Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

As the metal doors of the container slammed to the floor, reverberating with a few loud thuds, Parker completely missed the sound of a body hitting the floor. His own met the ground in an impact-absorbent roll, and he found it taking all of his concentration to focus on following up with a battle-ready stance. The noises rang in his ears and he fought his swimming vision with arms up to his chest and ready to aim at-

"Huh-?"

Under his mask, Parker frowned, swallowing spit and looking to his left- and his right. He spun on his feet. 

What?

"What is this place?" he wheezed, drawing in a breath, "Suit Lady, where am I?"

"You're in the most secure facility on the Eastern Seaboard; the Damage Control Deep Storage Vault."

"No. Seriously-?!" Parker's voice cut away with a frustrated groan. It was, of course, accompanied by a fleeting feeling of relief; he'd tumbled out of that container expecting a fight. Which he doesn't have to do. Because there's nobody-

.

"What the fuck-?!" 

Parker nearly leapt straight in the air, not unlike a cat, as someone cursed from behind him. Instead, he jolted around to see some dude pushing himself to his feet. He looked like he'd taken quite a tumble himself- one hand was slapped square against his chest, clutching at where his heart rests. It didn’t take much to connect that he’d fallen off of one of the storage containers- the one directly to the left of the one he’d come from; Parker filed that away mentally, opting instead to bring the hands that had been dropping to his sides up once more, though this time with fingers flush against the trigger of his web-shooters instead of poising to punch.

"Who the hell are you-?" the silver-haired mystery blurted, pausing to shiver at the- quite frankly unnerving- way the eyes on the spider-suit narrowed mechanically. 

He moved; perhaps to reclaim his spot on the container, or perhaps to move away from this suited stranger. Big mistake. At the first sign of movement, Parker's instincts took hold, and with a thwip , he was routinely webbing the dude to the container he was next to.

The guy's eyes widened almost comically, a foul curse dropping from his mouth as his arm slammed against metal. He regarded the webbing on his right hand with wide eyes, looking between it and Parker a few times in stunned silence.

.. which was broken by a litany of curses and outdated slang. Parker couldn’t find it in himself to feel offended. He’s webbed up his fair share of criminals; he’d have to really rethink this business if a few curses put him down. The words weren't mean, anyways, just kind of shocked if not disturbed. 

“Oh, that is so- so freaky funky. This is absolutely disgusting. Fucking bugged out, dude, but- like, neat.”

Wait.

That.. that was new.

Criminals didn’t usually have a track record of expressing awe about his webs while they were restrained with them. Much less mixed their awe in with their cursing and disgust.

"Suit Lady?" Parker muttered. "Run diagnostics on my head again, please."

If AIs could sound amused, Suit Lady definitely did. "The results have not varied from my last scan, Spider-Man. Besides what can be attributed to your accelerated healing."

The teen found himself nodding subconsciously. "Right.. right. And, uh, are hallucinations a symptom of..?"

"The webby weirdo’s talkin’ to himself… great," his silver haired.. companion? captive? muttered, giving the webs an experimental tug as the AI spoke at the same time.

"Hallucinations are possible, but unlikely, with mild concussions. However, I can assure you that you are not, in fact, hallucinating. There is exactly one heat signature besides your own within the facility, bar areas my scanners cannot reach."

"Oh." Parker acknowledged the AI. "Huh." 

It's not that he was confused at the teen being real- though it'd be easier for him (well, maybe not easier in the long run. Hallucinations tended to hint toward more serious health problems)- it was just that his sixth sense wasn't really reacting to this kid. Like, at all. If he was really a bad guy or someone working with the Vulture, he was pretty sure it’d be driving his spidey-sense up a wall.

Allowing his arms to finally drop to his side, Parker pressed his back against the opposing storage box. It felt great to finally lean his weight against something else; he took a moment to take a deep breath and sigh. Okay. Let’s get to business. Interrogation. I can totally do this.

"Are you a bad guy?"

... maybe not what he'd meant to say. And probably not going to get an honest answer. Parker mentally slapped himself, but the damage was already done.

Silver blinked. 

"No?"

"That’s a question." Parker pointed out, no small amount of suspicion lacing his words. Silver fixed him a look that Parker was fairly certain could be read as pure annoyance, maybe even an unspoken, ‘no shit?’ . 

"No.” Silver drew out, making sure to make it as clearly a statement as he could. “I'm not a 'bad guy'.”

“Sure. Who do you work for?”

Silver’s eyes narrowed minutely. “Who do you work for?”

“I asked first! … I mean, you didn’t answer my question.”

 "And you never answered my first question, so, fair’s fair."

The lenses of the mask narrowed again, causing the teen to raise an eyebrow. A thoughtful glint passed through his eyes. A miniscule amount of frustration settled into Parker's thoughts. He'd asked a question? he thought. ... Do I morally have to answer a probable bad guy's question? Probably, he supposed. Conversation goes two ways; and manners, or whatever.

"What question?"

"Oh, y’know.. ‘who are you?’,” he paused, before adding, “And what’s up with the..." using his free hand, he gestured up and down at Parker, "... halloween costume..?"

"It's not a Halloween costume!" Indignant sputtering came from the masked vigilante, "I'm Spider-Man."

Blank stare.

"You know, the web-slinger of Queens?"

Nothing.

"Friendly neighborhood Spider-Man? Crime Fighting Spider?" Nope. "Public Menace, as according to the Daily Bugle. Basically an Avenger, so on, so forth?."

"Am I being hazed?"

" No !" Parker threw his hands up. "What? No. What would I be hazing you for - you know what, not important."

"It's kind of important." Silver refuted. "Are you a mascot..?"

Some sort of distressed noise built in Parker's throat. "You are so not from Queens, Mr. Bad Guy. Or live under a rock. Or- wait, do you live in this storage vault?"

"What???" Silver sounded genuinely confused. His expression grew pinched, as he took a moment to continue. The longer the silence drew on, the more confused he looked.  “... no, I’m not from- what, Queens? I don’t live here, either, don’t be ridiculous.”

Parker nodded. “So you live in DC?”

That was a good question, the teen thought. DC… where was DC? .. that was, uh, not a state, no. But it was in a state. He definitely knew that. His eyes squinted at the mounting pressure behind his forehead; he does his best to blink it away.

“No.” I don’t think so, he added internally, taking in the way this Spider-Dude seemed to fidget more the longer he took to answer. This is so clearly not your scene, dude.  

“Then where do you live?”

Silver blinked at him almost owlishly. “Why?”

“Because you- because, it’s really suspicious for you to be at a crime scene in general, much less if you’re not local!” Spider-Dude threw his hands up.

He was met with the same blank stare from earlier, and the silence almost, almost lapsed into an awkward silence. Almost. Silver coughed, breaking the- well, he didn’t know if it really was eye contact per se, suit dude could be looking anywhere.

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know? Or you don’t want to tell me?” Spider-Man questioned. At the unamused look he was given, he raised a hand placatingly. “Fine, fine, that’s fair; stranger danger, after all. Can you at least tell me your name? It’s annoying referring to you as ‘Silver’.”

“ That’s what you’ve been calling me?”

“What else is there to work with?”

And- god, Parker was starting to hate the incredulous looks that this guy could send. Criminals didn’t tend to judge that much, okay?

"I'm..." the silver-haired teen began, but trailed off, a pained look coming about him. "My name is.. it's..? P.. it's- I'm-" the throbbing in his temple had him shutting his mouth with a click. Stop, stop, stopstop stop. Ouch. The pressure alleviated some the less he strained to remember. And, yeah, there was really no better way to put it than a rather belated, "Uh."

“‘Uh’?” A bewildered look was sent his way- though he wouldn’t know it. Not when the mask, well, masks every single facial feature necessary to read expression. “Nice to meet you, Uh.”

Something ugly coiled in the teen’s gut at that.

“Fuck you.” he snapped, before backtracking, “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?”

“I don’t know, no.”

“What do you mean, you don’t know?” Parker retorted. “It’s just your name.”

“I mean that I literally don’t know. It’s all empty in there,” he tapped his forehead with a free hand, transitioning into a ‘tada’ motion, before dropping it. “And I mean that I think there’s a lot I don’t know. Like, why am I here- or, or like DC; where’s DC? It doesn’t even sound familiar, but it does at the same time- and I knew it wasn’t a state, rather in a state, but I can’t think of the state name either and the more I try to think about it the more my-” he paused for a pained hiss, “the more my head does fucking that . It hurts.”

Parker froze at that. 

"Oh." 

I really, really hope that that's just him trying to get out of this . Otherwise I am literally the world’s biggest asshole. The suit's eyes narrowed with his own as he strained to listen to the teen's heartbeat. Which was unusually fast; like, frighteningly fast.

"You don't believe me." It wasn't a question, more rather it was a statement. 

"I don't.. not believe you, it's just," Parker shifts his weight from one foot to the other uncomfortably. There were a million ways he could go from here, and after a good moment of deliberation, he pushed himself away from the storage unit. ".. Suit Lady, how long have I been here?

"Hey, no," Silver protested, leaning forward as much as his webbed hand allowed. "You don't just get to walk away from that!"

Under the suit, Parker's mouth thinned into an unseen grimace. 

"I'm going to look for a way out." He retorted, discomfort still hanging onto his words. He at least was now facing away from the teen; it was a lot easier to ignore everything when he couldn't see the looks that Silver would send his way- like the look he was receiving right now, eyes wide with disbelief. “Then we can figure out your situation afterwards.”

"I already looked," Silver snapped, "trust me, I was awake a lot longer than you. Unless you can pry those doors open barehanded, you're not getting out."

"Trust me , I'm a lot stronger than I look."

Silver's gaze burns on the back of his head a few seconds more, before they bounce to the unit that Parker'd bursted out of- and the heavy metal pieces scattered on the floor. "No kidding," he mutters.

Parker follows his gaze, dropping whatever fiery retort he had prepared. His eyes land on the bag resting on the floor of the unit. And just like that, he was headed back towards where he started. 

"There's gotta be something in here that'll help," he spoke assuringly, more for himself than for his company. 

Silver rolled his eyes, before setting his sight on his webbed hand. Similarly to before, he tried giving it a few harsh tugs. Bringing his free hand to yank at it wielded little progress, too, much to his disdain. The stuff was strong; he wasn't sure he'd ever seen anything like it. Though, he supposes, that could always be a memory thing. Fighting to keep an irritated frown off of his face, he settles for slamming his webbed hand back against the metal as hard as he could. Nothing happens- besides that Spider-Guy jumping. 

Serves him right. For good, vindictive measure, the teen slams his hand against the metal one- two- three more times, and feels accomplished at the way that Spider-Man pauses in his task to turn to face him.

“Would you stop that?”

“Would you let me go?”

The suit’s eyes narrow, and Silver is quick to narrow his own in a challenging manner. For a long moment, it’s as if the vigilante is actually considering it. 

“That’s a new one; criminals have definitely never tried that one before.” he quips, then steps out of view. Silver groans, head falling back against the metal with a soft clang!

“Please, stop.” The muffled complaint came from where Spider-Man had disappeared into. Silver rolls his eyes.

“I didn’t even hit it!” 

Parker’s eye twitches as he continues rifling through the duffel bag he was now crouched over, ignoring the insults his hearing was picking up. His fingers ghost a large piece of metal, and he hauls it into eyesight, letting out a sigh when it seems pretty useless. He casts it aside, setting it gently on the floor of the storage space and reaching back into the duffel bag. The next item he lifts is in equal parts terrifying, equal parts awesome, and he expresses so with a muttered, “That’s awesome.”

Slam.

Parker flinches forward, nearly dropping the ultron head.

“My god,” he hisses, pushing himself onto his feet and stumbling to the edge of the container- decapitated head and all still in his grasp. “I’ve met crimelords less aggravating than you. Here,” he pauses to roll the ultron head across the floor. It rolls sadly to a stop just in front of Silver. 

“Oh, what the fuck-” Silver tip toes, pressing back against the metal as firmly as he can. “What the fuck is that? Is that a head? ” He uses his foot to gently prod the thing. When it doesn’t twitch or really react in any way, he lowers himself back to a more relaxed position. Aligning it underneath the flat of his foot, he works at rolling it closer to himself. “Dude, are you mental? You trap me against my will, mock me for my memory issues, and then throw a decapitated head at me-”

“I didn’t throw it,” Parker waves a hand. “Besides, I figured it’d give you something to focus on until I get done what needs to get done.”

Silver’s eyebrows raise to his hairline, just about, “What, getting us out of here? How do I know you’re not just going to leave me webbed up once you find a way out?”

“I only leave people webbed up if they deserve it. And the webs would dissolve in three hours, anyways. ”

“Great.” Silver responds. “That fills me with so much confidence. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome!” Parker says sarcastically, returning to his task. 

Silver sighs, looking between the head at his feet and the webs keeping him standing. Awkwardly, he lowers himself down into a crouch, webbed arm still suspended in the air. Just barely he’s able to reach the mechanical head with his left hand, using whatever leverage his fingers can find to pull the thing into grabbing range. The way he finally manages to pick it up is not unlike how one would pick up a bowling ball; he finds purchase in the little divots around the eyes and cradles it to his chest before he can drop it. Sliding back to a standing position leaning against the metal, he curls to his right, pinning the head against his suspended elbow. 

This thing is kinda gnarly, Silver admits internally. It was honestly like something out of a movie, certainly not something he’d expect to encounter in real life- outside of movie props and comic-cons. It’s somewhat of an endeavor, but Silver manages to roll the head along his arm, mindlessly observing the curves and scratches and divots the otherwise smooth surface is marred with on its side. 

“You said this was a crime scene,” he called, “how?”

There’s a cloth rustling noise, presumably that of Spider-Man pausing in his rifling. “Well, a crime was committed at this scene, ergo.. crime scene.”

“Ha ha; what crime? I think I have a right to know what I’m being accused of.”

“.. this is a storage vault.”

Silver blinks, staring into the ominous red eyes of the head in his hand. “No shit.”

“If you’d let me finish-” there’s a muffled curse following a small clang. “- it’s a Damage Control storage vault. Like- where stuff goes after they clean up from massive fights. With the Avengers and stuff. Dangerous things that shouldn’t be laying in the street. Said dangerous stuff has been disappearing from this vault- and the containers they’re being transported in- and subsequently ending up bastardized into these high tech weapons in Queens.”

The webbed-up teen hums, finding a renewed focus on the head. He tilts it up, eyeing the jagged edges where it once connected to a neck. “And Queens is your, what, hunting grounds? Territory?”

“Queens is my home.” It’s curious, to Silver, the sheer amount of honesty and fondness in the guy’s voice. “So, no, it’s not my hunting grounds ; I’m not a feral animal. I just protect the borough from little guy stuff.”

“Alright,” Silver acquiesces. “These.. Weapons, they’re ‘little guy stuff’?” Keep him talking. He fumbles to get a good grip on the head, pinching it in the divots of the eyes once more. Once he’s sure it won’t slip, he slowly pulls it away from his arm, twisting until the sharp edges face the webbing on his hand.

“Yes. No.” Spider-Man responds, lapsing into a brief silence. “It’s not big guy stuff, or the Avengers would be on it. And it’s putting Queens in danger, so-” Silver jabs the head into the webbing, praying for a jagged edge to catch- “it’s at least my business. I can’t just let these things wander my city.”

The webbing pulls taut across his hand, moving with the head as he pushes down. Silver gives a little cheer under his breath, beginning a sawing motion.

“Noble.” 

“I don’t do it to be noble,” the vigilante’s voice sounds annoyed. One string of the webbing gives with a near inaudible Snap!  

“That’s noble,” Silver snickers. Oddly enough, his company falls silent- the silence drawing on longer, and longer. He begins to wonder if he’d messed up- not that he’d feel necessarily bad about it if he had, this dude did stick him to a wall for no reason. Ten more seconds pass, and it’s for that reason that it startles Silver even more when the other suddenly shouts .

“Wh- you mean we’ve been carrying around a bomb?! ”

Silver curses as he jumps, his hand slipping and driving the jagged edge of the metal not only through the remaining webbing, but also across the back of his hand- leaving behind a shallow, but nonetheless bleeding cut.

He promptly drops the metal head, cradles the limb to his chest- now that he actually could, and now that it was bleeding - for a moment before his brain catches up to what it was that Spider-Man had yelled, exactly.

“You’ve been carrying around a what ?” He yelps back, giving a cursory glance at the opposite end of the storage facility, wondering for the first time if such a distance would give him an advantage against an explosion . This is a weapon storage vault, as he explained, surely that means there’s blast-proof precautions! 

Spider-Man’s voice is urgent; “Not me; not now!”. Accompanied by some frantic shuffling, Silver got the clear mental picture that this dude was scrambling . Shortly thereafter, he comes skidding out of the container- no joke, skidding, the weird skin-tight suit evidently not putting up much traction. Silver’s eyes were wide- but Spider-Man’s were wider- and the teen was very shocked silent. 

He watches with wide eyes as the vigilante throws himself at the sturdy, way-too-thick doors of the facility, using the same webs he’d trapped Silver with to catapult upwards. Silver couldn’t help but cringe when somehow the man was able to stick to the surface with no visible adhesives or wires. Almost mirroring how Silver himself had pounded at the container a few minutes earlier, the Spider-Man starts pounding on the door in a panic.

“Hey! Hey, please! Please, somebody let me out!”  

“ What are you doing?” Silver finds himself stuttering out incredulously. “Who’s gonna hear you? You said yourself this is a top-security storage- no, not important; what was the thing about a bomb?! ” He gives his hand a small shake, wringing his fingers and wiping blood off on his pants with a second of deliberation. The cut stings, but the sensation pales in comparison to the way his heart was pounding nearly out of his chest. Almost subconsciously, the gray-haired teen edged his way a little further away from the point of interest.

“Now is really not the time!” Spider-Man hisses. He truly does feel bad for snapping at the guy; he doesn’t blame him for being worried. Eyes scanning the door for any faults or any tells of how to get it to open, he finds himself thinking, the least I could do is explain a little. And then; but what if he’s a criminal?! Followed by, and? What’s he gonna do with the knowledge my teenaged friend is carrying around an explosive that has to be directly triggered?  

Silver makes a sort of choked, unintelligible noise in his throat, and it only makes Spider-Man feel a little worse.

Stop overthinking this, Parker! Spider-Man slaps himself- literally- from his reverie, using the sharp sting on his face to force his focus. He heard the sound of shoes scuffling on the ground, but he didn’t- couldn’t- afford to focus on it. Spider-Man’s shoulders couldn’t possibly tense any further. C’mon.. Come on! And then his eyes land on a small, but exposed keypad next to the doors. There!

Silver finds himself taking a few, more certain steps away. He really is mad, he thinks, a sharp jab of frustration clouding his mind for a moment, but then he hesitates, one foot in the air, eyes following the guy’s movement up to the keypad. But he’s my best bet at getting out of here. Kind of. Maybe.

As far up on the door as he already was, crawling over to the keypad was an easy feat, though Silver’s head spun as the vigilante chose to web the ceiling and dangle upside down as he got down to business. 

In the end, Silver didn’t actually help him- he’d done his laps well before the spider-man had burst out of the container, to no avail; there truly was no other easy way out of the vault- but it hadn’t exactly taken the mutate long to break the code, either. It was kind of impressive, if Silver had any say about it. And when the large door finally- finally! - started moving, Silver couldn’t help but let out a ‘whoop!’, a sentiment shared with his companion, if him pumping his fist in the air and shouting, “it worked! It worked!”, was any indication

Spider-Man threw his wrist forward, a line of webbing at his call and swinging halfway out of the door before it even finished moving. He probably would’ve made it out within a second, too, if he hadn’t been startled by a loud yelp.

“Wait!”

Silver met him at the door. 

When did he- Spider-Man gave a startled hiss as he stuttered to a halt, catching himself with one hand painfully against the top half of the door to keep himself from falling through to the other side. Wait, how did he get out?

The thought was jarring; Spider-Man crawled perhaps faster than he’d ever had to crawl until he met solid ground, wasting no time in placing himself between Silver and the door. I really don’t have time for this-!

He wrung his hands nervously, feeling the material stick to his fingers with sweat. 

“Look, I don’t know how you got out, but I don’t- I can’t stay here. Lives are in danger,” Spider-Man rushed, “so. Just stay here. If you really do have memory issues, and you explain your side of the story, I’m sure the workers here will help you out.”

“What?” Silver breathed, blinking. “What? No- you can’t just leave me here!” 

“I have to!” his spiderly companion shouted as he leapt onto the wall, scuttling up to the ceiling for ultimate stealth . “I’m sorry!”

“You said you’d help me-!” 

He was gone before the words left his mouth.

Silver stared at the ceiling, stunned, for a good moment. And then, as the sound of a faint thud followed by tires against asphalt met his ears, he jerked into motion. Stay here. Fat chance.