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The thing about New York apartments is they’re tiny. Landlords just love to pack them in like sardines. Who cares that it means nobody has storage space, as long as they can make a few bucks? Because of this, Peter and May keep most of their stuff in a storage container that it takes them an hour to get to. At the end of the winter following the Homecoming incident, they make their trip out to the storage container to store a couple of bins of winter clothes and bring back more season appropriate ones.
Peter with his enhanced strength is the designated bin carrier. While he’s placing a tub full of boots and scarfs onto the top shelf, his hand brushes against something leather. Peter pulls it off the shelf. It’s a photo album with a black leather cover and ‘Memories’ written on it. The letters are barely visible beneath a layer of dust. It’s been there for a while.
“Hey May, what’s this from?” He brushes off the dust and shows her the album. She steps closer and squints at it.
“I’m not sure. It’s probably your parent’s.” Peter’s interest is piqued. He hasn’t seen this book before, and most of the photo albums they keep in the apartment are from when he was a kid. He cracks it open to the first page, and his parents smile back up at him. They’re young, shockingly so. It must be from when they just started dating, because his dad is wearing a fanny pack and his mom has a scrunchie on her wrist, a sure sign of the 90’s. They’re posing in front of the Oscorp building. Peter traces a finger over their faces.
There are days when their faces begin to disappear. He was only six when they said goodbye and left on a trip to never return. It seems like as more time passes less of his memories are actually of them. Instead, they come from his imagination and stories people tell him. He’ll never really know if his favorite memory of his mother baking him his 5th birthday cake is real, or if he made it up after hearing May describe the cake and seeing photos of the party.
The guilt of it gets to him. They were his parents. They’re dead, and the least he could do is remember them. That’s what mourners say, right? Gone but not forgotten. Except there are days Peter forgets he ever had parents. Some days he even forgets Ben, but then the memory of his death sears itself back in Peter’s mind.
“How about we take the photo album back home with us?” Peter is pulled out of his thoughts by May’s suggestion. He had forgotten for a moment that he wasn’t alone.
“Yeah, sure. Sounds great, May.” He gently lays the book in the duffel bag full of summer clothes, careful to wrap it in enough shirts that the pages won’t bend.
Back at their apartment, Peter curls up on the couch with the photo album. May offered to look at it with him, but understood when he said he just wanted to see it himself. He doesn’t trust himself not to get emotional. When he cries, May cries. And then they’re both crying and it just becomes a huge mess of never ending sobbing.
He flips a few pages, taking in the images of the people who loved him. He sees himself in his mom the most. Her nose, the shape of her eyes, a scatter of freckles. With his dad it’s harder to make connections. Their smile is the same, the way their faces scrunch up. The way his dad holds himself. The excitement over science experiments. But nothing really physical except for brown hair.
“Hey May?”
“Yeah sweetheart?” She pokes her head into the living room from the kitchen.
“Have you ever really noticed that I don’t look like my dad?” The question escapes his lips before he can realize what a terrible thing to suggest it is. Then May freezes and Peter’s heart drops. She slowly makes her way over to sit next to him on the couch. She grabs his hand, and it just makes Peter feel worse. Because he knows what’s coming.
“Peter, baby, your parents loved you very much. You need to know that.”
“What- am I adopted?” His voice cracks. “Is that why I don’t look like my dad?”
“No, no!” May is quick to cut off that line of thinking. “Although it wouldn’t change anything if you had been. But no, you weren’t adopted. About a year before you were born your parents had an argument. It was a stupid thing- about work or something- but they separated and they were thinking about divorce. And during this time both of your parents did a little dating. They ended up solving their issues before your mom found out she was pregnant, but we found out later that Richard had some… unintended side effects that he got from the radiation in his lab at work. So Richard might not have… made you. But he is your father.”
Disappointment. Heartbreak. Betrayal. Fear. A menagerie of emotions fill Peter, all fighting to be the one he feels most. “Why… Why didn’t you tell me? Do you know who my- my bio father is?” A moment of silence follows. May avoids eye contact with Peter.
“Your parents didn’t want you to know. You were six at the time, and maybe they would want to tell you eventually, but Ben and I were just trying to follow their wishes. As for who it is…” May’s expression crumples in a way Peter recognizes from when Ben is mentioned in conversation. “Ben knew. Your parents told him in case there was some sort of medical emergency, like bone marrow or something. But he-” her voice cuts off. Peter can’t help feeling a little angry. At Ben or at life he doesn’t know. He can’t explain why he needs to, but something in Peter just wants to know who this mystery man is.
“I-” Peter chokes back tears. “I’m going to my room. I just need to be alone right now.” He brushes away May’s hand and disappears into his bedroom, photo album tucked under his arm. For a moment he lays on his bed just staring up at the top bunk. He’s angry at a lot of people. May for not telling him earlier. Ben for taking his bio father’s identity to the grave. His mom for… doing that with someone other than his dad (even if that’s the only reason he exists). His dad for not being biologically his. And most of all he hates his bio father. After all, none of this would be an issue if it weren’t for him.
When he calms down, Peter absentmindedly flips through the pages of the album. They tell a story- a love story. From his dad’s internship at Oscorp to the engagement and wedding. His mom and dad, and sometimes Ben and May or his parent’s coworkers, always smiling. Every picture either contains both of them or it’s obvious one took the photo. Then a few months after the wedding things change. The smiles become more plastic. His dad is in less and less photos.
Then they’re only solo photos of his mom, who must have been the one to put the album together. A couple even have her with strange men, which makes Peter feel a little gross. His mother definitely didn’t expect Peter would be looking at these photos as they are. Maybe she forgot about the album, or maybe she was planning to remove them at some point.
He finds himself looking critically at every man in the photos, searching for evidence that he might be related to one of them. None really stand out until he turns to the page .
This has to be some sort of universal cosmic joke, because right there in front of him is a photo of Mr Stark with his arm around his mom’s waist. His blood turns to ice as his brain immediately recognizes his own features in his mentor’s face.
No.
It can’t be true.
There are more photos from the party, too. Including one of his mother with Colonel Rhodes, but that photo is way less… provocative. It’s all pointing towards a horrifying reality, one Peter needs to confirm.
His opportunity to confirm his suspicions comes earlier than he expected. Only four days after the incident with the photo album, Peter is invited to work on the suit after school with Mr Stark. They do it around three times per month, but which day they do it is always irregular. Happy picks him up from school with the usual complaining about being used as a chauffeur yet again despite being head of security. Usually Peter talks Happy’s ear off the entire ride to the Compound, but he’s too nervous to say anything other than hello today.
“Alright, out with it. What is it? Are you hiding an injury? Secretly trying to take down another weapons dealer that we told you not to mess with?” Peter just sort of blinks in surprise. He’s a little surprised that Happy noticed.
“What? No nothing like that.”
“Are you sick? Because if you barf in the car I will make you clean it up.” Peter rolls his eyes, which Happy watches in the rearview mirror.
“I’m fine. No barfing, spider’s honor.”
“I thought the term was scout’s honor.”
Peter shrugs. “I was never a scout. I am, however, a spider.” And that’s the end of all conversation the entire way to the compound. The silence is far from comfortable, and Happy keeps glancing back at Peter, who puts on headphones and tries to listen to a podcast.
When they finally get to the compound, Mr Stark meets them in the garage. To Peter’s horror, Happy looks Mr Stark right in the eye and says, “The kid is in a mood today. Good luck.”
It takes Mr Stark a total of 2 minutes to bring it up. Truly, the pinnacle of patience and restraint.
“So what was Happy talking about? Are you hiding another injury? Taking down the mafia on the down low? You sick?” Peter’s not sure if he should be amused or offended that both men accused him of the same things.
“I’m fine. Just not feeling talkative.” Mr Stark looks at him for a while, which Peter uses as an opportunity to study him. Mr Stark looks way more like him than Richard Parker. It hurts. Then Mr Stark interrupts the moment and leads the way to the lab.
Mr Stark tries to start up conversations a few times, but eventually quits trying after Peter only responds with brief answers. After a couple hours of working in silence on the Spider-Man suit, Mr Stark excuses himself to use the restroom and Peter jumps into action. After swearing FRIDAY to secrecy, he uses DNA swabs on Mr Stark’s coffee cup and puts them in the containers the paternity tests he got on Amazon provided. He bought three just to be sure, because there is no way he would accept just one. Peter tucks the tubes into his backpack and covers them with a sweater.
The rest of the night Peter tries to act more normal, but it must not work because Mr Stark just looks concerned. Before he leaves, Mr Stark takes him aside and tells Peter that he can always talk to him if something is wrong.
“I appreciate it, Mr Stark, but I’m okay. Really.”
“There’s an Avengers game night next Saturday- don’t ask why- and Clint wants to do that powerpoint presentation game that’s popular with kids your age. Happy can pick you up at 3 so we can have lab time and dinner first. Try to stay intact until then.”
On Thursday the final paternity test results arrive, and Peter opens them all at once. Test after test reads “Mr Stark” is not excluded as the biological father of “Peter Parker” with over 99.9% accuracy. After a small mental breakdown, Peter gets to work.
On Saturday, Peter has the opposite problem that he had the week prior. He can’t stop talking, he’s so nervous. Only twenty minutes into the ride to the compound, Happy stops listening to Peter. To be fair, there is only so much obscure Star Wars trivia the average person can take.
With Mr Stark during lab time, Peter talks endlessly about the most obscure wars in history. Unlike Happy, Mr Stark doesn’t ignore him, but he does look completely lost. The poor man tries to ask questions, but really doesn’t understand anything. After Peter explains the Great Emu War of 1932, it looks like Mr Stark is moments away from signing Peter up for therapy. He does ask Peter if they should build anti-Emu defenses into the Spider suit, which Peter says he will consider if there’s ever a mission in Australia.
They order pizza for dinner, and Mr Stark asks if Peter wants to get Emu wings along with his pepperoni pizza. Peter looks him dead in the eyes and asks, “If the Australian military can’t defeat them, how could the pizza guys?” Ms Potts ends up joining them for dinner. It’s super cool to get to spend time with her, but it hits Peter that he’s about to reveal to everyone that her fiancé has a secret child- so secret not even he knows about it.
Eventually, the Avengers plus Ms Potts and Peter settle into the Avengers community room. The Rogues were pardoned a couple months back and, despite some animosity between Steve, Bucky, and Mr Stark, they are mostly all okay. Now they get together every couple weeks for a ‘game night’ for ‘team bonding.’ Usually they play Uno or Monopoly, and more often than not Peter is invited.
Mr Barton starts everyone off with a 7 minute lecture on the definitive ranking of every fast food mascot based on how likely they are to commit a felony. Bucky rates shampoo commercials. Ms Romanoff simply does a 10 minute powerpoint with blackmail photos of politicians. It’s the greatest 10 minutes of Peter’s life. Sam spends 8 minutes analyzing the “Jake from State Farm” commercial. Steve fills his slides with photos of dogs he met on his runs. Mr Stark lectures everyone about the movies he’s referring to when he gives them nicknames. Ms Potts includes a complete list of every meeting Mr Stark has ever missed, which makes Mr Stark sink into the couch in shame. Wanda puts photos of politicians on the screen and insults every single one of them.
Finally it’s Peter’s turn. Mr Stark asks him if it’s about the Emu War, but Peter shakes his head solemnly. This is more important. He hooks his laptop up to the TV, and checks to make sure Ms Romanoff is filming like she said she would. She is. He clicks the clicker as words appear on the screen. “Ranking the Avengers by how much they've slept with my mom by Peter Parker.” Another click and a photo of his mother appears on the screen. He can hear Mr Stark gasp, but he has a meme to do. He clicks and the next slide appears. “Captain America, 10/10, has never slept with my mom.” The page includes the dates Steve was on ice and his mother’s birth and death dates. He chose Steve because he was on ice the entire time his mother was alive. Steve looks extremely uncomfortable with the development, but other than him, Mr Stark, and Ms Potts everyone is laughing at the presentation. He clicks again.
“War Machine, 9/10, he's come close but has never slept with my mom.” He clicks and the photo of his mom with Colonel Rhodes flies onto the screen. A few gasps can be heard from the crowd. Peter takes a deep breath and clicks again.
The title says Iron Man and includes a rating of 0/10. Under the title and ranking is the photo of Mr Stark and his mother at the party. He points right at Mr Stark. “You son of a bitch!” Ms Potts looks just as shocked as Mr Stark looks horrified. Peter clicks the button one more time, displaying the three paternity tests, then drops the clicker as a mic drop and leaves the room. Commotion breaks out behind him.