Archive of Our Own

Parker Luck had it out for Peter. He thought the worst year of his life started the day he learned his parents were dead. Later he knew he should have counted the days differently. If he hadn’t fought Ben so hard, if he’d let him be a father figure, then he might have had more good memories to hold onto during the bad nights.

But that wasn’t the worst year of Peter’s life. That year had to start with the day Ben was shot. For one day Peter was a superhero. The next day his uncle was shot. And then May…. May ran into the street after him and then….

The next day, Peter listened to the social worker just long enough to understand he was an orphan. No living relatives. No place to call home. (If he had been Spider-Man for a few more weeks, he might have run away on his own. Now he just took the pillowcase they allowed him, stuffed with a couple days’ clothing and Ben’s Mets hat and May’s red hoodie and a ziplock of his favorite lego figures. The landlord seized the rest with the apartment.)

Peter and Ned always said that if anything happened to their guardians, they’d pull the family strings and become real brothers. Ned tried his best. The social department vetoed his grandma’s application. Something stupid about visas not being up to date and a potentially unregulated home environment.

Six weeks of hovering in the foster system. Six weeks of a new school system. Six of the most miserable weeks of Peter’s life. He started climbing the walls — at night only, wearing his track sweats and May’s hoodie and pretending he could swing away from all his troubles like a superhero. (If only the spider bite gave him webbing and not just sticky hands. Then he could do anything. Be anyone. Help people before they stepped in front of a gun or ran into the street without looking.)

Then a goddess tweaked fate and plucked Peter out of the grey cyclone sucking away his future. Liz was untouchable. She was a sophomore who spun a loom of dreams and sported classy tops and a prettier smile and crooked one finger to make her dad see reason. She was popular. Peter was the brunt of every Midtown High wisecrack. Her path was paved all the way to Harvard. He was lucky to own a winter jacket.

Liz crooked that beckoning finger over a sad little orphan classmate and her dad spun around like he was following the path of a shooting star. By the end of the week, Peter was back in Midtown High. Within two months, his name was legally hyphenated.

Peter Benjamin Parker-Toomes.

Suddenly he had his own room in a freakin’ mansion. A weekly allowance. Designer shoes and a new phone and every lego set he’d left behind. He had parents and rules and weekend outings and family dinners and a hot older sister who he couldn’t crush on anymore because that was suddenly weird. Peter Parker went from the worst year of his life to having… everything.

(He should have known that Parker Luck would come back to bite him in the end. The worst year of his life was yet to come.)

Doris definitely found out first. How, she would never tell. It was just another mystery of moms doing their thing. She handed Peter his suit one evening (freshly laundered and smelling like New Breeze) and smiled so broadly that his whole future flashed before his eyes.

“Next time you want your workout suit laundered, do it on the weekends.” (When Dad wasn’t home.) “And Peter, if you ever turn your phone location off again, I will ground you.”

That was it. Nothing about Spider-Manning and stopping cars from flying off bridges and webbing up criminals. When Peter trudged up later that night and asked in a reluctant mumble if he could use a different phone so all his friends wouldn’t know, Doris just handed him her credit card.

She was crazy.

She also left midnight snacks in the fridge and made sure Peter packed a water bottle and a first aid kit and she marked off a storage tub of identical backpacks in the basement so he didn’t have to keep asking for a new one. She never even told Adrian. It was their sneaky little secret.

Well, until Liz found out.

She met Peter on the top of the roof just when he was sneaking out after Adrian left for work.

“Wow, Spider-Man’s on my roof.”

Dead. So dead.

“I can’t believe you ditched Decathlon practice for this. I can’t believe you heard me crushing on Spider-Man and didn’t say anything! Peter, do you realize how weird this is?”

“Um.” Flapping his hands around was a real mature gesture. Peter opened his mouth, blew out a sharp gust, and cut to the chase. “Should I… are you going to tell Dad?”

Rolling her eyes, Liz scoffed, “Yeah, because I totally rat out all my friends. Why didn’t you tell me you were Spider-Man? Let me guess — Mom already knows.”

Peter pressed his lips into a flat line.

“You. Are so. Busted.”

Busted as in, Liz no longer let him cut Decathlon practice, and Doris gave him mandatory curfew so he was home for family dinner. (Not that it was all the family when Adrian was popping in and out like he was an Avenger, but still… the routine was important to her.)

It was all fine for the first few months. Then came the recruitment order.

Peter didn’t wear joggers because he couldn’t afford anything better. He kept parts of his first suit because it was harder to stay incognito if he was wearing designer jeans and a triple-digit ski mask. Clothes that boasted wealth were always tracked to the mall of origin. Implied poverty had a way of hiding important people from the rest of the world. (Besides, he liked May’s hoodie. It kept her close, like a scold and a hug all wrapped up in the memory of her vanilla extract perfume.)

Somehow, Tony Stark found him anyways. He showed up on the Toomes’ doorstep, chatted up Adrian over a bourbon, showered Doris with enthusiastic compliments (and also jotted down her exhaustive list of makeup suggestions for the Pepper Potts), and finally stated his objective.

Which was Peter. And his completely non-existent internship application. Which would look absolutely amazing on his future college application, if he had given it a shot in the first place.

“Pete, you didn’t tell me you applied for an internship upstate,” Adrian said, his smile too fixed as he searched him for the lie.

Peter knew he would blow it, but a smidgen of misdirection never hurt. “I… didn’t think I’d get in, honestly.”

“Didn’t know that Stark took interns,” Adrian followed up shrewdly.

Doris sashayed in like a Black Widow and saved him from one more embarrassing flub. “Sweetie, why don’t you and Lizzie pop next door. This will just take a moment.”

Doomed. He was definitely doomed. Peter waved almost apologetically as Adrian nodded them out.

“Love you, gumdrop. Hey, Pedro. That Flash kid shows up, you hit him twice as hard.”

“Adrian!” Doris whispered.

“I’m kidding, I’m kidding!” Adrian snorted. “But seriously. Remember that left hook. He’ll never see it coming.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Peter huffed, following Liz out and looking over his shoulder one more time before closing the door.

His spidey sense was going crazy.

Tony Stark was an inspirational liar. Suddenly Peter had an internship and a full-ride scholarship opportunity. Starting with a one week conference with three other mythical interns who didn’t even live near the East Coast.

“You are so lucky, Peter,” Liz sighed as she repacked his bag, trading his ten extra t-shirts for boxers and socks. “I would kill to spend one day inside the Avengers Tower.”

“Well, he’s not heading out of state alone,” Adrian said with the grimmest fake smile. “If that playboy think I’m sending a minor out of town without an adult chaperone, he’s crazier than a drunk raccoon. We’ll head out first thing in the morning.”

Later, Peter would learn that the “conference” was supposed to take place in Germany. Instead, he and his dad were hosted for a week at a fancy hotel right across from Stark Industries main headquarters. That meant free food, insight into the coolest gadgets on the face of the planet, and no Spider-Manning for a week. Tony didn’t even show up. Pepper gave them the full tour and a thick folder stuffed with forms for parental permissions, non-liability formalities and NDAs.

“I want you to tell me if something seems wrong,” Adrian insisted before he signed under Peter’s name. “Even if it’s just a feeling. Even if you think it’s unreasonable. You get the sense that something’s off, you call and we’ll come get you.”

“Yessir,” Peter hummed, smiling wanly at Pepper who looked six kinds of awkward and was still poised like the queen of Asgard.

“I mean that, Pete,” Adrian said, finally signing with cramped, precise script. “My kids’ happiness always comes first — before any academic achievement.”

“He’s not going to be alone with any adult,” Pepper said with a professional smile. “And he won’t be the first intern at Stark Industries.”

“Can’t blame a dad for being too careful,” Adrian said with the same chilling affability.

It was six weeks before Peter got his badge. The internship was exactly what he imagined: fetching 100% environmentally friendly coffee cups for half the office staff and delivering spreadsheets. The stairs themselves would have murdered him if he wasn’t Spider-Man.

Six months after Captain America was labelled a fugitive, Tony finally called him into his office.

“I know about the Spider-Boy thing,” he announced by way of introduction. “You would have been great in Germany if not for the helicopter parenting. Great guys, by the way. Guys, guy and gal? Your human guardians. Immaculate background checks. Not even a stolen candy bar.”

“Wait, you screened my parents?”

“Which is somehow more shocking than figuring out who’s under the mask, and frankly — you are hard to track down.” Folding his arms, Tony perched on the table edge with the same looming presence as a cat pretending to be a panther. “So what’s your MO? What drives Spider-Man? Because you could do so much better than that onesie, for starters.”

It was either the beginning of a recruitment, or the blackmail Peter couldn’t weasel out of. Tony wanted to give him a suit. Peter insisted on playing down the theatrics. They compromised. His original design in red and blue, fully automatized with Stark tech and interwoven armor, parachute and heater. (Doris would have cried. She was already nagging the doctors about Peter’s spontaneous and unpredictable winter chills.)

Spider-Man still looked incognito, but… anyone with an eye for fabric design would know he was getting sponsored by someone unfazed by dollar signs. The internet knew it. The whole town saw it. Spider-Man’s most popular fan site had a thousand new photos in under a week.

“I like your mojo,” Tony praised, as he handed off the coffee tray to a cold caller and guided Peter up to the lab where brilliance unfolded. “You look out for puppies, you help people cross the street, you support the little bodegas — this is what Stark Industries needs. A little PR with Queen’s one and only down-to-earth Spider-Man.”

“Don’t listen to him,” Pepper scoffed behind them. Her heels clacked as she swept up and around to fix Tony with a mild glare. “You’re more than a special case, Peter. We enjoy having you around.”

“As intern and Spider-Man,” Tony amended. “Where’s that coffee tray? Probably should snap a couple pictures to send to your folks and prove this is perfectly normal.”

It was perfectly normal. Working in Tony’s lab, playing fetch with Dum-E, fumbling Spanish verb tenses with Happy, and flying through academic hours so he could do it all over again. It was the best year of Peter’s life.

Until it wasn’t.

Then the alien tech showed up.

And Peter learned just how scared his parents were for him.

It started with Liz’s party. (Well, technically it was their party, but Liz planned everything and Peter showed up on default. With guests.)

“I just want to say that I am honored you still think of me as your friend, even though you’re way richer and cooler now,” Ned said when his mom dropped him off. The hat and red polo set him apart in the crowd until Peter looped an arm over his shoulders and dragged him inside.

“Hey, mi casa es su casa.”

“Your Spanish is terrible, but I will never forget this moment. Ever.”

That should have been the highlight of Peter’s sophomore year. Flash glared him down from the DJ stand like he couldn’t believe he was downgraded to being Peter’s guest and he also wanted in on his connections. Betty sidled up like a little sister wannabe and low-key hinted about needing a partner for prom. MJ took his arm and called dibs.

For once, Peter Parker-Toomes had his whole life in order.

Then Peter stepped outside to turn off the sprinklers (whoops, he told Dad he did it hours ago) and a few purple flashes changed everything for the worst.

He came home with a glowy rock and a bruise that wouldn’t wear off by morning.

Doris dropped her great-grandmother’s catering platter and fussed more over the fading bruise than irreplaceable china.

“Who was it?” Adrian asked with violence cloaked in casual flair, brandishing a knife sharpener like an épée. “Was it that Flash kid?”

“Peter just tripped over the garden hose. Again,” Liz said, leveling Peter with the glare that meant she knew he had snuck out on her, just like he ditched band and robotics, and if he even dreamed of quitting the team she would rat him out so thoroughly he’d be grounded through college. 

“Adrian, I told you to tie down the coils,” Doris sighed.

“I did! Didn’t I? Did I forget to secure the hose, Pete? Be honest now.”

Shrugging in the best half-lie he could manage, Peter answered, “It was, ah, the sprinkler spout, actually. Liz didn’t want to tell you, I … uh… forgot to turn them off until after dark.”

“A sprinkler is replaceable,” Adrian said, waving the sharpener a little too enthusiastically. “You are not. Take a flashlight out next time.”

Just like that, the lecture was over.

Until the next time, when Peter used up three of his nine lives and nearly drowned in his own parachute.

Tony grounded him from SI for a week.

Adrian and Doris called the school.

“You came home at midnight soaking wet. Don’t tell me that bruise came from tripping over the path lights,” Adrian said, while Peter’s net of flimsy excuses only entangled him further. “What is really going on?”

“Sweetie, your father and I are worried about you,” Doris insisted, leveling him with a knowing look. “I promise we won’t be angry.”

Okay. Time to spin a new one. Always use the truth, Tony said, but not too much or the lie would punch right through.

“It was just some guy from the suburbs,” Peter said, squishing a cold gel pack with its Captain America emblem until the story sounded right in his head. “Uh, he called himself Buzzard or something. I knocked him solid, but then I fell into the, uh, the fountain.”

Doris chose to believe him. Adrian tried to unravel him from ground zero. Peter tucked close to his mom and played her sympathy and let her be the one to chase the hounds off his trail.

“Honey, he wasn’t raised in our neighborhood, remember?” Doris murmured when Peter was supposed to be asleep. “Boys will be boys.”

“Kid shouldn’t have to fight every punk in New York. That’s the third scrap this week.”

“Now you’re going to tell me you didn’t tap out every jock trailing in my shadow.”

“Hey, they deserved it. All right. I’ll cut the kid a break. But if he starts flinching around us, I’m calling in a few favors.”

“You still keep up with Matthew?”

“Best lawyer on the West Side.”

“Don’t push too hard, Adrian. You can’t treat Peter the same as Liz. He’s still getting used to us.”

“It’s been two years since we took that kid in. I felt like he was mine the moment he lied to my face saying he wasn’t checking out my little girl.”

“Adrian!” Doris’s chide was a muffled tease, followed by the smooth hum of a late-night smooch. That was Peter’s cue to roll over and sleep off the Hudson’s chill.

He slept in fits, always falling. He woke up just before his alarm with Doris’s hand on his shoulder.

“Just a bad dream, baby.” Warm brown eyes were sad and faintly estranged, like Doris wanted to believe he was hers by birth and she was afraid he would break the illusion and ask for his own parents. “Is there anything you want to tell me?”

“Just a weird dream,” Peter mumbled as he shook off the stabbing sensation of claws gripping his arms. “Um. Ned and I were riding the cyclone and it like spun in the air like a UFO. I fell out.”

“Oh, honey.” Peter didn’t remember his mom ever hugging him, but he thought it should feel something like this. Something deeper than words could express, even if he compared this to May’s hugs. May… she was family, but she had to learn how to treat him like her kid, and then… then she was gone.

Doris held him like he was stolen as a baby and finally found his way home.

“I’m fine, Mom,” Peter said at length, squirming away and wiping away a so-not-sniffle. He leaned into the palm that cupped his cheek and sighed.

“It’s okay to miss them,” Doris said gently, misinterpreting and yet understanding everything left unsaid. “They’re still part of you, Peter. I like to think they’re letting us borrow you for a while. I just don’t want to give you back.”

That was enough to release the stress from every hard day since Peter stumbled back from Oscorp with a fever and a broken pair of glasses. He told himself he was hugging Doris so she wouldn’t feel embarrassed for crying. (He was pretty sure she was holding him together right now.)

Adrian checked in and left just as quickly, attacking the situation the way he knew best. Peter smelled waffle batter long before it started sizzling.

“Look at that,” Doris sniffed, wiping her eyes and plastering on a smile. “You dad gets one day off and he’s already spoiling you two.”

“I like waffles,” Peter whined.

“And now you’re going to be late for school,” Doris tutted. She ruffled his hair and leaned over to swipe off his alarm. “Get dressed before you come down to breakfast. I’ll drive the two of you to school this morning. You can tell Ned hi from me.”

Even when consoling a fabrication, she was the best mom. Swallowing the lie that somehow felt heavier than a bus ramming into him full-throttle, Peter forced a smile and nodded. “Okay. I’ll be down in a minute.”

Every nightmare ended sooner or later. The Vulture got away, and Peter wasn’t dead. (Although he probably should set aside a little patrol time for extra Decathlon studying, before Liz threatened to put a lock on his window.)

The suit had training wheels. Tony Stark thought Spider-Man needed training wheels. Ned was promoted to the Guy in the Chair. Peter offered bribed him half a month’s allowance to corrupt a million dollar suit, and then he tagged the tracker to an ugly hotel lamp.

“You’re not seriously dipping out right before Decathlon!” Ned whispered. “Peter, this is a really bad idea. Your dad is gonna kill you.”

“He won’t even know I’m gone,” Peter insisted, piling blankets and pillows into a sleeping-Peter shape. “Just cover for me. I’ll be back before Liz’s alarm goes off.”

Only Liz was breaking the rules — and Peter’s brain. (His adopted sister was hot. That had to be illegal. Betty. Betty was definitely hotter, although MJ had way more personality.)

“You’re seriously not sneaking out, Peter.” That was a Big Sister trouble voice right there. “Go get your swim trunks or sit by the pool with a comic book. I don’t care. I’m not covering for you this time.”

In another life, Peter probably would have done it, because in another life he would’ve asked Liz out instead of rerouting all the blaring neon lights that warned him to steer clear of crazy town.

He was not doing crazy town tonight.

One Spider-Suit and a ridiculous faceplant in a gas station parking lot later, Liz’s wet hair was the last thing on his mind. Taser webs — what a stupid concept. And what kind of person gave AI the option for Instant Kill?

None of those things mattered when the Vulture appeared again. This time, when Peter blacked out, he didn’t even dream.

He woke up groggier than ever, with a lump he definitely couldn’t explain as anything less than a tree climbing fail. (He really needed to google some better excuses. In Incognito mode. On one of Ned’s devices, although he wasn’t entirely sure Adrian wouldn’t find a way to peruse his search history there.)

By the time Peter jimmied the most secure storage facility in New York (probably topping Spider-Man’s list of criminal hobbies), he was too late to stop a small radiation explosion.

He was just in time to save his sister.

(Karen said it wasn’t wrong to have a crush since they weren’t actually related. Peter looked into shellshocked brown eyes and decided they were never having that conversation. Ever.)

Adrian and Doris flew to Maryland and nearly squeezed their kids into asphyxiation fits.

“Forget the bus. We’re taking you home,” Adrian said, opening the door for Liz and waving for Ned to slide into the third seat. (Flash looked on with wounded pug eyes like someone just lit a match to his GPA.) “Everybody strap in. No more accidents on my watch.”

Adrian spent all night pacing, arguing with Doris and puzzling how Spider-Man made it all the way to Maryland. (The evidence was right there, and it was just as easily dismissed. Peter never knew how close he came to losing the suit and all contact with Tony Stark.)

It all came to a head with the Staten Island Ferry.

The revelation was worse than hearing the screech of breaks and turning around to see May lying in the street.

It was worse than the silence gripping his throat when Tony told him to give up the suit.

(“Kid, you gotta give me something here. What’s going on in your head right now? …  Okay, you know what? I’m taking back the suit. When you’re ready to talk, you walk up to that creepy little office you hate so much and tell the secretary you want to make an appointment.”)

Dad… Not really his dad, but… but he was family… and he was the one dealing weapons. (He dropped Peter in the Hudson. He trapped him in the freight car. He nearly killed all those people.)

(“That’s on you. And if something happened to you? I feel like that’s on me.”)

Dad… Dad was forking out the very weapons that almost killed Liz.

Peter didn’t call for a ride. He walked. He walked until nearly midnight, when Adrian drove up with cold fear and questions that Peter couldn’t answer. One glance at the Hello Kitty pajama pants and Adrian stopped talking. He yanked Peter into a hug, clasping his head and shoulders like he could hold him together; like Peter would shake apart otherwise. (Maybe he already was.)

They didn’t go home.

They drove to a police station.

Peter sat alone with one friendly officer after another, until the one who gave him animal crackers and a red blanket finally cracked the haze of shock. (He might have cried on the officer’s shoulder, but then… she looked an awful lot like May.)

He wasn’t hurt, Peter said repetitively. He was never in danger. He lost the internship.

By the time Doris arrived, still wearing yesterday’s blouse, with Liz running ahead of her, Adrian was calling up and down the SI corporate ladder and threatening lawsuits. Then Tony showed up and the yelling match blended into another sort of fog until Peter came to himself in a secluded room, half-comatose against Liz’s shoulder.

“Can we go home?” he begged Doris. The Vulture’s wife. His mom.

(Please let this all be a dream.)

“Yeah, baby,” Doris said, smiling through a film of fresh tears. “The doctors just want to ask you a few more questions. Then we’re going home.”

Hours later, Peter was finally released. He told them the truth, just not all of it. He was watching the ferry. He got lost. Someone held him up and thought it was easier to pawn a pair of Gucci jeans than a credit card. He wasn’t hurt. He found the shirt and pants in a bin. Nobody made him wear them. He was walking home when Adrian found him.

(Tony had to back his innocence with every suit and satellite image from the start of his day to the finish. He’d already taken steps to blur Spider-Man’s voice and image. With his entire reputation at risk, the internship was well and truly over.)

Peter remembered falling asleep on the way home. He didn’t remember how he got inside; just the safe feeling of his dad carrying him from the couch to his bed.

He woke up the next morning with no ambition except to crawl back under the covers.

Adrian Toomes was also the Vulture.

For the first time in his life, Peter needed to justify the bad guy.

Peter was excused from school for an entire week. The police reviewed all testimonies and cleared Tony’s name. The doctors chalked up Peter’s trauma to the horror of watching a structure filled with 4,000 people nearly capsize in a disaster that would have been just as memorable as the Titanic. There were patches in his story that he let them fill with their own conclusions.

All that mattered was that he was unhurt, he was safe now, and he lost the internship.

Peter didn’t want to think about the conclusions his (criminal) parents had entertained. Doris babied him all week, taking time off to bake and blend and deep fry and coax him like he’d forgotten how to eat. Ned stayed over almost every night, until Adrian muttered something about putting a permanent place setting on Peter’s side of the table. Liz brought home all his homework, working around her exhaustive list of extracurriculars to sit with him and make sure he didn’t fall behind.

Tony never called once. Happy texted something about moving. Pepper sent back Peter’s book bag with a note that he tucked under the mattress unread.

He felt well and truly cut out of their existence.

For that whole week, Adrian made an effort to come home every single night. He ruffled Peter’s hair when he left in the morning and hugged him tightly when he came home. Peter wondered if a little bit of Spider-Man died every time.

The villain couldn’t be more compassionate than the good guys. Villains who showed up the heroes only existed in modern fairy tales. 

By the time that week passed, Peter felt…  settled. It hurt to think about Spider-Man and what he lost, so he just didn’t. He didn’t think about much, in fact. Studying was easy. Sorting heroic priorities was definitely not.

(He didn’t realize he’d fallen back into the silence of his foster days until Mister Herrington sent home a note. But then Adrian mentioned finding a new therapist in one breath and Spider-Man’s ongoing absence in the next and Peter discovered a refreshing fascination for his Physics homework.)

In time, maybe he would have selectively forgotten that his adopted father was the same guy selling weapons.

Then again, Parker Luck. It had a way of retreating just long enough to make Peter believe he could take on the world, only to snap back harder than ever before.

It started with prom night. Which Peter had to attend, because Betty asked him to, and well… that was more normal than brooding over a felon for a father figure, right? Especially when said felon took him to town for a new tailored suit and then sat him down in a triple-digit steak house to give him the talk on how to treat a girl right. (Tony never would have done that. … Would he?)

One combover and corsage later, and Peter was ready for the pickup.

“Now what’s the routine?” Adrian said over his shoulder.

“Ring the doorbell, take two steps back and keep both hands in sight, greet the parents, compliment Betsy’s dress, hand over the corsage.”

“Pin it yourself, but only after she says you can,” Adrian reminded him. “What are the rules after you get there?”

“Um, keep my hands above her hips, don’t do anything that warrants a restraining order, stay inside the building, no drugs.”

“No drugs or alcohol,” Adrian prompted. “You run into a group of kids passing around stuff, you walk the other way. Go on, then. You’ll do just fine.”

Fine. He was fine. He could do this. He held a ferry together for all of fifteen seconds. He could talk to … he could talk to a…..

(“That’s on you.”)

“Pete.”

The inhaler was unnecessary for Spider-Man’d lungs, but it freed up Peter’s asthma just fine. He took two quick breaths, held it, and then nodded on the exhale. “I’m fine.”

“Sure, kiddo.” Why did Adrian have to look so concerned. Two years ago Peter was one of those kids who could’ve been targeted by alien tech. Now he was supposed to believe he was safe.

How was that fair?

“Go get it done, Peteo,” Adrian said softly. “You’re going to walk right up to that door and you’re going to be glad you took the chance. I’ll be right here if you need another ride.”

“No!” No, he could do this. He was Spider… Peter Parker. He was Peter Parker, and he could handle High School Prom.

Peter tramped up the path without thinking about it. He rang once and stepped back, half-expecting Betty’s dad to open the door. (Adrian would have.) When Betty opened the door herself, his planned speech took a cold dive into the Hudson.

“Wow. You look amazing in black,” Betty said, reaching for the corsage and looping it around her wrist. “Mom and Dad left early so I’m driving. Unless your dad wants to drop us off?”

“Um… yeah! Sure!” Peter absolutely didn’t squeak, or slide off the first step before he stuck a hand to the archway and offered Betty his arm.

Liz had a way of floating into a room. MJ stalked in like she owned it. Betty sort of danced her way through life, he realized. Every step was a bounce, springing from her feathery hair to her silver shoes. It was almost like escorting Cinderella to the car.

Rapping one knuckle on the window, Peter shrugged. Adrian rolled his eyes and unlatched the doors, pointing to the phone at his ear.

Peter Parker could pretend to be normal, but Spider-Man could hear a dog whimpering six blocks away. Peter froze with his hand on the door handle.

“If we’re doing this, Boss, you’ve got a narrow window. You need to get to the warehouse now.”

“Just have her engines primed when I get there,” Adrian answered, waving for Peter to get in. “I got one more stop to make.”

He hung up as soon as Peter opened the door. “Looks like I’ll be your chauffeur tonight. Any music requests?”

Normal. Perfectly. Normal. Like someone wasn’t calling him boss and telling him to have the engines primed for potential crime.

“Um, what are you and Mom doing tonight?” Peter asked with a smile that felt as queasy as his stomach.

“Well, your mom’s taking Liz on a girl’s spin before dropping her off,” Adrian said vaguely.

Right. Poor Liz; she completely forgot about securing her own date while heading the planning committee.

“Oh! I completely forgot to tell Liz, Jason doesn’t have a date yet,” Betty blurted out. “He’s not that bad off-camera, honestly.”

“I’ll be the judge of that,” Adrian grunted. 

“What about you?” Peter asked, softer still.

He knew the answer before Adrian looked away from the rearview mirror. “Your mom will pick you up tonight. I gotta head out of town. Business trip.”

“Okay.”

It was just a coincidence. Nothing to do with the Vulture appearing on the ferry. Adrian Toomes wasn’t the villain disguising himself as a noble father figure.

(And Peter Parker wasn’t Spider-Man without a suit.)

Adrian kept glancing back at him all the way. When he pulled in front of the school, he leaned over just enough to catch Peter’s eye and bat his knee. “Go get ‘em, Romeo.”

“You’ve never even read Shakespeare,” Peter said with a wobbly smile.

“‘What, you egg? More of your conversation would infect my brain,’” Adrian snarked.

It was enough to startle Peter into laughing. Almost enough to make him voluntarily overlook the phone call.

(Spider-Man couldn’t.)

Sliding out, Peter scampered to the other side and held open Betty’s door. Adrian waved once and took off.

A few swipes in the family location app and Peter had his dad’s route on screen.

Thirty-six steps to get inside. Peter’s pulse thudded with each one. Betty gave him a weird look and tugged her hand free, wiping it off on her dress. “Your hands are like, really sweaty.”

“Oh. Sorry.”

“Um. Yeah. No biggie.” Betty must have sensed his unease and jumped for the first escape. “I’m just gonna go catch up with Jess.”

“Uh, yeah! Cool. I’ll find… drinks?”

“Thanks, but I’m trying to cut out artificial sweeteners. Catch you on the next dance.”

Parting ways had never felt more freeing. Peter slid through the mob, nearly stamping Ned’s foot in his rush to escape the dance hall.

“Nice funeral suit, Peter,” MJ said, looking him up and down with a tad too much intensity for a plotting cartoonist.

“Where’s Liz?” Ned asked.

“Uh, yeah. She’s… busy,” Peter said feebly. “Real… yeah, real busy. I gotta go.”

“Peter, you just got here!”

Nobody else needed to know. (That he was Spider-Man. That his dad could be planning a heist. That he was in danger of losing everything in the absolute worst year of his life.)

Nobody stopped him. Not when he grabbed his suit. Not when he dashed through the bus lot and tracked his dad’s phone to an old warehouse.

Spider-Man would have charged inside.

Peter couldn’t afford to get it wrong.

(Later he would wonder if he had just shown up as himself, if he was just Peter Parker-Toomes, then would everything would have turned around? It sounded like a convenient fairytale even to himself, so… probably wouldn’t have changed a thing.)

When the Vulture emerged with mask in place and unfolding wings, Peter swallowed all of his dad’s lies and yanked up the hood of May’s red hoodie. He had to stop this. Or he could never call Spider-Man a hero again.

(What kind of hero did that make him? Would Captain America hunt down his own parents? Because even if it was only two years since Liz rescued him from foster care, those were two of the happiest years of Peter’s life.)

He wasn’t hunting his dad, though. He was just following up on the Vulture. No harm, no foul. Maybe Dad wasn’t even working tonight.

(He could have called the police, or the cell number Pepper gave him for emergencies. He could have done anything but follow silently, like he could stop another weapons heist after he botched the ferry. Maybe a part of him believed it was futile; that the Starks had probably blocked his number anyways. Maybe he wanted to prove he was worth their time all along. Maybe he just wanted proof that he was wrong. He’d never figure out the answer, even after it no longer mattered.)

A plane revved overhead as the Vulture took to the skyline. Peter didn’t need Liz there to tell him this was such a stupid idea. He sniped the guy’s wingsuit and sucked in a deep breath — before it was punched out of his lungs by the first wind gust.

He was so screwed.

The Romulan-style camouflage tech really should have been a clue. Or maybe the fuzzy memory of the Doris reading the news headline that the Avengers Tower would soon be under new management. But Peter was lousily, stupidly out of the loop until he hit the sand and opened his eyes to a spilled crate of arc reactors.

Oh. That was Tony’s stuff.

Too late, Peter mused that would be the perfect time to black out.

When Spider-Man disappeared from the media, Adrian finally started to relax. Four years under the radar with no snaffles, and then that punk kid tried to ruin it all. He saw the footage Stark presented for an alibi, when Spider-Man was finally punted off the Avengers’ payroll. He couldn’t make out anything from the distorted imagery, but he was confident in one conclusion: Spider-Man was no longer his problem.

So why was it that the minute things were going his way, that little insect showed up to ruin everything?

Plane down. Wings on the fritz. Adrian didn’t wait for the jumpsuit Spider-Man to stop rolling before he snatched him into the air. The kid shouted, punching out erratically. Adrian released him obligingly. From fifteen feet up onto a cement-like floor of hot, packed sand.

Scrabbling hands reached for the ship-shod mask that looked like it was pulled out of a dumpster. No chance, buddy. Adrian snagged the thief a second time, released and punched down. This time the brat curled into himself like a crushed bug. (Stunned, more like. If he could survive a jet crash, he’d probably get up again.)

Sure thing, the next time Adrian dropped him, the wannabe Avenger webbed his left wing and spun him nearly into the jutting plane hull. So Spider-Man thought he could take down a bird twice his size. Kid was overdue for an old-school paddling. (Adrian never raised a hand to his kids, but then, he didn’t need to. Liz was a gem from her first smile and Peter slid into his life like the son he never deserved. What his children idolized in this gutter trash, Adrian would never understand.)

He clipped Spider-Man’s line with one wing and then lunged with both sets of claws, stamping down with enough force to punch holes in steel. With one arm pinioned and blood seeping through his hoodie, the vigilante should have stopped taken the hint. But no, he managed to grab the jointed claws pinning his arm and twist, tearing the wiring until the mechanism released. He punched a fresh dent in the sandbar when he rolled, springing up to throw a left hook with the shambling lurch of a drunken billionaire. (The stance should have been familiar. Later Adrian would grind his hands against his eyes, imagining a different outcome when he recognized the first self-defense move he’d drilled into his kids.)

Catching the narrow fist, Adrian punched thrice in immediate succession. Stomach, throat, face. Bam, the fools gold hero was down. He twitched, trying to crawl away like a beetle missing four legs. Four claws crunching into his calf fixed that. The cry was almost childish; piteous; vulnerable.

(Youth made no difference. It was enhanced individuals drugged with power who nearly capsized the ferry. Put his own kid in shock. Adrian was doing this so Peter would never face that kind of horror again.)

He raised his gauntlet and aimed the energy gun that would put Spider-Man down for good.

The obnoxious yodel of a familiar ringtone arrested his aim. (Distractions were chased down by fools. He needed to finish this.)

He really needed to settle that curious itch.

Whether by providence or stupidity, some irresistible force lured Adrian to the flashing screen of a discarded phone.

Not just any phone.

(He didn’t want to ask. Not with the obvious staring him in the face.)

When Adrian looked up from the screenshot of Need Leeds and he saw the kid — just a kid — dragging himself up on shaking hands, his voice was a hoarse croak. “What are you doing with my kid’s phone?”

He didn’t wait for an answer. Spider-Man scooted away from him, jerking up one arm to ward off another blow. Adrian batted aside the clicking, empty web-shooter and grabbed the mask, yanking it off and exposing the wannabe hero.

He wasn’t flying anywhere anytime soon, but not because of Spider-Man.

Mask and phone slid from nerveless fingers. Thunking to his knees, Adrian tore off his helmet and reached out, cringing when his son flinched.

“Pete? What… what are you doing here?”

He was supposed to be at school. Trying not to step on his dance partner’s feet and flubbing the kiss and probably getting drunk because kids these days. He was supposed to be having the time of his life, not… not shrinking away from his dad like Adrian would ever…. He’d never….!

Staring at his own shaking hands, Adrian swallowed a swell of nausea. That was Peter’s blood dotting his knuckles. His kid was Spider-Man.

“No. No, no, no.” Scrabbling at the harness, Adrian let the wings fall away with a thud. He yanked off the bomber jacket and then the claws, throwing them into the burning wreckage. When he shuffled closer, sliding a careful hand under Peter’s shoulders to lift him, he was nobody but a civilian terrified for his kid.

Murky brown eyes slid up to him with confusion. “Dad….?”

“Yeah. Yeah, Peteo, it’s me.” Some first aid course Adrian took when he learned Doris was pregnant had him checking neck and spine for misalignment. (It seemed so easy with those stupid dummies. How was he supposed to know if his child was crippled?) “Pete… Peter, you gotta tell me what hurts.”

He did this. Every bruise and flinch as Peter bravely tried to shuffle closer, as if he could help with his own rescue. All of this was his doing.

“Dad? M’Spider-Man,” Peter said feebly, spitting out a glob of blood that gleamed with a hard white lump.

The laugh bursting from Adrian’s chest was nearly hysterical. “Now you’re telling me.”

“M’sorry.” Peter grimaced, aborting any attempt to drag in his punctured right leg. “Didn’want you t’be mad.”

He was furious, but that wasn’t what Peter needed to hear right now. “I’m not mad. It’s okay,” Adrian soothed, scooting an arm under copper-stained knees and murmuring reassurances when Peter yelped. “It’s okay. I’m getting you to a hospital.”

“Dad, I’m Spider-Man!” Peter choked, reaching up with hands wrapped in cheap red leather to cling to Adrian’s shirt. “They’ll ‘spiriment on me!”

“They won’t. I promise. I’m here.”

I did this.

The kid was right. Public health care wasn’t an option. There had to be somebody who knew more about enhanced individuals. Somebody who could be trusted not to blab Spider-Man’s name to the media….

Somebody who had blurred the footage of a fifteen-year-old who nearly sank the Staten Ferry.

Lowering himself carefully to one knee, Adrian braced Peter against his shoulder and fumbled two fingers to snag his phone. He dropped it on the kid’s chest first, and then tossed Spider-Man’s mask and the Vulture’s helmet into the flames. No DNA evidence from loose hairs. Not from his kid.

Murmuring reassurances, Adrian gave Peter three seconds to brace himself before standing. “Call him,” he urged, turning his shoulder and marching through a wall of heat and smoke. “Call Stark. I’ll tell him where to get us.”

“Dad?” Brown eyes were slurried with something darker and more terrifying than the ferry shock. “Dad, m’Spider-Man.”

Whispering remorses when Peter cried out, Adrian hitched him into a one-arm cradle and fumbled for the phone, pressing it against a blood-smeared thumb to bypass the lock code.

“Stick with me, Pete. Gonna get you help.”

First ring. Adrian never heard Stark answer a press cue that fast.

“Kid, if you tell me you’re on Coney Island right now….”

“When were you going to tell me my kid is Spider-Man?”

The call prompted for video call. Adrian declined.

“Put the kid on the phone,” Stark said tersely.

“You know he’s enhanced?” Adrian said, shushing Peter when he cringed away from the speaker.

“Put the kid on the phone or so help me….!”

“He’s hurt, and you’re scaring him.”

The panicked silence told Adrian everything he didn’t want to know about how much this man cared for his kid. Steeling back a defeated crackle, he accused, “So how long have you known? Did he tell you to keep it a secret from his own family?”

The voice on the other end was reluctantly compassionate. “Tell him help is on the way. Doctor Cho knows his specs; she’s trustworthy.”

“Be there yourself,” Adrian growled.

The line disconnected.

Sliding Peter’s phone into his back pocket, Adrian shuffled the kid back into a two-arm hold and kissed his forehead. “Almost there. Hold on for me, kiddo.”

The ambulance was there in ten minutes. Every second felt like an eternity.

This was Tony’s fault. Not Happy’s, not the Vulture’s, not the school superintendent who should have kept the kiddies from leaving the building unsupervised. Every bruise, splintered bone and contusion was on him.

“I tracked his phone,” Adrian Toomes said with the genuine fear of a worried parent and the practiced ease of a habitual liar. “He kept saying something about a vulture.”

Yeah, the wings were there, and what was left of a melted hard leather hat. Tony wanted to read the signs, but he’d hear it out from the kid first. Give him a chance to oust his family, or else….

(Would he have turned in his dad, if he learned he was working for Hydra? That was an unfair question, actually. Howard wasn’t involved enough in Tony’s childhood to draw that line. This was Peter’s safest chance for an out. Tony had the room all ready if he wanted it.)

“Why did you call me?” Tony snapped, pacing before the closed doors where Helen was piecing a teenager back together. “Family physician wasn’t working tonight? Maybe you thought you could dangle the lawsuit threat and I’d beg for a chance to clear my name —”

“Tony!” Pepper Potts was the only voice of sense, although neither of them were willing to listen.

“How long has he been Spider-Man?” Toomes demanded. “I’m his father! I’m the first person he should have told!”

“You’re the first person who would have held him back,” Tony snarled. His next step was nearly a lunge, held back only when Pepper prodded him off-balance. “If he believed he could trust you, there wouldn’t be any secrets!”

Adopted at thirteen after an irrevocable genetic alteration. The only reason Peter didn’t tell anyone was because he was afraid of the consequences.

“There wouldn’t be any secrets if Iron Man wasn’t afraid of the press!”

Tony would have hit him, and it would’ve been deserved. Helen thrust the door open at that moment, silencing two grown men with just a look.

“One of you is leaving,” she said coldly. “Immediate family stays. You two, out.”

Evicted by his own staff in his own compound. Flinging the accusation back where it belonged, Tony said acidly, “Where was the immediate family when a teenager tracked down a dangerous fugitive, huh? Care to explain that little puzzle piece, Toomes?”

“Tony, come on,” Pepper urged, snagging his wrist and pulling him to the door.

“My people will be talking to your people!” Tony insisted. “That kid could be in a bodybag right now. I’m not sending him back to Queens without a court order.”

With a hollowed-out huff, Toomes drawled, “You and what lawyers?”

“One witness,” Tony assured him, pointing at the door. “All they need. Just one.”

Pepper closed the door in his face. Behind the glass, Toomes deliberately turned his back. A pitying person might confuse that slump in his shoulder for grief. Tony knew better.

That was a man desperate to avoid a trial.

Thirteen puncture wounds, two broken ribs, a fractured tibia, signs of internal bleeding, and a goose egg that feathered broken blood cells all the way down to a cracked cheekbone. Helen had to realign six pieces of cartilage in the kid’s puffy nose. He’d nearly lost an eye.

Tony needed to get to Peter first, before Toomes sat down in that rickety plastic chair and scared the truth out of him.

Turning around, he gripped Pepper’s hand, breathing through the panic. “This is all my fault,” he whispered.

“Tony, nobody knew this would happen,” Pepper said, reaching out carefully until she could grip his shoulder without spooking him.

She notably didn’t try to convince him otherwise.

Swimming.

Swimming but no water. He was floating?

“C’mon, kid. I didn’t sneak around my own ward and bypass the legal guardians just to watch you snore. Gimme something here.”

That was Tony’s voice. Tony who spent a whole week showing him how to rewire his Spider-Man suit in case it got hit by an electric surge. Tony who decided he wasn’t worth it. Tony whose plane he crashed….!

A sound creaked in the back of Peter’s throat and the presence beside him scrambled back.

“Hey. Hey, no tears, okay? You’re not in trouble. No yelling, I promise. You saved the day. Good for Spider-Man.”

He wasn’t Spider-Man. He was a fraud. Just a kid in an old hoodie who couldn’t draw the line between family and justice. 

“Okay, I’m gonna need you to wake up for real now. Can you track me, Pete? Come on. Follow me back to the land of the living. That’s it….”

Soft blue lighting and the snuggliest lightweight comforter Peter ever sank his fingers into. He squinted blearily at the rattling cup that swung into his vision, then grumbled incoherently when it shook again.

“Ice chips. Doctor Cho’s suggestion. Hate to rush you, but I have six… make that five and a half minutes before Helicopter Dad comes back from coffee break and chews me out for being here. I need your full attention.”

The ice cooled Peter’s throat and cleared the heavy fog in his head. He glanced around the room, marking the non-standard lighting and Ned sitting back in a fairly luxurious waiting chair, pretending to look at his phone.

“He’s holding down the fort,” Tony explained as he set down the cup. “Mom and Big Sis are sleeping. Toomes only left with the expectation that Ted would keep an eye on you. Plausible deniability says I’m just a virtual recording or a delusion of your concussed brain.”

“Not supposed to look at screens with a concussion,” Peter mumbled.

“Delusion it is,” Tony established. “Gonna cut to the chase, kid. Fred is going to listen to his cartoon and you’re going to tell me the honest truth. Just between the two of us.”

Peter knew the question before it was tactfully layered. He just wasn’t sure if he knew the answer.

“You don’t have to say anything,” Tony murmured, lowering himself to one knee like he didn’t intend to miss a single word. “Just one signal. You know what I’m talking about.”

He demonstrated the silent call for help, tucking in his thumb and folding over four fingers.

“That’s all I need and you never have to worry again,” Tony urged.

The potential gripped Peter’s chest and it hurt. Everything that his eight-year-old self wanted (that secret longing when all he had was a plastic visor and a red and yellow crayon), he could have it now. All it took was one admission.

One ultimate betrayal.

He could do this. He was Spider-Man.

(But then, Adrian Toomes didn’t adopt for him because he was a superhero. He didn’t snatch the adoption papers away the first time Peter messed up. He carried him home.)

Spider-Man made every decision so simple. Peter Parker couldn’t judge the line between heroes and villains anymore.

He made his choice.

“My dad saved me,” Peter said softly. No more doubt. He was choosing the future he believed would come true. “He killed the Vulture because he loves me.”

Rather than argue, Tony looked… crestfallen. Like he’d just seen the door slam shut on a perfect future. “Okay, kid,” he said, squeezing Peter’s shoulder twice, like a silent goodbye. “If that’s what happened. Doctor Cho cleared you to head home by the end of the week.”

A hesitant pause, and then he added in a softer voice still, “If… the Vulture ever comes back from the dead… one text and I’ll find you. I promise.”

The implications washed over Peter with the aching loss of a lifetime he would never know. “He’s not coming back,” he whispered, denying any tears that trickled into the pillow. “He’s gone.”

“I’ll believe it when I see it,” Tony murmured, looking down to type something into his phone. He held it up on the dimmest light setting, showing Peter a picture of his own pensive face from that moment he got his hand stuck in one of Tony’s gauntlets. “Got your number set to auto pickup. If I can’t get to the phone, Friday will reroute to Pepper. Also, I’m reinstating the internship starting yesterday. You’ll get a key fob and everything.”

Everything couldn’t just slide back to the way it was. It was way too easy.

Peter was too tired to worry about the catch.

“Thank you, Mister Stark,” he whispered.

Dark eyes carried only grief. “Don’t thank me, kiddo,” Tony answered. “If I was really helping you, I wouldn’t let you go back.”

He slipped out with that cryptic statement a scarce thirty seconds before Adrian returned, balancing a tray of four coffee cups, an overnight gym bag and his phone.

“I told you, Phineas, the order’s off the table,” he lectured in a near whisper. “I got a couple kids to think about.”

Ned shuffled anxiously, pulling Adrian’s attention to the bed. He hung up on the speaker and turned off his phone completely.

“Hey,” Adrian whispered, balancing the tray on a chair before crouching beside the bed. “You in there, Pete? You feeling any pain?”

‘You did this,’ Peter could say. ‘I don’t feel safe. I want Mister Stark.’

That wasn’t the Vulture’s remorse bleeding out of green eyes, however. That was the same look that made Captain America fight for the Winter Soldier. Peter didn’t get it then. (He was so immature.)

“Hey, Dad,” he whispered, claiming the words and basking in the disbelief that flooded Adrian’s face.

Tentatively Adrian reached out. A tear slid down his cheek when Peter leaned into his hand. “Nothing’s ever going to happen to you again, Peteo,” he swore. “I’m coming home.”

Peter’s spidey sense didn’t even twinge. Closing his eyes, he let himself fall.

This time, he trusted his dad would catch him.

The last time Peter woke up in a hospital bed, the two most important people in his world sat beside him. (Two weeks later, the bill was sent to collection.)

He felt two warm hands around each arm and he wanted to believe he was waking up from a long, terrible dream.

“Peter?” Doris prompted. One hand detached to card back his hair and the dream slipped seamlessly into reality.

“Sorry I crashed the plane,” Peter mumbled. “M’I going to juvie?”

Fabric rustled near the end of the cot as Liz snorted wetly, probably wiping her eyes. “Well, you landed detention for the next month after leaving the campus.”

“You back with us, sport?” Adrian said with muted enthusiasm.

Right. His dad was a retired crime boss slumped on power withdrawal. 10/10 worst bout of Parker Luck ever.

Prying his eyes open, Peter looked from one visitor to another. A mom, a dad and an older sister. His perfect, flawed family.

Maybe Spider-Man should have turned in the Vulture. Peter Parker couldn’t do it.

“Dad, are you gonna stay?” he asked softly. “Are you gonna… be here now?”

Understanding sheared unflinching eyes, sparking a swell of grief and shame. “Yeah, kid,” Adrian said with a faint crackle of bewildered relief. “No more out-of-state work for me. Never again. You two are my priority now.”

“We’re putting a vote out for vacation destinations,” Liz said with perturbed, forced cheer, looking between her parents like they’d unraveled a puzzle without her. “Mom wants to visit family in Portland. I told her Disneyland, but….”

“No amusement parks,” Doris and Adrian declared on cue.

Clearing his throat anxiously, Peter looked at his circle of special people and dared himself to say it out loud. “Can I still be Spider-Man?”

“Absolutely not,” Doris said. She waited cruelly for Peter’s hopes to slump before adding, “Not until you’re eighteen. Until then, no more solo patrols.”

“You’ll, uh, train under Mister Stark,” Adrian said. Green eyes were suspiciously misted and reluctantly grateful. He squeezed Peter’s hand twice; the first sorry for something they’d never talk about again. “We, uh… worked out a plan with his legal team. The internship will continue as planned. You’ll work directly with the Avengers.”

“You get a new suit,” Liz said wistfully. “It looks way better than the original.”

“And he added more failsafes,” Doris said primly. “So no disabling the Training Wheels program.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Peter whispered.

“Mom and Dad get all the uploads from the Baby Monitor footage,” Liz snickered.

Yeah. Spider-Man was screwed.

Worst year of his life, definitely. The finale, though?

He’d wouldn’t trade it. Maybe Spider-Man needed to see beyond the black and white webs of justice. If Tony Stark could shift from an egomaniac to a philanthropist, then maybe there was room for the Vulture to change, too.

Peter was willing to chance it.

“You’re sure about this? I mean, really, absolutely sure. You absolutely want to go….”

With him, Tony left unsaid. One more chance for Peter to ‘fess up and admit his dad nearly killed him.

“Yeah,” Peter said firmly. “I promised Mom I’d take the summer off before starting the internship. We’re going to tour all fifty states.”

“You’re killing me, kid,” Tony sighed. He leaned back against the table, as mournful as a kid being told he had to wait for a puppy to finish growing up before he could it home. Grimly he admitted, “The world would be a friendlier place if there were more people like Spider-Man. Fine. Seems I can’t stop you. Leave your shoes at the door. Safest place in New York if you ever need a landing pad. You’ve got my number.”

“Thank you, Mister Stark.”

Two words said it all. No police interrogation. No prosecution. No DNA scraping. No CPS called down on the Toomes homestead. 

(A small part of Peter would always wonder if the trade would have made him happier. If he should have trudged into Pepper’s office and confessed everything, believing the Starks would protect him from the foster system.)

He never had to find out, and that was good enough. Waving goodbye, Peter scampered to the stairwell and jumped each flight, finally springing free on the ground floor. Adrian saluted him from the car, pointing to the phone at his ear.

“I told you, that’s a load-bearing wall! You can’t just punch holes in it!”

Huh. Who knew his dad would find a future in the home renovation business. Grinning, Peter flung the passenger door open and slid inside.

This was just the start of the best year of his life. Parker Luck?

Never heard of it.