You Could Make a Case for That

There's an interesting theory that despite Quentin Beck being a villain, he was a better mentor to Peter than Tony Stark. Beck at least listened to Peter and treated him as a colleague, not a lackey. The other point is that all Beck had to do was tell the truth about Tony Stark, and Tony's reputation would have been ruined. What would have happened if Beck took action after Civil War?

Peter had settled in pretty good to being Spider-Man. It was still tough to get his homework done AND keep the neighborhood safe, but he was managing. Lying to Aunt May was bothering him more and more as the weeks passed. NOT hearing from Mr. Stark was also upsetting, but Peter figured he had a lot to do as well.

He webbed his way onto one of his favorite roofs. He skidded to a stop when he saw someone else already there.

At first Peter thought the bearded man was Mr. Stark, but this guy was much younger. The man said, "Hey, I thought you'd be here tonight."

Peter asked, "How did you find me?"

The man shrugged and said, "Stark put a tracker in your suit."

Peter's eyes widened as he started patting himself down.

The man said, "You'll probably need some privacy and a laptop to neutralize it."

The man stepped forward and said, "I'm Quentin Beck. I'm not here to cause trouble. Just to give you a heads-up."

Peter asked, "About what?"

Beck said, "Stark's going down. You may want to keep your distance."

Peter sat on an AC unit and asked, "What do you mean?"

Beck leaned against a wall and replied, "Working for Stark Industries isn't bad--unless you have to work for Tony Stark. He's screwed over a LOT of people through the years. We got together and started talking about ways to give Stark a dose of his own medicine."

He gestured and continued, "We're not going to do anything TO him. Just let the world know what he's hiding."

Peter asked, "What's that got to do with me?"

Beck answered, "We're going to do our best to make sure it has NOTHING to do with you. You're just trying to help out, as far as we can tell. It's not your fault Stark made you violate the Accords."

Peter felt a chill. He asked, "What?"

Beck nodded and said, "Like I said, you've got a tracker. So it's clear you went from New York to Berlin. You were supposed to get U.N. permission first."

Peter said, "I--I didn't--Mr. Stark said--"

Beck lifted a hand and said, "Easy, kid. And you really are a kid, aren't you? Either way, we're not interested in getting you in trouble. The funny thing is, STARK has a tracker in his suit, too. And we tracked him from somewhere out in the ocean to Siberia. He ALSO didn't have permission."

Peter frowned and said, "That doesn't sound good--but I'm sure Mr. Stark had his reasons."

Beck said, "He always does. And they always make sense, to HIM. But I'm curious about his reason for designing a satellite that can hack into people's cell phones and databases. I think the world will be too."

Peter asked, "How do you know about it?"

Beck shrugged and said, "Honestly, Stark's security is not that great. He's lucky we're not going after his company, just him. But we WILL try to keep you out of it."

Peter said, "Okay, thanks for the heads-up."

Beck straightened up and said, "By the way, if you're thinking of warning Stark, you're already too late. I'd focus on disabling that tracker if I were you."

Peter went straight to Ned and they got the tracker disabled. While they were discussing what Beck said, the news reports came in. Tony Stark had violated the Sokovia Accords and he apparently had designed a hacker satellite that included a weapons system. Some newscasters were calling it Project Insight 2.0, while others were speculating Tony Stark was Hydra and was the one behind the destruction caused by Ultron a few years ago.

A group of Stark Industries employees came forward as the whistleblowers. They also had evidence of Stark stealing his employees' work and denying them their due credit and compensation.

Peter never saw Quentin Beck again. He never saw Mr. Stark again either, but that was because Mr. Stark was serving a lengthy prison sentence.