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Dust — was that smoke? — and the faint smell of ozone greeted Peter the moment he stepped foot into his mentor’s workshop. Looking around warily, he took another step into the empty expanse of the workshop. A familiar yelp and a crash sounded out from behind the light of blue holograms. Wincing, he braved his steps to check up on who was none other than Tony.
“Mr. Stark..? Are you okay?” Peter ducked below the whizzing arms of Dum-E and immediately beelined towards Tony who was starfished on the floor.
“‘M al’ight P’te,” grumbled the lump on the floor.
With a look of concern, Peter went to lend a hand towards the struggling and sleep deprived man to help him off the floor. And Tony? Well he ignored the hand and stood up spitefully.
Then wobbled.
And down he went again.
Peter didn’t know whether he should laugh or sob at the state his mentor was in, but somehow ended up with a damp laugh and worry in his heart.
“Mr. Stark, how long have you been in here?” He got out in between his worry and frustration. Tony had used to overwork himself back when he and Steve were at odds, and would usually end up passing out, waking up, then continuing again. Safe to say it was a valid worry that Peter had.
“Y’st’rd’y,” The man on the floor mumbled up at him.
“Actually sir, it has been 63 hours since you’ve exited the workshop,” Jarvis interjected, somehow sounding exasperated as an AI.
“Wh’t..? ‘ts S’t’rd’y alr’dy?” A panicked and oil smudged engineer shot up from the floor.
“P’te’s s’ppos’ed t’ be h’re soon,” Tony groaned and pushed himself up into a standing position with much difficulty.
“Uh.. Mr. Stark, I’m already here…?” Tony turned to the source of the sound and watched with suspicion as Peter raised a hand to wave awkwardly.
“I d’n’t b’li’ve you…” Tony crossed his arms, squinting at the fuzzy shape harder.
Peter blinked.
Peter blinked again.
Then let out a sigh and swept Tony up in a fireman’s carry, to his shock. Adjusting the weakly struggling man in his hold, he sent a prayer up to ask what he had done to deserve this. Tony was squirming and pushing against Peter’s super strength, but gave up after a while.
“Tony, you need to sleep.” He was unceremoniously plopped down onto his bed in his room upstairs — hey, when did they get there? Peter let out another sigh and Tony realised that he spoke out loud.
“No. Peter, this is extremely disrespectful.” There, he’d done it — he felt bad at yelling at Pete but at least, now, Peter would shrink and go away.
But alas, the effect was weakened due to the fact that he had slurred through nearly half his sentence and that he was speaking facing a stain on the wall he had inevitably thought was Peter.
“Mr. Stark, I'm over here,” deadpanned Peter. Squinting yet again, Tony spun to the voice on his right and wondered how his pseudo-son had cloned himself.
“Mr. Stark. Sleep. Now.”
Fuck he spoke aloud again didn’t he.
“Mr. Stark.”
Double fuck.
Okay backup plan, he was good at those.
“You can’t make me,” Tony huffed, like a petulant child. Peter let out a long suffering sigh and resisted the urge to bang his head on the wall. Spiderman or not, this was hell. Hanging his head, he shoved his face into his hands as he dropped his ass down on Tony’s dresser. Peter’s spidey sense tingled.
“MR. STARK,” Tony froze, caught trying to slip out the door.
“You can’t sneak out! It's your own bedroom for God’s sake??” Peter continued to yell in frustration, near tears at this point.
Tony narrowed his eyes into slits, slowly backing away from the door like a terrified cat. He stood motionless, eyes still in a squint, but his body language was screaming at Peter, ‘watch me’.
And damn did Peter believe it.
He was going to go insane.
Well.
Time to pull out the big guns.
Fuck they lost him again.
How fucking large was the tower that they were still searching for that manchild for the last 30 minutes.
Tony had managed to outrun both the supersoldier, the God, and had successfully hid from both Clint and Natasha. The only reason they had to believe that he hadn’t suddenly died from — most likely — caffeine poisoning, Bruce reminded them, was that he was still uploading his code and had simultaneously written new frameworks for the main database.
The genius had forgotten to turn off his online status.
Natasha found out.
But fucking hell they could not for Thor’s sake even find him.
Jarvis had been trying to help them when his speakers stuttered out and died. Every word he tried to speak had been reprogrammed to start blasting Whitney Houston’s ‘I Will Always Love You’ — a clear jab at Steve’s karaoke skills.
It was obviously Tony’s doing.
But they could not find him.
It wasn’t until Peter had tried out a new technique that Matt had been training him in, telling him to ‘put that creepy spider sense of yours to good use’, that they found him.
Peter had his arm over his eyes and had let his spider sense walk him into a wall. He thought that it had been acting up — it had never in his life acted up — until Thor got impatient and decided to become one with the wall.
Unfortunately, he had splat and thrown himself on the wall with a bit too much force.
And well.
The wall gave out.
And a squeak came from inside.
“PETER YOU TRAITOR,” A sleep deprived coffee addict who was being cuddled to death by our dear Thor and Steve started yelling at Peter.
Yet, Tony would be lying if he said it was uncomfortable — there was just something about the pressure of their massive arms weighing down on him. That did not mean he would give them an easy fight.
Peter looked like a kicked puppy, but still satisfied nonetheless.
Oh man he was getting soft.
Time to toughen up his resolve.
And the best way, he thought, was to choose a new target.
But whenever he started squirming and biting and making death threats, another Avenger would join the cuddle pile — Peter included, after Natasha had yanked him down with her. It wasn't until Bruce that he finally quelled the violence, understanding that Bruce rarely ever initiated contact or touches even in his sleep deprived state.
It wasn’t long after, when Tony finally fell asleep and soft snores resounded from the middle of the pile, when Jarvis secretly took a picture and saved it under lock and key.
Natasha’s eyes snapped open and immediately latched on to a camera. After staring for a bit, she softened, mouthing words only Jarvis could understand.
Jarvis understood immediately, uploading it to her personal collection — for the greater good. But also, scary, scary woman.
It was Tony’s fault for giving him a brain, anyways.