Peter jumped as the door hit the wall and a shout came from within. His first instinct was to look around for a place to hide and change, but his Spidey-sense didn't go off.
Spidey-sense. What am I, five? He shook his head and redirected his gaze back to the game on his phone.
"I don't want to ever see your sorry face again! Those photographs are so bad, I wouldn't even use them to-"
Peter snorted, then tried to disguise it as a cough. A man in a nearby cubicle gave him a grin.
He sat outside of the office of Jameson. The editor-in-chief and owner of The Daily Bugle. He also happened to be the grumpiest man in New York, which is certainly a feat. Peter's left hand was splayed across his blue and red portfolio almost protectively, while he played with his phone in his right hand.
"Did Miranda just leave you outside the door?"
Peter looked up at the man who'd addressed him. It was the man who'd grinned, but he now stood in front of Peter. I should have known he was there, He thought with a grump. Dear God, these games are killing my Spidey-sense! Spidey-sense... geez Peter, grow up.
"She said he would eventually find me." And at the time, Peter had been rather okay with that. After the stressful morning he'd had, just sitting and thinking had sounded nice. Now his stomach twisted in a weird way, wondering if Mr. Jameson would throw his photos out the door, too. It had only been five minutes of waiting and he was ready to get it over with.
The man laughed and shook his head. "She's new. Ironically, the old receptionist was fired for entering Mr. Jameson's office unannounced. I'm Robbie, by the way."
"Uh, Peter. Nice to meet you."
"Likewise. Peter, what do you say I announce you to Mr. Jameson?"
Peter gave a nod and stood. "You make it sound like he's some king and we'll be beheaded if we disturb him."
"Well anyone else might lose their job, but I'm Old Man Jameson's favorite," he said with a wink.
Peter grinned. It wasn't often he met someone like Robbie, partially because the only time he ever went out was as Spider-Man. And Spider-Man didn't have many friends.
Robbie knocked on Jameson's door, then opened it without permission. "Mr. Jameson, this is Peter. He's-"
"Here about the Spider-Man photographs." Peter interrupted, making eye contact with Mr. Jameson. He found himself looking at an over middle aged man, with salt and pepper hair in a neat buzzcut, with a mustache to match. The man wore a slightly blue colored business suit and yellow tie that certainly didn't belong in this century. Though, being one of the richest men in New York, Peter supposed he could dress however he pleased..
"I don't want pictures of Spider-Man unless he's dead in them," Jameson grumbled. Even his grumble was loud.
Peter sat down across from Mr. Jameson at his desk, and Robbie stood behind him. He placed his portfolio on the desk, facing Mr. Jameson, open to the first page of photographs.
"These are all fairly solid proof that Spidey is the good guy. That, and I was there, so I saw which side he played for." Peter said confidently.
"Eh, that wall-crawling insect is a phony."
"Actually, spiders are arachnids..."
"Mr. Jameson, you put an article on the front page, offering a big reward for photographs of Spider-Man. Reporters are supposed to be unbiased. You can't keep shoving your bad-guy opinion down people's throats."
"I'll save the city from this menace, Robbie! You just wait, he'll turn out to be a villain! I'll expose him before he can carry out-"
"Mr. Jameson, that's ridiculous. You seem to forget how he saved the city from Doctor Connors."
"After being shot, nonetheless," Peter tossed in timidly. He tugged on his sleeves to ensure nothing blue and red stuck out.
"Peter's got a point. After being hunted down by the NYPD, he still saved the city! You're being ungrateful."
The part of Peter that wasn't freaking out a little wanted to cheer for Robbie.
"If it will shut the both of you up, I'll buy the damned pictures!" Jameson shouted, pulling the portfolio towards him.
Just as Peter was so near selling his photographs, the door was swung open. The secretary, without a word, bustled to the other side of the room and switched on the small television.
"Hey, what do you think you're..." Mr. Jameson's shout faded as he watched the television.
"The shuttle is headed way off course! The pilot, John Jameson, is unresponsive. NASA is scrambling to get a response."
"This just in, the shuttle is estimated to crash in New York! It'll crash right into the Brooklyn Bridge!"
Peter jumped from his chair silently and ran out of the room. He hesitated in front of the elevator, then went to the stairs instead.
I hope I'm not putting too much faith in myself by thinking my running up seven flights of stairs will be faster than taking the elevator.
He headed up to the roof as quickly as he could, removing clothes and shoving them in his bag the entire time. By the time he burst out the door to the roof, he was all suited up. He took a moment to get his bearings, then shot away in the direction of the bridge.
Swinging through the city, he realized it had been a long time since he'd been out in the daytime. And the open. He'd been unintentionally gravitating toward rougher parts of town, and only sneaking out well after Aunt May had gone to sleep.
That was probably part of the reason people he swung above were making such a big deal of his being out.
Peter made it to the Brooklyn Bridge in record time. He sat atop the bridge and watched the sky, looking for the shuttle. His built in sunglasses made the task much easier. When he located the shuttle, his eyes widened underneath his mask. The situation hadn't fully hit him until just then. How am I supposed to stop a space shuttle?
Peter looked below him at the bridge. Even though they were supposed to be evacuating, people stayed on the bridge in their cars, as if they had all the time in the world.
"Hey," Peter shouted. "get off the bridge!" He continued to yell as loudly as he could, waving his arms around, until there was an amplified voice behind him.
"Evacuate the bridge immediately!"
At that, people began swarming from their cars and off the bridge in whatever direction they could.
Peter nearly snapped his neck turning his head so fast. He recognized that voice. "Hey, Iron Man! Glad you could make it!"
There was a metallic thud as the red and gold suit landed on the bridge beside him. Snow around the boots melted near instantly. The entire helmet folded itself up to reveal the face of Tony Stark. "So you're Spider-Man. Nice to meet you kid."
Peter stood from his crouched position and crossed his arms. "I'm not a kid. And, as far as I'm concerned, I've done a pretty good job of keeping the streets clean while you and the rest of your Avengers traipsed around Asia."
"They were having dragon issues."
"Yeah. I was having lizard issues."
"So I heard. Did you have fun getting your ameture ass whooped?" Tony smirked.
Peter ground his teeth and tried to answer as calmly as physically possible. "When you started out, you screwed up pretty badly too. Besides, half the crap you have to deal with is a mess of your own making!"
"You demolished half a school, destroyed the Oscorp building, and allowed Captain Stacy's death, all in one day!" Tony cocked his head to the side slightly. "Actually, maybe I should be thanking you for demolishing Oscorp."
"Allowed! You think I allowed that to happen?" Peter lifted his arm and Tony grabbed it at lightning speed. With a shake of his head, Peter pressed his middle and ring fingers to the pad on his hand.
Tony released his arm immediately. He spluttered and began rubbing at his eyes with his iron gloved hands, while Peter just took a step back and kept talking.
"God, you're as insufferable in real life as you seem on TV! But you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to let you help me save the day anyway, because that's what good superheroes do!"
Tony huffed, his face finally free of the sticky webbing. "Let-"
"Unless you aren't a superhero, and really have no interest in helping me save lives."
Tony's helmet reassembled itself around his face. "Fine! Jarvis, give me an estimate on how long we have until that shuttle crashes." There was a pause, then Tony turned to Peter. "We have two minutes. You better have a plan."
"Sure as hell do. Slow it down as much as you can." Peter took a head-first dive off the bridge, then swung himself up. He swung back and forth across the bridge, touching every post on the bridge and keeping his fingers on his web pad.
Tony watched for a moment, puzzled, then took to the air and grabbed a wing of the shuttle. It did nothing but slightly change the course of the shuttle and throw Tony upwards. "Okay, plan B! Jarvis, activate tractor beam!"
"Sir," the computer-generated voice responded, "the tractor beam hasn't been tested yet-"
"Now!"
"Very well, sir. Tractor beam powering up."
Tony pointed his open hands toward the shuttle as a translucent blue beam came from both hands and merged a few feet away. The tractor beam caught hold of the shuttle and suspended it in the air for half a moment. Then it began dragging Tony down with it.
Peter looked up and swore silently. "You're doing such a great job saving the city all by yourself. Maybe I should just leave you here to do the rest," he muttered. Peter secured the web he held to the bridge, then turned and ran across one of his webs. They hardly budged. Peter waved his arms back and forth to Tony, signaling that he could release the shuttle, then webbed out of the way.
The shuttle dropped into Peter's web and bounced a hundred feet up. It did that several times before settling on the now torn up asphalt of the bridge.
Tony landed on the bridge and nodded approvingly. "Maybe you aren't so... Hey, what are you doing?" Tony's helmet collapsed once more as he cast a questioning look toward Peter, who ran toward the shuttle.
"There are still people in there!"
Peter stuck to the side of the shuttle and crawled to the top. He didn't even have to touch the glass to know that it wouldn't break.
He crawled around to the door, but there was no handle on the outside. Tony blasted the door. Peter put his arm through the hole and pulled the door off with little effort. peter swung in and turned to Tony.
"Are you coming?"
Tony looked behind him at the reporters now gathering on the bridge and the police putting up yellow "do not cross" tape. His mask reassembled once again, and he followed Peter into the shuttle.
Peter already knelt in front of the two pilots, trying to figure out how to release the buckles. Tony turned a flashlight on and looked around for the cause of their unconsciousness.
"Oh, here." Tony shined the flashlight on John, whom Peter still worked on unbuckling.
Peter waved a hand at him. "I can see better without it."
"You aren't some rich kid with a brain, are you?"
Peter snorted. "I thought the all-knowing SHIELD would have already told you that. No, I'm not rich, but I do have a brain."
"SHIELD has had a hard time finding stuff on you. They've determined you're a kid, but that's not hard. What are you, really?"
Peter grinned under his mask. So, maybe he had a thing for throwing his secret around his family, but he was pretty good at covering his trail other places. "Genetically enhanced human. Infused with Spider DNA. An accident, really."
"The webs are natural?"
"I make them. Like, with science." There's a weird sentence. There was a click, and the unconscious John lurched forward. "Whoa!" Peter grabbed him and set him against the control panel.
"What all can you do then?"
Peter moved to working on the other pilot. Since he'd figured out how to do it, all it took was a click. "I stick to stuff. I swing around the city. Demolish buildings, apparently. Spider stuff."
"You make it sound boring. All I have is super-richness," Tony laughed.
"Hey, that's one superpower I don't have."
With both pilots freed, Spider-Man and Iron Man walked out of the shuttle into the sea of reporters and police waiting for them. They deposited the pilots at an ambulance and Peter webbed to the top of the bridge. Tony, however, smiled for the cameras and talked to the reporters. He gave Peter a salute, and Peter waved back before swinging away.