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Chapter Text

Peter Parker was born August 10th, 1996 to Richard and Mary Parker in Queens, NY, USA. He weighed 5 pounds, 7 ounces, had brown hair like his mother and when he opened his eyes approximately 8 minutes after his birth, he revealed brown eyes like his father.

Average. Peter Parker is astoundingly, impossibly, average.

He grows up easily. Both his parents work but he gets to visit his aunt and uncle often. Between the four of them, Peter is never really alone. At the behest of his father, Peter doesn’t go to daycare, but does go to preschool. He meets a boy named Harry. They get along well.

Harry’s father scares Peter, though he never says so out loud. Something about the man unnerves him. Harry is always very quiet around his father. Peter doesn’t know why. He feels helpless. He wishes he understood. He wishes he was big and strong and could find out why Harry was quiet when his father was around. Why Mr. Osborn made Peter feel so nervous.

He does nothing.

When Peter is 5 years old, the date is September 11, 2001. He’s in kindergarten. He sees the smoke from his Midtown classroom window. He has to hide under his desk with his classmates as his teacher quietly cries. He’s scared and he doesn’t understand why. Peter wishes he was big and strong. Strong enough to understand why his teacher was crying. Strong enough to help. Peter is helpless.

He does nothing.

Peter is 7 years old when his parents tell him he has to stay with his aunt and uncle for a while. That’s okay, Peter likes Uncle Ben and Aunt May. They’re younger than his parents. May lets him mess around with her watercolor paints and Ben lets Peter wear his police hat. But Peter wishes he could go with his parents. Wished he didn’t have to be left behind and forgotten. Peter always felt like his parents were going off on grand adventures without him. Leaving him behind so he didn’t get in the way. Once Peter was big and strong, he was sure they would let him come with them.

He was sure of it.

A few weeks after his parents leave, there’s a knock at the door of Uncle Ben and Aunt May’s small Queens apartment and Peter opens it expecting to be met with the open arms of his mother only to be greeted by two people in starched black uniforms. They wear sunglasses even though it is almost night time and Peter doesn’t know why May is so quick to pull him away from the door. He’s told to go to his room.

He comes out in the morning to find Uncle Ben crying. He’s never seen Uncle Ben cry before. Ben spots Peter lingering in the hallway and cries harder. Peter knows it’s his fault. Aunt May is the one to tell him that his parents were in an accident. She’s the one to tell him that Richard and Mary Parker are never coming home. Peter looks around at his aunt and uncle’s small apartment in Queens and realizes he’ll never be going home. Peter wishes he had gone with his parents. Maybe if he had been there, had been strong like he was supposed to be, he could have saved them. But Peter wasn’t even strong enough to make Ben stop crying. Peter was helpless.

Peter can only do nothing.

Ben and May never wanted kids. The apartment is too small for all of them but Ben and May’s jobs don’t pay well enough to get a bigger one and feed him. Peter knows this. He may be 10, but he knows. He knows from the looks on their faces that this is all his fault. Peter wishes he was big and strong and could take care of himself. That way Ben and May wouldn’t have to. His wish does not get granted. Peter is helpless.

Ben and May work a lot. They don’t have time to be with him like they used to. Peter insists that he can take care of himself. Ben and May think he needs a babysitter. Luckly, one of their neighbors has a son. Older than Peter by a couple years; high school. Ben and May think he’s perfect. Peter thinks he reminds him of Mr. Osborn. His name is Skip.

Skip babysits Peter for 5 months, then he graduates. Goes off to college in Oregon. Peter will never see him again. (He reminds himself of this when it’s late at night and he feels like crying because he wasn’t strong enough, smart enough, good enough. Peter did nothing. Peter was helpless. He doesn’t tell Ben and May. Skip is gone. It’s over now. All they would be is helpless too).

Peter turns 11 and tells Ben and May that he doesn’t need a babysitter anymore. He’s going to be in middle school now. He’s old enough to be home by himself. Ben and May believe him and agree. (Peter has never been more relieved.)

On the first day of 6th grade Peter meets a boy named Ned. Harry thinks he’s too cheerful and talkative. Peter reminds Harry that he had said the same thing about Peter all those years ago. Harry begrudgingly befriends Ned. Ned is overjoyed. (Peter still doesn’t like Mr. Osborn. He’s older now. Now he understands. But he isn’t any stronger. Peter remains helpless. He does nothing.)

Ben loses his job when Peter is 12. When Peter asks why Ben looks him in the eyes and tells him “Sometimes good men do bad things. And sometimes bad men do good things. The world is never as black and white as people would like you to believe, Peter. But the men who see bad things happening and stand to the side? Those are the worst men of all. If you have the power to stop something bad from happening, you must. Otherwise you’re worse than the people causing harm in the first place.”

2 weeks later a story breaks about corruption in the NYPD. Apparently a large number of officers and detectives had been involved in a city wide drug operation. Bribes, cover ups, destroying evidence. May lets out a shout of joy and Ben looks vindicated. But Ben doesn’t get his job back and Peter watches as May and Ben’s faces look thinner and thinner despite his plate remaining full. And Peter learns that sometimes, even if you aren’t helpless, you can still end up that way. No good deed goes unpunished, Harry would say. Peter is inclined to agree.

Peter is 13 and in 8th grade when he goes on a class field trip to OSCORP. He’s been before of course, with Harry being his best friend since forever. And while Mr. Osborn has given Peter a tour of the labs before given Peter’s interest in science, he’ll never turn down a chance to see them again.

“Why do you even want to go on this stupid field trip? We could literally see the labs any time,” Harry complained to him. Peter just shrugged.

“What’s the alternative? Stay home? Have to go to class despite the fact that literally every kid in our grade won’t be there?” Peter challenged.

“Besides, we don’t ever get to go with Ned,” Peter told him. Harry rolled his eyes. Harry and Ned had an…interesting relationship. Peter knew that without him in the mix neither of them would ever hang out together. But they were both important to him and they knew it so they tolerated each other. (Peter knew Harry was slowly warming up to their other friend. It might have taken a couple years but it was happening. Peter could sense it.)

“Fine,” Harry groaned, flopping back against his bed, crushing the pages of his math homework. Peter chuckled and sealed his fate.

Peter was 13 when he came home from the OSCORP field trip with a slight itch on the back of his neck. Peter was 13 when he woke up in the middle of the night, bed sheets soaked in sweat. He resisted the urge to scream as he felt like every one of his cells was lit on fire. Every movement felt excruciating. Peter managed to stumble to the bathroom and stick a thermometer in his mouth. May was working a night shift at the hospital. She wouldn’t be home for hours and when she did get home she would be exhausted. Ben was out of town. He’d gotten a job as a sales rep for some construction company and had to travel to Philadelphia every once in a while. The thermometer beeped.

105.3 degrees fahrenheit. 40.7 degrees celsius. Lethal.

The ambulance ride alone would kill them. They didn’t have a bathtub so all Peter could do was grab every ice pack he could find and lay them on his body. Peter let out a small whimper as the cold only served to exacerbate the sharp, prickly, burning rawness of his skin. He downed about 4 tylenol and hoped they would be strong enough to bring his fever down and ease some of his nerve flaying pain. Peter was helpless and he was going to die.

He couldn’t help but think about how much his funeral was going to cost.

Peter wakes up the next morning a good 3 inches taller, fever gone and pain eased. His skin still feels raw to everything he touches. Everything is still a bit too loud and a bit too bright but at least he isn’t dead. Peter counts it as a win.

Then Peter rips the bathroom door right off its hinges and thinks maybe it would have been better if he had died.

His aunt is asleep when he leaves for school and Ben is still out of town. Ned hardly notices Peter’s new height (as noticing things he doesn’t care about is not Ned’s strong suit) but Harry comments on it instantly.

“Since when are you taller than me?” He balks, looking Peter up and down. Peter just shrugs and says he hadn’t noticed. Harry complains about Peter’s new three inches and calls him sasquatch for the rest of the week. Peter does his best to lay low, ignore the signs, and not rip any more doors out of their frames. His plan is ruined by Thursday when he breaks his lab partner’s wrist with a fist bump. It is with this that Peter comes to understand two fundamental truths.

1: Peter has super powers. He needs to get control of these powers. He needs to always be in control of these powers because if he isn’t, if he slips up even the slightest bit, he’s going to kill someone.

2: Absolutely nobody can ever know that he has superpowers.

Peter had hurt Melissa Vought on complete accident. It was even an explainable accident, although far fetched. And yet Peter was dragged through a week long procession over the whole thing. He had to talk to counselors and nurses and doctors. The principle, the superintendent, and worst of all the police. Peter went to a rich, uppity school in Midtown on scholarship. Of course Melissa’s parents pressed charges for “assault”. Ben had to come back from his work trip early. May had to skip shifts at the hospital and looked more exhausted than ever. There were threats of them going to court.

The first night, Ben and May had sat him down and asked what happened. Peter told them it was an accident, which it was. Neither seems totally convinced.

“Peter,” May started, putting her hand on his shoulder. “You know you go to this school on a scholarship, right? If you lose that scholarship…well, baby, Ben and I just can’t promise you’ll still be able to go.”

“You’re smarter than all those kids put together, Pete. Ain’t no doubt about that,” Ben told him. “But they come from a different world than you do. Now, that doesn't mean they’re better than you, cause they’re not. But you are gonna have to work harder for a chance than most of those kids will ever have to work in their lives. You can’t afford accidents and mistakes, Peter. You have a bright, shining future ahead of you, kiddo. So bright it’s blinding to think about sometimes. But all that can go away if you give these people a reason to stop you.”

Peter had thought about what Ben said for a long time after that. Super powers. What a joke. They were supposed to be something out of a comic book. Reserved for people like Captain America. Great people. He needed to get them under control. Locked away so he couldn’t hurt anyone. Because Ben was right. Peter was living in a world of sharks, and having super powers was like dumping blood in the water.

Peter starts going to abandoned train stations and warehouses in the industrial district after school. They’re pretty much empty, save a few security cameras which Peter is careful to avoid and some homeless people that don’t pay him that much attention anyway. There are a couple of things Peter notices right away. To start, he’s strong. Really, really strong. Rule number one becomes even more cemented in his head after he is able to punch his hand clean through about 5 layers of cinder block. Peter almost makes himself sick with the thought of what he could do to a human chest.

Peter’s also fast and…sticky. Peter spends about a week trying to master his apparent ability of latching onto things. He spends one afternoon trying to see if there was a time limit on his stickiness. He ends up hanging from under an overpass for hours before he decides there isn’t and heads home. He finds that his center of gravity moves with him easily, so even when he is upside down he doesn’t really feel like he is. It’s weird.

Peter’s new prolonged absences are not missed by his aunt and uncle. May approaches him first, trying to broach the subject casually. She asks him if he’s been hanging out with Harry and Ned more. She asks if he’s found a girl he likes and assures them that if he had ‘he could tell them they’d be totally cool about it she promises’. At his subsequent denials, she asks what it is he has been doing, aggravation leaking into her tone. He tells her he’s been working on some science stuff. She leaves it alone but Peter knows she isn’t happy about it.

Peter doesn’t know how to explain that he’s doing it for them. He’s spending all this time away so he is in control. Ben and May don’t need his stupid super powers wrecking their lives more than he already had. If Peter hurt someone it would be the Melissa Vought situation all over again but 100 million times worse. And Peter wasn’t an idiot. He knew that the powers he had were too similar to the powers Captain America had way back in WWII. And Peter also knew that there were people in the world that would do anything to get power like his on their side and under their control. Power was an incredibly dangerous thing, and Peter was finding out every day that he had too much of it to let anyone know about it.

He catches snippets of his aunt’s worried comments to Ben. She’s worried he’s getting involved in dangerous things. Things like gangs and drugs. Ben tells her that she’s worried over nothing; Peter’s a good kid, he wouldn’t do anything like that. May asks him how would even know, he’s never home anymore. Peter covers his head with a pillow and tries to mask their rising voices. (Peter learns his hearing is far, far too good to be stopped by something as weak as a pillow).

Everything is all Peter’s fault again and he remains helpless. Peter does nothing. His chest aches.

It’s Ben that talks to Peter a week later. Corners him in his room after dinner. (Peter thinks his tactic is pretty underhanded).

“May tells me you haven’t been home as much,” Ben starts easily, leaning against his door frame. The lines around Ben’s face are deeper now. His hair is lighter and his frame is thinner. Peter thinks his very existence has aged Ben 20 years. He wishes he could stop hurting the people he loved.

Anything Peter says is the wrong answer so he just shrugs. Ben’s eyes narrow.

“Any new friends at school? How’s Harry and that other kid, Ned?” Ben asks cordially. Peter sees if for the prying that it is and wishes he could just tell the truth. But there’s no cure for super powers. Aunt May and Uncle Ben would just be as helpless as he is.

“No,” Peter says blandly. “I just take the long way home.” It’s a shitty excuse and he knows it.

“What’s wrong with coming home on time?” Ben asks accusingly, seeing through Peter’s flailing debacle of an excuse.

“What’s the point? You’re never here,” Peter bites back, voice sharp because he knows that it hurts and maybe that will get Ben to back off. Peter hates himself for the words the moment they leave his mouth because Ben’s face falls and he looks more devastated than Peter’s seen him since his parents died. That good old fashioned Parker fire (as May lovingly refers to it) enters Ben’s eyes and Peter knows this is going to be a conversation they both end up regretting.

“Don’t you think I want to be here, Peter?” Ben snaps at him. Peter rears back. Ben hasn’t ever snapped at him before. Ben sees Peter’s aborted motion and lets out a long breath through his nose in an effort to calm himself.

“I’m gone so I can provide a better future for you. I’m gone, working hard, for you . So you can have everything you need to succeed in life. But all that means nothing if you through it away on something stupid. Your aunt tells me she thinks you’re getting mixed up with the wrong things, Pete. And that breaks my heart. You have such a bright future ahead of you but goddamnit if you ain’t trying to mess it all up. You have a gift, Peter, in your mind. A true, genuine power. And with great power comes great responsibility. You have a responsibility to use the power you have for good. Don’t waste it on dumb teenage shit that’ll ruin your life.”

Peter knows there’s truth in Ben’s words. Peter knows he’s right. But Peter is tired of having his efforts to keep them all safe undermined by the accusation that he isn’t giving everything he has to his future. Peter spends hours in those warehouses. Hours alone working on fine tuning his control so he never, ever hurts anybody ever again. So he can live the rest of his life as perfectly average, boring Peter Parker. Peter Parker doesn’t want any kind of great power and he certainly doesn’t want the responsibility that comes with it. Ben doesn’t know this side of Peter’s story. And Peter can never tell him.

“You just don’t understand,” Peter huffs, turning away from his uncle.

“No, I don’t think you understand, Peter. You’re coming home on time tomorrow,” Ben tells him sternly. “This isn’t some free for all. Whether you like it or not, May and I are in charge of you and that means what we say goes.”

“That’s not fair!” Peter whines, knowing he sounds like a child and hating himself for it. Ben crosses his arms.

“Too bad.”

Peter doesn’t know a way past this situation. Peter doesn’t know how to make Ben understand that Peter can bench press a train car. Peter can box jump a story of a building and he can hear the blood in Ben’s veins right now as they speak. Peter doesn’t know how to make Ben understand that Peter wishes he could come home after school too. Peter doesn’t know how to tell Ben that he doesn’t want superpowers or greatness or responsibility. Peter just wants to be home with his aunt and uncle and laugh at bad movies and eat Aunt May’s terrible pan lasagna and build lego sets with Ned and talk about physics with Harry. Peter doesn’t know how to tell Ben that he’s 13 and scared and angry and helpless. Because Peter knows there’s nothing Ben can do to fix this. And Peter refuses to make Ben helpless too.

Peter doesn’t do nothing. Peter leaves.

He storms past Ben in the doorway and out of the apartment. He ignores May’s concerned and then frantic calls after him. He ignores Ben’s sturn call that he better not walk out that door.

Peter leaves. It’s the wrong choice.

He goes down a couple blocks to a corner store. He thinks that maybe the walk will make him less angry, less upset. Maybe a soda will wash down the lump in his throat from lying and hurting and yelling.

Peter buys his soda, a Dr. Pepper, and is about to leave the little bodega when the man behind him pulls out a .22 and levels it at the young cashier. She has pink hair and a terrified look on her face as she puts her hands up. The apparent robber has a ski mask and fingerless gloves. There’s a star tattooed on his wrist.

“Scram, kid,” the robber tells him. Peter takes a look at the cashier who’s eyes beg Peter not to leave her alone and Peter remembers what Harry says about good deeds and consequences. Peter could help, but not without jeopardizing everything he’s worked so hard to keep a secret. Peter isn’t some superhero. He’s just a kid who pulled the short straw and ended up with powers he never in a million years wanted. Peter walks out the door.

Peter makes it half way down the block when a shot rings out. He whips around, dropping his soda. His ears ring with the sound and he watches as two figures grapple outside the corner store. A second shot cuts through the air. One of the figures runs and turns the corner, disappearing from sight. The other falls and in the neon lights of the OPEN sign of the store Peter sees a look of anguish on the face of his Uncle Ben.

The next thing Peter knows is he’s at Ben’s side, his hands covered in blood as Ben sputters under him.

“Ben? Ben!” Peter screams, scrambling to press his hands harder into Ben’s side to stop the flow of red pouring onto the concrete.

“Somebody call 911,” Peter yells, looking around frantically for any passerbyers. In the corner of his eye, he catches a glimpse of the pink haired cashier, a phone pressed to her face.

“Please, Ben,” Peter begs. Ben looks up at him. His glasses are broken and his lips are covered in blood. Peter watches as recognition filters into Ben’s eyes.

“Peter,” he rasps, reaching up to grab Peter’s shoulder.

“I’m right here, Uncle Ben. Please don’t leave me,” Peter sobs. Ben gives him what looks like an attempt at a weak smile but it comes out as a grimace as Ben coughs up more blood.

“Please, Uncle Ben. I’m sorry, I’m so, so sorry,” Peter is choking on his words, tears clouding his vision.

“Remember what I said, Peter,” Ben rasps under him, his voice garbled from the blood in his mouth. “It’s going to be okay.”

“No, Ben,” Peter whispers. “No no no nonononononono, please Ben please don’t leave me here I was doing it for you, it was for you and May, I’m sorry,” Peter sobs.

Peter holds his Uncle and watches as the light fades from Ben’s brown eyes. They’re staring up at him, unfocused and unseeing. Peter’s heart breaks.

It takes the ambulance another 7 and half minutes to get there. They are far, far too late.

Peter sits numb as the police question him. He’s in the back of the ambulance wrapped in a shock blanket. The pink haired cashier is sitting next to him.

“I’m sorry I didn’t help you,” Peter chokes out. The young woman turns to him, surprised he even spoke.

“You’re just a kid,” she tells him, voice bitter and resigned. “What the hell were you supposed to do?”

It’s when he’s back home in bed, trying to block out the sounds of May’s sobs in the living room that Peter realizes a third fundamental truth:

3: If you have the power to do something, and you don’t, when bad things happen they happen because of you.

Peter wasn’t helpless anymore. Peter could have stopped that robber. Could have saved Uncle Ben. Peter’s inaction is the reason for Ben’s death. It’s all Peter’s fault.

He just can’t seem to stop hurting the people he loves.

Peter doesn’t want to have super powers. Peter doesn’t want to be some kind of superhero; those belong in comic books and history documentaries about people like Captain America. Great people. Not people like boring, average Peter Parker. But Peter doesn’t have a choice because now his uncle is dead and this time it really is all his fault.

Peter wasn’t helpless anymore. He can no longer do nothing.

Chapter Text

Peter’s apparent “vigilante” career starts out less dramatically than he imagined it would. He starts out with a red hoodie, a pair of blue sweatpants, some beat up red converse, and a red ski mask. He calls it good enough. 

He’s careful. Very, very careful. Peter avoids alleyways with cameras and he tries not to…patrol (?) too close to home or school. Peter knows how easy it is to make a pattern. He refuses to have his secret destroyed by some asshole with two brain cells and a map. 

Aunt May is…distant. She’s at work a lot more now and when she is home she doesn’t pay too much attention. It’s breaking Peter’s heart to see her this way, but he did have to admit that it made sneaking around to fight crime infinitely easier. 

Peter dedicates time in the warehouse district to learning how to throw a punch. He checks out books on karate and jujitsu from the public library and scours the internet for anything he can find. He refuses to be a loose canon. If he is going to do this, he’s going to do it carefully and controlled. 

It doesn’t take Peter long to realize he needs a faster method of travel than running from rooftop to rooftop. He decides he might as well lean into the spider gimmick and, after several weeks of salvaging parts and raiding a community college chemistry lab, Peter makes his web shooters. 

He’s stuck to mostly petty crime. He’s chased down muggers and punched creepy men in the face in back alleys. He’s walked young women home from work and helped old ladies cross the street. Peter rationalizes that he isn’t some police officer or first responder. He isn’t equipped to handle things like bank robberies and home invasions. 

Then the fire happens. 

It’s an apartment building in Queens, 15 stories and over 400 residents. It’s burning on the top 3 floors and the fire is spreading downward fast. Peter doesn’t know what to do. Peter is scared. He opens his ears and listens to the sounds of the city. The firetruck he hears in the distance won’t get here for another 6 minutes. He looks at the black smoke billowing out of the building. At the people flooding into the streets, coughing and choking. 

“My daughter!” A man shouts, eyes frantically searching. “My daughter, please someone! She’s still inside!” Peter hears the panic and fear in his voice. Peter has the power to help. If he does nothing, if the man’s daughter dies, it will be on him . 

Peter swings down next to the man. 

“What floor?” He asks. The man startles next to him and Peter hears a swell of whispers grow around them. 

“The 14th. Apartment 1423, please, help her!” The man begs, grabbing Peter’s shoulders. Peter nods and runs into the building. He runs up the stairs past the swarm of exiting people. The smoke gets denser the higher up he gets until he feels like it’s nearly suffocating. It’s hard to see through the haze of smoke and fire. Peter’s senses are screaming at him from all directions as he stumbles through the building. Finally, he reaches apartment 1423. He kicks in the door and narrowly avoids a beam falling onto his head. 

“Hello?” He calls out, coughing into his arm. “Hello, is anybody in here?” If Peter was anyone else, he would have missed the quiet rasp that came from the other side of the room. He crossed it quickly and found a young girl, probably around 5, huddled in the corner. 

“Okay, okay okay,” Peter says, slowly moving towards her. “I’m gonna pick you up okay? We’re getting outta here,” Peter says as he scoops the girl into his arms. She’s almost limp, eyes closed and breathing choked from the smoke. Peter looks back at the door, blocked from the fallen beam. Guess we’re going out the hard way , Peter thinks as he looks to the window across from him. He holds the girl tight across his chest and jumps through the glass, shielding her with his body from any stray shards. Below them, people scream and Peter shoots out a web to a neighboring building. He manages to slow their descent to the ground and deposits the young girl into her crying father’s arms. 

“Thank you, thank you so much,” he sobs and Peter nods. He looks around at the people surrounding them. They’re covered in soot and grime. Some of them have burns and others look relatively fine, probably got out first. A woman probably in her late 30s approaches him. Her blonde hair is a disaster and there is ash coating her face, but she has a hard, determined look in her eye as she comes closer to him. 

“My neighbor, he’s in a wheelchair. The elevators are down, I don’t know if he made it out.” She tells him. Peter nods. 

“What’s the apartment number?” 

“1312.” 

And before Peter knows it he’s back in the building. When he comes back with the man, a young boy approaches him and Peter goes back in looking for a cousin. 

And then a mother. 

And then a sister. 

And then an uncle. 

And then a brother. 

And then a roommate. 

And then a grandfather. 

Peter goes in again, and again, and again. When the fire department shows up they tell him to get back, nobody can go in, it’s too dangerous. 

Peter tells them that people still need help. And he goes again. 

Peter pulls 15 people out of the building. His lungs are burning, his vision is blurry, his head is ringing, and his skin screams at him from burns. 

But Peter pulled 15 people out of the building before the fire department contained the flames and went in. The fire has no casualties. 

As he is turning to leave, the man who’s daughter he pulled out stops him. 

“Wait!” Peter turns. The man presses a business card into his hand. 

“Come here in a week. I want to give you something,” the man tells him. Peter shakes his head in protest. 

“I don’t need anything, I don’t do this for money or stuff like that,” Peter tells him, trying to pull away. The man shakes his head. 

“Please. Just…come by. You don’t have to take it if you don’t want to. But just…please,” the man begs him. Peter nods and takes off. 

Against his better judgment, Peter does end up going to see the man a week later. He ends up at a small boutique in Hell’s Kitchen and for a solid minute he thinks he’s at the wrong place. Regardless, he goes inside. 

“Spider-Man!” He hears an excited voice call from across the shop. It takes him a moment to register the name as his own. Ever since he saved those people in the fire, the media has taken to calling him “Spider-Man”. It’s a bit on the nose but he doesn’t mind the name, knowing full well that anything he came up with would likely be incredibly stupid. Sometimes people will call up to him from the street when he swings by, but he’s still not used to acknowledging it as his name. 

He waves awkwardly to the man who has rushed across the show room of the boutique to greet him. 

“You came! Thank God, I have something for you. I just finished it,” the man says hurriedly, grabbing his wrist and dragging him into a back room. Peter’s paranoia tells him that this could be a trap but he resists the urge to pull away. He’s led to a back room filled with half dressed mannequins, sewing machines, rolls of fabric, and, in the center of the room, one mannequin dressed in red and blue, a spider insignia on the chest. Peter’s heart catches in his throat. 

“Is this,” he starts hesitantly, looking at the costume, “for me?” The man nods excitedly. 

“I know you don’t want gifts or anything like that but you saved my daughter’s life and as a fashion designer, I could not in good conscience let you keep running around in that track suit abomination, no offense,” the man tacks on, waving to Peter’s current outfit. It’s still a little charred looking from the fire last week and there are definitely more than a few holes in it. He rubs the back of his neck sheepishly. 

“Don’t even try to get out of accepting it. The only person it was made for was you . To not wear it would be a waste,” the man tells him (and god, Peter really needs to learn his name), with a smug look on his face. He pulls it off the mannequin with practiced ease and shoves it into Peter’s hands. 

“I had to guess on the measurements, but we can tailor anything that doesn’t fit. Go try it on!” He tells him, waving him off to a curtained section of the room. Peter opens his mouth to protest but he’s shoved into the changing room before he has a chance to argue. He looks at the suit in his hand. It…wouldn’t hurt to just put it on…right? 

He finds that it is incredibly easy to get on. It’s warm and fits him perfectly. It’s made of some kind of thick, coarse material that Peter finds isn’t restrictive at all. He pulls on the mask and steps out of the changing room. 

“Perfect!” The man exclaims. He drags Peter into the center of the room and walks around him appraising his work. 

“Yes, yes, yes! Now you look like a real superhero,” the man says with a grin on his face. 

“I’m not a superhero,” Peter protests. The man waves him off. 

“A vigilante, then. Doesn't matter. You’re helping people and now you can look good doing it!” 

“You really shouldn’t have gone to all this trouble, I mean the time this must have taken,” Peter protests looking down at the suit. The man waves him off again. 

“Nonsense. You saved my daughter’s life and for that my husband and I are eternally grateful. This,” he says gesturing to the suit “was the very least I could do.” 

“Still,” Peter says, feeling uncomfortable with the amount of…something the man had put into the suit. It was incredibly detailed and Peter could honestly say it was the nicest thing he had ever worn. 

“Now, let me tell you all about it,” the man continues with no small amount of pride in his voice. “I kept your original colors, nothing wrong with good old fashioned red and blue. It makes you easy to spot which I figured was part of your goal if you’re going to be running into burning buildings. The soles of the boots are rubber with a reinforced heel and toe and your knuckles, knees, and elbows are reinforced as well. I was originally going to do spandex since you’re so.. flippy but I figured protection was more important. I won’t bore you with the details but the fabric is tear resistant, fireproof, and still flexible enough to accommodate your acrobatics. It’s a far cry from bulletproof, but it should keep you intact. The inner lining is waterproof and heat regulating, so you won’t get too hot or cold. There’s extra protection around your chest, neck, and head. The lenses of the eye pieces are bulletproof so you don’t get anything in your eyes and there is a filter built into the face of the mask to prevent too much smoke inhalation. So,” the man said, finally pausing for a breath. He put his hands on his hips and looked Peter in the eye. 

“What do you think?” 

Peter’s speechless. He…he doesn’t even know where to begin. He decides to start somewhere easy. 

“Thank you,” he says, pouring every ounce of sincerity and earnesty he has into his voice. “This is the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me I…I can’t thank you enough, this is…it’s too much.”

“You were willing to run into a burning building with nothing but a pair of converse and a hoodie. You have saved so many people, including my daughter. You are helping this city in ways I can’t even describe. Let us help you. Please. Let me give you this.” 

And really, how was Peter supposed to turn down something like that? 

After several more thank you’s from both parties, Peter leaves Trevor’s (he finally asked his name) shop with a new suit and a standing invitation to ‘come back and get it repaired anytime, please I cannot bear the idea of you running around in a broken suit.’ 

A couple blocks away, Peter hears the skidding of tires and a scream for help. He locks his web shooters around his wrists over he new suit and takes off. 

Peter wasn’t a superhero. A far cry from it, actually. But Peter had the power to help people; more power than most people had. And because of that, he had a responsibility to do good. Peter knew he wouldn’t always be rewarded with kindness and gifts like new suits and care. He knew he would have hard days ahead. Days of burns and stab wounds and bullets and blood. Days when he would see things he would wake up remembering. He was 13 and scared and he never wanted superpowers. But if Peter could save just one person, help just one person, then maybe it would all be worth it. He could take the blood, the broken bones, the screams, and the pain. 

Peter refuses to let Uncle Ben’s death be in vain. Peter would rather die trying to save someone than ever let his negligence hurt someone ever again. Peter was reminded of this by the care in Trevor’s suit; in the details and fine stitching. He was reminded every time he put the mask on that a little girl was alive because Peter refused to stand aside. 

It is with this that Peter learns a fourth fundamental truth. 

4: Death before inaction.

Chapter Text

Peter has been Spider-man for 3 months and 12 days. The date is December 27th, 2009. He’s had his first Hanukkah and Christmas without Ben. May is devastated. He likes to think he’s started to get a hang of this whole ‘work-life-balance’ thing. His grades haven’t dropped and he still finds time to see Harry and Ned. (He knows he isn’t sleeping enough. His extracurriculars have dwindled to almost nothing. Peter feels suffocated. He keeps going.) 

He’s doing chemistry homework on his ceiling when he gets the call. May isn’t home so Peter trudges out of his room and into the kitchen to answer the landline. 

“Hello?” 

“ Peter! Did you see the news?” It’s Ned on the phone. Peter blinks at his friend’s anxious exuberance. 

“No? Why, what happened?” Peter asks, concern bubbling in his chest. 

“Tony Stark’s been kidnapped!”  Peter’s eyes widened. 

“What?” He asks, fumbling with the phone so he can dig the TV remote out of the couch cushion and turn on the news. 

“Yeah! It’s on every station. He was giving a weapons demo in Afghanistan and he got attacked!” Ned explains regardless of the fact Peter is watching the play by play on live television. 

“Holy shit,” Peter breathes out. Flopping down onto the couch and running a hand through his hair. 

“Holy shit is right, ” Ned exclaimed. “ A national icon has been sequestered off to unknown lands!” Peter pauses. 

“Did you just use ‘sequestered’ in a sentence?” 

“I am in distress! ” Peter sighs. 

“Have you called Harry yet?” 

“He called me . He’s thrilled, ” Ned informs him. Peter shakes his head…Wait. 

“Why did he call you and not me?” Peter asks. 

“He knows you’re a Tony Stark fan and figured he shouldn’t rain on your parade with his unbridled joy that his imaginary arch nemesis has been kidnapped, ” Ned explains casually. 

“You’re also a Tony Stark fan?” Peter says confused, voice tilted in question. He can practically hear Nen shrug over the phone. 

“He needed an outlet and I did try and argue that Mission Impossible was a better Tom Cruise movie than Top Gun a few days ago, so I figure we’re even.” 

“Why would you pick such a losing battle?” Peter asks. 

“I was playing devil’s advocate!”   Ned defends. Peter rolls his eyes. 

“Whatever, I’m gonna call him.” 

“Ugh, why? He’s so pretentious when bad things happen to people he doesn’t like,” Ned complains. Peter laughs. 

“Bye, Ned.” 

“Later.”

Peter dials Harry’s number. He picks up immediately. 

“I’m going to start off by warning you that I am not going to be able to curb my enthusiasm,” Harry tells him as soon as Peter answers the phone. 

“Of course not,” Peter acquiests. He jerks his head away from the phone as Harry’s loud whoop of joy cuts through the receiver. 

“This is, completely unironically, the greatest day of my entire life. A true pinnacle of my existence,” Harry tells him. Peter sighs. 

“I still don’t understand why you hate him so much,” Peter admits. Harry gasps in offense over the phone. 

“He is my enemy. What more do you need to understand?”  

“Whatever, Harry. I just don’t want to deal with you pouting for weeks on end when he gets rescued in a couple days.” 

“What makes you think he’s gonna get rescued?” 

“Oh, I don’t know, the fact that he’s Tony Stark? He’s only been missing what? 30 minutes? And pretty much all of America is already up in arms. Everybody and their mother is going to be looking for him,” Peter reasons. 

“Why does he even deserve to be looked for? What? Cause he’s some rich white guy that makes things blow up? He makes guns and bombs and things that destroy people’s lives and then makes money off of it. He can rot away in Afghanistan or wherever it is he’s at for all I care,” Harry says bitterly. Peter holds his tongue. He and Harry have been having this argument for years. Harry’s hate for Tony Stark doesn’t even stem from a place of ‘eat the rich’ or ‘war profiteering is bad’. Harry just hates him on ‘principle’, though, what principle that is Peter still doesn’t know. 

“Do you think I could get the terrorists to kidnap my dad too?” Harry asks, only a little sarcastic. 

“I dunno. Maybe,” Peter says. Harry has been making jokes like that about his dad for years. Peter’s learned to roll with the punches and even Ned doesn’t do much more than bat an eye at them nowadays. 

“Eh, I figure it’s worth a shot. Anyway, I’m going to be throwing a party later. Big affair. You , me, Ned. Maybe a couple pizzas. My father’s in Beijing so I have the penthouse to myself. I figure we can celebrate Tony Stark’s demise in style,” Harry tells him. Peter laughs fondly. 

“Yeah okay, Harry. Call Ned. I’ll be over in a few.” Peter hangs up the phone. He tugs on his jacket and writes a note to Aunt May on the counter in case she comes home early (Peter knows she won’t). Yeah. Maybe he does have this work-life-balance thing figured out.

🕸 

Three months later, Peter has been Spider-Man for 6 months and 4 days. Tony Stark has miraculously escaped from captivity. Harry is devastated. Peter’s started taking on more and more high profile crimes. Aunt May is still working a lot. Peter hardly sees her. They’re nearing summer break with only a few more months of school left. This, of course, is when things start to go wrong. 

“Spider-Man.” Peter turns to see who called for him and spots a man standing on a rooftop a few buildings away. Now, Peter might still be relatively new to the whole crime fighting thing, but creepy guys in trench coats standing ominously on top of buildings was usually a bad thing. Still, Peter swings over and stands across the roof from the man, arms crossed. 

“You are a hard man to find,” the man says, looking Peter up and down appraisingly. Peter raises an eyebrow under the mask. 

“And you are?” Peter asks. The man shrugs noncommittally. 

“Just a concerned citizen.” 

“Riiight,” Peter drawles. “Well, this has been super fun, but my mom always told me not to talk to strangers in trenchcoats so I’m gonna go.” Peter turns to leave but he feels the sharp prick of his spidey-sense. He ducks and whirls around coming face to face with a woman in a skin tight black suit and long red hair. She looks displeased at having been caught and Peter catches a glimpse of a syringe in her hand. His eyes widened.

“Were are you people trying to kidnap me? Not cool!” Peter shouts indignantly. 

“We need to talk to you about a few things, Spider-Man,” the trench coat man says, annoyance creeping into his voice.  

“And you decided kidnapping was step one?!” Peter exclaimed. 

“Would you have come willingly?” The redhead asks. 

“Who goes along with a kidnapping willingly?” Peter asks, fake confusion in his voice. He can see the vein start to bulge in the trenchcoat's neck. Without warning, the redhead takes a swing at him. Well, it would have been without warning if Peter was a normal person. Lucky for his face, he’s not.

“Woah! You can’t just attack people like that! What happened to using our words?” Peter asks, dancing away from the scary redhead. Now, Peter is no idiot. He can easily recognize the woman for the trained fighter she is and there is no way in hell Peter is gonna beat her in hand to hand. But, he does know how to dodge and evade. If he can keep her out of arm's reach, he has a better chance of escaping this encounter without a syringe in his neck. 

“This doesn’t have to go this way, Spider-Man. Come with us and we can work this out,” Trench coat calls from the sidelines. 

“No way, José! Hasn’t anyone ever told you spider-napping is illegal?” Peter calls out. He makes the executive decision that this little game of cat and mouse is going to end poorly for him if it goes on much longer so he shoots off a couple webs at the redhead, binding her hands and feet together. She goes down hard. 

“Ugh,” she exclaims with the first genuine emotion Peter has seen from her. “Is this stuff coming out of you?” She asks with disgust. 

“It’ll wear off in a couple hours,” is all Peter says as he jumps from the roof of the building and into a swing away from the crazy fighter lady and trench coat man. The man calls after him but Peter doesn’t turn around. He has better things to do than get kidnapped.

Chapter Text

Peter was waiting. Waiting with tension heavy in his muscles; eyes sharp and ears open. He was perched high in the rafters of a bank, watching critically as 6 men with guns moved throughout the floor. They looked like your run of the mill goons, black ski masks, thick, heavy dark coats, big guns and small IQs. Normally, Peter wouldn’t be too worried about them (he’s gotten rather good at taking out armed gunmen) but it’s two P.M. on a Saturday and the bank is absolutely loaded with hostages. 

The bank is old with high vaulted ceilings and lots of little nooks and crannies all over the building. This is both good and bad for him. Good because it means he has unlimited hiding places and surprise is on his side. Bad because any one of the 

gunmen could easily slip some where Peter couldn’t find him or worse, a hostage could get lost in the crossfire. 

So. Peter is waiting. 

From what he can tell the leader of this silly operation is in the bank with them, though Peter suspects he is in the vault rather than on the floor with the rest of his muscle. By his count, there are 6 men on the floor with the hostages, 2 in the vault (one of which being the head idiot in charge) and 1 in a panel van a block down, nervously biting his nails. That makes 9. Peter can do 9. 

Peter knows he isn’t built to take on really more than 2 people at a time. He’s strong and he can throw a punch but that doesn’t make him a good enough fighter to take on however many armed people he wants. Rushing the floor is out. He switches tactics. Peter slowly crawls across the ceiling, making sure to stay off of skylights and in the shadows. Then, slowly, he lowers himself down until he’s suspended in the middle plane of the bank. One of the hostages catches sight of him, a young man wearing a teller uniform who looks to be about 26. He’s got dark, curly hair and wide brown eyes. His name tag says his name is Carter. Peter’s a good 5 feet away and he can smell the Altoid in his breath and the fear in his sweat. Peter presses a finger to his mask. The man nods, frantic heartbeat slowing slightly. 

Peter lowered himself down further until he’s right behind one of the gunmen, hanging upside down by his wrist. In a quick motion, Peter wraps his other arm around the gunman’s neck, smothering his mouth with his hand and drags him into the ceiling. The hostages notice the count go down and start hurriedly whispering to themselves. The gunmen, on the other hand, take no notice of their missing comrade. They do, however, grow increasingly agitated at their flustered hostages. 

“Quiet!” One of the men barks, sticking the barrel of his gun into their faces, swinging it across wide and low. A few of them shriek and the whispering promptly stops. 

Peter manages to drag another man into the ceiling before the goon and leader exit the vault and return to the floor. The leader is apparently not as slow on the uptake as his compatriot and notice’s their dwindling numbers immediately. 

“Where’s the other two?” He growls out. The four original floor men look around, confused. 

“I dunno, Boss. They were here just a second ago,” one of the goons replies lamely. Peter stiffens as the leader blows up at him. A man with a gun was bad enough, an angry man with a gun could turn this situation nuclear in a matter of seconds. Time to get more actively involved. 

“My, my, temper, temper,” Peter quips as he repositions himself in the rafters, his voice echoing through the bank. The men point their guns to the ceiling and away from the hostages; time to go to work. 

“A hostile work environment is not conducive to success!” Peter says as he swings down in an arc, landing on one goon’s shoulders and sending him to the floor. He uses the man as a springboard and launches himself at another before they have time to react. Two down, four to go. By now, the men have repositioned their guns at him and are lining up to shoot but Peter has positioned himself so he is facing the hostages; the men shoot at nothing but air as Peter easily dodges the onslaught of bullets, spider sense ringing loudly in his head. He hears one of their guns click and Peter smirks under the mask. With a flick of his wrist, the ammoless gun is launched behind him and away from the man who he webs in the face. There’s another click and Peter repeats the process. 

Peter ducks low and shoots another web at the remaining two’s feet, webbing them together and to the floor. Once they’re on the ground it’s easy to snatch their guns away from them. A loud shout breaks Peter’s focus and he looks up to find the hostages on their feet cheering. (Peter thanks his lucky stars that he has a full face mask so these people don’t see him blush like a tomato). He gives them a nervous wave before turning to the front doors. He breaks the bike lock holding them shut with ease and jumps into the air before the police and news parked outside can get a good shot of him (both in the picture sense and the bullet sense).

Overall? 9/10. 

🕸

Peter makes it to a roof top a few blocks away. He sighs heavily and practically collapses down onto the ledge, adrenaline diminishing and leaving him exhausted. He gives himself a light pat down and is relieved to find he didn’t get shot during the whole encounter. Well, not seriously shot. There’s a light graze on his arm but once he gets some peroxide on it the wound will probably be gone by tomorrow. 

“That was impressive.” Peter makes a point not to stiffen at the voice. It’s been about two weeks since his first encounter with trenchcoat man and ever since Peter keeps running into him. The man is persistent if nothing else but his presence has left Peter with a slight buzz of danger in the back of his head for weeks.  Luckily, he hasn’t caught sight of him when he’s just Peter Parker, but with how diligently the man and his army of super-spies is watching him, Peter knows it might just be a matter of time. Still, he refuses to let it get to him. 

“Good afternoon, Nicky,” Peter responds cheerfully. He doesn’t turn to face the man. “Lovely weather we’re having.” See, after the second encounter with tall, dark, and annoying, Peter decided if he was going to be perpetually stalked, he was going to stalk back. It had taken a great deal of digging (and several bags of Skittles to bribe Ned into helping him without asking questions) but Peter had finally found the man. Nicholas J. Fury. Director of the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division, or S.H.I.E.L.D. as they were more commonly referred to. Peter hasn’t heard much about them, but he found some evidence of them being involved with Captain America all the way back in WWII, albeit under a different name. Now, Peter didn’t know what the shadow government wanted with him and he probably shouldn’t provoke them, but he couldn’t help the thrum of satisfaction as he heard Fury unclip his gun from behind him. 

“So you finally figured out who I am,” Fury commented in a light tone, as if Peter couldn’t smell his nerves and hear his quickened heartbeat. Peter shrugged. 

“Good. Then you know I am not a man to be trifled with,” the man told him, threat blatant in his tone. Peter scoffed. 

“Okay? And?” Peter asked, finally standing up to face the man. He crossed his arms in defiance, doing everything in his power to look bigger than thirteen. The man looks at him appraisingly and they hold eye contact for a long while. Finally, Fury breaks it with a dry chuckle and a sardonic smile. 

“You’ve got spunk, kid, I’ll give you that. It’s stupid and gonna get you killed, but I’ll give it to you.” 

“Maybe,” Peter admits, voice level. Fury seems surprised by his acceptance on the matter. The man squints his lone dark eye at Peter. 

“How old are you, kid?” Fury asks. Now, this is where Peter has to tread carefully. Part of him is tempted to give a non-answer, something vague and mysterious. But he figures that’s even more suspicious. So he gives a number instead. 

“19,” Peter tells him, holding his body steady and his voice level. He says it nonchalantly but not defensively. He needs Fury to believe him. Fury gives a low whistle. 

“You really are just some kid, huh? You should be in college, Spider-Man. Partying. Talking to cute girls and failing your classes. Why are you out here? Doing this? Why are you so ready to die?” Fury asks him and Peter knows a loaded question when he sees it. 

“I don’t want to die,” Peter tells Fury after a moment. Fury nods at him to continue so he does. “But I can’t live my life doing nothing. Besides,” Peter says, turning away from Fury and moving towards the ledge, preparing to swing off. 

“How else would I be able to look forward to these little talks of ours, Nicky?” And with that, Peter jumps off the building, hearing the startled laugh of Nick Fury behind him.

Chapter Text

Peter has been Spider-Man for almost a year now. He’s (very) freshly 14 and set to start highschool in about a week. Ned is positively wigging out and Harry, though he pretends, is sufficiently nervous. Even Peter isn’t immune to the new school jitters. He finds it hilarious, in his mind, that he’s nervous about such a mundane thing like school when he regularly leaps off of buildings and gets shot at. It’s nice to have something normal to worry about. 

He’s played his game of cat and mouse with Fury for a solid five months now and, for all intents and purposes, Peter is fairly confident the superspy still thinks he’s some 19 year old punk with too much time on his hands rather than a 14 year old idiot with a death wish. He’d prefer to keep it that way. Which is exactly why he’s glowering over a strawberry milkshake at the man as he sits across from him in a Denny’s. 

“I’m glad you finally decided to see reason,” Fury said in a way that was probably meant to be amicable but Peter just found to be condescending. Peter rolled his eyes under his mask. 

“Let’s not get confused here, Nicky,” Peter said pointedly, waving a finger at the forever trenchcoated man across from him (Seriously, it was August . Did the man not feel heat?) “I’m not seeing reason , I’m getting a free milkshake . Talking to you just happens to also be on my agenda, so I figured I could pencil you in,” Peter said, taking the same condescending tone. Fury, as he was every time they spoke, seemed particularly irked. Maybe that was just his personality…

“Stop acting like some punk kid for once in your life and listen to me for a goddamn minute,” Fury snapped, seeming fed up with Peter’s antics. Peter raised an eyebrow and, despite the mask, Fury seemed to pick up on it. The superspy huffed. 

“There was an idea, a long time ago, before you decided to run around in spandex and before I decided to try and put up with you,” Fury started. Peter resisted the urge to throw in another line about how much Fury loved him but decided against it; he really was getting a free milkshake out of this. 

“The idea was to bring together a group of remarkable people to see if they could become something more. To see if they could work together when we needed them to, to fight the battles that we never could,” Fury told him. Peter snorted. 

“What, a super secret boy band? Also that sounded scripted, did you rehearse that? Is this what you say to all the dashingly handsome vigilantes or is it just me?” Fury leveled him a cold, flat glare. 

“You joke and laugh but trust me, Spider-Man, bigger things are on the horizon. Things that you won’t be able to deal with by yourself.” Fury leaned back on his side of the booth. “Come by S.H.E.I.L.D. headquarters. We can work something out. Don’t you want to be a part of something bigger? Make it into the real big leagues?” 

Now, if Peter had been anybody else, this little recruitment speech might have worked. The problem was, Peter never wanted this. He didn’t want to be in “the real big leagues” ; he didn't even want to go to a game, much less step up to bat. Peter had been Spider-Man for 11 months to the day and he never regretted it, never. But he also never wanted to put on a suit in the first place. He wasn’t interested in Fury’s knock off Justice League. He never would be. 

“Sorry,” Peter said, a bit too much bite in his voice, “I’m not exactly a team player. Plus, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, I’m kinda the only one playing this game right now. Can’t have much of a one man band against your hypothetical future threat.” 

“There's Iron Man,” Fury pointed out. Peter barked out a laugh, bitter and tight. 

“Who, Tony Stark? Yeah, no.” Fury seemed surprised by this. 

“What do you have against Stark? He’s been flying missions all over the world. He’s got an Expo lined up for next year, supposed to be something great,” Fury tells him. Peter shakes his head. 

“Yeah, no thanks. I’m not exactly jumping at the idea of working with a guy who blew his secret identity about 3 days after he got one.” 

“Okay, so he’s a little on the eccentric side. That doesn’t mean he’s bad at what he does.” 

“He’s never even here!” Peter exclaims, throwing his hands up in the air and looking around. “Here, in New York. Or any city, for that matter. He doesn’t know what it means to do this , and quite frankly, neither do you. He’s not some sort of vigilante; he’s a superhero at best, the government’s attack dog at worst. No thanks, hard pass.” 

“So you’re against superheroes, pretty ironic coming from you,” Fury remarked pointedly. Peter glared at him. 

“I am not a superhero. Calling myself a vigilante is also a stretch. This isn’t a comic book and it’s not a game; no matter how much Tony Stark or you seem to think it is.” 

“Do I look like I’m joking?” Fury said, steel in his voice as he leaned back over the table. Peter crossed his arms and said nothing. Fury shook his head in disappointment (as if Peter cared what he thought). 

“Listen, Spider-Man, whether you like it or not, something is coming. It might not be tomorrow, it might not be next year. but take it from a guy who gets paid to know things: shit’s on it’s way. And when trouble comes, you’re gonna be there, like the stubborn little bug you are.” 

“Uh yeah, obviously. That doesn’t mean I’m gonna join the government sanctioned Girl Scouts of America. Also, spiders are arachnids. You should know this by now with all the people you have following me.” Fury seemed surprised by this. The superspy looks Peter up and down appraisingly. 

“So you have made them?” 

“Uh, yeah, dude. They're super obvious and annoying. Luckly, I’m better at my job than the interns you keep sending.” Fury laughed at this. 

“If you weren’t so goddamn chatty you’d make a hell of a spy, Spider-Man. I haven’t been sending interns. Those are full fledged S.H.E.I.L.D. agents. Natasha is about ready to pull her hair out the amount of times you’ve slipped her.” Peter’s eyes widened at Fury’s admission. He knew his spider-sense was good but he didn’t realize it was spy detector good. He and Fury sat in silence for a few more moments before the spy decided to switch tactics. 

“How about we make a different deal?” Fury started, leaning back in his seat again. “I’ll stop sending agents to follow you, since they’re obviously not doing their job, and you agree that, when the time comes, you’ll at least pick up the phone.” Peter considered this. It would be nice to be able to walk home after patrol instead of taking the most convoluted route known to man. But…superspy. Peter’s read the monkey’s paw; he knows the necessity of specificity. 

“I have some conditions,” Peter started. Since Fury didn’t immediately laugh in his face, he kept talking. 

“One, you actually call back all of the spies, agents, employees, and interns you could even consider stalking, tailing, tracking, following, cornering, or ambushing me. If I catch even one of them, on your orders or not, I will stalk back, Nick. You said I’d make a hell of a spy; let’s not put your theory to the test.” Fury’s lips quirked into a smile and he nodded in acquiescence. Peter nodded and continued. 

“Two, you stop looking into me all together, anything and everything. And wipe the files you have on me, paper and digital. Three, me answering the phone does not mean I’m joining your One Direction cover-band. It just means I will consider listening to you. These are my terms. Non Negotiable. Do we have a deal?” Peter asked, holding his hand out to the spy across from him. Fury looked at his hand and then up to his face. A small smile played out on the stern man’s face. 

“You drive a hard bargain, Spidey. But I think we can make that work.” 

🕸 

“What do you mean you made a deal?” Natasha ground out. She was standing in Fury’s office, knuckles white and teeth clenched. 

“You know, I think you two would get along if you ever properly met,” Fury commented lightly, not looking up from his computer. 

“Sir, don’t you think we need to-”

“You are to disengage, Romanoff,” Fury interrupts her, tone curt and even. She purses her lips in disagreement but doesn’t say a word. 

“I know frustratingly little about Spider-Man because for whatever strange reason, the kid has eyes in the back of his head. Say what you will about the punk, he knows how to spot and lose a tail better than just about anyone else in here. I know you’re pissed that he made you, but we can’t risk getting any closer to him for the time being. He’s right on the edge and sending more agents out there risks pushing him away from us forever. There’s something about this kid, Romanoff. Something that reminds me of you . We’re gonna need him. We can’t afford to lose him just because he pissed you off.” 

“Sir,” Natasha affirmed. She gave a brief nod and exited the room. Clint was waiting outside, leaning against the wall like someone out of a shitty coming of age movie. 

“You look like an asshole,” she told him shortly, not even sparing a glance in his direction. 

“Ouch, that bad huh?” He asked, shoving his hands in his pockets and easily falling into step with her. She bit the inside of her cheek. Clint, being Clint, noticed immediately. 

“Oh. Really that bad.” He noted, glancing her way. 

“I have orders to completely disengage,” she bit out, irritation more prevalent in her tone than she would usually allow because it was Clint . He knew she was irritated regardless. Clint let out a low whistle of sympathy. 

“That blows,” he remarked. He strode forward an extra step and turned around to walk backwards in front of her. 

“Hey, maybe you’ll get reassigned somewhere cool, like Tahiti. Or Alaska.” He flashed a stupid grin and Natasha tilted her head down so he couldn’t see her small, growing smile. 

“Maybe you’ll get to go to Antarctica, chill with the polar bears for a while.” 

“There aren’t polar bears in Antarctica. They live in the Arctic ,” she informed him. He scrunched up his face and swerved, narrowly avoiding running into some poor intern that had the misfortune to be in the same hallway as Clint and his disregard for public space. 

“What’s the difference?” Natasha rolled her eyes. She knew he was messing with her, but it was nice to be distracted; she could even feel her hands unclenching. 

“The Arctic is the North Pole, Antarctica is the South Pole. Antarctica has penguins, not polar bears.” Clint nodded in understanding. 

“Of course. Penguins have flippers. They would be useless for working for Santa. Polar bears would at least keep the reindeer population in check.” Natasha rolled her eyes fondly at his ridiculous antics. 

“You’re a dork,” she told him, pushing his shoulder to spin him around. He laughed but turned back around, walking in step with her once again. 

“No but really, I’m sure Fury will give you a better assignment than pest control. You’ve earned it,” Clint told her. Natasha nodded but sighed. 

“Knowing Fury, he’ll just put me somewhere equally annoying. I just hope I don’t get stuck on babysitting again. I cannot handle another sarcastic twerp for a good long while.” 

Chapter Text

Peter’s been having a bit of a shitty New Years, if he’s being perfectly honest with himself. Ninth grade hasn’t been exactly all it’s cracked up to be and with his first semester of high school under his belt, he can say that with the utmost confidence. To start off, Ned, Harry, and him didn’t have a single class all together and he only had one class with Ned. The only times he got to see Harry at all was at lunch. Harry, of course, did his best to seem unperturbed by this unfortunate development but Peter knew deep down in his chest of emotional pneumonia that he cared. 

It was hard, feeling like he was being pulled in different directions from his friends. Ned had joined AV club, for pretty obvious reasons (Peter knew he was thrilled at being able to mess around with real tech). Harry had, surprisingly, allowed himself to be snatched up by the drama club (Ned thought it was because Harry was a dramatic bitch, Harry thought it was because it pissed off his dad to no end, Peter knew that something could be two things at once). Peter didn’t exactly have time for extracurriculars, but he figured he would have one hell of a community service rap by the time he was applying to college. (He had a bet with himself, either Nick Fury would make his identity in the next four years and vouch for him, or Peter would take over as the director of S.H.I.E.L.D. because at that point the man is terrible at his job.) 

He had (sort of?) made a new friend, a girl in his biology class with Ned who was also in his math class. Her name was Michelle Jones and, though she had insisted she call her MJ, he still didn’t know if that made them friends or not. The girl gave him some mixed signals if he was being honest. On the one hand, she had poured milk over his head the second day of school when he was talking to Harry because she “didn’t realize he associated with sycophants” but the very next week let him copy half of her lab notes in science after he passed out in class. See? Mixed signals. 

She was, however, no longer glaring at Harry everytime she saw him. Apparently, she had a hatred for his father much like Harry had a hatred for Tony Stark. Once she picked up on the fact that Harry himself wasn’t too keen on Norman Osborn either, she tolerated him a lot more. 

Winter break had come and gone, another Hanukkah/Christmas season without his uncle in his life. May was the Jewish one in the family, latke’s being one of the few things she could successfully cook. Ben had been the one to set up the tree, to spread tinsel across their little apartment and badger Peter and May into watching bad Hallmark movies. Without Ben to push the Christmas spirit, the holidays seemed to feel flat; hollow. Missing half of what Peter had known for as long as he could remember. Thoughts of Christmas trees and ornaments and lights soured with grief. Peter figured the smell of pine and peppermint would be bitter for the rest of his life. 

January had come quickly and February after that. He was passing his classes, sure, but he was bored. He fell asleep in class more often than not without Ned or Harry to tap him awake as they had in middle school. It wasn’t like he was missing much anyway. He still passed his tests just fine. 

Having access to a real chemistry lab helped. Gone were the days of breaking into colleges for supplies. With an actual lab at his disposal, he was able to better perfect his web fluid, even going so far as to make different kinds. He only had two so far, one that acted as his regular webbing and one that was better suited for being used as bandages, but he figured it was a start. 

He’d been getting bolder as Spider-Man; picking up on bigger crimes. Peter was intimately aware he was probably sticking his nose in places it very much should not be, places that would leave the smell of blood, gunpowder, and rot lingering in his memory for the rest of his life. But at night there are more people on the subway. Playgrounds had more children in them. He sees more kids his age out at parks and bodegas. People don’t walk as fast and don’t clutch their keys in their pockets as tight. Peter is changing things. He can’t help but feel just a little bit proud. 

He’s stopped seeing the Nick Fury Entourage trail him during patrol, which really made his life much easier. Still, Peter was under no illusions of trust when it came to literal secret organizations and shadow governments, so he still made sure to take the long way home every time. Peter typically stays in Queens, but once a week he makes sure to stop by the roof of a library in Midtown. It’s their agreed upon spot. If (and, according to Nick, when), S.H.I.E.L.D. decides they need his assistance, Peter will find his signal on that roof. He’s sure the bastard has the roof well surveilled, probably has a whole detail on it, so he makes sure to approach it from different directions every time, on different days, and at sporadic hours. Once, he even ditched 2nd period so he could drop by at 9:30 on a Thursday. Peter refuses to be taken down by some lowly intern in a van with a camera. 

Now, all this doesn’t sound too dreadful, right? Well the real shitty part of his New Year comes in the form of two particular demons: one, is a petulant toddler in a teenage boy’s body. His name is Flash and while Peter doesn’t hate him, he is significantly annoyed by his existence. If he were anyone else, Peter would probably be genuinely fearful of Flash. But Flash doesn’t even know how to really throw a punch and Peter spends his down time running into collapsing buildings and catching buses with his bare hands. Privately, Peter thinks the whole thing is actually kind of funny, but it is definitely annoying having to play the victim. Afterall, Peter Parker has every reason to be hurt by Flash’s taunts and jabs because Peter Parker isn’t Spider-Man. Besides, Peter knows how bullies work; either he sucks it up and deals with whatever teen angst Flash has going on or some other kid has to. 

What’s the second thing? Yeah, that would be the human trafficking ring Peter managed to stumble upon in November. Peter never wanted to get involved in something as bloody as kids in shipping containers, but he supposed he was in too deep already. He’s been careful, more careful than he’s ever been about anything in his life, actually. It takes him months, gathering information. At first, he doesn’t even know where to start and the more he finds out, the more overwhelmed he feels. But he goes slow. He’s meticulous. He writes down everything. He digs Ben’s camera out of storage even though it hurts because you can’t doctor film and Peter knows Ben would want him to do anything he could to get these kids home. As slow and as careful as he is, Peter soon finds himself in a time crunch. Through weeks of careful surveillance, Peter learns devastating news; these guys are only staying in New York until March third and then they’re gone. Overseas. And they’re taking the kids with them. 

Peter can’t let that happen. 

That’s how he finds himself here, looming in the shadows of a pier in Brooklyn, body pressed flat against a shipping container. This is the last time all the kids will be together before they get sent away to different states and countries. Peter can’t mess this up. Even with all the resources in the world the chances he finds them all again are slim to none. 

The timer he has on him gives an inaudible buzz. 3:27 A.M. Guard shift change. Perfectly on time, the two men standing in front of a row of containers trade off with a different pair who just walked up. If Peter’s months worth of recon is right, he has 10 minutes before the first patrol walks through. Time to go to work. 

🕸 

Seven Months Later 

“Iron Man: yes, Tony Stark: Not recommended?” Fury raises an eyebrow at the man across from him. 

“That doesn’t make any sense. How can you approve me but not approve me?” Fury leaned back in his chair away from Stark, looking up at the ceiling. 

“I got a new ticker. I’m trying to do right by Pepper, I’m in a stable-ish relationship,” Stark defended. Fury stood and crossed to the other side of the table, leaning against it. 

“Which leads us to believe at this juncture we’d only like to use you as a consultant.” Fury told the man. Stark pursed his lips, but stood and offered Fury a hand. He took it. 

“You can’t afford me,” Stark said blandly, turning and beginning to walk away. At the last moment, he turned back as if forgetting something (though Fury didn’t believe Stark had ever truly forgotten anything in his life; he knew a ploy when he saw one.) 

“Y’know, while I've got you here and you’re in such a sharing mood about personalities, why don’t tell me about Bug Boy or Spider-Kid or whatever he’s called. The lanky looking guy in the blue and red monstrosity zipping around Queen,” Stark questioned, shoving his hands into his pockets. Fury chuckled at the thought of Spider-Man, knowing his personal opinions about one Tony Stark. 

“He doesn’t like you much, I can tell you that,” Fury told him, enjoying the look of offense that crossed Stark’s face. 

“He said that? Out loud? With words? And so you do know him?” Stark tacked on at the end, a slight look of smugness in his eyes as he gained the information he was really after. 

“I know everything,” Fury lied through his teeth, ignoring the slight burn of indignation at how little he actually did know about Spider-Man. 

“Why doesn’t he like me?” Stark said, put off. Fury shrugged. 

“He doesn’t like superheroes.” Stark looked particularly baffled at that, which was a sentiment Fury could relate to. 

“He’s literally the superhero. I mean he’s the first one since what? Captain America? I’ve seen footage of him catching a car with his hands . How is that not superhero-y?” Fury just shook his head. 

“Alright, I give. So if he isn’t a superhero, how would you describe him?” Stark asked, crossing his arms over his chest. Fury thought for a moment about the 19, now possibly 20, year old. About the kid he knew had to be giving up a hell of a lot to do what he did. 

I don’t wanna die. But I can’t live my life doing nothing. 

“In a word?” Fury asked rhetorically, rising from his position leaning on the desk and striding past Stark to the exit. 

“ Relentless .” 

Chapter Text

Peter sees it coming about a week before it happens. Recently, he’s managed to worm his way into the S.H.I.E.L.D. servers, just for kicks really. A way to practice his hacking skills. He doesn’t even have to try very hard, which he thinks says more about the S.H.I.E.L.D. security software than it does his tech abilities.

He isn’t thrilled with what he finds. 

One, about the same time as the catastrophe that was the Stark Expo was last year, a man from outer space landed in New Mexico, caused a bit of trouble, and returned home; a place apparently called Asgard. Were aliens concerning? Yes. Peter was concerned. However, the guy left and New Mexico is just a bit out of Peter’s problem area, so he doesn’t dwell too much on it. 

Two, S.H.I.E.L.D. recently got its grubby little mitts on an energy source. What kind, Peter doesn’t know and frankly doesn’t want to. What he does know is that S.H.I.E.L.D. has apparently never watched a single sci-fi movie ever and has decided to poke and prod said energy source.  He doesn’t manage to find a lot about it; most of the research on it is heavily encrypted and probably in code and Peter might be good but he isn’t that good (at least not yet). However, if he had to put money on it, he’d probably bet on S.H.I.E.L.D. doing something catastrophically stupid like making weapons, because fuck the energy crisis right? 

The third, and frankly most alarming, thing that Peter finds is that apparently , Captain America is alive . Which, holy shit . According to S.H.I.E.L.D, they dug him out of the Arctic about a week ago. Peter isn’t exactly sure how he feels about Captain America being alive. Because on the one hand, Captain America was alive and on the other Captain America was alive. 

All of this, compounded with Peter’s own discoveries as of late, left a bad taste in his mouth. First there was Iron Man, then the emergence (and subsequent disappearance) of the Hulk in Chicago, and now Captain America and Space Dude. It was simpler when it was just him. When he was alone. Because with every new “super being” or “hero” that seemed to emerge, the bad guys got more and more creative. The emergence of Iron Man alone had caused Peter loads of trouble; wacked out scientists and engineers trying their hand at replicating the famous red and gold super suit. The Hulk had unleashed waves of people studying gamma radiation and other dangerous substances, hoping to get the same incredible, super powered effects. Peter had been left to deal with a lot of the fall out. Super heroes created super villains. Sure, if Peter had remained solo, the same thing might have happened. But it would have happened linearly, slowly, gradually. Nobody knew how Peter got his powers. And if nobody had any idea, then the bad guys would have had to be original in their quest for power. 

Everybody knew how Tony Stark built himself a suit and became Iron Man. Everybody knew how Bruce Banner played around with some chemicals he shouldn’t have and ended up the strongest man alive. When Steve Rogers had been injected with the Super Soldier Serum, people had spent decades trying to recreate it, with varying degrees of success. History was repeating itself. And Peter was watching it happen. 

Newton’s Third Law states that for every action in nature there is an equal and opposite reaction. The creation of super heroes would lead to the creation of super villains. Nick Fury was right. Something was coming and if Peter had to guess, it was coming soon.  

🕸

“Trouble sleeping?” Fury called across the gym. The man hitting the heavy bag paused, looking towards the doorway Fury was lingering in. The man sighed when he caught sight of the spy, and turned back towards the punching bag. 

“I slept for 70 years, sir. I think I’ve had my fill.” 

“Then you should be out, celebrating, seeing the world.” Fury chided, walking towards the man. The man paused to look Fury up and down, breathing heavily. He turned and walked away, beginning to unwrap his gloves as he did so. 

“When I went under, the world was at war. I wake up and they say we won. They didn’t say what we lost.”

“We’ve made some mistakes along the way,” Fury conceded. “Some, very recently.” 

“Are you here with a mission, sir?” 

“I am.”

“Trying to get me back in the world?” 

“Trying to save it,” Fury said, handing over a manila folder. The man looked at it, obvious concern on his face. 

“HYDRA’s secret weapon…” 

“Howard Stark fished that out of the ocean when he was looking for you,” Fury told him. “He thought what we think; The Tesseract could be the key to unlimited sustainable energy. That’s something the world sorely needs.” 

“Who took it from you?” The man asked, handing Fury back the folder. 

“He’s called Loki. He’s not from around here. There’s a lot we’ll have to bring you up to speed on if you’re in. The world has gotten even stranger than you already know.” 

“At this point, I doubt anything would surprise me.” 

“Ten bucks says you’re wrong. There’s a debriefing packet waiting for you back at your apartment,” Fury told him as Steve Rogers walked out of the gym, back in one hand and a punching bag slung over his shoulder. 

“Is there anything you can tell us about the Tesseract that we ought to know now?” Fury asked. 

“You should have left it in the ocean.” 

🕸

“Hey Trevor, how’re you doing?” Peter asks, walking into the back room of the little boutique. Trevor spins around to face him, a bright smile on his face. 

“Spider-Man! Good to see you up and walking around. You took a heavy hit last night. What was that guy's name? Electrocutioner? Zappy? Sparks?” Trevor asked, turning back around to fiddle with something on his table. Peter rubbed his right shoulder, still sore from his fight just a few hours ago. 

“Shocker,” Peter told him bluntly. Trevor nodded absentmindedly.

“Y’know, ever since Tony Stark started parading around his is metal monstrosity, you seem to get beat up a lot more,” Trevor said, almost yelling over the sound of his sewing machine. Peter let out a long suffering sigh. 

“You’re telling me about it.” The whirring noise of Trevor’s machine stopped and the man spun around excitedly to face Peter. 

“There! Finished!” Trevor said with a flourish. In his hand was a piece of red and blue fabric and Peter gasped. 

“Trevor, you made me another one?” Peter asked, floored. Trevor nodded excitedly. 

“Yeah! I figure since you keep ending up against crazier and crazier people, your suit could use an upgrade. It looks pretty much the same, but it’s a bit more reinforced in a couple places. Fireproof, water proof, and, now, will keep you from getting electrocuted again. Not to mention you’ve put on a bit more muscle mass since I last saw you. I figured it was time for a new one.” 

“Trevor, you didn’t have to do this,” Peter protested, feeling breathless. Trevor waved him off. 

“Just go put it on, Bug Boy,” Trevor teased. Peter didn’t bother correcting him about the bug thing, he figured Trevor had earned a freebe. Like always the suit fit him perfectly. Peter noticed the thicker material and couldn’t help but be blown away by the amount of time and effort Trevor had to have put into it. When he stepped out of the dressing room Trevor was practically ecstatic. 

“Let me know if you need anything adjusted, I’m happy to do it. Don’t even try getting out of taking the suit, Spider-Man, I mean it.” Trevor said. Peter laughed. 

“Thank you, Trevor. Seriously. This is amazing.” 

“Amazing’s what I do, kid. Now get out of here. Show the world my creation!” 

Peter opened his mouth to thank the man again, but a slight click in his ear stopped him. 

Spider-Man, intoned the clear voice of his latest creation, his AI named Karen. Peter had spent the better part of the last year working on her but now she was better than ever. Well, she was currently just a little voice in his ear, but Peter hoped to one day incorporate her into his entire suit. Peter pressed a finger to his ear. 

“Go,” he said. 

It appears that Nick Fury is at your designated meeting spot. He has been there for approximately 1 minute and 28 seconds. Well shit. Peter turned to Trevor. 

“Listen, Trevor, I gotta run, something’s come up. Thank you so much for the suit, it's fantastic, I love it, I owe you a ton.” Peter rambled, heading towards the door. “I’ll leave the old one with you for now, I’ll swing by and grab it later.” Trevor just nodded, already moving to put the old suit in a locked drawer. Peter paused at the door, turning to face the kind man that had helped him more than Peter would ever be able to express.

“And Trevor, I think you should take your family and get out of the city for a while. Something’s coming. Something big.” Trevor’s eyes widened at Peter’s warning but he nodded nonetheless, face set in cool determination. 

“We’ll leave tonight.” Peter nodded and rushed out the door, launching himself in the direction of Midtown. 

Chapter Text

“Is this meant to be my phone call?” Peter asked as he landed silently behind Fury on the roof. The spy stiffened at his sudden arrival, but didn’t do much more than that. 

“It is,” Fury conceded. “Am I catching you at a bad time? I heard you got a little roughed up last night.” Peter rolled his eyes under the mask, walking up to stand beside the superspy. 

“If you could call getting thrown clear through a building ‘roughed up’, sure, I got a little roughed up. This is as fine a time as any. What did you do?” Fury turned to look at him critically. 

“What did I do?” Fury asked. Peter shrugged. 

“I assume just about everything is your fault until proven otherwise, Nicky. Gotta keep you on your toes.” Peter told him, tone light. Fury looked up to the sky as if praying for strength. 

“You’re lucky you’re good at what you do, Spider-Man. You’re one of the biggest pains in my ass since the 90s.” 

“Glad to hear it,” Peter quipped. “Now, back to the topic at hand. What did you do?” Fury sighed. 

“Recently, S.H.I.E.L.D. has been experimenting with a new energy source-” Peter let out a loud groan, cutting Fury off. 

“You lost it didn’t you?” Peter asked, pinching the bridge of his nose. 

“We didn’t lose it ,” Fury ground out, agitation clear in his voice. “It got taken from us.”

“Right. You lost it.”

“The point , is that it’s gone. The individual who took it is an unknown. Highly dangerous, volatile, and from outer space,” Fury added on at the end, obviously looking for a reaction. 

“Aliens? Of course. Typical. Y’know Nick, I was having a really good weekend. Got to sleep in, had a nice lunch…And you’re dragging me off to fight aliens. Great. Wonderful. Fantastic. I assume we’re leaving right now because a few days' notice would be simply out of the question for the shadow government, right?” Fury gave him a blank stare. Peter sighed. 

“Lead the way.” 

🕸

Peter ends up on a helicarrier, sitting at a kind of conference table overlooking the operations floor of the aircraft. Peter knows it’s easily the nicest, most expensive place he’s ever been, but he puts his feet up on the table anyway, ignoring the phantom chastising of his Aunt, for the sole reason of pissing off Fury. Judging by the indignant look the spy sends him, it’s working. 

“Sir, Doctor Banner, Agent Romanoff, and Captain Rogers are all on board,” a strict looking woman with dark hair informs Fury. 

“Send them in,” he tells her with a nod. The woman strides off with purpose, talking into a walkie talkie. 

“I shouldn’t have to tell you to be on your best behavior,” Fury begins, his lone eye sliding over to Peter critically. “But I’ll do it anyway. Don’t make me throw you off this ship.” Peter raised his hands innocently, mask hiding the grin on his face. Judging by the glare Fury sends him, Peter thinks he sees it anyway. Fury turns and takes his place at what Peter supposes is the helm of the massive ship. The S.H.I.E.L.D. agents pick up in their chatter, relaying commands and information. Peter doesn’t bother listening to it. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees the red headed woman from all those months ago enter. Trailing behind her is a wiry looking man in a tweed coat and blonde haired blue eyed tank that could only be Captain America. Peter takes his feet off the table. He doesn’t delusion himself into thinking he’s gone unnoticed, but none of the newcomers pay him any mind. He’s fine keeping it that way. 

Fury turns back towards the newcomers. Doctor Banner has moved behind the table and is eyeing Peter critically but he does his best to ignore it.

“Gentlemen,” Fury begins, walking towards the table. Rogers reaches into his pocket and pulls out what looks like a ten dollar bill. Fury takes it before approaching Banner. Well. Peter sees how it is. Annoyed and ignored, Peter simply stood up and slipped out of the room. Best behavior his ass; it was time to snoop. 

🕸

About an hour later, Peter has found himself completely turned around on the giant ship. Each hallway he turns down leads to one exactly the same. Peter lets out a sigh of frustration. 

“Karen, why does the government design everything to be so boring and monotonous?” He asks to seemingly empty air. 

To appear uniform and organized , Karen told him blandly, as if she was as unimpressed with the answer as he was. 

I have finished downloading the ship’s schematics as well as accessing the mainframe. Would you like me to guide you back to the control deck?

“Sure, Karen. That’ll be great. Mind updating me on the way?” 

Of course. After my preliminary search, I have found the data about the “energy source” S.H.I.E.L.D. has been researching. It is called the Tesseract. It is what Captain Rogers intended to give his life to protect in 1942. Records indicate that the Nazi group HYDRA was obsessed with it and were trying to use it to recreate the Super Soldier Serum, as well as create advanced weapons. The blueprints for those weapons are aboard this helicarrier. 

“So I was right,” Peter scoffed, turning down another hallway at Karen’s direction. “S.H.I.E.L.D. is doing something stupid like making weapons.” 

It would appear so. In addition, the being who has taken the Tesseract from S.H.I.E.L.D. is a man named Loki. He comes from what is referred to as Asgard. 

“Asgard?” Peter repeats, brows furrowing. “Isn’t that the same place as the New Mexico Space Dude was from?” 

One and the same. It appears that Loki is the ‘New Mexico Space Dude’s’ brother. They both have ties to Norse mythology. In the myths, Loki and his brother, Thor, were essentially Gods. Loki being a trickster god of mischief and Thor being the god of thunder. 

“First they’re aliens and now their ancient deities. Wonderful,” Peter grumbles under his breath. He can hear the chatter of the control room now. He doubts they’ve noticed he’s missing. Well. Fury probably did, but it seemed he didn’t care enough to send out a search party. 

S.H.I.E.L.D. facial recognition software just picked up a match for Loki in Germany. I estimate you will be deployed there to capture him. 

“But I don’t speak German,” Peter protested. 

“Spider-Man, how nice of you to join us,” Fury called loudly. Several heads in the room snapped up at Fury’s voice. Peter ignored the stares. 

“Care to share with the class what you were doing?” Fury asked, eyebrow raised and unimpressed. Peter just shrugged. 

“Spiders have eight legs, Nick. I don’t know how you expect me to stretch them in here.” Captain Roger’s looked a little put off by Peter’s joke, like he expected new sets of legs to suddenly sprout from his torso. 

“Captain Rogers, this is Spider-Man. He scurried away before I had a chance to introduce you earlier.” Fury said blandly. Peter gave a half-hearted salute. 

“You can ignore him for the most part, unless you feel like listening to incessant babbling,” Agent Romanoff spoke up as she strode into the room. Peter raised a hand to his chest in mock offense. 

“ Ouch,” he said, “that hurts, Romanoff. Right here, in my little spider-heart.” The red head leveled him a flat glare. She turned to Fury. 

“Is he coming?” She asked, obviously hoping the answer would be no. Fury nodded. 

“He’s back up.” Agent Romanoff obviously seemed displeased by this answer, but didn’t protest. 

🕸

The flight into Stuttgart is a quick one. Peter would be perfectly content to sit through it in silence, but for some strange reason, Rogers felt the need to converse with him. 

“I hear you’re the first,” Rogers starts, sitting across from him on the plane. Romanoff is in the cockpit, engaged in flying the plane, but Peter knows she’s listening. 

“The first what?” Peter asks. 

“The first superhero,” Rogers says. Peter scoffed. 

“I’m not a superhero,” Peter told him flatly. Instead of pushing the subject, Rogers seems content to accept his answer. 

“Why do you wear a mask?” Rogers asks. Peter tilts his head. 

“I know Stark and Banner make it seem like the whole secret identity thing is overrated, but I happen to care about the people in my life. I can’t drag this up to their doorstep. This life.” Peter explains. Rogers gets a confused look on his face. 

“This life?” He asks. Peter just shakes his head. 

“I know you only ever had to be Captain America during the war, so I get it’s probably a foreign concept to you, but this ,” Peter says, gesturing all around him, “does not just go away. It’s gonna cling to you like mud. And if you’re not careful, it’ll stain everything you care about. Poison it. You’re never gonna get to be just Steve Rogers. Everyone, everywhere , is always gonna know you’re Captain America. The same goes for Stark and Banner. There’s no cleaning the mud off. I wear a mask to keep it from sticking the best I can. I get to stop being Spider-Man.” Rogers looks a little put off by his reasoning and sits silently for the rest of the flight, considering. 

“Alright, Cap, you’re up,” Romanoff says, breaking the silence after another couple minutes. Rogers rolls his shoulders and promptly jumps out of the plane. Peter sets in to watch. 

The first thing he learns about Loki is that the guy has a major attitude problem. Peter doesn’t like him (though he figures it would be pretty awkward for Fury if Peter ended up siding with the guy). 

Peter hears Stark coming even before the man hacks his way into the speakers of the jet; Jesus his repulsors were loud. With Stark on the way, Peter is content to sit back and let the superheroes handle the god; Peter doesn’t get paid enough to deal with extraterrestrials. He does, however, get concerned when Loki surrenders so easily. If Karen’s info is right, and it usually is, Loki was essentially a god older than the modern world. And he just…gave up. Peter feels the tell-tale prick of his spidey-sense burn at the base of his neck and stands with his arms crossed, watching with critical eyes as Loki is brought aboard the plane. 

“Spiderling,” Stark greets, surprise evident on his face when he catches sight of Peter. “I didn’t realize Fury had you on his payroll.” Peter doesn’t move his eyes off of Loki, watching as Rogers manhandles the god into a seat. 

“He doesn’t.” Peter answers plainly. Stark, however, doesn’t take Peter’s flat tone for the closer it is and presses on. 

“Word on the street is you don’t like me all too much. Care to enlighten me?” Stark asks. Peter looks over to him, narrowing his eyes. 

“You want to discuss our interpersonal problems in front of the enemy or can your ego wait until we’re back at base?” Stark raises his hands in mock surrender but Peter catches the glint in his eyes. Peter ignores the billionaire and Rogers, moving instead to sit directly across from Loki. Rogers and Stark start up a conversation at the front of the plane, but Peter tunes them out. 

“So you’re the spider,” Loki states suddenly, leaning back in his chair as much as he is able, which, granted, isn’t much. The near straight-jacket the god/man is in limits some of his charisma, but Peter doesn’t doubt he could break free if he really wanted to. Peter’s surprised the man engaged first, but he decides to roll with it. 

“I am,” Peter admits easily, leaning back in his own seat to mirror Loki. 

“You’re the god of mischief,” Peter says, directing the conversation away from himself. He has no doubt that Loki’s smart. Very, very smart. The less he gives away about himself the better. Loki’s face splits into a grin. 

“I am,” he says, mirroring Peter’s answer back to him. Peter tilts his head, listening closely to see if he can pick up on the man’s heart beat. Do Asgardians even have hearts? (Peter finds the answer to be yes). 

“Taking over the world seems a bit more diabolical than mischievous. Unless, of course, you have plans to be a fun dictator,” Peter remarks. Loki’s smile darkens and Peter represses a shiver. 

“The human race is meant to be ruled . Humanity is sorely missing the leader it needs. You run wild, like rats trapped in a maze. You have no direction, no purpose. You slaughter each other without remorse. You kill and steal and bleed your countrymen dry for a scrap of power. Your freedom is your oppression. I intend to relieve you of this burden.” Loki explained. Peter had a feeling he would be gesturing grandly if he wasn’t so tightly restrained. Peter shrugged. 

“I guess.” Loki paused at this. 

“You…guess?” He said, confusion clear in his tone, like he couldn’t fathom Peter agreeing with him. Peter just shrugged again. 

“Would people be less inclined to kill each other if we were all united under a common monarch? If we were one people? Maybe. I don’t get paid to answer those questions. What I do know,” Peter said, leaning forward in his seat to fully meet Loki’s eyes. “Is that humans have a nasty little habit of hating being told what to do. Men have tried to conquer humanity before, y’know. Men that were thought to be gods. Over and over and over again. It’s never really stuck.” 

Loki opened his mouth to respond, brow furrowed when suddenly a crack of lightning echoed through the frame of the plane. 

“Where’s this coming from,” Peter heard Romanoff mutter from the front. Across from him, Loki stiffened. Interesting. 

“What’s the matter? Scared of a little lightning?” Rogers asked from his position leaning on the side of the plane near the cockpit. Loki looked around nervously. 

“I’m not overly fond of what follows,” he admitted. Peter’s eyes widened. Right. God of Thunder. There was a heavy thunk from the top of the ship before Stark opened the bay doors, pulling his helmet on. 

“Oh, shit!” Peter exclaimed, frantically grabbing the sides of his seat so he didn’t go flying out of the plane. A blonde man dressed in strange looking armor, who had to be Thor, Loki’s supposed brother, landed in the plane. Stark raised his hand to fire off a repulsor blast, ignoring Peter’s frantic wait! and was promptly smacked into the side of the ship with a war hammer. Thor grabbed Loki by the neck and practically dragged him out of the ship, flying off before anyone else could get a word in edgewise. 

“Oh fuck me,” Peter said emphatically, burrying his head in his hands. The trio of idiots Peter was currently in the unfortunate company of exchanged a few words before both Stark and Rogers decided that jumping out of the plane was the right move. Peter let out a low groan. 

Spider-Man , Karen’s smooth voice intoned in his ear. During your conversation with Loki, I was able to compile an ID on his unique energy signature. Would you like me to track his location?

“That’d be great, Karen, thanks.” Peter mumbled before moving up to the front of the jet. 

“What do you think you’re doing?” Romanoff bit out at him as he reached for the center console. 

“Relax,” Peter placated, moving slowly as to telegraph his movements so Romanoff wouldn’t freak out and do something annoying like shoot him. “I tagged him.” Romanoff sent him a curious glance. 

“Loki?” She asked. Peter hummed in acknowledgement. Reaching into one of his many hidden pockets (thank you Trevor), Peter pulled out a small flash drive and plugged it into the center console. The screens all around them flashed red for a brief second before Peter’s spider emblem was displayed. Romanoff sent him a surprised look. Peter rolled his eyes. 

“Listen, I know you hate me, but, contrary to popular opinion, I’m not actually a complete idiot. Loki and Thor are moving North, fast . Stark can probably head them off but Rogers is gonna be lagging behind. Stak, also contrary to popular opinion, is an idiot and will try and fight Thor. Loki’ll be alone. We just need to find where Thor stashes him.” Natasha gives him an appraising look. 

“Alright, let’s see if you’re right, Spider-Man.” Peter nods and watches as Loki’s position lights up on the plane’s radar. 

Chapter Text

Peter’s energy tracker or, rather, Karen’s impeccable work, leads them straight to Loki. On a cliff. Alone. (Peter suppresses a scream of frustration) . 

“Nice weather,” Peter says nonchalantly, landing silently next to the god. Loki doesn’t flinch at his sudden arrival, though Peter didn’t exactly expect him to. He’s still in his bonds, sitting patiently as if he was just waiting for someone to come and pick him up. It sets Peter on edge. Off in the distance, he hears the distinct sound of Stark’s repulsor blasts. They’re probably about 1, maybe 2 miles out. Still well within the range of Peter’s senses. (If he really wanted to, he could probably hear what they were talking about could probably hear their heartbeats .) 

“You are different from the rest of them,” Loki remarks suddenly. Peter sends him a sideways glance but doesn’t do much else, content to let Loki talk. (Peter’s gotten pretty good at letting the bad guys talk long enough to purger themselves). He sits down on the edge of the cliff, feet dangling off the side. It’s a risky move, especially with his back to the god, but Peter wants Loki to think he’s arrogant and reckless and perhaps a bit stupid. Loki struck Peter as a manipulator and a good one at that; he’d rather not let the Asgardian into his head. 

Rather than pushing him off the cliff and making a break for it like Peter half expected him to do, the god joins him in sitting. Peter stares off into the distance, watching the faint glow of Stark’s repulsor blasts light up a patch of forest. 

“They’ll never accept you,” Loki tells him and Peter feels the slight buzz of his spidey sense as the words seep into his mind. Magic . Peter scoffs before he can help himself because of course sorcery is the logical progression of this shit show. It goes from aliens, to gods, to wizards. Loki’s eyes light up maliciously and the buzz at the base of his skull turns into a burn. 

“They’ll never trust you. You’re different from them, better, and they’ll always hate you for it. You will always be an outsider to them, a faceless nuisance behind a mask. A tool. A weapon.” Loki’s words hiss in his ear, slithering into his mind and oozing into the cracks and crevices of his heart. If Peter were anyone else, if he didn’t have a familiar burning at the base of his neck, if he didn’t know that Loki was weaving magic into his words, he probably would have cared. Peter tilted his head to look at Loki, masked face flat and bored. 

“Okay?” Peter asked, tone clearly asking where he was supposed to give a fuck, sarcasm heavy in his voice. Loki’s eye twitched. Peter smiled behind the mask. A heavy boom echoed in the air, the shock wave that followed ruffling Loki’s cloak and the trees around them. Looks like the big kids had finished their little spat. Peter clapped his hands and stood. 

“Alrighty, time to go,” Peter said. Before Loki could get a word in edgewise, Peter dragged him up by his collar and pulled him towards the plane. Loki lets out a small noise of surprise and looks at Peter incredulously, as if he is surprised Peter can pull him around. Peter just rolls his eyes and keeps moving. 

🕸

Peter never had been a fan of group projects. Science fairs, research presentations, book reports, you name it; nerdy Peter Parker always ended up doing all the work. Suckered into it by various jocks, preps, and all around assholes with daddy’s money. 

Some things never change. 

Peter observed idly from his corner of the room as the various spies, demigods/aliens, scientists, and 80 year old men watched from their seats at the conference table as Loki was paraded through the helicarrier and into his cell. It was all rather chauvinistic, in Peter’s humble opinion. Then Fury started talking and Peter couldn’t help but roll his eyes behind his mask. Drama queen . 

“In case it’s unclear, if you try to escape, if you so much as scratch that glass,” Fury began his monologue, pausing for dramatic effect as the hatch door under Loki’s cage opened. 

“30,000 feet straight down in a steel trap. You get how that works? Ant,” Fury noted condescendingly, “boot.” Loki seemed rather unimpressed with the display and Peter couldn’t blame him. For all they knew the guy could fly. Peter felt a slight burn at the base of his neck and he snapped his head up, eyes narrowing to observe Loki on the monitor. He moved forward, leaning against the table and earning himself a rather severe side eye from Romanoff. Loki chuckled. 

“It’s an impressive cage. Not built, I think, for me,” Loki remarked coyly, hands raised in faux innocence as he backed away from the walls. Peter sucked in a breath. 

“Built for something a lot stronger than you,” Fury remarked pointedly. Peter’s eyes widened. He looked around at the rest of the table, at the largely impassive faces of the adults around him and Peter was once again snapped back to his latest group presentation. The dramatic principle of Chekhov's Gun runs though his mind and Peter almost laughs. He pushes off the table lightly, returning to his place against the wall. Under his breath, he asks Karen a baited question. 

“Karen? Am I hallucinating or did Doctor Banner get on board this helicarrier with us and end up standing to my left?” He murmured. 

You would be correct, Spider-Man. 

Peter hummed. This was gonna be great (read: a major pain in his ass). 

Loki prattled on a bit more, making his intentions even more obvious, just in case anyone in the room missed it. Peter honestly started turning him out. Everyone knows you aren’t supposed to unveil your evil plan so early on. Something something godly pride Peter thought with a shake of his head. 

“He really grows on you doesn’t he?” Banner’s voice snapped him out of his thoughts, dragging everything back into focus. 

“Loki’s gonna drag this out,” Rogers remarked. “So,” he looked up at the blonde demigod pacing in front of the table. “Thor, what’s his play?” Peter’s neck practically snapped from how fast he whipped his head around to look at the Captain so fast. Was he…for real? What’s his play? After the whole monologue about the Hulk and puny humans and power and whatnot? 

“He has an army called the Chitauri,” Thor told them solemnly. Peter nodded. Right. Loki was gonna invade after he got the Hulk to kill them all. That’s the plan. How do we solve this? Drop Banner off at the nearest 7-11 with $30 and an apology for wasting his time. Invasion canceled. 

“They’re not of Asgard, nor any world known,” Thor continued. “He means to lead them against your people.They will win him the Earth in return, I suspect, for the Tesseract.” Was Peter traveling through time at a different rate than the rest of these people? Fury played around with space magic like an idiot , accidentally summoned the aliens, who are using Loki as a proxy for invasion. Loki’s obvious and dumb plan is to get the Hulk to kill everyone and leave the Earth defenseless for the invasion.  Why weren’t they at 7-11 yet? 

“An army, from outer space,” Rogers remarked, looking around the table at the slightly pinched faces of the other adults. Peter dragged his hands down his masked face, a silent oh my god mouthed behind his mask. 

“So, he’s building another portal,” Banner said. Peter sent the scientist a betrayed look. How else was he going to lead an invasion force on Earth? If Peter was the one doing the invading, he would open multiple portals all across the world and have numerous invasions at once to maximize destruction and domination, but hey; he’d signed on with the Girl Scouts. (And boy was it a good thing for the Girl Scouts. At this rate the invasion would be over before they figured out the whole Hulk thing). Peter started tuning them out again. There was only so much he could take. 

“-a stabilizing agent,” Peter heard along with the abrasive whirling of some kind of electronic. Peter dug his finger in his ear as an attempt to get rid of the ringing sound. He found his efforts to be fruitless. Great. Stark had arrived. 

The billionaire finished his conversation with Coulson (who looked less than thrilled to be engaged in it) before turning back to the group. 

“It means the portal won’t collapse on itself like it did at S.H.I.E.L.D.” Peter rolled his eyes. He figured Stark hadn’t gotten to show off to this particular crowd yet; he must be jumping for joy. Peter didn’t particularly care to listen to Stark prattle on about his intricate understanding of Loki’s invasion portal. He’d already looked at all the specks on the S.H.I.E.L.D failure courtesy of Karen earlier. After letting Stark play commander at Fury’s command station (cause he knew the spy would hate it) and not so subtly plug something into the mainframe, Peter interrupted Stark’s ramblings, eager to get the show on the road.  

“Oh my god, he needs to heat the cube to 120 million Kelvin to break the Coulomb barrier OR he stabilizes the quantum tunneling effect and achieves heavy ion fusion. Therefore, gamma radiation. Now can we please get Banner to a 7-11?” 

“What?” Banner asked, confusion heavy in his voice. Stark, however, at that same little glint in his eyes that Peter saw on the plane. 

“Spider-Kid, what a pleasant surprise,” Stark said, sliding closer to Peter. Peter batted him away. 

“I’m not a child to be placated, Stark,” Peter sneered before turning a cold gaze to the rest of the adults in the room. “In case it wasn’t glaringly obvious, which it was, by the way, Loki’s plan is to unleash the Hulk and get him to destroy us, paving the way for a nice, problem free invasion. So, I suggest we get Banner out of here and focus on making sure Loki’s buddies don’t come help him escape.” 

“Doctor Banner is only here to track the cube,” Fury interrupted as he entered the room. Peter turned and leveled a glare at the man. 

“No offense Dr. Banner, I’m sure you’re a great guy,” Peter said, waving a hand in the man’s direction. “But that doesn’t change the fact that Banner houses an enormous threat inside of him. Loki is a manipulator and a god. He’ll get in our heads. Turn us against each other. He already tried it with me and I’d bet my life on the idea that he can manipulate emotions too. Do you want to risk the safety of your ship, all the people on it, and our goal of stopping Loki on Banner’s ability to overcome the influence of the literal demigod magician locked up in the basement?” 

“Dr. Banner will not be anywhere near Loki during his time here. He’ll be perfectly safe,” Fury reasoned. 

“Besides, “ Natasha interjected, tone filled with fake cheer. “If Loki’s already tried it with you and failed, I think the rest of us will be just fine.” 

“I’m sorry, are you trying to tell me you think that mind control magic , from a god , is going to be limited by walls? ” Peter asked incredulously, pointedly ignoring the Black Widow’s snide remarks. (Peter didn’t exactly have any need to let them know about his handy dandy little sixth sense). 

“It’s a risk we’ll have to take,” Fury said, leveling his tone and trying to shut down Peter’s protests. Peter, however, wasn't going down without a fight. 

“Are you even listening to me, Nick? Hold up, let me guess. What exactly is Banner going to be looking at? Hmm? What is going to be his very first step in tracking the Tesseract? He’s going to look at the scepter right? Loki’s magic glow stick that’s powered by the Tesseract and is proven to have mind control powers? Or are we just forgetting that Barton isn’t here?” Peter bit out. Natasha didn’t slam her hand down on the table, but it was a near thing. Peter caught the cold, simmering rage in her eyes and he could smell the blood in her mouth from biting her tongue.  

Peter looked around the room. Looked at the men and women working on the helicarrier, doing a frankly admirable job of ignoring the conversation at the table. These people were just at work, doing their job. More critically, Peter looked around at the adults assembled at said table. Tony Stark, (who was looking at him like he wanted to dissect him) the billionaire playboy genius in a super suit probably worth a couple million alone, Bruce Banner, one of the greatest scientists in the world and the host to probably one of the most destructive creatures alive, Thor, a god, respectively, Steve Rogers, who was literally Captain America, and Natasha Romanoff, an international superspy, ex-assassin, who probably knew 20 different ways to kill someone with a paperclip. Peter looked at the man leading them. Nick Fury was a lot of things. A liar, most prominently, but also a man who was willing to do anything to achieve his end goal. Peter had dug through S.H.I.E.L.D.S. mission reports. He’d had Karen scour the trenches of their network. He knew what S.H.I.E.L.D. was up to and he knew that Nick Fury’s end goals would never, ever align with Peter’s end goals. And Peter knew that Nick Fury would use the men and women at this table as a weapon, a scalpel to cut away at the world and shape it as he saw fit. (And Peter knew they wouldn’t even realize it until they were a dull blade Fury no longer needed). 

Loki was right. Peter wasn’t like the people at this table. He couldn’t afford to be. Peter didn’t have the luxury of believing in bullshit. 

“Well,” Spider-Man said coolly. “Have fun with your invasion.” He turned, beginning to walk out of the room. 

“Just where do you think you’re going?” Fury barked, hands on his hips. Spider-Man turned back to him. 

“You told me all I had to do was pick up the phone and listen. I did. And I’ve disagreed. I’m not joining your little initiative ,” Spider-Man snarled, enjoying the way Fury bristled at his word choice. He turned to the adults as the table, each of them looking at him with varying levels of trepidation. 

“You wanna go play superheroes? Fine . But leave me out of it. Some of us have work to do.” 

“And how exactly do you plan on getting off this ship?” Fury asked condescendingly, as if he had somehow won. Spider-Man smirked over his shoulder. 

“You still don’t even know who I am. You don’t think I can steal a jet?” 

🕸

Peter does, in fact, steal one of Fury’s jets. Karen does most of the piloting (not that Fury needs to know) and he leaves the jet abandoned in some field in upstate New York (GPS tracker off, just to fuck with em). Peter goes to school, rounding out his sophomore year, and does his best to ignore the steady pressure building in the back of his head. 

It’s three days later when that pressure turns into a burn at the base of his neck, his hairs rising to stand on end. It’s the middle of fourth period on a Wednesday, the only class Peter has with Harry and Peter never wanted to do it like this. Never wanted to do it at all. But his spider-sense is screaming at him like it never has before, not when Peter’s getting shot at or a building is coming down around him and Peter knows it’s time. Because if he doesn’t do this right now, people are gonna die. His classmates, his teachers, his friends are gonna die. Peter needs to go. And Peter can’t leave Harry helpless. 

“Harry,” Peter says lowly under his breath, turning slightly to face his friend. Harry hums absentmindedly, more focused on his doodling than Peter. 

“ Harry ,” Peter says again, a bit more insistently. Something in his tone must give him away because Harry looks up at him with eyes full of concern. In that split moment, that second , Harry looks nothing like Norman Osborn, nor does he look anything like the cold, distant pictures of the woman Peter will never meet and rarely hears about. In that moment, all Peter can see in Harry’s face is Ben . 

The thing is, Peter almost tells him. Almost tells him everything . Almost tells him how Peter has spent the last two years. How Peter has bled for this city and the people in it. How Peter has lost just about everything to his big, stupid responsibility. Ben would have wanted Peter to tell him. Ben wouldn't have wanted Peter to be alone. Ben wasn’t here. 

But Harry was. 

The thing is, Peter almost tells him.

Peter never gets the chance. 

In the breath between looking up to meet Harry in the eyes and opening his mouth, the sky above Stark Tower splits open and the burning at the base of Peter’s neck feels more like someone took a sword and shoved it though his mouth from behind. 

So instead of the everything Harry deserves, all he gets is Peter’s sharp eyes on him and the order find Ned. Harry Osborn, like the fantastic friend he is, returns Peter’s sharp eyes and nods. Because Peter has that look in his eyes; the look Harry knows means Peter is about to do something either incredibly stupid or incredibly brilliant. That good ol’ fashion Parker fire .  

But just as Peter turns, ready to disappear amongst the chaos of their panicking classmates, Harry’s firm hand grips his shoulder. Peter turns back and sees Harry with a look of his own and now Harry really looks nothing like his father; the indifferent Osborn ice is nowhere to be found. Instead, he gives Peter an almost knowing look and the grip on his shoulder tightens. 

“Come home,” Harry tells him. In any other circumstance, Peter would have laughed in incredulity and then joked the comment away, denial hot in his mind. Harry always was smarter than Norman gave him credit for . But Peter’s spidey-sense was still ringing, feeling like someone had grabbed the hilt of that sword and twisted . So instead, Peter pulls Harry into a tight hug, tight as he can muster without crushing him. And Harry, who always refuses touch from anyone , hugs him just as tightly back. Because they know what the portal now bleeding alien life forms means. Because they both know Peter might never be coming home . 

Peter pulls away first, hands still resting on Harry’s shoulders. He opens his mouth to say something but is cut off by an explosion. It was close. Too close . Peter turns back to Harry, feet already moving. 

“Find Ned,” Peter tells him again before disappearing into the stampede of students in the hallway. Peter isn’t helpless. Peter leaves. 

This time, it’s the right choice. 

🕸

The Avengers spend time clustered around Stark Tower, mostly trying to bottleneck the portal and corral the aliens into one place. They present a united front. Stronger together. (Peter doesn’t know what magic spell Fury managed to cast over them to amend that ticking time bomb of a team he had walked away from, but he was glad they at least got their shit together enough to fight). 

Peter spends the Battle of New York bloody and alone on the ground. While the Avengers tear through the city in an effort to stop Loki, Peter evacuated mothers, fathers, children, pets, and families out of the portal’s ground zero and across Manhattan the best he can. Peter catches bits of falling buildings and webs up collapsing bridges. He pulls people out of car wrecks and carries people to hospitals, his webbing the only thing holding them together; the only thing keeping their insides inside . His body aches and his suit bloody with a sickening amalgamation of other people’s and his own. 

Peter kills off the aliens that make it as far out as him by putting a fist through their chest and tries not to think about how easy it is. 

Karen helps him though it, looping him into police and other first responder chatter as well as the Avengers’ coms. He doesn’t let them know he’s online with them, but it’s helpful for him to know where they’re at (Manhattan is a big island. He can’t cover it alone, not for as long as he needs to). Which is the only reason why Peter knows what’s happening when his spidey-sense flares back up to dangerous levels, burning so furiously it hurts . 

The shadowiest part of the shadow government has sent a nuclear bomb to the island of Manhattan; if it hits, everything and everyone will die. 

Peter’s already swinging to the portal by the time Tony finishes talking. (Peter might not be able to put the nuke through the portal, but he can sure as hell try to drag the man who puts it there back through it). 

Peter’s almost there when he sees Stark disappear into the sky. He’s already in motion when he hears Captain America tell Romanoff to close the portal even though Stark’s still inside. ( Never meet your heroes, right?)

Peter, through a complicated swing pattern through the buildings surrounding Stark Tower, builds enough momentum (and a slingshot) to launch himself into the air as high as he can go. It’s not through the portal, not even close, but it is close enough to catch sight of Stark’s trademarked red and gold. It is close enough to send out a web to the man’s suit and drag him back through the portal, a hair's breadth away from it closing. (Peter sends every single one of the Avengers a curse on their bloodline in his mind). 

The Hulk catches Stark on the way down and Peter swings off, back into the fray. Just because all the aliens are dead doesn’t mean there isn’t still work to be done. While the Avengers deal with Loki, safe in their ivory tower, Peter stays on the streets. He pulls people out of collapsed subway tunnels and buildings, helps put out fires and move rubble. And just after Peter completes what he feels is the last task, just at the point when he feels his bones grinding against each other, his skin stretching and cracking with burns and cuts, his head ringing and vision blurry, just at the point when Peter feels he can no longer stand , he hears another cry for help, another weak heartbeat, another strangled breath. 

And so Peter goes again. 

🕸

It’s well into the night when Peter finally goes home. He crawls up the fire escape and pulls himself through his window, his muscles straining in herculean effort. He’s drenched in blood and sweat and grim. Everything hurts so bad he’s gone numb. He’s pulled open the stitches he gave himself for a cut the night before and he’s definitely rebroken a bone in his wrist. Aunt May won’t be home, she’d been pulled to Philadelphia this last month as a temp nurse for another hospital who’d been short staffed. He’s tired and hungry and alone. Just like always. (Some unbroken, optimistic part of him thinks that at least he can find comfort in routine.)

Except. 

Except this time, there’s a light on in his normally dark room, casting a warm glow on the figure resting on his bed. Except this time, Harry Osborn is waiting for him, quietly reading a copy of Emma . Except this time, Harry looks up and Peter is met with widening eyes and a sharp inhale. Except this time, Peter doesn’t have to peel the destroyed fabric of his suit from his body alone, doesn’t have to pick gravel and glass out of his skin by himself, doesn’t have to bleed in silence and solitude like he’d done almost every night for the past two years. 

“I wanted to tell you,” Peter says quietly after they’ve cleaned and stitched and debrided and bandaged. “Just didn’t know how I ever could.” Harry nods against him, their bodies carefully positioned so as to not aggravate Peter’s wounds any further. 

“It’s okay. I’ve known for a while,” Harry admits. Peter gives him an incredulous look. 

“How? I’ve been so careful,” Peter says. “I mean, nobody knows. Even the people who really, really want to and have been trying very, very hard to figure it out.” Harry just shrugs. 

“I think it’s cause I know you . There’s something about…you two move the same, you and him,” Harry explains. Peter nods along, thinking of ways he needs to change up his body language. Harry smirks, his smile full of teeth. 

“Plus, I found the suit in your room about two weeks ago,” Harry snickers. Peter lets out an affronted gasp. 

“What were you even doing in here?” Peter questions, trying to think of when he was dumb enough to let Harry roam around his room unsupervised. (Even before Spider-Man, Harry unsupervised was a bad idea). Harry just shrugs again. 

“Ned was complaining about leaving some Lego manual here. You weren’t home so I let myself in, figured it was probably on your desk somewhere and if I could get it to him he’d stop bitching about it every five minutes. Didn’t know I was gonna find that under your bed.” Peter sat in silence, taking in the explanation. After a few moments, he asked a very vital question. 

“Are you…mad?” Harry deflated against him, all his breath leaving at once. 

“Honestly? No. Not anymore. I was, at first. I kept thinking about how it wasn’t fair. Wasn’t fair that you didn’t trust me enough to tell me. Wasn’t fair that you got to go off and be a superhero and I didn’t. I mean, you’re living practically every little kid’s dream . But,” Harry trailed off, not looking at Peter. “But then I started doing the math on a couple of things. On you dropping all your extracurriculars, coming to school with bruises and busted lips more and more, coming to school tired. On Melissa Vought. On Ben. And…” Harry choked a bit and Peter startled, looking down to realize his friend was nearing tears. “And then I saw you tonight. Earlier, I mean. On the news. There was footage of Spider-Man lifting a piece of rubble and dragging a kid out from it. Only, only the kid had an i-beam through his stomach and there was so much blood and it was so horrible to see that on the news, to even see that at all but all I could think about was that you were right there . You were right there, holding that kid in your arms. And then his arm moved and the cameras cut away because he was alive but he wouldn’t be soon and all I could think about was you holding him. Having to tell him he would be okay. Having to ask his name .” Harry looked up at him now, tears leaving tracks on his cheeks.

“That kid is dead, isn’t he? He’s dead and you had to watch him die. Couldn’t leave him alone in his final moments so you had to stay and watch.” Peter just nodded, head still feeling heavy and chest feeling heavier. 

“I had to watch for a lot of people today,” Peter tells him quietly. Harry let out a sob. 

“I’m so sorry, Peter. I’m sorry I was ever angry at you for this. Sorry I was ever jealous of this . Sorry you have to do it. I’m just…just sorry,” Harry tells him, voice a little wet sounding and Peter has to blink back a few tears of his own. 

They lay like that for a long time, breathing together. Harry falls asleep first and Peter soon after. All around them, the city mourns. 

Chapter Text

In the past two years Trevor has worked with Spider-Man, there are a few things he can safely say. 

1: Spider-Man was young . Younger than a lot of people realize. (Younger than people would care to imagine ). Trevor has, in a strange way, watched him grow up. He’s proud to say that he has, proud of the young man he’s watched grow into the hero he is. Still. The kid should have never had to grow up like this . 

2: He was smart. So unbelievably smart that Trevor’s head spun thinking about it. Every once in a while the kid would come in to get his suit fixed up, talking about something Trevor hadn’t ever heard of, much less understood. But above that, more importantly, he was kind . He thanked Trevor every time. He would stay and catch up, asking how his daughter and husband were doing. Tell him to not worry so much about the suit, to work on his other projects. (Trevor didn’t tell him that no other project would compare to the pride he felt seeing Spider-Man swing through the skyline in one of his designs.) 

3: He won’t stop. Can’t stop. Trevor asked him, once, what made him do what he did. What kind of motive he had. What kind of willpower and drive could take a kid and put him behind a mask. Spider-Man had gotten a far off kind of look, so distant behind the mask that Trevor felt as though he was looking at a mannequin again, not a living person. Spider-Man told him that he had a responsibility to help people. That he wasn’t born being able to do the things he could do. He told him that if he didn’t use the powers he’d been given, when bad things happened, they would be on him . Then he’d looked Trevor in the eyes, the lenses of his mask catching in the light, and he told him something that Trevor would never, never forget. 

I never wanted to be any kind of vigilante or ‘superhero’. I never wanted any of this. But I’m not helpless. Not anymore. I have the chance to help people now; the choice . And I’d rather die than stand to the side and do nothing. 

So Trevor built him suits. Built them better, stronger, tougher. It was expensive and a time suck but Trevor would keep doing it as long as that kid needed him to. Because Trevor knew that Spider-Man would go out there without a suit, without protection. Trevor knew he would do it completely alone. (His daughter was alive because he had). 

When Spider-Man told him to get out of the city for a couple days, a frantic tone in his voice, Trevor had packed up his husband and daughter without a second thought, dragging them down the coast to Point Pleasant for two weeks. Trevor and his family weren’t even in the state during the Battle of New York. But Spider-Man was. And by god was he in it . 

The attack had started in the late morning, around 10:30. Evan had been in the kitchen making an early lunch for their daughter, Maya, who was thrilled to be missing school for the beach (even if the water was still a bit too cold to swim in). Trevor had been lazily flipping channels when the TV cut to static and an automated male voice blared from the speakers. 

We interrupt your scheduled programming for information from our emergency broadcast system. I repeat, this is a message from our emergency broadcast system. 

Evan came to stand behind the couch, arms crossed as Trevor kept his eyes trained on the screen. 

Breaking news from Manhattan, New York. I’m Lisa Lenez reporting live from what seems to be some kind of attack on Stark Tower. A strange beam of light has been spotted emitting from the tower, splitting the sky above it. Now, what this means, we still aren’t sure. Taking you closer to the action is Carlos Joya, our man on the ground. Carlos? 

The screen cut to a man standing on the sidewalk what looked to be only a few blocks from Stark Tower, the building standing tall and proud in the background. (The beam of light ominously cutting the image). 

Yeah, Lisa, I’m here a couple of blocks from Stark Tower, so far we have several reports of people spotting Iron Man and Spider-Man on the scene, as well as several unknown individuals who appear to be new superheroes. The strange anomaly over Stark Tower seems to be a portal of some sort and coming out of it are what appear to be some kind of life form. Now, we aren’t sure if these are aliens but- 

Carlos Joya was cut off by a futuristic metal spear being rammed through his chest. Behind him, Evan jumped and Trevor let out a yelp. As Carlos’ body fell, the being behind him was revealed to be a horrifying, alien looking being. An ugly amalgamation of skin and metal and teeth. The creature screeched at the camera, an ugly, grating sound, before running out of the frame. The TV cut to a colorful error screen, a dial tone echoing through the speakers. Trevor looked up at his husband, the horror he was feeling matched the look on Evan’s face. 

“I’ll get Maya,” Evan said, swallowing thickly. Trevor nodded, mind running a mile a minute.

Through the day, Evan kept Maya largely in her room of their rented condo. Trevor flitted about, nervously flicking through different news channels and scouring the internet for any information he could find. He couldn’t find much. But. Beyond the destruction and debris and aliens , there was one consistency: 

Spider-Man . 

In nearly every news report, every eyewitness testimony, every shot of footage, there he was. 

Spider-Man pulled me out of the way of a piece of falling rubble. 

Spider-Man dragged me out of my burning car. 

Spider-Man killed an alien that cornered me and my son in a back alley. 

Spider-Man caught me from falling off my balcony after my building started collapsing. 

I saw Spider-Man helping out some guy on 5th avenue. 

I saw Spider-Man swinging by just a couple of minutes ago. I think he was carrying people to the hospital. 

Spider-Man was doing CPR when we got to the scene. I don’t know if the patient would have made it if not for him. 

Spider-Man carried me 6 blocks to the ambulance. I couldn’t walk, my leg was so busted up. 

Spider-Man, Spider-Man, Spider-Man, Spider-Man-  

The portal closed around 3:30, about 5 hours later. 5 hours of terror and destruction and fear. Trevor felt all the tension and stress in his body release at once the moment the inky black vortex over Stark Tower blinked out of existence. The apparent superhero team, the Avengers, as the media had taken to calling them, faded off to the background, disappearing from the public eye. Probably off to celebrate somewhere. At first, Trevor felt proud. Spider-Man wasn’t alone anymore. He had other heroes, adults, who were willing to step up and help him take care of the city he loved so much. But then the Avengers stayed off the streets. They didn’t come back after their hypothetical celebration. And Trevor felt like a bucket of ice water had been pumped into his veins as he realized nothing had changed. As he realized Spider-Man was still alone. Because Spider-Man was still on the streets. Because Spider-Man stayed. 

The portal closed after 5 hours. 

Spider-Man stayed on the streets for 11 more. 

And Trevor watched Spider-Man, a kid in a suit, his suit , bleed . He looked at the endless footage; fabric torn and frayed and burned . The iconic red and blue barely recognizable under layers of debris, blood, and suffering. Trevor decided that he hated the Avengers. His hands itched; Spider-Man was going to need a new suit. 

🕸

Peter found Fury on their designated meeting roof about 4 days later. The spy looked worn down, tired in a way Peter had never seen him, but he hid it well. Peter landed near silent, but Fury turned at his arrival anyway, single eye sliding over to him critically. 

“New suit?” Fury asked, looking Peter up and down. Peter shrugged. 

“My other one got a little beat up, what with the alien invasion and all.” Fury sighed. 

“You’re a real pain in my ass, you know that?” 

“Biggest one since the ‘90s if I remember correctly,” Peter quipped, sitting down on top of an electrical box on the roof.  Fury leveled a glare at him before turning to face him fully. 

“How did you know Loki was gonna target Banner?” Peter’s eyes widened. 

“That happened? Loki unleashed the Hulk?” 

“Everything happened,” Fury snapped, eyes cold. “ Exactly how you said it would. Is there something I should know, Spider-Man?” Peter narrowed his eyes. 

“If you’re implying what I think you're implying, then I suggest you tread very, very carefully, Nick. I’ll stand for a lot of things but being accused as a traitor, of being dirty , is not one of them.” 

“And I’m supposed to just take your word for it then?” Fury asked. 

“Fuck off, Nicky,” Peter snarled, hopping off the electrical box to get in the spy’s face. “Don’t blame me for your ineptitude. I called it like I saw it, I told you what Loki’s plan was. Banner was his play, I said that . You told me you wanted me on your side but the very second I told you something you disagreed with, something you didn’t like I’m sidelined? And now , after I was right , you’d rather believe that I’m a fucking traitor than just admit you didn’t listen to me.” Peter pushed away from Fury, turning away from him and marching towards the edge of the roof. Just before he jumped, one foot on the ledge, Peter turned back to the spy over his shoulder. 

“I told you that I wasn’t interested in playing superheroes, Nick. This isn’t a game. People are dead. Manhattan was a warzone and looks like it too. The fall out of this is going to be unprecedented. Stop fucking around and get your shit together.” 

And with that, Peter was gone. 

🕸

Tony has a problem. A 5’11’’, red and blue, spider shaped problem. 

Oh my god, he needs to heat the cube to 120 million Kelvin to break the Coulomb barrier OR he stabilizes the quantum tunneling effect and achieves heavy ion fusion. Therefore, gamma radiation. Now can we please get Banner to a 7-11?

Spider-Man knew Loki was going to target Banner. And, looking back on it, it was a good call. Tony cursed himself when he replayed the footage. So sure. Fair game. The dude had better intuition and people skills than Tony; not exactly a high bar. But he also knew exactly what Tony was talking about. When did he become an expert on thermonuclear astrophysics? Hill had murmured under her breath, Tony was inclined to agree. According to S.H.I.E.L.D.'s little file on Spider-Man (and Tony really did mean little , the thing was like a page and a half), he was a college student, 19 when Fury met him and probably about 21 now which meant he should be graduating soon. If he was a science major of some kind (which was really Tony’s only explanation as to how someone as young and stupid as Spider-Man appeared to even know what the Coulomb Barrier was), he should have papers published. Research documented. Internships logged. There should be some form of paper trail. But, as Tony scoured every college and resource in the city, every inch of data, he couldn’t find anything that lined up. Every person he looked at either lived outside the city or had airtight alibis for numerous Spider-Man centric events or weren’t even in the country for the Battle of New York or had enough papers and internships and research credentials that Tony was very, very , hard pressed to believe that they could do all of that and have time for the amount of hero work Spider-Man clocked in. 

There was also that incy wincy little issue of Spider-Man apparently hating him (which plenty of people did, to be fair, but still. Ouch.) 

So yeah. He had a problem. 

Lucky for him, he knew a certain redhead that wouldn’t care to hold any S.H.I.E.L.D. spider-related secrets close to her chest…

Chapter Text

It had been about a little over a month since Loki’s attack on New York and summer ran hot against Peter’s skin. It was the July before Peter’s junior year and he knew that things were starting to get a bit more serious; in more ways than one. For starters, if he wanted to go to college, Peter really was going to need to up his “school recognised extracurriculars”. (Websligning wasn’t exactly a NYSPHSAA sport.) He’d managed to keep his grades up, somehow, throughout the whole ordeal, despite Harry’s best efforts to get him to spend the little free time he had partying. MJ had become a quasi-permanent fixture in their friend group, despite her insistence that this was not the case and that she simply found the three of them “one of the more interesting social experiments she had the privilege to witness in real time”. (Peter was pretty sure she was writing a paper for her psych class on Ned. He found it to be a moral imperative not to ask too many questions). 

But as the brutal humidity and heat was boxed between the skyscrapers, practically melting the people below, Peter kept a weary, watchful eye on the underground of New York. People were restless, tense. And in Peter’s experience, a tense city was one on the wire. People were more on edge, more desperate. Many people had lost their jobs, their homes, their family . Desperation ran hotter than the midsummer sun and Peter knew it was a breeding ground for disaster. 

Clean up was still underway and Peter felt distinctly uneasy about the amount of alien tech just lying around on the street. A part of him wanted S.H.I.E.L.D. to swoop in and take care of everything, but Peter didn’t trust Nick Fury nearly as far as he could throw him; besides the massive project that was the Battle of Manhattan cleanup was something that was going to be essential to the economics of the working class people of the city. (Alien invasions aren’t exactly conducive to a healthy stock market). The jobs that would be created from the undertaking would help people stay afloat after possibly everything of theirs had been destroyed. So while Peter didn’t like it, he was resigned to keep his mouth shut about the whole thing. 

That didn’t mean that Peter couldn't do some clean up of his own… 

It was disturbingly easy to get his hands on a bit of Chitari weaponry and after some careful poking and prodding, Peter managed to get some decent data on the stuff. It was made of completely different metal compositions than anything that was on Earth (unsurprising) and had a largely unique energy signature (also unsurprising). Speaking of… 

“Karen?” Peter asked over his shoulder, eyes not leaving the Chitari circuit board he had stripped from one of their hoverbike things. 

Yes, Peter? Karen intoned softly from his computer on his desk. 

“Can you run a mass scan on the energy output from these things? Variate it, too. Mix it with all the funky stuff. I want to be able to pick up any and all forms of energy that is or will be created from this shit.” 

Of course, Peter . Running scan and variating the energy with every reactive ion now. The data should be available in approximately 46 hours. 

“Thanks, Karen. What is the status of our ‘little friend’?” Peter asked, picking up a pair of tweezers and removing part of the circuitry. 

Surveillance puts Target of Interest A7 as inactive. However, if he follows the trends of the last week, I suspect you can encounter him tonight in the vicinity of 10th avenue and the Lincoln Tunnel in approximately 4 hours. Would you like me to set a meeting? 

Peter glanced at his watch. It was around 7 now, sunset wouldn’t be for another hour and half.  

“Do I have anything else going on tonight?” 

For tonight, you have flagged movement up in Harlem. I would like to add that the MET is expecting the arrival of various documents pertaining to a new exhibit they are showing in September. 

“Oh, fuck ,” Peter said emphatically. He ran his hand through his hair and then down his face. Peter sighed heavily, taking a brief moment to let the ach in his shoulders settle, the tension in his muscles shift. With a sharp inhale, Peter rose from his seat at his desk, moment broken. 

“Okay then. Looks like our new friend will have to wait for a playdate a little while longer; I have a date with potential art thieves. Come on, Karen,” Peter said, tugging his mask on and shoving the Chitari tech into a desk drawer. (May wasn’t home, but it never hurt to be careful). “Let’s take a lap around Queens. I have an SAT prep test tomorrow morning, you can quiz me on the road.” 

Of course, Spider-Man. 

🕸

Harry’s with Ned and MJ when it happens. They’re studying for their SAT prep test at Ned’s house, MJ aggressively drilling them on trigonometry. When they break for dinner, Ned nervously checks his watch. 

“It’s getting late, has anybody heard from Peter? He usually calls if he can’t make it,” Ned asks, checking his voicemail box. Harry shakes his head and shrugs. 

“He probably just got caught up doing other stuff ,” Harry says, trying to end the conversation there. MJ, however, has other ideas and places her fork down rather forcefully. 

“I’m getting real tired of Parker flaking on our study groups all the time. Especially without any warning,” she glowers, eyebrows knitting together. Harry clears his throat. 

“He doesn’t mean anything by it, he just gets busy doing other things,” Harry excuses, taking a sip of his water. Ned nods along. 

“Yeah, he’s been like this since middle school. Always has some crazy project he’s working on.” MJ narrows her eyes. 

“What kind of project? He’s not in any clubs, he doesn’t play sports, I know it’s not SAT prep,” She trails off leaving room for him or Ned to offer up an explanation. Ned just shrugs. Harry has never been the best at lying (that was always Peter’s specialty; Harry got them into trouble and Peter got them out. Harry couldn’t help but think Peter got into plenty of trouble all by himself these days.) Still, he’ll try his best. He opens his mouth for whatever hapless explanation he hopes to placate MJ with when the sound of breaking glass fills the room and Ned’s mother’s shout of *‘ Diyos ko!’ fills the room. Harry shares a look with the other two before they all stand and rush into the living room where Ned’s mother stands with her hands pressed to her mouth, a shattered plate at her feet. 

“Nanay?” Ned asks, rushing to his mother’s side and taking her hands, checking if she cut her hand. “Ano meron?” Mrs. Leeds just shakes her head and points to the television, the news on mute. He hears Ned’s strangled cry and MJ’s sharp intake of breath and Harry knows. Harry knows something awful has happened. 

He almost can’t bring himself to look, his heart hammering in his chest harder than he thought possible, feeling like his ribs were going to break from the pounding. When he finally does pry his eyes away from Mrs. Leeds’ pained face, Harry almost gags. Because there he is . 

 Harry hadn’t been kidding when he said that Peter and Spider-Man moved the same. It was small, slight, and Harry only caught it because he knew they were the same and he’s known Peter for years . But the tension across the shoulders, the subtle shifting of weight, the slight tilt of the head. That was all Peter. Peter who’d gotten into fights when they were little, sticking up for kids getting picked on, Peter who had always stood square in front of Norman Osborn, Peter who argued and complained and who wasn’t afraid to start fights or finish them. Peter who wasn’t afraid to lose. Peter who lost everything . Peter who kept fighting anyway. 

And as Harry watched now, watched in fear and horror, as Spider-Man stood square in front of a man in a black trench coat, tentacles of metal and razors sprouting from his back, watched as Spider-Man rolled up the corner of his mask and spit a glob of blood off to the side before rolling his shoulders and jutting his chin out at the man, (the villain, Harry realized). 

“Y’know, you’re playing a little rough for a first timer. I’ll have you know I’m not that kinda spider,” Spider-Man quipped, putting his hand on his hips and waving a finger at the octopus-esque man. (Harry took a moment to be amazed Peter made it past age 11). 

“Out of my way, insec t,” the man villain sneered, raising a tentacle to swat his friend to the side. Spider-Man easily leapt up and over the limb, grabbing the second one heading his way, using his landing behind the man as leverage to yank the trench-coated villain over his shoulder and back in front of him. 

“Spiders are arachnids, ” Spider-Man spit out. The man snarls and Harry can hear the whirling of gears through the television. Spider-Man dodges the first two jabs the trench coated villain makes with the tentacles, but the third catches him across the chest, splitting the spider emblem in half. The red of Peter’s suit darkens and Harry feels sick. Spider-Man is unphased by the brutal cut and attaches a web line to the tentacle/prong and uses the recoil to launch a nasty kick to the man’s face, his upper lip gushing blood. 

“You never did introduce yourself, y’know. I can’t just keep calling you ‘ Freak of the Week’ in my head. Help a spider out? Here, let’s play a game,” Spider-Man said, dodging a chunk of building and half a car the man threw at him. 

“You have to say your name and something that starts with the same first letter,” Spider-Man explained, sliding across the ground and coming up in a frankly impressive display of acrobatics to land another hit to the man. 

“I’ll go first,” Spider-Man starts, only to get clipped in the shoulder by a car door. Harry hears his friend groan through the tv and holds back a sob. 

“Okay, fine ,” Spider-Man grits out, “you can go first.” 

“I’ve heard of you. The Spiderman, ” the man sneers, his smile bloody and teeth crooked. Harry shudders. Spider-Man takes another hard hit from the man’s tentacle but lands easily in a roll, apparently ignoring the still bleeding gash on his chest. 

“I can tell you aren’t saying it with the hyphen!” Spider-Man barks out before launching himself into the air. 

“And frankly,” he continues, nimbly dodging jabs and slashes from the terrifying metal limbs and bits of debris as he spins an intricate web over and around the trench coated man. The silky white thread connects to lamp posts, parking meters, bits of concrete and rubble; each web finding its mark with razor sharp accuracy. 

“ It’s pissing me off.”

Harry watches in awe and horror as Spider-Man pulls a seemingly random cord on his webbing and the entire mess of it constricts instantly, effectively trapping the octopus man in the middle. Spider-Man descends on him with cold vengeance, delivering a few brutal but effective blows to his face and body. The man’s small, circular sunglasses break and fall off his face. Spider-Man leans in close to the man, looming above him. The white lenses of his mask constrict, studying the villain in front of him. Harry watches as Spider-Man tilts his head the same way Peter does when he’s listening to something. 

“ Doctor Otto Octavious,” Spider-Man intones smoothly, “I can’t say it’s been all that fun. Villainy is a hard line of work to get into, it’s really not for everyone. Maybe find a new career path. Go back to the drawing board.” Spider-Man tells him, patting the man on the cheek and snatching his hand away before the man could bite him. 

“And no biting ! You have to play nice with the other kids, Otto, I mean it,” Spider-Man waves a finger at him, before tugging on his web and zipping out of the camera's view. 

“ And there you have it, folks! The very first Spider-Man fight ever caught on live television! We will be giving you live updates from the scene, it appears now that the NYPD is moving in. It is unclear as to where Spider-Man has gone and his condition, but we will be following this story diligently. Now we will be-” 

The voice of the flustered news anchor fades out and mixes with the chattering of MJ and Ned. Harry feels like he comes back into his body and takes a deep breath, relishing in the way the air fills his lungs and soothes the ach in his chest. He feels lightheaded. 

“Spider-Man is literally so cool,” Harry hears Ned exclaim. “I mean did you see how he just destroyed that crazy octopus guy? Like something out of a movie! Oh my god, that was the coolest thing I’ve ever seen!” Ned yelled, holding his head, eyes wide. MJ rubbed her arm and glanced at the TV. 

“He didn’t even flinch when that guy hit him in the chest,” she murmured, brown eyes flicking between Ned, Harry, and the news. Ned just nodded. 

“Yeah, I mean Spider-Man has been around for like, 3 years now or something. He fights all kinds of crazy guys, Shocker, the Lizard, and now Octopus man! Plus he was there during the Incident! I can’t believe it’s taken the news this long to actually get a good video of his fights and not just security footage and things off peoples phones. But did you see when-” Harry zones out as Ned continues babbling excitedly, MJ nodding along, a small smile on her face. Even Ned’s mother chimes in, laughing a bit. All Harry can do is think about the blood staining Peter Parker’s chest, think about the blood that must have been there since Peter was 13 years old. 

MJ and Ned chat excitedly about Spider-Man’s heroics. Harry Osborn mourns the loss of Peter Parker’s childhood. 

Miles away, across a city of 8.4 million people, Peter Parker sprays webbing over his chest and sets his shoulder back into place, listening to the sounds of the city. 

And in an apartment in Hell’s Kitchen, Target of Interest A7 ties a thick black cloth over his eyes and listens too.

Chapter Text

Harry has to bite his tongue so hard it bleeds when Peter walks into the dingy high school classroom. Their PSAT wasn’t at Midtown (it was summer, after all), rather a smaller public school a couple blocks west. Peeling history posters covered the walls, the slightly sour smell of teenage resistance tinging the classroom faintly as the summer heat filtered in and suffocated the room. It was too early (a nice, bright 7:25), and too hot and too much as Harry watched Peter sit down next to him, not even a twitch in his face to indicate that anything was even wrong. The brunette slid his eyes over to Harry, flicking up and down as his brow pinched together, taking in Harry’s bitter expression. 

“What?” Peter asked, looking down at his shirt and spreading his arms as if looking for a stain. Harry glowered, eyes flicking around the room before deciding they were alone enough (everyone was pretty much too asleep or too focused on their last ditch study attempts to pay much attention) and leaned forward. 

“If I poked you in the chest right now, would blood start leaking through your shirt, Parker? What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Harry hissed viciously, voice low and angry. Peter’s brow furrowed further for a moment before his expression was schooled into a carefully neutral one. 

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Peter said coolily. Goddamn anyone that ever said Peter Parker wasn’t a good liar because Harry knew he knew exactly what he was talking about and yet, despite it all, a small sliver of doubt wormed its way into his chest regardless. (He ignored it.) 

“Don’t bullshit me, Parker. Don’t you watch the news?” Harry sneered, lip curling. Peter’s eyes widened a fraction of a second and Harry could literally see the neurons firing behind his friend’s eyes as Peter carefully considered his next move. 

“It really wasn’t that bad,” Peter said quietly after a moment of tense silence. Harry leveled him the flattest look he could muster. 

“Peter, you were practically sliced in half,” Harry said sardonically, letting his worry leak just behind his words. Peter pursed his lips and looked to the front of the class. 

“You don’t have to worry about me, Harry. It’s okay,” Peter said softly, placatingly, and Harry felt a familiar rage build up in his blood. Harry grabbed the front of Peter’s shirt and dragged him back around to face him, shaking him angrily. 

“Now you listen here, Peter Parker: I don’t know where the fuck you got the idea that I was just gonna sit around and watch you get cut to ribbons on live television and then let you sit and take the fucking PSAT without any sort of mention, but you’re out of your goodman mind if you think I’m gonna let you pull that shit . You’re lucky I don’t drag your ass home right now and tell May what you’re up to, I swear to God, Peter,” Harry snapped under his breath, barely keeping his voice below a whisper. He opened his mouth to continue his tirade but Peter caught his wrist and Harry paused. Peter held his wrist lightly, delicately, in the loosest grip he could manage but for a moment all Harry could think about was the fact that that didn’t matter, now did it? Because Peter didn’t exactly need a strong grip. Harry caught the pained, hurt, angry look in his friend’s eyes. He took a breath and looked down, removing his hands from Peter’s t-shirt. 

“I won’t tell May. I shouldn’t have said that.” Peter removed his hand from his wrist but his eyes never left Harry’s face. 

“I know you’re just worried about me, Harry,” Peter said lowly after a beat of silence. “But I’m okay, really. This is… normal ,” Peter confessed carefully. Harry bit back another snap of frustration. 

“It shouldn’t be ,” he insisted forcefully, not turning back to face his friend. Peter sighed and Harry could tell Peter was holding back a tidal wave of anger of his own, reigning in his own scathing remarks and cutting words. (That was another thing Peter had always been better at than Harry: controlling his anger. For all that Harry had a short fuse and was easy to rile up, Harry knew that it was nothing compared to the simmering wrath pressed beneath Peter’s skin.) 

“I know, Harry,” Peter said, resigned. Harry crossed his arms, settling back into his chair. The silence was tense, Harry staring diligently at the whiteboard and Peter looking at the floor under Harry’s desk. 

“I can’t believe you’re about to take this test mortally wounded and still get a better score than me,” Harry said bitterly, eyes glancing back over to Peter. A sly grin cut across his friend’s face and Harry felt a small coil of tension release in his chest. 

“It really isn’t that bad. Already all scabbed over,” Peter said blithely, as if commenting on the weather. Harry scoffed and shoved his friend (gently) in the shoulder. Peter opened his mouth to say something else but was cut off as the proctor of their test walked in. 

🕸

Tony didn’t like when he couldn’t solve something. Sure he loved puzzles, mind games, riddles, you name it. But those things were only fun when he could get the answers. This little chore had been decidedly unfun . 

Despite his best attempts, the wall crawling menace remained unsolved. Natasha had been of frustratingly little help, as had the S.H.I.E.L.D. servers. Tony had practically scrubbed the entire mainframe and had found nothing on the Spider-Kid. Well, he had found a single file containing one blurry image, a vague age, height, and weight assessment, and a very prominent, bright, bold note to all agents to not engage unless engaged ; which really did nothing to diminish his curiosity. If anything, it made it worse . 

He’d even tried Fury , of all assholes. The spy had just leveled him a hard, level glare and told him to “keep his nose out of places it didn’t belong”. (As if that truly menacing threat was enough to stop him). 

So Tony tried to go to the source. Emphasis on tried . For a spider, the bastard was more snake-like than anything. Or perhaps an eel. Every time Tony thought he might be closing in on the little shit the kid just slipped him again. It was nigh impossible to catch anything on the vastness of the internet and seeing the kid in person was even harder. (He guessed Natasha had been serious when she’d bitterly admitted that the kid could lose a tail better than anyone else she’d ever come across). 

It was just…there was no pattern . Just absolutely nothing . No pattern to his patrols in the city (if he could even find figments of a patrol), no regular sightings, hell the first time the news even managed to record one of his fights was last week . Three years and the first decent footage of the guy was from the other day . Tony was basically tearing his hair out. He’d taken to flying aimlessly around Queens every other night or so since he, statistically, had a better chance of just running into the guy than actually finding him at this point. (It was a little lot demeaning, but he was out of options). 

It was on one such outing that Tony found himself resting on a rooftop, sitting on the ledge and gazing out at the Manhattan skyline. It was getting late, almost midnight, and Tony was just about to head home but he’d paused to take in the view of the city. (And really, what a view.) 

“You shouldn’t sit so close to the edge, you know,” a voice quipped from behind him and Tony was in the air in seconds, repulsors trained on his attacker. It took him a minute to take in what he was seeing and when he did, he lowered his hands, the whirling sound of the machine powering down filling his ears. He landed back on the ledge of the roof, eyes still trained upward as he took in the sight of Spider-Man before him. The kid was lounging on a telephone wire strung above the building Tony had been sitting on and he couldn’t help but think his complaint about Tony near the edge seemed a little asinine in comparison to the Philippe Petit shit the kid was pulling. 

“I could have shot you, you know,” Tony snarked, lifting the faceplate of his suit. The kid seemed to roll his eyes and slinked down off the wire with a near inhuman grace. 

“Why are you looking for me, Stark,” Spider-Man asked tiredly. “Didn’t Fury put me on his little blocked callers list?” Tony sent the kid a glare. 

“Why have you been avoiding me? I mean, I’m a little insulted. I just want a friendly little chat, one hero to another.” This seemed to make Spider-Man bristle as the hero turned his head sharply to Tony. 

“One,” the red and blue clad man said, holding up a finger, “I’m not a hero. Two, nothing about this is going to be friendly; I don’t like you. And three, I don’t like you .” 

“Well I think we could be great friends,” Tony persisted. “You’re a smart guy, Spidey. I was there for your little science wiz trick back on the helicarrier. Plus, Natasha is still pissed at you for your disappearing acts so obviously you know what you’re doing. And anybody that can get Fury to admit he’s wrong about something, even if in his own special way, gets a gold star in my book. So what do you say? Friends?” Tony asked, offering a hand. Spider-Man didn’t take it. Tony rolled his eyes. 

“Oh my god you’re difficult. You know that? You’re a piece of work? I bet you enjoy it,” Tony accused. (Despite the full mask, Tony just knew the bastard was smirking.) 

“Let’s start over. I’m Tony Stark, billionaire, genius, playboy, philanthropist, Iron Man. My favorite color is red and I’m not a fan of blue raspberry vodka. Now your turn,” Tony said, gesturing to the hero (vigilante? Whatever. He was a hero in Tony’s mind). Spider-Man seemed largely unimpressed. 

“What do you want, Stark?” Tony groaned. 

“I told you . I would like us to get along.” 

“Why?” 

“Because you’re smarter than you look and you piss off Fury like no one I’ve ever seen.” 

“Try again.” 

“Because you’re a web slinging, crime fighting, sarcasm machine and I think we could make a good team,” Tony tried. The Spider shook his head. Tony sighed. 

“Because I’m dying to know how your powers work and what exactly your web fluid is made out of because I’ve never seen anything like it, happy?” Tony said, throwing up his arms. Spider-Man shifted his weight. 

“Nope,” he said blankly, looking at his wrist as if checking the time. Tony bit back a groan of frustration. He clenched and unclenched his fists, looking at the ground. 

“Because I can’t figure you out. You’re a puzzle I can’t solve, despite my very best efforts and it’s pissing me off,” Tony ground out. Spider-Man just sighed. 

“Dude, get in line . Fury has been trying to figure me out for years. I’m not just gonna be buddy buddy with you cause you asked . But hey, points for at least asking. Nicky just tried to kidnap me a couple times. Listen man, this has been fun, but I gotta run, things to do, people to see, bad guys to apprehend, justice to serve, whatever. Later, Stark.” Spider-Man turned to leave, walking towards the other end of the building, readying himself to swing off into the night but Tony was so close and he didn’t know when (if ever) he would see the kid again so Tony, against his better judgment (and pride) yelled after him: 

“Because you’re Spider-Man!” 

🕸

Because you’re Spider-Man. 

Tony’s words pin Peter in place in a way that makes him feel distinctly out of place. They ring in his ears, echo around his rib cage, clattering against his bones, chilling his blood, and forcing pressure into his skull. The worst part of it all is that over the heavy din of the city and the obnoxious whirling of Stark’s suit and the faint buzz of the piece of metal in his chest, Peter can hear the steady beat of Stark’s heart. It was nervous, fast, and a bit faint over everything else, but steady nonetheless. He’s being honest. 

Fuck . 

Because Stark said Spider-Man the same way people said Captain America . Like he was something great. Something out of a comic book. Something spectacular.  Something amazing . 

Peter had never wanted to be amazing. (Peter had never wanted any of this). Peter was on the edge of 16 and not even a junior in high school and he was scared and he was alone and he’d never even kissed a girl and he didn’t remember what his mother’s voice sounded like and he was forgetting more of Ben everyday and he had a shit ton of summer homework he hadn’t started and he was supposed to meet Ned at the store tomorrow to go grocery shopping and Peter was so tired . His bones ached in a deep, dull way that left him weary. His head hurt all the time and he wished he could just shut off his senses and he wished he didn’t have the strength to stop a car with one hand and he wished May was home more and Peter just wished…wished that stupid fucking spider picked someone else . 

But now Peter was Spider-Man . And that meant he had to be more than Peter Parker. (He could feel the mud seeping beneath the suit, beneath the mask. And Peter felt the blood stain his skin a bit darker, penetrate a bit deeper. He hoped he wouldn’t track any in. He knew it was far too late for that ). Peter was Spider-Man , said in that tone, and so Peter sighed and turned back around. 

Stark’s eyes were wide as if he couldn’t really believe he’d said that, his mouth still slightly open. Peter rubbed a hand down his masked face. 

“Why did you put on the suit, Stark? You could have lived your entire life and never had to lift a finger. You had the money, the power, the resources. You could do more with a push of a button than most people could do in their entire lives. Why are you even out here?” Peter asked him, his exhaustion leaking into his voice. 

“Because it wasn’t enough,” Stark said immediately , eyes determined. Peter raised an eyebrow. Stark huffed. 

“I saw the weapons that I had made, the things that had come of me pressing the button , the tools I had designed and built and shipped off to protect people turned against innocent people. For years I was complicit in a system that was hurting people, good people , and I didn’t even know. And when I did know, I shut down the weapons program. But it still wasn’t enough. The weapons I had made were still out there and people were doing everything they could to replicate what I made. I…I released a poison into the world. I have a responsibility to clean up my mess.” And ooh didn’t that one sting? Didn’t that one just cut in the perfect spot? Peter sighed deeply, pinching the bridge of his nose. He turned to face Stark head on. 

“I’m Spider-Man,” Peter said, holding out his hand. (The way Stark’s eyes lit up, Peter would have thought he’d just handed him the cure to cancer). 

God, he was going to regret this. 

Chapter Text

Peter’s ears are ringing. He can barely hear anything over the stinging sound coming from the inside of his head and on any other occasion, he’d probably be grateful for the muffling of the outside world. 

But not right now. 

His face feels distinctly warm and he knows, distantly, that it’s the blood running down from his forehead and soaking into his mask. The fabric feels clammy on his skin and he has the urge to rip it from his face, if only to get rid of the extra stimulation. 

Everything hurts. Most things in that dull, aching kind of way you can only grimace at. But others in a sharp, hot throb that makes him see spots behind his eyes. 

“You’re not gonna get away with this,” Peter hears himself say distantly, his own voice slurred and sounding like it’s underwater. There’s a fullness to his mouth and a nasty taste of copper and his words are wet as he tries to speak around the blood. He thinks he’s missing teeth. 

A haughty laugh echoes around the warehouse, reverberating around the metal walls and empty space. 

“Aw,” a disembodied voice says, the acoustics of the open space making it sound like it’s coming from everywhere at once. Peter’s vision swims. 

“Poor little bug, in over his head. We tried to tell you, Spider-Man: the world doesn’t need heroes . I mean what did you think this was? A comic book ? You never should have stuck your nose where it didn’t belong. And now,” the man cackled, an oily sound that had Peter closing his eyes tightly, “you’re gonna learn what happens to bugs who get in the way: they get squished.” In the distance, over the obnoxious hum of the ringing in his ears, Peter can hear a faint beeping sound. His breath catches in his throat. 

“Please,” he whispers, the word garbled as blood presses between his lips and the mask. The man just laughs again and Peter hears the sliding of one of the garage doors shut. The little light that had been filtering in dies and he can hear a car drive away. 

The beeping is getting faster. He has to get out of here, he has to- 

He smells it before it happens. He smells the spark catch and the distinct smell of wire burning fills his nose before all he can smell is heat and suddenly the building is collapsing, a bomb at its foundations sending it crashing down. 

Peter is going to die. 

His vision swims over the next few seconds, his mind fading in and out of reality and fiction. For what feels like years, all Peter can feel is pain and pressure. He’s pretty sure he’s screaming. He can’t think, he can’t breathe , and Peter is going to die and it’s going to hurt and god, why did he think he was ready for this? 

When Peter regains some semblance of consciousness and coherent thought, the first thing he thinks is that his knees really hurt. Then comes the brutal awareness that everything hurts and Peter has to fight to not black out again. He gasps, a ragged, choked sound, and has to cough to get rid of the blood he inhaled. Blinking, Peter looks around, eyes adjusting to the darkness. 

His heart beats faster in his chest at what he finds. 

His knees hurt because he’s kneeling on a sick combination of concrete, glass, and metal, his upper body nearly folded over himself in the tight space he finds himself. Peter tries to run through his mind what happened. Warehouse, bad guys, explosion, and then…Peter swallows. 

And then the building collapsed on top of him. 

His heart beats faster in his chest. Next to him is a short, rusted piece of I-beam, positioned precariously upright, wedged between a few pieces of concrete. As Peter looks at it further, he comes to the sickening realization that this one piece of metal is the only thing holding the rest of the building up. 

And it’s bending . 

“ HELP!” Peter screams, his voice raw and scratchy. His throat aches at the sudden use. The sound echoes dimly around him, muffled by the tons of concrete. 

“Help me, please!” Peter cries, ripping the mask from his face , hot tears and sticky blood coating his face. “Anyone! Anyone please! I’m down here, I’m stuck, I can’t- I can’t,” Peter trails off weakly, a sob choking his words. All around him the building shifts down, the beam creaking, the concrete above him compressing him further and a type of fear Peter hasn’t ever felt fills him. A pure, raw panic that makes his vision blur for a moment. He can feel it on his back now; the looming weight of his death. The concrete is rough on his spine through the suit. 

“Please,” Peter whimpers. He’s…he’s helpless and Peter feels a cold, vicious anger at the fact that nothing has changed . He’s still just worthless, helpless, useless Peter Parker. Not strong enough, not fast enough, not…

Peter shakes his head. No one is coming. (After all, there’s no one to come). He has no back up. He has no plan B. It’s just him . Peter doesn’t get to be helpless anymore. Either he makes it work or he dies. The thought is sobering. He looks over at the metal beam. It will give way any moment and Peter would prefer not to have to catch a building. (What he has to do is stupid enough as it is). 

Slowly, carefully, Peter raises his arms, his palms pressing carefully against the concrete, the roughness making his hands itch. He takes a deep breath (it makes his ribs burn). Distantly, Peter remembers that he never did find out the maximum weight he could lift. He takes another breath and looks at his mask on the floor. It’s bloody and grimy, one of the eye lenses cracked. His mask stares back. Peter thinks about Trevor, the kind man he barely knows that made it for him. He thinks about Aunt May and Ned and Harry. Peter thinks that this whole Spider-Man thing was bound to get him killed eventually. 

But not yet . 

At the very least, when he does go out, he should at least make sure to leave behind a body. 

Peter can’t do nothing. He doesn’t have the luxury. 

“ Come on, Spider-Man,” Peter whispers hoarsely, the words feeling more like a prayer than anything else. 

And then Peter presses up and the I-beam gives way and all Peter can do is yell. He screams , his throat burning as every nerve in his body is set on fire. He can feel his bones compress and his muscles shake as he pushes . 

“Come on, Parker,” Peter grinds out through gritted teeth, jaw clenched so hard it hurts. “Come on, Spider-Man, come on ,” he groans, arms shaking as he strains to get a foot out from under him. He gets one foot. Two. Peter cries as he slowly, so slowly, starts to stand, legs and back burning, trembling as he feels his bones creak from the pressure.  

Then his hand slips and everything goes black. 

🕸

Peter wakes up sweating. He’s breathing heavily and there’s a saltiness on his lips. He’s been crying.

“ Fuck, ” he whispers, pressing his hands to his eyes and dragging them down his face. He sniffs and shakes his head, rolling his shoulders. He usually only has that dream when it's cold. When he’s reminded of that bitter December night when he was 13 and afraid. Back when Spider-Man was new and people like Fury weren’t on his radar and Tony Stark hadn’t been kidnapped and the Avengers didn’t even exist. The cold had come later, when he dug himself out of the rubble and the chill seeped through his tattered suit, his blood freezing against his skin. When the lingering heat of the explosion did nothing to warm him anymore. He takes a deep breath and reminds himself, firmly, that his hands didn’t slip. That he didn’t falter. He reminds himself that he stood. 

The phantom sensation of being crushed lingers in his bones and his muscles ache at the memory. 

He looks at the clock. 3 A.M, August 10th. 

Happy Sweet Sixteen. 

Peter takes another breath, slowly in through his nose and out through his mouth. May will be home later tonight. She’s excited to have the evening off for the first time in weeks. She’s insisted on having a party, insisted he invite his friends over and celebrate a real, proper birthday. He supposes it will probably be nice as long as the city doesn’t drag him away. 

But she isn’t home yet, won’t be for hours, and Peter’s dream has left him restless and itching. Tension heavy in his limbs, Peter figures he might as well get some work done. He reaches under his bed and tugs his mask free from its place wedged between the slats and the bottom of the mattress. As he pulled his mask over his head his latest edition to his suit, a rudimentary HUD screen he had frankensteined together from some HALO code he snatched off of Ned’s Xbox, lit up around him. 

Hello, Spider-Man. Karen softly intoned, her voice clear in his ears. 

Shouldn’t you still be asleep? She asked, a slight lit to her voice. Peter narrowed his eyes.

“I don’t wanna hear that out of you, Karen. That isn’t what I pay you for.” 

You don’t pay me at all, Peter . 

“You can get paid when I get paid, how’s that,” Peter sighed, tugging on the rest of the suit. His traitorous AI simply hummed. 

“Now come on, we have work to do.”  

🕸

Matt Murdock liked to imagine himself a practical man. (Imagine, of course, being the operative word). And as far as Foggy and their new assistant/friend Karen knew, he was. Well, maybe not Foggy as much, but Karen for sure. 

In any case, he liked routine. He liked his walk to work in the morning. He liked the smooth, methodical method of the law, just fickle enough to bend when necessary, but rigid and unflinching all the same. He liked the presence of Foggy and Karen’s heartbeats in the office, quietly milling about and filling space. He had built his life around patterns; recognizing them, making them. It was, after all, necessary for him. It was how he survived in a world not made for him; how he mastered it. 

That is, he supposes, the chief reason why the Man in the Mask becomes more than a means to an end so quickly. What he had initially justified as a one time excursion, as quickly fallen into his life as a pattern. A ritual . 

He hates himself for it. He’s doing good. He’s hurting people. He can feel the tension leaving the streets. He can’t stop. People whisper of safety and hope. He doesn’t want to. 

Still. He didn’t expect Spider-Man to find him so quickly. He’d only been doing this whole “vigilante” thing for about a month and honestly, he thought he’d covered his tracks pretty good. Spider-Man was all the way in Queens and the Man in Black was barely a whisper on the streets of Hell’s Kitchen; nothing more than shifted glances and hushed do you think? ‘s. And yet, here he was. 

The Spider was waiting for him on the roof of the building across the street from what had become his typical perch, where he would begin his nights, listening to the city. (Matt had no doubt that this move was intentional). 

Matt, despite not being able to see what Foggy had described as “the coolest suit ever ”, all red and blue, he could tell it was him. A slightly chemical smell Matt couldn’t identify mixed with the faint scent of blood. That, and the fact that he was perfectly still, perched neatly on the ledge of the building; a sentinel. His heartbeat was fast, but Matt didn’t dare mistake that for nerves; everyone knew Spider-Man was Enhanced of some kind, who knew what that was doing to his anatomy. 

He didn’t know how, but Spider-Man seemed to know exactly when Matt had noticed him because he only loomed for a few more moments. Then, as Matt listened closely for sounds of movement, he heard the releasing what had to be a string of web, a soft hydraulic sounding hiss and an even fainter splat as it made contact with a building being Matt’s only hint of the action. The Spider was nearly silent as he crossed the gap, all of his movements easily mistakable for a gust of wind. Matt felt distinctly unsettled at the realization that Spider-Man, whether he knew it or not, would have taken Matt by surprise if he hadn’t made his presence known.

“The Man in Black, I take it?” Spider-Man said as soon as he landed softly on the roof, only a few feet away. “Or, do you prefer The Man in the Mask? Masked Man? Man Masked in Black?” Matt didn’t exactly know what he was expecting for Spider-Man to sound like but he finds it rather…young sounding. He can’t get much off of the man, between the now stronger smell of chemicals and the definite presence of blood, as well as the smell of the leather in his suit and the light sweat the man had worked up doing… whatever he’d been up to before gracing Matt with his presence.

“Spider-Man,” Matt greets in lieu of answering. Spider-Man, to his credit, doesn’t seem too surprised by his lack of answer. 

“So, what’s your deal?” Spider-Man asks nonchalantly. For a moment, Matt is taken aback. 

“What’s my deal ?” Matt repeats. Spider-Man sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose through his mask. 

“Listen man I’ll be honest with you: you’re on my list.” Matt bristles at this, heart picking up slightly. Before Matt spirals into a mental debate on whether or not he could take Spider-Man in a fight, the man continues. “I got enough crazy people to deal with as it is. I do not need to be coming down here every other week to handle Hell’s Kitchen too. So. What are you doing out here?” 

Matt pauses at this, really tries to consider. He has a nasty feeling that Spider-Man will know if he lies and he also thinks that it would not be appreciated. He settles on an easy answer. 

“This city is rotting. I want to help.” 

“I’ve watched your fights. Seen what you leave behind,” Spider-Man starts and Matt has to tamper down his nerves because apparently Spider-Man has followed him. Has snuck up on him. (And Matt had no idea). He expects a lecture, an order to stop, maybe even a fight (one he really isn’t sure he can win). Spider-Man helps cats out of trees and old ladies cross the street. He’s heard the reports of the man who walks drunk college kids home and carries people out of fires. And Matt…Matt leaves people bloody and broken in alleyways. Matt’s doing this for the wrong reasons with good intentions. Matt wants to help people. Matt hurts people and a dark, ugly part of him likes it . What is Spider-Man supposed to do with that? 

“Are you gonna kill anybody?” Spider-Man asks quietly and Matt startles slightly. It is and isn’t the question he’s expecting but he didn’t anticipate it being asked so bluntly. 

“ No, ” he says, gasps, really. Like the word was stolen out of him. Spider-Man must nod, based on the slight movement of fabric. 

“Great. Try to only put too many people in the hospital and holler if you need something,” Spider-Man says, his heel crunching on gravel as he turns. Matt blinks. 

“What?” He chokes out. 

“Yeah man, just gimme a shout,” Spider-Man continues to the ledge of the building, fiddling with something slightly metallic and the chemical smell gets stronger. Right before he’s about to take off, Spider-Man turns back to Matt. 

“By the way, if you run into some asshole with an eyepatch and a trench coat, just ignore him and whatever he says; he fucking sucks .” And with that, his presence is gone, heartbeat fading as the soft hydraulic hiss carries him away into the city, leaving Matt stranded and confused.

Chapter Text

Peter’s junior year had started off well enough, all things considered. What with the alien invasion just a few months prior and all the problems that went with it. He actually had a fair number of classes with Harry and Ned this year, MJ too. Flash had remained an annoying constant through it all, which Peter found minorly hilarious. Especially since Flash had become a huge Spider-Man fan since the invasion. Harry was equally amused about the situation while MJ, on the other hand, was less than thrilled about the predicament. 

“Y’know, you really should stand up for yourself, Parker. I mean, a good sock in the jaw and Flash would probably shut up for good,” MJ seethed at lunch the second week back at school. Harry just rolled his eyes. 

“Oh yeah, that will go over well. ‘Grubby Scholarship Orphan Beats the Shit Out of Midtown High’s Favorite Rich Twat’. What a headline,” Harry remarked dryly. 

“Aren’t you Midtown High’s favorite rich twat?” Peter asked, sending Harry a look. Harry only beamed. 

“And don’t you forget it,” he smirked, waving his fork at Peter.

“The point is,” Ned cut in, swallowing his mouthful of mediocre cafeteria meatloaf, “if Peter lashes out at Flash, his parents will sue and Peter will be even worse off. Peter knows it, Flash knows it, and the school knows it. Best to just roll with the punches.” 

“It’s not even like he punches very hard,” Peter remarked. This did nothing to placate MJ, of course, as her eyes burned with righteous fire. 

“He’s actually hit you?” She hisses. Peter just shrugs. 

“It’s better me than some other random kid.” 

“You’re all a bunch of cowards,” MJ remarks hotly. “I’m going to set his car on fire.” 

“I could get my dad to release one of his pet biological weapons on him,” Harry supplied helpfully (and mostly sarcastically). 

“I could tank his credit score,” Ned added. 

“No,” MJ said firmly. “The only way he leaves Peter alone is if Peter stands up for himself.” She turned on him, looking him up and down and Peter felt distinctly analyzed. 

“You’re just afraid. Afraid to get in a fight and afraid to lose,” she said bitterly. Peter just sighed, resigned. Harry, on the other hand, decided to open his big fat mouth and run it. 

“Pete’d kick his ass,” Harry told her matter of factly. She raised an eyebrow. 

“Really?” She asked dryly. Peter was a little miffed at her blatant dismissal, but she was right. Scrawny little Peter Parker versus Flash Tompson, a kid who had a good 5 inches on him and about a hundred pounds? Yeah right. 

“Knock it off, Harry,” Peter sighed. 

“But you would win, ” Harry exclaimed. “You know you would.” 

“ Harry ,” Peter snapped. Harry stood up abruptly from the table, his chair screeching against the linoleum floor. 

“So, how about that new Batman movie, huh?” Ned said nervously, trying to redirect the conversation. His attempt hadn’t worked, Peter and Harry continuing to have a silent staring contest. 

“Guys?” MJ asked, glancing between the two of them. After a long, tense silence, Harry deflated, sitting back down at the table, and lunch continued. 

🕸

They had a few more tense moments like that throughout the semester. Moments where someone would dismiss Peter out of hand and Harry would rise up in defensive anger, making a claim he couldn't prove without exposing Peter’s secret identity. Peter knew it was just his friend protecting him, defending his honor or whatever in his own Harry Osborn way, but Ned and MJ were starting to get suspicious about how much it happened. Why Harry would claim Peter could win in a fight he clearly couldn’t, claim that Peter would know something he had no reason to, claim that Peter was more than he said he was. 

“How can you stand it,” Harry asked one day late in October. They were sitting together in the library, Ned and MJ off on a quest for some book MJ needed for her American Lit class. Peter looked up from his text book, tilting his head. 

“Stand what?” Peter asked. Harry sighed, leaning back in his chair and looking up towards the ceiling. 

“Everyone talking down to you all the time? How can you stand to sit there and listen to people say things about you that are just untrue? How can you stand to be underestimated all the time? Don’t you wanna prove people wrong?” 

Peter considered this, letting the idea roll around in his head. 

“It wouldn’t be worth it,” Peter concludes. “I’d rather people underestimate me than end up in a cage somewhere.” 

“What?” Harry chokes, bewildered. Peter levels him a flat look. 

“You know there’s a market for mutant kids, right?” The spark of fresh fear behind Harry’s eyes tells Peter no, he hadn’t. 

Harry doesn’t push the subject again. 

🕸

It’s December again and Peter tries not to let the cold get to him. School had been tedious, tensions in his friend group high as MJ was currently not talking to him for ‘keeping secrets’. He didn’t blame her, of course. He was , in fact, keeping a pretty big secret. Still, it hurt. Ned was torn between his loyalty to Peter and his own hurt of Peter keeping things from them. Harry, being his usual belligerent self, wasn’t exactly keeping the peace. He was of the opinion Peter should just spit it out and tell them but…Peter didn’t even know where to start with that idea. “Hey, sorry for lying to you guys for years, I’m actually Spider-Man ” didn’t seem like the best opener. Besides, they were safer not knowing. In better news, Karen was now nearly fully integrated into his suit and Peter had been making slow headway on a weapons trafficking operation on the edge of Hell’s Kitchen. 

Then Tony Stark had gone and gotten himself blown up. 

🕸

Tony’s body hurts. Hell, his everything hurts. He’s cold, tired, hungry, angry, scared and overall? He feels…helpless. In a very intimate way that makes his skin itch and his chest ache. Here he is, Iron Man , and he’s crashing in some poor kid’s garage in the middle of Nowhere, Tennessee. 

He didn’t know what he was expecting. For everything to just be fine? For him to just fall through a wormhole and be okay? For the Avengers to just become some big happy family and live in the tower and be there to back him up when he needed it? He scoffed. Likely story . 

As if anything was ever that easy. 

He was on edge and volatile and went and pissed off some guy he couldn’t handle and now? Now Pepper might be dead and his house got blown up and the Avengers are nowhere to be found and Tony? Tony doesn’t even know where to start. 

You’d think after antagonizing Captain America Tony would learn when to keep his mouth shut. 

It’s late into the night and Tony has to get started on… everything tomorrow so he’s settling down on the worn, moth-eaten couch to go to sleep when the door to the garage creaks open. He sits up a little too fast, ribs twisting and he hides a wince when he sees it’s just the kid. 

“Don't you have school or something?” Tony askes, glancing at the analog clock above the door, confirming it really is way past this kid’s bedtime. Harley just sticks his hand out, clutching an open flip phone. 

“It’s,” the kid gasps, out of breath from apparently running to Tony, “It’s for you .” 

Tony’s brow furrows in deep concern and he snatches the phone from the kid. 

“Who is this?” He demands, twisting to fully sit up. 

“Heard your house got blown up,” a wry phone crackles from the phone and Tony freezes, stunned into silence. 

“Y’know, most people would consider it a little nuts to dox yourself on national TV. I mean terrorist or not, did you even think of the groupies ?” 

“ Spider-Man?” Tony chokes out, eyes wide. The kid has a similar reaction, jaw practically dropping to the floor. Tony shoos him away and the kid retreats out of the garage after a moment of silent protest. 

“Yeah, Happy Holidays,” Spider-Man quips over the phone. 

“How, how did you find me?” Tony asks, relief heavy in his voice. 

“I like to keep tabs on JARVIS, it’s good practice,” the man informs him. Tony is once again left baffled. 

“You know about JARVIS? How? Practically no one knows about JARVIS?” 

“Eh, I wouldn’t worry about it too hard, you have other problems at the moment.” 

“ Pepper ,” Tony swallows. “Pepper, is she okay? Is Pepper safe?” 

“She’s alive, if that’s what you mean. Fire and rescue pulled her out of an Iron Man suit. Nice thinking, by the way. As for safe? Who could really say. There is a terrorist on the loose and all. As far as I know, she’s not in any immediate danger.” 

“Spidey, Spidey you gotta find her. You gotta keep her safe,” Tony says, begs, really. 

“I can’t promise that,” Spider-Man says after a pause and Tony’s heart sinks. “She’s all the way in California, man. I can keep tabs on her the best I can but I’m not gonna really be able to do anything , especially not quickly.” Tony nods despite the fact that Spider-Man can’t see him. 

“Can you tell her I’m alive?” Tony asks, running a hand down his face.  

“No,” is the curt reply. Tony freezes. 

“ No?  What do you mean no?” Tony asks, anger hot in his tone. 

“It’s better for you if the world thinks you’re dead,” Spider-Man informs him coolly. 

“What?” Tony chokes out, the ache in his chest growing tighter. 

“Think about this, Stark. Be logical. No one ever expects revenge from a dead man.” Spider-Man’s voice is more serious than Tony had ever heard it. 

“God that’s…That’s dark, Spidey. Don’t you save little old ladies and stuff?” Over the phone, Spider-Man huffs. 

“I do other things too, y’know? You think I’ve had Fury on my ass for years because of my crossing guard tendencies?” And Tony had to admit the man had a point about that. He didn’t think anyone got under Fury’s skin quite like Spider-Man, including him, which was saying a lot. He knew the man was supposedly the ‘Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man’ who occasionally beat up super villains but…he supposed he’d never consider what other kinds of crime the vigilante might be responsible for fighting. 

“In any case,” Spider-Man continued, cutting off Tony’s train of thought, “it’s much better for you if you’re dead. So do yourself a favor and stay dead for as long as you can.” Tony huffed. 

“Any other stellar tips?” He asked, semi-rhetorically. 

“I doubt the Clementine or whoever it is that blew up your house is actually in charge of anything,” Spider-Man informs him. 

“What do you mean?” Tony asked, concern heavy in his throat. 

“The whole terrorist thing? The Ten Rings or whatever, aren’t they the people who kidnapped you in Afghanistan?” And this, Tony realizes, was not a connection he had made (blame it on the whole nearly dying thing). 

“Yeah…yeah they are,” Tony swallows. Spider-Man only hums. 

“Well, the whole public attack thing isn’t really they’re style, is it? I did some digging, you can thank me later by the way, and the real Ten Rings is a shadow organization that’s kind of been running the world for the last thousand years. You think they’d draw attention to themselves like this? Attacking some American billionaire superhero in his own home? No, this is smoke and mirrors, Stark. This was a personal attack against you . Not Iron Man, not Stark Industries, not even the Avengers. You .” 

Tony sits back, head spinning. 

“What are you saying?” Tony whispers after a moment. 

“I’m saying you need to keep your head down, your eyes up, and get crafty . Anyone from your past come around recently?” Spider-Man asks. Tony feels like he’s been punched. 

“ Killian.” 

“I don’t know who that is,” Spider-Man says bluntly, “but it sounds like you have a place to start. Get to work, Stark. And, for my sake, try not to die for real, yeah?” With that, Tony hears the click of a receiver and the call hangs up. 

Looks like he had work to do. 

Chapter Text

Peter had his hands full. The weapons ring he’d been tracking down was getting out of control and while Peter didn’t mind getting shot at (occupational hazard and all), he’d prefer if the D-list criminals he ran into on a nightly basis were shooting at him with measly handguns rather than semi-automatic shotguns. 

Dodging buckshot, super senses or not, was a major pain in the ass. 

He’d been keeping tabs on it since mid-October, setting up surveillance on the operation and taking note of the various people involved in the scheme. He’d been taking down small deals at a time, far enough apart and random enough to keep the leaders from looking at the takedowns too closely, making it look as though he’d stumbled upon them by accident. 

Unfortunately for him, they’d started crossing over into Hell’s Kitchen, an area that a) he didn’t know very well and b) had its own vigilante watching over it. Daredevil, as he’d taken to being called, had made a real name for himself in the neighborhood. Peter had kept some loose tabs on the guy since their brief meeting if only to make sure the guy really wasn’t killing anyone. So far, he seemed to be doing a pretty good job. 

Now, given the fiasco that the Avengers were, Peter generally tries to work alone (not that there was much of anyone to work with until recently). However, he really hasn’t spent a whole lot of time in Hell’s Kitchen and the quicker he can wrap up this weapons issue, the quicker he can get to working on other things (he has a project due next week for AP Government and Cindy will kick his ass if he doesn’t do his share). So here he is, trying something new. 

At around 11 pm after his usual rounds of Queens, Peter gingerly picks his way over to Hell’s Kitchen, a good 40 minutes into when Daredevil is usually out and about. He has a general idea of the Devil’s patrol path given the loose tracking he’s had Karen do, so he starts making his way to the block he figures the vigilante is lurking. 

Peter doesn’t find him immediately so he takes to the roofs, keeping a careful ear out for the Devil’s heartbeat. It isn’t until he’s jumping over an alley that he catches the strong scent of blood. He pauses on the roof, carefully listening. Peter’s vision didn’t get as strongly enhanced as his hearing and sense of smell, but he can pick out the sharp shapes in the dark alley better than normal people. Can catch the glimmer of blood and metal in the dumpster at the back of the alley. He hears a low, shuttering breath catch and that’s all it takes before Peter is slinking down the grimy wall, perching over the dumpster. 

Laying in a sprawled position at the bottom of the dumpster is just the man Peter is looking for. It appears he was either pushed off or fell off the roof above, landing in the at least full dumpster. In his ear, Karen quietly informs him that Daredevil had 2 broken ribs, a nasty cut on his left arm, a twisted ankle, and the start of a mild concussion. 

“Claire?” The man in the dumpster garbles, head turning in Peter’s direction. Interesting. 

“I don’t know who that is,” Peter tells him dryly. Daredevil jolts a little at his voice. 

“...Spider-Man?” He tries again, confusion heavy in his tone. 

“The one and only. You having fun down there, big guy?” Peter quips, relaxing a little now that he knows Daredevil isn’t too injured. Daredevil groans. 

“How did you find me?” He asks with a labored breath. Peter shrugs. 

“I was actually looking for you but that’s not really important at the moment. So, Can you get out of this dumpster on your own or do you need a hand?”

🕸

Matt wasn’t having the best night. Wasn’t having the best week if he was completely honest with himself. To make a long story short, it ended with him getting shoved off the roof after getting pretty beat up. Fisk was…getting to be more than he thought he could handle. 

He was tired, aching, now bleeding and covered in trash, and worst of all it smelt like rain was coming. Then Spider-Man, of all people, decided to show up, sneaking up on Matt in that same unsettling way he had the first time Matt met him. 

“I can get out on my own,” Matt told him bitterly, gingerly reaching a hand above him to grip the side of the dumpster. His side screams at him as he reaches up and his grip slips from the hot pain in his arm. Matt lets out a low hiss. 

“Right, of course,” Spider-Man chirps somewhere above him. “Or, I can just help you out.” Matt grits his teeth. He reaches up again and this time is able to get on his feet, but the second he puts weight on his abused ankle he goes down again. Matt sighs. 

“ Fine.”  

Matt isn’t exactly sure how Spider-Man plans on getting him out, the dumpster is a good 5 feet deep and Matt isn’t exactly small, especially compared to Spider-Man’s lean frame. 

“I’m gonna grab your shoulders,” Spider-Man tells him and Matt feels a light touch through his shirt before suddenly he’s being hoisted out of the dumpster with ease, Spider-Man walking up the wall to the roof Matt fell off of. They get to the top and Spider-Man releases his shoulders, which he hadn’t even been gripping . 

“How-” Matt chokes, “how did you do that?” Matt clutches his side, still reeling from the strange feeling of just being suspended and moved upward. 

“I’m sticky,” Spider-Man tells him nonchalantly and Matt has to just…process that. 

“Okay,” Matt concedes after a moment, unsure how to proceed. They sit like that, on the edge of the roof, in silence for a little while longer. Matt distinctly knows he’s being inspected, analyzed. He can’t be uncomfortable at it, he’s doing the same thing. Spider-Man carries with him the faint smell of chemicals and blood Matt noticed last time. Underneath it, Matt catches the distant smell of soap, disinfectant, and peppermint. This close, Matt has no trouble hearing the clear, steady beats of Spider-Man’s heartbeat. A bit fast, but strong nonetheless. 

“What are you working on that ends with you in a dumpster?” Spider-Man asks him after a moment. Matt sighs. He debates for a moment if he should tell him. Briefly, the thought of Spider-Man working with Fisk flashes through his mind, his paranoia itching beneath his skin, before he shakes it away. If he couldn’t trust Spider-Man, of all people, then he wouldn’t even know where to start. 

“What do you know about Wilson Fisk?” Matt starts cautiously. Beside him, Spider-Man groans. 

“Pain in my ass is what he is,” Spider-Man grumbles. Matt’s eyebrows raise in surprise. 

“How do you mean,” Matt asks because while Matt certainly knows why Fisk is a pain, he doesn’t know why Spider-Man has any involvement with the man. In his research and surveillance, Matt never came across any sign that Spider-Man had Fisk on his radar in any capacity. 

“First,” Spider-Man says hotly, “He’s beyond delusional. The key to less crime is more crime? Really? Ugh. That’s not even to mention the amount of his messes I’ve had to clean up over the last couple months. The whole alien invasion thing has only served to make him more annoying. Honestly, he’s one of the ones I just try to contain.” 

“Yeah,” Matt breathes, halfway between a chuckle and a scoff. “Well, he’s decided that he doesn’t like me much, I, ah, poked my nose in one too many things I suppose,” Matt tells him. Spider-Man laughs, a light sound, a youthfulness to it that Matt wouldn’t have imagined. 

“Yeah, every once in a while he tries to blow me up,” Spider-Man comments nonchalantly. “Hasn’t managed to nab me yet, though,” Spider-Man tells him, leaning over a bit, and Matt gets the distinct feeling the man is smirking. 

“You let me know if he starts causing too much of a ruckus for you. I keep some pretty detailed tabs on him.” Matt nods, unsure of what to say. It stuns him, sometimes, how much Spider-Man must do behind the scenes. He’s heard of the hero’s fights with the occasional supervillain, about his “Friendly Neighborhood” signature; but what must he do otherwise…Matt had the unnerving feeling that Spider-Man spent the majority of his time perched on roofs and in shadows. 

Just like Matt did. 

“Thanks,” Matt says, the word feeling thick in his mouth. Spider-Man hums. 

“Are you good to get wherever you need to go?” 

“I think I’ll manage,” Matt says with a smile. Despite the fact that he can’t see him, Matt knows Spider-Man is raising his eyebrows. 

“Is this an “I’ll manage” like the dumpster situation and you’re gonna die on the way to wherever you’re going, or will you actually manage?” Spider-Man asked. Matt sighed. 

🕸

Peter did end up helping Daredevil to an apartment complex around a mile away where the Devil claimed he had a friend to help him out. (For a moment, Peter imagined that, showing up at Harry’s house for help in the wee hours of the morning. Peter was sure Harry’d have a stroke on sight). They made light conversation on the way, to keep it from getting to awkward as Peter would occasionally have to lift Daredevil over or around things. 

After a slightly perilous journey, they finally got to the roof of the designated apartment building, Daredevil resting near the fire escape so he could get down to whatever floor he needed. Before he could swing off, however, Daredevil stopped him by clearing his throat. 

“Why,” he started, hesitance heavy. Daredevil never finished his sentence, swallowing it in a way Peter was too familiar with. Daredevil, despite probably being almost twice Peter’s age, was new. New at this, new at what it took, new at what it cost. Didn’t yet know what it was going to cost. Peter sighed. 

“This thing you’ve signed up for it’s…It’s hard. I’ve done it alone; for a long time I’ve done it alone. Nobody’s ever ready for this. I don’t know. I guess I don’t see the sense in you doing it alone too.” 

Daredevil didn’t seem to have a response for that, head tilted down in consideration, jaw slightly clenched. Peter nodded (though, if his suspicions were right, Daredevil didn’t see it anyway). 

“Stay safe, Double D,” Peter quips, voice heavier than he meant it to be, as he swings off the building into the city glow of far too early morning. 

🕸

It had been a couple days since his run in with Daredevil. (Nobody had reported a body dressed in all black dead on the side of the road, so Peter assumed he must still be alive at least). Given the guy seemed to have enough trouble to take care of, Peter didn’t bother him with his weapons trafficking case. Fisk was a pain. Peter had been keeping track of the guy for about a year and a half, ever since he found out he had his money in the human trafficking operation Peter busted back in freshman year. (And while he couldn’t prove it, Peter knew Fisk had had Peter attacked before). Peter had confidence, however, that Daredevil could hold his own. And if he couldn’t? Well. Then Peter would be there. 

In any case, Peter was back on his own. On his way back from dropping Daredevil off at what he hoped was some form of medical attention, he took a couple laps around Hell’s Kitchen, having Karen lay out a more detailed map of the neighborhood. With a more comprehensive layout, Peter was able to come up with a better game plan. He had to move faster than he usually liked, had to be less meticulous than he would have preferred, but he needed to get these guns off the streets now . It was getting a little hazardous to be an arachnid. 

He was doing a preemptive lap around Queens, making sure to let people see he was out and about before he headed over to the edge of Hell’s Kitchen. (If people thought he was in Queens, the bad guys wouldn’t see him coming). 

This, of course, is when things started to get annoying. 

He hears him before he sees him, as usual, the abrasive repulsor sound grating on Peter’s ears. He suppresses a groan. 

“Itsy Bitsy,” Stark greets him as he lands on the roof Peter is perching on. 

“Hello, Stark,” Peter sighs, glancing at the clock at the top of his HUD. He doesn’t have time for this. 

“Listen, I’ve been thinking,” Stark starts. 

“You should stop, I hear it’s bad for your health,” Peter snarks back. 

“But y’know,” Stark continued on, pretending Peter hadn’t spoken, “I don’t actually know what it is you do.” Peter stared at him. 

“What?” He deadpanned. 

“When you called me up a couple weeks ago, thanks for that by the way, you said you “do other things too”. So. I’m here to ask. What is it that you do?” Stark asked, expression unreadable behind the iron faceplate. Peter rolled his eyes. He so didn’t have time for this, he needed to be- 

Peter stopped. He looked at Stark up and down. For all intents and purposes, Stark was relatively decent at what he did. The military at least trusted him enough to let him do work for them and who knows how tight of a leash Fury actually managed to keep on the guy… 

At the end of it, he supposed it was probably better than going in alone if the specs from Karen were to be believed. (And Karen was always to be believed). 

“You wanna come?” Peter asked, crossing his arms. Stark seemed bewildered by this, as if he wasn’t expecting to get anywhere near this far in the conversation. 

“What?” The billionaire said after a moment, seemingly failing to process. Peter once again resorted to rolling his eyes. 

“Do you. Want to. Come?” Peter emphasized. “I have things to do, I need backup, you’re here, and I’m running just a touch behind schedule.” 

“You need backup to pull a cat out of a tree?” Stark quipped. Peter turned on his heel and started walking towards the end of the building, refilling his web shooters as he went. 

“Listen Stark, if you’re coming you’re gonna have to listen to me so if you don’t think that’s gonna be possible, I would recommend staying here,” Peter tells him. 

“Where are we even going?” Stark asked, flabbergasted, arms raised. 

“Karen, send him the specs.” 

“ Who’s Karen?” 

🕸

To be frank, Tony hadn’t known what to expect when he tracked down Spider-Man for a second time. It was disturbingly easy to find him in Queens this time around, with multiple eye witness reports claiming him to have seen him in the skyline, though Tony was going to chalk it up to the fact that the guy wasn’t actively hiding from him this time around. 

He’d mostly wanted to thank him for his phone call when Tony was stranded in Tennessee. It had been what he’d needed to get started. It had given him a game plan. Given him confidence he could figure out what happened and why and how to stop it. It had been nearly invaluable. 

But something else that had stuck with him from their conversation was Spider-Man’s indignant remark about how he did more than just help old ladies cross the street and put the occasional bad guy of the week back into the hole they crawled out of. And Tony, in typical Tony fashion, was curious. He’d expected to be brushed off, an expected Shut up and go away, Stark. 

He hadn’t expected Spider-Man would drag him along . 

“Who’s Karen?” Stark called after the hero, firing his thrusters to keep up. 

Hello Dr. Stark , a smooth female voice intoned in his ear, startling Tony bad enough for him to jerk off course. 

“ Who is that?” Tony asked after regaining control. Despite being a good 100 feet in front of him, he heard Spider-Man’s laugh loud and clear, echoing through his suit. 

“You’re not the only one with ticks up their sleeve, Stark,” the man tells him. Tony can hear the wind whipping around him through his mic and wonders, for a second, on the effect the amount of force swinging in arcs like that must have on Spider-Man’s body. 

I am Spider-Man’s AI assistant, Dr. Stark. Much like you have Jarvis, Spider-Man has me. 

And this makes Tony’s jaw practically drop. 

“Did- Did you build an AI? ” Tony says, voice incredulous. 

“Guys gotta have side projects,” Spider-Man says, as if it’s no big deal. It took Tony years, nearly a decade to perfect Jarvis. To make him learn and grow and seem so life-like. And he had predicted that another AI like Jarvis wouldn’t exist for another 50 years. Not one so complex and real . 

And yet… 

“How did you do it?” Tony asks. 

“If you’re asking if I plagiarized your code the answer would be yes. Software design isn’t exactly my forte. I figured you wouldn’t mind,” Spider-Man tells him blithely and Tony once again has to take a moment to process that.

“Ah well, I’m glad you can appreciate the elegance of my code for what it is then,” Tony tells him, ignoring the faint whatever that comes through the comm. 

“So if you’re not a software guy, what is your forte?” 

There’s a pause, the only sound coming from Spider-Man’s side of the comm was the whispers of wind and clips of traffic sounds. 

“Chemistry, but I’m not bad at physics,” Spider-Man eventually tells him. 

“Really? Chemistry guy, huh?” Tony asks. 

“This webbing doesn’t make itself,” Spider-Man jokes. Tony furrows his brow. 

“I thought that stuff came out of you?” Tony says, slightly disgusted. 

“Nope, homemade.” 

“Homemade? Good god, what is the tensile strength on that stuff, how did you even-”  

“Enough about me,” Spider-Man cuts in, stopping Tony’s thoughts in their tracks and firmly ending that line of conversation. “Let me get you up to speed on what we’re walking into; Karen?” 

Here’s what you need to know Dr. Stark.

Chapter Text

Tony admits, belatedly, that he didn’t really know what he was getting into. 

“You’re gonna be on damage control,” Spider-Man tells him. His voice is muffled by the wind through his commline but Tony hears him well enough. According to him, they’re almost there… wherever there is. 

“Our goal is stealth for as long as possible though I’m probably gonna be engaged on the floor eventually. Your job is to make sure we keep this contained. We have to get everyone or it doesn’t work,” Spider-Man continued, taking a turn around a building tightly, forcing Tony to stop short and nearly overcorrect trying to follow him. 

Schematics show a three floor warehouse, standard dimensions. No indications it has been used for anything other than storage of non hazards for the last 2 years; the building should be clear of any dangerous equipment or substances , the ai, Karen informs him, her only slightly mechanized voice smooth in his ear. His HUD shifts to display a layout of the building, nothing too fancy (especially when compared with Tony’s personal interface), just a flip through of blue prints but he can’t begin to push down how damn impressed he is. 

Not a software guy my ass, Tony thinks to himself. 

“So these guys have been bringing guns into New York and you’re just…taking them away?” Tony asks, slightly confused. (Forgive him if he doesn’t think the guy  has the storage capacity for what, he gathers, is supposed to be a shit ton of munitions). Across the line, Spider-Man scoffs slightly. 

“ No . If it were that easy I’d have done this months ago. The problem is that not all of these guns are illegal. Sure some of them have been stolen and whatnot, but anyone half decent with a computer can alter serial number lists. On top of that, once they’re out on the street, there’s not much I can do about stopping the root of the problem and the last thing I need is J.J. going on about how I’m “violating constitutional rights” because I turned in some gangbanger’s Uzi. No, I have to wait until the guns and the people pushing them are in the same room; before they alter them and their identifiers. It’s easier, now that I know who in the NYPD doesn’t have chips on the table in these kinds of things; makes it a lot easier to get at least an arrest, if not a conviction. At least if I can get these assholes in holding for a little while I can do some damage while they’re away, make it just a little more annoying for them once they’re out again,” Spider-Man explains to him. 

“How long have you been working on this?” Tony asks. 

“This particular bust? Not as long as I would have liked. Since October.” 

“October? It’s January ,” Tony exclaims. 

“Yeah well time flies when you’re having fun,” Spider-Man quips sardonically. Suddenly, the masked webslinger comes to a stop, perching precariously on the ledge of a building. Tony settles next to him, JARVIS already running a scan of the building. 

“Uh oh,” Spider-Man says next to him. 

“Uh oh?” Tony echoes, concern rising, “Why what, uh oh?” 

“My count’s off,” Spider-Man murmurs. “Karen, what do you have?” 

My readings indicate we are within the estimated range. Though, I will remind you, that our interruption with B-32 prevented thermal bugging last night.

“Damn, I knew I was forgetting something. And you don’t have anything on the street cameras to indicate where the extra numbers are from?” 

Negative, Spider-Man . 

“Double damn.” 

“What’s going on?” Tony asked, unease creeping into his chest. Spider-Man sighed.

“We were only supposed to have 25 people here, upper-level only. But I count nearly double that, so now we have two problems: one, I now have 50 people to deal with and two: Karen didn’t catch these extra people entering the building; there’s an unaccounted for exit, possibly multiple.” 

“You were gonna go in there and fight 50 people alone?” Tony says, shock coating his voice. Despite the mask, Tony got the distinct feeling Spider-Man was rolling his eyes. 

“ No, I wasn’t. It was supposed to only be 25 and I planned on backup,” Spider-Man told him, turning back towards the warehouse. “But my first pick was preoccupied so now I’m stuck with you,” he informed him bitterly. 

“I take offense to that,” Tony snipped. Spider-Man leveled him a flat glare. 

“Anyway, have fun out here, I’ll see you in a bit,” Spider man turned to leave, a loose wave thrown over his shoulder. 

“Woah, what? I thought you said there were 50 guys in there?” Tony says. 

“Yeah but stealth is the name of the game and, dude, your suit is so loud. We’re aiming for low contact engagement and that’s not gonna happen if you go in there repulsors blazing. It’s much better if you’re out here on containment.” 

“One, my suit is not loud. Two, I’m not just gonna sit around out here doing nothing while you go in there,” Tony told him hotly, gesturing at the warehouse looming across the street. 

“What about the word “backup” do you not understand? You know, reserves? Reinforcements? Beta team?” 

“Listen Spider-Man, I know this is like, you’re thing or whatever, but you can’t fight 50 people at once, no one can fight 50 people at once,” Tony reasoned firmly. 

“Yeah well, it’s not my first choice either but you’re too loud, I have no faith in your combat abilities outside of that suit, and I really do need someone to watch the exits so here we are. Besides, like I said, we’re playing touch tackle; when it comes down to it, I should reasonably only be fighting like, 10 guys.”  

“Oh yeah, cause that’s way more reasonable.” 

“I told you if you came along you had to listen to me, Stark. This is the listening part,” Spider-Man told him coldly, crossing his arms over his chest. Looking at him, Tony couldn’t exactly picture him going toe to toe with 50 guys. Spider-Man wasn’t exactly an impressive figure like Thor or even like Captain America. He was a little under 6 foot, probably around 5’10”, 5’11” and had a much leaner build than the two Avenger powerhouses. Then again, so did Natasha. After another moment of debating, Tony sighed, relenting. 

“ Fine . But! I am sending a drone in with you,” Tony told him, detaching a small probe from his wrist, watching it expand out and fly into the air. The thing was about the size of a small frisbee, all matte metal so as not to catch in the light. Spider-Man did a funny thing with his mask and Tony got the impression that he was wrinkling his nose in disgust. 

“That thing is loud too,” he complained. Tony stared at him, bewildered. 

“It’s designed to run on a frequency inaudible to people,” Tony told him, deadpanning. Spider-Man shrugged. 

“Whatever. We don’t have time for this, send your stupid thing along. But if it gets me shot I’m gonna be pissed .” Before Tony could come up with a response to that, Spider-Man had already launched himself off the roof and into the darkness.  

🕸

Everything is fine . Nothing bad is going to happen. It will all be okay! 

Yeah fucking right , Peter thinks to himself glumly as slips through a skylight. The silly drone Tony sent after him dutifully follows and he resists the urge to swat it out of the air. He isn’t… thrilled at the turn of events. Despite his reassurances, Peter isn’t loving the idea of having a 1 v 50 battle royal on this fine Thursday evening. Still, Tony isn’t necessarily equipped for up close and personal combat and even if he was, Peter hasn’t ever really seen the man in action. This is precisely why he wanted to bring Daredevil. Still, some backup is better than no backup and Tony really will be useful in keeping the situation contained (it’s a little complicated to take out 50 people and watch the exits). 

The interior of the warehouse, at least, matches the blueprints he had scavenged from the city planner’s office. It was an old building and largely abandoned except for the laissez faire storage of various harmless commercial imports, things like pallets of reams of paper and cases of ballpoint pens. Peter had laid out his plan of attack as best he could, given he had disturbingly little info to go off of (he hated doing things like this, things with loopholes and blindspots. It was more dangerous than he liked to be. And things unplanned tended to end bloodier than he wanted them to). 

First unknown, 30 feet, Karen intoned softly in his ear, confirming what Peter could sense with his ears and nose. 

Peter stamped out the twinge of fear that caught in his chest as he crept along the ceiling, nearing his first target. No matter how many times he did this, there was always fear. But that’s alright. Peter liked fear. Fear told him he was paying attention. Fear made him careful. Fear helped him make sure he made it home. 

Peter took a low, deep breath.  He thought back to one of the first times he’d gone against multiple armed people at once, that fateful bank heist when Nick Fury cornered him on a rooftop. Nine. I can do nine, he’d thought to himself. That was the day he told Fury he was 19. That Spider-Man would be 21 now, set to be graduating college soon. Peter felt a brief spark of irony at that. Still three years junior to the age he claimed to be way back when, taking on over five times as many people as he did then. Peter shook his head. 

It was time to go to work. 

🕸

Knowing Spider-Man was planning on taking out a building’s worth of people and watching him do it were two very different things, Tony came to realize. He’d been idly following along with the drone, watching (half fascinated) as the man crept along the ceiling in an eerie way near too similar to his namesake. He found himself to be full of anticipation, worry, and excitement. Despite the excellent audio recording on the drone, Tony couldn’t hear a single sound from the man’s movements. Without warning, the masked vigilante had stopped, perched like some sort of spandex gargoyle in the corner where the hallway connected with another; an unsuspecting ambush for the poor soul turning the corner. 

And ambush it was. Spider-Man had struck with a sharp precision, grabbing the man and his gun before Tony could even blink. Within seconds the man was immobilized, pinned with webbing to the same place Spider-Man had just been occupying. 

“Karen, start the countdown,” Spider-Man intoned softly, barely audible. On his HUD, a digital timer appeared, set for 6 minutes 47 seconds. 

“What’s the timer for?” Tony asked, whispering despite being in Spider-Man’s ear as nothing more than a comm. 

Guard change. When he will be noticed , Karen informed him evenly, her slightly mechanical voice filtering into his helmet. 

“You know,” Tony said, “you’re a pretty advanced AI, Karen. How old are you?” 

“ Are you hitting on my AI right now ?” Hissed Spider-Man as he smoothly caught two more men in similar traps, dragging them up to the ceiling in seconds without either of them making a sound. 

“No!” Tony balked, flabbergasted really. “I’m just making conversation! Jesus.” 

For your information Dr. Stark, my official date of operation is April 18th, 2012. 

“What?” Tony asked, feeling a little off balance. “April? As in 8 months ago April?”

That would be correct. 

“Holy shit,” Tony whispered to himself. Not a software guy my ass . 

“Will you two shut it,” Spider-Man snapped. Tony snapped out of his daze and tuned back into the video feed, watching as Spider-Man worked his way down the stairwell onto the next level. 

“We are so discussing this later. You’re gonna give me all your little bug secrets,” Tony informed him. 

“No. I’m not,” Spider-Man informed him blandly, webs connecting with the mouth and hands of a goon who spotted him, effectively silencing him before he could reach for his gun or shout an alarm. 

“That’s fine,” Tony said, “I’ll just get Karen to tell me, because she and I are now best friends.” 

No. We’re not . 

“You two are so mean,” Tony huffed. 

“Be quiet, Stark.” 

Before Tony could open his mouth to reply, a shout rang through the comm followed closely by a smattering of gunfire. 

“ Fuck!” Spider-Man swore, taking a sharp swing back into the stairwell. Tony glanced at the timer in his HUD. It still showed two minutes on the countdown. 

“So I take it this was not part of the plan,” Tony said. 

“ No, ” Spider-Man grunted, ducking under the heavy punch of a man before kneeing him in the gut, sending him down hard. After a bit of webbing, he was off again, clambering into a vent to do who knows what. How the man managed to move so quickly through the narrow passages Tony doesn’t think he’ll ever know but somehow Spider-Man worked his way back to the main floor. 

“Hey fellas!” Tony heard his voice call out, “How’s your evening going?” 

That was the only warning the goons got before Spider-Man descended upon them like a bat out of Hell. He fought a lot like Natasha did, Tony noticed. Keeping his distance from the fight until he had the perfect moment, then taking his opponent out with one well placed blow. It was an interesting tactic that Tony didn’t expect from someone known to have super strength. It was especially strange, considering Tony knew how Steve fought: up close, personal, and dirty. 

Variant Energy source detected, standby, Karen said through the comms which was promptly followed by a are you fucking serious? from Spider-Man. 

“Energy source? What the hell does that mean?” Tony asked, scanning the building to make sure no one got out. 

“It means this is gonna hurt,” Spider-Man groaned as he dodged another round of fire from the floor. (Tony didn’t know what kind of freaky thing the man had going on to allow him to dodge semi-automatic rounds but he was dying to find out.)

Variant Energy source identified. Variant Energy CH-056. Scanning for location, standby. 

“Oh, so this is gonna really hurt,” Spider-Man reevaluated, landing an intense set of blows on his current assailants. He was doing a good job of engaging the entire floor, making sure no one person could stray too far. Still, he couldn’t keep track of all of them. 

The perimeter has been breached, sir. JARVIS told him smoothly. 

“ Stark, ” Spider-Man grunted, taking a blow to the shoulder before knocking the goon unconscious. 

“On it,” Tony affirmed, rocketing off from his perch on the rooftop. The man was easy to subdue, just a slight taze and he went down easy. As the fight went on, more and more started to escape from the warehouse, scattering like rats in a flood. Tony was quick to pick them off but concentrating on them made it so he couldn’t watch the drone feed. He had just finished up with the latest escapee when he heard a sharp, strangled sound come over the comm. 

“Spider-Man?” Tony questioned, concerned. 

“It’s okay. Everything is fine. I uh, found the CH-056,” Spider-Man answered in a strained tone. 

“I’m coming in,” Tony told him, firing up his repulsors to charge into the building. 

“No, stay out there. I’m almost done,” Spider-Man replied, sounding slightly out of breath. Tony switched back to watching the drone camera just in time to see him throw the last goon clear across the room into a glob of webbing already embedded in the wall. Tony whistled low and appreciatively as the drone zoomed out to give him a full view of the many bodies scattered around the room. He had to give it to him, Spider-Man had managed to take out a good number of them out of the equation, lowering their numbers drastically. Between that and Tony taking out the stragglers, Spider-Man had evened the playing field significantly. (Still, Tony felt a little shaken seeing the “Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man” take out 22 armed men alone. Other stuff indeed .) 

With the sounds of sirens faint in the distance, Spider-Man walked out of the warehouse to meet Tony, a little less graceful than he had been when he went in. Tony narrowed his eyes. 

“You alright there, champ?” Tony asked sardonically, veiling his concern. 

“Peachy,” the man grunted, shifting his weight to his other side. 

“If you need medical attention we can go back to the tower, I can-” 

“No,” Spider-Man cut him off. “Thank you, Stark, but no. I’ll be just fine. You can take this back though,” he said, holding up a small black capsule about the same size and shape of an Easter egg. Tony frowned. 

“What’s that?” He asked. 

“Chitauri tech,” Spider-Man complained. Ice flooded Tony’s veins as he stared at the seemingly innocuous object. 

“What?” Tony choked out. 

“Yeah, I run into it sometimes. Real pain in my ass,” Spider-Man continued as if he hadn’t just dropped a major bomb. Chitauri tech was…on the streets? Being used as a form of power source for weapons? That. That was- 

“Make sure Fury doesn’t get his grubby hands on it,” Spider-Man cut in, jarring him out of his thoughts. “I’ve been playing keep away with it for months and I don’t want him getting his greedy little mitts on it.” 

“You- y-yeah. Yeah sure,” Tony swallowed inelegantly. Spider-Man stared at him for a sec, evaluating him. Whatever he saw, he must have decided it wasn’t worth pushing because the man simply shrugged. 

“Well, this has been all fun and dandy but the cops will be here soon and I hate filling out police reports. See you around, Stark,” Spider-Man waved, taking a few steps back. 

“Wait,” Tony called, finally gathering his bearings. The vigilante paused, impatient but waiting. 

“Why,” Tony cleared his throat, “why do you fight so long range? I mean, you have the strength to be a brawler, why distance yourself?” It wasn’t the question he wanted to ask. Wasn’t the one he needed to . This wouldn’t give him answers about Chitauri tech loose in New York or what was going to happen to all those guns or even why Spider-Man was keeping things from Nick Fury. But it was the one he asked anyway, if only to sate his one curiosity. Why would a man with strength that had to be on par with Captain America fight like Black Widow? Spider-Man looked him up and down, the blank look in his masked eyes seeming to ask ‘ are you dumb?’. Spider-Man looked around for a moment before settling on the brick wall to his left. Spider-Man made a quick jab at the wall with his left hand. 

The brick crumbled like it was made of twigs, a jagged hole forming where his fist had made contact, cracks emanating outward. 

Before Tony could get a word in edgewise, Spider-Man was already swinging away. 

So definitely stronger than Captain America then…

Chapter Text

It took Tony until the next morning to review the footage of Spider-Man’s fight. As much as he had wanted to go over it right when he had gotten back to the Tower, the adrenaline crash had taken him out swiftly, leaving him waking up at his lab bench with a sharp crick in his neck. Despite what Pepper might believe, Tony didn’t crave falling asleep in the lab even though it happened often. Nevertheless, he was awake now. And hungry. 

Shuffling to the elevator and up to the kitchen, Tony was taken by surprise to see none other than Steve Rogers sitting at the island. He didn’t let the super soldier see his shock though, brushing past him with easy nonchalance as if seeing him was normal, expected, even. 

“Rogers,” Tony greeted briskly, walking past the man to reach the coffee pot. 

“Hey, Tony,” Steve returned, giving him a small smile from over the rim of his own cup of coffee. The thing about the Avengers Tower was that Tony was really the only Avenger that lived there. Clint and Natasha came by, though Tony rarely ever knew they were in the Tower, let alone saw them for breakfast. They used the Tower as a sort of basecamp between whatever S.H.I.E.L.D. missions Fury had them running, stopping in for a couple days, a week before taking off again; they were still employed spies, afterall. Thor had left pretty much straight after Loki had been captured, leaving with a brief goodbye and a vague promise that “he would know if he was needed”. Of all of them, Banner was the most likely person for Tony to see around the Tower. The quiet scientist occasionally (and bashfully) took Tony up on his offer of lab space, playing around with whatever new project the man was tinkering with. But Bruce hardly lived there, busy back to doing God knows what in who knows where, scattering himself off to small isolated countries around the world most people couldn’t name, let alone point to on a map. 

Steve though…Steve stayed at the Tower for about two months after the Battle of New York ended, quietly shuffling about despite Tony’s constant reassurance that Steve could help himself to anything he wanted, that Steve lived there too. He figured he must have pushed too much though, because at the end of summer Steve had announced he’d found an apartment in Brooklyn and would be moving out. Tony had, unfortunately, opened his fat mouth and told Steve he had a perfectly good place to stay right here and he didn’t need to go somewhere else. Steve had responded with an anger Tony hadn’t expected, telling him to keep his charity before leaving the Tower in a whirlwind of patriotic fury. 

Looking back on it, Tony could see why Steve wasn’t exactly comfortable staying at the Tower. Steve was a man of pride, much like Tony was ( much like Howard was ). He wouldn’t have been able to stand trading on Tony’s name like he thought he was for much longer. Taking things he felt he hadn’t earned. Living off of someone else, someone he barely knew. Even though from Tony’s perspective that wasn’t true, he could see now how it was something that ate at Steve. At the time though? At the time Tony just felt like Steve was spitting on everything he was being offered. As if it wasn’t good enough for him. As if Tony wasn’t good enough for him. They hadn’t spoken since. 

“What brings you by, Cap?” Tony questioned, ignoring the twist of (Guilt? Anger? Regret? Relife? Apology?) something in his stomach. 

“Wanted to see how you were doing,” Steve tells him with a shrug of his shoulders. “I ah, felt bad about how we left things. Figured I should check back in. We are still teammates, afterall,” Steve tells him, a slight undertone of apprehension cutting his words. The something in Tony softens a bit, taking the apology for what it was. 

“Don’t worry about it. I’m not trying to run a prison. You’re an adult, you can do what you want,” Tony tells him. It’s meant to be reassuring but it must come out too sarcastic for Steve’s liking because his face twists a little bit. Before he can open his mouth, Tony keeps going. 

“I mean, it’s fine you left, moved out, whatever, Rogers. I’m glad you got your own place,” Tony says, hoping he doesn’t sound like he’s rambling. He winces though, running the words back in his head. Now it sounds like he wanted Rogers gone. Great. Tony opens his mouth again, probably to overcorrect and put his foot in it, but is mercifully saved by JARVIS’ interruption. 

Sir, I have finished running the scans on the sample Spider-Man gave you. In addition, the footage has been cleaned and uploaded to view at your convenience. 

Thank God for JARVIS. The subject change is what he needed and Steve plays along and takes the bait without fuss. 

“You saw Spider-Man?” Steve asks, curiosity heavy in his question. A more caffeinated him would be content bragging about his late-night escapade with the webslinger but, as it stood, Tony simply nodded, still too tired to come up with a witty response.

“I just,” Steve started, finding his words. “I haven’t seen him since he left the helicarrier, I mean. Well, I saw him on the streets a bit during the invasion but,” Steve trailed off, unsure of how to continue. Tony nodded again. 

“He needed help with something and I have been dutifully pestering him for months so he dragged me along,” Tony loosely explained. 

“He’s an interesting guy,” Steve says. Tony’s tempted to just agree and move on, done with the awkwardness of this whole situation, but something in Steve’s tone makes him pause. 

“What do you mean? And I mean aside from his freaky bug-gimmick,” Tony pries. Steve tenses and silence reigns for a few moments as he considers his words. 

“When we met, on the quinjet going to Germany to get Loki, I asked him why he wore a mask. It…it had bothered me, a bit. Even Natasha was showing her face and she’s a spy . I didn’t trust him. But he said something that’s really stuck with me. He told me that everywhere I go, forever, people are always going to know I’m Captain America. I don’t get to just be Steve Rogers, not anymore. He said he wears a mask so he can stop being Spider-Man. And, turns out, he was right.” Steve told him a vague sense of bitterness in his voice. Now, Tony had only ever been Tony Stark . And if there had been a moment, at some point, when he wasn’t he still would have been Howard Stark’s son . The concept of anonymity had always been foreign to him. But Steve had grown up unknown, unrecognized. Just another face in the crowd. To go from that to a national icon…Tony could see how he would mourn his anonymity. Spider-Man, it seems, had too. 

“Yeah, he’s a weird guy. He’s pretty uninterested in the whole ‘hero’ thing for someone who’s doing it longer than all of us,” Tony agrees. “Anyway, I got to get to the lab but thanks for coming by Steve. Help yourself to anything you want, God knows I’m not gonna eat the kale chips Pepper keeps buying.” Steve offers him a smile at that. 

Maybe this whole “team” thing isn’t too bad afterall.  

🕸

When Tony finally gets to the lab, he has JARVIS pull up the footage from the fight. He watches for a bit, the video feed matching up with his memory of it, but eventually he gets to the part where he stopped paying attention. 

He doesn’t expect what he sees. 

Watching the fight closely, Tony can see the bits of flaw in Spider-Man’s fighting. He isn’t as smooth as Natasha, though Tony doesn’t exactly hold that against him (no one is smoother than Natasha). But there’s something about his style that is…untrained. Self taught , Tony corrects in his mind. It made sense. He couldn’t expect every single person he ran into to be some freak assassin child. But there was something about the man teaching himself how to fight, most certainly through trial and error, that made Tony’s heart do something a bit funny in his chest. Admiration, maybe? How many bad punches had Spider-Man had to throw? 

The second thing was that Spider-Man always seemed to move before something happened. He wasn’t just reactionary, he was preemptive . He would duck out of the way before his opponent had even decided to swing. It was insane to watch blown up on a big screen in slow-mo. In real time, Tony could barely catch it. But whatever formal training Spider-Man lacked, he more than made up for it with his reflexes. If he could sense things before they happened…maybe even know things before they happened…Well it would explain why he was always able to slip Natasha’s tail. 

The third and most concerning thing comes towards the end of his unwatched footage. He knew Spider-Man had come into contact with some kind of Chitauri tech, knew the core the vigilante had given him for safe keeping was likely powering a weapon of some kind. But he’d been expecting a sort of Chitauri-like weapon. What he got was some sort of futuristic looking ray gun that was as big as a person, hefted up on the shoulders of two men. When the thing fired, bright purple energy exploded out of the gun like it was a canon of light. The beam cut a charred path of metal along the wall of the warehouse, the men struggling to control it, before finally managing to swing it Spider-Man’s way. Tony watched, in rapt horror, as the beam cut across Spider-Man’s left leg. The same, bitten back sound escapes the vigilante’s throat and Tony finds himself impressed the man didn't scream. 

Spider-Man? He hears his own voice ask. 

It’s okay. Everything is fine. I uh, found the CH-056, Spider-Man responds. He sounds shakier here than he did in the moment. Here, Tony can hear the slight waver in his tone. He feels a rush of anger (and of guilt) bubble up his throat. Questions run through his brain faster than even he can process them. Why didn’t Spider-Man accept medical help? Why didn’t Tony push for it more? Why didn’t he notice half his thigh was burned up?  

The last question he finds the answer for as he watches Spider-Man take out the gun and the last of his assailants. Finally finished with his fight, Tony watches as Spider-Man pulls a tiny capsule out of his suit from some hidden pocket somewhere ( God Tony would love to know where he was getting his suits) and breaks it in half. A mess of webbing floods from the capsule at a near instantaneous rate, covering Spider-Man’s thigh with a webbing that looks much thicker than his usual standard in less than a second. Then, before his eyes, Tony watches mesmerized as the webbing turns blue, blending in perfectly with the rest of Spider-Man’s suit. 

Well he and Bug Boy were definitely having a conversation about that . 

🕸

Peter wakes up that Friday morning with an above average level of exhaustion. His and Tony’s little adventure the night before had taken a lot out of him; he hadn't even gone on the rest of his patrol, opting instead for the extra two hours of sleep. He’d been caught up on the weapons trafficking case for awhile and it felt nice to finally (for the moment) be done with it. It was the police’s turn now. Still, that didn’t mean he didn’t have other things to do. 

On average, Peter Parker did the jobs of three people. When he pushed himself, he did the jobs of five. 

And Peter was always pushing himself. 

Peter tried to be himself, first. Really, he did. He tried to put Peter Parker’s life and responsibilities and future before everything else. But Spider-Man had a nasty habit of leaching into his personal life in ways he found largely inconvenient. He tried to be a good student, good friend, good nephew. But Spider-Man took time and perhaps more importantly Spider-Man took energy . The time he could handle; he’d gotten pretty good at it over the last three years. Wake up early to do homework, reset his patrol route on the bus, text his aunt from the subway, eat breakfast on the walk to class, change bandages and make web fluid during lunch, work on his timelines and schedules and targets during his off period, go to academic decathlon after school (because god dammit he needed at least one real extracurricular), more homework, more preptime, gear check, hit the streets by 7, back in his room by 3. Rinse and repeat. 

It was easier now that he had Karen. She ran a lot of background stuff for him, stuff that used to slow him down. Things like where the best place to hide during stakeouts, what the building schematics were, what the street camera surveillance footage showed. He used to have to do it all by hand, did for a good two years. But after finally managing to pillage enough of Stark’s JARVIS code (thank you, Ned), he was able to put Karen together. She, like almost all of his hardware, was hodgepodge together in the most ridiculous way he could manage, all equipment pillaged from Best Buy dumpsters and cheap Chinese electronics (God did Peter love cheap Chinese electronics). Like most of his gear (save his amazing suit, thank you, Trevor), Karen was held together with blind faith, Peter’s shoddy mechanical engineering and even shoddier coding, and duct tape. Still, she made his job millions of times easier. 

So he had it figured out on timing (maybe). The real problem was energy. Peter couldn’t afford to get his recommended eight hours most nights (too much to do) and even though he tried to sleep in as much as he could on weekends to make up for it, he knew he was still at a deficit. Peter also had the added bonus of the Food Problem. The Food Problem was something that Peter had been trying to solve since this whole Spider-Man nonsense got started. Peter ran around and did dumb things like get stabbed and shot at as an extreme sport. For most people, this would be a very serious problem. Luckily for Peter, the spiderbite had given him a handy dandy healing factor, making most injuries negligible in a range of minutes to days depending on how severe the injury. (He didn’t know how far it went, exactly, as he wasn’t keen on getting a limb cut off and finding out the hard way, but he had regrown enough teeth over the years to suspect it was possible.) The downside of this very convenient power? It cost a lot of energy. His general existence living in a superpowered body took enough calories as it was, as superstrength is not necessarily an energy low feature, but if he wanted to be able to heal he had to practically double what he was taking in just to maintain his baseline. 

**The average man needs about 2,500 calories in a day give or take. In order to maintain his body, ensure his healing factor, and keep up with his “extraneous activities”, Peter needed to eat at least 12,000 calories a day. If he didn’t? He risked slowing his healing factor down to near negligible levels, decreasing his strength and speed significantly, lowering the intuition of the spidey-sense, and being very, very hungry. All of which made running around in spandex far too dangerous for his liking.  

Now, if Peter was, say, Tony Stark, acquiring said 12,000 calories a day would be easy peasy. But, alas, Tony Stark he was not. The simple fact of the matter was his aunt didn’t make nearly enough money to be able to basically feed nearly 5 Peters everyday. Food was expensive and Peter’s stupid super metabolism made sure he never had enough. Peter’s main solution to the Food Problem was to focus on eating high calorie food all the time. He bought weird Swedish nutrition bars and various strange snacks from sketchy websites all designed to help people gain weight. He did his best to make sure the apartment was full of things like peanut butter, potatoes, pasta, yogurt etc. 

His second solution, although it was a fairly recent one, was Harry’s help. Harry, since he had found out about Peter’s exciting nightlife, did what he could to help out, even if he didn’t really get it. And if that meant ordering an extra pizza during movie night for Peter alone then Harry was all for it. What he did before Harry Osborn had forced his way into Peter’s secret he didn’t know, but he was grateful for his friend all the same. 

This did a lot to curb the Food Problem, but often Peter still found himself in need of another meal (or three) throughout the day. And this is where things started costing a lot of money. Peter didn’t exactly have a schedule conducive to a job, part-time or otherwise, but money was still a necessity if he wanted to keep healing broken bones in two days. So Peter had to get crafty. 

His first plan was fixing things (afterall, he’d made all his own gear; he wasn’t about to be intimidated by fixing someone’s ice machine). He worked around his building mostly, fixing people’s dishwashers and air conditioners. It was close and it was easy, something he could do on the weekend for an hour or two and make a good 40 bucks. The second thing he did was pet sit; small pets specifically. Dogs required walking and actual attention and as much as he loved dogs, he simply didn’t have the time to keep up with them. He would have done cats, with their relaxed and generally low maintenance upkeep, but May was allergic. But watching someone’s goldfish for a weekend? Their bearded dragon? Easy. He couldn’t charge as much as he might have if he watched larger, more active animals, but cleaning the filters on his upstairs neighbor’s fish tank while he was away for a month still made enough for a couple meals. 

There were days when he fell short though. Days when his hunger became sharper and his cut took half a day rather than a few hours to heal. Days when he could feel his energy waning and his spidey-sense a touch further out of reach. Those days were hard. 

But Peter had work to do. (He always does). 

Chapter Text

Peter dodges a car door aimed for his head when Karen breaks through his focus. 

Spider-Man, you have a call coming in from B32. Should I accept it? 

Peter took a deep breath through his nose, considering as he ducked under a metal pipe meant for his face. Harry knew where he was, Peter having shot him a look in the hallway before ducking out of school just before acdec practice to respond to this nonsense (because of course a Tuesday afternoon was the perfect time for a superpowered bank robbery). But if Harry was calling Peter it must have been something important. Was something happening at the school? Was Harry in trouble? Peter felt his heart beat faster in his chest. 

“Answer it,” Peter told her, the line connecting in his ear. 

“Is everything okay?” Peter asked immediately as he swung up onto the roof of a nearby building to give Harry his full attention, the goons on the street scratching their heads at his sudden disappearance. He needed to wrap this up. 

“Not for you it’s not. Screening my calls is not a wise survival strategy, Parker,” a voice that is decidedly not Harry chides through the receiver. Peter’s eyes widened. 

“Pete, you’re on speaker and they took my phone,” Peter hears Harry call distantly. 

“Shut up, Osborn. This whole thing could have been avoided if you’d just told us where he is,” MJ bites, irritation hot in her voice. See, when Peter’s in the suit, Karen has strict coding preventing him from being reached by anyone but Harry and May. MJ must have been calling him about missing practice, and since she hadn’t been able to get ahold of him, she’d gone for a more underhanded tactic.  

“Now,” MJ says sweetly, “care to explain where the hell you are and why it isn’t here? We have nationals in three weeks, Parker,” she snaps at him. 

“Oh, Spider-Man. Come out come out wherever you are,” one of the goons from below sing songs. This was so not optimal. 

“What was that? That sounded like a person, are you with someone?” MJ demands. 

“Who all is there?” Peter asks instead. 

“That is not relevant to what we’re-” MJ starts but Harry cuts her off. 

“MJ, Ned, and me,” Harry supplies helpfully. “No one else is here yet since practice doesn’t start for another fifteen minutes ,” Harry says pointedly, obviously directed at MJ. 

“One, I told you to shut up ,” MJ seethes. “Two, I can recognize a pattern. Parker has eighth period with you. Either you two show up together or he doesn’t come at all and I will not tolerate him skipping practice when we have nationals in three weeks . I’m sick and tired of you flaking on us, Parker. So either get your butt over here or so help me-” 

“Peter,” a quieter voice cuts in and Peter feels his throat close a bit.

“We’re…we’re worried about you, man,” Ned says. “It feels like we hardly see you anymore. Is…is everything okay?” Now, MJ’s anger, though it hurts, Peter can handle. Anger is easier to brush off, to understand. She has every right to be mad at him. Ned and his softer concern…now that’s something Peter hasn’t had practice brushing off. Ned has always been the kindest of them, the easiest, the most accepting of Peter’s half truths and bad excuses. For him to be questioning Peter about his whereabouts…well things must have gotten to that tipping point Peter had been working so hard to avoid. (He really was such a shit friend.) 

“Listen, I had something come up, I can’t really talk right now,” Peter starts, the words feeling hollow in his throat. He wishes he could explain, give them the answers they deserve. But all they’d be is helpless and like Harry, he’d make liars of them too. The gunmen on the street below are starting to get more agitated. He needs to get to work. 

“No, don’t coddle him , Ned,” MJ continues. “Peter, you've been a total flake for months . You didn’t show up to my halloween party despite saying you would, you didn’t go to Harry’s Christmas party, you’ve barely been at acdec practice, you haven’t shown up to any SAT prep, you haven’t come to book club, hell, you barely come to class, I mean Christ , Peter you missed Ned’s birthday ,” she rants and Peter feels each word cut deep. She’s right. He’s been a beyond terrible friend. He’s lied and flaked and hasn’t shown up at all let alone showed up when it matters. These are those sacrifices Spider-Man has always demanded. The price he knew it would cost. His friends don’t deserve to be sacrifices. They don’t deserve his half-assed excuses but they certainly don’t deserve to be dragged into his life of blood. (They’re either sacrifices or helpless. Peter’s losing either way.) 

“Woah, MJ,” Harry starts, trying to come to Peter’s defense (even though he doesn’t deserve it).  

“ Don’t et me started on you , Osborn,” she seethes. “ You have been just as shitty. Always covering for him and lying and going along with his stupid excuses. I mean god , Harry. You…you know we’ve been, been worried about him. And you just. Let it happen.” 

He’s losing them. He can feel it. He deserves it. But by god he can’t let Harry lose them too. He wants to try and explain (he wouldn’t know where to start) but the movement from the gunmen on the street has escalated. They’re too agitated. Soon, they’re going to try for hostages. 

“Listen,” Peter starts, ready to tell them he’ll explain later and hang up. But as if she can read his mind, MJ’s voice cuts back into focus. 

“Don’t you dare hang up this phone, Peter Parker,” MJ growls at him and at her tone, he hesitates. It costs him because the next thing he knows, he’s dodging a smattering of gunfire. 

“ Found you! ” One of the goons (supposedly Captain Goon, given the way the others flank him) shouts. 

“Ah shit,” Peter curses as one of the bullets grazes his shoulder. 

“Peter!” He hears Harry shout over the phone as MJ’s shriek of Are those gunshots?! splits through the phone. 

“What? No,” Peter lies as he dodges another round and frisbees a manhole cover at the nearest goon. “I’m ah, watching that new Channing Tatum movie. White House Down?” He says, sucker punching another goon in the nose, breaking it. Usually, he tries not to get too up close and personal, but these guys are annoyingly superpowered. As if to prove his point, one of them picks up a car and chucks it at him. 

“That doesn’t come out until June,” Ned says softly, obviously distraught by this whole situation. (Peter’s feeling pretty distraught himself, to be completely honest). 

“It’s the preview,” Peter grunts as he catches the car with his hands, before spinning and shot-putting it back at the man. Before Peter can turn to face his new opponent, a sharp punch catches him in the ribs. The wind leaves his lungs for a second before he’s grabbing his assailant’s wrist and flipping him over. The man spits at him from the ground. 

“You’re dead, punk,” the man growls at him. Peter just rolls his eyes and knocks him out. 

“Who was that?!” MJ yells, her voice seeming to echo in his mask. 

“That was my good friend, uh Juan Pablo,” Peter tells her, spinning out of the way of a knife brandished by another goon. How many of these guys are there?  

“I’m gonna kill you!” The man with the knife screams, charging at Peter, who simply sprays him with enough webbing to leave him angrily wiggling on the ground. 

“What?!” MJ shrieks again, Peter wincing at her volume. 

“Yeah, and that was uh Chad. We’re playing this great game called ‘Try to Kill Your Friends’. Haven’t you heard of it? It’s all over Vine,” Peter informs her. 

“I thought you were at the movies,” Ned comments. Well sue him for not being able to lie perfectly while fighting for his life, Ned. Peter feels off balance. There are more gunmen than he suspected; they seem to be crawling out of the woodwork. Everywhere around him is a cacophony of screaming from civilians, shouting from his friends, threats from the goons, the deafening crack of bullets, and the sharp tearing of metal as another car door gets launched at him. He dodges, but it’s a near thing. His focus is split. He’s divided as his two lives seem to be crashing into each other, demanding he be Spider-Man and Peter Parker at once. He- he can’t- 

A bloom of pain erupts in his shoulder as a bullet goes straight through it. He can’t help but yelp slightly as he dizzies for a moment. When his vision readjusts, he finds himself face to face with the last five gunmen circling him. Something has to give; and he can’t let it be him. 

“Alright,” Peter hisses out, the other end of the phone going silent at his tonal shift. “You’re mad, I get it . But I need everyone to shut up for the next five minutes,” Peter says low under his breath, quiet enough that the goons shouldn’t be able to hear him. 

“What are you-” MJ starts, her voice high in a rare show of concern and worry. 

“MJ,” he hears Harry say firmly. For a moment, Peter thinks it works. But he hears the start of a Don’t MJ me just as the man in front of him moves. 

“Disconnect call!” Peter says frantically as he dodges. He thinks he hears a faint wait from Ned but Peter can’t focus on it as he sidesteps another heavy fist. Spider-Man sinks back over him, pushing his internal turmoil to the side as his focus sharpens on the fight in front of him. 

He has work to do. 

🕸

It’s closing in on night, dusk slinking behind the skyline, lazily following the set sun. Peter stayed out all afternoon and he knows he’s ruining his precious time management by doing so. But he doesn’t think he can handle being Peter Parker right now. Doesn’t think he can handle the empty apartment, the cold shoulder he’s sure to receive from his friends…ex-friends? He didn’t want to find out. (He can’t lose them, he knows that. But a deep, hollow part of him wonders if he has to. If he has to lose them now, like this, or lose them later…like Ben). 

So he stayed out. Like most of his rash decisions, Peter finds it to be a mistake. 

“You’re looking pretty lonesome there, Spidey,” a voice calls out from behind him and Peter tenses. His spider-sense hadn’t gone off. His mind whirls though the implications. He’d eaten enough today, given his wounds from earlier had mostly healed, only scabs and bruises by now. Was it stress? Had his fight with his friends thrown him off his game that much? Or…did the person sneaking up on him really mean no harm? 

Peter peaks over his shoulder, tilting his head lazily as if unbothered by company on his rooftop. The figure he finds is an imposing one, clad in dark red and black with holy shit, were those swords? (Peter throws the “meaning no harm” idea out the window.) The man was easily over 6 foot, his heavily muscled frame making Peter look down right scrawny. Peter tries his hardest to seem unimpressed but he feels like the man sees through it anyway. 

“You have me at a disadvantage,” Peter says casually, not getting up from his spot on the roof but muscles pulled taunt, ready to move. “I’m afraid I don’t know your name.” 

“Well me, I’m you're not so friendly neighborhood Deadpool,” the man informs him, stepping closer. Peter can make out his mask now, the black diamonds over the eyes against a solid red mask seem to bore into his soul. At the admission of his name, Karen whirls to life, information about his probable opponent flitting across his HUD. Well. That’s not good. 

Just by looking at the man in front of him, Peter would guesstimate that he would have his work cut out for him. Skimming through the information Karen provides? Peter is making plans to get the hell out of dodge fast . He doubts he could go toe to toe with the apparently immortal mercenary in front of him on a good day. And today has not been a good day. Peter sighs. 

“I assume you’re here to kill me?” Peter says as he gets to his feet, his muscles sore and aching as he stands. To his surprise, the mercenary breaks into laughter at this. Full body, knee slapping laughter. Peter wonders if he should make a break for it while he has the chance. 

“Oh, that’s a good one,” Deadpool laughs, whipping an imaginary tear from his eye. “No, I’m not here to kill you, Spider-Man. If I was, you’d already be dead!” The mercenary says it like it should be the punch line to a joke, rather than a threat. 

“Don’t worry your little web-head about it though,” the man comforts, “ plenty of people have tried to get me to kill you. Luckily for you, I find a man with a gimmick quite charming.” 

“Thanks,” Peter deadpans.  

“Now I do , however, have a teeny tiny, incy wincy, itty bitty favor to ask of you, Bugaboo,” Deadpool continues, walking closer. (Peter’s spider-sense remains disturbingly quiet). The man plops himself down next to Peter, swinging his legs over the edge like a little kid on a swing. Peter remains on edge. 

“Does this favor involve getting someone killed?” Peter asks blandly. 

“Yeah, but no one you’re gonna miss,” Deadpool admits, easy as breathing. Peter narrows his eyes. Peter makes a very, very express point to not kill people. Partially because he doesn’t want to be, y’know, a murderer (he doesn’t think it would do well on his conscience), but also because it would be so easy . Peter had known at the young age of 13 that him killing someone would be a ridiculously easy feat. Peter wasn’t trying to be judge, jury, and executioner, he was trying to help . He was trying to make things better. Spider-Man was supposed to be something bright. Something Friendly-Neighborhood . That title wouldn’t stick around very long if he started ripping people's heads off. 

But Peter wasn’t naive. He knew that there were people that deserved, needed to be stopped. Those were people that he took extra care with, extra time with. People he spent months researching and watching, gathering every scrap of data on them he could. People he meticulously arranged the capture of. People whose fate he masterminded from the judge that would be present during their trial to the arresting officer. People he made sure would stay off the streets, one way or another. So far, that plan has worked. In three years Peter had never needed to be the one to do it. His hand was yet to be forced. He hoped it never would be. 

He didn’t think he’d be able to stomach it. 

“How would you know? Maybe we’re talking about my dear great uncle,” Peter asks. Deadpool laughs at this. 

“Well unless your great uncle is Wilson Fisk, I think we’re safe,” Deadpool says. 

“You’re going after Fisk?” Peter asks, raising an eyebrow. “Who’s gutsy enough to pay you to kill that idiot off?” 

“Oh I like you,” Deadpool says conspiratorially. “Some ex-lacky. Who knew blowing up your employee’s wife was enough to warrant assassination these days.” Peter’s chest feels heavy. Fisk is one of those people who’s been just out of Peter’s reach. He keeps his crimes impossibly clean. Peter’s never had the time to go for a full hands on approach to Fisk, never wanted to risk it. Everyone that goes up against the man usually ends up either in a body bag themselves or watching their loved ones funeral. Peter doesn’t have many loved ones left. 

“You talk to Daredevil yet?” Peter asks instead. Deadpool gasps, his hands flying to his face as if he were a cartoon. 

“Daredevil’s real ? And he hasn’t called me yet?” Deadpool exclaims. 

“He’s been a bit busy getting thrown in dumpsters by Fisk’s goons to reach out,” Peter quips. Deadpool laughs again. It’s a surprisingly bright sound for a mercenary. 

“What exactly do you want my help with?” Peter asks. 

“Just a bit of recon. Word on the street is you’re pretty sneaky when you want to be,” Deadpool tells him and Peter gets the impression the man is winking under his mask. Peter sighs. On the one hand, Peter didn’t really want to get involved. He had enough to do as it was without trying to go after the guy running for mayor. On the other hand, Fisk becoming mayor would undo a great deal of the things he’d already worked on. But killing him isn’t going to make his influence go away. He wasn’t the sort of many you could just remove from the equation all at once. He was a network of weeds, embedded in the system. His removal, in order to be successful, would have to be slow, methodical, systematic, and devastatingly complete. 

“I’ll help you take him down, but I won’t help you kill him,” Peter tells the mercenary. 

“Booo. You superheroes are so boring with your little murderer aversions,” Deadpool whins.   

“Killing him is just gonna create a power vacuum. That’s more work for me to deal with,” Peter tells him. Deadpool tilts his head. “I’d rather deal with him in totality than just turn him into a martyr for the next bad guy to idolize and emulate.” 

“Nobody told me you were so vindictive, Spidey,” Deadpool says coyly. “I like it.”  Peter just sighs. 

“Talk to Daredevil, he’s the one dealing with Fisk right now. I’d prefer you not just kill Fisk out right, but if Daredevil ends up thinking that’s the best course of action fine, whatever. I’ll just deal with the fallout of that when it comes,” Peter says glumly. Daredevil didn’t seem like the particularly murderous type, but who knows. It’s not like Peter had the opportunity to sit down with the guy and discuss his moral philosophy on vigilantism on a whole. Deadpool, for his part, jumps up and down like a little kid. 

“Oooh this is so exciting! I smell a team up!” Deadpool says with glee. Peter sighs again. 

“Whatever. Nice to meet you, I guess,” Peter says, pushing himself off the building and into a swing. 

“Bye, Spidey-Kins! I’ll see you later!” Deadpool calls after him, waving dramatically. 

The buzz of Peter’s spidey-sense remains dormant. 

Chapter Text

Wade Wilson didn’t fancy himself a complete idiot. 

Okay, maybe about some things but reading people generally wasn’t one of them. And if he had one thing to say about his little encounter with the spandex-ed crusader (sans cape), it was this: 

Spider-Man was good . Bafflingly good. Sure, he had that whole pure of heart, hope, kindness, kittens, rainbows vibe going for him, but that wasn’t what Wade was talking about. No, he caught it in the lines of tension across his shoulders as Spider-Man registered his presence and ran probably the most efficient threat assessment Wade had ever seen in his life. He caught it in how Spider-Man didn’t balk away from the idea of killing Fisk, but rather considered a full, city wide picture of damage control and decided it wasn’t worth it. 

The guy was crafty in a way Wade didn’t often see (and he worked with some of the craftiest people on the planet). Sure, he’d known he was strong, known he was quick, and the underbelly of New York could vouch for the guy’s sneaking abilities. But none of that meant shit against the way Wade could see the gears turning in his head, considering and calculating. 

He’d been hesitant to ask the Spider for help. The guy had been on the street for a good couple of years now and had made quite the reputation for himself. While the public at large had gained a certain vision of Spider-Man, one of hope, protection, and the occasional cat-retrieval, the webslinger had garnered a different sort of rep in the criminal community. In the years he’d been active, Spider-Man had made a sizable dent in all forms of trafficking in New York, whether that be weapons, drugs, or people. Entire operations gone in a matter of days, suddenly and silently. Some attributed his success on the street to luck or pure coincidence. Some figured he had moles on the inside, others suggesting that he had some sort of superpower that helped him pick organizations apart with near surgical precision. Wade hadn’t known exactly what to believe, but he’d been betting on a healthy combination of several theories. After meeting the guy? Well. 

Wade knew it wasn’t luck. 

It made him wonder why he’d waited so long to go after Fisk. Obviously he’d known he was an issue, a serious one at that. But if Spider-Man was going after gangs and trafficking operations the way Wade suspected he was…what was it about Fisk that made him hesitate? 

In any case, Wade had played his hand. He was on Spider-Man’s radar now and after what he saw tonight he sincerely doubted he’d be getting off it soon if at all. 

Not that it matters . 

Not that it mattered, of course. Afterall, Wade had a Devil to find. 

🕸

It’s late by the time Peter makes it home. He stayed out a little while longer after running into Deadpool. And seriously, what the hell was his life that he was associating with guys named Deadpool ? What does that even mean? Like a swimming pool of dead people? A pool that kills you when you swim in it? At least Spider-Man made sense. He was a man, with spider-like abilities (not click bait). On the nose, to the point, easy to remember. Calling yourself Deadpool was like calling yourself Livingschism : ridiculous. (His swords were pretty cool though). 

Contrary to whatever sort of superhero/vigilante fantasy you might have of him, Peter uses the front door to his apartment like a normal person. Spider-Man simply cannot be caught dead sneaking in and out of some random apartment building, an old habit that Peter never broke despite Fury (supposedly) not spying on him anymore. He doesn’t exit or enter dressed as Peter Parker either, since his apartment is on the 12th floor and the fire escape is in May’s room, not his. Besides, there is always the slight chance of May being home, with the odd hours she keeps, and Peter’d rather not risk it. 

It’s when he’s reaching to slide his key into the door that his spidey-sense prickles at the base of his neck. It’s not strong enough to warrant danger, but it is a warning all the same. Peter pauses, looking up and down the hallway. His gaze lands on the welcome mat placed at the door, ever so slightly shifted to the left. May hates it when the welcome mat is crooked. Says it makes their entryway look messy. 

So. Someone is in his apartment, but they wiped their feet. He reaches to the right of the door frame, feeling for the small indent that has been filed into the side. The toothpick size piece of wood comes loose easily on his sticky fingers and sure enough, the small nook May keeps their spare key in is empty. Peter sighs. 

He debates if he should just turn around and go right back out. But now it’s nearling 10 o’clock and he has so much to do to make up for staying out all afternoon and his feet are cold because he stepped in a puddle on the walk back and he’s hungry (he’s always hungry) and he is so, so tired. 

He opens the door. 

🕸 

Peter doesn’t startle at their presence in his apartment though, Harry didn’t really expect him too. He does send them all a light glare that’s mostly directed at Harry as he steps into the living room, shrugging off his coat and shoes before wandering into the kitchen. While Ned sits worried and concerned to his left and MJ simmering in rage and hurt to his right, Harry is tracking how his friend moves. He doesn’t seem to be favoring one side over the other, doesn’t seem to be walking stiff, but Harry knows by now that doesn’t necessarily mean anything; god knows Peter’s come to school with plenty of injuries over the past couple months and Harry has been none the wiser until he catches a light wince when he stands too quickly or when Flash shoves him into a locker as they pass in the hall. 

They’ve been sitting and waiting for Peter to get home for the last 20 minutes. MJ had practically demanded they go straight after acdec practice but Harry told her she’d just be sitting around doing nothing as it was unlikely Peter would be home for a while. She had then, of course, wanted to know where he was and how Harry knew that and what was going on and please Harry just tell us but Harry had remained dutifully silent. Peter deserved the chance to decide. After everything he did, Peter should get to choose, whether Harry agreed with that choice or not. 

Peter comes back into the living room moments later, jar of peanut butter and spoon in hand. As he sits down across from them, MJ opens her mouth but it’s Ned who puts a hand on her shoulder and leaves it there until she closes it again. Though, it does nothing to diminish the anger in her eyes and the tension in her jaw. 

Peter sighs, deep and weary is what breaks the silence. 

“I’m sorry I’ve been such a shitty friend to you all,” he starts, quiet in a way Peter Parker rarely is. Harry can taste the grief in his voice and he wants to open his mouth to say something. But it’s Peter’s choice. Harry has to let him make it. 

“I wanted to be there. More than you could ever know I wanted to be there,” Peter continues. “I want to hang out with you guys at school and at acdec. I want to go to your parties and laugh at your jokes and eat dinner with you and go to your birthdays. I want to learn about the shows you like and the books you read and the music you listen to. I want to be your friend but I…” Peter trails off, as if the words are choking him.

“I’m afraid I don’t get the luxury of being very good at it,” he practically whispers. 

“Why not ?” MJ insists, forceful but open, like she’s willing herself to hear him out and not lash out in anger. Peter looks each of them in the eyes, Ned first, most likely gazing into his soulful, concerned puppy dog eyes. Then MJ, reading the determination and care he sees in them. He looks to Harry last. And Harry…Harry gives him a different look than the others. Because Harry knows . And he tries to convey with his gaze that no matter what Peter decides, no matter what the other two think, Harry isn’t going anywhere. It seems to steel something in Peter as he sets his jaw with resolve. 

“When I was 13 I broke Melissa Vought’s wrist with a fist bump,” he tells them evenly. “After a long and arduous legal fiasco with Melissa’s parents, we were finally able to chalk it up to a freak accident.” 

“I remember this,” Ned speaks up quietly, eyebrows pinched together as he thinks. “You were out of school for nearly 2 weeks.” Peter nods. 

“It was a freak accident,” Peter tells them. “And I had to make sure it never happened again.” MJ gasps near silently, eyes widening as she pieces together what Peter is saying. 

“Peter,” she breathes, “do…do you have superpowers?” Ned’s eyes blow wide at the last word, mouth practically hanging open as he looks at Peter. Peter tilts his head slightly to the left, like he always does when he’s considering something, and Harry can see him debating in his head.

“Yes,” he admits quietly after tense moments of silence. The confirmation has the effect of a gunshot, splitting the air. Ned lets out an incredulous laugh, more of a chuckled breath than anything else. 

“I didn’t tell you, didn’t tell anyone because it’s dangerous; very, very dangerous. The kinds of powers I have,” Peter says, shaking his head. “I don’t know how much you know about history but what I can do is…it’s too close to the kind of power people have been looking for for a long, long time. And all I’d be doing by dragging you into my secrets is making you vulnerable.” 

“Well,” MJ says, swallowing, “I appreciate you telling us now. Obviously we aren’t gonna tell anybody but, Peter, what does this have to do with you missing things all the time?” She questions. Peter seems to brace himself. 

“Before he died, my uncle told me that ‘with great power comes great responsibility’. Now, I’m pretty sure he was just talking about my grades but after what happened with Melissa, after what happened to him I just, I couldn’t-” Peter bites his tongue, looking away slightly before turning back to face them. Squaring his shoulders, Peter takes a breath. 

“I’m Spider-Man.” 

Chapter Text

The thing is, MJ wants to be a good friend. She just hasn’t had much practice at it. 

Peter’s admission is still ringing in the room. She thinks she can see it sinking into the wallpaper, staining it like cigarette smoke. She thinks she can feel it in her bone marrow. It feels cold. 

“What do you mean?” Ned asks, softly, near silent. MJ doesn’t know how he gets the words out. She feels like everything she’s ever had to say has piled up in her throat, trying to choke her. 

Peter seems to be choking too. As she studies his face, eyes wide and wondering, she can see him swallow hard, eyebrows drawing together as if in pain. 

“I’m,” he chokes out, “I’m Spider-Man. ” Where before the words had come smoothly, firmly, now they seem to be punched out of him. Peter spits the admission like it burns him. Beside her, Harry lets out a shuddering breath and she feels like any air she had left in her chest just got ripped out. Her capillaries feel shredded, each one turned inside itself. 

Harry knew . 

MJ doesn’t know what she feels. Usually, she’s very good at differentiating between her emotions. Good at sorting through them and identifying them. She knows when she’s frustrated, she knows when she’s sad, and she knows when she’s angry. Now though? Now she feels…congested. She doesn’t know what she feels. Maybe some of everything at once. She’s angry, at Peter, at Harry, and the world. She’s devastated that this is the secret Peter’s been keeping. She’s horrified that she made him tell her, frustrated that he didn’t sooner. She’s hurt. She’s upset. She’s sad. She wants to scream, she wants to cry, she wants to throw something, she wants to grab Peter by the shoulders and shake him and scream “ What the hell are you doing? ” 

But. Above it all. Or maybe below, under the guilt and fear and anger, MJ thinks she’s proud. Proud of her friend. Her friend who was apparently risking his life, regularly , to help others. To make a difference. 

Three weeks ago, MJ’s cousin Tej was held up at gunpoint. He works the counter at a little bodega in south Queens. Small little shop, mostly weird off brand shit and international snacks that don’t have english packaging. The register probably never has more than 150 in it. Spider-Man swung in and stopped the robber. Might have saved Tej’s life, did if you listened to Tej tell it. It was all he talked about for 4 days. 

A month ago, Ned had frantically sent their group chat blurry pictures of Spider-Man swinging in the street, headed in the direction of an apartment fire. She’d seen the coverage on the 10 o’clock news. No casualties. Harry had liked the message. Peter hadn’t reacted at all. 

Two months ago, MJ’s lab partner in biology had ranted and raved for half the class about how Spider-Man had saved her life. Found her walking home on a Saturday night, a little too plastered to be alone. Some guy had shoved her in an alley and had his hands down her shirt before she could blink. She’d tried to scream but ended up getting her head knocked against the wall for her trouble. Spider-Man had been there before it could go any further. She recounted her hazy memory of the man getting thrown off of her, hearing his bubbling shouts before suddenly her vision swam in red and blue. Spider-Man walked her home, chatted lightly with her on the way. She claims not to remember what they talked about, just said that he was nice. 

And seven months ago, on that hot July night in Ned’s living room, she remembers watching Spider-Man on TV for the first time. Not just grainy footage. Not a 2 second clip posted on the internet. On TV. She watched him get practically slashed in half, Doc Ock’s tentacle blade slicing across his chest. Peter had been in school the next day. Sat down next to her in math like nothing was wrong. He’d smiled, waved. And she didn’t have any idea. Didn’t have a clue. 

“Oh god,” she hears herself stutter out. She raises her hand to her mouth, as if with it she’ll be able to keep herself from falling apart. 

“Oh god, Peter ,” she whispers. “I. I’m so sorry .” She sees her words ebb towards him and break against him, not dissimilar to a wave. They roll over him, crash against his collar bones, and he shudders with them. Peter ducks his head, hair falling over his eyes and MJ comes to the gut wrenching realization that Peter is trying not to cry. 

Next to her, Harry seems to be in a similar state of affairs and she realizes that everything she’s feeling, the anger, the pride, the fear , is what Harry has been feeling for months. Years maybe. God. Spider-Man has been around for years . MJ does some math in her head, the space behind her skull and eyes feeling hot and fuzzy as the timeline clicks and MJ feels her heart break all over again. Distantly, she thinks she’s started to cry. Her cheeks feel warmer than they should and her vision is smearing. 

“Peter,” she hears softly from her other side. She turns and sees Ned. Ned . Unlike the rest of them, who seem to be breaking, fracturing from the inside out, Ned’s eyes are clear. His face is relaxed but determined and MJ doesn’t know how he’s done it. Doesn’t know how he isn’t burning from the inside out. Doesn’t know how his throat isn’t closing and his hands aren’t shaking. 

Ned reaches forward and presses a firm hand on Peter’s shoulder. Peter seems to buckle slightly under the weight of it. 

“Peter,” Ned repeats, leaning his head down imploringly, trying to catch Peter’s eyes. Peter looks up, brown eyes slightly watery beneath his hair. He looks smaller than MJ has ever seen him. It doesn’t really make sense in her mind. Peter Parker is a lot of things, but small isn’t something she often associates with him. To her, something about him always seemed slightly larger than life. And now…she knows what it was. 

“Ned,” Peter says cautiously and MJ hears the apprehension in his voice and comes to the awful, horrible, stabbing realization that he thinks they’re going to leave him behind for this. She bites back a sob, but a bit of it comes out anyway, making Peter’s shoulders hunch further. She presses her other hand to her mouth to keep from screaming. Ned remains a firm line. She sees something in him steel and watches with rapt attention as he leans closer to Peter. 

“ Thank you ,” Ned says firmly, eyes never leaving Peter’s. This is what does it. What sends Peter falling into Ned’s arms, collapsing into him. What pulls a heavy sob from her friend’s chest. Harry sniffs next to her and joins the hug and she falls shortly after. She presses her arms against her boys, pulling them close, crying softly as Peter’s sobs shudder the walls of his tiny apartment. 

They sit like that for a long time, holding each other, braced against the storm. She feels some of the weight of the world shift onto her shoulders. She feels it dig into her bones, seep into her tissues. She feels it start to ache. But she’ll bear it. Because Peter shouldn’t have to bear it alone. 

🕸 

It’s light outside when Peter finally wakes up. He’s groggy in a way he isn’t usually. Usually, it stems from a lack of sleep, the dull, aching pain of sleep deprivation numbing his thoughts. Now though, he’s groggy like he’s slept too much. He glances at the analog clock mounted on the wall and tumbles off the couch in a mass of blankets, face planting on the floor. 

Oh he is so late for school. 

“Morning, Sleepyhead,” he hears from the kitchen and it takes a good 30 seconds for his brain to catch up with everything that happened last night. 

“Harry?” He questions, voice rough from sleep and from crying. 

“I called school, told them we wouldn’t be in today.” Harry tells him, spinning into the living room wearing one of May’s frilly aprons and a grin that tells Peter he’s been up to no good. 

“We all have mono,” Harry informs him, a laugh in his voice. Peter groans, falling back onto the couch, head in his hands. 

“Stop whining, I made breakfast,” Harry tells him, shoving a plate of french toast, strawberries, and eggs into his lap. Peter blinks down at it before looking up at Harry. 

“None of these things were in my house,” Peter says blandly. Harry just shrugs. 

“It’s amazing what you can have delivered. Anyway, eat up. I made a fuck ton.” With that, Harry disappears back inside the kitchen. Peter looks to his left and sees Ned still passed out on the other end of the couch, his legs drooping off from where Peter had pulled the blankets to the floor. Across from him, MJ is curled into an armchair. She catches his gaze, drawing her focus away from the sketch pad she’s doodling on. 

“How’re you feeling?” She says softly. It takes Peter aback for a second, if only because “soft” isn’t a word he often finds applies to MJ. 

“I’m okay,” he says, feeling slightly exposed. “I’m sorry I’ve been lying.” 

“I’m sorry you felt like you had to,” she says. “I’m sorry I pushed, sorry I forced you to tell us. But I’m also not. You shouldn’t have to do this alone, Peter.” 

Peter sighed, low and heavy. He hadn’t really expected to get to this part. Hadn’t ever expected to have to explain things. To anyone, really. But least of all to his friends. Harry had taken things in as easy of a stride as he could. Harry hadn’t asked too many questions. Harry hadn’t pushed. And maybe Peter was selfish, but he was always a little glad Harry kept most of his worries to himself. MJ wasn’t one to go without an answer. And he didn’t know how he was going to look Ned in the eyes with questions unanswered. 

“What I’m doing,” Peter starts slowly, measuring his words. “It costs something. It costs a lot.” He can feel Harry creep out of the kitchen, hovering in the doorway. Across the couch, Ned has stirred, revived by the smell of cooking food, and is watching Peter with wide eyes. 

“This isn’t… easy . This isn’t a game I’m playing. This isn’t some fun little hobby I do after school. I didn’t, I mean, I don’t ,” he stutters. He takes a breath, leveling out. 

“I never wanted to be a superhero. I don’t consider myself one now. What I do, I do because I have to. For whatever stupid, stupid reason, I’m the person that ended up with these powers. Me. Boring, average, regular Peter Parker. And I tried doing nothing. I mean, I really, really fucking tried. But I was too powerful to be out of control. And once I was in control, I had to do something. I have to do something. And now, Spider-Man means something to people. I really have helped people. I can’t stop now. I’m in too deep.” He hangs his head at the admission. The room is real quiet for a long minute. 

“And I couldn’t,” He continued, pressing his words against the back of his teeth, tasting before speaking. “I couldn’t do that to you. I couldn’t drag you into this. If you knew, you would be in danger and you were already in enough not knowing. This thing, Spider-Man, I mean. It’s a poison. For a long time I figured…I figured you’d either live hating me, unknowing but safe, or know and get hurt. Or worse. Probably worse. I don’t know what I would do if it was worse.” 

His friends are weighing his words, testing them against the strengths of their own convictions. 

“Nothing we say is going to convince you to stop, is it?” MJ says, voice resigned because she already knows the answer. Peter shakes his head. Behind him, Harry scoffs. 

“Believe me, I’ve tried,” he groans, trying and failing to add some levity to the room. 

“You’re going to die in that suit, aren’t you?” Ned speaks up, his words cutting the room in half. His voice is even, neutral. Harry takes in a sharp inhale at his words and MJ seems to have turned to stone, not moving at all. Peter dips his head. 

“Yeah. Probably.” 

“Then,” Ned says, voice warmer and more sure than anything Peter has heard in a long time. “We’ll make sure you won’t be alone.” For the second time, Peter feels his eyes start to heat up, vision blurring. Ned smiles at him and it feels like the sun. He looks around at his other friends, similar looks of grim determination on their faces. 

“We want to help,” MJ says, “In whatever ways we can. In whatever ways you’ll let us. You’ve done this on your own long enough, Peter. Whether it’s dragging you out of a fight, or rubble, or helping patch wounds, or fixing the suit, or help with your homework, whatever. Even if it’s just being there for you from afar, listening when we can. You don’t have to hold New York alone. Not anymore.” 

“Thanks you guys you’re,” Peter chokes, whipping his eyes with the back of his hands. “You’re really great friends,” he half sobs half laughs. Ned pulls him in for a hug and Peter feels lighter than he has in years. 

“We don’t know what’s gonna happen,” Harry says, something solid in his voice. “We might get hurt, we might die, but we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it. And we’ll cross it together. No more bleeding out in your room alone, Parker.” Peter laughs again, something breathy and airy and more free than he’s felt since before he can remember. Something sharp is being knocked free in his chest. It dislodges from its place cutting into his bones and dissolves into something smaller, something lighter. 

“Team Spider-Man?” MJ says conspiratorially, a rare grin on her face. Ned laughs and Peter feels his cheeks grow tight. He nods in agreeance. 

“Team Spider-Man.” 

Chapter Text

“Try not to put too many people in the hospital and holler if you need something.” 

“What?” 

“Yeah man, just gimme a shout.”  

Matt hadn’t known what to make of Spider-Man’s offer when he’d made it that August night last year. He hadn’t known what to make of the whole meeting if he was being honest. When he’d run into him again in January, Matt had been left with even more questions than he’d started with. Spider-Man kept to himself. He didn’t seek Matt out, didn’t monitor him, didn’t even talk to him. Matt had half expected the vigilante to conduct check-ins of some kind after their first encounter, but the man had remained distant. Absent except for the simple promise of “I’ll be there when you need me.” Not that Matt really minded. He wasn’t keen on being babysat and something about the arachnid-themed hero creeped him out. 

But now, standing face to face with a man that smelled like gunpowder, sword polish, and the blood of at least 4 different people, Matt couldn’t help but think about Spider-Man’s offer.

“I finally found you!” The man exclaimed, throwing his hands up above his head. 

“You’re a hard man to find, Devy-baby. I’ve been searching for weeks . I mean talk about playing hard to get, yeesh . But look at you over there, all broody and mysterious. I gotta tell ya, I love the horns. Do you ever use that suit for anything other than crime fighting? I got some great ideas,” the man leered. 

“Enough,” Matt ground out. “What do you want?” 

“World peace,” the man responded flippantly, “But I don’t think now’s the time to discuss it.” 

“Why are you here? ” Matt asked, agitation growing. The man didn’t seem very keen on attacking him, despite everything Matt’s senses were throwing at him indicating otherwise. 

“I’ve been told you’re the devil to talk to about Wilson Fisk,” the man, who Matt is assuming is an assassin or mercenary of some kind, tells him nonchalantly. Matt stiffens. 

“What?” He asks on edge. 

“It’s a long, complicated tale about love, adventure, and the epic highs and lows of high school football.” 

“The what?” Matt asks, bewildered. The man pauses suddenly, tilting his head. 

“What year is it?” He asks, seemingly genuine. 

“2013?” Matt answers, incredulous. The man nods. 

“Ah, never mind about the football then. Just the love and adventure. Anyway, to make a dazzlingly long tale short, I want to kill Wilson Fisk.” 

And this…is not what Matt had anticipated. He’d been expecting the man to be working for Fisk, here to kill him. Or at least threaten him off of Fisk’s case. Before Matt had a chance to gather his thoughts or even attempt to respond, the man pressed on. 

“Well, I mean. Want is subjective. I don’t care for the guy, personally, but I want to get paid. I’ve been eying up this real sweet dvd player, it’s got Blu-ray and everything, gonna really enhance my My Little Pony viewing experience, y’know? I’ve been trying to get Al into it for weeks and I don’t really know why she was insistent on Blu-ray, the crazy old bat can’t even see, which is a real shame because King Sombra is fine . But I need to get my hands on it before that bitch Tiffany steals it from me again. She manages to snag every single one of my Craigslist finds, I swear to fuck . One of these days I’m gonna kill her with that Wolverine action figure she stole from me and I’m gonna do it in front of her geek middle schooler. Fuck him and his twelfth birthday. Anyway, case in point, I need a big cash payola and killing Willy boy is a great way to get some. However, Bugaboo said I couldn’t until I talked to you, so . Here I am. Whatcha say? I’ll let you watch My Little Pony with me.” 

Matt was pretty sure he only understood about a fourth of that, but he catches back on towards the end. 

“Bugaboo? Spider-Man?” He asks. The man nods. 

“He said you were the man with the insider info, that you would be the one able to determine if killing Fisk would be worth it. Something something power vacuum, something something fall out, something somethings ‘ don’t make a mess for me to clean up, Deadpool, I mean it!’ ” the man, Deadpool , explained flippantly, his voice rising at the end in a superfluous impersonation of Spider-Man. Matt didn’t really remember his voice being nearly that high pitched. 

To determine if killing Fisk would be worth it. That was the million dollar question. A question Matt asked himself far too often for his liking. He wouldn’t stoop to his level. Wouldn’t allow himself to be dragged down in the mud. Matt didn’t kill. He couldn’t . He wouldn’t know who he was if he did. Didn’t know how he could be forgiven. 

That didn’t mean it wasn’t tempting. Killing Fisk would solve so many problems, for Matt, for the Kitchen, hell probably for all of New York. And, for some reason, Spider-Man had apparently entrusted the decision to Matt . He didn’t have all the variables. He didn’t know if this was some kind of test or trial. This was exactly the kind of thing Stick would pull, now that he thinks about it. Some fucked up exercise to get him to weigh his morals against the easy answer. Worse, still, if it wasn’t a test and Spider-Man genuinely was trusting Matt’s decision, then…Then he didn’t know what. He didn’t think Spider-Man was okay with killing. He certainly hadn’t ever heard any reports that the vigilante had. But, he supposed, that didn’t really mean as much as he thought when the news couldn’t even get a good video of him until three years into his career. The man was a bit of a wild card, even now. It unsettled him. 

“Does Spider-Man want Fisk dead?” Matt questioned. The strange man, a mercenary of some kind, Matt supposed, shrugged again. 

“He swung both ways, if you know what I mean. A man after my own heart,” the man continued, sighing dreamily. Matt got the distinct impression that he winked as he said it. 

“Right,” Matt said blandly. 

“Anyway, can I kill him or not?” The man whined. 

“ No, ” Matt said, resolve hardening. He couldn’t bring himself to call for a man’s death. Even if that man was Wislon Fisk. If he did…he. He couldn’t-

“Boooooo,” the mercenary complained, body sagging dramatically, cutting off Matt’s internal turmoil. “Ugh, so lame. Whatever. Guess we do things the hard way then.” 

Matt tensed, expecting a fight now that he had denied the merc what he wanted. Instead, the man took in a deep, full inhale, before shouting at the top of his lungs: 

“SPIDER-MAN!” 

🕸

“I am not giving you any web fluid, stop asking,” Peter huffed out, batting his assailant’s hand out of the way for the umpteenth time. 

“Don’t be selfish,” Tony snarked back but relenting nonetheless. Peter had been mid patrol when the agitating man had descended upon him like a particularly loud swarm of locusts. Peter sighed again. It had been a good few weeks since Peter had seen Tony, at least since their little team up in January, he figured. Tony had tried to catch him on several occasions, Peter knew, but at this point in his career he was probably the best in the world at avoiding tails he didn’t want on him. Unfortunately, Tony had a stroke of lucky timing and managed to catch up to Peter when he’d stopped on the roof of a building overlooking Midtown, taking a brief second to catch his breath and enjoy the skyline. 

“What about that stuff you used on your leg?” Tony asked, after the world’s briefest pause. Peter tipped his head back and looked up at the sky, debating if praying for patience would grant him any. 

“The what?” He asked finally, tone flat. 

“When you got blasted with the Chitauri gun,” Tony clarified. Peter’s brows furrowed, trying to think back to the fight. In all honesty, it was a little concerning that he couldn’t remember specific injuries anymore. They just…happened all the time. And, recently, since roping MJ and Ned into the loop, his friends had been working overtime to sneak him extra food. MJ had taken to carrying high calorie protein bars with her and made a point to pass him one whenever she saw him. Ned had taken to carrying bits of bread, cookies, and other confections. “My grandma’s gonna make them anyway,” he’d explained when Peter tried to wave him away. “At least this way someone’s eating them. That woman makes enough pandesal to feed a small village.”  Due to this, Peter’s healing factor was at the strongest it had ever been and the cuts, scrapes, and minor stab wounds Peter received regularly were gone before he bothered to think about them. Even his larger injuries cleared themselves up in record time. And, for the first time in over 3 years, Peter wasn’t hungry.

Eventually, Peter recalled the large burn he’d gotten on his thigh from the Chitauri gun he’d found with Tony. He remembered using some of his extra thick webbing as a bandage, clotting the wound and temporarily patching the suit. 

“What about it?” Peter wondered. 

“ What about it? ” Tony scoffed, incredulous, as if Peter was the one being ridiculous. “It instantaneously covered an entire wound and blended into the fabric of your suit. I didn’t even see it until I rewatched the footage from the drone. Spidey, that kind of tech has insane potential, I mean the applications are practically unlimited. Military, civilian, medical, industrial, my God. Where did you get it? ” Tony looked at him, wide eyed. He was in the Iron Man suit sans helmet, sitting precariously on the ledge with Peter. In his excitement, he’d leaned closer and closer, now nearly invading Peter’s personal space. The man’s enthusiasm was…unusual. 

Peter shifted uncomfortably, lightly pushing Tony away. He sat back without protest but the look on his face stayed the same. 

“I don’t know, it’s just more web fluid with an extra polymer in it, lipid instead of protein. Makes it thicker. Not as great for swinging, though,” Peter grimaced, thinking back to his early web fluid trials. He’d come across the one he used for his bandages close to the final product and had been confident enough in it to try swinging. He rubbed his shoulder unconsciously, remembering his hard collision with a lamp post when it snapped mid swing. 

“Lipid instead of protein,” Tony repeated, sounding slightly dazed. Peter nodded, shrugging his shoulders. 

“When it’s in the canister, it’s in a liquid alkyne form, unsaturated. Then, as it’s released from the shooter, I hydrogenate it with Lindlar’s catalyst, turn it into its alkene form. Now, as a saturated fat, it solidifies at room temp and turns into a web. With the normal ones, it’s an ozonolysis reaction, goes from aerosol alkyne to solid protein ketones. Normal spiders go from liquid to solid all the time, which is why I started with the hydrogenation. But, with how much swinging I do, I run out of the liquid stuff too fast and it gets bulky to carry. Easier to have it gaseous from. Reaction’s quicker too, which is what you want when you’re hurtling between skyscrapers at 40 miles an hour,” Peter explained, easily. He figured it was possible Tony would be able to figure out the formula for the webbing with these instructions. Like hell was he going to give it to him, but if the man could figure it out himself Peter was content to let him be. It would be a pain in the ass for him, as it had been for Peter, but if he was dedicated enough Peter figured at this point the man had earned it. Besides, it wasn’t like he would hand it over to Fury, which was really what Peter’s biggest worry was. The old pirate was sure to find some way to get the S.H.I.E.L.D. think tank on ways to turn it into a weapon of mass destruction in no time flat. He turned to look at Tony, who was staring at him like he’s grown an extra head. Peter raised an eyebrow at him. 

“And you made it?” Tony asked after a moment, doubt in his voice. Peter rolled his eyes. 

“I told you I was a chemistry guy.” Tony’s eyes got a rather dangerous gleam in them and Peter stopped himself from leaning away. 

“So you have access to a lab then?” 

“What?” Peter asked, confused with this line of questioning. 

“A lab ,” Tony explained, a grin catching on his face. “Somewhere, you made this. Where, huh? Columbia? Barnard? Ugh tell me it wasn’t OSCORP, I mean God , Norman is such a-” Tony cut himself off suddenly, eyes going impossibly wider. “Was it me ?” He asked, excitement practically vibrating off the man. 

“ What?” Peter choked out, laughter strangled in his throat. 

“Was it my lab, do you work for me?” Tony asked. At that, Peter burst out laughing, no longer able to contain it. Tony didn’t seem very amused by Peter’s howling, frown forming on his face as Peter continued to cackle. 

“Do I,” Peter wheezed out, “work for you? Please, Stark, come on. Oh that’s too good.” 

“Whatever, probably wouldn’t hire you anyway,” Tony grumbled out, crossing his arms as Peter collected himself. 

“So where did you make it?” Tony asked again after Peter pulled himself together. 

“My bedroom,” Peter snorted, highly amused. Tony’s face once again morphed into one of shock. 

“But, you,” the man sputtered. Peter swallowed down another wave of laughter. 

“Amazing what you can accomplish with some determination and teenage idiocy, isn’t it,” Peter said with a smile. 

“ Teenage?” Tony exclaimed rather loudly. For a split second, a shot of fear spiked in Peter’s heart. Oops. 

“Dude, I’m like 22,” Peter replied easily, ignoring the adrenaline under his skin. “I made this when I was like 19. This is in my file, don’t pretend you didn’t hack that.” 

“Oh my god you’re a baby,” Tony said, putting his head in his hands. 

“I’m not a baby,” Peter complained. 

“An infant. A fetus ,” Tony shook his head. 

“Jesus Christ.” 

“Where did you even get the chemicals?” Tony whined. Peter shrugged again. 

“Raided a couple community colleges.” 

“ Community colleges ,” Tony wailed. “Did you even go to college?” 

“Nope,” Peter smirked, popping the p. Tony let out a strangled cry. 

“Oh my god. Spider-Man is a genius. Spider-Man is a genius and isn’t in college,” Tony whispered. He whipped his head towards Peter. 

“Come work in my lab,” he demanded. 

“Yeah,” Peter drawled out, looking at an imaginary watch, “I’m kinda busy.” 

“You’re a menace.” 

“That’s what J.J. says, yeah.” 

“I should report you to MENSA or some shit. I can see the headlines: Spider-Man Shocks World with IQ Score of 195, Despite Being a Total Idiot.” 

“Lowballing me is crazy.” 

“ What? ” 

“Bye, Stark,” Peter stands, stretching to head off into the night. 

“No, no, no, sit back down , what do you mean lowballing? What’s your actual score?” 

“No, you already guessed,” Peter teases. 

“ I swear to god, ” before Tony could finish, Peter heard the faint cry of Spider-Man! in the distance. Without a second thought, he leaped off the building, leaving a baffled Iron Man behind him. Briefly, he wondered just how much Tony would flip if he learned the actual age Peter had been when he synthesized his web fluid. With a chuckle at the thought, Peter arced to the East towards Hell's Kitchen. 

Chapter Text

Peter wasn't really sure what exactly he was swinging into, which was never really his preferred method of operation if he was being honest. As he got closer to the source of the screaming, he quickly recognized Deadpool's hooting and hollering. The loud-mouthed mercenary carried on and on, in a range of various dramatics. From what Peter could tell, he seemed to be acting out an entire fake scene about a woman getting robbed: squeaky falsetto included. 

God, maybe he should have stayed with Stark. At least he knew what kind of crazy he was getting into there. 

When Peter was only about a building away, he spotted the other figure next to Deadpool, casting a long, if slightly horned, shadow. Ah. 

Peter was still cautiously optimistic about Daredevil. If his timeline was right, the vigilante was probably about 8 or 9 months into his career by now. Still a little green, but if he was going to wash out he likely would have already. Daredevil was here to stay. Something like a distant pride blooms in Peter's chest about it and he can't help but feel a little hopeful at the prospect. At the chance . The idea of someone else here, with him. On the street where it mattered. 

Peter brushes the thought away before he gets too sentimental, landing on the ledge of the building softly. Daredevil turns towards him the second he lands, the lines of his shoulders tense, head slightly cocked to the right. At Daredevil's movement, Deadpool also turns, stopping his theatrics mid sentence. 

"Spidey!" Deadpool shouts, throwing his hands in the air. Daredevil nods at him, looking a little wary. 

"Deadpool," Peter sighs, embracing the fact that this is going to be a long night. 

"Sorry to fool you with my little improv scene, I'm working on it for this new troop I've joined. We're thinking of taking the act on the road. Was it any good? Any notes?"  Deadpool rambles, wandering closer to where Peter is perched. Daredevil follows hesitantly. 

"You didn't fool me," Peter says blandly, electing to ignore the rest of whatever the hell Deadpool is yammering about. From his brief interactions with the man, he seems to be a rather pathological liar, at least, he enjoys making up stories just for the sake of having something to say. 

"What do you need?" Peter asks, cutting to the point before the mercenary can go off on another long winded tangent. The man pouts, briefly, but recovers quickly. He slings an arm around Daredevil's shoulder, tugging him closer. 

"So, Devi-baby and I," he starts, gesturing grandly to himself. Daredevil shrugs him off with a faint look of disgust on his face.  

"Were just chatting. Catching up. Shooting the breeze. Yapping. Whatever it is the kids these days say. And I was informing him of our little agreement and he told me what he thought and I thought I would just let you know that, unfortunately, due to this guy's sense of justice or whatever, we are not allowed to kill Wilson Fisk." 

"'Kay," Peter says, shrugging. That both made his life easier and harder. Easier, because now he didn't have to worry about Wilson Fisk being dead. Harder, because now he had to worry about Wilson Fisk being alive. Daredevil cocks his head at him. 

"That's it?" He asks. Behind his mask, Peter gets the distinct impression the man is raising his eyebrows. Peter shrugs again. 

"You're the one that's dealing with him, it's your call. You're an adult, you've been doing this for months, and you know your territory. Word on the street is this isn't your first rodeo. I trust your judgement." 

"Just like that?" Daredevil asks. 

"Just like that," Peter affirms. "If it turns out you're wrong, that's alright. I'm sure Deadpool would be thrilled to get to kill him at a later date." The mercenary nods. 

"I mean, I personally would love to kill him now but I've been outvoted 2 to 3 so I guess I can pencil in a little murder later on." 

"Why haven't you already taken Fisk down?" Daredevil asks. "I mean, you've been at this for years and the entire underground knows you're out for anyone tangling with trafficking. Why is he still walking around? Why wait?" Peter sighs. He feels a little bit of weight sink into him, press down on his collar bones, remind him . Daredevil's right. Fisk should have always been Peter's responsibility. 

"Fisk is…different," Peter muses, feeling old. "He's embedded himself in ways most traffickers don't bother. They are, by nature, impermanent. They don't stick around in one place too long, at least the leaders certainly don't. They usually move opposite of their merchandise; makes them hard to track down. Because of that they end up a little… isolated . Self contained. Their network is their network. They got their guys and that's it. Sure there's a couple loose ends, a couple intermediate guys here and there. Less career criminals and more guys just trying to make a quick buck. But most of the time, you can clean house pretty easily. And once you get the head guy and the first round of his next-in-lines, the whole deal usually collapses in on itself. But Fisk ," Peter pauses. He takes a look out at the twinkling lights of Hell's Kitchen, letting the sounds of the city wash over him. He thinks about how each of those little lights is a person. Someone in their home. Someone who likely doesn't know any of this. Someone who will never need to. 

"Fisk has stayed . He isn't just involved in trafficking. He doesn't specialize. He's made New York his own personal playground, has for years. He's just gotten a little bolder about it recently," Peter huffs. "He doesn't just have his guys. He's connected to other players on the board that I haven't even heard of. He keeps his work too clean. He's efficient, ruthless, and charismatic enough to talk his way out of most trouble and rich enough to buy his way out of pretty much anything he can't. Believe me, I've thought about it. But the optics have never been right, I've never had the time, and there are guys I can get to with way less hassle." 

The two men in front of him are silent at his explanation. Even Deadpool seems contemplative at Peter's admissions. 

"Alright. Say you did have the time, say the optics were perfect. How would you do it?" Daredevil asks. Peter huffs. 

"Well, they're never perfect , but in ideal circumstances?" Peter thinks, fiddling with the edge of one of his gloves. In his HUD Karen flashes through his file on Fisk, reminding him of what he already knows. 

"It would have to be slow. And quiet. Ideally he'd never know it was us, but realistically, he wouldn't know until it was too late. Most likely he finds out pretty immediately, which sucks. We don't beat him in a public theater. The people in New York with sway like him far more than they like us. If we're lucky we'd get the public's support, but not from anyone with the money or influence to back our play. Unless of course you feel like asking Tony Stark for a favor," Peter says sarcastically, tilting his head. Daredevil scrunches his nose in displeasure and Deadpool fake gags. 

"My sentiments exactly. He can be plan Z. It'd be a lot of recon. We'd have to find the weak links in his lower level networks first. See if we can cripple some of his money in little ways. Then we put stress on his lower middle management guys. They start missing shipments, start not being able to pay their grunt workers, start losing money. They get stressed, get sloppy, mess up. Likely start covering up their own messes, which of course doesn't work since they're on the lowest rung of the totem pole for a reason. Their bosses notice and they think ' hey I'll just take care of this little problem myself, get a nice promotion out of my initiative' except they all do it at the same time. Now the lower network is crippled, probably collapses in on itself to some degree. This is where Fisk might start noticing. 

Rinse and repeat around middle management. Get some of those guys to flip on their bosses and work our way up the food chain. The things that Fisk has that we have to take from him are his money and his reputation. Right now, we can't do shit about his reputation, so we have to go after his money. Ideally, in the perfect conditions, once we have his money Fisk gets sloppy, gets irrational, makes a mistake, and we use that mistake to destroy his reputation The problem is that Fisk is a cold son of a bitch and won't get sloppy he'll just get even. And by 'get even' I of course mean killing all our friends and family, demasking us to the public, and then burning down our houses." Peter finishes succinctly. Daredevil and Deadpool are staring at him. Peter looks between them. 

"What?" He asks, feeling a little self conscious under the weight of their combined stares. 

"That…" Daredevil starts, trailing off and swallowing around his words. 

"Was terrifying ," Deadpool picks up, whispering with a sort of manic glee in his voice. 

"Spidey, I didn't know you were an evil mastermind," he squeals in joy. 

"I'm not an evil mastermind!" Peter says defensively, leaning away from the jubilant mercenary. 

"Oh you so are! That was fantastic! Oh my god, I can't believe all those schelps at Sister Margaret's think you're doing this all on luck oh they all owe me so much money," Deadpool gushes. 

"Did you just think of that?" Daredevil asks, feeling a little dazed. 

"I mean no , not all of it," Peter says defensively. "It's usually about the same for any organization you want to take down. Sure the plans and the methods vary a little bit between internal organization and leadership tactics, but the overall structure remains the same. The real differences come in how you have to go about breaking down the little pieces of the organization. Cause then you have to learn about all of those guys, and how they tick and what will work to trip them up. Then you have to do it again for their bosses, and their bosses. And then you have to time everything right. Honestly there's a lot of math that goes into this whole thing, they should make "How To Destabilize A Criminal Empire" a stats elective or something." 

" What the fuck, " Daredevil breathed under his breath. Deadpool made a 'T' motion with his hands. 

"Hold up, pause, let's rewind. How long is this dazzlingly, and frankly enthralling, plan going to take? Cause I have a Cabo trip I need to take in a couple weeks and there is this gorgeous little spot right on the beach that has the perfect mojito-" 

"Best case scenario? I'd say a year and a half. Worse case 3." 

" WHAT?" 

🕸

Wade is rapidly becoming absolutely fascinated with this little wall crawling menace. For one, he seems to be absolutely fucking insane . Wade had caught a glimpse of how meticulous Spidey could be during their first interaction, however brief. He had suspected that there was an edge to the vigilante that most people hadn't considered, an element that had allowed him to really be the first superhero since Captain America. Something made him different. And seeing Spidey lay out his evil, grand scheme like it was nothing?  

He was beginning to believe that everyone should wake everyday and thank every god that might exist that Spider-Man was on the side of the angels. 

"You think that taking down Fisk is going to take a year and a half?" Daredevil asks, sounding a little breathless. Spider-Man holds up his hands. 

"If we do it my way, yeah. Best case. We don't have to do it my way, of course. Just how I would do it. But, like I said, it hinges on Fisk eventually making a mistake, something he isn't very likely to do." 

"Right," Daredevil said. 

"What's the longest you've ever spent on a job?" Wade asked out of pure curiosity. Spider-Man tilted his head, an interesting mannerism that both Spidey and Daredevil seemed to share…

Gasp! 

Was Daredevil Spider-Man's secret lovechild!? 

"I mean," Spidey continued, breaking Wade's very important concentration, "technically I have one I haven't finished yet, so I guess that one." 

"And you started it in…." Wade trailed off, begging the man to elaborate. Spidey shrugged.

"I don't know…spring of 2010?" 

"What's the job?" Daredevil asked cautiously. The eyes of Spidey's mask narrowed. 

"Let's just say that if something doesn't happen in the next 14 months, the leader of the shadow government is gonna owe me a lot of money." 

"...Right," Daredevil drawls, seeming disturbed. Wade was utterly enthralled. He wondered if Spider-Man would object to being kept in a jar on his window sill. 

Probably, he's fucking alive. 

You could ask . 

Probably. He'll have to settle for becoming the man's best friend. Spider-Man wasn't the only one who could hatch plans. 

"So," Daredevil said. "Let's say we do it your way. What's our first move?"  "A shit ton of surveillance. A lot of note taking. Probably some math," Spider-Man admitted. 

"Booooooo," Wade groaned. "Boring! Are we sure we can't just kill him?" 

" No ," Daredevil bit out. Wade turned to Spider-Man. He just raised his hands in mock surrender.

"His choice." 

"And would you kill him? If I wasn't here?" Daredevil snapped, turning to Spider-Man. The vigilante looked at Daredevil, assessing. To his credit, the Devil didn't shrink under his gaze, but Wade could tell it was a near thing. Spider-Man had a certain weight about him. A heaviness. A presence. Something that seemed to stretch around his fairly lean frame and non impressive height and make him larger than himself. Something that reminded you that he'd been around before the rest of them, before the Avengers. The first superhero since Captain America. Some would argue the first real superhero. Not somebody doing the bidding of the government. Not some soldier made in a lab (that they knew of). Just a man behind a mask with fantastical powers, doing what he could to make things better. There was a grit to it, something Wade didn't see in himself. Something he did see in Daredevil. He wondered how much the man had been inspired by Spider-Man. How much the presence of another vigilante had paved the way for him, had proved it could be done. He had a feeling asking would end with him getting a billy club to the head. 

"I don't kill people," Spider-Man said firmly, seeming to get to the root of Daredevil's question. Wade had been wondering too. Spider-Man looked down. 

"I don't think I should be the one to get to make that choice. But I do know it is a choice that has to be made sometimes. Governments make it. Soldiers make it. People make it, all the time. Captain America has certainly made it. I'm sure the Avengers will have to make it. My methods are slow because the other way is too fast. And I'd rather be slow and right , than have the chance of being fast and wrong. I'm sure you have different reasons for not killing. I'm sure Deadpool has reasons for killing. But for right now, murder isn't very 'Friendly Neighborhood'," Spider-Man explained, a slight smirk in his voice. 

"If you weren't here," Spider-Man continues, looking directly at Daredevil now, "I wouldn't kill Fisk. And if you had said yes , I suppose I would have let Deadpool do it. But you are here. And you said no. So we're doing it the slow way. Now," Spider-Man surmised, looking between the two of them. 

"We have work to do."