Peter Parker, son of Mary and Richard Parker and heir to Aphelion Industries, had just been kicked out of University and is off living on his own. Tony Stark sees an opportunity to snag a genius and Peter sees an opportunity for independence from his parents.
Lies of omission by Bergen is a Marvel Cinematic Universe fanfic that can be read on Archive of Our Own here
.
Lies of omission provides examples of:
- Abusive Parents:
- Mary Parker is a Control Freak who micromanages everything about Peter in hopes of grooming him to take over her company, gaslighting him whenever he steps out of line. She tries to bribe MJ with a car if she stopped being friends with him, makes him leave high school early so that he could get a degree when he wanted to stay in high school with his friends and threatens to slander Stark if he doesn't return home.
- Richard Parker vents his dissatisfaction towards his marriage and his life in general by using Peter as a punching bag, having once dislocated Peter's shoulder in a fit of rage.
- Adaptational Backstory Change:
- In the MCU, Peter Parker was originally from a middle-class background, his parents having died in a plane crash and raised by his Aunt and Uncle. Here, Peter and his parents are very affluent, his mother the CEO of Aphelion Industries.
- While Karen was programmed by Tony Stark as an interactive companion for Peter's Spider-Man suit, here Peter created her.
- Adaptational Jerkass:
- While canon-Peter was a naive Nice Guy, here he comes across as a snob that likes to press people's buttons, all born out of a mistrust in others hammered into him by his parents. He does start mellowing out, though.
- This fic depicts Peter's parents as thoroughly abusive Jerkasses who either try to micromanage every part of his life or use him as a punching bag. In canon, Peter's parents were shown to be loving and good-natured. The only reason Peter was Happily Adopted by Aunt May and Uncle Ben was because they'd been killed doing spy work.
- Always a Bigger Fish: For all their wealth, power, and sizable market share, Aphelion Industries is no match for Stark Industries. Neither are Mary and Richard Parker a match for Tony Stark and Pepper Potts, who handily turn their attempt to tank Stark Industries' reputation back on them. Then Natasha and Pepper tank Aphelion Industries' share prices, offer any employees who get laid off in response a job offer at Stark Industries, and manipulate Mary into packing up and moving to France, all to make sure the Parkers wouldn't have the resources (or the incentive) to make life difficult for Peter.
- Arranged Friendship: Peter's parents don't approve of his friendship with Ned Leeds and MJ Watson, and try to have him hang out with Flash Thompson because his parents work with them. Neither Flash nor Peter like each other, but they agree to fake it because acting with open hostility isn't worth fighting their Control Freak parents over it.
- Bourgeois Bohemian: Mary Parker has a love of crystals and holistic healing and is a firm believer in them, though Peter claims that it's all a part of her life-defining habit of controlling everything, in this case her health.
- Control Freak: Mary Parker is defined by her desire to be in control of everyone and everything in her life. Her husband hates and resents her, but he can't do anything about it because his wealth and career is all because of her and he's too afraid of what she would do if he talked back to her. In Peter's case, she's carefully crafted every aspect of his life — from pulling him out of high school without graduating and go to straight college, to his career prospects, to who he's allowed to be friends with — and gaslights him whenever he tries rebelling.
- Demoted to Extra: While Peter was raised by Ben and May Parker in canon, here they never make an appearance, their only appearance being a passing mention of an uncle from a family gathering.
- In Spite of a Nail: Despite Peter's wildly different origins in this story, he still winds up with spider powers and joins the Avengers.
- Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: As Peter spends more and more time ignoring his messages, Richard starts sending him threats of physical harm and ultimatums. All this accomplishes is giving the Starks evidence that the Parkers are abusive to Peter and throws a wrench in their plan to ruin Stark Industries' reputation.
- Politically Incorrect Villain: Richard Parker is not only an abusive dad, he's also implied to be a homophobe, hoping to frame Peter's time under Tony Stark's custody as a sexual one in order to mudsling their competitor and derisively calls his son "Tony's catamite".
- Restrained Revenge: Natasha tanks Aphelion Industries' share prices by getting the Daily Bugle to run an article implicating Aphelion Industries in the release of a toxin in Chicago and accusing them of creating mind-altering drugs from chemical elements found on asteroids, damaging their reputation even further. She outright states that if she'd wanted revenge, she would've gone all the way and "left them nothing but smoking ruins".
- Screw the Rules, I Have Money!: Peter's parents manage to get him into University despite not having a high school degree and only being sixteen because they paid the school a small fortune.
- Solar Punk: While his parents want Peter to do research into ferrofluids to advance Aphelion's space-program, Peter wants to use it to help break down ocean-plastics, something Tony is perfectly willing to let him do in his company.
- Silicon Snarker: Karen has shades of this. To wit, here's her response to Peter asking her how she'd already warned Tony of an oncoming migraine:“I was clearly malfunctioning,” Karen’s voice sounds from the speaker of Peter’s laptop. “Would you like to see some pictures of ducks?”
- Sour Outside, Sad Inside: Having been raised in an abusive household that emphasized putting on an air of decorum, Peter can come across as a bit of a snob to everyone at Avengers Tower, but it's clear that he only acts that way to hide an emotionally fragile teenager starving for genuine affection.
- Spared by the Adaptation: Not only are Richard and Mary Parker alive and well in this story, they're the bad guys!
- Team Dad: Becoming a dad has essentially turned Tony Stark into this, routinely making sure that his teammates take breaks, offers them pieces of fruit when he's certain they aren't eating and tells them to hug his daughter as a way to destress.
- Younger Than They Look: Peter manages to convince everyone at Stark Tower that he's twenty when he's actually still sixteen. It's when his parents find out where he's been does he come clean about his actual age because of how bad it would look when they inevitably leak it to the press.
