Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Peter and Loki tumble out of the orange Timedoor, without knowing where they’ve landed.

“Mr. Loki, please don’t do that again,” Peter groans as he sits up. His whole body aches with the movement.

Somebody better remind Peter not to trust the Nordic god of mischief with the escape plan next time.

“Believe me, that wasn’t intentional,” Loki replies.

Peter is about to ask about the location of where they’d plopped out, but the tell-tale sound of a blaster powering on interrupts them. Peter looks up, startled by the sound, and is awestruck at what he sees; The Avengers in formal wear ready to attack.

Peter has to fight the urge to tear up at the sight of his past mentor and teammates, all alive and well. And very much younger than when he knew them.

“Loki, how did you break out of Asgard?” Thor booms, voice loud and authoritative.

It was so different from how Peter remembered.

“You are supposed to be home, where you are locked up and can be watched over.”

“Yes, yes I am aware,” Loki says nonchalantly as he stands up, brushing dirt and ash from his very Midgardian-style business suit.

“Mr. Loki, please tell me why you catapulted us into the Avenger’s living room?” Peter whisper-yells at Loki.

This was so not supposed to happen.

Loki looks at him, with his typical ‘you’re being annoying’ look, then reaches out and ruffles the ash and debris from Peter’s hair, causing Peter to close his eyes.

“I last-minute transported us off a burning planet, forgive me for not planning the destination better.” Loki continues, a smirk gracing his lips in a somewhat fond expression.

It throws everyone in the room off, except for the recipient of that look.

Peter bats the hand away, finally opening his eyes again once all the ash stops falling. The smirk and fond look disappear.

“Well, it would be great if you could take us somewhere else.”

“Aren’t these people the whole reason why you asked for my help in the first place?” Loki asks, knowing this isn’t exactly what Peter is looking for, but this could still be better than their wild goose chase before.

They both stare at each other for a moment, almost having a silent conversation. Peter felt like he was in a room full of ghosts.

“It’s too early here,” Peter sighs.

“I need to find Stephen, not The Avengers.”

Loki rolls his eyes and looks down to adjust the TemPad.

“I’m not a taxi you know.” he chuckles out.

“Can someone please tell me what the hell is going on here?” Tony asks, startling the two who look over at the group of superheroes still staring.

“Yeah, no we’re still here,” Tony says in all his snark.

“And I’d appreciate it if short-stack here would stop bleeding all over my carpet. That’s never gonna come out.”

Peter looks down because he’s like ninety percent sure he isn’t bleeding. But he is. The red pool on the carpet and the stain on his pants would say otherwise.

“Oh shit,” Peter says.

“I’m real sorry Mr. Stark. I had no idea I was bleeding.”

“Language,” Natasha says and Steve makes a face of pure regret as he hangs his head.

“Did he just say, Mr. Stark?” Rhodey asks.

“We’re gonna skip over that,” Tony says pointing in his direction.

“I’d like to know, how you didn’t know, you were bleeding over my very expensive rug.”

Peter lifts his pant leg to reveal a half-healed gash in his calf.

“I must not have noticed.” He mumbles out. Loki sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“It’s healing itself,” Steve mumbles quietly in awe.

“I must have gotten cut when we were running. It didn’t even cut my pants though.”

Peter mulls over the situation. How much should he give away to these versions of his teammates? His friends? His family? He’s already planning to mess up the timeline, but with the fall of the TVA, does he want to mess up this one any more than they have?

He looks over to Loki who went back to adjusting the device.

“What year are we in Mr. Loki?” Peter asks.

“2015, I believe.”

“I wonder if Ultron has happened yet?” Peter asks.

“How do you-“ Banner starts but is cut off.

“You all die,” Peter says. “I do too,” Loki looks up, startled, he didn’t know that.

“I’m trying to stop that timeline from ever happening.”

The device in Loki’s hand opens a new portal. The world on the other end is daytime, a complete contrast to the night sky outside the large windows of The Avenger’s Tower, with not a single star visible due to all the city lights.

“Peter, we should keep moving.” Loki says.

“But the stain-” Peter starts, pointing to the drying blood stain on his old mentor's carpet.

“Peter.” Loki interrupts him.

“We have no idea how long this timeline will be here,” Loki says sternly.

“We need to go.”

Peter looks at Tony. He’s missed the man so much since he’s lost him and to think he needs to say goodbye once more.

“Mr. Stark I promise I’ll save you. All of you.”

“Peter-”

“Then we can be a team again,” Peter says with theoretical stars in his eyes.

He knows this Tony Stark isn’t the Tony he knew. They were the same and so, so different at the same time.

The two are about to go through the time door, but Peter hears Thor yell at them to stop.

It happens so quickly.

Peter turns around as Loki yells for Peter to duck. But Peter's instincts take over.

His spider-sense goes into overdrive, and his hand reaches out and catches whatever was thrown at him. No one was expecting the kid to catch Thor’s hammer.

The room grew completely silent as Peter held Mjölnir by the hammer.

“Woah, that is so cool,” Peter says in awe.

Peter inspects the hammer, throwing it up in the air and catching it by the handle.

“I thought it would be heavier.” He says quietly.

Peter never got the opportunity to test out Thor’s hammer before it was destroyed. Even when it was brought back from the past, it disappeared with Thor when he left.

“Whosoever be he worthy shall haveth the power,” Clint says, less mockingly than earlier.

Peter is quick to hand the hammer back to Thor, awkwardly stepping back and unsure of what to do with his hands.

“He is worthy” is all Thor can say, as he stares at the hammer now back in his hands.

There’s a screeching noise, piercing, especially to Peter’s enhanced senses.

“Worthy.” an unnatural robotic voice says. “No. How could you be worthy?”

Chapter Text

“Hey, y’all this Peter Parker Variant here seems to have deviated from our timeline. We so very rarely ever get variants of Peter Parker, so maybe we should take a look and see just what caused this unusual turn of events, shall we?” The chipper voice echos out, beckoning you to walk over.
“Sit sit! This shouldn't take too much of your time.” You find yourself sitting in an office chair at a desk, an old computer monitor in front of you is playing nothing but static.
With just a click of a button, the screen turns on and plays before you the life of our Variant Peter Parker.

Tony sits down on the edge of the bed next to Peter, as Peter moves over to let up some space. Tony isn’t used to this. Talking with kids. He doesn’t know the right words, and they don't have the time to do so right now.

Tony reaches over, clumsily clasps Peter's shoulder, and lets his hand rest there. Trying to be comforting and reassuring. Also, very much trying to convince this 14-year-old to drop everything and quickly fly to Germany to fight Captain America. So no, Tony didn’t know what he was doing.

“You got a passport?” Tony asks.

“Huh, No,” Peter says with a chuckle. “I don’t even have a driver's license.”

“You ever been to Germany?” Tony cuts him off.
“No.” Peter shakes his head.
“Oh, you’ll love it.”

“I can’t go to Germany!” Peter says exasperated, staring straight into the face of the multimillionaire Tony Stark.

The man has deduced long before getting here, Peter’s secret identity, and very clearly had something in mind for Peter. What it was Peter really didn’t want to know, thank you very much.

“Why?” Tony asks, letting his hand that was resting on Peter’s shoulder fall.
Peter takes a second to think, to give some semblance of a good excuse.

“I got… homework.” No, that was not Peter's best excuse, but it was all he could squander up. Sue him, he was nervous.

Tony rolled his eyes. “Alright, I’m gonna pretend you didn’t say that.”

“I’m- I’m being serious!” Peter says with much more conviction than before, as Tony stands up and walks towards the door. “I can’t just drop out of school!”

“It might be a little dangerous, better tell Aunt Hottie I’m taking you on a field trip,” Tony says as he grabs the door handle. Peter reaches out on instinct, hand poised, and webs Tony’s hand to the knob.

“Don’t tell Aunt May.” He says, pointing at Tony, finality in what he said. Tony was getting what he wanted.

“Alright, Spider-Man,” Tony says. They stare at each other for a moment, with a clear understanding of what they’ve both agreed to. A few beats later, Tony speaks up.

“Get me out of this.”
“Sorry, I’ll get it.” Peter says as he walks to his desk and gets the web dissolvent.

There was a part of Peter that was buzzing with excitement.

Tony gave Peter a new suit, it was nothing like the makeshift one he had been wearing.

It has been left for him in a suitcase, lying in a part of Peter’s hotel room he didn’t even realize existed.

It was pretty insane the way it opened to reveal the suit. Peter wanted to open it up again and again.

“Put it on.” Happy says.

“This is the coolest thing I’ve ever seen!” Peter says.

“Let’s go!” Happy yells, getting annoyed. They weren’t exactly free on time for kids to be freaking out over new suits.

They were at the airport, fighting, THE, Captain America. Peter hadn’t been given the entire story, just that Captain America went rogue and needed to be dealt with. He was wrong and thought he was right.

“You ever seen that really old movie?” Peter asks as he’s dodging a very big guy's arm as it swipes at him. “Empire Strikes Back.”

“Jesus, Tony, how old is this guy,” Rhodes asks. “I don’t know, I didn’t carbon date him, he’s on the young side,” Tony answers.

Peter goes through with his plan, webbing the giant guy around the legs around and around, so Iron Man and War Machine can knock him over.

It works, but Peter gets knocked down to the ground in the process. Hard.

Tony’s heart sinks. Oh god, please be okay. He lands next to the kid's slumped form, not moving or trying to get up.

“Hey kid, you alright?” Tony asks, silently praying he’s not hurt. Peter jolts up, flailing against whoever was there, not noticing who it was.

“Same side!” Tony yells. “Guess who?”

Peter calms down, no longer trying to hit Tony.

“Oh. Hey man.” He takes a couple of deep breaths, trying to steel himself. His whole body aches due to the two collisions he just had.

“That was scary,” Peter says.
“Yeah, you're done,” Tony says, getting up. “Alright.”

“What?” Peter croaks out, also trying to get up.

“You did a good job. Stay down.” Tony says, pointing at Peter.
“No, it's good, I gotta get him back!” Peter stumbles, an arm wrapped around his middle.

“You're going home, or I'll call Aunt May! You're done!” Tony flies off, back into battle.

“Wait. Mr. Stark, wait! I'm not done, I'm not…” Peter slumps back to the ground. “Okay, I'm done. I'm done.” Peter lays back down fully.

Tony fist bumps Peter on the shoulder and then clumsily puts his arm around him as they start walking. He’s patting him harshly, in the way Tony tries to be comforting. A man who’s never been comforted by a father figure is trying very desperately to do just that.

“Sorry that I took your suit.” Tony apologizes, and he means it. “I mean, you had it coming.” He elaborates.

“Actually, it turns out it was the perfect sort of tough love moment that you needed, right? To urge you on” Tony continues. “Right? Wouldn’t you think? Don’t you think?”

Peter stumbles for an answer. “I-I”
“Let’s just say it was.”

Tony was pretty much right. Peter had been so reliant on the suit to be a good hero, but he had made so many mistakes with it. Sure, he wished Tony had just listened, but in the end, he had been right. Peter was a teenager who got way too in over his head.

Tony sighed.
“Mr. Stark, I really-” but Tony cut him off.
“You screwed the pooch hard.” He emphasizes. “Big time.”

“But then you did the right thing. Took the dog to the free clinic, you raised the hybrid puppies.”
Peter gives Tony a confused look.

“Alright, not my best analogy.” Tony sighs again.

Tony turns to look at Peter. His eyes gleamed with something Peter had never seen before.
“I was wrong about you,” Tony says as he points at Peter.

“I think with a bit more mentoring, you’d be a real asset to the team.” They start walking up a small set of stairs. Peter looks at Tony, eyes wide in disbelief.

“To- to the team?” He asks, stuttering a bit.
“Yeah, anyway there’s about 50 reporters behind that door” Tony points ahead of them. “Real ones, not bloggers.” He taps his watch twice to reveal… well, reveal a whole new Spider-Man suit.

“When you're ready, why don’t you try that on.” Tony starts walking forward as the suit rises into view. “And I’ll introduce to the world the newest official member of the Avengers, Spider-Man.”

Peter just laughs, it’s the unsure, nervous kind that prevents him from being able to talk.
Peter's instinct is to say no honestly, unsure if this is some sort of test.

He follows Tony and then passes him towards the suit. It has the same color palette as the Iron Man suit and looks about the same material too. Peter would do anything to be able to figure out exactly how it works.

The longer Peter mulls it over in his head, the more he realizes Tony wouldn’t test him like this.

This is Tony Stark. He’s sarcastic, sure, but overall he’s pretty cut and dry. He would never put on some elaborate ruse for some teenager. Then what would Tony have done if Peter said yes, and it was all just a lie? Tony isn’t one for wanting to be in such an awkward situation.

“So after the press conference, Happy will show you to your new room, your new quarters.”

“Are you sure about this, Mr. Stark?” Peter asks, interrupting what Tony is going to say next to Happy.

Tony smiled, “Yeah kid.” He places a hand on Peter's shoulder again, but a bit gentler this time. Peter couldn’t help but smile back.

“Thank you-”