Work Text:
To be fair, Tony Stark had supported the idea of Peter making a social media for his alter-ego, but neither had known it would end up like this. We’re getting ahead of ourselves, so let’s go back to where it all started.
Peter had come bounding out of Midtown High after Academic Decathlon practice had ended, excited to go to the tower and work in the lab. He shot a quick goodbye to Ned and MJ, saying goodbye back and flipping him off respectively, before making his way to where Happy was waiting. He jumped into the backseat with a large smile and set his backpack beside him.
“What’s up, Happy?” Peter greeted the man, who only grunted in response. Despite how he acted, he had a soft spot for the kid and, once the vigilante started rambling about his day, he didn’t put up the divider in the car.
The drive to the tower wasn’t too long and was, of course, filled up with Peter’s chatter. Soon enough, they arrived at the tower.
“Bye, Happy!” Peter called as he grabbed his bag and raced out of the car, eager as ever to get working in the lab. He grabbed his key card from a side pouch on his bag as he made his way through the fancy, high-tech lobby. As always, the scanner lit up with a green light when he walked through, and the same happened with the elevator. The business people, interns, and receptionists in the lobby ignored him like they always did as he made his way through.
“Good afternoon, Peter,” FRIDAY greeted the teen once the elevator doors closed. “Boss is in the lab and says to grab a snack before coming down there. He also says that the main project for today will be upgrading the Spider-Suit and that he has contacted your aunt and gotten permission for you to stay the night.
“Thank you, FRIDAY,” Peter replied enthusiastically.
When the elevator doors opened again, Peter made his way out and went straight to the kitchen. He looked through all the cabinets and the fridge until he found a box of Poptarts, deciding to just take a pack and bring it down to the lab. The arachnid turned around to start walking to the lab but turned back before he started moving to grab another package of the snack for his mentor. Peter knew Tony well enough to know that the genius would never come out of the lab to eat until he nearly collapsed.
The door made a ‘woosh’ sound as Peter walked into the lab with the snacks and Tony turned around.
“‘Sup, kid?” he greeted his mentee. Peter smiled and threw the snack at him while dropping his bag near the door.
“Not much,” Peter replied as he made his way over and sat down on the stool next to Tony. “I’ve got some good ideas for upgrades to the suit!”
“Then let’s get to it,” Tony exclaimed as he opened the package and took a bite out of a Poptart.
The two got to work with blueprints and ideas, throwing in input and making adjustments with their plans until they were ready to put the upgrades into the suit. The superheroes had gotten into the zone of not being able to focus on anything but their work. They weren’t chatting as much anymore, just opening their mouths to tell each other about something they should tweak or asking the other to pass a tool. It was practically silent in the lab until Peter spoke up.
“What if I just went off and made a Spider-Man Instagram account?” the boy said a bit jokingly.
Tony thought for a minute before replying, “That wouldn’t be a bad idea.”
Peter choked on his spit for a second before getting it together and looking at the man with a confused expression.
“It could give you good press and get some of the spotlight on the vigilantes of New York,” the genius elaborated.
“I did not think you were going to agree to this or I would’ve asked you a lot sooner,” Peter laughed as he jumped up. The boy grabbed his phone from the other end of the table and opened up Instagram. Going to the button where you can switch accounts, he skipped over his main and his spam to the ‘create a new account’ button. Tony watched as he went through the motions until he had to come up with a name for the account.
Peter put in ‘Spiderman’
It was taken.
Peter put in ‘spider.man’
It was taken.
Peter put in ‘spider_man’
It was taken.
“Just put an ‘official’ before it,” Tony suggested as he watched the boy try and find a good username. Luckily, ‘officialspiderman’ was somehow not taken, which the young arachnid was extremely relieved to find out.
“What should my first post be?” Peter wondered aloud, to which Tony seemed excited about.
“Get in your suit!” the billionaire declared, “We’re going to the roof to do a photoshoot!”
The first post ended up being a picture of Spider-Man in his classic web-shooting pose on top of Stark Tower with the caption, “Finally swung my way onto Instagram.” He gained a few followers, but there was mostly just comments of people asking if it was the real Spider-Man. The next week, though, Peter woke up on a supposedly normal morning only to realize he had over one-hundred-thousand followers all thanks to Tony following him, which confirmed that he was the real Spider-Man.
Posting on the now-verified account had become a regular occurrence for Peter. He posted nearly every night with some picture of him hanging out around the city or with somebody he had saved, always tagging the person he took the picture with. His account also filled up with pictures that fans would send of him when they saw him out on patrol, with him always giving credit to the photographer.
The one thing Peter was forever careful of was which account he was posting on. He always double, triple, quadruple checked before he posted anything on any of his three accounts. It didn’t matter for his main account, which he rarely used, but he never wanted to accidentally post something from his spam on his Spidey account in fear of his identity being revealed.
That was exactly what happened about a year after he had made the account, though.
It had been a rough week for Peter Parker. Ned had been ignoring Peter for some unknown reason, which had been killing the boy. His best friend was always there and he didn’t have anybody to talk to if the other teen wasn’t around. May had been getting on him about his grades, which just stressed him out because he was already worried about them. Spider-Man duties had been harder lately, which meant that homework and sleep were hard to keep up with. The internship had been a mess, too. He had no good ideas for any projects and felt more like a burden in the lab instead of a help. Everything was weighing down on him and he had nothing to do except make a post on his spam account.
The post was a dark photo of him crying in his bedroom with the black snapchat text bar reading, “God isn’t it so great that my life is falling apart!!!!!! It’s so fun!1!1! Ned is ignoring me for whatever reason and May is stressing me tf out and my goddamn internship is going to actual fucking shit. Everyone hates me and that’s fine!!!!!! Fuck me I guess !!!! I’m gonna die alone and that’s fine :-)))))))”
And he posted it straight to his Spider-Man account.
For 394,000 people to see.
And then he went to bed.
The next morning, Peter was shaken awake by May, who looked completely freaked out, which made Peter freak out. Once he had woken up, she practically dragged him out of bed and started bringing him to the living room.
“May! May, what’s wro-” Peter cut himself off once he saw the TV, which was playing the news on CNN. What caught his eye was the headline:
Spider-Man’s Identity Revealed Through Instagram
“Fuck fuck fuck!” Peter shouted as he ran back into his room to grab his phone. He opened up Instagram only to realize that his worst fear had come to life: he had posted a spam post on his Spider-Man account. The vigilante began near-hyperventilating, sitting down on his bed in shock. Throwing his phone to the other side of the bed, Peter stuffed his face into his pillow and screamed at the top of his lungs, which was still pretty loud even with the pillow muffling it.
Gathering all his courage, Peter got up and walked over to his desk, where he opened up his laptop and searched ‘spiderman identity reveal’ to find out what people were saying. There were a million articles, and all he could see were the bad ones.
‘Spider-Man Revealed to be Unstable’
‘Is Spider-Man Too Emotional to be a Hero?’
‘Can We Trust an Emotional Hero?’
Tears were streaming down Peter’s face at this point. He slammed his laptop close, being careful not to break it with his super strength. He allowed himself to slide off the chair and just lean against the wall, with his legs to his chest and his head buried in his knees. He didn’t know how long he stayed like that before he heard his phone vibrate once.
Then again.
Then again.
Then again.
The distraught boy knew that the notifications weren’t Instagram notifications because he had turned them off after his account grew popular, so he knew that there had to be something else. Dragging himself off the floor, he pulled himself to his bed and picked up his phone, just leaning his back against his bed. He turned on his phone and saw that he had texts from his group chat with Ned and MJ.
guy in the chair: dude im sorry about what happened but have you seen some of these articles???
boss bitch: yeah like the Buzzfeed one
guy in the chair : [link: vox.com/SpiderManRevealsHowHumanHeIs]
boss bitch: [link: buzzfeed.com/WhySpideyIsOurFavoriteHero]
guy in the chair: [link: cnn.com/opinion/SpiderManIsOneOfTheBestHeroes]
boss bitch: [link: washingtonpost.com/HowSpiderManStoleNewYorksHeart]
guy in the chair: everybody loves you
Peter slowly wiped his tears away as he continued to stare at the text messages. Finally, he clicked on the first article and read through it. Then he read the second, the third, the fourth. He opened his laptop again and saw all the articles about how much New York loved Spider-Man . . . loved him.
When he opened Instagram again, he read through all the comments on the post of how much everybody loved him. It nearly made the vigilante cry again but in happiness this time. Then, he saw all the fanart people had made of him after the post, but one certain post he was tagged in caught his eye.
It was a picture of him that was posted on Tony’s account with the caption, “Not to be a sappy old superhero or anything, but Spidey is my favorite of all the superheroes, and if I were to retire (which I’m not planning to do any time soon, don’t freak out) then I would be able to do so comfortably knowing that he has the city’s back.”
Peter’s shoulders released some tension he didn’t know he was holding as a smile finally graced his face. The teen’s tears dried as he got up and went to go get his Spidey suit. He knew he would need to get ready for a press conference that Tony would want him to have, but he needed to do something first. The vigilante grabbed a pair of goggles and didn’t bother getting his mask as he ran to the bathroom. He filmed a video in the mirror, making sure it was perfect before posting it.
The next post on @officialspiderman was of Peter in his suit and goggles, screaming, “it’s Wednesday, my dudes! Ahhhhhhhhhhh!” with the caption, “Thank you all so much for your support. I love you all.”