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The Seductive Spider-Harem	By : rubicon541 Category: Marvel Verse Comics > Spiderman Views: 84806 -:- Recommendations : 6 -:- Currently Reading : 9
Disclaimer: I do not nor do I claim to own Spider-Man or any associated characters or any other characters from the Marvel Universe. I also do not own the fandom of Spider-Man or the Marvel Universe.

Chapter List
- 10
- 11
- 12
Ollie was frowning as the door to Peter's apartment shut. Peter had just left, following J. Jonah Jameson to an alleged lunch. "I don't understand why Peter would do anything with that man. He's been such a horrible wretch to Peter."
"He's also been a friend, a mentor, and absolutely true to himself," Mary Jane said. "God knows I had reasons to hate J.J.J. over time, but at the end of the day he was always..."
"True to himself? He used to lie about Peter! For sales and for his own ends!"
"He misinterpreted," Gwen said, softly. "Sometimes willfully. And God knows he's flawed... but he's always done what he thought was right in the name of journalism and the public good. As weird as it is to say... he and Peter are a lot alike."
"How... can you say that?"
"Mm. I see it," Tony said. "Triple-J's hard-headed. Convinced of his own rightness. He won't take shortcuts if it means compromising his principles. When he gets an idea in his head it usually takes tragedy for him to change it. And he'd rather see his whole life burn to the ground than give into what he sees as evil. Yeah, he was opportunistic when it came to Spider-Man, but it's because he literally thought he was a menace -- remember, Peter started as an entertainer, and a none too respectable one at that. Then he was suddenly all high and mighty as a superhero, but never seemed to take any of it seriously."
"The more Peter joked, the more he was covering up how scared he was -- of failing others usually," Gwen said, quietly.
"Yeah, we know that. J-3 didn't. He didn't try to scratch below the surface. By the time it was clear he should... pride does things to you, and will can be stubbornness. And yeah, I know. I know what I'm saying. I may not remember it, but I know damn well I got Steve Rogers shot through my own stubborn pride. There's a reason I'm not angry with Miss Stacy over there for loosening my teeth." Tony rubbed the bridge of his nose. "So. If we're finally done with overly feelly hour--"
"Not quite," Cindy said. "I never got my Tit-enhanced question answered."
"Excuse me?" Tony asked. "Did you have something to ask me, Miss Moon? I thought you were part of the general 'we need Tony Stark' movement."
"I was. And then I learned a few things, so I want to have something cleared up. Despite your earlier claims, I don't think you're going to be overly directly involved with Fuck Club--"
"Well, that's just hurtful. And mean. Hurtful and mean."
"But if you're involved at all, then I do expect the day will come when you're penetrating something of mine with something of yours, and despite the evidence when I'm around Peter I'm actually pretty choosy about that. So. Sit down and grab breast, Iron Man."
Tony looked at Cindy for a long moment, then slid back onto the loveseat. "Fine. I swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me tit. But this is it, and one of these days I expect to get to grill each of you under the influence of Olivia-mammary."
"We'll see." Cindy leaned forward. "Okay, Tony. I want the truth. All of it. Including the stuff that you left our before."
"...about?"
"What else? About Morley and Clytemnestra Erwin." Cindy cocked her head. "And don't your fucking dare tell me it's irrelevant. They're the ones who came to mind when we were discussing Gwen and 'normal people,' and you regretted bringing them up the moment you had."
Gwen looked at Cindy, who was the only other person on the couch, after all. "...who are they?"
"I'll give you the overview later, but..."
"Fine," Tony snapped. "Fine. But tell me. Why wouldn't you leave this one alone?"
"Because you said they were nobodies. Homely. Mundane. And my silk sense went ballistic. They're right in the heart of something you don't want to discuss. Something as deep into all this as anything you told Gwen. And unless I'm very wrong, they're part of what led to the stuff you did but can't remember. And I want to know all of that, Tony, because Gwen's right. You did hurt Peter badly. Peter and a lot of other people, most of whom you at least sort of like, and I want to know why. What betrayal caused that?" Cindy paused. "As if I didn't already know."
Tony stared, then closed his eyes. "Fine. You're right. Cly and Morley weren't 'nobody.' They weren't mundane. They weren't homely. They weren't any of that."
"What were they?"
"You really want the truth, the whole truth, and everything I promised before feeling Ollie up?"
Mary Jane looked at Cindy, then back at Tony. "If she doesn't, I do."
"Okay. Well. It starts back before I ever even heard of them. Back when Obadiah Stane was destroying me. Tearing me down on every battlefield except actual battlefields. Those came later."
"I didn't ask about--"
"If you want to understand Cly, you'll hear about Stane," Tony snapped. "If that's a problem, I can just leave right now!" He was almost shaking, and his grip on Ollie's breast couldn't be comfortable, though she didn't seem to mind.
"...go on," Gwen said. "Tell us."
"Okay. I said before... Stane attacked me. Punched at my weaknesses. And I had... I had a fucking ton of weaknesses. I was a lot younger, a lot less experienced, and I'd always had everything. Just... everything. My company was Dad's first. My business was weapons and I was always good at it. And as long as I was pumping them out everyone was more than happy to make sure I didn't stop. The government, SHIELD, you name it. Everyone had my back because I gave them shit that went boom." He took a shuddering breath. "And then I got trapped in a cave and held by terrorists and a good man died to give me another chance, and when I made it home I decided to do something better with my life and my work and my money. And that became Iron Man, and the Avengers, and other projects, but it didn't become a change of life. Not really."
"It sounds like it did."
"Only because you don't know the whole story. For a long time, I had to keep my armor breastplate on all the time, to keep the shrapnel that I'd taken back in that kidnapping out of my heart. I cut it down later and still later I got a heart transplant and other things, and everything was fine. But while I was stuck in the breastplate I was also rocking the secret identity. Iron Man was my 'bodyguard.' And I was trying to keep a company that made its mint on weaponry in the black without being a merchant of death, and all those people who had my back were gunning for me."
Ollie shifted, letting him lean. He barely seemed to register she was still there. "The liquor's hard enough to walk past in day to day life. Do you know what it's like to have someone analyze all the reasons you found yourself turning to the bottle and then use them in a concerted psychological attack against you? And see your life crumbling on all fronts. See supposed friends try to buy out your company so they could get their death machines?" He snorted. "I trashed my armor. The Avengers had tried to ground me anyway. I could see the writing on the wall. So I gave the last suit away, to Rhodey. And I tried to just hole up at home and drink myself to death... but Stane managed to drive my fortune into probate while taking over my company. The doorman blocked me at the door. So... I just walked away. And spent... weeks? Months? Just living on the street."
Mary Jane bit her lip. "Tony. We don't--"
"She wanted to hear," he snapped. "Weeks. Doing anything to get enough money to get enough liquor to make it through the day. Half the time I'd fix guy's radios or TVs for pocket change. No expensive clothes -- just a filthy overcoat over the filthy suit I wore on my last day as a businessman. I got to know others like me. This one girl -- Marte... she was pregnant. Scared. She had no family. No friends. Just the numbness out of a bottle. That didn't count the junkies, heroin or coke or crack. All of us... and back then, that's all anyone thought about the homeless. The broken losers and druggies and crazies and criminals. It's a little better now. Just a little."
He closed his eyes, folding his hands and putting his head into them. It meant he was no longer bound to the truth, but at that point he clearly couldn't stop talking about it. "I remember the last day. It was brisk. Cold. The night before had been miserable. I'd... I'd thought about the Avengers. Cap. Thor. Janet. I'd run away from them and if they'd gone looking for me I'd tell them to get the Hell away from me, but they didn't go looking for me. Clearly they didn't care. I'd donated their mansion to them. Designed and bought their Quinjets. Funded them through the Maria Stark Foundation so Stane couldn't hurt them, and clearly they had no more use for me." He snorted. "I had no idea they were on another planet. Kidnapped by some cosmic force along with Doom, the Fantastic Four, the X-Men -- everyone who might have wanted me dead or wanted to find me before I died. Peter was with them. That's where he found the symbiote, if anyone wondered where that damn thing came from.
"But that morning? I had no money at all. I knew a blizzard was coming -- the word got passed among the 'transients.' But I didn't care. I just needed the right bottle. I pawned my overcoat. It was wool. Might have seen me through the night, and Christ knows I didn't want that. Got ten bucks. Bought honest to God whiskey. And I went out to go out. To drink until I couldn't feel, and close up shop." Tony laughed, bitterly. "Tell me, does that even count as suicide? I didn't think I was killing myself. I just thought I was dying, and that was the end of it, and good riddance to life. I'd never done anything but bring people pain, and I'd never gotten anything but disappointed reactions. I had everything and now I had nothing, and I deserved to have nothing."
He bit his lip. "Marte found me. Poor kid. Her baby was coming. We were ten blocks from any hospital, no trains or cops out, the blizzard had started. No cab would stop for us even if one happened by. So we got in a doorway, and I delivered her baby." He snorted. "She wouldn't take any of the whiskey. Said she didn't want the kid born drunk. I sure as Hell drank some. And then I showed her her son."
He took a long, deep breath. "And it was the damnedest thing. She said hello. She introduced herself. She introduced herself as his mother, and said hello. And she asked me to take care of him. And then she was dead. And it was me and that kid. And I wasn't going to live through the night."
"But now you had a reason to live," Mary Jane said, softly. "A life to save."
"Have you even been listening? Nothing had changed!" Tony's eyes had snapped open. "I know everyone in here's known tragedy and I think Moon over there's the only one of us never to actually die one way or another! I wasn't going to live through the night and I knew it. I wasn't going to find some way to cheat death for that baby. That wasn't my job! My job was to keep that baby alive. I didn't have to survive to do that."
He sniffed, hard, looking to one side. "Well. I was a failure as a businessman, as a hero, as a friend, as a boyfriend, and as a man, but I was still an engineer. So I did what you do. I did what we do. I figured out what materials I had and I used it to give the kid the best possible shot. Risk assessment. Tradeoffs. And what I had was a dead woman, a dying man, a doorway, and the literal clothes on our back. So I engineered a solution. Marte was on the outside. The body holds a lot of heat for a long time even after death in a blizzard and she had some clothing at least, so she'd help keep the cold out. I was on the inside, back towards the wall. Not as well insulated or insulating, but until I died I'd be generating body heat. And I curled over the baby. Sitting there in the filth of childbirth... leaning over far enough so that if I vomited, it'd be on Marte's back and not the baby. That'd be a Hell of an irony, wouldn't it? The kid choking to death on my vomit after all that? But no, I was smart enough to avoid that design flaw. And there we were. Our bodies a lean-to for this kid, cuddled between us, on her arms, her no longer needed winter hat the kid's blanket. And I finished the whiskey and threw the bottle off -- the moment it was empty it was cold glass, useless to us. And I laid there over the kid, feeling myself going numb with alcohol, and I figured the kid had... thirty/seventy against to make it through the night, but if he did then the cops would find us the next day, when they went through and rounded up the dead meat as part of cleanup."
No one said a word.
"Lying there," Tony said. "I remember... must have been the last thing. The last thought I had before I wouldn't ever have another thought. I remember thinking 'I didn't introduce myself.'" He snorted again. "Think about it. Isn't that the most... I dunno. Stark thing you can think of? His mom took the time to introduce herself, but I didn't. And I was too far gone and I didn't want to break up the structure anyway so that's how it was gonna be. The last thing I ever did in this world was be rude."
He took a few deep breaths. "Well. Obviously I woke up." He sat back up, sliding his arm back around Ollie. "It stunned the Hell out of me and Christ knows I didn't want to, but it happened. It was days later. I was in a hospital covered in wires and tubes and... I was a mess. Frostbite and a bunch of other kinds of exposure, staph infections and other infections and double pneumonia and that didn't even count the cirrhosis of the liver. I mean, there was no getting away from that one. But I opened my eyes, and heard the machines. And there was Rhodey."
"I'm not sure I know--" Cindy said quietly.
"James Rhodes. My best friend or what passes for one with me. War Machine if you follow Armored Hero Quarterly. Ex-military. At one point my personal pilot, which was an excuse to pay him to be my friend. He's the guy who found me after my little cave dwelling experience where I first wore metal. He's the guy I gave the armor to when it all went to Hell. And he's the guy who got back from another planet, found out I was nearly dead in a charity ward in the hospital, and was there as fast as he could jet-boot." Tony snorted again. "I saw quite a few of them while I was in the hospital. Janet -- she paid the hospital bills. Clint and Bobbi -- they were still married back then. Clint was such an asshole. Don. Jennifer. Reed and Sue and Ben and Johnny. Reed was ready to ship me back to the Baxter Building and give me some kind of artificial liver sludge he'd been working on but Sue waved him off. Don -- Donald Blake, and if you don't know the name just go with 'Donald Blake' and be content... Don took over my case, and between that and Janet paying suddenly I went from a nobody to a nobody with better health care, which makes a difference. Guy I know -- Matt. Murdock. Matt Murdock. He talked with me about my fortune and some of the shit Stane pulled. I barely remember it."
"Sounds like they took care of you." Gwen sounded... almost sympathetic.
"Funeral arrangements." Tony said. "Because... nothing had changed. As far as I could tell, everything Tony Stark died in that blizzard. I was just... this... thing... walking around. Finally I got discharged. Thin as a skeleton. Full beard, long hair. Everyone a little worried I'd walk right back out and find a bottle of something, but I didn't. I wanted to but I didn't. And I couldn't bring myself to go to Avengers Mansion -- which had been the home I grew up in before I donated it. Just like Peter won't go to the Tower or the Compound now. So I went to the one place I could think of. I went to go see Rhodey. And he was in there, making plans... with his friends. Morley and Clytemnestra Erwin."
"So why the preamble?" Cindy asked.
"Because you had to understand who I was and who I wasn't, right then. I wasn't... I was quiet. And humble. I barely spoke. If someone asked me to do something I did it. And if they did I didn't. There was no swagger, no shouting at the world, no tough guy, and there was sure as Hell no Iron Man. In fact, the only Iron Man there was as far as I was concerned was Rhodey. And I'd done a Hell of a thing to him. I handed him a briefcase with what was the most advanced combat armor ever built in it. Far more advanced microelectronics and systems than anywhere else on Earth, in fact. And he piloted it like a champ, 'cause he was the best pilot in the world, but there wasn't any user serviceable parts in that thing. And back then, almost no one had known I was Iron Man, much less that there'd been a change. He couldn't show up at the Baxter Building or Avengers Mansion and hope to get a tune-up or parts swap. But he found this guy. Morley Erwin. Aviator glasses and bow tie and brown check coat and a mop of curly hair. About as cool as August macadam. He was a computer and electronics engineer. And he didn't begin to understand one one thousandth of the tech in that suit, but he was happy to try to perform maintenance and he passed the number one rule of engineering -- when he was done, it worked well enough."
"And Clytemnestra?"
"Cly? Cly wasn't an engineer. She was a physicist. Specifically astrophysics. And when you hear that you think Reed or people like that, but they're one in a million. Cly was one of the other nine hundred and ninety nine thousand. Whip smart by any measure that didn't include people in our line of work. But she was also practical. About as nerdy as Morley was, but female variant. Librarian, not hot librarian. You'd have to look three or four times or more before it hit you. Not that I was looking even once. I wasn't interested in anyone. Not to date, not to fuck, not in a relationship. And when I showed up, they were packing up their lives into a U-Haul we were going to drive out to Silicon Valley, which in those days was cheap property for tech companies. Let that soak into your brain for a second."
"And you went with them?"
"I had literally nowhere else to go, and Rhodey wasn't going to leave me like that. So he asked Morley and Cly if they could hire me. And... Morley? He was all over himself. Big fan. Always had lots of questions. And Cly figured that hey -- so long as I didn't expect to get paid right away, they might as well take advantage. And we packed up the kinfolk and moved to Bev-ar-ley. Well, North of Beverly Hills. By several hours depending on traffic."
Tony leaned back. "So I spent days doing circuit design. And by days I mean minutes -- they never had anything complex come in and I'm me. And I'd go and help out, drop by suppliers. I ended up fixing their equipment and they'd pay me in parts. Just like when I was fixing radios for wine-money. And I took those parts and started putting them together... kind of building the proto-dinosaur version of the Iron Man suit. Work therapy, maybe. Led to issues with Rhodey, but we cleared those up. Because I insisted that I wasn't Iron Man and I wouldn't be Iron Man. I didn't want anything to do with that. Hawkeye and Mockingbird were putting together the West Coast branch of the Avengers, and they did the hard sell -- ultimately talked me into building a new suit of armor at the compound, which I did with an eye to giving it to Rhodey. But I didn't want to go back to that old life. I... don't know if I wanted to be a better person or if I was just dead inside. And if everyone -- if Stane had just left me alone I'd probably still be out there. Cly developed a crush on me, and maybe someday I could have responded and maybe not. Morley grew more comfortable with the legend and enjoyed watching me work. Rhodey got better after he dealt with a couple things, and he was still my best friend despite me not deserving it.
"But Stane couldn't leave me alone. Either I was dead, in a gutter, or I was flouting him. I don't know why. I barely knew him. He wasn't like Justin Hammer -- that guy had always been a dick to me and vice versa. And so Stane decided that I had to be reminded. He started kidnapping my old associates. Happy and Pepper Hogan -- they were married back then. Bunny Arbogast. Even that damn kid from the blizzard. And then he specifically blew up the geodesic dome that Circuits Maximus had bought as a prefab when his bomb's sensor detected two men and one woman inside... but when I wasn't inside. He wanted my friends all dead, so I'd fall right back into that bottle.
"But Rhodey was out back, and only had a broken leg. Cly was actually with me. Driving a car with me in it. Morley was there... with some girl. I don't even know who. But he'd been in a good mood for a while. And the bomb blew, and Morley was dead."
Gwen bit her lip. "Tony--"
"And that was it. That was the moment that my heart started beating again. Not all the way. No. Not all the way. Tony Stark as everyone knows him was still... I don't even know. But Iron Man woke right the fuck up, got in the fucking car, drove out to the Avengers West compound, climbed into the armor -- they call it the Silver Centurion now -- and launched. Stane International was back where the old Stark International campus was, back on Long Island. I was in California. I took the express. It took twenty minutes."
Tony snorted again. "People don't remember Circuits Maximus, just like no one remembers Morley or even Cly. But they remember that fight. Iron Man returning to what had been Stark International. Stane launching his Iron Monger armor. The Iron Monger threatening Iron Man's friends and losing. Threatening that baby and being taken out. And Stane, realizing he'd lost -- hopelessly lost -- repulsoring his head into art. Half the people out there honestly believe that's where Iron Man began -- helped in part by a point not long after where we had to fake the old Iron Man's death. I've read more than one opinion piece that says that's the point I started wearing the armor at least part time."
Tony shook his head. "But in one sense... if that was me... if I was coming back to life... then that was the best part of me. Because... Cly had blamed me for Morley's death. For ducking my responsibilities. And I tried to make it up to the world -- to Morley and to her. I started the groundwork for Stark Enterprises, a whole new company. But Stark Enterprises wasn't going to be like my old company. No. I was going to do good for the world. I was going to be the gateway to the universe. We built a shuttle and spent months putting together a space station, and that was going to be the launching point for humanity's reaching for the stars. Subconsciously, I was trying... I don't know. Trying to make it all up to Cly, by giving her the ultimate place for space research. The ultimate testament to her and her brother brother. And for a while she talked about leaving -- going off to do comet research. And then she came back and she seemed all on board... even excited.
"But we had problems that turned up to high right around then. Some old friends of mine -- Advanced Idea Mechanics, or 'A.I.M.' Big on yellow jumpsuits and beekeeper hats. They once created the ultimate organism for murder and decided that meant he should be a big head with vestigial limbs. Not the most together people. But they just kept hitting us again and again. We kept taking them out -- beating them back. Paying the bills by having me carry payloads into space while Rhodey piloted our new shuttle up to the space station platform, delivering components, letting it assemble itself in orbit. And it was working. It did work. And we were ready to have our big launch -- the all new Stark Enterprises, giving back to the world and giving humanity its gateway to space...
"And then Advanced Idea Mechanics invaded the space station just before it went online." Tony's voice had gone flat.
"I... assume it didn't go well," Mary Jane said, quietly. "Since I don't remember anything about a space station in our portfolio and I'm pretty sure we weren't a part of Alpha Flight's space initiative or S.W.O.R.D."
"No, it didn't go well. At all. Rhodey was up there in the station. I was delivering a satellite which turned out to be an AIM trojan horse. It started beaming down solar-powered microwave death onto an island nation in the Caribbean followed by targeting the good old District of Columbia. While I worked out how to blow it to kingdom come, Rhodey was alone, fighting off the A.I.M. goons. They compromised his space suit and unleashed a bioweapon into the environmental systems. Within minutes of my getting back, we had to get Rhodey into the old suit of armor just to keep him alive, and the A.I.M. idiots managed to blow themselves and the shuttle up. Rhodey's armor was damaged, so we had to abandon the station, and I literally had to carry him down, lying on top of me while my new armor's refractory coating acted as a heat shield for both of us. It saved Rhodey but he got nasty burns and a lot of trauma, and our shuttle and the station were dead before they began. Just... dead."
Tony folded his arms. "I started to make plans to find AIM... but they found me. Again. Because there had been a mole in our operation. Cly. Clytemnestra. So angry at me for getting her brother killed. And when I confronted AIM at their headquarters and they scrambled everything into the air to try and stop me, Cly snapped. She turned their base's defenses onto automatic -- which meant they'd target and shoot anything. Just so long as they got me with them." He shuddered. "Dozens -- maybe hundreds -- of AIM goons died, before one, trying to avoid a missile, led it right to the command building. Cly died screaming that I had to die. And she didn't even just die an insane, broken sister. She died a murderer. A mass murderer. And it was all on me."
Tony's breathing grew more regular. "So. Within four weeks, Stark Enterprises opened. But it didn't open for space business or to extend a hand to the world. It opened as the latest and greatest high tech firm. I played by all the old rules. Grand gestures. Massive expenses. Renting out Disneyland to court a P.R. director. Banging the hottest and driving the fastest and being the most cutting edge no matter what." He snorted. "You cut your losses, right? Space wasn't going to happen, and the only part of Circuits Maximus left was Rhodey, and he was on the D.L. So it was all on me, and idealism hadn't worked out for me, and caring about people, letting them in, trusting them? That let Stane exploit them and use them and hurt them until I was a useless drunk dying in a blizzard. Before I became an Avenger... before I gave up munitions... I was a fucking good businessman, because I was an asshole. And here we were now, and I'd had everything burn down and every attempt to do something unreservedly good blew up on me. The Avengers? Left me to die on the street. Morely? Dead just for knowing me. My old pal Pepper? Begged me to leave her and Happy alone because we were going to just get them killed, so what the fuck -- why not just cut them loose. They were just going to be a potential liability, and she couldn't hack my lifestyle no matter how she deeply and truly loved and cared about me." He looked at Mary Jane. "If at any point this sounds familiar, let me know."
"Hey!" Mary Jane snapped.
"Oh spare me, MJ," Tony said, angry now. "You all sit there -- Gwen screaming at me because we didn't trust Peter or treat him fair, when in fact he did everything we were afraid he would do, because Peter's word is exactly as good as his ability to convince himself that he had a responsibility to break it. And yeah, the whole situation was fucked and we were wrong, but can any one of you tell me you trust Peter to do what he says? Huh? Gwen? You left the fucking country because you couldn't hack Peter's life, much less Spider-Man, because he wasn't reliable. And while you were gone, you got knocked up by Osborne and then never fucking told Peter or MJ or your pal Harry! Oh yeah -- in case you wondered? I have files on you, because of course I fucking do. You keep being cloned and your clones keep trying to kill Peter, but me? I'm the fucking bad guy here!"
"Okay, gear down, Stark," Moon snapped, rolling to her feet--
"Waterspout," Stark snapped.
The Iron Man suit, still on sentry mode, fired a broad energy field that slammed Cindy into the wall, her muscles spasming. "What?!"
"Yeah, I don't remember reverse engineering Petey's Spidey Sense," Tony said, standing up. "But it turns out I don't have to remember doing it because I did it and I kept the tech and the notes. So no, Silk. I'm not scared of a greenhorn who hasn't figured out she's still entry level and that her 'Silk Sense' isn't a Get-Out-of-Lose-Free card. I accepted Gwen punching me in the face because I'm an asshole who deserves it, and Peter could probably give me a decent fight and maybe even win, but you? I don't care if you missed me making my reputation. I made my reputation, and if you're stupid enough to not be impressed by it, I'm just as glad because it means you're always going to be an easy K.O."
He looked around. "I'm here because I want to be and because you asked me to come, and I'm sick of being treated like shit when you want me to pay for something. You want to know why Morley and Cly came to mind? Because they were normal people and then one of them died horribly because I tried to be nobody and then the other became a mass murdering psycho because I tried to be noble. So. I am an asshole, and as a result I save people and do more in a day than any of you have ever done in your whole fucking lives! Because this is who I am. I don't trust anyone. I assume they'll shaft me or dump me or hate me or try to kill me, and as a result, I'm ready when they do that exact thing. I survive the most incredible bullshit because I don't pretend like anyone's really what it says on the tin. There are four people I unreservedly trust, and of those three one of them led the fight against me during the registration act bullshit. The second's a God I literally helped Richards clone which got Bill Foster killed. The third's the Wasp. The fourth is Rhodey. None of them are in this room. Do we have any more questions?"
"Let Cindy down right now, Tony," Mary Jane said, seething.
"Or... what, exactly?" He turned to the suit. "Along came the sun."
The field dropped, and Cindy fell forward onto the floor, breathing hard.
"So, am I out of Fuck Club? I'm heartbroken. I'll see myself out." Tony started walking for the suit.
"And that's why you keep losing your fortune," Gwen said. "Why you keep losing everything. And keep rebuilding it but get that much more pissed off at the world while you do it." She almost looked like she was smiling.
"Excuse me? Do you have a comment, Miss Stacy? Should I get my mouthguard?"
"You didn't kill Morley Erwin, Tony. Obadiah Stane did. You didn't go nuts and kill all those A.I.M. soldiers and Clytemnestra Erwin. She did that to herself. And that eats you up inside, because it means you weren't good enough to see it coming. Just like you didn't see Stane's moves or the Skrull Hank Pym setting you up during the registration act fight and then the Skrull Invasion. You didn't see Maya Hansen setting you up on Killian's behalf during Extremis. You didn't see Carol Danvers literally using lethal force against you to protect a dystopic need to take down potential criminals and get it so wrong. And every time you miss it you get angrier at yourself. And now you're pissed because you did predict Peter turning on you during the Registration Act, because deep down you knew you had gone way too fucking far, but instead of actually turning back you built in safeguards to stop Peter. Safeguards that got his aunt shot, failed to stop Peter, and ultimately gave fucking Mephisto a foothold and destroyed something sacred you don't even remember." Gwen grinned almost savagely. "And what's worse, you don't even remember getting it right that one time, or how terribly you got it wrong after that."
"Gwen!" Mary Jane snapped.
"Oh, I know. We can't tell people. I was scared to even tell you. But this self described asshole? He's the reason you and Peter are wounded down deep into your souls and can't ever fix it because you can't ever really remember it." She chuckled. "Peter drives us fucking nuts because he always takes on responsibility for whatever happens and lets guilt drive his every move -- like a kid who burns himself on the stove and can't stop picking at the wound so it never heals. But for everything that's bad about that, I'll take it over a man who got burned so badly that he stopped ever reaching for the stove in the first place."
Tony stared at Gwen.
"And you know what?" Gwen said. "Spider-Man didn't kill my father. Doctor Octopus did. Spider-Man didn't kill his Uncle Ben. That fucking robber did. And Spider-Man didn't kill me. The Green Goblin did. And the biggest reason Peter can't let any of those go? Is because the instant -- the instant -- Peter accepts that other people did those things? Then they happened despite Peter instead of because of Peter, and that means he was helpless to stop them." She leaned forward. "Just like you were helpless to save Morley. Or Cly. Or that baby's mother. Or your parents. Because it's not always because you failed. Sometimes it's because the world doesn't give a shit if you tried or not. Now sit the fuck down."
Tony stared at Gwen. "I'm sorry. Why? Exactly? Would I want to do that?"
"Because you're going to fund a project to save the world, and if it fails it won't be your fault, and that's fucking Christmas in the Stark household, as near as I can tell." She paused. "And because since the day you hired MJ you've wanted to titfuck her so badly you can taste it, and this is the only way it'll ever happen."
"Hey!" Mary Jane shouted.
"Calm down. It's not like he won't take even more joy from deepthroating me after I punched him in the mouth, and we all know that's going to happen, too. We decided that we were okay with being part of a sex-based reality manipulation solution to the world's problems. It's way too damn late to have second thoughts now."
Tony stared between the two women, then looked at Cindy. "What's your take on all this."
"...that you're a dirty, stinking cheater," Cindy said. "So, you know. Mad props."
"Who says 'mad props' these days?" Tony asked.
Cindy shrugged. "I'm on a delay, pop culture-wise."
Tony considered. "Fair. I've heard worse. Please don't be impressed by recognizing a Wizard of Oz reference." He sat back down, looking at Ollie. "And your take?"
Ollie giggled. "Whatever my Master wants, I'll do."
"Does that include not putting a shirt on?"
"So far!"
Tony looked back at the others. "Okay, so -- tell me about this project I'm funding."
"You already know," Gwen said. "We--"
"Ah ah ah. No. I can tell you right now I'm not funding a secret sex cult where hot women bone super heroes with the promises of raising the dead and getting wishes granted. Of all the scandals I've weathered? I never funded NXIVM and I'm not about to start. So. Tell me about the project I am funding."
Mary Jane looked at Tony, then back at Gwen. "All right. You said it yourself. Raising the dead's just a thing that happens to people in your line of work. And even though we're going to need to figure out limits and rules so we don't have a run on the market or get burned at the stake, we're going to be doing more than our share of it in the Spider-Harem. So... you're going to fund a project surrounding the study, re-acclimation, and eventual reintegration of the previously deceased into normal society. Because of the sort of people this attracts, it'll be well defended. Obviously, there will be whole sections not known to the public. And of course, with a few high profile success stories--"
"Like, what? Blondie here?"
"No," Mary Jane said. "Like Captain George Stacy, martyred officer of the N.Y.P.D."
Tony considered. "Okay. How do you talk Peter into it?"
"By telling him he doesn't have a choice," Mary Jane said. "He can decide to go off with Ollie if he wants, but this is where Cindy, Gwen, and I are going -- and this'll give him a legitimate income, especially if he has legitimate work. Technology supporting all this. Design. Science. Circumstances that..." Mary Jane smiled. "Circumstances that force people to see the amazing things Peter's doing today, instead of his mistakes from yesterday. Whether he likes it or not."
Tony considered. "Intriguing. And potentially useful even without the hot blue fuck djinn. No offense, Ollie."
"None taken!" Ollie giggled.
"But it's not enough." He looked at Ollie. "I believe you can do the things you claim to do. Maybe all of them. But your wishes are still an unknown quantity. I'm not a fan of those. They make me itchy. Especially since Gwen has her own agenda, Cindy doesn't fully understand her own agenda, MJ's dancing as fast as she can to not have a screaming fit, and whether or not you have to do whatever Peter tells you? You're playing your own game and I don't know its rules yet." Tony looked at Mary Jane. "So part of this will be studying Ovyah. Studying her wishes. Magically. Scientifically. Theologically if we have to. Learning how she does what she does. That's non-negotiable."
"What do you mean, she's playing her own game?" Cindy asked.
"Think it through. She didn't just 'over-expose' Miss Prissy over there to events in Peter's life or general knowledge. She specifically front-loaded Gwen with everything she needed to go full Hulk on me the moment she saw me. And then went even further. Why in Christ's name does she know the name Maya Hanson? I didn't say that name around you guys. So why did she get that whole bit in her catch-up cavalcade. I don't believe it was a mistake."
Gwen, Cindy, and Mary Jane all looked at Ollie -- no, at Ovyah.
Ovyah smiled slowly. "I'm devoted to my master. And I don't answer to any of you. But we've had a productive day, haven't we?" She leaned against Tony. "I have no problem being prodded."
"And we're not over yet," Tony said. "We have details to iron out. And as much as I'd like to spend my days in the inner boudoir, whether or not I'm funding this, my name has to stay far away from it. For all our sakes, mine through all of yours up to Peter's. But that sort of thing we can work out... especially since the project director has experience with success at the highest executive levels."
"Exper--" Cindy cocked her head. "Peter's 'highest executive level' experience was a complete failure."
Tony snorted. "Are you... are you really that nuts, Cindy? I mean -- I'm trying to figure out if you're just doing a 'too cool for school' manic pixie dreamgirl thing but that's more Ollie so I dunno. Peter's not going to be in charge of this clambake. MJ is."
Mary Jane blinked. "What?"
Tony half-smiled, looking at Mary Jane. "I may be willing to fund this disaster waiting to happen, but that doesn't mean I want to guarantee it'll be a disaster. Besides, I'll feel better about the whole thing if you're Peter's boss. Although I'm sure he's offered any such position to Jameson already."
"Don't even joke," Mary Jane said. "If there's one thing I'm certain of? It's that Peter Parker hasn't explained his sex djinn to J. Jonah Jameson."
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The Seductive Spider-Harem