Chapter Text
Peter can vividly remember how his Uncle Ben would say that good or bad luck was nothing but the wrong or right mix of opportunity, preparation, and confidence. As a kid, Peter had marvelled at his uncle's wisdom, at his sheer intelligence and grit. Peter had carried his uncle’s little sayings and outlooks on life close to his heart, treasuring them as other kids would a beloved toy or doll.
Now, though, Peter can’t help but roll his eyes at that sentiment.
No such thing as bad luck? What, outside of the famed Parker luck that Peter has become painfully familiar with, could explain his disaster of a life?
Confidence hadn’t kept his parents’ plane from falling from the sky. Preparation hadn’t stopped the copper bullets from ripping through the flesh of his aunt and uncle, tearing Peter for the second time in his short life from the people tasked with taking care of him.
Out of the hundreds of New York foster homes, Peter has the delightful opportunity of being placed into a house where the air is constantly thick with tension, the foster father a venomous snake, lurking for what seems to be hours in an eerie calm until it's finally time for him to strike.
Of course, Peter figures Secretary Ross isn’t all that bad. All four kids have access to food and clean water, and even though they’re all crammed into the same bedroom, they each get their own bed. Well, technically they’re bunk beds, but that doesn’t really bother Peter. In fact, it kind of reminds him of his old room at May and Ben’s apartment.
Which, of course, only makes him sad again.
It’s not like Ross was home much anyway. When he was at home, he was working in his bedroom until the early hours of the morning, and unfortunately for them, Ross only seemed to have the time to pay them any mind when he was pissed about something. Which, admittedly, was growing to become more and more frequent in Peter’s case.
A small part of Peter felt some semblance of responsibility for the others. He knew it was stupid, since they were all going through the exact same thing, but the idea of Harry, Gwen, or Peni getting hurt felt worse to Peter than if he himself was the one getting hurt.
The unfortunate truth is, as much as Peter may hate the fact, there’s not much he can do about it. After all, he’s just a regular kid.
--------------
“If you could have one superpower, what would it be?”
The question is brought up absent-mindedly, as an attempt to break the awkward silence that Peter and his foster sister have fallen into. The rare moment of calm is nice, Peter has to admit, but the scarcity of the moment only adds to the trepidation that he feels coursing through all of his being.
“Maybe healing? Not like super-healing for me, I’d want to be able to use the power to heal whoever I want.” Peter sucks in a breath of cool night air, trying to figure out exactly how to vocalize his thoughts. “I’d just want to help people. Whatever power allows me to help as many people as possible, that’s what I’d choose.”
“Wow.”
Gwen’s giggles at the sheer sincerity of Peter’s answer are interrupted as Harry stepped out of the cramped house that they all called home, a lit cigarette dangling from his fingertips. “You have to be kidding me, that’s such a Peter answer. I would have said super-strength like any rational human being.”
Gwen’s giggles erupt into full-blown laughter as Peter’s brows furrow in confusion. “A ‘Peter’ answer? What does that even mean?”
Gwen takes a deep breath, calming herself down enough to utter a short, “Harry’s right, Peter,” before going back to shaking with laughter.
“Fuck you guys.” Despite himself, Peter smiles as he plucks the cigarette from between his foster brother’s lips and takes a long drag from it. “What about you, Gwen? What do you have in mind that’s so much better than healing?”
“Teleportation.”
Harry lets out a chuckle of disbelief. “You’re serious? Man, you’re both terrible at choosing superpowers.”
Peter tries to brush it off, but the insult stings more than it should. “What would you even do with superstrength? At least healing and teleportation are both somewhat useful.”
“Have you seen the Hulk? Thor? Captain America? I could do whatever I want with super strength.”
Gwen scoffs. “Banner’s a genius, Thor’s a god, and Captain America’s a billion-year-old war hero.”
“Whatever,” Harry grumbles, obviously put off by Gwen’s teasing comment. “It’s freezing out here. You’re both idiots, and I’m going to bed.” He flicks the cigarette butt onto the ground before stomping on it, and climbing the steps to the house without a second thought.
Peter groans, bending down to pick up the litter. “Idiot. What does he think will happen when Ross comes home and sees trash on the stairs? Delinquent teenagers can’t be good for Ross’s image, so you know he’d for sure flip out over a cigarette.”
Gwen leans down to cup Peter’s cheek in her hand, and sticks her bottom lip out in a mock-pout. “Oh, Petey-pie, you couldn’t be a delinquent if you tried.”
“Hey!” Peter slaps her hand away. “I could be rebellious if I wanted to! Drugs, violence- uh, late schoolwork-”
Peter trails off as Gwen breaks into another fit of giggles. “You’re killing me, Parker, I can’t handle it anymore. I should probably head inside, too. I’m on dishes today.”
“Yeah,” Peter nods. “Same, I have homework.”
“My point exactly.” Gwen turned and smirked at Peter before heading inside.
Peter refuses to respond to his foster sister’s attack on his character, because he’s a mature individual. Plus, he actually does have a bunch of work that he has to do.
“Peter, what the fuck?”
Gwen’s shout comes from the kitchen, and even though Peter knows that it’s probably nothing, it still has his heart pounding in his chest as he sprints over to where she is. “What? What is it?”
When Peter slides into the kitchen, he’s met with the sight of Gwen holding up his backpack, which at this point was made more of duct tape than of fabric. “I’ve told you a million times not to leave your school stuff lying around. Just because you go to that fancy school now- what’s this?”
Her face morphs from confusion to disbelief as she reads the top paper from the crumpled stack sitting on top of the feat of engineering that Peter calls his backpack. “A Stark Internship application? Do they even hire teenagers?”
Peter feels his face heat up. “No, I- not usually, so I probably won’t get it. My physics teacher said that I should still apply, though.”
“Fuck, that’s crazy. Could your school please hurry up and process my scholarship application? Having adults that actually care about what you do with your life must be wild.” Gwen tries to keep her tone light, but Peter can still hear the note of panic that comes up any time she mentions her application.
“You’ll get it. You’re literally ten times smarter than any of the kids at Midtown.”
Gwen offers him a soft smile. “Thanks.”
She continues leafing through the papers, and smirks once she realizes what she’s looking at. “None of this is your homework, is it? The names are all different.”
“Peter Parker’s paper-writing service will promote a near-perfect grade point average for a very select part of Midtown Tech’s student population.”
Gwen smiles, only a little concerned for Peter’s sanity. “Rich kids actually pay you to do their homework?”
Peter beams, obviously proud of himself. “Worksheets are five bucks per page, essays and book reports are thirty-five bucks a pop!”
Gwen nods in approval before going back to the stack of papers, organizing them by subject since Peter evidently doesn’t know how to do it himself.
Peter raises his eyebrows, surprised by Gwen’s efforts. “You know you don’t have to organize my stuff, right? I have a system.”
“Yeah, it’s just a bad system- holy shit.” Her eyes grow even wider when she notices the next paper in the stack she’s holding. “Is this a permission slip for Oscorp?”
Peter pales at the reminder. “I completely forgot about that!”
“You forgot about a field trip to Oscorp?” Gwen frowns, glaring at the paper in her hands. “How- oh my god, Peter, this is tomorrow. You’re seriously throwing away the opportunity to take a tour of Oscorp? I mean, I know you prefer Stark Industries, but science is science.”
“It costs twenty-five dollars.” Peter looks at the ground, not wanting to meet Gwen’s eyes. “Plus, I need Ross’s signature, and I just haven’t gotten around to asking him yet-”
“I’ll forge it for you.” The unexpected voice makes Peter jump, but when he whirls around, he’s met with the sight of Harry leading a sleepy-eyed Peni to the kitchen by her hand. “I’ve known how to fake his signature since I was fourteen.”
Peter shakes his head, about to respond, but Gwen cuts him off. “Peni, baby, why are you awake? It’s late, is everything okay?”
“She had a nightmare,” Harry groans. “Wouldn’t go back to sleep until I made her some cheerios. What nine-year-old can’t make their own cheerios?”
“I’ll get you some cereal, Peni,” Peter says, automatically padding across the kitchen. “And Harry, we all know his signature, that’s not the issue here. Pretty much all of the elite high schools in the state will be there-” Harry makes a face at the word ‘elite,’ but Peter ignores him. “-Which means there will be media coverage, which means he’ll see that it’s happening, and if I go without asking he’ll know I faked the signature.”
“Yeah, you know, and there’s the whole issue of that twenty-five dollar fine-” Harry’s teasing tone was cut off as Peter firmly placed a bowl of expertly-made cheerios in front of the sleepy nine-year-old, who offered a small “thank you” as Peter handed her a spoon.
“Shut up, Harry, you know I’m just trying to spend money wisely. Is a tour really worth twenty-five dollars when we could use it to buy a whole meal for the four of us? I don’t want to be selfish. And if I skip the field trip, I can pick up an extra shift at Delmar’s instead.”
Peni, Gwen, and Harry collectively groan. “You’re not selfish, Peter,” Harry says firmly. “It’s your money. Go on the damn field trip, although I don’t know why you’d even want a tour of my dead illegitimate father’s company, that place is a dump.”
Peter’s mouth opens in horror, and he struggles to find words to say. “I- oh my god, I’m so sorry. I completely forgot that Oscorp… your father, how could I forget? It completely slipped my mind-”
“It’s fine.” Harry cuts off Peter’s frantic apology with a forced grin. “The bastard’s long dead, so as far as I’m concerned, Oscorp is just a company. Yeah, the fact that I was written out of his will before I was even born kinda sucks, but it’s fine. It has cool science stuff, you’re allowed to go and enjoy cool science stuff even though the guy responsible for it was a huge prick.”
Peter opens his mouth to argue, but is cut off by the sound of the front door slamming open. The calm seems to drain out of the room as they all freeze, holding their breath as they watch Ross hang up his coat, set his briefcase down, and amble into the kitchen.
Power seems to almost ooze from the man. He carries the stench of fresh money wherever he goes, although of course, none of the kids have ever seen the benefits of said money and power.
Instead, Ross’s gift to each of his wards is one that lingers in their hearts even when the man is nowhere to be found, which turns out to be a common occurrence.
Terror.
“Why the fuck is she eating cereal in the middle of the night?” The air suddenly grows even colder, fear practically radiating off of the four kids.
Peter takes an instinctive step between Peni and the man before responding. “I got it out for her, sir. I’m sorry-” He bites his tongue as he practically feels Gwen’s eye roll from all the way across the room.
“Can you sign Peter’s permission slip?” Peter has to suppress a flinch at the blatant question, Gwen’s harsh tone only making the whole situation so much worse. Sometimes, Peter has to admit, it almost feels like while the rest of them are walking on eggshells, Gwen is the one making the omelette. “Oscorp is giving tours tomorrow, and a bunch of prestigious schools are participating,” she continues, demonstrating how convincing she is when she needs to be. “If he goes, it could be good publicity.”
The silence that ensues does nothing to ease the tension flooding the air, but each kid knows the weight behind the argument that Gwen had just made.
Ross is a businessman. None of them are really sure what he actually does, and no one has been brave enough to ask and risk suffering through a prolonged awkward conversation with the man, but they do know that publicity is the only reason that they’re living in the house. When public image is involved, decisions in Secretary Ross’s household seem to suddenly become no-brainers.
“Well? Is somebody going to get me a pen or what?”
--------------
As much as Peter hates to admit it, he was excited to tour Oscorp. Why wouldn’t he be? A job in STEM would literally be a dream come true, so getting to see scientists at work is almost too much for him to handle.
“This is so awesome!” Ned is practically vibrating with excitement beside Peter, and he can’t even try to stop himself from beaming at his friend’s joy. Peter can’t remember the last time he saw his friend this happy.
“I mean, it’s definitely no Stark Industries, but it’ll do.” Peter grins playfully at Ned, who is too pumped to even register Peter’s blatant jab at Oscorp.
The lobby is filled with tour groups, and the chaos is enough to put Peter on edge as he anxiously tries to stay with his class. The last thing he wants is for the school to have to call Ross and tell him that Peter had gotten lost on a field trip that he was barely even allowed to go to.
The group stops, and Peter takes the opportunity to get some shots of the Oscorp lobby for the school paper. If he’s being honest, only one or two of his pictures will probably even end up in the paper, but he’s too keyed-up to even try to distinguish necessary pictures from unnecessary ones. Anyway, Peter figures that it's better to have too many pictures than not enough.
“Hey, Peter, do you want to come to a GSA meeting after the trip? I know you usually don’t, but if you wanted to tag along, you totally could!” Peter smiled at Ned’s obvious attempt to distract him from his own anxiety, which must have been evident in his body language, but he shook his head.
“I need to go home after. There’s some stuff I have to do around the house- oh, Ned!” Peter stops in his tracks when he sees a huge Oscorp sign. “This is perfect! If you pose in front of that sign, I can take your picture!”
Ned beams as he scrambles to get in front of the sign.
“Okay. A little to the left-”
“Parker!”
Peter jumps at the unexpected voice, almost dropping his camera, but Ned only smiles wider. “MJ! Perfect timing. Peter’s taking my picture, and I was thinking you could write the article to go along with it. What do you think about ‘Teenage genius Ned Leeds yet again saves the world from certain destruction’ as the title?”
MJ smirks. “How about ‘Teenage nerd fanboys over corporation responsible for decades of war profiteering’?”
“What are you talking about? Stark Industries is responsible for so much more war profiteering! In comparison, Oscorp’s done basically nothing.” Ned exclaims.
Peter can’t keep himself from butting in. “It’s not a competition, but for the record, Tony Stark is an ex-war profiteer. There’s a difference.”
MJ and Ned both roll their eyes, as is their standard course of action when Peter obsesses over Stark Industries. Before either of them can respond, the tour guide is leading their group to one of the display rooms.
“If you’ll look to the right, you’ll see the labs of our highly esteemed scientists! The people in this wing of the building all study genetic mutation, the research of which is, of course, very strictly regulated due to… recent events. Safety is our number one priority here at Oscorp.”
Multiple people in the group nod in understanding. Peter vaguely remembers reading a story about the Avengers blowing up a building, so he supposes it’s not unlikely for companies like Oscorp that have divisions in mutation could be brought under fire.
“Over here, we have eight genetically mutated spiders! You guys can go look at them, just don’t tap on the glass.”
The class crowds around the enclosure, but MJ frowns and furrows her brow. “There are only seven spiders.”
The tour guide cocks her head before glancing to the enclosure in confusion. “Huh. The scientists must be working on the eighth one.”
MJ nods skeptically, but Peter has an idea. “Hey, pose in front of the spiders! It would be such a cool picture!”
MJ scoffs, yet she still complies with Peter’s request. “Here?”
“Oh my god you’re perfect!” Peter gets a few shots, but almost drops his camera again when he feels a sharp pinch on the back of his hand. He instinctively smacks the back of his hand against his hip, careful to keep his camera undamaged, and winces. “Fuck.”
“Are you okay?” MJ’s tone is full of concern, but Peter just nods.
“Yeah, let’s catch up with the group.” Peter takes extra care to make sure that his camera is hanging securely from his neck before he and MJ set off to rejoin their classmates.
Peter sighs in relief once he spots their tour group, but right when he’s about to jog the rest of the way to catch up with Ned, MJ stops him with a gentle hand on his shoulder. “I overheard you talking to Ned before. You seemed uncomfortable.”
Peter raised his eyebrows, dumbfounded. “What?”
“You know, when he brought up the GSA thing. He cares about you a lot, and obviously I do too. I guess I’m just trying to say that we’re here for you.”
Peter has to hold back a wince. With his sob-story of a childhood, he’s pretty used to the abundance of pitying glances and sad smiles, but he hadn’t expected it from MJ of all people.
“I’m good, MJ, really. Secure in my sexuality and all that, I’m seriously just busy today-”
“Do you need service hours? For graduation, I mean.”
Peter gapes at the sudden change of subject, but he decides to indulge MJ. “...Yeah? Why?” In lieu of an answer, MJ pulls out a bright pink flier from her bag. Peter takes the paper from MJ’s hands, frowning at her as he does so. “What’s this?”
“A soup kitchen is opening in Hell’s Kitchen, with a focus on providing food for homeless LGBT youth.” Peter glanced down at the paper in his hands, seeing that it displayed the same information, followed by a statement from the Midtown Tech GSA.
“The whole GSA is volunteering at a soup kitchen?” Peter has to admit, that’s pretty impressive.
MJ almost smiles. “Yep, I was actually the one who organized it. We’re only helping out for a week or two, but the kitchen should be on its feet by the time we’re done, so they can hire permanent volunteers who aren’t… well, you know, highschoolers.”
“That’s awesome, MJ!” Peter folded the flier carefully and stuffed it into his sweatshirt pocket. “Can I help? I mean, even though I never go to meetings?”
“Yeah, of course! Anyone can help. Plus, Ned and I have been talking for weeks about how nice it would be to spend more time with you.”
Peter blushes. “You guys spend plenty of time with me-”
“We miss you, dude. Just- come to this, please? It would be so much fun. Plus, you’re into the whole ‘helping people’ thing, right?”
“Yeah, I’d love to go.” Peter smiles softly, unsure of what he could have ever done to deserve such caring friends.
“MJ! Peter! Get your asses over here before I leave you behind! You’re both seriously slower than snails in the winter!”
Peter chuckles as he and MJ make their way over to Ned, whose yelling had begun to disrupt surrounding tour groups.
--------------
Peter feels awful.
His skin feels like it’s on fire, his head is splitting in half, and the nausea alone is enough to bring tears to his eyes.
The back of his hand feels like it’s literally radiating heat, and when Peter brings it up to his face in the pitch dark of his shared bedroom, he swears the welt that’s been growing even larger through the night looks infected.
After laying awake for hours in silent agony, trying desperately to remember what could have possibly hurt him this badly, he has an epiphany.
Oscorp. His hand.
Whatever had stung his hand at Oscorp must be what’s causing everything. Just his luck, really. It’s probably some kind of radiation that’s slowly killing him from the inside out. He’ll be dead by morning, or maybe even sooner. Harry will wake up in the bunk above his corpse, poor little Peni will wake up in the bed right beside him, to the sight of his stiff body as it begins to cool and decompose-
“Fuck.”
His entire body erupts into a world of searing pain, before the world goes black.
--------------
“Peter? Peter-”
Peter jolts awake to the sound of Gwen’s terrified shouts. “What- oh, fuck. I don’t feel so good-”
“Yeah, no shit you don’t feel good. You’re burning up.”
A gasp comes from the doorway of the cramped room, and when Peter sits up painfully, he’s met with the sight of a terrified-looking Peni being held by an equally terrified Harry. “I’m fine, guys. I’ll be okay, I’m just-”
He’s cut off by a wave of nausea, strong enough to send him back down to the bed.
“I can take Peni to her school,” Gwen offers gently. “Harry, can you call Delmar’s and tell them Peter can’t come to his shift today-”
“I’m fine!” Peter cuts her off weakly, and Harry raises an unimpressed eyebrow at him. “We can’t afford for me to miss this shift, come on guys! Harry’s still unemployed, and even with Gwen’s job and my job put together, we barely have enough money saved up when we end up needing it! You know how I feel about that, I need savings for the future, and we can’t-”
“It’s not your job to provide us with money. It’s Ross’s.” Harry’s cold tone cuts off Peter’s rambling. “We all know he has the resources, he just doesn’t care about us. Anyway, what’s the worst that happens if Ross stops buying food again, or fucks off his mansion or wherever he goes without giving us any warning? Social services will find out eventually, Peni might get a real foster family, and the three of us just go to a group home until we turn eighteen. At least it would be better than this bullshit.”
“We’re a real foster family,” Peter whispers, eyes burning.
Harry just glances down at him with sad eyes. “A real foster family needs a real foster parent, Peter. If Ross didn’t need to be seen as a ‘working-class man supporting his family,’ he wouldn’t even own this tiny fucking house, let alone still have us around. You know he hates it here even more than we do.”
“I can’t believe we’re talking about this right now,” Gwen huffs. “Harry, Peni, go to school. Peter, go see if we have any advil that’s not expired.”
Peter is about to argue, but feels a pang of guilt when he sees the tears in Peni’s eyes. Wordlessly, he pulls himself up from the bed and makes his way to the bathroom, searching through the medicine cabinet until he finds some painkillers that are only expired by a few months.
He pops two in his mouth and washes them down with tap water, splashing some on his face in a desperate attempt to bring his temperature down. Peter sighs and rubs his hands over his sore face.
As he stares at his reflection, Peter realizes something.
He can see.
He can see his reflection crystal-clear in the glass, and he can see that he’s not wearing his glasses.
“Peter?”
He’s pulled out of his thoughts by Ross’s snarling voice echoing through the house. Peter hobbles painfully to the source of the sound, still internally marvelling at how clear everything is.
Ross scowls at Peter as he steps into the kitchen. “So you think you can skip school just like that, huh? You think I’m stupid?”
Peter stares at him dumbly, and the man takes a step closer. “You’re going to school. Do you know why you’re going to school?”
“I-” Peter tries to talk, but he has to cut himself off as a wave of nausea flows through his stomach.
“You’re going to school because I know you’re a liar by nature. Well, let me tell you something, your laziness isn’t a valid excuse to skip school. Midtown has been kind enough to provide you with a free ride--one you don’t deserve, may I add--and this is how you act? I can’t-”
Peter gags, coughs, and finally vomits on Ross, staining his crisp, white work shirt. He stares at the man in horror, and the expression he’s met with is one of pure disgust.
They lock eyes for a few seconds, before Ross removes his hand from where they are resting on his puke-stained shirt, and backhands Peter, and the quickly-cooling vomit coating Ross’s hand makes Peter’s eyes and nose burn. The angry sound reverberates through the kitchen, and Peter instinctually brings his hand up to cover his smarting cheek.
Wordlessly, Ross goes back to his bedroom, but it takes Peter a few minutes to move.
His head is spinning, his cheek is burning, and his mouth tastes like vomit.
Peter tries his hardest to work up the motivation to clean up the puddle of vomit on the kitchen floor, but he can’t. Instead, he forces himself back into the bathroom, where he brushes his teeth.
He might as well do his best to save himself from any unnecessary discomfort.
Peter went to put his toothbrush down, but he couldn’t.
Unsure if it was just his fever-addled brain playing tricks on him, he tries again, but it stays firmly on his hand.
What the fuck?
He backs into the wall in surprise, but just ends up sticking.
Why was Peter so sticky? Was he dying? Was it-
Oscorp.
The spider room. He must have been bitten by one of the radioactive spiders. Which means-
“Oh, shit.”