Chapter Text
Every day since he first started taking the train, there’s always the same list of people that Peter looks forward to seeing on the subway ride to school. There’s the old lady with the grumpy cat that gets on at the stop after his and knits while the Maine Coon yowls and hisses at everyone who gets too close. There’s the blonde man in the sharp business suit who wears sneakers older than time itself that answers ludicrous phone calls from his wife on speakerphone (which, in itself, should be considered a crime). The list goes on, the characters get more and more bizarre; the five year old girl with bright pink pigtails that travels three stops by herself every other weekday, the teenage girl that he’s only ever seen in a Starbucks uniform who’s always talking about how much she hates her job, the old man in a knitted vest who refuses to speak in anything but incomprehensible riddles.
Today, Peter was expecting much of the same. The day had certainly been set up to be as ordinary as ever. Aunt May had completely burned breakfast and nearly set their apartment on fire, somehow managing to burn a hole in the couch across the room in the process. They had just barely managed to get that taken care of before Peter had to dash out the door. So he didn’t actually get breakfast.
On top of that, Peter had managed to make it all the way down the several flights of stairs in his apartment building before (thankfully) remembering that he’d left an assignment on his desk that was worth 20% of his grade, and had to head back up to get it.
At this point, Peter’s just about ready to give up on the day and go back to sleep. Even running a little faster than should be humanly possible without super powers, he just barely manages to make it onto the train before the doors close, breathing hard (less from the physical exertion and more from the relief at having made it in time) and nearly falling flat on his face when the train gives a sudden lurch as it starts moving. Peter’s quick to grab onto one of the uncomfortably warm poles set in the middle of the crowded train after that. His day does not need a traumatic face planting experience on top of everything else.
The entire train is packed with the usual early morning traffic, the strong scent of alcohol clinging to the drunk man passed out on a nearby seat, overwhelming his senses enough that he’s sure he’ll have a headache by the time he arrives at his destination. Everyone is pushing and shoving at the people next to them in an attempt to keep themselves from being stepped on or stuck in someone else’s lap, not a single thought to anything else but to keep themselves away from the Maine Coon and the elderly woman when they arrive.
Peter has never been more thankful for his ability to stick to surfaces in his life. That and his super strength being the only things currently keeping him from the same fate as the two teen boys, that appear to have given up, both currently tangled together in one of the seats, scrolling through social media like it’s a regular occurance. It could or it couldn’t be. They were both showing each other the random videos they came across without moving, so Peter figured it was likely the former. They don’t go to his school and he doesn’t know them personally, but he’s almost positive the two are dating.
Peter feels the train stop again with a jerk, the doors opening, letting on the little girl with the pink pigtails and a few others. He gives the girl a friendly wave that she returns with enthusiasm as she takes a seat in the empty spot to the left of the old woman. Genuine surprise coats his features when the cat doesn’t respond beyond a playful bat at the girl’s hair. The old woman casts a glance at the girl, nodding in acknowledgement before returning to her knitting.
The doors close with a hiss a few moments later, sealing for the ride to the next stop, coffee shop girl’s stop, if he remembers correctly. Peter can’t exactly deny that he’s interested to see why she hates her job this week. Last week, it’d been something about a coworker who was “stealing her tips” by being “too cheerful” at eight in the morning. Most importantly, Ned and Peter had both made a bet about what color her hair would be this week, Peter was interested to see if he was right this time or not.
The next stop is the first thing off about the day, coffee shop girl climbs on (pink hair to match the little girl’s, Ned owes him fifty bucks) and immediately heads for the furthest corner of the train with a disgusted noise that has Peter’s eyebrows drawing together. A moment later, another notable person steps through the rickety doors (they probably should have been replaced about twelve years ago, he can hear the doors stick at several points when they close), and does a full double take when his eyes catch on the bright red and blue material of a startlingly accurate rendition of his Spider-Man suit in hoodie form. The plain black canvas straps of the teen’s backpack are a stark contrast against the soft looking material but still do nothing to take away from just how incredible it looks.
The older teen shuffles self consciously, and it is at that exact moment that Peter realizes he was staring. He forces his eyes to the floor between them, clearing his throat.
“Sorry, I just—” he pauses, blinks twice, and plows forward with a vague gesture toward the stranger’s hoodie. “Where did you get that? I’ve never seen Spider-Man stuff before. Is it custom made, or something?”
The boy is quiet for a moment, answering in a soft voice that Peter isn’t positive he would’ve heard without his enhanced hearing. “I— I made it.”
“Really?” Peter questions excitedly, eyes jolting up from the floor to the boy’s, filled with some indecipherable emotion. He does briefly note the scarring that covers most of his skin, another interesting detail to add, much like the little girl and her pink pigtails. “That’s so cool! What material did you use for this? Wait, did you do the web details by hand !?” Upon closer examination, every single line and stitch of web detail has to have been done by hand, everything carefully curving around the surface and designs in (mostly) even lines. He can pick out the few minor imperfections that do nothing but point further to the fact that this was done by hand.
Train wheels screech loudly along the tracks as it starts up this time, Peter nearly lets go of the pole to press both his hands over his ears, barely resisting and shoulders hiking up in their absence. The teen in the Spider-Man hoodie actually does topple over with the motion of the floor beneath him, one of his hands latching reflexively onto Peter’s shoulder and the other onto the pole he was holding onto. Both wince as his head hits the pole with a solid clang .
“Are you okay?” Peter asks, concerned. It doesn’t look like there’s any injury, thank goodness, but the concern is still there. Spider-Man has, if nothing else, increased the level of concern he feels for people on the street by tenfold over the years, oftentimes having that outweigh any should-be concern for himself. Yeah, Tony isn’t very happy about it, but it is what it is.
The teen pulls back, moving his hand from Peter’s shoulder to rub at his forehead. “Yeah, I’m fine. Sorry about that.” He sounds embarrassed more than anything else.
Peter huffs. “Don’t be, this train needed to be used for scrap, like, four decades ago. No one can stay standing when it moves.”
“Oh, um, still.”
“It’s really not a problem, don’t worry about it.” Peter smiles, what he hopes is reassuring, like how Pepper smiles when she’s chewing Tony out for keeping the two of them distracted in the lab for long enough that they miss dinner and doesn’t want Peter to think she’s mad at him . His smile slips marginally when the teens face heats up and his eyes lock onto his shoes like they’re the most interesting thing in the world.
They stand together in silence for the rest of the trip, the train conductor’s indecipherable voice, probably, announcing their arrival at the next stop. Despite the slightly awkward, silent standoff between the two boys, Peter’s almost sad when his new train companion starts preparing to exit after such a short time. A final jolt on the rickety tracks, the train creaking ominously as it does, and people around them start standing and checking their pockets, like mystery teen had been.
Mystery teen turns to leave as the doors open to the crowded platform, but stops suddenly, turning back to Peter urgently. “What’s your favorite food?”
Peter stares unblinkingly back at him, completely baffled. “What?”
“What’s your favorite food?” he repeats, slowly backing toward the doors.
“Oh, well, I like churros, I guess. Why?”
“Just wondering,” he says, a half smile forming on his face as mystery teen steps fully off the train and onto the crowded platform beyond.
One stop, Peter notes. The older teen with the Spider-Man hoodie that he made himself, and the (for lack of a better word) gruesome looking full-body scars, gets on two stops after Peter, and off at the next. A few of the other teens get off as well, likely heading to the nearby high school. Definitely a teenager then. Above all else, Peter can’t wait to tell Mr. Stark about the new kid. He’d made it a habit over the last couple months (nearly a year, actually, if he was doing his math right) that he’d been hanging around the man to tell him about every noteworthy person he saw or talked to on the subway everyday, and the mystery teen in the handmade Spider-Man hoodie , had just made it to the top of the “most exciting people I’ve met” list.
Previously, the most interesting person he’d told Mr. Stark about was a woman, maybe in her early to mid twenties, who managed to lure fourteen subway rats onto the train with a slice of pizza and sheer force of will. Peter had immediately gotten off the train and swung the rest of the way to school, changing in an alley nearby with a near-painfully wide grin on his face and overflowing with the need to tell damn near anyone about the rat lady of the day’s adventures. He never saw her again. That was probably for the best.
Point being, he never saw that many new and interesting people anymore. Pink pigtails, Miss. Hates her job, and the angry cat didn’t have the same appeal that they once did, no longer anything but a regular occurrence in his records. Stark Industries sometimes had new interns or scientists, maybe a cool project, but that meant nothing to Peter anymore. Working as The Tony Stark’s personal intern set the bar for “Interesting” high enough that if the entire building wasn’t up in flames, it was an average work day.
At least the train drama, considering coffee shop girl’s earlier look, was bound to be interesting for a while (and he still had no idea what that was about). Not to mention the new addition to the list that is the mystery teen. Yup, still not as entertaining as watching an eccentric billionaire lose at chess to Dumb-E while running on two hours of sleep for the last four days (Pepper had put an end to it right then and there, sending Peter and Tony to watch a movie and inevitably ended up with both falling asleep on the couch while Pepper typed out Emails on the couch across from theirs), but totally fine. Good enough to satiate his boredom for now.
One train stop later, the one after the other teen’s, Peter follows the uneven flooring off the train and out into the busy streets of the gloriously noisy New York City. Hooray for headaches . He mentally adds confetti to the thought, regretting not at least grabbing his noise canceling headphones this morning. It’s not that the city itself was bad, it’s just that he’d managed to tune out the sensory input right up until he realized that it was more of a problem than he wanted to deal with, and living in the biggest city in the US did not help.
He’s done it on more occasions than he can count, not paying any attention to the near painful sensory overload until it’s bad enough to want to rip his hair out, crawl into the ceiling in front of his entire school, and live there until he dies. Or until he can no longer feel his bones. Whichever comes first, he’s not that picky. Well, if he did climb into the ceiling in front of his entire school , he figures death would be the kinder option in that case. But then Ned would miss him, and MJ would pretend not to miss him, and it would be a whole thing. Not to mention that Queens still needed Spider-Man.
All of that aside, Peter still had to live through the ultimate survival game. A do or die kind of environment that runs through the heart of its very foundation, coiled back like a cobra, ready to strike at a moment's notice. One wrong move and—
“Move it, Parker.” Some random kid, one he’s pretty sure is friends with Flash, shoves Peter fully into the brick wall next to the school’s doors as he passes by without a backward glance. The palm of his left hand slips on a sharp section of the brick when Peter tries to catch himself, pain radiating up through his whole arm from the cut.
The best years of your life . What a joke.
Even with the bell ringing out across the school, Peter just— stands there, for a moment, staring thoughtfully at the blood flowing steadily down his arm. Does he go home? To the nurses office? One of those is closer, maybe start there? Yeah , he nods to himself, stop the bleeding, then worry about the rest of it .
He sticks his clean hand into his hoodie pocket to grab his phone (a text to Aunt May before an impromptu call from the nurse before school has even started is never a bad idea), snagging a folded piece of paper with it that he’s certain he didn’t have before. Stepping through the doors as he unfolds it, it’s one of those red sticker name tags, blank space at the bottom below “Hello, my name is…” filled in with a name he’s never seen before. Wade Wilson . The back has a short note scrawled in messy handwriting, “Nice to meet u. Maybe I’ll see u on the train tmrw? =)”
So, mystery kid is Wade Wilson?
Pushing open the door for the office, the lady at the front desk screeches at the sight of blood, several people running to see the issue while a man in a hot pink blazer dashes down a hall behind the desk, likely to get the nurse considering the circumstances. Maybe he should be more concerned about this, but he just isn’t. The train ride is always the best part of his morning, he can’t exactly be upset that it won’t be ruined by the English Assessment Test he was supposed to have this morning.
Wade Wilson . Maybe Peter will see him around.