Involvement
I shrug off my backpack and yawn as I enter Mr. Stark’s workshop in the compound the next day. It’s Friday, so I’ll be spending the weekend here. I spent way too long on the internet last night, looking up Connors and Osborn.
“Hey, Mr. Stark,” I call, and he waves at me without looking my way from a table across the large room.
“Your stuff’s over there,” he says, pointing to my work station. He’s already set out my chemicals for more web fluid. He must know I’m running out. I walk over to my table, adjusting the glasses on my face with a shaky hand. Why am I so nervous? They’re only glasses. Maybe it’s just, Mr. Stark has never seen me with glasses before.
Or maybe it’s because they were my father’s.
I’ve been wearing the glasses non-stop since yesterday. When I came out of my room wearing them, May looked at me and almost started crying. In a shaking voice she told me,
“You look just like him.”
Now, standing here in Mr. Stark’s lab, I know he won’t have the same response. But he lost his parents too. Maybe he’ll understand why these glasses are so important to me. They’re a mark of something I’ve lost that I can never get back.
Footsteps near me, and with a deep breath I look up at Mr. Stark. He frowns, and gestures at my face.
“Those are new,” he says. “No lenses though?”
I nod, suddenly more nervous than I was before. “I uh, found them in this old case under May’s bed. They were um…my dad’s. Richard Parker.” I clear my throat and nod.
Mr. Stark suddenly sobers, and nods back. “Right,” he says. He scratches the back of his neck, and says, “Well you get to work there, kid. I’ll be over there.” He points to his own work station, and walks away.
I exhale, letting the tension leave my body. Well, most of it. Because there’s something I need to ask him. Oh, well. He looks pretty focused right now, working on a new suit. I can ask him later.
-----
Later turns out to be three and a half hours and a meal later. We work in companionable silence for awhile, me working on my web fluid, and him on some repulsors. After two hours of this, Ms. Potts calls us up for dinner, which she ordered from an Italian place nearby. I gratefully accept the several extra portions she ordered for me.
After dinner we head back down to the lab, for some work on my suit. This we always do together, and tonight is no different. He pulls up a hologram of my suit in the center of the room, and turns it around with a flick of his wrist.
“So, what’ll it be, Pete?” he asks. “What do you want to work on tonight? Vision? Web shooters?”
I look at the ground, wringing my hands.
“What is it?” he says, crossing his arms.
“Nothing, just…can I ask you a question?”
He shrugs. “Shoot.”
“I need your help finding out what happened to my parents,” I say in a rush, looking up at him. His eyes widen, but he stands still as I talk. “It’s just, uh, I found a briefcase that belonged to my dad, right? And well, I asked my aunt what happened to them. She always told me they died in a plane crash. And I get that, right? But the thing is, I asked her where they were going, and she told me she didn’t know. She didn’t know! That’s weird, right? And I found these two pictures, one of Dr. Curtis Connors with my parents, and another one of them with Norman Osborn, and—”
“Woah, slow down.” Mr. Stark holds up a hand. He walks over to me and puts the same hand on my shoulder. “So you think there’s a mystery with your parents? Of how they…”
“Died. Yeah.”
He nods and looks away. “Well, I’d like to help you, but when I tried that, it didn’t work out so well for me.”
Siberia. Right.
“But it’s different for me,” I say before I can stop myself. “I just want to know where they were going, that’s all.”
“What if there’s more, Peter?” he says, voice rising. “What if—”
“I don’t care,” I say.
He takes a loud breath through his nose, and looks at me. “Peter, you might not like what you find.”
“It can’t be worse than what I’ve imagined,” I say, voice breaking. Worries have been entering my mind the past few days. What if they were escaping from something, and they had to leave me behind? What if they were being hunted? What if they were killed, and didn’t just die?
I blink hard and look down. “Sorry,” I say. “I just really…”
“You feel like you won’t be complete until you find out.”
I look up at him. “Yeah.” I sigh. “Mr. Stark, I was four when they walked out the door. They never came back. I wanna know what they were leaving to do. Please.”
He closes his eyes, then opens them. “Fine,” he says with a firm nod. “What were those names you mentioned? Connors and Osborn?”
“Dr. Curtis Connors and Norman Osborn.”
“Right.” He shuts down the hologram of my suit and says, “FRI, get me everything you can on Dr. Curtis Connors and Norman Osborn.”
“Right away, sir,” the AI says, and hologram tabs begin to spring to life before us.
“We should be able to find something here,” Mr. Stark says, waving aside some tabs, and pulling out others.
My phone buzzes in my pocket, and I jump. I pull it out, and frown. I don’t recognize this number. With a shrug, I answer and put it to my ear.
“Hello?” I say.
“Peter Parker? This is Norman Osborn. I heard through the grapevine that you were looking for me.”