these are not original charecters (accept the bug)

The case of the peculiar abnormally large bug

Short stories

Peter trudged slowly through the deep snow, there were flakes swirling thickly around him. He shivered and hugged his coat tighter around him. His car had broken down, okay it was Aunt May's car, but he had borrowed it to drive upstate to surprise Mr. Stark, who was at the compound all by himself. Harley had called Peter and told him. Apparently Rhodey had left to fly a mission for the airforce, Pepper had left to take care of some company business in California, Happy had gone with Pepper, and Vision had snuck off to meet with Wanda Maximoff, that left Mr. Stark… Alone. Peter didn't know how Harley had known this, but he was on winter break, and Aunt May had gone on a work trip, so Peter had decided to drive up and visit Mr. Stark. Peter had forgotten to check the weather, this snow storm had kicked about an hour ago, and then the car had broken down, so he was stuck trudging the last mile and a half to the compound. He would have called Mr. Stark for a ride, but he still wanted to surprise him.

Peter was glad when he finally made it to the compound, he typed in his security code that Mr. Stark had given him. Clink, the door unlocked, and peter opened it and walked inside; He was hit by wave of warmth. Peter took off his frozen stuff.

"Friday, where is Mr. Stark?" Peter asked as he took off his boots.

"Mr. Stark is in the lab," Friday replied helpfully.

"Thanks!" Peter said and rushed down the hallway that lead to the lab, his socks slid on the slippery floor, and he almost fell as he slid to a stop outside the lab. He peared in through one of the big glass windows. Mr. Stark was sitting at one of the work tables with his back to the window, he had his face buried in his hands, he looked frustrated. Peter opened the door slowly, Mr. Stark lifted his head and turned around. Mr. Stark's face lit up when he saw Peter.

"Pete! What are doing here?!" Mr. Stark said and stood up, his voice seemed scratchy, and he sounded like he had stuffy nose. He probably had a cold.

"A little birdy told me you were alone, and Aunt May is on business trip, and I was getting a little lonely so i decided to drop by and surprise you!" Peter said, he felt like he was smiling way to much, but he couldn't help it. He was so happy to see Mr. Stark smiling, a real smile, not the one when he was hiding his real emotions. It was nice.

"Why aren't you in school?" Mr. Stark asked folding his arms.

"I'm on winter break," Peter said happily.

"How did you get up here?"

"I drove… and then I walked…" Peter trailed off as Mr. Stark rose his eyebrows.

"You walked?! How far?! What if you had slipped!? In that storm no one would ever find you!" Mr. Stark exclaimed obviously upset by the notion of Peter walking on the road in a snow storm. He took a breath to start fussing again, but broke off into a fit of coughing. Peter rushed to his side and steaded him.

"Are you you okay Mr. Stark?" Peter asked anxiously.

"Yeah… I just have cold. You want to know how I got it? I went outside for to long! That's what happens when you are in the cold for to long!" Mr. Stark weezed, still catching his breath from coughing, his look of disapproval faded into one of pained fondness, "Oh come here. Give me a hug."

Peter gave Mr. Stark a big hug, he felt warm, but not a good warm, like a feverish warm, and frail.

"Are you sure your okay?" Peter asked, he was definitely concerned.

"Yeah, I'm fine…" He barely finished before he started coughing again.

"Nope. That's it. You are not okay. You definitely feel like you have a fever, come on you need to rest," Peter said firmly, making Mr. Stark chuckle a little. "Come on let's go in the lounge area."

Peter and Mr. Stark walked through the hallways of the compound, making their way to "living room". Mr. Stark had, had a room designed specifically to be like a normal living room in a normal house, there were armchairs, a couch, and even a fireplace. It was a very nice cozy room.

"Here lay down on the couch," Peter directed, somebody needed to make sure Mr. Stark was going to take care of himself. Mr. Stark rolled his eyes and sat down on the couch, he shivered a little. Peter frowned at him.

"I'm fine," Mr Stark said. He shivered and then broke off into a fit of coughing, " Okay. fine im not okay."

Peter pulled two blankets out of the blanket chest that also doubled as a table, he gave one to Mr. Stark, and then plopped down on the couch next to him and pulled his own blanket over both of them. Mr. Stark pulled his legs up onto the couch and pulled the blankets over him more.

"You wanna watch a movie?" Peter asked leaning over and grabbing the remote.

"Sure…" Mr. Stark mumbled quietly.

Peter turned on the tv and started flipping through tv channels to find something to watch, he flipped through all of the channels before finally settling on some old western.

About half way through the movie Peter realized that Mr. Stark had his head leaned on his shoulder, and was sound asleep. Peter smiled, he was glad he had come. Being alone sucked, and being alone and sick sucked even more. Suddenly the tv shorted out, and the lights went out. Peter made a surprised squeaking noise, that was a mix between a scream and a gasp. Mr. Stark sat up abruptly, Peter had woken him up.

"What happened? Why are all the lights out?" Mr. Stark said sounding confused and groggy.

"I think the power went out."

"That shouldn't happen, the back up should have come on by now," Mr. Stark said standing up, "I'll go see what's up with it."

"Wait, isn't the power circuit in a different building?" Peter asked, he didn't want Mr. Stark to go out in the cold and get even more sick, plus the snow was coming down thick and heavy outside, it would be very easy to get lost in the raging blizzard.

"Yeah, but we need the power back on."

"No, we'll be fine with blankets, and we can light a fire in the fireplace. The power will come back on soon or later. You are not going outside," Peter said commandingly. Mr. Stark gave him pained look, but to Peter's surprise he sat back down on the couch. Peter got up and walked over the wood box right by the fire place; he set to work arranging the wood in the fireplace. Soon he had a nice fire going, from there he pulled out a few candles, lit them, and set them around the room, then he grabbed the edge of the couch and pulled it around in front of the fireplace. He hopped back on the couch next to Mr. Stark.

"See power outages can be fun," Peter said nudging Mr. Stark with his elbow, he just moaned a little. "Do you want me to go find you some tylenol, to help with your fever?"

"No… i'm good…" He mumbled and leaned his head on Peter's shoulder. This really worried Peter, he hadn't been acting this sick when Peter had first arrived, which probably meant he was getting worse…. Worse in only an hour? Something wasn't right. Maybe something in the lab had made him sick. Peter decided he would investigate once Mr. Stark fell asleep.

"Here, lay down," Peter said gently moving Tony into a laying down position as he stood up.

"Where are you going kid?" Mr. Stark asked quietly like he was almost asleep.

"Nowhere," Peter lied, "Get some rest."

He just mumbled something incomprehensible and pulled the blankets closer around him. Peter pulled another blanket out of the chest and tucked it around him. Peter nodded in satisfaction, he had gotten Mr. Stark warm, and he was sleeping peacefully. It was time to investigate.

Peter walked slowly down the hallway of the dark compound, afew emergency lights had come on, but not enough to make it very light. Peter walked into the dark lab, and made his way down the rows of shelves that contained all sorts of chemicals and what not, they were all neatly labeled. At first nothing seemed out of place, but then a jar caught Peter's eye. He looked at it closely. It had a hole melted in it, with some kind of green acid dripping from the jagged edges. Peter peered at the label and became rather worried.

The label read: Bug, not sure what kind, but DO NOT under any circumstance let it out, or let it bite/ stinge you.

Peter took step back, he really didn't like that, nor did he did he like the fact that this bug had escaped. His spidey senses tingled slightly, he spun around making sure nothing was behind him. There was nothing there, but Peter felt like there was something watching him. He really wished the lights would come back on. He took a deep breath, he would go check on Mr. Stark, and then see about getting the power back on. He knew it was a bad idea to go out in the blizzard, but he hated the idea of some weird bug creeping up on him in the dark. Peter moved quickly back through the hallway to the livingroom. Peter tiptoed over to the couch to check on Mr. Stark, he didn't look to good, his hair was wet, there was sweat on his face, and he looked flushed, but he was curled up tightly under the blankets as if he was cold. Peter would check the power, then find some medicine, and then call Pepper, or someone. Peter wasn't used to being on this side of the fever, he had never had to take care of a sick person before, and he was honestly kind of nervous he was going to mess something up. Peter left Mr. Stark's side and crept quickly through the hallway to the door where he had left all of his stuff. He put his boots on and pulled on his coat and hat. He took a deep breath and tugged on the door. It didn't budge. Okay that wasn't cool. Peter took his coat and boots off. He needed a game plan. His spider senses were still tingling and he was 80% sure it was because of the bug. He figured it would be best to probably just stick close to Mr. Stark… Oh right he needed to find medicine. Peter had almost forgotten. Medicine would be in the kitchen… The kitchen... where was the kitchen? Peter racked his brain trying to remember.

Splat! Something dripped on the floor next to Peter and made him jump. He looked down, it was the same sort of green acid that had been on the jar. Peter slowly looked up at the ceiling, and above him was a very large slimy scorpion looking bug. Peter gulped. It hissed. Peter hesitated for about 2 seconds before he took off running down the hallway. The bug chased after, Peter could hear is scuttling along the ceiling behind him. Peter suddenly realized he was going the wrong way. He was leading this thing straight back toward Mr. Stark. Peter turned and down the next the hallway, his socks slid on the floor and he almost fell down. He ran for quite awhile before he realized the thing wasn't following him anymore. Peter slid to a stop. Where had it gone? Peter had an awful hunch, he hurried back don the hallway and headed for the living room. He ran into the room, and slid to stop, the bug was on the ceiling right above Mr. Stark. Peter quickly slapped on his web shooters.

"Hey nasty!" Peter shouted and shot a web at the bug. It hissed, crawled forward and dropped down onto the floor. It rushed toward Peter, who ran and took a flying leap over top of it. Peter let his legs drop out from under him and slid across the floor all the way over to the couch. He stood up and jumped over the couch and ran over to the fire place. Peter grabbed the fire poker, and jumped back over the couch where Mr. Stark was still asleep. Peter was about to rush the nasty bug when to his surprise it spoke.

"He's going to die…" The bug hissed in a very erie gravely way, "I was young when i bit him, but it changes Nothing!"

Peter's stomach lurched, he didn't want to believe this thing, but he knew it wasn't lying.

"Your right. It changes nothing. I am still going to kill your nasty ass."

"You don't care what happens to him?" The thing seemed very dismayed at this. Something told Peter he should lie.

"No. I don't." Peter hated himself for even pretending not to care.

"No! You have to be lying!" This thing was getting very worked up now, and not even really paying any attention to him. Peter took this as an opertunitunity and rushed at the distrait bug, he jumped forward and stabbed the fire poker into the things head. It screeched.

"No! AHHHH! I can not be killed! This still doesn't change things! I have already put my fire into your fathers veins! He will burn!" The bug shrieked and green slimy acid oozed out of where Peter had stabbed fire poker melted away, and the whole closed, "You thought that would kill me? Fool! I can't die! I am unquenchable!"

"What the hell?!" Peter whorled and around and saw Mr. Stark sitting up, "Damn I did not think that thing would get that big!"

"I'm glad you found the strength to wake up! Now i can fight and kill both you and your son! I don't have to wait for the poison to kill you!" The creature said gleefully. Mr. Stark hopped off the couch and made his way to Peter's side. Peter looked him up and down, he looked like he was about to pass out any second. His hair was dripping wet and plastered to his head.

"Alright kid what's the plan?"

"Um, well i wouldn't be aposed to you hopping in one of your suits and kicking this things ass."

"You don't think i planned ahead? No suit is going to save you! I made sure of that."

What had this thing done? Peter really wanted to know what the hell had mutated this thing.

"I figured you'd have done something like that. Just out of curiosity why did you stay? You already stung me, shouldn't you have just left before anyone came back. You know that any one of the normal residents here could kick your ass," The way Mr. Stark said this scared Peter. Had Mr. Stark known what this thing had done? What was going on?

"Mr. Stark? What is going on? You knew what this thing did to you!?"

"Yeah, it's kinda hard to miss thing stabbing you with its damn stinger."

"And you were just okay with DYING!? What were you doing when I got here?!" Peter could not believe this.

"I was trying to make an antidote, but it failed. That's what I was doing."

"Why didn't you tell me?!"

"Because…"

"Its shutting up time now." The creature rushed toward them. Peter shoved Mr. Stark out of the way, and webbed the bug and threw it into the wall. Mr. Stark collected himself from the floor.

"why didn't you leave? You never answered my question," Mr. Stark addressed the bug a second time.

"Shut up stark! I am not answering your foolish questions!"

The bug leapt off the wall straight toward Peter, who didn't think before he jumped out the way, right after he did he realized it was a mistake. The bug hit Mr. Stark and knocked him down. the blow sent him flying. His head slammed into the ground, he slid across the floor, and lay in a limp heap.

"Mr. Stark!" Peter tried to rush to his side, but the bug stood in his way.

"You may as well save yourself! It's to late for him, and you can't kill me!"

The bug swatted Peter and he flew into the wall. Peter sank to the floor stunned… Wait, what if Mr. Stark had been on to something? why had this thing stuck around? What was keeping it here? Then the thought struck Peter, this thing may be mutated as shit, but it was still a bug. Bugs come into the house during the winter… to avoid the cold. The cold. That was it. Peter sprang to his feet and ran across the room so he was standing infront of one of the large glass windows.

"Come on asshole! Don't pick on a guy when hes down! Come fight me! Coward!"

"How dare you! I am not a coward! I have neutralized the great Tony Stark! I am powerful!"

"Yeah, exactly your coward! If you had wanted to do something note you would have fought him in his suit! He is week when he doesn't have his suit!" Peter really hoped Mr. Stark didn't take this to heart, (it was a lie of course Mr. Stark's suits weren't what made him powerful) Peter was making up all this bull shit to piss off the mutated scorpion thing.

"NO! I AM STRONG AND FEIRCE! I'LL SHOW YOU!" The bug rushed toward him. Peter launched web at it and with all of his strength he hurled it out the window. It shrieked miserably as it landed in the snow.

"HOw did you know!?"

Peter leapt out the window after it. He had to keep it outside until it died. Peter started trapping it in webs. After all he was a spider, and spider ate other insects. Soon he had it immobilized, and he perched on one the webs to sit and watch it die.

"How did you the know cold would kill me!? AHH! Its destroying me! HELP! No! My blood is freezing! DOn't kill me! YOUR DESTROYING MY FIRE!" The thing shrieked horribly, Acid started leaking out of it, it was trying to melt the webs, but the acid froze as it hit the cold air. Peter sat still staring down in disgust as the snow swirled down mercilessly around him. The cold bit and stung his face, but he didn't care. He was going to watch this thing die for what it had done. Finally the creature fell silent and its legs curled and shriveled like a spider does when it dies. Peter smiled for a split second, and then remembered Mr. Stark. He lept in through the broken wind and rushed over to Mr. Stark's limp form.

"Mr. Stark!" He knelt down next to him, "Wake up!"

Peter roled him over, there was a thin trickle of blood running out of the corner of his mouth, he felt very hot. Peter held his head, and checked to see if he was still alive. His pulse was racing. Mr. Stark opened his eyes slowly.

"Hey kid…" He coughed, "This really sucks hu...?"

"We'll figure this out, you'll be fine!" Peter tried to reassure him, and himself. Mr. Stark smiled slightly and closed his eyes. He was shivering uncontrolably, but his scin was burning hot… Wait the cold had frozen the bug, the thing had said he had already put its fire in Mr. Stark's blood… Peter had an idea. If the cold had "killed" the bug's fire... that was in it! maybe it would do the same for Mr. Stark. Peter lay him gently down and ran full tilt to where his stuff was hanging up. He threw on his boots and coat and rushed back.

"I have this figured out I think, hang on," Peter said lifting Mr. Stark into his arms. He felt light and small in Peter's arms. Peter carried him outside in to the swirling snow. He hopped this would work. He lay Mr. Stark down in the snow; Mr. Stark gasped and opened his eyes.

"What…?" He gasped and then fainted. Peter crouched there next to him. This probably wasn't going to work. He was going to die here, Peter could feel a wave of dread and sarow wash over him. Mr. Stark coughed and gagged and some kind of green fluid oozed out of his mouth. He started choking, so Peter sat him up. He started puking out green goop. It scared Peter, then he noticed that there was something leaking through Mr. stark's shirt. Peter lifted up the shirt and peared under it, there was the same green stuff leaking out of a nasty wound, probably where he had been stung by the stinger. The green slowly stopped oozing out, and then the strangest thing happened, the cut started to heal rapidly. Mr Stark stopped puking and fell limp in Peter's arms.

" ?!" Peter panicked, he wasn't sure what had just happened. He checked his pulse, it wasn't racing nearly as fast now. His fever seemed to have gone down considerably. The cold had killed the poison, Peter sighed in relief. He hugged Mr. Stark close to him, he wondered if it was safe to take him back inside yet. Well only one way to find out. Peter picked him back up and carried him back inside, he decided against taking him back to the couch. He carried Mr. Stark down the hallway to his bed room, and put him down in the bed. He tucked him under the blankets, as he did so the lights came back on. The power was back!

"Friday! Run a diagnostic on him."

"Request denied."

"I already know about the freakin poison, is he okay now?" Peter snapped.

"Body temperature is returning to normal, I don't read any poison in his bloodstream. Congratulations you saved him!" The AI sounded happy, and relieved.

Peter sighed and flopped into a chair. He was exhausted.

"Nice work Pete…" Mr. Stark mumbled, "I owe you big time!"

"Your awake!" Peter leapt forward and hugged him, "You are not allowed to be dying anymore!"

Mr. Stark laughed a little and hugged him back.

"Agreed."