Chapter 3
Peter Parker
There were 8,300,000 search results.
Peter Parker - a footballer from Manchester, England. Born in 1980, age 28. Married to Angelica Parker and expecting their second child in two and a half months.
Peter Parker - an activist and artist from Phoenix, Arizona. Born in 1979, age 29. Constantly moving around between poorer communities across the less economically developed countries of Africa and Asia, offering aid, making art and spreading awareness of the issues of third-world poverty.
Peter Parker - a former business executive from Toledo, Ohio. Born in 1940, age 68. Retired early to Jacksonville, Florida with his wife of 37 years, Edith Parker-Brown.
That was going to take far too long.
Peter Parker New York
Peter Parker – the photographer for the daily bugle and a full-time student from Queens. Born 1992, age 16. He had already graduated high school and was halfway through earning a college degree in biological engineering and Tony found himself being drawn towards the rabbit hole of reading all the teens papers on cross-species mutations and the potential for using these for genetic enhancements or to help cure illnesses and disorders. He was literally some kind of child genius.
Tony made a mental note to get Pepper to find that kid and give him a job. Stat. There was no way Tony was letting somewhere like Oscorp get their hands on that kids mind.
He clicked out of the research paper he had been scrolling through and tried switching up what he was searching for.
May Parker
May Parker – a teenager in some white-picket suburban town. She was maybe thirteen so tony didn’t waste his time looking into her any further.
Honestly, Tony was starting to feel like he had hit a dead end with googling the kid when he let his mind flick back to some of the things the kid had told him, both the night before and earlier that morning.
Not fun being in more than one piece.
Not after Mr. Toomes.
It hurt a lot.
I don’t get hurt anymore.
He took a deep breath and tried:
Peter Parker New York Murdered
And there it was.
The first result was a PDF of an old newspaper article.
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July. 24, 1979
Six-Year-Old Boy Found Dismembered in Abandoned Lot
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That would be how his father had bought the plot of land so cheap. It had been the scene of a brutal child murder. Of course no one wanted it after that.
Next to the headline was a low quality, black and white school photo of a smiling young boy with curls and a slight overbite. Even slightly pixilated, Tony could easily tell that that was a picture of the boy he had just made eggs for.
Tony forced himself to read on.
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Early this morning, the body of a young boy, now identified as six-year-old Peter Benjamin Parker, was found in an old suitcase in an abandoned lot on Park Avenue. The boy was beaten and mutilated before he was dismembered. The preliminary report suggests that most of the evidence found at the scene points to him being alive during the dismemberment.
---
Tony stopped reading.
He had to fight against the urge to immediately throw up the small breakfast he had eaten. How on earth could someone beat and then cut up a literal living and breathing child?! Tony had a hard enough time just considering taking apart the small, barely sentient robots he hadn’t even come close to categorising as children - hence why his teenage passion-project, Dum-E, was still whirring around somewhere in his private workshop downstairs.
“Peter,” Tony said hesitantly.
Peter looked up from where he had almost finished his food.
“Did someone hurt you, Peter?”
The kid looked down at his hands which were fiddling anxiously with a piece of toast and shifted in his chair a little.
“It was a long time ago Mr. Stark. You don’t have to worry about me.”
“Did Mr. Toomes hurt you?” Tony asked a little more gently. “I promise you aren’t in any trouble either way but I would really like it if you could tell me a little bit about what happened, if you’re okay with that.”
Peter stayed silent as he ate the last of his breakfast. When he was done, he pushed his empty plate across the table towards the older man. He pulled his knees up to his chest, resting his heels on the front edge of his chair.
“Liz was my friend,” Peter whispered.
Tony had to strain to hear what he was saying but didn’t dare to ask him to speak up and risk him deciding he didn’t want to talk about it after all.
“Mr. Toomes was her dad.
I was poorly so I went to work with Aunt May instead of school so I didn’t get anyone at school sick. She worked at the hospital and was really busy but I got bored reading by myself so I started wandering around and I saw Mr. Toomes.
He asked me why I was there in my PJs so I told him I had a cold and he said he had a break and we could go get ice-cream to make me feel better. He said we would be back before Aunt May even knew we were gone and I really wanted ice-cream. But we didn’t get ice-cream.
I don’t know why he hurt me but he hurt me a lot. He kept hitting me and hurting me with a knife. Then he made my tummy hurt really, really bad and then I got really cold and fell asleep. When I woke up, I was here with all the rubbish.”
Peter was sobbing by the time he finished recounting his story. He was rocking himself back and forth slightly and Tony wrapped the kid up in his arms and let him cry. He racked his brain to try and remember how his mom helped comfort him when he was sad as a child – not that he was ever as sad as Peter damn well had a right to be right now.
He could easily remember his father telling him to pull himself together. Howard had snapped at him that ‘boys don’t cry’ and so he needed to get over himself before he embarrassed them both. Tony liked to blame that for why he hadn’t shed a single tear for his father after he passed. Every one that he had spilt at the funeral was in mourning of his mother.
There were tears falling down Tony’s face now too as he rocked them from side to side. Tony didn’t dare tell Peter he shouldn’t cry.
They cried together for a while.
I’m going to help him, Tony thought. I don’t know how yet but I swear I’m going to protect - and spoil – this kid for as long as I’m able to do so. He deserves to have something good after all the shit life’s already thrown at him.