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Chapter Text

Tony never planned to bring Peter along. First of all, it was a school night, and the mission was all the way in Montana. Second, the new and improved Avengers were well…new. And probably the opposite of improved. Not a great place for the kid to test his metaphorical wings. Not until they were more well-oiled, and the threat was hopefully less menacing. 

(Besides, the longer Spider-man stayed in New York, the longer it would be before Ross started asking questions).

Unfortunately, doesn’t listen to a word you say, was on top of the list of things that Tony didn’t anticipate about recruiting a teenage vigilante, but definitely should have. 

So, when halfway through the flight Clint looked up, found Spider-man asleep on the ceiling, and proceeded to shriek in an un-Avenger-like manner, Tony wasn’t surprised. Frustrated, sure—he should have checked for stowaways—but not surprised. (Ok, maybe he jumped a little). 

The eyes of the Spider-man suit shot open comically wide as Peter tumbled to the ground. 

“What the hell!” Clint said. “What the actual...holy....what?” 

Peter pushed himself to his feet. “Uh, hi?” He had a hoodie over his suit. It pooled around his hands and made him look especially young and absurd standing on the Quinjet where the likes of Thor and Captain America stood less than a year ago. 

Rhodey clutched his chest. “Jeez.” 

Natasha, who had pulled out her widow bites at Clint’s scream, put them away. She tilted her head, almost amused. “Who’s this?”

“I’m...Spider-man?” Peter looked to Tony as if asking for confirmation of his own damn name. 

“Yup. That’s your designated hero title.”

“Tony,” Clint said, “You don’t seem to be appropriately freaking out about the guy who was on our ceiling.” 

“Yeah,” Tony pinched the bridge of his nose. “Yeah, I know.” He’d fought aliens. He’d saved the world. Why was one teenager so stressful? 

“You’re the little punk from Germany?” Natasha said.

“Uh. I guess? I mean I’d consider myself more nerd than punk but—” 

“And on the ceiling,” Clint repeated. “He was on the ceiling.” 

“Yeah. That...That’s one of my powers.” 

“Well, congrats, kid.” Tony set a steadying hand on Peter’s shoulder and he immediately relaxed into it. “You made a hell of a first impression today. Second impression? Your first in Berlin was also nothing to scoff at.” 

He could almost see Peter’s smile under the mask. 

(At the top of the list of things that Tony didn’t anticipate about recruiting a teenage vigilante, and definitely could not have, was the warmth he felt when Peter did...whatever this was). 

“You didn’t tell us he was coming,” Natasha said. 

“His presence on the mission was unplanned.” 

Peter shrunk a little at Tony’s tone. Oh yeah. We’re having a talk about this. 

Clint’s hand shot in the air. “Can I ask a question?” 

“Let me guess?” Rhodey said. “It’s about him being on the ceiling.” 

“What the fuck were you doing on the ceiling?”

“I was right.” 

“I was catching a ride, I guess? Hitchhiking by car from Queens to Montana would have taken too long. I gotta be home by ten.” 

It was meant as a joke, but Tony had no doubt this was a thought Peter actually considered.

“But couldn’t you have hidden in the vents like a normal person?” Clint said.

Rather than going with the obvious, normal people don’t hide in vents, Peter chose the more practical, “Planes don’t have vents.” 

“Better question,” Rhodey said. “There was no reason for you to sneak along. This is an all-hands-on-deck mission.” He always saw through Tony’s shit. Or in this case, through the pubescent crack in Peter’s voice and the nervous fidgeting with his sleeves that screamed, I’m not an adult! 

“That's not a question,” Peter said.

“He’s not an Avenger,” Tony said at the same time. 

Rhodey frowned but—hearing Tony’s silent plea—didn’t press the subject. 

Natasha, however, did. “Still in training?” 

“It’s complicated.” 

“He does seem pretty green.” 

“My suit is red,” Peter said. “And blue. I mean you could mix them. But it’d make purple.”

Tony rolled his eyes. “Yeah. Very cute. Come to the cockpit with me. I’m going to debrief you away from these numbskulls.” He steered Peter toward the front of the Quinjet. The kid waved at the still-confused Avengers before they reached the cockpit. 

“The ceiling,” Clint muttered. 

“Let it go, man,” Rhodey said, as Tony slid the door shut behind them. 

Alone and out of earshot, Tony leveled Peter with the most pants-shitting, Howard-Stark-inspired glare he could muster. “Are you kidding me?” 

The kid pulled his mask off and twisted it. “Right. Yeah. You look mad. But I was just—”

“Save it. I should turn this thing around right now and dump you off in the middle of bumfuck North Dakota. Did you forget our conversation? Because I remember, clear as day, you swore you weren’t going to try anything.” 

“Well. You know. ‘Do or do not. There is no try.’ ”

“Look,” Tony gestured to his face, “Do I seem amused?” 

“No, you still seem pretty pissed.” 

“Yeah. I do. Because you aren’t supposed to be here. We agreed you aren’t an Avenger, yeah? You wanted to stick to the ground for a while. I told you not to come. Your Aunt told you not to come. Even your friend Ted told you not to come. The team hasn’t dusted off all our cobwebs yet, and the mission is dangerous.” 

“Which is why I’m here!” He squared his shoulders. His eyes were as firm as Steve’s—in those moments where he’d made up his mind and not even the Hulk could move him. “People are in danger. And the brief said ‘all available team members and auxiliary support.’ I’m auxiliary support, right? Because you brought me to Germany. And I took down the Vulture. So why should I turn away when people could get hurt? You could get hurt.” 

Tony directed a sigh to the ceiling. Unfortunately, it held no advice. “You’re fifteen.”

“And you’re forty-six.” 

“Which means, unlike some people, my prefrontal cortex is fully developed, and I can legally drive without adult supervision. I’ve been doing this for eight years. Everyone here has dealt with this kind of thing. We’re all adults. We can handle it.” 

“But you said the teamwork gears were still squeaky and stuff.”

“No means no. We have ground rules. I say you’re benched for a mission, you’re benched.”

“What did you expect me to do? Just wait at home while you fly off and hope you come back?” His voice cracked at the end, eyes glistening. “Watch the news and hope no one dies, knowing I could help? I can’t let anyone else…I shouldn’t.”

Oh. That thought hadn’t even crossed Tony’s mind. This was a kid who’d been orphaned once and lost his second father barely a year ago. He'd been here before—watching his parents fly off on a trip and never come home. He was still grieving his uncle. Still living with the much too recent memory of someone dying in his arms. Tony didn't know the details, just that Peter blamed himself. Despite neither of them wanting it, Tony showed up right in time to wedge himself into that gaping, abandonment-issue-shaped hole in Peter’s life. Which sucked, because there were no guarantees in this line of work. Tony would have to leave sometimes. And he would never be able to promise he’d come back. 

“Kid.” What did he even say?

Peter stuck his chin up, looking every bit the stubborn orphan that he was. “I’m going with you.”

“You kinda left me no choice. We don’t have time to dump you in North Dakota. And I doubt you’d wait in the Quinjet.” 

Peter grinned. “Nope.” 

“Don’t look so happy about it. You’re still in trouble. Like, ‘grounded until you die,’ trouble. And I’m definitely calling your aunt.”

He didn’t look upset about it. “Of course.” 

“If you’re going to come, you’re going to follow my rules. You break them, then so help me, I will strand you in Yellowstone with nothing but your hello kitty pajamas and a flashing neon sign that says, ‘I’m a little shit.’ Got it?” 

Peter nodded, forcing his grin into a serious expression. 

“First rule: you stay in my line of sight. If something happens and you can’t do that, you make sure another teammate can see you. Someone has eyes on you at all times. Got it?” 

“Got it.” 

“Rule two—and actually try to follow this time okay? Keep your distance. Use your webs to neutralize enemies. Get civilians to safety. And remember, ‘keep your distance,’ does not mean, ‘immediately throw yourself head first at the world-class super soldier assassin.’ Capiche?” 

“That was one time.” 

“Like you wouldn’t do it again.” 

Peter shrugged. “Fair enough.” 

“Rule three—You listen to me. I make a call, you listen. If Steve or anyone else makes a call, you listen to them too. Unless I make a different call, then you listen to me. And if I make a call you don’t agree with, you still listen to me. Even if that’s, ‘run away and protect yourself.’” 

“But what if—”

“And that leads to the most important rule: Your number one priority is getting out alive.” 

“That feels more like a number three or four priority.” 

Tony couldn't tell if he was joking or serious. Probably both. “I’m not kidding here.” 

Peter wrinkled his nose as if Tony just waved a big pile of shit under it and asked him to sniff—which, in Peter’s mind, he probably had. “I won’t try to die,” He said, “But you can’t make me put myself before the people I’m trying to save. I’m not doing that, Mr. Stark. That’s not what being a hero is about.” 

Peter was right, and Tony hated that. He also sounded a lot like Steve fucking Rogers again, and Tony hated that too. “Fine,” He conceded. “But no reckless stunts. Listen to that freaky Spider-sense. Also, listen to common sense. And to me. If you need help, ask for help. No heroic stoicism, no hiding injuries, no going it alone, call someone the second you need backup. Understood?” 

“Yeah.” 

“Repeat the rules.” 

“Stay near you. Keep my distance. Don’t launch myself at the Winter Soldier, who probably won’t be there anyway, but it’s a metaphor so I get it. Listen to you. Listen to my Spider-sense. Don’t be reckless. Don’t die. Call for help if I need it.” 

“Alright. Also never, ever sneak into a mission again.”

“You and I both know I’m gonna break that one.” 

Tony could feel the impending headache. “Yeah,” he admitted. “Yeah, I know.” 

Peter listened as Mr. Stark explained the mission. He tried to keep his face neutral like he didn’t already know this, and like he never stole the mission briefing from Mr. Stark’s desk. (He did exactly that. They both knew it). 

The abridged version? Some guy in a gas mask and a trench coat was threatening to gas-bomb all 20,234 people in Fort Wolf, Montana. In Peter’s opinion, that was an oddly specific threat. Didn't these goons usually have some kind of demand? Like...Give me a lifetime supply of pizza and I'll spare the city. Or at least a tragic backstory. The Mayor of Fort Wolf, Montana murdered my pizza. 

Something like that anyway. 

This guy didn't have any of that. He was just some weirdo with a power complex—one who presumably threw a dart at a map of the U.S. and said “Ah! The middle of nowhere! That’s where I should test my brand-new deadly gas bombs!” 

It was refreshing, actually. Too many supervillain types tried to justify their mass murder. 

Mr. Stark found that very funny. His mouth was twitching like he was trying hard not to—he was still mad—but Peter could tell. He had a good sense of humor. 

"See this?" he held out what looked like a high-tech fidget cube. "Everyone on the team is getting one of these, and thankfully for stowaways, I made extras. If you run into Gaseous Doom—" 

"—Is that what he’s calling himself? Mr. Stark, no self-respecting teenager can let that go. It’s a fart joke waiting to happen." 

This time, Mr. Stark didn't hesitate in letting out a snort of laughter. "I'd scold you for interrupting me but you aren't wrong." 

"It's an affront to humanity. We should pick a new name. How about Tim? Villains never call themselves Tim."

Mr. Stark rolled his eyes. "Alright, if you run into 'Tim'—which you won't because you'll be following rule two—you trap him in this box as fast as possible." 

"Oh. Okay. It's a little small isn’t it?" 

He turned the cube in his hand and pointed to a button on the top. "It expands. Press this and throw it. Do it fast. If he gets off one of those bombs, anyone in a five-block radius is dead. Got it?" 

Peter nodded. "And the fidget cube keeps the gas inside?" 

"Stop naming my inventions for me," He said. "The cube turns into an airtight chamber that traps the gas and neutralizes it. The process is extremely toxic, so it can't open until it's finished. Don't get trapped in there."

Peter's stomach twisted at the words. "What about Tim? He's getting trapped in there, isn't he?" 

His voice went quiet. "Kid, if you hadn't snuck along you wouldn't have to face this moral dilemma." There was no bite in the words, though, only sadness in his eyes. "No one wants to play judge, jury, and executioner. But this is the best I could come up with in the timeframe I was given. One life or twenty thousand." 

It settled heavily on Peter's shoulders. Deep down, he always knew this was the kind of choice he'd have to make someday. It was part of the responsibility he took when he picked up the Spider-man mantle. He just thought that day would be further away. 

"Hey," Mr. Stark grabbed his arm, his grip firm and comforting. "It's my invention. This decision is on me. If things go right, you won't even be throwing it. You're not killing anyone." 

"Yeah, but I'm here, aren't I?" Peter said. "So that makes it a little bit on me, too."

Tony spent the rest of the ride adjusting the gas filters on the Spider-man suit. It was something he planned to do anyway after this mission was over. Peter made the interesting decision to put a paper bag over his head before he sat with the rest of the team, rambling on in that endearing way of his. Clint thought he was a riot. Even Natasha looked amused. 

Peter took the we’re definitely going to have to kill the bad guy thing...weirdly well. Tony didn’t mind the casualty—this guy definitely deserved it. But he did mind making a fifteen-year-old kid complicit in that. Peter took a lot of care to cause minimal harm. He was good and kind. Tony expected more of a fight out of him. Then again, Peter had been surprising him from the moment Tony found the grainy footage on youtube. 

He’d talk to the kid about it later. When the dust settled and they all got out of there okay. 

They eventually landed in a town square still under evacuation. Mountains loomed like ghosts over the horizon. Homes and storefronts looked hollow as the National Guard ushered their occupants down the sidewalk. Cars huddled together on the street.

Intel said they had another four hours to get everyone out, but they couldn’t be sure about that. Tony never quite got used to it, this sense of foreboding before a battle. Peter must’ve felt it too because he went quiet as he put his mask back on.

Sam and Steve waited on the ground. Everyone had said their apologies since Berlin. Cleared the air. Or, tried to. Things were still rough between Tony and Steve. Yet, here he was—all suited up, eyes weary and hard—still smiling like he didn’t hold any grudges at all over Tony for trying to murder his best friend. He probably didn’t. That’s just how he was. 

Sam gave Rhodey a one-armed hug, whispering something that made Rhodey smile and pat him on the back. They were both better people than Tony could hope to be. 

“Good to see you, Tony,” Steve said. 

“Yeah.” Tony wasn’t as good at being the bigger person. Bitterness still crept into his tone. “Nice to see you.”  

A tense silence followed, their eyes locked on each other’s. Tony couldn’t figure out what either of them was trying to say. 

Peter took that opportunity to step out from behind Tony. He stuck out his hand. “Mr. Captain America sir? I don’t know if you remember me but—” 

Steve broke eye contact with Tony, smile looking suddenly a lot more genuine. He grabbed Peter’s hand. “Queens.” 

Peter preened under Cap’s approving gaze. “Wow. Your hands look so smooth, what moisturizer do you use?” 

“I uh...don’t really.” 

“Oh no,” Sam said, noticing Spider-man for the first time. “Don’t tell me they brought this little shit.” 

“Is it a super soldier thing?” Peter said. “Like you get sick abs and soft hands? That sounds way more convenient than my powers. I can’t use my favorite moisturizer anymore, because it’s lavender, and lavender is a spider-repellent. I also get hives from peppermint. One time—” 

“Kid.” Tony said, trying not to cackle at Steve’s expression, as if he’d been hit by a hyperactive bulldozer. Clint and Nat were snickering behind him. 

“Oh.” Peter tugged the sleeves of his hoodie. “Right. Yeah, I guess I forgot to apologize for stealing your shield. But in my defense, it was really cool.” 

“It was pretty cool,” Steve conceded. 

“Don’t encourage him,” Sam said. “Geez, somehow you’re even more annoying than I remember.” 

Peter shrugged. “I get that a lot. Your wings are carbon fiber by the way. I checked.” 

“Uh-huh.” Sam turned to Tony. “I don’t like this. Are we sure he’s old enough to be here?” 

“Yeah,” Rhodey said, “I was wondering the same thing.” 

“Me too,” Natasha admitted. 

"I wasn't until you brought it up," Clint said, "But now I am." 

He isn’t, Tony thought. “I told you, I didn’t carbon date him.” 

“He’s here either way,” Steve said. “Not much we can do now. I need fliers in the air looking for signs of trouble. The rest of us will continue helping with the evacuation efforts. We’ve got some safe buildings away from the battle area we’re trying to get people into. We’ve all been briefed on the plan?” 

He was talking about Peter. “Yeah,” Tony said. 

“Good. Let’s move. Nat, show Queens the ropes for a second, I wanna chat with Tony.” 

When they locked eyes this time, he had a feeling they were on a similar page. Natasha seemed to be on that page too, whatever it was. She nodded and ushered Peter away. 

“He has super hearing, just so you know,” Tony said quietly. “Like, freaky good super hearing. He once heard a kitten whimper from four blocks away. And he knows we’re talking about him so he’s definitely listening.” 

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Steve replied, matching Tony’s volume. “How old is he?” 

Despite everything that had broken this year, Tony still knew he could trust Steve with this. “Fifteen.”

Steve looked away in the direction Nat and Peter left. He sucked in a breath like he was trying not to launch into a lecture. 

“He snuck on board the Quinjet, I didn’t bring him here.” 

“You brought him to Germany.” 

He didn’t have a defense for that. “Yeah. I did.” 

“The team will keep an eye out for him,” Steve decided. “Whatever direction this mission goes, we’ll make sure he’s paired up with someone. I’m not too worried about his skills. He gave a good fight in Berlin. I think he can hold his own with the rest of us.”  

“To be honest, the issue is less his skills and more his complete and utter lack of self-preservation instinct. Also, an inability to listen to anything anyone tells him.”

Steve grinned. “Sounds like a good kid.” Because of course that would win Steve tried to illegally join the army with asthma and polio Rogers over. 

“He is,” Tony said. “And he’s my responsibility. So he stays close to me during this. Where I can see him. Get him out of here if I have to.” 

“We might not have control over that.” 

“I know.” 

Steve nodded. “Go check the skies, I’ll take him off Nat’s hands.”

“Right. Try not to rub any patriotism off on him, he’s enough trouble already.” 

He let out an almost laugh. “No promises.” 

Chapter Text

Peter caught bits and pieces of Mr. Stark and Captain America’s conversation. It didn’t take long to get the gist. Spider-man is a tiny baby! Don’t let him do anything dangerous!  

Tough luck. If Mr. Stark wanted to keep him away from this stuff, then he shouldn’t have recruited Peter in the first place. 

He didn’t want to divide his attention, though. Civilian evacuation and protection was the most important part of these missions. Maybe that was hard to remember when you lived in a penthouse 500 feet above the rest of New York because Peter got the feeling Mr. Stark thought of it as a way to distract him from more dangerous tasks. But he knew what happened when one rouge bullet hit a loved one. Some of his classmates lost family members in the Chitari attack.  

Spider-man turned the other cheek once, and Peter lost an uncle. No innocent people would die today, not if he could help it. 

A little girl named Ruby nestled in his arms. She was pretty chill, swinging her legs and sucking her thumb, not especially concerned about the threat of imminent peril. Honestly? Good on her. Peter could do with that kind of upbeat attitude in his own life.

Her mom, on the other hand, was plowing through the crowd, eyes scanning every inch of the area. The way her face creased in panic—Peter could almost hear the murder-bots of the 2010 Stark Expo and Uncle Ben screaming his name. 

“Ma’am!” he called to Ruby’s mom. “Ma’am, over here! I found your daughter!”

She gasped in relief. “Ruby!” 

“Stay close to your mom now, okay?” he said, handing the girl to her teary-eyed mother. “Me and Black Widow will find your neighbor. It was so nice of you to remember him, but you gotta stay with her now.” 

“You’ll find him? Pinky promise?” She held out a tiny pinky. 

Obviously, Peter couldn’t reject something as mighty as a pinky promise. He latched his pinky to hers. “I’ll get him out safe and sound.” 

Ruby beamed. 

“Thank you,” Her mother whispered, pulling Ruby tighter to her chest. “Thank you so much, Spider-man.” 

He gave a salute. “It’s my job.” 

She scurried away, chastising Ruby with words that could’ve come straight from Aunt May’s mouth the night of the Stark Expo.

Black Widow arrived, panting behind him. “Jeez, you’re fast. Not everyone has super-speed, you know.” 

“Oh, sorry. I kinda just ran off, didn’t I?”

“And climbed the apartment building,” she said. Under her exasperated tone was an amused smirk. She’d had that expression since the moment Spider-man fell from the Quinjet’s ceiling—like she was watching a cute little sitcom. Not what Peter had been expecting from The Black Widow, but also really cool because it meant she liked him. It took all his willpower to keep his fanboying on the inside. 

“It’s only three floors. That’s nothing compared to New York.” 

“How’d you know she was in there? We were like a block away.” 

“Super-hearing.” 

“Huh.” She looked toward the retreating mother and daughter. “I’m always shocked by how many parents lose their kids in these situations. You think they’d be more attentive.” 

Peter shrugged. “Kids are slippery. You should’ve met me when I was that age.” 

She laughed, presumably realizing how hypocritical she sounded, having misplaced Peter five seconds ago. “Yeah. I bet you were a handful.” 

Peter was still a handful. Aunt May always said it, and Mr. Stark moaned about it loud enough. 

“I’m going back,” Peter said, nodding toward the apartment building behind them. “Her neighbor is a wheelchair user, and elevators shut down during emergencies. I said I’d make sure he got out okay. Made a pinky promise and everything. Super serious business.” 

“Super serious,” she agreed. “I’ll be checking those houses for slowpokes.” She gestured at a small...not exactly a neighborhood. A row of houses? Peter was a New Yorker. He didn’t know how small towns worked. Anyway, it was across the street. “Come find me when you’re done. If I don’t see you in ten minutes, I’ll hunt you down. Stark’s gonna be pissed if I lose you, and no one wants to see that.” 

“Oh, I’m grounded anyways,” Peter said. “Like super grounded.” Not that he regretted anything.

“I meant at me,” she said. “Wait, did you say grounded? Just how young are you again?”

“Nice chatting, bye!” Peter gave another salute and webbed off to the apartment complex before she could continue down that train of thought. 

“I’m gonna kill Stark,” she muttered.

Steve and Bucky talked back in June, after Berlin. Apparently, Spider-man stopped Bucky’s arm like it was nothing. Steve couldn’t stop Bucky’s arm, not easily anyway. Bucky said he also sounded about twelve years old. Pair that with the fact that Steve hadn’t been able to use his strength to overpower Spider-man in Germany, that he’d had to twist to get out of the webs, and...well, it was a lot to talk about. Especially since Bucky was right—this kid was absurdly young. But, it was also a conversation for another time. The Avengers had a job to do. People to get to safety.

It couldn’t hurt to chat with the kid, though. Steve liked to know who he was working with, whether they were fifteen or fifty-two.

(Fifteen. God, what was Stark thinking?)

He jogged over to a little stretch of houses where Natasha was helping a family load their kids into a rusted truck. Spider-man was nowhere to be seen. Nat didn’t seem concerned about it, so neither was Steve.

She handed the toddler in her arms to his father before peeling away and hurrying to where Steve waited. 

“You talked to Tony?” 

“Yeah. I came to take the kid off your hands. Where is he?” 

“Well, he’s supposed to be in there,” she pointed to a brick building across the road, “evacuating an old man in a wheelchair. But I saw him hand the guy off to a firefighter and run toward town square, so I have no idea what he’s up to anymore. I’ve got two minutes on my timer before I head after him.”

“A little distractible?” 

“Oh, very.” She spoke with a tone reserved for Clint’s children and the cats at her favorite coffee shop. 

Steve shrugged. “I’ll find him. I wanted to chat anyway.”

Natasha leaned in. “Please tell me he’s at least old enough to vote.”

Steve shook his head. “He’s not.” He didn’t want to give away more—Tony trusted him with that information, and trust was in short supply between them. Steve wasn’t the type to regret his actions, but the one thing he did regret was not telling Tony about his parents. He couldn’t break that trust again.

She swore in Russian. “We’re recruiting child soldiers now? Is Stark serious?” She spat the words child soldiers with all the venom of someone who had been one. Of course, Tony was nothing like her Red Room captors, and they both knew it. Still, Steve wasn’t thrilled with this development either. 

“I don’t think we have enough information. Even if we don’t always agree, Tony usually has his...Tony logic. A reason he does things. We can hash it out later. Right now, we have people to protect.” 

She folded her arms and looked down. “I hate that you’re always right. It’s really annoying.” 

“Not always.” 

“No, sometimes you’re just a stubborn shit,” she mused. “But most of the time, you’re both.”

“Both?” 

“A stubborn shit who just happens to be right. Steve logic is a thing, too, you know. It says stuff like, ‘I don’t need a parachute, Natasha. It’s only three thousand feet,’ and ‘the law is only a suggestion if your heart’s in the right place.’” She deepened her voice and puffed out her chest in a mockery of Steve. 

He snorted. This was what he treasured about Natasha—she’d never met him before Captain America, but she still managed to see Steve Rogers through the shield. Not many people from this time period could do that other than Sam and Natasha. Sometimes, not even the other Avengers. Sometimes especially them. 

(Maybe that was why he and Tony butted heads so much. Maybe they needed to get past Steve’s shield and under Tony’s mask.) 

“So, what’s the new plan?” she asked. 

“Not much about the mission has changed. The team’s just gonna take turns keeping an eye on Spider-man. Tony wants him to stay in his line of sight, but I’m not sure how possible that will be.” 

“Alright.” She still looked resentful about Spider-man’s age but had, evidently, decided not to argue. “Have fun with him. He talks non-stop and is impossible to keep track of. But he’s also kinda my new favorite thing. I might adopt him when this is over. I could use a spider-themed sidekick.” 

“You’ll have to fight Tony for custody. He seems pretty attached.” 

She grinned. “Oh, you should’ve seen them on the Quinjet. It was amazing.” 

Steve laughed. 

Stone paths wound through the courtyard in the town square. A fountain stood in the center, the coins at the bottom glistening in the fading sunlight. Steve found Spider-man crouched behind a nearby statue, his entire body tense. He’d pulled the hood of his sweater over his head and drawn the drawstrings tight so it cinched around his neck. It didn’t make him look very intimidating. Mostly just bizarre. 

“Queens?” 

“Shh!” the kid said, putting a finger to his lips. He gestured for Steve to come over. 

Steve looked around. He didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. Civilians evacuating. A cornfield in the distance. The peaks of mountains behind the buildings. But nothing to be hiding from.

He crouched next to Spider-man anyway, bracing his shield. He was too big to fit behind the statue as snugly as the kid did. The kid in question was staring intensely at...

...nothing. Absolutely nothing. 

“What’s going on, Queens?” 

“Do you hear that?” 

He listened. There was only the silence of empty shops and the trickle of water from the fountain. “No,” he admitted.

Spider-man clenched his fists under the sleeves of his hoodie. “Something’s happening.” 

In a different situation, with a different kid, Steve might’ve chalked this bizarre behavior up to first-mission nerves, but Spider-man didn’t seem nervous. Not like before when he was talking a mile a minute. No, he seemed ready to strike. 

“Tony,” Steve spoke slowly into his earpiece, “check your radar. Do you see anything in the town square?” 

“Where you and the kid are?” He’d obviously been keeping tabs on Spider-man. “There’s nothing there. Why?” 

Before Steve could answer, Spider-man grabbed the comms, “Mr. Stark, we need to get everyone inside.” 

“What?” 

“We need to get people inside!” Spider-man yelled again and took off toward the fountain. 

“You heard the kid,” Steve ordered his teammates, “Get the civilians inside.” He ran after Spider-man, tucking himself into their new hiding spot. 

“Copy that,” Natasha replied.

“On it,” Rhodey agreed.

“What the hell is going on over there, Rogers?” Tony barked. Steve knew him well enough to pick up the fear under his anger. 

“No idea,” Steve said. “Queens thinks he found something.”

“It’s my Spidey-sense,” Spider-man whispered, “I think Tim is here.” 

Not one word of that made sense. 

“Shit,” Tony said. “Get the kid out of there, Steve!” 

Steve frowned. “Who’s Tim?”

“The bad guy,” Spider-man clarified. 

“Wait,” Clint said, “I read the debrief. It didn’t say his name was Tim.” 

“That’s because it isn’t,” Tony said. “Just go with it.”

Clint sounded as baffled as Steve felt. “That’s not helpful!” 

“I alerted the evacuation personnel to our change of plan,” Sam said. “They’re working on getting people inside.” He was efficient, as always. Steve loved him for that. 

Spider-man scooted closer to Steve. “I think something’s in there.” He whispered off comms and pointed at a manhole cover. There was nothing unusual at all about it. “We have super strength. We should hold it closed. It’ll buy the others time to get people out of here.” 

This still didn’t make sense, but Steve trusted Spider-man’s instincts. “Alright.” 

They crept over to it. As they got closer, Steve heard what Spider-man was talking about. A faint ominous buzzing, growing steadily louder. 

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” 

“No,” Spider-man said, pressing his palms against the manhole cover. 

“Fair enough.” Unexpected resistance met Steve when he pushed down—a pressure building underground, waiting to burst.

He had a bad feeling about this.

“Peter,” Tony warned over Spider-man’s private comms. Steve only heard because of how close the two of them were situated. “Remember the rules we discussed? Like, ‘don’t be a reckless dipstick,’ and ‘don’t hurl yourself head first at the super-villain.’ Those ones? Yeah, you’re breaking all of them. So get your ass away from the imminent threat right now! ” 

“But I have a plan!” Spider-man (or Peter) protested. 

“Can someone tell me what’s going on?” Clint said over the main channel. “Because I’m still really unclear on that.”

“So is everyone else,” Rhodey said. 

“The battle’s about to start,” Steve said. “Just get people inside. Queens thinks he and I can buy you some time.”

“My God,” Sam muttered, “There’s two of them.” 

“How about you buy us time, Rogers,” Tony growled. “Spidey can help with the evacuation.” Steve read between the lines, though. I thought we had an agreement. Why aren’t you getting him to safety?

Steve looked across at Spider-man. The kid had one knee on the ground, both hands pushing down on the manhole cover. The way his eyes of his mask narrowed, the way his shoulders squared—like he was daring Steve to make him move—he knew there was no way he’d be getting Peter out of here.

Suddenly, he understood exactly why Tony recruited this fifteen-year-old kid.

“I think Spider-man and I will have to handle this one together.” He hoped Tony could read between the lines, too—the way he always used to. The way they instinctively knew what the other needed in battle. I’m not gonna get your stubborn kid to back down. Staying by his side is the best I can do.

For a long moment, there was silence on the line. Then, “I guess we’ll hurry with the evacuation process. I’m nearby if you need backup.” 

I got you.

Their resident villain—Tim, apparently—must’ve hidden something in the sewage system. The previously faint buzzing was now thunderous, shaking the ground below them, trying to force its way out onto the streets. The lamps nearby flickered violently. The more pressure built, the more strength they had to use to keep it under. Steve shoved downward with all his might.

The minutes passed. At some point, as the tension rose, it became clear that Peter was holding it down more than Steve was. It was disorienting. A feeling he was so familiar with before 1942 but one he hadn’t felt since. Like when he and Bucky moved furniture into their first apartment, and they dragged the couch up the stairs, and Steve used all his strength to keep his end off the ground. He’d definitely been helping, but he’d also known the bulk of the weight was on Bucky’s shoulders. 

He wouldn’t have been able to keep it down long enough without Peter here. 

The town seemed emptier, which hopefully meant people were safe inside. Not that he could see much or hear much with the roaring sewers or the strobing streetlights. Even under the mask, Peter was in visible pain from the sensory bombardment—eyes squeezed shut and muscles rigid. He never once budged. 

“I think this is about as long as we can hold it,” Steve told the team. “We’ll take that backup soon, Tony.” 

“I’m on my—”

The manhole cover didn’t give way so much as the entire ground beneath them did. 

Peter knew it was happening before Steve did. The eyes of his suit shot open, and he looked up. He didn’t move, though, just readjusted his grip. Steve understood a beat later as the ground shook. 

He seized the kid, hauling him up by the waist. Peter’s hands and feet stuck to the ground, dragging the manhole cover up with him. 

“There are still people here. We gotta—” 

Steve dove behind the fountain as the road burst open thousands of drones exploded from the ground, like a flash flood overrunning the town. He tucked Peter under himself and covered their heads with the shield. The noise was high-pitched, echoing far into the mountains. The flickering streetlights burst, throwing glass everywhere. Peter put his hands over his ears and screamed.

The moment of chaos was brief. The sound dwindled, and the drones froze, dotting the sky in a haze of black and red. 

Steve checked on the kid under his arm. “Queens?”

Peter pulled shaking hands away from his ears—they were speckled with blood. It leaked through both his suit and the hood over his head. 

Superhearing, Steve remembered. 

“Ugh. Gross,” Peter said. 

Then, bullets rained down. 

The metallic clang! of bullets against Cap’s shield rumbled like a hailstorm battering a gong. It was sharp, suffocating. Peter tried to pull away, but Captain America held him firmly in place. He wanted to throw up. Wouldn’t that be embarrassing? Throwing up on Captain America’s shoes.

Damn. Those were nice shoes. 

When Peter looked up, the fountain behind them had been decimated. Glass and bullet holes riddled the streets. Cap was saying something, but Peter could only hear a high-pitched whine. More bullets bounced off the shield, rapid-fire lumps of lead crumpling against vibranium. Peter saw it. He couldn’t hear it anymore, though.

Considering blood trickling from his ears, that was bad. But as the world went silent, Peter only felt relief. 

He returned to consciousness propped against the bar in a coffee shop. It was trashed. Tables splintered in pieces, the scattered remains of drones, all with shield-sized slices through the middle. His mask was gone. Strong hands held his head upright.

“—could really use that backup, Tony!” Captain America said. His face hovered over Peter, taking up his entire field of vision. “Queens? Do you hear me?” 

“Gurgh.” Peter heard him all right. Every sound made him wince. 

Mr. Stark’s voice came garbled over the comms. He sounded terrified. Peter didn’t like that. “Those things are messing with our tech. My suit just rebooted. I’m coming as fast as I can; just look out for the kid.” 

“I think he’s waking up.” 

“Oh, thank God.” 

“Is Mr. Stark okay?” Peter said. Even his own voice was a spike through his skull. 

Captain America’s tight expression melted in relief. He set a hand on Peter’s bicep. “He’s gonna be fine. This isn’t his first rodeo.” 

“You took off my mask.” 

“I had to check out your ears.” 

Oh. Right. 

“Might’ve also heard Stark say your name.” 

Peter frowned. “How long have I—”

“Only a minute or so. Tony’s on his way. We’re gonna get you out of here.” 

“What?” Peter jumped to his feet. “No, he can’t come here. He just said these things take out tech. That’s his whole suit!” He could fall from the sky. Crash into the ground, and...and...

He half expected Captain America to shove him back to the ground. To fuss around like Mr. Stark would and tell him to stay down because he’d been injured. Captain America didn’t do that. He just sat back on his heels and chuckled.

“I was right about you in Berlin. You do have heart.” 

“You have to tell Mr. Stark not to come.” 

“Like I said, this isn’t his first rodeo. I’m not worried.” 

Peter didn’t like that, but this was Captain America. He probably knew what he was talking about. “Did all the people get out?” 

“Not out, but at least sheltered in their homes. You did good.” 

“I thought this was supposed to be a gas attack.”   

“So did we.” Captain America stood up. He adjusted something on the back of his shield; Peter couldn’t tell what. “I’m guessing this is a diversion. Your friend ‘Tim’ is probably still out there.”  

“Well, it’s working. We’ve been diverted.”

“We have.” 

Dastardly Timmothy. 

“We should find him.” Before someone got hurt. If they hadn’t been able to get people out of the town, they were still in range of his gas bombs. 

“The team’s got it handled,” he said. “Everyone has their tasks.” 

“What about you and me? We’re just sitting here.” 

Captain America made a weird face. “You passed out.” 

“Yeah, but I’m up now.” 

He hung his head and sighed. “Now I know how Bucky felt.”

Chapter Text

At first, Tony’s conversation with Steve reassured him—they were of the same mind when it came to Peter. The whole team was. If all went well, the battle would be short. The mission was simple enough: find bad-guy, trap bad-guy in a box. Boom. Done. No need for Peter to be fighting.

That didn’t happen.

There was a trap. Of course there was a trap. Nothing ever went as planned, so why did Tony expect it this time? Peter sensed it before anyone else. Not that Spider-sense was ever all that specific about these things. No, that’d be too easy. Peter also had exactly the amount of self-preservation instincts one would expect from a teenage vigilante. Which meant he offered to hold off the threat—just himself and Steve. 

God, Tony was going to kill Steve. 

Except...he wasn’t. 

Because when thousands of drones burst from the street, when all the team’s tech went haywire, when Friday shut down when Tony was flying dead in the air—Steve got Peter out. 

Tony rebooted. He flew close to the ground in case of another unfortunate shutdown. Meanwhile, Steve fended off drones. He barked orders at the team. He dragged Peter into a coffee shop and kept him safe. 

Now, Tony stood in front of Peter and Steve. The dinky coffee shop around them looked as if it’d been hit by a bullet-riddled hurricane. Asphalt and battle grime streaked both their faces. 

“Mr. Stark!” Peter vaulted over the counter and slammed into Tony’s chest. His sweater was torn, and his hair was askew. Gruesome trails of dried blood carved their way down either side of his head. But he was alive. “Are you okay, Mr. Stark? I heard the tech went down, and Captain America said you’d be fine, but—”

He squeezed the kid back. “I’m fine, kid.” Tony could never have prepared for how his heart hammered when Peter was in peril or how much relief he felt to have him in his arms, in one piece. 

He should’ve dumped Peter in Yellowstone when he had the chance. 

Peter pulled away. He looked up at Tony, anticipation in his eyes. “What now?”

“Friday, run a scan for injuries.” He took Peter’s chin and tilted his head to each side. His ears were red and irritated, but the blood was all dried, no longer fresh. That was good news. It meant they’d stopped bleeding. Of course, the fact that they’d started bleeding in the first place was less good news. 

“That’s not what I meant,” Peter muttered. 

“Mr. Parker has perforated eardrums due to his enhanced hearing,” Friday said. “The injuries are healing, and I sense no further concerns besides minor abrasions.” 

Tony looked at Steve. He probably owed him some sort of thank-you, but he was a little too petty for that.

Steve just nodded. He understood. “We’ll have to re-evaluate our battle plan.” Straight to the point. Exactly how Tony remembered him. “I’m thinking we pair Queens with Clint. His webs are good long-range weapons, and you fliers aren’t going to be able to get any of the high-up drones without risking your tech going down and falling.” 

All Tony’s thankfulness evaporated. “Peter’s done. He’s benched.” How could Steve want to throw him out there again? After all that had happened? 

“You’ll need to convince him of that.” Smug bastard.

“Good luck with that,” Peter added because he was an equally smug, much smaller bastard.

“I hate you both right now.” 

“No, you don’t,” Peter said. 

He didn’t. 

Steve stepped closer to Tony, his body language relaxed but still in full Leader Mode. “I’m going to join Sam in coordinating civilian safety with the emergency personnel. You and Rhodes take out as many drones as you can. Your attacks have the widest area of coverage. Stay close to the ground. Don’t go any higher than you can walk away from if you fall. I want Friday to keep looking for Tim.” 

They were officially calling the bad-guy Tim now. Tony couldn’t even be mad. Peter was right—it beat Gaseous Doom. 

Peter scrunched his brows in thought. “He has argon in the chemical composition of his gas bombs, right?”  He looked up. The way his eyes searched Tony’s face for approval...that always threw him off.

“He does.”

“I noticed it in the formula in your notes because it’s a noble gas.” Of course Peter stole his notes before sneaking along. Why wouldn’t he have? Little shit. “It must’ve been hard to get it to combine with any other elements. And it only exists in trace amounts in the atmosphere, so any unusual amounts will stand out. It’ll make him easier to find.” 

Huh. “You’re right.”

Peter’s chest puffed at Tony’s praise. 

“Wow,” Steve said, impressed. 

Tony had been comparing Peter to Steve this whole time, but he forgot how much like himself Peter was, too. He had the best traits of both himself and Steve—with a reckless streak to rival the entire Avengers team and a whole lot of Peter Parker flair thrown in. 

Maybe Tony couldn’t have anticipated how much he’d care about this damn kid, but in retrospect, it wasn’t surprising at all. 

“Friday, start a scan of the town for argon. Anything unusual, report it to me.” He turned to Peter. “Good thinking, kid.” 

Peter beamed. 

Steve grabbed Peter’s shoulder. “One last thing,” he said. “You and Clint are our eyes in the sky. Our fliers are grounded if Tim can take out our tech. That means we need you, and you need to be careful. We can’t afford for you to get taken out. You’ve done good. Now stick to our directions. Your webs are our long-range weapons, so keep your distance from the drones. Stay where someone can see you. Let us know if anything goes wrong.” 

Peter nodded, his expression solemn, his jaw tight. 

Steve was clever in his own way, too. Sometimes Tony forgot that. He was putting Peter in a position where he’d feel useful but still be above the battle, far from it. Safe. 

When this was over, he’d have to thank Steve Rogers.

(Tony really didn’t want to do that). 

Mr. Stark dropped Peter off at the tallest point in Fort Wolf. At only four stories, it had nothing on New York. Still, Peter could see the edge of town from here—where the buildings ended and a single, winding road drowned in a sea of farms. It would’ve been a beautiful sight if not for the looming cloud of murder bots. 

They looked like the spy droid on Hoth from Empire Strikes Back. Red light, black body, rounded shape. Unlike spy droids, however, these bots had massive guns. 

Hawkeye knelt behind the lip of the roof, tugging arrows from his quiver and firing them briskly. Each drone they hit exploded in a startling flash of fire and noise. Ear rattling, piercing noise . 

“Good, you’re here,” Hawkeye said. He swiveled and launched another arrow. Boom! Peter flinched. Man, that was gonna get old fast. “We’re working our way from the top down. Go for the highest first. Unless, of course, you see one targeting a civilian, then get that one first. Hopefully, you won’t see that, though. Everyone should be inside, thanks to you.” He sounded more serious now than he did on the Quinjet.

“And try not to run off this time,” a familiar voice said. Peter startled. He turned to find Black Widow crouched behind the h-vac unit, fiddling with a wiry radio. She had the same amused smirk from earlier plastered to her face. “Stark’s gonna kill me if I lose you twice.” 

“You can do your little scurry-along-the-buildings thing if you want, though,” Hawkeye said. “Just don’t go too far.” 

Peter nodded. He didn’t know Black Widow would be up here with them. To be honest, he wasn’t sure why she was—it felt like they needed as many people on the ground as possible to help emergency workers—but Captain America seemed to have a plan, so he went with it. 

“I’m trying to get in touch with Nick Fury,” she said, reading his question. “Shield might be down, but he’s still got his uses. I can do this from anywhere, but here provides cover.”

“Actually, she’s here because you’re here,” Hawkeye told Peter. “You falling off the ceiling is the most entertaining thing to happen on a mission since Vienna.” 

Peter gapped. “Really?” 

“Do not bring up Vienna,” Black Widow growled. 

Clint ignored her. “How did you get on the ceiling anyway?”

“That’s one of my powers. I stick to things like a spider.” 

“Huh.” 

“I will gut you if Steve or, God forbid, Sam finds out about Vienna,” Black Widow said. Then she turned to Peter, her voice turning sweet. “Take off that sweater. It’s too baggy. It’ll get caught on something.”

She was treating him like a little kid. All the Avengers were. It was annoying, but Peter supposed that’s how adults were. Besides, he didn’t wanna piss off Black Widow. So, he tugged the sweater off and handed it to her. 

“I can’t believe Stark let you into battle wearing that thing,” she muttered. “I’m going to kill him later.” 

“Over a sweater?”

She flashed a dangerous smile. “Amongst other things.”

Peter designed his webs to subdue criminals without hurting them, not to be used as projectile weapons against drones. So, he was a little out of his comfort zone here. But isn’t that what those inspirational life coaches would suggest? Get out of your comfort zone! Live life to the fullest! Use your spider webs to take down an army of drones!

Maybe not that last bit. This probably wasn’t what Johnny McJoe had in mind during his Ted Talk. 

He was doing alright, though, all things considered.

Thwip! One drone down. Thwip! Thwip! Two more. The buildings weren’t hard to jump between. They were close together in the center of town. Lots of roof space to run. If he missed, well...Peter could handle falling one or two stories. 

It was the noise he couldn’t handle. His ears were healing, but they still hurt with every little explosion. Every bang. He tried not to let that show. 

“What do you think drones are made of?” Peter wondered aloud as he leaped to a new building. He found a drone that drifted too high and shot it down. “I’m thinking carbon fiber, like Mr. Falcon’s wings.” 

“Excuse me,” Falcon said over the comms, “Did he just call me Mr. Falcon?” 

“That’s your name?” 

“My name is Sam.” 

Peter shrugged, but Falcon couldn’t see that. He latched a string of web onto another drone and hurled it like an Olympic hammer toss into two more. With a flip (because, c’mon it, the Avengers were watching), he landed on a fourth drone and smashed it into the roof of Town Hall. The sound stabbed at Peter’s ears. A high-pitched whine. He stumbled for a moment, regaining his bearings. 

“Hey, Spidey,” Black Widow said. “You good?”

“Yeah,” Peter said, panting. “Yeah, I’m good.” His ears rang. There were still so many drones out there. Where was Tim? How were they supposed to find him in all this? 

Then, Peter had an idea. One the Avengers would not like because they were too busy treating him like a five-year-old.

 In fairness to them, it was a horrible idea. 

“You need backup?” Black Widow said. “You’ve been quiet.” 

Instead of answering that question, Peter blurted, “If Tim hid his drone army in the sewers, do you think he met any of the Turtles down there?” Because apparently, he was incapable of containing his inner nerd for more than five seconds. 

Falcon, it seemed, was equally incapable of not commenting on that. “What the fuck?” 

“Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles,” Peter clarified. “I guess they live in New York, don’t they? So they wouldn’t be here.” 

“Maybe they have cousins in Montana,” Hawkeye suggested. 

“Don’t encourage him, Barton,” Mr. Stark said. “You never answered the question, kid. Do you need backup?

Peter was already on his feet, running after a new set of drones. “I’m good.” He webbed a few together, sending them spinning to the ground. 

His plan was simple: if his Spider-sense noticed the drones in the sewers when no one else did, when not even Mr. Stark’s radar detected them, then he could use it to find Tim. The more his spider-sense went off, the closer he must be. Like a game of hot and cold. 

Definitely a bad plan. But...better than any of Tim’s bombs going off. 

Tony flew low, spraying repulsor blasts across the battlefield at the drones. The light arched across the area, vaporizing the flying bastards in its path. 

He kept tabs on Peter’s location. It wasn’t easy. Even with a tracker on him, he moved so fast and in such erratic patterns that it was disorienting to try and follow. At least he knew Peter was still alive. The kid could not shut up.

“Got anything on our friend Timothy yet, Fri?” Tony said. 

“Something’s interfering with my sensors.”

Great. Just wonderful. “Any idea what that something is? Or where?” 

Silence. Of course she didn’t. 

“Hey, Tones,” Rhodey swooped by, firing at a drone Tony hadn’t noticed on his tail. “Are you off your game?” 

“Course not.” He launched another blast. “Why would you say that?” 

Out of the corner of his eyes, he saw Spider-man’s silhouette swan dive off a building and onto a drone. It yanked at his stomach. 

Tony’s next blast missed entirely. 

 “Gee. I don’t know. Why would I say that?” Rhodey’s guns took out the drones that Tony missed. 

“Ha ha,” Tony deadpanned. He blasted a row of drones to their left to punctuate the fact that he was focusing just fine.

Instead of running across the buildings, Peter was now swinging from drone to drone, webbing them to each other. It was clever—they tangled themselves up and crashed into one another—but also, Tony would have a heart attack if the damn kid didn’t get his feet on a solid surface soon. 

“Hey,” Rhodey said, voice stern but grounding. “We gotta focus here, okay? I know you’re worried, but you can’t get off track. A lot of people are counting on us.” 

Rhodey was right. He couldn’t afford to divide his attention right now. If Tim got off even one of his bombs, it’d be a mass tragedy. Besides, Peter was with Clint and Natasha—they could handle him. Probably. 

(Who was he kidding? It’d take an army to handle Peter Parker). 

A whoosh of metallic wings sounded behind them. “I wouldn’t worry too much,” Sam said. “Your kid did kick everyone’s ass in Germany.”

“You mean he kicked your ass,” Rhoedey said. There was no bite to his words. Only teasing. 

Tony tried not to groan. “Aren’t you supposed to be with Cap, Wilson?”

“Just passing through. Steve wanted me to let you know that our comms are getting screwy. A lot of emergency vehicles aren’t working, so I’m gonna check that out.” 

“Great. Thanks for the info. Now go do whatever it is you do, and leave us alone.” 

Sam rolled his eyes. “Redwing already went down. We’re lucky none of our flight suits have gone down yet.” He was looking at Rhodey now. “Careful out there, man.” 

“You too,” Rhodey said. 

Sam nodded and flew off. Tony couldn’t help but sneer. 

“Can you two keep your gross reconciled friendship out of my face?” He said, only once Sam was out of earshot. It was meant to come out as a joke, but it didn’t. 

“It wasn’t his fault, you know. What happened to me.” Rhodey’s voice was quiet. 

Tony knew. 

Peter’s spider-sense went off. Danger! Danger! A deep chill down his spine, a tugging in his mind. His body wanted to escape, but he had to swallow that impulse. He started running toward it. 

“Guys,” he yelled, “I think I found Tim!” 

“What?” Mr. Stark sounded panicked. “Kid, you need to—”

Just as he leaped off the roof, a high screeching ruptured the air. Concrete slammed into his back as Peter tumbled gracelessly onto the ground. He curled in on himself, covering his ears. His hands were warm and wet again—more blood. 

The eyes of his suit spasmed. The display on his lenses flashed between different settings before going blank. Then, the sound turned off. Peter felt no relief, though, as his Spider-sense continued to scream. 

“I wouldn’t bother calling for backup if I were you,” someone said. “Your comms are down.” Gray eyes hovered over Peter. There was something unsettling about them—as if he were trapped in a thick, blinding fog. A heavy gas mask obscured the rest of the man's face. He held a clicker in his hand, which he must’ve used to send out that awful noise. 

“Timothy,” Peter sneered. 

“What did you just call me?”

Peter rolled to his feet and fired a web at Tim’s belt. There were canisters on it—the bombs. If Peter could get those away from Tim, then subdue him, there’d be no need to kill him. It was convenient. 

Too convenient. Tim didn’t even fight it as Peter pulled the belt toward him. Peter looked down at the belt in his hand, then back at Tim. He let out a long, drawn out sigh. “This is a trick, isn’t it?” 

“You’re very clever.” 

“Where are the gas bombs?” 

“Bombs?” He chuckled. “There’s no bombs. There’s only me.” 

Tim evaporated. His body spread through the air, dissipating into a thick cloud of green smoke. It flew right at Peter. It got in his nose, down his throat, in his eyes. He was choking. He couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t see. He did the only thing he could think to do—slammed Mr. Stark’s fidget cube on the ground, trapping them both inside.

Chapter Text

A high-pitched signal rippled across the town. Every light in the area fell dark. When the wave hit Tony, his suit shut off too. So did Sam and Rhodey’s. Luckily no one was high enough for it to be a problem, but...but...

Peter.

Tony hit the ground. The Clang! of his suit rang sharp, and the impact sent a shockwave through his body. 

When he re-oriented himself, everything was down. His hud was blank. 

“Friday?” No response. “Anyone hear me? Anyone still on coms?”

Nothing. His comms went down in the pulse, too. He was alone, trapped in a giant metal husk. 

Fuck. 

Luckily, Tony installed an emergency escape on his suit: a lever in his right hand that would open it if the power ran out. He tugged on the lever, but nothing happened. His crash landing must’ve jammed it, then.

“Fuck,” he said out loud this time. 

Peter found Tim. He was facing him right now, with no backup. Sure, the kid could bench press a semi-truck, and he was more cunning than Tony sometimes gave him credit for, but he was still a kid. And right now, Tony couldn’t do anything to protect him. 

Footsteps approached. Tony tensed, but he was helpless. Dread settled like a weight on his already-stiff limbs. 

“Stark?” Sam said, muffled through Tony’s helmet. “Stark, you with me?” 

Tony closed his eyes, relieved. “Please tell me someone’s got eyes on Spider-man.” 

“No one’s got eyes on anything right now, man.” 

“Then get me outta this thing!” 

“I’m working on it! I need to get us under cover. There are drones everywhere.” 

A new, sinking thought occurred. “Where’s Rhodes?” His tech would be down too. Even if he broke out of his suit, he couldn’t easily escape danger without his prosthetics.

“Taken care of,” Sam said. 

Good.

Sam grabbed the feet of Tony’s suit. Metal squealed across asphalt as he dragged him. As humiliating as it was, at least it allowed Tony to hold onto his grudge for a few more moments. If he didn’t do that, then he’d have to be grateful for Sam. Tony refused to do that. 

The screeching stopped. 

“How do I get this suit off you?”

Without his lever mechanism, Tony didn’t actually know. “Maybe a crowbar?” 

Peter fell to his knees. His nose and throat burned, his eyes stung. Every inhale was heavy and wet. The agony of it almost drowned out the pain in his ears. Almost.  

The fidget cube enclosed around him and Tim, creating a bare metal room. Behind him, he could sense Tim reforming—turning back from a cloud of green gas into a man. 

“What did you do?” Tim snarled. 

“I wouldn’t turn into gas again if I were you.” Peter hardly had enough air to get the words out. “Because then we’ll both die.” 

Beneath his gas mask and melodramatic black cloak, the storm clouds in Tim’s eyes darkened. “What did you do?” 

Peter leaned on the wall and struggled to his feet. His ears were ringing again. At least he could hear this time. He still had Tim’s utility belt in his hand, too. He gripped it tighter.  “Mr. Stark designed this place to neutralize your poison—aka you, apparently. The process is toxic and removes oxygen from the room. We'll both die.” 

Tim didn’t look bothered by this information. If anything, the storm in his face calmed. He tilted his head to the side in an appraising way that raised Peter’s already blaring Spider-sense. “My drones will still destroy this little blight of a town. I have my contingencies.”

“Turn off the drones, then,” he said. “Or tell me how to.” The controls were probably somewhere on the belt he held. 

Unfortunately, Peter didn’t look very threatening right now, half slumped against the wall, so Tim ignored him. “My gas should have killed you. Why didn’t it?” 

To be fair, Peter didn’t feel great. He felt like throwing up a lung. Or fainting. Or both. 

“I’m part spider,” Peter settled with. Mr. Stark upgraded Peter’s gas filters, so that helped too. 

“That doesn’t make sense.” 

“You got bit by a radioactive cloud. I got bit by a radioactive spider. Life doesn’t make sense, Timothy.”

“None of that made sense either.” 

Peter groaned. “Just help me turn off the drones so we can go home. Maybe they’ll even reduce your prison sentence for being marginally less evil than you originally intended to be.”

“How fascinating that you still have the stamina to be irritating.” 

“I always have the stamina to be irritating.” 

That’s when Peter’s body went with the throwing up a lung option. He crumpled to the ground, wheezing. He pawed at the seams of his mask, the fabric so much thicker than before, so much more oppressive.

“Tsk tsk,” Tim tutted. “My gas seems to be catching up with you, little boy. Let me help.” He kicked Peter in the ribcage, ripping the wind from his body. 

Tim’s utility belt skidded across the floor. Peter tried to wriggle toward it, but Tim kicked him again. 

He barely felt it; he was too focused on getting oxygen. Half conscious, Peter tugged his mask off. That was a poor choice. It didn’t even help him breathe better. Spots danced in his vision.  

Tim gripped his bicep and hauled Peter to his feet. He slammed him against the wall. “You’re younger than I thought.” 

Ugh. Peter was awful at this secret identity thing. 

Tim pulled his own mask off. “There. Now we can see each other before we die.” 

“What?” 

The image would haunt Peter for years—Tim’s face, pale and ashen, his gray hair wild, and his grin. His Cheshire-cat grin that grew as his body faded into green gas until Tim’s cruel teeth were the last of him Peter saw. 

“No, wait—!” 

A fog of white fell from the ceiling—the decontamination process. It collided with Tim’s gas cloud, and he exploded. Flecks of garish crimson sprayed across the room. Infinitesimally small, no bigger than dust. Peter curled on himself to avoid being hit by what was left of Tim.

There was no avoiding it. 

It flew everywhere. Peter gagged and fell to the ground for the umpteenth time that day. 

The air was as viscous and wet as concrete now—solidifying fast, settling like a crust in his lungs. He would die here. He’d just killed a man, and now he would die here too. 

He tried to crawl toward the belt, but he only made it a few inches before his limbs gave out. 

That’s when Peter noticed the best thing he’d ever seen: a wall-mounted radio. Mr. Stark must’ve installed it in case someone got trapped inside.

He pushed the button. His clumsy fingers smeared it with the red streaks of Tim, but he pushed it. He hoped the radio worked, even with Tim’s tech blast. Maybe the walls of the cube would have protected it from the EMP.

“Mr. Stark?”

Nothing. 

“Someone, please come in.” His own voice felt far away. Was he crying? “Mr. Stark? Someone answer me.” 

Still nothing. 

“Please?” 

Finally, a reply. “Peter?” Captain America said. “Is that you?”

Steve launched his shield at a row of drones. It smashed through them and ricocheted off a building back into his arms. Another one flew behind him, and he sent his fist through its beady head.

He didn’t rely on technology much in battle. So, at first, he didn’t notice anything amiss. Not until he spotted Natasha waving frantically from the rooftop. He tried to radio to ask what was up, only to realize her comms were down, and every light had shut off, leaving the town illuminated by only the dim setting sun.

“Oh no,” Steve said. He rolled and ducked behind his shield to escape a volley of bullets. 

True, he didn’t rely on technology much in battle. That didn’t mean he wouldn’t need it today. When he realized Tim could wipe out their equipment, he’d stopped to secure his comms—along with anything designed for dealing with gas—to the back of his shield. He figured vibranium should be able to block out an EMP.

Thank God he was right about that.

“—ter Stark? Someone answer me!” Peter pleaded. Hearing somebody usually so full of life sound petrified and small...Steve had to stop to get his bearings. “Please?”

“Peter, is that you?”

“Captain America?”

“Where are you? What’s going on?”

“Tim’s dead. I can’t—” For a moment, Steve thought the channel was cutting out. But then he realized it was Peter, gasping for air.

Dread sunk through his body. “Where are you?” He already knew the answer. He turned toward Natasha on the roof. Somehow, she knew exactly what he was asking. She pointed down the street. Steve ran. 

Sam busted Tony out of the suit. It took about five minutes of smashing it with a rock—which Tony really hoped no one caught on camera—but he was out. 

Now, he huddled with Sam and Rhodey behind a tall white sign. An old frontier building protected their back, and the flowering bushes beside them added cover.

Sam and Rhodey fired at the drones with comically small pistols as Tony tried to fix their comms. It was all they could do. Without their tech, all three of them were just regular men. 

Natasha must’ve gotten in touch with Nick Fury, though. While Sam was smashing Tony with a rock, backup arrived in the form of nondescript armored vans firing extremely descript rocket launchers. The one-eyed bastard still had his touch. 

Tony got his comms up and running.

“—can’t breathe...blood everywhere...” It was Peter. 

Tony's gut lurched. Sam and Rhody locked eyes with him, frozen in the same cold horror that ran through Tony’s veins. 

“Stay calm. I’m coming,” Steve said. How was his radio still working? “How long has the chamber been up?”

Oh. Oh no. Peter was locked in his gas-decontamination chamber. Depending on when the process started, Peter had about two minutes before chemical reactions sucked all oxygen from the room. Maybe less. 

Peter didn’t answer.

“Where is he!” Tony shouted. 

“Tony?” 

“Steve! Where is he? ” 

“Corner of Main Street and Charles Avenue.” 

“Mr. Stark?” Peter choked. It alerted every protective instinct in him.  

Sam jerked his head in the direction of Charles Avenue. “Go. I’ll stay with Rhodey.” 

Rhodey nodded. “Be safe. I know you’re worried, but remember, you don’t have armor. You can’t get to him if you’re dead.” 

Sam shoved a pistol into Tony’s hands. “Go.” 

Tony bolted. 

There was no way he’d be fast enough. Not when he had to dive behind something every five seconds because he had no armor. He was closer than Steve, though, who’d been situated on the other side of town when the EMP went off. 

He crouched behind a dumpster, catching his breath. Only a few blocks to go but no clear path. 

The drones were only getting more aggressive. The ground shook as one of Nick Fury’s men fired another rocket launcher at the drones. Tony covered his ears and braced for the shockwave. 

Peter hugged his body around the radio. Every inhale gurgled like gravel. Darkness edged in around him. He could taste blood in his exhale. 

“Um…when…” he couldn’t even get the question out. 

“Longer than expected,” Captain America said. Gunfire rumbled, the reverberating clatter of it against vibranium. “Just hold on.” 

Peter didn’t know how much longer he could hold on. The world had turned red, and not because of the layer of Tim-dust coating the room. 

“I’m almost there,” Mr. Stark added. “I can see you right now.” 

“Tha's good,” Peter whispered. And with a final exhale, the world slipped away. 

Tony spotted the chamber—a gunmetal box, standing stark against the rustic paneled building beside it. He army-crawled toward it. Steve’s shield flew around in the distance, and keeping the drones distracted. 

When he arrived, an intimidating door greeted him. Tony knew it’d be sealed until the decontamination process was completed. Before the mission, the whole team agreed—if someone got stuck inside, the process had to finish. Letting the gas out could kill innocent people.

Peter never agreed to that. If he’d known about it, he definitely would have, but he didn’t. Tony never agreed to Peter being in there, either.

“Peter?” He tried to find a footing for his fingers, but there was nothing to grip on the door, no way to open it. “Please tell me you’re still alive.”

Nothing. No answer. 

He crouched to get under the door, but still, nowhere to find purchase. 

“C’mon, kid, give me something to work with here! A noise, anything!” 

Silence. Painful, excruciating silence. 

“Kid!” He slammed a palm onto the door. “Kid!” 

The control panel. He’d installed one on the outside, just in case. Tony ran to the far side. A table of buttons and knobs sat mounted on the wall. 

Process 95% complete, a gauge said. 

Tony paused. He remembered what Rhodey told him earlier—people were counting on the Avengers. A lot of them would die if he opened that door before the process finished. 

Peter would never be okay with that. 

Tony hovered over the emergency button. He wanted to press it. He wanted to press it so bad. But he couldn’t. He’d never be able to live with himself for it, but he couldn’t press that button. 

He rested his head on the wall. “Sorry, Pete. I’m so sorry.” 

The gauge counted up. 

97%

C’mon. Hurry. 

98%

C’mon. 

99.5%

Please. 

100%. 

Tony slammed the button, anticipation thick in his throat. 

Nothing happened. 

He jabbed the button again. Still nothing. The EMP hadn’t affected the radio inside the chamber, but it still affected the opening mechanism on the outside. 

“Peter!” He yelled. “Please say something!” 

No. No, no, nonono….

He sprinted back toward the door. He tried to force his fingers under its lip. The result was the same as before—it was sealed tight. 

“No, no…” 

He took a few steps back and hurled his body into it. It smashed into his shoulder and rattled his teeth. He wound up and threw himself again. There was no point, but dammit if that meant Tony would stop trying. 

Dizziness settled in from the effort. He stepped back up to fling himself at the door once more. 

A firm hand blocked him. Tony knew who it was before even looking. 

“Steve,” he sighed. 

Steve didn’t say a word, just pushed Tony to the side. He braced his shield and launched himself into the door. It tore like paper. 

Tony stood petrified as Steve rushed inside. A metallic odor washed over him. Large swathes of the box were splashed with a repugnant layer of powder-fine crimson. 

Steve carried Peter out. His body dangled lifelessly, his entire chest and neck stained with the powder, lips tinged blue and dotted with even more blood. 

“Is he—”

Peter coughed. A wet, sputtering as he curled his into Steve’s shirt and hacked up a wad of blood and phlegm. 

Tony’s knees almost gave out. For a fraction of a second, Steve’s stoic face crumbled, too. He flashed through several emotions—relief, sadness, protectiveness, fear. But then the emotions were gone, replaced by a wall of Heroic-Leader-Face. 

“Not here,” he said. “Our position is too vulnerable.”

Only then did Tony realize he’d stepped forward, reaching for Peter. He dropped his arms to his side. “Right.” 

The coolness of Peter's body, the paleness of his skin, and the way he trembled—Steve felt like ne was carrying a porcelain doll. Tony tailgated his heels, face stricken with panic. That only served to amplify Steve’s unease. 

They arrived at the employee entrance to a dusty bar. The door was locked, but super-strength rendered that a non-issue. 

“M’not twenty-one,” Peter mumbled as the smell of alcohol washed over them. 

Steve laughed—an odd shaking sound. Tony also choke-snorted.  

“I wouldn't worry, Underoos.” 

Peter perked at Tony’s voice. “Mr. Stark?” 

“I’m here.” His face turned impossibly gentle, something Steve hadn’t seen on him before. 

He slipped Peter into Tony’s arms. The kid nestled in. Steve grabbed Tony and steered them both toward a corner, far from the windows and tucked under the bar. 

“You’re alright,” Tony said, lowering Peter to the ground. “You’re alright.” 

Steve tugged a table, using it to barricade the door. Then he dropped to his knees next to Tony and Peter. He pulled a portable oxygen mask—one of Tony’s inventions, complete with the antidote to Tim’s poison—from where he’d secured it to the back of his shield. 

The look of shock and gratitude on Tony’s face was suffocating. “How did you...it still works? It wasn’t hit by the EMP?” 

“Vibranium,” Steve explained. He flipped the on-switch at the side of the mask, and positioned it on Peter’s face. Immediately Peter gasped, chest heaving as he scrambled to cling to the mask. 

Tony pulled him closer, hunched forward. “It’s fine. You’re gonna be okay.” 

Steve sat back on his heels. He got the feeling, this time, that Tony was trying to reassure all three of them. 

Outside, gunfire rebounded off the walls of the building. A booming volley that set Steve’s teeth on edge. 

“His belt!” Peter seized Tony’s shoulder and tried to tug himself upright but to little avail. “I forgot about his belt!” 

“What?” Steve said. 

“The drones!” 

Tony tensed his hold on Peter as he continued to struggle. “You’re talking nonsense, kid. What does fashionwear have to do with anything?”

“We need to turn them off!” 

Oh, wait. Steve understood. 

When he ran into the metal box something caught his eyes. Beneath the gory mess in the decontamination chamber, a curious leather strip. He dismissed it at the time, primarily focused on getting Peter out. If memory served right, it looked like a belt. A belt that could have the controls for Tim’s army on it.

“I’ll handle it,” he said. He passed his shield over to Tony. “Take this.” He couldn’t bear the idea of Tony and Peter being defenseless without him here. 

“What? Why?” 

He stood. “You and the kid don’t have any armor.” 

“Neither do you!” Tony called after Steve as he slipped out the door. 

All the adrenaline from earlier fled Tony’s body. He kept himself tethered to the world by focusing on Peter’s fingernails digging into his bicep, on his hair damp with sweat against his chest. 

If he had the energy, he might’ve feared for Steve. He might’ve been irritated that he’d just gone off without explaining anything, that he’d left his one defensive item at Tony’s side while he bolted head-long back into battle. 

But Tony didn’t have that energy right now. So he just pulled his knees up and leaned against the wall, Peter tight in his arms and Steve’s shield at his side. He rested a hand on Peter's, keeping the oxygen mask in place, and breathed with his kid. 

Steve returned, eventually. His face looked even grimier than before, and a new cut shone on his lip. 

“I found it.” 

“Found what?” 

“The belt.” 

“The belt,” Tony repeated numbly. It didn’t make any more sense than it did ten minutes ago. 

Peter, however, jolted alert. “Tim’s utility belt.” 

Steve tossed it over to Tony. Black leather, with excessive pockets and hardware. “See if you can figure out how to shut down the drones. Maybe turn the power back on to get medical help over here. Otherwise, I’ll take the kid when there’s a safe path.” 

Inside one of the pockets, Tony discovered what looked like a television remote but shorter and stockier. Probably the control system. He inspected the buttons, but there wasn’t an obvious answer to which button did what. Not on the surface, anyway. 

Peter moved to help. Tony caught him and held him in place. “Just keep breathing, kid. You’ve done plenty.” 

“But—” he coughed, spitting more blood onto the plastic. Tony’s jaw tightened. 

This was his fault. Peter shouldn’t have been here. Not just today but ever. He shouldn’t have been bitten by that spider, and Tony shouldn’t have dragged him into Avengers stuff. He should be at home, playing video games with Ned, surrounded by legos and decathlon flash cards. 

“You need to focus,” Steve said. “The sooner we stop this mess, the sooner we can get help.” 

“Right.” Tony swallowed. Because Steve didn’t have the skill set to figure out this remote, so this was on him now. 

He tore the back off and examined the mess of wires and computer boards. Whoever Tim was, he didn’t know how to keep his work tidy. 

Crash!

The windows shattered as bullets sprayed. Drones burst through the hole. Tony curled around Peter—who wheezed at the movement—but Steve hauled them both behind himself.

Bullets thrashed his shield, held protectively over them. “Now would be a good time to turn these off, Tony!” 

He frantically scanned the remote. It only took a few moments to understand what he needed to do. He pulled a few wires out.

Drones clattered to the ground. Lights flickered to life. 

In an instant, the battle was over.

Chapter Text

The eery after-battle silence drifted over everyone. Drones draped lifelessly across overturned tables, while splintered wood and shattered glass cluttered the floor. Steve’s heart pounded. He lowered his shield from its protective stance, not quite ready to give up on defending Peter and Tony, but aware there was nothing to defend from anymore.

“It’s over?” Peter croaked. At the angle his body curled into Tony’s, his right ear faced Steve, along with the blood that dragged from it. 

“Yeah, kid,” Tony whispered, thumb stroking Peter’s bangs. “It’s over.”

Taking that as permission to move, Steve grabbed his communicator from its spot on the back of his shield. He didn’t know if everyone’s tech would be online again, so that was the first thing to address. “Team? Anyone read me?”

Clint’s voice crackled through. “What the hecking shit just happened?”

Steve didn’t know how to answer that.

“Steve?” Sam said. “Please tell me you and Tony found Spider-kid.”

He answered that more easily. “Yeah, he’s with us. We’ve shut down the drones, and Tim is dead. Someone find out if first responder vehicles are up and running. Spider-man needs medical attention. We should also send a team to check on civilians.” 

Clint let out a startled squeak. “I’m on it,” Natasha snapped, presumably having stolen Clint’s comms. “Is Spider-man okay?”

“We’ll make sure he is.” Steve didn’t want to say anything else with Peter right there. Even if he looked better now, they didn’t know the extent of the injuries yet. Steve didn’t want him to panic. Though he worried less about Peter panicking than Tony, who was the closest to tears Steve had ever seen him.

The cold plastic of the oxygen mask squished against Peter’s face. Now that he was less focused on gasping for air, Peter noticed other sensations in his body. Like how his ears hurt, and how every noise made him want to sob. His throat was raw and sharp from coughing, and he’d probably broken his ribs based on the way they throbbed. 

He shivered. So cold. But Mr. Stark was warm, so that was nice. 

Peter’s lungs still felt stiff, his brain stuffed with cotton. But...breathing was good. It was so good, he wished he could hug it. Unfortunately, Peter couldn’t hug oxygen because that wasn’t how air worked. Maybe he’d super-cool some oxygen in Mr. Stark’s lab. Then it’d be solid enough to hug. 

“—ter? Peter?” Ugh. Noise. Why couldn’t the noise go away?

“Peter!” Oh, wait. It was Mr. Stark. 

He blinked. “Huh?” 

“Stay with us. Natasha’s on her way with medical.” 

Stay with them? “But I’m right here.” 

Mr. Stark sighed. “Yeah, I know, bud.”

Captain America pressed two fingers to Peter’s neck. It seemed an odd thing to do, but maybe that was just how people greeted each other in 1942.  

He poked him back. “Boop.” 

Captain America frowned. “His pulse is really fast.” 

“Hypoxia, probably. That poison should’ve killed him,” Mr. Stark muttered. “Hey Pete, how you feeling?” He hovered closer, meaning the noise came closer, which made Peter groan. 

“Stop talking!” 

“Excuse me?” Mr. Stark sounded offended. Oops. 

“Super-hearing,” Captain America whispered. 

“Oh, right.” 

The noise outside the building grew steadily, too. Sirens dug at his eardrums. He clapped his hands over his ears. The oxygen mask he’d been holding fell, but Mr. Stark caught it, squishing it back onto Peter’s nose and mouth. He said something, but words weren’t making much sense anymore. 

Someone tossed open the door—a rush of red hair. The person sounded angry. No, livid. Peter curled in on himself at the volume, then gasped when the movement twinged his battered ribs. Everyone’s voices lowered after that. With the adrenaline from earlier gone, he ached with tiredness. It settled deep into his muscles and pricked at his watering eyes. 

More talking. Hands were moving him. Someone covered his face with fabric. Secret identity, he thought. 

The last thing he heard was Mr. Stark’s voice. “You’re gonna be fine, kid. It’s gonna be fine.” 

The waiting room around Tony was nothing but silence and empty chairs. He folded forward on a stiff sofa, head in his hands. 

Peter would be fine. Dr. Cho said so. Still, Tony knew he’d never get rid of that image—Peter, a wet sack in Steve’s arms, covered in blood. Analytics came back. The blood-dust belonged to Archibald Humphries, a chemist who’d disappeared in a gas explosion three years ago. Also known as Tim, Tony assumed. 

He'd have to talk to Peter about that later. 

The sofa indented as someone sat down next to him. Tony knew without even looking who it was. 

“How’s Peter?” Steve said. 

“He’s gonna be fine.” 

Steve breathed deeply through his nose, eyes closing briefly. “That’s... that’s good.” 

Peter was a wonder, the way he wormed himself into people’s hearts.

And there was Steve Rogers, sitting next to him. Tony spent the past several months running over and over in his head all the things he wanted to say to Steve—some of which he’d said since they’d resolved the Accords issues, many of which he hadn’t. But then, there was Peter—the damn stubborn kid—on the other side of the wall behind them, safe and alive. There really was only one thing left to say at this point.

“Thank you.” 

“Huh?” Steve said. 

“Don’t make me say it again. But yeah, thank you for looking out for Peter. If you hadn’t been there...” 

Steve fixed his gaze on a forested painting on the opposite wall. “He’s a good kid.” 

The air hung tense between them. Tony clenched his hands into a ball. “I didn’t try to open the chamber right away,” He admitted. “I waited until the decontamination process was complete. What if he died?” 

“We can’t dwell on ‘what ifs,’ Tony. It doesn’t matt—”

“It matters.” He turned to face Steve. “I brought him into this. That means I’m responsible for him, and I was about to let him die.” 

Steve’s undivided attention was overwhelming. It’d always been that way. The intensity of his eye contact, the way he listened with his entire body, the stern sincerity in his voice. “It was the right call, Tony. If you opened the chamber before the process finished, everyone would have died, not just Peter.” 

He was fine anyway , went unsaid. You couldn’t open the door without me anyway , also went unsaid. 

Without warning, Natasha tossed open the double doors of the waiting room with a thunderous Bang! She stormed in, eyes ablaze. 

“You!” She jabbed her finger at Tony. “How dare you! ” 

Tony startled to his feet. His instinct was to defend himself, even though he knew there was no defending this. 

“Natasha...” Steve began, standing up as well. 

“No! No, don’t you start, Steve. Don’t tell me how to feel about this. I can have my opinions.” She marched right up to Tony, pressing her finger into his sternum. “What were you thinking?” 

“I wasn’t,” he admitted, perhaps too flippantly. 

“You said you were getting back-up in Germany. You didn’t tell me anything about him, or that he was fifteen, because you knew I’d say no.” 

“He was fourteen, then, actually,” was probably the least helpful response right now.

Natasha scoffed. She shoved Tony away like he was poison.

“Natasha...”

“I thought I told you to can it, Rogers.” 

He slammed his mouth shut. 

“You knew my history,” Natasha said. She looked away. “How could you possibly trick me into working with a child soldier? Me. ” 

The truth was, Tony hadn’t considered that until she said it now. She hadn’t been on his mind, or the red room, or how cruel it was to make her complicit in this. Just like it didn’t occur to him until he saw the floor of Peter’s room littered with Legos, until he saw his body lying too still on the airport tarmac, how young fourteen was. 

Or maybe that was what he wanted to believe—that he hadn’t thought of it. That he was short-sighted on the task at hand. It made him feel better, perhaps. The truth was, he’d been aware enough to hide Peter’s age from everyone and too selfish not to drag him along. He told himself it was best for the kid. Better than someone worse grabbing him, anyway. “I’m sorry, Nat.” 

Her face melted, and crossed arms fell to her sides. “He’s so young. And sweet. He’s too good for us, Tony.” 

Tony didn’t have a response to that. She was right. He didn’t have to, though, because the door flew open again , and in came Clint, Rhodey, and Sam. 

“Please tell me our little hooligan’s okay,” Clint said. 

“Yeah,” Tony said. “Yeah, Dr. Cho said he’s gonna be fine in a few days.” 

“Oh, good fuck.” He slotted himself next to Natasha, reminding Tony that the two of them were, as usual, on the same page. “I take it Nat appropriately berated you, so we don’t have to?” 

“Yeah. I’ve been scolded.” 

“Fantastic.” 

“Oh, I’m gonna scold you more later,” Rhodey said. “Because as your best friend, it’s my responsibility to tell you that you effed up good this time. You are never doing something like this again.” 

“I’d expect nothing less.” 

 “Am I allowed to talk now?” Steve asked. 

A cautious smirk spread across Natasha’s face. “I’ll allow it. 

Before he could, though, May Parker stuck her head out of Peter’s room. Everyone fell silent. Poor May stood there bearing full force six Avengers’ expectant gaze. 

She took it like a champ, though. “Ah. He’s asking for you, Tony. I think it’s important.” 

“Oh. Okay, on it.”

Peter sat propped upright on a stack of pillows that Aunt May set for him. She’d also tucked the sheets of the hospital bed around his legs. That, combined with Black Widow shouting outside his door, made him feel a lot younger than fifteen.

He watched Mr. Stark slip into the room. He looked tired with strands of hair shuffled out of place. He must've been running his fingers through it, the way he did when he was anxious and thought no one was watching. Peter never knew what to do when he looked like that. Usually, he just ignored it. 

“Hey, Mr. Stark.” 

“What’s up, kid?” Tony slid himself into the plush chair at the side of Peter’s bed—the one May had occupied moments earlier. “Your aunt said you had something to talk about?” 

“Right. Yeah.” 

Mr. Stark stared expectantly. 

The words weighed on his chest, stuck in his throat before he finally forced them out. “I killed Tim.” 

“Yeah, I meant to ask you about that. What happened?” 

“He kind of exploded?”

“He...exploded?” 

“Yeah.”

Mr. Stark sat back, digesting that. “Alright. How does that happen?” 

“He didn’t have gas bombs on him. He was the gas. I told him not to—he didn’t listen. I think he just wanted to kill me or have the last laugh or whatever.” 

“Yeesh. That’s intense." He said it too coolly.

“I guess.” Tim’s wide grin and stormy eyes, almost gleeful as he evaporated into nothing. 

“How are you uh...feeling about that?” 

“I dunno. Not good.” Nothing was there anymore, but if Peter glanced down at his body, he could almost see the bright blood-dust saturating him. 

“Makes sense.” Mr. Stark’s expression was unreadable. He leaned forward. “Listen, we can go through the details of what happened later. We’ll need them for the mission report. But for now...for now, let’s just...we can focus on you, okay? 

“Right.” 

“Okay. Good.” Mr. Stark kept watching Peter, dark eyes intense, mouth squeezed into a line. Peter didn’t have anything else to say about it, though, so he changed the topic. 

“I heard you guys arguing about me.” 

“Figured you might’ve.” 

“It didn’t take super-hearing.” 

Mr. Stark snorted. “Yeah. I guess not,” he said. “Listen, kid. Don’t worry about all,” he waved his hand at the door, “ that. You probably figured this from the beatdown at the airport, but the team has some complex politics going on.” 

Peter did worry, though. Because they weren’t arguing about politics, they were arguing about him. They were mad at Mr. Stark for him . “They’re going to make you leave me, aren’t they?” Even to his own ears, he sounded like a desperate orphan. 

Mr. Stark wasn’t his Dad, who died when Peter was five, and he definitely wasn’t Ben, but he was...something. Peter liked having that something, whatever it was. 

For a second, Mr. Stark’s face fell. Sadness? Guilt? He covered it quickly with a scoff. “No. Unfortunately for us both, we’re stuck together. And now you’re gonna have the entire team wrapped around your little spidery finger. Your gravitational pull is too strong, Underoos. I imagine it’ll be a while before you get called on a mission, though.” 

“Unless I sneak along again.” He would. They both knew it. 

“Yeah. We’re definitely implementing ’a check for stowaways’ protocol.”

“Like that’ll deter me.” 

Mr. Stark sighed. “You’re aware what a pain in the neck you are, right? I swear I age ten years every time we talk.” 

Peter shrugged. 

The conversation lulled. Mr. Stark turned his head away, arms folded and eyes thoughtful. Then, “You did the right thing, you know.” 

“Huh?” 

“You didn’t really kill him, anyway. You made it so he couldn’t hurt anyone else, and he made his own choices. That’s not on you.” 

“Does it matter if it’s on me or not?”

With great power came great responsibility, and Peter always knew ‘responsibility’ wouldn’t mean easy choices.  Tim wasn’t a good person. He deserved what happened to him. But he was still dead. Peter still ended up covered in blood. None of that changed. 

There wasn’t more to say, so neither of them did. Still, it was nice to have Mr. Stark’s company.  

“You’re Spider-man’s mom?” Natasha asked. 

The woman had wood-brown hair in a relaxed ponytail and a small mouth pulled into a forced smile. Natasha fumed on the her behalf. Her kid almost died because of Tony’s recklessness. 

“His aunt, but yes. I’m May Parker.”

There weren’t a lot of happy reasons kids got raised by their aunt instead of their mom. Natasha filed that information away in her mental folder about Spider-man. It went right next to her other notes, like; talks even more than Tony and is as stubborn as Steve. She didn’t know what to make of this new information yet. 

“How is he?” Steve asked. 

“Recovering. Though, I suggest you keep any future arguments a bit further away from his super-hearing.” The team shrunk, chastised. Granted, Natasha was the only one who’d been yelling. She didn’t feel bad about it. Maybe it’d knock some sense into the little punk. Accordingly, Spider-man’s aunt turned to Natasha. “Walk with me?” 

“Sure,” she said.

They headed down the hall to a nurses’ station in the back. May had every right to be as pissed at Tony as Natasha was. She didn’t look it, though. She kept her arms loose at her side, her posture relaxed despite the tense lines on her forehead. 

“We’ll talk quietly,” May said, pulling up chairs from the desks for them to sit in. 

Natasha sat across from May. She studied this new woman—her ovular face, her fitted yet casual clothes. She seemed tired, but only because Natasha observed closely. That tiredness about her was something she hid expertly, like she’d done this for years. With Spider-man for a kid, maybe she had.

More interestingly, Natasha felt May’s gaze back on her, studying with the same scrutiny. That didn’t happen often, much less with a civilian. There was more to May Parker than met the eye.

“So. It sounds like you’ve taken a shine to my Peter.” 

Peter. That’d be Spider-man’s name, then. She remembered what she thought when she saw him draped half-conscious in Tony’s arms. Look at his little face . 

When Natasha was his age, she’d already killed a dozen people. No one deserved to have their childhood stolen like that. And Peter? With his youthful energy, his smart little quips, the way he interacted so easily with that little girl and her mom...Natasha couldn’t stand the thought of tampering with any of that. 

“You don’t seem particularly upset about this,” Natasha said.

“About you liking him? No, why would I be?” She was playing coy. She knew precisely what Natasha meant. 

“You know what I mean.”

“Ah. Well, I got all that out in October. Believe me, your spat with Tony was nothing compared to mine.” Funnily, Natasha did believe that. 

“I don’t get it, then.” She allowed the cold rage to simmer beneath her voice. “You’re his parent. You should be fighting tooth and nail to keep him out of this. People die in this line of work. He should be at school, or I dunno. I don’t even know what kids do.” Because she never got to be a kid. 

“That’s what the secret identity is for.” 

“I don’t get it,” she repeated. 

May’s voice quieted. She looked down at her hands. “Life doesn’t always work how you want it to. I’ve lost enough to know that. So has Peter.” There was a story there. Probably the same story behind why Peter lived with his aunt and not his Mom and Dad. “He’s good out there. He does good for people. That’s what his uncle and I always taught him to do.” His uncle, who was, notably, not here with Peter in the hospital now. “I can’t stop him if I wanted to. Believe me, I want to. Teenagers are...a lot. Sometimes the best you can do is put guardrails in place, and be there to catch them when they fall. I don’t have all the tools for that anymore, but Tony does. Even if I could stop him...this is bigger than me now. He’s part of this superhero world. And he’s my boy, which means so am I.” 

They all could’ve died today without Spider-man. The Avengers, the townspeople. Sure, maybe they’d have figured it out without Peter. Maybe they still could’ve won the day. But maybe they wouldn’t have.  He was a kid, yes—a ridiculous one at that—but he was also smart, powerful, and capable. He’d swung through the battlefield, impossible to keep track of and even more impossible to tell “no.”

May was right. No one was stopping Peter. 

Natasha knew the dark underbelly of this world better than most. Powerful enough to rival the Avengers but young enough to be easily manipulated. It was a miracle that Tony found him first. 

“I’ll look out for him too, then.” The whole team would. It was a promise. 

Shortly after Natasha and May left, Steve found himself alone in the Avenger’s hospital parking lot with Sam. The Quinjet engulfed the black pavement, which was empty of cars save for a blue Bug belonging to Helen Cho. Sam leaned against the building wall. Steve could feel his gaze interrogating him.

“What is it?” 

“We’re all just gonna be okay with this, then?” 

“You met him today, right?” Steve said. “You think you could convince him to quit?”  

Sam laughed and shook his head. “I imagine that’d go about as well as Bucky trying to stop you from joining the army.” 

Steve grinned, “Exactly.” 

“We still need to talk about this, though. The whole team does.” 

“I know,” he said. 

“What’s his name?” 

“Peter.” 

“Huh.” Sam folded his arms and looked to the horizon. “I was thinking. I imagine we’d all feel better about this if the team established a playbook for this kind of thing. I doubt Peter will be the last underage super-kid we meet.”

It was a good suggestion. “I’ll bring it up with Tony.” 

“It’s not a request.” 

“I know.” 

“Good.” 

Tony re-introduced Peter to the Avengers—Peter, not Spider-man. The team adored him just as before, if not more. Peter also talked as much as before, if not more. He fired at each person with dozens of questions about aliens and super-powers. Somehow, Clint found out Peter liked Legos. He left the building for five minutes and returned with three bins. Tony didn’t ask where he got them. Everyone crowded around Peter’s bed, laughing and learning to build a star destroyer. In that moment, Tony could forget the resentments. He could forget the complicated history, the arguments. They were just friends. 

Because, despite everything, that’s what the Avengers always had been. 

Now, Tony stood at a wall-height window overlooking the compound across the street, lost in thought. Steve appeared next to him. Tony knew he would.

They didn’t say anything for a few minutes. What more was there to say? 

Steve broke the silence. “We’ll need to have a team meeting about all of this.” 

“Yeah, I know.” 

“Sam thinks we should come up with guidelines. For in the future. And for now, with Peter. He’s not gonna be the last kid.” 

Tony whipped his head so hard he heard his neck crack. “I’m not giving anything about Spider-man to the government. That’s not a line in the sand, Rogers. It’s a line in fucking stone. Don’t cross it.” 

“I didn’t say ‘government,’” Steve said, kindly not pointing out that it was Tony who brought Peter into a fight about government regulations in the first place. “It’s for us, as a team of people—a team of friends —deciding what we are going to do in future situations...and in this current situation, right now, with that kid,” he gestured down the hall toward Peter’s hospital room. “Right there.” 

Tony chewed on that. It made sense. “Fine.” 

Steve folded his hands behind his back. The familiar angle of his chaw stuck forward, but Tony knew that look. He wasn’t being a hardhead. He was thinking about something. 

“What is it?” 

“I think we got off on the wrong foot in 2012.” 

He scoffed. “Yeah. No kidding.” It hadn’t been all bad, of course. But there was always tension.

“Ever since I became Captain America, that’s all people see. People don’t see... me. It’s like they forget I exist. Steve Rogers, I mean. Especially since I came out of the ice. The people who knew me before are all dead, except—” Bucky . He didn’t say it, unwilling to bring up that point of tension, and rightly so. They’d deal with it later, though. Maybe Tony could learn to be a bigger person, too. “You and I have never met. Not really. I met Iron Man, and you met Captain America. I think we need to fix that.” 

Tony chewed on that. He looked at Steve, really looked at him for maybe the first time. He hadn’t always been so tall, had he? The history books said he used to be five foot four and weigh ninety-four pounds. He saw the pictures. For whatever reason, that Steve had never clicked with this Steve. It was the past. Just like World War 2 was the past. But that little guy was still in there, wasn't he?

It wasn’t the past to Steve. 

It hurt to think about. They’d known each other so well but...had they? He came into his first meeting with Steve with a lot of expectations and Howard-Stark-related baggage. None of that was on Steve. It’s not like he told Howard, Hey, when you have a kid, make sure to criticize him as much as possible while bragging about me.

And Steve? He’d gone in with what he saw on TV. The show Tony put on. Arrogant, charismatic. It was a damn good show, too. Tony didn’t blame him. Maybe they’d both gotten a few glimpses underneath, at the real versions of each other, but never more than that—glimpses.

“I’m not saying we won’t still disagree on stuff,” Steve added. “Steve Rogers is twice as big a shithead as Captain America. But at least we can understand each other.” 

Tony laughed. “That’s bad language, you know.” 

Steve laughed too. “That’s what I mean, actually. I do know how to swear. I was in the army. Before that, I picked fights in alleyways. I’m not a goody-two-shoes American poster boy. I never have been. I'm a stick in the mud about my moral code, but I don't give a shit about rules. I only care about doing the right thing.” 

That checked out. It explained some things, even. “Okay,” Tony said. “Yeah. Let’s try it.” 

Steve held out his hand. “Steve Rogers.” 

Tony took it. “Tony Stark. I promise, my head isn’t as big as it looks. I have a massive guilt complex and a terrible self-destructive streak.” 

Steve smiled a full genuine smile. “It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance.” 

That wouldn’t be the end of it, of course. There’d be team meetings and arguing. There’d be Peter, being a pain in the ass. But...it was a start. 

Tony could live with that.