Chapter 69

Toni was worried about Peter. She knew since she'd done the press conference, he'd had a hard time at school. It wasn't easy shielding him from the hoards of press that came his way as a result of the announcement. Everyone wanted to know the kid that Toni Stark and Steve Rogers had taken into their home. Everyone wanted to get to know the new heir to Stark Industries and her fortune.

It had been something she'd worried for before they'd even made the announcement. Her life had hardly been quiet growing up. Everything that she did, said, or even looked at was reported upon. And it meant she had next to no privacy growing up and it wasn't anything she'd ever wanted her children to experience. And yet here she was, exposing Peter to the same thing that she'd hated her entire life.

She hated doing this to him. She hated that he was forced into the spotlight. He'd never been an outgoing kid, and she knew that none of this was easy on him, despite his bravado.

She knew he was trying to keep busy, staying out for some club or another, visiting Ned, or retreating to his room to do homework.

Sometimes, she only saw him for a few hours a day. And she knew what homework was like. She knew what high school was like. So she didn't fault him for spending so much time investing in it.

But she hated wondering if he felt like he needed to go through all of this alone. She hated not knowing if he wasn't talking to her due to his need to carry the weight of the world on his shoulders.

Steve could sense it too, but he was trying to give Peter his space to allow the boy to come to them when he wanted to talk. He wanted Peter to feel like he had the freedom to make his own decisions, as long as those decisions weren't harming him anyone else.

But she couldn't help but zone out, while staring at her tablet, wondering if Peter was doing okay. He was currently upstairs in his room, working through math homework that she already knew he was too advanced for.

She sighed to herself, taking a sip of coffee, hoping it would as always make things a little bit better than they currently were. She inhaled the aroma of it, taking comfort in the familiar beverage, before placing it down beside her.

She took one of her StarkPad pens and began scribbling semantics for a new suit for Natasha, after seeing how her last one was offering too much resistance to her movements. She'd had FRIDAY run the numbers and she could increase the Black Widow's overall speed and agility by 0.03 seconds if the fabric just gave a little bit more when she tried moving with it.

She knew Natasha would never ask her for it, but her teammate was more than grateful for her offerings when she presented her with a newer suit.

The entire team was like that, taking her gifts gratefully and offering thanks in different ways, but never going out of their way to ask. Just like she gave Clint arrows with fun little features, or Harry a gun that had been custom made for him. Thor and Loki were off world too much to get any of her gifts and she had a feeling that anything they had were far superior to what she could make, due to their alien and magical materials. And Bruce. Well Bruce was gone, now wasn't he.

Steve however, Steve she freely made suits for, despite his insistence that he could make-due. Seeing his suits get cut up was no good for her, knowing that despite his super strength, it really would only take one wrong hit to take her husband away from her. And he knew her fears, so he never protested too much when she gave him offerings.

She pulled the material design she'd been contemplating up in front of her, projecting it in front of her, as she ran various simulations on it, trying to gage how it would perform in different situations, and whether it would indeed hold up for everything Natasha would put it through. Would it hold up to the rigor of the Black Widow in battle, or would it continue to hold her back?

She sighed to herself, pouring herself another cup of coffee, as she rubbed her temples. Why wasn't the fabric giving more leniency? She could make it a thinner material, more spandex like, like the Spider-Mans, but would it offer the same amount of protection? Would it hold up against gunshots and knives?

She needed a material that was stretchy. One that would fit just right and not offer too much drag, but also one that wouldn't be as breakable.

Maybe if she infused metal into the fabric? She could make the threads out of a similar metal that she used for the suit, and maybe that would offer both the protection and the durability she would need.

"JARVIS, run a simulation with the new numbers, and boost the alpha variable to 0.3 will you?" she said, as she crossed her arms. She watched the suit form in front of her eyes, as the simulation began, putting the suit through various vigors of the sort.

"Yes!" she let out a happy little cheer as the suit held through. There were some scratches on it, but it was nothing that couldn't be amended by playing slightly more with the numbers.

She'd done it! She'd made a suit that would hold up in the circumstances that Natasha was most frequently presented with and would offer the support she'd need to get through her missions without holding her back. And maybe she'd be able to incorporate the same material into other, future projects.

She glanced down at Project Baby Spider.

Maybe.

But that was something for another day.

"Miss," FRIDAY said then, coming over her speakers, "I found something that you need to see."

Her youngest sounded AI somewhat hesitant, and she immediately dropped her tablet, and looked at her screens in front of her.

"What is it, Fri?" she asked.

"I found some strange patterns," FRIDAY said, "Based on when Spider-Man popped up on the scene. It correlated with mostly evenings or weekends. Implying that those were the times that he was most free."

"Oh?" she asked. It made sense. Not every superhero had the ability to superhero full time. While they received a small stipend from SHIELD while the organization was active, Stark Industries had consolidated the organization. Meaning she wasn't paid to superhero anymore. Not that she relied on the income. But for those heroes that were independent still, and not affiliated with SHIELD.

So Spider-Man had a day job.

Or more likely, attended classes during that time, based on the age she was projecting for him. There were a number of New York universities and community colleges in the city, so it was possible that he attended one of those. Maybe they could use this information to help narrow down the pool of possible candidates for their masked hero.

"Yes," FRIDAY confirmed, "I expanded my pool of search results to start canvasing based on the ending of school times with the first spotted appearance of Spider-Man to calculate how far he would have travelled during that time to figure out the distance of where the point of origin was. That way we'd be able to narrow down the results. I left room for buffer, in case of a delay for him leaving classes. Based on the timings consistently being after 3 pm, it was most likely that Spider-Man was a high school student, given college and university classes tend to run longer."

Her stomach dropped. She knew Spider-Man was young, but she didn't know he was that young. A high school student? Oh Edison, no wonder he was working so hard to keep his identity a secret! He probably didn't want everyone to know who he was and make him stop due to his age.

She thought about Peter, and quickly pushed the thoughts out of her mind.

"There's more," FRIDAY said, and she felt her heart drop. "I traced the most likely school to be Midtown School of Science and Technology."

No.

"FRIDAY," she said, prompting her child for more information.

"I found a picture of him without the mask," FRIDAY said, and there it was on her screen in front of her.

"I was tracing through CCTV footage around the area based on the findings, and I found this a few hours ago. I know I should have told you immediately, but I wanted to be sure," FRIDAY told her, but she barely heard the words.

Because there on the screen was the definitive picture of who Spider-Man was. There on the screen was the proof of the kid she'd been searching for, for the last few months, when really he'd been under her roof the entire time.

There on the screen, was undoubtedly Peter, pulling the mask.

Her son.

Her son was Spider-Man.

Oh Aristotle she was going to be sick.

Her.

Son.

Was.

Spider-Man.

Well shit.

"I started comparing times between when Spider-Man was spotted to Peter's absences from the Tower, and ran calculations to check the timings between his last appearances on multiple days, with the time to take the subway from Queens to the Tower, and checking what time he arrived home that day," FRIDAY said. "The calculations just finished computing. I can say with 99.4% certainty that Peter is Spider-Man."

She felt the air leave her chest, unable to breathe for a second. Oh da Vinci. Oh Curie. Oh Edison, and every other scientist to have paved the way before her.

No parenting book she'd read prepared her for this.

What To Expect When You Find Out Your Child Is A Superhero.

She'd seen the footage of the things that Spider-Man had done. She'd seen him stop cars from hitting pedestrians with his bare hands. She'd seen him swing with webs and fight men with knifes. Women with guns. She'd seen him fight and defend the people of Queens.

Spider-Man had superpowers. That much was clear.

What wasn't was that her son apparently had superpowers and she hadn't even noticed. Her son whom she'd known for years had up and developed spider-like abilities and she hadn't even been able to tell that something had changed.

Suddenly, everything made sense. The long hours he'd spent away from the Tower. The going to bed early or the way he'd always look like he was a million miles away. Her son wasn't withdrawn from the change since his identity of her and Steve's adoptive son was revealed. It had changed because he was a superhero.

Watson and Crick, she'd really read all of this wrong, hadn't she? She really had no idea what was going on under her own roof with her own son. She'd spent months searching for the secret identity when really, it was her own son.

"Is Peter home?" she asked FRIDAY calmly, as she stood up, and made her way out of her lab.

"He is studying in his room, according to his earlier discussion with Mr Stark-Rogers," FRIDAY told her. "He is currently not in the building, however Spider-Man was last seen twenty minutes ago in Queens. If my projections are correct, he should be home in four minutes."

"I see," she said coolly, as she headed to the elevator. She got off on their common floor, where Steve was busy with a crossword.

"What's wrong?" Steve asked her with a concerned look as he took one look at her. He dropped his pencil and stood, making his way to her.

"Where do you think Peter is, right now?" she asked him.

"Studying in his room?" Steve said, confused, "He has a biology test next Monday and he wanted to get a head start on studying for it."

She shook her head, as she took his hand and headed towards Peter's room.

"Where are we going?" he asked her somewhat confused, "Shouldn't we be knocking? We did promise to offer him privacy and all."

"Can't offer privacy to someone who is not here," she said, as she opened the door and saw the window open.

"Where did he go?" Steve asked, sounding surprised, "JARVIS, did Peter step out for a few minutes?"

"I think you better sit down, Steve," She said instead, as she sat down on Peter's bed. "The answer will be coming our way soon enough."

"Toni, what's going on?" he asked her. "Talk to me, Darling."

"Our son's been keeping secrets from us," she said, as she glanced at the clock.

And right on cue, Peter climbed up, through the window, wearing his suit from head to toe.

Seeing him in person rendered her speechless for a few seconds. She'd known he was Spider-Man. She'd seen the footage that FRIDAY had showed her of Peter in the suit. She'd seen the clips of him doing all the things that he'd done.

But none of it prepared her for coming face to face with her son in full costume.

Her son didn't appear to spot them right away, pulling off his mask.

"Did you honestly think that I wouldn't notice if my own son was sneaking out of his room to go off to fight crime then sneaking back into the Tower afterwards?" she asked, keeping her voice calm.

Peter jumped as he looked at them both, face filling with panic.

"It's not what you think?" he tried, "Ned and I were at an expo and we were cosplaying. I was Spider-Man and he was Thor."

"Try again," she shook her head, "There are no expos today. And even if there were, that wouldn't explain the fact that you snuck into your room. Which is on the seventy-fifth floor. Mind explaining how you did that?"

He slumped into his chair, unable to come up with any lies,

"You're Spider-Man?" Steve asked in disbelief. He turned to her, "When did you find out?"

"Five minutes ago," she said, narrowing her eyes at Peter. "I had FRIDAY run a scan, trying to figure out who this Spider-Man was, so we could see about bringing him into the fold. Imagine my surprise when she pulled up a picture of my son taking off his mask."

"Are you mad?" he asked, looking down.

"Peter," she said, taking a deep breath. She knew that he must have been feeling terrified. They hardly had to deal with any issues with Peter, so this was new territory for them all. None of them knew how to proceed with something such as this, and she knew it was very important what they did going forward.

Her father had believed in punishing her firmly for any perceived slights. And it had set the stage for all her interactions with her father, even without the alcohol abuse.

She didn't want to be that kind of mother. She didn't want to be a mother who was feared by her children. She didn't want her children to grow up hating her. She couldn't have that. Not when she knew firsthand what it was like to grow up in that kind of home.

She'd be different. She told herself that before she'd even adopted Peter. And she meant it.

So now was the time to put that into practice. To be better than the father she had. To be more than an abusive raging alcoholic.

Steve slipped his hand through hers and offered her the lead.

"I have so many questions," she exhaled, and Peter looked up at her. "How long have you had powers? Why did you keep it from us? And why didn't you tell us you were Spider-Man? How long has all of this been going on?"

"Remember that fieldtrip I took to Oscorp?" Peter said sheepishly, "And I got really sick afterwards? I got lost on that field trip and entered a room that I probably shouldn't have been in. I got bit by a spider while I was there, and when I woke up after the fever passed I felt different. I didn't need glasses anymore. I was super strong. I had super hearing. And I stuck to everything."

"That's how you got up here?" she asked, in slight disbelief, "You stuck to the building and pulled yourself up? Curie, Peter, what if you fell? You could have died!"

"I won't! It's like an instinct or something. And If I did, I had my webshooter on me. But I won't! I trained," he said, trying to sound convincing, but she let out a laugh.

"You trained?" she asked him, trying not to sound overwhelmed. "Not in the Avengers compound or someone surely would have noticed. So where were you training, Peter?"

"I found a factory in Queens?" he said, looking slightly embarrassed.

"Why didn't you tell us?" she asked, circling back to her original question. "Peter, we could have helped you figure all of this out. If anyone understands superpowers and what you're going through, it's us."

"I asked you a bit back if I could have a suit," Peter protested, "That was my way of gathering up the courage to tell you. If you said yes, I was going to tell you the truth. But you were so vehemently against it, that I thought it would be better to keep the truth from you. I thought it would be better to lie.

"Because I didn't want this life for you!" she said strongly, remembering that day all too well and the panic she'd felt when Peter had asked if he could have a suit for himself. "You're too young! I didn't want you out there fighting crimes. Seeing the things that I saw. I don't regret becoming Iron Woman, but I'm not the same person I was before all of this. Something changed in me. And I didn't want that for you Peter. I wanted you to be safe. I wanted shield you from the things that I've seen. And instead, you went out there and saw them anyways."

"I'm sorry," he said, looking down again.

"She's right, you know," Steve said for the first time. "I don't have any regrets about becoming Captain America. I wouldn't be where I was today if I didn't volunteer to take the serum. But the things I've seen. I can't say in good conscious that I'd want that for you Peter. Not now. Not at this age. There was a reason Toni and I said you couldn't have a suit."

"But I suppose things are different now, aren't they," she sighed, looking at Peter, "Given that you have superpowers. And have seemingly become a superhero of your own behind our backs, without us being any the wiser. I've seen the clips, Peter. I know the kinds of situations you've put yourself in. And that's not okay. Not remotely. Something could have happened to you. What if you died while on one of your sessions, and we didn't know?"

"Patrols," Peter corrected, and she looked at him. "I call them patrols."

"Can you at least tell us why?" she asked him. "Why did you become Spider-Man. Why do you need to do this? You can help people in plenty of other, safer ways. You don't need to be putting yourself into the line of fire to be a hero."

"I've been me my whole life," Peter said. "I read books. I love computers. I love working with you in the lab. I've been perfectly ordinary, and I was fine with that."

He took a deep breath, looking down at the ground.

"Because I had powers that night," Peter whispered. "I had powers the night Uncle Ben was shot. But I was too afraid to stop the robber when he was stealing from Delmar's. But maybe if I'd done something, then that man wouldn't have left the store and maybe Uncle Ben still would have been alive. Maybe then Aunt May would still be alive. If I'd done something, they'd both still be here right now. Instead, I was a coward and people died, and that's on me. When you can do the things that I can, and you don't. And when the bad things happen. They happen because of you. Uncle Ben died because of me."

"Sweetheart," she said, standing up and moving towards him. She wrapped her arms around him, and felt him shaking in her arms, clearly still upset.

She'd no idea he'd been carrying as much guilt as he was for that night. She knew he felt like he should have done something. But it was different being a powerless teenage boy and having the powers Peter had. Because in another world. A world where Peter had been trained. A world where he was a hero already. In that world, maybe Peter could have stopped it. And she knew that was what was running through his mind.

Even if he didn't react because he, at the end of the day, was still a child.

"What happened to Ben was not your fault. I want you to hear me say this. I know you have powers. But his death was not on you. I watched the footage of the robbery. You froze out of fear. You didn't purposefully not react. You were terrified. And I wish more than anything that you didn't go through that. I wish I could have protected you from that. But what happened that night was not your fault. It was not on you. Superpowers or not. The only one who was responsible for that night was the man who shot your Uncle," she told him. "You could have been shot as well."

"I have superhealing," he mumbled. "I would have healed if I was shot."

She let out a choked cry, "Peter. Please tell me you've never put this to the test."

She glanced over at Steve, feeling overwhelmed with what she was thinking. She came into the room, ready to ask him to hand over the suit.

Steve nodded at her, reading her mind, and she felt grateful to have him in her life.

"Okay, here's what we're going to do," she said, pulling away from him so she could look him in the eyes. "On weekends, you are going to go to the Compound. We're going to make sure you get some proper training so you have some hand to hand combat experience. As loathe as I am to admit it, it really does help, powers or not. We're going to properly test your powers too, to see what your limits are so we have a good gage of what it is you can handle, and what you cannot. I want Helen Cho to take a look at your DNA. If you have spider powers, then there must be some change, and maybe it'll help us understand what's going on. Wednesday nights you and I are going to spend some time in the lab. I've seen the suit you're wearing. It is nowhere near sufficient for the kind of fighting you've been doing and we're going to make sure if you're going out there, you're in a suit that's all but bubblewrap to keep you safe. You may go on your patrols for three hours a day, but I expect you home before nine pm. You will eat meals at proper times and if your grades remotely slip, we will be revisiting this."

"You're still going to let me be Spider-Man?" he asked, a little dazed.

"Would you stop if we asked you to?" she asked him wryly, raising a brow. He looked sheepish at that. "I'm not going to admit I'm happy by any of this. I'd rather you be a lot older before you even thought about this. But I'd be a hypocrite if I said I didn't understand what you were feeling and why you need to do this. I understand all too well why you're doing this. And if you're going to continue, then I'm going to do everything in my powers to keep you safe."

He stood up quickly and hugged her, and she wrapped her arms around him.

"I also expect you to spend an hour with me each evening in the gym," Steve told him. "We're going to train a bit to make sure you're properly applying your powers. All of this is going to be by the book. We'll keep your secret from the press and the public, but the Avengers are going to be informed. And you can bet they'll all want to train you as well. Natasha and Harry, I imagine, will have plenty of things they will want you to learn."

Peter groaned, "I have so many regrets already."

She laughed, as she clapped him on the back a few times, "Welcome to the club, Peter. This is going to be a change for all of us, but I imagine it'll be something we'll get used to soon enough. Now come on, Spiderling, let's go get you some food. You look like you're hungry."

"Spider-Man," he corrected, with a small pout, but his stomach growled then, and he sighed, as he followed her to the kitchen.

She couldn't say she was happy by this turn of events.

But science help her anyone hurt her child.