huge chicken to its rightful place” or whatever that truly meant. The peculiar injuries that seemed to magically appear on Peter's body only added to the case. It got to the point where Tony spent an entire lab session watching the black eye and the red of the abused cheekbone on the kid’s face quickly fade away.

He was threading dangerously over his very own, very self defined security line.

“Shit, kid, how’d you get banged up like this?”

Tony didn’t like the way his heart jumped up, clogged his throat and then shakily fell back down to its place on his chest, leaving a trail of itchiness and something behind. But the sight of his super-intern limping on towards his usual lab bench did things to a nearly half a century old heart, you know?

The kid’s face was closed off, ashen, skin caked in dirt and he honestly must’ve banged his head on the way to the tower because his eyes were glassy and looking lost- and there was no way Peter would ever cross those lab doors without at least trying to put up a front of okayness for Tony.

The genius jumps from his place, chair scraping loudly against the floor in his haste to go around his working surface and place a gentle, supporting hand on the kid’s chest and another on his back. The way the teenager limped on, hunched like an old man, swaying every other step, doesn’t exactly do wonders for Tony’s health. Neither does the jolt that crosses the boy’s body from head to toe, the flinch of pain when Tony’s hands press against his ribs. The feeling of sand beneath the boy’s clothes and skin, the echo of what feel like rocks rubbing against each other and crumbling to dust under his hands- Peter’s bones wrongly scraping against one another-, the yelp of pain, it squeezes and turns Tony’s stomach upside down into a queasy, useless organ.

The kid insists on being okay. Insists he’d flown down the flight of moving stairs at the subway- the escalator, as Tony has to remind him of the simple word- as they suddenly jolted to a stop with him at the top, in perfect Parker luck fashion.

"Fell down the escalator, huh? With your super-reflexes and agility? That's a new one, Peter." It really wasn’t, Peter could be the clumsiest soul to walk the Earth at times, which definitely sounded incredulous to someone who knew of his… enhancements, but it was the truth. Tony could see it happening. Sometimes it felt like Peter Parker and Spider-Man were two different, separate people. Except, they really weren’t, and falling down the “moving stairs” wouldn’t leave such a dent on someone who could fall from a building and get thrown through walls and had crashed a whole plane on the beach only months prior.

Curiosity was a monster, nagging, unrelenting. Worry was worse. And they liked to come as a pair, it seemed. Enough was enough, this couldn’t go on. Still, Tony could see the want, the disappointment, the anger at the world for taking one of the few times the kid got to actually use his brain for something he enjoyed and truly challenged him. So he doesn’t push and instead promises him an extra session that weekend- the whole of Saturday again, no interruptions, just the two of them, DUM-E and a bunch of devilishly hard problems for the ordinary person.

‘There’s a line…’

The kid smiles so brightly then, glassy eyes taking back their rightful spark for a lucid moment- and he hugs Tony so quickly the man has no time to process nor decline.

Tony coughs, “okay, your ribs don’t seem to be jotting out of place, so to bed- actually, more like couch- you go, mister.” He slowly guides the boy to the leather couch on the corner of the room, where Tony usually crashes after pulling an all-nighter and running out of room for coffee in his body. It’s not the most comfortable thing, originally only meant as a surface where he could lie down and think up at the ceiling if his body was particularly tired to stand or sit at a table, a bit stiff too so he wouldn’t be tempted fall asleep. Obviously, that never worked, he always falls asleep. By now, it’s already a bit rundown from use, but still not comfortable enough for a 15 year old with probably as many broken ribs as the fingers in a human hand. It would have to do, though, because it’s all there is- Tony told himself to remind FRIDAY of ordering a better one soon- and the kid looks five seconds from keeling over and smashing his face on the floor.

“Nooo, m’ alrigh’ mr. Star…”

“Guess you could say I’m one, yes. Anyway, let’s save it for when you can actually pronounce my name, okay, kid?” He helps the teen sit down and gingerly topple sideways. There’s a blanket thrown at what would be the feet of Peter’s such fine ‘bed’ and Tony takes that, unfolding it over the mumbling form, “actually, we’re going to have a very interesting conversation after you take a nice little nap, including what the hell actually happened.”

Peter mutters something, probably in disagreement, before letting out a sigh and settling his head further into the stiff arm of the couch. Tony steps back, frowning at the sleeping boy. His hand, settled atop the blanket is scraped, skin tore open and raw, bits still standing up from where they were torn from their original place. Tony sighs, rubbing the bridge of his nose and shutting his eyes closed, the picture of a headache fast approaching in the distance of his mind’s eye.

He turns to the nearest med kit, always replenished after many lessons learned on what happens when working in a space full of dangerous stuff without one, pulls out some cotton and the disinfectant and lightly dabs at the scrapes, fully aware they’d probably heal themselves in a matter of minutes either way.

‘There’s a very fine, uncrossable line.’

“FRIDAY, do me the pleasure of calling this walking disaster’s hot aunt, will you dear?”

“Calling now, Boss.”

“Good. It’s about time we catch up with each other.” Because something isn’t right and May Parker would be an indefinite number of times more serious about it than Peter and his frankly embarrassing excuses of escuses.

…

She’s not.

She’s almost worse, in fact.

As FRIDAY dials May's number, Tony waits anxiously as the call rings. He’s Tony Stark, genius billionaire former-playboy current-superhero philanthropist, he is engaged to the one and only Pepper Potts, who many could argue was one of the scariest women alive- god, and what a powerhouse she is… focus!- but when it comes to addressing May Parker concerning her precious nephew it took all of Tony’s strength to maintain his composure and not break under the fiery woman’s scolding gaze or strict words. Especially when said nephew is unable to come to the phone due to his health- or lack, thereof. Tony glances at the knocked out teenager sleeping on his couch. Yep, he’s in for a good one. Damn those Italian genes.

When she finally picks up, Tony clears his throat, feeling very vulnerable even with no one around to watch him squirm in his seat, “heyyyy, how’s my favorite aunt doing?”

She wastes no time in getting to the point, “where’s Peter? What happened?”

“I find your lack of faith in me disturbing, May, honestly. Who do you take me for?”

“Someone who took my 14 year old boy to Germany to fight his super-powerful friends and returned him with a black eye and stitch in the side?”

Tony shuts his mouth closed, lips glued tightly.

“Yeah, good point,” he admits, “but this is none of my fault, I have to say! He came to me like this!”

“I swear to god, Tony Stark, if you keep speaking in riddles and don’t tell me what’s wrong with my nephew right this second-“, ah, yes, there it is, the Italian rapid fire, the scolding machine gun of merciless words, Tony’s mother had been the same, “I want to talk to Peter. Let me talk to him.”

The man swivels his head towards the banged up form on the couch, “uh, Peter can’t come to the phone right now.”

“Why not?”

‘At least he’s not dead or something, could be worse…’, Tony thinks, right as he says, “I’m pretty sure he has a concussion?”

Theres silence on the other end of the line. Then it erupts into a storm of mixed words, some of which not even Tony can keep up with and understand.

“I swear, he came here like this!” Tony cuts her off, “he didn’t even put on the suit yet today, so this is definitely some jeans-Peter trouble, not spandex-made-by-Tony-Stark-Peter’s. He said he's fine, before passing out on my couch, so obviously he’s not. There’s a couple broken ribs and some weird cuts snd bruises. I just thought you should know."

May's voice goes down an octave- or, you know, several- and he hears her taking a deep breath, “this kid…” he hears her mutter quietly.  She sighs, “alright then… Thank you for letting me know, Tony.”

Tony blinks, “you’re, uh, not going to describe how you’ll drill him for answers once he’s awake? Because let me tell you, May, there’s been some weird shit going on with your kid lately.”

“Of course I will talk to him about it,” she says, like it’s the most obvious thing, “but Peter’s not one to pick ip fights at school or anything, he’s just a big klutz sometimes. Must really have been an accident.”

“He’s not picking fights at school because he’s picking them when he’s out of it…” Tony mumbles, “May, he’s… you know what- who, he is. And you truly expect me to believe he just fell from the top of the escalator at the subway and looks worse than after the fight with the guy with giant wings?!”

Tony hesitates for a moment before diving into the strange incidents he had noticed concerning Peter, “I’m telling you, he’s hiding something. He's been showing up late to the internship, disappearing during the day, and now there are these weird injuries that I can't explain. Nor him, it seems- kid’s a really bad liar.”

May doesn’t sound concerned at all. In fact, she seems almost amused, “oh, Tony, that's just Peter being Peter. He's always had a knack for getting into trouble, but he's also quite good at getting out of it."

Tony raises an eyebrow, perplexed, “you're not worried?"

May laughs lightly. "Oh, I am, believe me. But I also know my nephew. He's resourceful and capable, and he's got a good head on his shoulders. I'm sure he can handle himself. Besides, you know kids," May replies casually. Tony wants to say that he really doesn’t, "always  getting into trouble and coming up with wild stories. It's probably just a phase."

Tony honest to god can’t believe what he’s hearing. May was supposed to be super protective of Peter, but here she was, brushing off all these strange incidents like they were nothing. It was almost like she was in on it with the kid.

"But May, these excuses are ridiculous," Tony insists, “I can't make any sense of it!”

“No parent can,” May chuckles lightly, Tony ignores what she just implied, “Tony, you're overthinking it. Peter's just a teenager, it’s a wild time in their life. I'm sure it's nothing to worry about."

Tony sighs, feeling frustrated and a little betrayed. He had hoped that May would take him seriously and help him get to the bottom of all this. But it seems like she’s just as nonchalant as Peter when it comes to these odd occurrences. He can’t believe what he is hearing. Why isn’t she just as concerned as he is? Why does she seemed unfazed by Peter's antics? “You're not going to do anything about it, are you?"

May's voice softens, "I’ve told you, I’ll talk to him, of course. But Peter is at that age where he's trying to figure things out on his own. I try to give him the space he needs. He's a good kid, Tony, and I trust him to make the right decisions. You should too."

“I think I’ve said this before, but he’s currently all banged up and unconscious in my lab. What exactly are these good decisions he’s taking…?” Tony waves his hands wildly in the air, not believing for a second he’s speaking with the same woman he had to endure a 1h37 minute call plus a 10 minute voice-mail from after she found out her nephew was Spider-Man and that Tony knew and hid it from her. Hell, it doesn’t sound like the same woman from the beginning of the call either!

There is shuffling on the other side of the call, voices and an alarm going off. May swears under her breath, shouting something back at whoever has addressed her. Then, her voice sounds closer and clear again, “listen, Tony. Could you please watch over him until I get out of my shift? I’ll get there as soon as possible, it’s just… now’s really the worst time.”

Tony sighs, knowing that, while your kids always come first, it’s often hard for hardworking people like May to juggle both responsibilities, “sure. I’ll keep the wildcard in check. Will have someone from my medical team take a look at him, just in case. I’ll have Happy pick you up at 9pm.”

“Okay. Thank you again,” before hanging up, May chuckles, “and Tony, welcome to Peter's world. It's never a dull moment with him around."

Tony passes a hand through his hair, eyes finding the kid’s sleeping form again, making sure he’s okay (or as okay as he can be), “how haven’t you gone completely gray, yet?”

“Magic,” she humors him, “and ink,” then the call goes dead, and Tony is left reeling from the conversation he’s just had.

Tony grumbles to himself as FRIDAY announces the end of the call, still not satisfied in any way with May's response. But he knows he can’t force her to see things his way. All he can do is keep an eye on Peter himself and hope that whatever is going on with the kid won’t get him into far more trouble than he can handle.

There is a mix of frustration and confusion brewing inside him from having had expected May to be on his side, to help him protect Peter from whatever was going on- not listening to her brushing it all off like it is nothing. Just another mystery to add to the list of things that perplexed him about the enigmatic teenager. And, apparently, his unexpectedly enigmatic aunt.

Tony always loved a good mystery, but this one was starting to test his patience.

…

There were also times when the kid would disappear without a trace, only to return later with a casual: "Hey, Mr. Stark, sorry I disappeared for a bit. Had to run some errands."

Tony raises an eyebrow, a hint of amusement in his voice, "errands?… In the bathroom?… You do know I have surveillance cameras all over this place, right?"

Peter's eyes widen and he quickly backtracks, “oh, right, of course. I meant, uh, personal errands.”

Tony levels him a look. His eyebrow is arched. Peter coughs.

“Kid, I have you on tape, jumping out of the 61st floor bathroom window. What personal errand could possibly have someone throwing themselves from the 61st floor…?”

“Well, what do you know…? I do it all the time…”, his voice is tiny and squeeky and so under his breath Tony only catches half of it. The half he’d be much better off not having heard.

“What did you say?”

Peter fiddles with his hands, clasping them together as his feet redistribute his weight, eyes wandering around as they try to evade Tony’s. He swallows a bit as he speaks, spewing the words like they’re the most ridiculous thing he could be forced to say. Which they are.

“Like, you know… picking up… uh, groceries."

Tony doesn’t bother hiding his grin, “groceries? Dressed as a quarter Spider-Man?”

Yeah, because the kid hadn’t even bothered to take the suit with him, only wearing the mask he took with him on his pocket- by accident too, Tony thinks.

“For May?”

“Is that a question? Do you want me to answer it?”, Tony messes with him.

The kid, if anything, goes redder, “oh, come on Mr. Stark! Leave me be! You… you don’t know what she’s like when she tells you to do something. Like… like take the chicken out of the freezer before she gets home and then you hear the keys on the other side of the door!”

Tony raises his hands up, in surrender, “chill, Underoos. I’ve seen your Aunt angry, trust me. Courtesy of thy, actually.” The kid has the decency to look sheepish at that. “I was just wondering. It’s not every intern who jumps out like 60 floors in their haste to get out of here, though many have probably considered it. Hell, I have- especially when Pepper shows up at my door with these big piles of paper. You should see them. Not like we’re a tech company or anything, right?” He shrugs and Peter lets out a chuckle at that.

‘There’s a line.’

Tony feels a bit giddy himself.

‘There has to be a line. Stop trying to cross it, kid.’

He ruffles the kid’s hair, deciding to put an end to his suffering, “well, whatever it is that had you leave so suddenly, as long as you're not secretly a superhero or something, I guess I’ll let you off the hook.” He winks.

Peter's burst of genuine laughter isn’t enough to quell Tony's suspicions, but it still tries quite valiantly. He chuckles too but ultimately can’t help but stare at the boy. Isn’t Spider-Man enough for him? What the hell is this kid getting himself into now?

…

It happens again that same week, once the next and twice during the whole of Saturday the one after that. All those times, Tony pretends not to notice.

The boy is supposed to be assisting him with a new prototype for the Iron-Man armor. But when Tony checks Peter's desk, it’s empty. No Peter, only a disregarded backpack looking sad on the floor. For an instance, Tony feels a bit like the backpack. Then he reminds himself of who he is, and why he would ever feel such thing for a kid who’s just clearly hyperactive (nothing more… right?) and shakes his head.

"FRIDAY, where's Peter?" Tony asks the AI with yet another sigh.

"Mr. Parker is currently not on the premises, sir," FRIDAY replies.

Tony's eyes narrow, “not on the premises? Where the hell can he be?"

“I did not have instructions to follow him outside of the property, Boss, so I can’t immediately tell. It’ll take a few seconds.”

“That’s alright, FRI. Follow him next time, though.” Which at this rate might as well be still today, after the kid returns- if, he returns.

Speaking of the devil… A few minutes later, Peter shows up, looking slightly out of breath. His clothes are rumpled, and for some reason he’s slightly wet, “heyyy, Mr. Stark, sorry I disappeared for a bit, haha. I had to, uh, run some errands. Again."

Tony looks down at the pair of leeks in the boy’s hands. He sighs, rubbing his wrinkling forehead.

“Angry Aunt groceries?”

Peter has, once more, the decency of looking sheepishly at the vegetables, stuffing them half in, half out of his backpack and stammering out a guilty “yeah…?”.

And so, just like that, they go back to work- this time with Tony making a valiant effort at not getting too carried away and maintaining a decent, constant, watchful eye on the boy, glancing at him every half minute that passes. You know, like parents do with little kids that for some reason seem to love throwing themselves onto the middle of the road and right in front of the fastest speeding vehicle around.

He only uses half his brain that day. The other half is too busy wondering how such a bright young man can not realize that Tony can and probably is tracking his every move with or without the suit at this point. How he lies- terribly- but at the same time doesn’t seem that worried about Tony finding out what he’s up to- like he believes Tony will never be able to- only sounding guilty for the lying itself. He also spends it trying to figure out how, exactly, the kid had produced two perfectly ripe leeks from the empty, dead end alley in the tower’s vicinity, where FRIDAY silently informs him, through his Stark pad, is apparently the place Peter so elusively went to while he was gone. That, plus trying to fit all the very few, very confusing pieces of the puzzle he’s managed to gather so far with each other. They don’t make sense. Errands… injuries… an alley… A shocking thought pops up in his brain very suddenly.

Could the kid be doing… drugs?

Tony quickly looks up at the boy in front of him. He’s got a pencil tucked into his hair, right behind the left ear. He’s also looking for said pencil, it seems, digging under his lab book and checking the floor and digging into his backpack, the offending two vegetables rolling out onto the tiles in plain sight. He scratches his head, hand coming close to the pencil over his ear but still missing it and so the search continues anew.

Tony’s heart slows back down. Nah, that’s not it. He even feels silly at the thought.

  Although… does that mean there could be a magical leek stand in the alley? Now that has better odds. Much more believable, yes.

…

That’s actually another usual, odd, Peter Parker incident. The showing up and/or strolling around the lab holding seemingly random objects.

There’s one day where Tony watches, half incredulous, half resigned, the boy walk in with a pair of ornate-looking mirrors. He jokingly tells Peter how great it is that he came prepared for their scheduled make-over session, but that he didn’t have to go all out on the victorian era deal. The kid, in perfect Peter style, stops dead in his tracks, frowning up at his mentor like he’s speaking gibberish, like he has no idea what the man is talking about or like he doesn’t remember that he’s holding such objects in his very own two hands. Then, he looks down with a start and recognition seems to rocket across his eyes.

He claims he found them at a flea market. Tony doesn’t really want to know what that is.

“Didn’t take you for an 80 year old grandma. Most boys prefer hot wheels, but that’s valid too, of course,” Tony eyes the things with a certain degree of aversion. He’s not one of those rich men who like to waste their money on antiques. Who knows where those things have been? No, modern is better. Technology is better.

The kid’s smile turns devilish at that and he stalks forward with the overly complicated items in hands. Tony takes a step back. Is that rotten wood he sees? Mold? It better not, that thing’s contagious.

Peter grins, holding them up for Tony to see. For some reason, he seems to find it all especially funny, "aren’t they cool? I thought they could be a nice decoration for the tower."

Tony blinks, then promptly shakes his head, "kid, we have interior designers for that sort of thing."

Peter shrugs, “well, yeah, but these have character."

Tony couldn't argue with that. He guesses Peter always has a way of seeing the extraordinary in the ordinary, a quality that both fascinates and perplexed him. Still doesn’t excuse the mold. Or the flaking paint. They’re probably cursed too.

"You're something else, kid. Now get those things out of my face, I don’t want to catch fleas."

…

He comes in holding a broomstick next. A broomstick! Like those wooden ones from the movies, not the plastic cable ones. Tony can’t help but do a double-take as he looks at the teenager- red in the face from effort, hair tousled and clothes akin to someone who went to war. He is aware the Parkers don’t have much money, but Peter always looks presentable. This time, aside from looking like he went to hell and back (Tony supposes high-school can pose as hell at times, though it still doesn’t explain the broom), he also looks absolutely pissed off.

"Are we auditioning for the Quiche team or swiping the lab today?", Tony asks, trying to keep a straight face.

”Quidditch,” Peter corrects and then he shrugs, trying to act nonchalant and keep his tongue in check. The kid gets filled with spite and snark whenever he’s in a bad mood. He abruptly drops his backpack on the floor, kicking it when it fails to land on the lab bench and not even bothering to pick it up again. The broomstick follows suit, "nah, just thought it could come in handy. You know, in case there's a sudden cleaning emergency… or something. There were two, but I lost the other one."

He’s getting faster at pulling excuses out of thin air- but they still make no goddamn sense.

“I appreciate the thought, but I have DUM-E to fight those evil dust bunnies for me.”

Tony always loved a good mystery, but this one was starting to feel like a sitcom plot gone wrong. Peter's strange behavior was now an official daily occurrence, and Tony couldn't help but feel like he was the one slowly losing his mind.

They schedule an extra session for the next day, because the kid is clearly lacking in his game that afternoon. Tony wonders why. Instead they spend the rest of their time together doing some good old R&R, or the city life, couch potato version of it: watching TV- surprisingly Tony finds himself actually enjoying it, even when the kid puts on the whole of Star Wars, sequels and prequels and whatnot all lined up one after the other and starts angrily munching on microwave popcorn.

…

There is an initial lack of oddities the next day, which is an oddity in itself. Their work flow is back to normal, swift and well oiled. The winter air fogs the windows outside. Peter, with his newfound intolerance for the cold- found the hard way, because of course he had- is covered in layers of socks and fingerless gloves and a minimum of two thick sweaters, even inside the well climatized, billion-dollar Stark tower.

Tony watches warily as the kid works, searching for any early signs of the sudden appearance of logic-defying objects or the telltale sound of Peter’s chair scraping back as he too loudly announces he has to go to the bathroom, only to return nearly an hour later. He’d even been on time that day. His eyes narrow further.

“What?” Peter asks, straightening up and cracking his back from where he sits. His eyebrows are furrowed, like the fact that Tony keeps staring at him is starting to itch or something.

Tony shakes his head, raising his hands quickly, one of them still holding the screwdriver he’d been using, “nothing.”

“Then why do you keep staring at me like that?”

“Like what?”

“Like… that.”

“I’m not staring,” Tony defends himself, “and even if I was, that’s what eyes are for, kid, you know? Staring?”

“Well yeah, but not in a weird way. You’re acting weird.” Peter’s face scrunches up, like he just ate a bitter lemon, his head tilting as he warily glances sideways at Tony, “why are you acting weird?”

“Why aren’t you acting weird?” Tony blurts out, eyes widening. Peter’s widen too.

“What?”

“What?”

“You just said-“

Tony stands up, cracking his neck, “I don’t remember saying anything, you must’ve misheard-“

“I can literally listen to the two old ladies talking smack about their daughters-in-law 61 floors down on the street…”

“-I’m getting some coffee. Want anything?”

The kid’s mouth closes into a thin line, “no, thanks, Mr. Stark. I’m fine.”

“One hot chocolate and a plate of cookies coming right up for the spider-baby it is then!”

“Mr. Stark!” Tony ignores the protesting teen. He may not have super-hearing but he can hear the boy’s super-stomach complaining in the next 5 minutes. It’s been too long since he ate. That he can’t do. No way José.

It happens right as he’s returning from the kitchen with a tray carrying their food. Tony enters the lab to find Peter hastily putting away something colourful. There’s a huge pile of dust on the floor, the kid looking quite moon-eyed before it. It’s been 5 minutes since he left.

A pool noodle. Yes, a pool noodle. That’s what the colorful thing is. A bright yellow pool noodle. Snapped in two. Tony stops dead in his tracks, tray in hand as he tries to hold back his laughter. He knew it, he knew things were too normal to be true.

"Oh, planning on some top-secret pool party after this?"

Peter, for a change, immediately looks flustered, “no, Mr. Stark, I- actually yeah. Yeah, uh, there’s this thing in Central Park. One of the lakes…”

Tony merely walks forward, setting the tray on a coffee table by the new, much comfier couch and picking up the hot chocolate. He thrusts it in the kid’s hands, “just drink your hot chocolate, Underoos. It’s the middle of December.”

Peter takes the mug, looking down at the sweaters he’s stuck in to avoid very easy hypothermia. His face turns the colour of the fabric, a bright red.

Tony turns to look at the dust on the floor. His hands find their way to his hips. He won’t even ask where it came from.

“Hey, you don’t happen to have that broom from the other day lying around, do ya?”

…

The next week, it’s a baseball bat. After yet another long visit to the bathroom, Tony decides to wait out the kid in the corridor. Peter opens the bathroom door, ready to walk out, the sports item in one hand, the other hidden behind the door.

Tony raises an eyebrow, a smirk forming on his lips as he crosses his arms and leans casually back on the adjacent wall, "baseball, huh? I didn't know you were a sports enthusiast. On wait, you’re not."

Peter stammers, trying to come up with a plausible explanation, “oh, this? Just... uh, found it in your bathroom, actually. I was going to give it to the reception, down there. Someone might’ve forgotten it..."

Tony chuckles, not buying the excuse for a second, “this is a private floor. The only people who have access is me, Pepper, Happy, Rhodey and you, Babe Ruth.”

“I-“

“Sure, Pete. Whatever you say. Just make sure you don't swing that thing indoors. We've got enough broken lab equipment as it is."

The kid’s face falls, cheeks filling with air as he deadpans. He closes the door on Tony’s face to show how angry he is at the mocking. Tony isn’t even mad about it, instead he’s delighted by the attempt at an affronted scowl the kid had produced. It was a pretty comical expression.

‘There’s a line, but this seems okay…’

…

Tony notices something else quite peculiar among all the peculiar things happening whenever Peter is around.

Owls.

He’d taken them as shy and elusive creatures until then, but now Tony wasn’t so sure any more. They seemed to be drawn to the kid like magnets.

It started when they were on the balcony of the Stark Tower one evening, the sun setting as they worked on new upgrades for Peter's Spider-Man suit. The kid had been clad in the red suit, only the mask left out, as he played around with all the different, new combinations of webs they’d thought of together. Right as the boy latched himself onto the large glass windows to the living room of the penthouse, did a flip and hit two parallel targets in the bullseye at once, Tony, who had been watching from a safe distance by the railing, was caught off guard when something white and big materialized itself in the corner of his camp of vision.

The yelp he lets out was definitely not Iron-Man like.

Peter immediately turns at the sound, senses on high alert. His eyes are wide as he watches Tony stumble away from the railing- and from the elegant snowy owl perched on it, its large golden eyes fixated on Peter and taking small glances at Tony in what the genius (having taken a breather at last) could only describe as judging. The kid bursts out laughing, doubling over, hands on his knees. Tony rolls his eyes, leveling the bird an unamused look of his own, “haha, funny. Sure, laugh it off, Underoos.”

“It’s just an owl, Mr. Stark! You jumped so high I thought you were going to take flight!”

"Sorry if owls don't usually hang out on skyscrapers, mister. Especially not so close to me,” he points at the offending bird, “unless they're alien. Or magical."

Peter chuckles nervously. Loudly. "Magical owls in New York? That's a new one."

Tony shrugs, crossing his arms. "Stranger things have happened,” he says, studying the kid’s reaction.

Peter quiets down, inching closer to Tony’s side. There’s still amusement written on his face, though it is less and more bashful as he says, “weird…”, the owl slowly turning its head to follow his movement. Tony keeps quiet about that though, discreetly following the mutual staring between boy and bird, “yeah, weird… must be lost or something," he mutters.

“Or something…”, Peter echoes.

The owl chooses that very moment to hoot at them, or whatever it is that owls do, either in agreement or disagreement, Tony doesn’t know. The way the animal keeps its yellow eyes fixed on Spider-Man, though, Tony has half a mind to ask the kid instead.

He spends the good portion of a minute admiring the bird. Weird or not, Tony can’t deny it is a fine animal indeed, clad in so many old stories and tales. He’d never really set eyes on one this close, he realizes, even being able to probably purchase a bazillion of their kind for his personal endeavors- which would be wrong to do, anyway. In the very least, he could have seen one at a zoo, if only he left the lab more often for actual leisure purposes. When Tony looks back at Peter, the boy is scowling at the owl, it seems, his mouth moving and forming silent words that don’t seem very nice. It’s like the kid senses him watching, because instantly Peter’s face relaxes, a sheepish smile returning to his face as he quickly glances from the bird up at Tony.

“Maybe she was just curious," he offers, trying to play it cool, “about my webs?”

Tony looks back at the feathered creature. It hops in its place a bit, its head moving in that quirky way owl heads do. Its eyes remind him of the kid’s, big, round and somehow innocent but wise at the same time. Tony shakes his head, shooing the boy away, towards the door back inside.

“Or maybe it saw a nice little spider jumping around and remembered it was time for dinner.”

…

Obviously it didn’t stop there. Over the next few weeks, owls of various species would appear whenever Peter was nearby. Tony noticed them perched on rooftops of the neighboring towers and tiny perches on the tower’s windows, staring down at Peter in the lab as the kid worked or eyeing them both whenever they had their snack breaks by the fridge up in the penthouse’s kitchen. When Tony took to watching KAREN’s footage of some of the kid’s outings and patrols, there were even a couple flying alongside him as he swung through the city as Spider-Man. He’d rewind the footage as much as possible and had even had FRIDAY scan the old Youtube videos of the first Spider-Man appearances- sure enough, there they were, far too frequently to be normal. Tony didn’t know whether to be relieved or even more intrigued that this wasn’t a new thing.

Two months later, they’re back in the lab. Tony hasn’t even given much thought to the snowy owl incident lately, or how he wasn't at all convinced that the owl was simply a curious bird that’d wandered too close, he really hasn’t. There’s just this nagging feeling Tony can’t shake off that they are being watched.

He frowns, removing his smoldering mask and looking about- lo and behold: the owl was back. Standing on the windowsill and staring intently inside. It was as if the bird was following Peter. This was getting beyond ridiculous, it was getting… he didn’t even know.

With a double elbow touch to the kid’s arm, Peter is pushing back his own mask.

"Seriously, kid, what's the deal with that owl?" Tony asks, crossing his arms.

Peter scratches his head, narrowing his eyes at the animal and avoiding Tony's gaze, "I don't know, Mr. Stark. Maybe it's lost again or something?"

Tony studies Peter's face, his eyes narrowing. There is something in Peter's expression that he can’t quite decipher. It’s almost like... guilt? Exhaustion? Frustration? Definitely both and a whole lot of the third.

"Peter, are you sure you don't know anything about this?", Tony presses.

Peter hesitates, his shoulders slumping. He sighs, “okay, fine. Maybe... maybe I have a thing with owls, alright? They seem to like me. Always have."

Tony raises an eyebrow at that, “a thing with owls? I thought you had a thing with spiders."

"What?! No! Spiders are jerks! You think I asked that one to bite me?”, he asks, quite affronted, “now owls?… Yeah, they seem to like me for some reason. Maybe I remind them of someone."

"Someone? Who?"

"Uh, I don't know. Maybe I was an owl in a past life?", Peter tries with a nervous chuckle.

Tony stares at the teen for a moment, his mind racing. There was definitely more to this owl story than Peter was letting on. But for now, he decided to drop it. He had a feeling that Peter had his reasons for keeping secrets, and Tony wasn't one to push too hard- over the line. The stupid line.

"Alright, owl whisperer," Tony says, clapping Peter on the back, “just remember, if it starts delivering any Hogwarts letters, you let me know."

Peter laughs, a genuine smile lighting up his face, “you finally saw the movies!"

“Kid, I saw them when you were quitting your diapers. I just said I didn’t to watch the funny face of disbelief you make and have FRIDAY record it,” he messes Peter’s hair. It starts a chain of protests and jabs. The owl watches, unblinkingly. Definitely not creepy at all. At least it’s not ravens or bats, or anything The Adams Family themed, Tony thinks.

…

Late at night, Tony sometimes finds himself in his private office, going through the last minute paperwork he’d procrastinate all week long.

One of such nights, though, as the genius is seconds from throwing the entire pile of paper and pen on the floor and maybe overthrow his desk- were it not bolted to the floor,- there is the sound of an alert beeping from his phone.

“FRIDAY?”

“I’ve detected movement on the roof in the surveillance footage of the tower, Boss.”

Tony pauses for a second, “well, is it someone with a mean machine gun or some otherworldly crazy stupid power who is about to come in here and kill us all?”

“The shape is humanoid and still, Boss. I can’t tell much from the shadows but core temperature, signature heart rate and overall scans indicate it to be Spider-Man.”

Tony nods, knowing she can see him through her cameras, “leave him be, FRY. Call me the elevator, I’m paying our favorite arachnid a visit.”

He crosses the common area of the floor, taking the elevator up to the roof of the tall tower. Peter is sitting alone on the edge, which frankly gives him the chills. He’s not new to heights, but he always faces them relatively safe inside a ‘giant tin can’. The kid is in his suit, mask dropped on the concrete next to him, looking lost in thought. He’s stressing something in his hands, but Tony doesn’t have super eyesight like the teenager so he can’t make out what it is from the distance.

"Hey, kid, everything alright?" Tony asks, taking a seat next to him. A bit further back, with his legs not hanging from the edge thank you very much.

Peter looks up, almost surprised to see him there, at his own tower. For the billionth time Tony wonders how exactly his sixth sense works if Peter always seems caught off guard by his presence. He thinks he once told him it senses danger, does that mean Peter feels safe in Tony’s presence? For some reason the thought makes him feel warm inside, a pleasant feeling to counter the cool night gusts of wind outside.

Peter hesitates for a moment before finally speaking, “yeah, I'm fine. Just thinking about... stuff."

Tony looks down at the boy’s lap, what looks like a leather necklace with round beads being rolled idly by the masked fingers of the young super-hero. He nods, looking up at the night sky. It’s cloudy, so there aren’t many stars- plus all the city light pollution isn’t exactly the best for star-gazing.

The corner of his mouth curls slightly upwards, an eyebrow raising, “ah, yes. I too think a lot about stuff. Care to share?"

Peter glances at Tony, a conflicted expression on his face, “it's nothing, really. Just some personal stuff." Tony wants to push further, to dig deeper into Peter's secrets, but he holds back, mouth opening, then closing uselessly.

‘Because of the stupid line.’

Sometimes, Tony was content with the little moments of connection they shared. The inside jokes, the shared laughter, the unspoken understanding between them. He didn't need to know every detail of Peter's life to know that the boy was special. Then there were times like this, when he felt idle and useless- a prisoner to the very barrier he’d created.

“You’re not… going to push?” At the surely unexpected silence, Peter looks fully at him for the first time, his wide innocent eyes reflecting the city lights around them.

“Oh, I want to, trust me. But your suit doesn’t accuse any injuries and it doesn’t feel like Spider-baby issues, it feels like Peteroos issues. So no, not pushing. I’ll take what you want to give, though, kid.”

Peter’s mouth closes, his head hanging down again, focusing on the necklace. Tony nods. ‘Just what I thought.’

He clears his throat, returning more energy and rhythm to his words, trying to fight the heaviness and silence settling over them as Peter refuses to share, “besides, I have a feeling you didn’t come to this rooftop tonight to finally grace me with a solid explanation for all the weirdness from these past months,” he leans a bit backwards on his hands, ignoring the honking cars miles underneath them and the looming proximity of nothing under their bodies right there, “what’s with the necklace, though?”

Peter remains quiet for a moment more, his eyes taking on a darker, heavier shine to them. He fidgets with the beads a couple times more and Tony, despite saying he wouldn’t push, feels nervous that he might have accidentally done just that.

“It comes from my mother,” the boy says at last.

Tony pretends he doesn’t feel like he got slapped in the face by a ghost. His voice is forcefully steady, “oh?”. He takes another look at the necklace. The beads have drawings, hand-made strokes of ink forming figures resembling nature and either mystical beings or very poorly drawn dogs, “from when she was younger?”

The kid nods.

Tony doesn’t know much about Peter’s parents. Sure, he did a background check on the kid, knows his parents were smart- both scientists- but that doesn’t entirely define a person. Knows they’re obviously dead.

“She, uh, she was a girl scout or something?”

“Or something,” Peter answers, glancing sadly at his mentor.

“It’s cute,” Tony says, pointing his chin at the necklace. He doesn’t know what else to say, “very… casual?”

“You don’t need to say anything, Mr. Stark,” Peter says, like he just read Tony’s mind. He graces him with a small, resigned, sad smile, eyes shiny but honest. Pure.

Tony sighs. So, no small talk then, “Pete, I know you're not telling me the whole truth. But if the things you tell me are what you want me to believe, then that’s it. There’s nothing to push. You’re a good kid. In fact, it’s not up to me to push you to admit something you don’t want to admit, that’s not my job- just like it isn’t yours to listen to my problems," Tony said, trying to keep his tone gentle.

He pauses, trying to figure out what to say that could somehow express everything in less, non mushy words.

“There’s a line…,” the words slip from Tony’s lips, his voice real and clear instead of the usual mental memo he keeps replaying in his mind. That wasn’t what he wanted to say. He was never supposed to say that out loud- simply an unspoken rule he had to live by when it came to Peter Parker. It wouldn’t even make any sense to the kid-

“Yeah…” Peter’s shoulders hunch, his upper body curling with a wave of emotion. Tony is at a loss, he hopes the kid doesn’t start crying, he wouldn’t know what to do. Emotions, not his area of expertise. He wasn’t made for this. One of many reasons he never wanted kids.

“It’ll never go away, will it?”, Peter asks instead, voice steady, masking.

He looks surprised up the the boy. Tony may not like emotions, may not be the best at them- but he knows that pain. No one so young should be shouldering that amount of pain. For all he jokes: this isn’t a 15 year old boy, it’s a 15 year old man.

“I don’t think it can,” Tony admits.

Peter nods, sniffling, “it’s okay”, tears gather in his eyes, but not one falls. Then, he turns to look at Tony, seemingly undecided on whether to move forward or backwards. His body chooses for him and he launches forward with the speed of a shadow, throwing his arms around Tony in a barely restrained tight gripped hug. Tony tenses, thinks about saying his usual “not there yet, kid” but even he is not that much of an asshole. He feels himself slowly relax in the hug but ultimately doesn’t snake his arms around the kid. Because the line has to hold.

“Thank you, Mr. Stark,” the kid cracks out, voice rough. Then, as quickly as he moved forward, he’s retreating, wiping his eyes with his forearm and getting back up to his feet, “sorry for, well, sorry for everything.” It is said with the ghost of a chuckle but not enough to fully be one.

“See you next Friday, Underoos,” is all Tony can say. He wants to say more, but doesn’t know how. Because there’s a line between them, there will always be. Still, he wants to make sure Peter knows he’s not being judged, that he can return to their normal, that nothing changed. Maybe Tony wants to know that too.

Peter nods, a tight smile on his lips. He pulls his mask back on, grips the necklace tightly in one hand and then jumps. Tony’s heart beats fast at the sound of the body cutting through the air, only relaxing when the distinct ‘fwwopsh’ of a web latching on to a building echoes through the night.

He sits on that roof until his body protests at the cold, before retreating back to the devilish paperwork.

…

Tony slumps onto the couch next to Pepper, exhaustion and worry etched on his face. He had just crossed his office, sat in his desk chair and promptly gotten up again. There was no way he could go back to work after that. The picture of the goofy, overly excited Peter looking so unusually tired and sad was stuck in his mind’s eye. Tony couldn't shake the feeling that something big was going on with the kid, something he couldn't quite begin to imagine. That only left one thing to do: drown his thoughts with a moderately measured amount of liquor. And Pepper Potts.

"He's just been acting so strange lately," Tony goes on, his voice tinged with concern. Pepper listens silently, her hills discarded on the floor and legs tucked up into the couch, laptop on her lap.

"Always disappearing, showing up late, and those injuries...I can't figure it out. And now, you should’ve seen him, Pep. Kid looked like a lost puppy- but worse. I didn’t think there could be worse.”

His fiancée places a comforting hand on his shoulder, “well, he’s not an ordinary teenager, Tony, and those are troublesome enough. You didn’t expect him to always be skipping around, did you?”

Tony waves his arms in protest, the brownish golden liquid sloshing dangerously inside the glass in his hold, “of course not, but this is something else, I’m telling you,” he shakes his head, taking a suffering sip. Pepper gently removes the glass from his hand, setting the laptop closed and aside and laying the beverage on the coffee table before them.

“Tony, you really care about him, don't you?"

Tony looks away, deer caught in the headlights. ‘Of course he doesn’t- besides there’s a line.’ The kid himself had admitted to that, “he's just a kid, Pepper. I ended up being his mentor, that's all."

Pepper raises an eyebrow, giving him a knowing, amused smile, “Tony, you've been talking about Peter for over an hour now. You care, and that's okay."

Tony sighs, knowing that Pepper saw right through him. So maybe the kid was kind of cool, cooler than all the other kids he’d known- which aren’t many, but even if he did, he’s sure none could match up to Peter Parker. And so what if he’d begun to care just a tiny little bit over the months, as in gone from caring ‘more than if the kid died because he’s a kid and kids shouldn’t die’ kind of caring, to caring like he cared for the very few people he needed safe in this world: Pepper, Rhodey, Happy. He’d built an iron suit for each of them even if none used them, much to his displeasure and now that he thought about it… he’d built Peter his just weeks after meeting him…

“I just...I want to help him, but I don't know how. I have to respect his privacy, but that’s hard when I don't even know what's going on with him." ‘And I can’t get closer because he’s this pure precious thing and I’ll always be polluted.’

Pepper nods in understanding, "trust Peter, Tony. He's a smart and capable young man. If there's something he needs to tell you, he will. He’ll come to you when he’s ready, I’m sure, just like he seems to already have done with May. He already trusts you with the biggest secret of his life, after all.”

‘He hid his alter-ego from his aunt. She found out by accident.’ Tony wants to say. ‘I found him by force and by being nosy on Youtube.’

“Im starting to wonder if that really is so.”

Pepper sighs, “just be there for him and let him know you're there if he ever wants to talk. I think you did pretty good tonight."

Tony leans back against the couch, feeling a bit of relief in Pepper's words, “you're right, I know you’re right. I just- what’s wrong with me, Pepper?”

The woman chuckles, “It’s called letting people in. Sometimes it happens whether you want to, whether you like it- or not. You let me in.”

“Oh, I loved letting you in,” she slaps his shoulder playfully at that.

"Point is, don’t stress this, Tony. You can still be a support for him," Pepper added, “sometimes, just knowing that someone cares can make all the difference."

Tony looks at her gratefully, “you always know what to say."

Pepper smiles, “good, because that’s literally my job.”

Tony nods to himself, feeling a weight lifted off his shoulders. He leans over and gives Pepper a quick kiss, “thank you, Pep. I don't know what I'd do without you."

"You'll never have to find out," she replies, squeezing his hand, “unless you don’t come to bed right this instant and get at least 5 hours of sleep tonight,” she says, getting up from the couch and making her way towards their suite.

“Love and war…” Tony mumbles as he follows her.

…

May Parker calls him at 11pm some other night.

Her voice is steady and light, asking him to meet her at her apartment. Tony takes a look at the clock, knowing the time may have been normal for him- a night owl- but surely not for an early commuter like May Parker. His own sixth sense knows that something important is at stake and he can’t help taking a glance at the active connection from the Spider-Man suit.

Without hesitation, he begins, "May? Is everything okay?"

"Tony, I need to talk to you. Could you come over to my apartment now? It's important," May's voice is sure, albeit there is a sliver of anxiousness she can’t hide that puts Tony on edge.

"Sure, uh, of course. I'll be right there," Tony replies, getting up from the couch and grabbing his car keys.

When Tony arrives at May's apartment, he finds her waiting by the door. She greets him with a hug, which is unusual for her when it comes to him. It’s not that she’s unpleasant, it’s just that she still tries to maintain some distance between them, surely the leftovers from the whole ‘you took my nephew to Germany to fight war veterans without telling me’. That aside, he thinks they’ve become quite good friends.

He senses that something is weighing heavily on her mind, “what's going on, May?"

"Come in," May says, leading him to the living room, “I… have something important to talk to you about."

Tony automatically looks around in search for the kid, even if knowinng Peter is out at the moment. The place just felt different without him at such a late hour in the night. Though a lot felt different at night, he guesses.

"Thank you for coming, Tony, really," May starts, her expression grateful and tired but still the picture of strong, “please, have a seat."

Tony sits down on the tiny couch, feeling a mix of curiosity and concern, “is everything alright? Did something happen to Peter?"

May shakes her head, a fond smile growing on her face at the mention of her nephew. It makes Tony long for such a bond, for the briefest of moments, “no ,no, Peter is fine,” she reassures, “he's out on his Spider-Man patrol right now."

‘Yeah, I know,’ Tony wants to say, ‘that’s not what I meant.’

"Then what's this all about?", he asks instead, his curiosity piqued. He could recognize the look of late-night thinking on anyone’s face at this point, having had plenty of practice with his very own reflection in the mirror. Funnily enough, May’s and Peter’s are the same, he notices- despite them not being blood-related, "alright, I'm all ears. What's on your mind?"

May adjusts her glasses, passing a hand through her long brown hair as she fidgets. She asks him if she can offer him anything to drink or eat but Tony politely declines, for once having had dinner with Pepper at a decent hour not long ago, before his fiancée had retreated to her own office for some final details on some boring report Tony wanted nothing to do with. He has half a mind to tell the woman to skip the pleasantries and quit stalling, but manages to hold his tongue long enough for her to get there on her own.

May takes a deep breath, readjusting herself on the couch before speaking. For the millionth time, Tony wonders just how much his life could change from that night onwards- he has a feeling it will.

“Tony, you know how much Peter means to me. He’s my entire world. He's all I have, and he's so special.”

Tony nods, a bit puzzled by her words, “yeah, he's a great kid.” ‘And I care about him a lot too.’

May shakes her head. She’s always looked young, despite being a couple years older than Tony- for maybe the first time, Tony thinks he can see the mask fall and her age and life’s troubles start catching up to her.

"No, Tony, it's more than that," May continues, her voice tinged with emotion, “he’s not just an ordinary kid. He's... different. There's something about him that sets him apart from others."

Tony frowns, trying to understand, “what do you mean, different?"

May hesitates for a moment, "I can't explain it, not for now at least. It’s not my decision to make. You just need to remember that and trust me, okay?”

“Uh…”

“At first, I was wary of you, not knowing if I could trust you with Peter. But over time, I've… realised just how important you've become to him. I know you might not… feel the exact same for him…”, Tony does, but he can’t say that- because there needs to remain a line, no matter how faint it seems to have become lately, “I don’t know exactly how much Peter means to you, but I've seen that, at the very least, want what’s best for him.”

The woman stops, looking him in the eye, searching for a reaction, “and I want you to know that I appreciate everything you've done. You've become a safe space for him, someone he can trust and rely on. After Ben… he really needed that."

A mixture of surprise and gratitude fills Tony’s heart. He thinks he needed it too.

"I'm glad I can be there for him, May. He’s… a very special kid,” Tony agrees, “but you’re kind of starting to freak me out a bit here. No one’s dying, right? Tell me no one’s dying.”

She laughs heartily, “no one is dying.”

“Oh, thank god. Because this whole conversation really felt like it was headed that way.”

“Well, I don’t know about you, but I plan on sticking around quite some more time,” she smiles again at him, uncrossing her legs. Tony watches as she reaches onto the support table besides the couch, picking up a white standard envelope from next to the chunky yellow lamp on it.

“I think we would all live forever if we could, even if it got quite boring at some point,” she says, “but that’s not something we can control. I want to see Peter get his driver’s license, graduate, go to college, have his first job, find someone good who treats him well and I want to be at the front row of his wedding, hold his first child just as I held him from my brother-in-law’s arms. That’s quite enough, for me.”

She extends her arm, the envelope being handed to Tony without any word of its contents, sealed shut and looking up at him with piercing imaginary eyes. Tony hates being handed things. He takes it from her without second thought. He eyes it, back and front, then looks up at her in question.

“What’s this?”

“That’s something for you to read when you're back home and alone. Preferably in a good mood,” she motions towards it, “when you have the time to really absorb what’s in there," May says. "It's important, Tony. It’s the most important thing I could trust you with and… I hope it never comes to it, but I need to know if I can count on you. I need to know if you can do it, if you’re willing to commit."

Tony's concern deepens, “May, you’re really freaking me out right now… is something wrong?"

“Just promise me you’ll look into it. Promise me.”

Tony pauses. He wants to know what all of that is about right there- but if there’s anything spending months with a cryptic Peter has taught him, it’s to have a tiny little bit more trust and patience with people- and May Parker, worrying her lip at the sight of the envelope in his hands, looks like she could use some of that.

"I will, May. I promise," Tony relents sincerely.

May nods, her eyes filled with both relief and concern. She seems to visibly relax, "good, thank you, Tony. Really.“

After bidding her goodbye, Tony leaves May's apartment, the letter still clutched in his hand, a whirling of emotions inside him- the most prominent one? Confusion. He’s also filled with a sense of unease, not knowing what the letter holds. As he drives home, he can’t help but wonder what could be in it. He ponders reading it the minute he gets back home, yet… Something tells him he’s not yet ready to read it. And so Tony stuffs it in his pocket, away, safe- out of sight (but never out of mind).

…

A couple months have gone by since that rollercoaster of a night and Tony still holds the envelope in his suit pocket.

With summer right around the corner, Tony decides to bring Peter to the Avengers compound for a more thorough visit, showing him around and introducing him to the modern facilities. If the kid went nuts with the equipment at Stark tower, then he was sure to go over to the dark side upon feasting his eyes on Tony’s personal lab at the compound. However, as the day does on, Tony gets caught up with some unexpected work that seems to follow him everywhere all the time, and so gets stuck behind discussing some improvements on the building’s fortification system with a couple engineers. While he’s sure the kid could give them some pointers on their own profession, he figures that’s not really what he’s there for. Do he tells Peter to feel at home and be free to continue exploring the compound on his own until Tony catches up- they had seen most of it already, after all. When he finally manages to get free, the mechanic heads outside, where FRIDAY points him as the area Peter had wondered too. There were miles and miles of grass and it was a beautiful, clear day, so it seemed natural that a kid who lived every day of his life in a concrete jungle would want to touch some grass for once.

As he steps out into the bright sunlight, though, the sound of a sprinkler going off catches him off guard. They’re only meant to work by the end of the day, right as the sun dips into the ground- something about boiling the plants alive, according to the place’s gardener. Curious, he follows the sound and finds none other than Peter crouched near a lone sprinkler. Talking animatedly. Alone. Alone?

The man decides to hang back for a moment, keeping his distance but staying hidden behind a corner to observe the boy. He feels his eye twitch. It looks the boy is talking with the spray of water, the sunlight working its way through the droplets and creating a tiny rainbow. Tony can’t help but overhear the boy speaking- to himself, what the hell?

"...Yeah, I know, it's been crazy lately," Peter says, his voice filled with a mix of frustration and excitement, “being here is incredible, though. Mr. Stark is so cool and everything’s so amazing! It’d be, like, super cool too if the rest of the Avengers could be here, but I think Mr. Stark is secretly still a bit sad over the whole, you know…”

Tony makes a valiant effort at staying still and quiet. His first instinct is to beam at the fact that Peter thinks he’s cool. But then…The things the kid just said, about the team, he wasn’t supposed to know about them. Was Tony becoming that transparent?

He could no longer understand if they’d crossed the line or not.

“Yeah… I just wish I could tell him the truth, you know?"

Why the hell did the kid sound so engrossed in a one-sided conversation? Was there a spider somewhere? Could he talk to spiders now? It’d be weird if he could, but somehow the most sensible answer- what had Tony’s life come to? Also, what truth?

Peter goes on, his voice hushed, “same. I wish I could talk to you in person, but this will have to do for now. I hope you're doing okay back at camp, though. Hopefully we can meet after summer?… No K, I’ve told you I’m not going. I don’t care if it’s dangerous. I do just fine the rest of the year out here.”

There’s a pause.

“Okay, maybe not just fine! More like, sufficient… But sufficient is literally enough!… Source? Me, I’m the wise one!”, he bursts into laughter, his imaginary friend probably as well, Tony figures.

Then, before the genius can hear any more, Peter suddenly stops talking, his head snapping in Tony’s direction, as if realizing he might not be alone. Right. Super-hearing. He could probably listen to Tony’s breathing and heart beat.

Tony quickly retreats from his hiding spot, pretending to be preoccupied with something else as he makes the rest of his way towards Peter. The kid, upon fully seeing him, quickly shakes his hand in the air, through the spray, ruining the rainbow and hastily turning off the sprinkler, before leaning back with his hands on the grass, legs crossed and the least nonchalant look ever achieved in the history of nonchalant looks on his face.

"Hey, Pete, what's going on?" Tony asks, feigning unawareness as he walks over to the boy. He can proudly say he’s much better at it than the teen.

Peter turns around, a sheepish grin taking over his face, oh, hey Me. Stark. I, uh, I was just trying to mess with the sprinkler a bit. It was a little off, so I thought I'd fix it."

Tony raises an eyebrow, looking at the sprinkler and then back at the boy, “well, the gardener sends his thanks, I guess.” He steps around the wet patch of grass, seeking the projected shade of the building behind them, “who were you talking to, by the way?”

Peter completely freezes for a moment, caught off guard, “uh, no one, Mr. Stark. I was just, you know, talking to myself."

“Yeah? You do that a lot?”

Peter bites down on his lip, slowly shaking his head yes. He looks more in doubt than Tony, who had actually posed the question.

Tony just shakes his head, adding this one to the list of odd Peter Parker incidents. He beckons the kid closer, the boy jumping back up to his feet. Tony doesn’t hesitate to throw an arm over his shoulder.

“You know what’s better than talking to yourself and playing with the sprinklers, Underoos?”

The kid looks up at him in confusion, his cheeks still a faint shade of red. There are starts in his eyes. Tony doesn’t fight a smile.

“Making the emergency ones of the compound go off and watching the personnel running about like headless chickens. I’m thinking explosive web cartridges, what do you say?”

He’s long stopped trying to question the kid about the incidents.

There is clearly more to Peter Parker than meets the eye, and Tony is still determined to figure it out. He’s always loved a good mystery and while Peter was turning out to be one of the most intriguing puzzles he had ever encountered, both May’s and Pepper’s words kept replaying in his head.

‘He’s special.’

‘Sometimes, just knowing that someone cares can make all the difference.’

So for now, Tony would bide his time. There was a line between them, after all, and it wouldn’t be broken by pushing and force. Maybe the key to solving the Peter Parker mystery was time and trust, the latter which Tony didn’t fully yet have- and, it seemed, neither did Peter.

Tony pets the letter in his pocket. The words in ink on the paper echoing in his head. He pulls the kid a bit closer to his side.

Take care of him. Don’t let him be alone, but mostly, don’t let him ever be lonely again.

Tony always loved a good mystery. Maybe, just maybe, the best mysteries are the ones you don’t give up on.