(so I Took A Screenshot Of The Ask Bc I Didn’t Want The St*rk*r Mention To Filter This Into Their Nasty

(so I took a screenshot of the ask bc I didn’t want the st*rk*r mention to filter this into their nasty ass tag)

***

The spell isn’t supposed to turn people into teenagers. It’s meant to turn them into the people they were when they were at their loneliest point in life.

For Tony, this was when he was 15, after graduating from Andover and before heading to MIT where he met Rhodey in their shared freshman dorm. When he  didn’t have any peers to spend time with and before he started going out to parties to drown his feelings in sex and alcohol.

So after the Avengers get a passed out teenage Tony back to the tower, they try to figure out what their next steps are. Strange and Wong go off to figure out how to revert the spell, and the rest of the team is left to try and wrangle a teenaged version of Tony who they’re sure would be rowdy and bratty as hell.

Except Tony starts to wake up after a little while, and they can see immediately that he’s distressed. He doesn’t scream, he doesn’t yell. Tony looks afraid, like he wants to cry, but he holds it in and softly says instead, “If you’re hoping for my dad to pay the ransom, he wont.”

That’s when the team realizes that Tony doesn’t have any of his adult memories and that he thinks he’s been kidnapped, which apparently has happened enough times that he’s resigned to it, which, what the fuck.

Immediately, they fall all over themselves to rush to Tony and let him know that he’s okay, he hasn’t been kidnapped, they’re the Avengers, he can trust them, they’ll take care of him.

They figure that since this isn’t time travel, it’s safe for them to let Tony know what happened. Steve and Nat explain that Tony’s been placed under a spell (”Magic is real?!”), that they’re all friends with adult Tony (”I’m friends with Captain America?!”), that they all work together as Avengers (”I’m a superhero when I’m older?!”) and that they’re trying their best to figure out how to fix this.

Tony’s a smart guy, of course, so he quickly figures out that they’re telling the truth and goes along with it.

Which is great! But still, they don’t really know how to deal with a teenager, especially one who doesn’t act anything like they expect him to. He’s just so quiet and he seems like he’s on edge all the time, as if he isn’t sure how to act around adults.

So they figure, maybe Tony just needs someone his own age to hang out with so he can feel more comfortable in his environment. They call up Peter the next day and ask him to come over to the tower. Peter shows up and they hit it off immediately, because Peter’s smart and he knows how to get through with Tony no matter his age – with a science joke.

By then, Strange has already contacted the team and let them know that as long as they manage to keep Tony healthy and happy, the spell should wear off within 5-6 days. Peter suggests, hey, maybe Tony can come with me to school for a week! And the Avengers are like, oh thank god, yes, good idea, do that.

Peter gets a visitor pass for Tony and they spend the next week together. Tony goes with Peter to all his classes and sits next to him and it’s just so strange to him because he’s never actually had a real high school experience before. He never had a friend to sit with at lunch, never was part of an extracurricular where all the other students were happy to have him contribute. Throughout the week, Tony starts to open up more and comes out of his shell a little bit.

When they’re hanging out together, Peter and Tony tend to bring out the troublemaker in each other. Suddenly, Peter’s having more “lab accidents” and he can’t stop bursting out into laughter when he’s doing presentations. Tony and Ned team up to take out Peter during dodgeball in gym class. Peter and MJ trick Tony into volunteering to help at the charity holiday basketball tournament at the end of the week. They all skip decathlon practice one day and go out for froyo instead.

Friday rolls around and Tony and Peter have just walked into the elevator at the tower when suddenly Tony passes out cold. Peter panics and calls the rest of the Avengers, and together they get Tony onto the living room couch. Once he’s settled, they watch as teenage Tony slowly transforms back into adult Tony.

Tony wakes up and immediately gets rushed to the medbay for Bruce and Strange to check him out, make sure that he’s 100% okay and that there aren’t any lingering side effects from the spell. He doesn’t get a chance to say anything to Peter before they’re ushering him through the door, but he can see the dejected way Peter’s looking down at the floor.

Peter’s…sad. He had forgotten for a while that Tony wasn’t actually a teenager, and that this was only temporary. He and Tony had become really close throughout the week, bonded in a way that they weren’t able to before. And now it feels sort of like he’s lost a friend. He goes home and tries to ignore how upset he’s feeling, drowning out his sorrows in homework and Netflix instead.

The next day while they’re setting up their booth at the holiday tournament, MJ asks Peter, “Is Tony coming?”

Peter stumbles a bit and stutters out, “Oh uh, he, uh, he’s not–”

Before he could finish, Tony Stark walks through the doors and makes a beeline towards MJ and Peter. He stops in front of them and he says, “Alright, you trickass bitches got me to volunteer. So what do I need to do?”

MJ doesn’t even miss a beat. She shoves a packet of balloons and helium tank at Tony and says, “Get to it, weirdo.”

Tony sucks in a mouthful of helium and responds, “Yes, ma’am!” and he sounds so ridiculous, looks so proud of himself, that Peter can’t stop himself from breaking out into giggles.

Peter thought Tony wouldn’t remember, or that he wouldn’t really care now that he was an adult again, but of course he should have known better than to underestimate the man he calls a hero and a mentor.