Wednesday - March 30, 2016

Stark Tower - Private Labs 01

04:32 PM

 

Silence echoed like a gong around the room, thickening the air with a newfound tension, a tightness to their stares that left them silent and breathless.

Nobody said anything. They just kept staring.

Except, of course, until the woman finally took a small, near-unnoticeable step forward.

Peter noticed, though. Peter noticed enough to rear back and stumble from his chair, papers scattering onto the floors as he floundered to his feet and began to backpedal.

The woman stopped. She kept staring. Her eyes were cold. They gazed back at him with a penetrating complexity, deep and dark and enough to have his skin tingling with nerves he was all too familiar with. Because he was familiar with that look, too.

 

("Look into my eyes, Peter. Do I look like I'm fucking joking?!")

 

Mr. Stark had only been gone for around half-an-hour now, grumbling something about taking calls with an 'asshole to end all assholes', with stern instructions for Peter to keep working on his homework and to 'not touch any of the fun stuff till I get back'.

Well, it seemed the "Fun stuff" had found him, strolling into the room with fiery red hair and a gun holstered to her belt.

Oh, yeah. Peter clocked that, too.

He stared back at her, muscles tense, ready to spring into action. What sort of action he would go along with if he had to was another question entirely, but one he didn't feel like confronting at the moment as he kept his eyes trained on the woman in front of him. He had to be ready. She could make a move at any moment.

"Stark's taken on babysitting detail, now? What, he need the money?"

Okay, different move than he was expecting...

Nevertheless, Peter didn't let his guard down, didn't relinquish the hard stare he was throwing her way. The woman didn't seem to mind the tense looks, for she finally turned her eyes away from him and down to the papers by her feet instead.

She cast a little humored glance up and slowly bent down, lithe fingers wrapping around the edges of the paper and carefully picking it back up. She flipped it over and scanned the page. "Spanish homework, huh?" She quirked a brow, smirk playing on her lips. "Nice handwriting. Boys like you love their chicken scratch." She set the page down onto the table before her eyes were shooting back up, freezing Peter in place once more.

She must have noticed the continued tenseness to his stance, for she cocked her hip a bit and folded her arms. "I'm not going to hurt you, you know. You can relax."

Peter had no intentions of doing anything of the sort. Instead, he continued to stare at her, waiting for something, anything. A lunge, a reach for the gun, an aggression in her eyes. He cracked open his mouth, felt how dry his throat was all of sudden, the words sticking to the sides.

"You're...y-y...you...y-" He grimaced and swallowed the rock building inside of him before trying again. "You're N-Natasha Romanoff. T-the...Black Widow...aren't you?"

It was a pointless question. He already knew the answer from years spent watching the TV, watching and bouncing from his place on the floor, watching the action unfold on his screen, watching the team beat back monsters and toss bombs into the sky.

The woman continued to stare at him before giving a small shrug of her shoulders, fiery red hair bouncing up and down at the movement. "Sometimes."

He eyed the gun on her hip once more, felt his fingers beginning to twitch at the mere sight of it. He made sure to keep an extra eye on her hands, to flag whether or not they'd move towards her holster all of a sudden. "There are...t-there's people looking for you," he murmured softly, voice wavering in unease. "You're a criminal."

She didn't seem too annoyed at the sentiment, merely tilting her head a bit. "Depends on your definition."

"I mean it. Y-you...you could get in a lot of trouble if...i-if someone found you here." He noticed her cat-like stare still scanning him up and down like a piece of meat. He took another step back. "I...why are you here? W-what do you want?" He didn't know if she'd answer or not. He hoped she would. The longer he stood there with no information, the more antsy he began to feel, shuffling back and forth on his feet as he ran through the list of possibilities in his head. Why was she here?

The woman seemed to take notice of the way he began to shift, for she gave a little sigh. "Listen-" She stepped forward.

That was enough to send Peter reeling another five or six steps. "Don't!" He all but shouted, wide-eyed stare boring back into her as he tried to stop the sudden shakiness that had come over him. "D-don't...just...stay there."

It did get her to stop, but now she was looking at him with a new perplexity to her gaze, resting a hand on her hip as she pursed her lips in what Peter hoped wasn't annoyance. "Relax, would you? I'm not going to hurt you. I don't even know you."

Peter paused at that, her words seeming to jolt him in place. He stared back at her, back at a face he'd seen countless times before, standing next to a team of the world's most well-known superheroes. A team that included-

"You know Mr. Stark, though..." he whispered.

He noticed her face change, noticed it twist into a more serious frown.

"Is...is that why you're here?"

Again, silence. She didn't say anything. So, Peter decided to fill the space with his thoughts.

Germany was a bit hazy for him, the adrenaline he could still feel tied to the memories leaving them jumbled and messy. But he remembered her. He remembered that fiery red hair, remembered Mr. Stark telling him to keep his distance from her, warning him to stay off her bad side.

"You...you were in Germany. With him."

He remembered seeing her out of the corner of his eye as they'd fought, seeing her tassel with some of Captain America's other teammates. He'd seen her fight with them, alongside him and Mr. Stark.

"I...you were on his side. You were...supposed to help him. You were supposed to..."

He remembered watching the Quinjet take off into the sky, remembered the yelling that echoed off the floors of the tarmac, remembered seeing her argue with the man in the black suit.

But more importantly, he remembered seeing Mr. Stark stare at her afterwards. He remembered the look in the man's eyes. He remembered seeing her on the news, her headshot lined up right alongside Steve Rogers, right alongside the other Rogue Avengers, the other Avengers who had-

"You...betrayed him."

She tensed. Peter did as well. When he spoke, his voice was light and breathy, face scrunched in thought as he tried to search his memories, dredging through the thoughts as the woman stared back at him with an unreadable expression. "He trusted you...and you...betrayed him. How...?" He lifted his head, lifted his eyes away from the floor and stared back at her, the words soft, almost whispered. "How could you do that?"

His face twisted. And suddenly he wasn't whispering anymore. "How could you do that?!"

His hands curled into shaking fists at his sides as he stared at her with a newfound anger, the tingling he'd felt overtop his skin melting into something hotter, something more intense and raw. The antsy nerves he'd felt jolting through him since that morning, since the night before when he'd gone to sleep with those familiar pangs in his stomach made his jaw tense. His eyes gleamed with a bitterness he hadn't been aware of as he spoke, and it took him a second to finally realize that he was yelling.

"He trusted you. He trusted you! Does that even matter to you? Do you know how important that is? How hard that is? He trusted you...put his trust in you and you just threw it away! You threw it away like it was nothing! Like it didn't even matter. Like it didn't even matter!"

She looked shocked, or at least as shocked as she could look, which seemed to only constitute a cocked brow and a slight widening of the eyes. Peter found that this passiveness only made him angrier. He gritted his teeth and actually found himself taking a step forward, the new burning inside of him seeming to put him into autopilot. It felt weird, felt...off somehow. Letting out the tightness he'd been feeling in his chest all day, the frustrations he'd held in since that morning. It felt...good...letting it out on someone. Someone who deserved it.

Even if it wasn't his family.

"At least your teammates had the common courtesy to show us all who they really were right from the start, but you didn't even have the decency to do that! You strung him along, strung us all along, and for what? For some sick little game? To get the most out of your double-cross? Is that what it was?

His face was red. He could feel it in his cheeks, in his skin. Or maybe he was just dizzy. Whatever it was, he had to focus very hard all of sudden to keep standing upright. His heart hammered in his chest, blood rushing through his ears, leaving the air pulsing with a tension he couldn't focus through, a haziness he couldn't blink away. The lights were blurring again.

"Listen-"

"And now you have the gall to just stroll in here like everything's alright, like you didn't stab him in the back? You think you can just pretend everything's okay after all of that? Like you didn't break the most important thing a person has?"

Why did he feel like crying all of a sudden?

"Kid-" She looked annoyed.

"Shut up!" The nausea was back, churning deep and dark inside of him. "I can't believe you. I can't believe the sheer audacity you have! I mean, who the hell do you think you are?!"

And suddenly it was like a switch. She was in front of him all of a sudden, mere inches from him. Peter's eyes widened, the heat burning against his chest extinguishing like mud on a bonfire as he choked on a gasp and stumbled backwards. Her eyes darkened, glossing over with a dangerous film of silent menace as she leaned closer, catching him tight in her captivating stare. Her face was dark, her voice darker.

"My name...is Natasha Romanoff. And I came here to talk to Tony."

 

("You wanna fight, Peter? Is that what this is? You wanna fight, tough guy? Well, come on! I got all day to enjoy this! Now get over here! Curt! Sandra! Get his arms!")

 

He heaved out a breath, felt it rattle in his chest as he stared back at her, stared back into those eyes, Max's eyes, Sandra's eyes, his father's eyes. They were dark. And they were dangerous. And they told him to run.

Only...his feet wouldn't move. They were rooted to the floor. His heart jolted and stuttered, but it didn't force his brain into action, didn't shout out a command to move, to bolt, to run and hide and pray nobody would find him. They left him there, left him standing underneath her gaze, withered and shaking...but standing nonetheless.

"N-no..." he finally choked out, nothing more than a whispered plea, but it was said. It was there. "You can't"

Her eyes didn't relent. Only now, they were accompanied by a wicked smirk, a twisted curl of the lips. "Really? And who's going to stop me? You?"

Another breath. Two more. Three. They were barely enough to fill his lungs, but they were enough to keep him from buckling under the weight of her eyes. He was shaking, his hands, his legs, his whole body vibrating with a teeming sense of danger not even three feet from him. But he stood. And he kept standing. Because Mr. Stark was in danger too. And that was enough to keep him there.

"Y-yes."

"That's cute." The smirk disappeared. Her eyes remained. "Sit down, kid. This doesn't concern you."

He tried to grip onto the anger from before, the righteous courage he'd dug up from nowhere. "I mean it! I...I won't let you! You might be used to pushing and shoving and tossing the law aside to get whatever you want, but it's not happening this time! You're not getting anywhere near him!" His voice cracked a bit, but it was stronger this time, strong enough for him to match her glare with one of his own.

She took another step forward. Peter reflexively took one back. Only she didn't stop. She kept advancing, stalking and prowling slowly, like a cat in the grass, lurking and looming over her prey. Peter kept backpedaling until his back pressed up against the wall of the lab. She didn't stop though, not until she was towering over him, leaving him scrunching up against the wall, shoulder pressing into the sleek surface as he shivered, heart bouncing off the walls of the lab. He was sure she could hear it.

"I won't say it again." Her voice echoed in his ears. "Sit. Down."

Peter swallowed. Swallowed the bile beginning to burn in his throat. Swallowed the tingling shooting up the back of his neck screaming that he was in danger, screaming that he had to run, that he had to do something, anything to get away from her.

But he couldn't leave Mr. Stark.

So instead, Peter sucked in a shallow breath and slowly straightened up, back still pressing into the wall as he tried to meet her stone-solid glare. He held his breath and glared right back at her, felt the roaring returning to his ears, the blood in his fingertips.

He leaned closer, their noses almost touching.

"Make me."

Silence. The lab sat suspended in it, hovering in the air, hovering in a state of bated breaths and wavering gazes. Peter heard his heart rather than felt it, heard it beating against his skin, leaving it teeming with anxiety, pooling with dread. He knew what was coming. He readied his fists, curled them tight as he tensed his muscles and braced to dodge the oncoming attack.

Natasha Romanoff did no such thing, though. Instead, she gave a little sniff of her nose and blinked, leaning away from him with a shrug of her shoulders, the previous tension evaporating like darkness in a newly luminated closet. "Not bad. Does Tony store any snacks in here or something?"

Peter blinked. Blinked a few more times after that. Slowly, his lips parted, shaky breaths continuing to expel out through them like bullets from a gun. "I...what?" There was no way. No way she'd landed a head injury on him that fast. But that was his only explanation for what he was seeing right now.

"Pretzels or crackers or anything? I'm not too picky."

Like, major concussion territory.

"No, I...what's happening right now?"

Natasha gave a little smile at that, different from the one before. It wasn't malicious or cruel. In fact, there were no traces of her previous wickedness from before. It's like she was a completely different person. She folded her arms over her chest and gazed back at him with a softer gaze as well, still sharp and perceptive, but calmer than before.

"You're cute," she chuckled before casting a bored glance around the lab. "I like you, Mr. Parker."

His brain was rebooting, looping through a recharge that left him stuttering in place, staring with wide eyes as he tried to make sense of what was happening. "You know my name..." his voice was slow, but it was about as fast as his smoking brain could manage. "How do you now my name? I'm so confused right now. Am I, like, about to die? D-do you always mess with your victims right before you kill them?"

"Yes. But that's not what this is."

He watched her start to move once again, strolling around the table he'd previously been working on as she continued to gaze curiously at her surroundings. Her body language showed no more signs of tension or aggravation. She walked calm and cool like the lab was nothing more than a beach at sunset. Peter slowly pressed a hand to his forehead and carefully lowered himself back into his seat at the table as she spoke.

"I'll have to admit, when Tony told me about you, I definitely wasn't expecting this."

Peter said nothing for a second, too focused on making sure he was awake and lucid as he pressed a hand to his mouth and concentrated on breathing. But once the words clicked in his head, he furrowed his brows and turned back to her. "He...t-told you...about me? Wait, you...you've already talked to him?" A gnawing pit began to open up in his stomach and he grimaced. "As in...he let you talk to him?"

As in, my little tooth-and-nail debacle with you was completely unnecessary?

"Well, he wasn't jazzed about it, but more or less."

Peter felt a new warmth growing on his face. Only it was embarrassment rather than anger this time. "Oh god."

Natasha smiled at him. "You're maybe a week late, kid."

He groaned and pressed his hands to his face, the fact that he'd just yelled at someone that Mr. Stark was apparently fine with finally crawling its way up his neck in a shameful display of hot cheeks and a burning face. "Oh, god. I...I'm sorry. I didn't know...I just thought that...that you were...a-and that..."

The woman put a hand in the air. "Relax. It's fine." She leaned her elbows against the table. "I deserved it. I was mean. I just wanted to see what you'd do." The smile on her face was replaced with a mischievous smirk.

Peter pulled his hands away from his face, nose scrunching in confusion. "'See what I'd...' Wait...that was a test?"

"Mm-hmm."

He paused.

"Did I...pass?"

"Mm-hmm."

"Okay, I just..." He lowered his head and rested it back into his hands. "Just...j-just give me a minute here," he groaned, pressing his arms down into the table as he rested his head on top. "This is a lot to process."

Now, in his defense, Peter figured he might have had an easier time dealing if he'd been having a good day. But sadly, that was not the case. On the other hand, at least his head wasn't currently fighting to detach from the rest of his body like it had been that morning.

The migraine pills that Michelle had given him were strong, even for him and his stupid-fast metabolism. So while they weren't as effective as they would have been for a normal person, they were at least better than the run-of-the-mill painkillers that did all but nothing for him.

The girl had given him more at lunch, after nearly shoving half of her sandwich into his hand. He'd protested, but the half-sandwich was a compromise. She'd wanted to give him the whole thing. Peter hadn't wanted her to give up her lunch and go hungry. Half was the middle ground.

Now that he thought about it, Michelle and her overbearing, forceful attitude were probably the only reason the boy hadn't collapsed sometime earlier in the day. Of course, now that a couple more hours had passed, Peter was beginning to feel the effects of his hunger once again.

He glanced up and noticed that Natasha was now sitting across from him, staring intently. He felt a chill run down his spine at her gaze once again, the feline sharpness that made him shift uncomfortably in his seat. She tilted her head at him, scanned him once before folding her hands underneath her chin.

"What's your name?" Her voice was softer this time. Quiet.

"You...already know my name."

"I know. But I want you to tell me."

This time, it was Peter who scanned her up and down. She didn't seem tense. She wasn't shifting or flickering her gaze around the room nervously. He strained his ears and listened to her heartbeat: steady and even. The boy wet his lips and sat up a bit more in his chair. He didn't release the subtle tenseness to his posture, but he did at least unclench his fists and rested his hands in his lap.

"Peter."

She smiled. "Nice to meet you Peter." It sounded genuine. "I'm Natasha."

He hesitated for a moment before giving a polite nod of his head, thankful that she hadn't extended out a hand for a shake.

"How old are you?"

"Fourteen," he said without looking up at her, choosing instead to draw little circles into the table with the tip of his finger. "Um...s-so did...did Mr. Stark...tell you anything...else about me?" He asked, trying and failing to be nonchalant as a spike of gnawing anxiety began to worm its way up his stomach.

Perhaps something web-related?

The woman tilted her head and her smile turned mischievous once again. "No...why? Is there something else?"

Peter glanced up at her for a second before pursing his lips and glancing back down. "No..."

Natasha chuckled, her eyes going to the papers and pencils still scattered around the desk from when Peter had been working on his homework. He flinched as he saw her hand reach out, only to calm as he watched her grab onto a spare pencil, dragging it towards her along with a fresh sheet of paper. "I'll be honest, when he told me he'd gotten a new intern, I don't really know what I was expecting." He watched her start drawing on the paper, furrowing his brow at the action. "It didn't really seem like something he'd do. And I have to admit, you are definitely not what I imagined."

"W-what were you imagining?"

"Some pasty-faced college kid looking to pad his resume and kiss as many asses as possible."

"Well, you got the pastiness right." He cast a silent glance down at his hands. They were still as white at the papers around him. The woman gave a little hum and continued to draw.

"So, how'd a..." She paused and threw him a questioning look. "...middle schooler?"

"High school."

She lowered her head once more. "Right. How's a high schooler get himself on Tony Stark's radar?"

Peter hesitated for a moment, chewing on his lower lip as he kept tracing circles into the table surface. She was fishing. That much was obvious. Entertaining her wouldn't do him much good. This wasn't just a run-of-the-mill teacher or stranger that was satisfied with half-assed attempts to lie. This was a world-renowned super spy. He'd have to be on his top game to fool her and with how he was feeling today, the chances of a world-class screw up were on the table. He wondered where Mr. Stark was, wondered when he'd be back. Blowing an internal sigh at the fact that he'd have to entertain this for a while, Peter gave a little shrug of his shoulder, running her question back through once more to come up with a good enough fib.

"I, uh...I guess he took a liking to my application. I don't know...I...I-I've tried not to ask too many questions."

"It's good to ask questions."

"Not when you're not too keen on the answers."

She spared him a look at that. Peter noticed and hesitated once more before blowing out a sigh past his lips. "I-I just...I don't really think I want to know why Mr. Stark keeps me around. I'd like to think it's because he enjoys my company but...I-I think mostly likely it's just cause he's bored."

It took Peter a second to realize that it wasn't the lie he'd planned to say.

It wasn't a lie at all.

He squirmed a bit at that.

Natasha herself gave a nonchalant shrug of her shoulders and went back to doodling. "Give yourself some credit. I think he's taken a liking to you."

Peter scrunched his nose. "What makes you say that?"

"You see anybody else in here?"

He blinked at that, face twisting in thought as he spared the room a small glance. Natasha lifted her head once more and rested her elbows on the table. "There's a reason for that. But I'll let you figure it out," she said with wink before lifting up her drawing and flipping it around for Peter to see.

It was a a crudely sketched doodle of Iron Man stuck to a magnet hanging off a high-rise, dangling in the air with a string of expletives curling from his mouth. He couldn't help but give a little chortle at the drawing, Natasha giving a cool smile of her own as she set it back down and flipped the paper over before continuing her doodling.

For a while, Peter just watched her. She didn't seem to mind his stares nor the way he kept watching and waiting for her to do something else, to make a move or to suddenly shift back over into the threatening persona she'd taken earlier. After a few more minutes of calm and silence, Peter took a small, little breath, letting it out slowly as he chewed the inside of his cheek. He reached for another nearby pencil, if only to give his hands something to do.

"M-Ms. Romanoff?"

"Natasha."

He lowered his gaze, felt a new uncomfortable prickling along his arms. He rolled the pencil along his fingers. "I...know I already asked this, but I'm n-not too sure what I should take seriously from our previous conversation, so...I'll ask again...and like, you don't have to answer if you don't want to but, um...w-why...why are you here?"

She stared at him for a moment, face cool as she glanced towards the door. "I just wanted to see a friend."

"I thought Captain America was your friend."

He noticed her head snap up a bit more forcefully this time, almost in surprise. He supposed it was fitting considering his previously meek demeanor had suddenly taken on an almost bitter quality. He didn't look up at her, just pressed the graphite tip of the pencil into his finger.

Her fingers tapped against the table. "Not a fan?"

"Not anymore."

She sighed. "Listen. It's...it's-"

"Complicated?"

She met his gaze. He stopped fiddling with the pencil. She hesitated before casting her eyes back down to the paper. "Something like that."

Peter scrunched his nose again, only this time more out of frustration than confusion. "Yeah. T-that's what Mr. Stark said. Doesn't seem all that complicated to me," he muttered, glaring down at the papers scattered on the work bench. He noticed out of the corner of her eye that Natasha had set her own pencil down, pushing the papers away as she folded her hands onto the table.

He hesitantly spared a glance up and noticed she was now giving him her full attention. For a moment, he wanted to shift and squirm under the gaze once more, but was held still by a new urge in his stomach, the same urges from before, steady and warm. He blinked back at her, taking in the details of her face. Her heartbeat was still as constant as before.

"I meant what I said before," he murmured softly, letting his eyes linger on hers. "It's...not easy to trust someone. And he trusted you. He chose to do that. And...a-and you threw it back in his face." His eyes hardened. As did his voice.

"That's not complicated. That's wrong."

And in that moment, staring back at her, staring back at an assassin feared all across the globe, staring back at a woman who could probably kill him in a hundred and thirty-seven different ways, Peter noticed her face shift. He noticed the details morph and twist into something else. It was subtle, almost enough to miss, almost enough to look over without a second glance. But Peter saw it. And he knew.

"I know."

You couldn't fake that kind of remorse.

He sighed and glanced back down at the table. "But you're here."

She blinked in surprise. He continued.

"I...I guess that counts for something. As long as...you're not here to like, you know...assassinate him or something."

She pursed her lips and threw him an exasperated look. "How many times do I have to say I'm not here to kill him before you start to believe it?"

At this, Peter felt his jaw tense and his eyes narrow. "I'm supposed to believe you?"

She paused, staring back at him for a moment before giving another hum of thought. "Guess not."

Peter gave a tight nod and glanced away.

"But can you at least answer me something?"

He bit back a groan. Where the heck was Mr. Stark?

"Depends," he murmured coolly.

"What's the story behind that shiner you got there?"

Instantly, Peter went tense. He had enough sense to mask it as best he could, but if the way she straightened up a bit in her seat was any indication, then it was clear that Natasha had seen it. He swallowed the immediate defensive snap he wanted to throw at her and instead took a deep breath, reminding himself that it was just a question. Not an accusation. Not an interrogation. Harmless.

"Just...school stuff." He shrugged. It was stiff. "Nothing interesting."

She tilted her head up a bit, chin sticking out as she stared him down before murmuring something under her breath. "Uh-huh. What kind of school stuff?"

This time, it was harder to wrestle back the retort he felt bubbling in his throat. "Nothing that concerns you," he finally settled on, noticing the slight bite it had on the edge of his words.

"Does it concern Tony?"

At that, Peter finally clamped his jaw shut, leveling her an annoyed glare. She held up her hands in defense. "Alright, alright. I get it." She leaned up all lax against the table once more. "Touchy subject?"

Peter forced his eyes to roll, forced himself to play the part of the defenseless school nerd. It wasn't hard. He had the look already down-pat. "Believe it or not, I...don't really like talking about me getting my ass kicked in the halls."

Natasha gave a scoff and thankfully seemed to accept the performance, finally. "Ah, I'm sure you got a couple good licks of your own on the guy."

Peter sniffed and glanced away. "Believe what you want. The evidence speaks for itself."

She hummed again. Peter noticed she did it often. He watched her reach across the table again and instantly tensed up once more, watching her like a hawk as she grabbed at the blueprints Mr. Stark had left for him to look over after he finished his homework.

"That, it does. So what sort of conversations is this evidence telling me?"

He furrowed his brow and watched her scan her eyes over the documents. "What...w-what do you mean?"

She smoothed them back out onto the table. "Tony doesn't let just anybody touch this stuff. Aside from his oh-so-precious suits, this reactor is like his baby."

Peter opened his mouth to contradict her, to spew out another lie that seemed more believable than Tony leaving him to tinker with his blueprints. Something that would be more acceptable for a low-level intern like he 'supposedly' was to convince her of the internship-scheme they'd conjured up together.

It's not for me.

Mr. Stark's just re-working those designs himself.

I'm just a totally normal, average, not-worth-mentioning, totally not hiding a secret-identity intern. You think those are for me? Ha!

But he didn't. He couldn't. Cause he was too hung up on her words. Was she serious? Did Mr. Stark truly think so highly of his invention? was he really so protective?

"R-really?" Was all these questions came out as.

"Oh yeah."

He stuttered in his seat, giving a little shake of his head as he furrowed his brows. "T-then...why...w-why is he letting me work on it?"

Natasha leaned closer against the table, letting another smirk spread onto her lips.

"You tell me."

Peter snapped his jaw shut at that. He scoured his eyes over the table as if the answers themselves were written into the metal surface. But they weren't. He was only met with a reflected image of himself in all his pale, hollow-eyed glory. He tensed his fingers against the table, felt the cold surface pressing into his skin. Natasha was still watching him. But in that moment, Peter didn't really care.

Instead, he slowly lifted his head and stared right back at her, the same hard conviction from when she'd first come in shining back in his eyes.

"You swear you're not here to hurt him?" He asked slowly.

Natasha met his hard gaze with one of her own. Her face was serious, lips pressed into a firm line. "I swear."

Peter held her stare for a moment longer before giving a tight nod, turning away with a sharp sigh as he shut his eyes and pressed his fingers into the bridge of his nose. Maybe those pills really were starting to wear off now cause he could feel his head beginning to throb once again.

Or maybe this conversation was just dragging on for eternity.

Natasha didn't seem too concerned with the kid's supposed distress, for she turned to the side and folded her arms over her chest, rolling her eyes as her voice took on a sarcastic tone. "Does that mean we can be friends now?" She asked with a smirk.

Peter glanced over at her from between the fingers pressing into his eyes. "How about...loose acquaintances?"

"I'll take it."

He groaned and shut his eyes once more, thankful that at least one thing seemed to be going well that day.

. . .

. . .

"You wanna hear some embarrassing stories about Captain America?"

Without another word, Peter was twisting around in his stool with lightning speed, elbows pressing onto the table.

"Tell me everything."

"FRIDAY?"

"Yes, Boss?"

"How high up are we?"

"The 99th Floor of Stark Tower currently stands at 1,667 feet or 508 meters."

"And what are the chances that someone, oh I don't know say a certain Secretary of State, would survive a fall like that?"

"The chances are low, Boss. Though I must recommend you only resort to first-degree murder should no other options be available."

"Yeah, yeah..."

Tony let out a bone-deep sigh, felt the cold glass of the windows behind him pressing into his palms. He shut his eyes, resting the back of his head against the panes running along the hallway walls.

It was almost interesting, a strange feat of sorts just how draining Secretary Ross' mere voice was to Tony's will and stamina. Half an hour was all the veteran needed to completely throw off Tony's entire day to the point where he had to take a second to just breathe in silence in the empty hallway to settle his nerves and lower his temper back down to semi-tolerable levels.

He could feel his hands beginning to twitch, felt the achy soreness in his muscles. He wanted a drink. His body wanted a drink. That much was clear as he stared up at the ceiling and felt the workings of a migraine beginning to thump underneath his skin.

("Your teammates are rampaging around the city and you couldn't give a damn?")

("Glad we're finally on the same page. Only took a couple months-")

("Enough with the bullshit, Stark. You need to get on this. You-")

(Actually, I don't. All I NEED to do is finish this call and check my blood pressure again cause I might start giving Banner a run for his jolly-green money.")

Tony lifted a hand, wearily pressing his fingers into his eyes as he finally pushed away from the windows and slowly started to make his way back down the hall. As much as he'd delight in swapping out the three-fourths of his body's water contents with pure-grade alcohol, he couldn't. Not yet, at least. Not while he was still on the clock.

He'd left Peter with strict instructions to finish up his homework, to which the teen had given no complaints, not that Tony was surprised. There were times when Peter reminded him of an overexcited police puppy. Ready to follow orders and nothing else. It was unsettling, if he were being honest. Especially the distant thought that if Tony told him to jump off a building, he was frighteningly positive the kid would only give mild hesitations before strapping on a pair of skydiving goggles.

Despite this, Tony couldn't help the feeling of relief he felt growing in him at the prospect of wasting the day away with the kid. No distractions. No accords. No mind-numbing phone calls with contestant number three on his 'people to blast into space as soon as another wormhole makes itself known', right under Steve Rogers and Richard Parker.

He had to admit, that third slot was new but wholly deserved, especially after catching sight of that ugly bruise marring Peter's face. Regardless of Peter's insistences that he was just a 'clumsy sideshow' as he'd put it, Tony had his doubts. Very strong doubts, at that. But before he'd been able to ask about it, he'd been pulled away, much to Peter's relief, he'd noticed.

He knew he should ask about it. Knew it was important to learn as much as he could despite the kid's strong-boned resistance to ever even mentioning it. But he'd noticed a certain weariness in the kid's eyes that day. A heaviness to his movements that were usually so spry and bouncy. The kid was tired. Honestly, Tony was right there with him.

He supposed they could both use a break. Both from invasive questions and pushy government officials.

So with that, Tony ran a hand through his hair and quickly tried to wash away the exhaustion pulling at his face, straightening out his shirt to at least try and maintain the image of 'semi-functioning adult.'

His footsteps slowed, however, as his ears picked up a voice. Female. FRIDAY? Peter loved engaging her in conversation, unlike a majority of common folk who were forced to speak with his AI. Instead of clunky, awkward small talk like most of his employees, Peter spoke to her like he'd known her all his life, carefree and cheery.

The smile that had started to work onto Tony's face at the thought quickly ebbed away though.

That wasn't FRIDAY's voice. That was-

That was-

Oh, she wouldn't fucking dare-

Tony rounded the corner with a speed he didn't know himself capable of without the suit, freezing in the doorway as his eyes blew wide and his heart seized into a tiny little piece of crumpled tin.

What the-?

"So, at this point, the shield's been stuck in the ceiling of our training room for two days and we're a few hours away from a mission that requires all hands - and shields - on deck. The workers are stumped. Rogers is no help since he's basically holed himself up in his room from sheer embarrassment, and at this point the suggestion of just throwing shoes at it until it fall back down is starting to look more and more like an inevitability."

"Oh, my gosh...couldn't you have just asked Mr. Stark to help?"

Natasha scoffed and leaned back in her seat, folding a leg overtop the other while Peter looked on with nothing less than absolute elation in his eyes. "Stark was away from the Compound at the time, at least until the mission got closer. And anyways, Steve begged us not to tell him cause you can bet Stark would've used that for blackmail for the rest of the century. I mean...we did, too. But in the choice between us or Stark, he went with the lesser of two evils.

"Eventually, we had to have Sam fly Rogers up to the ceiling, where he proceeded to try and yank the stupid thing back out with the same force he used to get it stuck in the first place."

"Did he get it down?"

"Yep. Along with a fifth of the ceiling tiles too. All in all, it served as a very valuable lesson for him to learn on the care that must go into training. A lesson that served him well when the exact same thing happened a week later."

Peter's jaw slacked, smile widening. "You're not serious."

"Nobody helped him that time," the woman smirked. "He just sulked until he finally caved and called Stark to help him. And even from a few floors away, we could all hear Tony laughing his ass off."

Tony watched Peter start to laugh, watched the kid hunch over the workbench with a full-face grin and he felt a sudden lurch in his chest. A twitch that snagged against something...hard. Unsettling. He didn't like it. He didn't like this one bit.

"I hope I'm not interrupting anything!"

They both looked up at the voice, and to Tony’s annoyance, neither of them had the decency to look guilty. Peter smiled and flipped to a new page of his notebook. “Hey, Mr. Stark. I finished all my work and you said we’d start working on the external wirings for the arc reactor today, right? Well, I came up with a few plans that I wanted to try out, not that your original plans are bad or anything, but you said you wanted me to get a little creative with it plus the added bonus of a smaller-

“Can it, Happy Meal. We’re not doing anything until you tell me just what the hell you think you’re doing with her?”

The teen tilted his head, hesitating like he didn’t know who Tony was talking about. He glanced up at Natasha. “Who? Your friend?”

“My what now?”

“Oh yeah! I wasn’t really expecting her to show up but she’s actually kinda nice once you get past the whole murder side hustle thing she’s got going on.” He pointed a pencil in Tony’s direction. “Did you know she speaks fifteen different languages? Like, where are you supposed to find the time to learn fifteen languages? Is there that much down-time in the assassination gig? I’d probably get bored. I suppose there are worse things to do with your time than-“

Tony shook his head. “Peter – I…you’re killing me.” He pinched the bridge of his nose and felt his patience dripping away. “Just answer the goddamn question. What are you doing with her?”

“Talking?”

“Why?”

“Cause she…wanted to talk to me?” For the first time, the teen finally looked uneasy. He hesitated for a moment, brows furrowing as he glanced between Tony and the clearly amused woman. “I…thought you knew she was here…”

“When did those words ever leave my lips and somehow work their way into your clearly malfunctioning head?”

The teen grimaced, shrinking in on himself as he balked. “I…wait…didn’t…” He rounded on Romanoff. “You said he knew you were here!”

“I never said that. I said we talked.”

“Yeah, and I assumed you meant like an hour ago or something!”

“You assume incorrectly.”

“Wait, I…” He shook his head, face crumbling into a look of fear and uncertainty. “Does that mean you’re not supposed to be here.” He swallowed. “I…you lied to me?”

At this, the smile on her face finally disappeared, replaced with a sigh. “I said we talked, kid. I never said it went well.”

“Damn right it didn’t,” Tony muttered.

Peter frantically glanced between the two of them again before shutting his eyes with a groan, pressing his palms into his face. “Oh god,” he groaned. “I am such an idiot…”

“Right again!”

He lifted his head and stared at Mr. Stark for a moment as his face took on a sickly green color and his eyes dripped with panic. “I’m so, so sorry, Mr. Stark! I…I thought you two were…cause she said that…and I assumed that…I didn’t mean to, to like…fraternize with an international war criminal, I swear! And I know everyone who does fraternize with war criminals probably says that exact thing, but I really do mean it! I- are you going to arrest me? I mean, I can’t really blame you cause this is like…I think this goes against the Geneva Conventions but going to federal prison will really look bad on my high school transcripts and I don’t think I can-“

“Would you-?!” Tony reached out and yanked the kid towards him, effectively cutting off the manic ramblings as he growled. “Jesus, you’re making my head spin.” He shoved the kid to stand behind him, effectively blocking him from Romanoff’s view. “I’m not putting you in prison. Otherwise I’ve have to arrest myself and while I love making my fair share of spectacles, I think that’s pushing it a little too far.”

“I…you’re not mad?” Peter asked with the hesitancy of a child in the time-out corner.

“Oh, I’m mad. But I’ll deal with you later.” He turned his glare onto Romanoff, who throughout all of this, still had the gall to look relaxed. “YOU on the other hand are looking like a great candidate to take our places behind bars.”

“Wait.”

He turned at the tug on his sleeve, staring down at Peter as the kid shuffled on his feet, looking like all the world were glaring at him. The teen’s mouth quivered up and down, like he couldn’t quite force the words out. He spared a glance at Natasha before finally speaking in a hushed voice. “I…I know I….don’t really understand what’s going on here, but…b-but couldn’t you maybe…I don’t know…” He spared the man a glance. “…let her go?”

Tony stared. Blinked.

“I mean, I know she’s a war criminal and all that and a total liar by the way.”

“Says you,” Natasha scoffed.

“Liar by omission, then. Whatever,” the teen muttered. “Anyway, the point is…she…s-she didn’t try to…hurt me or anything.”

Tony narrowed his eyes. “Yeah? And?”

“Doesn’t that…I don’t know – count for something?”

“If it does, then your bar for judging character is frighteningly low.”

“Besides the point. If she wanted to do something bad, couldn’t she have done it already?” He shrugged his shoulders, angling his gaze towards the ground as he scuffed the toe of his shoe against the floor. “She had the time. Instead, she just…talked to me. And not about getting secrets or government hacks or whatever.”

She scratched her chin. “If I wanted government hacks, there are better places I can hit up than a high-school freshman with a pac-man lunchbox.”

“Trying to save your life, here.”

“Right, right.”

Tony watched the kid fidget with his hands, face scrunched as he stared up at the man. “I’m just saying…couldn’t we, I don’t know…give her a break? Just this once?” He smiled, the same gentle smile Tony had only seen a handful of times. “She was…nice.”

The billionaire reared back at that, staring at the kid with a cocked brow. “Nice. I…she was nice?” He glared at the woman. ‘What the fuck did you drug him with? Let me see your neck” He reached out and yanked the kid closer, tilting his head so he could inspect his neck. The kid floundered with a yelp. “What kind of needle did she stab you with? Was it big and thick or small enough to go between your toes? Toes…right! Take off your shoes!”

“Tony, relax. I didn’t hurt him. We were just talking.”

“Zip it, two-face. You.” He glared at Peter again. “Can you taste color yet?”

The teen, bastard that he was, merely laughed at Tony’s attempts to save his life. “I’m serious, Mr. Stark,” he said as he gently pushed the man’s hands off. “She really did seem pretty cool. And she said she could teach me some new languages sometimes.” He hesitated for a moment before pursing his lips into the hints of a smirk. “That seems like it would be pretty difficult from behind a cell…don’t you think?”

Tony twisted his face into an exasperated frown, eyeing up the kid’s pleading look with an annoyed huff before he was pressing his fingertips into his eyes. After a second, he turned around to face Natasha, who was staring at him with the most infuriating little grin.

“Kid. Do me a favor and head up to the second level. I need you to grab something for me.”

“Um…okay? What do you need me to get,” the kid started, only to jolt as the billionaire began to push him towards the stairs.

“I don’t know. Something. Anything. Just make sure it takes you a long time to find.”

The billionaire waited until he could no longer see the teen from the corner of his eye before turning  back to Natasha with a muted sigh. “This kid…” he muttered under his breath.

Natasha gave a small chuckle. “He really is something, I’ll give you that.”

Tony did not return the smile. He might have been bluffing on that prison threat, but he certainly wasn’t jazzed about her presence. He stepped closer, trying with all his might to look intimidating. “Didn’t I specifically tell you to stay the hell away from him?”

Natasha, of course, was not moved by his attempts. “No. You told me to stay away from Spider-Man. You said nothing about junior over there.”

Tony tightened his jaw in annoyance.

Stupid secret identities.

Stupid superhero loopholes.

“Well, I assumed you’d be courteous enough to include anybody who’s in the middle of this little skirmish of ours,” he scoffed as he turned away and plopped down at the workbench. It was unnerving how much better he felt now that Peter was far away from her.

He gazed down at the blueprints and papers scattered on the table, the remnants of Peter’s homework tucked dutifully away in the corner while the arc reactor blueprints sat beside them. It was not lost on him that there were no hints of anxiety about Natasha having seen them.

Though he wasn’t sure how he felt about the exploding Iron Man doodles drawn beside them.

“What’s wrong with him, Tony?”

The billionaire sharply turned to look at her, eyes searching her face. There was no malice behind her words but Tony couldn’t help the bubble of indignant anger that immediately rose up.

“I…what the fuck is that supposed to mean? There’s nothing wrong with him.”

“Stop trying to pick a fight.” She gazed back at him with that same telltale look of calm, a film of steady surety that unwittingly made him feel the same. “There’s something off about him and you know it. I sensed it the second he looked at me.”

She twitched her lips into a frown and Tony noticed a new expression subtly blooming on her face. It was hard to read, which wasn’t unusual. But it almost looked…solemn. A hint of understanding. Empathetic. Her voice was soft. “No child should have eyes like that.”

The billionaire remained silent, turning his head away as he twisted a pencil between his fingers.

“Regardless…”

The pencil paused.

“I like him. He’s…genuine. And very protective of you.”

He frowned. “What?”

She didn’t elaborate, merely rested her hands in her pockets and angled her head towards the stairs, where the kid had last disappeared.

The man chewed on the inside of his cheek. Natasha was one of the last people he wanted to talk to about this stuff. But he couldn’t stop a small part of his mind from wondering – about what she’s say, the advice she’d give. She was a level-headed observer. Never acted with emotion. Maybe she could give an unbiased opinion, show an unseen option they’d never considered.

Still…was he really ready to trust her with this?

With anything?

He swallowed.

“It’s not what happened,” he said slowly, choosing his words carefully. “It’s what’s happening.”

Natasha stared at him, drinking in his words carefully. “Does it have anything to do with that bruise on his eye?”

Tony’s face twitched. He said nothing.

His silence was answer enough.

She gave a small nod of her head, perhaps realizing that that was all the information she was going to get. He watched her approach, felt her hand patting up against his shoulder. Surprisingly enough, he didn’t pull away. Not even as she spoke.

“I’m sticking around, Tony. Whether you want me to or not. Cause I don’t care what’s happening with the others, with Ross, with…hell, with all of this.” She gave his shoulder a small squeeze. “You’re still my friend. Even if I’m not yours.”

Tony stared down at the workbench. There were a million responses swirling through his head.

You’re right. You’re not my friend and never will be again.

I can’t afford to be picky when it comes to the people I love so I guess I’m stuck with you.

Please don’t hurt me again.

In the end, he remained silent, and the moment passed.

She gave his arm another pat and moved away. He heard her shoes clicking against the tiles, only for them to pause in the doorway. He glanced over his shoulder. She was staring up at the second floor again.

“What? Miss him already?”

“He hasn’t eaten.”

He blinked at that, brows furrowing as he turned in his seat. That was random. “What? What are you-?”

She cut him off. “He’s hungry, Tony.”

The previous humor in her voice was gone. And as she turned to him, Tony could sense an eeriness in her gaze, an uneasy dread that reflected itself in his stomach, churning it around back and forth like an uneasy tide. His frown darkened.

And she was gone.

Tony stared after her for a moment before his gaze returned to the floor, his face twisted in thought. He stayed like that for a while before he heard footsteps approaching. He lifted his head, watching as Peter hesitantly walked down the stairs, a white-knuckle grip on the railing. In his other hand, there was a small, rusted wrench.

The teen reached the bottom step with a loud exhale, eyes shutting in exhaustion. "Okay..." he panted. "I g-got...something? I got something." He murmured, holding up the little wrench for the older man to see.

Tony approached and plucked the wrench from the kid’s hands. “Cool. Thanks.” He gave it a once-over before tossing it over his shoulder. It clattered along the floor somewhere.

Peter stared after it as the billionaire turned on his heel and stepped up to the workbench again. “So what was that about new external wiring? I’ve always thought these plans could use a few upgrades.”

The teen gave a shaky grin and took a step forward, only for his knee to buckle a bit, causing him to lean heavily against the stair railing. Tony startled at the sight, instantly straightening up.

“You good, kid?”

“Yes! Yeah,” he said a bit too quickly, smiling through the grimace now twisting across his features. Tony noticed the beads of sweat dripping down his forehead. Had he been this run down before? Had he simply not noticed?

He shook the thought away and turned back to the blueprints, ears perked for any sounds as the kid slowly approached.  “By the way, could you do me a favor and maybe not tell your dad that I left you with a wanted war criminal babysitter?”

“Yeah, don’t worry. He won’t be hearing about this anything soon.”

“Super.”

For a few moments, they dove back into the work and Tony forgot all about his concerns. In his element, the kid could fly through circuit schematics and draw up testing data like there was no tomorrow, regardless of the shade of his skin or the sweat on his brow. In fact, it wasn’t until they were pushing away from the work bench to get some extra circuits that Peter finally grimaced.

He swayed in place for a moment as he stood, and it took the billionaire a moment to realize the kid was not following behind him. He glanced over his shoulder and threw him a questioning look. The teen lifted his head for a moment and threw him a not so reassuring smile. “Just…catching my breath. I think I…stood up too fast.”

“It’s a wonder you don’t get motion sickness while you’re swinging,” the man joked, uneasy smile slipping from his face as he watched the slight shiver in the boy’s steps. He moved forward warily, hands up. “Uh…on second thought, maybe you should sit down for a minute.”

“No, no. I’m…I’m good. I’m so good right now. Don’t even worry about it. Let’s just…uh…the insulation. Let’s…let’s work on that next.”

He took another step forward, but this time when his knee buckled, he couldn’t stop himself. Instead he yelped as he suddenly toppled forward.

“Hey!” Tony shouted, quickly shooting forward right as the teen collapsed into his chest. Strong arms wrapped around his waist (which in his mind he registered as being unnervingly small) and tried to steady him.

Peter gritted his teeth and grunted. “Darn it…darn it, darn it,” he murmured over and over as Tony carefully lowered him into a sitting position. The kid collapsed onto his backside with an exhausted sigh and Tony noted with more than a little alarm how pale the kid’s face had suddenly become.

“Sorry.” Was all he managed to squeak out.

“Jesus, kid,” Tony muttered as he too lowered himself to the ground, ignoring the ache in his knees as he knelt in front of the kid. “What the hell was that, Peter?” His voice was tense.

The kid stole a quick glance his way before turning his head down. “Nothing. N-nothing, I just got a little dizzy. I…might not have gotten much sleep last night,” he said with a little chuckle, but the noise died in his throat as he caught sight of the man’s expression.

Tony stared hard at him, not even trying to hide it as he scanned the kid up and down, scouring him over and taking note of each detail. After a second, he silently cursed under his breath. “God, I hate it when she’s right.”

Before the kid could ask what he meant, the billionaire was straightening, a new terseness to his tone. “Have you eaten today?”

Peter blinked up at him dumbly, almost like he didn’t understand what the man was saying. Tony narrowed his eyes and snapped his fingers in front of the kid’s face, eliciting a wince. “Hey. Answer me, kid. When was the last time you ate something?”

“I, uh…” The teen gazed back at him with those big honey-colored eyes of his, a confused gleam shining through as he tilted his head and furrowed his brows a bit. “It’s been a little while, but it’s nothing to worry about.”

“Clearly not. You almost just cracked your head on my shiny new linoleum.”

“Sorry.”

“No, I-“ Tony cut himself off, biting back the automatic snippy retort that bubbled up, almost on autopilot at this point. This kid took jokes way too literally sometimes, he reminded himself with a deep breath. “Didn’t we talk about this, kid? The whole ‘tell me when you need something’ talk? The ‘no more bleeding out in my lab’ talk? Is any of that ringing a bell?”

Peter blinked up at him, looking so genuinely lost that Tony could feel his annoyances dwindling. “But…this…I thought that only applied to stuff that happens on patrol?” The lab filled with the telltale sound of a rumbling stomach but Peter didn’t even flinch, almost as if he hadn’t even heard it. “This…isn’t a Spider-Man thing. This is a Peter Parker thing.”

“So?”

“So…it doesn’t matter. Right?”

Tony opened his mouth but found he had nothing to say. The kid was staring at him with such genuine emotion, such innocent certainty that the billionaire almost had to look away.

“Peter…how’d you hurt your eye?” His voice was soft. Dreadful.

Peter stared back at him and Tony could see the rippling of his muscles tensing under his sweater, the stiffening of his shoulders. The teen wet his lips and slowly averted his gaze. “I, uh…I slipped. On some water. Hit my head…against the counter.”

Tony swallowed, bringing a hand to rub against the side of his neck. It was an obvious lie, almost painfully so. But he didn’t call him on it. What was the point? The kid wouldn’t respond well to it, especially not in this state.

Peter didn’t say anything else, didn’t fill the silence with anymore colorful babblings or science talk. That was long gone. In its place stood a shell, a hollow husk of withered emotion. He stared at the floor with a dejected look of emptiness, a blank expression of nothing.

 

(“No child should have eyes like that.”)

 

Tony stood, Peter following his movements as the billionaire brushed the nonexistent dust from his knees and straightened his back. He stared down at the kid for a moment before offering a hand.

It took a moment of hesitant stares and wary glances on the kid’s end. But finally, perhaps realizing that he didn’t have the strength to really move around on his own, Peter cautiously placed his hand into Tony’s, the billionaire hoisting him back up to his feet. He monitored him with a hovering hand, watching the kid sway in place but ultimately remain standing.

They shared a silent look.

“Come on.”

The billionaire held a steadying hand against the kid’s arm and led him out of the lab and down the hall. It wasn’t until they were stepping into the elevator that Peter finally asked, in a meek, quiet voice, “Where are we going?”

“To get some food.”

Another moment of hesitation.

“…why?”

Tony sucked in a deep breath. Flexed his fingers against the skin of Peter’s wrist.

“Because it does matter.”

 

---

 

Tony hadn’t been on the Communal Floor much. Not much point. It was usually empty nowadays. But when deciding on where to take Peter for some much needed food, he’d surprisingly pressed the floor’s button on instinct. The food court was not an option considering how buggy the kid was right now and the only thing on the penthouse floor was a couple bottles of 100-year-old whiskey lying in wait for him and their midnight antics.

So instead, the elevator opened up on a floor that had been dead quiet for the better part of a month now. Even in all its titanium, billion-dollar, luxury glory…it was still a difficult sight for Tony to swallow.

The designer couches and plush living room furniture sat unused and untouched. The dining tables and adjacent bar were polished and dust-free, courtesy of the weekly cleaning crew that swept through, but it still felt lifeless and hollow. Even the floors, once upon a time covered in loose shoes, discarded books, and the occasional piece of live ammo, sat clean and empty.

Tony swallowed and focused his energy on guiding the teen behind him over to the bar counter overlooking the kitchen.

The teen folded his arms on the surface of the table and rested his head down, eyes fluttering shut. Tony spared him a quick glance before shuffling over towards the industrial-sized fridge.

It wasn’t until he opened it that he finally began to wonder if they should have just braved the food court, after all. No occupants on this floor meant no reason to keep ready-to-eat meals at hand. Instead, the fridge was stocked with bare ingredients and a few cans of soda, juice, and water.

Back in the day, it would have been overflowing.

Tony pursed his lips and snagged a few cans of soda. Peter blinked open his eyes as the billionaire dropped the cans in front of him. “Do me a favor and drink these while I…pshh…I don’t know. Breakfast is easy enough, right?” He muttered while eyeing the fridge again, more specifically at the carton of eggs he noticed peeking out of the door.

In hindsight, it probably would have been easier to just order something, or hell have something sent up from the food court. But for some reason, it felt…wrong. Like he’d be shirking off responsibility to someone else. He spared a glance behind him at the teen currently finishing off his first can.

This was the first time Tony actually had to…do something for the kid. Something he needed.  It felt wrong to flake on it now.

No. He could do this himself.

Just crack a few eggs. Easy.

He pulled out the carton of eggs and a couple empty mixing bowls from the bottom cabinets and got to work. He noticed Peter watching him in silence from the kitchen counter and for the first few minutes, he was able to tolerate the silence. It wasn’t until he was cracking his first egg and subsequently picking the pieces of shell out of the bowl that he finally snapped and spoke up.

“So you wanna tell me what’s different about today?”

The teen blinked at him, as if registering that the billionaire had, in fact, spoken to him, and tilted his head.

“Why are you showing up to my lab on the brink of starvation? Am I not paying you enough?”

“You don’t pay me at all.”

“I pay you in wisdom.”

The kid cracked a smile, which forced Tony to avert his eyes back down to the pieces of shell refusing to leave the bowl.

“Well, my friends weren’t at school the last few days and they usually share their lunches with me cause I don’t have much time to pack one at home. So, I guess I’ve been relying too much on the vending machines.”

Tony grabbed a fork and started to awkwardly whisk the eggs. “You don’t have a butler at home to pack you lunches? Your dad’s rich enough to afford an either staff of employees.”

Now that he thought about it, Tony couldn’t remember seeing any maids, drivers, cleaners, nothing the last time he’d visited the man’s home. An odd departure from his own childhood experience, which was usually filled with nothing but servants.

Peter shrugged his shoulders. “My dad believes in self-sufficiency. So he prefers for me to do things on my own. Plus he doesn’t really like having too many people coming in and out of the house.”

“This is in spite of the handful of thugs that live with you?”

“That’s different. They’re family.”

“Are they?”

Peter blinked. Tony met his gaze for a moment before shaking his head. “Sorry. It’s…not my business.” He turned on the stove glanced down at the yellow sloshing mixture in the bowl. “Your house is pretty massive. Who cleans it?”

“I do.”

“Cooking.”

“Me.”

“Laundry.”

“That’s me, too.”

He poured the liquid into the pan with a furrow of his brows. He pressed his tongue against his cheek and forced a steady tone into his voice. “So when your dad said self-sufficiency, he really meant shoving all the work onto you?”

Peter gave another shrug of his shoulders. He didn’t even look all that bothered. “It’s not a big deal. My dad’s a really busy guy and the others are always at work, so I do what I can to take care of the house. All kids have chores, don’t they?”

Tony grunted but didn’t say anything specific. Instead, he began to rummage through the drawers in search of a spatula. He’d occasionally spare a frantic glance towards the stove.

No fires yet.

“So…how long has it been like this?”

“Like what?”

“You running a one-man servant show?”

A-ha! Spatula!

“I guess since my mom died, but I haven’t really been keeping track.”

Tony floundered to get a good grip on the spatula as he winced, casting a hesitant glance over his shoulder. Peter was staring at the counter, lazily drawing little circles into the marble surface. He didn’t look like he was on the verge of breaking down into sobs, which was good.

One crisis at a time.

“Uh-huh…” he said cautiously, turning stiffly back to the mess on the stove. It was starting to bubble, which may or may not have been a good sign.

He’d done his fair share of research on the kid, including his family. And while there might not have been much, if any, mention of the Cons, there were plenty of news stories about Mary Parker. More specifically, about the brutal murder of Mary Parker.

Now Tony might not have been good with children, but even he had the good sense not to ask the teen about his dead mom, especially since the papers had made explicit news about the kid witnessing said murder.

Talk about touchy subjects.

So, instead, the billionaire kept rummaging through the counters, if only to have something for his hands to do and grabbed an armful of random spices. Best to just avoid the topic entirely. Yep, that was the way to go. Just ignore it and move on.

He popped open the pepper bottle-

“Wanna talk about it?”

-And promptly dropped it all over the counter.

 

. . .

 

. . .

 

. . .

 

What.

The fuck?

Peter seemed equally as surprised by the words, for he straightened in his seat and gave the billionaire a strange look.

Tony pointedly turned his back on the kid and stared down at the eggs on the stove, eyes wide and mind racing.

 

Idiotidiotidiotidiot-----

 

This was bad.

This was emotion. This was heartfelt conversation and sensitivity, which he was pretty sure he was mildly allergic to. He hesitantly reached for another bottle of spices, didn’t even bother reading the label as he shook it into the pan.

Tony Stark was not good at dealing with his emotions. Siberia was a prime example of him losing control and he definitely wasn’t about to take that risk again. Or worse, make Peter ris that. Having only caught a few glimpses of the teen’s true anger, he hated to wonder what it would be like if the teen ever did lose control like he had. Deep in his gut, the billionaire couldn’t imagine the kid getting violent, but still…

He snuck a glance over his shoulder.

Peter was staring blankly at nothing, brows furrowed, and lips parted ever so slightly in thought, as if mulling over Tony’s question. But more than that, the man noticed a certain…emptiness in the boy’s face. A weary sense of isolation. Lost.

Tony knew that face.

Tony recognized that face.

It was the only one he’d worn for months after his parents died, the only thing that ever stared back at him in the mirrors, back before he’d smashed them all.

Back before he’d begun to cover it up with booze and drugs and whatever else he could get his hands on. Whatever else could fill the gaping hole within him. Whatever else could make him feel a bit less empty. A little less lost.

He thought of the bottles of whiskey waiting for him upstairs.

 

. . .

 

…Then wondered how Peter filled his holes.

He took a deep breath and turned to face the kid. Show he was listening. And he was.

Peter glanced up at him for a moment before averting his gaze once again. It took a minute for him to finally speak. He fiddled with his hands. “There’s not…there’s not much to say, Mr. Stark.”

“Say whatever you’d like.”

He pulled his face into a frown stared off at the living room in the distance. “I just…um…my dad doesn’t like it when I talk about her.”

Tony stepped forward on reflex, entering the kid’s line of sight with a set frown on his face and a determined glint in his eyes.

“Your dad’s not here.”

Peter blinked at him. Held his gaze for a moment before swallowing.

 

. . .

 

. . .

 

. . .

 

“She liked Legos.”

Tony stared. Paused. It wasn’t…the most riveting piece of information. But for Peter, it very much looked like the most important thing he’d ever said in his entire life. The teen took a moment to think on it before his lips twitched into a ghost of a smile.

“She…she liked to make random things. Never followed the instructions. Just made them crazier and crazier.” The smile grew, a hesitant sprout with tiny budding leaves. “She…s-she had this one…sculpture thing. Just a mess of random Lego pieces mashed together. Called it the Jumble. And every time she’d get a new set, she’d add it onto the Jumble. Like…like those rubber band balls. Just adding more and more so it gets bigger? Yeah, she’d…s-she’d do that…”

He trailed off, voice sinking into silence. The smile remained though. It was a wistful smile, but a smile nonetheless.

“I like Legos…” he whispered.

Tony stared at him. And gave his own little smile.

…Right before the fire alarm went off.

“Shit!”

He whipped back around towards the stove and gaped at the grease fire flaring out at him. Peter stared with wide eyes as the billionaire grabbed the pot lid and slammed it down onto the inferno, trapping the flames behind a wall of glass and metal. They both stared at the roaring mess for a moment before it finally put itself out.

Tony silently reached up and shut the stove off.

“Mr. Stark…?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you…know how to cook?”

“…No.”

Peter walked up and peered over the man’s shoulder. They both stared at the smoldering pile of ash on the pan. Tony grabbed the handle and flipped it upside down.

It stuck to the bottom.

He gave it a shake for good measure.

Nothing.

“Would you…like to learn?”

 

---

 

Natasha wasn’t sure what she was expecting as she walked up onto the Communal Floor with a goodbye for Tony, but it sure wasn’t this.

“What are they…?”

“No idea,” Pepper muttered while peering around the corner with the intense observation skills of a professional wildlife surveyor.

“They’ve been at it for like…twenty minutes now,” Rhodey said with a cocked brow, arms folded over his chest. Happy stood by his side, chin just overtop the man’s shoulder as he watched. “It doesn’t even look like anything…”

Natasha peered out.

“I think it could use some more red over here.”

“There’s a couple extra in the box, I think. Right now I’m in the middle of green territory and I’m making some good strides.”

Peter grabbed another few Lego pieces off the counter and added some more to the big ball of jumbled pieces in front of him. Tony sat across, his own horde of green pieces cupped in his hand as he added one by one to the…”sculpture?” Though it looked more like a ball of crap than anything else. Next to them sat plates of omelets, scrambled eggs, bacon, oatmeal, and even some pancakes off to the side. Something was still flying on the stove.

“So how big are we thinking of making this thing anyway?”

“The world record for the largest Lego sculpture is a replica of the London Bridge with over 5 million pieces. Ned and I looked it up one time.”

“Pshh…child’s play. You think we can make an Iron man suit out of Legos?”

FWOOSHH!

“Shit! The stove’s on fire again!”

“Damn it. Where’d you put the fire extinguisher?”

Pepper, Rhodey, Happy and Natasha watched in stunned silence as the billionaire hastily grabbed at the fire extinguisher while Peter nonchalantly continued to fiddle with his Lego pieces, blissfully ignoring the man’s string of profanities as he struggled to control the stream of high-pressure foam.

“Did you get it all?”

“I…fshhh…yeah I think so.”

“Hmm. You’re getting better. That’s your first fire in twenty minutes.”

“Thank you. And don’t touch my Lego pieces, you little thief.”

“You snooze, you lose, Old Man.”

Natasha blinked and leaned back a bit. The others continued to watch with narrowed eyes and uneasy frowns, like a couple of parents fearfully watching their child discover finger paint for the first time.

She smirked and patted them on the shoulders.

“I’ll leave you guys to it.”