A/N: I'm back! Thank you all for the lovely response to the first chapter. I'll be posting on Friday evenings from now on - that's probably different in all your time zones (I live in the UK), but you get the idea.

Thanks in particular to my wonderful reviewers: Fanatic2018, FanGirlForever19, EmilyF.6, yunyingg, Guest, catlover2976, and LoonyLovegood1981. You guys are my heroes.

Apologies for any mistakes; I don't have a beta reader and I'm a terrible proof-reader because I have such a short attention span.

Enjoy.

ICARUS

2

AND WHAT WILL YOU HAVE LEFT?


Tony lunges forwards and grabs the mask.

"Please! Don't!"

"Give me one good reason why not!" Tony's shouting now. He doesn't care. But his hand stays where it is, and does not pull off the mask.

"I have a family to protect! Don't you get that? If you reveal my identity to the whole world, and there's a criminal out there who wants to manipulate me, and he takes my family, what then? I'm not like you, Mr. Stark; I don't have loads of money to spend on private security to protect them or whatever. So say one day a murderer comes to my apartment and I'm not there to stop them - what if my family gets killed? Then I'm all alone, and I don't have anyone. How am I meant to protect people if I can't even protect my own family?"


Peter has his alarm turned to its lowest volume setting, but its blaring, obnoxious ringing still sends his enhanced senses haywire and he tumbles out of bed in surprise the second it starts ringing. He slams his hand on it, eyes bleary, and it stops. Crap. He still has homework to do. And he's starving. He runs his fingers through his hair and picks himself up off the floor. A bag of Chinese takeaway sits just inside his door. Bless Aunt May. He doesn't care that the food is stone cold; he wolfs it down immediately. Ever since he was bitten, he's been five times as hungry. It's the enhanced metabolism, he supposes.

He sits down and stares at his Spanish notebook, feeling only slightly more capable of coherent thought than the night before. Then -

Holy shit! He met Tony Stark!

For no real reason, Peter races to his window on the off-chance that Iron Man is outside. Of course he isn't, but this fact does little to dull his excitement. Tony Stark took his designs for a new suit! Tony Stark said he went to a good school! What does Spanish even matter? This could be his whole future sorted out for him. His hands are shaking a little. A grin is plastered to his sleep-deprived face. Peter hasn't felt this way since he stopped his first robbery as Spiderman.

He scribbles barely legible notes on the paper in front of him for about an hour. Mr. Stark could be looking at his designs right now. He has to tell May. And Ned. Maybe Liz. No, that would stupid. She doesn't care about that. She just wants him to actually come to Decathlon practice. Which he definitely will, from now on. The more he can do to impress Mr. Stark, when he applies for a job at Stark Industries, the better. And maybe the extra knowledge will help him to find more ways to improve the Iron Man suit. That way, Mr. Stark will have to employ him.

By the time all his homework is finished, it is six a.m., which means it's time to get ready for school. He tugs on a top with some obscure physics pun and a pair of jeans, then wanders into the kitchen, where he pours himself an enormous bowl of cereal. Even with last night's dinner in his stomach, he is starving. Aunt May comes in when he is halfway through his second bowl. "Morning," she says. "Did you sleep well? I came in with your dinner, but you were fast asleep." She laughs. "You were still in your shoes."

Peter grimaces. "Yeah. Thanks."

"Did you get all your homework done at Ned's?"

"Just about," he says, putting his bowl in the sink. Fifteen minutes later, he's out the door and heading down towards the subway.

The journey passes in the mindless blur that it does most days; too tired to really think, he sits and observes a minor dispute between a young couple. From what he can gather, she is trying to convince him not to tell anyone about their relationship. Peter's enhanced sight almost immediately zooms in on the tan line on her ring finger and quickly gathers why she doesn't want to be so public. Her boyfriend, a rather seedy-looking, sallow faced man, has apparently not caught on to the reason yet. Peter feels a twinge of sympathy, but something about the man makes him feel uncomfortable, so he tries not to become too invested in his woes.

Ned is waiting for him in the usual place. "Hey man, what's up?"

"Dude," says Peter, "the craziest thing happened yesterday."

"Oh my God, did you get to see the fight? With Iron Man and those robots?"

Peter grins. "Keep going ... "

"Oh my God, did you kill one of them? Peter, that is so cool!"

"Uh ... no. But you know those plans we made a while back? For the Iron Man suit? The ones that absorbed the thermal energy back into the suit to use elsewhere?"

He watches as Ned's eyes widen and his mouth forms words that don't come out, and nods at his speechless friend.

"I gave them to him."

"Peter!"

"I know!"

"That's - that's insane!"

"I know!"

"You spoke with Tony Stark?"

"Yeah!"

"Like, you exchanged words?"

"Yeah! I was like, Hey, man, I noticed you seemed to lose a load of heat energy from your suit, and he was like, Okay, and then he took the designs, and then he was like, These are really cool, what's your name, and I was like, Peter Parker, and he was like, What school do you go to, and I was like, Midtown, and he was like, That's a good school. See you around, kid. It was amazing."

"That's so cool."

"I know!"

Before the barely coherent conversation can continue, the bell rings, and the corridors become a blur of movement. Flash Thompson slams into Peter's back. "Whoops, sorry, Parker," he smirks, and swaggers off into the crowds. Ned calls something about seeing Peter at lunch, but they're both already being dragged away by the streams of people.

He's in Chemistry when the rumours start circulating. "Hannah said she saw Tony Stark by reception this morning," one girl whispers to the person next to her. By the time he's in gym class, it's all anyone's talking about. Do you think he'll donate something? Or do an assembly? Or fund our chemistry projects? One kid swore blind that he'd heard Mr. Stark say he was going to select some kids to train in his Iron Man suits to become next-generation Avengers. But nobody seems to be able to provide any solid evidence to prove their theories, and by the afternoon, once Hannah has admitted that the man she saw was in a hat and sunglasses, many students agree that the man she saw actually might not have been Tony Stark at all. Sure enough, there are no announcements, no assemblies - it seems highly unlikely that the school would keep quiet about a visit from the famous scientist himself for this long.

It seems like no time at all passes before the bell rings for the end of the day, and Peter is out the door. He itches to go patrolling right away, but having the same routine every day can be dangerous. For one thing, all the criminals would learn when Spiderman was out patrolling and do their crime while he wasn't. But it would also make him predictable - if someone noticed that Spiderman came out of the same alley every day at three p.m., it would be easy for them to find out who he was. So Peter changes his schedule from day to day - sometimes he goes out straight after school, sometimes he waits a few hours, and sometimes he sneaks out once Aunt May has gone to bed.

Today, she's working a late shift, so she'll be gone when he gets home from school and he'll come home from his patrol before she gets back. That way, he doesn't have to explain what he's been doing. Hopefully, he'll manage to get all his homework done before he goes out.

Peter knows there is something weird going on the moment he enters his apartment building. He stops for a moment, but his spider senses do not seem to be telling him that there's danger - only that something isn't quite right.

The source of this discomfort reveals itself in the form of a large, very muscular looking man in a black suit, stood in front of Peter's front door.

"Uh," says Peter eloquently.

"Can we come in?" says the man, in a deep voice, except he doesn't really pose it as a question. Peter notices that there is another person stood behind the man, though he can't see their face.

"I don't have enough money to buy anything," Peter tells him quickly. May always told him that saying this will be much more likely to deter salespeople than simply telling them he doesn't want to buy anything. After all, people who want your money lose interest pretty quickly when they realise you don't have any.

He tries to step around the man, but the other person steps out from behind the big guy and makes themselves known.

"Hello again, Peter Parker," he says. "Please let us in? Your neighbours are very inquisitive."

Peter's mouth opens and then closes again. He looks down the hallway where Mr. Stark has gestured and sees Mrs. Hansen glaring at him. He waves mutely and her frown deepens before she shuffles into her own apartment.

"M-Mr. Stark," he says, his voice coming out about two octaves higher than usual. "Hi? I - um, what? What are you - ?"

"Your designs for my suit. I liked them."

"Y-you did?"

The big guy sighs. "Yeah, kid. That's why he's here, obviously."

"Right. Sorry."

They all stand there in awkward silence for several seconds before Peter realises they're both looking at him.

"So, are you going to let us in, kid?"

"Oh," he says. "I'm not sure - my aunt probably doesn't want - "

"I've already spoken to your lovely aunt on the phone. May, wasn't it? She said you'd accept, of course. Took a bit of convincing that it was me though. I had to send her a selfie of myself next to your plans. Holding today's New York Times. In front of an Iron Man suit."

Peter, by this point, feels so out of his depth that he might as well have started swimming in a pool so deep that the bottom was in another dimension. "What is going on?" he mumbles, blinking. "How - how did you get her number? Or my address? Wait - she said I'd accept what?"

Mr. Stark grins. "Why don't you let us in? I'm craving coffee so hard I might die of caffeine withdrawal in the next five minutes."

Whether or not he is telling the truth is too hard to discern at the moment; the situation is so surreal that Peter just unlocks his door and lets both men in. Naturally, the apartment is a mess. He gestures towards the couch and starts making some coffee while he frantically tidies breakfast dishes and all the other crap lying around. His hands are shaking a little with nerves and the only thing his brain can really think of is Holy shit! Holy shit! Holy shit!

He hands both men cups of coffee wordlessly and stands staring at them. The big guys drains his cup in four large gulps, apparently immune to the fact that the water is boiling.

"Ask away," says Mr. Stark, carefully placing his coffee on the table.

Peter continues to stare.

"Okay. I'll do the talking. I got your aunt's number and your address from your school. You can get pretty much any information from a science school when you're a scientist."

"So that really was you that Hannah saw at school today?" He swallows and tries not to be freaked out by how easily the school released his personal information to a random stranger. Not that Mr. Stark was just any random stranger.

Mr. Stark laughs. The other guy, who still hasn't shared his name, smacks his arm. "I told you to be more careful," he hisses.

"Does the whole school know?"

Peter nods. "One guy reckons you were looking for trainees to become next-generation Avengers."

Mr. Stark laughs again, longer and harder this time. "Ouch. Tell them I'm sorry to disappoint them." Peter opens his mouth to question this, but Mr. Stark carries on, undeterred. "Which bring me on to why I'm here. I liked your designs."

Blink. Blink.

"I mean, they didn't work, but I'm still looking for where you went wrong. Which means they were some pretty advanced stuff. And I looked at some of your school reports - " Peter winces - "and all your teachers say that - well, that you're great. Stark Industries could always use another genius."

Blink. Blink.

"More than I want any rival companies to, anyway. D'you want an internship? You can come to the Tower after school. See how the labs work, maybe design some shit. I don't know. Mess around. I've never done any internships before. At least, not that I know of. I guess Pepper might have done some lower down in the company. Anyway." He looks straight into Peter's eyes. "What do you say?"

It's a big question. Most of Peter's brain screams at him to accept immediately, but a smaller, more rational part makes him stop. Even just spending an hour at the SI building per day would drastically reduce his patrolling time, and he has enough trouble finding time for homework as it is. What if someone gets killed while he's selfishly pursuing his own career as a scientist? Does that make it his fault? But then, he could find ways to improve his web fluid formula with Mr. Stark's resources. Maybe more. And an internship with Tony Stark himself would look great on his university application.

"Kid? We really don't have all day," says the other guy. He stands up. Mr. Stark continues to look at Peter.

"Your aunt already agreed to it all," he adds. "And Stark Industries will fund all of it. Everything you do. Travel costs, anything you eat there, et cetera. The food is awesome, by the way."

"But I, um, I have homework. Sir." Peter immediately curses himself for saying something so lame.

Mr. Stark bursts out laughing. "Come to the Tower tomorrow after you finish school. I'll see you there."

He stands up and the two men walk to the door.

"Bye."

Peter raises a weak hand in farewell. The door shuts hard enough to make the coffee in Mr. Stark's untouched cup splash onto the table below.


In an alleyway, two men are making an exchange. One gives the other a bag full of white powder. In return, he is given a very generously sized wad of cash.

Before much else can happen, a red and blue blur crashes into some nearby Dumpsters. It jumps out, revealing itself to be a young man in a red and blue tracksuit with a mask on his head. "Oops," he says cheerfully, and then catches sight of the two men. "Woah. Are you guys doing drugs?"

One of them (the one holding the bag of white powder) turns and starts to sprint out of the alley. Spiderman shoots a web from his wrist straight into the man's retreating back and tugs him backwards until he is back where he started, and pinned against the wall with webbing. The guy holding the money tries a different tactic and grabs Spiderman's outstretched arm, gripping it tightly and twisting it. Spiderman fires a web at his chest, which pins him against the opposite wall, but not before something cracks.

"Ow, dude," he shouts, firing another web to stick his legs to the wall as well. "Not cool!"

He's glad he has a mask on to hide the pained expression on his face.

Trying to hide the fact that the guy did any real damage, he wanders over to the first man and snatches the bag of drugs out of his hand. "That's a lot," he remarks sternly, pinning the bag to the wall beside him with more webbing. "I hope you weren't planning on using this stuff."

He passes a wide-eyed teenager as he swings out of the alley. "Don't do drugs, kids!" he says to the smartphone, which is recording everything. "Or adults," he shouts behind him as an afterthought. He hopes that part made onto the end of the video.

Swinging home on his injured wrist is painful, but not unbearable. He still makes it home in good time, and does his homework with a bag of frozen peas strapped to it. It doesn't feel broken (and if it was, the bone has already healed), but the bruising is pretty intense - the sort of bruising that will take a couple of days to fade completely. Peter makes a mental note to wear long sleeves tomorrow.

Homework finished, he turns on his phone and is met with a bombardment of messages.

The Almighty Darth Vader: Hey man! Mom gave me my phone back :D

May Parker: Peter, something weird just happened

May Parker: Don't freak out, but that scientist you like said he was going to drop by the apartment

May Parker: Tony Stark. The one with all the metal armour and shit

May Parker: Sorry didn't mean to swear

May Parker: He said he was going to give you an internship or something? Idk

[Unknown Number]: You can use this number to contact Stark Industries about the internship program. Responses are given by a computer. Our artificial intelligence is learning every day, but please use correct spelling and grammar in order to make your messages easily understandable. Do not use the number to send messages to any employees of Stark Industries. They will not be received. Do not send multiple messages at a time. Send only messages related to the internship. You will be given information about the internship on the first day. Report to Reception upon your arrival at the Stark Industries building.

May Parker: Just don't freak out

May Parker: Home soon.

Liz Toomes [to group: Decathlon ;P]: Hey guys, practice tomorrow is cancelled. See you next week.

Peter blinks. He's been signed up for the program already? Before he's even been given an answer? It must have been May. Mr. Stark said that she'd already given her permission - perhaps he took that as a yes. And Decathlon practice is cancelled ... that gives him extra time after school.

Logically, he knows that this is quite possibly the biggest opportunity he has ever been given. Accepting this internship could very well guarantee his college position, his job in the future ... and, he supposes, it will help his grades. Having access to all those labs can only be good for his science knowledge. All the projects he could do with the extra resources, all the help with his homework - he wouldn't have to search the results of experiments online. He could do the experiments. And, Spiderman aside, what will he have left if he doesn't take it? He's given up all his extracurriculars, practically exiled himself from May and his friends ... soon, Peter Parker could quite feasibly become nothing. No one at all.

But however much Peter aches to accept, the voice in the back of his mind remains persistent: What about Spiderman? Is Peter really so selfish that he will put a potential place in MIT ahead of the lives of all the victims of crime he saves every day? He can still get into MIT, after all. Interning at SI would just give him a boost.

The thing is, he knows he's smart. He knows that, deep down, he doesn't need this internship to succeed. He got into Midtown on scholarship through his own merit, without any help from a genius billionaire. Why shouldn't he be able to get into college?

May's still working, so Peter does the only thing he can think of - swallowing his worry over how Mr. Stark even got his number, he picks up his phone and calls Ned. He watches his screen idly (Calling The Almighty Darth Vader) until his friend, loyal to the last breath, picks up on the third ring.

"Peter! Hey," he says, a little breathlessly, as though he ran to pick up the phone. "What's up?"

"Uh ... Mr. Stark came to my apartment and offered me an internship? And I don't know if I should take it?"

Ned immediately hangs up. Peter frowns at his phone until it starts ringing again. He picks it up.

"Ned?"

"Sorry, Peter, I just had to cut the connection because it clearly went wrong and I thought you said, I don't know if I should take it."

" ... Yeah?"

"Dude!"

"It's just - "

"Tony freakin' Stark offered you an internship and you don't know whether to take it?!"

Ned hangs up again. Frustrated, Peter picks up on the first ring and waits.

"That one was for comic effect."

"Next time you do it, I'm not picking up again."

Ned sighs. "Look, Peter, I know you're having a tough time at the moment, but please take it. You'll regret it forever if you don't. I'll regret it forever if you don't."

"I just feel bad - you made those plans, too - "

"Peter, we both know that's not true. Do you want to come over and talk about this in front of The Empire Strikes Back?"

Guilt twists like a cold knife in Peter's gut. They were meant to watch that together last week, but he had forgotten to turn up. No amount of apologies can erase the image of Ned's crestfallen face the next morning when Peter failed to deliver a reasonable excuse. But, somehow, he can't bring himself to face his friend right now. Not tonight. "Sorry, buddy. Maybe tomorrow night instead? May and I are going to dinner."

"Okay," says Ned lightly, but it's easy to tell that he's hurt. "See you at school."

"Yeah. Bye."

Peter's hand feels oddly heavy as he lifts it to end the call. Talking to Ned was a bad idea. It strikes him that there is no one in the world who knows why he is struggling with this decision. No one who understands his situation. No one who can offer him a balanced argument for and against the internship with every reason he shouldn't. The only person he can talk to is himself. (They say talking to oneself is the first sign of madness.)

The only thing that can make Peter feel better is reminding himself what he's fighting for. He scrawls a note to May saying that he isn't feeling well and has gone to bed early, and not to disturb him please, before pinning it on his bedroom door, locking it from the inside, pulling on his suit and hurling himself through the window out into the night.