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Chapter Text

Benatar, May 20th 2018

“...yesterday…him…

Peter’s eyes flutter beneath the blaring light, the echoes of distant voices and muted sounds seeping through the haze. 

There’s a dark mass moving in and out of his field of vision. He tries to catch it, only to drop his arm a moment after, his head following suit.

“Nope, not doing that.”

His torso is lifted by the armpits to put him in a more comfortable position. Peter whines and mumbles faint words in protest.

“Misher Tork? Don’t even dare to say this in front of Rhodey, he will never let me live it down.” 

A glass is pressed against his lips. He has barely enough strength to hold it, but nonetheless slowly pours the liquid down his throat. 

He blinks a few times before his sight settles on the figure in front of him. His mind is still fuzzy, though Mr. Stark’s hollow cheeks and grayish skin glare at him. 

“Wha— what time is it?” 

“Day seventeen, according to the blue meanie over there. What did you call her again? Berry? Daby?”

“Na…vi…”

His head is heavy. Peter starts to doze off, his gaze lost on the darkness surrounding the ship.

A snap of fingers jolts him back. “Hey keep up with me kid, Miss Na’vi-without-tail kept these too-ripe wannabe mangos for you. It’s disgusting, but still miles better than the brown sludge I had for dinner.”  

His stomach hurls at the sour smell, yet Peter suppresses the bile to swallow a few mouthfuls. It’s revolting, but weighed down by weak muscles and muddled thoughts, his whole body screams at him to get more, more and mor—

He chokes. 

“...how far are we?” he whispers, head between his knees.

Mr. Stark rubs his shoulder and gently pushes him down against the mattress. 

“Tell me if you need more water Pete, okay?”

“How far a—” his inquiry dies on his lips, Mr. Stark’s retreating form already far out of his reach. 

As Peter’s vision spins and his breath comes in shallow gasps, he thinks nothingness has never felt this terrifying. 

Peter wakes up on the twenty-seventh day after Titan, his mind in a daze and eyes wandering on the ceiling. The light burns through his retina, giving him the headache of a lifetime while his whole body feels like it has been run over by a train. 

At some point, a silhouette enters and starts probing at him. The woman presents herself as Dr. Cho, an acquaintance from the Avengers. Her lips are kept as tight as her bun, from which only two strands of dark hair frame her face. She’s not a medical doctor, she is quick to explain, but she’s the closest person able to deal with his mutant body in secret.

Peter nods weakly as she lays down a basic summary of his health status. It is, apparently, the third time he has woken up since landing there. He has no recognition of any of them.

He has also no recognition of the events that led to him resting inside the infirmary of the Compound.

“What happened?” he croaks out. 

Dr. Helen Cho pauses for a short, almost imperceptible, second. She glances at him while she changes the IVs shot on his system to regain the twenty pounds he has lost in the days they spent living on scabs and dust, and offers a short answer.

“Carol Danvers – Captain Marvel – found your ship five days ago and brought you back to Earth.”

He considers the information for a second before he starts to doze off.

It takes a few hours for his mind to catch on. His sleep is disturbed by flashes of Thanos, dust fleeing his grasp, and a chilling anxiety that sends his heartbeat into a frenzy. 

“May, where is May?” he shouts, his breath ragged and his bedsheet full of sweat.

Someone tries to hold him while he trashes around in a panic. When his arm bypasses a dark head that dodges at the last second, a woman’s voice – probably Dr. Cho – cries out for help. A tall blur appears in his field of vision and then suddenly his wrists are cuffed to the frame. He breaks them the next second.

Peter gasps, his eyes wide. He’s hyperventilating and unable to recognize any of his surroundings besides the loud noise that is heard from the back of the room. He rolls over, desperately tries to catch the edge of the bed to stand up and gets out here, to get to May, but a new weight is added to his chest. 

In this slight moment of confusion, they manage to sedate him. It is not enough to knock him out, not even enough to prevent him from shoving aside the body that lays on top of him, nonetheless his movements become progressively sluggish and void of energy.

“Where is she?” he repeats, “Tell me where is she…”

The dark figures dancing before his eyes are the last thing he sees before tears accompany him to sleep. 

May is gone. 

Peter knows from the moment Happy enters the room after another episode, head low in shame and not meeting his eyes.

It doesn’t hurt, he thinks as he lays for hours on his sheet, unmoving. The void, born from his bowels, threatens to swallow him.

It doesn’t hurt, he whispers as images of the gauntlet replay over and over in his mind, the metal slipping through his fingers in a fatidic moment.

It doesn’t hurt, he sobs as Aunt May’s soothing voice diminishes, unable to stop his anguish.

It doesn’t hurt.

“Can I have my phone?” he asks two days after he wakes up for good.

Dr. Cho pauses in the middle of her examination to throw him a heavy look over her glasses.

“I don’t think you’re ready for the onslaught of social media.”

He doesn’t think so either. 

“Please… I— I just need to check something.” 

He presses his hands under his tights in a vain attempt to hide their shaking. Dr. Cho doesn’t ask for clarification or comment, still, Peter can’t hold her stare for more than a few seconds. 

“I’ll let Happy know. We won’t be able to keep you away from it for much longer anyway.”

An hour later, a phone connected to the building’s WiFi is dropped on his lap. 

“Sorry, yours was too damaged. As for the rest of your stuff, you probably lost them when you were beamed up.”

It finally dawns on Peter that all the personal items he kept in his schoolbag are forever lost in the destruction of Washington Square Park. 

It also dawns on him that he doesn’t care.

Happy observes him from the entrance for long minutes until it is made clear Peter doesn’t intend to use it anytime soon. He throws him one last apologetic look and leaves him with a promise to come back by the end of the day. 

Peter squeezes the device in a tight hold for almost an hour. His gaze is lost on the black screen, the dim reflection proving he looks as wrecked as he feels. 

As soon as he catches the frown on Dr. Cho’s face when she comes back to change his IV, he decides to bite the bullet straight out of the way and logs into his Discord account.

The red notifications scream back at him, though he discards the ones coming from the only non-school related server he follows to focus on the Decathlon one. He has been tagged a few times, before Abe apparently decided to bug him directly in private. 

There are also eighteen messages from Ned.

A chilling realization suddenly overwhelms him because there are only eighteen messages from Ned. Ned who hasn’t been able to express his ideas in one sole hit since they opened their Facebook accounts years ago. Ned who spends as much time sending Peter pictures of cats on rollerblades as he does programming a Texan accent for his robot. Ned who babbles endlessly about the dumb discoveries they make on every field trip since their first one back in seventh grade. 

Ned who has sent only eighteen messages in twenty-nine days. 

The ache in his chest becomes sharper, tighter, and suddenly Peter suffocates. 

“Peter!” 

He’s vaguely aware of the shadow that tries to pry the phone from his hands. He swats the arm away, stands on shaking knees, and makes a beeline for the door.

He has crushed the phone, he realizes on his way, as hundreds of pieces of glass pierce his skin. The broken screen falls all around him, only to be stepped on again by his naked feet.

The pain doesn’t register, and neither does the nausea until he finds himself hurling on the white tiles of the infirmary.

Ned’s dead, he chants in his head as someone washes his mouth.

Ned’s dead, he’s led back to bed. 

Ned’s dead, he falls asleep in tears.

MJ hasn’t sent him a message either.

He throws up harder.

Happy drops by a few times as promised, his eyes red and a beard growing on his chin. He slips a few news there and then but Peter doesn’t miss the way he avoids his gaze every time he wonders about Mr. Stark’s whereabouts. 

“Pepper she’s…” Happy finally falters on the fourth day since his awakening when Peter’s stare becomes too intense. “He’s not coping well.”

By that point, Ms. Potts is the fourteenth on the list of disappearances he was directly told about or discovered inadvertently.

It doesn’t make it any easier.

It also takes him three days to convince Dr. Cho to give him another phone. The doctor snaps at him every time he requests it, and only relents when she catches him crawling on the second floor's ceiling.

“What do you think you’re doing?” She punctuates every word with a sharp hiss that freezes him on the spot.

“Hum…” he avoids her eyes as he slowly goes back to the floor. “I went to fetch water.”

“Water that you could have just asked me for. Or get from the sink of your room, as you seem to be well enough to move.”

“Did you know there was a special sparkling machine on the second floor? You can choose the brand, five different sizes of cups, and a dozen of flavors—”

“Peter, I can show the Starkpad beneath your clothes. ”

Begrudgingly, he takes it out of his back.

“I didn't steal it,” he feels the need to explain. “It was lying around in the common room.”

Dr. Cho stays silent for a moment before letting out a long sigh.

“You won’t give up, right?” 

“I can deal with it,” he objects with vehemence. 

“You threw up on my shoes. Twice.”

He has no guarantee he will be able to withstand another wave of news either. Still, he cannot stay locked up in his mind any longer.

“I know how to travel through the vents,” he retorts with aplomb. 

An old smartphone is delivered to his room three hours later.

Despite getting back access to the device, it takes him another full day to convince himself to go online. When he does though, it doesn’t take long for his phone to start riging.

He stares at Abe’s name flashing on the screen for half a minute. 

“You’re gonna take that?” Dr. Cho pointedly looks at his lap and Peter finally shakes himself awake to pick it up. 

“Peter? Oh Peter is that you?!”

“Yes—”

“Oh my god, you’re alive! Fuck Peter you’re alive! I didn’t believe it when I saw you were online on Discord, but Charles saw it too so it means I wasn’t hallucinating! I haven’t heard about you since the trip, I had no idea what was happening to you but shit, fuck, sorry, you’re alive!”

“I—” Peter closes his mouth, tears welling up in his eyes. “Hi Abe,” he croaks out. 

For a moment, there’s silence at the other end of the line. Then, his friend bursts into tears. 

Peter freezes, sends a desperate look at Dr. Cho who unfortunately decides to slip out of the room right at this moment, and slumps back in his bed. 

The call is short but chaotic and leaves both of them as sobbing messes. For the first time in days though, Peter feels warm and seems to have tamed the will to throw himself out of the Compound and flee into the woods. 

By June 3rd, he’s officially discharged.

Dr Cho has gone back to her real job a week before, but the woman doesn’t forget to drop by every few days to make sure he follows thoroughly her instructions. Peter has been tempted more than once to pull off his IV and leave the infirmary for good, but what for?

No one has told him what to expect from now on. After Happy has led him to his so-called designated room, Peter is left among empty grey walls and no plan besides dinner. 

He still hasn’t seen Mr. Stark either. 

Peter also sleeps terribly these days. Space pulls him back to its unforgiving embrace each time he closes his eyes to the world. 

Dr. Strange’s pained expression haunts his mind, echoed by Mantis’ cries. Some nights, the distorted voice of Aunt May joins them, begging him to save, only to be swept away like she probably were.

It's after another nightmare that Peter wakes up in the middle of the night and wanders into the building when it is made clear he won’t be able to go back to sleep soon. 

He is drinking a fresh glass of water and wondering if anything interesting can be on TV at that time when a presence makes herself known. 

“Trouble sleeping, Spider-Man?”

Peter has caught sight of the Avengers – or what remains of them – a few times between their missions in the outer cosmos, but never face-to-face.

Captain America tried to call him a few times for dinner, but Peter always swiftly fled to his room without a glance. Meeting these heroes has once been his dream, but these days it only brings back the deep shame poisoning his veins. 

He has nothing to tell them. Nothing to show besides failure.

He wonders how Natasha Romanoff has managed to slip by his vigilance when a good chunk of his powers makes it so his senses are more sensitive than the common person. 

“Hello Ms. Black Widow. Madam,” he splutters while her mouth curves slightly. “I’m Peter Parker.” 

He gives out his hand, which she takes firmly. “Pleasure to meet you, Mr. Parker. Spider-Man.” 

Peter blushes furiously. 

“Hum… do you want something?” he gestures awkwardly to the kitchen. 

She merely raises an eyebrow. “Don’t worry I know my way, thanks.”

“Oh yeah, of course. Sorry.”

This is so embarrassing. Peter is embarrassing. He should really go back to sleep. 

The Black Widow scans him for a moment. “You seem to be doing well.” 

“Dr. Cho says that my healing factor is back to normal now.”

She nods and then goes back to read on a chair in the salon, without as much as a look in his direction. Peter hovers hesitantly between the two areas for a moment and decides to sit two couches away from her. 

He takes out his phone to scroll on Pinterest or videos of cats on Youtube, far away from any real social media. He can’t help but spare a glance now and then at the spy, but she chooses to ignore it. 

He has no doubt she notices it, though. 

Peter is half-tempted to ask her what she is reading but is as much scared by what her reaction is going to be. So far she has seemed chill, but Natasha Romanoff is an experienced assassin and a total wildcard in his book.

Half an hour passes without any sound when she speaks up from her book, her eyes still on the page. 

“Your damaged suit is still in the infirmary. As it hasn’t moved yet I guess Cho or Happy forgot to tell you about it.”

They haven’t, Peter is just content to leave it there for now. 

He doesn’t tell the Black Widow any of that though and tries for a nonchalant tone. 

“Oh, I didn’t know. Thanks.” The lie fails, betrayed by his tense expression and stiff shoulders, but Ms. Romanoff only hums in answer.

“Interesting,” she says after a while. 

She doesn’t offer any more comment, but the exchange is enough for Peter to feel being put a little on the spot. Looking at the rising sun out of the window, he takes his leave after politely saying goodbye to the spy. 

It’s only when he wakes up a few hours later that he realizes he had a whole conversation with the Black Widow and survived. 

It has been confirmed school is canceled for the remainder of the year, but Peter doesn’t care.

He doesn’t care either when Abe adds him to a new group chat with Cindy and Charles and offers to hang out.

“I know you’re probably not in the mood, but it’s been a while.”

Peter lets the message on read and goes back to sleep.

The next morning he wakes up to a ruckus. After two weeks of pursued lips and quiet despair, Peter almost welcomes the shouts with relief. 

Mr. Stark is drunk. Peter has gathered as much from the slurred words and broken glass he finds on his way to the living room. Still, he isn’t prepared for the sight of his mentor in complete disarray.

Skin sickly pale, eyes sunken deep into their cavity, he moves aimlessly across the room with the energy of a beheaded chicken. The man looks like he hasn’t slept in days, and Peter is convinced he hasn’t eaten either in as much. 

The black man that observes him with a frown must be Colonel James Rhodes. Peter has never seen his face outside the armor, and barely exchanged words with him the only time they met, but has heard enough side comments about his MIT days from Mr. Stark himself to build his own image. 

He isn’t sure the man would appreciate it. 

Happy is also present in the corner of the room, typing furiously on his phone. Peter absentmindly wonders which intern has forgotten his badge once again. 

“To hell with Jeffersen!” Mr. Stark slurs, “I have more important things to do than this funeral he calls a meeting! I have more important things to—”

“Like what? Engulfing the fourth bottle of the night?”

“ —do, things his little pea brain cannot even imagine—”

“Your company—

“ Pepper’s company!”

“The building has your name on it!”

“Rhodes, Rhodey, Platypus,” Mr. Stark staggers in front of his friend. “I love you. You’re one of the only people I can stand on most days. But right now you’re a pain in the ass. I don’t give a flying fuck about that company. My wife is dead!” 

That shout is raw, and so full of pain that Peter feels his own throat become tighter. Even Happy puts his phone away with an obvious wince. 

Meanwhile, the energy seems to have been sucked out of Colonel Rhodes. “I know Tones,” he whispers. Then, more forcefully, “Did you call your therapist?” 

“She’s probably dusted,” Mr. Stark mutters.

“She’s not.”

“Well then, she probably has her own shit to sort through!” 

A silence settles over them like a heavy shroud. The colonel rubs a hand on his tired face, which only becomes darker when he finally notices Peter. 

“Tony,” Colonel Rhodes’ expression is pained, more so in worry than anything, “get your shit together in front of the kid at least.”

Peter reddens from being put on the spot, though his embarrassment disappears when Mr. Stark turns around.

“Pete!” His eyes light up when they fall on him. He staggers once or twice, and the next thing Peter knows he’s engulfed in a hug. “I didn’t know you were discharged!”

“Has been for a week,” Colonel Rhodes snaps coldly. 

Peter should feel offended, or at the very least disappointed by his mentor’s blatant ignorance, but it loses its importance when his nose is stuffed into the older man’s neck.

He knows this is weird, physical affection has always been sparse between them, never more than side hugs and hair being ruffled. He also suspects the gesture to be motivated by the alcohol in his veins.
It doesn’t matter though, because if Mr. Stark is hugging him he must not be as angry as Peter thought. He might not blame him. 

“I’m sorry,” he splutters. “I’m sorry Mr. Stark, so sorry.”

His mentor strokes his head quite forcefully. “There, there kid, you have nothing to be sorry for.”

“But I couldn’t get the glove off,” he cries out. 

Mr. Stark tenses for a moment, which makes Peter instantly regret his words, and then pats his shoulder. “No need for that here, ok?”

Peter nods weakly and detaches himself from the man without meeting anyone’s eyes. This is too embarrassing. 

“I’ll go to the board meeting,” his mentor says to the other men in the room, “but don’t expect me to play nice.”

“Never counted on you to,” Happy grunts.

“Go take a shower at least,” Colonel Rhodes pleads, “you stink.”

As much as Peter hates to admit it, the smell is indeed near unbearable. 

When Mr. Stark finally leaves, the colonel turns to him. “James Rhodes, I wish we had met in better circumstances.”

Peter shakes his hand. “Peter Parker sir, pleasure to meet you.” Then, after a pause, “And well, Spider-Man, but I guess you knew that.” 

Colonel Rhodes sends him a tight smile, “I did, can’t say I expected it though, to be honest.” 

Peter is sure the same images of Germany flashes in his mind. “Sorry to disappoint,” he offers weakly. 

The man raises his eyebrow. “No disappointment here. Or at least, not at you.”

“Oh,” he doesn't know what to say. “Cool, then.” They share an awkward silence before Peter takes his cue to go back to his room. He has enough interactions for the day. 

“We’re moving back to the Tower,” Mr. Stark announces the next morning. He barely looks less miserable than the previous day, though the haphazard energy is lacking. 

He doesn’t look any of them in the eyes, grabs an apple, and leaves in a breeze.

“Finally,” Happy grunts and bites his toast aggressively. 

Colonel Rhodes seems to debate with himself for a while, his gaze set on the elevator, but finally renounces to follow him. 

Peter stands in the midst of it all, shifting from one foot to another. 

“Hum… by ‘we’, did he mean me too?” he mumbles.

Happy drops his bread into his coffee. “What? Would you rather stay here?”

“No! But… you want me to live in the Tower?” 

“Where would you live otherwise?” 

Peter flinches and avoids their gazes. “At my apartment? I can get a job.”

Silence overtakes them. Peter glances in time to see them exchange a heavy look.

“Peter,” Colonel Rhodes turns to him, “do you want to go back to your home?” he asks carefully. 

The thought of returning to his apartment without May makes him sick.

“Mr. Stark already has a lot to deal with, I don’t want to impose,” he whispers.

“Kid, he might not be there yet, but there’s no way Tony’s leaving you on your own,” Happy says with finality.

“Oh.”

Some of the tension leaves his body, he has tried for so long to not linger on his situation that it probably will take a while for him to be convinced. 

A mix of excitement and apprehension bubbles in his chest as he slips out soon after. He doesn’t know what awaits him in a city that has been orphaned of half of its population, yet New York has been calling him for days. The smell of gasoline and skyscrapers has always been more welcoming than the vast fields surrounding the Compound.

Animated by renewed motivation, Peter takes out his phone and finally types his answer.

They have decided to reunite in a park in Queens, the farthest from Midtown as possible while keeping close to their neighborhoods. 

Peter spots them from afar, there’s not a lot of people out there on this Tuesday morning. They are hustled together in what seems like a deep discussion. They aren’t laughing, he can already see the deep shadows under their eyes. They aren’t sobbing either.

Cindy catches sight of him as he’s still hovering on the edge of the park. She doesn’t wave, but her intense staring definitely gets the attention of the other two. 

Peter dances on his feet, takes a deep breath, and schools his expression in what he hopes is an acceptable smile.

“Hey man, good to see you.” Charles shifts closer to Abe to give him a place on the bench.

An awkward silence settles between them. Peter has no idea how to start a conversation that won’t instantly damper the mood.

“Were you stuck in the subway too?” Abe asks nonchalantly. “They’re having technical issues again, I swear it’s impossible to travel with them these days.”

“Oh hum, I’ve heard. I just walked by though.”

Happy has actually dropped him at the edge of Queens after a two-hour long drive from the Compound, though he can’t tell any of them that. 

“You should never come to France then,” Cindy snorts. “I visited last summer, we had to take two trains but as the first one left with almost two hours of delay, we couldn’t catch it. We ended up sleeping at a hotel in the middle of nowhere.”

“For a start, who takes the train ?”

It’s easy, to fall into banter. Transports, videogames, the last internet trend… debating can get you far as long as you stay away from personal topics. 

They changed, Peter notices after a while. It is subtle at first, but then is made glaring obvious by the sharpness in Cindy’s comments, or the way Charles’ voice wavers every time it’s his turn to speak. Abe has always been a chatter, but now his words fall out his mouth in such a rapid fashion they might very well be his last. He can’t stop fidgeting either. 

“We’re staying with my grandma,” his friend admits at some point. “It’s a bit farther from Midtown but I’ll still be able to go there by September.”

From the group chat, Peter knows Cindy lost her mom and Abe both his parents. Charles’ mom has been single since his birth and is thankfully alive, but his sibling didn’t have the same luck. 

“Do you have somewhere to stay Peter?” Charles asks carefully. 

Abe must have told them about Aunt May, if the look they give him is any guess. 

“Yes, don’t worry. I’m safe.”

They thankfully don’t insist. 

In retrospect, Peter knows he didn’t get the worst end of the deal. May is gone, but he has a roof, a unlimited amount of food, and knows money won’t ever be a problem as long as he stays in the vicinity of a billionaire. Peter is used to loss too, he has become numb to the pain. 

Cindy, Charles, Abe… it’s their first rodeo. They keep their head high and pretend their situation is fine compared to others, but he’s been there enough time to catch the signs of an ocean of grief. 

He has also been there enough times to know how deep you can drown.

The end of July marks the return to Stark Industries Tower. Peter doesn’t even spare the Compound a glance when Happy loads the last bags in the trunk and drives them back to the city, the advanced building had felt more like a cemetery for their souls rather than a home.

“Do you want me to put on a movie or something?” Mr. Stark glances at him tentatively. 

“No thanks, I actually might gonna sleep a little,” he spares him a weak smile.

Peter has to give it to him, since the debacle in June the man has been trying to reach out and reign in his coping mechanisms. Or sort of, he hasn’t seen him inebriated again but Peter has no doubt he numbs his sorrow in the discretion of his lab every night.

“It mortified him,” Happy has disclosed to him one night. “It had been a while since he got plastered and he didn’t expect you to see him in that state.”

He has bit his cheeks in shame, as if afraid any more of his words would increase the rift between Peter and his mentor.

Sometimes, Happy forgets that in a generation hooked on social media, Mr. Stark's past escapades are for the world to see. While displeasing, his last drunken stunt is far from the worst Peter has seen of him. 

The first step into the penthouse breaks him out of his trance by its deary silence.  A cage of glass, Peter thought the first time he entered the place, his eyes roaming free on the skyline and the cries of the streets unable to reach his sensitive ears. Up above, New York is only a distant heartbeat, its inhabitants milling at their feet, unaware of the hawks watching.

Oppressing. 

“I guess you can set your bag in the room down the east aisle,” Happy mumbles, “you know the way.”

Peter hums in acknowledgment as he takes in the living room, void of Mr Stark who has fled the moment they parked the car. The walls are as pristine as they were on his last visit five months ago, embellished with posters of 70s rock bands and landscape paintings. He doesn’t miss the little things dispersed all around the place either: an Iron Man mug on the kitchen counter, the economic magazines on the coffee table, or the set of dehydrated cacti next to the window… all signs that souls inhabit the place and love it in their own way. 

Still, amidst the overall whiteness and only a faint layer of dust, Peter wishes more than anything to nest into the lab, with its oil stains, creaking robots, and the everlasting burning smell. It's messy, it's warm, and feels home more than the penthouse ever did.

Happy catches him staring with longing at the elevator. "Don't worry, I'm sure you'll be back there in no time." 

Peter seriously doubts it, now that Mr. Stark has to deal with the company he neglected for two months. 

"If you say so," he retorts without much enthusiasm.

Happy jerks his arm toward Peter's shoulder but retracts it the next moment. "Come on kid, give him two days and he'll have you work on that pajamas you call a suit."

Peter’s breath hitches for a second too long. 

“Sure,” he blurts out, “I can’t wait.”

Peter thinks he has already hit rock bottom until he finds himself in front of his and May’s apartment.

The last time he had been there, he had kissed his aunt on the cheek, grabbed his backpack, and promised to tell her all about his trip to MoMa. She had chastised him for his late awakening, shoved a sandwich into his hand, and waved at his back in her usual fondness. 

It has been three months since then but still feels like an eternity. From Happy’s passenger seat, Peter swears the facade has gotten paler and new cracks appeared on the window on the fourth floor.

“Come on kid,” the man says gruffly. 

Peter can’t move. Happy gets out of the car, opens Peter’s door, and pulls him gently by the arm. 

He follows suit in a daze, deaf to the creaking of the stairs and the slam of the entrance. In front of number five, Happy pulls up a set of keys, and Peter briefly wonders how he got his hand on them. Peter’s on set is lost somewhere between Washington Square Park and space, and May’s…

The first thing that hits him is the smell. Happy stands back at the door, but Peter rushes in without a second thought. The fruit basket has decayed past recognition and he’s sure the inside of the fridge doesn’t look any better.

The cleaning activity is far from glorious, but for a few minutes, he gets to forget that he’s standing among ghosts. 

“Thanks to Tony I saw some horrendous things, but you kid surely has a strong stomach,” Happy grumbles, a hand over his nose. He hands Peter the suitcase and looks around. “Where do you want to start?”

Peter’s eyes are stuck on a brown stain on the parquet May had never managed to remove. After a long moment, he kicks his doorway open and shoves haphazardly some clothes and books he gets his hands on into the suitcase. He throws in his washed-over Converses, ignores the colorful posters on the muted green walls, and grabs his old laptop. The Leïa figurine glares at him from the desk when he pushes it aside with the remnants of an electronic board. 

The snap of the closing latch resonates in the room. Peter bypasses May’s door without a glance, crosses the living room in a breeze, and runs down the corridor away from Happy’s shouts. 

He drops the case at the bottom of the car and walks hazardely in the street. Happy catche sup to him in less than a minute. 

“Are you okay?” he asks, and any other day Peter would have teased him for being concerned. 

He wants to scream. He wants to tear down the man and shrivel on the ground. He wants to swing far away from New York, but also wants to loose himself in the crowd of the subway. He wants to set fire to the building. He doesn’t want anyone else to touch it.

“I don’t know,” he chokes. 

He wants the cacophony of his mind to being silenced forever. 

With the move completed, it gets easier for Peter to attend these new gatherings with his Decathlon team. 

He is reluctant to go at first — not willing to merge with the crowd and see countless faces of sorrow — but the penthouse becomes suffocating real quick.

On a Sunday, Charles brings them to a board games bar. Peter has never set foot in such a place before, he and Ned have always been more interested in watching than playing, Lego aside. Still, as he’s sipping a Coke and trading two units of wood with Abe, he has to admit he’s having fun. 

“7, which means I get this,” Cindy takes a stone card, “so I can do this,” she replaces her colony with a city. “11 points, I win!”

“It’s unfair,” Charles whines. “I’ve known Catan for years, how come you’re this good at it?”

She shrugs with a smile. 

“Hey, what AP classes are you taking this year?” Abe pips in.

It’s not the first time he has broached the subject. It’s not the first time either that the temperature drops a little bit when school enters the conversation. 

Peter can’t blame him for trying, school promises to be the only constant in their lives in the upcoming months, even though he would rather avoid it altogether.

“I’ll take Calculus BC, Computer Science A, Physics 2, and Psychology,” Cindy offers without meeting their eyes. 

“I’ll take no more than three,” Charles announces. “After all, we have colleges to apply to.”

“They have been delayed though, we can easily slip another one at least,” argues Abe. 

“Peter?”

When he entered high school, Peter loved the perspective of taking AP classes. The hope of finally finding a subject challenging enough for him to not fall asleep in class had pushed him to take the allowed two APs in his freshman year. Then Ben and Spider-Man happened and surviving the night took priority over any curriculum. Aunt May argued with him for hours when she forced him to take at least three last year.

“Physics C, Research and Calculus BC.”

It will never fill the void left by Ned or Mj, but as he exchanges a smile with Cindy, Peter feels more confident knowing there will be a familiar face around. 

The fifth time they decide to reunite, Peter doesn’t make it. 

There’s a huge car crash a few blocks away from the cafe. Policemen closed the streets in the whole neighborhood to allow emergency services to reach the victims. From his spot, Peter can only distinguish a pile of metal.

The New Yorkers stand in the middle of the sirens, looking at the sky, awaiting the arrival of a red spandex that will never come.

Spider-Man could have easily lifted the cars, he could have probably prevented the crash if he were on patrol that day. But Spider-Man isn’t there. Someday he’s dead on Titan, on others stranded in space. Some nights he comes to the surface, coughing out the ash in his lungs, but he flees the mirror, and his suit stays buried in a closet.

Peter doesn’t remember taking the subway and slipping by the private entrance of the Tower. He wakes up and finds himself hunched over the bathroom sink, breathing heavily, and hands shaking. 

“Peter, you seem to display signs of distress, should I call someone?” FRIDAY’s voice resonates in the corridor.

“No,” he mumbles. 

Panic attacks, he can deal with. As a kid, he was subjected to a lot of stress-induced asthma, and while they aren’t identical, the symptoms are similar enough for the coping mechanisms to be ingrained in his brain.

Slow, deep breath. Focus on your surroundings, like the sink he is going to break if he doesn't calm himself down fast enough.

After the bite, he became a pro at muffling his screams so as not to wake up Aunt May. He would lie in his bed frozen cold, convinced he was back under the rumble or soaked in Ben's blood. 

“Come on, you’ve got this,” he mutters.

A sudden wave of dizziness washes over him. He chokes on his next breath and slumps on the floor, pinching a piece of the sink with him.

“Oh god, oh no, oh shit!”

The water pipes haven’t broken, but Peter feels like drowning. His heartbeat is frantic, turned into a chaotic drumming, and his whole body is drenched in sweat.

It’s Happy who finds him first. Later, Peter will learn FRIDAY sounded the alarm when he broke the sink and didn’t answer her for a few minutes.

“Kid, what is—”

Peter raises a hand to stop him.

“Give me a minute, please.” Or three.

He exhales deeply and observes Happy’s shoes. Black and pointy, they’re glowing under the bathroom spotlight. Peter has no doubt he polished them in the morning like he tends to do every Tuesday. 

He thinks the distraction might start to work, but the moment he loses focus and looks up at Happy, his lungs collapse.

“It doesn’t look good, should I call Tony?!”

Peter shakes his head. Amidst his trembling, the man hasn’t seen it and has already stuck the phone next to his ear before Peter can even react.

Mr. Stark arrives in an instant, and somehow it makes everything worse. Peter barely has time to lift himself up before he starts hurling over the toilets. 

A hand rubs his back.

“I’m sorry I broke the sink,” he cries between hiccups.

“Kid, I don’t care about the sink.”

He smells, he’s sweaty, it’s absolutely disgusting. Still, after ten minutes of everlasting vomiting, his heart regains a calmer beat. 

It takes a while for the hysteria to fully go down, though once he has washed his mouth he feels serene enough to leave the bathroom.

“Are you ready to—”

“There was an accident.” If he doesn’t talk now, Peter doesn’t think he will ever be able to. “There were so many cars, and people kept looking for someone to help. If I had been there, as Spider-Man I mean, I could have, I could have—” he hiccups. 

Mr. Stark tentatively puts a harm around his shoulder and Peter leans against his side.  

“Hey, deep breath kid. You don’t want to start another outbreak.”

“I miss it, Mr. Stark.” He’s full-on sobbing now. Thankfully, his mentor doesn’t seem to mind about the wetness of his suit. “I miss being Spider-Man.”

And that’s it, the truth he has tried so hard to deny is finally put on display for the world to see.

Peter wants to be Spider-Man, but the mere idea of putting on the suit has him reeling. The last time he had set sight on it, he wanted to rip his skin off to the last cell and spent the day brooding under the covers. 

He misses Aunt May more than anything. She would have pulled him out of his bed, combed his hair gently, and brought him to Delmar’s for a cheap comforting sandwich. Then she would have tried to burn the suit, and he would have both hated and loved her for it. 

Mr. Stark tightens his hold on Peter’s arm and removes the last piece of crushed earthenware from his hands. 

“Maybe… it’s time for you to go to a therapist.”

“But you are not even going yourself!”

The man stays silent until he sits down next to him.

“Maybe it’s time to change that.”

Peter sobs harder.

Chapter Text

He only lasts two weeks before Mr. Stark notices something is amiss. The man starts to sneak glances at his deep eye bags and pale skin, but it is not until Peter wakes up two days in a row with fading bruises on his face that he decides to intervene.

“FRIDAY, make sure no one disturbs us.”

Peter stands still as Mr. Stark opens his computer and turns it toward him.

“Care to explain?”

On the screen, various videos of Peter leaving and entering the Penthouse through the window of the fourth bedroom can be seen. His face is covered by a dark hood, but the glimpse of his swinging on the top right record doesn’t leave much interpretation.

“You’re stalking me?”

“Actually, FRIDAY warned me on the first night. I was ready to let it go for a while, but you getting hurt wasn’t part of the deal.”

“You don’t have to worry about it.”

“Tell that to your face.”

“I’m just trying a new look.”

The sarcasm takes both of them by surprise. Mr. Stark raises an eyebrow and looks up at the ceiling. 

“Did you catch that, FRIDAY? The kid has finally hit his rebellious stage.” 

Peter huffs and avoids his gaze.

“You didn’t even take the sui–”

“It has nothing to do with Spider-Man,” he blurts out before the man can finish.

Mr. Stark leans back in his chair and crosses his arms.

“Sure thing, that’s why you’re beating up college students who are trying to assault one of their classmates after a party?”

“I’m not–”

A Twitter thread is shoved up his nose before he can finish. @fleekw.ayhlee didn’t wait long before displaying the details of her misadventure all over the internet

“There’s nothing incriminating there.”

“Yes, because a random dude getting into a street fight in Queens on the very same night you sneaked out and came back with a bruise on your left cheek is not incriminating at all?”

Peter knows a lost cause when he sees one, and honestly, he doesn’t have the energy to argue right now. 

With a sigh, he sits down on the opposite chair and levels his mentor with a determined glare.

“I did nothing wrong.”

“Never said you did,” Mr. Stark answers nonchalantly. “I’m just wondering why you decided to go back to your onesie era when I made it clear it fell out of fashion years ago.”

A “fuck you” almost falls out of lips until he regains enough of his senses to bite his cheeks to the bleeding point. 

This isn’t him, but his frustration and wish to do something has been ravaging his insides for days. 

“Pete,” Mr. Stark looks more tired than ever, “I’m glad to see you doing well enough to be back at it but… two weeks ago you were lamenting about not being Spider-Man anymore  and now you simply refuse to wear the suit? It doesn’t make any sense.”

Nothing has been making sense for months. Peter can’t even explain it to himself on most days. 

“I’m not back at it,” he says with finality. 

School starts next and it’s every bit as awful as Peter expects. 

He can’t bear to look at any of his classmates during homeroom, least of all at the empty seat beside him. Mrs. Warren tries her best, but even she has to take a moment to collect herself when she realizes that there are no “Tall and Short Johnsons” anymore, and that only Alicia remains in the second row.

“Can we just be miserable at home, please,” Cindy whispers from behind him — the only one from AcaDec with whom he shares homeroom, Charles and Abe being with their history teacher. 

Peter shares unfortunately the sentiment and wishes nothing more than to be back on his bed to stare at the ceiling all day.  

They spend lunch hour in relative silence, with only Abe and Charles making idle chit-chat about the latest event of their favorite streamer. The semblance of normalcy they have found over the summer seems to have receded in the large cafeteria. 

When Mr. Morita announces an hour later that they still haven’t found a substitute for their math teacher, Peter is ready to call it a day. Mr. Harrington though, has wished for them to reunite for an impromptu AcaDec meeting and Peter doesn’t have the heart to refuse in front of his desperate face.  

Stepping inside the room with only three of his teammates in tow hurts more than anything else this day. He has obviously known for more than three months that only the four of them remained, but it hasn’t really hit until now when the usual numbers of chairs was cut in half. 

Mr. Harrington is a wreck, which says a lot considering Peter lives with Tony Stark. He hasn’t shaved in weeks and seems to have lost at least thirty pounds. 

Absentmidely, Peter remembers that his own belt needed a tighter fit this morning. 

“I’m so happy to see you guys here,” he says with shiny eyes. Peter glances away out of respect, or embarrassment. 

Their teacher eventually admits that with a team of four it is impossible to continue competitions. He goes as far as to suggest they try to promote the club to their classmates, but Peter doubts any of them has the energy nor the will to do so. 

“Can we just keep this slot as a study period?” Cindy finds the courage to mutter. Her reddish face and down gaze are clear signs she’s trying to hold it together in front of them.

“Yeah,” Abe’s voice wavers, “we will still need you to coach us a little, Mr. Harrington.”

At the end of the day, Peter has never felt so relieved to see Happy’s shiny black car on the parking lot. While he usually prefers making the trip to the Tower on his own he doesn’t think he can deal with being stuck to strangers’ sweaty clothes and somber faces in the subway today. 

“This doesn’t work,” he had decided after the second therapy session. 

Peter had been adamant from the start that his identity wouldn’t be disclosed to the practitioner. As far as Mrs. Verney knew, he was no more than another orphan teen who lost his last remaining relative in the Snap. 

And it went well… for the first ten minutes when he realized that it was impossible to talk about any of his problems without mentioning why they existed in the first place. 

Peter had debated with himself for hours before bringing up the subject with Mr. Stark, who never had as much qualm about secret identities. Once the green light was given, a NDA was ready for Mrs. Verney to sign. Peter hadn’t been sure that she could be legally bound to secrecy, but for the sake of his mind had decided to not think too much about it. 

It had been terrifying, and still is, to confide into his identity to a complete stranger, but to her defense Mrs. Verney took it like a champ and didn’t as much as bat an eye the first time he recounted fighting superhumans after a math test. 

That’s how he finds himself in downtown Manhattan every few days. There are still some things that Peter keeps close to his chest — his little trip into space being the first of many — but progress is there. 

“What does the suit mean to you?” his therapist asks one day.

Peter reels back at the question, spilling water on his lap. They had been talking about his classes when he mentioned in passing the thieving scene he stumbled upon after school. 

Out in the open and without the Spider-Man suit, he hadn’t been able to do anything, but once the thieves left the grocery store, he made a point to chase after them and lead them in a remote alley long enough to incapacitate them and strip them of their illegally earned prize.

A pattern that surprisingly happens a lot recently.

Peter sets down his glass and clamps his lips together. 

“It’s mainly a way of protection, for my identity or physical safety” he settles on after a while. 

Mrs. Verney hums gently and notes something down on her sheet.

It unnerves him. 

“Do you feel safe enough to go without it nowadays, then?”

His stomach freezes, but he fights to not show it. 

“I don’t need it, keeping on the low, you know?” He hopes the small smile and nonchalance will make her drop the subject. “Plus, when I started my suit was no more than an overused sweater and pajama pants. My current outfit is an improvement compared to it.”

“Are you still not afraid of people getting a glimpse of your face? A mishap can happen.”

“I operate mostly at night, we can barely see a thing,” he shrugs.

Peter is sure that the exasperated look she lets escape is not meant to be sent. Given the subject that started this conversation, he cannot blame her. 

“What about injuries?”

“I heal fast, the most I get these days is a bruise that disappears in an hour.”

He buries the image of his last encounter with a knife last week deep in his mind. 

“Is it uncomfortable to wear?” 

The sudden relatively neutral question takes him aback, but Mrs. Verney levels him with her impassible face.

“No, the tech is amazing, I can’t feel anything.”

“Even for breathing? With the mask, I would expect it to be quite the hassle.”

“Oh, actually not at all! The mask is made from a different textile that allows maximum breathability and removes any excess water. It can’t get stuck on my face. There’s also a smoke filter in there, very handy.”

Talking about the suit without talking about the suit turns out to be easier than Peter expected. It is no secret that he is absolutely smitten with the tech and all the little functionalities Mr. Stark put into it. 

Mrs. Verney takes a minute to write something in her notebook that even with his enhanced vision Peter cannot distinguish without changing his angle. The silence is not uncomfortable, but he is under the impression he missed an important point of the conversation.

When she removes her glasses and stares right at him, his back stiffens.

“Peter, you haven’t listed a single inconvenience for wearing the suit, so why aren’t you doing it?”

“Usually people are trying to dissuade me from doing so,” he retorts without a second thought.

“Would that help you?”

Peter opens his mouth, only to close a few moments later when words still haven’t come. 

“What I’m trying to understand Peter, is whether your refusal to wear the suit is due to trauma, or the symbolism you associate with it.”

He avoids all the mirrors that night. 

Now that he has to follow a real schedule Peter is the most alert he has been since May. In consequence, it’s hard to not notice Mr. Stark’s absence even though they share the same living arrangements.  

Peter knows he has to deal with his company, even if reluctantly, but he also knows that he spends more hours in his lab than he does in his bed every night. 

He hasn’t heard of the Avengers, or what remains of them, either; but from what he gathered they barely stay in the Compound more than one night before leaving to deal with another failing born from Thanos’ snap. 

Colonel Rhodes drops by from time to time and is always prone to indulge in Peter’s questions about his prosthesis, and Happy’s presence is an unwavering constant, but the gaping hole in his chest only grows more each day. 

The school has instituted voluntary group therapy. 

It doesn’t take long for Peter to shove the flyer into the bin and discard the thought completely. Weekly appointments with a background-checked therapist specialized in superheroing - one Mr. Stark himself went to in the past years -  is one thing, sharing his trauma with his peers is nauseating.

Cindy is already there when he shuts himself into the library. He barely has time to shift to his other foot in hesitation before she pushes her bag out of the way and gestures for him to sit down. 

Apart from two other seniors, the library is absolutely deserted. Something that would have brought him joy the past year, but now turns his stomach upside down.

“What are you doing?” He tries to distract himself with the sight of Cindy fumbling with a Rubik’s Cube in front of a YouTube video.

“I’m trying to beat Charles.”

Peter raises an eyebrow. “Isn’t he like, a state champion?” 

“Details.”

“Well, good luck,” he manages a small smile before opening his physics textbook. 

“I bet you genius already know how to finish it,” she pouts after another failure.

He does. Rubik’s Cube is one of the many things Uncle Ben taught him. It’s also unfortunately one of the many things he dropped after his death.

“Ned’s actually better at it than I am,” he retorts without a second thought. 

They freeze and look at each other in horror. Peter bites his cheeks and blinks rapidly to chase the tears in refusal to break down in the middle of the library.

“Did you start your Calculus homework?” he croaks.

The look she gives him is reminiscent of the ones he received when his AcaDec team learned he was an orphan, back in freshman year. For some weeks, they made sure to never complain about their parents in front of him. He appreciated their consideration, but somehow it made things worse. 

It is harder to forget things are amiss when the whole world reminds you of it.

“Not yet,” she has dropped her gaze, “we can work on it together if you want.”

She puts the Rubik’s Cube aside and takes out her notebook. 

“I think Mr. Bergen is trying to go easy on us,” he mutters, “last year’s seniors complained a lot about his workload.”

“Easy for you,” she snorts quietly, “I bet it will still take me two hours at least to complete.”

They work in silence for the remainder of the period. When the bell rings to warn them it’s time to go to History, Cindy takes the cube in one hand and glances at Peter, biting her lip.

“Do… did you start doing things they did too? I mean,” she shoves the toy deep inside her bag and throws it over her shoulder, “Susan played with Rubik’s Cube too.”

Peter stumbles a little but keeps his stare ahead.

He wishes to tell her he relates, but in reality, he hasn’t even managed to play the video games they used to or start a new Lego set. The last week he broke down when Mr. Stark awkwardly offered to play chess. MJ was a pro at it. 

“No,” his throat becomes tight, “I don’t think I’m there yet.”

The next Tuesday, Cindy is already there. It becomes their weekly meeting, one they would spend in silence working on their homework, sometimes broken down by a sensitive question or shared pain.

It’s mostly Cindy, who has no qualms about breaking the monotony. Peter quickly realizes that even if she isn’t as much of a talker as Abe, she cannot retain her thoughts for long and needs to put the words out there, if only for the ghosts to hear. Her words are sharp and definitely more bitter than they used to be, but it doesn’t bother him. He actually finds solace in the fact she doesn’t dance around the issues.

As much as Mr. Stark tries to hide it, Peter is more than aware he weights his words in fear they might break him. He doesn’t hold it against him, between the nightmares and panic attacks they have been walking on eggshells for months, but it is comforting to talk to someone who isn’t afraid to burst his bubbles full of despair. 

He lasts till October before he has to use his webs for something other than swinging back to and from the Tower. The event is ordinary in itself, a random dude almost getting run over by a car on a late Friday night — or early Saturday morning — right when Peter intends to wrap up his stroll.

(He refuses to call it a patrol .)

He shoots his webs on instinct and throws the man into a nearby alley the second after. He quickly looks over the scene, but aside from the honking of the car that already went past the crossroad, no one has noticed him.

Carefully, he takes a step toward the figure spread on the floor. The white substance is sticking out from underneath, right in the center of his chest.

The webs will be stuck on him for a while. There is no way the man is going to miss them, and when he will finally realize what happened — or, more likely, who happened — Peter wants to be as far away as possible. 

Still, he hasn’t seemed to be in his normal state, and he did throw him pretty hard. He might be injured.

“Hey dude, you’re okay there?” 

Without his mask and voice modifier, Peter feels oddly exposed. He tightens the knot of his scarf on the back of his neck, and makes sure his nose is covered before proceeding at a slow pace. 

Two things happen at once.

The body rolls over, finally showcasing his face, and Peter’s mouth runs before it can catch up with his brain.

“Abe?”

That’s his classmate in front of him, clearly befuddled. Despite the poor lighting, he looks pale and more tired than Peter himself.

There’s also a strain of vomit on the bottom of his shirt.

“What—” Abe blinks a few times, then looks down on his chest where the webs are still attached. “Holy shit!”

Damn. Peter doesn’t have the luxury to panic right now. He needs to think hard and fast.

“Dude, you’re lucky Spider-Man was there,” his voice quivers. “He saved you just before you got crushed by that truck.”

Peter’s fists must be white by now, with how hard he’s grasping the edge of his hood. He knows he’s pretty much unrecognizable right now, his body is covered from head to toe, and with the dim light of the alley, Abe won’t be able to decipher anything more than two dark orbs staring at him. 

“He left pretty quickly though,” he continues, putting in all the enthusiasm he can muster right now, which is not much. “Too bad, I wanted his autograph.”

It’s a wild bet he’s taking here, but even in his dazzled state, there is no way Abe won’t recognize the webs for what they are. Better throw in some truth than deny it all.

“Spider-Man?” Abe breathes out. 

His gaze travels from his chest to Peter, then to the webs again. He pauses, shakes his head a few times, and goes back to squinting at Peter’s form.

All his body hair rises up. His spider-sense has been on and off for the past ten minutes, but suddenly it flares up enough to make him uncomfortable. 

Something doesn’t add up, and he has no idea why.

Abe opens his mouth, turns a few shades of green, and throws up.

Peter wrinkles his nose at the smell. Abe might be mostly regurgitating liquids, the whole thing is still disgusting.

“Hugh, Tesha is going to kill me…” his friend moans, his forehead stuck on the concrete. 

“Dude, are you drunk?” he finally asks, bewildered. 

“Not anymore,” Abe groans. 

Peter can’t help but doubt the statement, given how he’s breathing erratically. 

“We should probably take you home.” He lifts Abe effortlessly from the ground and leads him toward the end of the street, a hand on his back ready to catch him in case he decides to kiss the ground again.

There are so many questions he wishes he could get an answer to, like how Abe managed to get drunk and is now wandering helplessly in the streets, but this is a more pressing matter.

The treacherous part of his brain supplies that Peter himself has no business walking through a dingy alley at two in the morning on the eastern side of Queens, but he shuts it down quickly.

“Where do you live?” He racks his mind in the vain hope he has registered the info at some point in the last three years but comes up blank. Probably not far from Forest Hills.

It also dawns on him that Abe doesn’t live in his parents’ house anymore.

“84th Avenue, Briarwood.”

He actually frowns at how quickly Abe is willing to share his address with a stranger but refrains from commenting as it ends up to his advantage.

A quick look at his GPS tells him they’re in for roughly an hour-long walk. Swinging there would reduce the trip to five minutes max, but it is out of the question. At this pace, he won’t be at the Tower before four.

Mr. Stark is so gonna kill him. Despite his relative tolerance toward Peter’s whereabouts, there is no way his late stunt will be swept under the rug. It is actually a wonder he hasn’t come blaring on his phone yet. 

“So,” he starts once they have gained a steady rhythm. “What were you doing out there?” Peter makes a point to speak with a lower tone lest Abe recognizes it. 

He doesn’t answer right away, too focused on the road ahead. “Nothing wild, I went to a party with my cousin who’s in college and drank too much beer.” Then, after a pause, “Must have been vodka along the way too.”

There’s a slight hesitation in his voice, seemingly as if he is weighing his every word. Peter doesn’t know what to make of it.

“You good now?” He asks nonchalantly. “Wouldn't want you to throw up on my shoes, they’re new, you know?”

“Yes, I got everything out. Brain’s still a little foggy but I can manage.”

He has never been drunk, and he isn’t even sure he ever will be now that he possesses an insanely fast metabolism. He has no choice but to trust Abe with his own judgment. 

Their speed increases once they reach more acceptable avenues illuminated by street lamps and neon signs. However, Peter’s adamant wish to keep his face concealed still raises suspicion, if the sneak glances Abe keeps on sending are anything to go by.

“Where is your cousin by the way?” he inquires before Abe gets the idea to ask his own questions.

His anxiety hasn’t calmed down either, not that he expected it to. Conversing with his friend while trying to cover both of his identities has to be one of the weirdest moments of Peter’s life. 

“She stayed at a friend’s. I told her I took the last subway, there were so many people she didn’t notice I hadn’t left yet. Please, never tell her!”

Peter doesn’t think he will ever cross paths with her, but doesn’t say such. 

“Can we stop for a moment? I sprained my ankle earlier and it’s hurting like hell.”

He helps Abe sit on the pavement and looks at his injury. The ankle is indeed slightly swollen, and their walk won’t improve it. They need to stabilize it if they don’t want Abe to get crutches the next day. 

“What if we use the webs?” his friend suggests, looking at his chest. 

Peter gulps. “Won’t it stick to our hands though? Pretty sure it’s his whole gig.” 

Abe stays silent for a long second and sighs in defeat. “Ah, guess you’re right.”

Truly, Peter deserves an award. 

The webs currently resting in the canisters of his web-shooters would definitely help though. With gritted teeth, he tries to bury the guilt, and reasons that he had enough exposition for one night and cannot afford more. 

In the end, Abe decides to get rid of his jacket and the t-shirt underneath to tie it around his ankle. It’s a botched job, but one that would prevent them from losing too much time. 

It’s truly a shame that none of them has any money left to take a taxi. 

They have started walking again for five minutes when a man is pushed out of his store, closely followed by two others who start to beat him. A third steps behind them, a cigarette in his mouth, and watches the commotion with boredom. 

“I’m sorry!” The first one cries out under the hits. “My son left with the register—”

“Shut it, shithead! You owe us thirty thousand!” The bigger one — Bullseye, Peter mentally dubs him in honor of the weird red marking on his left cheek — hammers his fists faster and harder on the poor guy’s head.

The second one — Snakey, with how quick and steady he slithers between them — delivers a particular painful punch to the gut. “And don’t touch our girls again or it’s your hands we’re gonna cut next time!” 

Peter pinches his lips, unsure of how to proceed. Gang fights have always been part of his Spider-Man routine, and while he has tried not to dive deep into their affairs, he has never been one to turn his back on someone being beaten up. 

A dozen webs to freeze them all, plus another to lift three-quarters of the bunch into the next avenue. A quick, effective job that would allow them to return home safely.  

Except that Peter isn’t Spider-Man right now, as he damn made sure of it. 

The presence of his friend weighs heavily on his side, and it’s with a fleeting resolve that he redirects Abe in the opposite direction. “Let’s just get out of here.”

“Aren’t you going to help?”

He stumbles on the pavement. “He…help? With those noodle arms?”

Abe’s staring intently at the back of his hood. Senses dialed up to eleven, he forces his hands to stop shaking and checks for the millionth time that his face is still hidden under the scarf.  

It’s freaking him out. “Besides, have you seen these guys? We needed to get the hell out of here yesterday.”

He never gets to hear what Abe is going to say as the leader chooses this moment to shout at his men.

“Hurry up you bastards, we have another errand to run afterward!” shouts the leader. 

“That’s what he calls an errand?” Abe asks, bewildered. Unfortunately for them, it is loud enough to catch the attention of Smoke Man.

Time seems to freeze as he turns toward them and his next words cut through the silence of the street. “Get out kids, you don’t want to get caught in Kingpin’s territory.”

Peter’s stomach flips. As a New Yorker and especially Spider-Man, he has a solid idea of who Kingpin is . And while he never had to deal with his cronies – yet , his mind supplies – and isn’t even sure the man is still alive, he knows enough not to cross his boundaries if you want to wake up in one piece the next day. 

“We were on our way,” Peter agrees hurriedly. He urges Abe more violently toward the end of the street, who to his relief follows along without complaint.

His anxiety has still not weakened, of everything it has increased distinctively in the last minute. With his heart raging against his chest, and washed with a deep sense of dread, Peter throws a quick look backward. The leader is watching them carefully but shows no outward sign of threat aside from letting his two lackeys beat the store owner up.

What is going on? 

He barely has a second to duck when a fourth man — tall, with broad shoulders and adorned with a long white mustache — enters the scene, his gun pointed at the end of the street.

Shots ring out two, three times before a rain of bullets flies over their heads. Peter drags Abe to cover expertedly and manages to slip the two of them by the shooter's vigilance.

Thankfully, the criminals were too focused on trying to put holes into each other to bother about them. 

“Frans!” shouts Smoke Man in a guttural cry. “What is a piece of shit like you doing around here?!”

“Don’t ya think I’ll let you give free surgery to my brother’s face, you scums! That's one ugly motherfucker, but he's still family!”

Peter covers Abe's ears when the guns continue to be emptied out. 

Cops will probably arrive soon, but there is a clear risk of damage in the meantime. Really, Peter is left with no choice.

“Don’t look, don’t move, and don’t shout, okay? I will come back shortly.”

Spider-Man might have a suit and web-shooters, Peter Parker still has enhanced strength. With a few steps, he goes behind Frans’ back, performs a chokehold light enough to leave him panting on the street, and then disarms the gun and tears it to pieces.  

It is enough for Smoke Man to lose his momentum for a second. Peter is on him next, punches him right into the chest, and gets rid of his gun the same way. By the time the other two realize what is happening, his fists are ready to dispose of them. 

The whole scene doesn’t last even a minute, but Peter is left out of breath. He rushes over to Abe, who is shaking like a leaf but looks otherwise unarmed.

“Hey, you’re still with me?” he asks more for himself than anything else.

He doesn’t have time to mull over his options as he can already hear the sirens two blocks away. With one swift motion, he hauls him on his back and starts to run. 

Drunk on adrenaline and not caring about hiding his speed, it only takes him ten minutes to reach their destination. None of them exchanges a word for the whole trip.

Peter lowers Abe on the entrance of his grandmother’s house at 2:37am. He is breathing heavily and his heartbeat is loud enough for Peter to hear, but otherwise, he looks far better than expected.

The webs have also started to disappear too. 

“You okay man?” Peter whispers so as not to break the peace of the night.

“Yeah don’t worry, it’s not the first time I got to see a gun close. Guess it won’t be the last either,” he chuckles darkly.

It doesn’t make it any easier. Far from it. Peter also doesn’t know much about Abe’s home life, but he should have expected that not all Midtown students live similarly to the Thompsons in their ivory tower.

“Yeah, me neither,” he mumbles instinctively.

Abe looks sharply at him, a moment long enough to make Peter’s stomach turn. Then he shakes his head toward the home. “Guess I should go to bed before anyone notices something is amiss.”

He doesn’t budge, though. With rapt attention, Peter watches him as he bites his lips, closes his eyes for a second, and delivers words that freeze him on the spot.

“Thanks a lot for tonight, Peter.”

The door is already closed when his heart starts to beat again.

He manages to swing into Brooklyn before he crashes on a roof. 

Peter breathes heavily against the fence, his heart beating loud enough to send tremors through his body. He rubs his eyes to wipe away the tears that have started to fall and rests his forehead against his knees.

This is stupid , he thinks as he clenches his hands into fists, trying to steady himself. He is probably overreacting, the night has been erratic from start to finish, there is a good chance he misheard the words that left his friend’s mouth.

What a joke, he doesn’t even believe it himself. Contrary to his sight, his hearing has always been spectacular, and the spider bite has crushed all hopes of missing a sound in the vicinity to the point he cannot fall asleep without the heaviest earplugs. No, this time he has truly messed up.

His hands are shaking when he takes out his phone and dials the first number on his favorite list.

It rings for a solid minute before he’s sent to voicemail. He hits the second one without looking at the screen.

“You have reached the voicemail of Ned Leeds - please lea—”

Peter throws his phone a few feet away and starts to sob.

Abe knows, and in a few hours the whole world will probably too. His friend has never been more into gossip than any other teenager, but Peter cannot hope for him to keep a secret of this magnitude to himself. 

Gosh, he has been so stupid, so foolish even. Mr. Stark and his therapist both tried to warn him, but he ignored them all to play the wannabe hero. It is only fair retribution that he gets to deal with the consequences now. 

Consequences that almost turned out to be worse, he thinks bitterly. All because he wanted to protect an identity he has been avoiding diligently for the past five months. 

The irony doesn’t escape him.

He has to call him, he settles on after another few minutes of panting, if only because of the identity breach. It is also damn time he goes back to the Tower but he can’t bring himself to move from the floor. 

It is only when he is sent directly to voicemail that Peter realizes that calling at almost three in the morning might not be that much of an idea. Even though his mentor rarely picks up the phone on the first try during the day, there’s a good possibility he might be far asleep now. Peter would hate to wake him up when the man desperately needs it. 

“Hi Mr. Stark,” his intended neutral tone sounds fake even to his own ears, “just so you know… I will be coming late. There's… hum a little situation? Nothing too bad I promise — I didn't even break a rib and all — but if you hear this before I come back to the Tower, could you call me back please? Thanks.”

He hopes his panic doesn’t shine through, and can’t be more thankful that there’s no video call to display his messy crying. 

Peter waits in the cold for five minutes when he finally he resigns himself to swing back to the Tower. 

His phone resolutely stays silent.

He lands on the roof twenty minutes later with a sudden spark of anxiety. Someone else is there, and worst of all, they are skilled enough for Peter to not have sensed them until it is too late.

He relaxes slightly once he can distinguish the figure that approaches him. “Hello Spiderling.” She crouches down and takes a good look at his state. “Rough night?”

Peter fidgets under her stare, painfully aware of the pitiful sight he is displaying. “Hello Ms. Romanoff. I… didn’t know you were back.”

She doesn’t offer him any explanation and trails her eyes on his teary cheeks instead. “So, which one was it tonight? Robbery? Gang fights? Predators keeping too close to a bar?”

He snorts darkly. “All and neither?”

“You messed up.” This isn’t a question, which prompts Peter to drop the pretense. 

“Kinda, but nothing I can’t manage.” A horrendous lie, if any. He has no doubt that she can see right through him. Still, she is gracious enough to not call him out.

Or yet.

“You aren’t wearing the suit.”

Peter grits his teeth and tries to reign in his frustration. “Does it matter?”

“Depends,” she shrugs, “ will you go out to punch assholes tomorrow night?”

Peter squints at her apparent nonchalant attitude. Contrary to popular belief, Black Widow doesn’t keep a default neutral expression nor does she pin you down with murderous intentions, but her smiles never reach her eyes and her body fidgets in a way that is too stiff to be natural. 

Peter has been surrounded by people who wear their hearts on their sleeves all his life. Uncle Ben might have been gruff and set in his way sometimes, but he never failed to shower him with love. Aunt May… taught him what it meant to be sincere. Even MJ, with her snarky comments and aloof behavior, had become easy to read once he got to spend a few moments with her. 

Natasha Romanoff is unsettling in every way.

“What’s your goal here, do you want me to stop?” he challenges. 

Ned would have his head if he could see him right now. 

She takes it all in stride, as he expected her to. “I want you to stop doing things halfway. Otherwise, how can you protect others and yourself? Great power, great responsibility, isn’t it your whole shtick?”

“How do you —”

“Stark mentioned it once, he was pretty impressed.”

Peter gapes for a moment then pinches his lips in a hard line. “I don’t see what this has to do with anything—”

“Do you really think you’re honoring this motto right now?” 

It hurts. Way more than it owes to be. Peter bites his cheeks to prevent the tears from coming and lowers his head in shame. 

“You’re fleeing.” It is almost imperceptible but Peter can swear her tone has just become softer. “You flee the suit because you fear its significance.”

She lifts his chin with assurance. 

“It’s not your fault,” she whispers this time. “You lost, but so did Tony, Cap, and all of us. You are no less of a superhero than we are.” 

This is exactly what his therapist has failed to make him see for weeks. Maybe because the Black Widow had to fight Thanos herself and see her people disappear; because she too, has to live with the knowledge that she had a chance to prevent him from winning but couldn’t take it. Anyway, for the first time, Peter is willing to listen. 

Peter sleeps for the better of Sunday. His thoughts are plagued with his usual nightmares, now with the addition of Abe being turned to dust in the middle of a tornado that suspiciously looks like the logo of the store from the previous night. 

He wakes up feeling like a mess at three in the afternoon and isn’t surprised to hear a heated conversation in the living room. 

Ms. Romanoff instantly catches sight of him from the couch, but aside from a nod she doesn’t betray his presence and goes back to read what he suspects to be obscure data about their next mission. 

Colonel Rhodes and Mr. Stark are whispering furiously over the kitchen counter, their faces pinched in a frown. 

The moment his name is dropped in the conversation, Peter glances in irritation at Black Widow, but she merely raises an eyebrow and gestures at the ceiling. 

FRIDAY is such a snitch.

Now that he has a pretty solid idea of the subject of their discussion though, Peter debates with himself for a short moment to decide on the best course of action. Finally concluding he is way too tired to deal with an argument of that magnitude, and not willing to be chided again for his behavior, he slumps back on his bed. 

Abe doesn’t say anything on Monday, not the day after, and certainly not for the rest of the week. 

It gives Peter the heebie-jeebies because he can feel his gaze on him when he thinks he won’t notice.

Peter also doesn’t leave at night in the meantime, which is not left unnoticed by the visitors of the Tower if Ms. Romanoff’s sharp glances are anything to go by. As for Mr. Stark, while he doesn’t keep him at arm’s length, there is a clear tension in his shoulders every time Peter enters the vicinity. 

Happy’s suspicious stare jumps from one party to another but otherwise remains silent.

He still hasn’t told them about the mishap with his secret identity. He has decided that, as long as it is not spoken into existence, reality will not manifest itself. Call him a coward, but there are things no one would love to deal with.

All in all, the week is spent on the edge of fallout as everyone makes a point to avoid the spider in the room.

On the third Tuesday after that dreaded weekend, Peter is faced with the absence of Cindy at their usual place in the library. 

“Sorry man, do you mind if I stay here? Cindy’s not coming.”

Peter frowns, a little disappointed to have lost his partner for the day, but sits nonetheless in front of Abe. His shoulders are tense, but the uncomfortable prickling on his neck that usually accompanies stressful situations is tamer than it has been in days. 

“No problem, is she sick?” 

“No, she wanted to give a go to group therapy.” 

Peter falters a little at that. “Oh, good for her, I guess.”

He doesn’t miss it when Abe avoids his gaze. “We’re talking about family today.”

Something stings inside Peter’s chest. He buries it before it can make itself known and takes out his homework. 

They work in silence for a while, though Peter is not fooled by the glances his friend sends him when he’s persuaded he’s focused on his Physics assignment.  Surprisingly, it takes Abe almost twenty minutes for him to crack. 

“Can I ask you a question?” he fumbles, though this time his gaze is unwavering.

Sensing where the discussion is going, Peter drops his pen and tries to keep a nonchalant attitude, “Sure.”

Under the table, Abe won't see his hands shaking.

“How is it, being an orphan?”

This… is not the turn of events he expected.

He straightens and looks around the library. The other groups of students are far enough from their corner of the room to still be buried in their books. 

“You don’t have to answer, sorry,” Abe utters in embarrassment. “It’s just that, four other people from group therapy lost both of their parents in the Snap too so it’s sudden for all of us. You’re the only one I know that… well, you get it.”

Peter fidgets in his seat and bites his cheek, unsure of what to say. Abe already looks like he regrets even bringing up the subject and starts adding two paragraphs to his history essay.

“I don’t remember my parents much,” he settles after a while, surprising both of them. “I was five when they died, so for the first few years I sure missed them a lot, but after that… my aunt and uncle kinda took their place in my mind.”

Richard and Mary are strangers. Frozen faces in old photographs and missing laughs in ghost stories. Every visit to their graves has left him with a sense of wrongness that only grows with the years. Memories of them are no more than fragments slipping through his fingers, and for which he has no yearning to reach. 

Some days, the guilt of his betrayal is too much to handle. On others, he wishes it is.

“Oh,” Abe falters. “It must have hurt even more to lose your Aunt, then?”

Peter’s vision becomes blurry before he can help it. 

“Yes, yes it does.”

He doesn’t offer more than that.

Abe hangs his head even lower. “Sorry, sorry, I shouldn’t have brought it up.”

“No it’s okay,” Peter swallows. “I wish I could help you but…” 

The bell rings before he can finish his thought. They have PE.

“My ankle is still hurting,” Abe switches subjects nonchalantly, “It will be hard to walk to the gym.”

Since September, P.E has been the bane of his existence. Peter has lost his only solace, and pretending to be a failure turned out to be even more of a bother than before. A part of him, that suspiciously sounds like May’s berating voice, is mortified at the thought of voluntarily missing a class, but one more failed attendance won’t hurt his record more than it already is. 

“Let’s go to the roof,” he offers.

Abe does little more than limping slightly through the corridors. It only takes them a few minutes to reach the roof, and as expected there’s no one there. Peter closes his jacket on his chest and hides his nose in his collar when they are welcomed by the cold breeze of October. On the horizon, Manhattan’s skyscrapers loom over the city.

“My cousin told me something funny this morning,” Abe starts again, his voice oddly broken. “That overcoming a generational trauma is both a blessing and curse, because how can you expect people to help you when they are lost themselves?”

Peter hums gently and eyes the dark red building next to their school. When he learned he was going to Midtown, Ben talked for hours about the architecture of the district. An obsession Peter himself never understood and regretfully never tried to, his knowledge of New York’s architecture boiling down to avoid swinging into windows. 

"It doesn't necessarily get easier," he suddenly says. Abe is as surprised as him by the interruption. “People think that loss gets easier with time, but in reality, you just find something else to focus on.”

“Something like Spider-Man?” 

The world freezes, and Peter falters.

Below, a whistle announces the venue of their classmates on the pitch. The wind carries over their yells which fill up the silence on the roof. He shivers.  

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he mumbles over the buzz in his ears, but Peter is already slipping against the wall to hit the cold hard floor, his eyes closed. 

This is it , he thinks. There is no need for deflection. He has been dreading the moment for a week and only wishes now to rip off the band-aid. 

Peter is tired, tired of the pretense and behind-the-scenes schemes. Secret identity lost all its meaning that day on Titan when he let go of the gauntlet and failed those he swore to protect the most. 

“How did you find out?” is left unsaid. 

“Why didn’t you say anything sooner?” 

Abe starts to play with his hands and doesn’t meet Peter’s eyes. “I had my suspicions for a while, that just confirmed it but… I guess I didn’t want to admit it.”

“Suspicions?”

“Where should I start?” Abe laughs, unbelieving. “Your abysmal attendance, the fact you show up every other day with a new bruise on your face or that Ned lies more than he breathes? Also, you suddenly got buff without anyone noticing, and well, D.C.”

D.C, obviously. That time he screwed up in more ways than one.

Peter blinks rapidly with no idea of what to say. The list is indeed pretty incriminating, it is maybe a wonder no one connected the dots beforehand.

MJ probably did, the treacherous part of his brain suggests. He buries it deep.

"And do I even need to mention MoMa?” Abe goes on now that all pretense is released. “You disappeared in the middle of a field trip. Ned said you went straight to the toilets when we left the bus because of your motion sickness, but no one saw you. He blocked the door like a watchdog. I swear, even Harrington didn't know what to do. We didn't start the visit until your aunt showed up an hour later to bring you home, and even then we didn't manage to catch sight of you."

Peter takes a moment for himself and closes his eyes. Aunt May was truly a saint. And Ned, gosh Ned, he didn't deserve everything Peter put him through. Peter himself definitely didn't deserve such loyalty. 

They truly covered for him till the end, he thinks. They must have spent those twenty hours in despair, not knowing if he was still alive and no one else to turn to. 

How he wishes he could hug them right now.

He opens his eyes to see a humorless smile. “You said my name too, that night.”

Peter inhales deeply. What a mess.

“Will you tell Cindy and Charles?" Abe asks after a while. 

"No!" Peter says more forcefully than he intends to. "And it will stay that way." 

"Dude you—"

"Please Abe, no one can know," he begs desperately. "Too many already do, it's dangerous. I can't have my enemies showing up at Midtown and trying to kill you guys."

"Do you have that many?" his friend asks, bewildered.

Peter flashes back to Toomes, who, in retrospect, is the only true dangerous one, then to all the low-level criminals he used to catch on a daily basis. 

"No, or not yet, I don't know. I don't want to risk it."

The heavy silence is only broken by the heart beating in Peter's chest. This is surreal. 

"Please Abe, I'm begging you," he whispers quietly this time. "I can’t bear to lose anyone else, especially because of Spider-Man."

They watch each other intently for a minute before Abe takes a step back. “Ok, I promise you, I won’t.”

That is the most he can get out of him. Peter only has to pray for it to be enough.

Abe keeps watching his internal crisis apprehensively until he seems to be hit with a sudden epiphany. "Were you even at MoMa actually?!" he loudly whispers.

This time, Peter can't hide his wince. "I flew from the bus when the donut ship appeared. We were almost there."

"Damn," Abe's eyes are wide as a saucer. "How did we miss it?"

"Ned might have been a bad liar, but he was a damn effective one," he offers with a sad smile. 

When Mr. Stark enters the penthouse that night, he takes two minutes to change into his dark jeans and torn band shirt and motions for Peter to follow him to the lab. 

The trip is quick but silent, which does nothing to calm Peter’s nerves. In the two years since he has known Mr. Stark, he has come to the lab only a dozen times for a touch-up or to tinker his frustration away. Once, he got to work on the Iron Man helmet.

It was the best day of his life. 

Still, there is no hiding the sense of wonder when the doors open and the ceiling lights up progressively to reveal the temple of leading-edge technology. 

“Sit,” his mentor points to the other side of his main table. 

Peter does so urgently while Mr. Stark starts a soft-rock playlist at a low volume so as not to grate on Peter’s sensitive hearing in the evening.

It’s comfortable, warmly even, still, Peter can’t help but miss the usual frantic energy. 

He has a pretty idea of what this conversation will be about and is not sure he is ready for it.

“Abe knows about my secret identity,” he cuts in before his mentor can formulate his thoughts. “He’s one of my Decathlon teammates.”

Mr. Stark raised both of his eyebrows, clearly not expecting this turn of events. “How so?”

Peter fidgets in his seat, uncertain of where to start. He doesn’t want to go into details about the events of the night, even though Ms. Romanoff probably already shared his failings. He also doesn’t want to mention all the hints that led to his classmate to finding out. 

“The other night… I had to use my webfluid to save him. And my disappearance on the fieldtrip to MoMa was too suspicious for him to not notice.” 

An irrational part of him braces itself against potential reprimands, which is even less justified when you consider that Mr. Stark has never chided him for his occasional carelessness. He has always done no more than roll his eyes when Peter recounts his close calls with a cheerful tone. 

This time though, the gravity of the situation doesn’t escape him. This isn’t Mr. Delmar who finds his tone familiar, or a criminal who gets suspicious over his short stature for a supposed adult man. His identity is fully blown up to a classmate who should have no incentive to keep it quiet, besides his loyalty to Peter.

Ned did, but Ned was a saint, and holding other people to his standard only brings dishonor to his memory. 

“Should we be concerned?” his mentor asks carefully. 

“Not for now,” Peter settles on. “He promised to not talk about it and I tr— I don’t have any reason to distrust him.”

Mr. Stark observes him for a long moment but seems to find what he is looking for in Peter’s eyes. “Well if you say so, Underoos.” 

The nickname feels like a slap to the face. It has been weeks, months even since the man has called him that way. Actually, he hasn’t done so since he donned the suit for the last time. 

Flooded by emotions he certainly doesn’t want to deal with there and then, Peter swipes his gaze across the room to ground himself. The lab is still as much of a mess as ever, with open projects lying around on almost of the tables. It was such a Mr. Stark thing, to jump from one thing to another during his brainstorming sprees. 

Peter’s curiosity is however caught by equations scribbled hurriedly on the digital board in the left corner of the room. “What is it?” 

He squints to try to decipher which mathematical model is being worked on but Mr. Stark turns it off instantly. “Something for Rhodey, he busted his leg again.”

Peter frowns at the blatant lie. “What does quantum physics have anything to do with that?”

It is Mr. Stark’s turn to pull a face. “Smart cookie, aren’t you?”

He doesn’t offer any more comment, and a quick look at his age lines and shallow cheeks convince Peter to not press on. 

The man stands up and goes to fetch something in the opposite side of the room. When he comes back, it is with a familiar lump of fabric.

This is not the Iron Spider or any other iterations of his suit. No, just the plain red and blue one that Peter has left in the depths of his bedroom at May’s. A sight that would have made him tear his skin open a few weeks ago but that is now welcomed with only a slight discomfort.

Mr. Stark isn’t looking his way, instead opting to bite his fingernails with what he hopes is a neutral expression. Peter has known him long enough though to recognize the signs of insecurity. 

“Listen Pete, before you scream about the suit, I want you to hear me out,” he finally starts. “I screwed up. Big time. I let you wander in your sweatshirt, confident that you would keep out of danger’s way, and that if a situation came up I would be able to cover for you. But the one time you seemed to need me, I was too far up in my head to act on it. Gosh, I didn’t even realize you weren’t back yet.”

Peter opens his mouth, ready to retort that by the time he has tried to call him, he has already escaped the dangerous situation and truly only needs some reassurance at best, but his mentor doesn’t let him do so. 

“And even if you weren’t in danger, I should have been alert enough to answer you. To support you. Which brings me to my next point.” He seems to have aged a decade in the last minutes. “I haven’t been great at this… responsibility for the past months. I’m a mess, but so you are, and it isn’t fair to you to get the brunt of it. So I promise, no I will do better.”

Peter is left speechless, clearly not having expected that turn of events. He doesn’t even care if it comes from Mr. Stark’s own epiphany or Mr. Rhodes’ chewing, the fact that he acknowledges it and his wish to improve is already enough for warmth to take over his body. 

There’s a short silence, welcomed by both of them. Then, the older man pushes the suit forward.

“Natasha told me what happened the other night,” he whispers. “Not into much details — for once I don’t think she has them herself — but please I want you to consider—”

Peter cuts him off by taking the suit with both hands. The decision was made the moment he left Abe on his doorstep, he realizes. The fire has been burning harder, his resolve forging like steel, each day becoming a fight against himself to not unleash it.  

He can’t stop helping New York, he has tried and it cost him panic attacks and sleepless nights. It cost little kids crying because their cats got stuck in a tree. It cost mothers worrying about their daughter not getting home safely after a night at a friend’s. It cost an old man getting run over by a car on Sunday morning. It cost criminals getting their way after robbing the local convenience store, and uncles bleeding out on the pavement. 

It’s time for Peter to finally leap. 

Chapter Text

Spider-Man comes back, and somehow New-York wakes up from its torpor. 

Peter isn’t ready for the wall of news that hits him the morning after his little escapade. The blurry picture of Spider-Man taken when he tried to prevent cars from being set on fire makes the front page of every local paper. A brief recount of his patrol is displayed, but the talk of the day seems to be his whereabouts for the past five months.

He knows that people saw him being beamed up, and though his absence from the list of deceased superheroes denied his death at the hand of Thanos, his prolonged disappearance gave way to a lot of speculation. As much as he tried to distance himself from his alter ego, he couldn’t escape the viral Twitter posts and Reddit threads investigating his desertion. His favorite remains the one that suspects he settled down in the sewer with other mutants. 

He scrolls down the news between amusement and exasperation for a few minutes, though the over-exposition actually surprises him. His popularity has grown since Germany, but his reputation never much left the vicinity of Queens bar occasional stunts in Brooklyn and Manhattan. It seems now though that every American newspaper dedicated their first double-page to him. 

He can’t help but chuckle when he finally stumbles on an article from the Daily Bugle that manages to both deem him a menace to society and blame him for all the crimes that happened in the last few months.  

Walking into Midtown is a whole new experience. Peter is torn between exhilarating energy and absolute dread when he catches the endless whispers his classmates exchange over their phones. The gleam in their eyes that hasn’t been seen since the start of the year makes his stomach flip uncontrollably.

Spider-Man’s name is on every tongue and follows him to every classroom like a shadow. It’s overwhelming, and by midday, the sense of fulfillment has left. The comfort his appearance has brought only highlights the guilt stuck in Peter’s throat when he thinks about the time he neglected his duties. 

He’s not naive enough to think the population of New York is happy to see him . The Avengers haven’t been a thing for a while, but people still had confidence that if it came to worse, there would be heroes - exiled or not - to defend them from evil. Now, with one-half dead and the other too busy dealing with the cosmic-wide consequences of the Snap, Earth is left orphaned. 

A vigilante will never be enough to take up the mantle, especially a mantle he doesn’t want to take, but they will cling to everything they can. 

Charles chatters endlessly at lunch, with a vigor that Peter hasn’t seen of him in months, if ever. He jumps on his seat, knocks over his glass 

“Oh be careful will you!” Cindy grumbles as she wipes water from her shirt. 

“Sorry, sorry,” he smiles sheepishly. “I’m just quite excited, you know? We haven’t seen Spidey in months, I just wonder what took him so long.”

“The guy went to space, give him a break,” Cindy retorts with a frown.

Peter swallows and tries very hard to not look up from his plate. 

The most suspicious thing about the whole ordeal is the fact Abe still hasn’t said any word. The biggest contributor to their conversations stubbornly remains silent, with barely concealed glances thrown at Peter’s way. 

Things don’t get better over the next few days. 

Abe is… avoiding him. Or not really per se, but he hasn’t mentioned Spider-Man at all and deflects the conversation every time their group breaches the subject, to the point even Cindy and Charles start to notice something is amiss. 

Sometimes, he would cross his gaze in Spanish after a rough night and share his notes for the day. On others, he would scan him briefly for any lingering injuries and get back to work with bitted lips. Peter appreciates the connivance but wishes more than anything to have someone to talk to about his patrols, therapy sessions excluded. Mr. Stark and Happy are always on the receiving end of his reports, but his excitement always gets overshadowed by their tight smiles and worried gazes. 

The idea of someone else sharing his secret also gives him the jitters. He’s confident his friend won’t betray him, yet he keeps throwing a glance above his shoulder around every corner. Peter has no choice but to put his trust in Abe’s hands and pray for him to hold on it tight. 

In the middle of November, Peter receives an unexpected call.

“Child Protective Services?” he asks, dumbfounded. 

“Yes, I’m Angela-Mary Greene, the agent responsible for your case. Would it be possible to schedule a meeting in the next few days to discuss your current situation?”

Peter opens and closes his mouth a few times but no sound comes.

“Mr. Parker?”

“Sorry, yes we can. Hum… where do you want to meet? I can be home by 4 pm—”

“4 pm on Wednesday at your current address would be perfect.”

“Okay, well, see you there then?”

“See you in two days, Mr. Parker. Take care.”

Peter hits the next contact as soon as she hangs up. It takes two tries, but Mr. Stark finally picks it up.

“Kid, it’s not even 1 pm. I thought we agreed on no Spider-Maning during school ho—”

“Child Protective Services just called!” he shouts. Thankfully, most of his schoolmates are currently stuffing their faces in the cafeteria, leaving him alone in the corridor. “What’s happening?”

“Oh.”

“What do they want? And why now? 

“Underoo—”

“They’re going to take me away, right? It happened to a junior last week, they were an orphan too and were living with a family friend. They told them they had to reallocate them to a group home in Brooklyn!”

“Pete, calm down!”

“I don’t want to go to Brooklyn!”

“You’re not going to Brooklyn! You’re not going anywhere!” Peter takes the phone away from his ear to protect it from Mr. Stark’s yelling. At least it manages to clear up his mind long enough to listen to his next words. “I know why they’re calling, and I promise you it’s not a bad thing. However, it’s best if we discuss it tonight.”  

Peter is predictably unable to concentrate for the rest of the day. He spends the whole AP Physics C period fidgeting on his seat to the point even Mrs. Warren, who has always had a soft spot for him, throws him a dark glare now and then.

As much as he likes picking up trash and saving cats from trees, he is not fooled enough to go on patrol that day and heads straight to the Tower at the end of his class. Mr. Stark must have expected as such as he is already waiting for him on the couch, his tablet in one hand and a mug of coffee in the other. 

“Sit,” he gestures to the opposite armchair.

Peter nervously drops his bag and takes place in the seat. A lot of papers are displayed on the table, though he can’t distinguish their writing. 

“Did you have a nice day?” Mr. Stark asks nonchalantly.

“Just your usual boring day in school,” he shrugs. 

“Told you you should have gotten straight to college, but kids never listen these days,” he parrots with a roll of his eyes.

Despite the light tone and his earlier reassurance, Mr. Stark’s anxiety is betrayed by the incessant tapping of his foot and pursued lips.

“Okay,” he decides to dive in after a while, “please hear me out before you start to panic.”

Peter definitely starts to panic. Which is only corroborated when he sees Mr. Stark’s hands shaking when he finally pushes the papers toward him. 

‘Request for Guardianship of a Minor’

The words jumble inside his mind for a solid minute as reality crashes on him. Once he has taken in the content, he looks up at Mr. Stark who has been staring intently at a spot above his head.

“You want to be my guardian?” he falters. 

“Only on your volition, of course. To be honest, it has already been the case albeit informally, but CPS is pushing to make these things official.” If he doesn’t know any better, Peter would think that his mentor looks… abashed.

“So the agent…”

“Probably wants to make sure it’s in your best interest. It’s not the usual procedure, normally with the… death of your aunt your guardianship would have gotten to the State and it would have been near impossible to get it before your eighteenth birthday - especially without any mention in your aunt’s will - however, things have been iffy with the Snap. Let’s just say that I pulled some strings to make sure that you didn’t get sent into a group home in Brooklyn,” he finishes with a smirk.

Peter shifts from the papers to his mentor a few times, 

“You… you can really do that?” he stutters.

“As long as you promise not to web the Stark Industries logo in your spare time, yes I can.”

Peter neither jumps in joy nor cries his eyes out, though the tension that has been accumulating for the past months seems to completely leave his body. 

He can stay. Mr. Stark wants him to stay.

“Thank you Tony,” he finally settles on with all the warmth he can muster.

If the eyes of his mentor glint for a second, none of them mention it.

Mrs. Greene comes as promised on Wednesday like a whirlwind. She doesn’t bother with banalities, and after a short interview with Peter, announces that they will receive the official documents signed by a judge in a few days. 

“Isn’t it supposed to be done in court?” He can’t help but ask when the petite plump woman makes a move to leave.

She pulls up her fat red-rimmed glasses on her nose and offers him a short smile, “A year ago yes it would have been, but our hands are full.” She glances at Mr. Stark who has been hovering at the edge of the living room. “When children are comfortable in their current situation and their guardians ready to take up the official mantle, we do our best to push things through.”

Peter has a few ideas on how it can become a double-edged sword but bites back a retort that promises to be unhelpful for his case.

“You could experiment on me every night to get your hands on a radioactive super serum, she would be none the wiser,” he finally lets out when Mrs. Greene leaves them. 

Mr. Stark merely raises an eyebrow. “Bold of you to assume it’s not already the case, your DNA is all over this house.” 

“I better receive royalties when you’ll sell it on the black market,” he quips.

“You wish. Now that we’re on the topic of money though, we have a few things to discuss.” Despite his casual tone, Peter senses the conversation has taken a serious turn. He sits diligently in front of his mentor and tries to not fidget under the stare.

“So, as you’re probably already aware, you can’t receive your inheritance till you’re of age. It goes for your parents, but your aunt and uncle’s too.”

Peter nods absentmindedly while his mind reckons a conversation from some years ago in a dark office. May had squeezed his hand tight while the lawyer had read Ben’s will, her cheeks damp from all the tears she had cried since the funeral.

Mr. Stark perks at him from the top of his glasses. “It goes without saying that any of your spendings is on me, right?”

Peter blushes in embarrassment but nods nonetheless. The last time he tried to breach the subject he faced such a rebuttal he is certain to not ever bring it up again.

“Now, did you decide what you wanted to do with the apartment?”

Peter looks down at his hands, lips pursued. 

Mr. Stark has proposed to buy it at the end of the summer, which Peter flat out refused. He has been afraid for a while that the man would go ahead anyway but thankfully he had respected his wish.

“I could just buy the building and spare yourself a rent,” he has said casually under Peter’s mortified stare one evening. “This way I wouldn’t break your rule.”

Peter hasn’t even bothered to mention that he already pays for the rent. 

“I don’t want to release it yet, if that’s okay with you,” he mutters. 

His mentor raises his hands in surrender. “Your wish is mine.”

“However,” Peter bites his lips, “I’d like to fetch some things from there…”

That’s how he finds himself in front of his building two days later.

“You sure you are ready for this?” Happy eyes suspiciously. Not that Peter blames him, their last visit remains vivid in their minds for how horrendously it went. 

“Yes,” he affirms.  

He truly is, he realizes as he packs Leia’s figurine — a gift from Ned — and a few posters into his suitcase. He goes even as far as to dig into Ben’s old things and finds his reflex camera. His uncle has always been a bit afraid to let Peter play with it - he was known for his clumsiness — though he got to experiment a little bit under his supervision. His first shots had been unstructured and a bit blurred, though Uncle Ben never lost patience and went as far as to take him for a whole day to Central Park to let him chase after squirrels. Needless to say, pictures of the animals decorated their walls for months.  

It’s not that Peter refused to use it after his Uncle’s death, but he and Aunt May couldn’t sort through his stuff for months to end. Once they finally managed to look at his possessions without bursting into tears, they moved all his things into neat boxes in the span of a week-end. It must have been discarded among other junk without any of them thinking too much about it then. 

He hesitates for a few moments and puts it carefully with the other items. They stay for a total of two hours before he deems it enough, and as they lock the door, weighted down by the suitcases at their feet, Peter feels lighter than he has been in months.

Cindy instantly spots the camera when he pulls out his books from his bag the next Tuesday.

“You want to join the Photography club?” There’s a serious undertone to her question, despite her apparent laid-back attitude. 

“ I just… got it back recently and wanted to try it out after school.”

“Interesting.” She’s smiling, a sight that has been far too rare recently. “I didn’t know you were into it, too.”

He remembers then that Cindy had also been one of the leaders of the Photography club until she quit at the start of the year. “Not really, but I wanted to give it another go.”

“Can I see?”

Discarding his history homework for the day, he takes out the camera for an impromptu inspection.

She whistles. “An EOS 5D? Old but gold.” 

Never being interested in the technicalities of photographic gear, he will trust her judgment. 

“Do you know how to work it out?” she asks with a raised eyebrow. 

He shrugs. “It’s been a while, but I guess I’ll manage.” Then, after a hesitant look at her hunched figure. “I probably can do with some pointers though.”

Cindy doesn’t answer right away, lost in her thoughts. She then stretches her back and purses her lips. 

“I don’t have time this week but… we can go around the city on Saturday if you want. It’s been a while since I took some shots.”

Peter is actually surprised at the offer. “Oh, it could be cool, yes.”

Four days later, he finds Cindy at their meeting point with half of a sandwich shoved inside her mouth.

“Isn’t it a bit early?” he inquires.

“I was hungry,” she shrugs, “besides, you’re late.”

Peter winces as a short glance at his watch indeed warns him he’s out of schedule.

“Sorry,” he offers flatly.

She takes one exasperated look at him and rolls her eyes. “Yeah don’t worry, we’re used to it.”

Unfortunately, he didn’t even last a week back as Spider-Man before he arrived late to their study sessions. As much as her disappointment hurts, it is far from being uncalled for. 

“Where do you want to start?” he diverts her attention back to the topic at hand. “I’ve never truly done this so…”

“What type of pictures do you want to take, actually?

Uncle Ben had been fond of street photography while Peter’s own preferences always leaned more on colorful and dynamic imagery. 

She checks her phone. “We can go to the immersive exhibition, then. You know, the one with lights and all of that. It’s free so probably shit, but it’s as much of a good start as any.”

They are welcomed by a pool filled to the brim with white plastic balls. The purple lighting adds to the calming atmosphere of the room. They exchange a quick look with barely concealed excitement before discarding their shoes to jump into the fray. 

The next room opens to a bunch of mirrors covered in neon drawings. Peter frowns when his shot turns out to be too dark.

“You need to increase your ISO,” Cindy rolls her eyes, “low speed and big opening don’t suffice.”

The exhibition turns out to be decent, for something that probably lacks funding. Peter checks out some of his shots as they go out, and while they are probably less effective than Cindy’s he is pretty fond of the one taken under Chinese-inspired red lamps.

“Where to next?” 

“We can try one of the parks nearby,” she muses. 

Out in the open, the settings of his camera are more reminiscent of what he is used to. He manages to snatch a portrait of Cindy under the remaining trees, to her annoyance, and a nice series of the duck family by the pond. 

Peter knows though that the peaceful moment has come to an end when he receives an alert on his phone about a robbery happening two streets away. 

“Sorry,” he smiles apologetically, “I have to go, I forgot I had to take out my neighbor’s dog this afternoon.”

“Yeah, I was waiting for the moment your infamous fleeting tendencies would kick in,” she sighs. 

He winces but still puts his camera away. “I’m really sorry but, hum…,” he bites his lips, “maybe we can do it sometime later? It was fun.”

Her expression relaxes slightly. “Yes we can. It should snow, so we can try next Saturday too.” 

Peter beames a little at that and disappears at the next corner.

He has finally decided to confront Abe about his strange behavior when he spots him one night two streets away from his grandma’s house. 

“Hi, man.”

Abe nods but otherwise doesn’t make an outward move. “Hi, nice patrol?”

Peter drops to the ground and sits on the opposite side of the bench. 

“Uneventful. What are you doing out there?”

“Just taking some fresh air,” he shrugs. 

“Did you go out to a party again?” 

Abe nudges at the gravel with his foot. “That was once.”

Peter knows that’s a lie. Charles had whispered that very week about his concerns for his friend who had called him drunk during the night.

He doesn’t know exactly what Abe’s deal with alcohol is and wishes to help but has no idea where to start when he is a mess himself. 

He decides to drop the subject for now. “So, care to explain why you’ve been weird this past month?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about”, the tension in his shoulders doesn’t say as much.

“You’ve barely spoken to me in weeks. Did I do something?”

“No, it’s just…” he sneaks another glance at Peter’s mask, “gosh this is so weird, can’t you take it off?”

Peter winces and looks around. Getting confirmation they are alone, he puts an arm around Abe and shoots a web at a nearby roof. “Hand on tight.” 

Abe lets out a surprised yelp and the next thing he knows Peter lands the both of them above the tallest building in the area. 

“Wow, that’s sick,” he mutters, eyes wide. 

Peter watches closely the surroundings before taking off his mask. 

“This is somehow even weirder,” Abe says.. 

He rolls his eyes. 

“Sorry man,” his friend shrugs, “but even though I know it’s you it doesn’t feel like I’m talking to you, you know?”

No, he doesn’t. “Well, you’ll just have to deal with it,” he retorts and starts to eat the sandwich he bought earlier. “So, what’s up?” 

Left without excuse, Abe looks away in embarrassment. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to ignore you or whatever but… why did you put on the suit again?”

He slows down his bites. “Got a problem with that?” he asks more rudely than he intends to.

“No! I’m honestly amazed, and grateful, for what you do, but I can’t help but think I shouldn’t have said anything last time.” 

Peter frowns. “I still don’t see where this is going.” 

“Spider-Man came back right after our conversation. I don’t want to be the reason you start to get hurt again!”

He lowers his sandwich. “Oh.”

“After that day I looked at your vids and… man, what you get up to, it’s absolutely wild!”

He groans. “Most days I only help mothers carry strollers in the stairs or city workers pick up dead leaves.”

“Last year you fought that sand creature! There’s like, 34 different videos of it on Youtube.”

Yes, and it took him hours to get all the sand out of his suit and his webshooters functioning again. But even though he appreciates his friend for recognizing his most impressive deeds, he needs to understand that most of his patrols are spent doing community service.  

“For real Abe, it isn’t usually this way—”

“You were also pretty injured after the Snap, right?” he cuts him unceremoniously. “You disappeared for weeks.”

Peter doesn’t answer, but his face must say it all. 

“What I mean,” his friend continues with renewed strength, “is that in all these feeds you get thrown into walls, hit by trains or whatever. I know you must heal faster than most or maybe you’re just hella resistant, but this doesn’t mean you don’t suffer any damage. And I… I wonder if I’m the reason you put yourself into harm’s way again.”

Peter wants to argue that most of his injuries are healed in a few hours anyway, but decides the worry etched on Abe’s face is worth more than a simple dismissal.  

“It was bound to happen you know,” he tries to say nonchalantly. “That night ended up being the last push I needed, that’s all. It would have been something else if it didn’t happen.”

Abe purses his lips, unconvinced. 

“Seriously man, you don’t have to worry. I don’t even get injured that often and if it comes to worst I have… experts in that field that can patch me and my suit up in no time.”

That bit might be exaggerated — Peter ends up with bruises and cuts more times than he likes to admit — but the result is the same.

His friend considers him for a moment. “You live with him, right?” Tony Stark.” 

Peter wonders if he should deny it. The school administration knows about his change of guardian, but otherwise they have both decided to keep it under the radar for as long as possible. Still, Abe is already aware of a bigger secret, so he settles on admitting to the fact with a short nod.

His classmate’s eyes seem to widen more than possible. “I have plenty of questions right now but I don’t know where to start. 

“How about you don’t?” Peter smirks though not unkindly. He then stretches his arm for a fist bump. “So we good?” 

Abe meets him halfway. “We good.”

Guilt, Peter thinks, is a sneaky little thing. 

After hours of therapy finally came the time to recount the events on Titan. He didn’t manage it on the first try, nor the second, and by the third he is left panting on the floor, his face aghast. 

He has known, obviously, about his part in the world's demise. Impossible not to, when nightmares haunt him every night and the present days are a reminder of what used to be. When those he loves have fallen to the hand of a madman and Peter hasn’t been able to look at himself in the mirror for months. 

Still, relieving it, telling someone else about it? That gets him to fully realize the extent of his own failings.

He had grasped Thanos’ fingers with his own hands and pulled on them with much more force than he had ever produced, to the point the glove had slipped, little by little until it was almost released. Then, not even an hour later, the same fingers had snapped his world away. 

Peter is no stranger to guilt. He hadn’t been when he had soaked into Uncle Ben’s blood, nor when he pulled on all his muscles to prevent two hundred people from falling to their deaths, and definitely hadn’t been every time he looked at his half-empty classroom. 

This is, however, the first time that he gets the brunt force of it since the Snap. It chokes him.

Mrs. Verney closes the black notebook that she always keeps on her knees and looks at him intently. When she speaks, her tone is gentler than it has ever been.  

“I think we should stop for today. If you need to bring forward our next session, call me.”

Peter leaves her office in a whirlpool of mixed emotions that slither beneath his skin and reaches their private section of the Tower in a daze.

Mr. Stark is already there, and Peter wonders how he can dodge the incoming attempt at a conversation when the man takes a quick look at his face and goes back to his tablet. After all, he has been accustomed to therapy long enough to know when to give him space. 

In times like this, there is only one thing that might help him. Peter rummages through his wardrobe, dons the suit in a minute, and slips through his window without a look back. 

He patrols for nearly five hours before he decides to stop for a few minutes. By then, the sky had already darkened and the temperature dropped below zero. 

His mind still hasn’t rested. In spite of the petty crimes he stopped all night, his body keeps being jittery and his focus is fuzzy at best. It is by sheer luck that he catches himself when he misses a web and doesn’t fall flat on the ground. 

For once, it is actually with relief that he welcomes the notification from his mentor being nearby.

Peter enters the car, shaking all over, and is met with silence. 

“Rough session?” Mr. StarkTony, finally asks when Happy joins back on the main road. He isn’t looking directly at him, focusing instead on the streetlights. 

Peter puts his head between his knees. “Yes,” he says in a husky voice. 

He can feel the glances Happy tries to sneak from the front row, this type of discretion has never been his strong suit. 

“Here’s what gonna happen”, Tony says with a gentle tone that still doesn’t leave room for argument. “You’re gonna take a long shower while I prepare chicken curry and afterward we can watch any film you want. Even the seventh rerun of the Revenge of the Siths, I don’t care.”

Peter nods absentmindedly and dozes off for the rest of the trip.

Later, when he is snuggled up against the couch in front of the Lego Movie, he shares his thoughts with Tony. 

“I was so close,” he whispers without meeting his mentor’s eyes. “I can still feel his glove in my hands. If only I had been faster—”

“If Bug Eyes hadn’t run her mouth, Quill wouldn’t have lost it. Do you blame them too?”

He shakes his head. “He killed his girlfriend, I don’t think I would have been able to keep sane either.”

“Exactly. As much as I am angry at the guy, I can’t hold it against him.”

“Do you feel guilty too?” 

It is out of his mouth before Peter can prevent it. The silence that follows is enough of an answer, but Peter still looks up in apprehension at the man who offers him a painful smile. “Pot, kettle, yadda yadda.”

That manages to make him laugh a little. 

Peter curls on himself and brushes his shoulder against Tony’s side. It takes a moment, but then his mentor pulls him into a side hug. 

“Is there really nothing we can do?” Peter almost cries out, his eyes still on the screen. This part had been May’s favorite. “I know Thanos destroyed the stones, but can’t they really be restored?”

Tony tenses for a second and hugs him harder. “Sorry kid, there’s truly nothing.”

Chapter Text

In February, Tony proposes to bring Peter to Compound for the weekend. Even though he wonders what prompted this decision, he jumps at the opportunity with barely concealed excitement. He is both thrilled and frightened at the idea of seeing the Black Widow again.

Colonel Rhodes is clearly surprised when he welcomes them on the patio.

“Thought you didn’t want to set a foot in there, Tones.” He hugs his friend and shakes hands with Peter before leading them inside. 

“Can’t have an aerospace engineer working solo on that baby. I also decided to make a field trip out of it, right kid?” he jerks his head toward him, but Peter’s attention is attracted elsewhere.

“Is that a raccoon?” he asks in bewilderment. 

“It is,” his mentor cuts in before the subject of their focus can express his complaints. “A very annoying, petulant, talking raccoon.”

“I liked you better when you were depressed Stark,” it grumbles from the other side of the room.

“And don’t be fooled by his appearance, he can outdo all of us in shit-talking.” 

“You damn bet I can, trash can!” the raccoon, Rocket apparently, shouts.

“That’s so sick,” Peter whispers, eyes wide. “Were you born like this? Are all alien species actually able to talk? Do—”

“Keep your fanboying to yourself Underoos,” Tony grabs his shoulder, rolling his eyes, “you’ll have all the time in the world to pester him later.”

Rocket mutters something about bug infestation, but Peter is too amazed to care. Before he can formulate any of the thousand questions running in his head though, another figure enters the room, one he never expected to see again.

“Hi Miss Nebula!” He waves at her with a big smile on his face.

“You actually know this runt?” Rocket loudly whispers, but Nebula doesn’t bulge, her unblinking eyes fixed on Peter. After a long moment, in which Peter holds his breath, she nods in acknowledgment and turns her attention to the other men. “Can we start already?” 

The ‘baby’ Tony has to deal with apparently takes the form of a spaceship that got damaged during the Guardians’ last mission.

“And I thought the space shuttle was the coolest thing ever.” Peter can’t stop looking at the advanced technology sitting in the backyard of the Avengers Compound and wonders if it’s not a ploy to keep him away from intrusive thoughts. He knows he won’t be able to shut up about it for weeks.

This is the same ship in which he escaped from Titan, but by then he had been too drunk on anxiety and delirious from a lack of food to admire the spacecraft. Now, with his two feet firmly on the ground, he can analyze as much as he wants the little pieces that make up its falcon-like shape. 

“What is the issue?” he asks because he can’t spot any drastic damage aside from the little scratches or two missing tiles on its right wing. 

“We don’t know,” Nebula silently comes up beside him. “It drops from our trajectory from time to time even though we should be far enough from any celestial body to not be attracted by their gravitational force.”

“Fuel, sensors, electronics… nothing seems to be damaged,” Colonel Rhodes says in defeat. 

Tony finishes his observational round of the ship. With him standing next to Nebula, Peter realizes for the first time how much weight he lost in the last months. “The rear wing lost half of its tiles. What did you even do to it?”

“I want to see you try to get by a hundred of Chitauri ships. Nasty little things should be glad I blew them up before I got my hands on them!” Rocket laughs.

Peter glances at Colonel Rhodes in worry. “Shouldn't NASA have a look at it? Surely they are better suited than us.”

“We want to avoid drawing too much attention to our little friends here,” he whispers back. “We’re taking advantage of the fact they are too busy dealing with the Snap to focus on the Avengers.”

For someone who works closely with the government, Colonel Rhodes seems to be pretty lenient with his communication.

Tony points a detector that Peter has never seen before toward the ship. “It seems to be surrounded by something. Did you check for a force field? The Chitauris love it.”

“No shit,” Rocket barks, “who do you take me for? That’s the first thing we looked at, the Benatar reeks of it. We couldn’t find the source.”

“Isn’t it possible for them to have enveloped the whole ship with a blast when you encountered them?” The colonel cuts in. “They wouldn’t need to have a constant source fixed to it.”

“It wouldn’t have survived interstellar travel-”

“Peter, come over.”

Intrigued, he slips by his mentor. “What does your spider-tingle have to say about that?”

“That’s not a tingle,” he mutters more for himself than anyone else, knowing Tony won’t care either way. 

“What can the runt achieve that we haven’t already? I know this ship like the back of my hand.”

“That kid has a knack for sensing danger before it kicks our asses. It usually doesn’t prevent him from heading straight into it,” the pointed glare is met by Peter’s determined one, “but at least he can warn us.”

Rocket snorts and turns toward Nebula to find support, but the alien looks at them intensely. “He did sense the remnants of the Q-ship before they hit us when we left Titan.”

Peter closes his eyes to turn off their banter and focus on his senses. They haven’t been the most trustworthy these past months — sometimes acting up when there’s no more thing than a fly around him or on the contrary being dulled to the point of worry — but they are still worth a shot. 

There is the usual prickling alongside his arms when he’s surrounded by superhumans. It’s stronger than usual, no doubt due to the presence of Rocket and Nebula who bring unknown powers to their soil. The slight headache he has been sporting since they arrived also intensifies when he approaches the Benatar. 

Frowning, he jumps high into the air and lands on the roof of the spaceship, at least thirty meters above ground

He feels the external lining for a few minutes before he stumbles across a circular metallic shape the size of his hand. With his super strength, it doesn’t even last a second before he rips it off. 

“Got it!”

His headache has gotten worse now that he is in close proximity to the source, but he can still feel a pull toward the right wing of the ship. It doesn’t take him long to find the second one and land on the ground in his striking pose under the amused face of Colonel Rhodes and Tony’s exasperation. 

“Teenagers,” he sighs. 

Peter looks at his hands where he knows the energy sources are sitting. “This is so weird.”

“Totally invisible to both your sight and your radar, no wonder you couldn’t find anything wrong.”

“How come you could detect it then?” Rocket huffs. 

Tony gives him a sour look. “Do you really think I wouldn’t have found a way to recognize their technology after the little stunt they pulled on us seven years ago?” He goes to slip them into his pocket, “Anyway, I’m gonna inspect these babies if you will.”

“Not so fast!” Rocket catches one mid-air. “No way I will let you meddle with them alone, Stark. I want in.”

“Lunch first though, ladies,” Colonel Rhodes calls behind his shoulder as he heads back to the building. 

Lunch is a weird affair, mainly because the dishes on Rocket’s and Nebula’s plates barely seem edible. Colonel Rhodes attempts to convince them to try a bottle of wine without much success. It is also during this dinner that it is revealed that Rocket found the stash hiding expensive artisanal beers months ago, which is the main reason why it is now empty.

“I am so gonna shave you bald one of these days,” Tony promises in retaliation.

“Do you fear death?”

The banter is cut short before dessert when Colonel Rhodes checks his watch with mild annoyance. “Two minutes left, Carol is already there.”

Rocket and Nebula leave the room without a word, but Tony does so begrudgingly. 

“Where are you going?” 

The question takes both men aback. The colonel turns toward Tony who winces slightly.

“Boring meeting with boring guys. You can take a look at the lab, or better yet, the spaceship. I promise it won’t take long.”

“It’s an Avengers meeting, right?” He barely notices the colonel retiring to the backroom.

“Like I said, boring meeting with boring guys.”

Peter crosses his arms over his chest and lifts his head high. “I want in.”

Tony rolls his eyes. “Of course you do. Sorry but no.”

“Why?” He doesn’t whine, no matter what anyone has to say.

“Because Spiderlings have better things to do than deal with interstellar business.”

“Don’t throw the grown-up card now,” he growls. “Not after everything.”

They share a meaningful silence in which Peter channels all his grit into his glare. He also notices with satisfaction that he is almost as tall as Tony now.

“You made me an Avenger back then,” he adds for good measure. 

The man flinches, and Peter swears his heart doesn’t sting. 

“What about protecting the little guy?” 

It feels like such a long time since he decided to stay on the low. Now the decision sounds naive, foolish even, he should have expected that a day would come when he wouldn’t have much of a choice. 

Thanos ripped it off him and Peter can be damned if he doesn’t take responsibility. 

“How can I protect the little guy when I don’t know what they should be protected from? If the people of New York are in any danger, I need to know what to look for. If I don’t, I might be too late to save them.”

He knows he has won the debate the moment Tony drops his shoulders. 

A woman is already there when they finally all slip into the room. Peter has never seen her before, but even through a hologram, he can feel her imposing presence. The way her gaze briefly stops on him makes him stand straighter than he has ever been.

Tony has no such qualms and takes the center of the sage. “Hello Carol dear, I officially present you Spider-Man, who will act as an Earthling… consultant. Underoos, this is Carol Danvers, also known as Captain Marvel.”

Peter closes his mouth before anyone can spot him, which seems to be a failure as Captain Marvel sends him an amused smile.

“Huh, hello Ms. Danvers. I guess I should thank you for saving our life and all,” he splutters. His face must be pretty red by now.

“Hello Peter Parker, it’s nice to see you doing better.”

He frowns slightly at the use of his full name, but can’t really call her out on it when he revealed it willingly to Doctor Strange and all the people in this room saw him maskless when she brought them back to Earth. 

Tony claps his hand to bring back the attention on him. “Anyway, can we start the party? I must say though that we’re really missing some strip-teasers.”

“Okoye connected before you came, she has an urgent matter to deal with in Wakanda and can’t make it.” 

“And Steve and Natasha are still on their mission,” Colonel Rhodes picks on after Captain Marvel, “they warned me it could happen and to not wait on them if so, they don’t know when they’ll be reachable again.”

The reports start soon after that and despite how Tony presented it, Peter is hooked on every word, no matter how depressive they were. 

Thanos’ Snap truly has identical consequences all over the galaxy. Peter’s heart already aches when he travels through the half-dead state of Central Park, but the before and after pictures of Chiroe, a planet initially covered up to eighty percent by luxurious vegetation, will haunt his mind for a while.

Tony rounds on him the second the meeting closes.

“Let’s get one thing clear, you might attend these meetings from time to time to get a general idea and throw in your observations, but there is no way that I’m sending you out there in missions. Our furry friends and the Totally Spies are more than enough.”

His mentor watches him so intently, it makes him uneasy.

“I don’t count on it.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes,” he grits his teeth.

“Good then.” The tension disappears but Peter doesn’t think he likes the maliciousness in his eyes more. “Also, I’m revoking this right if you aren’t Valedictorian.”

“Wha—”

“It leaves you four months. Good luck!”

Weeks later, Peter slides the envelope to the end of the table and watches it disappear in the man's hands.

He has already swallowed thrice by the time Tony finishes reading the letter.

"No MIT, then." His blank look puts Peter on edge definitely more than it should. He blows a long breath and meets Tony head-on. "I want to stay in New York."

It's a flicker, but Tony's eyes soften around the edge. "Fair enough. Still, you could have aimed for Columbia at least."

"NYU’s Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering B.S. sounds cool," Peter shrugs. "Plus it's closer to both the Tower and Queens." 

Tony stays silent for a moment before he grips Peter's shoulder. "Then you're gonna show them what a true genius is made of. And let's be honest, even with a degree from the dead last community college you would still succeed spectacularly."

And that was it. In the next week, they secure an individual dorm - with the Snap housing has never been that easy to find - and Peter receives a detailed program of his curriculum. For the first time in months, he can finally breathe.

Cindy got into Columbia to major in Data Science and for a fickle moment, he regrets not pursuing that university.

"At least Charles will be there too, I will be the lone wolf in Columbia,” she says when he barely hides his disappointment behind a smile. 

Abe… isn’t going to college. Their friend has been tight-lipped regarding the subject and instead claimed to take a year to think about what he truly wants to study, but Peter suspects that it’s mostly due to a lack of finances.

Usually, it isn’t difficult for Midtown students to get a full ride to upper education, but this year, the combination of a general decrease in funding and a slip in his grades put him out of the race. Peter knows that a few words to Tony would resolve the problem in a day, but he and Abe share a similar enough upbringing to know that it wouldn’t be taken well. 

“I’ll bring you Delmar’s,” Peter snorts, back to the present. “Lest you get food poisoning with that stuff you call cooking.”

They’re standing on the rooftop of her building. The pollution has turned the sunset into a battle of grey and dirty yellow, but the light breeze and subdued noise from the streets put Peter at ease. As Cindy sets off her camera and brushes her shoulder against his, he realizes he might be finally ready to enjoy a peaceful New York. 

“So, before we start, did you make sure that you don’t have any last-minute volunteering at a shelter or babysitting for your neighbor?” she asks, her tone slightly on edge. 

She wants to make a timelapse. All in all, she has no need for an assistant as she can control the shots with her phone, but Peter had promised to keep her company after he canceled their last three sessions because of Spider-Man. 

It wouldn’t have crossed his mind a year ago, but he wonders sometimes if her lack of call-out is a blatant sign she knows more than she lets on. 

“The next two hours are yours,” he smiles sheepishly. 

He hopes so anyway, he cannot predict what will happen if he hears the sirens in the distance, but in the meantime, he will try to tune out his feeling of restlessness. 

He walks toward the edge, making sure to not enter her shooting view, and takes a few pictures himself. He got his hands on a film camera a while back at a flea market and is still trying to get the hang of it. 

“Are you going to the ceremony?” she asks between two shots. 

On May 3rd, the five memorials ordered by the city of New York will be inaugurated. Tony absolutely refuses to attend the one for Manhattan. He had taken one look at the invite, torn it apart, and lit it on fire before heading straight to his lab. Peter hadn’t seen him the rest of that day.

He knows Captain Rogers will be on the stage in Brooklyn, with Ms. Romanoff probably not far off in the crowd. On his part, Peter still hasn’t decided whether or not to attend. Queens’ borough president had invited Spider-Man publicly over Twitter though he would rather mangle with the people than stand under the spotlight. 

“Still haven’t decided,” he shrugs. “There will be a lot of people and a lot of boring speeches. I’d rather go later.” 

Truth is, he doesn’t think he can bear to look at thousands of faces full of sorrow knowing he played a part in them. 

“And you?”

“Don’t think so, Dad hasn’t mentioned anything about it and I didn’t dare to do it either. Not that he talks much nowadays.”

Peter lowers his camera. “I’m sorry,” he says softly.

She shakes her head, adjusting her settings again. “Don’t be, that’s how it is, I get it. It’s just…” She holds her breath, and Peter only has to wait for a moment before the dam finally breaks. “People keep telling me that he needs time, that he’s grieving but would it hurt him to look at me for once? Can we have at least one normal conversation again? Mom is dead ,” she spits the last word like poison. “She’s fucking dead, and I get it, and I hate it so much but I’m still here!”

He watches as she paces, fists clenched at her sides, her form shaking.

“I lost her too! And he, he just…” She lets out a raging scream and kicks a peddle into the next building. “Damn it!”

Something crashes into glass, a car alarm blares in the whole district, but for once, Peter doesn’t move. 

She slumps down next to him after a few minutes, her breathing erratic and tears streaming down her face. 

“Sorry,” she mumbles in her sleeve, “I didn’t mean to…”

“It’s okay,” he answers flatly. 

She stays silent for a moment, only sniffing loudly and weeping the water from her eyes. The sun is barely seen beneath the horizon. 

“Let’s pack,” she finally gestures lazily at the camera. “I probably messed it up anyway.”

He wants to say something — anything — to lighten the weight pressing down on her, but the words stick in his throat. Instead, he helps her shove her gear and zips the bag closed when she struggles with it. Cindy pauses, her face set in an uncomfortable frown like she’s on the verge of speaking again but doesn’t trust her voice.

They descend the fire escape, the creak of metal and the distant hum of the city filling the void between them. As they stop at her floor, Cindy takes a look at his face and forces a shaky laugh. “Sorry for being the flake, this time. Can we give it another try tomorrow?”

He buries deep down his rebuttal. “Yeah, sure.”

Siren calls will wait another day. 

In the end, he goes to the ceremony.

Perched on his post, he watches from afar the last minutes of the borough president's speech.

The monument, a tall wall where names are etched in golden bold letters, stands proud in its black glory, amidst a sea of flowers, candles, and other framed photographs. Pushed by an unknown force, he crouches down in a silent prayer to a God he never truly believed in and wishes for the thousand names to find peace.

He doesn't miss the stares. The weight of his mask feels heavier than ever as he looks down at the crowd, their pain as visible as the flickering candles by their feet.

He doesn't miss the taunts either, colored in anger and barely concealed anguish. Dark words follow his every move, and clung to him like shadows when he retreats into the depth of the city.

They are not worse than those he whispers to himself every night anyway.

Peter hates his graduation day. 

There’s ash on his tongue as families hug each other with forced cheers and tight grasps. Under their disguise, Tony and Happy clap from the back of the assembly when his turn comes up. He tries to smile, especially as he spots Ms. Romanoff saluting from the other side of the crowd, but he can’t manage to stretch his lips. Not when Cindy is only two seats away from him and the line in front should have a chair for Leeds rather than Jerkin. 

At some point, the principal takes the stage and encourages their young minds to go on the new adventures half of their grade would never have a chance to. Peter tunes out at that, his cheeks already too damp to bear the sorrow he glimpses among the crowd. 

He can’t bear to think about the four people he doesn’t catch a glimpse of, either.

The traditional toss comes and goes, he throws his cap high in the air in the hope of getting rid of its heavy shroud. Abe nudges his shoulder, so Peter indulges him with one picture with the rest of their Decathlon team. Mr. Harrington cries.

Cindy takes him aside when she thinks no one is looking, even though Peter can feel Tony’s gaze piercing his back. 

“Is that your father?” he points toward a rather short and stocky dark-haired man talking to Abe’s grandmother.

“Yeah,” she bites her lip. “He has… been better recently. He was actually quite willing to come today. Didn’t see him this happy, well, in a while.”

“It’s good to hear,” he smiles.

She nods and sends a smaller one back. “I just hope it will last. Anyway, I wanted to give you something. Take it as a congratulations or goodbye gift, whatever suits you.”

The first item is a photograph of them both, one they took on their first photography session at the park. He hadn’t noticed then, but muffled in her beige coat she seems to radiate. Peter himself looks better off than he was at the time.

The second is a hand-made drawing of a Pokemon. 

“Mudkip? How do you know it’s my favorite?”

“You let it slip when you were debating with Charles about the best gen,” she glances away.

“I didn’t know you could draw,” he says in amazement. The mix of watercolor and colored pencils makes for a nice texture, a lot of care was put into this.

She hides her embarrassment behind her thick straight dark hair. He has never seen her so flustered and can’t help but be pleased at the sight.

“Thank you,” he says at long last, his eyes trailing on her darker face tinted with rosy cheeks. He happily notes that he is finally tall enough to lean toward her. 

Cindy shifts on her feet, then pushes forward to land her lips on his.

It’s quick, short, and sweet, but enough to send his heart raging.

“Sorry,” she mutters looking around to make sure no one has noticed — Peter knows at least two people did — “I just wanted to do it once, at least.”

“Me too,” is out of his mouth before he can hold it. They both know that it doesn’t have to mean anything, but the warmth her presence brings is worth it.

“Good luck, Cindy.”

Peter finds himself on the doorstep of a familiar flat two streets away from Forest Hills on a fine July morning. 

His hands are shaking and his heartbeat resonates loudly in his chest when the door opens to reveal the figure of a woman in her late forties, her dark hair attached in a tight braid and a black shirt tucked into loose khaki pants. 

“Hi Mrs. Leeds,” he cuts in when the woman gapes at him for long seconds. “I hope I’m not bothering you?”

“Of course not Peter,” she says softly, “come in.”

One year and two months. This is how long since he has last stepped into that entrance. 

The broken umbrella stand sits still on the left corner and the same old plants pave the way to the living room, still, as Peter’s eyes linger on the shelves, he can’t help but notice the considerable layer of dust.

Mrs. Leeds gestures for him to sit at the main table and disappears in the kitchen before he can find the courage to announce why he came here for.

His throat hasn’t been this tight in days, and it doesn’t improve when his gaze settles on the portrait of Ned and his little sister. 

“Mila is with her cousin for the week,” Mrs. Leeds offers when she puts a glass in front of Peter. He doesn’t have to look to know it’s the Leeds’ usual very specific brand of pineapple juice. “They went to New Jersey for a change of scenery.”

“How is she doing?” His gaze hasn’t left the photograph, but Peter can’t bear to look at anything else than Mila’s chubby cheeks and wide smile. He hasn't seen her in a year, any of them actually, and he wonders how much the thirteen - now fourteen-year-old girl has changed.

“Now to great, like all of us. She didn’t want to go to Midtown in the end, it was too much for her. But the prospect of starting highschool near here has given her more joy recently, I hope it will last.”

A heavy feeling akin to shame settles in the pit of his stomach. He has no doubt that, if the situation was reversed, Ned would have visited Aunt May frequently to make sure she wasn’t drowning. Yet, it’s Peter who’s sitting in his childhood home for the first since the Snap to finally enquire about the status of his family.

What a despicable friend he turned out to be.

“Lola is sleeping upstairs, she’s pretty tired nowadays,” Mrs. Leeds breaks his musing. 

“Oh,” Peter drops his eyes, “I’m sorry for coming without notice. Can you please tell her I said Hi? And that I hope her back is not bringing her too much trouble.”

The woman sends him a small smile over her cup but doesn’t answer.

Truth be told, in all the duration of his and Ned’s friendship, Carmen Leed has been less elusive than her husband only by a slight margin. Ned’s Lola, while being known for her strong character, has been the one to welcome him on Sunday afternoons and prepare one of her traditional chicken adobo. Seeing his mother sipping tea in casual clothes rather than with a phone stuck to her ear while she runs to catch the subway is as disturbing as the silence reigning over the house. 

Mrs. Leeds asks about school, and the conversation slowly derivates toward his upcoming plans. She seems surprised when Peter admits he’s going to NYU — no doubt she has heard Ned recount plenty of time their dreamed student life on Boston’s campus — but thankfully refrains from commenting on his choice. 

“Where do you live, Peter?” She finally asks quietly.

“With a family friend,” the version he has stuck to the past months flows out of his mouth quickly. “We live in Manhattan, but they work in Queens so they can drop me at a metro station not far from school.”

Peter tries to not squirm under her frown. While not friends, she and May had talked enough for the woman to know that his aunt always had a busy work life that limited social interactions. Peter is also pretty sure May didn’t even have any acquaintances farther than five miles away from their condo.

He decides it is as much of a good time as any to finally reveal the reason for his visit. 

He finally finds the courage to reveal the reason for his visit — more so to cut off the uncomfortable interrogation. With great care, he sets down the cloth on the table. 

“I found it when sorting through my stuff… I remember us looking for it for hours. I guess it had been discarded at the bottom of a cupboard…” 

The forest green NASA sweatshirt was one of Ned’s favorites. As much as Peter wishes to keep it to snuggle at night when the absence of his best friend is too much to bear, it is only fair retribution that he returns it to his family. 

Carmen unfolds it with reverence as Peter quickly looks away to give her some privacy. When he finds his focus again a minute later, her eyes are shining a little too brightly. 

“Thank you, Peter,” she folds it back and pushes it toward him, “you can keep it though, you deserve it too.”

His emotions are too much to swallow. “Are you sure?” he sniffles.

Mrs. Leeds’ smile is tense but not unkind. “I… We haven’t been able to get into his room yet, you know? I don’t think we’ll touch his clothes in a while so… I know he would have liked for it to be yours, especially if it makes you feel better.”

Peter doesn’t think he deserves such kindness. He thanks her profusely behind barely concealed tears, and when it is time for him to leave he makes a promise to himself.

“I’ll try to come back once in a while. I’ll bring Lola her favorite tea and Mila the spicy candies she always begged us for. If you want me to, that is.”

The hug she gives him is as short as it is unexpected but exceedingly warm. 

“You’re a good kid Peter, you know that?”

He blushes and turns to leave when she calls for his attention one last time. 

“We’re planning a funeral service at the end of the month… With everything that is happening and the fact, we had no body to bury we never got to it but… Edward deserves it.” 

He does, and so much more. Peter returns her sad smile with his own. “I’ll be there.”

The idea of performing a late funeral for May doesn’t leave him for a week. 

Her name has been added to Ben’s tombstone at some point during the year, but Peter hasn’t been able to bring himself to organize a full service in her honor. 

He wants to mention it to Tony but fears the mention would tamper the progress he made on overcoming Pepper’s death and seeks Happy’s help instead. 

“You want a funeral service?” he asks, a little bewildered. Peter doesn’t take it personally, it is clear the man is out of his waters. 

“It doesn’t need to be official,” he utters quickly, “but my parents and Ben got a ceremony, it doesn’t feel right to not have anything for May.”

Happy’s face softens. “You’re right kid, you might want to talk it out with Tony though. He probably has more ideas than me.”

Peter brings it up that evening after a lot of consideration.

Tony stays silent for a minute, which does nothing to his nerves. When he turns his attention on Peter again, there’s a faraway look in his eyes. “How about — and please tell me if I overstep here — we do a collective one?”

Peter had already imagined a private affair at Queen’s cemetery in front of her grave, but now he can’t help but think of MJ, his Decathlon classmates, and the dozens of people he has missed since then. It is actually a good idea.

None of them are religious so Peter puts himself in search of a non-connoted ritual. From what he reckons, his mother had been of Jewish descent while the Parkers were mostly Protestant. May herself had come from an Irish Catholic family, but neither of them ever practiced their religion, thus Peter grew as an atheist more than anything. 

He mentions his idea of burning up a tree where they would have tied up the names of their loved ones on pieces of paper at dinner a few days later. To his surprise, even Happy seems quite on board. 

His mentor suggests they do it at the Compound, and as much as Peter would have preferred to do it in New York, he knows it would give them the privacy they very much need.

They depart for the Compound two days later in relative silence. It isn’t uncomfortable, but when Tony watches out of the window Peter wonders if his thoughts are plagued with the same longing as his own. 

He isn’t surprised to see Colonel Rhodes. More so to notice that Ms. Romanoff and Captain America have joined them too. 

Peter realizes then, that even if he fought against him three years prior, he was never properly introduced to the hero as the last time he was in the position to he hadn’t been able to face him. 

Steve Roger offers him a firm handshake that Peter tries to reciprocate while his mind is sent into overdrive.  

“I hope we’re not intruding, but I think it is a nice gesture, and way more personal than all the memorials I attended to last year. Good call, son.”

Peter stutters that it’s not a problem, that Captain America can gatecrash their little party, thank you very much , and promises to himself to never wash his hand again. 

Tony rolls his eyes when he spots his awestruck face. 

They give him the lead, and it’s with a newfound shyness that he explains his intention under their indulgent smiles.

Peter is writing a neat ‘Aunt’ May in light blue ink with all the care in the world when he suddenly turns the sheet to scribble a spontaneous ‘I love you’. Now inspired, he doodles a meme for Ned and settles on a ‘I miss you, loser’ for MJ. 

Now that he has opened the floodgates, there are too many names that he wants to add, too many people that deserve to be remembered. Not because of their kindness or generosity, but because they existed, and made New York into the city he loves so much. 

A quick look around him tells him he and Black Widow are the last to hang their cards in the tree, and he can’t hide his surprise when he notices quite the number of sheets in her hands. In absolute silence like the others, she hangs up her pieces and rejoins their small party. 

Peter takes the longest time, and when he has finally tied the last bit to the lowest branch, looks back in anticipation. 

All of them bear solemn expressions, but it’s on Tony that his attention is set. The man doesn’t meet any of their eyes, which is probably why he lets his guard down long enough for Peter to catch the sheer desperation on his face. 

He bites his cheek till he draws blood and turns around, voice loud and clear to hide the panic of his mind. 

“Any last word?” 

There’s none. 

They have already stated enough apologies and empty promises to last for a last time. It’s not enough, never will be, so it is with a sour taste in his mouth that Peter throws the match at the foot and watches their world be set ablaze. 

The void that engulfs his emotions has been there for such a long time that he barely notices it anymore. Still, as the inferno grows restlessly along the trunk and gnaws at each card until they are consumed in hot fumes, the warmth might start to reach him. 

“Gosh, that couch is horrendous. I told you to order the blue one we saw last week.”

“So I can pass out on it every night in blood, sweat, and tears?” Peter raises an eyebrow.

Tony frowns at the idea. “Yeah no, you’re right. I threw up on too much fancy furniture. It isn’t pretty.”

Mid-August gently signals the time to prepare for the next school year. Tony has instantly put Happy on moving duties, the man has grumbled that it was out of his prerogatives but put all Peter’s boxes in a truck nonetheless and drove them to Tandon’s campus. Peter has no doubt Tony tagged along to have an excuse to miss the meeting with his QARA team.

“I love them, very competent guys,” he has admitted the night before, “but I just know they’re not gonna make my business easier.”

In one trip they have already set all necessities. Peter doesn’t need much, anyway. Despite Tony’s insistence, he keeps to the bare minimum except for a few tools for his suit and a high-quality computer to update Karen as he wishes. The couch has been the only element he salvaged from his old apartment. May and Ben bought it years ago, and despite the sagging seat Peter refuses to crash anywhere else. 

“Seems like you’re all set kiddo.” Tony wipes his hands and looks over the room.  “Ready to pull all-nighters to finish your chemistry essays and bring home some nice gals. Oh no, I forgot you had a girlfriend.”

“Cindy is not my girlfriend.” He empties the last box from its folded clothes and straightens one of the only boards of the flat, an Ahsoka fan art he found at a convention a while back. “We’re just…”

Friendship isn’t enough to encompass whatever they have going on, but they’re not in love with each other either. Peter has long stopped trying to decipher all the ins and outs of their relationship. 

“We just have a lot of affection for each other,” he settles on.

He ducks his head under the glance. It’s the first time they’re talking about this, he’s not even sure Tony is aware of the extent of his whereabouts with Cindy. He sees him bite back a retort, probably a sarcastic comment only he has the secret of. He ends up putting a hand on Peter’s shoulder and squeezes it lightly. 

“That’s actually great. Nice, kid.”

This is, surprisingly, not awkward. 

Happy chooses this moment to emerge from the bathroom. He glares at Tony and fetches his keys from the counter. “I’m going back to the Tower, some people have work to do. Kid, see you on Friday.” Peter salutes him as Tony complains about how he will go back to SI. 

“You’ll just have to call a suit!”

Peter’s laugh comes out before he can control it.

Tony rolls his eyes, “Now that the Grinch has left, do you need anything else? I’m sure I can fit an alpaca somewhere.”

Peter’s eyes roam over the dorm, with its muted sage-green walls and overdated kitchen, the Spider-Man suit discarded on his bed, the picture of his fake internship diploma sitting over the sink facing the one of May and him at their favorite Thai place that pinches his heart only a little bit. 

“No,” he smiles, “I’ll manage.”

Chapter Text

The school year doesn’t start with endless lectures about thermodynamics, but with Rhino wreaking havoc in New York.

“Look,” he yells after avoiding being pierced for the fourth time by a horn, “I get that you’re kinda obsessed with me and all, but there are better ways to get my attention you know? Flowers for a start, I like lilies.”

He swings higher and takes a sharp turn around a building to end up behind the villain of the week. He shoots webs at his feet and pulls him back into the boulevard.

“Dinner is another option, but not sure you’re up for tacos!”

Rhino trashes around with the energy of a madman and grips the floor with his bare hands. It leaves ten trenches in the concrete.

“Huh, got any manicurist recommendations? That seems to be good work.”

Statistically, Peter overpowers him, but in his quest to save nearby civilians and limit damage to property, he happens to be thrown out a few times at the speed of a bullet. 

Still, he has a class to attend and not enough time to swing by his apartment. Having enough, he sticks a web to a street lamp and spins around Rhino to wrap him in a cocoon. He empties his last two webcarriages, but if it is what it takes to subdue him for a few hours he will take the risk of being short of webs in case he encounters another criminal on his way to NYU. 

This is already his third fight with the villain and they’re only halfway through October. Somehow, Rhino always finds a way to break out and charge through all of New York to lure him out. Peter is getting sick of it and makes sure to let it known on the note he leaves for the local police.

He barely holds a wince when he slips discreetly into the lecture half an hour later, his whole body screaming in pain.

“That’s already the fifth time this month, Parker,” the person next to him whispers behind her arm. 

“I wouldn’t be late if the cops could hold a criminal for more than twenty-four hours,” he grumbles. “Subway was down again.” 

“They do their best, ok?” she spats. “It’s not their fault villains are not even humans anymore. Also, you live on campus, the fourth building on the east side, you don’t have to take the subway.” 

He looks suspiciously at her. “How do you even know that?”

She glances away. “I saw you leave it with Gunter the other day. Don’t think I’m stalking you or anything.”

“Right,” he squints.

Gwen Stacy is nineteen, a genius in physics, and even more nerdy than him. 

When he entered the room last in their first class of the term, he found himself with no choice but to sit next to the blond in the middle row with a penchant for white and pink clothing, doodling manga characters on her sheet. He quickly found out however that it is nothing more than a deceiving facade as she has incredible multitasking abilities and is one of the people the most devoted to their studies he has ever seen. 

Which is ideal when you’re looking for a college teammate, but also incompatible with his extracurricular activities. In less than two months, she has already scolded him multiple times for his late arrivals. 

Peter won’t go as far as to say they are friends, but they find common ground in practical lessons. He loves to dive into the most technical parts of their experimentations while Gwen has a knack for project planning and statistical analysis. In the short period since they started working together, they have already gotten the best grades in the class. 

“Did I miss anything?” he whispers hurriedly while trying to find his pencil case under the suit without any of his classmates noticing.

“Unfortunately no,” she scowls.

He gives her a sheepish grin and victoriously gets his blue pen out. His phone chooses this moment to send him a notification and Peter silently prays to Thor that it’s not another alert from NYPD.

It turns out to be Abe.

“WTF??? Rhino again???? are you his ex or smth” 

Then, after a while, “are you alright???”   

He chuckles until Gwen elbows him to keep focusing on their lecture. It always fascinates him how fast the media manages to get a story out. It has not even been an hour!

“ IKR ,” he quickly types out, “ do you think I should offer him a date next time? ”

When class finally ends, Gwen offers him to walk to the library to finish their last lab report.

Peter winces apologetically. “Sorry, I have to go. Tomorrow after Chemistry?”

He’s desperately low on webs and his shooters took a nasty hit in his last fall. He even fears he might have to swing back to the Tower to get it properly looked at. 

Gwen frowns for a short second before cooling it into a neutral expression. “Sure, you do you. See you then, Parker.”

Peter slips into the car with rage in his veins and a terrible feeling of hunger. 

“Can someone explain to me—” he throws his bag to the other side of the seat, “why all the New York psychos decided to gang up on me?”

He removes his shoes and lets sand fall onto the car floor. On any other day, he would have died at the idea of dirtying the very expensive SUV, but this time he more than deserves to do so. “Sandman seriously? Haven’t seen him since 2017! What does the NYPD even do ? Can’t they keep them locked up for more than a week?”

He huffs loudly and slumps back into the seat to rummage through his bag for something to eat. “Vibranium, that’s what they need. Do you think your friends in Wakanda can ship us a batch?”

Tony doesn’t answer. Peter looks up to the passenger seat only to find it empty. 

He turns sharply to Happy. “What is going on? Shouldn’t we go to the Compound today?”

The man briefly glances at him through the rear mirror. “We are.”

His shoulders are tense and his tone definitely lower than usual, which is saying something considering Peter has never heard anything other than grunts and grumbles from him. 

“Is he already there?”

“He’s not coming.”

Peter stops chewing on the muffin he had half-shoved into his mouth and furrows his eyebrows. “Happy, what is going on?”

The chauffeur mutters something in his beard and joins the highway. “He has something to deal with at the company.”

“Yeah sure,” he retorts without much conviction. 

Happy has never been a great liar and Peter doesn’t have to wait long before he drops the pretense and sends a softer look toward him. “He wasn’t feeling well.”

Peter falls back further into his seat and looks at the cars passing by outside. “I thought he was doing better.”

It has been a while since Tony isolated himself to drink his sorrow away. Months, if not a year. 

“He was, but you know how grief is. Last month should have been their one-year anniversary as newlyweds, he doesn’t take it well. None of us do,” he adds as an afterthought.

It’s true that Peter never considered much the impact of the death of Pepper Potts on Happy. The man has always kept a stoic facade and acted like a rock for both Tony and him, Peter doesn’t think he has ever seen through the cracks. 

“And you, how are you doing?” he decides to ask before he chickens out. 

Happy is clearly taken aback by the inquiry. “What?” 

“It must not be easy for you too, so how are you doing currently?”

He fidgets under the stare and tries very hard to not think about the blush that is sure to take over his cheeks right now. 

It takes a while, but Happy finally relents. “It’s not easy, but I go by,” he shrugs, his eyes fixed on the road. “Thank you.” 

Had he not possessed a strong hearing, the last words would have been too low for Peter to hear. 

The rest of the ride is peaceful, only occasionally broken by Happy’s gruff comments about the news.  

“What a bunch of nonsense,” he gestures rudely at the radio. “People die because of these lunatics.”

Peter blinks away the dizziness that he had started to slip into and regards the driver with a frown. “What’s the matter?”

“Didn’t you hear about that cult? The Seeds of Titans? The couple that was killed after jumping from their roof was apparently part of them.”

“No?” he straightens. “Was it in New York?”

“Washington, but it’s all the same. These guys somehow think Thanos was right and are building a huge community around it.”

He didn’t miss the glance in his direction. 

Peter bites his inner cheek and redirects his attention toward the window. He hates to admit it, but even a year and a half later any mention of Thanos burns like acid. 

“That’s…” he says for a few seconds, unsure how to finish. 

“Yeah, me too kid.”

They spend the rest of the car ride in absolute silence. 

“How the shoulder?” Black Widow asks in lieu of greeting when they make it to the front door. 

Peter rubs the aforementioned body part with a wince, amazed at her insight. 

“Did you crash into a building again?” Happy asks with suspicion. 

“That was one time! Will you let me drop it?” 

Peter isn’t hurt, per se, but Rhino dislocated his left shoulder during their first fight and had the unfortunate habit of trying to press it into the ground the rare times he catches him in mid-air. His metabolism works wonders, but due to the lack of break, he didn’t have the opportunity to fully reset his joint recently. 

“You might have super strength, your form is poor,” The spy proclaims, arms crossed over her chest. ”He shouldn’t have gotten to you that last time.”

Peter doesn’t realize who he’s glaring at until a second too late. 

“Don’t be so hard on him Nat, the boy is doing alright if I say so myself,” his savior decides to chip in.

He will vehemently deny for the rest of his life that he preened at the praise. “Hello Mr. Rogers!”

“Just Steve is fine,” the man gently shakes his head, which Peter gladly ignores. He shakes hands with Colonel Rhodes who appears behind them and follows the group to the main room.

“I’ve heard you had some nice encounters recently,” Tony’s friend says with unconcealed amusement. “Did you piss off the wrong person?”

Peter takes a moment to think about it. “I don’t think so? They seemed to operate alone. As mad as it sounds it is probably a coincidence.”

If the Vulture escapes then he might reconsider his words, but they haven’t reached that stage yet. 

“Well, I have good news for you then. They’re going to be sent to the Raft next week.” 

“Really?” he sighs in relief. “Good riddance, hope they enjoy their stay there.”

Captain America looks sharply at him. “The Raft isn’t a joking matter son, even for criminals.”

Peter has forgotten for a moment that the man had his friends sent to that prison. And probably helped them escape, even though Tony always refused to confirm his suspicions. The darkness in his eyes offers a rough idea of what he had seen there.

“I’m sorry Mr. Rogers, it was insensitive of me,” he says, now embarrassed. 

The man nods curtly at him, and Peter feels awful. 

“That’s quite the cranky spider we got here. What’s gotten to you?” Ms. Romanoff saves him from further discussion on the matter.  

“I spent the last two months chasing down criminals that routinely broke out of jail to get their revenge on me. That’s not how I imagined my college hazing to be.”

“How is it going by the way?” Colonel Rhodes pipes in. “Did you already get your first RA warning?”

“I bet Tony got his in the first week,” Happy grumbles as he opens a wine bottle for dinner.

“You’d be surprised,” the colonel’s smile becomes smaller. He redirects his attention to Peter, “How are classes? Have you made any friends yet?”

“They’re interesting, for now I’m glad I chose this. I didn’t have much time to socialize but I get along well with one of the girls.”

“What, no parties?” Captain America’s teasing tone clears the tension between them. 

He shrugs. “Like I said, I don’t have much time between Spider-Man and my classes. By the time I’m back, I’m happy to simply crash in my bed.”

The soldier frowns. “You can allow yourself a break from time to time, though.”

“I’m good, don’t worry,” he placates with a smile. “I don’t think I’m missing much anyway.”

Gwen also seems to be quite the loner. She spends most of her free time up in her college dorm, studying under the lamp till she drops to sleep. He doesn’t think he has seen her interact with anyone else except two girls at lunch the week prior. 

They wrap dinner quickly, but still in good camaraderie. He almost forgets which company he’s sharing and for the first time in weeks feels himself relax.

The first part of the official meeting revolves around outer space activities. Peter should get used to it, but the consequences of the Snap still horrify him. Each picture feeds his anxiety to insane levels, though he forces himself to stay rooted on the spot and listen to the whole report. If it turns out to be Earth’s future, he needs every info available. 

“Is there any way to prevent it?” he can’t help but ask when the details of Captain Marvel’s latest mission appear on screen. The survivors of Ergyo fell out in a civil war when the worldwide infrastructure used to clean the otherwise toxic water collapsed due to a lack of maintenance. With limited viable resources, it didn’t take long for the population to be shrunken to a fourth of what it used to be. 

It is a naive question, he realizes with shame when Ms. Black Widow looks at him with something akin to pity. 

“Ergyo is a particular case,” she starts carefully, “not only their ecosystem was already quite aggressive, but their water has been getting poisoned for a few centuries since they were hit by a meteor. There was also an imbalance in the geographical repartition of those who were Snapped, it’s not unheard of, but still uncommon. Most of their technology comes from the southern hemisphere, and this area lost nearly sixty percent of its population. It is enough for everything to fall down.” She takes a breath and looks at Peter with a ghost of a smile. “As much we wish to, we have no power and not any right to interfere in their politics.” 

“We already have our own mess to deal with,” Mr. Rhodes sighs from the back of the room.

“Any thought on the upcoming elections?” Captain America asks in a half-joking manner. 

“I’d rather not, have you looked at the state of Europe recently? This whole thing promises to be a nightmare.”

Peter tunes out a little at that, lost in his own thoughts. Despite reaching the voting age this summer, he never actively sought out information on politics. Another thing he will have to change, he muses.

“Ronin was spotted in South America recently,” Colonel Rhodes says when they return to local business. “Beat up a few guys, totally disposed of another mafia.”

“We should contact him.” Black Widow cuts in. 

“Do you want him to join us?”

“I want to understand his intentions. Plus, it doesn’t hurt to have an idea of the field. Ross might be dead, his ideas certainly aren’t, so it’s better to know who’s going to be involved if we’re going to see a revival of the Accords,” she finishes, her voice steady but her jaw tight.

Her words hang heavy in the air while Peter tries to sink into his seat. It doesn’t miss the silent conversation that seems to happen between the other adults. 

“Who’s Ronin?” he dares to ask after a minute of tension.

“We… aren’t sure yet. He’s known for leaving a trail of blood everywhere he goes before disappearing for weeks. For now he seems to focus on criminals, but we don’t know how long it will last.”

Colonel Rhodes lays back in his chair with a thoughtful expression. “Is he a super?”

Ms. Romanoff hesitates. “He seems to be a skillful assassin more than anything else, but this is why I’d like you to investigate.”

“Why me?”

She raises an eyebrow. 

“Forget it,” he sighs, “guess we can’t have it fall into the wrong hands, huh?”

Peter goes back to New York the next day and doesn’t waste a minute in visiting Tony. He doesn’t know exactly what to expect when he enters the lab, but it is certainly not the sight of the dismantled Iron Man armor lying flat on a table. 

He doesn’t notice his mentor at first, hunched over the metal torso in a greasy shirt and face covered with a welding shield, until the man lets out a particularly vulgar swear word. 

“Huh, hello?” 

For all reaction, the billionaire lights up his welding torch. 

“Tony?” Still no answer. “Mr. Stark?”

“I thought we were already past that stage?”

Peter snorts, not surprised that this is what it took to get his mentor’s head out of the gutter. 

The man puts away his gear and faces Peter with dark-stained cheeks. “In which honor do I owe the pleasure of your visit?”

“Just passing by,” he shrugs. “We… just got back from the Compound.” 

“Oh”, Tony instantly goes back to work. “How are our little furry friends?”

“Rocket and Nebula weren’t there, only Ms. Romanoff, Mr. Rogers and Colonel Rhodes.”

“Obviously,” he mumbles, his attention focused on the armor.

Peter frowns, sensing the tension but unable to put his finger on it.

“Are you trying to improve it?”, he decides to change the subject. He notes that Tony also doesn’t ask for further details either. 

This is the first time Peter sees the armor since that dreadful day. He has wondered obviously, like the media and the entirety of the world, if he will have the chance to witness it in action again one day but never dared to bring it up to the man himself. 

He approaches tentatively and takes a seat next to the engineer.

“Can you get me the 9mm spanner?”

Peter rummages through the cluttered workspace and passes it to him without a word. He stares at the battered form of the armor, his gaze stopping for longer than necessary at the speck of dust littering the field of red. 

“You… haven’t worn it since then,” he ventures cautiously.

He watches Tony’s movements, methodical and precise, but there’s a tension in his shoulders that Peter has never seen before.

“Will you?” The words are out before he can hold them.

He instantly shifts uncomfortably, feeling like he’s crossed an invisible line. For a minute, only the soft whir of the mechanical arm on the workbench fills the silence between them.

“Do you want me to?”

Peter stammers, completely caught off guard. “ Why wouldn’t I?”

“I dunno,” Tony shrugs, “being Iron Man didn’t do much good recently.”

Peter can’t believe what he’s hearing.  

“I don’t like this conversation,” he blurts out. It makes his stomach turn and gives him the sudden urge to scratch his skin. 

Tony stares at him momentarily then clasps a hand around his shoulder. “Forget it then.” He hands him a tool. “Let’s see if you’re as good with this as you are with web fluid.”

Peter takes the tool hesitantly, his fingers brushing against the cool metal. The weight of Tony’s hand lingers on his shoulder, grounding him, but the unease in his chest doesn’t fully dissipate.

Despite Tony’s nagging last school year, Peter has been adamant from the start about getting housing on campus. Not only is it more practical, but he has always wanted to share that experience with his fellow freshman students. 

Still, as he lays awake in his bed for the past hour unable to fall asleep, he thinks the community belonging has reached its limit.

Gunter, his classmate who also happens to live underneath, is hosting another party or some sort. It’s the third since the start of the year and the volume has definitely reached a new height to the point he can still distinguish most of the conversations in spite of his fitted earplugs and the heavy metal blasting through the speakers.

He ponders whether to unleash RA on him for a while, but finally decides it isn’t worth it.

“You should have done it,” Gwen tells him when he complains about it the next day. “You have more of a right to decent sleep than they have to get their asses drunk. Have you finished your data analysis exercises? I want to check something.”

He hands her his work and shrugs. “It's Gunter, I don't want bad blood between us.”

“Then you should have told him nicely and directly like the polite person you are. Besides, it's anonymous, he would be none the wiser.”

“Are you sure you still have any friends left?” he asks, amused. 

She sends him a weak glare. “I will let you know that I have plenty. They're called Gwendolyn. And... Gwanda.”

Peter snorts, followed closely by Gwen's own laughter. 

“For real though,” she continues after a while, “I joined back a band. They're cool.”

“Oh really? What do you play?”

“Drums of course. Do you?”

He rubs his neck in embarrassment. “I was in the school’s band till sophomore year. My uncle thought the sax would be cool for my asthma, but it turned out to not be such a good idea so I switched to percussion. I was pretty bad at it.”

“Somehow, I can see it,” she smirks. “I bet you had horrible timing.”

He had. After the bite, his earring had improved so much that he didn't have any issue in replicating the beat, but his extracurricular activities made becoming a musician superstar a low priority.

“Did you get your midterm report?” she inquires while munching on a granola bar. 

Peter hides his wince at the reminder. His results are overall decent, with an excellent grade in chemistry to his relief, but he has already been warned for his absence and threatened to have his final results impacted. 

“They’re probably not as good as yours,” he offers. 

It’s actually quite cute how Gwen beams at the compliment. As much as she takes her work diligently and lets everyone know how much it matters to her, she rarely takes pride in her own feats. 

“They would easily be if you made sure to attend all our classes. I’ve still not forgiven you for the last lab. I’m sure Professor Stanley held it against us in our exam.”

He smiles apologetically but feels guilty enough to not comment. 

“They still haven’t found a teacher for Cell and Molecular Biology by the way,“ she frowns. 

“Oh. I guess they’re going to move one of our classes again? Please, let it be Writing,” he looks at the ceiling in despair.

Gwen crosses her arms and stares at him, unimpressed. “On that topic, have you started your essay yet?”

“Almost,” he’s proud to announce. “I decided to go for a talk on Planet Nine.”

“Planet Nine doesn’t exist.”

“It does.”

“Yeah sure,” she rolls her eyes.

“It’s true! TNOs’ orbits align closely with the Planet Nine hypothesis, look at the studies!” That’s the first thing he asked Nebula on the Benatar, once the initial shock of Thanos’ Snap had faded away and his worry about May and his friends had been slightly more manageable.

“I still think the blackhole model has more leverage.”

He retains himself from childishly sticking his tongue out. 

“For real though,” he concedes, “I might tackle Fermi’s paradox. Or the perspective of consciousness in artificial intelligence, I still haven’t decided.” After all, he has a real model back at the Tower. 

His phone chooses this moment to vibrate. Peter doesn’t have to check it to know that Karen has sent him the latest update on criminal activities. It is already pretty late into the day and with the night falling earlier it is no wonder he already gets opportunities to help. 

“Sorry, my coworker once again bailed out, I have to cover for them,” he winces. 

It is an easy lie he has fallen into, the first time she had asked him about his tendency to leave unprompted. The owner of a coffee shop that tires them out for hours, a chronically absent coworker, an inventory that turns out to be longer than expected… he is sure to have exhausted all of them by now. 

“Gotta go!” He gathers his book and throws his bag on his shoulder with a salute. “See you tomorrow.”

Gwen points at him warningly. “We have to finish the chemistry presentation before Monday. You better not fail to show up again.”

“Yeah, yeah, I promise!” he calls above his shoulder one last time before running through the door. 

Peter doesn’t show up. 

He spends the first part of the night comforting the owner of a tea shop that has almost been robbed by two men barely older than him. He doesn’t know who to feel the most sorry for when he hands them to the police: their hearts are loudly beating in fear and their eyes show a desperation that has no place on faces so young. 

Around midnight, he starts to trail four suspicious-looking men who have just left an apartment. Their conversation seems to innocently revolve around a spice business at first, but some sentences inevitably catch his attention. By the time they reach their car, he is certain they’re part of a mafia. 

He can’t confirm their affiliation yet, but given their area of operation, there are not many options. Kingpin is truly a painful thorn in his side. 

He follows their vehicle to a warehouse near the airport, which is not an easy feat in the dark, and waits. Between the bay and the frequent take-offs, even at this hour, he has a hard time hearing their conversation through the glass of the car. The few words he manages to gather only hint toward an arm deal they want to negotiate with a soon-to-be ally. 

Peter is starting to doubt their contact will actually come when all the hair on his skin suddenly raises up. He barely has time to crouch down before a bullet hits the pole he was sticking on.

“Karen! What’s the situation?”

He takes cover on the roof of a nearby building and quickly scans his surroundings before he has to avoid two new shots.  

“The bullets were shot at an angle of 43°. Given their speed and direction, the shooter should be less than half a mile north of your current position.”

Peter jumps off the roof to land on the wall of the next building, out of view of the shooter, and takes a deep breath. His attacker will have to move either to the street or the roof of one of the two buildings surrounding him to have a chance to hit him, which gives him a few minutes at most. He also has no idea about the technology they have on hand. As far as Peter knows, they might have already targeted his exact position or can travel this distance in mere seconds.  

The prickling sensation in his neck is still there, but his anxiety has actually gone down a little. He is safe, for now. 

He activates the thermal view of his lenses and moves slowly toward the direction of the shooter, still making sure he has at least a wall to protect him. His suit is bulletproof, but the force of the impact still hurts and there’s no saying a stray bullet won’t hit a bystander or source of explosives. The area might seem empty, he can’t take that risk. 

After a few minutes though, he has to admit that the shooter has left the area.  There’s no sign of life and his senses have almost all come down to normal. 

He jumps on top of the building from which the shooter probably made his operations and looks toward the warehouse. The top of the pole he was sticking on, can be seen slightly to the left.

“Peter, I would suggest going back to campus, it is already 2am.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he grumbles, angry at himself for not catching up to them in time. “I’m gonna patrol a little bit more to make sure they’re not around. It should take half an hour.”

It actually takes four, because a fire starts on Myrtle Avenue right when he intends to wrap up and the fire department can use his help in recovering the dozen people stuck and preventing the roof from breaking down. By the time he reaches NYU, the sun is already rising in the horizon. 

Peter engulfs the two pizzas he has bought in a 24/7 store on the way and crashes into his bed for a nap that turns out to last hours. 

He knows he’s screwed when he wakes up at 3pm with no message from Gwen. Nothing is going to salvage his integrity, but he still rushes in time to the library to see her leaving. 

“Gwen! I’m so sorry I swear I-”

“Peter,” her voice is oddly neutral, “I don’t care.”

He resists the urge to look down at his shoes. 

“It’s the eigh- no actually, I lost count last month. I’m sick of your flakiness and even more so of your lame excuses.”

He opens his mouth, but no sound comes. He isn’t sure that any of his words would be appropriate, they are both long-past promises. 

“You’re a good guy,” she continues without meeting his eyes, “so I believe you have a good reason - or hopes so anyway - but I can’t do it anymore.” 

Her hair briefly hides her frown, which Peter decides with guilt, doesn’t suit her face at all. “If you don’t want to take your studies seriously, that’s your problem, but I won’t let you drag me down further. We can still be friends, but as far as schoolwork goes, we’re done.”

He nods shyly. “I understand,” he whispers. 

Gwen finally looks up at him with pinched lips. “I don’t know what your deal is. I know you don’t work for a coffee shop, and the schedule doesn’t match, but I can’t figure why you keep on- on lying .”

Peter closes his eyes and bites the inside of his cheek. There is no way to answer that question without adding another lie to the mix. She doesn’t deserve this. 

Gwen turns around and gives him one last look. “I know I’m not the best at it but… if you have issues you can talk to me too, you know?”

Peter watches her walk away in the breezy afternoon with a lump in his throat. 

She has been gracious in her final decision, and even more so beforehand. Three months is a generous period, given the number of times he stood her up at the last minute. It is a wonder she hasn’t made her discontent known sooner. 

It only puts him more to shame. 

Peter knows his mood has been terrible for the past few days. When he doesn’t answer to Tony’s teasing with more bite than he deserves or abandons his projects in frustration, he spends countless nights in the cold catching more criminals than the police have available cells for. 

And if they get more bruises than usual, well, he is none of the wiser. 

It doesn’t help that their latest heavy conversation can’t leave his head. Peter wakes up every morning with a new sense of dread that only slightly disappears when the front page of the news doesn’t blind him with an announcement about Iron Man’s retirement. 

He doesn’t intend to bring his issues up to Tony and takes advantage of his tendency to avoid the topic of relationship issues like the plague until he finds himself under the man’s determined stare. 

The apron tied around his hips and the fuming risotto do nothing to lessen Peter’s apprehension.

"So, did you finally manage to find out who shot you the other night?"

Peter blanches as Tony delights at the effect of his little stunt.

"How do—"

"You do realize that the highly advanced AI installed in your suit is directly linked to my even more highly advanced AI, right?" 

"Shit."

Tony lowers his head and looks at him more seriously. "Yeah, shit. Did you intend to share it with the class, at some point?" 

He refrains from answering that one. 

Internally, Peter decides that it's finally time to look for a way to limit Karen's communication with FRIDAY. He doesn't need the training wheels anymore. 

"I'm fine," he grumbles.

"Of course you are, otherwise I would have dragged your ass to Medbay days ago. Anyway, I looked a little into it. Turns out our little friend is good, but still leagues under dear Natashalie.”

Tony activates the projector to display the face of a man in his thirties, his dark eyes almost hidden under large furrowed brows.

“Reg Burstling - an alias probably - is in cahoot with Kingpin. I don’t know why he was there that night, it seems strange for a shooter to be the sole security of such a meeting. There was probably more going on in that area.” Then, after a pause, “Obviously, the whole deal could have also been a ploy to lead you as they wish, but they had no reason to, as you don’t meddle with Kingpin’s affairs, right?”

Peter bites his cheek hard. 

“Riiight?” Tony asks more urgently.

“I don’t look for it,” he enunciates slowly, “but sometimes I happen to get into his business and beat a few of his guys,” he concedes.

His mentor flaps his arms aimlessly and dramatically rolls his eyes toward the ceiling.

“I thought we went over it.”

“We did! I swear, I don’t proactively look for trouble, and when I find something fishy I leave hints for the NYPD! But sometimes it just… happens.”

Tony looks at him for a few seconds during which Peter tries his hardest to convey his sincerity. 

Deep down though, it makes his heart sting to know that after all they went through the man still doesn’t trust him with bigger issues. 

Peter chops his fruits with gritted teeth and tensely passes the remaining ingredients to Tony. 

“How’s your little friend doing by the way? It’s been a while since you blabbered about her.”

“What’s the next step?” he moves around the man to take a look at the recipe scribbled on a pale yellow sheet. “This dessert won’t finish itself.”

Tony rips it from his view to hand it above his head. “I asked a question.”

Peter has to bite back a smile. “I can already think of three different ways to take that back from you.”

“You’re slacking, I can think of five.”

He shakes his head and leans on his toes to quickly snatch the slip of paper with two fingers. 

“She’s doing fine,” he mumbles. “We’re kinda busy these days, a lot of work you know.”

Tony hums in a way that betrays how much he trusts Peter’s claim at that moment. 

“I screwed up and she had enough,” he finally finds the courage to say. 

He finds peculiar satisfaction in the way his mentor shifts in clear discomfort. It reprieves him a little from his misery. 

“I missed another meeting,” he whispers, eyes low. “She couldn’t take in my excuses anymore. To be honest, I don’t think she ever believed them, but at least she was humoring me a little. Now it’s too late for that.”

Tony doesn’t answer right away. When Peter looks up, Tony is drying the utensils they used earlier with an unreadable expression on his face. 

Out of everyone though, he should be the one who understands him the most. As drastically different as their lives can be, the ring hanging on his chest from a thin golden chain is enough proof that the man has a solid idea of Peter’s challenges. 

It’s easy, definitely more than it should be, to imagine what May would say in his place. She would send him that half-disappointed stare from the top of her glasses and remind him that Peter Parker’s life should never suffer from his life as Spider-Man, and that he should make it to Gwen because a sweet girl like her certainly deserves more. He would argue back that he could never ignore people in distress no matter the consequences, but would still dip his head low and promise to do better. 

“How many hours did you spend in the suit this week?” 

Peter shakes himself out of his musing. Tony is leaning on the counter, arms crossed and face softened lightly.

“I— I don’t know?” 

“Let me break it to you then. Eighty-five.”

Peter is half-tempted to laugh in his face, because that number seems so ridiculously high it cannot be real, but his mentor is holding his gaze with such seriousness that any retort dies on his lips.

“You’re not a machine,” Tony continues, his voice firm but not unkind. “And the people in your life? They’re not side characters in your superhero origin story. You can’t keep treating your real life like it’s Plan B, Parker. One day, you’re going to wake up, and it’s all going to be gone. And trust me kid, you’re going to hate yourself for it.”

He doesn’t dare to admit it, but the little Christmas outing prompted by Charles’ incessant nagging seems like the highlight of his month. 

Drowned into countless layers to fight against the cold, he is surprisingly the first one to be left waiting at their meeting point five minutes early.

He is still thinking about the essay he could have finished in the meantime when Cindy walks over to him wrapped in a black jacket, her long dark hair hidden under a fluffy beanie. 

He looks in confusion between the street she came down from and the subway exit. 

“I stayed at Columbia,” she says, sensing his silent question. 

“You really have that much work?”

She shrugs nonchalantly, though Peter doesn’t miss the way she avoids his gaze. “Not really, but Dad is being a little too friendly with the bottle and I’m not in the mood to deal with that.”

There’s definitely an edge to her tone. Peter fumbles with his phone long enough to see Charles’ message warning them of his late arrival and clears his throat. 

“It is that bad, then?” 

“Not what it used to be,” she says carefully, “but I’m not Mom, I don’t want to spend energy fighting him over it.”

In the year that he truly befriended Cindy, Peter quickly learned that any mention of her mother would be welcomed with a particularly sharp tension and a drastic change of subject. He doesn’t know what to make of her sudden slip. 

Any tentative at comforting his friend is however cut short by a loud voice. 

“Hey dude! And dudette, of course.”

Cindy rolls her eyes but accepts the half-hug Abe has to offer. 

It is with a beaming smile that their friend welcomes them, even if he has lost a considerable amount of weight and his eyes are adorned with deep circles. Peter feels relieved that, despite the appearances, he has as much energy as he accustomed them to. 

Charles barges in at full speed a few minutes later, and they finally make their way to the market. Their first stop is an alley surrounded by wooden stands selling a mix of various artisans and hot sugary food that makes Peter drool way more than it should. As Cindy takes out her camera to snap a few shots of the Christmas atmosphere, he can’t help but chastise himself for forgetting his at the Tower. 

“By the way Peter,” Charles slips by his side with a slight disequilibrium due to the icy-covered floor. He has changed glasses and now sports a fat rectangular black frame. “A few people in my grade are also into board games. We’re going to host monthly night sessions, you should join us.” 

“Huh, yeah, I’ll see what I can do. You know how NYU is, I’m quite busy.”

“Come on man,” he shoves him lightly, “don’t tell me you have so much work that you can’t spare us a night there and then.”

He avoids Abe’s pointed gaze and smiles shyly at Charles. “Believe me, I have quite a lot of work to do… unlike Civil Engineering.”

His friend rolls his eyes playfully and looks back at Cindy. “Did you hear this? We should be careful, he’s getting a big head.”

It is quite disconcerting to see him display such confidence after spending all highschool, and especially last year, trying to blend into Abe’s shadow more than anything else. 

“If Peter is being lame, I can join you. I’m thinking of dropping uni anyway.”

They all look back at her in shock. 

“What?!”

“I’m the token failure, don’t steal my title!”

“What happened?”

She sighs and levels them all with a glare.

“Don’t get your panties in a twist, I’ll probably just end up switching major. I’m just… not feeling it?”

And Peter does get it. As much as he likes his newfound independence, sometimes the thought of attending college lectures and planning his school year makes his stomach turn in unexpected ways.

It’s the fear of moving on, Mrs. Verney had said once when he shared his insecurities about getting his own place while he dreamed of sharing a flat with Ned since they were thirteen. 

“What do you intend to do, then?”

“Probably History, maybe Spanish, I dunno,” she shrugs. “I might end up as a glass blower for all I know.”

It’s an hour later, when Cindy and Charles are grilling a stand owner about the backstages of his art pieces, that Abe discreetly catches his attention. 

“So,” he softly whispers, “how is it going? You know,” he looks around, “the pweeh pweeh.”

Peter silently rolls his eyes at the nickname. Not the worst he had ever heard —  Ned, always an amateur of horror movies, once dubbed his extracurricular activity as The Crawling — but it still sounds ridiculous.

“It’s going,” he shrugs. 

“Aren’t you getting tired? You’re in the news every day.”

Peter has a half-mind to keep an eye on their friends to make sure their conversation remains private.

“Well, I wished New York’s crazies could have used all their PTOs,” he mumbles. 

Abe chuckles weakly. “They sure gave you a run for your money…”

His friend's constant fidgeting is starting to grate on his nerves. For someone who has never been used to beating around the bush, Abe surely lets his concern show for too long. 

“What’s the matter?”

It seems to be all Abe has been waiting for, as his facade finally crumbles. “Have you heard about the Seeds of Titan?”

That name again. Peter hasn’t paid attention to their activities since his visit to the Avengers Compound, but the fact that it has come up again is definitely worrying. 

“Barely. Happy – that’s Tony’s bodyguard – talked me a little about it a few weeks ago—,”

“Tony?!” Abe mouths, though Peter pays it no mind. 

“—but I haven’t got time to really get into it. What’s the issue?”

The worry etched on his friend’s face is so obvious now, Peter wonders how he missed it earlier. 

“I think my cousin is part of them. She’s not openly admitting it, but last time she came by she threw a few words about how those who survived the Snap are condemned and true salvation lies elsewhere. It’s pretty scary, to be honest.”

Before he can hold it, a shiver runs through his body. Maybe it’s simply due to the mention of the Snap, but there’s something uncanny in these words.

“I—” he shakes his head, “Sorry, I don’t have much idea about them.”

“Really? You’re part of the Avengers though, surely they must be on their tails.”

“Like I said, we don’t—”

“Come on man,” he sounds desperate now, “Didn’t you hear about the suicide cases? I read plenty of theories, there’s a good chance they also got into the new government! I did a little digging, some believe they have one of their main offices on 65th Avenue. Didn’t you see anything?”

“Abe!” Peter says more forcefully than he intends to. He quickly checks his surroundings but their two friends are still deep into a conversation with the shop owner. “Look, I get why you’re freaked out, but I’m just a guy in spandex trying to keep muggers off the street. I don’t have inside info on every group that pops up.”

“Fiona has been distancing herself from us, even her best friend said they barely talk to each other now. She stopped going to Church and now does weird rituals in the morning. These guys are not simple conspiracy nuts, I don’t want to lose her too!”

And doesn’t that hit it home? 

Peter takes a short breath and ruffles the back of his head, his thoughts drifting to painful territory. “Alright, I’ll keep an eye out—”  

“Hey lovebirds, you’re done here?”

Cindy marches up to them with a new bag in hand while Charles shoves the last bit of his waffle as he hurries after her.

She glances at them suspiciously, clearly sensing the tension, but to his relief decides to drop it.

“They apparently put a lot of illuminations in the park, you coming?”

“Let’s go,” Peter shoots forward before Abe can comment more. 

He possesses immense strength that can hold whole buildings and a sixth sense akin to magic, still, he feels absolutely out of his depth. He can’t even submit his college work on it in time, how is he supposed to deal with a cult?