Chapter Text
Peter liked to keep his hood on when he walked to work, letting the coarse black cotton block out the noise. Not in the literal sense for once, no he had gotten good at tuning out the subway screeches and the sirens years ago. It was the city itself that had gotten loud.
It was the knowing that the red-nosed man sniffling on those steps with his hot coffee in hand, or the woman who whisked past him with her freshly groomed black and white pooch would have no problem turning on Peter in a moment’s notice if they just knew.
He quickly passed what used to be one of his favorite sub sandwich shops, the one that actually toasted the sandwich long enough for the cheese to melt. His eyes stayed trained to the ground, head low, all to avoid looking at the signage plastered across the windows.
However, as hard as he tried, he just couldn’t seem to avoid it. A protester stood at the corner of the street, flying a large red flag with the words “unmask the menace” in bold letters. The picture that accompanied it was of a spider who trapped its prey, only in this case, that prey was innocent civilians.
“No one is safe until he’s been caught!” The protestor chanted. Peter pushed forward without a second look.
Thankfully, Stark Industries wasn’t too far from the train station. He liked the new location, it was sleek and clean, although not nearly as iconic as the tower Tony sold a few years ago. Peter walked up the granite steps and went through the routine of scanning his Intern - Applied Sciences (Level 1) badge and going through security.
He hung his jacket on the stand next to his desk that truthfully would have been collecting dust if the place wasn’t so well kept, and then he went to find one of the engineers.
Mr. Kramer put him to work cleaning one of the testing rigs and then Ms. Chantel told him to organize some of the chemical inventory in the back section of the lab. Midway through, good ol’ Richard Blackwell called him to make a coffee run.
“Paul, did you ask for extra sugar packets?” The grumpy scientist asked upon the intern’s return. Peter stuck his hand in his pocket and handed over five extra. It was a pretty entry level internship, but it was better than nothing, and Peter had been more than grateful to Professor Crosby for helping him land it.
He remembered how oddly familiar it felt walking into the building for the first time. Peter had never been there before, but it was just so Tony Stark. It took a couple days to get over any hope he had of seeing his previous mentor again, though he knew he would never have the same relationship with Tony as he once did, and anyway that's not why he took the job. Realistically speaking, it was so low level that he wouldn't ever cross paths with Mr. Stark. He took the job because he was desperate. It paid a little more than what he made at the pizza joint, and he'd be doing stuff that might actually distract him from everything else.
Turns out it was a lot more rushing around as an errand boy than there was inventing. From day one, the scientists had never really looked his way unless they needed to use him for something. He didn’t let it bother him too much, at least he was still getting paid the same.
The days did feel long though, and he had no passion for cleaning up other people’s messes. Well, not as Peter. It was different when he put on the mask. Spider-Man cleaned messes that kept people safe. At least he used to. Peter quickly brushed the thought away and tried to focus on his tasks. The day continuing on in its normal slow fashion until eventually everyone had left and it was just Peter in the lab by himself.
All he had to do was finish tidying up some documents on one of the desks and then he could go home, but his eye was caught by one of the whiteboards. He had seen it loads of time, he just never actually had the chance to really look at it. There was always another task that needed to be done, and the scientists didn't really like his hovering, but there were no scientists to shoo him off now.
The whiteboard had all sorts of formulas scribbled across it, progressively getting more jagged and hard to read with each line, still, it was some pretty intense math. It seemed that they were trying to figure out how to regulate the heat on one of their machines, but were treating the heat dispersion like a standard electrical circuit when clearly they needed to account for the tensile friction. That was actually something he had had to figure out in his own webslinging tech.
Without even putting much thought into it, Peter walked up, grabbed the blue dry-erase marker, and drew a strike through their current formula before writing out a much better one. There, now they can actually proceed with their mad scientist stuff.
Feeling satisfied with his work for the day, and with one last glance at that whiteboard, he reacquired his thin, beat up jacket and said goodbye to the security guard, Chris, on his way out the door. He liked Chris, Chris was chill.
Peter began his walk through the cold streets of Manhattan back to the train station. The wind bit through his clothes and stung his nose as he went, and he drew his elbows closer to his sides to try and stay warmer. Of course, he couldn’t help but pause on the same street, just like every time he passed it.
The one with the coffee shop that had the blue and white logo. Peter Pan Donut & Pastry Shop it read on the front in a soft neon glow. Peter pulled his hood lower and slipped over to the side of the building, hugging the wall as he made it to the window that he often stared into.
How could he resist it, all he hoped was to catch even a glimpse of the girl on the other side of the counter. Her dark, curly hair was tied back into a low pony tail, and Peter’s pulse spiked when he noticed that she had more makeup on than usual. Did she have plans after her shift? Was she going somewhere with someone else?
His stomach twisted into a painful knot as he watched her closing up the shop. Deep in his jacket pocket, his fingers brushed against the fabric, expecting the folded slip of paper he’d carried for months after the spell. He could walk in right now. He could tell her everything.
And then what?
What would she say? What could she possibly have to say after all these years? It wouldn’t be fair, not to either of them.
And even still, he waited there, breath clouding the air in front of him, lingering long past the point of being normal, and it was only then that he finally blinked his tired eyes and pressed on into the cold night.
Peter wondered how many more times he’d be able to catch her there before she was gone. She hated that job, it was just a way to fund her dreams at MIT. But until she did leave, he would watch for her. He would try to gather any morsel of information that was dropped into his lap just to know what she was up to and if she was still doing okay.
She’s still roommates with Ned, isn't she? Were they still eating takeout on that musty old apartment floor? Did Ned still…
Peter bit down on his lip so hard he expected to taste copper. He refused to go down that rabbit hole right now. They were better without him there, happier, safer. He made the right choice, even though it left him feeling empty and numb to not have them there.
When he got back to his room he showered and changed into something more comfortable before sliding across the floor in his desk chair over to his computer. No new notifications, which meant no new sightings, and no new leads. He let out a deep sigh and asked his AI companion E.V. if there’d been anything in the news about the return of Spider-Man, but there was nothing.
So in defeat, he decided to watch YouTube until he was too tired to move. He pulled himself out of his chair and laid on the bed. His eyes drifted to the red and blue suit that was draped on one of the moving boxes he had never unpacked. A thin layer of dust had settled across it, and Peter sighed as his head sank back into his lumpy pillow.
But, he didn’t sleep. Instead he laid there awake, fighting the memory of MJ, Ned, May, Tony. He wondered if things might’ve gone differently if Mr. Stark wasn’t in ICU while Mysterio wreaked havoc on the city. Maybe Tony could have even cleared his name, after all, everyone knows that Tony Stark is Iron Man.
Now, Tony doesn’t even remember who he was.
— — —
The next day started just like the rest. Still no new notifications according to E.V., so off to work he went with his hood over his head like always. He signed into Stark Industries, went through security and…everyone was staring at him?
Peter tried to remain calm as the eyes of the scientists followed him across the room. Even the assistants and the janitor were stuck in place and a few of them whispered to each other. Did he have something on his face?
Richard walked up to him the second he noticed he was there. “Peter, are you really responsible for this?”
He remembered my name? Peter stared at the engineer with confusion, eyes wide. “Responsible for…what?” He laughed awkwardly and Richard walked him over to the whiteboard.
“Security says that you were the one who changed this formula. Is that true?” Richard scrunched his eyebrows and stared down at the boy. Peter’s mind jolted, the security really picked that up? It was such a meaningless thing… “I’m sorry Dr. Blackwell, I didn’t mean to mess up your–”
“So it was you.”
Peter turned to the voice that came from across the lab. The sound of it all too familiar. His blood turned to ice and suddenly he found any thought he would have had decided to jump out the window, his mind went blank.
“Did Dr. Banner sneak in here dressed as a high schooler, or did you actually fix a six-variable thermal expansion equation with a blue dry-erase marker?” Tony Stark drifted smoothly across the floor with purpose and came to a stop in front of Peter.
“I–I uh,” Peter’s mouth went dry, panic rising slowly through his chest. Mr. Stark doesn’t recognize me. The realization left the room spinning.
It wasn’t that he didn’t already know that, obviously speaking, but sometimes the reality doesn’t settle until it’s smacking you in the face.
“Well don’t get your ribbons in a twist, it’s a simple yes or no answer.” Tony checked his watch and looked at the board for a second time before locking eyes with Peter again.
“Yes…Mr. Stark…I did mess with the equation and I’m so sor–”
“Don’t be sorry for one-upping some of my top scientists, kid, they’re fine. Right Richy?” Richard stammered for a second and Tony snorted. “Great, so who are you?”
Peter tried to swallow and gather his thoughts. “...Peter Parker, sir.” He said almost in a falsetto, still processing the moment. Tony didn’t even respond to the sound of his name. It had already happened so many times before but somehow that didn’t make it easier.
“Parker, awesome, did you just wake up one day with a sign from God and come up with the exact numbers we needed to fix our little thermal dispersion problem or is this just a normal Tuesday for you?” Tony tilted his head, probably curious, maybe offended, Peter wasn’t really paying attention to that.
“Well it was nothing, I saw it kind of sitting there and I thought maybe it would be helpful if I added the equation because I don’t know, maybe they were stuck in a blind spot, and I didn’t erase any of their numbers I just kind of scratched it out and hopefully that didn’t ruin anything and–” Peter rambled on before catching on to Tony’s impatient expression.
Peter exhaled. “The polymer chains cause negative thermal expansion along the axis when generating hyper-localized tensile friction at the contact points, so in order to disperse the heat you would need to account for that tensile friction.” Peter pointed timidly at the board and then looked between it and Tony again, not really sure what else the billionaire wanted.
Tony nodded his head and sharply inhaled. “Alright. Follow me, kid.”
Peter cast a quick, nervous glance around the silent lab. “Where are we going?”
“To get you a badge that actually lets you touch things.” Tony said, thumb flying across his phone and muttering a coffee order to FRIDAY.
“You’re giving me a promotion?” Peter smiled, but not like a happy excited smile, it was thin and automatic. The kind that kicked in when he didn’t know how else to respond.
“What, would you prefer to stay here scrubbing tool kits?”
Peter chuckled nervously. “Well it was just a thermal dispersion problem. I don’t think–”
“That you’re qualified? You’re overqualified. Now shut your yapper and let's go.” And without another word he walked off.
Feeling like he wasn’t given any option other than to follow, Peter tagged along a couple steps behind Tony, his mind trying to keep up with the whiplash. To Mr. Stark, Peter was just some random boy genius, but to Peter?
He fought down the memories that flooded back to him as he silently followed his old mentor. His eyes dropped to the floor as he was brought back to the battlefield where they fought Thanos, where Iron Man nearly died sacrificing himself for the universe. Yet, Peter wasn't there in Tony's mind. Only Spider-Man was.
His stomach churned as he followed Tony up the elevator and into a new lab space. The floor plan was pretty similar to the one they were just in, but the level of quality far exceeded it. Peter had to keep his jaw from dropping as he walked around the place. Excitement slowly washing away some of the grief he'd felt moments ago.
“Will this meet your standards?” Tony asked as he finished typing something on his phone and looked up at Peter.
“Are you kidding, there’s a real arc reactor in here!” Peter walked up to it and bent down to get a closer look. “Whoa and it’s tiny too.” Was he dreaming? This was the coolest place he’d ever been in. “When do you want me to start?” He asked, half serious, half to prove how excited he was.
“How does right now sound? Keith!” He waved a finger at one of the scientists who rushed to Tony and Peter. “This is your new colleague, do not underestimate him. K, I have some Iron Man shit to do, good luck kid.”
Peter's head spun to watch Tony as he walked off. That tugged on Peter’s heart. He normally didn’t like when people called him kid, but every time Tony said it, he nearly got choked up.
And just as fast as he appeared, Tony was gone. Peter wasn’t surprised by it, Mr. Stark had always been like that, and even that pulled on something inside of him, nostalgia? More grief? Probably a mix of both, but Peter didn’t dwell on it.
However, Mr Stark did just leave him in a room full of brilliant scientists and engineers who had no idea who he was. Also a very Tony Stark thing to do. It took him back to the time Tony brought him along to fight Captain America. Tony hadn't actually seen him in action, or even knew entirely what he was capable of. Yet, he gave Peter the opportunity anyways.
Keith had started to make his way to the other scientists and Peter snapped out of the memory to rush over and see what they were doing, trying to key in on what exactly was being built here. Hopefully up here he'd actually get to "touch things" as Tony had said. Mr. Keith introduced him to the others, reiterated what Tony said, and then went back to his own workstation.
“How old are you, kid?” One of the other scientists asked, Peter had already forgotten his name.
“I’m twenty.” He replied. “Uhm, what can I get started on?”
“Could you bring me that kit over there?” The scientist nodded in the direction and Peter hastily went to bring it to him.
The scientist had Peter pull out a couple of the gadgets inside and hand them to him as he pieced them together and soldered them to the device on the table. “Whoa is that like a high-frequency sonic gun?” Peter inquired, leaning in to what the scientist was doing.
“Mhm.” The scientist answered dismissively. Peter took the hint, he was focused on the project and didn’t need to be pestered with questions. Buttt, Peter had so many to ask. “That would be good for disrupting missile trajectory, right?” The scientist nodded. “Has it taken a while to build?” A sigh escaped the man. He set down the tools and looked up at Peter.
“You know, I think Dr. Watts would greatly appreciate your assistance in her section.” He gave a tight smile.
Peter smiled back. “Oh, okay. Right.” He then clumsily shifted passed the man and over to find whoever Dr. Watts is.
He scanned the room, feeling uncomfortable standing there doing nothing while he tried to scout for the woman. One of the others said her name and he quickly made his way to her workstation. “Dr. Watts, it’s so nice to meet you. I’m Peter Parker.”
“Very nice.” She said to him before focusing back on her conversation with her assistant. Peter paused, unsure what that really meant. “Yea, so, the kind scientist over there said that you could use some help.”
Dr. Watts turned to him with a curious expression and then eyed the other scientist. “Thanks Carl.” She called to him with a heavy hint of sarcasm. Carl gave a thumbs up, not even looking in their direction.
Dr. Watts turned back to Peter. “Mk, Patrick, this is a next-gen camouflage device for armored vehicles. It’s very sensitive and a tedious project, but one that we are eager to complete.”
“That’s insane! Do you need me to look at the code, or I can do some of the tedious stuff for you I really don’t mind. Or–”
“For now, you can just watch.”
Peter's heart dropped. This can't seriously be happening again, not already. Was being personally escorted by Tony Stark really not enough for these guys?
You know what? No. He wasn't going to let it happen again. The question now was how would he fix it? The answer? No idea, but he would find a way, that's what he did best.
So Peter endured it for two days, as grueling as it was.
“Stupid thing keeps spitting out garbled data.” Keith grumbled, lightly kicking the machine he was working on. Peter watched, annoyed. He could practically see the solution to the problem staring back at him.
“It’s probably a hardware defect.” His assistant replied. But it actually just wasn’t that.
Peter sighed, unable to contain it anymore. “It’s not the hardware at all, it's the magnetic resonance caused by the building’s power conduits. Your internal sensor is picking up the 60-hertz magnetic bleed from the main server behind the drywall. If you just invert the polarity on the secondary coil then the interference cancels itself out.”
Man did that shut the room up. Peter could feel the eyes burning into him again, just like with the thermal equation a couple days ago. If they would just listen to him in the first place then this wouldn't keep happening.
Keith stopped mid-motion, his soldering iron hovering half an inch from the board. “How did you know that?”
Peter couldn’t exactly tell the guy that he could hear the conduit behind the wall, but he had gotten good at the excuse thing. “It’s the only logical explanation.” At least, Peter thought it was a good excuse, and anyway, it seemed to work.
The scientist cleared his throat and agreed with Peter’s stance, then for once he did something no one else had done before. He invited Peter over to fix the issue himself. And that Peter did.
When he was done, Carl came over and asked for Peter’s input on the sonic gun. The boy’s face lit up as he made his way over to his project, answering Carl’s question and pointing out a few tweaks that would make it run smoother.
He barely had time to finish before Keith was calling him over again. Then Watts had a question. Then Carl wanted him to look at something else. Peter bounced between the three stations, answering questions faster than they could ask them. He hadn't realized how badly he'd missed this.
For two full weeks he actually got to do something. Mr. Stark was right, that badge really did let him touch things. As expected, some of the scientists still refused his help, but Peter didn’t mind. He actually learned a lot about defense tech from Tony’s work while he was there and found himself integrating some of it into his own systems, including his suit.
As he was adding the finishing touches he paused and shifted the fabric between his hands. This was Tony’s technology, not his own. Once upon a time Mr. Stark might've just made an annoyed comment at what he was doing, but now? Peter ignored the guilt that resided in his chest, wiped the dust off of his suit, and hung in his closet. He’d get out there again one day. Hopefully soon.
And Tony Stark would understand one day too.
Still Peter heard nothing from E.V., not a lead, not a whisper, not even a sighting on a single camera. He would've tried to upgrade his surveillance, but that wasn’t really in the budget right now. Sure the pay raise from the promotion was nice, but he was still just an intern. At best it got him a couple extra meals throughout the week.
At least the type of work that they had him doing in the lab was complex enough to distract him from everything else. He had just finished tweaking one of the newest devices they started working on when a surprise guest entered the room.
“Parker.”
Peter whipped around at the sound of his name, a smile spreading on his face as he watched Tony approach him and he quickly jumped up to his feet. “Mr. Stark, it’s so nice to see you aga–”
“I want to talk to you about your performance.” Tony looked at the project he was working on and back at Peter. Right, Tony doesn’t know him.
Peter cleared his throat as a pit formed in his stomach. “My performance? Did I do something wrong?” His heart rate rose a little, he wasn’t about to get fired, was he?
“Walk with me.”
Peter followed Tony out of the room and towards an elevator. He wondered where Tony would take him this time. From what he remembered, Mr. Stark was pretty cut and dry. If he wanted to fire Peter, he would have just said so or had him escorted out the building, but they weren’t going to the front doors.
The relief was followed by excitement that bubbled up in his chest. The same kind as when Tony first showed up at his apartment and told him he was going to Germany. It had been a while since he’d felt that way about anything, and it was a pain in the ass to keep from bombarding Tony with questions. He walked hastily instead, his eyes glued to the back of Tony's suit.
“I’m told you’re a hard worker” Tony said once the elevator had closed.
“Who told you that?” Peter wondered. Sure, he had finally earned some respect from the others, but he didn’t exactly expect them to speak that highly of him either. In fact, he had started to wonder if some of them saw him as a threat.
“Doesn’t matter. I want to show you something.” As though he had planned it, the elevator doors opened on cue and the two stepped into a new office space that was attached to a personal lab. Tony’s personal lab.
Peter looked around, mesmerized by the design of the office. Tony approached the project in progress that sat in the center of the lab. There were many robots around it, all of them idly waiting for instruction. “Do you know what this is?” Tony asked.
“No.” But that was truly an understatement, Peter had never seen anything like this.
“Of course you don’t.” Tony followed up. “I want you to help me with it.”
“Me? Why me?” Peter looked up at Tony, starry eyed.
“The other scientists are rigid. They worry about budgets and logistics and boring stuff, and to be honest, I don’t trust them with this one. You? No background, no criminal history, no family, not even a record of existence.” Tony cocked his head, circling to the other side of the machine.
“And you consider that trustworthy?” Peter side-eyed Tony.
“Trustworthy? No.” Tony said, leaning against a table. “What I’m creating here will be used to catch a threat. My guys downstairs might be building a cage for it, but I need someone who knows how to think outside of one. Someone who’s bold enough to fix one of my lead scientists’ math equations while holding a tray of oat milk lattes. You work for me up here, FRIDAY watches you, I watch you, and in return, you get access to the best lab on the eastern seaboard. And a real paycheck."
Peter hesitated, still trying to unscramble Tony’s motives. He eyed the machine again, an uneasy feeling crept into his gut. His intuition told him he knew exactly what was going on here, but he asked the question anyway. “What exactly are you creating?”
“A device to capture Spider-Man, and I want your help building it.”