Work Text:
And so it had started.
The idea.
The QUEST.
To make a roomba that would could walk on walls.
You know, so it would keep them clean.
Not because Peter wanted to see Mr. Stark's face when he did it.
Definitely not because of that.
The first thing he'd done was study his own ability to stick to stuff.
"Spiders use the Van der Waals force, an electrostatic force that attracts all surfaces on a molecular level. Spiders have tiny hairs on their feet, and each hair causes a slight bond to a surface that's not much on its own. However, the thousands of hairs multiply that force until it can support the spider's weight." He'd explained to Mr. Stark.
Ever since the bite, Peter had spent hours researching spiders, their abilities, their strengths and weaknesses to get an idea of what he might be able to do and what he would be affected by. This research had saved him from a nasty peppermint candy last summer.
Mr. Stark peered at Peter's hands, studying intently. "Is that also how you stick to stuff?"
"No" Peter pulled up his sleeve until it covered his hand, then jumped up, pressing his hand against the ceiling. "See, if that were true for me, the hairs wouldn't be able to do their thing through the fabric" he said, dangling from one hand.
"Besides, it wouldn't scale up for a human being. Even if it worked like that, the amount of hairs on my hand wouldn't be able to sustain the weight of my whole body." He dropped back onto the ground with a soft thump.
Mr Stark raised an eyebrow. "Then how do you stick to walls?"
Peter shrugged. "I don't actually know" he admitted.
The man looked intrigued. "We could run some tests" he offered.
Peter's eyes lit up. They ran the tests. It took the whole weekend for them to come to the conclusion that he was-
"I'm doing what exactly?" Peter repeated.
"You're increasing the molecular attraction between your body and the surface you're touching." Mr Stark explained. "How you're doing this, I still don't know, but you certainly can't do it with the roomba." He frowned at the screen. So the first idea obviously would not do.
His second idea had been to make it magnetic, but Mr. Stark had drawn the line at installing metal plates in the walls. That had lead to idea number 3, which was the one that held the most promise. He'd decided on using a propeller, that kept the modified roomba on the wall. The propeller could tilt in any direction, and it was strong enough to, well, blow the roomba against the wall and keep it in place.
"It's not really walking on the wall as much as being pushed against it" Mr. Stark had pointed out.
Peter had shrugged, hands flying over the prototype he'd been working on. "I know, but it works."
Soon after he'd finished the propeller powered prototype, he'd come up with the idea (genius in his opinion) to make it a giant mechanical spider. He'd added mechanical legs and glowing red eyes. It even had it's own web shooters, which would shoot randomly at people passing by. The only people it never shot at were Peter, Ms. Potts, Dr. Banner, Colonel Rhodes and Mr Stark, thanks to the face recognition camera he'd installed on it.
Was it over the top? Yes.
Did Peter care? No.
Mr. Stark had walked in the lab to see him making miniature web shooters while laughing maniacally. The man had spun around and walked out without a word. Honestly, the only thing Peter regretted about the whole situation was the scare he'd given Ms. Potts when she'd walked into the living room with a cup of coffee as he was testing the roomba. Peter had to admit, seeing a spider the size of a dinner plate on the wall was pretty alarming. She'd dropped her mug of hot coffee on the ground in shock. Peter had apologized profusely for an hour, and had made her a new coffee, cleaning up the mess that was the broken mug and now cold coffee on the floor.
The bots had tried to help.
Keyword, tried.
"No, Dum-E, that's not a good idea-"
*crash*
"Shit."
Originally, the roomba hadn't even been able to clean the walls.
As a vacuum cleaner, all it could do was vacuum the dust from them, but was pretty much useless against cleaning dirty footprints. Though once Peter had figured this out, he'd modified it slightly. When it just rolled around normally on the ground, it served as a vacuum cleaner. When it went on walls, a panel with a damp cloth would upon open up, and the cloth would stretch over the bottom of the roomba, cleaning the surfaces it ran on.
Dr. Banner had watched his progress with a look of amazement and sight terror on his face, occasionally asking questions and giving suggestions on how to improve the roomba.
Then, there'd been the time he'd been testing it and had gone to the bathroom.
He swore he'd left it alone for one second .
When he'd come back, the roomba was gone. It had taken him a full 24 hours to find it.
Apparently, it had somehow gotten to the floor where the interns worked and caused mass panic. FRIDAY had sent the footage from the floor to Mr. Stark, who had laughed so hard he'd fallen out of his chair.
That had been the start of an interesting situation at Stark Industries, as the whole tower now knew the roomba as "the demonic giant spider thing". The roomba had started rumours and conspiracy theories between the interns about who exactly had built the it. Some said it was a robot sent by Oscorp to spy on SI.
Others argued that it was their superiors keeping an eye on them.
Peter found it hilarious.
The camera he'd installed on the roomba would film people's reactions when they saw it. Most would eye it suspiciously and keep their distance. Peter's current favorite was when the roomba had positioned itself on the wall behind one of the interns. The poor man had turned around to see a giant mechanical spider inches from his face and jumped 5 feet in the air, knocking over a desk in his haste to get away from it.
After a week of arguing over what exactly it was, the interns finally worked up the courage to ask Mr. Stark about it. "Oh, one of the interns built it" he'd answered, hiding a grin. "It's supposed to clean the walls and vacuum the floor. Basically a roomba"
That had let to the Interns: Civil War, as it became known. All the interns accusing each other, no one to be trusted, everyone scrambling around as they tried to locate the evil being who had created the spoomba (spider roomba, that had been shortened to the spoomba). Everyone swore it hadn't been them to make the spoomba (And, well, technically nobody was lying). Alliances were formed, grudges were held, and Peter was having the time of his life. He couldn't help but feel a bit bad for the interns' crisis. He decided one day he'd throw them all a party or something. This had made his whole year.