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Chapter Text

He should have owned up to the spider bite when it happened, he’d fully intended to! However he had wanted to see the rest of the tour first and he hadn’t banked on his awful memory, there was just too much awesome stuff at Oscorp and once the bite had stopped hurting he’d forgotten it even happened. It wasn’t until he got home and collapsed on his bed that he’d started to wonder why he felt so ill suddenly.

So here he was home alone and feeling like he was dying. It would be sensible to phone 911 about now but the thought of crossing the room to where his phone was placed on his desk was horrifying. The bite had started to hurt again and he was running a temperature, shivering and boiling in turn. He’d tried to get up earlier to try and turn off the light burning into his eyes but had almost thrown up before he’d even sat up fully.

Peter lay curled on his side for what felt like hours, the pain only becoming worse as weird muscle cramps and spasms were added to his list of symptoms. The situation was fast becoming increasingly dire and he had no hope of anyone coming to his rescue on time: his Uncle was currently halfway across the country helping one of his old friends move house and Aunt May wasn’t going to be back until the next morning as she had the night shift. Peter was terrified she’d be returning home to his corpse. A couple of tears trickled down his face before the pain became unbearable and he lost consciousness just as he felt something in his chest shift.

He awoke some unknown amount of time later, which surprised him to be totally honest. It was now light outside and there was a note on the bedside table from May.

Have gone out for groceries. I’ve already called the school so stay in bed!! :)

Peter smiled fondly and stretched, enjoying being pain free again. He suddenly became aware that he smelled awful – like a forgotten carton of milk had been spilt in a hospital – and clambered out of bed to take a shower. Peter grabbed his pyjamas, which he hadn’t had time to change into last night and ambled into the bathroom. He swiftly undressed on autopilot, eager to be under the warm water.

The shower was just as good as he’d thought it would be and Peter could feel his muscles all relaxing. He tipped his head back and let the water run down his chest. Everything felt good, until suddenly it didn’t. It was as if the water was going down his throat, into his lungs. He was choking! Except he couldn’t be, his mouth was closed! He started to cough and heave in huge breaths, realising as he did so that these were the first breaths he’d taken since waking up.

He stumbled out of the shower, still panicking but the suffocating feeling fading as soon as he left the spray of water. Peter then saw his reflection and stared. His chest seemed to have gotten bigger, his muscles more defined but that wasn’t what had stolen his attention. Halfway down his ribcage, just under where his sternum ended, there was a small fold of skin that definitely hadn’t been there before! He prodded at it with trembling hands to reveal a small hole that seemed to lead down into his ribcage. He swore quietly before sliding onto the floor and promptly fainting.

A month on from the spider bite and the changes it had brought, Peter was beginning to accept his new condition. He’d spent the first few days in a state of denial until he managed to kick a soccer ball so hard it had bent the goalpost in gym class (luckily the incident had been dismissed by all concerned as a structural fault in the ancient goalposts). He’d realised then that he was dangerous and ignorance towards his new abilities wasn’t doing him any favours. He’d resolved to educate himself but that was proving difficult – it wasn’t like anyone like him had existed before. Peter suspected that if the wrong people found about him it probably wouldn’t end well so he couldn’t exactly march into the Doctor’s and demand to see the local expect on transgenic humans. Instead Peter had turned to the internet and read as much as he could on spiders. He’d even sent some emails to researchers, asking questions under the guise of being a spider enthusiast. Peter didn’t even like the creatures, although he certainly had more respect for them now!

Alongside his reading he’d also carried out some experiments on himself. They weren’t ideal (no study with a sample size of one and no control was!) but it was the best he could do. He’d started off with the changes he was more comfortable with: his heightened awareness of his surroundings and ability to cling to walls and even ceilings before moving on to his greatly increased coordination and strength as well as decreased thermoregulation.

He left the opening in his chest and new breathing arrangements for last. It still freaked him out that there was a hole in the middle of his ribcage although some of his fears had been eased when he’d read that they could be another set of lungs. He found he could breathe with just one pair of lungs at a time as they worked differently – the top set were connected to his trachea and as far as he could tell were just like smaller versions of his original lungs. The pair below however, were not. He supposed they must be something like book lungs, which his research had shown were common in spiders and didn’t require any motion to work. His body now automatically used the lower pair which meant no breathing – unless he exercised or consciously thought about it. Breathing felt strange now, the movements more jerky and stiffer than he remembered. It still really freaked him out to be honest (although there had been no more fainting since that time in the bathroom).

On the bright side, showers had stopped being a traumatic experience once he’d figured out how to clench the muscles around the opening closed. He’d also taken to wearing vests under his clothes so that no one saw his changed anatomy when changing for gym class. It also helped in keeping warm, which had become more difficult since the bite. He just had to remember to keep on pretending to breathe – even if it made him feel lightheaded sometimes – and no one would ever find out!

Despite being awful at keeping secrets, Peter was still the only one aware of the change and he’d like to keep it that way! To begin with it had seemed like a game or his own special secret but then he’d thought about it and realised the stakes were higher: if he messed up it could cost him everything! His Aunt and Uncle would probably be accepting but he didn’t want to take the risk and if he told one or two people then it would be more likely for others to find out. If he told Ned he would be overjoyed but he was even worse at keeping his mouth shut than Peter. Peter was used to having people around him that he could confide in so this situation made him feel trapped.

Uncle Ben’s voice sent Peter scrabbling to hide his notebook containing his notes on his abilities.
“Peter, you want to come help me get some ice cream from the store?”

“Sure, just a minute!” Peter felt happier already at the prospect of ice cream. He bounced out of his room, grabbing a pair of socks as he went. He could practically already taste it! Uncle Ben laughed at his eagerness and after receiving Aunt May’s shopping list and throwing on coats and shoes they stepped out into the dark streets.

Little did Peter know that he wouldn’t be getting any ice cream that night. They would buy it – a large tub of sticky toffee flavour – that would later melt on the Police Station floor. Peter’s life was going be changed forever: tonight he would be set on the path to becoming Spiderman.

Chapter Text

Tony rubbed at his gritty eyes wearily and sighed. He’d been up a few days in a row by now and he was about ready to crash on his workshop couch, next to Wonder Web himself who had already been out for a good half hour. Peter was staying with him over the weekend while his Aunt was away at her cousin’s funeral.

He was rearranging the blanket around the kid’s shoulders when he realised the body on the couch was too still. He put his hand in front of Peter’s face and felt much more awake when he couldn’t feel any breath. He grabbed the kid’s shoulder and shook him violently.

“Peter, wake up! Come on kid, please! Peter!!”

Tony was beginning to panic when Peter was blinking woozily up at him “Whatsthematter?” he rubbed at the sleep in his eyes and Tony felt his heart melt a little.

“You weren’t breathing, Pete.” He tried to hide how panicked he’d been and carefully angled his body so Peter couldn’t see his trembling left hand. Peter’s expression smoothed over like a frozen lake – which was odd considering how expressive he normally was – but it only lasted a moment before he went back to the sleepy teenager he’d appeared to be before.

“Oh yea, Aunt May says I do that in my sleep sometimes – it’s not dangerous though – it only lasts a little bit.” The kid patted Tony’s arm clumsily and snuggled back down into the blanket. Tony lifted Peter’s feet out of the way and sprawled down on the sofa, suddenly overwhelmingly tired as the last of the adrenaline left his system. Before he could think to question what had happened he was out.

It wasn’t until a couple days later that Tony really thought about what had happened. The rest of Peter’s stay had been so busy he’s somehow forgotten and after that Pepper had been on his case about a prototype he’d promised her would be completed a fortnight ago. The only reason he’d remembered at all was because he’d had a dream (nightmare) where Peter had been asleep in a pit full of spiders and wouldn’t wake up, even as they began to eat him alive. Tony rarely dreamed outside of what his PTSD cooked up so to experience a something that wasn’t directly inspired by his superhero work was a somewhat dubious novelty. He’d jolted awake horribly shaken – partially convinced it had actually happened by how real it had felt. He could still see in his mind’s eye how the spider’s fangs had pinched at the kid’s cheeks before painting the pit red with blood.

It had taken quite some time to calm down – especially when he’d remembered the incident a few nights ago. Peter had claimed he was fine and he didn’t think Peter was lying outright (the kid was an awful liar) he didn’t think he was getting the whole picture either. That was why he was now trawling through the internet in search for answers. He’d started with that weird breathing pause thingy babies did – FRIDAY helpfully informed him the proper term was ‘Periodic breathing’ – which Peter seemed to be a little old for (he may be a kid but he was definitely older than 6 months!). However this had led him to ‘central sleep apnea’ which seemed to fit what Peter had exactly: periods of no breathing while asleep for up to 2 minutes and no breathing attempts during this time and upon waking up being unable to breathe iniatially before breathing heavily to compensate. He got FRIDAY to play the security footage from the incident to see how well it matched. It was hard to make out details because of the low lighting but it seemed to fit the symptoms perfectly. Central sleep apnea was caused by issues in the area of the brain that controlled respiration and seemed like the most benign of the possiblitites (and even then it could be dangerous in severe cases).

There were a number of other, more ominous conditions with similar symptoms, including a number of heart conditions and even opioid use! While any of these were alarming the very worst of the possibilities was in a completely different league – a disorder known as Ondine’s curse. It was usually genetic but could also be caused by severe brain/spine injuries. If left untreated it was almost always fatal and the treatment itself involved tracheotomies and sleeping on a respirator. He couldn’t find much on the exact life expectancy but it was obviously pretty grim, especially when he considered how much Peter got knocked around as Spiderman. The only thing in Peter’s favour was that if he had Ondine’s curse he probably would already be dead!

Tony caught himself gazing longingly at the cabinet he kept his whiskey in. It was only 11 am but hearing your intern was possibly doing drugs/very ill tended to make even the best of people want to bury their heads in the sand for a while. He’d walked halfway to the cabinet when it hit him that the Parkers probably didn’t have the medical insurance to deal with this. He turned back to his seat, alcohol forgotten for now. He would deal with his feelings in a more productive way: throwing money at the charitable organisations in the hopes they would improve what he couldn’t.

“I- um… Kiddo could we have a chat? Maybe?” Tony cringed internally as he plonked himself down on one of the penthouse sofas and patted the cushion next to him for Peter to sit also. The kid shot an uncertain look at him and also sat but remained tensed nervously.

Tony sighed. Great! He’d gotten the kid on edge before he’d even started!! “So! Uh…” he faltered before steeling himself and going straight to the heart of the issue.

“What’s the deal with the not breathing properly in your sleep Peter? I did some research in the past few days and there’s several things that can cause that but none of them are ‘not dangerous’”

Peter didn’t say anything and looked mulish. Tony sighed again.

“Look I get it that you don’t want my help in this but do you really want to end up dying?! I don’t understand! Is it a money issue? Does your medical insurance not cover it?? Please tell me you haven’t been taking opioids illegally – although to be honest I’m not sure if I prefer the prospect of you doing drugs or having some sort of dangerous long-tern health condition. I mean both can mess up your life…” He realised he was ranting and tapered off. The kid looked a little bemused and then smiled (the expression was a little nervous but it was still a genuine smile).

“Mr Stark, I really don’t have any problems like that.” Tony immediately frowned angrily but Peter raised a hand to silence him “It’s to do with my abilities.”

“What?!” he stared at Peter, for once in his life not knowing what to say first “Why didn’t you tell me? Waaaait, how does that work in the first place!? Spill the beans, Kid.”

Peter looked nervous again “I mean I don’t know for sure but I probably have two pairs of lungs, like a spider and they work differently so sometimes it doesn’t look like I’m breathing but I am? There’s like a separate airway and everything!!” Tony couldn’t believe what he was hearing and realised when Peter stopped talking that he was openly staring. This really had not been what he had been expecting from this intervention! (admittedly, despite the weird turn things had taken, this was a far better outcome than he’d been envisaging)

Peter looked dejected now “Yea I know, it’s really messed up, right? I-I’ll just go then.” He went to get up but Tony clumsily grabbed his elbow. If Peter really wanted to leave he could throw off Tony’s arm easily – in fact he’d probably allowed Tony to grab him in the first place – but he didn’t move.

“No, stay Peter! It’s not messed up, I’m just surprised!! This isn’t the conversation I was expecting to be having and to be honest I’m glad – although you are definitely seeing a professional about this! Friday, make an appointment with Dr Cho.” Wow, Tony was going soft. There were several other specialists in enhanced humans that he could take Peter to see and many of them were far closer to New York as well! However Dr Cho was easily the nicest and he could trust her to keep her mouth shut. Besides Peter needed to experience more of the world!

“Of course Boss” Friday sounded smug. Tony would have to have words with her later.

Peter looked like he wanted to protest but Tony turned a wolfish smile on him “Also, I’m going to be having a discussion about health insurance with May. This time might have been false alarm but next time it might not be.”

Peter groaned in frustration “You do know she really won’t like this?”

Tony grinned wider, he would not be moved on this – even by May.

“Nice to meet you, Peter” Dr Cho greeted as Peter and Tony entered her clinic. She was reading a large textbook titled ‘Invertebrate Physiology 12th edition’ and scribbling notes on a notepad. The kid seemed to still be in an awed daze at Tony flying him to South Korea just for a Doctor’s appointment so he waved at her but didn’t say anything. He was also very nervous judging by how jittery he’d been on the flight over. Right now he was fiddling with the strap of his backpack hard enough for the fabric to creak alarmingly so Tony patted him on the shoulder reassuringly.

“Tony said you had some notes on your abilities, could I see them?” She’d got up and approached them. Despite her friendly manner, Peter angled himself behind Tony a little before shrugging off his bag and digging out a couple battered notebooks. He grudgingly handed them over and Dr Cho immediately started to skim through.

“Hm, this seems pretty well thought out. How about you give Peter a tour, Tony? You’ve been here enough to know your way around. I need a while to read this and then when you come back we can get started properly!”

“Sure, it would be my pleasure!” Tony smiled back before steering Peter away from Dr Cho’s desk.

“Don’t mess with anything!!” she called after them.

The two of them spent the next hour wandering around and getting excited at the staggeringly expensive equipment. Tony may have messed with some things he shouldn’t have (he couldn’t resist!) but he’d put everything back – and in some cases had even improved things!! Peter had slowly relaxed in the proximity of so many things he wanted to know about and gush over but all too soon Dr Cho was calling them back and Peter was tensing up again, though not as badly as before.

Tony found a table to perch on while the initial examinations took place. To be honest he wasn’t really paying much attention except to occasionally glance across to check things were still going OK. This time when he looked round Dr Cho was asking Peter to take off his t-shirt (which had one of those awful science puns plastered across it that he was not going to laugh at!). Peter looked very self-conscious and Tony was very close to just stopping the appointment there, surely Helen already had enough information to go off? However, in the long term this could be important. He tried not to stare at the strange fold of skin that Dr Cho said protected the opening for the kid’s second airway. Tony schooled his expression to bored indifference while he internally cringed at what it could have felt like for that to form. The opening was only a little lower than where the arc reactor had sat so this was hitting a little close to home.

Dr Cho now had a stethoscope and was listening to Peter’s breathing (or lack thereof). She was soon frowning and when she asked Peter to take in a few deeper breaths she just looked confused. She then went and dug out a hefty medical textbook and started quickly flipping through, obviously looking for something in particular. When she paused and read whatever section she’d been looking for she only looked more confused. Dr Cho handed Peter his t-shirt before going back to her desk.

“Why don’t you two go get some lunch? I need to check some things, although I suspect the existing literature isn’t going to be much help” she sighed heavily “Would you be alright with having an MRI, Peter? At this point I doubt anything else is going to help much.”

“Uh, sure?” Peter squeaked out, looking to Tony for guidance. Tony suddenly felt terrified at the level the kid trusted him but made sure to smile reassuringly.

“I know just the place to take you!” he wrapped an arm round the kid’s shoulders and steered him out the door “I bet you’ll love Korean food.”

After the day of the MRI, it took Dr Cho a couple of weeks to interpret the data. Tony contacted her a couple times to ask about her progress but each time she had seemed utterly flummoxed. However eventually he got the call on a dreary Monday afternoon that she had come to some conclusions. Luckily Peter was supposed to be coming round after school anyway so he didn’t have too wait long.

“Hey Mr Stark!”

Peter bounced in around usual time, looking chipper and cheery even after a full day of school.

“Hey, Kid. How was your day?” He tried to hide his smile as Peter set off on a rant about how unreasonable Spanish Grammar was and how ridiculous his classmates were.

When he’d finished Tony told him “I heard from Dr Cho today that she has your results, do you want to call her?” Peter’s smile instantly disappeared and Tony felt like a lump of garbage for bringing it up.

“I mean you don’t have to if you don’t want to…?” he offered

The kid looked like he was going to agree for a second before he set his jaw in determination “No, let’s do this!”

“OK. Friday, call Dr Cho please” he patted Peter on the shoulder reassuringly and guided him over to sit on the couch.

“Right away,” a holographic screen popped up in front of them with a loading symbol slowly rotating. The call then connected and Dr Cho’s face appeared on the screen.

“Hi, Peter. I have your results now, I’m sorry it took so long but some of your more unusual features had me stumped” A bundle of papers was visible at the bottom of the screen which she studied at for a minute before speaking “From what I can tell there is nothing that is going to cause any severe health conditions in the near future however there are things you are going to have to bear in mind” Tony and Peter both breathed out a sigh of relief.

Helen smiled at them before resuming “For instance, your ability to thermoregulate is severely diminished so if you are exposed to extreme temperatures – especially cold – for a long period of time it could have severe consequences. Another potential problem is your extremely high metabolic rate, although without tissue samples I cannot tell you exactly how elevated it is. Normally I would say that in a patient that shows such a low level of ventilation that pneumonia is a certainty but seeing as you said you haven’t been sick at all since you were bitten I reckon we don’t need to worry about that. It may be that you have acquired some arachnid immune system characteristics although that would also require more tests to confirm.”

She paused to take a breath “Now moving on to the situation with your lungs. The main reason I took so long to get back was because I had some difficulty interpreting the MRI results. It appears Peter was correct in his hypothesis of two separate sets of lungs but not so much for the exact arrangement. Here is an image of an unenhanced 16 year old” she held up a grayscale MRI image of someone’s torso so they could see it. Tony could recognise some features such as the vertebrae forming a dashed line down the centre and the dark gaps around where the lungs would be. The rest was grey abstract swirls of internal organs and he didn’t remember enough anatomy to place them. “And here is the results from Peter’s scan” Tony may not know much about the inner workings of the human body (in fact it was a topic he was quite happy to remain ignorant of after the forays that had been necessary to keep himself alive) but it was painfully obvious that Peter was arranged a little differently. There was a string of black blobs extending all around the inside of his ribcage (or at least where he thought the ribcage should go) and a large pair of fairly dark sections in the middle. The rest of the internal organs looked a bit different too but it was more subtle, a loop in one where there was a larger swirl in the other and so on.

Peter was looking a little green around the gills so Tony patted him on the shoulder reassuringly. “So what does it mean?” Peter asked.

“You were correct that you have two pairs of lungs but in resting conditions neither type requires any ventilation to function – you only need to respire during exercise because you are a lot bigger than the average spider so your oxygen demand is greater. Your hypothesis about the book lungs was also correct and you can see them here connecting to the opening in your chest” she pointed to the large blobs on the scan that were roughly where lungs would be expected. “However the tracheal lungs were more arthropod-like than I expected. You see these tubes inside the ribcage” She showed them the strings of round shapes Tony had noticed earlier “These are the tracheae, in arthropods they have a structural role as well as being for respiration so you can see that they’re located just behind the ribs to reinforce them. You told me that breathing felt more stiff than before and this is probably why.” Dr Cho then showed them a part of the scan that showed what looked like a dent in one of the tube-lung things “Would I be right in saying that you have broken a rib since your transformation, Peter?”

“Um, yea… I did a while back.” Peter grinned sheepishly.

“Wait, what? Tony whirled round to face the kid to demand an explanation “When was this!?”

Peter managed to look even more sheepish “In a fight with the Vulture”

Well that made sense he supposed, Peter had been pretty beaten up afterwards and things had been a little tense after the whole Staten Island Ferry disaster but surely he would have told Tony if he had something as potentially dangerous as a broken rib? “Why didn’t you tell me?” he tried to keep the hurt out of his voice but he wasn’t sure he’d been totally successful when Peter’s expression slid from embarrassment to dejection.

“I didn’t want to be a bother, and it wasn’t that bad anyway…” Peter looked like he wanted the sofa to eat him but Tony wasn’t going to let this go. He’d had enough of the kid’s self-destructive behaviour!

“Peter, that injury has permanently reshaped part of your respiratory system and you want me to think it wasn’t bad?? Dr Cho please correct me if I’m wrong but if the tube-lung things-”

“tracheae”

“Thank you, anyway if these tracheae didn’t weren’t reinforced that broken rib could have punctured your lung and you could have died!”

“I…” Peter seemed to be lost for words for once.

“He is correct Peter, in fact I would say that even if they are stronger than a normal person’s lung you are still very able to die from pneumothorax so don’t start thinking you’re invincible.”

“Yes, Dr Cho”

“Also something to warn you about – when arthropods moult they also shed the linings of their tracheae. I’m unsure if this is going to happen in your case: you’re still growing but you have no exoskeleton. However, if anything unusual happens you may want to seek help – get Tony to give you my number when we’re done.” Peter frowned puzzledly as that information sank in, before looking a little horrified.

“Don’t worry, Peter. I’m pretty sure that it won’t happen, I just want you to be prepared for any worst case scenarios” Peter nodded, he still looked a little spooked but not as badly as before. Tony wished then that Peter didn’t have

The two adults gave him a moment to process all the new information before Dr Cho resumed her explanation “Now, moving on to…”

“You need to stop, Stark.” Tony looked up at Nebula from the control panel he was attempting to fix. On any other day he would relish the chance to repair an alien spaceship (or attempt to if he was being honest) but after the day he’d had the experience left him unmoved. Nebula looked angry – well angrier than usual that is – and had her arms crossed in from of her. He set down the tool he’d been using and crossed his arms too, leaning against the ship wall for support.

“The sooner I get this repaired, the sooner we can leave. That’s what you want, right?” he knew consciously provoking angry blue assassin aliens with short tempers was probably not the best idea he’d ever had but he was tired and in a lot of pain so making polite conversation wasn’t exactly one of his priorities. (Let’s be honest though, when had being polite ever been a priority for him?)

“We’ll never leave if you die before you can finish repairs. You may have filled the wound with nanites but that’s just a temporary solution.”

Tony knew he needed to stop. He could feel the nanites shifting inside his wound every time he bent down and blood had started leaking from the wound again. He knew that if he wasn’t already bleeding internally he probably soon would be; the nanites were not designed to do this and he was quite low on power after fighting Thanos.

He shifted to try and find a more comfortable way to stand that didn’t put so much pressure on his injuries and caught a glimpse of the dust still smeared on his hands. The dust that had been Peter only a couple of hours ago. He had tried so hard to protect the kid – the iron spider suit had been the work of many months and he’d included everything Peter could possibly need: extra web fluid storage, mechanical spider legs, reinforced chest section (no more ribs were going to be broken on his watch!) and the air permeability of the suit could be changed so that Peter could easily get enough oxygen. He may have gone overboard when he made the suit able to withstand the upper atmosphere but with how things had gone it was just as well.

However, none of his preparations could have prepared him against Thanos. He’d put everything into preparing for this fight, it had been all he’d lived for when his life had seemed unliveable. After Ultron, after Siberia this had been all that had kept him going.

And yet he still failed.

He inhaled shakily and turned back to his work. “Thank you for the offer, but I think I’ll be fine.”

There was silence and Tony thought Nebula had left, when arms suddenly wrapped around him from behind and he was hoisted into a fireman’s carry. He panicked for a minute and kicked out before realising that being dropped right now would not be enjoyable. Luckily Nebula managed to keep her grip but he still wasn’t impressed.

“Put me down! Nebula!!” She ignored him and kept on walking until they reached the ship’s first aid cupboard in one of the guardian’s bedrooms. She set him down on a bed uncharacteristically gently but when Tony tried to squirm away he found himself in a painful arm-lock.

“I’m trying to help, Stark. You aren’t the only one that lost someone today so get it together! Your son is gone and there’s nothing you can do about that, but you can change things for those of us still here!!” she released him and began to rummage through the medical supplies. He didn’t recognise many of the items appearing but Nebula looked like she knew what she was doing. He’d leave explaining that Peter wasn’t his son for later.

“I understand”

“You’d better”

In the end, Nebula’s words turned out to be incorrect.

He was able to help Peter, and while it had cost him enormously he would do it again with no hesitation if he had to do his life over.

(Maybe she hadn’t been wrong about everything though)

Chapter Text

“What’s this, Peter?” May eyes the heavy brown envelope that has been dumped in her lap dubiously.

Peter answers with his customary stuttering pantomime that shows he is uncertain and maybe has something to hide. Something about a doctor’s appointment – which May would have expected to know about sooner – and repeated assurances that she shouldn’t panic. None of which was particularly reassuring but Peter appeared to be more preoccupied with her reaction than whatever was actually in the envelope. May sees that Peter is about to launch himself onto the sofa and hurriedly places her mug down before the hot tea can be spilled. Once Peter has settled next to her, looking much like some kind of blanket monster (he was obviously feeling cold today) she opened the envelope and pulled out the papers within.

The thick stack of paper was the results from a check-up Peter had had to determine any possible effects the spider bite could have had on his health. She took a cursory look through and realised the document was detailed before turning her attention back to her nephew.

“Did Mr Stark persuade you to do this?” she carefully kept any judgement from her voice. While she thought this was a good idea she was still a little wary of Mr Stark after the fiasco with the vulture and the resulting injuries Peter had received. Peter thought the world of the man and Stark seemed to be fond of Peter in return but May just wanted to avoid a repeat of that morning when instead of enjoying homecoming like the rest of his peers, Peter had returned bleeding and shaking and on the verge of breaking down. May hadn’t managed to get much insight to what exactly had happened that night, even after she had discovered his secret identity, but it had clearly been traumatic.

“Yea… I managed to give him a bit of a fright a few weeks ago so he was pretty adamant I go. Don’t worry though, Dr Cho works with lots of enhanced people so she knows to keep things quiet.”

“How did you give him a fright?” she frowned when Peter immediately looked guilty.

“Uuuuh. Well… So since the spider bite some of my insides were a bit… rearranged?” Peter cringed at the face May was making. She had no idea what expression she was making, how on earth was she supposed to take this??

“Rearranged. Of course.” She muttered, feeling a little faint.

When Peter didn’t elaborate she demanded “Please continue.”

So he explained the changes his body had undergone in that overly technical, jargon-loaded way that he usually used to talk about what he had gotten up to with Mr Stark or when he wanted to tell her about something interesting he had read. It was odd to hear him talk about himself using that language.

It was odder still that he apparently now didn’t need to actively breathe the same way everyone else did. As she processed this bombshell she surreptitiously observed Peter. For the last five minutes he had only taken a breath when he was talking, when silent his chest remained completely motionless. Once May had noticed it was impossible to un-notice and May wondered how she had ever missed it in the first place. Although Peter talked so much that maybe it wasn’t so surprising.

Once May was reassured that Peter wasn’t in any immediate danger from his modifications (and she had drunk the rest of her tea) she felt a lot more calm. She would still read every word of the report but it was comforting to know that she wasn’t the only person supporting Peter anymore.

May is attempting to bake scones (yet again) when Peter arrives back from school. The door bangs open a little harder than normal but she is busy retrieving the tray from the oven. She hoped Peter wasn’t too hungry – the last couple years his appetite had been difficult to keep up with but lately it had been especially voracious. Sometimes it was more like having a vaguely human-shaped swarm of locusts in the house instead of a hungry teenager.

Unusually, Peter doesn’t immediately enter the kitchen so May shucks off the oven gloves and apron to check on him. The front door isn’t closed properly and there is a trail of Peter’s schoolbag, shoes and coat that leads towards the closed bathroom door. Peter isn’t someone to keep places tidy by any means but this is unusually bad. However, before she can become irritated she hears the sound of her nephew throwing up.

The bathroom door is unlocked and she slips inside to see what is wrong. Peter looks up at her from his position slumped by the toilet, for a second his expression only shows exhaustion before it changes to guilty panic – the kind Peter makes when he realises he’s about to be found out (an expression May is becoming worryingly familiar with!). She takes a closer look at her nephew (both to let him stew a little longer and to see if she can determine what is wrong with him). Peter is in a word grey. Sweat shines on his face and his hands clench the toilet tightly – as if he would fall if he released it. This would all lead May to the conclusion that Peter was simply sick (even though he hadn’t been sick at all since the spider stuff kicked off) but, horrifyingly, there were patches of his skin which appeared to be peeling off. Large flakes, almost like confetti in appearance, litter the floor and on Peter the places where the new skin underneath is exposed looks pink and raw.

Peter makes another awful choking noise and hurriedly turns back around to spit out a clump of something. May stepped closer to rub her nephew’s back soothingly and catches a glimpse of what is floating in the toilet bowl. Peter appears to be literally coughing his lungs out. May has to hold herself back from full out panicking but she still shrieks. Peter hunches further over the toilet, hands gripping his ears, and his misery forces May to focus. For someone that is leaving chunks of his internal organs lying around Peter seems to be fairly energetic so he’s not at death’s door yet.

“Peter, can you tell me what is happening to you right now?” she asks softly. “Do I need to phone Tony?”

Peter regards her for a long moment and for a minute she thinks he doesn’t understand but then his eyes show understanding and he nods.

“I think I’m moulting” he manages to say breathlessly before he has to turn back to the toilet. May is infinitely grateful then that she found out about Peter’s secret before this happened. When Peter had first come clean she had read up about spiders in an effort to be prepared for any future weirdness. She was aware that she was by no means stupid but she was certainly not on the level of Peter when it came to more scholarly areas so she had been somewhat limited in her research. Regardless, it had been useful when she had received that medical report a couple months ago. She had read it start to finish but there had been no mention of anything even remotely like this happening!

May pulls out her phone and calls Tony Stark’s personal number. Not something she had ever expected to have but at this point her life had pretty much diverged from what most people considered ‘normal’.

The dial tone rings seven times before Tony answers sleepily. “Hey, May! What’s up? Peter’s not gotten himself mixed up in anything unpleasant again I hope?”

That reminded her of the last time she’d phoned Tony. Peter had showed up after patrolling having been stabbed in the leg and had attempted to pretend he was uninjured. The whole business had come to a head in the early hours of the morning when Peter had seen sense and realised he couldn’t deal with his injuries alone. May still hadn’t gotten the bloodstains out of the living room rug.

Oh well, no point sparing the man’s feelings. “Peter is currently expelling pieces of his lungs into the toilet. He claims he is moulting.”

There is a sound of a startled inhale and then of something being dropped but it seems for once the great Tony Stark was speechless.

“Okay…” Tony sounded slightly panicked “is he having any difficulties getting enough air? I can get to you within a few minutes with oxygen if he needs it but I’d prefer to call Dr Cho first and get her opinion.”

May eyed Peter critically. She watched his chest expand and contract rapidly as if Peter had just been running. It was very rare to see Peter out of breath at all so this was very worrying. “He does seem to be breathing very fast.” She reported.

“I’ll be there soon” there was a clanking noise and then he hung up.

The next six minutes were spent trying to reassure Peter as he began to panic. His breathing was becoming more ragged and he was wheezing slightly as his lung capacity decreased. The time between each section of lung being coughed up appeared to be increasing and she almost dared to believe the worst was over. May held him close on the bathroom floor and wished Tony would hurry up.

When the doorbell rang May carefully propped Peter against the radiator and sprinted down the hall to the door. She flung it open to reveal a very harassed-looking Tony Stark carrying a couple of oxygen tanks in one hand and a bag of other equipment in the other. He burst into the apartment and headed straight to the bathroom where he carefully dumped the things he’d brought on the floor and retrieved his phone from a pocket of his jacket. There was an already ongoing call with who May presumed was Dr Cho and soon enough Tony was pressing an oxygen mask to Peter’s second airway, taping it in place to compensate for the poor fit, while relaying details of Peter’s condition over the phone.

Peter quickly became more alert and calmed once he began to receive sufficient oxygen once again. However, the greyness of his skin doesn’t change and he is obviously still in some significant discomfort. Tony had brought some kind of prototype medical scanner that he just had to point at Peter for about thirty seconds and then he sent the data to Dr Cho.

While they wait for Dr Cho to look through the scans they manoeuvre Peter out of the bathroom and over to the living room sofa. Peter’s strength seemed to have deserted him so it takes both of them to carry him. Once he is situated (with a bucket strategically positioned nearby just in case). May grabs a pile of blankets from the cupboard and proceeded to wrap Peter up until only his head remains peeking out. The last thing he needed now was to get cold and it was currently December, plus it gave her something to do that made her feel somewhat useful.

She watches the way the mask fogs up with every slow breath Peter takes and smooths the hair back from his face. He needs a haircut again. Peter doesn’t acknowledge her presence at all – he is either not conscious or he is feeling the kind of unwell where nothing can be done but lie as still as possible and hope for the best.

May is then distracted from her thoughts by Tony returning and taking a seat in the armchair.

“Helen agrees with Peter that he is moulting – not that it’s a difficult conclusion to come to seeing as the kid is currently doing his best impression of a dermatologist’s worst nightmare! She said that judging by the scans that Peter has now expelled one set of lungs completely and that he’s now growing the replacements so the other set can go. She thinks the whole moulting process should take a couple days and then he’ll be fine to return to school”

May sighed and rubbed her face. Tony was surprisingly calm about this and given all the times they had had crises together over whatever stupid stunt Peter had attempted he was maybe too calm.

“You already knew that this was a possibility, didn’t you Tony?” she asked accusingly.

Tony blanched and looked away from her “Uh... No of course not! I’m just as confused as you?”

“Really?” she gave him an unamused stare and waited for him to crack.

He kept his gaze fixed on the floor and managed to look even more sheepish “Well Dr Cho mentioned it as a possibility but she was certain it wasn’t going to happen! I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want you to worry about something that we thought wasn’t going to happen.”

“Well, I would appreciate it if in the future you kept me fully up to date with anything concerning Peter. This was not a pleasant surprise and it would have been nice to be fully informed in the first place.” She internally winced at how snippy she sounded and fully expected Tony to react with his usual sharp comments he employed when he was on the defensive. To her surprise he instead seemed to fold inwards at her words.

“I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.” he muttered and escaped to check on the equipment he’d left in the bathroom. May suspected that would be all the apology she would get. Some people might have been offended by this but he had sounded sincere it was more than she was expecting.

May closed the door as Tony sauntered out of her the apartment with a cheery wave. The last two days had been tense and May hadn’t managed to get any time off work so much of Peter’s care had been left to Tony. She had to admit she was impressed by his dedication, from what everyone said about Tony Stark (including the man himself) she would have thought he would have been near to useless at dealing with a sick teenager!

After the initial scare Peter had remained unconscious and on oxygen as his tracheal lungs regrew. The process had lasted through the remainder of the night and all the next day while she was at work. Tony said he had briefly awoken a couple of times, ravenously hungry but not particularly coherent.

When she had returned Peter had seemingly recovered fully and was sitting at the table and shovelling down a bowl of pasta with enthusiasm. He was not long out of the shower and his skin was a fresh bright pink all over – the old layers had been shed completely. The relief of seeing Peter so much better had almost felt like a physical blow and she had teetered over to a chair in a happy daze. They had all sat down and eaten dinner together and for a brief time they had been able to forget the impending ordeal hanging over them.

Of course it hadn’t lasted and not even an hour later Peter had been suffering again. May hadn’t noticed exactly when the moulting had started again because she had been teasing Tony but the clang of Peter dropping his spoon in his half-eaten bowl of ice cream had drawn their attention.

Peter had lurched to his feet and made for the sofa on unsteady legs. Tony caught him before he could fall and May rushed to help them.

The second half of Peter’s moult had been just as bad as the first despite being anticipated this time. The lining of his book lungs was more firmly anchored and after several hours of Peter wheezing and clutching his chest there had been very little progress. Tony had phoned Dr Cho again but all she could tell them was that they needed to wait. There had been other options of course but they were likely to cause Peter further distress and they had both refused to go there unless it was absolutely necessary.

They both stayed up with Peter for hours trying to ease the passage of the ordeal for him, despite May having work the next day and Tony being extremely sleep deprived (who knew when he had last slept!). Eventually, at about 2 AM and after hours of waiting, Peter was unconscious once again and May had a another bucket of enhanced human lung tissue to dispose of somehow. Great. She wondered (yet again) exactly what was her life becoming.

The next day had proceeded much the same as the previous except that May had been painfully sleep deprived but it had all been worth it when she returned home to see Peter was fully back to

his usual self once again. Tony had stayed for dinner but then left to catch up on everything he had missed at the compound.

“Bye, Mr Stark!” Peter yelled as She closed the door. Peter was bouncing on the balls of his feet, virtually bouncing off the ceiling with the energy and enthusiasm of someone that has just realised they are no longer ill. They move back to the living room where May tiredly lowers herself down on the sofa while Peter dashes about.

“I feel GREAT now!” he announces cheerily “Can I go out on patrol tonight?”

“No. No one is going to be getting up to any shenanigans until you have caught up with all the work you’ve missed.” she fixes him with her best resistance is futile stare. Peter looks a little crestfallen but he nods and accepts her decision.

She then offers the TV remote to Peter and they settle down to watch Star Trek together.

When May returns from what will come to be called ‘the blip’ she is standing on the pavement outside her apartment. As far as she’s concerned she was returning home from work and suddenly the sky brightened and she feels a little disorientated.

It appears to be a little after midday now, when a second ago it was beginning to get dark. The street looks different too: more unkempt and there are long-neglected piles of wreckage here and there. There isn’t a soul in sight, despite this street normally being busy all day and night. She pulls out her phone and it says 13:49 Which is odd but fine.

She then reads the date and her legs almost collapse beneath her: 3rd October 2023. Last she had checked it had been the 18th April 2018. Either her phone has gone loopy or she has somehow missed a whole five years! She rushes up the steps to her front door and unlocks it frantically. The door is stiffer than it had been that morning and she has to use her whole body weight to push it open. All her and Peter’s stuff is undisturbed but gently cloaked in a thick layer of dust. The breakfast things she left in a rush to dry in the drainer are untouched. The fruit she had bought only yesterday has become a couple of sickly saplings. May collapses into the comforting bulk of the sofa only to have a coughing fit when her actions launch a cloud of dust into the air. She finds the TV remote with shaky hands and turns on the TV. Or at least attempts to: there is no electricity.

She then fishes her phone back out of her pocket and stares at it numbly for a while as all the facts line up in her head. Something has clearly happened. Exactly what is up for debate but she knows that the world has become something new and unknown. She is on the verge of panicking when she realises she should try to find the news on her phone.

May unlocks it and then realises she has a multitude of missed calls and unread texts. The calls are all from the school, her remaining extended family, her boss and Tony Stark. She reads all of the texts with growing horror. The timestamps are mainly from 2018 and 2019 and record the decline of their hopes that she is alive.

There is nothing from Peter.

Her fingers slip across the screen as she quickly calls him. The line rings and rings but every time it goes straight to the answerphone.

She tries to stay calm and goes back to Tony’s texts. He was the only one who continued to message her the whole time she had missed. The first was dated almost a month after whatever had happened to cause her to miss five years and the latest had been six months ago:

11/04/23 Hey! It’s been a while. I found a bunch of photos from before the snap today. Pepper made me frame some of the nicest ones. Morgan wanted to know who Peter was so that was a FUN conversation :/

11/04/23 I miss you May

There was a photo of a framed photograph of Tony and Peter holding an upside down certificate and grinning excitedly.

The first few texts were full of spelling mistakes and pleas that she tell him if she was alive.

After a couple weeks the messages had stopped for several months before she had received an essay where Tony poured his heart out. He wrote about how he knew she was dead now and how sorry he was that he wouldn’t get to apologise to her for what he had done. He told her about the being Thanos and his fight against him and how brave Peter had been throughout the whole thing before apologising again. It was unclear why exactly he was sending her texts full of apologies or what exactly had happened to this ‘Thanos’ person but it was clear that Tony had been burdened by guilt for whatever had happened. May wasn’t sure what to make of Tony thinking she was dead – she felt alive and well right now but what had happened while she was gone? Had she been asleep, in a coma or something or sleepwalking? Or maybe she had stopped existing entirely?

There were several more messages in this vein before Tony finally confessed what he felt guilty about. Tony’s regrets must have been plaguing him especially badly on new year’s eve:

01/01/19 Its been over half a year since you died, May. I realised I haven’t yet told you what I’ve been apologising for which is pretty pathetic all round I must say. Here I am texting a dead woman, trying to say sorry properly for months but not saying what for. I guess no one ever said I was any good at apologies. Anyway here goes: I’m sorry that I couldn’t save Peter. He shouldn’t have been on Titan with me that day, I should have sent him back to his school trip when Thanos’ children showed up in New York and I shouldn’t have let the wizard guy give Thanos the stone. I was useless up there. Nothing we did even touched him! I’m a pathetic excuse for an Avenger…

The stream of regret and self-loathing continued further but May couldn’t read any more. Peter was dead?? She could feel her face grow wet but May forced herself to continue reading the messages to see if there was anything to the contrary of what Tony had implied. She read text after text all expressing Tony’s guilt and tried to ignore the way her heart felt like it was turning itself inside out.

She finally received absolute confirmation several months of texts later:

22/07/19 I’m going to be a father, May! I’m happy but I know I don’t deserve it after letting Peter die. I’m terrified that I won’t be able to protect my kid too. What am I going to do???

May cried harder and her vision was too blurry to continue reading so she put her phone down. Peter was dead. What was she supposed to do now? She was all alone and in a world she barely recognised. The enormity of the changes that had occurred today finally overwhelmed her and she curled up on the sofa and screwed her eyes shut. Sleep eventually softly wrapped its arms around her.

She woke to the sound of her phone ringing feeling dehydrated and headachy from crying. The sky outside was beginning to darken, casting long shadows inside the apartment.

It wasn’t anyone in her contacts but she picked up anyway “Yes?”

“May? Is that you?” Peter’s voice was clear on the other end. He sounded like he’d been crying too but May was too relieved to really process that.

“You’re alive” she breathed. She felt like she was going to cry all over again but this time from relief.

“Yea”

“What happened?”

And Peter told her. May remained on the verge of tears throughout, feeling wrung out from all the strong emotions. Peter had been dead, just as she had been but now they were safe and that was all that mattered right now.

Chapter Text

“Oh! Oh! Can you grow extra pairs of legs?!” Ned asked as quietly as he could. He couldn’t believe Peter was Spiderman! How cool was that! Since he had found out yesterday he had wanted to jump up and down in excitement but they were currently walking to Peter’s so he could stay over and Ned didn’t want to draw attention. He had already caused enough of a stir in gym class…

“What?” Peter exclaimed just as quietly “Of course not! Just because a spider bit me doesn’t mean I’m an actual spider?”

Ned is struck by an even cooler idea: “What if one of your arms got cut off? Would it grow back?”

“Can spiders even do that?” Peter wrinkles his nose “Also how am I supposed to know without cutting something off??”

“Oh, yea that makes sense” Ned looks abashed for a total of one second “What can you do then?”

Peter looks disgruntled and gives him a laundry list of changes petulantly “I can stick to stuff, I’m super strong now, I have two sets of lungs and I can sense dangerous stuff before it happens.”

“Whoa, dude what?!”

“I’m calling it my ‘spider sense’” Peter says defensively.

“No not that! You have extra organs?”

“BEACH TIME!” Ned burst into the apartment when Peter clumsily opened the door, half-packed backpack in one hand and towel in the other. Ned was scarcely more put together and there was an explosion of snacks and beach gear as they collided. She failed to hide a snort behind her book.

“Oh hi, MJ! You’re here already!?” Ned hopped on the spot in excitement. This trip had been his idea and MJ suspected neither of them had expected her to accept the invitation. MJ was a little surprised too to be honest but this pair of idiots were growing on her. It was nice having people around that wouldn’t expect her to tone down what they considered weird. To have friends, part of her was reluctantly admitting, but she had some reservations about that.

Once everyone was packed they took the subway to the beach. It was summer break and the hottest part of the year so despite arriving at the beach fairly early it was already busy. Ned was quick to race into the sea and then refused to come back out again like some kind of penguin or something. Peter looked like he wanted to go in too but he held back and rubbed at a spot on his chest anxiously. MJ had some suspicions about Peter, spider related ones. However, she wasn’t completely sure yet and pressuring him into revealing anything would be unkind. Maybe he just didn’t like going in the sea? She wasn’t convinced.

“Hey Peter, I forgot my swimming costume. Do you want to just paddle instead of becoming part of the marine ecosystem like Ned?” She hadn’t forgotten it but Peter didn’t need to know that.

“Oh, um sure!” he agreed and that was that.

For the rest of the morning they all enjoyed themselves in the ocean, gradually getting further out until they were all soaked through but having a great time regardless. Once they were in the sea it had only seemed logical to have a water fight – or at least to Ned it had! All it had taken was a particularly well-aimed spray of water from Ned and Peter had tripped over a rock and been entirely submerged in a massive splash. MJ had been worried for a second when he didn’t immediately reappear that maybe he couldn’t swim or something but then Peter had resurfaced and promptly dumped an armful of sea water in Ned’s face. Things had rapidly escalated from there.

They were now attempting to dry out in the midday sun while eating their lunches. MJ was beginning to regret not changing into her swimming costume: it would have been nice to have a dry change of clothes right now. Luckily the day was warm so they would dry out eventually.

After they had eaten Ned challenged them to a sandcastle building competition but MJ was feeling a little restless so she left the others to bicker over the best building techniques and took a walk along the tideline to see if anything interesting had been washed up. She enjoyed spending time with Peter and Ned but at times it was nice to take a step back and leave them to their idiocy. She didn’t find much – it was a very popular beach after all. The most interesting things that had been washed up were a few rather large dead crabs, some sea glass and a funny-shaped piece of driftwood.

She returned to the others to find Peter was sprawled out of the sand fast asleep and Ned was busy not only burying him but building a sandcastle on top of his best friend! MJ thought of waking Peter but he had been looking tired all day so she only smirked to herself and pretended read some more of her book. It was a pity she hadn’t brought her drawing things, Peter’s face when he awoke would likely be priceless!

Peter continued to sleep on peacefully, not even a twitch to disturb the sand. Not even a breath, MJ realised belatedly and with great horror. She dropped her book carelessly and reached out a hand to rest in front of his open mouth. He wasn’t breathing! She moved her other hand urgently to Peter’s neck to fumbled for a pulse and was relieved to find it steady and strong.

“Peter!” she poked his face somewhat forcibly and he jolted awake.

“What are you doing, MJ?” he asked a little woozily. He went to rub his face but discovered he had been buried up to the neck.

“Aw Ned! Come on man, not cool!” he cried as Ned approached with an armful of sand.

Peter appeared to be fine now so MJ retreated back to her book. She surreptitiously observed them as Peter wriggled out of his sandy prison and Ned tried to rebury him. He looked fine so she pretended nothing had happened. Maybe it was nothing? She wasn’t sure but she would remember this, maybe it was related to the rest of the irregularities surrounding one Peter Benjamin Parker.

“You’re so late!” Ned whined as he let Peter in through his bedroom window. Peter darted inside and flopped down on the bed. Ned closed the window and turned to him.

“Peter?” his best friend was hunched over and cradling his hand close. Peter looked up but his face still hidden by the mask so Ned couldn’t tell what was wrong.

“Can I see?” Ned asked cautiously, reaching out slowly. Peter made a pained noise and momentarily clenched his hand closer before sitting up and letting Ned pry his hand away.

“Oh” Ned says, bringing a hand up to his mouth to try and suppress the sudden need to be sick. Peter… his finger is gone. Like gone gone. Missing. Severed. Ned teeters on the edge between hysterics and freezing up.

“Ned, I need your help” Peter says sounding just as panicked as he is as he begins to drip blood on the bed. His mom is going to be mad. This thought is so mundane Ned manages to find his balance between the warring reactions and scrambles to the bathroom to fetch a towel. He returns and wraps the stump of Peter’s pinkie finger tightly. Peter groans and twitches for a second before forcibly relaxing.

“Do you still have the finger?” Ned asks and tries not to recognise just how morbid that sounds.

“No. It got eaten.” Peter replies shortly.

“Eaten?” Ned echoes, horrified. Peter doesn’t elaborate and Ned finds he is both disappointed and relieved.

“Well I guess no reattachment surgery for you then.” He says trying to sound lighthearted “How are we going to explain you just suddenly losing a finger?”

“I don’t know” Peter sounds defeated.

Ned then has a thought and because his brain to mouth filter was apparently absent he blurted it out “What if you can grow it back?”

“What?” said Peter incredulously.

“I mean you haven’t tried and you have super good healing abilities and I think actual spiders can?” Ned explained hurriedly “Oh man wouldn’t it be cool!?”

Peter didn’t look convinced by the coolness of growing a finger but it was his finger this concerned and Ned did suppose it sounded a little gross.

“Let’s bandage it and then we can wrap up an eraser or something and we can pretend you broke your pinkie.” Ned said, already reaching for his pencil case for suitable stationary to sacrifice “if it doesn’t grow back you can just say it got infected or something.”

Peter took a deep breath “OK. We’ll try your plan for now.”

MJ eyed the bandaging and splint that was bundled around Peter’s little finger as he struggled to write. They were in English, which MJ found interminably dull as they never read books she was interested in and the interpretations they were supposed to draw were even more limp and overdone than the broccoli in the school canteen. So, she could continue to write about themes and metaphors until she wanted to knock herself out on her own desk she could instead grill Peter – he was even conveniently sat next to her!

“Hey Peter, what did you do to your hand?” MJ whispered and despite her concern enjoyed Peter’s wide-eyed attempt at innocence.

“Uh. Um I shut it in a door?” he replied less than convincingly.

“Did you now.” She muttered giving him a good stare.

“Yes” Peter pulled himself together “It’s very broken. Ned almost fainted.”

“Peter why would you tell her that!?” Ned wailed (quietly) from behind them.

The teacher then turned around and all three of them hurried to return their attention to their work.

Ned returned from what would come to be known as the blip while descending some stairs in the MoMA. As far as he was concerned there was little difference between one moment and the next, only he was a little lightheaded and as he stumbled a stranger – who had seemingly come out of nowhere – barged into him. It was not a graceful entry into the year 2023.

Ned fell over and sat down on the step hard and wondered why the guy that had had the audacity to bump into him was now backing away, shrieking hysterically. Ned stood and looked around. MJ was a few steps down from him looking just as bewildered as the hysterical man ran past her well as a couple of their classmates but he could not see Mr Harrington anywhere.

“Well that was weird” Ned remarked.

“Are you alright, Ned?” MJ asked him “That guy came out of nowhere… Do you think it’s got anything to do with that weird spaceship earlier?”

“I don’t know.” He replied, resisting the urge to blurt out something about Peter going after the aliens. Not a good idea!

They returned to the entrance hall to find it strangely empty. Well to say it was empty would be wrong but it was disconcertingly quiet in comparison to the bustle of only ten minutes or so ago.

“Look at this.” MJ said, pointing at a large poster with a frown. The poster advertised one of the current exhibitions, titled ‘Five Years Later: the Post-Snap World’. There was a painting of a pile of dust shown below the text and the dates of the exhibition: 11th September – 30th November 2023.

“What? That doesn’t make any sense!?” Flash shouts incredulously somewhere behind them.

“That’s a long time to advertise an exhibition in advance.” Ned laughs nervously, trying his best not to panic. MJ frowns harder.

Ned gets his phone out then remembers it’s dead – he forgot to charge it last night, or however long ago it was. Five years! MJ does the same but she still has charge. Within seconds she is showing him a CNN article that had been published minutes ago with the headline ‘BILLIONS BACK FROM DEAD’. They read it together and Ned sits on the dusty floor and tries to figure out what they are supposed to do now. There’s still no sign of Mr Harrington – or many of their classmates either. Ned wonders if his family are alright.

He is disturbed by his own private panicking by MJ cursing. “What is it now?” Ned asks as she sits next to him. She passes him her phone and now it shows a blurry live feed with the words ‘New Avengers Headquarters Destroyed’. The feed shows an extensive field of rubble, flares of orange light up the many figures crawling flying and stumbling over the wreckage in what is clearly about to become a pitched battle. A colossal dark smear hangs in the sky, throwing everything into shadow. The two forces race towards each other before colliding and merging into a smear of violence. Wherever the camera is located it is far enough from the carnage that it is impossible to distinguish any details. Ned thinks he sees a figure dressed in the latest Spiderman suit but really this is just wishful thinking. As MJ and Ned settle down to watch the battle that will decide the fate of the universe Ned hopes Peter is OK.

MJ mentally slaps herself as she listens to herself ramble about execution methods as they walk out onto the bridge.

“Oh.” Peter says, sounding a bemused but thankfully not disturbed. Time to shut up! She tells herself and almost misses how uncertain he sounds when he starts saying uncertainly “Look there’s this …thing that I’ve been wanting to talk to you about…” Peter is clearly nervous and his voice fades out as he searches for the words.

“For a while…” he says, stalling.

MJ stops walking and turns so she can look at him “yea?” she tries to sound nonchalant but there are only so many ways this conversation can go.

Peter then begins to ramble himself and she wants desperately for him to finish his sentence.

“MJ, I-” and before he can finish – or even worse, not finish – she says it for him before he can back out and change the subject “am spiderman.”

“What?” Peter immediately looks so shocked that she almost doubts herself for a second but then she marshals her evidence: the suspicious disappearances (in particular the Washington monument affair), the accidental shows of strength in gym, the Stark internship, the scar that rings the finger he ‘broke’ and now the web that is currently sat in her backpack.

“That’s what you were going to say, that you are Spiderman.” She says more confident than ever.

“No.” He shakes his head “I’m not Spiderman.” It is the least convincing lie she has ever heard. Probably?

“I mean I’ve been watching you for like a while now. Its kind of obvious” As MJ says this she feels a little foolish – way to go to sound like a stalker!

“I’m not Spiderman. I mean what would make you think I was Spiderman?” his voice cracks.

“Peter, Washington.” She says holding back a sigh.

“Yea” he says as if there is some kind of very obvious explanation for this that doesn’t involve him being Spiderman.

“The fact that you like disappear. Out of nowhere. For no reason!” MJ is becoming a tad frustrated now (and a little uncertain, maybe she’s wrong?).

“No. I- I was sick. Remember I had the…” and from here on his protests become less and less convincing, culminating with the amazing defence of “…And the News never lies.” Peter made a face that showed that he himself didn’t agree with that and rather regretted it.

Peter continued to deny being Spiderman, even after she showed him the web. Clearly she had misjudged the situation. MJ had thought he trusted her but apparently she had that wrong too. He was likely laughing at her all along, just like everyone else. Or maybe it’s her theory that’s wrong???

“Were you only watching me because you thought I was Spiderman” he asks with a strange wariness.

“Yes” She says, scowling and wanting desperately to tell him the other reason she watched him but she knows how to tell that she isn’t wanted “Why else would I be watching?”

She makes herself look at Peter but he looks almost hurt by her words? It doesn’t make any sense. Her hands clench around the device the web is stuck to, activating it! From then on her evening – and the days to follow for quite some time – have been thoroughly derailed.

On the bright side Peter does own up to being Spiderman, and MJ admits the other reason she was watching him.

Chapter Text

Bucky sighed again and Sam ground his teeth. Did he do anything else?? Sam didn’t understand how Bucky had ever made it as an assassin if he was incapable of being silent.

He tugged at the webbing holding him to the smooth flooring of the airport but it wouldn’t budge. Whatever this spiderweb stuff was it was strong and he was very much done with this stupid disaster of a day.

Bucky sighed.

“Will you shut up!” Sam hissed.

Bucky made a “Hurmph” noise and looked away huffily. At times Sam could barely believe he was talking to the Bucky Barnes and not a feral cat in a man’s body. Bucky continued to sulk and they might have remained there for a long time if a loud explosion outside hadn’t reminded them of the ongoing battle.

Bucky huffed (which Sam convinced himself was not a sigh for the sake of his continuing sanity) and reluctantly tore away the webbing imprisoning them both with his prosthetic arm. Sam was disgusted (not jealous!) by how easy he made it look. Ugh, what a loser!

They return to the fight, which was fast becoming worryingly vicious. Bucky finally leaves him to trail after Cap. Sam holds back a scoff and takes to the air.

When Sam wakes his memories of the fight are jumbled and blurry but he recalls enough that he feels deeply ashamed. He is laid flat out on the runway concrete, wings removed and wrists secured painfully tight behind him. He blinks back tears when he remembers more and allows his head to roll to the left to avoid the glare of the sun. Unlike the glare, the shame and guilt is inescapable.

Insect-man and Barton are sat close by also in handcuffs and disarmed, Wanda kneels on the concrete a little further off, though Sam can barely make her out through the number of people surrounding her. In the distance an ambulance is departing noisily.

Sam quickly turns his attention back to what’s happening in the immediate vicinity and looks in the other direction. T’Challa appears to be calling someone on some kind of high-tech phone equivalent, a heavy scowl twisting his features. The spider-child is sprawled out not too far away, his mask still covering his face so Sam cannot tell if he is awake. Sam is no medic but after a moment he realises that the kid has stopped breathing.

“Medic!” he screams, forcing himself upright so he can shout louder “Someone help the kid! He’s not breathing!”

His words summoned the remaining paramedics with impressive speed and they descended upon the kid. Sam didn’t know any German but it appeared that some kind of disagreement quickly broke out when one of the paramedics moved to remove spider-kid’s mask. A third ignored their arguing colleagues and began to administer CPR.

To Sam’s shock the kid came to with a pained groan almost immediately and forcefully pushed the fussing paramedics away. The medic had barely completed a single compression! There was no way that should work on someone that had gone into respiratory arrest, and yet the kid was already standing and attempting to wriggle away from the attention.

Sam barely acknowledged the Accords Taskforce members that manhandled him away from the miracle that had seemingly just occurred. He felt weak from the relief that their actions today had only maybe killed/seriously injured one of the team.

“Hey! Mr Barnes! Long time no see!” Says an overly chipper voice accompanied by the distinctive sound of web-shooters firing. Bucky wishes he was anywhere else. Like literally almost anywhere would have been better than facing this nonsense!

He had just wanted to have a look around New York as a free man now that he had been deprogrammed and while he was very much still a fugitive he had been in the area anyway so he might as well have a look around if he was careful. Just a single day of peace! Was that really too much to ask?

His day had taken a turn when he had somehow stumbled across a HYDRA remnant group that had recognised him and despite otherwise being pathetically moronic had somehow had access to his old trigger words.

He had been enjoying the Brooklyn Botanic garden – which had existed back before the war but he had never had the money or time (or interest) to warrant a visit. Now though he found green spaces soothing and it wasn’t like anyone would expect the former Winter Soldier to be here!?

The first he had known that anything was wrong was when a man – blond, late twenties, dressed head to toe in army surplus and, alarmingly: armed (who comes armed to a garden?) – approached him. Bucky had endeavoured to disguise himself as best he could but he was missing an arm and would be easy to find if he was expected.

“Hello?” Bucky had asked warily – every instinct told him that this was not an encounter that wasn’t going to go well but running would only draw attention.

“Soldat.” Bucky actually flinched at the address.

“Or rather Mr Barnes, it appears.” The man tutted and then grinned at him “We shall have to rectify that. I must thank you for your timely appearance: you are exactly what we needed.”

“I don’t think-” he began but was interrupted.

“If you try anything I’ll put some extra holes in some of these poor delicate civilians.” His hand had moved to where his gun was concealed “and if you are particularly troublesome I’ve got a buddy in the area that will be quite happy to do the same. Understood?”

“Understood.” Bucky gritted out angrily.

“Right then, I am going to read out some words, practice my Russian and all that and you are going to be a good asset stand still and listen.”

Bucky knew that the words no longer worked – he had insisted it be tested extensively before he was content to leave Wakanda but he was terrified regardless. What if the words worked this time? What should he do when this HYDRA goon realised his brainwashing had been undone? What was the plan he had mentioned? How was he supposed to get out of this situation without alerting the authorities or causing massive collateral damage?!

He barely heard the trigger words being read but before the process was complete he had realised that there was only one solution that would go any length toward solving any of his immediate problems.

As the stranger came to the end of the codewords Bucky forced his face into what he hoped was a blank expression. (He had no idea how he had behaved when he was under but this man hopefully didn’t either!)

“Ready to comply.” He remembered to say, then cursed internally when he realised he had said it in English instead of Russian. Luckily the goon didn’t seem to notice.

“Well, that was surprisingly easy.” He laughed gleefully “I suppose we had better be off then. Follow me, Soldat!”

Bucky had then trailed after him out of the Botanics, another HYDRA member joining them on the way. They then took the subway across the city to the HYDRA cell’s base. The building looked rather past it’s best and Bucky suspected that this group must be one of the last remnants and was probably very short of funds.

The man that had brought Bucky in gloated and showed off to the others by ordering Bucky to do various mildly demeaning things. It made him unbearably angry – not the actions themselves, they would not have ranked even in the top fifty of awful things that had been done to him in his time with HYDRA but the man – who the others referred to exclusively as Smith – was utterly disgusting if he thought stealing someone’s autonomy was a joke!

They then proceeded to discuss – at length and right in front of him – their plan to unleash some kind of bioweapon/bomb creation that they had somehow cooked up in times square. Bucky was becoming almost glad that they had found him – he couldn’t call himself a hero like Steve but to let something like this happen to so many innocent people would be terrible!

Despite the fact that they had to know how much experience he had none of them thought to ask him for his input (another thing to be bitterly glad of as he was unsure his façade would withstand giving terrorists helpful advice).

Bucky had even begun plotting how he would steal the weapon from them and what he could do with it then when all hell broke loose.

The window overlooking the narrow dingy alley outside shattered with a crash as a small spandex-clad person came barrelling through it at high speed.

The spider-child – the one from the fight in Germany – then greeted him cheerfully before turning to the HYDRA remnants “I was just passing by and I couldn’t help but overhear some mean things.” He shook a finger at them admonishingly “Has no one ever told you that terrorism is bad?!” he then punched Smith in the face. Smith spiralled across the room in an unsteady pirouette and slid down the far wall, where he remained. The HYDRA operatives took this rather poorly and one of the twitchier ones drew a gun and shot the kid – aiming for the heart but only hitting his upper arm when the kid dodged an incoming fist. Spider-child yelped and then puffed himself up indignantly.

“You shot me!” he exclaimed. The goon with the gun was about to repeat the action so Bucky charged across the room and knocked him off his feet. Between the two of them they soon have everyone on the floor, either unconscious or unwilling to fight further. The kid restrained them with his artificial web-stuff and Bucky went round their captives to check for weapons and suicide pills – finding mostly the former.

“Are you always that stupid, kid?” he asks tiredly when he has finished “You may be enhanced but you continue to act that recklessly and you’re going to end up dead.”

“Kid? I don’t see any kids here!” he replies, voice cracking and going squeaky at the end. Bucky remains decidedly unconvinced by the declaration but decides it’s best he says nothing more on the subject.

There was a whole minute of silence before the kid loudly exclaims “I’m SpiderMAN!”

Bucky sighs and wonders if he’d been this annoying back in the day. Admittedly he had never been a teenaged vigilante so they were likely competing in separate leagues.

“Good for you, now more importantly we have a bomb to find.” He noticed Smith was just coming back around and held him upright by the lapels of his jacket.

“Where’s the bomb?” he asked with his best ‘don’t mess with me or else’ face.

Smith groaned but otherwise remained stubbornly silent. Bucky shook him and Smith went pale and his mouth clamped closed for reasons that appeared to be closely related to his knock on the head.

“Spiderman, why don’t you have a look about for the bomb.” Bucky ordered and the kid eagerly nodded before leaving the room. He was not at all eager to interrogate Smith but he appeared to wholly believe in HYDRA’s values so it would likely be necessary and there was no way he would do so with a child present.

What he did next Bucky was not proud of and he would have to add it to the towering pile of other awful things he tried his best to forget. To use the more …unwholesome skills he had gained in his time with HYDRA made him feel like he was sliding back into the Winter Soldier Persona but if he didn’t stop this plot then he could be allowing multitudes of people to be killed.

When the kid returned, Bucky met him at the doorway so that he couldn’t see into the room. Smith had told him nothing useful but Peter moved with urgency so he must have found something.

“I’ve found the bomb but the timer has already been started!” Smith laughed disturbingly behind him and Bucky ushered the kid to show him before he could look into the room.

Spiderman led him to another room in the gutted apartment where the contraption sat in an otherwise bare cupboard. There was a small electronic timer counting down from forty-five minutes connected to a tangled mess of wires and the capsules that presumably contained the explosives and the bioweapon.

He may have learned many things from HYDRA but the finer workings of electronics was not one of them: he would have struggled to rewire a plug so attempting to defuse this bomb would be a very poor idea. He could call one of the other ex-avengers but he doubted they would much use. Steve would likely be worse than him, Hawkeye was highly accomplished at causing explosions rather than stopping them, the bug-guy was an electrician or something which would have been handy but last Bucky had heard he was under house arrest and Scarlet Witch, Vision and Romanov were currently all uncontactable. That left Sam (ugh) who probably knew more on the subject than he did but not enough to be a great help and Sam would just waste time all their time heckling him anyway. He should probably alert the police but he doubted they would take him seriously. ‘Oh hi, it’s James Barnes calling to report a bomb threat – yes that’s me: the notorious internationally wanted Supersoldier that was involved in the Vienna Bombing last year. Ha ha! How times change!’ Yea. He could see that going down well.

“You happen know anything about bomb disposal?” Bucky asked only a little flippantly.

“No, but I intern at Stark Industries so I know about electronics?” The kid replied uncertainly before becoming upbeat again “Oh wait, I could call Mr Stark! He’ll know how sort this!”

Bucky held back a grimace. He had purposely avoided any involvement with Stark since Siberia – the man hadn’t deserved that and Bucky wished that it hadn’t ended like that. He had tried to tell himself that it had been self-defence as Steve always told him – and it had been, but Stark had initially come to the base to help them!

“Sure. It’s not like there are any other good options.” It was difficult to tell with the mask and all but the kid appeared to be oblivious to his discomfort and his body language remained open and happy when he called his mentor.

Bucky knew just when Stark had picked up the call because be heard Stark tiredly say “Hey kiddo, what’s the situation?” It then became apparent that it was some kind of video call as Stark shouted (rather loudly) “Shi-SUGAR! Kid! Why’s the Winter Soldier with you?”

“Uh. Well… don’tgetmadpleaseMrStarkbutwefoundabomb!” Spiderman blurted out borderline-incomprehensibly.

“What?!” Bucky felt like he could feel Stark’s blood pressure rising with every sentence.

The kid began to stutter and Bucky decided then that he had better take over explaining the situation “I stumbled across the remainder of a HYDRA cell that was planning to release a bioweapon in Times Square using a bomb. Spiderman and I caught the HYDRA operatives but the bomb was already set to blow and we now have” he glanced at the timer “thirty-nine minutes to stop it.”

Stark sighed tiredly “OK Sprog, I’m currently out of the country so I can’t fix this myself but let me have a look at the bomb and I’ll guide you through it.”

The kid approached the bomb nervously and bent down so that Stark could get a better look.

“Unorthodox design” Stark remarked, which was pretty far from the top of the list of things Bucky wanted to hear!

“It shouldn’t be too bad I think” Stark said reassuringly after making Spiderman show him the bomb from all angles “though it would be easier if they had used the proper colours of wire.” The kid laughed nervously, a touch of hysteria breaking through.

“Barnes, I’m sure you’ve got plenty of sharp things on you, mind giving the kid one for this.” Stark demanded. In fact Bucky only had four knives on him right now but he didn’t offer any objection and offered Spiderman the one with the smallest blade.

“Are you ready?” Stark asked.

“Yes!” the poor kid squeaked and clenched the knife. The timer read thirty-one minutes now.

“Start with cutting the blue wire connected to the…” Bucky turned his back to the bomb and stationed himself so he could watch the doorway. The last thing the kid needed right now was an interruption.

He had tuned out Stark’s slow flow of technical instructions but his attention was drawn by Stark suddenly shouting “No NOT the yellow one!” Spiderman jerked himself back at the cry and made a horrible gasping noise.

“I can’t do it, Mr Stark! I can’t! I can’t!” he dropped the knife on the floor and staggered further from the bomb to rest against the wall.

Ten minutes.

“No, come on Pe-kid there’s nothing you can’t do when you put your mind to it.” Stark soothed “You’ve nearly done it! Just a couple more steps and it’ll be over.”

“I’m colour blind, Mr Stark. All the wires left look the same to me.” Spiderman eventually said quietly.

“What?” Stark said “I don’t understand?” there was a long pause “Oh. That’s why you wear those glasses sometimes.”

“We only have six minutes left!” Bucky reminded, though he felt awful for interrupting.

“Barnes can you help Spiderman with identifying the wires?” Stark asked.

Bucky grimaced “I could try but I’m colour blind too.” Stark made a strangled sound that in other circumstances would have been entertaining. It wasn’t something he had ever advertised and back in the ‘40s it hadn’t mattered anywhere near as much as in this highly colour coded future so he supposed not many people knew.

“OK. Kiddo, pick the knife back up and get back over there. I’m going to describe very carefully which one it is and you are going to check with me before doing anything, clear?”

“Yes, Mr Stark!” The kid dutifully retrieved Bucky’s knife and returned to the bomb where they discussed what to do in hushed voices. Time seemed to stretch out far beyond the time remaining and Bucky expected the bomb to detonate any second. What a stupid way to die!

“Done!” Spiderman placed the timer away from the rest of the bomb and collapsed to the ground in relief “Oh man that was close!”

“Well there’s one career I certainly don’t want to go into!” he then looked at Bucky in what was probably horror “Uh, not that I don’t have a job. I’ve been working for like fifteen years? I totally-”

“Save it kid, you’re just digging yourself a hole.” Stark laughed.

“I’ll be leaving then” Bucky announced and turned to go.

“You’d better not be causing any more trouble, Barnes.” Stark called coldly after him “If I return and find Cap’s little gang camped out in the city you can be certain I will be taking a dim view of it.”

“I’m the only one here, Stark. And I plan to leave now.” Bucky replied and turned to make good on his promise. He would have liked to offer Stark his apologies for Siberia but he reckoned that the man would prefer that he left.

“Thanks for the help, Mr Barnes!” Spiderman yelled cheerfully after him.

Chapter Text

William Gunter Riva would not say he had been fond of Beck but he was immensely thankful to him. Mysterio had been the making of a whole team but without Beck as the face and charisma of the team they likely never would have worked together in the first place. Despite his gratitude, he was glad in a way that Beck was dead. Towards the end he had been growing increasingly unstable and detached from the deaths the ‘elemental attacks’ caused and William had no desire to end up with a bullet in his brain from his own system!

He saw revealing Peter Parker as paying off any debts he may have owed Beck and it had the nice bonus of taking the focus off the rest of them. No one would spare the time wondering if Beck had had others working with him if they were busy hunting down Spiderman! Spiderman himself had done a marvellous job: he had been in Times Square when the news had broke and there was footage of him fleeing afterwards. Since then both Spiderman and Peter Parker had gone to ground although there had been the odd sighting of a teenager on rooftops or swinging across a street. He had even had the audacity to stop a burglary last week. The Accords committee had announced that there was going to be a formal investigation and the NYPD were tying themselves in knots over the whole situation. William was almost entertained!

He closed his laptop and left the internet café he had spent much of the afternoon in. He was currently laying low in New York, looking for a job. Being part of Mysterio hadn’t exactly paid the bills and the last thing he wanted was to get picked up by the Accords Taskforce or the remnants of SHIELD so a change in career was in order. It wasn’t a long walk back to the tiny flat he was renting but he had been engrossed in the news overlong and it was surprisingly late. Late enough to be dragged into an alley by a large man with a hood obscuring his face and a knife in his hand which he waved at William threateningly.

This was definitely not how he had planned on spending his evening.

“Give me your bag.” The man demanded, shaking William by the arm in a manner that brought him unpleasantly close to a serrated blade.

“Whatever you want.” He replied meekly and began to wiggle his rucksack down his arms. As much as it stung to be ordered around by a common thug when not long ago he had held the keys to EDITH he wasn’t about to let his pride get him killed!

“HEY! Leave him alone!” The shout had both of them looking round before the thug went flying. William watched the thug land in a pile of refuse and lie still with a feeling of bafflement.

“Are you alright?” Spiderman said from beside him, though he admittedly did not look much like the vigilante at that moment. More like a bank robber – or should he be calling him Nightmonkey now?

William then remembered he was supposed to be playing the part of a normal civilian that had about to be mugged and definitely hadn’t been a part of a certain vigilante’s downfall. “Thank you so much, Spiderman!” he gushed “I don’t know what would have happened if you hadn’t shown up just then.”

“Just doing my job.” Spiderman said but William could hear pride in his voice. William was about to leave when there was a quick movement in his peripheral vision and Spiderman flinched and shoved him towards the back of the alley. William tripped over the dazed thug’s legs and toppled over to lie on the awfully unsanitary ground. Behind him was the sound of a fist hitting flesh.

He scrambled to his feet and watched as Spiderman fought a newcomer dressed all in black. Unlike the man that had attacked William, he was matching Spiderman blow for blow. In fact he appeared to be winning! Spiderman appeared to have lost his ability to form webs so while he was still more agile and could run up the walls of the alley with ease it was effectively a fist fight and his opponent was clearly just as strong and better trained.

The mugger picked himself up and for a moment William thought he was in trouble but the man saw the super powered fight taking place and shinned up a drainpipe with a deceptive ease before disappearing out of William’s sight, presumably not with any intentions of returning. William considered attempting to follow the man and escape but he doubted he possessed the strength or agility (or head for heights) to pull off such a manoeuvre!

Just then the fight ended. A punch connected with Spiderman’s face and he crumpled into the wall. The other man held the squirming vigilante still with one large hand pressing down over his sternum. William pressed himself into the wall and prayed the stranger didn’t notice him.

“Being a fugitive doesn’t suit you little spider. You’ve become weak.” He remarked with a laugh. When Spiderman tried to reply the stranger pressed down harder, forcing his lungs to empty with a quiet whistle.

“None of that now. I’m quite tired of your chatter.” Spiderman wheezed and the stranger tugged the vigilante’s balaclava and goggles up and off his head and threw them down on the ground. He drew a large, gleaming knife.

“Fisk sends his regards.” Then the knife swung in a smooth arc. Spiderman’s eyes widened and his hands raised to cover the awful gash that had been opened in his throat. The stranger delicately flicked blood from the blade and then left the alley without even a glance backward. William peeled himself off the wall and approached the fallen vigilante. Spiderman – no, Peter Parker – was still alert, surprisingly. A typical arterial bleed would lead to unconsciousness, and subsequently death, within seconds but the boy was clearly awake and terrified. Maybe his mutations could save him?

William was torn about what to do now. The simplest course of action would be to leave but Spiderman had probably just saved his life even if the mugger had been far from the most dangerous man on New York’s streets tonight. He may have caused the fall of Mysterio and Beck’s death but William had already had his revenge by releasing his identity to the public, as far as he was concerned until tonight they had been square.

He knelt by Peter’s side and helped put pressure on the wound. If Parker survived without his assistance he might be suspicious and discover that he had been part of Mysterio. Any decent person who had been saved from being mugged would try to help so he had best maintain his cover!

Peter’s breathing was fast and panicked and William knew he must be strangling him with the tightness of his hold but he couldn’t let go.

“You need to calm down” he said sternly. The ‘or you will bleed out’ was left unsaid – he doubted being that blunt would help. Peter blinked at him dazedly but he forcibly slowed his breathing. The pulse of blood running through his hands with every heartbeat reduced but he didn’t dare lessen his grip.

Soon after that Peter passed out, probably from the blood loss or shock. William remained motionless, fingers clenched, for what must have been hours until his joints were stiff and his hands beginning to cramp. Peter’s condition didn’t deteriorate further but neither did he visibly improve.

When the alleyway was lit by the greyness of dawn William decided that if the wound on Peter’s neck still required him to put pressure on it he most likely wasn’t going to survive anyway and carefully peeled them away. He flexed his hands, watching the dried blood on the backs crack and flake and ignoring the congealed mess on his palms. Peter’s hands were still resting over the wound and were likely stuck to the scab that was all that was keeping him alive so he left them in place and secured them in place with the scarf he had been wearing against the winter chill.

William stood, groaning as his joints clicked loudly and pulled on the gloves in his coat pocket to hide the red stains. There was a convenience store just around the corner where he could call 911.

Peter Parker would get the treatment he needed, though he would likely appreciate the accompanying time in prison less.

Christine Palmer was having a particularly bad Monday morning. She had dropped her favourite coffee mug at breakfast, almost missed her stop on the subway and the crowning glory was that she had had to sew up yet another idiot with special powers. Of all the people she had expected in her A&E it had not been Peter Parker, Queen’s disgraced spider-themed child vigilante. He had arrived just as she had begun her shift with a slit throat that he hadn’t had the common sense to die from and not only had she had to sew him back up in what had to be one of the most gruelling surgeries she had ever performed but now she had to deal with the NYPD at their most overbearing. If she’d let them have their way the hospital would have more in common with a maximum-security prison! She understood that he was potentially highly dangerous but to her knowledge he had never acted hostilely to anyone that wasn’t either a criminal, enhanced or law enforcement.

Just then he groaned and an eye slit open.

“Good afternoon, Peter.” She said calmly. They had been able to operate on him only because he was so weakened by blood loss that medications that his file claimed his metabolism would usually burn through had worked if used far in excess of what an unenhanced person would require. Now that he had received a blood transfusion though all the anaesthetics and analgesics in his system were likely gone.

Peter’s eyes opened fully and his hands tried to move from where he had been handcuffed to the sides of the bed, causing a discordant clanging.

“Wha!” he tried to say and began to cough instead. Christine gave him an ice chip and then took the time to explain just how lucky he was to be alive. When she had finished he looked a little squeamish but had thanked her very politely and if Christine hadn’t known that he was facing murder charges she never would have guessed it. He appeared to have fared poorly since his public fall from grace, being moderately malnourished and bearing numerous partially healed injuries but despite these hardships Peter Parker came across as positively angelic.

Once she had finished checking on him she was left with no choice but to allow the NYPD in. The officer sent to interview him was one Jefferson Davis. He seemed friendly enough but she wasn’t about to allow any kind of interrogation to occur in her department! Before he could go in Christine took him to one side “I don’t care who he is, he is only hours out of surgery and you are not going to push him if he doesn’t want to talk.” She told him frostily.

Officer Davis nodded in agreement. “I don’t agree with Spider-man’s vigilantism and if he did indeed kill Quentin Beck then he deserves to go to prison but he is still a child. You needn’t worry about any problems on my part.” He appeared to be genuine so she grudgingly stepped aside and let him enter the room.

She looked up and saw a nurse hurrying in her direction and sighed.

“Happy!” Peter cried delightedly as he entered the room, a massive grin cracking his mouth wide practically from ear to ear. He looked a little thin and pale and there was a bumpy scar curled over his throat (though this would likely fade far quicker than for a ‘normal’ human) but other than that he was in one piece and pleased to see him which he counted as a win.

“Come on you little horror, let’s go.” He made sure to sigh in imaginary annoyance. He handed Peter a bag of clothes in approximately his size so he didn’t have to leave the hospital in nothing but his gown. Peter scurried off to the bathroom to change and was swiftly back at his side, pulling the hood up so he was a little less recognisable. While the police had finally admitted that the video that had been released was a fabrication and that all other evidence pointed to Beck’s own actions causing his death it would likely be sensible to keep Peter out of the public eye for quite some time.

They left the hospital through a back door and walked down a grimy street to where Happy had parked the car. It had been bought specially for this journey and had been carefully chosen to appear inconspicuous without seeming suspicious. The drive to the Stark residence went smoothly, though he remained alert for any signs of a tail. Very few people knew the location of the cabin and it was best kept that way.

Peter was strangely silent, something Happy found oddly disturbing – he must be more used to the kid’s constant chattering than he thought. It was possible he was just tired as not long after they set off Peter dozed off; cheek pressed into the window. Poor kid. The last few months must have been difficult.

He made sure to drive as smoothly as possible for the rest of the journey although Peter didn’t stir when he turned off onto the dirt track. Happy parked by the front of the cabin and turned off the engine and still Peter slept on.

“Time to get up, Spiderboy.” he said, gently nudging him. Peter jolted awake, visibly panicked until he had looked around and realised he wasn’t in danger. He sighed ruefully and took off his seatbelt.

Pepper was already emerging round the side of the house when they got out the car. She was dressed in old clothes, trowel in hand from gardening. A very muddy Morgan came hurtling after her, screeching with glee and brandishing a handful of worms.

“Mummy! Look, worms!!” she presented her handful of slimy invertebrates to Pepper who gave her a loving but strained smile. “For you!”

“Thank you, Morgan. That’s very kind of you.” Pepper said graciously, accepting the worms. Morgan’s attention was then diverted to the new arrivals.

“Uncle Happy! Peter!” she hugged them both enthusiastically, liberally smearing mud over them both.

“Come on, Morgan. Let’s show them what you’ve been doing in the garden.” Pepper said, taking her daughter’s hand. “It’s very good to see you Peter.” She said kindly as she was tugged towards the garden. Peter grinned back.

The garden was fairly small but Pepper was clearly spending a lot of time in it. There were clusters of pots containing all manner of plants, some decorated with colourful splashes of paint. Bamboo frames were set in the ground with some kind of plant growing up it. Happy wasn’t particularly knowledgeable about gardening and couldn’t identify much of what was being grown. In the centre of the garden was a rose bed, some of the plants already blooming and all carefully tended and beside that was a sun lounger that Tony was resting on. His eyes were closed but when he heard them approach he looked round.

It had been over a year and a half since Tony had used the infinity gauntlet but Happy didn’t think he would ever get used to seeing the effects it had had upon him. If it hadn’t been for the abundance of extra-terrestrials in possession of advanced medical technology and the most skilled of Earth’s doctors working together there would have been no Tony Stark for him to look at now – as Tony was proud to tell everyone he had survived a dose of 8.1 Gy which as far as radiation poisoning was supposed to work was a death sentence. Tony had survived but he would certainly never pilot the ironman armour again – the chronic low blood pressure and the immunodeficiency caused by most of his blood cells dying had only let up after he had received a bone marrow transplant and he still struggled to walk further than from the house to the garden. His right arm had wasted away until it looked almost skeletal, entirely covered in ropy scarring and the muscles atrophied despite everyone’s best efforts. There was only so much that could be done about nerve damage even with the all the advanced medical technology Tony had access to. They had expected Tony to build himself – or at least design – some kind of brace like he had for Rhodes but he was strangely unbothered by his new disabilities.

The fires of ambition that had always driven Tony for as long as Happy had known him appeared to have been smothered sometime during his long recovery, though he had no idea exactly when it had happened. He seemed to just be glad to have survived and spent almost all his time with his family. Happy was glad he was making the most of his remaining time – everyone knew that he was unlikely to live another decade. The damage was just too great and the radiation dose he had received from using the gauntlet made cancer an inevitability.

Tony squinted at them short-sightedly – his glasses as ever nowhere to be seen despite the ever-worsening of his vision from cataracts. He appeared to be confused for a second before smiling widely and sitting up. “Peter?”

“Mr Stark!” Peter exclaimed and hurried to his side. They hadn’t seen each other since just before Peter had left on the Europe trip. Tony wrapped his arms round Peter as tightly as he was able in a clumsy hug which Peter quickly returned.

“I missed you, kid.” Tony said softly and Happy can barely hear the words “Looks like you’ve had a tough few months.”

“I missed you too!” Peter begins to blubber.

“Why didn’t you ask me for help?” Tony asked raggedly. Happy attempted to ignore their conversation and turn his attention to Pepper returning the worms to one of the flowerbeds while Morgan was distracted but he couldn’t help but listen.

“I didn’t want to cause you any trouble. I-I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking.” Peter is definitely crying now.

“Hey, hey. It’s fine now. May is going to come over tomorrow and I’ve got people sorting out the last of the legal issues. You’ll be able to see Ted and MK again soon too.”

“I know that you know what their names really are, Mr Stark” Peter said huffily.

“Such an accusation! When have I ever been wrong!?” Tony gasps melodramatically, hand pressed against his forehead to add further drama.

Happy smothers a smile. It wouldn’t do to live up to his nickname after all.

Flash stops at the door to the classroom. Oh no! This is very, very bad!

Peter Parker – better known now as the one and only Spiderman and the coolest superhero to ever exist – is sat at his desk as if he had never disappeared for an entire year. As if he hadn’t spent those months on the run from the authorities after being framed for murder. As if he hadn’t been secretly operating as a superpowered vigilante for years. How is he still in Flash’s class??

“Alright there, Flash?” MJ asks coldly, breezing past him with a stony expression. Flash nods and stutters a response before staggering to his seat in a daze. His seat which is right next to Peter’s.

“Hey, Flash.” Peter says smiling at him genuinely, if tentatively. As if Flash had never tormented him.

“Eep!” Flash replies unintelligently and sits, nearly missing the chair in his haste.

The bell rings and while the lesson (was it Maths? ...Physics?) begins, Flash finds it impossible to focus. He had known that Peter and Spiderman were the same – he would have had to live at the bottom of the Mariana Trench to miss that headline but he somehow hadn’t properly processed the information until now.

Flash had behaved awfully – had taunted Peter over the death of a relative just because he knew that Peter had people that cared about him – and he had never used his powers to defend himself no matter how far he had went. He couldn’t stop glancing over at Peter, before dragging his eyes back to the front of the class when he became too ashamed. Peter had been cleared of all charges for a while now but he had only returned to school now. They only had a couple of months left before exams so it didn’t make much sense for Peter to have returned to their class when he had missed most of the school year but maybe he had been studying while on the run or something?

He couldn’t get over how strange it was that the kid he had bullied was a superhero. He looked exactly as Flash remembered, save from the punny t-shirts he had habitually worn had been replaced by a thick black turtleneck that much have been smothering in the warm classroom. It didn’t suit him but Flash kept any smart remarks firmly behind his teeth.

Flash passed the day in an extremely uncharacteristic haze of uncomfortable thoughts. When the bell rang at the end of the day he set about gathering his things so he could swing by his locker. On the way there he passed Peter’s locker where he was deep in discussion with Ned and MJ. As he passed, Peter casually pulls out the spiderman suit in order to stuff some books from his locker in its place. He holds the suit over his arm for anyone with eyes to see and says cheerily “Well I’ll go change then, see you in a minute!” and leaves in the direction of the bathroom.

Flash leaves school that day feeling as if he has closely avoided having an aneurysm. Then he hears a scream overhead and looks up just in time to see Spiderman whip past, MJ and Ned clutching to him precariously. Flash sighs heavily. It’s going to be a long few months.