For Verity

[close_to_the_ground]

Man, Peter is gonna get so grounded.

The question is what he's gonna get grounded for. He and Mr. Stark have never really talked about what the rules are when friends come over. It's not an issue yet, since he doesn't actually live at Panoptes. And he's not supposed to tell people about Spider-Man, kind of, but Mr. Stark said he could tell people he trusts and Verity works for Panoptes so Mr. Stark must trust her.

He waits to get a text from Verity and takes the private elevator down to the lobby, hoping Mr. Stark actually works late like he's supposed to.

He really, really likes Verity. He wishes he'd had a sister like her and he feels pretty good about her not being freaked out about the Spider-Man but it's never not a weird thing to have to tell someone.

Okay, deep breath.

Comments

[close_to_the_ground]

"Oh my God," Peter whispers, because it's never even dawned on him to try something like that.

Verity is kind of a bad influence and it's awesome.

"Okay, okay how about this. You go switch out the knives and I'm gonna start the bath. It takes like, a while to fill up. It's so dumb. Do you need something to swim in? I've got like, extra swim shorts and a shirt? Or...uh. I don't know what girls would wear. Your bra? Whatever. Knives. Bath."

[notaskingpermission]

"I brought my own bathing suit, dork. And gotcha. Mission: Knife Exchange is A-Go!" Verity says, before slipping out of the room with her backpack and booking it for the kitchen. She's not really in any sort of hurry, Peter said Tony is for sure working late, but she at least wants to get a nice soak in before he comes home and potentially ruins all the fun. There's a bath at her apartment, but it's standard bath size and it sucks.

When she finds the alleged three thousand dollar knives she rolls her eyes. She pulls them out of the block and carefully wraps them in a towel, hiding them in a miscellaneous cupboard. Then she takes the cheap knives from her backpack and replaces them. That taken care of, she ducks into Tony's bedroom to change.

She returns to the bathroom in the stupid frilly bikini Elio picked out for her.

"I'm back! If I catch you staring at my tiny tits I'll punch you in the face!" she announces as she comes into the room, hoping she's caught Peter mid-trou so she can make fun of him until the end of time.

[close_to_the_ground]

"What? Oh my God, I'm not!" Peter yelps, hurriedly tying the strings of his swim trunks. He tries not to hunch on himself, always feeling weird being shirtless around anyone as he hands over the crazy expensive bubble bath.

"Dude, I think of you as a sister. As as my big sister, you get to do the honors. Pearl dust."

[notaskingpermission]

"Aw, that's sweet," Verity says, taking the bag of Pearl Dust. She would be more touched but something immediately distracts her.

"Dude. Peter. What the fuck?" She smacks his stomach, eyebrows sky high at the sheer amount of abs he has. She doesn't have a ton of experience with teenage boy's bodies, but she's pretty sure most sixteen year olds aren't this fit. "Do you lift? What's going on here?"

[close_to_the_ground]

Peter freezes when she curses, wondering if like, he's got a hole in his shorts of something horrifying before he realizes what she's talking about.

Oh.

Oh.

"Uh, yeah. I wanted to talk about that. Not the abs. But related. But it's like, it's weird. So you gotta, so gotta promise you'll still be my friend."

[notaskingpermission]

Verity raises an eyebrow.

"Well, you just said I was your sister, so that got you five hundred points in my book, so..." She's feeling really jokey about the whole thing, it's not like being built is bad, but then she realizes something and frowns.

"Wait. Shit. You're not, like...on steroids, are you?"

[close_to_the_ground]

"God, no. No," Peter huffs, walking slowly over to the wall and placing one hand on it then another. Then a foot and then another foot.

He twists around so he's facing her but still easily stuck to the wall.

"Not totally human. Not sure exactly how much not human but not a hundred percent. Mr. Stark knows. It's how we knew each other back home," he says, voice shaking.

[notaskingpermission]

Oh, shit.

Verity is such an idiot. Luckily no one else needs to know how big of an idiot she is. Because she already knew Peter was Spider-Man (come on, Peter Parker, friend of Iron Man? duh), so of course he'd have abs. She just hadn't been thinking about it in that moment, all the muscles surprising her.

But, she's also not supposed to know he's Spider-Man, so her wide-eyed look is probably the right reaction.

She plays it up a little, widening them even more.

"O-kay. Are you an alien?" she pretends to guess. "With...duct tape skin?"

[close_to_the_ground]

"No, no no hell no," he says, dropping from the wall and skidding over on his bare feet.

"Not an alien. Got bit by a genetically fucked up spider. So. I guess I got some spider abilities and some that are just weird. Is it, is it too weird? Do you need to go?"

Shit. It really is so weird.

[notaskingpermission]

Verity really assumed Peter was about to say something like, I am Spider-Man in a dramatic voice like in the movies. (The first ones. Or were those the second ones? She thinks there's been a lot.) But he doesn't, he says spider abilities and she can't help letting out a small, surprised laugh.

"Spider abilities? What does that mean? Can you shoot webs out of your butt?" she teases.

"No, I don't have to go. I mean, if you shoot a web out your butt at me I might, but..."

[close_to_the_ground]

"Yeah, yeah I shoot webs out of my butt," Peter sasses, walking over to the water and sticking his foot in to check the temperature.

"I designed these web shooters so I can swing around, though. Maybe I can take you sometime. I can lift almost anything, though. Like, a lot. And do flips and stuff. And all my senses are crazy."