Spider-Son & Iron Dad two shots

Hammer and Holograms

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?"