Chapter Text
“Look—Mr. Stark, they’re just jokes! You know! I make jokes!” Peter is half-standing, knees bent and palms splayed on the creaky table in front of him. He’s poised to make a quick getaway at a moment's notice, and everyone in the diner can see it. The shaky smile on Peter’s face is fooling no one.
It really shouldn’t be this big of a deal. Tony has made this entire ordeal much more complicated than it had to be by asking the one question Peter didn’t want to be asked.
Peter’s gut twists uncomfortably, and his senses flare yet again. Everything is too much; he can hear everyone at the table shift, feel their body language change. His vision is more intense; the low lighting of the diner brightening and the details becoming so clear he can nearly see the molecules of alien bacteria on his suit. Although gloved, he can feel the ridges of the wooden table beneath his hands as if he were touching it directly—every point of contact feeling like needles against his clothed skin. Even his sense of smell is flaring; the once-appetizing aroma of freshly cooked food nauseating him from its intensity alone. He has to swallow thickly just to keep from throwing up in the suit.
Isn’t that just a lovely image…
He never wanted this. Now, all the Avengers will find out how fucked up he really is. How weird his mind is, how the mutation has really changed him. They’ll be creeped out by him, never want to work with him again. He’ll lose the suit, access to the compound, Tony…
“You aren’t in trouble, Pete,” Tony placates, hands up in surrender. He’s still seated but looks just as ready to jump up and grab Peter as Peter is to make a break for it.
“Why would I be? It’s just a—a stupid Twitter post. It means nothing!” Peter’s heart thuds in his ears. A server ambles toward their table but backs off the moment they notice the tense atmosphere.
Coward.
“And all the others?” Tony asks. His hands lower but remain in the air. “The dozens of other posts you’ve made? Are they all jokes too?”
“Yes! They’re just—I mean, it’s—people find it funny, right? So I just—it’s all just jokes! Complete fiction. Not truthful whatsoever!” Maybe Peter can salvage this? Truly play it all off as witticism?
“Then why do you seem so nervous?”
…
Peter stands up the rest of the way, ever so slowly.
Then he bolts.
Yes, yes, it’s a bad decision, but he knows for a fact he’ll be faster than any of the Avengers while in the Spider-Man suit, and he really doesn’t want to be interrogated!
He flies out the door at a speed he didn’t even know he was capable of, shooting a web toward the nearest building the moment he crossed the threshold into the open air of Queens. He hears several pairs of footsteps behind him—Tony’s and Natasha’s for sure; the others he doesn’t take the time to decipher. All he knows is that he’s escaping all of them.
Tony had taken an older model of his suit with him to this fight, so he’d had to physically step out of it when he wanted to sit down in the diner. That gave Peter a head-start, since the man would have to pause to get back into the suit before he could properly give chase.
Swinging hard and fast, Peter whips past buildings so quickly they blur together into one large blob of color in his periphery. He barely breathes, the wind hitting his face so harshly he can’t quite catch a decent gulp of air.
He hears mechanical whirring behind him, Tony’s shouts to stop echoing off of the buildings they’re soaring past. Peter doesn’t.
He rounds a corner, making such a sharp turn he nearly crashes into the building. He’s poised to continue his escape when he hears a loud crack! and a curse, his spider sense screaming at him for an all-new reason.
Tony crashed.
Peter stops dead in his tracks, tumbling to the ground as he lets go of his previous web but doesn’t move to shoot a new one. He tweaks his shoulder, falling in an odd and fairly painful position, but he ignores it in favor of turning back the way he came and racing to his mentor.
Tony’s suit is scraped up, half-stuck in the building’s brick wall. Tony himself has dropped to the ground, sans the suit. His left eyebrow has a nasty cut, blood pouring into his eye, and one of his pinkies is bent in a way a pinky should not bend. He’s standing, still fully conscious, wearing a look like Peter has never seen.
Peter runs up to him, breathing hard. His eyes dart over the man’s injuries, wide and searching for something more major. This is Peter’s fault, after all.
“Mr. Stark, are you o—”
“P—Spider-Man, I’m sorry,” Tony interrupts. His eyes are now just as wide, hands reaching toward Peter as if he doesn’t know exactly what contact he’s allowed in this moment. He doesn’t even seem to notice his broken pinky.
“I don’t—what? No, no, I’m sorry! I—I got you hurt! Your pinky is broken, and your head is bleeding!” Peter huffs, confused. He nods toward Tony’s hand, aiming a shaky finger at his pinky.
Tony briefly glances down at his pinky, just as shocked by its brokenness as Peter, then immediately looks back up as if he doesn’t quite care. He drags himself up, grabbing Peter’s arm non-forcefully, and leads them away from the scene. A few of the other Avengers arrive at that same moment, focusing more so on the iron suit stuck in the building than on Tony and Peter. They walk away, leaving the rest of the team to do damage control with both civilians and local police alike.
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They venture out about a block until they come upon a quiet café that Tony decides is empty enough for a private conversation. Peter attempts to argue—Tony very obviously needs medical attention—but his mentor shuts him down before he can even utter a full sentence of protest.
They seat themselves in a booth in the far corner, distancing them from prying eyes. A few employees eye them curiously, possibly even warily, what with Tony’s open head wound and backward pinky. Peter huffs indignantly, and Tony shrugs it off in true genius-billionaire-playboy-philanthropist fashion.
“Okay, kid. Be honest with me this time? I really don’t want to have to chase you and break another finger, but I’ll do it.” Tony sighs, sitting back and folding his arms. He winces slightly when his pinky brushes his forearm, and it makes Peter feel like shit.
“I…” Peter starts, staring at the table in front of him. His throat feels tight with emotion. “I… embellished, a little. That’s a word, right? I played it up, you know?” He looks up for a half second, directly into Tony’s watchful and sympathetic gaze. He looks back down just as quickly.
Tony hums, a wordless encouragement for the boy to keep talking. Peter’s stomach flips, and tears gather in his eyes as he prepares for the worst. This is it, the moment Tony will find out the truth behind Spider-Man, all the weird, uncomfortable, frankly gross details that Peter has so carefully hidden.
“It’s mostly true. I—I dunno, I guess the mutation made me… more spider than I like to admit? I’m… I’m still human, but I’m also not. Sometimes I wonder if I’m more human or spider, honestly, because the line gets really blurry.” Peter laughs without a trace of humor in his tone, a single teardrop falling down his cheek as he continues his confession.
“I get these… urges, I guess. Sometimes it’s tolerable, like wanting to build a web or feeling more comfortable in dark spaces, but other times…”
“You want to eat aliens?” Tony finishes, much to Peter’s chagrin. Peter blushes furiously, looking up to properly glare at the man across from him.
“I didn’t actually want to eat it! It’s a fleeting thought! Like, an impulse, not something I’d really do!”
“Okay, okay, I’m sorry,” Tony smiles, unfolding his arms to hold his hands up in mock surrender. “Keep talking; I won’t interrupt again.”
The thing is, Peter really believes him.
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Peter One @PeanutButterPjelly • 3h
tfw ur mentor finds ur twt and calls u out… im #fine but i think i might need a meat smoothie to calm me down
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“Meat smoothie? What does that even mean?” Tony asks, looking down at his phone as the Avengers gather in the compound’s kitchen to eat Steve’s famous spaghetti and meatballs. Peter sits across from him at their large dining table, stifling a laugh.
“Uh, well, some spiders—including me—can basically… inject venom into prey, or anything really, and immobilize it. Then, after the prey is dead, they have this digestive fluid of sorts that turns it into a smoothie-like liquid. I have retractable fangs—or chelicerae, if we’re getting technical; I just don’t show ‘em off all that often. They’re creepy.” Peter emphasizes this by opening his mouth slightly and letting the fang-like appendages extend from his canines. They’re around two centimeters longer than all his other teeth and about as sharp as one of Clint’s arrows or Natasha’s knives.
Tony cackles as a shiver is sent throughout the group, Dr. Banner being the only other person unbothered. Apparently they all need to read up on their spider facts, since they obviously didn’t know much prior to Peter’s informational ranting.
By now, Tony and Peter had finished their lengthy discussion, ending in happy tears and promises that Peter would never be shamed for who he is, spider instincts and all. Afterward, Peter had repeated his speech about his spider-secrets to the rest of the team, all of whom were just as receptive. (It helps that Tony was sending them all a murderous stare, daring them to say anything negative about his non-biological son.)
That was a few hours ago. Now, they’re having dinner together, partially because May has a late shift at the hospital, but they also felt like some extra time spent together after such a draining day was exactly what Peter needed. Not to mention, Tony is bound to the compound for the next week, his finger in a splint and his eyebrow patched up with a butterfly bandage. Pepper was not happy to hear about this from their PR team before Tony himself.
“So, do you… liquify all of your food?” Cap hesitantly asks, setting a plate down in front of Peter. He doesn’t seem nervous; just curious and unsure of where the line is for Peter’s willingness to share.
“Mm, no, it’s optional for me since I still digest stuff like a human, and have human teeth to chew with,” Peter murmurs, looking thoughtful. “I can, though, and it’s pretty handy when I need to eat quickly!”
The blinding smile he sends to the entire group is enough to kill even the strongest of soldiers. Or melt their hearts, at least.
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Peter One @PeanutButterPjelly • 1m
I love my (unconventional) family :)
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Tony Stark @officialtonystark • 23s
We love you too, kid.
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