12

Chapter Text

He bit his tongue to stop himself from yawning, the previous night's late patrol catching up to him. After eating the whole pizza Tony had bought him and keeping up idle chat throughout dinner -something that fortunately came naturally- they had gone to the lab so Tony could set him a couple of tests.

Of course the billionaire hadn't phrased them as tests, more so that it was doing some practice and seeing what he was working with so he could figure out what Peter could work with on Saturdays.

The tests themselves weren't that bad and he breezed through them like he did with his homework, so Tony set him some more complicated mechanics and biochemistry stuff after checking his tests and they had worked in a sort-of comfortable silence.

He hadn't known what Tony was thinking but he briefly had to hold back tears after the realisation that things were finally back to normal and he had the liberty to spend time with his loved ones again. He hadn't been able to process Tony's death until two weeks after the funeral when he had walked into his home and seen the picture pinned up on his pinboard -the previous tenants had boxed everything he and May owned and left it in the basement- and broken down.

The picture in question had been of him and Tony in the lab with BB-8 in the background after they had finally wired and coded it, making it functional after a couple of months of planning and a brief pause when he had been stabbed and had needed to go to med bay.

Something had kicked him into realising he couldn't do anything with Tony after he saw that picture and the confused denial fell into an overwhelming sadness that kept him in his room for the first few months.

He hadn't had time to grieve whilst he was trying to get their apartment back and keep his scholarship at Midtown because the Blip had fucked up some legal stuff that kept his place at the school, but Pepper (he hadn't known what to call Pepper when he had gone to the funeral because of her dual last name) had sent a lawyer to sort it out.

He shook his head as if it would throw his thoughts away. All of that was in another timeline and he had the opportunity to change things. He wouldn't allow Tony to die and he would stop Thanos from snapping the Infinity gauntlet.

"Underoos, you good?" Tony asked, turning his head to see him. Schematics were projected into the air and he was playing around with bits and pieces to see what did and didn't fit into whatever he was going to create. Tony had a lot of old files lying around on his databases and had brought all of them up for them to work on.

The workshop was a fairly open place with fluorescent lights keeping the workspace bright. There were a few different workbenches and Tony was working by the one closest to the window whereas he was working at the one in the centre.

"Oh! Yeah, I'm good. I'm just figuring out how to add a Spider-bot into the suits design. I think if I place a layer of black Kevlar and then the Spider-bot then it'll be good."

"What's with the new drone?" Tony asked as he left his schematics in the air and strolled towards Peter's workspace, standing by his side as he projected the schematics of the Spider-bot into the air.

He hadn't done anything crazy like weaponize the Spider-bot -he didn't need the extra collateral damage that would bring- but he had made it out of stronger metals so it could hopefully withstand harsh force. He hadn't mentioned Shocker to Tony and wasn't likely to unless it was life-threatening damage but he hoped to use the Spider-bot for reconnaissance and maybe spying on Fisk to help out Daredevil and give him places the mastermind frequented.

Fisk had started to drop into Queens territory, making himself Peter's problem as well as Daredevil's. He had met the vigilante on a patrol gone astray when the criminals he had been chasing had entered Hell's Kitchen and they had tag teamed to catch the entire group by 1 AM.

He had woken up to headlines that involved the elusive Daredevil and Queen's Spider-Man team up to catch runaway chemical truck and had needed to explain to Tony about his partnership with the other vigilante soon after.

Daredevil was a good guy! He helped keep Hell's Kitchen safe, and while his means weren't the same as Peter's, they were effective and managed to get the job done. He had a cool, if not freaky, ability to tell when someone was coming from a decent distance and if they were lying. It was similar to his enhanced senses!

"I figured I might be able to make it more resistant to harsh forces. Some of the alien tech is very destructive and I don't want the drone to be damaged if it was caught in combat or something," he replied, making sure to word his sentence so it was ambiguous enough but it was also a good reason.

He didn't want to make Tony worry more than he had to.

"A combination of magnesium-based alloys?" Tony cocked his head as he examined the notes he had made during class. The last time he had manufactured the Spider-bot with the fabricator, he had used other types of alloys and had found moderate success, especially during the week before Beck exposed his identity.

He had completed a stealth mission in a supposedly abandoned warehouse with his Spider-bot and had been dismayed when it had been destroyed after being smacked into a wall, but he hadn't found the time to make a new one after he and May had relocated to Happy's apartment. Trying to patrol without people calling his name -not his vigilante persona but his actual name- had distracted him and he had taken to patrolling later in the evening.

Balancing unfulfilling patrols alongside school and then the villains from the multiverse had left him with no time to make moderations to his suit beside the design modification Doctor Octavius had given him after he had changed the implant in his neck. He would have had to be an idiot to prolong making changes to his suit after literally being sent back in time to fix his mistakes.

"Yeah, I figured the Spider-bot needed to withstand an impact of at least 100 newtons and magnesium-based alloys are incredibly strong. And after the warehouse…" He murmured the last part, tensing when Tony looked at him.

"I get what you man about needing your Spider-bot to survive under tense conditions. You could potentially mix the alloys with vibranium to give it however much durability you want. I didn't quite catch the last part though, wanna repeat that?" He asked as Peter's heartrate rapidly increased like he was under attack.

He couldn't risk Tony finding out about the warehouse. He hadn't found out last time and he didn't need to know this time!

"Oh, sorry!" He blurted out, rubbing his hand against the side of his neck in mock-sheepishness. "That's what I was thinking as well! Balancing vibranium with alloys would keep the bot lightweight and sturdy, but I didn't know if I had access to the vibranium so I left that out. Mr Stark, don't worry about it if it costs you too much." His pulse raced as he prayed he hadn't overcompensated with the last part, forcing himself to keep his body language relaxed as Tony raised an eyebrow.

"Kid, this workshop has a fabricator with access to essentially every resource in the world. You could create anything and it would take a miniscule fraction of that, you're good to go if you want to use some vibranium, just don't go overboard."

His eyes widened. "Oh my god, Mr Stark, I don't actually need the vibranium! Doesn't it need to be used for more important stuff?" He cut himself off before he said something stupid like merging vibranium into the nanotech suit even though the nanotech suit wouldn't be made until sometime next year.

He couldn't afford to slip up and fuck up the timeline. Not when Tony was one of the smartest people he knew and had literally figured out time travel when he was given the information by Scott. Giving Tony information he shouldn't know early on wouldn't help his case and slipping up was like asking for everything to go wrong.

"Spider-Man stuff ranks pretty high on my list and besides, it's not like the whole bot will be made out of vibranium." Tony shrugged. "Tell me when the schematics are completed and I can start up the fabricator."

A few hours later and the plans for the Spider-bot had been completed, so he had been fairly productive for the day. It was close to 5 and the Spider-bot had been made by the fabricator and implanted into the back of his modified suit, leaving him with the opportunity to test it out when he went on patrol later on.

"Wow, it's amazing," he exclaimed, testing out the second model he had made for casual use just like he had been at the passport office before he left for Europe. He had used his drone to activate one of the booths to get his passport - bearing in mind he had been in a rush to make sure his documents were correct so it wasn't the most unethical use of technology.

The drone buzzed around the workshop as he controlled it with his watch, the watch face showing whatever the wide lens of the drone could see. He startled slightly wen Tony's face showed up, glancing at the billionaire before looking at the watch face.

"Nice job," he said, waving at the camera before Peter pressed a button on his watch and the drone whizzed back to him before curling into a ball and dropping into his hand. He pocketed it before looking at Tony, smiling sheepishly at him.

"Thanks Mr Stark."

He poured some Maltesers into a bowl before picking up the other one filled with Doritos and making his way to the living room where Michelle was, placing the bowls on the table before sitting on the floor.

Notebooks were strewn across the table as well as the various notes and flashcards they had made over the past few hours. Golden rays streamed through the gap in the curtains as the sun set and they had turned on a couple of lamps half an hour ago after Michelle proclaimed she didn't want to damage her eyes any more than she did at home with her poorly lit bedroom.

She was wearing one of his oversized sweaters with 'are you a charged atom because I got my ion you' emblazoned on the front and her skinny black jeans as she checked over some diagrams he had drawn from memory. Twirling the green pen in her hand before she made some corrections, he waited for her to finish before deciding to read over an article to do with a landform they had covered a few weeks ago.

"Is that a tombola?" He lowered the paper to see Michelle squinting at the paper he was holding.

"No, it's a tombolo," he replied, turning the paper around and showing her the diagram on the front with labels and complex annotations.

"…I thought it said tambourine."

A beat.

He spluttered out an incredulous laugh as Michelle buried her face in her hands, her body shaking as she laughed as well. Some of her hair fell forwards as she continued laughing and dropped the pen she had been using to mark his work.

"A tambourine!?" He exclaimed, his ribs starting to hurt as he curled into himself. "How-!"

"I don't know!"

He flopped on the floor as he tried to catch his breath. "Maybe we need a break. We've been at this for a few hours anyway, can't be more prepared for a test than that."

"Yeah, I agree."

He shuffled towards her and leaned against her legs as she pulled the bowl of Doritos towards them, eating a couple before offering the bowl to him. They sat in a domestic silence as they listened to the occasional car pass by, the thin windows seemingly doing nothing to stop them from hearing the outside world.

He had been to Michelle's a couple of times in the week after they had returned from Europe and her neighbourhood was fairly nice, with fewer cars passing by and less drunkards than what he was used to. He had met her dad and he had seemed pretty chill, giving Peter the all-knowing stare of 'if you hurt her, you'll regret it' as a strong warning, but he hadn't said anything more. Rather, he hadn't found the opportunity to after his identity had been exposed.

Sinking into the space between Michelle's legs and the couch, he revelled in the domestic worries he had now instead of the world-ending ones he had contended with in what was a few months ago to him but a few years in the future now. Worrying about school and his friends was a much more pleasant worry than finding out a way to prevent the multiverse from tearing.

Maybe in another universe where Stephen cast the spell correctly and no one had a recollection of him in their lives and where May was…gone, he would be suffering from his mistakes in the worst way possible. A world where no one knew who he was and he had to start his life all over again.

He would have needed to sort out his identity from his national insurance number to his birth certificate, he would have needed to buy an apartment -somewhere dingy because he didn't have that much money to spend- and get a job and come to terms with no longer having his friends.

Would he have gone back to them? His instinctual reaction was yes. He had promised them that he would come back and make them remember them, even if it was with a letter written on a scrap of paper. But if he thought about it for longer, he may not have. They would have been safer without him and the chaos he brought as Spider-Man.

It would have been torture to stay out of their lives but if it kept them out of danger then he wouldn't have had a choice. He couldn't risk them like he had May.

"Oi," Michelle murmured as she tapped his shoulder. "What are you thinking?"

He opened his mouth before shutting it, hesitating as he tried to word his thoughts. He didn't want to give her the wrong impression about not going to find her and Ned in the other timeline and making it seem like he didn't trust her, but he knew he wanted to be honest with her.

"Just…wondering what would've happened if Stephen hadn't messed up the spell," he replied quietly, slowly raising his hand to her face and tucking a few stray hairs behind her ear. "I know all of that is gone and we have a chance to fix everything but…"

"It's the 'what if's', isn't it?" He nodded. "What would have happened if we had forgotten you, how life would've gone on…" She looked at him pensively. "I think Ned and I would have realised something important to us was missing. That life didn't function properly and we were missing someone. Of course, I would have figured it out eventually," she added half-jokingly as she tried to lighten the sullen mood that had fallen over them.

"Without a doubt," he chuckled, picking up a Malteser and throwing it up high before catching it in his mouth, making Michelle huff in amusement.

"Hey, look at me," she murmured, prompting him to look up and met her concerned gaze. "If we ever reach a situation like before, promise me you'll come to me and Ned and talk to us? It can't go as badly as last time if we have a plan."

"Yeah, okay," he replied softly, resting against her as she gently ran her hand through his hair in the way she knew calmed him down. Neither of them acknowledged that he hadn't actually said I promise.

Notes:

Imagine trying to steal the Tesseract from Asgard...how well could that go? Anyone got any good ideas??