Chapter Text
As Noah ushered them all into the elevator outside the biology lab, Peter felt like he was about to throw up, or faint, or die, or maybe all three, in that order. His heart was pounding in his ears, his throat was doing it’s best impersonation of the Sahara Desert, and his stomach felt like someone was reaching inside of him and wringing it out.
The teen was beyond nervous. That word couldn’t even begin to describe how he felt. Petrified was closer, but honestly, he was about two seconds away from reaching a mode of utter and complete panic that was so rare he almost didn’t recognise it. Like, the I can’t breathe and the walls are closing in on me and it feels like the floor is spinning and my head will explode any second now, kind of panic. In other words, the situation was not good .
The elevator stopped and they all piled out into a mini reception area, with black leather couches and sleek metal side tables. The R&D department was huge, because it did a lot of important things for the company, and so it needed it’s own lobby to handle it's affairs. Noah explained all that while Peter took shaky breaths and tried to ignore the concerned looks being sent his way by Ned.
The boy’s phone started buzzing in his pocket, and he glanced at the caller ID to see Rhodey’s name there. He shakily showed Noah the phone, raising an eyebrow in silent question, asking for permission. The older intern nodded in affirmation, taking in Peter’s no-doubt pale face with worry in his eyes. The boy retreated further into the corner of the lobby, pressing the answer button as he went. “Rhodey?” the boy breathed out.
“Peter? Are you alright, buddy? FRIDAY said that your heart rate is elevated and your breathing patterns are abnormal.”
Peter almost laughed. Almost. “Am I alright? Am I alright ?”
“Er… I believe that's what I said”
“No, I am not alright, Mr Colonel Rhodes, sir. You and Mr Stark are about to appear in front of my entire robotics and mechanics class, and there is no doubt in my mind that you'll embarrass me in some way. Happy said Mr Stark was really mad too, and he’ll make a whole scene and then my class will be forever traumatised by the image of Iron Man, the genius inventor and defender of their home planet, murdering a child. Maybe even two children, since I’ll probably overdose on humiliation and die !”
“Oh so it’s back to Mr Colonel Rhodes sir, is it? Yippie!” Rhodey quipped sarcastically.
“It’s the least you deserve.”
“Jesus Christ, Pete, you’re always complaining about how dramatic Tony is, but I’d say that you’re just as bad, if not
worse
, than Stanky over there,” Rhodey said. Peter’s ears picked up an indignant, “h
ey
! That was one time Rhodey, get over it! And tell Peter that the trash bag in his class deserves far worse than death for what he said!’ in the background, and Peter assumed that it was Mr Stark. “Tony says-”
“I heard, enhanced hearing, remember?”
“Right, well, I agree with Tony, but we won't actually kill him, just verbally attack him so intensely that he loses all ability to feel for three to five business days.”
“Ugh, can’t you just, I don’t know, have a private chat with him. Or, better yet, not talk to him at all. It’s my problem to deal with, and it's not even a problem. More like a small inconvenience, ya know? Like, uh, like running out of milk!”
“Peter,” Rhodey began softly. “What he said to you, it was horrible, it really was. We could get him expelled for that, but Tony knows you’d probably never speak to him again if he took that course of action. He cares about what you think, but he also cares about you . He’s not going to just let you continue to be bullied when he can do something to stop it.”
“Yeah… yeah I know, but why does he have to come in guns blazing?”
“Because that's who he is, it’s how he shows that he cares. He just can’t say it, because that man is even more uncomfortable with emotions than a cat with a cucumber.”
“Fine, whatever. Just please try to talk him down, even just a little bit.”
“You know it’s a lost cause, Pete, but I’ll do my best,”
“I guess that’s all I can ask. Thanks, Rhodey,”
“Yes! We’re back to Rhodey. See ya, kiddo,” The colonel said before hanging up. Peter sighed and leant back against the wall. Even though Rhodey hadn’t exactly said that they weren’t going to destroy Flash, he did say he’d try to convince Tony to do otherwise.
He was feeling calmer, there was just something about talking to the former army operative that soothed him. He was still concerned about what would happen, but he wasn’t as mad at Mr Stark for blowing everything out of proportion. He knew now that it was just the billionaire’s way of saying “Hey, kid, you’re pretty cool, ya know? Like, you’re one of the few people that I’d be ok with getting stuck in an elevator with for three hours.”
So, while he was still a little worried for his own emotional and mental well being (and possibly Flash’s too. The dude may be a jerk, but not many people deserved to be yelled at by a furious Tony Stark, and Peter was still a good guy, despite it all, so he didn’t really wish it upon the bully), he didn’t have a full-fledged panic attack when the desk attendant told them they could go on through.
They got a brief tour of the ridiculously advanced labs, courtesy of Wakanda - Tony and T’Challa had kept in touch after the whole fiasco, dubbed the ‘Civil War’ by the media. Peter definitely didn't think that was an insanely cool name.
T’Challa and his younger sister, Shuri, had visited the Tower once while Peter and Ned had been chilling in the lounge room. Shuri had been shoved off on the two boys while the older men went and ‘talked shop’, but the teens had hit it off immediately. The boys were impressed by her intellect (she was crazy smart), and she was shocked by the revelation that Peter was Spider-Man, and that Ned had managed to hack his suit.
Apparently Shuri had tried to hack Tony Stark’s technology multiple times and had only succeeded very recently, the feat taking her a whole day. They’d spent the rest of the afternoon re-creating vines with the spidey suit, including but not limited to, “damn that’s so sad, Karen, play despacito,” and “damn Spider-Man, back at it again with the white vans,” featuring Peter, dressed in his suit, with a pair of white vans on over the top.
The video had gone viral, and while Peter was out as Spider-Man, he got more than a few vine references thrown his way, especially from the people bad guy, which had been… surprising.
Whenever he punched someone he got, “ah fuck, I can’t believe you’ve done this,” and whenever someone pointed a gun at him he heard, “I won’t hesitate, bitch.”
It had been amusing, but had gotten old really fast. It was hard to concentrate when someone was screaming “ Patricia !” at him.
Peter jerked back into reality to find Noah explaining a little more about what happened in the R&D department, but he could see that no one was listening properly. Everybody wanted to meet Tony Stark: genius, billionaire, superhero, philanthropist and James Rhodes, esteemed air force colonel turned Iron Patriot… or War Machine, depending on who you asked.
After torturing the group for a little longer, Noah relented, and led them into a small room off to the side. There were several chairs set up and a raised platform at the front. There was a brief scuffle in which a few people fought for the chairs closest to the platform, but Flash and his gang ended up winning, smirking as they shoved a few more people away from the prime seats and sat down. Peter and Ned headed straight for the back, and scored the entire row for themselves, if they ignored count Mr Harrington, who’d taken a seat at the opposite end of the row and was bouncing in his chair like an excited child.
Noah cleared his throat from where he stood by the door. “Guys, listen up! Mr Stark and Colonel Rhodes will be here any second no-”
“Excellent timing, I told you we wouldn’t be late platypus,” came the well-known voice of Tony Stark. Moments later, he appeared through the doorway, his hair gelled to spiky perfection and goatee neatly brushed, a far cry from what he looked like after a thirty-six hour stint in his lab.
The billionaire was wearing his ‘intimidation suit’, and dark glasses that hid his eyes, both of which screamed ‘I could destroy you with a single hand motion, so don't test me, bitch ’. Rhodey appeared just behind him, decked out in a suit of his own. It wasn’t quite as attention-stealing as Mr Stark’s, but it still gave off the ‘don’t even try to mess with me’ vibe.
The class went dead silent as the pair mounted the few steps up to the platform. Everyone wore similar expressions: eyes wide and following every movement of the two, their mouths like gaping holes in their faces. To his left, Peter saw Mr Harrington nervously straighten his tie and glasses, before trying to flatten his floppy brown hair against his scalp.
Mr Stark made very brief eye contact with Peter, smirked slightly and then cleared his throat. “Hello, young whippersnappers, I’m Tony Stark, which you should know already, considering this is my Tower, and to my left is Colonel James Rhodes,” he paused and glanced at Rhodey, who nodded at the class in greeting.
Well, Peter assumed that was what it was supposed to look like, but he saw what had really happened. Rhodey had very subtly pointed out Flash to Mr Stark, whose eyes flicked to the boy in question before continuing his speech. “So, I heard that a tour group from Midtown was coming here, and I decided to pop in and check out some of the hands and minds that would mould the next generation of scientific discoveries. I have to say, I’m disappointed,” Mr Stark paused again. The group looked horrified, especially Mr Harrington. Peter sunk lower in his seat and bowed his head. “Not in all of you, don’t worry, but there are a few,” Mr Stark took the time to look directly at Flash, and Peter saw the boy gulp. “How many of you know my history? I’d assume it's an over-discussed topic, and I hate to add to the drivel, but here we go. You’ve all heard of my father, Howard Stark, tech genius, who used his intellect to defend his country and then passed that legacy on to his only son. What people never seem to discuss is the domestic side of my father, you know, what he did at home. He was cold, cruel, calculating. I spent my entire childhood chasing attention that he wasn’t willing to give. To put it quite simply, he was a bully, and because of that, and my profession, I simply cannot stand bullying,” the genius finished, stepping backwards slightly and letting Rhodey take the stage.
The class was silent, unsure of what was happening. Peter’s head was in his hands, because he knew, he just knew where this was going.
“I’m Colonel James Rhodes, and my background has not been blasted across newspapers my entire life, but I’m pretty sure there's a very inaccurate Wikipedia article on me,” he said, pausing to allow the class to chuckle nervously. “My Dad was killed in action when I was eleven, leaving my mum to care for me and my three younger siblings. We never got his body back, so all I had were my memories of him, which were few and far between, but the one thing I have always remembered is him telling me he was going away to fight off the bullies. I was too young, of course, to know that he was fighting a war, and that both sides could be seen as the bullies, depending on who you were and how you looked at it, but that idea has stuck with me throughout my life. Whether I was protecting my siblings from their bullies or defending myself from my own, I always thought, ‘dad would be proud of me’, and I hope, I really hope that he is. I never really thought of fighting off bullies on a larger scale until after I finished college, but once I got that diploma from MIT, it was on my mind twenty-four seven. I enlisted, I completed the basic training and then the advanced training, both with flying colours, and then I rose up in the ranks. My entire life, I’ve been fighting bullies, whether it was on a school playground or a battlefield in Afghanistan. As you may be able to imagine, that makes me none too fond of bullies either.”
“I don’t know if any of you are aware of this, but there is a strict zero-bullying policy in this Tower, and it applies to everyone, whether you’re an employee, or a guest,” Mr Stark began, locking eyes with Flash again, who paled alarmingly fast as the dots connected in his brain. “Violating this policy can and will lead to consequences, specifically, being escorted out of the tower by our head of security,” the billionaire paused again and gestured to the door he had come through earlier with Rhodey. Happy stepped through it, his bulky frame blocking the space. He was clad in a threatening black suit and had a pair of dark sunglasses on his face. Peter died inside just a little at the dramatics of it all. “Which usually results in public humiliation. I don’t usually make appearances to view these things, but I have personal connections to this particular case. Now, I believe there is a Mr Eugene Thompson in this class?” Mr Stark smirked, knowing full well he was standing right in front of the boy. He looked right at the quaking teen and said, “you are him aren’t you? Would you kindly stand up and allow yourself to be removed from the building?” he said, a deadly smile on his face. Flash stood up and whipped around to face Peter, who couldn’t sink any lower in his seat without slipping right off.
“This is all your fault, Penis. You went running to Tony Stark because you couldn’t handle a little bit of truth! I bet he doesn’t even care, and this whole thing is just a PR stunt,” he snarled at the shorter boy.
Tony was in front of him before anyone in the room could blink. “I’d watch your mouth, because you are currently in the presence of three highly trained men who wouldn’t think twice if they had to choose Peter over you. He is not a PR stunt, he is not a charity case and he is not someone I keep around in case I get bored of Ms Potts, because yes, FRIDAY hears everything , even those little comments you mutter to your friends. Peter is the smartest, funniest kid I know, with a heart of gold. That’s the reason he’s my personal intern. If I ever get the slightest hint that you’re bothering the kid again, I promise you that I will absolutely destroy your life, and Stark men never break their promises. Now get out of my tower, you sorry excuse for a human being,” he hissed, gesturing to Happy, who came over and grabbed Flash’s shoulder roughly, squeezing just tight enough for it to be uncomfortable.
“Are you threatening me? Just wait till my father hears about this!” Flash yelled, his anger having burnt through the ice that fear had built in his veins and pulling a full Draco Malfoy. It was a dumb choice.
“As if your bank manager daddy could do anything against me. He’s just as worthless as you, sitting on his ass all day and flirting with his assistant. I almost feel sorry for you,” he snorted, and Flash was practically dragged through the doorway. Mr Stark glanced at Mr Harrington and then jerked his head towards the door Flash had disappeared through. “I expect you’ll be looking into that student’s history when you return to school? I have a recording of Mr Thompson harassing Peter, which I will happily send to you. Speaking of Peter, he’s staying with me. I’m pretty sure his Aunt wrote him a note, but do you really need it if I'm standing right here and saying it's fine?” he said, charisma coursing through every word. Mr Harrington just nodded speechlessly, alarmed by the other man’s business-like nature, and hurried out the door after Happy and Flash.
Rhodey had been speaking with Noah, who turned and beckoned the shaking class to follow him out of the door.
All of them turned and openly stared at Peter as they passed, but he was too busy looking pointedly at his hands, which were clenched into tight fists in his lap. Ned bid him a quick goodbye, and Rhodey muttered something unintelligible before slipping out of the room after the boy, leaving Tony and Peter alone.
The man sighed, and rubbed the back of his head. “Look kid, I know you’re mad, but believe me-”
“Did you mean it?” Peter interrupted, not even caring that it was rude.
“What?”
“Did you mean it, what you said? About the uh, the reasons why I was your intern.”
Tony let out a loud exhale. “Oh, Pete,
that’s
what’s got you acting like a shy little kitten? I thought you were mad about what I said.”
“Oh, yeah, I’m mad, but not as mad as I will be if you didn’t mean all that stuff, because if you did, well I may just find it in my
golden heart
to forgive you.”
“Is that even a question Petey-pie? Of course I meant it! You’re wicked smart, sometimes so smart that you scare me, and you have the kindest heart out of anyone I’ve ever met, by far. Hell, you tried to stop me from publicly humiliating your bully , and holy crap, they’re cheesy, but I love your puns, so yes Pete, I did mean it, every word,” Mr Stark finished, his tone gentle.
Peter finally looked up from his lap, though his hands still twisted nervously, and their brown eyes, which were almost the same shade, met. The older man hesitated only slightly before pulling the boy into a hug. Peter stiffened slightly in shock at this form of rare affection, before slowly wrapping his arms around the billionaire’s waist.
“Thanks, Mr Stark,” he whispered into the man's collarbone.
“It was my pleasure, kid, now what do you say to some of Pepper’s famous cheeseburgers?”
“ God yes,” Peter moaned, just as his stomach rumbled loudly.
The pair could be heard laughing all throughout the R&D lab, and later, several eyewitnesses claim to have seen Tony Stark - a man whose iron heart had a reputation almost as big as the billionaire himself - smiling joyfully at a brown-haired teenager who was tucked underneath his arm as they walked through the hallways of Stark Tower.