Chapter 3
Peter, as it turns out, is not great at controlling his newfound strength. He cracks two eggs simply picking them up, breaks off a chunk of the granite countertop, pulls the door of the fridge off of its hinges, and bends three spoons trying to eat cereal. Tony and Steve watch, not sure how to handle the situation. Later, Peter snaps every pencil he tries to write with and accidentally sends his math notebook flying into a window, which likely does not shatter by virtue only of being bulletproof. There is still a web of cracks emanating from where the notebook hit, and Peter winces after seeing the damage. Tony takes that as his cue to head to the lab, where every test in the book has been run, cataloged, and interpreted by JARVIS.
The AI breaks down the tests, and Tony is increasingly concerned as the list continues. Peter appears to be developing an exoskeleton, his thermoregulation is likely in the toilet, he has some kind of healing factor, and the list goes on. Tony stops the AI when it reaches near the bottom. “Possible ability to create organic webs?” he asks, “Out of where? Oh God, JARVIS don’t tell me–”
“There’s no way to be sure,” JARVIS says. “But while we are on the subject of things you’d rather not know about your son–” the AI sends a screen up for Tony to look at.
“Sterile?” Tony asks, “really?”
“It’s likely the spider that bit him was heavily radioactive, which caused irreparable damage before the healing factor that it bestowed began to take effect.” A new page pops up and JARVIS helpfully adds, “continued doses of radiation would likely exacerbate the mutations, although it would cause damage before his healing factor kicked in.”
Tony swears. Then he notices a note, at the bottom of the page, and lets out a truly filthy string of profanity. “JARVIS, tell me that doesn’t mean what I think it means.”
JARVIS almost manages to sound sheepish as he replies, “The longest a spider has lived, that we know of, is twenty-eight years. Most spiders live between two and twenty years–”
“I can see the data,” Tony cuts the robotic voice off. “I can see the data,” he repeats, his voice hoarse.
“Apologies, sir.”
Tony begins to type, moving the information around. “Don’t tell anyone, you hear? We don’t know if it’s true, so there’s no need to scare people.” He’s already encrypting the information so deep that even JARVIS will be forgetting about it.
A loud crash sounds from the kitchen, and Tony finishes quickly, hurrying toward the area that the sound came from. Peter is frozen, surrounded by shattered glass, eyes wide. Tony scans the room and realizes that his son was probably merely trying to get a cup and had accidentally pulled the shelf off the wall, sending all the glassware on it to the ground.
“Are you okay?” Tony asks, grabbing the broom from it’s place next to the fridge.
“Fine,” Peter replies, his tone implying anything but. “Can we go for a drive? I’m just– I don’t want– I just want to go for a drive.”
“That’s fine,” Tony says soothingly. “We can go for a drive. Let’s get this cleaned up first, okay?”
“Okay.” Peter shifts and there is the unmistakable crunch of broken glass on skin.
Tony jumps, saying, “Stay right there, don’t move, hang on, let me clear a path, shit, okay, hang on–”
But Peter only looks down at his foot with curiosity. “Wait, Babbo, it didn’t hurt. I didn’t feel it.” He lifts his foot, balancing with superhuman precision, and looks down at it. “It isn’t cut, I’m not bleeding Babbo, see?” Peter holds up his foot, jumping on the other to keep his balance and lands on the glass again. “I’m fine,” Peter says, amazed. He takes a few steps, joining Tony.
“Peter, what are you thinking?” Tony asks. “Walking on broken glass? That isn’t safe.” He’s barely restraining his temper, and his tone has that eerie calm quality that he usually tries to reign in when he’s feeling upset.
The smile dies on Peter’s face. “I’m fine, babbo, look.” he brushes the glass shards that were on his foot off like gravel. “I didn’t even feel it.” He grabs Tony’s hand, and suddenly Tony is struck again with the realization that his son is taller than he is. Unlike for most parents, it actually did happen overnight.
“Peter,” He says softly, the emotions of the past few days wreaking havoc on his ability to string coherent thoughts together. There’s a lump in his throat, and he’s thinking about the way Peter is towering over him, the way that things are irrevocably different, and how quickly it all happened.
“I didn’t mean to make you worry,” Peter says. “You and dad need to worry less.”
“It’s not our job to worry less,” Tony says. “It’s–” he runs a hand through his hair. “It’s fine, I’ll clean this up. Then we can go for a drive.”
It only gets worse. Peter crushes door handles, mutilates his locker at school, and even writing has become a task requiring the utmost of delicacy. Tony and Steve watch for a week as Peter’s birthday grows ever closer.
“I got a call from the school today,” Tony says one night after Steve joins him in bed. “Somehow, our son managed to break two drinking fountains trying to fill his water bottle up. They’re worried about the vandalism he’s been perpetuating.”
“Vandalism?” Steve asks.
Tony nods. “He’s broken a lot of bathroom stall doors, sinks, and classroom door handles. He broke a whiteboard marker in front of the class when he got up to do a math problem and covered the teacher in ink. I’m seriously considering pulling him out of school.”
Steve winces at the list of accusations. “It doesn’t sound good.”
“It does not,” Tony says tersely. “And I’m worried for the kid. Do you feel like he’s been– I don’t know– agitated?”
“He has been on a bit of a short fuse lately,” Steve says. “May and Ben mentioned it when I picked him up today.”
Tony sighs. “He’s probably got a lot of energy.” They had decided not to tell May and Ben, who Peter still spends every other weekend with. It was a decision Peter wholeheartedly backed, not wanting to go through the explanation again. As far as they can tell, he hasn’t mentioned anything to his friends at school either. “I’ll break the news to him,” Tony says. “While we’re on the Miami trip. Rhodey will make a good buffer.”
“I just don’t know what to do,” Steve mutters. “Maybe we can send him somewhere else once things have a chance to cool off.”
“It’ll be fine,” Tony says. “He’ll adjust.”
Peter stares out the window, excited to see Rhodey again. It’s frustrating that when Rhodey is free, Steve is busy, so he barely ever gets to see anyone. He’d been almost relieved when his Babbo brought up the idea of dropping out and learning from home. The lab was the place he learned best, and he was starting to get a lot of weird looks at school, even if he was starting to get the whole super strength thing figured out. For now, he pushes it to the back of his mind, excited to see Rhodey again.
“We’ll be attending a product launch, first thing, and then tonight is a gala,” Tony says, checking the schedule. “Pep should be there for the gala, given that nothing comes up. How are you feeling?”
Peter shrugs. He’s been feeling a bit on edge, but it’s been nagging him since he woke up with the spider powers. “Fine,” he says noncommittally. “Just—“ he runs his hand through his hair in a gesture very reminiscent of Tony— “tense I guess. It’s been an eventful few days.”
“Yeah.” Tony slings his arm around Peter’s shoulder for a moment before they separate to grab their bags. Peter holds out a hand for Tony’s, and , after a moment of hesitation, Tony hands it over. Peter deftly lifts the bags and walks toward the exit. The bags feel like less than nothing to him, in fact most things feel like less than nothing. He hasn’t picked up a single thing besides that bulldozer that has felt heavier than a milk jug. It makes it hard to control his strength, and he has to force his mind away from the embarrassing memories at school of hallways gone quiet and prying eyes.
They’re off the plane before Peter can finish his train of thought, and he sets the bags down just in time to be head locked affectionately by Rhodey, who ruffles his hair and says, “who gave you permission to get this tall, kid?”
Peter breaks out of his hold and they take up a familiar boxing stance. “No one,” he says, making a predictable jab, which Rhodey easily dodges, “I do what I want.”
Rhodey responds with a series that’s just as predictable, it’s a routine they’ve had forever. But this time Peter feels a zing up his spine that zaps his brain. It’s so startling that he doesn’t dodge, just stands there, wondering what is pressing the panic button in his mind until Rhodey’s fist collides with his face. It isn’t a hard hit, in fact Peter barely feels it. His face turns to accommodate the force, but Rhodey is the one grabbing his knuckles. “Oh my God, sorry kid, what’s wrong? Usually you can dodge a bit better than that.”
“He’s distracted,” Tony says drily from the sidelines. “How’s your hand? Does it feel broken?”
“Broken?” Rhodey guffaws, “I could punch a lot harder than that. Shouldn’t you be checking on your son?”
Peter bats a hand. “I’m fine. I was just…” he trails off not sure how to explain it.
Tony walks over to him and grabs his chin, inspecting his face. “It’s not even red,” he says in awe, “did it sting?”
“Babbo,” Peter says, his tone flat, “if I could walk on broken glass without it breaking skin, I can take one of Rhodey’s—“ he raises his voice and aims it at the other man— “pathetic punches.”
Rhodey chuckles and comes over, still holding his hand a bit gingerly. “One of these days I won’t go so easy on you, kid.” Then Peter's words seem to sink in and he sputters, "Wait, did you say broken glass?"
“Peter, you can go ahead,” Tony says, waving a hand to the car. “I’ll just talk to platypus bear here for a moment.”
Peter rolls his eyes long sufferingly, knowing Tony is about to break the news about the spider bite. “Don’t freak out,” he tells Rhodey, picking the bags back up and jogging toward the car.
“And don’t dent the goddamned handle this time,” Tony shouts adding, “please,” as an afterthought.
Peter manages to open the trunk without denting it, handling it as gingerly as he would paper mache. The bags are set in the trunk gently, and then Peter closes the trunk gently. He inspects the bottom of the trunk door, looking for the fingerprints he’s been leaving in anything he grasps for the past few days, and pumps his fist when he sees none. Triumphantly, he calls to Tony, who is on his way back with Rhodey, “can I drive?”
Tony replies with a “sure,” at the same moment that Rhodey feigns shock, “your feet reach the pedals?”
Pacing around to the front seat, Peter climbs in, adjusting the seat and finding the keys in the cup holder. He presses the keys into the ignition and feels the zing from the base of his spine into his brain, making him feel completely tense as his brain is zapped by what feels like a million tiny nerves misfiring. Shaking his head to try and clear the feeling, Peter turns the key, feeling the engine vibrate and sputter to life, as the painful anxious tingling in his skull reaches its crescendo, and the world explodes into a cacophony of deafening, blinding light.
Tony and Rhodey are thrown back by the explosion, and Tony struggles to get up, pulling himself to his hands and knees and lifting his head through the ringing in his ears. His eyelids feel so heavy, and it takes a moment to gather the strength to open his eyes wide enough to see men in black technical gear and masks running up to the car and pulling Peter from it. Peter, who despite being closest to the explosion is kicking, punching, and screaming. Tony reaches out a hand to help, but his limbs give out and the last thing he sees is his son with a rag over his mouth, going incredibly still and being loaded into a van. His vision blacks out, and despite the fact that he’s screaming, begging to stay awake, his eyes fall closed and his mind goes blank.
“— waking up,” a voice says as Tony fights through a warm haze of heavy tiredness to open his eyes. The voices around him are fading in and out, and finally, he pries his eyes open, shooting straight up in bed. In bed? That can’t be right. He looks down at himself and shakes his head, immediately regretting it. There are hands and voices he can’t put together, but he knows something is wrong. There’s something that he’s supposed to be worried about. He fights the hands, but he knows he’s weak, and as unconsciousness pulls him under once again, he sees Steve’s blurry face swimming in front of his eyes.