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“Hey,” Peter looks up from his screen as Mr. Stark pushes his bedroom door fully open. “Stop writing How To Train Your Dragon fanfiction and come out here. Need your help.”
Peter feels his face burn bright red. “I-I..don’t--I don’t write fanfiction.”
“Mmmmhmmm,” one eyebrow somehow raises high enough to be visible above the rim of his sunglasses. “Remember, if it’s ever been on my server, I can see it.”
“So you’re spying on me again,” Peter pointedly locks his laptop and pushes his chair away from his small desk. He’s back in Queens for the week; the sun has begun poking back through the clouds and May finally got some much needed time off.
“You’re opening Google Docs on the most secure system in the world. Not spying, housekeeping. And just some advice, Ruff and Tuff aren’t as dumb as they act.”
Peter crosses his arms, leaning back in his creaky chair and smirking. “Did you just admit to knowing who they are?”
“In order to call you out? Absolutely.”
“You cried in the theater.”
“So did you. And in the diner, and then when we got back home.”
“You’re the worst. What are you even doing here?”
“I missed you.”
“Right,” Peter deadpans, but he pushes himself up from his chair. “Two days ago you very loudly talked in each room about how thrilled you were about not having an enhanced teeanger around to cockbl--”
“Ah ah!” Mr. Stark holds up a finger. “You know the rules: I don’t care about bad words but not at your Aunt’s.” They walk into May’s small living room. “I need your assistance.”
“I’m not doing that baby nonsense again,” Peter flops onto the old couch and eyes the black storage container on coffee table. He sinks perfectly into his well-established cushion; Mr. Stark’s penthouse is nice, nicer than nice, with perfect white furniture and expensive, tasteful accents, and just about any comfort you could wish for, but the apartment in Queens is warm and homey and he put years of work into this ass-groove.
“Me neither,” Mr. Stark snorts, and pulls his sunglasses off. He folds them up into his blazer jacket and sits on the couch. “No, this is for the exhibit.”
“Exhibit?” Peter watches as Mr. Stark scoots closer to the table and reaches to unlock the container. It looks like any other storage bin, but there’s a fingerprint sensor on the front latch and Peter thinks he can feel subtle waves of energy buzzing around it.
“Yup. We’re all mostly retired now--”
“Oh, please. Mr. Rogers is always off somewhere.”
“--and ready to pass things along, so to speak. And what with the whole saving-the-universe thing, the Smithsonian wants an exhibit. Me, Cap, Bruce...pretty much everyone who was involved. Neb even said I could have one of her old arms.”
“So why do you need my help?”
“Because you were involved, kiddo,” Mr. Stark flips two latches and the container opens with a hiss. “And if Spider-Man’s gonna lead the new generation or whatever,” he waves his hand dismissively, “I think an origin story is fitting.”
Panic flares in Peter’s chest and he nearly jumps onto the ceiling. “What?!? No, no no, you said I didn’t have to tell anyone, and that if I do I can be the one--”
“Hey, relax, bud,” Mr. Stark presses a hand to Peter’s shoulder, as if he could actually hold him down on the couch. “No reveals, no identities. I think I’ve even figured a way to burn all your DNA out of everything. No way to track you. Although frankly I’m still not sure how the entire universe doesn’t know, between you and Fred.”
“Ned,” Peter corrects, relaxing back into the couch. “And I’m good at keep secrets!”
“You’re just lucky the government isn’t as competent, or as obsessive, as I am,” Tony snorts. “I don’t know how your entire school doesn’t know.”
“Good at secrets,” Peter mumbles, but leans forward to look in the black container. “And what did you mean by ‘out of everything?’”
“Your suit.”
“What? You’re giving your suit to the government? I still like that suit?!”
“Not The Suit, smarty pants,” Mr. Stark reaches into the container and pulls out a shrink-wrapped package. He does something with his watch to open it, and pulls out a folded pile of blue material that’s covered in singe-marks. “Your first suit.”
“What?” Peter snatches the cloth from Mr. Stark. He can feel an embarrassed flush crawl up his neck and over his cheeks. “Why?!”
“Origins, Pete. Spidey is the pride of New York. Well, except for that Jameson asswipe. But I think it would be great to show the world how he started!”
Peter doesn’t know how Mr. Stark can look so excited when he feels so horrified. “I didn’t even know you still had this? And how’d you even get it?”
“I grabbed it when I delivered my suit back. And you didn’t even notice,” Mr. Stark makes an exaggerated *tsk tsk* sound, as if he wouldn’t have done the exact same thing when presented with clearly superior tech.
“I don’t know if I want this in the Smithsonian. For everyone to see.”
“Everyone’s already seen it. Your super stealthy YouTube videos have millions of hits.”
“Yeah, but they’re all blurry and stuff. You can’t really see it,” Peter digs into the black box and pulls out a clunky old webshooter. “Or these.”
“This,” Mr. Stark pulls the webshooter from his and sets it down on the coffee table. “I’m keeping one of them. Although maybe I should keep both, just make a model. One that doesn’t work…”
Peter stops listening as Mr. Stark continues to dig into the container, rambling on about his old webshooters, the ones he built using parts from old DVD players and VCRs he’d found in dumpsters, the cartridges made from the tiny sample bottles of perfume May used to get with her monthly fashion magazines. The large brown glass acid containers he’d stolen from the Midtown lab and carefully cleaned in the decontamination hoods after midnight. When he’d first started sneaking out.
“--I mean, it was pretty good tech, even though it’s made from literal garbage, and honestly while I’m sure I can get your DNA out of the sweats, I don’t know if I’d risk it with the web-fluid--”
“Mr. Stark…”
“--and I don’t think they’d be able to trace it back to you, I mean, none of the chemicals are anything unique or rare, but I’d rather not take the chance--”
“Mr. Stark.”
“--and if someone got ahold of these, not everyone is you, kid, and this is some pretty good tech, and it’s not like I’m letting them take any actual vibranium, or the photon-cannon, and everything else can be bricked, but these don’t run on a power source, so--”
“Mr. Stark!” Peter yanks his old goggles out of his hands and slams them back into the box.
“Jesus, what?”
“You called it a onesie,” Peter looks down at the sweatpants in his hands.
“Because it essentially is. It’s literally a hoodie and pajamas, Pete, with blacked-out welding goggles,” Mr. Stark picks the goggles back up and chuckles. “These were actually pretty good. RIdiculous, but the whole aesthetic kind of is.” He rises up a bit to reach back into the container, pulling out the red hoodie with its sleeves cut off and a Sharpie spider on the front.
“Then why on earth would you want to put it in the Smithsonian?”
“Because a fourteen-year-old woke up one day and decided he wanted to save the world, and he did it in his pajamas, Mr. Parker,” Mr. Stark looks at him as if he’s an idiot. Peter hates that look, even though he knows more often than not, if Mr. Stark is making it, he deserves it.
“Yeah, but, I didn’t really get going until you made me a suit,” Peter rubs the blue material between his fingers. He’d bought all of it, the blue pants and shirt, the red hoodie and socks, at the Dollar General on 14th Ave. He’d even bought the Sharpie there, the goggles for eight bucks on Amazon. The shoes were more difficult; red sneakers that were thin enough to allow him to stick, which he finally found during a clearance sale at Payless. He’d wiped out two months of his meager allowance, and the change he’d saved up from his lunch money.
“That webbing you did before me. And I haven’t touched the base. In fact, you haven’t touched the base. You knocked that shit together in a study hall,” Mr. Stark picks up the old webshooter again. It’s so clunky that Peter can hardly imagine he actually wore one on each wrist. “And if I remember correctly, everything served you pretty well after I took my suit back.”
“I couldn’t get out of bed for three days, Mr. Stark,” Peter reaches over and takes the webshooter from him. He clicks the trigger, and a bit of web shoots onto the coffee table.
“Yeah, we’re definitely not giving them the real ones. I was pretty sure that was essentially empty.”
“It expands. It needed to, I could only fit a tiny bottle in this.”
“And it worked! You left that shit all over the city, and it still took me months to collect enough to analyze it, because a fourteen-year-old had the foresight to realize he needed to leave as few traces of himself as possible,” Mr. Stark lays the hoodie across his lap. “Jesus, kid, you need to be more proud of this.”
“You just said it was ridiculous!”
“It is! We all are. Steve literally wears a flag, and have you ever really looked at my suits? They’re a tacky eyesore. Even my old AI thought so. If we ask Vision I’m sure he’d agree, even looking like he does. In fact, the only ones of us who shouldn’t be embarrassed to go in public are Nat and Carol,” Mr. Stark turns on the couch to fully face him. “What’s going on, Peter? You were pretty proud and defensive when I called it a onesie…”
“That was before,” Peter pokes a finger through a hole burned in the pants. “You were right. It wasn’t good enough.”
“It wasn’t safe enough. None of them are, if I’m being honest,” Mr. Stark holds up the hoodie. “I mean, look at the holes in this thing. I don’t know how you even still had bones after that crash, nevermind how you got to the top of the Cyclone.”
“How’d you know that’s where I went?”
“I have eyes everywhere, Peter. That’s why it only took me two months to find you, even if all you had was a cut off hoodie from the dollar store.”
“Dollar General. Except the shoes. Those are from Payless.”
“And the teenager in them took down a Stark plane and a guy in Chitauri tech,” Mr. Stark’s face softens and he looks at him seriously. “If you don’t want this stuff in the exhibit, I won’t include it. But I don’t want you to think you have anything to be embarrassed about by it.”
“It’s just…” Peter waves his hands around. “It’s hard to explain. It feels like a joke. Like I was playing dress-up.”
“And it seems as though maybe you didn’t learn as much as I thought you did when I took the suit back,” Mr. Stark leans back into the couch and crosses his arms, the hoodie still across his lap.
“What?” Peter almost jumps back in surprise. “Where did that come from? I learned, I--”
“Clearly not, if you still think what makes Spider-Man is what tech he’s wearing,” Mr. Stark raises an eyebrow at him. “If I took all this away again,” he nods towards the band on Peter’s wrist, which he instinctively covers with his other hand. “What would you do?”
“Curl up in a ball and die.”
“After you’ve been dead for two weeks,” Mr. Stark waves his hand dismissively. “What are you doing.”
“I don’t know, Mr. Stark!” Peter jerks his shoulders in annoyance and tosses the blue sweats back in the container. “Probably figure out--”
“Figure out how to make everything again?”
“I didn’t say that,” Peter grumbles and looks at his lap, even though he was essentially saying that. He’d barely lasted two weeks after the Ferry incident, and even though it wasn’t exactly his choice to fight his date’s father on Homecoming night, the suit and webbing were under the lockers. It was more difficult to put the suit back on after Mr. Stark reversed everything, but the only thing hesitant about him being Spider-Man was his own brain, and he got over that fast enough. Peter is pretty confident that if Mr. Stark took everything back, he’d be out there as fast as possible if only out of spite.
“We both know you would,” Mr. Stark tilts his head and eyes him. “I honestly don’t care about the exhibit, kid, but I don’t want you to be embarrassed about your...humble beginnings. It’s still incredibly impressive, even by our standards.”
“I know. And I’m not embarrassed, exactly. It’s just, hard to explain,” Peter turns the old webshooter in his hand. “Like, I don’t want to share it.”
“Peter, you don’t have to, if you don’t want to,” Mr. Stark uncrosses his arms and leans forward a bit. “But you should be proud of this. Hell, I am, and I didn’t even do anything.”
“So you don’t think it’s like a onesie?”
“Oh, no,” Mr. Stark barks a laugh. “I’ll always think it’s a onesie. But like I said, a fourteen-year-old put it on to try and save people. That’s something to be proud of, bud.”
“But it’s got all these burn-holes in it,” Peter holds up the blue pants.
“Evidence of your heroism and bravery. And maybe stupidity.”
“Can I think about it?” Peter looks around the pants at Mr. Stark, who’s smiling softly.
“Yeah,” he nods, then grimaces a bit. “And I probably should have asked you first, huh?”
“Yes,” Peter rolls his eyes, and reaches for the red hoodie. “If I say yes--and I’m not saying I am--but if I do, should we maybe fix up the holes?”
“Nah,” Mr. Stark grabs the goggles and holds them up to his eyes, much like the first they’d met. “The holes and tears really lay it on thick. I was gonna include some pictures from the crash site, too. I still have your little note.”
“Why did you keep that?”
“So I could put it in a museum some day,” Mr. Stark tosses the goggles at him and winks. “And I wouldn’t have bothered to track someone down if I didn’t think they’d eventually end up in one...no matter what they were wearing.”
“Ok, that’s even too much for me, Mr. Stark,” Peter mimes gagging, but he feels better. Mostly. He still doesn’t know if he wants his stuff in the Smithsonian, but he feels slightly better about the whole thing. “If I say yes...can I write the summary?”
“No,” Mr. Stark says quickly, and Peter glares at him. “You’re not good at talking yourself up. But you can have full editing rights.”
“Are you going to tell everyone how old I was?”
“Not even a little. In fact, if you say yes, I’m going to imply none of us know who you are. Just that we know you were a working class guy from Queens who did everything on his own.”
“I’ll think about it,” Peter says again, and slides the webshooter on his wrist. He takes aim at a picture of him and May on the far wall; the webbing hits just a centimeter to the left of where he was aiming. “I should recalibrate these. Just in case.”
“You know, that’s probably a good idea,” Mr. Stark nods, then looks up at the ceiling in contemplation. “Always smart to have a back-up that isn’t reliant on tech. Never know when that asteroid is gonna hit and knock out all infrastructure.”
“I’d call Ms. Danvers if there was an asteroid.”
“And she’d tell you I called her ten minutes earlier,” he reaches forward and pulls out a red shoe that’s still covered in soot. “But it’s probably a good idea. You and Steve are the only ones of us who can run without working circuits. Doesn’t help to have reactors if there’s nothing to work as a conduit. We should have some back-ups.”
“Can we make these smaller?” Peter pulls on the webshooter. “I forgot how much they itch.”
“Absolutely,” Mr. Stark looks inside the shoe, and Peter knows his brain is already analyzing cheap Payless manufacturing material. “And we won’t use VCR parts. Not that it wasn’t ingenious,” he quickly looks over, “it’s just entirely unnecessary.”
“I can’t wait to see you try and stay low-tech, Mr. Stark,” Peter takes aim again, and hits just above the dot of an i on the spine of one of May’s books.
“You and everyone else,” he looks away from the shoe and up at the bookcase. “That will dissolve before your aunt gets home, right?”
“I hope so,” Peter frowns--he was aiming for the dot. “These really need work.”
“Well, I think you’ll be back this weekend, so we’ll pencil it in,” Mr. Stark picks up the hoodie and haphazardly folds it, then sets it back into the container. “I am going to take all this stuff back because your crawl space is absolutely not sufficient security--”
“My other suit is literally in my laundry basket right now, Mr. Stark.”
“--yeah, and I ignore that. Give me that thing,” he holds out his hand for the webshooter. “This is all going back. I’ll look at it, you start sketching your schematics. I want a full, powerless design by the time Hap gets you Friday.”
“Well, I’m not gonna start now, Mr. Stark,” Peter hands over the shooter, which is immediately deposited in the black container. He hears it clink against what he thinks are the old brown, glass bottles. “I’m gonna go patrolling until May is back. I think she’s bringing take-out.”
“Good, I’ll text her my order,” Mr. Stark flips the lid down and presses a button on the front, and it hisses shut. “Haven’t been out flying, in awhile.”
“Are you allowed to?”
“Ok, one, just because we had a deep moment doesn’t mean you get to be a little asshole for the rest of the night, and two, yes, I’m allowed to...if I’m watching after you.”
“Riiighht,” Peter smirks, and stands up from the couch. “Let me put my books away. Then I want to start over by the E-train...there was a creepy guy harassing girls there last week. He bothered Ned’s sister,” he calls over his shoulder as he walks down to his room.
“Spidey knows best,” Mr. Stark calls from the living room. “But you’re wearing the nano-suit. Pull back on the Friendly, for this.”
“Sure thing, Mr. Stark,” Peter shoves the last of his books into his backpack and taps his wristband twice. It’s not sweats from Dollar General, but it’ll do.