Chapter Six

Ace had fallen asleep with his arms folded on the table and his head resting in them. He didn't know how much time had passed when he was woken by the sound of the door to his cell opening. He lifted his head, blinking sleepily at the figure entering the room.

He was about Ace's age, a little taller maybe, with pale skin and mahogany brown hair styled messily. He was carrying a plate with toast on it, which he set in front of Ace when he sat down.

"Hey. I'm Peter. Parker," he stated a little awkwardly. Ace raised an eyebrow, looking down at the plate.

"Oh, that's for you. I uh, thought you might be hungry. Sorry, about all this, by the way. I guess Nick Fury thinks you might have some kind of superpower and could be a threat to earth or something. Personally, I think he's over-reacting, but I guess you can never be too careful. I mean, I've seen some insane shit since I became Spiderman, so."

Ace reached out a hand, ignoring Peter, and picked up a slice of toast. There was marmalade on it.

"If you don't like it, I can get something else. I didn't really know what to put on it."

Ace shook his head, smiling a little. "No, it's okay. It's just, one of my older sisters loved marmalade. I remember she wouldn't eat anything else for breakfast." Ace laughed a little. "It used to drive my dad crazy."

"You... had a sister?" Peter asked softly.

Ace nodded. "I had two. They were both older than me by three and four years. They hated me." Ace took a bite out of the toast.

"What happened to them?" Ace knew he should be a little more careful about what he was saying, since he suspected this was just another interrogation, but there was something so innocent about Peter and his brown eyes. And Ace hadn't spoken to anyone about his family, had hardly thought about them, and some part of him needed this.

"They died. When I was six, we were in a car accident. My dad and sisters were both killed. I wasn't."

"What about your mom?"

"She died when I was born. Complications, I guess."

"Oh. I'm so sorry. My parents are gone, too. I never really knew what happened to them. They left me with my aunt May and uncle Ben."

Ace was a little surprised at Peter's honesty. They were strangers to each other, Peter had helped kidnap Ace, but there they were, having this touching moment of honesty. Ace couldn't tell if he loved it or wanted to throw his toast at Peter to make him shut up.

Fortunately for Peter, the toast was really good and Ace was really hungry, so instead he just nodded. "Is it nice?" He asked softly. "Having a family."

Peter smiled sadly. "Well, it's just May and I, now. My uncle died last year. He was shot. I uh, that's actually why I became Spiderman. Because I was there, you know? When he died. And I could have stopped it. But I didn't, and he was killed. He told me, as he was dying, that with great power comes great responsibility. And I've kinda lived by that since then."

Ace was shocked. Why was Peter being so honest? "I'm- I'm so sorry. Uh."

Peter smiled wetly, wiping his eyes and sniffing a little. "It's okay. We're not here for you to hear my depressing origin story."

"Well technically, I don't want to be here at all." Peter laughed, a light sound that made Ace smile.

"I don't really know why you're here, either. You don't seem dangerous."

Ace wiggled his eyebrows. "Oh no, I'm super dangerous. My superpower is being so gorgeous that people just drop dead." He flipped his hair a little, making Peter laugh again.

"Oh no, I have gazed upon your splendid beauty for too long!" Peter made an exaggerated sound of pain, clutching his chest and pretending to die. Ace snorted.

"What powers does a spider-man even have?" He asked when they had both controlled themselves. "Do you like, crawl on the ceiling and hiss at people?"

"Okay, first of all, spiders don't hiss? And second, yes." To demonstrate, Peter jumped up, attaching himself to the roof, which was a good eight feet above the ground, straightening so he was standing upside down on the ceiling.

"Now hiss," Ace prodded jokingly.

"No, oh my God, what kind of spiders do you live with?" Peter demanded, dropping back down.

"Wait, were you shooting webs at me?!" Ace blurted. "Do those come out of you? That's gross!"

"No! Oh my God, no! I make them! It's a chemical formula that I load into pellets and put in my web-shooters!"

Ace laughed at the disgusted look on Peter's face. "So is that the only thing you can do? Stick to things and chemically formulate webs?"

"Well, no, I mean, scientifically, the average spider can lift up to eight times their body weight and can heal much faster than humans, which are both characteristics I adopted as well, and this funky thing I call spider-sense, which basically warns me of danger before it happens, so I can avoid it easier."

"Damn. That's pretty cool. I honestly wasn't that impressed when I first saw you. Are you a mutant or something then?"

Peter shrugged. "I mean, technically. I'm not sure how it works. I was bitten by this Oscorp super-spider thing about a year and half ago, maybe, and it did something funky to my DNA, so now I have spider powers. What about you?"

Ace shrugged. "I don't have any superpowers. I've never done anything super, except apparently not dying."

"Can I ask, when you were stabbed, how long did it take for the wound to fully heal?"

"I guess, about two days? Maybe three. Why?" Ace blinked at Peter's expression. The boy was obviously shocked.

"Ace, it usually takes like a month for something like that to heal fully."

"Oh," Ace breathed. "I, uh- so, do you think that I might have some kind of, of super-healing thing going on?"

Peter bit his lip. "Well, it's looking like more and more of a possibility the more we learn. But that might also not be the only thing."

Ace shook his head. He was scared. He didn't really understand. "What do you mean?"

"Do you remember, last night, when I shot a web at you and you caught it and threw me over your head?"

Ace nodded. "Well, my webs shoot at give-or-take twenty-four-ish miles an hour, it would have been impossible for a normal person to catch it. And you showed an insane amount of strength, not just when you threw me, but when you almost escaped from Wanda's hold. Ace, I think you might have some kind of power and just not know about it."

Ace stared at Peter, his lips parted. There was no way he could have some kind of power. He would know. He had been living on the streets, for crying out loud! If he had any kind of super-strength he would know! There were hundreds of situations he could have really used it in, he would know, there was no way!

"Is- is there a way to tell for sure?" He whispered, still in some form of shock. Peter nodded. "We can ask Bruce. He can take some tests, DNA samples, stuff like that. He'll figure it out."

Ace nodded.

Ace was sitting on a bed in an infirmary-style room, while a man in his late-forties with greying curly black hair and a kind face took a blood sample. Peter was sitting beside him, and Tony Stark was standing behind the doctor-man, watching over his shoulder.

Ace knew there were more people around, he had passed a few on his way here. He wasn't cuffed to anything anymore, but he still felt like a captive. When he told Peter he wanted to do the DNA test-thingy, he had left the room for a moment, returning with the two other men now in the room with him, who had escorted Ace and Peter to the infirmary.

The doctor-man, Bruce, withdrew the needle and smiled reassuringly at Ace. He turned away momentarily, turning back with a small band aid, but the tiny needle prick was already gone, Ace wiping the blood away with his thumb. 

Fun fact: that was my entire chapter buffer but I regret nothing