I have a post like from a WHILE back about how when I watch The Amazing Spider-Man I always think of Steve from Stranger Things because in my brain Joe and Andrew Garfield look similar and it had made me think that it'd be SO cool to have an AU where Peter and Steve were secret brothers or something like that and I just wanted to expand more on the thought (I also tried to post smth similar to this like two days ago but accidentally deleted it from my drafts so </3)
I was thinking about how it'd make sense if it was TASM too especially because of that one deleted scene from the second movie, where Peter goes to visit Gwen's grave- yk the one, where the weather changes behind him and he's the only one there. And the camera shows a man walking up behind him, and it's Richard Parker. And they both end up having a sort of heart to heart? After Peter asks where the hell this mf has been the whole fucking time ofc.
Well, Richard did tell Peter he had to lie low so what if he actually ended up just moving to Bumfuck nowhere Indiana, falling in love with an Italian (Italian Steve truther) woman, and then soon after having a son together. Richard ends up with a completely new Identity and a Completely new family while he was at it.
While I think Richard Parker was a good father (It's complicated, because I feel like he was always working to the point where he was there but mentally absent.) Richard Harrington was a worse Father.
He ended up trying to become a different man and trying to prove to the townspeople he was who he said he was so much that he ended up becoming a man he designed himself. He starts to go on business trips with his wife leaving their son all alone in their big house.
Of course, his last "Business trip" is the one he takes to NYC to visit Peter. During his second life, Richard had been keeping tabs and such on Peter. Local newspapers he could get his hands on, news channels, social medias the boy had, May's Facebook. Anything he could, just to know what was happening in the Son he abandons life. While his other Son is sitting in the huge house in Hawkins wishing his father cared even an ounce about his well-being.
He accidentally lets it slip to Peter about how he has a brother and Peter just stares at him for a long while before getting up from the bench they were sharing in the cemetery and leaving him with a shake of his head. Richard tries to yell after Peter but Peter just glares at him over his shoulder and walks home, leaving the old man alone in the cemetery.
Richard ends up getting on a plane back to Hawkins with his wife to go back to their house. He honestly wasn't going to go back if Peter had showed any ounce of wanting his father back in his life. (Spoiler. He didn't.) Steve somehow figures out about Peter and the Father and Son fight, Steve saying that he wanted Peter's contact info so that way he can see him for himself and meet up.
He gets his info and Steve contacts him and they end up getting along so well. And the two start off talking about Richard and how he was as a father and as a person and everything Peter feels comfortable telling Steve about Oscorp and what happened with that whole fiasco.
But the conversation soon melds into one about their own lives beside the man that kinda fucked them up. They talk about their high school experiences, their regrets, and what they aspire to be and what they hope their futures are like. They get along so well they end up talking more and more even when Steve goes back to Hawkins and they continue to talk over the phone, becoming closer and closer by the day.
And when Jonathan invites Steve to NYC with him and Steve thinks of his brother and says yes.