Peter
Peter sighs audibly as he reaches the apartment he unfortunately shares with one Bill and Diane Patterson. They’re a middle aged married couple who foster “young troubled teens” in an attempt to “rehabilitate” them, and they’re pretty much as nasty as they come. Bill is a big fan of beating people to a pulp, and Diane is more one to tear you down with her words. They were both very invested in having free labor and collecting checks from the government. They’re perfect for each other.
The evening maintained the drizzle from the morning, so Peter is wet, cold, and in a bad mood when he walks into the apartment. It’s not like he has any rain clothes, or many clothes at all if he’s being honest.
His spider sense flared as he walked into the hallway, but as usual he forces himself to stay still as Bill comes out from around the corner, apparently waiting on Peter to return (come on, man, get a life), and grabs ahold of the collar of his shirt.
“What have you been up to, you little punk? You know the rules. You’re to come back to the house right after school so you can cook Diane and I dinner. We so graciously let you live with us, and this is what we get in return?” Bill’s face was way to close to his. He could’ve smelled his nasty breath from across the room. He didn’t need the up close and personal experience.
Peter scrunches up his nose and turns his head away to escape the smell. “Trust me, Bill. If there were anywhere else for me to go, I’d be out of this shithole faster than your fat ass could even think about stopping me.”
Bill growls, grabbing onto Peter’s hair with his free hand and yanking backwards. “Now you’re asking for it, you little shit head. I was going to let you off with no dinner and a warning, but now you’re in for it. Shirt off and palms on the wall. Maybe if you take your punishment like a good little boy, I’ll let you sleep in a bed instead of your closet.”
He releases Peter’s hair and takes a few steps back, undoing his belt and pulling it out of the loops of his jeans.
Peter scowls at the man. He really doesn’t want to get locked in the closet tonight. He reluctantly yanks his shirt off by the collar and gets in the familiar position on the wall. He’s only waiting a moment in anticipation before he hears a whoosh and feels the familiar strike of the belt against his bare back. He winces, but doesn’t move from the wall or make a sound. He can handle this.
“We let you stay with us from the kindness in our hearts, because no one else wants you.” Bill says, in between lashes. “Don’t even think about talking back to me again you rotten kid. Your whole family abandoned you. Every foster family you’ve had before has given you up. You have no other choice but to stay here with us.”
Bill continues with the punishment until Peter’s back was purple and bleeding. When he decided Peter has had enough, he puts his belt back on and turns to walk the other direction, sending Peter to his room.
Peter gladly snatches his shirt off the ground and dashes to his room as quickly as he could. God damn his back stings. He wipes away some rogue tears coming out the corners of his eyes, chastising himself for letting them form in the first place. The belt was nothing he hasn’t had countless times before, from Bill and others before him. He could handle the pain. He was Spider-Man after all. And he knew this would happen if he talked back. He’s pretty sure Bill would’ve done it anyway just because he went to Ned’s after school instead of coming straight back, but seeing his friend was always worth it.
He falls asleep on his stomach almost as soon as he hits the bed.
Peter regrettably has to skip his normal morning patrol the next day because of his stupid back. He was hoping that the calories he got from the pizza at Ned’s would be enough to power his enhanced metabolism, but it just wasn’t quite enough. The wounds are significantly better today, just not quite closed enough for swinging. Missing patrol is the only reason he ever regrets riling up his foster parents. The city shouldn’t suffer just because he’s an asshole sometimes.
Luckily, the kids at school are leaving him alone. Derek scowls at him when they pass each other in the hallway, but he keeps his distance, still probably embarrassed about losing their last fight. He makes it through the whole school day without incident, and rushes back to the Pattersons apartment.
As soon as he makes it through the doorway, he’s on his best behavior. He really wants to be well enough to patrol tonight, and the only way to do that is by earning some dinner. He picks up the house, cleans the bathrooms, and cooks a pretty nice dinner if he says so himself. One benefit of being in the foster system is that he’s had to become a pretty decent cook. It comes in handy sometimes.
By the time Bill and Diane sit down at the dinner table, everything in the apartment is finished. Peter waits patiently in the corner of the kitchen until they finish their meal, and immediately starts on the dishes.
Diane waltzes up behind him as he’s washing dishes in the sink.
“Hey shit head.” She calls to him.
Peter scowls into the dirty dish water before plastering a fake smile on his face and turning around.
“Yes, ma’am?” He asks politely.
“You’ve earned the leftovers from dinner tonight. Make sure you clean this whole kitchen up before you go to bed.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Peter nods enthusiastically, waiting until she leaves the room to celebrate silently. He rarely holds his temper together long enough to get dinner. He’s very impressed with his self control.
He scarfs down his portion of dinner before finishing his cleaning and heading up to his room. He allows himself a quick shower while Bill and Diane are down watching TV. Peter is very lucky that they have the same routine every evening after dinner, so he always knows when he can sneak a quick shower in when they won’t notice. Otherwise he has to shower in the boys locker room before school starts, and he can’t make a habit of that or else people would start to talk.
He manages to entertain himself with experimenting with different web formulas in his notebook until he hears Bill and Diane come down the hall and lock his bedroom door from the outside for the night before heading into their own room.
Finally.
He jumps up from where he was laying with his notebook on the floor and crawls up to the ceiling, pushing up a tile and pulling out his hidden spider suit. It’s currently just a red and blue sweatsuit that he found at a thrift shop and drew a spider on in permanent marker. It’s a work in progress, and he’s on a budget. He keeps the most important part, his web-shooters, on at all times, so once he changes into the suit, he leaps out of his open window and Spider-Man is officially ready for action.
He swings from building to building, higher and higher as he gets closer to downtown and the skyscrapers. He hoots and hollers as he does flips in mid air. This is when Peter truly comes to life. Soon enough, his enhanced hearing picks up sirens and he heads towards the noise. Looks like a bank robbery. Easy stuff.
He spends the night swinging from crime to crime, from big bank robberies to attempted muggings down to returning a child that wandered off from his parents in the hustle and bustle of Times Square. His back twinges slightly with each swing, but he tunes it out. He’s had so many injuries at this point, both from Spider-Man and from Peter, that he’s very aware of his body and it’s limits. His back is healed up enough for a patrol. The pain will probably be completely gone by tomorrow morning and the marks by the afternoon.
A few hours in, late enough in the night, or he supposes early enough in the morning depending on how you look at it, that the streets have really calmed down, Peter is having a peaceful moment on the edge of a high rise apartment building downtown. Sometimes he likes to just sit for a while and watch over his city from above.
Unfortunately, Peter’s life and peaceful moments don’t really agree, and he soon hears a noise in the distance approaching him. He’s familiar enough with the Avengers that he recognizes the sound as Iron Man flying through the sky. Peter is hoping that Iron Man just so happens to be flying to a different building in his direction at 2 am for an entirely different reason, but alas, after a minute he hears Iron Man’s metal boots clank against the rooftop behind him. Peter doesn’t turn around.
“Spider-boy!” Peter hears Stark call towards him. “A little late to be hanging out on random rooftops, isn’t it?”
Peter sighs, and then reluctantly stands up and turns towards the man. He really didn’t want to deal with this right now. Stark had lowered his mask so Peter could see his face.
“You’re one to talk, Stark. Isn’t it a little late to be creeping on other superheroes who are hanging out on random rooftops?”
Stark raises an eyebrow at him. “Who said I was creeping? Maybe I was headed this direction and just so happened to notice a certain red and blue vigilante precariously close to the edge of a high rise, and came to do a nice thing and check in?”
Peter scoffs. “Oh please. You just so happened to be flying on the opposite side of the city as your precious tower at 2 in the morning on a weekday? Where exactly were you going?”
Iron man raises his hands in surrender. “Alright, you got me, kid. I heard you were out tonight, and I came here to talk.”
Peter waits a second before waving his hand for the man to continue. “Okay, I’m listening.”
“It’s been decided by SHIELD and the accords committee, that you fighting crime as an unregistered vigilante is a violation of the newly renegotiated accords.” Stark begins, though it sounds reluctant, rehearsed, like this isn’t coming from him.
Peter takes a step back nonetheless. “The Sokovia Accords?” He asks.
Stark rolls his eyes and replies dryly. “No the Artemis Accords. Of course the Sokovia accords, kid, what other accords would pertain to you?”
Peter takes another careful step back, praying to whatever deity that is in charge of Parker luck to hold off for a moment and not let Stark notice what he’s doing. He’s mind was screaming at him that he was in trouble and he needed to get out quick.
“And would you mind telling me why I should listen to you people when clearly the Accords went to shit the first time around?”
Stark takes a careful step forward as Peter takes another step back, getting as close to the edge of the building as he can.
“Look, kid-“
“I’m not a kid. Stop calling me that.” Peter interrupts harshly.
“Fine, Spiderling-“
“It’s Spider-Man.” He interrupts again. He’s reached the edge of the roof.
“God, didn’t your parents ever teach you not to interrupt people?” Stark seems like he’s starting to get annoyed. Peter is going to have to make his move soon.
“Yeah, don’t exactly have any of those. Any more questions?” Peter replies cheekily.
Stark takes a deep breath. He’s definitely getting annoyed. “What I was trying to say is that-“
Before he could finish his sentence, Peter steps off the edge of the building and lets himself go into a free fall.
He hears Stark curse behind him before leaping off after him, but Peter has a head start. He waits until he is as close to the ground as he can before he becomes a squished spider on the pavement and shoots out a web. He swings as fast as he can through side streets and alleyways, until he turns a corner and drops to the ground. A moment later, he hears Iron Man zoom past. He lost him. He, Peter Parker, managed to out run Iron Man. He probably would’ve laughed had he not been so freaked out.
It’s pretty late by the time he creeps back through his bedroom window. He isn’t usually trying to hide from anyone on his way through the city. He was pretty far away, so it took him a long time of ducking into dark alleyways and peering around corners before he got back to the apartment.
By the time he was finally curled up on his mattress with the one blanket he was given when he arrived at the Pattersons the first day, he only had a few hours before he had to wake up for class.
Peter groans to himself. He hates school. He used to love it. He used to get so excited to go and learn new things every day. It’s all so boring now. He already knows everything the teachers are telling him. He can’t remember the last time he was excited about anything besides patrol. Now, everything else is just something that gets in the way of him helping the city as Spider-Man. And now, he had Tony Stark apparently after him for violating the Sokovia Accords. He has no idea what he’s supposed to do about that. It’s literally Iron Man. Peter can’t avoid him forever. Maybe he should just lay low on his patrols for a while, not get involved in anything big. Maybe after a while the Avengers might just forget about him, right?