It was easy to say that Peter was finally getting used to life in this new universe.
Which, now that Peter thought about it, he should be giving himself more credit for. He had just been dropped into a world where he didn't exist, was forced to survive and in just over 2 weeks had a job, friends(?), a home, and access to a lab. Which really felt like it should have been harder than it was, perhaps he was just used to relying only on himself after everything he had been through.
What had finally cemented the change and made Peter relax into the new universe was Spider-Man.
When Peter went out for the first time last night, it felt like the first time he went patrolling all over again. Except he had a little more knowledge this time around.
It had been a relatively quiet night, other than a few muggings, Peter had spent most of his first patrol casing the new environment. He wasn't in Queens anymore, which would take a few patrols to get used to.
Obviously he had patrolled outside of Queens before, but never so far away and never for longer than a night or two. Now Peter was closer to Hell's Kitchen than Queens, though he intended to stay out of the Kitchen. He didn't want the Devil to think he was trying to cause trouble in his neighbourhood. He had never met Daredevil, and Peter planned to keep it that way.
When he had swung around last night, many people stopped to stare, some even taking photos. More than a few teens looked at him with eyes full of wonder and amazement. He wasn't sure he deserved it. He had yet to prove himself in this world. But he would. He had too.
As the hours rolled by, Peter started to notice the beginnings of the sunrise. He really had been patrolling for a long time.
As he began to swing home, he landed on a lamppost to check he was going in the right direction when he spotted a young girl walking by on the opposite sidewalk. The girl stopped and stared at him with wide eyes. Her piercing brown eyes glowed brightly against her dark skin. Peter smiled back at her, only to remember that she couldn't see his face and so waved instead. The girl hesitantly waved back.
With a small voice she asked, "Are you a superhero?"
With a small laugh, Peter responded "Yeah, I guess so."
The girl's smile turned more genuine as she crossed the road, walking towards him. Peter attacked a web to the lamppost and hung down from it so he was upside down. If possible, the girl's eyes grew even more.
Gathering her courage, she asked, "W-what's your name?"
"Spider-Man, what's yours?" Peter asked, putting his hand out for the girl to shake.
"Riri," the girl responded, taking Peter's hand and gently shaking it.
"You all good Riri? It's pretty late– or early I guess– are you safe out here by yourself?" Peter asked genuinely. He was surprised to see such a young kid out so early by herself.
Holding up a plastic bag Peter hadn't noticed, she responded, "I had to get some food for breakfast, Mommy's sick so she couldn't."
With a smile, Peter added "You must be very brave to be out here by yourself."
"It's a bit scary though," the child commented and Peter softened at the word.
Flipping down from his web, Peter asked, "How about I walk you home? The world's less scary with two people."
Riri thought for a moment before reaching out to take Peter's hand in her own small one and began to walk down the street. Peter took it as a 'yes' and the two soon found themselves walking down the streets of New York, hand in hand.
Riri asked Peter what kind of hero he was, to which Peter told her about his spider powers. They stopped for a moment so Peter could show how he walked up walls. Riri stared in wonder, completely shocked and unable to speak. But they soon found themselves walking again.
"How come I've never seen you before?" She asked, turning to look at him.
Peter, in turn, looked at her and responded, "I'm a new hero, I haven't done anything big yet."
She smiled and nodded thoughtfully before becoming excited and asking "Have you met the Avengers? Iron Man's my favourite!"
Peter laughed at her eagerness, "I met them once, but I don't think they would remember."
"Why?"
Peter took a deep breath. It was an innocent question, yet it held so much weight with everything he was going through. At first Peter didn't know how to respond, but he eventually found the words.
"It's… complicated. Sometimes people forget people, we can't always control it."
Riri looked at him with a determined expression, "I won't forget you Mr. Spider-Man."
Peter just smiled to himself, and thanked her. Telling her that he wouldn't forget her either. The conversation soon turned to Riri explaining how she wanted to be a superhero like Black Widow when she grew up. She keenly asked if she could be his sidekick.
"Maybe when you're older, Riri," He had responded as they arrived at the girl's house. Waving her off as she went inside, he turned to face away from her house. Shooting a web he began to make his way back to his home.
He didn't turn around, if he had he would have seen Riri standing at the window, looking at him with awe as he swung away.
————
Peter didn't think it was possible but it had turned even colder than the days before. Peter was glad to have the extra hoodie he had bought the other day. He wore them both to keep out the cold. If they hid how skinny he had become, he wasn't going to complain.
Snow started to fall as Peter made his way to the internship once again.
He had started to get a routine with when he left his home and the routes he took. The busy sidewalks soon became a second home with how often he walked them. Though he wasn't sure he had ever seen the streets so busy. Peter couldn't think of a reason why, it must have just been one of those days.
Peter didn't make eye contact with anyone, looking either at the ground or straight in front of him as he walked. Which he soon realised was a bad choice as he walked straight into someone.
"Sorry man," The person said with a strangely familiar voice before walking down the street. Peter looked at the man, he was dressed in a grey bomber jacker but Peter couldn't see their face.
Peter dusted off his clothes as he turned to keep walking only to see a wallet on the ground where he had bumped into the man. Suddenly realising it must have been his, Peter picked it up and started running in the other direction to find the man. For a moment he couldn't see him, but once he spotted the bomber jacket he started to sprint.
Calling out, "Sir! Sir! You dropped your wallet, sir!"
It took almost a minute for Peter to catch up to the man. He turned around as Peter stopped beside him, panting, he repeated what he had been shouting.
"Sir, you dropped your wallet."
Only then did Peter look at his face as he handed over the brown leather wallet. The person he had bumped into was Colonel Rhodes.
Rhodey looked at him, taking his wallet from Peter's waiting hands before opening it to make sure Peter hadn't taken anything. Peter waited patiently for the man to check, bouncing on the balls of his feet as he waited.
Eventually, Rhodey looked up. Shaking his hand, he said to Peter "Thanks man."
"No problem, Colonel Rhodes. Sorry for bumping into you, I should have been looking where I was going," Peter admitted sheepishly.
"All good, kid. Get out of the cold, yeah? You look like you're going to freeze to death out here," Rhodey responded, nodding his head once before walking away. Wallet in hand.
"Yes, sir," Peter said quietly to himself, though the colonel was already gone. He pulled his hood around himself tighter as he continued on his way to SI. Waving hello to the receptionist as he always did, swiping in and making his way up to the intern floor once again.
The lab fell into a quiet concentration once everyone had arrived. Though, Peter was done with his project. He had finished working on his heater, his web shooters, and had more than enough web fluid from the other day. He didn't really have anything to do.
Gathering his courage, he made his way over to the desk Dr. Williamson was working on. The man looked up at him when he walked over.
Clearing his throat Peter asked, "I have finished my project, I was wondering if there was something else I could work one."
He suddenly felt his face heat up as he noticed the other interns looking at him as he spoke. He didn't think he had spoken that loud, in fact he had tried to say it quietly.
Dr. Williamson just looked at him before asking "Completely finished, checked your wiring?" Peter nodded. "Very well, since you were going to have today and tomorrow to finish your projects I'll give you something else to work on. Would you happen to know much about coding?"
Peter lit up as he replied, "Yes, sir. I'm very familiar with different coding styles."
Nodding, the man responded, "Perfect, some people have been having trouble with an AI code for one of their other projects in the R department. I haven't had the time to look at it and no one has been able to figure out what the problem is. Would you like to have a look at it?"
Without hesitation, Peter replied, "Yes, sir. Where can I have a look at it?"
"There should be a laptop on your desk, I'll send over a copy of the code. If you can't figure it out, don't worry. It's stumping most of the people in the department who have been doing this job for years."
Peter nodded before making his way back over to his desk, sitting eagerly in his chair and opening up the code on the laptop.
He could do this, right? It was just coding, he had done this hundreds of times before. And he had spent hours looking at Karen's code, he knew what it should look like. Now he just needed to focus. He could do this. He could do this. Right?
Taking a deep breath, Peter started to read through the code. He ran the code, trying to find where the mistakes were located. 45 minutes later, Peter was still staring at the code. Unable to find the mistake.
Stupid mistake, where is it, Peter thought to himself.
His eyes grew tired reading the section over and over again. Until, oh. There was one right in front of his face. Peter mentally slapped himself as he fixed the mistake in the code. As soon as he saw one, a few others became obvious to him.
Peter was suddenly caught in the zone, reading through the code and finally picking up the small mistakes he had been missing. 10 minutes later, Peter ran the code with all the faults now fixed. Though, the code was still quite clunky, and overly long where it didn't need to be.
He had the time, right? He might as well try to improve it. Why not? Peter cracked his knuckles and began working away on improving the code.
The door to the lab opened, and Peter's eyes shot up to look at who was there.
Standing at the front of the lab, in a full suit, was Tony Stark.
All the colour left from Peter's face, his stomach dropping, all his words trapping in his throat. This was the first time seeing him since Peter saw him die. Since Thanos. Since the snap. Since Peter was too slow to save him.
We won, you did it Mr. Stark
It's ok, you can rest now
We're gonna be ok
You can rest now
When Peter looked at Mr. Stark, he didn't see Iron Man. He saw a father who had given up everything to save the world. He saw Tony's unblinking eyes. He saw what he had been sent here to prevent. He saw his mission.
A tiny tear weld up in Peter's eye, though he was quick to wipe it away with his palm. Replacing his numb expression with a fake smile, Peter tried to focus on the code once more. Though he couldn't find the same concentration as before with his dead father figure walking around just a few metres away from him. But he still tried, fruitlessly but still, an attempt is an attempt.
Eventually, after what felt like hours, Tony walked over to Peter's desk after saying goodbye to Gwen. Peter swallowed hard and looked up to meet Tony's eyes.
"Mr. Parker," He said, and Peter almost cried, almost. "I've heard a lot about you."
"Mr. Stark, it's an honour to meet you sir," Peter replied, making sure to keep his voice stable and not letting his emotion seep into his words.
"Please, drop the sir. I was having a look at your project the other day after you left. Tell me about your heater," Tony said, taking off his glasses and carefully putting them into his top pocket.
"Um well, I created a portable heater that could be used by those who are sleeping rogue and don't have homes. I know there are a lot of portable heaters out there but I wanted to create one with not as expensive materials that still worked so it could be sold for less. That would mean more people who actually needed it could buy it," Peter recited easily.
"Power source?" Tony asked.
"Based off of the arc reactor design."
That seemed to stop Tony, who was previously looking at the heater. He snapped his head to look at Peter.
Quirking his eyebrow, Tony asked, "You understand how the arc reactor works?"
"Umm, yeah, I guess? There are some parts I wasn't sure about so I guessed. But it's mostly based off of the arc reactor, but made to be renewable."
Tony seemed quite impressed as Peter spoke, which Peter didn't really expect. He supposed what he had made wasn't easy, but it wasn't too hard either.
"May I?" Tony asked, gesturing to the heater with his hand. Peter just nodded as the man picked up and began to inspect it carefully. Peter waited patiently as he waited for the man to look over his invention, asking a few questions as he did so.
"What did you change to make it renewable?"
"Why did you choose that material?"
"Do you think this could be mass produced?"
Peter soon found himself feeling calmer, easily answering all the questions Tony was firing at him. Pushing aside his emotions and focusing on the task at hand. Eventually, after more than a few questions, Tony put down the heater and asked what Peter was doing on the computer. Peter then explained the code situation, how he had found a few of the bugs and was now trying to improve it.
"I remember someone telling me about it, some of my best workers couldn't figure it out and I didn't have time to look at it."
"It was a simple mistake, easy to miss. Anyone could have figured it out," Peter tried to brush off the compliment, feeling his face heat up a little.
"I don't think you understand, this obviously not something you could just "figure out". How smart are you, kid?" Tony asked in complete sincerity.
"Um, I– ah," Peter stammered out, "Not that smart, just lucky."
"I don't think that's quite right, Mr. Parker," Dr. Williamson said, speaking from over by his desk. "I have been watching you work, you're incredible. What you have created is no easy feat. I look forward to hearing more about it when you lot present on Wednesday."
"Thank you, Dr Williamson," Peter said awkwardly as the doctor turned his attention back to his own work.
"Listen to the doc, kid. He knows his stuff. Not as well as me but, I begrudge," Tony said, Peter just laughed in response.
"You know what kid," He began, talking slowly and glancing over at the heater before looking back at Peter, "You have the internship tomorrow, yes?"
"Yes sir, 11am to 4."
"Perfect," Tony said as he put back on his glasses. "Tomorrow, you'll work in my lab. Let's see what you can do."
Peter didn't have a chance to respond before Tony turned and made his way back into the elevator. He was dumbstruck. Did he just get invited to work with Mr. Stark, again?
Well, Peter supposed somethings were just meant to happen in every universe.
Maybe this was one.