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“Spider-Man’s real name is Peter Parker!”
Ice felt like it was being poured directly down Betty Brant’s spine as she stared at her phone in horror. How could she have been so blind? All this time, the pieces had been in front of her. Spider-Man had saved them at the Washington Monument. A hero known for being localized to New York suddenly showed up in the nation’s capital at the exact time Peter did. Peter was well known in the school for his disappearing acts. How many of those disappearing acts had been at the same time as crises involving Spider-Man? So many! Betty had long prided herself on her logical mind, on her ability to analyze disparate facts and come to conclusions quicker and more adroitly than the rest. But this? It had completely slipped past her.
And now, instead of being able to help Peter reveal his secret in a controlled fashion, it had happened in the absolute worst manner possible: as part of a lunatic supervillain’s deranged conspiracy theory. No, worse than a conspiracy theory. A deliberate frameup. It had to be. Peter couldn’t kill anyone. He was Peter, the very definition of a cinnamon roll. Something had to be done and there was very little time in which to do it. But Betty was up to the challenge. She knew her cause was just. Also, she was very, very good at bossing people around. So there was that.
Betty called Peter, praying he would pick up. They had mere minutes to change the narrative. While waiting, she sent the Decathlon team a message on the group chat, telling them that they were going to help save Peter and anyone who objected would get beaten to death with a metal pipe and they’d never find their body. But, you know, in a nice team leader kind of way.
“HELLO?!” Peter screamed so loud, Betty nearly dropped the phone. “Uh, sorry about that! Kind of an angry mob chasing me now. Hi, Betty? Uh, I’m not a murderer!”
“The day you kill anyone, Peter, is the day you manage to focus consistently through an entire class period,” Betty said dryly. “Don’t panic! The team’s gonna fix this.”
“How the hell are you going to do that?” Peter asked, sounding absolutely frantic.
Betty just gave a very Wicked Witch of the West style cackle and hung up on him. This wasn’t the time for vindictiveness, but she felt she’d earned a little, what with how Peter had hid his biggest secret from his friends. Had she not been Ned’s girlfriend for…well, only a few weeks, but still. There’d be time for lectures later. There was blood in the water and Betty was ready to be a freaking shark.
*****
The last thing Bruce Banner expected was to get a visit from a very enraged young teenager he had never met before in his life. Especially since he hardly ever got visitors in the cabin he’d made his home in the Catskills. But nonetheless, there was an enraged young girl with long curly brown hair banging on his door. “Open this door right freaking now, Hulk!”
Bruce opened the door right freaking now. The girl stopped in her tracks when she saw his Hulk form, which was still not common knowledge to the general public. But to her credit, she got over that surprisingly quickly. “Can I help you, Miss…?”
“Sally Avril,” she said curtly and nudged her way past him into the cabin. It was impressive how little she cared about the fact he was basically a gigantic superpowered monster. “I’m a friend of Peter Parker and I need you to vouch for him.”
“Spider-Man?” Bruce said, blinking. “I don’t really know Spider-Man. I mean, we were both friends of Tony, I guess, but…”
“You fought alongside him at the battle against Thanos, didn’t you?” Sally shot back. “You know those charges against him are false; you need to say something! Someone who’d fight for the people like that would never go around murdering people! He’s just sixteen and –”
Bruce took a few steps backwards in shock. Spider-Man had been a kid? He was about to say it was impossible, that Tony would never do something so moronically irresponsible as recruit a kid…except he would totally do that, wouldn’t he? That was Tony all the way. “What’s his name?”
“Peter Parker,” Sally said. “He’s my friend. He saved my life! He may have lied to me constantly and we are going to have words, but he’s not evil.” Bruce did not want to be in Peter’s shoes when Sally had those words.
Bruce didn’t know he’d be able to do much – he really did not know Spider-Man – but she was right. He did know Peter put his life at risk in the service of the world, and that was more than enough for Bruce to need to stand up for him. “Just tell me what I need to do.”
*****
We are all prisoners of our preconceptions. No matter how smart or clever we are, our prejudices and biases will always influence our behavior. And this is true for everyone, no matter who you are, even if you’re a brilliant and accomplished spy like Nick Fury. In many cases, this can be deadly. And even though his instincts were still telling him he had nothing to fear from the slight but determined Asian teenager in front of him, the knife she held in her hand and the look of fury on her face told a different story.
“You know, people really underestimate teenagers,” Cindy Moon said with a beatific smile. “I’m sure you get what I’m talking about, Mr. Fury. Nice name. Can’t be real, but respect anyways. Point is, we’re everywhere. And no one takes us seriously. And, let’s be honest, back when you were young, we couldn’t have done this. But with the power of the Internet, if I say I need to find Nick Fury, well…within the hour, I have his exact location from a person who works at this…establishment. And McDonalds, really?”
Nick shrugged. “I like chicken nuggets.”
“Most people, they take one look at me, and they just write me off,” Cindy went on. Nick had to admit, he was among those people. He knew her name, like he knew all of the names of the people in Peter’s inner circle, like he knew all the names of those close to the Avengers. But he didn’t know anything else about her. “If you’re smart, you won’t do the same.”
“What do you want?” Nick asked, keeping his voice steady and calm.
Cindy gave a grin. Nick was not scared of teenagers. Of course not. But if he had been…that grin would have scared the living daylights out of him. “You’ve heard about Spider-Man’s so-called crimes? Well, MJ says you were his handler on that mission.”
Nick coughed. Of course that hadn’t been him, but rather Talos on a mission for him. But it couldn’t ever be learned there were shapeshifting aliens on Earth. The chaos would be unfathomable. People would start thinking there was some sort of secret invasion going on. “Yes. What of it? If you’re asking me if he’s guilty, I’ll tell you right now: he’s not.”
“What I want, Mr. Fury, is for you to tell the world he isn’t guilty. You’re well respected. People listen to you. They know you formed the Avengers.”
Nick blinked. “They do?”
“Yeah, ever since Iron Man published his memoirs posthumously. What, have you been living under a rock?”
“In a space station, actually,” Nick said and was rewarded with Cindy being off balance for the first time in the conversation. Ah, it was nice for the natural order of things to be restored.
Nick saw no reason not to acquiesce to Cindy’s demands. Peter was a good kid who didn’t deserve this frameup, plus a useful asset to be cultivated for later. Heck, Cindy herself would also be a good asset, though not until she’d graduated. There wasn’t a lot of risk and while the chances for rewards were small – he really doubted his word counted for much – it didn’t mean he shouldn’t try. Besides, Spider-Man had fought for Earth. Shouldn’t Earth fight for him?
*****
T’Challa let out yet another cough as he studied the report in his hand. He’d been coughing a lot lately and his energy levels weren’t what they used to be. So far, he’d stubbornly resisted going to the doctor, but he knew that would have to change if this kept up. But really, how bad could it be? He was a young man, in his prime, and he had the power of the Black Panther behind him. Whatever bug he’d caught, it was probably nothing.
It was far more important that he keep his mind on business. Less than an hour ago, a boy had walked into the Wakandan consulate in New York and demanded to speak with him. He’d then proceeded to handcuff himself to a table and wouldn’t leave until he’d spoken to at least someone important. At first, the security staff had been ready to kick him out in a heartbeat, but then the boy – Abe Brown – had said he was acting on behalf of Peter Parker. Sensing a political quagmire in the making, Abe’s request had been passed up the chain of command until T’Challa had been made aware of it.
He remembered Peter Parker. A quiet, unassuming young man. Stark’s intern. And now, T’Challa supposed, his mentee as Spider-Man. T’Challa had respected Stark as a scientist on the same level of some of Wakanda’s best. And, he supposed, as a superhero, though his determination to hunt down the Rogers and his cohorts, to the detriment of Earth’s defense, hadn’t done T’Challa’s opinion of him any favors. Nonetheless, Peter himself was innocent of all that, and certainly innocent of these ridiculous crimes he’d been framed for. It couldn’t hurt T’Challa to give this Abe boy a few minutes of his time.
That decided, he went back down the chain of command with instructions to patch Abe in. The boy in question turned out to be a nervous looking kid, scared out of his wits but still determined to accomplish his mission. Much like T’Challa had been once. “Uh, hello, Mr. Black Panther, sir,” Abe rambled. “Uh, Your Highness? King Panther?”
“T’Challa will do,” T’Challa said with a gentle smile. “You are well aware I can have you arrested for what you have done today?”
Abe shrugged. “Sure, if you want to cause an international incident. Or, you know, you could listen to me, and I’ll be out of your hair in a few minutes.” The kid had a point. “I’m a friend of Peter’s. He didn’t kill Mysterio. He didn’t kill anyone.” T’Challa could think of a variety of Chitauri who would disagree with the statement, but he agreed with the overall thrust of it. “Some of my friends, we’re reaching out to people who’ve fought with Pete, asking them to make a statement. We’re young and we’re not powerful, and people won’t listen to us. But they might listen to you.”
T'Challa wasn’t sure his involvement would improve the situation. Relations between Wakanda and the rest of the world were shaky at best. But still, it wouldn’t hurt anyone for him to deliver a statement. His silence, moreover, would be an insult to a boy who’d put himself at risk multiple times to save the world. It would be cowardly and against T’Challa’s core values.
“Of course, Mr. Brown,” T’Challa said. “Consider it done. Peter deserves better. And if need be, we can offer him sanctuary if worst comes to worst, as we did to Captain Rogers.”
“I’ll pass along the message,” Abe said.
T’Challa cut the feed as another cough racked through his body, even stronger than any that had come before it. Perhaps it was time to resolve this health concern sooner than later. It was probably nothing, right?
*****
Jonah Jameson, self-proclaimed champion of the underdog, was sulking. He’d thought he’d had a sure target in Spider-Man, AKA Peter Parker. Everyone liked to see a hero fall, right? It didn’t matter if he was a teenager. A hero was a hero and every hero had feet of clay. That was his motto. Everyone was corrupt and rotten at the core. The only good hero was a dead hero, like Mysterio had been. Peter had seemed like he was ripe for character assassination. Jonah had done a lot more with a lot less.
But the wind had been taken out of his sails incredibly thoroughly. Some kid named Jason Ionello had held an impromptu press conference at Central Park, less than a day after Jonah had given his big scoop. Dozens, if not hundreds, of ordinary people had spoken. People who had been helped by Spider-Man. People of all races, ages, genders, creeds, whatever. The whole megillah of the melting pot that was New York. Little old ladies told tales of how Spider-Man helped them cross the street. Tiny kids whose cats Spider-Man had gotten out of trees. People saved from robberies, people Spider-Man had talked out of suicide, it ran the entire gamut of heroism. By the end of it, no one in their right mind would think Spider-Man was anything less than the sweetest, most innocent kid in the universe.
The day after that, coordinated statements came out from a variety of people – Nick Fury, the Hulk, the King of Wakanda, those weird sorcerer dudes – all verifying Spider-Man as a genuine, bona fide hero. One who didn’t just fight small threats, but also big ones. Like Thanos and his evil army. Under ordinary circumstances, Jonah might have been able to spin this as a coordinated, worldwide conspiracy. And if Spider-Man wasn’t a kid, it might have worked.
But he’d gotten calls from his top advertisers and had been told in no uncertain terms that he was to lay off Spider-Man if he didn’t want to be running his show out of some basement somewhere. Jonah told himself and, certainly, his viewers that he was in the news business in the service of the little guy, but deep down, he knew he was in it for himself. It just wasn’t a good look for any businessman that wanted to look even slightly respectable to fund a show that would trash a teenager who’d risked his life for everyone. Public opinion was shifting directly in Spider-Man’s direction like it was a tsunami.
In the end, Jonah had to move on. It was the profitable course of action. There were no end of other people he could destroy. And Spider-Man would be an adult soon – and when he was, he’d be fair game.
*****
Peter still couldn’t understand how he was so lucky. Thanks to the ridiculously quick thinking efforts of his Acadec friends, he’d gone from a menace to society to one of its pillars. The will of the public was fickle and liable to change on a dime. But sometimes, it could go in a good direction too.
“Hey, I just want to thank you all,” Peter said at the next practice held around a week after the whole thing had finally blown over. “Without you, I’d have probably done something incredibly stupid.”
“Like decide to wipe everyone’s memories of you so you could live your life in peace,” MJ suggested. Peter looked over at his girlfriend, but not for very long. He’d gotten used to her very odd turns of phrases. It was one of the many things he loved about her.
Peter just smiled. “Yeah. I guess so. So let’s hear it for my friends on the Acadec team! Oh, and Flash.” Flash just gave a thumbs up.
Betty rolled out her sleeves and gave a grim smile. “All right, then. Now to business. Let’s talk about all the lies you’ve told us, Peter.” Peter gulped. Maybe he was better off when everyone had thought he was a murderer.