Chapter 7
Wakanda is just about as spectacular as Peter imagined it would be. The sheer vastness of the land alone is overwhelming but combined with the advanced technology, which seamlessly blends with the natural landscape, Peter’s brain is about to go into overdrive.
Steve taps him on the shoulder, slightly breaking Peter out of his trance as the door of the Quinjet slides open. “Close your mouth or you’ll catch flies.” His adoptive dad shoots him an amused smirk as he wanders off the jet to greet T’Challa.
An arm wraps around his shoulders ushering him off the jet towards the rest of the Avengers who are greeting the Wakandans. “Let’s go Pete, I’ve got a feeling you’ll get along well with the Princess.”
The Dora Milaje are standing around the perimeter of the platform, their presence is quite intimidating in person. Another rather intimidating girl Peter knows personally comes to mind, along with the still unanswered text message from her.
All thoughts of the dark-haired girl he’s been ignoring disappear when another dark-haired girl pushes her way past the Royal Guard to get to the group of visitors.
“I hear you’ve brought me another so-called genius white boy to impress with my actual genius.” Tony chuckles.
“Nice to see you again Shuri. This is my son Peter.” He gives the teenager a small shove towards the girl.
Despite being practically the same age as Peter, Shuri gives off an air of maturity he has yet to achieve. Suddenly he’s embarrassed by his extensive Lego collection, Shuri probably doesn’t have any Lego sets.
“Finally! Someone who isn’t ancient. Do you like science?” Peter nods dumbly extremely overwhelmed by his first few minutes in Wakanda. “Let’s go then.” Without another word the princess grasps his hand firmly in her own and drags him towards the palace.
Sam and Clint wave at him with stupid smiles on their faces, clearly enjoying how out of his depth Peter is with everything. Steve and Tony appear unbothered by the fact their son has practically been taken hostage by a teenage genius, both making polite conversation with King T’Challa.
The girl babbles away almost incessantly as she takes Peter to, wherever they’re going. It suddenly dawns upon him that he isn’t exactly sure where the girl is taking him. “Um, where are we going?”
She scoffs as if it’s obvious. “To my lab of course.”
---
Shuri’s lab is Peter’s version of Disneyland. Every inch of space is filled with something incredible that showcases just how much of a genius the Wakandan Princess is.
There is an entire wall dedicated to nanotech, something which Peter is becoming quite good with from helping Tony in his lab so frequently. But nothing back in New York could possibly come close to the things Shuri is designing with vibranium.
“This nanotech is way more advanced than Tony’s!” Peter’s face blanks when he realises what he said. He turns to face Shuri who is smirking from ear to ear. “I didn’t say that.”
“No worries. Your father already knows I am smarter than he is, even if he won’t admit it.” She saunters off with a spring in her step, obviously very pleased with herself. “Want to see something new I’m working on?”
Peter follows along eagerly, desperate to see anything and everything Shuri is willing to share with him. She shows him to a white table holding several clear containers with different liquids in them, all various colours and consistencies.
“Erm… wow?”
Shuri rolls her eyes at his reaction. “It may not be nanotech or a new fancy suit of armour for my brother but if I can crack this the possibilities are endless.” She spins one of the beads on her bracelet so that an image appears. It takes Peter a second to realise that he's watching a video of himself.
Spider-Man is on the hologram screen swinging through the streets of New York and using webs to incapacitate criminals. Shuri pauses the image on a rather embarrassing shot of Peter accidentally shooting himself in the face with the webs and trying desperately to get them off.
“I’m assuming you are familiar with this strange creature. He doesn’t appear to have the greatest sense of self-perseverance, if the way he swings blindly into every confrontation is anything to go by.” Peter is careful to not let the offence show on his face. “But clearly he has some brains in there because these webs are unlike anything I have ever seen before.”
To give him time to think of a response Peter picks up one of the containers and examines the substance inside. Shuri isn’t way off guessing his formula, but it seems like she’s over complicating things. Yet another indication at just how clever she is; so smart she’s been deluded into thinking that Peter’s web fluid is something more advanced than it is.
“I’ve seen him about yeah, but he doesn’t really bother anyone unless you’re trying to rob a convenience store or rob an old lady. He’s probably nothing special, just a friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man.”
“Friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man or not I want to know how he makes this stuff.” The princess sets off on a semi-rant about composition of formulas and web density, but Peter isn’t really listening.
He fully tunes Shuri out when he feels his phone vibrate in his pocket and fishes it out to see what the notification is. It’s a text message from Harry:
‘You better be planning an amazing first date to make up for the fact you’ve run off to Wakanda and left me alone in boring Manhattan.’
Peter can feel the heat rising on his cheeks, and an involuntary smile threatening to break his face in two.
“What’s got you blushing like a tomato?” Shuri’s face conveys delight in teasing Peter about catching him being entirely smitten with the message he received.
Unfortunately, his parents always seem to show up at the most inopportune moments. “Probably just a sordid and saucy text message from his girlfriend.” Tony is laughing away to himself as he descends the spiral platform into the lab while Steve scolds him for embarrassing Peter.
“Yep, that’s definitely what it is…” Tony is already talking away to Shuri about her newest inventions and Steve is busy watching the vibranium trains zoom past underneath them so neither of his parents catch his entirely unconvincing response. However, a set of narrowed eyes convey suspicion from Peter’s new genius friend.
Wanting to escape the judging gaze of Shuri, and to have privacy to reply to Harry, Peter makes vague excuses about going to find Bucky, which his parents wave off as he all but runs up the ramp and out of the lab. The other teenager’s eyes trained on him the entire time.
Natasha is right, Peter really needs to get better at being subtle.
---
Adding to the list of things Peter probably shouldn’t do when trying to be subtle, the super powered teen decides to climb to the highest and quietest point of Wakanda he can find. After checking for any possible security cameras or watchful eyes of course.
Harry answers on the second ring and fills Peter in on his night spent with Gwen and Liz before asking about the unanswered message from MJ. “You really should reply to her, I’ve got a feeling it’s important.”
“What makes you say that?” Peter questions the boy on the other end of the line.
There’s a silence and he can tell Harry is thinking about what to say next. “Just something Gwen said. It’s not my place to say. Just trust me.”
Despite his confusion Peter promises he’ll text MJ back arranging to meet once he’s home, this seems to please Harry who moves on to pestering his boyfriend, Peter still can’t quite believe that, about date plans.
“I know you aren’t crazy about being public with this yet so I’m happy with whatever you want to do. I’m just selfish and needy so I want promises that you’ll spend time with me.” Peter can practically hear the coy smile on Harry’s face as he speaks.
“Those are promises I am more than happy to make. Leave it with me, I’ll come up with something amazing.”
“I have no doubts that you will.”
They talk for a while longer until Harry gets called for dinner. Before heading back down to ground level Peter keeps his promise to Harry and replies to MJ’s text message.
‘Sorry for not responding, superdads decided to whisk me away on a holiday at the last minute. Any chance we could meet up when I’m back?’
The response comes almost instantly, making Peter’s guilt over not replying for so long even worse.
‘Sure loser, just let me know.’
After sending a message to Harry to let him know he followed through on his promise Peter climbs down from his secluded spot and heads off to find his family.
---
Peter spends the next few days working in the lab with Shuri and his dad on different upgrades for Avengers. Seeing Tony work on his own is impressive but watching two certified geniuses collaborate and bounce off one another is every geeky child’s dream and Peter is watching it happen live and in person.
He sends a few text messages to Ned, knowing just how much his friend would been freaking out right now if he was here with Peter. After his conversation with Shuri on the first day of their visit about Spider-Man’s web fluid Peter had called Ned that night to discuss strategies for handling the conversation if it ever arose again.
Living up to his title as best friend Ned had helpfully suggested Peter ask Shuri to help look through Richard Parker’s research with him. Not only would this potentially satisfy Shuri’s curiosity with Spider-Man and take some of the heat off Peter, but the Wakandan Princess may be able to help Peter make some progress.
Since gaining the documents he’s had little to no time to dedicate to looking through them in any depth. So, he brought them to Wakanda in the hopes that at some point he would have time to read the notes and learn more about his dad and the spider that bit him.
The opportunity presents itself on the third day of their visit. Tony has been dragged out of the lab by his husband to go and see Bucky’s goats or something, Peter wasn’t really listening, so he seizes the opportunity.
“Shuri?” The girl looks up from her work station where she’s tinkering with a new set of wings for Sam. “You know how you were saying that you’re interested in Spider-Man?” She nods, putting down her tools and walking over to Peter, interested clearly peaked. “Well I might know a little more than I was initially letting on, and I was actually hoping you would help me with something.”
Peter reaches into his backpack and pulls out the various folders and notebooks he retrieved from his dad’s lab in OSCORP. Shuri’s eyes widen as she takes in the documents and their various titles and Peter knows when she sees the name attached. “You’re related to this man?”
“Yeah, biological father. I never really knew him, which is the main reason I have these. I recently learned that he worked as a scientist for OSCORP before he died, and luckily for me my boy- erm, friend, is the son of Norman Osborn.” Peter hopes the girl didn’t catch his slip up. “So, I was able to get these documents and I haven’t had a chance to look through them yet, but I figured you might want to help?”
“Peter Parker, this is the start of a beautiful friendship.” Shuri grins at him and pulls up a stool to his workstation to begin sorting through all the files.
They’ve been reading for around an hour, taking notes and showing each other various points of interest, when Shuri draws Peter’s attention away from the research paper he’s reading. The look of concern on her face doesn’t exactly put Peter at ease about what she’s found.
“I think this journal was one of the last research logs your father completed before he… Anyway, he’s talking about how his recent experimentation failed and that the high levels of radiation were starting to become a concern because of the recent accident of Dr Bruce Banner.” They share a grimace at the mention of Bruce’s incident. “He continues by saying that he recommends all research into the use of radiation on arachnids be put to a halt.”
Peter shakes his head in disbelief. “But the exhibition in the museum said the research was only stopped after his death.”
The girl nods slowly. “I also found the form he filled in to demand all research was scrapped and, well, take a look…”
She pushes a clearly old and worn piece of paper in his direction, Peter recognises his dad’s handwriting underneath large red lettering which takes up most of the paper, obscuring the original text. The red text proclaims that this proposal to scarp the project was rejected; it’s signed by Norman Osborn and dated after his parent’s plane crash.
“So it seems like-” Shuri starts, but Peter cuts her off.
“It seems like Norman Osborn continued the work my dad started without his permission and after he requested all work be put to an end because it was too dangerous.”
“Pretty much.” An unsettling silence falls between the pair as Peter lets the information sink in. “At the risk of making things worse… there’s one more thing.” She shuffles some papers and brings forward a manila folder. “This folder contains information about the only successful experimentation on arachnids to come from your dad’s research. But...” Peter takes the folder from Shuri; the front of the folder is signed and dated by Norman Osborn only a few years before the bite happened. “Whatever potentially happened to Spider-Man, if it was anything to do with this, wasn’t a direct result of your dad’s research, it was because of Norman Osborn.”
Peter’s mind floods with too many emotions too quickly for him to process. Anger. Sadness. Rage. Grief. Confusion. It sounds like water is flooding his ears and he realises too late that he’s having a panic attack.
Shuri catches on and moves in front of him telling Peter to focus on his breathing the same way Tony and Steve do. He tunes out all the intrusive thoughts and tries the techniques he’s been working on for managing stressful situations like this.
He’s finally calming down as he hears Shuri mentioning getting his dads. “No, please don’t. I just overacted. I don’t exactly have the best relationship with Norman Osborn is all. He kind of punched me about a week ago.” Peter awkwardly laughs in an attempt to ease the tension slightly.
“Why did he… Never mind, not important.” Shuri pushes a glass of water into his hands with an unspoken demand to drink. “I think we should stop reading for now, that’s about as much trauma uncovering as I can cope with for one day.” She jokes with him causing Peter to smile involuntarily. “I’m going to assume that you don’t want your parents to know anything about this.” Peter nods. “Figured as much. I won’t say anything, but I do think you need to be careful Peter, Norman Osborn is not a man to be messed with.”
Nothing else is said on the matter as the pair tidy up their research and ascend above ground from the lab to join the rest of the group for dinner.
Peter entertains stories about visiting the goats from his parents and agrees to go and see the goats tomorrow with Bucky. Steve insisting its important for him to spend some time out of the lab tomorrow. “I can’t fix your dad now, but I’ll do my best to make sure you don’t become as emotionally dependant on spending time in a lab as he is.”
“Hey, I am not emotionally dependent upon my lab time, I just get cranky if I’m away from my robots for too long.” Steve makes a face at Peter that says, ‘do you see what I put up with?’
That night he tells Ned about what he and Shuri found. His best friend has a similar reaction to Peter and asks something the teenager hadn’t even considered yet.
‘Are you gonna to tell Harry?’