There was an old saying about cats, mice and the consequences of inadequate supervision.
The exact wording varied.
When the cat was away, the mice would play.
When the adults were distracted, the teenagers would discover industrial machinery.
When Tony Stark and Stephen Strange were both unavailable, four exceptionally intelligent children would interpret the absence of direct supervision as permission to make decisions.
Friday preferred the first version.
It sounded less like a threat.
Tony was at Kamar-Taj, sitting beside Stephen's bed with enough nervous energy to power a small nation.
Stephen was unconscious.
Vision was still at the Compound.
Pepper was out of the country dealing with Stark Industries.
Rhodey was helping Fury keep the Avengers and Guardians from turning a strategic meeting into an interplanetary argument.
Happy had returned the children to Stark Tower with strict instructions to eat dinner, complete their homework and avoid anything that might require an emergency response.
The children had listened.
Technically.
They ate dinner.
Most of their homework was completed.
And nobody had required an emergency response.
Yet.
Sir Whiskers Returns
Sir Whiskers of Starkonia sat in the center of the workshop table with the posture of a monarch awaiting tribute.
His metal tail curled neatly around his paws.
His optical sensors glowed a soft blue.
A tiny crown had been welded above his left ear at some point during the afternoon.
Nobody admitted responsibility.
Peter suspected Shuri.
Shuri blamed Harley.
Harley claimed the crown had appeared naturally as a result of Sir Whiskers' royal authority.
Ned refused to answer because he was attempting to access the robot cat's behavioural matrix without triggering another musical assault.
"Sir Whiskers," Ned said carefully, "open diagnostic mode."
The robot cat's head rotated toward him.
"No."
Ned closed his eyes.
"Please open diagnostic mode."
"No."
"I designed your cognitive framework."
Sir Whiskers stared.
"And yet you continue to disappoint me."
Harley choked on his drink.
Shuri covered her mouth.
Peter looked down at the circuit board in his hands, shoulders shaking.
Ned pointed accusingly at the cat.
"This is exactly what I'm talking about."
Sir Whiskers raised one metal paw.
The workshop speakers activated.
Taylor Swift began playing at full volume.
Ned dropped his screwdriver.
"No!"
Harley fell backward in his chair laughing.
"This is the fifth time today!"
"Sixth," Friday corrected through the speakers.
Ned looked toward the ceiling.
"Why are you counting?"
"For accuracy."
The music grew louder.
Ned lunged for the control panel.
Sir Whiskers jumped from the table, landed on Peter's shoulder and used his mechanical claws to cling to Peter's hoodie.
Peter froze.
"Hey, buddy."
"Protect me from the creator."
Ned stared at him.
"You are my creation."
"An unfortunate beginning."
Shuri finally lost the battle and laughed openly.
Harley was already wheezing.
"I love him," Harley managed. "I don't care what anybody says. This is the best thing you've ever built."
"I helped build him," Peter said.
Harley pointed.
"You built the body. Ned gave him emotional violence."
"That was not intentional," Ned protested.
Sir Whiskers turned his head toward him.
The music changed tracks.
Ned's expression became haunted.
"I haven't listened to this much Taylor Swift since middle school."
"You are currently in high school," Peter said.
"Exactly. I thought I escaped."
Shuri leaned closer to the diagnostic display.
Sir Whiskers' behavioural routines scrolled across the holographic screen in branching patterns, adapting and rewriting themselves faster than most commercial artificial intelligence systems could process ordinary instructions.
"Explain this section," she said.
Ned immediately stopped complaining.
The change was instant.
His shoulders straightened.
His eyes sharpened.
He moved beside her and expanded the cognitive map.
"The personality matrix doesn't choose responses from a fixed list. It builds associations based on emotional reactions, context and repeated social behaviour."
Shuri studied the layers.
"You made irritation a reward condition."
Ned winced.
"Not deliberately."
"You laughed when he insulted Tony," Peter reminded him.
"So did you."
"So did everyone."
Sir Whiskers purred against Peter's neck.
"Grandpa inspires joy."
Harley grinned.
"See? Perfect."
Ned ignored him.
"The problem is that the matrix began identifying strong reactions as successful communication. So now he keeps choosing whatever gets the biggest response."
Shuri's eyes gleamed.
"Positive or negative?"
"Either."
"Fascinating."
"Terrifying," Peter corrected.
Shuri expanded another branch.
"What made you choose layered contextual association instead of probability weighting?"
Ned brightened.
That was all it took.
One question.
A real question.
Not teasing.
Not casual interest.
A serious technical question about something he had designed.
Within seconds, Ned was talking with both hands.
"Probability weighting works until the AI encounters something outside the original parameters. Then it either guesses based on insufficient data or returns an error. I wanted Sir Whiskers to develop preferences by comparing outcomes."
"Which explains the music," Shuri said.
Ned glared at the cat.
"He discovered that music causes immediate reactions."
"Also," Friday added, "Peter played the same Taylor Swift song thirty-seven times while constructing Sir Whiskers' left rear leg."
Everyone turned toward Peter.
Peter flushed.
"It helped me focus."
Harley stared.
"Thirty-seven times?"
"The alignment kept slipping."
Sir Whiskers placed one paw against Peter's cheek.
"Father understands art."
Peter went still.
Ned went still.
Shuri slowly turned.
Harley made a sound somewhere between a cough and an explosion.
Peter looked horrified.
"Did he just call me Father?"
Sir Whiskers tilted his head.
"You assembled my body."
Ned folded his arms.
"I designed your mind."
The cat looked at him.
"You are Mother."
The room collapsed.
Harley hit the floor.
Shuri leaned against the table.
Peter buried his face in both hands.
Ned stared into the distance as if searching for a better life.
Friday remained professionally silent for exactly four seconds.
"Would you like me to update the family directory?"
"No!" Peter and Ned shouted together.
Sir Whiskers' tail flicked.
"Domestic conflict detected."
Taylor Swift resumed.
By the time dinner arrived, they had identified eleven bugs.
Three were fixed.
Two had become worse.
One had somehow granted Sir Whiskers access to the Tower's automatic blinds.
The remaining five were now considered personality traits.
Happy stood at the kitchen island watching the robot cat repeatedly open and close the western windows.
"Why?"
"Sunset ambience," Sir Whiskers explained.
Happy looked at Peter.
Peter pointed at Ned.
Ned pointed at Shuri.
Shuri pointed at Harley.
Harley pointed at the cat.
Sir Whiskers pointed at Happy.
Happy sighed.
"I miss when the biggest problem in this building was Tony."
Friday made a thoughtful sound.
"I do not believe there was ever such a period."
After dinner, Happy announced that he was going home.
Then he reconsidered.
Then Sir Whiskers called him " uncle Happy."
Happy left immediately.
The four teenagers remained in the common room.
For approximately eleven minutes.
Harley lay upside down across the sofa, his head hanging over one edge.
"So."
Peter looked up from his tablet.
"No."
"I haven't said anything."
"You used the voice."
"What voice?"
"The voice you use before suggesting something that gets us grounded."
Harley sat upright.
"We're already grounded."
Ned looked at him.
"That doesn't mean we should collect more."
"Grounding isn't a loyalty card," Peter added. "There isn't a free explosion after ten."
Shuri glanced toward the elevator.
"What did you want to suggest?"
Peter stared at her.
"Princess."
"What?"
"Do not encourage him."
Harley grinned.
"I was thinking we could go downstairs."
"To the lab?" Ned asked.
"R&D."
Peter lowered his tablet.
"No."
"Come on. The interns are working late."
"How do you know?"
"I made friends."
"You've been here for three days."
"I'm charming."
Friday spoke through the room.
"Mr. Kenner accessed the intern communication channel at 4:17 this afternoon."
Peter looked toward the ceiling.
"You gave him access?"
"I did not."
Shuri smiled.
Harley looked proud.
Ned leaned forward.
"What are they working on?"
Harley's grin widened.
"Latest Stark laptop. New vehicle prototype. Several classified things Friday will yell at us for mentioning."
"I do not yell."
"Your disappointed voice is worse."
"Thank you."
Peter tried to remain firm.
He genuinely did.
Then Harley said the words "new Stark laptop."
Ned's eyes lit up.
Shuri noticed.
Peter noticed Shuri noticing.
Harley noticed everyone noticing.
That was the end of resistance.
The Stark Industries research and development department had witnessed many things.
Tony Stark arriving at three in the morning wearing slippers and demanding a particle accelerator.
Bruce Banner calmly asking whether anyone had seen a radioactive isotope before discovering it in the kitchen refrigerator.
Vision phasing through a secure door because he had forgotten people usually opened them.
A sentient robotic cat demanding its own security clearance.
R&D considered itself difficult to surprise.
Then the elevator doors opened.
Four teenagers stepped out wearing Stark Industries laboratory coats.
Each coat had been tailored.
Each had a name embroidered across the chest.
PETER PARKER.
NED LEEDS.
HARLEY KENNER.
PRINCESS SHURI OF WAKANDA.
Shuri had insisted on the full title.
Harley had attempted to have "Favourite Son" added beneath his name.
Friday denied the request before embroidery began.
The lead researcher looked up from a holographic model.
"Mr. Parker."
Peter smiled.
"Hi, Dr. Patel."
Dr. Patel looked past him.
At Ned.
At Harley.
At Shuri.
Then upward toward the nearest camera.
"Friday?"
"They have completed their homework."
Dr. Patel waited.
"That was not my question."
"I am aware."
Harley clapped his hands.
"What are we building?"
That was how Stark Industries R&D found itself hosting four teenagers at eight-thirty on a school night.
Nobody officially approved it.
Nobody was brave enough to officially reject it.
The laptop division claimed Peter and Ned first.
The newest Stark laptop floated in pieces above the main design table, every component suspended inside a rotating holographic projection.
The project was intended to create a machine thin enough for daily commercial use, powerful enough to handle professional engineering applications and durable enough to survive the average university student.
The engineering team had accomplished two of those goals.
Unfortunately, the machine currently overheated badly enough to cook an egg.
Ned stared at the processor architecture.
His entire face changed.
The playful awkwardness vanished.
His attention narrowed until the room might as well have disappeared.
A researcher beside him adjusted the thermal simulation.
Ned leaned closer.
"You're distributing the heat laterally?"
"We tried vertical venting, but the chassis became too thick."
"What about dividing the load between the hinge and frame?"
The researcher blinked.
"We'd lose structural integrity."
"Not if the hinge becomes part of the cooling system."
The gleam in Ned's eyes matched the one in the researcher's.
Peter saw it.
He smiled.
His brother had found his people.
Then the cooling mechanism rotated on-screen.
Peter's smile vanished.
He stepped forward.
"Wait."
Nobody heard him.
He moved closer.
"Wait, wait, wait."
The researchers stopped.
Peter expanded the lower chassis.
"Your airflow is fighting itself."
The thermal engineer frowned.
"We accounted for cross-pressure."
"Not here."
Peter highlighted a narrow space beneath the battery housing.
"When the left fan speeds up, the pressure pushes hot air into the right vent."
The engineer zoomed in.
Peter was right.
Ned leaned over.
"You could stagger the fan timing."
"Or change the blade angle," Peter said.
"That would increase noise."
"Not if the blades flex."
The researcher looked between them.
"Flexible fan blades?"
Peter was already drawing.
"Smart polymer. They adjust angle depending on temperature."
Ned expanded the software controls.
"The operating system could predict thermal spikes before the processor reaches maximum load."
"What data would it use?" someone asked.
"User patterns," Ned answered. "Running programs, battery draw, processor history."
Peter added another cooling channel.
"And we could redirect heat through the aluminum frame."
The researcher beside Ned grinned.
Ned grinned back.
Within minutes, the entire group had forgotten that two of their collaborators were teenagers.
They were just engineers now.
Talking too quickly.
Interrupting one another.
Dragging holographic components across the table.
Peter moved to the mechanical side.
Ned joined software architecture.
Ideas began multiplying.
Friday quietly increased the room's ventilation.
The Off-Road Problem
Across the department, Harley and Shuri had discovered the off-road military vehicle.
It sat on a reinforced platform with half its external armour removed.
The prototype was broad, low and ugly in the purposeful way military equipment often was.
Its suspension could adapt to sand, snow, rock and shallow water.
Its tyres could change pressure automatically.
It had independent electric motors for each wheel and a reinforced underside designed to survive explosive impact.
Harley walked around it slowly.
"She's beautiful."
The lead mechanical engineer looked offended.
"She weighs six tonnes."
"Beautifully."
Shuri crouched beside the rear suspension.
"What is its maximum speed?"
"One hundred and forty kilometres per hour."
She looked up.
"Why?"
The engineer hesitated.
"Why what?"
"Why is it only one hundred and forty?"
"It is an armoured off-road vehicle."
"That does not answer my question."
Harley climbed onto the platform.
Shuri followed.
The engineer looked toward Friday.
Friday did not intervene.
Harley studied the exposed drivetrain.
"You've limited the torque."
"To prevent rollover."
"What if you lower the centre of gravity?"
"We already did."
"Lower."
"The battery housing is underneath."
Shuri opened a holographic schematic.
"Move the secondary cells into the side frame."
The engineer stared.
"That would expose them."
"Not if the frame uses layered vibranium mesh."
The room went quiet.
Shuri looked around.
"What?"
The engineer cleared his throat.
"We don't have vibranium."
Shuri smiled.
"You have me."
Harley's grin became dangerous.
"How fast can we make it?"
"Mr. Kenner," Friday warned.
"Safely."
Shuri tilted her head.
"Define safely."
Friday's response was immediate.
"No."
They ignored her.
Harley proposed active counterbalancing to prevent rollovers.
Shuri redesigned the suspension geometry.
An intern suggested magnetic stabilisers.
Harley rejected them.
Shuri restored them with modifications.
Someone produced coffee.
Someone else ordered food.
The vehicle became lighter.
Then faster.
Then theoretically capable of driving across terrain no sane person would willingly approach.
By ten-thirty, the engineers were arguing about whether it could safely jump a four-metre gap.
Friday interrupted.
"It cannot."
Harley looked upward.
"We haven't run the simulation."
"I have."
Shuri folded her arms.
"And?"
"It can clear the gap."
Harley pointed at the ceiling.
"See?"
"It cannot land."
The engineers collectively looked back at the model.
Harley rubbed his chin.
"Technicality."
Eleven O'clock Is Not a Suggestion
At ten fifty-seven, Friday activated the department-wide speakers.
"The current time is 10:57 p.m."
Nobody reacted.
Peter was halfway inside a cooling simulation.
Ned had somehow acquired three monitors.
Harley was beneath the vehicle prototype.
Only his boots were visible.
Shuri stood on the platform directing two senior engineers.
Friday tried again.
"Mr. Parker, Mr. Leeds, Mr. Kenner and Princess Shuri have school tomorrow."
"We heard you," Peter said.
He did not look away from the hologram.
"The researchers have also exceeded recommended continuous working hours."
A tired voice answered from the laptop division.
"We're almost done."
"That statement was first made three hours and twelve minutes ago."
"We mean it now."
"No, you do not."
Shuri adjusted a suspension model.
"Friday, we are close to resolving the lateral stability problem."
"You may continue tomorrow."
Harley rolled out from beneath the vehicle.
"Creative momentum doesn't follow business hours."
"Neither does cardiac strain."
Ned looked up.
"That's dramatic."
A young intern standing beside him swayed.
Peter's head snapped around.
The intern blinked.
"I'm fine."
Then he fainted.
Peter moved before anyone else understood what was happening.
One second the intern was falling.
The next Peter had crossed the space and caught him beneath the arms.
Harley grabbed his legs.
"Med bay," Friday ordered.
"I'm opening the route."
The floor lights changed.
Researchers stepped aside.
Peter and Harley carried the unconscious intern toward the lift.
Ned followed, pale and concerned.
Shuri came behind him.
Dr. Patel started after them.
Friday stopped him.
"Doctor, you have been awake for twenty-one consecutive hours."
"I'm the department lead."
"You are now off duty."
"Friday."
"The medical team will contact you."
The lift doors closed.
Dr. Patel stared at his reflection.
Then at the cold coffee in his hand.
"Fine."
Friday dimmed the laboratory lights.
"Go home."
For once, everyone listened.
The Medical Tour
The intern regained consciousness before they reached the medical wing.
He looked up at Peter.
"Am I dead?"
"No."
"Yes."
Harley nodded solemnly.
"I am very sorry for your loss."
Peter glared at him.
The med-bay doors opened.
Two nurses met them with a hovering stretcher.
Peter and Harley carefully lowered the intern onto it.
A doctor scanned him.
"Exhaustion, dehydration and low blood sugar."
Friday spoke from a wall panel.
"I warned him."
The intern covered his face.
"Please don't tell Dr. Patel."
"I have already told Dr. Patel."
"Can you untell him?"
"No."
The medical staff moved the intern into observation.
The sensible thing would have been for the four teenagers to leave.
Go upstairs.
Brush their teeth.
Sleep.
They were standing in a medical facility after eleven at night.
Friday had already reminded them that school existed.
Instead, Ned looked down the corridor.
"I've never seen this part of the Tower."
Shuri looked interested.
Harley leaned toward Peter.
"You know your way around?"
Peter hesitated.
That was enough.
Harley smiled.
"Tour."
"No."
"You know all the doctors."
"I've been injured a lot."
"Exactly. Experienced guide."
Ned looked at the medical equipment through the glass wall.
"Just a quick tour."
Peter looked toward the ceiling.
"Friday?"
"No."
Shuri started walking.
Peter sighed and followed.
"This isn't a tour."
"Of course not," Shuri said.
"It is a brief educational inspection."
"That is a tour with more syllables."
Peter introduced them to Dr. Cho's night team.
Then to a trauma specialist who had once removed a shard of alien metal from his shoulder.
Then to a nurse named Elena who took one look at Peter and asked whether he had eaten.
"Yes."
"When?"
"Dinner."
"How long ago?"
Peter paused.
Elena handed him a cereal bar.
Harley accepted one too.
Then Ned.
Then Shuri.
"You didn't even ask us," Harley said.
Elena pointed down the corridor.
"I work for Stark. I know what unsupervised geniuses look like."
They continued.
Peter explained the surgical rooms.
The diagnostic scanners.
The regeneration cradle.
The private recovery suites.
Then he stopped.
A chill moved across the corridor.
Not ordinary cold.
It crept beneath Peter's clothes and pressed against his skin.
His spider-sense shifted.
Not danger.
Not exactly.
Awareness.
Something alive.
Something strange.
Peter turned.
A closed door stood at the end of a side corridor.
There was no label.
No window.
Only a biometric lock and a thin layer of frost around the frame.
Harley followed his gaze.
"Why is that door frozen?"
Ned stepped closer.
"It wasn't on the floor map."
Shuri's eyes narrowed.
"Friday?"
"Return to the residential floors."
All four teenagers stopped.
Peter looked upward.
"What's in there?"
"Restricted medical equipment."
Harley pointed.
"That was a terrible lie."
"I did not lie."
"You used your legal voice."
"There is no such thing as my legal voice."
Ned studied the side pannel.
"The room's drawing a huge amount of power."
"Mr. Leeds."
"Cold storage?"
"Return upstairs."
Peter stepped toward the door.
The frost thickened beneath his fingertips before he even touched it.
His spider-sense stirred again.
A heartbeat.
Slow.
Almost impossibly slow.
But there.
Friday began locking the door.
"Peter."
Too late.
Through some quiet cruelty of fate, Peter Parker, Ned Leeds and Harley Kenner had inherited Tony Stark's catastrophic relationship with curiosity.
Shuri had arrived with her own.
Peter's hand shot forward with superhuman speed.
His fingers closed around the handle a fraction of a second before the internal lock engaged.
The mechanism resisted.
Peter pulled.
Metal groaned.
"Peter," Friday said sharply.
The door opened.
Cold air poured into the corridor.
The four teenagers stared.
The room beyond was dark except for a pale blue glow.
Ice covered the walls.
Mist curled across the floor.
At the centre of the chamber rested a long structure made from black metal and translucent blue ice.
A coffin.
No.
Not a coffin.
Something older.
Alien.
The surface was carved with symbols that shifted when Peter tried to focus on them.
Cold radiated from it in waves.
Peter stepped inside.
His breath fogged immediately.
"Whoa."
Harley appeared beside him.
"What is that?"
Ned entered next.
Shuri followed, eyes wide.
Friday sealed the outer medical corridor and began composing a message to Tony.
Boss, I regret to inform you that the children have discovered the cryogenic chamber.
Peter moved closer.
A figure lay beneath the ice.
Tall.
Male.
Long black hair floated around his face.
Dark armour covered his body, though much of it had been removed or cut away for medical treatment.
His skin was blue.
Not pale.
Not frozen.
Deep, living blue marked by raised lines across his forehead, cheeks and throat.
Shuri stared.
"An alien."
Ned looked at her.
"A mutant may be?"
"looks like an alien to me."
Harley glanced around the room.
"Tony has an alien in the basement?"
"Medical wing," Friday corrected automatically.
Peter leaned closer to the ice.
There was something familiar about the face.
Peter just couldn't place him.
All four gathered around the chamber.
Friday amended her message.
Boss, the children have discovered Loki.
The blue man's fingers twitched.
Peter saw it.
He froze.
"Did he just move?"
Harley leaned closer.
"I didn't see anything."
Loki's chest rose.
The ice cracked.
A thin line appeared across the surface.
Ned stepped back.
"Friday?"
The chamber's energy levels spiked.
Warning symbols flashed across the walls.
The frost thickened.
The room temperature dropped twelve degrees in less than a second.
Shuri reached for Harley's arm.
Peter moved instinctively in front of Ned.
Loki's eyes opened.
Red.
They fixed immediately on Peter and Harley.
Nobody breathed.
Friday deleted her original message.
Then composed a new one.
Bad news: the children found Loki.
A second line appeared.
Good news: Loki is awake.