Chapter Text
Tony wakes up early these days.
It’s not really on purpose, and according to Pepper (can she really always be right?) it’s not super healthy, considering the hour he usually passes out around. But Friday’s taken it upon herself to blast as much sunlight as she can into the Compound, and the catering Pepper’s hired is usually creating all kinds of smells and breakfast-sounds by sunrise, so it’s hard to be mad.
It’s always weird, walking in on a literal god eating an omelette. It’s weirder to see the just-above-average guy behind him. Cap’s not trying too hard to make conversation anymore, and Tony prays he’s gotten the hint. Barnes is gone. Tony didn’t offer any condolences when he heard.
The second Pepper’s third term, he’s high-tailing it out of the Compound and hiding them both upstate. Done with the Avengers. Over. He won’t even be jealous when they start dating someone new.
He’s already got half the city’s construction workers on the cabin, and sooner or later he’ll get Happy to organise the move. He won’t mess it up this time. No Spider-lings around to crash the cargo planes.
One of the caterers spots Tony loitering and offers him a latte, placing it on the bench between them. It’s got a fancy little squiggle on top, some kind of bird, and it’s in one of his own mugs. Fe, then man beneath it. Probably the tackiest thing he owns, and the most convoluted. Didn’t Peter get him this one?
He slides the mug back. “I’ll just take it black.”
“Of course, Mr. Stark,” the caterer smiles. He should give these guys a raise, or something.
Tony makes it to his lab with a different coffee in a different mug. He’d taken a sip as soon as he’d gotten it, maybe to prove a point or be petty, and now his tongue’s burnt.
“Fri, how much are we paying those caterers?”
“$30 an hour, Boss.”
That’s, like, three lattes. “Is that a lot?”
“That’s close to triple the minimum wage for food service workers.”
“Ah,” he nods. “Seems reasonable, then. Any updates?”
“The location of Thanos and the Infinity Stones is still unknown. Would you like a rundown of the activity in New York instead?”
“Sure,” he sighs, falling to lay on the couch.
“There are witness accounts that Daredevil, assumed to have been a victim of the Snap, is operating again in Hell’s Kitchen. Hawkeye left the compound at 1:26am and performed low-level vigilante work for four hours in lower Manhattan. And at 3:05am, CCTV captured a Spider-Man lookalike interfering during a mugging in Queens.”
Tony jolts, and half the coffee spills on his jeans. “What?”
“CCTV has captured a Spider-Man lookalike interfering during a mugging in Queens. The perpetrator was discovered by police this morning, restrained by webs.”
“Go and get a sample of those webs,” he orders.
He hardly notices the drones launching, fluttering to life from across the workshop. A lookalike?
“Friday, show me the footage.”
An empty alleyway appears. The videos’ grainy, the framerate slow; it’s almost in blinks that a woman appears, then a man, then the gun he raises to her head. She hands her purse over, she tucks her head into her arms; then Spider-Man himself appears, swinging into action. It’s a different suit than Peter’s, lower quality. But he has the same moves, the same webs— he sticks to the wall as a bullet ricochets below him, and Tony can tell that he’s not a huge guy; he’s lean and small, like a teenager. Like Peter.
“What are the chances that two people have gotten this specific mutation?”
“According to Oscorp’s project files, there were ten spiders undergoing radiation trials. All died within three days of infection, and one was reported missing from its enclosure. According to Peter, it died shortly after biting him.”
“Human experimentation?” He guesses. “They might’ve tried on mammals after the spiders, then moved on to humans.”
“There are no accessible records of any mammal or human trials, but that doesn’t mean they didn’t occur. What would you like me to look into, Boss?”
“I want you following this guy, everywhere. We need to see him unmasked. Where did he go after the mugging?”
“He appears to be avoiding CCTV. I lose him after a block.”
“Fuck, okay.” Tony rubs a hand over his face, pinching the bridge of his nose. His eyes stay squeezed shut. “Next time he’s seen, I want a tracker on him straight away, and one of the cloaked drones recording everything. I need to know where he lives and who he is.”
“On it, Boss.”
Kelsey starts her evening, as she usually does, at the deli on 42nd.
She’s got it all figured out. If she leaves at 6:15, she’s got ten minutes to get a coffee and dunkaroos, then half an hour left to eat her breakfast and smoke a cigarette on the fire escape before she has to clock in. The asshole of a neighbour she shares the escape with, Jerry, goes to the bar for his daily Guinness in the same hour, so Kelsey can smoke in peace without him bitching at her from his window.
By the time she’s settled, the coffee’s burning a ring of heat into her thigh, and her shitty lighter’s playing up. She wobbles and some of the coffee tips over the gap in the lid, which escalates into near-catastrophe when she reaches for it and the cigarette tumbles from her fingers.
“Ugh.” She picks it up from the grate, does her best to brush off whatever grime it's collected. Beggars can’t be choosers, she figures as she lights it.
There’s a scream from the alleyway below (no, above?) and Kelsey jumps, whipping her head around to find the source and feeling the rest of her coffee scald her upper thigh just as what looks to be a giant, extravagant bird blurs past. A very colourful bird, with a very human yell.
What a waste of three bucks. And she’ll have to change her jeans, and get them to the laundromat before the coffee stains. The dumpster rattles as the bird-man crashes into it, and Kelsey watches as it groans, shakes its head and finally rolls off, leaving a human-shaped dent in the lid.
“Hey, are you okay?” she calls, mainly so she can see if it chirps back.
“I’m good!” The thing calls— and it’s not really a thing, since she can hear and see it now. It’s just some guy in a spandex suit.
“Were you on my roof?”
“I don’t actually—” he scratches the back of his head, looks around. “I dunno how I got here. Is this still Queens?”
“Brooklyn,” replies Kelsey. “Did you fly? Can you fly?”
He groans, then peeks out to see the street. “No, I can’t fly. That would be pretty cool. I was just fighting some guy, and then… hey, sorry about your dumpster.”
“It’s fine,” shrugs Kelsey. “Building manager doesn’t give a shit. You didn’t, like, break your back falling on that, right?”
“Nah.” He stretches, swinging his arms back and forth. When he looks up she sees his mask’s buggish eyes, and narrows her own.
“Wait, I know you. Aren’t you an Avenger?”
The bug-eyes widen. “No, I mean— Yeah, kinda, but I’m not—”
“Yeah, you’re Spider-Man! Didn’t you die?” she continues, coffee forgotten. “Iron-Man announced it and everything! He even cried, that’s where that gif comes from! You dusted in space with that wizard guy, that’s what he said. Did they leave you stranded like The Martian?”
“The Martian? Hey, great movie, Miss— but no, uh, I came back with everyone else, remember?”
Kelsey’s seen that gif of Tony Stark wiping his tears to remember pretty well that no, no way, Spider-Man didn’t come back. “Did you hit your head or something? You should get that checked out, my sister’s ex-boyfriend’s younger cousin once hit her head, and she seemed totally fine until she went to sleep. Then she died.”
“Yeah, uh. Thanks for your concern, but it’s just a headache.” He slaps the ball of his palm against his head, like he’s trying to get water out of his ears. “God, but this one kills.”
“You look different,” says Kelsey. “Wasn’t Spider-Man, like, twelve? That’s why you were always hanging out with Tony Stark, ‘cause you’re his illegitimate son.” She narrows her eyes. “You don’t look twelve. Doesn’t even look like the same suit, actually.”
“People still think I’m twelve?” he squawks.
She wasn’t far off about the bird thing. “No, seriously. Who are you? Because you’re not Spider-Man.”
“Uh, yeah I am,” he argues. “Who else would I be?”
“I dunno, an imposter? A creep?”
She reaches for her phone to take a photo, and apparently the guy can sense it because he jumps back a foot like he’s been startled.
“I gotta— I gotta get home, alright? Stay safe!” He shouts, backing up onto the street. “And don’t smoke, it’s bad for you!”
Kelsey wrinkles her nose, but still waves him off as he leaves. She can smoke if she wants, what’s he gonna do? She goes to flick the ash and half the stick crumbles, coating her pants in rubbery ash. Whatever. At this point, she’s probably late for work anyway.
Tony has a bowl of cereal and a couch meant for ten people, all to himself. After a tender call from Pepper, he’s been forced out of the workshop and told to relax, which is code for chill out. He’s feeling normal. Very, very normal.
“Is this one of those Star Wars?”
Tony would startle, but he doesn’t want to give Steve the satisfaction. “This is Return of the Jedi. Don’t you have a TV in your room?”
Steve shrugs; sits on the very end of the couch, as far away from Tony as he can. “I don’t like watching it alone. Television’s supposed to be something you experience with others.”
“Ever heard of the Digital Era?” Tony scoffs. “Media is for the individual, and theatres are dying out. We’re not doing movie nights, if that’s what you’re soft-launching.”
Steve sighs and angles himself so he’s facing Tony, hands clasped together and elbows on his knees. Tony, laying back with his feet up, suddenly feels like a psychiatric patient. Hopefully Cap hasn’t noticed.
“I heard about Spider-Man.”
Tony sits up faster than he can recalibrate. His cereal wobbles, some milk splashes over the sides. “You didn’t hear diddly-squat.”
“I thought we should talk about—”
“—No, no, I knew you would do this—” Tony’s abandoning any pretense of relaxing, trying to powerwalk around the couch and back to his workshop with Captain America-proof walls before Steve catches him.
“I saw you come off that ship, I know how much he meant to you!”
“I have plenty of fine therapists at my disposal, Dr. Rogers, I don’t need to go crying to you.”
Steve finally stands, towering. “Tony, I know you, alright?”
“God, yeah.” Tony rolls his eyes, half-laughing. “How could I forget? You know me so well, you even knew how my parents died before I did.”
“I told you—” Steve pauses, swallows. Tony can tell he’s ashamed, because he looks at Tony’s chest rather than in his eyes, like he can still see the shield there, carved right into the reactor. “I’m sorry.”
Tony should say it back. He can’t quite manage. “Steve, if this is really him, then it’s not just him. I mean, what if they didn’t really die? How do we know they didn’t just… go somewhere else?”
“Tony…”
“This means you could get Barnes back.” Tony swallows, clenches his fist. “It’s not just the kid. If it’s really— if it turns out to be him, that means they all have a chance. Don’t look at me like you’re sorry, man. I’m not stalking some random guy. This is a copycat with the exact same powers. How many people do you know who can stick to walls?”
“I just…” Steve takes a big, deep breath, chest puffing out. “I don’t want you to get your hopes up only to be disappointed. Spider-Man inspired people, this could just be another kid who wants to do good like his favourite hero. But the reminder could be triggering to you.”
“Don’t use your therapy words on me, Rogers, I’m a grown man.”
“What, so that makes you incapable of feeling? Because I know that’s not true.”
There is no way in hell that Tony’s letting Cap think he’s won this little quarrel. “Look, this is an enhanced vigilante either way. All I’m doing is looking out for him.”
“The way you looked out for the kid, right?”
Oof. Low blow, Mr. Rogers. “I don’t know what you think you’re implying, but you’re not my shrink, and you’re not my friend. You’re not my captain either, alright? I’m not taking orders from you.”
Steve’s face twists into that not-mad-disappointed look he sometimes gets, and Tony would wipe it clean off if it didn’t mean breaking his fingers in the process. “Alright. You’re right, Tony. I shouldn’t have overstepped. I’ll let you get back to your film.”
Steve takes a slow, dawdling exit, like he’s waiting for Tony to call him back, and soon enough Tony’s left standing in the middle of an empty living room with an almost-empty bowl of cereal. He should check in with the construction guys, see how the cabin’s going.
I feel the conflict within you. Let go of your hate, says Luke Skywalker. Shit, Tony thinks. He’s missing the best part.
Tony’s only ever used YouTube to hate-watch his opponent's speeches (and maybe review a few of his own), and right now he’s very much feeling his age.
The comments on this thing are anarchist. Not one ounce of productivity, just meaningless letters all squished together in an apparently universal language Tony hasn’t caught onto. Nobody’s wondering why or how Spider-Man seems to be back six months after Tony himself announced his death. It’s all just, Lmfaoo bro died just to miss the red sox win. Ngl missed him lol. Unintelligible.
The videos themselves aren’t unlike the ones Tony first saw when he started tracking the kid. It’s just the one appearance, though, or at least the one day— this Spider-Thing (Spider-Imposter? Pretender-Man.) swings through an intersection at 8:09, is seen scaling a train in Brooklyn at 8:35, and at 9:19 he stops a mugging in Queens. Apparently the resurgence of so much colour brought a lot of attention, because there’s about a dozen grainy, handheld, useless videos of each sighting.
There’s an upgrade on his suit, though— from the crime-fighting pyjamas he was originally sporting, obviously. It’s still a downgrade from both of the suits Tony made him. But it’s not one Tony’s seen before, and that’s added to a list of about a thousand reasons to be suspicious of this guy.
Onto the next video. Tony watches it with the nail of his thumb in his mouth, gnawing a little divot. Maybe he’ll scratch Cap next time he sees him, he won’t be expecting that. With enough luck, he can pass it off as an accident, like; sorry big guy, was just trying to feel your biceps. Didn’t mean to draw blood.
Pretender-Man has the web-slinging down to a tee. He’s a little more buff than Peter as far as Tony can tell, and his technique’s a little less flashy, but he’s got all the right mannerisms, and apparently the right powers. That makes him dangerous. Tony’s doing the right thing, keeping an eye out.
“Fri, any updates on that drone?”
“Unable to be deployed,” she replies. “Spider-Man has yet to be seen since his first appearance five days ago.”
“What about the webs?”
Again, the video’s blurry, but they look just about the same. Not much you can gauge from three pixels of white string. The sample he managed to snatch from the 105th precinct seemed fluffier, almost, but it could be from degradation.
“It appears to be spider silk, sir.”
“Yeah, I know, but what’s it made of?”
“Spidrois, composed of alanine and glycine primarily. Would you like a breakdown of its chemical composition?”
“No, I mean the kid’s webs, not an actual spider’s,” Tony snaps. He’s sure he couldn’t make an AI this dim-witted if he tried. “Are they the same as Peter’s?”
“They’re not,” she confirms, and Tony slams his laptop shut before looking at it can make his chest tighter.
“Yeah,” he breathes. “Yeah, okay, so it’s not him. Couldn’t’ve been anyway, right? But now we’ve got some spider-guy on our hands with super-strength and— did you say alanine and glycine?”
“Yes.”
“Like the amino acids?”
“Yes.”
“Like… an actual spider’s.”
“Yes.”
“That last one wasn’t really a question,” says Tony, “but I get it, we had a flow going. So, what, he’s using actual spider-web fluid?”
“The lookalike’s webs appear to be a combination of human and spider DNA, primarily spider-presenting in their composition.”
“Did it look like he had web shooters, like Peter’s?”
“It doesn’t appear so.”
“Huh. You still have Peter’s DNA on file, right?”
“I do. Would you like me to compare it to the webs?”
“Read my mind.” Tony takes a sip of his coffee. This mug says Keep calm and carry iron.
“Results are in,” chimes Friday, and Tony perks up. “They don’t appear to match, but it’s inconclusive without a different sample from the lookalike. Based on the spider silk, there appear to be more genetic markers of a spider present in the lookalike’s DNA than Peter’s.”
Something about getting your hopes up rings in Tony’s ears. Sounds too much like Steve for Tony’s taste. “So this guy’s got all the strength of Spider-Man, plus the stickiness, plus organic webs?”
“It appears so,” replies Friday. “Although it cannot be confirmed whether he has the same durability, healing faction and enhanced senses as Peter Parker.”
“But it can be assumed,” says Tony, because why the hell not? “What do you think the chances are of that, Fri?”
“I can’t say for sure. I wasn’t about to find anything on human experimentation including spider DNA, but a super-soldier serum similar to the one used for Steve Rogers and James Barnes isn’t out of the picture. Chances would be low, however, in any case.”
“HYDRA, maybe?” mutters Tony. The divot in his thumbnail’s growing sharper. “I want helicopter-mom style tabs on him, Fri. This could be another Bucky.”
Twitter’s having a field day with Spider-Man’s supposed return. So he did die. Kelsey googled it and everything, just to make sure— and yeah, apparently he was dusted in space with Iron-Man and that wizard doctor. And now he’s magically back? She’s not so sure.
People will come around soon, but so far it seems like Kelsey’s the only one convinced this new Spider-Man’s an evil clone Tony Stark built in his lab, or an escaped convict using a superhero’s disguise to gain the public’s trust. Or a distraction from the government.
The worst part is that people are saying that since Spider-Man’s back, everyone will be coming back. Kelsey takes a drag, inhales too fast, and the smoke scratches her throat. It’s bullshit. It’s way too much senseless hope for a bunch of suckers who think Mommy’s gonna somehow get un-dusted. Kelsey saw it, everyone saw it— people don’t come back from that. She’s still worried she’s accidentally inhaling her boyfriend’s ashes whenever she dusts the apartment.
It’s not worth the argument. It’s also not worth damaging the reputation of her stan account, which hasn’t stopped her from cussing out all the idiots on her feed. But if there’s one thing she’s sure about, it’s that whoever this guy is, it’s not Spider-Man.
Mark her word, she’ll have #Faker-Man trending by the end of this week.
“Pep, you ever wanna get out of New York?”
Her eyes stay closed as she sleepily rolls over to rest on Tony’s chest, the tips of her fingers tapping the reactor. “Is this about the cabin?”
“That’s still in New York. I mean we go out of the state. We could go to… I dunno, London, Paris. Australia? That’s about as far as you can get, right?”
It’s dark, but he can hear her smiling. “You hate London, and Paris, and Australia. I know you. The furthest you’d put up with is Miami.”
“What about you, though?” asks Tony. “Where do you wanna go?”
Pepper’s head lifts, and she blinks slowly at him. “I’ve been to fifty-three countries. Which I’m very grateful about, but I’ve seen enough. You said you were tired, Tony. We’ve got the cabin, and that’s all we need.”
“I’ll make a fishing rod,” he replies. “With automatic bait and reeling. It’ll blow the rest of the fisherman out of the water, literally. Then we’ll live off of that, how’s that sound?”
“Don’t talk about fish right now,” groans Pepper. “I still can’t get the taste of that salmon coming back up out of my mouth. I’m never eating fish again.”
“Reverse-pescetarian. More power to you,” says Tony. “Baby mustn’t like it.”
“You’re already taking its side. Once this baby’s born, it’ll be the only person in the world you listen to.” She pauses, traces the faint glow emanating from beneath his shirt. It’s kind of like a night-light. “Are you really thinking about leaving New York? Not just going upstate?”
“What’s to say we can’t just… let it all go?”
“Oh, Tony,” she sighs. “You’ve never let anything go in your life.”
It’s weird, seeing your own memorial.
The mural is huge. It’s one of many, especially in Queens, but Peter’s seen them as far as New Jersey. Sometimes they’re just little tags, like doodles of his mask or RIP Spidey scrawled on the side of a bus. He’s seen a couple of them before, of course, but by the time he was de-blipped they’d mostly been painted over. He hadn’t realised…
His neck tingles and he jumps in backwards, just in time to be cussed out by the bike that nearly ran him over. Half of the population’s gone, and somehow New York is still stuck in a traffic jam. Avoiding the cyclist has sent Peter careening into the people behind him, and suddenly it’s chaos of Watch where you’re going! And Get out of the way! While Peter’s going Sorry, sorry until he’s safely ducked inside Delmar’s Sandwiches.
“Pete? No way, is that you?”
There’s a guy behind the counter, cutting tomatoes. He waves at Peter with the knife still in his hand, smiling even with bags under his eyes and a pallor to his skin. Everyone kind of looks like that, Peter’s realised.
“Rio,” Peter recognises. “Where’s Delmar?”
“Oh, man,” Rio sighs, shaking his head. “He didn’t make it. I’ve been trying to keep the place running in his honour, you know? Seriously, though, didn’t you—?”
Peter shakes his head. “No, no, I was just away for a while. Got stuck in all the chaos at the… airport. I only just got home.”
“Yeah, tell me about it,” Rio scoffs. “My sister was supposed to take a plane the day of the Snap, but it got delayed by an hour, thank God. Imagine if she was up in the sky while it happened, huh? Anyway, man, do you want a sandwich? You like it squished extra flat, right?”
“No, I…” Peter looks around, scanning the shop for a newspaper. “Do you know what the date is?”
Rio’s already cutting the bread. “The date? Something like the 22nd, I think. Are you still doing Thanksgiving?”
“Wait, it’s November?”
“Yeah,” Rio laughs. “What, you had a big night? Are you even old enough to drink?”
Peter swallows dryly. “What year is it?”
Rio pauses, looking up with furrowed brows and a half-smile. “2018. Pete, are you doing okay?”
“Oh,” Peter mumbles, suddenly short of air. “Yeah, I’m— don’t worry, I’m—” His knees are weak, and there’s really no point in even trying to stay upright anymore, so Peter folds in half so that his hands are resting on his knees, the blood rushing to his head. He’s messed up. He’s messed up so, so bad.
“Pete, man, what’s wrong?”
“Nothing, man, I just—” his voice is strained, hardly intelligible. “Oh, fuck.”