Chapter Text
MCU!verse
Peter opens his eyes to an unfamiliar ceiling. The cold fluorescent light burns even behind the protection of his closed eyelids. He shifts slightly on the uncomfortable linen of the hospital bedspread and winces as a spark of pain shoots through his ribs.
“Mr. Parker, I’m glad you’re awake. Look into the light, please,” says a woman’s curt voice.
Peter reluctantly cracks open one eye. Someone shines a light into his face, nearly blinding him.
“Pupils seem normal and responsive, Mr. Stark,” The woman says. Peter feels a rush of relief at that name. Great, his adoptive parent is here.
Peter blinks past the giant blob in his vision and sees the dark-haired man standing a few feet from his bed. Tony Stark is dressed in a sharp three-piece charcoal grey suit, his black dress shirt casually opened at the collar.
“Dad?!” He blurts out, “What’s going on? Why’m I in the hospital?”
Tony shoots him a funny look, and now that Peter’s got a better look at the man, he notices the fading remnant of a massive bruise along his cheek and faint purple smudges under his eyes. Strangely, Peter doesn’t recall him getting hurt recently.
“Did you hit your head, Parker?” He asks, folding his arms across his chest impatiently. “Look kid, how much do you remember?”
“I was at the house with Wade and the others, you were there, too. Last thing I remember was going to bed..." Peter peers up at Tony, puzzled. “How did I get here?”
“Right, I’ll tell the doctor to check you again for that concussion,” Tony lets out a loud exhale and starts making his way toward the door.
“I’m not concussed, Tony,” He insists, sitting up with a wince.
“Tony, huh? We're on a first-name basis now?” The goateed man pauses, raising an eyebrow in Peter’s direction as a slow smirk appears on his face. “What happened to all that blushing and stammering and calling me ‘Mr. Stark’, Parker?”
Peter gapes wordlessly as the door slams shut behind his adoptive parent.
What on Earth is going on?
He reaches over and yanks out the IV drip, kicks away the thin scratchy blanket over his knees and slips off the hospital bed. Peter spots a backpack on a nearby chair and crosses over to it, fishing around in the thing until he finds his StarkPhone. He keys in his password without thinking.
The phone buzzes angrily in his hand, red flashing over the screen.
Wrong passcode.
He stares down at the screen for a long moment before choosing the Touch ID instead. He unlocks the phone successfully this time. There’s a picture of Gwen Stacy as the background. Peter’s mind files away that piece of information as he dials Wade Wilson’s cell phone number by memory.
Someone picks up on the third ring, a rough “Hello” echoing down the line.
“Oh, thank God, Wade. It’s me, Peter. I don’t know what’s going on. Why am I in the hospital? What happened? Where’re you guys? And why is my dad channeling his creepy pervert vibe again? I mean I thought he was past that phase-”
“Who the fuck is this?” Wade’s familiar gravelly voice interrupts Peter mid-rant. He hears the click of what sounds like someone taking the safety of a gun in the background, “How’d you get this number?”
“Wade?” Peter’s heart pounds in his ears.
He hears a click and the line goes dead. Peter stares down at the phone in his hand.
The door behind him opens and his body moves without thinking. One moment he’s standing by the backpack and the next, Tony Stark’s startled face is suddenly flipped upside-down. The surprise fades from Tony’s face as soon as it had surfaced, quickly replaced with a faint edge of annoyance.
“Get down here, Parker,” He hisses, snapping his fingers. “Your hot aunt is coming in any minute, so unless you want to explain to her why you’re crawling all over the ceiling like a possessed little girl, you’d better get down.”
His aunt? What aunt?
Peter looks down slowly.
The ceiling light is a few inches left of his elbow.
Holy cow, he really is on the ceiling.
Without Venom’s help.
Peter pulls at his hand. It remains firmly planted on the ceiling. Panic swells in his chest.
“Get down,” Tony repeats, eyeing the door behind him, “now!”
“Pete? Peter, are you alright?” A woman’s distressed voice shouts from the corridor. The door gets yanked open the at the same time the ceiling panels comes crashing down.
Aunt May, alive and well, stands breathlessly at the door. Peter stares back, heart thumping painfully against his ribcage, the ceiling light and chunks of the plaster overhead dangling behind him as he quickly folds his hands behind his back. There’s still a sizable piece of the ceiling attached to his fingers.
“It's alright, nobody's hurt. I’ll pay for the damage,” Tony calls out behind him when a few of the nurses come running at the loud crash.
May rushes over and wraps Peter up in a tight warm hug, but he's frozen to the spot because his Aunt May had died a few months after Uncle Ben. Peter's aunt had been dead for over a decade. He had no relatives left, so Tony Stark had adopted him. This woman-
“Oh Peter, I was so worried,” May pulls back to press a kiss to his forehead. She smells just like the rosy perfume Peter remembers from his childhood. “Mr. Stark called me in the middle of my shift and said that you’d collapsed in the lab. It was only your second day into the Stark Industries internship and-”
“Internship?” Peter asks blankly. “What internship?”
“He may have hit his head,” Tony says quickly behind them. He scowls at Peter over May’s shoulder and presses a finger warningly against his lips.
“Oh, that internship,” Peter echoes flatly. Tony folds his arms over his chest.
“Mr. Stark, can I take him home?” May turns to ask the man who is obviously not Peter’s father.
He catches a glimpse of his own reflection in the glossy plastic cover of the dangling ceiling light.
It’s that same face, mousy hair, brown eyes and a sprinkle of light freckles over the bridge of his nose.
But-
Peter would recognize that constipated expression anywhere. After all, it had been permanently engraved in the 45th page of his high school yearbook. Voted most likely to die a virgin.
Wait, high school?
Across from Peter, his 16-year-old reflection’s jaw drops open.
What the hell is going on?