st_arkintern | (no subject)

Tony looked up from his seat at the base of a dried pine tree, idly turning a cone around in his fingers. They had been walking since the early morning, and Tony was on his fourth coffee break with a sizeable thermos.

"On a scale of one to ten or something?" He glanced to the side, pulling a knee up. "You take it day by day, kid."

Peter shifts where he stands, leaning against a tree across from Tony. He has a water bottle in hand. This is his third since this morning.

It's important to keep hydrated.

"That's not really an answer," Peter points out, gesturing at Tony with the bottle.

"What isn't?" Tony took a swig, tossing the pine cone over Peter's way.

"Also, am I just imagining it, or was that a pack of wild turkeys we saw earlier? Let's say we go hunting when November rolls around and stuff something other than chicken."

Peter manages to catch it easily in one hand. Spidey-reflexes and all.

"Taking it day-by-day," he says, tossing it back at Tony. "It was a yes or no question."

Tony puffed out his cheeks in a harsh sigh, lazily raising a hand to catch the prickly cone. Peter was in a mood. This called for another swig of coffee.

"The world isn't made up of yes or no answers."

Peter presses his lips together and frowns.

"Okay," he concedes finally. This isn't working. He uncaps his bottle and takes another long swig of it, the plastic cracking a little as he finishes it off.

"I like it here," he says finally. "Yeah, I miss a lot of things." Peter slings his backpack off one shoulder so he can more easily unzip it without taking it off completely. "A lot." He thinks of Ned and May in particular. If he weren't here, Tony'd be among that lineup, too.

"It wasn't really great in the beginning," Peter admits as he stuffs empty water bottle number 3 back into the backpack. "But it definitely got better."

Peter pulls the strap back over his shoulder and looks over at Tony.

"So," he exhales. "It might just take time."

Tony squinted, rubbing his mouth free of a few stray drops of the dark roast. A little too dark today, if there were such a thing. Some soy creamer would be nice, here.

"Alright?" Tony wanted to ask what sort of gossip had made its way back to Peter, but he wasn't sure he wanted to know the answer. There were a few sensitive pieces mixed in there.

"Alright," Peter says back at him.

Tony blinked, slowly, and held Peter's expectant stare.

The moments trickled by.

Slowly.

If there was ever to be a Mexican Standoff between The Invincible Iron Man and The Amazing Spider-Man, this was it.

Incredibly, Tony was the first to break, rolling his eyes so hard the rest of his head rolled with them. "Do we have to do this right now? There's science underway here."

Peter lets out a long-suffering sigh and runs a hand through his hair in frustration.

"When else am I supposed to do it?" he asks. "This has been the first time we've been together for longer than five minutes since you and Alec had that big, stupid fight in the bar."

Peter Parker is not mincing words today.

"Yeah, I was the adult, that was my fault. I am sorry." Tony twisted the cap of his thermos back on tight enough that he knew he'd have to struggle the next time he wanted coffee, which was likely to be very shortly.

"I didn't instigate, but I tried to finish it. I thought... ..." He sighed, turning his head. "Doesn't matter what I thought. It happened. It shouldn't have."

"I'm not even mad about that anymore," Peter says. Anymore. He definitely was for awhile. At both Alec and Tony.

He didn't even want an apology for it.

"I don't get why you're ignoring me," he says.

Or why Liz suddenly knows more about how you're feeling than I do.

Tony scoffed, whipping his head back in Peter's direction. "Who's ignoring you, Peter? What do you call what we're doing right now? Or, specifically, what we were doing five minutes ago before this. Also, don't say you're not mad at me anymore. You should be, and we both know it. Hell, gimme the list. You've obviously got one."

Tony's fight-or-flight was kicking in, and he knew it. He took a deep, shaky breath and made to stand. "Look, just...that didn't come out right. I wasn't trying to run from this. You. Or you."

Peter takes a breath. He knows he's upset, but he can't quite put a name complicated, uncomfortable feeling churning beneath his chest.

So he drops the talk about Tony. And Alec. And the fight. And the way Tony reacted afterward, and then settles for the less complex and accusatory of the two situations they're dealing with here.

"Are you really unhappy here?"

Tony's back hit the tree, and another sigh heaved from his body. "We need to get home, Peter. I'm not unhappy so much as I am restless."

That wasn't a lie. Tony had found some things to be grateful for, mainly in the new relationships he was forging. But none of it washed away his ultimate duty.

Peter knows better than to ask Tony why he's restless. He's been restless too. It just got easier when you'd been there for almost 13 months. You adapted, regardless of if you wanted to or not.

He scratches an elbow, presses his lips together, and then frowns. He doesn't believe there's any way that they're going to get out of here of their own volition. He's believed that for going on ten months now. And what he believes probably isn't going to change, even with Tony here to take charge and make things happen.

Be he doesn't say any of that.

"What else did you need help with?"

"Can we not?" Tony pinned Peter with his stare, clearly unready to just pretend the previous conversation never happened. "You stuck your damn heels in so much already, so just tell me what's up."

Peter was radiating something, and Tony had a feeling. "If this is because I offered an "internship" to someone else..."

Peter is bristling with irritation even before Tony finally makes the suggestion. Peter was trying to help. He knew that nothing he did was going to change anything. He knew they were both going to be stuck here for however long the powers-that-be decided to keep them here. But he was still trying to help, because he thought it might help Tony.

And maybe if he helped Tony, Tony would find some reason to keep him around.

"This doesn't have anything to do with Liz," he snaps. "So don't even suggest it. You want to spend more time with other people than you do me? Fine. But I've been here far longer than you have, and there's plenty of stuff that I know that you don't. So don't act like you suddenly know more than me about anything."

Tony tilted his chin down to see Peter over his glasses, rendered speechless through quiet shock more than stubbornness for the first time since he'd known the boy. He vaguely knew Peter was capable of that depth of bitterness, but somehow doubted he'd ever see it.

Peter glowers at Tony for a full half minute of that silence. And when Tony doesn't say anything, he adjusts the strap of his backpack, then wordlessly storms off.

Tony snapped out of it the moment the crunching of leaves hit his ears along with Peter's angrily retreating from, and he clicked his tongue. "Oh no, no you don't. Young man. Nu-uh." Tony strode after him, snapping his fingers.

"We're not playing this game."

Peter feels irritation rising up in him, but he doesn't stop. Instead, his pace grows faster.

"I'm not walking away from you, Peter, so don't test me." Tony kept pace at the distance he was at behind the boy, navigating over forest debris easily. "You wanna web-sling your way out? That's cool, I'll Iron Blast after you."

He meant it, too.

"And you wanna know why I'd do that? Because I care a whole damn lot about your suddenly-moody ass and I'm not gonna pretend like I'll leave you to sulk it out in the middle of the creepy woods!"

That's enough to make Peter stop and spin on heel.

"If you cared about me, you haven't shown it," Peter snaps. "We've barely talked the past two weeks and the one time I try to confront you about it, you just tell me that you're paying attention to me now, like that somehow makes up for it."

Tony dropped his voice to cool register now that he had Peter's attention, stopping several paces away. "Let's start by you not putting words in my mouth. Alright? Alright. This isn't me trying to undo anything. Did I not just get through saying you had a list of reasons to be angry, some items likely for very good reason?

He paused, but didn't wait for Peter to interject.

"I got asked a really personal question I wasn't expecting and, quite frankly, didn't want to answer because it felt like a trap. And it was. And this is what we're doing now. But we're here, and we're gonna talk this through like adults."