Chapter Text
“ Sir, you have a meeting with Mrs. Stark in fifteen minutes. Are you sure you want to run the program again? ”
Tony combs a hand through his hair, squinting at the floating images hung around him until his vision starts blurring at the edges. The same face he’s been staring at for the last few hours staring right back with dead eyes, looking far more exhausted than a kid has any right being.
Wade Wilson, the infamous Deadpool. The same kid who's been running around terrorizing the city as Spider-Man’s new companion.
The same kid Tony was likely going to be hearing exclusively about from the spider kid for the foreseeable future. He could already feel the headache he was going to get forming behind his eyes, pulsing in time with FRIDAY’s final meeting reminder.
Sighing in resignation, Tony heads for the elevator, pulling up a new note on his phone along the way. If he’s going to have two reckless teenage vigilante superheroes roaming around, he sure as hell isn’t going to let them wander around unsupervised. He’s Tony Stark, he’s irresponsible, but he’s not that irresponsible.
He could see the headlines now: Local Reckless Teenage Superheroes Seen Driving Iron-Man to Insanity. With more at five, or whatever. He just knew this was going to be a nightmare to deal with, but he would get through it. If only for the sake of Peter having full time backup with him when he’s out doing things he shouldn’t be. With the kids’ description of the creature they fought last time, he was more than glad they had each other so close, even if they didn’t know it yet.
It was at times like these that he wished he at least had Natasha stuck by his side, if only for the reassurance that something good could come from this. Maybe even to help with some vague semblance of subtlety in the recruiting process for this kid. Subtle was never his thing, neither was recruitment, that was Natasha’s job.
The elevator slides open with a chime, Pepper’s office door wide open and leaving her desk as the first thing he sees rounding the corner, Pepper sorting through a large stack of files off to the side. She smiles at him, pulling a specific file from the middle of the stack and leans against the edge of her desk.
“I know I said I was in desperate need of a new assistant, but I didn’t expect you to start feeding me applications for interns, Mr. Stark.” She places the file on the desk next to her, pulling another file from the stack to look through. Even while her attention is on the contents of the file, she keeps her focus on Tony, glancing at him over the top of the file with a knowing grin. “None of the rest of these are interns, what’s so different about this one?”
Tony plucks the file from her desk, flipping it open to examine the contents. “Well, you see, Pep, I was looking at the application—”
“Mmhm,” she hums, setting the file in her hands back in the stack, “And somehow, Wade Wilson caught your attention?”
“He seems like a good kid,” Tony says defensively, “A good, perfectly capable, smart—”
“Kid,” Pepper finishes for him, “He’s a kid, Tony. Stark Industries has it on every possible website that we don’t accept high school interns, but if we take this kid on, we’ll have two marked exceptions to this rule.” She moves over to him, the echo of her heels clicking on the marble flooring filling every crevice of the room, and grasps his hand in both of hers. The file he had been holding seemingly vanishes into thin air, plucked from his grasp and tossed haphazardly into Pepper’s purse. At least it wasn’t an immediate “no,” he muses.
“This is Peter’s situation all over again, Tony, and that means there’s an extra couple of details I’m missing here,” she says. Pepper presses a kiss to his cheek, and her palms over his chest where his arc reactor used to be. “If this is another teenage vigilante situation, I want to know all the details. Outside of that, I think he’s a pretty good candidate.”
Tony hums, head dipping to rest his forehead against hers. “Wouldn’t have even considered it if he wasn’t.”
“I’ll schedule an interview, then,” she relents with an exasperated look reflected in the blue of her eyes, “see if he’s as impressive on paper as he is in person. It would be easier cover for him to have a real internship, right? That’s what was decided with Peter?”
“Yeah.”
“So this is another teenage vigilante situation.” Pepper leans away a short distance, arms crossed over her chest in an accusatory manner.
His hands go up in mock surrender. “I deny all involvement if this ends up going south.”
She laughs softly, her lips pressing together to curve into that same smile Tony fell in love with all that time ago. She steps back around her desk to grab her purse, heading for the elevator with her heels in hand. “I have a few more meetings later, but I should still be able to make a few phone calls for this later today if you head to one of my meetings for me.”
“Oh, and here I thought that was the CEO’s job,” he responds easily. He follows her to the elevator with his hands stuffed in his pockets and a small victory tune ringing in his ears.
It wasn’t like he expected Pepper to refuse to take part in his scheming this time around, it was more that he hadn’t expected her to agree like this. It really couldn’t be that big of a deal to her if she was truly considering it, that much was obvious. But to outright agree? Unheard of in all the history of his crazy ideas, and he had a lot of those.
“My job today is to do your job, it only makes sense that you do mine.”
He breathes a laugh, threading a hand through his hair. “I guess so, Mrs. Stark.”
They’re quiet for a moment, the hum of the elevator filling the space that they choose to simply exist in together. Being present and in the moment when the world outside keeps spinning and the universe keeps trying to pull itself apart. It’s a surreal experience for people like them, for several wildly different reasons all with the same cause. It isn’t every day someone like Pepper marries a multi-billionaire, superhero, and part time involuntary father to a reckless teenager, but she somehow still remained where she was. Standing by his side like it was the easiest thing in the world for her to do, like the world couldn’t end tomorrow and it could all be his fault.
Even then, she would probably still be there, calling him a reckless dumbass and threatening him with something so mundane as paperwork and company meetings if he doesn’t come out alive. How could he ever hope to comprehend Pepper “Virginia” Stark and every chance she gave him.
She hums as the doors slide open, her phone clicking on in her hand to reveal a plethora of missed calls and unread texts from Peter. Tony leans over her shoulder to get a better view, the top most message seeming oddly polite and calm for the trouble he was very likely in at the moment. The phone buzzes with a call from the school itself and their eyes lock as Pepper answers the phone.
The voice on the other end seems more exasperated than anything else, someone else yelling in the background about someone else’s broken nose. Pepper winces at the initial volume and steps off the elevator the moment the doors open up to their penthouse floor.
“Yes, I am,” she answers the person, “What happened?”
Her face is pinched in worry that quickly falls away to exasperation the longer the person on the other line blabbers on.
A quiet sigh escapes her once again, probably her fifteenth one that day, if not in the last hour, and she hangs up the call with a final, “We’ll be there in a few minutes.”
Without needing to be asked, Tony turns right back around and grabs Pepper’s jacket and a small, plain, black backpack from next to the door with a little spider pin stuck into the front most pocket of it.
Peter had complained about its existence the first time Pepper had brought it with her, and then again when Tony had informed him that he was the one who came up with the idea. Its entire purpose, and all of its contents, were all placed and decided upon to deal with the most common nonsense situations Peter got himself into. Pepper regularly replaced the snacks and the clothes placed with care in the very bottom of it. So far, it was proving to be the most useful thing Tony had ever done, and he made that kid a suit with all of the most expensive tech he could imagine.
Alright, Pep,” Tony says once they’re both back in the elevator, “Let’s go see what ‘Roos got himself into this time.”
“Knowing you, and how similar you two are, I wouldn’t be surprised if we show up to half the school being…” Pepper waves a hand out, grasping at the air as if it will summon the words she’s looking for. “…underwater, or something. That seems like something you would do.”
“That sounds like something I’ve done,” he mutters, wincing. “I’m putting my money on it being another one of the things they were dealing with in Utica.”
Pepper stares ahead in thought. “I hope not,” she says after a long moment, “You said those things could disguise themselves, that could only possibly lead to more trouble than Peter’s equipped to deal with. Wait, they? ”
She turns to him, an eyebrow raised in question. His fingers drum against his leg where they hang at his side, and she eyes the movement knowingly.
“Again, I did say I was going to deny all involvement.”
“Tony, no… ” She would bury her head in her hands if it wouldn’t smear her makeup, still she pinches the bridge of her nose, lamenting for a moment the normal evening at home she could be having right now.
“It’s really not that bad, Pep. This is a good thing, trust me.”
“How? How is this a good thing?”
“Well, you see—”
The elevator dings, cutting him off sharply and opening once again, this time to their private garage. Tony strides over to a yellow ford mustang, purposefully taking the chances provided to him to set down the shovel he had been digging his own grave with. Pepper’s never been the most enthusiastic about cars, but Tony tells her enough about his projects that she can guess that it’s probably a 1970.
He opens up Pepper’s door for her first, holding it open for her and waving her over to him. “Come on, let’s go see what the kids have gotten themselves into.”