Sliding Doors ⧨ Peter Parker

8 | Familiar Strangers

Y/N

_

"W-who are you?"

Peter was sitting on his bed, his fingers twitching with a mix of confusion and interest. The door was closed behind me, an attempt to block out our conversation from May's hearing.

"y/n," I said, unclipping my badge and tossing it at him, "Tony Stark sent me."

"The Tony Stark?"

"Guess."

He stared at the badge, the SI logo glinting off the window light. The boy seemed shocked, but he froze up as soon as he saw me observing the room. I was looking for something to connect him to the masked superhero I saw on the video, but I couldn't find anything.

He covered up his tracks well.

"I-I just don't understand," he stuttered, "why does Tony Stark want to see me? And why you?"

"What do you mean?" I asked, taking a step forward.

It was strange talking to him, because he was completely different than I had imagined. The boy from the train station seemed confident, maybe a little forward, but the boy in front of me seemed shy. Like he had something to hide.

I took Tony's file-chip out of my pocket, the same gadget he had been tossing around when we first met. Flipping it onto its side, the holo-video began to play of Peter stopping the car.

"That's you," I said, holding out the screen, "right?"

He didn't even look at the video before denying it. Told me all I needed to know about him, which was that he was, in fact, trying to hide his double-persona.

"Peter," I sighed, "you don't have to lie to me. I know everything."

"Everything?"

"Everything. I know for a fact it's you in this video, and that's why I'm here."

"You c-can't prove that!" he accused, standing up from the bed and walking over to his computer, "that's all on youtube, right? That's where you found it. Cause' you know that's all fake, it's all done on the computer-"

"Then explain how you stopped me from falling onto the tracks yesterday," I said, "there was no one on the platform, yet you just appeared."

He was silent, staring at the black screen of his outdated monitor. His lip quivered slightly, and he let out a sigh as he slumped back onto his bed.

"The truth-" he started, "the truth is... yeah. That's me."

I nodded, flipping the screen off and putting it back into my pocket. I had gotten him to admit who he really was, but yet I still wasn't satisfied. My brain racked itself with questions to ask him, personal questions, but I knew that wasn't what I came here for.

"You got a passport?" I asked.

"I- no, I don't even have a driver's license-"

"You ever been to Germany?"

"No," he said quickly, "I can't go to Germany!"

"Why?"

"I g-got homework."

I laughed, dumbfounded. He was talking to someone who spent hours doing extra-credit work, but even I wouldn't pass up a chance to go to Germany with Tony Stark.

"I'll pretend you didn't say that," I noted.

"No, I-I'm being serious! I can't drop out of school-"

"Peter," I sighed, "you won't be dropping out of school. Think of this as an internship, a paid internship."

"An internship? To be Spider-Man?"

"Spider-man? That's what you call it? Sure, then yeah, to be Spider-Man."

"Wait- but why me? Why did Mr. Stark choose me?"

I opened my mouth to speak, but I didn't have an answer. I didn't know why Tony happened to choose Peter, all I knew was that he wanted him on the team.

"I'll be waiting outside," I said, "you've got five minutes before I leave."

I turned to grab the door handle, but in a blur of motion, Peter sprang up from the bed and stopped me. Well, he didn't really stop me, whatever was gluing my hand to the door was. I hadn't seen it before, but at first glance it looked like a mixture of salicylic acid and methanol.

"Wait," he said, his arm outstretched.

His fingers were curled up into some sort of heavy metal rock band sign, but I could see a mechanism snaked around his wrist. I assumed that's how he shot the sticky stuff at me.

"This is going to sound really weird..." he started.

"Weirder than the fact that you shot white stuff out of your wrist and pinned me to the door?"

Yeah, it wasn't the ideal sentence to say, but it was logically what had happened. Peter didn't seem to care, but his intense eye contact matched with mine.

"No- that's web fluid," he said, flustered, "besides the point, anyways- there's something I should tell you... considering that you're in my room."

"Um- yeah, if you're going to harass me, I'd like to say that I am armed-"

"Oh my god, I'm not going to harass you!"

"You literally stuck me to the door, and won't get to the point of what you're going to say, and apparently can only bring up the fact that I'm in your room," I explained, "there's not many ways to perceive this situation."

"You're right," he groaned, "sorry, just hear me out."

I paused. "Fine."

"I-I haven't been able to stop thinking about you."

I was taken aback, which surprised me. I, for one, hadn't been able to stop thinking about him either, but that was because he was part of my job. But in all honesty, I couldn't get those honey-brown eyes out of my head.

"I've saved a lot of people, you know?" he continued, "but for some reason that moment when the train was rushing past us, wont stop playing in my head. And I know we don't know each other, but I really can't explain why that is..."

"I can't explain it either," I sighed, "it's stuck in my mind too."

"It is?"

"Yeah," I smiled, "I thought I'd never see you again, but the next thing I know I'm here."

"In my room."

"Peter-"

"Wait, sorry, that came out wrong!" He said sheepishly, "I'm not really good with words."

"But you're good at helping people. And that's why we need you, Peter. What's it going to be?"

He paused for a second, staring at the ground. My heart was beating faster and faster again, which concerned me for many reasons. The amount of times my heart-rate quickened in this one day alone, makes me think I have heart problems.

"Y-yeah," he nodded, "I'll do it."

I grinned, finally satisfied. A few seconds passed, where neither of us said anything, so I stared at him blankly.

"So," I said, pointing at my trapped hand, "are you going to get me out of this?"