Peter Parker had fought aliens, stopped a collapsing ferry, and crawled out from under a building with his ribs screaming.
None of that prepared him for spreadsheets.
The first thing Peter noticed when Mini Boss Protocol activated wasn't the authority.
It was the silence.
Not the absence of sound, but the way the room itself seemed to wait.
Every screen in the command suite oriented toward him. Data panes rearranged. Priority flags pulsed gently at the edge of his vision, not screaming for attention, just… present. Patient. Relentless.
"Good morning, Peter," Friday said, her tone warm and deceptively normal. "Mini Boss Protocol is active. You have provisional authorization over humanitarian logistics, secondary medical routing, and cross-departmental coordination."
Peter swallowed. "Uh. Okay. Cool. Coolcoolcool."
This wasn't Spider-Man responsibility.
This wasn't stopping a mugger or pulling someone out of rubble.
This was systems.
Refugee intake numbers scrolled past. Asgardian civilians currently housed at the Compound. Others distributed across sanctums worldwide. Injury severity indexes. Supply depletion rates. Magical contamination warnings. Language barriers. Cultural conflict risk assessments.
Peter's chest tightened.
With great power comes great responsibility, he thought automatically.
He'd grown up with that sentence stitched into his bones.
But this wasn't power he used.
This was power that moved people.
Friday," he said carefully, "why are there red flags next to the medical supply requests from Kathmandu?"
"Because fulfilling them will divert two-thirds of our emergency nanofabrication capacity," Friday replied gently. "Doing so would delay treatment for critical patients currently at the Compound by approximately six hours."
Peter stared at the numbers.
Six hours could mean deaths.
"So… I can't say yes?"
"You can," Friday said. "But you should understand the cost."
That word landed harder than any punch Peter had ever taken.
Cost.
He nodded slowly. "Okay. Prioritize the Compound. Tell Kathmandu we'll reroute in six hours and compensate with sorcerer support."
"Confirmed," Friday said. "Notification sent."
A new set of flags appeared immediately.
Peter blinked. "Why are there more?"
"Because you made a decision," Friday said. "Decisions create consequences."
Peter rubbed his face. "Mr. Stark does this every day."
"Yes."
That made his stomach drop.
He moved through request after request, voice steady even as his thoughts raced. He denied three proposals. Approved two. Deferred another pending resource replenishment.
Every time he said no, he imagined a face attached to the data.
This wasn't Spider-Man choosing to leap into danger.
This was Peter Parker choosing who waited.
Across the room, Clint Barton leaned against a structural column, pretending not to stare.
He'd been assigned to assist with perimeter coordination for the sorcerers. He'd expected chaos.
He hadn't expected this.
Clint exhaled slowly through his nose.
He hadn't met the kid before today. No introduction. No briefing. No Stark-style half-joke explanation. Just… a teenager standing in a command suite, calmly directing resources like he'd been doing it his whole life.
That alone was strange.
But it was the familiarity that got to him.
The way the kid leaned into the data. The way he went quiet before making hard calls. The way his shoulders carried weight that didn't belong to someone that young.
Clint had worked with Tony Stark long enough to recognize the shape of it.
Not copied behavior. Not training.
Inheritance.
The kid didn't act like Tony.
He processed like him.
Clint watched Peter reroute a supply chain mid-sentence, pause when casualty projections updated, then choose the option that hurt the fewest people overall. No dramatics. No hesitation. No satisfaction either.
Just acceptance.
That's a Stark move, Clint thought.
Which raised a much bigger question.
Why hasn't Tony introduced him?
Stark was terrible at secrets. Loud about his mistakes. Infuriatingly open when it mattered. If this kid were just an intern, Stark would've bragged. If he were a prodigy, Stark would've shown him off.
But if he were… something else?
Clint shifted his weight, eyes narrowing slightly.
The similarities were there. The intelligence. The impossible multitasking. The way pressure didn't crush him, just sharpened him.
But there were differences too.
Peter flinched when people suffered. Tony compartmentalized.
Peter hesitated before denying aid. Tony calculated first.
Same engine. Different mileage.
Clint watched the kid ask Friday, quietly, if he was doing it right.
Yeah. That wasn't an intern.
That was someone Stark was trying to protect.
Which meant whatever this kid was to Tony, it was important enough to keep off the board. Away from the Avengers. Away from scrutiny. Away from people like Clint, who noticed patterns for a living.
Clint folded his arms, gaze still fixed on Peter.
Stark's secret son, he thought.
Or the closest thing to it.
Either way, it explained why Tony hadn't said a word.
And it explained why this kid was standing here now, learning how to carry a kind of power most people never survived.
Clint didn't smile.
He just hoped the kid didn't break under it.
After a moment, Clint turned away and thumbed his comm.
Natasha needed to hear this.