C105 Spider-Man (Patreon)
Content
“Spider-Man!” Justin Hammer turns his attention from Tony to Peter. “It’s good to see you again.”
“Hmm?” Peter decided to play dumb and mess with him. “Who are you?”
If he wants to play friends and smile for the crowd, then Peter would make this uncomfortable for him.
Boy did those three words work like a charm. Hammer went from having a fake friendly smile on his face to a look of shock and anger.
He thought that he could make friends with the Spider-Man and the Avengers through Tony, especially after the failure of stealing the Iron Man suit, but that for sure wasn’t happening.
“Justin Hammer.” He says, pointing to himself. “We met at that committee meeting a week or two ago?”
“Hmm, not ringing any bells...” Peter says as he puts on a thoughtful face.
“You pretty much called me incompetent the whole time?” Hammer was really trying to get Peter to remember.
“Oh, yeah...” Peter says as he puts on an almost dismissive look. “Well, it was nice meeting you, again, but we should get to our table. The race will be starting soon.”
Without waiting for a reply, Peter walked off toward the balcony and took a seat at an open table, where he could see the track where the race would take place on.
It didn’t take long for the rest of his group to take the same excuse as Peter and follow along. They would rather do anything than deal with such a fake person after all.
Tony was grinning like a madman, happy that Hammer didn’t get what he wanted and was embarrassed at the same time.
As they all ordered food and the cars started to pour out onto the track, Peter received a message from Scythe, stating that Vanko was sneaking in through the employee entrances.
‘How is he sneaking in with two giant electronic whips and all his equipment?’ Peter thought in doubt. ‘Is he that skilled in infiltration or does he have some sort of plot armor?’
Of course, Peter was kidding about the plot armor, but he was confused about how a poor Russian scientist could do such a thing.
‘Maybe all big name Marvel villains get a jack of all trades type of buff that helps them commit their crimes?’ Peter thought with an uncaring shrug.
At the end of the day, it really didn’t matter.
While the cars were starting to line up on the track, Tony tried to sneak off to the bathroom, but Peter stopped him by grabbing his shoulder.
“You are not racing.” Peter says, knowing that this would put him in danger from his movie knowledge.
“What? I’m just going to the bathroom. Relax.” Tony says with a laugh as he shrugs Peter's hand off and strolls away.
‘Maybe I was wrong?’ Peter thought.
Maybe the reason that Tony joined the race in the movie was that he was dying and fulfilling some sort of bucket list. Now that he’s healed and running better than ever before, the thought of putting himself in a dangerous situation for the fun of it was stupid.
After a while of waiting for Tony’s return, Peter learned just how dumb he was to believe in his friend.
The restaurant they sat in had flat screen TVs everywhere for the race, and they showed the image of a dressed-up Tony Stark hopping into a race car with the Stark Industries logo prominently displayed all over its body.
“I shouldn’t have believed in him...” Peter mutters and gets an understanding nod from Pepper, who was more than used to these kind of things happening by now.
“Want me to go get 'em, boss?” Nightcrawler asks between bites of bread that the waiter brought, as he could just teleport Tony back in a matter of seconds.
“No, let him have his fun. Though be ready to help if he crashes please.” Peter says after a moment of thought.
“He‘s certainly reckless enough for that to happen...” Pepper mutters.
She may act like this doesn’t phase her, but Pepper was fairly nervous about Tony’s well-being. She and Tony have always had a romantic connection with one another, but she refused to admit it due to his playboy attitude and lifestyle.
Who would want to date a man that would cheat on you after all?
As all of the cars lined up and engines start roaring, the race is counted down and takes off with the wave of a flag. Tony is surprisingly quite skilled at race car driving as he passes a few cars before finding much more skilled opponents in the front half of the race.
While the race is happening, a man dressed in orange pit crew clothing walks beside the track. Without a care for his safety, the orange-clad man steps over the barricades and onto the raceway.
A car whizzes past the man as he takes off his jacket and unfurls two thick metallic-looking whips, which were held in each hand and connected to a harness on his chest.
As his jacket falls to the ground, a circular panel on his chest harness lights up and ignites the whips in blue electricity.
“What the...” Pepper mutters in confusion as she watches this happen.
“...” Peter watched as well, confirming that it was indeed Ivan Vanko, Whiplash. “Kurt, go and take all of the racers to safety. Start with Tony please.”
Ignoring all of the cars that were in the lead as they pass him by, careful not to run over the lunatic that’s trying to kill himself on the track, Vanko winds his arm back and strikes out at a car.
Tony’s car...
The whip hits the front end of the car, slicing through it like butter. As the front half disconnects from the back, where Tony was driving from, the back half flipped forward and launched off the ground.
While the car was mid-air and Tony was screaming in fright, Kurt disappears in a puff of blue smoke and appears on top of the soaring car.
“Hey, boss!” Nightcrawler greets as he touches Tony and disappears just in time for the car to crash into the ground and catch on fire.
As Tony and Kurt appeared back on the balcony, Pepper rushes to Tony and started hugging him, but that didn’t last long as she began to hit him and complain about taking unnecessary risks.
“Just going to the bathroom, huh?” Peter says jokingly.
“Hehehe...” Tony laughs awkwardly as his heart rate slows, calming down from the life-threatening situation he was just in.
Ignoring Tony, who was still getting an earful from Pepper, Peter turned to the Avengers and gave out some orders.
“Alright, this just went from a vacation to an active situation. Let’s see how you all handle it.” Peter says as they all straighten their backs a bit. “Kurt, deliver your comrades to the enemy and then get back to evacuating the racers and anyone else that could get in the way. Remember, I want him captured alive. You’re on camera so act like it.”
Storm stays quiet as usual and nods to her orders, while Sabertooth and Wolverine simply grunt in affirmation. Though they were excited to fight someone that wouldn’t absolutely demolish them like Peter.
“You got it!” Kurt says as he takes hold of the group and they disappear in a puff of blue smoke.
Sitting back down, Peter watched the TVs, which were following Vanko’s every move, and saw the team appear before the enemy.
Kurt didn’t stick around and disappeared, leaving the fighting to the rest while he did as he was told and got the racers off the track.
“Are you not going to help them?” Pepper asks as she fawns over Tony, looking for any injuries.
She may not want to admit it, but she loves the guy. Even after yelling at him for so long she still cares enough to make sure he’s alright.
“Nah, they need the training anyway.” Peter says with a shrug. “They haven’t had a big enemy to test themselves on just yet, so this would be their chance to shine.”
“Are you sure they can handle it?” Tony asks as he sits beside Peter and watches the TVs as well.
“This whip guy doesn’t seem very strong so they should be fine.” Peter says as Pepper joins them at the table. “My question is how does he have an arc reactor?”
Hearing Peter's words, Tony took a close look at the screen and saw a glowing object on the chest of the man that cut his car in half.
“What?!”
A/N: 1449 words