Peter's Side of the Story:

Peter knocked resignedly on the door. A second later it flew open, and a very upset Aunt May stepped aside. He sheepishly ducked his head and went inside, closing the door quickly behind him.

"I've been calling you all day. You don't answer your phone. You can't do that. Then this ferry thing happens? I've called five police stations. Five. I called Ned's mother…"

"May, I'm ok," Peter said, trying to calm her down. "Honestly, just relax. I'm fine."

"Cut the bullshit."

May had never yelled at him before. Peter's eyes went wide. Could this day get any worse?

As May laid out his list of indiscretions, a lump formed in Peter's throat. Again. He dropped himself onto the bench at the table, and immediately regretted it. May, gratefully, missed his wince.

After he admitted that he had messed up with Mr. Stark, May finally softened and walked over to give him a hug. "You smell like garbage," she said, wrinkling her nose. "Go take a shower."

Alone in the bathroom, Peter took off the oversized t-shirt he was wearing and his boxers and stepped into the shower. The hot water against his sore butt made him jump. Twisting around to look he saw the damage Tony's belt had done and groaned. He just wanted to forget this day had ever happened. But instead, his brain started replaying it in great detail…

"Wait for me over there," Mr. Stark ordered in a deep growl and immediately flew away.

Peter stayed on the ferry's radar tower for a few minutes, catching his breath and trying to make sense of what had just happened. He had done everything right, and now Mr. Stark was pissed at him? Crap. Mr. Stark was pissed at him! Again. Knowing he'd better be where he'd been told to be by the time Mr. Stark got back from…wherever he was…Peter swung his way over to Governor's Island and perched himself on the edge of the ventilation shaft of the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel. As he waited, he worried. What had he just done? Was everyone ok? What was Mr. Stark going to say this time? What was he going to do?

Sooner than he was ready for, he heard the unmistakable sound of an inbound Iron suit.

"Previously on 'Peter Screws the Pooch'," Mr. Stark immediately began, "I tell you to stay away from this, and instead, you hack a multi-million dollar suit so you can sneak around behind my back doing the one thing I told you not to do."

"Is everyone ok back there?" Peter asked quietly.

"No thanks to you," came the pointed answer.

Peter lost it. A week's worth of frustration spilled out as he railed at Mr. Stark for not listening to him in the first place. "If you even cared, you'd actually be here."

The second the helmet flipped up and Peter saw Mr. Stark's face, his heart stopped. And when Mr. Stark stepped out of the suit and walked toward him? All Peter wished he could do was disappear. Peter was expecting the lecture, but what he wasn't expecting was to feel as guilty as he did when Mr. Stark told him that if he'd died, it would always be on his conscience.

Peter tried one last defense: "I just wanted to be like you."

"And I wanted you to be better." The disappointment in Mr. Stark's voice was somehow worse than the anger Peter had faced just seconds earlier. "Ok," he continued, "this isn't working out. I'm gonna need the suit back."

Peter's heart stopped again. "For how long?"

"Forever."

No, no, no, no, no! This couldn't be happening! What would he do without the suit? It was everything to him! But before he could argue much more, Mr. Stark angrily ordered him to take it off. A lump formed in his throat as he begged for forgiveness one last time. It didn't work.

"I don't have any other clothes," he finally admitted. Surely, Mr. Stark wouldn't make him strip down to his underwear right there. Would he?

"Ok, well, we'll sort that out," came the cold, off-handed reply. Peter hesitated. "Now, Mr. Parker," Mr. Stark said sternly.

Peter knew he was out of options and slowly stepped out of the suit. Immediately, the wind chilled his bare skin. Mr. Stark held out his hand, and with one last longing look, Peter handed over his prized possession to the man who had given it to him in the first place.

Mr. Stark looked at the suit in his hand, anger continuing to rise. He clenched his jaw, draped the suit over the railing, and reached down to unbuckle his belt. "Turn around," he ordered.

"What?" Peter asked, eyes wide.

"Turn around. Now," Tony ordered again, slipping the belt out of its loops and doubling it over in his hand.

Tears immediately sprung up in Peter's eyes as the realization of everything he had done came crashing down on him. "Yes, sir." Peter turned around and bent over the railing, bracing himself on the second rung. A second later, the belt landed and a fiery strip ignited across his backside. The belt fell three more times before he lost his composure and started crying quietly.

Mr. Stark spanked him hard a few more times before his anger drained and he dropped the belt to his side. Peter stayed leaning over the railing, crying and Mr. Stark took a step back.

"Pull yourself together," he said quietly. "I'll be back in a minute." And then he left.

Peter straightened up and wiped his face with the back of his hands. The pain in his backside was intense, but more than that was the realization he had let down the man he admired so much, the man who had given him everything.

When Mr. Stark returned, he handed Peter an XL "I Survived My Trip to NYC" t-shirt. "Put that on and let's get you home."

As the water rained down on Peter's head and shoulders, he squeezed his eyes shut, willing away a day's worth of embarrassment that had culminated in being carried across Brooklyn and deposited on the roof of his apartment building by a silent Iron Man, who then left without another word.

Peter sighed. What was he supposed to do now? His life was over, and it was his own fault.

Tony's Side of the Story:

Pepper stood between the kitchen and the living room, clutching a cup of coffee in her hand. She watched for a long time, waiting. For what, she didn't know, just…something. Tony had been sitting in the same spot, staring into the lit fireplace and ignoring the whiskey in the glass next to him for over two hours. Finally, Pepper saw him take a deep breath and let it out slowly. She walked to the couch, her bare feet making no sound on the cool concrete floor. She gently lowered herself into the seat next to Tony's chair and curled her legs under her. He didn't move.

"Tony?" she ventured quietly. She saw a muscle in his cheek twitch. "Talk to me. Please. Just tell me what happened." Tony took another deep breath, but just kept staring into the fire. She reached out slowly and gently rubbed his arm. "I'm not going anywhere." She settled back into the corner of the couch, sipped her coffee, and kept waiting.

Another ten minutes passed before Tony finally moved. He stood up, walked to the fireplace, and leaned on the mantle.

"The kid is gone," he said, his voice sounding more tired than Pepper had heard it in a long time.

"What are you talking about?" she asked, a quiet panic sneaking into her chest.

"I sent him home."

Pepper breathed a sigh of relief. "Tony! I thought you meant he was dead! Don't do that to me!" Tony didn't respond. "I don't understand. So Peter went home. He's a kid. That's where he belongs. What am I missing?"

Tony rubbed his hand over his face and finally turned around. "You didn't hear me. I didn't say he went home. I said I sent him home."

Pepper nodded slowly, suddenly understanding. "What did he do this time?"

Tony moved back to his chair, flopped down into it and rubbed his face again. "What do you think he did? He disobeyed me again, and he lied right to my face."

"The ferry," Pepper said, matter-of-factly. "He wasn't supposed to be there, right? And I guess that means he stole the suit again?"

"Not only was he not supposed to be there," Tony said, the volume of his voice rising suddenly, "it was entirely his fault! He could have been killed!"

"Not to mention all those people," Pepper added. She wasn't trying to pile on, just help refocus Tony's perspective.

He gave her a look, then nodded in understanding and agreement. "Right."

"Do you want to tell me about it?" Pepper said after a few more silent minutes had passed.

Tony sighed. "Yeah, maybe it'll help me sort this out… I was still kind of pissed about him taking the suit to DC, but all's well that ends well, right? So I called him to tell him that I was proud of him, ya know, trying to break that family cycle and all." Pepper could sense he was already getting angry. "And he lied right to me! He told me he was at school. He told me he was at Band practice." He took a deep breath to try to calm himself down again. "Turns out," he continued, a little more calmly, "he was on that damn ferry with a whole bunch of violent criminals, and that guy with that wing suit." He shook his head. "Next thing I know, F.R.I.D.A.Y. tells me the kid is in danger, I see footage of the Staten Island Ferry coming apart at the seams, and I have to rush over there, put it back together, and save the kid's ass!" He was angry again.

Pepper waited for Tony to regain his composure. "Then what?"

Tony finally took a sip of his drink, then immediately spit it back into the cup. The ice had all melted. "I sent him to the top of the tunnel ventilation shaft on Governor's Island to wait for me while I cleaned up his mess."

"He must have been scared out of his mind," Pepper observed.

"Ya know?" Tony said, facing her, "you'd think that, wouldn't you? But not him. Not Mr. Know-It-All-Teenage-Spider-Boy. No," Tony said, a bitter look crossing his face, "not that kid. He had the audacity to blame me for his stupidity…saying I didn't listen to him, that I was the reason the weapons were on that ferry in the first place…" He shook his head and went silent again.

Pepper waited, watching him closely. He chewed on his lip, rubbed his face, sighed a few times, clearly thinking through the events of the day again. "Tony," she said quietly after a few more minutes had passed, "what did you do to him?" Tony glanced at her sideways, then stared back into the fire.

"I took his suit. I told him he was done."

"And?" Pepper prompted.

"Pepper," Tony said, suddenly annoyed, "I did exactly what my father would have done to me in that situation, ok? He deliberately disobeyed me. I didn't know what else to do."

"How'd he take it?" Tony had expected Pepper to yell at him and tell him he'd been too hard on Peter. He was not expecting that question.

Tony considered that for a moment. "Well," he said, "he certainly took it better than I ever took a whipping from my father."

"Well," Pepper answered, "he probably didn't feel much in that suit, now that I think about it." Tony looked away. "Tony?" No answer. "Tony, did you…?"

"Yeah," he said with a sigh, "I did." He shrugged. "Look, I made that suit. I knew he wouldn't feel anything through it. And I was really pissed. So I made him take it off first." He shook his head, "Dumb kid wasn't even wearing any clothes under it. I guess I forgot to tell him the suit fits over jeans and a t-shirt just as well as it fits over his boxer shorts."

Pepper hissed. "So he had to face an angry Tony with a belt in just his underwear on top of a tunnel ventilation shaft? I'm glad I'm not him!" After a minute, something occurred to Pepper. "You didn't make him go home like that, did you?"

Tony looked away. "I bought him a t-shirt."

"Tony! That poor kid! He must have been humiliated! How could you?"

"I told you, I was pissed at him!"

Pepper sighed. "So now what?"

Tony shrugged. "He goes back to being a Friendly Neighborhood Spiderman, goes back to school like he's supposed to, and I go back to my life without the added burden of babysitting him all the time."

"Uh huh."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Pepper shook her head. "Tony, you've been sitting in a morose funk since you got home. Clearly, this isn't the end of it. So," she said again, "what now?"

Tony sank back into his chair and stared at the ceiling for a while.

"What's the problem?" Pepper finally asked. "You made the right decision, didn't you? The Great Tony Stark always makes the right decision in every situation, doesn't he?" Tony shot her a look. She softened her tone. "Obviously, you have some regrets about how things went down today." Tony nodded. "So what are you going to do about it?"

"I don't know."

"May I make a suggestion without you biting my head off?"

Tony gave her another look, then nodded. "Go ahead."

"Keep an eye on him. Ya know, from a distance. See what he does now that he doesn't have the suit anymore. If he just goes back to his life like it was before he got his powers, you'll know you were right about him. But," she said pointedly, "if he really does go back to being the Friendly Neighborhood Spiderman…"

"Then give him another chance," Tony finished her sentence. He sighed for about the 23rd time since they'd started talking. "But how do I do that? After what happened today, how do I just welcome him back into the fold? Pepper, everything changed today."

Pepper reached over and touched Tony's arm again. "You realized you care today."

"I don't know how to do that," he said quietly. Pepper grinned. "I mean," he sat up suddenly, "I don't know what to do with a kid. The only reason I whipped him today was because that's all I could think of. It's all my father did when I pissed him off. Pepper," he said, his voice cracking a little bit, "I don't want to be my father…"

Pepper grinned again. "Then be Peter's."

"How?"

"He's obviously good, or you wouldn't have brought him to Germany. But he's what? Fourteen?"

"Fifteen. Or so I've been told."

"Fifteen. He's young, he's got these powers he doesn't really understand or know how to control, and he's got you giving him high-tech suits, without even telling him he can wear clothes under them. Tony, he needs a mentor. He needs…you."

Tony sat back and considered Pepper's idea for a while. "But I spanked him. I mean, I did threaten him with that the last time he disobeyed me, but I never meant for it to actually happen. I doubt he'd ever want to see me again after today," he concluded sadly.

Pepper got up from her seat, then slipped into Tony's with him. "You'll never know if you don't try," she whispered in his ear, running her fingers through his unruly hair. "And I've never known you to give up before. On anything."

Tony smiled, reached over and pulled Pepper into his lap, wrapping his arms around her. "What would I do without you?" he asked.

"Well," Pepper responded, "for one thing, your bed would never get made."

"Hmm, speaking of bed…" Tony scooped Pepper up in his arms, stood up, and threw her across his shoulder playfully. As they went upstairs, Pepper knew the heart of the man she loved had just grown a little bit more.