Chapter Text
Tony Stark didn't get nervous. He had many personality traits that the press slathered his name with over the years of being in the spotlight—impulsive, cunning, intelligent, narcissistic, raging alcoholic—but getting nervous was not one of them. Still, as he looked down at the notecards with his barely legible scribbles in his hand, his leg bounced, no doubt vibrating the whole bench.
But it wasn't nerves that made him antsy, it was the fact that in a few minutes he'd be in front of a live audience of a few hundred and a camera broadcasting to millions to announce the officiation of the Accords, the thing that broke the Avengers apart and left him alone, bloody, and broken in Siberia.
When Ross told Tony he'd be the one to announce the Accords' passing, he told him to go fuck himself on a hacksaw and hung up. The only reason why he was there, notecards in hand, dressed to the nines, was because Ross convinced Pepper to convince Tony. Apparently it was good for the image of the Accords which was good for the image of the government which was good for the image of Stark Industries, the company Tony handed off to Pepper to deal with, but now there he was, dealing with it.
Some assistant of something with a wiry black earpiece and clunky glasses ushered Tony to the stage. An arm stopped him from proceeding up the steps, three beats passed, and from the stage Tony heard Ross announce, "And here he is now, ladies and gentlemen—Put your hands together for Tony Stark."
That's his cue, he supposed. The arm in front of him disappeared and Tony took a deep breath before heading up the stairs. He passed Ross on his way to the mic. To the public eye the look and nod he gave the man probably looked like a polite acknowledgment, but Ross saw it up close for what it really was: a silent I hate you.
Ross clapped Tony's shoulder. His eyes crinkled. Half-threat, half-I hate you too.
The lights were just enough of a little too much for him to handle. He blinked with squinted eyes, fighting the urge to raise a hand to shield himself from the blinding overhead lights, as he forced a bright paparazzi smile. He hoped it hid the fact that he was sweating under the glorified heat-lamps beating down on him, as well as the fact that he very much did not want to be there. At all.
Although he fought for the Accords in the beginning, and he still stood by them as a means to protect the world against future threats, he didn't want to be the face of them. The last time he was the face of something he thought he was in control of, it turned out that he was never truly in control and he was unintentionally aiding bad people to obtaining massive weapons of destruction. He really didn't want this to have a similar outcome; there was only so much emergency PR Pepper could do, and they weren't exactly on speaking terms at the moment.
Tony cleared his throat and leaned forward. The camera flashes and the audience's applause died down.
He glanced at the notecards he was oh-so-strictly instructed to follow to a T.
"This country was founded on the principles of the people's right to freedom: freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom to do as one pleases as long as no one is harmed. With the rise of mutants and other enhanced individuals, the people's freedom to safety has been infringed upon." Tony pulled a face, looked over his shoulder at Ross standing by the steps and out of sight of the audience. The man gave Tony a sharp look in return. He silently sighed and continued the speech. It was long and boring, and filled with some statements that Tony wouldn't necessarily one-hundred-percent agree on.
It was bullshit. But he continued on, somehow maintaining his award-winning smile.
"Ratified by 117 countries thus far, the Accords serve as a legal response to—"
"Booooo."
Tony paused mid-sentence, eyes darting to the crowd. Everyone's heads were turning left and right with confusion, wondering who the hell would boo Iron Man.
He brushed it aside and continued. "As a legal response to international concerns over unsanctioned actions and consequences by—"
"This guy sucks!"
"—enhanced individuals and members of the Avengers to create a system of accountability." Tony's volume increased and he gripped the side of the podium. "The necessity of the Sokovia Accords are to prevent a catastrophic event like that in Sokovia from happening in the United States. They enforce the documentation of enhanced individuals to ensure—"
"Show us your tits!"
"Okay, who the hell—" Tony gave up and lifted a hand above his eyes, blocking the light to see the crowd better. His eyes scanned each person's face, trying to locate the dick that kept interrupting his bullshit speech, and followed everyone's gazes to the ceiling. He froze as his eyes fell on a red and blue clad vigilante sitting in the beams.
Spider-Man looped his legs around the beam he was on and tilted, swinging to hang upside down, and cupped his gloved hands around where his mouth would be. He shouted, "Tell a joke!"
Confused and distraught murmurs broke out amongst the audience. Security marched down the aisles, as if they could do something about the man in spandex lounging high above them.
Spider-Man clapped loudly. "Oh, good, is it over?"
Tony was pushed aside—when did Ross cross the stage?—and watched as the Secretary of State tried to calm everyone down.
"Oh, brother, not this schmuck again," Spider-Man heckled. "Hey, real talk: Where were you on 9/11?"
Tony's mouth was agape. From the corner of his eye, he spotted the cameras broadcasting the whole thing on live television. He wasn't sure if he hoped the cameras had already cut to commercial break or if they were still recording the chaos.
Ross's controlled demeanor immediately dropped. Face red, he pointed a furious finger at the spiderling. "You better come down from there or—"
"Or what? You'll send me to the Raft and chain me up like an animal?" Spider-Man, still upside down, crossed his arms. "I already know your threats, buddy; I actually read the piece of bullshit Tony Stank over there was just announcing."
Tony's brow furrowed and he blinked, offended. What did he ever do to him?
Ross looked like he was going to actually explode. Tony took a half-step back, not wanting to have to shower off fragments of the Secretary when he got home if he did happen to combust. Having had enough, Ross pointed at some people with the wiry earpieces and black shirts and shouted commands. The cameras shut off, and police officers flooded the aisles to join the party of security guards.
As Tony watched the officers aim their tasers up at the beams, he was pretty sure he heard a giggle coming from Spider-Man. A giggle.
And then he was gone, crawling into an open vent and disappearing from sight, leaving the chaos behind him.
Part of Tony envied him, and then the other part of him joined in on the envy once the security dispersed and the cameras were turned back on and Ross looked like he was seconds from wringing someone's, anyone's, neck.
Tony coughed into his fist.
And he continued.
It wasn't the first speech Tony had given that had gone awry, but it was the first time it wasn't his own fault. He made sure Pepper knew that when he stepped off the stage and came face-to-face with her furious gaze.
By the time Tony was in the back of his car, Happy behind the wheel, the ordeal was all over the internet. He scrolled through tweets about the disruption and watched video clips from different views in the crowd. Some people were calling Spider-Man immature and a menace to society, proving the necessity of the Accords.
Others, the majority, were backing up Spider-Man's antics. Someone tweeted something about no one actually reading the documents—which, fair; Tony didn't go through the entire stack of papers himself—and how their wording could pose a direct and dangerous infringement on the civil liberties and rights of mutants.
Because it always came down to freedom and safety, didn't it?
Tony rubbed the heel of his palm against his chest, over his heart where the arc reactor once sat. Ghost pains from the fight in Siberia elicited a small, unnoticeable wince.
"Hey, Hap," he said, speaking around the pain in his chest and pocketing his phone, "re-route to the nearest Mickey D's. Speeches make me hungry."
"You got it, Boss."
~
Peter Parker always got nervous for, like, everything. Hands shaking by his thighs, mouth going dry, brain scrambled, stomach churning, tongue tripping his words up and jumbling everything into a stutter? Just another Wednesday.
But Spider-Man? He didn’t get nervous. He fought muggers, assailants, criminals, monsters, rapists, thieves, and gang bosses, and did his hands shake as he pressed onto the button in his palm to shoot webs from the homemade webshooters attached to his wrists? Nope. Did his voice stutter when he gave quips and heckled billionaires whose face covered his middle school bedroom’s walls? Definitely not. He heckled that goatee man like a pro.
But Peter Parker? Yeah. He was a mess. And so was his room, which no longer had Tony Stark, Albert Einstein, Marie Curie, Bruce Banner, or Isaac Newton posters plastered everywhere. It was also smaller than his old bedroom. Darker, too. An overall downgrade, in Peter’s opinion, though he didn’t have much say in the matter. (He didn’t have any say.)
His alarm went off ages ago. He snoozed it, like, four times, and then it stopped going off, so he fell back into a nice, comforting sleep that he desperately needed after swinging all the way to and from Staten Island last night. Not that he’d change anything about last night—the drug bust went phenomenally well, thank God—but he didn’t crawl back into his window until three that morning, and his arms were sore.
He thought nothing of the alarm—he was perfectly content snoozing it until noon—but then a line of morning sun slipped in between his crooked, broken blinds and illuminated his face, and he realized with a start that it was a weekday. School. Shit.
“Shit,” he hissed, rolling out of bed and tripping over the bedsheets that tangled around his ankles. A hand shot out to catch himself on the chair before he could face-plant, but it was a spinny chair, so it spun around and knocked him in the jaw on his way to the floor.
“What was that?” a deep, masculine voice boomed from down the hall. Peter glanced at the digital clock on his nightstand. 7:15. Skip was probably in the bathroom getting ready for work, which meant that Peter was supposed to leave fifteen minutes ago. School started at 8:00, but it took him about forty minutes to swing from Skip’s apartment in Queens to Midtown Tech which was, of course, in Midtown. He also liked to leave before Skip woke up.
Peter scrambled to his feet and quickly shucked his pajamas off. “Nothing!” he called back, rolling his eyes as he rifled through the laundry lying around the floor. He threw a pair of sweatpants at his bed and grabbed a pair of jeans that weren’t too wrinkled. Next was a shirt, which was also plucked from the floor and was also the least wrinkled choice. Since it was mid-September, he didn’t have to worry about digging through the mountain of mess for a jacket.
Like he predicted, Skip was in the hallway bathroom getting ready for work. When Peter passed the open door, he leaned out and said, “Aren’t you normally gone by now?”
“Yessir.”
“Are you going to be late?”
“Nope.” Peter grabbed his backpack off the floor and shoved his socked feet into his beat-up sneakers. Looking up at Skip, who was still leaning out the bathroom door and watching him with a glare, Peter asked, “Any more questions, your honor?”
“Watch your tone.”
“That wasn’t a question.”
Fury flared Skip’s nostrils, and Peter ducked out of the apartment with mischievous grin playing on his lips.
It was a routine that Peter had started shortly after he started to wear a red nylon mask and go by Spider-Man: Leave the apartment in his civvies, find an empty alley that had a big dumpster that blocked him from view, strip to his boxers, don his homemade suit (which actually wasn’t all that bad, considering he never particularly excelled in arts and crafts when he was younger), swing to another empty alley in Midtown, change back into his civvies, and waltz onto Midtown’s campus and see his friends. Well, friend. He had Ned, but he was still working on MJ.
“Sorry I’m late,” Peter rushed out, hands on his knees to catch his breath as he reached the front steps of the school. His stamina was usually pretty high, even by his old standards when he had asthma, but between getting only a few hours of sleep and having swung for hours the night before, he was exhausted.
“It’s cool, dude.” Ned lifted a hand, and Peter straightened enough to do their handshake. “Hey, did you ask Mr. Westcott if you could spend the night this Friday?”
“Yup,” he said, even though he definitely did not. His foster father didn’t give two shits about what Peter did when he wasn’t home. “He said it was fine, just gotta be home by lunch on Saturday. We’re going out to some new fancy place he’s been wanting me to try, and then we’re going to watch the new Tom Cruise movie.”
“Oh, cool. I didn’t know Tom Cruise was still doing movies.”
They started walking inside towards their neighboring lockers. Peter was a good liar, and he always enjoyed a good fib, but he also always hated lying to Ned. But he’d rather his friend believe his life was going well. If he knew the truth—that Skip and Peter hadn’t gotten along since day one six months ago—he’d worry about him. And Peter didn’t want Ned to worry about him.
“How old is he now?” Ned was saying, thumbs looped around his backpack straps.
“He’s gotta be pushing fifty.”
“At least.”
They arrived at their lockers. Ned never had to enter in his code—he had a pencil stuck in the back, so he just had to press and lift it to open his locker—so he rifled through his things as Peter wrestled with his padlock.
“I dunno,” Peter said once he got the locker open. “He could be one of those celebrities who sold their soul to the illuminati to become an immortal lizard.”
“Like the queen?”
“Exactly like the queen.”
The four-minute bell rang above them. As they headed towards their first class, Ned asked, “You ready for the quiz in physics?”
“Totally.” He threw up in the dumpster he changed behind from his Spider-Man suit into his civvies because he remembered that was today. And he didn’t study. His stomach did a flip—he might have to excuse himself to the bathroom before class to throw up again. “Are you?”
“I studied for four hours straight last night. I’d be surprised if I weren’t ready.”
“Ready for what?”
Peter and Ned both jumped, though Peter heard the girl’s footsteps and heartbeat the second she turned the corner and started heading towards them. He just thought it was funny.
“You need a bell,” Peter said, and MJ gave him a flat look.
Ned said, “We were talking about the quiz in physics. Are you ready for it?”
Her bored honey eyes glazed from Peter to Ned. “Depends.”
Ned blinked. “…On what?”
She shrugged and scratched her nose. “Anyways. Did you guys see that video of Spider-Man at the Accords press conference on Monday?”
Ned and Peter shared a look. Ned’s was more obvious, his eyes wide and lingering.
“Yeah…” Peter narrowed his eyes on MJ, trying to read her. Unfortunately, she had always been unreadable, her face in a constant state of unnerving blankness and boredom. “What did you think of it?”
“I thought it was funny,” Ned cut in, and forced a laugh. He shot Peter a discrete wink. Peter blinked back at him.
MJ watched the exchange with disinterest, then added, “I thought it was about time someone called the figures of power in our elitist society on their bullshit. Flash will probably bring this up at Acadeca after school, but he is starting a petition to eradicate the Accords.”
“Flash is?” Ned echoed, brow furrowed.
MJ shrugged. “He’s a big Spider-Man fanboy.” Then, with the faintest of smirks, she added, “I found his secret Tumblr account where he posts Spider-Man fanfiction.”
Peter’s jaw dropped. “No.”
She nodded. Ned laughed. “Oh my gosh, no way.”
Peter’s mouth, still wide open, slowly formed a smile. This was too good. Flash—the biggest dickhead in Midtown—wrote fanfiction about him? The boy he called “Penis Parker” and made fun of for being poor? His day just got ten times better.
“The point is,” MJ said, face going completely serious again, “his dad’s pretty involved in the government, so his petition might not be completely ignored. I’m signing it even though he makes my ears bleed, and you guys should, too.”
They entered the classroom and made their way to the back three chairs they normally occupied.
“So you must like Spider-Man, too,” Ned conversationally said, “since you’re signing Flash’s petition.”
MJ scoffed. “It’s not just about Spider-Man, or any of the other vigilantes running around. It’s about human rights. It’s discriminatory and dehumanizing to lock people up for simply existing, which is what the Accords are doing to do to every undocumented mutant, and probably the documented ones, too.” She opened her notebook and flipped to an empty page. She glanced at Peter, who sat diagonally from her, and added, “But, yeah, Spider-Man’s cool.”
When MJ stuck her nose in her notebook and started sketching, Ned turned to Peter and gave him a thumbs-up. Peter smiled.
The last bell rang, and Mr. Harrington stood with a stack of papers in his hands. “Alright, are you guys ready for your quiz?”
Peter’s stomach churned, bile rising to the back of his throat. The smile disappeared. He raised his hand.
“Yes, Peter?”
“Can I be excused to the restroom?”
~
The aftermath of the conference never seemed to come to an end. It kept stretching into the news cycles, kept being repeated on social media. Twitter was having a frenzy. Tony could hardly keep up with the debates, but he gathered that the majority was on Spider-Man’s side. Which meant that the majority was against Tony’s.
Having negative headlines was nothing new in Tony’s life—he was fourteen when he was hit with the first one: Businessman Howard Stark’s Son Tarnishes The Family Name by Defacing Private Property—but this, for some reason, made him want to lock himself in his lab and never come out.
Shame was a new emotion for him.
But he wasn’t just feeling ashamed for being on the side of the Accords—he was also something else, something he couldn’t quite figure out, something that almost tasted like regret. And he was familiar with regret—so, painfully familiar with regret—so he knew what it tasted like. And this was similar, but not the exact same. He felt it when he thought about how the very thing he stood by, the thing he was so stubborn to push for—so stubborn that it cost him his friends—no longer seemed to be the end-all, be-all solution.
Was he on the wrong side all along? Was it his fault the Avengers fell apart?
He saw a flash of the grainy, black and white video Zemo showed him and Steve. He heard his mother’s cries for help.
He poured himself another glass of whiskey.
“Friday, pull up…” He rubbed his forehead, racking his brain for something to distract himself with. “What’s some recent news? What’s everyone talking about?”
The hologram in front of him glitched to show CNN’s live news. On the screen is an image of some annoyed lower-level government official with his beaming son two feet away from him. The news broadcaster said, “Students from Midtown Science and Technology have started a petition to change the Accords so mutants would no longer be subjected to required identification and documentation. Petition by Eugene Thompson, son of Representative Harrison Thompson, has already gained five thousand signatures by students, teachers, and parents. Here’s what Eugene had to say.”
The image changed to show a video of Eugene Thompson with a microphone extended towards him. His hands moved animatedly as he talked.
“I think it’s safe to say that Spider-Man is the best superhero of all time—”
“Ugh—Stop.” Tony waved his hand and the hologram disappeared. He didn’t even realize the glass in his hand was empty until he went to take another drink. Weird. “What else is going on?”
Friday replied, “CBS is broadcasting a live video of downtown New York—” She hesitated, as if she sensed her next words would set Tony off, but she nevertheless continued. “—where Spider-Man is saving a bus of school children off of a collapsed bridge.”
He poured himself another drink.
There was a giant lizard terrorizing Manhattan.
Sounded like something Tony would dream about, before the part where everyone he had ever cared about dies in front of him and whisper with their dying breaths that it was his fault, but it wasn't a dream. He could see the damn lizard monster from the window of the conference room he and Vision were seated in. It was supposed to be the Avengers meeting together, waiting for the state to grant them permission to subdue the threat, but it was just the two. Was that really the entire Avengers team now? Just Tony and Vision, whom he created? It felt pathetic.
Not that Vision was pathetic—his entire existence exceeded the bounds of what Tony thought was possible—just that the so-called Avengers team was just an aging man in a tin can and a walking, talking computer.
Superb.
Tony tore his eyes from the closed door and watched as the lizard threw a car from Midtown to Hell's Kitchen. And he was sitting in a plastic chair. Waiting.
He jolted in his seat when the door flung open and a young woman Tony didn't recognize said, "You're all clear."
"Fuckin' finally." Tony pushed himself out of the chair, pressed his watch, and stared out the window at the Godzilla-wannabe as his nano suit encased his body. Vision phased through the wall while Tony flew through the window Friday opened for him.
As he flew closer, he noticed a small dot swinging around the lizard like an annoying bug. It wasn't until he was a couple blocks away from the action that he realized it was a bug.
A very annoying bug.
Spider-Man flung himself high above the lizard, webbed up one of his monster claws, and tugged hard. It roared and tried to swat him away, only making his other claw vulnerable for another web. As Spider-Man swung around him, wrapping him up in the silky webs, he glanced up and saw Tony and Vision.
"Hey, what took you guys so long?" he called out, mocking. "I was beginning to get worr—AGH!" The lizard ripped a hand loose and slapped Spider-Man straight into the side of a brick building.
For a faltering second Tony thought that was it, that the kid was dead, but then there was a chipper voice that shouted, "I'm okay!"
"Jeez." Tony rolled his eyes. "Vision, you want to take this dinosaur down while I handle the civilians?"
"It'd be my pleasure."
"Cool." Tony flew down to the streets and directed scared pedestrians away from the scene. People were screaming, crying, and pointing their phones up, but they weren't running away. It made his job a hell of a lot more difficult.
"Go, come on, let's go," he urged them. He ripped a car door off its hinges to free a small family from the confines of their minivan, instructing them where to find shelter.
Just as the family ran out of the minivan, something heavy crashed into the roof of the vehicle like a meteor. Tony yelped and jumped back, heart in his throat, and frowned when he saw that the meteor was Vision. He offered the man—robot?—a hand and hefted him up.
"Take a tumble there, Vis?"
"Spider-Man threw me."
"He threw you?" Tony looked up at the spiderling attempting to wrap the lizard up like a cocoon again. This time seemed to be going better than the first. "Why the hell did he throw you?"
"I believe his exact words were, 'stop hurting him before I throw you like a Raggedy Ann doll.'" Vision seemed thoroughly confused. "I did not anticipate his strength."
Just as Tony was about to fly up there and rip Spider-Man a new one, the guy had the lizard completely wrapped up and had kicked him over. The lizard let out a deafening roar as he fell to the ground and hit his head on the road, knocking himself out cold. The ground shook at the impact.
Spider-Man swung down and gracefully landed by the lizard's head.
"Hey!" Tony shouted. His faceplate retracted into his helmet as he stormed over to where the guy was tying the webs. "What the hell do you think you're doing?"
Spider-Man barely looked up at him, busying himself with the webs. "You snooze, you lose. I don't make the rules."
Tony's jaw clicked. He went to grab Spider-Man's shoulder to spin him around, but he dodged his hand without even turning around. "Don't touch me, man."
"You can't just throw one of my guys," Tony thundered. "I know you think you're hot stuff, but that's off-limits. We're the good guys, okay? The heroes."
There was that giggle again. Spider-Man finally looked up, patted the lizard's cheek, and said, "Sure."
He then proceeded to lift the lizard into his arms and carry him a few steps away. Tony choked on his spit and sputtered, "What—Where are you taking that?"
"You mean where am I taking him?" Spider-Man emphasized. He shrugged, still cradling the ten-foot-tall lizard. Turning around, he answered, "None of your business."
The next morning, as Tony sipped (chugged) his second cup of black coffee, he read the newspaper. Dr. Curt Connor's face was on the front page, paired with an image of the lizard creature. In a smaller picture wrapped in text was Spider-Man mid-swing. The caption read: “Mutants are people, too. Behind the scales, behind the claws, they still—we still deserve protection.” – Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man
No one knew much, if anything, about the newest masked vigilante on the scene. He'd been dubbed both a "menace to society"—by newspapers such as the Daily Bugle—and the "friendly neighborhood Spider-Man"—by civilians and many residents of Queens. That's where he seemed to focus most of his crime-fighting, which Tony didn't mind too much since it meant that the little wallcrawler mostly stayed out of his territory in Manhattan. He had only ever seen Spider-Man in the news and online. Until the Accords speech and then the lizard fight, that is.
He was smaller in person, not that Tony had much room to critique, considering he stood at 5'8" on a good day, and he sounded younger, too. Going off from that, as well as the quips and immaturity displayed at the speech, Tony would bet that there was a bright-eyed college-aged kid who still had faith in humanity under the red nylon mask. He remembered being that age, protesting in the streets and signing petitions. The difference is that he wasn't a mutant and he didn't dance around the boroughs in glorified underoos.
Not that what Spider-Man did was useless. Tony thought he was just saving kittens from trees and giving directions to tourists, but after some quick digging, he found loads of stuff about Spider-Man stopping car chases, bank robberies, home invasions, and muggings. Tony's already weakened heart clenched when he watched a grainy YouTube video of Spider-Man running head-first into a burning apartment building without any hesitation or self-preservation.
Tony wanted to be mad about Spider-Man's interruption during his speech. But, firstly, it wasn't exactly his speech; he was just reading the notecards they handed to him minutes before he walked on stage. Secondly, Spider-Man seemed to be a fairly decent vigilante, even masked-up and unregulated. No wonder the guy was against the Accords.
But that's the tricky part, because even though Spider-Man seemed decent, he could slip up. Something could snap. From all the videos Tony binged, he knew that the stick in spandex could catch a bus hurdling towards him at forty miles an hour, so just imagine the destruction he could cause if he had a change of heart or, hell, just had a bad day.
Tony swirled the whiskey around in his glass before downing it. The pulsing in his temples didn't ease.
Although the Accords were already ratified, they were going to grant masked vigilantes, mutants, and other enhanced individuals a two-week grace period to come forward on their own accord before any were faced with warrants for their arrest for being undocumented. Ross expected Tony to help him catch the undocumented mutants, which Tony thought was stupid because he thought he was let off the hook after delivering the speech. He also kept finding himself going back to what Spider-Man had said:
"Or what? You'll send me to the Raft and chain me up like an animal? I already know your threats, buddy; I actually read the piece of bullshit Tony Stank over there was just announcing."
Which brought Tony to the present, where he was actually reading the damn documents he had already signed and publicly vouched for. He didn't remember his lawyers bringing up threats of being condemned to the Raft in the papers, but low and behold, on the seventh page at the bottom, is the condemning statement: Any enhanced peoples who do not comply with the contents of these pages and who pose a serious threat to society are subjected to be detained and kept for an undisclosed amount of time at the Raft prison.
Tony had been there once, to gain information about Rogers' whereabouts from the incarcerated rogue Avengers, and what Spider-Man said about being treated like an animal wasn't hyperbole. Wanda—
He inhaled sharply at the image that flashed in his mind. Wanda, nineteen, probably around this spider-guy's age, in a blue jumpsuit and straps around her arms. Like she was a maniac. A monster. Not a kid. When news broke that Rogers had busted them all out, he was relieved because the Raft wasn't for kids and innocent enhanced people, it was for adults who used their powers for evil. Not Wanda, not Clint, not Sam, not the ant guy, and certainly not Spider-Man.
Slamming the empty whiskey glass on the work desk, Tony rubbed a hand down his face. "Friday."
"Yes, Boss?"
"Call Secretary Ross for me, would ya?"
"Right away."
It rang, and rang. And rang.
"You've reached Secretary of State Thaddeus E. Ross. Please leave a message or call me back."
"Call again."
It rang. And rang.
"You've reached Secretary of State Thaddeus E. Ross. Please leave a message or call me back."
Tony cursed and sat up. "Okay, fine. Record a message, Fri."
"Recording."
"Thaddy? Call me back. End message."
~
“Dude. Where’s your costume?”
Ned was standing by their lockers, decked out in the Jedi costume his lola made him, which matched the one that his lola also made Peter. Which he was not wearing. The entire swing over to Midtown, Peter told himself that he’d stop lying to his best friend and just tell him the truth or once.
Peter stared at Ned for five seconds and decided that he was going to lie. “Oh my gosh, Ned, I completely forgot today was Halloween, I am so sorry.”
He wanted to die, cry, and throw up. In that order. Because, no, he did not forget it was Halloween, the day that he and Ned always hung out together and watched scary movies and binged candy. He was excited to wear the Jedi costume to school—and also nervous because there’s always that chance that no one else will be dressed up and he’d look ridiculous—and even laid it out on his bed so it wouldn’t be wrinkled. Unfortunately, Skip decided to randomly search his room while he was out slipping sandwiches into the storm drains where there were some kind of alligator people chilling (whom he found after chasing Dr. Curt Conners through the sewers a few weeks ago), and since Skip was, well, Skip, he threw the costume out and taunted Peter for acting childish that morning when he had confronted him.
Ned’s betrayal faltered and concern filled his eyes as he examined Peter’s face. “What happened to your face?” His eyes widened. “Was it…you know…”
What happened to his face had less to do with sleezy New York criminals and more to do with mouthing off to his foster father, but what Ned didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him.
“Yeah, left hook right in the eye,” Peter said. “He was stealing squirrels from Central Park to sell to make-up companies to test their, like, mascara and foundation and stuff on, and I couldn’t just let that happen, you know?”
“Your life is so crazy.” The glimmer of awe in Ned’s eyes wavered as he looked down at himself. “Is it weird that I’m all dressed up and you’re not?”
“Not at all,” Peter was quick to reassure him. “If anything, it’s weird that I’m not dressed up.”
A small smile tugged on Ned’s lips. “Okay. Do you want to hold my lightsaber?”
“Hell yeah.”
Peter didn’t even make it to second period before the principal, Mr. Morita, confiscated the lightsaber and gave him a warning not to bring weapons to school again. Which Peter would’ve been more pissed off about if he wasn’t busy feeling so guilty, because not only was his costume that Ned’s lola made him ruined, but he also got Ned’s lightsaber confiscated.
“And it’s a cool lightsaber, too!” Ned exclaimed at lunch. He angrily bit into a soggy French fry. “It lights up and makes the vhrmmmmmmm noises!”
MJ blinked. “Wow. Sounds super cool.” Her voice was monotone.
“I know, right?”
She chewed on a crunchy carrot and narrowed her eyes on Peter. Particularly, on the purple ring around his right eye socket. “What happened to you?”
“Squirrel thief.”
“What?”
“I’m just joking,” he said, momentarily forgetting that he hadn’t revealed his alter ego to MJ yet even though sometimes he swore she knew. “Long story. Super boring. Mugging stuff.” Peter grabbed a fry from Ned’s tray and shoved it in his mouth to stop his rambling. “You know how it goes.”
Her eyes narrowed even more. “Mhm.”
He had never held a baby before becoming Spider-Man. Growing up, it was mostly just him, his mom, and his dad. His dad had a brother—Ben—and even though he was married, they never had any children, wanting to save their money to travel the world one day. His parents were planning on having more children, but they died in a tragic car accident before that could happen. And then Peter was thrusted into the arms of Uncle Ben and Aunt May, and then Uncle Ben was shot while on duty and then Aunt May spiraled and became an addict and was “unfit” to be Peter’s guardian, so he was taken by the state and given to a few other families. His longest placements were when he was younger, and as he became a teenager, they were shortened. There was one placement where there was a baby—the Whitmores, a young couple with a bubbly toddler and a fussy infant—but they didn’t trust him enough to hold her. They never out-right said that, but he knew. He saw their wary glances, their worried looks, their thin smiles. He got yelled at for simply playing with the baby on his first day. They ripped his finger from the baby’s tight fist and warned him to be gentle with her, as if they believed he would rip her limb from limb.
As if he wanted to hurt anybody, much less a baby.
The first time he held a baby, he was clearing out a burning building. People were screaming, the floors were caving, and smoke was billowing. But through the chaos, Peter heard a heart-wrenching wail and zeroed-in on getting to the baby. Running past other civilians trapped in the building might’ve earned him a few glares and angry rants online, but he scooped up the baby and held him tight to his chest seconds before the ceiling above caved in and crushed the crib he had been laying in. He had never held something to fiercely yet gently before. Threats to be careful from the Whitmores echoed in his head as he rushed the baby out of the building engulfed in flames. He didn’t realize until after he made it to the street, swallowing up fresh gulps of air, that the baby wasn’t crying in his arms. He just looked up at him with a calm look, eyes slowly blinking, tiny hands fisting the fabric of his suit.
The second time he held a baby, he was helping a pregnant woman whose water had broke on the subway. It was by pure chance that he had run out of webfluid while on patrol and had to take the subway back to Queens, earning odd looks for wearing the suit. Being one in the morning, it wasn’t a full subway train by any means. Only a couple minutes into the ride, the pregnant woman sitting a few seats beside him stood up and gasped, “Holy shit.” There was a med student sitting a few seats down who helped, thankfully, because as soon as her water broke, the baby started to push himself out, ready to taste freedom. Peter held her hand after promising her that she would not break it, and, after only fifteen minutes, the med student was holding a screaming baby. Peter began praising the mother, wiping her hair out of her sweaty face, and then he was suddenly being handed the baby as the med student cleaned up and made sure that the mother was okay. He was the smallest thing he had ever held, he swore. But he only held him for a few seconds before he handed him off to the mother to swaddle to her chest.
After that, holding babies was a pretty common occurrence in Spider-Man’s life. He saved babies from falling, he helped babies from choking, he lifted babies from crashed cars. Sometimes random people on the streets just handed them to him, stars in their eyes, as if he was the Pope and would bless them or something.
Today, the reason why he had twin baby girls on each hip was because some wacko decided to steal them from a daycare, as if they didn’t have cameras. Peter was swinging through the city on his way home from school when he was flagged down by a group of young women frantically waving their arms and shouting his name. He dropped down, asked, “What’s going on?”
“Someone just took the twins,” one woman said, and then they described the man and his car and pointed the direction he went.
It didn’t take long for Peter to track him down. Not only were the women’s descriptions helpful, but the screaming babies also narrowed it down. All he had to do was strain his ears, locate the crying, and swing over, and bam, babies found. He webbed the guy up, left a note, and scooped the babies into his arms. Their crying almost instantaneously ceased, their big, teary eyes gazing up at Peter’s mask in wonder.
“Aren’t you two just the cutest?” he cooed, bouncing them lightly. He was only a street away from the daycare. “No wonder you guys got ‘napped. I mean, not that it’s your fault, obviously.”
One of the babies made a happy squealing noise and grabbed at his mask, tugging at it. Thankfully, she wasn’t strong enough to pull it off.
Sirens made his back go straight. A few blocks away. He needed to drop these two troublemakers off and skedaddle out of there before the cops saw him. He wasn’t one hundred percent sure, but he was fairly sure he had a warrant out for his arrest. The grace period for undocumented mutants to turn themselves in had passed a while ago.
The women melted with relief when Peter turned the corner and approached them, babies in his arms.
“Thank goodness you found them,” one gushed, taking the baby on his left hip while another woman took the one on his right and said, “Thank you so much.”
“Not a problem, I’m glad they’re safe,” he said with a smile. The smile faltered at the fast-approaching sirens. They were only a block away. “I’ve gotta bounce, but the guy who kidnapped them is webbed up a few streets over on McKinley, so make sure you point the cops that way.”
“Of course, thank you.”
The cop cruisers turned down the street, their red and blue reflecting off the store windows. That was his cue.
A cruiser screeched to a halt and its driver jumped out, unholstering his gun and aiming directly at Peter. “Don’t move!”
“Dude, seriously?” he muttered, raising his hands. He didn’t plan on staying—he could leave even with the gun aimed at him since he could dodge bullets, like, eighty-percent of the time—but then the other cruiser parked and its driver stepped out, and he looked as annoyed as Peter felt.
“Lower your weapon, Palaksi.” With silver hair in his beard and deep stress lines by his eyes and on his forehead, he looked older than the other officer.
“But he’s got a warrant—”
“And we’re here for a call about kidnapped babies, not about Spider-Man.” The other officers followed the women inside the daycare as the other two stayed outside with Peter. When the younger officer, Palaksi, didn’t lower his weapon, he barked, “Now.”
Palaksi swore under his breath and, finally, lowered the gun. He slammed his door shut with a grumble. “Fuckin’ muties.”
Peter wasn’t exactly a mutant—they were born with their powers, whereas he didn’t get his until the eighth grade—but the slur sent a cold shiver down his spine that clashed with the blood-boiling anger sizzing under his skin.
“Fuck you too, man,” Peter shouted, flipping him off. His voice was full of venom. “I just did your job. You’re welcome.”
He needed to go. He should’ve left as soon as he saw the gun. But everything from the past few months—the Accords getting ratified, the hate online, the insults, the threats, the slurs, the dehumanization—bubbled up to the surface like hot, explosive lava.
“Spider-Man, you should get out of here,” the older officer warned, not unkindly.
Palaksi pushed past the older officer and marched up to where Peter stood on the sidewalk. Peter clenched his fists at his sides and lifted his chin in challenge.
“And what makes you think you’re above the law?” Palaksi looked down at him condescendingly, disgust etched across his face as his eyes flicked up and down to scan Peter head-to-toe. “Your mutant blood? In case you didn’t know, it makes you below the law, and it means you’re below humans.”
“That’s enough, Palaksi.”
“No!” he shouted, loud and hot in Peter’s face. He shoved the older officer off of him when he tried to pull him back. “I’m tired of them. They think they run this city. They act like they’re better than us, but they’re nothing.”
Peter’s jaw clenched. “Someone’s got anger issues. Sounds like you need to invest in some therapy, bro.”
“I’m not your bro, mutt.” He placed two hands on Peter’s chest and pushed. Hard.
Peter barely stumbled, but his head filled with blaring sirens and every inch of his skin was on fire, and suddenly his knuckles hurt and his chest was heaving and Palaksi was on the ground, cradling a bloody, broken nose.
“Yo, what the fuck?” a bystander shouted. Peter’s head snapped up. There was a crowd circling them, every other person’s face hidden behind a phone.
A large hand grabbed his bicep, but before Peter could wrench his arm free, he caught the sharp eyes of the older officer. Instead of cuffing him like he expected, the man pushed him and commanded, “Go.”
Heart in his throat and his head spinning, Peter shot a web and swung away. A few blocks away—far enough for the sirens to stop pounding against his eardrums—he landed roughly behind a Papa Johns, skinned his knees on the ground, and threw up.
~
Ross was ignoring him. Which wasn't how their relationship worked. Tony's supposed to be the one dodging Ross's calls and making up thin excuses while Ross fruitlessly tried to get some kind of contact with the man. Oh how the tables have turned.
Fortunately for Tony, he's Tony Stark, which meant that no one could ignore him forever. Eventually, he wore them down until they had no choice but to break.
"What could you possibly want at five in the morning?"
It's five in the morning? Tony checked his watch. Huh. Would you look at that. He crossed his arms and spoke to the ceiling. "What, no hello? No good morning?"
"Stark."
"Ross." Tony threw a tennis ball at the adjacent wall and caught it, gripping it in both hands. "We need to talk about a certain set of documents."
The documents. The only thing he had been able to think about in the past, well, several months.
A heavy sigh came from the speaker. "Right now?"
"It's not my fault you didn't pick up the phone at the reasonable hours I tried reaching you."
"Just cut to the chase, Stark."
Tony threw the ball. He waited for it to return to his hands before saying, "I don't want to be the face of the Accords anymore." He threw the ball again. Caught it. "Unless, of course, there were some changes made."
Ross's voice was all but a growl. "I'm not doing this right now."
"No problemo, let's schedule a time to talk, then."
"I mean, I'm not doing this, at all. It's not my fault you signed the documents before you actually read them. Besides, 117 countries—118 including the U.S.—have approved the Accords. The majority is in favor."
"Wasn't your whole thing about right to safety, or some bullshit like that?" Tony said, turning the tennis ball around in his hand and gazing at it. He plucked a hair from its surface. "What about the rights of the enhanced individuals that are being discriminated against?"
"Nobody's discriminating against anybody. It's a matter of public safety."
"What do you call incarcerating mutants for simply existing with their enhancements, then?"
"Incarcerating mutants for not reporting their enhancements? I'd call that nipping a threat in the bud. I thought you of all people would see that, with your whole 'building a suit around the world' thing." Ross paused. "Who's the mutant you've been talking to?"
"Pardon?"
"You were on stage proudly announcing the Accords a week ago, and now you're suddenly against them. Who've you been in contact with?"
"Maybe after a certain sticky guy in spandex heckled me for not reading the documents I studied up and changed my mind." Said sticky guy in spandex also happened to be at the forefront of the whole Accords debacle recently. His more recent stunt, the punching-a-cop-in-the-face one, of course kicked up a frenzy as people who were against mutants jumped in to paint the situation as a core example why the Accords need to be enforced.
When Tony first saw the headline—Spider-Man Punches NYPD Officer—he, of course, was affronted. But then he actually watched the video that was circling, and even though he couldn’t hear the words exchanged, he saw the officer get all up in Spider-Man’s face, spitting words that couldn’t have been pleasant, and then he saw that Spider-Man socked him in the face after the officer put his hands on him first.
Thankfully, Tony wasn’t the only one who saw it this way. Within the mess of anti-mutant voices were stronger voices who came to Spider-Man’s defense. If Pepper hadn’t revoked Tony’s social media privileges, he would’ve chimed in. But, as it was, he didn’t have access to social media and was also still bound to the agreements of the stupid legal documents.
Ross made a noise in the back of his throat, as if Tony had just confirmed something for him. "So you've been in contact with Spider-Man." The name was dripping in venom.
As if he could actually manage to track the little shit down. He sighed. "Believe what you want to believe. Regardless, you'll be hearing from my lawyers about getting my name off your pretty little papers."
"It's a legal—"
"Don't underestimate me."
"If it's Spider-Man you're doing all of this for, then you need to change your mind again."
"He's not, but he's doing good out there. I'm sure you heard about the whole lizard thing."
"How Spider-Man single-handedly lifted the creature without breaking a sweat?"
"Well, I mean, it was hard to tell if he broke a sweat because of the mask."
"Strength like that is dangerous, Stark." Ross's voice was short. "Unpredictable. It needs to be contained. It's in everyone's best interest that we get it off the streets."
Tony frowned and hoped that the it Ross was referring to was the threat, not Spider-Man, because if he was calling Spider-Man an it, then...Well. That would be messed up. And Tony didn't even particularly like the guy.
"I shouldn't have to say this, but I will: it's against the law to aid in the protection of undocumented mutants. If you're in contact with Spider-Man, or any other mutant, then you need to bring them in."
Tony's brow furrowed. He propped his feet up on his desk. "What's the deal with you and Spider-Man? Don't tell me he hurt your feelings at the press conference."
"He's a threat, like I said. He punched a NYPD officer. He will be dealt with."
"I doubt that. He's a hard man to track down."
"The CIA's on the case.” Ross sounded smug. “They'll find him and bring him in. They've been meaning to gain a better understanding of his powers for a while, considering some of his enhancements are comparable to Rogers, who is no longer an asset."
Tony froze. Not just at the mention of Rogers, but at the implication of the CIA using mutants as assets. Sure, maybe even he himself was considered an asset, but at least he had a choice in the matter.
Head already pounding with an oncoming headache, Tony said, "It's late—"
"It's early," Ross interrupted, but Tony plowed on as if he hadn't.
"—so I'll let you go so you can enjoy your sponge bath with essential oil candles. Toodles."
Tony didn't need to tell Friday to end the call, her programming advanced enough to pick up on verbal cues. She was also advanced enough to read Tony's body language and vitals to order him a coffee. He would've preferred some alcohol, but coffee would do.
As he sat back and stared at the wall in front of him, he decided that even if he didn't particularly like Spider-Man, the least he could do was warn him what was headed his way.