Wrong Number, Kid

Side-Story #3

*Tony and Peter's Lab Day*

Tony stared at the teenager seated across from him at the workbench in complete silence.

This was the Little Shit that's been driving me nuts. This is the person that hacked me and drove me nearly into insanity.

Peter stared back, undaunted by Tony's attempt at intimidating him. At fourteen, that probably would have worked, but Peter was trained by Nick Fury. Staring wasn't going to phase him, it seemed to take Tony awhile to catch on to that though.

"You hacked me?"

"Yep."

Peter didn't even try to look repentant.

Tony growled under his breath, "you also helped improve the firewalls."

"Yep."

"My R&D department is in complete chaos because of you."

"Huh, Uncle Fury says most normal people can't really keep up with my so-called 'unique brand of madness.' I can try and fix it, but I usually just accidentally end up making it worse." Peter was a little guilty about that, he was banned from the tech department at SHIELD because the engineers started ripping their hair out just trying to keep up with his logic. He didn't mean to do that at SI too.

Tony went back to staring at him again so Peter just sighed and sat back, waiting for Tony to say something.

"... What else have you hacked? The Pentagon?" Peter let a mischievous smile climb up his lips at Tony's question.

"Even if I have, what makes you think I'd say anything?"

Tony's answering grin let Peter know he had passed some sort of test.

"Want to have a hacking race?"

"What kind of hacking race?"

"The illegal kind."

Peter at least had the consciousness to pause, but that still didn't stop his answer of: "Get ready to lose, Stark."

~~~

"Hey Tony, Have you had a chance to look at-" Steve cut himself off at the sight in front of him.

Empty coffee mugs, a few energy drink cans and pizza boxes were scattered about the lab in a chaotic mess. Rock music was playing at an inhuman volume and unfinished blueprints were shuffled over every table he could see. Tools were left haphazardly either on the table, or scattered over the floor with DUM-E trying to put some of them away.

In the center of all the creative chaos was Peter and Tony, both hunched over a table working on the mechanics of something, neither of them having noticed his entrance.

Choosing to observe them, Steve saw that they didn't even seem to be talking to one another. They each worked on separate parts, but they passed tools between each other in such synchronization that you'd think they were sharing a brain.

They didn't even say anything to each other, how did they know which tools to pass?!

Steve froze, just staring at them uncomprehendingly.

There was another Tony Stark.

Judging from what Steve has heard from Nat, this younger Stark is even worse than Tony. The levels of chaos held within this one teenager's body is off the charts. How much worse will it become now that they've joined forces?

Had the two geniuses been watching, they would have seen the abject horror that played across Captain America's face as he turned tail and ran, yelling for Pepper in desperation.