Summary: Spider-Man attends his first press conference ever, but he doesn't know when to shut up.
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Spider-Man was a mystery to the public; no one knew absolutely nothing about him. He always popped up when there was a crime, made sassy remarks, webbed the criminal, helped the victims and then disappeared.
Tony decided that it was time for that fact to change, and Peter agreed.
So now they were sitting in front of a crowd of excited journalists.
"Alright, people, calm down," Tony said and stood up. "As you all know, I'm Tony Stark, but today we're not here to talk about me. We're here to talk about..." he paused for dramatic effect.
"Mr. Stark, you know I'm sitting right next to you, don't you?"
"Why must you be like this, Spidey?" Tony feigned feeling hurt. "Okay, fine, we're here for Spider-Man!"
Peter stood up. "Hi, thanks for coming! I'm Spider-Man, and today I'll be answering any questions you have," he rushed to clarify, "except my name, age, or any other personal information."
The crowd of hungry journalists grumbled but reluctantly agreed.
"So... let's get this show on the road!" Tony said, and everyone raised their hands at once.
Peter hesitated for a bit but chose a man, who, unlike the rest, was just politely raising his hand up and didn't look like he was about to eat him alive.
"Hi. I'm Alec, from the channel insert name here cause I'm not creative. I wanted to ask you, what do you think is you best accomplishment?"
Spider-Man stayed in silence for a couple of seconds, thinking.
"Hi Alec! I can't really judge the importance of what I do." The man tilted his head a little in confusion, and Peter saw this. "I mean, I stop criminals from robbing, and attacking, and murdering, and raping. I can't assign one more importance than the others because that would be unfair. The victims are the only ones that know how each event would have affected them, and how that changed because I was there. My accomplishments can't be judged by me, they have to be judged by the people."
The man that had asked the question was nodding along to everything he said and seemed satisfied while he wrote notes rapidly.
"Thank you," he said.
Peter went to pick another person, and it seemed that the journalists had taken the clue that he wouldn't pick someone who was rudely trying to be noticed. They all now sat in silence. Peter decided to pick a woman at the back.
"Hi, my name's Silena, from channel insert name again. I wanted to ask you, have you had your powers all your life? Why do you have them? Or do they come from the suit?"
"Hi Silena! I do have powers, the suit is just to conceal my identity, and now it has some tech added by Mr. Stark, but the rest it all me. And no, I acquired these powers, I wasn't born with them. You see, I was bitten by a radioactive spider- that is now dead and can't be replicated, so don't go doing stupid things. It wasn't intentional either, I wasn't experimented on or anything, but I was in a field trip with school when I was fourteen, a weird spider bit me and then boom, I had powers, and I started going out as Spider-Man soon after."
The crowd went crazy.
Tony face-palmed.
"The first sighting of Spider-Man ever recorded was less than two years ago! Are you fifteen?!"
Peter crossed his arms. "No! I'm sixteen."
People continued to scream.
"Sixteen? Then why are you called Spider-Man and not... Spiderling?" someone asked.
"Crime-fighting Spider, Spider-Boy?" Tony and Peter said simultaneously and then burst out laughing, confusing everyone. They didn't care.
"Back to the questions now!" Tony said once they finally stopped. "And don't give away more details, kid," he reprimanded, but it was playful. I mean, after all he was the man who had up and said "I am Iron Man".
Peter chose another woman, with a grin still visible behind the mask.
"Hi. I'm Charlotte, from channel name. My question is: what inspires you to be a hero?"
Spider-Man's demeanor became guarded for some seconds, but he took a deep breath and began talking anyway. "Hi Charlotte! Well, you see, I had just gotten my powers, and I saw a robbery but didn't do anything about it. Then the same robber, that same day, shot my uncle, who was like my dad. As I held him before he died, he told me 'with great power comes great responsibility'. If I had stopped the robbery back then, my uncle would be alive, but he isn't, and what he told me inspired me to become Spider-Man. I need to help people, because I can do it. I told Mr. Stark once that, when you can do the things that I do, but you don't and then bad things happen... they happen because of you."
There was a stunned silence before the soft noise of pens scraping paper arrived.
But the journalists were shocked; that boy, who was fourteen at the time, had held his uncle in his arms as he bled out to death, knowing he could have probably done something about it.
But they all disagreed; they didn't believe it was the kid's fault.
By the looks of it, Tony was quietly trying to convince the kid of the same thing.
"Next question," Spider-Man said, interrupting whatever the billionaire was saying.
Hesitantly, people raised their hands. Peter chose a man this time.
"Hi, Spider-Man. I'm Magnus, from channel you know the drill already. I wanted to ask you if many people know your secret identity, or is it completely secret? I mean, at least your parents know, right?"
Peter chuckled.
"Hi Magnus! You asked about my parents? My parents are dead."
"Kid! You can't just say things like that!" Tony scolded him, horrified. Peter dismissed what he said.
"And no, my identity isn't completely a secret. God knows it isn't." He chuckled again. "My best friend and my aunt know because I took off my mask in front of them in my bedroom without noticing they were there, two separate times."
Some journalists laughed along, while others were too busy scribbling in their notepads.
"And then, obviously, there's Mr. Stark, who simply appeared in my apartment once and said he knew who I was, recruited me and gave me the suit I'm using now. And, before any of you asks, I don't want to reveal my identity because it would put my family and friends in danger of any enemies I make."
"Thank you," Magnus said.
Peter chose another man.
"Hello. I'm Lester, from channel yadda yadda. What exactly are your powers?"
Spider-Man started to speak but was cut off by Tony before he could reveal anything.
"Nope, that's confidential."
Peter tilted his head. "Why?"
"Because the fact that criminals don't know your powers gives you an advantage in battle."
Peter shrugged, apologized to Lester and chose a woman to ask the next question.
"Hi. I'm Cristina, from channel I should be doing hw but whatever. What's the hardest thing you've ever had to do as Spider-Man?"
Peter, once again, chuckled.
"Remember the ferry incident last year?" he asked, but didn't wait for a response. "Okay, so, that day Mr. Stark came, gave me a Dad lecture of responsibility and took away my suit as punishment. Wait, let's go back a bit; I had discovered someone who was using alien tech to make weapons and was about to sell them. Then Mr. Stark told me to drop the investigation, but I had new and very important information, and no one was picking up the phone, and this guy was gonna steal SI tech and I couldn't let that happen. So I um... jilted my homecoming date and left the school in search of her dad- oh wait I forgot that part.
"Well, I went to pick up my date for homecoming and you know who opened the door? The weapon dealer! So I, of course, got nervous but he didn't know who I was since he hadn't seen me without the mask but then we got in the car and he finally recognized my voice. My date went inside the school while her dad talked to me, and he told me to stay away from his plans that day. That's how I found out what he was going to do. And now we go back to where I left.
"Okay, so I left my date to go after her dad, who turned out to be a criminal and was about to steal SI tech. I went into the warehouse where he was, and he started firing at me with his weird weapons from his suit. I dodged, thinking he was aiming at me, but turns out he wasn't! He was actually aiming for the support columns, so he fired at them and flew away before I could understand what he had done. And suddenly- boom! I had a five story warehouse on top of me!" Peter laughed, but it was more of an anxious, sad laugh. "And I didn't have my tech suit, so I couldn't call anyone for help. I lay under the warehouse for some time, but no one heard me screaming, so I built up strength and lifted the thing off of me.
"After that, I still needed to stop the guy from stealing from SI, so I used my webs to get to the plane were the tech was, stuck to it and fought my date's dad while trying not to fall because we were on the outside and he kept trying to kill me. The plane caught on fire and fell, and I made it out but the guy was in the middle of the flames and the remains of the plane, so I looked for him, put him away from the flames and webbed him up so he wouldn't escape. The police took him, I dropped from exhaustion. Who would have known all that would be so tiring?"
Alec, Silena, Charlotte, Magnus, Lester, Cristina and every single person in the conference stared at him with wide, horrified, eyes, and open mouths.
"Kid, you didn't tell me-"
"Nah, it's fine. Any other question?"