A/N: Hello! I promise I haven't given up on Agent Parker, but I wrote this and thought I'd upload it. Agent Parker... is on the backburner for right now. I'm not discontinuing it, though! I promise! Anyway, here's Nice To Meet You. Hope y'all like it! Spoilers for NWH farther down. Do not read if you haven't seen the movie, I don't want crazy fans coming to kill me in my sleep :)
Disclaimer: I don't own Marvel, sadly. SPOILERS IN THE NEXT PARAGRAPH! READ AT YOUR OWN RISK!
**SPOILER WARNING FOR SPIDER-MAN: NO WAY HOME- AAAAAAAAAAAH! Guys. I literally cannot. This movie was SO GOOD! If you haven't seen it, don't read this, but if you have: ANDREW AND TOBEY AND TOM ARE NOW MY FAVORITE MCU TRIO! AAAAAAAH! AND MAY- I NEEDED THERAPYYYYYYYYY AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH! (Okay, I'm done screaming now. On with the story).
One
Peter walked into the Penthouse level of Stark Tower, not really paying attention to his surroundings. His mind was racing. He held a piece of paper in his hands, and his lips were pursed in frustration as he glared at said paper.
"No, no, listen," he said, "I need to add more silica gel. It's the only thing that makes sense."
He webbed his backpack to the wall a few feet away and slipped his shoes off, and did a quick triple backflip and landed neatly on one of the stools at the kitchen bar a few yards away.
"No, that won't help," Ned's voice streamed through FRIDAY's speakers all around the room. "You need it to be stickier, right?"
"Well yeah," Peter agreed, tossing the paper onto the counter as he stood up and jumped with ease onto the other counter, where the cabinets were. "But I also need it to be stronger. I nearly fell off the top of the Empire State Building yesterday, and if May found out that my webs are malfunctioning, she'll freak out."
"We don't want that," Ned chuckled. "But in order to make the fluid stronger you need to make it stickier. Hence, the only solution, Elmer's glue."
Peter paused and looked up at the ceiling, forgetting about his food momentarily.
"Did you just-"
"Yes, I did," Ned interrupted.
Peter scowled playfully and resumed searching for food.
"I am not adding Elmer's glue to a bunch of possibly radioactive and explosive chemicals in our chem lab. That's a very, very bad idea that could lead to a very sticky situation."
There was a pause from Ned and Peter smirked as he grabbed the Oreos as well as a pack of gummy worms.
"You just used my Bruce Banner level idea to make a pun."
Peter laughed loudly at the offended tone Ned's voice carried.
"Sorry, dude," he said while laughing. "But your idea is not Bruce Banner level. Nothing is Bruce Banner level."
"I still don't understand why he's your favorite scientist," Ned groaned loudly. "I mean, you practically live with the Anthony Edward Stark."
Peter dropped his snacks on the table and glared up at the ceiling, where he imagined Ned's face would be.
"I don't live with Mr. Stark," he argued, "and clearly you have no respect for the greatest scientist in the history of the universe. Have you read his papers on gamma radiation? And his articles about the human DNA and how it can be changed? It's astounding. I mean, just think about it. Out of 7.9 billion people, I am one only two people whose DNA has been drastically altered without fatal side effects. His research has helped me figure out just how much of my DNA has been changed. I got the results last night after I did some tests."
"Really?" Ned seemed very interested as Peter opened the fridge and pulled out the chocolate milk and a can of whipped cream. "How much was changed?"
"You're not gonna believe it," Peter said through a mouthful of white, fluffy goodness. He swallowed and poured himself a glass of milk. "I almost passed out when I saw the results. I even did the tests three more times to make sure there wasn't a malfunction. And I honestly don't understand how that darn spider didn't kill me, because…"
"Why?" Ned asked, suddenly worried. "Peter, what did the results say?"
Peter swallowed and slowly chewed a gummy worm before responding. He stared at his wrists, where he could faintly see his newly developed organic web dispensers. The webs he could create with his body were still a little weak, considering he'd just gotten them yesterday, so he was going to stick to using his man-made fluid until he could get the hang of the organic ones, hence why he was trying to strengthen his fluid.
"I, uhm," his voice wavered. He hadn't realized that the spider bite was still affecting him, and it shook him up a little. "I'm… well, my blood and DNA… is 76% spider, Ned."
There was absolute silence for a moment.
"Dude," Ned whispered a moment later, and Peter chuckled, looking at his wrists again.
"I just don't get it," Peter mumbled to himself, beginning to pace and not realizing he was stress-eating gummy worms as he did so. "I thought my powers had fully manifested. And then I woke up this morning hardly able to fit into my Midtown sweatshirt, y'know, the oversized one? And then I realized instead of a six pack, like I had right after I was bitten, I had an eight pack instead. And then I opened my door, putting absolutely no pressure on the doorknob, and it ripped off the door like I'd taken a jackhammer to it. My tingle has been going haywire all day, too. Like, it's tingling right now even though there's nothing wrong. And to top it all off, it turns out that now I can shoot organic webs from my body, which is kind of scary because I have no clue how it works, which is why I'm trying to make my original web fluid stronger in case the new organic stuff ever fails me, and again, how the heck is it scientifically possible for my body to produce genetic spiderwebs?!"
"Peter, calm down," Ned shouted over Peter's loud rambling.
The spider-teen had yet to realize he was walking (pacing) on the ceiling of the living room now, his food completely forgotten.
"Yeah, yeah, I'm calm," Peter's voice had gone up several octaves, and he sounded like he was panicking. "Totally, totally calm. I'm the definition of calm. The calmest calm in the history of calm." He then saw he was walking on the ceiling and subconsciously did yet another triple backflip onto the floor, landing in his "superhero pose."
As he stood, slowly, he turned around, and what he saw made him freeze. He swallowed, knowing that his newly acquired arm muscles were flexing and unflexing, bulging against his green knit sweater as he mentally screamed at himself for being so stupid.
"Ned?" He asked, his voice deeper and rough now.
"…Mr. Stark is there, isn't he?" his best friend sighed.
"Mhm," Peter swallowed again and took a few steps back. "Not to mention, y'know, the rest of the Avengers."
Ned coughed to cover his hysterical laugh.
"Only you, Peter," he cackled fondly. "Only you and your Parker Luck."
Peter sighed, his shoulders sagging as his arms fell to his sides. He ran a hand through his floppy brown hair and pinched the bridge of his nose, crossing his arms.
"Ned, I'll call you back later."
"Okay," Ned was still laughing. "See you, dude."
"Bye, man," he sighed again as he heard Ned mutter, "You just revealed your secret identity to the Avengers" just before he ended the call.
"Friday?" He croaked out, not looking up from where he was still massaging the bridge of his nose. He already had a headache.
"Yes, Mini Boss?" the AI asked, humor in her tone.
"Why didn't you tell me they were here?"
"I tried, Peter," Friday answered. "But you were too busy stuffing your face with gummy worms while you paced across the ceiling to hear me."
"Oh," Peter grumbled. "Okay."
Slowly, painfully slowly, Peter removed his hand from his face and dropped his arms. He looked up and met the eyes of Mr. Stark, who was staring at him with a mixture of pity, confusion, shock, and laughter.
"Um," he cleared his throat and gave everyone an awkward smile. "Hi."
Everyone else smirked and waved back, their expressions kind if not confused.
Tony just sighed and shook his head.
"Wanna explain the train wreck we all just witnessed?" he asked, and Peter groaned.
This was gonna take a while.