6
6
When Peter woke up, he was no longer curled up on the couch, but instead found himself swaddled in the comforter of his bed. He wanted to stay asleep, but the clock perched on the nightstand was projecting 9:22am and any grogginess around him evaporated at the thought of school.
“I’m late!” Peter shot up and snatched his phone. The moment felt mundane, a teenager who slept in on a school day, but then Peter remembered that his situation was anything but that.
He wanted to throw his phone away before even looking at it.
There were three anxious messages from Caroline and a fine collection of angry texts from Beck. Peter didn’t bother reading the ones he had sent. He wallowed for a moment in a suffocating pool of dread before making a series of decisions. First, he crafted a response only to Caroline to ease her worries. He stuck with the bullshit excuse that had formed in his mind last night – sneaking out to hang out with Ned. He could care less if it was believable or not.
Then, he sat up further, swung his legs off the side of the bed, and took a moment just to breathe. His mind was so heavy with thoughts and options, he couldn’t believe his neck could support the weight.
His next decision was to figure out if he was going to tell Tony today or not. He could skip school, unload everything – incriminate Beck for his shitty treatment and reveal the hollow household at the apartment – then hope he’d never have to go back and deal with the disruption of another relocation. But there was another option building up in his brain. One that spurred from a sense of invincibility all the care that radiated off of Tony last night had given him. He could go to school and feel normal for a moment, go back to the apartment, pack a bag, and tell Caroline everything in case she was at risk of Beck’s wrath, and then tell Tony. He knew there was a layer of stupidity in that plan – why go back when he was so close to a sort of salvation from the hell of his life with Beck and Caroline?
But two things plagued his mind that made the latter option seem better. One was that he couldn’t shake off a fear for Caroline. What if Peter not coming home lit a fuse in Beck and the resulting fire burned her down? And second, he couldn’t stop envisioning Ben’s suitcase tucked under his bed, a retro hardcase with locks along the seam of the two halves. The initials B.P. were monogrammed in a center patch beneath the handle. Its all Peter had left of Ben. And inside the case was all he had left of May – her glasses safely put in their carrying case. They were the only two items left that could truly ground him to his aunt and uncle and he was willing to risk anything to ensure he could get them. He couldn’t bare the idea of them getting left behind.
So, Peter made a final bold and brash decision. He was going to play today off as normal. Tony was going to send him to school, he’d go home and pack a small bag in Ben’s suitcase, Caroline would come home within 20 minutes and Peter could explain what he was doing, give her a bit of a warning (she wouldn’t have the heart to force him to stay) and then he’d leave. Tony could come pick him up or he could take the subway to the last stop and walk to the compound. Hell, he’d even stay with Ned for a night. All he could know for sure was that he was holding onto the hope that today was the day he was leaving the apartment for good. What the next steps after that would be, he was unsure of.
With his brain finally letting his thoughts settle like a cloud of dust sinking to the floor, Peter hopped out of bed. Tony had left another set of clothes on the dresser in Peter’s room, a t-shirt and jeans that looked a size too big. Peter changed into them, keeping on the Brooklyn crewneck because it kept him comfortable despite the rush of nerves wracking his body from head to toe.
“Morning, kid,” Tony said as Peter walked into the common room.
The man was on the couch, a leg tucked under him and a tablet in his hand. The image felt parallel to the memories in Peter’s brain of Ben sitting at the kitchen table in the mornings, reading that day’s newspaper. The familiarity of the scene in front of him calmed his frazzled mind.
He offered Tony a lazy smile and plopped down next to him.
“I’m like super late school,” Peter huffed, looking to Tony for his opinion on the matter.
“I’ll cover you for playing hooky if you want me to,” Tony said, glancing up from whatever work he was doing on the tablet, “I used to do it all the time.”
“Didn’t you once say to me not to do as you do?” Peter questioned.
“No, I’m pretty sure I said don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” Tony answered.
Peter knew that wasn’t the advice he was given but he let the moment continue on.
“Well I would prefer not to miss class,” He said.
“Of course you wouldn’t,” Tony sighed.
If things weren’t off kilter, the comment would’ve seemed like a disappointed remark at Peter’s lack of desire to be a rule-breaker. But he could tell it was really disappointment from Tony at the realization that he wouldn’t be sitting Peter down today to talk over his suspicions that the kid’s been struggling.
“Plus,” Peter added to try and ease Tony’s conscience, “Ned might pass away without me there. We’ve got Spanish test today.”
“Well, we can’t be putting Ned’s life on the line,” Tony said, rising to his feet. “Want me or Happy to take you to school?”
Peter laughed a little, “I’d much rather have Happy take me.”
“You’ve wounded me,” Tony said, completely unwounded by the joke, as he went into the kitchen to whip up a quick breakfast before sending Peter off.
*
The unintentional half day of school flew by. Peter was antsy the whole time. He was sure he flunked the Spanish test that he did actually have. And he was also sure that his demeanor was driving Ned and MJ crazy, but he held himself together and didn’t buckle under their concerned gazes.
Part of him considered giving a heads up to Ned. Wasn’t that the kind of thing you were supposed to do if you knew you were about to throw yourself into a precarious situation? Tell someone? But he also didn’t want part of his anxiety to fall onto Ned’s shoulders and he didn’t want Ned blowing the whole thing either.
When the last bell of the day rang, Peter simply bid Ned goodbye with a “see ya tomorrow” and swiftly made his way to the apartment before Ned or MJ could interrogate him like he knew they’d been wanting to the whole day.
On the way home, walking through the bustling streets of Queens, he went over multiple scripts of what he was going to say to Caroline. Your husband is crazy so I’m leaving, and you probably should too, was the main message of all of them. He figured he had nothing to lose to truly speak his mind, so whatever came out in the moment is what he decided he would settle on.
The apartment was empty as expected when he arrived.
He ran to his room and retrieved Ben’s suitcase from under the bed. He started packing at a well-timed pace. One that would have him ready to be out the door when Caroline should be getting home, his hope to just cross paths with her. He wanted to appear as determined as possible so she wouldn’t beg him to stay.
It was just a few days clothes and some other necessities that made it into the suitcase. Peter’s brain had locked into a go, go, go, kind of mindset. He was so focused as closed the suitcase, finally done gathering all he needed, that he didn’t hear the front door open. He barely had time to register that someone had come in and was walking towards his room as the locks of the suitcase clicked in place.
His spider-sense flared up a split-second too late to allow him to comprehend the intrusion happening. By the time he listened to his own sixth sense, the person was already pushing open his door. He pointlessly hoped to see Caroline poke her head in but he knew it wasn’t her.
“Going somewhere, Pete?”
Peter felt a chill slip down his spine as he straightened up to meet Beck’s gaze. He expected something like rage or fury to paint the man’s face but instead his expression was uncomfortably vacant. As if he didn’t want Peter to guess his next move, he was sporting a poker face.
Peter’s spider-sense was the most alert it had ever been. It kept pricking at his skin with sharp pulses saying danger, danger, danger.
He put on his own poker face, pinning Beck down with an unassuming but steely gaze. He cleared his throat and then spoke.
“It’s Friday,” he said in a flat tone, “I’m going to Ned’s.”
He moved nonchalantly to his desk, waiting for Beck’s response. By the severity his jumping nerves, he could tell something dangerous was about to happen – something worthy enough to make him wish he was shrouded in the Spider-Man suit. Beck’s silence only added to a growing tension. The pause happening between being caught red-handed by the man he was trying to get away from and the impending sense that whatever was going to happen next was going to be dangerous was stretching out too long.
Peter pulled open his desk drawer, trying to look like he was searching for a notebook. Really, he was trying to slip two busted web shooters onto his wrists. They were old, and the webbing in them was less than a quarter full, but he needed something to feel secure. Anything.
He shot a nervous glance to Beck who was still staring him down like a stone statue in the door frame and he cleared his throat again as if it could divert Beck’s attention to something or somewhere else.
He had his hand wrapped around the band of one of the web shooters but before he could get it onto his wrist, Beck uttered four words that made him freeze in place, blood running cold.
“Not so fast, Spider-Man,” he said.
Peter peered up from his position at the desk, hands unwelcomingly beginning to shake.
Beck’s stone expression had cracked into a sickening grin. There was a wild look in his eyes, something almost primal.
“What?” Peter immediately tried to play dumb as if it was a survival instinct.
But Beck just shook his head as a cloud of green smoke started to form around the fist at his side and suddenly Peter realized the danger that his senses were warning him about.
*
Peter had been gone an hour when Tony decided, as a responsible adult, he could no longer wait for Peter to confirm the hunches he had about what the kid had been dealing with lately. The homelife was clearly unstable and it all seemed generally off.
So, Tony took it upon himself to do some research. He didn’t know why he hadn’t bothered looking up Beck and Caroline before, or at least why he hadn’t peeked beyond their foster care records. Sure, they had high legitimacy – the surface level details of their background checks were normal, perfect even. But a little extra snooping never hurt.
Talking with Friday, he started uncovering the ordinary details. Caroline was a kindergarten teacher. Beck had an office job at Oscorp. The couple has been married for seven years and had fostered two kids before Peter. Any records of statements from friends and family of the two were full to the brim of positive remarks.
But Tony knew how to dig deeper than most people and as he did, the charm of the couple disappeared. He started to pry apart the lies surrounding them. His heart nearly dropped out of his chest when he made the first discovery. Swiping through background checks and newspaper articles Friday supplied to him, following reference after reference, Tony stopped on a mugshot of a woman named Deanne Maier. She had the same face as Caroline – she was Caroline. According to the report attached to the image, she got mixed up in a stint of crime after becoming indebted to a man named Quentin Beck.
It took one question to Friday for every file with Quentin Beck’s name in it to light up Tony’s screens.
Image after image popped up. A Stark Industries Level 1 engineer employee ID was at the forefront of it all. It was an employee he’d never met. He’d never even seen him before, but he certainly had now. Beck’s face was on the left side of the badge, crystal clear.
Next to Beck’s – Quentin Beck’s – ID badge was a file Friday had retrieved from SHIELD (Tony had hacked into their classified servers ages ago). The file was a beta report done by an agent speculating the identity of New York’s most recent super-powered terror: Mysterio.
Tony felt his limbs go numb at the realization. He leaned back from the sudden weakness and wondered how he could be so foolish. How could he let Peter be stuck with someone so dangerous and not know?
Quentin Beck was the man behind Mysterio and somehow he had lied his way into the foster care world to create one of the most inconspicuous aliases ever. No one would ever suspect and happily married man, on a mission to provide a home for abandoned kids, to be a super-powered psychopath.
Tony processed all the information for a moment. He had to let it sink in before he could jumpstart his brain into thinking again. And when it did, the first thought that sprung into his mind was that Peter Parker was in grave danger.