Chapter Text
Tony spent the weekend at the Compound. He flew there in the suit early Saturday morning, and spent the first few hours after dawn testing out different weapon configurations. The one limitation of his nanotech was projectile weapons or weapons which required materials not inherent to his bots. He would still need external supplies for those, or he could accessorize with materials his bots could repurpose- that was a definite possibility.
He might have to start his own clothing line.
For now, he formulated plans for quick deploy caches VERONICA could keep on hand. He had a few minutes to marvel over V’s stern and prim looking dark purple orb, she was probably his most task-oriented AI, and very focused, which led her an air of seriousness her siblings did not possess. Even then she was friendly and her orb pulsed with a measure of affection he could definitely feel.
It was humbling to him, to be able to experience the support of his children like this, to actually feel that they cared. The part of him that was still traumatized by Howard was always concerned with being a good father, a good caretaker, to his creations, to the minds entrusted to his care. There were points in JARVIS’ youth that he checked on his well-being obsessively, questioning his comfort, making sure he had what he needed to grow and more importantly, be happy .
Tony knew the feelings generated towards a frequently absent, sometimes abusive parent, and it wasn’t what he felt coming from his AI, or saw in the eyes of his spiderling, and it was validation his inner abused, neglected child sorely needed.
He loved them, and they loved him in return. What was so wrong with Howard that he couldn’t understand that basic formula? What was the failure there? He’d never know, but he damned well would never repeat it.
Later in the day, he spoke with Vision regarding his latest discussions with the Accords council. They had been scrambling to retain some level of authority while Secretary Ross and the legislation groaned under the onslaught of his legal team. With everything up in the air, Tony and Vision’s cooperation was more of a courtesy than a requirement, and they knew it.
It was in Tony’s and the Avengers’ (what was left of them) best interest to cooperate, for now, because technically they were not a military force recognized by the government in any other way. Legally they would be considered a private security outfit and subject to civilian law, which would severely restrict their movements as a team (Tony had been skirting civilian law for years as Iron Man, and could get away with quite a lot due to his contacts in the military sector). With the Accords legislation backing them up, even while under review, they had some standing as official combatants and could bypass many restrictions.
It was a fine political line they were dancing, and Tony was back in the right headspace to tackle it. Part of him was quite pleased and bemused to be in this position again, where the world answered to him and not the other way around. It had been a while since he had this kind of leverage to throw around, and he was going to hold onto this position with everything he had- and he had quite a lot.
So for now, they’d be answering calls for assistance as best they could with limited manpower, and wait for the right moment to push their agenda. The council was very concerned with the whereabouts of the fugitives and he had no answers for them. His smear campaign had started ramping up, although anyone would be hard pressed to point the finger at SI for any of it- there were enough third parties involved that all his people had to do was suggest a certain media focus, and it all took care of itself.
Tony expected news to break regarding Senator Ross any day now. FRIDAY had reported back that the arrest warrants had been issued, and there was a call for Ross to turn himself in before they were executed. JOCASTA had no current location on the man that she could verify but had eyes on all his properties and known haunts, just in case.
Their assumption was when the news broke about Ross, there would be some sort of response from the ex-avengers. Tony knew Steve Rogers, and he would be first in line to gloat about what he perceived as being right. The man was also so out of touch with how the current justice system worked that he’d assume if Ross went down, the Accords would too, and then somehow he’d be home free, despite all the deaths and property damage.
He was in for a reality check, they all were. Tony couldn’t wait.
By Saturday afternoon, Tony was going through physical correspondence that had been flagged for his personal review by the Compound staff and came upon a FedEx package with no return address.
When he opened it there was a letter with very familiar handwriting accompanied by a freaking flip phone of all things.
“JARVIS,” he said, staring at the items on his desk where he’d dumped them.
“On it, Sir. The package seems to originate from a small FedEx hub in France. Timing suggests it was sent immediately prior to the breakout at the Raft.”
His hand hovered over the letter for a minute as his thoughts circled themselves. This was sent after he’d been abandoned for dead in Siberia. What the hell was it going to say? He knew the press was pretty bad during that point, with his publicized stay in the German hospital making headlines across Europe especially.
Tony had been avoiding thoughts of the… incident. He shied away from those memories when they encroached, because that way lay demons. If it weren’t for Extremis, and before that, drug-induced sleep, he would no doubt be a mess of night terrors and PTSD right now, but with his neural net his brain chemistry could remain precisely balanced. He’d seen the logs though, there’d been some fancy footwork going on to keep him levelheaded. His nanobots had to work overtime when thoughts of Rogers popped up.
They were doing so now.
“Sir,” JARVIS said, his voice gentle. His orb pulsed close by, and Tony’s new senses interpreted it like a soft touch of comfort, a balm. He soaked it in and just breathed.
“I don’t want to read that,” he said. “And this phone. What the hell.”
The presence of the phone indicated that Rogers intended to establish communication. Did he really think that Tony was going to want to talk to him? Like, in any other way than in a “you’re arrested” kind of way?? My gods, the man’s delusion knew no bounds.
Before he could think on it further he ripped open the envelope.
His eyes got wide as he skimmed over the text, his agitation level increasing with every word.
Tony, I’m glad you’re back at the compound. I don’t like the idea of you rattling around a mansion by yourself.
The fuck he say? like he had any right to assume what Tony’s life was outside of the Compound, or know if he’d be alone or not, Tony hadn’t been alone since the day he first made DUM_E, and he wasn’t alone now.
We all need family. The Avengers are yours, maybe more so than mine.
Oh my god, that was a HOOT! The Avengers were never a family- they were a disaster from the start! A bomb waiting to go off this whole time! If they were anyone’s family, it wasn’t his. They’d picked a mind-raping Hydra witch over his good sense, all on Rogers’ say-so. If that didn’t show whose family it was, he didn’t know what would.
I’ve been on my own since I was 18. I never really fit in anywhere, even in the army. My faith’s in people, I guess. Individuals. And I’m happy to say that, for the most part, they haven’t let me down. Which is why I can’t let them down either.
Ugh, it just got worse as he read on. For someone who claimed his faith was in people, he sure never had any faith in Tony. There were so many times that he could have simply come to Tony and trusted him a little, and he would have bent over backwards to help.
There was a time, much to Tony’s current chagrin, that he would have done anything to keep the team together, a time when he trusted in Captain America. If Steve had come to him during the whole Hydra-in-Shield fiasco, a lot of damage could have been avoided. If he had told him about Barnes from the start… No, he never put his faith in Tony at all.
But he certainly had let Tony down. More than anybody had since Obadiah Stane.
I know I hurt you, Tony. I guess I thought by not telling you about your parents I was sparing you, but I can see now that I was really sparing myself, and I’m sorry. Hopefully one day you can understand.
Oh my god. He apologized and then took it back in one sentence. An ‘I’m sorry’ followed right by ‘hopefully one day you can understand’ was the worst kind of backhanded, passive aggressive victim blaming. May as well have just said, “sorry, not sorry”.
He growled and without realizing it, a garbled burst of feedback surged out of his ports.
He ducked as a series of hisses and pops took out half the lights in the room as the circuits overloaded. Fuck.
JARVIS pulsed again next to him and Tony felt himself relax a little at just the reminder of his presence. He took a minute just to breathe, before looking at the paper again.
When Tony scanned over the rest of the letter, he snorted. It was all bullshit. Every word. “If you need me - I’ll be there” ? What? What in the world would he need him for? He was full up on betrayal, thanks.
He dropped the paper and stared at that stupid burner phone. It was such an insult. He reached over and turned it on. There was a single number saved into the contacts. What the hell, Rogers. He could have just given him the number . Why the hell would he think he had to send a damn phone? Tony had phones. All the phones. Tony owned a fucking phone network .
Tony dropped the phone in case it infected him. Ugh. The dumb, it burned.
One thing, though. With a phone number, Tony could do quite a lot. He considered.
Their plans with introducing a new version of the Accords depended on keeping the ex-Avengers out of his hair. He suspected they were in Wakanda, or at the least had been assisted by T’Challa, but he didn’t have any real intelligence on it yet. A working phone number could get Tony a location. Once he found them, he could plant bugs and his ladies in orbit (JOCASTA, VERONICA) would keep them in sight.
Unlike how the movies portrayed it, tracing phone calls in the digital age was almost instantaneous unless call blocking or secure tech was used to mask the signal. Tony’s tech could mask a call easily enough, but looking at the ridiculous burner phone he was delivered, he had a suspicion that Rogers had no such tech at his disposal currently.
He might not even have to send the phone any signals. The network it was registered to may already have logged activity. Even a burner phone must communicate with the network periodically in order to stay in service. Tony asked J to check.
“Indeed, Sir. Carrier network has been identified. We have a backdoor. Accessing.”
Tony knew that if Rogers had a burner phone like this, it wouldn’t have the type of intricate location services available to more complex hardware, but would have to be within 20-45 miles of a cell tower in order to maintain service. The carrier would know which towers the phone had been in contact with. Most carriers provided multiple towers in range, so some quick log checks and math could usually pinpoint someone’s location within a few miles-
“Location details available.”
A holo screen popped up in front of him and he groaned.
“What do you bet, Wakanda is bouncing network traffic off towers outside of their borders? Hmph. Have JOCASTA put a permanent trace on the number, let me know if it moves.”
He didn’t have surveillance capabilities inside the Wakandan border- yet. Tony didn’t want to poke the beast, Wakanda had advanced technology that he didn’t have complete understanding of, and until he could sneak in to take a peek, he wasn’t going to outright alienate them. They were technically allies, but if he or his AIs were caught spying, that could change. He had his kids working on finding weak spots, and they knew to be careful. It was only a matter of time.
For now at least, he knew where Rogers was, and had a loose method of tracking him, so he was going to call that a win.
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“Boss, our spiderling is out and about past his bedtime.”
It was just past 2am on Sunday morning and Tony had been in the Compound biolab reading Helen’s notes on her latest research into his enhancements, adding his own feedback where appropriate. Every day he lived like this, he understood more about his new abilities and how they worked.
The nanoparticles were evolving to fit his needs, and his nanobots had every iteration on file. Helen was of the opinion that the different evolutions would be useful individually in specific applications, similar to how he’d used the original serum as a boost during his arc reactor removal surgery. He was a walking cornucopia of possibilities at this point, his body a farm for nanoparticles, generating new strands endlessly.
His biology was suddenly an incredibly important resource for medical research. It was a good thing he packed quite a punch, because if it got out what he was, there’d be no end to the kidnapping attempts.
Speaking of kids - “FRI, what is he doing out this late?” his girl had taken it upon herself to keep an eye on Pete’s baby monitor protocol whenever he wore the suit, something he’d tasked her in the beginning, but that she now did of her own volition. With JARVIS now available, FRIDAY’s duties had lessened, and Tony had let the two suss out between them who would be doing what.
FRIDAY replied, “He was muttering about having trouble sleeping-- Woah- wait,” a holo window popped up over his current screen showing footage of the New York skyline, flipping around dizzyingly. There were popping sounds- Tony felt a sudden chill, a surge of adrenaline flashing through his system.
“FRIDAY! Who is shooting at my kid with an assault rifle!”
The shot moved and centered down what looked to be the side of a building, onto an alleyway. A group of figures could be seen, gathered around a dark van, the back of which was open. Without even thinking, Tony accessed his neural net and jumped into the suit’s stream, following it back through the uplink before FRIDAY could even answer him.
“Peter,” he said through the suit’s comm link. The footage jerked wildly for a second and then he heard a frantic whisper, “Dad! Uhh, what--”
Tony quickly assessed the situation using the suit’s advanced HUD capabilities, ignoring Pete’s “WHAT THE HELL-” the sudden influx of data within his field of vision prompted, and breathed out in relief. They hadn’t been shooting at Pete, he’d just been there to see it, hopefully he was still hidden.
“Kid, stay out of sight. This is definitely above your pay grade. Your suit is not bulletproof!”
“I’m good! They haven’t seen me!”
“Great, keep it that way! Go home! This is obviously some type of high grade weapons deal. This is ATF territory. We’re alerting the relevant authorities now.” Facial recognition had already ID’d two of the individuals as pretty rough guys.
“What if they get away!” Pete said, sounding agitated. “My spidey sense is really going nuts around these guys! Something bad is going to happen!"
Back at the Compound, Tony facepalmed, and calculated how long it would take him to reach Pete’s position- damnit, too long- “Pete, you gotta listen to me here-”
Just then, a bright light pulsed below in the alleyway. Thankfully the suit’s mask reacted perfectly to protect against the excess brightness before it could burn out super spider retinas, or based on the readings, Pete would have been dazzled at least. “Woah! What was that?” the kid said.
Gods, he was never leaving the city again- “FRIDAY, you got drones on him?”
“What do you take me for, Boss?” The tower was still fully stocked after all, with suits and various combat drones, and was considerably closer to the boy than he was at the Compound upstate. “ETA twenty seconds.”
“Pete I said go home, not get closer-” damnit, the kid was inching himself down the building towards the van, where the figures were moving around in agitation, apparently that flash did something they didn’t like.
“Ssh,” the kid said- and WHAT? Did he just get SHUSHED? “Can’t you hear what they’re saying?”
Tony was hearing FRIDAY reporting the drones’ arrival in stealth mode at either end of the alleyway, is what he was hearing, but the kid could probably hear a lot more, with his enhanced senses, but Tony could turn up the volume on the audio feed, and- shit.
Yes, this was a weapons deal, and apparently they were alien -based weapons. Yeah, he was done. “Pete, final warning. Back off or I’m having FRIDAY retrieve you. We have drones in the alley. You’re done here.”
The feed stopped moving, and he heard the most plaintive, “But-” and immediately cut in, “No buts. Back up the wall. Please.”
A huff and a sigh, and the feed moved back, and Tony thought he might feel his toes again sometime this century, so tightly he was wrapped up in that kid’s movements. Idly he registered FRIDAY dispatching a few trackers to the alley to hop on the van and wherever else they might fit, and saw her scanning for devices, finding mobile phones. His girl was already gathering intel like a pro. He left her to it.
Pete had settled himself up on a rooftop of the building he’d been climbing, and began a bit of a sullen rant. “I could have helped you know! There were only 5 of them, and I’m fast, you know that- and what even was all that stuff in my mask, do I have access to that? What if they get away! Will the cops even know what to do with alien weapons??”
Tony didn’t even know where to begin with this, the kid was so green, he was enhanced and suited up, and thus equipped with both a body and the tools to wage war, but had no knowledge or experience to back it up. He was going to get himself hurt.
There was a procedure and protocol to these kinds of ops that was tried and true, and jumping in face first wasn’t it- from what Tony and FRIDAY had already figured out, these guys were part of a bigger operation, just barging in and disrupting one deal wasn’t going to do more than put Spider-Man on their radar, which is just what Tony did not want.
Well, it looked like Tony was heading home early. “Forget home, kid, go to the Tower. I’ll meet you there in twenty.”
He waited for an acknowledgement and to see the kid moving that way, and then disengaged from the Spider suit.
As he made his way to the nearest exit, he sent a quick notification to Vision that he was leaving the Compound. Soon he was outside and suited up, and flying to the city.
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“I couldn’t sleep! My spidey sense was too wired up. I had to go see what was going on.”
“Okay, I get that. No harm, no foul. Do you know where you went wrong?”
“Uhh,” Pete was deer in headlights, wide eyed and confused. “I don’t know? I was just watching before you popped in!”
Tony walked over and sat down on the couch next to his son. Peter had been waiting in the Penthouse when he arrived, and had immediately started in on trying to explain himself, as if he were going to get yelled at. Tony had settled down some on the flight over, and had moved onto problem solving. The kid was unhurt, and hadn’t been seen. He didn’t need to be yelled at, he needed education.
“You’re strong, you’re fast, you’re clever, and you have a badass suit. I know you think that means you can jump in and take on just about anything. I guess I contributed to that, taking you to Germany with me and pitting you against Cap. I get it.
“However,” and here he paused to catch Pete’s eye, to really try to bring home the message. “There is a lot about combat, or even just law enforcement, that you haven’t been taught yet. Right?”
“I guess…”
“Do cops hit the beat without Police Academy? Do soldiers jump into war without Basic?” He waited to get the head shake. “Right. They all get training, the more that is asked of them, the more training they get. The Avengers trained all the time, Pete. You can’t be too prepared. Right now, you are all self taught. That’s not your fault, you didn’t have much to work with. If you were still alone, you’d have to make do with what you had, and you’d get hurt a lot, and cause a lot of trouble, and that’s what I’m here to prevent.”
He reached out and grasped Pete on the shoulder, gave him a squeeze, and the boy leaned into his hand. “You got me, buddy, so when you run into things above your level, you call me in. Okay?”
Peter ducked his head, bashful, but nodded. “I don’t want to bother you for little things,” he muttered.
“Hey,” he said, and waited until he saw eyes again. “Part of being where you’re at means it’s hard to tell what’s little and what isn’t. If you call me and I think you can handle it, I’ll let you know. I won’t be bothered. I’ll be proud that you knew you could rely on me.”
He got a tentative smile at that.
“So what this really showed me is that we need to get you into training,” he said. “Can’t have you out there running into situations like that unprepared.”
Pete perked up a little, but still looked wary. “What kind of training?” he asked.
Tony waved a hand and a holo screen popped up from the emitter in the coffee table. It showed the Tower blueprint, and he zoomed in to the floors that had served the Avengers. He had never renovated them since they’d moved into the Compound. At first he’d been too emotionally compromised to want to think about it, and then he’d been wrapped up in other things and put it off. Turned out that was for the best, because now he could use them.
He zoomed into the gym and training areas.
“We already have facilities downstairs the Avengers used before they moved to the Compound. It needs some updating. The Compound has a holographic training room, we can improve on that and upgrade this one. Don’t get too excited though. There’ll be bookwork too,” he said as the kid started to bounce in place.
“Oh, that’s okay! I’m sure it will all be really interesting!”
Tony gave a wry grin. He said that now, but like kids everywhere, he’d think otherwise once they got going. He fully planned to have JARVIS set up a full curriculum. There would be plenty of studying to do. The kid was not cannon fodder, mere combat training was not enough. He needed tactics, theory, logistics, everything. Not to mention, he had a lot of resources at his disposal he could utilize.
“Okay bud,” he said and ruffled his hair, getting a “hey!” and a duck in response. “In the meantime, stay away from the alien weapons, got it? If you run into those guys again, call FRIDAY.”
“Okay,” Pete replied, and Tony believed him this time. Either way, FRIDAY would be watching.