By the time they finally left the Stark Industries R&D floor, Peter felt like his brain had been through a blender and then politely asked to solve math.
First, there'd been the Roomba incident, which started as "a quick sensor recalibration" and ended with an intern on his knees, begging like Peter was a mechanical exorcist.
Then Sir Whiskers 0.5 happened.
Vision had stood perfectly still beside the humming cat-bot for a full minute after it purred, "It's a mood, daddy." For the second time apparently.
The menace was, less "prototype cat-bot" and more "Gen Z menace in a metal body."
Sir Whiskers had refused every behavior correction Ned tried to install, rejected three different personality dampeners, and, somehow, now played Taylor Swift at full volume any time someone said the word charging.
So yes. It had been a normal Stark day.
Still, Peter felt the weight of what came next settle in his stomach as they walked.
This wasn't Roombas and robot cats anymore.
This was… huge
They rode the elevator in a rare pocket of silence, the kind that didn't feel awkward so much as loaded. The doors slid open onto the private corridor that led to Peter's lab, tucked right beside Tony Stark's.
Peter swiped his access card with hands that didn't shake, because he refused to be that kind of nervous. He wasn't just some kid playing with web shooters anymore. He'd earned this.
He'd earned trust
He glanced at Ned, who was already muttering to himself in code logic, half-focused and half-feral, like his brain had switched into "project mode" and wouldn't come out until someone bribed it with food.
And then there was Vision, floating quietly behind them, composed as ever… but something in his posture felt different.
Not tense.
Not worried.
Just… intent. Like this mattered in a way Peter didn't fully understand yet.
Peter opened the lab door and stepped inside, the familiar scent of clean metal and faint ozone grounding him. The lights warmed automatically. Tools powered on. Systems recognized him like the room itself was saying, Welcome home.
He exhaled.
Then, because his mouth never listened to his brain, he blurted, "Okay. Uh. Just so you know, if I mess this up, it's not because I don't wanna help. It's just because this is… like groundbreaking Physics level important.
Ned glanced up. "Peter—"
"I'm serious," Peter rushed on, words tumbling. "Mr. Stark calls us geniuses, but he calls everyone geniuses when he's trying to trick them into doing hard things, and this sounds like one of those hard things."
Ned's lips twitched. "He does do that."
Peter pointed at him like that proved everything. "Exactly!"
Vision's voice cut through, calm and steady, and it snapped Peter's spiraling thoughts clean in half.
"To be completely honest," Vision said, "you are not entering this project late. Sir and I began portions of it already."
Peter blinked. "Wait. You and Mr. Stark were working on this before?"
"Yes," Vision replied. "Initially, it was an extension of suit development. We were experimenting with blending nanoparticles and Pym Particles for scalable fabrication. A suit that could deploy instantly, compress for storage, expand for reinforcement, and self-repair without exhausting the system core."
Ned's eyebrows shot up. "That's… insane."
Vision nodded once, like insane was simply another engineering challenge. "It became more complicated."
Peter swallowed. "Complicated how?"
Vision's gaze moved briefly to the lab's ceiling, as if he could see the Tower's full structure through it: all the floors, the hidden systems, the AIs in the walls, the lives being held together by lines of code and stubborn love.
"Pym Particles and nanoparticles won't meld, When I travelled to Wakanda," Vision continued, "I asked Princess Shuri to assist. She has experience with technology that… behaves differently than ours. And she was interested."
Ned made a small sound in the back of his throat. "Yeah. Interested is one word for it."
Vision's mouth curved faintly. "Her interest is… enthusiastic."
Peter's chest tightened just slightly, because he knew what "Wakanda help" really meant.
It meant the problem wasn't small.
Vision stepped closer, voice lowering like this was the part that mattered most.
"Friday, Karen, and I believe the true application is more than the suit fabrication," he said. "Not anymore."
Peter felt his spine straighten.
"Then what is it?" he asked softly.
Vision held his gaze.
"Merging Pym Particles with nanoparticles could allow the creation of self-adjusting quantum servers," he said. "Systems that can expand and compress their internal capacity while remaining stable. Portable. Durable. Scalable."
Ned's eyes widened, the coder in him lighting up like a match. "You mean storage that doesn't… cap out."
"Correct," Vision said. "A server that can hold far more than current physical architecture permits, without burning through power reserves."
Peter's stomach dropped as the implication hit him.
"You mean…" Peter started slowly, "…for you. For Friday and Karen."
Vision nodded.
"So, we can maintain permanent deployment," Vision said, voice very even, but there was something underneath it. Something almost… tender. "So, we do not have to choose between presence and survival. So, we can remain by your side without draining ourselves."
Peter's throat went tight.
Because suddenly it wasn't just tech.
It was family.
It was Tony not losing anyone else.
It was Friday and Karen wanting to stay with them.
It was Vision choosing them over the easier path.
Peter looked at Ned, and Ned looked back, and in that split second Peter knew they were thinking the same thing:
We're not failing this.
Peter set his bag down with a quiet thunk that sounded way more confident than he felt.
"Okay," he said, inhaling. "Then… we build it."
Ned cracked his knuckles like he was about to fistfight physics. "We build it."
Vision's eyes softened, and his voice was gentle when he said, "Thank you."
Peter swallowed hard, then forced a grin, because that's what he did when fear tried to crawl up his throat.
"Just so we're clear," Peter said, reaching for a toolkit, "if we accidentally create a server that folds space wrong and opens a portal to, like, evil storage hell… I'm blaming you."
Vision tilted his head. "That seems fair."
Ned snorted. "No, it doesn't."
Peter grinned anyway, because if he didn't laugh, he'd start shaking.
And they had work to do