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Peter sat in front of the TV cross-legged as he watched the channel, his homework sitting in his lap as he watched. Mr. Stark had agreed to do a ted talk in Florida on something he had done with plastic-eating algae, Peter didn’t really understand it yet, but everyone seemed pretty excited about it, so Peter was watching anyway. It was always fun to see his mentor light up in front of people, he really did do well with crowds. Absently, he filled in the answers to his history as Tony drowned on about the chemical structure when his phone started buzzing. Confused, he looked at the caller ID, seeing Flash’s name on his screen. He couldn’t even remember why Flash had his number. Probably for a stupid group project or something. Hesitating, he answered it.
“Hello? It’s Peter.” He said, bringing the phone to his ear. The first time Tony had heard him answer his phone by screeching into the mic he almost had a heart attack.
“Ugth, hi Peter.” Flash said.
“Do you need something?” He asked with a sigh.
“Clearly. What do you thing, I called just to hear the sound of your voice? Pathetic.” Flash said with clear disdain in his voice.
“Well uh, can you… tell me?” He asked haltingly. Flash was a difficult person, and if he acted too aggressive he knew that he’d only make it worse. Flash seemed to take self-defence as a challenge.
“Fine. Mr. Harington thinks I need tutoring, which you know is ridiculous, and he said if I don’t get any he’ll bring me down a full letter grade, so I tried to think of the least effective person in the classroom and you came to mind.
“Geez, thanks.” He said drily.
“Are you that dense Parker?” Flash asked, almost growling in a way that reminded him of the petty robbers on the street, making him laugh.
“I dunno what you’re talking about.” He said sarcastically. If he had to help Flash with his homework then he was going to milk it.
“I need you to lie to him and tell him you tutored me,” Flash said bluntly, surprising Peter.
“Uh, I can’t lie to a teacher Flash! That’s against like, so many rules.” He said indignantly.
“You wouldn't be lying per se, just agreeing to my lies dipshit.” Flash re-iterated.
“Sorry, I can’t lie. Not to teachers, to anyone. Bye Flash.” He said, making to hand up.
“ Waitwaitwaitwaitwait .” Flash said through the phone, making Peter pause.
“Yeah?”
“Maybe you could, I dunno, just like, proofread what I’ve already done?” He asked. Peter paused at that, because the truth is, he didn’t want to help Flash. He’d been horrible to him, and he wanted to let his actions catch up with him. So as bad as he felt about it, he’d have to say no.
“Sure, when do you need help?”
Dammit.
“Uh, now genius.” Flash spat. He rubbed his head. This was already going to be a long day.
“Fine. I can be over in an hour.” Peter said, already packing his bag up.
“An hour? I need to study now Parker.” Flash whined.
“Goodbye Flash.” He said, hanging up. The phone went dead and he rolled off the sofa with a groan. While he was working on his motivation to get up and find a bus or something to queens again, his phone buzzed.
Man In The Chair: hey, you busy 2day??
He sighed, looking at the text for a long time before typing back.
Yep. Unless you want to tutor Flash with me.
He stared at the dots on the screen, which stayed there for almost a comically long time before his friend’s answer came through. Man in the chair: ghath! eww! no! why the hell would you help him! ugh! his name is enough to make me curl up and dye! Doesn't he live in a huge mansion or something???
Peter snorted at the text before replying. *Die. I mean I live in the Avengers Tower so…
Man in the chair: that's different tho
Why?
Man in the chair: bc your less annoying.
Peter laughed before clicking his phone off. He really did need to get moving if he wanted to get to Flash’s house anywhere near when he said he would. Scribbling a note, he walked around, looking for Bucky, who was supposed to be watching him. He eventually found him asleep next to the TV and pinned the note on his arm.
0o0o0o
Peter arrived at Flash’s door four minutes late and incredibly annoyed. He usually enjoyed the subway, but four or five men stopped him asking for drug money- not even pretending it was for something else, by the way, just straight up asked for money to buy meth- and two people tried to pickpocket him. Aside from that, it just seemed like a rough day for the driver, because one person jumped in front of the car while it was driving, stalling them for 15+ minutes, and someone pulled a gun. Actually, they had tried to. As soon as Peter figured out what was going to happen, he grabbed the gun from his pocket, replacing it with a hunk of trash on the floor. Once the man saw what happened, he flew into a rage, smashing windows and screaming.
Okay, so maybe he could see why Mr. Stark hated him riding the subway.
“You’re late,” Flash said by way of welcome.
“Hi, Flash,” Peter said, stepping inside. Instantly, the whole house gave him a headache. He wasn’t sure why, but something in the air felt like it was attacking his senses. Shaking his head, he swung his backpack off his shoulder and followed Flash to an expensive sofa.
“Okay, what do you want my help on?” He asked, rubbing his head with one hand as he looked through his backpack.
“I can’t memorize anything,” Flash said with a glare. Peter bite his lip to keep himself from his sarcastic comment at that because Flash seemed to have no problem memorizing tictoc handles.
“Well… you can , but you’re struggling to remember things?” He rephrased.
“No, I literally can’t memorize anything,” Flash said, plopping back on the sofa and turning his TV on.
“Okay, how about I quiz you.” He sudjusted, pulling out his own notecards for the class.
“Whatever.”
“Great. Describe nuclear charge and the concept of effective nuclear charge.” He read.
“Uh, nuclear is like, super reactive, right? So nuclear charge reacts with the effective nuclear charge?” Flash said.
Peter wanted to bash his head in right there. “No… so like, a nuclear charge is the amount of positive charge in a nucleus, right? Which is the same as the number of protons in the nucleus, and so the concept of effective nuclear charge is that inner (core) electrons shield the outer electrons from the nuclear charge? And so then the outer electrons are attracted by a nuclear charge that is approximately equal to the number of valence electrons and the atomic radius decreases from left to right across the periodic table because, like, the effective nuclear charge increases but the core electrons don’t. The increase in effective nuclear charge increases the attractive force on the valence electrons, resulting in a smaller atom.” He explained. Flash just stared at him for several minutes.
“Yeah, I have no clue what the hell you just said.” He said.
Peter could actually feel his headache double.
0o0o0o
Four hours, and three times as many Advil later, and they still had gotten nowhere. “It’s simple Flash, you just need to define the chemical formula, and then give an example,” Peter said with a sigh.
“How is that simple idiot.” Flash shot back, looking up from his phone.
“How am I the idiot here Flash? This is middle school science. And put down your phone so I know you aren't googling the answers.” He said angrily.
“If I could google them then I wouldn’t have to deal with you in my house.”
“Okay,” Peter said, taking a deep breath. “How about, if you can get at least half of this answer right we’ll be done for tonight.” He offered. Flash lite up at the idea of Peter leaving and started typing on his phone.
“Uh, H20?” Flash said with a grin.
“Close enough,” Peter said, slinging his backpack over his shoulder and making his way to the door.
“Yo Parker,” Flash called. Peter winced at the volume, it felt like everything had been dialed up to a ten since he stepped inside the apartment and he was aching to leave.
“Yeah?” He said.
“No one in school is going to hear about this or I’ll-” Peter closed the door before he could hear the rest of the threat. Stepping out into the hallway he took a deep breath of air, and instantly felt better. He walked down the stairs, not wanting to risk running into anyone he knew in the elevator, and leaned against a wall outside as he scrolled through his phone. Every minute he spent in the open air seemed to clear his head a little more, and he even felt his annoyance with Flash simmer down. Maybe he was allergic to his bully. That would be irony hard at work. Sighing, he ducked into an alley and threw his suit on over his clothing, He might as well get patrol over with now instead of later. Besides, with any luck, Bucky would see him out a window or something and not call Tony in a panic after he hadn’t come home two hours earlier.
0o0o0o
Crawling through the open window to the avenger’s tower, Peter collapsed on the ground. Thankfully he was on the right floor because even if he wasn’t there was no way he had the energy to walk up the stairs right now. He didn’t trust elevators anymore.
“Peter.” He heard, making him freeze. He turned around slowly, to see Bucky standing in the doorway tapping his foot like a disappointed parent.
“To be fair, I did leave a note.” He said with a shrug. Bucky just glared at him.
“I had to literally just keep you inside the house for one week. One week.” Bucky said, covering his face with his hand. “You didn’t even say where you went .”
“I did,” Peter said, pointing to the note on Bucky's arm.
“Yeah, you said you were ‘going to tutor a kid’ and that you’d be ‘back in two hours’.”
“At the time I didn’t think it was a lie.” Peter defended.
“You were gone for seven hours Peter,” Bucky said over him.
“I really did go to tutor someone, it’s just he was really struggling with chemistry and so it took forever and then I decided that since I was already out I might as well…” He gestured to his red and blue suit.
“You could have been dead and I wouldn’t have known,” Bucky said, hitting his head on the wall. Peter winced at the dent it made in the wall.
“Okay, I get that,” Peter said. “But here’s the thing, I’m not dead . That has to count for something, right?” He asked. Bucky just shook his head and walked into the kitchen.
“Fine, but you’re not telling Stark, he’s been threatening to find reasons to build that giant magnate into my wall forever,” Bucky said. “Do you want tea? I need an excuse to dump alcohol into something.” He yelled through the doorway.
“Doesn't that not work on you?” He asked.
“Nah, your perfect mentore worked on that for me and Steve. He decided he needed to see what Steve looked like drunk and we didn’t want to just rely on Thor for alcohol all the time.” Bucky explained. Peter couldn’t help but laugh at that, although he knew he really shouldn’t.
A few moments later, Bucky returned, holding two steaming mugs, one reeking of some kind of alcohol. He took the other mug, gulping the hot liquid, and instantly had to resist the urge to spit it back into the cup.
“Are you okay?” Bucky asked flatly. His mouth still full of tea, he nodded. “You look constipated.”
Peter swallowed quickly so he didn’t spit the drink all over the table. Despite it having cooled to his body temperature, it burnt all the way down his throat and settled in comfortably in his stomach. “Ught, what kind of tea is this?” He said, wrinkling his nose in disgust.
“Peppermint, why?” Bucky asked, blowing on his own mug.
He opened his mouth to reply, but suddenly he was overwhelmed with the flavor of copper. Surprised, he snapped his jaw shut, wincing as pain radiated through his whole body at the jolt. “I…” He started, but closed his mouth gingerly, running a thumb over his lips, which where throbbing. Alarmed, he looked at his thumb, seeing it red with blood.
“ Holy shit! ” Bucky yelled jumping up. Peter looked at him, his eyes wide in alarm. “Oh crap, your lips are bleeding, i- uh, okay, hm. I should call someone. Who would…” Bucky trailed off, presumably looking at his contact list when the elevator starts moving. Peter could hear the metal scraping against the wall, and was unable to prevent himself from clapping his hands over his ears, trying to block out the awful sound, making Bucky whipped his head around in alarm.
Moments later, Bruce appeared next to them, saying something that somehow seemed to dim all the noise in the room. Slowly removing his hands, he looked at the scientist in surprise. Before he could say anything though, Bucky beat him to is.
“I thought you went with the rest of the group.” He said, staring at the older (younger?) man.
“Eh. I had some work to do, plus, things like this tend to happen around you.” He said, gesturing to Peter. “Friday told me something was wrong.” Without further ado, he leaned down to inspect Peter’s mouth, wincing at what he saw.
“I didn’t do anything this time, I swear, I just gave him tea and this happened,” Bucky said, panicked while holding up his hands as if to prove their innocence.
“Mhm, what kind of tea?” Bruce asked. Peter pointed to the label, one hand still pressed shakily to his bleeding mouth.
“I really didn’t think Peter could get this hurt from tea,” Bucky said again, making Bruce snort.
“It’s Peter.” He said, making the teen squawk indignantly.
Bruce continued poking at his mouth for several more minutes, before asking him approximately a million questions. “Do you have a headache?” nod. “Does it hurt anywhere else?” Also, nod. “Can you point to where?” He gestured to his whole body, which probably wasn’t all that helpful. “When did you start feeling weird?” He didn’t know how to really answer that one without talking, so he opened his mouth to reply, but the moment the cold air- relatively cold that was- hit the back of his throat he thought better of it, leading to a sort of pained squeak.
“Should I call Tony?” Bucky asked from several feet away.
“Not yet, but start drafting an email to him,” Bruce said. “Actually, don’t. I’ll handle that.”
“Great, what should I do ?” Bucky asked, obvious anxiety in the words. Well, that and the fact that he was bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet and nearly chewing through his bottom lip.
“Just, go get me the first aid kit, okay?” Bruce asked.
“Sure,” Bucky said, walking out the door, before turning right back around again. “Where is that?”
“Oh my word you were watching a child. Okay, this looks similar to a chemical burn, so you will need the one in my lab, I don’t want to make you brave Tony’s, and I think he got DUMM-Y to light his on fire. Go five floors down and it’ll be the fourth door in the second hallway on your left.” Bruce instructed. Bucky just stared at him for a long time.
“Yeah, there’s no way in hell I’ll remember that,” he said finally.
“How the hell were you an assassin. FRIDAY, please show Bucky the way.” He said. The AI dinged in recognition and started lighting a path to the elevators.
With Bucky gone Bruce turned his full attention to Peter, who had sense disengaged his spiderman suit to reveal his street clothes, not wanting to risk getting more blood in the wires. “Peter, do you have any idea what could have happened?” Bruce asked. Peter paused because while he had a few guesses, he also was pretty sure that cyanide poisoning wasn’t the most likely cause he could think of.
He offered a shrug, continuing to apply pressure to the wound on his mouth. If felt as if the burning was going through his whole body, which couldn’t possibly be a good thing.
“Peter, how many characteristics did you inherit from the spider bite? Say from one to ten?” Bruce asked. Peter thought for a moment before holding up seven fingers.
“That's what I thought. Peter, you do know that Spiders are allergic to Peppermint, do you think that could be what this is about?” Bruce asked. Peter thought for a moment. Now that he was focused on that one smell, Flash’s house had had that distinct odor to it. It never bothered him before the bite, so he had misplaced it.
He nodded a couple of times, before a drop of blood fell on the table in front of him and he stilled. He realised that if Bruce was right, they were in complete uncharted territory. No one had ever seen a human react to having a spider allergy, and from the way he felt, it wasn’t good,
“Okay, and this is important Peter, did you drink and of the tea?” Bruce asked. Peter nodded. “How much?”
He held his index and thumb close together and pointed to the mostly full cup, before cocking his head, hoping that Bruce would figure out the question without his trying to talk. “Damnit. Only Bucky. Okay, I’m worried about your stomach is going to react the same way your lips and make your intestine start bleeding like crazy unless we figure something out.” Bruce said bluntly. Peter always liked that about Dr. Banner, he spoke to him like an adult and wasn’t nearly as awkward with him, trying to dumb down what he was trying to say like Steve had the first time they re-meet.
Thinking hard, Peter released pretty quickly that he would either need to counteract the peppermint, which could take weeks to figure out, or he had to get it out of his system. He grabbed his phone, going to the text to speech app he had downloaded for Ned when he had laryngitis and was grounded for trolling Flash, leaving him without communication. He had no idea why it hadn’t been deleted, but now he was thankful for it as he typed in his thoughts.
“ Do you think if I threw up the peppermint it would stop the reaction? Like if I took a medicine to make me throw up or something?” His phone asked Bruce.
The scientist furrowed his eyebrows at that. “It would save your organs, but you would probably have one hell of a sore throat, it’ll re-burn the flesh there.” He said. “But it’s better than exploratory experimental surgery on a superhuman so…” Bruce trailed off, He could tell he didn’t like the idea of the self-inflicted harm, but his vision was already starting to blur at the edges and personally he didn’t want to see what was going to happen if he did nothing.
Unbidden by Bruce he hopped up, intending to check the medicine cabinet for something that could help, but before he could make it more then a step his knees weakened and he found himself being steadied by the aforementioned scientist. “Woah, hold still Peter. Here, I’ll go check.” Bruce said, making him sit again.
He really really wanted to argue, but the world was spinning too much right now and he couldn’t really feel his arms… or his legs for that matter, and every time he breathed it hurt so mad he thought he was on fire and his lips were still bleeding so he just lowered his head to the table and let the pain wash over him. Several minutes later, or at least what felt like several minutes, it could just have easily been twenty seconds, Bruce re-appeared with a bottle in his hand.
“Okay, I want you to drink all of this okay? It should make you throw up the peppermint, and with any luck, limit intestinal damage, okay?” He asked. Peter nodded, taking the bottle from the doctor without any kind of fight. For the first time, he noticed his fingertips were slightly tinged green, barely noticeable in the lighting, but enough for him to worry about Bruce’s safety. He looked at him questioningly, but Bruce simply grabbed him by his shoulders and pulled him to sink. “Drink it.”
Peter nodded, uncapping the drink and noticing idly that his hands were shaking. Trying not to think too hard, he downed the liquid. It seared his whole esophagus and stomach with white-hot pain, although he had a feeling that was more due to the tea then the medicine. It only took a few minutes to work through it’s unpleasant effects, leaving his throat hurting worse than ever and his hands trembling, but the towers noises were much easier to handle now, so he would take a win where he could get one.
Cleaning out the sink with a disgusted face, and trying to ignore the fact that half of his vomit had been blood, he turned to face the scientist, and Bucky, who had reappeared at some point while he was spaced out to notice.
“Do you feel any better?” Bruce asked anxiously. Peter nodded slowly, not quite trusting his voice yet. Bruce nodded his head back, before grabbing the first aid kit from Bucky.
“Did you figure out what was wrong with him yet?” Bucky asked, not even trying to hide his panic.
“Peppermint. Spiders are allergic to it, apparently pretty severely. It seems like he inherited that along with the strength and wall climbing.” Bruce said, taking an unlabeled whip from the pile of supplies.
Now that he didn’t feel like he was being burnt from the inside out, Peter realized he was rather rung out. More than that even, he felt tired to his core, and even as Bruce was swabbing over any visible burns with antiseptic he felt his eyelids growing heavier, and before he knew it he had thwacked his head hard on the table from dozing off to deeply.
“Do not worry Dr. Banner and Bucky Barns, Peter is merely tired from the events of today, his actions do not indicate any kind of further intestinal damage and my scans revealed about the same,” FRIDAY said, suddenly there . Usually, that would make Peter antsy, but right now he was just too freakn too tired to care.
“Oh, that’s just perfect,” Bruce muttered. “I’ve done what I can to prevent infection, do you think you could take him to his room?” Bruce asked, directed at the smaller super soldier on the team.
“Sure,” Bucky said, moving to swing Peter over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. Surprisingly, Peter didn’t even attempt to fight back and instead allowed himself to be carried and deposited into the full sized bed in his room.
“I’m so sorry Peter.” Bucky whispered as he let the door swing behind him, and as much as he wanted to see something, to remind the soldier that he ended up okay and there was nothing to worry about, he found that the bed was so comfy, and he was so cozy from the inside out that he let the older of them go.
“Thank you.” He whispered into the silence of the room before dropping off to sleep.