Chapter Text
Peter was having a really shitty day that Friday.
He woke up late, having forgotten to charge his phone the night before after a rather busy evening of patrolling. He felt like he was run over by a truck when he woke up that morning. His panic took over him after a brief minute of him trying remember what day it was. He got out of bed in a jolt. He got ready faster than he ever did. He luckily remembered to pack his suit in his backpack right before he got out. Having already running late the moment he woke up, Peter skipped breakfast (sorry aunt May.)
It was friday, and friday meant that he would spend the weekend at the Stark Tower, working on their suits with Tony. Peter loved the weekends just because of that. Tony and May had come to an arrangement a few months ago about Peter’s time spend with Tony. The arrangement was perfect for Peter; aunt May would take most of her shifts in the weekends so that Peter and her would have dinner together at weekdays, during the weekends Peter would be ‘interning’ at the tower. The interning first started off as just a cover story but as time went on and Tony realized that he was actually teaching Peter a thing or two, he put Peter in the SI system as his own personal intern, which was the closest thing to the truth anyway.
Peter got the school ten minutes before the first period ended. He entered the class room with his head down, apologizing to his chemistry teacher. He kept his gaze only on his teacher, too tired to acknowledge Flash’s snickering and others curious looks. He didn’t have to look at them to know it was happening, his Spidey-sense made sure Peter knew that everyone indeed was looking at him from the moment that he knocked on the classroom door.
‘’Look who decided to finally join us! Do you have a good excuse this time Parker? It’s the second time your late to my class this week and frankly I’m running out of patience.’’ Peter’s teacher ridiculed him with a raised eyebrow that wasn’t from curiosity but rather an invitation. His face said to Peter; ‘defy me and see what happens.’
‘’Sorry sir I didn’t realize that my charger was broken when I plugged my phone last night and my phone died. My alarm didn’t go off.’’ Peter sprinkled a few lies so that he wouldn’t look that irresponsible. He pulled his phone from his pocket to show his teacher.
‘’You’re off the hook this time as well kid but don’t let there be a third time.’’ His teacher finally gave up. Peter sighed and took his seat. He didn’t bother taking his notebook out of his backpack since there was only about five minutes left till the bell ringed.
Rest of the day wasn’t any better. Flash made even more attempts at making Peter snap and it took every single cell in him to not punch the bully in the face. Normally Peter would be able to tune Flash out by focusing on Ned or if that didn’t work Ned would drag Peter away but Ned had been sick for the past three days and Peter was left alone. His phone was dead too so that meant that he would have no distractions at all. It sucked. His super-hearing didn’t make things any easier either, even if Flash wasn’t directly talking to him, Peter could still hear what Flash said about him behind his back. They were not any nicer than when he was talking shit about Peter to his face.
He knew he could talk to MJ, since they were closer now but Peter was scared that he would embarrass himself in front of his crush. And it wasn’t like they were suddenly BFFs or anything. Sure, MJ was a really smart and cool person, she was smart enough to become the decathlon team’s captain this year and also figure out Peter’s secret identity and nice enough to actually keep it a secret and occasionally put Flash in his place when he pushed his luck. But they still didn’t hang out nearly enough for Peter’s liking, which was probably way too many times.
They smiled and waved to each other a few times when they saw each other and sat together in physics, which was the last class of the day. Peter hoped that at least his physics class wouldn’t be that bad, since he and MJ were sitting together. And he was right; it went okay, considering the fact that Peter could do everything that they were learning that year in his sleep. It was boring, as always, but it wasn’t that bad.
They walked to decathlon team’s meeting together afterschool.
‘’Did you bring your permission slip? I’m pretty sure you’re the only one left.’’ MJ finally talked to him when they were walking the now empty school corridor.
Ah, yes, the permission slip. May had made sure to sign and put it securely in Peter’s bag two days ago but Peter was too scared to actually return it. Every time he thought of it, he felt like he was making a huge mistake. It was just a fun little trip with the decathlon team to the Stark Tower, the place where he spent his Friday evenings as well as his weekends, the place where he had his own room. What could go wrong?
‘’I did.’’ Peter nodded his head. Desperately hoping that MJ wouldn’t see the hesitation behind his half smile. MJ, being her usual awesome self, saw it right away.
‘’You didn’t tell Mr. Stark and you don’t really want to go, do you?’’ MJ stopped walking to stare at Peter.
‘’Nope…’’ Peter sighed. He wasn’t trying to keep it a secret or anything, really but he knew that if Tony knew about it, he would try to do something and Peter didn’t want to risk embarrassing himself.
MJ luckily didn’t say anything else about it. She shrugged and kept walking.
Peter gave the permission slip back to Mr. Harrington before everyone else came in, successfully avoiding Flash’s remarks about how ‘Peter is too much of a loser to get an internship at SI’
Happy picked him up after their meeting was over. Peter slumped onto the backseat.
‘’Rough day at school kid?’’ Happy asked without any difference to his normal, bored tone. But Peter knew that the man deep down actually cared.
‘’Yeah, and I also didn’t get enough sleep.’’ Peter admitted. He knew that if he didn’t say anything Happy would let Tony know about it. And Peter really wasn’t in the mood to have a lecture from his mentor.
Peter let his eyes close, his tiredness finally catching up on him. He had a brief dream about saving the Black Panther from a really tall tree and thus receiving the key to the city by Captain America.
It didn’t take long before he had to open his eyes again. They’d arrived. Peter felt better after that quick nap.
‘’Thanks, Happy.’’ Peter stretched his arms when he got out of the car. He yawned as he slinged his backpack on his shoulders. Not caring how he looked after his nap since he and happy were the only ones in Tony’s privet garage.
They got into the private elevator. FRIDAY chimed when she identified them.
‘’Good evening Happy, Peter.’’
‘’Good evening FRIDAY, floor 28 please.’’ Happy requested. The elevator started moving up.
Peter never bothered to say which floor he wanted to go to, since FRIDAY was programmed to take him directly to Tony’s lab every time he got into the private elevator, unless he state otherwise. It was part of the ‘baby monitor’ as Tony once said.
Happy got out of the elevator once it reached his floor. Peter sighed. he still had more than fifty floors to go. He hadn’t realized just how long it took him to just reach the lab, now that his phone was dead.
‘’Boss wanted me to inform you that he would be running late, he is giving you permission to work on anything as long as you don’t blow anything up.’’ FRIDAY informed him.
‘’Thank you, FRIDAY.’’ This wasn’t the first time that Tony would be late to their lab time. He was a busy man. Peter was okay with it since he still got to work in the lab. He still preferred working with Tony. Working in the lab with Tony was sometimes the highlight of Peter’s week.
Peter worked in the lab for around two hours before he started getting bored. He fixed the little trouble he had with his web shooters, added a couple of new ideas he had with the new Iron-Man suit to Tony and his shared idea board. Just before he headed up to his room, he decided to clean around the lab for good measure. Tony never let anyone else in the lab and Tony and Peter were not good with cleaning up, so it was getting really messy and hard to find anything they wanted to use. They’d promised to Pepper last week that they would definitely tidy up after themselves after listening to Pepper scold them about it for a good ten minutes. They hadn’t cleaned, at all and Peter was afraid of getting scolded by Pepper again so he cleaned the lab.
Peter went up to the top floor of the tower where his room as well as Tony and Peppers were located. His spare phone charger was probably in his room and Peter missed having his phone. He knew for a fact that his phone would be blowing up with Ned’s messages but hopefully MJ had told Ned about Peter’s phone in their group chat.
Peter’s room at the tower was a lot cleaner than the lab. The primary reason for that was probably the fact that he wasn’t building and experimenting on anything in his room. (The other reason was that Tony wasn’t spending time in Peter’s room.) Despite how clean Peter’s room actually was, he still couldn’t find his spare charger. He checked his desk, under his bed, inside his closet. He even checked his ceiling. It just wasn’t there.
He left his room in defeat. After failing to find his charger Peter decided to go down the kitchen to find something to eat. He knew there was always something in the fridge that Peter could eat. After finding out about Peter’s really fast metabolism Tony always made sure that Peter ate enough when he was staying at the tower. He used the short staircase that connected the top three floors; top floor which included Tony and Pepper’s room as well as Peter’s and another spare room, the floor below which was basically a combination of a really big living room and a kitchen, and finally the floor beneath that which was the avengers’ rooms… they hadn’t been used in a long while.
A small smile spread on Peter’s face when he found a couple slices of pizza in the fridge. It wasn’t his favorite but Peter wasn’t full enough to actually care about it, so he pulled a slice from the fridge. Right after he bit into the pizza, he heard a faint sound of someone taping their feet on the ground. Peter was sure he wouldn’t be able to hear it without his super-hearing. Peter’s smile grew even bigger; Tony must be back! It has only been five days since Peter last saw his mentor but the teenager had strangely missed him. Oh, Tony may know where his charger was!
‘’Hey, Tony! Have you seen my charger?’’ Peter walked into the living room only to freeze on his track the moment he entered.
There stood the rouge avengers, staring at Peter Parker who was eating a cold leftover slice of pizza. The superheroes looked just as puzzled as Peter was feeling.
They were spread out in three different couches with the exception of Hawkeye and The Flacon who were standing up and staring down at the teenager. Captain America and The Winter Soldier were sitting together in the couch closest to Peter. Cap’s elbows were resting on his knees and The Winter Soldier’s metal arm was missing. Ant-man (was it?) and Wanda were sitting at the two smaller couches beside the bigger one. They were all wearing normal clothes which seemed so off to Peter that he almost burst out laughing. Almost.
After the first wave of shock of seeing the rouge avengers first time after Berlin passed away, Peter wondered why they were here. They looked like they were waiting for Tony as well, so maybe that was the reason but Peter doubted that they would risk being seen in public just to see Tony. Besides Peter knew that Tony was still not over what happened between them. So why were they here? Then it hit him, the date… How could Peter forget that it was today? Tony had been nervous for the past month since the date has been decided on.
‘’Oh… the hearing was today, wasn’t it?’’ Peter asked, even though he was sure of the answer. Captain America’s eyebrows raised in curiosity. The Winter Soldier chose to stare at Peter instead.
‘’Wait, who are you?’’ Falcon asked with a raised eyebrow and crossed arms. He took a step forward towards Peter. All five ex-superheroes plus one ex-assassin looked ready to attack the kid the moment they thought him as a threat to be taken care of.
‘’I’m an intern’’ Peter clarified after a beat of silence. He didn’t know how much he was allowed to reveal so he chose to start with something that hopefully wouldn’t get him killed by Tony for revealing his identity when he shouldn’t have or by the rouge avengers for coming off as a threat.
‘’We all know that the interns aren’t allowed to be here so do you wanna try that again, little guy?’’ Hawkeye took a step forward as well. Captain America stood from his seat with a serious face. Peter remembered that expression from Berlin. Okay, Peter was starting to get scared now. They were, excluding Ant-man and The Winter Solider, once Avengers. Peter could barely hold Cap off and, as Tony had said, he was holding back that time. He wasn’t sure if he would survive this interaction.
Peter’s spider sense started acting up once the rest of them stood up as well. They looked at Peter with threating gazes, ready to fight. Peter took a deep breath and stood straight, staring back at them. He thought that looking confident was probably a better option than looking scared.
‘’That depends on how the hearing went. I don’t know that if you guys are legally allowed to be here either. So, excuse me for not revealing who I am just yet.’’
Peter was surprised at his own confidence. The little tips Tony had given him before were actually useful. Huh, he should make sure not to tell Tony that or he would never hear the end of him boasting about it.
‘’How do you know about the hearing? That’s classified information.’’ Wanda raised her hands, ready to use her powers. Normally Peter would definitely fanboy at the sight in front of him and ask endless questions about their powers if they were not ready to attack Peter at any given chance.
His spider-sense was yelling at him to get away from this situation. His body was ready to fight back; muscles were tensed, his eyes were scanning the room and people who were now even closer to Peter, his super-hearing was picking up everything. He heard every breath they took, the slight shifts of fabric whenever they moved, the ventilation and… a distant humming coming from the elevator. Someone was going up in the privet elevators that only a handful of people had access to. Peter kept his eyes on Captain America so that he wouldn’t give his super-hearing abilities away. A few more seconds of staring later the elevator doors opened. Peter looked this time. Tony took a step out of the elevator with a sigh. A figure following beside him, the black widow.
‘’If you could try not to kill my intern, that would be great.’’ Tony took his place next to the teenager.
The sight of Tony and the hand resting on Peter’s shoulder made a part of his tension disappear, however the intimidating sight of the Black Widow brought it all back.
‘’Sorry, I couldn’t join you in the lab, the meeting took a lot longer than I anticipated.’’ Tony explained in a lower tone to Peter.
‘’It’s okay, Tony. I’d forgotten about the date.’’ Peter shrugged as he continued eating his slice of pizza. He ignored the still curious/shocked gazes of the others in front of him. Tony was here now; he could explain everything.
‘’Well then, everyone; this is Peter Parker, he is my personal intern. Peter… you know them, they were pardoned earlier today. I promised them we would ‘talk things out.’’’ Tony rolled his eyes, face turned to Peter so that only he could see it.
‘’Oh… I’ll be in my room then.’’ He flashed a smile to Tony. ‘’And you could always use me as an excuse if things get too out of hand you want to leave’’ Peter whispered to Tony. Tony smiled back at the kid. Peter was starting to see beyond Tony’s mask very quickly and the billionaire couldn’t decide if he should be proud or scared of it.
‘’Thanks kid, I’ll keep that in mind. Go do your homework!’’ Tony yelled after Peter who was already in the elevator.
‘’I finished it in physics.’’ Peter shrugged as the elevator doors closed.
‘’Of course, you did.’’ Tony sighed. He turned back to the once-again-avengers.
‘’So, since when do you have a kid?’’ Hawkeye smirked at Tony.
Tony sighed again, probably for the thousandth time that day.
‘’Let’s talk.’’