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Being a Stark [Superfamily]

Chapter 5

It’s a never-ending battle. Whenever Peter thinks he’s almost got it, he just ends up right back at the beginning with an even worse headache for it. His last fight isn’t helping him, and after a few minutes his back is already aching, still not healed from the hard blow he’s gotten during that battle with him and one of Hammer’s rogue androids – and of course he got another warning from the Avengers, telling him to stay away from the danger.

“Electrical Engineering?” Peter asks out loud, pointing his hands at the folder on his bed, “or biochemistry?”

It feels like the choice is eating him from the inside. He loves to create things and he’s savvy with most of the tech he’s coming across with, but on the other hand he just wonders if he would be following that program because he wants it, rather than just because he wants to step into his biological father’s footsteps.

He’s a genius in biology and chemistry, and the combination of it is even better and sounds almost heavenly. It feels like the perfect choice for him, really. He loves the molecular structure of the human body, and he feels like he could actually create the ultimate cure like his parents had intended to do if he would end up on that field.

So, there’s enough reason to go for biochemistry, right? But, then, why do his eyes always move back to the electrical engineering folder on his bed?

Meditating on it doesn’t help. Neither does making some weird rap-song about which one is better (and to be honest it’s good that nobody was there, then…), nor the diagram or the table he drew about it. To keep it short, he’s stuck with a choice and he’s… eh… just stuck.

“What do I want to do for the rest of my life?”

Either way, whatever he chooses, he’ll end up following one parent anyway; biochemistry would be for the career his parents had. Electrical engineering would be continuing in his new father’s line of work. Both subjects interest him; the first one because he’s always been good at it and could be even better, but the second because it’ll get him to make new things, invent new stuff, which is something he also finds himself doing most of his free time.

And it’s not like the choice is immediate, but whichever internship he’ll chose will give him possible advantages, so it seems. But, once again, choosing wrong now can only give him the best answer on what his definitive choice will have to be once he graduates high school.

“Aunt May!” Peter suddenly finds himself calling out when the frustration just gets too much and there’s nothing else he can think of. Of course, he hasn’t even told her he’s even considering going back to college. The whole reason he’s even doing this is because he got that interview with Stark to get to know the guy a bit better after finding out he’s his dad! Holy crap, how is this even his life?

“What’s wrong, Peter?” aunt May asks, opening his door and raising her eyebrows when she finds him sitting on the bed.

“Okay so I got this scholarship from Stark Industries for when I go to college, don’t ask me how I got it I just spontaneously went inside and made an appointment and then the guy just gave it to me after I told him my sad story, and now I find myself with enough money to go to college and help you with the rent of the house but the only problem here is now that I have to choose which internship I’ll try for because I can’t decide between Electrical Engineering at Stark’s or Biochemistry at Oscorp and I need your help because what do you think will be better for me?”

Oh, maybe he should try to breathe, too.

There’s no immediate answer coming from Aunt May. If she would have been a computer, Peter’s sure she would have just crashed from overload of input coming in. Somehow while he had been talking Peter managed to push the folders of both the subjects into Aunt May’s hands, but now afterwards he can’t really remember when he did that.

“P-Peter, where did this suddenly come from?” Aunt May finally asks after a while. She’s giving both pamphlets short looks but she doesn’t open them, instead lowering her hands as her eyes meet his again. Her face looks confused, but at least not angry.

Not that Peter expected her to be angry about this, anyway.

“I’ve been thinking about what you said; about me giving this internship a shot,” Peter explains, wondering if he’s actually lying right here? “I figured it’s time for me to get my act back together.”

Aunt May stays quiet for a long moment as she gives Peter a long look. Then, without a warning, she wraps her arms around him and a happy cry comes out of her mouth.

“Oh, Peter! I’m so happy to hear this,” she calls out in excitement. Her face is pressed against his shoulder, and her arms are squeezing him really tightly. She’s actually quite strong for such a little lady, and Peter’s almost sure she can hold her own would she ever get into a fight – not that he hopes that will ever happen, of course!

“Yeah,” Peter just sighs out. He’s not getting closer to his answer here, and he’d rather have it by tomorrow so he could arrange the meeting with Stark if it would be necessary. Or at Oscorp, even though Peter feels a small chill at the idea of returning there without Gwen in it. No, that’s probably not such a good idea. Surely there are other place he could try out for biochemistry.

“Oh I wish your Uncle were here, he would be so proud of you,” Aunt May continues on. Peter catches the tears in her eyes, and wonders if it really was such a good idea to tell her already. Especially when she starts pressing a few kisses on his forehead and keeps his face in a strong grip to keep him from pulling away.

“Aunt May, come on, I’m not getting married!” Peter counters while trying to take a step back. He’s strong enough to force himself out of her hands, but he holds himself on. Her affection isn’t all that bad.

“I know how hard you’ve been having it, Peter,” she starts suddenly, looking at him with her sad eyes. “It’s been such a rough time for you, and you had trouble getting back on track, but you found your way back all on your own. I’m so proud of you;”

Peter can almost roll his eyes at her compliments. Actually, his life is still kind of crappy. The only reason why he’s even considered it is because he wanted to get to know his father.

And isn’t that the answer now, though? He wants to get to know him.

What better way to do that than getting an internship in his company? He can make sure to be noticed – surely, if his background doesn’t help him, his inventions surely will do the trick, and that’s not to gloat or anything – and end up working closely with the man, right? He will then get to know him as Peter Parker rather than Spider-Man. Maybe then someone would take him seriously.

By the time Aunt May leaves him in his room to share the happy news with her friends, Peter finds himself still an answer short. May turned out to be more enthusiastic about it than he had anticipated, and once again he’s left alone with only his own mind.

The same mind that offered him an imaginary conversation with Gwen earlier. Maybe she – actually he, since the conversation was built out of nothing more but his own thoughts – was right. Maybe Peter can’t really figure this thing out by himself. Maybe he does need some friends.

And when he receives a text from that all-too-annoying Wade, telling him that he should go to that girl’s apartment – Yaël, Peter reminds himself – and that they should meet up with him in the park, Peter only hesitates for a few seconds before turning into action and grabbing his bag.


---


Peter has to admit that he likes Yaël’s dry sense of humor. It reminds him much of his own, and he’s sure she mostly developed it by hanging out with Wade all the time; he really has that effect on people.

True, Peter had been quite sarcastic and dry himself for quite a while before Wade ever even showed up in his life for the first time – and what a meeting that had been! Peter had just been swinging around the city for a moment, checking for disturbances, when suddenly a random guy starts swinging along with him and starts a casual conversation as if it’s the most normal thing to do while hanging high up in the air. When Peter had asked him how exactly he did it, Deadpool had looked up to his empty hands and then had fallen down on the ground with a loud splat.

To say that Peter had been panicking the entire time his body had lain on the ground as if it were dead is an understatement, and to this day Peter still doesn’t understand how the guy had been swinging along with him back then.

Anyway, after a short moment of being accused as a stalker and lots of talk about a certain McDreamy dying in that one show Aunt May loves to watch after a short greeting in pajamas, Peter and Yaël make their way out of her crappy small apartment. And Peter feels like he has the right to say that it’s crappy, because the paint is chipping off the walls and he’s sure there’s something smelling like a dead mouse somewhere behind the sink. He’s not sure if he should tell her, though.

After she asks him for all the news on his current situation, he brings her up to date, firstly by confirming that the test came in positive. Since she’s the person he’s going to ask for help for, he figures he should give her the whole story. With that, he doesn’t keep secret that his father is in fact Tony Stark himself.

“Sorry, man, I don’t know who that is,” Yaël tells him suddenly after finishing his story. If Peter would ever have the biggest shock of them all, this would be it. Tony Stark is one of the most famous people in the entire world, firstly because of his company but his popularity grew even more after revealing that he’s Iron Man! How could one not know him unless they’ve been living under a rock for years.

Well, okay, her apartment comes close to being that, though.

“Tony Stark, lady and gentleman, is the one and only Iron Man,” Wade’s voice suddenly says from behind them. The two turn around in a quick surprise, though Yaël seems to jump a bit more than Peter does. To be honest, in his time as Spider-Man, Peter has quite grown used to the guy popping in during the most random moments.

“How could you not know him?” Peter asks before he remembers that she didn’t know Fury and Professor X before, either. “The guy owns pretty much everything here, comes on the news practically every day.”

“Ah, well, X and Fury told me not to watch the news, fearing it might trouble my mind or whatever their crappy excuse was to keep me out of the world…”

Nobody responds to that, understanding that there’s just a lot of things that she wouldn’t know right at this moment and that they shouldn’t try to force it all on her. They walk forward in silence, slowly nearing the pond where Peter can already see the ducks swimming about.

“So you want to get to know your daddy, Parker?” Wade suddenly asks, fishing out a bag full of bread from his pack. Both Peter and Yaël raise their eyebrows in confusion; what can they expect him to do now?

“Well, I don’t know,” Peter answers truthfully. Sure, he’d rather not tell his life story to Wade Wilson, but right now he’s one of the only friends he’s got. However sad that is. “For now, I’d rather he didn’t know, but on the other hand I really do want to get to know him. I want to know who he is before I come sending him his ‘it’s a boy!’ card, you see?” Man, that was a lot of ‘know’ in one sentence!

While Peter speaks, Wade starts walking to the water and throws out some bread towards the little ducks, who happily fish out whatever he gives them. So, to be clear on this, Wade asked them to come to the park… to feed the ducks?

Well, Peter never said the guy was sane, right?

“How do you plan to get to know him?” the blue-haired girl next to him asks, and Peter turns his head again towards her. Yaël’s brown eyes look at him in genuine interest, but he fears that the answer is still not present in his mind.

“I don’t know! I’ve been breaking my head about this but I just can’t get to a simple plan,” Peter confesses in annoyance. He kicks away a little stone from the ground, and when it lands in the water the ducks fly away in panic.

“Hey!” Wade shouts out. Peter ignores him.

“When I went in for my scholarship, the guy offered me to run an internship at his company as well, but I just don’t know if I should do it or not.”

Peter barely notices the piece of bread being pushed in his hand, but he does find himself coming at some sort of weird peace with each piece of bread he throws.

“Why wouldn’t you?” Yaël asks while launching quite a big piece into the water. Two ducks start fighting for it, making quite some noise in the process.

“Because it’s a prequel to a major in electrical engineering, and though it interests me, I’m also interested in biochemistry,” Peter explains. His piece of bread is finished, and when he wants to turn to Wade to ask for a new piece, he finds the guy knee-deep into the water while having a conversation of his own with the ducks.

“I say you should do it,” is the answer he receives, and finally, was it really that hard for somebody to say what he should do? Sure, it’s not that he needs permission or something from anybody, but just some encouragement is enough, he should think.

“I should go for Stark Industries, you think?” Okay, now he knows he’s just postponing coming to a final decision. To be fair, maybe his choice has been made a few days ago already, but he probably just wants to convince himself that the ultimate answer is a hard one to find.

“Yes, totally!” Yaël shouts with much enthusiasm. The smile on her face is genuine, and for a moment Peter finds himself silenced by the sudden realization that he’s not in this alone, anymore.

This girl can be his friend, just like Wanda – who has proven to be the kindest and most gentle person he knows right now. She does appear a bit sad sometimes. Peter wonders why, but on the other hand he knows it’s not his place to ask. If Wanda wants to tell, she’ll do it when she’s ready.

“I would have to sign up for the interview, then,” Peter thinks out loud. He can’t believe he’s actually going to do this. “Have another talk with Mr. Stark to get the job… I wonder what Wanda would say about this?” Peter doesn’t look forward too much to talking with the guy once more; which is actually ridiculous since he’s planning on doing this just to get the chance to be near him.

“Hey, if you get there, tell Pepper Potts I said ‘hi’! If she’s not with Stark anymore, it means I have another chance with her!” Wade calls out, standing in the lake with the water coming up to his hips. Yaël gives Wade a confused look, but all Peter can do is raise an eyebrow at him.

In what universe would Mrs. Potts give Wade a chance?

Wait…

“They’ve broken up?” Peter asks, confused. “How would you know?”

Wade shrugs, not bothering to explain. Peter frowns then, thinking back of the last time he actually saw Tony Stark. He has seemed a bit off during the interview for the internship, but Peter had just figured that was his discomfort of talking to teenagers. As far as he’s always known, Tony Stark doesn’t do well with youth – which is actually crap, come to think of it; how is he ever going to tell the guy ‘hey, I’m your son by the way?’ if he’s not at all good with children?

But, Wanda did tell him that Stark has been living in the compound lately, rather than his probably very luxury penthouse at the tower. Could Mrs. Potts departure be the reason for that?

“Who’s Wanda?” Yaël suddenly asks, and Peter remembers bringing her up in his train of thought.

“Oh, she’s one of the new Avengers, telepathic and telekinetic and all, helped me getting Mr. Stark’s blood for the DNA-test a while back,” Peter shrugs. “I guess she’s a friend.”

“Well, any friend of yours can be a friend of ours. She should hang out with us, maybe? I could use another girl in this group filled with testosterone,” Yaël laughs, and Peter laughs along with her. Then suddenly her eyes go wide and she turns towards Wade, shouting out something disturbing from that show of hers. Peter decides to stay out of it, instead looking a bit to the side and taking in the calm currently going around in the park.

Man, it’s nice to see the birds fly. But, wait…

That’s not a bird.

“Uh, guys?” Peter starts, reaching out for his new friend but failing to get her attention. Then, as if the universe is trying to screw with him, a loud explosion disturbs the peace going around here. The figure flying in the air passes right over them, as if he’s trying to taunt Peter.

Well, Harry still knows who he is, after all.

Before he can explain something to Yaël or Wade, Peter’s reflexes get the better of him and he starts to run towards the trees. Underneath his clothes, he’s already wearing his suit – an old habit of his that comes in mighty handy most of the time. As quickly as possible, he puts all his clothes into his backpack and hangs it up somewhere in the trees with his webs before jumping up. His heart is racing, thoughts of Harry’s – no, the Goblin’s disturbing smile filling his head.

Where does he keep coming from? What does he want? Peter shakes his head. Now’s not the time to start asking these questions. What matters is that they catch him so they can put him away again, and maybe take care of him.

Bring Harry back to him.

The moment Peter makes eye-contact with him, the Goblin throws down a smoke-bomb that surrounds them in a wide circle. Another wide and creepy smile appears on his face, but he does not approach. Neither does Peter, who suddenly feels something extremely uneasy in his chest.

“Peter,” the Goblin says suddenly, leaning his head to the side but not losing his grin. “How’s Gwen?”

Peter gasps out in surprise, though he should have expected for the Goblin to taunt him. Not really in control of his anger, Peter cries it out as he rushes towards the other figure, holding his fist ready to give him a blow in the face. Before he can make contact, the Goblin flies back up in the air and moves to the side, away from Peter’s angry blow.

“Oh, my, someone’s a bit sensitive,” then comes out, and Peter lets out another breath before he tries again, once more failing. “C’mon, aren’t you happy to see an old friend?”

Peter huffs out a laugh, breathing faster than he should be right now. He stands still for a moment, trying to think through another plan of attack.

“I would be happy to see my friend, so if you would just… bring him back.”

The Goblin laughs it out, shaking his head while his hand rests on his stomach.

“No no no, Peter, that’s not how it works. You should just come to realize that I am your old friend.”

Peter shakes his head as well, balling his hands into fists, but standing his ground once more. He shouldn’t throw angry punches again; the Goblin is too fast for that. Before he can speak, he hears voices around him, recognizing the Falcon, Captain America and no-one other than freaking’ Wade. Somebody is giving orders to get rid of the smoke as quickly as possible, but Peter tries to ignore it all.

“Damn it where is Iron Man when you need him? – Indisposed. War-Machine is on his way!” suddenly sounds from next to him, and that manages to distract Peter immediately. Before he knows it, the Goblin’s glider moves forward once more, hurrying towards him and hitting him with such a force that his breath is taken out of his lungs immediately. Before he can really think anything, he drops into the ice-cold water with the Goblin’s full weight upon him.

Hitting the ground doesn’t help at all. Especially when said adversary is suddenly wrapping his gloved hands around his neck to keep him under. He can hear him talk, but the words are muffled. Whatever he’s saying, Peter can only understand half of it.

Of couse, he only needs half to understand what the guy’s on about.

“Do you remember when I asked you for help? Do you remember when I told you I was dying, and you refused to give me what I needed?”

Peter puts his hands on the Goblin’s, trying to pull them away from him. His feet are struggling to break him free, but instead he’s sinking further into the ground. His lungs start to sting, running empty of air. He can’t speak, breathe, and he can slowly feel his force leaving him.

Right when his vision starts to go black, the Goblin’s weight is gone and somebody is pulling him back out of the water, throwing him back down on the grass. Peter gasps for air, but accidentally breathes in some of the water that was still in his mouth, causing him to start coughing harder than ever before.

“Jesus, kid, are you alright?” someone asks, and when Peter looks up, he finds Hawkeye standing over him. He’s wet, meaning that he’s the one that pulled him out.

Through his coughing, Peter looks back up to the sky, where he sees the Goblin and Falcon engaged in a battle of their own. Now, completely distracted from Peter, the Goblin’s smile is gone and he’s giving it all he’s got to rid himself of these heroes trying to defeat him.

“Spidey?” Hawkeye asks once more, and Peter realizes that he never answered his question. With a sharp nod, he tries to make clear that he’s fine – or will be fine, as soon as his lungs have recovered from the temporary lack of air. His throat hurts from all the coughing, and he’s sure he’ll be hoarse for the next few days.

After making sure that Peter’s not going to choke on his own breath, Hawkeye runs back into the action, leaving Peter to recover on his own. With trembling legs, Peter gets himself up. It takes a lot of effort to keep standing, but eventually he’s back on his two feet, trying to get a grip on what’s going on around him now.

Hawkeye is shooting arrows in the Goblin’s direction. The Falcon is still in a direct duel with him. Somewhere, Peter can hear repulsors charging, but upon remembering that Iron Man isn’t here, he figures it must be War Machine instead. As the smoke slowly subsides, Peter can also see Cap standing further away, talking to Yaël in a hurry. He frowns, wondering what that’s all about. But before he can do anything more, he feels a cold shudder pass through his entire body. Something incoming, from his right.

Trusting his spider-sense, Peter jumps forward in a roll, barely managing to escape another blow coming from the Goblin, who seems to have pried himself away from the battle just long enough to attempt and take Peter again.

“Not this time,” Peter mutters, pointing his web-shooters in the Goblin’s direction and hitting him right in the face with his webs. A shout comes out of the Goblin’s mouth, and his stance on his glider seems compromised. The other heroes catch up on it, and everybody hurries back towards him almost at the same time.

As if he heard them all coming, the Goblin stops struggling to get the web out of his face, and points the glider back up into the air, managing to escape the blow he was about to receive from the group of Avengers.

“I’ll be back for you, Spider-Man!” the Goblin then shouts out right before disappearing back into the air. The Falcon and War Machine race back after him, but Clint and Cap stay down watching them leave with a loud sigh escaping from their mouths. Peter drops himself on the ground and just lies down, looking into the sky through his mask and noticing that there are some scratches in his glasses. Great, he’ll need to get that fixed once more.

Oh what he would do right now to get out of the suit. As if it isn’t bad enough that everything’s spandex these days, he’s also still soaking wet and hurting all over. His wounds from the last explosion have barely healed, themselves. Maybe he needs to be looked at by Dr. Cho once more?

“Kid, are you alright?” Cap suddenly asks. Peter opens his eyes again, not realizing that he’s closed them, and looks back towards the Super Soldier next to him. Peter holds up his hand to give him a thumb’s up.

“Yeah, I’m peachy. Just gonna lie down here for a sec, though,” Peter returns, frowning at how raspy his voice sounds. Aunt May surely is going to ask questions again. What’s Peter going to say, this time? Should he blame it on another common cold? Hell, maybe he’ll even catch one as well.

“You were down in the water quite a while, are you sure you don’t need to be looked at?” Cap continues his questioning. Just as Peter wants to flip away the question, Hawkeye answers for him.

“C’mon, Cap, it’s not because Stark’s not here that you have to take over that overprotective behavior of his? The kid says he’s fine, he’s fine and that’s that.”

Peter wants to sit up, ask further about Mr. Stark and find out where he is, but at the same time he knows that might look a bit weird. So, instead of doing that, Peter stands up completely, giving his wet suit an exaggerated once-over.

“Tony worries about him for a reason, Clint. He’s still a kid, after all,” Cap counters, not noticing Peter shaking his uniform dry next to him. “He shouldn’t even be doing this yet, I’m sure he has family that worries about him!”

“Hey, I’m right here, you know?” Peter quickly mutters in annoyance, tired of everybody treating him like a kid all the time.

“You could have died!” Cap says, pointing towards Peter to prove his point. Hawkeye rolls his eyes and slings his bow over his shoulder.

“Whatever, man, the kid can take care of his own. It seems like everybody seems to forget the lizard-incident, or that electric-dude.” Hawkeye shakes his head and puts his hands on his hips. “I’m going back to the tower. If you’re not there to make sure Stark takes his pills, somebody else has to babysit him.” Hawkeye waves as he starts walking away from them. As Peter watches him go, he notices Wade – in uniform – lounging in a tree and eating a burrito. Where did he even get one?

Cap just shakes his head and lets out another sigh while scratching the back of his head. Peter really wants to ask what’s going on with Mr. Stark. He really does. But knowing the Captain, he surely won’t reveal it to him. Cap’s a trustworthy guy, and as far as he’s noticed, his friendship with Mr. Stark is, while weird, a close one.

“Everything alright, sir?” Peter tries, anyway. Cap turns to look at him, lowering his hand and sighing once more. Then he nods with a smile Peter knows isn’t all that genuine.

“Yeah, son,” he says, unintentionally pulling some strings inside Peter’s chest. Only the Captain would call him son occasionally. At least, since Uncle Ben… “It was just a weird fight, I suppose.”

“Tell me about it, he keeps on sneaking up on me,” Peter mutters. While shaking his head, he feels once more that he’s still completely wet. Stupid shit-suit.

“Yeah, uh… you have any idea why?” Cap asks. Peter shrugs.

“Had a misunderstanding in the past. He wanted something from me that I couldn’t give, and he took it personally,” Peter tries to keep it simple, but it hurts to just talk about it like this. Like Gwen’s… like it had just been an accident and not an attempt of Harry – The Goblin to get even.

“You sure that’s all?” the Cap asks, as if he knows something more is going on. Peter just shrugs and looks away.

“Listen, uhm, my suit’s still pretty wet and it’s extremely cold. I think I should just go and get changed,” he says, pointing back towards the forest where his backpack with very dry clothes is waiting for him – hopefully. It wouldn’t be the first time it got stolen, though this time he put it up high enough away, right?

“Of course, I’ll see you later, Spider-Man,” Captain America says, saluting Peter before jogging away from him in the direction Hawkeye took. Peter casts one short look at where Yaël had been standing, only to find she’s no longer there. She must have taken off, gotten away from the battle. It’s too bad, her powers would have been helpful. Wade, on the other hand, seems to have been especially unhelpful. That’s why Peter just ignores the figure in the tree and hurries back home.

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