"I'm not saying I told you so…"
Peter's heart sinks when he walks back through the door of the auditorium after one teeny tiny bathroom break at the end of decathlon practice only to find the room empty… including his backpack. After a moment of disbelief, he bursts into action.
Do you have my backpack? he texts Ned, and please, God, let Ned have it. If anyone else has it, he is completely and utterly screwed, courtesy of the suit balled up at the bottom. It's a stupid thing to do, he realizes now. He only really started doing it so Aunt May wouldn't stumble across it while he was at school, but she knows now and he lost his suit for no good reason unless Ned says…
No.
Fuck. Mr. Stark is actually going to kill him. He'll never be trusted with Stark tech again, and seeing how he treated what he had, does he even deserve to be?
It's not too late, he has to tell himself. He'll try everything in his power to rescue that suit.
Do you still have the data from the suit? Can you track it?
Ned replies with a shocked emoji that only makes Peter feel less confident and more panicked about the whole situation until he sends a second message.
Guy in the chair at your service.
Peter runs top speed to the computer lab to meet him, not even bothering to hide his abilities for the first time in ages.
"Should we really be doing this on school computers?" Ned asks once they're inside and as far from view as they can get, hands hesitating over the keyboard instead of logging in immediately like Peter would prefer.
"I'm desperate, Ned! What if someone looks in my backpack and sees it!?"
"Okay, okay. I'll level with you—this is risky, but I can try to get around the network security and hide everything after we're done."
"Do it. I'll deal with whatever else later," Peter promises.
"Can you stop staring?" Peter considers denying the accusation only to realize he totally was staring up until a second ago. "It's harder to work with you watching like that."
His hand subconsciously reaches for the backpack that should be on the floor by his side, intent on distracting himself with his chemistry homework before he realizes what he's doing. He huffs instead but obeys Ned nevertheless, taking the time to fully take in the decorations some teacher he doesn't know scattered around the room. It's a little early for Halloween decorations, but that's clearly the theme the teacher was going for.
"Found it!" Ned announces a few minutes later. "…and it's moving fast enough to be in a bus or a car. I guess we'll have to watch it until it stops."
"Great," Peter groans. "More chances for whoever it is to look inside."
"Maybe I can hack the camera," Ned suggests in response.
"Sure, yeah. Do it. It couldn't hurt, right?"
"Don't think so. It's not like they'll even be able to tell we're watching. Hey, you could totally use this thing for surveillance!"
"I think there are cheaper ways to set up a video feed than using a one-of-a-kind suit designed by Tony Stark."
"Oh… yeah. Guess you're right."
At first, the camera seems to give them almost nothing to go on. They get an impressive view of the inside of Peter's backpack. Then, the audio helps. The dubstep in the background is so obnoxiously loud that the person can't possibly be on a bus, so at least they know it's a car, and…
"Who even still listens to dubstep except—?"
"Flash," they answer simultaneously.
"Oh my god, how can this get any worse?" Peter complains.
"Hey, it's not all bad. We can track down his address and head there now, maybe beat him there."
"That's assuming he's even going home. And what if he looks inside before then?"
"Trust me. He took it this far instead of throwing it in a dumpster or something. He wants to take it somewhere private so he can snoop."
"Really?" Peter asks, doubtful. "Why does he care?"
"I don't know, but clearly he does. Maybe he thinks he'll find something embarrassing."
If only, Peter thinks. He'd take the rest of his high school career being humiliated by Flash daily over having Spider-Man's identity revealed.
But there's no time to wish things were different. They need to reach Flash's home before it's too late.
"Okay, let's find his address."
"Way ahead of you," Ned assures. "There it is. Let's go, let's go!"
It's painfully slow going. Even after Ned urges Peter to go on without him and he hits his top running speed, Parker luck still strikes, and the train is just pulling away as he arrives at the right subway station. Another five minutes pass as he's painfully aware he's giving Flash even more time to find the suit until finally, finally the next train arrives and he makes his way in.
There's standing room only, but the way his nerves have him shaking in impatience, another passenger seems to assume something's wrong with him and offers him his seat. It's easier to play along and accept the offering than to risk explaining himself to a stranger who doesn't even care all that much.
He's still shaking when he peels himself up before the train can stop at his station, but he can ignore it. There are more important things to focus on, such as sprinting the few blocks to his next line and repeating the whole process.
When he exits the next stop, he has to reopen his GPS, giving it a minute to readjust or triangulate or whatever it was that his GPS always seemed to need to do as he emerges from underground. A text comes through from Ned, noting that the suit's location has settled in one spot at the same address Peter is already pursuing, still a fifteen-minute jog away.
Contrary to having to overcompensate to hide his enhanced abilities at school—earlier that afternoon the first exception in a long time—he's free to let it slip his mind in the streets of the city. Even in this less populated zone, Peter isn't too worried about running into anyone who knows him until he's closer to Flash's house. That's not to say he pushes his abilities today—never as Peter Parker—but it's still a relief to not have to think about what he's physically doing, to tell himself to slow down to explain the missing signs of exertion he'd shown just last year. Instead, he opts to focus on the steadily approaching dot of his destination.
When the GPS states that he's two minutes away, he finally slows his pace from an easy jog to a walk, mentally preparing himself for the upcoming conversation.
Simultaneously feeling too soon and too late, he's traveling up a surprisingly ornate walkway and ringing the doorbell at the Thompsons' house, somehow hoping Flash is the one to answer while also begging for it to be anyone else.
Less than a minute later, the door swings open. Flash looks horrified to see him, but Peter pretends not to notice how unsuccessfully he's trying to hide it.
"Penis Parker! What are you doing here?"
"Heard you've got something of mine."
"I don't know what you're talking about, and this is trespassing. Now get out before I report you for stalking me."
"I mean…" Peter reasons with bravado he normally reserves for Spider-Man. "You could do that, but they might not see it that way since, you know, you're on camera stealing my backpack."
He holds his breath, waiting for Flash to call him out for the lie. He has no idea whether the school's cameras caught the incident. To be honest, Peter's heard plenty of rumors that only about four of the cameras around the school actually record and store any video, and he doubts any of those are in the auditorium.
Flash doesn't call him out. Instead, he pales more than Peter's ever seen and does a weird sort of stuttering, stammering thing instead of responding.
"Look, it stays between you and me if you give it back now. C'mon, please? My aunt is going to kill me if she finds out I lost another backpack."
Whether it's the threat or the appeal to Flash's humanity, something seems to click. He disappears into the house for a long minute. Peter almost gives up, convinced Flash had realized the cameras wouldn't have any data by the time anyone checked, but then he's back, pulling the front door back with the bag in hand.
Wordlessly, he tosses it to Peter before opening his mouth once, twice, and finally committing to it.
"Not a word," he orders.
Peter even goes so far as to mime zipping his lips, turning and walking back down the artisanal stones marking the path to the front door.
As soon as his spider sense tells him the eyes are no longer on him, he pulls out his phone and redials Ned.
"Got it," he announces to a round of cheers from Ned. The call doesn't last much longer after that. Ned needs to finish his homework, and Peter needs to figure out which line to take to get to his apartment from Flash's neighborhood.
…
"…shit," he finds himself saying half an hour later when he opens his newly rescued backpack in the comfort of his own room, intent on starting the chemistry homework he was worried about fitting in that afternoon.
The chemistry book and his notebook are right where he expects, but there's one item notably missing amidst the chaos of his obviously searched bag.
He wastes no time in calling Ned back.
"What's up?" Ned answers.
"You know how I said I got it? Well, actually, I don't got it."
With Ned's expertise, they're in a video call a minute later with Ned's side mirroring the suit's live video feed. Peter's not quite sure whether the opening scene makes things feel better or worse.
"Pew pew," Flash Thompson honest to God says into his bedroom mirror as he aims his wrists like he has invisible webshooters, and it's like déjà vu but even worse. If Peter thought seeing himself on film months ago was humiliating, it's nothing compared to seeing his long-term bully making a fool of himself on camera.
"Oh my god!" Ned breaks the awed silence first. "We have to save this!"
In spite of the potential seriousness of the situation, Peter can't help but to agree.
"It doesn't look like he knows about Karen, does it? He's acting too… well, I don't want to say normal. It looks like he thinks it's just a costume."
They share another round of giggles at Flash's expense.
"Yeah, I think we'd have a different video if he'd figured it out. Maybe Tony Stark—" Ned still rolls the name across his tongue even more reverently than even Peter ever did. "—made it so the AI doesn't work without you around?"
"Nah, haven't you used it before? I could've sworn you did."
"Yeah, but you were still in the room every time so maybe that was good enough. Or maybe it's like a consent thing—you have to approve once for a person and then she's unlocked?"
The lack of certainty isn't helping things.
"So what do we do?" Peter asks. "Stealth or force?"
"You're not gonna force Flash to do anything without outing yourself, man."
"Okay, stealth it is."
"I hate to ask… but what's the stealth method?"
"I don't know, really. The longer he has my suit, the worse things get. I hope you're right about the whole consent thing, but who really knows? For all we know, he has to ask one question before Karen answers him and he figures it out. And I really don't want to risk Mr. Stark figuring out I lost the suit either."
"Okay, so… you ditch school tomorrow? Tell May you're sick and break into Flash's house. Wow, that's, like, actually crossing the boundary into illegal… Are you sure about this?"
Peter feels a pang of something unidentifiable, something distinctly not good, but he shoves it away and tells himself it's nothing.
"No way! This is important. It's justified. I'm not doing anything wrong, just taking back my own suit."
"Okay…" Ned says in that way he always does when he disapproves of something but doesn't want to push it. But behind that, Peter can hear it: an underlying excitement at the prospect.
"Look, I know it's not ideal, but we don't really have options here. I'll do all the sketchy stuff. All I need you to do is check his backpack tomorrow in case he brings it with him."
"I guess that's not so bad."
Ned doesn't sound enthused in the slightest. Peter already knows he owes him big time; the next Lego set is definitely on him.
Flash starts dancing in front of the mirror from earlier, and the argument is quickly forgotten.
"You're actually saving this, right?" Peter confirms.
"I sure fucking am."
"We're playing this before every Star Wars marathon ever from now on," Peter promises.
"You know those videos they do for all the clubs at the end of the year? We could totally sneak this into the one for decathlon, right?"
Even though Peter knows they could never really pull it off, it's a fun thought while it lasts. They're both recovering from almost painfully uncontrollable laughter by the time they have to hang up and get back to their separate lives. With renewed hope, Peter barely minds the chemistry homework and ends up flying through it with vigor.
It feels wrong to have three spare hours after his homework and not use them to patrol. It's all the more inspiration he needs to push him to plan things out and stick to the admittedly risky plan.
The thing is, while Spider-Man might not be nothing without the suit anymore, it's still a part of him, almost like one of Peter's own limbs… or a second skin maybe. He's getting that suit.
…
That doesn't stop him from feeling nervous the next morning at go time. The nerves alone apparently pale his face enough that Aunt May doesn't push when he asks to take a sick day from school.
He waits half an hour after she kisses him goodbye, afraid she might come back home in search of a forgotten car key or lunch or whatever it is that the universe could throw at her to help her catch him. Then, 8:30 rolls around, and there's no way she's not at work by now. With that, he heaves himself out of bed, grabs his backpack, and sets off for Flash's house once more.
Do we know anything about Flash's family? he texts Ned.
Like does he live with both his parents?
Do they both work?
Am I sneaking around avoiding his mom?
No idea, finally comes the response for the lot of good it does Peter.
Super stealth mode, it is. He is not getting caught breaking and entering.
It takes a few minutes to case the place when he arrives. He knows already from yesterday's visit that the front is a no go, too exposed to any onlooking neighbors. Feigning a walk through the neighborhood, he wanders around the corner and down the next street to get a better view of the sides and back of the house.
He's in luck. The back is surrounded by a high enough fence that most of the neighbors shouldn't have a good view as he tests the entrances. The patio door is locked, but the first window he tries slides up easily, and with one more look around himself, he clambers into an ornate dining room that looks like something out of one of those Home & Garden magazines his aunt subscribes to.
He stills himself, every muscle tense as he listens for any sign of life. A minute passes, and then another. After five completely tense minutes pass by, he relaxes infinitesimally.
Peter creeps through the house, unsure of where he needs to go. Surely if the suit is in the house, it'll be hidden in Flash's bedroom somewhere, and that would probably be upstairs, right? He tells himself he's right and takes the carpeted staircase next to the front door, ducking to avoid being visible through the giant window filled with swirling gold patterns set into said door.
There are six doors at the top of the landing, three left open prior to his arrival. He takes another minute to pause, still not hearing anything to indicate Flash's family is home. Then, he's moving slowly but surely to each of the open doors in turn.
Behind door number one is a bathroom that Peter doesn't bother to check out. Surely, Flash wouldn't have left the suit where someone else might stumble across it, not when he stole it.
Door number two is just as promising: a room that looks like a more fleshed out version of the study May had set up in their own spare bedroom while she was taking college classes and needed space to study. This one is massive compared to that, but it's still not what he's looking for. It probably belongs to Flash's dad, not Flash.
Number three is a bedroom, but it's… impersonal, really. It looks like it's maybe a guest room. There's no way it can be Flash's. The room is a bland beige and white affair. Nothing shouts, "A teenager lives here!" like it does in Peter's own room. Definitely a guest room.
That leaves the sealed rooms that he hesitates to open. So far, he hasn't really moved anything. As long as he goes back downstairs and wipes any prints he may have left on the window he crawled through, there's no evidence he was ever here. Opening the doors feels like a huge step forward, like way more of an imposition than he's already made.
He has to. That's what he keeps telling himself as he wraps his hoodie sleeve around one hand to twist open the first doorknob.
This one is huge. It's another bedroom, but it's more personalized than the previous one. Everything in this room looks as expensive as the rest of the house, but there are notes of green throughout the room—in the curtains, the pillowcases, even a painting that Peter hazards a guess is like… a real piece of artwork, not a cheap print.
Still, there are no signs of a teenager, and Peter suspects he's stumbled into the master bedroom where Flash's parents sleep, judging by the similarly massive en suite across the room. He slips the door closed like he found it and tries the next one.
Bingo.
This room, while still filled with furniture Peter can tell is pricey, is also plastered with photos. Looking closer, he sees that they're printouts of stills from the vlogs he sees Flash do at school during breaks when the teachers aren't paying attention. There are a lot of selfies, but he spots a few of the decathlon team too; it's weird to see himself in the background of some of those when he never knew they existed before today. He cracks a smile at a section of the wall entirely dedicated to artsy shots of plated meals before moving on.
The suit is barely hidden. The first place Peter thinks to look is under the bed, and sure enough, there it is, shoved unceremoniously against the wall under the headboard. It comes out dusty, but he'll deal with that later on, somewhere safer.
Suit in hand, Peter is ready to get the hell out of dodge. His spider sense is still prickling faintly, just enough to keep him from relaxing—well, assuming he even could relax mid-heist. Scratch all that. It's probably regular old Peter anxiety.
The vibration of his phone makes him jump.
Something's wrong. Flash looks really nervous, comes from Ned.
"The house is surrounded. Come out with your hands up," comes from the front yard a moment later.
Nope. No. Okay. It was the spidey sense all along, warning him of the encroaching police. Shit.
Lacking any other plans, he shoves the suit in his backpack and makes his way downstairs, opting for the front door this time. He raises one hand and the other quickly joins it after he pulls the door open.
There's a shitload of cops waiting.
"Hands on your head. Down on the ground."
Now that he's outside, he can see that the sound is so distorted because it's coming through a loudspeaker mounted on one of the cars, red and blue flashing behind it and all around him, overwhelming his senses. He obeys the order, scrambling onto the ground.
Six sets of footsteps approach him. Two grab an arm each and maneuver the backpack off of him.
"Peter Parker?" one asks.
He nods, afraid to say anything, afraid to ask how they know.
May's going to kill him. Or scream at him and ground him forever. Or he's never going to make it home because he's going to jail.
He barely registers anything for an incalculable amount of time after he's handcuffed and manhandled into the back of one of the cars. He feels himself answering questions when prompted, but the words almost wash right over him. None of the officers react badly, so he must be giving the right answers, he thinks.
Finally, one leads him off to a secluded corner with nothing more than a landline phone hanging from one of the walls and another person at a desk going out of their way to appear busy and not like they're there to observe the call he's about to make.
May can't deal with this. Peter can't deal with telling her yet. Instead, he dials a different but still familiar number, and everything in him wills Happy to pick up. The phone rings once, twice, three times, four… and finally, mercifully, the man answers.
"What?"
"I'm really, really, really sorry," he starts, and it comes out more panicked than he means, "but I'm at the police station and I need help."
Happy's I-don't-want-to-deal-with-any-of-this-shit tone never drops, but it's enough that he stays on the line long enough to get the most vital details and ends the call with a promise that he's taking care of it.
One of the cops homes in on him again as soon as he slides the phone back into its cradle. There's no break before he's being led back to an interrogation room they left him in earlier. This time he's aware enough to note his surroundings, but there really isn't much to see: a table, a few chairs, a door, and a large window that he knows from TV shows is definitely a two-way mirror. It would've been kind of cool in another situation. But no, he's in this situation.
This time the officer doesn't leave him alone at the table, but he still cuffs one hand to it. Reminding himself he can break it in a heartbeat helps calm him down.
"Ready to talk yet?" It's phrased as a question, but it sounds like a demand.
"My, uhh…" He hesitates, not sure how to describe Happy. "My friend is coming."
"Your friends can come and wait, but you're here until you're done with questioning."
Peter sighs, unsure of what else he can do.
"Okay," he agrees for lack of options.
"Good. We'll get this over with nice and easy as long as you cooperate, so let's get started. You're Peter Benjamin Parker of 43-25 43rd Street in Long Island City, New York, correct?"
"Yes," Peter answers even though the guy is literally reading the address straight from the ID he confiscated from Peter's wallet awhile ago.
"This was a case of breaking and entering—are you disputing that?"
"I… I guess not," Peter answers. "But look! I can explain!"
"You'll have your chance. What did you take?"
"Just my suit—uhh, like my Spider-Man outfit… for cosplaying. It's mine, but Flash—the guy who lives there—he stole it from me yesterday at school."
"I assume you have proof to corroborate that?"
"Umm…" Proof. Proof. He rifles through his stress-addled brain, trying to come up with some way to prove the suit is his without revealing the tech inside and exposing himself as Spider-Man.
"Uh huh," the cop grunts, clearly unconvinced. "Will we find anything else stolen when we search your bag?"
"No."
"Anything of interest at all in there?"
"No," he repeats.
That's when another cop knocks at the door to interrupt. She doesn't say anything in front of Peter, instead beckoning the one interrogating him out into the hallway. Peter strains to hear anything, but the closed and probably soundproofed door leaves much to be desired as far as his enhanced hearing is concerned.
When the original officer comes back in, a grim-faced Mr. Stark is with him, and that takes a second or two to register. A lot must have happened outside the interrogation room because the cop doesn't make any move to kick Mr. Stark out or even indicate any discomfort whatsoever with the change in the situation.
"Okay, Peter, so here's the deal. I can have FRIDAY send over my usual nondisclosure forms—updated for you, obviously—and we can have you out of here in no time. It's up to you."
It's a testament to how desperate the situation is that Mr. Stark even suggests it, and as much as it sounds like it's Peter's choice, he knows there's no real choice this time. He nods, one small jerk of his head.
"I'll have my people fax over the NDAs, and then we can talk."
The cop looks doubtful but leaves it alone.
"Stay here," he orders before leaving the room. The barely audible click of a lock reminds him it really is an order and not a suggestion.
"Don't worry about it, kid. They talk and there will be consequences."
Peter lets the words wash whatever comfort they can over him. Something makes him reach for Mr. Stark's hand, and he's relieved when it's taken without comment.
The cop comes back maybe ten minutes later, and after a thorough confirmation that everyone able to access the records of the case has signed the agreements Mr. Stark sent, the rest of the process flies by as promised. The officer he spent the most time with stares him down at the end, but he leaves things at a stern warning.
"Given the circumstances," he explains. "But there won't be any more warnings."
"He won't need any," Mr. Stark promises. "We'll be having a long chat about it tonight."
"Uh huh, sure," is all the officer says before uncuffing Peter, pointing him to his backpack, and sending the two of them on their way.
Even after stepping back out of the artificial lighting he'd been doomed to for most of the day and into the familiar afternoon chaos of downtown, Peter's not done being grilled. He has a moment of reprieve as they walk to Mr. Stark's Audi before his savior is turning against him in the privacy and comfort of tinted glass and leather seats.
"I'm not saying I told you so… but I hear Happy totally did warn you about leaving your backpack behind dumpsters."
"Okay, yeah, he did tell me not to do that, but I didn't even lose it as Spider-Man this time! All I did was go to the bathroom at school! Can a man not take a bathroom break without his things being pilfered?"
It doesn't get the smirk he was hoping would defuse the conversation.
"Fine, but what about me? Does anything I tell you stick in that stubborn brain of yours?" Mr. Stark settles in on lecture mode with practiced ease. "I'm the adult. When you have a problem like this, you come to me. They never should've caught you in that house in the first place because if you'd just told me like you were supposed to, the suit could have literally flown itself out of the house. I mean that. Literally."
Peter files that knowledge away for later. For now, he has the remnants of a long, angry lecture to survive before he begs Mr. Stark not to tell May anything about the day's events.