for freedom and justice
Okay, maybe it had spiralled a bit.
But Mr. Stark had been wrong, and Peter wasn’t just going to stand by while innocent people got hurt! Honestly, it wasn’t his fault the superhero was too rich to notice the impact his every decision had on everyday people.
But as things go, he confronted Mr. Stark about it, and they fought, and that fight dragged up several other issues they had with each other, and they both called each other some terrible things, and he was pretty sure Mr. Stark banned him from setting foot on any Stark Property, and maybe, just maybe, he’d been petty and purposefully set off an explosion in one of the labs as a sort of “Goodbye. Fuck you too.”
Anyways.
Mr. Stark hadn’t taken the suit back, but maybe that’s just because Peter had been there as an intern-mentee thing, and he forgot to take it back. Either way, he’d been swinging around just fine, and big ol’ Iron Man hadn’t stopped him yet, so either the man was too busy and forgot, or he truly didn’t care. Which hurt.
He wasn’t going to back down though. This was the first time he’d ever expressed any sort of discomfort with what Mr. Stark had been doing. The billionaire needed a reality check. He’d probably gone through life stepping on toes and smiling that big flashy grin all his life, and that was fine! It was! But sometimes he lost sight of the little people. The ones Spider-Man protected. A contract here, a signature there, and hundreds of people would lose their homes.
Yes, Peter may have overreacted, but the sheer callousness and carefreeness with which Mr. Stark treated the whole thing enraged him.
He, uh, he may have yelled. And broken something(s). He may have gotten yelled at. They might have fought. He may or may not have called Mr. Stark a selfish, narcissistic egoistic bastard who didn’t care about anyone other than himself. He might have brought up the Accords.
The fight may have devolved from there.
Anyways, the point was, he and Mr. Stark were on the outs, so to speak.
So why, why, was he staring down a permission slip for a field trip to Stark Industries, debating whether or not to go?
He’d probably get kicked out as soon he set foot in the lobby anyways. Not that he wanted to go. FRIDAY would probably not let him in because Tony had expressly said “Any and all properties owned by me.”
So there was no point in going.
No point in having to face Mr. Stark in all his assholish glory, in his hypocrisy and total refusal to look beyond his world of gleaming metal and parties and glamour. By this point, the contract had probably gone through and then demolition would start in a few weeks.
Fucker.
For Mr. Stark, it was easy to avoid these issues and just insist that he was always right. If he was stubborn and always right, then he never had to be wrong and feel anything bad. But Peter wasn’t going to back down from doing the right thing. When you can do the things that he can, but you don’t, and then the bad things happen, they happen because of you. Like his Uncle Ben used to say, “With great power comes great responsibility.” And he had a responsibility to those people.
He dropped the permission slip back on his desk and flopped onto his bed.
He was just not going to think about it. At all.
Okay, maybe he was going to think about it. But it wasn't his fault! It's not like he could talk to anyone about this. Ned borderline worshipped Mr. Stark, and he wasn't going to be the cruel villain who ruthlessly ripped away the curtain. He wasn't that mean.
And May didn't like Mr. Stark to begin with. To tell her that she had been right, that yes, Mr. Stark was indeed the narcissistic asshole she had pegged him as, he wasn't ready for that.
And everyone else either didn't believe he had a Stark Internship or was already suspicious of his Spider-self.
Peter sighed as he weaved through traffic. He really did not want to think about this mess. He already had enough on his plate, what with the three essays he had due next week, the eleven worksheets, the Spanish Test he had tomorrow, the gang deal that was going down at the docks tonight, the upcoming meeting he had with another vigilante, a really scary guy called 'Daredevil' and the fact that their fridge was currently empty and May wouldn't notice till tomorrow, but he was still a hungry spider-human hybrid with an enhanced metabolism. And there was still the whole "Mr. Stark's deal with knock down an entire neighbourhood" thing.
As he said, he was stressed.
He was currently on his way to Decathlon practice (which he needed to drop, like, yesterday) and after that, he would swing by as Spidey to that neighbourhood. The people there were super-duper nice too! There was the old lady who always gave him churros, the little girl who made him little gifts, the twins who always helped everyone when he wasn't there, the hot dog vendor who declared that food was free for Spider-folk as long they continued protecting the citizens of New York, Linda the stressed single mom whose child kept walking into traffic, Bunny the cat who kept getting stuck in the same tree, and Bruce, the kid who'd seen him without his mask and quickly closed his eyes and turned away, because "Spidey didn't want anyone to know who he was."
All these wonderful sweet people were depending on him, a fuck-up of the greatest extremes to save them from their lives being uprooted.
He just wanted to scream.
So he did.
He ducked into a side alley and gave out the most god-awful demon-scaring screech.
Okay, better. Still not great, but better.
Gah. He was getting a stress headache. He had too much due and too much to do and not enough time or sleep to do it. He was only a minute away from the school. He made his way to the building, getting there just as Flash pulled up in his fancy car. Fucker.
Not really, he was just in a snappy mood.
As he took his seat in the mostly empty chemistry classroom, the rest of the Acadec Team slowly filtered in, chatting about Gods know what (Lie. Peter could hear them across the halfway. They were discussing the best way to potentially take over the world. Nerds, he thought fondly, conveniently ignoring the folder he had under his bed with hypothetical step-by-step instructions.)
MJ slammed her hands down on the table.
“Okay losers. Last year’s Acadec Team, which was exactly the same, won the finals. So congrats or whatever. As a reward for our ‘Excellence and the high standard we set for our fellow students’, Principal Morita decided that a field trip was the best reward, ignoring that every single time we’ve been on a field trip before it’s always ended in disaster. Like seriously, Cindy, don’t you still have a scar from the mutated octopus?”
Cindy nodded and rolled up her jeans, showcasing a truly gruesome and awesome scar.
“And Abe, didn’t your therapist send a letter saying you were from field trips after The Incident?”
Abe grinned, “She said that she needed a therapist for second-hand trauma from our team’s near-death misses.”
“Exactly. So. Is there anyone here who can convince the teachers to cancel the trip? Any reasons at all?.”
Peter raised his hand. “I tried to bring up the fact that I have a Stark Internship but I don’t think they believe me. I mean, sure, I wouldn’t believe me either but I’d actually submitted proper proof and everything earlier. Anyways, uh, I don’t think I’ll be allowed in.”
This got everyone’s attention.
They’d all also thought Peter had been lying about the internship, but to have actual proof?
And more than that, he’d been banned??
To be banned from Stark Industries was something unheard of, reserved only for the most heinous supervillains. For God’s sake, Tony Stark had practically invited the Mandarin into his house! Even Loki had spent time in the Stark Industries Building. What the fuck had Peter done?
The aforementioned (Look Ma! A fancy word!) teen looked around nervously before realizing that no, he wasn’t just going to get out of this so easily. “Uh, we had a bit of a fight?” His voice pitched up embarrassingly high at the end of the sentence.
Ned gasped.
“Was it about, you know what?”
“No Ned, it wasn't about that. This was more of a personal moral thingy?”
Sally pushed her face between them, staring at Peter with eerily awake eyes. Weird. It was like she was trying to extract his secrets through the sheer power of her mind.
“Spill, Parker. It’s clearly bothering you. Do you even talk about your problems or cage them up like every other detail about your life?”
And the dam broke.
Peter slumped down onto the table, head in crossed arms, and told everyone. Not the Spider-Man stuff obviously, but the neighbourhood and all its occupants and their tiny little details, and how Mr. Stark’s deal was going to absolutely ruin their lives, and how there was nothing he could do. He vented out all his frustration about the man and his callous rich-person ways. At some point, he even had gotten up and started pacing around.
By the end of it, every single one of his teammates was incensed. Even Flash, in all his assholish glory, agreed.
“New plan, folks. Operation ‘Fuck Iron Man’ is on.”
“Uh, can it be “Fuck Tony Stark” instead? Iron Man saved me from a slime-villain thing once.”
“Ugh, fine Charles. No, Cindy, we do not mean ‘fuck’ in your daddy-simping ways. Get that hoe-ity away from this good, honourable Academic team.”
“Booo. Fine. Only because I really agree with Peter here.”
MJ nodded. “So. Peter will be banned from the tower but the rest of us will be forced to go. Abe, you’re on whining detail. Sally, you’re on ‘ask them so many invasive questions they start to breakdown’. Use your reporting skills. Use your gossiping skills. Use everything. Betty, you too. Charles, you’re on ‘break every rule.’ Ned, I know you can’t help but fanboy, so you’re on ‘wander away and get lost for hours in high-security areas’. Flash, you’re obviously on ‘rich brat who can’t be bothered’ duty. Anyone left?”
“No! Guys, you can’t do that! You’ll get put on a ‘ew we hate them’ list or something! Don’t you want a good job? A good life? Will you really throw it all away for a single argument I had with Mr. Stark?”
“Yes.” “Yeah.” “Um, yeah?” “Duh.”
“NO!”
Ned took Peter’s distraught face in his hands, “Peter. Darling. Light of my life. You are, and I cannot stress this enough, an absolute idiot.”
Peter just blinked at him, y’know, like an absolute idiot.
Betty patted his head.
"We aren't just doing this for you, dummy. It's the right thing to do. Mr. Stark was way out of line. And sure, we can't go up to him and force him to change the deal, but we can show our support for you in little ways. Besides, we really need a reason to get banned from field trips, and this is as good as any. It's for a good cause, it's something we all agree on, and it's something we can actually do, instead of waiting for disaster to strike us down."
Huh.
His friends were kind of awesome.