I am so sorry for the long delay! I have a few chapters written out, but I need to write the connecting chapters, and it seems I'm just incapable of doing that. Thanks for being so patient, but it's not the most interesting chapter.

Peter sighed and sprawled across his bed, scrolling to the message Gwen had sent him and glaring.

iron man just stopped me in the street and started talking 2 me

Peter was already aware of how dangerous it was being in a relationship with Gwen when he was Spider-Man, but he felt unfairly angry at Tony Stark for talking to her. He tried to rationalise it in his mind by thinking that Iron Man publicly talking to his girlfriend would put her in danger, but it really wasn't true. Stark's girlfriend, Pepper Potts, was a very public figure, and the one time someone had tried to abduct her, it hadn't ended well at all. Tony Stark talking to some girl on the street would look pretty unremarkable to a criminal mastermind.

So he just texted back:

wat.

Then, because that seemed pretty unsophisticated, he sent another message following it.

what does he want.

He had suspicions as to what it might be about, but suddenly he remembered what Stark was capable of.

He quickly texted, if he wants to beat u up ill be there in 40 sec

It was meant to be a joke, but Peter found he was worrying quite a lot about what her answer would be.

Bing.

Her message arrived.

nah he just said he was looking us up on the net and itll be to our 'benefit' somehow

What? Maybe he wasn't going to attack Gwen (he felt slightly embarrassed that he worried about that, Tony Stark had seemed genuinely sorry), but searching them up on the internet was either paedophilia or just plain creepy. What 'benefit'? What?

Another message from Gwen arrived.

now hes bitching on the phone about some dude called clint

Clint? Peter recalled Captain America saying something about a Clint- Barton, was it? And something about arrows...

He nearly slapped himself in the face. Duh. This Clint dude must be Hawkeye. Arrows. He texted his epiphany to Gwen.

i think that's hawkdude

He could never resist throwing in some insincerity.

he said he couldn't tell me unless you were there.

Oh, so stopping his girlfriend in the street was all fine and everything, and then apparently pissing off when he saw Peter wasn't there?

Inexcusable.

Peter texted back the words, asshole.

Then he threw his phone across the room onto his desk. It nearly missed, landing on the keyboard with such a horrifying clatter that for a second he was sure he had broken both of them. Then his computer screen lit up from the pressure, and so he laid back and- wait, what?

Google Chrome was still open from early that morning, when he had been checking on articles about the Avengers (he wasn't going to risk pissing them off again, even though it was 200% their fault), and the news site had apparently updated. This time with a blurry image of someone on a flying skateboard or something with the large caption reading GREEN GOBLIN TERRORIZES NEW YORK.

Green Goblin? Peter thought. That had to be Jameson's doing. No one else would nickname a criminal so stupidly. He couldn't read what was below that, so he webbed his wheelie chair from across the room and flopped into it, pushing himself back to his desk. He stared at the picture, squinting. Even his spider-vision couldn't save the details that might have been crucial. So he scrolled down and began reading the article.

The article was written awfully, of course, and the picture was too (Huh. It was Eddie Brock's trash), but it was somehow genuine.

He scanned the article quickly, absorbing the information as quickly as possible. The information it yielded seemed fairly ridiculous.

It seemed that some man had put on a green mask and gotten on a high-tech glider that forced him to stand in a stance that looked like he'd been kicked hard in the balls, flying around throwing bombs at people and screeching for Spider-Man.

Oh, there it was.

Peter threw his head back and let out a moan. Why did everyone want him? Like, literally everyone, minus most of the population of the world. But it was so unfair! He just tried to help! And he literally had no idea who this green guy was, apart from the awful nickname his boss had given him.

Peter squashed his self pity with a lot of difficulty and got back to reading the article. Unfortunately, there wasn't much else to read except for interviews with hysterical citizens and "Spider-Man is responsible for this rampant crime" comments by Jameson.

Man, he really needed to find a new job.

On the subject of jobs and people after Spider-Man, Peter hadn't expected the two to come hand in armoured hand.

Especially on such a nice day.

He'd just been to the Daily Bugle and- to the great disappointment of J. J. Jerkson, had resigned as photographer. It had been a job he'd been thinking of leaving for months, except he needed some way to help pay the bills for Aunt May. Aunt May worked so hard, but even she was limited. So Peter's scrappy earnings had been to ensure the power company didn't suddenly decide to cut off the electricity or something. But when Aunt May had phoned the company, promising that they would pay the full amount in a few weeks, the woman on the phone said the computers didn't say that the Parkers had any debt of any sort. In fact, Aunt May had apparently paid up front for the something like the next 30 years of power bills. It was the same with the water bill, the mortgage, everything. And so Aunt May had sternly commanded Peter to give up his 'underpaid job under the control of that conman' to focus on healing up.

That was all over the period of two or three days. He could hardly believe it.

And that was why he resigned at the Daily Bugle.

In his ex-boss' defence, the older man had remained remarkably calm during Peter's speech. It was only after he finished that Jameson unleashed the full payload of his voice, probably cracking Peter's multiple casts and permanently damaging his eardrums.

Then Peter had been unceremoniously kicked out of the building by a collection of huge security guards (they'd muttered, "Sorry sorry sorry, Jameson's a dick we know but we do kind of have to kick you out," as they pulled him out of the building).

So Peter was on the street, hobbling along on his almost-healed ankle and his actually-able-to-move-freely arm, and then the familiar blessed sound of repulsors was audible.

"Oh, shiiiit," Peter groaned as he looked up, resignedly watching the Iron Man suit head directly towards him.

Why. Why? Why?!

Tony Stark landed with a crunch on the pavement, leaving large cracks trailing through the sidewalk. The mask flipped up, revealing his face and his dumb beard like he'd missed a spot shaving two weeks consistently.

"Hey, kid! You're looking better!"

"I was feeling better too, then you turned up," Peter snarked immediately. He didn't exactly hold his beating against Stark (well, he actually did, but he wasn't going to say that to his face; snarking was easier), but he wasn't going to just forgive him that easily. And he had his actual identity to hide. Best to just pretend to be a resentful victim of the whole situation. "Should I tell my boss I'll be unavailable for the next few weeks due to hospitalisation?"

"Nah, you just got fired, didn't you?"

Wha- how did Tony Stark know these things? How could he possibly know about Peter's resignation when it had literally occurred 3 minutes earlier?

"I quit, actually."

"Well that's extremely fortunate," Tony Stark said.

Peter forced his face to remain blank. What was it supposed to display anyway? Contempt? Fear? What?

"Can you not beat me up this time?" Peter asked, deadpan. "I have stuff to do."

"I thought you were hit by falling debris," Stark said.

Ooh shit. The smarter side of Peter threw its hands up and screamed abuse at him from inside his head. Dumb-assssss

"I was," Peter said, trying to recover from his slip. "But same result, right?"

He really needed Gwen to make up the excuses for him. If she'd been there, he wouldn't have slipped up so spectacularly and they probably wouldn't be having this conversation.

"So, why did you stop my girlfriend?" He asked. Might as well get on topic, right? Get the pain over and done with.

"Yeah, where is she?" Stark said, turning his head as if somewhere down the street, she was watching their exchange, glaring. Instead he just saw complete strangers glaring, and excited tourists snapping photos.

"Not here."

"Thanks, kid. That's really helpful," he said. He folded his arms, and Peter suddenly had the urge to check whether there were scratches where the arms grated together. "I'll just tell you without her. She didn't take to me well last time."

"Well, no," Peter replied. "She's a big Spider-Man fan."

Tony Stark made a disgusted sound in the back of his throat. "For God's sake, I didn't mean-"

"To mercilessly beat up Spider-Man?"

The older man glared and said, "Let's get back on topic."

"We are on topic, you mentioned Gwen and-"

"Shut up." Tony Stark appeared to be getting more exasperated, and Peter found that he was enjoying himself immensely. "I actually wanted to ask you and your lady friend if you wanted jobs at Stark Industries."

What?

Jobs?

At Stark frickin' Industries?

"What, like as receptionists?" Peter very carefully chose his words and attempted to have a calm exterior, despite the fact that inside he was screaming like a child getting what they most wanted for Christmas. Stark Industries. Stark Industries. Stark Industries.

"Nah, I looked you two up, which I assume Miss Stacy already told you about. You two are smart. Even if I am smarter-" Peter rolled his eyes, "-we could still use more smart people."

"Good to know my future boss will be so incredibly modest."

Stark blinked. "That's a yes? Great! You start work on Thursday." An ID card with Peter's face on it suddenly appeared in the billionaire's hand and he shoved it in Peter's direction. "The elevator talks. It's J.A.R.V.I.S., my AI security system. He likes intelligent conversation. Just so you don't shit yourself when he talks."

Peter opened his mouth to say something (possibly to ask a question or to grovel in gratitude), but his hair was blown back suddenly and he had to squeeze his eyes shut against a hot blast of air.

When he opened them again, Tony Stark was gone, and Peter was standing there with his new job (oh thank god) cradled in his hands. The few pedestrians that had watched the exchange went back to their business as Peter wrenched his phone out of his pocket and dialed Gwen.

"Hello?"

"Gwen, Gwen! It's me! You won't believe what just happened!"

I'd like to thank you all so much again for your patience. I hope for the next chapter to come out quicker, but I'm very slow at writing this fic unfortunately.