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It was a good thing Bucky didn’t need much sleep these days. 

Because he certainly didn’t get any last night. 

“Sergeant Barnes,” a nobody greeted him, nodding as they passed by each other in the hallway.

“Mhm,” Bucky barely murmured in response.

He couldn’t even fault the punk for it. It was several hours before sunrise that he kicked Peter out of the kitchen and sent him off to bed — though not before having to make incessant promises that they’d both finish his piss-poor excuse for an essay sometime later that weekend. 

Apparently four promises wasn’t enough; by the fifth time Bucky repeated himself, he told the kid that if he didn’t get his ass to sleep — one arm be damned, he’d shred the essay without hesitation. It was plenty enough to get Peter scampering off to his quarters.

Bucky, however, didn’t bother going back to his. 

“Barnes,” another nobody — a security guard, Bucky immediately recognized, greeted him in passing.

“Mhm,” Bucky grunted in response.

It was a drawback to living in the compound — one of the many drawbacks. When Steve made the deal with SHIELD to relinquish ‘the Winter Soldier’ into their custody, that not only meant doing whatever they wanted him to do, but it also meant residing on their side of the building.

It was a compound, at the end of the day. And SHIELD had proprietorship of more than half. Though it wasn’t quite as extensive as their national headquarters — where Bucky was immediately taken after all but being annexed out of Wakanda — it was still multiple stories high with an abundance of people flocking the halls. Even late at night. 

“Sergeant,” one of the IT employees nodded as they walked together down the hallway, before the man took a sharp turn at the next fork in the road.

Bucky didn’t even have time to greet him, had he wanted to.

He quickly discovered that his quarters were as good as the entrance lobby. Too noisy, too much disturbance in the hallways. Too much chatter and too much activity. SHIELD was twenty-four seven, after all, and they had no problems reminding him of that much.

So it wasn’t uncommon for Bucky to take off to the woods. Though it’d only been less than a two months now he’d been a resident, sans the few weeks spent back in Wakanda, he was quick to find solace wherever he could. 

That just so happened to be the surrounding woods and lake that encompassed the compound, with a view of the Hudson River that went on for miles.

It was the closest thing to solitude he’d found since being forced to leave the farms of Wakanda. 

At the very least, weekends offered him time to himself. A few days where he could do as he pleased without Director Hill breathing down his neck, or training cadets hounding him for additional drill exercises. 

Far into the woods, he found a spot where even the noise of the mechanics doing repairs on aircraft equipment couldn’t be heard. A tree near the water and a few pebbles was all he needed to pass the time. And distract him from his thoughts along the way.

“Sergeant!” A far-too-excited rookie stood at attention before Bucky had even passed him by, with a salute firmer than pebbles Bucky would throw into the lake.

Bucky walked by without a greeting.

It was long past sunrise when he decided to make his way back inside the building. Not necessarily by choice; he wasn’t the only one with downtime on the weekends — the analytics department would meet up and take a few boats out on the lake. Bucky quickly learned to avoid them, lest he be roped into mindless hours of fishing. He’d rather drown in his own spit than suffer through that. 

The fishing part, not so bad. The guys who worked in analytics? A whole different story.

Walking down the corridors of the compound, he noticeably squinted at the bright glare of sun beaming in through the wall windows. A few more turns in the hallway and he managed to escape it, barely paying attention as he proceeded down the path to his quarters.

It only took a few days after moving in to memorize the entire layout of the building; regardless of its size. Tactical memorization was simply what he did. Bucky could walk the halls blindfolded and know exactly where he was. 

Besides, the residence halls that contained his quarters reminded him a lot of the barracks back at Camp Lehigh. The door to each room was placed so close together, anyone outside of the military would mistake them for janitor closets. 

He took a step — a door. Another step — another door. Each containing more commotion than the last; noisy activity and conversations filling the hallways and making him regret ever leaving the peace and quiet of the woods.

It was a toss up. Noisy quarters, or a two hour and forty-five minute one-sided conversation with Jim in operations talking about his home-brew craft beer hobby. Bucky, unfortunately, had to pick the lesser of evils.

Though Jim did make a decent home-brew.

Coming to a stop in front of his quarters, he threw the door open — effortlessly. Even with his eyes glued to his shoes, watching with little interest as his boots tracked dirt along the floor, he knew exactly where he was going. 

Bucky looked up, and froze. 

“What the fuck?”

Or so he thought.

Bucky almost didn’t hear himself over the ruckus of Cadet Lee and Corporal Adams pitching a fit across the hallway, bitching about whatever was on the lunch menu for the day. Any other time and Bucky would’ve told them to shut the hell up and stuff their mouths with whatever they were given. 

His empty quarters, however, kept that altercation at bay.

“What…the...?” Bucky repeated, slowly looking around — and slower after that; his eyes touching every corner of his quarters, soaking in the empty space that greeted him. 

It was gone. Everything; his bed, his dressers — granted they weren’t necessarily his, but still. 

Not even a sock laid on the ground. 

One step at a time, Bucky found himself walking backward to the entrance of his door. 

This was his quarters, right? 

He peered to the side of the door-frame, taking a good look at the numbered plank that labeled the quarters — not with names, of course, but rather numbers and letters. No different than Camp Lehigh. 

Yep. S-C41. That was him. Always had been, since the day they moved him here.

It was only then that Bucky noticed the sticky-note taped across the front of his door, swung open and out of view. 

Frowning, he ripped it right off — his brows more crinkled than the piece of paper was, scribbled in the middle with black ink.

 

 

“Bullshit!” Cadet Lee shouted from behind closed doors. “I’m not eating that fucking plastic again, Adams — it fucked up my stomach more than those ration meals back on base. I’ll eat the goddamn dirt outside if I gots to!”

Bucky stared at the piece of paper far past the time it took to comprehend what it said. When he finally looked up, his head swiveled left to right — as if whoever wrote it was still nearby and he could catch them before they ran off. 

Whoever it was, they were long gone. 

Right along with his stuff.

“You’re a goddamn pussy, Lee!”  Corporal Adams raised his voice even louder. “Toughen up or get the hell out! But stop acting like the food here ain’t anything worse than that shit they fed you back in Jersey!”

“You wanna deal with my shits all night!?”

“I want you to deal with your own shits —!”

“Shut the hell up!” Bucky’s shout easily overlapped their arguing, and dwindled away with him as he walked out of the residence halls.

It didn’t matter that he’d only been living here two months, sans a few weeks — tactical memorization was what he did. 

Bucky knew exactly where to go.

He just didn’t understand why. 

The walk there took half the time it should’ve. Bucky didn’t stop to acknowledge anyone who greeted him, nor did he lessen his pace at any point. It didn’t take long to know he was in the right place; passing by the girl who sometimes-had-a-thick-accent, accompanied by the android who no-longer-looked-like-an-android.

God, this place was weird. 

It wasn’t until he officially reached the east wing of the building that his speed started to slow down. Sector A of the compound was far different than Sector S, and though it wasn’t his fist time experiencing the difference, it still captivated his attention. The hallways alone seemed to go on miles — no different than the Hudson River that glimmered through the glass windows he walked past. 

A single door wouldn’t be found until he turned the next corner, followed by a long walk after that, before finally encountering another door. It was a far cry from the jam-packed dormitories SHIELD crammed their soldiers into. Like sardines in a can, Bucky would always say.

Unlike his quarters on the other side of the building, there wasn’t a note on the door to greet him this time around. 

Bucky paused outside, hand on the doorknob but hesitating on swinging it open. 

There wasn’t a question of if he was in the right place or not. Bucky didn’t need a number on the door to tell him him that. His name was clear as day —  his full name, he noted — engraved in wood with a sense of permanency not found anywhere else in the compound.

Still, that wasn’t what evoked his hesitance. It was the two words sitting below his name —  his full name, Bucky again noted. 

 

James Buchanan "Bucky" Barnes.

White Wolf. 

 

Those two words practically burned into his eyes with how long he stared — Bucky finally blinked, and he swore he saw an imprint of them beneath his eyelids.

Finally, slowly, Bucky twisted the knob and pushed the door open. It barely even made a creak as he did.

“Huh.” 

Bucky wasn’t sure why the sound made its way out of his mouth. There wasn’t much surprise in what he saw — his bed, his dressers; all moved to the much larger room, with an abundance of space yet to be filled. What few belongings he had were spread out, making him realize now more than ever what little he had to his name. 

But that much wasn’t new; Bucky had always been like that, since the day he joined the military. Always hoping place to place, always packing his stuff and moving somewhere new. He never had a permanent home, so the less he carried on his back, the better.

Still, of all the places he stayed — his childhood home, the time he spent in barracks, his tours — never did he have a room near this size. It wasn’t just a room; in many ways, it was the size of an apartment. Larger than anything he’d ever stayed in before. 

Taking small steps inside, Bucky cautiously looked around. He always knew the quarters on this side of the building were much more...elaborate. The red-headed girl with an accent — Wanda, he remembered — she often kept her door open, and Bucky hadn’t been shy in using the east wing of compound to sneak out into the woods. 

Plus, he’d seen the punk’s quarters not long ago. Messy and trashed like a tornado blew through it, but he knew full well how large these rooms were. 

They were living spaces, not just quarters.

But Sector A was called Sector A for a reason. And as Bucky approached the bed pressed flushed against the center wall — gravitating towards it the moment he noticed a hefty, conspicuous item had been placed on top his bed — he couldn’t help but wonder, again, why. 

There was a case that sat idly on the king sized mattress. A fancy case; the advanced technology standing out like a sore thumb against his plain comforter set. 

Bucky cocked his head as he approached it, his neck craning so far to the side he could practically feel his earlobe brush up against the shawl covering his shoulder.

It was only once his shins hit against the edge of the mattress that he came to a stop. His head bowed low, eyeing the case from where he stood. It didn’t take a genius to figure out how to open it — two latches were on each side, and Bucky flipped off the left before slowly, and hesitantly, going for the right. 

With tentative movements, he lifted the top. 

“Huh,”  he made the sound, again.

The black and gold metal arm caught a glimmer from the bay window off to the side, the afternoon sun casting into the room — his room — with a fierce ray of light. Each embedded twist of striking metallic yellow added a depth to the onyx black of its structure; making two simple colors the most vivid thing in sight. 

On the inside of the lid to the case was another yellow sticky-note, no different than the one Bucky had ripped off his door earlier.

He was far more gentle when reaching for this one, peeling it off the plush cushion and holding it between his thumb and forefinger. 

The handwriting was the same, Bucky quickly realized. His eyes scanned it from top to bottom, reading every word with slow intent. 

 

 

Bucky could read the note five times over — he did, plus some after that — and although the words made complete sense, the message behind them took far longer to sink in. 

The glimmer of black and gold crept over the yellow sticky note. Bucky lowered his hand to look at it once more, the crease against his brow slowly softening along the way.

“That’s Tony for ya.”

The voice had Bucky spinning on his heels, so fast that the note almost fled from his fingers. He twisted at the hips to look at the entryway, with his eyebrows rocketing into his hairline. 

“Never uses his words.” Steve leaned against the door-frame, almost taking on a casual stance that matched the equally casual smile on his face. “Always expressing himself with things.”

With yellow sticky-note still between his fingers, Bucky lifted his hand back into the air. 

“What the hell is this?” he decided to ask, though he wasn’t entirely sure it was a question that needed to be answered. He was a smart man; it wasn’t as if he couldn’t put the two-and-two together.  

His quarters. His name on the door — names on the door. 

The arm.

Bucky looked down at the note again, the wrinkle on his forehead returning. The answer was obvious, it stood out no different than the way the high-tech case stood out against the plain covers of his bed. 

But the longer he dwelled on it, and Bucky realized he wasn’t quite equipped to broach that reality just yet.

“He’s coming around to ya,” Steve, however, seemed to have no problems in doing that for him.

Bucky looked up at Steve — both crutches underneath his arms keeping him stable, and the smile on his face growing larger; spreading wide until a glisten of white teeth peaked through. 

Though he didn’t find himself matching that same energy, Bucky turned back to his bed with a little less tension in his shoulders. He eyed the contents inside the case, before slowly placing the note back down; letting it lay somewhere next to the brand new arm.

That same hand reached behind his ear, absentmindedly scratching at his neck. 

There wasn’t any denying the bit of confusion that clouded his thoughts. But still, he was a smart man. He could put the two-and-two together.

It was a little over a year he’d spent living in Wakanda, with most of that time taken for his rehabilitation. Something King T’Challa’s sister was heavily involved in, leading them both to become well acquainted over the passing months.

Her age meant absolutely nothing when it came to her intelligence, and her confidence that followed, though sometimes frustrating, was still admirable.

Shuri loved to talk about her projects and accomplishments with pride. ‘I’ve done this’ and ‘I’ve done that’, and if it was something that was in the works, she let everyone know — ‘I’m doing this’ or ‘I’ve started that.’ 

When Bucky last asked about the arm, she said ‘it’s being worked on.’

Bucky let out a humorous scoff. Smart man or not, he had to admit — she fooled him good with that one.

The signature on the bottom of the note only affirmed his hunch. The two letter’s ‘T.S’ were no different in size than any of the other words, and yet they stood out the most to Bucky.

“You cut your hair,” Steve’s voice, along with the gentle clomps of his crutches, cut right through Bucky’s thoughts.

Bucky didn’t bother looking his way as Steve entered the room. He responded — more mumble than anything, “Shaved, too.”

It wasn’t until Steve reached the bed pressed against the center wall, joining Bucky at his hip-side, that Bucky finally looked up at him. It wasn’t out of avoidance; the arm inside the case held his attention more than anything else. It was hard to look away from it, if only because of how unexpected it all was.

He wasn’t alone. Steve spent a good minute looking at it himself, and Bucky could see that smile on his face grow wider. White teeth more visible than ever.

“It looks good,” Steve quietly said. 

For a second, Bucky was sure he was talking about the metal arm, glimmering with a radiant shine against the bay window sunlight. 

Then Steve looked towards him, that smile turning into something else. 

“You look good,” he emphasized. 

Reaching for his shoulder, Bucky fiddled with the knot that held his shawl in place.

“Yeah, well…” he trailed off, absentmindedly untying the fabric that covered the left side of his body. He didn’t speak again until the knot came loose, and he clenched the fabric in a tight fist as he let it fall off his shoulder. “Doc recommended it, so…”

Bucky didn’t need to be looking at Steve to see the expression that came over his face. They’d known each other far too long for there to be any doubt about the surprise that coated his features. 

Still, Steve played along. “Which doctor?”

Bucky tossed the shawl onto his bed, the Wakandian fabric gifted to him by a family of goat farmers landing next to the high-tech, state-of-the-art case — every bit Stark in design as knew the man, and his father, to be.

“The one you wanted me to see,” Bucky tried not to mumble. His voice didn’t hold much volume, but with Steve so close to his side, it didn’t need to.

Removing his hand from one of his crutches, Steve didn’t hesitate to lay a firm grip on Bucky’s bicep.

“I’m proud of you, Buck,” he said, earnestly, the only thing firmer than his voice being the grin plastered across his face. 

Bucky craned his head to the side to catch his gaze, the slight tug on his lips the best he could offer in return. 

He had to admit, Steve seemed...at ease. Even with an injured leg still wrapped in a cast and crutches that assisted his every step, Bucky wasn’t sure he’d seen his friend look quite as well-rested as he appeared in the last few weeks. Not since long before war kept them both neck-deep in never-ending troubles. 

It was nice. There’d been too much tension going around since his arrival to the compound; too much conflict. And though Bucky had spent a majority of his time avoiding Steve since being taken out of Wakanda, he knew full well that he played a part in all that. 

He was ready to let it go. 

He was ready to let a lot of things go.

“Figured it was time for a change,” Bucky mentioned, his eyes briefly bouncing the corners of the room — his room, he had to remind himself — before landing back on Steve. “Been livin’ in the past. The past ain’t who we are.”

If Steve’s smile grew any wider, Bucky figured it would touch both ends of his quarters. 

Letting his hand fall off Bucky’s bicep, Steve gestured gently ahead to the bed. “Looks like you aren’t the only one who feels that way.”

The afternoon sun swelled from outside, beaming against the glass windows and catching on all the right spots in the bedroom. The black and gold arm seemed vivid as ever in the moment, and Bucky took the opportunity to reach for it. 

A single finger ran down the length of the metal before his entire hand sized a grip, lifting the object that was no doubt heavier than his body weight, but with his strength felt like nothing more than a plastic straw. 

Bucky turned it over in his grip to get a good look at front and back. The only thing better than a lack of silver was the absence of any star, once indelibly embedded where he couldn’t escape its meaning. Or its memories. 

With one fluid motion, Bucky jammed the arm against his shoulder, pressing hard against the socket. The design did the rest of the work for him, clicks and whirs immediately latching on and securing it in place. 

He barely waited a passing second before throwing his arm back, swinging the limb in a full rotation to ensure its attachment. 

Once finished and satisfied with its movements, Bucky looked down at it. A beat later, and he looked over at Steve. 

“It’ll due,” he said, with a ghost of smile.

Steve let out a lighthearted chuckled, as easy-going as the grin that seemed to have found permanent residence on his face. No different than the permanent residence of the room they both stood in — and no different than Bucky did earlier, Steve began to take in his surroundings. Slowly letting his eyes touch each corner of the room, examining the much larger quarters gifted to them both.

Steve wasn’t remotely surprised to find that Tony had relocated Bucky’s quarters as close to Steve’s as possible, going so far as to shuffle a few team members around to make it happen.

Never his words. Always things.

Caught up basking in the abundance of change that they both seemed willing, and happy, to embrace, Steve failed to notice Bucky had left his side. It wasn’t until Bucky was halfway out of the room that Steve turned around, twisting at the hip to catch the man already halfway out the door.

“Where you going?” he asked, a slight furrow to his brows accompanying the question.

Bucky barely paused on his way out, and didn’t even bother looking at Steve as he plainly answered,

“Arm-wrestling rematch.”

Steve wasn’t sure Bucky heard him laugh — he was already gone; out the room and down the hallway with large, purposeful strides leading him away.

Gripping the handles to both his crutches, and shaking his head with each chuckle that left his lips, Steve slowly craned his head back over his shoulder. His eyes caught onto the case that still sat on the bed, and the yellow sticky-note that laid inside. 

The message written rang through his ears, one word at a time. 

Steve smiled.

“Hey.” Just like that, a voice turned him back to the doorway. Steve was surprised to find Bucky’s head poking through the door-frame, with his thumb pointing over his shoulder. “You coming?”

Steve had no doubt Bucky heard him laugh that time around.

 

 

 

---

 

The only sound louder than the AC/DC blaring through Tony's workshop was the heavy duty industrial tools he diligently used to repair his Iron Man Mark 43 armor.

Diligently, of course, meaning a welding gun in one hand and a half-eaten, greasy slice of pizza in the other.  

Peter was mid-calibration on his web-shooter controls, and mid-bite on his slice of pineapple pizza, when a cling and a clatter came from the other side of the room.

“Monkey wrench,” Tony called out, slightly garbled between bites of sausage and pepperoni, and almost inaudible with his head neck-deep in the wires of the suspended Iron Man armor.

Another cling and a clatter sounded, this time from Peter.

“Monkey wrench,” he repeated, never looking away from the holographic screens as he grabbed the metal tool and hollered, “Catch!”

No sooner than Peter’s voice crossed the threshold did Tony throw his hand in the air, barely looking as he seamlessly caught the tool thrown his way. 

Not a second later and a resounding, albeit hushed, “Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow!” managed to escape through Peter’s otherwise tightly clenched teeth. 

He hoped the beats of ‘Black in Black’ playing from overhead drowned out his whines.

The look Tony proceeded to give him — even with protective eye goggles covering his face — was more than enough to dampen that hope. 

“Shoulder still bothering you?” Tony asked, flipping the monkey wrench around in his hand before leaning further forward into the ceiling-suspended armor.

Peter didn’t need Tony to raise his voice to be heard — FRIDAY had things down pat. The moment he spoke, the song playing overhead went from a blaring, almost ear-splitting volume to a slightly more normal range. Allowing Tony to hear as Peter adjusted the bag of peas haphazardly strapped to his shoulder, held only in place with a few pieces of duct tape. 

“It’s getting better,” Peter answered, bringing the half-melted bag of peas further up his shoulder with a noticeably restrained whine. “Ish.”

Tony peaked his head through the wires, going so far as to push some out of the way with his free hand.

Peter met his gaze with a sheepish grin.

Tony met that grin with a noticeable eye-roll, seen even with the tinted goggles covering his face.

“How’s your Mark 4 coming along?” he asked, gesturing the monkey wrench over in Peter’s general vicinity. 

Peter’s grin morphed into something far more natural — it wasn’t the first time Mr. Stark had referred to his suit that way. But the feeling it gave him never lessened, no matter how many times he heard it.

“Almost finished,” he called out, wheeling his stool over to the cradle sandwiched between them in the middle of the room. Inside the rectangle box were multiple robotic arms that worked hastily in sewing his suit together, so close to completion that the only real adjustments left were to the eye pieces on his mask. 

“Thanks again for the design idea!” Peter looked up from the cradle and smiled. “These colors look amazing. ”

A few tables separated them, most containing computer consoles and monitors, not to mention an array of tool benches — with DUM-E holding a fire extinguisher closer to Peter’s side of the room as opposed to Tony’s, despite Tony being the one creating sparks and embers with the repairs to his armor. 

Tony was mid-twist on the monkey wrench when he craned his head over to look at Peter, lifting his chin slightly high to catch a peak of the suit in question.

“Well,” he said, smirking. “You’re an amazing Spider-Man. Only warranted.”

With that, Tony turned back to his armor. His arm worked in large, strenuous movements as he twisted the monkey wrench deep inside the hanging wires — a quick look himself and Peter saw that the restoration of damage to the arm had long since been completed. Tony was now primarily tinkering on a few insignificant things, no doubt killing time as Peter’s suit finished.

With a push against the cradle, Peter wheeled himself back over to his workbench. His stool followed the path of multiple wires, all connected and bridged from the suit, leading into the mainframe of the computers. The chair didn’t come to a stop until he grabbed the edge of the table, forcing himself to be still.

“I might need some help finishing off some of this circuitry, though,” he admitted, tapping his finger at the monitor ahead so a projected hologram could be pulled out. Peter swiped it to the left before repeating the motion. “It’s never been my strong suit, and I don’t wanna mess up the motherboard connection to the AI controls —”

The wheels of Tony’s chair were heard long before his voice. 

“Lemme see it.”

Tony’s stool slid across the floor, smooth like ice skates, until he bumped into Peter’s shoulder; attempting to use his body as a foothold. 

“Oww-uch! ” Peter hissed, his hand reaching for his shoulder and latching onto the bag of melted peas with a grimace. If he clenched any harder, he was sure DUM-E would end up sweeping away sugar snaps from the ground.

Tony immediately lifted the goggles over his eyes, resting them on his forehead where his one eyebrow nearly met his hairline.

“Wanna run by me again why you thought it was a good idea to arm wrestle the Winter Soldier?”

As Tony reached forward to the monitor and grabbed-swiped-grabbed-swiped the holographic screens, Peter worked his shoulder in circular motions; his grimace slowly changing into a sly, weak smile.

“He totally cheated, Mr. Stark.”

Tony kept his focus straight ahead on the holograms, his hand swiping enough times to create a draft of wind between them.

“No way that happened with Captain Goody Two-Shoes playing referee,” he dryly mentioned. 

“Exactly. All orchestrated,” Peter argued, the glow of each hologram reflecting across his face as he watched Tony move the screens aside, the light blue of technology only highlighting his smirk. “It was obviously an inside job.”

Tony tilted his head to the side, giving Peter a look.

Peter gave it right back to him. 

“In my defense,” he backed up that look with words, but the pause that followed didn’t do much for his defense. “I really thought I’d win.”

Tony’s hand dropped from the holograms with an exasperated, “Parker—”

“What!?” Peter threw his arm out, dramatically — his hand now dripping with condensation from the melted bag of peas. “I’m strong, I broke through ada-metal—”

“Adamantium, ” Tony stressed each syllable in his correction. “And for the last time, you didn’t break the Adamantium, you broke through the steel it was attached to.” Tony turned back to the holograms, grabbing-and-swiping at the screens ahead of them. “Those bunker walls were sturdy, Parker, but they weren’t offspring-of-Vibranium sturdy.”

Peter noticeably turned his head away, fast enough that it created a different draft of wind between them. 

“Right,” he said, his head dropping low — his chin so close to his chest that no light from the holograms could reach his skin. Immediately, he went for the wires connected to the computers, fiddling with them as if they needed organized. “Yeah, right, I-I knew that.”  

They fell into silence for a moment. Only the whirs from computers and the occasional whine from DUM-E sounded. Even with Peter’s enhanced hearing, there was no other noise to pick up. 

That was, until a hushed “Shit," came from beside him.

Peter could see as Tony closed his eyes. Even as he kept his attention strictly on the perfectly arranged wires, each one spread out like a tightrope wall separating the two of them, he could see the immediate regret. The man even looked slightly up to the ceiling with a few words not said. 

Then, suddenly, he pushed himself away from the table, wheeling his stool back a few feet — enough that Peter had to look up to be able to see him.

“Sorry kid,” Tony quietly apologized, one hand out placaintingly as the other tapped a closed fist against the workshop bench. “Didn’t mean to pick at the scab. Forget I said anything.”

Peter shook his head frantically, half-attentive to the wires and half-focused on Tony.

“No, no — it’s...it’s fine. Really, it’s fine,” he stammered, pulling at the bridge of wires one at a time, all while keeping his eyes dead-set on his hands. He tried to shrug, but it stammered just like his words. “It doesn’t...it doesn’t bother me. Not that much. Not all the time.” Three of the five wires fell from his fingers and Peter dropped the remaining ones not long after, letting them hang just the way they were. He used that free hand to scratch behind his ear. “Just...sometimes. I guess.”

The only thing louder than each tap of Tony’s knuckles against the table was each attempt Peter made at clearing his throat. After six times, he gave up. Whatever lodged there wasn’t coming loose, and the best he could manage was a few swallows to keep his airway open. 

Around that same time, Peter could see through the corner of his eye as Tony slowly took the goggles off his forehead. The way they were placed onto the workbench barely made a sound. 

“Anymore panic attacks?” Tony asked, just as quietly as his movements. 

Peter tried to make a face, but it didn’t happen. His lips pursed a bit to the side, but that’s as far as he got with his indignance.

“I really don’t know if that was a panic attack, Mr. Stark,” he insisted, feeling the tight pull on his brows when a grimace ultimately coated his expression. It wasn’t hard to forget the night Tony spoke of; it was the last time they were in this very workshop together. And with much hindsight, Peter realized it was also the night he’d become infected. “I mean, the symbiote was right there on my backpack. That was totally my spider-sense trying to warn me, I just couldn’t…”

His words trailed off, and the silence returned. Only this time, DUM-E remained quiet — and Tony eventually swiped all the holograms away, sending them back into the monitor and clearing the space between them. The wires connected from the suit to mainframe were the only thing that acted as a barricade; more a tripping hazard, if anything. 

“You’ve been hanging out with Maximoff too much, kid.” Tony leaned back a bit, both legs in front of him crossed and both arms folded over his chest. “I can’t read your mind.”

Peter scratched harder behind his ear before letting his arm drop down to the table. He kept his head low the entire time, knowing full well Tony could see him even if he avoided the man’s gaze.

“I couldn’t tell if it was...” Peter gave a rough shrug. Followed by another after that. “I dunno. Anxiety, or-or something.”

The words felt weird coming out of his mouth. It was a thought he’d had for months now, but it was only ever a thought. He heard it every day, always spoken inside his head — a daily echo that wouldn’t leave him alone. 

When before he’d never question his strength, his fortitude, his competency and his skill — now it was all he could focus on. 

How he felt weak. How he suddenly felt helpless. 

Those thoughts always came in moments he felt anxious. And those moments always came when he remembered what happened in that bunker. An experience he didn’t let himself think about, let alone speak into existence. 

Somehow, finally hearing it out loud — with his voice, nonetheless — it felt...odd. 

“Well,” Tony started to say, looking off to the side as he spoke. “You may not have been all wrong about that.”

The confusion that came next was enough to get Peter looking up at Tony, his brows furrowed so much that it aged him by years.

Tony looked back over at him, with a raised eyebrow in response. 

“Your DNA was what latched that sucker onto you,” he reiterated, “but it didn’t activate until you had the excited neurons it needed to come to life.” 

Tony’s reminder was met with more confusion from Peter.

“It required emotional instability, remember?” Tony dipped his chin low, ensuring his gaze stayed straight ahead. “And something tells me you haven’t been the peachiest lately.”

Peter couldn’t have looked away any faster if he tried, even if he had the Iron Man jet-boots to give him a head start.

“Just been…” he reached for the wires again, sorting through the tightrope one at a time. “You know...having trouble sleeping lately. That’s all.”

Peter briefly wondered if he spoke too quietly for Mr. Stark to hear him. He considered if he should repeat himself, then debated with the question of if he wanted to repeat himself — the answer to that was a solid, unwavering, staunch ‘No’ — but then he began to wonder if he’d repeat himself if Mr. Stark asked him to repeat himself, and by the time he deliberated through that — the answer was ‘maybe’ — Peter realized neither of them had spoken in a long time.

He looked up, with the wires still tangled between his fingers. 

Tony had looked away from him, his eyes set somewhere on the furthest corner of the room. Nothing had caught his interest — Peter could tell; it was obvious in the way his eyes looked. Focused, but not. His attention was still present, but for the lingering pause that followed, his thoughts were far elsewhere. 

“Still having those nightmares?” Tony finally asked, breaking the quiescence before it reached the unbearably awkward stages. 

Peter’s jaw fell to the floor, but his eyebrows knitted too tightly together for his mouth to function. 

Tony turned back towards him, holding up another placating hand along the way.

“That was also Barnes,” he admitted, using that same hand to gesture motionlessly towards Peter. “But don’t go giving him the cold shoulder, we forced it out of him with all the other information.”

Peter gave half a scoff and half an eye-roll. Neither were fully genuine. 

“I dunno about that, Mr. Stark,” he practically mumbled, turning back down to the wires with a slight pull on his lips. “Bucky doesn’t seem like the type you can force information out of.”

“Pete…” Tony’s face fell with a softness that matched his tone. 

As much as Peter wanted to make a witty comeback, the snark never got past his tongue. It was that sound in Mr. Stark’s voice, the one that only ever needed a single word said to be heard. It reminded Peter a lot of May — the way she could say nothing and yet speak everything all at once. 

It wasn’t just her bullshit detector, it was how well she knew him.

Peter couldn’t deny the reason was the same for Mr. Stark.

“Kind of. Not really,” he eventually answered, running his index finger along the length of the wires bridged between them. “I mean, they aren’t really...nightmares. Just...remembering things I...don’t remember.”

Peter didn’t need to see the look Tony gave him to know that made no sense. He shook his head at himself, looking up with his finger still gliding along the wires. 

“Like, I know everything you guys told me. About what happened. After I was...uh, impaled. And what not.” Peter quickly dropped his head again. “But just bits and pieces. That I...dream about.”

His admission felt like a bomb exploding against the quiet that followed. Peter looked to the side, locking eyes on his partially eaten slice of pineapple pizza; finding himself no longer hungry for a bite despite how delicious it was, and how he’d already devoured an entire box in their few hours of being together.

It wasn’t about his appetite — the sight was a distraction for him. His finger stayed on the wire as he kept his attention focused there and only there, even as Tony once again played the role of ‘silence smasher.’

“You’d lost a lot of blood down there, Peter,” Tony tactfully reminded him. “Your freakishly spider-mutated body was stuck in a continuous loop of going in-and-out of shock. I’m surprised you remember any of what you do.”

Peter nodded, even with his head turned away. He acknowledged Tony — it wasn’t new information for him, he remembered being told that. But like most things after his encounter with Dmitri-the-crazy-Russian, it was what he was told. 

Remembering it all had proven to be a bit...unsettling. 

“You wanna talk about any of it?” Tony asked, as if plucking the thoughts straight out of his head.

Peter quickly looked back to the monitors with a dismissive wave of his hand. 

“Nah, it’s – it’s fine,” he insisted, already returning to the monitors and pull-sweep-pulling apathetically at the holograms. “It’s..it’s all in the past, you know? Besides, everything that just happened is…” Peter drew away from the screens, blowing heavily through his cheeks as he made an explosion motion with both his hands. “It’s all way more extra than that.”

Peter knew there was no disputing that much. Of all the crazy things he’d go through in his life, he didn’t think actually dying could ever be topped — at least, in many ways, he hoped it would never be topped.

Of course, he didn’t remember any of that — dying, and what came after. And he never would, not with the symbiote having full possession long before that point; using his body as host to become its own thing — Venom, he’d later discover.

He’d never remember those memories — the jungle fights he was later told about, the demolishing of the Citadel and the warpath in the fields. They weren’t his to remember, they weren’t moments of his to live through. 

Other memories, though...

“No disputing that much, kid,” Tony said, and Peter barely held back a laugh. Sometimes it was like he didn’t even need to speak for the man to know what he was thinking. “But it doesn’t make what happened any less of an ordeal for you.”

Peter’s eyes drifted over to meet Tony’s, briefly locking on for a second that stretched on far longer than psychics should’ve allowed.

“I’m fine,” he quickly deflected, waving a dismissive hand once again. “Really, I’m okay.”

Not allowing a beat to pass, Peter immediately turned back to the monitors. His finger swiped up, each slow scroll allowing him to read through the data projecting off the hologram. It reflected off his face one line of code at a time; and though it was, again, just a distraction for him to use, Peter kept his focus there.

Enough time went on for DUM-E to pass by them twice, though neither of them questioned why the robot was pacing. Peter was too busy trying to focus on the mainframe of his suit, and Tony stayed quiet.

“Stars.”

Until he wasn’t.

Peter twitched his head in his direction.

“What?”

Another pause followed, long enough that Peter was worried his imagination was playing tricks on him. However, the look in Mr. Stark’s face was enough to keep that sense of doubt at bay. 

There was a look in his eyes — even as his eyes looked somewhere off to the corner of the workshop, there was something there. 

Something Peter hadn’t seen before.

“Stars,” Tony repeated, his arms still folded over his chest, and the squeeze seemingly growing tighter. “For years after New York, I...uh, I didn’t look at the sky. Not at night. Not with the stars out.”

They fell into silence again; not nearly as long as the last, but it stretched on long enough that Peter started to think of what to say next.

He came up empty handed every time.

In passing, each tap of Tony’s knuckles seemed to grow louder, hitting every wall of the room with resounding effect. 

“If I did, it — uh...if I looked, it – I would, uh…I would...” Tony abruptly cleared his throat, only finding his voice when he looked back to Peter. Even then, it was a hot second before he spoke again. “Like I said, kid. I know a panic attack when I see one.”

Peter didn’t know what to say.

For a long time, he didn’t say anything. 

It didn’t come as much of a surprise. Peter found it easy to say that Mr. Stark knew him well, but the opposite wasn’t always the same. It wasn’t that he and Tony weren’t close — they were, more now than last year, and far more now than earlier in the summer. Peter loved every bit of it, and wouldn’t change a single thing for all the money in the world.

Yet there was a lot about Tony that the man kept close to his chest. Peter knew when to push, sure, but he also knew when to respect boundaries. 

There were always things he never liked to talk about, no different than how Peter never wanted to talk about what happened down in the bunker. Everything after the airport in Germany was a big one. That tied right back into Bucky — the Winter Soldier, Peter rectified.  

Even things like the Battle of New York weren’t ever discussed, something that went back five years ago.

Peter suddenly understood why. 

“Does it bother you now?” he found himself asking the question before ever thinking it. “Looking at the stars?”

Tony noticeably looked away in thought. 

“Sometimes,” he admitted. “Depends on the day. Depends on how I’m…”

Peter wasn’t entirely sure if Tony trailed off with a loss of words, or if words didn’t make their way through to his mouth. He figured it didn’t matter all that much; he didn’t need his IQ to fill in the empty spaces.

“I saw a therapist. Eventually,” Tony went on to say. “You can thank Pepper for that. I actually recommended the doc to the team, when all was said and done. She’s good at what she does.”

Breaking both arms from across his chest, Tony leaned forward, far enough in that his elbows landed on both his knees. His head dropped down a bit, his eyes catching on Peter’s shoes as opposed to anything else.

“She helped me realize, that — uh….well, recovery isn’t linear. You can be on a winning streak for months, even years, and, uh...one thing takes you right back to the start.” Tony’s hand found its way to the nape of his neck, and rubbed there until Peter swore he saw his skin go red. “These things never leave us. We just...we learn to live with them.”

Peter blinked a few times, taking in what he heard. He figured it must’ve been a while, because DUM-E made another lap around them. 

Tony didn’t move during that time. 

In all fairness, neither did Peter.

“Why stars?” he finally asked. “I mean...I was like, eleven when...when the aliens attacked,” Peter paused, as if unsure the topic should even be brought up. “But it was during the day...wasn’t it?”

Tony looked up from the gap between his knees. 

“Didn’t see much sun in space, kiddo.” 

Peter considered it a win that he kept the ‘oh ’ in his head where it belonged.

Tony made a slight grunt as he straightened his back, bringing his weight off his knees while he leaned against the workbench. His elbow took the brunt of his stress, and he looked Peter head-on, his eyes fixating there.

“Stars were the last thing I saw,” he explained — before his lips suddenly pursed tightly to the right. “Well, a nuke exploding, too. Throw in some alien battleships along the way. And...stars.” Tony’s voice was quick to fall quiet. “A lot of stars.”

In the year Peter had gotten to know Mr. Stark, he’d discovered a lot about the man. Of all the things they’d spoken about —  things like what happened after the airport in Germany, how it all tied back to the Winter Soldier and what that meant to Tony — Peter realized they’d never talked about the Battle of New York.

Peter was only eleven, but he remembered that day. All of New York did — all of the world did.  They all saw Iron Man fly a nuke into space, and narrowly make it out alive. 

Yet in the time he’d gotten to know Mr. Stark, Peter never heard him talk about it. 

Suddenly hearing it, coming straight from the source of the man he saw fly that nuke into the sky...hearing it out loud also felt odd. 

But not in a bad way.

“Did you…” Peter started to get the words out, but a lump caught them halfway there. He cleared his throat to lessen the swelling. “Did you think you were going to die?”

A heavy beating in his chest nearly caused Peter’s lungs to spasm. His next breath fell short, coming to a halt altogether. The memory of sea water and sulfur had him reaching for the wires and clenching; never noticing when his foot began to tap anxiously on the ground, barely registering the ache in his stomach that returned with a fierce intensity. 

Somebody cleared their throat, but Peter couldn’t figure out which one of them it was. He was too busy hoping the pounding of his own pulse would calm down, at least long enough for him to hear something besides the blood rushing through his ears. Forcing himself to panic when he felt otherwise fine.

Those memories always came with a surge of anxiety, one he hadn’t learned to overcome — not yet, not when he was so new to the whole upheaval of his own emotions. And this time was no different. 

Tony was definitely the one to clear his throat the second time around. Peter was sure of it, because he couldn’t even swallow past his. 

“I called Pepper to say goodbye,” Tony couldn’t have been anymore quiet with his voice. With half his weight leaning into his elbow, he opened his hand and let his face fall into the cushions of his palm. “Yeah, kid, I was sure I was going to die.”

Peter blinked a few times, each burning hotter than the last. He quickly reached to scratch at his nose, using the movement to hide the flick of his knuckles that swept away pesky liquid from his eyes.

“You called Ms. Potts?” he forced out of a swollen throat, cleaning it a few times after he spoke. 

Tony suddenly chuckled. 

“And she didn’t even pick up,” he deliberately spoke each word with slow intent. “She was too busy watching me fly a nuke into space. On the news.”

Though Peter’s laugh was wet when it sounded out of his chest, it dried up towards the end. 

Tony simply smiled, keeping the side of his face in his palm as he unmistakably watched, patiently, while Peter stammered for his next words. 

“I, uhm…” Peter clenched and unclenched at the wires between them. Each grasp was harder than the last, tightening the skin around his knuckles every time he squeezed. “I really thought I was going to die, Mr. Stark." His voice fell quiet, nearly falling to a whisper along the way. "Down there. In the bunker.”

It was a thought he had for months now. Always spoken in his head, never out loud. It felt the oddest of all things to hear himself say, to get out of his head and into the world.

But at the same time, it felt good. Like a weight lifted off his chest. 

It felt a little less scary. 

“Well...” Tony straightened himself on the stool, gesturing his hand out at Peter with a tug on his lips. “I believe you can check that accomplishment off your bucket list.”

Peter’s smile didn’t quite match his. It was an attempt, halfhearted at best, but they both could feel the force behind it. 

The idle sounds of computers played between them, just for a moment — long enough that the whirs and clicks of technology within the walls became the only noise between them. Though the lull in conversation was natural, it still felt stiff and awkward; bringing enough edge to the air that Peter only found himself more comfortable after a deep breath in, and a long exhale out.

"Does it — does it ever get easier?" Peter suddenly asked, almost too quiet to be heard. When he looked back up at Tony, the arched eyebrow he received in response was enough to tell him he needed to speak up. He cleared his throat before speaking again. "The whole...almost dying thing. Does it...does it ever get easier?"

Tony noticeably paused, going so far as to look off to the side in what seemed to be contemplation. Peter immediately turned back to the wires in his hands, half-not expecting an answer and half-expecting a diversion completely.

After all, it didn't seem to be a question anyone had much of an answer for these days. Sam would always tell him that he'd carry these things with him for the rest of his life, and it was up to him to determine how exactly he went about that. May would listen — always listen, no matter what, and he appreciated that more than his words could ever say. But her answers were slim to none.

And Bucky, as easy as it was to talk to Bucky about what happened, he seemed just as clueless. Flat out telling Peter he hadn't gotten it figured out, and didn't think he ever would.

With a shake of his head, Peter dropped the wires from his fingers, about to change the subject entirely when,

"Eventually," Tony finally answered, and Peter wouldn't deny the color of surprise that coated his face at hearing him speak. Tony shifted slightly on his stool. "It comes and goes. Good days, bad days. Real bad days." Tony flicked his thumb across his nose, looking anywhere but at Peter as he continued on. "Stretches of bad days. It's...it's fluid. You make progress, you lose progress. I have a, uh...a thing. In place. For the bad days."

A hard, uncomfortable sniff from Tony stole the conversation, long enough that the silence was noticeable.

Peter let it be, careful not to try and fill the void of voices with his own — his curiosity strong enough to prevail through the awkwardness.

"I called it the Wormhole Protocol. For obvious reasons. Gives me the peace of mind that I can let myself...well, you know. Deal with the bad day. However I need to." Tony cleared his throat, a few times at that. It was a beat before he looked over at Peter again. "But...eventually, yeah, kid. It gets a bit easier. Eventually, you don't even need those things in place anymore. Eventually it just...becomes your new normal."

Wires still in his hands, Peter nodded. And nodded again, and again, unable to formulate anything outside of that simple action.

“Does it still get under your skin?” Tony went on to ask, as if noticing as much. “The good ‘ol grim reaper coming to take you away?”

At first, Peter didn’t know how to answer.

As much as he wanted to deflect, he knew it was an absolute pointless, waste of his breath. His memories may have been whacky during the whole symbiote calamity, but he remembered his breakdown in front of Mr. Stark — his panic over the concept death, after being told he was dying.

The same fear he felt then was a foreign concept now. Peter remembered it, but he couldn’t reach the same level it had been then. Almost as if it were a wound that healed each time he went to treat it; caring for it with thoughts of acknowledgment, but never letting the pain keep him from moving on.

“I don’t think so,” Peter answered both in thought, and out in the open. His head shook side to side with silent realization. “Not like before. Not like…”

The heavy weight of his own understanding came with the passing time; a lengthy silence that went on for so long Tony eventually picked up Peter’s web-shooters from off to the side, grabbing the nearest screw driver and making mindless adjustments to its casing.

The slight twist and turns of the screws was the only noise between them. DUM-E made half a lap before Peter finally spoke again.

“I don’t know — it’s weird,” he stuttered and stammered, forcing his hand away from the wires if only out of fear he’d snap them in two. “I'm not...bothered by it as much...anymore. At least, I don't think so. Not like I was. I...I think…”

Tony twisted the tiny screw driver into the casing of the bolt, never looking up at Peter as he exhorted, “I’m listening.”

DUM-E was the only one to respond, with a slightly hushed ‘whir-whir’ coming from across the workshop.

Peter absentmindedly ran his hand along the tightropes wires, one finger at a time. He didn’t have any doubt that Tony was listening — if anything, it was the concept of him hearing all these things that had Peter breaking for pause. Knowing Mr. Stark of all people was listening to him be the very thing Peter never wanted to be seen as.

Like he was somebody who constantly needed saving, like he couldn’t protect himself. 

“Do you think I’m…” Peter shrugged until his shoulders met his earlobes. “I dunno, do you think I’m...weak?”

Tony stopped twisting the screw driver, his head all but skyrocketing up at Peter.

“We still talking about you?” he asked, going to wave the screw driver straight at Peter. “Why? Cause Barnes got a good one-up on you at arm wrestling?” 

Without even thinking it, Peter went to rub at his shoulder — the peas were far from frozen by now, and the ache had thankfully lessened as the day went on.

“Totally let him win.” Peter gave a ghost of a smile beneath his nerves, slowly but surely unstrapping the melted bag off his shoulder, where it plopped down next to the numerous tools on the workbench.

Tony gave him a look — nothing harsh, nothing hard. 

“Pete, I know you’ve had an exciting few months,” he slowly put the web-shooter back down onto the workbench, letting the screw driver rest alongside it. “But did you already forget this time last year, you lifted an entire building off your back?”

Peter bit his tongue. “Yeah, but—”

“First time you met Cap, he tried to drop an aroebridge on you,” Tony kept talking, using his free hand to wave right along with his words. “You’re good at math, you do the numbers on the weight. Skip the pounds and go straight to the tons.”

The muscles in Peter’s jaw began to throb as he grounded his teeth.

“I know, it’s just—”

“Not to mention my plane on Coney Island,” Tony didn’t let up, going so far as to wag a lax finger in Peter’s direction. “And the way you handled yourself against that Rasputin wannabe Bond psycho—”

“That’s the thing!” Peter interrupted, the bite in his tone undeniable. His hands reached up and clenched at thin air. “I didn’t. ”

Though he didn’t quite yell, there was a rise in his pitch that did enough to break the stillness between them.

Tony arched an eyebrow high, letting that say far more than any of his words could.

Unclenching the tight fold on his hands, Peter slapped them both against his face and scrubbed until his eyes saw dots of pink beneath his lids. If he happened let out a groan, it was muffled underneath his palms.

“I didn’t see him coming,” Peter practically whispered the words, pulling his hands through his hair until they dropped back down into his lap. “Maybe if I had seen him, maybe if...maybe I could’ve gotten outta there. If he hadn’t...if I hadn’t…”

Peter trailed off, with no sound to follow. 

He really wished Tony would’ve interrupted him that time.

Tony didn’t. And it took Peter far more than a minute to work up the courage to speak again.

“Maybe if I didn’t get myself...you know…. shish-kebabed,” Peter worked his jaw at the frustration that followed, “maybe I could’ve gotten outta there without anyone’s help.”

He’d been so close the first time — the last moments he remembered coherently. When he’d escape from that room, when he got out of his restraints and made a run for it. 

The next thing Peter knew, they had to carry him out of the place.

And ever since then, he couldn’t shake the feeling of inadequacy. Something only heightened by his inability at handling the symbiote — something he should’ve handled by not handling himself.

He knew that, now.

From across the workshop, DUM-E made an audible whine — Peter shot his head over in that direction, frowning at the sudden noise from the robot. 

Tony met that noise with his own; a clearing of his throat tangling with a loud hum.

“Not sure if I made this clear enough last time, kid,” he started to say, folding both arms back over his chest. “But you weren’t getting outta there alone. Not without Strange’s help.” The way Tony tilted his chin highlighted every bit of sincerity in his eyes. “None of us were.”

Peter nodded, silently acknowledging Tony’s consolation — his truth, speaking of the event with pure, raw honesty to his words. And Peter had no doubt to any of it, he comprehended the details told to him with full understanding. 

He knew, logically, that there was no way he’d have been able to get outta there without someone’s help. Magical help, more than anything.

Peter just wished it didn’t go down like that. Stripping him of his ability to fight, for his own life nonetheless. 

“Dunno what cobwebs you got tangling up in your head, Pete, but what happened down in that bunker doesn’t make you weak,” Tony had no problems trampling straight through his thoughts, like always. Peter barely gave him a side-eye in turn. “I know you said you don’t remember all the finer details, but if it makes you feel any better — you kicked serious ass towards the end.”

A loud scoff went perfect with the roll of Peter’s eyes.

“I like, threw Cap’s shield—”

“You saved yourself,” Tony sternly, and firmly, reminded him. The beat that followed wasn’t unintentional — Tony used it so time could hold the expression on his face; a sense of brutal honesty etched into every line on his skin. “Unfortunately, yours truly does have a catalog of all the finer details. I remember them well — a little too well, some nights.” Tony caught Peter’s gaze. Once there, he didn’t let go. “Dmitri was a hop, skip, and a jump away from pummeling your head in. You got yourself outta that mess.”

Something in Peter’s chest clamped tight, and he found himself looking away where the tint to his cheeks couldn’t be seen.

“You saved yourself, spiderling.” Tony craned his head forward, catching the sight anyhow. “And I’m damn proud of you for it.”

Even with his head bowed low, Peter knew Tony could see the smile that crept along his lips.

He made no further efforts to hide it.

“Besides,” Tony went on to say, unfolding one of his arms to gesture at nothing in particular. “While I know you don’t like me harping on your age—”

Peter quickly looked up. “As long as you stop threatening to put my birth certificate in every hallway of the compound.”

“Whoops.” Tony winked and grinned. “Too late.”

DUM-E passed by them both, his whirring and whining drowned out by Peter’s soft laughter. He tried to roll his eyes with indignance, but even if he had, it wouldn’t be anything remotely close to believable. 

Tony leaned forward a bit with his grin softening at the edges. 

“You’re young, Parker,” he said shrewdly — and quick to beat Peter to the punch before he could make any comebacks. “That’s a good thing. That means you got plenty of time to learn, far more than us headstrong geriatrics got going for us.”

Tony reached for the holographic screen near Peter, a drag his hand bringing the lines of coding closer to him. He scrolled his finger through it while he talked.

“And while the last few weeks have put a recess on things, Cap’s gunna get you where you need to be with training. Remember, it’s not just your abilities that make you strong.” Moving his index finger away from the hologram, Tony tapped at his temple while simultaneously looking over at Peter. “It’s what’s up here. Rogers will fill up that noggin of yours will all the tricks and trades your Captain America Training Tips notebook can handle. Just you wait.”

Peter’s chuckle quickly fell into a tightly contained grimace as the words dug deep through his head. A sour taste on his tongue suddenly returned, and he shut his jaw fast to swallow it away.

The last few weeks were still vividly fresh in his memory, sans the gallant battle he never got to witness. And though a lot of moments were murky and clouded by the symbiote’s leech-sucking-feeding that ultimately took his life, there were still parts he could remember. All of which stirred guilt that he tried, patiently, to shed himself from.

That day in the gym was one of them.

Tony continued to work with the holographic screens, and Peter briefly chewed on his bottom lip — hesitant to bring up the incident, and almost afraid to mention it. 

“You...you really want me back to training again?” Peter asked, timidly, unable to stop his hand from rubbing at the back of his head. His hair ruffled in six different directions that no product or hairspray could replicate. “After...you know. What happened?”

Tony briefly looked away from the screens, the forced smile that followed only looking twice as forced against the harsh blue lights of the holograms.

“Look at it as nothing more than a bump in the road,” he airily said, before gesturing Peter’s way. “Now wrap up that circuitry, FRIDAY’s gotta run a full analysis on the suit integrity before you can take it on any test runs.”

Clicks and beeps followed Tony’s words, along with the haptic feedback from each touch his fingers made to the holograms.

Peter watched, silently, as Tony worked through the lines of code to his suit. The slight crease to his brow spoke of his concentration, and for a second, Peter debated on dropping the subject entirely. It would’ve been easier, there was no doubt about that. Hide and tuck it away where it could never be dealt with; forgotten by choice, swept under the rug by them both.

In many ways, he was sure he would’ve — another time, another place, perhaps another universe. 

It was Mr. Stark’s words, the ones said back in Wakanda, that stirred what Peter had to say next. 

“I didn’t mean it,” he blurted out, almost too quickly. Peter took in an extra breath before resuming. “What I said. In the locker room.”

Tony’s movements slowed down before coming to a stop entirely; his hands dropping with gradual ease, and his hips twisting to turn his stool towards Peter.

With a shake of his head, Peter re-affirmed, “I didn’t mean it.”

A brief silence fell, and Peter couldn’t tell if Tony had something he wanted to say and wasn’t saying it, or if he was leaving the floor open for Peter. 

Either way, just a few seconds of dead air was more than enough to get Peter’s nerves in a bunch.

“I mean, obviously you’re – you’re not my...you’re not my dad. I mean...I know that, but…” Peter stammered off, desperate to fill the awkward silence with anything that wasn’t — well, silence. His head dropped low and he grabbed the wires, clenching them into a fist. “When I said that, I was just...I mean, I meant it, but I didn’t mean it, and it was more like...I didn’t want...I felt like...after everything — I thought May told you about the fight with Flash, and she didn’t but you knew and it just felt like you guys were hovering over me and I didn’t want to seem helpless but I guess I sorta was, in... that moment and then, you know, with the symbiote and all, and I —”

“Kid,” Tony’s loud, albeit it goodhearted chuckle, tore right through his rambling. “You’re awful at this.”

Peter sighed, dropping the hold on the wires once more. 

“I know.”

With the same hand that held the wires, Peter reached for the crown of his head, ruffling at his hair with an anxious and obnoxious bout of nerves. It was a good second before he eventually looked back up at Tony. 

He wasn’t sure what his expression said exactly, but Peter figured it was something close to ‘take pity on me.’

“No, please,” Tony gestured ahead, doing nothing of the like. “Continue.”

Peter expected nothing else from the man, especially not when seeing the smile Tony gave, so wide it nearly met each corner of the workshop. 

It reminded Peter, again, of what he’d said back in Wakanda. Though it was only those three simple words, Peter swore — and he’d swear until the day he actually died for good — that there was so much more to them.

“You really did go way out of your way for me, Mr. Stark,” Peter repeated himself from that moment in time; suddenly fresh in his memory, as if it occurred just yesterday. He looked down to his hands for a moment, nervously tapping his fingers to the inside of his palm. “The only other people in my life who have...you know, cared about me like that…”

Peter swallowed, hard, forcing his hands to be still. Only to end up tapping his foot in turn.

“I mean, there was my dad. And Ben, he was like….he was my dad.” Peter felt the tug on his lips long before the smile actually took place. He lifted his head, the slight shrug bringing his shoulders back up to his earlobes. “You’re like that. To me.”

Tony arched an eyebrow, and Peter smiled a little wider than before.

“You’re like my dad.”

They stayed like that for a moment; not long enough to be substantial, just long enough that Peter would remember the look that fell over Tony’s face. 

A ‘blink and you miss it’ moment later and he turned away, one hand sweeping the holograms to the side as the other waved in a gimme motion to Peter.

“Lemme see that circuitry,” Tony told him, going so far as to snap his fingers when he didn’t get an immediate result.

“I’m finishing it!” Peter’s voice squeaked towards the end, which only made Tony snap his fingers louder. The few chuckles Peter managed were accompanied with an incredibly dramatic eye-roll. “Jeeze, impatient, much?”

Peter unhooked each wire from the computers mainframe, one at a time, until the tightrope line that separated the two of them was loosened and lax. 

“Yes. Indubitably so,” Tony didn’t miss a beat, reaching for the end of the wires and taking them straight out of Peter’s hand. “But I also wanna install a protocol into the mainframe before we wrap it up.”

With that, Tony pushed his stool across the room, taking the wires with him. They swung over the cradle that they were connected to, and followed him to the other side of the workshop; where he was plugging in each end of each wire before his stool had even come to a halt. 

Slowly, Peter wheeled himself over as well — passing right by DUM-E along the way.

“I thought you had all the protocols backed up and restored?” he asked, confused.

“I did." Tony didn’t even look his way as he answered, "This is the backdoor protocol I installed that frequency mesh on. The one that helped keep your suit on your little spider-butt until…well, until it didn’t. ”

Peter had finished wheeling himself over to Tony’s side of the workshop by the time Tony finished his explanation. He watched as Tony accessed the internal hard drives of his suit; each monitor on the computers displaying the ins-and-outs of all the functions deep within the coding.

“Now that it’s re-worked and completed," Tony made a few taps against his keyboard before ultimately giving a hard swipe at the screens, leaving just one behind. “It’s time to see how it runs at full glory.”

It never ceased to impress Peter how advanced his suits were. And there was already an abundance of upgrades to his new design — his Mark 4, as Tony called it — that he was thrilled to test out.

The change felt good. 

Everything felt…

Suddenly looking over at Tony, Peter watched with a smile as the man worked intently on typing, all while simultaneously pulling at the holograms from the monitors. It was every bit Mr. Stark he knew him to be, but now — finally — something more.

Everything felt good. 

Peter’s grin grew larger as he looked between the monitors and Tony, back from Tony over to the monitors. 

“Really?” he asked, excitement lacing his every word. “What’s it do?”

With one single hologram sitting between them, Tony pinched the screen wide before narrowing it back down in size, spinning it around twice and then forcing it to a stop. Leaving it just large enough for its entire width to reflect off both their faces.

“Think of it as a...supercharged firewall. Keeping all and any foreign substances away from invading the AI,” he explained, pushing the hologram towards Peter for him to see. “All foreign substances. Sentient, included.”

Slowly, Peter reached for the hologram — dragging it towards him before moving it away completely. 

“...what’s it called?” Peter slowly, and cautiously, asked.

Tony’s smug smile was more than enough to keep him from needing to answer.

“Stranger Danger,” he answered nonetheless. 

Peter shook his head at first — he shook his head a lot, but failed to keep his own grin from growing; spreading in a way that made his cheeks ache and eyes squint shut.

The laughs that came next were unavoidable; Peter didn’t mind, it felt right — normal. For as much as Mr. Stark had changed, he was still very much the same Mr. Stark. Different in the way Peter saw him, sure, but not much different than who he was yesterday, or the day before that.

It was what made him who he was; all the things that gravitated Peter towards him.

No different than the new colors of his suit, change had taken them for a ride that still boggled Peter’s mind. But after all the struggles, all the frustrations and setbacks — he felt ready to accept the change of Tony taking on that role Ben had held for so long. 

It felt as normal as everything else.

Suddenly stopping mid-tap on the hologram, Tony craned his head over to face him.

“That okay with you?” he asked, abruptly; his finger hovering over the screen as he hesitated on his next move. “Don’t wanna overstep my boundaries, be a mother hen—”

“No, no, that’s...that’s cool,” Peter insisted, earnestly, his head bobbing to the beat of his own chuckles. “I like that. I like it a lot, that’s a good idea.” 

Tony met Peter’s smile with his own.

“Good,” Tony quickly asserted, immediately returning to the holograms ahead. “Cause I wasn’t going to remove it anyway.”

Peter laughed to himself. 

Yep. 

That was Mr. Stark, alright.

Wheeling his stool away, Peter came to a stop only once reaching the cradle that contained his suit. It was just in time — the lid spread open and a puff of steam came wafting out; the harsh smell of different fabrics combined with singed wires immediately flooding his nostrils. 

Peter could’ve inhaled straight-up fumes and he wouldn’t have cared. Not with the sight below him.

“So cool,” he whispered, reaching into the cradle and gently, carefully, bringing his suit out. 

The fabric was still warm and the eye pieces were still giving off a bit of smoke from its melding, but all and all, it was complete. A brand new suit, polished and seamless. 

An upgrade, and one far long overdue. 

Though it still held an incredibly similar design to his other suit, there was a difference in this one Peter couldn’t deny. Something that felt right, something that felt earned. He reached for the emblem in the middle, his entire hand running over the length of the black spider. It was also still warm, and sent goosebumps up his arms when he touched it.

Peter’s fingers spread across it before slowly, he clenched the fabric into his fist. 

And he smiled. 

Eventually standing from the stool, Peter lifted the suit with him, draping it over both his forearms as he started walking towards the other-side of the workshop. His grin was ear-to-ear, so wide his back molars glistened underneath the overhead lights.

“You added something,” Tony suddenly said, and Peter’s grin dropped just as quickly. “There was far more space to the storage units last I checked.”

Gently setting his suit across one of the cluttered workbenches, Peter kept his head low where Tony couldn’t see. 

“Or...maybe that’s just bloatware?” Peter figured if he kept his attention on smoothing out the non-existent wrinkles to his suit, Tony wouldn’t be able to nag him for guilty. 

“Parker …” Tony drawled out, proving Peter’s theory wrong.

“I didn’t add anything,” Peter tried to argue, but once again, the pause that followed didn’t do much for his defense. “I enhanced —”

Tony shot up from his stool.

“What’d I tell you about loopholes?” he bit back, their similar heights having no effect on his stance of intimidation. 

Tony pushed his stool away with his foot, wheeling it somewhere across the workshop where it banged into DUM-E. He barely stood over Peter — but with that look, he didn’t need to. It did everything his lack of height didn’t.

Peter briefly debated conceding. 

“There’s still enough space left to add in another protocol,” he deflected instead, his arm gesturing wide to the computer monitors.

The same ones Tony hastily re-approached, pulling at holograms and swiping maddeningly to get where he needed to be.

Peter scrambled for a better defense.

“You can even add in that mute function, you might even be able to add in two — like, one as a backup in case the other goes down—”

“No!” Tony quickly shouted, his hands coming to a complete stop against the holograms. “No, no—!”

“What!?” Peter squeaked out.

Tony immediately flipped the hologram around towards him, pinching it wide until it was zoomed in far enough that the lines of data were visible from space.

“You are not putting concussive blasts in your web grenades,” Tony told him, harshly, sweeping the hologram away not a second later.

Peter threw his hands in the air.

“C’mon, Mr. Stark!” he whined, reaching for the hologram and sweeping it back towards them both. “There was like, just enough left of the ultra sonic pulse that I can—”

Tony shot his head over at him, staring intently with a look.

Peter gave that look right back to him.

Silence filled the gap where there would’ve otherwise been banter. Though it wasn’t really silence, not with DUM-E passing them both as the seconds ticked on. He ambled by in slow, whir-filled movements, cleaning up empty boxes of pizza along the way.

It wasn’t until the robot reached to the other side of the workshop, again, that Peter finally spoke up.

“Okay, hear me out — it’s useful in multiple assailant attacks, which is something Steve has wanted me to get better at for months now. It can blow off the hinges of doors if I need to get in somewhere — or if I need to get out of somewhere. That’s tactical, Clint’s always saying that stuff is tactical! Not to mention it’s ideal for distraction — Natasha’s always hounding me for never thinking ahead with distraction plans, and it has low-risk for damage, which is something you always say I need to be worried about. Get the job done with as little damage as possible, right?” Peter took a deep breath in, his disputation using every ounce of air his lungs could contain. With a hard gesture forward, he insisted, “It’s exactly what a friendly neighborhood Spider-Man needs.”

Peter liked to think the ‘Whir-Whir’ that came from DUM-E was a sound of agreement on the robot’s behalf. He also liked to think MJ would be proud of him for that counter argument — maybe he had some hope at impressing her yet.

The way Tony took a long pause to actually consider the idea was only an added boost of confidence. 

Peter didn’t even try to hide his smirk.

“Fifty decibels,” Tony eventually said, swiping the tip of his index finger at the hologram in a down motion.

Peter made a repulsed face.

“One-hundred,” he bargained, doing the same thing as Tony, only with an up motion.

Tony made an equally repulsed face, mixed in with some hearty indigandance at Peter’s sass.

“Seventy-five,” Tony swiped hard at the hologram, “and that’s my final compromise.”

“Seventy-five!?” Peter reached for the hologram, only for Tony to sweep it out of reach. “But Shuri said —!”

“I knew it!" Tony’s shout was enough to startle DUM-E from across the workshop. "I knew you two would cause trouble!”

The robot dropped the trash-can, making sad noises as it immediately reached down to clean up the mess. Meanwhile, Tony immediately held an open palm out towards Peter.

“Give me your phone, we’re deleting her number.”

Tony was snapping his fingers before Peter could even laugh, let alone fumble with a response. 

When he failed at fumbling for that response, Tony proceeded to stare him down — his one eyebrow cocked so high it nearly reached the ceiling.

“What, no, then?” Tony looked up, slightly, his eyes finding the ceiling and staying there. “FRIDAY, darling, access Peter Parker’s contacts for me —”

“Mr. Stark!” Peter shook his head as he reached into his back pocket, grabbing his cell phone and handing it over with more laughter than he managed words. “You’re being ridiculous, come on! She’s smart, she knows what—”

“Oh, shit.” No sooner than Tony held Peter’s phone in his hand did he toss it back Peter’s way. “Time flies — we gotta go, we’re gunna be late.”

Peter barely caught his cell in time before it had the chance to hit the ground, the lock-screen lit to life and displaying the clock in full definition. He only glanced at the time before stuffing it back into his jean pocket. 

“Go?” Peter managed to quickly snatch the last slice of pizza from the nearest pizza box before DUM-E tossed it into the trash can. The fact that it was half-eaten and cold did nothing to deter him from stuffing it into his mouth. “Late for what?”

Tony was already searching across the work-benches as he distantly answered, “Picture day.”

Peter was mid-bite on his pizza, with a few pieces of pineapple falling down his chin, when he responded with a totally intelligible, “Pi’tur ‘ay?”

Clings and clatters echoed through the workshop as Tony pushed tools and equipment away, clearly looking for something and turning up empty handed each time.

“You wanted to make this internship thing official, right?” he asked, lifting a tool box and dropping it with little care. It wasn’t until he reached the side of the bench where Peter’s suit was that he proclaimed, “Ah-ha!”

Tony grabbed the red-and-black suit with one hand, tossing it over the shoulder of his suspended Iron Man armor as he reached for the brown blazer that was beneath it.

“Here it is,” he said, throwing it Peter’s way. “This will due. Chop chop — Pepper’s using this photographer as a dry run to see if they’re any good for the wedding.” Tony was already half way out of the workshop before Peter had even caught the blazer. “We keep her waiting and not even Szechuan Bean Curd will quell her wrath.”

“-ude!” Peter garbled through the slice of pizza dangling precariously from his mouth, multi-tasking as he struggled to get his arms into the blazer while still chewing on his food. “O’k, o’k, h’old up, gimme a mi’nute!”

Bits of pineapple dropped down to his chest and Peter hastily brushed them to the floor, shrugging his shoulders to adjust the blazer on his back before buttoning it in the middle. 

With one final bite, he tore off the crust of the pizza and tossed it aside — right as DUM-E strolled by, making quiet whirs and beeps while he cleaned up the mess.

“Good DUM-E!” Peter patted the robot on the head — er, arm? — before he checked his breath against the palm of his hand. He was mid-puff when he realized it didn’t matter. It was too late to reverse the damage — a harsh grimace pinched his face and Peter shook off the smell before making his way out of the workshop. “Be back later, DUM-E!”

The double glass doors had just parted for him when he quickly turned back, running so fast he slid to a stop in front of the computers and the holograms that were projected.

Peter swiped up on the screen, looked over his shoulder, and then swiped up one more time.

“Underoo’s!” Tony shouted, noticeably already down the hall. “Let’s go!”

“Coming, coming!” Peter quickly saved his adjustments and ran for the door, knocking into the suspended Iron Man armor in his haste to leave.

The upper half of the armor swayed slightly at the sudden movement, but not enough that Peter felt the need to still it on his way out. He nearly tripped over his feet as he scampered through the glass doors, already far down the hallways before they had even closed shut.

DUM-E continued to clean the mess left behind, throwing away the discarded pizza crust into the nearest trash bin before strolling by the suspended Iron Man armor; its upper portion hanging from the ceiling, and the red-and-black spider-suit draped over its shoulder. 

The robot eventually wheeled on past it, and the swaying eventually stopped.