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Chapter Text

Mondays always sucked. But this particular Monday really took the cake.

Nothing in Kathy’s apartment felt like it normally did. Her shoes weren’t by the door when Peter came in. Her keys weren’t in the tiny basket on the side table. And when he stepped into the living room, Kathy’s laptop that she used to do the admin for her knitting club, was just sitting on the kitchen table. Abandoned.

“You’re a very difficult person to contact, Spider-Man.”

Peter turned. Slowly. Very slowly.

And there was Nick Fury, sitting in Kathy’s rocking chair by the window. He looked distinctly out of place, surrounded by the tiny figurines that Kathy had been hoarding for years and that covered every surface of the house.

Peter dropped his backpack to the floor. His heart was beating like crazy, but he wasn’t about to let it show. “Where is Kathy? Um, Mrs. Pokorni?”

“Sweet old lady. She is at the police station. Her son was just arrested. Police discovered a large amount of drugs in his house.”

Peter remained quiet. Clearly, Fury was here with a purpose, and Peter wasn’t about to give anything away until he knew how much exactly the man knew and what he wanted.

“You know who I am?” Fury asked.

Peter merely gave a curt nod.

“Good. I’m sure you’ve figured out by now that we know about your alter-ego. In fact, we’ve been following you closely for a while now. That’s how NYPD busted Milan Pokorni: after we found out you were his little drug mule, we passed that info on to them. But we’ll just keep that bit of information from Mrs Pokorni, shall we?”

Peter swallowed. Kathy was the closest thing he had to a parent right now. She had taken care of him for almost three years now, even though she was retired and had to count every penny. And she would absolutely kill him if she knew he had been dealing drugs for her son for years. Or she would get a heart attack and die. Either way, not something Peter wanted to deal with. So, yes, he’d rather keep all that from her. But in his experience, when someone did him a favor, they usually wanted something in return.

“We also managed to keep your name from any of their evidence and records, so all your lovely coworkers are busted, but you’re in the clear,” Fury continued.

“In exchange for what?”

Fury’s lips quirked into a smirk. “I see you know how the world works. Good.” He pointed at the couch. “Sit.”

Peter did.

“I’m sure you heard about our incident in Lagos.”

Peter frowned at the change in subject. How was that related to Milan’s dumb drug serve that he ran from his garage? “Yeah, you guys really fucked up.”

“Thank you for that analysis,” Fury bit out, unable to hide the frustration in his voice. “It didn’t exactly sway public opinion in our favor. There is a lot of pressure on me from high up, and I mean high up way in the fucking clouds, to sign the whole Avengers initiative over to someone else’s authority. We need to get people off our back. That’s where you come in.”

“Why?”

“Because Spider-Man’s reputation is spotless. You’re a little mother Theresa in the public eye. People wet their pants talking about how great you are. Old people think you’re adorable, young people think you’re cool.” Fury smirked. “The irony, right? If only they knew their precious Spider-Man was a drug-runner by day.”

“I just pass a little weed around,” Peter said. “That shit’s not hurting anyone.” He knew his work was technically illegal, but all his efforts to save victims from all kinds of crime during the day made up for that, right? Right?

“Whatever, kid, I couldn’t care less about your little side projects. Apart from the fact that it’s giving me some leverage. Wanna go to jail for drug dealing or wanna cooperate?”

“Just tell me what you want.”

“For you to become part of the team, of course. Follow our instructions to the letter, confirm to the press how frigging great the Avengers are, the whole caboodle.”

“Fine,” Peter said, indifferently. “You won’t tell Kathy, though, right?”

“Ah, Mrs. Pokorni. You won’t be surprised to learn she has been deemed an unfit guardian. Sweet old lady. But old age is catching up with her, and her memory is slipping.”

“What? No it isn’t!” Peter protested, because Kathy was probably about the smartest, wittiest person he knew. If she were here, she sure as hell would give Nick Fury a piece of her mind that he would remember for a long time.

“Kid, I don’t give a crap about the facts. The facts are what I make them, you understand? And right now, the fact as I made it, is that CPS decided you are in urgent need of a proper guardian and are to be moved there immediately.”

“You can’t just do that!”

“Actually, you’ll find that I can.”

Peter crossed his arms. “Who’s going to be my guardian? You?”

Fury turned a page in his file. “No. Mr. and Mrs. Portree. Lovely couple. Suburban. She’s a lawyer, he’s a teacher. They own a dog. Also, they don’t actually exist. In reality you will of course be moving into the compound for the time being. And if everything plays out well and I get the government off my back, I can always reverse the whole thing and move you back here. See? I’m perfectly reasonable.”

Peter was sure he must have heard a few things wrong. “You… you want me to live with the Avengers?”

“How else did you imagine this would play out? I give you a little pager so we can beep you if a fight breaks out in the city?”

The panic Peter had been trying to suppress was now slowly clawing its way to the surface. “Look, I’ll be on your dumb Avengers team if I need to. But don’t make me move, please?”

“I’m not here for a negotiation, Mr. Parker, I’m here to tell you what’s going to happen and how it’s going to happen. Your only job is to nod and smile and say ‘thank you Mr. Fury for not throwing my ass in jail’.”

“But Mrs. Pokorni… I always help her around the house. Like, I cook her dinner and all that.”

“Then, for all I care, drop by every evening and cook her dinner and all that. Or tell her to move to an elderly home.”

“Wait. So I’m not going to be, like, locked in the compound?” Peter clarified. “And I can still visit Kathy?”

“Kid, I don’t give a shit what you do in your spare time, as long as you keep up Spider-Man’s reputation.”

“And I can stay in the same school?”

“I don’t see a point in you moving schools for just a few months. If you really want to stay at that shithole you’re attending,” Fury said, curling up his lip as he glanced down at the file in his lap. “I see your school ranks very high in… hmm… stabbing incidents.”

“I like it there,” Peter defensively said, which was nowhere near the truth, but he also didn’t want to go through the whole hazing process of going to a new school. Other kids tended to dislike him, and he had finally won enough fights with his current classmates for them to leave him the hell alone. He didn’t want to start from zero.

“You can go to any school you want, I don’t care.”

“Okay. Okay, fine. So when do I move?”

“Right now. Start packing. You got ten minutes.”

“Right n-.. But I-.. Can’t I wait for Kathy to come home so I can say goodbye or something?”

“Why? You’re planning to visit, right?”

“But I-“

“Nine minutes and a half.”

“You’re such an asshole!” Peter exploded.

“Yeah, I am. Get used to it.”

-

Peter actually was used to this. Getting uprooted and moving from home to home had been pretty much his life between the ages of nine and twelve. It was usually just as sudden as this: with minutes notice. Or sometimes a social worker would simply pick him up after school with his bags already packed, and drive him to a new address because “Mr. Vanderbilt had a nervous breakdown this afternoon” or some shit.

And then at twelve years old he had run away from a home, ended up on Kathy’s doorstep, and had somehow impressed her enough that she called CPS and offered to foster him. She had given him some stability for the first time in a long time. Really, it was a miracle that Peter had stayed there for a whole three years. It had been too good to last.

But he never thought it would end like this. Kathy’s deadbeat son Milan had roped him into working as a drug runner over a year ago. How long had SHIELD been on his case?

“Waiting for a formal invitation or something?” Fury asked, leaning down to glance at him through the open window.

Peter blinked, shaken from his thoughts. He glanced up at the compound that was looming over him, then grabbed his large backpack and stepped out of the car.

Tony Stark was the only one waiting in the lobby when they entered. He was barefoot, wearing stained jeans and a simple shirt. For a billionaire, he sure dressed sloppily. Had the circumstances been different, Peter might have been excited to meet the man. As it was, he felt mostly annoyed.

“Mr. Parker,” Stark said stiffly.

“Mr. Stark,” Peter greeted back in a neutral voice. He wasn’t going to be an asshole until he knew whether Stark was going to be an asshole.

“We’re a little early,” Fury said.

“No matter, we’ve prepared a bedroom for him already.”

“That’s good to hear. Thank you.”

Mr. Stark seemed to be struggling for words for a moment. “Yes, well,” he finally said. “You’re in charge.” The underlying message was clear: I didn’t agree to this.

Well, Peter sure as hell didn’t agree to this either.

Stark now turned more fully to Peter, glancing at Peter’s clothes, at his ratty sneakers, and finally at the large backpack. “Where’s the rest of your stuff?”

“We didn’t all grow up billionaires,” Peter coolly responded. Kathy had already been struggling to make ends meet before Peter moved in. That was the whole reason why Peter had started working for Milan’s drug serve in the first place.

“Fine. Unzip, please. And empty your pockets.”

“Um, no,” Peter said. “Why should I?”

“Because no one is bringing drugs into this compound.”

“Right. Or maybe you’re just looking for a cheap way to get the good stuff?”

Tony Stark’s nostrils flared with irritation. “Excuse me?”

“I know your reputation,” Peter said. “If you want to shoot up, you can just tell me man, I can get you whatever you want. You don’t have to frisk me for it. I never actually smoke grass myself, anyways.”

“Like hell I believe that.”

“Unzip the bag, Parker,” Fury said with an eyeroll.

“Fine,” Peter huffed, unzipping his bag and throwing it at Stark.

Stark scrunched up his nose as he rummaged through Peter’s socks. “Can’t believe this degenerate is supposed to improve our reputation,” he muttered.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Peter said with a coy smile. “I’m extremely likeable.”

“Listen kid, I don’t care if you’re only fourteen –“

“Fifteen.”

“Whatever. None of us here are your babysitters. So you’d better be mature enough to clean up after yourself because none of us are going to do it. Am I clear?”

“Yeah,” Peter said, because frankly, he wouldn’t want it any other way. The last thing he needed was a bunch of high-strung adults telling him when to do his homework.

“Same goes when you join us on a mission. Don’t even think about stepping a toe out of line, got it?”

“Aye, aye, sir,” Peter replied with as much sarcasm as he could muster. What the hell was this dude’s problem?

Stark zipped the bag up and tossed it back at him.

Fury took out that file again, holding it out to Peter. “Mr. and Mrs. Portree. Better read up about them in case the cover story ever comes up. Your school will be informed of the change in guardians, and you gotta stick to the same story with anyone else, too.”

“I’m supposed to tell Kathy I moved in with some couple who don’t actually exist?”

“Do you care about this lady?”

“Yes.”

“Then protect her by not getting her involved. The less she knows, the better.“ Fury pushed the file into his hands. “Mr. and Mrs. Portree. They’re real fascinating people. Feel free to make up your own crap about them, too, as long as you don’t lose track of your own story.”

“Don’t worry, I’m a real good liar.”

“Not surprised.”

Stark pointed to a door. “Living room and kitchen are that way. I’ll have a little chat with Fury.”

“Cheers,” Peter said, hoisting up his bag. “Oh, and FYI: if I did have drugs on me, I’d be hiding them in my underwear like any sane person would do.”

He left.

-

The living room was a wide space with a high ceiling and a lot of windows. There was a large, open kitchen with a bar to the right. Unfortunately, it wasn’t empty. A man whom Peter recognized immediately was sat at the table reading a newspaper. War Machine, just casually sipping coffee as he read the business section.

Peter approached the table, dumping his bag to the floor.

War Machine glanced up, his eyes widening a fraction when he saw Peter, and he immediately folded the paper away. “Ah. Hey, Peter,” he sounded surprisingly friendly. “Nice to meet you. I’m James Rhodes, but everyone calls me Rhodey. I hope Fury didn’t scare you too much?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Peter grumbled. “He barges into my house, tells me to move here or else. Pretty much blackmailed me.”

Rhodey winced, a slight look of disapproval flashing across his face. “Yes, well, he has his methods. And it seems you were not exactly living in a good place down there.”

“Oh, so it’s in my best interest, is it?” Peter scathed. “I was living in a perfectly good place. There was nothing wrong with Mrs. Pokorni.” He slapped the file down on the table and sat down to read about stupid Mr. and Mrs. Portree.

“Have you had dinner?” Rhodey asked.

“Yeah, Nick Fury and I stopped at a lovely little bistro on the way here,” Peter mocked.

Rhodey was taking his tantrum remarkably calmly. “Would you like some mac ‘n cheese?”

Peter picked at the papers in the file. He should probably dial it back if he wanted to get food. “Yeah. Thanks.”

Rhodey nodded and got up.

The leftover mac ‘n cheese Rhodey heated up for him was admittedly pretty good. Peter was used to cooking dinner for himself and Kathy. He wondered what she was eating right now, and felt a pang of guilt. Her son had been arrested, and now Peter had left her. He should drop by first thing tomorrow and make sure she was okay.

Rhodey didn’t bother him any further; he focused his attention back on the newspaper while Peter ate.

A prickling feeling at the back of his neck alerted him to the fact that a new person had entered the room. Natasha Romanoff merely gave Peter a glance as she stepped past the table. “Huh,” she said. “You know, right up till this moment, I still thought Fury might have been kidding.”

“Not in front of the kid, Nat,” Rhodey warned in a low voice.

“Oh, yes please,” Peter said around a mouthful of macaroni. “Don’t fight in front of me. I have a very delicate soul.”

Natasha smirked at that, swinging the fridge door open.

“It’ll only be for a few weeks,” Rhodey reasoned. “Couple months, tops.”

“I can do a lot of damage in a couple months,” Natasha said, taking a beer bottle and cracking it open against the kitchen counter.

“Nat, didn’t we agree not to-“

Natasha rolled her eyes. “Please. Hey, kid. Any of your foster parents alcoholics?” She asked, turning to Peter.

“No. Most of them were decent,” Peter said. “Just controlling, high strung and all that.”

“See?” Natasha told Rhodey, and she took a long swig.

“So we’re ignoring everything Steve talked about this morning?” Rhodey asked, exasperated.

“Since Steve seems to have the illusion that we can turn this place into some kid-friendly zone, I don’t put much stock in his ideas.”

“Hey, couldn’t you have sussed all this out before I got here?” Peter asked.

“We didn’t exactly get much notice,” Natasha tersely said.

“You guys know I work as a drug runner, right?” Peter asked. “Just saying, you don’t need to get all prissy about a little beer.”

Natasha lifted her bottle. “This kid makes a lot more sense than Cap did.”

-

Even upside down, his bedroom wasn’t any less intimidating. Peter glanced around from his relatively safe spot on the ceiling. He had escaped the living area after his dinner to avoid running into any more angry, annoyed and frustrated Avengers. When he had first stepped foot into his bedroom he had almost stepped back out again. Because there was no way that the five-star, luxury, royalty, Grand-Ritz suite on the other side was meant for him.

Until some robot-lady voice had piped up from the ceiling – scaring the living daylight out of him – and assured him that this was indeed his bedroom.

The first thing he had tried to do was take a shower to drown his thoughts. But the shower had strange buttons that lit up and Peter couldn’t get it to work. So he had taken refuge on the ceiling, because he kind of didn’t want to touch all that expensive furniture. And now, here he was, looking down at the Persian rug, the ornate bed frame, and the ceiling high wardrobes. What was he even supposed to put in those wardrobes? He owned exactly four pairs of pants.

His thoughts drifted back to Kathy. Peter was used to stuff like this. He was adaptable, he’d make it work. But Kathy had lost two people in a day: her son, who was an asshole but did always give her money, and Peter, who always helped around the house. Would she get by without both those things? He really wanted to call her and see if she was all right, but Fury had confiscated his phone and given him a new one. And Peter wasn’t about to use that one, because SHIELD was probably listening in to every conversation he had. He would just visit her first thing tomorrow.

“Miss Pepper Potts is requesting access to your bedroom,” that same cool, female voice suddenly sounded, startling Peter so much that he lost his grip and fell down from the ceiling with a yelp. “Jeez! Freaking hell, lady, can you at least drop the volume to fifty percent or something?”

“Done,” the voice said, at a significantly lower volume this time.

Pepper Potts. Yeah, Peter had heard of her. Seen her, too. At press conferences on TV. Snapping at journalists and generally ordering people around. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to talk to her right now.

“What shall I tell Miss Potts?” the voice gently prompted.

“Uh. Yeah. Yeah, okay, she can come in,” Peter muttered, stepping back to sit on the edge of the bed. It was strange that after everything, this was the first moment he was nervous.

Only a second later, the door slipped open and Pepper stepped inside. She didn’t look anything like the CEO Peter had seen at the press conferences. She was wearing sweatpants and a soft sweater and she smiled when she saw him.

“Hi, Peter,” she said. She had a pleasant voice when she wasn’t yelling. “I won’t take up much of your time. Today was a crazy day, and you have every right to lock yourself in your room.”

Peter didn’t respond. He just pulled his legs up, wrapping his arms around them as he stared back at her.

“I’m sure you noticed that there has been some tension amongst the rest of the team about your presence. And I want to make sure you know it’s not about you personally, but about Fury’s sudden decision to move a teenager into the compound.”

“Really? So it wasn’t about me when Tony Stark searched my backpack for drugs?”

“Fine,” she conceded. “Maybe that’s a factor, too. There’s plenty of reasons why the situation is complicated. That’s why there is tension in the first place. And Tony tends to blow things out of proportion.”

Wasn’t that the truth.

“Can I ask you something?” Peter ventured.

She pulled out his desk chair and sat down so they were at the same eye level. “Anything.”

“I tried to take a shower before, but I don’t understand how it works.”

She smiled as if she thought that was the cutest thing she had ever heard, which was a little annoying. “I can show you. But you can always ask FRIDAY about any questions you have.”

“FRIDAY. Would that be the, um, magical ceiling voice?”

Her smile grew. “That’s the one.”

Peter scrunched up his nose. “She watches me shower?”

“She doesn’t watch. She’s an AI. She just… knows.”

“So there’s no cameras in here or anything?”

She shook her head. There’s no cameras in any of the bedrooms or bathrooms.”

“You sure Stark didn’t install a few, anticipating my arrival? He seemed to think I was planning to OD in the bathtub.”

Pepper stared at him, then gave a tiny shake of her head. “Are you going to be okay?”

“What?”

“None of us are technically your guardians, so…”

You’re on your own.

“I can take care of myself,” Peter tersely informed her. And he could. It wasn’t as if Kathy had ever really taken care of him. They always took care of each other, that was the whole point.

Pepper tapped her long fingernails against the armrest. “What else.. we don’t have housekeeping, for security reasons. So we all keep our own rooms clean. We do our own laundry, too. There is a laundry room down the hall. Have you ever done laundry?”

Peter always took care of the laundry. “Yeah.”

“We always eat together around seven. But feel free to have dinner on your own if you prefer. Can you cook?

Peter always cooked. “Yea-hah.”

“You can use anything you find in the kitchen, unless it’s labelled.”

Peter nodded again. He kinda wanted Pepper to leave, now, so he could hide under the blanket and watch a movie or something. He scooted backwards on the bed until he could lean up against the headboard.

Pepper took the hint, pushing herself to her feet. “Let me know if you need me for anything, all right?”

“Yeah, okay,” Peter said. He probably wouldn’t, though.

-

He woke up the next morning, feeling remarkably well-rested. Probably thanks to the luxury mattress and the ridiculously fluffy blankets. He took a shower – with a little help from FRIDAY – and sneaked down to the kitchen as soon as FRIDAY informed him that there was no one else there.

Pepper had said that he was free to use anything from the kitchen, but Peter still made absolutely sure no one was watching him before he snatched some breakfast cereals from a shelf.

His school gave out free lunches, but that was never enough to sustain Peter’s fast metabolism, so he needed to bring some extra food. He wasn’t sure how, though.

“There is Tupperware in the cupboard next to the refrigerator,” FRIDAY informed him when he asked her.

“Can I take that with me?”

“Yes,” FRIDAY said. “Although I should tell you that I have been programmed to inform Tony Stark if you take anything from the compound that doesn’t belong to you personally.”

Typical. “Cool. In that case, I think I’ll also take… how much is this tiny clock worth?”

“It is valued at approximately eight hundred dollars.”

That seemed enough to make Stark throw another hissy fit.

-

Peter actually got a chauffeur in a fancy car driving him to school. And his name – get this – was Happy.

“Ready for school?” The man asked, poking at the display.

Peter shook his head. “Not to school. You can drive me to Kathy Pokorni’s house.”

Happy frowned at him.

“What? Fury said I could visit her whenever I wanted. And I’ll walk to school from there.”

Happy looked skeptical. “Will you? Really?”

“Fury said he doesn’t even care whether I skip-“

“Fury says a lot of things,” Happy snapped, looking frustrated. “But some of us are actually trying to make sure we don’t completely screw up a teenager’s childhood.”

Peter snorted as he put on his seatbelt. “That’s cute. Do you have her address?”

“FRIDAY?” Happy asked with a long-suffering sigh.

A map immediately popped up on the display. “Estimated time of arrival: 8:12,” FRIDAY reported.

“Jeez,” Peter said. “That lady is everywhere, isn’t she?”

Happy started the car. “I am picking you up after school, though. That’s non-negotiable. Tony needs to talk to you. It’s about the press conference tomorrow, where Spider-Man is supposed to make an appearance.”

“Fine,” Peter bit out. “At least park around the corner, okay? I don’t need my classmates seeing me get into a fancy car with an old man. They’ll talk.”

“I’m not old!”

-

Kathy was surprised when Peter turned up on her doorstep. She immediately grabbed his arm, pulling him inside. “Goodness, Peter! I tried to call you last night!”

Peter nodded, taking off his jacket and throwing it across the banister like he always did. “The, uh, CPS guy took my phone. He gave me a new one, but I don’t want to use it because I don’t trust them.”

“Hm,” Kathy said, pursing her lips. “I’ll see if I can get you a phone.”

“No, that’s okay,” Peter said quickly, because the idea that Kathy would have to scrape money together to buy him a phone, made him feel guilty. “I’ll see if I can get another one myself.”

“That man from CPS was utterly rude,” Kathy complained as she led him into the living room. “If I were his mother, I’d certainly give him a slap over the head!”

Peter grinned at the mental image of Kathy chasing Fury around the house with a rolled up newspaper. “I’m sure you would.”

Kathy sank down in her usual chair by the window with a sigh. “What a mess, what a mess.”

Peter sat on the edge of a chair, glancing at the laptop on the side table next to Kathy. He just saw endless rows of numbers and Hungarian words. Kathy was pretty good with computers for an old person.

“My knitting club is making blankets for orphans in Romania,” Kathy explained as she propped her feet of. “I’m just keeping track of the finances.”

Peter smiled. Sometimes Kathy was about the scariest person he knew, especially when she chased unwanted guests out of her house by hitting them over the head. And then other times she was just a sweet old lady in a flowery dress talking about her knitting club.

“Did you talk to Milan?” Peter asked, testing the waters. Fury had promised not to tell Kathy about Peter’s involvement, but Milan could have said something about him, of course. And then Kathy might wonder why Peter hadn’t been arrested, and Peter wasn’t sure how he would explain that. So far for Fury’s well thought-out cover story.

Thankfully, Kathy simply dismissed his question with a curt “let’s not discuss him.”

“You don’t have to worry,” Peter assured her. “I’ll come by as often as I can, all right? Get your groceries, do the dishes, whatever. Leave it to me.”

“It would be wonderful if you could change the bed for me,” Kathy admitted.

“Done,” Peter said.

“I’ll go make us some tea, then.”

Peter changed the sheets and turned on the washing machine, and he quickly vacuumed while he was at it. It didn’t do anything to eliminate his feelings of guilt. He felt like he was abandoning Kathy, and speaking as someone who knew how it felt to be abandoned; that sucked.

Kathy had tea ready for him when he was done and, inevitably, asked him about Mr. and Mrs. Portree.

“The house is nice,” Peter said. “They have a dog. And they have a turtle, too. You know how much I like turtles, right?”

“Yes, yes, that’s nice,” she said. “What his name?”

“Who?”

“The turtle, what’s his name?”

“Shell Silverstein. With a double L, because, you know…”

She chuckled softly. “That’s amusing. They must be good people then, if they have a sense of humor.”

“Yeah, they are. They’re good people. Don’t worry about me.”

-

When he came home from school, Rhodey was sitting at the dinner table. “Hey, kid,” he said when he spotted Peter. “I made tea. Have a seat.”

“I think I was supposed to go to Tony Stark’s office or something.”

“In a minute,” Rhodey said. “Have a drink first, unwind a little. How was your day?”

Peter shrugged. He took off his backpack and dug through it for a moment, taking out the tiny clock and placing it back on the kitchen counter. “Just a little social experiment,” he said when he saw Rhodey’s raised eyebrows. He dropped his backpack to the floor and sat down at the table.

Rhodey poured him a cup of tea. “Happy tells me you visited Kathy before school.”

“Yeah.”

“Do you miss her?”

Peter shrugged. He wouldn’t really miss Kathy as long he went by every day.

“Fury has a big meeting with Thaddeus Ross in about six weeks,” Rhodey said. “There have been rumors that Ross wants to establish a new deal when it comes to the Avengers. Something involving the UN. That is Fury’s main concern. If he can change Ross’ mind before then… we’re all in the clear. And then I am sure you can go back to live with Kathy.”

Peter didn’t respond. He didn’t like getting his hopes up about these things. He preferred to just not think about it.

“Thanks for the tea,” he murmured, picking up his cup. “I think I’ll just go see what Stark wants.”

He made his way downstairs, following FRIDAY’s directions. He had expected to be led to some boring office, but instead he ended up in a large workshop with high ceilings, large computer screens, a lot of complicated looking machines, and scientific instruments that made Peter’s hands itch.

Stark was standing next to one of the tables, his back turned to Peter, looking up at a large holographic projection floating above it.

Peter glanced up at it as he stepped closer. “You wanted to see me?”

“You stole my clock,” Stark said without turning around.

“I have no idea what you mean.”

Stark impatiently waved his hand and the hologram disappeared. He turned to Peter. “Hand me your backpack.”

Peter resisted the urge to roll his eyes and took of his backpack, tossing it at Tony Stark for the second time in two days.

Stark searched it to no avail. “Where is it? Where did you hide it?” He was getting worked up, now.

“I told you, dude, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“FRIDAY, where is that Tillaro Clock that was on the kitchen counter?”

“It is on the kitchen counter,” FRIDAY reported.

“Getting a little blind?” Peter gleefully suggested, immensely enjoying the baffled expression on Tony Stark’s face.

“Did. Parker. steal. that. clock?” Stark growled.

“Mr. Parker took the clock at 7:42 this morning and returned it at 14:58 this afternoon.”

Peter snapped his fingers. “Oh, that clock.”

“What the hell were you doing with it?”

Peter gave a mild shrug. “I don’t have a watch.”

“I’m getting very tired of you very quickly, kid.”

“Yeah?” Peter replied, smirking. “What are you going to do, throw me out? Because I sure as hell am not here voluntarily.”

Stark huffed and turned his back on Peter again. A different hologram appeared in mid-air, and Peter recognized it as a sort of replica of his Spider-suit. Just… quite different. He took a few steps forward until he was standing next to Stark, and set his teacup down. “What are you doing?”

“Making you a suit.”

“Why?”

“You can’t be affiliated with the Avengers and run around in pajamas.”

“My suit works just fine for me.”

“That thing is an atrocity. The web fluid is interesting though, I’ll admit that. Who manufactured that?”

“None of your business.”

Stark growled under his breath. “I’m making you a million-dollar suit, you ungrateful brat. The least you can do is cooperate.”

“I didn’t ask for it, did I?” Peter shot back. He cocked his head, taking in every detail of the hologram floating in front of him. He had to admit, it looked pretty cool. He probably would have told Stark as much if the man weren’t being such an asshole.

“I’ll try to finish it before dinner,” Stark said. “So I’d like you to take it for a spin this evening. See if everything works.”

Peter wanted to say something rude and snarky. But he also kinda wanted to know what it would be like to swing around in a Stark-made suit. “All right. Fine.”

-

When it was almost seven o’clock, Peter made his way down to the compound living area. He felt nervous about having dinner with the Avengers, but he had promised Rhodey to join them. And Rhodey had been kind of tolerable, so Peter wanted to humor him.

Reaching the kitchen to find Fury waiting there did nothing to improve his nerves. Steve and Natasha were at the table, both looking a little tense. Bruce was cooking.

“Parker, right on time,” Fury said. “A police officer from NYPD is coming over tomorrow, and you can tell him everything you know about Milan Pokorni.”

Peter frowned, pausing at a safe distance away from Fury. “I thought my name wasn’t going to show up on the records?”

“Don’t worry your pretty little head about it. We’ll keep you in the clear. But NYPD could still use the information. They have a suspicion that Pokorni could have been part of a larger drug ring they are trying to bust. The officer who is coming over is a confidant of SHIELD. He knows you live here, he knows the Portrees are fake. You don’t have to hide anything from him, besides your red-and-blue alter ego.”

Peter gave an acquiescent shrug, deciding not to voice his thoughts that he would decide whether or not he would hide anything from the NYPD.

“We’ve sent out press releases to inform the public that Spider-Man has joined the Avengers,” Fury continued, now turning to Steve. “Expect headlines later today. How are we doing on the press conference tomorrow?”

“Pepper has everything prepared,” Steve said, his tones a little clipped. “And I read your notes.”

“What about them?”

“I just think it’s funny you ask us to lie to the public about Spider-Man’s age. Clearly, you realize that most sane people wouldn’t approve of SHIELD recruiting a teenager.”

“I’ve had enough of your lecturing,” Fury growled. “I don’t know if you understand what I’m trying to do here. I’m trying to keep all of you out of the hands of the UN. I’m talking China or Russia calling the shots about where you should or shouldn’t go. And this kid? He was a drug dealer. And I took him from a crummy apartment where he lived with a deaf old lady to this place. Far as I’m concerned, I did him a favor he didn’t even deserve.”

“Kathy’s not deaf,” Peter thought to say to that, casually leaning his hip against the kitchen counter.

“She sure as hell acted deaf when I was talking to her.”

“Oh. Yeah. She does that. Or sometimes she pretends she only speaks Hungarian.”

Fury narrowed his eyes.

“Don’t get bent out of shape. You’re lucky she didn’t hit you over the head with a slipper.”

-

It was the strangest dinner Peter had ever had. With Rhodey and Pepper. With Tony Stark and Steve Rogers. Natasha Romanoff, Bruce Banner and Sam Wilson.

Wanda Maximoff was conspicuously absent, though. Vision passed through the kitchen to grab some dinner for both of them, then disappeared back upstairs.

“Is Wanda depressed?” Peter asked. “Because of Lagos?”

“Not your concern,” Stark grumbled.

“Pull in your horns, Tony,” Natasha said. “He’s just asking a question. To which the answer is probably ‘yes’, but what do we know? None of us have a PhD in psychology.”

“I’m currently getting one in neurology, though,” Bruce put in.

“Right. Let us know when you got your diploma. Then we can scoop out her brain for you to dissect.”

Peter tuned out their banter. He tried to imagine how he would feel if something he did had caused innocent bystanders to die. And Fury had probably been a jerk to Wanda, too, considering how cheesed off he was about the whole incident.

Peter suddenly had a stupid but tempting desire to say something really moronic at the press conference tomorrow. Something that would piss the pants off Fury.

-

“Good evening Peter. Congratulations on the update. Where would you like to take me tonight?”

“Hello suit-lady,” Peter greeted as he sauntered across the rooftop of a high apartment building. “I didn’t have any plans. Just need to give the suit a test run. Unless you have anything on your radar?”

“Not detecting any criminal activity nearby,” the AI reported. “To test the suit, I suggest following a twelve step assessment program.”

“I’m not following someone’s dumb steps. You gotta loosen up a little, lady. Chillax. What’s your name?”

“You can refer to me as A.I.”

“That won’t work for me. How’s Kathy? No wait, that’s weird. How’s Karen?”

“You can call me Karen if you’d like.”

“Awesome. Now, as Gandhi once said: let’s get out there and kick some ass. Never mind. Stupid joke.”

“I think your jokes are very funny,” Karen assured him.

Peter paused, then cocked his head. “That was oddly nice. Did Stark program you to be nice to me? That’s kind of a weird thought.”

“I am programmed to learn through human interaction.”

“Riiiight. So, like, if I swear a lot, will you start swearing a lot, too?”

“That is a possible outcome.”

“Interesting,” Peter moved forward until he was at the very edge of the building. “So, let’s start from the beginning: We don’t call them ‘criminals’, we call them ‘evil assholes’, okay?’

“As you wish, Peter.”

Grinning, Peter fired off his web shooters and jumped, soaring down towards the streets below.

The Avengers had no idea what they had gotten themselves into.

Chapter Text

The NYPD officer had introduced himself as Mr. Siddiqui. He looked quite young and his voice was soft, but his handshake was firm.

“You on the drug control unit?” Peter asked.

“No, actually I specialize in working with minors,” Siddiqui explained. “Both victims and perpetrators.”

“Which one am I?” Peter joked.

“A bit of both, I’d say.”

Peter felt a little taken aback.

They were sitting in one of the many unused offices in the compound. None of the other Avengers ever seemed inclined to do their work in an office. They mostly just lounged around the living area, leaving this entire hallway essentially abandoned.

Siddiqui seemed friendly enough. Or maybe that was just an act to get more information out of Peter.

Peter had been thinking about this meeting all day, and he had decided that he didn’t see a reason to lie about any of the work he had done. So his strategy was pretty straightforward. Just tell the truth.

Siddiqui opened a file, laid a few papers out on the desk, and took out a pen. “You worked all over the neighborhood Queens, correct?”

“Yeah. Some people sell drugs at their own school, or right in front of their apartment. That’s dumb. They always get busted eventually. You have to go by bike and drive around the whole neighborhood. I’d go down to Milan’s garage. He gave me the goods and a list of addresses. And that’s it, that would be my to-do list.”

Siddiqui started scribbling away. “Did he ever appear to have any inside information from the police?”

“I don’t think so. We were never told anything special other than to look out for cops or plainclothes. Honestly, real thing you had to watch out for was the robbers,” Peter added with a frown. “They’d stake out on a block and once they figure out you’re the dealer, they try and corner you in an alley and bust your ass, take your day’s earnings. Those guys are the real cash grabbers, they fork in thousands of bucks a night.”

“Were you ever advised to carry a weapon to protect yourself?”

Peter scoffed. “Hell no. No-one’s going to run around Queens selling weed with a gun on them. If they do, they’re braindead. It’s not worth the risk. If you only get caught with a pound of weed and you keep quiet about the rest, you’ll probably be out working again next week. But an unlicensed gun? And the people running this thing aren’t exactly gangsters. Half of them are skinny-ass college students.”

“What about Milan Pokorni?”

Peter waved a hand. Milan Pokorni was the opposite of a gangster. “He’s not any tougher. He’s a hothead, though. The amount of times I had to kick his ass because he couldn’t control himself… But he was rich and Kathy needed money, so I let him boss me around sometimes.”

“You gave her all the money you made?” Siddiqui asked.

“I didn’t even see it. Milan gave the money straight to her. She didn’t know I was working for it, though. She just thought her son had suddenly become generous,” Peter gave a smile, remembering how happy Kathy had been when Milan suddenly started giving her money.

“You never received any money?” Siddiqui clarified.

“Does it matter?’

“It matters. Employing a kid is one thing. But not paying him?”

Peter frowned. Was this guy even listening to him? “He paid Kathy,” he repeated.

“Kathy is his mother. Maybe he was already planning to support her with more money, and then used that fact to trick you into working for him for free.”

Peter tapped his fingers against his leg as he thought. That did sound like something Milan would try to pull. Had Peter been an idiot? But, no… “I don’t think he was planning to give Kathy money,” he said. “They didn’t get along great. She was always complaining about him behind his back and whenever he came around they usually ended up yelling at each other in Hungarian.”

Siddiqui shrugged. “Families can be close in strange ways. Do you know if he gave her cash or wired it?”

“Dunno, why?”

“Because if it was wired, I’d be interested to see what bank account Milan Pokorni was wiring it from. Think harder, kid. Did Kathy have a lot of cash on hand or did she usually pay by credit card?”

“She used a lot of cash, I guess. But isn’t that kinda an old people thing anyways?”

“Shame,” Siddiqui murmured.

“You really think there is a whole drug ring behind this? Milan never seemed very organized to me.”

“You never heard about him having to answer to someone higher up? A guy upstairs?”

“No, I haven’t,” Peter said, then huffed when Siddiqui looked suspicious. “Look, I’m not lying. You think I give a crap about what happens to Milan Pokorni?”

“I’m reserving judgement on that,” Siddiqui said. “You did live with his mother.”

“Yeah, but she didn’t like him. And I didn’t either.”

“All right,” Siddiqui said, but he didn’t look very convinced.

-

The press conference took place in a large room next to the lobby, where Peter hadn’t been before. Over a hundred journalists had filled up the rows of seats, to attend the press conference about the same thing that every headline from the last few days had focused on: Spider-Man joining the Avengers.

There were even journalists that had come in from abroad. Fury had clearly been pleased about that. “If we want to throw the UN off our scent, we don’t just have to convince the country,” he had said. “We have to convince the world.”

Funnily enough, Fury wasn’t up here with them to answer any questions. No, he was sitting on his fat ass in the living room, probably having a beer and relaxing while the rest of them took care of the dirty work. Steve Rogers and stupid Stark were sitting to Peter’s left. Pepper was sitting to his right, once again dressed as a scary CEO.

Peter was wearing his suit and mask, which had some advantages. For example, while Steve droned on and on about what a great addition to the team Spider-Man made, Peter could have a whispered game of thirty seconds with Karen. Which was harder than you’d think, because being an AI, she tended to have literally thousands of possible answers to every description he gave.

“Okay, okay…” he murmured. “I’m thinking of a person. She was a nurse. She’s British. Her last name is a bird.”

“I have over two hundred possible candidates,” Karen reported.

“Um… her first name is a city. An Italian city. And she created the Polar area diagram.”

Pepper poked him in the side to catch his attention, and Peter suddenly noticed that Steve had finished his explanation, and they had moved on to the questions part.

Nearly all journalists had their hands raised high in the air. But it wasn’t Steve who the journalists wanted to talk to.

“Mr. Spider-Man,” a journalist said, his voice breathy, “in light of the latest incident in Lagos: have the other Avengers brought you on to investigate the situation from an objective viewpoint?”

“He’s just on the team,” Tony Stark tried.

The journalist talked right over him. “And if so, does that mean you are now in charge?”

“Oh,” Peter said, before dropping his voice a tone deeper. “Well, yes. Yes indeed. I will be in charge of the Avengers for the time being.”

Stark made a half-panicked, half-frustrated noise next to him. But any protests he might have offered were drowned out by the journalists all shouting questions.

“How are you expecting to reform the team?”

“What will you do about Wanda Maximoff?”

“Will the Avengers be moved to a new headquarters?”

Peter nodded. “All excellent questions.”

“What’s your favorite emoticon?” A young woman off to the side yelled.

“I like the turtle,” Peter replied. “As for your other questions-“

“They will be answered by me,” Pepper interrupted, rising from her seat and stepping up to the cathedra in front of their table. “While Spider-Man and the other Avengers retreat and discuss an important mission that is coming up.”

-

“How the hell did any of us ever think that this little shithead would be cooperative for even one minute!” Stark ranted as he pulled Peter into the living room by the scruff of his neck. He had yanked Peter’s mask off and had clenched his fist around it so tightly that Peter was almost worried about Karen getting suffocated in there.

Fury was sitting in an armchair, facing one large screen that showed a live feed of Pepper trying to salvage the situation as best she could, and another that showed the latest news headlines. He stayed suspiciously quiet as he glanced from the screens to Peter and back.

“That was IT!” Stark roared, shaking Peter a little. “I think we can finally all agree that this is NOT going to work. So can we send the kid packing already?”

Peter shoved him away. “Don’t touch me, asshole!” He snatched his mask back from the man, sending him a death glare.

“Look!” Tony Stark seethed, pointing at the screen. “Look at this!”

The first headline had already appeared: ‘SPIDER-MAN WILL SET THE AVENGERS STRAIGHT – Follow our reporter as he blogs live from the press conference!’

“Isn’t that what you wanted?” Peter asked innocently. The angrier Stark looked, the more cheerful Peter felt.

“That is not what we-“

“I don’t know,” Fury spoke up, tapping a finger against his chin. “I might be able to spin this narrative the right way. I must say I had some worries that Spider-Man simply joining the team would not be enough to appease people. They might just think their favorite hero is getting corrupted by us. But if they think Spider-Man has actually been put in charge…”

“Tell me you are joking,” Stark bit out, a panicked undertone to his voice.

“Look at the headlines, Tony! People have faith again! Listen, I have to go. I have to talk to some people, see how the higher-ups take this news. And YOU-“ he turned to Peter, his frown deepening, “don’t think this means I’m not pissed at you. Friendly reminder: you are only of use to me if you get the Avengers back into people’s favor. So from now on you’d better stick to the script. Because if the whole thing blows up in our face, I have no problem handing you over to the NYPD after all.”

Peter scowled, now. His triumphant feeling dissipating. “Whatever, dude.”

Fury left, leaving Peter with a heavily breathing Tony Stark and a slightly unsettled looking Steve Rogers.

Peter ignored both of them and plopped down on the couch. And as he stared at the new headlines appearing on the large screen, a thought occurred to him. Fury and the Avengers had one ultimate threat: handing him over to the police. But they wouldn’t resort to that until Peter made the ultimate mistake of swaying public opinion against them. So short of that, Peter could do whatever the hell he wanted, and the Avengers had no power over him at all. Any rule they set him, he could just break, and there was nothing they could do about it, because they needed him.

Stark seemed to have realized the same. “What am I supposed to do now, ground him?” He scathed.

Peter snorted. “Try me.”

“This will not go without consequence, Parker!”

“Actually, I think it will,” Peter said, leaning back and pulling his legs up so he could stretch out on the couch.

“No feet on the furniture.”

“You can’t tell me what to do.”

“I sure as hell can, this is my house! Take your feet off my couch!”

“Or what?” Peter challenged.

Predictably, Tony Stark had no answer to that question. Because there was nothing he could do. He just stood there with clenched fists, staring down at Peter.

“Peter,” Steve said, trying for his authoritative voice. “I think you should take it down a notch, young man.”

“I think you should mind your own damn business, old man.”

They were saved by the bell when Pepper finally entered the room, looking tired and frustrated.

“Excellent work, Pep,” Steve commended her.

“Thank you Steve,” she replied before turning her gaze on Peter. “Peter, I’m very disappointed in you.”

And, yeah, that stung a little.

-

“All right. I believe it was your turn?”

“Sure thing, Peter. This person was born on August 6, 1924 in Sodankylä. He is a Finnish Industrialist.”

Peter landed on a low rooftop and hopped over a ledge. “Karen, we’ve been over this. You gotta start a little easier. Let’s say you can only pick people whose Wikipedia entry is at least three hundred words long, all right?”

“All right,” Karen replied. “New description: This person was born in Manhattan. He played cricket for the Manhattan Young Amateurs. He published his first book at the age of 23.”

“So he’s a writer?”

“No, an engineer. He wrote that first book about propulsion systems for spacecrafts.”

“I don’t think I know this person either, Karen.”

“He redirected his research focus to the field of clean energy after a three month imprisonment in Afghanistan, where he also built his first armored suit, powered by an arc reactor.”

Peter felt his mouth drop open. “Karen, you sly devil. Did you just try to mess with me?”

“I believe I did.”

Peter grinned. “You’re starting to learn, m’lady. So Stark played cricket, huh?”

“He wasn’t very good.”

“Do tell me more.”

“Maybe later, Peter,” Karen said, her voice suddenly turning all business, “Because I detect two evil assholes doing some bad shit nearby.”

Peter jumped to attention. “Point the way.”

Karen directed him to an ATM on a busy street, where an elderly woman was withdrawing money with shaking hands, while two younger men were standing close behind her. People were bustling past, glancing at the shopping windows or at the screens of their phones. None of them were even noticing that right next to them, one of the young men was pressing a knife against the lady’s back.

Peter immediately swung down, shooting his web up to a flagpole and steering himself slightly to the left, aiming to land precisely on top of the two robbers.

All three of them went down, the knife clattering from the Evil Asshole’s hand. Peter quickly rolled onto his stomach, firing a web to snatch the knife up from the pavement. He immediately followed up with more web fluid, plastering the now unarmed robber to the ground. The other one stumbled to his feet and tried to run away, but Peter fired a single web at his legs and the guy went down with a smack.

Now people had stopped to stare.

“Can someone call the police?” Peter barked out, before turning to the lady who was staring back at him with wide, shocked eyes, still trembling. “Are you all right, ma’am?”

“I… I…”

“I wasn’t doing nothing!” One of the thugs yelled out and Peter fired another web straight at his mouth to shut him up.

“They told me to withdraw money,” the lady stammered, clutching her wallet so tightly to her chest that her wrinkly fingers were turning white.

Peter took a careful step forward. “You’re okay now, ma’am. Did they take anything from you? Are you injured?”

She shook her head, still dazed. “No, I’m okay. Just… just a bit of a fright.”

She reminded Peter of Kathy, with her polka-dot dress and her neat hairdo. Although Kathy would probably have sucker punched these guys. She was a force to be reckoned with.

Peter offered the lady his arm and guided her to a stone bench next to a fountain, not even looking back at the two robbers still webbed to the ground and the crowd of people taking pictures.

A friendly waitress from a café nearby quickly came over and offered the lady  a cup of tea to calm down. Peter sat next to her, listening to the sirens wailing in the distance.

It was funny. When people talked about him fighting crime, they probably mostly imagined the parts like him jumping on top of robbers. But that part was usually over quickly. And this part; getting the victim to calm down, waiting for the police and explain the situation to them… that always took much longer and was kinda more important, too. “Are you feeling a little better?”

“You’re a very sweet young man,” the lady said. “I’m so glad you’re leading the Avengers now.”

Peter chuckled. “Thanks. They really need me.”

The police arrived a few minutes later. Peter helped them cut the webbings loose and said his goodbyes to the lady.

He was about to leave when a nervous voice piped up behind him.

“Mr. Spider-Man, sir?”

Peter turned. He recognized the woman standing behind him as the same journalist who had asked him about his favorite emoticon during the press conference. “Yeah? How can I help you?”

“I’m Dani. I’m with the New York Examiner,” she said, eagerly searching her pockets for paper and a pen.

“Really? That’s a quality news paper. What were you doing asking me about emoticons?”

She looked embarrassed. “My boss was pretty pissed off about that, actually. So I have to bring her something better this week, or my ass is on the line. I’m still in my trial period. Can you spare a few minutes?”

“Yeah, sure.”

“Cool, cool,” she said, looking relieved. “Um – I like the new suit.”

“Thanks. Stark made it.”

“Cool,” she repeated, nervously clicking her pen. “What do you think I should ask you?”

Peter smiled inwardly. He wasn’t sure if he’d ever encountered a more incompetent journalist. But she seemed nice enough, and Peter could understand what it was like to be nervous about a new job. “Ask me what I’m going to do about Tony Stark and his rabbits.”

The journalist blinked. “What are you… what are you going to do about the rabbits?”

Peter hopped onto the ledge of the fountain, slowly beginning to pace. “Well, that’s an interesting question, Dani. I’m sure you know that Stark has a bit of an obsession with little bunny rabbits. He loves to snuggle them. He owns about twenty of them, by now. And while that’s very cute, it’s getting out of control. They’re taking over the whole compound. I’m not entirely sure what to do about it. I tried telling him to stop adopting rabbits, but he almost cried. So to answer your question: I don’t know. I’m still working on it.”

Dani stared up at him, mouth agape, for a solid ten seconds. Then, she cleared her throat, glancing down at her notes with a slight frown. “What about Wanda Maximoff’s position on the team?”

“Listen, lady. What happened in Lagos was a mistake. A bad one. But it wasn’t on her. It was a collective failure from the whole team. Wanda Maximoff is inexperienced, and the team should never have let the situation escalate to the point where she saw no other way but to use those powers. Excluding her is not an option. We failed as a team, and now we gotta work on fixing it. As a team. Now – ask me what I’m going to do about Captain America’s Candy Crush addiction.”

-

When Peter came home after school the next day, Rhodey was waiting at the dinner table. He had tea ready, again. “How was your day?”

Peter shrugged. He wasn’t sure why Rhodey was always so interested in his day. School was nothing more than something he just had to get through. And explaining how he’d scrubbed Kathy’s bathroom floor after school wouldn’t exactly make for great conversation either.

“A lot of homework?” Rhodey probed.

“I never really do the homework,” Peter murmured.

Rhodey lifted his eyebrows. He probably thought Peter was just being one of those recalcitrant teenagers who thought he was ‘too cool for school’. It wasn’t like that. Peter didn’t do his homework because it simply wasn’t worth his time; he never learned anything from it. Thankfully, Rhodey didn’t start lecturing him about following the rules. Peter really didn’t need anyone getting up in his business, not even Rhodey.

“What will you do this afternoon, then?” Rhodey asked, instead.

Peter shrugged. “I found an old radio in a dumpster. I’ll probably take that apart.”

Rhodey hummed. “Sounds like something Tony would do back when he was in high school.”

Peter frowned at the table. He didn’t particularly want to have anything in common with stupid Stark.

He glanced up when he heard a noise and was surprised to see Wanda Maximoff shuffle into the room, Steve following in her wake. As far as Peter knew, she had hidden away in her room since Lagos. He had never even caught a glimpse of her before today. Judging from the look on Rhodey’s face, he was just as surprised.

Wanda smiled when she caught sight of Peter. “Afternoon.”

“Hi,” Peter said, not really knowing what else to say.

“Tea?” Rhodey asked.

Instead of responding, she picked up a mug from the kitchen counter and seated herself next to Rhodey. Steve sat down, too. As Rhodey poured them both a cup of tea, Wanda looked Peter up and down.

“You’ve made quite a name for yourself already,” she said, looking amused. “You’re ‘in charge’ now, are you?”

“I guess.”

“I read another article about you today,” she said. “It was, ah, interesting. Lifted my spirits.”

BANG.

The door leading from the lobby flew open. “I am obsessed with BUNNY RABBITS?”

Peter rolled his eyes. Another temper tantrum. Why was that not a surprise? He turned to throw a casual glance at Stark, who stomped up to the table, fuming like an enraged rhino.

“C’mon, dude,” Peter said. “People like reading about shit like that. It makes you look human. And you could use that, after all these years in your ivory tower.”

“What’s this about?” Steve asked, his voice authoritative.

Stark slapped the New York Examiner down in front of him. Peter saw the headline flash by; ‘WHAT WILL SPIDER-MAN DO ABOUT THE RABBITS?’ He bit his lip to keep himself from smiling too widely. Steve picked up the paper and began to read.

“I need to discuss this with Rhodey,” Stark bit out. “So Parker: get out.”

“Why should I go? I was here first.”

“Because it’s my house. Go to your room.”

Peter casually leaned back in his seat. Stark seemed to have forgotten that he had no power over him whatsoever. “Or what?”

“There is no ‘or’. Just get out.”

“Make me,” Peter said lazily.

Stark stepped forward and made a move as though he was about to grab Peter by the arm. Peter quickly leaned away from him, clenching his fists. “Touch me and I’ll break your nose!”

“Back off, Tony,” Rhodey warned. “You don’t want to go down that road. Come on, can’t we sit in an office somewhere?”

Stark stomped off without another word. Rhodey stood up with a sigh and followed his friend.

“Fucking kid throwing me out my own living room,” Stark grumbled once he probably thought he was out of Peter’s earshot.

“Not much we can do, Tony,” Peter heard Rhodey reply, and he was damn right about that. “None of us are his parents. Let’s just give him his space and avoid conflict.”

A door fell shut.

Wanda sat up a little straighter in her seat. “I liked what you said in that article,” she said softly. “About fixing this as a team.”

Peter gave her a nod.

“What is Candy Crush?” Steve asked.

-

Nick Fury should just move into the damn compound. It felt like a day didn’t go by without him showing up. Usually in the middle of dinner. This evening, he barged out of the elevator just after dinner, while Natasha and Vision were still doing the dishes. Apparently, even climbing the one flight of stairs down from the parking garage was beneath His Majesty.

Peter usually escaped back to his room right after finishing his meal, but tonight he had opted to hang around the living area a little longer. He was certainly regretting that now.

Because of course, Tony Stark immediately saw an opportunity to complain about Peter some more. “I thought you told him not to go off script?”

Fury waved a hand. “What, the rabbit thing? Please, the press has written way worse things about you. If anything, this story makes you sound like a nice guy. I think the kid did you a favor.”

“Yeah, Stark,” Peter said. “You ought to thank me.”

Stark ignored him. “It’s not just that. He’s a nuisance, he’s intolerable.”

“I don’t know what to tell you, Stark. People are taking this development very well, even Thaddeus Ross seemed willing to discuss new alternatives now that Spider-Man is supposedly in charge. So you’re just going to have to deal with him.”

Before Stark could protest any further, Fury pushed past him and seated himself on the coffee table right in front of Peter, planting both hands on his knees and leaning forward. “Now; to business. I believe the new suit works fine, yes?”

“Sure,” Peter said slowly. He didn’t like to say anything positive about Stark’s tech when Stark himself was acting like such an uptight control freak. But the truth was, the suit was working really well.

“The only thing that is not Stark-made is the content of those web shooters. Which is a concern.”

Right. This crap again. Peter folded his arms across his chest. “No it isn’t.”

“Where do you get your web fluid, Parker?”

“None of your business.”

“We can’t have some secret supplier knowing your identity.”

Peter gave him a frosty stare. “My identity is safe. You’ll just have to trust me on that.”

“If you don’t start talking, we will-“

“You will nothing,” Peter snapped, “because you need me to convince the UN. If you throw me in jail, you can say bye-bye to your little Avengers experiment. And I’m here, aren’t I? I’m backing you up. But anything else you want from me, you can kiss my ass.”

Tony Stark made a triumphant little noise that clearly said ‘what did I tell ya?’.

Fury didn’t look angry, though. If anything, Peter thought he almost looked impressed. “Very well, kid. It’s your responsibility, then. If you get busted because your little supplier stabbed you in the back, don’t expect us to bail you out.”

He resolutely turned his back on Peter, letting his gaze wander from one Avenger to the other, before it finally landed on Wanda, who was half-hiding behind Steve. “Next order of business; there’s the charity event next week, for that museum in Lagos. I think Maximoff should make the public announcement for it, that seems appropriate.”

Wanda’s face flooded with clear panic.

“She only just stepped out of her room,” Stark said. “You want her to go on TV? That does not seem appropriate.”

“Are you going to do it, instead?” Fury challenged. “Because last time I checked, you preferred everyone else doing your dirty work for you.”

“I’ll do it,” Stark said indifferently.

Fury nodded. “Settled, then. Steve, can we discuss a few things privately?”

Steve shrugged his consent and Fury stood, sweeping from the room without a single word of goodbye. Stark looked like he wanted to stick out his tongue at Fury’s back, and Peter felt like he could relate to him for the first time in his life.

“Thank you, Tony,” Wanda murmured.

Stark gave her a curt nod.

-

Peter was angry. Really freaking angry.

Some kids at school had spray painted his locker. A teacher had yelled at him for being ‘a waste of oxygen’. Kathy hadn’t been in a great mood either and had snapped at him a few times. Everybody was mad at him, and so he was mad at everybody.

And he felt a little betrayed when, over tea that afternoon, Rhodey started prodding him about his web fluid. It wasn’t even a little subtle, because Tony Stark was sitting only a few feet away on the couch, pointedly looking the other way but clearly listening in.

“I just think it’s safer when we know how many people are involved,” Rhodey explained in gentle tones. “I really think it’s best if you let us know how this stuff is being manufactured.”

Peter narrowed his eyes. He could tolerate Rhodey as long as the man didn’t get on his case. But he wasn’t about to let this guy tell him what to do, just because they had tea every afternoon. “Or what?”

Rhodey held up his hands. “There is no ‘or’. I’m just suggesting.”

“Well, the answer is no.”

“That’s fine,” Rhodey said calmly.

Peter set his teacup down with slightly more force than necessary, the tea sloshing up to the rim. “I think I’ll just go to my room.”

He slid off his chair, snatched up his backpack and moved to the stairway.

He was already at the top of the stairs when his super-hearing picked up on Rhodey muttering: “I tried,” and Tony huffing in response: “Barely. How’s your back feeling after all that bending over backwards?”

“You heard the kid, Tony. He doesn’t listen to me. He’s just nice to me as long as I’m nice to him. If I alienate him too, it’ll only make things worse.”

Peter pressed his lips together and marched on.

When he reached his room, he threw the backpack against the wall so hard that some paint chips came off. It were times like these when he always wished that he could wake up tomorrow and be the only person left in the world, so he wouldn’t have to deal with anyone ever again.

He grabbed his dingy old laptop from the desk and crawled under the covers of his bed, pulling the blanket up over his head and plugging in his headphones to wall himself off from the world, before browsing for a video. He knew from experience that silly cartoons aimed at kids were the only thing he could deal with when he was in a mood like this.

Said mood had by no means improved when dinner-time rolled around.

For the first time since moving to the compound, he decided not to have dinner with the other Avengers, but to wait until later that evening and cook something for himself. He just couldn’t deal with talking to anyone right now.

He knew that there would still be Avengers in the living area when he went down later that evening. But he hadn’t expected to step into the kitchen to find Tony, Steve, Natasha and Vision all gathered around the dinner table, having a heated debate. Peter heard them drop Wanda’s name at least three times.

They immediately broke it off when Peter entered the room.

“Mr. Parker,” Stark greeted him curtly.

“Just getting some dinner,” Peter said.

“We put some left-overs in the fridge,” Stark said calmly, folding his arms.

Peter nodded, swinging the fridge door open. The four Avengers waited in complete silence while Peter heated up the left-overs in the microwave.

Some eyebrows were raised when Peter casually set his plate down on the dinner table and sat down to tuck in.

“Peter,” Vision said, “We have to discuss something important. I think it’s best if you go to your room.”

“Yeah, I don’t really care what you think,” Peter informed him.

“Peter,” Natasha started in a warning voice.

“Don’t care what you think either,” Peter said, raising his voice. Why couldn’t these people leave him the hell alone? “I don’t care what any of you assholes think, in case that wasn’t already clear. And none of you can tell me what to do, capisce?”

Stark was turning red again. And this time, he wasn’t the only one.

But before, any of them could say anything, Pepper entered the room. “Ah,” she said when she spotted Peter. “Good. We wondered where you were at dinner.”

Peter shrugged.

“You asked me to come up?” Pepper asked Steve.

“Well, we were discussing… Doctor Beinart’s findings,” Steve said, glancing at Peter with a slight frown.

“Oh, I see,” Pepper said, her eyes flitting to Peter. “But that is a private discussion, so Peter: please go to your room.”

Peter leaned back in his chair. “Nope. I’m staying here.”

Pepper narrowed her eyes. “You will go to your room and finish your dinner there.”

“Or what?”

“Or,” Pepper said sweetly, “I’ll come down to your school tomorrow and make the secretary announce over the intercom that you forgot your orange slices at home and mummy is bringing them over for you.”

Peter’s mouth dropped open. Pepper’s smile turned wider.

A dead silence around them as all the Avengers watched their stand-off with bated breath.

Then, Peter dropped his fork onto his plate with a deep scowl, pushed his chair back and stomped from the room, taking his plate with him. Because he preferred to finish his dinner in peace, anyways! This did not mean that Pepper had any power of him. It just meant… It just meant…

Well, damn it.

Chapter Text

“Feet off the couch, Parker!”

Peter turned a page in his book. “Fuck you, Stark.”

“You’re such a little shit,” Stark growled.

“Bite me.”

It was Peter’s first Saturday at the compound, and being around the Avengers for a whole day certainly was… interesting. Especially since stupid Stark seemed to take offence at every single thing Peter did.

Pepper entered the living room, scribbling on a notepad. She glanced around, then approached them. “Ah, Peter. There you are. Shoes of the couch, please.”

Peter turned, dropping his feet to the floor. Not because he was letting Pepper tell him what to do or anything. Just to mess with Tony Stark.

Tony Stark, whose skin was now flushing with anger.

Pepper sat on the couch where Peter’s feet had been. “There is a charity event next Friday, proceeds going to the construction of a museum in Lagos. It’s important that it goes well. And I want you to attend.”

“If it’s important that it goes well, maybe don’t invite him,” Stark scathed.

Pepper threw him a disapproving glance, and he sagged in his seat, muttering under his breath.

“Do you have anything appropriate to wear?” Pepper asked, turning back to Peter.

“Sure. I’ll whip out my tuxedo,” Peter cynically replied, keeping his eyes trained on his book.

“It doesn’t have to be over the top. Do you have a nice button down shirt? That’ll do.”

“A button down shirt,” Peter slowly repeated, glancing up at her. “Is that, like, any shirt with buttons?”

“We’ll buy you something new,” she decided. “Maybe you and Tony can – No, never mind, I’ll ask Rhodey.”

“I can get him a suit,” Stark protested.

“I’ll go with Rhodey,” Peter said.

Stark rolled his eyes, then pointed at the empty cereal bowl that had been sitting on the coffee table all morning. “You gonna wash that, or what?”

Peter ignored him entirely, turning his focus back to his book.

“Peter,” Pepper said. “Wash your bowl, please.”

Peter put down his book, calmly picked up his bowl and moved to the kitchen, grabbing a sponge.

That was clearly the last straw for Stark, who slammed his fist down onto the armrest of his chair. “This kid is driving me up the walls with his little games!”

“He’s just trying to get to you,” Pepper said evenly. “And you’re letting him.”

“What am I supposed to do, let him walk all over me?”

“You’re supposed to be the adult. He’s fifteen, Tony. How old are you?”

Peter turned to give Tony Stark a wide grin.

Stark narrowed his eyes.

-

“Is this everything you own?”

Peter pulled his large sweater a little tighter around himself as he glanced at the small pile of clothes taking up about five percent of his closet. “I have a pair of pants and some underwear in the dryer. But they’re probably not up to your standard of charity-event-appropriate wear.”

“You need all new clothes,” Pepper established. “This absolutely does not do. Rhodey told me he is free after lunch. Can you go shopping with him then, or do you have a lot of homework?”

Peter couldn’t remember the last time he had put any serious effort into his homework. All of it was so ridiculously easy that if teachers ever called on him, he could usually bluff his way through it. “No. I’m free.”

He didn’t think about the repercussions this would have, until he was already standing in the middle of a large clothing story, with Rhodey dumping a pile of T-shirts into his arms.

None of this was new. He had been to enough temporary foster homes between the ages of nine and twelve, where well-meaning adults had dragged him along to buy new clothes. Especially once his growth spurt kicked in and any new pair of shoes only fitted him for about half a year.

This was just more of the same. But there was a nagging little voice in the back of his head that didn’t let up. “Who is paying for this?”

“Don’t worry about that,” Rhodey said. “Just go try them on.”

“I’m not worried. I just want to know.”

Rhodey shrugged. “Tony and Pepper share a bank account. So technically, they both paid.”

“Oh,” Peter said, frowning a little. Pepper and Tony weren’t exactly lovey-dovey around the other Avengers, so up till this point, he hadn’t even been sure if they were actually together or if that was just something the Paparazzi had made up. But sharing a bank account was definitely a couples-thing. He could deal with owing Pepper, but he didn’t like the idea of being in Tony Stark’s debt. No such thing as a free lunch, after all. If he had thought about this in advance, he would have argued that he’d rather go to the event bare-ass naked than have Stark pay for his outfit. But now they were already here and Rhodey had taken time out of his day to help him.

“I assure you they can bear to miss the money,” Rhodey said with humor in his voice.

That wasn’t really the point. The point was that Peter wanted to know what was expected of him in return. But Rhodey probably didn’t know.

He tried on the shirts. They were all perfectly fine. It wasn’t as if he had high standards. He did have an immediate favorite, though: A black T-shirt with a green leaf printed on the front, and the phrase ‘Biology: it really grows on you!’. That was kinda funny.

Mrs. McNail, a lady Peter lived with for a few months when he was ten, had once gotten him a bunch of similar shirt with science puns. Peter had worn them until they were threadbare and he had been forced to throw them out. Kathy didn’t have the money to buy new clothes, so if Peter ever got anything, it was from thrift shops and they usually didn’t have the exact thing you were looking for. So he hadn’t thought about getting specific shirts like these in a while.

He stepped out of the dressing room and dumped the pile of shirts back into Rhodey’s waiting arms. “They are all fine.”

“Okay,” Rhodey said. “But which ones do you like? Because then I can find more of those.”

“Doesn’t matter. Just pick whatever.”

Rhodey cocked an eyebrow. “You have a billionaire paying for your clothes. Just take advantage of it and pick out what you like.”

Peter felt tempted. “But you’re probably in a hurry.”

“No I’m not. I got nothing to do all day. So, what do you like? I know there’s something, I can see it in your face.”

-

“You have new clothes,” Kathy observed.

Peter looked down, running a hand down the front of his new shirt. It had a picture of Einstein wearing big headphones. “Yeah.” He hoped it didn’t make Kathy feel guilty.

“That’s nice,” she merely said. “That reminds me; I got you a new phone. Don’t worry, it’s an old one from a friend. She gave it to me for free.”

Peter nodded, feeling relieved. He always left his SHIELD phone in his bedroom, on the night stand. He didn’t know if Fury was actually using that phone to track him, but he definitely felt better about carrying around some old phone of Kathy’s friend.

Peter had kept up the same routine for the last few days. He went to school, then dropped by Kathy’s place to bring her groceries and help her around the house, then went home where Rhodey would be waiting for him with a cup of tea. After dinner, he’d simply take a bus back to downtown New York, find a quiet rooftop to change into his Spider-suit and let his instincts guide him from there.

It was far from perfect, but it was… tolerable. He could keep this up until Fury had worked out whatever he needed to work out.

And then Friday rolled around.

-

“Wide end over the top, leave around four inches of space. With your left hand, take the wide end.”

Damnit, even with the video, Peter couldn’t properly tie a tie to save his life. Whatever happened to ‘a nice button down shirt will do’? No, Rhodey had gone and gotten him fitted for a whole tux, with tiny pockets everywhere, and three different ties to chose from.

Kathy always said: ‘you can put a tiara on a monkey; it’s still a monkey’. Peter sure felt like a monkey right now.

“Having some trouble?”

Peter turned around and scowled when he saw Tony Stark leaning against the doorframe of the bedroom door, the amusement clear in his eyes. Peter turned away from him. “Piss off.” He didn’t need Stark laughing at him right now.

“Need some help?’

“Not from you.”

“Come on, kid, I can get it done in ten seconds and then I’m out of your hair.”

Peter sighed, yanking the tie loose again. “All right.”

“So can I come in?”

Peter frowned, then nodded, a little thrown that Stark had actually asked him permission to enter the room. He got off the bed as the man approached.

Stark took the tie from him and frowned down at the tight knot in it. He started to pick at it to loosen it. “First off, kid, you can’t wear a tie without having your shirt buttoned all the way to the top.”

Peter buttoned up his shirt while Tony Stark smoothened out the tie. He put it around Peter’s neck, crossing one end over the other, then frowned and crossed them the other way around, then blinked. “Okay, I can’t do this in reverse. We need to stand in front of a mirror and I stand behind you or something.”

“If you can’t help me you might as well leave, Stark!”

“Stop complaining, stand over here, Parker!”

Peter turned to stand in front of the mirror. “Why aren’t you dressed up?” He asked while Stark made a second attempt at tying the tie.

“I’m not going. I’m holing up in my workshop. Chin up.”

Peter lifted his head a little. “Why can’t I do that, too?”

“Become a billionaire,” Stark said with a smirk. “Then you can do what you want.” He pulled the knot tight and turned Peter around by his shoulders, straightening out the collar. “There you go. Half Windsor knot. You look very handsome.”

“Screw you, Stark.”

“For God’s sake, can we please get to a first-name basis already? Not because I like you so much, but because ‘Stark’ just reminds me of my old man.”

“You call me ‘Parker’, too,” Peter pointed out.

“Peter,” Tony said, a ghost of a smile on his lips.

“Can’t you tell people I have to work with you in the workshop on an extremely important project?” Peter tried.

“You in the workshop?” Tony repeated.

“I can help you.”

“Oh, really? Do you know how to fix my magnetic field generator?”

“I’m sure I could if you’d let me take a look.”

Tony chuckled. “Yeah, okay, kid. Just go on, you’ll be late.”

Peter blew out a long breath. It seemed there was no way around this.

Tony patted him on the back. “You’ll be fine. There’s free food, some nice people coming. A few people might bring their children. And then maybe this weekend you can come down to the workshop and I’ll show you how I made your Spider-suit. That is, provided you don’t spend the whole day yelling at me.”

“Okay,” Peter mumbled, resigned, because it actually would be cool to learn more about how his suit was made. So he could call a temporary truce with Stark for that.

“Go on then, skedaddle.”

-

The event was held on the third floor, where Peter actually hadn’t even been before. Tony was kinda right. It wasn’t as bad as Peter had feared. It was boring beyond belief, of course, because all these people did was stand around and talk. But they weren’t all snobbish and stuck up; a lot of them were actually pretty friendly, and very interested to hear about his school and the fake internship that Pepper had invented as an explanation for why he was here in the first place. And the free food was pretty damn good. Still, though…

“Can I at least have some champagne?” He begged Pepper.

“No, you may not,” Pepper said. “You may have what all the other kids are having, which is lemonade. And don’t think you can sneak one in behind my back: I instructed all the waiters to keep the alcohol away from you.”

Snooze fest.

He aimlessly wandered around a little. He got pulled into a conversation by a curious couple who wanted to know everything about him, which meant Peter had to lie his ass off. He was in the middle of quite a detailed description of his daily tasks as an intern when he was mercifully rescued.

“Excuse me, Mr. and Mrs. Henderson?” A voice cut in, and a stately man with grey hair and a deep-red suit stepped forward.

“Mr. Galloway,” the woman jovially replied. “So nice to see you.”

“Yes, yes. A waiter just informed me that a blue Maserati is about to get towed, I believe that’s yours?”

“Oh, goodness!” She exclaimed, and the two of them rushed off.

Mr. Galloway grinned at Peter. “I pull this every event. Someone always falls for it. Not sure who they think would be towing their car on private property,” he held out a hand for Peter to shake. “Haven’t seen you before. Did you come here with your parents?”

“No, no. I’m an intern, actually.”

“Young man like you at an event like this. No one you know. You must be bored out of your mind.”

“Well, maybe I wouldn’t be if they’d at least let me have some champagne.”

Galloway chuckled, his eyes crinkling at the corners. “You know what? Let me see if I can help you there.”

He was gone for only a few minutes and returned with a tall glass of cool champagne which he pushed into Peter’s hand.

“Thanks, man,” Peter said, turning his back on the crowd to make sure Pepper wouldn’t catch him.

“Between us, right? Don’t want to get into trouble with your boss.”

“Neither do I,” Peter assured him, taking a long sip.

“Here comes Mr. Ramirez,” Galloway murmured. “We’re both agreed you’re drinking apple cider, right?”

“Right.”

“Gareth!” A short, fat man with dark hair and sunglasses exclaimed, and he grabbed Galloway’s hand, pumping it up and down. “Such a long time… who’s this you brought with you?”

“He is not with me. This is Peter, an intern at Stark Industries. Peter, this is Samuel Ramirez. He’s big in solar-powered cars.”

“You intern at S.I., huh?” Ramirez asked, immediately reaching into his pocket. “That’s interesting. Here’s my email address. Send me your CV, I might have something for you when you finish here.”

“You and your business cards,” Galloway huffed.

Peter carefully took the business card, blinking to read the name. He noticed now that his eyesight was a little fuzzy and he felt a little drunk, which was weird because he had only taken a few sips of his champagne.

“Gotta stay on top, Gareth,” Ramirez said. “Gotta stay on top. You don’t mind, do you, Gareth?”

And before Galloway could respond, Ramirez had hooked his arm around Peter’s, and led him away. “You know, Stark and I have what you would call ‘healthy competition’,” he informed Peter. “Sometimes he steals my employees, sometimes I steal his. Here’s a proposition: if you manage to send me some juicy business secrets along with your CV, I’ll give you a nice signing bonus. Again; all healthy competition, of course. Nothing wrong with that.”

Peter was barely listening at this point. Something was definitely wrong with him. Everything was slowly going blurry. He felt like he was going to faint, and Ramirez’ arm around his shoulders was the only thing keeping him standing. His spider-sense was tingling ominously.

Get out of here. An inner voice told him.

Peter set the champagne glass down. “Excuse me, I need the bathroom,” he told Mr. Ramirez.

Focusing on putting one foot in front of the other, he made his way past the other guests and into the hallway. His instincts told him not to enter the first bathroom he saw but to keep walking, as far as possible, to find a quieter bathroom where others wouldn’t find him.

He knew how fast alcohol passed into and out of his system, but still, there was no way he could have gotten this drunk from just half a glass of champagne.

He made it to a quiet bathroom before a wave of dizziness overtook him and he couldn’t walk another step. With trembling hands, he tried to run the tap to splash some water into his face. It didn’t help at all.

Peter braced himself against the wall when he suddenly felt someone moving right behind him. “All right, there?” It was Galloway.

“I… I don’t feel so good.”

“That’s okay, son. I got you. Just relax.”  A strong arm wrapped around him, and Peter’s spider-sense went haywire, which only added to the feeling of disorientation. He was pushed into a stall and heard the door falling shut behind him. He could feel Galloway’s breath on his neck, hips pressing up against him. No, no no no, this wasn’t happening. Panic began flooding his airway.

Get out the voice in his head repeated, over and over. Get out get out get out.

But there was an arm around his chest, he was squished between Galloway and the wall, his cheek pressed against the clammy tiles, and he wasn’t even sure where the door was, anymore.

“Reeeelax,” Galloway breathed, his voice sounding thick and overly sweet, like syrup. “I gave you some really good stuff, don’t fight it.”

“N-no,” Peter managed, fear swimming his veins.

Get out get out get out.

There was a hand under his shirt now, creeping up his stomach, and Peter wanted to throw up.

Galloway shifted his stance, slipping his arm down, and somehow Peter found some leeway in that moment. And he put every bit force he still had left, from all the way down to his fucking toes, behind the elbow he slammed into Galloway’s face.

A sickening crack filled the air and Galloway yelled out in pain as he fell back against the opposite wall. Peter found the door handle and pushed, stumbling from the stall. Darkness was swimming around the edges of his vision, but he made it past the rows of sinks and into the hallway.

Get out get out get out.

The elevator was only twenty feet away, but moving towards it was like wading through quicksand. He was almost there when he heard noises behind him. Someone; moving around.

He lurched forward into the elevator, slammed the button for Tony’s workshop in the basement, turned around and his stomach dropped to his feet.

Galloway was stumbling down the hallway; close, almost there, cold rage edged into his blood-splattered face, already reaching out a hand to slip it between the elevator doors.

But the doors slid firmly shut and the elevator creaked as it began its descent.

Peter’s legs gave out and he sagged to the floor. The ceiling was spinning, darkness overtaking him. He felt the elevator jolt again and he thought he heard someone call his name. And that was about the last memory still lingering in the air when he woke up in a pristine white bed in the medical bay.

It was quiet.

It was dark.

Peter noticed he was still wearing the tuxedo.

You’re okay, he told himself. You made it out.

Was it still the same evening? It probably was. Peter knew from experience how quickly the effects of drugs wore off for him. Whatever Galloway had sneaked into his champagne, it couldn’t have lasted long. Did that mean the event was still going? Did that mean-

“And the award for ‘screwing the Pooch’ goes to… Peter Parker!”

Peter jolted upright in bed, only now noticing the dark figure of Tony Stark by his bedside.

“For making a high-stakes charity event a lot more interesting by getting doped out of his mind,” Tony continued, his voice hard, every word bitter. “I don’t see the point of taking drugs when they pass through your system this quickly. They didn’t even show up on Dr. Cho’s tests anymore. What did you take?”

What did you take?

Right. Everyone apparently thought he had been popping some pills. That was… Well, actually, that was just completely, totally fine. He’d rather they think that than having to tell them what really happened. “Does it matter?”

Tony schooled his expression, his posture becoming deceptively relaxed. “No. No, it doesn’t matter. Everyone is disappointed in you, but you probably don’t even care.”

Peter turned away from him, burying his face in the blankets. He didn’t care about Tony getting pissed off, but Pepper? Rhodey?

He couldn’t tell them what had really happened, though. So this would have to do. “What time is it?”

It stayed quiet for a few seconds. “You just don’t give a shit, do you?” Tony then asked.

“Not really, no.”

He heard the noise of Tony getting up from his seat. “Well, then neither do I. See you around, Parker.”

Yeah, sure. Peter preferred to be alone right now anyways. And if Tony thought Peter cared about what he thought of him… well, he didn’t.

The door fell shut and Peter was left to his thoughts. He wondered idly what had happened to Galloway. Had the man simply scrubbed the blood of his face and returned to the party as if nothing happened? Was he still in the building right now? The thought made him feel sick.

Suddenly, he wanted to hug someone. He wished Kathy were here. They didn’t ever really hug much, but they did sometimes and that was more than anyone else had done for him since he was nine. Peter squeezed his eyes shut to force the tears back down and told himself to stop being such a pathetic cry-baby. He had gotten through way worse, and he’d get through this, too.

Chapter Text

The weekend was tense. Peter tried to stay out of the Avengers’ way as much as possible, but none of them seemed inclined to seek him out, either. Rhodey wasn’t at the dinner table when Peter came home from visiting Kathy in the afternoon. Pepper was unusually absent, too. Tony gave him the stink-eye whenever they passed each other in the hallway. Not that Peter cared what Tony thought of him. He didn’t care at all. He couldn’t care less, in fact.

A few times, Peter considered just escaping this strained atmosphere. Finding a place to squat, changing his identity and hoping they wouldn’t find him. But then he’d have to stop seeing Kathy, too. Because Fury would definitely keep her house under surveillance and bust him as soon as he dropped by. So instead, he just hid away in his room.

He was almost relieved when Fury dropped by on Sunday evening, announcing that he had a new mission for the whole team. Finally, it felt like all attention wasn’t on Peter as they converged around a large table in one of the offices.

“We’re going to Philadelphia tomorrow,” Fury reported as he laid out a map of the city. “A while ago, SHIELD deliberately leaked false information to a suspected double spy. The information spoke of a person of interest being transferred to a new prison tomorrow. We have every reason to assume that the infamous Red Piper gang have taken the bait and are preparing an ambush. Hopefully with their whole team, so we can round them up all at once.” He pointed at a red line running across the map. “This is the route they think we’ll take. We’ve seen their people scouting out the terrain over here on this bridge, and over there by the former harbor. I think it’s more likely that they’ll ambush the vehicle near the harbor, since there’s less traffic, less people around. But we can’t be one hundred percent sure. Either of those places could be their target.”

“They aren’t expecting us?”

Fury shook his head. “They think their man is being moved under the radar, as discreetly as possible. We let them believe there will be a few guards, because we wanted them to come in with their whole team. But they certainly won’t expect any Avengers. That doesn’t mean they should be underestimated. This group was responsible for some major heists into government buildings, and they’re not afraid to use the big guns.”

Fury planted his hands on the table to look at each of them intently. “I probably don’t need to remind you that we’ve got a lot riding on this. This is not just about catching a group of people we’ve been wanting to catch for a long time, but about the entire future of the Avengers. If this goes well, we’re on track. If this goes badly… we might as well start packing because we won’t get another chance. That’s why I want everyone in on this. We can’t fail.”

Steve took the floor. “Nat, you’ll be our look-out at the bridge. We’ll position you here, don’t let anything get past you. Parker: you’ll stay low to the ground, keep civilians safe, but don’t directly engage with our targets. Rhodey, Sam-”

“Can’t do that,” Fury spoke up. “The public thinks Spider-Man is in charge. You can’t sideline him, it’ll look strange.”

“You’re not suggesting we put him in the middle of this mess?” Rhodey objected. “Nick, he is fifteen. He is inexperienced. Just a reminder: if he gets hurt, this whole farce is over. More than that; the people will probably blame us for getting their favorite hero injured, and we’ll be in a worse place than we were before.”

“Fine,” Fury grunted. “There has to be a middle ground. A position where he is relatively safe, but still seems like he is in charge.”

“Maybe Steve isn’t too far off, though,” Peter suggested carefully. All eyes turned to him. Peter swallowed, but scraped his courage together. “You got into trouble in Lagos because innocent bystanders got hurt. The public thinks I’m in charge, so if I stick to helping the civilians, I don’t think it will look that strange. If anything, it will send them a message that the Avengers have made public safety their top priority.”

It stayed quiet for a moment.

“Might work,” Fury then admitted.

“And I think Wanda should have the same task as me,” Peter continued. “She needs to show the people that she’s not a danger. That she can protect them.”

“All right,” Steve said with a nod. “You and Wanda take position here and here, at the outer edges of the harbor, and keep an eye out for civilians. Rhodey, Vision, Sam; you’re our fastest team members. The three of you wait over here, right between the harbor and the bridge. Whichever spot they pick for their ambush; you can get there fast. Natasha takes position at the bridge, I take position at the harbor. And Iron-Man will be in the back of the armored van the Red Pipers will try to ambush.”

“Oh sure,” Tony said. “Always happy to be close to the action. And who, may I ask, will be driving me straight into gunfire?”

“No driver. SHIELD will operate it from a distance.”

“Really leaving me to dig my own way out, huh? Sounds good.”

“I have a feeling you’ll be fine,” Steve said with a slight smile. “This happens tomorrow, crack of dawn.”

“What about Peter’s school?” Rhodey asked with a frown.

Fury waved a hand. “He’s already been reported sick.”

Rhodey looked unhappy about that, but didn’t object.

-

Peter awoke the next morning from a night of fitful sleep. Not because of today’s mission; his dreams had been filled with images of Galloway, cornering him in bathroom stalls with his big, slimy hands.

Peter shivered, kicking the blankets away. He really needed to get over himself. He was supposed to face a whole group of super-criminals today. He couldn’t let someone else get into his head like this. Nothing even happened. He barely touched you. It shouldn't be hitting him this hard, it really shouldn't.

He glanced at the clock. It was a little past four a.m.. They were supposed to leave at five. Plenty of time to take a really long shower and drown his thoughts.

Peter stayed in the shower for almost half an hour before getting dressed and making his way downstairs. All the other Avengers had gathered in the living area, looking far more awake than Peter felt.

“You don’t look great,” Tony commented.

“Bad night,” Peter muttered.

“You’re not high right now, are you?”

“Fuck you, Stark.”

-

The deserted harbor was grey and cold and quiet, and had been that way for the past hour. Peter shifted his position to keep his legs from falling asleep.

They had spotted three gang members so far. Two men were sitting in a black motorboat on the river, bobbing up and down in the waves, waiting. They had been there when Peter and the others arrived. A third man had arrived about half an hour ago, installing himself on a rooftop with a bazooka. A bazooka.

Peter had dealt with a lot of shit in his short career as Spider-Man, but never a bazooka.

He was sitting at one end of the harbor, hiding between two abandoned office buildings, close to the water. From his position, he could keep an eye on the black motorboat. Behind him, cars whizzed by on the large outer ring road. Early risers, on their way to work. These were the people he needed to keep out of the line of fire. He couldn’t even see Steve or Wanda from his position, but he knew they were somewhere; Steve had reportedly made his way into the building that the Bazooka guy was lying on top of. Wanda was sitting somewhere at the other end of the harbor.

“I hear an engine on the river,” Peter reported quietly over the comm, moving forward a little so he could peek around the building.

Steve responded fast. “Another motorboat?”

“Yes, but not like the one already here.”

“Civilian?”

“Maybe.”

Tony voice came in, the low hum of a car engine in the background: “I’m about to pass the bridge. If nothing happens there, we can safely assume it will happen at the harbor.”

“I think we can safely assume that either way,” Steve muttered. “We got a guy on a rooftop with an RPG7. We got two guys staking out in a motorboat on the river.”

“Grrreat,” Tony said, rolling his ‘r’. “Just a heads-up; you might consider this an oversight, but I never thought to test how well my suits holds up against a freaking bazooka.”

“They won’t fire it while you’re inside the van,” Steve reasoned. “They think their man is inside. They might plan to extract their guy and then blow up the van.”

“Thanks, Cap. That makes me feel all warm and safe.”

The sound of the engine grew, until a small boat with a lone woman on board sputtered into view. A civilian, Peter concluded. She gave a polite wave at the two men in the motorboat. One of them gave a stiff nod in return. Peter looked on as the tiny boat merrily made its way down the stream, chugging on, the sound slowly fading away.

No problem there, then.

“Passed the bridge without incident,” Tony reported. “Get ready.”

“That’s it, then,” Steve said. “It’s going to happen at the harbor. Rhodey, Vision, Sam, start moving this way. Stay out of sight. We got eyes on three men, but there’s gotta be more of them. We don’t want them spotting us before we spot them.”

The two men in the boat appeared to be receiving instructions, too. One of them pulled a blanket away and passed a gun to his companion.

Then, a gust of wind carried a noise Peter couldn’t immediately place. He turned his head, focusing his hearing. Voices. Loud voices. Laughter. The low, steadily thrumming sound of music.

He jumped up against the wall of the office building and nimbly climbed up until he reached the flat rooftop. Pressing himself flat against the roof to remain hidden from view, he scanned the area until he spotted it:

A fancy, sleek white yacht approached on the river. Around thirty people were crammed together on the deck. Half of them were shirtless. Music was blasting from speakers.

What the hell were they doing here so early? Well… on second thought, maybe for them it was just really late. They certainly looked like they had been partying and drinking on this yacht all night. Peter saw that the two people in the black motorboat had noticed them, too, quickly stuffing their guns back under the blanket and exchanging furious whispers.

This was probably not going to end well. “Wanda, heads up. Civilians incoming on the river.”

“How many?” Steve asked.

“I’d say at least thirty.”

Steve cursed. “Tony, how far out are you?”

“About four minutes.”

The yacht was definitely not going fast enough to be out of sight by then.

“I can turn them around?” Wanda suggested.

“No,” Steve decided. “That might blow our cover. Just get them out as quickly as possible once the fighting starts. That’s what you’re here for.”

People on the yacht hollered. Some of them were waving beer bottles around. They seemed exactly like the sort of obnoxious people that Peter would usually give a wide berth. “Karen, see those assholes on that boat?”

“Are they evil assholes?” Karen asked. “I have four possible strategies for sinking their boat.”

“Nah, these aren’t the evil assholes that we fight. These are the obnoxious assholes we have to protect, okay?”

“Understood. Creating new ‘obnoxious asshole’ protocol.”

“At the current speed, how long until the yacht has passed us?”

“Approximately three minutes.”

That might be just good enough.

Peter shifted his position again and waited. Waited as the yacht approached; as the people on board yelled, cheered and sang songs. The two people in the motorboat steadily ignored the yacht, sitting stock still, even when a few people threw empty bottles at them.

“All hands on deck,” Steve instructed.

The self-driving armored vehicle calmly rolled around a corner. The two men in the black motorboat sat up a little straighter, glancing from the vehicle to the retreating yacht and back.

The yacht was floating past, slowly but steadily. If they didn’t do anything stupid… just kept sailing… they would stay out of this mess.

With screeching tires, two black vans with blinded windows approached from two different directions, cutting off both exit ways to the harbor. The doors flew open and no less than twelve men in balaclavas rushed out, surrounding Tony’s vehicle. One of them fired into the air, hollering: “Open the door!”

Panic immediately broke out on the yacht. People screamed, scrambled to hide, pushing each other out of the way. Peter turned his head the other way and spotted Steve sneaking up to the Bazooka guy on the roof. That left it up to Peter to keep a close eye on the two men still hiding away in the motorboat, and the civilians on the yacht.

“We’re here!” Rhodey announced. Three shadows flitted overhead, and on cue, the backdoors of Tony’s armored van burst open and Iron Man emerged, fully armored.

And then bullets really started flying.

At this point, the skipper navigating the yacht clearly panicked too, because the ship was slowly spinning out of control, now bobbing sideways down the stream, water splashing up against the side. Some people jumped overboard – those idiots; that just left them stuck right next to the action.

All this clearly displeased the two men in the black motorboat, who now saw the Avengers coming in from one side, and their escape route getting cut off on the other side by a rudderless yacht full of screaming witnesses. Peter saw them becoming restless, gripping their guns, and he knew the danger. Because much like a cornered cat, a panicked criminal could jump in strange directions.

“Wanda, they might open fire on those people. I think we need to act. Can you take care of the people? I’ll take care of the motorboat.”

“Got it,” Wanda replied and immediately, a flash of red light appeared out of nowhere, steadily nudging the yacht further downstream.

Trusting Wanda to take care of the people, Peter turned his full attention to the two men in the motorboat, who were firing up the engine, clearly planning to leave their team members behind and escape.

He jumped up and sprinted, ducking his head as bullets whizzed past. He didn’t count how many balaclava-guys had been taking out, how many were still firing away like crazy. His only job was to stop that guy in the motorboat who was currently cocking his gun.

He was only feet away from the motorboat, when the universe exploded around him with an enormous BANG that shook the ground beneath his feet, ripping through the building behind him. A wall came crumbling down. The shock wave sent him sprawling to the ground, splinters of wood and glass raining down around him.

“STEVE!” Someone yelled out over the comm.

“I got him – I got him,” Steve panted in response. “Bazooka is out.”

“Bit late, dude!”

His ears ringing, Peter managed to push himself to his knees. He blinked to clear his vision and saw the man on the motorboat aiming his gun at a drunk, shirtless guy who had clamped onto the side of his boat. Peter stumbled to his feet and did the only thing he could do; a clumsy jump straight onto the man’s back. He heard the gun go off before both of them were dunked into the water.

Peter knew his way around the tops of the highest buildings in the city, but he wasn’t nearly as agile in the water. The man was kicking at him, but Peter managed to wrap a strong arm around him and he fought his way back to the surface. They resurfaced, spluttering. Peter swatted the gun it out of the man’s hand, and let it sink down to the bottom of the murky river.

Holding on to the man’s collar with one hand, his free arm swung up to grasp onto the side of the motorboat whose engine was firing up as the last guy was trying to escape by himself. Red light flashed around him as another Obnoxious Asshole was lifted from the water by Wanda, his feet kicking the air.

Focusing on his own task, Peter lifted the now unarmed man from the water and flung him back into the motorboat, deliberately letting him smash into the other Evil Asshole who lost his footing. Both of them slipped to the bottom of the boat, heads bumping against each other, floundering around in a flurry of limbs as the boat rocked from side to side.

Peter heaved himself into the boat too and fired his webshooters. And again. And again, and again. Until the two men were left wrapped up in cocoons of webbing, completely immobilized, staring up at him.

He stepped over them and cut the spluttering engines, exhaling as the roaring noise suddenly died away.

He stopped a moment to catch his breath. The sound of gunfire had died away – or maybe Peter just wasn’t hearing it anymore.

“Wanda,” he gasped out. “Was anyone hit by the gunshot this guy fired off?”

“No one,” Wanda quietly assured him.

Panting, Peter stood up straighter to take in his surroundings.

The Avengers had managed to take out the whole balaclava-team; they were all lying face down on the concrete, neatly lined up as Sam and Tony held them at gunpoint. The yacht had docked, at a safe distance away. Most people seemed to have stumbled off board and were now lying around on the river bank. One young woman was throwing up into the river. Peter spotted Wanda standing on dry land, scanning the river with sharp eyes. Sirens wailed in the distance.

The motorboat calmly bobbed on the unruffled waters. The drunk, shirtless guy was still hanging onto the side, staring up at Peter with wide eyes.

-

Leaving a trail of water behind, Peter dragged the two cocooned guys along, dumping them next to the other evil assholes.

“Now that’s a sight,” Sam said with a grin.

The other Avengers converged around, as well. “Any injuries?” Steve asked Peter, glancing him up and down.

“M’fine,” Peter said, his teeth chattering together.

“A.I.: Heater.” Tony brusquely said, and instantly, all water evaporated from Peter’s suit in clouds of steam, and a comfortable warmth spread across his skin.

“Thanks,” Peter murmured, not looking up at Tony.

He turned when he heard a shuffling noise. It was the shirtless guy who had almost gotten his brains blown out.

“Shit, I’m sooo drunk,” he muttered, stumbling on his legs. “Hey – you saved me, dude. Want some champagne?” He held a bottle out to Peter.

Peter almost took a step back. No, he didn’t want any champagne. In fact, he was pretty sure that he was never going to touch another drop of that shit in his life. He felt sick just looking at the bottle.

“I’ll take that!” Sam eagerly cut in, snatching the bottle up.

“A-OK,” the guy said. “Um. So can we go home?”

“Sure,” Sam said. “Just don’t drive anywhere, yet.”

“No,” Peter cut in with a frown. “They all need to wait for the police, possibly be checked over by a doctor. And get in contact with victim support services.” Seriously, had the Avengers never bothered to deal with the victims of crimes?

Steve set his shield down. “I’ll wait for Nick. And the police; give a statement. You guys go home and just… take the rest of the day off.”

“Actually, you know what?” Rhodey said, rounding on Peter, “It’s still early: You’re going back to school.”

-

Rhodey was at the dinner table when Peter came home that afternoon.

“Hey,” Peter said, pausing a few feet away, unsure of what to do.

Rhodey nodded in greeting as he poured a second cup of tea, and everything was how it used to be. But everything was different, at the same time.

“You weren’t here this weekend,” Peter said quietly as he sat down.

Rhodey carefully set the teapot down. “I was angry.”

Peter felt his heart skip a beat. “Not anymore?”

“Of course I am,” Rhodey said. “But I didn’t handle it very well. I should have talked to you before.”

Peter clasped his hands around the teacup. “Pepper has been ignoring me, too.”

“Pepper has a lot of high-stakes meetings this week,” Rhodey said. “I think it’s more to do with that. She did ask about you several times.”

“Oh,” Peter said, feeling slightly better.

“That’s not to say she isn’t angry, too,” Rhodey continued. “But she’s probably better at handling it. We’ve all had a lot of arguments about you these last few days.”

Peter felt himself go red. “Really?” He hadn’t noticed anything.

“Tony wanted to start giving you daily drug tests,” Rhodey said with a half-smile. “Natasha said you’re a teenager and teenagers just get high at parties, nothing wrong with it. The rest of us were somewhere in between. Steve speculated that events give you major anxiety and that’s why you did it. But if that’s the case, I hope you know you can tell us and we’ll get you some healthier coping mechanisms.”

“Tony wanted me to pee into a cup every day?” Peter asked

“That’s what deterred him in the end,” Rhodey said. “He did turn your bedroom upside down, by the way.”

Peter set his teacup down with a clank. “What?”

“Yeah, looking for a secret stash. He found nothing. Where did you get the drugs? Are you still in touch with those people?”

Peter stared down at the table top, swallowing around the bitter taste in his mouth. Suddenly, the kitchen felt uncomfortably hot and the smell of tea made him feel queasy. “No.”

“Please tell me the truth, Pete,” Rhodey said, his voice intent.

“I’m not ‘in touch’ with anyone, I promise. It’s not going to happen again. Can we please change the subject?”

Rhodey’s shoulders collapsed and he let out a sigh. “How was your day?” He then asked, and Peter felt relief flood him.

“Kathy had a migraine,” he said. “So that sucked.”

Rhodey hummed. “Does she get them a lot?”

“No. About once a month. But it’s harder for her now that I’m not there to look after her.”

“It’s not your job to look after her.”

“It kinda always was, though.”

Rhodey looked dissatisfied. “I understand that you two are close. But I don’t think it’s appropriate for you to be cleaning and cooking for her all the time. You have enough on your mind as it is. If she can’t do all this herself, maybe she should move to an elderly home?”

“She can do it,” Peter said. “She’s only in her seventies, she can still get around pretty well.”

Rhodey frowned. “Then why does she leave it all to you?”

“It’s always been like that. It’s just a fair deal. Because she took me in and stuff.”

“I’m pretty sure foster parents are not supposed to expect anything in return.”

Peter scowled. “It’s not like that. She wasn’t fostering in the first place. I just ended up at her house after I ran away, and it turned out we were a good match, so she called CPS and worked something out.”

“You were a good match because you did all the work around the house?” Rhodey asked.

“Can we please change the subject? Again?”

-

Peter stared down at the tiny screws and gears that were scattered across his bedroom floor. He had found an old DVD player in a dumpster and had planned to strip it for parts, which was something he could usually do with his eyes closed and one hand tied behind his back. But right now, his thoughts kept wandering so much that he wasn’t even sure whether he’d been sitting here for minutes or for hours.

Things seemed to be… sort of okay between him and Rhodey again. That just left Pepper. Peter didn’t know what to do. He wanted to talk to her and make sure they were okay. But he also realized that Pepper would probably ask him questions that he didn’t want to answer right now.

“FRIDAY, where is Pepper at the moment?”

“In a Business Unit Review, downtown.”

That sounded complicated.

“Do you need me to convey a message?” FRIDAY asked.

“No, that’s okay. Do you know her schedule? When is she coming back to the compound?”

“Her schedule is packed until late this evening,” FRIDAY informed him. “Shall I ask her to come speak with you if she has a few minutes to spare?”

A few minutes. Sure. “Yeah, okay. Tell her no pressure, though.” He wondered if any of Pepper’s meetings today were with Galloway. If she would shake his hand. If he would just be all buddy-buddy with her, maybe mentioned that he had run into her intern at the party.

Peter lowered his screwdriver, breathing slowly through his nose to push down a wave of panic.

Damn, he really needed to get a grip.

Pepper came by much sooner than he thought. I couldn’t have been more than an hour after Peter had asked FRIDAY to convey the message, when there was a knock on his bedroom door.

She stepped inside, taking stock of the DVD player parts scattered across the carpet. “Are you building something?”

“Maybe later,” Peter murmured. “Right now, just gathering parts. Um - FRIDAY said you were really busy.”

“Yes,” Pepper merely said.

Had she cancelled an appointment just to come talk to Peter? The thought made him feel guilty and comforted, at the same time. “Are you mad at me?”

She sighed, kneeling down to sit next to him on the floor. “No,” she then said. “Mostly worried. Tony said you were almost unconscious when he found you. He had to carry you up to the medbay. You gave him quite a fright.”

Peter stared down at his knees. He didn’t even remember any of that.

“Maybe it was too much to ask from you; attending an event with all these people you didn’t know, when you haven’t even been here that long.”

“Wasn’t your fault,” Peter whispered, because Pepper really had no idea how much it wasn’t her fault.

“The whole situation is less than ideal,” Pepper continued, looking frustrated as she dragged her hand through her hair. “Fury dropping you on our doorstep. You’re still looking after Mrs. Pokorni. A lot of pressure on you. You have every right to be angry or upset. This is not what a normal teenage life is supposed to look like. And I am…” she hesitated, “I am not your guardian, so I don’t know what I should do about this.” Her voice turned plaintive. “Will you please tell me where you got the drugs?”

Peter gave a shrug, feeling absolutely miserable. Pepper’s intent gaze felt like a heavy weight on his chest. He couldn’t talk about it. Should he make up some lie? It would have been easier if Rhodey and Pepper would just be mad at him, like Tony was. Then he could tell them to mind their own damn business and refuse to talk about anything. But they were being so nice to him, and he didn’t know how to deal with it. “I found a pill in my pocket somewhere,” he finally invented, hoping that that was more or less what Pepper expected to hear, “that I still had, apparently. And I figured it would make the night, uhm, less boring.”

“But you didn’t know what it was?” The concern in Pepper’s voice only grew. “You shouldn’t take drugs in the first place, but you certainly can’t just take a substance without knowing the effects, Peter.”

Peter wordlessly nodded, ducking his head.

Pepper stayed quiet for a moment. “Tony told me you did very well on the mission, today,” she then said, and Peter wasn’t sure why it meant so much to him to hear that. “You make a very good Super-Hero. You really care about people. I only wish you cared that much about yourself.”

Peter suddenly felt about ready to cry. He felt really fucking lonely. That wasn’t anything new, of course. He had gone through seven foster families and almost as many schools. He didn’t have any friends. And even Kathy, the closest thing he had to a parent, didn’t often show affection. The thing was, though, that he had always gotten through that just fine. But now, for the first time in years, he felt like he longed for someone to talk to. Really talk to.

“Will you go down for a drink, later?” Pepper asked. “The Avengers usually do that right after a mission, but since you had to go to school, they agreed to do it later today, before dinner.”

That was nice. “Are you… are you coming?”

She shook her head. “I have meetings. But Rhodey will be there, so it’s fine, right?”

Peter gave a single nod.

-

Around six o’clock, Peter ventured into the compound living area.

The atmosphere was more relaxed than it had been in days. The Avengers greeted him rather warmly. And Tony didn’t even give him one of those nasty sneers. Just a neutral glance.

Wanda was there, too, curled up in an armchair with a cup of tea. She wasn’t participating in any of the conversations, but she did seem content and at ease.

The bottle of champagne was sitting on the coffee table, still untouched. Peter looked away from it.

Natasha made room on the couch. “Hey kid. Want a beer?”

“Nat,” Steve warned.

“What?”

“I already let up on the ‘no drinking in front of the kid’-rule. But this is were I draw the line.”

“Relax, I don’t even want any,” Peter told him. “I’ll just have water.”

“Allow me,” Vision said in his soft, British tones before getting up to fetch him a glass of water.

“So,” Steve said, once Peter was sipping his water and the other Avengers had gone back to chatting amongst themselves. “Happy with how today’s mission went?”

Well, he did ask. “Frankly, I think you people need to think about your priorities. There were thirty drunk civilians sailing by as bullets were flying. Wanda offered to turn them around, but you put the mission first.”

“I was aware of the risk,” Steve acknowledged. “But it was important that our cover wasn’t blown. No one died.”

“Yeah, no one died. Until someone does die, and then you face an angry UN.”

“These criminals were dangerous,” Steve said. His voice was firm, but still calm and respectful. He didn’t sound annoyed at getting told off by a teenager. “They were controlling the arms trade on the whole east-side of New York. They needed to be taken off the streets. Sometimes that requires tough decisions. No offense is intended here, but in the work that you’ve been doing in Queens, you don’t usually encounter these dilemmas. If you have to endanger one live to save ten, what do you do? And the answer is not to just save all eleven. That’s not how things work.”

Peter sipped his water as he mulled that over.

“That is not to say that you don’t make valid points,” Steve continued. “What we did today; appoint one, even two team members solely to look out for public safety, is something we should have thought to do before, and something we will keep doing in the future. Because otherwise, this could have ended quite badly.” He frowned down at his beer bottle. “I just didn’t expect a party-yacht to show up.”

“Who would have?” Peter muttered. “God, I hate people like that.”

“You still did pretty good helping them, though,” Sam piped up from his seat next to Steve.

“They’re people,” Peter said with a shrug. “Whether or not I like them as a person is irrelevant.”

Sam hummed as he carefully rubbed his lower arm. “I think I’m starting to see why the public likes Spider-Man so much.”

Only now did Peter spot the bandage wrapped around his wrist. “Hey. You were injured?”

“Well, some of us aren’t super-human. We just have to make do with what we got.”

“Poor delicate, humans,” Peter drawled.

“You have your battle scars, too, kid,” Sam said, pointing.

Peter lifted his hand and traced the long, thin scar on the side of his head with his fingers. “That’s pre-Spider-Man. I don’t think I can even get scars anymore. Kathy threw a bottle at my head once.”

Sam whistled. “That’s some class-A parenting.”

Peter chuckled. “It’s because she’s old and all that. When she gets mad, she can’t get up quickly, so she just starts throwing stuff at me.”

“And that’s funny, is it?”

“Pretty funny, yeah.”

Sam shrugged and started to talk about something else. Some anecdote about almost getting his leg chopped off by helicopter blades. Peter pulled his legs up and sipped his water, content to just listen. As far as he was concerned, everything was… back to normal. Things were okay with Rhodey and Pepper, so there really wasn’t any need to dwell upon what happened. He could just forget about it and move on.

He could even deal with the bottle of champagne getting popped open amongst loud cheers.

He was fine.

Chapter Text

With everything that was happening right now, it felt weird that Peter had to worry about something as mundane as the PSATs. He barely even remembered taking them, but somehow he still fucked something up bad enough to get called into the School Counsellor’s office.

The last time he was in here had been right after three other kids got expelled for drug dealing on school property. The principal thought Peter might have something to do with it, too. Which he didn’t, because that was not how Milan Pokorni worked. Dealing at your own high school… of course you’re going to get busted. Damn rookies.

Mrs. Rosen looked just as serious now as she had back then. “We’re here to discuss your PSAT scores,” she said, opening an envelop and letting a few papers slip out onto the table. “You scored 1500 out of 1520. A near perfect score. And this on top of the straight A’s we’ve seen from you all year.”

“Uhhh,” Peter said, a little thrown. What exactly was this about? “Okay.”

“Perfect score in math, reading, writing, science…” she summed up. “A few mistakes in the history and social studies section. But a terrific result nevertheless.”

“I didn’t cheat,” Peter said defensively.

The corner of her mouth quirked upwards. “I’m not suggesting that at all. But I’m not sure that you belong in this school, Mr. Parker.”

Peter narrowed his eyes, because that remark wasn’t new. Was this just a new way for them to get rid of him?

“How would you feel about transferring to a more competitive high school that might be a better match for you? Brooklyn Technical High School, the Bronx High School of Science…”

No way in hell, Peter thought. “Uh-uhm. Interesting.”

“Let me give you some flyers. You can think it over and we meet again after the weekend to discuss your options. All PSAT scores also get sent to parents and guardians. So perhaps this is something you can discuss at home, with them.”

“Okay,” Peter said. That was fine. His guardians didn’t exist, after all. So the email would probably just end up with some SHIELD secretary who’d stuff it in a file somewhere.

As he sauntered back to his classroom, he sorted through the flyers. Jeez, what a bunch of wannabes. All the kids in the pictures looked fake as hell. They probably were. They were probably not even students at these school, but models hired to look smart.

It wasn’t that Peter was overly fond of this school. Anything but. He didn’t have any friends and the teachers were mad incompetent. Half his classes existed of nothing more than watching documentaries while the teachers played Candy Crush on their phones.

His first year here had been literal hell. Kids ganged up on him, stole his stuff, threw things at his head during class. Kathy had always been old-fashioned when it came to bullying. When Peter had once confided in her that kids at school pushed him around and called him weird, she had told him to “just be less weird”.

Peter had pretty much resolved to deal with his own shit after that. And he had. He had stood his ground and fought back enough times for them to back off and simply ignore him.

He didn’t want to go through all that again at a new school.

-

When he returned to the compound, Rhodey pushed a cup of tea into his hands and then told him to go down to Tony’s workshop.

“Are you sure about that?”

“Yes. Tony asked for you.”

Peter went downstairs, feeling apprehensive. He had barely exchanged a word with Tony since the night he had woken up in the medbay.

Tony was sitting next to a large table, his laptop hooked up to Peter’s suit. He nodded in greeting when he caught sight of Peter. “Just working on your A.I.”

“Right,” Peter said, walking closer but stopping a few feet away, at a safe distance from Tony.

“Pepper tells me I’ve been a bit of an asshole,” Tony muttered. “I guess she’s right. I mean, I’m still not happy about the drugs, but I understand that this whole situation hasn’t exactly been easy for you. I shouldn’t have gone off on you like that. But you scared the crap out of me, turning up half-dead in my elevator.”

“Right,” Peter said again, not sure how else to respond.

Tony didn’t seem too much at ease, himself. “So… just wanted to say that,” he said. “And I did promise I’d show you how I made the suit, so if you still want, I can show you how I programmed the A.I.”

“Her name’s Karen.”

“If you say so.”

Peter set his teacup down on the table and ventured another step closer, peeking at Tony’s screen. He didn’t recognize the software. Tony had probably created that himself, too. “Okay. So… how does it work?”

Tony pointed at a desk chair and Peter sat down.

“It’s… complicated,” Tony started. “The A.I. – Karen’s – work requires reasoning processes in complex situations and across multiple abstractions, performing hundreds of different actions per minute. One single method doesn’t do the trick, so I created an integrated agent framework with different domains who each have their own approach, depending on the task at hand.”

Peter nodded. He didn’t understand completely what Tony meant, but he wanted to. “Like which ones?”

“Well, a vital task is to detect crime nearby. To achieve that, Karen constantly analyzes and interprets the video footages of hundreds of government security cameras near your location.”

“Tapping security footage. Isn’t that… against the law?”

“Just a little,” Tony said with a smile. “Actually, I also wanted to use the audio footage from every single microphone on every single laptop and phone in the city. But Rhodey told me I’d lost my mind.”

“I don’t think people would be comfortable with that, no.”

“It’s privacy or safety. A never ending dilemma,” Tony said. “But I have a lot people who advise me in in that area. You may have met some of them at the event.” He slammed the spacebar on his laptop and a tiny ding sounded.

“Hiya Peter,” Karen piped up from Tony’s speakers. “Not detecting any evil assholes nearby, do you want me to point you to a nearby rooftop where you can chill out?”

“No, I’m not going out right now,” Peter said. “At ease, soldier.”

Tony looked absolutely astonished. “What the hell was that?”

“What do you mean? It’s Karen.”

“Why’s she talking like that?”

“I taught her.”

Tony didn’t respond to that, but clenched his side with one hand as though he had a sudden stomachache. When Peter looked up at his face, he realized that Tony was shaking with laughter.

“You’re such a little shit,” Tony said, but this time he was grinning.

Peter responded with a faint smile. It was strange to be forgiven for something he hadn’t even done. It was frustrating, of course, but somehow it also felt good. The Avengers thought he had messed up, but they had not given up on him. Quite the opposite, actually: Rhodey, Pepper and even Tony all seemed to be only more resolved to be there for him, and try to understand him. It felt kinda weird to know that he could mess up and things could still be worked out. It was nice.

But then he thought about Galloway’s hand on his stomach, and that nice feeling disappeared like snow under the sun. A shiver ran down his spine and he instinctively looked over his shoulder as if expecting danger.

He noticed Tony gave him a bit of a strange look at that, but the man didn’t comment on his behavior. “I like it,” Tony said instead, nodding his head at Peter’s shirt. It had a picture of a guy sleeping and the text ‘a body at rest will remain at rest’ above it. “Do you understand the joke?”

“No, I just relate to lazy people.”

“Was that sarcasm? I’m not sure yet when it’s coming from you. You are too stoic about it. There is a certain savoir-faire when it comes to sarcasm, you know, it’s all about the tone of voice and the facial-”

“It’s Newton's First Law of Motion, Stark. I get the joke.”

“Please call me ‘Tony’. And I meant no offence, kid. Just saying... I see kids wearing AC/DC shirts all the time when I am pretty sure they have never listened to a single song. So does that mean you are secretly a nerd?”

Peter scowled. “No!”

“If you are, that’s a good thing, you know.”

“Tell that to the kids at my school.”

“Why, do they bother you?”

“Not anymore.”

“Hmm,” Tony said, leaning back in his chair and squinting at Peter.

“Don’t look at me like that. I can take care of myself.”

“I believe that. Drug dealer by day, super-hero by night. I’m sure a few teenagers are no big deal to you after all that.”

“It’s funny how people seem to think that running drugs is some kind of high risk job. Have you ever smoked pot? Dealing it is even less exciting than smoking it.”

“How would you know?” Tony shrewdly asked. “When you first moved in, you said that you never smoked weed, yourself.”

“I lied,” Peter said with a shrug. “I smoked. But not much.”

“I’m guessing you got your stuff from Milan Pokorni, too?”

“Usually from Kathy, actually.”

“Excu- excuse me?”

Peter chuckled at the expression on Tony’s face. “It’s only freaking marijuana. In ten years, that stuff’s gonna be legal everywhere, mark my words. She smokes it because it helps with her migraines. And then she just offered me a drag one evening and that’s how it started.”

“And you were how old?”

“Twelve or something. I’d only lived there a few weeks. I never smoked much, though, just sometimes to keep her company. It didn’t do much for me.”

“And you think that’s funny?”

Peter rolled his eyes. “It’s funny because she’s a grandma. Like, all proper, with her flowery grandma-dress and her comfy slippers. And then she was casually smoking pot.”

“She sounds like a terrible guardian,” Tony stated.

“I never really thought of her as my guardian. We helped each other. She gave me food and a bed. I cleaned the house and made sure she got money from her son.”

“By dealing drugs.”

Peter was beginning to feel annoyed. “Well, she didn’t know about that. Can we let it go? I’m here to learn about Karen.”

“Right,” Tony said, “Privacy versus safety. Like I said, I have a lot people who advise me in in that area. You may have met some of them. Gareth Galloway, Cindy Wolf, Robin Owen-“

Peter felt like his heart suddenly stopped beating in his chest. “Galloway?”

“Yes, why?”

Peter swallowed, drawing his legs up and wrapping his arms around them. “I saw him,” he said. “At the party.”

“Yes. That’s what I figured.”

“Is he your friend?”

“Friend is a big word. He’s a business partner. But he’s a decent guy. Helped me out on a lot of security stuff.”

Peter nodded, the motion jarred. He suddenly wanted to leave, more than anything.

“He has a company, specializing in General Data Protection Regulation. Privacy. So if you see him again, best not mention how my A.I. works, exactly, yes?”

See him again. See him again.

Tony blabbered on. “They tend to ask questions - - people tend to ask questions about how we can respond to emergencies so fast. So I think it’s just as important that you understand how I pretend it works, which has everything to do with predictive models of social behavior combined with-“

“I have to go,” Peter blurted out. “I don’t… I don’t feel good.”

-

Soaring from skyscraper to skyscraper didn’t feel liberating right now. Peter still felt trapped inside his body, no matter how far he jumped, how high he swung, how fast the buildings whizzed by. It was only when he almost lost his balance on the edge of a rooftop, that he stopped for a moment to catch his breath. Behaving dangerously was not a good way to distract his thoughts.

He sat down, letting his legs dangle off the edge of the building. He was wearing his old suit, since his new one was still currently hooked up to Tony’s laptop. So, no Karen to alert him to any crimes nearby. It was strange that he was already missing her a little bit, when he had done fine without her for so many months.

Peter suddenly wondered why Tony had told him how Karen tracked down crimes. It sounded like it was something Tony could get into trouble for. What had made the man think that he could just trust Peter with that information?

What the hell was Tony Stark’s deal?

His phone buzzed. Kathy’s phone. He had left SHIELD’s phone in his bedroom like he always did. Which meant that it could really be only one person. Strange, because Kathy rarely called him. She usually sent him messages: grocery lists and stuff.

Peter lifted his mask up past his nose so he’d be able to talk, then answered. “Hey, Kathy. What’s up?”

It was a deep voice that replied. “Hello, Mr. Parker.”

Peter froze. “Who the fuck are you?”

“Name’s Cain. Pleasure is all mine. I’m just visiting Mrs. Pokorni for the day. I need a favor. You see, Milan Pokorni owes my boss some money.”

“Well, he’s in jail,” Peter said in a low voice. “So we can’t help you there.”

“Ah. But you see, I think you can. Because Milan told me all about you, and you seem like the perfect person to do a few little jobs for us. Pay back what he owes.”

Peter didn’t pretend to be oblivious. “I don’t do that stuff anymore.”

“I don’t think you understand what’s at stake here, kid.”

“What, you gonna shoot me? You’re welcome to try and get to me.”

“Maybe I won’t be coming after you. Maybe I’ll put a bullet through this sweet old lady’s head, instead.”

Peter clenched his fingers around the phone. “Where is she? Put her on the phone!”

“Or maybe I’ll cut off one of her sweet old fingers at a time,” the man carried on, ignoring his question. “Until you learn your place.”

“Shut up!” Peter bit out. “Stay away from her. She doesn’t need to get involved.”

“Couldn’t agree more,” Cain said smoothly. “Tomorrow morning, five a.m. sharp, 67th and Melbourne. And until then, no contact between you and the old lady, or the police, or anyone else. We’ll know.”

He hung up.

Peter lowered the phone, pressing his lips together. It looked like Milan Pokorni had definitely been part of something bigger than just a drug serve from a garage. Fuck, fuck, every single aspect of his life was getting fucked up right now.

He’d deal with it, though. That’s what he always did. But how, exactly? The easy option seemed to be to follow instructions. It sounded like they just wanted him to do a few runs. He could do them, get it over with and be done with the whole thing. On the other hand, he might be getting in over his head. Milan Pokorni had never threatened so shoot some innocent lady through the head or cut their fingers off. Cain was clearly part of a whole different class of drug dealers. They might ask him to do runs with cocaine, meth or crack. Peter didn’t want to be responsible for that kind of shit getting out into the city.

But if any of those guys even touched a hair on Kathy’s head…

He had escaped the compound to be out in the city. But now he needed to escape the city and be somewhere quiet to collect his thoughts.

Back to the compound it was.

-

He didn’t take the front door. Instead, he crawled through the window straight into his bedroom and pulled the mask off, before letting himself fall face down onto the bed. It was almost five p.m., which meant he had exactly twelve hours to figure out what he should do.

He spotted a blinking light on his SHIELD phone and picked it up from the night stand. It was a message from Tony from about half an hour ago. You okay, kid? Little worried about you.

Peter shook his head in disbelief. What in the blazing hell was Tony Stark’s deal?

He didn’t text back. FRIDAY had probably already notified Tony that Peter had climbed in through the window.

He turned onto his back, staring up at the ceiling. If he refused to do that job tomorrow, the only alternative was to go to the police and hope that they would help him keep Kathy safe. But would they? Would they care about what happened to some poor old lady? And if they did care, then for how long? Maybe they would post outside her house for a week and then give up, leaving Kathy vulnerable to any kind of attack.

No. He’d just go to that job tomorrow, get it done, keep Kathy safe. That also meant that he needed to act as normal as possible around everyone else and not raise any suspicion. “FRIDAY, can you ask Tony if I can come back down to the workshop?”

It stayed quiet for a few seconds. “Tony says you are welcome,” FRIDAY then said.

Peter changed back into his normal clothes before making his way down to the workshop. He found Tony exactly where he left him; sitting behind his laptop with the Spider-Man suit on the table in front of him. He glanced up when Peter entered, his gaze assessing. “Are you all right?”

“Felt a little sick.”

“So you went out into the city?”

“I figured some fresh air might help.”

“Did it?”

It really didn’t. Because Peter was suddenly reminded why he had fled the workshop in the first place, and he felt sick all over again. “Yeah. I’m okay. But I don’t know if I’m up for a lot of theoretical explanations right now. Can we maybe do something more practical?”

“Sure. Do you have any suggestions?”

“Can I make a design for the little spider-droney thing you wanted to put in my suit?”

“Knock yourself out.”

Peter settled in with his notebook and a pen. A little sketching would calm him down. He figured his day couldn’t get much worse than this, anyways.

And then yet another problem announced itself:

“Hey, Fury sent me an email,” Tony said, tapping his keyboard. “Oh – wow,” a smile appeared on his face. “It’s your PSAT results. Look at Fury, being all parental, forwarding those to me.”

Peter dropped his pen to the table. “You don’t have to look at those, they’re not-“

Click click. “1500. You scored 1500.”

“That’s not really high, though.”

Tony stared at his screen “You’re… you’re in the 99th percentile.”

“I… cheated?” Peter tried.

Tony stared at him for a few seconds. Peter ducked his head and focused his attention back on his notebook, continuing his scribbles. Until the notebook was suddenly snatched from under his hands.

“Hey! Give it back!” Peter cried out, jumping up.

He reached out a hand, but Tony quickly turned his back on him and began to pace as he ruffled through it. “What have we got here, then?”

“That’s just random stuff.  – Tony!”

Tony stopped turning the pages when he spotted something, and he froze on the spot, staring down at the notes. “Is this… Is this your web fluid?”

Peter took the opportunity to snatch his notebook back from Tony, clutching it protectively against his chest.

“You make that stuff yourself?” Tony continued.

“So?” Peter snapped, hunching his shoulders.

Tony held out a hand. “Can I see it?”

Peter frowned, leaning away from him.

“Please?” Tony tried, his tones softer.

Reluctantly, Peter released his notebook into Tony’s hands. Tony turned and sat down in a chair, laying the notebook down on the table to study the notes intently. Peter took a seat again, too, pulling his knees up to his chest and wrapping his arms around them, clasping his hands together anxiously.

It stayed completely quiet for at least a minute, until Peter felt about ready to explode. Finally, after what felt like an eternity, Tony looked up at him again, his brown eyes assessing Peter thoughtfully. Peter instinctively ducked his head and looked away.

Tony leaned back in his chair, folding his hand on top of his leg. “You’re pretty smart, aren’t you?”

Peter had no idea how to answer that question. Yeah, he knew he had interests that his classmates considered nerdy as hell. But it wasn’t as if he’d won any awards or anything.

“Peter?” Tony prodded.

Peter frowned, hunching his shoulders a little more. “I don’t know what you’re asking for.”

Tony cocked his head as he studied him. “Why are you so nervous?”

Peter wasn’t sure what to reply. “It’s just, the counsellor wants me to switch to a fancier school, and I…” he faltered.

“I thought you hated that damn school?”

“Yeah, but I’m finally at a place where everyone leaves me the hell alone, you know, now that I’ve punched enough people in the face. I don’t want to go through all that again.”

“You assume you’re going to be bullied again at a new school?”

“Well, duh,” Peter muttered. He wasn’t an idiot. He knew how bullying worked. If you were weird, you were weird, no matter what school you went to.

“You should think about going to a different school,” Tony said. “I really think you should.”

“What about all the new books and stuff?”

“I’ll pay for those.”

How very magnanimous. But Peter knew how the world worked. “In exchange for what?”

That question seemed to amuse Tony. “In exchange for you do your best to not make trouble and get good grades, squirt.”

“Okay,” Peter replied slowly, still feeling suspicious because that didn’t really seem like an even trade. What was in it for Tony?

“Why are you suddenly being so nice to me?” He asked.

Tony lifted a single eyebrow. “Well, for one, because you’re not cursing me out left and right.”

Right. Peter had been keeping his head down today. It wasn’t like the whole thing was Peter’s fault, though. Tony had been an asshole to him from the very first moment Peter stepped foot into the compound.

“And for two, because I like that we have some things in common,” Tony continued, tapping a finger against Peter’s notebook.

Peter leaned forward to grab his notebook again. He felt a little less vulnerable with all his ideas and projects safely hidden in his arms. “So… now what?”

Tony drummed his fingers against the tabletop for a few seconds. “We didn’t get off to a great start,” he finally said. “And I’d like to try and make things a little more tolerable. For however long we have left. Because you do make a pretty good addition to the team. So wherever you go after this, I’d like it if Spider-Man would still be part of the Avengers. I’d like it if you would keep the suit. Maybe even make your own improvements. But I can only do that if you’re on board, too. Are you on board?”

Peter pressed his lips together. He usually avoided thinking about the future; about what would happen next. But now Tony was essentially asking him to be an Avenger. Forever. Was he ready to be one?

“Pete?”

“I got a call today,” Peter blurted out. “From someone who said Milan Pokorni owed them money. And they say I have to work for them to pay it back, or they’ll hurt Kathy.”

Tony let out a surprised noise, dropping his hands down to land on the table with a thunk. “Who was it?”

“Some guy, Cain. I don’t know – I don’t know who he is,” Peter said, stumbling over the words.

“How come I wasn’t notified of that call?” Tony asked with a deep frown. “FRIDAY is supposed to report any suspicious calls. Did he speak in code?”

“I didn’t use SHIELD’s phone, I used a different phone, because I don’t trust you guys.”

Tony narrowed his eyes “I’ll circle back to that later. What did he tell you to do?”

“To meet them tomorrow at five a.m. at 67th and Melbourne. I assume they want to give me a few pounds to run or something, but I don’t actually know.”

“Does the address mean anything to you?”

Peter shook his head.

“Did you talk to Kathy?”

Peter shook his head again, panic rising in his chest. “They called from her phone and they told me not to contact her. I don’t - - I don’t want her to get h-hurt.”

“Peter, breathe,” Tony instructed, rolling his chair closer to Peter and clasping a hand around Peter’s arm. “We’re the Avengers. We’re not letting a bunch of drug dealers get the better of us.”

“So you’ll… you’ll help me?”

“Of course, kid.” Tony said, his voice intent and sincere, his eyes alight with a strange determination.

Peter drew in a deep, shaky breath, then slowly released it. “Okay. Okay.”

“I’ll go make some calls,” Tony said. “I won’t be long.” He squeezed Peter’s arm again. “I’m proud of you, Pete. You did good, telling me. I promise you I won’t let you regret it.”

Peter gave a single nod, then looked on as Tony strode from the workshop, already dialing a number. He wasn’t sure how he had expected Tony to react, but it wasn’t like this. Calm and decisive and reassuring. It was a side of Tony he hadn’t seen before. And strange as it was… he trusted Tony to make things okay.

Chapter Text

Fury arrived in the middle of dinner, as usual, and announced that he had a strategy worked out.

Tony lifted up his dinner plate to follow him into the office and, after exchanging some looks, the other Avengers followed.

“Busting a drug ring,” Fury said as he paced the room. “A little bit below our paygrade, but we can use the good publicity. It should be easy. We have a man on the inside after all.” He gave Peter a quick glance. “We’ve scouted the area around 67th and Melbourne. Nothing out of the ordinary. My guess is they’ll want to pick you up there and then drive you somewhere else.”

Peter nodded. That was his assumption, too.

“If we’re unlucky, they will simply drive you to another garage like Milan Pokorni’s. Child’s play, nothing special. But if we’re lucky, they will drive you to a larger location. Since we appear to be dealing with Pokorni’s ‘boss’, I’m guessing it’s the latter.”

Fury stopped pacing to take something from his pocket and lay it down on the table in front of Peter. It was a simple, analogue watch. “It doesn’t look digital. It doesn’t look expensive. I don’t want to run the risk of them confiscating it. Here’s what’s going to happen: tomorrow at five a.m., you’ll be at 67th and Melbourne, just like they instructed. They drive up, you go with them. We use this watch to trace and follow you, then surround their location. You are our eyes on the inside. We need to know how many men they have, whether they are armed, how many exits there are. Take a discrete look around, then grab whatever package they give you and head outside. Since we don’t know their location, there is no way to plan where you’ll meet up with the Avengers. That’s where the watch comes in again. Just walk a safe distance, then take off the watch and press your thumb against the back of the case. It doesn’t look like it, but there is a fingerprint scanner in there.”

Peter picked up the watch, pressing his thumb against the back. Immediately, a tiny light started blinking.

“That means it’s recording,” Fury explained. “Pass any information you have on to us. And that’s it. You simply go home, we take care of the rest. NYPD can act as our back-up while we take on the main load.”

“So we’re really sending a kid in there alone? That’s the brilliant plan?” Rhodey spoke up.

Fury frowned at him. “It’s a mission. He’s Spider-Man. How is it any different from our other missions?”

“It is different,” Rhodey insisted. “You’re asking him to go in as Peter Parker, not Spider-Man.”

“Yes, it’s what people in the business call ‘undercover’, Rhodes.”

“I don’t like it.”

“There’s a panic button on that watch, too,” Fury said. “If things go south, he can call for help. Plus, all he has to do it grab a package. In and out. Nothing new to him. And he won’t even do any of the fighting this time.”

“I still don’t like it.”

Fury ignored him, instead turning back to Peter. “If we do this properly, we will roll up the whole network in a single day. The whole network. Which means no more threat to Kathy Pokorni, either. And if we want to do it properly, I need you on the inside.”

Peter gave a single nod. “All right, I’m in.”

Fury nodded. “You all heard the kid. Now, are you letting him do it alone, or is the rest of you in, too?”

-

It was a brisk morning. Peter rubbed his hands together, sitting down on the edge of the sidewalk as he waited.

He was nervous. Not about the mission, but about Kathy. Even if this worked out, there was no telling what that Cain guy had already revealed to her while he was at her house. If she found out about his dabbling in crime, she would be really pissed. She’d probably throw stuff at his head, or chase him around the house with a rolled up newspaper…

Okay, get a grip, Parker. This was not the moment to panic.

It was five a.m. on the dot when a large, dark blue van calmly drove up, stopping right next to him. Warily, Peter got to his feet. A bald man stepped out of the van, squinting at him. “Parker?”

“Cain?”

The man opened his jacket a little to flash a gun, and Peter had seen enough fake guns in his life to know that this one was real. “Get in the back.”

“All right,” Peter said, keeping his voice subdued. He would probably seem most convincing if he acted a little nervous and afraid.

Cain opened the backdoor for him and Peter stepped inside. The van had wooden benches on either side, as if it had once served as a police vehicle to transport suspects. Peter gingerly sat down.

He was taken by surprise when Cain suddenly grabbed his right wrist and handcuffed him to the leg of the bench. “Hey! What’s that for? Why would I show up if I was going to take off again?”

No response. Cain stepped out, slamming the door behind him. Moments later, the van began moving again.

Peter sighed, leaning his head back as he counted the traffic lights, the right and left turns.

It was a strange idea that he would just have to go in and out, and then leave without looking back. He wouldn’t even know how it all turned out until the whole thing was over. Rhodey had better not think that he could send Peter to school today. He needed to stay up to date on the whole thing.

They didn’t drive for a very long time. The van slowed down and Peter heard other voices, the echoing noises telling him that they had parked inside a building.

And then it went quiet. And it stayed quiet, for a long time.

Time to take stock, then. Peter did what he could to assess his surroundings from within the confinements of the van. He focused his super-hearing, noticing people moving around, scraping noises, muttering. And further away, the steady booms of what sounded like large machines.

And footsteps, approaching the van.

Peter jumped to attention, sitting up a little straighter. The backdoors of the van opened, and Peter caught a quick glimpse of the large building beyond. Concrete floors, steel bars, high ceilings, and stone alcoves that looked like they used to function as ovens. An old factory then, probably. Peter didn’t recognize it at all.

He did recognize the man who stepped into the van, though. It was Janos Pokorni, Kathy’s oldest son. Peter had only seen him a few times. Figured that he would play into all this. Janos looked murderous, and his anger seemed very much aimed directly at Peter.

Cain stepped in, too, and a woman came in after him and firmly shut the backdoors behind her. Peter was left with three intimidating people in a rather cramped van.

“Hey Janos,” Peter said, pulling slightly at the cuffs to test their strength. He had broken out of handcuffs once before.

“You know why you’re here?” Janos asked, sounding a bit like the principal always did whenever Peter was sent to his office.

“Look, I can get you the money,” Peter tried.

“Milan doesn’t owe me money, idiot,” Janos growled, sitting directly opposite Peter and peering into his eyes. “I just needed to get you here. And since you’re so loyal to my sweet mother…” He smiled, showing his teeth. “What better way to persuade you?”

“Why did you need to get me here?” Peter asked, keeping his nerves down. Could they know about the Avengers? About Spider-Man?

Janos leaned back, still staring at Peter through half closed eyes. “Riddle me this, Mr. Parker: my brother’s whole division gets busted, but you get off scot-free. You tell my mother that you’re moving in with some couple in the suburbs, but when we track your phone, you appear to be living upstate. I’m curious: exactly how much information did you have to give the police to get such a cushy deal from them?”

Peter blinked. What did they think, that he was some sort of junior undercover cop? “I didn’t - - I didn’t talk to the police.”

“Let me make something clear to you,” Janos said, still sounding deceptively calm. “The work you did for Milan was you playing in the kiddie pool, you hear me? A little weed, a few prescription drugs. My little brother can’t handle much more than that. But you’re in the fucking ocean now. You’re talking to a group of people who are not above disfiguring a pretty boy like you. Why, just yesterday we set a guy on fire when he didn’t cooperate, didn’t we, Tara?”

“He screamed real loud,” the woman said with a dumb chuckle.

“So you better start explaining. You have ten seconds before I cut off the first finger. Ten.”

“Come on, man,” Peter tried. “How can I tell you anything when there’s nothing to tell?”

“Nine,” Janos said, looking almost bored.

“Just let me do a few runs for you. I’ll show you that you can trust me.”

“Eight.”

Come on, Parker, Peter told himself. Even if you’re not in your suit, you are Spider-Man right now. So be Spider-Man.

“Seven.”

Peter’s mind started racing. His mission still stood; he needed to scope out the building, see how many people were here and whether they were armed. It had just become slightly more complicated because Janos wasn’t about to just let him walk out the door. Right now, it seemed more likely that he was going to cut Peter’s fingers off one by one to get a confession, and then shoot him through the head.

“Six.”

He could kick ass and escape, of course. Press the alarm button on his watch. The Avengers would come in and help him. But they might think that Peter was in danger, and prioritize getting to him over rounding up all the dealers. And Peter didn’t want any of them to get away, because that would only put Kathy in more danger. He wasn’t sure if Janos would actually hurt his own mother, but he wouldn’t put it past him, either.

“Five.”

He wanted the Avengers to come in as prepared and professional as possible, so they could round the whole gang up quickly and efficiently. Back to the original plan, then. What Peter needed was, first, a glimpse at the whole place and then, second, to be left alone for a little while to convey the information through his watch.

“Four.”

Janos wouldn’t let him go, but maybe he could be persuaded to lock Peter up somewhere. Preferably somewhere else in the facility so Peter would have to step out of the van and walk through the building.

“Three.”

He could only think of one way to achieve exactly that. He would need to tell Janos something unexpected. Something that would intrigue the man so much that he would want to verify the information immediately.

“Two.”

“I didn’t have a deal with the police,” Peter blurted out. “But I… I had a deal.”

“Tell me more.”

Peter shifted in his seat, trying to look nervous. “Look, frankly I’m more scared of them than you.”

Janos’ voice went deep with interest. “Oh, really?”

The mouse smells cheese.

“They already have insiders everywhere, including at the police, the local government. They want to control all drug and arms trade on the east side of New York. I’ve seen them really fuck some people up, so I’d rather not get on their bad side.”

Janos took out a pocket knife, snapped it open and turned the razor-sharp point towards Peter. “How about I cut off your pinky and then you can rethink whether you want to get on my bad side?”

“All right, all right,” Peter cried out. “Look, I don’t know what else to tell you. They’re a gang, they’re well organized, they have a strategy to control the entire east-side of New York. They wanna push everyone else out, and they’re well on their way to do it.”

“Why did they approach a dumb little snot like you?”

“It’s how they work. Bottom-up. They figure out who the drug runners are and approach them. Because they crack easy, you know. Once they know where the runners get their goods, they just leak that info to the police and let them do the dirty work. When a guy approached me, I figured he was just a plainclothes. He put me in the back of his car and it wasn’t until he drove me to some junkyard instead of the station that I realized something else was going on.”

“Who exactly are these assholes?” Janos snapped.

The mouse is in the trap.

“You think they let me in on their whole plan or anything? I’ve only ever seen a few of them, and they didn’t even tell me their names. I told them what I knew, which was Milan Pokorni and nothing else. I didn’t even know you had a whole drug ring going! That’s why Milan got busted. And now I work for them. The guy I answer to lives upstate, in Esopus. That’s why I go there a lot.”

“Pretty far off,” Janos commented, still looking suspicious.

“They don’t want to be too close to the action I guess. But what do I know?”

Janos pressed his lips together as he studied Peter. Peter held his breath. He knew his story didn’t completely hold up. There were some loose ends that he hadn’t explained away, such as the lie about the Portrees. But hopefully, Janos would be too concerned about this sudden threat of competition that he wouldn’t focus on that.

“We’re driving out there right now,” Janos ordered. “Scouting that place out. Tara, you’re with me. Cain, lock the kid up somewhere. Keep an eye on him.”

And the trap falls shut.

Janos pointed the knife at him again. “Give me an address, kid. And just a warning: if this story is bullshit, I’m really going to fuck you up, am I clear?”

“Crystal.”

-

Cain led him into what looked like a large supply closed, bolting the door shut behind them. “You; sit down and be quiet,” he said, as he turned back to Peter.

Peter responded with a solid right-hand punch, and Cain collapsed in a heap on the floor, immediately unconscious.

“You be quiet,” Peter muttered.

He wasted no time in unclasping his watch and pressing his thumb against the back. A tiny light started blinking. Peter lifted the watch closer to his mouth, reporting quickly and clearly. “I spotted twelve people, but there was a backroom that I didn’t scope out, so there could be a few more. There could be another exit in the back, too. Definitely an exit in the front and one through the garage. Most of them are armed, but not heavily. Mostly handguns. Also, two people are heading out in that same van right now, heading north. They need to be intercepted. Also, also, I’m still inside, so please don’t shoot on sight. I am in a sort of supply closet, though, so I won’t get in your way.”

He removed his thumb, watched as the light stopped blinking and hoped that the damn thing was working properly.

He then concentrated on his own situation. The right thing to do would be to stay in here and simply wait. He had promised the Avengers to stay out of the way, after all. Moreover, playing the super-hero without having his suit would be a risk to his identity.

He felt a little angry, though, and he wasn’t about to sit still. Was there anything he could do in here that would be more useful than sitting and waiting? He turned to observe the rows of shelves. For this to go well, they didn’t just have to arrest everyone in this building, but also anyone else in Janos’ network. And there might be clues in here to help them map it all out.

He opened the first box at the same moment that the fighting started. He heard a crashing sound and someone started to shout commands.

He slanted another glance at Cain, who seemed nowhere closer to regaining consciousness, then opened a second box. And a third. So far, they were all filled with empty plastic vials.

He felt a bit absurd, methodically digging through boxes with people yelling, running and firing guns just on the other side of the door. But he kept going, opening box after box after box. And with each box, he felt like the anger inside him was fueled a little more; blazing a little higher.

He wasn’t sure why he was so angry, but he kept tearing through the boxes. Until he found one that was decidedly heavier than the rest. He set it down and lifted the lid to find the box crammed full of papers. He pulled a few papers out to see if it was anything useful. He just saw endless rows of numbers and Hungarian words. He didn’t know what the administration of a drug ring was supposed to look like, but this seemed close enough.

The door was thrown open and Peter glanced up, lowering the papers. Iron Man barged inside, whirring and clanking. The face plate lifted and Tony’s slightly pale face appeared, eyes flitting down to Cain on the ground and then up to Peter.

“Peter, what the hell? You were supposed to be in and out!”

“Yeah, well, they locked me up,” Peter said curtly.

“Why?”

“Plans changed. Did anyone catch that van heading north?”

“Ran straight into an NYPD road block,” Tony said, before pressing: “What do you mean plans changed?”

“Did you get everyone? Did no one escape?”

“Pete…”

“I think I found their admin.”

“Peter!”

Peter dusted his hands off and got to his feet. “What?”

Tony didn’t repeat his earlier question. He just asked: “Are you all right?”

Peter pressed his lips together, taking a moment to try and figure out why he felt so frustrated. “I just… I can’t believe I technically worked for these guys. That’s not okay. They deal in really, really awful shit. I always told myself that the work I did wasn’t hurting anyone, but with this...”

“You were just trying to help Kathy.”

“Yeah, but if I got other people into trouble for that, what was the point?”

“So maybe you messed up,” Tony said, and Peter imagined he would be shrugging if that had been possible in the Iron Man suit. “I’ve been there. We’ve all been there. You just have to make sure you learn from it and do better in the future.”

Yeah, Tony was probably the world’s number one expert on messing up.

-

“Wanna explain to me why you went off script, Parker?”

The Avengers had returned to the compound to find Fury lounging around in the living area. He had immediately requested a ‘little chat’ with Peter in one of the offices. Tony had insisted on joining them.

Peter didn’t really care about someone chaperoning him, but it was nice that Tony appeared to suddenly be protective of him.

“Well?” Fury demanded, towering over Peter with his arms firmly crossed.

Peter had taken a seat on the desk and shrugged as he dangled his legs back and forth. “They never wanted me to do any job. Janos just wanted me down there because he thought I had a deal with the cops. He wanted information. He threated to cut off my fingers. And also to set me on fire, a little. But mostly the finger thing.”

“Did you tell them anything Avengers-related?”

“Of course not,” Peter huffed, before recounting exactly what he told Janos.

Fury took in his explanation, then gave a satisfied nod. “Good work.”

Tony clearly disagreed. “You should have pressed the alarm button as soon as it became clear that it was a set-up,” he growled.

“Tony, I had it under control. Janos had one measly pocket knife and two dumb lackies with him in that van. I was never in any immediate danger.”

Tony rounded on Fury. “Can you talk some sense into him?”

Fury sat down in a chair, crossing his legs, looking a lot more relaxed. “Parker says he had it under control, Stark. And it sounds to me like he did.”

“He doesn’t get to decide whether he has things under control!” Tony erupted. “He’s a kid!”

“That wasn’t ever a problem for you until now, was it?”

“He’s not SHIELD’s personal weapon.”

“He is exactly that!” Fury thundered. “Just because you did a one eighty and somehow formed an attachment to the kid, doesn’t mean you get to call the shots. You gonna play the parent, now? Let’s face it: Tony Stark is not any more reliable as a guardian than any of the other seven foster families this kid has been through.”

Tony froze, anger and shock etched into his face as he stared at Fury, his chest heaving. Fury merely gave a mild, unbothered shrug. Without another word, Tony turned on his heel and stormed from the room, slamming the door behind him.

That had been a low blow. Peter scowled at Fury.

“Listen, kid,” Fury said in a gruff voice. “I know I play the asshole, but I’m not out to make anyone’s life miserable. I’m merely trying to keep personal drama to a minimum, here. And drama is Tony Stark’s middle name. Don’t get too attached to him, and don’t let him make your decisions for you. You’re better off with Mr. and Mrs. Portree, trust me.”

“You just like my decisions better than Tony’s, because they fit in with your plans,” Peter dryly pointed out.

Fury didn’t bother denying it. “I see something in you, kid. You stay cool under pressure. You put the mission first. You think fast. You got some leadership qualities, too. I like that.”

Peter knew better than to simply take the compliment at face value. He crossed his arms, raising an eyebrow. “I’m glad you consider me such a valuable asset to your goals.”

“My goal is to make the world a safer place. Is that not Spider-Man’s goal, too?”

“It is. But I’m not doing it for you.”

“I don’t care whether you do. This may come as a surprise to you, but I don’t care about power or prestige. I just care about getting the job done.”

That sounded about right. Peter was getting the sense that, if Fury was an asshole, at least he was an honest one.

“Do you use that SHIELD phone you gave me to track all my messages?” He abruptly asked.

“Not at the moment,” Fury said, which was a pretty ambiguous answer.

“Because I don’t use it?” Peter guessed.

Fury’s lips curved into a calculating smile. He didn’t reply otherwise. But Peter didn’t need to know more. “I need a favor,” he said instead.

Fury raised a single eyebrow.

“When Milan was arrested, you kept my involvement hidden from Kathy. Now Janos got busted, too, and I was hoping you could do the same.”

Fury eased back in his chair and steepled his fingers together. “I’ll see what I can do.”

-

Peter found Tony down in his workshop, angrily banging away at Sam’s dented wing-suit.

“Did Sam get injured again?”

“If you want to call it that,” Tony said, smiling slightly even though his tones were flat and his eyes grim. “He flew into a steal beam.”

Peter chuckled, hopping up on the table, and sitting on top of it with crossed legs.

Tony didn’t tell him to keep his shoes of the furniture that time.

“Thank you, Tony,” Peter murmured.

Tony almost looked annoyed. “I did nothing thankworthy, kid.” He raised the hammer again and brought it crashing down on the metal wingsuit five or six times.

Peter winced at the noise and waited until Tony set the hammer down with a long exhale. “Are you angry?”

“Not at you.”

“Why are you angry?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Tony said stiffly. “Fury was right.”

Yeah. Fury was right.

-

That evening, officer Siddiqui came by the compound again, his face grave. “I need to talk to Mr. Parker for a moment.”

Tony squinted. “Do I need to get his lawyer down here?”

“He’s not a suspect. I would like to speak with him privately, and then talk to the rest of you.”

Peter stood up from his chair. “It’s fine, Tony, no problem.” He nodded at the officer before leading him into one of the offices down the hall. He hoped that Siddiqui could give him some information on how Kathy was taking this latest development.

It turns out, he did. In a far worse way than Peter could have imagined.

“The Avengers’ mission today was very effective,” Siddiqui informed him as they sat down on either side of a desk. “That really was the lion’s den. From the documents we seized, we were able to roll up a whole network. My colleagues are still bringing people in from all over the city as we speak.”

“So, that’s good, right?” Peter asked, giving an encouraging smile, because frankly, Siddiqui didn’t seem that thrilled about it.

“Yes,” Siddiqui said, before hesitating. “I’m here to talk to you about Kathy Pokorni’s involvement.”

Peter’s smile faded. “What do you mean?”

“As far as we can gather from the information we have right now, she was pretty much at the head of the whole organization.”

Peter gave a confused, awkward laugh. Because Siddiqui had to be kidding. “I’m sorry, are you talking about the seventy-year-old lady who spends her days doing the administration of her knitting club?”

“From what we’ve gathered, she mostly spends her days planning the logistics of an extremely lucrative drug ring,” Siddiqui said. “She owns several properties all over town, and we’ve raided all of them this afternoon. All trap houses, drug serves. They all answered to her. As far as I know, she is not part of any… knitting club.”

Peter swallowed. “But… no… but she didn’t even know I worked for Milan.”

“She did know,” the officer quietly explained. “She just kept you in the dark, most likely to avoid getting caught if you ever slipped up. You’re very young after all, even for a runner.”

“What about… what about the money Milan always gave her?”

“There was a lot of money going around in that family, kid. I’m talking thousands of pounds exchanging hands every day. And she was at the center of the web. I highly doubt Milan ever paid her specifically for the work you did. That’s not to say she didn’t get money out of your work. Of course she did; that was the point of getting you involved.”

A horrible, horrible feeling was settling in Peter’s stomach. The only reason he had ever agreed to work for Milan was because he was under the impression that Kathy was a poor, innocent old lady who really needed the money. “Are you… are you saying she wasn’t poor?”

“She was not,” Siddiqui confirmed. “I’m not saying she was a millionaire, but she was certainly well-off. Like I said, she owns a lot of property. And we found almost fifty thousand dollars in cash hidden in her apartment.”

Peter felt a wave of dizziness overtake him. Fifty thousand dollars in cash? In the apartment that he cleaned every fucking day? How was that even possible? Wouldn’t he have seen some of it, at some point?

Clinging to a last fiber of hope that maybe Kathy had been set up somehow, and someone had planted the money in her apartment, he quietly asked: “Where was it hidden?”

“In the garage, ground floor.”

Peter felt his mouth drop open, a sense of betrayal washing over him. “She has a garage?”

Siddiqui nodded, looking apologetic. “Due to legal reasons, I can’t give you any more details or keep you up to date. I just thought you should hear it from me, rather than from the press tomorrow. They smelled blood, and there were a few of them outside Kathy’s apartment when we brought her out. Now – you don’t have an official guardian, but I still think it might be a good idea if I told your… housemates about the situation.”

Peter abruptly stood from his chair. He felt weightless and numb, as if gravity had suddenly disappeared. “Do whatever you want,” he managed, before fleeing from the room.

He passed through the living area. He must have looked like hell, because Pepper immediately stood from her armchair. “Peter?”

Peter didn’t answer. He didn’t even look at her. He just rushed past her, up the stairs, and then ran all the way to his bedroom where he threw himself on his bed and buried himself under the blankets.

Siddiqui was probably explaining the situation to the others right now, and Peter felt his stomach turn at the idea of what they might be saying. Silly, silly Peter. Got fooled by an old lady. Thought she cared about you, didn’t you? Stupid, dumb Peter.

All this time he had been worried about what Kathy would do if she found out he was a drug runner. That she would be angry, disappointed, scared for him. But she had just been happily making money, not caring one bit that Peter was doing dangerous work for it. And then making him clean the whole goddamn house and cook her dinner after he got home!

Had that been her whole reason for taking him in? Had she merely seen Peter as some gullible kid who she could manipulate into doing her dirty work for her? Being her personal housekeeper, and then, when that wasn’t enough, an unpaid drug runner too?

His endlessly spiraling thoughts were interrupted when his bedroom door opened a few minutes later. Peter recognized the mechanical heartbeat and the shuffling footsteps. His mattress dipped when Tony seated himself on the edge of his bed. Here comes the ‘I told you so’.

“Kid, I’m really sorry.”

Peter buried his face in his pillow. “Well, you were right about her,” he said, his voice muffled. “So, good for you.”

“I didn’t expect this. I just thought she was a somewhat questionable guardian, not a criminal mastermind.”

Peter squeezed his eyes shut to force the tears down. “S-she lied to me, Tony. My whole life with her was an elaborate f-fucking Watergate-level lie.”

“I know, kid. You’re probably angry. Or sad. Or both.”

Peter didn’t even know how to describe his feelings. Kathy was the only person who had ever chosen to foster him. And now it turned out that it had been for entirely selfish reasons. He felt more than angry or sad. He felt completely, entirely, utterly unwanted and unlovable.

“Can I give you a hug?” Tony ventured.

Peter choked out a sob.

The bedsprings creaked as Tony stretched out next to him, on top of the blanket, a heavy hand landing on Peter’s back. It was strange how comforting his presence was, considering they had only been getting along for a little while. Peter slowly turned onto his side until he could hide his face in Tony’s shoulder. Tony wrapped one arm around him, his chest deflating as he heaved a sigh.

Neither of them said anything. Peter didn’t care. He just needed someone to be close to him right now. But he could tell from Tony’s fidgeting that the man was uncomfortable with the silence.

“You know, Fury gave me your file to read before you moved in,” Tony commented randomly. “I read everything there is on record about you, even from early childhood.”

Peter frowned, brushing a tear away. He had no idea why this was relevant, but he couldn’t deny that he was slightly intrigued. “And?”

Tony started absentmindedly running his hand through Peter’s hair. His mind seemed to be in a different place entirely. “Saw that you broke your arm once when you were eight. Even saw the X-ray.”

“That was while riding my bike,” Peter remembered.

“To school?”

Peter sniffled. “No, just out in the street. D-dad had told me not to do it because of all the potholes in the road. But I just got a new bike for my birthday and I wanted to ride.”

“Bet you scared the crap out of him.”

“Yeah. It wasn’t like the b-bone was sticking through the skin or anything. My arm was just all crooked, you know? I picked up my bike and walked back home and then just showed him and mom. Dad almost fainted, so mom had to drive me to the hospital. And then later she hid the bike key so I couldn’t ride without their p-permission.”

“Uhuh. How long before you found the hiding spot?”

Peter gave a watery chuckle then, because Tony seemed to know him pretty well already. “Two days.”

“Poor ol’ mom and dad,” Tony murmured.

Peter smiled, wiping his tears away with the edge of the blanket. It had been a while since he had thought about his parents. Whether it was intentional or just aimless rambling; Tony had reminded him that there was a time when he was loved.

“Thanks, Tony,” he whispered.

“Welcome, kiddo.”

Chapter Text

“How was your day?”

“Really fucking terrible,” Peter muttered. He had yelled at three different teachers; handled his books so aggressively that at least two of them had essentially ripped in half; and then after his last lesson he had gone back to the compound. It was the first time that he had come here straight after school instead of going by Kathy’s place. He felt like a boat without peddles, aimlessly bobbing around without direction.

“Teachers not able to keep your interest?” Rhodey asked as he poured Peter a cup of tea.

Hell no. Not that they ever could. But it hadn’t helped that his thoughts were only on Kathy. She was in prison right now. Possibly talking to some very expensive lawyers.

“Tony wanted to talk to you about that, by the way,” Rhodey continued.

Her picture had been in the paper. People loved to see an old lady get arrested for a big crime. Sensational.

Rhodey said something else, but Peter didn’t really listen anymore. He had spent the whole day with his phone in his hand. His SHIELD phone, because Siddiqui had taken his other phone as ‘evidence’. He had tried to listen to the tiny voice in his head telling him not to look for news about the Pokorni drug bust, because it would only make him feel miserable. But there was another tiny voice constantly nagging him that there might be an update … there might be an update …

“Peter?”

Peter looked up to see that Tony was suddenly sitting at the table too, peering at him with concern in his eyes. “You still with us, bud?”

Peter sighed, pushing his tea cup away. “I think I’ll go to bed for a bit.”

Tony hesitated and exchanged a look with Rhodey. “You already slept all afternoon and evening yesterday,” he then murmured. “I think a distraction is a better idea.”

“I agree,” Rhodey said with a nod.

“Well, why don’t I consult my legal guardians, then,” Peter scathed. “Mrs. Portree, Mr. Portree, do you mind if I have a little lie-down? Guess what; they don’t care!”

He pushed his chair back and stormed out.

-

His naptime lasted no more than ten minutes before Pepper marched into the room, clapping her hands and telling Peter to get up.

“I don’t have to listen to you,” Peter protested.

“Don’t start with me, Peter,” she warned. “You know I’ll win.”

Peter did know. So he pushed the blanket away and sat up, swinging his legs over the side of the bed. “I don’t even have anything to do. No homework.”

Pepper grabbed his desk chair and turned it so she could sit down, facing Peter. “Good, then Tony and I can talk to you.”

Peter now spotted Tony lingering in the doorway. “Talk about what?”

“Schools.”

Schools?

Pepper crossed her legs and shot Tony an expectant look. Tony cleared his throat before stepping inside and seating himself on the edge of the bed, laying a few flyers on top of the blanket. “Rhodey told me you didn’t have a great day at school?” He prodded.

“I may have screamed at a few teachers. But at my school that’s nothing new.”

Tony hummed. “Do I need to give you a lecture?”

“Let’s save us both the embarrassment.”

The corner of Tony’s mouth tugged up into a smile. “All right. Well, maybe it’s time to move on to a better education?”

Peter frowned down at the flyers, making no move to pick any of them up. “I already told you how I feel about this.”

“I understand why you’re concerned about going to a new school. But I also think those concerns are unfounded. You don’t feel at home in your current school. But every school is different. You won’t always have to fight to earn your place.”

“How do you know? What if it’s more of the same?”

“What if it isn’t?” Tony asked. “What if it’s a just bunch of nerdy kids with the same interests as you; building robots and wearing T-shirts with science puns?”

Peter finally gave in, picking up a flyer to glance through it. “I’d need a new laptop… different books.”

“I believe Tony already informed you we’d pay for it,” Pepper said.

“Yeah. Until I move out again. And then what?”

Pepper pressed her lips together, exchanging a look with Tony.

“We’ll cross that bridge when we get there,” Tony said.

“I’ve called all these schools,” Pepper said, with a wave at the flyers. “Two of them said you could start as early as next Monday, based on your PSAT results. One is specialized in science and engineering, the other in the humanities and classics. I have a feeling I know which one you’d prefer.”

Peter scrunched up his nose. “I’m not going to any school where I gotta waste time on classics.”

“Midtown Tech is your best option, then,” Pepper concluded. “They specialize in science and engineering. They have a robotics lab, a science decathlon team, a chess club, a climate club, internships, science fairs, symposia…”

Peter didn’t say anything. Because, yeah, that sounded really awesome. But he didn’t like to admit that he really wanted something when he needed Tony and Pepper to actually get it. He didn’t want to be dependent like that.

“Thanks for making an effort,” he said. “But I’m not interested.” He pushed the flyers away.

“Pete,” Tony said, softly but firmly. “Why would you deny yourself the chance to get a great education? School is a place where you have to go every day. Think of how great it would be if that place were somewhere you actually enjoyed going?”

Really freaking great. Because Peter never felt like he belonged, wherever he was. He didn’t ever fit in anywhere, he was always the ‘leftover’. He was just worried that things would be the same at a new school. But maybe he should give it a try. Because even just if the teachers were less incompetent than in his current school, that would make it worth it, right?

He gave a single nod.

“Good,” Tony said, looking relieved. “We’ll get it sorted, then.”

“One last thing,” Pepper said. “Based on the stories you’ve told us, I have the impression that you’re used to settling arguments with your fists rather than your words. You need to understand that the climate in this school will be a little different. They have very strict no-fighting rules.”

“And a zero tolerance policy on drugs,” Tony added.

Peter frowned at him and Tony held up his hands. “Just figured it was worth mentioning, since a certain someone did pop a pill at our last charity event.”

Peter looked away. He didn’t even feel angry anymore. He just felt kinda… sad. He didn’t want to hide anymore. He wished he could simply tell Tony and Pepper that he hadn’t taken drugs. But that wasn’t simple at all.

“Our point is, please do your best to give the school a fair chance. Feel out the situation. The last thing we want is you getting into trouble in your first week.”

Peter nodded, not really trusting himself to speak right now.

“Still want to sleep?”

Peter shrugged. “No, I’m okay,” he whispered. “No homework, though.”

“So what do you want?”

Some question. What Peter really wanted was a hug or something. He felt really shitty and really alone. “Can I come down to the workshop?”

Tony smiled. “Definitely.”

-

That Friday, Peter didn’t say goodbye to any of his classmates. And if the teachers knew that he was about to be transferred, they didn’t let on. Peter just emptied his locker after his last class, handed in the key, and walked away.

His new books were waiting for him on the dinner table when he got home. Midtown Tech had a mentoring program and his new mentor, Mr. Harrington, called him that same afternoon to introduce himself and let him know what homework he should do. Which was more than any of his teachers at his old school had ever done for him. It made Peter feel a little less nervous, already.

He read through some of the books and started on the homework, surprised to notice that he actually had to put in a little effort to get some of the things right. He wasn’t sure if he should be happy or annoyed about that. On the one hand, it looked like he was going to have to put time aside for his homework in the future. On the other hand; whadduya know, he was actually learning something!

“Liking your new school work?” a voice sounded and Peter almost dropped his biology book. He looked up to see that Rhodey had entered the living area and was now grinning back at him. Wanda was standing next to him, with that same soft smile on her face as always. Peter felt his cheeks flush. “I have to do this!” he defended himself.

“Don’t sweat it, kid. It’s nice to see you passionate about something. What are you reading right now?”

Peter laid the book flat on the dinner table so Rhodey could see.

“Ecology,” Rhodey said, eyeing the chapter title. “You’re interested in that?”

Peter decided to simply nod. The truth was that he had paused on this page because there was a picture of a turtle with quite a beautiful pattern on its shell. And he kinda liked turtles. Or maybe he was just jealous of them. How easy would life be if he could do that too? Just completely hide away in his shell whenever he didn’t want to deal with life.

“Any plans for the weekend?” Rhodey asked. “Apart from preparing for school?”

Peter shrugged, feeling a little helpless. Normally he’d visit Kathy. Now, his afternoons just felt like a gaping hole of nothingness.

“Want to join me and Wanda, online gift shopping? She’s great at gift giving. She always knows what people want. It’s like she can read minds.”

Wanda chuckled.

“Gift shopping?” Peter asked.

“Pepper’s birthday is next month,” Wanda said.

“Oh,” Peter said, dropping his eyes down to his book. A month... He didn’t like to think that far ahead, and he couldn’t help but be slightly annoyed at Rhodey for bringing it up. He probably wouldn’t even be living at the compound anymore by then.

“Tony talked to you about staying on the team, right?” Rhodey gently prodded, correctly interpreting the look on Peter’s face.

“Yeah.”

“Even if you’re not living here anymore, you’ll be welcome to visit. Certainly for birthdays.”

“I don’t have any money,” Peter said, and realization suddenly hit him like a tidal wave full of murky, ugly emotions. He didn’t have anything. Anything. No actual home. Not even an actual guardian. Just some secretary at SHIELD pretending to be both Mr. and Mrs. Portree in case any of Peter’s teachers called the fake number Fury had been giving out. All Peter had were the books and clothes Tony and Pepper had bought for him and he still didn’t know what they wanted from him in return.

Rhodey appeared mercifully oblivious to Peter’s emotions. “We’ll pay. We can go in on a present all together.”

“Right.”

“You really don’t have to join us,” Rhodey assured him. “I just figured you might like something to do.”

Peter quickly glanced at Wanda, a little concerned about her mind reading abilities. But if she sensed his distressed thoughts, she wasn’t letting on. She simply sent him an encouraging smile.

Peter carefully shut the biology book, hugging it close to his chest. He probably could use the distraction. “Yeah. Okay.”

Rhodey and Wanda sat at the table with him, Wanda opening her laptop.

“So, what does Pepper even like?” Peter asked, suddenly aware that he had no idea. During dinner, Pepper always talked about work, and Peter usually made himself scarce in the evenings so he didn’t really know how Pepper spent those.

“Well, she’s getting a degree in Sustainable Business,” Rhodey started, “so she’s always happy with books on that subject.”

Peter stared. “Seriously? She runs Stark Industries and she’s getting a degree?”

“The degree is more of a hobby, though,” Rhodey said. “She also likes art. And she’s a pretty skilled photographer.”

Peter felt bad, suddenly. Pepper had been really nice to him, and Peter hadn’t even bothered to learn anything about her. All he knew about her was that she dressed like a scary CEO for work, but stuck to sweatpants on the weekends.

He turned to Wanda. “Okay, so um… did you see in her mind what kind of present she wanted?”

She gave a tiny shake of her head. “The mind is not a book I can just read. I don’t see your thoughts or your memories. It’s more about… emotions and intentions.”

“Like what?”

She tilted her head, her blue eyes steady on his face. “Like, you worry a lot.”

Peter blushed, then put his forehead straight down on the table, feeling like an idiot. An idiot on display.

“I could have told you that,” Rhodey said in amused tones.

“Change the subject!” Peter commanded, still not lifting his head.

Wanda made a noise that sounded like she was stifling a laugh. But she did change the topic back to Pepper’s present. “I do happen to know she has been looking into upcycling. You know, recycling your own furniture by turning it into something else. It fits the sustainability theme. But I think she feels reluctant to really try her hand at it.”

“Then it sounds like we need to give her a nudge,” Rhodey said, his eyes twinkling. “If it’s something that makes you happy, it’s never something to be reluctant about.”

Wanda smiled. “You sound like Dr. Beinart.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.”

-

“Hey, I like your shirt,” the boy said, a radiant smile on his round face. “I’m Ned. Mr. Harrington asked me to kinda help you get around today.”

“Okay,” Peter said, giving Ned an assessing look. He looked innocent enough. “Thanks.”

“We got a lot of the same classes,” Ned babbled on as he led Peter down the hallway. “Macroeconomics first. Did you just move here?”

“Sort of,” Peter said evasively.

Ned appeared to be easily appeased, though. “Cool,” he said, nodding. “I lived here my whole life. Here’s our classroom. Do you mind sitting in the front?”

“No, that’s fine.”

They sat down and Peter threw Ned another calculating look. It had been a while since he had communicated this much with another kid his age, and he wasn’t sure what to talk about. “Are the teachers here okay?”

“Yeah, I think so. Some teachers are a little boring, like Mrs. Choi. English literature – you’ll see. But she is very smart, so I guess she’s still okay.”

“Bullies?” Peter asked.

“Oh,” Ned faltered. “Well, there’s this one guy who is a bit of an ass. Over there, in the back, with the purple shirt. He calls himself Flash.

Peter turned and spotted the purple-shirt kid. Meticulously combed hair, white teeth, making large, animated gestures as he spoke, as if he was the damn president or something. Yuk. Peter narrowed his eyes. “How big is his crew?”

“Um,” Ned said. “You mean, like, his friends? He doesn’t really have any. Because he’s an ass.”

Peter stared at Flash. That was it? This preppy kid was the big bully? Peter could chew kids like him up and spit them out like bubblegum.

“Do you like Legos?” Ned asked.

Peter blinked and turned back to him.

“I just got the new Lego Death Star set,” Ned said. “You can come over to my place and we can build it if you want. I mean, you don’t have to…”

“Cool,” Peter said.

Ned’s face lit up like a Christmas tree.

-

Rhodey I’ll be a bit later today so don’t wait around for me with the tea and stuff.  Can you also tell Happy not to bother picking me up? I’ll catch a bus.

Rhodey texted him back swiftly. All right, Peter. Do you want to let me in on your plans?

Peter debated lying. Because he could totally picture the smug smile on Tony’s face when Rhodey told him Peter had already made a friend on his first day.

Or maybe it wouldn’t be smug. Maybe Tony would just be happy that Peter was happy. I’m hanging out with a classmate. We’re building a death star.

Rhodey didn’t immediately respond. Peter imagined he was probably asking someone nearby what the hell a death star was. Rhodey wasn’t big on movies.

Finally, his phone buzzed again. Sounds good. Have fun.

“Okay,” Peter said, stuffing his phone into his pocket.

Ned glanced up at him, swallowing around a bite of mashed potatoes. “You got permission?”

Peter didn’t exactly need permission, since he didn’t even have any actual guardians. But he nodded anyway, poking at his food. It was funny how everything at Midtown seemed to be better than at his former school, but the school lunches were still the same paltry quality.

“Have you ever built anything with Legos before?”

“Not in a while,” Peter said. John and Fiona had built stuff from Lego with him, he remembered. They had been pretty cool foster parents. But like most families that Peter had lived with, they had only signed up for short-term fostering, meaning Peter couldn’t stay with them for long before getting whisked away to yet another home.

“What are your hobbies?” Ned asked, his voice filled with genuine interest.

Peter opened his mouth, then closed it again. What were his hobbies? Oh, you know, on an average day I’d just experiment a little with my web fluid, then take my bike and do a few drug runs, then cook dinner for this lady who is currently in jail, and after dinner I’d swing around the city to fight crime.

“I like old appliances,” he finally said. “Like, strip them for parts and then build something new.”

“Awesome. Can you show me sometime?”

“Yeah, of course.”

“Excuse me,” a sneering voice broke in.

Peter glanced up and saw the purple- shirt-kid standing right next to their table – what was his name again?

“You’re the new kid, right?” Purple-shirt said.

“I don’t know,” Peter replied. “Have you seen me before?”

“No.”

“Then I guess I’m new.

Purple-shirt hummed. “Listen, you don’t have to sit at this table. Come sit with me.”

“I don’t mind sitting near the door,” Peter casually replied.

“I wasn’t referring to the location, I was referring to the company.”

“Oh, right,” Peter said. “In that case: fuck you.”

Ned almost spit out his food.

“I was just being nice,” purple-shirt snootily informed him. “Dial it back a little, shit-for-brains. You’ll soon notice that you shouldn’t come up against me.”

“Okay,” Peter said, digging into his pudding cup. “I’ll let you know if I notice.”

-

Peter returned to the compound close to dinner time. Vision was already in the kitchen, finishing up on his chicken casserole.

Peter slipped down to the workshop anyways. He wanted to catch a glimpse of what Tony was working on, today. The man had been experimenting with new web combinations for Peter all weekend.

Tony appeared to be working on something else, now. He had a large paper laid out on the table and was sketching something, a concentrated frown on his face, his nose almost touching the paper.

Peter quietly moved closer, until he was standing right behind Tony.

“Never let your guard down,” he then suddenly said and Tony yelped, jumping in his seat and dropping the pencil to the floor. Peter chortled.

Tony whirled around to face him, one hand dramatically pressing against the arc reactor. “For the love of… How dare you scare an old man with an artificial heart?”

“You’re an Avenger,” Peter said, grinning. “Never let your guard down.”

“So this is, what, you’re training me, you newbie?" Tony asked. “Did you just get home?”

Peter hopped up on the table, crossing his legs. “Yeah. What are you making?”

Tony bent down to pick his pencil up from the floor. “Just a camera strap for Pepper. Do you have a lot of homework?”

“No. Ned and I worked on it together.”

Tony nodded. “Did you have fun?”

“Yeah.”

Tony smiled. And it wasn’t a smug smile. He just looked pleased.

“Thanks,” Peter murmured, realizing now that he hadn’t even said that yet. “For helping me get enrolled. And paying, and everything. And for the clothes, too. I never thanked you for those. And for helping me with the Pokorni thing, though I think I did thank you for that.”

Tony chuckled, putting the pencil away and rolling up his sketches. “Where is all this coming from?”

“Can you just let me thank you, Stark?”

Tony glanced up at him again, that familiar glint lighting up his brown eyes. But he didn’t say ‘you’re welcome’. He just reached out a hand, tugging at Peter’s arm until Peter slid off the table, then put an arm around Peter’s shoulders. “Come on, Parker. Let’s go have dinner.”

Chapter Text

Nothing Tony had ever experienced in his life had prepared him for what he was about to face today.

-

Today seemed like such a normal day, more normal than they had seen them in a long while. Peter was sitting across the table from him. He was doing his own homework down in the workshop, like he had been doing regularly, lately. He looked relaxed, he was smiling at something on the screen of his laptop.

It was such a far cry from how they had interacted when they first met. Peter Parker had been on their radar for a while, but when Fury rather unexpectantly announced that the kid would be moving into the compound, Tony had felt almost anxious. What the hell was he supposed to do with a teenager? His main frame of reference on how adults dealt with children was Howard Stark, and that was not a great omen. Tony had resolved not to repeat his father’s mistakes. But he was now more than willing to admit that he dealt with the whole situation even worse than his old man probably would have.

But that’s one thing Howard Stark had never done; admit to his mistakes and try to do better. So Tony finally had the edge. The situation had improved significantly. Peter was happy at his new school, enjoyed his city patrols as Spider-Man, worked in Tony’s workshop, and hopefully didn’t think about Kathy Pokorni so much anymore.

Across the room, Peter chuckled, still glancing at his laptop screen. He had picked up a screwdriver and was absentmindedly fiddling with the web shooter he had recently redesigned. Damn it, the kid was smart. It was insane. Tony wished he had noticed it earlier. Maybe it would have helped him get his head out of his ass a little sooner.

Tony didn’t want to kill the mood, but he had an announcement to make. He had an inkling that what he was about to say wouldn’t be very well received. “Pete. There’s another charity event coming up. I trust you can get through this one without ending up in the medbay?”

His suspicion was confirmed when Peter scowled in response, clenching his fist around the screwdriver.

“I’m not stoked about it either,” Tony said. “I have to attend this one. Can’t dodge them all. Pepper would skin me alive.”

“Who is coming?” Peter asked.

Tony gave a short laugh, focusing his attention back on his own project. “I don’t know, around two hundred people. You want a guest list? Same general group of people who were there last time.”

Peter made a strange, strangled sort of noise.

Tony turned his head and looked at him, surprised to find panic etched into the boy’s face. Peter had dropped the screwdriver to the table, looking up at Tony with wide, alarmed eyes.

Tony frowned, slowly getting up. “Pete?”

Peter’s glance darted away from him, down to his hands. He looked like he was suddenly struggling to keep a full-blown panic attack at bay.

Tony planted his hands on the table, leaning forward to peer closely at Peter. “What’s up, kid?”

Peter seemed to have great difficulty meeting his eyes. “I don’t know if you’ll believe me but I didn’t – I didn’t take any drugs at the last event. I mean I did, but I didn’t… I didn’t do it myself.”

And then the dam broke and Tony listened with mounting horror as Peter stumbled and stuttered his way through the explanation, the words spilling out along with a flood of tears. Somewhere along Peter’s jarred story, he made it to the kid’s side, hugging him fiercely as Peter cried into his sweater. “I m-made it to the elevator before I passed out and, well, you know the rest.”

Tony did know the rest. He and the other Avengers had blamed Peter, chewed him out for being irresponsible. “Fuck, Pete, I’m so sorry. I feel like such an ass.”

“It’s-s-s-s okay,” Peter blubbered. “I didn’t want to tell you. I guess we weren’t… we weren’t really there yet.”

Tony felt even worse then because he suspected that Peter might have thought that Tony wouldn’t even believe him. Tony hadn’t exactly made himself seem dependable back then.

As if hearing his thoughts, Peter chose that moment to whisper: “Thank you for believing me.” And Tony thought he might just start bawling right there and then. But that was the last thing Peter needed, so Tony furiously blinked the tears away and waited to speak until he felt like his voice wouldn’t break. “I’m so damn proud of you, Peter.”

Peter gave a watery chuckle that came out sounding more like a sob. “I did – I did get him in the face pretty good. Think I broke his nose.”

“Yeah, that,” Tony said. “But I mean, for telling me about it.” He brought up one hand to cup the back of Peter’s neck, resting his chin on top of the kid’s head as he closed his eyes for a moment to take steadying breath. His mind was jumping ahead, thinking about what he should do and who he should tell, but he forced himself back to the present. He needed to focus on what was most important right now: make sure Peter was okay. He now felt Peter’s hands tremble as they grasped the back of Tony’s sweater. “Let’s have a seat,” he suggested. “You’re shaking.”

Peter nodded, his body shuddering as he tried to gasp in a few breaths, his hands gripping Tony’s sweater tightly.

Tony steered them to the leather couch in the corner of his workshop, and they sank down on it. It was easier for Peter now to curl fully into Tony’s embrace, breathing in deeply. Tony gently weaved his fingers through Peter’s brown locks, his mind racing. This wasn’t something he could fix with some anecdote from Peter’s childhood about broken bones, he knew that much.

But he also didn’t want to come out with some completely, utterly lame questions like are you okay?

He was still struggling to come up with something better to say, when Peter was the one who broke the silence. “What are you going to do?” he asked in a small voice. “About him?”

Tony didn’t need to ask who. “I don’t know yet,” he answered truthfully. “But I won’t do anything without talking to you first, okay?”

Peter nodded, sniffling quietly.

“What do you want me to do?” Tony asked, realizing he should probably get that clear first.

“I don’t know either,” Peter muttered. “I mean – I don’t even mind talking to the cops if I have to. I just don’t w-want… I mean… If the police knows, then I’m sure it’ll show up somewhere on SHIELD’s radar. That’s what I don’t want.”

“I could talk to Fury first,” Tony suggested.

“That’s what I want to prevent,” Peter cried out, lifting his head from Tony’s shoulder so he could look Tony in the eye, and hugging his legs closer to his chest. “And I thought you hated him?”

“Fury and I do not always see eye to eye,” Tony agreed. “The patch doesn’t help there. But I do trust him, more than most people. At the very least, I trust him to be a professional. And he can help keep things discreet.”

“You don’t think he’ll try and use it against me?”

“No, he won’t,” Tony said immediately. “But if you’re not comfortable with it, I’ll think of something else.”

Peter sniffled, not replying anymore.

“What about the others?” Tony asked. “Do you want me to tell anyone?”

Peter winced a little, then laid his head back on Tony’s shoulder, his fingers tracing one of the larger oil stains on Tony’s jeans. The motion was thoughtless, as if this was a habit; something Peter always did when they were snuggling up together on the couch in the workshop. As if they had been here a hundred times. “Maybe you can tell Pepper and Rhodey? I don’t care what anyone else thinks, but I was a little b-bummed out when they got mad at me.”

Tony nodded, a strange feeling he couldn’t place rising up in his chest at the realization that Peter had confided in him with all this. Not in Pepper or Rhodey. What did that mean?

“And you can talk to Fury,” Peter added, his voice a little lower. “If… if you trust him, then so do I.”

Tony dropped a kiss into his hair. “I’ll take care of it, Pete,” he promised. “Whatever needs to happen next, I got your back, okay?”

“Okay,” Peter murmured, still sounding anxious. He made no move to get up, so Tony didn’t move either, except to readjust his arm around Peter’s shoulder. If there was one thing he knew, it was that things like this were really difficult to talk about. It was heartbreaking that Peter had kept it hidden for so long, but it wasn’t surprising. And the fact that he now had told Tony… Well, Tony wasn’t sure what that meant, but he knew he shouldn’t screw this up.

Unbiddenly, a memory of Howard Stark came to mind. From when Tony had been a kid himself, and the piano tutor his father had hired to teach him kept slapping his hands with a ruler whenever he made a mistake, as if they were living in a damn Charles Dickens novel. When he confided in his father with this, Howard told him that he would only achieve excellence with a strict teacher.

Tony was definitely going to deal with this better.

He thought about Gareth Galloway, then. Tony had always thought highly of him. They’d gone golfing together just last month. Gareth had given him a great inside tip on crypto currencies. He had also made a few jokes about their young golf caddie that Tony was now suddenly seeing in a whole new light.

“So what’s this charity event gonna be for?” Peter asked.

Tony recognized the kid’s need to talk about something else for a moment. “Funding for the University of Lagos.”

“Seems like you’re mostly raising money for people who had nothing to do with the explosion,” Peter said. “A museum last time, now a university.”

“The main damage was all dealt with immediately after the incident. The apartment was rebuilt. Victims and their families were reimbursed. I set up a relief foundation. These charity events now are more a general show of goodwill.”

“SHIELD propaganda,” Peter concluded.

“Yes,” Tony agreed. “But hey, if it helps people in Lagos and keeps the Avengers out the hands of the UN, I’d call it a win-win.”

“Yeah. It’s a good cause, I suppose,” Peter said, pulling his legs closer to his chest. “And, uh, if you can keep Galloway away from me, I have no problem attending your little party.”

“You must be out of your mind,” Tony said. “First off, I hope you realize that Gareth Galloway is never going to step foot in this compound again. And second off, you really don’t need to attend the event. You can do whatever. Go out, stay in your room, work here in my workshop.”

Peter picked at the seam of his shirt. “I don’t want to be in here by myself.”

“Then I’ll stay with you.”

The kid looked up at him warily. “You said you had to go. You said Pepper would skin you alive.”

Tony shook his head. “Not once she knows the circumstances.”

That remark brought on new tears. Peter turned to hide his face in Tony’s shirt, his shoulders shaking. “I l-lied to Pepper,” he blubbered. “I t-told her I found the drugs in my p-pocket. She’ll be m-mad.”

Tony’s heart clenched painfully. He remembered Pepper telling him that story. “She’ll not be mad,” he promised. “You didn’t feel comfortable around us back then. That’s not your fault. You had barely been here two weeks.”

“Stupid,” Peter muttered, pulling at a strand of his hair.

“Stop that,” Tony told him firmly, bringing up his hand to free Peter’s hair from his own grip.

Peter lowered his hands, wrapping his arms around his stomach. “What about the other Avengers? Won’t they ask questions if I don’t show up for the event?”

Tony paused to think. “We can tell them social events give you anxiety,” he then suggested. “Steve had a theory about that. He’ll be so proud of himself for calling it that he won’t even ask questions.”

“Okay,” Peter murmured. “I don’t want everyone to know. But I also didn’t want to h-hide it anymore.”

Tony hugged him extra tight. It just felt painful that that was all he could do right now. What was the point of being an Avenger if he couldn’t protect a child under his own roof?

“This is nice, though,” Peter added, his shoulder drooping as he leant into Tony.

“Good,” Tony said. “And FYI, I could do this all day.”

Peter gave a chuckle. A really tiny one. But it was a start.

-

When Peter went outside for a walk to clear his head, Tony immediately called Fury.

He didn’t really know how to broach the subject, though, so he started with a simple “how are we doing on improving our reputation?”

“I’ll know soon,” Fury said, his tones grim. “I have a meeting with Thaddeus Ross next weekend. And the best case scenario is that he tells me the Avengers are doing fine and to keep up the good work. Worst case; he tells me he wants to hand you over to the UN. ”

“What happens to Peter, after?”

“I don’t know, I’m not a social worker. I figure I’ll hand him back over to CPS, let them do what they think is best. I used to assume he could go back to Pokorni, but I guess that’s off the table.”

Tony knew that Fury was doing what he thought was best, but the way he talked about Peter like the kid was an object you could use and then discard made his hairs stand on end. “Can’t he stay at the compound?”

“Did Rhodey put you up to this? He’s been on my case about it, too. How do you people imagine that would work? We keep up the Portree-charade forever? It’ll blow up in our faces eventually. At some point teachers will ask questions, friends will want to come home with him… He’s a teenager, he’ll probably get a damn boyfriend or girlfriend at some point. No, he can’t stay. We’ll keep tabs on him of course, wherever he goes. He might still be of use in the future. Or a potential threat. Depending on whether he can straighten his life out.”

Tony pursed his lips, his mind racing. He wasn’t sure how to fix this, but he knew that he had to. For them to have gotten to the point where Peter trusted Tony enough to tell him about the incident, and then making him leave the compound again?

No, that just wasn’t gonna fly.

“Do you have any other suggestions?” Fury asked.

“I have to think about it. Either way, I was really calling about something else.”

“Then get to it and stop wasting my time.”

“Peter told me that a while back he was drugged and assaulted in a bathroom by one of my business partners.”

It stayed quiet for a few seconds.

“That’s messed up,” Fury then said. “What do you need from me?”

“Pete says he’s fine with talking to the cops, but he wants to keep things discreet. Which means it doesn’t end up in some record over at SHIELD or whatever other organizations you affiliate with.”

“I can keep it off the records,” Fury said. “Just let me know when he’s giving the statement and I’ll know when to look for it. Do you have proof of what happened?”

“He’s not lying,” Tony bit out.

“Don’t get defensive, Stark. I meant for the police. You know they can’t do shit if it’s one word against another. Does FRIDAY record?”

“Not in the bathrooms. And he was probably really damn subtle about drugging the champagne. That asshole knows FRIDAY well enough to know exactly what he can get away with. But I can at least get footage of him following Peter into the bathroom.”

“Might be good enough. If it’s not, let me know. There’s plenty of other ways to make the guy’s life miserable.”

Tony smiled. This was always the side of Fury he could get on board with. “I’ll keep you posted.”

Chapter Text

The lawns around the compound were always meticulously groomed. Peter wondered who took care of them. He never saw any gardeners out there. Probably because of that security thing.

He’d gone outside for a walk to clear his head; down to the river that flowed past the grounds. He had sat on a large rock, staring down at the rippling water and tried to figure out how he was feeling.

He felt relieved about how calmly Tony had responded to his revelations. But he couldn’t deny that he also felt annoyed at himself, because he really thought that he shouldn’t still be this hung up about one guy putting a hand down his pants. He felt nervous about the reactions from the others; Fury in particular. And he felt… alone. But strangely enough, not as much as he used to.

So all in all, the walk hadn’t really done much to clear up his confusion.

He was making his way back to the compound when he spotted Pepper trudging towards him. He halted, apprehensively waiting for her to reach him. He had a feeling he knew what this was about.

Pepper halted in front of him, her gaze on him sad and understanding all at once. “Tony talked to me.”

Peter ducked his head. “I figured.”

“Can I give you a hug?”

Hell, yes. Peter stepped forward, into her waiting arms. He rested his head on her shoulder, closing his eyes and exhaling slowly. Pepper’s sweater was really soft, her presence was calming, and her hair smelled like freshly cut grass – although maybe that was just because they were outside. The hug felt like curling up by the fireplace after walking through a snowstorm.

He had almost forgotten where he even was until Pepper spoke up. “I’m so sorry, honey.”

Peter felt his throat closing up. “It’s not your fault,” he croaked.

“It is, though,” Pepper insisted. “You were attacked under our roof. We should have supervised you better. Mr. Galloway shouldn’t have been able to give you that champagne in the first place.”

“You t-told me not to drink any champagne,” Peter sniffled. “And then I d-did anyway and then I was drugged. So it’s p-probably Karma.”

Pepper leaned away a little so she could look him in the eye, her gaze intent. “That’s obscene, Peter, you did not somehow deserve to get attacked.”

Peter knew that. He didn't actually know why he'd said that. Maybe part of him wanted to make sure that Pepper wasn’t angry. He gave a shaky nod.

“How are you feeling?” She murmured, squeezing his hand.

“It’s weird. I don’t know how I’m feeling. A bit embarrassed about people making a fuss, I guess. I mean, he d-didn’t - - he didn’t really get to any, um, really bad stuff.” He hated the way he was stumbling over his words.

Pepper pulled him back into an embrace. The hug was less gentle, this time, and more urgent. “What he did was more than bad enough. And even just the idea of what could have happened…. Peter, none of your feelings are invalid.”

Peter rested his forehead down on her shoulder. Somehow, that was exactly what he’d needed to hear.

-

School was a welcome distraction the next morning. Ned didn’t mind that Peter was quiet; he just blabbered on either way. They had PE first, and then a double period of Physical Science and Engineering where they were building a tiny windmill, so Peter could mostly just muck around without having to do a lot of thinking or reading.

Ned invited him to come watch their science decathlon practice after their last class, in Mr. Harrington’s classroom. Peter chose a safe corner to quietly sit while the other members filtered in. He recognized Abe and MJ. Purple-shirt was there, too. Except today he wasn’t wearing a purple shirt, so Peter should really start learning his name.

Purple-shirt spotted him. “Got nowhere better to be? How sad.”

“You’re here,” MJ pointed out.

“I’m here to actually do something.”

“Just shut up, Flash.”

Peter stayed quiet. He knew he could take Flash on himself if he wanted to. But he didn’t want to. He liked the feeling of classmates sticking up for him.

Mr. Harrington entered the room and looked pleased to see Peter there. “Want to join in?”

Peter quickly shook his head. “Just watching.”

“I don’t need that distraction, Mr. Harrington,” Flash said, his voice taking on a whiny edge that probably worked on his poor long-suffering parents.

“Oh, come on, Eugene,” Mr. Harrington jovially said, sitting at the table and taking out some papers. “The real decathlon will be in front of an audience. You should be able to deal with one person watching. Actually, if you have a little stage fright, this will be a good way to practice getting over it!”

Flash colored a little at the insinuation that he was scared, and didn’t protest anymore.

Peter leaned back against the wall, taking out his English book to do some homework while he listened. Decathlon practice turned out to be basically a pop quiz with Mr. Harrington firing off questions and the teammates taking turns to answer them.

It wasn’t boring, though. Some of the questions were really interesting and Abe made a lot of terrible jokes that started to crack you up after a while.

Of course, once their practice was over and the students were sauntering out, Mr. Harrington made a second attempt at getting Peter to join the team. “We practice once a week. Twice a week when a competition is coming up. We could really use another team member. We don’t have any alternates at the moment.”

Peter didn’t mean to be impolite, but he had only one real question: “What would be the point?”

Mr. Harrington glanced up at him as he sorted his lists of questions and answers into a neat pile. “Extracurricular activities like these look good on your college application.”

Oh, sure. Peter didn’t even like to think one month ahead, but now he was supposed to consider his freaking college application?

“Or it’s just spending time with friends,” Ned added with an innocent grin.

That Peter was willing to consider.

-

As always, Rhodey was waiting at the dinner table when Peter got home.

Peter could immediately tell from the expression on his face that Tony had told him, too. But Natasha and Bruce were sitting on the couch across the room, watching the news. So all Rhodey did when Peter sat down, was pour him a cup of tea and ask: “How was your day?”

Peter suddenly felt strangely guilty. Rhodey was the one who had always tried to make things easier for him. He had been kind from the first day Peter moved in, back when Tony was still in major-asshole-mode. But in the end, Peter had confided in Tony over Rhodey. He wondered if Rhodey was disappointed about that.

He almost jumped when a hand landed on his arm. “Pete?”

He glanced up at Rhodey’s eyes, that were filled with concern, then quickly looked down at his hands again. “It was all right,” he said shyly. “I might join the science decathlon team.”

“Tell me more,” Rhodey said. “Who else is on the team?”

“Ned. Abe. MJ. The purple-shirt kid.”

Rhodey hummed. “Still don’t know his name?”

“Don’t care. Don’t know what he’s doing there, either. His teeth are brighter than he is.”

Rhodey chuckled, shaking his head. “Lots of homework?”

“A little. I already finished most of it.”

“Maybe go down to the workshop, if you have time. I’m pretty sure Tony wanted to talk to you.”

Peter nodded, taking a tiny sip of his tea to have something to do. He didn’t really know what to talk about.

Thankfully, Rhodey had no problem keeping the conversation flowing. “You won’t mind being on the Decathlon team if ‘purple-shirt’ is also there?”

“No,” Peter said, smiling slightly. “I won’t, actually.” After years of being the outcast at school, he certainly wouldn’t mind hearing classmates telling Flash to ‘just shut up’ as often as possible. “Is that crazy?”

Rhodey shook his head. “I’m on board with whatever makes you happy, kid.”

That was probably Rhodey’s way of saying he had Peter’s back. Peter gave him wide smile, then picked up his teacup. “I’ll go see Tony.”

He made his way down to the workshop, not in much of a hurry. Tony had probably talked to the police today, and Peter wasn’t sure if he wanted to hear how that went.

Tony seemed tense, jumping up when he heard Peter enter and giving him a curt smile. He vaguely waved towards the couch. “Have a seat.”

Peter sat down on the leather couch in the corner of the workshop, pulling his legs up and putting his tea on a side table. He kind of hoped that Tony would snuggle up on the couch next to him again, but he didn’t. Instead, Tony pulled out a chair and sat down a short distance away from him. “I called the police station,” he said. “They said they could send Officer Siddiqui down to take your statement. He has experience with this sort of thing. And you know him, so that might make it easier. Plus, he’s affiliated with SHIELD, so he can help Fury keep things discreet. But if you’re not comfortable with him-”

“Siddiqui is fine.”

Tony gave a curt nod. “I’ll get him to come down, then.”

Peter nodded, pushing down his worries. Siddiqui was a pretty nice guy. Peter could deal with talking to him. “Thank you,” he said, sincerely.

Tony nervously drummed his fingers against the table, exhaling through his nose. “You shouldn’t be thanking me so much, kid. I should have prevented this whole situation in the first place.”

It was clear that Tony felt guilty about what had happened. But Peter felt obliged to point out that those feelings of guilt were completely misplaced. “None of you are my guardians, Tony.”

“That doesn’t matter. You were attacked under our roof. We were responsible for you.”

“Pepper said the exact same thing!”

“Well, she cares about you, too,” Tony gruffly said.

Peter blinked as he registered the message between the lines. “I thought I was a degenerate?” He mocked, but he immediately regretted those words. He didn’t want to bring up old resentments, not when things had been going so well between them.

Tony let out a sigh and ran a hand through his hair. “Yeah. I should probably address that.”

“Forget it,” Peter muttered. “I shouldn’t have said that. I know it’s not like that anymore.”

“It isn’t,” Tony agreed. “But still I… I wish I hadn’t been so damn useless when you first moved in. All I thought about back then was how much the whole thing was an inconvenience to me. I acted like a complete piece of shit.”

“I wasn’t exactly a saint either,” Peter admitted.

“I want you to know that a lot has changed since then and I… I’m all in for you. I want you to stay at the compound. I want you to stay with us.”

“I want to stay, too,” Peter said. He hadn’t really thought about that before, but he realized now that it was true. But with that realization came immediate doubt. What was Fury planning to do with him once he had secured the position of the Avengers? Once he had no ‘use’ for Peter anymore?

“I talked to Fury,” Tony revealed as if reading his thoughts. “About you staying at the compound. In his mind, that means sticking to the current system, with fake guardians and SHIELD pulling the strings behind the scenes. He doesn’t like that. But there’s another possibility that he hasn’t thought about. Which is… Which is making this official. No Mr. and Mrs. Portree. Just us.”

“You mean you’ll be my guardian?”

“Me and Pepper. Yes.”

“That’s a lot of work for you, though,” Peter said. “Are you sure you want to?”

Tony stared back at him with a slightly startled expression.

“I mean, I’ll try not to be such an asshole, of course. I can help around the house a lot. Since you don’t have a housekeeper anyways, because of the security thing. And honestly, I don’t actually know how much work it is to be a guardian, but there must be some work involved-”

“Peter,” Tony said. “Shut up. You’re rambling.”

Peter shut up.

“We don’t want a housekeeper. We just want… you.”

Peter stared down at his knees. Kathy had wanted him, too, or so he thought. But this was different. He knew this was different. It felt different. He had stayed with Kathy because he felt like they could take care of each other. But Tony and Pepper could take care of him. Which was kind of how it was supposed to work, wasn’t it?

“Pete? Will you stay or not?”

Peter glanced up at him. “Can I get a turtle?”

Tony hummed, a sparkle in his eyes. “You drive a hard bargain.”

Peter realized that the question had been a little idiotic. There were way more important things to hash out. “How would this work?”

“I don’t know,” Tony said, slowly. “I’m not gonna lie; parenting is somewhat outside my area of expertise. Do you mind if I ask Pepper to come down?”

Peter shook his head.

-

Pepper appeared in Tony’s workshop only minutes later, looking flustered, carrying a large potted house plant. “We were supposed to talk to him together, Tony!” She chastised.

“Well, you know me and plans.”

Pepper sighed, dropping the plant onto the table next to them. A dead leaf fluttered down to the table and Tony scrunched up his nose. “What’s with the vegetable? Is this your lunch?”

“I figured I’d bring it down to replace all the oxygen you waste with your blabbering,” she shot back.

She did sit down on the couch next to Peter, putting an arm around his shoulders. Peter took the opportunity to rest his head on her shoulder. Never mind that she was wearing a fancy CEO-blouse instead of a warm, fluffy sweater.

“Anyways, I’m repotting the plant,” she continued. “And upcycling the pot. So. What did you tell him?”

Tony had looked ready to make another snarky comment, but at that last question, he deflated. “Nothing, really. Just that we want to be his guardians.”

“And how do you feel about that?” Pepper murmured into Peter’s ear.

Peter gave a shrug. But Pepper and Tony stayed quiet, too, so Peter figured they wanted him to actually say something more. “I want to stay here,” he finally said. “But… we used to fight a lot, though.”

“Yes, but we’re past that now, aren’t we?”

“How do you know that this is the real me, and not that annoying little shit who made up stories about Tony being obsessed with bunny rabbits?” Peter asked. Frankly, he wasn’t even sure himself which one was the real him.

“Of course that was the real you,” Pepper said. “And so is this. We all react differently to different circumstances.”

“What if I turn into that again?” Peter asked. “What if I… break the rules or something?”

“You, breaking our rules?” Tony drawled. “Why, I can’t imagine that ever happening.”

“What Tony means,” Pepper said with a mild glare at Tony, “is that we’ll deal with any problems as they arise. Being a family isn’t about acting perfect around each other all the time. It’s about getting past the problems that come up. Just like you and Tony got past whatever issues you had at the beginning.”

“What if Fury says no?”

Pepper pursed her lips. “We need to be realistic; we can’t say for sure that this will work out. We have no experience with this. There may be unforeseen obstacles. But I hope you also realize we won’t simply take ‘no’ for an answer.”

That sounded nice.

“Okay,” Peter murmured. “I really… I really want to stay with you guys.”

He knew he’d made the right decision when Pepper’s eyes lit up with happiness. “That’s settled, then.” She folded him into a warm embrace.

Tony didn’t come over to hug him. He just sent Peter a smile. “So; pop open a bottle of champagne?”

“Uh, no,” Peter said. “I don’t… I don’t like champagne.”

Tony seemed to immediately realize why. “Oh – shit. Sorry. Um, hot chocolate?”

Peter offered a smile, then. “Sounds good.”

-

When Fury turned up that evening in the middle of dinner, Peter’s appetite immediately vanished. He pushed his plate away, nervously glancing between Tony and Fury. He didn’t know how this was supposed to go down. Had Tony already talked to Fury on the phone? Was Tony planning on making an announcement right here, in front of everyone?

Fury came for something else, though. He seemed to be in an awfully good mood, judging by the rare grin on his face. “Just came back from my meeting with secretary Ross.”

Steve sucked in a breath. “And?”

“He congratulated me on the success of the last mission and told me to keep up the good work.”

“So, no UN?”

“No UN,” Fury confirmed, still carrying that idiotic grin on his face.

A few Avengers whooped and raised their glasses. Peter just stared down at the table.

“That doesn’t mean we should forget how we got here,” Fury said, pulling out a chair to sit down, too. “We made some good changes to our teamwork that we need to uphold, to prevent collateral damage in the future.”

Even without looking up, Peter could sense that a few Avengers were now glancing his way.

“You know,” Steve started. “If we want to keep protecting civilians in the future, we should consider-“

Tony threw his napkin down and cut Steve off. “Pepper and I would like to talk to Nick in private for a moment. Now.”

Fury frowned. “If it’s about Spider-Man’s position on the team, Rogers should be involved.”

“It’s not about that,” Tony said, his voice carefully neutral.

“Why don’t we take the rest of our dinner on the balcony?” Wanda quickly suggested. “The weather is quite nice.”

Awkwardly murmuring in agreement, the other Avengers scooped up their plates and left. Peter was about to follow, but Peter grasped his fingers and squeezed them, wordlessly telling him to stay put.

Fury waited for the balcony doors to slide shut before speaking up. “If this is about that thing we discussed on the phone-“

“Peter wants to stay at the compound,” Tony said. “And I think he should. He fits in. He’s one of us, now.”

“No,” Fury firmly replied, shaking his head for extra measure. “We talked about this. I’m not going to put anymore time and money into keeping up his fake guardianship. If Rogers wants to keep him involved as a team member, that’s his decision. But he needs to move back to a real family. It can’t work like this.”

“It can work,” Tony said, “if one of us becomes his real family.”

“Like who?”

“Me.”

Fury narrowed his eyes.

“And Pepper,” Tony added.

“I don’t think you even understand what you’re suggesting, Stark.”

“Careful, Nick,” Pepper said, her tones playful. “Tony doesn’t respond well to jibes about his intelligence.”

“You’re on board with this?” Fury asked her.

“I am.”

Fury pressed his lips together, studying both Tony and Pepper for a while. “I would like to talk to Mr. Parker for a moment,” he finally said.

“I don’t see why you should,” Tony said in stand-offish tones.

But Peter pushed his chair back. “Tony, it’s fine. I can take care of myself.”

He followed Fury to one of the abandoned offices, where Fury plopped down in a desk chair. It irritated Peter how much the man made it look like he owned the place.

He remained standing. “Why did you want to talk to me?”

“I want to know what you want to do,” Fury said. “Because Tony can be pretty adamant when he has a certain idea in his head. And then he just waltzes over everyone else like a steam roller. He doesn’t always notice when other people feel differently.”

Peter frowned. Was Fury seriously thinking about his wellbeing? “Well, I want to stay with Tony.”

Fury leaned back in his chair, giving Peter a long, assessing stare. “Interesting. You didn’t say ‘I want to stay at the compound', you said ‘I want to stay with Tony’.”

Realizing Fury was right, that strange feeling of guilt immediately rose up in Peter’s chest again. What the hell was it about Tony Stark that had suddenly made Peter trust him, after absolutely hating each other’s guts at first? “You still think I’m better off with Mr. and Mrs. Portree?”

“I don’t know,” Fury slowly said. “I don’t know Pepper too well. And my instinct is that, no, Tony won’t exactly make the ideal guardian. But maybe I don’t know him as well as I thought. Because I never would have expected him to offer to do this in the first place. He seems to care about you,” his voice sounded a little puzzled by the end.

“Yeah, real freaking miracle that is, huh?” Peter gibed. Fury probably didn’t really know Tony. Not like Peter did. Peter considered saying something to Tony’s defense; something to explain their relationship, show Fury how much Tony had done for him.

But in the end, he didn’t. Because honestly, it wasn’t any of Fury’s business. “I want to do this,” he simply said. “So, what’s next?”

“I’ll get it sorted.”

“That easy, huh?”

Fury shrugged. “As I once told you: the facts are what I make them.”

They made their way back to the living area, where Fury brusquely informed Pepper and Tony that he’d take care of it.

Tony made a move as though he was going to put a hand on Peter’s shoulder. But in the end, he didn’t. He merely cleared his throat and nodded. “That’s settled, then.”

Pepper did hug him, even dropping a kiss into his hair.

-

His talk with Siddiqui the next day wasn’t as terrible and awkward as Peter had anticipated. Siddiqui remained very professional throughout the whole thing. He didn’t ask stupid questions like why Peter had waited so long to tell someone, or lecture Peter about drinking the champagne in the first place.

Tony, Pepper and Rhodey had all offered to sit with him, but Peter didn’t want anyone else in here. Their combined guilt complex over this whole thing caused him almost as much anxiety as the incident itself. It always made him feel bad to see other people feel bad. He didn’t want to keep saying that it wasn’t their fault.

Siddiqui rattled off all the steps that would be taken next. “A government prosecutor will decide whether to arrest and file criminal charges against Mr. Galloway. The camera footage will help the case. This is a class B felony, punishable by up to ten years imprisonment. Since his attempt was unsuccessful, the final sentences will probably be lower. Either way, he will be registered as a sex offender.”

Peter just nodded along. He suddenly couldn’t care less about all the technicalities. All he cared about was that Galloway’s shady personality would be out in the open, so that he wouldn’t be able to do it again. To anyone. And it sounded like that was pretty much guaranteed to happen.

“How’s Kathy?” He promptly asked, because he couldn’t resist.

Officer Siddiqui gave him a look that said he had expected that question.

“Sorry,” Peter murmured, glancing down at his hands that were clasped together in his lap. “Just… wondering.”

“I’m not supposed to say this, but…” Siddiqui hesitated for a long time, slowly twirling his pen in his fingers. “She did mention she’d grown fond of you, eventually,” he finally detailed.

Not fond enough to keep me out of her drugs business.

“That doesn’t make any of it okay,” Siddiqui continued, as if guessing his thoughts. “Just… the times that she was kind to you – it wasn’t all fake.”

That actually did help a little.

“I wasn’t supposed to tell you that, though,” Siddiqui murmured. “And I can’t tell you anything else.”

“I won’t ask anything else,” Peter promised. Frankly, he didn’t want to know, anymore. He had Tony and Pepper now, and he didn’t want to look back.

-

When he got down to the workshop, Tony snapped his fingers to make a projection of the screen of his computer appear in midair. Peter sat down in a chair right next to him and glanced up at it. It was some government website, showing Peter’s personal data. Birthdate, ID number… and Tony and Pepper listed as his guardians. So it was official now. Just like that. “That was fast.”

“It’s what Fury does. Are you still feeling okay?”

Peter wasn’t sure how he felt, so he just nodded. “Have you told the others yet?” He asked. The Avengers had been very discreet about not bringing up their ‘private’ conversation with Fury, but it was clear that they were all curious.

“Not yet. I don’t want them breathing down our necks right now. Fury already seems to think I’m bullying you into agreeing,” Tony said, tilting his head to the side. “Do you feel like I’m pressuring you?”

“I think we both know I’d be more than happy to tell you to fuck off if you did.”

Tony smirked, that familiar sparkle lighting up his eyes. “Were things okay?” He then asked. “With the officer?”

“Yeah, fine.”

“He said I should ask you…” Tony faltered, before resuming: “Do you want to talk to a therapist? We have one who comes SHIELD-recommended, Dr. Beinart. Wanda has been seeing her for a while now.”

Peter frowned. “No, thank you very much. I don’t need to be psycho-analyzed like I’m some luna-“

“I’ve had a few sessions with her, too,” Tony casually revealed.

That certainly took all of the wind out of Peter’s sails. “Uhhh… Um…”

A slow smile spread across Tony’s face.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean-

“Relax, kid. I’m not offended.”

Peter shifted in his seat. “Why – why did you see a therapist?”

“Do you remember a gigantic wormhole opening over New York?”

“Vaguely,” Peter dryly responded.

“It gave me panic attacks for a while after.”

“Oh,” Peter murmured, shoving his hands deep into his pockets. “Are you… okay now?”

“I haven’t had them in a while. And even if I do get them, I know how to deal with them. Thanks to her.”

Peter nodded to show he understood the message. “I don’t think I have to talk to a shrink, right now,” he said. “But I’ll keep it in mind. But, um, speaking of… stuff. The next charity event is this Friday, right?”

Tony snapped his fingers again, and the projected website disappeared. “It is. Have you figured out what you want to do?”

“I kinda thought maybe I should go.”

Tony frowned slightly, but didn’t immediately proclaim that Peter had lost his mind, so Peter carried on. “Galloway isn’t coming, right?”

“Of course not,” Tony spat, anger blazing in the depth of his eyes. “He’ll even be behind bars by then, if Siddiqui does his job right. Regardless, I’ve already made it very clear to him that I’m going to devote a lot of my time to running his business and personal life into the ground.”

Peter didn’t really want to know how. “Okay. Does he… have kids?” He asked, dreading the answer.

Tony shook his head. “He had a wife of twelve years, though. Needless to say, she has kicked him out of the house and is getting a divorce lawyer.”

“Oh,” Peter murmured. Poor Mrs. Galloway. She had gotten some really unpleasant news.

“Don’t you dare feel guilty about that,” Tony said.

“I don’t,” Peter promised. Which was true. He didn’t feel guilty; it was better that she knew. But he could still feel bad for her. “Anyways, the event. I thought maybe going to it will help me get past it a little.”

“You really don’t have to do that.”

“I want to,” Peter said. “If I’m going to live here, I don’t want there to be a whole floor of the compound where I’m afraid to go because of bad memories. But,” he faltered for a moment, swallowing, “it would be nice if I could stay close to you a little bit. During.”

A strange look that Peter couldn’t immediately place came over Tony’s face. “I see,” the man said slowly. “Yes – I’ll make sure you’ll be okay.”

-

Rhodey was the one who helped him tie his tie, this time.

“I should learn,” Peter muttered, trying to follow Rhodey’s movements in the mirror.

“It’s not exactly an essential life skill,” Rhodey said, tightening the knot.

“It kinda is when you live here, I think.”

“I’m just saying; learn CPR first.”

“I know CPR,” Peter said with a scoff. “What kind of super-hero would I be?”

“Figures,” Rhodey said with a smile. “Pretty sure Tony doesn’t know CPR. Most of the Avengers just think about aliens, bioweapons and evil super-robots. But you; you think about the people.”

Peter felt his face flush a little at the implied compliment, fiddling with his cufflinks. “Tony and Pepper have become my guardians,” he suddenly revealed, glancing up at Rhodey through his eyelashes.

Rhodey nodded, a smile appearing on his face. “I know. Tony told me this afternoon.”

“Are you okay with that?”

“I think it’s great,” Rhodey said, slightly lifting his eyebrows. “Why wouldn’t I?’

“I don’t know. Sometimes I feel bad for getting along with Tony so well. Because you were nice to me from the beginning, and he hated me.”

“Please,” Rhodey said, a fond look appearing in his eyes. “Even back then, it was clear that Tony was invested in you. He just didn’t express it very well. You two are very alike, you know. I’m sure he saw himself in you and that scared him, but intrigued him at the same time. He was in denial about it, of course. He just needed to wake up and smell the coffee.”

Peter gave Rhodey an incredulous stare.

Rhodey’s smile only turned wider in response. “Let me put it this way: Tony never does anything that he doesn’t want to do. If he really didn’t care about you, he would just have ignored you and left it up to us to deal with you. But he did the opposite. I’ve never seen him so on top of anything. I mean… since when does that man even care about shoes on the furniture?” He made a small, beckoning gesture. “Shall we?”

Peter followed Rhodey upstairs, mulling the man’s words over in his head.

When they got to the third floor, Tony was nowhere in sight. Pepper was waiting for him right by the elevators. “Honey, there you are. Tony asked me to stay with you instead. He has a lot of people he wants to talk to,” she said, but her voice sounded a little… off. As if she was angry at Tony, or at least frustrated.

“That’s okay,” Peter placated, even though he couldn’t help but feel somewhat brushed off. “He’s Tony Stark.”

“Indeed,” she said, her voice completely level. She hooked her arm around Peter’s and led him inside. “If you change your mind and want to leave, just let me know, all right?”

Peter almost did want to leave when he saw the crowd inside; all the people in their fancy clothes, making small talk, sipping champagne. It was all too similar to last time.

And his heart skipped a beat when a familiar voice piped up behind him. “Ah, Miss Potts, so lovely to see you! And young Peter – I didn’t forget about you.”

Peter turned to see the man who had asked him to send his CV along with some juicy business secrets at the last event. What was his name again?

“Mr. Ramirez,” Pepper greeted politely. “Thank you for coming.”

“Always happy to support the Avengers. You don’t mind if I steal your intern away for a moment, do you?”

“Actually I do,” Pepper said, tightening her hand around Peter’s arm. “We need to discuss his salary for a moment. Do enjoy the evening.”

She pulled Peter away.

Peter made sure he was out of earshot before revealing: “He tries to steal your corporate secrets.”

“Don’t I know it,” she murmured.

Peter grinned, now. “So, I’m getting a salary? You should pay me for putting up with Tony. It’s a lot of work.”

“You’re preaching to the choir, honey,” she sighed. “As for your salary… hm… we actually haven’t discussed your allowance yet.”

Peter blinked. “Allowance?”

“We were thinking twenty dollars a week, but there’s room for negotiation.”

“That’s… that’s really a lot of money though.”

“The internet informed us that this is actually average for someone your age.”

Peter imagined Pepper and Tony asking FRIDAY to scour the internet for parenting tips, and it almost made him giggle.

“It’s only fair that you should get one,” Pepper continued. “You take on a lot of responsibilities as Spider-Man without getting paid. You have little time left over for a job on the side.”

“Can I buy anything I want from it?”

“Hmm…” she said, narrowing her eyes. “I don’t see why not, but give me a moment to think about that.”

Peter smiled. This was nice. Not because he was so happy to get money. Just because it was such a family-thing to discuss. The guardianship hadn’t really felt official when he had seen it displayed on some government website. But now, it felt a little more real.

They sat down at a table in the corner, where Bruce joined them not long after. And Peter could easily pass hours talking to him about his research. All in all, the whole evening turned out quite pleasant, even if Peter did only see Tony a few times in passing.

When Peter went to sleep that night, his dreams were blissfully Galloway-free.

-

Tony looked peaceful, but also a little moronic; his mouth slightly open and his glasses askew as he dozed on the couch.

Peter had found him like this when he came down for a quick snack. He had been in the middle of doing his homework and he kinda had to go back to finish it, but he felt strangely compelled to stay here. There was just something about Tony looking so relaxed, and the empty space next to him on the couch looking so inviting…

He ventured another step closer, and another, then sat down on the edge of the couch and then, when Tony still didn’t show any signs of waking up, he cautiously lifted his legs and stretched out on the couch next to Tony, laying his head down on the man’s chest and slinging one arm around Tony’s stomach.

As soon as he closed his eyes, he felt a wave of exhaustion sweep over him. He hadn’t even noticed that he was tired, but he realized now that he was. He hadn’t been this close to Tony since he confessed the whole story about Galloway. Tony had hugged him, then. But Tony probably wasn’t a big hugger, on the whole. This was really nice, though. Tony’s chest was rising and falling in a comforting rhythm, and Peter felt the weight of sleep beginning to drag him under.

But he actually had interrupted Tony’s sleep, as it turned out. Peter noticed the exact moment when Tony woke up and realized that someone was lying on top of him. Tony suddenly tensed, holding his breath for a moment while his heartbeat sped up.

Tony didn’t push him away or try to wake him up, though, so Peter felt safe enough to allow himself to doze off.

He wasn’t sure whether he did fall asleep or his thoughts merely drifted, but the next thing he was aware of was the sound of a set of high heels against the marble floors, down the hallway, into the living area. The footsteps stopped, several feet away from the couch.

It remained silent for a moment.

“Don’t give me that look,” Tony then said. “I woke up and he was like this.”

“I told you, didn’t I?” Pepper’s voice came from across the room.

“He was probably just tired,” Tony replied, sounding unsure of himself.

“He fell asleep on top of you, Tony. I know this isn’t an easy topic for you, but you need to talk to him about this.”

Peter frowned slightly. Were they talking about him? It sounded kind of serious.

“I don’t want to wake him up,” Tony breathed.

“I’m not saying right now.”

“Talk ’bout what?” Peter murmured.

Tony’s breath hitched.

“Well, there you go,” Pepper said. “‘Right now’, it is. Do you want me to leave?”

“No,” Tony said quickly.

Peter cracked one eye open to see Pepper sinking into an armchair and kicking off her shoes. She caught him peeking at her and smiled. “Morning, sleepyhead.”

“Sorry,” Peter mumbled, pushing himself off Tony’s chest and glancing up at his face. “I didn’t think you’d mind.”

Tony sat up a little straighter, dropping his feet to the floor. He looked torn. “No, kid, I didn’t. I don’t.”

“But..?”

Tony exchanged another glance with Pepper, before finally venturing: “Are you comfortable around me?”

Peter stared up at Tony, feeling baffled. Where the hell had that question come from?

Tony ran a hand through his hair. “I just… When something happens, like what happened to you  --  with him – sometimes people don’t like to… well… be close to other guys.”

Oh. Tony thought that Peter might be afraid of being touched.

That was really sweet.

But it was also not at all what Peter needed right now. He needed a damn hug. He felt like a drained battery that could only be charged by some decent human contact. “I know you wouldn’t hurt me,” he said, making sure to maintain eye contact with Tony.

Tony visibly swallowed. “I figured you needed some space.”

That certainly explained why Tony had been so reserved around him, lately. “I don’t need space. I need… I need the opposite of space.”

Tony’s gaze softened, his eyes lighting up with that sparkle that always made Peter feel safe, somehow. “All right, then scoot over, buddy.”

Feeling slightly confused, Peter shifted in his seat. Tony lifted his feet again and stretched his legs along the length of the couch. He then reached out and gently tugged at Peter’s arm, pulling him closer. Realizing what Tony was trying to do, Peter turned and laid down on the couch next to him, leaning his weight back against Tony’s chest and nuzzling into the crook of Tony’s neck. Calloused fingers weaved gently through his hair, and Peter figured he could happily die right here, right now.

Chapter Text

“Pete? Pepper and I were thinking of taking a little family trip this weekend. We have a lake house outside the city. Is that okay with you?”

“Yeah, sure,” Peter said, glancing up from his homework at Tony, who was seated on the living room couch. “Have fun.”

Tony laughed softly, the sound low and rumbling. “Thanks, kid. But we were actually thinking of the three of us going all together.”

“Oh,” Peter said, feeling his ears go red.

“Here’s the plan,” Tony said, propping his feet up on the coffee table. “On Friday during dinner, we tell everyone you’re living with us permanently, then we quickly leave for the weekend and let them cool off and get used to the idea.”

Peter bit his lip, quickly glancing around to make sure no other Avengers had just entered the living room. “You think they’ll object?”

“I didn’t mean it like that,” Tony quickly assured him. “I was kidding. They might be surprised, but I don’t think they’ll object. I really just meant to ask how you’d feel about telling them this week. Can’t put it off forever.”

Peter nodded, closing his math book and hugging it close to his chest. Telling everyone… Rhodey already knew. Wanda would be happy; Bruce and Vision too. But Sam, Steve and Natasha were always difficult to read.

“Pete?” Tony said, his tones softer. “Did I say something to upset you?”

“I don’t get upset very quickly.”

“Of course,” Tony said, clearly just to humor him. “Want a hug?”

That would kind of undercut what Peter had just told him. But he did want a hug, so he stood up and shuffled over to sit next to Tony on the couch, drawing up his legs, kicking off his shoes and curling into Tony’s side.

Tony hooked an arm around him, pulling him closer. “You know, some Avengers have a talent for being snarky and tactless, but even if they don’t immediately react well, it won’t mean that they don’t accept it.”

“Okay..”

“Is something else bugging you?”

“No, just… I’m used to everything being temporary. This is weird. It’s like it hasn’t really landed yet. And telling more people makes it feel more… real.”

“Is that good? Or scary?”

“Both, I guess.”

Tony gently squeezed his shoulder. “You know this isn’t temporary, right? Pepper and I are in it for the long haul.”

“I know,” Peter said, though the thought gave him some anxiety. He had spent so many years telling himself not to think too far ahead. So any mention of ‘the long term’ was bound to trigger all his defenses.

He told himself to just stop thinking about it. He was staying at the compound for now, and that was enough.

“I worked on an update for Karen today,” Tony revealed, absent-mindedly carding his fingers through Peter’s hair.

“Can you give me the security codes so I can update her myself?”

“Why, so you can conspire against me? Have her secretly hack into my old arrest record?”

“Hm. She did actually tell me you used to play cricket. Badly.”

“That little traitor.”

Peter smiled, suppressing a yawn. Tony’s soothing fingers in his hair made him feel drowsy. “Hey, who maws the lawns? You know, around the compound?”

“Did you hit your head or something? Where did that question come from?”

“I’ve just been wondering.”

“We have robotic lawn mowers.”

“Oh yeah. Makes sense. It’s, like, perfectly groomed.”

“Wait until Thor drops by and scorches another Asgardian crest into the grass.”

Peter giggled a little, his thoughts drifting on. “Did we raise a lot of money at the event?”

“Around thirty grand. Stark Industries will double it.”

“Woah…”

“Don’t mention it to others. We haven’t revealed the official amount to the press yet. Wanda said she is up for doing that. But she’s not ready for a press conference in front of dozens of journalists. We’ll just invite one, maybe two. Give them the scoop.”

“Hm,” Peter said with a smile, “I have a contact over at the New York Examiner.”

“Interesting…”

Peter heard footsteps approaching, and he knew he should be pushing himself up and away from Tony. But suddenly, he didn’t care anymore who saw the two of them snuggling up on the couch. Tony made no move to shove him away, either. So Peter just stayed where he was, not even glancing up when Natasha and Sam reached the bottom of the stairs and stepped into the living area.

Peter could pinpoint the exact moment Natasha and Sam noticed them, because they suddenly broke off their quiet conversation. He turned his head a little to glance up at them.

“Hi,” Tony said. “Are you two responsible for dinner tonight?”

“Yes,” Natasha said, her tone as casual as ever and her face impassive.

Sam was less subtle. He just stared.

“Well, don’t let us keep you,” Tony said.

“Is the kid okay?” Sam asked, clearly unable to hold his tongue any longer.

“He’s fine.”

“I’m living here now,” Peter announced.

Sam blinked. “Come again?”

Tony had gone very, very quiet.

“I’m living here,” Peter repeated, lifting his chin a little. “So I can hug Tony whenever I want.”

Tony still said nothing, but the slight trembling of his shoulders told Peter that he was repressing laughter.

“Is he delirious?” Sam asked, his voice filled with genuine concern.

“What he means is, Pepper and I applied to be his guardians,” Tony said, sounding highly amused.

“Oh,” Sam said, relieved. “That makes sense.”

That makes sense?

“Are you still waiting for approval?” Sam continued.

“No. Fury already arranged it.”

“Tony!” came Pepper’s voice suddenly from behind. “We were supposed to talk to everyone together!”

Tony didn’t complain about Peter bringing it up in the first place. He just shrugged. “Well, you know me and plans.”

Pepper huffed.

“In other news,” Tony said. “We’re getting us some turtles.”

-

Peter had found the exact turtles that he wanted. Two three-striped mud-turtles; small animals that could fit into the palm of his hand. They were supposed to pick them up next week, so Peter had spent a lot of time these last few days getting the terrarium ready. It was heartwarming how much effort Tony had put into helping him build a massive, high-tech terrarium in the living room with a water filter, a heater and UV-B lights. It was mounted on a low, stone platform next to the couch where there was plenty of shade.

And now Pepper was helping him set up the terrarium; placing rocks and plants and pieces of wood in strategic spots around the large pond in the middle.

“Brings me back,” Pepper commented as she distributed sand along the bottom.

“Did you ever have turtles?”

“No, actually I had a tarantula when I was a kid,” she said, smiling at the memory. “He didn’t need this much water, but I did build him a big terrarium.”

“Don’t you want another one?”

“I don’t think so. I already got another spider, don’t I?” She teased, pinching his upper arm.

Peter ducked his head, unable to keep a stupid grin from spreading across his face.

After Peter’s awkward but unambiguous revelation to Sam and Natasha, there hadn’t really been a reason to keep their new arrangement a secret from anyone else, so they had told the other Avengers over dinner. And ever since, the Avengers had been making non-stop jokes about spiders. Mostly baby-spiders, which was a little annoying. But Peter understood the jokes for what they were: a sign of approval and acceptance. So he didn’t mind.

Pepper sat back a little to admire her handiwork. “I think we made a lovely little home. What do you say?”

“Yeah, we’re done,” Peter agreed, wiping his hands on his jeans.

“Well, then there’s only one thing left to do: pack!” Pepper announced, clapping her hands together.

Peter gave a tiny smile. Packing… the word had gotten somewhat synonymous with getting shipped off to a new home in his mind. This time, it meant going away for a family weekend. Now that he had an arrangement that was supposed to be… ugh … permanent …, he was realizing how much he’d need to change his thinking patterns.

-

Peter had expected the lakeside cabin to be more like a lake villa, because… well, Tony and Pepper were crazy rich. But the cabin was secluded, cozy and small. It had wooden walls and ceilings, and a stone fireplace. There was a large porch with a porch swing, overlooking the water.

Peter’s bedroom was squeezed away in a corner upstairs, under the rafters. It was tiny, but Peter liked it that way. It felt like the walls were hugging him. There was a picture on the wall of a baby holding a flower, and another one of a dog cuddling a lamb; ugh, like artificial sweeteners. There was a closet against the back wall, but Peter simply put his bag down in the corner, not bothering to unpack. They were only here for the weekend, and he was too lazy to do everything properly. He approached the only window in his room and glanced outside.

Pepper and Tony were standing on the shores of the lake; they both had an arm wrapped around each other as they stared out across the water. Pepper was waving a hand around as she was talking. If Peter focused his hearing, he could probably hear what she said. But he shouldn’t.

Pepper and Tony never really acted like a couple in front of the other Avengers. It was strange to see them together like this. Suddenly, Peter felt a bit like an intruder. He turned away from the window.

He plopped down on his bed and pulled out his phone to update Ned about his weekend. Ned had spent the last few days speculating about how amazing and high-tech the Stark lakeside cabin would probably be. Boy, was he in for a surprise.

Before Peter knew it, and hour had gone by. Deciding he couldn’t hide up here forever, he made his way downstairs and stepped onto the porch.

Tony was sitting on the porch swing, humming a song under his breath, while Pepper was inside to unwrap the lasagna Bruce had packed for them. Apparently, Tony and Pepper both hated cooking equally.

Peter leaned against the wooden balustrade, watching the shimmering lake. “Shame we can’t see the sunset,” he commented

Tony broke of his humming. “True. You can see a very good sunrise, though, if you want to get up at seven like some maniac.”

Peter chuckled.

“Hey, kid,” Tony said, and he waited until Peter had turned to face him. “We’re celebrating Pepper’s birthday next weekend. No pressure at all, no one is expecting you to turn up with a gift. Just wanted to give you a heads-up.”

“I already have a gift,” Peter revealed, stepping closer and sitting down in a low chair. “Went in on one with Rhodey and Wanda.”

“Ah, teaming up with the telepathic gift-giving expert, huh? Smart move.”

“What are you giving her?”

“I made a solar-powered camera strap that automatically charges her camera so the battery never runs out.”

“Cool,” Peter said, impressed.

“Well, we are in a relationship, so there is an unwritten law that I have to get her the best gift.”

Pepper’s footsteps approached so they dropped the subject.

She stepped outside, carrying a rolled-up blanket. “Lasagna is in the oven. Twenty minutes.”

“Hm-hm, perfect.”

She snuggled up next to Tony, unfolding the blanket. They had that couple-look again. Peter felt compelled to go inside and let them have their moment.

“Tony and I always go for a walk around the lake after dinner,” Pepper said. “Want to join us?”

“Uh – sure. But you guys maybe want to just do it together, like usual?”

“Don’t be silly,” she merely said, twirling a strand of her hair around her finger.

“I think I’ll wear my squeaky shoes,” Tony murmured, extending his legs as he closed his eyes.

“You should sprinkle some baking powder in them,” Pepper said. “I read somewhere it helps.”

“Hmm. I think I need to reattach the soles. I’m not sure that I have the right glue, though.”

Peter almost wanted to laugh out loud. At the compound, people mostly discussed criminal activity, or lab experiments, or complicated contracts. Here at the lake house, the topics of conversation were clearly a bit more mundane.

“What do you want to do this weekend?” Pepper asked, turning her gaze on him. “There’s a few cities nearby. There’s kayaking. You can take a swim, obviously…”

Peter shrugged.

“Have you ever been on a trip before?”

Peter gave a slight nod. Some foster families had taken him along, yes. “Kinda, but this is different. Because this is supposed to be…” his voice drifted off.

“Supposed to be what?”

“.. permanent,” Peter whispered.

Tony cracked his eyes open, looking amused at Peter’s reluctance to say the word out loud. “Careful. You gonna kiss your turtles with that mouth?”

“It’s not funny,” Peter tersely informed him.

“It’s a little funny.”

Peter glared. “It’s not.”

Tony shook his head. “It’s a change. You don’t have to be completely adjusted from day one. Give yourself some time. And in the meantime, feel free to laugh about it sometimes.”

Peter nodded thoughtfully, starting to rub his hands up and down his arms.

“Are you cold?” Pepper immediately asked.

“A little. It’s fine.”

“Come sit under the blanket,” she invited, lifting the corner a little.

Peter stood up and shuffled closer. Instead of shifting closer to Tony, Pepper moved aside so Peter could sit between the two of them.

Tony laid an arm across his shoulders and Pepper pressed a little kiss against his temple, and Peter felt like he was beginning to understand. He wasn’t intruding, he was part of this now.

“If you’re cold again tonight, there’s an extra blanket on top of the closet in your room,” Pepper told him.

Your room.

Peter smiled.

-

The next morning, he didn’t wake up in time for the sunset. But he didn’t want to lounge around in bed, either. That would be a waste of a lovely weekend.

The cabin was quiet when he made it downstairs, but he saw a dirty plate sitting in the sink, so Tony and Pepper were probably outside.

He stepped onto the porch breathing in the crisp, cool air and the smell of mud and pine trees. He hadn’t been this far from city life, with its smells of exhaust fumes and fast food, in a long time.

He heard a noise coming from the large shed. He knew that Tony had essentially turned that place into his lake-side workshop, but he hadn’t seen inside yet. He sauntered over, pushing the door open.

Tony was sitting at a large, wooden table, his laptop in front of his nose, a pair of shoes standing next to it. He gave Peter a nod. “Morning, kid.”

“Morning. Fixing your shoe?”

“I was…” Tony murmured. “Then I wanted to get some online advice, and then I got sucked into one of the internet’s rabbit holes.”

Relatable.

“Where is Pepper?” Peter asked.

“She likes to sleep in whenever we’re here.”

“Really?” That didn’t sound like Pepper.

“Oh yeah. We won’t see her until noon. Actually, you’re up sooner than I expected.”

Peter hopped up on the table. “So, what are you doing?”

“Well, it started with a tutorial on fixing your shoes. Then it became a tutorial on making cupcakes in funny shapes. I found some Spider-Man ones, by the way. And now I’m just ordering ingredients to be delivered.”

“You mean you actually want to bake Spider-Man cupcakes?”

“Well, part of me does,” Tony said with a smirk. “But I’m really just getting us groceries. We only brought one of Bruce’s lasagnas, so I guess we’ll have to do the cooking tonight.”

“Can I take care of dinner?” Peter asked. “I really want to cook for you. As a kind of thank you. Don’t roll your eyes, you never let me thank you!”

“Because you don’t have to. Maybe we should just be honored to be your guardians.”

“How do you figure that?”

Tony looked a mixture of amused and exasperated. “Well, you might have just a few redeeming qualities. Let’s see, young genius, beloved super-hero...”

“Genius,” Peter repeated.

“You know you are. You don’t have to do anything for us. That’s not how this is supposed to work.”

Peter suddenly suspected that Tony was maybe thinking of Kathy. “I know I don’t have to. I want to,” he insisted, before smirking. “And just one time, okay? Don’t expect me to bring you breakfast in bed tomorrow.”

Tony looked marginally more relaxed now, and he nodded. “All right, here’s the deal: I’ll give you my credit card, and you order everything for the rest of the weekend. I’ll leave it all up to you. Only request is that you get some pistachio ice cream.”

“Pistachio, really?”

Tony shrugged. “Pepper and I have a mild addiction to it.”

“Any other strange habits that I should be aware of, now that we’re shacking up?”

“Hm, well Pepper and I are both members of a cult that sacrifices a baby every full moon. But apart from that, nothing worth mentioning.”

Peter hummed. “That explains the weird picture of a baby in the guestroom.”

“Your room,” Tony corrected. “And that’s just a stock photo. You can take it down.”

“Good, because they were all a bit too happy-go-lucky to my taste.”

“Other than that, the room is good?”

“Oh yeah, perfect,” Peter promised.

“Not too small?”

“I like a small room. I kinda always feel more alone in a big room… Never mind, it’s hard to explain,” Peter backtracked, feeling a bit idiotic for bringing it up.

“What, you think I don’t understand loneliness?” Tony challenged. “I had a better relationship with our gardener than I did with my parents. And I went to college at fourteen; not a great basis for forming friendships there.”

“You met Rhodey at MIT,” Peter reminded him with a frown. “He told me.”

“Did he also tell you that he’s five years older than me, and was basically acting as my babysitter? We didn’t become actual friends until I’d grown past puberty.”

That did sound very much like Rhodey. “All right, well, I just meant: the room is great.”

“What about back home?” Tony asked shrewdly. “Your bedroom is bigger there. And you’re further away, too: on a whole different floor. You can switch rooms with Bruce, he is right next to us.”

“I don’t want to put Bruce out of his room.”

“We’re a family now. No Avengers is going to protest the idea of us moving the bedrooms a little closer together.”

“Eh,” Peter said, “but I don’t want to put Bruce out of his room, though.”

Tony shrugged. “All right. Pepper and I could also move upstairs, to the empty bedroom next to yours.”

Peter wasn’t even sure anymore how they had ended up on the topic of bedrooms. He had never thought about whether he liked his bedroom back home. It was just the room he was given, and he was used to making do with what he got. “I’ll think about it,” he promised. “Can I just order food, now?”

Tony turned his laptop towards Peter. “Go nuts.”

-

“Ooh, Marshmallows,” Pepper said as she peeked into the crate that had been delivered to their cabin. She hadn’t even bothered to put sweatpants on. She was just straight-up walking around in slippers and pajamas all day. “We’ll have to make a campfire this evening and roast them. And… what’s this?”

“A surprise,” Peter said, quickly snatching the bottle of vinaigrette from her hands. “I’m taking care of dinner.” He quickly gathered all the ingredient he would be needing from the crate to stash them away.

Once the groceries were stashed away, they all went out for a long hike. They had a picnic right next to a waterfall and Peter climbed about five different trees, all the way to the top. Pepper kept encouraging him to go higher while Tony kept yelling for him to be careful.

Peter had figured it would have been the other way around.

“Why can’t we all keep our feet on the ground, where they are supposed to be?” Tony complained.

“He’s Spider-Man, Tony,” Pepper pointed out with an affectionate eye roll.

-

“Don’t look so apprehensive,” Peter told Tony when dinnertime rolled around. “You think I’m gonna poison you?”

“No. But I think you may gonna mess with me,” Tony said. He pulled a chair out for Pepper before sitting down himself.

“Maybe a little,” Peter admitted, before disappearing back into the tiny kitchen to turn off the oven.

He picked up the several dishes and, balancing them on his arms, took them to the living room to set them down on the table.

“This looks… like normal food,” Tony said, still seeming suspicious.

“I made pistachio crusted salmon with a salad of chickpeas, feta, and pistachios and some pistachio flatbread,” Peter revealed, pointing at each dish. “And we’ll have pistachio ice cream for desert.”

Tony had started laughing about halfway through the explanation, slapping a hand against the tabletop. Pepper chuckled too, shaking her head.

“So I hope you guys like pistachios,” Peter added.

“I love you, kid,” Tony said. “Don’t ever change. Unless you want to, of course. I’m not judging. … Was that good parenting?”

“It was inspiring,” Peter assured him.

“Honey, it looks amazing,” Pepper complimented. “You have a talent.”

Peter smiled. He didn’t mind anymore that his ‘talent’ stemmed mostly from spending years cooking for Kathy every evening. Now, he could cook because he wanted to, and it was nice to be good at it.

After dinner, they built a campfire on the shores of the lake and roasted marshmallows. And on Sunday, they stayed close to the cabin. Peter went for a swim, and spent most of the afternoon showing Tony how he made his webfluid.

It was nice to spend some time away from the prying eyes of the other Avengers. By the time Sunday evening rolled around, Peter felt like they would be returning to the compound as almost a proper family. Maybe that was why Tony and Pepper had wanted to come here in the first place.

-

Turned out that Peter’s ‘contacts’ at the New York examiner came in very handy, indeed. Wanda was immediately up for giving their news scoop about the charity event to Dani after Peter gave a quick but brutally honest description of their short encounter.

Peter knew he wasn’t supposed to sit in on the interview, but he still made sure to be in the lobby when Dani arrived.

She came in, looking as flustered as ever, lugging a large camera back along. She looked around the lobby with a curious expression. “I was expecting to see more bunny rabbits.”

“I made Tony give them away,” Pepper said, her face entirely serious. “To petting zoos around the city.”

“Interesting.” Dani glanced at Wanda, standing to Pepper’s right. “Ms. Maximoff.”

Wanda greeted back.

Dani turned to Peter. “Hi, I’m Dani.”

“Peter.”

“Nice to meet you. You live here?”

“Yeah,” Peter said. “Tony and Pepper are sort of like my parents.”

Her eyes widened and she moved her hand to her pocket, probably reaching for a pen.

“Off the record, please,” Peter quickly added.

She hesitated, but then nodded. “Yes. Yes, of course. I’m here for a different reason.”

“Indeed,” Pepper said. “Shall we?”

As the three of them retreated into one of the offices, Peter slipped upstairs to change into his Spider-Man suit.

“Hey. What’s up, Pete?” Karen said. “Missed you this weekend, man.”

“I know. We went on a little holiday.”

“Chill to the max.”

“Ugh.” Peter said. “Na-ah. No one says that anymore. Just say ‘cool’.”

“Cool,” Karen repeated. “I have received some updates. A five-step program was recommended to become accustomed to them. But I went ahead and bypassed it.”

“Nicely done, Karen.”

“Thanks, bro.”

Peter went downstairs, but then dawdled near the front door. He wanted to talk to Dani when she came outside. So he sat down on the low wall next to the front door and spent some time playing thirty seconds with Karen.

Dani came outside quicker than he had expected. Knowing Pepper, she had prepared the whole statement without leaving much room for wheedling questions. And knowing Dani, she didn’t have enough experience yet to ask those types of questions, anyways.

When Dani spotted him, she gave a little wave.

Peter sat up straighter. “Going back to the city?”

“Yeah, straight back to the office to start writing. Thanks for thinking of me, this is awesome news.”

“Can you give me a ride?”

She blinked.

“I usually take the bus,” Peter explained. “Incognito. And then change into my suit somewhere in the city. Because I don’t want to waste all that webfluid by swinging all the way down there.”

She smiled. “Spider-Man takes the bus.”

“Uh-huh. So… ride?”

“Sure thing.”

Peter hopped to his feet and fell into pace with her as she moved to her car. “So now that it’s been a while: do you still enjoy being in charge of the team?” She asked.

“It’s tolerable. They are all very well-behaved.”

“Any hot gossip?”

“Hmmm,” Peter said. “Ask me about Tony Stark’s plans for a new cupcake business.”

-

On Tuesday, Peter went outside straight after his last class, hopping into the car with Happy and resisting the temptation to yell at him to just drive faster and what idiot invented red lights anyways?

He got home to find Rhodey at the dinner table with a knowing smile.

“Did you get them? Did you get them? Did you get them?”

“Go have a look.”

Peter rushed past him to the large terrarium, kneeling down beside it.

He spotted Shelly straight away. She was full of energy, exploring every corner the tank, dipping in and out of the water and nibbling at pieces of lettuce.

It was a while longer before he found Silverstein. He was clearly was a lot more shy, still sitting under a piece of wood, his head hidden in his shell.

Peter reached inside and carefully ran a finger across the smooth ridges of the shell. “C’mon, Stein,” he coached. “Come out of your shell! Come see how good the world looks!”

Stein didn’t move.

“He’s scared,” Peter murmured, worrying his bottom lip.

“He’ll be fine,” Rhodey said, crouching down next to him. “He’s in a new home. You have to give him a little time to adjust.”

Peter nodded, pulling his hand back. That made sense. Stein probably didn’t want to be bothered right now.

“FRIDAY told me my little traitor got home!” Tony’s voice echoed through the lobby, moments before he appeared in the doorway.

“What?” Peter asked, spreading his hands.

Tony stepped closed and playfully whacked him over the head with a rolled-up newspaper. “So I’m starting a cupcake business, am I?”

Ah. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“No id- Oh, really? Spider-Man cupcakes? That doesn’t ring a bell?”

“Can I see?”

Tony unfolded the paper and held it out. “The proceeds for charity are front page. Go to page twelve to read more about Tony Stark’s new cupcake business.”

Peter grabbed the paper. Wow, Dani’s article made front page. That should get her some credits at her job.

“I can deal with the cupcakes,” Tony told him, raising a finger. “But I’m insulted at the suggestion that I’m planning to open a store in Manhattan. That’s libel. Everyone with half a brain knows internet is the future, and you should just focus on opening a web shop.”

Peter grinned as he pushed the newspaper back into Tony’s hands. “Write a complaint and have them print a correction.”

“I just might,” Tony said.

-

It took a whole two hours to decorate the entire living area of the compound. Peter had come down to the living room that morning to discover that Natasha had simply hung a cardboard sign with ‘Happy Birthday’ on the wall and was now slurping coffee on the couch, looking all satisfied with herself.

Well, that just wouldn’t do, would it?

Natasha complained. A lot. But in the end, she did help him locate the boxes of decorations in a storage room, and hang all the paper banners and garlands until the living room was exploding with bright colors.

“I feel like we’re at a ten-year-old’s birthday party,” Natasha complained, squinting at the decorations as if they had offended her.

“Well, better get used to it,” Peter told her. “Because I live here now. Permanently. And this is the only proper way to celebrate birthdays from now on. When she gets down here, we sing happy birthday.”

“I don’t really know the words,” Natasha said.

Peter gaped at her. That was about the saddest thing he had ever heard. “Um, okay. Forget it for now, then. I’ll teach you and we’ll sing next time.”

Tony had baked Spider-Man cupcakes. They turned out… an utter disaster. But they tasted pretty good after you scraped off the burnt edges. And when Pepper got downstairs, Steve poured them all a glass of sparkly lemonade (“It’s ten in the morning, Nat, you’re not getting a tequila”).

“Thank you all for being here,” Pepper told them. “I’m so happy to be here with all of you.”

Tony raised his glass, clinking it against hers. “Here’s to your 37th year on this earth,” he lifted his free hand to squeeze Peter’s shoulder. “It’s going to be a good year.”

“Yes,” Pepper agreed before downing the lemonade. She set down her glass, and clapped her hands together. “Now give me my presents.”