If They Knew All About You

The One After The Mission in Manhattan

Wilson slammed his fist on the conference table in frustration.

"What the fuck were you thinking, Stark?"

"I was thinking that I'm not going to leave a terrorist alone in the middle of a Manhattan street to chase after the guy who'd just helped us out while I'm still holding an undefined biochemical weapon in my hand. What the fuck were you thinking?"

"Following the team leader's orders?! We don't know the dude! He has powers we need to know about!"

"Really? You're going with that? Sounds a bit like something Ross would say..." Tony shot a glance over to Natasha who had been quietly observing them during the entirety of the debrief.

"Tony, we need to know, who this guy is!" Rogers looked up at Tony, his chin was still resting on his hand. He was giving Tony one of those 'I'm not angry, I'm disappointed'- looks, that Tony sometimes suspected were his real superpower.

"There's plenty of time to find out who he is. That was not the time or the place! Taking care of the city is always the number one priority, not chasing after our allies!"

"He's not our ally!" Rogers was still looking at him like he was 5 years old.

"He sure was helpful today!"

"He butted in while we were trying to thwart a biochemical terror attack, Tony!"

Throwing up his hands at Rogers remark, Tony groaned in frustration. "Please. They had us pushed into a corner. Any further escalation might have resulted in civilian casualties. He did us a favor."

"We don't know, what his motivation is!"

"Come on, Rogers. You're just pissed that he caught us one of the assholes while the one you were chasing gave you the slip!" Rogers' eyes narrowed as Tony crossed his arms, leaning back. "Or is it more about the Spiderling giving you the slip as well?"

Tony couldn't suppress a smirk and an eye-roll at Rogers offended expression.

"Fuck you, Stark! What's the matter with you! How are you defending this guy over your team? You're supposed to have our backs!" Wilson had gotten up out of his chair, pointing a finger at him.

"I am having your backs! I'm letting you know, that you're being douche bags, who need to get their heads out of their asses to realizes the big picture here!" He tilted his head at Wilson, still leaning back in his chair. "It's what friends do. Letting you know, when you're being a jackass."

"Well, the jackass department would be your area of expertise, Stark!" Wilson turned to head for the door of the conference room.

"Sam, sit!" Natasha shot a silencing glace over to a snickering Wanda then looked back and forth between him and Wilson. "Are we done with the pissing match? Get your ass back in that chair, Sam." She turned to Tony. "The Spider-dude is a liability. We don't know anything about him and that needs to change. He doesn't seem to know all that much about what he's doing himself and that is a problem, too. But Tony is right." She turned to Rogers. "He helped. We might have been in real trouble, if he hadn't shown up. That is the part we should actually be focusing on! We only came out on top because we were lucky today and had help that we didn't arranged for. That can't happen again!"

Wilson scowled at her. "Wanda and Vision were just about to back us up. We'd have been fine!"

She turned back to him. "Speculating what could have been is useless right now. Tony is right, catching the Spider was not a priority. Bringing him in by force is not in our best interest. Focusing on the threat at hand was important." She turned to look at Rogers again. "Catching the terrorists was the mission."

"We don't know if he was in on it with them! How did he even know about what was going on? It's suspicious."

"Steve, I think the fact that he helped to keep them from setting off their substance speaks for itself."

Tense silence settled between them until Natasha spoke up again. "We should have cut off their escape route back to the bridge right away. The strategy was flawed." Her glance rested on Rogers. "We will learn from this. We will do better as a team in the future." She leaned back, her eyes still on Rogers. "We do have three of them in custody. That's three new sources of information. We'll learn. We'll be better."

Rogers nodded. "Fine."

"Tony!" His eyes shot over to her. "What do you know about the Spider-dude?"

He mulled over his interactions with the Spiderling for a moment. "I've seen him twice after his run-in with Potts. I thought... I thought it was suspicious..." Rogers looked up at him in surprise, but Tony just shrugged. "Him turning up just as she needed help. It seemed a little too convenient. So first I had Friday check him out. Everything she could, videos, mentions of his abilities, similar instances to Potts' situation. Everything I found was mostly on petty crime, pickpockets, car thieves, those kind of things. All Queens-based with a pretty obvious routine." Tony cleared his throat. "I just wanted to be sure, that Pepper was not a target, so I made the trip over to Queens, checking him out in person. He stopped a burglary in process, wrapped two burglars up in his, well, web stuff. Then we had a short chat. It seemed like he genuinely didn't know that it was Potts he'd helped out that afternoon. I don't think he was lying. That was that." He drummed his fingers on the table, looking up at Natasha.

"So, today was the second time you've come across him?"

He held her stare. "Second time would have been the next day, when he showed up at the tower, making me jump out of my skin." He flashed her a smile.

"He came up to the tower?" The alarm in Rogers' voice was easily detectable. "What did he want?"

Tony kept his eyes on Natasha for a moment longer before turning to look at Rogers, fighting the urge to bite his lip. "Nothing." He shrugged. "Payback for me showing up on his rooftop, I assume."

Rogers shook his head, but Wilson beat him to the punch. "And you seriously bought that?"

"Enlighten me, Wilson. What do you think his master plan is?"

"You need to take this seriously, Tony!" Rogers' eyes were trying to stare him down.

"He's just a young guy trying to show off." Tony could tell by the facial expressions around him, that the others had their doubts about that. "Fine. What do you want me to do about it?"

Rogers was still staring at him from across the table. "You can't keep this kind of information from us, Tony!"

"I'm not purposefully keeping any information from you! Up until he showed up today, all of what I just told you was irrelevant chatter. I'm not going to start writing a diary so you can browse through everything I do, Rogers."

"Tony..." His head shot back over to Natasha. "Is there anything else?"

He shook his head. "No."

Natasha was still looking at him, her spy instincts obviously picking up on something he wasn't saying, but there was no way he was going to fill them in on the little detail that he'd been boozed up a little too much when he had sought out the Spiderling that first night. Not even Nat would let that kind of recklessness slide. He was sure that his display that night was what had opened up the door for the Spiderling to have the guts to crawl up to his penthouse. A ballsy move that Tony still kind of admired. Sure, the dude had some weird powers and an upper body strength that most man would kill for... But I'm still Iron Man.

"Alright then. We need you to go and get him for us."

"Come on, Nat..."

Rogers jumped at that. "This is not up for discussion, Tony! We can't have a young man jump around the city like that unchecked and unwilling to cooperate!"

Tony shook his head in frustration. "You guys are playing this all wrong. He has some weird powers, that could help us out down the road and we need all the help that we can get. Bringing him in like one of those terrorists and interrogating him is not gonna earn us any trust!"

"It's not his trust I'm worried about!" Rogers disapproval of Tony's non-compliance was palpable. "Where do you think his weird powers came from? Did he experiment on himself or did someone make him into the weapon he is? We cannot sit back on this! Someone with an agenda is behind this and we need to be prepared! If he turns out to be an ally, we will get to it, when we get to it. But this is not the time for that! We can't throw our trust at someone like that!"

Tony shot a glance over at Nat, but he could tell that he was outnumbered on this. His eyes dropped to the table in front of him. "Fine. I'll see what I can do."