Peter fidgeted nervously with the lapels of his suit, smoothing away invisible wrinkles and tugging slightly at his collar. The low murmurs of the crowd set his pulse racing.

"Peter," Ms. Potts called gently, a fond yet exasperated lilt to her voice. It took him a second to drag his eyes away from the curtain separating him from the stage, and he had no doubt that his eyes were wide and pleading. She gave him a knowing look. "You don't have anything to worry about, alright?" she told him sternly, but her eyes were soft and Peter gave a quick smile, rolling his shoulders back in an attempt to relieve some of the tension that'd bunched in them.

"Because they'll have hell to pay if anything happens," Peter repeated back dutifully, grinning widely when Ms. Potts only gave a sharp smile and nod in reply.

Tony let out a quiet huff and stepped forward from where he'd been hovering and looking somewhat antsy by Pepper's side, lifting a hand to clasp firmly over Peter's shoulder, giving a single, reassuring squeeze. "And you remember my number one rule?" he intoned seriously, face set into a stony mask for a second before it broke away into a commiserating smile.

Peter smiled back, head dipping in an exaggeratedly obedient nod. "Don't do anything you would do-" Peter started.

"-and definitely don't do anything I wouldn't do," Tony finished with a grin.

Peter laughed brightly, and the remaining tightness in his shoulders melted away. He pulled Tony forward into a firm embrace before he could think twice about it, teasingly asking, "We are there, now, aren't we?"

Tony huffed and returned the hug, tightening his hold for a second before stepping back. He looked nonchalantly to the side. "We're there," he sniffed imperiously.

Peter snorted, a light flush rushing to his cheeks when he caught Ms. Potts' eye, the woman looking between the two of them warmly. He gave a light cough into his fist and darted his gaze away, this time managing to restrain himself from fiddling with his suit.

It was just a couple minutes later that he was finally called up, Jimmy Fallon's voice echoing enthusiastically from the stage.

"And without further ado, let's all give a resounding welcome to our guest of the night, Peter Parker!" Fallon announced, and a tech worker pulled the curtain aside and Peter stepped through.

He could hardly hear his footsteps, which clicked faintly against the stage under the raucous applause of the crowd, and he made sure to keep his pace steady instead of rushing over to the seats as he might normally do.

Fallon stood from his own place behind the large mahogany table and gave a winning smile, leaning forwards and extending his hand to give Peter's own a firm shake. "Nice to meet you, Peter!" he said, once more taking his seat and Peter following suit on the sofa beside him.

"Thank you for having me," Peter responded in turn, a smile of his own quirking at his lips as he settled into the cushions.

Fallon took that as his cue to continue, and he tilted his head commiseratingly towards Peter and gestured towards the crowd. "Since this is your first time on the show, is there anything particular you'd like to say to introduce yourself to the audience?"

Peter lifted a single shoulder in a half shrug but went along with the prompt, giving an easygoing smile to the crowd and a small wave. "Hi, I'm Peter Parker - like you, well, just heard-" he let out a small laugh that several audience members echoed, "- Next month is going to be the start of my first year at MIT, and, yes, I'm Tony Stark's personal intern," he confirmed quite redundantly, seeing as how Tony had already publicly acknowledged as much in several interviews and posts online. Still, the crowd cheered, and he ducked his head slightly with another sheepish smile.

Fallon used his admittance to segue into his own question, asking how long Peter had been interning with Mr. Stark for, and Peter bit his cheek to withhold a blatant smirk, keeping his expression guileless and polite.

"Four years," he said nonchalantly.

Fallon's mouth dropped open for a moment before he caught it and his eyebrows rose in delighted surprise. "You are eighteen, right?" he checked with Peter, and, when the teen nodded, Fallon clarified, "so you're saying that you've been working with Tony Stark since you were fourteen years old?"

There was a flash of teeth as Peter's lips parted into a quick grin before he subdued it, eyes dancing, and hummed agreeably.

"Fourteen," Fallon emphasized, beseeching.

Peter let out a little laugh, waving his hand around as if to brush aside the shock. "Yes! Fourteen - and it was definitely even more of a shock for me at the time," he admitted, grinning wryly.

"I bet," Fallon agreed, leaning back in his seat. "And do you have any idea as to how you were brought in?" Fallon asked curiously, eyes hopefully expectant, only for him to freeze when Peter's face became stony and impassive.

Fallon sat up straight, about to apologize, when Peter gave a short, "It's classified."

Fallon floundered for a moment, hands raising in a sort of surrendering manner as he quickly started with a, "No, hey, hey, I get that-"

Only to be cut off by a burst of laughter from Peter, the teen slapping a hand lightly against the table as Fallon stared at him in momentary shock that morphed into exaggerated offense.

"I thought I broke some part of the confidentiality agreement," Fallon said accusingly, but there was a mixture of lightness in his tone that he couldn't mask with his scolding.

Peter waved him off again, cheeks hurting as he struggled to reign back in his humor. "Trust me, you'd know if you broke that," Peter said easily, and Fallon stared at him for a moment, speechless, before shaking his head with a helpless laugh. Peter carried on as if oblivious. "But, yeah, I know why Tony took me on," he admitted easily, a reminiscing smile curling his lips. "I went to Midtown School of Science and Technology for my high school years, and it was pretty well known for its programs related to STEM fields, and, anyways, they set up something of a science fair except bigger for students of all grades to compete. They told us that the top contestant from each grade would get to present their project to a 'special guest-'" he shared a knowing look with Fallon, who easily cottoned onto the implication, and continued, "so that whole shebang happened and I got to present mine to the Tony Stark." He laughed. "I was a nervous wreck - I have no clue how I managed to get through the presentation without passing out, but, apparently, I impressed him," he surmised, reaching over to the mug by his side and taking a small sip of water.

Fallon looked suitably impressed, leaning forward and interlacing his fingers together, resting his chin on top of them as he contemplated the response curiously, eyebrows raised. "What was your project?" he questioned.

Peter shrugged his shoulders lightly. "It was a basic AI, really, nothing too advanced-"

"-'nothing too advanced' he says," Fallon scoffed back, squinting his eyes at Peter.

Peter smiled, rolling his eyes. "Alright. Nothing crazy," he settled with, then continued, "but the point of it was to be able to infiltrate other localized devices in the nearby area, regardless of whether they were password encoded, connected to Wi-Fi, relying on cellular data, and so and so forth. I used my teacher's phone for the example because they volunteered theirs, and I showed how I used my AI to get into it and access all the information from my own computer." He paused for a moment, and, misunderstanding the somewhat blank look on Fallon's face, Peter hurried to assure, "I made sure to completely remove all the data from my computer after the presentation, though!"

There were several disbelieving laughs from the crowd, and Fallon's eyebrows were raised, suitably impressed, though the expression shifted into one of amusement at his placation. "I can see how that would be impressive enough," Fallon said agreeably, but stopped when Peter shook his head, a faint blush dotting his cheeks.

"It was pretty cool," he admitted, "but, um, I didn't really get the program down to pat."

Fallon grinned interestedly. "Oh?" he prodded.

Peter huffed, shrugging his shoulders again before relaxing back against the couch with a slight smile. "Yeah, apparently, my AI went after all the phones within the general vicinity, which included Mr. Stark's," he said with a light laugh.

"You broke into Tony Stark's phone?!" Fallon exclaimed, slapping both hands against his desk and rising slightly while the crowd made varying noises of either shock or startled humor.

Peter shook his head rapidly in denial. "Of course not!" he shot down straight away, looking almost offended by the implication, then he grinned sheepishly. "FRIDAY- you know FRIDAY?" he checked, to which Fallon nodded along with most of the crowd, "well FRIDAY announced that there was a preliminary breakage in the first stages of Mr. Stark's firewalls," he said, laughing again.

"Still pretty impressive," Fallon acquiesced, shaking his head with a grin.

Peter groaned, but he was still smiling. "It was mortifying. I thought I was gonna get sent to jail or something," he admitted with a quick burst of laughter that Fallon matched.

"I'm guessing that's not what happened?" the man said knowingly, and Peter nodded easily.

"Yeah, he didn't say much to me then, just waved off my apologies and all that really, but-" he huffed an exasperated breath, "-two days later I came home after school and he was there on the couch having tea with my Aunt May."

Fallon practically guffawed, throwing his head back for a moment with it before recentering his gaze on Peter with a blatant smile. "Just like that?"

"Just like that," Peter echoed with a nod and a smile of his own.

"That is definitely a one of a kind type of story, I can tell you that," Fallon said, shaking his head. "Anything like that stick out to you over the years as his intern?"

"Oh yeah, loads," Peter replied straight away, gesturing widely. "He has two main bots down at the labs - DUM-E and U - and they're awesome, seriously. But, they're not always exactly the most… adept," he admitted. He tilted his head in thought as if deciding what to say, and his eyes lit up, his closed fist smacking into the palm of his other hand. "Ah! Yes, I got it! So, U is the more helpful of the two when it comes to non-lab related stuff, right? And he's great at a lot of stuff, like recordings and sometimes helping Mr. Stark with paperwork. But he has one… quirk that Mr. Stark says he can't fix." Peter leaned a bit closer to Fallon, who mirrored the action, as if to tell a secret. "The smoothies," he whispered loudly.

Fallon's mouth quirked up. "The… smoothies?" he echoed bemusedly, glancing over at the crowd to see if they were less in the dark than he was.

They weren't.

Peter grinned. "There's a small kitchenette in Mr. Stark's lab - back in the corner - and it's got all the basic stuff, ya know: refrigerator, microwave, toaster, blender. And U is pretty much obsessed with that last one. And he does a really great job, too! I've watched him a couple times, and all of the smoothies he makes are super healthy with a good mix of fruits, sometimes spinach, all that jazz."

"So what's there to fix with that?" Fallon asked, mystified.

Peter winced amusedly. "It's all up and good until that point, but, without fail, U adds a good dose of motor oil to every. single. one."

"Motor oil?" Fallon wheezed, the crowd responding with uproarious and disbelieving laughter.

Peter nodded seriously, though his own lips twitched. "And it's terrible because we obviously can't drink it, and U always gets so sad about it," he explained.

"The robot gets sad about it?" Fallon repeated dubiously.

Peter made a noise of affirmation, seemingly oblivious to the strangeness of his statement.

Fallon let the issue go, instead reaching under his desk to pull up a thick sheet of paper that had a couple of tweets splayed out in large font across them along with a picture below them both. The image was projected onto the large screens in the room as well for the audience to see as he gestured to it. "Speaking of DUM-E and U, this is a picture that was posted on what's now been confirmed to be your Twitter account - Beter_Barker - and, if I'm right, those are the two robots, and that right there is Tony Stark," Fallon checked.

Peter only glanced at the photo for a second before letting out a laugh. "Yep, that's them all right."

"So could you explain what exactly is going on in this picture? I see your comment of 'moments before disaster,' as well as Tony's reply saying 'don't you dare…'" Fallon probed, grinning anticipatorily.

"Of course!" Peter agreed readily, returning the expression. "So you see the closer robot? That's DUM-E. And you see that thing he has pointed at Mr. Stark?" Fallon nodded, and Peter's grin widened. "That's a fire extinguisher," he revealed.

Fallon's eyes widened and he choked. "Wait wait - are you saying that-"

"-that DUM-E hosed down Mr. Stark with a fire extinguisher? Why yes, Mr. Fallon, that is exactly what I'm saying," Peter finished brightly, laughing at the loud exclamations that sounded in reply.

"So right after this photo was taken, that's what happened?" Fallon checked, and Peter nodded and shrugged.

"Mr. Stark knows better than to fall asleep in the labs; it never ends well for either of us," Peter shuddered, then broke out of it and grinned again. "I was going to post the actual disaster picture, but Mr. Stark said he'd lock me out of the labs for two weeks - not that that would've stopped me, but Ms. Potts recommended I didn't, and, well, we all know she's the real boss, right?"

"Right," Fallon echoed faintly, a multitude of loud cheers and agreements echoing in the crowd, including but not limited to 'YOU KNOW IT,' 'BOSS LADY BOSS LADY,' and 'STANNNNNNNNNN.' Peter inwardly grinned, imaging the look Mr. Stark must have on his face at the moment, composing himself in the several moments it took for the audience to quiet down, after which Fallon cleared his throat before starting up again on a new topic. "Have you been able to meet the other Avengers through your internship?" he questioned curiously.

Peter beamed. "Yeah! And they're all incredible people; I'm really lucky to have been able to work with them," he said honestly.

"Work with them?" Fallon asked.

Peter's eyes widened for a moment before he gave a light laugh. "I mean, I work on their equipment and stuff, so I guess that it counts, right?" he quipped.

Fallon nodded easily, grinning at the crowd and flourishing both his hands towards Peter in a theatrical manner, "Yes, you've guessed correctly - here we have our very own honorary Avenger - Peter Parker!" he announced, and Peter snorted out loud before he could help it upon realizing the actual truth in the words, covering his face with a hand to hide his expression while the crowd cheered along good naturedly. "And who would you say is your favorite Avenger?" Fallon then asked.

Peter lowered his hand to his chin, grasping at it and humming thoughtfully as he chewed on his lip. He shrugged. "That's a terrible question," he deadpanned, then smiled easily. "-in the sense that they're all amazing, with them all having unique qualities that make them incredible as individuals but also in how they're all unified under their titles as heroes," he explained. Then he slumped defeatedly. "But probably Iron-Man," he admitted, seemingly begrudging if not for the spark in his eyes.

Fallon nodded along commiseratingly, then squinted. "And this doesn't have anything to do with him being your mentor?"

Peter laughed outright, disagreeing without a second thought, "This has everything to do with him being my mentor!" Waving off the responses to his comment from the crowd, he continued, "I've always thought Iron-Man was the greatest, even as a kid. He's always been the hero I looked up to most, but not just because he was the flashiest, or, at least, not only that," he joked, getting a few laughs in reply before he went on. "The thing is, Iron-Man is incredible, awe inspiring, and a hero, but it's the person behind that mask, Tony Stark, that's every one of those qualities and more. That's who I look up to. He's always been an inspiration to me because sometimes it seemed like heroes were just… so far away, ya know? Like, as a kid everyone wants to be a hero, but it's more of a fantasy, right? Like wanting to be a dinosaur or something."

More laughs, and Peter grinned impishly.

"I wanted to be Petersaur: The Dinosaur Hero," he divulged, not even looking embarrassed in the slightest over it as the crowd guffawed, and he flapped a hand as if to brush aside his own tangent. "Anyways, the point is, with heroes being something that always seemed just out of reach, Tony Stark proved that it didn't really have to be. His work in progressing technology, the way he's helped communities across the world with his devices and projects in fields like prosthetics, genetic engineering, and… well I mean the list is pretty long so I'll stop there, but, okay I had a point." Peter took a deep inhale to catch his breath. "I realized that I could be like Tony Stark; that if I worked hard and put my mind to it, it wasn't as much of an impossibility as everything else I might've wanted seemed to be. He made me who I am today - both before and after I met him," Peter finished, and the audience was quiet - hushed rather deferentially.

Fallon seemed to take a few moments himself to find his voice, clearing his throat a couple of times and looking at Peter with something along the vein of respect in his eyes. "I was… not expecting that," he admitted, earning a few chuckles, Peter among them. "But thank you; it's true that people look up to the obvious heroes every day, but it's good to remember that there are heroes even among us."

Peter smiled, taking another much needed sip of water after his longer than intended monologue.

"So then!" Fallon transitioned quickly, and Peter realized they were probably running low on time. "What do you think about the newest hero on New York's block - Spider-Man! - have you met him too?"

Peter paused for a moment, his lips, which had been parted slightly in preparation to reply, closing. His expression shifted to something more pensive, his gaze seeming rather far away for a moment, and, as if sensing the strange air that had suddenly surrounded the teen, even the quietest of whispers seemed to fall silent, a peculiar sort of anticipation building amongst the crowd, every member waiting for Peter's reply to this question more intently than to the others before.

Peter cocked his head to the side, gaze trailing over to the curtains from where he'd entered the stage at, and the corners of his eyes crinkled slightly upon seeing that the edge of the fabric was pulled back slightly, a single face peeking out from behind them.

When their eyes met, it seemed that, at first, Tony didn't realize anything was off, but then his eyes widened and he quickly shook his head in frantic negation, the curtain shifting with him as the man tried to push as much sternness and the overall sentiment of 'NO' into his expression as he could.

Peter smiled back, serene as could be, and turned to the crowd, calmly setting down his mug and lightly folding his hands in his lap.

The world seemed to hold its breath, only to let it out a moment later.

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"I am Spider-Man."