Chapter Text
April
With no more energy to direct himself, Peter’s feet automatically carried him forward. At least he could be grateful for that.
He was out of breath, gasping as he tried to suck in air through his panic. He could hear the roar of repulsors somewhere above him, and there were shouts somewhere behind. Cap was certainly gaining on him, even if the others couldn’t keep up with his speed. Normally he wouldn’t have a problem getting away, he thought, torn between desperation and envy towards his normal self. The misshapen lump at his shoulder and the agony he’d felt when he’d tried to swing into the air assured him that he had dislocated it: there was no way he could support himself like that. Not if he wanted to maintain any kind of respectable speed.
God, he wished this city would get some sleep. He would feel much better without all those eyes on him, right now. Spider-Man tended to paint a very noticeable picture, even when he wasn’t dripping a trail of blood behind him, sprinting through the streets of New York: anyone could point his pursuers in his direction right now.
He groaned, nearly slamming into a wall as he caught sight of the alley and turned to duck down it. He used his good arm to sling a web to the dark shape behind a trash can, dragging his backpack up to his chest. His bad arm, somewhat more feebly, lifted just enough to shoot another web up towards a high building. Instead of grabbing on, though, he stuck it to his backpack and threw with his good arm, giving the thing as much momentum as he could manage. Please let them follow that long enough for him to get away in the other direction, he thought helplessly. He watched just long enough to see it start to arch upwards before wrenching one of the dumpster lids up and toppling inside, letting it slam shut behind him.
He landed in the bottom, feeling a splash under him. The thing must have been recently emptied, he thought, eyes squeezing shut as he tried to hear over the hammering of his own heart. Peter’s breath was loud and ragged in his ears, so he clamped both hands over his mouth, trying to stifle the sound.
Lying in trash juice in a dark dumpster, alone, in more pain than he could ever remember being in. Yeah, that sounded about right, he admitted with a grimace.
Then he heard heavy footsteps and realized that Captain America had caught up with him. He stopped breathing entirely, body shuddering. Please let this work, he begged silently. Please let this work. He couldn’t bear it if they caught him. If they took away the last thing he had.
The footsteps slowed to a stop right outside his hiding place and Peter managed to stifle a groan before it emerged. If he listened, he could hear Cap talking.
“The blood trail ends here,” the soldier was saying, voice tense. “He must have hit the sky. Stark?” A long moment of silence. “See if you can find a trail up there. Clint. Anything?” More quiet as the captain apparently listened to someone speaking over their comms system. “A backpack?” He repeated, sounding displeased. “Take it. Maybe there’s something we can learn there.”
Peter opened his eyes, fear coiling in the pit of his stomach. How had everything gone so badly, he wondered, trying to reconcile his current state with his memory of himself from just a few months ago.
“Keep looking,” he heard, but the sound was muffled, now, and his vision swam as his eyes shut and he thought of-
---
September
Time almost seemed to move in slow motion as Gwen Stacy spun to face him, blonde hair flowing around her head, expression so perfectly surprised and relieved that he swore his heart skipped a beat. The light was behind her, causing a halo effect, and it occurred to Peter that she might be the prettiest person he’d ever seen.
“Spider-Man!” She exclaimed, watching as he pinned the gun he’d tugged out of the would-be mugger’s hand with a swath of webbing.
“Not to worry, miss,” he said, another strand thwipp -ing from his web shooter as the mugger tried to lurch for the gun. It caught him by the hand and pinned him to the wall. “Everything’s under control.” He managed to keep his voice from cracking, somehow, shooting a second strand which pinned the guy to the wall, but he noticed her strange expression anyway. Everyone always gave him that look, he thought with no small amount of frustration. His voice just sounded too young. Eventually that problem would fix itself, but in the meantime, Peter needed to come up with some kind of a solution.
“Get this shit off of me!” The man was shouting, struggling as he attempted to yank his hands free.
“Nice try, buddy,” Peter strolled over, casually leaning against the wall next to him, face angled towards the man even as he watched Gwen out of the corner or his eye. He tried to make his voice sound a little older. “There’s no way you’re getting through that until the police get here. Miss?” He addressed Gwen, then, noting the way she was staring at him with wide eyes, phone clutched to her chest. “Would you mind calling 911?” He tried to avoid talking on the phone with police as much as possible, given their anti-vigilante stance. The last thing he wanted was to get in trouble because he’d accidentally given them a clue.
“Sure,” she agreed, seeming to snap back to attention. Her fingers fumbled with the phone and Peter noticed that she was shaking.
“Hey,” he hopped over, one hand resting over hers on the phone. “Calm down. It’s okay now. I’ll wait with you, okay? You don’t have to be alone, you’re going to want to give a statement to the police. But I’ll stick around. Okay?” His classmate looked at him- they were almost on the same eye level, despite her being older than him. At least he wasn’t shorter, he sighed with some chagrin. There was already an uncomfortable knowledge in her expression as she gave a quick nod. She lifted the phone to her ear without another word and Peter waited as the phone rang. Gwen straightened unconsciously as someone on the other end picked up.
“Yes! I was- someone just tried to mug me.” Her eyes flicked over to the mugger, who was desperately trying to unstick his hands. “No, I’m okay, but Spider-Man...yes. He’s stuck to the wall. Yes: I’m near 191st Street and 90th Avenue- yes. Okay, thank you.” She hesitated a moment longer, then hung up, turning to look at Peter again. “The police are on their way,” she said, studying his face. Or, rather, his mask. “Thank you, Spider-Man.” She took a shuddering breath, but then her lips formed a smile. One meant for him. His heart lifted and he felt his face warming under the mast. “Are you alright?”
“Me?” His voice was uncomfortably high. “Yeah, definitely. He didn’t even get off a shot, don’t worry about it.” He grinned under his mask, but he doubted that she could tell. “Thanks for the concern. What’s your name?” He asked her, even though he knew. He couldn’t resist talking to her for a little longer, even as he heard police cars approaching.
“Gwen Stacy,” she answered, fidgeting a little, presumably from the nervous energy of the leftover adrenaline.
“Nice to meet you, Gwen.” He stuck his hand out, apparently surprising her again, if her hesitation before she shook it was anything to guess by. “I’m just sorry that we had to meet under this kind of, uh, circumstance.”
“You, too,” she agreed, her smile returning, wider this time. “I always wondered-” The sirens pulled up behind him and Peter heard shouting.
“Gotta go,” he gave her a cheerful little salute, leaning back casually into the air even as he shot a web up to the roof, launching himself off of the ground. He shot a glance over his shoulder to see Gwen still watching him as the police hurried over, looking frustrated.
Peter swung away, paying attention for any further disturbances as he threw himself through the streets. He whooped into the wind, despite himself. He’d saved plenty of people from similar situations by now, but that had been his classmate , he thought reverently, somersaulting in the air as he threw another web out to catch him.
A classmate who was at the top of her class, he thought, embarrassment flooding his features again as he came to a stop on a rooftop, flopping down on the edge, legs dangling. Who he’d fantasized about talking to more than once. She was...incredible, honestly. It would be a stretch, he supposed, to say that he had a crush on her, but there was definitely a certain amount of admiration there. To have been able to be in the right place, at the right time, to protect her from something bad happening...it felt like a blessing.
“Oh my god,” he shouted, flopping onto his back on the edge of the roof, hands pressing to his head as he felt a surge of giddiness. “Gwen Stacy!” If only this meant that he had a free pass to talk to her, now, he thought wryly. But she would never know that Peter Parker, some nobody at her school, was the masked superhero who’d just saved her from a mugger. It was a shame, obviously, but his secret identity was much more important than the short-lived pride he would get from revealing himself to Gwen.
If he was going to do this, he told himself sternly, this whole vigilante thing, he was going to be smart about it. He was going to do it right.
That was why he never went anywhere near his home in costume. It was why he took such convoluted routes back. It was why he never let anyone see his costume, why he would sometimes stay out for hours after a patrol, only getting home in time to crash for two or three hours before hauling his butt out of bed for school.
Honestly, thank god for whatever super resistance that spider bite had given him, or he would be in a sorry state.
Besides, he lectured himself silently, he didn’t do this for the recognition. He didn’t do it because he wanted people to like him: if that were the case, he would have quit heroing in the first two weeks. J Jonah Jameson sure wasn’t cutting him any slack, despite the number of people he’d saved already.
He wasn’t doing it for the benefits package, either, he thought with a sigh. Between the constant drain on his income that the repairs to his suit had become and the never-ending, untreated injuries, it was more of an inconvenience than anything.
“Must be nice to be an Avenger,” he sighed aloud. “At least they get a paycheck. And medical, probably. And most people don’t hate them.” Not everyone, sure, but most people. It was certainly better off than Peter himself.
He sat up, remembering where his train of thought had been going. He didn’t do this for any of those reasons, he told himself fiercely. He did it because it was important . Some people didn’t feel like it was their job to help others; it wasn’t their responsibility because the bad things weren’t happening to them. Peter just couldn’t understand that. Because he could help, he had to help.
He pulled one knee up, propping his elbow on it so he could lean his head into his hand. The other leg swung freely over the ledge. He wondered if this would have scared him, back in April, when he’d first gotten bitten. Probably. He felt so at home, high up, now. Looking over the city like this, watching the strands he left behind swaying in the breeze as they began to disintegrate, he felt peaceful. The wind blew against him with a force that might have rocked him, if he weren’t firmly stuck to the edge of the building, making it almost feel like he was flying. If one could fly with their butt stuck to concrete, anyway.
He stood abruptly, feeling a buzz in the back of his mind that put him on edge. Something was happening. His eyes scanned the streets until he caught the sight of flashing lights: a police chase.
“Alright, here we go,” he mumbled, rubbing his hands together as he bounced on the balls of his feet, amping himself up. “Round two.” He leapt from the building, letting himself fall, faster and faster as he approached the ground. He got close enough to hear someone scream as they caught sight of him before slinging a web, whooping with exhilaration as he zipped close over the heads of the bystanders at the foot of the tower, headed low and fast for the sounds of sirens.
He pulled a hard turn around the corner and found himself in the thick of it, sticking himself to the roof of the fleeing car. Honestly, could his timing be any better? Peter allowed himself a grin as he flopped down almost casually on the roof, listening to the shouting from inside. He leaned down, peering through the passenger side window. Inside were four men, all toting guns and wearing surprised faces. “Hey guys, how’s it going?” He quipped, pulling back quickly as the guns aimed for his face, narrowly dodging a barrage of bullets. There were screams from under him: one of the guys must have hit his bud. “Oh man, you’re gonna want to put some pressure on that,” he leaned down over the other side, quickly webbing one of the shooter’s hands firmly to the bullet wound of his seat-mate. The gun was still in that hand, which probably didn’t feel pleasant. “Ooh, sorry about that. Hey, let’s wrap this up so we can get you to a doctor, huh?” Another shot came at him and he dodged out of the way again, grateful for the tingling sensation that warned him of the danger. “Get it? Wrap it up? Because I’m a spider.” He webbed the second gun to the shooter’s thigh, and yanked the last two out of the car altogether, attaching them to a lamppost they passed.
A glance over his shoulder assured Peter that the police were still right behind, but they couldn’t get too close without risking danger. Alright. He could do something about that. All he needed to do was stop the car. But how? He glanced around at the traffic around them, worried about causing some kind of pile up.
“Okay, okay, okay,” he chanted, flopping straight onto his back and allowing his entire back to adhere to the roof of the car. “Here we go.” He shot two webs upward and pulled , grunting with effort as he lifted the car upwards, out of traffic altogether. The wheels spun uselessly in the air and there was a stream of curses from the cabin on the car. “Hey, hey, you kiss your mother with that mouth?” Peter demanded, shooting out more webs in order to support the weight of the car without causing damage to the buildings he attached it to. Well, minimal damage, anyway.
He heard the police pulling to a stop and the driver’s side door opened as the getaway guy tried to make his escape more singularly, but they were nearly ten feet off the ground, now, and he balked. Peter rolled over, secure in the belief that the car was suspended well enough, and webbed the guy to his seat. “No way, man, you’re going to sit in the car until you can behave,” he scolded, watching as the police approached, guns high. “Never a word of thanks, huh? Don’t worry about it, all in a day’s work,” he assured the officers, standing up. Surely they wouldn’t shoot, he thought, trying to project confidence despite his unease. “The webbing wears off in about two hours, make sure everybody’s out from under the car by then,” he suggested, then hurriedly shot a web, glancing towards the flashing lights again before yanking himself out of harm’s way. No point in tempting fate.
Peter made a sharp left at the first opportunity, carrying him out of sight of the police before he allowed himself to breathe a sigh of relief. He didn’t like to interact with them that closely, he thought with a grimace. Although they hadn’t shot at him yet, there was always a chance that the next time would be the first time, and he really didn’t want to get into an actual fight with New York’s Finest. Despite the fact that it would be self defence if he webbed someone to the ground, he still didn’t think that it would go over too well with anyone. Besides, he thought vehemently, if he wanted his reputation to improve at all, he needed to stay on his best behavior. And that meant fighting bad guys , not policemen. Maybe a little witty banter was in order, but he didn’t want them hearing his voice too much.
It hit him suddenly. “A voice modulator!” He exclaimed aloud, voice snatched away by the wind. “I need a voice modulator! I bet I could make one of those!” Then he wouldn’t sound like such a kid , and maybe people would take him more seriously. He brightened at the idea, scrambling back to where he’d ditched his backpack. He needed a notebook, stat.
As he swung down into the alley, he breathed a sigh of relief to find that his bag was still stuffed behind the dumpster where he’d left it. It usually was, sure, but he’d lost more than one this way. Aunt May was...never pleased.
He slung one of the straps over his shoulder and crawled up to the nearest roof: a better launching point to get higher up than the narrow street, that was for sure. And if he was going to be distracting himself with this while he was on-duty, then he needed to be somewhere high up enough that he would have a wide range of vision. Then, hopefully, his spidey-sense would help him pick up on anything he might have normally missed in his distraction.
He abandoned his web, scurrying up the last few feet of the building he’d chosen as his next perch. It had the definite benefit of not having roof access, so he was unlikely to be bothered, up here. Peter had learned the hard way, he thought with a grimace, that New Yorkers were more than willing to chase him off of their roofs, if they found him there.
Secure in his privacy, Peter sat cross-legged on the edge of the roof, so that he could see the city even as he ducked his head to tug at the zippers on his backpack. His thoughts turned idly back to Gwen as he wrestled one of the notebooks out, then dug around in the bottom for a spare pen.
He did kind of wish that he’d sounded more suave and less squeaky, when he’d interacted with her. Next time, he promised. Well- assuming that there was a next time, and honestly, Peter hoped that there wouldn’t be. Obviously it would be much better if Gwen never needed saving again. But maybe they could just socially run into each other or something.
“Hey, Gwen, remember me?” He mumbled to himself, deepening his voice as he uncapped his pan and started to scribble into his notebook a list of supplies that he would probably need. “Spider-Man. We met that one time, with the mugger. Oh, no, miss, really, there’s no need to thank me, honestly. I was happy to help.” He smiled stupidly under his mask, tapping the end of the pen rhythmically against the paper as he thought. “Hey, I know your classmate, Peter Parker,” he added, crossing out one of the components. That would be way too big to be feasible. “He’s a pretty cool guy and you ought to talk to him sometime. He likes science, too, you know, you two probably have a lot in common and you ought to give him a shot even though he’s younger than you.” He grimaced, then, voice returning to normal. “Geeze, this is sad.”
Peter shook his head quickly, turning his attention back to the book as he stared at his list, trying to anticipate the issues he would surely come across. He could do this, he told himself firmly. This was way less complicated than his web-shooters, he told himself, and those were way less complicated than the web fluid itself. He just needed to figure out a way to sound it natural, he decided, that was the biggest thing. He didn’t really want to go around sounding like a robot. The people of New York would never come to trust a web-slinging, crime fighting robot . Nobody wanted the world to turn into Robocop.
“Well, except maybe Tony Stark,” he muttered, looking out over the city as he drew up his knee again in order to lean against it, notebook hand drifting to one side. “That guy loves robots.” He frowned a little. “Do those suits of his count as robots? He’s got the A.I. in them, or whatever,” he mused aloud. “But the suits themselves...not robots, right?” If he ever met Tony Stark, he’d have to ask him. Until then, he could put the question on hold, he supposed.
---
Okay: so Peter did manage to explode the voice modulator once. But it was just a small one, it hardly even counted. It hadn’t even really set him back on the completion.
“If it doesn’t set off the fire alarm, it’s not an explosion,” Peter assured himself as he tried trimming the wires again, making doubly sure that nothing was connected to the battery. He was struggling to get the thing small enough to be feasible, but he thought that he’d finally managed to get everything settled, as long as these wires wouldn’t touch each other. Then everything should be fine.
“Okay,” He lifted up the contraption. It wasn’t pretty, but as far as prototypes went, it wasn’t bad, either. He had all the time in the world to make it better. And, if his Google searches could be trusted, his voice would settle into a more adult tone in the next year or two, and then he could ditch it altogether. “I’m Spider-Man,” he said into the modulator, and was pleased to hear his voice coming out deeper than before. It had a slightly tinny sound to it, but it wasn’t terribly noticeable if he wasn’t listening for it. It sounded like...a person. Just an adult man, and from behind the mask, that tinniness shouldn’t be audible at all. “Awesome,” he said, feeling positively giddy about the success of his newest invention. Of course, he still needed to get it into the suit and field-test it. “I’m Spider-Man,” he said again, muscles tensing as he imagined speaking to some bad guys. “And you have the right to remain silent.” He grinned. “You’re coming with me, dirt-bag,” he snickered. He sounded tougher, for sure. Kind of goofy, with all that garbage, but he was sure that his jokes would sound way less cheesy with a more mature voice attached. Not that he minded the cheesiness.
He glanced at the clock, wondering if he had time to make it out that night. It was three in the morning already, he saw, stomach dropping disappointedly. If he went out now, looking for trouble, then he probably wouldn’t make it back home much before five or six at best. There was a quiz in English tomorrow, Peter thought resignedly, so he should probably get some rest tonight. He could go out after school tomorrow and test out the gadget.
But first, he needed to figure out how to attach it to his suit in some kind of reasonable manner. The inside, probably, so that no one would know he’d changed his voice at all…
--
Peter’s phone went off just after lunch. It was a News Alert he’d subscribed to: breaking disasters to warn commuters so that they wouldn’t wander into a dangerous situation. A lot of people actually had similar apps these days, Peter knew: it had become pretty important to know what was going on ever since the event that had been dubbed as the Battle of New York. Peter, of course, used the feature for entirely different purposes.’
It wasn’t easy for most students to duck out of Midtown High, but the chain link fences weren’t exactly much of a barrier for Peter. The biggest problem was making sure that nobody saw him. But then, if one knew which parts of the school to go to, that wasn’t too much of an issue, either.
He made it off campus with not a soul the wiser. He’d be missed, when the next class started, he was sure. These things rarely took as little time as he hoped that they would. He’d come up with an excuse, though. He always did.
As he ducked behind a building to change, he furtively reread the news alert. “Giant Bees Terrorize Lower Manhattan,” it read. Giant bees? Honestly, what the hell? Who made giant bees and then released them in New York City? A real jerk, whoever it was. He shook his head disparagingly as he slung the first web of the day, launching himself up into the air.
Manhattan was a little outside his usual routes, he thought, but that wasn’t a problem. It just meant that he was slightly less familiar with the skyline. He’d been around there enough, though, to make it work. Besides, it wasn’t as if the source of the commotion was difficult to track down. For one, he could hear the droning of wingbeats from blocks away. He could hear the sounds of fighting even further away from that.
The Avengers, he thought with a thrill of excitement. The Avengers were there. He could hear the sound of Iron Man’s repulsor blasts. He could hear explosions. That was a little beyond his pay grade, but he was more than willing to throw himself into a fray. After all, who was more qualified to take care of a bunch of giant bugs than a giant spider? Sort of.
He rounded a corner and then he saw them: bees the size of horses. That was way too big for a bee. Peter gaped, but didn’t hesitate to continue straight into the thick of it.
“Whoa!” His mind twinged and he twisted in the air, narrowly avoiding being smeared over the windshield of the Iron Man suit. “Watch it! Okay here we go, comin’ through!” He could hear the voice modulator at work, and he was thrilled that, at least so far, it was standing up to the high velocity forces working on his body. It had been a struggle to make his web-shooters work at speeds like that, but he’d learned a lot.
“Woo!” He yelped, catching sight of Hawkeye on top of a building, shooting arrow after arrow. Each shot was accompanied by the sound of an explosion and a downed bee- so that’s who was setting off bombs downtown. Another look around showed him Captain America down on the ground, right in the middle of catching his shield. Now that was an action shot, he thought eagerly, fingers itching to get ahold of his camera. The sound of a gun attracted his attention and he saw, directly below him, the Black Widow getting off an unreasonable amount of shots in a really short time.
Come on, come on, he thought desperately. He wanted to hear that catchphrase so bad. It was famous . His eyes scanned the ground hopefully.
“Hulk SMASH!”
Yes. Good lord, yes.
“The whole team’s here!” He shouted, elated. All of them! Well, except Thor- but nobody knew where that guy was. On his own world, probably?
But then in his distraction he flew right into the side of a bee, knocking the wind briefly out of him.
“Oh, boy, oof,” he gripped onto the surprisingly fluffy creature as it bucked under him. “Look at you!” He hauled himself up onto its back, taking a look around to get a clearer picture of the actual situation, now that he was able to put aside his excitement about the presence of the Avengers. They didn’t seem to be doing very well, taking out just one bee at a time like this. “Alright, I can do something about this,” he grunted, looking down at the bee. “See you in a minute, big guy,” he chirped, a web latching onto one of the buildings near the edge of the fight. He got to work, shooting more and more out, literally building a spider web.
“Hey!” He called out, spotting Iron Man nearby. The hero’s head turned in his direction even as he kept shooting at the swarming bees. They were everywhere . “Get everyone to kill the ones over here first! That’ll get all the other ones-” he dodged a bee as it attempted to sting him and he yelped. That stinger was the size of a sword! That was lethal! “That’ll bring all the other ones over here and they’ll get caught in the web!”
He didn’t hear a response, but Iron Man must have heard him and communicated with the rest of his team, because the next thing he knew, the bees closes to him were exploding. Oh god, oh, god, he hadn’t thought that through. He hastily scurried up the web, catching onto one of the bees and hurling it straight into the web where it thrashed, no doubt sending off all kinds of distress signals to the other bees. They would be swarming over here any minute.
He worked on hastily expanding the web, trying to take up as much space between the buildings as possible. He caught sight of the bees beginning to turn in his direction and he realized that, for a second time, he’d undersold his own position on the Danger Scale. It was rapidly becoming a ten. “Oh, geeze,” he scurried between the strands of his own web, getting on the other side of it, at least before beginning to shoot off more webs, trying to focus, somehow, on pulling stray bees into the sticky strands and repairing the damage that was being done by the struggling bees.
Should he web them up? Probably. But that might be going a little too far with the whole spider-gimmick. He wanted the Avengers to take him seriously, after all, not treat him like some two bit, overly themed nobody.
He dodged out of the way as a bee flew straight for him, body curled, stinger extended as it attempted to straight up kill him. It was caught in the web, but Peter was knocked loose by the jostling. “Crap!” He exclaimed, latching onto his web with a new strand, swinging down in a wide arch under it. This launched him, screaming, into the middle of the swarm. He ran straight into another bee, then fell, bouncing off a few more on the way down before he managed to get his bearings enough to latch onto one. The air was so densely packed around him that he couldn’t see any buildings, he thought, worried. There was nothing with enough leverage to get him out of here.
His spider sense went off like an alarm clock in his ear and he ducked, but not before something grazed his back, making him hiss as his suit ripped. Great , he thought venomously. Another chunk out of his latest paycheck from Jameson, gone. Peter had just spent all of his money on the dang modulator, how was he going to afford to fix this?
There was another explosion nearby, sending a shudder through the swarm as Peter wobbled and nearly fell again. “Jesus Christ!” He exclaimed, hunching down on the bee, knees wrapped around its sides. An idea occurred to him.
No. It was too cheesy. Too stupid. He couldn’t. He had to.
He shot a web from each hand, forming rudimentary reigns on the bee. Oh, god, this was so great. He hauled hard on the webs, pulling the bee firmly to the right. He banged into a couple of other bees, but the bug couldn’t buck him no matter how hard it tried, and it eventually succumbed to his insistent tugging and he found himself suddenly outside of the swarm, literally riding a giant bee into battle.
“ Yee-haw! ” He shouted, and he saw Black Widow’s head whip towards him from where he was.
A glance towards the web showed him that it was nearly full, but also heavily damaged. He steered his reluctant steed towards it, driving it straight into the web. He got back to work immediately, reinforcing the web he’d built already before beginning a second layer over it. They were going to need every inch of web they could get if they wanted to catch these things. Killing them one at a time just wasn’t doing it.
“Spider-Man, look out!” It was Iron Man, headed straight for his new web with what must be the queen- and most of her hive- coming right after him.
“Oh, crap,” Peter cursed, kicking off a bee and launching himself straight for the ground. He heard glass shattering and the sounds of buildings straining, followed by a series of six repulsor blasts. Peter couldn’t see what was happening; he was too busy hauling himself towards the ground floor of the building nearest him so that he wouldn’t crash into the road.
He managed to direct his crash landing to an awning, instead, ripping through it and smacking into a brick wall with significantly less velocity than he would have before the cloth.
“You alright, Spider-Man?” He heard a cool female voice asking him, and he sucked in a breath, propping himself up. It was the Black Widow, watching him over her shoulder even as she fired off two more shots into the suddenly less organized swarm. Peter spotted the queen, slumped and motionless, creating a huge drag in his web.
“Yeah,” he agreed breathlessly. “Yeah, I’m alright. What about you? You good?” His eyes raked over her and it occurred to him that there wasn’t a scratch on her. Years of experience, he supposed. Or maybe she just knew better than to get stuck in the middle of the swarm. Instead of answering, she just eyed him and gave a curt nod before turning away. Peter took that as his cue to leave, pulling himself back up into the air.
He was definitely going to feel this in the morning. Or, you know, right now. He was going to feel it right now.
The Avengers were picking off stragglers, now, mostly, and he did his best to round them up, tossing them into the web. His body ached, but he was alright. As the last of the bees fell out of the sky, Peter landed somewhat clumsily on one of the roofs above the web, panting. “Wow,” he thought, watching as the superheroes below him continued firing at the web, killing the remaining squirming bees.
“Good work, Spider-Man,” Iron Man drifted upwards in front of him, voice projecting even over the sounds of his flight.
“Oh, wow, thanks,” Peter couldn’t help the elation that he felt, actually talking face to face with one of his heroes. Tony Stark! Talking to him! “I mean, uh, you too. Really. That was incredible. Watching you guys, just- ‘ pew pew !’” His fingers formed guns as he made the sound effect, mining the act of shooting bees. “You guys are amazing.”
There were a few moments of silence and Peter snapped back to attention, realizing he sounded like an idiot, but then Tony spoke again. “You’re an excitable one, huh? I get that. You alright? I saw you fall.”
“Yeah, yes, thank you, I’m fine,” Peter waved his hands dismissively. “I’m pretty tough, don’t worry about me.” He stretched pointedly. “You know spiders, right? We can fall a long way without getting hurt. Bend, don’t break, that’s what I always say.”
“I don’t think that applies,” Iron Man muttered, landing on the roof next to Peter. “Turn around.”
“What? No, I,” Tony grabbed Peter by the shoulders and whirled him to face the other direction, exposing the scratch on his back. “Oh, that? It’s nothing,” Peter assured him.
“I guess it doesn’t look too bad. Not too deep. You get that from the fall?”
“I’m not sure,” Peter lied, muscles relaxing a little when Iron Man released him. He turned back around, looking the man in the mask. “Really, don’t worry. I heal fast.” He smiled, but he doubted that Iron Man could tell underneath his own disguise.
“If you say so. Good work, with that web,” Tony gestured towards the trap. “What is that stuff? Organic?”
“Uh, no,” Peter tugged his sleeve up a little to display one of the web shooters, nonplussed. “Mechanical. It’s a nylon-based polymer,” He shot a web into one hand, stretching it out for Tony to see close up. Iron Man’s mask popped open and he looked closely at it, reaching out to touch it. He grimaced as it stuck to his hand and tried to pull back.
“How do you carry that much around with you?” Peter stared at him, amazed, before hurriedly using the small cutting edge on his web shooter to cut Tony free.
“Oh, well, look,” He tugged the sleeve up a little further, exposing the line that traced along his arm. “It’s actually a fluid right now, and it expands a lot when I shoot it, but I’ve got all these cartridges,” He gestured to his belt, lined with the small canisters. “For if I run out.”
“So it turns solid upon contact with air?” Tony pressed, abandoning his Iron Man suit completely to manhandle Peter’s arm, picking at the web shooter. Peter pulled his arm away self-consciously. Was Tony wearing a three piece suit during the entire battle? That seemed impractical.
“Kind of. It enters a rapid state of decay, actually,” he told him. “Which is why it dissolves. It hardens really quickly, making it really tough, but then, after that, it turns into powder and just kind of… pffff,” He wiggled his fingers, demonstrating that the webs would blow away on the breeze.
“And you made this yourself?” Tony asked, looking disappointed that Peter wasn’t allowing him to examine the tech a little more closely.
“Yeah,” Peter’s grin returned, wider now.
“You work for me?” Tony asked suspiciously. “I find it hard to believe someone who could make this has escaped my notice.”
“No!” Peter held up his hands in front of him. “I don’t, honestly, I don’t.”
“You work for Oscorp, then,” Iron Man nodded, as if that made sense. “Yeah, I definitely would have picked up on one of my employees ducking out of work all the time to go save the city. Or, more specifically, Queens, right?” Peter swallowed.
“No, I don’t- I don’t work for the Osborns, either,” Peter assured him, feeling suddenly uncomfortable with the scrutiny. “I like to keep my science...private, I guess? At least for now.” Honestly he would love to work at one of those big science firms, someday, but he was fifteen, for Christ’s sake. He had years to go before that.
“Damn. So you’re still undiscovered. You ever want a job, Spidey, you come to me,” Tony said, an almost hungry look on his face. “I could always use a few more brains like that hanging around. Hey, have you met Bruce?” He gestured down to where the Hulk was ripping his webbing apart strand by strand, killing any bees he managed to find alive.
“The Hulk?” Peter asked skeptically. “I, uh, was kind of under the impression that the smartest idea was to stay away from him.”
“No, no, not the Hulk. He’s not always like that,” Tony assured him. “He’s usually very mild-mannered, believe it or not. Super brainy. Very fun to annoy.”
“You annoy the Incredible Hulk on purpose?” Peter asked, almost pained. He’d heard that Tony Stark was reckless, but he didn’t anticipate this.
“It’s fine. He’s pretty good at controlling his temper.” Tony took a step back, and Peter watched with fascination as his suit closed around him again. “Look, you ought to come back to the tower. We’ll get that back of yours looked at, and you can meet Bruce...when he calms down.”
“No- no, I have somewhere to be,” Peter suddenly remembered. “I appreciate it, but really, as much as I’d love to I’m just fine.” He was suddenly feeling antsy. He needed to get back to school. “You got the time?”
“Yeah, it’s twelve-forty-four.”
“Crap! I’m late. It was super great meeting you, Mr. Stark, really, and I hope to see you around again sometime. Uh- the webbing-”
“Dissolves in two hours, Yeah, I think that’s basically common knowledge, by now. You sure you don’t want to tag along?”
“No thanks, really! See you!” he agreed, turning to leap from the building.
“Well, make sure you get that scratch looked at!” Iron Man called after him, and Peter turned enough to salute him briefly before swinging away.
Holy crap, he met Iron Man. He talked with Iron Man. He stifled his giddy shouts until he was certain that he was far enough away that none of the Avengers would hear him, fists pumping in the air as he passed between web strands. “Yes! Yes, yes, yes!” His personal hero basically offered him a job! He complimented his work, his tech, offered him a job, and then invited him back to the Avengers tower! He almost didn’t even care that he was late; this had officially turned into the best day ever.
He completely forgot about his injuries all the way back to Queens, but as soon as he landed in the alley where he’d ditched his bag he remembered.
“Oh, god,” he groaned, leaning one hand heavily against the wall. “Oh my god. The Avengers are so above my pay grade. This hurts. Ow.” He straightened up and forced himself to change, checking as best he could for blood on his back, but it seemed that Iron Man’s assessment was correct and it wasn’t even deep enough to bleed. Thank god for that, he’d really gotten lucky.
He took off in a jog, feeling tired. That was a much tougher fight than he was used to: muggers and carjackers didn’t really compare to something like that. He did have the occasional villain- Vulture, Hobgoblin, Kraven- who seemed to rise above the rest of the crop, but it was usually pretty small time stuff, compared to the world-ending threats the Avengers faced.
But it was worth it, he thought reverently as he snuck back onto campus, if it meant fighting side by side with the Avengers themselves. His superhero role models. Mostly.
He made his way to the nurse’s office: he’d missed all of one class and most of another, by now, so his best course of action was to get those absences excused. And the best way to do that was through the nurse.
He staggered into the office, maybe a little melodramatically. “Miss Arrow,” he groaned, clutching his stomach. “I don’t feel so good.” The woman turned to face him, looking exasperated.
“Mr. Parker,” she scolded. “This isn’t another one of your tricks, is it? Just trying to get out of class?” That was fair, Peter admitted to himself. It wasn’t the first time he’d pulled this.
“No way, Miss Arrow,” he leaned against the door. “I feel...queasy. Tired.” He realized he was sweating, and his stomach really was turning over. What was happening? He wasn’t normally this good a liar. The look on her face suddenly shifted to concern as she looked him over.
“Alright, Mr. Parker, go lie down. I’ll be in to take your temperature in just a minute,” she told him, gesturing to the door which led to the small, quiet room with a few uncomfortable cots in it. Pete had caught more than his fair share of naps there, over the past few months.
He walked slowly into the other room, eyes finding the bed next to the trash can. He legitimately felt like he was going to vomit. What was going on, he wondered again. He didn’t get sick anymore. At least, he didn’t think he did.
He flopped heavily on the bed, then grimaced as the movement caused a sudden shift in his stomach and he leaned over, vomiting into the trash. Okay, he thought, trying to collect his thoughts. He was sick for real this time.
He was shaking as he lay back. The movement caused a twinge of pain along his spine and he suddenly remembered the cut there. The bees- some of the venom must have made its way into the cut. He shuddered. There was no doubt in his mind that the poison would be lethal to a normal person, but he had no idea what it would do to him.
Hopefully this was the extent of it, he thought, eyes shutting. He heard Miss Arrow approaching. “Can I go home? I really feel bad,” he told her, truthfully for the first time this year.
“Let’s get your temperature, first. Open up,” she instructed him, and Peter obeyed without opening his eyes. He felt the plastic of the thermometer touch under his tongue and he shut his mouth again, both of them waiting in silence for a few moments before the machine beeped and she pulled it free, clucking with concern. “It looks like you do have a fever: I’ll call your aunt to come pick you up.
Normally he would argue, he thought. He didn’t want Aunt May to have to leave work to come get him. But he didn’t think he’d make it home on his own even if they did let him sign himself out, and the last thing he wanted to do was spend the day in the nurse’s office, vomiting his guts out.
“Thanks,” he mumbled instead, rolling onto his side in an attempt to get more comfortable. It didn’t really help. He kept his hoodie on, despite his growing warmth, because he wasn’t exactly sure how bad his injuries might be, and the last thing he wanted was for anyone to catch sight of them. He dozed for a while, trying to stay calm about his illness. It was stressful, sure, but he would pull through this. Peter always pulled through.
It took almost an hour for Aunt May to show up, although he was sure that she had left work as soon as she had heard.
“Peter,” he woke to the sound of her voice, turning towards the hand pressed to his cheek. “My poor boy. Are you feeling alright?”
“I feel like crap, Aunt May,” Peter grimaced. Over the last hour he’d puked a couple more times, but he was running on empty, now, so maybe that part was over. “Can we go home?”
“Yes, Peter, we’re going home. Come on, I’ve got your backpack.” She helped him stand, and he glanced over at her. Her gray hair was drawn back from her face in a bun, her face lined with worry. She peered at him as he stared, that worry growing. “The nurse says that it’s probably the flu. Let’s go, dear, I’ve already signed you out.” Peter nodded and let Aunt May lead him out of the building and to her car. As he was climbing into the car, he saw her placing his backpack into the back seat and allowed himself to relax. He wouldn’t want to lose that, he thought with relief.
He leaned his head back against the headrest and closed his eyes as Aunt May climbed into the driver’s seat, pulling away from the school. The gentle movement of the car helped lull him back to sleep for the duration of the ride, which was disappointingly short. The walk up to their apartment felt much longer, he thought dryly, taking his bag from Aunt May as they reached the elevator, despite her protestations.
“I got it,” he mumbled, tossing it over his shoulder. He was still tired, still nauseated, but just her being there made him feel better. He felt safe. “Thanks, Aunt May.”
“Of course, sweetheart,” she agreed, patting his shoulder as the doors closed, carrying them up to their floor. “Now, I want you going straight to bed. I’ll bring you something to drink in a while, and if you keep it down, I’ll make you something for dinner, alright?”
“You’re the best, May,” Peter agreed, following after her as the doors opened and she fiddled with her keys, pulling the right one up to unlock their apartment.
“I took the rest of the day off, so if you need something, just let me know. I’ll be here.”
“You didn’t have to do that,” Peter said reproachfully, following her inside.
“As if I’m not going to take care of my sick nephew,” she matched his tone, shooting him a frown. “Now, go lay down, mister. You need your rest. Call me if you need something,” she said again, more firmly, and he ducked his head.
“Yes ma’am. Thank you.” He slumped to his room, kicking out of his shoes by the door and dropping his backpack on the desk. Aunt May wouldn’t go through it, he knew, so his suit would be fine there, for now. He managed to change into pajamas, knowing that he would only prolong his own misery by staying in jeans, and drifted into the bathroom to check his back in the mirror in the process.
It was definitely inflamed, he thought unhappily. Red, shiny skin surrounded the cut: nearly as long as his forearm. Iron Man had decided that this wasn’t that bad? Geeze. He couldn’t imagine the kinds of damage those guys amassed. How were they still alive?
He shook his head and got out his bottle of alcohol, but because of the awkward angle, the best he could do was pour too much of it haphazardly down his back and catch the excess with a towel. He hissed at the burning pain, but managed not to hurl again as he twisted the bottle cap back on with shaking hands. That would always suck, he thought to himself, no matter how many times he applied it to his own wounds.
He pulled on a loose-fitting pajama shirt, then, and drifted back into his bedroom to collapse onto the bed. Tugging the blankets up, he reveled in the sense of safety and security that being home gave him. This was why he kept his identity a secret, he reminded himself forcefully. So that this, his family, his home, it would always stay safe. Peter couldn’t imagine that the Avengers had this kind of comfort, no matter how fancy their tower was. He buried his face into his pillow, breathing a sigh of relief.
Aunt May would come in soon to check on him, he thought, peace settling over him as he started to drift back to sleep. At this rate, by the time she brought him dinner, he’d probably be feeling better.