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“Peter if you were having trouble sleeping you could’ve just told me,” May insisted with a tight frown. She clenched her coffee mug filled with tea with both hands as if it were a lifeline.
Peter sat across from her with his hands clasped together in his lap. After falling asleep at the penthouse and getting the drugs made for him, Tony forced him to go home and tell his aunt everything .
“I know, I’m sorry.” He did feel guilty, for keeping his issues from her.
“And the nightmares? You said they’re back?”
He nodded slowly. “Yeah,” then hastily, “but only when I’m super anxious. Mr Stark said she could make me meds for that too. Or… therapy was an option.” He shrugged weakly.
She tilted her head at him. “Are you sure you wanna fry therapy? You were… pretty against it when Ben… passed.”
“If it’ll help. Which Mr Stark and Doctor Cho are pretty sure it will. I’m gonna try the drugs first.”
She smiled, with some strain. “Well I’m glad you told me. About your room though…” she trailed off, glancing at it with furrowed eyebrows in thought.
“About that… Mr Stark did say he was working on something-“
A knock on the door cut him off and both their heads swung to look at it. Peter jumped up and answered it in a beat.
Tony stood there with a grin, holding up a small circular device in his hand. A compact. “For you.” He handed it to him like it was sacred.
Peter accepted it just that way. “What is this?”
Tony moved past Peter and into his apartment. Peter grunted in slight annoyance.
Tony nodded awkwardly at May. “Uh- May.” Then, embarrassingly, bowed to her.
She raised an eyebrow, and looked as if she was holding in a laugh. “Tony… you don’t need to be formal.”
Tony hummed in acknowledgment, but he still didn’t look sure. “Well. I created a device to help soundproof Peter’s room here,” Tony explained.
Peter followed Tony to the table and let the man take the compact out of his hand and set it on the table. Then he opened it.
A holographic looking life sized version of his room engulfed them. Or; just the walls. He never noticed how small it was.
“What is this?” May questioned, putting her hand through the blue wall closest to her.
“Sound barriers.” Tony grinned like it was the most amazing thing he’d ever thought of. Maybe it was. “If he sets this in the center of his room and pushes the button at night, his room will be completely sound proof. His little ears will be protected all night.”
Peter’s eyebrows shot up. It was… insane. Amazing. “Wow. You didn’t,” he laughed almost awkwardly, “you didn’t have to do all this.”
He waved a hand in the air. “Nonsense. It wasn’t that hard.”
“And you did this in the three hours Peter wasn’t at your tower?” May asked.
He nodded. “Yes ma’am.”
She huffed in slight exasperation. “You don’t need to call me ma’am Tony.”
Peter spoke over her, “wait, hang on. How? How did you create nonphysical audio barriers? I mean it’s entirely theoretical. You could- you could patent this. You’d make millions.”
He shrugged nonchalantly. “I guess I could. Or I could give it to my needy spider kid.”
Peter blushed. He pressed the button and closed the compact. “You better make more of this. This is an insane invention.”
“Smart people,” May muttered with a slight head shake.
Peter rolled his eyes.
“I will, Pete.”
Peter shrugged. “Hey, you’d say the same thing to me.”
“Can’t argue with that one.” Tony sighed, “alright I gotta go. I have a meeting with Ross. Good ole Avengers should be moving back in tomorrow.”
Peter’s face brightened times ten. “Seriously? Already?”
Tony looked amused. “Ross isn’t too happy, but yes. If everything goes according to plan.”
“It will.”
“You don’t know-“
“Positive manifestation, Mr Stark.”
“Hang on.” May held up a hand. “These guys will be…” She glanced worriedly at Peter, who furrowed his eyebrows. “Safe? For Peter to be around.”
He groaned, leaning his head back. “May.”
“Yes,” Tony laughed, ruffling his hair. “It’s a valid question, kid. They were legally rogue.”
“Whatever.”
“ Okay I really do have to go now.” He waved to both of them, “bye kid, May. Be safe.”
— 🕷️—
“So the Avengers are getting back together?” Ned questioned loudly a few days later. His eyes wide as he slammed his locker shut in shock.
Peter grimaced. “Shh! And- yes. They’re getting back together sometime this week.”
“But you don’t know when?”
He shrugged. “I guess I’ll figure that out after school.”
He caught Flash’s eye from across the hall and Flash nodded curtly at him. Peter managed a smile, though somehow it wasn’t hard, and nodded back. Ned gave him a shocked look as Flash walked off.
“I still can’t believe you guys are friends now.”
Peter drew back. “We are not friends now. We’re- acquaintances…”
“You don’t sound sure,” Ned acknowledged.
“I don’t know!” Peter groaned.
“What are you guys talking about?”
Both boys jumped, surprised to see Mj standing right next to them. How long was she there?
“Jesus Mj!” Ned shouted, clenching his chest in exaggeration.
Mj rolled her eyes. “Who we’re you talking about?”
“Peter is frenemies with Flash now,” Ned grinned in amusement. Mj raised an eyebrow at him.
“Acquaintances,” he corrected in exasperation.
Ned just shrugged. “Doesn’t matter.”
Mj furrowed her eyebrows in thought. “Weird. I thought he like, hated you.”
“I dunno. Guess he just had some sort of change.”
He looked into their first hour, the door still open. Flash sat at his desk toward the front of the room, scrolling through his phone. Alone. He always used to sit with his friends in first hour.
Peter frowned.
“You feel bad for him, don’t you?” Mj asked with a smirk playing on her lips.
He swung his head to look at her. “What?”
“That’s insane, dude. He bullied you for years,” Ned laughed.
“That doesn’t mean he deserves to be alone.”
Mj grinned now. “You’re too good to people.”
He punched her shoulder softly. “Shut up.”
Ned, for some reason, was beaming at him.
—🕷️—
When he got to the tower that day, he leaned against the elevator wall. “Take me to Mr Stark, Fri.”
“Alright, Peter.”
He watched the elevator numbers rise until they got to the penthouse. He raised an eyebrow. He expected the lab.
The elevator dinged and he stepped out, bumping face to chest into Steve fucking Rogers. He yelped, falling back onto the now closed elevator door.
“Oh my god!” Steve winced, grabbing him before he completely hit the floor.
Peter winced, rubbing his head and checking himself for injuries. Steve seemed to do the same, assessing Peter with his eyes. “You don’t have a concussion from that do you?”
Peter snorted. “Definitely not. I know a lot about concussions.”
Still, Steve looked guilty. “Sorry, Peter. I didn’t know you’d be here.”
“Well I didn’t exactly know you’d be here either,” he said, crossing his arms. “Wait,” he let them fall. “Are the Avengers back together?!”
Steve looked somewhat amused. “Yeah, we are.”
“Wait why are you up here? Shouldn’t you be- like- moving in? With the rest of the Avengers?” His eyes widened in awe. “Can I meet them?”
Steve laughed slightly, but his eyes seemed to be dodging Peter’s. “I’m sure that’ll happen soon enough, kid.”
Peter’s face fell. Something was wrong here. Why was Steve so worried? Was he like this last time? Maybe the adrenaline and worry just made it hard for them all to be themselves.
That would explain it, right? Did Steve just not like Peter?
“You’re right, I should be moving in. Excuse me,” Steve said, overly formal.
Peter stepped aside and watched as Steve pressed the button for the elevator, which instantly opened. He stepped in. All while avoiding Peter’s face.
What the hell?
Peter’s face filled with determination, and he set off to find Tony. He ended up in his bedroom, where Tony stood with Pepper. Oh no. Did he interrupt something?
They stood next to each other as if in deep conversation when Peter appeared in the doorway. They instantly snapped their faces to his.
“Oh.” Tony looks surprised. But he smiled. “Hey, kiddo. Wasn’t expecting you till later.”
Peter’s eyebrows furrowed. “It’s like 3:30, Mr Stark.”
Tony’s eyes widened, “really? Dang.”
“What’s wrong with Mr Rogers?”
Tony’s face fell. “You saw him already.”
He pointed behind himself with his thumb. “I ran into him earlier.” Pepper grimaced. “You guys look weird. What’s going on?”
Pepper sighed, patting Tony’s chest, seemingly fixing his tie. “I gotta head back to work, honey. You guys have fun.” She smiled warmly at Peter, walking past him before Peter could even begin to question it.
He started off with a simple question. “So the Avengers?”
“All staying on their floor together. We can do some introductions today.”
“But what’s wrong with Steve? He looked sick or something.”
“He’s just nervous about all this, Pete. It’s nothing for you to worry about.” Tony smiled, but Peter swore there was something else there. Something troubled him. All of them.
Maybe it wasn’t his place to know.
He smiled, “introductions? You mentioned?”
—🕷️—
The introduction went as follows; all of the Avengers, including Natasha and Steve, sat along the couch in the living room. As requested by Tony through Friday. Tony and Peter stood in front of them.
Clint raised an eyebrow. “Who is this?”
Tony placed a firm hand on his shoulder and squeezed. “This is Peter. My personal intern. He hangs around here, so if you see him don’t be surprised.”
Peter met Natasha’s eyes first, who looked amused but understanding. Steve still looked away. Something was going on.
“He’s just your intern? Why is he allowed on these floors?” Sam questioned.
“Well he is allowed near all my equipment and stuff. He’s helped build a lot of my recent stuff for the team,” Tony half-explained.
Okay. So they weren’t telling them about Spider-Man. Natasha smiled when he looked at her, looked like they had a silent understanding then.
Apparently Steve, who looked as disinterested as ever, wasn’t apart of this.
Tony cleared his throat and Peter looked up at him. “Mr Stark?”
“This is the part where you introduce yourself, kid.”
“Oh yeah!” He blinked. Raised a single hand in an awkward wave. “Hi, I’m Peter.”
Wanda tilted her head and hummed. She looked suspicious of him. “He looked young.”
“‘Cause he is,” Clint agreed. “Tony do you even hire teenagers?”
Tony spoke through a picture perfect smile. “Only this one.”
Peter flushed.
“He must be smart then, huh,” Sam nodded at him.
“Almost smarter than Tony, I’d say,” Vision spoke, voice void of any emotion. Wanda hummed at that from next to him.
“Alright well,” Tony started, patting his shoulder. “Better get down to the lab then.”
“Right,” Peter nodded in agreement.
They walked off and out of the corner of his eye, Steve’s face pinched. That guilty look again. Peter’s eyes narrowed. What the hell happened here?
—🕷️—
Peter showed up again the next afternoon for his internship, but instead of going straight to the lab, he stopped on the Avengers floor for the kitchen snacks. And sure, he could’ve used Tony’s. But this one was more freshly stocked.
So he walked into their kitchen and proudly opened the fridge.
“What are you doing?” He jumped at the female voice and spun around. It was Wanda. She narrowed her eyes and tilted her head. The same look from yesterday.
How did she scare him? He clenched his cheese-sticks in his hand. “Uhm- getting snacks?”
Why did he feel like he was in trouble? Was she playing mine tricks on him?
“Tony told me not to read your mind,” she said.
Peter’s hands fell to his sides and he stepped away from the fridge, letting it shut behind him. “Uh, okay?” Was that a good thing?
“So I’m not going to, because for some reason.” She rolled her eyes, “I respect the man.”
Peter wanted to laugh and agree, because god was that relatable. But he couldn’t.
“Anyway. I know something is off about you. I can sense it you know.” Her eyes flared.
Peter blinked. He wanted to say, ‘yeah. Same.’ But for some reason Tony didn’t seem keen on telling them about Spider-Man.
“Alright then.” He wasn’t sure what to say here. Was she suspicious that he was Spider-Man? What did she know? If she didn’t read his mind then what could she know?
“I mean,” she continued, scrutinizing him. “You’re just so young. There’s no way he would’ve hired someone so small if not for a different reason.”
He hummed. Shrugged. “I’m just really smart.”
He rounded out of the kitchen and to the elevator. Not giving her another look. But his body was filled with nervous energy.
—🕷️—
“The weirdest thing just happened,” Peter said as he swung himself into the lab.
Tony looked up from his bench. “Oh really? Weird as in spider weird or Peter weird?”
He plopped down next to Tony on a stool. “Wanda weird.”
Tony’s eyes widened. Then they went back to normal. “Ah. She is quite the young adult huh? She has such an attitude.”
“Yeah but she was asking me all these insane questions. I thought she thought I was Spider-Man or something…” he trailed off.
Tony’s eyes flared. “Did she read your mind? Because I told her-“
“No, no,” he held up his hands, “she said you told her not to, actually. But, she was just,” he brought his hands down. “I don’t think she trusts me.”
“They just don’t know everything about you yet, kid. Don’t worry. They’ll ease into it.”
Peter blinked as Tony’s attention slowly returned to his blueprints. Yet? So they would know?
Ideas started to spin around his mind like a bullet train.
—🕷️—
Later that night, after Tony practically threw his offer at Peter. (“It’s a Friday night! It’s late! We already ate, Peter. There’s no reason you shouldn’t stay the night.”) Peter folded. He did already have a drawer of clothes here.
He ended up, somehow, in the library. Which was on the Avengers’ floor. A lot stuff was on this floor, when he thought about it. The gym, library, offices, meeting rooms, a freaking pool. It was a freaking YMCA.
He was scrolling his hand along the books, looking for something interesting. Tony had a million of them, even though he didn’t read. Pepper must’ve put this here, he assumed.
Mj suggested a ton of books to him, and he told her, promised, eventually, that he’d read some of them. For some reason it took laying in his luxurious sound proof room in Stark Tower, to remember his promise.
“I’m telling you he has it,” another voice entered the room.
Peter’s eyes widened. He was here at 3am. Who else would be awake that late? How did he get caught?
He turned around and Sam and Clint stood awkwardly in the doorway, eyes wide and surprised. Well.
Sam reacted first. “What are you doing here so late?” He scrunched his eyebrows in confusion.
Peter blinked. And blinked. And blinked. Well fuck.
“Does Tony know you’re here?” Clint asked.
And there was his cover story.
“Uh- nope,” he said quickly. Too quickly. “And don’t tell him, please,” he mock-pleaded.
Clint pursed his lips and shrugged, entering the room and moving to look for whatever book they were talking about.
“Now hang on,” Sam said, following Clint. “Why are you here? You never answered that one?”
Peter glanced between them and the bookshelf. “Uhm. Book emergency?”
“Why would you come here for that? New York has libraries.”
“Nothing like this,” he mumbled, mostly to himself. He was still in awe of the insane book collection, even though he wasn’t much of a reader. He would for Mj, though.
“He’s not wrong.” Clint shrugged, distractedly.
“You’re in your pajamas.”
“Yep,” he replied. “I uh- leave my house in my pjs all the time.” He was definitely sweating through his Star Wars T-shirt and plaid pants.
“You took your shoes off.”
“Of course. I wanted to be respectful.”
“For Tony?” Sam snorted and rolled his eyes, “please.”
“He was calling him ‘Mr Stark’, Sam.”
“Look, kid, I don’t care that Tony has a teenage intern. That’s his business. But you came here in the middle of the night to sneak into our library. That’s a little… off-putting, I’d say.”
He looked at the bookshelf. Spotted, “The Help”, a suggestion from Mj. Grabbed it. He clenched it in his hand so hard he might’ve broken the spine. “Look, Mr Stark said I could come here whenever I needed to. He’s a- pretty good boss. It’s not your business.”
“Hey man. You know I live here right.”
He wanted to say ‘yeah. So does my basically-my-dad-but-not-really, you’re not that different.’ Instead he simply shrugged and left the room.
He wasn’t gonna hear the end of that tomorrow from Tony.
—🕷️—
The weekend went but messily. Peter stayed there the whole weekend and dodged bullets left and right. He managed to not see any of them. Until Sunday night. Tony said he agreed to watch a movie with the Avengers.
Peter got the greatest idea of all time.
He crawled onto the ceiling in the dark hallway in front of the living room, listening. The movie was paused. They were talking.
God this was perfect. It couldn’t get any better.
“Why was he here the other night?” Clint questioned.
“Yes, it does seem weird that your intern would spend the night,” Wanda said with crossed arms and furrowed eyebrows.
Guess they figured some stuff out. But not everything.
Tony rolled his eyes. “He just needed somewhere to stay for the night.”
Their faces softened. “Oh,” Sam trailed, “is this a family issue for him?”
Peter’s eyes widened and his blinked rapidly. What?!
Clint winced. “Shit. Well, I mean as much as it’s unexpected, I do respect you helping him out.”
Tony laughed breathily. “No hang on…”
He looked at Natasha, whose mouth was snapped shut. Steve too.
“Hey why aren’t you two pitching in?” Sam questioned tilting his head at them.
Natasha shrugged. “I don’t have anything to pitch.”
Steve nodded silently in agreement.
Sam rolled his eyes. “I hardly believe that.”
Clint nodded, “right? It’s hard for Nat to not voice her opinions.”
“I think you’re thinking of Tony,” Nat smirked.
“Hey!”
Peter sighed internally. He was really doing this. He crawled forward toward them, and he watched as it clicked for all of them.
Or something clicked. Fear. Oh shit.
Fear.
Wanda screamed, grabbed a pillow, and threw it at him. Peter startled himself, falling to the floor but landing feet first.
“Wanda!” Tony scolded.
Her eyes were wild. “I told you I wouldn’t use my powers!”
“How the fuck was he on the ceiling?!” Clint shot up from the couch, pointing up.
Sam shot up too. “Hey man that is not a teenager! That’s a skinwalker!” He pointed at Peter.
Peter held up his hands. “Woah, Woah, Woah. I’m not a,” He broke off in a laugh. “Holy shit did you say skinwalker?”
Natasha was smirking still, and Steve had his jaw to the floor.
Tony stood then, his face confused and slightly exasperated. “Peter what the hell are you doing?”
He sighed with a smile, unable to hide his amusement at the insane situation. A skinwalker? Really? “I’m Spider-Man.”
Silence.
Then, “oh my god that makes so much more sense now,” Clint nodded slowly.
Sam was nodding too, a grin slowly appearing.
“Why the hell did you scare us like that?!” Wanda demanded, clenching the blanket around her like a lifeline.
Natasha snorted.
“You were suspicious of me!”
“I thought you were Tony’s love child not an arachnid!”
“Woah!”
“Woah.”
Tony and Peter spoke in unison, making shocked eye contact.
Natasha shrugged. “It does make sense. He looks a lot like you.”
Tony tilted his head and scrutinized Peter. Everyone did that lately. Peter rolled his eyes. “Well. Im not his love child. I live with my aunt.” He crossed his arms.
“Why’d you stay so late?” Clint asked.
“She worked late and I wanted to.”
Sam pointed at Natasha and Steve. “Wait, did you guys know?”
They both looked up. Natasha nodded. “Not like it was hard to figure out.”
Peter blinked. “Hey, that was a completely different situation.”
“Hell yeah it was,” Tony muttered.
“Peter got kidnapped and we saved him,” Steve explained. Those were the first words Steve said that whole weekend. God what was going on?
“If you’re Spider-Man, how did you get kidnapped?” Sam grinned wickedly.
Peter groaned, “I was drugged!”
“Hey don’t embarrass my Spider love child,” Tony laughed.
“Mr Stark,” Peter groaned in embarrassment.
Everyone grinned. Except for Steve, who still held a guilty look. His smile looked forced. Peter looked away from him before it got too sad to look at.
God he might never figure out what the hell happened. Because something definitely did.
“Alright, alright,” Tony clapped his hands together. Looked at Peter. “Bed time. You have school tomorrow.”
Peter could’ve died right there.