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[ahollowman]

Well. That's ... weird.

Tony checked his refrigerator that morning, getting together ingredients for a smoothie. His frozen bananas were in evidence, his Cape Cod chicken salad was not. But that could be explained by the fact that Panoptes was on the way between the library and the park, so Peter passed it nearly daily in the summer. And the kid was a bottomless pit.

But the shoes. That was weirder.

About a fourth of his shoes were missing. It was only the left shoes. Somebody was leaving him a message. A very stupid one. A stupid one that was making Tony far too goddamned paranoid, given the vampire situation and the fact that Panootes and his penthouse sat directly on top of the armory. Tony knit his brows in consternation, pulled on a pair of Converse and moved back to the kitchen to finish making breakfast.

He jerked back, startled, when he rounded the corner.

"Oh, Jesus fucking Christ!"

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[ahollowman]

The headache was already building behind Tony's eyes. He pressed his fingers to them. The last thing the kid needed was coffee. Tony put his frozen bananas in the blender pointedly.

"And you didn't get me any."

He turned on Pietro to pull protein powder, spirulina, and chia seed from the cupboard.

"And yes. I am very good at those app things. I am very good at most things. Even when my shoes aren't being held hostage. What do you need, kid? I think we both agree I owe you that much."

Which was really the least of it.

[speed_of_dweeb]

From a basic understanding of biology, caffeine added to the system of a speedster should have been like that scene in Mad Max where they spit gasoline directly into the engine. With Pietro, however? He genuinely enjoys the dark bitter taste of the stuff but gets no kick out of it. No more than he can get by being a pain in Tony's ass in the man's own kitchen. Which is considerable.

Which would explain why he blurs off and back, returning to set a bran muffin with deliberate care on the counter beside the older man's elbow. "There," he says, "Fiber."

He refrains from mentioning what Tony Stark of Stark Industry owes him, as far as he is concerned. Not because Pietro shies away from snarling at the figure who had stood as proof of too much horror in his life so far, but because of the dreams. He does not want to remember how often he has dreamed of dying lately.

"You can put together app for my delivery service," it comes as only half a question, half statement. Stark, he is sure, is capable of the basic structure Pietro imagines would be required for such a thing. "I do not need much. They will enter address, what they want, pay. I will deliver whatever it is. Even your fiber."

[ahollowman]

Tony gave a very, very large roll of his eyes at the muffin, but picked it up anyway and peeled the wrapper back before taking a bite. He was a busy man, and breakfast was breakfast.

"An app?" He cleared his throat and swallowed, before spooning some of the additives he'd pulled into the blender, and going to the refrigerator for the plastic bowl of sliced mangoes that Peter so eschewed.

"For a delivery service? That's all you want?"

Well, that would be easy.

[speed_of_dweeb]

If anything could be declared true or real on this planet...Stark would wake up to find his fridge full of prune juice sometime in the coming weeks. The fact that it would be his money used to pay for it would just be the extra bonus.

Pietro steals a slice of mango with ease and eats it leisurely with his fingers. He shrugs. "All I need now."

It's not a promise to stop with one favor, nor is it a suggestion that they'll be anything like even for this. But it's more relaxed than he's been around the older man before. "I eat more than the City gives me," he tells him, referring to his bank balance. "It's not fair to steal from the places here."