Chapter Text
Peter was a borrower.
That was a wholly undeniable truth - one that wasn't up for consideration, at all.
It was just that… over the past however long while, Peter had comprehended certain key facts about himself, and they'd gotten him to come to a steady realization: that he wasn’t exactly… like other borrowers.
That wasn’t to say physically or anything - oh, no. Peter was very much just as limited in the physical aspect as every other borrower around, seeing as to how he was stuck under six inches tall. Not even five for him, honestly, which was crappy in and of itself. And, sure, he was a great climber - fantastic, if he did say so himself - but most borrowers were at least somewhat adequate at the skill, since their lives quite often depended on such capabilities.
No, Peter was different in… different regards.
Several of them, in fact.
For one, he was adopted. Alright - he wasn’t saying being adopted was entirely unusual; being a borrower was hard. Dangerous. Deadly. So it wasn’t exactly uncommon for a close friend or relative of one borrower family to take in the young of another if their former guardians met an ill-fated end.
However, there were a couple issues with that for Peter. For one, he’d already been ‘adopted’ once - taken in by his Uncle Ben and Aunt May. The problem was that he didn’t have anyone close left after they too were gone. He didn’t have any family left, and he’d been forced to move away from his only friend. So he ended up being more or less foisted upon the only people who had a kid his age: the Thompsons.
He did not like being with the Thompsons, and that dislike was very much mutual. First off, not only did they completely dote upon and coddle their single, bloodborne child, but they also practically never did any borrower work themselves. They had a fantastic set up in the building next to the one Peter had lived in with his Aunt and Uncle, living in a well secluded and maintained corner of a completely furnished office of some guy named Stan. The dude looked half-ancient, honestly, but it apparently suited the Thompsons well because the human constantly forgot food and other supplies out and about and literally never noticed when they went missing. Not to mention that, since it was an office, the family of borrowers had complete, free reign after hours, secure in their knowledge that Stan wouldn’t be returning until morning.
He was getting off track, though.
The track was that the Thompsons didn’t like him, and that went double for their son, Flash. No, it went… quadruple. Double quadruple. Octdruple?
Flash really, really didn’t like Peter. To put it mildly.
Peter could’ve taken the hate. Really, he would’ve taken it like a champ, if he did say so himself, and he did - for a while. But the issue didn’t stay as a purely emotional thing, as Flash was quick to no longer limit himself to verbal taunts, to calling Peter stupid names like ‘Penis,’ ‘Puny,’ ‘stupid,’ and literally whatever else came to mind that even held some semblance of an insult in it, especially if it was an alliteration to ‘Parker’ or rhymed with the word. Regardless, though, it wasn’t kept to just that.
Flash had taken it to physical proportions. He started lightly: with some jarring of shoulders, some shoves, some elbows to the side.
Nothing Peter couldn’t take.
But then it started progressing.
The shoves got harder. The shoulder bumps started ramming him into walls. The elbow jabs started leaving bruises on his ribs.
And, as time passed without Flash’s parents saying a single word against their son for the blatant physical and verbal abuse that he was doing - even right in front of their eyes, though more toned down - Flash apparently realized there was no need to limit himself.
So he moved on to punches, to kicks, to full on body slams that left Peter covered in bruises until his faster than average healing had them fading back away into nothing - until the cycle repeated again.
It all came to a head when the two of them were out together one night - Mr. and Mrs. Thompson deciding to stay in while letting their youngers gather some way-too-easy-to-get supplies.
Peter and Flash had been on the countertop, shoving crackers and cheese and foil and whatever other random bits and bobs Stan had left scattered across the surface from earlier in the day, when it happened.
Peter had been turning back towards the edge of the counter, closing the flap of his shoulder sack with a click of the clasp, when his neck prickled with a sudden, intense rising of the tiny hairs across it. He hadn't even had a second to process the flashing wave of foreboding that’d shocked its way through his system before two palms slammed into his shoulder blades and shoved.
Sending him right over the edge.
His throat had clamped shut on the scream that tore its way through his heart and lungs, and he'd tumbled through the open air, wind whistling in his ears as he raced towards the unforgiving ground that looked miles away below him.
And then his rucksack had gave a faint, nearly unnoticeable tug, and a realization had crashed into him that he took a desperate hold of like salvation.
Wrapped securely around his waist with the excess spooled together in his pack was the corded string that he used to rappel.
And the other end of the line was attached to the hook he’d secured on the ridge of the countertop that now seemed so far above him. He’d had plans to go scavenging on the ground while Flash turned in for the night, and it seemed that his forethought to attach the hook while still collecting materials with the other had given him a getaway.
The sensation he’d felt was the string forcing its way out of his pack in order to keep the two ends connected for as long as the string was, but Peter’s system flooded with ice as the air continued to tear at his clothes and scream in his ears.
Because the string on its own wouldn’t save him.
If he left it to simply extend all the way out, it was true that he wouldn’t hit the ground, as he’d carefully, precisely measured the line out so that it was about two inches off the floor from the base of the cabinets to the top of the countertop.
But at the speed he was going at? The velocity?
It wouldn’t matter if he hit the ground.
As soon as the string went taut? Wrapped tight around his waist as it was? It’d snap his spine clean through, leaving him paralyzed, if not just dead on impact.
So he couldn’t let that happen.
Instead, he’d grit his teeth so hard he later found out he’d chipped a tooth, he reorientated himself so his back was towards the ground and he was facing the far off ceiling, and he snapped his arms forwards and gripped the braided string that was quickly unwrapping in front of him as tight as he could.
It’d burned. The friction of his hands gripping the rough material while he was ripping down it at who knows what speed nearly immediately tore his palms raw. He didn’t care. He'd held on with brute force of will as he struggled desperately to slow his built momentum, pulling himself forwards so that his elbows were bent and he was in an almost upright position, hands clenched around the burning rope as he continued to tear down it.
And, almost miraculously, it worked.
His speed began to slow further and further until he came to a turtle-paced stop, holding the rope in a deathgrip, ankles locked together below around it as well as if that helped anything.
In the dim light - no light, really, only the aid of his evolved eyes that enabled him to gaze through the inky blackness - he could see the dull glimmer of dark red on the rope above his hands, bloodied by the veins pumping under the torn-open flesh of his palms.
And he’d stayed there, trembles slowly becoming noticeable as his white-knuckled grip on the rope refused to recede, for what felt like hours.
He’d stayed there until he managed to unlock the tense muscles of his neck enough to tip his head down to the ground below him, and he hadn’t even had enough breath in him to let out a near hysterical, bitter laugh at the sight of the floor only being maybe three human inches away from him. Even the irony of him being at nearly the literal end of his rope like he felt mentally in that moment wasn’t enough to pull him out of his blank state of mind.
It’d only been when he’d heard a faint nose so far above, a sound reminiscent of a scoff, that had him craning his neck up, up, and up, that he was brought back to himself.
Flash was peering over the edge, still standing a good bit away because he’d always been afraid of heights, just far enough to see Peter.
Even so far away, Peter’s vision zoomed in on the other’s face - on their expression.
So he saw what was written across it.
There was not even an inch of guilt. Of regret. Only something that looked like exhilaration and a twinge that Peter was horrified to label as disappointment.
Peter had left, then, after he got himself safely on the ground.
Left and never turned back.
His hands had healed, over time, going from patchy, thick scabs that cracked every time he curled his palms to likely permanent, white scars that extended from near the base of his palms to the second joints of his fingers.
And Peter found somewhere else to call home.
Well, no, scratch that - that was a lie.
First off, it took Peter forever to settle down, to the point he considered whether, somehow, he was intrinsically nomadic and had just never realized.
He ended up leaving the building, but only going so far as to the next one over, where he was pretty sure no other borrowers lived. That particular iota of information didn’t bother him in the slightest, seeing as to how he was completely and utterly unwanted by all the others he knew and the ones that’d taken him in either ignored him with disdain or had literally tried to kill him.
He would’ve liked to travel further away, honestly, but being five inches tall and being outside were two things that reputedly did not mix well.
In the outdoors, there were predators literally everywhere because literally everything was a predator, from things you’d think of to things you wouldn’t.
Cats, dogs, rats, random passerby, cars, bikes, birds - even pigeons, yes, even those beady eyed crumb lovers. And weather factors too, like rain, snow, sleet, wind. Heck, if it was windy enough and he got hold of a big enough leaf, he could probably fly away with it.
The point was, however, that he’d been putting himself at enough risk by moving from one building to another right next to it, and that was that.
He’d worked his way through the walls and the smaller vents and even the pipes at a point or two, exploring every nook and cranny of the building. Not literally, though, because the place was huge. Peter had no idea why such a small working office - the one he’d lived in previously - was sat next to the literal tower that he was in now. It had to be nearly a hundred stories high - he’d managed to see one of the elevators at one point and the electric number counter above the steel doors had the number ‘87,’ written across it, so he figured his guess couldn’t be too far off.
He was more than happy to take on the arduous task of finding his way up.
Completely relevantly but on another note, a bonus to his new living space was that there were no pests.
None.
Zilch.
Nada.
Not a single, mandible munching cockroach or car-sized rat in sight.
Nor were there any traps set out for them, which was a definite plus seeing as to how Peter was at the exact size to be caught in them as well. Which would be hugely problematic and likely life-threatening for him. He shuddered at the thought of those old fashioned mouse traps; his Uncle once told him about some guy he knew a long time ago having gotten his leg caught in one of them. The metal had snapped shut over the man’s knee and had literally crushed the bone underneath it.
Aunt May had given Ben a huge scolding when she caught him telling Peter about that - Peter with his handkerchief blanket pulled up to his nose as he stared wide eyed at his Uncle - but Ben had still later told Peter the rest, saying that the guy’s friends had gotten him out but he’d never been able to walk again.
It’d been a warning, Peter knew - now more than he did then. Because any serious injury to a borrower was often an injury for life.
They simply didn’t have the tools or the knowledge to correctly fix dangerous injuries, so stuff like broken bones were set as best as they could be, but they often healed wrong if they weren’t clean breaks, leaving borrowers permanently disfigured or unable to properly take care of themselves or their family.
Some people still said those were the lucky ones.
When Peter thought of his parents, of his Aunt and Uncle, he sometimes couldn’t help but agree.
Regardless of his thoughts, his travels continued.
He kept on and on, with him filching food from the multitudes of break rooms available across nearly all the floors, for an immeasurable amount of time.
Until he stopped.
He stopped, and he stared, and then he stared some more.
He’d known, because, even though he doesn’t go out and about during the day, he could still hear things through the vents and the walls, but it was different actually seeing with his own eyes.
There, alone, in the middle of the lab and working on some unfathomable piece of no doubt advanced technology, was Tony Stark.
One may question how or why a borrower knew who some human was, but he lived in the walls, not under a rock.
It was true that most borrowers didn’t pay too much attention to the outside world, mainly focusing on the continued maintenance of their own survival, but Peter had never been like that, and his Aunt and Uncle had indulged him.
They’d seen how his eyes would sparkle whenever he heard about some crazy event or another on one of the TVs, and they’d helped him keep up with it all.
So Peter, from the age of seven all the way up to twelve and a half, had heard anything and everything he could about superheroes.
He was enamored from the first word he heard about them. Spectacular, larger than life people who set about saving others in need for no other reason but their outstanding morals and will. There were a multitude to look at: Captain America, The Hulk, Hawkeye, Black Widow, Thor.
But Peter’s favorite - right from the very start in a way that’d never quite seemed to fade in light of the others - was Iron Man.
Peter loved Iron Man. He was the first to kind of make a big bang in the hero biz, and he seemed to rock the whole world with his presence. At least, from what Peter could tell from looking through the slats of a vent at a single TV screen.
He was showy, he had pizzazz, he had the big guns and he wasn’t afraid to use them.
But it was more than that.
It was that he was Tony Stark, too. Not the other way around, no. Peter didn’t think about it as ‘Tony Stark is Iron Man’ - no. He meant what he said: it was that Iron Man was Tony Stark.
Tony Stark, the revolutionary, greatest inventor and mind of his time, as far as Peter could tell - or was concerned.
It blew Peter’s mind, how someone could be such a literal genius. How someone could accomplish so much all on their own. He’d seen the weapons, and, yes, those were completely amazing and unfathomable on their own. But then Stark kept going. He went into neurological stuff, into societally beneficial technological advancements, into the medical industry.
That last one really stuck out to Peter, he could admit. Sue him, he was worried about slowly starving to death all alone in an otherwise empty wall because he broke his leg. Seeing others get help that previously seemed impossible to them lit up something warm inside Peter’s soul.
Anyways, though, Peter thought Tony Stark was amazing.
And now he was in the man’s tower, practically right in front of him.
Well, no, not exactly because Peter was probably a good fifty human feet away safely ensconced in a high vent across the room, but it was close enough.
It was at this new location that another difference of Peter’s began to grow.
Peter couldn’t stay there all the time, mostly because there was no viable food source and he could only carry so much with him, so that meant he had to make a lot of time for ‘foraging.’
He was there as often as he could be, though.
He stayed there for hours, just watching, eyes raptly focused and attention completely taken by the scene below him. Stark nearly always had his blue hologram projector on, displaying the components of whatever he was working on in the moment, and Peter avidly took in every detail of it that he could, never more thankful for his keen eyesight than he was in those moments.
More often than not, Peter didn’t understand most of what was going on, largely due to the fact that his schooling in mechanics or engineering or most anything advanced, really, was nonexistent. Or, well, all self-taught, at least, since Peter was constantly messing around with some gizmo or other that was small enough for him to fiddle with and try to work out, though this meant that the vast portion of his knowledge was practical, not theoretical.
At least he knew how to read and write - thank God for that. He kept a pencil nib and a large, ripped corner of a piece of paper or two with him at all times to jot down whatever thought or realization hit him during his near daily observations.
It was a slow, grueling process to learn, but he forced down his frustration every time it tried to win out against him. He was aware he was starting backwards, learning from the master who was working like a master while Peter could hardly begin to label himself as even the beginner of beginners. This awareness was exactly what kept Peter doggedly continuing on, eyes squinting at the holograms and Tony’s precise, doubtless movements as he pieced together whatever work of fantastical technology he completed next.
Peter often watched until he was nearly falling asleep on his notes, graphite smudged thickly against his palm, throat completely parched from him having not taken a single pause in the countless number of hours he’d been observing. At least he had his own him-sized water bottle. He knew it was just one of those little pop-cap lidded test tube thingies for small samples, but it worked more than well enough for his purposes, especially now when he constantly accidentally dehydrated himself in his pursuit of knowledge.
And, okay, yes, Peter knew that on some level his behavior wasn’t entirely acceptable.
Other borrowers might argue that they were borrowers and they’ve always lived side-by-side with humans without the latter’s knowledge, but Peter felt that he was likely taking it a step too far. There was a difference between ‘living with’ and doing… whatever it was that Peter has been doing for what’s probably been months, now. He certainly hasn’t been keeping to himself, at the very least, even if he has been staying out of sight.
Which brings Peter back around to how he’s progressed a step further - became more different - from a normal borrower.
Borrowers rarely learned for the sake of learning. Peter being taught how to read and write was the extent of it, and even that was something that a good portion of borrowers didn’t know or teach how to do. Peter was half sure the only reason his parents taught him was because, otherwise, Peter would’ve been bouncing off the walls with his constant boredom and excess energy that had nothing else to attach itself to. It was just, learning was something borrowers thought of in terms of practicality and skills. Of things you need to know in order to survive. Like how to climb, or rappel, or properly store food so it lasts longer. Those were acceptable things to learn how to do.
What was not acceptable, in the sense that it was just simply not done - was learning with no other purpose to it. You want to learn math? Why? That’s not going to get food in your stomach. You want to learn science? What for? That’s not going to help you climb better. And so on and so forth, all in all culminating to the concept that learning simply for the pursuit of knowledge was pointless and frowned upon behavior.
That’s all to say, Peter was committing a bit of a taboo, of sorts. An unspoken one, for the most part, but a taboo all the same. Because Peter was learning, as best and as desperately as he could, and it was for no other purpose than his own, complete and utter enamoration with the subject.
Not with Tony Stark, no - though Peter can readily admit that he is an avid fan of the man both in and out of his suit - but with the same stuff Stark was constantly working on: the engineering, the mechanics, the sprinkle of science slathered over the physics and complex mathematics of it all.
Peter couldn’t bring himself to mind his own tabooing, though. Couldn’t bring himself to regret coming here, finding here, feeling as close to settled as he’d ever been since losing the last of his family. So he didn’t, and he stayed, and he watched and learned and let himself feel a stray curl of contentment wrap itself around his cracked and worn heart.