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“You can’t really believe that, Johnny.” Sue sighs exasperatedly as she places Reed’s tablet back down on the kitchen table. It had been a rather peaceful, alien-and-stress free day before her brother had declared Peter Parker a fake clone. “Peter can be questionable with his plans, but a fake millionaire?”
“When have you ever seen that man in a clean tux, that he bought ?” Johnny shoots back, placing the metal pieces of Reed’s latest experiment in a little pile that resembled what it once was. “He would tell me if he was becoming a billionaire.”
Sue snorts, relaxing back against her chair as she rests her hands on her stomach, clasped together. Johnny is overreacting of course, but he has a point. Peter Parker, who has a list of people he trusts that would fit on one hand, has become a flashy millionaire in the space of a few weeks?
“Talk to him,” Sue eventually says, deciding it’s not worth the potential headache of Johnny not letting it go. Plus, a small part of her is genuinely concerned for the kid. He always was a good guy, a good influence on Johnny as well as a frighteningly competent ally.
“I would,” Johnny pauses, a hand rubbing his chin and disturbing the slight tidiness of his beard. “I did tell Reed that I’d help clean up the mess downstairs.”
Sue groans.
“Just go.”
.
The first thing Johnny notices about Parker Industries is that it’s insanely cold. Walking through the perfectly constructed arches framing the entrance, there’s just color palettes of gray, steel gray, silver, lifeless chrome. Johnny makes a mental note to talk to whoever the interior designer is because he’s sure Victor would have a field day. Maybe add some forest greens, some creepy figureheads-
“Can I help you?”
Johnny spins on his heel with a grin, making sure he keeps the temperature in the foyer a nice respectable degree instead of the draining atmosphere it was before he arrived.
“Yes, hello,” Johnny walks over to the desk, the only hint of something human residing here is the receptionist who looks already sick of the interaction they’ve not properly had yet. “I’m here to see the big man.”
“Mr. Parker is engaged at the moment,” Monotone, bored. Lighten up, lady. “May I take a message?”
Johnny just stares at her for a moment, one elbow leaning on the desk as he smiles. Her eyes haven’t wavered once, and she’s still typing on the keyboard in front of her despite the eye-contact. Totally freaky and inhuman.
“Sure.” Johnny sighs, standing up straight and pulling his sunglasses off his shirt, unfolding them so he can place them on his face in an effortlessly cool way that she’ll definitely appreciate. “Tell him Johnny stopped by.”
“Right.”
Johnny makes a face before he turns to leave, making sure to touch the door on the way out, melting the gaudy P.I logo off the handle.
He pulls his phone out on the flight home, scrolling through all the unanswered messages between him and Peter. The last time they’d spoken was when Johnny and the rest had successfully reached the planet they were looking for, and he was asking Peter for advice on what to do for his and Crystals’ four month anniversary. Peter had given him two thumbs up and understandably put that if he knew anything about that sort of thing, he wouldn’t be woefully single.
There were a couple dozen unanswered texts that Johnny had sent, he’d just assumed Peter was too busy with Spider-Man related activities to reply to him. Now, though, it gave him an uneasy feeling as he looked at the bad omen.
.
Two days pass before Johnny even gets a glimpse of his friend, and it’s during a shakedown for some of Tombstone's thugs. He’d seen them from his lunch date with Crystal and promptly flamed on, hoping to finish it up quickly. What he didn’t expect was to be stopping mid-flight to watch as Spider-Man drops from quite literally nowhere and starts to beat the living crap out of one of the jacked-up guys.
“Woah, hey!” Johnny calls as his feet touch the ground a couple feet ahead of the scene, his hands out placatingly as the flames reabsorb into his skin. “Alright, I think he’s had enough, Spider-Man.”
Spider-Man freezes, fist raised in the air ready to strike again as it drips blood onto the already crimson-stained concrete beneath them. The guy is just dangling from where he’s being gripped at the neck, eyes unfocused and glazed as blood streams from above his eye and his nose. It’s brutal, and it’s not who Johnny knows to be Spider-Man.
Something glints in the sunlight and Johnny zeroes in on the weird accessory. Web shooters, but they’re on the outside of the suit? That’s ridiculously vulnerable, and unnecessary since Reed and Peter found a way to shrink the gadget using nano-technology, and Johnny had managed to make the motor function smoother. His suit was also red and black, but Peter has been known to switch up his style occasionally?
Even so. Red and black? That’s not a combination that he’s ever seen, it doesn’t suit the Spider-Man aesthetic that Pete’s built up over the last decade. Usually when a suit is that different, it’s for a specific purpose, not beating up random thugs on the streets.
Johnny pushes the thug towards the alley way between them and the street, making sure to take the gun tucked in his belt. He empties it before tossing it to the side, snapping at the cornered thug to his left to take his buddy, the beaten up one. It’s soon just the two of them, a confused and suspicious Johnny with his eyes ever-critical of whoever was in front of him, and a very still and cold Spider-Man.
“What the hell was that?” Johnny practically shouts, tingling sparks shooting down his bare arms as he interrogates whoever the hell is standing in front of him. “Are you kidding me?”
‘Spider-Man’ tilts his head as he watches him, a ‘thwip’ sounding as he moves to hang upside down from the alley light. It’s weird, it’s like Peter has been replaced by some arachnid-controlled counterpart.
“Is that you, Chameleon?” Johnny hazards a guess, his voice coming out more exasperated than intended. He seriously hates that guy, he can’t help it.
Spider-Man tips his head back (upwards?) and laughs, it’s cold and cruel, but it’s genuine laughter and Johnny puts his foot behind him automatically at the sound of it. What the hell is going on?
“I sent him to Raft, don’t you remember that?” Spider-Man replies, waving his hand as he speaks. There’s something so blase about it that Johnny shivers.
“Well, of course I do,” Johnny frowns, letting his sparks die down. That’s Peter’s voice, alright. It’s not his body language, suit, or behavior, though. “Since when do you beat on people like that?”
“Since I decided previous attempts weren’t good enough.” Spider-Man shrugs, the angle making it look funky to Johnny. “He wasn’t trying hard enough.”
He ?
“You mean you?” Johnny asks, eyes narrowing.
“Yeah, sure,” Spider-Man waves his hand again, before tugging his web and spinning to a standing position again. “You want something?”
“I want to know where you’ve been.” Johnny bites out, fists clenching. “We haven’t spoken in weeks, and now you're making headlines as a billionaire?”
“Jealous?” Spider-Man replies, before shooting a web to the top of the next building over, knees bent as he prepares to launch himself with a speed that makes even Johnny dizzy. “See ya.”
Johnny stands in the empty alley, staring at the pool of blood slowly oozing towards him, before his phone buzzes with a text from a pissed-off Crystal.
Right. His girlfriend Crystal, who he’s just left in the middle of lunch. He sighs, reactivating his flames as he goes back to where he was enjoying his day. He’ll have to ask Reed or Sue for some kind of advice.
.
When Johnny was sixteen, he’d confessed to Ben that he didn’t think he was fit to be in the public eye, because something about him was less than appealing to others. Ben, being Ben, had immediately shot back with ‘only one thing?’ before asking what exactly he thought was so awful about himself.
And then Ben promptly laughed in his face, little drops of beer leaping out of his mug as he laughed harder than Johnny had ever seen, even when Reed tied himself into a knot.
“Kid, this is gold,” Ben wiped pretend tears from his rocky cheeks before patting Johnny roughly on the back and telling him; “So yer Bi, big deal.”
His little (huge) crush on Spider-Man was frequent dinner table discussion and every time he hated it a little bit more, because they interacted with the guy almost every week and by this time, his entire family knew him on a personal level.
Johnny, well, when he has a crush on someone he doesn’t handle it very well. His slight competitive nature makes itself known and he makes a point to out-do any potential crush to hopefully squash any feelings that might be there and replace them with rivalry.
That doesn’t work with Spider-Man.
At first, this guy hated him. Like biblical levels of hatred, constant smear campaigns and rumors in the magazines that Johnny just knows came from him, and he does pretty much the same - supplying the Bugle with pictures from Reeds’ fantasti-car. It continues like that, and when Johnny sees the bug-boy try and flirt with a superhero they’re paired with - he’ll try twice as hard to get her number.
He’d thought he’d got a leg up when this Mary Jane girl agreed to a date, she was pretty and had the most amazing red hair plus, he’d seen an article where she was kissing Spider-Man in a picture. But she just wanted some information about modeling agencies and such from him, and he’d left dejected whilst Spider-Man rightfully hated him all the more.
Instead of a hatred filled rivalry, Johnny just ended up learning more and more about this guy and how infuriatingly morally perfect he was - even when he was being a dick to other superheroes in the name of being a pretty bad comedian. His little quips went from annoying and grating to endearing and a welcome banter between them - they even marked the Statue of Liberty as their meet-up place, Johnny always laughing as he watches Spider-Man catch a ferry just to see him. Something so pedestrian about it that it warms his heart.
That’s where Peter revealed his identity to him, and it wasn’t as heart-stopping as he thought it would be, because Spider-Man was also that loser Peter Parker that Johnny also had a crush on, not that he’d tell Peter that.
When Johnny was seventeen, there was a huge breakout from Raft, one of them being the notoriously clever Doc Ock. Unfortunately, Johnny was the first to find him, and as it turns out a couple months in solitary really doesn’t diminish the guy's spirit or strength, and he was easily overwhelmed. He was sure that it was his last fight, robotic tentacles not succumbing to his heat at all. Spider-Man had swooped in, but he was different. There was no familiar red and blue spandex that Johnny had evidence of in pictures stored on his phone in a folder titled ‘inspiration’, but there was shiny black material that shifted in the light, with a white spider almost bleeding down it. It was different, and cold and emotionless.
Instead of asking how he could help, he’d shoved Johnny harshly to the side, made a joke about staying the strongest out of a bunch of B-list superheroes, and relentlessly laid into Doc Ock until he was a bloody pulp. That night, Johnny learned what Venom was, and how it affected Peter.
“Eddie says the symbiote is in safe storage in his home,” Reed tells him as soon as he ends the phone call with a pleasant thanks. Safe in storage Johnny’s ass, or Eddies’, if he wanted to be technical about it. “What is this about, Johnny?”
“That wasn’t Peter.”
Reed studies him for a moment, eyebrows raised and lab coat perfectly presented on him, before he turns back to his console of blueprints. Sue and Ben were at some ambassador meeting so stretch-for-brains is really all he had.
“Johnny, you two just drifted apart whilst we were off-world.” Reed explains, not unkindly but he’s tossing different blueprints from the console screen into a virtual bin using his hands, eyes frowning as they take in equations on digital blue paper. “It’s natural.”
“I’m telling you, he broke that guy’s nose and jaw, fractured his neck. Does that sound like Peter to you?” Johnny pleads, holding his hands out in a plea to get his brother-in-law to see his reasoning. Reed pauses his digital pruning and gets a look on his face that Johnny knows. “You know something, don’t you?”
“Nothing for certain,” Reed hastens to say, shaking his head and stretching his arm to pat Johnny on the shoulder. “However, the webs he’s using are the same as his first prototype. I’m unsure as to why he’d resort back to the basics.”
The web shooters on his wrists, Johnny thought they’d looked weird after all the upgrades Peter’s made recently.
“If you want to investigate,” Reed cuts through Johnny’s thoughts sharply as the bell dings with Ben and Sue’s arrival. “I’ll tell your sister you’ve been called away, and I’ll do your share of the household chores.”
Johnny loves Reed.
.
Johnny has decided whatever is wrong with his friend, it’s obviously sensitive. So, breaking the ice with a gift would probably help him out. Something small that says ‘i know you’re a billionaire now, but this is your old pal Johnny just reaching out to see what the fuck happened to you recently, please let me know I miss you’. So probably something like a nice bottle of wine?
He stirs the stick of his martini, letting the olive cut through the liquor as he tries to catch up with what Crystal is telling him. They’ve always been good together, the last bout of their relationship lasting a decent six months before they broke it off again. He doesn’t know why, but he can’t make it stick. Crystal is gorgeous and funny, and she’s quite in tune with him as well as knowing his whole family, plus she’s a superhero too but there’s something missing.
“So, what do you think?” Crystal asks brazenly, shoulders leaning towards her chest as she looks at Johnny with eyes that look a little too bright for this talk about the planet with mountains like the Alps, but better and with zero gravity.
“The Alps sound great.” Johnny replies enthusiastically, just to have Crystal sigh deeply.
“I just told you I’m breaking up with you, because you’ve been so distracted and different lately,” Crystal rolls her eyes, leaning back in her chair with a huff that blows a curl of her hair up. “Is this about Spider-Man again?”
“No!” Johnny says defensively, although he’s already proved her point. He’s not surprised she wants to break up. It’s been a whopping four months, they’ll just never work out like that. “Maybe, yeah.”
Crystal sighs, downing the rest of her pink, fruity drink before taking a deep breath, taking Johnny’s hand in her own, perfect manicures complimenting each other.
“Johnny, with the most love I have for you after all these years,” Crystal says, her eyes locking with his and a grin spreading across her face. “I wish you’d just confess to him. You’ve been pining since we were teenagers.”
“Crys,” Johnny begins, just to be shut up by a single pointed finger.
“Either sleep with the guy, get it out your system,” Crystal jabs his chest, moving to get up from the table, slipping her jacket back on and fluffing the collar. “Or cut him off. Seriously.”
Johnny just nods dejectedly.
Crystal kisses him on the cheek before she leaves, thanks him for the last couple of months, their usual, before Johnny is all alone in this club with music that sucks and drinks that are even worse. He only came here because Crystal likes it.
He’ll hit the John (he puffs a laugh at his own internal joke) before he makes his way back home. Except that’s not what happens at all. What does happen, though, is Peter Parker walks through the club doors with Black Cat and blonde highlights.
“What the fuck.” Johnny states out loud, loud enough for Felicia to see him and promptly grin like a Cheshire cat, pressing herself back up against Peter and sending him a wink. Yeah, not his finest moment sleeping with her in the past. Again, he thought it would bring out some kind of reaction from Peter. “Fel, what the fuck.”
“Hey, Storm.” Felicia says at the exact same time Peter says “Oh, it’s that guy again.”
Even Felicia moves back to look at him when he says that, surprise on her face as she looks between them. Then, she moves towards the bar to swipe Johnny’s drink, shooting him a look that holds a question, before she’s sauntering right back out the doors she just arrived from, taking Johnny’s only drink and comfort with her.
“Great. I had plans with Black Cat.” Peter mutters, shooting Johnny a glare before he settles himself on a bar stool, holding his fingers up and asking for a double of Jack.
“Since when do you sleep with Felicia again?” Johnny demands, taking the empty seat next to him, grimacing as the bartender with green hair and piercings that glow slightly in the dark hands him a glass of amber liquid. “Since when do you drink whiskey ?”
‘Peter’ downs the glass, slamming it down with a sigh before he flicks his fingers up again, tapping on the sticky bar.
“Since whenever the hell I decided to, alright?” Is the snarky reply he gets back.
This isn’t Peter.
Before Johnny can make an educated statement back, the bartender is back, and leaning across the counter, cutting between the both of them.
“I get off in five, want to make up for that loss back there?” They smile.
Johnny snorts, no way Peter would accept something like that, and then stares as Peter shrugs, knocks back his drink, and heads to the other end of the bar.
“Catch ya later, Storm’o.”.
“ Storm-o? ” Sue repeats back to him, disgust written on her face as Johnny finishes telling the room what happened.
“That’s exactly what I said!” Johnny exclaims, collapsing back onto the couch in the middle of the room, jolting Ben as he tries to take a sip of his coffee. “Sue, I’m serious, that man isn’t Peter. Not even when he was venomised did he call me something as nasty as that.”
“Unfortunately, I don’t have a way of proving your theory, Johnny.” Reed sympathizes, tapping a marker on the notepad Johnny was writing ideas on, only one being circled - ‘Clone?’ “I can run a full-body analysis but you’d have to get him to agree.”
Johnny sits silently on the couch for a moment, wondering if what he’s about to do will have him looking like the concerned friend and ally he truly is, or an obsessed stalker. Maybe a bit of both.
“What if you could compare two sets of DNA, would that work?” Johnny asks, examining his fingernails so that he can’t make eye contact with Sue and Ben who are looking at him with stone-cold eyes.
“Well, theoretically yes.” Reed hums, leaning back in his chair as his hand taps his chin. “I would need something old, and something relatively fresh to-”
“Alright, awesome,” Johnny interrupts, pulling out the whiskey glass he lifted from the bar and an old Spider-Man mask Peter had left in his room after it was damaged beyond repair. Johnny obviously kept it as a spare. No other reason. “Here you go. How long?”
Reed looks at him with a mixture of shock and pity, Ben looks outraged, and Sue just gives him an unimpressed look that rivals all previous looks she’s ever given him. Yeah, probably the most unhinged thing he’s done recently. But he’s grieving his relationship with Crystal, right? These things are allowed.
“Three hours and sixteen minutes.” Reed pragmatically says, deciding not to say a word when Sue already looks like she’s about to start a lecture. Ben, however, starts shaking his head. Johnny knows it’s bad when Ben is at a loss for words.
“Perfect time for a stretch.” Johnny announces, faking a yawn and twisting his torso, before heading straight to the large window as he flames on. Sue opens her mouth to protest, but Johnny hurriedly spits out a “See ya!” and launches himself into the open skies of New York.
.
Almost like a cosmic joke, Johnny found himself fighting beside Spider-Man as they tackled a recently-escaped Rhino. Seriously, whatever type of prison security Raft has, they aren’t trying nearly hard enough to keep all these guys off the streets - this has got to be the fourth break-out in not even a month?
It’s easy to slip back into their old routine, even if there’s a few moments where Johnny can’t exactly track Peter’s next move - every move he makes seems to be offensive opposed to the usual defensive they go for, like Peter really is trying to make him stay down for good like he’s saying in his little quips as they fight.
It’s really over before it really starts to get going, because Daredevil shows up with Raft officers that apparently had been looking for the escapee for ‘some time’. Clearly weren’t looking hard enough, because he was smashing up an entire street, but hey, Johnny doesn’t work for the government like that - he can imagine it’s more frustrating and painstaking than just flying around.
One of the officers pulls Johnny to the side to discuss how there’s been less-threatening outbreaks from other prisons in the area, and that they’d appreciate any help they can get from the both of them. Johnny assures him he’ll get Spider-Man to come and give over his public comms so they can keep in touch. Except, Spider-Man is already webbing up the side of the building.
“Hey!” Johnny calls, a rare bout of general anger and irritation tiding over him. “Forgetting something?”
Spider-Man pauses, halfway up the building. His masked head tilts downwards, before he lowers himself on his web in that signature style that usually makes Johnny smile, right now it’s pissing him off, and he just frowns as Peter pulls up his mask to reveal his mouth and nose.
“That’s right. Now can yo-”
Johnny’s cut off from what he’s about to say about the prison guards, because Peter is kissing him, albeit a little awkwardly from their angle. Johnny is too shocked to reciprocate properly, it’s open-mouthed and chaste and there’s not much about it that should have all his nerves on fire like they are. Peter watches him for a second, head tilting again, before he slowly retracts upwards.
“I hope Kaine was right about that.” Is all Johnny gets from him, before he’s slinging off probably to find his next victim.
Well.
Okay, well, maybe his crush isn’t so squashed after all. And, that’s definitely not Peter.
“That isn’t Peter Parker,” Reed says as soon as Johnny lands back in the living room, a dazed expression and a hazy outlook on life.
“Tell me about it.”
“His genetic make-up is almost too perfect, and lines up to be practically identical, but there’s a slight change to it that I can’t explain myself.” Reed rants on, looking too excited at having figured out their long time friend and ally is in fact, a fake. “Really, I don’t know how you noticed Johnny, I certainly wouldn’t have.”
“What’s yer face about?” Ben asks him, he’s comparing two DNA samples on the screen and writing notes as the computer beeps with more information.
“He kissed me.” Johnny glumly remarks.
“Excuse me?” Sue pipes up, moving from behind the whiteboard she was writing on, her blue suit glinting slightly from beneath her white lab coat. “What did you say?”
“Yeah,” Johnny sulks, shoulders hanging. “He’s a lousy kisser, too.”
Ben looks like he’s about to say something heinous, but he’s not granted the chance as Johnny’s phone pings loudly with a web-shooter noise. Ah, his custom sound for Peter. Speak of the devil.
Web-for-brains:
SOS
PARKER INDUSTRIES
Figures.
Johnny doesn’t even bother to say anything this time round as he once again ignites himself, leaving the way he came in just seconds prior.
.
Spider-Man in all his weird-suited glory is waiting for him on the balcony of Parker Industries, hands on his hips like he’s annoyed Johnny even bothered to show up. Sure looks like an SOS situation, Johnny thinks bitterly.
“Right, what’s the fire?” Johnny asks as he floats just above the ground, almost level with Spider-Man. There’s no reply, Spider-Man just huffs. “Pete, really not in the mood for your silent judgment.”
“I’m not judging you.” Peter says, behind Spider-Man, at the open door to the building. “Johnny, come inside, man.”
Johnny just closes his eyes, headache incoming.
“If this is you Mysterio, I really don’t have time to-” Johnny grits his teeth as the vein in his forehead pops out.
“Please, as if Mysterio could pull something off that looks half as good as me,” Spider-Man scoffs, and he just shakes his head in annoyance as a second Spider-Man, dressed in an all red suit descends from the side of the building. “Mysterio. You believe that, Kaine?”
Three of them ?
“Insulting.” Red Spider-Man says. Kaine , apparently.
“You guys said you could pull this off without arousing suspicion.” Peter points his fingers at the both of them, he still looks unnatural in a weirdly hot suit. Just plain black, with a purple tie, but it suits him. “And you,” Peter points at the web-shooters Spider-Man. “You said you’d try and be less damaging.”
“Because it’s my fault Rhino tore apart the town.” Spider-Man grits out, jabbing his thumb out towards Red Spider-Man. “Kaine almost beat a guy to death.”
“He had information about the Raft break-outs,” Kaine defends, giving Johnny whiplash as he turns his head to witness the three-Spider-Man show. “And that guy,” Pointing towards Peter, this time. “Got nothing. You got nothing. Who did get something? Me.”
“He kissed me.” Johnny points out helpfully, not ignoring the scandalized look Peter immediately gives the web-shooters Spider-Man. “You sucked. What's your name?”
“I did not suck .” Spider-Man seethes as Kaine starts laughing behind him, loud and raucous. Peter coughs a laugh into his arm. “I’m Ben. Kaine told me you and Peter fuck all the time.”
Peter chokes on his laughter, turning bright red and shaking his head at Johnny as he desperately tries to regain his breath. Kaine doubles over, pulling off his mask for air. Oh.
He looks like Peter, he really does, but he’s got a beard that Johnny has never seen before on his Peter, and there’s long hair pulled into a man bun on his head, complete with bangs. Wow, he looks like an 80s reject. That’s interesting.
‘Ben’ pulls off his mask as well, and Johnny once again sees the blonde highlights he saw in the bar. His face is pulled into a scowl, and he’s got slightly pink cheeks.
“I’m not a bad kisser, you didn’t even move.” Ben shoves Johnny’s shoulder, making him stumble a little bit as he drops completely to the ground. “Hope you treat Peter better than that.”
Johnny pointedly ignores that, deciding to offer Peter an olive branch. Poor guy looks like he’s about to combust.
“Why are there three of you?” Johnny turns to his Peter, arms crossed as he watches Peter fumble out an explanation.
So Doc Ock was in control of his best friends body whilst he was off the planet fighting space demons, said villain had established a company under Peter Parkers’ name and it was genuinely thriving, and Peter had some clones, that he’d neglected to tell Johnny about, that he called in to help with being Spider-Man whilst he cleaned up Octavius’s mess. That’s the roundabout gist of it.
“So you have Peter’s memories?” Johnny points at Ben, who’s sipping out of a fancy coffee mug some hologram lady made.
“Yeah, I’m pretty much Peter, just better.” Ben gives him a smile, as Peter shoves him from next to him on the sofa with a ‘better my ass.’. “It’s nice to properly meet you, sorry for being so stuck up. I didn’t want to mess up.”
Johnny waves his hand, before he sits up straight and clasps his hands, reveling in the way Ben fidgets immediately.
“So why did you believe Kaine? About me and Peter?” Johnny demands, already feeling pretty sick of being a punchline for the two fake-Peters.
Ben scratches the back of his head, eyes narrowing in thought as Kaine snorts from his place in the kitchen, a plate of burgers in one hand as he pours his own coffee.
“Didn’t think?” Ben offers.
“Johnny, I am so sorry,” Peter sighs as he closes his eyes, fingers pinching the bridge of his nose as Ben and Kaine start bickering again. “I thought I’d have this all sorted out before you came home.”
“Why didn’t you just ask for help, Pete?” Johnny asks eventually, after letting himself stew in hatred for a little longer, mostly to make his friend feel bad. Broken up with and kissed by a clone, all in one week. “You know I would’ve.”
“It was your anniversary with Crystal this week,” Peter says dejectedly, waving his hand at Johnny. “Four months. You were going to take her to Emilio’s weren’t you? I didn’t want you to be too stressed trying to do both.”
Ah. Yeah.
“Crystal and I broke up, dude.” Johnny laughs a little as he relaxes back into the pretty comfy couch. “I was too obsessed with you.”
Peter opens his mouth a couple of times, looking like a poor imitation of a dying fish, before he shuts it with a click, silence washing over the four of them. Interesting.
Now, he could be totally wrong about this, reading the room with Parker-shaped tunnel vision, but he’s been right so far. He’ll take his chances.
“Ben, want a redemption shot?” Johnny asks, maintaining his eye contact with Peter, watching as he goes red.
“Sure,” Ben replies with a grin, shuffling forward on the couch so that their knees are bumping against each other and Johnny just grins back. Perfect.
“Ben, don’t you dare.” Peter grits out, glaring at Kaine as he laughs. “Kaine, I swear to god I’ll get Miguel to take you back to Alchemax Labs or whatever he called it.”
“You wouldn’t.” Kaine points at him, mouth full of burger. “He’d want you too.”
“Touche,” Ben and Peter say at the same time. Freaky.
“Peter, can I talk to you outside or something?” Johnny asks, watching the way Kaine smirks and Ben grins. Weird, weird, creepy and weird. “Your clones are freaking me out.”
Ben frowns as Peter says “Understandable.”
“Sorry Ben kissed you,” Peter blurts as soon as they’ve made it outside the doors to the balcony. “I didn’t tell him to do that. In fact, I told them to stay away from you.”
“What? Why?” Johnny feels insulted at the mere thought of being described as some sort of lech not to go near. “What the hell, Peter?”
“You’d know it wasn’t me. I bet you figured it out pretty quick, Flame Face.” Peter knocks his shoulder with his own, and Johnny smiles at the familiar contact.
“Yeah, no offense but they suck at acting like you.”
“Kaine I knew would be a bit questionable, but Ben?” Peter laughs as he scuffs his shoe on the concrete, hands in his pockets. “He has all my memories. How could he have been that bad?”
“The blonde highlights are definitely a look, by the way.” Johnny grins, laughing lightly as Peter throws his head back with a surprised laugh.
“Yeah, NSYNC material.” Peter agrees, wiping tears out of his eyes.
“Sorry about the body snatching. You all good, now?” Johnny asks with genuine concern. Of all the ways he saw this going, it definitely wasn’t two clones and a plot that sounds straight out of a bad film. “No lasting effects?”
“Only the company.” Peter shakes his head with a smile. “I think I’ll pass it off to Kaine and Ben, they look enough like me to not raise suspicion. Kaine is used to running things, I’m not.”
“Not the life you want?” Johnny asks, knowing the answer anyway. Money was never Peter’s motivation, not once in his life.
“I’m the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man.” Peter smiles at him. “We fight crime, sometimes I dabble in taxes. The last couple weeks sucked.”
Johnny takes a couple moments to psych himself up, letting Peter just watch the city from their position. The view is nice, Johnny will give Octavius that, but the interior still drains the life out of everything.
Peter turns his head to him, probably about to make a remark about Johnny’s ridiculous obsession with him, but Johnny doesn’t let him get the chance as he cups his jaw and kisses him with more passion than their last pseudo-kiss.
Actual Peter is a lot better at kissing than his clone, it’s warm and comforting and it feels right in all the correct ways. The warmth in Johnny is back, and he mentally makes a note to thank Crystal the next time they bump into each-other. Peter makes a noise against Johnny’s lips, and Johnny pulls back to look at him, wide-eyed and pink.
“Woah.”
“I’m still so mad at you.” Johnny tells him, rubbing comforting circles on his cheek as he looks at his friend (boyfriend?) with gooey eyes that would make even the strongest people sick. “Secret clones, a billionaire, a suit .”
“I know,” Peter groans, closing his eyes. “Name a single time I’ve made a plan that's easy and non-convoluted.”
“Touche.”
.
“So you retained all of Peters’ memories, despite being a completely separate individual?” Reed asks, tablet in hand as his hands move unnaturally fast, typing down notes.
“Yup.” Ben answers from his place on the examination table, swinging his legs back and forth. “And, I’m stronger than Peter too, technically.”
“No one has ever said that,” Peter rolls his eyes, closing his eyes as he lays his head across Johnny’s lap, smiling softly as Johnny absentmindedly scratches his hair gently. “Reed, don’t you dare tell him we can test that.”
Reed looks at least a little guilty from his station, not that Peter can see. Ben gives him a thumbs up, and Kaine shakes his head from where he’s leaning up against the nearest wall. Dude has a threatening aura, Johnny will give him that.
“Kaine, would you mind if I added your DNA sample to my ledger?” Reed asks, glancing up from Ben’s arm where he’s currently making a blood draw. “In case of future anomalies or emergencies?”
“Sure.”
“So mysterious,” Johnny blatantly pokes fun, not even caring when Peter whacks his arm. He leans down and kisses his nose, before craning his head back to look at Kaine. “You would get on with Victor.”
Sue agrees with him, laughing from her place in front of the centrifuge, blood vials in hand as she loads it up.
“Three Spider-Men,” Ben grumbles from his empty table in the kitchen, head in his hands as he shakes it.
Johnny laughs out loud, before Ben threatens to bring up his dream when they were in space. Instead, Johnny orders pizza for the lot of them, an extra two for his Ben.