Peter Parker's New Groove by CambrianBeckett

Prologue

There’s something to be said about getting picked up by a private driver and taken to Stark Tower straight from school. That something is simple… it’s really, really cool. As they pull into the private garage beneath Stark Tower, Peter Parker grabs his backpack and unbuckles his seat belt. The window between the front and back of the car rolls down and Happy Hogan looks back at him with a smile and a nod.
 
“You good to go from here, kid?”
 
“Yep! Thanks for the ride Happy!”
 
“Any time kid.”
 
His and Happy’s relationship might have started out a little rocky at first, but these days the older man seemed to view him in a new light. It was a lot better than it had been in the past, when Happy had looked at Peter with exasperation and irritation more often than not. But then, Peter liked to think he’d matured a lot since they’d first met. In truth though, Happy’s change in attitude probably had a lot more to do with Peter saving the universe than any maturing on Peter’s part…
 
As he steps into the elevator that will take him to his mentor, Peter can’t help but smile when a familiar feminine voice sounds out from above his head.
 
“Welcome back to Stark Tower, Peter. You have been missed.”
 
Peter ducks his head bashfully at that, before speaking up at the ceiling.
 
“Ah, c’mon Fri, I was only gone for a couple days.”
 
The amusement in the AI’s voice as Friday responds is obvious, even as she manages to convey a simple heartfelt tone with her words.
 
“A couple of days too long, Mr. Parker.”
 
Peter just smiles fondly at that. He interned at Stark Tower around five days a week at this point. Specifically, Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and the weekends as well, most of the time. Tuesdays and Thursdays were set aside for other things, like afterschool activities and such. Of course, there was also his nightly gig as a superhero to take into account, which also sometimes shortened his time at the tower on any given day, if something serious was happening that needed the attention of Spider-Man.
 
Regardless, having an AI missing his presence was… a distinctly odd feeling. Not an unpleasant one of course, Peter enjoyed Friday’s company quite a lot, and every time he came to the tower, they had a chat. It wasn’t cheating on Karen when Karen was a simpler sort of AI then Friday was. From how Peter understood it, Karen was more a set of protocols than anything else. Friday though… Friday was practically her own intelligence.
 
“… Should I assume you wish to commune with the Creator first and foremost, Peter? Or would you prefer to head directly to the lab?”
 
Blinking at that for a moment, Peter ultimately shakes his head.
 
“Send me to her, Fri. I wouldn’t be much of an intern if I just ignored the woman I’m interning for, now would I?”
 
Though Friday doesn’t have a body, Peter can almost feel her silently dipping her virtual head in acknowledgment to his words, even as the elevator, which had been moving slowly before, starts to speed up. It’s barely noticeable, and to any normal human being it wouldn’t be even that… but ever since he was bitten by that spider, Peter’s senses have been heightened, enhanced if you will.
 
As such, he can tell that Friday has stopped purposefully slowing down the elevator for their talk and brought it up to full speed. In mere moments, it comes to a stop again and there’s a satisfying ding as Peter arrives at the top floor of Stark Tower, the penthouse. He’s a little surprised, because normally his mentor is down in one of the labs when he arrives, but it’s not that unusual that he questions it or anything like that.
 
Before opening the doors, Friday pipes up one more time.
 
“Have fun, Peter… and when you have a moment, I could use your help with something, alright? No rush.”
 
Before Peter has a chance to question Friday on that, or on the fact that her tone sounds almost embarrassed, the doors to the elevator open up and Peter finds the words catching in his throat as he sees the back profile of his mentor. Antionette Edwina Stark. Toni for short. Mrs. Stark when you wanted to be respectful, which Peter always did.
 
Stepping out of the elevator, Peter can’t help the way his eyes feast over the revolutionary inventor’s form. Intellectually, Peter is well aware that Toni is over fifty years old chronologically. She’s old enough to be his mother… but she doesn’t look it. Peter is probably one of the few people the world over who’s aware of the specifics in that regard. Toni Stark doesn’t look a day over twenty-five and hasn’t for some time now… all because of Extremis.
 
The exact circumstances of how it all had happened, and the damage Adrian Killian and AIM had caused didn’t really bear thinking about in young Peter’s humble opinion. But he very much cared for Mrs. Stark and by extension Pepper as well, so he’d at the very least educated himself on the aftermath and the consequences of said aftermath. Killian died… Toni and Pepper lived. That should have been the end of it, but before he’d gone, the mad man had gotten the opportunity to inject both Toni and Pepper with the Extremis virus that he’d forced Ms. Hansen to rush to create, putting them both on a clock.
 
As far as Peter could tell from what he’d read, Toni had put things to right, fixing Extremis for both herself and Pepper. But the consequences still lingered… the virus was still in both their systems. It resulted in Toni and Pepper both looking far younger than they actually were, making them seem as if they were in their mid-twenties, rather than their early fifties.
 
Peter knew for a fact that he was one of a handful who were aware of the true circumstances. He was also aware that Pepper was one of the few women on the planet who actually had to apply her daily makeup for the purposes of tastefully aging herself up, as the business world would never respect a female CEO who looked like she was just out of college. Lord knew they hadn’t respected Toni for far too many years.
 
Regardless, their looks didn’t matter to Peter. In his eyes, Toni Stark was the most brilliant, most impressive person on the planet, gender be damned. And given that she’d married Pepper and they had a daughter together, little Morgan Stark… well, that spoke pretty well of Mrs. Potts as well.
 
Toni finally turns around, and Peter is pulled out of his introspection upon seeing his mentor’s beautiful face and gleaming, twinkling eyes.
 
“Peter! Do you not have anything you’d like to get started on down in the labs?”
 
The woman who’d changed the world so much stands there with her hands on her hips, giving him a wide smile as she takes him in. In turn, Peter can’t help taking her in, from the black shirt and black leggings she’s wearing, to the glowing blue arc reactor attached to her chest that Peter is well aware contains the nanotechnology needed to assemble her Mark LXXXV armor in mere moments.
 
Peter is well aware that once upon a time that arc reactor wasn’t just attached to Toni’s upper chest, it was embedded in her, acting as a magnet to keep pieces of shrapnel from a bomb from reaching her heart. He was also well aware that once upon a time it had been powered by Palladium, an element that had slowly poisoned Toni and left her on death’s door.
 
Extremis, the completed version that is, had changed all of that, healing Toni, pushing the arc reactor and it’s casing out of her, and leaving her entirely whole once more. Ever since, the genius woman had had to find other ways to keep her armor close by. But the nanite housing currently attached to her upper chest was definitely the most advanced and most gorgeous method that Peter had seen from her.
 
At Toni’s question, Peter just smiles sheepishly and shrugs.
 
“Well, there’s a few things I wanted to work on, but I wanted to check in with you first, see how you were doing, let you know I’m here…”
 
Toni’s smile only grows wider at that, the dark-haired woman striding over as quick as a flash to reach out and grab Peter by the hand.
 
“Good. There was something I wanted to talk to you about anyways.”
 
Peter flushes a little bit at Toni’s touch… the older woman has hugged him more than enough at this point that a bit of handholding shouldn’t embarrass him… but there’s no denying that he’s had a crush on Toni Stark since long before she showed up in his apartment, flirting with Aunt May and ultimately asking him to go with her to Germany…
 
The fact that he’s able to be with her here and now, the fact that she offered him an internship with her, hell, that she offered him a place on the Avengers, even though he’s turned it down… it’s like a dream come true.
 
Toni drags him over to the penthouse’s extensive bar, and before Peter can really grasp what’s happening, she’s poured them both two very alcoholic drinks. When she gives him one of the glasses, the young man blinks, looking down at it in surprise and confusion.
 
“U-Um, Mrs. Stark I’m not sure I should…”
 
In response, Toni just gives him a wink and taps the side of her nose.
 
“I won’t tell if you don’t, Peter. And besides, you won’t let me throw a party. You can at least share a drink with me.”
 
Peter flushes at the reminder, ducking his head and after a moment taking a quick sip of his glass, seeing that Toni is already doing the same. It burns a little going down, but Peter’s enhanced metabolism makes it so that most substances don’t affect him quite as much as they would a normal human being. Of course, that might not be just because of the Spider-Bite… it might also be because of the Incident.
 
It’s still hard for Peter to think about. Oh sure, he’s talked about it was a therapist weekly ever since coming back, Toni had made sure of that, getting him the best mental health doctors money could buy until they’d found the one that Peter best jived with. Truth be told, Peter hadn’t fought it very hard… he knew full well that one of Toni’s greatest regrets was letting her PTSD fester as it had after the Battle of New York back in Twenty-Twelve, mostly because the older woman had told him so directly.
 
There was nothing to be ashamed about when it came to needing help dealing with the fact that you’d been turned to dust for five years while the world kept spinning around you. Nothing to be ashamed about when you needed help reacclimating to your surroundings. But the one thing Peter didn’t need help with was his decision in that final battle against Thanos.
 
He knew Mrs. Stark was still a little upset with him, despite what she said about it. He knew that she thought it should have been her, that she continued to beat herself up over the fact that she hadn’t been able to protect him. But in the end, Peter had done what he had to do. He’d done what any hero would do. In the end… he’d used the Infinity Stones.
 
If Toni didn’t want him to be able to, she really shouldn’t have made his Iron Spider suit so damn compatible with her technology. The Nano Gauntlet had fit his arm like a glove, once he’d finally decided to put it on after seeing the state of the battlefield. And the stones themselves, those pieces of Infinite… they’d sang to him, welcoming him like a long lost friend.
 
Peter had snapped his fingers, and Thanos and his armies had been the ones to turn to dust. If there was anything more cathartic than that, the young man wasn’t sure what it would be. He’d fully been ready to die for his decision… and yet, somehow the Infinity Stones hadn’t even so much as touched him. When Hulk had snapped his fingers to bring everyone back, it’d severely damaged his arm. Peter… Peter had no lingering effects.
 
The stones had vanished though. That was a bit of a worry, of course, that in the aftermath, with the battle over, the Nano Gauntlet had been empty, and the Infinity Stones had been nowhere to be found. In the end, everyone had just come to the conclusion that they’d gone back to where they came from and all was well that ended well.
 
Regardless, the world was set to rights. Thanos and his ilk were gone. Half the universe, or rather the entire universe given Thanos’ escalating plans, was no longer under threat. And yes, that was all thanks to Peter, but he didn’t want to make a big deal about it. He certainly didn’t need some big party celebrating him and only him as some Big Damn Hero. It was a group effort in the end. He says as much to Toni, sitting there at her personal bar, the two of them drinking.
 
“It was a team effort, Mrs. Stark. Save the party for my birthday, I don’t deserve any more recognition than anyone else.”
 
The moment the words about his birthday are out of his mouth Peter regrets them, especially when he sees a worrying flash of excitement in his mentor’s eyes. Toni grins and reaches out to grab him by the arm, giving it a firm squeeze.
 
“Don’t you, Peter? And how many times do I have to tell you to call me Toni?”
 
Her voice takes on a husky quality, and suddenly Peter feels almost trapped. He flushes red and bites his lower lip, even as he squirms a bit in Toni’s grasp. But… surely, he’s misreading the situation, right?
 
“I… it wouldn’t be respectful, Mrs. Stark.”
 
For a moment, he thinks he might not be misreading the situation. For a moment, it almost looks like THE Toni Stark, his idol, mentor, and the most brilliant woman of the twenty first century and arguably the twentieth as well… is going to kiss him? But after a moment, Toni seems to think better of it, leaning back with the smallest of sighs and giving Peter a fond if exasperated smile.
 
“Some day I’ll wear you down, Peter. Some day.”
 
Toni abruptly tosses back her drink, and Peter does the exact same by instinct. It truly doesn’t burn that much given his enhanced status, even if it does feel a little bit naughty to be drinking alcohol when he’s most certainly NOT twenty-one yet. Still, if anyone was going to get him to break that rule, it was definitely going to be Toni Stark.
 
Hopping off of her own bar stool, Toni meanders away from him.
 
“Well, thanks for checking in Peter. I’m sure you have a lot you want to do down in the lab, don’t you? I’ll leave you to it.”
 
Recognizing the dismissal for what it is, and not wanting to intrude any longer than necessary, Peter just bobs his head in a nod and heads for the elevator. Once inside, he finds himself… almost feeling a little antsy. After that encounter with Toni, part of him just wants to get out of here, maybe throw on his costume and go find some thugs to beat up. Though at the same time, Friday, while suspiciously silent right now, HAD asked for his help with something, hadn’t she?
 
Alternatively, he could just go home and turn in early, see what the next day of school would bring…
 
Unbeknownst to Peter or basically anyone, the Infinity Stones hadn’t vanished. Having taken a liking to the young spider, they’d stuck around, stuck close… closer than Peter would have thought. Put bluntly, the strange encounter he’d just had with his mentor was a result of the Infinity Stones beginning the process of giving Peter exactly what he deserved.
 
His life was about to change for the better, whether he liked it or not, no matter what path he chose going forward.