Written in the Scars

To say Peter Parker was surprised when Tony Stark showed up in his living room would be an understatement. It was sort of like saying there were just a few stars in the sky. It was closer to millions of stars, and Peter's reaction was closer to a complete mental breakdown. Shock, excitement, fear, worry, curiosity, Peter felt it all. His heart raced, his palms sweated, his senses buzzed and hummed and sang. It took everything he had to have a fake conversation with Mister Stark and May before Mister Stark came into his room. His bedroom. His idol was just standing there, looking around. Finally, he turned to Peter.

“So, just to get the record straight, this is you, right?” Tony asked, projecting a hologram of Spider-Man stopping a bus.

“What? No, that’s crazy,” Peter argued. It wasn’t very convincing.

“I just evacuated a city that an evil robot I helped create was about to drop out of the sky to destroy the Earth, kid. I don’t think ‘crazy’ means much anymore,” Stark answered, joking.

“Why are you asking?” Peter asked, taking a seat on the edge of his bed.

Stark shrugged. “After the incident in Sokovia, it’s become abundantly clear to me that we need more heroes in the world. More good ones, at any rate. There should be heroes closer to ground, watching people’s backs. I think you’re already one of them, and I’d like to help you out. Your suit is killing me, ” Stark complained, studying his fingernails.

“You want to make me a suit?” Peter whispered, awed.

Stark grinned at him. “Yeah, kid. First, can I ask why you’re doing this? The whole superhero gig, I mean.”

Peter sighed, shrugged. “Because….because I’ve been me my whole life, and I’ve had these powers for six months. I read books, I build computers. And yeah, I would love to play football, but I couldn’t then, so I shouldn’t now.”

“Sure,” Stark interrupted. “Cause now you’re different.”

“Exactly,” Peter agreed. Then he shrugged his shoulders. “But I can’t tell anybody that, so I’m not. Look, when you can do the things that I can, but you don’t, and then the bad things happen…they happen because of you.”

Stark was leaning forward now, watching him, contemplating.

“So you wanna help. Look out for the little guy, make the world a better place, all that?”

“Yes,” Peter agreed.

“Oh, and how does that webbing stuff work? The tensile strength of that stuff must be through the roof,” Stark said.

Peter grabbed a web shooter and tossed it to him. “These are the web shooters. I made them. The web fluid I made in chemistry.”

Stark studied the web shooters for a moment, grinned, tossed them back. “Good design. Could I take some of that web fluid to study? Promise I won’t patent it,” Stark joked, holding his hands up in surrender.

Peter choked on his spit, his face red, but provided Stark with a jar of web fluid. Stark chuckled and stood.

Stark nodded, coming to a decision. “Your suit will be here in a week or so. I’ll be sure to incorporate this,” he said, holding up the web fluid. “Keep doing what you’re doing, kid.”

And with that, Stark grinned at him and walked out.

Peter stared after him for a long time.

“So, did you get the details worked out?” May asked from his doorway.

Peter startled, nodded slowly. “I- yeah. I think we did. All good.”

May smiled. “Great. How do you feel about Indian for dinner?”

“Yeah, no, that would be great,” Peter agreed, standing.

May grinned at him, and the life of the spider continued.

The suit came in four days. When Peter got back from patrol, it was sitting on his bed, a neatly wrapped package. There was a note on top that simply read: Less than a week, I know. That web fluid is really something, kid. Hope it works out. My number is in here, feel free to call if you have a problem.

-TS

Peter saved the number in his phone, grinning like an idiot, then went out for a swing. The suit was amazing. And the life of the spider went on.

A few months later, Peter passed a test he didn’t know he was taking. The Training Wheels Protocol was lifted, and suddenly, his suit was even more amazing. He named his AI Karen, then had her walk him through the tutorial for his new features. There was a tutorial. It was so cool. That night, Peter made contact with Tony Stark for the first time. It was a text message, and all it said was “ thank you.” In five minutes, he’d gotten an equally simple reply: “you’re welcome, kid.” And the life of the spider went on.

Tony Stark, the genius billionaire playboy philanthropist himself, was unsure what possessed him to visit the spider kid. He knew his identity, of course. He'd had the kid on his radar ever since he’d shown up. And while what he told Peter about looking out for new superheroes wasn’t a lie, exactly, it wasn’t quite the truth either. Peter was better than Tony could ever hope to be. Even before Tony met him, he knew this for a fact. Watching videos of him doing things like giving an old lady directions or saving kittens from a storm drain or helping little kids cross the street made that abundantly clear. He was the sort of good that Tony wished he could be. So Tony visited, he gave him a suit, he gave him his number, and he hoped. When the first message came, months after their first and only meeting, Tony was ecstatic. For a few weeks, he’d been toying with an idea, and now it seemed a little more realistic. So, the day after that message, Tony sent another. 

“I thought you might want to make your internship a little more legitimate. There’s a chair open for you in my lab, if you ever want it. Like on this Saturday at 2PM. Let me know what you think.”

Peter’s response came a few hours later.

“I would love to! Leave the window open for me.”

Tony could swear his heart skipped a beat. Peter was coming to the tower.

And the life of the genius billionaire playboy philanthropist went on.

After the first few, admittedly awkward, lab meetings, it became commonplace. Soon, Peter wasn’t just working in the lab with Tony. He was watching movies with him and staying for dinner and meeting Pepper and Rhodey and Happy. Somehow, the kid fit in like a pea in a pod. He was smart, at least as smart as Tony had been at that age, maybe smarter. He was awkward and kind and had an amazing sense of humor and made about a million Star Wars references a day. Tony loved every part of it. And the lives of the spider and the genius billionaire playboy philanthropist went on.