Several weeks later, Peter had gotten into the swing (pun fully intended by MJ, as often as she could work it in ) of things as Spider-man and had formed a general schedule for himself where he patrolled after school, or even after his internship lots of days. There were a few nights when his parents were home and he didn't dare sneak out, in case they wanted to talk to him, but they usually worked late.

Most of the time he felt like he was helpful, and he hadn't run into anything he couldn't handle so far. He had gotten a few injuries, but mostly superficial stuff, and they all seemed to be gone overnight, which was amazing. Ned and MJ weren't excited that he'd been getting hurt, but they were just as impressed as he was at how quickly he could heal.

The cops in the area didn't seem to know what to think of him, but they hadn't chased him or anything like he'd heard they did to that Vigilante in Hell's Kitchen, so he thought that was pretty good. He stayed close to home some nights, but when he knew his parents wouldn't be home until quite late he'd ranged as far as Queens (especially around Ben and May's old apartment) and Brooklyn.

Mr. Stark had asked Peter a couple questions about his attempts to track Spider-man or figure out his identity, and the man seemed to be increasingly frustrated with his failure to nail the vigilante down. Peter tried to act helpful, but mostly his "help" just enabled him to sidestep Mr. Stark's searching. He'd learned quickly that he needed to switch up his schedule and where he patrolled to avoid being followed or found out.

He was starting to feel more guilty about the close-to-lies he had told, but what could he do? The thought of anyone but MJ and Ned knowing about his enhancements was frightening, even if he didn't get that same worried-spidery-tingle thing when he thought about Mr. Stark knowing vs when he thought about telling his parents.

Speaking of. This morning he had something on his mind, and made sure to go out to breakfast early to have a chance to talk with one or both of his parents.

"Hey, Mary?"

"Yes?" she responded absentmindedly as she sipped her coffee at her open laptop. She looked a little less polished than usual. Suddenly he wondered if she was just up for the day, or if she had gone to bed at all. They hadn't been home when he'd returned from his short patrol the night before, and he hadn't heard them come in before he went to sleep.

"Hey, if they don't care at my internship, is it okay if I skip it next Wednesday so I can go cheer on my team at the big Decathlon meet? It's a special one, and it's at Midtown, so I don't need a ride or anything," he assured her quickly.

She looked up at him abruptly and narrowed her eyes. Just then, his father walked in, and surprisingly, noticed the silence.

"What's going on?"

"Peter would like to 'skip' his internship Wednesday to go see his little club compete," Mary said. Her tone was mild, but the corners of her mouth pulled down.

"Whatever for?" Richard asked. He shook his head. "No. When you're supposed to be somewhere, you don't flake out," he said a bit scornfully. "Besides, you haven't told us what else you've been working on. Have you made any progress getting access to that lab we talked about?"

"Um, no?" Peter felt deflated and a little attacked all at once.

"Why not?"

"It's not like I get to pick where I'm working," he muttered.

"What about Stark? Has he been around more?" his mother grilled. "You need to build that relationship. He seemed interested in you."

"I'm just an intern. A kid, " Peter protested. "I see him sometimes, but it's not like we get to chat a lot," he straight up lied. He turned quickly and opened the fridge to hide his face from them. At this point he felt like Mr. Stark knew more about him and his life than any other adult in his life, including them.

He glanced sideways to see his father frowning. "You need to keep working on that. And skipping a day for a school activity is definitely not going to help you get there. We need those connections, and I'd really like some info on that DNA microarray."

"What are you doing, getting coffee? Making copies?" his mother asked, seeming worried. Not about him, but maybe about how worthwhile this internship was for him. Well, for them.

"No!" Peter said abruptly, then carefully modulated his tone back down. Making them angry at him for mouthing off wouldn't help anyone. They hadn't often hit him, but when they did, it was usually when he was being "rude" or losing his temper with them. It seemed more like a frustrated reaction than a planned punishment, but he didn't want to trigger anything like that. There was nowhere for them to send him for a few days while they cooled off anymore. May and Ben had always been especially attentive during those unexpected visits.

"I—I have been working on some cool projects. I've been helping with some coding, and learning to use the proprietary holo tables, and working in robotics, alternative energy, and even with the AI a little bit."

His parents looked mollified, but far from impressed. "Those are all small-time, techy things, though," Richard said. "I expect you to ingratiate yourself to your supervisors enough by the end of the year that you are working on some real projects."

Peter leaned into the fridge, as if he was looking for something specific, in order to hide his annoyed expression. "Yes, Richard," he said carefully. Time to drop back under the radar.

He wondered what they'd think if they knew all of those projects he'd cited were in Mr. Stark's personal lab. The genius's own personal projects. Not that it mattered. It didn't sound like he'd be going to the Acadec meet either way. He sighed, grabbed a yogurt and a spoon, and headed towards his room.


The kid was in a mood today. It was Friday; maybe he'd rather be out with friends or something.

"Y'know, if you have somewhere else you'd rather be, you're welcome to go early," Tony tested. He was pretty sure he kept the mild offense out of his tone. Mostly.

Peter's head shot up, his eyes wide, from where he was using a micro-soldering iron to put together some circuits that had burned out. His smaller, younger hands were more up to the task than Tony's.

"What? No, I don't need to be anywhere."

"You don't seem to want to be here. And you're unusually quiet," Tony pointed out.

"Sorry, Mr. Stark. I just have some things on my mind. I'll snap out of it."

"What kind of things?"

"Just dumb high school stuff. Not anything important."

"It sounds like it's important," Tony said, keeping his gaze trained on his own work. "Anything important enough to affect your work"—Tony quickly intercepted Peter's hand before he accidentally burned his arm—"is important enough to talk about. Care to share with the class?"

"It's…" Peter seemed frozen for a moment, all tight shoulders and clenched fingers. He must have been squeezing really hard, because the casing on the tool he was holding squeaked slightly. That prompted the boy to drop his shoulders and sigh heavily, then carefully go back to work.

"It's just our chemistry teacher assigned a whole bunch of homework for this weekend. Not hard stuff, but it's the kind of problems that take forever. And I already know how to do all of that, but it's going to take like two hours, and it's just so frustrating. He didn't even give us time in class to work on it. He has zero chill."

"The worst," Tony responded carefully, hoping he fully understand, and that the phrase Rhodey's nephew had used last year was still applicable.

"Yeah, it is. And my Academic Decathlon team has a big meet next Wednesday," the boy continued, not seeming to be aware he was still talking as he set the wires in place, "and I wanted to go, but my parents said no way, even if you'd said it was okay for me to maybe miss our lab hours that day."

"You're on the Decathlon team?"

"Oh," Peter looked up and set his tool down, looking embarrassed. "I guess they're not my team. I can't do it this year, since it's Wednesday afternoons and interferes with the internship." Then his eyes widened again, and he stumbled on. "But it's okay. I mean, this is totally worth it, and I'm not complaining." He glanced down at his hands, which were still for a moment. "I just miss them, I guess. And I just wanted to be there Wednesday."

"Hmm. What if I just canceled your hours this Wednesday?"

Peter sighed. "Thanks, but probably not. They already knew I wanted to go, and said no. So if you canceled, they still wouldn't let me, out of principle or something." He returned to his task. The kid sounded less upset now that he got all that off his chest, but just because he seemed to accept it didn't mean it had to happen that way.

Tony frowned. That didn't make any sense. Why wouldn't they let him go, if the internship wasn't a problem?

"It's fine Mr. Stark; don't worry about it," Peter said, sounding more cheerful now. "Hey, are we gonna work on that arc reactor stuff again?"

"Sure, Pete. Whatever you want."

The boy reacted, seemingly to the shortened name.

"Sorry, do you not like being called that?"

"No. It's—it's okay. I guess it's just been a while since I was around people who called me 'Pete.'"

"Is that okay?"

"Yeah," he said slowly. But then he paused and seemed to think about it for a minute. "Yeah, that's fine," he said with a small smile.

"Okay, then. Get over here, and let's see what kinds of results FRIDAY has for us from the simulations we designed last Friday."

"You haven't worked on it since then?" Peter's face was screwed up in confusion.

"Why would I work on your project without you? You think I'm gonna do all the heavy lifting on this one?"

"No! I just… my project?"

"Of course, your project. Bring it up."

Peter grinned then, the smile fully reaching his eyes for the first time that day. Then he turned his attention to the holo table and brought up the applicable files, only hesitating slightly as he remembered which motions to use to start laying everything out where they could look at it.

The kid was really something. Tony didn't realize how much he enjoyed his cheerful chatter until it had been absent today. Surely there was something that could be done about the Wednesday thing. Should Tony try to talk to his parents? What did they think about Peter working in his lab, specifically? He was about to ask a few of those questions when he got sidetracked by Peter's enthusiasm.

"Mr. Stark, look at this one! This is totally the direction we need to go!"

"Oh yeah? I see that. That's interesting, bud. Why do you think it worked better than the other ones?"

As he watched the boy think about his question, and start to come up with some really insightful answers, he felt a rush of pride and… was that affection? What a kid. He'd have to remember to tell Pepper what a great idea this whole high school internship program had been.


"Make sure you check in, Peter," Ned said firmly. "MJ is at that concert with her parents, and I'll be at my Lola's until like 8:30, so home by 9, but I'm going to be checking my phone often."

Peter was stretched out on his bed on his stomach, having been home long enough to heat up some second-dinner (Mr. Stark had gotten them Indian food at like five) and was watching Ned's face, where he was hiding in his Lola's bathroom to talk to him.

"Ned, what exactly would you do if I did need help?" Peter asked curiously. "The police haven't come after me, but they're not really pro-vigilante. And almost nothing would be worth them figuring out who I really am."

"I dunno, call… the Avengers?"

Peter scoffed. "Isn't all this a little below their pay grade? Also, how in the world would you find a number for them?"

Ned drew himself up, looking almost regal, despite his fluffy orange hoodie and the awkward angle. "You doubt my skills?"

Peter grinned. "Never, Nedward. Just… yeah, I'll check in."

"Good. Have fun tonight. And don't stay out too late. You've been getting cold towards the end of patrols now that it's freezing outside."

"Yes, Dad," Peter mocked.

Ned merely glared at him. Peter heard Ned's mom call his name in the background.

"Gotta go. I'll talk to you when we both get home!"

"'Kay, bye dude."

Peter set his laptop to the side, and sighed as he sat up. His parents weren't home. Often there would be a note or a message or something, but not tonight. He picked up his dish and quickly ate the rest of the chicken and veggies, feeling extra grateful for the extra calories he'd gotten at Stark Tower that afternoon. Still, he was just hungry all the time, especially since the weather had taken a turn for colder. It was like his body was using more calories to help keep him warm, but kinda failing. He felt shivery at school more often than not, even though he had a good winter coat. It was mostly just really annoying, but without the extra meals he'd been eating with Mr. Stark, it could turn into a real problem.

When he finished, Peter squeezed into the long underwear they'd added to his "suit," and pulled on all the other pieces after digging them out from under his bed. Thankfully his parents never, ever came in his room, so he hadn't been too worried about the pieces being discovered.

He carefully opened the window and slipped through into the crisp night air, tucking his phone into the pocket he and Ned had sewn in to keep it secure with all the swinging. He wondered how his parents would feel about him asking for a smart watch for Christmas. It would be so convenient for communicating on patrols. They didn't mind buying him stuff like that, when they remembered. Or maybe he could suggest he shop for his own Christmas presents this year. That would be a much more reliable way to make sure he got some from them. Or maybe he could buy one with his internship earnings, if he saved for a bit.

Though half his concentration was taken with swinging from building to building, he still felt a little bit of sorrow. He usually spent most of the actual holidays— Thanksgiving day, most of Christmas break, etc. with his aunt and uncle. This year was going to be so different, and it was hard to think about it without feeling upset. It didn't matter. It would be fine. He wasn't a little kid anymore. He could do some stuff with Ned and MJ when they were around, and maybe his parents would have a break in their projects for one of the holidays and they could do some Christmassy stuff together. They never had before, but this year might be different. It had to, right, with May and Ben gone?

His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of people screaming off in the distance. Like a lot of people. He felt the hair at the base of his neck and on his arms prickle almost painfully. Something was really wrong. What was going on? He swung faster, tracking the terrified noises as they got louder the closer he got. It took him nearly ten minutes to get from their Manhattan apartment to the source of the issue, and when he got there he just stopped and stared for a minute.

The man (if you could call him that) was oversized, his normal form stretched and replaced by grotesque yellowish muscle and skin that looked hard and almost shiny. It was incomplete though, with some of his body looking normal, and the weird carapace-like covering on about two-thirds of it. The most obvious deformity came in the form of a giant yellow-ish tail, which was terrifyingly shaped and moving like a scorpion's (which Peter had once seen on a National Geographic special). The thing's face still looked human, except its eyes looked smaller, and were completely black and beady. Whatever it was, it was enraged, and was making terrible noises that served as a bass line to the constant screaming of the people trying to get away from it. Not the busiest part of downtown, but still pretty populated on a Friday night. This was not good.

The thing (man?) was obviously enhanced, and was breaking lamp posts and pushing cars aside easily, but after 10-20 seconds of observation Peter still had no idea what his motive was. He seemed to be causing havoc and injury at random, and moving through the streets but without any real destination. Truthfully he seemed confused rather than focused on an end result. Time to step in before more people got hurt.