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Peter has one memory, just one, of him and his parents.
It’s a little foggy, and he can’t remember exactly what happened. But he remembers what he felt, the happiness, the warmth, the good. In the end, the only thing left that he has of his parents is the memory of how they made him feel.
And that’s okay, Peter doesn’t really need anything more than that. With it, he knows that he was happy and that he loved and was loved in return. The only thing he could wish for was simply more time.
But the problem with time is that it is a ticking clock. It always looks forwards, towards something. It chases things relentlessly, never ceasing, never giving up, and in the end, Peter thinks, Time is the only thing we cannot beat.
The first people Time claimed were his parents. A ticking clock that had finally reached its last second. Then, the clock started once again.
Unlike his parents, his memories with Ben and May are plentiful. He remembers Uncle Ben’s rough hands ruffling his hair, and the smell of dark wood and dust that had always seemed to follow him home after work. His memories play out like a film reel in his head, his own personal home movie, of his favorite moments. It wasn’t always perfect, wasn’t always happy, but Peter knows that such perfection is a standard no family can ever attain. But they were good, they were happy and they loved each other and that is the richest anyone can ever get.
He loved Uncle Ben so much that sometimes his heart ached with it.
But then Time claimed him too. A second father, a second time.
And then Tony Stark showed up in his apartment, and Peter didn’t know it then, but the clock had shifted on its axis, and started once more.
He remembers seeing Tony Stark for the first time on television. Uncle Ben had been flipping through the channels while Peter was snuggled against his side, when they came across a programme showing a live lecture on thermodynamics by the one and only CEO of Stark Industries. Peter had been entranced by the pictures on the screen, the numbers and formulas and diagrams, and had begged Uncle Ben to go back on the remote and return to the channel.
He had watched Tony give the demonstration, charismatic and energetic and so, so smart that Peter had been entranced by his intelligence and scientific prowess. And Ben, knowing of Peter’s budding scientific inclinations, had merely sighed as he saw his nephew subconsciously draw away from the couch and move towards the television, wide brown eyes shining and utterly entranced.
“Unc’a Ben, Unc’a Ben!” Peter squealed happily, turning to face him and pointing towards the TV screen with his little finger, “He’s a scientist!”
“Yes he is Petey,” Ben replied softly with a smile. Peter grinned widely and turned around, focusing his attention yet again on the screen in front of him.
Eventually, the lecture ended, and as Tony Stark waved to his applauding audience, Peter placed his hand on the screen and whispered wistfully with wide starry eyes, “I wan’a be like you.”
Ben had watched Peter become a fast fan, collecting everything from Stark Industries T-shirts and key-chains to scientific journals with the occasional article from Tony Stark. He kept Stark’s indiscretions far away from Peter’s eyes and ears, not wanting to sully the image of the man his nephew had conjured in his head. This ideal, this hero.
And then, and then, and then.
Then Afghanistan happened. And Tony Stark was gone.
Peter was near inconsolable, wailing with tears when he had found out his idol had disappeared and was most likely dead. He was sullen day in and day out, brown eyes cascading with seemingly never-ending sadness. Ben and May had been so worried, and so startled at the sheer magnitude of the impact of this man who lives so far away, who was so detached from them, had made on their nephew’s life. The enormity of this man’s influence, that it sometimes felt like Tony Stark was an absent, distant member of the family, the way he had pervaded their lives through their nephew.
Then he came back. And Peter had been so happy Ben and May could barely contain him.
And then he said he was a superhero, and Peter had gone wild.
The Stark Expo was a surreal day, to put it in shallow terms. The man that had been so distant, yet seemed like an extension of their tight-knit family, was suddenly in front of them, tangible and real and solid.
And he saved Peter’s life.
It’s poetic in a way, Ben had thought, that Tony Stark would be the one to save Peter after years of childlike blind hero-worship.
When Peter had entered middle school, the meaning Tony Stark held for him shifted. He had signified a hope for Peter, that smart people could be great, could mean something, could be cool. And in Peter’s bullied little heart, Tony had provided a beacon of hope, and a drive to just keep moving. With every scraped knee and red, crying face, Uncle Ben would always say “Get up, my little iron man.”
When Uncle Ben died, Peter was at a loss. His moral compass, his rock, his sounding board, was gone with the pierce of a bullet.
And well –
Tony isn’t Uncle Ben, but he is something.
After appearing in his apartment, after the Vulture, after homecoming, Tony had changed towards him. Became more active, more involved. He’d stop by Peter’s apartment in Queens once in a while, pick up Peter from school, and he let Peter stay at the compound for a few days, letting him run loose with everything science and the Avengers had to offer, a welcome and fantastical escape from Peter’s ‘real’ life.
To May, Tony had become tangible. No longer was he that distant person that seemed to invade every crevice of their lives. He was real, alive, breathing. She had his number on speed dial, and once in a while she’d have a chat with him on their sofa while he waited for Peter to get ready so he could whisk him away to the compound. When she would see him on the television, she wouldn’t experience that surreal distance her and Ben had always discussed, but rather she felt awestruck, and to this day she doesn’t know if that’s a good or bad thing.
But Peter was so happy. He finally had someone on his side, or rather – on that side of his life, the side that is so foreign and unfamiliar and terrifying to her, that even though she doesn’t like Tony Stark, she knows her nephew, and she knows that there is seldom anyone else she would rather have standing in Peter’s corner.
It’s surreal, May thinks sometimes when watching Peter enter Tony’s car from the window of their small Queens apartment, how the universe has played out like this, how it’s chosen to play its hand. How that man that had pervaded their lives like a phantom presence so much for so long was now real, and that her little nephew was there, with him, sitting in his car, by his side, on the way to god knows where.
Sometimes, May thinks, it feels like a dream. And although she knows it would be to Peter’s detriment, she doesn’t know whether she would rather it would end.
But she knows that, despite everything, she is grateful. She is so grateful that Peter has someone else in his life, another figure, someone who may not be able to fill in the space left by Ben, but at the very least someone who could guide him.
Tony wasn’t Uncle Ben. Would never be Uncle Ben. Not to Peter.
But he was the man who he had worshipped for so long. Was the man he watched on TV, that man who saved his life. He was the man who gave him hope, who would listen to his daily ramblings about nonsensical and comparatively inconsequential things. He was the man who helped patch him up, who he bonded with over the burdens of heroism, who he discussed the notions of responsibility. Tony was the man who, above all, understood what Uncle Ben had told Peter (With great power comes great responsibility, Pete), and who never stopped him because of it, but had rather equipped him as best as he could, because he knew that Peter would not stop. He was the one who knew how to calm Peter down after a panic attack, who he felt safest around after his night terrors. Because he understood. Because he had them too.
He would never be Uncle Ben. And Peter would never be like Tony Stark. And it took him a long time to realize he didn’t want to be. But that was okay.
Because as the universe is on fire and the world is collapsing into flames and stardust and the black sky is tinted red with ash and fire, Peter remembers Uncle Ben’s words as he keeps on swinging, and Tony’s words every time he is knocked down.
With great power comes great responsibility.
Get up, little spider.