The Golden Sunshine✓ Tony Stark [Book 2]

26: Crime-fighting spider

Dad and Peter entered a few minutes later, locking the door after him. Dad rushed to the dustbin and spits out the date loaf, before turning to us.

"As walnut date loaves go, that wasn't bad." Dad says before looking behind me. "Whoa, what do we have here?" He asks as he brushed past me to Peter's collection of old computers.
"Retro tech, huh? Thrift store Salvation Army?"

"Uh, the garbage, actually." Peter replied.

"You're a dumpster diver." Dad deadpans.

"Yeah, I was . . . anyway, look, as much as I love this, um, I definitely did not apply for your grant." Peter says making me sigh.

"Ah-ah! Me first." Dad says raising his hand.
"Quick question of the rhetorical variety." Dad continues as he pulls out his phone and a projection of the red clad swinging hero comes up.

"That's you, right?" I asked.

"Um, no. What do you- What do you mean?" He stutters, avoiding my eyes.

"Yeah. Look at you go. Wow! Nice catch. 3,000 pounds, 40 miles an hour. That's not easy. You got mad skills." Dad says as the clip changes to him catching a car before it collides with a bus.

"That's all- That's all on YouTube, though, right? I mean, that's where you found that? Because you know that's all fake. It's all done on the computer." Peter says moving to stand in front of his computer.

"Yeah, like the UFO's over Phoenix?" I asked playing along, he is a really really bad liar.

"Yeah, just like that." He agrees as dad walks around him, picking up a pole and poking the ceiling with it, the costume falls and before I can even react, Peter jumps, hiding it from our views.

"Uh…that's a…" Peter mumbled looking down.

"So. You're the…Spider…ling. Crime-fighting Spider…you're Spider-Boy?" Dad asks and I rolled my eyes.

"Dad-"

Peter folds his arms in front of him defensively.
"S…Spider-Man."

"Not in that onesie, you're not." Dad retorts.

"It's not a onesie." Peter and I defended at the same time.

He sighs moving away from the closet, walking towards me as dad pick up the costume.

"I don't believe this. I was actually having a real good day today, you know, Lis. Didn't miss my train, this perfectly good DVD player was just sitting there and…Algebra test. Nailed it!" He says and I nodded.

"Who else knows? Anybody?" Dad asks.

"Nobody." He replies looking down, my heart tugs. He was carrying a lot of burden and tension. Alone.

"Not even your…unusually attractive aunt?" Dad asks and I scowled.

"Dad."

"No. No, no. No, no. If she knew, she would freak out. And when she freaks out, I freak out." He says and I nodded in understanding.

"You know what I think is really cool? This webbing. That tensile strength is off the charts. Who manufactured that?" Dad asks as he throws the little container at Peter, who catches it with out looking up. Impressive.

"I did." He replied. Super impressive.

"Climbing the walls, how you doing that? Adhesive gloves?" I asked.

"It's a long story. I was uh…" He starts but dad cuts him off.

"Lordy! Can you even see in these?" Dad asks putting the googles on his eyes, making Peter jump in to grab it from him.