#webpril

Landing as gracefully as he could in the tight space, he joined Steve in the fray. Tony was having some serious déjà-vu as he used Steve’s shield to ricochet a repulsor beam into two of the creatures. They crumpled to a heap on the ground, a sizzling hole occupying the space where their shoulder joints used to be.

When they got to the final one in the alley, Tony was able to get a really good look at it now that he wasn’t being assaulted from all sides. Its eyes gleamed a bright yellow, reptilian slits staring through him coldly. The maw on the creature was longer than its Chitauri (maybe) relative, and its teeth began to gnash with feral vigour as it approached the two men. One perfectly aimed miniature missile to the jugular had it go completely limp as the life left its eyes.

“Thanks,” Steve breathed. He was beginning to tire, especially after the two hour mark of keeping the fight going. The creatures seemed to keep coming with no sign of slowing down and while Steve didn’t want to admit that he was beginning to feel the exhaustion, Tony could tell. They’d known each other for long enough to recognise the signs.

“Anything for you, sweetcheeks,” Tony shot back, voice dripping with satire. Taking off once more, he heard Steve over the comms.

“You just had to make it weird, didn’t you.” Steve didn’t frame it as a question.

About two streets over, Tony could hear the Hulk’s angered roars and the sound of more of Tony’s money needing to be thrown at post-Avengers infrastructure repairs.

Natasha was doing some motorcycle-based groundwork, S.H.I.E.L.D having finally give the agent a vehicle with built-in weaponry. Watching Natasha at work was like watching the sea part as the waves of the alien threat were mowed down ruthlessly in her path.

At present, Clint was sitting on the back of the bike facing backwards towards the swam that was in pursuit. Each arrow fired found its mark. Tony groaned internally as Clint used an explosive arrow right down the centre of the street, and he watched as slabs of concrete went flying.

As they moved rapidly south, they entered the Financial District in the lowest portion of Manhattan. On Tony’s right, there was The Battery park, which eventually ended to become the Upper Bay. The large body of water gave Tony a distinct form of Peter-induced Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. All he could see was the bisected Ferry, and Peter crash landing a plane which gave Tony more grey hairs than he’d bargained for by his age. All good things came in threes, Tony noted wryly, and the current situation seemed like a perfect time and place to complete the Trilogy of Unfortunate Events.

The team could really use Thor. The Asgardian was off-world and the dense swarm of snarling reptilians would be disposed of much more easily with a solid bout of guided thunder from the god.

As Tony watched the erratic throng of blood-red skin surge through the streets, he passively noted that they were heading straight for him. The way that they were perfectly lined up prompted Tony to pursue what would be a very expensive course of action.

“F.R.I.D.A.Y, reroute power to the main RT.”

“As you wish, Boss.”

He felt the repulsors in charge of flight weaken slightly as any excess or temporarily unnecessary power was routed into the centre chest piece’s reactor. The unibeam that stemmed from it was powerful but would be taxing on the suit. But, there wouldn’t be another opportunity again to hit hundreds all at once as they funnelled and bottlenecked their way in.

“The power is done rerouting to the primary Repulsor Transmitter.”

Tony lined up the beam as best as he could down the road, but just before the blast left his chest plate, a blur of red swung immediately in front of him. Tony didn’t have time to panic or wonder what the hell that was before the unibeam sailed straight through the centre of the swarm and wiped out what F.R.I.D.A.Y told him was about seventy-five per cent of his target. He faintly recalled seeing his own Iron Man suit reflected in Peter’s monitor in that fraction of a second.

Turning to his left, he saw Peter staring at the slightly smoking path of alien bodies left in the street in the wake of the blast.

“Hey kid, you wanna explain what the hell that was? I could have killed you!” Tony’s helmet dematerialised, revealing an expression laced with a combination of concern and fury.

Peter immediately jumped on the defensive, hearing the aggravated undertone in Tony’s words. “I’m sorry! I promise-”

“I don’t want your promises, Pete, I just don’t want you playing Tarzan right in front of a deadly weapon,” Tony sighed, rubbing a metal-clad hand down his face. “If you die, that’s on me.”

“Sorry, Mr Stark.” Although Tony couldn’t read Peter’s expression through his mask, Peter’s eyes were downcast. As much as Tony wanted to be irritated at the kid sometimes, he couldn’t bring himself to at that moment. At least disaster number three hadn't come to pass...yet.

Walking over to where Peter stood, Tony clapped a hand on Peter’s shoulder and squeezed. “You’re doing great, kid.”

Following the events of Siberia, the Avengers had adopted a new policy: silence. None of them called one another, and none of them wrote. There was complete and utter radio silence despite many of them residing in the same building. They had all felt like estranged family members, and none of them had wanted to brave the discomfort or attempt to navigate the unsteady waters of the new social contract. No one had really written up a set of rules or legislation on it.

While they all stayed in their separate rooms on their separate floors of the new Avengers facility, the tension was palpable. The ‘not talking’ prevailed, instead shifting to tight-lipped smiles in the corridors or the acknowledgment of the sadness in each other’s eyes as the end of another day came with no sign of change in sight. The worst of the ‘not talking’ was between Tony and Steve. The two men who had formed the collective lynchpin, the push-pull dynamic, the yin and the yang, had all but vanished as far as the others were concerned. They left behind a state of emptiness and emotional disarray. Their room were so far apart that they could easily go for years without seeing one another if they wished, and there was no doubt in anyone’s mind that they would be stubborn enough to allow that to happen. Although each day the halls filled with light, there was a heavy darkness that was spread like a thick blanket over the compound.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Avengers had adopted many things over the years, including a teenage boy from Queens. Peter had gone from inconvenient stowaway to everyone’s adopted son...well, Tony had taken it upon himself to become the kid’s adoptive father, so in a way, Peter was the rest of the Avengers’ adopted nephew.

Less than a week after Peter settled into his room within the compound, the life rendered in greyscale within the facility underwent another transformation. With his heart made of gold and preciously naïve view of the world, warm light filled the halls once more.

A cat appeared on the front doorsteps of the Avengers facility. Where the first cat had been a grey striped tabby, the new feline had a coat that was a shade of pure white that was so unnaturally clean and almost shimmered in the light, they had assumed it belonged to one of the staff in the building. Within the day, its new residence was inside Peter’s room, in the centre of his bed, paws tucked under its body with a regal air. In what imitated a roster-like level of professionalism, Bruce, Clint, and Natasha took turns visiting the cat, who Peter had so creatively named Snowy.

Just after one-thirty in the morning, as Peter finished pouring himself a mug of hot chocolate in the common area kitchen, he watched Tony stumble in bleary-eyed, dress shirt untucked but already donning rabbit slipper socks in a men’s size. As Tony poured himself an ounce of scotch in a tumbler that reflected the moonlight, the silhouette of Thor emerged from a dark hallway. The Asgardian grasped an empty glass and poured out a fraction of whatever mystery concoction he carried with him in his flask, the smell burning off Peter’s hair from where he stood a few feet away. Next came Steve in a plain t-shirt and soft fleece pants.

Soon after came Bruce, followed by Natasha. The last to arrive was Clint, whose pyjamas looked almost identical to his battle gear: a soft black singlet coupled with long black cotton pants. Peter was sure he’d never seen Clint wearing anything other than monochrome black.

They all sat in silence, having drifted to the formation they used to take years prior. Each Avenger sat with glass in hand, sipping quietly but contentedly. As Peter joined with his mug of hot cocoa, steam lifting lazily into the air, the seating arrangement transformed from what used to be an almost-circle. As he took his seat, the circle became whole.

Not three weeks since Peter began living in the compound, the ‘not talking’ became muttered ‘hellos’, with the occasional ‘how’ve things been?’ thrown in for good measure. Clint and Thor were seen reminiscing on the balcony overlooking the large expanse of green that surrounded the facility. There were no forced smiles, no overtly cautious walking on eggshells. When Bruce passed by and decided to join in the conversation, each face lit up in a smile.

The real miracle that had Peter - and the rest of the team - lurking in the shadows as if they were studying a species that had allegedly been extinct was seeing Tony and Steve sitting in the lounge, both of them with a drink in hand. The ‘not talking’ had turned to ‘talking’, and whilst it was a far cry from before Siberia, it was a step forward.

The sound of a soft jet engine slowly crescendoed as the electricity travelled through a thick tubed wire that ran into the hip joint of the contraption. Just over thirty seconds after the trial began, it ended in a shower of sparks and Tony leaping for the button that said ‘OFF’ in large capital letters. Peter sighed, glad that he took his own advice and hadn’t gotten his hopes up.

Resisting the urge to swear in a way that would make Tony proud or kick the nearby stool across the room like a child, he leaned over the workshop table, and puffed air out through his cheeks before burying his head in his hands.

“How do you even do stuff like this, Mr Stark?”

Tony clapped a hand on Peter’s shoulder. “I kinda grew up with the whole ‘tech genius’ thing. I had my dad pummelling mathematics and robotics into me before I even knew how to walk. I’m pretty sure I knew advanced calculus before I knew how to wipe.” Tony chuckled humourlessly. “Other than that, he was cold and shrewd. Then came MIT - much like you - and then lots of trial and error.”

Peter looked over at the table where his droid of sorts lay lifeless and cold. Not like it wouldn’t be lifeless and cold once it was able to hold power for more than half a minute, but there was something about watching a creative endeavour come to life and become an entity of its own that made it seem so...alive. Peter was beginning to understand how Tony must have felt when he first designed the Iron Man suits.

After his first year at M.I.T had drawn to a close, Peter had travelled back down to New York during the summer break. He had a pet project he’d wanted to pursue for years but only recently manifested the courage and redeemable points with Tony to ask for his mentor’s help.

Years of watching footage and seeing the Iron Legion in action inspired Peter to want to have one of his own flying amongst them. While the second iteration of the Iron Legion were destroyed after Ultron, Tony had begun reconstructing the battalion of sorts in Peter’s last year of highs school. So, it was with a surprising amount of enthusiasm - Peter expected approval under sufferance - that Tony happily agreed to help Peter make his mark amongst the androids.

Peter also made the decision - he hadn’t decided whether or not that was a mistake - to refuse any solutions from Tony. Peter spent some time studying the Legion and the complexity of them daunted him. Which is why, with stubbornness Peter was sure he picked up from Tony, he wanted to figure it out on his and be able to say: “This was all me.” Well...it wouldn’t be all him...maybe ninety percent him.

When Peter didn’t respond, Tony probed, “Sure you don’t want me to make a few tweaks?”

“No!” Peter responded with a volume he didn’t intend. “Sorry, no...I’m just,” Peter groaned, a frustrated sound that Tony knew all too well, although he had learned to confine the screaming to a small locked box deep inside his brain. Peter didn’t quite finish his sentence, lost for words while his mind raced to come up with an alternative solution to the power problem his droid was facing.

The eyes that stared back at Peter were dark, and it felt strange to him to look at something that looked just like him in those moments when he stopped being Peter Parker and became Spiderman.

“I get it,” Tony said, an almost wistful smile playing at the corners of his lips. There was no question that Tony loved tinkering in the labs and creating and just being Tony. But, and Tony hated thinking about the ‘but’, it was coming time for him to think about retirement. He couldn’t be Iron Man forever, nor could he be the head of Stark Industries forever.

Tony had thought long and hard about the future of Stark Industries. Pepper had said she wanted to retire when he did, and no matter how much they’d bickered and argued over it, Tony ceded. And, after some thought, Tony understood why; Tony was the paintbrush and canvas and Pepper was the splashes of bright and beautiful colour. They needed each other to make art, even if that was retiring in a lakeside cabin.

Then he’d thought about Morgan, but she was far too young, even by the time they took a backseat from it all.

“Oh my god, wait a sec!” Tony jumped slightly, caught off guard when Peter all but leaped off the ground, passion oozing out of him in waves.

Sprinting over to the droid once more, Peter worked quickly, loosening the fasteners and rerouting various wires that sat at its core. Tony watched as Peter sprinted towards a stack of crates at the back of the room that housed the latest batch of miniature arc reactors.

“Can I?” Peter gestured towards the box at the front. Tony nodded and Peter grinned.

Already three out of the fifteen reactors had been taken out, Tony having used them to power some of Peter’s latest upgrades to his suit.

Darting back to his work, Peter crafted and developed a home for the small reactor right where the droid’s heart would be, had it been capable of having one.

Tony had long since taken a seat on the lounges behind the work stations, sipping out of a mug that read ‘#1 Dad’ in large print and reading through the latest industry headlines on his tablet.

“Ready for attempt ten, Mr Stark?” Peter was basically vibrating where he stood. He had a good feeling about this one.

“Fire away, kid.”

Tony watched as Peter pressed the power button once more, and saw the faint glow that lit up Peter’s smile. The kid had done it.

As the android progressively lit up from top to bottom, a soft hum filling the room, Tony kicked himself mentally for not thinking of it before. He almost saw Peter for the first time; not just as a brilliant kid who was going to go places, not just as one of the greatest heroes of his age.