Disclaimer: I do not own any rights to Spider-Man, though I do own a certain amount of merchandise, such as the PS4 game, the DLC, and the Miles Morales follow-up.
Moving was stressful, Aunt May dying was stressful, mentoring a super-powered teenager was stressful, and taking down an entire supervillain organization while there was a plague going on at the same time as a massive prison break and martial law imposed by paramilitary forces was stressful, and so it was not a surprise when Peter forgot to do his laundry. But the problem was not that Peter forgot to do his laundry—it was that by the time Peter remembered to do his laundry, he was exhausted and just didn't want to.
And so Peter decided to do something that he knew deep down would be far more effort than it was worth but, for the moment, did not require him to leave his apartment. He pulled his torn-up old costume from the Fisk Takedown out of a box and grabbed a needle and thread. It was beat-up, sure, but he could at least try to mend it.
Over the next few days, Peter found many ways to fix up his old suit. Once he realized there was no way to sew it back together simply, he hit a barrier, but then he saw the stapler on his desk a few feet away and decided it would be faster then sewing anyway. Sure, the staples would scratch him a bit, but compared to a few of the beatings he'd taken over the last few weeks, that would truly be nothing. He needed a fast fix, and he found one.
Unfortunately, not everyone seemed to see the stapled suit as the convenience that Peter did. Within half an hour, Peter was already getting notifications on social media that Spider-Man was seen "in rags" and "making a statement on poverty" and "dressin' like an uppity cyborg." He wasn't entirely sure where they were all getting their ideas, but something about the cyborg one struck him as a possibility. Of all the suits he'd had over the last few weeks, the most they got was high-tech, but "cyborg" would take it to a whole new level.
There was a part of Peter that knew he was still grieving over everything that happened and that he might not be making the most rational of choices, but at the moment he just did not care. This was the first thing he felt truly excited about since throwing Aunt May her (last) birthday party, and he latched onto it with all the intensity that his pre-teen self had with science back when Uncle Ben gave him his first chemistry set. It was a brilliant coincidence when he found a modified version of the Winter Soldier's mechanical arm in a trash can just off the ESU campus. Based on the quality, it was probably just part of a Halloween costume, but all he saw when he looked at it was the possibility of what it could become. It would not be a bad thing to brush up on his metalwork skills, and as long as he was careful about punching people with his left arm, he could think of a few advantages to having a metal arm in his line of work.
Of course the social media people noticed immediately. Teens seemed to think it was cool; middle-aged, middle-class people with average careers decided on pointless; and the Medical Workers Against Spider-Man Association teamed up with Jameson to draw attention to all the potential damage he could do with his arm that he was already being careful to avoid. And so he figured that everything was still normal.
Miles loved the suit and dreamed up a few tech gadgets to add, like the massive web-grenades that worked on the same principle as his web bombs but with a much larger blast radius. It was the kind of thing that would have been useful a few weeks ago against, well, everyone. They were bulky, though, so Miles decided to clip them to the arm since he said they made it look even cooler. Who was Peter to deny the kid some excitement?
Unfortunately Miles went a little overboard with the web-grenades and they did not all fit in the box meant for storing them, so Peter decided to clip a few to his belt. That meant, of course, getting a belt. MJ laughed at him when he tried adding a fanny pack, so instead he went for a utility belt that he thought looked more at home on a construction crew. But then he decided it would work great for the overall beat-up cyborg look. Besides, it would be great for storing extra web cartridges and snacks and Band-Aids. He always did complain about having no pockets, after all.
Unfortunately the roll of gauze did not fit, so he decided to wrap it around his leg.
It was at this point that Peter realized he was designing some sort of apocalyptic-look suit that would be of no actual value in an apocalypse, but he was in too deep. He decided to round out the look with a headband.
The mechanical eyepiece that he retrofitted with night-vision capabilities that had very little practical value was his next brilliant move. The only problem was that the night-vision capabilities just didn't work. As much as he was willing to go in for aesthetic over practicality on this suit, he'd gotten attached to the idea for the goggle lens, and he just wanted to make it work.
Normally he would take it to his lab and fiddle with it until it did what he wanted, but for obvious reasons, Doctor Octavius' lab was shut down, and he'd found that no science company seemed willing to hire him now, much to his chagrin. Here he was, a guy who had always had trouble holding down a job (because fighting crime was important to him, not that anyone knew or cared), with his two main references being Doctor Octavius and former Mayor Norman Osborn, being a literal supervillain and the man responsible for calling in international paramilitary forces to put New York under martial law, and both being in some way responsible for causing a literal plague. They were the current most hated men in New York. Yeah, there was no way he was getting a science job for the next who knew how long with his resume looking like that.
In short, Peter had no lab. Peter needed a lab. Peter was not going to get access to a lab with the equipment he needed for…a long time. But Spider-Man might have just the right connections.
"Spider-Man!" Johnny storm exclaimed, startled and spilling his popcorn all over the sofa.
"Hey, I was in the neighborhood and wanted a little help with a project."
Johnny gave him an odd look. "Please tell me it's not that zombie fighter costume," he said, sounding oddly pained.
"Cyborg, actually. And it's a fun project."
"You have so many other, better costumes, like that white one with the big black spider."
Peter ignored the reference to the costume a group of Sable agents gave him out of the blue back in the middle of everything. "That's the point. I have a lot of really great costumes now, but this is an old one, and it's kind of fun to repurpose it to something completely different."
"If you're sure."
"Really. You should try it some time. There's more to costumes than just switching out the colors and the font on your chest four."
Johnny scoffed and rolled his eyes. "Whatever. All my costumes have to be fire-proof. That makes it a little more tricky. Wanna play some Speedin' Car Theives VI?"
Peter was tempted. "You know that game is misspelled, right?"
Johnny smirked. "Who cares? Thieves is a tricky word, and it made the game cost less. Plus the game marketers could tell all the concerned parents that it obviously wasn't about thieves since it clearly said theives. Are you playing?"
"In a bit. I want to ask Reed about my project."
"He's in his lab," Johnny said, getting up to lead the way even though Peter already knew it. Soon they reached the door. "Reed! Spidey wants to consult you about his wardrobe!"
"What?" Reed asked, looking over at them from one of his lab stations.
""I've been fixing up this old costume for fun," Peter said, gesturing to the cyborg suit that he was currently wearing, "but I'm having trouble with the night-vision goggle."
"Goggle?" Johnny questioned, ignored by both Peter and Reed as Peter pulled off the single eyepiece and showed it to Reed.
"Hmm, I can help, but the machine I need already has a project on it," he said, waving vaguely in the direction of one of his benches. Peter looked around and thought he could tell which one Reed meant, but all of Reed's equipment was so much more advanced than anything he ever worked with, plus Reed was in a completely different scientific field. Still, he thought there was more mess than usual.
"Why is everything still in boxes?" he asked.
"I haven't had a chance to unpack everything since we moved back to New York," he explained, and Peter felt like an idiot. Somehow he'd forgotten that the Fantastic Four had only just moved back to New York after taking a break in the woods for scientific research and family time, as they put it. Otherwise Peter knew that they would never have abandoned New York during the plague the way all the other superheroes had.
Peter knew deep down that the other heroes had not abandoned New York—the Avengers were off on a mission in space and did not know about everything until they got back, and the other heroes had been helping on the sidelines, but it felt like Peter had done most of the work while injured and being hunted by the Sable agents. It was hard to let go of his hurt feelings, even when he knew they were not completely warranted.
But the Fantastic Four had never let him down or pressured him into telling them who he was. They just accepted him and tried to help when he asked for it, and even invited him on the occasional camping trip. In return he tried to help them when it looked like they might want it. A small, selfish, tired, and grieving part of him wondered if they'd let him have Thanksgiving with them this year, but he decided not to count on it. After all, he still had MJ, so he wasn't actually alone.
So instead he shook himself out of his gloomy thoughts. "Anything I can do to help with your project?" he asked, hoping Reed would let him work in his lab, but knowing that playing video games with Johnny would be fun too.
"Hmm, I need a part for it that's in one of these boxes. But that might take a while to find. I have another part in a warehouse a few miles upstate. It might be faster to just go get that."
"Sure," Peter said, his heart falling a little. "But I don't actually have a car—"
Johnny's snort interrupted him. "Sorry, but I can't help thinking that's a good thing. I've seen how you drive on Speedin' Car Theives."
"Hey, game driving is different! I'll have you know that I'm great on a motorcycle."
"Okay," Reed said. "So would you like to take your motorcycle to the warehouse?" he asked, clearly trying to stop Johnny from derailing the conversation.
"Ah, that wouldn't be possible. I had to sell it to help pay for rent a few years ago, and my old boss refused to cosign my loan again." Peter suddenly realized how much he had given away and clammed up. Johnny looked shocked, and Reed looked slightly embarrassed that he had asked what turned out to be an insensitive question. Peter was just glad he was wearing a mask and no one could see his face.
"Well, if you're up for it, maybe Johnny could show you how to drive the Fantasticar," Reed suggested. Peter was shocked, knowing that it was one-of-a-kind, but eager to learn if they were serious.
Johnny had a big grin. "Come on. This is going to be great."
It was a perfect day for a car ride. The sun was shining, there was a crisp autumn breeze, and there was no traffic. "That's the good thing about the flying bathtub," Johnny remarked, looking proud. "You don't have to follow traffic laws."
"Please, like you don't just fly everywhere."
"Remember what I said about all my suits being fireproof? Well, casual clothes aren't, and Reed has no sense for fashion design. So no, I don't."
"Sure, I guess," Peter conceded.
"I'm guessing you don't just swing everywhere either."
"It's tempting sometimes, especially without my motorcycle, but web fluid doesn't grow on trees. Besides, sometimes it's nice to be out in public as just a random guy that no one looks at twice."
Johnny huffed a laugh, clearly trying to smother it.
"What?" Peter asked, suddenly wary.
"I'm guessing you don't have a skin condition under that stupid suit or something. Pull up here to catch the updraft," Johnny commented, still instructing Peter in the art of three-dimensional navigation.
"No. Lots of people yell it at me for some reason, though."
"Yeah, well, Ben and I aren't sorry."
It took a moment for Peter to grasp what he implied. "Are you kidding? What did you do?" he asked, a little dumbfounded that two members of the Fantastic Four could be responsible for that.
"Well," Johnny said, leaning back and clearly enjoying this, "we got into a competition to see who could get the general public to have a superhero catchphrase that they yell whenever they see a specific hero. Ben tried popularizing 'It's Clobberin' Time!,' but everyone already associated that as something he said. I just got on all the anti-Spidey forums and made a few anonymous suggestions. People clearly liked shouting mine better."
Peter was glad Johnny could not see his face behind the mask. "Just you wait. I know exactly which water towers are about to be replaced, Flame Brain."
Johnny just leaned back and grinned, knowing Peter could do nothing while Johnny was still teaching him how to fly. Peter, for his part, focused on the land beneath them, looking at the aerial photograph Reed had given them of the warehouse for reference. In the photo, it had a giant "4" painted on the roof, so it should not be hard to find, but it never hurt to be prepared. According to the map, they should be there soon.
"That might be it," Johnny mentioned after a bit. "You'll want to start lowering and slowing down. It looks far out, but, well, you know how hard it can be to stop in midair."
"Web lines help a lot," Peter agreed, following Johnny's instructions to the letter. Even though he would not put it past him to prank him even during a flying lesson, it would be much worse to ignore something that might be actual advice.
They got closer to the warehouse, and Peter thought it looked like the pictures, but Johnny was frowning. Peter looked again, and he thought he could see movement, but it was too far out to tell. His spider-sense was not giving him any warnings, but he knew that only meant there was no immediate danger.
"Something's not right, somehow," Johnny muttered. "I think I should drive." Johnny put his hands back on the main operating controls. A few seconds later he leaned forward abruptly, looking intently at something. "That overhead door isn't supposed to be open! I knew there was something off!"
"You just now noticed an open door was something off?" Peter teased his friend, feeling his quipping powers start to kick in with the suggestion that something was wrong.
"Oh, be quiet. We were too far away to see it sooner or els—"
"LOOK OUT!" Peter shouted as his spider-sense flared up, immediately trying to swerve the Fantasticar but unable to as Johnny had the main controls.
A rocket powered grenade hit the Fantasticar dead on before Johnny could react for himself. "FLAME ON!" Johnny shouted, bursting into flames and jumping out of the Fantasticar. Peter looked around wildly as a shock grenade hit it as well, but once his senses cleared a little, he realized that the Fantasticar was still flying. For all the jokes people made about how it looked, the simple fact was that Reed had designed the thing to withstand a lot more than two grenades. Unfortunately when the shock grenade hit, Peter had reflexively jerked the controls a bit too hard, and the shockwave of the Torch jumping out had not helped. The ground was coming up much too fast, and Peter had no clue how to stop it with the driving controls, so he did the most automatic thing he could think of. He tried to slow it down by webbing it to a few trees.
But then his spider-sense went off again and he jumped just in time. He glanced at his web shooters in horror. Somehow they were on the electric web setting, and had overloaded badly. His web shooters were not nearly as sturdy as the Fantasticar, and they must have been damaged in the blast from the shock grenade or something. But whatever the case, all that electricity had just been zapped directly into the instrument panel. Peter could have sworn he had not been aiming at it, but his web shooters were known to malfunction around electronics sometimes. While the Fantasticar could withstand a lot, it had all happened too fast and too close to the ground for it to correct and level out.
Peter jumped again and landed, rolling and hitting things from his momentum, then turned and looked at the Fantasticar, grimacing at how it was thoroughly planted in the ground. Years of fighting taught him to check on himself even in the middle of an adrenaline rush, so he glanced down. What he saw dismayed him.
While he did not appear to be hurt beyond some minor cuts that would heal too soon to worry about, his costume was torn to shreds. It was still somewhat serviceable, but it was in a lot worse condition than when he first started fixing it up. There was no practical way to salvage it, but that was unimportant. He swapped out his web cartridges and fired a test shot from each, pleased to see that they were functional—badly damaged, but functional. And then, like the good friend and superhero he was, he ran towards the sounds of fighting.
There were about twenty people in dark clothes and ski masks running around, trying to figure out how to fight the Torch without getting burned, like they came here with no contingency plans. Peter fired some impact webs at a couple of them, pinning them to trees.
"Aw, did you start without me?" he asked, switching to a tripwire mine and shooting it onto someone's back. The man instantly turned, sweeping the beam across one of the others, triggering it, and webbing the two attackers together. "I love it when people hug it out instead of fighting!" Peter exclaimed.
A large thug ran at him, and Peter shot webs in rapid succession before using them to spin the thug in circles and launching him at a tree, where he stuck. "Anyone else want to go flying? Costs are on me! Web fluid doesn't grow on trees," he said, impact webbing another person to a tree. He snickered. "Well, it doesn't grow on trees, but it can be found on them!"
"Do you ever shut up?" a thug roared, charging him with a crowbar.
"What? And miss out on giving talent managers a chance to hear my lovely voice? Listen to this. Deck the halls with bound up villains. Fa, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la!" Peter belted out as he webbed the guy to the warehouse, not knowing entirely where he was going with the song, but it somehow just feeling right.
"It's too early for Christmas!" a villain yelled.
"Yeah, it's not even Thanksgiving!" shouted another.
"'Tis the season to save millions, fa, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la," Peter continued, really getting into the spirit of things.
"Spidey, just stop," Johnny groaned, fencing in an entire group in with flames.
"See the blazing fire set before us. Fa, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la," Peter continued, making one of the guys groan and put his head in his hands.
Another actually stuffed his hands over his hears and started shouting, "La, la, la" monotonously at the top of his voice to try to cover Peter's fa, la, las.
"Sing we joyous spiders together," Peter continued louder, ignoring the fact that Miles was not here to be a second Spider. It would work out soon enough. He had no idea if the kid would be up for a Spider-Man Christmas caroling duo, but he decided to keep workshopping ideas.
"Our future adventures are sure to be better! Fa, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la," the torch pitched in unexpectedly, clearly winding down the song with the tempo of his own fa, la, las. "Really, Spidey, you butchered that."
"Don't make me listen to it again," said one of the remaining villains, holding up his hands in surrender. A couple of others followed his example.
"Yeah, I don't wanna go back to prison, but at least my buddies there had better taste in music," another grumbled.
"See, this is why I need to get in practice before the actual Christmas season," Peter explained as he walked over to the ones that surrendered and started webbing them up to keep them out of the way. He reached out and flipped back a sleeve cuff, frowning at the orange prison jumpsuit peeking out under the jacket.
"What? It's free clothes and I laundered it," the man said defensively.
"You're more of the Ryker's Island escapees?" Peter asked.
"Yeah, lotta good it did us. We finally got outta Manhattan, and we came here to get some unattended tech to set up new lives, and you just happen to show up? What's with that?"
"That's right, you're supposta be a neighborhood Spider-man," another complained, and Peter seriously contemplated webbing their mouths shut. But he did not need stealth at the moment, and the Medical Workers Against Spider-Man Association actually made some compelling points about head and neck injuries and the potential for suffocation that he was trying to take seriously. There was no need to be reckless as a vigilante, after all, and he really wanted to set the best example he could for Miles.
"YARRRGH!" a new voice yelled, and Peter sidestepped the object thrown at him. He webbed it and swung it around before it could hit the restrained criminals, and the Torch took on the criminal who threw it. It was a barrel, and it hit the ground with enough force to break open. Again, Peter's spider-sense warned him as the contents splashed out, but unable to fully dodge, Peter swiveled to the side, keeping the metal arm in front of him. The splash still hit him, and his spider-sense did not lessen. A quick glance at the barrel showed the standard flammable symbol, and Peter acted immediately.
While Peter would not be too troubled by a flammable liquid most of the time, he was literally standing next to the Human Torch, and his spider-sense was only getting stronger even though Johnny had just flamed off. Every science major knew that if you had dangerous chemicals spilled on your clothes, the first thing you did was get out of the clothes and shower. Peter swallowed his embarrassment and started stripping down, leaving him in nothing but his mask and underwear, which, to his embarrassment, had little Spidey masks all over it.
"What?" Johnny asked, stunned.
"I had to get out of the suit with the flammable chemical splash," Peter tried explaining, glad once more for his mask. He thought there was still some of the chemical on it, but he couldn't be sure. His spider-sense was not going off the way it had before, though, so he figured he would just give it a good wash. "Speaking of chemical hygiene, you don't happen to have a shower in there, do you?" he asked the still stunned Johnny Storm.
"Uh, yeah. Reed mentioned something about not blocking the safety shower when we moved this stuff in."
"Good. I'll go take care of that, and you can call the police. Also, you don't happen to have any spare clothes around here, do you?"
"I think there's a spare Fantastic Four suit in the Fantasticar. I can get it for you, I guess? It doesn't have a mask, though."
"That's fine. I've still got mine," Peter replied and made his way into the warehouse. It took some searching to find the safety shower, by which Peter gathered that Ben and Johnny didn't know what they were doing when they did not block it, and the water was cold. He grimaced as it poured over him, clearly dirty. He looked at the inspection card tied to it. No one was maintaining this safety shower they way they should.
"I'm leaving the suit for you on these boxes!" Johnny called out from somewhere Peter could not see.
"Thank you!" he shouted back, figuring he would find it soon enough and glad now that there were so many boxes around. It made the shower far more private than otherwise, and he had taken the opportunity to take off his mask as well.
Peter was right. He found the suit easily enough, and by the time he was dressed again, the police had already arrived to take the criminals off the premises. They gave Spider-Man some odd looks, clearly not knowing what to make of his mismatched getup, but did not mention it.
"We'll need to get statements, of course," one of the officers said, and that launched a whole set of conversations that Peter usually avoided by swinging away, but Johnny clearly thought it was a fun idea.
"So, is the Fantasticar still drivable?" Peter asked once they were all gone.
Johnny frowned. "It might be, but I don't think we should risk it. I'm good with mechanics, but the Fantasticar works on Reed's science as well, so we should probably let him check it over."
"Okay. I'll just move it into the warehouse for safe keeping, then," Peter replied, making his way though the trees to where it had crashed. Peter was definitely not the strongest superhero out there, but this was a job for him rather than Johnny.
"Safe, right," Johnny muttered as Peter brought it back and they stashed it in an unused spot. "Safe as long as no one else breaks in."
"Have you called Reed yet to tell him?" Peter asked.
"Yeah. He said he'd redesign the security system. But let's just get the part we came for and head back to the Baxter Building."
"How?"
"I can fly, and you can take the bus," Johnny replied.
The last thing Peter wanted was to be taken for a Fantastic Four impersonator who was too embarrassed to show his face while riding a public bus. Besides that, he had no money. "Oh, no. You owe me for all those skin condition jokes. You can carry me."
"What? But—" Johnny started to object.
"We both know those jokes will keep coming for a long time. You're not making me ride the bus. It's the least you can do."
"I guess the suit is fireproof. It won't be great having to carry you all that way, but you won't catch on fire. See, like this," Johnny said at last, bursting into flames and reaching out to grab Peter in demonstration.
All of a sudden, Peter's spider-sense went wild, and his head suddenly got very hot. Johnny pulled back, but it was too late. Peter's mask was on fire. Peter desperately pulled the mask off, spinning so his back was to Johnny and throwing it on the ground. Johnny pulled the flames back to himself, but the mask was ruined.
"So," Johnny began, "I promise I didn't mean to set your mask on fire."
"No, it was my fault. I meant to wash it when I was showering, but I forgot." There was an awkward pause, both trying not to be the first to confront the elephant in the room. Peter gave in. "So, I know you said there was no mask with this suit, but do you have anything I could use in its place?"
"Um," Johnny said. "Just a moment. I might have an idea. You might not like it, but it would work."
Peter tried not to be too suspicious of what Johnny was doing. He could hear him walking around in the background, and he heard other sounds, like drawers opening and closing and paper rustling and scissors snipping. Johnny was definitely his friend, but he also loved pulling pranks on people. Not only that, but Peter felt bad about the whole mask thing. The mask was normal for him, and the Fantastic Four knew it was part of his costume and never pushed him to take it off. But he'd known them all for years now, and, well, there was a part of him that kept saying that this whole thing would be easier if he just didn't bother with the mask. But then he remembered that they were heading back to New York, and he decided that he would have to hide his identity there anyway to keep it from getting out to the general public.
At last he heard footsteps coming closer behind his back. "Here you go," Johnny said, reaching past him to hand him something.
Peter took it and looked at it. "A paper bag with eyeholes?"
"Hey, it's what I had. Besides, I drew a little mask design on it to make it more you."
"No, that's not it. It's just, won't it catch on fire too? It is a paper bag, after all."
"Nah, that's okay. My family has fireproof versions of almost anything I might touch. These bags are fireproof. I tested it already."
Peter decided to trust his friend and put on the bag. It smelled almost like a paper bag, but not quite. He guessed that the difference must be whatever was making it fireproof.
"Okay. We got the part, the bad guys are in custody, and the Fantasticar and my destroyed suit are stashed in the warehouse where most likely no one will get to them overnight. Now all we have to do is lock up the place and head back," Peter said.
The trip back was a lot longer than the trip there. Johnny was not as fast as the Fantasticar and he could not carry Peter for long periods without stopping to rest.
"I think we're passing that same bus again," Peter remarked, looking down at the traffic below. "It must have gone past when we were at the last diner."
"Hey, if you want to take the bus, be my guest," Johnny replied.
Peter, enjoying the chance to not take public transit, laughed. "Nah, I'll pass. No money in this suit."
"We're almost there, anyway."
"Hey, would you mind dropping me off in Manhattan and then I'll meet you back at the Baxter Building? That way I can change into something of mine and return the suit. I'd offer to launder it first, but I don't know how unstable molecules would react to a public laundromat."
Johnny shuddered. "It's probably safer not to try. Sue is particular about how we wash these things anyway, so yeah. Where do you want me to drop you off?"
Peter thought for a moment. "Somewhere in Midtown," he said, not wanting to be too specific with his address, and also kind of wanting to web sling in the Fantastic Four suit while he still had the chance.
"Got it," Johnny replied.
When Peter got back to his apartment, the first thing he did was look in his closet. There were no clean suits. He looked in his secret suit hamper, and sure enough, there were all his suits, dirty and needing a good washing. Most of them needed to be washed by hand, both for secret identity reasons and because of the electronics he'd taken to carefully installing lately. But there was no chance that he would be able to wash one before heading to the Baxter Building, so he took another look at his closet.
With a sigh he pulled out a pair of jeans and ESU T-shirt. He had plenty of clean masks (the dread of funky mask smell ensured that, at least). It was better than what he had been wearing, or not wearing, earlier. He stuffed the Fantastic Four suit into an old Fisk backpack and headed out the window again.
By the time Peter reached the Baxter Building, he'd caught up on the main points of his costume gossip on social media. Not only had people taken the chance to post pictures of the #BombasticBag-Man, somehow Johnny had managed to get a picture of him after he'd pulled off his flammable suit and posted it on his official account. It honestly was not the worst picture that had made it to social media, and there were scores of others from when he was poisoned by the Scorpion, but now there was a trend called #SpideyStrikesStreaksAgain and everyone was reblogging and reposting the old pictures too. He could just imagine the tirade Jameson was cooking up about all this.
Peter put his phone away as he neared the Baxter Building, preparing a swing and leap up to the Fantastic Four's floors. He smacked into the glass and stuck there, crawling to one of the windows they typically let him in through.
"Hey Web-head, you made it," Ben said, letting him in.
"Thanks. And if you need help with your next prank on Johnny, I'm in."
"You saw the picture, then. I'll let you know. We're having supper in a minute, if you want to join."
"Isn't it kind of late for that?"
"Susie wanted to wait until you two were back," Ben explained, and Peter felt touched. He figured Sue was mainly waiting on her brother and expected Peter to be back with him, but it still felt special.
"You made it," Sue said as Peter and Ben walked into the dining room. "Johnny filled us in on a lot, but I'm sure you'll want to correct some details."
"Hey, I was completely honest with that story," Johnny protested.
"And there are at least two sides to every story," his sister reminded him.
They sat down at the table, and Peter pulled his mask above his nose to eat. No one had commented on his unusual choice of clothing, and he was happy with that. He told the story of the afternoon, making sure to overcorrect all the details he was sure Johnny had already skewed.
"I'm sorry your suit was destroyed before we had a chance to get the night-vision goggle working," Reed said.
"Oh, that's fine. Some of the accessories should still be salvageable, like the belt and arm, as long as I clean them up, and I'm sure I'll have other suits get torn up sooner or later. I can just recreate the suit then."
"I'll also make sure to delete any camera footage that might show your face," Reed offered, and Peter went still. "I can look at the cameras I know you were not facing and take out that time on the footage from the others.
Peter swallowed and braced himself. "I appreciate that," he said. "And I hope you don't think I don't trust you. I want to trust you all with my identity, at least most of the time, but, well…" Peter trailed off, trying to think of the right words.
"You're not there yet?" Sue suggested.
"Yes," Peter confirmed. "It's just that I recently got badly burned by someone who knew, and I trusted him a lot up until then. I never told him, but he figured it out, and then, well, he knew how to…He was my mentor, in my civilian life. And he tried to take me down a dark road."
"It's okay that you don't want to tell us," Reed said, seeing that Peter was floundering. "If you ever choose to, it will be our honor, and we never want to make you feel unsafe or uncomfortable. Just let us know if you ever need our help."
"Yeah, it's what families do," Ben added, and Peter remembered that Ben was the only member of the Fantastic Four who was not literally, legally family, so it meant a lot coming from him.
Of course Johnny had to downplay it. He swirled his fork in the air before pointing it at Peter. "Yeah, families. And you're obviously that cousin that no one's actually quite sure how he's related, just that he's part of the family even though he looks different and lives in a different place."
"Johnny," Sue exclaimed, but Peter knew what they all meant, and it gave him comfort. Maybe, if he could bring himself to trust them, he might be able to invite them over to his place for Thanksgiving with MJ in a year or two.
The End
Author's Notes: Yes, I referenced the Spider-Man version of Deck the Halls. None of the lyrics Peter and Johnny mangled were written by me.
I love Fantastic Four/Spider-Man friendship crossovers, and there really are not enough, either in fanfiction or in the actual, canonical, comics. For this, I obviously used the Bombastic Bag-Man Suit, which was part of the game and appeared briefly in one issue of the comics back when Peter first realized the Venom suit was alive. He went to the Fantastic Four for help getting it off him, and obviously he needed a costume after that to wear home. I did not want to touch Venom in this story. That suit is such a big part of the comics that there is no way Insomniac would have left it out of the game if they did not have future plans for it (in the Ultimate comic series, Venom started as attempted cancer cure. Considering Harry's illness in the game, this has some intriguing possibilities).
The reference to the white suit with the black spider (the Future Foundation suit) is a nod to another of my game-based stories, "The Secret Society of the Sable Spider."
The fact that Johnny set Peter's mask on fire was a direct reverence to ASM 590 & 591, but in this story, it was an accident instead of, well, the One More Day arc was a mess as far as Peter's life and relationships with other heroes was concerned. If you like Fantastic Four/Spider-Man crossovers, those two are good issues, though.
Yes, Peter in the comics had a motorcycle at one point, with the loan cosigned by J. Jonah Jameson (who realized Peter would have to keep taking pictures to keep making his payments). I don't actually remember what happened to the motorcycle, but it lasted a lot longer than the infamous Spider-Mobile (which Johnny canonically helped Peter assemble and drive).
Yes, Peter has canonically gone on camping trips with the Fantastic Four.
The Cyborg suit is my second favorite in the game, and when I first unlocked it, I realized that a lot of the tears matched up with Fisk Takedown suit. That was what inspired this story. It's been over two years now since I unlocked it, but I could never get the feel right for writing a story about it. Initially I went for Peter fixing it up, remembering it as the last suit he wore before his life started falling apart in the game, but I'm not very good at writing angst. The idea for this story's plotline coalesced in the last two weeks, and I decided to try to get it out in time for April Fool's Day.