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Dare he say it, Tony actually thought things were looking up with his roommates. Tensions were lower, things were flowing easier, negotiations were being discussed for when the other teammates would return to the tower. Laughter could actually be heard in the halls of the Compound again, something Tony didn’t know was possible.
After the nightmare incident, Tony became much more trusting with the trio in regards to Peter. Their actions and support during that night showed Tony they seemed to care for the boy, even if they didn’t know him very well. Since then, it wasn’t that uncommon for Peter to join the team at dinner or a movie night any weekend he stayed over at the compound. Peter also began to let his guard down towards the others, too. He definitely was more reserved to them than he was when it was just him and Tony, and it still floored Tony just how loyal the boy was to him. However, Tony was tired of the tensions and the uncomfortable air, so any movements towards middle ground he welcomed.
Out of all of them, Peter seemed to gravitate towards Sam first. Sam could be loud and joking, always breaking the silence and starting the conversations. He loved to pick on Peter, engaging the boy in banter but never crossing the line into something rude or attacking. He also could be quiet, gentle, understanding. Whenever Peter had a nightmare, he eventually learned to open up to Sam about them. Often times they were vague explanations or slightly modified versions that an ordinary citizen could have, but even then their talks helped unbottle everything bit by bit.
Tony didn’t know if Sam had caught on to Peter’s secret just yet, but the man had to figure something was up. Peter has been through hell and back with his life, nobody doubted that with the loss of his parents and Ben. But a normal teenage kid didn’t have these kind of soul-shaking nightmares so frequently. If Sam thought the kid was hiding something, he didn’t say anything about it.
In fact, Tony was a little surprised the other two hadn’t began to notice either. Thanks to Peter’s super healing, a lot of the bumps and scrapes he got as Spider-Man healed by the next morning, but there were a few instances where a bruise or two took a little longer to fade away. Steve had said something to the boy once, but Peter just brushed it off as a 'rough day in phys ed' at school, and that was the end of that. For two soldiers and a super spy, they could be a bit oblivious.
___
“What did you do to the suit?”
Peter’s sheepish face stuck into the lab, reddening by the moment.
“Mr. Stark, it’s not that big of a deal I promise–”
“Kid, this is the third time this week you’ve come for repairs to the suit. I know that look in your eyes by heart now. Gimme the suit, I need to see what I’m working with here.”
The boy timidly entered the lab and pulled the suit out of his backpack, handing it to his mentor. Tony laid it out on his lab table, asking FRIDAY to run diagnostics on the software while he looked for any physical damage that might have occurred.
“ What the – Peter what happened?”
“Yeah about that…” Peter said quietly. Tony held up a gash big enough to fit his hand through. There was small specks of dried blood near the edges of the tear. The man looked up at the boy, eyes wide, searching for an explanation. “Really Mr. Stark, it wasn’t that serious, I promise.”
“Did you– are you hurt? Are you bleeding? What’s going on? Why didn’t you call me?”
“Mr. Stark, calm down, it was barely a scratch,” Peter tried to downplay.
“Barely a scratch? ” Tony scoffed, standing up and walking out of the lab, Peter tailing close behind.
“Honestly it wasn’t that bad! I don’t know why you’re freaking out about this, I’ve had worse,” the boy mentioned as they enter the kitchen.
The kid’s right, he has had worse, Tony’s fixed the suit after. Tony knew this. But the panic wouldn’t stop building in his chest and catching in his throat at the thought of Peter bleeding out somewhere, alone, without Tony to help him.
“I don’t understand, why wasn’t I notified? Why didn’t Karen tell FRIDAY to tell me?”
“I dunno, I kinda told her not to,” Peter said quietly.
Tony tried to level his breathing, his left hand shaking as he went to grab a coffee cup. Caffeine was definitely the last thing he needed to be putting in his body with his rising anxiety, but he would worry about that later.
“I’m not having this conversation with you. FRIDAY remind me to change the code for Karen’s communication protocol for emergencies.”
“You’re changing her code? Mr. Stark–” Peter began, starting to get upset.
“No, Peter, you know better than this,” Tony interrupted, exasperated. “What if something happened? Actually, something did happen. You got hurt. You can’t keep me out of the loop. I’m not gonna take the suit away, but-”
“What suit?” a voice questioned.
Steve was standing in the entranceway of the kitchen. Tony, who was normally quick with comebacks, was at a loss for words.
“Did you say Peter got hurt? What’s going on?”
Tony looked down at Peter’s knowing eyes. Time to give up the secret.
“Peter…” Tony started with a sigh, looking back at Steve. “Peter’s fine, he’s not hurt anymore. But he isn’t just my intern. The reason why he was hurt was because Peter is.. Spider-Man.”
Steve looked between the boy and the man. “I’m sorry, what?”
“Berlin. The spider dude. That’s Peter.”
“Wait, you… you’re telling me you brought Peter to Berlin? You brought along a kid to a fight? What? What made you think that was a good idea?” Steve reprimanded.
“Steve–”
“No. I’m sorry. I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around you bringing a teenager along for the ride. What, cause you were short a few players on your team?”
Peter slowly moved closer to Tony the angrier Steve got, lightly grabbing his mentor’s shirt. The argument had gotten so loud by that point, the other two residents had come to see what the disturbance was.
“Is everything okay in here?” Natasha asked, eyeing up the situation.
“Peter is Spider-Man, did you know that? The guy who webbed up Scott in Berlin? That’s him.” Steve spat out. Instantly Sam and Natasha looked at Peter.
“The nightmares… your nightmares you tell me about. They aren’t random, are they? They’re real,” Sam said quietly. “God, I fought you. I flew you out the window of a building and dropped you.”
“Tony, he’s just a kid. I know you’re one for the theatrics but I don’t understand how you could do this. You know how powerful we are, we fought him for Christ’s sake! And it’s not just us, you know how powerful other people are in this world, he’s just a kid. He needs to be protected, not encouraged,” Steve continued on.
Natasha was blatantly staring at the kid. Looking into his eyes, across the creases in his furrowed brow, the veins in his arms bulging as his fists grew tighter. She saw how he was starting to breathe heavier, getting more and more agitated as Steve lectured more. But more importantly, she saw how he looked at Tony, how every flinch the man had from Steve’s remarks only added fuel to the fire in Peter’s eyes. Tony wasn’t saying anything, not trying to justify his actions. His eyes held so much pain. He knows Steve is right. Natasha saw it. She wasn’t the only one who knew Stark was internalizing the condemnation. Her eyes flicked back to the boy who was beginning to quake, rumbling like a volcano about to–
“ENOUGH!” Peter yelled, silencing Steve with his outburst. He moved his way between the two men, squaring his shoulders as if to protect Tony from the other three. His gaze was unflinching as he stared Steve down with a fury strong enough to scare him.
“Who the hell do you think you are?” Peter nearly growled.
“Peter, I–” Steve started.
“No, I want to know. Who the hell do you think you are? Who are you to decide what’s best for me?” Peter asks, stepping closer to him. “Who are you to have a call in what I do or how Tony helps me? You moved in like two months ago, you don’t know who I am.”
Peter took another step closer, visibly trying to hold his emotions together. “I wonder how you can act like you know what’s best for me, when you dropped an airport terminal on me. I wonder how you can act so mighty and righteous, how you can talk about responsibility, when your loyalty left Tony in the ice by himself with no way to get home.
“I wonder if you even know what happened to me. How I got my powers, when it happened, what all I can do,” the boy takes a shaky breath. “I wonder if you even know my last name.”
Steve is pale, unmoving and unspeaking. His eyes turn to the floor.
“I was who I was long before Tony showed up. He replaced my sweatpants and homemade shooters with a suit that has navigation, and web combinations, and a parachute, and an AI that keeps me safe and immediately notifies Tony when I get hurt so he can help me. It was my fault this time, but he helps me . Don’t ever say that he doesn’t.”
Peter turns, grabs Tony’s arm, and leads them out of the kitchen and down to the lab.
“Peter–” Tony tries to start, but the boy keeps walking until they reach their destination, Peter’s grip never wavering on Tony’s arm.
“I’m sorry Mr. Stark, I shouldn’t have freaked out on him like that, I just got so mad because he was saying such rude things to you and he doesn’t understand what happened and I don’t think it’s right he say that stuff to you–”
“Woah kid, take a breath,” Tony rests his hands on Peter’s shoulders. The boy was slightly vibrating from all of the pent up adrenaline he worked up. “Where did all of this come from?”
Peter sighed and looked down. “I don’t know, I just don’t like the way he treated you.”
Tony could read straight through Peter despite how the boy tried to cloak the statement. “You’re not talking about just today, are you?” Peter shook his head, eyes still downcast. “Oh, Peter,” the older man sighed, pulling him into an embrace.
“I know you said the Siberia thing was kinda everyone’s fault, but he hurt you. And I don’t like that,” Peter mumbled, squeezing Tony a bit tighter.
“I know.”
“And he just came back, like nothing happened and didn’t think anything changed with you. But you’re not the things he said you were.”
“I know,” Tony said, lightly touching the hair at the base of Peter’s skull.
“No, Mr. Stark,” Peter said, pulling back from the embrace to look at his eyes. “I saw you when he started. You believed him.”
“Kid, it’s complicated. I… bringing you to Germany just to beef up my team wasn’t fair to you. However, I know you would’ve been doing your web-slinging even if I hadn’t intervened, and Karen is really the only thing that keeps my heart steady nowadays. So, I don’t think I could say I regret it. And the situation in Siberia was everyone’s fault. I have already begun to forgive Steve, so you should too.”
Peter smiled contently as Tony pushed some of his curls out of his face. “Thank you for sticking up for me out there.” The boy nodded, a small smile still gracing his lips. “Also, you did say my actual name like five times in your little outburst, so no more politeness excuses, ‘Mr. Stark’ is banned from your vocabulary.”
“What? No, it was like twice–”
“Nononono,” Tony cut the kid off, “absolutely not. It’s ‘Tony’ from now on.”
Peter rolled his eyes and sighed dramatically.
___
Steve stood anxiously outside of Tony’s lab.
“FRIDAY, can you ask them if I’m allowed in?”
Of course, Captain Rodgers.
After a moment, the door lock hissed and Steve pushed it open.
Tony and Peter were sat at the same table, working on something red when they both turned around to Steve tentatively walking in. They allowed him into the lab, but something about the room seemed very much theirs, and he didn’t want to overstep more than he already was.
“I owe you both an apology.”
The two looked at each other, before returning their eyes to the man.
“Peter, you’re absolutely right. I was gone for a while, and I missed a lot of stuff, part of that being getting to know you. I’m sorry I acted the way I did when finding out about your identity, but it came as a shocker to me, and I didn’t react the way I should’ve.
“Tony, there’s a lot of things I should be apologizing to you for. I’m sorry for jumping to conclusions about Peter without knowing the situation. You two are obviously very close and you care for each other a lot. Anyone can see you would protect Peter no matter what.” Steve inhales. “And I am sorry about Siberia. That’s not how it should’ve went down and I tried to excuse it as defending Bucky, but leaving you there… I know our friendship will never be what it was before because of my actions, but for whatever it is worth, I am sorry.”
There was a beat of silence. Tony looked a bit pale, but tried to steady his face as he nodded at the man. “Thank you.” Steve gave a solemn nod in return.
“Thanks, um, Steve. And sorry for bitching you out, and kinda giving you the cold shoulder the entire time you’ve been here.”
Steve gave a light chuckle. “Don’t worry about it, Peter. I needed the reality check. It’s nice to see Tony has someone so loyal.” The boy gave a small smile to that. Steve took that as his cue to leave, letting them get back to whatever they were working on.
As he was leaving, he heard a small thump and a yelp.
“No cursing in my lab kid.” Steve chuckled and made his way back upstairs.