Chapter Text
Some things in Peter’s life were consistent. Peter liked consistent. Like how Peter and May would meet to catch up once every week, at the same place, same time, and they’d even order the same food. School was consistent; there was homework, tests, friends, bullies, drama, and quizzes— those things varied individually, but overall Peter would call them consistent factors in his life. Steve and Tony were consistent; they each trained him in their own separate specialties, pouring their love upon him in their unique ways. Tony was more of a skills builder, mental challenger, mind pusher. Steve helped Peter grow more in physical strength, yet always stressed that it was imperative that his goodness mirror his physical increasing tone.
Consistency.
Ice cream on Mondays with Tony.
Thai food Tuesdays with May.
Culture-catchup movie nights on Wednesdays with Steve.
Thursday’s, he and Ned always hung out after school. MJ had even started joining them, much to Peter’s unspoken delight.
Consistency.
Other things, however, were a little more inconsistent. Erratic. Uncontrolled.
Yet these parts were just as appreciated and important in Peter’s life; in fact, his Avengers family would probably say he was a major contributor to the spontaneity of the tower’s atmosphere.
For instance, Peter never knew when his studying sessions would be interrupted by Clint, Sam, Bucky, or a mixture or all of the three.
These adventures have come to include a 3 am trip to the hockey rink, where they played hockey but with a ball while wearing tennis shoes. A game of paintball played blindfolded. Go carts with a temporary Bucky speed modification. And of course the recent tour Peter took of Stark Industries, accompanied by Sam and Bucky pretending to be his embarrassing guardians or something.
These were the good inconsistencies in Peter’s life.
Then there were the not-so-good surprises.
The sensory overload days.
The nightmare-filled nights.
And whatever today was, apparently.
He’d woken up, gripping the side of the bed to get up and immediately dented the metal bedpost as if it were made from a cardboard role. He’d initially thought something was wrong with the pole, like maybe it had melted or it was another prank of Clint’s, but shrugged it off to worry about later (don’t come at him, it’s early).
Going brush his teeth, he encountered more faulty material. For some reason, his toothbrush snapped in two right in his hand, promptly before the glass in his other hand shattered.
Peter frowned. Maybe this had to do with the weather. Global warming. MJ and her theories and science immediately came to mind. He’d ask his friends if they were experiencing any weird things, too.
But first, breakfast.
After the spontaneous destruction of three drawer knobs, his bathroom door handle, and the entire closet door coming off his hinges, Peter made his way to the kitchen, now more cautious and afraid of whatever was happening.
He entered the already occupied room nearly tip-toeing, afraid of causing anything else to break. He walked around the table, acquiring the attention of the room’s members.
“Hi Peter,” Clint greeted from where he was sitting with Bucky and Bruce, and pushed the plate filled with scrambled eggs so that it slid towards the chair where Peter normally sat. Peter thanked him, carefully slipping his chair away from the table as if there were a deck of cards balanced in a tower on the seat. It was harder than it looked, considering the chair felt as light as a card from said deck. If anyone noticed his strange behavior, they didn’t say anything.
Tony’s voice got louder as he rounded the corner into the kitchen; “the sleeping beauty awakens,” he said, “you should be good for the next few days on sleep, right? I’d like your help figuring out how we could modify the tech for our upcoming mission.”
Peter smiled and shrugged. “I wish sleep rolled over like that, I’d be up for weeks,” he admitted, “but day-by-day'll have to do for now.” He received a raised eyebrow from Bruce for that comment; Bruce was always encouraging Peter to eat and sleep enough.
Looking at the team now, nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Nothing was breaking, no one was taking extra precautions, this was a 100% normal breakfast. For them. Which meant this was a Parker Luck Problem.
He sat down and picked up the plate of eggs. Well, he meant to, anyway. Where his hand touched the ceramic plate, it seemingly gave in, and the dish shattered.”
He froze, feeling the group’s eyes all turn onto him. “Oops.”
Clint and Bucky laughed. He saw Tony roll his eyes, a slight smile in his face. Bruce immediately stood and offered to help.
Peter sat in his chair, arms curled into himself. He didn’t move even when Steve, Natasha, Wanda, and Sam joined the team at the table, increasing the rooms energy.
Peter only sighed when another plate of food was placed in front of him.
“Eat up, we’ve got a mission today,” Tony said encouragingly, before walking back to join in the conversation with the others.
Peter picked the fork up as gently as he could with two delicate fingers, and shrugged. “I don’t want to go.”
The room immediately went quiet. “What?” Tony sounded confused. Both Sam and Natasha’s faces held more concern.
“I don’t want to go on the mission.” He took the bite of food, not looking up at his teammates worried and curious faces.
Finally Sam spoke up. “Why don’t you want to go, Peter?”
Peter shrugged. Tony started to say something about the broken plate of eggs, but Sam stopped him. “Please give us something, Peter, we just want to make sure you’re okay. We can leave the room if you want to talk one on one.”
He felt stupid, now. It’s not like he was sick or injured or something.
He shrugged. “You don’t have to leave. Nothing's wrong, though.” He stopped. Maybe they’d leave it at that. He could practically hear Tony’s face take on an expression of disbelief.
Sam spoke again. “If you’re okay, then we’re okay,” he said kindly, “but this is just different behavior for you. Did something happen that made you not want to go on missions? You usually love going with us. You’re part of the team.”
Peter shook his head. “I don’t want to stop going on missions, I just don’t want to go today. I think— I don’t feel—“ he frowned, trying to put his problem into words without actually saying anything, “Something’s off, and I just want to fix it.”
“Something’s off?” Tony asked, “like health-wise?”
Peter quickly shook his head. “No.” He saw Dr. Banner frown; Peter had seen that look before after a mission-gone-messy, and knew it meant that he didn’t quite believe Peter’s self-diagnosis. “I don’t think so, anyways.” Which was true. Maybe there was a medical explanation for his sudden loss of control over his strength.
Tony’s face relaxed a bit, though; “you don’t have to go if you don’t want to. We’ve got those projects in the lab you’re welcome to work on.”
Peter didn’t respond. He couldn’t imagine trying to handle the fine tools in the lab when he couldn’t even handle a toothbrush.
The team still looked at him expectantly, and he decided to somewhat give in. He really did want to go on the mission, after all. Now that he’d thought about it, he really didn’t know what he’d do if he didn’t. He couldn’t even run tests to find out what was wrong. Although—
“I— uh, I failed a test.” Bingo. That should work.
No one's face changed. Not a twitch of an expression. Not until Clint’s laugh broke the silence.
They all looked like they were debating whether or not to believe him, but Peter knew that this was something he could get away with. They knew how he was about school, homework, and tests, yet he’d never gotten below a B- on anything while living with them (and that was just a pop-quiz the day after a night he’d decided to patrol rather than study!).
This was new Peter-material for them, and totally believable at that.
He decided he’d go on the mission. Super-strength was one of his superpowers, right? If he wanted to hide an uncontrolled superpower, then going to the place where it was expected was actually perfect. He could play around and figure it out while fighting some bad guys and saving the day.
He genuinely smiled now, and knew they’d know it was a truthful one.
The day was beginning to sound a lot more promising — and interesting, then Peter had thought it would be.
Steve cleared his throat, drawing everyone’s attention to him; it was time to go over the plan.
This is where the fun begins , Peter thought.