It seems some people got a bit confused by the location they were in, to begin with, just picture an auditorium, a big space with space for like 20 people to hang about but no seats. Lights go out, come back and its changed to a theatre, just picture your local cinema but the seats are in a semi circle around the screen, not long rows.
The scene opened on a drawing of the Avengers and the Battle of New York by a young child, with two men talking about the drawing, the elder gentleman saying it wasn't bad and his companion admitting "The kids got a future."
"Isn't that Liz's dad?" Abe asked as the Avengers looked in confusion.
"Who?"
"Liz, she was a classmate of ours back at Midtown High. That's her dad, the Vulture?" Cindy said.
"Oh yeah, I knew it was the Vulture, or at least the guy looked familiar, I've dealt with a lot of people. No idea who Liz was though." Tony admitted.
"Didn't Spider-Man stop him?" Ned queried.
"Yeah, he fought him on the Stark jet." Happy confirmed.
The two of them looked up at Stark Tower, now with only an A hanging on it, as they began clearing up the rubble and debris from the Battle of New York. Chitauri pieces lay around them as they worked on a Leviathan corpse.
"Wow, is that what the battle looked like?" Flash asked.
"Dude, you lived in New York at the time!" Ned said.
"I know that, it's just I didn't really get a good look at all the destruction." Flash explained.
"It wasn't a fun sight at all, kid." Bruce said, as gentle as he could as the memories of that event came flooding back to him.
"At least they're not claiming Ant-Man is there." Clint joked as the Avengers mostly looked confused.
"What do you mean? Of course I wasn't there?" Scott asked, perplexed.
"You guys haven't seen Rogers The Musical? Oh boy." Clint grinned as the ones who hadn't heard of it looked intrigued. Bucky, Tony and Nat especially had predatory grins as Steve dropped his head into his hands. Oh no, they hadn't, had they?
The leader rebuked a new member coming in late, before they were interrupted by an older lady, surrounded by agents, who said they were part of the new Department of Damage Control and were taking over the clean up operations of the Battle, telling the workers to lay down their tools and go home, and to leave any exotic materials or face prosecution.
"That's rough." Sam spoke up.
"What do you mean? They needed professionals to deal with it?" Cindy asked him.
"There weren't any then, I mean, this was our first wide scale contact with alien life." Sam said to her. "These guys, they had a job, and this is just being ripped from them. This will definitely be a cause for a lot of the problems with this guy." Sam explained. Guys getting displaced, nothing to do but stew in their anger, he could see this turning South from a mile off.
The leader went to speak to her, begging her to reconsider, he had staked his entire wealth and livelihood on this, the contract with the city of New York, the people he worked with would be broke too. She apologised but said she couldn't help. An agent laughed at him as he hit them, the woman told the agents not to shoot him and told him to speak to her superiors. He asked who they were.
"Wow, what assholes." Everyone agreed. Sure, they knew the Vulture had done bad stuff, he had killed people, sold others weapons that killed people, they didn't feel sorry for that, but they understood where the pre Vulture version of him was coming from. All of them had staked all they had on that,to be told it was being taken away with no support system in place for it, they could understand, even if they couldn't agree, with why he turned to a life of crime instead.
Seeing a news report that they worked with Stark Industries, he complained that Stark caused this mess and now was being paid to clean it, the other guy with him, Mason, said they still had a truck of Chitauri material, and that they needed to hand it in. Thinking it over for a second, the guy said the world was changing, it was time they did too.
"I did this, I caused these guys to do all of this." Tony muttered.
"Hey, Tones, no you didn't. These guys could have sought out help. Instead, they chose to go down the criminal path. That's on them, not you." Rhodey assured him.
"I could have helped them out though." Tony tried to protest.
"They made their choices, Tony. You can't be at blame for everyone on the planet." Steve told his old friend. Tony finally nodded, maybe he just needed to hear it from multiple people.
The scene cut to FIVE years later. (I know it's eight, but that is clarified by Feige himself as a timeline error. Avengers takes place in early 2012. Infinity War is set in 2018, the absolute latest Homecoming can really be set is 5 years later, with Peter having said it was a few months since Germany at the beginning (We know Civil War is 2016), but since it lasts most of a school year, I'll give ending in Mid 2017.) Mason counted money in a machine as weapons and tech were showcased throughout a garage. A skylight opened and a man in a mechanic Vulture costume descended, throwing more alien materials to the floor in front of Mason. Their hood was removed to reveal the leader from the opening.
"I must admit, that's one impressive suit." Scott chimed in.
"Definitely a genius." Hope agreed.
"A shame he put those talents to evil." Bruce frowned.
"There you go, Mason. Business is good." The man said with a smirk.
"Well if its on the back of innocents, it's anything but." MJ spat.
"A Film By Peter Parker" appeared on the screen as images flash by of a road trip, a plane trip with Happy Hogan sat in one of the seats and Germany, as well as appearances by a boy on the screen narrating it and holding the camera up.
"Peter..." Happy breathed, taking a good look at the boy on the screen with him.
"Do you know him?" Strange asked, wondering if the spell was lifting, seeing the boy. He couldn't feel any memories flooding back himself, but maybe for others…
"….No, it's nothing." Happy said. "It's like, I could feel I know him, but...I also can't." Happy tried to explain. It was like having something on the tip of your tongue before it vanished. He knew he was meant to know this kid, and he had a flash, but now, nothing again. This boy was a stranger to him, and it stung to think like that.
"Poor Peter 1." Spider-Man 2 whispered to Spider-Man 3 quietly enough to not be heard.
"I knew he had a much better life, but this, this is him happy, a him we never got to really see. It's a good look on him." Spider-Man 3 agreed.
"It's a good look on all of us." Spider-Man 2 inserted. "Don't think I can't see your own frown, thinking back on your own Ben? I know I am. Remember what I said when you called yourself lame though?"
"Yeah, I'm amazing. I know." Spider-Man 3 tried to put on his best grin at his older alter self. He didn't miss the slight frown he got in return. Guess it hadn't fully covered it. Damn.
The scene changed to the hotel room and the unveiling of a new Spider-Man suit, and the battle at the Airport, with narration by Peter as the Avengers began to beat each other up and espouse political standpoints with each other.
"We look like idiots here, fighting over something that didn't really matter." Steve said.
"Wow, Cap, I'm surprised you're saying that." Tony stated.
"What do you mean, Tony?"
"I was in the wrong. I'm sorry. I know, you could have told me about Barnes, that's on you, but I had my head up my own ass due to my guilt over Ultron. It wasn't our fault, at least not the teams, and giving control over to governments just meant we were divided, if it wasn't for those damn Accords, Thanos wouldn't have beaten us in 2018, we'd have stopped him then and there." Tony explained.
The scene changed to the car ride back with a bloodied and bruised Tony joking with Peter and making an alibi video for his Aunt May, telling Peter that someone would call him when he was needed and that he had a little grey area to operate in, to be a friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man, before opening the car door for Peter as Peter tried to hug him.
"Aww, Spiderdad!" Ned cooed as Tony spluttered.
"Spider what?!"
"Spiderdad. You know you'll end up a father figure to the guy." MJ explained.
"I don't know why, but I'm sure you're right." Tony groaned. Sure, he was a good dad to Morgan, but this is him from 2016. He knows he was a bit messed up mentally then. Now he wished he remembered this Peter Parker, were they like a father and son? If so, he hoped it wasn't anything like his relationship with his own father.
"I just wish I knew him." MJ sighed to herself, unaware that everyone else in the room, other than the other two Spider-Men, shared the same thought.
