Chapter 3: "You're the...Spider-Boy?"


"Peter, are you even listening to me?"

"Yean, yeah, course Mr. Stark," Peter said distractedly, tapping rapidly on his phone. "Avengers, blah blah blah, combat training, yada yada yada, something about not touching Thor's Captain Crunch in the pantry, I got it!"

The pair were on their way to the SHIELD compound, where Spider-Man would finally commence his training. The compound wasn't too far from New York City so Tony decided to grant some level of normalcy to the kid and go by ground instead of air, to avoid landing a helicopter on his apartment building. Even though May had given her blessing for Peter to leave and train with the Avengers, Tony knew she was still very much on-edge about her nephew putting himself in harm's way.

Sending a copter with armed SHIELD agents to come pick up Peter probably would have sent the wrong message.

Tony peered over the kid's shoulder in the back of the limo to get a glimpse of what had him so transfixed. "Is that a girl Pete?"

Peter jerked his phone backwards so fast he almost gave himself whiplash. He scrambled into the corner of the car furthest away from Tony Stark, glaring at him above his glowing phone screen. "None of your business!"

"Jarvis, please compile all available data on Michelle-"

"Actually I think we're good!" Peter interrupted frantically. "Jarvis feel free to take a nap or something. We got all this handled, thank you, goodbye!"

If it was possible for an AI unit to sound affronted, Jarvis did it perfectly. "I have no need of sleep. Mr. Stark, I have sent all information regarding Michelle Jane Watson, including her cellular contact, home address, and parental information to your personal mainframe."

Stark smirked at Peter, a knowing glint in his eyes. "Thank you Jarvis. Go ahead and take that nap now, I won't tell anyone.

Peter just glared at him.

"Mr. Stark, I assure you-"

"That will be all Jarvis."

The AI fell silent.

Tony turned and winked at his now thoroughly embarrassed teenager. "So who's the lucky lady?"

Peter groaned loudly and shrunk into his corner of the back seat. "I am so not talking about this with you."

Why did Tony always have to butt-in to Peter's life at all the wrong times? Michelle was absolutely none of his business. If she found out about ANY of this whole mess, she would definitely freak out and Peter wouldn't blame her for it. It was going to be hard enough moving away from New York City and Midtown High without Michelle refusing to talk to him because she found out he was a freaky super-powered spider-thing. Were all high-school crushes this complicated?

Tony stared at the kid intently for a few more seconds, just enough to make him squirm, then dropped his gaze, deciding he'd tortured Peter enough for one day. "Fine. We have more important things to discuss anyway.

"First up: your training schedule."

That piqued Peter's attention. How long had he dreamed of training and fighting alongside Earth's mightiest heroes? Plus, he might actually get to prove himself a competent superhero, not just some freak kid off the street that happened to have a run-in with a radioactive spider.

He sat up a little straighter in his seat. "So what's the plan? Ninja skills training with Black Widow? Sharp-shooting with Hawkeye? Ooo, or what about shield-throwing with Captain America? I really gotta work on that, for fights you know, I was thinking about a tag-team strategy where I use my web-shooters to grab the shield and use the momentum from CA's throw-" Peter whirled his hands around his head in demonstration, "-and then-"

Tony grabbed one of Peter's arms mid-whirl and firmly returned it to his lap. "Don't get ahead of yourself kid. You have a long way to go before you do any of that." He hit a few buttons on his phone, bringing up a hidden television in the back of the car. The TV flipped over from what used to be privacy glass separating Happy the chauffeur and his passengers to now display an hour-by-hour lined schedule, with the title Peter Parker / Spider-Man at the top in bold.

Peter eyed the screen hungrily, his eyes quickly scanning each line. But as he read further, his face began to slowly drop, the corners of his mouth forming a small frown.

"Mr. Stark, I-I think you might have the wrong schedule." He quickly checked it again, just to be sure, then continued. "There's no actual training on here. It's just...school?"

"Avengers school," Tony corrected. "To be a part of this team, and SHIELD in extension, you have to know every tactical strategy and defense mechanism in the books. We can't just throw you into a fight cold."

"But isn't that what you did before? At the airport? With the giant ant dude?"

"Those were special circumstances." And a mistake, Tony added in his head, the words not quite making it past his lips. Unwillingly, the memory of Spider-Man getting punched out of the air and crashing to the ground appeared in Tony's head. He had flown down immediately to go check on the kid, his stomach tightly wound in knots before he knew Peter was relatively ok. Still, Spider-Man hadn't escaped unscathed. He had a nice black eye from the initial hit in addition to a few cracked ribs from the ground impact.

It wouldn't happen again.

"Let me put this another way: when you play football you have to learn the plays, put in the training, and do the work in order to throw the touchdown." Really Tony? A sports metaphor?

Peter echoed Tony's sentiments exactly. "Really Mr. Stark? You're comparing this to football? Have you ever even played a sport?"

Happy cracked the window divide a bit to add his opinion. "Yeah I think I'm with the kid on this one Tony."

Grinding his teeth, Stark hit a button to roll the divide back up. "Listen Pete. We're gonna do this my way, or we're not gonna do it at all. Enough with all the teenagery back-talk. Capiche?"

Well, Peter thought, once he sees what I can do he'll change his mind. "Yeah yeah, capiche." He turned to look out the window just as the compound came into view. "Mr. Stark, we're here!"

Tony stretched out his arms and legs, then gathered his briefcase and carefully replaced his sunglasses. "Welcome home kid." Somewhere I can finally keep you safe.


aaaaand we're back! Sorry it's been so long, and sorry this chapter is on the shorter side, I wanted to get it out ASAP for you guys. After this chapter things will ramp up; our boy Pete isn't going to stay out of trouble for long.

(I also just realized 2/3 of this story takes place in the car so far...I promise there will be more action in the future!)

Please review and let me know if there is anything you would like to see in later chapters! Please also let me know what you think!

I'll have another chapter out in a week or so, but reviews might make that faster ;)