A/N: Hi, all! I'm sorry that this chapter took so long, but real life has been busy (and planning this mother out more thoroughly took longer than I thought it would... and I may have rewritten the latter half of this chapter eight ...or ten... or fifteen times). Thanks for the support!
Please note: I'm a writer, not a physicist or doctor. I have only a basic knowledge of genetics and whatever Bruce does. Most of this stuff I just looked up online.
"Aaaand done!"
Peter stood back, admiring his handy work. Clint, who was standing next to the whirring coffee pot, raised an eyebrow, not exactly getting what Peter was talking about.
"Might I ask what you've accomplished, kid?"
The brunette grinned, gesturing grandly to a chart he had affixed to the wall. On it, everyone's name was on the left side and chores were listed along the top of the chart.
"This is what's called a chore chart! Seeing as there are now seven people who live here, including two guys who eat enough for five people, I figured that it'd be pertinent to assign duties to everyone so that we don't kill each other within the first week."
"... You do know that your Dad's never gonna go for this, right?"
Peter snickered and picked up a marker, putting an 'x' in the box where "Tony" and "Wash Dishes" met. "Why do you think I came up with it?"
Clint grinned at that. "Nice."
The brunette chuckled and tried to put down the marker, but found that it was inexplicably stuck to his hand. It took a lot of grunting and pulling, but eventually he did get the marker off, slamming it down on the nearby table.
Clint stared at him, eyebrow raised. Peter grinned sheepishly in response.
"Er... must've gotten something on my hands. Yeah, that's it..."
The archer didn't look at all convinced, but decided not press the issue, instead going to get his coffee. Unfortunately, he didn't grab onto the mug tightly enough, so as he pulled the cup away from the counter, it slipped out of his hand, hurtling towards the floor. Peter reacted immediately, snatching the mug out of the air and handing it back to Clint.
"Careful with that!"
Once again the archer stared at him, this time his expression dumbstruck. "Uh... Thanks... Have you always had such fast reflexes, kid?"
Peter stared at him in confusion for a moment before realizing what he had done. "Er... I think I hear Dad calling me! Bye Clint!"
The teenager fled the kitchen hurriedly, leaving Clint's question unanswered and both the archer and Natasha, who entered the room just as Peter had left, very confused.
"What's his hurry?" She asked as she grabbed her own coffee mug.
Clint simply shrugged in response. "... Hey, is that my shirt?"
The Russian turned away, her expression both indignant and sheepish. "What? I didn't do my laundry!"
"Tasha, you're not even allowed to go near a washing machine. Not after what happened last time."
In response, the redhead scoffed and turned away, taking her coffee with her back to her bedroom.
"Wait a second, are... are those my boxers?!"
Natasha stopped dead in her tracks. "... Maybe."
"Stop taking my clothes, woman!"
The assassin turned back around, grinning slyly. "Stop leaving them in my room, then."
At that, her partner turned a very interesting shade of red. "I... one, you suck. And two, give me my damn clothes back."
Once again, the Russian grinned at him. "Come and take them." With that, the assassin turned the corner, leaving a very confused archer behind.
After a moment, Natasha returned, rolling her eyes as she grabbed Clint and started to drag him off with her. "Clint, when I told you to come and take your clothes back, I meant follow me back to my bedroom."
"... Ohhh. Wait, so you mean-"
"Shut up, Barton."
Meanwhile, Peter had gone back to his room, not allowing himself to appear as freaked out as he was until the door had closed safely behind him, at which point he grabbed a pillow and shrieked into it.
Oh god, what's happening to me? People aren't supposed to just stick to things, and I certainly have never been able react or move that fast!
The brunette sighed, throwing the pillow back on his bed and rubbing his temples. "Okay, Parker, think. What could cause a sudden ability to stick to things and better reflexes-?"
Peter's eyes widened as he remembered a recent biology class, where they had talked about genetics. The teacher had mentioned something about mutants, about how there was a gene that caused them to... to...
"Shit. Shit shit shit."
Without further thought, Peter ran out of his room and headed down to where the one person he thought might be able to help him always was.
"Dr. Banner, I need to talk to you-!"
The physicist waved at him, not looking up from his experiment. "Not now, Peter, I'm in the middle of a very important experiment!"
"But I-!"
Without warning, a concentrated beam of light fired at a block of stone on the table Bruce was standing in front of, making a perfectly circular hole straight through it.
After a moment, Bruce picked up the stone, then set it back down and scribbled some notes on a sheet of paper. "Alright, now onto the next material. Peter, I'm really sorry, but I can't take a break right now. I'll be done in about an hour, so can you just-"
The doctor immediately clamped his mouth shut when he turned around and came face-to-face with Tony's son.
Standing upside down.
On the ceiling.
"Now can you help me?"
"... I think I can just finish the experiment tomorrow." Bruce replied weakly.
Peter nodded and crawled back over to the wall, dismounting and landing on the floor like an Olympic gymnast. "Thanks, Doc. I... I'm just not really sure what's going on, and since you're kind of a doctor-"
"Peter, I'm a physicist, not a doctor. My work really doesn't involve... whatever it is that you're going through."
Peter's expression morphed into disappointment. "What? But... the other guy-"
"Is a result of gamma radiation exposure. I'm not a geneticist, kiddo. I'm afraid that I can't really help you on this one."
The brunette's shoulders sagged. "Thanks anyway, Dr. Banner..." He muttered as he turned away.
"Hold it. I might not be able to help you, but I think I know someone who can."
The teen brightened and turned back around to face Bruce. "Really?!"
The physicist nodded as he took his cell phone out of his pocket. "Tell your father that you want to accompany to a conference on nuclear physics this weekend; I'll call up an acquaintance of mine."
Peter grinned and nodded enthusiastically. "Thanks so much, Bruce! I owe you one!" He yelled as he ran out of the lab.
Bruce chuckled, then cleared his throat as the person on the other end of the line picked up.
"Yes, I'd like to speak to Professor Xavier, please."
"A conference on nuclear physics?
The teen nodded. "Yeah. Bruce offered to take me to it this weekend. It looks really interesting, Dad! Can I please go?"
Tony sighed. "Peter, I don't know. It's only been a couple of months since the attack, and besides, what about you-know-who?"
Peter groaned. "There's nothing to worry about! Bruce has him under control! Please Dad?"
"Well... I'm not happy that you'll be missing the Disney marathon..."
"Steve and Thor can see all the Disney movies without me, Dad."
Tony hesitated for a moment, then sighed. "Oh, alright. But I swear to god if I have to fly out there and rescue you from a giant green rage monster I'm gonna be pissed."
Peter beamed. "Thanks, Dad! I promise, you won't regret it!"
"Yeah, yeah, now go forth, my son! In the name of science!"
"... You're so weird."
A few days later found Bruce and Peter at the Xavier Institute for Gifted Youngsters. When the teen had asked why they were going to a school, Bruce had simply replied "You'll see," and not responded to Peter's subsequent requests for a more in-depth explanation than that.
Upon first glance, the school appeared to be pretty normal; the main building was around the size of the Stark Mansion in Orlando, though there was no giant fountain in front of it unlike the mansion, and there were people ranging from puberty to young adulthood in age range scattered about the area.
The inside of the school, however, appeared to be completely empty. Not a soul was about in the entrance, and it was completely silent save for Peter and Bruce's footsteps. The house itself somewhat reminded Peter of an art museum, having that elegant and formal feel about it, and also the feeling that touching absolutely anything in it would end painfully for the perpetrator. Despite Bruce's reassurances on the way over that the school was perfectly safe (though he wouldn't tell the youth why he was saying that), Peter still felt extremely uneasy; it was as if he were a housecat in the wild, surrounded by its giant relatives that seemed like they would quite enjoy ripping him limb from limb and feasting on his innards.
Sensing the teen's discomfort, Bruce patted his shoulder reassuringly. "Peter, don't act so nervous! I told you, no one here would even consider hurting you." The scientist paused for a brief moment. "Except for Logan, if he were in a bad mood. But I don't think he's home right now, so there's nothing to worry about."
"I'd be a whole lot less uneasy if you'd just tell me what's going on! And who's Logan, anyway?"
"All in good time, Peter." Bruce said, once again avoiding the question. "In any case, it won't do you any good to worry."
Easy for you to say; if you're threatened, you turn into a giant green rage monster and throw the threatening thing out a window!
"Now, now, Mr. Parker, there's no need to be so reproachful."
The brunette nearly jumped a foot in the air at the unfamiliar voice, turning sharply to see the source. A bald man in a nice suit and a wheelchair smiled kindly at him, as did the dark-skinned woman behind him, the unexpected light blue color of her eyes and her snow-white hair surprising Peter a bit.
"Holy-! Who are you?! And how do you know my name?!"
The man smiled again. "To answer your first question, Mr. Parker, I am Professor Charles Xavier, headmaster of the Xavier Institute. As for how I know your name, Bruce informed me of your, ah, situation when we spoke on the phone earlier."
Peter recoiled, mentally scolding himself for missing such an obvious answer. "O-Oh... right, I guess that makes sense."
Bruce chuckled, then shook the professor's hand. "It's good to see you again, Charles. You too, Ororo."
The dark-skinned woman smiled once more. "Likewise, Bruce. Though I suppose that would be a good thing, seeing as most of our past meetings have involved Logan and... what is that you have taken to calling your alter ego, 'the other guy', was it?"
The scientist rubbed the back of his head sheepishly. "I really only call him that around the rest of the team, you can just call him the Hulk. And yeah, I guess that we haven't seen each other in a while could be seen as a good thing."
Ororo chuckled in response. As the three adults conversed, Peter noticed three things: one, Ororo was extremely beautiful; two, his sense of uneasiness had all but completely disappeared; three, he still had no idea how Xavier knew that he'd been insulting Bruce in his mind.
The first was easily shaken off; while he did admit that the white-haired woman was highly attractive in ...many aspects, he reminded himself that one, he was underage, and two, he had a girlfriend who he cared for deeply and wouldn't give up even if it meant the end of the world, no matter how alluring this unattainable exotic beauty was to him (plus he had no doubt that both women could and would kick his ass if he tried anything). For the second, he simply attributed it to the fact that having met actual human beings in this place made the manor seem less imposing. Peter had always found huge, vacant houses to be unnerving; it was part of the reason he hated it whenever his Dad went on business trips when he was younger (and why he had struck up a few friendships with the sentient objects around the house; say what you will about the toast it made, but the toaster was a funny little machine).
However, the third thing wasn't so easily waved away. How did the professor know what he had been thinking? Unless he had accidentally said what he thinking aloud (and he hadn't, Bruce would've glared at him if he had), then the only way for Xavier to have know that would have been if the professor had read his-
Peter's eyes widened, the clicking in his head nearly audible, like it was whenever he figured out a particularly difficult Professor Layton puzzle.
Oh.
"You're a telepath, aren't you, Professor?"
Abruptly, the conversation halted, and the adults stared at the teen for a moment before the paraplegic smiled. "Well done, Peter. I must say, I'm rather impressed that you figured it out as quickly as you did. Most people take much longer."
Peter couldn't help but beam a little with pride. "Yeah, well, I'm pretty perceptive, if I do say so myself."
"Indeed. Well then, shall we begin?"
The teen cocked his head to the side a bit in confusion. "Begin what?"
About twenty minutes later, Peter found himself in a skin-tight black suit and standing in the middle of a silvery-metal-colored room (the 'Danger Room'), the professor, Ororo, and Bruce in an observation room high above him.
"You're absolutely sure that this is safe, right?" Peter asked for what must have been the third time, hoping that the nerves he was bursting with weren't too evident in his voice.
"Once again, Peter, yes. This is just a test to see your abilities. If at any point you appear to be overwhelmed, I can end the simulation from up here. Now then, if you're ready?"
The teen hesitated briefly, then, reminding himself that he had to find out, he had to be sure if he really was... one of those guys, took a deep breath and said "Okay. I'm ready."
"Then we will begin the test... now."
The second that the professor said the word 'now', the room sprang to life. Lasers began firing out of the walls, which Peter easily dodged, but was still startled by. However, when he evaded the final beam by clinging onto the wall, the teen noticed the floor getting closer and only escaped being crushed into a Peter-pancake by hopping off at the very last second, landing squarely on his feet.
Hah! Take that, wall! You won't be crushing Peter Parker today! Or... any day, preferably.
Peter's internal victory party was quickly cut short, however, when he noticed the incredibly large and menacing robots charging straight at him.
"Ah, crap," Peter muttered, before running in the opposite direction from the robots. That strategy failed rather quickly when he nearly fell into a giant hole that had opened in the floor in front of him.
"Oh, come on! First lasers, then falling walls of doom, then frikkin' giant robots, and now a huge hole in the floor?! What's next, alien invaders?" The youth complained.
Okay, Peter, think. Giant robots... giant hole in the floor... and you can jump really high! I've got it!
Peter let the robots get within inches of him, then turned around and spread his arms as if to say 'Come at me!'. At the very last second, the teen jumped out of the mechas' path, leaving them to fall into the hole and break into pieces.
The brunette pumped his fist in victory, filled with pride.
Of course, then he noticed that one robot hadn't fallen into the trap.
"You just can't let me have any victories, can you?!" Peter complained again before fleeing, searching desperately for a solution when his eyes fell upon a bar on the ceiling. With amazing agility, the teen made a calculated leap from the wall onto the robot's shoulders, using the shiny metal machine-man as a sort of boost to jump up and grab the bar, which he pulled out of the ceiling. Once he landed back on his feet, Peter jumped back onto the robot's shoulders, yelling "Fore!" before swing the bar like a golf club, knocking off the mecha's head and sending it flying into the wall, where it promptly exploded. Meanwhile, the rest of the robot, rendered useless without a head, shut down and collapsed, causing Peter to lose his balance and land on his rear, the metal bar clattering to the floor beside him.
After taking a moment to catch his breath, the teen looked up at the observation deck. "So, how did I do?"
There was no response from any of the adults. The silence was broken moments later when the door to the Danger Room opened and a man said "Oh, come on! I just fixed this place last week!"
That was when Peter realized that he had utterly destroyed the Danger Room.
"Er... sorry."
"So, Doctor, um..."
The huge, blue-furred man smiled amiably at Peter. "Dr. McCoy, Peter."
"Right, Dr. McCoy, um, what exactly are we doing here- OW!"
Peter jumped a bit as the needle pierced his skin, hissing in pain.
"Relax, Peter. I'm just taking a blood sample."
"W... Why?" Don't look at the needle, don't look at the needle, don't look at the needle...
"I need to run a test, to see if you actually possess the X-gene, or if..."
Peter glanced over at the doctor, then immediately turned his gaze away the instant he caught sight of the blood in the tube. "If what?"
"... Well, regardless, I do need to take a blood sample for this. You can look back now, Peter, I've taken out the needle."
Peter rubbed his now-bandaged arm, rubbing the sore area. What is it with these people and never telling me anything?
Another half hour passed before the professor and the others approached Bruce and Peter, the former having gotten half-way in the chapter of the science book he was reading, and the latter long having finished off the cookie and apple juice Dr. McCoy had given to him to his blood get flowing again, his phone's battery charge nearly depleted from playing on it nonstop.
"Peter, I've finished analysing your blood sample."
The teen felt his stomach drop, his heart beating at a much faster pace. "... O-Okay, before you say anything, I just want to say that I'm okay with being a... a... mutant," Peter finally said, "and that I'm really grateful for all of your help, and I'll do my best to learn to control my powers and fit into society-"
"Peter, you tested negative for the X-gene. You aren't a mutant."
"Oh thank god." Peter said, breathing a sigh of relief before noticing the look on the actual mutants' faces. "I-I mean, not that there's anything wrong with being a mutant, I just- I'll shut up now."
The professor chuckled a bit before becoming somber again. "Peter, you may have tested negative for the X-gene, but that doesn't exactly put you in the 'Normal Human' category."
Peter sat up, eyes wide. "Wh-What? But... what do you mean?"
"While you don't have the genetic sequencing of a mutant, you don't possess the right sequence to be labeled ordinary."
"... Can you please explain that in normal English?"
"You possess not only human DNA... but spider DNA as well."
Peter blinked, mouth hanging open. "... Say wha?"
The professor sighed. "Peter, when did you first notice that you had begun to change?"
"Uh... guess it was a couple days ago, after the field trip to Oscorp."
Bruce did a double take. "Wait, Oscorp?! Why didn't you mention that earlier?!"
"I-I didn't think it was important! The only thing out of the ordinary that happened was when I got bitten by a-!" Peter froze, eyes wide in realization.
"Bitten by what, Peter?"
Peter mumbled something under his breath.
"Could you repeat that?"
"...pider..."
"Louder, please."
"A spider! I was bitten by a spider, okay?!"
"What?! Peter, Oscorp has been experimenting on spiders for months now! You could've been exposed to... radiation... Oh, god, Tony's gonna kill me."
"Bruce, please calm down! There were no signs of radiation poisoning in Peter's blood sample!" Hank exclaimed, noticing the slight green tinge to Bruce's skin.
The scientist took a deep breath, his skin returning to normal. "S-Sorry about that."
After a slight pause, Peter spoke up. "So... what does this make me?"
"You are what's called a mutate. Bruce and the Fantastic Four also fall under this classification. Whereas mutants, such as myself, Hank, and Ororo, are born with their powers, mutates, such as yourself, gain them through exposure to mutagenic agents, such as radiation."
"Well, what do you recommend that I do?"
"For now? Go home and keep on living as you normally do. If you notice any further mutations, please don't hesitate to contact me."
Upon returning to New York, Peter deferred his father to Bruce for any details about the 'convention', and ran to his room, pulling out a small box from under his bed and opening it. Carefully, he unfolded the letter inside.
Dear Peter,
You're growing up so quickly now, aren't you? I swear, yesterday you were a little baby boy in RIchard's arms, and here you are now, ten years old today! You're becoming quite the little gentleman, Peter, and I'm proud of you. I know that things have been rough for you lately, what with your parents and your Aunt May being... gone, you've been going through a lot of difficult things. Well, take it from me, an old man who knows: Those things send us down the path we're supposed to take in life, and no matter what road you end up on, you've got great things waiting for you, son. You owe the world your gifts. You just have to figure out how to use them. Whatever you do in life, whatever you decide, remember that there are people who care about you, and with great power, comes great responsibility.
Love,
Uncle Ben
"Sir?"
Peter snapped out of his daydream and looked over at the clerk.
"That'll be $12.75, sir."
"Ah, sorry." The teen quickly handed her his credit card, which she swiped and gave back. As she started to bag his purchases, the cashier quirked an eyebrow and glanced up at him.
"I-It's for my mom." Peter explained quickly, disregarding the fact that the closest thing he had to a mom (Pepper) couldn't actually sew.
She stared at him for another second, but said nothing as she put the rest of the red and blue fabrics into the plastic bag.
A/N: I snuck a few of my headcanons in here, including:
Natasha is notoriously bad at domestic activities (the washer has never forgiven her for what happened the first and only time she tried to do laundry in Stark Manor).
Peter enjoys puzzle games (I blame this headcanon on having just finished Professor Layton and the Miracle Mask), does not like big, empty houses (I blame this one on how Uncle Ben died in this verse), and does not like needles (I got nothing).
Tony made all of his kitchen appliances sentient for the lulz. At this point, Clint has had a total of five arguments with the microwave, and has lost five arguments with the same microwave.
Also, the Disney thing: Steve could only have seen up to Saludos Amigos (1943) in the Disney Animated Canon, assuming they let him watch cartoons in between kicking HYDRA butt. Thor has seen none of them. Tony aims to fix that.
So yeah, that's the second chapter (almost two months after the first)!
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