Chapter Text
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The Manburg School of Science and Technology, located in L'Manberg, the largest town in the kingdom of Essempi, had around eighty new students enrolled each year, all of whom were selected through an extremely difficult test in which people from all over the world participated.
Given all this, if someone had told Thomas Innes, known to his friends as Tommy, a few years earlier that he would be part of it, he would have laughed in their face.
When in his final year of middle school, his computer science teacher, Professor Nook, had pulled him and his best friend aside to ask them if they were interested in trying to get into that school, he had thought it was a bad joke.
It made sense for Tubbo to have been called, of course. He was one of the most intelligent people he had ever met, he studied very little and got only high grades without any effort... he could understand why he had chosen him.
But him? At a school for little geniuses?
No... that was for nerds. Class clowns like him could never enter such a place, it was the law of any film that had ever been created in the history of mankind.
And his grades were not even high enough to be considered by Manburg anyway.
Then Professor Nook had also insisted to his Aunt Puffy that his poor performance was due partly to his chaotic side, which annoyed the professors - who certainly did not take the trouble to get to know him as well as he did and understand what he was like - and partly to the fact that the topics he dealt with, simple as they were, bored him to death.
They had started an afternoon preparatory course for the entrance exam in which they talked about much more complex and interesting topics, both for himself and for Tubbo.
By the end of the summer, the two friends had taken the test and were not only admitted but also placed in the genius category, which was only for those who had passed a certain score and into which fell only a very small percentage of all those who attempted the test each year.
Even now, at the end of the first year of classes, Tommy could hardly believe it.
And yet, despite his and most of his old school's faculty's disbelief, there he was: in a corridor packed with genius kids on his way to the last class of the day, the biology class with Professor Frost, along with his two best friends.
He and Tubbo had remained as close as ever, but even though they had ended up in a school full of nerds, they had soon discovered that even among their peers there was a social hierarchy. And they, of course, were again at the bottom of the pyramid.
This time, however, there was a third element with them.
Ranboo had entered Manburg in the same year as them and was one of the school's many international students.
Living in the Endlands, a cluster of states quite far from Essempi, they had been forced to move into their uncle Ranbob’s house and learn their language from scratch, which fortunately was quite easy for them. Shy and awkward as they were, they spent their first months at their new school in solitude, not saying a word to anyone and not even participating in any afternoon activities.
Then one day they ended up sitting next to Tubbo for a chemistry lesson on a day when Tommy was absent.
The rest is history.
The trio of friends had soon become inseparable.
They were also every teacher's nightmare, mainly because every time there was a problem they somehow got caught up in it, so much so that if Puffy didn't already have such white hair by nature she would have sprouted it galore just from the stress her grandson caused her.
Fortunately, Tubbo's father was Schlatt Underscore, the mayor of L'Manberg and one of the school's most important financiers.
Which for the most part was not a good thing- most of the population hated the man and knew he was only there because King Dream had put him there, so consequently the students hated Tubbo, despite the fact that he wasn't a big fan of his drunkard father either- but in those cases he allowed them to get away with it with the headmaster, who feared repercussions from the man.
In reality, Schlatt cared very little about his son and would probably have ignored the issue, but the important thing was that the headmaster thought otherwise and let the matter slide with vague warnings and a few punishments each time.
The three friends were not troublemakers per se, they did not go looking for trouble. It was the problems that came to them.
Sure, they had played their fair share of pranks at school and had paid the cost if necessary.
But it often happened that they were punished for no good reason, by teachers who cared very little if a small group of kids made fun of them. They only saw the ruckus they created and being notorious pranksters they always ended up in trouble, while kids like Punz and his friends, who never missed an opportunity to bully them, went completely unnoticed.
Tommy in particular, the loudest and most aggressive of the three, had often ended up being held in detention by a teacher even when he had only tried to defend himself.
It was a straight-up injustice.
"What do you think is the big news that the professor has to give us? Because there are only two weeks left until the end of school and if Frost tells us that his surprise is a compulsory summer course on the study of cells I'm going to go to his house and poison his cats," grunted Tubbo, violently slamming the door of his locker from where he had taken a half-slipped snack that he was blissfully enjoying.
"Would you prefer a course on the biological composition of fish?"
"I'd rather enjoy the summer and do something else, actually."
"I totally agree with you, mate."
Professor Frost had announced in the previous lesson that if all went well they would receive a happy announcement that day.
The older kids had told them that the good news the year before had been a boring history of biology class that had taken them the whole month of July, so no one expected much.
The classroom had already been almost completely occupied.
Tubbo and Tommy placed themselves on their usual desks at the back of the classroom, while Ranboo found a seat next to the only other person they talked to, a classmate named Aimsey - who only got along with the other two partially, so they kept away from them most of the time.
Professor Frost arrived a few minutes later panting, but with a toothy smile that did not bode well.
"Dear students, as I said the other day, today I have wonderful news to reveal to you!" he exclaimed excitedly but received only nervous glances from the teens, who feared the worst.
"I have prepared a blowpipe in case the situation gets extremely serious," Tubbo whispered in his ear, showing him under the desk a rolled-up piece of paper loaded with tinfoil balls. He chuckled before turning back to look at the professor nervously.
The man pulled some papers out of his bag.
"I couldn't say anything before because I didn't know whether our school's request would be accepted. But since we received the OK, I can finally announce that for Tuesday next week, I have organised a very special trip for your class."
Tubbo dropped the blowpipe.
"A field trip?" they heard Aimsey whisper, who had landed a friendly punch on poor Ranboo's arm without moving their gaze from the professor.
To their credit they were all rather incredulous... even Punz, who was usually completely uninterested in anything, was wiggling in his chair in excitement.
"a special trip, as I said, that I didn't think I'd have the chance to take in my life..." he repeated, passing bright eyes over everyone in the classroom "... because we're going to visit the Soot Industries labs!"
A shout of joy went up from the students.
The whole class was celebrating, jumping on the spot or hugging each other, some shouting like they were at a concert, while the teacher was fluttering the papers trying to calm the kids down to explain that they would have to get their parents to sign the permit if they wanted to attend the trip.
Everyone was happy.
Everyone... except for Tommy.
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He had waited weeks for that moment... and for what? To be told that the labs were off-limits? What's the point of visiting a corporation famous for studies on genetics if you can't see said studies?
Maybe Tommy should have been a little happier.
After all, the small middle school in the Logstedshire district, one of the poorest in L'Manberg, barely had the funds to maintain hot water in the toilets, let alone take the kids on a field trip.
The only reason they had managed to organise that outing was because Tubbo had begged his father to make a small donation so that everyone could attend.
In theory, his best friend could very well have gone to one of the more prestigious uptown schools, given his father's finances... but instead, when he'd had to choose, he'd decided to follow Tommy to Logstedshire and even in the toughest of times he'd never complained about it.
Of course, there was no shortage of occasions when he was mocked for being a dandy, but he held his ground.
Tubbo and Tommy had met in first grade when they both attended a good institute in the city centre.
At that time, his parents were still alive and his Aunt Puffy lived with them, as his father- and her brother- had promised her that with their work as researchers at the University of L'Manberg, they could easily support her until she finished her psychology studies.
Then, at the beginning of his second year of elementary school, his parents had died in a plane crash on their way back from a conference in Snowchester and Puffy had had to leave university to look after him.
She had found a small job that would allow her to look after him as much as possible and had moved to Logstedshire.
He and Tubbo had been able to keep in touch throughout primary school, sometimes managing to see each other at weekends or during holidays.
Both loners in their respective classes, once they had to enrol in middle school Tubbo had not hesitated to ask his father to be sent there to be together with Tommy.
Schlatt, as usual, didn't care much: he simply called a driver to accompany him every morning and every afternoon on his way from home to school and then washed his hands of him.
And so perhaps he really should have been more grateful for that chance.
But in all honesty, he would have rather stayed at school than see the display of trophies and old prototypes of various Jacobs Corps contraptions.
He wanted more!
Sapnap and Karl Jacobs were known the world over for their studies on genetics. Very few dared to try the experiments they attempted, especially in such a sensitive field, and because of this, they made brilliant discoveries, including several cures for extremely rare genetic diseases.
Tommy needed to see one of their workshops and find out how they worked.
It was for that reason that once the visit to the exhibition was over while eating sandwiches on the entrance steps for a lunch break, he pretended he had to go to the bathroom and started to explore the building.
Perhaps Mr and Mr Jacobs should have put a little more security because it did not take long before he found himself undisturbed in front of a security door with various danger signs stuck on it.
For some reason, then, the door had been left open- probably someone in a hurry to get something to eat before going back to work- and so Tommy was able to slip in without anyone seeing him, not even the obviously broken camera standing in the corner.
He had heard that due to one of Mr Jacobs' memory problems, he often put everyone's safety at risk, with double shifts and some completely uncovered, as well as forgetfulness in contacting staff to initiate necessary maintenance work, resulting in avoidable accidents that had triggered several protests among employees, all of which were usually quickly suppressed.
But he didn't believe it could be real news, he thought it was stuff made up by their rivals to discredit them.
Instead, as he looked around the workshop with a joyful look on his face and his hands shaking with excitement, he felt really thankful that he was wrong and that all the news was true.
For Tommy, the decision to break into the Jacobs Corps laboratory was one of the best and worst at the same time in his life.
After looking at plans, documents and experiments left in plain sight, he felt something walk up his leg. Instinctively he started to shake it and beat on it with one hand, but before he could catch the culprit he felt a sharp pain that made his head go light.
With one last thump, something fell to the ground from under his jeans.
A spider.
A bloody spider.
Perhaps it could have been poisonous... or even worse, deadly! Who knew exactly what those scientists were keeping in such a laboratory? What strange experiments were they conducting? Anything could have happened!
He left the laboratory in a hurry and staggered back towards the entrance, where Tubbo was waiting for him with a worried face. He quickly commented on the pallor on his face, but the conversation died there, considering that someone might hear him and punish him for wandering into a dangerous area.
In the afternoon, the students were taken to an auditorium to hear two Jacobs Corps scientists talk about their work over the years, their studies and their plans for the future.
Of the conference, Tommy remembered absolutely nothing.
A mixture of throbbing pain in his calf and panic gripping his throat did not allow him to listen to what the two young people were saying.
The two hours passed so slowly that at one point he almost felt as if he were going to faint and finally had to run out at top speed to hide behind a bush where he ended up vomiting his breakfast and lunch.
He was sick for five days, with a high fever, and a light head and his leg still hurting so much that for a while he thought he would have to have it amputated. Fortunately, the field trip had been organised in the first weeks of school, so the teachers had not gone too far with the new topics.
Just when he thought he had to reveal everything to his aunt, tell her about the spider and get himself admitted to the hospital, everything went quiet.
The fever went down completely, while the pain disappeared as quickly as it had appeared, and with it also went the sign of the strange arachnid's bite.
Too complacent about the fact that he would not have to tell anyone about his misdeeds, he did not realise that there was something extremely different about him, abilities that he was previously sure he did not have and that was a little too spider-like for the animal to have nothing to do with it.
At first, he noticed that he had suddenly become much stronger and faster than normal. In the P.E. class, he had to restrain himself from overtaking everyone when they ran around the field and could continue to exercise for hours without ever getting tired, when before after two push-ups he had to stop and take a breath.
He was also very strong. One day when he was angry because of a bad grade he got at school, he slammed the door on his way home. But in doing so he had accidentally broken the hinges, making the door fall onto him, which strangely enough did not seem to weigh more than a feather pillow.
The climax came when he jumped up to try to touch the ceiling of his room- something he did when he was particularly bored- and his legs came off the ground far more than expected, while his hand got stuck to the plaster above his head. When he then managed to pull himself up completely and crawl across the ceiling without ever risking falling, he realised that something had indeed happened.
To become out of nowhere super agile, fast and powerful, as well as able to walk up walls, would have been noticed by too many people. And despite his twelve years of age, he certainly couldn't blame puberty, because he had never seen teenagers jogging up any walls.
So he pretended as if he had never acquired those powers.
Throughout the year he continued to ignore the problem, as if nothing had happened.
It was during the summer that things started to get more complicated.
Not because he had become less good at hiding his abilities- that was still quite easy for him.
But being able to go out for more time, alone or with Tubbo, he began to notice how much crime there was in the city. And not the kind that superheroes could have done anything about, no. They had much bigger threats to face, including aliens and strange organisations that wanted to bring the world to its knees.
In Logstedshire there were countless robberies, killings, rapes, muggings... all done by ordinary petty thieves, people of little worth that someone like Tommy could have easily stopped, despite having no training in fighting. For these were not monstrous, immortal, strange-looking aliens who come to destroy everything, they were just men.
He thought less about it when he returned to school for his final year of secondary school, too focused on studying to try to get into Manburg.
The day after school ended, however, there was a big robbery in one of Logstedshire's major shopping centres.
He and Tubbo were inside a shop when they heard gunshots coming from downstairs and started running with all the other people towards the exit.
Tommy remembered well the blood scattered on the floor in the central hall and the figures of some people slumped on the floor like puppets whose strings had been cut.
He vividly recalled meeting Professor Nook's glassy, now dulled gaze.
Sources would later say that the man had defended a woman and a child from the assailants, allowing them to escape but then being hit by gunshots that killed him instantly.
A true hero, the newspapers said, reporting the incident with their usual aseptic manner of those accustomed to daily violence.
The professor, an ordinary man like so many others, had sacrificed his life to save innocent people, and he, who had powers, had remained only a coward in the shadows. Had he intervened, how many people could have been saved? How many of those seven needless deaths that occurred that day could have been avoided?
From that day on, Tommy decided that he too would play his part.
While studying for the Manburg entrance exam, he made himself a mask to cover his face- good thing his aunt had insisted on teaching him sewing- using his father's lab goggles, found in an old box, to protect his eyes. Then he put on a red and blue sweatshirt and matching trousers and started going out almost every night to fight the bad guys.
Just like a real hero.
He had even made a good name for himself in the neighbourhood!
His red mask with black lines that looked similar to one of those decorative spider webs that you found for Halloween and his ability to walk on walls had given him the name Spiderman among the population. He had become so popular that some newspapers had even written articles about him! How incredible could it have been?
While fighting he had also discovered that when someone was about to hurt him he felt a strange sensation in his head, sending a shiver travelling from head to toe and raising the hairs on his arms.
He had called it, in his head, the spider-sense, mostly because he was quite convinced he had never felt it before, and not because spiders actually had it. Or at least he wasn't quite sure if it was something the arachnids could do.
Once inside the school for young geniuses, he discovered that there was an unsupervised chemistry lab inside. So he had stayed several afternoons trying to form a mixture that would allow him to create a kind of web strong enough to support his weight.
Perhaps he had seen Tarzan a few too many times, but the idea of hurling himself between buildings as if swinging on vines seemed wonderful to him. Besides, it would give even more credence to his Spiderman image.
In less than a month he had succeeded.
And when he had used the compound for the first time, all the newspapers in the neighbourhood had covered it, running article after article.
The friendly neighbourhood Spiderman, they called him.
The superhero of the weakest, who stops to talk to people while betraying a slightly too childish voice, who eats sandwiches on the rooftops of suburban skyscrapers and who is always ready to save the people of Logstedshire when villains attack them.
However, the attention he was receiving did not go unnoticed upstairs.
After all, there was a reason why when Professor Frost had told everyone about the trip to Soot Industries, Tommy had not managed at all to appear as enthusiastic as his classmates.
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His 'dealings with the higher-ups' had already begun during the summer, a few weeks after the first SpiderMan newspaper articles came out.
It had happened by chance: Tommy had seen police cars heading with sirens wailing towards a particularly bad area of Logstedshire and so he had set off in that direction too, jumping onto roofs and hiding behind ledges so as not to be seen by possible criminals.
At one point he saw shadows moving in the darkness of the alleyways, who were evidently keeping an eye on the movements of the police, and guessing that they were the people the cops were looking for, he followed them until he saw them disappear into an old and broken-down shed, which at first glance looked abandoned.
He was about to leap off the building and join the gang of bad guys when his spidey sense started pounding in his head.
He turned his head and his face met a big titanium hand at the centre of which a huge thruster was ominously charging, most likely to send him on a flight he did not know whether he would survive.
"Woah woah... okay..." he murmured, raising both hands.
"Who are you? Identify yourself now."
Tommy really wanted to answer harshly right away, like the great man he obviously was, but the words died in his mouth the moment he realised who he had in front of him.
Wilbur Soot.
Genius, inventor, scientist, philosopher and philanthropist.
President of Soot Industries.
But above all... Ironman, one of the world's strongest superheroes, the man who had saved the Earth from more than one alien invasion together with the Avengers and who continued to protect it from serious threats every day.
He gasped for a few seconds before remembering that the superhero was pointing a weapon at him.
"so?"
"I'm-I'm one of the good guys! I'm Spiderman!" the man lowered his arm and squared him from behind his expressionless mask.
"Spiderman?"
"yes! I am a vigilante!"
"Are you sure you're not Spiderkid? You have the voice of a child... what? Are you ten years old or something?"
Tommy turned red and began to mumble something in an offended manner.
"I'm not a child, you bitch! Maybe it's you who's old, huh? How old are you? What were the dinosaurs like?"
"I'm only thirty-two years old!"
"You practically have one foot in the grave you mean."
"you only think that because you are a child and can't distinguish young from old."
"I'm not a child!" he restrained himself from shouting his real age, fearing that the other would not exactly think that fourteen was the age of a fully grown and responsible adult and would not take him seriously.
"Ok, whatever you say. What are you doing here?"
"I'm following some guys. The police are looking for them and I saw they went into that shed over there, so now I was going to go and take them all out, but you stopped me from doing that... wait what are you doing here? Shouldn't you be doing superhero stuff like defeating Hydra or taking out aliens?"
"I'm following a group of Hydra followers, genius."
"oh... "
"Yeah, oh."
"... can I help you?"
"no!" Tommy grunted, chuckling at the other man's tone of voice. Perhaps there was nothing to laugh at considering the moment, but it was funny the idea that he had managed to irritate THE Wilbur Soot in the first five minutes he had known him. His aunt often told him that he could be annoying at first.
"please?"
"I won't let a kid go on a mission like that. Go home, OK? I'd rather not have you on my conscience." having said that, the man threw himself into the air and plunged violently into the shed.
That's why they say to never meet your idol... Wilbur Soot is a wrong'un and a capitalist.
Tommy stood watching the scene for a few minutes. The first three criminals flew through a window, followed by a powerful beam of light and the horrified screams of their comrades. There were gunshots before two more people were thrown out the door, falling unconscious onto the street.
The vigilante climbed down from the building and approached one of the two. He was not dead, but he must have had at least one broken leg, so he could hardly have moved from there.
A noise interrupted his inspection.
The broken planks of the door allowed him a glimpse of what was going on inside: Ironman stood in the middle of a large room, surrounded by men dressed in black and balaclavas covering their faces, all with rifles raised ready to fire.
He gasped.
He couldn't let the world's number-one superhero die for a few Hydra villains!
Before he could draw attention to himself, Ironman activated the thrusters and began to spin around. Tommy ducked just in time to avoid being hit by the man who was thrown out, breaking what was left of the door.
"didn't I tell you to stay where you were?" sighed the billionaire as soon as he stepped outside the shed.
"I thought you were going to be killed!"
"nah... it takes a lot more to defeat me."
"oh ok, mister I never die I'm immortal and invincible! Mimimi I'm Wilbur Soot and I'm too big and cool to be hit by the criminal plebs mimimi watch me all as I destroy the rabble like the tory I am."
"Hey! That's not what I meant!" he shouted good-naturedly, then bursting into a merry laugh that made him bend his head back.
His lips puckered into an amused smirk.
"yeah right. Fucking narcissist."
"I can't deny it, in fact." they stood in silence for a moment looking at each other, -as much as they could, considering the masks- and then turned away from the police cruisers that were reaching the shed.
"you'd better go now, child, before they take you away."
"I am not a child." having said that he ran into the shadows and disappeared, climbing up a wall.
Tommy met Ironman several times after that night.
The superhero showed up more than once in the Logstedshire neighbourhood trying to be as discreet as possible so as not to draw too much unwanted attention to them. Which was difficult enough, but fortunately no newspaper had posted articles or photos of the two together.
Wilbur was not as bad as he first thought.
He was still a bit of an emo bitch, of course, but for some strange reason, he seemed to genuinely care about him.
At first, he didn't quite understand whether he wanted to arrest him or not.
During the first few meetings they had the superhero had merely landed silently on the roof during his patrols to talk about this and that. They often ended up chatting about science.
Sometimes they discussed his powers.
Other times their discussions were simply about which food tasted best (Tommy, who had only correct opinions, chose curry) or where they wanted to spend their holidays.
Then one day, as he was about to be injured by a gang of robbers, Wilbur intervened in time to stop them and save him.
That time, the man had decided to give him a few lessons in wrestling to be a little better prepared, and he had willingly accepted.
They had formed a sort of friendship by now, so much so that when he didn't see him arrive in Logstedshire for a few days in a row, he ended up feeling bad and worried that something had happened to him.
He should not have been surprised, therefore, when one day in early October, on his way home from a long day at school, he found Aunt Puffy in the living room, chatting animatedly with Wilbur Soot, dressed in a simple grey sweatshirt and with his hair dishevelled as he had never seen it on television.
"Toms! Welcome back! Did you see who's here?"
"How could I not notice?" he whispered incredulously, cupping the back of the sofa with his hands until his knuckles turned white.
"I will take that as a compliment. Thomas Innes, right? It is indeed a pleasure to meet you, my young friend.' The way he emphasized the word 'young' did not bode well with him.
"it's-it's nice to meet you too, Mr. Soot. What are you doing here?"
"Don't play dumb Tommy, I know everything by now!" his aunt exclaimed, startling him. He hadn't told her about Spiderman, had he? Because it was pretty obvious that the man was there for that.
"What are you talking about, Auntie?"
"but of the fact that you had competed at school for an internship with Mr Soot, of course! And you were even taken! That's great!" he felt his body relax suddenly and immediately cast a look of gratitude in the direction of Mr Soot, who winked at him
"why didn't you tell me anything?"
"oh... I just didn't know if I was going to make it and I didn't want to give you false hope."
"Hey! You know I'm always proud of you, right?" she exclaimed, stroking his face "Even if you hadn't passed you'd still have been great for even trying. Can you believe it? My nephew is fourteen years old and he's already doing an internship."
Tommy chuckled awkwardly, scratching the back of his head.
"yeah..."
"Oh, but I don't want to disturb you again! I'll let you guys talk, OK? See you tonight!"
"See you tonight." the woman left a peck on his forehead, said goodbye to Mr Soot and hurried off to work, leaving the other two in the silence of the small flat, interrupted by the distant sounds of the street.
The man stared at him for a while, fiddling with his sleeves.
"so... Thomas Innes."
"call me Tommy."
"Sure, Tommy. Would you by any chance like to tell me why a fourteen-year-old boy is playing superhero around Logstedshire risking his life every day? Because I knew you were too young, but this is an exaggeration."
"I don't know what you're talking about!"
"Can we not do the usual spiel? Oh no I don't know anything about Spiderman! Who me? No! Never! And the fact that I have fake cobwebs stuck to my fingers is pure coincidence!" exclaimed Mr Soot imitating him in an irritating little voice. His eyes shifted fleetingly to his phalanges and he noticed that there was some substance stuck to his skin.
"I don't talk like that."
"keep telling yourself that, child. So?"
"in my defence, I waited a long time before I truly became a superhero, OK? I got my powers when I was twelve." Wilbur sighed, running his hands over his face wearily.
"How... how did you realise who I was?" the man shook his head with a smile and without a word handed him a badge. Taking it in his hands, he immediately noticed his smiling face and his name written in big letters that seemed to mock him.
"my bus pass? But where..."
"it fell out of your sweatshirt pocket the day before yesterday."
"fuck! I am an idiot."
"you know… now that I know you're a child I'm starting to think you swear a little too much."
"oh my God Wilbur Soot you're a pain in the ass! Fuck you I told you I'm not a child! I'm fourteen years old! I'm a T-E-E-N-A-G-E-R! A big man, practically an adult but much more pog."
"Correct. Fourteen years old. Tommy this is serious! You're too young to be a superhero! You should think about enjoying this period of your life, stay safe, and don't jump into the fray at every opportunity."
"but how can I enjoy these years if I know I have powers and do nothing with them?" he whispered, bowing his head.
Mr Soot sighed as he took off his glasses.
"I understand what you mean. You feel a responsibility for yourself, don't you? Like every injustice in the world is your fault because you have the chance to intervene but you don't, don't you?" Tommy nodded silently. The words had undoubtedly hit the nail on the head, they described everything he had felt over the last few months.
"That's how I felt, too, as a kid, when I started using the armour."
"And you're over the feeling now?"
"if anything, it has increased. There are a lot more people who seem to need me and I don't know where to put my hands anymore. I wouldn't want something like that to happen to you."
"but I can't give up Spiderman! I feel I'm doing something good and I want to continue helping people. You can't stop me!" the man nodded slowly, resting his chin on one hand and barely scratching it.
"I suppose not."
"so? What do you want from me?"
"I want to make you a proposition," he said, seating himself better on the couch and inviting the teenager to sit in the armchair opposite so they could be face to face, like in a real office. Tommy did as instructed, placing himself so that his elbows were resting on his knees.
"What kind of proposition?"
"I know I can't stop you from continuing to fight out there, you wouldn't listen to me."
"of course not." Wilbur gave an amused little smile but then returned to a composed neutral face.
"then I would at least like to help you."
"in what way?" the billionaire pulled a tablet out of a handbag and opened the design of a superhero suit that reminded him somewhat of his own clothes.
"for now with this." Tommy opened his mouth wide, "It's a suit that will protect you better than your sweatshirt, both from bullets and from cold or hot temperatures. I also added some special tricks, I'm sure you'll appreciate it," he handed the tablet to the other, who eagerly took it in his hands, studying the model with eyes twinkling.
"I..."
"And then I thought some combat training would be good for you, don’t you think? You could come to the tower sometimes with the excuse of the internship at Soot Industries... and then we could also put the necessary finishing touches on the suit together."
Tommy felt his hands shaking, so he hurriedly handed the tablet back to Mr Soot, who put it back in his bag.
"I can't accept, sir, it's just too much," he murmured, turning his gaze to the small table in front of the television.
"OK, don't try to act cute and polite with me now." he raised his head to protest but froze when he saw the sweet expression on the man's face "I just want to help you, Toms. Being a superhero is complicated for a billionaire like me, let alone a kid with no resources. You're already better than most grown men I've met, myself included, and you deserve to be as safe as possible out there. I want to give you that chance, you know?"
He studied his face.
The genius had deep dark circles under his eyes as if he had not slept for several days in a row, pale, almost cerulean skin, and a bit of unkempt stubble that indicated he had not taken care of himself for a while.
He was... human.
As human as he never appeared on television, as he never was in interviews or presentations of his projects, when his famous eloquence took over, towering over everyone impeccably.
"...OK." the man relaxed his shoulders and seemed to let out a sigh of relief, as if not protecting him would mean losing everything he had put on the line.
"thank you, Tommy. You'll see you won't regret it, we'll work great together, and we'll be the wonder team."
"or the dirty crimeboys!"
"And I thought you wanted to be a superhero..."
Nearly nine months later, he could say that he did not regret accepting the offer at all, and not just because of all the upgrades he got for his suit or the free fighting lessons - although these were no small perks.
Tommy genuinely enjoyed spending time with Wilbur.
Initially, the two had simply worked on the measurements and useful details to be added to the Spiderman costume, including a parachute and an artificial intelligence similar to the billionaire's historic F.R.I.E.N.D.
"What does F.R.I.E.N.D. stand for? I don't think you've ever said that in an interview."
"Have you watched many of my interviews?"
"shut up bitch boy!"
"you’re so sensitive, Toms."
"yeah yeah, whatever. So?"
"it stands for ‘For Really Intelligent Experts Normally Dumb’."
"...what?"
"don't laugh! Phil recommended it to me because apparently my being a genius doesn't erase the fact that I forget to eat and sleep for days or that I once almost set fire to my flat trying to cook a noodle that wasn't instant noodles."
"OK now that you explain it to me it makes sense."
"hey!"
His artificial intelligence had obtained a much more epic and worthy name for a man as big and strong as he was.
Clementine.
Which he didn't have an acronym for, because he didn't have any time to waste on things like that, but it was still a better name than anything Wilbur could have pulled out of his head.
Having finally finished with his costume, which he had promptly used on the first day to stop a robbery at the bakery below his house, Tommy had thought that from then on their partnership would be significantly limited.
But then Mr Soot had invited him to watch the construction of a new propeller for his new armour. And he had called him back again a few days later to watch him build an Ark reactor, something he had always dreamed of seeing ever since he had discovered what it was.
And so he had returned once, twice, five... ten times.
Then they agreed that he would go to the tower every Wednesday and Friday afternoon to train or to go to the workshop for a few hours.
"You have school on Thursday... are you sure we won't finish too late for you to go home?"
"Well, yes... but I want to come anyway!"
"you could always stay the night here at the Penthouse. I'm sure Phil wouldn't mind taking you all the way to school once a week and there's no shortage of guest rooms, you can pick the one you want."
And so he would frequently stay over, ending up having dinner with the man. Often they would be joined also by Mr Craft, or as he preferred Phil, Wilbur's personal assistant and bodyguard since he was but a child (and who, in his humble opinion, seemed to be a father figure to the billionaire, but when he had tried to suggest it the two had simply shrugged).
From time to time - more times than he would like to admit - he also got hungry on Friday evenings and so he and Wil would order two pizzas and eat them in front of a movie, inevitably ending up falling asleep on the sofa and waking up the next morning with a sore neck. And yet they would both have a very short breakfast before settling down again in the lab.
That was how he had met the Avengers who occasionally stopped by the tower, namely Technoblade, the Blood God from another planet who, when he stopped by Earth, needed a place to stay, and Agent Nihachu, an assassin who spent most of her time on various missions with the Shield organisation and was so rarely at home that she consequently came to hole up at the tower when she returned to L'Manberg instead of getting her own house.
Of course, they were told he was just a teenager doing an internship, but the two had reasonable suspicions, especially after they caught him sleeping in the guest room of the Penthouse, reserved for a select few.
In some ways Tommy and Wilbur were similar.
They both understood the weight of the responsibility that society placed on their shoulders, of course, and they had an obvious passion in common for science and mechanics that they poured out in hours and hours of work in complete harmony.
But they also had the same taste in music... or rather, the younger one had no taste and had absorbed like a sponge all the songs the billionaire loved and played at full volume in the laboratory.
And they always agreed on the film to watch and the food to eat. They had the same sense of humour, which only they seemed to understand, and as poor Phil - who suffered all too often from their ganging up to make his life hell - put it, they were a couple of little shits who got along far too well to the misfortune of all those who came across the formidable crimboys.
Puffy seemed pleased to see him happy and let him spend as much time as he wanted at the tower.
Of all this Tubbo, Ranboo and the teachers knew absolutely nothing.
Wilbur had offered to leave a note at his school saying that he had hired him as an intern, but Tommy had pointed out that it would be a bit too strange for Soot Industries, which had never taken on teenagers before, to suddenly decide that a random kid from Logstedshire was the perfect candidate for an internship.
Puffy could believe the story they had fed her, but at Manburg they would quickly realize the strangeness of the situation, considering that the company had not sent anything about a competition for students, so in the end, they decided to keep it all under wraps.
So the trip to Soot Industries could truly turn out to be a problem.
A serious problem.
Because on the one hand, Tubbo had known him all his life and knew very well how much Tommy idolised Ironman and Wilbur. It would be strange if he decided not to go for some reason, and it would be an even less credible excuse to say he had a fever, especially as it was June and had his situation been different he would probably have decided to attend anyway.
But on the other hand, going on the trip could result in a serious mistake: how many people knew him there? How many things could go wrong? What if a scientist recognised him and asked him something about his work, considering he and Wil ventured to help in the labs on the lower floors on occasion? What if F.R.I.E.N.D. said something it shouldn't? What if Tommy himself ended up doing something stupid and revealed his identity?
He kept thinking about the pros and cons of each of the two choices from the Manburg school district to Logstedshire.
He would have liked to tell Wilbur everything and ask him for help, but the man was in the Badlands area with agent Nihachu on some mission- something about a cult following some dangerous alien egg- and he wouldn't be back for a fortnight.
Calling him was out of the question since he was on a secret mission.
Even Phil and his wife, who usually had control of the tower in the billionaire's absence, were on holiday outside L'Manberg and after so much hard work he certainly didn't want to bother them with something like this.
The second best choice therefore fell on Puffy, who, however, with the misinformation she had, could certainly not understand his drama.
"I don't understand why you don't want to go. You would be considered cool if everyone knew you worked for Wilbur Soot."
"Ugh Aunt Puffy." the two sat at the kitchen table and were eating two portions of chicken curry that the woman had brought home from a stand near her workplace.
"What? I am definitely right."
"he's just a constantly stressed emo bitch boy. All his coolness and stuff is just a facade."
"mmh... but the others don't know that. Because they don't work for him."
They finished their dishes in silence, with Tommy staring pensively at his curry and Puffy casting him an occasional glance.
He got up to clear the table and go to bed, but the woman grabbed his wrist, stopping him and turning him towards her. Her intense eyes were studying him worriedly, trying desperately to understand what was causing him so much anxiety.
He hated to see her like this.
"what's wrong with you?"
“Nothing... I just don't want others to find out somehow. I haven't even told Tubbo and Ranboo that I'm an intern for Mr Soot, I wouldn't want them to take it badly. Or for others to think I'm privileged."
"so just don't say anything. If it comes out it comes out... but it would be weird if you didn't go, Tommy, your friends would know something was up. Especially since it's a tour offered by Soot Industries, so you don't even have the excuse of lack of money." she paused a little, stroking the back of his hand with a thumb, "And then also if you go every day it's a chance to get another perspective on the tower."
"You're right," his aunt giggled, drawing him into a hug and leaving a small kiss on the side of his forehead.
"I know, I usually am. Come on now, give me the permission slip. I'll sign it so you hand it in tomorrow and think no more about it."
"OK... I love you."
"Love you too Tomtom."