The Spider & The Butterfly

Stark Expo

It's Friday morning in New York City. Peter had been invited to go to an event called the Stark Expo and Star got to go with him as a guest. The princess had no idea what it was about, but it's probably better than school right.

"So who is this Tony Stark person?" Star inquired. She and Peter were sitting together on the bus ride to the convention center where the expo was being held.

"How can you not know?" he snarkily replied, earning mostly a glare. Pete noticed and chuckled sheepishly. "Right, alien. Sorry, I forgot. He's a billionaire, head of his own company. Not to mention a technological genius, and that genius led him to become the superhero 'Iron Man'." he explained.

Star's expression brightened up at one word in that explanation. "He's a superhero?"

Peter nodded. "Yeah. One that I personally idol. He also leads a group of superheros who often protects the world called The Avengers."

Star couldn't contain her excitement. She gasped so loud, it gained the attention of other passengers. She then began to shake her friend so feverishly, it might as well been as earthquake. "Do you think we'll get to see them today?!" she asked with literal stars in her eyes.

Peter got himself free from Star's grasp before he answered. "Stop before you give me head trauma. And I wouldn't count on it, but maybe you'll get to see them eventually."

The alien girl sank back into her seat, arms folded across her chest. Then the bus came to a stop. As people started filing out the bus, Peter kept her close to make sure she didn't wonder off as she tended to do. Then a flash of movement on the roof caught her attention. "What was that?" she asked, squinting to the area.

"What?"

"I saw someone up there." she said while pointing.

"You stay here and keep our spot in line. I'll go check it out." Peter instructed.

"Why do you get to have all the fun?" Star pouted.

He shrugged. "Force of habit, on both of our parts." he said before breaking away from the crowd.

Star raised a brow at the comment. "What does THAT mean?"

Peter was running down an alley, out of sight of everyone but a gray cat. "I know the Stark Expo is a tough event to get into, but the roof should not be an option." he told himself. The Black suit instantly formed over his clothes. "You read my mind suit." he said before climbing to an adjacent building's rooftop. Spider-Man web zipped his way to a perched position on a pillar on the top of the convention center. Sure enough, there was a figure up there as well.

Most notably, he had a white skull for a face with gold trimmings. The rest of his outfit had the same color scheme. Hood with a torn cape, and gray gauntlet that surged with blue energy. The figure disappears like a ghost then reappears after a few seconds.

"Creepy. But I'm guessing he's just using the mirage reflectors they unveiled at last year's Expo." Spider-Man thought to himself. "Hey! Ghost of Expo's past! If you're trying to get into the Expo ahead of the fans waiting in line, you're gonna have to go through me first!" he called, earning Ghost's attention.

The man started to charge at Peter, who took a fighting stance. "Taking it literally I see." He then reared his arm back as the man got closer. "How about you take a knuckle sandwich on the side." Spider-Man's punch just fazed through the guy. While the hero recovered, the mystery man escaped by jumping off the roof.

Spider-Man cursed to himself. "Drat. Looks like those were more than mirage reflectors." He looked over the edge to find a trace, but there was none. Suddenly, the sound of jet like whirring approached behind him. "Can I help you?" a metallic voice asked him.

"Huh?" Spidey asked. When he turned around, he had the pleasure of geeking out in front of the man in red and gold armor hovering in front of him. It was the Invincible Iron Man. "Iron Man?!" he asked, unable to contain his rising excitement. "Holy cow. I can't believe we finally get to meet!"

"You're pretty excited for an intruder." the Avenger blankly stated.

Spidey held up his hands in defense. "Intruder? No no, I'm the guy trying to stop the intruder." he calmly tried to explain.

"Don't you know better than to break into a TECH expo?" Iron Man said, cutting the teen off. "Every electronic security apparatus in the place alerted me of your presence."

"But it wasn't me! It was-"

"Talk to the hand." Iron Man said as he held out his right glove, which was charging a repulsor blast. However, a blast of blue energy capable of punctuating steel didn't come out. Instead it was targeted at the arachnid hero's feet, forming an electric cage. Before it could fully form, Spider-Man leapt high and performed a back flip to escape the trap.

"Hey Shellhead! Mind stopping to listen one sec instead of blasting me?" Spider-Man snapped.

Ignoring his complaint, Stark landed on the roof near the edge. "You're faster than I gave you credit for Spider-Man."

Spider-Man looked back warily. "Well y'know, gotta be quick to take care of street crime." He then paused. "Wait... You, you know who I am?"

The Avenger folded his arms across his chest. "I am aware of you, but what I'm not sure about is your intention. Which is why you're coming wi-" He couldn't finish his sentence when a mace came flying out of no where, knocking him to the ground.

"What the heck?" both said in unison as they turned their attention to Rainbow Witch, who was on the opposite side of the building.

Rainbow stood triumphantly with a confident smirk on her face. "Hey! Leave my friend alone!"

Spider-Man face palmed before glaring at her. "Rainbow! What are you doing? That's Iron Man you just hit!"

The heroine blinked to her partner then glanced to the fallen Iron Man, then back to Peter. "The superhero guy?" She grinned and waved like nothing just happened. "Hi Iron Man!"

Spidey face palmed again. "We really got to work on the hit first, ask questions later attitude." he mumbled.

By that time, Stark's armor had rebooted and he was back on his feet. "So you have a partner in crime do you? Seems new to this, so I'll just bring you both in!" he declared, taking flight and releasing repulsor fire on the two bug based heroes.

"Listen! We're not the bad guys!" Spider-Man said while avoiding the energy blasts. "There was some sort of ghost up here." he said while making his way to Rainbow Witch.

Iron Man followed in pursuit. "A ghost? Nice try, but according to my readout, it's just me and you." The wallcrawler hopped behind a piller, web pulling Star out of sight as Tony brought up their bio information such as height and weight on his helmet display. "Wait. You're kids?" he asked in surprise.

Spider-Man poked his head out. "Don't sound so surprised. This place is crawling with kids. Or maybe that's just me?" he said before shooting web balls at Stark. The armored Avenger fired a small uni-beam from his arc reactor, disintegrating the webbing instantly. "Now Star." he whispered to Rainbow. She nodded before purple smoke filled the space around them. Iron Man flew through the smoke, but the vigilante's were no where to be found.

"Clever kids." Tony complimented before taking to the streets. When he landed, people of all ages started to surround him for autographs. "Okay, okay. One at a time."