This took longer to type up than I thought it would.
hannah: Okay, reading your new ficlet I'm trying hard not to giggle.
petra: I win.
hannah: I have the dirty, wrong image of Peter donating some more silk - in and of itself, not that bad. The dirty, wrong part comes from Tony nicknaming it "milking."
petra: <3333 of COURSE he does.
hannah: "Well, what do YOU call it?"
petra: "...secreting."
hannah: "But it's an active process."
petra: cough "Shooting. webs."
hannah: Peter and Bruce: attack of the floppy-haired geeks.
I had a slow afternoon and following day, so I bounced ideas off of her until we had to go to bed - and I'm having a slow night, so here they are, summarized and sometimes quoted.
I wanted to see how I could get Peter into the Avengers universe with the story playing by the Avengers' rules. So, I figured an AU of all three Tobey Maguire Spider-Man movies with Peter joining Stark Industries sometime between the two Iron Man movies would accomplish that. Fury would know about Peter, because he's Fury, but Peter managed to stay under the radar for a good deal of time after the initial bite. He isn't tapped for the Initiative, and he's in a Stark Industries-Avengers tower sub-basement by choice, although he does sometimes wish for a bedroom with a better view. He'd get a few moments of heroism when Loki attacks New York, and while he wouldn't join the team, it'd be useful to have a superhero patrolling the home turf.
Besides the "hey, wouldn't this be neat" factor, bringing Peter into the Avengers universe would be an opportunity to present another angle on life getting changed from the whole superpower gig: he would be someone whose life was not turned into some sort of heroic fantasy. Even the Hulk gets moments of that. Peter's someone who ran away from the superhero gig, and a way to bring the idea that "superpowers are a pain in the ass" to the forefront, and allow for dialogue between those who are cut out for the superhero gig, and those who are not. As in the comics, he'd be a good foil.
Since this is the Avengers universe, there's Captain America and HYDRA and all sorts of mad science precedents for Peter to be justifiably scared they're going to lock him in a room and cut little pieces off of him until there's nothing left to cut. Then he sees Tony Stark unmask himself on national television, and figures - in the infinite wisdom of a high school student - that at this point in time going to the head of Stark Industries himself would be the best thing to do. So he leaves his aunt and uncle a note and starts a cross-country trip, stowing away in trains, learning how to sleep up in the corners of the boxcars. The upper corners, where people don't look, and if he stays still, they never notice him. And maybe a week after he leaves home, Tony wakes up at two in the morning to use the bathroom, and there's a guy on his window.
"JARVIS?" "Yes, sir?" "Visual confirmation, please?"
(petra: god, it's been a while since I wrote a proper window-entry love story. Not the most portable of tropes, but it warms the cockles of my heart.)
Peter isn't even wearing shoes right then; they're stuffed in his pack. Tony lets him in and after a half-hour long shower feeds him toast from bread with a disgusting amount of whole grains that Pepper left at his place and strong black coffee. Even with the coffee, Peter's asleep in minutes after he gets into a bed. This is actually pretty smart of Peter, since if anyone would listen to the "I'm a boy genius, please don't cut me apart" speech, it'd be Mister Attended MIT At Fifteen. When Pepper comes over the next morning with bags of clothing Tony had her collect - checking the sizes on Peter's pants before throwing them into a nearby incinerator - and comes into his room, there's almost no time between Pepper coming in, Peter waking up, and Peter on the ceiling.
After he's joined SI, with the safe lie Tony recruited him out of high school, Tony points out to Peter that without the superpowers, he'd be a science teacher in a second-rate public high school in Brooklyn to which Petersighs and nods, and says he wouldn't mind that, some days - not for the 'normal', since he was always too much of a geek to be normal, but a life without the extremes that come with the superpower gig. Still, it's not a bad life in SI. He gets to do science the way he always dreamed, he's safe, and some evenings when he finishes work early he goes to take in a sunset, swing around on top of the Chrysler building, buy a hot dog.
Also, thanks to the train cars, Peter's taken up the habit of napping in office corners - again, the upper corners. (Petra pointed out nobody would bug him up there.) When Steve comes in and asks where Peter is, Bruce just points and goes back to whatever he was doing. Steve waits a moment, then another, then asks, "How did he get the blanket up there with him?" To which Bruce answers, "He's sticky."
hannah: And I'll be plagued with the image of Peter milking his spinnerets into beakers for hours, I just know it.
petra: oh dear. <3
hannah: Who would be the one to surprise him and stay to watch?
petra: Er.
hannah: Peter is nonplussed, since for him, this is his new normal.
petra: I don't think he'd be surprised if either Bruce or Tony stuck around.
Steve is probably fascinated.
hannah: And he jumps in with the answer right off the bat, "No, it doesn't hurt."
"Sorry?"
"Most people ask that."
petra: <3
hannah: If it was Steve, he'd nod and keep watching.
petra: Yes.
hannah: Modified-by-science bros.
petra: People do weird things to bodies. This is not news in Steve-land.
Tony would be talking a mile a minute about the practical applications and tensile strength.
hannah: Peter would talk and switch wrists.
Being right-handed means milking the right spinneret takes a little more concentration.
Steve would want to know, though he might not ask, how Peter knows when one's finished.
Then, somehow, we decided Peter/Darcy needed to be a thing. The justification being that Pepper could well hire a political scientist to help her with certain international deals and clients, and Jane can vouch for Darcy once she's finished her degree. Pepper initially hires Darcy for a brief internship, to make sure she'd know what she's doing, during which Jane would take Darcy on a tour of the labs, some of which she had to sign about a billion forms to be allowed in to see. Jane having gone off for something momentarily, she'd be hanging around one of the public workstations alone when Peter comes by. He doesn't recognize her, and they start talking. Peter's quite sweet on Darcy, and they keep on talking, and even after they're split by Jane coming back, they get back together to talk more. Darcy's been around enough geeks to know awkwardness is just a part of the package, and Peter has some idea how to talk to girls. And if Jane ever points out she has a few years on Peter, Darcy would point out Thor's got a few centuries on Jane.
Peter: thank god, someone who doesn't know.
Darcy: thank god, someone who can slow down enough to talk.
Later, Darcy talks to Jane about the little lab guy Jane took her away from - she and Peter know each other as Stark Industries colleagues, but are in such different fields, they don't know each other too well. Jane doesn't say much and moves away from the subject. She doesn't know too much about Peter, who has a file in SHIELD like the rest of the Avengers, just that he's very off-limits in conversation. Tony doesn't much care, though, and when Darcy and Pepper are going over the Finnish contract, Tony comes into Pepper's office, they all get to talking, and Tony asks how the little bug is doing.
To which Darcy says, "Bug?"
"Arachnid, if you wanna be technical."
Darcy gives a blank look, and Tony explains, "You know, with the crawling and the webs, is this the Helsinki trip, you know you never..."
Tony being Tony, Darcy has to go to Peter for an explanation. He stammers, his stomach dropping down to his ankles.
"He said something about wall-crawling, and phwip phwip webbing. Was he making shit up again?"
"It's not really crawling."
"...prove it."
Having no choice, he takes off his shoes and shows her, and all she can say is, "Huh." He waits, and whe she finally asks him how it works, out of relief he starts blabbering on about the Van Der Waas force. When he explains the webbing, all she can say is, "Ew."
Followed quickly by, "Can I play with some of it? I mean--"
"Like a ball of it?"
"Or something."
He frowns, thinking, looking at his wrist, and tries to push out just a little bit. He manages, and hands it over. It really sticks to her fingers.
"So really, how did Mr. Stark find you?"
"I kind of--found him...kind of me just showing up at his house. In the middle of the night."
Darcy gives him a look, but he's not looking at her.
(petra: feet. Feet are Fascinating. at least, Peter's must be right now, the way he's staring.)
"I'd - I knew it wasn't a great idea, and I didn't know what I'd do if he threw me out or called the cops, but I, I'd gotten scared."
And then one thing leads to another, and soon enough Peter takes Darcy web-swinging - "Hold on tight!"
petra: I win.
hannah: I have the dirty, wrong image of Peter donating some more silk - in and of itself, not that bad. The dirty, wrong part comes from Tony nicknaming it "milking."
petra: <3333 of COURSE he does.
hannah: "Well, what do YOU call it?"
petra: "...secreting."
hannah: "But it's an active process."
petra: cough "Shooting. webs."
hannah: Peter and Bruce: attack of the floppy-haired geeks.
I had a slow afternoon and following day, so I bounced ideas off of her until we had to go to bed - and I'm having a slow night, so here they are, summarized and sometimes quoted.
I wanted to see how I could get Peter into the Avengers universe with the story playing by the Avengers' rules. So, I figured an AU of all three Tobey Maguire Spider-Man movies with Peter joining Stark Industries sometime between the two Iron Man movies would accomplish that. Fury would know about Peter, because he's Fury, but Peter managed to stay under the radar for a good deal of time after the initial bite. He isn't tapped for the Initiative, and he's in a Stark Industries-Avengers tower sub-basement by choice, although he does sometimes wish for a bedroom with a better view. He'd get a few moments of heroism when Loki attacks New York, and while he wouldn't join the team, it'd be useful to have a superhero patrolling the home turf.
Besides the "hey, wouldn't this be neat" factor, bringing Peter into the Avengers universe would be an opportunity to present another angle on life getting changed from the whole superpower gig: he would be someone whose life was not turned into some sort of heroic fantasy. Even the Hulk gets moments of that. Peter's someone who ran away from the superhero gig, and a way to bring the idea that "superpowers are a pain in the ass" to the forefront, and allow for dialogue between those who are cut out for the superhero gig, and those who are not. As in the comics, he'd be a good foil.
Since this is the Avengers universe, there's Captain America and HYDRA and all sorts of mad science precedents for Peter to be justifiably scared they're going to lock him in a room and cut little pieces off of him until there's nothing left to cut. Then he sees Tony Stark unmask himself on national television, and figures - in the infinite wisdom of a high school student - that at this point in time going to the head of Stark Industries himself would be the best thing to do. So he leaves his aunt and uncle a note and starts a cross-country trip, stowing away in trains, learning how to sleep up in the corners of the boxcars. The upper corners, where people don't look, and if he stays still, they never notice him. And maybe a week after he leaves home, Tony wakes up at two in the morning to use the bathroom, and there's a guy on his window.
"JARVIS?" "Yes, sir?" "Visual confirmation, please?"
(petra: god, it's been a while since I wrote a proper window-entry love story. Not the most portable of tropes, but it warms the cockles of my heart.)
Peter isn't even wearing shoes right then; they're stuffed in his pack. Tony lets him in and after a half-hour long shower feeds him toast from bread with a disgusting amount of whole grains that Pepper left at his place and strong black coffee. Even with the coffee, Peter's asleep in minutes after he gets into a bed. This is actually pretty smart of Peter, since if anyone would listen to the "I'm a boy genius, please don't cut me apart" speech, it'd be Mister Attended MIT At Fifteen. When Pepper comes over the next morning with bags of clothing Tony had her collect - checking the sizes on Peter's pants before throwing them into a nearby incinerator - and comes into his room, there's almost no time between Pepper coming in, Peter waking up, and Peter on the ceiling.
After he's joined SI, with the safe lie Tony recruited him out of high school, Tony points out to Peter that without the superpowers, he'd be a science teacher in a second-rate public high school in Brooklyn to which Petersighs and nods, and says he wouldn't mind that, some days - not for the 'normal', since he was always too much of a geek to be normal, but a life without the extremes that come with the superpower gig. Still, it's not a bad life in SI. He gets to do science the way he always dreamed, he's safe, and some evenings when he finishes work early he goes to take in a sunset, swing around on top of the Chrysler building, buy a hot dog.
Also, thanks to the train cars, Peter's taken up the habit of napping in office corners - again, the upper corners. (Petra pointed out nobody would bug him up there.) When Steve comes in and asks where Peter is, Bruce just points and goes back to whatever he was doing. Steve waits a moment, then another, then asks, "How did he get the blanket up there with him?" To which Bruce answers, "He's sticky."
hannah: And I'll be plagued with the image of Peter milking his spinnerets into beakers for hours, I just know it.
petra: oh dear. <3
hannah: Who would be the one to surprise him and stay to watch?
petra: Er.
hannah: Peter is nonplussed, since for him, this is his new normal.
petra: I don't think he'd be surprised if either Bruce or Tony stuck around.
Steve is probably fascinated.
hannah: And he jumps in with the answer right off the bat, "No, it doesn't hurt."
"Sorry?"
"Most people ask that."
petra: <3
hannah: If it was Steve, he'd nod and keep watching.
petra: Yes.
hannah: Modified-by-science bros.
petra: People do weird things to bodies. This is not news in Steve-land.
Tony would be talking a mile a minute about the practical applications and tensile strength.
hannah: Peter would talk and switch wrists.
Being right-handed means milking the right spinneret takes a little more concentration.
Steve would want to know, though he might not ask, how Peter knows when one's finished.
Then, somehow, we decided Peter/Darcy needed to be a thing. The justification being that Pepper could well hire a political scientist to help her with certain international deals and clients, and Jane can vouch for Darcy once she's finished her degree. Pepper initially hires Darcy for a brief internship, to make sure she'd know what she's doing, during which Jane would take Darcy on a tour of the labs, some of which she had to sign about a billion forms to be allowed in to see. Jane having gone off for something momentarily, she'd be hanging around one of the public workstations alone when Peter comes by. He doesn't recognize her, and they start talking. Peter's quite sweet on Darcy, and they keep on talking, and even after they're split by Jane coming back, they get back together to talk more. Darcy's been around enough geeks to know awkwardness is just a part of the package, and Peter has some idea how to talk to girls. And if Jane ever points out she has a few years on Peter, Darcy would point out Thor's got a few centuries on Jane.
Peter: thank god, someone who doesn't know.
Darcy: thank god, someone who can slow down enough to talk.
Later, Darcy talks to Jane about the little lab guy Jane took her away from - she and Peter know each other as Stark Industries colleagues, but are in such different fields, they don't know each other too well. Jane doesn't say much and moves away from the subject. She doesn't know too much about Peter, who has a file in SHIELD like the rest of the Avengers, just that he's very off-limits in conversation. Tony doesn't much care, though, and when Darcy and Pepper are going over the Finnish contract, Tony comes into Pepper's office, they all get to talking, and Tony asks how the little bug is doing.
To which Darcy says, "Bug?"
"Arachnid, if you wanna be technical."
Darcy gives a blank look, and Tony explains, "You know, with the crawling and the webs, is this the Helsinki trip, you know you never..."
Tony being Tony, Darcy has to go to Peter for an explanation. He stammers, his stomach dropping down to his ankles.
"He said something about wall-crawling, and phwip phwip webbing. Was he making shit up again?"
"It's not really crawling."
"...prove it."
Having no choice, he takes off his shoes and shows her, and all she can say is, "Huh." He waits, and whe she finally asks him how it works, out of relief he starts blabbering on about the Van Der Waas force. When he explains the webbing, all she can say is, "Ew."
Followed quickly by, "Can I play with some of it? I mean--"
"Like a ball of it?"
"Or something."
He frowns, thinking, looking at his wrist, and tries to push out just a little bit. He manages, and hands it over. It really sticks to her fingers.
"So really, how did Mr. Stark find you?"
"I kind of--found him...kind of me just showing up at his house. In the middle of the night."
Darcy gives him a look, but he's not looking at her.
(petra: feet. Feet are Fascinating. at least, Peter's must be right now, the way he's staring.)
"I'd - I knew it wasn't a great idea, and I didn't know what I'd do if he threw me out or called the cops, but I, I'd gotten scared."
And then one thing leads to another, and soon enough Peter takes Darcy web-swinging - "Hold on tight!"