This has to be some kind of sick, messed up joke. Peter didn't move, waiting for the hero to tell him that, but it didn't happened. The static body of the Number One Hero indicated one of two possibilities; the mask hid his true expression, or, he was telling the truth. Somehow, Peter had a Quirk.
"Um, could you say that again?" The boy asked quietly, more to himself, as if coming out of a haze. He stuck a finger in his ear and twisted, trying to ensure it was cleared out.
"You said that you were a normal kid," The hero went on. "But my sensors scanned an abnormally high energy for someone 'Quirkless'..." He made air quotes with his fingers, as if he thought the boy was messing with him.
"But how's that possible!?" The boy asked, assuming that was true. "I-I never developed a Quirk, the doctor said there was no way! I even have two joints in my pinky toe." He said, raising his foot as if to prove his point.
There was a rumor that Iron Man supposedly had an X-ray feature in his HUD. The hero stopped for a moment, staring at the boy's raised foot, seemingly confirming the boy's assumption. He really was analyzing his skeleton...
"Well, that part's true..." Said Iron Man, his attention back to the boy's face. "So what? I'm not a doctor. Does it mean something?"
"W-well, there are studies that show a correlation between the pinky joints and the probab…" The boy began to recite the information that had been haunting his life for the past ten years, until being interrupted by Tony.
"Okay, okay… I get it!" The hero says, raising his arms in surrender, anxious for the boy to settle down. "Like I said, I don't have a PHD in 'Quirk Studies'. But one thing I know for sure, the energy in your body is not normal!"
"How do you know that!?" The boy asked, his head full of doubts. Do I really have a Quirk? But what is it? What can I do? Could I become a hero now?
"Because that's the same energy that I-" The hero for a moment seemed to be irritated with the boy, but suddenly his tone changes "...That I produce…" he said, almost like a whisper Peter couldn't hear.
Just then, his armor began to shake slightly; the eyes, which normally cast a light blue light, begin to flash red. The hero then looked at the armor, which started to disassemble, returning to being the separate microbots that were before.
"No... no, no, no, no...not now...dammit!" The hero complained in a panic, while spinning trying to see what happened. Soon his back was to the boy and his armor had completely retracted.
"Um, M-Mr. Stark?" Peter asked, a little scared. He knew something wasn't right.
The hero sighed, then slowly began to turn towards the boy. But the man in front of him wasn't, couldn't possibly be Tony Stark! The man in front of him was much thinner. Iron Man never relied on his own muscles to act as a hero, that's what the suits were for. But Tony Stark's social media posts in gyms doing exercises were pretty famous, at least, so the boy remembered.
His ribs were practically visible through his shirt, his face was more gaunt, his skin paler, hair messy, hands bony; and in his chest, a technological cylinder emitting a pulsating blue light could be seen, as if it were stuck in its ribcage. The man was a cheap knock-off of Tony Stark, and yet, he forced a smile and opened his hand, waving his bony fingers as if he surprised someone at a birthday party. Then he fell backwards onto his rear, an air of exhaustion about him.
Peter's eyes widened, "W-What happened!? Are you alright? What happened to Iron Man!?" He nearly rushed forward, but the irritated expression on the man's face discouraged the notion.
"Wow, that's rude…" He said, standing up. He puts on the glasses that had fallen to the ground. "Kid, I AM Iron Man!" The man finished, thumbing to himself.
"B-but, why are you so…" Peter tried to find the right word. "...Skinny?"
"Ah…" The hero sighs tiredly. "Everyone needs context, and you probably won't shut up until you get some. But don't even dream of posting it online…" He leaned back against the security fence of the building before lifting his shirt. And what the boy saw shocked him to his very core.
At the center of his chest, a metallic cylinder was fitted in the middle of the ribs, with what appeared to be a kind of power source. But that wasn't the worst part. Several gray lines seemed to emerge from the place and spread across the man's pale, skeletal chest, like the veins of a corpse under his skin. But they followed a pattern almost like lines on a circuit...
"The truth is, I don't have a Quirk. Everything I can do? All because of technology I invented," he began, before pointing to the cylinder. "This here's an Arc Reactor; a multi-isotope radio-decay cell that releases a type of energy from a chemical element that I discovered. I had to install it after an accident years back, but it's part of me now. It keeps me alive and it's what lets me be Iron Man. Or at least, it did..."
Tony lowered his shirt, "With the improvement of the armors, more and more energy was needed, which in itself wasn't a problem. That was, until a fight with a villain a couple years ago… He utilized something, a techno-organic virus of some sort. I don't know everything about it, at least not yet. But one thing I'm sure of, is that it corrupted my reactor. It's infected now and it's slowly poisoning me. Using the armor only speeds up the process, which is why I can only wear it for three hours a day tops, that way the effects don't kill me…"
"A couple years ago…" The boy thought back. "Was it your fight with Whiplash?"
"Looks like someone does their fanboy homework..." The hero joked. "Nah, this fight never made the news. The guy stopped my heart and severely damaged my lungs in the process, it's not exactly something I wanted getting out..."
"Couldn't you, y'know, replace the corrupted reactor with a new one?" Peter asked, hesitantly. "Maybe an alternative power source?"
Tony shook his head in defeat, "Tried that once, but the poison's already so far into my body that it was a moot point. And nothing but the reactor comes close to the power output I need to keep my armor functioning."
"H-How long do you have left? There must be some way to reduce it, right?" asks Peter, eager to learn more and wanting to help somehow.
"You ask a lot of questions, don't ya?" The hero quipped sarcastically. "With the poison in me the way it is now, it could theoretically take decades to kill me completely. And yeah, there's ways to decrease the infection: medication, chemotherapy... But not while I'm wearing the armor. And the more I use it, the faster it spreads."
"So being a hero…" Peter began.
"...Is what's killing me," Tony finished the sentence, "Yeah."
"But what about one of the older armors?" Asked the boy, "You said they use less energy, right?"
"I can't. If I use an armor other than the Mark L, the villains will know something's wrong, they'll know I'm not at my best!" The hero said, losing his patience and standing up. "I have to keep myself moving at my peak! Because that's what heroes do. I've gotta keep the whole 'Symbol of Hope' thing going!"
Peter stood static; both shocked and amazed. Shocked by all the information absorbed, which had turned his world upside down. But also amazed, to see his favorite hero risking his very life to the fullest just to keep the peace, to keep fighting... A true hero, but at what price?
"And that brings us to your situation," Tony continued , walking towards the boy. "My resources were focused on trying to find a way to transfer my power to another living being, another person, so that they could continue my legacy without needing a reactor on their chest."
"Now obviously, I'm not doing human testing. We've been working on different subjects; birds, mammals, reptiles, arthropods… But none of them produced great results. They couldn't absorb or use the energy. At most, all it did was improve the physical performance of the animals; irradiated fish swam faster, mammals became stronger, reptiles became more resistant to the elements, you get it."
Tony lowered his glasses slightly, "Naturally all this is top secret and I'm not doing this work within Stark Industries. We've been outsourcing that to one of my subsidiary companies so it stays quiet. That Carnage guy I caught sometimes moonlights doing corporate espionage. He was leaving OsCorp with one of our most promising guinea pigs. A spider, to be more precise..."
Peter then remembered the sting he felt at the back of his neck. Running his hand over it, he found an area that was more sensitive and swollen. There was something sticky at the center; pinching what felt like a hair covered in glue, he pulling it out of the wound. He saw what appeared to be a kind of very malleable and sticky hair, just like a web. Peter pulled the rest up the back of his shirt. And at the end, was a very dead spider.
When he realized what he was seeing, Iron Man immediately moved in front of the boy. He stared first at the specimen, and then at the boy through his high-tech glasses.
Yeah, that's it, he thought reluctantly. Subject AF-01962. Parts of its DNA is already mixing with his blood, along with traces of reactor energy...
The hero looked deeply into the boy's eyes with a mix of curiosity and sympathy. And with a bony hand, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a business card, handing it to Peter. It was for Stark Industries.
"Call me so we can schedule a medical appointment," he said. Peter couldn't believe it, first he gained a quirk, and now he's holding the phone of the number one hero. It was quite a day he'd been having. "Rest assured, I have the best doctors," Tony went on. "And we'll do our best to take out any remnants of the spider and the energy within you as soon as possible. Then you'll be able to return to your normal life."
He walked past Peter, quickly patting his shoulder as if meaning to relieve the boy and went over towards the doorway leading to the stairs. "What do you mean, 'take out of me'?" Peter asked the man, who already had his hand in the door handle.
"Didn't you hear what I just said!?" The hero asked, more than a little irritated. "We haven't tested it on human subjects! Do you know how dangerous it can be!? You just got bitten by a spider that passed the last months under the same kind of radiation that I use to fly and melt metal! And now, it's fundamentally altered your DNA!"
"But if that happens, I'll go back to being Quirkless…" The boy replied haltingly. "I'll never get to be a hero…"
"I'm sorry kid," Tony replied. He seemed to genuinely sympathize with Peter, "But maybe life decided that you won't become a hero. And this definitely isn't the right way to become one…"
Tony opens the door, "Look, you can still become a police officer. I know it's not the same thing, they don't really fight the super villains or whatever, but it's still a noble profession." With that, he enters the building and starts to walk down the stairs.
Peter was left standing in the place, not knowing what to say, what to do. A roller coaster of emotion has just run over him. He almost died, he's met his idol and the greatest hero of all time, he discovered that he received a Quirk in the most unlikely way possible, and now he discovered that he would have to lose it, as well as his idol telling him that he couldn't be a hero.
He looked at objects in his hands, the crumpled notebook, open on the page with the hero's signature. And in his other hand, the business card from Stark Industries.
A contrast: in one hand, the hope of being a hero. All the study and dedication, the hours spent, the weekends lost, wasted on notes and studies so that he could use them as a hero. Added to that was the signature, the mark of the man who motivated his very passion. The man who inspired him, who made it possible for him to acquire a Quirk, even if it was unintentional.
And in the other hand, the reality check he'd been avoiding all his life. They'd would take away his quirk, the first and last chance he'll ever get to become what he wanted to be. It was a confirmation that all this would be left in the past. Completely forgotten and wiped out, just like he was...
Tony meanwhile, was making his way downstairs. His thoughts were still on the boy he left on the roof. Poor kid, he thought. I wish I could help, but that power is way too dangerous for you to handle.
"All right Friday, break time's over!" He touched his glasses, activating the holographic lenses that showed him a flow of information about the day and his surroundings. His artificial intelligence came online and spoke to him in a woman's Irish accent.
"Good afternoon, Mr. Stark," she said. "How can I be of service today?"
"Call a cab, I need to get to the HQ. We'll send Carnage to prison and..." The man's hand felt for the chamber that was supposed to be resting on his waist, but there was nothing. "Uh, Friday? Where's the chamber?
"It was jettisoned from the armor at the coordinates; 407.950.875N and -73-"
"Whoa-whoa-whoa! What do you mean, 'jettisoned from the armor'!? Why the hell did that happen!?" The hero asked indignantly.
"With the added passenger, Peter Parker, we needed to remove excess weight so you didn't exceed the energy limit and pass out. The passenger whom remained was chosen for being a civilian with no criminal record," she replied in a completely neutral tone.
"Oh God…" Tony say touching his forehead to the wall, closing his fist while lightly punching it.
"I'm sorry, Mr. Stark," Friday apologized. "By chance should I deactivate the energy economy and change the armor's priority of individuals without a criminal record for individuals with one?"
"No! For the love of God, no!" He said, for fear of agreeing and forgetting about the configurations. "We just need to find the chamber. It's resistant enough to not break from the fall, but it won't be able to handle much more than that..."
.
.
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Barber's Chair
• So that's how we incorporate the passing of power from Iron Man to Peter. Even bringing in OsCorp as part of the origin like the Ultimate comics. But why does Tony Stark have access to that company? Who was Carnage working for? Questions to be answered later!
