Chapter Text
“Spider-Man’s real name is-”
No no no no no no no no no no no no no. Oh god. Let that be the end of the video. Please please please.
“Spider-Man’s real name is Peter Parker!”
“WHAT THE FUCK!”
That was probably the first time Spider-Man had ever sworn in public. Not that swearing was his primary concern right now. Dozens of pairs of eyes swiveled to look at him. He was unbelievably fucked. Everything was pouring in all at once. People were looking at him. MJ was looking at him. People were calling 911. Parents were dragging their children away. People were whispering. People were shouting. It was all so loud. His Peter-Tingle (God, he hated that name.) was running through his body. All of his senses were screaming at him.
“-right here! In th-” Parents.
“-se. Send som-” Cops.
“-et him!” Rioters.
“-un, Spider-Man! Run!” MJ.
No. Swing. He leaped off the light post, thwipped out a web line, shot away. He hit the roof of a nearby bank. He landed running. He leapt off the roof to the next, ran across the city. Peter Parkour , he’d once told Ned. It was a crazy thought, so absurd he got distracted, tripping on his next jump. He stopped to catch his breath, looking around him.
“Peter, you appear to be having a panic attack. Would you like me to call May?”
May. Oh, god, May. She was going to have to deal with this. People would be knocking down her front door. He needed to get her out of the city. “No. Call Happy. I need him to do something first.”
“Calling Happy.” The phone ran twice, than connected. “Peter?”
“May? I called Happy!”
“Yes, this is his phone. You’re on speaker.”
“Wait, is he still at the apartment? Are you two making out? What’s happening?”
“Focus, Peter. We saw the newscast. Happy is driving me to some place called the compound. He says you’ll know where it is, and if you activate your tracker, he’ll send a car for you.”
“Activating tracker,” Karen interrupted.
“Aw, crap,” he heard Happy say in the background. “Kid, why’d you go so far out?”
“What do you mean?”
“You’re in Brooklyn! By the time I get a car to you, people will have calmed down enough to think. They’ll be on the lookout for you, and they’ll be paying special attention to any Stark vehicles. They’ve already got choppers looking for you web slinging along, so you can’t get out of the city that way. You’ll have to find a place to hide until we can build up a rescue-”
“Hey, Peter!” called a voice behind him.
“Guys I gotta go. I’ll call you back. Karen, end call.”
Peter swung around to find a tall African-American man staring at him. He looked familiar.
“That’s your name, right? Peter Parker? The nut job in the fishbowl got that right, at least?”
“Yeah, that’s me. But I didn’t do any of that stuff he said, I didn’t attack-”
“I know, kid. I know. I didn’t doubt for a second that there’s no way you attacked a city.”
“Thanks…” Peter realized where he knew the man from. It hit him like cap’s shield to the face. “Mr. Criminal?”
It was definitely him. He’d shaved his head and gotten in much better shape, but he was unmistakably the same man Peter had left webbed to the trunk of his car a year- six years - ago.
“Aaron Davis, kid. If I know your name, you deserve to know mine. Now what are you doing on this roof, huh? They got copters all over the city. Come downstairs.”
“How do I know I can trust you? How do you know you can me?”
Aaron seemed to consider this for a moment. “Well, as for trusting me, I guess you’re just going to have to take a leap of faith. But hey, you saved my life. I still owe you, I think. As for trusting you, well, I ain’t a thing that could make you seem untrustworthy to me.”
“People are saying I blew up London.”
“Pfft. Nobody who needs to make their voice sound stupid like that to find a nut job in a metal bird costume could bomb a whole city. ‘Sides,” He looked back the way Peter had swung in from. “You saved me from a bullet. You yanked my nephew out of the road and gave him an autograph, before the Blip. And you’ve always been there when my niece is in danger.”
“Your niece?”
“Yeah. When her school trip got bombed in DC, you were there. When they went to Europe, you were there, in every country, saving her from those big lumpy things-”
“Elementals. Well, actually, they were a network of weaponized drones projecting extremely realistic holograms masquerading as creatures from another universe in order to trick me into giving Beck access to even more weaponized drones, but-wait. How did you know I was in Europe? I was Night Monkey over there.”
Aaron smirked “A new costume and a stupid name ain’t enough to keep someone as observant as my niece from recognizing you, kid. She told me you were there. You’ve been there every time my family’s been in danger. I don’t think I have anything to fear from you.”
“I could’ve been doing that to gain public support.”
“Most of it, yeah. You get a lot of praise for saving a class of kids, or for pulling a kid out of the road right before a truck hits him. But if you were after glory, why’d you wear a different costume in Prague? And, why did you save me? Ain’t no glory in stopping a criminal from being shot by his arms dealer when there’s no one to see you. Even if there were witnesses, a lot of people would even say it’s the wrong thing to do. But you did it anyway. So yeah, I trust you. And if you want off this roof, you gotta trust me too. Now come downstairs. There’s someone I think you’ll like to meet.”