Chapter Text
Tony was aware of the new hero, they all were, but since the man rarely left his neighborhood and kept mostly to the ground with small-time thieves and rescuing kittens, there had been no proper excuse to get to know him better. Still, it was only a matter of time before their roads crossed. He'd always thought it would happen during a fight or something. Not this.
He was out late, testing his new suit, when Jarvis informed him of a person standing on the roof of the Empire State Building, looking way too suspicious to ignore. Zooming in on the lone person staring at the city below, way too far, his posture stiff and screaming of desperation, Tony felt a jolt of something; surprise or concern? It was Spider-Man. Sure, the superhero business wasn’t for the faint of heart, plus he’d seen the news about the boy Spider-Man had failed to save, but still, surely he wasn’t going to..?
Screw it, he decided, his heart dropping as the hero let himself fall.
With his thrusters pushing him forward at full speed, Tony captured the falling Spider only barely before they got too close to the ground.
“Check his vitals,” he ordered Jarvis a little breathlessly. He was startled at the numbers shown to him. “Is that his heart—?” His question was interrupted by the hero in question.
“Iron Man.” It was a man’s voice alright, but suspiciously young. There was no way he was much older than twenty. Iron Man's arms tightened around the hero. “Put. Me. Down.” He sounded tense and ready to bolt, even mid-flight over New York.
“Oh no, I don't think so,” Tony said darkly. “Let me guess, the moment I put you down, you’re going to jump again?”
“Well duh.” At least he was being honest. “I’m Spider-Man.”
“And I’m Iron Man. Now that we’ve established who we are, how about you tell me what you were thinking, trying to decorate the streets with red and blue?” Tony shuddered at the mental image.
“Decorate the—wait, you think I was going to jump?”
“You did jump.”
“No, no, no. Not that kind of jump. I wasn’t going to kill myself.”
Tony scoffed. “That’s not what it looked like from where I was flying.”
“Seriously, I’m Spider-Man, that’s what I do; I jump off the buildings and swing around. Don’t you know anything about me? I know I’m not Avengers level, but I can’t be that forgettable.”
Tony paused to think about that for a long while. “Even from that high?” He wasn’t convinced yet.
Spider-Man sounded sheepish when he admitted, “Well, not usually. I always wanted to try it, though.”
“Why?”
“For fun.”
“Fun,” Tony echoed, but then he recalled his own first times, all the way from his first actual flight with the suit to, well, everything. Yeah, he could see himself doing something just as stupid if he was the one swinging around in a colorful spandex. He was more than a little uncomfortable with the knowledge of just how thin the suit was. No protection whatsoever. “So you didn’t need saving?” This time, he added to himself.
“No! And seriously, put me down before anyone sees us.” The young hero sounded mortified. "I can't have you ruin my hard-earned image. Spider-Man is cool and this is so uncool."
Finally relenting, Tony left Spider-Man on top of a roof that was much closer to the ground. His heart could only take so many scares in one night.
“See you around, tin can!” Spider-Man waved at him and when the hero jumped off the roof, Tony flinched only a little.
“Stay away from Empire State Buildings!" The throwaway insult reached him only then. "Wait—you did not—tin can?!”