Spooktober 20: Past

Holograms screens flickered softly in the darkness of the room, and the two were working at their respective desks in an easy silence.

Peter was tinkering tiredly with his webshooters, wearing one on one wrist and holding a screwdriver in his other hand. Lazily twisting at a small screw, stifling back a yawn as the night stretched into early morning.

Tony sits across from him, moving around images in the air and toying around with some new energy-based weapon for the next Iron Man model. He glances up when Peter finally ducks his head to the table, stifling another yawn into his sweater sleeve.

Tony raises his eyebrows. "How about we wrap up for the night? What time is it, anyways?"

"Twelve-thirteen in the morning, boss," F.R.I.D.A.Y. chimes from the ceiling. "It's now Sunday."

"No!" Peter quickly picks his head up, blinking rapidly to try and make himself appear more awake. "I'm good to go, Mr. Stark! I'm great."

Tony stares. He nods, squinting at Peter. "How long have you been tightening and untightening the same micro-screw in the webshooter?"

Peter slowly puts down the screwdriver.

"That's what I thought," Tony stands up and stretches his arms above his head. "Welp. You should go off to bed. Do you remember where your guest room is? The information didn't leave your brain from last week to make room for more pop culture trivia?"

Peter shakes his head, and yawns again loudly. "No, I remember. It's down the hall an— Woah, hey! I went to one of those."

Peter stands up and walks over to Tony's desk, looking up at one of the holograms tucked in the top corner, much smaller and hidden behind the suit design that Tony had enlarged when he was working on it.

Peter drags it out and blows up the image. A test flyer, very early stages—Really nothing but graphics and a short list of ideas scribbled in the margins. Nonetheless, Peter grins excitedly and looks back at Tony. "Are you bringing the Stark Expos back?"

Tony pauses. "Uh... Thinking about it. Scale back, though. You went to one? When was that? I stopped doing them publicly back in 2010, you must have been an infant at the very least."

"I wasn't an infant!" Peter sits up on Tony's desk, which—Okay, fine. He'll allow it this once. "I was nine. I, uh... I actually went to the last one you ever did. It took ages for Ben and May to scrape the money together for VIP tickets, but I—"

"Stop, stop, stop." Tony holds up his hand. Peter stops talking. "The last one I ever did? The one in New York."

Peter makes a face. "Well, yeah. It was basically in my backyard. You usually hung out in California, remember? You being in New York—It was a really big deal!"

"That's not my point." Tony ran a hand through his hair. "There's a reason I haven't done the expos for so long. It was because the last time I had one—"

Memories flood back of the chaos that unfolded. The explosions, the fire, the screaming of innocent civilians who hadn't known any better. He remembers the panic most of all, trying to rush back and find Pepper before Hammer did, or worse, one of the self-destructing drones.

"—You saved everybody!" Peter exclaims. "I know, I was there."

"Kid," Tony laughs with a breathless disbelief, shaking his head. "I got everybody in danger. There's a big difference, alright?"

Peter—

Peter had been there.

The realization tilts the world on its axis, for a moment long enough for Tony's thinking to swirl into patterns he tries to usually avoid.

Would Tony have recognized him when they met properly years later? Logically, Tony knows that he probably wouldn't have. It was a question of fate, and the way that events had played out the way that they did, so that a more mature Tony could sit across from the kid and mentor him, and tell him to get to bed (mostly) on time.

The knowledge that Peter had been there, that night, only nine years old... Tony tries to imagine what he would look like at nine years old, terrified because he was running in that same crowd of panicked innocent civilians.

Did he have the same wide eyes, the same trapped expression that Tony saw on him in present day, usually after something goes wrong on patrol or he calls Tony mid-panic attack?

He shudders at the thought of that expression alone. It was terrifying how the kid would go so still during those moments. To imagine a much younger and defenseless Peter carrying the same stillness, the same fear, all the while a hacked military murder-drone marched towards him—

"Just—You got out okay that night, right? No bruises or scrapes?" Tony asks, his eyebrows furrowing as he looks at Peter with firm disquietude.

'Please say yes,' Tony pleads in his head.

Peter scratches the back of his head and grimaces, looking at Tony with an expression that wasn't fully honest. "I mean..."

A sort-of answer from Peter was worse than a yes-answer, but way worse than a no-answer, because that meant there was more to the story that he didn't want to tell.

The words he didn't say meant more to Tony than anything he could have said.

The guilt that hits Tony in that singular expression runs through like a freight train. He steadies himself to sit down quickly in the chair that he previously stood from. He pulls his eyes away to stare at anything else as the shame gutted him like a fish.

He feels his heart pounding. He really hopes, prays that this isn't happening now, because to have a panic attack over this while the kid was still sitting directly in front of him was enough embarrassment to happily die from.

"Mr. Stark, are you okay?" Peter asks distantly. "I'm—I'm sorry, I didn't mean to say anything that would freak you out."

Tony shakes his head quickly, keeping his eyes down. "God, kid. You're really just gonna drop something on me like that? Give me a minute."

In, out. In, out. Breathe in, breathe out. Breathe in, hold, breathe out. Breathe in, hold—

Tony looks back up at him, and Peter is looking back just as guiltily as Tony feels. He sighs heavily.

"You didn't let me finish, though," Peter says quietly. "Random question—Do you keep video footage from your old suits?"

"He does," F.R.I.D.A.Y. answers for him. "While the suits themselves were destroyed in use of the Clean Slate Protocol, the data in them had been saved for A.I battle information usage."

"Can you pull up the bit of that night where Mr. Stark was saving a little kid? He would have been wearing an Iron Man mask," Peter asks.

The footage shows up in hologram in place of where the suit design had been, placing itself next to the new Stark expo information. Tony gives Peter an unimpressed look before hitting play on the video, and sitting back in the chair silently.

It was barely anything. A younger Tony Stark, only by about seven or eight years, flying forward to stop a little boy who was frozen in front of one of the Hammer drones—Alone. The kid had wore a toy Iron Man replica mask, and raised his arm in front of the foe with such bravery while Tony snuck up behind him and blasted the drone into oblivion.

When the boy whipped around, still wearing the mask, Tony had just gave a simple, "Nice work, kid" and then flew off to destroy some other drone.

It was a singular moment.

Tony doesn't remember it happening at all, even, which makes him almost feel worse. And sure, he shouldn't feel bad about it, because he's saved hundreds of kids, he's seen thousands of people— but there was only one Peter Parker and he could have lost him without even knowing it, years ago, all because the kid wanted to be like... him. Now, why did that sound familiar?

He frowns, his stomach turning. "And that was you," he says slowly.

"You saved me," Peter said with a shrug. "I get it if you don't remember. You saved a bunch of people that day. That was kinda my whole point," he smiles sheepishly.

Tony brushes his hand over his beard and replays the video, pausing when little kid-Peter raised his arm. He looks over at teenage-Peter for something, some sort of explanation, anything at all.

"I've..." Peter huffs, shrugging again. His voice gets quieter. "Iron Man was always my hero. I've always looked up to you, Mr. Stark. 'Specially then."

Tony won't cry, damn it. He won't. Even if there were a million things to cry about with everything that he was given in the last five minutes. He looks away, silent for a few seconds, sniffles once. (He's not crying! Just—He's got allergies to... dust, or something. The lights are too bright. He's tired.)

"I think it's really cool that you're bringing the Expos back," Peter speaks up again, his voice sounding nearly shy from the emotion he had given in the moment before. "I think it'll inspire a lot of kids. I would know, 'cuz... y'know."

More silence. Tony clears his throat and looks back up at Peter. If his eyes are even the slightest bit red, Peter doesn't mention it.

"Alright, Spider-Man," Tony says finally. "Get out of here. Go get ready for bed or your aunt will kill me."

Peter nods. He hops off Tony's desk and yawns, as if the mention of sleep had him tired all over again. Before he leaves, he looks back to Tony.

"Hey, you know what I realized?"

Tony turns around in his chair. "What?"

"I never got to say thank you that night." Peter grins. "So... Thank you, Mr. Stark."

Tony smiles without his teeth and gives him a short nod. "'Course, Pete. Sleep well."

"Goodnight!"

"Goodnight."