Chapter Text
“Well, if we’re all done here, I’m going to thwip away before the cops come and inevitably blame it on me,” Spider-Man announced, perched unnaturally atop a streetlight.
“What? Already? Not even going to stay and celebrate?” the Human Torch demanded, flames disappearing as he touched back onto the concrete.
Four webbed HYDRA agents were stuck to a half smashed wall behind Spider-Man’s lamppost. Near them stood Mr. Fantastic, tinkering with the settings on the Fantasticar, which had been blasted by the weird guns the agents had been carrying. The Invisible Woman was holding a force field around two more HYDRA goons as the Thing pulled out some industrial handcuffs to stick on them.
Spidey was mostly there by accident. The Fantastic Four had just been cruising through the sky when they were shot down by some truly idiotic HYDRA agents, all of whom were now taken care of. Spidey happened to be swinging by when their car was shot down and had assisted in helping with the clean-up. It was the nice, professional thing to do, even if he didn’t know them all too well.
“Can’t. They’ll arrest me for being a ‘menace’ and a ‘vigilante.’ Anyways, I dropped my pizza when these guys popped up, so I’m starving.” That part was true. Peter looked mournfully at the box of pizza now splattered on the pavement by Johnny Storm. That had cost money that he did not have a lot of, but oh well. Hopefully the FF would like him now. Admittedly, breaking into their house hadn’t left the best first impression.
“What? That’s ridiculous! The NYPD loves superheroes,” Johnny argued.
Peter gave him a deadpan expression that he hoped Johnny picked up on through the mask. “Yeah. They love the Fantastic Four. They love the Avengers. They do not love a lone, arachnid-themed, tragically misunderstood, slandered superhero.”
He looked up and spotted a ledge that would be good for swinging. It was time for him to vamoose. And his leg would fold if he remained crouched like this much longer. Because of course he’d taken a hit while the FF were spotless, not a hair out of place.
“Wait!” Susan Storm called as he raised an arm, about to swing away. He tilted his head towards her curiously. “My husband and I can take care of the cops. But why don’t you follow Johnny back to the Baxter Building? You can have dinner with us. Our way of saying thank you for helping out.”
Peter teetered in place. On one hand, he really, really wanted to have dinner in the famous Baxter Building with his science hero, Reed Richards; on the other hand, he really, really did not want to take off his mask in front of anyone.
“Sorry, Dr. Storm-Richards. I don’t take off the mask.”
“You don’t have to.” Peter froze and examined her face. She looked honest, hands spread as if placating a spooked animal. He supposed that was accurate enough. He certainly felt like a skittish pet, ready to flee in a second from his precarious perch. “Please. Let us treat you to dinner.”
Ah, what the hell? He was hungry and they were offering him food.
“Fine. A growing spider never turns down a free meal.” Sue’s face lit up. Peter swung upside down to face Johnny. “Lead the way, flamebrain.”
“Flamebrain? Oh, you asked for it, wallcrawler. Flame on!” he yelled, and rocketed into the sky. Peter could feel the heat coming off him from yards away. “Race ya!”
Peter didn’t even think before shooting out a web and racing after the Human Torch’s burning figure, zipping through the streets of New York. Johnny yelled out taunts the whole way, which Peter spit back in kind. It was easy and felt surprisingly natural. After all, Peter barely knew Johnny. Sure, he knew stuff about Johnny. Everyone did. Johnny was famous, probably the most famous teenager in the country, but it wasn’t the same as knowing him.
Maybe that was it. Peter didn’t get to meet a lot of people his age as Spidey. Just Johnny, really. Maybe that’s why it felt so right to be racing and teasing and joking with him.
“Beat you,” Johnny said smugly, landing on the roof of the Baxter Building.
Peter flipped and landed in a crouch a few seconds later. “Only because you burned down my webline a block back. I nearly fell onto a family of tourists. Though since they were wearing matching T-shirts, they might have deserved it.”
“You just can’t admit I’m faster than you,” he preened.
The competitive spark in Peter that he’d had to hold back all his life, sometimes more now that he had superpowers, burst into flames, begging to prove Johnny wrong. “Faster? I demand a rematch as soon as the stab wound in my leg closes.”
“Wait, what?!” The blonde stalked across the roof and right into Peter’s space. He stumbled a step back, but Johnny didn’t notice, his eyes locked on the dark red stain spreading on Peter’s uniform. “Shit.”
“Tell me about it. It’s such a pain to sew this suit back up.” Peter wasn’t sure why he was joking around right now. He was in actual physical pain, and he clearly wasn’t fooling Johnny, whose eyes only narrowed.
“Come on.” Johnny grabbed his wrist and started dragging him along.
“Whoa, what?” Peter was definitely stronger than him, but he didn’t break the grip.
“Come on. We’re going to clean that up and bandage it properly. Why didn’t you say something sooner?”
“Why? It’ll heal itself.”
Johnny frowned for a moment, but when he turned back to scoff— “We’re getting you patched up because I wouldn’t have bragged about that race if I knew you were injured. That was hardly a fair fight. We’re going to have to do a redo, now,” —a sardonic grin was back on his stupid, supermodel handsome face.
Wait. What? Peter did not just think of Johnny Storm—rich, famous, snobby Johnny Storm— as handsome. No. No way. Peter had better taste than that.
Better taste than that ass? A rebellious and entirely unwanted part of Peter’s brain asked. He hushed it and then scowled at Johnny for good measure.
But he didn’t stop him from tending to him with a first aid kit, either.
“Thank you again for your help today,” Sue said, piling a plate with way too much food for a normal person and passing it to Peter. He gratefully accepted, as his appetite far exceeded the normal persons, and he rarely could eat enough, unless he wanted to bankrupt Aunt May.
“Yeah. You hit hard for such a small thing,” Ben Grimm guffawed, the table creaking alarmingly as he slammed his huge, rocky hands down.
“I was in the neighborhood. Anyways, it looked like you guys could’ve handled it on your own,” Peter said modestly. He pushed his mask up halfway, revealing his mouth and nose so that he could eat. It wasn’t exactly comfortable, but he wasn’t willing to de-mask, not even for the Fantastic Four.
“Maybe, but by cushioning the crash of the Fantasticar with your webbing you saved us the hassle of fixing it. Again.” Reed gave him a friendly smile before digging into his own food.
For a moment Peter noticed Johnny staring at him. The spider turned to him and scowled. “What? Do I have something on my face?”
“How old are you?” Johnny blurted out. Quiet stole over the room as Peter went deathly still.
Sue set down her utensils and hissed, “Johnny, Spider-Man is our guest and he asked that we don’t invade his privacy!”
Peter swung his head to look at Sue. An odd feeling of warmth had crept over him as she defended him. That was really nice of her. He was sure she wanted to know the answer to the question just as much as her brother.
“It’s alright,” Peter cut in before the siblings could start arguing. He let out a sigh and turned back to Johnny. He met the teen’s curious blue eyes and said, “I’m fifteen.”
Same as you, Peter added mentally. He wasn’t sure, but he thought that Johnny got the message even without him verbalizing it. Reed just looked curious at Peter’s admittance, Sue looked worried, and Ben looked awed. To avoid all of their charged gazes, he dug into his food. Better get it down now before he inevitably had to swing away.
“Does anybody know?” Sue asked after a long moment.
He swallowed. “No. And I want it to stay that way.”
“We understand. Thank you for trusting us.” Peter nodded, but she wasn’t quite done. “And if you ever need anything that you can’t ask your friends and family for, you’re welcome here, Spider-Man. Anytime.”
“Thank you.” He cleared his throat as a tight feeling built up in it. “I’ll...probably take you up on that sometime.”
Sue beamed. Conversation picked back up. The Fantastic Four asked him questions, as many as they could while still respecting his privacy. Peter was delighted when Reed invited him to come see his lab sometime when the teen professed to be a science nerd. All in all, it turned out to be one of the most fun nights of Peter’s life, and he was really glad he’d agreed to dinner with them.
“I hate to say this, but I need to go. My au— my guardian will get worried if I’m not home soon,” Peter said, standing up and pulling his mask back down.
“Are you sure? It’s so dark out, we wouldn’t mind at all if you spend the night,” Reed said, Sue nodding along emphatically.
“Don’t worry. The dark doesn’t bother me so much.” He popped off the wall where he’d spent the better part of the last hour. It was nice to show his abilities so freely without judgement or a need to hide. “Thanks for, well, everything.”
“See you around, Webs,” Ben said, his face split into what Peter was pretty sure was a grin. He grinned back, although his mask made it impossible to tell.
“Come back. Anytime,” Sue said, almost in warning.
“Will do, Dr. Storm-Richards.”
“I’ll show you up to the roof,” Johnny said abruptly, getting up too. Peter was startled, but followed his fellow teen down the hall and back to the elevator. Neither of them talked until the doors had slid shut and they were shooting up. “You’re not too bad.”
Peter was bemused. “Thanks. I think.”
“I mean, I misjudged you. You did break into my house, remember?”
“Vividly.”
“Anyways, you might not be as much of a gold-digging ass as I thought.”
“Are you trying to insult me?” Peter demanded, whirling towards him.
Johnny’s mouth fell open and he took a step back. “What? No! Sorry, I haven’t talked to someone my age in forever. I’m not saying things right.”
“What are you talking about? You’re in the news with a new starlet everyday.”
“Yeah, but I don’t really talk to them. You know how it is.”
Peter quirked an eyebrow. “No. I really don’t.”
“What are you talking about? You’re a superhero. The chicks must be all over you.”
“What about a secret identity do you not understand?”
“Oh. Right. Well, anyways, what I’m trying to get at is if you ever want to hang out, or fight aliens together or something, I wouldn’t mind. You’re kind of the first teenager I’ve met with superpowers like mine.”
“Oh. Ditto.”
The elevator doors slid open and a chilly New York breeze sliced into them. The Baxter Building rooftop was crowded with helicopters and Fantasticars hundreds of feet above the ground. Peter shivered, but something in him was begging to go off the edge and swing through the city.
“Well, here we are.” Peter danced to the edge and teetered there.
“Yeah. Don’t stay away too long. We still need to have that rematch.”
Peter grazed his hand over his bruised leg. The stab wound had already closed up, but it was still tender. It would be for a few days, probably, but it was nothing he couldn’t work through.
“See you around, Torch.”
Peter let himself fall off the rooftop. As he plummeted, he closed his eyes and let himself freefall, the air whistling past him. There was nothing that could compare to the way this felt, the way this made Peter feel.
He shot out a webline before he splattered on the pavement, and couldn’t help flipping past Johnny, who was still on the roof. Johnny’s startled laugh followed him.