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Chapter Text

February 20, 2017

@iamironman

Tony Stark ✓

You know who I am.

5 posts 77.2M followers 15 following

Tony Stark ✓ @TonyStark

You know who I am.

Links: @StarkIndustries @TheAvengersOfficial 

304 tweets 14 following 43.9M followers

He found Peter’s accounts at nearly 3 AM one night, after looking up from his project to his phone (ignoring the many texts from Pepper about his meetings tomorrow — well, today) and deciding to scroll through it. 

@peterparkour

Peter Parker

Do or do not. There is no try. 

13 posts 93 followers 122 following

Beter @peterwithab

THERE’S A BEE???

227 tweets 117 following 47 followers

Peter’s accounts had been suggested by F.R.I.D.A.Y. Almost everything on his Twitter was about the Avengers or something nerdy about Star Wars or the like. His Instagram was completely comprised of high-rise photos of New York City (probably taken as Spider-Man, he had to talk to the kid about being more careful), an odd science project or two, and one grainy selfie of him and two other people — Tony vaguely recognized them as Ned and MJ — with headsets on and video game controllers in their hands. MJ was giving the camera a death glare, Ned looked stressed, and Peter was giving a thumbs-up, his face half-cropped out of view. The caption read, don’t beat mj at mario kart or it’ll be the last thing you ever do.

Tony had met Ned and MJ once, and he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t just a bit terrified of MJ. Her gaze was just as leveling, as stony, as Pepper’s. But he was more scared of Aunt Hottie, who had become a terror after finding out that Peter was Spider-Man. She’d been thorough in creating rules surrounding patrol and Avengers-level activities (not that she needed to, seeing as to how Peter had actually refused the offer to become an Avenger), and also threatened him more than he thought a woman like her could with a man like him. 

Well, at least she’d suggested Peter actually take up an internship at Stark Industries — which, after the whole debacle back in September with Peter crashing his plane to prevent the Vulture from getting Avengers gear, he’d decided would be staying in Stark Tower for now — to make a more credible cover story. Peter had officially met the other interns, who had been both jealous and impressed that a high school kid was helping design and invent for Stark Industries. As far as they all knew, Peter had gotten the internship through a school science fair competition and worked on biochemical experiments, including advancing Spider-Man’s silk and webs. If any of the other interns wanted to pry, or thought something looked suspicious, none of them said anything. 

(Plus, it wasn’t like they could say anything, with all the non-disclosure agreements they had to sign to work at SI anyway.)

Tony clicked back from the post of Peter, Ned and MJ, vaguely wondering if the kid would be up for making a Spider-Man social media. Not thinking much of it — especially given that he was running on zero sleep in the last perhaps forty hours — he followed Peter’s Twitter and Instagram. Tony looked at his watch, eyebrows raising to his hairline when he realized it was just past three in the morning, and stumbled off to bed.

---

Peter had gone to sleep without turning his ringer off. He slept fine until 3:02 AM, when his phone buzzed in the pattern Peter recognized as pertaining to his Instagram. He ignored it, but less than half a minute later, it buzzed again, this time in the pattern for his Twitter. 

Peter lifted his head groggily and looked at his phone, the screen blurring until his eyes focused. 

Instagram

@iamironman has followed you

Twitter

@TonyStark has followed you

Peter, unsurprised that it was so early, set his phone back down on the bedside table and went back to sleep.

His ringer went off again, buzzing repeatedly, at just past 3:05 AM, but Peter just reached a hand over and switched off the ringer. 

---

The next morning, Peter woke up with a headache. As soon as he’d opened his eyes, he wanted to close them again. His head was pounding — he could hear May already shuffling in the kitchen, feel the fabric of his sheets too sharply. So it was going to be one of those days — the days where his enhanced senses were dialed to 12 rather than 11, the days that ended with him wishing that damn spider had never bitten him. 

Trying to ignore the thrum of his blood in his ears, Peter leaned over and picked up his phone. He almost forgot about his senses when he saw the influx of sudden notifications on his phone. He opened Instagram. 

@peterparkour

Peter Parker

Do or do not. There is no try. 

13 posts 54K followers 122 following

He opened Twitter, only to find a similar sight. Peter was absolutely baffled as to why he was suddenly so popular. An idea popped in his head, horrifying. What if someone had found out he was Spider-Man?

Then he remembered waking up at an ungodly hour last night to see that Mr. Stark had followed him on both Instagram and Twitter. He slapped his hand to his forehead, letting out a groan. Of course. Mr. Stark literally followed 15 people on Instagram — well, technically 16 now. People paid attention to who it was that a very famous billionaire followed. 

Oh, man. This was going to ruin his life. Scratch that. It was already ruining his life. 

Peter lay back on his tiny bed, eyebrows knitting together with worry as he frantically scrolled through his Instagram and Twitter, trying to remember if he’d ever posted anything that might be compromising or, well, not good should it end up in the hands of the media. He archived his last Instagram post, the one where he and Ned and MJ were playing video games — the only one with his face in it. 

Like that was going to change anything. It had probably already been screenshotted by thousands of people. Peter groaned, wondering if he could sink into his mattress if he focused his energy on it. It was too late to change anything. Stupid. May had warned him of the “dangers of social media”. But then again, he wasn’t ever expecting to become famous overnight. Why would he?

He opened his phone again, shut off notifications from Instagram and Twitter, and went to text messages. The throbbing behind his temple was returning with more vigor.

Group chat: brainless idiots + MJ

members: guy in the chair, peter-man, MJ

peter-man: did you guys see

MJ: Yeah. Nice job, loser.

guy in the chair: no

guy in the chair: what happened?

guy in the chair: peter

MJ: Check insta, Ned.

peter-man: mj how do you even know already 

peter-man: you don’t even have instagram

MJ: I have my methods. Are you even surprised?

peter-man: ok fair point

…

guy in the chair: oh my god Oh mY gOd YOU’re FAMOUS

MJ: I prefer the word notorious.

peter-man: ugh school’s gonna be sO FuN today

Peter got out of bed and changed before heading to the kitchen. May could tell from the cringe on his face as soon as he walked in that it was one of those days.

"Hey, Pete. You sure you’re good to go to school today?” she asked softly, careful to keep her voice low.

Peter gave her a small smile. “I’ll be fine, May. But I might die if people realize Mr. Stark followed me on Instagram and Twitter.”

“He what?”

“Yeah. I went from like, a hundred followers to fifty-four thousand last night.”

May looked worried. “Ohhhhkay. Not good. I warned you. I warned you!”

“I wasn’t expecting to get followed by Tony Stark!”

“We’ll just have to be careful. I don’t know how to handle any sort of media attention, so if it gets to, well, I don’t know, Pepper and Tony should help.” She chewed on her bottom lip, setting the cereal on the table. “Let’s hope it doesn’t get that far. Fingers crossed.”

Peter grunted and sat down, pouring cereal into his bowl. May had become close friends with Pepper in the past few months (he didn’t know why, but it was a comforting thing and rather unsurprising), but still held the tiniest of grudges against Mr. Stark. This certainly wasn’t going to help her image of him. 

May looked at him. “It’s only Monday. No internship today. School should be fine, right?”

---

School, as a matter of fact, was not fine, just as Peter had anticipated.

Initially, it seemed no one knew about it yet. Which was all good and well — people ignored Peter, just as they usually did. Thank god. He didn’t think he would have made it all day with his enhanced senses screaming at him already.

And then the first article popped up mid-morning. 

This high school teenager is trending all over the internet, and you won’t believe his connection to Tony Stark , the Buzzfeed article claimed (because of fucking course it was Buzzfeed). Usually, Peter wouldn’t have expected people at Midtown — the nerdiest school in Queens — to read Buzzfeed, but then again, he read Buzzfeed, so it wasn’t exactly surprising. All it took was a few people to click open the article, and it spread like wildfire all over school.

By the end of third period, it seemed everyone knew. And they were being super friendly all of the sudden.

“Parker, what’s up?” yelled someone he’d never talked to, let alone made eye contact with, as he walked down the hall. 

“Do you actually know Tony Stark?” someone else asked him. He kept walking without looking at them. 

“Why’d Stark follow you?”

“Hey, Peter! Wanna hang out?”

“Pen—Parker! We should catch up sometime!”

“Whoa, Parker! How much did you pay for the fake followers?”

An hour later, at lunch, all Peter wanted to do was sleep. His enhanced senses were absolutely not having fun with all the commotion that was suddenly so focused on him. He’d known this morning that it was going to be one of those days as soon as he’d woken up, and the attention was making it ten times worse. Peter wished for nothing more than to be able to go back to everyone thinking he was invisible, the kid who faked the Stark internship. 

“They’re just jealous, Peter, don’t pay them any attention,” Ned said, trying to comfort him while Peter tried to block out the dozens and dozens of eyes that watched him from where they ate in the cafeteria. The only thing keeping the horde of students at bay from directly coming to sit at their table was MJ, who was quietly reading a book but gave a signature death glare to anyone who even came near them. 

“Yeah, and now they all think that by cozying up to me all of the sudden they’ll get access to Mr. Stark.”

“Well, they’re idiots, because it’s not like you’re gonna forget that they ignored you for so many years like that,” MJ said, apparently in a staring contest with a girl across the room who was eyeing Peter in too interested a way for her liking.

Peter groaned quietly, eating his food and trying to pretend he wasn’t affected by the eyes that were following him. His phone was facedown on the table — since he’d picked it up this morning, he hadn’t stopped accumulating new followers, both on Twitter and Instagram. It had ebbed, and he was glad he’d turned off the notifications, but Peter had shut his phone off for good measure. He hadn’t heard anything from May, so he could only assume everything was fine despite the media.

By the end of the day, his enhanced senses were on the verge of actually causing him to black out. He felt like every single one of his nerves had been rubbed raw as he sat in his last class of the day — history. He could hear someone chewing their gum two classrooms down the hall. He could see the particles of dust (human skin cells, actually) floating in the air, light from the far too bright fluorescent bulbs above bouncing off of them. He could smell the sweat on Mr. Hansen’s brow and the ink of the expo marker he was using to write on the board. He could feel every strand in his sweater against his skin. 

Peter had never wished so badly that that stupid fucking spider hadn’t bit him. He gripped his mechanical pencil, only to find that he'd already snapped it in half. He would ask to get up, but he was afraid of hearing his own voice clang around his head if he spoke.

He didn’t know how much later it was, but the bell rang. Peter made a beeline for the door, ran to the nearest bathroom — thankfully, it was empty — and hurled up what felt like all of his internal organs in the first stall, not even stopping to latch the door closed. 

His ears rang, his head feeling as though his brain was expanding exponentially. He briefly wondered if it was spilling out of his ears. Vaguely, as he recoiled and gasped for air, still heaving into the ceramic bowl, he registered a voice calling his name. 

“Peter? Oh my god, dude, are you okay?” The voice — Ned, some distant part of his brain thought — was loud and sharp with alarm. 

“Too loud. Too much,” Peter whispered, recoiling violently as his words reverberated in his ears painfully. 

Ned’s hand had found its way to Peter’s shoulder, rubbing gently. The friction caused black spots in Peter’s vision. “Okay,” Ned whispered, quietly, trying to hide the concern in his voice. “Um, do you think you can get up? If I can get you to the nurse, maybe we can call May or something, get you home. No internship today, right?”

Peter nodded as much as he could.

“Okay. Okay. Let me help you up.” Ned’s arm curled around Peter’s midsection, and he lifted as Peter pushed with his legs. He almost fell over, Ned catching him before he could pitch forward into the vomit-stained toilet bowl. “You don’t happen to have those earbud thingies that filter stuff out? Or the glasses?”

Peter shook his head, trying to focus his vision. The black spots had been replaced with white sparks, which flooded over his eyes. 

“Okay. Let’s just, let’s just go.”

They’d gotten halfway to the door when it burst open. Peter recoiled at the sudden, harsh noise, hearing the scrape and screech of the tiny wooden fibers against the tile floor, before looking up to see who it was. Rather than a teenage boy, Peter was met with a familiar face. 

“Happy?” His voice came out as a croak. 

“Shit, kid. What the hell happened to him?” Happy had already turned his attention to Ned, who was struggling to prop Peter up as he winced and tried to cover his ears to block the sound.

“He’s—who are you? Sensory overload. We need to get him home.”

Happy’s voice dropped an octave and he whispered. “That’s a no-go, kid. Tony sent me to pick him up and take him to Stark Tower.”

“What? Tony Stark sent you? You-oh my god, you’re Happy Hogan.”

"That’s right. Now come on, let’s go. Do you need help walking, Pete?”

Peter, still dazed, but feeling his own two feet beneath him, shook his head. “I-I got it.” He stumbled forwards, held upright by Ned.

The halls were already pretty empty. The few students still milling about, though, did get to snap a few pictures of Peter as he stumbled with Ned and Tony Stark’s head of security to a black car loitering out front of Midtown High. 

Happy winced. That wouldn’t help the current situation in the least. 

Ned put Peter in the car hurriedly, trying (and failing pretty miserably) at being gentle. As he was about to retract, though, Happy yelled, “Get in!”

He wasn’t going to argue. 

Peter was instantaneously grateful for the soundproof walls of the car. The dark tinted windows helped, too. He squeezed his eyes shut. 

“You gotta keep your eyes open for me, kid,” Happy said, watching him in the rear view mirror as he darted in and out of traffic. “Come on.”

Ned tried to keep Peter’s eyes open, but there wasn’t much he could do as Peter slumped over, his eyes still screwed tightly together.

Blackness. Peter heard his best friend’s voice ask him to stay awake, but he just couldn’t. 

The last thing he heard before he slumped over was Happy cursing and the honking of horns.

---

Peter woke up in a very soft bed — too soft , he could feel all the edges and folds in the sheets, rubbing uncomfortably against his skin — in a dark room. He blinked, disoriented for a few seconds, before his ears picked up two voices talking in the next room. 

“This is a problem, Stark, I cannot believe you’d be so reckless.”

Ah. That was Aunt May. 

She was interrupted by a smoothly flowing, familiar robotic voice. “Boss, Peter is awake.”

“Thanks, F.R.I.” That was Mr. Stark’s voice. 

Not ten seconds later, the door to the room — it was his room, the room Mr. Stark had had made in Stark Tower once May had laid down the ground rules for the internship and Spider-Man, he suddenly realized — opened, letting in a flood of light. Mr. Stark and Aunt May came in, followed by Ms. Potts, soft footsteps thudding over to Peter’s bed before they both gently sat down on the edge. “How are you feeling, Peter?” Aunt May asked.

Peter tried to sit up, but his head pounded. “Ouch.”

Mr. Stark frowned. “Yeah, ouch. You passed out from sensory overload, Pete. Why didn’t you have the earbuds and the glasses?”

Peter shrunk back into the mattress, even though Mr. Stark’s tone wasn’t harsh. “I’m sorry.”

Mr. Stark let out a long breath. Aunt May glared at him. 

“No, kid, I’m the one who’s sorry. I landed you in this shithole of a situation by making a really stupid decision at three in the morning.”

Peter stared blankly. “What?”

“The hundreds of thousands of new followers you’ve got on social media?”

“Oh. That.”

“Yeah. Why else did you think you were here instead of at your apartment?”

Peter shrugged, then winced at the movement. “Ow.”

Mr. Stark dug in his pocket and handed him a pair of glasses and a small earbud. “Put those on. What happened? I don’t think I’ve ever seen your senses so bad.”

“Everyone was staring at me at school. I got overwhelmed, I guess.” He peered back at May. “So why are we here?”

“Well, apparently the media has decided it’s a great idea to track you down and find your address, and there’s reporters prowling all over Queens. We didn’t want you to be seen and tracked back to the apartment. For now, they don’t know where we live. But with you going to and from school everyday and Spider-Man leaving our apartment, we don’t want it swarmed with reporters. Tony thought it would be safer for you and I to stay here for a little while.”

Peter sat up, already feeling better with the filtering buds. “They what ? But it should be fine, right? There’s a ton of famous people whose addresses aren’t known by the media.”

“Yes, that’s true. Unfortunately, those famous people aren’t Spider-Man. If you’re sighted and tracked home and then Spider-Man leaves the same location your secret identity would be compromised,” said Pepper, throwing an angry glance at Mr. Stark. “On top of that, they know you live in Queens, and someone with considerable hacking skills figured out the approximate location where you were posting to your social media.”

Peter shook his head, unable to wrap his head around the situation. Suddenly, he was being stalked by reporters. He should text Ned and MJ—

“Ned! He helped me get out of school! Is he okay?” 

“Yeah, kid. Happy got him home safely, don’t worry,” said Mr. Stark.

May glanced at him. “Though I would suggest texting him, he’s probably worried.”

Peter found his phone on the bedside table and turned it on, finding a long string of texts and missed calls from Ned and MJ (both in the group chat and separately). “Oh, god.”

“Well, I’m betting you’re hungry and have homework to do. We ordered food, dinner should be up in about ten minutes, kid.” Mr. Stark stood up from the bed. “I’m really sorry about it, Pete. I should have thought before I did that.”

“It’s okay, Mr. Stark. Don’t worry about it, I’m fine.”

Mr. Stark looked ready to argue with him, but decided to drop it. “I’ll be out there if you need anything.” He left the room with Pepper. 

“What about you, May? What about your job?”

His aunt wrapped an arm around him. “Well, people don’t know I’m your aunt yet, so I’ll probably be fine in the apartment. But I had to come here to chew out Tony and make sure you were okay.” She paused. “Are you sure about this? Pepper said she was ready to hold a press conference and tell everyone to, well, go screw themselves.”

“I don’t know. I don’t know where this is gonna go. I mean, the media will probably calm down after a few days, right? That’s how it goes.” He felt like he was flailing for an answer. In truth, he had no idea what to do.

“Well, they offered me a room to stay the night. It depends on what you want, kiddo.”

“I’m sorry, May. I don’t want your life to get turned upside down because of me. This is stupid.”

“Peter, it’s alright.”

“It’s not. I don’t know how to fix it.”

“That’s okay. I’m sure it’ll be okay. You just might have to stay here for a while.” She gave him a weak smile. “For now, let Ned and MJ know you’re okay. Ned called me because he was so worried.” She smiled again and got up to leave. 

Peter flopped back onto the bed and opened his phone. 

Group chat: brainless idiots + MJ

members: guy in the chair, peter-man, MJ

guy in the chair: peter plz let us know if you’re ok

MJ: You’d better be joking right now.

MJ: Come on, this isn’t funny.

guy in the chair: may said ur alive but ur asleep

guy in the chair: plz text us when you wake up

MJ: Peter, are you okay?

8:07 PM

peter-man: hey guys I’m fine it’s ok

A response from Ned came in almost immediately.

guy in the chair: what happened dude?!

peter-man: apparently the media is stalking me so i cant go home, im staying at stark tower for now and idk what’ll happen w school

peter-man: its not good 

guy in the chair: well at least ur ok

guy in the chair: you were really bad dude ive never seen ur senses go off like that

peter-man: yeah it wasn’t good I’m better now

peter-man: thanks for helping get me out of school dude

MJ: Have you seen the news? You’re all over the place.

peter-man: whAt

Peter opened the internet and quickly Googled his own name. The search returned his Instagram and Twitter and several new articles, followed by the Buzzfeed one that had started it all this morning. 

Who is Peter Parker?

How a High Schooler Gained Internet Fame Overnight. 

An Inside Scoop on Peter Parker

And then there was Twitter. Apparently the hashtags #whoispeterparker and #peterparker had both started trending. He opened Twitter. 

Kitty Dowan @dowanlo12

@peterwithab who are you? #whoispeterparker #peterparker

Juliana @thanks.an.Avocado11

Does anyone know why Tony Stark followed a high schooler on twitter #whoispeterparker

Avengers Fan @ILoveBlackWidowwe

@thanks.an.Avocado11 apparently he’s like an intern at Stark Industries? @StarkIndustries give the people some info on #peterparker #whoispeterparker 

Chris is that a Weed @imcallingthePollicee

@TonyStark @StarkIndustries @PPotts @peterwithab #whoispeterparker ? 

The tweets felt like they were never ending. All these people he didn’t know, he would probably never know, all talking about him and trying to find out who he was. Why did they even care so much?

guy in the chair: yeah dude ur trending on twitter

peter-man: i saw

peter-man: and i oop-

MJ: It’s bothering you. 

peter-man: no,,

peter-man: i just want my normal life back is all

guy in the chair: mmmhmmm

guy in the chair: sure peter

MJ: You mean your “normal life” before or after the spider bite?

peter-man: …

peter-man: just a semblance of normality might be nice

peter-man: i mean school’s gonna suck even more, can i even go to school now

guy in the chair: im sure itll be okay dude

MJ: Ned’s right, the media will move on in a week. If not sooner.

peter-man: i sure hope so

He clicked his phone off and got up from the bed to get ready for dinner. I sure hope so.

Chapter Text

@peterparkour

Peter Parker

Do or do not. There is no try. 

13 posts 236K followers 122 following

Beter @peterwithab

THERE’S A BEE???

227 tweets 117 following 122K followers

---

Peter wasn’t initially planning on it, but when he saw the spike in his follower count after dinner was over (May decided to head home for the night, having put her trust in Pepper — not Tony — that Peter would be alright), he pulled the suit on, filled the webshooter cartridges, and slung out of his wall-sized window in Stark Tower. Thanks to the mask, the earbuds and the glasses, his senses had fortunately calmed enough for him to feel vaguely in control of his body again. And the several hours long nap he’d taken after throwing up and almost passing out in the school bathroom (Peter was sure the pictures would be surfacing anytime now, and he was not looking forward to it) meant he wasn’t at all tired.

The night air felt refreshing, cool against him, chilling his skin even under the Stark tech of the Spider-Man suit. And, for once, it was nice to be Spider-Man, not Peter Parker. It was nice to get away from all the attention that suddenly surrounded his normal life. 

Huh. Ironic why and how quickly his life had changed.

He had always guessed that one day he’d be famous, but never as Peter Parker. Always as Spider-Man. At least no one knew about his ties to Spider-Man, minus a few of the SI interns he’d started working with, who knew he fabricated Spider-Man’s tech. But now that it was Peter Parker who was famous — and not just famous, famous without any sort of connection to Spider-Man — he wasn’t sure what exactly he was supposed to do about it.

Not that there was much he could do about it. Ms. Potts had explained over dinner — in between glares at Mr. Stark — that usually with things like this, the media would be all over it for a week before dropping it to move to the next story.

“It’s not the first scandal we’ve dealt with, honey,” she had said. “I wouldn’t worry too much about it. We just wanted to take the precautions of keeping you here at the Tower just so you could stay safe.” She’d paused and given him a soothing smile. “You’ll be back home soon. The media is like this; all over one new juicy story for a few days, maybe a week, and then another new story pops up.”

Peter hoped it lasted less than a week. He wanted to go home to his apartment. 

“Peter, police radio signals indicate a bank robbery on 41st street. Should I chart the fastest path there?” Karen spoke up, her mechanical voice soothing him as it washed over him. 

“Yeah. Let’s go.”

He was halfway there when he spotted a figure, near invisible in the shadows of an alleyway, dragging someone else on the ground and glancing around shiftily. Peter stopped and redirected his web strand mid-swing, landing silently on the street of the alley behind the figure. The man kept dragging whoever it was back, completely unaware of Peter.

“Hey, dude.” The man whipped around, dropping the body behind him with a dull thud in surprise. His eyes went comically wide. “What you got there? I don’t wanna make it sound bad or anything, but dragging someone through a deserted alleyway makes you look pretty shady. I’d say leave whoever it is alone.”

The man backed off, his eyes darting as though trying to find an escape route. Before he could even move or say anything, though, Peter had shot a web at him, pinning him to the wall. Another two shots, and the man was immobilized where he stood. “Okay, Mr. Criminal man, I’m gonna ask you to stay right here. The police should be on their way in a few.” 

The man seemed to finally find his voice. “You can’t call the police! You just attacked me! Assault! Fancy little Spider-Man all up in his Stark tech. You’re supposed to help the poor, not side with the rich!”

“Bold of you to assume my life story, Mr. Criminal. And Mr. Stark being rich doesn’t make him villainous. He’s Iron Man.” Peter said this calmly as he hopped over to the body the man had dropped on the alley floor. It was a woman; she was unconscious, her black hair singed and smelling burnt as though someone had lit it on fire, her eyes lolling and blood rolling from her bruised broken nose down to her neck. Despite the dim light, Peter could see enough. He shook his head in horror. 

“He only helps out when it benefits him, Spider-Man. You’re too young to get it, obviously.”

Peter ignored the jab, well aware already that his voice was high-pitched and cracky. Instead he focused on checking the woman’s vitals. “Karen, scan her,” he whispered before turning to the man. “I’m more worried about what the hell you did to this lady,” Peter said apprehensively, the suit’s eyes narrowing along with his.  

The man’s beady eyes looked at him hungrily. “Oh, she had it coming. She got what she deserved.” 

Karen spoke in his ear. “Subject still alive, but in need of immediate medical assistance. Severe trauma to the back of the skull, chest, and legs. Left leg broken, two cracked ribs, third degree burns over torso and neck, and possible internal bleeding. I suggest getting her to a hospital as soon as possible.” Peter felt horror, followed by anger bubbling up in his chest at what the man had done to this woman. 

“You’re staying here until the police come and get you. Don’t bother trying to cut the webs, it won’t work.” He didn’t say anything else, afraid that he might explode from the rage boiling inside him and actually assault this man. 

Ignoring the crazed yelling of the man, Peter picked up the woman as gently as he could and slung into the skies.

---

Peter didn’t return to Stark Tower until half past one in the morning. Which, given, was way past the curfew of 11 he and Tony and May had agreed on for school nights. But he’d had to stay in the hospital to make sure the woman was taken care of, and because of that had almost gotten detained by a hospital security officer. Sometimes Peter forgot that his work as Spider-Man occasionally extended beyond the law. He’d managed to get away, but not before several people and security had seen him at the hospital. 

Well, maybe Spider-Man going into a hospital with a near-dead woman would make the headlines and distract from all of the attention on Peter Parker.

After that, he had been en route back home, almost on autopilot, before realizing he couldn’t just go back to his apartment in Queens. So he’d turned around to head back to Manhattan, and that’s when he’d run into the college girl who was walking home. Alone. And pretty drunk. He’d made sure she’d made it home safely.

He’d completely missed the bank robbery, but the reports Karen gave him told him they’d handled it well by themselves. He’d called 911 as soon as he’d escaped the hospital and given an anonymous tip about the man he’d webbed up in the alley. Just thinking about the criminal, with the crazy look in his beady black eyes, made him shiver as he swung his way back to the tower and scaled the side. 

Peter had hoped to slip in and go straight to bed. Unfortunately, Tony was awake and sitting in his room, scrolling through a StarkPad. “Peter. You’re way late past your curfew, kid. That’s not acceptable.”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Stark, but there was this lady and I had to take her to the hospital and —”

“Yeah, I saw, Pete. You’re now all over the tabloids as both Peter Parker and Spider-Man.” Mr. Stark turned to look at him, his expression somewhere between disappointment and exhaustion. “You have to be more careful. You’re just a kid, and if something happens to you, it’s on me. You understand that?”

Peter nodded, unable to form words. You’re just a kid. Would he ever be more than a kid?

He must have looked miserable as it was, because Tony sighed, his expression dropping. “C’mere, kid. Sit down.”

Peter did.

“We gotta handle this situation delicately, Pete. That doesn’t mean no more Spider-Man. It just means you stick low to the ground. Can you do that?”

“I wasn’t trying to go after anything high-profile, Mr. Stark. I just didn’t realize how I might be mobbed at the hospital for trying to save someone.”

Tony hesitated, and then put an arm around Peter’s shoulders. Peter leaned into his side easily. “It’s shitt—it sucks, Pete. It does. And since you’re not an official Avenger, or bound by any laws, there’s people who are against you because you’re not regulated.” He took a sharp breath, and Peter looked at his mentor with slight concern. “Just reminds me of what happened with Cap and the accords. Remember Berlin?”

“Yeah.”

They sat in companionable yet slightly awkward silence for a little while. Mr. Stark seemed like he didn’t know what else to say. Eventually he retracted his arm. “You’d better get to sleep, kid. You have school tomorrow. And you gotta deal with being Peter Parker.”

Peter winced. He’d almost forgotten about the Peter Parker becoming famous overnight scandal with all that had happened with Spider-Man in the past few hours. “Okay. Good night, Mr. Stark. And — thanks.”

Tony nodded quickly, blinking, then awkwardly left Peter’s room.

Peter quickly changed out of his Spider-Man suit, brushed his teeth and washed his face (he decided a shower could wait until morning) before flopping on the bed. He almost didn’t want to open his phone. 

Thankfully, May didn’t know he’d stayed out too late. Mr. Stark had probably decided it would be in both of their best interests not to tell her. Ned and MJ had been pretty active in the groupchat, but Peter decided not to text them back until morning, given that they were both probably asleep. He checked the time. Ten till two in the morning. 

Out of plain curiosity, Peter opened his Instagram and Twitter.

@peterparkour

Peter Parker

Do or do not. There is no try. 

13 posts 308K followers 122 following

Beter @peterwithab

THERE’S A BEE???

227 tweets 117 following 149K followers

Well, fuck.

---

February 21, 2017

The next day positively sucked. Even though they’d agreed Happy would drive Peter to school from Stark Tower to avoid the press, they had been waiting outside the lobby of Stark Towers like the crazed mob going to kill the Beast. Or perhaps camped outside like it was a store five minutes from opening on Black Friday. 

Either way, Peter did not want to confront them.

“Pete. Look at me, bud,” Mr. Stark said that morning. “The best you can do is keep your head nice and tall, good posture, avoid looking anyone in the eyes and keep a straight face. Can you do that?”

Ms. Potts threw him an exasperated look. “Tony. He’s a kid. He didn’t grow up in the spotlight. He doesn’t know how to deal with this sort of thing.” She turned to Peter. “That being said, Tony is right about this. Though you might want to practice it on us. Go ahead.”

Peter raised an eyebrow before straightening his posture and attempting to neutralize his expression.

Mr. Stark let out a laugh. 

“What? What’d I do wrong?”

“Nothing, sweetheart, it’s just — you look like you’re in pain,” said Ms. Potts, shushing Tony. She talked Peter through a neutral expression, but it was cut short when she had to leave for her 7:30 AM meeting. 

Mr. Stark put a hand on Peter’s shoulder. “Do you want sunglasses?”

Peter, confused, let out a nervous laugh. “What?”

“Sunglasses. To hide your eyes. I find it makes ignoring the reporters a lot easier when they can’t see where you’re looking.”

Before Peter could respond, an intrusive thought danced across the forefront of his mind. That’s why Mr. Stark always wears sunglasses. They’re a shield. 

He hated the thought, pushed it away. Mr. Stark was known for his iconic glasses. There was no way he wore them because reporters made him uncomfortable. 

“I was just going to wear the filtering glasses, actually,” he said. 

Mr. Stark smiled at him, his face crinkling with it. “You’ll be fine, kid.”

---

Peter didn’t know that the thought going through Tony’s head was He’s braver than me. Better than me. Of course he is. Not a jealous thought, but one tinged on the edges with pride.

---

The reporters, as expected, were waiting right outside the doors. Peter wasn’t really ready for all the flashing lights, and the noise (thank god for the filtering earbuds and glasses). He kept his gaze on the car on the curb, Happy’s car, and ignored the reporters even as they bombarded him with questions. Just as Ms. Potts had told him to.

“Mr. Parker, what can you tell us about your relationship with Tony Stark?”

“Peter, is it true you are in high school?”

“Mr. Parker, Daily Mail . When did you meet the prestigious Tony Stark?”

“Mr. Parker, what do you think could have caused Mr. Stark to follow your social media?”

“Mr. Parker, the hashtags #whoispeterparker and #peterparker have reached the top ten trending on Twitter. What do you have to say about that?”

“Mr. Parker, could you please give us a statement about the sudden influx of followers you’ve had since yesterday?”

Peter heard every single question, but ignored all of the reporters, making his way through to the car even as microphones and pieces of paper were shoved in his face aggressively. 

This was fine. It was fine. Totally fine. He could manage to keep his composure, right?

“Mr. Parker, what do you have to say about the theories out there that you are Tony Stark’s biological child?”

He froze.

Completely thrown off by the question — there’s people out there who have theorized that Mr. Stark is my… dad? That I’m his biological son? What?? What the fuck — Peter blinked, facing the reporter with a slack jaw. He didn’t even realize that he’d stopped completely in his tracks, the crowd hushing to a murmur as he did. 

“What? ”

“There have been theories, Mr. Parker, that you are one of Tony’s children, that he sired you back in his playboy days. Can you confirm these to be true, Mr. Parker?” She shoved the microphone so close to his face that he was sure for a second that it would go up his nostrils. 

“Uhm…” Peter muttered, flabbergasted. He sputtered for a moment, not knowing what to say. Thankfully, he was saved by Happy, who gripped his arm tightly and pushed him rather forcefully towards the black Audi. He got in ungracefully. Happy turned to the reporter and calmly spit out the words “No comment.” Peter waited for the car to pull away from the driveway before he put his head in his hands.

That didn’t go well at all. 

This was going to be a long day. 

---

Bzzt. Bzzt. Bzzt. Peter started getting the texts before second period had started. Man, was the media quick. Inhumanly so.

Group chat: brainless idiots + MJ

members: guy in the chair, peter-man, MJ

MJ: Peter, why does the whole world suddenly believe you’re Peter Stark?

guy in the chair: wait WHAT

guy in the chair: fill me in! I haven’t been able to get online today

MJ: Apparently some other brainless idiot has come to the conclusion that Peter is Stark’s biological kid, back from his playboy days. 

guy in the chair: holy sHit dude

guy in the chair: oh my god

guy in the chair: wait this isn’t true right?

guy in the chair: peter?

peter-man: ned no wtf i’m not mr. stark’s kid

peter-man: i think i made the situation worse

MJ: I mean, probably. You being rendered speechless by that one question is pretty indicative. 

guy in the chair: someone fill me in plz i BEg of you

peter-man: a ton of reporters were waiting outside of stark tower and i was doig fine ignoring them until one of them asked if i was mr. stark’s kid and i just,,, went into shock? I guess??

MJ: It looks like I’m going to be teaching you a few tricks.

peter-man: what

peter-man: should i be worried

MJ: >:)

guy in the chair: 0_0

Text to: guy in the chair

peter-man: should I be scared

guy in the chair: Idk man she’s like this 24/7 are we surprised

guy in the chair: but yeah, i’d be scared

Text from: Flash Thompson

Flash Thompson: yo Parker no way you’re Tony Stark’s kid. How many dicks did you suck for this

Flash Thompson: I mean, there’s no way you’re Peter Stark. You’re such a dweeb

Flash Thompson: yo Parker

Peter shut off his phone. The only reason Flash had his number was from the one time they were force grouped together for an English project in freshman year. He hadn’t thought Flash would even bother to save his number. Surprise, surprise. 

The article had been posted sometime during first period. Again, it had spread like wildfire — way faster than Peter would have guessed for a STEM school like Midtown. 

Peter Parker or Peter Stark? The Conspiracy Theory Behind the Internet’s Newest Flame

The article — not by Buzzfeed this time, thank god — itself had been simple, mostly consisting of the pictures taken this morning when Peter had to push through the reporters on his way out of Stark Tower. 

Why is Peter Parker, the internet’s hottest new story, staying at Stark Tower? Some have speculated that it is because he is Tony Stark’s biological son, sired during his playboy days. Peter’s age certainly seems to match up, and it would explain why Stark followed him on socials yesterday, leading to an explosion in the young man’s followers on both Instagram and Twitter. His reaction to being asked to confirm whether or not he was actually Peter Stark was shock, only providing more proof that this conspiracy theory may be true. See video down below. 

Of course, he looked like an utter dumbo in the video, stopping and gaping at the reporter when she asked him if he was a son of Tony Stark’s. And then Happy, saying “No comment.”

Yeah. To say it looked bad was an understatement.

Peter avoided looking at anyone or meeting anyone’s eyes in the hallway, wishing he could shrink into the wall or become invisible. Thankfully, with the glasses still perched on his nose and the earbuds still in, his senses were not troublesome today.

Unfortunately, as he’d predicted, someone had taken pictures of him wobbling out of Midtown yesterday after school, and the pictures had been put on Twitter.

Kelly O’Brien @obrienlakes

What’s up with @peterwithab in these pictures? He looks like he’s about to faint I’m kinda worried about him #peterparker #whoispeterparker [PeterParkeratMidtown.jpg] [PeterParker2.jpg]

Pizza Police @torreofpizzaa

@peterwithab you good dude? [PeterParkeratMidtown.jpg] #peterparker

Juliana @thanks.an.Avocado11

Ngl i’m worried about Peter he looks so sick [PeterParkeratMidtown.jpg] @peterwithab #peterparker #whoispeterparker

Avengers Fan @ILoveBlackWidowwe

He’s gotta be in high school I mean look at his surroundings @peterwithab #peterparker #whoispeterparker [PeterParkeratMidtown.jpg] [PeterParker2.jpg]

Yeehaw @yoinksyeetandyikes

@peterwithab @torreofpizzaa isn’t that Happy Hogan, head of security at si? Why’s he escorting peter out #whoispeterparker #peterparker [PeterParkeratMidtown.jpg]

Sofia Dolan @dolandolan

Ngl,,, Peter Parker’s kinda,,, hot #peterparker #whoispeterparker [PeterParker2.jpg]

Rihanna Owns Me @purplestars22

@dolandolan you ain’t wrong sis #peterparkerishot #peterparker

Seb the Babe @SebastianOrmi69

@dolandolan @purplestars22 that photo is grainy as fuck but like, go off ig

Peter Parker @ilovepeterparker

@dolandolan @peterwithab tell me about it why do you think i started this acc #peterparkerishot #peterparker

That was just the section of Twitter focused on the pictures of him stumbling out of school with Happy and Ned. He was slightly worried that he already had a fan account dedicated to him and that the hashtag #peterparkerishot looked a hair's breadth away from trending, but he had bigger things to worry about.

Like the side of Twitter focusing on the definitely trending hashtag #peterparkerorstark. 

Daily Mail Online ✓ @MailOnline

Peter Parker, Tony Stark’s Illegitimate Child?

trib.al/2sd30W

New York Daily News ✓ @NYDailyNews 

Is Peter Parker actually Peter Stark? Click on the link to read the latest article →

trib.al/80RKvD2

New York Post ✓ @nypost

New possible heir to Stark Industries 

[NY Post link]

Eyewitness News ✓ @ABC7NY

Tony Stark, Stark Industries silent amidst theories surrounding Peter Parker

[youtube.com link]

Andrew @AndrewWilkes1

Have y’all seen the new articles? Peter Parker might actually have a deeper backstory than we thought @peterwithab #PeterParkerorStark [link]

Flash @fastest_thompson

@AndrewWilkes1 @peterwithab goes to my school! There’s no way he’s Stark’s kid, he’s a total nerd.

Dudebros Suck @destroyeroffratboys

@fastest_thompson Ok but Stark’s also a total nerd and a genius, how do you think he invented Iron Man? If anything Peter being a nerd only is more proof that he’s a Stark #peterstark

Man Of Steel @earths_mightiest_heroes666

@AndrewWilkes1 it’s weird that @StarkIndustries isn’t saying anything… #peterparkerorstark [side-eye.gif] 

Harley Keener @tonystarkbrokeintomygarage

@TonyStark explain yourself who is this @peterwithab kid

Harley Keener @tonystarkbrokeintomygarage

@TonyStark do you actually have a son you didn’t tell me about? Really?

Kris @KristalClaritinClear99

@tonystarkbrokeintomygarage I feel like I need more context on whoever this Harley Keener is and why he tweeted @TonyStark like he personally knew him #peterstark #peterparkerorstark #whoispeterparker

Andrea @IfYouHadTheChanceToChangeYerFate

Oh my god Tony Stark having a kid is the most pure and wholesome thing I need more content blease #peterstark

Peter Parker @ilovepeterparker

@IfYeHadTheChanceToChangeYerFate @peterwithab ME TOO GIRL we need some more content #peterparkerishot #peterparker #peterstark [Peter’sLastInstagramPost.jpg]

Peter scrolled through what felt like a million tweets. The picture of his face, the one he’d archived from Instagram, was already all over Twitter. His now most recent Instagram post, a high-rise picture he’d taken at sunset, now had over a hundred thousand likes and several hundred new comments asking why he’d taken down the “mario kart post” and begging him to put it back up. He quit out of the apps and went back to text MJ and Ned. 

Group chat: brainless idiots + MJ

members: guy in the chair, peter-man, MJ

10:22 AM

peter-man: oh god twitter really blew up

peter-man: theyre all convinced im peter stark

guy in the chair: thats soooo cool dude

peter-man: no its not ned! My life is oVeR

MJ: If you don’t take this as an opportunity to fuck around with people, I will.

peter-man: sorry, what

MJ: You heard me, Parker. 

Text from: MJ

MJ: I’m serious. You should take advantage of this.

peter-man: what? why 

MJ: Because it would be utterly hilarious.

peter-man: but that’s… misinformation and i could probably get in trouble

MJ: Watch me.

peter-man: please don’t do anything harsh 

peter-man: do you really want to see me die

MJ: Like I said: >:)

peter-man: jesus, our lord and savior, plEASE SAVE ME

Text to: guy in the chair

peter-man: ned help MJ is planning on using the conspiracy theory to fuck around with everyone im this close to death

guy in the chair: …

guy in the chair: what am i supposed to do its mj

peter-man: okay fair

---

“They think what? ” Tony yelled as he paced the floor in front of Pepper’s desk. “That just because I followed him on Twitter, he’s suddenly my secret child or something?”

Pepper looked at him evenly. “Well, Tony, you do have sort of a reputation. From your older days. And suddenly some kid — a kid whose supposed age matches perfectly with your playboy days — appears out of nowhere with a Stark Industries internship and Tony Stark follows him? It’s not that hard a leap. And the media isn’t always totally stupid.”

Tony pinched his nose as he paced. “I dragged the poor kid into this mess. And now, people are going to be hounding him because they think he’s my son.”

Pepper pursed her lips, obviously agreeing with him but not saying it out loud. “If it gets any more out of hand, or doesn’t calm down soon, we’re going to have to hold a press conference. For now, the best you can do is deny the rumors. Make a tweet about it.”

“Yeah. That’ll work. The media always believes that sort of thing.” He shook his head. “Do I have any more meetings the rest of the day?”

“Just the one.”

“When?”

“One o’clock. And don’t even think about trying to ditch this one.”

He splayed a hand over his chest theatrically. “Me? I would never.”

“Will that be all, Mr. Stark?” She raised a perfectly plucked brow, trying to hide a smile. 

“That will be all, Ms. Potts.”

---

Unfortunately for Peter, MJ really wasn’t lying about wanting to fuck around with people. He tried to confront her at lunch, but all she would do is give him a you-can’t-stop me straight face look. Worst of all, he had no idea what exactly she was going to do. On top of that, tons of people (especially girls, the popular ones, ones he’d never talked to before) kept trying to come up to talk to him during lunch. It was only when a teacher told them to “back off, we know Mr. Parker is now famous but this is still school” that he was finally left in peace. 

Peter was surprised at how quickly he’d gotten used to the new attention. As soon as school was out, and he’d said goodbye to MJ and Ned, he was swarmed by people — not just students clamoring to take pictures, but also media reporters who had apparently camped outside of Midtown High, waiting for school to let out — but he employed the same tactics that Ms. Potts had taught him that morning and ignored everyone, pushing through the crowd to Happy’s waiting car. This time, he didn’t stop at any questions, or gape at any reporters. He kept a straight face and got in the car. 

Once inside, after they’d pulled away, he groaned. “Please tell me my life isn’t going to be like this for the rest of my life.”

Happy sighed. “They’ll get over it, kid.”

“Did Mr. Stark see the news?”

“Threw a fit about it. You’ll see when you get there.”

Peter’s phone started buzzing then. He was half inclined to ignore it, leave it in his pocket, but it was the persistent buzzing that meant a phone call. He pulled it out of his pocket, and, upon seeing the name, answered it. 

"Hey, Aunt May.”

“Hey sweetie. How was your day?”

Peter cringed, even though she couldn’t see him. “It sucked. Have you seen what the news is saying?”

“That you’re Tony’s kid.”

“Yep.”

She laughed over the phone, and Peter pouted. It wasn’t funny. “I think it’s hilarious, Peter. Can you imagine? You being Tony Stark’s son? If it wasn’t a problem I’d suggest you dangle it over their heads.” 

He frowned. “That’s what MJ said.”

“Well, don’t sound so grumpy. It is funny.”

“Is not. I still can’t come home.”

May sighed. “No, I know. It’ll blow over soon, right? But I did want to ask you why you crashed into a hospital carrying an unconscious thirty-six year old woman last night at past your curfew.”

Peter shrunk into his seat. “Oh. That.”

“Yes, that. Care to explain?”

“Uh, she was getting dragged by some creepy dude, I webbed him up, scanned her, Karen told me to take her to the hospital, so I did?” He said it like a question.

“And you didn’t consider that there’s lots of people in New York City who consider Spider-Man to be a vigilante, not a superhero?” Her tone wasn’t harsh, but it wasn’t gentle either.

“Um, no?”

“Well. You should be careful. And for god’s sake, pay attention to curfew. I don’t want you out past eleven on school nights! You need your rest!” 

“Yep. Yeah. Sorry, Aunt May.”

“Just as long as you don’t do it again, Peter.”

“I won’t.”

“Okay. Other than that, I just wanted to let you know I’ll be working the night shift tonight, so I’ll talk to you tomorrow, okay? Good luck with the internship. Have fun!”

“Thanks. I love you.”

“I love you, too, Peter.”

The phone clicked. Peter let out a long breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding in. Happy, back to his normal self again, didn’t say anything, only glancing up in the rearview mirror once to eye Peter. 

There were, of course, reporters waiting outside the front doors of Stark Tower. A horde of them, bigger than the one amassed this morning, stood with their cameras and microphones and pens, hoping to catch Peter off guard. SI security guards flanked them, making sure none entered the building. 

“Seriously?” he sighed to himself, rubbing his eyes. It was fine. He just had to get inside, get in the elevator, check in with the intern lab and then he could work with Mr. Stark to his heart’s content.

It was fine.

He composed himself and got out of the car, straight faced again, making his way to the doors and ignoring the press. God, he wished they wouldn’t push against each other and him like a gaggle of completely uncultured geese. 

“Peter Parker, what do you have to say about the theory that you are Mr. Stark’s son?”

“Mr. Parker, is it true you’ll one day be stepping up and taking over Stark Industries?”

“Mr. Parker, last night Spider-Man was seen exiting and entering Stark Tower. Do you know Spider-Man personally?”

Peter cut them off. “Excuse me.”

Inside, he breathed a sigh of relief. Instead of going to the intern lab first, Peter took the elevator straight up to the penthouse. He could hear yelling before he even stepped out of the elevator.

“ ANTHONY EDWARD STARK! When I say make a tweet to shut down the rumor mill, I do not mean tweet back and be so vague that it makes everything worse !” Ms. Potts was the one yelling. Mr. Stark had his hands held up defensively, and his eyes darted over to Peter as soon as the elevator opened.

Peter glanced back and forth between them. Ms. Potts looked utterly frazzled, unlike her usual neat composure. Mr. Stark looked guilty. 

“What? What happened?”

“Uh…”

Before waiting for Mr. Stark to answer, Peter’s phone buzzed. He took it out.

Group chat: brainless idiots + MJ

members: guy in the chair, peter-man, MJ

3:14 PM

MJ: Do you know this Harley?

[Twitter screenshot]

Harley Keener @tonystarkbrokeintomygarage

@TonyStark explain yourself who is this @peterwithab kid

Harley Keener @tonystarkbrokeintomygarage

@TonyStark do you actually have a son you didn’t tell me about? Really?

Tony Stark ✓ @TonyStark

@tonystarkbrokeintomygarage Don’t worry, kid, I have loads of stories to tell about Peter. [petertalkingtodum-e.jpg]

Harley Keener @tonystarkbrokeintomygarage

@TonyStark adorable. Also, you never answered if he’s your kid or not

Peter looked up. “Dear god, please tell me shit isn’t gonna hit the fan. Not again.”

Ms. Potts didn’t even tell him to watch his language. 

“Actually, I think we can turn this a positive way,” said Mr. Stark.

Ms. Potts glared at him. Yikes, would Peter not want to be on the other end of that look. “Don’t you even think about trying to do anything else, you’ve already ruined Peter’s life.”

Mr. Stark glanced back at him. “No, I’m serious. I have an idea.”

Chapter Text

February 22, 2017

Top 5 Trending Hashtags - Twitter

1: #peterparkerorstark

2: #peterstark

3: #89thacademyawards

4: #bowwowchallenge

5: #sokoviaaccords

( 9: #peterparkerishot)

---

Daily Mail: Peter Stark, Confirmed?

Just last night, Tony Stark took to Twitter to address some of the rumors that had popped up concerning Peter Parker, who many believe to be Peter Stark, the prodigious billionaire’s sole heir from his playboy days. But instead of addressing the rumors directly in a tweet, Stark instead answered a tweet of a seeming fan. 

[StarkTweet.jpg]

Harley Keener @tonystarkbrokeintomygarage

@TonyStark explain yourself who is this @peterwithab kid

Harley Keener @tonystarkbrokeintomygarage

@TonyStark do you actually have a son you didn’t tell me about? Really?

Tony Stark ✓ @TonyStark

@tonystarkbrokeintomygarage Don’t worry, kid, I have loads of stories to tell about Peter. [petertalkingtodum-e.jpg]

Harley Keener @tonystarkbrokeintomygarage

@TonyStark adorable. Also, you never answered if he’s your kid or not

A Twitter user titled Harley Keener with the handle @tonystarkbrokeintomygarage tweeted at Tony Stark, asking him to explain who Peter Parker was, and followed up with a tweet asking if Stark “had a son [he] didn’t tell [Harley] about”. Stark tweeted back a few hours later, promising several stories about Peter, along with an image of the mystery teenage boy seemingly in conversation with one of Stark’s artificial intelligence robots. 

As Keener pointed out afterwards, Stark had never answered the question on whether Peter Parker was a son of Stark’s or not. Many users on Twitter were quick to point out the same.

[TwitterResponses.jpg]

Charlie @diggingmywaytoneverland

@TonyStark what kind of bullshit answer is that? You didn’t even say if Peter was your son or not

Kelly O’Brien @obrienlakes

@tonystarkbrokeintomygarage @TonyStark he didn’t answer the question,,, and I’m making this face right now [apprehensive-Beyonce.gif]

Kris @KristalClaritinClear99

Whoever @tonystarkbrokeintomygarage is, they definitely know @TonyStark. He doesn’t just answer random tweets…, also i feel like Tony’s silence on this matter is all the evidence we need #peterstark #peterparkerorstark 

Andrea @IfYouHadTheChanceToChangeYerFate

CALLED IT HE’S DEFINITELY TONY’S KID #peterstark

Peter Parker @ilovepeterparker

@peterwithab @TonyStark @tonystarkbrokeintomygarage @KristalClaritinClear99 he’s definitely Peter Stark omg omg omg #peterstark #peterstarkishot #peterparkerishot

It certainly seems as if Stark’s silence on the matter is indicative enough. He may have well just told the whole world that Peter Parker is his son. Parker’s Twitter account just hit 250K followers in barely over three days, marking a new record. It all began when Stark followed his accounts early last Monday morning.

Besides that, though, this one tweet by Stark has risen new questions pertaining to this Harley Keener character. Because Stark is known for never answering tweets from fans, him doing so on this occasion is certainly odd. Is it possible that Harley Keener personally knows Tony Stark? And if so, why?

---

Mr. Stark’s idea, quite simply, was to hold a formal press conference to take down the rumors once and for all. 

Peter thought it wasn’t all that bad of an idea. But given how Ms. Potts was reacting, he was a little doubtful and more than a little scared that it might go to shit really quickly. It could go either really well, or really, really poorly. 

“This is a PR nightmare,” Ms. Potts said from where she’d sat down on the couch in the living room, watching the two of them warily. She was pinching the bridge of her nose tiredly, something Peter had recently realized she did when she was frustrated and exhausted. “If we call a whole press conference about this, it’ll only prove it’s a sensitive subject that needs to be handled carefully, and we don’t want that idea in the public mind, Tony.” 

Mr. Stark looked at her in his no-nonsense way. “Will you set it up?”

She sighed exasperatedly. “Tony!” He didn’t say anything, just flinging his hands up in a shrug. Ms. Potts let out a long sigh. “Fine. Yes. But we’re too busy to do it anytime before Friday.”

There was a pause.

“It’s gonna work, Pep.”

“You don’t know that! If it blows up, or creates some other rumor, or doesn’t work—”

“It will.”

She eyed Mr. Stark disappointedly, lips pursed. “The only reason I won’t stop you is because I don’t have another idea besides this. But be careful.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Mr. Stark clapped his hands together, then pivoted on his toes to face Peter. “Okay. We’ll get the press conference set up. For now, you gotta keep yourself as under the radar as possible about this.”

Ms. Potts spoke up. “Just deflect any questions about the matter from anyone. Even here at Stark Industries. Not that I think that you’ll get a lot here, given this is a professional work environment and not a gossip hub, but either way.”

Peter nodded. Deflect. He could do that, right? 

He turned to Mr. Stark, one question on his mind that he wanted answers to before he left. “Mr. Stark, who’s Harley?”

“I’ll tell you after you come back from the intern lab. You still have your internship today, Pete.”

Rather than feeling the usual wave of excitement at the mention of his internship and getting to work with the college interns, Peter had to fight down a groan. Being around people who would no doubt pry and ask millions of questions about everything that was going on (despite Pepper thinking they wouldn’t) was not on the top of the list of the things he wanted to do today. Or ever. 

“Can’t I just work in the lab with you today?”

Mr. Stark raised an eyebrow at him. “Nope. No can do. You promised that intern — what’s his name? Harry?”

“Henry.”

“That one. As far as I can remember, you told me last Thursday you were going to help him with organic polymer research this week.”

Peter huffed, knowing he wasn’t going to get out of this. Mr. Stark’s gaze softened. “Look, Pete, I know this whole situation isn’t great. But if you just cancel all of your usual activities, people will start to question things even more. Don’t give me that look. And anyway, you love working with the interns. Right? You’re always excited to do research..”

“So — just to be sure — I don’t talk about anything, deflect, and the press conference will fix everything? Wouldn’t it be better for me to just shoot it down in a tweet?”

“Kid, a press conference will wrap this up nice and neat quickly, whereas people on Twitter are bound to over-analyze and make new rumors if you take to tweeting. I know Pep doesn’t like the idea of a public conference, but don’t let that get you turned off from it. You gotta trust me on this one, Pete. I’ve been in the spotlight my whole life.”

(Once again, absently and almost intrusively, the question of whether Mr. Stark had ever hated the spotlight and the fame and wanted to get away from it poked at Peter’s thoughts. Once again, he shoved them away. Tony Stark, who was always waving and smiling and making peace signs for cameras, not liking the spotlight? What was he thinking?)

Peter wasn’t about to say no to Tony Stark, though. On his way down to the chem lab on floor 77, he took out his phone and checked Twitter. 

Beter @peterwithab

THERE’S A BEE???

227 tweets 117 following 252K followers

He was half tempted to write a tweet for the first time since everything had happened and address the rumors, but then thought about what the consequences of him breaking his silence might be. He scanned the most recent tweets, and found the one outlining his fate. 

Stark Industries Official ✓ @StarkIndustries

We will be holding a press conference to address rumors concerning one of our interns, Peter Parker, at 11 am on Friday, and releasing a statement following the conference.

Pepper Potts ✓ @PPotts

Press conference on Peter Parker, Friday, 11 am, Stark Tower.

[retweeted by @TonyStark]

Peter shut off his phone and got off the elevator. 

The interns had their eyes tracking him before he even got into the lab. (That was a disadvantage of Lab 7712A; since all the walls were made of glass, the interns and workers could see him before he even made it to the door.) He ignored their eyes and the skin prickling on the back of his neck — stupid spidey sense, there was no danger here — and scanned his badge at the door. F.R.I.D.A.Y. let him in. 

Usually, most of the interns didn’t care much for Peter. They talked to him, sure, and asked about his projects, but few ever regularly paid attention to him (that was normal, Peter supposed, given the projects everyone worked on for Stark Industries took up a lot of time and concentration that shouldn’t be wasted). A lot of them, Peter suspected, were jealous that he was an intern and just in high school, but most of them had quickly gotten over that and were nice to him. Peter’s favorite intern in the lab was Sandy Cooper, a short Asian chemistry grad student at Columbia. She always checked in with him about his projects and made small talk, even though as the head of the lab she probably shouldn’t have time to.

Today, though, all eyes were on him as he entered the lab. He made his way to the general station where he usually worked (since he wasn’t in this lab constantly, he didn’t have his own area, but that was fine by him — he had more than enough tools and supplies here). Sandy walked over to greet him, and relief washed over him at the sense of normality. 

“Heya, Peter. How are you doing?”

“I’m good!” Peter said, almost reflexively. 

Sandy raised her eyebrow at him, but didn’t say anything. “I’ve got a lot to work on with my project today, so I’m gonna be busy, but let me know if you need anything, okay?”

“Sure. Thanks, Sandy.”

Peter was afraid the other interns would descend upon him like vultures as soon as Sandy left the room, but they all kept their distance instead. He could feel their eyes on the back of his neck as he tried to focus on his work. He eventually migrated to Henry’s workstation and asked what he could do to help on the project. Henry, thankfully, dove right into explaining the research he was conducting to see if he could successfully recreate several human organic polymers.

An hour later, though, Henry left, leaving Peter to move back to the general workstation. It wasn’t long before Olan, another intern from Columbia, came up to Peter. The back of Peter’s neck prickled again. 

“Hey, Peter. What’s with all the new rumors on Twitter?”

Peter clenched his jaw. Deflect deflect deflect. “What rumors?” 

“Are you really Stark’s kid? Is that why you get to work here?”

“Like I told all of you before, Olan, I got an internship at Stark Industries because I won a high school science competition.”

“So why is it you get to work on things for Spider-Man?”

Peter froze. No one had ever questioned that part of his job before, only giving him odd looks when he’d first come in and they’d been told he worked on Spider-Man technology. He became painfully aware that he had to navigate this very carefully. He was not about to lose his secret identity to this fiasco.

Deflect. Deflect.

“That’s not your business, Olan.”

“Why are you dodging the question?” Olan’s eyes narrowed at Peter.

Peter swallowed, trying to hide his sudden nervousness.

“I-I won the competition by recreating Spider-Man’s webs, just out of curiosity. Mr. Stark thought it would be good to have me working on his tech.”

Thankfully, Sandy walked back into the lab just then, pushing her lab goggles up on her forehead as she did. Olan eyed Peter suspiciously but didn’t say anything else before he slunk back to his work.

Sandy spotted Peter and made her way over. “How’s it going? Did you help Henry out?”

“Yeah, it was just a really tricky set of equations we had to work through, but hopefully he can get it sorted out now.” 

She tilted her head. “Is something wrong? Are you okay, Peter?”

He put on a smile. “Nothing. Just tired, Sandy. I’m all good.”

She quirked an eyebrow. “Well, if you need anything, let me know.”

“How’d your project go?” he asked, diverting the attention off of himself. Deflect deflect deflect.

As Sandy started explaining her newest experiment in full vigor, Peter felt a tingle creep down his spine. He glanced, just for the smallest moment, at Olan, but the other intern was back typing at his computer. 

Everyone who’d met him and knew about his work had signed NDAs, Peter reminded himself. Nothing was going to happen.

---

May came over for dinner at Stark Tower. As oddly domestic as it was to be sitting down and eating dinner with her and Pepper Potts and Tony Stark, Peter found he was getting used to it. It was weird to think his childhood idol was also content to eat dinner with him. But then again, what wasn’t weird about Peter’s life at this point?

Peter brought up Harley once again at dinner. 

“Who’s Harley?” asked Aunt May.

Mr. Stark sighed, glancing at Pepper. She gave him an indistinguishable look. 

“Do you remember what happened with the Mandarin terrorist attack after the attack on New York?”

May studied him apprehensively. “Yes, what about it?”

“Well, after the Mandarin blew up my house in Malibu, my suit flew to Tennessee and I crashed. A kid named Harley helped me fix it up and recharge it. Among other things.”

Ms. Potts interjected. “Tony will deny it, but he still sends Harley and his sister in Tennessee things they need.”

“Well, how old is he now? That was years ago, he must be in his, what, twenties?” May asked, wrapping pasta around her fork.

“He’s fifteen. Same age as you, kid.”

Peter was dumbstruck. He’d been only eleven when the Mandarin debacle had gone down, even though Aunt May and Uncle Ben tried to keep the news away from it because they didn’t want Peter to see so much violence. That meant this kid, Harley, had… repaired the Iron Man suit at eleven years old.

“Wait, he helped fix the Iron Man suit at 11?” Peter asked, trying not to sound too astonished.

Mr. Stark looked at him. “Yep. Kid’s a genius like you. I bet you two would hit it off, Pete.” He blinked for a second, as if contemplating something. “Actually, maybe I can bring him up to New York. He’s always wanted to visit.”

“That’d be so cool!”

Mr. Stark smiled. “It sure would, kid.”

---

Well, shit. 

Had Peter really convinced himself nothing would go wrong? He really was exuding Dumb Bitch EnergyTM.

Wednesday, minus the whole getting stalked everywhere part, was for the most part pretty normal. People kept going off on Twitter, but things had finally calmed down enough to the point where the #cute hashtag had made it back to the top five trending hashtags. 

Nonetheless, he was followed everywhere. The paparazzi and press and reporters were constantly on his ass. Peter couldn’t drive, much less walk to school without being mobbed. He was constantly fighting the urge to tweet something as simple as “I’m not Mr. Stark’s son, shut up about it Blease” (his whole Twitter was a meme, he wasn’t going to just stop doing that), especially after pictures comparing him and Mr. Stark started trending. People kept posting pictures of his face (grainy photos taken by the media from when he was going to school or coming back) side-by-side with Mr. Stark’s (especially photos of Mr. Stark when he was a teenager, which had given him a really weird feeling of wrongness in the pit of his stomach when he looked at them), all of them highlighting the similarities between their faces. Similar bone structure in the cheekbones. Similar hair — brown and curly. Similar eyes — dark brown. Same wrinkles around the eyes when they smiled. Peter rolled his eyes. Of course they were. Everyone had wrinkles around their eyes when they smiled. 

That had blown up Wednesday night. He was still staying at Stark Tower.

(The scariest thing of all was that MJ hadn’t said anything about her plan yet. It was terrifying him to death. She acted completely normal at school, reading and sketching and throwing glares at anyone who even so much as took a step towards Peter, but he knew she was planning something, and he only hoped it wouldn’t ruin his life.)

Peter couldn’t wait for the press conference on Friday. It would clear everything up. And even though Ms. Potts was doubtful and wary of what could come as a consequence, Peter just wanted people to stop looking at him and yelling at him in the hallways. On top of all the attention he got at school, he couldn’t even open his text messages anymore. Someone at Midtown had leaked his phone number (probably having had it from a group project or something) and now he was suddenly on the receiving end of hundreds of texts from people who wanted to get to know him, wanted to know about Mr. Stark, or straight up were just rude about it. 

He didn’t know if he could make it to Friday. 

On Wednesday afternoon, he stayed for Academic Decathlon after school. MJ had very quickly set up a rule of “no talking about Peter’s fame” at practice so that they could actually get things done. Thankfully, she was very good at keeping the rule in place and staring down anyone who wouldn’t follow it, so Decathlon was a fresh breath of air. 

He’d asked Ned if he wanted to come to Stark Tower to hang out and do homework that night (because after all, he was getting lonely cooped up there), and of course Ned’s answer had been shocked wide eyes and a “Are you kidding? YES, dude!” (He’d also asked MJ, to which she responded that she’d rather not waltz into the living quarters of a billionaire.)

Ned’s reaction upon not just walking into Stark Tower, but the penthouse where Peter was currently residing with Mr. Stark and Ms. Potts, was even better. Peter was a bit worried that his jaw was going to fall off his face. “ Holy crap, dude! You live here ??? That’s so crazy. I can’t believe this. Look at that oven! Oh my god, that couch is the size of my whole bedroom! Wait, how big is your bedroom? Is it like, the size of a football field? Dude, you’re so lucky, I can’t believe this.”

And then F.R.I.D.A.Y. spoke up. “Hello, Peter. Would you like me to authorize guest?”

Peter looked to the ceiling. “Uh, no, Fri, he’s just a guest. Ned, that’s F.R.I.D.A.Y. She runs the whole building.”

He couldn’t help but grin when his friend gasped in awe and started throwing out questions.

---

The peace did not last. 

They were halfway through their last chemistry set (complex titrations, which Ned hated and Peter actually found fascinating) when Ned pulled out his phone and gasped. “Oh, no. Peter, look at this.” He passed the phone over. 

It was a new article by New York Daily News. Thank god it wasn’t the Bugle, at least. Although, given the title of the article, Peter had no doubt they’d catch on soon.

Internet Sensation Peter Parker is Revealed to Work with Spider-Man!

He read the first few lines of the article before passing Ned’s phone back. 

“Fuck.”

“What are you gonna do? They’re gonna link this and you back to Spider-Man and, I mean, that can’t happen, because they’ll figure out who you are and—”

He was cut off by the door opening and Mr. Stark walking in, swearing. “Shit, kid, you saw the news?”

Peter sighed and nodded, worry already building up in his throat. He couldn’t have the media tying him to Spider-Man. He’d lose his whole life if someone found out his secret identity. 

“Pep’s already working on finding whoever leaked the information. They’re so, so fired. As soon as we figure out who it was, which shouldn’t be hard.”

“You can’t just fire them, Mr. Stark!”

“Oh, yes I can. Just like that. They violated an NDA, that’s grounds for firing.” Mr. Stark was positively fuming .

The elevator dinged, and Ms. Potts stepped out. “I already got him. He’s receiving an email tonight.” She looked at Mr. Stark. “We have to release a statement about it, via Stark Industries.”

“Can do. F.R.I.D.A.Y., can you make sure whatever di— scumbag leaked this is banned from entering any Stark Industries building every again?”

Peter swallowed. That was fast. And a little overboard.

“Sure thing, boss.”

“Thanks.” Mr. Stark turned to Ms. Potts. “Another thing we gotta deal with at the press conference, I guess.”

She sighed through her nose. “Yeah.”

“Any chance we’ll make it out unscathed?”

She shrugged. “It’s hard to tell. I’m really sorry about all of this, Peter.”

Ned, who had been watching the whole exchange with wide eyes, finally spoke up. “Wait, Mr. Stark sir, does this mean Peter’s gonna be exposed?”

“If we handle it well, no. He’ll be fine.”

“Yeah, ‘handle it well’. Like you do at all your press conferences,” Ms. Potts said with a smirk. 

“Exactly.”

Text from: MJ

MJ: Not good. I saw the news.

MJ: However, a wonderful idea has popped into my head. 

MJ: We’ll see how it plays out.

peter-man: i can only hope yr my friend and wont expose me

MJ: I wouldn’t expose you but I can do something else. Don’t worry, Peter, your life is safe in my hands.

peter-man: i dont have energy to deal with this rn ill ttyl

That night, after Ned had gone home, Peter was sitting atop a building, Karen listening to police radios to let him know of anything he could help with as Spider-Man. Karen was silent as he wrote his first tweet for the first time since everything had happened. He rewrote it three times and made sure he was using proper grammar and everything before he sent it (you never knew who was watching your social media, especially when you suddenly had almost 270K followers on Twitter. He might want to have a memey page, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t do it without style).

Beter @peterwithab

Hello, people of the internet. I’m Peter Parker, as I’m sure you all know very well. First of all, I’m not here to address the rumors, because we have a press conference Friday for that. If you heard something about me on the internet, it probably isn’t true. However, I will confirm that yes, 1/2

Beter @peterwithab

I’m a high school intern at Stark Industries and I just so happen to work closely with Mr. Stark. I got the internship through a competition at my school. 2/2

He decided it might be better to refrain from mentioning Spider-Man yet. Twitter would no doubt blow up whether or not he talked about that rumor yet. 

Ali @ahbadomar1995

@peterwithab I’m also an intern at SI and I’m like 99% sure that no intern works personally with Tony Stark I mean I’ve never even been in the same room as the man

Betty @butter_brant

@peterwithab ok so now we know you’re not lying about the internship but why do you work personally with Tony Stark that’s like,,, unheard of

Lou @louisAndclark

@peterwithab bro you didn’t say anything about spider-man, do you work with him?? The news is all over it #spiderman #peterparker

Cindy Moon @MoonMoonMoon

@peterwithab so many interns have said no interns work with Stark himself, Peter are you sure you’re not Stark’s kid

See 1,202 more replies >

---

On Friday, Stark Industries held their press conference. He was not present, instead watching from the back as Mr. Stark and Ms. Potts answered the rapid-fire questions hurled at them by the mass of media reporters. No, Peter was not Tony’s son. Yes, he was an intern. Yes, he was in high school. Why did he live in Stark Tower right now? Because the media was intent on stalking him. (Peter felt a twinge of a twisted sort of happiness when some of the reporters had the decency to look ashamed at that answer.) Yes, Peter knew Spider-Man. Yes, Peter was on the “team” that fabricated Spider-Man’s technology. No, Peter did not know Spider-Man’s secret identity. 

Peter had hoped that the press conference would get the stupid fucking media and Twitter off his back. Nope. He was getting stalked left and right, to and fro. Everywhere he walked, the hairs on the back of his neck stayed raised, whether from spidey sense or just a regular sixth sense, he didn’t know. Peter waited, waited, and waited, hoping that by next Monday no one would care anymore, but unfortunately it seemed like it was only getting worse. Eventually it got to a point where Mr. Stark was actually worried about his personal safety — “You know, kids like these, who get really famous really fast, and especially those whose names are attached to really wealthy people… they get kidnapped, Stark,” he’d heard Aunt May say over the phone when Mr. Stark thought Peter wasn’t listening. “And I know Peter’s got superpowers but I don’t want to risk it.”

So Peter got pulled out of school Tuesday of the following week and locked up in the penthouse of Stark Tower like he was Rapunzel. Ned came by every day to drop off his homework. MJ didn’t stop by, but she texted every day.

By day two, Peter was close to ripping his hair out. Mr. Stark suggested, almost out of the blue, that he should make a Spidey social media to take a little attention off of Peter Parker and put more on Spider-Man himself (either way, the attention was on Peter, but Spider-Man receiving attention had always been easy). So he decided to make a Spider-Man social media (which was, admittedly, one of the worst things he could have done, but the consequences, as always, would come later). 

---

Spider-Man @SpiderManOfficial

Honestly I have no idea how this handle hasn’t been taken already. What’s up it’s me, your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man. [Spider-ManSelfie.jpg]

Bryce @bryce_william_III

@SpiderManOfficial I would say this is another fake account,,, but that selfie is nowhere else on the internet how’d you do that

Izzy @endless_diamond_sky_

@SpiderManOfficial i really hope this isn’t another fake, plz be the real spiderman #spiderman

See 102 more replies >

Spider-Man @SpiderManOfficial

A lot of y’all think I’m a fake so to prove it… #I’mTheRealSpider-Man [SpiderManDoingAFlipOffStarkTower.mov]

The Fantastic Four Official ✓ @F4NT4STIC

@SpiderManOfficial Glad to see the Queens superhero has joined the party!

Spidey’s No1 Fan @SpideysNo1Fan

@SpiderManOfficial OH MY GODDD SPIDER-MAN HI I LOVE YOU PLZ FOLLOW ME AND CHECK OUT MY PAGE :DD #ilovespiderman #spidermanisamazing #spiderman

Spider or Die @spidermanismyfavoritehero

@SpiderManOfficial adkadsklds I can’t believe ur finally on twitter!1 what made you start the account

Spider-Man @SpiderManOfficial

@spidermanismyfavoritehero my good friend @peterwithab suggested I join twitter a while back, and I, not wanting to miss out on his scandal from this week, joined 

Spider or Die @spidermanismyfavoritehero

@SpiderManOfficial OKSDFLSDKF I CANT BELIEVE YOU RESPONDED HEL LO

Spider or Die @spidermanismyfavoritehero

@SpiderManOfficial also wait you know @peterwithab ? like we been knew that he makes your tech but you actually know him? Peter stArk?

Spider-Man @SpiderManOfficial

Yeah, I know Peter! Like the @StarkIndustries press conference last week confirmed, he helps make my tech and suit. I know him and we’re really good friends he’s great

Spider or Die @spidermanismyfavoritehero

@SpiderManOfficial yes!! We stan

Dudebros Suck @destroyeroffratboys

@SpiderManOfficial wait i thought they said at the conference that peter didn’t know spiderman’s secret identity

Sofia Dolan @dolandolan

@destroyeroffratboys @SpiderManOfficial GASP we were lied to

Peter, in that moment, didn’t think anything was wrong. He turned off his phone and went back to work in the lab. 

The problem became clear when he reopened it several hours later. Not only had Spider-Man’s Twitter accumulated almost forty-thousand followers (that must break his previous record as Peter Parker), it was on the edge of being verified by Twitter. But that wasn’t the problem.

Camilla @camillaofhousestark

LDSLDKS IS SPIDER-MAN DATING PETER PARKER???? THAT WOULD EXPLAIN SO MUCH #spiderman #peterparker #peterstark #whoispeterparker

Avengers Updates @AvengersAreTheBest8282

@camillaofhousestark @SpiderManOfficial THIS WOULD eXPLAIN sO much like why Peter is at Stark Tower so frequently especially if he’s not actually peter stark and why he works on spiderman’s tech when no one else does and sdjskdskds why didn’t we think of this before #peterparker #spiderman

Peter Stark @StarkSon

@camillaofhousestark I didn’t know i wanted this until i saw this and now i really want spiderman and peter to be a thing [awww.jpg]

Trent @DontTrentMe11

Yo @SpiderManOfficial hasn’t responded to any of this,, he’s silent maybe he really is dating #PeterParker #SpideyParker

Pizza Police @torreofpizzaa

@peterwithab @SpiderManOfficial y’all wanna say something about #spideyparker [spidermanwink.gif]

Harley Keener @tonystarkbrokeintomygarage

@TonyStark @SpiderManOfficial I cannot believe you not only didn’t tell me about your prodigal son Peter but didn’t tell me he was dating spider-man #disappointed

Yeehaw @yoinksyeetandyikes

@DontTrentMe11 @camillaofhousestark who wouldn’t want to date peter parker tho i don’t blame spidey #peterparkerishot #spideyparker #peterparker #spiderman

Peter Parker @ilovepeterparker

@yoinksyeetandyikes @peterwithab #peterparkerishot 

See 221 more replies >

Top 5 Trending Hashtags - Twitter

1: #peterparker

2: #spiderman

3: #peterparkerorstark

4: #spideyparker

5: #cute

( 6: #peterparkerishot)

Text from: MJ

MJ: You know, I had a whole thing planned on exposing you and Stark to fuck around with people. But I just stopped halfway through writing it. 

MJ: I have decided that fucking around with people about you dating Spider-Man is INFINITELY more hilarious. :)

peter-man: no go back

peter-man: just write what you were gonna do before

peter-man: i’m begging u

MJ: Peter, it’s not my fault you decided to create a Spider-Man account and then gush about yourself in your first tweet. Thanks for the inspiration, though. 

Text to: guy in the chair

peter-man: [mjtextscreenshot.jpg]

peter-man: i’m so, so dead

guy in the chair: to be fair its really funny that you have the whole world believing that ur dating urself

guy in the chair: i know u hate the attention but ur really lucky 

guy in the chair: also tho, rip

---

Peter just wanted to crawl into a hole and die alone. What he was not expecting, however, was Mr. Stark thinking that whatever had just happened to be a good idea.

He’d come back from his last meeting of the day and, upon seeing the news, lost it. “So you got the whole world to start thinking you’re dating yourself?” he asked in between laughs. “That takes talent, kid. And it’s absolutely genius.”

“What do you mean?” Peter, who’d up until now been a bit annoyed that he was getting laughed at for this, perked up. 

Mr. Stark gave him a confused look. “What?”

“What do you mean, it’s genius?”

“Well, if you have the whole world thinking you’re dating Spider-Man, no one’s gonna think you are Spider-Man. You mean to tell me you didn’t do that intentionally?”

“What? No!” 

Mr. Stark laughed again. “You crack me up, kid. Either way, this is a good thing. We just have to fan the flames — which I know isn’t what we’re supposed to do, but I feel like this case might be an exception.”

Peter gaped at him. “We need to—what? Make everyone believe I’m dating Spider-Man?”

“Yep. Pure genius. Unless you have an objection.”

“Ummm, no.” Peter went bright red, the thought that he hadn’t told Mr. Stark that he was bi yet running through his head. That was a conversation for another day.

---

Beter @peterwithab

I’m not gonna start anything or anything but… @SpiderManOfficial ;)

Chapter Text

March 2, 2017

Something Tony Stark was decidedly not expecting was for Peter Parker to accidentally start a rumor that he was dating himself on the internet (one of the stupidest and simultaneously most brilliant things Tony had ever seen before). Another thing Tony Stark was decidedly not expecting after that happened was a text from an unknown number.

(How in the world they’d gotten his phone number, Tony might never know. Sometimes he forgot that Peter went to a nerd school, and that everyone there was just as — or slightly less — smart as Peter. He decided not to question it.)

Tony would have ignored the text if F.R.I.D.A.Y. hadn’t gotten his attention about it. Usually, he received a ton of texts from unknown numbers. Why his AI had autonomously decided to speak up about something so trivial so suddenly was beyond him. 

Text from: unknown

unknown: Hey Stark, I know Peter doesn’t like the rumor going around, but I actually have an idea. If we keep the rumor going and eventually confirm that Peter is actually dating Spider-Man, no one will think that Peter is Spider-Man.

unknown: Plus, I get the opportunity to screw around with people.

unknown: What do you say?

“Hey, F.R.I., can you find whoever this is?” Tony asked, just a bit worried that someone he didn’t know knew Peter’s secret superhero identity. 

F.R.I.D.A.Y. found who it was in under a minute. Tony sighed with relief and bit back a smile as he texted the number back.

T. Stark: Sounds like a plan, kid.

---

“It’s really not that funny, Aunt May,” Peter whined over the phone, listening to his aunt cackle over the line. 

“You managed to convince people that you’re dating Spider-Man, Pete, this is the funniest thing I’ve ever seen…” She went on laughing and repeating the same thing for several minutes. Peter tapped his fingers on the table. He wanted to go out on patrol.

May finally stopped laughing. “So, what does Tony think?”

Peter groaned.

“What? Did he also laugh? ‘Cuz I’m telling you, this is really funny.”

“Yes, May, alright, he did laugh, okay, but he also thinks I should, to quote him, ‘fan the flames’.”

His aunt paused, and Peter could almost see the raised eyebrow. “You mean… make it worse?”

“Yeah.” Finally . Aunt May would think it was a terrible idea too and then she’d help him out and this whole mess could be over —

His thought was cut off by May who was, once again, laughing.

“Aunt May —”

“You know, for a self-proclaimed genius, Tony Stark sometimes is an absolute dumbo—”

“Aunt May! He suggested it as a means to protect my secret identity.”

She stopped laughing almost at once. “What do you mean?”

“Like, people won’t think I’m Spider-Man if I’m dating Spider-Man type thing.”

Aunt May pondered the idea. “You know, it’s not a horrible plan. People would probably calm down about the whole ‘you being Mr. Stark’s illegitimate child’ thing, too. And on top of that, you could let it go on for a while, then break up with yourself, end it all, and people will leave it alone. Especially if you mention that the break up was due to all the media attention.”

Peter could hear the change in her tone. She was seriously considering this now. This phone call was supposed to bring her to his side, not to Mr. Stark’s. Not that he doubted Mr. Stark, but this plan seemed the complete opposite of thwarting the media. It was essentially involving them in his private life. 

Peter didn’t like it. 

“You know what, it might actually grow on me.” She chuckled over the line, and Peter rolled his eyes. He was doomed. “My nephew is dating a superhero. What a catch , Peter. Should I give you the talk?”

“ Please don’t, Aunt May. I’m good. All good. Don’t have to hear a word about any of that. Nope. We’re good here.”

“Are you sure? I can show you how to put a condom on a banana—”

“ Oh, Jesus. Okay, I’ll talk to you later, love you, bye!” Peter hung up before he had to hear any more cursed words come out of his aunt’s mouth. He threw his phone down on the lab table and put his head in his hands, groaning. This situation was just fantastic. 

Not three seconds passed before his phone buzzed again. He was half-expecting it to be Aunt May, calling to reprimand him about hanging up on her. But it wasn’t her.

“What’s up, man?” Peter sighed as he answered the FaceTime.

“Whoa, there, dude, no need to sound so sad at me all of the sudden. What’s going on?” Ned asked as he shoved his face full of potato chips.

“Yeah, loser, why the dejected look?” MJ raised an eyebrow at the camera. 

“Nothing. Ugh.”

Ned frowned and squinted. “It doesn’t sound like nothing.”.

“Where’s the super effervescent and happy-go-lucky Peter that annoys the shit out of me? I’d say I like this new and improved Peter, but truth is, I don’t. I’d rather the old Peter.” MJ had dropped her book out of sight of the camera and was focusing entirely on the screen before her. 

It was the sincerity of the comment that got to Peter, and before he could even understand what was happening, his eyes had filled with tears. He blinked them back, out of sight of his friends. 

“Just the whole thing. The whole thing. I hate it. I hate being followed everywhere and the constant stress of is anyone gonna find out and having to stay in the tower — which, like, it’s great and all, and I love Mr. Stark and Ms. Potts and everything but — I want to go home, you know?”

“Peter,” Ned said gently, and Peter had never felt more gratitude for his best friend than he did in that moment. “It’s okay, dude. I know everyone said it’d blow over in a week and it’s been like, several weeks, but I mean, it’s just, it’s —”

MJ interrupted him. “What I think Ned’s trying to say is, it will be okay eventually, you’re not going to have to live the rest of your life like this, locked up in some dumb billionaire’s tower even if you do love him—”

“If I what , sorry?”

“Not only did you just say that, but we all know it. You’d probably die for Stark if you had the choice.”

“I probably would, too, but, y’know, I mean, you know him really well. You hang out with him on a regular basis, man,” Ned affirmed. 

"I don’t know him that well, I mean, like, he’s my mentor and all, and we work together and he’s helping me out of this mess, but I don’t know him that well. I probably don’t mean that much to him anyway, I mean, he’s Tony Stark .”

MJ squinted at him, pursing her lips. “Are you sure , Peter? Do you even know— you know what, I had a point to make. I’ll fix that later. Now, as I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted —” (ah, there was the MJ he knew) “—this isn’t the end of your life, Peter. Just think of it as a change. It’s definitely a big change in your life, but that in no way means that it’s the end of it. And there will be other big changes, who knows when or what they’ll be, but you’ll make it through them, I know it.”

Peter felt as though a weight had been lifted off his chest, a weight he hadn’t known was there, as MJ’s words settled comfortably in his head. “Thanks, MJ. You’re kind of really good at that.”

“I’m in awe, dude,” Ned said. “Teach me your ways in pep-talking, please.”

“There’s a lot to learn, young padawan.” She flashed a smile. “Now go on patrol, Peter, I can see your fingers twitching in the corner of my screen.”

“Shut up.”

“Oooh, guy in the chair time?”

“As if I’d survive without my guy in the chair, Ned. Actually, I don’t really want to hang up on you—”

“Don’t go getting sentimental on us, Peter-Man.” MJ had her book back in her hands, but despite that, her eyes were watching the screen with Ned’s and Peter’s faces on it.

“Okay, fine, die then.”

“No, no, wait!” Ned exclaimed. “There might be a way to connect your phone to your suit, I mean, I know you can get calls and everything, but what if you wired the camera circuit to Karen’s… what’d you call it? The baby monitor thing?”

“ Ned,” Peter hissed in protest. 

“Yes, okay, that thing, so we can watch you Spider-Manning in real time? Through FaceTime? That would be so cool, dude!”

“I was just gonna keep you on the phone while I went on patrol, but that’s actually an interesting idea. Hold up.” Peter backflipped across the room in one jump, put on his suit, and leapt back onto his bed, picking up his phone. He connected the USB cord from his phone to his suit’s port, and put the mask on.

Karen automatically spoke up. “Hello, Peter. I should notify you that there is currently a phone connected to the suit.”

“Yeah, I know, Karen, it’s my phone. Hey, do you think you could connect the FaceTime to your realtime recording?”

“It would require me to bypass several safety protocols. Would you still like me to attempt?”

“What protocols?”

“The Baby Monitor Protocol, Primary Defense Protocol, Secondary Defense Protocol, Crib Protocol —”

“The what? Yeah, of course it is. Yeah, just bypass them all. My phone is encrypted and secure, right?”

“I detect several points of weakness in security on the device connected to the suit.”

“What? How many?”

“Approximately 3,229. Would you like me to fix them?”

“You can do that?”

“Boss programmed me as an AI with the ability to change code where and when I am given permission to. I can work with coding when I am connected to a device. I can fix at least 3,200 of the security weaknesses. I can also recommend you acquire a better device. Apple devices often have around 11,000 security weaknesses, but Stark devices have under 70.”

“Uh, um, no, I don’t need a new phone. So if you fix the errors, what would happen?”

“I can make sure all of your data is encrypted and inaccessible, and strengthen the blocks against hackers. Essentially, I can ensure your phone and its contents are protected from virtually anyone who attempts to access it.”

“Wait, has anyone hacked my phone recently?”

“Your device successfully blocked 300,000 harmful connections in the last week. I cannot find evidence of any successful hacks.”

“You mean if someone hacked my phone, I have no way of knowing what they took?”

“Yes. Should I fix the coding now? I need your express permission.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, go for it. How long should this take? And can you also connect my FaceTime to your camera?”

“Yes, I can connect the interface. My calculations estimate it should take approximately three minutes, 24 seconds.”

“Damn. Really? Okay, go for it.” He raised the phone to his face and unmuted Ned and MJ. “So, apparently, over 300,000 people have tried to hack my phone this week.”

Ned’s eyes widened and his jaw dropped. “Holy shit, dude.” 

“Yeah. Karen’s gonna fix the holes in my phone’s security, though, apparently she can change the coding and get into the security system. How cool is that?!”

“ Awesome , Peter! Oh my god, I want my own AI. Can I meet Karen? Please?”

“So you’re sure Karen’s on your side and not been hacked by someone who’s trying to get into your phone and uncover your whole life?” MJ asked, her voice dripping in suspicion and sarcasm.

“I trust her, MJ. I mean, she was made wholly by Mr. Stark.”

“And you wholly trust Stark.”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

MJ raised an eyebrow, smiling. “Because he started this whole social media explosion?”

Peter paused. “That was a judgement error. I don’t blame him.”

She laughed. “Of course you don’t. You’re Peter.”

Karen spoke up in his ear. “I managed to successfully fix 3,223 of the errors. I have also successfully connected the interfaces. Would you like me to open the connection?”

“Yes!”

“Whoa! Is this what you’re seeing, Peter?” Ned’s voice spoke in his ear. 

“Yeah!” He turned to his mirror and waved at himself. “Can you see me?”

“Clear as day,” MJ drawled.

“The only thing that sucks is that I can’t see you guys. But that’s okay. Maybe I can work on updating the screen for that.”

“Okay, but patrol?”

“Yep. Patrol.” Peter glanced down at the phone in his hand. “Karen, can I unplug my phone and still talk to Ned and MJ?”

“Yes. You can disconnect your device.”

“Okay. You guys ready to see Spider-Man in first person?”

“Am I ready? Oh, hell yeah, man. Let’s GO!”

“If you insist. But if you make me dizzy, I’m hanging up.”

Peter opened the window in his room and leapt into the skies.

---

“You know, Peter, I’m wondering how it is you’re still fucking alive after all of that shit. Jesus Christ.” MJ, for once, sounded genuinely worried. 

Ned, on the other hand, was pretty much bouncing off of the walls. Peter had had to have Karen turn his audio down because Ned had been whooping so loud. “Because he’s Spider-Man ! This is so freaking cool, dude, oh my god, and the way you just — thwip thwip, and swing off the building, with the perfect trajectory? — I’m. Oh, oh my god.”

“On that topic, actually, how do you calculate where you need to jump and swing so quickly?” MJ asked. “I’m curious.”

“I don’t know, spidey sense, you know? I just do what feels right. It was really weird and took some getting used to at first, but now it’s just natural. Easy. Like tying your shoes.”

“Only you, Peter, would call complex mathematical calculations and trajectories ‘easy’.”

“That is so cool . Wait, where are you right now?”

“I’m sitting on top of the Triborough Bridge.”

“So that’s why you’re not moving.”

“No, I was obviously caught in an alien beam and am floating midair,” he quipped sarcastically. “Nah, I just like watching the sunset from up here. It’s really nice.”

MJ spoke up. “Isn’t it cold, though? It’s early March and you’re really high up.”

“The suit has a heater.”

“Did Stark think of everything ? Jesus.”

“Pretty much, I guess.”

“And you thought he didn’t care about you. Peter Benjamin Parker, you are an absolute clown .” She laughed at him. 

Peter didn’t really have anything to say to that, so he just looked around, to the Bronx, to the cars passing below, and out to Manhattan.

“Stop doing that, I’m going to get nauseous.”

“MJ, if you didn’t get nauseous from the actual swinging, this won’t make you nauseous.”

“Shut up. Also, I know you don’t want to talk about it, but I’m going to do something whether we talk or not. So, how are we going to fuel this Spidey-Parker rumor?”

Peter groaned. “You had to bring it up. I was having such a good time.”

“What do you mean, MJ? Fuel it?”

“I’m serious. Didn’t Stark tell you you had to make the rumor big too?”

“What?” Ned asked confusedly. “Why would Mr. Stark ever want to make that rumor bigger? I mean, it’s funny, but he cares too much about Peter to keep shoving him in the spotlight.”

“Think about it, Ned. If people think Peter is dating Spider-Man, then they won’t think Peter is Spider-Man. It’s the perfect cover-up.”

Peter sighed heavily through his nose. “Yeah, Mr. Stark said that. But why would you know about it?”

“I have my ways.”

Peter rolled his eyes. Of course she did. 

“Either way, I have a plan. And I promise I won’t utterly decimate you. But I have the perfect way to fuel this rumor.”

“Please tell me it doesn’t involve taking over my Twitter.”

“It doesn’t.”

“Okay. And you’re not going to lead me to certain death through this super secret plan?”

“No.”

“MJ, can I know the super secret plan?”

“And tell Peter? Ned, you’re terrible at keeping secrets. No.”

“Ouch. Peter, back me up here, dude.”

“I don’t want to side with her, man, but… she’s not wrong.”

“Double ouch. Okay, fine. I’ll find myself better friends.”

“You’ll see the plan when everyone else does, Ned. I can probably have it in action by Sunday.”

“Oh, God. Please don’t make me regret this.”

“Well, I’m not exactly asking for your permission, loser. I’m doing it whether or not you like it. And Stark agrees with me, so you can blame him too.”

“Can I ask again why the — excuse my French — fuck does Mr. Stark know about your secret plan? Did you break into Stark Tower? MJ?”

“Sorry, I have to go. I’ll talk to you guys later. Peter, please don’t die on patrol. Ned, don’t let Peter die on patrol.”

“No, wait, MJ—”

MJ has disconnected from the call.

There was a brief silence before Ned spoke up. “Dude, you are so fucked.”

“Tell me about it.” Peter stood up and backflipped off the bridge, the feeling of the air rushing past him comforting him. “I’m just gonna head back to Stark Tower, man. You can also hang up. I’m sure you’ve got a lot of homework, and you can’t do that while you’re on active guy in the chair duty.”

“Don’t you? We’re like, in the same classes.”

“I did it all this morning. Not going to school gives me too much free time.”

"Ouch. Okay, Peter, I’ll see you tomorrow. We still on for studying at the tower tomorrow?”

“Yeah. I’ll talk to you later, man.”

“Be safe. Bye.”

The sudden silence once both of his friends were gone filled his ears. “Karen, can you tune me into police radios for Manhattan?”

Peter had been hoping to be able to take out his anger in some sort of fight, but nothing came up on the radios while he swung his way back to Stark Tower. Unfortunately, he accidentally swung by two police cars on the route, both of whom turned on their sirens and followed him, yelling at him to surrender through their megaphones.

He took a strange route, trying to lose them, and looked behind him to check if they were still following as he rounded the fifth street corner. Fortunately, he’d lost them. 

(Why did people have to see Spider-Man as a vigilante? He was just trying to help.)

Unfortunately, the second of looking behind him as he swung around the corner cost him. Bad. He hadn’t noted the orange construction cones and signs, too high up to see them. 

Peter swung, at full velocity, straight into a concrete wall that, last he remembered from swinging around this area of Manhattan, had not been there. 

He heard every splinter and crack. The concrete wall cracked, but didn’t fall. Peter, unfortunately, did. He fell for what felt like forever — god, his head was pounding — before landing on some sort of hard surface. It wasn’t the ground — the noise of the street was still far below him. 

Peter forced his eyes open. His eyelashes felt heavy and sticky. Vaguely, he registered Karen’s voice, saying something about Mr. Stark—

“No, don’t call him,” he croaked, but it was too late. Then, something big filled his vision, blocking out the light of the sky. The concrete wall. 

Not even his spidey sense gave him enough time to move. The wall fell straight on him, and his ribcage screamed . 

Now completely swallowed by darkness, Peter felt himself start to panic. His fingertips buzzed. His body was shaking as much as it could under a whole wall of concrete. No. Not again. Not again not again not again somebody help me I’m trapped under here please HELP HELP 

The memory of the building’s weight on his back fully settled into Peter’s mind. He was trapped, under all the concrete and wires and brick, the dust filling his nose and eyes, unable to help himself, unable to get up —

He’d never get out from under here. He’d be down here for the rest of his life. He’d die here. 

Somebody help me! I’m trapped here, please! PLEASE HELP I’M STUCK HELP ME HELP HELP

And suddenly, the weight was being lifted. Before Peter could register it, two metal arms were whirring by his ears, lifting him into the air. How he could be in the air, Peter didn’t know. He was still trapped under that building on Homecoming night. 

“Kid? Kid! Peter, oh my god, Peter, can you hear me? Talk to me, kid, please.”

Peter’s mind swirled to a stop. That was Mr. Stark’s voice. He was safe. He was on his way back to Stark Tower. The air rushing past him wasn’t dust. He was fine.

Mr. Stark was worried. He had to tell him he was okay. 

“Nah, Mr. Stark, it’s okay, don’t worry, I’ve had way worse than a wall dropped on me.” Peter tried to lift a hand to the cut on his head where the stickiness was, but someone’s hand pulled it back. He didn’t resist.

Mr. Stark raised his eyebrows, a look of worry seeping through to his face. “You what, kid? Worse than a several thousand pound concrete wall? Karen said you were stuck there for almost ten minutes.”

Peter didn’t notice the edge to his tone. His head was spinning and the light was too bright. “Yeah. ‘Member? The building the guy… what was his name, the Vulture… yeah. He dropped the building on me. ‘N—n I had to lift it all up. Rem’ber, Mr. Stark?”

---

Tony did not remember. Peter had had a whole building dropped on him? He was sure he would have been alerted if something like that had happened. It could have killed Peter, Karen would have told—

Tony stopped. The Vulture. That had been the night Peter had pretty much single-handedly saved Tony’s ass and handed it back to him. The night he’d taken down a huge underground crime and weapon trafficking system in New York City. The night of Homecoming.

His stomach dropped like a rock. 

Of course Karen hadn’t alerted him. Of course not. Tony had taken away Peter’s suit. He’d taken away Peter’s only protection, and his kid had been crushed under a building as a result.

“Peter, why didn’t you ever tell me?” he asked, guilt eating away at his heart.

“‘S fine, Mr. Stark.”

“It’s not, kid. If something had happened to you — you could have died, Pete.” He said it softly. 

“But I di’n’t. I lifted it myself.” Peter’s eyes seemed to clear of haze for just a moment. “You said if I was nothing without my suit, I shouldn’t have it. But I lifted it all by myself.”

Tony opened his mouth, but no words came out. I did say that, didn’t I? He had. He’d said that. 

Peter could have died.

As Tony landed back at Stark Tower and made his way to the medbay, Peter cradled in his arms, half unconscious, and then as Helen and the rest of the medical staff rolled Peter away and set him up with monitors and medicine, and as Tony stood in the corner of the room and stared at nothing, a mantra repeated over and over in his head, almost like a promise.

You’re no better than Howard was . 

---

Peter woke up in a hospital bed. He’d barely started stirring when he heard a soft “shhh” and someone’s footsteps getting closer to him. He recognized the person’s heartbeat almost immediately.

He opened his eyes blearily to find Mr. Stark nearing, resting his calloused hand gently on Peter’s. “Mr. Stark?” Peter tried to ask — it came out as half a croak, and Peter coughed at how dry his throat suddenly felt. 

“Shhh, kid. You’re okay. But you probably need some water.” He handed Peter a full glass. Peter was too tired and out of it to think twice about how gentle the movement was as he sipped on the water. “Do you remember anything that happened?”

“A wall. Oh, ouch.” Peter winced and gently cradled his ribs, atop which he could feel several layers of gauze.

“Yeah, bud. You tried to swing off of it and it wasn’t stable — ended up falling on you. Thank god Karen let me know. You had a few hairline fractures on your ribs besides two broken ribs, a broken left arm and some broken fingers and toes, sprained ankle and internal trauma to your spleen and abdomen. And that’s all Dr. Cho would tell me.” Mr. Stark’s thick brows had knitted together, worry carving deep creases in his forehead and around his sunken eyes. He held his folded hands up to his mouth, almost as if in a silent plea.

(Peter had never seen Mr. Stark look so worried for him. In a way, it reassured him. But he didn’t want Mr. Stark to think he wasn’t up for Spider-Man. Or anything else.)

“I’m fine, Mr. Stark. Honestly. Nothing I haven’t seen before.” Peter offered him a tired smile. This is nothing compared to that building. 

“About that. Did a building really fall on you?” Peter’s eyes snapped up and he stared in confusion. He’d never told Mr. Stark about the night of Homecoming. Looking back on it, he’d been too scared to tell him because he didn’t want the suit to be taken away, especially right after he’d gotten it back. 

Now, seeing the anxious and worried look on Mr. Stark’s face, Peter still didn’t want to tell him. How had he found out? There was no footage of that night because he’d had his ratty old suit. 

Mr. Stark spoke again before Peter had finished processing his statement. “Given that look on your face, it did. Peter. Why didn’t you tell me about the building? You could have died, kid.”

Peter dropped his eyes, feeling his cheeks heat up as they went red with shame. “I’m sorry, Mr. Stark.”

“Wait, hold up, why are you apologizing? You have nothing to be sorry for, Pete. If anyone has anything to be sorry for, it’s me. I took the one protection you had away, thinking you wouldn’t go out and try and save the world, but of course you did, because you have the damn strongest moral compass I’ve ever seen in anyone —” He paused, and winced. Peter wondered what had just crossed his mind. 

(Tony could still feel that shield being shoved into his chest.)

“Either way, it’s my fault, and I’m so sorry for that.”

“Mr. Stark, like you said, I was the one who chose to go after the Vulture.” Peter’s throat hurt as he spoke, but he refused to let it rest. “It’s not your fault.”

“I was too harsh on you, Pete. I’m sorry.” Peter tried to sit up. “Whoa, whoa, whoa. Broken ribs and other bones, remember? Lay back down. You have to rest.”

Peter groaned. “Does May know?"

"Yeah. She knows you were injured on patrol and are being patched up in the hospital at Stark Tower. She said she'd be over tomorrow morning, she has a night shift."

"How long until I can go out again?”

“Out as Peter Parker? Indeterminate. Depends on what your scary friend comes up with. As Spider-Man? Give it a few days, Underoos.”

Peter started. “Wait, MJ? Has she been talking to you?”

“Sure has. Never met anyone so ballsy. She scares me. Please don’t ever introduce her to Pepper. I think we’d both die. Speaking of which, but not really, just crossed my mind rather. Anything… going on there? With you two?”

Peter blushed, but tried to hide it under snark. “I would never cheat on Spider-Man, Mr. Stark.”

Mr. Stark huffed out a laugh, leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms, and for some reason it was then that Peter realized he was having this conversation with Iron Man . He pushed the thought back.

“No, there’s nothing with MJ. She’s a great friend.”

“Anyone else you wanna tell me about? Ned?”

Peter sputtered. “Mr. Sta— no, Ned’s my best friend! I— We—”

Mr. Stark laughed and held his hands up in surrender. “Okay, okay, no need to go all ‘no homo’ on me. Jeez.”

Peter blushed again, feeling his stomach twist into a knot as the words bubbled up and out without permission. “Actually, I’m not… straight.”

Mr. Stark’s expression didn’t change. He looked calm and composed. “That’s okay, Peter. Whether or not you want to put a label on it.”

Peter laughed nervously, hating how his voice seemed to have jumped up an octave. “So you wouldn’t hate me if I told you I was bi? And I mean... on top of that. I'm trans?”

Mr. Stark leaned forward again, resting his hands on the hospital bed, with no indication of surprise in his expression. “Why in the world would I hate you, Pete? That’s just who you are. You love who you love. And you are who you are. And on top of that, I’m pretty sure you’re the greatest kid in the whole fu-freaking world. Nothing could make me hate you, I promise.”

Peter looked away, smiling. “Really?”

“Really. Why would I lie?”

“Thanks, Mr. Stark.”

Mr. Stark gently patted his arm. “Of course, kid.”

---

March 3, 2017

The next day, Dr. Cho released Peter from medbay. His bones had mostly healed themselves, but he walked around with a sling and ankle wrap either way. Mr. Stark had strictly forbidden him from going out as Spider-Man or doing any strenuous exercise, so after working a bit in the lab and doing his homework, Peter really had nothing to do but scroll through his phone.

Which turned out to be a fucking disaster. 

Beter @peterwithab

THERE’S A BEE???

229 tweets 119 following 441K followers

Top 5 Trending Hashtags - Twitter

1: #spideyparker

2: #peterparker

3: #peterparkerishot

4: #spiderman

5: #peterstark

Beter @peterwithab

I’m not gonna start anything or anything but… @SpiderManOfficial ;)

Camilla @camillaofhousestark

YALL I FUKCIN CALLED IT SPIDEYPARKER FOR THE WIN!!!! #spideyparker #spiderman #peterparker #peterstark

Peter Stark @StarkSon

@peterwithab [sideeye.gif] [jawdrop.gif] holy shit #spideyparker is real

Yeehaw @yoinksyeetandyikes

@peterwithab @StarkSon FUCKKKKK YES MY OTP #spideyparker #peterparker

Sofia Dolan @dolandolan

You clowns I TOLD you he was hot ngl tho i’m sad i can’t date him myself now #peterparkerishot #spideyparker 

Juliana @thanks.an.Avocado11

My skin is clear, crops have been water, life is thriving because #spideyparker is real

Harley Keener @tonystarkbrokeintomygarage

@peterwithab @TonyStark can we talk about this

Peter Parker @ilovepeterparker

WE STAN A GAY ICON OMGGGGG SPIDEY <3 #spideyparker #peterparker #spiderman 

Avengers Fan @ILoveBlackWidowwe

@peterwithab @tonystarkbrokeintomygarage @StarkSon @ilovepeterparker Spidey’s watching out for the gays! #spideyparker 

Betty @butter_brant

@peterwithab omg peter i didn’t know you were gay but I’m proud of you!! #SpideyParker #PeterParker

Kelly O’Brien @obrienlakes

@peterwithab @SpiderManOfficial can we get more info omg I love you two #spideyparker

Flash @fastest_thompson

@peterwithab how much money did you pay to pull this off? Jeez parker i didn’t think you’d stoop so low #spideyparker

Spidey’s No1 Fan @SpideysNo1Fan

@SpiderManOfficial SPIDEY BEING GAY we STAN! #spideyparker #spiderman

Spider or Die @spidermanismyfavoritehero

@SpiderManOfficial are you really dating Peter Parker?!?! Ldskklsdkldskl #spideyparker

See 2,011 more replies > 

Spidey’s No1 Fan @SpideysNo1Fan

@SpiderManOfficial @spidermanismyfavoritehero SPIDEY JUST GOT VERIFIED OMFGGG

See 387 more replies >

Spider-Man ✓ @SpiderManOfficial

Hey! Thanks @Twitter for the verification! 

Spider-Man ✓ @SpiderManOfficial

To everyone who’s saying I’m gay, I’m actually bi! And @peterwithab <3 <3 <3 #biderman #peterparkerishot

Peter found Harley Keener’s account. 

DM to: @tonystarkbrokeintomygarage

@peterwithab: hey Harley

---

March 5, 2017

Text from: MJ

MJ: The plan is in action. #SpideyParker :)

peter-man: im scared but i trust you u better not have fucked this up

MJ: [Buzzfeed link]

Because of fucking course it was Buzzfeed. 

Peter Parker’s Friend Has a Lot To Say About Him and His Relationship With Spider-Man

Recently, Buzzfeed received an email from Michelle Jones, who has recently become known as one of Peter Parker’s best friends. After the internet blew up last week when Tony Stark, also known as Iron Man and the owner of Stark Industries, followed a teenager known as Peter Parker on Twitter and Instagram, several theories came to rise questioning the connection between the superhero billionaire and the high school teenager. One theory was that Peter Parker was secretly Stark’s son. This theory, unfortunately, was knocked down last Friday at a Stark Industries press conference (but we still have hope that Peter Parker is really Peter Stark, because how cute would that be?), where Peter Parker was confirmed to be an intern at the company. Now, he might be just a high schooler, but we recently found out that this teen occupies a high position at SI: he works with Mr. Stark to fabricate Spider-Man’s tech!

Since then, the Queens hero himself has spoken out on his newly created Twitter about his ‘good friend’ Peter Parker, and the theory that the two are dating has come out, inspiring the now trending hashtag #spideyparker. The only thing we’ve received from either Peter or Spidey was on their Twitters, where Spider-Man confirmed he was Bi and started the hashtag #biderman: [;)tweet.jpg] 

Until now, that was our only proof. Enter Peter Parker’s best friend, Michelle Jones.

Michelle, apparently out of her own volition, sent us a letter (yes, receipts included) exposing her friend’s relationship with Spider-Man himself! Let’s hope she doesn’t get into too much trouble with Peter for this…

[letterfromMichelle.jpg]  

It all started a few months ago, when Peter was first hired as an intern at Stark Industries. I was a little apprehensive, because high schoolers don’t just suddenly start working at SI…

Chapter Text

March 3, 2017

DM from: @tonystarkbrokeintomygarage

@tonystarkbrokeintomygarage: okay FINALLy

@tonystarkbrokeintomygarage: care to explain the shitstorm going on with the media rn?

@peterwithab: its ruining my life

@peterwithab: mr stark told me you helped fix the iron man suit during the mandarin? Thats really cool!

@tonystarkbrokeintomygarage: pfffft you call him Mr. Stark? I’m guessing you ain’t really Tony’s son then

@peterwithab: liSTEN ok i just wanna be respectful its not like he’s saved the world like a billion times ok

@peterwithab: and no. no I am not

@tonystarkbrokeintomygarage: ok phew I might have collapsed if you were

@tonystarkbrokeintomygarage: what’s up with your handle tho

@peterwithab: meme because I’m a big dumbass. What about yours?

@tonystarkbrokeintomygarage: every word is true. Tony broke into my garage in like, mid december during the mandarin, that’s when I helped fix the suit

@peterwithab: speaking of which, you’ve got to be a genius then

@tonystarkbrokeintomygarage: says you, with your Stark internship

@tonystarkbrokeintomygarage: you work with Spidey, right? That’s what Tony told me

@peterwithab: yeah. I help fabricate his webs and improve the tech in his suit

@tonystarkbrokeintomygarage: damn. Are you actually dating him?

@peterwithab : …

@peterwithab: perhaps.

@tonystarkbrokeintomygarage: not gonna lie tho, he’s hot

@peterwithab: :0

@tonystarkbrokeintomygarage: don’t worry peter darlin’ I won’t steal your superhero boyfriend

@peterwithab: i was about to say, paws off

@peterwithab: how would you even know he’s always wearing a suit and mask

@tonystarkbrokeintomygarage: oh peter, as if i can’t admire a gorgeous body through a suit

@tonystarkbrokeintomygarage: that being said, it’d be nice to see his face. I’m sure it’s equally beautiful

@peterwithab: :) i dont kiss and tell

@tonystarkbrokeintomygarage: well well well

@tonystarkbrokeintomygarage: dont worry i’ll get it out of you

@peterwithab: ok cowboy 

@tonystarkbrokeintomygarage: who said I was a cowboy

@peterwithab: well you are from tennessee aren’t you

@tonystarkbrokeintomygarage: that doesn’t make me a cowboy

@peterwithab: but you are aren’t you

@peterwithab: you’re a horse boy i’m sure of it

@tonystarkbrokeintomygarage: …

@tonystarkbrokeintomygarage: yeah and so what if I am

---

March 5, 2017

It all started a few months ago, when Peter was first hired as an intern at Stark Industries. I was a little apprehensive, because high schoolers don’t just suddenly start working at SI. But Peter apparently had gotten the internship through a science fair competition. He didn’t want to tell us what his project was about, likely because it pertained to his internship work and that was sensitive information, but I was more suspicious about the internship itself. Like I said, Stark Industries doesn’t just randomly hire fifteen year olds for internships, whether or not they’re geniuses. And yes, Peter’s a genius. I’d be lying if I said at times I wasn’t jealous of his intellect.

And yet, I digress.

I pestered him frequently, trying to get more information about what his projects consisted of at the internship. And of course, Peter responded every time with “I signed an NDA, MJ, I can’t just tell you.” How annoyingly Peter Parker. 

Obviously, though he may be stubborn, I got it out of him eventually. Being one of his best friends has its benefits. Well, that and the pictures I have of young Peter in some interesting Iron Man pajamas. Those are good blackmail material. (I’m not here to expose him, just to share some news because otherwise this Twitter scandal would never end. So to those of you no doubt picking up your phones to come after me, I’m no snitch; Peter is aware I’m doing this.)

Anyway: Texts enclosed below. 

[textscreenshot.jpgs]

Text from: Peter

Peter : so you know the science fair i did? 

MJ: Yes. The one that got you the Stark internship. What did you do to win that competition? Not only was it incredibly competitive, but I didn’t know they were just handing out internships to whoever won it.

Peter: well, they… werent

Peter: the prize was money

Peter: i didnt even actually win the competition, some guy from columbia had this really cool laser tech and he got first place, it was so cool it was on the microphysics having to do with that new element mr stark invented?! anyway he totally deserved first place it was awesome

MJ: You’re dodging the question.

Peter: no i was just getting to it 

Peter: anyway stark employees sometimes go to these high end competitions to scout out new ideas and hire ppl

Peter: and the one that was thought mine was really cool

MJ: That doesn’t explain why you ended up with a personal internship with Tony Stark.

Peter: …,,,,

MJ: What was your project?

Peter: i kind of recreated spider-man’s webs

MJ: Oh my god, Peter, I can’t believe your obsession with Spiderman got you a Stark internship. 

Peter: it’s spider-man with a hyphen mj 

Peter: and do you want to hear the rest of the story or are u just gonna bully me for liking spider-man

MJ: Okay, we get it, you’re gay for Spider-Man. Just tell me the rest!

Peter: :|

Peter: im not gay for spider-man

MJ: Mmmhmm. Okay. Go on.

Peter: mj i’m not!!

MJ: So you stalking Spider-Man and trying to get rescued by him isn’t an enormous crush?

Peter: im being attacked in my own home.,,

Peter: (so maybe im bi for spider-man)

Peter : anyway the stark employee got my contact info and i thought id never get a call

Peter: but lo and behold,,, that night i got a call

Peter: from MR STARK

Peter: it was so cool

Peter: and he asked me about my spider-man webbing knockoff and apparently he thought it was super cool and he asked how id feel about an internship. Well, more like told me i’d have an internship if i wanted it

Peter: and well, thats why i work with mr stark... And spider-man. 

MJ: And does spidey know about your feelings for him?

Peter: mj shut up its dumb and im just a fan and hes like,, a superhero

MJ: He’s also probably over eighteen, which, you know, would make that illegal , Peter.

Peter: actually

Peter: he’s,,

Peter: he’s in high school

[endtexts]

So, I found out that Peter had gotten his Stark internship by recreating a superhero’s webbing, purely out of his fascination with Spider-Man. Ned and I had known for a while that Peter was, for lack of a better word, absolutely obsessed with our neighborhood hero. It was really funny (and kind of adorable), to be honest. 

So now, Peter is actually working at one of the most prestigious corporations around the world (and I have quite a few thoughts on corporations and capitalism, but I have to admit that Stark Industries is one of the forgivable ones, largely due to the magnificent CEO and woman that is Pepper Potts), and not just that, but he was working alongside the owner of Stark Industries and Iron Man himself. Not to mention Spider-Man. 

One of my best friends somehow managed to snag an internship working with two superheroes, designing and improving technology for Spider-Man. I would say I was shocked, but, to be honest, it’s Peter.

But that’s not where the story ends. 

Peter, clearly, was not going to say anything to dear Spidey about his feelings. Even though, as far as I was told, Spider-Man was both single and a teenager. 

(Which, if I digress a little bit more, may I just point out that one of the major superheroes who watches over a large borough of New York City and has saved countless people, is still in high school? I would like more background on why and how Spidey has his powers.)

(Also, I don’t want to out Spider-Man at all, because secret identities are important, but I’d rather the knowledge that he’s not out of high school be out than people think one of my best friends is in an illegal relationship with someone a lot older.)

So I decided to intervene for Peter, given he wasn’t going to do it himself.

I borrowed his phone briefly, texted Spidey (unfortunately, I don’t have receipts for that, because it was on Peter’s phone) something along the lines of “I really like you. Wanna go out sometime?”, and gave Peter back his phone. 

Peter, being Peter, didn’t notice I had done anything until Spidey texted back several hours later. This, I do have receipts of. Purely because Peter texted Ned and I in a panic.

[textscreenshots.jpgs]

Groupchat: 2 brainless idiots + MJ

Peter: guYs i think my death is imminent!!!!

Peter: I don’t remember texting spidey asking him out and ahhhhhg someone end me 

Peter: END ME MJ DID YOU DO THIS

Nedward: Do what?!!!!

Peter: ASK SPIDER-MAN OUT ON MY BEHALF

MJ: That’s ridiculous, Peter, I would never.

Nedward: whAt 

Nedward: peter i stg whAt is going on rn

Peter: I guess i forgot i accidentally asked spider-man out

Nedward: NO

Nedward: NO WAY

MJ: Did he say anything?

Nedward: peter come backkkkk it’s been 5 min

MJ: I’m positive Spidey responded, Ned.

Nedward: I NEED SCREENSHOTS

Peter: sorry I disappered guYs 

MJ: Well?? Did he say anything?

[screenshot.jpg]

Text from: Spidey ❤️

Spidey ❤️ : what? 

Peter: omg im sorry i didnt mean to send that

Spidey ❤️ : wait

Spidey ❤️ : do you actually like me?

Peter: uhmmm

Peter: yeah

Peter: but I dont want it to make anything awkward like i still love working with u in the lab and everything

Peter: sorry

Spidey ❤️ : um

Spidey ❤️ : so here’s the thing 

Spidey ❤️ : I actually also really like you

Spidey ❤️ : and if you mean it I’d love to go on a date with you

[end]

Peter: so like

Peter: yeah

Nedward: YOURE GOING ON A DATE WITH SPIDERMAN?!!

Peter: * Spider-Man

MJ: Smartass.

Nedward: HOLY SHIITAKE MUSHROOMS DUDE YOU REALLY GOING ON A DATE WITH A SUPERHERO

Peter: :) 

MJ: I can’t believe you thought he was straight the whole time.

Peter: ok listen he’s bi ok

Peter: jeez

[end]

And that was just the beginning of their relationship (quite ironically, this happened right before Valentine’s Day). 

I won’t share any more details, given what I’ve said is quite a lot already. All I’ll say is that Pete and Spidey are sickly sweet together. It’s gross (and yet endearing). I don’t know how they’ve kept their relationship secret for these few weeks, to be honest. But I do grant them my blessing and will tear apart anyone who dares hate on them. Again, I wanted to reiterate that Peter is aware I’m doing this. So don’t come after me. Not that I have social media whatsoever.

Michelle

[end letter]

We can now say we’ve got the juicy details of how Peter and Spider-Man got together. All of us here at Buzzfeed would like to wish the two the best in their relationship. And a huge thanks to Michelle, who spent what we can imagine was a long time and a lot of effort compiling the evidence. #spideyparker, confirmed

---

Text to: MJ

peter-man: mj, what the actual and verifiable FUCK

peter-man: how did you even fake those texts

peter-man: actually forget it i dont wanna talk to u rn

---

DM from: @tonystarkbrokeintomygarage

@tonystarkbrokeintomygarage: who is this MJ I would like to meet her

@ peterwithab: im

@peterwithab: this is awful I’d like to die now please

@tonystarkbrokeintomygarage: she hardcore exposed you dude

@tonystarkbrokeintomygarage: but like you knew she was doing it didn’t you?

@peterwithab: yeah but I still wasn’t ready for THAT

@peterwithab: ill talk to you later i gotta talk to mr stark

@tonystarkbrokeintomygarage: ‘mr stark’ im dead

@tonystarkbrokeintomygarage: bye

---

Text from: guy in the chair

guy in the chair: bro. Mj lowkey just killed you

guy in the chair: are you ok?

peter-man: i was expecting it but I wasn’t expecting so much and now its a whole full blown cover story and like i’m glad its gonna make the media scandal calm down a bit supposedly but it was just a lot and like, what the fuck

guy in the chair: yea that’s understandable my man

guy in the chair: but i mean, its mj, you trust her

peter-man: yeah i do i just hope it has the desired effect 

peter-man: but i have a feeling school’s gonna fukcing suck tomorrow man

guy in the chair: it prolly will

guy in the chair: dont worry i got your back and so does mj

guy in the chair: you gonna go out on patrol today?

peter-man:  i can’t. I dont wanna be cooped up here but mr stark wants me to heal for one more day and i’lll be back out tomorrow

guy in the chair: aight just let me know I’m gonna be on the phone the whole time i don’t want you to have another concrete wall fall on you this time

guy in the chair: speaking of which, are you feeling better?

peter-man: yeah. My bones and organs are supposedly all healed and better. And i feel like i could take out Captain America rn but again mr stark wont let me out

guy in the chair: just take it easy for today, man. Plus, ppl wont question why spidey’s not out today with the article

peter-man: tell me about it

peter-man: i’ll talk to you later

---

After that, Peter’s story wasn’t just being covered by small New York news. No. The New York Post, the Washington Times, and even The goddamn Atlantic had decided that writing about his whole life story was going to make them lots of money. 

So they did. 

Peter didn’t even read those articles, knowing they’d say the exact same as the Buzzfeed one did but probably with more eloquent words. 

His text messages had exploded a few hours after the article with MJ’s letter came out. A lot of the texts were from people he knew from Midtown, especially those on the Academic Decathlon team — Cindy, Abe, Flash, Betty — but a lot were from unknown numbers, plenty of them introducing themselves as people he didn’t know, people from outside of Midtown. He didn’t know why or how his phone number had spread so far. 

People sucked a lot. 

Peter spent most of the day in the lab, fiddling with his webshooters and web fluid but not really being productive, instead staring at one spot on the wall for several hours and shooting webs across the room. Eventually, there were enough webs strung together for him to make a sort of hammock in the upper corner of the lab by DUM-E. Peter easily leapt into the nest of white, feeling somewhat like the hobbits caught in the webs of Mirkwood in The Hobbit , but not caring as the webs stuck to his jeans and shirt (they didn’t stick to his skin or hair, as always). 

Apparently, he’d dozed off in his nest of webs, because the next thing he knew, he was being shaken awake by Mr. Stark. “Hey, Pete. Wake up, kid.”

"Wha—? What time is it?” Peter rubbed his eyes as he sat up, feeling the webs cling to his clothes. 

“Just around four thirty. You’ve been out for several hours.”

“Didn’t mean to fall asleep. Sorry, Mr. Stark.”

“Hey, it’s okay. Your aunt just came over, so I wanted to let you know.”

“Okay.” He paused, looking around at the corner of the lab he was perched in, and how it was covered with spiderwebs. “Sorry about the lab, Mr. Stark.”

“Don’t worry about it, kid. It’ll dissolve, right? Just go talk to your aunt.”

Peter hopped down in one fluid movement and moved to the door.

May was in the kitchen, deep in conversation with Pepper. She was still dressed in her nurse outfit, probably fresh from work. 

“Hey, Aunt May.”

“Peter!” She rushed over and enveloped him in her arms. Peter breathed deeply, taking in her scent — the smell of home — and feeling for the first time in several days like he was going to be okay. 

“I’m staying for dinner today, and Pepper offered to let me stay overnight. It’s up to you, kiddo, but I want to catch up. Are you healed?”

“Yeah, my bones are all healed. I’ll probably head out for patrol tomorrow, but Mr. Stark wanted to make sure I was okay today so I haven’t gone out.”

“If only everyone healed as fast as you did, Peter. I gotta admit, some of those powers you got from that spider are uber-helpful.”

Peter grinned. “Well, and then there’s the sensory overload.”

May wrinkled her nose, smiling as she shrugged. “We can’t be perfect, can we? Come on, let’s sit, tell me what you’ve been up to.”

“Did you see the article this morning? The one MJ submitted to Buzzfeed.”

May sighed, the smile disappearing. She rubbed his arm gently. “Yes. And actually, I’m glad she’s your friend, Peter. Now that it’s not just rumors, people will leave it alone soon. And on top of that, no one will think you’re Spider-Man. Why? I’m guessing you’re feeling a bit down about it?”

“Yeah. It’s not awful, it’s just — man, the world is already after me, so it’s not like it can get much worse. It’s a lot. I kind of just want it to go away.”

Pepper interjected, having moved with them to the living room and sat on a couch opposite them. “It will, Peter. Trust me, I’ve dealt with much, much worse. But the world will get used to it and leave you alone. Don’t let it get you too down.”

“I just want to go outside again, Ms. Potts.”

“It’s just Pepper, Peter. And I know. You will soon. Maybe not tomorrow, but hopefully you can be back in school by this Wednesday.”

He turned to May. “I know you think I’m gonna get kidnapped, Aunt May, but… I think I can deal. I don’t want to freak you out, but I’ve faced down muggers with guns and alien weapons before.”

She looked at the ceiling. “For your own benefit, I wouldn’t tell me what you face as Spider-Man, because if I hear much more I might just forbid it. As if last week’s injuries weren’t enough.” Then her tone softened. “I know you can deal with it, Peter. But you also have to realize you’re still a kid.”

“I know.” He sighed and looked at his shoes resignedly. 

“Actually, I think Tony’s working on something for you to stay even safer. A gadget. I don’t want to spoil it, though,” said Pepper, raising an eyebrow. “He cares a lot about keeping you safe, Peter.”

“I know.”

“Alright. Why don’t you tell me what you’ve been working on with the other interns, then?”

“Actually, Henry has this really cool idea. He’s trying to fabricate these organic polymers to see if we could make amino acids from scratch, and doing research on what the ambient conditions would have to be to do so…”

---

That night, Peter finally FaceTimed Ned and MJ. MJ picked up first. She was reading a book, but he couldn’t read the title fully with how her camera was positioned.

“Did you like it?”

“I wouldn’t say I liked it, but it did the job.”

Ned joined. “I loved it. Almost convinced me you were actually dating yourself. But did you have to make me sound like I was screaming excitedly in every text, MJ?”

“Ned, you do scream excitedly in most texts,” Peter commented, smiling.

“Oh, come on, Parker, that took me several days to create.”

“I’ll give you that. And at least no one will think I’m Spider-Man.”

“You realize that people will start wanting more solid evidence of your relationship, though, right?”

Peter groaned. “Whyyyy?” he whined. “Can’t I just say the media pressure is putting stress on our relationship and we’d rather keep it private?”

MJ shrugged, not lifting her eyes. “Yes, I guess. But it wouldn’t be as satisfying. Plus, you have a grand opportunity to fuck around with people right here.”

“Not gonna lie, I’m kind of done fucking around with people right about now. My life is in shambles and I really just want to go back to school.”

“Only you would ever say you want to go back to school, Peter,” said Ned with a frown.

“And your life isn’t in shambles, loser. You’re living in Stark Tower.”

“How is that? Can I come over again? It was so cool! The lab, dude…”

Peter laughed. “Yeah, you can come over again for sure. And MJ, you can also come over. Mr. Stark keeps telling me it would be a bad idea to introduce you to Ms. Potts, but I for one think it would be great.”

“Wait.” She put her book facedown on the table. “For real?”

“Yeah, why not?”

“You’re offering to let me come meet Pepper Potts? Who do you even think you are?”

“Ummm…”

“He’s Peter Parker, duh, MJ.”

“Shut up, Ned.”

“For real, though, Peter, you’re not even gonna post one picture to prove you and Spidey are dating?”

“Okay. Fine. One picture. The caption of which will say, ‘ we want to keep our relationship private so please fuck off’ .”

MJ clicked her tongue disappointedly. “Twitter will be so disheartened.”

“Twitter can die.”

“Fair.”

“Have you even been on Twitter recently, dude?”

“No, why?”

“Well, MJ’s letter made it blow up even more. #spideyparker has been number one on trending for the last five hours.”

“Damn. Look at me, so popular,” Peter deadpanned. Ned let out a snort. 

“Please. One picture.”

“Okay. Actually, I have an idea. Maybe I can get people to calm down with this.”

Peter exited FaceTime without hanging up and went to the camera, grabbing his mask and suit. “Time to see how good my PhotoShopping skills are,” he said, pulling the mask on. The FaceTime call automatically transferred to the suit.

“My PhotoShop skills are in excellent condition, Peter,” Karen piped up out of nowhere. 

“Where did you even learn to PhotoShop, Karen?”

“Did Karen just say she knows how to PhotoShop?” Ned asked in his right ear.

“I am capable of working not only with Adobe PhotoShop, but also with Affinity Photo, Pixlr, Photopea, and over sixty other photo editing programs.”

“Holy shit. When did Mr. Stark program that?”

“He did not. I acquired the skill myself through practicing with F.R.I.D.A.Y.’s interface.”

“ Awesome! ” 

“Okay. This is gonna look really stupid, guys, but it’s what I do for the gram.”

“Please don’t ever say that again,” MJ said, a hint of disgust in her tone.

Peter held up the phone and started taking pictures.

---

@peterparkour

Peter Parker

Do or do not. There is no try. 

14 posts 1.2M followers 128 following

He posted the photo, after editing it well (well, Karen did the editing) and making sure it passed the PhotoShop test a million times. Peter had shown the final product to MJ, Ned, Aunt May and both Ms. Potts and Mr. Stark, and none of them could tell it was fake at all.

(“Are you actually dating Spider-Man and you covered up all these months by telling me you were Spider-Man, Peter?” Aunt May asked, raising an eyebrow and pursing her lips when she saw the picture.)

It was a selfie shot of Spider-Man holding Peter Parker from behind, his arms encircling under Peter’s and crossing over his stomach. One of Peter’s arms was brought up to reach the back of Spider-Man’s head. Peter’s other hand was held in front of the camera, partially blocking his face (but not to the extent where he was unrecognizable — half of his face, smiling wide, was still visible, along with his hair). 

we’ve been discovered by the Internet. #spideyparker is real. But we want privacy, so won’t be sharing much of our relationship. The past few weeks of media attention have put a lot of strain on our relationship, so I’m gonna be taking a few weeks break from socials. But here’s this for now [spideypeter.jpg]

He also posted it on Twitter.

Beter @peterwithab

THERE’S A BEE???

230 tweets 119 following 672K followers

Beter @peterwithab

In case you all haven’t seen my insta post, I just wanted to say I’m gonna take a break from social media because it’s been negatively impacting Spidey and I. We also aren’t gonna post much, because we value our privacy. @SpiderManOfficial ❤️ [spideypeter.jpg]

And then, obviously, had to respond to his own tweet.

Spider-Man ✓ @SpiderManOfficial

@peterwithab that’s gay <3

Spider-Man ✓ @SpiderManOfficial

Also I’d like to reiterate what Peter said. I’ll still be active on socials, but we want privacy, so please be respectful. Thanks to all who’ve been so supportive!

---

March 8, 2017

Ned @jedimaster_ned

@peterwithab I love you dude and support you all the way (MJ agrees)

Peter Parker @ilovepeterparker

ASKDKKSDLKSD THEYRE SO CUTE #spideyparker #peterparkerishot #lovepeterparker #biderman [spideypeter.jpg]

Juliana @thanks.an.Avocado11

[spideypeter.jpg] CAN WE TALK ABOUT THE PICTURE AWWWWW THE WAY HE HAS HIS ARMS AROUND HIM AND PETER’S TRYING TO BLOCK THE CAMERA #spideyparkerisreal #spideyparker #adorable #wholesome

Avengers Fan @ILoveBlackWidowwe

#spideyparker is so wholesome. Let’s all be respectful of their wish for privacy :)

Kitty Dowan @dowanlo12

@thanks.an.Avocado11 THEYRE SO CUTE OTPPPPP #spideyparker #peterparker #spiderman

Yeehaw @yoinksyeetandyikes

@thanks.an.Avocado11 spidey protecc. He attacc. But most importantly, he’s peter parker’s snack #spidey #spiderman #peterparker #spideyparker #adorable

Sofia Dolan @dolandolan

@peterwithab Well I missed my chance to date Peter Parker but I’m really happy for him and Spidey #peterparkerishot #iwillgodownwiththisship #spideyparker 

Flash @fastest_thompson

@peterwithab :0 there’s no way you’re faking this,,,

Dudebros Suck @destroyeroffratboys

@peterwithab @SpiderManOfficial #SpideyParker is the best thing ever. It’s moments like these that make me wish I lived in New York City 

Kris @KristalClaritinClear99

@destroyeroffratboys ME TOO ;((( also Spidey being a bi icon? WE LOVE #biderman #spideyparker 

Spidey’s No1 Fan @SpideysNo1Fan

@SpiderManOfficial SPIDEY BEING a BICON we absolutely STAN! #spideyparker #spiderman #biderman

Andrea @IfYouHadTheChanceToChangeYerFate

Damn it they’re so cute look how protective spiderman is with peter just holding him and peter smiling so wide they make me happy #SpideyParker [spideypeter.jpg]

Betty @butter_brant

@peterwithab You have to be kidding you’ve been dating spidey for weeks and no one knew? Peter’s secret keeping skills>>>> (I support you both!!) #spideyparker

Cindy Moon @MoonMoonMoon

@butter_brant @peterwithab Re-fuckin-tweet. I can’t believe Peter’s actually dating Spider-Man

Charlie @diggingmywaytoneverland

@peterwithab @SpiderManOfficial WHOLESOME!!!! YALL TOO FUCKIN CUTE #spideyparker

Kelly O’Brien @obrienlakes

@peterwithab @SpiderManOfficial LGBT ICONS BLESS YOU BOTH THANK YOU #spideyparker #biderman

Bryce @bryce_william_III

@SpiderManOfficial @peterwithab @obrienlakes Retweet thank god we have at least one (1) bi superhero #biderman #spiderman #spideyparker #peterparker

See 8,299 more replies >

Izzy @endless_diamond_sky_

OKAY but why is no one talking about how Spidey’s a teenager?? Its ASTOUNDING that it’s a teen out there saving people out of his own volition #spiderman #spideyparker #amazing

Spider or Die @spidermanismyfavoritehero

@SpiderManOfficial @endless_diamond_sky_ TRUE THO a lot of people would use powers like Spidey’s to achieve their own means (and not in the best of ways) but this teenager decides to use them for the greater good. What an icon #spiderman #spidey #spideyparker

Trent @DontTrentMe11

@endless_diamond_sky_ Honestly that’s so wack, a teen is helping out best he can and he’s just a kid?? IN HIGH SCHOOL? We love spiderman #spiderman #spidey

Spidey’s No1 Fan @SpideysNo1Fan

@endless_diamond_sky_ @SpiderManOfficial @peterwithab i can’t even imagine fighting supervillains at age like, 16 #spidey #spiderman #spideyparker

See 742 more replies >

Harley Keener @tonystarkbrokeintomygarage

@peterwithab @SpiderManOfficial Y’all cute. (yeehaw) :) 

Tony Stark ✓ @TonyStark

@tonystarkbrokeintomygarage Aren’t they? 

Spider-Man ✓ @SpiderManOfficial

@tonystarkbrokeintomygarage @TonyStark Peter told me a lot about you, Harley, we should meet :)

See 11,820 more replies >

---

March 17, 2017

Tony didn’t like picking up the phone. This was a known fact, to himself and especially to Pepper. But he knew that if he didn’t answer this call, he might actually have hell to pay, and he was too busy dealing with Peter’s accidentally-dating-his-own-alter-ego conundrum to pay it. 

(Although, given, it had been two more weeks, and Peter hadn’t been on social media, but his last few posts had calmed down the internet and now people were finally quieting down on the matter. It seemed Peter Parker could calm down a horde of Twitterers by simply asking for privacy. The kid had been back at school for a week and a half now, thankfully, and he seemed a lot happier for it.)

He picked up. He half-wished, later, that he hadn’t.

“Stark.”

“Why, hello, yes, that is my name. Who is this?”

“You know who I am. United States Secretary of State Thaddeus Ross speaking.”

“Ross. What do you want? Or rather, need? Would you like me to save the world from another superintelligent AI robot? Aliens again? Or is it Captain America’s ass you’d like me to beat? Because, let me tell you, pal, I tried that last year in Germany and then Siberia and it didn’t end well for either party involved. So that’s off the table.”

“We need you in Switzerland.”

“For what?”

“We’re going to amend the Sokovia Accords. The rogue Avengers have been in contact.”

Tony breathed in sharply.

(That unbreakable damn shield was buried in his chest again, mere inches from his heart.)

“So what do you need me for?”

“The United Nations wants to pardon them. Certain… events were explained in detail. The UN now knows that James Barnes, the Winter Soldier, was not responsible for the bombing at the Accords conference in Vienna.”

No, but he was responsible for something else. “Yeah, that was Zemo, as you should all remember.”

“It was a complex conflict, Stark. Not everything could be solved by Zemo being taken into custody.” Secretary Ross paused. “Either way, the UN is planning on pardoning them for that as well as the fight that took place at Leipzig/Halle Airport in Berlin. You’ll remember that, no doubt.”

“Yes.”

“Well, that’s why your presence, as well as that of anyone who was involved in the fight at Leipzig/Halle, is necessary. And, like I mentioned before, this conference has a second purpose; the Sokovia Accords are going to be redrafted and set in Geneva.”

Tony sighed, not thinking too much of it. “So the Accords get mended, and the rogues are pardoned. What else?”

“Like I said, all parties concerned must make an appearance at the conference to fix the Accords, and then sign them. All who sign will henceforth be officially recognized as Avengers, and their identities will be revealed. We’re trying not to let any superhumans slip through our fingers, Stark. It’s tricky. But once all superheroes are known to the government and the world, we can more easily keep you accountable. Which, if I remember correctly, is something you strongly advocated for last year."

“Yes. When?”

“Two weeks from now. March 31st. I have already contacted Colonel Rhodes and the king of Wakanda, besides the rogues and Romanoff, but your AI bot and Spider-Man have to be contacted as well.”

“What?”

“I said, you’re in charge of contacting—”

“ Spider-Man?” Tony’s heart rate spiked. How could he have forgotten that Spider-Man — Peter — had been at the airport in Berlin last year? He couldn’t get Peter involved now, not with all that was going in the media. 

And on top of that, to make Peter an Avenger, when he’d refused Tony’s offer just a few months ago — and not only that, but signing the Accords as an Avenger meant his secret identity would be revealed to the whole world —

“Yes, Stark. According to the media, it’s established that you work with him. And the camera footage from Leipzig shows Spider-Man was involved in the conflict there. He’s required to make an appearance in Geneva in two weeks.”

“But—”

“No exceptions. Like I said, all involved parties must attend for the rogues to be pardoned and the Accords to be set into action.”

“Okay. Okay. Hold up, though. I’ve got a question.”

“Yes?”

“If you’ve been following the media, you’ll also know Spider-Man isn’t eighteen yet. As a minor, you can’t reveal his identity. He can’t sign the Accords.”

Ross was silent over the phone. Tony reminded himself to keep his tone calm, though his heart was beating rapidly. 

“In that case, I suppose, his identity would be known to the government, but not the world. Although, he’d be legally required by the Accords to reveal his identity once he becomes an adult.”

“And what if he doesn’t go to Geneva?”

“Then the rogues go unpardoned and current, far harsher Accords stay in place. Might I remind you that the current Accords allow for government and state persecution of unregistered superheroes and vigilantes such as Spider-Man. Your choice, but I would strongly suggest you haul Spider-Man’s ass to Switzerland in a few weeks. I don’t care what’s been going on with the media — or about this Peter Parker scandal — but he has to come.”

Tony shook his head, rocking back and forth in his chair. “Fine. I’ll be in contact.”

“Don’t let me down, Stark.”

The line clicked. Tony set down the phone, already regretting having picked it up, and pinched the bridge of his nose.

Out of the frying pan, and into the fire.

END PART ONE