Work Text:
Walking into his lab seeing Peter was not strange. The kid has had free access to the lab for about two years at this point. What wasn't normal was the fact that three Peters were in his lab when Tony walked through the elevator doors. Now, that was odd.
But first, how exactly did the Peters end up in the same universe again?
-
“Alright, see ya, Pete. Don't do anything I wouldn't do… or anything I would do… y’know what? Just don't do anything.” Tony said, walking out to where Happy had the car waiting.
“Bye, have fun in Hong Kong, Mr. Stark!!” Peter waved excitedly from the door. Tony had left him with being in “charge” of the tower while he was gone (which consisted of buying groceries for himself and not making a mess for a week).
Tony sighed, getting into the backseat of the car. He watched out the window as Peter waved him off before sprinting back into the tower.
I mean, he had the whole tower to himself. For an entire week. How could he not be even remotely excited?
Peter was practically bouncing off the elevator walls as he rode it up to Tony’s private labs, excited to start working on the project he's been planning just for this week. He’d manage to slip in some simple tasks during the lab days with Mr. Stark, but nothing significant enough. But now… now he can really get down to work.
It takes a total of three days to get the portal machine up and running. By anyone else's standards, three days is a very, very short amount of time to create an inter-dimensional portal machine but to Peter, it just means three less days he gets to hangout with his friends from the other dimensions.
With Dum-E on standby, (which, granted, isn't the smartest choice, but it's all he had) Peter opens the portal and hops through, chanting his intentions in his head.
Low and behold, Peter pops out into Peter two’s bedroom.
Peter two startles awake from his deep slumber, glancing at the new person suddenly in his room.
He manages to get out a groggy ‘Hello?’ before Peter one basically tackles him into a bear hug. Peter two hugs back, albeit a bit confused at the situation at hand.
“Peter?” he grumbles.
“Peter!” Peter one shouts.
“How are you here?” Peter two says, pulling back from the hug.
“Built a portal machine, blah blah blah, cmon! We gotta go get Peter three.” Peter one clearly wants to waste no time with getting out of there.
Peter two obliges, popping up out of bed and throwing a couple outfits into his bag. He throws it over his shoulder, and gives Peter one a thumbs up before they jump into the portal together.
-
They emerge from the portal and into Peter three’s living room. Peter is there, chilling on his couch, mindlessly watching the TV. Peter three glances over, having to do a double take at the pair standing in his living room. He hops up off the couch, embracing Peter one and two in his arms.
“Peter! What are you guys doing here?” Peter three exclaims, pulling away to glance at the two of them.
“Peter made a portal machine, yada yada yada, let’s go!” Peter two rushes to say before dragging the other two through the portal once more.
The next time they hop out of the portal, they're back in Stark’s lab, panting from the quick dimension switches. Finally, Peter one thinks, now we can start hanging out.
“Okay. Explain.” Peter three gets out between gasps for air. The trio is wheezing. The journey between dimensions took a lot of energy out of the three Spider-Men.
“Peter-” Peter two begins at the same moment Peter one says, “I-” Their heads snap to look at each other in twin-like fashion. Peter three rolls his eyes at the two of them.
“One of you,” he says, pinching the bridge of his nose. He wasn’t the oldest out of the three of them, but God did it feel like it when they’re all together. By the time he’s done muttering to himself, Peter one is already halfway through an explanation that Peter three definitely was not paying attention to at all. But how could you blame him? His best friends or brothers or clones or whatevers just pulled him off the couch and into another dimension. Hell, he was supposed to hangout with Gwen later and he didn't even remember to write a note. Gwen was going to kill him!
“Wait, wait. restart. I wasn’t listening.” Peter three sighs.
“Peter!” Peter one and two groan simultaneously.
“Anyways… Mr. Stark is out in Hong Kong for a week and I have the entire tower to myself until Saturday. So I made a portal to hangout with you guys because Ned is upstate and I’m bored.” Peter one finished with a deep exhale. Peter three sighs. How exactly was he the responsible one, again?
“Alright. Whatever. We’re here now lets just hang-” Peter three said before getting cut off by FRIDAY.
“Incoming message for Peter.” FRIDAY said, her voice filled with something that sounded like… sympathy? Suddenly, before any of the trio could react, Tony Stark’s voice filled the room.
“Hey, Pete! My meetings in Hong Kong got cut short, thank every god there is. I’ll be home in what? An hour? Alright, see ya, kid.” And with that, Tony's voice disappeared. Peter was suddenly bright red ear to ear.
“F-FRI? How long ago did Mr. Stark send that message..?” Peter asked hesitantly.
“About, 55 minutes ago, Peter.” FRIDAY said sympathetically. And at that same moment, the elevator dings, and out steps, you guessed it, Tony fucking Stark.
Peter one’s head goes directly to his hands, avoiding all contact with Tony as possible. The other Peters just stand there hopelessly, careful and calculating Stark’s every move. After all, they haven’t ever met Tony. The only things they know about him are whatever Peter one had told them, which, granted, was a lot of things but they had a right to be cautious of Stark.
“Hey, ki…” Tony trails off, looking up to meet what he thought would only be one person’s set of eyes. He is instead met with two pairs and a very distraught looking Peter.
“Who are you two? Get out of my way.” He snaps at the other two. Tony pushes through them to get to Peter. “Kid? Roo?”
“Hi, Mr. Stark.” Peter one mumbles, not glancing up. “I’m so sorry i didn’t think you were gonna be home this early and I really wanted to hang out with them an-”
“Woah, woah. Hang out with who?”
“Peter and Peter.”
Tony finally takes a good look at the other two boys in the room, examining them.
“Pete,” Tony says cautiously, “who exactly are they?”
“Hi, I’m Peter.” they both say in unison.
“Well, we both are. Peter, that is. We’re both Peter Parker.” Peter two corrects as Peter three nods along. Tony stares at them in confusion.
“Am I dreaming?”
“Not dreaming, Mr. Stark… they’re me.. from other dimensions.” Peter mumbles. Tony just stares at him. “You're looking at me like I have three heads! … wait.. nevermind."
Peter two and three let out a surprised chuckle at that statement.
“Peter.”
“Yeah?” Three heads snap towards Tony in sync. Tony rubs his temple.
“My Peter.”
“Yeah?” only one voice says.
“How in the everliving fu- you know what? I don't think I want to know.” Tony sighs.
Tony takes a step back, looking at all three Peters at once. At that moment, the trio’s stomachs grumble all together and Tony sighs once more.
“Pizza?”
“Pizza.” The three Spider-men nod.
“Fine but then you are explaining how I left having one kid and came back home to three children.” Tony exclaims, pointing at Peter one. Peter nods. They all pile into the elevator, the three Peters talking about some Star Wars thing, Tony assumes. He doesn’t really know, too focused on whatever he just walked in on in his lab. But as the laughter of three boys fills the elevator, Tony cracks a real, genuine smile.
Yeah, he thinks, this is exactly where I want to be.