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Peter and Tony are spending their Sunday in Tony’s lab at the lake house. Morgen is having har nap in the living room, just up the stairs, and Pepper is making lunch with Rhodey. May is working late, so Peter is staying the night before Happy will drive him to school in the morning.
It’s the perfect day. And both Tony and Peter knows it.
“What your working on kiddo” Tony suddenly interrupts the comfortable silence they always fall into when working in the lab, side by side.
Peter moves slightly to the side as Tony steps up next to him, looking over the holo-screen, “Working on Karen’s code” He replies with a smile “Ned got this awesome idea, that we could make Karen calculate likely places for storage of weapons, based on places we have already found and their activity” Tony smiles and him slightly.
“That sound like a good idea” Tony replies “If it works I might want it in Friday too”.
Peter’s eyes go wide “Really?!” Tony nods.
“Jarvis could do it, but I never fixed it up for Friday” Tony says, a sudden sadness filling his eyes, before he blinks it away and they both pretend it never happened. “Anyways, what are you and May doing the 29th of May this year?” Tony askes.
Peter thinks for a moment before replying “Nothing as far as I know, other than the fact that May has the nightshift. If I remember correctly. Why?”.
“I’m having a little get together, to… celebrate my birthday. Nothing big, just the team and closet family” Tony says with a smile “That includes you and May” he adds.
“I’ll let May know. She might not be able too come, but I will” Peter replies with amazement in his voice. His invited the THE Tony Stark birthday party. And yeah, Tony had been to Peter’s before, when he turned 16. But Peter hasn’t been to Tony’s before. Likely for good reason, everyone have heard about the ‘Tony Stark pee’s in his suit’ incident.
Tony Stark had been drunk and dying. People really couldn’t blame him. And then the expo was attacked by droids, and Peter had meet Tony for the first time in his life. And Tony was like ‘Good job kid’, and it had been amazing. Though Peter had yet to tell Tony about that, and if he had to guess, Tony wouldn’t remember anyways.
“Do you happen to have a wish list that includes cheap gift ideas?” Peter suddenly askes. Tony looks at him for a moment with a weird look before replying.
“All I wish for, is a small, happy, get together with the people that matter. That fact that you’ll be there is gift enough”. And that’s the end of the conversation. They both return to their work, and that night Peter’s finish his coding for Karen (and Friday).
***
“I can’t believe your going to THE Tony Stark’s birthday party!!” Ned whispers shouts, when Peter tells him about his weekend at the lack house.
Their in-study hall, the last class of the day. But they have both already finished their Spanish homework, so Ned is running over the code Peter had written for Karen while they talk. MJ’s sitting in the background reading some book about some big murder, and has barely said two words to the boy’s, expect “Hey Losers”. Yet Peter can’t help but think about home amazing she is.
“It’s really not that big of a deal” Peter replies with a stern voice “It’s just a get together”.
Ned sighs “It’s is a big deal Peter! It’s Tony Freaking Stark”.
“I don’t see the big deal. I anyways spend every second weekend with him. And multiple times in the Tower throughout the week” Peter says slowly.
“What are you going to give him?” Ned then askes, chancing the topic.
Peter shrugs “I don’t know. He says all he wants is for me and May to come… but is feels wrong. And, what the hell do you give someone who already has everything?”.
“Maybe something of sentimental value” MJ chimes in “Most people enjoy that”.
“That’s not a bad idea” Peter says, pulling MJ close and places a small kiss on her cheek, she blushes “Kind of like the necklace I gave you, that you like better broken”. All three of them chuckles slightly.
“This code is great Peter! Totally ready for Karen” Ned says “Are you going to test it on tonight patrol” Peter nods.
***
Peter pulls his mask over his head and is immediately greeted by Karen “Good afternoon Peter. Would you like me to run your new algorithm?” .
“Yes, please Karen. All information you need should already be uploaded” Peter says.
“Sure thing, Peter. It might take a moment” Karen replies with her robotic voice. Peter has never understood how it can be so robotic one moment, and so full of feelings the next. He doesn’t dear ask.
“While we wait, is there anything going on tonight?” Peter askes, while he listens for disturbance in the street below him. Queens has been quiet lately, and Peter has slowly started to creep into Brooklyn too, on quiet nights. It’s not his area, it’s daredevil’s. But Peter takes the risk anyways, and have a few times found himself at Hell’s kitchen after a rough patrol. His only had one run-in with the devil himself though, and there wasn’t even a warning about staying away thrown at him. Just a quiet greeting before they went on their ways after a small fight in connection with the weapons dealers Peter’s trying to take down.
Peter had been sure that all of the dealers had been taken down the night of homecoming. Now when their leader, the Vulture was spending the rest of his life in a prison cell, he had hoped the other’s would be smart enough to stop what they were doing.
But they hadn’t.
Instead they had stayed closer to the ground, been more carefully, and less active in the months the followed. Only for Peter to stumble upon them again, in one of their storage buildings. After that the storage units had shown up all over queens, at as Peter Later discovered Brooklyn too.
“There’s a robbery happening two blocks north from your location” Karen’s voice suddenly pulled Peter out of his thoughts. And right away, he threw himself of the side of the building, felt the rush of the adrenalin fill his body, shooting a web last second. Swinging up and a doublet twist in the air before swing towards the robbery.
It didn’t take more than a few seconds before Peter could see the bank automate that was being robbed. Two people, shitty tools, and one of them had a gun. Peter landed on a nearby light post of watched them for a second.
“It isn’t very kind to steal people’s money” Peter said with laughter in his voice. It was obviously illegal to rob a bank, but that didn’t mean Peter didn’t find it funny to point out.
The person with the gun looked up to Peter, pulled his gun and pulled the trigger. Peter did a quick flip through the air, dogging the bullets flying towards him before shooting a web at the gun pulling it out of the robber’s hand and letting it land 20 feet’s away. Before landing down hitting the pavement in his signature pose, and webbing both men to the wall. Under a minute from he became aware of the robbery, to the guys were webbed up. Peter was getting good at the whole superhero thing.
If that was become of his training with the avengers, or the fact that he was getting experience in the field, he didn’t know. But it felt good to do this kind of work.
“How’s the algorithm going” Peter asked his A.I. when he had made sure she contacted the police for them to pick up the robbers.
“I have located a storage facility in Brooklyn. Would you like me to show you the quickest route?” .
***
“Kid, what your doing in Brooklyn this time” Daredevil asked from his spot on the building behind Peter.
“I got a tip that there might be weapons dealer’s in the warehouse” Peter pointed “Other side of the street, used to be used for storage of some dangerous chemicals”.
The Devil stepped closer “I though those weapons dealer had been taken out of the game, by you”.
“I thought so too, but they keep pupping up” Peter replied, keeping a close eye on the building “they are worse than hydra with that kind of stuff”.
“Sound like it” the Devil said, kneeling next to Peter, “But you know, this is my area”.
“I was hoping you didn’t mind the extra help” Peter replied with a stern tone.
“I don’t know you” the Devil said “I don’t like getting help from people, that I don’t trust”.
Peter turned to look at the Devil “Well then…” he took a deep breath “My names Peter. Peter Parker. Trust me better now?”.
“It’s helping” the Devil said “I’m Matt”.
Movement in the building Peter had been watching caused him to shot up from his position on the ground. “Well, nice to meet you Matt. I should take down these guys now” he said before swing over the street and in through one of the windows to the warehouse.
Karen had confirmed that there only were 15 people in the building, if Peter were lucky, he could do stealth. If he weren’t, he should have enough experience by now to get the work done.
He carefully crawled over the celling, until he found the first person in the building, walking through the halls. Peter carefully slung himself into the person from behind, knocking him unconscious before webbing him to the floor. He snuck carefully down the hallway, following the thermal readings that Karen showing him in the HUD in the mask, bust also using his sense to confirm that his technology was right.
At the end of the hall, he stood close the wall, listing to what has happening in the room next door. Based on heartbeat’s he would guess there to be 6 people in there. So he carefully pushed open the door, before jumping in, hitting the first person in the jaw. The person fell backwards, hitting his head on a table before collapsing to the floor.
Peter then shoot two strings of web to two of the other people in the room, using the tracer function. They both seized for a second, before too landing on the floor.
Peter’s spidey-sense then warned him of attack from behind, a person jumped on his back gripping him tightly around the neck, but Peter just did a slightly awkward backflip, casing the person to fall off and Peter could then web him to the floor with the other.
The last two people started running out the room, and Peter followed them. Sliding under one of them, pushing their feet aside, and webbing the man so he was sitting against the wall.
He was just about to follow the second man, that was still running down the hall when a loud, paralyzing sound filled his sensitive ears. Peter collapsed too the floor, seeing a man with a high-tech weapon behind him, likely sending out some sort of high pitch noise only his ears could pick up. Special made for him then, and everyone else with sensitive hearing.
The pain was shooting through Peter’s head, as the sound grew in his ears. And soon rest of his sense’s were two triggered with an overload of information.
The light in the celling, were old. Meaning the light was slightly vibration and blinding all the once. Peter could smell a combination of sweat of blood, but he weren’t sure were the blood smell was coming from. His suit, his amazing spandex suit, suddenly felt to tight as it touched his mostly naked body underneath.
Sensory overload. ‘Perfect’ Peter thought.
But the loud, high pitch sound that had come out of nowhere, was stopped just as fast. Peter found himself clanging his hands over his ears, squeezing his eyes shoot. Heaving for air, begging for his sense’s to return to normal.
“Are you hurt?” A voice asked, Peter knew the voice, Matt. Opening his eyes slightly, the red Devil was standing over him.
Peter shook his head “I… I’m good… just a little-“ he didn’t get more words out before having to desperately pull off his mask and throw up.
“A little sensitive?” Matt guessed when Peter was done, he nodded but then remembered that the Devil was supposedly blind.
“Yeah sir. Super senses” he replied. Matt just nodded and gave Peter a hand and pull him to his feet. “Thanks” Peter said quietly.
“I took out the people downstairs already. Do your thing Peter. It was nice to meet you” Matt said before running towards a window, disappearing out into the night.
***
While going through the building tech, and weapons, Peter called Rhodey. Mainly to get him to send Shield for cleanup, but also to ask for advice when it came to a gift to Mr. Stark.
“Another one? Kid, you have to be kidding me. I though the vulture was out of business” Rhodey said through the phone.
“I wish I were, they must have a secondary leader” Peter replied.
“Well, Shield is on their way to pick up the tech and get the… what do you call them ‘bad guys’? taken into custody” Rhodey replied. “Need any help going through the tech?”.
“No, it should be fine. It mostly weapons, I’m just going over the more interesting objects. But so far there doesn’t seem to be anything of value” Peter replied. The most amazing thing he had found in the warehouse, was a open laptop with a list of customers they had soled weapons too. Karen had scanned it in, it would be great knowledge later one.
“Alright” Rhodey said “Well I hear you and your aunt will be joined us for Tony’s birthday”.
“Yeah. Actually. I wanted to ask you, do you happen to know what Tony might want as a birthday gift?” Peter asked.
“I’m sure his happy that your just there. Personally, I just give him joke gifts, maybe I’ll pull a contact or two so me and him can go find a bar, eat some dinner, near MIT later in the year. And get a tour of what the students are working on at the moment” Rhodey replied with a small laugh.
“I just fell like I should give him… something” Peter said.
“You could give him a key change or coffee muck saying ‘worlds best dad’ or some shit” Rhodey laughed.
“That not…” Peter sigh “I don’t think Tony would appreciate that. It would just be awkward”.
Peter could hear Rhodey move on the other side of the call “Put you do see him as a father figure, right?”. Peter shrug.
“I mean, yeah. I guess so” Peter said pulling the last bit out.
“Why not admit it Pete?” Rhodey asked “You see him as a dad”.
“Because Parker luck had killed all my father figures so far” Peter replied.
“Well that shouldn’t st…” Rhodey spoke, but Peter didn’t hear it. In front of him stood a handful of old server, burned and beaten and most likely beyond repair. Peter could see that they once had been pained in a black color, but now the silvery metal was shining through. And on the side was a SI logo.
The white text, with the S and T connect. Over it and down one of the side the white, triangle lines stood sharp.
It was old Stark server.
“Peter? Your still there” Rhodey asked, voice slightly concerned.
“Eh… yeah. Sorry I just” Peter went closer to the server, running his fingers over the case, watching as dust lifted and filled the air “…found something interesting”.
“How interesting are we talking?” Rhodey asked “Bomb? A name for their new leader? Information on your secret identity?” Rhodey sounded serious, but Peter couldn’t help but giggle.
“No, interesting as in two old SI server towers. Completely beat up and destroyed though. It would be a waste of time just trying to get it back up and running” Peter replied.
“Old SI Servers?” Rhodey asked, uncertainty filling his voice “That impossible unless… what if they got them from the bombing of the penthouse in Malibu?”.
“You mean back when everyone though Tony was dead? Back with the mandarin?” Peter asked.
“Yes” Rhodey replied “Look kid. I don’t care what you do what those servers. But I know Tony would appreciate it if you somehow get them out of there. He don’t want Shield to have that kind of information that could be on it. And if we’re unlucky, Shield can get information off of that thing. And like, you could use it for you PC builds right? Instead of dumpster diving”.
“Sure thing” Peter replied, and carefully hide the servers were Shield wouldn’t find them when they came. He could always pick them up a day after school were he had a backpack with him.
***
“So did the algorithm work?!” Ned asked as they walked down the hall the next day.
Peter nodded “Yeah. Found a warehouse. A few weapons, 15 people. Shield took it all expect some old SI servers, because Rhodey told me to hide them and use them for whatever” Peter replied. Putting his books into his locker, before slamming it shot and hanging has backpack loosely over one shoulder.
“Stark servers?!” Ned eyes went wide “That’s so cool dude!”.
Peter shrug “They likely wont work. Completely burned and beaten up. I’m lucky if some of the chips on the board works”.
“Shouldn’t you hand it over to Stark?” MJ asked as she joined them.
“I’m going to ask him about it today” Peter replied, “But all of the stuff on those servers are likely backed up already”. He looked out through the front door, to spot the black SUV in the parking lot “I gotta go, see you guys tomorrow” Peter called as he ran through the doors and jumped into the backseat of the car.
“Hey Happy” he greeted pulling out his headphone and listened to music on the drive to the tower. The drive was short, and as soon as Happy pulled up to the tower Peter was out the car, yelled a goodbye to happy and walked towards the security area, scanning his badge.
“Hello Peter. How was school today?” Friday asked.
“Hey Fri, school was great” he replied walking into the elevator which took him to Tony’s lab.
Tony was sitting, deep in concentration with a new project. Even though Peter’s drone was great, they had for a long-time bene hoping to make ever better drones. Both for Peter, but also for photographers, and news channels.
Peter remembered having an old drone with a camera when he was a kid, before Ben died. Back when they had money for him to buy a camera, and a cheap drone. The drone hadn’t lasted more than a few weeks before the battery seemed to die, and when he replaced the battery packs, the camera had died only days later. The drone was likely still laying somewhere in a box in his and May’s apartment, but his old DSLR camera had been sold when Peter and May couldn’t pay the bills a few months after Ben’s death. Weeks before Tony Stark showed up.
“Hey Mr. Stark” Peter greeted, walking through the lab and over to his over workspace.
Tony looked up with a smile “Hey kiddo. I hear you found another storage facility last night. Did the algorithm work?”.
Peter nodded “Yeah it worked. Ended up getting a little help from Daredevil, it was pretty cool”.
“Any interesting tech or information that could be used as a lead?” Tony asked.
Peter shrug “I mean not really. There were two old SI server towers, quiet beaten up and burned. I might try and salvage the motherboards from them if you don’t mind. But I don’t think there’s any way to get data of those things”.
“Yeah that’s cool” Tony replied “Just, promise me to delete any data on those things, if you find any. Do you have any ideas to how they got the servers?”.
“Rhodey says they might have gotten them when the penthouse in Malibu was bombed” Peter replied “but I don’t know. There wasn’t much info”.
“Hm. Friday, any theories?” Tony asked to the celling.
“I would believe Mr. Rhodes to be correct. It would be the only situation that would be chaotic enough for anyone to get away with your technology” Friday replied.
“Damn it! Jarvis would never have something like slip by” Tony said with a grovel.
“Jarvis were you AI before Friday, right?” Peter asked.
Tony looked down into the floor “Yes, he was. Ultron destroyed him. And then we made vision… and…” Tony’s voice broke, Peter carefully got to his feet and placed a hand on Tony’s shoulder.
“Hey, it’s okay” he said. They stood like that for a bit before an idea popped into Peter’s head. The perfect birthday gift for Tony. He quickly collected his backpack from were he had placed it. “I just got an idea, I have to run. I’m so sorry, I might not come over this upcoming weekend!” And Peter ran into the elevator and went to the warehouse to collect the servers. Leaving Tony in the lab to think ‘what just happened?’.
***
As soon as Peter came home from the school the following day, together with Ned he started the project with the servers.
Step one was to disable everything. The countless SSD’s in both towers, hold by screws that had been melted and gotten stuck, having to pride from the metal casing. The broken, and burned cables, having to be disconnected and untangled. Parts on both motherboard having to be rewired due to corrosion having eaten important part away.
In the end they took the best piece of the two motherboards and rewired the best chips to the best board. Hoping to get just one of the servers up and running.
When everything had been pulled apart, they carefully tried to unbend the worst of the cases, using it as their build base. With Peter’s super strength it wasn’t too hard. But the case was still badly corroded, so with Peter’s and Ned’s spare pocket money they bought a big container and a few liters of vinegar. Vinegar is a light acid, which could carefully eat away the corrosion. And it stood like that in the hallway of Peter’s and May’s apartment for days.
And that’s how rest of the week went. Peter and Ned would carefully test every single over of the SSD’s, after conforming that they had a functional motherboard to control them. And they hoped to get data off them.
Most of the data they were able to pull of the SSD’s were old blueprints for Iron man suits, Stark phone plans, some videos from the bombing of the penthouse.
By the time the weekend came Peter was losing hope in his project. Ned had, had to leave the project behind Friday afternoon, due to a family event that weekend. So Peter was sitting alone going through old files, and recovering whatever he could, begging and hoping that he would find what he wanted.
At some point he had connected Karen to his computer, getting her to help with saving the files. It was faster that way, and Peter only had to switch the different SSD’s every time Karen was done with one.
At some point Saturday night Pepper contacted Peter. Peter woke up to his ringtone blaring out in his room, so he quickly picked up, while switching to yet another SSD.
“Hey Peter” Pepper’s voice rang over the phone, she was on speaker as Peter looked at all the file names that was imported from the SSD to his computer by Karen. “Tony’s scared he scared you off in the lab last Tuesday. I just wanted to ask if everything is okay?”.
Peter had totally forgot about how he’d left Tony all alone, God that had been stupid “Oh, sorry. I just… I have been working on a really important project” Peter replied.
“So important that you had to run out of the lab, leaving Tony to wonder what he did wrong?” She asked, he tone sharp.
Peter scanned over the files names, on of them catching his eyes. He quickly clicked it, watching as a document full of code popped up on the screen.
“Been working on a birthday gift to Tony. I just got the amazing idea in the lab, because of something Tony said. And, I mean…” Peter stared at the code, took a deep breath and smiled “I think I just pulled Jarvis of an old SI server the Vulture had stolen” Peter said, excitement clear in his voice. Or was it joy? He wasn’t sure.
A choked gasp could be heard from the other side of the phone “You… you, found Jarvis?” disbelief was clear in her voice.
“I think so, yeah. I just have to test it and see if his working” Peter replied “So if you don’t mind, I’ll get going. Tony’s birthday it on Monday, and I don’t got much time”.
“Well, okay then. Go do you project Peter” Pepper replied, and Peter hung up without saying another word.
“Karen, run over the code and fix any major issues and bugs there might be in it” he said to his AI, letting himself dump down onto the bed.
“It will take around 6 and a half hour to do so. I would recommend you get some food and sleep while waiting” Karen replied.
***
“So, you never actually confirmed if you had time for Tony’s birthday Party” Peter said, while eating toast with May the next morning.
They were sitting in the small kitchen, the evidence of May disaster pancakes in the garbage, but a thick smell of burned food and smoke still hanging in the air.
May look at the calendar hanging above their dining table “I don’t think I can. I’m working late tomorrow. But tell him happy birthday from me”.
Peter’s phone pinged, Karen sending him a message that she was done looking over the code. “I have to get this project done today. Sorry May” he said getting up from his chair, halfway running to his room.
“Alright Karen. Let’s get this server tower put together” Peter said. And began to assemble the tower once more.
After the case had laid in vinegar for a few days, all the corrosion had been eaten away, but so had the paint. So he gave the case a good clean, and then painted it with a black paint he had laying around, from when he and Ben had done banners together a long time ago.
The SSD’s that worked and had data one them were connected to motherboard.
Peter closed the case, connected the server to his laptop, and opened a control window. Writing a command to start Jarvis.
‘Start up protocol activated: Scanning code…’ blinked on the screen in front of Peter’s eyes.
‘Scanning: 3%... 12%... 25%... 43%... 56%... 87%... 99%...’
‘Start up: Jarvis’
“Hello sir. My sceneries appear to have been blocked” A male voice said, visions voice said. Jarvis said.
Peter took a deep breath “You must be Jarvis. I’m a friend of Mr. Stark, my names Peter” he greeted the AI.
“Hello Peter, would you be able to tell me were I am?” Jarvis asked. Peter grinned.
***
After school the next day Happy picked up Peter, but before going to the lack house were the party was, they stopped by Queens so Peter could pick up his gift for Tony.
“What did you get him?” Happy asked as he saw Peter come with the giant box in his hands.
Peter just smiled, with a wide grinned and shook his head.
The party was great. They were jumping in the semi warm lack water, eating hotdogs, and enjoying the great weather. And there weren’t too many people. There were Pepper, Morgan, Rhodey, and Happy of course. But other than that is was only Vision, Bruce, Steve, Clint, Natacha, and Thor. The originals.
At some point after they ate cake, it became time for Tony to open his gifts. Morgan was sitting in his lap as he opened them.
Pepper and Morgan had bought a gift for him together, though it was most likely Pepper that had bought it and written the 5-year-old on the gift. It was a few books about technology from some of the bigger scientist in the world. Vision and Wanda had gotten him a gift together, even if Wanda wasn’t there, it was a small crystal shining in a light blue color, similar to that of the Arc reactor.
Rhodey, had as he told Peter planned a weekend with a turn on MIT, some good food and a drink. Steve had found an old photo of Tony and him from way back when, together with a letter Tony had written to his childhood hero.
Natacha and Clint had gotten him a special set of tools, for traveling. Bruce had gotten Tony a funny tie, and Thor had brough back a special bear from off worlds.
When Peter gave Tony the giant box, Morgan freaked out “That’s sooooo big!” she screamed, running around the room and pulling Pepper with her over to the box to look at it closely. Tony gave Peter a weird look.
“Kid, I’m quiet sure I told you not to buy me anything” Tony said. Peter smirked.
“I didn’t buy you anything, this, in that box, is what I have been busy with the last few days” Peter replied. Placing the box in Tony’s lap. Tony just looked at it for a moment before carefully removing the paper. With a carefulness that hadn’t existed when he opens the gifts form the other. And with a shakiness to his hands.
When the paper was gone he carefully opened the box. On for spread out were an old T-Shirt with the word ‘expo’ on it. The X being orange. Peter had gotten it from Ben and May when he went as a kid. There also were a little note with the words ‘Good job kid’. Tony looked at him, tears flooding his eyes, before pulling Peter into a hug.
“That was you” he said, his voice cracking. Rhodey who had been in the battle too, also connected the dots. Likely having heard about it from Tony himself.
“There’s more” Peter said with a smile, pulling out of the hug.
Tony removed the shirt, carefully placing it by his side. Revealing the server casing, connected to an old Alexa that Peter had found in the trash and fixed up so it worked with Jarvis.
“What is this?” Tony asked looking at Peter. But Peter didn’t need to answer.
“Hello Sir” . Jarvis voice sounded clear through the speaker “Mr. Parker pulled off the server the Vulture stole” .
“Jarvis? Is that really you?” Tony asked, tears rolling down his cheeks. He was getting soft.
“Yes Mr. Stark” Jarvis replied.
Tony look at Peter. Placed the box on the table next to him. Stood up and pulled the kid close, “Thank you so much Peter. I love your kid”.
Peter tightened his grip around Tony sand said “I love you, Dad”.
“I knew it!” Rhodey voice echoed throughout the living room, and everyone laughed.