Chapter Text
When Johnny first heard about what happened that April Saturday morning, he had laughed so hard he had slipped from his perch on the top of The Statue of Liberty and subsequently had to flame on to avoid falling. After recovering for a bit, he flew up to the top, where Peter was waiting for him, and immediately upon spotting him started laughing his ass off again.
When he recovered enough to take a breather, and actually fill his lungs with air, he asked, giddy with residual laughter.
"T-that’s how you met Tony?"
"Oh shut up, you annoying matchstick! That’s just the beginning of the story!!"
Johnny still laughed about that first meeting for many years to come.
"Almost as bad as your first impression with my family!" he’d say after laughing way too loud and having Peter throw (with minimal strength) a pillow to his face. Yes, that meeting had been much worse, but Johnny seemed to think otherwise.
"Why do you meet everyone by either you breaking in or having them break into your home?" Johnny wondered after giggling about it far longer than necessary, in Peter’s opinion.
He honestly didn’t know.
Either way, this story was, in some way, similar to the familiar story of Peter-breaking-in-to-the-baxter-building, but not entirely.
This one went as follows:
A blur of movements was the thing that woke him up from his (very uncomfortable) sleep. He tried moving around but a hand had stopped him. Peter only recalls freaking out at the moment, but his spidey-sense had been quiet. A detail he remembered after, but in that moment slipped his mind.
He scrambled and scooted back, but found himself feeling much less awfully than he had when he passed out.
And he had Tony fricking Stark beside him. At first he thought it was maybe a hallucination. Face to face with his idol, hero and inspiration, Peter couldn’t help but shriek. A little from the scare of a stranger inside his home, and the other of excitement, when he blinked and the figure remained.
(Johnny laughed extra hard when Peter recalled that detail. The blonde was very much amused, and called Peter a “freaking nerd” about it. He regretfully continued his story. It had been months ago when he told Johnny, but he wanted the other to know, for some reason, every detail. It set up the context for the awful months that followed, after all)
A little disoriented, he noticed he was patched up. He also noticed he had Iron-Man in his bathroom, without a suit or anything, looking… anxious? worried? No, he couldn’t possibly be worried for him, could he? No, Tony Stark, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist, was probably staring at him because there was a kid in a spider-man costume bleeding out beside him.
OH SHIT!
He was wearing his costume. His mask was gone. He looked panicked for it, but it obviously was too late.
He looked up at the billionaire, the hero, next to him.
Sheepishly making eye contact, he said:
“It's a cosplay…?”
Tony raised a brow. His lips twitched, amused.
“Oh, really? Very convincing kid!” He replied with fake enthusiasm.
Peter gulped, as he looked away.
(“Did you seriously say That?? Oh it’s a wonder you are alive at all!!” Johnny had teased him relentlessly.
“I honestly don’t know how I survived that interaction, to be honest” Peter replied. They both laughed for a while)
“Let’s cut the charade, kid. You obviously are the real deal, that onesie is even more hideous up close–”
“Hey!” was the squeak of offence that Tony blatantly ignored.
“ –Doesn’t matter. I’ll take care of it later. Now, any guardians present or on they’re way to take you to the hospital?”
“No hospital!!” Was Peter 's reply.
“If it’s the cost of the treatment that worries you, don’t, ‘cus I’ll cover it. Who do you think you’re talking to, Underoos?!”
“That’s not- Underoos?? Now that’s just rude. This is a suit, not underwear, Mr. Stark!”
“You call that a suit? That barely constitutes as spandex, kid” He replied.
It was true, the suit was a patchwork design, places where fabric didn’t match, places where pieces of metal and cables stuck out (where everything Peter had coded relied on). It was dirty, and old and torn.
It really was barely standing, but Peter wasn’t going to let his hard work get insulted.
“Anyways… No hospital because I'm a masked vigilante. Masked. Secret identity to protect and all that”
Tony seemed contemplative, before nodding once.
“Then, my medbay. How does that sound instead? confidentiality and comfort at it’s finest”
Peter had considered it for a moment. Just a moment. Then, very quickly, he accepted. Who was he to turn down free medical supplies? He’d be crazy not to, given how often he went without treatment.
(That was a detail that Peter didn’t share with Johnny; his desperation to accept wasn’t solely driven by his hero worship complex).
“You took at least 10 years off my life right there, kid” Stark had said after a few minutes of silence, helping Peter up and basically escorting him to his car, where his Head of Security was waiting.
“Mr. Stark?” Peter had simply said, looking curiously at the millionaire.
Whatever his train of thought was, was interrupted by Harrold Hogan, Head of Security, bolting the few steps between the car and the front steps of the apartment building they were exiting, probably worried and not at all expecting a bleeding teenager of this supposedly boring visit.
“Sir?” Said the guard.
“Happy, east side entrance ASAP, I’ll… brief you later.” Was Stark's reply.
Without uttering another word, Happy was already turning on the car, the engine coming alive so fast Peter had trouble realising the man had already moved from their side.
(“You surely said something stupid in the car ride to the tower, right?” Johnny asked, giddy with excitement.
“I don't really remember it, so I don’t know” Peter had lied: his inexplicable desire to tell Johnny everything that happened sorely for the purpose of cheering the other up was not extended to the Car Ride Incident™)
Tony Stark, Director of a company, a millionaire that seemed untouchable to the world, an arrogant asshole to everyone but, like, two people, sat frozen in his own medical facility, awaiting news about a child he barely knew, feeling more anxious than ever before.
Peter told Johnny that he was basically fine afterwards, and they immediately started their tests and fun experiments, but in reality, Tony could barely get close to the room he was (basically imprisoned) in, until after he talked with Pepper.
Oh, Pepper Potts, the woman you are: As busy as she was, after hearing the story of the child they had hired, who turned out to be a genius and subsequently led to Tony finding out he was Spider-man, she cancelled all his meetings for the day, locked him out of the lab and forced him to go talk to the kid.
Even if she was coming down with a fever, she decided to work extra so her fiance could resolve this crazy situation.
When he finally made his mind up to listen to her, Peter was getting restless and pacing the walls (literally).
While he was distracted, Tony entered the room, sunglasses on his face and a scowl that could turn the water to ice.
“I have a heart condition, you know? I can’t be worrying about-”
“Mr. Stark!” Peter turned abruptly and almost fell from the ceiling.
Stark clutched his chest dramatically, and Peter descended the wall carefully and sheepishly.
“This! This is my problem. And here I thought I had a smart one in my hands…”
“What does that even mean?” Peter questioned suspiciously.
Tony Stark looked him dead in the eyes, arms crossed and firm. He took his glasses (probably for dramatic effect) and said:
“I know you are the post it cleaning guy”
Peter stopped abruptly. Was he getting fired? Was there going to be a lawsuit? He couldn’t afford a lawyer, and New York most definitely couldn’t afford missing Spider-man because of him going to jail.
“Mr. Stark I–”
“The adult is talking here, kid” He stopped him. “I have a few… questions to ask you. For example; Are you free for an internship?”
Peter was shell shocked
“I know you are, silly me” Stark continued ignoring Peter “You are working a few odd jobs but this will pay triple what any of them do, great on a college application. The only problem is your Guardian, she–”
“-Is not currently available” Peter interrupted. “I can’t ask her to come back, she still has a few months and her trip is huge for her career!”
“Kid, legally I can’t-”
“Stop calling me kid, sir, you know by now I’m not a… normal teen”
Tony stared at him for a few beats, before giving a curt nod.
“That is true, but we’ll need to make a few upgrades.”
Peter was incredulous. “You… won’t ask me to quit? O-or mad I interrupted?”
“Oh you are ballsy, Underoos, I’ll give you that. If i tried to make you quit, i think you’d become a villain, sorry to say, that is not in my best interest (“Hey!” Peter protested quietly) The worst of our problems will be convincing Pepper to allow this without proper paperwork… Friday, what if-”
Tony Stark was leaving the room, still talking with his AI about how to convince Pepper this Wasn’t child endangerment.
Peter stood there for a second, processing what just happened. His idol, the man he had idolised his whole childhood, just offered an internship, and not only that but, from a superhero standpoint, was not implementing any measures to stop him being a vigilante.
He silently celebrated with a fistpump to nothing, when the door opened quickly.
Flushed red, he watched Mr. Stark’s head pop up from the doorway.
“Are you coming, Spiderling? we need to test that healing factor you seem to have and maybe even make a test to–” he continued talking and talking, as he walked without checking if Peter was following.
He scurried to follow.
Once he was only a few steps behind did Stark turn around.
The man was walking fast, walking without slowing down a bit, but for a second, his expression could have been mistaken for a smile.
“I almost had a heart attack when I found you, you know?”
Peter stared up at him, contemplating, and then he quipped, as he usually did when he was nervous:
“Well… so did I, I mean, Tony Stark was in my bathroom, after all. You’d assume you were dying too”
After a beat of silence, Stark looked ahead again.
“Funny”
“Yeah… Luckily it was not a heart attack. I'm too young to die”
Both of them chuckled silently. Peter risked a glance at Tony Stark and saw him almost smiling. Score!.
“C’mon, kid, hurry up. Friday? take us up”
The elevator’s doors closed after them both. He continued telling the story to Johnny here: It was time to get to the lab.