Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Aunt May drives Peter to the compound after the operation, alternately fussing over him (“And the doctor said no T for the rest of the week, okay?”), apologizing for having to jet off to a funeral so soon after the surgery, and talking to Ned, who is in the backseat, clearly unable to sit still. They leave him in the car when they pull up to the compound and Aunt May says, “I’ll be just a tick,” as they get out.

“Just a tick? What are you, the Queen of England?” Peter says judgmentally. Aunt May swats him.

“I like elegant movies! You know that.”

The security people let them up and into the common room, where Mr. Stark meets them. She kisses Peter’s forehead, exchanges a few private words with Mr. Stark, kisses Peter again, and then hurries out, calling well wishes over her shoulder.

“That went well,” Mr. Stark says. He looks Peter up and down. “How do you feel?”

Elated, Peter thinks. Normal. Incomparable. Like myself.  

“Lighter,” he admits.

Which is also true. If not for his spider-sense, he feels like he’d probably be off-balance a lot more. For once, there’s an equal amount of weight on both sides of his spine.

“That’s good, kid. I’m happy for you. Come on, let’s have dinner.”

At night, Peter lies in his quarters, flat on his back. At 8:42, JARVIS announces, “Sir is requesting permission to enter.”

Peter leaps out of bed and almost ends up on the ceiling. 

“Jeez,” he mutters, feeling off-kilter. He grabs a zip-up hoodie from the closet. “Yeah, he can come in.”

His hoodie is barely on when the door opens.

“Hey, kid,” Mr. Stark says. “Your aunt told me that if I didn’t bench Spidey, she’d find some way to kill me, and I don’t really want to test that. She seems terrifyingly capable.”

Peter groans. “You’re benching me?”

“I’m benching Spiderman,” Mr. Stark corrects. A stray sock lies on the ground; he picks it up, folds it in half and puts it on the desk. “No more crime-fighting arachnid for a month. Doc’s orders.”

“A month ? Mr. Stark, the people need me!”

Mr. Stark gives him a disbelieving look. “The people did fine for like two thousand years without Spiderman, I'm sure they can manage another month.”

Peter crosses his arms over his weirdly flat chest. “Queens hasn’t been around for two thousand years.”

“Nice try, Spidey. Evasionary tactic, good effort. Doesn’t work. Only I’m allowed to do that. I'm telling your aunt you're officially on house arrest.”

Ned calls him that night, which Peter appreciates, because between the surgery and the Spiderman timeout, there’s a lot going on. Ned is a constant, and constancy is welcome right now.

“How does it feel to not have boobs?”

God bless the guy. He always asks exactly the question he wants an answer to.

Peter answers honestly. “Awesome. I want to walk around shirtless for the rest of my life. Is this what male privilege feels like? Holy shit.”

“Dude, so cool! Do you have a scar?”

“Just a small one. Benefits of super-healing.”

“Nice!”

“Yeah, but Mr. Stark and Aunt May have me on house arrest for a month. ” He flops back onto his bed and stares up at the Han Solo poster on the ceiling.

“Yeah, Peter, we knew about that. It's in the spreadsheet, remember? Side effects?”

The spreadsheet. Maybe, more accurately, The Spreadsheet. At least seventeen columns, filled in with every possible detail of top surgery and the preparations and expectations and side effects and everything in between. He and Ned had created it forever ago, and when Peter, Mr. Stark, and Aunt May sat down to find a doctor, Peter brought The Spreadsheet. To his credit, Mr. Stark didn’t even laugh. Aunt May did, though, and then almost cried.

 (“You’re so grown up, baby,” was all she said, smiling lightly.)

Now, Peter feels like the side effect of staying home and not exerting himself maybe shouldn’t apply to him. “Yeah, but that was before Spiderman! I can't just stop saving the city for four weeks. Do you know how many murders I stop every week?”

“Four?”

“...Yeah, probably something like that. Four!”

“Why don't you just ask Stark if he'll cover for you?” Ned suggests. Peter pauses.

“What?”

“I mean, he's a superhero too, right? And he has a whole legion of superheroes at his beck and call. Plus, you're like the son he never had.” Peter blushes to the empty room. “If you say you're that worried about the city, he'll probably send, like, an army of robots to watch over it.”

Peter tosses this idea around in his head, considering. “Yeah...I don’t know. Maybe.” 

“Alternately, you could just give me the suit. I could be, like, an understudy Spiderman.”

“Not without an audition, you can’t.”

The following morning finds Peter on his way home. As much as he loves being at the compound, there’s something about driving back into the city that makes his insides giddy and euphoric. He actually presses against the window of the car Happy’s driving. Everything looks different now. Shinier.

Aunt May isn’t home when Peter lets himself in, so he puts on the suit — out of curiosity, nothing else. The HUD illuminates as soon as the mask is on.

“Hello, Peter,” Karen says warmly. “How are you?”

“I’m good, Karen, I’m really good,” Peter says. “I got top surgery!”

“That’s great. How do you feel?”

“Kind of tired of people asking me how I feel, to be honest,” he admits. “But really good. The doctor said I have to, like, compress my chest or something for another few weeks. I mean, he said three to six. But I’m Spiderman, so...probably just like two.”

“I might be able to help you with that,” Karen offers. Suddenly there’s pressure on his chest, not uncomfortable, but definitely present. It feels like wearing a binder. Peter almost gasps.

“Woah, are you serious?”

“Does this help?” Karen asks.

“Yeah, no, this is — wow! This suit is so cool! You’re the best, Karen, thank you.”

“Of course, Peter. I should warn you, though, that Mr. Stark programmed me to seize up if you try to do anything, quote, ‘Even remotely spidery.’”

Peter isn’t sure if he should laugh or groan. The result is a snorting sound.

“Man, he really covered his bases. Fine. But at least I can wear the suit instead of the binder. That thing is starting to fray.”

He must fall asleep at some point after Aunt May gets home, which makes sense; his whole system is drained. Still, he’s not prepared for the wakeup call he gets.

“Dude.”

Eyes halfway open, partially asleep, still wearing the Spiderman suit (sans mask), all Peter registers is a person staring over him. “Wha? Huh?” He panics and presses the center of the suit, and it loosens immediately and slides off his now upright body. He blinks. “MJ? ”

“Relax, it’s just me,” MJ says neutrally. She gives his chest a cursory look. “Nice scar. Looks badass.”

“Don’t — don’t just walk in like that!” Peter exclaims. He gets up and walks over to his closet, blushing as he dresses. It’s not like MJ has never seen him in a state of undress (she's been on Team Spidey for maybe a year now), but she’s caught him off guard.

“Stop freaking out,” MJ says, giving him a look. She holds out her phone. “Look at this.”

“How did you get in? Did Aunt May let you in? Did she tell you I was sleeping? ”

“Parker, look,” MJ insists. She shoves her phone in his face. Peter takes the device from her and stares at the headline open: Spiderman-Inspired Stark-Bots Flood Queens. There’s even a picture of one of the little guys, mid-scuttle, swerving around a sewer. 

Peter’s heart drops. “...Did someone make this?”

“No, it’s real,” MJ confirms. “I checked the source. I also got frisked by one on my way here. They’re kinda cute, in a weird ubiquitous spiderbot way.”

“Holy — I gotta make a call.” Peter hands MJ’s phone back to her and picks up his own. MJ clears her throat.

“I invited Ned over for you,” she says. “We’re gonna have a Lord of the Rings watch party to make you feel better for not being allowed to do anything for a month. We’re super nice that way.” Her tone doesn’t imply much freedom of choice. Peter slowly pockets his phone.

“I don’t feel —”

“Shhh. Watch party. Lord of the Rings.”

“...I would rather —”

MJ puts a finger to his lips. “You. Shall. Not. Pass.”

The week goes by so slowly Peter feels like he’s trudging through molasses just to get to Saturday. On Thursday he’s fiddling with a Rubik’s cube on the couch when Aunt May sits next to him, patting his shoulder.

“Can I get you anything, sweetie?” she asks, giving him a smile like chocolate syrup — sweet enough to make anything better.

He sighs and tosses the Rubik’s cube onto the coffee table. “A time machine?”

Aunt May rubs his back. “I think this is good. Take a step back, see the world like us ordinary people do.”

“You’re just glad I'm not Spidermanning.” In defiance, Peter crosses his arms over his chest. He’s not glad to be benched — the thought of a vulnerable city, a potential felony at any moment, makes his anxiety swirl up in a hurricane — but it is at least a little bit relaxing to just sit around all day.

Aunt May chuckles. “It’s a plus, yes.”

Peter fakes a cough. “Conspiracy,” he chokes out. 

Aunt May laughs and pats his shoulder. “Oh, hon. I'm sorry you feel restless. You want to go for a walk? The doctor said it would be good for you.”

True that. Peter has been secretly clinging to the outside of his building for a few minutes a day, just for the fresh air, without once remembering that he has a front door. He considers this.

“Can we go to Delmar’s?” he finally hedges.

“You drive a hard bargain,” Aunt May answers, which means yes.

On the way to Delmar’s, Peter gets thoroughly analyzed by at least three Spiderbots. 

“Jesus,” he mutters. Aunt May chuckles.

“I guess he deserves some credit,” she says. “For the effort.”

“Mr. Stark.”

“Hey, Underoos. Or, well, I guess you're just Peter Parker for the next month. How's the bed? Bored yet?”

Peter feels an eye roll coming on. “Did you sic a legion of Spiderman robots on Queens?”

“Wow, straight to the point. So what if I did?”

“ Why? ”

“Well, the friendly neighborhood Spiderman is out of commission. Can't have crime rates skyrocketing, that'd be terrible for your reputation. Besides, this way your branding is still around. Can't forget the Spiderbot that saves your life, can you? You're welcome.”

Holy shit.

“Mr. Stark,” Peter begins, diplomatically, “I'm grateful, I really am, it's just...please take them away?”

Mr. Stark scoffs. “What? I'm doing you a favor.”

Well, maybe. Maybe this is his emotionally stunted way of showing affection. Still, if he wants to be on-brand, this is not the way to go.

“Yeah, but the Spiderbots are showy,” Peter answers bracingly. “They don't say Spiderman, they say 'Tony Stark-endorsed.’”

“You are Tony Stark-endorsed.”

“Mr. Stark.”

There’s a brief pause. 

“Fair enough,” Mr. Stark allows. “Fine. I'll withdraw. But this isn't over. I'm not letting your city corrupt just because you got surgery.”

In his heart, Peter feels a small sigh of relief. “Thanks, Mr. Stark.”

“Anytime, kiddo. You coming up to the compound this weekend?”

“...Well, the thing is, I don't exactly have a way to get there.” He usually swings, but that’s out of the question.

“What, you don't have a car?”

This time Peter scoffs. “This is New York City, who has a car?”

“Touché. Alright, I'll send Happy.”

“Okay, thanks again, Mr. Stark.”

Pepper Potts has the office of a person who has all of her shit together, and then also the shit of everyone else. Peter is appropriately hesitant to touch anything, until Ms. Potts sweeps a stack of papers to the side haphazardly, and Peter timidly smiles. 

“Thanks, Ms. Potts.”

“Pepper, Peter, I keep telling you,” Ms. Potts reprimands, with a light smile.

“Sorry,” Peter says, although he’s never going to call her Pepper. Peter feels fundamentally uncomfortable being on a first-name basis with one of the most powerful women in northern America. “Thanks for letting me hang out in here. Your office is super cool, by the way.” He picks up a desk puzzle — one of those sets of randomly shaped pieces of wood that, when assembled, is supposed to make a cube. “Whoa! Have you solved this?”

Ms. Potts emits an unprofessional laugh. “Not once in all my years at Stark Industries. But by all means, give it a shot. Lord knows you have a better chance than I do.”

“Thanks, Ms. Potts.”

Ms. Potts sighs. “Sure thing, Peter.”

They sit in silence for awhile. Peter stacks the pieces of the puzzle and he’s just seconds away from solving it when he realizes the two remaining pieces won’t fit in any conceivable way. “Damn it!”

Ms. Potts looks up and smiles wryly. “Yeah, that's as far as I always get.”

Peter sighs. “I should do my homework. I'll come back to this.” He glares at the puzzle. “We're not finished.”

“Gosh, you're so responsible,” Ms. Potts says. “I hope it's rubbing off on Tony. That man could stand to do his homework a little more often.”

Mr. Stark isn’t in the lab when Peter finally wanders down there, but Dr. Banner is, and he brightens and straightens up when Peter walks in. 

“Peter, hi. I haven't gotten a chance to see you since the…” He clears his throat. “How are you?”

“Bored,” Peter groans. “Walking all the way back to Manhattan would be more fun than all this sitting around.” Which earns him a sympathetic chuckle, at least.

“Wanna come take a look at one of my projects? I was g—”

“YES, SO BADLY,” Peter interrupts. Anything Dr. Banner is working on is worth seeing, and definitely more interesting than...anything he’s been doing up to now. “See, this is why you're my favorite.”

“Don't let Tony hear you say that, he's a jealous type,” Dr. Banner says, waving Peter over to his workstation.

On the table, squirming peculiarly, is a ball of something almost metallic. Peter resists the urge to poke it. It looks like murderous Jell-O. Like Jell-O’s evil twin.

“What is this? Can I touch it?”

“That depends,” Dr. Banner says, pulling on gloves and offering a pair to Peter. “Do you want to lose your finger?”

Definitely not. “So it's acid.”

“Not exactly. More like...have you read Maze Runner?”

Peter pauses and slowly looks up at Dr. Banner.

“What?” Dr. Banner asks.

“I'm just surprised that you have,” Peter says. When Dr. Banner raises his eyebrows, Peter quickly hastens to add, “Not that you're, like, old, or anything, it just seems kind of juvenile to...I'm backing myself into a corner.” He sighs. “Yeah, I've read it.”

“You know the metal balls that cut off people’s heads in the second book? In that tunnel?”

Peter gapes. “Seriously? You invented that?”

“I don't know about invented. I just...engineered it. Conceptually, it already existed.”

“Dr. Banner, you're ruining it.”

Dr. Banner gives him a sideways look. Peter snickers. Already this is a better use of his time than anything else he’s done all week. 

“The problem is it's not supposed to be that. The endgame,” he says, and in front of them (apparently wordlessly summoned by JARVIS, who is a genius) the specs for the metal that is supposed to exist light up, “is a metal that closes up on anything when thrown, effectively trapping it, but without slicing it off. It needs to be non-lethal and dissolvable.”

Interesting idea. Peter can already think of some uses for it. “So you're making the Maze Runner metal and a negating solution.”

“That's the goal. But I need to finish the metal before I can work on dissolving it. Certain chemicals work only on certain —”

“Yeah, I know.” Peter peers closer at the metal, which is now bubbling intimidatingly. “So, um...why are you making this?”

Dr. Banner glances away for a moment. “Tony’s idea. Call it a safety precaution.”

“Precaution to…”

“The Other Guy.”

Oh. Right.

Him.

“Well, at least it won’t cut your arm off,” Peter says brightly. Dr. Banner snorts, like he doesn’t believe it could if it wanted to.

And yeah, Peter’s heard the stories. The failed suicide attempt. The Hulk — The Other Guy — is a lot harder to kill than most people would like him to be. 

But Peter is glad. Because as long as The Hulk is intact, so is Dr. Banner, and call him a softie, but he really likes Dr. Banner exactly as he is.

Midnight at the compound, and Peter is restless. He wants to move, is sick of being stationary, but if he does anything vaguely acrobatic in the suit, Mr. Stark will probably confiscate it again, and it’s too much of an exposure risk to do it without the suit.

So he’s stuck, jiggling his leg and throwing a ball against the wall only to yank it back with a web, for so many minutes his eyes start to glaze over.

Fuck it, he thinks. He exits his room and practically backflips towards the kitchen to make some tea, which Dr. Banner swears by, for some reason. He wants to talk to Ned or maybe MJ — someone who will sympathize without pitying — but it’s too late to call, and if they’re not asleep they should be.

Down the empty hall, Peter shoots a web at the ceiling, and swings low on it like it’s a climbing rope in gym class. The breeze ruffles his hair. He giggles, amused, and shoots a collection of webs, wall-to-wall, before attempting to move between them like lasers. (If Mr. Stark walks in, his airtight argument is training.)

(Unfortunately, it is not Mr. Stark who walks in.)

“What the — are you kidding me? Is this another god damn prank? I will kick your ass, Natasha, don’t think I won’t.”

Peter stumbles, yanks the web away from where Sam Wilson is all caught up in it, and stares wide-eyed at him.

“What…” Peter says, coughs, swallows, and starts again. “Oh — I was just, um, training…”

Sam raises an eyebrow, and the excuse dies on Peter’s tongue. He gets to work disassembling the laser show. “Sorry, Mr. Wilson, I didn’t expect anyone else to be awake.”

“Yeah,” says Sam, rubbing at his eyes blearily, “neither did I. What are you doing here?”

Good fucking question, Sam Wilson.

“I come on the weekends,” Peter mumbles, cheeks burning. “To work on the suit. With Mr. Stark. Don’t, uh, don’t even worry about me — I’ll just get out of your hair, just...gonna make some tea...I won’t —”

“You’re making tea?” Mr. Wilson echoes, pensive. “I could use some tea.”

So he has tea with Sam Wilson at midnight. Neither of them asks why the other is awake. And honestly? It’s the best tea Peter has ever had.

“I ran into the Falcon yesterday.”

Mr. Stark glances over at Peter in the passenger seat before his eyes return to the road. “That’s impossible, you went to bed before he got there.” He pauses while Peter cringes. “Oh, my bad. Of course you didn’t, you’re a teenager.”

“Hey, uh, he knows I'm Spiderman, right? Because if not, he does now.”

“What does that mean, Peter.”

“I thought he knew from that time in the hospital,” Peter says quickly. “I mean, those injuries would have killed a regular person, right? He has critical thinking skills?”

“What did you say to him, kid?”

“I might have made a spiderweb obstacle that I was about to climb through when he got stuck in it, and when he asked why I was at the compound I said I come on weekends to work on the suit.”

“You— Jesus,” says Mr. Stark. Peter wonders if the man’s health suffers from these little talks. He wouldn’t even have brought it up, except that the miles and miles of trees and open road were starting to make Peter prefer being on house arrest, and Mr. Stark wasn’t saying anything.

“I think he already knew!” he defends. “We just had some tea and talked about TV shows. At midnight.” 

“What I’m hearing is, you abducted Sam Wilson at midnight.”

“Hey, I've talked to him before. He helped me with the amendments last year, when— when I was in the hospital, remember? The mugger? You remember that, right?”

Mr. Stark flinches. Peter senses he's hit a nerve.

He sighs, fiddling with the hem of his sweatshirt. “I couldn’t sleep, Mr. Stark. I’m too restless. I want to be out there,” and he gestures to the approaching city skyline, “not in here! People need my help and if —”

Mr. Stark pulls to a stop at the first red light off the exit ramp, because of course. He looks over at Peter. “Kid, I get it. The whole responsibility shtick? I’ve been there, had that. You gotta trust me, okay? I’m not leaving your city unprotected. Come on, gimme a little credit.”

“I— I trust you, Mr. Stark, but —”

The engine roars — unnecessarily — and the car rockets into city traffic. “Good. Now start working on your homework. You’re not in school for another week and if you get behind I won’t be able to explain it to my guys at MIT.”

Chapter Text

On Monday after school lets out, and after Ned, MJ, and Peter have done their daily homework, and after Aunt May has praised and double-praised Peter’s work ethic, and after MJ has eaten an entire bag of Lay’s chips — or, well, actually while she eats an entire bag of Lay’s chips — the three of them sit on the couch and turn on the TV.

Aunt May usually watches the news — Peter does too, but not usually on the TV, ‘cause, you know, it’s a new age, and he has a cell phone — so before they switch channels, Peter glimpses the footage of someone red flying around what is presumably Queens, with a news banner that reads: Scarlet Witch spotted in Forest Hills, appears harmless.

Ned reads it at the same time, and disbelievingly says, “Scarlet Witch?”

“Wanda? ” Peter says, stunned. 

Ned turns to him, awed. “You know her?”

Peter shrugs. “Kind of? I — she helped me with my homework at the start of the year. But I spend way less time at the compound now, so, you know, I don't really...see her much.”

MJ gives him a look, more of a side-eye, that for the life of him Peter can't interpret.

“Didn't you guys fight at the airport,” she intones.

Peter swallows. “I mean, yeah. But everything is cool now, from that whole...altercation. It's been cool for awhile.”

“Hm,” MJ says. Peter wants to say, WHAT KIND OF HM IS THAT? “HM” I DISAPPROVE? “HM” I DON'T CARE? “HM” YOU'RE SO HEROIC?

But he magnanimously does not.

“Wow, Peter is super cool! ” Ned enthuses, just energetically enough to be mocking. “He’s met the Scarlet Witch! They’re basically BFFs!”

No one can say Ned doesn’t deserve the smack on his arm that he receives. “I just said she helped me with my homework one time! Look, this doesn't even matter. The question is why is she in Queens!”

“Why don’t you ask her? Since you know her so well?” MJ says. Because apparently it is her life’s mission to make Peter’s life difficult.

“I literally just said I don’t,” he retorts. Ned elbows him. “Dude!”

“Watch!” he hisses, so Peter does. He watches Scarlet Witch approach an alley, seeming unperturbed, and suddenly lash out with her magical red superpowers. The camera zooms into the alley just as Scarlet Witch is walking away, and therein, two thugs are visibly knocked out. Also a person who is trembling, wide-eyed, and who was obviously moments away from being victim to the thugs.

Peter’s heart rate leaps.

“Wait,” Ned says slowly. “She just...knocked out those guys. Those obviously bad guys.”

And then it dawns. 

“Oh my god,” says Peter, as his heartbeat slowly returns to its standard pace ( the kid is safe the kid is safe the kid is safe the kid is safe). “This is what Mr. Stark was talking about. He told me he wasn’t going to leave Queens unprotected — this is how! He’s just gonna make Scarlet Witch replace Spiderman.” 

Not that Peter has anything against Scarlet Witch — she’s way more badass than he is, and besides, she doesn’t need a supersuit to be powerful, which makes her better by virtue of being. Still...Peter’s pretty fond of his territory. And his people.

“Dude, I doubt she wants to replace you. She probably has way more important things to be doing,” MJ snorts. She snatches the remote from Peter’s hand and changes the channel.

Peter mulls this over. “...Yeah, she probably does! What is she doing in Queens?” 

He’s grateful (the kid is safe the kid is safe he could have died it would have been my fault but he’s safe because someone else is keeping track). But still. She must have other things she needs to be doing. Like...flying around, looking badass. That’s a significant job.

“Maybe she’s just doing it one day,” Ned suggests, crunching on a carrot stick. “ Like every Avengers gets, like, Queens Day. And they have to defend Queens while you can’t.”

“No way, that’s way too much. Mr. Stark would never —” Peter falters. “Fuck. He totally would.”

MJ cackles as she flicks through the channels.

Sunday Night

“JARVIS, call a team meeting,” Tony says, taking the steps up from his lab in big strides. “Five minutes, common area. Anyone with a pulse and a superhero alter ego.”

“I have informed your teammates,” JARVIS says.

Five minutes later, everyone is sitting in the common area in varying degrees of comfort. Natasha, at the top of the rigidity scale, is wearing a slim red dress and one unstrapped high heel (the other is discarded at her feet) and Tony doesn't ask. At the other pole, Barnes is wearing literal goddamn pajama pants and a hoodie that Tony is fairly certain belongs to Steve, but he doesn't speak to that, either. God, someone should give him a medal.

“What's going on, Tony?” Steve asks from his spot on the couch. Barnes is on the floor, leaning against Steve’s leg and looking very content.

Clint levels a fork and points it at Tony. “You interrupted K-9 Cops. This better be important.”

“I’m sure you all know about Spiderman being temporarily benched,” Tony says loudly, over the murmur of talk. It quiets. “And if you are as obsessed with me as I am, you'll know my recent attempt to replace him was rejected.”

“It was, in fairness to Spiderman, a really weird attempt,” Rhodey says, because he's a traitor. Bruce laughs, because he's also a traitor. Tony glares at them.

“It wasn't to his taste. His fault. Not mine. The point here is — I need people to defend Queens while he's out. I owe it to him.”

“Why is he out?” Wanda asks, hand halfway raised. 

Bruce and Tony exchange a glance and Bruce makes a significant expression, like, don't fuck up, man, so Tony does not. 

“Surgery,” he tells Wanda. “Recent. He's still recovering. Nothing serious, just...doc said not to aggravate it. Or something. Anyway, think of it as a lineup. I'm enlisting you all. Just a day or two, for the next month. Can we do that? Okay? Like a training exercise. Small-scale.”

“I’m with Steve,” Barnes grumbles. “Otherwise, no dice.”

Far be it from Tony to argue with him. “Sure, whatever you want. If you're a duo, though, you're taking two days. Balance the scales, yadda yadda. Anyone else want to double up?”

“Me and Clint,” Natasha states, her lazy tone offset by the full face of makeup she’s wearing. Clint nods, like he's entirely on board.

“I'm having flashbacks to third grade,” Rhodey mutters, and Sam laughs at that.

“Hey, uh, Tony?” Bruce pipes up. Tony rounds his full gaze into his science buddy. “I don't think I'm...exactly the right person for this job.”

Tony can't argue with that, either.

“Fine. You're excused from superhero duty,” he acquiesces. Bruce smiles wanly. 

“I’m gonna have JARVIS pick random days for you all,” he announces. “And rule number one: if you see Spiderman out and about, order him to go home immediately. He's on house arrest. Recovering, obviously. Any objections? Speak now or forever hold your peace.”

No one speaks, and Tony beams. “Fantastic. JARVIS?”

“Ms. Maximoff, your name is at the top of the list,” JARVIS proclaims. Wanda smiles, actually. And Tony thinks he's kind of, totally, a genius.

Peter runs into Wanda Maximoff entirely by accident, climbing the fire escape (like some kind of unenhanced peasant) up to the roof of his building for some air. Safely atop the building, he breathes and lies down on a rejected lawn chair.

A moment later he jumps backwards as the Scarlet Witch flutters down to the roof, landing lightly on her feet.

“Wanda!” he gasps, and then laughs. “You startled me.” 

He wonders how; his Spidey-sense should have alerted him. Maybe there's something in her magic aura that blocks her out? Must investigate further.

“Peter, hello,” Wanda says, smiling kindly. She pauses, tilts her head; her eyes gleam red for a moment, and then she blinks and it’s gone. Understanding dawns. “I see,” she says. “You are the little spider.”

 Peter panics. “What? I’m not…”

Wanda holds up a hand, red light dancing across her fingertips, and smiles softly. “I did not mean to see, but children...they wear their hearts on their sleeves, as you say. But don’t worry — I won’t tell.”

“Uh — right,” Peter stammers, embarrassed.

“I am under strict orders to command you to return home, you know,” Wanda says thoughtfully.

“Well, I’m technically —” 

“But between you and me, disobeying Stark is a favorite pastime of mine.” She wiggles her eyebrows once, and the tension Peter is feeling lessens a little.

“No, I can’t,” he says, with some difficulty.

“Because you are benched,” Wanda confirms, nodding.

Like a freaking baseball player.

“Did, uh...by any chance did Mr. Stark tell you why I’m benched?” Peter asks, fidgeting with his fingers. Too late, he realizes Wanda might just know — could just read his mind and see the truth.

“He said you had surgery,” Wanda responds, her face screwing up in concern. “How are you feeling? My powers may be able to help with pain, you know.”

As much as Peter appreciates that sentiment, he would almost rather be in pain than have someone who could read his mind poking around in his chest, magical or no. 

“Oh — no, that’s okay, it’s. Not really that kind of surgery, but thanks. I’m, uh, I’m just getting some air, you know. But it was really good to see you! We should, you know. Dinner or something. Like earlier.”

Wanda takes this in stride and begins her ascent into the sky, smiling at him. 

“It has been too long,” she agrees. “When you feel better from your surgery, let me know, and we will find some time. And perhaps more books. I really enjoyed those your friend suggested.”

Peter gives her two thumbs up and makes a mental note to ask MJ for some titles.

“It is my honor to defend your city while you recover,” Wanda adds, and then she's gone.

“Hey, kid! Guess what?”

“I have a guess.”

“Do you like it? It’s a rotation. Tomorrow I’m sending in — actually, it’ll be a surprise.”

Peter exhales and temporarily moves aside his physics textbook. “It’s...kind of...aren’t they busy?”

“What, the Avengers? Nah. If anything, they’re bored. Some of these people — ahem Steve ahem — can only feel fulfilled if they’re saving someone’s ass. It’s exhausting.”

That’s definitely a misconstruction of Steve’s personality, but Peter lets it slide.

“Well,” he says. “Okay. But don’t tell them about, you know. The top surgery. Even though it’s cool.”

Even on the phone, Mr. Stark’s smile is audible. “I won’t. That’s your secret, kid. I’ve exposed enough of your secrets for a lifetime. Lips are zipped.”

“Thanks, Mr. Stark. And thanks for...the rotation.”

“Sure thing, Petey. Glad to see you’re doing your homework and staying out of the suit.”

Peter wears the non-mask part of the Spiderman suit whenever he’s home (which is a lot, way too often), because everyone who is likely to come by unannounced knows he’s Spiderman, and the suit makes the binding way easier and more comfortable. He wears sweatpants and sweatshirts over it, so that only the socks and gloves show on him, and that’s his professional cover in case someone does barge in unexpectedly.

Nobody barges in. Peter starts wishing someone would.

On Wednesday, as Peter is weighing the benefits versus drawbacks of just launching himself out the window in civilian clothing and seeing how successfully he can blend into the populace even with the web shooters (surely, New York has seen stranger things), he senses a breeze.

It's only a moment, but it's enough to make his skin prickle uncomfortably. In an instant he's upright off the couch and tugging the mask over his face.

This is how he apprehends Natasha Romanov in his bedroom: in a spider suit layered with sweats.

“Hello,” she says smoothly.

Peter flounders.

“Natasha?”

“Peter,” she says, inclining her head. She does not look the least bit surprised to see him.

Natasha is one of the handful who know him as his alter ego, so he yanks off the mask and gives her the full force of his appalled expression. “Why not just knock? ”

Natasha shrugs and deigns not to answer. 

“So,” she says. “House arrest.”

In the short time Peter has known Natasha, he’s grown accustomed to abrupt subject changes.

“Sucks,” Peter agrees, sinking into a cross-legged position on his own carpet. Natasha chuckles.

“I wouldn't know. I have experience in a lot of areas, but I will say I've never been forced to stay home for a month.”

“Do not try this at home,” Peter grimly advises.

“Want frozen yogurt?” Natasha offers. She holds out a business card with nine holes punched in it and says, “Tenth visit you get a discount. On me.”

And, well, yes, he does. Peter blinks.

“For real?”

Natasha raises an eyebrow. “Dude, I scaled your building and snuck through your window. You think I'm joking?”

Fair point.

It is probably disproportionately hilarious to Peter that Natasha gets strawberry-flavored froyo. It's so mundane.

“So if — fucking shit, brain freeze — if you're on city duty today, why aren't you…” he gestures vaguely around.

“Clint and I are tag-teaming. We have busy lives, you know.”

“Too busy to take high schoolers out for frozen yogurt, I would guess.”

Natasha smirks and flicks a piece of kiwi at his face. “Don't be a smartass, you sound too much like Stark.”

Peter blushes. He should learn to control that reaction whenever someone mentions his weird relationship to Mr. Stark.

“How's your French sounding?” she asks.

Peter grimaces. “Uh...mediocre? I'm a little more focused on...the harder classes.”

“Speak,” she commands.

Peter doesn't really want to, but you don't refuse Natasha. 

“Merci beaucoup pour la glaçe, c’est délicieux.”

“Pas de problème, petit araignée,” Natasha answers, cool as ever. She gives him a thumbs up. “Not bad.”

Curiously enough, Peter has had a good relationship with Natasha for awhile — long enough to call her Natasha, anyway. He doesn't question what it is about her elusive nature that makes him comfortable around her, at risk of negating it. And besides, he doesn't see her often. There's just...something that steadies him in her presence.

Except for moments like now, when her innocence is so deliberate Peter can feel her boring into his mind. 

“So Stark says you're benched for surgery,” she tells him, lightly.

Peter nods, palms flat against his thigh. He's ready for her to ask him: surgery where? Even after all this time, he doesn't really have an answer prepared.

But she doesn't ask. She just eats her frozen yogurt and flicks her eyes from his face to her bowl.

Predictably, he breaks.

“Top surgery,” he blurts out, and then quieter: “You know. Transition stuff. Mr. Stark helped us out...it's expensive, y’know.”

Natasha nods, like she knows more about it than she's letting on. “That's a big deal.”

No kidding.

“It — yeah, it is. I guess.” Very chill, Peter. Convincing.

“Congratulations,” she says, and the smile she affords him is sincere.

The reporters are having a field day with the rotation.

New York Times @nytimes

Hawkeye and Black Widow team up to defend Queens for a day: “Someone’s gotta do it.”

The Daily Bugle @dailybugle

Spiderman Replaced? Dynamic Duo Hawkeye & Black Widow Take Streets of Queens, Spiderman MIA

BuzzFeed Super @buzzfeedsuper

Where Is Spiderman? Ten Theories On Where The Little Arachno-Vigilante Is Now

Hawkeye @hawkeye

#views from the top of a building but idk which one look it's a Starbucks does that help

Eloise @marmaeloise

Hawkeye: *jumps off God knows where, lands in front of me in time to dick punch the guy tryna rob me*

Me: thx

Hawkeye: already gone

Peter nods approvingly. Mentally, he takes note: dick-punching is effective. Should make better use of this technique.

The list is on his bedside table, innocuously hidden in plain sight. That evening, Peter crosses Natasha’s name off of it.

“IT’S THURSDAY!” MJ declares, bursting into Peter’s apartment as his eyes are beginning to glaze over from watching so many episodes of Friends .

“CONGRATS,” Peter shouts back at her, making a negligible effort to reach the remote. “YOU REMEMBER WEEKDAYS.”

“Thursday,” MJ says, plopping onto the couch behind his outstretched legs so that her knees bend over his calves, “means Buffalo Wild Wings has a 65¢ deal on boneless wings.” She reaches over, picks up the remote, and clicks the TV off in one swift motion.

Peter nearly starts to drool at the thought of wings. 

“Why,” he says flatly, “are you only telling me this now.”

“‘Cause Ned’s not here,” says MJ, smirking. True: Ned is out until Saturday, visiting family in Jersey. “And he eats like a trucker.”

“I eat like a trucker,” Peter points out.

“Yeah, but Ned does it to piss me off.”

“That…” Under MJ’s stare, Peter wisely elects not to argue any longer. “Sounds great.”

“Great,” MJ says brightly. “Stand up, we’re walking.”

Groan. “To B-Dub’s? That’s like. A mile.”

Only MJ can manage the unimpressed look she levels him. MJ, and maybe Natasha. 

“Oh no,” she says, in a voice so dry a fish would drown. “Is that too far for your puny, weak, pathetic legs. Your human stamina and your standard-issue, handicapped legs. What a damn shame.”

Peter blushes even as a grin spreads across his face. “You don’t have to be so sassy,” he mutters.

“Oh, Parker,” MJ says, patting his cheek. “Yes I do.”

The weirdest thing happens on the way to Buffalo Wild Wings.

MJ knows a back way through an alley (because of course she does), and the two of them are making their way down it, discussing either Star Wars or the mistreatment of chickens in battery cages (sometimes Peter loses track).

And then, out of nowhere.

“Hey you! You kids.”

Peter whirls around and MJ does too, and there, approaching quickly and confidently, is a man with a gun.

Peter’s senses go into overdrive. “Behind me,” he hisses to MJ, and his heart races. All he has are the web shooters and no way to protect his identity, but he needs to protect MJ and that is more important.

MJ shuffles behind him, subtly.

“Hands up,” the thug says, sneering. The gun is in his outstretched arm, and he’s speeding up. Ten feet now.

“We’ll give you anything you want,” MJ says clearly. Peter wishes he could be as unafraid as she sounds, but his head is in turmoil and his vision is tunneling on the gun, that gun that could kill them, either of them, in a second. He wants to think his reflexes are good enough to dodge it, but even if he ducks, could MJ?

No. No, she couldn’t.

The guy cackles. Six feet. “You bet you’ll give me anything I want. You know that spider fella isn’t here to save you now. Free reign for us dirty criminals.”

Peter reaches behind him and discreetly wraps a hand around MJ’s wrist (in case he needs to make a quick exit, he reasons, but really: he feels better holding onto her) and prepares to fight.

“Step away from her,” the thug orders, but Peter holds tighter and takes a breath to protest.

A clanging noise, a whoosh of air, and someone falls — jumps — from the rooftop beside them and smacks the thug across the face, merciless. He collapses. The gun clatters to the cobblestone.

The Captain America shield jets back across the alley and Peter whirls around to see Steve Rogers sheathing the shield onto his back and giving Peter and MJ a dutiful nod.

“Ma’am,” he says. “Sir — wait a second.” Recognition flickers over his face.

“Mr. Rogers!” Peter says gratefully. “I mean, Steve.”

“Peter,” Steve remembers. “Hey, are you okay? I haven't seen you in awhile.”

“Parker,” says a gruff voice from behind him. 

“Ah!” Peter turns once more and only when MJ turns with him does he realize he’s still holding her wrist. Blushing, he releases it. The face in front of him is Bucky Barnes, and Peter grins tentatively. “Hi?”

“From the homework,” Bucky says, still gruff. “I remember you.”

Peter gets the sense that he's talking more to himself than to Peter. He exhales, and gives Bucky an earnest smile. 

“Yes,” he says. “Yes, yeah, from the homework. That’s me! Thanks for saving our lives. It's, uh, been awhile.”

“How do you know Peter,” MJ interrupts, stepping this time in front of him.

“MJ, it’s fine,” Peter says through his teeth.

Bucky raises an eyebrow. “Who are you?”

“Who are you?” MJ responds, casually as you please.

“Steve and Bucky helped me and Ned with some history homework last year,” Peter interjects. “The journal entry, remember? For APUSH?"

MJ squints. “Oh.” She purses her lips. “I'm Michelle. Thanks for helping us out.”

“A real pleasure, Michelle,” Steve says, giving her one of his full-wattage Captain-America smiles. She does not seem affected. “Unfortunate circumstances notwithstanding.”

MJ cuts her eyes to him and Peter tries to telepathically convey that they don't know he's Spiderman. He knows Bucky was a trained spy and assassin, that any motions he makes will be caught, so he just prays she's too tactful to say anything.

She doesn't.

“You're sure you're okay?” Steve is peering into his face.

“Fine, fine, thanks,” Peter says. “We’re okay, but you should…” He gestures. “Since Spiderman is, you know. Out.”

Bucky nods. “Stevie, come on.”

Cap seems to take his word for it. “Well, okay,” he concedes. “But look, you should stop by. We haven't seen you around.”

Peter almost melts. “Yeah — sure thing, yeah, sure, Cap. And Bucky. And thanks again.” He nods. Bucky smirks. Then he crouches down and starts to zip-tie the wrists of the thug.

MJ yanks on his arm. “Parker,” she reminds him sternly. “You’re paying for my food if we get there after four, aight?”

“Yeah — right, we should — thanks, you guys, thanks,” Peter says, and salutes to the duo.

As soon as they’re out of earshot, MJ says in falsetto, “Oh sure, Mr. America, I would do anything for you, have my babies!”

“Shut up,” Peter says, elbowing her.

Silence settles. Neither of them speak for maybe too long.

And then MJ says, “If Captain America hadn’t been there...”

“I would’ve saved you,” Peter says confidently, because he knows he would have.

“You would have risked your identity,” MJ counters.

Peter startles, appalled. “Hang on, seriously? MJ. Between my secret identity and your life? I choose you. No two ways about it.”

“Okay,” MJ says airily. Her cheeks tinge pink. “If you say so.”

Too curious, Peter jumps out of his window after dinner, changes into the Spiderman suit on the ground, and goes in search of the good captain and his friend.

They aren’t hard to find.

“There you go,” says Steve, handing a beggar a fifty and giving him a smile. “Good luck.”

“Heart of gold,” Bucky mutters.

“Hey! Guys?” Peter halts. “Karen?” he whispers. “Is the voice modulator on?”

“It is. Would you like to activate interrogation mode?”

“Nonono, that’s — okay.” The Super Duo look over at him.

“Spiderman?”

Peter nods. “I’m off-duty, but I just wanted to thank you,” he says. “What you’re doing. It’s really...thanks. A lot.”

“We live to serve,” Bucky says, shrugging. Steve smacks him in the shoulder. “Hey! Punk.”

“It’s our pleasure,” Steve says. “Really. And Bucky here was going on season five of New Girl, so this is a sorely needed change of pace.”

“Hey!” Bucky repeats. “You wound me, Rogers. This dweeb has been watching HGTV for days. At least mine is funny.”

“HGTV is interesting!”

“For old people. ”

“Yeah, well, hate to break it to you, pal, but we are old people.”

Bucky mumbles something that sounds like, “Maybe you are,” and Peter smothers a laugh.

“That’s really all I wanted to…” He shifts back and forth on his feet. “To say. Just thanks. Oh, and, uh, sorry for stealing your shield and...and stuff. I hope there's no hard feelings. You too, Sergeant, sorry for the stuff at the airport. Your arm is super cool, though.”

Bucky actually starts to smile. 

“No hard feelings,” Cap agrees. “It's water under the bridge, son.” 

A police scanner goes off suddenly, and Bucky elbows Cap. “Gotta move,” he says. To Peter, he nods. “Heal soon.”

Steve gives him a determined smile. “What the old man said.”

And then they’re off in the night.

Oddly satisfied, Peter clambers back through his window and sleeps, peaceful.

peter: almost got mugged yesterday haha

stark: That’s not funny. For real?

peter: yeah but captain rogers & sgt. barnes saved us

stark: Us? Also, told you my system would work.

peter: me & MJ

stark: Ooh, a date? About time.

peter: NO

peter: BWW had a deal. i was a victim to her ploy

stark: You know that’s an excuse, right?

peter: no it’s not why would she pass up bww when it’s cheaper

peter: not everyone is loaded no offense mr. stark

stark: She didn’t have to invite you.

peter: we’re friends why wouldn’t she

peter: it’s not that deep mr. stark

stark: If you say so, but remember that I’m more advanced than you in every area of life except arachnidally (is that a word? It is now), including romantically.

stark: But hey, learning curves, etc. Take your time.

peter: you don’t understand, mj isn’t like other girls, she doesnt go on dates

stark: She’d probably be offended by that notion. MJ is a girl just like every other girl. That’s kind of misogynistic, kid.

peter: well

peter: i guess? but she doesn’t like me so drop it

peter: please

stark: Whatever you say, Spidey.

stark: Want to come to the compound this afternoon? Got some visitors you might want to meet.

stark: On second thought, invite MJ.

peter: what? who??? and yes! and why???

stark: If I tell you, it’ll ruin the surprise, smart guy.

“Hey, MJ.”

“Parker, I stepped out of AcaDec for this. Make it quick.”

“Mr. Stark invited me to the compound this afternoon and he told me to invite you too? I don’t know why but if you want to come…”

“I can’t get to the ‘compound’, I don’t have a car. How —”

“I assume he’ll send Happy,” Peter says hastily. He hopes MJ says yes; he hopes she wants to come, even if she doesn’t know why.

“Cool, we’ll be done at —”

“3:30,” Peter finishes. “I know.”

“Oh, yeah. I forgot you’re in AcaDec since, you know, you’re never here anymore.”

“You think I don’t want to be?”

“Don’t you think AcaDec doesn’t count as school?”

“Mr. Stark and Aunt May both agreed I shouldn’t go. I want to!”

“I’ve had to put Flash in to replace you, Parker. And now Ned’s out too, until next week. We’re gasping for air, here.” Peter knows that, of course, but he lets MJ rebuke him nonetheless.

“I’ll be back next week,” he offers weakly as condolence. “So will Ned.”

“Tell your lackey to give me a five-minute warning when he’s on his way.”

“Will — will do. Cool. Thanks, MJ.”

Happy drives MJ and Peter to the compound and Peter tries not to feel supremely weird about the fact that this will be the first time MJ has ever been to the compound. It’s not like Peter’s never thought of inviting her, he just, well. He didn’t really think he was allowed to.

“Hey, it’s Peter!” Mr. Stark announces at the front door, where he has apparently been waiting. Which is weird enough. Mr. Stark never waits downstairs for him. “Peter’s here. What’s up, kid? And your friend is here too. MJ, right?”

“Michelle,” MJ says neutrally. And then nothing else. Peter starts to worry.

But Mr. Stark takes it in stride and holds out a hand. “Michelle, obviously. My bad. Nice to meet you. The kid talks about you a lot. A normal amount. Right?” He glances at Peter, and Peter resists burying his face in his hands, but it’s a close thing. MJ shakes his hand. “Good handshake. Firm. Alright, upstairs we go. Thanks, Happy.”

Happy nods and then passes by them towards the elevators, probably to go sit in his Happy-cave and do whatever Happy does. Actually, Peter has never asked Happy what he does in his free time. Maybe he should, sometime. Or maybe not. He doubts he would get an honest answer.

The three of them make their way towards the elevators, a little slower, and Mr. Stark starts talking again. 

“So here’s the deal. The guests we have are a couple of diplomats from a foreign country, and Peter — look, kid, I know you get starstruck but please try to refrain from going all Comic Con on them because they’re here to discuss foreign policy and boring stuff like that, and — capische?” Peter gives him a thumbs up. “Great.”

“Mr. Stark,” MJ interjects. “I have to ask. Why, exactly, am I invited to this?”

Mr. Stark turns and gives MJ a look which Peter can only interpret as begrudgingly impressed and moderately appalled. 

“Seriously? Peter talks about his awesome friend Michelle who goes to protests and rallies and has read the entire U.S. Constitution and was promoted to captain of his Academic Decathlon team and has written several strongly-worded letters to the government on topics as controversial as military spending, abortion rights, the death penalty, and, yes, foreign policy. I’m supposed to ignore that? Future Ms. President in the making?”

MJ almost blushes — Peter sees her tamp it down, mentally — and narrows her eyes. “Peter doesn’t know about all that.”

True. Peter did not know, for example, that MJ even had opinions on military spending, although in retrospect of course she does.

Mr. Stark flaps a hand at her. “I did some research. Very compelling stuff. You completely flipped me on the death penalty, I’ll be honest. Whatever — the point is — you’re smart. You’re sharp, you’re valuable, you know your way around a government. Probably better than I do, and that’s not an exaggeration. I thought you should get a chance to sit in, see if you had any ideas. If you’re not into it, I get it. I’ll send you home, no skin off my nose.”

Peter can almost hear the gears turning in MJ’s mind, and he knows Mr. Stark has won her over. It’s not hard. Mr. Stark has a talent for saying exactly the right thing. Usually.

They get into the elevator.

“You know that I have problems with a lot of the way you run things, too,” MJ says cautiously.

“And that is one of the biggest reasons why I need your input,” Mr. Stark says, without missing a beat. “You can make Stark Industries better. Pepper makes all the big decisions, but you have great ideas. You can be a part of it, if you want to. I know how to recognize potential. And you have it. What do you think? Just sit in on the meeting. No strings attached. You hate it, you go home and forget about it.”

MJ stares at him until JARVIS pleasantly announces, “Sixth floor.”

“Thanks, JARVIS,” Mr. Stark says.

“I don’t want to work for you, but okay,” MJ allows. “I’ll sit in.”

Mr. Stark rubs his hands together and smiles. “That’s all I ask.”

The elevator door opens. Peter has the sneaking suspicion JARVIS was waiting for the conversation to end before allowing them to exit, and once he sees who’s on the other side of the doors, he’s grateful for the momentary respite.

“Stark,” King T’Challa says respectfully, nodding at him. He looks past Mr. Stark and directly at Peter and MJ. “And these are the interns, I expect.”

“Peter, Michelle, this is King T’Challa of Wakanda and his sister, Princess Shuri. Your Majesty, your Highness, this is Peter Parker and Michelle Jones. Peter’s been my intern for awhile, he works with me in the labs and does the fun techy stuff. And Michelle here is a really bright young lady. She’s going to sit in on the meeting. Hope you don’t mind, she’s got some great ideas.”

“It’s an honor to meet you, your Majesty,” MJ says, because of course she can act cool around the literal king and princess of an entire country. Like she does it every day. “I was very impressed by the press conference you gave opening your country to the outside world.”

The king smiles. “Thank you, Ms. Jones. It was...the correct course of action. I am only sorry we did not do it sooner. It is the time for making amends.”

Peter tries, he really does try, not to drool and act dazed. But also, this is the royalty of Wakanda. He knows he’s being overshadowed by MJ — amazing, composed, intellectual MJ, with strong opinions on foreign policy and all that — but it’s better than being the focus. The force of King T’Challa’s gaze would make him wither. MJ is handling it like a champ.

She deserves his attention. Not only does she deserve it, she can handle it. Peter doesn’t know enough about politics to even really fully grasp the repercussions of the Sokovian Accords. He understands enough, but he probably couldn’t explain it to a neutral party, and certainly not to the Wakandan king.

“Well, the world tends to move at a snail’s pace in all areas,” MJ says evenly. “I’m sure it won’t be hard to catch up.”

Peter wants to yell DON’T DISRESPECT THE KING, but King T’Challa simply looks amused.

“Yes, you are quite right,” he says, the corners of his mouth upturned. Princess Shuri snorts.

“In fairness to Wakanda,” the princess tells MJ, not maliciously, “we were faster than the United States in many areas. It was legal to be gay in Wakanda twenty years before the United States stopped calling it a disease.”

“Really?” MJ looks impressed at that, actually. She gives a short pause, and then says: “What’s the deal on transgender rights?”

Peter’s heart stops.

Discreetly, Mr. Stark glances back at him, and he sees it but ignores it, and instead stares at the princess.

If she catches on, she doesn’t say anything. “Gender equality is of the utmost importance to Wakanda,” she tells them smoothly. “This includes the equal rights of transgender people. Many of our Dora Milaje are transgender women.”

“So you see,” King T’Challa puts in, “we are significantly more advanced than many other countries — America included.”

“Great,” says Mr. Stark emphatically. “That’s great, because those are really important topics. Glad we covered that. Anyway, if you’ll follow me, your Majesty. Your Highness —”

“Please,” says the Princess Shuri, blowing air forcefully out. “Call me Shuri.”

“Shuri, then,” Mr. Stark says without pausing for breath, “will you be joining us?”

“That depends,” says Shuri. “Can I see your lab?”

Mr. Stark scrunches up his face. “As much as I want to say yes, I can’t let you in unsupervised. By a human, not just JARVIS. It’s a matter of security, you know the drill. But — hey!” He whirls around. “Pete, you wanna take the lady down to the lab? Peter knows his way around the lab like a pro,” he tells Shuri, and Peter blushes, not least because it’s true. A lot of the Avengers compound remains a mystery to him, but he’s spent so much time in the lab in the past year he could make his way there blindfolded.

Shuri’s piercing stare is suddenly on him. 

“I — yeah, I’ll — sure, sure, that’s cool, I can...do that,” Peter manages. MJ snorts. Peter decides to unfriend her on Snapchat.

Mr. Stark beams. “Great. Peter, you’ll take Shuri to the lab and show her what’s what — Shuri is a technical genius, you’ll get along famously — and your Majesty, Michelle, if you’ll just follow me down here.”

And Peter is left alone with Princess Shuri of Wakanda.

-

“And it can display anything?”

“Oh, yeah, anything. Sometimes if you’re lucky he’ll give you a sarcastic comment, too.”

“I find it strange that you have assigned a gender to this artificial intelligence. White people do such peculiar things.”

“I...guess. Yeah, it is weird. Oh well. He’s not my AI, so…” Peter shrugs. “But seriously, ask for him to show you something.”

Shuri thinks. “Mm...Mr. JARVIS — is it Mr.?”

“Just JARVIS is fine,” JARVIS replies. Shuri looks delighted.

“Okay, JARVIS, show me...the specs for Mr. Stark’s suit.”

“Unfortunately, your Highness, those specs are confidential and require a voice command by Sir himself. I can show you video footage of the suit in motion, if you would like,” JARVIS answers.

Shuri and Peter exchange a glance, and Shuri shrugs. “Show me a compilation of Iron Man epic fails.”

“With great pleasure, your Highness,” JARVIS says. A video hologram lights up in front of them with a YouTube video open and playing, titled iron man epic fails best. Shuri barks a laugh, and so does Peter when he sees the first one, where Mr. Stark flies directly into the side of a building.

“This is remarkable technology,” Shuri concedes, as the video plays. She isn’t really watching; Peter sees her eyes skim the entire room. “I have, of course, created a great many things superior, but this AI seems to have an intellect that has been cultivated rather than constructed.”

“You are quite right, your Highness,” JARVIS says. “I have been evolving, for lack of a better term, adjusting as best an artificial intelligence can to the personality of Sir and fine-tuning my own mannerisms. While I was once only able to respond to direct commands, I am now capable of understanding and anticipating what Sir’s actions will be and responding to them.”

“Amazing,” Shuri breathes. Peter agrees. “Why JARVIS, though? Out of all the names, it seems quite...arbitrary.”

Wow, true. Peter’s never even thought about that.

“Edwin Jarvis was the name of Sir’s butler, growing up,” JARVIS answers. “I assume the name was selected out of a sense of nostalgia. He passed away in Sir’s youth.”

“Oh, that sucks,” Peter says sympathetically. “Weird namesake, JARVIS.”

“It does not generally concern me,” JARVIS replies, cool as ever. He is a robot, technically speaking, but still. It’s weird to have a conversation with a real voice from a fake source. JARVIS doesn’t feel things.

“I like it,” Shuri decides. “I approve, JARVIS.”

“I am ever so glad,” JARVIS answers. Shuri laughs and gives Peter a bright look.

“The sarcasm,” she says approvingly. “He is funny.”

Peter nods his agreement.

“You made friends with Princess Shuri?”

“I know, right?! And she gave me her number! Or, well, sort of. I mean, she did give me her number. But also this, like, marble? She said if I wanted to send her a message I could just hold it out and say, like, record, and then talk, and then it would go to Shuri — I don't know. I probably won't use it.”

“Dude,” Ned says seriously. “That is so cool.”

“I know!” 

The great thing about Ned is, he gets it. Even when they're only connected via phone call. Man, Peter loves him.

“Can't believe she's leaving before I get back,” Ned pouts, mournfully. “Next time you'll introduce me though, right?”

“Bro, of course I will.”

“Oh, that reminds me! You come back to school on Monday?”

“Yeah, but no Spiderman for another two weeks.” Which sucks. But it also sucks significantly less since the lineup. He might owe Mr. Stark his eternal gratitude, because King T’Challa had agreed to do patrol of Queens on Saturday.

How. Freaking. Awesome.

“What about the binder? When do you get to stop wearing it?”

“The...oh! Um — I guess on Monday!” Peter must have forgotten about the binder. It makes sense — he’s developed the habit of wearing the chest part of the suit in most of his free time, since no one is around to see him anyway. “Hey, awesome!”

“Very awesome,” Ned confirms. “You know what else is awesome? Chris Pine is coming to Comic Con this year. And John Barrowman and Daisy Ridley!"

“What, no shit!”

“I know! I asked my mom if she'd take us but she said she had to think about it but Daisy Ridley, man! ”

“We should invite MJ,” Peter says.

“Yeah, obviously. I asked for the three of us. How cool would that be? If I met Daisy Ridley I would ask her to teach me to use the Force. Just to see her reaction.”

“I bet she can do it,” Peter sighs dreamily. “For real.”

“Yeah,” Ned sighs, agreeably.

It is so great, sometimes, to have a friend like Ned.

spidey squad - friday, 12:34 pm

marmalade jar: so, big news

ne(r)d: HMMMMMMMM IS IT THAT YUO MET KING THCNALLA

marmalade jar: ah yes

marmalade jar: I love all the leaders of the brave new world, hillary clinton, justin trudeau, and *looks at smudged writing on hand* king thcnalla

peter: MJU

marmalade jar: the big news is that king thcnalla and tony stark asked if I could come back to the avengers compound once every week or two and do some review of the sokovian accords

marmalade jar: and other various documents

peter: holy shit no way

ne(r)d: ARE YOU GODUDAMN KIDDING ME EMJAY

ne(r)d: i leave for 5 seconds srsly

peter: also i got married

ne(r)d: no you didn’t u fucker

peter: I COULD HAVE

marmalade jar: nah

peter: read 12:39 pm ✔️

ne(r)d: for real though emjay that’s fucking dope

ne(r)d: congratz manz

marmalade jar: thankz manz

peter: yeah congratz mickey junior

marmalade jar: I will let that slide because I’m very happy

peter: as you should be

peter: maybelline jorts

ne(r)d: maybelline jorts?????

peter: maybe she’s born with it

peter: maybe it’s maybelline jorts

“Big day tomorrow,” Aunt May says, waggling her eyebrows and poking Peter in the soft of his shoulder.

Peter shrugs, like it’s no big deal, everyday thing, casually never has to wear a binder again for the rest of his life, the usual. “Weird,” he adds.

“Yeah,” Aunt May says. She takes a spoonful of ice cream and swallows it. “But good weird. Right?”

“Honestly, all of the last two weeks have been good weird.”

“I’ll drink to that,” Aunt May says, and drains the rest of her apple juice. Peter sticks his tongue out at her, like the mature sixteen-year-old he is.

“Did you hear MJ is basically interning for Mr. Stark and King T’Challa?”

“What? No way! Good for her.” Aunt May is awesome, because she doesn’t have to care about Ned and MJ, but she does anyway, and she’s really, really good at it. “Better watch out, she might become Stark’s favorite if you’re not careful.”

Peter weighs this concern against the pride and joy he feels for MJ. 

“Worth it,” he finally concludes.

Aunt May reaches across the table and ruffles her hands in his hair, smiling the soft, twinkling smile that Peter has grown to associate with home. “That’s my boy.”

He sure is. He sure the fuck is, and tomorrow morning he will prove it by showing up to school and not wearing a binder. Forehead pressed against the palm of Aunt May’s hand, he smiles.

Chapter Text

Every single one of Peter’s teachers gives him some variation of the “welcome back, I see you’ve kept up with your homework, here is what we’re doing in class” shpiel, and by the time he saunters into AcaDec he almost wants to give himself the speech just to save Mr. Harrison the trouble.

“PETER’S BACK!” Ned yells. “EVERYONE STOP WHAT YOU’RE DOING AND APPRECIATE THAT PETER IS BACK!”

Everyone claps, and Peter bows jokingly, laughing.

“Welcome back, Peter!” Cindy says. Flash looks decidedly put out.

“Where were you, anyway?” he snaps. “Ditching?”

Oh, Flash. Peter can’t help but grin back at him. Even he can’t extinguish the awesome mood Peter’s carrying with him today.

“How about this,” MJ says inscrutably. “I’ll ask the questions, and you, Thompson, will provide the answers. Is that cool?”

Ned and Peter exchange an awesome look, and then Peter and MJ exchange an awesome look for a second, and the whole day is great.

Flash slumps further down in his seat. “Yeah, yeah,” he grumbles. “I get it. I’m out, Parker’s back, order is restored, yadda yadda yadda.”

Order is restored. That seems like a pretty fair assessment.

Peter takes out a whole round of questions like lightning before MJ gives him a dry look and tells him to please give the other members of the team a chance to answer.

“Sorry,” he says sheepishly, but Ned gives him a secret thumbs up under the table.

MJ watches him for another moment. “Welcome back, though,” she finally says. Peter’s gut twists, inexplicably. He smiles at her.

“Yee-AHH!”

“Why,” Falcon says, “do I always seem to find you doing weird things?”

He deposits Peter back on the roof of his building and crosses his arms, still bobbing up and down in the air. What a power move.

Peter brushes himself carefully off and avoids the Falcon’s eyes. “I just...I wanted to see if I could…”

“Die?” Falcon offers. “Get flattened like a fly on a windshield? Crack like an egg?”

The thing is, there is no logical way to explain why Peter had flung himself off his building, even with the knowledge that he’s Spiderman and that the fall would have, at worst, twisted his ankle. It is also aggravated by the fact that Peter had been mid-yeet when the neck of his t-shirt had been caught by Falcon.

But trying that flip in the Spidersuit would have killed him, because the suit would have seized up, and Peter’s not an idiot. He wanted to land on his feet, not his face. He just wasn’t expecting to be surveilled by a man in a metal bird suit. 

“...Land it,” he finally huffs. “I wanted to see if I could stick the landing.”

The Falcon looks aghast. “You thought you were gonna stick that? Kid, you would’ve hit the ground and never got up.”

“No way,” Peter says. He should just say, you’re right, Mr. Falcon, I would have died, thank you for saving me. It’s just, sue him. He’s sick of being underestimated. And he’s tired of being cooped up. “I would’ve stuck it.”

The Falcon arches an eyebrow, Natasha-style, and it is at that exact moment that Peter knows he’s done for.

Finally the man lands. “I’ll tell you what, I’m technically on duty here,” he says, deceptively cool.

Peter swallows.

“First, I ran into you in the hallway at midnight and you were in the middle of disassembling a Spiderman ropes course. Pretty weird thing to be doing at midnight, but at least you were staying in.”

ABORT MISSION, ABORT MISSION.

“Then Stark tells us his protegé lives in Queens and needs some help while he’s out for the count, and the one rule is that if we see Spiderman out and about we are to force him home.”

TELL AUNT MAY I LOVE HER.

“And now I find you,” Mr. Wilson finishes. “On a roof. Trying to flip off a building. You know how much trouble I’d be in if I let you do that?”

Peter shrugs nervously. “A little?”

Mr. Wilson does the eyebrow thing again and Peter thinks Lord help me.

“Look, kid,” he says. “I’m not gonna force you back home. You’re a grown kid, you can take care of yourself. Just be more careful, that’s all. I gotta go — watchin’ out for your city is a hustle. Let’s do tea this week!”

He flies off.

Peter collapses against the rickety lawn chair.

After a second, he pulls out his phone and scrolls down his contacts.

“Wilson.”

“Did you just expose me and then invite me to tea? And then jet off my roof?”

“I’m a busy man,” Mr. Wilson says. “Is that a yes?”

And, what the hell.

“Yeah,” Peter says.

Doing homework is way easier when Peter is actually present for the learning that precedes it. Compared to the last fortnight, this is a breeze. He finishes the calc worksheet in the eight minutes before the bell rings for that class, and when school lets out he finds Ned.

“Yo,” Ned greets him. “Dead yet?”

“Are you kidding? This is so much better than being cooped up all day.”

“Ugh, you make me sick. Am I the only one of us with a healthy dislike of the American school system?”

“I'm pretty sure MJ would fight you for that title.”

“Yeah…” Ned nods pensively. “Okay, fine. Guess you're the crazy one, then.”

Peter sticks out his tongue. Apparently this is becoming his signature move.

“Wanna come over?” He prompts as they walk out of the building. “May’s not home 'til seven and I said I'd make a salad to help with dinner but honestly I don't —”

“Say no more,” Ned says importantly. “Salad-mixing? That's my best skill.”

Peter laughs. Ned allows him this before continuing in a normal voice. “For real, though, I love making salad. Dude, why haven't you ever asked for my help with this stuff before? You know I love to cook.”

It's a fair question. Peter spends several minutes trying to think of the last time he cooked something, much less helped with dinner, and all he comes up with (other than the Top Surgery Fund brownies) is ramen and Hot Pockets.

“I guess I, uh, I've never really cooked.” Huh. “That makes me a shitty nephew, doesn't it.”

“Nah,” says Ned, but his job as best friend is to make Peter feel better, so it's only partially reassuring. “May would've asked you if she needed your help.”

“Well, she's not around most afternoons, and I'm not around in the evenings, and I guess she never gets the chance? I mean it's not like she suddenly needs help after years of going solo.” A thought strikes Peter, and his shoulders sag. “Man, I should've offered to help. Wow, I'm terrible.”

“Okay, cut it out right now,” Ned commands. “We're not wallowing in self-pity! May loves you, I love you, and bro, we are gonna make the hell out of this salad. Don't live in the past, buddy. It’s not good for your soul.”

“Okay, Bob Marley,” Peter teases, to mask the fact that he still feels incredibly guilty. He's always been preoccupied; with school, with homework, with Spiderman, with the Avengers, with Mr. Stark. And the closest May has ever come to asking him for help with dinner is having him cut a cucumber.

Shit.

He makes a note to talk to her about that. Also, he makes a note to ask to help more often. Ballparking, Peter guesses May makes dinner three or four times a week. Alone. For both of them.

Ned cuts him out of the reverie. “I can tell you're still stressing about this because that's the kind of person you are so how about I help you make dinner tonight as an olive branch.”

Ned is the best.

“Thanks,” Peter says, beaming gratefully. “I don't really know how to make a lot of things, though.”

“It's cool, we can make spaghetti or something easy,” Ned extemporizes, waving him off. His eye gets that glint. “Maybe even another Spider-trip to Aldi.”

Peter shoves Ned, snorting.

Ned sends him to Aldi.

When Peter tries to explain the suit situation to him, Ned says he doesn't want to hear it.

“But they always try to give me free stuff!” Peter argues.

Ned gives him a why is that a bad thing look.

“I deserve to pay for my groceries like every other citizen!”

“So haggle! Whatever! Look, people like seeing Spiderman doing day-to-day crap. It makes them feel like they relate. So just do the people of Queens a favor and go buy some freaking tomatoes!”

Peter tries to glare, but Ned must be building up an immunity from spending time with MJ.

So Peter ends up walking to Aldi. He has twenty bucks in a pocket (also: the suit has pockets, apparently?) and when he walks into Aldi, everyone stares.

Under the mask, he blushes.

Armed with three tomatoes, a bag of spring mix, and his money, Peter confidently approaches the checkout. He mentally swears to pay, this time. It's not fair to give him free stuff just because he's Spiderman.

Well, maybe a little bit fair, but not enough to justify it.

“Hi,” says the checkout lady (“Amara!” her name tag exclaims). To her credit, she is hiding whatever astonishment she may be feeling with remarkable proficiency.

“Hi,” Peter says, feeling a babble rising in his throat. He chokes it down. “Just, just this stuff.”

“Cool suit,” Amara says offhandedly. “That’s, uh, $11.28. Is it Comic-Con?”

Peter flounders.

“Uh,” he says, and clears his throat. “No, it — Comic-Con is in July.”

Amara shrugs. Peter hands over the $20, dumbfounded. “I always forget. What's the one in May?”

Karen thankfully provides an answer on his HUD, and Peter transmits the info.

“The, uh, Nickel City one — in Buffalo.”

Amara snaps her fingers. “That one. That's all the superheroes, right? Makes sense.”

Huh?

“Well, your cosplay is killer. Hope you win!” Amara gives him two thumbs up. “$8.72 is your change. Have a good one.”

“Oh, uh, keep it,” Peter says. He's a little preoccupied with having his mind blown. “And thanks.”

Amara smiles and she's already moved on.

Feeling completely baffled, Peter exits the Aldi. 

“Karen?”

“Hello, Peter.”

“Hey. Question. Is there a Comic-Con for superheroes? In Buffalo?”

“The Nickel City Convention in Buffalo, New York is a celebration of comic book culture, which includes the comic books now largely dedicated to speculations and contemplations on the fantastical lives of superheroes such as Captain America, Iron Man, The Hulk, Spiderman, and several others. Would you like to see an example?”

“...Of the convention?”

“Of the comics. Although if you want to see the convention, I'd be happy to show you some photos.”

“Yeah, sure.”

The HUD lights up, and Peter startles. His eyes blink against images of people dressed as, well, as all the people he knows and loves — kids dressed in Thor capes and girls in Scarlet Witch costumes, and countless Iron Mans and Black Widows and even Winter Soldiers. And him, too; Spiderman, apparently, is a popular suit. Shelves and racks of toys (bows like Clint’s, Mjolnirs, the iconic Cap shield, so on). Peter says, “Text Mr. Stark.”

“Sure thing. What should I say?”

“Uh...say, 'Did you know there's a convention in Buffalo dedicated to superheroes?’”

The response returns almost instantly.

stark: Might have crossed my radar. Why, you wanna go? Hiding in plain sight never hurt.

Peter giggles despite himself and pulls out his phone, because he has a reputation of gen-Z texting styles to maintain and Karen can't emulate it.

peter: not really i just…didn't know about it??

peter: it's pretty cool though

peter: like. people dress up as us. bc they think we're that cool. idk

stark: Yeah, kid, that's the whole point of a superhero. Be an icon. Inspire hope. That kind of crap.

stark: Important crap, though.

peter: no I know I just didnt think I was included in that on such a large scale lol

peter: i mean spiderman is pretty local

stark: Hate to break it to you, but if you're a hero in one place, you're a hero everywhere.

peter: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

“Why is no one tweeting that Spiderman was in Aldi?” Ned accuses as soon as Peter walks in the door.

Tugging off the mask, Peter shrugs. He hands off the bag of ingredients to Ned. “Maybe because I didn't swing in? Dunno. But the checkout lady thought I was in cosplay for some con in Buffalo. Did you know —”

“Dude, Nickel City? I've wanted to go to that for ever !” Ned gushes. Then he fixates on Peter, who probably looks as lost as he feels. “You seriously didn't know about NCC?”

“Wh- I thought Comic-Con was the only one!” Peter protests. 

Ned turns around as Peter moves to loosen the suit, and Peter casually says, “Hey, you don't need to, uh, do that anymore. Since the surgery.”

Ned turns around, looking askance. “You sure? It really doesn't —”

“I'm sure,” Peter confirms. “Look, check it out.” He presses the center of his chest and the suit falls around his ankles, leaving him in boxers and nothing else. Peter gives a double thumbs up.

“Dude! You look so manly. Can I hug you?”

Peter is platonically going to marry Ned.

“Yeah, bring it in.”

They hug it out, and Peter can't help but feel a swell of gratitude. “Look, Ned, I don't know if I've ever thanked you for all this — don't interrupt me, let me just talk, okay — all your, you know...support and help and...shit. I'm really glad we're friends.” He blushes.

Ned squeezes his shoulder and then pats it. “Me too, Peter. You're the best friend ever.” He turns around and pulls a tomato out from the plastic grocery bag and offers it to Peter. “It’s gonna be me and you forever, man. Cut this.”

Obligingly, Peter pulls a cutting board out and makes quick work of the three tomatoes. “And MJ,” he belatedly adds.

“Well, duh. But I mean before you two get married. While I can still deny that you’re leaving me.”

“Wh- huh? I'm — MJ and I aren't going to get married.”

“Peter, you don't have to lie to me. I know you like MJ. It's cool. She has my stamp of approval, man. And I gave you my stamp of approval to her, too. So you guys are good now.”

“What is going on? Why does everyone think I like MJ?”

Ned laughs. “Peter, why do you think you don't like MJ?”

“We're just friends,” Peter says sternly. He points the knife at Ned. “Capische?”

“Capoosh,” Ned says dismissively. “You'll see.”

But Peter ignores him, because he doesn't like MJ. Not more than he should. And besides, even if he did, she'd never like him back, so it's a waste of energy. He resolves to stop thinking about it.

Aunt May loves the dinner. She tears up.

“It was Ned’s idea,” Peter deflects. “I'm sorry I never help out with the cooking.”

Aunt May says, “Oh, Peter,” and hugs him. “You're such a good kid.”

Peter feels warm all over.

Wednesday, Peter steps out of his building and then steps back in and shuts the door.

After a moment wherein he composes himself, he steps out again.

“Sorry to startle you,” says the man now literally floating in front of him. “I assure you, there's no reason to be afraid.”

“Supervillains say that,” Peter points out.

The floating man rolls his eyes. “My name is Doctor Stephen Strange, Master of the Mystic Arts. I'm here on behalf of Spiderman, who, I've been told, is 'benched.’” The quote marks seem excessive.

Peter must look surprised, because Doctor Strange adds, “Sorry for any dissonance I've caused in your day. You are encouraged to pretend this exchange never happened. Excuse me.”

He does some kind of boom-boom-swish motion with his hands, twists them, and then vanishes through what is definitely a portal. Peter gapes until the sparks of the magic (it must be magic) fizzle into nothing.

“Holy,” he whispers.

Peter drinks his tea thoughtfully until the door to the Forest Café swings open and someone sits down across from him.

“Oh — hi, Mr. Wilson,” he says, grinning. Mr. Wilson laughs.

“No way. If we're gonna be the kind of friends that do tea, it's strictly first-name basis. Call me Sam.”

Peter blushes into his drink. “Okay, that's cool. Hi, Sam. Hey, do you know anyone called Doctor Stephen Strange?”

Sam’s mouth twists into a smirk. “You bet I do,” he says. “Oh, man, is today his day?”

Peter nods. He swallows a sip of tea and continues, “I walked outside today and he was just there. In front of my apartment building.”

“Tony sent the lineup to all of us,” Sam explains. “And then he realized there might not be enough people to repeat evenly, so he called in a couple, well, I guess vigilantes would be the word. Not for Strange. That guy is one Shakespeare convention away from unbearably pretentious. But people like what you do — hold your own, lone wolf, that kind of thing.”

“And Strange — Doctor Strange just took it?”

Sam scoffs. “Please. Tony can be very convincing.”

“Don't I know it,” Peter laments.

Sam goes to order a drink and Peter takes the opportunity to quickly text his friends.

spidey squad

peter: WHOS OUT HERE HAVING TEA W SAM WILSON ALIAS FALCON

marmalade jar: you?

ne(r)d: BITCH

ne(r)d: PICS OR IT DIDNT HAPPEN

peter: falcon.jpg

marmalade jar: dope

marmalade jar: wait lmao was he the one who caught you yeeting off your goddamn roof

peter: new phone who dis

marmalade jar: HAHAHAHAHA TELL HIM HE'S MY HERO

Peter puts away his phone.

“So what's new? You're back in school, right?” Sam prods, reclaiming his seat with a mug of tea in hand.

Peter acknowledges this with a nod. Immediately followed by a frown. “Wait, how did you know…”

“Give me some credit, Peter. I'm observant. I'm no Black Widow, but neither are you. What kept you out of class so long, anyway?”

Peter looks down into his mug. “Didn't Mr. Stark tell you?” Maybe he could learn to read tea leaves. It wouldn't help much at the moment anyway, because no one puts actual leaves in their tea anymore. Would be a cool skill, though.

No, it would be complete bogus.

“He said you got surgery,” Sam says. “What kind of surgery? Usually the wait is longer — I don't know any surgery big enough to bench you but small enough to only take a few weeks to recover from.”

Peter realizes that Sam has no idea. And he could so easily lie, here. Peter hasn't needed to outright lie about the surgery for awhile. Most people he talks to already know; MJ stepped in at AcaDec before he could respond, and Wanda hadn't asked what kind of surgery it was, only if she could help.

So when Peter goes to say just something in my chest, no big deal, the words don't come.

“It, um,” he says. Channel Mr. Stark, he thinks. Channel MJ. Channel Aunt May. Be cool as an iceberg. You can do it. You don't care what he thinks. Go, Peter. “It was top surgery,” he finally says, eyes distinctly focused on the tabletop. “Mr. Stark helped me and May afford it, so he had a foot in the door, and he's still on shaky terms with May since she learned about the...you know...crime-fighting, plus the doctor said no physical exertion for a month and I don't want to risk it. So he benched me and the doctor also said no school for two weeks, and now it's been two weeks. So.”

“Awesome,” Sam says.

Peter looks up and blinks. “Really?”

“What do you mean, really? Yeah, obviously that's awesome for you. And it's good you're being careful. Tony obviously cares about you, even if he has a really weird, stunted way of showing it.”

Peter schools his blush. “Oh,” he says. “Well, yeah. I mean, he does have a weird way of showing it.”

Sam sips his tea. “Well, two weeks 'til you start swingin’ again.”

Peter shrugs. “I'm sort of getting used to not being...him.” He mouths Spiderman. “I mean, I still want to do it, but...I guess this is good for me, right? Like, I'm getting to experience life as if I was never him. It's weird. In a good way.”

Sam nods. “I feel that. You're right, though. It is good for you. Excuse the accidental metaphor, but you got bit by the super-bug too early, kid. I'm glad you're getting a reprieve.”

Peter thinks about cooking with Ned, and Buffalo Wild Wings with MJ, and Delmar’s with May, and the lab with Shuri, and engineering with Dr. Banner, and working on projects with Mr. Stark, and Lord of the Rings watch parties.

“Me too,” he admits.

“So you never apologized,” Sam segues, and then oh-so-smoothly takes a drink from his cup.

“Apologized for what?” Actually, off the top of his head Peter can list at least three things. Starting with almost tangling you up in my spiderweb obstacle course.

“For webbing me to the ground,” Sam says dryly. “In Germany.”

Peter almost drops his cup.

“Oh,” he says. “Yeah, I, uh — sorry about that. But hey!” He points at Sam (j’accuse, he thinks). “You need to apologize too. For sending your...flying droid to throw me off.”

“Pfft, please. You recovered like a champ. Barnes and I were trapped there until I maneuvered Redwing into cutting us free. Wasn't easy. That web stuff is off-the-charts, man. My kudos to you.”

Peter's genuinely unsure if he's supposed to feel complimented or scandalized right now.

“Sorry?” he tries.

Sam stares at him. And then he starts laughing.

Peter laughs, too, and the pressure in his chest is released like cracking open a jostled can of Sprite.

“So Tony tells me you have a girlfriend,” Sam pries, when the only thing left in their cups is dregs of cold, clear tea. Peter groans and puts his head in his hands.

“I do not have a girlfriend,” he says staunchly. “MJ is my friend and that's all it is. Guys can have friends they're not dating!”

“Sure, I know they can,” Sam says, holding up his hands in surrender. “But they can also have friends they’re super into. Sometimes you think it’s one, turns out it’s the other.” His face twists into a lighthearted smirk. “And I have seen this pattern a hundred times. I may know a thing or two about it.”

Peter knows — he knows — that this is bait, plain and simple, dangling out in the open. Sam wants him to ask. Sam is counting on him to ask. Sam expects him to ask.

Peter asks. “What does that mean,” he grinds out.

Sam chuckles. “Best example? Rogers and Barnes. Those two danced around each other like Rogers and Astaire. They were always 'just friends, nothing more.’ Those few months were hell.”

“Rogers and — Cap and Bucky?” Peter echoes.

Sam nods. “I mean, thank God they sorted their shit out after awhile, but that don’t erase all the pain they caused us, oh Lord our God, amen.”

“What…”

“Saw it all the time overseas, too,” Sam continues. “And I admit Riley and I did it to ourselves for some time.” Before Peter can ask WHO IS RILEY, Sam says, “The point is, more often than not, when someone tells me point-blank they’re just friends, those ‘friends’ end up together a few months out. Tops.”

Peter sputters. “It's not the same.”

“Okay,” Sam says, thoroughly disbelieving.

“It's not!”

“Sure.”

Peter belatedly realizes he's fighting a losing battle. “Fine,” he says.

“Great,” Sam replies.

“Awesome.”

“Cool.”

Peter's phone buzzes twice on the tabletop.

marmalade jar: two things: one, when was the last time you played an arcade game. two,

marmalade jar: yeet.jpg

Fully aware that Sam is watching, Peter makes to put his phone away.

“No no,” Sam says. “Don't ignore her on my account. Please, by all means. Tell her I say hey.”

Peter is starting to regret being tea buddies with Sam.

He glares at him and opens the picture.

It's an old press image of the Falcon in midair, and MJ has photoshopped Peter into it, dangling from Falcon’s fingers above ground. The large text on the edit reads YEET.

marmalade jar: this is accurate right

Peter snorts a disgusting laugh. Sam raises his eyebrows, so Peter turns his phone and shows him.

Sam laughs, clapping in amusement. “Well damn,” he snickers.

Peter hands his phone over, and Sam types a response. When he gets his phone back he sees what it is.

peter: 100% accurate. Sam Wilson stamp of approval. And I would play arcade games with you any day.

Peter can't help but laugh, especially when:

marmalade jar: what is it with adults taking Peter’s phone

marmalade jar: give it back to him

He shows Sam, and Sam nods approvingly. “She's good,” he says. “She has the Sam Wilson stamp of approval, too.” He points into Peter's face. “You better go on the arcade date with her.”

“It's not a date,” Peter insists, but it's a lost cause. He drains his tea.

“Hey, did you see the sky?”

“What?”

“Look up.”

“I am looking up, and my ceiling looks the same as it did yesterday.”

“Very funny. Go outside, wise guy, and look up.”

Peter hops off his bed and ambles towards the door of his apartment. “Gimme a sec, I gotta get downstairs.”

“Don't you have a balcony?”

“You know I don't, Mr. Stark.”

Mr. Stark waits impatiently while Peter goes down the elevator. Finally he makes it outdoors. He glances up.

“Really, Mr. Stark?”

“What, you don't like it?”

“It's. Flashy.” It is; overlaid on the cerulean of the sky, What's good, Queens! is written in trails of smoke, not unlike the ones jet planes make. Peter makes out an Iron Man suit hovering at the bottom of the exclamation mark.

“I thought your day was Tuesday,” he adds.

“It was,” Mr. Stark says. “But I was the contingency plan in case the Thursday guy couldn't make it, and he can't. So I'm doing double duty 'til he's stateside.”

“Who?”

“Oh — got a call coming in from the missus. Talk to you later, kiddo. Stay out of trouble!”

The call cuts off. Peter sighs.

All things considered, Peter’s third Spidey-free week passes uneventfully. On Friday, the lineup apparently repeats, because the news is covering Wanda again as her aura curls around the corners of the city. Peter does his math homework while he watches, sort of an homage. Halfway through, MJ and Ned burst through the door.

“We're taking apple juice shots whenever they say something sexist,” MJ tells him, handing him a shot glass with Iron Man’s face on it, which is her version of cold irony. Ned is carrying the apple juice. It's halfway empty.

“I was craving it,” Ned confesses. They settle themselves beside him.

“...though many have suggested it may be unwise to let such an unstable character defend their beloved borough…” the newscaster drones. 

“Shot,” MJ announces. Ned obligingly pours, and they all take a shot.

“This is good practice for college,” Peter says dryly.

MJ replies, without missing a beat, “I take a shot whenever Spiderman’s on and they speculate on your identity or qualifications.”

Even Ned looks surprised by that.

MJ looks over at them. “What? That shit is funny.”

That's one word for it.

“I'm not really listening, so just tell me when to drink,” Peter says, returning to his homework. MJ’s left arm brushes against his right as he writes. She doesn't seem to notice. Peter tries not to notice.

“Have you, uh,” he clears his throat. “Have you guys even finished the math homework?”

“Did it in class,” MJ says.

Ned shrugs. “I'll do it tomorrow. Gotta get down on Friday, right?”

“Get out of my house,” Peter says.

Ned chuckles and reaches over MJ to push his arm.

He feels: safe, warm, comfortable, content. Two of his favorite people keeping him company for no reason other than to just keep him company. He shoots a smile at MJ while Ned is checking his phone, and MJ smiles back, so sincere it almost unsteadies him.

Nothing is bad, right now. Peter sighs happily and pushes his math homework aside. It can definitely wait.

When Peter wakes up at 10:32am on Saturday, he almost hits his head against the bed frame above him as he jolts upright.

“Shit,” he mutters. “Shit shit shit shit shit shit fuck shit.” He rolls out of bed and scrambles to his phone to check his messages.

ne(r)d: confirm for me 10:45 at highland park?

ne(r)d: yo

ne(r)d: if youre sleeping im going to kick your sorry ass

1 missed call from: ne(r)d

ne(r)d: you no longer have a valid excuse for being too tired to get up early

ne(r)d: 10:45 is NOT EARLY

ne(r)d: boy im literally leaving tonight and this?? is the treatment i get???

ne(r)d: if you’re not here at 10:45 on the dot im gonna call MJ and i will have a picnic with her instead of you and you will rue the day i exact my revenge on you for being a flaky little bitch

“Shit,” Peter hisses. The panic sloshing around in his chest starts to solidify. He thinks: Ned is joking. Ned will not leave you. You just have to get there. He will not ditch you if you’re late once. Come on, Peter. Breathe.

There’s a tap on his window.

Peter jumps so high his head smacks the ceiling. “FUCK!”

The window slides open as Peter’s turning around. “That’s no way to talk to your elders.”

“Clint,” Peter says, dumbfounded. “What are you doing? I-I’m sorry, I’m really late to meet my friend and I —”

“I know,” Clint says airily. “Get dressed and come out here. Three minutes.”

And then he vanishes out the window before Peter can argue.

At a loss, Peter gets dressed and then climbs out the window and down to the ground.

Clint comes around the corner of the building. “Walk,” he orders.

“Clint,” Peter says. “What’s happening?” His eyes widen. “Is there a mission? I don’t have the suit, Mr. Stark said I couldn’t use it for a month and I haven’t been bringing it with —”

“The mission is to get you to your playdate on time,” Clint interrupts. Peter’s jaw drops.

“What?”

“Highland Park, right? That’s not far.”

Peter attempts to regain control of the wayward situation. “Wait, hold on.  Highland Park is far, which is why I need to leave now, I’m going to be so late anyway —”

“Peter.” Clint gives him a bracing look. “Close your mouth and listen for one minute. One, okay? Count the seconds.”

Well, it’s not like he’s exactly given a choice. Peter falls silent, pouting.

“I am getting you to the park,” Clint says, sighing, “because your friend is going to be pissed if you’re late, and I want you and your friends to be on good terms. It’s important for the growth of kids, you know, to have good, reliable friends. Stark sent me to grab you because he said your friend sent him a message asking if you were with him. Clear?”

Right, because he and Natasha come after Wanda on the roster. He must have been in the area. Peter waits until his mental countdown strikes zero, just to be an asshole. 

“One question,” he says tentatively. Clint prompts him with a raised eyebrow. “Highland Park is in Brooklyn. It’s like an hour and a half to walk there!”

“Hey,” Clint says, cutting him off. He stops walking. Peter does not want to stop, because he’s late , but Clint is not the sort of person you argue with when he stops. When Clint stops, Peter stops. “Quit panicking, kid. Okay? Breathe. In and out.”

“I’m not panicking,” Peter lies.

“I can tell you are.”

“I just don’t understand how you plan on getting me to Highland Park in less than” — he checks his phone and his heart constricts — “seven minutes!”

Clint puts a hand on his shoulder. “I’m not going to try to be your father figure, alright? That’s Stark’s gig, he’s got a handle on it. I’m just asking you to trust me. You’re friends with a bunch of genetically enhanced or otherwise superpowered superheroes. You think between all of us we don’t have one way to transport you quickly?”

Peter shrugs minutely.

Clint whistles, and the air in front of them opens up in a sizzle of orange sparks. The caped man — Doctor Strange — steps out.

“This is a lot of showmanship,” Peter points out.

Doctor Strange offers a restrained look. “This is a favor, kid. Let’s go. Where am I leaving you?”

Peter blinks. “You’re —”

“I’m gonna stop you there. My time is very important and I’m doing this as a favor to the Avengers. So if you want to get somewhere, tell me where and I’ll get you there.”

Clint and Peter exchange a look, and Peter knows they’re both thinking, he’s kind of a dick, huh.

“Highland Park,” Peter tells him, carefully maintaining a neutral tone. “This is really...um, this is nice of you, Mr. Strange.”

“Doctor,” Strange mutters.

“And thanks,” Peter adds, turning to Clint. Clint gives him a wry look and a half-curtsy.

Clint reaches out and smacks his shoulder amiably. “Attaboy. Okay, I gotta get back to Nat. Duty calls. Keep outta trouble.”

He shoots an arrow at the top of the nearest building, yanks on it, and disappears onto the rooftop.

Doctor Strange draws a circle in the air with his hands, and in front of them the initial portal dissolves and a new one takes its place. Inside, Peter recognizes the languid air of Highland Park.

“After you,” Strange says. Peter resists the temptation to make an immature face at him. Right now he’s the biggest ally on the planet.

He steps through the portal and onto the springy grass of the park.

It zips shut behind him.

Peter thinks that is definitely one of the weirder things that has happened to him in the past week, but — with a glance at his screen — at least he’s not late.

The media keeps riding waves of mania about the influx of big-name superheroes in Queens. The first week there’d been a frenzy, but by the time Mr. Stark’s day had come, the attention had sort of died down. Now, though, it’s back in full force.

Where Is Spiderman? asks one news outlet after another. Why Are The Avengers Covering For Him?

Peter tears up a New York Daily News magazine and throws it frustratedly into the trash bin.

His phone rings.

“Hey,” MJ says as soon as he picks. “You down for arcade games?”

Peter so, so is.

MJ gives him the name of a place, says, “Don't invite Ned, he's at his grandma’s,” and hangs up.

Peter stares at the magazine in the garbage, feeling kind of useless.

Then he pockets his phone and heads outside.

The fresh air sort of helps, but Peter can't fight the creeping sense of helplessness. He’s been happy for the last few weeks, safe in the knowledge that the other Avengers are covering him. But does that mean Queens has lost their faith? How could he possibly explain a month-long absence to the people he’s sworn to protect?

Peter thinks: you can either be happy or be responsible.

And then he thinks: are those really the options?

Mr. Stark does both, doesn’t he? He’s Iron Man, but he also has a life. Of course, people know his alter ego, so maybe that makes it easier. Peter has enough trouble living one life; trying to live two has stretched him thin.

By the time he gets to the arcade, he’s thoroughly dejected and wishing he could go home. MJ is leaning against the building, reading a book, when she hears him approach and looks up.

“Damn,” she says. The book goes back into her bag. “You look like someone just kicked your spider-puppy.”

“I’m really good,” Peter says.

“You’re a super bad liar, has anyone ever told you that?”

Peter splutters for a response to that.

MJ sighs. “Come on. Spill. We’re friends.”

“No, it’s really nothing, MJ. I just read a...this thing in the New York Daily.” He shrugs. “No big deal.”

“Oh. I read that.” MJ’s expression makes it clear what she thought about that. “Fuck those guys.”

“That’s what I said,” Peter agrees. “But, you know, I mean, they’re not wrong.”

“Are you kidding? They're a gossip magazine. Their whole job is to piss people off. They don’t know what they’re talking about. You didn’t abandon the city, man. You’re just recovering.”

“Maybe I should hold, like, a press release or whatever those are called.”

MJ raises an eyebrow. “What the hell for?”

“I dunno, just...to remind everyone that I’m still here?”

He feels the air move just before MJ shoves his shoulder, but he lets her do it. He probably deserves it.

“You’re being an idiot,” MJ says matter-of-factly. “Come on. I know you’re smarter than this.”

Peter huffs. “They all think I just, just ditched, MJ! They go, well, he had a good run, but I guess he doesn’t care about us. How can they — I’m trying!”

“Peter.”

“I should be out there,” he says, aware in a vague sense that he sounds manic, and that his chest feels tight. “This — the suspension. It’s not helping anyone! Clearly what I already did hasn’t been enough! I mean don’t I get a break?”

“Peter. You’re yelling.”

“I’m —” He inhales. The air smells sort of like smoke, and humidity. Exhale. “Yeah. Sorry. You’re right.”

MJ puts a hand on his shoulder. “Would you listen to me? And not freak out? At least until I’m done?”

Peter hangs his head. He’s a little tired of being told to shut up and listen. “Sorry.”

“I didn’t ask you to apologize.” She shakes him, lightly. “I agree with you, dumbass. You can’t control the media. They’re always going to say whatever gets the most attention. I bet you most of this city still believes in Spiderman. I know I do. And when he’s back in the game, that’ll show those assholes at the New York Daily. But.” Peter opens his mouth, but MJ is ridiculously intuitive. She holds up her free hand in front of his mouth. “ But. You. Need. To. Breathe. Peter. This is your chance. Okay, you’re living two lives. It sucks, but I get it, it’s your responsibility to the world. But this, this break? It’s out of your hands. So you get four weeks to just be Peter Parker and no one else. Don’t listen to anyone who says you owe them something. The only person you owe is yourself. So. Now we go into the arcade, and we play some fucking arcade games, and I destroy you in Galaga, because I am the reigning champion of that game. Okay?”

Peter stares at MJ until his tunnel vision expands and disappears, and the rest of the world comes into view. He swallows.

“Yeah,” he says, and thinks: fuck. “Thanks, uh...sorry for…”

“Do not finish that apology or so help me god I will kick your ass,” MJ says conversationally. She grabs his wrist and tugs. “Move, child! I need to kick your pixelated ass first.”

Peter laughs, and the relief of laughing makes his whole chest unravel. “That’s what you think.”

He wants to yell, I LOVE MICHELLE JONES! But, all things considered, it would be both inappropriate and super embarrassing. It’s in him all day, though, a warm glow somewhere under his collarbone. He thinks again: fuck. And then: god damn it. Fuck.

And she kicks his ass in every single game except Pac-Man.

Chapter Text

Under the watchful eyes of the Boyfriends Out of Time, Queens is quiet for the next two days. When AcaDec lets out on Tuesday, Peter sidles up to Ned.

“Hey,” he says. “I was gonna call Shuri. Figured I’d invite you.”

Ned’s face does a full 180 and grins. “Dude! I totally want to be there. Let me call my mom.”

They walk back to Peter’s place as Ned loops his mom in on his plans. Both of them flop down on the couch with their heads on opposite sides, worn. 

“I hate you,” Ned says. “And your stupid superhuman Spider-stamina.”

“I hate you too,” Peter says, patting Ned’s calf. “Here, let me send her a message.”

“Do you know how cool those words are?” Ned says seriously. He squirms until he’s in a sitting position, facing Peter. “You’re really living life, man. To the fullest.”

Peter grins and pulls out his phone.

peter: hi shuri? it’s peter

Instantly:

shuri: I know

shuri: why didn’t you text me before? I thought you lost my phone number

peter: uhhhhhhhhh got distracted

peter: wanna call now though? my friend ned is here & he really wants to meet you

peter: not in a creepy way

peter: he is super cool

shuri: yes, let me just finish up in my lab

shuri: two minutes

“Two minutes,” he announces, and closes his eyes. “God I love air conditioning.”

Ned makes a kissing noise, presumably to the air. “God bless America.”

Peter’s phone buzzes. 

shuri: okay I’m done

The screen lights up with shuri calling, and Ned gasps. “She’s calling you! Princess Shuri of Wakanda is calling you, Peter. This is momentous! Take a screenshot!”

Peter takes a screenshot. Then he answers.

“Peter?”

“Shuri!” Peter says happily. “Hey, my best friend Ned is here.”

“Hi, Princess Shuri, this is such an honor,” Ned says. “You’re the coolest.”

“I know,” Shuri says, and they all laugh.

“What’s new in New York?” she presses. “I did not get to do all I wanted when I was last there.”

“Yeah, well, there’s a lot of stuff here,” Peter says.

“Did you see Queens though? Were you in Queens?” Ned interrogates. Peter shoots him a look.

Shuri laughs over the connection. “I did not see Queens. Is that where you’re from?”

“Queens is the best,” Ned says, enthusiastically.

“He’s right,” Peter says. “Queens is just, like, factually the best borough.”

“Your city is so confusing,” Shuri says. “You already split the country into states, and the states into cities. Why do you need boroughs?”

“Because America!” Ned hollers, and Shuri laughs at that.

“Nothing is happening here,” Peter admits. “Uh, the Avengers are doing Queens duty while Spiderman is benched.”

“I knew about that,” Shuri says. “My brother stepped in, last week.”

“Yeah,” Peter says, and then remembers he’s supposed to have only a limited scope of knowledge. He and Ned make meaningful eye contact. “Yeah, yeah, I, uh, we saw him in — on the streets. It was pretty cool. I mean I know I met him but still.”

“Trust me, he is not cool.”

“Respectfully disagree, your Majestic Highness,” Ned says.

“You are welcome to call me Shuri.”

“Okay, but I can’t promise I won’t go bragging to people that I’m on first-name basis with the princess of Wakanda.”

“I think I will survive,” Shuri says dryly.

Peter jumps in before that devolves into anything.

“Are you working on anything awesome? I’m happy to do a trial run for any stuff.”

“Nothing at the moment for the general public,” Shuri says, “but I have been making adjustments to the Black Panther suit. There is always room for improvement, my mother says.”

“What kinds of adjustments?” Ned asks.

“Classified. It is a matter of international safety,” Shuri says. “There must be something in America. You are two teenage boys in the heart of the country!”

“Technically I think the heart is D.C.”

“Come on, spill about your lives,” Shuri urges.

Ned says, “Uh, Peter and I are working on an android for our robotics club.”

“Yeah, we named it Ted,” Peter says.

“Like JARVIS? An intelligence?”

“Oh — no, haha, we're not...that good. It's just, well, it's supposed to do a couple of cool tricks. You know. Don't bump into table legs, other stuff.”

“Why Ted?”

“From How I Met Your Mother. But right now it's mostly just ideas and blueprints.”

“Hmm,” Shuri hums. “If you need any help…”

“That would be cheating,” Ned says, “much as I really want to accept that offer.”

“I do enjoy programming androids,” Shuri says. “Yesterday I built an android to help feed the goats.”

“Goats? ”

“Yes — we have goats on the outskirts of the palace. Many families live out there. T’Challa used to enjoy to feed the goats, but he is now always otherwise occupied, so I have been compelled to do it myself.”

“No way a goat would survive out here,” Peter speculates. “It might die from...oxygen...poison. Or something like that.”

“Smog,” says Ned.

A voice on the other end of the line calls, “Shuri!”

“That is my cue,” Shuri says apologetically. “It was nice to meet you, Ned! And I hope you keep me updated on Ted.”

“For sure,” Ned says. Peter thinks: for SHURI. Haha.

“Bye, Shuri,” Peter says.

“Goodbye! Next time call when Michelle is present. There has been an underrepresentation of women in this conversation.”

And the line goes dead.

Ned laughs and leans back against the couch cushion. “How does she know MJ? I thought you said you and her were in the lab while MJ was at the meeting.”

“Well, we talked for a bit before,” Peter says, recalling with severe clarity the question on trans rights. “Guess she was impressed. I wouldn't be surprised. MJ makes an impression, don't you think?”

Ned nods. “Hey,” he says, poking Peter’s bicep. “We should get to work on Ted. He won't build himself.”

“Thought I'd see you at the compound this weekend,” Dr. Banner comments.

Peter shrugs. “I wanted to hang out with my friends. Not that I don't love coming upstate, but Ned was leaving to visit his grandma on Sunday and then MJ invited me to play arcade games so...I forgot, I guess.”

“Bruce? Is that Peter? Peter! Awesome timing. Hey, do me a favor, kid,” Mr. Stark says, flouncing into the onscreen image with a grease rag in one hand and a slice of pizza in the other. Peter privately thinks that holding something in each hand where one is edible and one is actively in edible is a dangerous game for someone as scatterbrained as Mr. Stark. Sure enough, he moves to take a bite from the grease rag. Dr. Banner yanks it out of his hand. 

“One thing at a time,” he says patiently, like it's a conversation they've had a hundred times.

Mr. Stark rolls his eyes. “I've eaten grease before. Has a tang. Wouldn't recommend it, but it didn't kill me.” He snatches the rag back and takes a bite from the pizza. “Anyway. Favor. How busy are you?”

“Uh…” Peter glances down at the Ted blueprints. “I mean, moderately, but it's nothing urgent. Why?”

“Awesome, great. So listen, Rhodey is on Queens duty today and he keeps rejecting my calls because yesterday I demoted him to first-level resident for vandalizing Dum-E, so can you pass a message along? Write this down.”

“On paper?”

“Whatever, I don't care, as long as the words are there. Ready?”

 Peter hovers a pencil over a blank page in his AP Lang notebook. “Yup.”

“Dinner’s at seven tonight. If you're late Pepper will cut you. I've promoted you to level two. Please come home, JARVIS misses you. Sincerely, your Iron Maiden.”

“Tony!” Bruce hisses, whacking him on the shoulder.

“What? It's what I would say.”

Peter laughs silently and transcribes the note. In parentheses at the bottom, he adds: (transcribed by Peter!) and pens a smiley face for good measure.

“Okay,” he says. “Where do I find him?”

Peter turns the corner and standing on the sidewalk is the War Machine. At its heel, a young girl clings to the suit’s leg.

“You said her name is Marie?” War Machine says. The little girl nods. “Yup, I found her on this GPS scanner. Do you want me to take you to her, or would you rather I call her here?”

The girl blinks, doe-eyed. “Um...call her to come here please. Thank you so much Mr. James.”

“It's my pleasure,” Col. Rhodes says. Finally the head of the suit creaks up and looks at Peter. “Hey, Peter. What can I do you for?”

“Hi,” Peter says hesitantly. He's not sure how familiar the Colonel is with him. They've only spoken once or twice at the compound, and of course Spiderman was fighting alongside him at the airport in Germany, but Col. Rhodes doesn't know that was him. Fewer words are better. “Uh, Mr. Stark asked me to give you this message.”

The faceplate of the suit flips open and Col. Rhodes squints. “He's making you do his bidding? Wuss.”

“I don't want to get involved, to be honest,” Peter says. He holds out the paper. “Here you go.”

Col. Rhodes takes the paper, unfolds it, and reads it. Then he snorts a laugh. “Jesus,” he snickers. “He's crazy. He's certifiably insane. Alright, I'll call him. Thanks, man.”

“Sure — sure thing, Colonel Rhodes,” Peter says, nodding. The man waves him off.

“Rhodey, please,” he says.

“Right.” Peter swallows. “And also I…” He's primed to thank Rhodey for all the help, and then remembers in the nick of time that Peter isn't Spiderman, not in public. And Rhodey doesn't know. Shit. He glances at the little girl. “I hope you find your family,” he tells her instead, smiling in a manner he’s been told (by Ned) is disarming.

She beams. “Mr. James helped me.”

Because Spiderman couldn't, Peter concludes in his head.

At least someone did. At least someone was here to help her. Maybe the burden of saving everyone doesn't fall to Peter alone.

Maybe.

Peter wakes up at 6:30am on Thursday to a text from the automated school system and twelve messages from his chat.

Midtown Tech: MSST Update—School Closed May 29th -
Midtown School of Science & Technology is closed today (May 29) due to damaged facilities. All school and community activities in school buildings also are canceled. School closed until further notice.

Peter’s heart drops.

spidey squad - 6:12am

marmalade jar: school’s cancelled boyz

ne(r)d: yeet i just saw that

marmalade jar: the fight last night must have been crazy

marmalade jar: tore through the auditorium and six classrooms

ne(r)d: fucked some shit up

marmalade jar: pretty much

ne(r)d: Peter don't stress out abt the fight since we both know ur gonna

ne(r)d: war machine stopped it

marmalade jar: no casualties and they caught the guy who did it & threw him in jail

marmalade jar: what ned said. No sweat

marmalade jar: aight I'm goin back to sleep talk to you guys in three hours

ne(r)d: word

 Peter has to take a second to remember how to breathe, and then another one to blink out the blinding rage and terror from his eyes.

There was a fight. That means there was a villain. And not just any villain — a powerful one, one that could take out an auditorium and six classrooms giving War Machine a workout.

And Peter wasn't there. Even if he had been, he couldn't have helped. His pulse is skyrocketing — distantly, he recognizes the sign of panic.

He's about to throw down his phone when it rings.

Little Miss Can't Be Wrong blares, and Peter, anxious not to wake Aunt May especially on the heels of the cancellation, picks up.

“Hello.”

“Don’t panic. Rhodey had it under control, no one got hurt, not even Rhodey. It was just some overcompensated jerk who didn't get enough hugs as a little boy.”

“You —” Peter clenches a fist. “Maybe not this time! What if he'd needed backup?”

“I would have —”

“I'm closer! Freezing the Spiderman suit is dangerous, Mr. Stark, it just — what if he’d gotten hurt? No way you could've made it in time.”

“Stop it,” Mr. Stark says sharply. “You think I don't have plan Bs and plan Cs six ways to Sunday for every damn person on this team? The second he goes down, EMTs get a call. I can control Rhodey’s suit remotely. It has an anti-ejection panic button inside so he can't be removed from it and left vulnerable if he's knocked out. There's a defibrillator in the suit. I’m not an idiot, kid.”

“You…” Peter sits on his bed and buries his face in his knees. His hands are shaking, which is a new and frustrating feeling.

“I know you're beating yourself up. I've been there. Being out of commission sucks, but you have to stay out, that's the point of the break. What if you had jumped in to the fight? What if you’d screwed up the surgery?”

“It would be —”

“No it wouldn't. No it wouldn't be worth it. Rhodey had it under control. This is why we're here, Peter, this is exactly why I'm sending people out to do this. We. Have. Your. Back. Do you not trust these guys?”

Peter swallows thickly. Silence descends on the line, which means Mr. Stark is actually waiting for an answer.

“I — I do,” Peter says quietly. “Just.” He sighs and mutters, “Shit,” under his breath. Exhaling, he says, “Just wouldn't you trust yourself more?”

Mr. Stark exhales too. “I did before,” he says. “I did the lone gunslinger thing. I didn't ask for help. And you know what that did? It clobbered me. It kicked my ass. And then I joined a team of crazy people, and I learned that being on a team means trusting the other players. I know,” he interrupts over the beginning of Peter's protest, “you're not technically an Avenger, and that's fine, that's cool. But right now, and for the last few weeks, they're your teammates, and that means you have to trust them. At least until you've got your sea legs back.”

Peter allows himself a silent minute. He’s not really sure how to respond. 

“Why are you up so early?”

“Did I make myself clear? I'm not hanging up until you promise you're not going to try and hack the suit again.”

“That was one time!”

“Promise, Peter. I'm not getting any younger here.” In a low tone, Mr. Stark says, “And in return I promise I'll always have your six. Okay?”

Peter sighs. His heart rate is back to normal, at least. “I promise.”

“Great. Hey, why don't you come up to the compound today? You weren't here this weekend and your school’s out anyway. Bring your friends, make a day. It'll be fun.”

“Okay,” Peter agrees. “Let me just ask May.”

“I'll send Happy at ten, let you get back to sleep. I'm sure you could use it. Be good, kiddo.”

Before Peter can respond in any way to that, the line shuts off.

He rolls over and buries his face in his pillow and screams. When he pulls his face away, the pillowcase is damp, and angrily Peter wipes at his eyes.

“No crying,” he mutters. “Cut it out, Peter. Come on. Come on. Everything is okay.”

He takes a shaky breath, takes a swig from the water bottle on his nightstand, and slides off the bed to get dressed. No way he's falling asleep now, but he knows whose day it is today, and he could use a friend.

peter: can you take fifteen & meet me on the roof? Tea will be provided

Sam touches down only minutes after Peter has poured two mugs of tea and sat down on one of the rickety roof chairs.

“Hi,” Peter says. He drinks from his mug; it scalds his mouth, but whatever.

Sam raises an eyebrow. “Shouldn’t you be at school?”

“Didn’t you see the news?” Peter says.

Sam sits in the other chair, opposite him, and takes his own proffered mug. “Sure did. Some high school got annihilated, Rhodey served some justice, the usual.”

“That high school is my school,” Peter says, haltingly. “But that’s not my point. Don't you see that what happened is bad? I mean what if, what if it had happened during school hours? What if Rhodey hadn't been strong enough?”

“Peter,” Sam says, “you can't blame yourself for this.”

“Sam,” Peter says, “I'm blaming Mr. Stark.”

“Oh. Well, you can blame anything on him.”

“He froze my Spiderman suit,” Peter says morosely. “If Rhodey had been in danger — if anyone had, I would have been helpless.”

Sam tilts his head and takes a contemplative sip. “I think you're looking at this wrong,” he says. “I mean, you know there are a whole bunch of superheroes out there ready to engage at first sign of trouble. The fight would’ve needed to grow way bigger before you’d have had to step in. It didn't even get that far, because Rhodey had it.” He takes another drink. “We all saw what was happening. We all knew about it. If he’d requested backup, we would've been there faster than you could say Queens.”

“You knew?” Peter whispers.

Sam nods. “Sure, we get alerts. That's the whole point of a team, Peter. Faith, trust, and a little pixie dust.”

Peter turns over the idea of just trusting them. It's a hard pill to swallow. Working alone with only Ned and MJ on comms in his bedroom as backup has always kept him on his toes, always ready to take whatever needed taking — and if that included hits, so be it. But trusting someone else to do the same…

It’s hard. But maybe necessary. Otherwise Peter might lose his damn mind.

“So you think I should just stop worrying about it?” he hedges.

Sam shrugs. “I'm not gonna tell you how to live. Do what makes you feel safe, but not at the risk of compromising your safety. That’s all I'm gonna say. Now,” and he stands, “I have to go keep an eye out for any supervillains threatening your township. See you later, Pete. Keep out of trouble, will you?”

Peter nods and salutes. Sam rolls his eyes, smiling, and jets away.

spidey squad - 8:57am

peter: Happy & I will be by each of your homes at or around 10 and if you're not awake you're not coming

ne(r)d: coming where

ne(r)d: hey are you cool

ne(r)d: im awake I wanna come

peter: im very cool and okay

marmalade jar: I hat eyou bnoth a lot

marmalade jar: ***HATE YOU BOTHH A LOT

marmalade jar: fuck you, Parker, I was asleep

marmalade jar: okay, I'll be ready

marmalade jar: with my trans gun and everything

marmalade jar: **tranq gun

peter: I don't think you'll need a trans gun on me mj

marmalade jar: I loathe you

peter: transphobia

marmalade jar: I said what I said

peter: <3

marmalade jar: blocked, reported

ne(r)d: LMAO TRANS GUN

ne(r)d: if only all guns were trans guns…….we would live in androgynous harmony…….

peter: write a book

ne(r)d: Pete where r we going

marmalade jar: dude, happy is picking us up, where tf do you think

ne(r)d: oh ya

ne(r)d: OH PETER BRING TED

ne(r)d: IT'LL BE COOL WE CAN GET ADVICE FROM THE AVENGERS

peter: yes good idea I'll put him in a cage

marmalade jar: that's animal cruelty

peter: you talking to me is animal cruelty

marmalade jar: oh wow, vicious. Uncalled for. I thought we were friends but you playin

ne(r)d: the real animal cruelty is you two subjecting me to this weird insult/flirting situation

marmalade jar: Peter i think we should team up to take down ned

peter: agreed

ne(r)d: byeeeeee cya in an hour

“Tony, kids are here,” Happy yells through the compound, as if there's not an AI wired into the building to circumvent exactly that.

“Yeah, yeah, give 'em to Pepper, be there in a sec,” Mr. Stark shouts back.

Happy sighs, and then, just as he opens his mouth (presumably to yell back), Mr. Stark comes barreling out towards them. He stumbles and stops.

“Nope, I remembered. Ha! She's in Taiwan. Almost forgot. Alright, Happy, scram. Get some brunch or something. Hey, kids.” Mr. Stark grins. Peter grins back, although it feels tight and unwieldy.

“Stark,” MJ says, nodding sort of respectfully. Which is weird. It's weird.

Ned beams. “Hi,” he says, and holds out Ted. “Wanna help us with our robotics project?”

Mr. Stark points with a screwdriver at Ted and then puts his free hand on his forehead. “Yes. Yes, I definitely do, but not right now. Bruce and I, big scientific breakthrough, you know how it is. Give me — one hour. Okay? Look, leave the thing here, and — go explore, whatever, Peter has clearance for most of these rooms anyway, if you need anything there's JARVIS, and...okay. Awesome. Off you go. See you. Shoo.”

Mr. Stark ushers them out of the room and chases them into the elevator. The doors close, and JARVIS says, “Welcome, Mr. Parker, Mr. Leeds, Ms. Jones. What floor?”

Ned and Peter exchange a look, and then Ned and MJ and Peter sort of simultaneously.

“Um, if it's cool with you guys...I want to go and see Colonel Rhodes,” he says. “Just to, you know. Um.”

“JARVIS, where is Colonel Rhodes,” Ned says immediately and loudly.

“Colonel Rhodes is on the sixth floor.”

“Okay, there, then.” The elevator starts going down, gliding with remarkable smoothness, and Ned shoves at Peter’s arm. “We're here for you, dummy.”

“What he said,” MJ says, mouth quirking up.

Peter grins and blushes, sort of embarrassed but in an oddly comfortable way.

“Sixth floor,” JARVIS announces. The elevator doors slide open.

The sixth floor is where the resident coffee shop is, and also some practice rooms for musicians. The music room itself is on the fifth floor, which makes no sense at all, but that’s Mr. Stark for you.

Rhodey is sitting at the counter, nursing a mug of what's probably coffee, and Peter hesitantly approaches.

“Colonel Rhodes?”

Rhodey looks up and smiles, tired. “Hey, Peter. You know, Rhodey is fine. I do respond to Rhodey.” He jerks his chin. “These your buddies?”

“Oh — yeah. Guys, this is Colonel Rhodes. Rhodey, this is Ned and — and Michelle. I'm sure you — okay. Um.” Peter clears his throat. MJ smirks. “I just, uh, wanted to see if you're okay. Midtown Tech is our school, so…”

“Yeah, Tony said. He restored my clearance level as a thank-you for keeping watch over Queens, so I guess I should be thanking you. But I'm okay, really. Just a cup of joe and I'll be back on my feet.” Rhodey smiles. “What are you guys getting up to?”

“We brought our robotics project,” Ned pipes up. “Its name is Ted.”

God bless Ned. Everyone should have one.

Rhodey nods. “Don’t let Tony get too close or before you know it you'll have a walking talking AI.”

“There are worse things,” MJ says. She steps forward and holds out a hand. “It's nice to meet you. Thank you for your service.”

Rhodey makes a kind of impressed face and shakes her hand. Peter is making the same impressed face, probably. He's never heard MJ thank anyone for their service. Except, like, garbage men and janitors and stuff. “Thank you.”

Peter says, “Is there anything I — we — can do for you?”

“Spiderman feels really bad about what happened,” Ned chimes in. “He asked us to pass on a message to you. Peter, what was the message again?”

Peter dutifully keeps a straight face. 

“He said, thanks for your help, and he’s really sorry he wasn't there. And he said he hopes you’re not too hurt from the fight.”

Rhodey eyes him carefully, and then shrugs. “Well, you can tell Spiderman that it was not only my responsibility, but my pleasure. And what’s a few aching bones and toppled buildings, anyway?”

“What's a loss in our grade school education, anyway?” MJ parrots, dry.

“I like this one,” Rhodey says.

“Cool, thanks, Rhodey,” Peter says, over what he's sure is MJ’s comment of I'm not here for you to approve of. Or some other legitimate grievance. He grabs both of his friends’ wrists, one in each hand. “Well, um, we’ll pass the message on to Spiderman, and see you later? Feel better.”

“Thanks. Don't get into too much trouble,” Rhodey bids them, as they hustle back into the elevator.

The doors slide closed again. 

“Thanks,” Peter says. “Thanks, guys. Uh, we can go wherever you guys want now.”

“Are you kidding? We don't know this place. Pick somewhere,” Ned says encouragingly.

Peter splutters. “I don't — I know, like, the labs and kitchens and stuff. I don't know where cool things are. I don't, y’know, work out or anything here.”

“Well, pick someone to harass,” MJ says, raising an eyebrow. “There must be one person here who likes you.”

Peter elbows her. “Shut up. Everyone here likes me. I'm — 'endearing.’ Ned said so himself.”

Ned reaches out and squishes Peter’s cheeks. “Yes you are, Petey-Pie.”

“Ew, never again.” Peter thinks. “Uh...I guess...pick a number?”

“Ten,” says MJ.

“Okay, tenth floor, please, JARVIS.”

“Right away, Mr. Parker.”

The elevator glides upward and then smoothly halts. “Tenth floor.”

They step through the open doors into what looks like a common room. There's a TV, a semicircle of couches and ottomans, huge windows with bay window seats, plush rugs underfoot, and, a few feet behind the couch farthest back, an open archway into a kitchen.

“Woah, cool,” Ned enthuses. MJ surveys the room with cool criticism. Peter makes a beeline for the kitchen.

“Stocked. Awesome. You guys want anything? There's, like, crackers and stuff —”

The air duct cover clatters to the ground in a startling crash, and then Clint Barton drops out from the ceiling and lands, kneeling, on the island.

They stare at him. He stares back.

“Hello,” he says slowly. “I just want to make it really clear right now that I live here sometimes and you guys don't, so technically what I'm doing is more appropriate.”

He is wearing all black, but they're comfort clothes, not work clothes. Sweatpants, a t-shirt, socks.

“No doubt,” Peter says. “You, um...hang out there a lot?”

Clint gives him a haughty look. “As a matter of fact, yes I do. But I was going to restock. Guess I'll go to a different communal kitchen. I'm on a mission.”

“So. Cool,” Ned whispers.

“Yeah? What kind of mission?” MJ asks, clearly disbelieving.

Clint frowns at her. “A really important one. And it involves snacks. Is that a problem?”

MJ snickers. “Nope,” she says. “I mean, good luck. On your ‘mission.’”

Clint gives Peter an incensed look as he straightens up. “You should pick your friends more carefully. This one’s a bad influence. No need to be rude, marmalade jar.”

And then, like the dope-ass motherfucker he is, he slides effortlessly back into the air duct and pulls the cover up behind him.

Peter takes a minute to digest all of that and then bursts out laughing at the look on MJ’s face.

“How did he…” Ned says, awed.

“He took my phone! Once! When you — oh my God.” Peter keels over, breath cut off by laughter. “Holy shit. He — when we read 1984, remember, and that one time you and Ned were fighting and I was here, and he confiscated my phone and you were texting me —”

“I remember,” MJ says flatly. Then she tilts her head up at the ceiling, pensive. “I can't decide if I hate him or love him.”

“Why not both?” Comes the echoing reply from the ceiling, and MJ almost chokes and then she and Ned both start laughing too.

The thing is, MJ is a collected person, and it is hard to take her by surprise. Peter mentally screenshots her expression the moment Clint says marmalade jar — eyes sort of wide, mouth sort of open, eyebrows sort of raised, face fully stunned — and tucks it into a mental pocket for safekeeping.

“Jesus,” Ned wheezes. “I like your superhero friends, Peter.”

“Hey! I'm a superhero friend.”

“Yeah, but you were already my friend. These guys are just...they're...they're memes, Peter.”

Peter snorts. “I know that. Didn't you see the one MJ sent me?”

He pulls out his phone and forwards the Falcon meme to Ned’s number. Ned opens it and cracks up again.

“What can I say, I'm hilarious,” MJ says, shrugging as she restores her countenance and straightens her clothing. Her eyes are bright, though, and cheeks flushed, and she looks really happy.

Peter mentally screenshots that, too.

They grab some Chex Mix from the pantry and return to the elevator.

“Why don't we visit one of your friends,” Ned suggests. “What about Wanda? Isn't she the one who read all those books MJ recommended?”

Peter fails to come up with a strong enough excuse to not take MJ to visit Wanda. Luckily, fate intervenes.

“Ms. Maximoff is not currently in the compound,” JARVIS says.

"Man,” MJ says. “Robbed again. Where is she?”

“She is in Romania.”

Peter does a double-take. “What? Why?”

“Ms. Maximoff has taken leave to visit her brother’s grave.”

Oh, shit. That's not fun.

“Ouch,” Ned says quietly.

Peter nods. 

“Maybe next time,” MJ suggests. “She's okay, Pete, she's a big girl. JARVIS, take us to the nearest floor with an Avenger on it.”

“That would be the joint floor of Captain Rogers and Sergeant Barnes, a private floor which requires a level nine clearance to enter.”

“What clearance are we?” Peter asks.

“Mr. Parker is level seven; Ms. Jones and Mr. Leeds are both level two.”

“Can you ask Captain Rogers — I mean, Steve and Bucky if we can visit?”

“Right away.” JARVIS is quiet for a minute. Then he says, “Captain Rogers has granted permission for you to enter. Going up.”

The elevator car lurches with sudden movement and then stops almost as quickly.

“Fifteenth floor,” JARVIS announces.

The doors ding open and their trio exits the elevator into what Peter recognizes as Steve and Bucky’s private floor. Apartment is understating it. It's like a Midtown penthouse on steroids.

Inside, Peter hears clattering from the kitchen, and Steve’s voice calls out, “In here!”

“It's Peter,” Peter calls back, as they pick their way over a haphazard mess of discarded t-shirts and socks and whatnot. Peter’s scared to ask what happened there, especially given the whole…Steve/Bucky situation. He's pretty sure the explanation would cause either Peter or Steve to die of mortification.

But MJ is braver than any man, and when they enter the room, she bluntly says, “Why’s your place so messy? Aren't you supposed to epitomize the American way? Is this really how you want America’s living rooms to exist? In a state of disorder?”

Steve blinks multiple times. Peter agrees. MJ sometimes takes some blinking at. Ned is furiously elbowing her, like she's broken a law. Peter, on his end, is waiting for the blush to rise in Steve like he always sees it do on TV when anyone asks him an embarrassing question.

Steve says dryly, “Hi, Peter, I see you brought some friends. Ned, how are you? And Michelle, nice to properly meet you. Bucky started a laundry fight today, which is why all our clothes are on the floor — we’re usually tidy, I promise.”

Michelle snorts. “A laundry fight? What are you, five?”

“Sometimes I wonder,” Steve says grimly. Peter laughs, out of disbelief that they're actually getting along more than anything. Peter likes MJ, but she’s deliberately mulish, and a handful when she wants to be. The fact that no one’s thrown anything yet is a positive.

Peter contemplates once more the possibility of MJ being a superhero. It would explain her natural tendency to befriend all superheroes. That and her winning personality and brilliant mind. Yeah, maybe not.

“So what are you three doing here? No school?”

“No, our school got its ass kicked,” Ned says wisely. Then he widens his eyes. “Can I say that? Oh my god, I just swore in front of Captain America.”

“It's really just Steve,” Steve says. “And I don't mind. You think you've got a mouth? Spend five minutes with Bucky.”

MJ coughs significantly, and Peter steps on her foot. Ned almost chokes on a snort.

“Heard about your school, though,” Steve continues. He turns back around and stirs a pot, and Peter registers a whiff of ramen. “I'm glad no one got hurt.”

“Me too,” Peter sighs. “Uh, yeah, classes are obviously canceled, so Mr. Stark invited us up.”

“That was nice of him. Oh hey, Michelle, he mentioned you're working here now, isn't that right?”

“I don't work for Tony Stark,” MJ says clearly. “I am working with him sometimes. I'm gracing him with the privilege of my presence and aid, not the other way around.”

Steve grins, full wattage and very real. “Good. Someone’s gotta keep his ego in check, and Lord knows he doesn't listen to me.”

MJ halts. “Oh. Yeah, right.”

“Is that ramen? Are you making ramen?” Ned asks, just as a timer goes off. Steve reaches up to the microwave to turn it off, and then twists until the flame on the stove goes out.

“Yeah,” he says. “Bucky’s the good cook, but he went out, and Tony won't let me use the common fridge for — because of...recent disagreements, so my options were ramen or starve.”

“Or cook,” Peter adds. “I mean, ramen is delicious. I love ramen. Totally respect that choice. It's just. You know, cooking is just following a recipe.” Not that he's one to talk.

Steve shrugs as he crosses to drain the noodles. “I have other strengths. Bucky likes to cook, and I’m happy to let him.”

“But he’s not here.”

“Yeah, but…” Steve sighs. “When someone isn’t used to doing things they like doing, it can be worth it to make the space. I could cook for myself, but that’s not the point. Being the household cook gives Bucky a purpose. It makes him happy. It makes him feel…needed. All of that is way more important to me than having a nice lunch on my own. So…ramen.”

Peter nods, lost for words. Once again clocked over the head by Steve Rogers’s pure, unmitigated Steve Rogers-ness.

“That’s cool of you,” MJ says, in a surprising display of earnestness. “He’s lucky to have you.”

Steve smiles. “That goes both ways with us.” He shakes out the colander, pours the noodles into a bowl, tears open the flavor packet, and mixes it in. And then he puts a heat cover over the bowl and puts it in the microwave.

“Mr. Rogers?” Ned says, confused.

“Hm?”

“You just...you put your lunch in the microwave.”

“I know. It's rude to eat in front of people when you're the only one eating.”

MJ holds up the Chex Mix. Steve chuckles. “If you say so. Can I get you guys anything?”

Peter shakes his head, Ned says, “Do you have, like, I dunno, orange juice?” and MJ says, “Water, if that's cool.”

So Steve gives them all drinks, including an unsolicited glass of water for Peter. “Gotta stay hydrated,” he says in an overly patriotic voice. Peter laughs. Steve retrieves his ramen from the microwave, and they all sit at the table and...chat.

For half an hour, time slows. Peter feels thoroughly relaxed.

It’s a feeling he could get used to.

Mr. Stark provides valuable insight on Ted when they finally get around to working on it. That is — Ned and Peter tinker with it and Mr. Stark stands a foot behind them and makes throwaway comments, sometimes to fuck with them, sometimes to actually be helpful. Across the room, MJ sits by Dr. Banner and assails him with scientific queries. Dr. Banner seems very content to field MJ’s questions all day, and MJ seems likewise delighted; within five minutes she gives him express permission to call her MJ, a permission which Mr. Stark immediately begins protesting.

“I can’t believe I’m being excluded from the cool kids table! I invented the cool kids table.”

“Aww, he thinks I’m cool,” MJ says in the most monotone voice imaginable.

“Did you consider connecting these circuits?” Mr. Stark says, and then fluidly returns to complaining. “You’re not cool. It’s just the concept of exclusion. You’re, what, twelve? You can’t understand cliques.”

Ned prods one of the wires in Peter’s hand with a wire of his own and sparks fly. “Dude,” Peter hisses. Ned’s eyes widen.

“My bad,” he says.

“How about this,” MJ says. “You match your employees’ salary to yours, then you can call me MJ. Until then, it’s Michelle. In fact, I think you should call me Ms. Jones.”

“This is my house, young lady,” Mr. Stark says, threateningly leveling a wirecutter in her direction.

“This is your behemoth mansion building,” MJ parrots, “but okay.”

“MJ,” Peter says.

“I’m not debating fiscal responsibility with you,” Mr. Stark states. For a moment, he drops the wirecutter and looks serious. “Please try to believe me when I say it’s all too complicated for you to understand at this point in your life. That’s not a diss. I know you’re smart. Just let it go, alright? I’m doing my best.”

MJ purses her lips. “Okay.” And then, after a pause, “Sorry.”

“Hey, no apologies in the lab. That’s rule number one. I should make a rules list. Bruce, have I —”

“JARVIS keeps a record,” Bruce says offhandedly.

The moment moves past, but Peter notices the change even if no one else does. Something humble in MJ that wasn’t there before. Peter gets it. They’re two sides of the same coin here. He started at the bottom and freehand climbed his way to a level of mutual respect between himself and Mr. Stark. MJ, on the other hand, started a little too high. She had to be knocked down a few feet. Neither of them got it quite right from the outset, but Peter found his way to a gray area, and it looks like now MJ has, too.

“So what does Ted stand for?” Mr. Stark asks, turning away to fuss with some other screens.

Ned and Peter meet each other’s eyes. “It doesn't stand for anything,” Ned says.

“Well, that's a missed opportunity. Easiest letters ever. Technologically excellent...technologically efficient—”

“Dude,” Ned says excitedly.

“I love that,” Peter says.

“I was going to suggest Droid,” Mr. Stark tries, but it's too late now.

“Meet TED, the Technologically Efficient Dude,” Ned announces, and he dissolves into laughter, closely followed by Peter, and a begrudging snort from MJ. Even Dr. Banner chuckles.

“I should've never let you kids in here,” Mr. Stark mutters, crumpling up a holograph of iron decay. He throws it at Peter, and Peter ducks, giggling.

“You don't mean that,” he says.

Mr. Stark doesn’t answer, which means Peter is on the nose.

Thursday passes with astonishing speed, and by the time they’re being ushered out of the building into a vehicle, the sun is setting.

Happy drops off Ned first, which leaves MJ and Peter both sitting in a semi-relaxed, semi-awkward silence. Ned is a great conversation buffer. He is also a great feelings buffer, because talking to Ned distracts from thinking about MJ, which Peter doesn’t want to do because she’s right there, but now Ned’s not here.

And MJ is. She’s scrolling through her phone. Peter is lucky he doesn’t have to look at her — the passenger seat gives him instead a racing view of the streets. He feels like an idiot, but the truth is the truth: despite all of his vehement denial, it turns out Peter has a colossal crush on MJ after all.

He’s convinced it will go away. The current plan of action is to ignore it.

Happy pulls up to MJ’s house, and she looks up. 

“Thanks for the ride, Happy,” she says, and then reaches up a hand and ruffles Peter’s hair. “See you tomorrow or something.”

She makes a face that’s kind of confused, like even she’s not entirely sure what compelled her to do that, but Peter gives her a casual grin. “See ya.” 

So MJ nods, and then slides out of the car.

Happy peels away. “So. How long until you’re, you know. Swinging again?”

Peter blanches, partially because he’d been distracted, and partially because he’d sort of forgotten about the whole superhero thing. About being Spiderman. Which is crazy, because — because it’s such a big part of who he is, and of his life...but still he blinks, just for a second.

“Three days?” he guesstimates, then counts on his fingers. “Friday Saturday Sunday...and then I’m...yeah. Monday was the thing, so. That’s four weeks exactly. Three more days.”

Happy makes that adult nod which is kind of like expressing interest but not enough to adequately respond. Peter squints.

“Three days,” he echoes. “Weird, huh. Kinda weird, right? That’s weird?”

“Which part,” Happy says monotonously.

Peter bites his lip, because he’s not sure. It just feels weird, is all. He’s gotten so used to not being Spiderman.

But he has a responsibility to Queens — to all of New York — to the world, sometimes. He’s Spiderman. He has to be. No one else will. And he likes being Spiderman. It gives him a sense of duty, of purpose, of achievement, of contributing to something greater than himself, something that will outlast him. He loves being Spiderman.

He’s just...kind of come to love being Peter Parker.

To the silence in the car, he just shrugs. “Dunno. All of it.”

Happy does the adult nod again, and then they’re at Peter’s house and that’s the end of that.

School is still out on Friday, but Peter gets frequent updates from various sources about the state of things.

stark: Just doing a fly-by, there are construction workers at what’s left of your school.

spidey squad - 10:23 am

marmalade jar: mr. harrison says we can still have acadec if we organize a practice so are you two free this afternoon

ne(r)d: yeah but cindy can’t come, she told me to tell you because she doesn’t have your number

marmalade jar: pretty sure she does

ne(r)d: pretty sure she doesn’t because you’re super cagey

marmalade jar: pretty sure she could just ask you for it instead of making you a third party messenger

ne(r)d: pretty sure that’s a good idea and I will send her it

peter: yeah i’m free

marmalade jar: that’s new

peter: no it’s not i’ve been free every afternoon for weeks

marmalade jar: :/ wonder why

ner(r)d: shady

It’s just another reminder that his Spiderman-free life as Peter Parker is so different from his life as Spiderman they may as well be different people. Peter thinks it would be easier if they were different people. 

No — he doesn’t. He likes being Spiderman. He wants to be Spiderman.

He takes one more deep breath before he responds to the chat.

peter: where are we meeting?

AcaDec practice spills into late afternoon. By the time Peter gets home, he’s just crashing from the energized rush of all the question-answer rounds. He flops down onto the couch, prepared to turn on the TV, and then remembers May is still at work. So he calls Ned.

“I want to make food,” he says when Ned picks up.

“You know I saw you like ten minutes ago,” Ned says. “You could have asked me this then.”

“Will you help me?” Peter presses.

“Dude, I just got home —”

“No, I mean, you don’t have to come over. Just like, tell me how to...do it.” He glances down at his free hand. “I wanna do something nice for May.”

 “Yes,” Ned says instantly, because he’s the best. “I will help you. Go into the kitchen and take out every vegetable you own and some vegetable oil.”

“Which one is that?”

“The one labeled vegetable oil, Peter.”

Peter duly finds these ingredients. They’re running low on vegetable oil; he scribbles it onto the grocery list stuck to the fridge.

“Do you have a skillet?” Ned asks.

“What’s that?”

“Like the flat cooking pan? Thing?”

“Okay we have one that’s like flat flat and one that kinda has walls —”

“The one with walls is a skillet. Okay, take that out.”

Ned walks Peter very patiently through the preparation of veggie stir-fry. Peter is just endlessly grateful; he’s sure he could never follow a recipe for this, based on the number of questions he has for Ned. When he’s instructed to put in a teaspoon of ginger, Ned nearly yells at him as he starts describing the tablespoon. A narrowly-avoided disaster. 

But in the end, the thing is made and it smells good. Ned gives him final directions and tells him he needs to go have dinner of his own. Peter says he probably should hang up anyway because he needs two hands for all the cooking stuff.

He’s just scrambling some eggs when the door handle turns. Peter quickly turns and calls, “May?”

“Hi honey!” his aunt’s voice calls back. “How was today?”

“Good,” Peter says. His stomach twists with excitement. Nonchalant as he can, he continues to scramble the eggs until he hears Aunt May in the doorway.

“What’s this?” she says. Peter turns to see a wide smile. “Did you make dinner, Peter Parker?”

Peter grins proudly; his face feels like it’s aching to split. “I mean, Ned talked me through it, but yeah. It smells pretty good, so I don’t think I messed it up too bad!”

May stands for a moment, speechless and making a funny mouth movement, like she’s trying to start several sentences at once. Finally she lifts her hands in the air. 

“What am I gonna do with you?” she says in disbelief, smiling. She walks over to him and kisses his forehead. “How did I get so lucky? I have the best nephew in the cosmos.”

Peter shrugs, triumphant and pleased. “Don’t get your hopes too high. I haven’t tasted it yet.”

“And you’re making scrambled eggs, he’s so mature and responsible,” Aunt May continues over him.

“It’s important to have protein!”

“It’s practically Master Chef in here! We better call Guy Fieri.”

“Gordon Ramsay.” Peter looks away for a second. “I just wanted to do something nice.”

Aunt May gives him a warm smile, then reaches past him to move around the eggs. “Thank you, Peter. This is very thoughtful. You’re really growing into a wonderful young man. I’m so proud of you.”

“May,” Peter says, blushing.

“No, really! This is a sign of growth. Learning to cook is a milestone, I’m serious. And the fact that you took the initiative — it shows strength of character.” May brings up a hand and tugs it through Peter’s hair. “I’m just...very happy that you’re finally getting a chance to be a person.”

Peter sighs. “Instead of a superhero?”

“I know, I know,” says May. Peter turns around and continues to fix the eggs; he’s a little bit frustrated and not sure why. “Sweetie, I love how committed you’ve been to being a hero since becoming...Spiderman. I think it’s really wonderful how much you care. I’ve always admired that dedication in you. Part of me wants to encourage you to do what your heart says!” She touches his shoulder lightly. “But the aunt in me just wants you safe, and you’re a lot more likely to get hurt in battle than in the kitchen.”

Peter shakes his head. Irritation bubbles up inside of him, hot and dangerous and itself irritating. “Being Spiderman is about more than just caring. It’s a responsibility. Just like this. To something that’s bigger than me, than us.”

“I know that, Peter, but being a nephew is a responsibility too,” May says. Her voice sounds sharp at the edges. “Being a student is a responsibility. You’ve been able to catch up to those since you’ve been on house arrest this past month, and it makes me happy to see how happy you are with this balance in your life. But it also makes me nervous. Because when you go back to being Spiderman I’m worried you won’t know how to find that balance anymore. You have a responsibility to more than one thing. I know you know that.”

It resonates, what May is saying; deep in Peter’s core, the words are bouncing around, clinging to the edges of his soul. Things about balance and more than one thing and being a nephew and worried.

He pokes morosely at the eggs, which are now so done they’re practically dry.

“Let’s just eat,” he mutters.

And because May is also best, even better than Ned, she doesn’t argue, or get the last word, or point out that avoiding her perspective isn’t going to help. She just scratches her nails lightly against his back and says, “Please, I’m dying to try this. Let me set the table, oh signore lo chef.”

Peter lays awake until the ungodly hours of the morning, tossing uncomfortably and pondering. There’s something in May’s words that isn’t sitting right with him, and it’s left him with an ache in his chest, one that, despite being all too familiar with aching chests, he doesn’t often acquaint himself with. He recognizes guilt when he feels it.

Something floats to the forefront of Peter’s consciousness, as he twists over to see the clock reading 2:21am. Words framed and then effectively coated in dust until obscured in his mind. They echo suddenly:

With great power comes great responsibility.

I know, Peter thinks, squeezing his eyes shut. I know I fucked up, he thinks, but somehow that only makes his chest hurt more.

It strikes him all at once that in the dark, silent room, he’s all by himself, and loneliness surrounds him like a vice. He throws the covers off; they feel too heavy. Then, refusing to let it get the best of him, he reaches for his phone and dials the one person he knows to be awake at this hour.

“I thought the whole point of house arrest was recovery,” comes Mr. Stark’s glaringly chipper voice.

Peter winces. In a whisper, he says, “Can I just ask you something?”

“Yes, you should start wearing ties. It gives a very formal impression, makes you stand out.”

“No — what? You think I should wear ties?”

“No, I’m kidding. Obviously. What kind of fifteen-year-old wears ties? How old are you? Never mind. Go ahead. I’m all ears, kiddo.”

Peter tests out phrasings wordlessly on his tongue for so long Mr. Stark says, “Hello? Bueller?”

“Yeah, I’m here,” Peter says quietly. “Do you think I have a...responsibility...to anything? Or anyone?”

Mr. Stark takes a moment to answer. “Yeah, plenty of things. I mean, for starters, you're still in school. So you have a responsibility to your your teachers, do the work, learn the stuff, yadda yadda. And to your aunt, of course, to be a good kid so you don’t give her agita. Plus, don’t forget your friends, you’ve got a responsibility to them too, and also to me, as a junior associate or whatever the hell you do around here. And that’s just off the top of my head. You’ve got a decent collection.”

Peter bites his lip. “But what about…” He shakes his head. “Those things that you said, though, they’re not — I mean if I don’t do them, so what? It’s not — I didn’t acquire those responsibilities by gaining some power to do them right.”

“You think trust isn’t something you can gain?” Mr. Stark counters. “You weren’t born with the innate trust of your teachers and your friends and your aunt. Sure as hell weren’t born with my trust. You earned that by working for it, and now you have a responsibility to maintain it.”

Well.

Interesting.

“So responsibility doesn’t just come with great power,” Peter hazards. “One might say.”

“One might,” Mr. Stark replies. “If one were very tired at 2:30 in the morning. Or if one lived in the Victorian Era. Why are you even up?”

“I’m just thinking,” Peter says.

“That’s why we have daylight hours, kid. Go to sleep.”

Peter wants to say that he tried, but that would mostly be a lie. He’d tried to put to rest his mind before sleeping, but that had only led him here. Now, though…

“I will. Thanks, Mr. Stark. Uh, you go to sleep too. We’re in the same time zone. I'm pretty sure.”

Mr. Stark snorts, and then Peter anticipates a dial tone that doesn’t come. There’s silence on the line for a second.

“Mr. Stark?” he says cautiously.

“Yeah, yeah. Just making sure everything’s smooth sailing. Goodnight.”

The line goes dead for real. Peter sighs and puts his phone back onto his nightstand to charge.

The thing is. The thing is, he’s always tried to live by Uncle Ben’s words. With great power does come great responsibility. But he’d sort of always assumed that meant he hadn’t had any responsibility before coming into such great power.

Apparently not so. Peter mulls over this new concept in his mind. It’s possible he’s had a responsibility to many things and people since long before Spiderman. Great responsibility accompanies great power, but it also accompanies relationships and commitments. Responsibility has subcategories. It accompanies many things.

And Peter has been neglecting some of those things.

Well. Maybe he had been, but not anymore. He’s been catching up. May said so herself. Balance, she’d said. And Peter finally gets it.

He has a responsibility to his aunt, and to Ned and MJ, and to AcaDec, and to Midtown Tech, and to Mr. Stark. And all of those are things he can do now, but they’re things he needs to keep doing, even after his house arrest is lifted.

He also has a responsibility to the city — the great responsibility that escorts great power. That’s a responsibility that will be restored in two days.

He’s thinking about balanced scales when he falls asleep.

8:43 a.m.

stark: You’re too young for champagne, right?

10:24 a.m.

peter: what??

stark: I looked it up and asked Pepper. You’re definitely too young. Forget I asked. What kind of fizzy drinks do you like?

stark: Do people still drink sparkling cider?

peter: i mean they can? sometimes? why??

stark: No reason.

stark: I hope you slept.

peter: i did

peter: thanks

stark: That’s what I’m here for.

stark: I, Tony Stark, multibillionaire and owner of one of the largest technological empires on the planet, am solely here to give advice to fourteen-year-olds at 2am.

peter: I’m 16

stark: I definitely think you missed my point.

peter: sorry

stark: I’m just joshing. I’ve got your back. You already know that. Even if it means you call me at 2am.

peter: right

peter: again thank you

stark: Strange is on Queens duty today, so if you see any weird orange portals or odd-looking men with pretentious goatees, keep away.

peter: keep away from you?

stark: That’s it, you’re fired.

peter: I’M SORRY SORRY IT WAS RIGHT THERE IM SORRY 

Peter knows he should open the email from his AP Lang teacher, subject line: Unexpected break assignments, but he so doesn’t want to, so instead he texts Ned and MJ and tells them he’s going to spend the entire day in his pajamas watching Friends on the couch and they are welcome to stop in whenever. Aunt May has a yoga class in the morning and then she’s going to a new museum exhibit, so Peter’s got the place to himself. 

Mr. Stark texts him throughout the day, which is weird. It’s weird that Mr. Stark is texting him so frequently, and also weird is the content of the texts.

11:19 a.m.

stark: Do you like chocolate cake?

peter: who in the world doesn’t like chocolate cake

stark: I said that to Barton and he almost killed me.

1:57 p.m.

stark: Have you heard of Cardi B?

peter: oh god

stark: I’ll take that as a yes.

peter: please for the love of all holy things don’t speak her name

stark: Noted. What music do you listen to, anyway?

peter: uhhhh why?

peter: mostly anything...like, chill

peter: yknow. i like elton john and billy joel and eric clapton kind of stuff??? im stressed out why do i have to choose???

stark: You have really weird taste, you know that?

peter: i also like classic rock!! pink floyd is good. and the ramones and prince and queen and all that

peter: idk, as long as it doesn’t sound like it went through an autotune chopper, i’m willing to try?

stark: Got it. Thanks.

peter: for why?

stark: Making a new work playlist.

4:12 p.m.

stark: You have the Death Star Lego kit, right?

peter: i mean it’s Ned’s but we did it together

stark: Do you have Diagon Alley?

peter: god I wish

peter: i don't have $600

stark: Cool. Thanks.

peter: im getting a pretty strong vibe of it’s better not to ask

stark: Run with that instinct.

The rest of the day receives two more cryptic texts from Mr. Stark, and Peter gets through a season of Friends. At around 5pm, his phone buzzes and someone knocks on his door simultaneously.

marmalade jar: let me in

Peter heaves himself up off the couch and opens the door. 

MJ is behind it. She is wearing pajamas. She doesn’t enter when he pulls it open.

“I took your open invitation to heart,” she says. In her outstretched hands is a bag of kettle corn. “Also I brought an offering.”

“Hmm,” says Peter. “I was gonna kick you out, but since you brought a peace offering I guess you can come in.”

As MJ follows him inside, swinging the door closed, Peter tells her, “I’m just starting season 6.”

“Which one’s that?”

“The One After Vegas.”

“Oh, I love that one. So much bullshit.”

They sit on the couch for two hours, eating kettle corn from a bowl, making jokes at the expense of the characters, and watching Friends.

Peter’s heart rate does not dip below racing for the duration of their watch party.

Sunday morning hits Peter like a freight train.

Guilted by the myriad emails from various teachers positing any assortment of assignments to him that he’d ignored yesterday, Peter spends the day working. Ned apologetically says he made plans to go upstate with his mom for a college visit, so no, he can’t come work with him. And Peter doesn’t ask MJ. He’s still sort of recovering.

It’s probably for the best, though. May is out until late afternoon anyway, which gives Peter a nice, quiet window during which to play jazz music and get homework done. He puts his nose to the grindstone and doesn’t let up until he’s written half an essay for AP Lang and filled out his calc worksheet. He’s about to get started on AP Chem when an alarm starts beeping on his phone.

It’s noon, which is insane. Peter had completely lost track of time.

He makes himself ramen — old habits die hard — and checks his messages.

ne(r)d: dddddddddog.jpg

ne(r)d: i thought you’d appreciate this dog dressed as superman

peter: OH MY GOD

aunt may: hi sweetie! if you get a chance today can you take out the trash? forgot this morning :( love you! work hard!

peter: yup love you too!

stark: If you haven’t gone out today, I suggest you do. There’s someone special on Queens duty to round out the rotation.

peter: who?

Mr. Stark doesn’t answer.

Peter shrugs, finishes the last of his ramen, and ties up the trash bag. He slides his shoes on, puts on a tank top because it's April and he can with no binder to conceal anymore, and takes the stairs to the alley with the dumpster, trash bag in tow.

The sun is hiding behind a couple of clouds, but otherwise it's a gorgeous day. Peter wonders if he'll see whoever's on Queens duty. So far, running into the variant heroes has been by chance alone, and anyway, today is the last day. But now he's intrigued, and Mr. Stark won't tell him who it is.

Peter heaves the garbage bag into the dumpster with ease and takes a deep, cleansing breath of air. The oxygen feels fresh in his lungs after being cooped up all morning doing work. Peter definitely feels like he's earned his break.

He sets off down the alley until it ends at the sidewalk that crosses before his building. It really is such a pretty day. And it would be wasteful not to take advantage. So Peter gives himself this allowance — this final day of R&R before his return to superheroic duty — and makes his way down the streets of Queens.

Everything seems quiet on the Eastern front, as far as Peter can tell. He considers stopping to get a churro or something, but his wallet is still in the apartment, and plus that would jar the whole flow of the stroll. So he bypasses the churro cart with a friendly wave to the owner. 

A young girl runs as fast as her short legs can carry, directly towards Peter. A second before she falls, Peter spots the uneven pavement on which her feet are going to catch; he holds out a hand and catches her by the shoulder.

“Woah!” 

“Woah,” Peter agrees, steadying her. “You okay?”

The girl giggles. Her dark braids swing around her face. She gives Peter an awestruck look. “Jesus is over there!”

Peter blinks. “Huh?”

“Kai,” a mother calls, and the young girl whirls around. “Don't run, come on.” She gives Peter a suspicious look.

Peter tries not to take that personally. The girl returns to her mother, Peter entirely forgotten, and they head off down the sidewalk.

Peter’s intrigued by the Jesus thing. He’s pretty sure Jesus doesn’t exist, but then again he was pretty sure magic didn’t exist two weeks ago, and here they are. At this point Peter’s not even sure he’d be surprised if Jesus did just show up.

He takes to the sidewalk with purpose now, striding the opposite direction from Kai and her mother in search of Jesus. 

And then he sees it.

At the corner of the street, looking vaguely disoriented and exceedingly giddy.

That’s not Jesus; it’s someone better.

That’s Thor Odinson, prince of Asgard, god of Thunder, and he is standing on a sidewalk in Queens, holding an umbrella.

Peter’s feet carry him over before he can even regain his breath, and Thor — oh my god holy shit this is actually Thor he has the hair and everything oh wow he’s even hotter in real life — turns and sees him. A broad grin to rival Cap’s takes dominance over his features, illuminating everything in a fifty-foot radius with the glow of his smile.

“Ah! A New Yorker. I am Thor, son of Odin,” Thor booms, outstretching a hand. 

Peter stares, appalled.

“I, uh,” he stammers, trying to determine whether it would be appropriate or too committed to shake his hand. “Um, I'm Peterman — I mean fuck — Spider — I’m Peter! I’m Peter Parker and no one else! Shit I totally blew it didn’t I — don’t tell anyone okay? It’s a secret?” Peter babbles, and then belatedly allows himself to shake Thor’s hand.

Holy shit such a strong handshake.

Thor looks confused. “What is a secret?”

If Peter were of sound mind and body he would realize that Thor misunderstanding him is a free way out of this verbal chaos he’s just hurled. But Peter is of starstruck mind and awkward body, so instead he says, “That, you know…” He looks around hurriedly and lowers his voice. “That I’m Spiderman. Don’t tell, okay? I, uh, I’m the guy you’re covering for.”

“Ah! Spider-”

“Shh!”

“Excuse me,” Thor whispers. “Spiderman. I confess I do not know who you are. Stark told me I was to be responsible for this land for today, but I did not recognize the name he told me I was defending. So you are the Man of Spiders?”

Peter squints, swallows, stammers. “Um. It’s really just Spiderman. You really don’t…” He kicks the cement. “You don’t recognize the name? I mean, that’s cool, I guess Spiderman is pretty local…”

“No no, young Spider,” Thor says cheerfully. “I apologize for dishonoring your name. You must understand that I have been on Asgard and elsewhere in the galaxy for the past year or so. As I gather, I have missed a great deal.”

Peter sighs, possibly of relief. Thor hasn’t heard of Spiderman, but only because he’s been in literal outer space. 

“Well,” he says awkwardly, “it’s, um, it’s super cool to meet you. I, uh, I’m a big fan. I mean, I’m like a normal fan, like I’m a fan of your work, your superhero work, I think what you do is great, you’re like super strong and that’s really cool, but I really feel pretty standard overall, I would say, like overall I have a pretty generic opinion, but like I support the...the work you...do.”

Thor chuckles heartily. “A pleasure to meet you as well. What did you say was your name? The real one?”

“Peter Parker,” Peter says instantly.

“Hail and well met, Peter Parker. You may call me Thor.”

Like, not that Peter is disrespectful or anything, but he’d already been planning to call him Thor. What else? Mr. Odinson?

Actually Mr. Odinson might have been better. Mr. Thor maybe.

“Nice to meet you Thor,” he says rapidly.

“Come,” Thor says, and points with his umbrella forward. “Walk with me. I am to defend your area, am I not? Oh — don’t mind my asking, but where is the queen? Why are there multiple? Do any seek a king?”

Peter blinks. “Huh?”

“Your city,” Thor says. “It is called Queens. I have yet to meet any queens.”

Peter laughs. He laughs at Thor. Talk about culture shock.

“There’s no actual queen,” he says. “We live in a democracy in America. Um, technically. It’s a Republic. So we don’t have royalty. That’s kind of England’s thing.”

Thor frowns. “The name is deceptive.”

“I mean, I guess?”

“Tell me,” Thor says as he walks. “If you are the hero charged with protecting this land, why are you not protecting it?”

Peter scrunches up his whole face and suddenly feels sheepish. 

“I usually am,” he says. “Tomorrow I will be. I just had to, um, I had this surgery for,” — it comes out before he can stop it — “it’s called top surgery, um, it’s for transgender people...do you even have those on Asgard? So the doctor told me to take it easy for a month, and Mr. Stark put me on house arrest.”

Coming out gets easier every time, maybe. Or perhaps it’s easier to come out to someone who might not even understand what you’re saying. Sure enough:

“Transgender? I do not know this term,” Thor says. “Surgery sounds like an agonizing process. You are brave, young Peter.”

Peter pauses. “Well, I...I don’t know…”

“Any person who willingly undergoes a surgical procedure is a brave person indeed,” Thor insists. “Explain to me transgender.”

Peter’s not entirely sure he can, but then again, this is an opportunity to spread knowledge in a positive light. “Well,” he says tentatively, “some people in the world, they...they’re born with the wrong gender assigned to them. You know how we have girls and boys, but...okay, imagine if when you were born, everything was the same except people referred to you strictly as a girl and couldn’t see you as a boy. You knew you were a boy, and you felt like a boy, but on the outside everybody thought you were a girl. That’s called being transgender.”

Thor nods wisely. Peter presses on. “So it’s like that. It’s kind of like being born in the wrong body. So I was born...in the body of a girl, but I’m — I’m not. I’m a boy, and so top surgery is where they, um...they surgically remove your...you know…” He gestures vaguely at his chest and hopes Thor gets the idea, because there is no fucking way he’s saying the word boobs to a god. “And that way you can look more on the outside the way you feel on the inside. The way you are on the inside.” He stops and takes a breath; his hands have a mild tremor, so he sticks them in his pockets. “Does, um, does that all make sense?”

Thor nods. “I did not know there was a term for it, but I am familiar with these...transgender people. My brother Loki is like this, I think. But he has always used magic; he changes his appearance to match the gender with which he is most comfortable, and as needed I alter the way I refer to him.”

Peter feels elation bubble up in his stomach. “Really? Loki is genderfluid?”

“Genderfluid?”

Peter shakes his head. “Um, it just means that he doesn’t really feel like any one gender all of the time, but more like he kinda switches between them depending on the time or the day.”

“Ah. Then yes.”

Wow. This may be too much for Peter’s brain. He resists the urge to jump up and down and celebrate, because if a fucking god can be trans, that’s as undeniable as it gets, even if Peter is the only one who knows about it.

“Well that’s — that’s — good for him! Good for him. Wait, um, isn’t he kind of a bad guy?”

Thor sighs. “It was a phase. He’s mellowing out. He’s young, you know.”

That’s all the explanation Peter needs. Now that he knows he has this in common with Loki, he has a feeling he’d forgive the guy for just about anything.

“I am very impressed by your strength,” Thor continues, which, what. Thor is impressed with him? “Loki does not need to injure himself to feel more like himself. I cannot imagine making a physical incision to change one’s appearance.”

Peter sighs. “Yeah, well. Not everyone can change how they look at will. Believe me, if I could, I would. This house arrest is getting exhausting.”

“But you are done tomorrow, are you not?” Thor says optimistically.

Peter nods. “I mean. Yeah. I just mean like...it has been exhausting.”

“It does not appear to have exhausted you at all,” Thor observes.

God damn it, Thor.

“Not physically exhausting,” Peter says patiently. “I’m just ready to feel like I’m making a real difference again.”

“Does your family not appreciate the excess free time you must have?” Thor asks. “Your friends?”

“Well, I know they do, but I’ll still have that time when I’m back to — you know, hero stuff. I’ll just also be able to help keep crime off the streets and stuff. So that you guys don’t have to do it.” Peter widens his eyes. “Oh, by the way! Thank you! So much! For your help in the city, it’s a really great thing to do, I really appreciate it.”

“It is my utmost pleasure, young Peter.” Thor turns that massive grin on him again, the five-hundred-gigawatt one that’s practically blinding. “Speaking of which, as much as I am delighted to make your acquaintance, I do not think I am much help standing here chatting. I must bid you farewell now to keep your people safe.” He grabs Peter’s hand and gives it an enthusiastic shake. “Until we meet again, Peter!”

Peter can’t stop staring. “Yeah, really really cool to meet you, Mr. — I mean Thor. See you, uh, around? I guess?”

And then Thor taps the umbrella against the ground and it shifts, the light bending around it until the umbrella is gone and in its place is Mjolnir, and then he’s gone into the sky.

Peter gapes after him.

“Holy shit holy shit holy shit holy shit holy shit holy shit—”

“Let it out, kid.”

“ —holy shit you got Thor to cover Queens?”

“I know he’s your second favorite superhero, Karen’s shown me the footage.”

Peter doesn’t even have it in him to be embarrassed about that. “I just met Thor! I just met an actual god! An awesome, really buff, super hot god who kinda looks a little like Jesus maybe? Thank you, Mr. Stark!”

“Pretending that you didn’t just call Thor super hot,” Mr. Stark says dryly. “Alright, no bullshit: what did you tell him?”

“What? Psh, nothing. What?”

“I see,” Mr. Stark says. “You told him everything.”

“Not everything,” Peter says defensively. “I can keep things to myself. Just because he — okay, so...just this one time I may have told him everything but usually I’m really good!”

“Okay,” Mr. Stark says, clearly disbelieving. “You sure do like to make things harder for yourself, but I’m the last person to judge.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Peter says, rolling his eyes. He bites back a thanks, dad.

“And you’re welcome. How’s the homework coming along?”

Oh, right. Homework. “Oh yeah,” Peter says, deflating. “Uh, it’s going alright. I’m mostly done.”

“You should finish up. I want you to come to the compound tonight. There’s this project I’ve been working on and I want your input.”

No way. “Yeah — yeah, yeah, sure, what is it?” Peter asks. He’s all fizzy and full of energy; he’d love an outlet in the form of a project of Mr. Stark’s.

“You’ll see. I’m sending Happy to pick you up at 5. Be ready. And look nice!”

“What? Why?”

“Seriously? You’re asking questions? Just do it.”

“Oh — okay, sure —” The line goes dead, and Peter stares quizzically at it. “...Sure thing.”

What does look nice mean? Like, wear a tuxedo? Just a regular suit? Does he even need a suit, or can it be a button-down and slacks? Is he allowed to wear jeans?

He’s tempted to text all of these questions to Mr. Stark — or to call him and ask, just to be a pest — but that somehow feels like cheating.

Look nice.

Fine. He can look nice. In three hours, after he finishes all his homework.

With a truly exhaustive sigh, he plugs his phone in on his nightstand and returns to the technologically barren kitchen to start on his chem work.

As promised, Happy pulls up to the curb in front of Peter’s building just as Peter is hopping downstairs, trying to wedge his right foot into a shoe while holding his phone to his ear. It’s a challenge.

“It’s fine, just go,” May says. “I’ll have a nice quiet evening, it’ll be lovely. I’m getting sick of seeing your face around, anyway.”

“Ha ha,” Peter says. He waves exaggeratedly at Happy. Finally, he manages to force his foot into his shoe. “Okay, I gotta go, Happy is here. Sure it’s okay?”

“Peter, go. I love you.”

“I love you too! Okay, bye!”

He yanks open the passenger door and slides in just as the call disconnects.

“Hey,” he says breathlessly to Happy. “What’s, uh...how’s, how are things? How’s life? That was Aunt May, I just had to tell her I’m going to the compound. So, uh, what’s new?”

“Not much,” Happy says, as usual a man of few words. He shifts into drive and pulls away from the curb, and Peter settles in and engages in their traditional one-sided conversation.

“All my teachers thought since we have a break that this is a great time to assign a ton of homework, which, like...I guess I understand, but still. It’s annoying! I wish we could just have a real break without having to do schoolwork. It’s bad enough we get weekend homework and summer work and stuff. I can’t wait to be done with high school. Luckily I got most of my work done today. I had a pretty chill day. How was your day? Oh, I met Thor! You know Thor? I met him! He was so funny, like, he had total culture shock, he asked me where all the queens are. Because Queens? You know? Have you met Thor?”  He pauses. “Happy?”

Happy grunts in surprise, like he wasn’t expecting to be specifically addressed. “Hm? Oh. Yeah, I, uh, I’ve met him a couple times.”

“He’s so buff,” Peter says dreamily. “And so awesome. And his hammer? Super cool. I love being Spiderman, but I wish I could have that hammer. Hey, I heard it can only be lifted by Thor, is that true? I guess it looks heavy but unless it breaks every law of physics it’s definitely liftable.”

“That’s true,” Happy says, in a rare moment of interjection. “Watched Tony try to pick it up with Iron Man gauntlets on and everything. I think I have a video somewhere.”

Peter raises his eyebrows in surprise — partially because that’s funny, but mostly because Happy is actually interacting with him — and then laughs. “I’m dying to see that. Just to see the look on his face when he realizes he can’t. Do you know why Mr. Stark invited me up? It’s kind of random. I mean, I know Mr. Stark’s middle name is pretty much random, but it felt like a deliberate kind of random? You know? He told me there’s a project he’s working on. I’m excited to see it, at least. I know he thinks I'm just a kid but I can totally help. I’ve helped them before. They inducted me into their science bros...club...thing.”

Happy shrugs and reaches over to turn the radio on. An old Sting song starts playing, mellow in the background. Peter vaguely recognizes the melody, but he wouldn’t be able to name it. 

Well, that’s still progress. Happy contributing at all is progress in Peter’s book. He ducks his head and grins. He’ll see the project in due course.

The rest of the car ride is relatively silent, except for the classic rock station belting out song after song. Peter identifies (and sings along to) some — he’s particularly fond of “Purple Rain” and “Crocodile Rock” — and many more are ones he doesn’t know. Dutifully he writes down all the titles in a note on his phone, eager to add to his Spotify playlist.

They park at the Avengers compound about an hour later, and Peter leaps out of the car with his backpack slung over one shoulder. He can’t wait to see this project. Too late, he realizes he should have brought Ted. Oh well.

But when he throws the door open, he’s caught by surprise, and only his Spidey-sense keeps him from stumbling backwards. 

Strung across the ceiling, the words “WELCOME BACK SPIDERMAN” hang in dramatic, bold letters. Spiderman paraphernalia tastefully decorates the room — well, as tastefully as Spiderman paraphernalia can get. In the middle of the room, Mr. Stark stands with a champagne flute in one hand and the other one outstretched.

“It’s the man of the hour!” he says, grin stretched wide. “Happy, you’re a rockstar. Do me a favor and start taking down all these decorations? Put ‘em in the kid’s room when you’re done. And you’re invited to this party, obviously. But feel free to ditch. Normally I would too, but I’m hosting tonight. Not that that’s ever stopped me before.” He chuckles. “Come on, Pete. The real thing’s upstairs.”

“Just gotta move the car,” Happy says gruffly, lifting his keys as if to prove his innocence.

Peter hasn’t moved. As Happy takes his leave, Peter’s eyes wander over the room at a face that’s supposed to be his — his mask, his hiding place. All of this for him. 

All of this because of Mr. Stark.

Before he’s fully aware of his own actions, he’s crying.

“Oh,” Mr. Stark says. “Come on, don’t — don’t do that. Hey, relax. I didn’t mean to startle you, alright? I was going for understated, believe me, it was a lot worse before Pepper stepped in…”

Peter laughs wetly, because of course it was. Mr. Stark always has the best intentions, and frequently has the worst technique for execution. He and Ms. Potts work well together.

But Peter’s not sure when he became such an object of attention for the two of them.

“It’s cool,” he manages, swiping at his eyes and sniffling. “No, it’s — it’s awesome — sorry, I’m fine.”

“That’s pretty clearly not true,” Mr. Stark says.

“No, I am,” Peter says insistently. He sniffles more aggressively and squints until all the tears have tracked down his cheeks. “I don’t know what happened.”

Mr. Stark looks vaguely uncomfortable. “Is it something I said? I wouldn’t ditch your party, kid, that was a joke. Of course I —”

“No, I know,” Peter says. “That’s exactly — I know you wouldn’t ditch, I just, I don’t understand why...why you did all of this...for me. I’m just…” He sniffs. “I’m just a kid from Queens. You didn’t need to help me with anything, but you paid for my top surgery and you took care of my city and now you’re throwing me a party —” His voice wavers and cracks and so he stops and swallows thickly. “It’s just,” he manages weakly, “really, really nice.”

Mr. Stark shakes his head. “Listen, Peter, I know I’m not exactly a poster child for healthy relationships, but believe me, I am not nice. I didn’t do any of that stuff because I’m such a kind and adoring soul.” Peter would like to vehemently disagree on that point, but Mr. Stark is moving on. “I care about you, you know. Pepper and I both do. You’re — smart, you’re funny in a weird...modern way, you’re thoughtful — and this is the least I could do for you. Look — no one should be held back from doing the things they were meant to do, and that includes you. You deserve to look the way you feel, alright? I want you to be happy. If you can believe that.”

“Stop,” Peter mumbles. “I’ll cry more.”

Mr. Stark laughs. “If anyone asks, I slapped you on the back and told you to toughen up. If Pepper finds out I handled an emotional situation with some semblance of competence, the bar will be permanently raised.” He puts a hand on Peter’s shoulder. “Ready to actually do the party?”

Peter swallows, swipes once more under his eyes, and nods. “Yeah. Yeah. Thanks, Mr. Stark, thank you for everything.”

“Right back atcha, kiddo,” Mr. Stark says. “There’s just...just one thing you need to know.”

“Hm?”

Happy slinks back into the room and begins the decoration takedown.

“Some of the people at the party don’t know about your vigilante alter-ego,” Mr. Stark says. Before Peter can appropriately panic, he continues, “And other people, not necessarily the same ones but not necessarily different ones, don’t know that this surgery was because you’re transgender. I didn’t want to tell your secrets, so...officially, this is a very early birthday party.”

Peter almost laughs. “Okay. Sure. That’s okay. That’s great.”

“So if Steve wishes you a happy birthday, don’t, you know, make your confused face.”

“My what face?”

“The confused one. Where you look confused.”

“I don’t have a confused face!” Okay, maybe he does.

“All I’m saying is you might have to do some light manipulation of facts.”

“Lying?”

“Six of one.”

“Okay. I’m a great liar, so…” At Mr. Stark’s disbelieving look, he trails off. “I am a medium liar and I will do my best,” he corrects.

“It’s all I ask,” Mr. Stark says brightly. “Let’s move.”

Mr. Stark is right — the real party is upstairs, and from the moment Peter enters the common room, even before everyone leaps out and yells "SURPRISE!", he's blown away.

JARVIS throws the lights on, and Peter does a very quick mental headcount.

Aunt May. She's smiling with just a little self-awareness. Peter is also smiling, bigger than he thought his face could even go, because he knows she's humoring all of them. Aunt May knows what this party is really for. A very small part of him is impressed that she'd kept it a secret from him.

Ned and MJ, holding twin flutes of...sparkling apple juice? They clink, and Ned winks at Peter when their eyes meet. They know, too.

Natasha, arm resting on Clint's shoulder. She mouths congrats when he sees her, and Clint raises a glass of champagne in his direction.

Pepper Potts has a knowing smile on her face, and Peter get the impression she totally knows what happened downstairs, somehow.

Wanda, apparently returned from Romania, smiles brightly at him.

Sam Wilson is standing next to Rhodey, and already he's striking up what Peter assumes is the continuation of a conversation from before Peter's entrance.

Steve and Bucky are engaging in a rapidly escalating shove-off, but Steve flashes a smile to Peter and says, "Happy birthday, Peter!"

Peter stifles a laugh. "Thanks," he says, embarrassed.

And at the end of the room, taking up too much space, Thor is crunching on a chip, wearing a denim jacket and looking well at home.

"Wow," Peter says. He's not even pretending. The common area is totally outdone with birthday decor, but it's the attendance that blows Peter away. Everyone he loves is here. "Wow, you guys. This is — wow. Thanks, thank you guys so much."

"Speech!" Aunt May chirps. Sam takes it up. Soon everyone's chanting, "Speech! Speech! Speech!"

Peter blushes a deep crimson. He should be used to having all eyes on him — he's on the debate team for Christ's sake — but he still feels nervous. 

"Fine, okay! Uh...it's been a pretty wild few months, and a lot of big things have happened, so thanks to everyone who helped me through that, ahem, transition, you guys are the bomb. Ned, you're my man. Aunt May, I'd be dead without you, and that is not a joke. MJ, you rock. Mr. Stark, thank you for everything. You guys are great. I'm really happy that I'm, uh…" He glances at Steve's bright face. "That I'm turning seventeen . I really feel like this is the, um, age I'm meant to be, and I'm really excited to start this part of my life. I'm going to try and balance my responsibilities a little better, I swear. You guys are gonna be so impressed. Okay? Was that good? Please stop staring at me, this is supposed to be a party.”

"Hear, hear," Mr. Stark says. "The kid's right. It's a party. Have some fun!"

He claps, and JARVIS begins to play "Don't Stop Me Now" over the sound system. Just like that, everyone kind of splits off.

Natasha lopes gracefully over to him. "The age you're meant to be, huh? You're going to tempt fate."

"I think tempting fate comes with this territory," Peter says.

"Not wrong, buddy.” She pats his shoulder. “Je suis heureux pour toi. Félicitations. Pour tout." Peter must be blushing, because Nat's smirking now. "I'm gonna grab some fruit and head out. Not because I don't totally support you, but because I'm tired and I have now officially done all I need to do here."

"Bye," Peter says gratefully. "Thanks, Natasha. You're…" With her eyes drilling into his head like this, he loses his capacity for words. He swallows. "Yeah. Um, just thanks. I appreciate...everything."

"You are the most welcome," Nat says, ruffling his hair. "À plus tard, petit araignée. Bonne nuit!"

She flounces towards the kitchen, presumably to get her fruit. Peter turns away and finds himself face to face with MJ.

"Ah!" He leaps back.

Ned is by her side, which of course Peter notices belatedly. MJ snickers. "You'd think someone with your instincts would hear — "

"Shh!" Shushing is totally unnecessary under Freddie Mercury's intense voice, but Peter makes the effort for emphasis. "Not everyone here knows I'm...you know."

"Bisexual?" Ned guesses.

"Trans?" MJ suggests.

"Those too! Stop telling all my secrets!"

MJ laughs. "You're a weirdo, Parker. Anyway, we wanted to say congrats. But I'm sure you knew that already."

Ned grins tightly. "Yeah. Congrats, Peter. I hope it's fun going back to...um, I mean, being seventeen." He glances obviously about himself, apparently satisfied with his quick save.

Peter feels a stab of guilt. He grabs each of his friends by a wrist and drags them off to a quiet corner. 

"Guys, listen," he begins, "I've had a lot of time lately to think about stuff, and I just want you guys to know I'm gonna try really hard to, like, be here when I'm here. I can't promise I'll be great, but...having all that free time made me realize how much I give up for being Sp— uh, for being...you know. And I feel badly. I want to hang out with you guys more. So I'm just saying, you don't have to let me off the hook if I dip. I want to be better."

Mr. Stark's words from a couple years ago reverberate in his mind: I wanted you to be better.

Everything slots into place. It's a relief to realize he finally understands what Mr. Stark meant.

He's part of a lot of things. A family, a friend group, a squad of superheroes (unofficially), an Academic Decathlon team. But he owes it to all them to be his best self. That's his responsibility. He earned his spot in all of those places, and now he has to maintain it.  And yeah, it might stretch him thin, but Peter also understands now that great power can sometimes mean letting someone else have your back. Sometimes, the best he can do is take a break and let someone stronger take over.

Spiderman is replaceable. Spiderman is just a nickname, a mantle Peter chooses to wear every day. But there's only one Peter Parker, and that guy owes it to everyone to show up when he says he will.

Ned yanks Peter forward into a bone-crushing hug. 

"You're such a stupid idiot," he says, which is a very MJ thing for Ned to say. "I love you so much, bro."

Peter hugs him back. He feels warm, whole. "Hey, I love you too, man."

MJ sighs deeply and then huffs, "I guess I'm in this too now." She wraps her arms around the hug and says, "I love you guys too. Saps."

Across the room, Aunt May smiles broadly at him.

Peter's been on house arrest for a month, but right now — Ned hugging him and MJ hugging them both; Sam Wilson cracking jokes at Mr. Stark's expense while Rhodey laughs; Wanda using the aether to bring herself a slice of cake without leaving the couch; Steve doing the Chubby Bunny challenge with Bucky assisting by shoving the marshmallows in his mouth, and Clint taking a video; actual god Thor chatting amicably with Pepper; Natasha tossing grapes in the air and catching them in her mouth as she exits; Aunt May smiling like she has a secret, and downing her sparkling apple juice in one...

This, finally, feels like home.