Chapter Text
“You’re chipper this morning,” said May as Peter trotted into the living room, Grease bounding at his heels. “Considering how late you got home last night.”
Peter grinned at her, ignoring the slight reprimand in her voice. He’d made it back a little before one o’clock in the morning, but he’d let her know and let Happy drive him home instead of swinging around. And besides… the importance, the wonderfulness, of what happened last night was worth May’s irritation. And almost pulling an all-nighter.
He’d blamed the scratches on Grease, and May hadn’t believed him. But she also hadn’t pried, and she’d sensed the joy radiating off him and correctly assumed that nothing was wrong.
Well, things were wrong. But they were looking up. God were they looking up.
He could still feel Tony’s arms around him, seeming almost as surprised by their position as he was. It had been too long since someone… someone like that had hugged him. Hugged him and hugged him and hugged him.
Spider-Man was satisfied, happy that he could finally, finally help Tony. But beneath it, he couldn’t stop seeing the files, the words and images Stark condemned himself with. The ones that documented everything he’d been through. And he couldn’t stop being angry.
And Peter? Peter was ecstatic. The words that had been spoken last night took a staggering weight from his form, a weight he hadn’t realized he’d been carrying. He’d glimpsed Tony’s gaping wound, glimpsed his own, and found the right words to begin stitching them shut. Just to begin, but it was enough.
And Tony had hugged him.
He would deal with what those files meant later. Spider-Man could deal with his anger later. All those problems that still needed solving, all those feelings that still needed acknowledging, all those traumas that still needed facing… later.
Today, he was going to school, and he was going to nail it.
Today, he was going to laugh with MJ and Ned.
Today, he was going web-swinging, and he was going to save people.
Today, he was going to call Tony, and Tony would answer.
Optimism spilling over into his mouth, Peter let out a giggle and wrapped his arms around his aunt. “I love you, Aunt May,” he said.
“I love you too,” May replied, somewhat confused.
Peter smiled and hugged her closer. She said it so easily, as though she’d never even considered anything else, but with the phrase held no less meaning. She loved him. And he loved her. They’d been through so much together, but that love had never faded, and he knew it never would. That simple fact, that May loved him and always would, made him feel safer than any armor ever could.
Suddenly filled with the desire to show it, Peter pointed towards the kitchen. “Can I cook breakfast? What do you want?”
“Uh, yeah, that’d be lovely?” May shrugged. “Do whatever you want…”
Peter quickly checked to make sure his homework was packed and his suit was secure, then chucked his backpack against the door and ducked into the kitchen. Grease meowed and skittered through his legs, spinning out on the tile floor with her tiny claws clicking. Peter smiled, stroked her carefully with his foot, and opened the refrigerator door.
“Hum, Grease, what do you think?”
The cat looked up and meowed.
“My thoughts exactly.” He grabbed the cream cheese and chucked it over next to the counter, then fished around in the back of the fridge until he recovered a block of colby-jack cheese. A quick sniff confirmed it was still good. Balancing the cheese atop the half-empty egg carton, Peter shooed Grease away and closed the door. He dumped them out on the counter and flicked a lump of butter onto a frying pan, turning on the heat even as he danced across the room.
Next came the bagels, and the struggle to pull them apart without getting crumbs and seeds everywhere. Peter dodged between the two sides of the kitchen, flipping eggs and salting and slicing cheese on one side, then bounding over to butter and toast and cool on the other.
In hardly over ten minutes, two steaming egg sandwiches sat oozing grease and moisture onto their plates, the everything-bagels seeping up the molten colby-jack and the cream cheese nearly dripping off the eggs. Peter grinned, looked down at Grease, and mimed a high five. She swiped the air, and Peter gave a thumbs up, then swiped his sandwiches and re-entered the living room.
“Presenting breakfast in all its glory!” he said, brandishing the plates.
May looked up at him with a grin. “Eggs!”
“Egg sandwiches,” Peter said, handing her one and sitting down beside her. His stomach growled, and he couldn’t wait a moment longer, curling his jaw around the bagel and ripping off a huge chunk.
“Smaller bites!” May said, but she was taking a hunk herself.
Peter closed his eyes, enjoying the savory, flavorful mix of egg and cheese as soft yolk dripped down his chin. The garlic of the bagel was the perfect addition to the eggs, and he loved every moment of it.
When he opened his eyes to take another bite, however, he noticed May staring at the sandwich, her expression unreadable.
“What?” he asked. “Is it okay?”
May shook herself, snapping her gaze to him, and smiled. There was something else behind it. “It’s perfect, Pete. Ben would be proud.”
Peter grinned, still a bit confused, but swelling at her praise. “Thanks, Aunt May.”
They ate the rest in silence, both relishing each bite of the delicious breakfast. By the end of it, Peter’s whole hands were covered in grease and globs of cream cheese, and May wasn’t much better. She went to wipe a bit of egg off his lip, but smeared sticky goo across his face instead, and they dissolve into laughter.
He stayed to help her clean the kitchen, and lingered a bit to say goodbye to Grease, so he had to run to make it to the bus on time.
It wasn’t until he walking into school and Spider-Man was remembering the exchange when he realized they hadn’t made egg sandwiches since his uncle had died.
“Dude, if looks could kill…” Ned said, glancing over at Flash while Peter and MJ craned their heads to follow his gaze. It was the beginning of History, and the seats were slowly filling as the minute hand crept closer to 8:50.
Flash dropped his own hurriedly, but his glower was still visible. Peter shrugged.
“He’s been leaving me alone for a while, ever since the whole thing with the essay.”
“Yeah, but he certainly looks like he’s plotting revenge,” Ned said.
Peter waved a hand in front of his friend’s face jokingly. “Spider-Man, remember?”
Ned grinned. “Yeah…”
“Besides,” said MJ, “no one can do anything to Peter, considering who he associates with.”
“Meaning you guys?” Peter said.
“Meaning your billionaire engineering buddy!” MJ laughed.
At the mention of Tony, Peter grinned. “He hugged me, last night.”
Ned and MJ just looked at him, as though waiting for him to continue. When he didn’t, MJ let out a breath. “Pause. He’s never hugged you before?”
Peter’s eyes flicked to the side. “Uh, no?”
“With all the--” MJ gestured vaguely-- “you haven’t hugged?”
Peter shook his head.
“Well, good for you, then!” Ned said. He wrapped and arm around Peter, who laughed.
“Thanks, Ned.”
“What am I, chopped liver?” MJ said from his other side.
“I like chopped liver,” said Peter.
And because he was happy and brave and safe, surrounded by the knowledge that he had people that loved him, he leaned over and kissed her.
People went silent around them, then burst back into chatter, but Peter couldn’t bring himself to care. Spider-Man would fight them all off with no more than a look if necessary, but MJ didn’t want that. And right now, Peter could be the one kissing his girlfriend before class started, he could be the brave one, the kind one, the bold one.
“Remember to breathe, guys,” Ned said after a while.
Peter and MJ broke apart, flushing redder than Ned’s favorite shirt. For a moment, Peter was worried he’d overstepped the other boy’s comfort zone, had toed his jealousy a bit too far.
But Ned just laughed and shoved them back together.
Flash made no trouble despite his continued glares, and soon their professor was waltzing into the room. With a rustle of papers and a zipping of backpacks, class had begun. It flew by, Peter’s mind filled with fuzzy warmth and visions of a finally optimistic future.
Monday tech class was next, Midtown’s workshop reserved for the specific group of students. Ned and Peter split off from MJ, who was smiling softly and genuinely, with a wave, and made their way to the elective.
“Thanks for having us over on Saturday, by the way,” Ned said. “I had a lot of fun.”
“Don’t thank me, thank Mr. Stark!” Peter laughed.
Ned grinned. “Next time I see him, I will. But we both know it was you who put it together.”
Peter shrugged. “First rule; never listen to anything he says.”
“But understand his larger lessons,” Ned added.
“Careful Ned, or you might become a superhero.”
Ned chuckled, striking an awkward pose. Peter pointed his wrists at him, folding his fingers into their web-shooting configuration, and Ned mimed being shot back against the lockers. “Arg! Foiled again!” He fell exaggeratedly to the ground, attracting a few looks of contempt from their fellow students.
“Dork,” Peter said, helping him up and trying not to bristle at the whispers directed towards his friend.
“Nerd,” Ned replied, and they went into their handshake almost without thinking.
They slipped into the workshop just as the bell rang, but found the tables dusted with paper instead of metal. Ned and Peter shared a concerned look, not liking what looked like a writing assignment in their tinkering class. They took hesitant seats. Glancing around, Peter found everyone else to look just as perplexed as he.
Their professor grinned when she entered, gesturing at their straight-backed, silent forms. “We aren’t taking some sort of standardized test. You can all relax.”
The room let out a collective sigh of relief.
“Teenagers.” She shook her head. “Anyway, I have some good news!”
She looked so excited Peter couldn’t help but grin, too. What was going on?
“The school, this morning, received a donation of twenty thousand dollars. All for our engineering and chemistry programs, all for our labs like this!”
Everyone burst into chatter, the words twenty thousand dollars still ringing in the air. The teacher waved her arms to bring their attention back to her, too excited to reprimand them for speaking out of turn. “I want each of you to write down a suggestion or two, or however many you want, for what you want the school to provide next year with this generous money.”
Over the conversations, a student raised his hand. “Who donated so much?”
The professor shrugged. “It was anonymous.”
Peter let out a very badly restrained snort of laughter, his hand unconsciously crinkling the sheet of paper before him. The conversations quieted, people shooting him confused looks.
“Something to share?” the professor asked with a grin.
Eyes watering, Peter was able to choke out somewhat normally, “No, Ma’am, just excited.”
When no one was watching but Ned, he let himself lay his head on the table and shake in silent, uncontrollable laughter.
“Dude what’s up?” Ned whispered.
“I can’t believe him sometimes,” Peter gasped out.
“What? What?” Ned tapped his shoulder.
“Twenty thousand dollars, really?” Peter took a deep breath. “Sorry. Just think for a sec though; anonymous donation of a crazy amount of money? To the engineering and chemistry programs? Have to say you and I should be flattered.”
“What are you--” Ned broke off. “Oh shit.”
“I know right?”
“Holy shit.” Ned lowered his voice. “You think--twenty thousand?”
“I think he would have given more if a certain CEO hadn’t beat some sense into him at the last minute,” Peter whispered back.
“To our school. Our school!”
“I know!” His amusement at the situation faded a bit, masked by gratitude.
“We… we should find some way to repay him,” said Spider-Man.
“I’m still not over how you got us thousands of dollars to spend on cool shit for our school workshops and labs,” Ned said, scribbling something onto his paper.
“You helped.”
“I appreciate you lying about that,” Ned laughed.
Peter punched his shoulder. “He likes you, Ned. Everyone does.”
“I played Uno with Tony Stark…”
Peter laughed again. “And Pepper Potts, and you ate pizza in the Avenger’s compound with Vision.”
“I can’t believe it!” There wasn’t a hint of jealousy in Ned’s voice, just pure, unbridled joy and contentment, and Peter relaxed. “Dude, can I just thank you, for letting me be a part of your supering.”
“You’re super all on your own, dude,” Peter replied. “Now how should we spend Mr. Stark’s money?”
“I think we need more welding torches and a better 3D printer,” Ned said.
“Agreed. Maybe we can get some more precision stuff. I think MJ’d appreciate more circuitry opportunities.” Peter scribbled on his piece of paper, adding a doodle of a computer hard drive in the corner.
“Ooo!” Ned snapped his fingers. “We don’t have to spend it all on supplies. Maybe we could hire another teacher! With different experience. An expert in geotechnical engineering or a biomedical engineer or something.”
Peter nodded and put that down on his paper as well, underlining it twice. “Genius.”
“That’d be so cool,” said Ned.
“This is all so cool,” Peter replied. “Twenty thousand dollars.” Twenty thousand dollars for you. He donated this for you. So much…
Peter wasn’t sure whether to be embarrassed or pleased.
He settled on grateful. He would benefit from this, yes, but so would many, many others. Tony had known exactly what gift would mean the most to him.
A gift that spread to thousands.
Oh, dear god, a gift of thousands.
Twenty. Thousand. Dollars.
“Holy shit,” Peter breathed.
An image flitted through his mind of Tony at five in the morning, diligently working to withdraw an enormous sum of money, and then Pepper barging in to hit him with the computer mouse and shave off tens of thousands from the balance. Yelling at him affectionately to be reasonable. Peter giggled again and wrote down another suggestion.
Something whispered, awestruck and satisfied, deep within him that Tony Stark thinks your worth thousands. Tony Stark made you a suit and a home in his compound, but thinks your worth even more.
He knew a life, and a future, was priceless. But it felt… good, just good, to be reminded of it in such an outright way.
And by such an important figure in his life.
He could taste egg sandwiches in his mouth again, and smacked his tongue between his teeth.
Spider-Man looked down at the list of suggestions and reminded himself that the man deserved something in return for his money, even something small. Peter wasn’t sure if anything more than a heartfelt thank you was needed, not for Tony, but Spider-Man was hesitant about that.
It was a symbol, Peter thought. A demonstration. He wants to remind himself, by reminding me, that he can help me. That he can mean something.
Still. It was a ton of cash. Spider-Man couldn’t imagine just taking such a gift without giving something in return. He had symbols and demonstrations to make, too.
Alright, I’ll think of something, thought Peter.
But he mostly just thought about summer starting in two weeks, days and days of dawn-to-dusk web-slinging, lazy hours in central park with ice-cream dripping down his chin, nights on the roof of any building he chose watching the lights of New York twinkle like fireflies as far as the eye could see. Of afternoons in the workshop with Tony, of eavnings in their suits on the streets, of traveling to see new places and showing his favorites in the city to the man. Of walks with MJ and games with Ned, of dinners with everyone together and not a damn moment of homework.
And for once, those thoughts didn’t feel like fantasies, but like plans.