Chapter Text
Peter didn’t regret being bitten by the spider very often, not like how most people thought he would. Sure, there were a few moments when he really wished he didn’t have the power he did, and there were times he really, truly, wished to just be a normal teen, but overall he rather enjoyed his powers. Some of them were hard to get used to though, no matter how long he’d had them. One of such powers was the sticking . God, the sticking.
When he had first gotten his powers he stuck to everything. There was no stopping it, he didn’t know how to control it, and he literally stuck to everything he touched. He remembered having to specifically avoid touching anyone, hugging anyone, or grabbing anything in front of people, just in case. Once, he had even gotten his hand stuck to Ned’s shoulder when he had tried patting him on the back. It had been an awkward 20 minutes with no explanation from Peter until months later when Ned found out about Spider-Man.
Now, though, Peter was better at the whole sticking thing. He knew how to use it, how to control it, and how to make sure he didn’t just randomly stick to things. For the most part, at least. Plus, the sticking thing was helpful for Spider-Man. It allows him to climb walls, and when he messes up a swing he’s able to stick to a surface to hold him up. And, sometimes, it allows for some fun surprise attacks. But, most people didn’t see the whole sticking thing. It wasn’t really what people thought of when they saw Spider-Man. They thought of swinging, not sticking.
Nonetheless, Peter made good use of it. Most criminals didn’t expect to look up and see a kid in spandex crawling down a wall towards them. It worked to freak people out, and that was a win in Peter’s books.
Another plus was that it always seemed to confuse the Avengers.
Peter had only fought with the group once before the so-called “Civil War”, but it had been fun when it happened, albeit a little bit weird. A villain named “Lizard” started popping up in New York just a couple of months after Peter had first become Spider-Man. And honestly, Peter had to start talking to the gang of villains that he imagined existed to stop stealing his gig. Not everyone could be animal-themed for God’s sake. But also like, really ? More human experimentation with splicing? Did humans really need more of that? And honestly, Peter didn’t think the near-death of it all was worth it. Well, it was a little worth it, but if anyone asked him he’d deny it.
But that was beside the point.
Right now, The Lizard was tearing New York City apart and Peter was swinging with all his might to reach the monster in time. Because that’s what he was, a monster. No innocent nor sane person would destroy a city like this. “Hey, hey, man! What do you think you’re doing?” he called out, swinging around the green monstrosity.
The man (Lizard? Monster? Manzard…? Peter would work on it), simple growled in response before smashing his tail into a nearby window and throwing something into it. The room filled with some sort of gas briefly, before it slowly evaporated. And ya, “That's not cool, dude!”
The people on the streets below screamed, but as usual, while most ran away some just stood there with their cameras out to record the whole thing. And Peter couldn’t fix stupid, unfortunately. If he could he was sure Aunt May would be ecstatic.
Back to the point.
He swung over the broken window, quickly attempting to web up the open hole as much as he could before he noticed what was happening inside.
And honestly, what the actual fuck.
The people who were on the floor that had been filled with the gas were… not entirely human anymore? They didn’t look like the lizard, but they were definitely a little green, and their eyes looked… well, they looked like lizards’ eyes. He attached himself to the wall, popping his head into the window and momentarily forgetting about the Lizard.
“Uhh, are ya’ll feeling alright, or are we feeling a little green right no— ACK!” he began to ask before one of the men suddenly bolted from his place towards Peter. Peter hadn’t even realized his body was moving until he shot a web out at the man, successfully securing him to the ground. “Sorry!” he called out, and he genuinely was. It wasn’t the man’s fault he was turned into some weird half-lizard dude. He quickly webbed up the hole in the window, refusing to let any of the other weird lizard people escape.
Which, ya, he was going to have to deal with that. How? He wasn’t really sure yet. Now would be a great time to be involved with SHIELD so that they could deal with weird mutations instead of him.
“Hey, Lizard! Or Snake! Or Dino!” Peter shouted, once again swinging around the Lizard, shooting out webs to pull his tail away from any people or buildings, “To be honest I’m really not sure what you are! Your costume is a little lacking!”
“You’re a pest,” the man growled, throwing another gas bomb, and no way was Peter going to let that happen again.
He quickly swung over, catching the bomb before placing it on an unsuspecting roof, where, hopefully, it wouldn’t explode. He really didn’t want to deal with more half-lizard people.
“Ya, I’m told that pretty often,” Peter sighed.
The issue with the Lizard was that he often didn’t seem to have a “plan”. Most villains wanted something, but the Lizard seemed to act with pure rage. Well, until he started turning random civilians into weird lizard people. That was weird, and Peter really didn’t like that. They were creepy. Though luckily they weren’t as strong as the Lizard. None of the weird lizard people in the confined room were able to break through Peter’s webs.
Peter bit his lip nervously from under his mask. He was fairly certain he knew who the Lizard was, if his guesses were anything to go by. The only place that Peter knew of that did research and experimentation on splicing human and animal genes was OsCorp, which Peter wasn’t a total fan of. But he had had the chance to work there over the past couple of months, and he specifically remembered working with Dr. Connors who was obsessed with finding a way to use lizard DNA to heal people’s wounds and regenerate limbs. The whole idea of it made Peter slightly uncomfortable, but it was mostly because of his own experience with OsCorp’s spiders.
But it didn’t seem like the man was in his right mind at all right now, and Peter really didn’t feel like outing his only mentor at OsCorp. Although, Peter had a feeling he wouldn’t be working there for much longer. He had only stayed around to learn more about their experiments but eventually saw that it had mostly been a mistake. Mostly.
“Listen!” Peter shouted, continuing to try to herd the Lizard away from the stupid, stupid people who were still filming, “I don’t know what's going on, but I know you don’t want to cause this much pain!”
Another bomb was thrown, and Peter quickly caught it and placed it with the other.
“ Or... maybe you do.”
A slight tingle at the back of his neck alerted him that something was coming, and Peter looked around slightly wildly, worried that one of the half-lizard people got loose, but instead was met with the Lizard’s tail smacking right into his side. The feeling of flying and yet falling at the same time was not something Peter particularly enjoyed, but the feeling of smashing into a building hard enough to cause damage was something he enjoyed even less.
“Ouch…”
But there was no rest for the wicked, apparently, as the Lizard continued to throw out those weird lizard-making-bombs. And ya, Peter was getting tired of this. Three were thrown, and three were caught and put on the roof again.
“Listen, if you’re trying to make the whole ‘lizard people’ conspiracy theory come true, I really wish you wouldn’t,” he shot a web at the Lizard’s tail, pinning it to the ground, “It has some real bad anti-Semitic roots, and y’know. As the Friendly Neighbourhood Spider-Man, I gotta stop stuff like that.”
He shot another two webs, pinning the Lizard’s hands to the ground as well, hoping this would be enough to subdue the man. He was 90% sure it was Dr. Connors, and while he didn’t agree with what the man was doing at the moment, he still had respect for the scientist and would really rather not injure him.
He swung down to the ground, shooting a look at the bystanders. “I hope this gets good views on YouTube,” was all he said before turning back to the Lizard.
“Listen, why don’t we just like, turn everyone back to normal humans instead of the weird, creepy, lizard people, and call it a day?” Peter reasoned, holding his hands up.
And then, as if on cue, the Lizard’s tail shot up through Peter’s webs and grabbed him.
“This is getting really weird!” he shouted as he was swung around.
He grabbed at the tail, trying to get the man to release him. Because, ow , he could literally feel a couple of ribs break from the pressure. And sure, they’d be healed in a couple of days, but he had a lab test tomorrow, and taking a lab test with broken ribs literally sounded like Hell. But the more he struggled the more the Lizard crushed him, and Peter was starting to panic. He shot webs out, covering the man’s eyes in an attempt to blind him, and more attaching to nearby walls to try to squirm his way out. But it was all to no avail.
Until...
“You need a hand there, Spider-Man?”
Peter looked up, his eyes wide and mouth agape, to see the Iron Man, Black Widow, and Hawkeye above him, standing on the roof of the nearby building.
Holy Shit.
No, now wasn’t the time to fanboy over his literal idols.
“If you could get me out of this death grip, ya!”
The sound of Iron Man’s repulsor beams hit Peter’s ears before he could even finish his sentence. The repulsor hit the Lizard’s tail, successfully cutting it off from the boy, and it went limp around Peter’s figure.
“Oh, gross ” Peter whined from underneath the severed body part, “Gross, gross, gross, gross, gross .”
He quickly flung himself from out of the tail’s grip and swung up to the roof to meet the Avengers.
“So, uh, what brings you guys to this part of town?” he asked, scratching the back of his head.
“There's a genetically modified lizard causing chaos in New York, and attempting to turn others into lizards,” Black Widow answered, rolling her eyes as if the answer should have been obvious, “Of course SHIELD wants to apprehend the man and figure out what made him into… that .”
“I was bored,” Iron Man said.
Peter furrowed his eyebrows, giving Iron Man a stare that was impossible to translate through the mask. But really? Boredom brought him to chase after a giant Lizard? Weird, but ok. But he had more important things to worry about than a billionaire’s boredom right now.
Those things being stopping the Lizard from making anymore weird lizard people. Because, gross.
Luckily, it seemed, with the Avengers present the Lizard was more focused on his enemy than he was on turning more people into lizard hybrids. And thank God for that, because if Peter had to catch one more lizard bomb he was going to throw himself off the roof.
Speaking of which, bombs that turned people into lizards was probably something SHIELD would like to know. And, really, Peter didn’t want to get on SHIELD’s bad side. They seemed like the type of people who definitely knew how to make your life a living hell.
“I’ve got a bunch of the bombs on a roof over there... if you want to take it back to SHIELD,” Peter offered.
“You just left bombs on a roof? Unprotected?” Black Widow stared at him incredulously.
“They’re not bomb-bombs. They’re Lizard making bombs,” Peter shrugged, adjusting the goggles of his suit so he could see a little bit better.
The Widow raised an unimpressed eyebrow.
“I dunno, it releases gas. People turn into half-lizard people,” Peter continued, “To be honest it’s more gross and creepy than it is harmful.” He paused, raised a hand to his chin for dramatic effect, and then shrugged again. “Well, to me at least. It’s definitely harmful to the people.”
“So you left lizard-making bombs. On a roof. Unprotected?” Black Widow continued, her voice thin. She didn’t sound angry, necessarily, but she did sound entirely displeased.
Peter tensed at the tone. He definitely didn’t want to get on her bad side either, mainly because she could definitely beat him up if she wanted to. Or kill him. Or both. But he tried to play it off. It would be wildly uncool if Spider-Man was afraid of the Avengers. They were supposed to be on the same side!
“Uh, ya? Where else should I have put them? Plus it's like, super high up. Like over 100 floors, you can only get there if you fly, or swing.”
“This is why I don’t work with vigilantes.”
“Hey! I resent that! I’ve been fighting this guy for like, a solid two weeks now, and where have you guys been?”
“Not letting random Lizard men run around,” this time it was Clint who spoke up. Peter turned to the man to retaliate, but he was already aiming an arrow into the distance.
So, naturally, Peter turned to look. And God, as if this couldn’t get any worse. The Lizard was climbing up the very building Peter had left the bombs on.
“You were saying?” Peter didn’t even need to look to know that Black Widow was rolling her eyes at him.
“In my defence,” he said, “I didn’t know he could climb.”
If any of the three said anything in reply to that, Peter didn’t hear. He was already swinging his way over to the Lizard. Although, really, Peter could technically hear Hawkeye’s “You fought him for a week and didn’t know he could climb?”, but he decidedly ignored it.
It only took a matter of seconds to reach the Lizard, who was just about halfway up the building at this point, and Peter stuck himself beside the man. “Listen, this whole stickiness? Ya, that’s kind of my thing,” Peter said, “Honestly I just really don’t want people to confuse the two of us.”
The Lizard either didn’t hear him or ignored him and considering that Peter was literally two feet away from the monster he figured it was the latter.
“Okaayyy, no talking then, eh? I can help with that,” he shot a web over the Lizard’s mouth, which, ya. Ok. It didn’t really do much to stop the man, but it was definitely annoying. And at least 80% of Spider-Man’s job was being annoying.
The Lizard kept climbing, and Peter was running out of time. He really couldn’t let him reach those lizard-bombs, it would be totally counter-intuitive. And Peter was honestly a little scared that he’d get turned into a half-lizard. How would that work? Would he get extra sticky? More strength? Or would he just be Spider-Man, but a little greener and with a tail? Because that would be lame, and would totally ruin his image.
The aesthetics were important, after all, even if his suit was a glorified tracksuit.
So he did the only thing he could think of and hopped right onto the Lizard’s back to deliver a punch to the back of his head. The man’s head was hard, or at least harder than Peter was expecting. Did lizards have reinforced skulls, or was it just the serum that Dr. Connors made? He’d have to look into that.
Unfortunately, it definitely wasn’t strong enough to subdue the monster, or really phase him. Instead, Peter was flung off the Lizard’s back, and he would have crashed fifty floors down into the ground if he didn’t shoot out a web and swing back to the building, just a few floors below the monster.
“Snakes and ladders always was my least favourite game,” Peter mumbled, scurrying up the building as fast as he could. He took a chance to look back at the three Avengers, wondering what the actual fuck they were doing while he was being flung around, and nearly fell off the building again when he saw them just standing and watching.
“Really?” he shouted, “You guys are no help!”
“You climb walls ? On all fours? That’s fucking creepy man,” was all he got in response.
And wow, if he knew the Avengers were going to be this useless he definitely wouldn’t have been as excited as he was when they showed up. At this point, they were no better than the idiot civilians who were filming the whole fiasco.
“Ok, not making the same mistake twice,” Peter mumbled to himself as he approached the Lizard.
Once he was directly below the man he leaped over him and attached himself to the wall directly above. He shot a web at the man’s mouth again, before shooting more at his hands and feet to secure him in place.
“You have the right to remain silent... and stay still,” Peter said.
And then came the most important part; the one where Peter took him down before the Lizard could do any more damage. Peter always tried to do the least damage to New York as possible. He had lived through the Chitauri attacks and saw how so many people suffered for months, and even years, after that battle because of the damage done. Peter would never be able to live with himself if he was a cause of something like that.
But in a similar vein, he always wanted to cause the least amount of arm to the villain, no matter how bad. He would never kill anyone, and he always did his best to not injure them too severely.
But sometimes that was difficult when the villain was like three times his size, just as sticky as him, and just as strong.
So, while the Lizard was stuck in place and struggling against the webbing—and Peter prayed it would last just another minute—Peter climbed further up the wall, sort of in a crab’s position. Was it comfortable? No. But it let him keep an eye on the lizard.
Plus he could hear Hawkeye shout about how creepy he looked from the distance, and it made Peter chuckle.
Once he was high enough, Peter let go, making sure to bend his knees just slightly before straightening them as he kicked the Lizard in the face.
Blood spurted from the man’s nostrils—because no, Peter was not going to call that a nose. He looked like Voldemort for God’s sake. But Peter smiled to himself when he saw the Lizard’s eyes close. The man had passed out from the force, and no doubt received at least a minor concussion from the kick, but Peter did what he had to do to keep the citizens of New York from turning into lizard people.
He was pretty proud of himself until he heard his webbing begin to fray from the dead weight of the Lizard. And—
“Shit,” he swore, “Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit.”
He quickly shot more webs, wrapping them around the middle of the Lizard’s body first, and then reinforcing the hold on the Lizard’s hands and feet. He shot out a few more, just for good measure, and then nodded to himself.
“Alright,” he said, “Job don—”
The sound of mechanic flying cut him off, and Peter found himself looking straight into Iron Man’s eyes—no. Into his helmet.
“Aand, how are we supposed to get a giant lizard down from the 70th floor?” Iron Man said incredulously.
“Uhhh, a ladder?”
He was met with silence.
“Like, a really big ladder.”
More silence.
“Or maybe a helicopter?”
Iron Man flew down, and Peter was genuinely convinced that the man had grown tired of Peter’s constant chattering. The moment of silence allowed Peter to think though because ya. He really hadn’t thought about how he was going to get the Lizard down. He’d been more concerned about getting the man to stop.
He didn’t have to think about it long before the sound of Iron Man coming back up registered in Peter’s ears. The man was in front of Peter in no time, but this time he was holding a rather large needle in his hand. The sight of the needle was enough to make Peter shiver. He hated needles.
“I’m vaccinated, but thanks,” was all Peter could say.
“Is Spider-Man afraid of needles?” Iron Man laughed.
Peter didn’t dignify that with a response. Mostly because he was afraid of needles, but was also a horrible liar.
The man tossed the needle in the air towards Spider-Man, and Peter quickly caught it, the vial clenched in his hand.
“Are you insane? What if it stabbed me?”
“Proved a theory,” Iron Man shrugged.
“What theory?”
“You’ve got quick reflexes,” there was a pause, “And you’re afraid of needles.”
Peter huffed, but fiddled with the needle nonetheless. “And what do I do with this?”
“Shoot it in his neck. It should turn him back to a human, and then I’ll carry him down.”
Peter nodded, and quickly stabbed the needle in Dr. Connors’ neck, suppressing a shiver as he did so. He wasn’t quite sure what he was expecting, but he definitely wasn’t expecting the Lizard to turn back into a human immediately. It was quite a sight to behold, as the monster shrunk into a human form, turned much less green, and the long tail shrunk into his body.
It was kind of gross, if Peter was being honest, but also really cool.
Once he was sure Dr. Connors was still unconscious and definitely fully human Peter quickly got his web-dissolver out to get rid of the webbing that held him into place, shooting Iron Man a look to tell him to get underneath the man. The man fell directly into Iron Man’s arm, and the superhero went down to the ground without another word.
“Guess I’ll crawl down, then,” Peter said to himself.
He scaled the building until he reached the first floor, where he promptly stood horizontally on the building. The three Avengers were standing around the body of Dr. Connors as Black Widow spoke to someone on the phone. It seemed like they were planning on what to do with the Dr.
“So, what now?” he looked at the three adults.
“We take him to SHIELD, and round up the people he turned into lizards and get them turned back into their normal selves,” Iron Man answered, “And then SHIELD handles the rest of it.”
Peter nodded. He wasn’t entirely sure at the vagueness of “SHIELD handles the rest”, but he supposed it would do.
“Can’t believe OsCorp was dealing with splicing humans and animals,” Iron Man hummed.
“It was just Dr. Connors,” Peter said without thinking.
And shit . That was the wrong answer. All three of the Avengers turned to stare at him. Peter shifted uncomfortably from his place on the wall, and crossed his arms defensively. He really hadn’t meant to say that. What if they figured out he was an intern at OsCorp, though not for long. He was definitely quitting. Like tomorrow.
“You work there, or something?” Hawkeye asked.
“Or something.”
“Were you a part of this?” Hawkeye continued.
“What? No! Of course not. I just… well I just had a feeling it was Dr. Connors. I follow his research and stuff, and well, it wasn’t super hard to connect the dots. I mean, he’s been researching limb regeneration for years now, and then all of a sudden a giant lizard pops up in the city? And I mean, ya, it could’ve been—”
Iron Man raised a hand, and his faceplate lifted. He stared at Peter for a few moments, and honestly? Peter was really starting to get uncomfortable. Maybe he should just leave now.
But then, “So your suit is sticky?”
And Peter was thrown off guard. Even Hawkeye seemed to be a bit confused, seeing as he was giving Tony Stark a weird look. And wow, ya. Peter was talking to the Tony Stark.
“Uh, ya. I guess.”
And sue him! He wasn’t about to tell the Avengers about his powers right now. Mainly because he was just way too scared that if they knew it was him who could stick, and not his suit, they’d be able to tell he was mutated, or enhanced, or whatever. He didn’t know the proper terminology.
“You just stick to walls, or to glass too?”
Peter took a tentative couple of steps over to the glass window, and waved his hands, “Just call me Alice Through the Looking Glass.”
There was a glint in Tony Stark’s eyes, and Peter couldn’t help but smile back, despite knowing the man wouldn’t be able to see it. The man looked closely at Peter’s feet, and the teen couldn’t help but flip onto his hands, just to show off. It wasn’t every day he had Tony Stark , his idol, paying him attention.
“What else?”
“Well, I haven’t really tested it ou—”
“Sorry, not sorry, to break up this NerdFest, but could you get down ? It’s creepy, dude,” Clint all but shuddered.
Peter shrugged but made a show of it nonetheless by flipping off the wall and landing centimeters away from Clint. The man simply glared at him, and Peter couldn’t help but feel proud of the fact that he creeped out an Avenger.
“We’ve got this from here, Spider-Man. Keep up the good work,” Black Widow folded her arms, giving him a look that told him it was non-negotiable for him to leave. Right now.
“Just make sure there are no more weird, genetically-modified-via-animals villains who can climb walls, please?” Peter said before hopping back onto the wall, “It’s kind of my thing.”
“Trademarks exist for a reason kid,” was all Iron Man said before Peter started swinging.
All Peter could do was roll his eyes at the man. God. The Avengers were annoying. But also... having them around to help did kind of save his ass.
"Whatever!" he shouted back.