#bosl

           “I’m SO SORRY about that building last week!” Love Bite, aka Patton, threw, his lenses cocked as he looked so sad. Really, their masks were good with expressions.

           “Love Bite, you were THROWN INTO A BUILDING!” Arachne, aka Logan, threw. “They do NOT blame you for that!”

           “And if they did, they’d have to talk to these fists first!” Royal Slinger, the last of their quartet of Spiderlings, threw in an ever so Roman way.

           “And you sent a card to the building manager. They probably get it and have insurance for that.” Thomas assured as he rubbed Patton’s head, mushing his cap ever so slightly. “Now, yes, unfortunately some of the higher ups are a bit prickly about kids and meetings. Some of the other protégés occasionally come, and, as much as I love and appreciate you guys, I think you need more friends than just each other.”

           “I mean, maybe Logan and Virgil…” Roman trailed off before his boyfriend swatted him. “HEY! It’s true!”

           “ANYWAY!” Thomas cut in once more, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “Just… don’t blow anything up. If there’s an emergency, the building is hooked up with an AI known as JARVIS. Our normal communications won’t work in the tower, but he’s been told to interrupt the meeting should something go awry.”

           Logan’s extra arms came out to hold out a small device. “Would you at least endeavor to record it? I feel like I can pick out things better from a first-hand reading.”

           “Sorry, kid, but that won’t work in here.” The Spiders turned as Tony Stark stepped out onto the veranda, band shirt and blazer perfectly matching his glasses that likely cost more than Thomas’ rent. “My tech will auto nuke it on entry, but if your nice, I might be swayed to share my personal logs.”

           “Isn’t that not allowed?” Patton questioned.

           A voice snorted behind Tony. It was now that the five noticed a second figure on the roof. The person, as opposed to Tony, was no older than his late teens, early twenties, with brown hair and clothes that would be more normally worn on one of the spiderlings in their alter egos – he wore washed out jeans, a Columbia t-shirt, and a plain navy hoodie, a Stark pad in one arm as a keycard was clipped to his side. “Tony hacked the system a while ago. JARVIS stores a copy on a local drive that only Tony and I can get a hold of.” The kid stepped forward and waved. “Oh, yeah, hi, I’m Peter.”

           Tony threw an arm around the kid. “Spider runts, meet Underoos – he’s one of the best scientists I got in this place. Give him a few years, and he might be as smart as me.”

           Peter blushed at the praise. “Aw, Mister Stark-”

           “Seriously, kid? I’ve known you for years. It’s TO-NY.” Tony turned to Thomas. “You remember the kid, right?”

           “Yeah, you gave me a bunch of vines to watch last time.” Thomas chuckled. “Still haven’t gotten through them all yet.”

           Peter nodded sagely. “Well, I’m the designated ‘person under 25’ today, so I’m gonna be taking you guys around the tower. Squirrel Girl and Ms. Marvel are already here, but I think most of the others are out on team missions or whatever.” Peter shrugged. “I’ll get the brief later.”

           “You have access to those systems?” Logan approached.

           “Eh… ‘Access’ is a relative term.” Peter waved his hands. “Now, ‘hacking,’ hacking is a better descriptor.”

           “I taught him well.” Tony said, ignoring Patton’s chide at how hacking wasn’t right. “Now, Weaver, we got a meeting to be fashionably late to. You know how old eyepatch gets.”

           “Yeah, yeah.” Thomas waved before turning to his kids. “Now, be good and listen to Peter. This should be a couple of hours, and, PLEASE, don’t blow anything up.”

           “No promises, boss man.” Virgil gave a salute.

           Thomas sighed as he followed Tony. With their enhanced hearing, the boys definitely heard Thomas muttering to the other man about ‘kids these days’ and ‘I love my boys but I want to strangle them’ and other normal terms of love.

           “So I kind of already know which of you is which.” Peter said as he pulled out four keycards from his pocket. “You guys are going to need these.”

           “Oh? Will they allow us entry into the building?” Logan questioned as he took one.

           Peter snorted. “JARVIS’ face recognition software is better than any keycard. We mostly use these as a bait and switch in case anyone tries to steal our stuff. Don’t tell anyone that, though. These cards just basically get you free snacks at the vending machines.”

           “SHOULD you be telling us this?” Virgil questioned, eye quirked. “I mean, you just met us.”

           “Call it my personal spider sense.” Peter shrugged. “I’m good at reading people, and you guys seem alright.” Peter didn’t add that he had top security clearance, up there with Tony and Pepper, and had run background checks on them all. He’d been a bit less prying then his mentor, though, and had JARVIS blur names and faces. He got the basics, though. Each spider kid was unique, around his age (a bit younger, actually), and were good in their own right. Heck, Love Bite stopped on random street corners to help school children and old people cross the road.

           Peter led the charge, and, of course, Logan was asking questions as they walked in. Logan was, by far, the smartest of the four, but Peter was surprising them by being a match for his intellect. Patton was startled by JARVIS greeting them when they walked in, but soon enough the AI and the teen were chatting up a storm. Roman, for all his gags at things like science and math, was actually quite good and intrigued by it, so he was looking all about with Virgil, pointing out things that looked cool and getting layman explanations of things from Peter.

           “So how does the whole… spider thing work?” Peter asked to the group as they passed a wall of armors. “Like, do you guys make your own web? Does it come out of…” He gestured to his behind.

           Virgil snorted as he nudged Logan. “Yeah, Arachne, does it come out down…” Spidergale found webbing over his mouth, courtesy of his best friend. Virgil let off a noise of protest as he scrambled at his mask to remove the muffle or move up the mask.

           “I myself, as well as Love Bite, have the ability to generate organic webbing from our wrists, but we tend to rely more on web shooters. Using organic webbing extensively can be draining and requires Love Bite and I to consume more calories when doing so.” Logan pulled off his glove and rolled down his sleeve slightly to reveal the device. “Weaver made the initial designs and prototypes. He also uses them. We’ve fit them with other devices in the mean time, like vocal communicator, tracking systems, and what not.”

           “I came up with the best kinds of snacks to deal with the hunger.” Love Bite nodded as he pulled out some wrapped cookies. “Want one?”

           Peter eyed the cookies. “Am I safe to eat one? I’m not superhuman.”

           “Oh! Wait…” Patton stuffed the cookies back into one pouch and pulled a new set from another. “These are just sugar cookies. We do a lot of patrolling, and snacks are important!”

           Roman pulled on Virgil’s mask, managing to dislodge the webbing. “Patton is a really good baker.” The emo noted as he leaned over to help Roman off the ground.

           Peter took the cookie before hesitantly taking a bite.

           His eyes blew wide.

           “I need, like, a million of these.” He said with great awe. “These are amazing. They’re awesome. Did you put something in this?”

           “Love and sugar, kiddo!” Patton confirmed before sticking a few cookies at each of them.

           “LB I’m not…” Virgil tried to say, but he found his mask jerked up slightly to reveal his mouth just as a cookie was stuffed in. It wasn’t even a regular one – it was one of the superhuman high protein high sugar ones Patton made.

           “Nope!” Patton chided. “Grandma told me that all you had was an apple today!”

           Virgil took a bite as he grabbed the cookie. “How did you know?”

           “She and all the other old ladies put me in their baking group chat.”

           Peter licked his fingers. “So the rumor is true? That you guys are Weaver’s kids?”

           The group snorted. “Yeah… that was a thing.” Roman smiled. “While Weaver is like the weird combination of dad and older brother, none of us are actually related. I mean, unless the spider venom changed our DNA and made us more related? Is that, like, a thing or just something in comics?”

           “The circumstances that gave us four our powers was similar to Weaver, but it was still separate. In short, we each were exposed to venomous chemicals of an altered spider that resulted in each of our power development.” Logan explained.

           “I arguably got the best powers.” Roman threw.

           The other spiders rolled their eyes.

           “We all have the same basic powers.” Virgil explained. “Wall sticking, enhanced strength, spider sense, etc. Arachne has a little less stick, so he uses his legs for extra grab. Also the web thing.” Virgil shot a web off into a corner.

           “We each have little cool powers, too! But they’re not really all there.” Patton explained. “Like I can pick up on surface thoughts of animals, but it comes and goes. Spidergale turned invisible once! That was really cool!”

           “Ro- uh, Royal Slinger blew out the speakers of our school’s speakers a few times.”

           “My voice is a beautiful weapon.”

           “Arachne’s also the fastest. Like, really fast.” The emo added last.

           Peter let off a whistle. “That’s pretty insane guys. I’d love me some super powers, but I think I’m stuck toying with armor in the mean time. Jar, don’t tell Mr. Stark about this, but I’m trying to compress an arc reactor to make it possible to charge a mobile suit of some sort.”

           “Your secret is safe with me, Mr. Parker.” JARVIS confirmed.

           “Just don’t jump into it feet first, dude.” Roman warned, wincing in memory of his first attempt at being a hero. Gods, his outfit was UG-LY back then. “You have, like, Iron Man to show you the ropes first. Rainbow Weaver has been the best in training us, and, even if I hate to admit it sometimes, we’d all be squished by now without him.”

           “Royal Slinger? Admitting he’s not immortal?” Spidergale joked.

           “A prince must know his limitations… so that he can overcome them!” The red spider defended.

           Peter thought about it before nodding. “I’ll think about it. Mr. Stark is a bit protective is all.”

           “And you think Weaver isn’t?” The emo threw before they all started sharing horror/hilarious stories about times Weaver had saved their asses in the most dad ways.

           They took an express elevator about 50 floors up before the doors opened, four spider senses going off at once as they hit the deck, grabbing Peter with them. A disk shot over them, bouncing off the interior of the elevator wall before Logan caught it with his legs. “Whoops! Sorry!” The five looked up to see a girl with a massive, stretched out form begin to shrink as JARVIS paused the practice. Off to another side, a girl with a squirrel ear headband and a massive squirrel tail waved, a number of little squirrels around her.

           “Hi Pete!” The animal girl waved. “Oh, hey! It’s the spider brigade! Hi!” The girl scampered over, one squirrel with a bow on her shoulder, a big grin on her face. She exhumed what the boys affectionately called ‘Patton energy.’ “So, I’m Squirrel Girl, this is Ms. Marvel, and this is Tippy-Toe!” She introduced in rapid succession.

           Patton leapt up. “Hello! I’m Love Bite, that’s Royal Slinger, this is Arachne, and this is Spidergale! Oh, and this is Peter!”

           “I know Peter!” Squirrel Girl replied.

           “Oh, sorry! Oh my gosh, your squirrels are SO CUTE! Can I pet them?”

           “Tippy-Toe loves petting!” As she said this, the squirrel on her shoulder leapt to Patton as the boy screeched in pure joy, gently petting the squirrel with pure adoration.

           Ms. Marvel made her way over as she picked up the disk with an enlarged hand. “We got bored and decided to goof off.”

           “That’s a mood.” Peter and Virgil said at the same time before looking at each other, grinning.

           “Ms. Marvel?” Roman asked, stepping forward. “Ok, so this might be a rumor, but I heard you can shapeshift.”

           “Mm-hm!” She said, setting down the disk and shifting into Royal Slinger. “I’m a polymorph!” She stated in her own voice before clearing her throat. “How do I look?” She struck a pose with Roman’s voice now.

           Virgil blinked between the two before turning to Logan. “Slap me. I’m having a nightmare.”

           “Hey!” Roman threw, but Ms. Marvel already shifted to appear like Spidergale. Roman was enamored. “You. You would be FANTASTIC in the school play! Can you act? Please say yes.”

           That was how Roman and Kamala were left, acting out favorite TV scenes and talking about superhero stuff (not, like, serious stuff but more ‘did you see Cyclops last week that outfit was HIDIOUS!’). Patton was currently covered in squirrels and designing crazy playgrounds off the walls with webbing.

           That left Peter, Virgil, and Logan.

           Peter turned to the two. “Wanna blow something up?”

           The two introverts shared a look.

           “Yes.”

           “Mr. Stark, Mr. Weaver.” JARVIS interrupted what Thomas was deciding was the most BORING meeting of his life. Seriously, they weren’t even covering whatever Doctor Doom or the Skrulls anymore but TAXES and PUBLIC IMAGE and BLAH BLAHDY BLAH! He was a wholesome gay hero he shouldn’t have to deal with taxes. This was some homophobic BS (as he kept telling himself, trying not to daydream too much about MJ or planning a new video and miss the whole meeting).

           “Hold up, Cabbage Patch.” Tony threw to the guy with ridiculously curly hair and a pressed suit on the screen. He was definitely a bureaucrat first and foremost. “What’s up, JAR?”

           “I would like to inform you that Protocol Baby Alarm has been triggered. It has also come to involve Mr. Weaver’s protégés, Spidergale and Arachne.” JARVIS intoned.

           “Well, shit, I guess I gotta deal with that.” Tony threw as he stood. “You don’t mind, Cap? Fury? Gotta make sure a civilian like my people are taken care of. Kinda serious.”

           Serious??? Weaver stood up, full of concern. “Wait, what’s the Baby Protocal? What happened?”

           “I’ll explain on the way.” Tony nodded as he easily walked out. Thomas abandoned his chair with little fanfare, worry and panic in his veins. His spider sense hadn’t gone off, and his gut (aka his ‘dad’ sense) hadn’t told him something was wrong. Tony walked quietly down the hall, humming something ACDC until they reached the elevator.

           Once the doors closed, Thomas felt like he was about to crawl out of his skin. “What’s the Baby Alarm? Tony, what happened? Are my kids ok?”

           Tony looked over before snorting. “JARVIS, pull me up a feed.”

           On the elevator doors, a holographic screen showed a room absolutely COVERED in spider web, the epicenter a mess of plastic, scorch marks, and more web. The camera panned to show Peter stuck to the floor, Logan trying to dislodge his legs from a wall, and Virgil… well, Virgil seemed to be stuck to the ceiling somehow. Soon, four other kids, including his missing spiders, ran in. Roman started laughing, even with the sound muted, and Patton began fussing over Logan.

           Then he got stuck.

           “Protocal Baby Alarm AKA Peter blew something up again, nothing’s actually broken, but now I have an excuse to leave a boring meeting.” Tony grinned as Thomas clutched his chest, his heart slowing. Everyone was alright.

           In so much trouble, but alright.

           “I TOLD them not to blow anything up!” Thomas threw.

           Tony laughed. “My kid’s a sweetie, but he can be a terrible influence.”

           “He seemed so innocent.”

           “Oh, he is.” Tony nodded as the door opened. “He gets the blow shit up bit from me. JARVIS? Can I get some blue prints on whatever they were doing? Or, hell, can we just get some bots to scrape them off?”

           Thomas cracked his neck as the biochemical components appeared on a holographic display that led them. At least he remembered enough of this gibboly goop from his chemical engineering degree. “Looks like they messed with the webbing formula… again.”

           “Again?”

           “Royal Slinger and Arachne can get very… creative with my original formula. Slinger always wants to make it gayer, and Arachne still hasn’t figured out how I get the coloring just right.”