Chapter Text
The remainder of the car ride was quiet. Upon arrival, Peter, who had curled up against the car door, was quick to get out of the car and slam the door. Happy resisted the urge to groan and snap at the kid. “Peter, call if you need anything,” he called after the teen who was already rushing up the stairs rather than taking the elevator. Happy figured it was to get away from him and not continue the conversation. Sure, Happy didn't have kids of his own but Peter was definitely going to be responsible for his premature graying.
Peter wanted nothing else than to be alone in his room. Since the party was being hosted on the Stark-Rogers floor Peter would have to get through a sea of people to get to his room. Although the theatre would’ve been an ideal hiding spot, he was sure Happy or one of the other adults would be checking on him. Since he’d already told Happy he’d be in his room, he was sure that’s where they’d go looking.
It took nearly twenty-five, almost thirty, minutes to hike up the stairs all the way to the floor the party was being held on. Stupid stairs, now Peter was really wishing they lived on one of the lower floors. He pushed past several people and thought to himself that this party could not end soon enough. Suddenly Peter sensed someone was trying to grab his arm. He quickly pushed the hand away, looking up to see a young blond woman.
“Hey, you’re Tony’s son!” She reached to grab his arm again to which Peter took a step back. “Hang out with us for a while, it’ll be fun!” She grinned and tucked her hair behind her ear.
Peter took a step to the side, feeling something was off about this woman. “Don’t touch me.” A high-frequency pitch was heard by Peter before he spotted the earpiece the woman was wearing. The next thing he spotted was the bracelet with a microscopic blinking light, most likely a recording device.
“Come on, Peter, I just want to talk for a little.” She batted her lashes at a very disgusted Peter.
Surely she wanted a scoop on the Avengers. She probably thought Peter would be stupid enough to disclose intel on the group but she thought wrong. But why would a dumb kid like me have any intel, Peter thought to himself. “You aren't supposed to be here. Leave me alone before I get security.” He started to walk away before glancing back. “Nice earpiece and recorder by the way,” he called back while making his way into the sea of people once again.
The teen had one focus now, getting to his room and locking himself in there. Unfortunately for Peter, he still had to get through the largest crowd. As he squeezed and elbowed his way through, he felt someone grab his arm. He pushed the hand away and kept going. It happened again which worried Peter. The kid could easily be followed or targeted at an event like this. He was in a sensory overload due to his spidey senses mixed with a huge noisy crowd. On the third time, the hand grabbed Peter, the grip was tighter and he could tell the person was closer. This time Peter turned and was milliseconds away from initiating self-defense. Before he knew it, two hands, with a seemingly superhuman grip, were dragging him out of the crowd. Peter attempted to drop to his knees to delay the attacker from taking him and even began trying to buck his way out after the inhuman strong arms wrapped around his torso, leaving his hands immobilized.
“Peter,” the person said to the struggling teen. “Peter!” The man was growing tired of being headbutted and elbowed so he turned Peter to face him.
“Let go of me,” Peter snapped before opening his eyes to see a worried Steve gently gripping his shoulders. He sighed in relief and pushed Steve’s hands off of his shoulders. “Pop’s, you scared the hell out of me!”
Steve gave him a look followed by an exasperated sigh, “First of all, language little man, second, where have you been? I’ve been calling and checked your room and,” he noticed Peter wasn’t paying attention and how his eyes were darting around. “Son, what’s wrong?” After not getting a response, Steve felt panicked. “Peter?” He started pulling him away trying to get to a quieter area to see if it would help.
Peter’s eyes met Steve's but it was difficult to pay attention with the overload of input. His chest began to rise and fall quickly. “Pops,” he mumbled, clearly still not paying attention. “What’s wrong?”
Steve sighed and ran a hand through his hair. It was a mystery how the man still wasn’t graying. Must have been the super-soldier serum. “You alright now? You seemed a little spaced out.” After receiving a nod from Peter he let the teen go. “Bud, where were you?”
Peter shrugged. “Uh, Happy and I went to drop off Ned. His grandmother wanted him home early.” He responded, glancing behind Steve.
Steve nodded, dropping the subject. He didn’t think it’d do any good to ask Peter any questions by the level of distraction he’d been displaying. “Well, Pete, you know where to find us. I know you’re probably tired already, I’ll try to get your dad to shut the party down soon, alright?” For good measures, Steve pressed a palm to Peter's forehead. "You feel a little warm, why don't you go take a cold shower and hit the hay?"
Peter made eye contact with Steve for a moment and nodded, not giving a verbal response as he has no idea what the man had just said. He turned on his heel and almost beelined to his room. There was nothing that Peter wanted more than to lock himself in his room, flop on his bed and turn on an 80s movie. Of course, he couldn’t have what he wanted. The hair on the back of his neck raised and not even a second later his hair was windblown as if he’d just been through a tornado. Peter reached to grab whatever had just zoomed past him at an ungodly speed but it seemed the object or person had dodged just in time. He stuck his foot out just a bit before throwing a punch and missing.
Pietro tripped over Peter’s foot and just barely missed the punch thrown his way. “Hey, Woah! Easy tiger!” He laughed at Peter’s frustrated expression as he dusted himself off.
Peter crossed his arms, watching Pietro rise to his feet. “What are you doing?” He was already on edge and Pietro’s little sneak attack wasn’t helping.
“Peter, come on, join the party for a while! You’ve been in your room all night. Plus, when’s the next time you’ll be at such a kickass party, hm?” Pietro raised his eyebrows a few times. He rolled his eyes when Peter only gave him a look of annoyance. “Just twenty minutes, come on.”
Peter pursed his lips. “You say that but I know,”
Pietro cut him off. “Peter, Peter, you look like a ten-year-old and act like a sixty-year-old.” He gently punched the teen's arm. “How about it? I say and really mean twenty minutes. Listen, if after twenty minutes you want to lock yourself in your room again, that’s fine. I will personally bring you to your room, tuck you in, and read you a bedtime story, honest Peter.” Pietro threw in some puppy eyes just in case.
“You guys need to stop acting like I’m a baby,” Peter argued.
“Well maybe if you join us for a while…” Pietro countered with a grin.
“Fine.” Peter looked back at the party and was already dreading getting through the crowd.
Pietro grinned and looked into the crowd. “Just hang on, okay?” He grinned and before Peter could say anything Pietro grabbed him, zipping through the crowd at an unnatural speed. He finally stopped at a group of young adults who looked around Pietro’s age, if not a little older. It only took a few seconds but for Peter, it felt like an eternity. When Pietro let go of the teen, Peter was frozen, staring at the floor. His hair made it look like he’d been going a hundred miles an hour on the highway with a topless car. He couldn’t exactly explain the sensation of zipping through space at such an ungodly speed. It definitely wasn’t like a rollercoaster or even webbing his way as fast as he could through the city. “Peter?”
Peter looked up, snapping out of the shocked phase. “Yeah?”
Pietro gave him a smirk. “Let me introduce you,” he gestured around at the others. “Jade, Micheal, uh,” Pietro snapped, making a finger gun at a guy. “Clint, Klein, wait, Klaus!” He fist-bumped the other guy who seemed to be Klaus. “Amethyst, Zoey, Drew, and Henry.” Pietro grabbed the teen's shoulder and gently shook him. “Everyone, this is Peter. Keep an eye out for him, will ya?”
Peter gave a shy wave, engaging in casual small talk with a few people he’d been introduced to. The teen typically took a while to warm up to people but he seemed to be warming up to Pietro’s friends pretty quickly. Of course, he didn't doubt Pietro had just met these people hours if not minutes ago, but they seemed like a good group. From what Peter had collected, the majority of the group was in college, graduate school, or had just barely graduated. Jade, an engineer, had been invited to the party after having worked on the design for the new tower as a college sophomore. Tony had been so impressed with her hard work and commitment to the small project that she was honored enough to be added to the party list.
The night was slowly turning to the odd hours of night. Peter’s watch read 1:30 AM and hoped
A very drunk Klaus put an arm around Peter’s shoulders. “Pierre,” he slurred.
Peter scrunched his nose and shrugged Klaus’ arm from his shoulder. “Peter,” he corrected.
“Pierre,” he repeated. “What do you study?”
Peter could notice Jade and Zoey exchanging worried looks. It didn’t seem like imminent danger but he stayed cautious. “Still in high school.”
Klaus faked a gasp, taking a swing from his red solo cup. “You poor thing, you seem like-”
“Maybe you should go sober up, Klaus,” Jade suggested, reaching to take the cup from Klaus who quickly snatched it away.
“I bet Piper has never been to a real party before.” Klaus hiccuped before a suppressed laugh escaped his lips.
“Klaus,” Jade said in a warning tone. They were a close group of friends and therefore knew their friend could have a big mouth when he had a little too much to drink. He was getting into dangerous territory.
Klaus hiccuped, putting an arm around Peter's shoulders again, pulling him closer. “Peter, take a sip.” The cup was raised to Peter's lips and the teen backed away, causing the tart drink to spill on him. Pietro was back by the teens side, freeing him from Klaus’ grip and putting himself between the two.
“What the fuck, man?” Pietro snapped, shoving the drunk man to the side. “He’s a kid,” he caught a glance of a shocked Peter and felt a rush of guilt flow over him.
Jade grabbed Klaus’ arm and pulled him. “Pietro, I am so sorry-I tried to tell him, he wouldn’t listen.” Jade kept stumbling over nearly a million apologies while Klaus was out of it, barely able to keep himself up.
Pietro shook his head, keeping Peter behind him. “Jade, it isn’t your fault. He needs to leave. Right now. I’m serious.” The low tone and grave manner Pietro had was a drastic change from his happy-go-lucky self.
It took a while but eventually, a security guard came around and escorted the drunk young man. His friends felt embarrassed to have been associated with him. After plenty of apologies to both Peter and Pietro, the group headed out.
“Peter, are you sure you’re okay?” Pierto had managed to get his hands on some napkins and was dabbing the spilled beer out of the teens shirt.
Peter pushed Pietro’s hand away for what seemed like the twentieth time. “No big deal.” he lied. It’d been frightening at first. Even with his powers and strength he had, Peter tended to panic in situations when the “bad guys” weren’t robbers or villains with odd attire. But for now he was okay again, just itching to get back to his room.
“I’m still sorry little buddy.” Maybe there was a reason Peter tended to stay in his room during these things. Pietro tried to not feel guilty while thinking of ways to make it up. “You can try a sip of my beer? I won’t tell your parents. But seriously, only a sip.” He offered the cup to Peter who made a face.
Once Tony had left a beer sitting on the counter when Peter was about ten. The kid ended up getting his hands on it and taking a sip. The drink tasted like what Peter imagined urine would taste like and he vowed to never touch the stuff again. There was something that was still very unappealing about beer to Peter. He scrunched his nose and averted his face. “No, I’m good. I don’t like it.”
Pietro raised a brow. “Little rebel has tried beer, huh” he teased. “Well, let me get you something. What about like a mixed drink or something?”
Peter shook his head. “I’m not allowed to, I’m underage.” He was getting tired of Pietro treating him like a little kid but also didn’t want to risk getting into trouble either. Peter couldn't lie, he'd try it in a heartbeat but with the narrow chance of Steve catching him was enough to get him to decline the offer. “How about you get me a sprite?”
Pietro chuckled, nodding. “Sprite, coming right up. You sure you don't want anything else?” After getting a nod from Peter, he returned a thumbs up. “Hey, hold my drink for a second?”
Peter shrugged before nodding. Holding a drink couldn’t possibly get him in trouble. “Alright.” He reached out and grabbed the cup, watching as Pietro made his way to the bar. He glanced down at the amber liquid and scrunched his nose. God, it even smelled awful. He was looking around since it seemed Pietro was talking forever. There were a lot of people trying to get a drink so no doubt it’d be a while, ten minutes at the least. The minutes passed and still no sign of pietro. Peter grew more bored by the second until something set off his Spidey Sense.
He scanned the area looking for an obvious sign of danger but nothing. Whereas he could see the back of Pietro’s head a second ago, Pietro was now too deep into the crowd. Thinking of it, no one Peter knew was in sight. A knot formed in his stomach and he raised the cup to his chest. What was wrong? His head snapped to a woman in the crowd. She looked familiar but from where? His eyes were blinded by a bright flash of light, causing him to drop the cup.
Time seemed to freeze for a moment. The woman, the cup, and the lack of sight were all flooding Peter’s mind. The woman, where was she from? It clicked, she was at the party. But why was she memorable? The listening device! Now the lack of eyesight. Surely Peter couldn’t be dead. Did he hit his head or was any trauma inflicted on him? A memory suddenly popped back into his head of being out in public with his parents. He’d had this feeling before--paparazzi! It was a camera flash! And now the issue of the cup.
Peter’s arm made a swift motion to catch the cup, beer flying out of the sides in a circular motion, before trying to take off after the news reporter. Snap snap. Peter’s eyes were flooded with a silver light once again. Slightly disoriented, he took off in a sprint, closing in on the reporter. What did she want? Why was she doing this? There couldn’t possibly be anyone else she was taking pictures of.
She was pretty fast but Peter was faster. Peter was in arms reach by now, pushing his way through the crowd but he forgot he was holding a drink. It had spilled onto the floor and the next step Peter attempted to take--the last lunge before he’d be able to grab the reporter or at least her camera, resulted in Peter's foot landing in the beer. This time time didn’t seem to slow down. Peter could tell he was falling and falling hard. He could hear his name being called but it was in the distance, almost as if he were in a tunnel. Whoever it was, it was too late. A loud bang was heard as Peter’s head smacked the floor before everything went dark.