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Peter lazily waved a hand towards the closet, summoning a shirt towards himself. One hand pulling a shirt over his head and the other awkwardly zipping up a backpack, Peter stumbled out into the kitchin. There, Aunt May sat stirring a cup of tea and reading “The Oracle”. She raised an eyebrow at Peter’s disheveled look and pushed over a pepper up potion.
“Did you stay up all night again?” May said as Peter eagerly drank the pepper up. “You know, if balancing a job, an internship and going to high school is too much, you’re free to drop one or two.”
Peter set the empty bottle down. “I know May. I promise I’ll drop one if it gets too much.” The truth was that balancing Midtown and his job at the apothecary wasn’t the problem. The real reason for his lack of sleep was really Spider-Man, but really, if May thought it was school+job, Peter really wasn’t correcting her.
So he said a short goodbye to May and apparated to Uncommon Goods : potion shop and apothecary. With a light crack, Peter landed in the back room. Quickly pulling his robe on, he walked out in search of Ms. Mazel - the owner. As soon as he opened the door, Peter saw her bustling around the shop, stocking new ingredients and potions.
When she saw him, she smiled. “Morning Peter, the shop’s opening in 15 minutes. Would you mind going down to check on the brewing potions?”
“You got it.” Peter walked downstairs to the brewing room and checked the cauldrons. Some needed to be altered a tad bit (heat lowered, raised, some scales added here and there, a stir or two) but in all, everything seemed to be alright. While he was pretty young (youngest to graduate Ilvermorny in a century actually), his potion skills were already known in the East Coast. Thus, soon after Peter sped through school after Ben’s death (May said to channel his grief into happiness, it’s not his fault that he channeled it all in to potions, leading to his early graduation at age 15), he was snatched up by Ms. Mazel (one of the three potion mistresses with a contract to MACUSA) to be her apprentice. And during the early weeks of the apprenticeship and Spider-Man days, Peter found the need to have a cause for staying in the no-maj world, leading to his decision to attend high school. Peter mused over his life in his head - ‘wow does that sound like a book’. He walked back up to the shop and gave a thumbs up to Ms. Mazel.
“Thank you Peter. I was thin- Oh here comes the morning rush. Peter, would you helping the customers?” And from then till the late afternoon, the shop was a rush of people coming in to ask for advice, potions, contracts, and ingredients. Afterwards, Ms. Mazel approached Peter again.
“Peter?” Peter stopped sorting the mandrake leaves and turned towards Ms. Mazel. “I missed the chance to talk to you this morning.” She motioned Peter to the back and took a sit on one side of the table and motioned Peter to sit down as well. Ms. Mazel pulled out a folder and laid it out in front of Peter. “Now, I’m sure you’ve heard about all the superhero actions in New York. I got this request yesterday from MACUSA. They, due to the high magical incidents and risk of exposure due to the Avenger missions, want to reveal the magical world to the Avengers. While no forces will be lent to the Avengers, MACUSA will be providing research and supplying them with potions and other magical means of enhancements.”
“And they want us to brew the potions?”
“They want us to brew the potions.” As Peter moved to ask what was the problem, Ms. Mazel spoke again. “And due to the odd nature of the Avengers, we will have to go and meet them in order to custom design some potions. Afterall, we don’t quite know how gamma rays react with some ingredients.” Ms. Mazel stood up and further pushed the folder into Peter’s hand. “Unless you really want to meet the Avengers, you don’t have to accompany me. But I would appreciate your help in designing potions for them.”
“Uhh…”
Ms. Mazel smiled slyly. “Of course, you’d be paid for the extra work.”
Peter smiled back uncertainly. “Yeah, I can help. I’ll just stay behind on the Avenger interview session though.”
Ms. Mazel’s smile brightened. “Thank you Peter. Now, I’ve kept you over your shift time - do you need anything for your potion project?”
“Nope, I’m good. I’ll see you tomorrow Ms. Mazel!” With that, Peter apparated back to his bedroom. Discarding his robes then his clothes, Peter shimmied into his spider suit and vaulted himself out the window.
His life was so fucked. Like what the literal fuck. What was the chance that he would have to get involved with the Avengers both ways - as Peter Parker and the potion apprentice? He was thankful, of course, that he wasn’t required to show up at the meeting, but that didn’t mean that this was a mess.
After breaking up a robbery, helping an old lady carry bags into the house, and finding a girl’s father, Peter headed back home. When he entered through the door, May was nowhere to be seen. Rather curious, Peter raised his wand and chanted, “Expecto Patronus”. A silvery slow loris materialized in front of Peter. “May, I’m home - not quite sure where you happen to be - but I’ll be here, I guess. I hope nothing’s wrong at St. Milan.”
Patronus sent, Peter padded into his room to start on his homework. The work itself was pretty easy. Even though he entered high school at age 15, Peter had been keeping up with basic education with the Horned Serpent kids and with some wit-sharpening potions and few all nighters, he was able to catch up to the load at Midtown. What kept him up until midnight, however, was the constant worrying of the tangle of his civilian, magical, and vigilante life.
Well, this is going to be interesting.
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It happened when Peter was working at the Tower. He’d been expecting the ball to drop for a while now, 2 weeks was too long of a time for nothing to happen.
Mr. Stark confidently walked into the lab and smiled. “Underoos, I’ve got a surprise for you.”
Peter perked up. A surprise usually meant a new equipment to mess around with or Thor had come to visit the tower. “Is Thor here?”
“Kid, you wound me.” Mr. Stark rolled his eyes. “I supply you with all the cool stuff you could ever need and your first reaction is to ask if blondie is here?”
Peter shrugged off the comment. “Well is he?”
Mr. Stark motioned Peter to follow him and walked outside. “He is, but that’s not the thing I wanted to show you.” Mr. Stark led Peter to the elevator and pressed floor 43 - the Avenger offices. “A new player has come into the field for the avengers. They aren’t evil or anything, rather, they offered their assistance in exchange for secrecy of their community.”
Peter internally grimaced. This was starting to sound familiar.
Unaware of Peter’s internal commotion, Mr. Stark continued. “They wanted to restrict the knowledge to Avengers only, but I pulled some strings and included a few other people to be in the contract.” The elevator stopped and Peter and Mr. Stark stepped out. “And as the Avenger intern and as the only mechanic I’m gonna let near any of the Avenger tech, I included you in the contract. Any problem kiddo?”
As much as Peter wanted to yell out to the world that there was a problem, he couldn’t. If he did, Mr. Stark was likely to get suspicious - and if he didn’t, Natasha certainly would. “Nope, sounds good.” This was not gonna turn out well. Hopefully, none of the people sent by MACUSA would recognize him - and if they did, hopefully they would have the sense to shut up about it.
Within a minute of walking, they reached a large conference room. As Peter stepped in, he could practically feel the wards clogging the room. MACUSA wasn’t taking this meeting lightly at all which means that - yep, there they were. Soren Graves, the head of magical law enforcement, Annastasia Kowalski, the head of no-maj relations, and Loriel Mazel, the finest potion mistress. Consequently, Peter had gone to school with 2 of them (Soren and Anna, who took him under their wing after hearing some students bully Peter over his orphan status for the year they shared) and the other was his mentor.
He was so screwed, but at least they knew how to keep a straight face.
As he walked in, he plastered a shy smile on his face and waved. “Hi, it’s nice to meet you.” Peter really hoped they wouldn’t call him out on the fact that they had met before.
The three magicals simply nodded (Peter could have sworn he saw Anna’s eyebrows lightly arch for a scant second).
Fury gestured for everyone (wow practically all of the avengers were here) to take a seat. “As I said before, these are the representatives of MACUSA, or the Magical Congress of the United States of America. They will be assisting us out of field, and only on field in global emergencies.”
There weren’t any unexpected tidbits of information in the brief. Just introductions and small tweaks to the contract. To be honest, Peter was zoning out until he heard a familiar voice.
“And the boy, is he also an Avenger? He seems a bit too young.” Graves looked straight at Peter. Peter felt a slight push against is occlumency shields; recognizing it as Graves, he let it pass. ‘What the fuck Parker. We will be talking about this.’
Oof, Graves was pretty pissed. Oops.
Tony raised an eyebrow. “Nah, Peter here’s my personal intern. He somehow wiggled his way into the lives of the avengers and now he fixes the tech for us with me. Without him, I’d be backlogged for at least another month. And without him knowing about this magic stuff, he wouldn’t be able to tinker with me anymore.”
Graves nodded, then stood. “I see, thank you for your answer.” As the other magicals started to rise, he spoke again. “If you wish to contact me again, my address in on your paper. A simple paper airplane will do.” With that, the wizards apparated away.
Tony rolled his eyes. “You know, I thought it would be more owls and bibidi bobidi boo than paper airplanes.”
Natasha leaned backwards into her chair “Does that mean you accept the existence of magic now?”
“Not a chance Natashalie. Magic is just science that hasn’t been explained yet.” He looked towards Bruce. “Right Bruce?”
Bruce fondly rolled his eyes. “I don’t know Tony. They seemed pretty… magical to me.”
“Tis true.” Thor nodded sagely, a strange look considering he looked like a golden retriever. “I have heard great things about these midgardian magicians. They’re adventures and heroics and truly magnificent.”
“Blasphemy!”
“It doesn’t matter if you think magic isn’t real Stark.” Fury glared around the table. “These are some powerful people. We’re lucky they choose to work with us - which means that you will not be offending them in any way.”
“Aye aye Captain.” Tony smiled, his lips tilting up in a lazy way. “Come on Peter. Let’s prove all these believers wrong.”
With a small wave, Peter followed Mr. Stark out the door, and down into the lab. As they went over schematics for the incorporation of technomancy, Peter felt surreal. Like what even was his life anymore?
He, a wizard, was working with Mr. Stark in order to prove the validity of his own existence. Peter wasn’t even gonna try to make sense of this situation.
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When he entered his and May’s apartment, Peter saw May sitting at the table with - oh hello Ms. Mazel, Soren, and Anna.
Peter tried for a smile (pretty sure it didn’t look like it though). “Hey guys, what’s up?”
Anna simply rolled her eyes. “You know, you could have at least told Mazel that you were working with the Avengers.”
“And with you already in the Avengers, the connection could have gone much easier and less paperwork.” Soren said.
“But we understand that you probably have a lot of NDAs against you and all.” Ms. Mazel stated. “We’re not going to tell you to reveal yourself to the Avengers. That’s not really our job. But as soon as you choose to do so, and feel free to really, we would love for you to be a part of the group handling the Avengers affairs - which really boils down to me and a few other people with charms and rune skills.”
Peter absentmindedly tucked a hair behind his ear. “Uh, yeah. Sure. I’m probably not gonna for a long time, but I’ll keep that in mind.” Hell no. Spiderman + wizard work = mess.
Soren nodded. “Well that’s all we really had to say.” Then his eyes softened just a tiny bit. “If you need anything, any help, I hope you know that we’re here for you okay?”
Peter smiled back. “Yeah, I know.” He waved as the three wizards apparated away, then turned to May.
May simply continued to sip her tea. “So that happened.”
“Yeah….”
“Are you gonna do anything about it?”
Peter sighed. “I honestly don’t know. I have a lot of things I need to think about and my schedule is busy enough without adding this.”
“Yes, being Spiderman does take up a lot of time.”
“That too. I don’t really-” then it registered what she said. “WAIT I’m not Spiderman.” Peter fumbled around with his words. “I just help him around and take his pictures for my insta.”
May rolled her eyes. “Please Peter. We do have wards around this house. Do you think I didn’t notice you sneaking around town?”
Peter pouted. “I mean, I hoped so.” Then he turned serious. “Are you gonna stop me from spidermaning?”
“If I could I would have a long time ago. You’re too much like your father - hooked on a dream and stubborn as a mule.” May took out her wand. “Who do you think has been enchanting the suit? You can’t enchant for your life Peter.”
“Thanks May.” Peter stood and looked around awkwardly. It was way past his patrol time. “I’m gonna go up to my room-”
“You mean go on patrol?”
“No..” he sighed. “Yeah. I’ll try to tell you when I go out from now on.”
May smiled. “I do appreciate it. And when you get hurt, come straight to me. I’m not a mediwitch for nothing you know.”
With a quick hug and change into his suit, Peter leaped out of the window. While the meeting hasn’t gone as he thought it would, he couldn’t say it had ended badly.
_____________________Line Break__________________________
And it was fine. Peter spent half of his time out of school and home with the Avengers and patrolling and the other half with Ms. Mazel and his potions. He finished up his third assignment (project really) for the potion master’s registry and was preparing to take the potion master qualification exam. It was actually getting pretty nice. Summer was coming up, his grades looked good, and Spiderman (for once) was getting some good reputation throughout New York.
He stepped into the Tower at precisely 10:07 am, a little early to greet Natasha, Steve, and Tony who were off on a mission somewhere in south China and were supposed to arrive around 10:30.
Peter took the elevator up to the lounge, hoping that some of the other avengers had the same thought as Peter to greet their teammates. As the door opened, the aroma of pastries and cookies assaulted Peter. Yes, someone had the same mindset - more specifically, Bucky.
“Come on grandpa, just one cookie - it’s not like Tony’s gonna miss it, you baked like a 100 and Tony doesn’t have the metabolism.” And apparently Clint also had the same idea - or he just smelled the cookies.
As Clint reached out for a cookie, Bucky snagged the cooling rack backwards. “Not a chance. You’re gonna have to wait for them to get back.”
“Hey Bucky, Clint.” Peter made himself known as he sat down on the island in the kitchen.
Bucky smiled back. “Hey kid.” He took out a small plate and placed some cookies on it with a glass of milk. “Want some cookies?”
Clint vaulted over the couch - “Why does the kid get some? I’m also a cookie wanting person here.”
“The kid’s growing jackass, have some consideration.”
“Thanks Bucky.” Peter dug into the cookies with gusto. “Oh my god - Bucky you need to open a bakery - like you could probably swindle half of NY of their salary with the cookies.”
With Clint whining in the background, the three bickered as more Avengers came down to investigate the smell and the sounds coming from the lounge. The last to come down was Bruce, his hair mussed up from sleep and a book in his hand.
“Morning Peter.” Bruce leaned back on the couch, stretching his limbs up then back down. Then he addressed the crowd. “Does anyone know when exactly Tony, Nat, and Ste-”
A blaring alarm cut him off.
“Dr. Banner, may I direct you over to the med bay?” JARVIS cut through the alarm, muting it. “Captain Rogers is injured, and the crew on the hanger aren’t sure of the cause of injury.”
Peter sat up straight. “I’ll come too.” Without giving Bruce or JARVIS time to respond, he got up and started to make his way down to the medbay.
Bruce caught up to him, and got in the elevator. “It might be pretty chaotic down there - if you’re coming, I need you to stay out of the way, alright?”
Peter nodded and they waited for the elevator to stop in tense silence. As soon as the door opened, Peter could hear the chaos in the med bay. Bruce was quickly rushed away by the doctors and Peter, alone, headed down to Steve’s room.
As soon as Peter looked in through the window, he could see what the doctors were talking about. A huge gash covered Steve’s abdomen and no matter what the doctors did the blood wasn’t stopping. Every attempt to stitch the wound would fail and the healing factor didn’t seem to be activating.
Peter leaned closer to the window. The wound… that seemed familiar actually. He was sure he’d seen it before. Now that wasn’t odd in itself, Peter had seen a lot of wounds when he had to wait for Aunt May in the hospital. A lot of healers went in and out with patients. No, he’d seen that wound somewhere else.
Oh. OH. Holy Shit.
Peter scrambled out of the seat and threw the door open, disregarding the fact that the door was locked and he, a 17 year old boy, should have not been able to open it.
“Get away from him!” Peter shouted as he pushed past all the doctors to stand beside Steve.
Bruce reached forward as if to grab Peter. “Peter, what are you-”
Peter made a sharp motion with his hand, summoning his wand from the hidden holster. “I’ll explain later. I can heal Steve. I just need you to get everyone out of this room.” Peter turned towards Steve - then back. “Call my aunt and tell her to get over here right now. Tell her that we have a code 9 emergency.”
As Bruce hesitantly proceeded to follow Peter’s directions, Peter pointed his wand at the wound and started to chant. “Vulnera Sanentur. Vulnera Sanentur. Vulnera Sanentur. Vulnera San-”
Healing really wasn’t his strong suit. Sure, he could do it, but he wasn’t better than an average wizard or witch attempting it. And Steve had been hit with sectumsempra - a curse deadly enough to be labeled code 9 - a curse that was designed to forever bleed by cutting the victim forever. It also, per all dark curses, took an immense amount of magical stamina to sustain the healing chant in order for it to be effective.
This just all boiled down to the fact that even if Peter was slowing the progression of the curse, if May didn’t come fast enough, Steve was going to die.
As time passed, mere minutes that didn’t have the rights to feel like hours, Peter could feel the other Avengers watching. But what he was waiting for didn’t come under a few minutes later, when Peter felt as if he couldn’t keep the chant any longer and felt Steve’s energy dwindling (if Steve wasn’t a supersoldier, Peter was betting Steve wouldn’t have survived this long).
With a sharp crack, May apparated into the room. Disregarding the surprise of the Avengers, she rushed towards Peter and Steve, raising her wand along the way.
“Peter, get some potions ready. I’m gonna be calling them out as I need them” May stood across from Peter, wand reflecting his. “Switch in 3, 2, 1!”
As Peter stopped chanting, out of breath and tired, May, without missing a beat, came in. Peter started to take potions out of his bag. May worked at a rate more efficient and effective than Peter. The wound was already showing signs of closing.
“Peter, blood replenisher.” Peter tapped the bottle with his wand, transporting the contents into Steve’s stomach. This repeated 4 times until May deemed Steve out of danger of dying of blood loss.
After a while, May stepped back from Steve. His wound, while still bleeding, was doing so at a much slower rate. The curse itself had been countered.
“Peter, wound cleaner and essence of dittany.” Peter handed the two small tubs to May, who placed some on Steve’s wound. With a swish of her wand, Steve’s wound was a thin scar, the only evidence of the panic before a blood covered floor that one would have been hard pressed to say it was just from one person.
Waving a cleaning charm over himself, May, and the room, Peter gestured the rest of the Avengers into the room.
Once they all made themselves comfortable around Steve’s bed, May spoke. “Captain Rogers will probably wake up in the next 3 hours or so, but he’s going to be fine. If he has any odd symptoms in the next week or so, have Peter call me down. Sectumsempra’s a nasty curse to recover from.” With that said, she stood and smiled at everyone. “Now, I was called out in the middle of my shift that St. Milan. I’ll see you at dinner Peter.” A small pop, and all evidence that May had ever been there was gone. Peter really wasn’t sure if this was revenge for not telling May about the spiderman stuff first, but if it was, he had to admit it was pretty good.
Tony spoke first. “A wizard huh?”
“Yep.” Peter would pay so much to be anywhere else right now.
“Does the delegations from the MACUSA know about you?” Natasha frowned and looked down at Peter - who was avoiding any and all eye contact. “Peter, I understand why couldn’t tell us. (wow deja vu) And we’re glad that you choose to risk your identity and heal Steve.”
“So you aren’t mad?”
Clint scoffed. “Not really? I mean annoyed, yeah, but like we get it.” Then his eyes turned more serious. “Do you need for us to keep your reveal secret? We don’t mind Peter.”
“Ah no. The delegates know I’m here. I went to school with a few of them and Ms. Mazel’s my teacher.” Peter twiddled his thumbs. “They, after seeing me at the meeting, actually wanted to make me part of the diplomatic team if I choose to reveal myself.”
“So why didn’t you?” Natasha pulled out a chair to sit down on. “What stopped you?”
Peter sighed. “It’s complicated.” By that, he meant ‘I’m spiderman’, but at this point in his life, they seemed pretty interchangeable.
“Then simplify it for us,” Bruce sat across from him. “I don’t know if you noticed, but we’ve definitely noticed your lethargy the last new few weeks Peter. At this point, you’re practically family - Peter, we’re just worried about you.”
Bruce reminded him of grandma Queenie, and other than her being a legilimens, there was no way you were keeping anything from that woman. And by extension, it was really hard to deny Dr. Banner anything when he looked that caring.
It rushed out of him at once. “SoImaybeSpiderman.”
Tony tilted his head slightly. “A little slower please?”
Natasha’s lips twitched up. “At least I won’t be the only spider than. I was getting tired of the bird bros group Clint was putting on.”
“Wait, wait, wait.” Tony swung his head towards Peter. “Underoos, you’re Spiderman?”
Peter nodded hesitantly.
“Oh man, I’ve gotta get you to come down to the lab with your suit.” Tony grinned like a loon. “I’ve been wondering how spandex of all materials was so durable.”
“Oh.” Peter grinned back - maybe they didn’t hate him after all. “That’s not spandex. That’s magic.”
“Bullshit.” Tony threw his hands into the air. “Brucie-bear can you believe the words that came out of my intern’s mouth? Magic he says, magic.” Tony pointed a single finger at Peter. “You, young man, are now and forever, until you succeed to prove the scientific base for magic, kicked out from the science bros.”
Natasha rolled her eyes. “That’s fine. Peter can join me and Barnes on our…” Natasha paused for a second. “Assassin club as you call it.”
“Sure squirt. You gotta show just some of your party tricks.” Bucky laid a solid hand over Peter’s shoulder, the weight a recurring reminder of the warmth the Avengers brought out in him.
Tony gaped. “You can’t just take away my kid like that.”
“Donno Tony, I thought you just put him out for adoption.” Bucky smirked at his boyfriend. “But if you want, I’m sure we can share custody.”
Tuning out the squabbling between Tony and Bucky (honestly the sexual tension at this point was palpable), Peter turned to the rest of the Avengers. “Thank you.”
Sam smiled. “Sure kid. Looking forward to working with you in the Tower and out on the field.”
“Yeah.” Peter breathed out (a weight lifted off of his chest) and smiled up at everyone. “Yeah, me too.”
And for the first time in forever, his life seemed a little bit easier, a little bit brighter, and a whole lot friendlier.