Chapter Text
Peter’s day had started out great. Well, that wasn’t exactly true. His day had started out slightly better than average. He woke up late, as usual, and grabbed breakfast on the run. Thankfully, there hadn’t been much traffic driving in from upstate that morning, and he had time to grab a sandwich from Delmar’s for lunch. Since he had started living at the compound nearly full-time, Peter had less opportunities to visit the shop.
He had first started sleeping over at the compound in the aftermath of the events on Titan. It helped both his and Mr. Stark’s PTSD if the other was nearby. It also was greatly beneficial for Peter as he could train in the compound’s immense gym, or with the rest of the Avengers, who had all been pardoned in the wake of Thanos. Over time, what was supposed to be a month at the compound turned to two and then three and now it had been eight and Tony and Pepper had legal custody of him. At first, Peter had felt guilty about about abandoning May, and May had felt guilty about not being able to be there for Peter, but as time went on Peter realized that May was able to work less and take more time for herself without having to worry about him (she even got a boyfriend!), and May realized Peter could cope better and get more access to what he needed. They both still were there for each other, and every Sunday Peter would either visit her or she would come to him. This arrangement was also safer for May. In the event that people found out he was Spiderman, she would be less of a target.
Peter still attended Midtown, despite the long commute, which was the very reason that his day had turned from better than average to horrible. School in itself wasn’t so bad, despite Flash’s best attempts to ruin it for him. No, it was the fact that his school had been granted an exclusive trip to the Avenger’s Compound for being the top high school in New York. Every year, the Avenger’s Compound was opened to twenty lucky students from the top high school, and this year it was Midtown. And since only twenty students were allowed on the trip, the twenty highest scoring students on the test that placed Midtown as the number one high school were awarded the spots on the trip. Peter, who had placed first, was one of those students.
Enter the reason his life was ending. He was going on a field trip to his house. The place he lived and worked and trained and ate and slept and where the Avengers, his weird super family, lived and worked and trained and ate and slept. The same family who would try to embarrass him at any given opportunity and who were fiercely protective of him. Which brought him to the next reason this was a disaster on all accounts, Flash had been the twentieth student to qualify for the field trip. The same Flash who tried to belittle Peter at every possible opportunity would be in the same building as Peter’s crazy protective super family. There was no way this field trip was going to end well for anyone involved.
After school ended, Peter patrolled around Queens for a good couple of hours. Just because he didn’t live there anymore didn’t mean he could just abandon it. Queens was still where he was from and he was still going to be the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man. Moving upstate hadn’t changed that. He stayed out a little longer than usual because he was trying to avoid going home. The sooner he went home, the sooner his family was going to find out about the trip, and the more time they’d have to work out their plan to embarrass him. He didn’t want that to happen, so he stayed out as long as he could. It was a Friday, so he usually was allowed out later anyways.
After receiving a phone call from Tony telling him that if he didn’t come home soon, he wasn’t going to get to eat dinner, Peter jumped in his car. Well, calling it his car might be a bit of a stretch. It was technically Tony’s car, but Tony had specialized it for him. Karen, Peter’s AI, could drive the car and also act as his companion and assistant. It was nice to have Karen there for the somewhat long commute to school and back Peter had to do every day. Peter having an automated car also made Happy a lot happier, as he no longer had to drop Peter off and then pick him up again. It saved the man a fair amount of driving. It also gave Peter a lot more freedom. Basically, it was a situation where everyone won.
The car pulled around to the front of the compound, and Peter jumped out. On Fridays and Wednesdays he took the employee entrance. That had been Pepper’s idea after Peter had been spotted by a Stark Industries employee. She had quickly taken control of the situation and said that Peter was Tony’s personal intern, which was more or less the original lie Mr. Stark had come up with. To solidify the lie, Peter now took the employee entrance twice a week. That way, in case anyone else saw Peter they would already know why he was there and not bother him. It also gave Peter the freedom to roam around the compound a bit more, and he had become friendly with the few privileged scientists who worked there.
So now when he entered the compound the receptionist knew him. She gave him a friendly smile and asked him if he was staying over again. At Peter’s nod, she shook her head and let him pass. He scanned his employee badge and FRIDAY read out Underoos and his clearance as level 10 and resident. Then, he went to the elevator to the residential levels, meeting in three different codes and going through the typical body scan. When the doors opened to the common room, Peter was greeted with the familiar sight of Clint and Sam playing Mario Kart.
“Hey Pete!” Clint greeted.
“Hey guys,” Peter paused briefly to look at the score. Sam was winning.
Peter shook his head and continued on his way to the kitchen.
When he opened the door, he was immediately concerned. Tony and Pepper were side by side, both glaring at something on Pepper’s Starkpad. Bucky was stress baking, and Steve was pacing. It was an altogether tense atmosphere and Peter immediately forgot all about the field trip. As he entered the room, everyone stopped what they were doing briefly. Pepper gave him a tired smile and beckoned him over.
“This came out just about ten minutes ago,” she showed him what she and Tony had been looking at. It was an article by the Daily Bugle. The cover photo was Tony with an arm slung over Peter’s shoulders. It seemed as though Peter had been in the process of turning his head, as his face was blurred. The title of the article read: Does Tony Stark Have a Teenage Son?
“Oh that’s not good,” Peter said.
Pepper glared at the article once more, “no, it’s not. We can’t have anyone looking too closely at you, Peter. They might start making the connections to your alter ego.”
“What are we going to do?” he asked.
“Well we already know who leaked the picture, and if they aren’t already in jail, they’re on their way. Funnily enough, it was the same man who wrote the article and he was just too stupid to not use an alias.” Tony smirked as he revealed the last bit.
“He was a reporter at a press conference I was giving. He had left the conference to snoop for information, and stumbled upon some. He didn’t trip FRIDAY’s security because he remained on a level he had access to and the picture wasn’t blocked because he had photograph privileges for the press conference,” Pepper explained.
“We’re amazingly lucky you happened to turn your head at just the right moment, kid,” Steve said.
“It’s probably because of my spidey sense,” Peter theorized.
“Whatever the case, they don’t know what you look like, so at least right now we are on top of the situation. Tony, Steve, and I will be holding a press conference in an hour.”
“All of you!?!?” Peter was astonished.
Pepper rolled her eyes lovingly at Tony, “it was just going to be Tony, but Rhodey pointed out that Tony on his own in a press conference is almost never a good idea. He never sticks to what I tell him to say, so I said I’d do it with him.”
“Uncle Rhodey is here?” Peter asked, excited.
“No, he just called in when he heard the news to get Pepper to stop me from doing something stupid.”
“I believe his exact words were “Pepper, you can’t let him hold a press conference on his own. By the end he’ll have told all he reporters that Peter is his biological child,”” Pepper rolled her eyes at Tony again.
Tony shrugged, “I can’t be trusted.”
Steve interjected, “I walked in while they were talking with Colonel Rhodes and volunteered to stand off to the side and be intimidating.”
Peter smiled at all of them, “thanks guys.”
“Also, we ordered dinner. I hope pizza night one night early is okay with you,” Tony said.
Peter didn’t get a chance to say whether it was or not before FRIDAY announced that a pizza delivery boy had just arrived at the compound. Peter pressed a button on his watch and his spider suit formed around him. Tony sent him an amused smirk, but Peter ignored him. Instead, he turned to Sam and Clint, who had just come barreling into the room. Clint was shooting Sam with a nerf bow, and Sam was running away and screaming. Peter deftly jumped onto the ceiling to avoid Sam. Pepper sighed deeply and grabbed the bow from Clint. It was at this moment that FRIDAY announced that the pizza delivery boy had entered the compound. Tony stood and went to go fetch the pizza. Peter scrambled after him on the ceiling.
“Ah finally,” Tony pulled out his wallet, “you can just set all of that on that table there. How much is it? Like three hundred bucks? Between the Capsicicle and Spider-Kid up there, it won’t be long before I’m no longer a billionaire. They’re going to eat their way through my money.”
“Actually, sir the pizza is only-“ the delivery boy began, but he was cut off by Tony shoving some bills in his hands.
“There you go, keep the change.”
“Thanks dude,” Peter said, still on the ceiling. His voice was deeper than usual, thanks to the voice disguising feature of the suit.
Peter jumped down from the ceiling and extracted the box he knew to be the deep dish pepperoni and cheese. Deep dish pepperoni was Clint’s pizza of choice, and Peter had yet to get back at Clint for putting cucumbers in his lemonade a few days ago. Peter despised cucumbers. As payback he planned on dumping hot sauce all over Clint’s pizza. He had made some clear hot sauce in the lab the other day, so he wouldn’t suspect a thing. Peter activated stealth mode on his suit and got back in the elevator and then crawled carefully across the ceiling of the kitchen to where he had hidden the hot sauce. He carefully dumped the sauce on all but one of the pieces, deactivated stealth mode and his suit and held up the slice of pizza that didn’t have the hot sauce.
“Wow this really looks like some delicious pizza,” Peter smirked over at where Clint was still trying to get the nerf bow back from Pepper.
“HEY!” Clint yelled and began chasing Peter around the kitchen. Peter had the advantage of both being younger and being able to climb on the ceiling and walls, so Clint really didn’t stand a chance.
“OKAY!” Pepper yelled, “EVERYONE SIT DOWN NOW.” Everyone quickly took a seat. “Peter, give Clint back his pizza, you have your own two boxes right here. Clint, you can have your bow back after we finish eating. FRIDAY, call Bruce up from his lab. Tell him dinner is ready and if he doesn’t come, shut off all power to the lab.”
Peter meekly handed Clint his pizza, and took his own two boxes of New York Style cheese.
“Now I think we should talk a little more about this press conference,” Pepper began.
Peter nodded thoughtfully, “Yeah, I have a question about that. Why are you holding one anyways?”
“We are going to give the people what they want, information about you,” Tony explained.
“Um, wasn’t that what we wanted to avoid?” Peter asked.
“Well, obviously we are not going to tell them anything about you, only that you are Tony’s intern, and maybe show off a couple of projects you’ve helped out on so they see what you can do,” Pepper said patiently.
“Also, I’m going to threaten them all,” Tony added.
“And I’ll mention what a great kid you are and how all of the Avengers will not hesitate to protect you,” Steve chimed in.
Peter blushed, “you guys really don’t need to do all of this.”
“Sure we do, after all, I can’t have people going around thinking I have an illegitimate child,” Tony made a face, but everyone knew he was kidding.
Bruce came in and took a seat, grabbing a slice of pizza from one of Peter’s boxes. Peter and Bruce liked the same kind of pizza and since he had two whole boxes, he didn’t mind sharing. Peter began happily chowing down on his own slice of pizza, disappointed to see Clint was not even halfway done with the one normal slice of pizza. He would have to make sure to get a picture of the man’s face when he took the first bite if the special slices. That gave him an idea, “hey Pepper,” she looked up at him, “do you think it maybe might be a good idea if I made like a Stark Intern Twitter? I could post photos of like hanging out with you guys and lab work and stuff and it would be giving the people what they want, like you said, but without revealing my face.”
Pepper turned to look at Tony, and they had a silent conversation, “that’s actually a great idea kiddo,” Tony praised.
Pepper nodded, “go for it.”
Peter smiled at his two parental figures, and was about to say something else when Clint jumped out of his chair, screaming.
“WHAT IS ON THAT PIZZA?!?”
Steve frowned at him, “are you alright?”
Clint gagged, “oh my god. Someone get me some water.”
Nobody moved.
Sam hesitantly looked over Clint’s pizza, “there does seem to be some sort of strange liquid on this. I wonder if the pizza parlor tried to poison you?”
At that, Peter couldn’t hold it in any longer, he started laughing, “he isn’t being poisoned I just put hot sauce on his pizza.”
Tony laughed at Clint then, “aren’t you supposed to be a secret spy? Shouldn’t you be more aware of those kinds of things?”
Clint just grumbled.
“Speaking of spies, where’s Nat? She was here this morning, Wanda and Vision too.”
Steve looked over to Peter to answer his question, “Nat left this morning, some mission.”
Tony added on, “and Wanda and Vision are on some date weekend thingy,” he made a face.
Pepper slapped him gently, “it would be nice if you ever did that for me.”
Tony looked over at her in shock, “you barely agreed to go on a honeymoon because you were worried about work.”
“Oh really? I seem to remember it was you who didn’t want to go on a honeymoon because…”
And just like that, a familiar banter filled the kitchen. Peter pressed the button for his suit once more and whispered lowly, “hey, Fri, could you snap some pics and make it look like a person took them? I want a photo for the twitter I’m gonna make.”
FRIDAY didn’t respond, but Peter knew it was just so that no one else would be prepared for the photo. Once Peter was sure she had had enough time to get some good photos, he took off the suit again. No one had seemed to notice his clothing changes, proving once again that the Avengers were really not all that observant when Nat wasn’t around.
Peter pulled out his phone, “What do you think I should put in as my name for my new twitter?”
Clint shrugged, “personally I’m a huge fan of peter prankster.”
Peter rolled his eyes, “that’s already my personal and you know that.” None of the Avengers followed his personal account in the spirit of keeping a secret identity, but all of them “followed” him to some degree. Tony the most diligently, as any time Peter posted anything on any of his social media accounts, FRIDAY notified Tony so he could look at it.
“I know!” Peter had hit a stroke of genius, “it’s gonna be Science Dude!”
Tony nodded in approval.
“And the username is gonna be starkintern. You can all follow it after the press conference.”
Tony raised an eyebrow, “can we now?”
Peter stuck his tongue out, “everyone but you.”
“Speaking of the press conference, we have to get going,” Pepper prodded Tony in the back, “come on, you’ll need to get changed first.”
Tony rolled his eyes, “frankly, Pep, if I’m less than an hour late it’ll be on time for me.”
Pepper gave him an exasperated look and led the way from the room.
“Mario Kart rematch?” Sam asked.
“You’re on!”
Bruce and Peter both turned to the other, and then followed the two bird-theme heros to the common room. Bucky trailed after them, bringing the cookies he had made earlier. He silently offered them to each of the team members who were in the room, each who accepted and praised Bucky’s exceptional baking skill. Unfortunately, not even Bucky’s cookies could keep Sam from once more defeating Clint in Mario Kart, and another chase ensued. Bruce took the opportunity to put on the press conference. It had not started yet, as Tony had probably never been on time for a single event in his life. To pass the time until the conference would begin, Peter and Bruce began debugging a little robot that Peter had made last week.
Peter wasn’t sure how much time had passed when he heard Clint’s yell of, “it’s starting!” The hero then proceeded to jump onto the couch with a bowl of popcorn.
“Popcorn?” Bruce asked.
“You do know this isn’t a movie, right?” Peter confirmed.
Clint snorted, “it’s the next best thing. Press conferences with Tony are a wild ride.”
That being said, everyone directed their attention to the TV.
“Hello, everyone! You all already know who I am! And that’s going to make this so much easier! There’s a nasty rumor someone started about me having a teenage son, and while I can assure you that is absolutely false, I’d like to touch on the topic of the young boy whose picture started this. You see, Stark Industries has never had interns before, but I am happy to report that the boy in the photo is our very first! This young man had been my personal intern for a good while now, and that’s that. No son.”
Pepper gave the audience a winning smile, and picked on a girl near the back to ask a question.
“Stark Industries has never before had any interns in company history. Why this boy?”
Pepper nods to Tony subtly, giving him permission to answer.
“Well, the kid honestly impressed me. I saw some videos online of stuff he was doing, and I was like, I need to find this guy and hire him. I did track him down, but much to my shock he wasn’t even legally allowed to drink. Stark Industries has never really hired anyone who doesn’t have a college diploma before, and I couldn’t ask the kid to just...not go to school anymore and take a full time day job. But I also knew that he had unexplored potential. He was making things from parts salvaged from dumpsters that some of the engineers couldn’t hold a candle to. Insert the brilliant solution: I make the kid my intern. He has access to tech his peers would kill for, I get the credit for his inventions,” Tony laughed, “I’m totally kidding. Kid deserves all the credit. In fact, I brought along some of the things he’s helped to create. Since the world know about him now, might as well brag on him.”
Two assistants bring forward some tech Peter had created, a small robot with a camera and what looked like a little pen.
“So those two little inventions you’re looking at are actually only copies of the original designs my intern created. The robot is designed to help children in the foster system. It’s small so it can be easily transported and concealed. The idea is that the kids can have this little friend to take with them everywhere they go, while it also looks for signs that the foster parent may be abusive.” Tony took a brief swing of water, “and that other little pen thing is going to hopefully one day prevent heart attacks. Now, that guy I can’t let my intern take all the credit for as he actually has had a lot of help from Bruce Banner and myself actually making it work, but the idea was all his and we all want it to become a reality.”
Pepper picked another person to ask a question.
“You mentioned that your intern made a robot to help foster kids, was he ever in the foster system?”
“No, but that doesn’t make him want to help those kids any less.”
Pepper gave Tony an approving glance, and started speaking for the first time, “that’s actually a great segway into what else we wanted to say. This kid does not want the spotlight on him. He prefers to remain anonymous and we fully support his decision. His existence becoming known at all was not intentional, and there will be no more unintentional leaks of information from us at Stark Industries.”
“I would like to remind everyone watching this that I am Tony Stark and that I have never hesitated in using my resources to my advantage, and this situation is no different. Anyone who leaks information about him without his consent will be severely punished.”
Steve then stepped forward, “I too, would like to remind the people watching of something. Tony’s intern is a wonderful young man who I have had the great pleasure of spending a good amount of time with. I will not hesitate to protect him and his identity, and neither will the rest of the Avengers.”
“All that being said, my intern is excited to see what the world thinks of him, and is watching this press conference right now. There is a good chance that he will share a little more about what he does as my intern at some point in the future, and you may all look forward to that.”
Pepper, Tony, and Steve then all left the press conference room.
The moment Tony entered the common room, Peter tackled him in a hug, “you were amazing!”
Tony chuckled, “thanks, kiddo.”
“I do think that was one of your most successful press conferences to date,” Pepper praised.
“Movie night?” Peter asked.
It was Sunday before Peter got around to actually posting any of the photos from dinner on Friday night. While in the car on his way to visit May, Peter had Karen download the photos FRIDAY had taken from pizza night. He then looked through them all and picked out what he thought was the best one. Pepper was yelling at Tony, and he was in turn looking at her like she had hung the moon. Clint was staring at his pizza in disgust. Bucky was next to Steve, arms crossed over his chest in what Peter knew to be his relaxed position, but he looked intimidating to anyone who didn’t know that. Steve was lecturing Sam on something, probably the fact that he was eating two slices of pizza at once. Bruce was looking at something on a Stark Tablet and Peter, in his Spiderman suit had a piece of pizza in one hand, and in the other, he had thrown up a peace sign. Peter had done that intentionally, hoping FRIDAY would capture it so it looked more like someone had taken the photo.
Science Dude @starkintern
I think one of the most FAQs about the Avengers is how they act when they are at home...the answer is pretty much the same. @cptamerica gives daily PSA’s, @hawkeye is a failure, and @pepperpotts doesn’t take crap from anyone.
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Almost instantly, Peter’s phone lit up with a notification.
Tony Stark @iamironman
Replying to @starkintern
What’s this about Cap and PSA’s?
Science Dude @starkintern
Replying to @starkintern @iamironman
He did a bunch of PSA’s about like health and sex ed and other stuff. They show them in schools all over New York, I think.
Tony Stark @iamironman
Replying to @starkintern @iamironman
We’re watching these for movie night tonight @cptamerica get ready
Captain America @cptamerica
Replying to @starkintern @iamironman
@starkintern you traitor! You said you wouldn’t tell Tony!
Science Dude @starkintern
Replying to @starkintern @iamironman @cptamerica
Whoops.
Peter smiled to himself and turned off his phone. Almost immediately, it began exploding with notifications. It seemed as though people had noticed that Tony and Steve had been interacting with him. Peter glanced out the window and saw he still had some time before he would be at May’s apartment. He decided to reply to a few of the people who had tweeted at him.
Taylor Shane @tayshay
Replying to @starkintern
Hawkeye’s face is hilarious. I’m dying.
Science Dude @starkintern
Replying to @starkintern @tayshay
I put hot sauce on his pizza ;)
Spider-Fan @spidermanNYC_
Replying to @starkintern
SPIDER-MAN IS IN THAT PHOTO. DOES HE HAVE A TWITTER?!?!?!?!
Science Dude @starkintern
Replying to @starkintern @spidermanNYC_
I don’t think so. If he does I don’t know what it is, but I’ll ask him next time he drops by the compound when I’m there.
Spider-Fan @spidermanNYC_
Replying to @starkintern @spidermanNYC_
OHMYGOD Tony Stark’s intern REPLIED TO ME. AND HE FINALLY ANSWERED THE QUESTION I’VE BEEN ASKING THE AVENGERS FOR MONTHS. AND HE SAID HE’D ASK FOR SPIDER-MAN’S TWITTER!!!
Peter smiled at the enthusiasm from his fan and shut off his phone once more. Responding to two comments was probably good enough. His phone continued to have a heart attack on his lap, though, and that was really getting annoying. He opened back up his twitter and messed with his notification settings so that he would only get notified when people he followed interacted with his account. He then proceeded to follow all of the Avengers.
Peter jumped out of the car as it approached May’s apartment, and it drove off without him to park itself somewhere. He then bounded up the steps three at a time, and knocked on May’s door, excited to see his aunt again.