Part One
Ned blanches.
“Say what?!”
“Just a second, almost got it,” Peter says, as he tinkers with his ‘shooters. He pulls out a piece of broken metal and places it on his desk.
“Got it!”
Peter turns around in his chair, diverting his attention to Ned and off of his webshooters.
“Well, yeah! That’s why they’re called web shooters . Not webmakers. That’s all they do. Shoot the webs.” Peter pauses, and tilts his head, buying a few seconds.
'Crap! I didn’t mean to tell him!’ Peter thinks.
“Shit, did I not tell you that?” says Pete, trying to blow it off as just forgetfulness.
“Uhh, no? You most definitely did not! Which is so not cool! Besides, I thought you used synthetic webs. ” Ned, ever the best friend, says in mock offence. Peter scratches the inside of his wrist self consciously, right over what he calls his ‘web glands’. Basically just tiny slits in his wrist where the silk comes out of. He’s a little worried that - even though he never really meant to tell Ned - the guy will think organic webbing is wrong at a fundamental level.
“Not even Mister Stark knows, Ned,” Peter tells him, pleading that he won’t be grossed out.
“Why not? I think it’s super cool. Despite you not telling me.”
Peter snorts, and goes back to his tinkering. He doesn’t show it, but he’s relieved - relieved that Ned doesn’t think it’s disgusting, or horrifying in any way. He doesn’t think he can handle that.
“ You would.”
“You think it’s possible that you might have any other spidery things that just haven’t, like, shown up yet?” Ned sits down on the lower bunk.
Peter stops moving. “No way.”
“Dude, what if you actually start laying eggs?” Ned wonders.
Peter makes a face. “ Ewww Ned, no!”
“Just sayin’.”
______________________
Okay. He knows what you’re thinking. He’s not psychic, or anything - he just knows. Because who wouldn’t be thinking it? Hopefully not you. He doesn’t need that right now - he’s freaking out enough as it is. Working himself into a panic, you know how it is. Or do you? Because how can anything so ridiculous, so abnormal, and so damn crazy even enter the world of Possible?
It shouldn’t, but it has.
Fucking Parker Luck. Yeah, that’s right. Middle finger to the Parker Luck Curse, because, just, why?
Or at least, these are all sentences - along with ‘Oh My God, Ned was right’ - going through one Peter Parker’s head as he stands in front of the mirror, flabbergasted, and poking in amazement and growing horror at his fangs.
That’s right. Fangs.
Parker. Luck.
May is going to freak.
And Ned is going to say the biggest ‘I told you so,’ in Queens.
------
She freaks.
Loud, too, especially with spider hearing.
And when May freaks out, Peter freaks out even more. It’s a loop.
They find out, later, and after a little experimenting, that Peter can, thank god, hide them. He can pull them into his mouth, which disgusts May - Peter too, frankly - but at least they aren’t visible any more. Until, of course, the next time Peter eats, and May laughs when he spits out the burnt Lasagna in surprise.
Pete can’t really speak with fangs, so he settles for pouting at her like a three year old.
May laughs even harder.
——
He makes a list. You know, since Ned was right about other spidery attributes showing up, he wants to be prepared. He knows Ned was only semi-serious and half-joking about the whole laying eggs thing, and there’s this voice in Peter's head that tells him exactly that, but a secondary voice that says, ‘Well, we know Ned was right about one thing, so what else could he be right about?’
Peter listens to the second voice. So, he makes a list. A list of every possible spider-thing he can think of that might make itself known to him. Just in case.
- Spider Venom. Need to test that out; could already have it.
- Instincts. Could already have them. Already have my spider sense. Could be some form of instinct.
- Allergic to peppermint?
- Laying eggs? (Gross. He circles this one).
- Camouflage?
- Talking to spiders?
The teen shakes his head and crosses out that last one. Too ridiculous, even for him.
May knocks on his door, and before Peter can even respond, or hide the paper, she barges in.
“May! You can’t just come in here! I could have been changing!” Peter exclaims.
Completely ignoring his response, May looks at the crumpled sheet of paper and asks, “Laying eggs?” In confusion.
“Oh, god, I hope not,” the teenager groans, forgetting about his annoyance for his aunt coming into his room uninvited - which, rude, by the way.
“You sound like you could use takeout.”
“Too lazy to cook, or a smoky kitchen? Because that last lasagna was a travesty to all chefs out there.”
Aunt May whapps him on the head, playfully.
“It wasn’t that bad. But, anyway, want to eat Thai?”
Peter's grin widens. “I Larb you!”
———
Over time, Peter does get used to having two retractable teeth. It’s weird, at first, but then, like everything else ‘weird’ in his life, it normalizes and he pretty much forgets about them.
But, also just like everything else in his life, that ‘forgetting’ thing he was doing causes other things to go to shit.
He’s soooo glad he kept that list.
____________________
Let’s be clear: his first field test is totally unintentional. As in, doesn’t mean to.
Also, that thing about coming out of unconsciousness slowly that movies do? Utter bullshit. Doesn’t happen, at least not for someone with super healing, and super metabolism. He’s out, then he is blinking up at the ceiling, wondering how in hell he ended up in what might be a villain's lair.
“What is it this time?” Peter asks. He struggles in his bonds - which he should have been able to break out of easily, thank you very much - but for some reason, it does nothing.
He guesses the bonds - or whatever’s holding him to that damn chair- must be made out of something that makes him weak, like Kryptonite. Or maybe it was the drugs they used to knock him out? That makes more sense. Whoever these people are could have engineered the drugs for anyone with a high metabolism.
A creaking noise could be heard to the right of him - now, if only he could turn his head more, he could see - oh no, wait, it was too dark to see, anyway.
“You’re awake, then, little spider?” Says a russian accent.
And then - the moment when Peter realizes that a certain piece of spandex is no longer covering his face - he panics. And when he panics, he talks. Alot.
“Who are you? You know it’s really rude to kidnap people, right? I mean, I’ve got to get to sch - uhhh - places, so if you could just let me go-”
“Silence! My name is Kraven the Hunter! And I’ve finally caught you!” Says the man with the accent.
Peter pauses, thinking, trying to remember where he’s heard that before.
“Wait! I know you! You host a TV show!” Peter yells, both proud (that he’s made it onto a hunters hit list) and terrified (that he’s made it onto a hunters hit list).
“You watch my show?” Kraven asks.
“Not so much anymore, but I used to,” Peter responds, desperately trying to stall for the drugs to wear off. He moves his fingers, and finds that ever so slowly, the ropes tying his hands behind that chair are breaking, or loosening. “My friend still watches it, though.”
“Do they?”
Wow, this guy is easily led off course.
“Yep.” Peter feels the knot come looser.
“Well, I’m sure your friend will love to see you on live TV.” Kraven says, smug.
Peter freezes. “Wait, what?!”
“Yes, we are recording live. Right now.” Kraven replies, as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world.
And suddenly, Peter is so glad it’s too dark to see. If a kid with supersenses can’t see, a camera - He hopes it doesn’t have night vision - wouldn’t be able to, either. His panic escalates, but he hides it, hopefully so this Kraven character doesn’t hear or see how Peter is hyperventilating slightly.
One more super powered tug, and he’s free. The first thing he does is web up the camera - using his Spider Sense and super hearing, it’s pretty easy to know where it is - which comes out messy and in gobs, as he doesn’t have his webshooters.
The second thing he does? He freaking bites Kraven.
He doesn’t mean to, it’s just that Kraven’s right there, and even though Peter can’t see him, he feels his fangs slide into human flesh, feels his mouth just react, feels blood dribble down his lips -
He pulls back and throws up. Not because it tastes disgusting - the opposite, actually. It tastes sickeningly sweet, and that in itself is something to puke about.
Kraven, as it would turn out, is only paralyzed - not dead.
Peter doesn’t tell anyone about his Venom. Not even Ned.
_____________
It gets a little awkward at dinner, when he realizes that he needs to do something called Entomophagy - the practice of eating bugs.
Supid dietary needs.
___________________
“Did you say something, May?” Peter calls from his place on the couch.
May responds from the kitchen, “No, why?”
The teen continues scrolling through his social media feed.
“Just wondering. Oh, look at this! Someone nominated me for #BestHeroEver on instagram!” He says, cheerfully.
_________
Peter curses as he stumbles over his shoelaces, which, no matter what anyone says, he does know how to tie, and nearly faceplants. Morgan, who is all of six years old, giggles at his expense. He sighs, and gets to his feet.
“Petey, get up, get up!” Morgan says, excited. “We’re almost to the bug cage! We’re gonna see tons of pretty bugs!”
You’d think a six year old would be horrified at seeing bugs, such as insects or arachnids, but nope, she absolutely loves it.
He smiles, and holds out his hand for the six year old to take it. “Yes, yes we are!”
Together, both of them walk into the museum with a skip in their step.
Back when, well, when Peter was ‘away’ for five years - because he refuses to think of it as dead; when he does, his throat closes up and he can taste ash and (I don’t want to go, I don’t want to go) - stopping that train of thought. Nope, not going there. Not gonna have a breakdown in front of everyone, most of all Morgan.
Anyway, while he and half of the universe were on ‘vacation’ , Tony used to re-enact stories of The Amazing Spiderman to Morgan, and the result of that was that Peter is her favourite hero. What she doesn’t know is that every time Tony told her a story of Peter, he would end up drinking himself to sleep.
Ignoring that last bit, Peter is Morgan’s favourite - even before her dad, which Peter thinks is special, and isn’t the least bit proud, nope. (He is).
After Tony had recovered from The Snap, he insisted that Peter should take Morgan to the Zoo, for sort-of-adopted-but-not-really sibling bonding time. So, here they are, the Zoo that has the biggest Insect museum and enclosure that Tony can find.
The teen is also here for another reason, he reminds himself as he feels the lump of crumpled paper in his pocket. Maybe being around other arachnids will trigger some spider abilities to come to light - he just hopes that whatever does happen isn’t too obvious to bystanders. The last thing he needs is to bite someone again.
After last week’s ‘Kraven’ incident, Peter stayed home from school the next three days to make sure whatever urge had made him sink his fangs into another human’s skin, wouldn’t happen again accidentally. He did painstaking reading and experimenting. It was exhausting, and he’s pretty sure he learned most of the names of venomous species. But, he figures that he’s the only one for sure who knows what he’s going through, hence, resorting to going out into public to find answers.
Also, there was actually a story done in the New York Times, about how a certain TV show host was mysteriously hospitalized. Peter can only conclude that either that dude has a very strong immune system, or that the Venom just isn’t deadly, which is relieving, in a way.
____
So yeah, Pete is a little nervous about a spider thing popping up out of nowhere in public, but he wants to - needs to find out if anything else is coming.
(“Petey, we’re gonna see your cousins!” Morgan had yelled in the car.
Peter had paled in response. “Morg, no one knows that. You can’t tell anyone, remember?”
She’d rolled her eyes. “Yes, mom.”)
Morgan skips along, gawking at every insectoid and arachnid they come across. Peter smiles at her enthusiasm, and answers her questions about each spider that he knows - and when he doesn’t know what the answer is, he consults the paragraphs that are written beside each of them. Morgan doesn’t know that, but he’s happy to let her believe he knows everything about them.
They’re having an amazing time, really, until that darn list is needed.
Morgan’s looking at some sort of blue and black spider -
(‘Jumping Spiders,’ Pete’s mind supplies, as he clicks away on his camera.)
- when it fucking talks to him.
Well, to be more precise, it makes a sort of hissing and clacking noise, so quiet that anyone without the hearing of a spider can’t hear it.
But Peter understands it .
Fucking Parker Curse!
The teen drops his camera. Of all the things to happen, the one thing he thought was too ridiculous…
“Are you okay, Petey?” Morgan asks, concern showing on her young face.
Peter didn’t notice this a few seconds ago, but now he’s slid down the wall and is shaking. Panicking, even.
“Petey?!” Morgan’s panicking now, too.
In her confusion, Morgan accidentally tips the glass case over, and it shatters everywhere, scaring Peter even more. No one notices how a little Jumping Spider climbs into a fellow spider’s pocket.
He doesn’t remember much after that, only how much that Jumping Spider hated the flash from that camera.
_____
After Peter finally accepts that he is a literal parselmouth to spiders , he realizes that his new friend is here to stay.
He and his new friend have an argument about the spider's name, the spider insists that she (yes, she) doesn’t have one that translates to human speech, but Peter calls her ‘Blue’ anyway.
Peter brings Blue everywhere, and Blue becomes Pete’s spider teacher.
_____
“So, you got everything? Because I don’t want to come back because you forgot a pencil, or something,” says Tony, as he twists around in his seat to face Peter.
Rhodey, who is in the driver's seat says, “Tony, this isn’t an exam; it's an Academic Decathlon.” To Peter, he adds, “Ignore him. We both know you’ll do great.”
Peter blushes in slight embarrassment, and fumbles around in his backpack to make sure he isn’t missing something. “No, I think I have everything. Thanks, you guys.”
“Knock ‘em dead, Underoos!” Tony exclaims. “Too bad Pepper is the CEO of SI. She should really be here. Shouldn’t she?”
“Tones, it’s supposed to be your company,” Rhodey says, a bit redundantly.
“Anyway, we’ll be somewhere in the audience, just wave!” Tony says to Peter, with his good fist in the air - to which Rodey sighs.
Pete feels a twinge of guilt when he glances at Mister Stark’s other arm, laying limply in it’s sling. It has gotten a little better, not so burnt and charred, but it’s useless now. Whenever Peter looks at it, he can’t help but think that if he’d been faster, maybe Tony would still get to use his fourth limb.
But, this school trip (that Rhodey and Tony insisted they drive him to) is meant to be a happy thing. Not - not a (breathe) -
The teen subtly checks on Blue, hiding in his pocket - unbeknownst to the other two people in the car - for reassurance, and to halt his own thinking.
After having his breakdown in the middle of the Bug House at the Zoo last month, Peter opts to NOT tell anyone about his new ability.
He’s, like, ninety percent sure that all his friends and family would accept him, fangs, organic webbing, Spiderspeak (shut up, he couldn’t come up with a better name), and all, but there’s this nagging, doubting voice that tells him that none of those things are normal. That everyone would be too weirded out, or disgusted. Like how Aunt May gasped when he first showed her his newly acquired retractable teeth.
He tried to talk himself into at least letting one person know (May already knew about his fangs, but nothing else) like, four times, but there would always be something that would stop him and he’d lose his nerve.
(“Mister Stark, I-”
“Hand over the doritos.”
----
“Listen, my-”
“Nuh-uh, Frozen deserves quiet.”
----
“May, could you -”
“What was that? Happy’s on the phone.”)
Infact, the only one who does know exactly how much Peter stresses about being called freakish, or unnatural is Blue. Blue, who is slowly becoming Pete’s go to about that sort of thing, and someone who he’s starting to care for very much.
He’s pulled out of his thoughts when a shiver runs up his spine. His eyes widen in terror. “SHIT! Get dow-”
A loud BANG! And then everything goes dark.
_____________________
The first thing that Peter notices when he wakes up is that, this time, he can actually see - last time, he was pretty much blind.
And then he starts hyperventilating when he doesn’t see Tony.
He appears to be in a white coloured room, so white that it was almost sparkling, and harsh on his sensitive eyes. He - like the last time he was kidnapped - is strapped down to a chair, sitting directly across from Rodey, who is still very much unconscious. Peter sees Rodey’s face and gasps, because It looks like Rodes’ entire body has been through a drying machine.
“Shi-shit,” Peter rasps, as he looks at his own injuries. He takes a mental note of them, but pushes them aside. He has bigger things to worry about. “Wh-why can’t I just have a nor-normal school trip?” He pauses, trying to steady his breathing. “Oh crap - Blue? Are you okay?”
A quiet hiss comes from his hoodie, and he almost cries with relief. “Oh, thank god, you’re alive. I thought for sure that explosion would’ve killed you.”
Blue clicks reassuringly.
“I wish - I wish I could get out of these restraints, but - but they could be watching - “ Peter turns his head as much as he can - and there it is. A camera, with a blinking red dot in the centre. “- yep, they are. So, we’ll just have to wa-wait until Mister Rodey wakes up, and the-then we’ll make a pl-plan.”
Peter is too hopeful to say, ‘ maybe the only reason I woke up at all was my super healing. Healing that Rodey doesn’t have’.
So he doesn’t. Because Rhodey will be fine, he will. So will Tony.
_______
A while later - minutes or hours, Pete doesn’t know - the metal door swings open, and two burly men throw a bedraggled Tony Stark to the floor. He hits with a sickening crunch. Blue slips back into the warm pocket of Peter’s hoodie.
Peter feels the powerful urge to sink his fangs into their necks - to go so deep that he crushes their windpipe, to -
(you’re human, you’re human.)
Before Peter can finish that train of thought, the men (Guards? maybe?) are already banging the door shut behind them. He shakes his head, trying to clear his mind of the powerful instinct that is almost overbearing.
“Ou-ouch,” Tony wheezes, clutching his bad arm (the best he can, anyway; his hands are also tied). “I guess nothing g-good will ever happen t-to that arm. Just luck-lucky it’s pretty busted up from the snap anyway.”
“Mister - !” Peter exclaims, but cuts himself off - as it’s suddenly very hard to talk. His mouth snaps shut instantly.
“Pete?! Tell me, injuries. Lay it on me,” Tony demands, still clutching his arm.
Instead, Peter nods at Colonel Rhodes, not wanting to open his lips even a little.
“Rhodey!” Tony shouts. He hobbles over to his friend. He tests his pulse, sighs in relief when he can feel the steady heartbeat, and starts gently slapping his face. “Come on, pal, it’s time to get up.”
There is a second in which Peter thinks that Tony’s mistaken about feeling his heartbeat, a terrifying moment that Peter just knows that Rhodey is not alive , but….
War Machine groans, as his eyes flutter open. Peter sags a bit in solace.
“Wha-what happened?” He asks, his voice still groggy.
“Kidnapping. Wanted me to sell slash give or make them some of the Binarily Augmented Retro-Framing tech I helped create a while back. I’m guessing the only reason you guys are here is ‘wrong place, wrong time,’ kinda thing.”
Rhodes blinks sluggishly, though before he says anything, Peter’s already worked it out in his mind, and would smile if only he isn’t so afraid. Afraid of the situation, and that his little spidery secret was about to be blown. He tries not to let it show.
“Binarily Augm - Oh, right. B.A.R.F? Your little therapeutic experiment? I remember that one.” Rhodey says, while trying to get his hands out of the - well, Pete can’t see what’s holding Rhodey.
As they’re talking, Pete desperately tries to pull his fangs (which slid out when the guards chucked his mentor to the floor) into his gums like he normally does, but he is either too stressed to do it on command right now, or his spider side is telling him that he needs to use them, to release the venom first.
“So, ideas, anyone? They took F.R.I.D.A.Y, can’t call for help, but those bonds don’t look like they’re meant for - “
Peter wildly shakes his head, and rotates his neck enough to nod at the camera he spotted earlier, begging Mister Stark to stop talking .
“ - oh, that’s why.” Tony says in realization. He pauses. “You haven’t said a word since I was rudely chucked in here. You’re always babbling about something, it’s what you do. Where is it? The injury?”
‘Oh, shit.’ Pete thinks.
He tries to think of a solution that doesn’t involve spilling the beans to Rhodey and Tony, but comes up with nothing. Stark notices his hesitation, and starts slowly - and painfully, judging by the way he gasps and grunts whenever he moves his bad arm. The teen screws his eyes shut, slowly, painstakingly slowly, opens his mouth - making absolutely sure that the camera can’t see his face - and hopes for the best.
Both of them shriek, although Tony’s is considerably louder since he is closer, and Peter fights the urge to tear out of the thing holding his hands and cover his ears.
“The fuck?!” Rhodey says.
Peter pales considerably. He sees their faces, and can practically hear them think-
Freakfreakunnaturalfreak-
‘Ohmygod, what did I just do?!’ Peter thinks.
“Oh my god, you’re Dracula !” Tony exclaims, his voice taking on a pitch of fangirlish glee.
Peter doesn’t say anything (he can’t, even if he wants to), but Mister Stark’s tone sounds kind of forced, like he's weirded out, at least a little, but can see the horrified expression on Peter’s face.
“Ouch, the arm is still injured,” Mister Stark pants as an afterthought.
Noticing Tony’s tone, Rhodey joins in. “I guess it’s not the weirdest thing we’ve seen… I think that title goes to The Hulk wearing giant Iron Man boxers.”
A wave of dizzying relief washes over Peter, and he physically slumps in the chair slightly.
A quiet, yet proud, hiss comes out of the teen’s hoodie pocket, and he actually does give a small smile, this time.
Light bulb - his face lights up with the beginnings of an idea.
He may not be able to speak English right now, but Spiderspeak is still fair game.
{Blue? I have an idea.} Peter hisses. He doesn’t hate using this ability, per se, but it does freak him and everyone else around him out, a little. Tony and Rhodey look at him with frowns of confusion, or at least, until Blue crawls out of his pocket again.
“Kid, wha - no. Let’s not even go there. What other powers have you got under your belt?” Tony asks, this time, serious.
‘You’re about to find out,’ Peter replies inside his head.
{What is it? Found a way out?} Blue hisses back. Pete knows that regular human’s ears just aren’t equipped to pick up on the sounds a spiders’ mouth makes, so to Tony and Rhodey, it must sound like the teen is having a one-sided conversation with an arachnid.
{How far can you jump?} Peter clicks slash hisses. It’s sort of a mix between the two. {Can you make it to the camera behind me?}
{That’s over eight web-lengths, Peter, but I see where you’re going with this. I’ll have to climb up the wall a bit first, actually, and I may not even need to jump at all. I’ll just climb to the camera,} Blue speaks.
{The camera is close to my head. Just above it. If I tip my head back a bit, you may be able to jump from there,} Peter reasons.
Blue, gives a click that sort-of means ‘we’ll see’, and starts clambering up Peter’s body.
Tony and Rhodey gape at him, and he just gives another small smile, awkwardly.
Once Blue reaches his hair, she tells him, {I can reach.}
{Good. Get ready. I’m gonna throw you. Ready? Great. Three, two, one!} Peter flings his head backwards as hard as he can, and very nearly smashes into the wall when he almost tips over from the force of the movement.
Blue leaps, and latches on to the lense. One leg slips off, but she fixes her grip quickly. To the people watching the feed, it looks like the cam suddenly went dark and stopped working, so there will probably not be much time before they figure something’s up. As soon as he knows the cam can’t see him, Peter rips out of his bonds and stands up.
“Nice work, Kid!” Tony cheers. Peter, despite the situation, snickers.
How life is ironic.