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Bugged Out Chapter 21

Tony Stark was not an insomniac.

Not technically.

Sure, he didn’t sleep much, but that was by choice. There were always things to build, equations to solve, problems to fix—his brain ran too fast to shut down like a normal person’s. That was fine. That was normal.

But tonight was different.

Tonight, his brain wasn’t running on the usual fuel of half-finished blueprints and world-ending threats. It was tangled in something else, something annoying, something small and stupid and shaped suspiciously like a fifteen-year-old in a ski mask.

Tony sighed, dragging a hand down his face as he stared at the glowing holo-display hovering in front of him.

Peter Parker.

The kid was a problem.

Not in the usual sense. Not like Loki was a problem, or interdimensional space gods were a problem. Peter was something different. Something unsettling. Because Tony had seen people like him before—the ones who threw themselves into danger without thinking, the ones who took stupid risks and never backed down. The ones who didn’t make it.

And that was what was keeping him awake.

Not the fact that the kid had been running around the city in sweatpants, not the fact that he’d somehow managed to evade him for months, not even the fact that he’d woken up in Tony’s med bay acting like it was a personal offense that someone had saved his life.

No.

It was the fact that Peter had looked him in the eye and meant it when he said Stark should’ve left him.

Tony exhaled sharply, spinning his chair away from the screen. The room was dark, save for the soft glow of holograms and the faint flicker of city lights through the floor-to-ceiling windows. The tower hummed around him, a low, steady thrum of tech and energy, but it felt too quiet.

His gaze drifted back to the table. Back to what he’d actually been working on.

A suit.

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Bugged Out 30

Tony had heard a lot of noises come out of Peter Parker’s mouth.

Sarcastic quips? All the time.

Annoyed grumbling? Hourly.

Actual, genuine, distressed noises?

Not often.

Which was why, when Peter screamed like he was being murdered, Tony panicked.

For a split second, his brain went into full crisis mode.

The sound that tore through the lab was bloodcurdling—sharp, raw, primal.

Tony’s heart lunged into his throat.

Oh God, he was on fire, wasn’t he?

Some freak accident, some horrible miscalculation—Peter had gotten caught in an arc reactor feedback loop or some stupid, stupid mistake Tony had let happen—

He whipped around, already bracing himself for the worst.

His brain raced through solutions—fire extinguisher, emergency med kit, get him to the Tower’s medical bay—

But Peter wasn’t on fire.

Peter was on the ceiling.

Tony froze.

Stared.

Peter was clinging to the metal panels like a feral cat, fingers dug into the surface, knees pulled up to his chest, face pale, eyes wild.

Tony blinked.

Peter shook violently. His voice came out high, thin, absolutely wrecked.

“Kill it.”

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Bugged Out Chapter 25

Peter wanted to die.

Okay, maybe that was dramatic, but this was bad.

Like, really bad.

He slumped lower in his seat, hoodie pulled up, arms crossed tight over his chest, as Mr. Harrington droned on about exciting new internship opportunities and real-world experience and how lucky one of their very own students was to have been personally selected by Stark Industries—

Peter clenched his jaw.

Because he knew where this was going.

Because he knew that he was that lucky student.

And because he also knew that he did not have a choice.

His grades were shot. His attendance record was a disaster. If he didn’t take this stupid internship, if he didn’t jump through whatever ridiculous hoops Stark had set up for him, he could kiss passing this semester goodbye.

It wasn’t fair.

It wasn’t fair.

He had so much going on already. He was running on empty, his body barely holding itself together, and now he had to pretend to be grateful that Stark had shoved his way into his life like some smug, billionaire fairy godmother?

No.

No, thank you.

But again—no choice.

And, to make things worse, every other kid in this room was staring at him.

Flash was the loudest about it, obviously.

“Are you kidding me?” he hissed from two seats over, leaning forward in his chair, eyebrows sky-high. “You got the Stark internship? You?”

Peter barely resisted the urge to throw his textbook at his head.

Instead, he gritted his teeth and muttered, “Guess so.”

Flash let out a disbelieving scoff. “You have got to be kidding me. What, did Stark just randomly decide to pick the biggest loser in school?”

Peter clenched his fists under the desk. “Sure. That’s exactly what happened.”

Flash ignored the sarcasm entirely. “That’s not fair! I actually applied for that internship last year and got rejected—”

Peter cut him a sharp glare. “Cry about it, Thompson.”

Flash opened his mouth—probably to say something stupid—but Mr. Harrington cleared his throat, silencing the class with a look.

“That’s enough,” he said, clearly already exhausted at 10 a.m. “Parker, you’ll need to report to Stark Industries after school. I expect you to take this seriously.”

Peter forced a tight-lipped smile.

“Oh, totally,” he lied. Bugged Out - Chapter 25 - Lemontasia - Spider-Man - All Media Types [Archive of Our Own]

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Bugged Out Chapter 34

Tony Stark didn’t beg. Not for anyone. Not for SHIELD, not for the Avengers, not for the board members who still clutched their pearls over his every move. He especially didn’t beg for bratty, ungrateful teenagers who barely scraped five-foot-nine and thought a hoodie and sweatpants made an acceptable superhero costume.

And yet—here he was.

Wringing his hands, pacing the length of his penthouse like a caged animal, the smooth leather of his palm chafing against his rough fingertips as he twisted his ring in slow, agitated circles. His jaw ached from clenching, his temples throbbed, and his stomach curled in on itself with something uncomfortable and bitter. He told himself it wasn’t guilt.

It was just fucking infuriating.

The kid wanted to be difficult? Fine. Tony could do difficult. He’d built a career on it. Hell, he thrived on it. But this—this was stupid. Stupid in a way that made his throat burn and his ribs feel too tight, like someone had taken a wrench to his chest and just kept turning.

Peter had made his position painfully clear. He’d rather die than have a father like Tony Stark.

That one still lingered. Sat heavy in the back of his skull, slow to dissolve. Not that it should’ve mattered. Tony wasn’t trying to be his father. He wasn’t trying to be anything. The kid had gotten tangled up in his life by accident, a blip on his radar that should’ve stayed a blip—but instead, Peter Parker had sunk his claws in and refused to let go, even as he was actively fighting against the very thing keeping him standing.

Because that’s what he was doing, wasn’t he? Peter Parker wasn’t just reckless—he was running himself straight into the goddamn ground.

Vitals: Weak. Blood Sugar: Dangerously Low.

Tony knew. Knew that Peter Parker, smartest kid in the room, full-time masked menace, was barely eating. Knew that whatever he was scraping together for meals was not enough, and his ridiculous metabolism was chewing him up from the inside out. Knew that his personal brand of masochistic self-destruction extended all the way down to basic survival.

And still—the kid refused to ask for help.

Tony raked a hand through his hair, barely resisting the urge to rip out a fistful just to feel something else for a second. The pacing wasn’t helping, but stopping wasn’t an option either. He had to do something, or he was going to fly to Queens and personally force-feed the little bastard a cheeseburger whether he liked it or not.

Instead, he turned to Happy.

Happy, who had not signed up for this, who was currently standing at the bar, arms crossed, watching Tony spiral with all the enthusiasm of a man being forced to babysit a rabid raccoon.

“Let me get this straight,” Happy said, tone flat. “You want me to deliver a bunch of groceries to the home of a kid who hates your guts and will probably throw them out the window the second he finds them.”

Tony pointed a sharp finger at him. “Yes. Exactly. See? You get it.”

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Bugged Out Chapter 31

“What the hell is wrong with you?”

Peter’s head jerked up, eyes flashing.

“Oh, I don’t know,” Peter shot back, voice dripping with venom. “Maybe I just have a terrible role model.”

Tony bristled. “You wanna run that by me again?”

Peter stepped forward. “You heard me.”

Tony glared. “You know, if you’re so miserable, you can leave.”

Peter laughed—a sharp, bitter sound. “Oh, trust me, I would—but you’re the one who forced me into this, remember?”

Tony’s pulse spiked. “You’re the one who can’t keep his grades up. I’m helping you.”

Peter’s fists shook. “You’re controlling me.”

“Oh, get over yourself, Parker. Not everything is a conspiracy.”

Peter’s face twisted. “Oh, right, because you would know so much about how to treat people.”

Tony’s vision blurred with anger. “You’re acting like a spoiled little—”

“Like a what?” Peter snapped. “Like a kid without a dad?”

Tony went still.

The room felt smaller.

Peter stepped closer, voice shaking with rage.

“You don’t get to do this,” he hissed. “You don’t get to act like you care and then shut down the second it gets real.”

Tony’s hands curled into fists. “Parker, I’m warning you—”

“No, I’m warning you,” Peter snapped. “I would rather die than have a father like you.”

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Bugged Out Chapter 29

Peter hated this.

Not the lab. Not the tools. Not the work.

That was the problem.

Because he was enjoying himself.

And he didn’t want to be.

The internship was supposed to be annoying. A waste of time. A punishment. That’s what he’d told himself. That’s what it was supposed to be.

But it wasn’t.

Not even close.

Because now?

Now he had this.

The smell of metal and ozone and hot circuitry in the air. The hum of machinery beneath his fingers. The smooth, effortless way his hands moved when he was focused, when he was building, when he was fixing things.

He’d missed this.

More than he realized.

Being Spider-Man took up everything. His time, his body, his mind. His nights were spent fighting, swinging through the city, getting punched, getting hurt—and his days? His days were spent recovering. Scrambling to catch up, to keep his grades from slipping, to hold himself together while the world kept spinning around him.

There was never any time.

Never any room to sit down, breathe, and think.

But here?

Here, in Tony’s lab, with access to the best equipment in the world, with tools that actually worked, with unlimited materials at his fingertips—

He could just… be.

Be Peter, for once.

Not Spider-Man.

Not the kid who was failing calculus because he couldn’t keep his eyes open in class.

Not the kid who had missed too many meals and was starting to feel it.

Just Peter Parker, the nerd who liked to build things.

And it felt so good.

He wouldn’t admit it.

Not to Tony, especially not to Tony.

But the internship was actually… good.

And that made it worse.

Because he didn’t deserve to feel good.

Bugged Out - Chapter 29 - Lemontasia - Spider-Man - All Media Types [Archive of Our Own]

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Bugged Out Chapter 28

It started small.

An itch.

Barely anything at first—just a weird, uncomfortable tightness in his wrists, an occasional twinge that made his fingers curl on instinct. Annoying, sure, but not the end of the world.

Peter ignored it.

Because, honestly? He had to.

School was eating up his time, Stark was dragging him into the Tower more and more, and between balancing his fake internship, his actual internship, and not failing chemistry, Spider-Man had been getting the short end of the stick.

He’d barely gone on patrols lately.

A quick swing here or there, but nothing major.

It was fine.

The city would survive without him for a little while.

Right?

But his body—

His body disagreed.

And it made that very, very clear.

The itch got worse.

Then it wasn’t an itch anymore.

It was pressure.

Something building, swelling inside his wrists, beneath his skin, tight and wrong, like his body was protesting. Like something needed to happen.

Peter tried not to think about it.

Tried to ignore it.

Tried to act like it wasn’t crawling under his skin, making his fingers twitch, his wrists ache, a deep, awful fullness that didn’t go away no matter how much he stretched or clenched his fists.

But then—

One morning, as he was brushing his teeth—

His wrist throbbed.

Then burst.

Not with blood.

With webbing.

A huge glob of it exploded out of his gland, splattering everywhere, coating the bathroom mirror, the sink, his face.

Peter choked, nearly dropping his toothbrush.

“Oh, what the fuck—”

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Bugged Out Chapter 26

Day two of the internship and the second Peter stepped into the common room, he knew exactly what was happening.

Tony had that look.

That smug, shit-eating grin that meant he was about to make Peter’s life hell for his own amusement.

Peter barely had a second to brace himself before Stark clapped a heavy hand on his shoulder and announced, way too loudly, “Alright, everyone! Meet my new personal intern—Peter Parker!”

Peter flinched as all eyes snapped to him.

There were so many people.

And not just people—Avengers.

Steve Rogers, who was sitting at the kitchen counter nursing a coffee, straightened slightly, his blue eyes flicking over Peter with polite interest.

Sam Wilson, who had been lounging on the couch, arched a brow, clearly unimpressed.

Thor, sitting way too comfortably in an armchair with a massive plate of food, grinned broadly.

Clint and Natasha, sitting side by side at the other end of the room, both stiffened—barely, just a fraction, so subtle most people wouldn’t have noticed.

Peter noticed.

His stomach curled.

Shit.

Tony elbowed him, leaning down slightly. “Well? Say hi, kid.”

Peter clenched his jaw, forcing a tight smile. “Uh…hey.”

Thor boomed a laugh. “A young scholar! It is good to see Stark finally taking on an apprentice.”

Tony rolled his eyes. “Apprentice is a strong word. He mostly just sasses me and tries not to electrocute himself.”

Sam snorted. “What’d you do, bribe him?”

Peter crossed his arms. “More like blackmailed.”

Tony beamed. “That’s the spirit.”

Steve gave Tony a very disapproving look, but Peter could already tell the man lived in a state of disapproving disappointment when it came to Stark, so that probably wasn’t new.

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Bugged Out Chapter 14

Peter sat hunched over his desk, the blue glow of his laptop screen casting sharp shadows across his face. His room was dark except for the weak, flickering light from his bedside lamp, its bulb half burnt out, buzzing every few seconds like it was struggling to stay alive. The air was thick with the scent of sweat and old coffee—he hadn’t meant to drink so much, but the empty mugs scattered across his desk told him otherwise. His fingers ached from gripping his mouse too hard, and his eyes burned from staring at the screen for hours, but he couldn’t stop.

He couldn’t let himself stop.

His browser was a mess of open tabs, each one filled with scraps of information—crime reports, police bulletins, dark web chatter, anything that might lead him to the girl. Every time he refreshed a page, his stomach twisted, hoping for something new, something useful. But it was nothing. Just missing person cases with no connections, suspicious activity reports with no follow-ups, news articles that danced around the truth but never actually touched it.

The city was swallowing her whole, just like it had so many others.

Peter’s breath hitched, his fingers digging into his scalp. He pressed the heels of his palms against his eyes, trying to block out the image that wouldn’t leave him—the way she had struggled, her hands glowing, lighting up the alley like a burst of fireworks. She had fought so hard. And he had let them take her.

His fault.

His fault.

His fault.

He gritted his teeth, exhaling sharply through his nose. No. He wasn’t going to sit here and wallow. He just needed to think.

The van. The men. Their weapons. The way they had moved. It had been too coordinated, too fast. They weren’t just some low-level criminals looking for a payday. They had a plan. A purpose.

But what was it?

His fingers flew across the keyboard, pulling up every known organization that dealt in metas—SHIELD, AIM, Oscorp, Roxxon, even rumors about underground trafficking rings. He sifted through security footage hacks, grainy and distorted, but nothing matched the van, nothing matched the men. They were ghosts.

And that terrified him.

read more if you dare...

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Bugged Out Chapter 12

The holographic screen flickered as Tony pulled up the security footage from the Midtown High field trip. He scrolled past the usual boring frames of kids herded through the lobby, their teacher droning on about innovation and inspiration—blah, blah, blah. He fast-forwarded, eyes skimming over the crowd, looking for one particular face.

There.

Peter Parker.

Tony tapped his fingers against the desk, narrowing his eyes. He expected to see the kid practically vibrating with excitement, geeking out over the high-tech wonders Stark Industries had on display. But instead—huh.

Peter wasn’t even smiling.

While the other students leaned in eagerly to examine the sleek, state-of-the-art machinery, Peter stood at the back of the group, hands stuffed into the pockets of his too-big hoodie. His shoulders were hunched, his head tilted just slightly downward, like he was trying to make himself smaller. His expression was blank—no, not blank. Guarded. He looked at the labs, the prototypes, the tech worth billions of dollars with the kind of mild interest someone might give a streetlamp.

Weird.

Tony scrubbed through the footage, watching Peter from different angles, trying to find something—a moment where he lit up, where his eyes widened, where he leaned in like he couldn’t help himself. That’s what Tony would’ve done as a kid. That’s what any science nerd would do when faced with the best technology on the planet.

But Peter never did.

Even when the rest of his class gathered around the holographic physics display, gawking at the floating 3D models of molecular structures, Peter stood a few steps back, weight shifting slightly from foot to foot, like he was uncomfortable just being there.

Tony frowned. What the hell?

That was not the reaction of a starry-eyed kid overwhelmed by his hero’s genius. That was something else. Something Tony didn’t quite like.

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Bugged Out Chapter Seven

 Humiliation

The Avengers Tower conference room felt stifling, which was saying something, considering it was equipped with state-of-the-art air conditioning that Tony had personally tweaked to maintain the perfect temperature at all times. But the air wasn’t the problem. It was Nick Fury, standing at the head of the table like a disappointed school principal, his one good eye glaring daggers directly at Tony. The other Avengers were scattered around the room, most of them doing a poor job of hiding their amusement.

“So let me get this straight,” Fury said, his tone sharp enough to cut through vibranium. “You’re telling me you—Tony Stark, Iron Man, billionaire, genius, inventor, owner of a flying suit that can chase fighter jets—you can’t catch one guy swinging around the city in sweatpants?”

The words hit Tony harder than he expected, which only annoyed him more. He leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms over his chest as he forced a smirk onto his face. “Oh, I’m sorry, did you want me to break out the Stark-brand bug spray? Maybe hire an exterminator? This guy’s slippery, Fury. I’ll give him that much.”

“You fired at him,” Fury deadpanned, crossing his arms. “And still didn’t catch him.”

“Because he’s…” Tony paused, trying to find the right words. “He’s like a caffeinated monkey with a grappling hook! The guy doesn’t stop moving. He’s fast, agile, annoyingly flexible—it’s like trying to catch smoke. Really, really obnoxious smoke.”

From across the room, Natasha Romanoff raised an eyebrow, one corner of her mouth twitching into a faint smirk. “You mean to tell me that Spider-Man—a guy who wears a hoodie and gloves from a dollar store—is too much for you, Stark?”

There it was. The quiet laughter he could hear rumbling from Steve Rogers’ side of the table. The small shake of Thor’s head, the faint amusement in Bruce’s calm gaze. The humiliation was setting in, and Tony could feel it like a weight on his chest.

“I’m sorry,” Tony said, pointing a finger at Natasha. “Were you the one chasing him? No? I didn’t think so. And for the record, I don’t see any of you chasing down your metas. At least I’m out there.”

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Bugged Out Chapter Five

Swing And a Miss

The sun was sinking behind the jagged skyline of Queens, smearing the horizon with streaks of amber and purple, as Tony Stark hovered mid-air in the Iron Man suit, staring down at a row of brownstones and chain-link fences. His HUD flickered with information—heat signatures, nearby police scanners, the faint glow of a pizza oven in a corner shop three blocks away. He sighed, resting his chin on his hand as he floated, bored out of his mind.

“So, let me get this straight,” he said aloud, the AI in his suit catching every word. “I’m flying around in a billion-dollar suit, burning jet fuel like it’s going out of style, and all for what? To find some scrappy vigilante who can’t even afford proper spandex?”

The suit’s AI, a polished and professional female voice—Tony had named her FRIDAY—responded in a tone that managed to sound both sympathetic and mildly sarcastic. “Shall I remind you that this mission was handed to you directly by Director Fury? He’s the one who—”

“Yeah, yeah, Fury’s whole ‘global security’ spiel,” Tony interrupted, throwing up his hands as if he were gesturing to an invisible audience. “It’s just—come on, FRIDAY. This Spider-Man guy is supposed to be running around everywhere, swinging from buildings like a wannabe Tarzan, and yet I’ve spent three nights looking for him and what do I have to show for it? A sore back and the privilege of inhaling Queens smog. Fantastic.”

“You’ve also identified three hotspots for mugging activity and assisted in resolving two break-ins,” FRIDAY noted, her tone just shy of reproachful. “Not a complete waste of time.”

Tony smirked. “Thanks, Mom. I’ll add ‘small-time crime consultant’ to my resume.”

He kicked on the thrusters and shot higher into the sky, surveying the city below. The rooftops were empty save for the occasional stray cat or a flicker of light from someone’s TV. The city felt… normal. It buzzed with the usual chaos—traffic jams, people yelling from stoops, someone playing terrible jazz on a saxophone from an open window—but there was no sign of Spider-Man.

Tony had read the reports. Spider-Man had been seen swinging through Queens, stopping muggers, carjackers, and other bottom-feeders, leaving them tied up with some kind of weird webbing that the NYPD was still trying to scrape off lampposts. Fury’s folder said Spider-Man was strong, fast, and agile, the kind of guy who could leap across rooftops and vanish into an alley before anyone got a good look at him.

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Bugged Out Chapter

Tony felt gross.

Not just on the outside—though, yeah, that too. His skin was tacky with dried sweat, his dress shirt rumpled, clinging to him in a way that made his skin crawl. The long day of meetings had left him drained, body thrumming with exhaustion, mind too loud despite the alcohol humming in his system.

And worse—so much worse—was the feeling sitting heavy in his ribs.

Peter’s words still echoed in his head, sharp and brutal.

"I’d rather die than have a father like you."

Tony had heard plenty of awful things in his lifetime. Had said plenty of them himself. But that—that had stung.

Which was stupid.

He wasn’t Peter’s father. He hadn’t wanted to be Peter’s father. He wasn’t some wannabe parent, trying to play house with a kid who clearly wanted nothing to do with him.

And yet.

Yet, the words still sat there.

Still clung to him.

Still felt way too close to home.

So, yeah. He drank.

And, yeah. He was definitely drunk.

And when Pepper pulled him into bed, warm hands at his waist, soft fingers brushing against the buttons of his shirt, he let himself melt into it.

Because it was easier.

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Bugged Out Chapter 32

Peter tried.

He really, really tried.

He threw himself back into his life, into the things that used to make sense—school, homework, dodging Flash in the hallways, Spider-Man—but it didn’t work.

Nothing felt the same.

Everything was harder.

He was exhausted. His body felt slow, his muscles heavy, his head foggy. And worse—he was starving.

Not the normal kind of starving, either. Not the kind he could ignore, push down, shove into the corner of his mind where all his other problems lived.

This was deep. Gnawing. A sharp, hollow ache under his ribs that never went away.

Because he wasn’t eating enough.

He couldn’t.

There was no tower filled with expensive protein bars, no stocked fridge waiting for him, no ridiculous Tony-grade meal plans to keep his metabolism from cannibalizing itself. Even after Tony had dumped a couple million into the school system to get more food for everyone, the ripple effect wasn’t enough to sustain Peter’s greedy metabolism.

Just the same old, too-small portions at home. The same barely-edible school lunches. The same stupid, endless hunger clawing at his insides.

And it was wrecking him.

His webbing was weak again. His hands shook when he tried to climb. The world blurred at the edges when he swung too fast.

And, somehow, somehow, that wasn’t even the worst part.

Because Ned was mad at him.

And Peter deserved it.

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Bugged Out Chapter 27

Peter dreamed of legs.

Too many legs.

They sprouted from his back, from his ribs, from his arms—long, thin, twitching. His skin split like wet paper, the sensation wrong, a deep, alien itch burrowing into his bones as new limbs forced their way out. He gasped—except it wasn’t a gasp, it was a click, mandibles scraping where his mouth should be, where his face should be, his body twisting into something other.

He felt the hairs bristle along his arms—no, not arms, not anymore—his exoskeleton clicking as he moved, joints creaking with unnatural flexibility. The world had a new filter, his vision fractured into too many pieces, eyes blinking independently, too much information hitting him all at once. He could feel everything, too much, every shift in air pressure, every vibration in the ground, a spider’s web of sensory overload crawling under his skin, digging deep, burrowing.

His hands—if they could still be called that—twitched, claws curling. The city stretched below him, impossibly far, but he wasn’t falling. He clung to the walls, to the glass, his body made for this, his instincts screaming for movement, for the hunt.

Then—

A sound.

A heartbeat.

Fast. Erratic. Human.

His body moved before he could think.

He dropped from the building, limbs folding inward, silk spilling from his body in thick, webbed ropes, catching wind, redirecting, twisting toward the sound. His insides itched, a deep hunger curling in his gut, instincts whispering—

Catch it.

He landed in an alley, joints bending wrong, too many limbs skittering against the pavement. And there—

A girl.

Terrified.

Frozen in place, eyes wide, chest rising and falling too fast.

He knew her.

Peter’s stomach turned.

No—no, no, no— Bugged Out - Chapter 27 - Lemontasia - Spider-Man - All Media Types [Archive of Our Own]

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Bugged Out Chapter 24

Happy sighed as he dropped into the leather seat across from Tony, rubbing a hand over his face like just existing around Stark was already exhausting him. The city lights flickered outside the massive tower windows, stretching into the horizon, but Tony barely glanced at them. His attention was locked on the man in front of him.

“Well?” Tony prompted, tipping his scotch glass toward him. “Give me the good news, Happy. Tell me the kid’s living like royalty in a top-floor penthouse with a fridge stocked full of filet mignon.”

Happy gave him a flat look. “You’re hilarious.”

Tony shrugged. “I am.”

Happy exhaled sharply, lacing his fingers together. “It’s… not great, boss.”

Tony’s smirk slipped.

Not great.

Not great.

That wasn’t what he wanted to hear.

Happy leaned forward, elbows braced on his knees. “It’s small. Real small. We’re talking barely any space between the kitchen and the couch. Like, I’ve seen bigger janitor’s closets.” He frowned. “Place is clean, though. I’ll give him that. But the furniture’s old—like, thrift store old. Most of it looks like it’s been there since before the kid was born.”

Tony rolled his glass between his fingers, processing.

Not great. Small apartment. Used furniture. None of that was unexpected. Peter wasn’t rolling in money, and May Parker was a single-income household. But it wasn’t bad, either.

That wasn’t the part that made his stomach twist.

Happy exhaled through his nose, gaze darkening slightly. “The kitchen, though? That’s where things start looking real thin.”

Tony’s fingers stilled.

Thin.

He didn’t like thin.

Happy tilted his head, eyes distant, like he was replaying what he saw. “Didn’t get a long look, but from what I did see? Fridge was pretty empty. The kind of empty where you notice.” He shook his head. “No fresh stuff. No real leftovers. Just some condiments, a few takeout containers that looked old, and a carton of milk that—frankly—was pushing its expiration date.”

Tony’s jaw tightened.

Bugged Out - Chapter 24 - Lemontasia - Spider-Man - All Media Types [Archive of Our Own]