Archive of Our Own ^beta

Tony was in a shareholder meeting when his phone went off with an alert he had hoped to never receive. He was out of the door in under ninety seconds which, as it turned out, was still too slow to make a difference, but a multi-billion dollar company didn’t exactly run itself. There were decisions to make, and his vote on them was occasionally important.

Peter, of course, was important too, but how much trouble could he get into in the middle of school? One of the conditions of the new suit was that he kept his vigilante side-gig to evenings and weekends, and there wasn’t a chance that Peter was going to run the risk of annoying his aunt. Or, Tony hoped, of annoying his mentor.

It had probably been too much to hope that Peter would never actually get into trouble, but that was what the alarm was for.

He pulled his glasses out of his pocket and slid them on, knowing that FRIDAY would already have connected to them.

“FRIDAY, speak to me.”

He swore to god, if Peter was actually in danger then-

“Shuri is having an argument with one of Peter’s friends. The situation seems likely to escalate.”

He took a deep breath, and let it go, tension vanishing from his shoulders. Yeah, he’d put Shuri onto that alert as well. Okay, it wasn’t his kid. It was the other kid.

Wait, his kid?

His intern. That’s what he’d meant, right?

Tony shunted that to one side. There was an emergency. That was what he needed to focus on.

“What are they arguing about? Should I get the car? Do I need to break it up?”

FRIDAY paused. There was definitely a pause there. Which was concerning. Were her processors slowing down? Tony made a note to do a diagnostic later. FRIDAY was supposed to be faster than fast, and a pause was-

“I think it’s easier if I just patch the livestream to your suit.”

“My suit? You deployed my suit? Without me instructing you to?”

“It’s an emergency, Boss. I recommend you find a window.”

Tony took a deep breath. Something was definitely wrong with FRIDAY. Ever since Peter started working in the lab she’d been a bit weird, and apparently she was making friends with one of Peter’s friends as well - Ned? Ted? Something like that. He really did need to do that diagnostic.

But he had programmed her to be useful.

If she thought he needed a suit then it was bad .

Really bad.

“Fine. Give me directions to the nearest window.”

His glasses flickered, and a waypoint appeared in front of him. Breaking into a jog, he ran at the window, ignoring the attention he was drawing.

“Tony,” came a voice from one of the offices, “could I grab you for a minute or is now a bad-”

Nope.

Not doing that.

He launched himself out of the window, and let the suit wrap around him, the repulsors already kicking in to send him flying across New York.

Whoever it was bothering him could email and make an appointment like everyone else did, because-

“I am a Princess of Wakanda. And I will not be spoken to like this.”

Tony bit down on his tongue. The language he wanted to use would not be constructive in the slightest. Yeah, if Shuri had just blown her cover then he needed to clean this up. Stat. 

“FRIDAY, get me the Dora Milaje.”

“Why not? You could be the President and I would still shout in your face when you’re being an idiot .”

“They aren’t responding, Boss. Would you like me to-”

“Get me T’Challa, then.”

“You should show me respect. You should know your place.”

“Already tried. No response there either boss.”

“And you think my place is on my knees? Fuck you.”

“That’s not an option, FRIDAY. Keep on trying. Get me a line to the school as well. I’m coming in hot, and I need their support.”

“Your place is by my side. In Wakanda. With Peter. Serving your-”

“Patching you through now, boss.”

“Because that’s so much better. You just thought that you could come over here and take the people you wanted to take back home with you. So that they can work for you. How kind of you. How magnificent. You truly are the best example of-”

“This is Tony Stark. Do you not employ lunchtime supervisors or- No, this isn’t a prank call. No, don’t hang- Fuck.” Tony gritted his teeth, before refocusing on the problem at hand, “FRIDAY, get me the personal number of someone in charge. Do we have Roger’s number on file?”

“Wakanda is the better place for him. He’ll realise that soon enough .”

Tony winced again. Shuri was not giving herself or Wakanda a good showing. This was going to cost Wakanda a lot of goodwill. Hadn’t she received some training in public relations? Surely everyone received training in public relations? That was just part of growing up, right?

Well, clearly not.

It was at times like this that he wished he was the bad guy. That he could just… make a phone call and shut it down. FRIDAY could probably hack into the Twitter servers, sure, and she could probably shut down all the live streams they could find. If they were lucky, it might even be all of them.

It was a risk. It wasn’t like they war-gamed hacking into the largest media platforms on the web on a regular basis. Tony, despite what the world seemed to think, wasn’t actually a super villain. He didn’t have secret plans about how to take over the country. He had no interest in running a country. And hacking into Twitter seemed like the kind of thing you did when the megalomania got a bit too real.

Even if he could achieve it, then the odds of doing it secretly seemed even more remote. You couldn’t just turn off a viral stream and not have people notice. FRIDAY had helpfully told him that there were nearly six thousand people watching teenagers have a catfight. How many of those would take to the blogosphere if every single stream went down simultaneously?

How to fan flames of every conspiracy theory out there about Ultron, Vision, and the top secret AIs that Stark Industries were using to rule the world in one easy step.

Illegally shutting off a load of live streams just because he could? Yeah. That would go down a riot with everyone from the President to the guy with the tinfoil hat and automatic rifle who camped outside their satellite office over in Arizona.

If people knew he had an AI who could crack into a major platform like Twitter, then people might start to look more closely at what was going on at Stark Industries.

They might start digging more closely into what they were working on. Who they were working with.

That was not a situation that he could risk. Not even for Peter.

Not when convincing people to look in other directions was part of what kept Peter safe. Part of what kept Spider-man safe.

“Don’t touch me. I’m going to have to scrub myself twice to get you off me as it is.”

No, Tony Stark couldn’t break laws. Not that obviously.

He’d taken enough of a grilling over the bullshit he’d pulled in front of Congress back when he thought he was dying. Hijacking their TV feeds to play classified videos for national TV? It had taken a few favours and a bit of political magic to make sure that one hadn’t backfired. And now he was playing with not only his freedom, but with Peter’s life.

Anyone that looked too closely at what Peter was doing would probably find out all of his secrets.

It was bad enough that his friends knew about his secrets.

Tony didn’t want to know what would happen if the whole world knew.

Worse, as someone that had illegally recruited a child to join an active combat situation across a couple of international borders, Tony wasn’t going to be able to be part of the team that kept Peter’s head above the water if everything went the worst way it could.

And it was just about guaranteed that things would unfold the worst way it could. That was the Stark luck which, despite having no biological connection to him, Peter had somehow inherited.

God knows that-

“Oh, so now it’s a problem is it? Not what you said yesterday. What you going to do about it, huh?”

Had Shuri never taken any lessons in de-escalation? This was how Wakanda wanted to present itself to the world?

“Are you sure you can’t get the Dora Milaje or T’Challa on the line?” Tony asked again, Midtown coming into view ahead of him, “We need someone here to handle her.”

“Still no answer, Boss. But Roger says he’s already on the way to the lunch hall.”

Thank God there was one competent member of staff at Midtown. Tony was going to see how much money he’d have to pay to get a dozen extra lunchtime supervisors at Peter’s school. This was ridiculous. How had no one stopped it? Literally every child at the school was-

Tony watched in horror as one of Peter’s friends slapped one of the most senior members of the Wakandan government across the face hard enough to leave a mark.

There were countries where she would be stoned for that.

Fuck.

“You just hit me. You hit a Princess of Wakanda.”

Shuri sounded as shocked as Tony felt.

This was going to need the big guns.

“Run a search on that friend of Peter’s. Get me her parents. What do they-”

“Social media feeds suggest that both parents are currently out of town, Boss. Would you still like me to reach out to them?”

Tony swore again.

“She was being a bitch. Maybe she should try being less of a bitch and see whether she gets hit less.”

That was going to be a bestselling t-shirt by the end of the week. Tony just knew it.

He pulled his feet under him, and landed just outside the door, barely noticing as kids scattered around him, their mouths dropping open. Not even caring as cameras turned toward him. He needed to get in there. He needed to-

A gunshot rang out.

His heart stopped.

Did someone just-

“Don’t suppose you fancy helping out, Mr Stark?”

That was Peter’s voice.

Tony stepped out of his armour, his best fake smile on his face.

“Bit late for that one, Peter. I’m already here.”

Peter grimaced, “You couldn’t have been here five minutes ago?”

“Sorry kiddo. Had to get out of a shareholder meeting. You know what it’s like. Came as fast as I could.” Tony nodded at Roger, who had just burst into the canteen, having clearly sprinted across the building as soon as someone drew his attention to what was going on. “I guess this is where it gets complicated, huh?”

Roger was fuming.

Good.

Tony was fuming too, but he knew better than to let the world see Tony Stark get angry at a load of teenagers, no matter how stupid their actions had been.

“MJ. Shuri. My classroom. Now.”

Shuri turned, her mouth twisting into a rictus of rage, only for Tony to cut her off, “Shuri. Just go.”

“You think that you get to tell me what to do?” She pulled herself up, her cheeks flushed red, “I am-”

Anger? Embarrassment? Tony honestly didn’t care. He pulled his glasses off, and gave her a look .

One which he might have practiced a few times in the mirror, just in case he ever needed to use it on Peter.

She crumpled immediately.

“Shuri,” he said, “go.”

Shuri’s mouth slammed shut and then she stormed toward the door, MJ following meekly in her footsteps, Roger not far behind. The crowd parted like the red sea before them, a chorus of whispers spreading around the room. Tony didn’t have any memories of high school - he’d skipped through it as fast as possible - but from what Peter had said, this wasn’t good. They were going to-

A device was thrust into his hands suddenly.

“Mr Stark, can you look after this? I want to go and-”

Tony shoved the device into his pocket without looking at it, then grabbed Peter’s shoulder, “Are you okay? Are you hurt? Everything good?”

“I’m fine , Mr Stark. It’s just-”

“I thought I heard a gunshot and then-”

“No. It wasn’t a gun. It was-” Peter trailed off, glancing around the room. He lent in and hissed, “It’s one of the things I’ve been working on with Shuri. You know. For them .”

Peter had been working on Avengers tech. Tony knew that, intellectually. He also knew that Shuri had been working on some of it as well. The two of them hadn’t really been getting along, and he had been regretting suggesting the whole thing, but… what? Shuri had brought it to school? It was only a lifetime of managing the press that kept the incredulous expression off of his face.

Why would anyone bring actual fucking weaponry to a school?

In his earpiece, he heard FRIDAY inform him that Stark Industries Legal was on the way.

Thank fuck for being a billionaire. It did make life easier sometimes.

It was going to be a miracle if he could keep her out of a jail cell tonight, let alone get her out of the country before a diplomatic incident started. 

Thank fuck no one had been killed .

He gripped Peter’s shoulder firmly and bestowed a genuine smile on his favourite teenager. The smile that he didn’t normally show in public, because it was reserved for family and close friends. One of which Peter definitely was by this point, though Tony didn’t want to examine that thought too much.

Nope. Definitely not.

He still hadn’t recovered from the kid telling him that he made a good dad a few days ago. That’s what people had said about Howard. Oh yes, Tony had memories of what a “good dad” was like behind closed doors, and Peter deserved better than that. Peter deserved better than Tony. Peter deserved-

Peter deserved to not have to deal with any of the shitshow that his life was going to be for the next couple of days.

“Good job kiddo, I’ll take it from here.”

Peter smiled nervously, his eyes darting around the room. Clearly he wasn’t quite sure what Tony was going to do. Which was fair. Tony hadn’t worked that out either.

“Penis. You know Tony Stark?”

His eyes roamed around the room until he found the kid that had said that, whose phone was dangling from his fingers as he stared in shock at the two of them standing together in the middle of his school canteen.

Had he heard that right? A glance at Peter's embarrassed face was enough to confirm it. Right, then.

Tony had just found the perfect place to start.