Chapter Text
Peter Parker would’ve never guessed that Tony Stark would become a dad to him, no one did. Everyone thought Tony was about as irresponsible as it got. Parties and drugs were practically his middle name.
I mean, sure, Tony had always been unreasonably supportive and kind towards Peter. But Peter thought the relationship ended at colleagues, maybe even close associates. Tony only wanted him when he was Spider-man, he never wanted the fifteen year old underneath the mask.
Then May died.
And it was like Tony unlocked a parent part of him that no one knew existed, seemingly not even Tony himself.
Tony had no hesitation signing the ‘permanent guardianship’ papers and sent his top lawyers off to argue with anyone who tried to steer him in any other way.
For the first couple days Peter stayed in his newly allocated room in the tower, where a few randomly dotted ‘Star Wars’ posters lay on his walls. No doubt the courtesy of Tony, and every time Peter looked at the posters, his heart sank a little. This wasn’t his room. He didn’t feel at place.
It took some time for Peter to get used to living with Tony (and occasionally Pepper), and he couldn’t help but feel like he was taking up space and a constant burden to the pair. So he tried to keep out of their way.
Eventually, he convinced Tony to let him get back in the suit and had to argue profusely about certain protocols and curfews for Spider-man’s adventures. They settled on an agreement of back by 10pm ( 11:30 on weekends) and the Baby Monitor Protocol remained on at all times. Peter wasn’t happy with this, but his longing to return to being Spider-man got the better of him.
So nearly every night Peter did patrols, it started off with low level stuff: small scale robberies, helping old ladies with groceries. Maybe even the occasional drug deal bust in a shady ally.
But as time went on, the crime rate increased. Peter didn’t know if this was due to Karen alerting him of more serious events as Tony came to trust Peter more, or just his crappy Peter luck.
Either way, Peter was now standing in the middle of three large men, at least five inches taller than him, all armed with some kind of extraterrestrial machinery.
This was going to be fun.
The guy Peter had allocated as ‘White gloves man’, towered over Peter, holding what looked to be a glowing green crossbow. The other two men (‘Purple mask’ and ‘Big beard’) carried a pistol each but Peter had no doubt there were some kind of grenades in their jackets. Unless they were just super-buff. Which could be the case, but Peter didn’t particularly want to risk it.
“Hey guys, I don’t know about you, but I have a bunch of Calculus homework due tomorrow ‘cause Mr Harrington doesn’t seem to grasp the concept of teenagers having social lives. I mean, I don’t, personally I do too much Spider-maning. But I’m here with you guys, and you’re people, right?” Peter rambled, and found himself wondering if they were, in fact, human.
All three men stared at him and raised their weapons “Tough crowd, jeez.” Peter said as he put his hands up in a surrendering motion “Since you guys don’t seem very talkative, I’ll make it easy for you. What I’m trying to say is, let’s make this quick”
As soon as Peter finished his sentence, he span round and launched a web at the wall opposite him, flinging himself up and away from the men, who all now stood haphazardly in a circle.
Peter used the momentum from the upwards launch to swing back towards the men and knock ‘Purple mask’ and his pistol (which was currently firing) to the ground. Peter made sure both the gun and the man were webbed to the ground before he turned the face the other two men, one of which was reloading his gun. And the other, ‘White gloves man’, stood with the crossbow pointed at Peter.
The hairs on Peter’s neck rose and Peter twisted out of the way of an arrow which flew past directly where his head was milliseconds ago. Big up his spidey sense.
Peter’s movements then became second-nature. His spidey sense meant he was able to dodge the bullets coming towards him. And except from the guns, these guys obviously didn’t know how to fight very well.
“You know, I don’t know where you guys come from, but in New York, a crossbow isn’t really that common a weapon. It’s kinda refreshing to see one. I’m almost bored of plain old guns and knifes, too predictable” Peter said as he wound around incoming bullets and the occasional arrow.
It didn’t take long for both the men to be webbed up against the wall, although Peter had to admit, he should have given more credit to the crossbow man, as he managed to pry his hand out of the webs and get one final, unexpected shot at Peter.
Unfortunately, Peter’s spider sense didn’t register the attack quite fast enough, so the arrow managed to graze Peter’s side.
Peter hissed at the sharp pain as the arrow nicked his skin
“Son of a bitch- come on man, I thought we were done. Right, no more weapons for you” Peter said as he broke the crossbow in half and shot an extra layer of webs at all the men. Just incase.
Peter examined the cut on his side, and there appeared to be some sort of goo in the wound left over from the arrow. But apart from that, when Peter gently pressed down on his side, there was only a lingering feeling of pain. No worse than anything he’s gotten before. He should be fine to swing back to the tower. No point telling Tony.
“Well, bye guys, fun fighting you and all, but like I said, Calculus homework” and Peter launched a web for a near building “Oh, and don’t do anymore crime, it’s bad!”
“Hey Karen, what’s the time” Peter said, suddenly remembering that it was Thursday and feared he had gotten carried away
“It is 22:07 Peter, your curfew was seven minutes ago, should I alert Mr. Stark?”
“No! No need, Karen. I’ll be home in a couple of minutes” Peter shouted, increasing his swinging speed and vaguely aware of the throbbing in his right side.