Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-man (Tom Holland Movies)

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Characters: Tony Stark | Iron Man, Peter Parker | Spider-man, Pepper Potts, Nick Fury

Tags: Protective Peter Parker, Protective Tony Stark, Asshole Nick Fury, Insecure Tony Stark, Team Cap bashing

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Brief Warning: if you didn't already read the tags, there is slight Captain America Bashing / Team Cap Bashing. Personally, I have nothing against them, it's just what worked for the story.

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"You need to create healthy boundaries for yourself, Mr. Stark."

Looking at the spider kid who was carefully rewrapping his wounds, Tony sighed ruefully. For some weird reason, - no, Rhodey, it ISN'T fatherly instincts - Tony had gotten himself attached to the kid.

Quite frankly, Peter Parker was brilliant.

The boy's mind was as quick as a whip, easily understanding the ins and outs of whatever he was reading. This was something he found out when, one day, Peter had gotten lost in the tower. Tony had been patiently waiting for the kid in his lab. Sue him, he was excited. It wasn't every day that he had someone who was equally interested in robotics and literally anything that moved as himself.

When he realized that Peter had kept him waiting for around an hour already, Tony suddenly remembered the vow he told himself in the confines of the lonely Stark mansion when he was a child.

People hurt you.

Except, Tony really didn't expect this out of the resident angelic being, Peter Parker.

It hurt more than he'd care to admit.

Perhaps it was because he had gone through betrayal after betrayal, but Tony didn't really think there would be other situations that came into play. It was only after he asked FRIDAY whether she thought Peter would actually come did he found out the real situation.

Peter had arrived 10 minutes before the meeting time and had promptly gotten himself lost. After that, he wandered around the tower until, finally, he arrived at the R&D department.

Finding interest in the writings on the black board, Peter had taken to erasing the department's mistakes and solved the problem in 10 minutes flat.

Then, Peter couldn't leave because the interns were asking for advice which, now that Tony looked closely at the CCTV, looked like borderline harassment.

In the end, Tony had made his way to the R&D department and visited the lab the kid was in and found one Peter Parker solving the one problem the department had had for the past 3 months. Took one look at his the kid and awarded him with an internship.

(If that allowed Peter to go in and work with Tony in his lab as much as he wanted which, in the process, made the lab feel just that little bit less lonely, then that was just a plus.)

Still, Tony knew his the kid was brilliant. Hell, he saw his brilliance nearly every day since he woke up from his coma. That, however, doesn't explain why his the kid was currently telling him to create boundaries.

Tilting his head questioningly, Tony asked, "What exactly do you mean by that, kiddo?"

Staring at him with a deadpan tone, Peter gave it to him in black and white, seeing as telling him indirectly didn't work at all, "It means stop taking everyone's bullshit."

Startled by the kid's use of profanity, Tony opened his mouth to speak but was interrupted when Pepper walked into the room, closing the door behind herself. "I couldn't agree more, Peter." Moving closer, she kissed Tony on the forehead as a greeting and continued, "In fact, I came here to talk about that, except Peter beat me to it. You need to distance yourself from the Avengers, Tony. I took a look at the financial records we had this past week. It didn't add up at all. Naturally, I had FRIDAY hack into their private servers and found the real records."

Sighing tiredly, Pepper took a seat beside Peter who had finished applying the bandage and displayed a hologram from her starkpad. "They've been using your money, your resources for years now. I don't know how it slipped through but literally everything - from the gear to the mission to collateral, hell, even Roger's diet - has been put under your name." Spitting out the words contemptuously, Pepper said, "they've been using us, Tony."

Hearing her words, Tony vaguely remembered wondering why he kept making the team new gear on nearly every mission, the only exception being Wilson, who was, surprisingly, careful with the gear Tony provided him. At the time, he had brushed it off, telling himself he was thinking too much of it.

Now, he realizes he should have looked into it further.

Still, Tony had been relying on those people for years now. He knew it wasn't good for him but he didn't know what else to do. Sighing, he replied, "I know but I just... don't know how to go about it."

Putting in his two cents, Peter suggested, "Well, you can ditch your phone, for one. If you really were their source of money, which you are, I'd say Fury would call to try to get you to come back."

Staring at the kid weirdly, Tony replied. "You know that I can't help myself when its tech, Pete." He really couldn't. Tony was a curious person, technology was interesting. How could Tony just not if it was right there?!

Looking between the two, Pepper made a suggestion. "Why don't you give your phone to Peter for the time being. You won't be using FRIDAY as communication too much because you're still injured and could still work at the lab but communication, especially to the outside world, would be cut off. Rhodey moved into the tower recently anyway. Think of it as a social media detox."

That... was a surprisingly good idea.

She was right, as always. Without his phone, the only messages and/or calls he'd receive would be from people he deliberately wanted to talk to. Being Iron Man was put on the backburner for the time being anyway. He'd just have to hang out with Rhodey while he's doing his rehab or tinker with Peter.

It'd be good for him.

Hopefully.

Still, Tony knew the type of people who called him on a day-to-day basis on his phone. There were requests for meetings, read-throughs, SI-related stuff as well as... well, Nick Fury. It wasn't going to be easy handling Tony's phone. Essentially, Peter would be becoming a stand-in for Tony Stark, or, at the very least, Tony's point person in the company. But, as if sensing the reason behind his hesitation, Peter chimed in.

"I've been working as your point person for a while now, Mr. Stark. This will just make it sort-of-official. It's fine with me."

Seeing the kid's lack of hesitation, Tony made up his mind. "FRIDAY, grant primary access to Peter Parker. Grant override functions to Pepper Potts. Action confirmation code wun romeo zeero november charlie alpha november."

"Primary access granted to Peter Parker. Override functions granted to Pepper Potts."

"Thanks, baby girl. I think I need to distance myself from tech for the next 2 weeks anyway so I'll leave FRIDAY in your care, Underoos."

Nodding at Tony's decisiveness, Pepper felt that now was the moment to talk about her plans. "Let's talk about the rest."

Seeing both Peter, who she felt would definitely become SI's heir in the future and therefore, need to participate in this conversation, and Tony, who gave her thoughts on Peter a solid confirmation wordlessly, nod, she continued. "Peter's performance as SI's first high school intern is promising. I've been looking into it, why not establish a high school internship program for every branch of SI. What do you guys think?"

Switching into his SI take-no-bullshit attitude, Peter told her his thoughts. The program designed for himself was good, admittedly, but it wasn't going to cut it if they wanted to really nurture high school students. "I think that we'd need to make a few tweaks but, overall, I think it's a solid idea."

Discussing for the next two hours, Tony looked at the two people beside him, discussing their future.

This is what he wanted; the type of companionship and teamwork that he never got to experience with the old team sans Bruce and maybe Thor.

Thinking on the subject, Tony remembered the man who had visited in a wheelchair 3 days ago.

Dr. Charles Xavier.

Making up his mind, Tony opened his mouth and said. "I want to establish a new Avengers initiative."

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Phoning the guy was surprisingly easy. They had talked for what seemed like days but was actually just two short hours. Tony, honest to god, felt that working with a man like Charles Xavier and the school he heads, would be good for him.

Hell, for the first time in a while, he was excited.

By the end of the month, they had gotten into contact with superheroes and mutants all over the world.

This wasn't just to ensure the public's trust in superheroes didn't falter. It was also to ensure that mutant rights would be safe and respected, with clear boundaries and consequences. It would revolutionize heroism.

Essentially, they'd establish New Avengers bases in multiple places around the world and employ different skilled individuals while training the rookies. On a normal rotation system and normal groups, it would ensure that the heroes didn't burn out and spread themselves thin trying to save the entire world.

After 3 months, he presented the document to the UN together with Professor X and King T'challa.

It was a unanimous decision.

Accepted.

Now, there was one last thing to do. Tony wasn't exactly looking forward to it either.

So, for the first time in 5 months, Tony asked Peter for his phone and called the one dreaded contact.

Nick Fury.

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"Stark," Fury calls out in the meeting room, his usual tone of thinly veiled contempt evident, "I called you fifteen times."

Normally, Nick Fury was someone Tony took pleasure in pissing off. Really, he did. He had tried so hard to make the guy talk in pirate but, alas, the guy was a kill-joy through and through.

Right now, though?

Right now he truly didn't know what to do. He had given his phone and full control of FRIDAY for the first two weeks, which would most likely be the time Fury would try to contact him most, to Peter and her override functions to Pepper.

Tilting his head, Tony answered with a questioning tone, glancing at Peter beside him for a brief second. "I don't have my phone."

"Don't bullshit me, Stark. Everyone knows you're the billionaire. You always have some type of technology on you."

Coughing into his hand, Tony replied, making the whole room remember that he was severely injured in the process, "Actually, I don't. I gave my phone and FRIDAY and literally everything techy I have to Peter Parker over here. Just so you know," staring directly at the man, wordlessly communicating the threat, "he's my only and favorite intern."

Taken aback by Tony's behavior, Nick Fury's mind began to race. He knew what Tony was implying. For the long years since Tony openly admitted his identity as Iron Man, there hasn't been a single incident after the first few years where anyone in his inner circle were openly targeted.

He had to give props to the man. He knew how to protect his own.

If this very same man had specifically implied that this kid, Peter Parker, was one of his own, then he would have to tread carefully.

Turning his eye to the boy, Nick let out one of his most powerful assets as a superspy: aura. He was a man who had been in this type of business for years now, at this point, even cold-blooded murder didn't faze him.

As one of the top spies in the world, this specific asset allowed him to extract information from even the most dangerous criminals. How could this kid compare?

Yet, curiously, this kid didn't even seem fazed by the mounting pressure in the room.

Getting impatient, Nick questioned the child, injecting some venom into his tone, "I called you. Fifteen times."

But how could Peter, who had been working as the web-slinging vigilante for what would be a year and a half now, who had dealt with crimes big and small with nothing but pajamas and some homemade web-shooters, back down from this.

Please, this guy just looked scary because of the eye-patch. Wade was way worse.

Casually reclining into his chair, Peter made direct eye contact with the spy and said, "and I watched it ring. Fifteen. Times."

Behind him, Rhodey snorted. This kid was hilarious.

Tilting his head, as if knowing that Nick couldn't do a thing without the funding given by Tony Stark and thus, couldn't make any moves right now as he was under Tony's protection, Peter continued challengingly, "What are you gonna do about it?"

Around the room, the other superheroes who had already signed as the first batch of New Avengers smiled ferally.

They all knew that Peter Parker was insanely protective of Tony Stark, probably a result of seeing him nearly bleed to death out in Siberia all those months ago. When it came to protecting his mentor, all of Peter's manners went out the window. Grinning positively feral, Peter settled in.

This was going to be satisfying.

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(And as Tony looked around the meeting room, at the people he had slowly gotten to know over the months of writing and revising and fighting and laughing, Tony couldn't help but feel blessed.

He started out as a lonely egotistical genius.

But, look at him now, he had someone he considered his son, a woman he married just last month, and people he started to treat as family, he understood.

Tony wasn't alone anymore. He had people he'd die for. And, a total contrast to the lonely months and years he spent caged in his own little bubble in a team he couldn't really call his own, he now had people who'd die for him, too.

Damn.

So this is what that song Peter loved meant.

Started from the bottom, now he's here. )

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Author's Note: this was originally posted on AO3 on June 9, 2021. constructive criticism and feedback are appreciated! if you have any prompts or requests, hmu! <3