The first photo he posts is of the Avengers backstage at Jimmy Kimmel show. There’s Captain America with his gold ol’ boy smile, clean shaven, with Thor next to him hunching down but still managing to look massive somehow. After that is Clint with that smirk he wears when he’s thinking that if he were to shoot you now, there’s no way he’d miss.
Natasha is half-hidden by his body, but it’s almost like she meant for it to happen, and the part of her face that is visible has a scowl on it. Beside her is Bruce with a nervous smile, who is also trying to make himself look as small as possible, but it seems to be working for him. That could also be because of who is on his left, Tony Stark.
There a press smile on his face, patented glasses on his face and looking like a million dollars (or ‘a billion dollars’ would be a better description). He’s barely in the picture at all, all the way at the end and almost being cut out completely, yet he seems to stand-out the most.
Not even an hour later, an account is created called @PeterStark and the first picture is a mock-up of that picture, only it’s just of Tony. The young man is young, possibly pre-teen, but his face is barely discernible since there is fake facial hair stuck on his face that’s almost a perfect match to Tony’s own. The glasses are a cheap knock-off, but are very similar to the one’s Tony is wearing in the original picture. The caption reads: ‘Come get me, Mr. Stark...’ #steverogers #thor #hawksquawk #blackwidowthebest #brucefreakingbanner #YouKnowWhoIAm #avengers #hair #style (📷 @Nedulous)’
The next is a short video, there are several mannequins and they’re lined up in two rows and a boy’s squeaky voice calls out “And here is Iron Man, Tony Stark!” The same young teen comes out with the facial hair, walking backwards, and blowing kisses to a crowd that isn’t there. The video loops after it ends fifteen seconds later.
There are many other pictures like that, and videos, but it’s always just the short, young teen copying Tony Stark’s clothes and his poses. There’s a hilarious one of mini-Tony, a plump boy dressed as Thor with a blonde wig and fake facial hair, and a dark skinned girl dressed as widow with red haired wig and Natasha’s printed scowling face made into a mask with eyeholes, and all are sitting one a three person bike. The bike has miniature captain America shields, mini Mjölnir hammers, Iron Man gauntlets, and other Avengers toys and red and blue streamers decorating it.
There’s another picture on the post that isn’t copying Stark’s account but it almost seemed fated, the miniature Tony, Natasha and Thor seem to be riding the bike with their legs raised as the mini-Tony and Thor are laughing, and possibkt even the mini-Nat but it’s hard to tell due to the mask. The caption one the pic is ‘Dean and Sam: eat your heart out’.
The account went on for a few years, copying Tony Stark’s posts and gaining it’s own cult following, but the identity of the mini-Stark, with sporadic appearances of mini-Thor and mini-Nat, remain a mystery. It was mostly because the identity of miniature Tony is someone that his classmates (who are all fans of the instagram star) would never believe could be @PeterStark. Namely, one Peter Benjamin Parker.
- - - -
The account started to gain so much attention that it caught the attention of Antony Edward Stark (call me Tony). It happened after a drunken tangent following a particular fierce battle, Tony Stark did a video of himself dancing to Blondie’s Glass of Heart. Pepper was seen at the end of the video laughing her ass off. He doesn’t look like he’s drunk, but Tony is most definitely drunk. When it gains over two million likes, Pepper tries to get him to do another one, which he refuses.
“It makes for good PR, Tony,” she argues. “It makes you seem goofy, but relatable.” Tony knows that she thinks it’s hilarious and just wants to see him making a jack-ass of himself.
Even so, the next day there’s another video of him dancing ridiculously to Jimi Hendrix’s Purple Haze. His first video is hitting over five million likes and this one is following closely behind. It’s at this point FRIDAY makes him aware of the Copycat account titled @PeterStark that seems to have been around for a while. Tony glanced at the account but dismissed it without looking at any of the posts.
During one of the photo shoots that Fury insisted they do so the public could see them being normal human beings. It was Thor, Steve, Tony and Bruce doing some poses. Someone is recording it, and in the middle Tony starts belting out the Beatles Hey Jude in a falceto voice that’s grating on the ears. Bruce is quick to join him as they sing the barely recognizable song if not for the very familiar lyrics. Steve soon joins in a bit awkwardly since the Beatles were after his time, but Thor refuses to join them, but it does appear that he’s on the verge of bursting into laughter as Tony gets close to him as he sings, trying to get him to join in as Thor shakes his head. Anyone that knows him would know that the God of Thunder just doesn’t know the lyrics to the Midgardian song.
The account @PeterStark releases the copy of the video almost a day later, but the mini-Tony actually sounds a bit better than the man he’s imitating. There’s a mini-Steve who is played by the plump dark skinned boy and mask in place, and the girl that played Natasha is dressed as Bruce Banner, with smart glasses on her face and looking to actually enjoying herself as she sings the song in a very surprisingly pleasant sounding voice. A woman that is imitating Thor looks to barely keep herself from singing along. This is proven as mini-Tony tries to get her to sing, she throws her arms out and sings Hey Jude like a freaking pro as the three teens burst into hysterical laughter and tell her that’s not part of the script.
By this time, Tony has noticed the account and starts going through the posts, one or two making him grin. The one of the kid imitating his dancing to Blondie and Hendrix make him laugh. Just because of this, he decides to make another two more videos to see if the kid will imitate him. A Queen song next, Coming Soon which was a bit of a head nod to the mini-Tony, cause by that point Tony decided that he wanted to meet this damn kid. He just had to figure out who he was.
He was waiting for the video, and when FRIDAY alerted him that it had been uploaded, he immediately watched it. The moves were the same, the suit and glasses were cheap knock-offs but so similar to his own suit, and even the white and black sneakers were almost a match. They were barely seen in the video but the kid had an amazing attention to detail, which was seen by the black beads he had had around his right wrist that one had to really pay attention to see it. The only difference was the grin the mini-Tony was wearing at the end as if enjoying himself immensely.
The next video was Andy Gibb’s Shadow Dancing, which had a special place in his heart. He added the caption ‘Dance yourself clean now...’, since Pepper always enjoyed the song and he was mostly doing it for her. She got a kick out of the videos, so at the end of his video, he kissed the screen at the end of the video. By the smile on her face he knew she’d realized the song was for her.
It was surprisingly quick the next upload of the copycat, but even if the clothes and the glasses were the same, the moves weren’t. He bobbed his head as it started, just showing him enjoying the start of it, and when the singing started he jumped up. The same woman as before that had played Thor appeared and they both giggled as they started dancing together, but her face was covered with a make-shift mask of Pepper Potts. Their moves were exaggerated and at the end, the fake Pepper dipped the mini-Tony. “Aunt M-!” the imitation Tony shrieked in embarrassment, but it was cut off so her name wasn’t revealed.
Now Tony really wanted to know who this kid was, finding his own take on the video hilarious. He had FRIDAY scan the room, and found a view from one of the windows. That’s how Tony figured out that he was from Queens.
After that, it was ridiculously easy to figure out the kid’s identity. Peter Benjamin Parker, who was fourteen years old and went to a school for smart nerds. Well, he’d gone through all this trouble to find him, so now he had to meet him.
- - - -
Peter bobbed his head to Left Hand Free by alt-J as he left the elevator, heading to his apartment door, carrying a busted DVD under his arm. He pulled out his keys from his pocket, opening the door as his backpack slid down his arm.
“Hey May!” He called out as he jammed out to the song.
“Hey Peter, how was school?” May called out.
“It was alright,” he said as he tossed his bag and DVD player on the table. “There’s this crazy car parked outside...” He stopped as he turned toward her and saw Tony Freaking Stark sitting on his couch. “Wh...what...?” He pulled out his earbuds. “What are you doing here?”
Tony smirked. “Mr PeterStark... Nice dance moves, kid,” he complimented as his smirk turned into a grin.