Chapter Text
A few days later, everything was all bad and good mixed up. Peter’s therapy sessions had run their course, which he was rather neutral about. Peter didn’t think having a therapist he couldn’t really tell important Spider-Man details to would help at the moment. Liz was gone. Her and her mom had moved closer to the jail facility where her dad was to be held. Peter never really had gotten the chance to apologize properly for leaving her all alone at homecoming. Peter felt an insurmountable amount of guilt for the part he’d played in The Vulture’s arrest, simply because it hurt Liz. He’d also been sorta lying/dancing around the truth every time someone tried to pry details out of him about homecoming night. They were definitely suspecting that something was up. On the other hand, Peter’s most recent nemesis had been brought to justice and alien tech weapons were no longer being distributed to civilians.
If he could just hold it together until everyone stopped looking suspicious at his answers, it would be fine.
Unfortunately, nothing in Peter’s life ever quite went very ‘fine’.
“Peter, we have something you might want to see,” Natasha said.
Peter, who was doing some work in the kitchen instead of his bedroom for a change, looked up. “What is it?”
“Tony hacked his way into the camera that was near the place where that arms dealer we hadn’t paid enough attention to was taken down. We’re going to see who did it. We might have to track them down and thank them. Turned out he was a pretty big threat with his alien tech.”
Peter’s blood ran cold. But they wouldn’t be thanking him when they found out he was The Vulture’s downfall. He’d probably be punished. Worse, they’d most definitely kick him out.
Peter tried to take a few calming breaths. Maybe the camera hadn’t caught him. Maybe Jarvis had taken some initiative as he often did, and wiped the footage without being asked.
Within moments of the tower residents being gathered, and the play button pressed, Peter’s hopes were dashed. His stark red and blue suit, though tattered, was clearly recognizable even with the shitty video quality.
Someone hit pause and all eyes turned to Peter. “I-” he managed, and then realized it was useless. With no other options, Peter bolted from the room.
Behind him he could vaguely hear Tony barking at Jarvis to close the elevator. Peter didn’t need an elevator though. He simply leapt towards the nearest open vent, letting his super strength and sticky hands do most of the work. Of course crawling through the vents wasn’t the fastest way to travel, but Peter was confident that since he was much smaller and more flexible than anyone else on the team, nobody would catch him. Clint had taught him well, and now the student was surpassing the master.
Except Peter rounded a corner and there Clint was. Shit, either Peter had forgotten a vent or Clint hadn't told him about this particular route.
“Going somewhere?” Clint asked. Despite his blase words, Clint looked genuinely concerned.
“I just-'' Peter's throat felt raw from the effort of trying not to cry. “I wanted to leave before they could make me.”
“No one is going to make you leave.” When Peter still didn’t look convinced Clint added, “Remember what I said when we found you? If Tony and Pepper weren’t going to keep you then I was. That still stands.”
Clint’s words were still only slightly convincing but Peter felt he had no choice but to follow the archer shamefully out of the vents and back down to where the team was waiting.
To Peter’s absolute astonishment, the first thing that happened after his feet touched the ground was Pepper sweeping him up in a tight hug. “Sweetheart, are you okay?”
Peter nodded numbly, not understanding her reaction.
Tony cleared his throat and stepped forward. “I’m sorry you felt like you couldn’t tell us about this guy. Care to explain why you were facing him with your old suit?”
Peter stared at him dumbly from Pepper’s arms. “You- you took back the other one.”
Tony’s expression turned flabbergasted. “If I’d known you needed to fight someone I’d have given it back. Which leads me to my next question. You were supposed to be at prom with Liz. What gives?”
“I found out that her dad was The Vulture. I’d seen his face before uh, when I was in Washington DC.”
“You called him The Vulture?” Natasha’s lips quirked into a smile.
“I knew that wasn’t just a patrol.” Tony swore under his breath and Steve cleared his throat loudly.
“Why didn’t you keep us in the loop about this though?” Steve asked. “We would have liked to help. Or just liked to have known, period.”
Peter didn’t answer.
“You thought we wouldn’t let you handle it, didn’t you?” Natasha asked with her unerring ability to know things about other people.
Peter nodded.
“Hang on, there’s a protocol for that though,” Tony protested. “Your AI won’t let you go into super bad situations without calling us for backup.”
Oh. Despite the whole conversation Peter had had with Karen about exactly this in DC, he hadn’t thought of that.
“Well maybe he would have known that if someone hadn’t taken his suit away.” Pepper stepped away from hugging Peter to glare at her husband. Natasha tugged on Steve’s arms and the two of them left the room, just leaving Peter, Tony, and Pepper.
Okay, maybe Peter could let them think he’d been clueless this one time. Better than having them realize he was wholey incompetent with absolutely zero logic skills.
Tony held his hands up in surrender. “I’m sorry. I only took the suit for Peter’s well-being. Since he’s improved his sleeping, eating, and work habits he can have it back . . . on the condition that he keeps those good habits up,” he added sternly.
Peter could barely believe his ears. Not only was he not getting kicked out, they were hardly even mad and he was getting the Spider-man suit back. Maybe he could tell them his problems more often. If he had, then maybe Captain Rogers- Steve, wouldn’t still be looking a bit like a kicked puppy at being kept out of the loop. And Peter might have gotten the suit back sooner. Really the whole thing, minus The Vulture being a villain, was sort of Peter’s fault.
But still, the footage only showed Peter swinging into the scene, and not what happened next. With no camera or AI witnesses, Peter didn’t plan on ever telling any of them about the building that had almost squashed him and how close to death he had come.
Now Tony stepped closer a little awkwardly and gave Peter a hug too. “I really am sorry that I made you feel insecure by taking the suit. And I shouldn’t have acted so cold after either.” He hung his head. “That’s something my dad would have done and I probably would have interpreted it exactly the same way you did.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you what was going on,” Peter said, compulsively needing to accept his share of the blame. “I’m just- I’m not used to having people I can trust without them trying to control me.” The amount of honesty and vulnerability made Peter’s cheeks flush.
“Looks like we need some better communication, huh?” Tony asked.
Peter nodded.
“Well we can all work on that,” Pepper intervened. She smiled. “I’m super proud of both of you for talking and resolving your problems. Very mature.”
Tony gave a horrified gasp. “Pep! How could you call me that? The betrayal!”
He was still shaky from the conversation, but Peter still managed a small smile at Tony’s theatrics. Maybe everything could and would get better.
Epilogue
One month later, Peter’s life in Avenger’s tower had drastically improved. He was accepting slightly more help from his housemates. He had his suit back. Tony invited him down to the lab more often and they were quickly redeveloping their relationship.
What had not improved in the slightest was school. More particularly, homework. Clearly the teachers were still making up for all the work they hadn’t assigned during homecoming season, because in the span of three weeks his History class had covered an entire unit on WWII and the test was coming up all too quickly.
Peter had no idea how he was going to learn it all on time, he thought, as he made his way back to the tower in the slightly nippy air.