Chapter Text
Peter Parker grinned as he easily dodged yet another fist. It was almost like fighting in slow motion with this guy. Peter told him so, which only served to further anger the big lug. Peter flipped over the thug’s back, and loosed a string of web at him. With another leap and a swift movement of his wrist the robber flew off his feet, hanging about twenty feet off the ground.
Peter stuck himself to the opposite wall to watch him struggle and curse.
“Yeah, I’d be careful with that. You’re only hanging on by a thread there pal, and it’s quite a long way down,” Peter whistled to better illustrate his point.
The would-be-robber instantly froze where he dangled as he realized just where he was. Peter wasn’t cruel though. He’d thoughtfully placed the robber over an open dumpster that way he’d have a nice soft place to land in the slim chance that he ended up falling. It also had the benefit of giving him something nice to smell while waiting for the police to pick him up.
“Maybe a little time out will help you learn your lesson about robbing nice old ladies,” Peter mimicked the way one would speak to a preschooler.
“When I get free, I’m going to kill you, you freak!” the thug roared.
“All right, buddy, good luck with that. Now, I have much better places to be than listen to your generic bad guy rant of causing my downfall. I’ve heard every variation these past few weeks, and its gotten old really quickly,” Peter muttered.
With that he climbed to the roof of the building. He ran to the edge and threw himself off the side. A large grin stretched across his face as he fell. The rush of air was exhilarating, knowing that he was perfectly safe and in control even as he plummeted sixty feet. At the last possible moment he shot out a string of webbing at the nearest building. He was yanked upwards, and suddenly he was swinging through the air.
Peter had been Spider-Man for almost a month now, and he was really beginning to feel like he was making a difference in the city. He was helping people just like his mom did. He made his way through the city, keeping an eye and ear out for anyone who might need some help from their Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man.
For the moment Peter just enjoyed swinging through the air, stretching his muscles. There were no immediate threats at the moment. He hadn’t known what he’d been missing; swinging around as Spider-Man. He’d wished he’d done it sooner. It was only after his Uncle Ben’s death that he’d finally decided to do something with his abilities despite certain promises to his mother to the contrary.
A loud piercing shriek cut through his thoughts. Peter’s senses instantly locked on the sound, and his body automatically adjusted itself to start moving towards the cry.
As Peter got closer to the source of the screaming he was better able to identify that the screams belonged to a terrified female. She was crying out for help. Peter flipped over the last building and landed firmly at its edge. He peered down into the darkened alleyway to assess the situation. A man in a hooded sweatshirt was attempting to viciously yank a bag out of a blonde woman’s hands while she valiantly struggled to hold on.
Peter dropped easily off the side of the tall building, landing silently behind the would-be purse-snatcher. He sent a swift, but gentle for him, kick at the back of the thief’s knees that sent him sprawling to the dirty alleyway. He followed the kick with several quick shots of webbing to keep the robber down. Peter didn’t like to mess around as much when there was still a civilian close by. He did his best to take out the threat as quickly as possible. Teasing of the thug could come after the victim was safe.
“Are you all right, ma’am? Do you need—” Peter stopped abruptly when he got a good look at the woman he’d supposedly been saving.
She had removed a blonde wig to reveal dark red curly hair, and all too familiar bright emerald green eyes. Peter felt his heart sink a bit. He recognized her only too well, and he knew she knew exactly who he was too.
“Hi, mama, I didn’t know you were going to be back so soon,” Peter babbled nervously, hoping calling her mama would remind her of the times when he had been smaller and cuter.
His mother crossed her arms over her chest, and lifted one eyebrow, clearly unimpressed. Grown men had run away in terror at that look. Peter had been on the receiving end of that look enough to only experience a mild sensation of terror.
“So… how much trouble am I in?” Peter shifted apprehensively underneath her sharp stare.
“So much,” she answered.
“Um, can you get me out of this stuff before you start with the lecturing? It’s not exactly the most comfortable position,” a voice called.
Peter turned his attention back to the ‘purse-snatcher’. The fake thief had managed to role over onto his back, providing Peter with a clear view of his face. Peter recognized him as well.
“Oh, right, my bad,” Peter reached down to cut him free. “How are you, Clint?”
“I’m good, kid. How are you?” the archer replied as he stood up, and quickly brushed himself off. He grimaced when he had to pick some of Peter’s webbing out of his short, dark blonde hair.
“I’m pretty good. I was in the science fair last week at school. I made a model of—”
“Little Spider, you know how much I love hearing about your projects. However, right now you’re stalling, and we need to have a conversation,” his mom cut him off.
“Okay,” Peter shoulders slumped in defeat.
Sometimes Peter really disliked having a mother who was also a super spy. But then he’d known it wouldn’t exactly be hard for his mom to put the pieces together when a new spider themed superhero cropped up. However, he’d been hoping that he would at least have had a little bit more time before she found out. She and her partner, Clint Barton AKA Hawkeye, were supposed to be out of the country for at least another month on a mission.
“We’ll talk in the car,” she swept down the alleyway.
Peter and Clint followed. Clint clapped him on the back, giving his shoulder a comforting squeeze. Peter felt a surge of gratefulness towards the archer.
“I like the outfit, kid. Very colorful,” Clint praised, a teasing light in his eye.
“Thanks,” Peter flashed him a quick, appreciative grin.
A nondescript black car sat at the end of the alleyway. Clint hopped in the driver’s seat while Peter and his mom climbed in the back. Peter pulled his mask off once he was inside, running his hands through his own dark, reddish-brown curls.
His mom didn’t say anything right away, and that made him more nervous. She was obviously upset.
Peter’s mother was Natalia Alianovna Romanova more commonly known around the world as Natasha Romanoff, the Black Widow. For years she’d been an unwilling assassin and spy before escaping her handlers in order to turn over a new leaf. This was all with the help of Clint Barton who happened to make another call the day he had been asked to bring her in. For the last decade she had been one of SHIELD’s top ranking agents. More recently she had become widely known as a superhero after saving New York City from an alien invasion led by the Norse god, Loki.
His mom was an Avenger. She’d been Peter’s hero long before that, though. Since he was born his mom had been his fiercest protector. She’d done everything she could to protect him even when she had been powerless to protect herself. Without his mom Peter was certain that he wouldn’t have the life he did now. He’d either be dead or have a hit count as high as his mom’s. Both of them didn’t have the best of beginnings.
His mom had been a part of the Black Widow operative created by the Red Room, a secret Soviet organization that wasn’t exactly the most ethical of institutions. She’d been one of 28 girls forcibly trained to become assassins and spies. Some, like his mother, had even been experimented on in an attempt to build super soldiers. His mom had him when she was just 20 years old, shortly before she’d been slated to be sterilized. All of the other girls in the Black Widow program had been sterilized to avoid them forming emotional attachments. Peter had only been allowed to live because they’d hoped to turn him into a weapon as well.
But his mom hadn’t wanted that life for him, and when he was six she tried to have him smuggled out of the Red Room. They had been caught, however.
Peter had been taken from his mother. He was taken to another facility far away from his mother, and given to scientists who experimented on him in hopes of making him a better weapon. Peter had spent the worst year of his life in the scientists’ hands. He’d mostly been able to move on from it thanks to all of the support, and guidance he received after returning to his mother. However, he did still have nightmares about the experience.
Peter also ended up getting superpowers out of the deal. Not because of anything that the scientists had done. No, he’d accidentally been bitten by one of the scientist’s side projects, a genetically altered spider, when it had escaped from its tank. Everyone else who had been unfortunate enough to be bitten by the escaped spiders had died a painful death so the scientists, not wanting to lose all of the work they had put into Peter, put him in cryostasis. The scientists had hoped freezing him would keep him alive long enough for them to find a cure.
More important things cropped up, and Peter’s case had been continuously pushed to the back burner until any thoughts of reviving him was completely scrapped. For thirty-four years he remained frozen. During that time his mom had escaped the Red Room, and thanks to the enhancements they had given her she still looked like she was in her twenties. She had also thought he was dead until a couple of SHIELD agents unearthed his cryotube in an abandoned Soviet bunker while on a routine mission.
They had carefully thawed him out, and to everyone’s surprise Peter survived the defrosting. He’d even come out of the cryotube with spider-like abilities, which included super strength, speed, sticking to anything and everything, a near precognitive ability to sense danger, and producing his own webbing from spinnerets on his wrists.
SHIELD reunited him with his mom, and Peter had never seen her cry so hard as she did when the two of them were brought back together. After all for Peter it had only been a year since he’d last seen his mama but for her it been over three decades.
His mom didn’t want anyone knowing about him in order to protect him from her numerous enemies. The Director of SHIELD, and the two SHIELD agents who had discovered him helped her accomplish it. They completely buried their discovery of him, and destroyed any record of his existence as the son of Natasha Romanoff. They carefully crafted legal documents to create a believable backstory for him. Richard and Mary Parker, the SHIELD agents who had discovered him in the bunker, officially became his parents.
Pyotr Romanov became Peter Parker.
But that didn’t mean his mom disappeared from his life. She was still his mom, and had no intentions of ever leaving him again. The Parkers just became a part of their small family. Peter stayed with the Parkers when his mom went on missions, and he stayed with his mom when they went on missions of their own. The arrangement worked flawlessly for two years until the Parkers died in a plane crash after one of their missions.
His mom decided to put her trust in Richard Parker’s brother and his wife. Ben and May Parker were well aware of the life their in-laws led, and they were good people. They had no children of their own, and had watched Peter before when Richard, Mary, Clint, and Natasha were all unavailable. They were also more than happy to have Peter live with them when Natasha happened to be on a long-term mission. So for the last five years they had been Peter’s legal guardians, and they had become his Aunt May and Uncle Ben.
Peter spent the majority of his time with his mom, and the two of them lived in a small, undisclosed apartment in the city. His mom and he had a good relationship, and normally Peter had no problem talking to her about what was going in his life. Becoming Spider-Man was an exception.
He knew she worried about him. His mom was afraid that someone would eventually come after him because of who she was, or because they realized the experiments had been successful and he had gained super human abilities. His mom had trained him to use his abilities to help protect himself in the event that someone did come after him. But she had stressed that she only wanted him using his powers to protect himself. At least until he was an adult, and then he could make his own decisions about how he wanted to use his powers.
Peter had agreed, at least until Uncle Ben died.
“So how angry are you on a scale of one to the Hulk? Hulk being the highest,” Peter joked.
She gave him the look. Twice in one day, Peter really wasn’t liking his odds.
“I’m not mad, Peter. I am disappointed, though. We’ve talked about this so many times, and we came to an agreement. You made a promise to me, Little Spider, and now you’ve broken that promise,” Natasha reminded him.
Ouch, that stung.
“I know, mama. And I’m sorry about breaking that promise,” Peter shifted uneasily.
“Why did you?” she asked.
“At first I just wanted revenge, after Uncle Ben died. I could have easily stopped that robber with my abilities. But I was angry. Uncle Ben shouldn’t have had to try and stop him. He shouldn’t have had to get shot. He shouldn’t have had to die,” Peter’s fists clenched.
Even after all these weeks Peter still felt the bitter sting of guilt over his inaction. Uncle Ben was one of the best men he knew. He had always been putting others above himself, and he had always been then for Peter.
A look of understanding passed over her features.
“I told you, Little Spider, what happened to Ben wasn’t your fault, and that I would take care of it,” Natasha gently brushed her hand against his shoulder.
“But you got called away for a mission before you could so I thought I could take care of it myself. I wanted to find him. Make him pay for what he did. Then, I don’t know how, my revenge sort of morphed into helping people. It started with a pile up on the bridge. I saved a kid from taking a plunge off the bridge, and it felt good. I realized I could do more with my abilities than just going on a rampage for vengeance,” Peter explained.
“At least I don’t have to give you the ‘revenge doesn’t pay’ lecture,” Natasha gave a small laugh.
“Phew,” Peter wiped an exaggerated hand across his brow.
“I wish you had come to me first before you went out, and made yourself a suit of blue and red pajamas to start fighting crime,” Natasha sighed.
“Like you would have let me do it,” Peter frowned.
“To be honest I knew this was going to happen sooner or later. I guess I was just hoping it would be later. Preferably after you had a PhD,” she sent him a small smirk.
“What?” Peter frowned.
Natasha sighed. “I know how much you want to help people, and that’s incredible. Not many would do the same if they had abilities like yours. You’re an amazing kid, Little Spider, if I do say so myself. Though I may be a bit biased seeing as you’re my kid and all. I’m not exactly happy at the thought of you running around the city, putting yourself in danger. You’re only fourteen, Peter.”
“I’ll be fifteen in two months. Or if you wanted to get technical, I’ll be turning 52,” Peter argued.
“No matter how many times you bring it up, it still doesn’t count, Peter. I wanted you to focus on your education. You’re so smart. You could be an amazing scientist with that big brain of yours,” Natasha smiled proudly.
“And scientists don’t risk their lives as much as superheroes,” Peter added.
“Exactly. You’re my baby, Peter. I don’t want anything to happen to you,” his mom reached up to brush against the fading bruise on his jaw that he’d received earlier in the night from some idiot wielding a crowbar.
“It’s not like I’m asking to join the Avengers or even SHIELD. I just want to take care of the little guy. Protect them from the lowlifes in New York City. I’m realistic. Like you said I’m only fourteen, and this is more than enough for me to handle right now. In fact it would be a perfect way to see if I’m really cut out for being a hero or if it’s really something I want to do,” Peter argued his case.
His mom stared at him, her eyes roving his face. Peter kept his expression as sincere as possible to try and prove how serious he was about this. In the past few weeks he’d completely fallen in love with being Spider-Man. He didn’t want to stop helping people. He also didn’t want to get into a fight with his mom over it. But that didn’t mean he wouldn’t if he had to. Peter wasn’t going to back down from this.
His mom reached forward, tapping Clint on the shoulder to gain the archer’s attention.
“Clint, I blinked,” his mom complained to Clint.
Clint snorted, “Happens to the best of us, Nat.”
“I blinked and suddenly my Little Spider isn’t my Little Spider anymore. He’s a Spider-Man,” his mom lamented dramatically.
“Hey, I didn’t pick the name,” Peter pouted, sliding down in his seat.
“But you did make a costume with a big whooping spider on it, and you have spidery powers. What did you expect people to call you, kid?” Clint teased.
“They could have been a little more creative,” Peter mumbled.
“Back to the matter at hand. Getting into things angry like that wasn’t wise. Someone could have figured out your pattern, and you could have exposed yourself,” his mom scolded, bringing them back to the issue at hand.
“I know, I wasn’t thinking clearly. I just wanted revenge,” Peter admitted honestly.
“It looks like you’ve been able to figure things out on your own. You’re being surprisingly mature about the entire situation,” his mom praised.
“Yeah, I realized what a mistake it was, and how much more productive I could be if I was actually trying to stop crime to keep other people from losing their loved ones,” Peter explained.
“And that’s why I’m going to let you keep being Spider-Man,” his mom informed him.
“Wait? You are?” Peter gasped in shock.
“You did well. Our little set up back there was partially a test. You took Clint out surprisingly quickly, and efficiently.”
“Hey!” Clint complained.
“I don’t like you putting yourself in danger. It’s why I set the rule for you not using your powers until you were eighteen. I wanted you to have as normal a life as possible since you didn’t exactly get to start out with one. I understand why you want to do it. You have abilities and you want to help people. It’s certainly not the worst thing you could be doing with superpowers. And you’ve done a wonderful job these past few weeks on your own,” his mom finished.
“Well, I was trained by the best,” Peter sent her what he hoped was a winning smile.
“You’re still not completely getting away with this. There will be conditions, and consequences for going out on your own without my permission, breaking your promise to me,” his mom warned, narrowing her eyes on him.
Peter gulped, and Clint chuckled. Peter shot a glare at his mom’s partner.
He’d met Clint shortly after being reunited with his mom. Peter had still been pretty clingy with his mom in those early days after being unfrozen. He’d had good reason to be. He was getting over the torment he’d experienced by being a human lab rat after being ripped away from his mother, he didn’t understand English very well, and he’d spent over three decades inside a cryotube. Everything had been so new and different than he remembered before his forced sleep. He just remembered being so scared of everything and everyone around him.
But then there was Clint, this tough yet goofy guy who stepped right in, and seemed to just get what he was going through. He cajoled Peter into playing games with him, and taught him sign language. When Peter was feeling overwhelmed he would take him to a quiet, unoccupied room, and he would just tell him stories through sign. Peter had quickly grown attached to the archer, and Clint had been a big part of his life ever since. When the archer had kids of his own they had all become one big extended family. Peter and his mom spent a couple of weeks with the Barton family on their farm during the summer months.
“So what’s my punishment?” Peter asked hesitantly.
“For the next two weeks you are going to suspend your activities as Spider-Man so that we can run through an intensive training routine,” his mom replied primly.
Peter groaned, already imagining the agony he was about to be put through. Getting beaten up by street thugs was nothing compared to the smack down his mom could dish out.
“Better you than me, kid,” Clint teased.
Peter muttered angrily in Russian under his breath.
His mom poked him in the ribs, and gave him a teasing look.
Peter sighed and flashed a smile. He knew he was actually getting off pretty lightly all things considered.
“You will also continue to keep your grades up and if you run into anything more than just a run of the mill robbery, you get out of there and you call me,” her tone brokered no arguments.
“Anything weird, I call you, got it,” Peter agreed easily.
“Good, and you can bet I’ll be keeping a close eye on you,” Natasha swore.
“Do you have to tell Fury?” Peter worried.
“Ah, don’t worry about it, kid. He probably already knows,” Clint teased.
“Ugh,” Peter sighed, of course he did. At least he could trust the Director of SHIELD not to tell anyone or to put the information in SHIELD’s files. “So how was the mission?”
“It wasn’t bad. Going undercover is a lot harder now that our faces are plastered over the Internet,” his mom harrumphed.
“The age of cellphone cameras, and facial recognition software in the hands of pre-teens,” Clint agreed.
The three of them finally arrived at Natasha and Peter’s small but nice two-bedroom apartment in Queens. It was only a block down from his Aunt May’s place. Peter left his Aunt May a message to let her know he would be staying with his mom tonight. He didn’t want her to worry when she woke up the next morning, and found out he wasn’t there. Clint stayed on the couch since it was so late, and he needed to sleep before making the trip out to the farm his family lived on. His mom made her way into her bedroom for the night, and Peter crashed in his own room.
He was still a little shocked at how the night had turned out. Peter had to say it was a relief that his mom knew the truth now, and she hadn’t seemed too upset about everything. He knew she worried about him but how could he not want to become a superhero after seeing her save the world? The important part was that she wasn’t going to stop him from being Spider-Man even though there were some restrictions to his new recreational activity.
Peter settled down in his bed, and drifted off to sleep with ease.
The next morning he woke to the smell of pancakes. The growling demands of his stomach had him pulling himself from the warm nest of his bed despite the fact that it was a Saturday.
His mom was making pancakes while Clint was still asleep on the couch. Peter stopped on his way to the kitchen to tickle one of Clint’s exposed feet. Hawkeye shot up from the couch, yanking his foot out of Peter’s reach, a betrayed expression on his face.
“Don’t start something you can’t finish, kid,” Clint signed with smirk.
Peter stuck out his tongue in retaliation.
“Oh, so it’s like that,” Clint said as he pulled himself up off the couch.
Peter prepared to dart out of the way.
“I swear sometimes I feel like I have two children,” his mom said not even bothering to turn her attention away from her task of stacking pancakes.
Natasha set the plate of pancakes on their small kitchen table. Peter grabbed extra plates, and silverware. The three of them settled down to eat breakfast.
“So how did you get your webbing to shoot out like that? I didn’t think you had that much range,” Clint observed.
Peter naturally produced his steel like webbing from small spinnerets on his wrists but it didn’t shoot very far. There was also a limit to how much he was capable of producing at one time. So he had built his web shooters from spare parts he’d collected to be able to propel his webbing over a longer distance, and to hold cartridges of extra webbing in the event that he ran out while patrolling.
“I’ll show you,” Peter grabbed his web shooters from the mess that was his room.
He passed the web shooters over to Clint for inspection
“What are these even made out of?” Clint questioned.
“I think there are some parts from an old doorbell, a toaster, and just some other random parts I could find,” Peter explained with a shrug.
Peter had always been a collector and a tinkerer. His mom was always willing to buy him the things he needed like a new laptop for school or a cell phone. But Peter found that he enjoyed finding the things people had thrown away because they were broken or outdated, and trying to improve them on his own. It was a challenge, and Peter didn’t feel so guilty if his improvement didn’t work out and it ended up breaking or in some cases blowing up in his face, sometimes literally.
“Stark would have a complete melt down if he heard that,” Clint snorted.
Natasha looked smug.
Even though his mom was the Black Widow, and Hawkeye was like an uncle to him he still couldn’t help but fanboy a little over the other Avengers. He’d known his mom all of his life. She was his mom first, and it was the same with Clint. But it was different with the other Avengers. He’d never met them, he only had the stories in the media to go on, and he was just as in awe of them as everyone else. If he knew them personally like he did with his mom and Clint it probably would be different.
“How is Mr. Stark after that whole getting his house blown up and then blowing up his own suits thing?” Peter wondered.
Clint snorted and Natasha rolled her eyes in exasperation.
“He’s rebuilding,” Natasha answered simply.
Tony Stark wasn’t exactly his mom’s favorite person. She didn’t dislike him either, just was more apathetic to him. His mom had been assigned to watch over Tony Stark shortly after he’d announced to the world that he was Iron Man. They’d had a somewhat tense relationship after he found she’d been sent to spy on him for SHIELD.
“Right. So what are your plans?” Peter asked the two of them.
“Well, I’m going to head out to the farm for some well deserved down time, spend some time with the wife and kids,” Clint grinned.
“I’ve got nothing scheduled for the next month. So I’ll be here,” Natasha smiled.
“We can finally have the Parks and Recreations marathon,” Peter enthused.
“After your two week training, which will start this afternoon,” Natasha reminded him.
Peter drooped a bit; although, he was well aware that more training never hurt, and there was no one better than his mom to help him.
Clint left shortly after breakfast to head home. Peter and his mom changed into running clothes, and the two of them started off on a run through the city. His mom’s version of the super serum had given her a prolonged life, it made her slightly stronger than the average person, and she had an increased endurance.
The two of them ran until Peter felt like he might pass out. Only then did she stop, and take him to an abandoned gym the two of them used to train in before. They ran through some drills that left Peter feeling even more exhausted before they finally moved on to an actual sparring session. Peter ended up with getting his butt kicked. They rounded out the day of training with Natasha and he going over tactics, and evasive maneuvers.
Peter would have liked to crash back on his bed but he had to finish up his homework first.
“This is how it’s going to be, Peter, if you commit to this. It’s going to be hard. You’re going to have to balance schoolwork with going out as Spider-Man. You’ll be tired, and you’ll be more stressed,” Natasha pointed out.
“I know, I’ve dealt with it for the past month,” Peter assured.
“I just want you to be prepared. I know I haven’t made the best example of not getting yourself into dangerous situations,” Natasha flopped down on the couch beside him.
“You’re an awesome mom,” Peter assured her.
“Thanks, Little Spider,” she reached over to ruffle his hair. “I think you’ll make a wonderful superhero.”
“Yeah?”
“You’ve already done a pretty amazing job,” she praised.
“Thanks,” Peter smiled.
“Anytime, Little Spider,” she bumped her shoulder against his.
The next two weeks were a little rough. His mom really increased the level of his training. She didn’t go easy on him at all, and at first Peter struggled under the training schedule alongside going to school. But Peter was determined to keep being Spider-Man, and he pushed himself to prove to his mom that he could do it.
At the end of the two weeks his mom gave him the go ahead to go back out as Spider-Man. Peter hadn’t realized how much having her blessing meant, and he felt so much more confident as he was once more turned loose onto the streets of New York City. His mom had also gotten her hands on some new material for his spider suit. It allowed him the same freedom of movement as his spandex did, and yet it would also stop a bullet. His mom had wanted to make sure he was as protected as possible while he was out swinging through the streets.
His mom kept her word, and she kept a close eye on him the weeks following his return to being Spider-Man. She never interfered with what he was doing, which he was really grateful for. His mom let him make his own mistakes, and learn from them. Peter could always trust that she would help him go over those mistakes to allow him to do better next time.
Peter was beginning to really become confident in his new role, and he could see that his mom was also feeling more confident about it as well. She slowly began to go on missions again, trusting that he could look out for himself.
It made Peter hopeful for his future as Spider-Man.