for Peter Benjamin Satan Parker
Abe watched nervously as their Captain frantically messaged Peter.
No response. Shit.
He spoke up at the cool robot lady (a!! robot!! lady!!), “Hey FRIDAY? Do you know where Peter is?”
“I’m afraid not, Mr. Brown.”
“Can’t you find him on your cameras?”
“I have tried, but Peter is one of the three individuals who both know about and can avoid all my cameras. My apologies.”
What the fuck. Peter could accurately avoid every single camera of Stark Tower? Even the Secret Ones? Yes, he knew there were probably secret cameras, because there were none in this room he could see.
Sally looked up at the ceiling, “Who are the other two?”
“Ms. Romanoff and Mr. Barnes, Ms. Avril.”
Man, Peter, what the actual fuck. Could he not make anything easy for the rest of them? Now how on Earth were they going to find him?
Mama didn’t raise no quitter, but Mama also didn’t account for one Peter Benjamin Satan Parker.
MJ clearly didn’t share his feelings, thank god, because she stormed out of the room and cornered the nearest employee just walking through the halls. Poor guy. He looked terrified. He didn’t hear what she whispered to him but clearly, it must have worked because the guy led them into another glass conference room, this time with double-sided glass. Normal glass? Whatever. The point was that MJ had successfully intimidated an employee into giving them a room to plan their next steps. God bless her. And also keep her away from him.
The tour guide, Chad? Brad? Something like that? The asshole threw his hands up.
“To hell with it! You guys have been pretending like I’m not even here this whole time, sneaking off and starting fights and doing god knows what else, like I won’t notice when it’s literally my job. Like, okay, I apologize for what I said earlier. Sorry. I was just surprised. But you guys are going to make me lose my job. And y’know what’s worse? This is literally the most interesting thing that’s happened to me since I got it. So you know what? Go ahead! Jesus take the fucking wheel because clearly, I’m not on it.”
Oh shit.
How did they all forget about Chad? Yes, he was an asshole, but after this there was no way Mr. Stark wouldn’t fire him. Shit.
Well, not if they found Peter first.
The security guard agreed with his thoughts, because Stark Industries simply had superior mind-reading guards, “Uh. yeah no. My job is on the line just as much as you. Maybe even worse because this was meant to be a punishment for stealing Happy’s food. Plus you kids are fucking psycho. The only reason I haven’t tried to get you guys kicked out is that FRIDAY is on your side. I’m coming too. No way I’m letting you be alone. One of you would probably fall into a vat of toxic waste or something on purpose. Fucking gremlins.”
Abe tried very hard not to think of the chit he had drawn to dive into what was indeed a vat of toxic waste. Damn mind-reading guards.
Charlie, still dressed to slay, started off, “FRIDAY, is there anything you can do even if the cameras aren’t an option?”
Oh yeah, the Academic Decathlon team was actually smart. He forgot sometimes.
“Peter and Boss Lady’s orders prevent me from telling Boss, though if I am not mistaken, this counts as a breach of contract on Peter’s side. I am therefore allowed to enact the “Super Spy Can Hear a Fly” protocol. All SHIELD agents in the building and the immediate vicinity will be informed and ordered to search for him.”
Well. Sucks to be Peter. If he didn’t want a manhunt by a government spy agency he should have just stayed put.
The next step, according to the snippets of the Missing Person Pamphlet he remembered from third grade, was figuring out the most likely places Peter could be. He shared as much with the rest of his friends.
Ned lit up.
“I think I know! He probably went to his lab! He told me he was running low on some- shit uhm- supplies? Yeah, supplies. That he can only get from here. He was probably hoping he could sneak in, take them and sneak out, then slip back into the group because next we were all going to R&D anyways.”
He was clearly holding some important information back, but it wasn’t like Abe didn’t have his theories. It was either being a stripper or being Spiderman. He was leaning towards it being Spiderman because there was no way Aunt May would let Peter be a stripper.
Also, Flash had almost had a stroke when they all brought it up in their “Peter Parker: Hoe or Moe?” groupchat.
“Hey FRIDAY? Can you tell if Peter is anywhere in that area?”
“No, Ms. Jones. I feel as though it’s my duty to inform you, however, that Boss is coming down to this floor.”
MJ grit her teeth, “Why?”
“I believe the employees have been gossiping about the general chaos going down on this floor, and I was unable to answer Boss when he asked me about it. Usually, this kind of commotion and lack of information is a security threat.”
Iron Man was coming down here, fully believing they were a security threat?
Fuck.
Peter cursed as he rounded the corner. Not out loud, because he was trying to be sneaky, but cursed nevertheless.
There, in all his golden-maned, big beefy, absolutely gorgeous glory was Thor, God of Thunder. Which was awkward because he had cursed to Thor in his head. Hopefully, Thor didn’t receive prayers like Jesus because he was sure everyone his age regularly made up bullshit prayers as memes.
The Golden Retriever With Sparky Boom Boom Powers spotted him and made his way over, “Tonyson!”
Nope. Not going there. Ignore him, Peter.
“Man of Spiders!”
Fuck.
Hopefully there was no one around.
That booming voice wasn’t done, though. “What are you doing here? I thought you would be with your father in his lab!”
Peter yanked the guy with all his superstrength into a little alcove.
“Uh, hi, Mr. Thor. Uhm, Mr. Stark and I aren’t really talking right now? So if you see him please don’t tell him I’m here.”
Thor dropped his voice, which Peter didn’t think was possible, “Oh? Are you sneaking around? May I assist you in this endeavour?”
“Uh, no. Shit, uhm. I mean, yes absolutely I would love your help Mr. Thor, you’re just a little loud?”
“Ah! Do not worry, Man of Spiders, I am well versed in being stealthy. I grew up with Loki, after all, and despite what he might tell anyone, it was his fault we got caught in Vanaheim.”
“Huh. Okay. Welcome aboard then I guess.”
“So what’s the plan?”
“Well, Mr. Stark doesn’t know I’m here, but I needed some things from my lab for y’know the whole,” he mimed shooting his webs, “thing, and today is our field trip here so I just went and got them. Now I need to sneak back into the group without the employees noticing.”
“Hmm, and those SHIELD agents?”
“What?”
“Did you not hear the orders the woman in the walls gave them? They are to find you and make sure you are escorted out.”
“No, I didn’t know there were SHIELD agents after me, what the fuck? FRIDAY said she wouldn’t tell Mr. Stark!”
“To be fair, I don’t think the Man of Iron knows.”
“That’s worse! Okay new plan. Thor, can you distract them while I get up to the seventh floor? That’s where the Acadec team is.”
“Of course, that is child’s play. Watch and learn, young Spider, watch and learn.”
Thor took off his cape and let it hang askew, mussed up his hair (yes, it was sexy), and took a deep breath. A look of abject terror came over his face.
He rushed out in the hallway and boomed at the approaching agents, “Help! There’s some monstrous beast of Metal downstairs! I have not the technological know-how to operate instruments of this planet, and I cannot tell whether it is malicious in nature or simply an experiment gone wrong. Will someone please assist me?”
Not even the SHIELD agents were immune to his good looks and puppy dog eyes. The three of them immediately rushed to the emergency stairwell.
The coast was clear.
Peter snuck into the elevator. He was currently on the fourth floor, so three floors to go. Hopefully, no one needed this specific elevator. He pressed the button and waited as the elevator smoothly rose.
Ah fuck. The doors were opening. Shit. With nowhere to hide, Peter did the only logical thing.
He jumped onto the ceiling.
No one ever looked up right?
This was so awkward.
The guy muttered to himself, “We have to find some brat? What the fuck. This is what SHIELD does? I thought it would be more patriotism and hypocrisy. This is so boring. What the fuck do I tell my handlers? Sorry, I couldn’t do the crucial information gathering Hydra needed because the robot told me to look for a child? They’ll straight up murder me.”
The elevator slowly made its way up.
In another elevator stood the one and only Tony Stark, peering intently at something on his Starkpad.
There was something going on on the seventh floor, and FRIDAY wasn’t responding. Yes, she could be covering for an employee (she was actually surprisingly sneaky), but more importantly, it could be a security threat. Maybe her servers had been hacked. Looking down at his screen, he could see that there had been an unusual amount of activity today, like her firewalls had been breached and then the hacker backed off.
Why wasn’t he able to see any of it, though? He should have a perfect log of all attempts and updates needed to thwart future ones.
The elevator slowly made its way down.
Abe could not believe his eyes.
There they all were, anxiously awaiting any news, sitting in silence and peering through the glass walls. Because Stark Industries really was rich enough to have glass walls like some episode of Suits.
And then, on either side of the hallway, the elevators opened in perfect sync.
On one side was Tony Motherfucking Stark.
On the other, was Peter.
He looked kind of ruffled actually. Must have had to hide from the feds.
Before Tony Motherfucking Stark could look up from his StarkPad, the aforementioned feds burst in through the stairwell. They swarmed the floor, creating a crowd as they moved with the practised, eerie movements of trained assassins and special agents. Thank god, because Peter saw Mr. Stark as well, and promptly decided to hide.
On the ceiling.
What the fuck.
Was Abe actually right? Peter was Spider-Man? So the time he saw him eat a bug like it was candy wasn’t a hallucination?
Holy shit.
Peter Benjamin Satan Parker was Spider-Man.
Next to him, Flash was having a stroke. Good for him. Mr. Harrington looked like he was simultaneously having an aneurysm and regretting all his life choices, which was valid. Poor guy.
Mr. Stark saw the agents and promptly put on what Abe would like to call a Superhero face.
“FRI, implement full lockdown in the tower, and an additional one on this floor. I want a full report of all incomings and outgoings over the last few hours. What’s happened here?”
One of the agents bravely stepped forward, “Mr. Stark, we were informed by FRIDAY that there was a security threat loose in the Tower. This is the only floor yet to be searched.”
God, please please please don’t look up. Whatever you do, don’t look up.
Behind the glass, Abe and his fellow idiots watched in tense silence, holding their breath.
Peter crawled very very slowly. The agents burst into the other rooms and opened every door. Thank god the ceiling was super high. Peter crawled a little more.
Squeak.
Shit. Peter’s crappy shoes!
Mr. Stark looked up.
“What the fuck? Peter?”