Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

“Only one day,” 

Natasha said it with the certainty usually reserved for people who had not yet been informed that they were completely screwed. 

Tony knew that tone because he had personally perfected it years ago, usually somewhere between “I have a plan” and “this will be hilarious as long as nobody dies.” 

It was the tone people used when they were trying to convince themselves that a problem was manageable, which was generally how Tony ended up making problems substantially less manageable.

He took a step away from the elevator and took in the common room, and for a moment he genuinely wondered if he had somehow walked into the wrong floor. 

He'd been gone for forty-five (45!!) minutes, which in Avengers time was basically an extended bathroom break. 

But apparently, that had been enough time for the rest of the team to turn the place into what looked suspiciously like the world's most heavily armed daycare. 

Toddler clothes were scattered across one end of the couch, a tiny winter coat was hanging over the armchair, one sock was caught around Clint's sleeve like he'd been attacked by laundry, and Thor was sitting there looking entirely too pleased with himself while holding another sock in one hand as though it were some kind of ceremonial object.

The toddler in question was still technically awake, although Tony wasn't entirely convinced Peter himself would agree with that assessment if anybody bothered to ask him. 

His eyes were closed, his cheek was pressed against Natasha's shoulder, and one tiny hand was curled into the fabric of her shirt as if letting go was not an acceptable option. 

His breathing was slowing, although not quite even enough to suggest that he was completely asleep, and every so often his fingers would twitch or tighten whenever someone spoke too loudly. He was wearing some ridiculously designed pajamas that Pepper must have decided were acceptable for any two-year-old to wear, and a stuffed Spider-Man was tucked securely beneath his chin.

Tony frowned at the plushie, yes, because he had questions, but mostly because he already had the distinct impression that several important developments had occurred without him. That was usually when his curiosity became a problem for everyone involved.

“What,” he said slowly, looking around the room again, “exactly happened while I was gone?”

Clint glanced down at the sock still looped around his sleeve. “A lot.”

“That is not an answer.” Tony pointed at the sock. “Did the toddler do that?”

Clint sighed. “Yes.”

Tony looked at Peter, who remained completely uninterested in defending himself, and nodded with the solemnity of a man acknowledging a worthy opponent.

“Okay,” he said. “I respect the commitment.”

A tiny noise came from Natasha's shoulder, somewhere between a grumble and a sleepy protest, and Tony watched Peter shift closer without opening his eyes. 

Natasha immediately adjusted her hold, one arm settling more securely around his back while her other hand rested against the side of his head. She didn't seem to think about it at all. There was no hesitation, no awkwardness, and no glance around the room to see whether anyone was watching. 

Tony noticed things like that.

It was one of the unfortunate side effects of spending most of his life surrounded by people who were considerably more complicated than machines. 

Machines generally told you what was wrong with them, either through a diagnostic readout or by making an extremely expensive noise. Sadly, people expected you to notice when something was wrong without necessarily having the courtesy to tell you. 

Tony had gotten pretty good at noticing.

He'd been in his lab doing what he was good at: science, numbers, diagnostics, and trying to figure out exactly what the hell had happened to Peter's physiology without accidentally turning a temporary problem into a permanent one. 

Bruce and Helen had been going through the data while Tony bounced between the equipment and approximately six different theories, because if there was one thing Tony Stark was exceptionally good at, it was refusing to accept that the first answer was necessarily the most interesting one.

That was the easy part.

Give him a problem with variables, and Tony could work with it. Give him a machine that wasn't behaving, and he could take it apart until he understood why. Give him an impossible equation, and eventually there would be a number at the bottom of the page, even if the number happened to be “please don't do that again.”

People were less cooperative.

Peter especially.

Spider-ling fights aside, Tony had only technically known the kid for about a month now, although calling that “knowing” him was probably generous. 

Sure, they'd lived in the same building, and Tony had helped set up the kid’s room and suit, but before last week, they'd barely spoken beyond the occasional sarcastic comment in passing. 

That changed in the attic.

Tony had walked into that freezing, half-collapsed room expecting to find anything other than a fifteen-year-old kid who had apparently been holding himself together with duct tape, stubbornness, and sheer refusal to admit that he needed anyone. 

It had been the first time Tony had seen Peter accept help when he wasn’t literally unconscious, and Tony hadn't forgotten how strange that had felt.

Then Tony discovered that Peter wasn't merely smart in the vague, irritating teenage-genius sense of the word, but genuinely curious about how things worked. 

It was the kind of curiosity Tony understood immediately because he'd spent most of his life taking things apart just to see what was inside. Peter asked questions, and they were good questions, which was annoying because Tony actually enjoyed answering them. 

Then came the suit, and dinner, and the increasing realization that Peter was starting to act as if he belonged in the Tower even though some part of him still seemed convinced that somebody was eventually going to tell him it was time to leave.

One week wasn't long.

Tony knew that. He also knew that sometimes a week was enough to change everything.

His eyes drifted back toward the plushie.

Tony remembered when Thor had brought it into the medical bay, along with the blankets and pillows nobody had asked him to buy. 

At the time, Tony had thought the stuffed Spider-Man was ridiculous. Peter had been unconscious, after all, and Thor had somehow decided that what a fifteen-year-old recovering from an arrow through the chest needed was a basketball-sized plush version of himself.

Apparently, Thor had known what he was doing.

Peter was holding it with both arms now, face half-buried against its ridiculous little head.

Tony glanced toward Thor, who was watching Peter with an expression of unmistakable satisfaction.

“You know,” Tony said, “I still can't believe you brought that thing.”

Thor looked over. “The young spider appears to enjoy it.”

He did.

Peter had kept the thing.

After everything he'd apparently decided that the stuffed Spider-Man was worth keeping.

It seemed trivial, but Tony learned a long time ago that the small things were usually the ones worth remembering.

A machine could tell you its temperature, its pressure, its power consumption, and the exact moment a component began to fail. A person rarely gave you that kind of courtesy. People lied when they were scared, smiled when they were miserable, said they were fine when they were very obviously not fine, and sometimes got so good at pretending that they forgot there had ever been a difference.

Tony knew something about that.

Howard had been a genius, which had always seemed like a particularly cruel joke considering that Tony had spent so much of his childhood wishing his father would stop looking at him like an unfinished project and start looking at him like a son. 

Tony had spent years assuming there had to be some combination of achievements, inventions, awards, headlines, impossible machines, and spectacular demonstrations that would finally make Howard look at him and think, There. That's my kid.

It never happened.

Eventually, Tony learned that people didn't always know how to give you what you needed, even when you desperately wanted them to, and learning that didn't make the wanting disappear. 

If anything, it made the wanting more obvious, because once Tony stopped blaming himself for not being enough, he had to admit that he'd simply wanted his father to love him in a way Howard had never really known how to show.

Peter had needed a lot more than Tony had initially realized.

Now that the kid was somewhere safe enough to actually ask for things, even if asking apparently involved accidentally turning himself into a toddler, he seemed to be collecting small pieces of normal life wherever he could find them. 

A plushie. A ridiculous pair of unicorn pajamas. A person he trusted enough to fall asleep against.

Tony looked at Natasha again.

She was still exactly where she'd been when he'd walked in, with Peter tucked against her like he'd been there for hours. 

Tony had seen Natasha carry injured people before. He'd seen her drag Clint out of bad situations, hold pressure on wounds, and sit beside a hospital bed until they had to force her to leave. 

This wasn't exactly the same thing, but it was close enough that Tony recognized the instinct behind it.

She wasn't doing anything dramatic. She wasn't humming or fussing or making a big production out of taking care of him. 

She was simply paying attention. Peter shifted, and she adjusted him. His head slipped lower, and she moved it back onto her shoulder. His fingers loosened against her shirt, and her hand settled more securely between his shoulder blades.

Peter was losing the fight against sleep.

Tony could see it happening gradually. Peter had clearly been determined to stay awake, because apparently even as a toddler he had his usual stubborn refusal to admit when his body had reached its limit. 

His eyelids fluttered once, then stayed closed. His breathing slowed further, and his head became heavier against Natasha's shoulder until the last bit of tension finally seemed to leave his little body.

Natasha noticed immediately and shifted him higher against her chest, supporting the back of his head with one hand. Peter made the smallest sleepy noise before settling again, and Natasha murmured, “Shh,” so quietly that Tony almost didn't hear it.

Peter relaxed completely.

A few seconds later, he was asleep.

Tony watched him for a moment longer than he meant to before looking at Natasha. 

There was a particular expression on her face that he recognized, although he wasn't entirely sure she even knew about it. 

He'd seen it in people who had quietly decided that someone else was now their responsibility, the kind of decision that didn't require a conversation because it happened somewhere underneath all the words.

Tony's mouth twitched. “Interesting.”

Pepper, who had been gathering the tiny clothes into a neat pile on the coffee table, glanced over. “What?”

“Nothing.”

She followed his gaze toward Natasha and Peter, and the tiny smile that appeared on her face told Tony immediately that she knew exactly what he was talking about.

“Oh.”

Tony raised an eyebrow. “You see it too.”

“I've seen it for a while.”

“Well, apparently I'm behind.”

“You usually are.”

Tony put a hand over his heart. “That is an unnecessarily hurtful thing to say to the man who pays for this building.”

“You don't pay me to flatter you.”

“I could. Name your price.”

“You'd still be wrong.”

Tony considered that, then looked back toward Natasha. “Fair.”

He'd noticed the way she was with Peter, of course. He wasn't blind. 

He’d noticed it a month ago when Natasha refused to leave his side; at the time he assumed it was just guilt that would fade away with time, getting her the first parenting-tip book that FRIDAY found as a joke. 

He'd noticed it at dinner, when Peter would instinctively glance toward her before answering a question he didn't know how to handle. 

He'd noticed it in the way Natasha could tell Peter was getting overwhelmed before Peter himself seemed to realize it, and in the way she never pushed when he went quiet.

Tony had assumed it was just Natasha being Natasha.

That assumption was becoming increasingly difficult to defend.

Peter shifted again in his sleep, and Natasha's arm tightened around him automatically. Tony leaned slightly toward Pepper. “He’s got her.”

Pepper looked at him. “Yes.”

“No, I mean like he’s got her.”

Pepper's smile widened. “Tony.”

“What?”

“You're doing that thing.”

“What thing? I don't do a thing. You mean the genius thing? That happens naturally I can’t stop it.”

“The thing where you notice something everyone else has and then think it’s a grand revelation.”

Tony looked genuinely offended. “I have no idea what you're talking about.”

Pepper gave him the kind of look that suggested she'd known him far too long to be fooled by that.

Tony glanced back at Natasha, then at Peter, and finally lowered his voice because he valued his continued existence.

“Spidermom.” Tony grinned.

Pepper's mouth dropped open. “Don't.”

“I didn't say anything.”

“You absolutely did.”

“I wouldn’t to her.” He shrugged. “I like living.”

Pepper shook her head, but she was smiling wide now, which Tony considered a victory.

He turned his attention back to Peter, and his thoughts drifted toward last week in the lab.

It had been the first time Tony had really seen what the kid was like when he wasn't busy trying to survive. 

Peter had spent hours taking apart pieces of the new suit and putting them back together with the kind of concentration Tony hadn't seen from someone that young in a very long time. 

Tony had expected him to be impressed into silence by the lab because, frankly, most people were, but Peter had immediately started asking questions instead.

Not the kind of questions designed to make Tony feel smart, either.

Peter wanted to know why the material responded the way it did, why Tony had chosen one power distribution system over another, and whether a particular component could be modified without compromising the suit's structural integrity. He'd listened to the answers, argued with two of them, and then suggested a third possibility that Tony had reluctantly admitted was actually pretty good.

That was the first time Tony had gotten to see something underneath the mask that wasn't fear, exhaustion, sarcasm, or that irritating habit Peter had of pretending everything was fine when it very clearly wasn't.

Peter was curious.

He liked building things. He liked solving problems.

Tony had spent a long time thinking the kid needed a better suit. 

And he definitely did. Tony still intended to make sure Peter had one that wouldn't fall apart around him, because Tony had standards and because watching someone else use bad equipment made him physically uncomfortable.

But maybe the kid needed a little more than that, too.

Tony looked around the room again. 

Steve was sitting on the opposite couch with his arms folded, looking like he'd reached the point where sleep had stopped being optional and was rapidly becoming a medical recommendation. 

Thor was still watching Peter with the expression of a man who had apparently decided that having a tiny, super-powered Spider-Man around was the greatest development in modern history. 

Bruce and Helen looked exhausted from the medical jargon they were spewing over the last hour, while Pepper was back to collecting clothes despite the fact that they could probably leave them there until morning.

Natasha was still holding Peter.

Nobody seemed particularly interested in going anywhere.

Tony glanced at the clock. It was a little after ten, and somehow the day had managed to feel twice as long as it was.

“Okay,” Tony said, pushing himself away from the doorway. “Everybody needs to sleep before someone makes another questionable decision involving a toddler and a piece of furniture.”

Clint looked up. “You first.”

Tony scoffed. “I have responsibilities.”

“You've been staring at all of us for the last ten minutes.”

Bruce turned towards him and nodded. “Ten minutes.”

Tony looked around the room. “I hate this team.”

“No, you really don't,” Pepper said.

“I don't like where this conversation is going.”

“It is going to bed.”

“I don't need bed.”

“You do.”

Tony opened his mouth, saw Pepper give him the look, and thought better of it. “Fine,” he said. “But for the record, I'm doing this under protest.”

Clint snorted, and Tony ignored him as he looked toward Natasha. “You taking him upstairs?”

Natasha nodded. “He's asleep.”

Tony nodded back. “Right.”

He watched as Natasha carefully stood, keeping Peter tucked securely against her. 

Peter didn't stir. The Spider-Man plushie remained squished beneath one arm, and his face disappeared against Natasha's shoulder as she adjusted her hold.

The sight caught Tony off guard. It looked natural.

Like Peter had always belonged there.

Tony didn't say anything. He simply watched Natasha carry him toward the elevators, her steps careful and quiet, and waited until the doors opened before she disappeared inside.

Then he glanced toward the plushie sticking out from Peter's arms. “Thor.”

“Yes?”

Tony looked at him. “Good call.”

Thor smiled. “I know.”

Tony rolled his eyes.

The elevator doors closed, leaving the room strangely quiet for a few seconds before Clint stood and stretched until his back cracked.

“Well,” he said, “that was weird.”

Tony nodded. “That's one word for it.”

Steve got to his feet too, looking around at the others before settling his gaze on the elevators. “I think we're all done for tonight.”

Nobody disagreed.

They'd all been worried, and one emergency beacon from Peter had been enough to send every single one of them running because none of them knew what they were going to find when they got there.

Tony understood that better than he wanted to.

He'd spent years pretending he didn't care about people because caring made them dangerous.  Then he'd nearly died, built the suit, built another one, and somehow ended up collecting a family anyway.

Pepper and Rhodney had obviously been the first serious offenders, followed by Steve, Bruce, Clint, Natasha, and now Peter, although Tony couldn't remember exactly when the list had gotten that long and was now wondering why there had never been a meeting about it.

Nobody had handed him a clipboard and said, Congratulations, you've accidentally acquired a family.

Maybe that was what family actually was. Maybe it wasn't something you could plan or engineer or build according to a set of specifications, but something that happened because the same people kept showing up until eventually you couldn't imagine the room without them in it.

“Come on,” Pepper said softly, eyeing him like she could read his thoughts. Which she had the annoying habit of. 

The others split off toward the elevators to their own floors, each disappearing one by one until the common room finally emptied. Tony waited until the doors closed, then looked at Pepper.

“Finally.”

She smiled. “Exhausted?”

“Of course not.”

They rode the elevator to their floor in comfortable silence, and Tony found himself appreciating the quiet more than usual. 

Their residential floor was different from the others, mostly because Tony had never seen much point in pretending he needed multiple rooms when Pepper was the only thing he would really need… plus the fact that he owned every floor in this fucking Tower. 

Though the bedroom was large enough to qualify as its own apartment, with a sitting area, an attached bathroom, and enough open space for Tony to leave a frankly unreasonable number of half-finished projects lying around without immediately being murdered by an angry fiancée.

Pepper changed into pajamas while Tony dropped onto the edge of the bed and pulled off his shoes. 

He sat there for a moment with his elbows resting on his knees, listening to the faint hum of the Tower around them and appreciating how strange it was that a building full of people could sometimes feel completely silent.

Pepper looked over at him. “You're thinking.”

Tony glanced at her. “Dangerous accusation.”

“I know you.”

“That was your first mistake.”

Pepper smiled and came to sit beside him. 

For a few seconds neither of them said anything, and Tony let himself enjoy the fact that he didn't have to fill the silence. He'd spent enough of his life surrounded by noise that sometimes quiet felt more luxurious than anything he could buy.

Pepper leaned her head against his shoulder. “You worried about him.”

Tony looked down at his hands. “Of course I was.”

“That's not what I meant.”

Tony knew exactly what she meant, which was inconvenient because pretending he didn't understand was considerably easier than admitting she was right.

Peter had been in his life for a month. 

That wasn't long enough to know someone completely; hell, Tony had known people for years and still managed to be surprised by them on a regular basis. It had been long enough, though, to notice things, and Peter was particularly bad at hiding things from someone who knew what to look for.

Tony noticed the way Peter always asked before taking something, even when the thing in question was obviously meant for him. He noticed how quickly the kid apologized whenever he thought he'd inconvenienced somebody, and he noticed the way Peter still occasionally looked toward the door as though he expected someone to come in and tell him he'd overstayed his welcome.

Tony remembered the attic.

He remembered the cold.

He remembered Peter sitting there surrounded by pieces of a suit that he was too out of it to see that it couldn’t be a new one, trying to convince Tony that he was fine while looking like he hadn't slept properly in months. 

Maybe that's why he'd brought Peter to the lab. 

Maybe that's why he'd spent hours helping him rebuild something the kid probably could have figured out himself eventually. Maybe that's why he'd started making room for Peter without ever actually deciding to.

Pepper's fingers slipped into his. “You don't have to fix everything.”

Tony huffed a quiet laugh. “That's literally my entire brand.”

“I know.”

He smiled, but it faded after a moment. “I just don't want him thinking he has to leave.”

Pepper squeezed his hand. “He doesn’t.”

Tony looked at her. “You don't know that.”

“No,” she admitted, and there was no false certainty in her voice, which Tony appreciated. “I don't.”

She leaned closer. “But he has people now.”

Tony looked toward the elevator door, although there was nothing particularly interesting there. 

He was thinking about the word people, and how strange it was that such an ordinary word could carry so much weight.

Tony had learned that lesson enough times to know better than to trust permanence, and yet here he was, sitting in a Tower full of people who kept showing up for one another whether it was convenient or not.

Maybe there was another lesson he hadn't learned yet.

For a while, they sat in comfortable silence.

Then Tony glanced at her. “I'm still calling her Spidermom.”

Pepper laughed quietly. “She'll kill you.”

“I wouldn't say it to her face.”

“You're going to say it to her eventually.”

Tony considered that for a moment before smiling. “You're right.”

Pepper shook her head, and Tony reached over to switch off the lamp. The room settled into darkness, and Tony allowed sleep to overtake him, knowing Monday would be a very long day. 

—

Steve Rogers woke up at 4:30 in the morning.

He lay still for a few seconds, staring at the ceiling while the Tower hummed quietly around him, and considered ignoring the impulse to get up.

It was Monday, and there was no mission scheduled until tomorrow, no team training, and no reason for him to be awake before some people had even thought about going to sleep.

Everyone had been spread thin the previous night dealing with Peter's unexpected transformation, and after the kind of day they'd had, Steve knew they could all use the extra sleep.

He could certainly use it himself.

His body, however, had never been particularly interested in what he needed, only what it had been trained to expect, and seventy years of early mornings were apparently more difficult to undo than seventy years of everything else.

Steve sighed, pushed the blankets back, and got dressed.

His residential floor was quiet as he moved through it, FRIDAY turning on the lights automatically as he passed, and he made his way into the small training area he'd set up at one of the rooms on his floor.

It wasn't much compared to the communal training floor several levels below, but Steve had never needed much to begin with.

A heavy bag hung from a reinforced beam in one corner, there were mats covering most of the floor, a pull-up bar was mounted against the far wall, and a simple bench sat beside a rack of super strength capable weights.

Tony had offered to upgrade the room several times, usually with increasingly elaborate suggestions involving holographic targets and computerized reaction measurements, and Steve had politely declined every one of them. 

He didn't need a machine to tell him whether his footing was wrong.

Sometimes a bag heavy enough for a super solider and enough room to move were more than enough.

He trained quietly, starting with stretches and controlled movements before moving into the familiar rhythm of combinations against the bag.

The steady impact of his fists, the shift of his feet against the mat, and the controlled breathing between movements gave his mind something predictable to follow, and Steve had always found that easier than sitting still with too many thoughts at once.

Usually, that was the reason he trained so early.

This morning, however, his thoughts kept circling back to the previous night no matter how hard he tried to leave them behind.

Peter.

Steve increased the pace of his punches.

He wasn't worried about Peter's immediate physical safety.

Bruce and Helen had been monitoring him, and as far as they could tell, the transformation itself wasn't causing any obvious medical complications.

The strangest part was that Peter's abilities had remained completely intact, which was something Steve was still trying to reconcile with the sight of a two-year-old sitting on the floor and casually sticking his feet to it.

Peter could still climb, still cling to surfaces, and still exert far more strength than a child his size had any business possessing.

Steve had watched him move with enough force to send Clint stumbling and enough control to deliberately stick his feet to the floor when he realized he could.

The kid was still himself.

Steve finished another combination, stepped back, and wiped the sweat from his forehead with the towel hanging around his neck.

Peter hadn’t even been fifteen before he'd been forced into a situation where he had to survive like an adult. Steve had seen young soldiers do something similar during the war, although he hated comparing the two.

There was a difference between choosing responsibility and having it dropped on you because there was nobody else around to carry it, and Peter had spent months with nobody else around.

At least now he was surrounded by people who were willing to carry things with him, whether he knew how to let them yet or not.

Steve finished his workout, changed, and headed downstairs shortly before six.

The elevator opened onto the common room, and Steve expected the floor to be empty. Instead, the first thing he noticed was a tiny sock lying directly in the middle of the floor, which made him stop before he'd taken more than two steps.

He looked at it for a moment, then toward the kitchen, then back at the sock, and eventually bent down to pick it up.

Apparently, the events of the previous night had left behind evidence, and Steve suspected there would be considerably more of it once everyone woke up.

He carried the sock over to the couch and set it beside the other toddler clothes that had been folded by Pepper and abandoned there before walking into the kitchen.

A tiny winter coat was draped over one chair and pair of little shoes sat beneath the coffee table were nothing short of adorable no matter the circumstances. 

Steve smiled to himself.

Then he heard a frustrated little noise from the kitchen.

He turned around and saw that Peter was sitting on the floor.

Steve blinked, and Peter looked back at him with an expression that was unmistakably annoyed at being interrupted.

He was still wearing the little unicorn pajamas from the night before, although one sleeve had ridden halfway up his arm and his hair was sticking up in several directions, and he had apparently decided that sleep was optional because his eyes were wide open.

He was sitting directly in front of one of the lower kitchen cabinets, staring at it with the same intense concentration Steve had seen him use when the team training sessions ended with 1 on 1 sparing. 

Steve followed his gaze to the cabinet, then looked back at Peter.

"You want something in there?”

Peter nodded.

Steve crouched beside him. “Food?”

Another nod.

Steve opened the cabinet, and Peter immediately reached inside. He stopped himself from helping.

Steve already knew Peter's powers hadn't disappeared, and after watching him the previous night, he knew better than to assume that being physically two years old meant Peter was helpless.

The kid could probably move more weight than Steve could if he really put his mind to it, but strength wasn't the problem.

His body was simply built differently now. His center of gravity had changed, his reach was shorter, his hands were smaller, and even something as simple as standing up or climbing onto a chair required Peter to relearn movements he'd been doing automatically for years.

Steve could have reached into the cabinet and handed him whatever he wanted, but he suspected Peter would rather struggle for five minutes than have someone decide he couldn't do it himself.

So Steve waited.

Peter stretched farther into the cabinet, his little fingers brushing against the edge of a cereal box. He hooked one finger around it and pulled.

The box moved only slightly, so Peter pulled harder, his eyebrows drawing together with concentration until the box finally came free and landed against his chest.

Steve smiled. “Got it.” Peter looked pleased with himself. Steve nodded toward the table, “Want to eat?”

Peter nodded again, wattled until he reached the table and immediately began trying to climb onto one of the chairs.

Steve watched him get one knee onto the seat before Peter paused and looked over his shoulder. “You've got it.”

Peter narrowed his eyes.

Steve nodded. “I know.”

Peter pulled himself higher, his feet slipping for a moment before one hand automatically stuck to the edge of the table and caught him.

Steve's eyebrows lifted, and Peter looked down at his hand before looking back at Steve as though waiting for some kind of assessment. Steve smiled. “Good job, kid.”

Peter sat down, looking extremely pleased with himself, and Steve turned toward the kitchen to get a bowl.

Behind him came a loud crash.

Steve closed his eyes. 

He turned around slowly.

The cereal box was on the floor.

Peter was still sitting in the chair, staring at the box with the expression of someone who had just witnessed a crime.

He looked at Steve and pointed at the box.

“You dropped it.”

Peter shook his head.

Steve raised an eyebrow.

Peter pointed at himself, then at the box, and finally gave Steve a look that somehow managed to communicate an entire argument without a single word. “Right.” Steve nodded slowly.  “You didn't drop it.”

Peter shook his head.

Steve looked down at the box again. “Gravity dropped it.” Peter nodded with such solemn agreement that Steve almost laughed. “Of course.”

Peter looked satisfied.

Steve picked up the cereal. “You want a bowl?”

Peter nodded, and Steve got one down before setting it on the table along with a spoon. Peter looked at the spoon, then at Steve, then picked it up with both hands and attempted to use it.

He missed the cereal entirely.

Peter stared at the spoon.

Steve looked away so Peter wouldn't see him smiling.

Peter tried again. Missed again.

On the third attempt, Peter managed to get the spoon into the bowl, and he immediately looked up at Steve as though waiting for confirmation that he'd done it correctly.

Steve nodded solemnly. “There you go.”

Peter smiled, then he put the spoon down and started eating with his hands. 

Steve sighed. “Okay.” 

Peter grinned.

Steve poured himself a cup of coffee and sat across from him, watching Peter eat.

It was messy. Very messy. Cereal ended up on Peter's pajamas, the table, the chair, and somehow the floor despite the fact that Peter had not moved from his seat.

Steve looked down at the piece that had landed beside his shoe, then back at Peter.

Peter very deliberately pretended not to notice. Steve raised an eyebrow. “You're going to pretend that wasn't you?”

Peter nodded.

Steve smiled. “Alright.”

For several minutes, the kitchen was quiet except for the sounds of Peter eating and Steve drinking his coffee.

There was something strangely peaceful about it, something that didn't seem as though it belonged in Avengers Tower at all.

The Tower was usually alarms and footsteps and arguments and Tony talking loudly enough that half the building could hear him. It was training sessions, mission briefings, people coming and going at all hours, and the constant sense that at any moment somebody might be called away to deal with something terrible.

But right now, there was only the two of them.

Steve looked at Peter again.

The kid was concentrating very seriously on getting another piece of cereal onto his fingertip, and when it slipped off, Peter frowned at it with genuine offense.

“You can try again,” Steve said.

Peter looked at him. Then he tried again.

This time, he succeeded.

Steve nodded and Peter smiled at himself. It was a small smile, but Steve noticed it.

He'd spent enough time around soldiers to know that confidence could be fragile.

Sometimes it took months to build and seconds to damage, and sometimes the difference between someone believing they could do something and believing they couldn't came down to whether the person beside them gave them enough room to try.

Peter needed that room. He needed people who would let him be capable without making him prove it, people who could offer a hand without grabbing him by the arm and deciding they knew what was best.

Steve had spent enough of his own life being told he was incapable to understand the importance of that.

Before the serum, he'd been the small kid who couldn't keep up, the one who got knocked down and got back up anyway, the one who kept trying even when everyone around him thought he should stop. There had always been someone telling Steve what he couldn't do, and for a long time he'd answered by trying to prove them wrong.

Peter seemed to have have the same stubbornness.

The difference was that Peter shouldn't have had to develop it so young.

Steve looked at him as another piece of cereal fell from his fingers. This time, Peter didn't look embarrassed. He simply picked it up and tried again. Steve smiled at the thought that Peter may be getting more comfortable around him.

Then his thoughts shifted.

HYDRA.

The word came almost without permission, the same way it had been weighing on his mind, and Steve's gaze drifted toward the windows.

He'd been following leads for weeks.

Nothing concrete enough to bring to the team yet, but enough to know something was happening: old files that shouldn't have existed, agents whose names disappeared from records, facilities that officially weren't there, and the same handful of names resurfacing in places they had no business being.

HYDRA had survived, and Steve had learned a long time ago that surviving wasn't always about being stronger. Sometimes it was about being patient enough to hide.

He'd spent seventy years believing he'd destroyed it, only to discover that it had been hiding inside the organization he'd trusted most.

He wasn't going to make that mistake again.

But he also wasn't ready to tell everyone what he'd found.

Not yet.

There were too many gaps, too many questions, and too many reasons to keep the investigation quiet until he knew exactly what he was looking at.

Eventually, though, he was probably going to need help from someone who understood hidden networks, false identities, and people who knew how to disappear without leaving a trace. 

Someone like Natasha.

Steve glanced toward Peter. He'd talk to her. Later. Not now.

Right now Peter was sitting three feet away, attempting to build a tower out of cereal pieces, and Steve wasn't going to turn breakfast into a briefing.

The tower collapsed.

Peter stared at it in betrayed disbelief.

Steve smiled. “It's okay.” Peter looked at him. Steve nodded toward the cereal. “Try again.”

Peter did.

Steve took another sip of coffee.

Maybe watching a fifteen-year-old in a two-year-old body building a cereal tower was enough for this morning.

A few minutes later, the elevator doors opened.

Natasha walked into the common room, dressed in a simple black shirt and sweatpants, her hair pulled back and her expression carrying the faint exhaustion that Steve wouldn’t be able to see if he didn’t know her so well. 

She looked toward the kitchen, saw Steve, and then noticed Peter.

Peter looked up, and his entire face changed. It was impossible not to notice.

Peter reached toward her without hesitation, one small hand stretching out in her direction.

Natasha's expression softened faster than Steve had ever seen before. “Good morning, паучок.”

Peter made a happy little sound that proved he wasn't nearly as in control of his toddler body as he probably wanted everyone to believe, and Natasha walked over, leaning down to brush a hand through his messy hair.

Peter immediately caught her wrist, and she laughed quietly.

Steve watched them.

Peter trusted her. There was no hesitation in it, no calculation, no careful assessment of whether she was safe. He simply knew.

Steve understood why.

Natasha had been there when Peter was scared on that rooftop on the night everything had changed.

She'd been there when he woke up, when he didn't know where he was supposed to sleep, when he didn't know what he was supposed to do next, and when he was still trying to figure out whether the Tower was somewhere he could actually stay.

She had kept showing up, and Peter had eventually learned what that meant.

She stayed.

Steve knew what it was like to have someone like that. Not that he would ever see him again. 

Natasha glanced at the cereal-covered table, then at Steve. “How long has he been awake?”

“At least twenty minutes.” Steve pointed toward the cereal. “He did most of that himself.”

Natasha's eyebrows lifted slightly. “Oh, did he?” 

Peter looked even more pleased. Natasha reached for him, and Peter immediately leaned toward her.

She picked him up without hesitation, settling him against her hip with the Spider-Man plushie tucked between them. Peter curled into her almost immediately, resting his cheek against her shoulder as though he'd been waiting for someone to pick him up all morning.

Steve smiled. “He asked for help this morning.”

Natasha glanced at him.

“With the cabinet.”

Her expression softened even further. “That's good.”

Steve nodded. “It is.” He looked at Peter, who was already beginning to droop against Natasha's shoulder, then back at her. “He still wants to do everything himself.”

Natasha smiled faintly. “I know.”

Steve glanced toward the cereal box. “He doesn't have to.”

“No,” Natasha said quietly. “But he wants to.”

Steve nodded. There was something important in that distinction, something he thought Peter needed the people around him to understand.

“Then we let him.”

Natasha looked at him.

Steve smiled. “When he needs help, he'll ask.”

Natasha glanced down at Peter, whose eyes were already slipping closed, clearly the 6 a.m. wake-up was more about a snack than him feeling ready to get up for the day.

“Eventually.”

Steve laughed softly. “Eventually.”

Peter made a small, disgruntled sound at something neither of them had said, and Natasha smiled down at him in a way Steve had learned to recognize over the last month.

Peter seemed to recognize it too, because despite looking like he wanted to argue with the entire concept of sleep, he settled more comfortably against her shoulder and tightened one little hand around the plushie's arm.

Steve watched them for a moment.

The sight felt strangely familiar now.

Peter hadn’t been in the Tower long enough for it to be routine, but it felt like the Tower itself was beginning to feel different around him.

There were more small things now: Peter's shoes by the door, the Spider-Man suit hanging in Tony's lab, the fact that he was showing up to more team dinners and training sessions, and people who had started learning his habits without even realizing they were doing it.

They were learning when to help or when to step back. But they all felt that Peter’s presence was an addition that they always needed.

Steve looked toward the elevators and then back at Natasha. “I'm going to head back to my room.”

The elevator doors opened again and this time Clint walked out.

He stopped when he saw Steve, clearly not expecting anyone in the kitchen this early.

Clint slowly looked around the room, and Steve had the sudden feeling that Monday was going to be a very long day.

—

There were flakes scattered across the counter, a suspicious amount on the floor, at least one piece sitting directly beside Steve's boot that he may not have realized that he’s about to crush. 

Steve looked back at him with the tired expression of a man who had already accepted that his morning was not going according to plan.

“I'm guessing breakfast went well,” Clint said, and Steve nodded toward the table with the solemnity of someone reporting from a battlefield.

“Very well.” Clint gestured at the cereal beside his boot and then looked back at Steve. “Clearly.”

Peter made a sleepy little noise against Natasha's shoulder, something soft and indistinct that might have been a complaint or might simply have been the last remnants of whatever toddler babble he'd been making while Steve cleaned up breakfast.

His eyes opened when Clint walked closer, and for a second he just watched him.

There was something different about the way the kid looked at him now, something that hadn't been there a week ago.

Seven days earlier, Clint had still been painfully aware of every inch of distance between them, every glance Peter gave him, and every moment when he wondered whether the memory of that rooftop was sitting somewhere behind those eyes.

After their conversation, Peter had made it clear that he wasn't ready to forgive him, and Clint hadn't expected him to. He hadn't asked for forgiveness then, and he wasn't going to start demanding it now.

A week had passed, though, and the tension had gradually become less obvious in the spaces between them. Peter no longer went quiet whenever Clint entered a room. 

He'd started making jokes at his expense again, which Clint privately considered a much better sign than any formal declaration of trust, and he'd let Clint sit beside him during dinner without looking like he was calculating the fastest route to the nearest exit.

Yesterday, he'd even argued with Clint for ten full minutes over whether Spider-Man could beat Hawkeye in a race and had then proceeded to explain, with an impressive amount of hand gestures and sarcasm, why the answer was obviously yes.

It wasn't perfect, and Clint wasn't going to pretend it was, but it was getting easier.

“Morning, kid,” Clint said, stepping closer.

Peter lifted one small hand toward him, his fingers opening and closing awkwardly in what was probably supposed to be a wave, and Clint held out one finger in response.

Peter immediately wrapped his tiny hand around it. Clint looked down at the grip, then back at Peter, and smiled despite himself. “Yeah. I’ll take that as a good morning.”

Natasha glanced between them, one eyebrow lifting slightly as Peter tightened his fingers around Clint's. “He likes you.”

“I don’t know…” Clint said, gently moving his hand just enough to see if Peter would let go. He didn't. “I think he likes my finger more.”

Peter's eyes opened a little wider, and there was the faintest spark of amusement in his expression before Natasha gave Clint a warning look.

“Don't encourage him.”

“I'm not.” Clint tried to sound innocent, but Peter chose that exact moment to tug his hand closer and stare up at him with an expression that was far too smug for someone who currently needed help reaching a countertop.

Clint sighed. “Okay. Maybe a little.”

Steve finished his coffee and checked the clock. “I'm going to shower.”

Natasha glanced toward the elevator and then down at Peter, who had already started staring toward the abandoned cereal box again as though he were considering whether breakfast deserved another attempt.

“I should probably do the same,” she said, and Clint gave her a quick once-over.

“You're already dressed.”

“I’ll get more dressed. I need to head out soon.”

Right. She had told him a vague version of her plans for today the night before. “Got it.” 

Clint watched Natasha carefully shift Peter higher against her shoulder, and before she could take another step, he glanced toward the clock and then toward the hallway. “I can take him for a while. Go get ready.”

Natasha looked at him for a moment, assessing the offer in that quiet way she seemed to assess everything, before looking down at Peter.

He wasn't paying much attention to the conversation anymore; he was making a soft, dissatisfied “mm” at the sight of the cereal and flexing his fingers against Natasha's shirt.

“You sure?”

Clint nodded. “Yeah. Go.”

Natasha hesitated for only another second before handing Peter over. Peter settled against Clint without complaint, one small hand immediately catching the front of his shirt for balance while his legs hung awkwardly against Clint's side.

Clint looked down at him. “You know, most people say hi before grabbing me.”

Peter stared back with complete seriousness, apparently deciding that Clint's commentary did not require an answer, and then reached up to pat him directly on the cheek.

Clint blinked and sighed. “Close enough.”

Natasha smiled faintly as she headed toward the elevator.

“Don't let him wander.”

Clint looked offended. “I wasn't planning on it.”

“I know.”

The elevator doors closed behind her, and Clint looked down at the kid in his arms.

Peter watched the doors for another second before looking back at him, and then, with the unmistakable determination of someone who had already decided what he wanted, he pointed toward the elevator.

“No,” Clint said immediately.

Peter pointed again, adding a small, questioning babble that sounded remarkably like an argument despite the fact that the only recognizable part of it was the tone.

“Absolutely not.” Peter pointed a third time. Clint sighed. “I said you wouldn’t wander.”

Peter nodded.

“And you don't know where you're going.” Another nod. “Fantastic.”

Clint set him down, and Peter immediately reached for his hand.

Clint looked at their joined hands, then at Peter, who was already staring down the hallway with unmistakable curiosity. “You're going to make me regret this,” he muttered, but Peter only made another pleased little sound and tugged him toward the elevator on his unsteady little legs.

That was how Clint ended up spending the next several hours giving a two-year-old a tour of the Avengers' portion of the Tower.

It wasn't exactly an official tour, because Clint had never given anyone an official tour of anything in his life and wasn't about to start now, but Peter clearly considered it important that he be shown every interesting room, piece of equipment, and potential climbing surface within reach.

Clint discovered very quickly that being responsible for Peter in his current form was considerably harder than being responsible for Peter when he could walk properly, talk properly, and, most importantly, be trusted to understand the phrase don't touch that.

Peter understood the words perfectly well. That was not the problem. The problem was that he and had absolutely no intention of accepting that toddler-sized hands should somehow prevent him from investigating something interesting.

The first stop was the training room, and Peter's face brightened the second the elevator doors opened.

He recognized the space immediately, his attention jumping from the mats to the equipment to the padded walls, and he started forward before Clint had even finished stepping out. 

Clint caught the back of his shirt and stopped him with barely any effort. “No.”

Peter looked up at him.

“It's morning,” Clint explained, as though that somehow made the argument more obvious. “You're not training.”

Peter frowned.

“You're two.”

Peter's frown deepened, and then he pointed toward the mats with the unmistakable expression of someone who had just been personally insulted.

Clint folded his arms. Peter crossed his, although the gesture was slightly less convincing when his sleeves were too long and his hands disappeared into them.

Clint crouched in front of him. “You already trained yesterday.”

Peter shook his head.

“You did. We were all there. You kept trying to climb the wall because apparently walking across a perfectly normal floor wasn't challenging enough.”

Peter looked away, which was answer enough.

Clint narrowed his eyes. “That means yes.” Peter made a quiet, indignant string of toddler babble under his breath, and Clint had to fight a smile. “I'm not arguing with a toddler.”

Peter immediately pointed toward himself. 

“You're fifteen.”

Peter nodded.

Clint stared at him for a moment. “That's not how this works.”

Peter grinned, and Clint sighed because he already knew he'd lost. “Fine. Five minutes.”

Peter's entire face brightened, and he hurried toward the mats with all the enthusiasm of someone who had just been given permission to commit a minor crime.

Clint followed, shaking his head as Peter immediately tried to launch himself into an exercise he'd done a few days ago, only to remember that his new body had changed the mechanics of practically everything.

He landed awkwardly, recovered with a weirdly coordinated flip, and then deliberately planted one hand against the floor.

Clint stopped and looked down at him.“Show-off.”

Peter planted the other hand against the mat and looked up.

“You're doing that because you know it annoys me.”

Peter smiled.

Clint crouched beside him.

“Come on. Get up.” Peter pulled, but nothing happened.

He pulled harder, his tiny shoulders tensing with the effort, and still nothing happened. Clint waited, watching the realization slowly settle over Peter's face that sticking to the floor was harder to control just like everything else at this size. 

Peter looked up at him with a deeply offended expression.

“Ask.”

Peter stared at him.

“Ask.”

Peter rolled his little eyes. “Hep.” 

Clint resisted the urge to laugh at the attempt of the word and helped him peel it from the mat. “There.” 

Peter immediately stuck it back down. Clint stared at him. “You did that on purpose.”

Peter nodded. 

Clint laughed. “You really are something Spidey.”

Peter looked extremely pleased with himself, and Clint had to look away for a second because the expression was so unmistakably Peter that it was almost ridiculous how easily the kid's personality survived no matter what he went through. 

He'd spent the last month getting used to Spider-Man being a fifteen year old kid, and now there was something surreal about seeing that same sarcastic, stubborn kid reduced to two feet of height and a collection of increasingly frustrated toddler noises.

They moved on to the archery range after a few more minutes, mostly because Clint decided to keep his five minute promise and because Peter was beginning to wobble whenever he stood still for too long.

The equipment was familiar enough that Clint could relax almost immediately, and he picked up his bow, checked the string, and stepped into position while Peter watched with intense concentration. 

Clint glanced over when he noticed Peter staring. “What?” Peter pointed at the bow. “You want to try?”

Peter nodded, and Clint hesitated for a moment. Not because he was afraid Peter would hurt himself, but because not too long ago the idea of putting a weapon into Peter's hands would have made every protective instinct in Clint scream. 

Especially when that weapon looked anything like the one that had caused the worst moment of Peter's life.

Things were different now. Not fixed, not forgotten, and certainly not forgiven, but different. Peter was standing beside him staring at the bow with the same fascinated expression he'd probably had the first time he'd seen Hawkeye shoot, and Clint realized that trust wasn't always about pretending nothing had happened.

Sometimes it was about learning how to move forward without pretending the past hadn't happened at all.

Clint picked up a foam training bow instead and handed it to him.

Peter grabbed it with both hands, immediately frowning when he realized how much larger it was than he was.

“Yeah,” Clint said, watching Peter struggle to get the bow into a comfortable position. “It’s made for people above the age of two.”

Peter glared at him. “Don't look at me like that.”

Peter tried to lift it anyway, and to Clint's surprise, the bow came off the floor. His eyebrows rose.

“Okay.” Peter lifted it higher, his face becoming increasingly smug. Clint shook his head. “Okay, that's ridiculous.”

Peter grinned, and Clint crouched beside him to adjust his grip.

“You don't pull from here. Here.”

He demonstrated slowly, keeping the movement simple enough for Peter's current coordination, and Peter watched his hands with the intense concentration he usually reserved for things he actually cared about.

When he copied Clint, the movement wasn't perfect, but his fingers adjusted almost immediately, finding the correct position with an instinct that came from years of Spider-Man-ing rather than toddler coordination.

Clint stared at him for a second. “Show-off.” 

Peter smiled, and Clint handed him a foam arrow. Peter looked at it, then at the target, then back at Clint with an expression that made his intentions extremely obvious.

“No shooting.”

Peter's face fell.

“Fine. Once.”

He helped Peter set the arrow, keeping one hand near the bow in case the weight became too much.

Peter pulled, the bow bending farther than Clint had expected, and Clint's eyebrows rose slightly. “Okay, definitely once.”

Peter released.

The foam arrow flew across the room, hit the target completely sideways, bounced off the outer ring, and landed on the mat.

Peter stared at it for a long moment before slowly looking back at Clint, waiting.

Clint nodded solemnly. “Bullseye.”

Peter's entire face lit up, and then he let out a small, delighted giggle that made Clint pause. 

It was the first real laugh he'd heard from him that morning, not one of the frustrated little noises or sleepy sounds Peter had been making when he first walked in, and for half a second Clint simply stood there listening to it before his own smile appeared.

“Don't tell Steve.”

Peter giggled again, his shoulders shaking with it, and Clint shook his head. “Yeah. Definitely don't tell Steve.”

They ended up spending nearly another hour in the training room, although Clint barely trained himself.

Mostly, he showed Peter things, letting him experiment with foam targets and soft equipment while keeping a close eye on him whenever his balance started to go.

He showed him how to shift his weight when throwing, how to aim a soft ball toward the padded wall, and how to catch himself when a landing went wrong.

Peter discovered that his flexibility  made it extraordinarily difficult to land uncomfortably, while Clint discovered that Peter's definition of practice apparently involved deliberately making every exercise harder than necessary.

At one point Clint tossed a foam ball toward him from behind, expecting Peter to turn when he heard it, only for Peter to catch it without looking.

“Okay,” Clint said slowly. “That's creepy.”

Peter smiled and threw the ball back without turning his head.

It hit Clint directly in the chest.

Clint looked down at the ball, then back at Peter, who had immediately covered his mouth with both hands in an approximation of hiding his laughter.

“You did that on purpose.” Peter nodded, eyes bright with amusement, and Clint sighed. “Yeah. I deserved that.”

Peter made a quiet little “mm-hm” sound behind his hands, smug enough that Clint could practically hear the I know hiding underneath it.

A few minutes later, however, Peter stumbled on a landing and had to catch himself with both hands.

He stayed there for a second longer than necessary before sitting down on the mat, and then, after apparently deciding that sitting was considerably easier than standing, he simply remained there. 

Clint watched him for a moment before crouching nearby. “You tired?”

Peter shook his head.

“You're tired.”

Peter shook his head harder.

Clint nodded toward the elevator. “Come on.”

Peter pointed toward the training room.

“No.” Peter pointed again, making a small frustrated sound. “You just spent an hour proving you can do everything.”

Peter nodded.

“Congratulations. Now we're going somewhere else Mr. Twoyearold.”

Peter sighed dramatically and dropped his head forward with enough theatrical suffering that Clint almost laughed again.

“Yeah, yeah. I know. You're fifteen.” He held out his hands, and after a moment Peter allowed himself to be picked up, settling against Clint's side with a quiet babble that sounded suspiciously like he was still arguing with him.

They stepped into the elevator, and Clint pressed the button for the Mission Room.

Peter looked up immediately, curiosity returning despite his obvious exhaustion. “This one you haven't seen,” Clint explained, and Peter's eyes widened as though Clint had just announced they were going somewhere significantly more exciting than a room full of screens.

The Mission Room was darker than the training room, with a massive display taking up most of one wall and several smaller screens arranged around the central table.

Maps, satellite images, and information panels filled the room even though there wasn't an active briefing running, and the entire space felt different from the rest of the Tower.

It wasn't designed for hanging around or relaxing.

It was where the team decided where they were going, what they were facing, who needed help, and how they were going to get everyone home afterward.

Peter went quiet.

Clint set him down carefully, and Peter walked closer to the central display, staring up at it with wide eyes.

“Yeah,” Clint said, following him. “You're not touching anything.” Peter looked back at him, one eyebrow raised in a way that was almost comically adult for his current face.

“Seriously.”

Peter pointed at one of the screens. “That's a map.” Peter nodded. “Oh yes, very impressive.”

Peter pointed at another screen, and Clint followed his finger. “Satellite.” 

Peter made a soft, thoughtful “hmm” sound and wandered slowly around the central table, taking everything in. Clint watched him for a moment, noticing how quickly the curiosity brought energy whenever Peter encountered something unfamiliar.

He'd been in the training room a few times the past week. He'd spent more hours in Tony's lab than Clint could count. He'd eaten in the common room every night since coming back to the Tower. But this was different.

The Mission Room was where the Avengers made decisions about where they went, what they faced, who needed them, and how they got home afterward, and Peter hadn't been here.

Clint leaned against the table. “Don't get any ideas.”

Peter looked at him.

“No missions.” Peter frowned. “At least not yet.”

Peter rolled his eyes so dramatically that Clint actually laughed. “Some things never change.”

Peter wandered toward the wall of screens again, his fingers twitching slightly as though he wanted to touch everything he saw but was remembering the rule.

He made a quiet little “whoa” sound that was mostly breath and babble, and Clint decided that counted as restraint. After another few minutes, however, Peter rubbed at one eye, then leaned his weight against the edge of the table.

Clint noticed immediately. “Okay. We're done.”

Peter shook his head.

“You're exhausted.”

Peter shook his head again, but the gesture had lost most of its force.

Clint pointed toward the elevator. “Come on.” Peter looked at him, then at the elevator, and finally sighed, his shoulders dropping in reluctant surrender.

“Good.”

They took the elevator up to their residential floor, and Peter seemed to recognize where they were the moment the doors opened.

Their floor was quieter than the common spaces below, the hallway mostly empty except for the faint sound of movement behind one of the doors.

Clint started toward his room, and realized that Peter was following beside him, occasionally brushing his hand against the wall whenever his balance became uncertain.

Clint opened his bedroom door, and Peter stopped at the doorway.

Clint laughed softly. “What?” 

Peter looked around, taking in the clothes thrown over a chair, the pair of boots beside the bed, the half-open duffel bag near the dresser, and the several pieces of archery equipment stored neatly against one wall.

Clint's room was considerably less polished than Peter's, but it had the unmistakable quality of somewhere somebody actually lived. 

Peter stepped farther inside, taking in every detail, and then immediately spotted a bow. Clint pointed at him. “Don't.”

Peter hadn't even moved yet.

“I know that look.”

Peter smiled.

Clint sighed. “You're impossible.” Peter pointed toward the bow.

“No.”

Peter pointed again.

“Still no.”

Peter crossed his arms. Clint crossed his.

They stared at each other until Peter eventually turned away with a small, frustrated huff, and Clint smiled. “Good.”

They stayed in Clint's room for a while, sitting on the floor because Peter must’ve decided that climbing onto the bed wasn’t worth the effort.

Clint leaned against the side of the mattress while Peter sat beside him with his back against the wall, one hand absently rubbing at the carpet beneath his fingers as though reassuring himself that it was still there.

The quiet was comfortable enough that neither of them seemed interested in filling it. Clint looked over after several minutes and found Peter's eyes half-closed.

“You're tired.”

Peter shook his head without opening his eyes.

Clint laughed quietly. “You know, eventually you're going to have to admit that.”

Peter made a sleepy little babbling sound that could have meant anything, and Clint nodded solemnly.

“Right. Very convincing.” Peter's head tipped sideways until it rested against the mattress, and Clint watched him for a moment before adding, “Five minute power nap.”

Peter nodded. Clint knew exactly what that meant.

They stayed there for nearly an hour.

When Peter finally opened his eyes, his hair was sticking up even more than it had that morning, and there was a faint crease on one cheek from where he'd been resting against the wall. 

Clint looked away from his phone and over at him. 

“You look terrible.” Peter glared at him, and Clint held up both hands. “Yeah, yeah. I know.”

Peter stood, and immediately his balance wobbled. Clint caught his shoulder before he could tip sideways, and Peter looked at him for a second before quietly accepting the help rather than pretending he hadn't needed it.

That was progress too.

They took the elevator back down, and by the time the doors opened onto the common room, the Tower had changed completely.

The quiet morning had disappeared, replaced by voices carrying through the room, doors opening and closing, someone laughing somewhere down the hall, and Tony's voice already rising above everything else as he argued with Steve about something near the kitchen.

Bruce and Helen were talking at the table, Pepper was setting out plates, and the smell of lunch had started to fill the room.

Peter stepped out first and stopped when he saw everyone.

Then Natasha walked in from the opposite hallway.

Her eyes immediately found him and she gave a small smile.

Peter didn't run toward her. He simply looked relieved to see her, his shoulders dropping slightly as though he'd been carrying a tension he hadn't realized was there.

A week ago, Clint might have thought about it too much. Now he just smiled.

“We may have wandered.”

Natasha glanced at him. “What happened?”

Clint gestured vaguely toward the elevator. “Tour.”

Natasha looked at Peter, who nodded eagerly before making a tiny string of babble that sounded, to Clint, suspiciously like an attempt to explain the entire morning.

Clint pointed at him. “Training room, Mission Room, my room.”

Natasha's eyebrows lifted. “Your room?”

“Yah.” Peter yawned, and Clint looked down at him.

“Apparently that was the exciting part.”

Natasha smiled. “I'm sure.”

Before Clint could say anything else, the elevator doors opened again behind them, and Thor stepped into the common room. 

He took one look at Peter and his entire face lit up. “YOUNG SPIDER!”

Peter's head lifted immediately.

Clint recognized the expression on Thor's face and stepped backward. “No.”

“My young spider!”

Peter stared at him, already suspicious, and Thor reached him a moment later, scooping Peter carefully into his arms and lifting him just high enough to make his eyes widen.

“Look at you!” Thor exclaimed, delighted, turning him slightly as though he had discovered something fascinating.

Peter frowned, his arms folding across his chest as he made a small, distinctly unhappy noise.

Thor beamed down at him. “You look smaller than last night!” Peter's expression became one of profound betrayal. Clint laughed and Thor looked down at the offended toddler in his arms. “He does not like that.”

“No,” Clint said, still laughing. “He really doesn't.”

Peter crossed his arms more firmly and muttered something that was mostly toddler babble, although the tone made his opinion perfectly clear.

Thor's grin widened. “I believe the small spider is displeased.”

Clint shook his head. “Good luck.”

He stepped aside as Thor began enthusiastically explaining to Peter why being small was apparently an excellent opportunity for adventure, while Peter listened with the increasingly hilarious expression of someone who had just realized that nobody was planning to put him down anytime soon.

Clint watched them for a moment before dropping onto the couch with a long exhale. 

The morning had started with cereal and had somehow turned into training, archery lessons, the Mission Room, his bedroom, several arguments about whether Peter was too small to do things he absolutely believed he could still do, and more than one attempt to investigate the Tower's vents despite Clint repeatedly explaining that his vents were not, in fact, an appropriate toddler activity. 

Peter had not been able to successfully argue, thankfully, but that had not stopped him from staring at every vent cover like he was already planning his revenge.

And somehow, Clint was the one who felt exhausted.

Peter was literally two years old.

Clint was supposed to be the adult.

He was also fairly certain the kid had somehow gotten more energy out of the morning than he had. 

Clint leaned back against the couch and looked across the room just in time to see Peter perk up again while Thor talked animatedly about something involving Mjolnir and “small spider adventures.” Peter made another delighted little babble, reaching toward Thor's face with one hand while the other grabbed at the edge of his shirt.

Clint stared at him. “Of course.”

Natasha glanced over from where she was standing near the table, and Clint could already see the amusement in her expression. “What?” she asked.

Peter looked over at him. Clint pointed toward him. “You are exhausting.”

—

Thor laughed, because there was something deeply satisfying about the way the small spider reacted to Clint's accusation.

He did not look ashamed, nor did he appear particularly surprised; if anything, Peter seemed rather pleased with himself, as though being exhausting was simply another accomplishment to add to the long list of things he had already managed to accomplish before lunchtime.

Thor could understand this. On Asgard, the greatest warriors were rarely the quiet ones. 

The ones with the most spirit were usually the ones who argued with their teachers, challenged their brothers, climbed things they had been specifically forbidden to climb, and found a way to turn nearly every ordinary activity into a contest.

Peter was doing all of this while being approximately the size of a sack of potatoes.

Thor found it impressive.

He had seen Peter many times of course.

He had seen him in his proper form, dressed in the red and blue suit and swinging from buildings with the confidence of someone who had never considered gravity a particularly serious authority. He had seen him injured, unconscious, frightened, angry, stubborn, sarcastic, and impossibly brave.

He had watched the boy throw himself into danger for strangers without hesitation, and he had watched him stand against enemies who should, by every reasonable measure, have frightened him into retreat. 

His body was different, certainly, but Thor did not believe for a moment that the warrior had gone anywhere. The small spider was still the same person who had fought beside them, protected civilians, argued with Tony, annoyed Steve, challenged Clint, and pushed Natasha out of the path of an arrow without considering saving himself.

The body was different.

The warrior was not.

Thor had decided this some time ago, and now he saw no reason to change his mind simply because Peter currently needed help reaching the table.

The others sometimes looked at Peter as though becoming two years old had transformed him into something delicate, something that needed to be handled with extraordinary caution.

Thor did not see it that way. He knew what fragile looked like. He had seen warriors break beneath fear despite possessing enough strength to move mountains, and he had seen creatures large enough to block out the sun flee from battle because their courage had failed them.

Size had never been a reliable measure of strength, and Thor had never been particularly impressed by those who believed otherwise.

Peter was small, yes. Very small.

Thor looked down at him and said, “You are displeased.”

Peter made a low, grumbling sound, his arms crossing more tightly over his chest.

Thor nodded as though this confirmed something important. “I understand. I have often been displeased when others point out truths that I would prefer remained unspoken.”

From the couch, Clint laughed, and Peter's eyes immediately moved toward him. Thor followed the boy's gaze and found Clint stretched across the cushions.

“You have spent the morning with him,” Thor observed.

Clint lifted his head. “Unfortunately.”

Thor's expression changed immediately. “Do not say that!” He glanced at Peter, then back at Clint. “He may believe you.”

Clint blinked, and for a moment the humor left his face. He looked at Peter, then back at Thor, and something softer settled into his expression before he gave a small shrug. “Yeah,” he admitted quietly. “Fair point.”

Peter made a pleased little sound.

Thor smiled.

The small spider understood far more than he could currently say.

Peter knew who they were, knew what they said, understood jokes and arguments and rules, and could distinguish easily between someone teasing him and someone genuinely trying to hurt him. His mouth simply could not always cooperate with the rest of him.

Thor considered this a minor inconvenience.

Peter was still Peter.

He simply had shorter legs.

Thor adjusted his hold beneath the boy and carried him toward the table. Peter's attention immediately moved around the room, tracking everything as they went: Tony and Steve still arguing near the kitchen, Bruce and Helen talking quietly, Pepper arranging lunch, Natasha watching them, and Clint pretending he was not listening to every word.

Thor recognized that kind of awareness.

He had grown up among warriors, and on Asgard a room was never merely a room.

You knew where the exits were, who was present, where weapons were kept, which doors opened inward and which opened outward, and where you could stand if you needed a clear path to an opponent.

Peter did these things naturally. He watched, he listened, he remembered, and he seemed to collect information without even realizing he was doing it.

Thor found that comforting. It meant the boy had the instincts of a warrior.

“He wanted a tour.”

Thor glanced back at Clint then to the toddler. Peter's expression was entirely unapologetic. Thor nodded solemnly. “Good.”

Clint groaned. “Please don't encourage him.”

“Why not?”

“Because he's already impossible.”

Peter made a little sound that might have been laughter.

Thor looked at him. “Is this true?”

Peter nodded. Clint pointed at him. “See?”

Thor considered the situation carefully before nodding. “I believe he has admitted it.”

Clint dropped his head back against the couch.

Thor smiled.

There was something pleasing about this.

Not the exhaustion, and certainly not the fact that Clint looked as though he had personally fought an army before lunch, but the laughter and the arguing and the noise were all good.

Peter was sitting in the middle of it as though he had always belonged there, and Thor knew that feeling. He had grown up surrounded by people who shouted across rooms, interrupted one another, stole food from one another's plates, argued over weapons, challenged each other to contests, and then sat down together afterward as though none of it had happened.

His childhood home had rarely been quiet unless something was wrong.

The Tower was not Asgard. Thor knew that. The walls were different, the people were different, and the food was certainly different, while Midgardian coffee remained a mystery he had not yet solved despite considerable effort.

Frigga had always believed a household should be loud enough that one could tell where everyone was without needing to see them.

Thor had not understood the wisdom of this when he was young, because he had been young and therefore believed quiet meant nothing was happening, but he understood it now.

A home should have noise. It should have arguments and laughter and footsteps and people calling to one another from different rooms.

Peter made the Tower louder, and Thor was very happy for the change.

Pepper finally set the last plate down and looked over at them. “Is he hungry?”

Peter answered before Thor could, giving a small, almost clear “Food,” followed immediately by a pleased little hum.

Thor's entire face brightened. “You see? The small warrior has spoken.”

Pepper laughed softly. “I see.”

Thor carried Peter closer to the table. “The small warrior requires nourishment.”

Clint, from the couch, muttered, “He's been requiring nourishment since six this morning. You should’ve seen all the cereal”

Thor looked over at him with genuine consideration. “Then you have failed to appreciate the significance of nutrition.”

“I appreciate it plenty.”

“You do not sound appreciative.”

“I'm exhausted.”

Thor studied him for a moment before looking back at Peter. “Then you have lost.”

Clint glared at him.

Peter giggled.

Yes, this was good.

Pepper pulled out a chair, and Thor lowered Peter carefully into it, keeping one hand close to his back until he was certain the boy was steady.

Peter immediately reached for the plate in front of him, and Thor moved it closer, watching as the boy grabbed a piece of food with both hands and shoved it into his mouth at superhuman speed.

Thor watched him chew for a moment before looking toward Pepper with genuine approval. “He is hungry.”

Pepper smiled. “I gathered that.”

“He must eat more.”

“I know.”

“He is a growing warrior.”

Pepper glanced toward Natasha, who was standing nearby. “He's been eating more since yesterday.”

Thor nodded with satisfaction. Good. That was exactly what he wanted to hear.

The body needed fuel, and this was simple. Thor had never understood the human tendency to make food unnecessarily complicated when the answer was often quite obvious: a warrior fought, therefore a warrior ate; a child played, therefore a child ate; a growing boy who had recently survived an arrow through his body and several months of living alone most certainly ate.

There was no great mystery to it.

Peter reached for another piece, and Thor let him have it. Then he reached for another, and Thor allowed that one too, until Pepper laughed softly and said, “You know you're supposed to let him decide when he's full.”

Thor looked down.

Peter was currently attempting to hold three pieces of food in one hand while eating a fourth. 

Thor considered this carefully before looking back at Pepper. “That is true.” Peter looked up at him and smiled. “You are making an excellent argument.”

Thor had fought Frost Giants. He had battled armies.

He had faced creatures large enough to swallow men whole, and yet none of them had ever looked quite so pleased with themselves while holding half a sandwich. He understood, perhaps more clearly than he had before, why the others had become so attached to the boy.

It was easy.

Peter was brave and clever and loyal and stubborn, and he had a sense of humor that survived even when the rest of him was frightened.

He watched Peter chewing thoughtfully, his feet swinging beneath the chair while his eyes wandered around the table.

Tony was still arguing with Steve, although neither of them seemed particularly interested in winning anymore. Bruce was trying not to laugh at something Helen had said, Pepper was watching Peter with quiet attentiveness as if she was trying to memorize what he liked to eat. Natasha stood close enough to intervene if he needed help without making him feel watched, and Clint was still pretending he wasn't exhausted.

Thor understood then that the others were still trying to determine what Peter needed, as though there were some complicated answer they had not yet uncovered.

Thor thought they were making it unnecessarily difficult.

He needed food. He needed protection. He needed people around him who would not leave, and he needed somewhere he could belong without having to earn the right to remain there. These were not difficult things to understand. They were simply the responsibilities of family.

Frigga had never needed a great explanation for why a frightened child belonged at her table. She had simply put food in front of him, told him to eat, and remained nearby until he stopped looking frightened. When Thor had been young, he had thought this was simply how all families worked.

Perhaps he had been right.

Peter finished his food and immediately looked toward Thor. He raised an eyebrow and the toddler pointed toward the plate. “You want more?”

Peter nodded.

Thor smiled. “Then you shall have more.”

He handed him another piece, and Peter looked pleased enough that Thor felt entirely justified in the decision. From the couch, Clint lifted his head again. “You're going to spoil him.”

Thor looked over. “He is already spoiled.”

Clint frowned.

Thor pointed toward Peter. “He has Tony.”

Tony looked over from across the room. “Hey.”

Thor continued without hesitation. “He has Natasha, Steve, Bruce, and Pepper.” He counted them off on his fingers, then spread his hands toward himself. “And now he has me.”

Thor looked around the room as though the evidence were obvious. “Clearly, he is doomed.”

Peter giggled.

The room laughed with him, and Thor liked that even more.

The boy's laughter had become easier since arriving at the Tower.

It did not have the careful quality it had sometimes carried when Thor first met him, when Peter seemed to glance around after laughing as though expecting someone to tell him that he had made too much noise. Now he laughed without checking first, and Thor considered that one of the better signs he had seen.

He did not need to know all the reasons for his increasing comfortability.

There were some things warriors did not need to understand before they acted. If someone was hurt, you helped them. If someone was hungry, you fed them. If someone was frightened, you stood beside them. If someone was alone, you brought them home. 

Peter finished another bite and leaned back in his chair, looking around the room again. Thor watched him for a moment before reaching over and wiping a small smear of food from his cheek.

Peter blinked at him.

“There,” Thor said. Peter immediately rubbed his own cheek, then looked at his fingers as if checking his work. Thor laughed softly. “You do not trust my cleaning?”

Peter shook his head.

“Very wise. Always proceed with caution."

Peter grinned.

Thor had learned another important thing about Peter during his time in the Tower: the boy liked to play. He didn’t call it that, he tended to call it training or contests like it made it more dignified. 

Thor leaned closer and tapped Peter gently on the shoulder.

Peter looked over at him and Thor tapped him again. Peter stared. Thor tapped him a third time.

Peter's eyes narrowed, and Thor recognized the expression immediately. There it was again, the little warrior deciding whether he had been challenged.

Thor grinned.

Peter reached for him. Thor moved his hand away and Peter followed it.

Thor moved it again.

Peter made a delighted little sound and reached faster, finally catching Thor's finger and wrapping both hands around it.

Thor looked down at the tiny hands curled around one of his fingers and considered the situation with appropriate seriousness. “Well,” he said solemnly, “you have defeated me.”

Peter's face lit up.

Clint groaned from the couch. “Don't tell him that.”

“It is too late.”

Peter tugged on Thor's finger, and Thor allowed himself to be pulled a little closer until they were nearly eye to eye. “Do not become too proud, young spider,” he warned, though the amusement in his voice gave away the fact that he was not truly warning him at all. “I am merely allowing this victory.”

Peter smiled at him and tugged again.

Thor laughed. “You are bold.”

Peter reached up and poked him directly between the eyebrows.

Peter giggled as Thor slowly leaned back, studying the small warrior with mock seriousness. “I see. You have chosen battle.”

Peter clapped.

“Very well.”

Thor gently booped Peter on the nose.

Peter's eyes widened and Thor booped him again.

Peter squealed, and the sound made Clint laugh so hard that he had to turn his face into the couch cushion while Natasha covered her mouth, though Thor could see the smile in her eyes. Tony glanced over from the kitchen and asked, “What are you two doing?”

Thor looked at him with complete dignity.

“War.”

Tony stared at him for a moment before shaking his head and turning back around. “Of course you are.”

Thor returned his attention to Peter, who was already reaching toward his face again. Thor caught the little hand before it reached his beard.

Peter immediately tried to grab the beard with his other hand.

Thor caught that one too.

For several seconds they remained locked in a perfectly serious contest, Peter trying to find an opening and Thor deliberately giving him just enough room to make him believe one existed. Peter finally broke into laughter, and Thor laughed with him before carefully moving his beard out of reach.

“You are a dangerous opponent,” Thor told him, settling Peter's hands back in his lap. “Do not let anyone tell you otherwise.”

Thor meant it.

He had seen what Peter could do. He had seen what Peter had already survived.

Peter returned to his food, and Thor watched him for several minutes as the lunch around them continued.

He noticed that Peter was no longer simply eating; he was listening again, following the conversation between the adults even when he could not contribute, and every so often his gaze moved toward whoever was speaking before drifting back to his plate.

When someone laughed, Peter looked around to see why, and when Tony raised his voice during the argument with Steve, Peter's attention immediately shifted in that direction.

He was learning the rhythm of them.

Thor found that pleasing. The small spider was learning the sound of his family.

Thor did not know whether Peter understood that yet, and he did not think it mattered. There would be time. 

That was one of the great gifts of a home: time to learn people's habits slowly, time to discover who liked coffee and who hated it, who stayed up too late, who stole food, who argued over television shows, who would sit beside you when you could not sleep, and who would come looking for you if you disappeared.

Years had taught him that sometimes family was blood. But sometimes it was loyalty earned through battle, and sometimes it was simply the decision to keep showing up for someone until the word family stopped feeling like a decision at all.

Thor looked down at Peter and thought that perhaps this was how it happened here, too: a small spider had appeared in their common room, and somehow, without anyone announcing it, he had become everyone's problem.

“Yes,” Thor murmured, mostly to himself. “That sounds about right.”

Peter finished the last piece of food and leaned back again, his eyes moving toward Natasha almost immediately.

Thor noticed the shift without drawing attention to it. Peter did not say anything, but his gaze lingered on her for a moment before returning to the table, and Thor recognized the quiet calculation in it. The boy was tired, not falling-asleep tired, perhaps, but the particular exhaustion that came after a morning full of movement, exploration, and far too many new things to investigate.

His shoulders had begun to relax.

His hands were moving more slowly. He blinked a little longer than necessary.

Thor knew this look, and he also knew that Peter knew it perfectly well and was simply refusing to admit it. He nearly laughed. “You are tired.”

Peter shook his head, and Thor gave him a patient look. “I see. A very convincing argument.”

Peter made a small, annoyed sound.

“I have heard stronger battle cries,” Thor added, and Peter's eyes narrowed in a way that told Thor he had once again managed to offend the warrior's dignity.

Thor reached over and gently tapped the top of Peter's head. “You have fought well today. You trained with Clint, you explored the Tower, you conquered his sleeping quarters, and you survived lunch. A mighty day's work for any warrior.”

Peter's mouth twitched and he looked toward Natasha again.

This time Thor followed his gaze.

She was watching Peter with the quiet expression she wore when she was paying attention to something important without wanting to make it feel important, and when Peter looked at her, she gave him a small smile that immediately loosened something in his shoulders.

Thor understood.

This was not his moment.

The small spider had chosen his person, and Thor had no problem with that. There would be other moments, many of them, if Thor had anything to say about it. There was no need for him to make every moment his simply because he enjoyed being around the boy.

Love did not mean holding someone constantly. Sometimes it meant knowing when to hand them back.

Thor rested one hand briefly against Peter's back as the boy shifted in his chair, then moved away again, giving Natasha space to approach when she was ready.

He looked toward her.

She met his eyes.

For a moment, neither of them said anything, and Thor gave the smallest nod. Natasha returned it before looking over at Pepper standing near her.

He looked down at the small spider and smiled as Pepper came alongside them. “Go on, then, small spider. Your next adventure awaits.”

Peter looked up at him, then at Pepper, then back at Thor. Instead of immediately turning toward her, he reached out and caught Thor's finger one more time, holding it with both hands for a brief moment.

Thor smiled and gently squeezed the tiny hand. “Very well,” he murmured. “One last victory.”

Peter giggled and Thor laughed freely at the sound his Young Spider made.

—

Pepper stepped in beside Thor just as Peter released his finger, and the tiny hand immediately reached toward her instead. 

His fingers opening and closing once in a gesture that was almost certainly meant to be a request and almost certainly not something Peter himself would have considered asking for if he had been in his normal body. 

She smiled and leaned down, offering her hand without making a production of it, and Peter caught two of her fingers before glancing back toward Thor as though he needed to make sure the previous battle had truly concluded. 

Thor gave him a solemn nod that somehow made the entire thing look like the closing ceremony of an actual war, and Pepper had to bite back a laugh as she gently gathered Peter against her side. 

“Come on, little man,” she murmured. “I think you've done enough conquering for one afternoon.”

Peter immediately shook his head, which Pepper had already learned was becoming his preferred response since he cannot currently argue the way he normally would. 

She looked down at him with an amused expression and raised an eyebrow. “No?” 

He shook his head again, much more emphatically this time, and when she gave him an expectant look, he pointed toward the table, then toward Thor, and finally made an unintelligible little sound that Pepper suspected was supposed to communicate that there were still important matters to be handled. 

Thor, naturally, understood him perfectly. “He believes there is more battle to be had,” Thor explained, looking entirely too pleased with himself, and Pepper glanced between them before finally checking the clock.

It was barely past lunch, but Natasha told her Peter had already been awake since somewhere around six in the morning, which meant he had spent the better part of the day moving from one person to another without ever really stopping. 

Clint had told her he took a short nap not too long ago. Pepper had been watching him for the last half hour, though, and she was beginning to notice the things the others were either missing or choosing not to acknowledge: the way his movements had slowed, the way his blinks lasted just a little too long, the way his head dipped whenever he stopped moving only for him to jerk it back up a second later as though he had caught himself committing some kind of embarrassing crime. 

He was exhausted.

Not merely tired, either. Exhausted in the particular way of a two-year-old body gets without the proper rest that she’s sure Peter has had. 

Pepper hadn’t spent much time around children, but she was still able to recognize the stubbornness of a little person who had reached the point where sleep was no longer a biological need but a personal insult. Peter was absolutely there.

He was upright almost entirely through spite, and Pepper was beginning to suspect that if they let him continue, he would make it through dinner purely because nobody had thought to stop him.

She looked around the room and found the same conclusion written across nearly every face. 

Steve had finally stopped arguing with Tony and was leaning against the counter, watching Peter with the same quiet attention he had been pretending not to have the entire time. 

Clint was still sprawled across the couch with one arm over his eyes, but Pepper had seen him look over at Peter at least three times in the last minute. 

Thor was smiling down at him, clearly pleased that Peter had apparently decided he was not done with the day, while Natasha stood a few feet away with her attention fixed almost entirely on him, as usual. 

Tony was the only one who seemed entirely capable of pretending he wasn't watching, but Pepper had spent too many years around Tony Stark to be fooled by the way he could occupy himself with a tablet while simultaneously tracking an entire room.

She had also spent enough time around the Avengers to recognize what was happening even if none of them were willing to say it yet. 

They were attached.

The thought settled quietly into place as Pepper looked down at the little boy still holding her fingers, and she found herself smiling. They were already his people. They just hadn't realized how far it had gone yet.

“Okay,” Pepper said, gently tugging Peter away from the table. “We're going to take a little break.”

Peter's expression immediately changed, and the look of personal betrayal that crossed his face was so dramatic that Pepper nearly laughed. “Don't give me that face,” she told him, but Peter only answered with a louder, more offended babble, pointing back toward Thor as though she had just interrupted a matter of international importance. 

Pepper followed his gesture and played along. “I know. It's very serious. Thor has challenged you to battle, Clint has exhausted you with a tour of the Tower, and apparently lunch was a major strategic operation.” She glanced toward Thor. “Did I miss anything?”

Thor looked pleased with himself. “He has conquered my beard.”

Pepper nodded gravely. “Then I can see why you're reluctant to retire.” Peter made another noise that sounded suspiciously like agreement, and Pepper crouched slightly so she could look him in the eye. “But you're tired.”

Peter's lower lip pushed out in a way he’d never have done in his regular body, and Pepper smiled because she was beginning to understand that this was not an argument she was going to win through logic. “And if you fall asleep standing up, I'm going to tell everyone you lost a battle with gravity.”

Peter stared at her for several seconds before slowly looking toward Thor, apparently seeking a second opinion from the highest authority available. Thor's expression became solemn. “Gravity is a formidable opponent.”

Peter considered this with surprising seriousness, apparently deciding that the god's opinion carried sufficient authority to make the possibility slightly less humiliating. Pepper straightened and held out both arms. “Come here.”

For once, Peter didn't argue.

That was how she knew just how tired he really was.

She lifted him and Peter settled against her almost immediately, his head dropping onto her shoulder with a soft little sigh. 

Pepper froze for half a second before adjusting her hold, and then she noticed something she hadn't expected: Peter was cold. 

Not necessarily freezing, but noticeably cooler than she would have expected a child to be after spending the morning running around the Tower. His hands were cool against her shoulder, and when she shifted the fabric of his shirt beneath her palm, there was none of the warmth she had expected from someone who had been so active.

She filed the observation away without understanding it.

Peter's cheek rested against her shoulder, one tiny hand loosely gripping the fabric of her shirt while the other drifted toward the little spider plushie he'd carried around earlier, fingers searching until they found one of its soft legs. 

The tension slowly left his body now that he had stopped trying to stay upright, and Pepper felt something in her chest soften at the realization that he had apparently reached the point where he didn't even have the energy to argue about being carried.

“Oh,” Pepper whispered.

The room had gone noticeably quieter.

Every single person was watching.

She couldn't blame them. Peter looked ridiculously small like this, his hair sticking up from all the carrying and playing, his pajamas slightly rumpled, with a faint smear of food still near the corner of his mouth that Thor had apparently missed. 

Tony's expression changed first, not dramatically because Tony rarely did dramatic when he thought someone might not be looking, but his face softened for half a second before he covered it by looking down at his tablet. Steve smiled. Clint lifted his arm off his face and stared openly. Thor looked delighted.

Natasha didn't move.

Pepper looked down at Peter again.

His eyes were already closed. “Well,” she murmured, more to herself than anyone else, “that was fast.”

Peter made a tiny noise against her shoulder, and Pepper smiled as she carried him toward the sitting area, moving slowly enough not to wake him. 

She had expected to put him on the couch, but when she laid him on the end of it, she noticed the way his body stiffened faintly in her arms at the sensation. 

His eyes fluttered, and Pepper paused with one hand supporting his back.

“Okay,” she whispered. “Where do you want to sleep?”

Peter didn't answer. His head had already fallen back against her hand, and Pepper glanced toward the couch again before looking down at the thick rug beneath the coffee table. 

It was soft enough to cushion him without being as yielding as the couch. 

There was no reason not to try it, so she lowered herself carefully and settled Peter down on the rug, keeping one hand against his back as she helped him lie on his side.

The moment his body touched the floor, something changed.

His shoulders loosened, his knees curled toward his chest, and after one small adjustment he went completely still. 

There was something almost practiced about the way he settled there, as though his body knew exactly what to do with a hard surface even if the comfortable couch had confused it.

Pepper stared.

So did everyone else.

Clint was the first to break the silence, sitting up enough to get a better look at the boy curled on the rug. “Oh, you've got to be kidding me.”

Pepper glanced over at him. “What's wrong?”

Clint pointed toward the floor, and Pepper followed his gaze even though she already knew what he meant. 

Peter was asleep, one tiny fist clutching the rug, his breathing slow and even.

“He's tiny,” Steve whispered from across the room.

Thor nodded solemnly. “Very.”

Tony finally looked up from his tablet, and for a moment he said nothing at all. Then he sighed, the sound carrying the particular resignation of a man who had apparently just discovered a new reason to be emotionally compromised. “I hate all of you.”

Pepper smiled. “Why?”

“Because now I want to pick him up.”

Clint snorted from the couch. “You can’t wake him up.”

Tony gave him a flat look. “I'm aware.”

“Then don't.”

“I said I want to.”

“That sounds like a you problem.”

Tony glared at him, and Clint smiled because apparently exhausting Tony was the second-best entertainment he'd found that morning.

Pepper looked back down at Peter, but the amusement gradually faded from her expression as the significance of what she was seeing settled in. 

He hadn't simply fallen asleep wherever he happened to be. He had been given a choice between the couch and the floor, and without hesitation his body had chosen the floor. 

It was the kind of thing that could have been dismissed if she didn't know Peter, but she was beginning to understand that almost everything about him had a reason beneath it, even the things he did without thinking.

She looked toward Natasha.

Natasha was already looking at Peter, but there was something different in her expression now, something more guarded than the soft amusement she'd shown when Peter had been playing with Thor. 

Pepper recognized it immediately as the look Natasha wore when information had stopped being casual and started becoming something she intended to protect.

“Does he do that often?” Pepper asked quietly.

Natasha didn't answer immediately. Her eyes stayed on Peter for another moment before she finally nodded. “He doesn't like the bed.”

Pepper frowned slightly. “At all?”

She was silent for a few seconds before her gaze moved back toward Peter. “He sleeps on the floor.”

The room went quiet again, but this time Pepper could feel the question forming before anyone said it. She kept her own voice low. “Does he sleep on the floor in his room too?”

Natasha hesitated, and Pepper immediately understood that this was not a question she wanted to answer casually. 

There was something guarded in the way her shoulders settled, something that reminded Pepper that Natasha had spent years protecting information about people who couldn't protect it themselves. 

She glanced toward Peter before answering, and when she finally spoke, her voice was quieter than before. “Yes,” she said. “He does.”

Pepper followed her gaze. Peter was completely unaware of the conversation, curled tightly on the rug, and for a moment Pepper found herself thinking about the bedroom upstairs seeing it in a new light. 

The enormous bed that had looked almost absurdly large when she'd first seen it, all the new clothes and the balcony and how strange it must be for a child who had spent months sleeping somewhere else to suddenly be given something so soft that his body didn't know what to do with it.

Natasha's voice remained quiet. “The bed is too soft.”

Pepper looked down at him again. There was something painfully simple about that explanation, and somehow that made it worse.

Too soft.

Not because he was frightened of the room. Not because he didn't understand what the bed was for. His body simply didn't seem to recognize comfort in the same way theirs did.

“How long?” Steve asked quietly.

There was no surprise in the question, because the five-month timeline wasn't new to any of them. They had learned that much while Peter was still unconscious, when FRIDAY had answered their questions about how long he had been missing and how long he'd apparently been surviving alone. They already knew the number. What they hadn't known was what those five months had actually looked like.

Natasha kept her eyes on Peter. “He had blankets.” Pepper looked at her, and Natasha's expression tightened slightly before she added, “In an abandoned attic.”

Pepper stared at her.

An attic.

She looked toward Tony, but his jaw had already tightened. Clint's expression shifted, and Steve went very still, but nobody asked the question that immediately came to mind because Natasha's expression made it clear that she had no intention of opening that door while Peter was lying asleep a few feet away.

Pepper understood.

They knew he had been homeless. They knew enough to understand that whatever the details were, none of them had been good. 

But the attic itself was new information, and Pepper could see the temptation to ask more pass across several faces before Natasha quietly looked around the room.

She didn't have to say anything, the message was obvious.

Don't.

Not because Peter's past didn't matter. Not because they weren't allowed to care. Not because Pepper didn't want to understand what had happened to him. 

It mattered precisely because it was his, and Natasha had clearly decided that if Peter ever told them about the place he'd lived, it would be because Peter chose to tell them, not because they had decided his trauma was something they were entitled to investigate.

Pepper let the question die before anyone could ask it.

That was something the Avengers were not always particularly good at, knowing when information was theirs to have and when caring about someone meant protecting the things they had not chosen to share. 

They had a tendency to investigate. It was practically part of the job. 

They had searched Peter's past while he was unconscious because they had been terrified and trying to understand the child who had appeared in their lives, and Pepper knew exactly how easily concern could become intrusion if nobody stopped it.

Natasha, apparently, was going to stop it.

Pepper respected that.

She crouched beside Peter and gently pulled the blanket a little higher over his back, noticing again that his skin felt cool beneath her fingertips. “He's cold,” she murmured.

Natasha glanced down. “He runs cold. He's always like that.”

Pepper frowned slightly. “He is?”

Natasha nodded. “He doesn't seem to notice half the time.”

Pepper looked at Peter again, suddenly wondering how long he'd been walking around with cold hands and a colder body without anyone realizing that it might mean something. 

She knew Bruce would probably have an explanation for it eventually, but there was no reason to turn a sleeping child into another medical question right now, especially when Peter had spent the entire morning running himself into the ground and was finally resting.

She simply tucked the blanket more securely around him.

Pepper sat down on the edge of the couch instead of standing, leaving Peter within easy reach, and she wasn't entirely sure when she'd made the decision to stay, only that it felt natural once she'd made it. 

She had always been good at keeping watch without making it obvious. Years of working beside Tony had taught her that there were times when the most useful thing she could do was simply be there when someone looked up, and Peter seemed like exactly the sort of child who would wake up eventually, look around, and need to see a familiar face before he decided everything was still okay.

So she stayed.

Peter slept, and the room slowly returned to its normal volume, though nobody wanted to wake him. 

Pepper watched him for a while, and as she did, she found herself thinking about how quickly the Tower had changed. She had spent years thinking of it as Tony's building, even when she had long since stopped treating it like merely a workplace. 

It was where Tony built impossible things, where Steve trained, where Bruce worked, where Natasha and Clint disappeared for hours and came back pretending they weren't exhausted, where everyone came together because it was easier than trying to coordinate across New York.

Now there was a fifteen year old toddler sleeping on the floor.

And somehow that tiny fact had changed everything.

Pepper smiled to herself because there was something almost absurd about it. A team of superheroes, spies, scientists, gods, and billionaires had managed to survive battles, invasions, international incidents, and Tony Stark's personality, yet one sleeping toddler had somehow convinced all of them to lower their voices and check whether they were walking too heavily across the floor.

She looked toward Tony. He was still watching Peter.

Pepper smiled. “You know they're all attached to him.”

Tony leaned against the counter, his arms loosely folded as he watched the little boy sleeping on the rug. “Yeah.”

Pepper studied him for a moment, because there was no joking edge to the answer this time. “You already know?”

Tony shrugged, but it was the kind of shrug that meant he didn't particularly want to admit how much he'd noticed. “I'm observant.”

Pepper smiled. “You're emotionally repressed.”

“Also true.”

She folded her arms and glanced around the room. “Steve checks where Peter is every few minutes. Clint spent all morning entertaining him. Thor nearly declared war over his beard. Bruce has probably memorized his bloodwork. Natasha—”

“Yeah,” Tony interrupted quietly, his eyes still on Peter. “Natasha's obvious.”

Pepper followed his gaze toward Natasha, who had remained close to Peter without hovering, and then looked back at Tony. “You sound worried.”

Tony was quiet for a moment and he walked closer to the rug.  When he finally answered, the humor had disappeared completely. “I am.”

“About Peter?”

“About everything.” He rubbed a hand over his jaw, glancing toward the floor again. “The kid is attracting attention.”

Pepper's expression tightened immediately. “What do you mean?”

“SHIELD.”

The single word carried enough weight that Pepper didn't need him to elaborate, but Tony did anyway, lowering his voice so that the conversation would remain theirs and Peter would stay asleep. “Fury has been asking questions since the rooftop. He's not officially moving against Peter, but he's interested, and when Nick Fury gets interested, eventually somebody with a very expensive badge starts asking questions you don't want to answer.”

Pepper raised an eyebrow. “And what exactly does he want?”

“Everything.”

“Tony.”

He gave her a look, then sighed. “Okay, fine. The short version? He wants to know who Peter is, where he came from, what exactly his abilities are, how long he's been operating, and whether villains popping up in Queens are connected to him.”

Pepper remembered the reports she'd seen, the fragments of information that had reached the Tower before Peter ever arrived, and the way the villains like Vulture and Scorpion had seemed almost impossible to separate from the appearance of this strange kid swinging through Queens. 

Tony continued, “The problem is that once Peter started appearing at enough of these big fights, SHIELD stopped seeing a kid who happened to be in the wrong place and started seeing an unidentified enhanced individual who was somehow connected to every major disturbance in Queens.”

Pepper sighed quietly. “That's ridiculous.”

Tony made a small gesture with one hand. “It's also very SHIELD.”

“Fury really thinks Peter is an asset?”

“He thinks Peter could become one.”

Pepper frowned. “And what do you think?”

Tony looked toward the floor again. Peter shifted in his sleep, pulling the plushie closer, and something in Tony's expression softened before he answered. “I think he's a fifteen-year-old kid who got bitten by a radioactive spider, decided people were his responsibility, and somehow convinced himself that sleeping on concrete was a better option than asking anybody for help.”

Pepper's expression softened. Tony's voice dropped even further. “And I think SHIELD can wait.”

Pepper watched him for a moment before asking, “Is that what you told Fury?”

“Something like that.”

“And he agreed?”

Tony laughed once, quietly enough not to carry through the room. “No.”

Pepper smiled despite herself. “Of course not.”

“He gave me a very long speech about national security.”

“And you listened?”

“I was very respectful.”

Pepper stared at him until the corner of Tony's mouth twitched. “I told him to stay away from the kid.”

“That sounds more like you.” Pepper glanced back toward Peter, who hadn't moved except for the slow rise and fall of his breathing. “Have you told the other Avengers?”

Tony's expression softened again, and this time Pepper didn't miss the quiet certainty underneath it. “They're already doing the important part.”

Pepper looked around the room.

He wasn't wrong.

She could see it everywhere. 

Steve had spent the morning making sure Peter was safe without making him feel watched. Clint had turned half the Tower into a playground. Thor had decided Peter was a warrior and apparently intended to make sure everyone else knew it. Bruce had already taken the time to understand his medical needs. Natasha was never far away. 

And Pepper had spent the last hour sitting beside a sleeping toddler on the floor because apparently she was one of them now too.

“Speaking of the rest,” she said, glancing back toward Tony, “how much of this has Rhodey heard?”

Tony's expression immediately became wary, which Pepper found amusing enough that she smiled before he could even answer. “You called Rhodey.”

Tony sighed. “Yes.”

“What did he say?”

Tony leaned back against the counter, considering how much to share. “He asked why there was a teenager in the Tower.”

Pepper smiled. “What did you tell him?”

“I told him it was complicated.”

“And?”

“He said, and I quote, ‘Tony, somehow every time you say that, the world turns upside down.’”

Pepper laughed softly, and Tony's mouth twitched in response. “He's not wrong.”

“No.”

Tony glanced toward Peter again, and this time his expression became thoughtful rather than amused. “He also asked if the kid was staying permanently.”

Pepper's smile softened. “What did you say?”

Tony didn't hesitate. “Yes.” There was something different in his voice when he said it, something that wasn't quite confidence and wasn't quite reassurance. 

It sounded more like a promise, and Pepper knew Tony well enough to recognize that those were often the things he took most seriously.

She looked toward Peter again. The little boy was still asleep on the floor, one hand tucked beneath his cheek and the other wrapped around a plush spider that Pepper didn’t realize someone grabbed for him. Completely unaware that an entire team of adults had apparently decided that his safety was now a collective responsibility. 

Pepper found herself wondering whether Peter understood any of that yet, whether he could possibly comprehend how many people were already rearranging pieces of their lives around him. 

“You know,” Pepper said quietly, “I don't I’ve ever seen you guys this worried about someone before.”

Tony glanced at her, and for a second Pepper thought he might make another joke, but instead he followed her gaze back toward Peter and let the silence sit between them.

Tony nodded once. “Yeah. I think you're right.” he said eventually.

Pepper stayed.

She had meant to leave after the conversation, but Peter was sleeping so deeply that she found herself unwilling to be the first person to disturb the quiet around him. 

She settled back onto the couch and answered a few messages on her phone, checked the schedule for the rest of the week, and eventually found herself watching Peter again without consciously meaning to. 

Every so often he shifted, fingers tightening around the plushie's leg or his face turning slightly toward the warmth of the blanket, and every time he moved Pepper looked up automatically, waiting until his breathing settled before returning to whatever was on her screen.

The Tower continued moving around them in the background, but even that seemed to adjust itself around Peter. 

Steve eventually passed through on his way to what she assumed was his third training of the day and lowered his voice without being asked. Thor came back upstairs briefly and paused in the doorway when he saw Peter still sleeping, then whispered something to Pepper about not allowing anyone to disturb “the small warrior” before disappearing again. Clint wandered through a little later, looked at Peter, and quietly left a glass of water on the table beside Pepper without saying anything. 

Nobody announced that they were checking on him. Nobody needed to. They simply kept finding reasons to pass through the room.

Pepper smiled to herself.

They were hopeless.

Eventually the afternoon light began to soften, turning the windows a little less bright and painting the edges of the room in a warmer shade. 

Peter stirred sometime later, his fingers flexing around the plushie's leg before his eyes opened slowly. He blinked at the ceiling, clearly disoriented for a few seconds, and then his gaze moved around the room as though he were trying to reconstruct where he was and why he had ended up on the floor.

Pepper was still there.

She smiled. “Hey.”

Peter stared at her sleepily, his hair flattened slightly on one side from the rug and the plushie tucked beneath his chin. 

“You were out for a while,” Pepper told him, and Peter rubbed at one eye before looking down at the blanket covering him. 

His gaze lingered on the rug beneath him, then moved around the common room, and Pepper could almost see the realization arrive.

He had fallen asleep surrounded by people.

Peter looked toward the spaces where the others had been earlier, and the tiny questioning sound he made was so quiet that Pepper almost missed it. She didn't. 

“They'll be back,” she said, and she watched the tension leave his shoulders almost immediately. Then, because she knew that wasn't quite the answer he was looking for, she added, “Bruce is here, too.”

Peter turned toward the quiet corner of the room.

Bruce was sitting there with a tablet in one hand and a cup of tea in the other, and Pepper realized with some amusement that he had apparently been there long enough to become part of the furniture without her noticing. 

That was one of Bruce's particular talents. He could occupy a room without making it feel occupied, which was probably one reason Peter seemed to notice him without immediately becoming overwhelmed.

Bruce looked over and smiled. “Hey, Pete.”

Peter stared at him sleepily, still trying to orient himself, and Bruce didn't rush to fill the silence. He simply waited until Peter's eyes focused properly before asking, “Feel better?”

Peter considered the question for a long moment, then gave a tiny nod.

“Good,” Bruce said, setting his tablet down.

Peter looked toward Pepper. 

She smiled at him. “I'll be right back.”

Peter gave a small nod, but his eyes stayed on her for another second before moving back toward Bruce. 

Pepper noticed the hesitation, the tiny calculation that seemed to happen every time someone left his immediate line of sight, and she wondered how long it would take before Peter stopped checking whether people were coming back.

She didn't promise anything dramatic. She simply gave him another reassuring smile and stood.

“I'm going to get some coffee,” she said, mostly to Bruce, though her eyes remained on Peter long enough for him to understand that she wasn't disappearing.

Bruce nodded.

Peter watched her for another moment, and then his attention returned to Bruce.

As Pepper walked toward the kitchen, she glanced over her shoulder one last time.

Bruce had already shifted his chair slightly closer, not enough to crowd Peter and not enough to make it obvious that he was doing it, but enough that the boy wouldn't have to raise his voice if he needed something. 

Peter was watching him now, sleepy but attentive, and Bruce was talking quietly about something Pepper couldn't hear.

For the first time that afternoon, she felt completely comfortable leaving him there. 

—

Bruce waited until Pepper had moved across the open common room toward the coffee station in the kitchen before looking back at Peter.

His fingers were still curled around one of the Spider-Man plushie's legs, but he wasn't clutching it tightly anymore, and when he finally looked back at Bruce, his eyes were bright and awake rather than heavy with sleep.

The nap had helped. That much was obvious.

"You feel better?" Bruce asked.

Peter considered him for a moment before nodding, then immediately looked toward the tablet Bruce had set aside.

Bruce followed his gaze and smiled. "That?"

Peter nodded again.

"You want to see?" Bruce picked up the tablet and turned it toward him, expecting him to lose interest after a few seconds the way most people did when showed his work. 

Instead, Peter leaned forward almost at once, the plushie forgotten in his lap as his attention locked onto the diagrams on the screen. Bruce blinked and looked down at what he had been working on.

They weren't simple diagrams. He'd been reviewing notes on cellular regeneration and tissue repair, along with observations he'd made during Peter's treatment and several older research papers he'd been revisiting while trying to understand exactly what Peter's altered biology was doing. 

There were molecular diagrams, equations in the margins, a partially completed model of protein interactions, and several references to published work that would have meant very little to most adults without some scientific background, let alone a teenager who was currently small enough that he could barely stand. 

Peter stared at all of it with intensity and he reached toward the screen.

Peter's little finger landed carefully on one of the diagrams, tracing the edge of a molecular structure before moving toward the notes beside it. He made a quiet sound in his throat, something between a question and a hum, and looked up at Bruce as though expecting an answer.

"You recognize that?"

Peter nodded.

Bruce's eyebrows lifted. "Really?"

Peter nodded again, more emphatically this time.

"Okay," Bruce said, shifting the tablet slightly so Peter could see more clearly. "Show me."

Peter pointed toward the diagram, then toward another page of notes, then made a frustrated little sound when Bruce didn't immediately understand what he was trying to indicate.

"That one?"

Peter shook his head.

"This?"

Another shake.

Bruce scrolled backward until he reached the top. Peter immediately pointed.

The title at the top of the page made him pause.

He looked at the paper.

Then at Peter.

Then back at the paper.

"You're kidding."

Peter gave him an expression that was remarkably close to offended.

Bruce laughed softly. "Sorry. Sorry. I believe you."

He looked back at the citation. It was one of his older papers, written years ago, dealing with cellular responses to gamma-induced damage and the mechanisms behind accelerated tissue repair. 

It wasn't beginner reading. Bruce remembered the paper being difficult even for some of the fellow PhD grads he'd worked with at the time, and he certainly hadn't expected to find a fifteen-year-old's toddler-sized hand pointing confidently at it as though he'd stumbled across an old textbook he already knew.

"Have you actually read my work?"

Peter nodded.

"Which ones?"

Peter pointed again, then at another reference, and another.

Bruce scrolled and Peter kept pointing.

His eyes were bright with recognition.

Bruce slowly lowered the tablet. "Tony told me you were good with engineering. He said you could look at a piece of technology and figure out how it worked before he finished explaining it, which, apparently, is his way of telling me you're a menace to expensive equipment. He did not mention that you’re a biology and chemistry genius."

Peter made a pleased little sound at the mention of Tony, then frowned at Bruce as though Tony's failure to provide the complete report was somehow a personal offense.

Bruce laughed. "Okay. Apparently I'll be having words with Tony."

Peter reached for the tablet again.

"Fine," Bruce said, handing it back. "Show me."

And Peter did.

It took Bruce less than five minutes to realize that Tony had only been seeing one part of Peter Parker's intelligence.

Peter had always been good with machines, apparently good enough that Tony had already started treating him like a partner engineer rather than a kid who happened to be clever with a screwdriver, but Bruce was watching something different now. 

Peter followed the diagrams with an attention that wasn't merely recognition; he was looking for relationships between them. When Bruce moved from basic cellular repair into protein synthesis, Peter's attention sharpened instead of fading, and when Bruce showed him a simplified model of how certain cells communicated during tissue damage, Peter immediately pointed toward one pathway and then another, making an insistent little sound until Bruce followed where he was directing him.

"That part?" Bruce asked. Peter nodded. "You think that's connected?"

Another emphatic nod.

Bruce studied the diagram, then watched as Peter pointed toward a second pathway and tapped the screen between them.

"Actually..."

Bruce shifted closer.

Peter did it again, more insistently this time, and Bruce finally understood what he was trying to show him. 

It wasn't a complete hypothesis, obviously; Peter couldn't write it down or explain the reasoning in words, and Bruce wasn't about to pretend a toddler pointing at a tablet had just overturned several years of research. But the connection Peter was suggesting wasn't random. 

It was a legitimate relationship between two mechanisms, and it was one Bruce hadn't been considering in quite that context.

Bruce stared at the screen for another moment.

Then he looked at Peter. "You’re really good."

Peter blinked.

Bruce smiled. "You know that, right?"

Peter's expression softened into something almost shy before he turned back toward the tablet.

Bruce found himself smiling too.

This was the part people might miss if they only saw Peter as Spider-Man or as a fifteen-year-old who happened to be unusually clever. He wasn't simply good at improvising because he'd learned how to survive on rooftops, and he wasn't only talented because Tony had discovered that he could build things. 

There was a genuine scientific mind underneath all of it, one that seemed to move naturally between observation, pattern recognition, questioning, and experimentation. Even now, trapped inside a body that couldn't explain what he was thinking beyond pointing, humming, and making increasingly expressive faces, Peter was still doing exactly what Peter Parker had always done.

"You'd like the lab," Bruce said. Peter's head snapped up. Bruce smiled. "I know. Tony already knows. But maybe you could spend some time with me in my office sometime, too. You seem to have a talent for making scientists regret showing you things."

Peter grinned and immediately pointed back toward the tablet.

Bruce laughed. "Yes, yes. Back to work."

They kept going, and Bruce gradually stopped simplifying things for him.

At first he'd tried to explain cellular differentiation and protein signaling in the simplest terms he could manage, but Peter kept reacting to the more complicated parts, following relationships that Bruce had expected to lose him. 

Eventually Bruce gave up on trying to guess where the limit was and simply explained the science as he would have explained it to an unusually bright student, pausing whenever Peter seemed confused and moving forward whenever he wasn't. 

Peter couldn't answer questions verbally, but he had other ways of making himself understood: a tilt of his head when something didn't make sense, a little hum when he recognized a pattern, a pointed finger when Bruce skipped something important, and, on one particularly amusing occasion, an increasingly frustrated noise that continued until Bruce went back to the previous diagram and realized Peter was objecting to an assumption in the model.

"You don't agree with that?" Peter pointed. Bruce looked again. Then he looked at Peter. "You're objecting to the limitation of  the model."

Peter pointed harder.

Bruce laughed. "Okay. Fair enough. That's actually a pretty good objection."

Peter immediately relaxed, apparently satisfied that Bruce had finally caught up.

"You're going to be trouble," Bruce told him.

Peter smiled.

Bruce knew what that felt like.

For years, people had reduced him to whatever part of him they found most remarkable or frightening. 

To most people, he had been the Hulk before he'd ever been Bruce Banner, and even those who knew him as a scientist sometimes treated his research as secondary to the thing that could tear through a building. 

The scientist had been there first. The scientist had been there before the accident, before the transformations, before Bruce had learned to live with the knowledge that anger could become something enormous and uncontrollable.

Peter had spent two years being Spider-Man.

Bruce wondered how many people had bothered to see Peter Parker.

His gaze drifted toward his own wrist.

The inhibitor was hidden beneath his sleeve, small enough that most people wouldn't notice it unless they already knew it was there. 

It had started much larger and far more cumbersome, something Bruce had designed because he had needed a way to suppress the transformations before he could even think about having a normal life. 

Tony had helped redesign it over time, taking Bruce's original work and making the circuitry smaller, the power system more efficient, and the entire device considerably less obvious beneath a sleeve. It wasn't perfect, and Bruce was realistic enough to know there was no such thing as a permanent solution where the Hulk was concerned, but it gave him something he hadn't had in years: a choice.

He could be Bruce.

Just Bruce.

That had taken some getting used to.

There had been a time when Bruce had assumed that if the Hulk ever truly went away, he'd feel as though he'd lost some essential part of himself. 

Instead, what he felt most often was relief. He could wake up without wondering whether he'd lost control during the night, sit at a table without worrying about what anger might do to him, work with Tony without assuming every disagreement would eventually become a containment problem, and let Helen argue with him about medical charts without wondering whether she was one badly timed sentence away from becoming collateral damage.

He could have a life.

Bruce looked down at Peter, who was still studying the tablet.

"Tony's been helping me make this smaller," he said, touching the edge of his sleeve where the device rested against his wrist. "It used to be much less convenient."

Peter looked immediately toward Bruce's wrist.

Bruce held it out and Peter reached for it, tiny fingers carefully exploring the edge of the device beneath the fabric.

"It's mostly biology," Bruce explained. "Gene suppression, feedback, a few safeguards. Tony's helped with the engineering parts I wasn't very good at."

Peter made an indignant sound. Bruce smiled. "I know. You'd understand it very well."

Peter looked pleased.

Bruce glanced toward the lab and then back at him. "Maybe someday you can help me take a look at it."

Peter's eyes widened.

"I'm serious." Peter tapped the device with one tiny finger. "Not today," Bruce added. "You're currently two feet tall."

Peter looked down at himself, then slowly back up at Bruce with an expression that somehow communicated that his current height was a temporary inconvenience and therefore not particularly relevant to the discussion.

Bruce laughed. "Right. My mistake."

Peter pointed toward the device again.

"Later. I promise."

Peter nodded.

The moment was interrupted by footsteps crossing the common room, and Helen appeared carrying her bag and a tablet, already dressed to leave. She slowed when she saw the two of them sitting on the floor together and smiled.

"Am I interrupting?"

Peter looked toward her and immediately reached out.

Helen's expression softened. "Well, hello."

She came over and crouched beside them, setting her bag down. "I was actually just heading out. I wanted to check one last thing before I left; the morning labs are set, the medication schedule is updated, and I sent you the revised monitoring notes."

"Got them," Bruce said.

"And I scheduled Peter's blood draw tomorrow once he's back to normal."

Peter made an immediate, deeply displeased noise.

Bruce laughed. "Apparently that's the part he cares about."

"Then I suppose we'll have to negotiate," Helen said, and Peter's expression suggested that he considered this an acceptable arrangement.

His attention returned to the tablet almost immediately, and Helen followed his gaze. "Let me guess, he’s really good at science?"

"Apparently."

"Of course."

She settled beside them for a few minutes, and Peter began showing her the diagrams Bruce had been explaining with the kind of enthusiasm that suggested he'd personally invented cellular regeneration and was now generously allowing them to study it. 

Helen played along without talking down to him, asking questions that Peter answered with pointing, sounds, and increasingly expressive gestures, while Bruce occasionally translated when he understood what Peter was trying to indicate. 

It was easy to forget that Peter couldn't speak properly at the moment because his mind was doing exactly what it had always done, and Helen seemed to recognize that too.

Eventually she glanced at the clock and sighed. "I really do have to go. I'll see you tomorrow, Peter."

Peter looked up.

Helen touched the top of his head lightly. "And maybe by then you'll be able to explain this to me instead of making Bruce interpret your pointing."

Peter gave her an offended little noise.

Helen laughed. "I know. Very unfair." She picked up her bag and looked at Bruce. "Don't let him stay up all night reading your papers."

Bruce smiled. "I make no promises."

Helen rolled her eyes affectionately and headed across the common room toward the elevator. Peter watched her go, his eyes following her until the elevator doors closed, and then he turned back toward Bruce.

Bruce glanced at the clock.

5:15.

He hadn't noticed the afternoon disappearing.

The Tower had already begun shifting into its evening rhythm, sunlight fading against the windows while voices carried through the open common room and the smell of dinner slowly replaced the quieter atmosphere of the afternoon. 

Thor's laugh carried from somewhere near the dining table. Peter's head lifted at the sound.

Bruce smiled. "Almost dinner."

Peter brightened immediately and pushed himself upright, nearly losing his balance in his enthusiasm. Bruce caught him by the shoulder before he could topple forward, and Peter looked up at him like he clearly believed he had not required assistance.

"Easy," Bruce said.

Peter ignored that entirely and reached for Bruce's hand.

Bruce gave it to him and they walked together into the middle of the common room.

Dinner was already coming together, and Bruce found himself smiling at the sight of it.

Tony was leaning against the counter arguing with Steve about something that had apparently started as a discussion about movie choices and somehow become a disagreement over whether Steve had chosen too many movies lately, while Clint kept stealing pieces of food directly off the counter until Pepper slapped his hand away without even looking at him. Thor was insisting that this constituted a serious crime against dinner itself, and Steve was trying unsuccessfully not to laugh.

"You're all ridiculous," Bruce said as he joined them.

Tony glanced over. "You say that like you're not one of us."

"I wasn't including myself."

"That's adorable."

Bruce rolled his eyes, but he was smiling.

Peter made a delighted little noise beside him, and Tony immediately looked down.

"Hey, Pete. You hungry?"

Peter answered with an emphatic sound and reached toward the food.

Tony laughed. "Yeah, I figured."

He crouched and handed Peter a small piece without making a production out of it, and Peter accepted it before reaching for another. 

Tony gave him a second piece, then glanced at Bruce with an amused expression. "Apparently we're past asking permission."

"He's learning," Clint said. Peter turned toward him and pointed at the food. Clint grinned. "Don't look at me. I'm not the kitchen."

Thor appeared beside them with the solemn expression he reserved for matters of great importance. "The small warrior has learned that those who control the feast must be negotiated with."

Tony stared at him.

Bruce sighed. "Please don't encourage him."

Thor looked genuinely offended. "I would never." Peter giggled.

Thor immediately handed him another piece of food.

Bruce looked at him.

Thor shrugged. "I have failed."

Steve laughed from across the room, and Bruce found himself laughing too.

The dinner itself settled into the familiar rhythm of the Tower, and Bruce realized somewhere between Steve asking him about the training schedule and Tony deliberately exaggerating one of Peter's medical results that he wasn't standing outside the conversation anymore. 

He corrected Tony's deliberately terrible interpretation of the data, let Clint steal a piece of food from his plate and stole one back when Clint wasn't looking, and got pulled into one of Thor's increasingly ridiculous stories about Asgardian feasts until Steve quietly regretted asking a single follow-up question. 

Pepper kept the conversation moving while also making sure Peter had what he needed, Tony continued trying to convince everyone that his movie preferences were objectively superior, and Natasha arrived a little later than the others, taking in the entire scene with one quick sweep of her eyes.

Peter wasn't waiting.

Bruce noticed that first.

At their first dinner, Peter had watched everyone else eat before deciding whether he was allowed to reach for anything. 

He'd waited for someone to offer him food, watched hands and plates and expressions as though there were rules he hadn't been given, and sat with his shoulders held so tightly that Bruce had wondered whether the boy even realized he was doing it. 

Tonight, Peter simply reached when he wanted something. He pointed toward what interested him, pushed away what he didn't want, and when Thor tried to sneak another piece onto his plate, Peter slapped the god's hand away with an offended little noise that made Clint laugh so hard he nearly choked.

"He's learned to set boundaries," Clint said.

Tony looked over. "From who?"

Every head at the table turned toward Natasha, who had been grabbing a drink from the fridge.

Natasha stopped, one eyebrow lifting as she looked around at everyone staring at her.

Peter saw her and immediately brightened. "Na."

It was barely more than a syllable, but Natasha heard it. Her expression softened as she crossed the room, and instead of immediately picking him up, she crouched beside him and offered two fingers for him to grab.

Peter took them.

Bruce watched the exchange, and there was something about it that made the room feel different. 

Tony's expression softened for half a second before he turned back toward Steve, Clint smiled into his food, Thor looked quietly pleased, and even Pepper paused long enough to watch before returning to the conversation. 

Bruce looked down at his wrist again, barely aware that he'd done it.

He thought about Peter pointing at it earlier, about how quickly his attention had shifted from curiosity to genuine interest, and about the possibility that one day Peter might actually sit beside him in the lab and help him examine the device simply because he found the problem interesting.

Not because Bruce needed him to fix it, and certainly not because Peter had anything to prove, but because Peter liked science and Bruce liked having someone around who could challenge his assumptions.

Maybe that was what family looked like when he stopped trying to define it.

Bruce had spent years thinking about control.

Control over the Hulk. Control over his own anger. Control over his body. Control over the variables in his research.

But sitting there with Peter leaning against Natasha's side while Tony and Steve argued over something neither of them would remember tomorrow, Bruce realized that maybe control had never been the thing he actually wanted. 

What he had wanted was the ability to stop bracing for the moment everything went wrong. He wanted to be able to trust that when something did go wrong, there would be other people there to help him deal with it.

The inhibitor couldn't give him that.

Science couldn't give him that.

The Tower could. Not because the building itself was special, but because of the people inside it.

The evening carried on around them, and Bruce let himself be part of it rather than watching from the edge. 

Peter ate, occasionally reaching across the table with a determined little sound whenever he wanted something, while the others argued and laughed and interrupted one another in the comfortable way people did when they had stopped worrying about whether they were being too much. 

By the time dinner was finished, the common room had already begun shifting into the familiar chaos of movie night without a thought. 

Blankets being gathered from the couches, popcorn appearing from somewhere, and Tony and Steve immediately disagreeing about what counted as a good movie while Clint insisted that neither of them should be trusted with the remote.

Peter remained beside Natasha through all of it, one hand still loosely wrapped around her fingers as he watched the preparations with obvious interest. 

Bruce caught Natasha looking down at him, and Peter looked up at her at almost exactly the same moment. There was no fear in his expression, no calculation about whether she was going to leave or whether he was allowed to follow. 

Tony finally raised the remote above his head.

"All right. Everybody gets one vote."

—

“I’ll go first. I vote for a documentary,” Tony announced.

“You always vote for a documentary,” Steve said from the other end of the couch.

Clint reached across the back of the couch and took the remote out of Tony’s hand before he could start scrolling. “I vote for something where Stark doesn't get to pick.”

Tony stared at him. “That's not a movie.”

“It should be.”

Thor leaned forward from his chair, looking between them with the seriousness of a man considering a matter of state. “I vote for the one with the most warriors.”

“That's not a genre,” Bruce said.

“See?” Clint pointed at Thor. “He's with me.”

Peter watched all of them from the floor.

Natasha had been expecting him to be interested in the television, but he seemed much more interested in the argument surrounding it. 

His attention moved from Tony to Steve, then Clint, then Thor, following each voice with the intense concentration he usually gave to something he was trying to understand. He had grabbed the Spider-Man plushie and tucked it against his side, and the blanket from his earlier nap was still spread across the rug beside him. 

Someone—Natasha suspected Pepper—had folded the corner beneath his head so it wasn't bunched underneath him.

Peter looked comfortable. More importantly, he looked like he expected to remain comfortable.

Natasha let herself notice that for a moment before Tony's voice pulled her attention back.

“Fine. Actual voting. One movie each.”

“I have a question,” Bruce said.

Tony looked at him. “What?”

“What happens if there's a tie?”

“Then we fight to the death, obviously.”

Steve sighed.

Clint grinned. “Finally, a voting system I can support.”

Pepper, already reaching for the popcorn bowl, shook her head. “Or you could just pick something everyone agrees on.”

“That sounds suspiciously reasonable,” Tony said.

“I know. It's terrible.”

Natasha stayed near the edge of the room, arms folded loosely across her chest, watching the chaos with the quiet amusement she'd learned not to let show too much. 

It was strange, sometimes, how easily the Tower could become this. There were missions and briefings and injuries and arguments about security and SHIELD and things that could kill them, but there were also evenings where the biggest disagreement in the building was whether Steve had watched enough black-and-white films for one lifetime.

Peter looked toward her.

His attention shifted immediately. He pushed himself upright, blanket falling around his legs, and held out one hand.

Natasha walked over and crouched beside him. “Are you still okay with movie night, baby?” she asked quietly.

Peter looked at the television, then back at her.

She knew he'd said he'd come last week. She also knew better than to assume that meant he still wanted to.

It had been a long day, a long two days. 

He had been awake since before most of them had finished their first cup of coffee, spent hours running around the Tower, eaten enough food to satisfy Thor's definition of a growing warrior, and then fallen asleep on the floor in the middle of the common room without seeming to realize how tired he actually was. 

If he wanted to leave, Natasha would take him upstairs. She would make sure he was comfortable, leave on the hallway light, and stay until he was asleep if that was what he needed.

Peter stared at her for a second.

Then he reached out and caught two of her fingers.

Natasha's mouth softened into the smile that was beginning to become a habit around him, “Okay,” she said. “We'll stay.”

Peter gave a pleased little sound and settled back down.

She stayed crouched for another second, watching him pull the blanket closer around himself. His eyes returned to the television, but one hand remained wrapped loosely around her fingers.

Natasha glanced at the couch.

“You know you can sit up there.”

He tugged lightly on her hand.

“You want me down here?”

Peter nodded.

She could have told him that the floor wasn't comfortable. She could have reminded that perhaps it would be better for him to start getting used to being on soft things.

She didn't. 

Instead, Natasha sat down beside him.

Peter immediately leaned against her side. There was no hesitation in it anymore.

A month ago, every bit of contact had been something Peter seemed to calculate first, as though he needed to know exactly what was expected of him before he could decide whether he was allowed to accept it. 

Now he simply shifted until his shoulder rested against her leg and pulled the blanket on the couch over her without asking. Natasha adjusted the edge of his blanket so it covered him properly.

Across the room, Tony looked over at them.

He opened his mouth. 

Natasha looked at him and narrowed her eyes half a centimeter.

Tony closed his mouth.

Clint saw the exchange and smirked. “Smart man,” he murmured.

Tony pointed the remote at him. “I was going to say something completely normal.”

“No, you weren't.”

“I was.”

“You absolutely weren't.”

Steve took the remote from Tony before the argument could become another twenty minutes of nothing getting chosen. “We're watching something everyone can tolerate.”

Tony looked offended. “That's an incredibly low standard.”

“It is a necessary one.”

Thor raised his hand. Everyone looked at him. “I have selected a film.”

“Of course you have.”

Thor pointed toward the screen.

My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic

There was a pause.

Bruce took his glasses off and rubbed the bridge of his nose.

Pepper looked at Thor. “Why that one?” she asked.

“It contains both friendship and battle.”

Tony slowly turned toward Steve. “You said we were picking something everyone could tolerate. Not to mention that’s not even a movie.”

“I didn't know Thor had already made a choice.”

Natasha looked down at Peter. He was watching the screen with absolute fascination.

“You've never seen it?” she asked.

Peter shook his head.

Tony looked over. “Do you seriously want to?”

Peter nodded.

Tony's expression changed immediately. “Well, now we have to watch it.”

Steve stared at him. “You just spent ten minutes arguing against every suggestion.”

“Yes, but at least it's educational.”

“For who?”

“For the toddler.”

Peter’s face told everyone how much he liked that comment.

“Fine,” Steve said, settling back into the couch. “Thor gets the vote.”

Thor looked immensely pleased.

Clint muttered something about democracy being dead and Tony threw a piece of popcorn at him.

The movie started.

For the first twenty minutes, Natasha was more interested in watching Peter than the screen.

He followed the show, occasionally glancing toward the others when something happened that made one of them react. When Tony laughed, Peter laughed too. When Steve groaned at something particularly ridiculous for cartoon horses to do, Peter looked at him with open curiosity. Thor whispered explanations into his ear twice before Pepper told him that if he continued talking through the episode, she was going to make him sit on the other side of the room.

Peter giggled.

Natasha didn't remember the last time she'd felt this relaxed.

There was something almost disorienting about it.

At some point, Tony passed a bowl of popcorn down the couch. Peter crawled closer to the couch, reached for it, took a handful, and then, after a brief pause, reached over and stole another handful from Clint's bowl.

Clint looked down.

Peter slowly put one piece into his mouth.

Clint's expression broke into a grin. “Okay,” he whispered. “I respect it.”

Peter grinned around the popcorn.

Natasha caught herself smiling again.

The show continued.

She eventually stopped watching Peter and started watching the screen, though she still noticed the little things without trying. 

The way Peter shifted whenever he got uncomfortable. The way he occasionally pulled the blanket closer. The way his hand rested against her knee whenever he wasn't holding the plushie.

She didn't move it. She didn’t want to. 

Halfway through the second episode, Natasha realized she was tired.

Not tired in the way she was after a mission, where exhaustion lived somewhere deep behind her eyes and every muscle felt like it had been used too many times. 

This was softer than that. A slower exhaustion, built from an entire day of being awake, watching Peter, listening to everyone else argue about what he needed, going into Queens, and coming back and realizing nobody seemed to need anything from her at all.

The movie kept going.

Clint was the first one to start losing the fight against sleep. Natasha noticed his head dip once, then twice, before he corrected himself both times. Tony noticed too.

“You're falling asleep.”

“No, I'm not.”

“You just missed an entire scene.”

“I was thinking.”

“About what?”

Tony waited.

Clint's eyes closed again.

Tony snorted. Steve smiled without looking away from the screen. “Leave him alone.”

“I'm documenting this.”

“You're the one who falls asleep during your own movies.”

“That's different.”

“How?”

“I own the Tower.”

Clint made a noise that might have been a laugh, and a few minutes later he was asleep.

Nobody commented.

Thor lasted longer, though only because he seemed physically incapable of admitting defeat. 

He sat upright with his arms crossed, staring at the screen like he was determined to witness the conclusion of an epic saga, despite the fact that he had spent most of the episode asking why the ponies had not simply formed a battle formation. 

Bruce was asleep before the third episode, his head tipped back against the couch, glasses slightly crooked and one hand still resting loosely against his knee. Pepper noticed and quietly pulled a blanket over him.

Steve eventually stopped whisper arguing with Tony.

Tony eventually stopped talking.

The room had gradually become quieter without anyone deciding to make it quiet. The show kept playing, the dialogue from the television filling the spaces that had once been occupied by conversation, and the common room had settled into the comfortable disorder of people who were too tired to care about appearances.

Peter was still awake.

Barely.

Natasha felt his head grow heavier against her leg, then lift again when he seemed to realize he'd drifted. She looked down at him.

“Still awake?”

Peter made a small sound that might have been agreement. His eyes were half-closed. “Mhm,” he murmured.

Natasha's mouth twitched. “Very convincing.”

Peter blinked up at her, then his eyes closed again.

A few minutes later, his breathing changed.

It was subtle at first, the kind of change she would have missed if she hadn't spent so much time learning his rhythms. His shoulders loosened, his fingers relaxed against the blanket, and his head settled more heavily against her leg.

He was asleep.

Natasha looked down at him.

Peter's face was relaxed in a way she rarely saw when he was awake. Even in a toddler's body, sleep stripped away the constant calculation from his expression. The quick assessments, the checking, the readiness to move if something changed. There was nothing there now except exhaustion and the simple fact that, for the moment, he felt safe enough to let himself stop.

Natasha adjusted the blanket over his shoulder.

She knew that feeling.

Not the safety. That had never been something she'd been given easily enough to recognize without suspicion.

The other part.

The unconscious habit of staying ready.

The Red Room had taught her that long before she'd had words for it: sleep lightly, know where the exits are, know where the weapons are, know who is closest to you. Never let yourself become so comfortable that you stop noticing what is happening around you.

She'd gotten better at letting some of those habits go.

Not all of them. She probably never will.

But tonight she was tired enough that the room had begun to blur at the edges, and there was no threat here. She could feel the weight of Peter against her side, hear the slow rhythm of his breathing, and sense the familiar presence of everyone else around them

She looked around the room.

Clint was asleep on the couch. Bruce was asleep beside him. Steve had his arms crossed and his head tilted slightly to one side, eyes closed. Tony was still holding the remote, though his head had fallen against the back of the couch. Thor was somehow still awake, but only technically; his eyes were open, fixed on the screen, but Natasha was fairly certain he hadn't understood anything that had happened in the last ten minutes. Pepper was curled into the opposite end of the couch, blanket pulled over her legs.

The show played quietly to an audience that had stopped watching it.

Natasha could leave. She knew that. She could carry Peter upstairs, put him in his room, make sure the door was open before going to bed herself, wake Steve enough to tell him everyone had fallen asleep, and turn off the television before making sure the Tower was secure.

It would be sensible.

It would also mean leaving.

Peter shifted in his sleep, moving closer without waking, his fingers catching lightly in the fabric of her shirt.

Natasha knew she was staying where she was.

She pulled the blanket higher around him and moved to lay flatter on the floor.

Nobody was asking her to keep watch. Nobody needed her to be the one who stayed awake. 

She could simply be here.

So she stayed.

The episode eventually ended, the credits rolling quietly across the screen. Nobody moved to turn it off or switch to the next one. The music continued softly in the background while the room settled deeper into silence, and Natasha found herself listening less to the television than to the breathing of the people around her.

Her eyes grew heavier.

Peter was still curled against her side, warm beneath the blanket, one hand loosely gripping her shirt as though even asleep he had decided she belonged within reach. 

Natasha looked around the room one last time and took in the strange, ordinary picture of all of them scattered across the common room, asleep in whatever position exhaustion had left them.

Her family was here.

She closed her eyes.

The last thing she felt before sleep pulled her under was Peter shifting slightly closer, settling against her as naturally as though he'd been doing it for years.

—

Peter woke up because his neck hurt.

For a few seconds, that was the only thing he knew. His cheek was pressed against something warm and solid, his legs were tangled in a blanket that had somehow ended up twisted around him, and there was an unfamiliar weight beside him that his half-asleep brain recognized before he was awake enough to understand why. 

He shifted slightly, expecting the small, cramped body he'd gotten used to over the last day, and immediately noticed that something was different. 

Peter opened his eyes.

Natasha was asleep beside him, her head tipped slightly against the back of the couch, one arm resting loosely across her stomach, her breathing slow and even. 

Peter stared at her for a moment, trying to remember where he was, and then his gaze dropped toward himself.

The tiny pajamas were gone.

Or, more accurately, they had apparently not survived the transition. 

A small strip of torn fabric was caught beneath the blanket, the remains of a shirt designed for a body considerably smaller than the one Peter currently occupied. 

The blanket was wrapped around him from the waist down, covering enough that he could stand without exposing himself to the room, but that was about the extent of the dignity the situation was offering him.

Peter slowly lifted one hand.

It was his hand.

Long fingers. Familiar knuckles. A tiny scar near his thumb from when he'd fallen while learning to ride his bike at six, another faint mark across one finger from a fight he'd mostly forgotten, and the slightly uneven nail on his index finger because he'd bitten it too far down a few days ago without noticing. 

Fifteen.

He was fifteen again.

The realization shouldn’t have felt that big, everyone knew he was only a toddler for twenty four hours, but it seems in their exhaustion everyone had forgotten about it. 

Peter had spent the entire day trapped in a body that wasn't his, unable to speak properly, unable to walk without stumbling, and unable to do most of the things he'd spent years teaching himself to do. Now everything had simply gone back. 

His body was his again. His hands worked. His thoughts fit inside his skull the way they were supposed to. The world looked normal.

Peter stared at his fingers for another few seconds before carefully looking around the room.

Everyone was still there. His eyebrows rose in surprise. 

Clint was sprawled across the couch with one arm hanging over the edge, Bruce had fallen asleep in almost exactly the same position he'd been in earlier, glasses slightly crooked and one hand resting against his knee, and Steve was sitting upright with his arms crossed, head tilted slightly to one side. 

Tony had fallen asleep with the remote still in his hand, apparently unwilling to surrender control of the television even while unconscious. 

Pepper was curled beneath her blanket at the opposite end of the couch, while Thor remained in the chair so perfectly still that Peter wasn't entirely convinced he was asleep at all. Maybe he'd simply entered some kind of meditative warrior state. 

The television had gone dark sometime during the night, and the common room had settled into a silence so complete that Peter could hear the faint hum of the Tower around them.

Nobody had left.

Peter looked around once more, and the significance of that settled over him gradually.

During the day, he'd been too caught up in the absurdity of everything to think much about what the others had actually done for him throughout the day.

Peter looked down at the blanket around him and let the memories settle into place. 

He remembered the frustration of trying to communicate when his mouth wouldn't cooperate, the humiliation of being carried when he knew perfectly well how to walk, and the strange helplessness of having to rely on other people for things that normally took no effort at all. 

He remembered being frightened when the villain's machine activated, the sensation of his body changing without his permission, and the panic of realizing that he couldn't stop it. 

Yet those memories were tangled with others now: Steve adjusting his grip when Peter became uncomfortable, Clint letting him explore instead of treating him like something fragile, Thor listening seriously to every little sound Peter made, Pepper figuring out what food he wanted, and Bruce quietly watching for signs that something was wrong. None of those things had erased the fear, but they had changed what happened after it.

And Natasha had been the person Peter kept looking for.

He remembered reaching for her before he'd consciously decided he wanted anyone. 

Whenever something frightened him, his attention had gone to her. When he was tired, he wanted her close. When he didn't understand what was happening, he searched for her automatically, as though some part of him had already decided she was where he needed to be. 

Peter covered his face with one hand.

“Oh, God.”

The whisper was quiet enough that nobody woke, although Natasha shifted slightly beside him before settling again. 

Peter lowered his hand and stared at the ceiling. He was never going to hear the end of this. 

Then again, maybe nobody else remembered the day quite the way he did. Perhaps they would assume the regression had affected his mind along with his body, or that whatever he'd needed while he was smaller had disappeared when he changed back. 

Peter wasn't sure whether he wanted them to remember. The idea of everyone remembering him acting like the toddler body he was in was just horrifying enough that he decided not to examine it any further.

He carefully pushed himself upright and pulled the blanket securely around himself. 

He needed actual clothes, preferably clothes that had been designed for a fifteen-year-old rather than a toddler, and thankfully nobody appeared to be awake enough to witness the ridiculous walk upstairs.

The elevator opened silently when he pressed the button. 

Peter stepped inside, and as it began to rise, his reflection appeared in the polished metal. 

He looked tired and a little pale, with his hair sticking up in several directions and the faint shadows beneath his eyes that had become harder to hide over the past few months, but he looked like himself. 

The elevator doors opened onto his floor, and Peter walked toward his room. 

The door wasn’t closed, as it usually was, and he paused when he noticed it. There was only one person who left the door cracked open when they left his room.

Nat.

A faint smile crossed his face as he pushed the door open.

The room looked exactly as he'd left it, except for something beside the dresser that immediately made him stop.

There were boxes.

Old, torn boxes.

Peter crouched beside them and lifted the lid of the first. 

His breath caught when he saw his winter coat folded inside, the broken zipper still exactly where he'd left it. 

Beneath it was the sweatshirt he'd repaired himself, the sleeve still crooked from where he'd stitched it back together, along with mismatched socks, a few old shirts, some of the tools he'd kept in the attic, and several small pieces of equipment he'd thought had been lost when he'd been brought to the Tower.

Then he found one of his blankets.

Peter pulled it out slowly. 

The fabric was rough and worn, almost smooth in places from months of use. It was the same blanket he'd slept beneath for nearly half a year, the one he'd once considered almost luxurious because it was warmer than the floor.

He stared at it.

Natasha had brought this here.

Tony knew about the attic, but he wouldn’t have thought about which blanket Peter had slept beneath, which sweatshirt he'd repaired instead of replacing, or which random pieces of equipment mattered enough to keep. 

Natasha had noticed those things without Peter ever explaining them, and at some point while he had been downstairs with Clint, or laughing at Thor or taking a nap, she'd gone back.

She hadn't asked him whether he wanted his things. They hadn't discussed it. She had simply gathered pieces of his old life and brought them to home, putting them in his room as though she had already understood that they belonged there.

Peter sat back on his heels.

Home.

The word appeared in his mind before he could stop it.

He stared at the blanket in his hands. 

The Tower had been safe. It had been warm. People expected him to come back there, and increasingly, they seemed surprised when he didn't. But home had always been something else in Peter's mind, something connected to May and Ben and the apartment he could no longer return to.

Now his old things were here.

Not in the attic.

Here.

With him.

The Avengers had filled the room with things Peter hadn't known how to ask for, but Natasha had taken the things he already owned and made room for them too. 

Maybe that was why the room suddenly felt less like somewhere he'd been placed and more like somewhere he had a place in.

Peter opened the dresser and pulled out a pair of soft sweatpants and a clean shirt. 

His eyes drifted back toward the box, and after a moment he picked up the old sweatshirt instead. He changed into the new sweatpants and the worn shirt, then stood in front of the mirror.

The clothes didn't match. The sweatpants were soft and new, while the shirt was worn thin from years of use, carrying the faint shape of a life Peter had almost convinced himself he wasn't allowed to miss anymore.

For some reason, he liked the way they looked together.

It felt like him.

He folded the old blanket carefully and placed it at the foot of the bed, then looked down at the four blankets already spread across the floor. 

He had accumulated them one at a time, adding one without much explanation until somehow there were four. 

He couldn't explain why he'd kept adding to it. He'd spent months sleeping on whatever surface he could find, and now he'd somehow turned the floor of a perfectly good bedroom into something closer to a nest, layering blankets beneath himself until the hard surface was almost as soft as a sleeping bag. 

Maybe some part of him was beginning to associate comfort with something that could be built slowly rather than something that had to be found all at once.

Peter looked at the bed.

It was still soft. Still warm. Still there whenever he decided he wanted it.

He looked back at the blankets.

His room was quiet, warm, and unmistakably his in a way it hadn't been when he'd first arrived.

His old things were here beside the things the Avengers had given him. There was a giant bathroom, a balcony, and a bed he could use whenever he decided he wanted to.

He could sleep.

He should sleep here.

That was the logical thing to do.

He was fifteen again. Whatever he had wanted when he was in his toddler body he shouldn’t anymore, Peter could take care of himself now.

He stood there for another moment.

“Yeah. No.”

The elevator carried him back down.

Peter stepped out and walked toward the common room, already knowing what he'd find.

Everyone was still there.

He stopped at the edge of the room and watched them for a moment. 

A strange warmth settled beneath his ribs.

He had spent so many months believing that every basic need was something he had to handle himself. Now he was standing in a room where six people had fallen asleep because they'd been too tired or too comfortable to bother going upstairs.

Peter looked at Natasha.

She was still asleep.

He could go back. He had a room, his things, and four blankets waiting for him. He could sleep alone, and nothing bad would happen if he did.

Peter crossed the room and lowered himself carefully onto the rug beside Natasha, pulling one of the blankets off the couch and over himself and reaching over to tug the blanket that had slipped from her shoulder back into place. 

He left a little space between them at first, because he wasn't entirely sure what the rules were now that he was himself again. He wasn't a toddler who needed to be held, and Natasha wasn't responsible for keeping him calm enough to sleep.

After a minute, though, Peter shifted closer.

His shoulder touched hers.

Natasha didn't wake.

Peter let himself settle there.

The room was completely dark. The television was off, the lights were off, and there was no hallway glow beneath a door or pale light from an attic window. 

Peter listened to Natasha breathing.

In.

Out.

The memory of his first night in the Tower came back quietly. 

He remembered waking from the nightmare with his heart racing, the room unfamiliar around him, and asking Natasha if he could sleep in her room because he couldn't bear the thought of being alone. 

He remembered the little lamp she'd left on because he'd asked her to, and the way he'd listened to her breathing from the floor until his body finally stopped expecting something terrible to happen.

Back then, he had needed the light because he didn't trust the darkness.

He knew where he was now. He knew who was beside him. More importantly, he knew he had chosen to come back.

Peter closed his eyes and let himself think about the last two days without immediately sorting the memories into things he was embarrassed about and things he wasn't. 

He remembered pressing the help button because there was no other option and hearing the Tower answer almost immediately.

They had come.

Peter knew that relying on people was selfish. Every instinct in his body said that getting close to someone was signing their death sentence. The last two days hadn't erased that instinct. 

But maybe they proved that another way of living might be possible.

There were people who came when he called. People who noticed when he wasn't eating. People who remembered which things mattered to him even when he never said they did. People who could take the pieces of his old life out of an abandoned attic and make room for them beside everything new.

Peter wasn't going to call them family.

The word still carried too much weight, too much history, too many memories of people he'd loved and died because of him. 

But for now, he could think of them as his people.

Peter shifted slightly closer to Natasha, letting his shoulder settle more comfortably against hers.

Nobody had told him to come back. He had simply wanted to be near her, and for once, wanting something didn't feel like a weakness he had to hide.

Tomorrow was going to be different.

Peter was Spider-Man again, which meant there were things waiting for him that had nothing to do with hospitals or recovery. 

He could patrol again. He could train with the team instead of practicing alone on rooftops, keep working with Tony on the suit, and maybe convince Steve to let him spar properly. 

Clint would probably teach him more whether Peter asked for it or not, Thor would find another excuse to call him a warrior, and Bruce would undoubtedly discover some new scientific theory that Peter wouldn’t be able to resist helping with. 

And eventually, maybe, there would be a mission.

A real mission.

Not Spider-Man sized villains or watching through a television screen while everyone else went somewhere dangerous, but Peter standing beside them when the briefing started and being trusted to contribute. 

An actual Avenger.

The thought made something bright and nervous move through him.

Peter knew he wasn't ready yet. At least, he knew that was what everyone else would say. He also knew himself well enough to understand that he would probably decide he was ready long  before anyone else did, which meant he had some work to do before he could make that argument convincingly.

That didn't bother him as much as it would have before. 

He could prove that he could be trusted without proving that he didn't need anybody. That felt like a better kind of strength.

His thoughts drifted toward school.

The idea still scared him. 

Going back meant sitting in a classroom again, turning in assignments, taking tests, dealing with group projects and cafeteria food and whatever new drama had happened while he'd been gone. 

It meant walking into a building where people knew Peter Parker and having to explain why he'd disappeared for six months without explaining where he'd gone or why he'd come back looking thinner and different.

Flash Thompson would definitely have something to say.

Peter could already imagine the rumors, but he didn't have good rebuttals yet. 

He didn't know how to explain where he'd been without telling people things they weren't supposed to know, and he wasn't ready to figure out how much of the truth belonged to Peter Parker and how much belonged to Spider-Man.

But for the first time, though, the thought of returning didn't make him want to run.

Sure, it made him nervous, but he wanted to try. 

Maybe he could go back to school and figure out how to be Peter Parker around other people again, then come home to the Tower, put on the suit, and go patrol without having to decide which version of himself was the real one.

Spider-Man had somewhere to go. Spider-Man could keep moving when Peter Parker had no idea what to do with the grief sitting inside him.

But Peter Parker found a place where grief wasn't the only thing he felt anymore. 

He smiled to himself.

Peter didn't know if that was what home meant for everyone.

He only knew that, for the first time since May died, the word didn't make him want to run.

His eyes grew heavier.

Natasha's breathing remained slow and even beside him, and Peter found himself following the rhythm without consciously trying. 

He didn't need the hallway light or the television or the cracked door. He didn't need to listen for footsteps, memorize the exits, or keep one eye open for the moment someone decided it was time for him to leave.

He just needed his people. 

And for the first time in months, Peter Parker let himself believe that tomorrow was something he actually got to have.

He shifted a little closer to Natasha, letting his head settle comfortably against her shoulder.

She unconsciously wrapped an arm around him. 

Peter smiled wider.

Then he fell asleep.