Hey guys, I'm back! And here's a nice chapter for you. Will Tony find Peter? What is going on with the kid anyway? Read and enjoy!
As always, I'd like to thank you all for the reviews, follows and favorites.
Disclaimer: no, I don't own Marvel. I wish.
"Talk to me, Fri. What is the little spider up to this far from Queens?" Tony asks as soon as he enters his lab.
He immediately regrets that he didn't do anything when he discovered Peter had disabled the tracker in his suit. What did he do then? Right, he laughed. He just fucking laughed and he was absolutely okay with the fact that he didn't know where Peter was. He would love to go back to Bruce now and throw this shameful fact into his face, proving how ridiculous is what he implied. He is the least suitable person to take care of this kid.
But right now he has bigger problems. The photos the AI mentioned appear on a big screen in the middle of the room. Next to them, he can see the exact location of the photos on a map. On another screen, the route Friday has predicted based on the photos. Peter clearly had no intention to come to the Tower.
"Call him," Tony orders. Unsurprisingly, Peter's phone is off. Tony has a bad feeling about this. He can feel it in his stomach. "Don't stop calling, Fri."
The man starts pacing up and down in front of the screens.
"Where is he now? Find him, girl. Check every camera available. ATMs, security cameras, everything. Social media. You know the drill."
He hops onto a stool and runs his hands through his hair, impatiently waiting for the results.
And out of the sudden, there he is. Spiderman is on the roof of some kind of office building. Friday has found a red and blue blur on a security camera feed and as she zooms in, it's clear that it's the superhero they have been looking for.
"Good girl," Tony praises her AI absentmindedly, then gets up and walks closer to the screen, trying to find out what Spiderman is up to. The superhero is not moving, he's just staring at something or someone across the street.
"It looks like he's on a stakeout or something. Where is he exactly, Friday? And what is he looking at?"
This time the AI shows the feed of an ATM that gives a fuzzy, black and white footage of the other side of the street. It's a restaurant. A new, popular one, Tony was there with Pepper a few days ago. Their steak is to die for.
"He must be after someone in the restaurant," the man states. "Can you tell me who is there right now?"
Without a word, Friday connects to the cameras inside the restaurant and runs facial recognition on every guest. Even on the waiters. Instantly, a list appears in front of Tony. The guests are mostly CEOs and CFOs, celebrities and socialites.
"Is there any connection between any of them and Peter?" he frowns. "These are not the kind of people he meets at school. Or in Queens."
"No connection I can detect, boss," Friday admits.
In the next minute, there's movement on the ledge where Spiderman is staying. He slowly launches to his feet. Tony's gaze flickers back to the other screen showing the restaurant. A man gets up from one of the tables and says goodbye to the people he had dinner with.
"Who's that guy, Fri?"
"It's Hal Wentworth, CFO of Wentworth Enterprises. Son of Carlisle Wentworth."
Tony has heard of the company. The CEO, Carlisle Wentworth is a selfish dick; Tony bumped into him at several parties and has never been a fan of the guy and his ego that might be even bigger than Tony's own. Tony might have even met his son but he can't recall it.
"What does he have to do with Peter? What can you find on this guy? Anything illegal? Check the police database."
Probably, this whole thing is about Spiderman and not about Peter. Maybe it's about some kind of criminal activity that Spiderman has stumbled upon while patrolling. Why did Tony ever think it was about Peter? Stupid instincts.
"There's only one police file I could find, boss, it's a report on Mr. Wentworth's stolen car."
Car theft. It is a Spiderman thing.
"Care to elaborate?" Tony sulks.
The AI remains silent. Strange.
"Friday?" Tony quirks an eyebrow.
"Boss, I have just found out that this was the car that hit May Parker. It had been reported stolen the day before."
Tony sighs. There goes his theory about Spiderman outsourcing his crime fighting business into Manhattan. It's about Peter Parker after all. But what does the kid want from the owner of that car if it was stolen before the hit? Hal Wentworth has nothing to do with that tragedy. And most of all: how does Peter know about all this?
Is it possible that Peter has access to police files, too? Like to the report that states what car hit his aunt and the one that confirmed the car stolen?
"I'm afraid I have no answer to that, boss," Fridays says regretfully and Tony realizes he must have phrased his questions loud.
He absentmindedly starts pacing again. "I know kid's good, practically a wunderkind, he hacked his suit after all. But could he hack into police files, too? Like at school?"
Friday doesn't answer this time, but Tony doesn't even expect her to. It was a rhetorical question. He's just thinking loud.
But then the AI does speak up.
"I may have a theory, sir, let me check."
Tony comes to an immediate halt. "Don't keep me hanging, dear."
"You mentioned hacking the suit, boss. Peter disabled the tracker. I checked what else he could have modified. And I have noticed that he found and enabled the AI you had planted in his suit."
Tony freezes. "He did what?!"
"Peter enabled the AI and named her Karen. I already contacted her and she confirmed that Peter had her pull up the police files in question."
"Gosh, this kid is gonna be the death of me!" Tony yells and knocks both of his fists to his forehead. "Seriously, what is wrong with him? I make him an awesome suit that every superhero in the galaxy would die for and he keeps meddling with it! Disabling this, enabling that… Little brat."
"I'm sorry to interrupt your grumbling, boss, but it's quite terrifying what Karen found and told Peter," Friday says.
Tony considers scolding or at least teasing the AI for calling his rant grumbling but he quickly decides that they have more urgent matters now.
"What did Karen find?" he asks tiredly. The name of Peter's AI still feels strange on his lips and he makes a mental note to ask the kid about it later.
"She detected that the police report on the car theft had been tampered with. The car was not stolen the day before the hit."
"Which means Hal Wentworth was probably the driver who hit May Parker and he got rid of the car later," Tony says taken aback.
That's the reason why Peter went after the guy. The realization makes Tony's stomach swoop.
"Friday, reach out to the kid through Karen," he instructs.
"I'm sorry, sir, Peter has muted Karen, she can't get through to him anymore," the AI says.
Tony curses. He seriously needs to get back the control over the Spider suit.
But not now. Definitely not now. Because there's movement again: Wentworth gets into his car and Peter starts to follow him swinging over the streets and they both disappear from the screens in front of Tony.
Without hesitation, he summons his suit.
While Tony is doing his best to fly to the scene as fast as possible, he also orders Friday to use whatever feed she can find to observe Peter and Wentworth. The AI informs him that after a short ride, Peter stopped the guy in a relatively quiet side street. Friday finds an ATM again and a blurry feed comes up in the corner of Tony's display.
He can see Spiderman on the top of the green sports car, then jumping to the ground and ripping the door off.
"No, no, no," he mutters, as Spiderman reaches into the car and practically yanks Wentworth out, holding a tight grip on the guy's neck. He slams him into the car's side, still gripping his neck hard. "Don't do it, don't do it, Peter, please, don't do it," Tony all but begs silently, urging his suit to fly even faster. "Don't do anything stupid, kid."
And in the meantime, he knows if he was in Peter's shoes, he would strangle that bastard to death. Without any hesitation. He would let his fury take over and would kill the guy. And he wouldn't even feel guilty about it. Because that dick would deserve it, right? Killing someone, then running away and going on with his life like nothing happened? Asshole deserves to die.
And that jerk might not even know who he killed. That he took away the only family of an innocent child, took everything from him and turned his life into hell. He ended one life and ruined another. While he's having the time of his life here in Manhattan with sports cars and dinners in expensive restaurants, that poor, lonely kid is shivering and starving on the streets. Son of a bitch so deserves to die.
But. Killing him wouldn't take away Peter's pain. Wouldn't bring back his aunt. It would scar him for life, though. That good kid with his adorable ramblings, perfect manners, sweet shyness. This would break him. Haunt him for life. He would feel good like for a short moment, would feel that he has served justice but then? He would feel the guilt engulfing him and he couldn't shake it off anymore. It would consume him, swallow him whole.
Tony glances back at the footage. Wentworth is speaking. He must be begging for his miserable life.
"Friday, I know there's no sound, but could you use your amazing lip-reading skills that I provided you a few months ago? Now it'd be a really good time to try it out in action."
Friday immediately interprets the conversation.
"Do you know why I am here?" Spiderman asks. Tony can only imagine all the intense emotions in those words hearing only Friday's neutral voice.
Wentworth shakes his head but can's stop fidgeting under the strong grip around his neck. Tony knows it's in vain. Spiderman is way too strong for the man to get out of the hold. The superhero just needs to press a little harder and Wentworth's a dead man.
Spiderman leans closer and tightens his grip a bit, too. "May Parker."
Tony can see Wentworth going still under Spiderman's hold. So he does know the name. He does remember.
"You killed her," Spiderman states simply.
"I… I…" Wentworth all but stutters miserably. Obviously he has no excuse.
"You killed her and drove off never looking back. You killed her and orphaned a kid."
"I'm… I'm sorry… I didn't know," Wentworth stammers.
Honestly, Tony expects Spiderman to let the bastard go. He just wants to scare him. He's a nice kid with a good heart. He's not a killer. He wants justice not blood. At least, that's what Tony hopes for. He knows the kid could snap the guy's neck any moment but he wants him to make a good decision. For his own sake, not for Wentworth's of course. Tony might kill him himself when Spiderman lets him off the hook.
"I'm sorry, I do whatever you want, just don't kill me, please," Wentworth keeps begging.
"What? You wanna pay me off, too, like you did with the police?" Spiderman asks.
"No, no! That was my father's doing!" Wentworth vehemently protests.
"But you went along with it," Spiderman points out.
"Please, just don't kill me. I know I don't deserve it, I know what I did was wrong and trust me there's no day when I don't think about it. I'm sorry. I do whatever you want, please."
Tony rolls his eyes. Asshole would probably swear to anything just to get out of this. Pathetic prick.
For a long minute, Spiderman is not doing anything. Wentworth is staring at him with wide, pleading eyes like a convict waiting for the verdict.
And the verdict arrives.
"You're going to the closest police station to give yourself up. Tell everything about your father's bribery. Give them all the names. Right now. If I don't see it in the news tomorrow, everyone taking responsibility for all the shit you did, I'll find you. And next time I won't be this nice, trust me."
Wentworth can's stop nodding in agreement. "Of course, of course. Thank you."
Of course Spiderman has decided to give in to the pitiful begging and lets the bastard go. Of course he has decided not to kill him after all. Of course he could stop himself from giving in to rightful revenge and bloodthirst. Because Peter is so much better than Tony.
Tony sighs relieved. He's at the scene now and he can see Spiderman suddenly releasing Wentworth and the guy falls back against the side of his car. He is obviously at the verge of a panic attack, but the superhero doesn't seem understanding.
"Go," he repeats his order quietly but intimidatingly and stares at the man sternly until he collects himself and runs off.
Wentworth is so scared that he doesn't mind leaving his car behind in the middle of the street.
Spiderman waits until the guy disappears around the corner and then drops to the ground gasping. He's shaking all over.
Tony quickly flies to him and lands beside the car smoothly. Spiderman yanks off his mask and his wide eyes shoot up at Tony as the Iron suit opens and the man steps out.
Tears fill Peter's eyes. The fierce, threatening superhero is gone and only the hurt, lonely kid stays behind, broken on the cold ground. "Mr. Stark… he killed May…" he sobs.
Tony doesn't hesitate to drop to his knees beside the boy and pulls him into his arms. He envelops him in a tight hug and rubs soothing circles on his back, while the kid is weeping uncontrollably. "It's her birthday… she's… she's supposed to… be here… but he… killed her… and ran off… I… I wanted to… kill him… but I saw May then… and I knew… she wouldn't… she wouldn't want that… but I wanted, Mr. Stark… I… I wanted to kill him so badly," Peter explains through his sobs.
"It's okay, Pete," Tony whispers into the kid's ear. "You made the right decision. That's the only thing that matters. It's okay now."
Peter doesn't answer. He can't stop crying, desperately clutching Tony's shirt as if his life depends on it. Tony gently rocks him, whispering comforting words and waits patiently until the painful sobs fade into silent tears.
Then Peter pulls back with his head hanging low. "Mr. Stark, I'm-"
"Come on, kid," the man cuts him off and launches to his feet.
He knows the kid feels ashamed now and wants to apologize for his breakdown, but he won't allow that. Kid has absolutely nothing to apologize for. So Tony carefully pulls him to his feet and puts an arm around his shoulders. "Let's go home, alright?"
The man waits until teary, red-rimmed eyes look up at him and Peter gives a tiny, hesitant nod. Tony lets out a breath he doesn't remember holding, surprising himself how relieved he feels that the kid has finally agreed to return to the Tower.
So. Where do we go from here? I would love to hear your theories, thoughts, opinions. Anything really. I love reading your reviews, it's so motivating ;)
Thank you for reading!