Archive of Our Own ^beta

Peter groaned and buried his face in his pillow as the room suddenly brightened around him. FRIDAY listed the weather and a quick summary of news from last night as well as his schedule for the day. He mostly tuned her out.

There was no way he was getting out of bed for the next ten years.

Ten minutes later, he'd somehow managed to stumble through his morning routine, although he’d almost put his t-shirt on inside out and backwards. He grabbed his loose homework and binder off of his desk, shoved them into his backpack, and grabbed his Stark Industries badge from where he’d placed it on his nightstand. Even though FRIDAY could recognize him without it, it would raise questions as to who he was by people who didn’t know, and Happy would be upset with him. The only people he didn’t make wear one were Mr. Stark and Ms. Pepper. Peter suspected it was because Mr. Stark would just ignore him, and Ms. Pepper was a force to be reckoned with.

He walked out of his room and headed to the kitchen, and FRIDAY slid his bedroom door closed behind him. Nobody was in the kitchen, so Peter grabbed a box of corn flakes out of the pantry. If Mr. Stark fell asleep in the first place, it typically took him longer to wake up than Peter. Since Ms. Pepper was out of town, there was nobody to force him to sleep, but he normally attempted to be an okay-ish role model on the nights Peter slept over.

He poured himself a bowl of cereal and sat down at the kitchen counter. It was just tall enough that you couldn’t sit on it, but that didn’t stop him from doing so when he wasn’t eating.

When Mr. Stark walked into the kitchen, rubbing sleep from his eyes, he looked like he’d been thrown across the city by Chitauri.

Peter waved at him with his spoon, and mumbled a “Good morning, Mr. Stark!” around a mouthful of cereal.

“Morning, kid.” Mr. Stark replied. “Did you get all of your—” he yawned, then continued. “—All of your homework done yet?”

“Everything that’s due today is finished.” Peter confirmed.

“So not everything, then?”

“I—uh—may not have finished my Spanish homework, but it’s not due until tomorrow, so I should be fine.”

“Okay, kid, just make sure that you finish it or your aunt will be upset with me.”

“I will, Mr. Stark!” Peter promised, putting his dishes in the sink and walking over to the elevator. He felt bad for not having time to clean them. Mr. Stark said it was okay, but Aunt May would kill him if she saw him being such a poor guest.

“And,” Mr. Stark added as Peter walked towards the elevator, “make sure that you eat lunch today. You need to eat anyway, but with your enhanced metabolism it’s even more important.”

“I know,” Peter said.

“If that means saving your Spanish homework until you’re done with school, then I want you to wait until then.”

"I know, don't worry!" Peter said, opening the elevator doors. "See you on Wednesday!” He pressed the button that sent the elevator to the first floor, then disappeared.

“See you, kid.” Tony replied to closed doors, and grabbed a less sugary cereal from the pantry.

“Who's that?”

Tony swore and dropped the box of cereal on the floor, then spun around.

“Jesus, Nat, warn a guy.”

“You and I both know that isn’t happening any time soon. Who’s the kid?”

“What kid?” He asked. “Why would there be a kid here?”

“Tony, I'm not stupid. That kid that just left, after eating…” She squinted at the box that was left on the counter. “Corn flakes.”

“Oh!” Tony replied, as if he'd just forgotten something. “You mean Peter.”

“Yes, who is he?”

“My intern,” Tony replied. “He’s a sweet kid.”

“You have an intern." Natasha didn't sound convinced.

"Yes; several, in fact."

"An intern who's a kid."

"Well, he's technically a teenager, since he's 15, and he’s in a school for science and technology."

"You have an intern who eats breakfast with you in your personal suite before going to school—did I mention that he’s a kid?”

“Yes, multiple times, now.”

“You have, what, less than fifty interns in every single department of Stark Industries combined?” At Tony's nod, she continued, “All of which are either in college or are college graduates. This is a kid, Tony, not some genius.”

“Incorrect, for obvious reasons. And also incorrect—you are aware the two are far from mutually exclusive?”

“All I’m saying is, who is this kid? Do you have a son we don’t know about?”

“Do I have a—no, I don’t have a son.”

She stared at him for a second, then slid onto the counter, ignoring Tony’s scowl. “Fine. How’d you find him?”

“There was a video of something he made on YouTube. No, I don’t have the video. I found it interesting, and tracked him down, offered him an internship. He said yes.”

“That doesn’t explain why he was up here, though. You don’t let any of your other interns up here, Hell, you barely let me up here.”

“Natasha, you're an assassin. He's just a kid.”

“...True.”

“Not everybody was as lethal as you were at that age. He wouldn't hurt a fly.” Tony paused. "And I didn't let you up here, you broke in."

"...Also true."

The bell rang the second that Peter got into the classroom, and his teacher glared at him. It wasn't his fault; there was traffic! There definitely hadn’t been several dogs going for a walk. Nope.

He grabbed his SI badge off of his shirt where it had sat pinned and forgotten and put it into his backpack.

“Hey!” Ned whisper-yelled, scooting his chair closer to Peter’s desk. The classroom was arranged in some semblance of rows so that no two desks were touching, and there was an empty desk in between his and Ned’s, so their whispering wasn’t all that quiet.

“Hey,” Peter whispered back.

“How was your internship?” Ned asked, excitement leaking into his voice. He loved to hear about Peter's internship—whether he was out as Spider-Man or he was just helping fix something for SI—but tried to tone it down at school so that they avoided the attention of other people, particularly Flash.

“Not bad! We stayed up kind of late working on the—”

“Still going with that?” Flash interrupted. “Everybody knows that you're lying, Parker—well, almost everybody.” Flash sent Ned a meaningful look. “Just give it up, already. Lying won’t make anybody care about you—it’ll do the opposite, if that’s even possible at this point.”

As if you’re one to talk, Flash.

Peter bit his tongue so that he wouldn’t snap at Flash, and Mr. Lanh interrupted them. “Sit down, Mr. Thompson.”

“Sorry, Mr. Lanh.” Flash said, glaring at Peter as if he’d started the argument and gotten Flash into trouble for nothing—not that he was even in trouble. That was barely a warning , let alone an MIR or referral.

Flash got upset with Peter over literally nothing, and tended to try to provoke him or Ned to start a fight so that he could get away without a scratch if they actually got into a fight—not that Peter would fight back. If he did, then Flash might move onto somebody who couldn’t handle it.

“Today we're working on imaginary numbers. Open your notebooks to the table of contents.” Mr. Lanh instructed. “Put ‘Imaginary Numbers’ and today's date on the next line, then open to page 18.”

“Ned, do you have a pencil?” Peter asked, pulling his notebook out of his backpack.

“Yeah, of course.” Ned said, handing Peter a yellow No. 2 pencil with green metal wrapping the eraser.Peter cheered internally when he read Ticonderoga printed on the side. Not only had Ned lent him a pencil, but he had lent him the best type of No. 2 pencil to exist.

“Thanks!” Peter opened his notebook up to the table of contents and grimaced. To say it was a disaster was an understatement. He almost always used a pen, so it was riddled with scribbles and lines that weren’t supposed to be there.

 “No problem,” Ned said, not even looking up.

“What is an imaginary number?” Mr. Lanh asked, writing the question on the board as he voiced it.

“The square root of a negative number!” Flash shouted out, eager to draw attention to himself, especially if it was positive.

“Oh, that was rhetorical,” Mr. Lanh said. “But yes, that is correct. The exact definition of an imaginary number is ‘a number that is expressed in terms of the square root of a negative number.’ Please write that down.”

Flash flushed with anger, but didn’t say anything else.

 “On the next line, put a cursive i on the outside margin. Next to it, write ‘the exponent that represents imaginary numbers, which can be occasionally substituted for a cursive j.’

“Next, make a chart with 4 columns and 2 rows. On one side, put i, i^2, i^3, and i^4. Next to i, write ‘√-1’. Can anybody tell me what i^2 is? No? Peter, what about you?”

“It’s just -1 since it’s a square root,” Peter replied, fiddling with different chemical equations in the margin of his notebook to see if there was a way he could make his webs stronger. He’d learned about imaginary numbers ages ago, when he’d gone through all of his dad’s old textbooks. Uncle Ben had been away for a week, and even with Aunt May there, he’d been lonely.

(He'd gone through his father's college textbooks again after Ben passed away. It was the only thing that could keep him distracted).

“Correct. Now, Does anybody want to guess i^3?”

Flash raised his hand, then continued to answer before being called on. “It's also -1, because when you square one, you get itself.”

“Incorrect, and please wait to be called on before you answer. Ned?”

“It's -i, because you’re multiplying i by -1.” Flash shot a scathing look at Ned, who ignored him. 

“Yes. Now, i^4 is 1. Can anybody tell me why?”

“-1×-1 is 1.” Abraham answered. “When you multiply a negative by a negative, it cancels out, and i^2 is -1.”

“Correct, Abraham. This pattern repeats itself every four powers, so i^5 is just i. Now let's do some practice below.”

“This is so easy,” Peter complained, skimming over the paper and jotting down the answers.

“I guess. What's 26 divided by 4?” Ned replied, still working on his practice sheet.

“Um… five?” Peter guessed. “Wait, that's not right. Let me check my calculator.” He typed the numbers into his graphing calculator, then tried to remember what .5 meant in the context of the problem. “Oh, it's 6 remainder 2.”

“Yes, so easy that you need a calculator.” Ned teased.

“I can work with imaginary numbers, I just can’t add! Or subtract. Or multiply, or divide.”

“Mhm,” Ned replied.

“Hey!”

“Nooooooo,” Peter said, stopping in his tracks and causing the people around them to stumble and glare. “I left your pencil in Mr. Lanh’s.”

“Oh, it's fine. Honest. I have about fifty pencils, and I only use two or three throughout the year.” 

“No, I feel bad.” Peter argued. “I borrowed it from you and I didn’t give it back. I’ll be in the cafeteria in a minute.” 

“I swear, it’s fine,” Ned said, turning back to face Peter. He was nowhere in sight.

“Excuse me? Mr. Lanh?” Peter asked, hovering in the doorway while waiting for permission to enter the classroom.

“Yes?”

“I seem to have forgotten a pencil here. Have you seen one?”

“No, but you can look around if you want to.” Peter sighed and stepped into the small math classroom. It was probably going to take a while if it had fallen onto the floor—even after only two classes, papers were scattered across the tile, and Ned’s pencil wasn’t on Peter’s desk.

It took him a total of five minutes and five other pencils to find the pencil. He probably would have given up, but they were the crappy dollar store pencils whose erasers drew instead of erased, and there was no way that Peter was going to settle for repaying Ned with one of those .

“Thanks!” Peter told Mr. Lanh once he'd found it.

Mr. Lanh just nodded absently and returned to grading the papers stacked on his desk.

“Got it,” Peter announced when he sat down next to Ned with his lunch tray. By the time that he had gotten out of the line with his food, there were only ten more minutes of lunch—lunch itself was only twenty-five minutes, and the lines were a disaster if you didn’t get to the very front.

“I told you, you didn't have to give me the pencil back,” Ned sighed, putting it into a small zippered pocket in his backpack.

“I felt bad!” Peter said. “I borrowed something from you and then I lost it, and it's a really good pencil!”

Ned shook his head, then took another bite of his school-made pizza. He knew it was a worthless cause to argue about this.

Peter had barely managed to eat his food by the time that the bell rang, but was still able to eat everything and take care of his tray and silverware.

Two classes later, Peter was exhausted. When he got home, he went straight to his bed and passed out. He did have two days to do all of his homework, since he had an A/B day schedule, so it wouldn’t be awful if he didn’t have any time to do it that day.

He was exhausted from staying up late last night, trying—and failing—to improve the tensile strength of his webs.

(“In case something like the boat happens again,” he’d said.

“Something like that better not happen again.” Mr. Stark had replied, hand freezing halfway to the bolt he’d been about to tighten.

“...Hypothetically, of course.” Peter had added. Mr. Stark had not been impressed. He'd kept a close eye on Peter the entire night.)

He split his time at SI between actually interning—the department that he interned changed about as often as the weather—and helping out Mr. Stark in his private lab. Yesterday had been closer to the latter, but still technically neither—Mr. Stark hadn’t had anything in particular to do, so he told Peter he could do whatever he wanted. He'd gotten a bit distracted and ended up falling asleep at around 4am. Mr. Stark had still been working when Peter left the lab.

When Peter woke up from his nap, it was to Aunt May opening the door to let him know that she’d gotten takeout from their favorite Thai place. He yawned, rolled out of bed, and followed her to the kitchen.

“How was school?”

“It was good! We started working on imaginary numbers in Algebra, which is easy enough. I didn't get too much homework—just study packets for small quizzes next class so that the teachers know that we understood what we were taught.”

“That's good,” May replied with a tired smile, pulling her hair out of her face.

“How was work?” Peter inquired.

After dinner, Peter took out his homework and set it on his desk so that he could do it when he got back, then put on his suit and ducked out the window, yelling to Aunt May, “I'm going out!”

“Stay safe and get back before 11,” was her reply. She'd been upset at first, especially because he hadn't told her and had been wearing “practically a onesie” before Mr. Stark had interfered—and then she’d been furious with him for taking Peter to Germany —but she'd finally let him go out again.

It had taken a lot of persuading.

There wasn't too much to do that night—small crime in Queens had lessened since they found out that they had a superhero among them, even if it hadn’t diminished completely. It was just the more foolish people (or those who were more desperate and had no choice. They were usually trying to get into prison, if only to have a warm meal and a bed for the night, or trying to get food for their families. If it was obviously the latter, he did his best to turn a blind eye as long as they weren’t hurting people).

He'd grown in popularity, so he had to be more careful putting on and taking off his suit. On weekends, he stayed out until the witching hour to ensure that nobody followed him, but he still had to be more wary of who or what he was near.

He'd even created a twitter just for Spider-Man, which was extremely popular. He mostly just posted photos of the skyline from angles that nobody else could manage or crackposts, but people still flocked to it anyway.

He also posted selfies that he took with people he'd saved from muggers. Those were even more popular than the gorgeous photos of the skyline.

(Sometimes, on the rare occasion that somebody dangerous escaped him, he posted their description so that people knew to avoid them).

When he got home, he was still full of adrenaline from parkouring around Queens, so after letting May know that he was back, he sat down at his desk to do his homework that he’d been assigned that day. Afterwards, he started fooling around with the formula he’d been working on in math. He was still very far from asleep, and it was only 12:16.

Peter’s alarm rang, and he nearly leapt onto the ceiling. He had a pen stuck to his face, and his papers were scattered. He scanned over them and cheered—the one on the top had a formula that should have a greater tensile strength, and all he needed to do was test it.

He shoved his homework into his backpack, and noticed his Spanish folder sitting on the other side of his desk. He hadn’t touched it. He threw his backpack onto his bed, changed his shirt quickly, brushed his teeth, and sat back down at the desk.

The homework was just translating a list of nouns that were new for the current topic, and he already knew most of it, but his brain was functioning poorly due to sleep deprivation. By the time that he'd finished, he’d have to run to school to make it on time.

Peter yawned, then grabbed his backpack and ran out of the apartment, almost forgetting to lock the door behind him.

He didn’t even have time to say hi to the twelve or so dogs that he ran by.

When he got to Spanish, Ned took one look at him and immediately went, “How much sleep did you get?"

“No clue,” Peter answered truthfully. “I fell asleep at my desk some time after twelve.”

“Please take a nap during lunch.”

“If I have time after I eat,” Peter promised.

Ned groaned, then turned to his warm up. He knew that with Peter's enhanced metabolism, he had to eat more, so Peter had won the argument.

Peter stared blankly at the paper on his desk, the only thing written being his name and the date (which was wrong. By several years, and a couple months).

Luckily, they had 20 minutes to do that day's warm up, so he managed to get at least some of it done. The rest he finished while people were sharing their answers.

Thankfully, his teacher didn't call on him. She seemed to notice that he was out of it, and gave him a break.

In his chemistry class, which was second period, they were just doing a review. Peter sighed in relief; he could do this in his sleep (no, seriously—one time he'd fallen asleep while interning and one of the other interns had heard him mumbling it).

Flash actually answered a question correctly for once, but when he turned to rub it in Peter's face, Peter was too tired to even notice. Flash, of course, took this as a win, and announced to the class that “Parker’s given up and agrees that I’m the best at chem”.

Their teacher called on Peter to answer one of the questions and he almost got it wrong (he'd thought that the teacher had said the simplified version of the equation, but he was supposed to give the full equation).

Ned glanced at him, concerned, when he heard Peter stumble over and correct his answer.

By the time class was over, Peter was so tired he could barely see straight. The board was definitely at least a little bit blurry.

He walked into lunch and almost decided to skip eating so that he could take a nap, but Ned glared at him and dragged him to the lunchline. Besides, they had lasagna today. Lasagna was his favorite, even if it was trashy school food.

Since he was so tired, it took him the full twenty-five minutes to eat lunch. It got so bad that MJ was glancing over at him, concern evident on her face. Maybe she thought that in his current state, he wouldn't notice her. He almost didn't. Ned certainly hadn’t.

He managed to make it through the rest of the day, then started the long walk up to SI. Mr. Stark had decided to keep the tower, as nobody wanted to buy it (a not very well understood power source? a hot spot for superhuman and alien activity? no thanks).

When Peter got to the tower (after getting distracted by some REALLY fluffy dogs and a huge rat that he thought was a kitten), he stumbled over to the metal detectors and walked up to the elevator.

He barely even noticed FRIDAY greeting him and asking what floor he’d like to go to.

He normally kept his stuff up in the bedroom that he stayed in. He had a tendency to forget where he had put it and there was never enough time in the morning to look for it. Even with FRIDAY’s aid, it took him nearly ten minutes to find it.

After putting his bag on the bed, he started looking for Mr. Stark. He wasn't in his lab, so Peter asked FRIDAY.

Boss is down on Floor 19. He should be back up in 15 minutes. Would you like me to tell him that you are here?

“No, it's fine.” Peter replied. “Thanks, Fri!”

He collapsed on the couch to wait for Mr. Stark, turned the TV on to Friends, and all but fell asleep.

“So,” a voice said, startling him awake.

Even with his spidey-sense, he hadn't noticed her standing there. She was definitely a danger, considering the fact that she was an assassin. He definitely should have noticed her before she spoke.

“You're the reason why he decided against moving permanently upstate.”

“Um, hi Ms. Romanoff-Black Widow. I think you're mistaken. See, nobody wanted to buy the tower because they didn't understand the arc reactor. On top of that, a ton of aliens and people with vendettas against Mr. Stark are attracted to this tower, so it isn’t really that safe for them to be here. Mr. Stark can protect himself and other people, but he can’t do that if he’s not here.

“Who turns down free, clean energy? I don't think that's actually why, Peter. Nice to meet you, by the way. You can call me Natasha if you want.”

“Okay, Ms. Romanoff-Black Widow. Um, nice to meet you. I'm Peter—wait you know that. Um, how did you know that?”

She shrugged and sat on the arm of the recliner.

“I saw you leaving yesterday morning and asked Tony about it; you're awfully young for an intern and you were on his personal floor.”

“...And he said that about me?”

“No,” she laughed. “Just that you were an intern here. He wouldn't tell me much else; is there anything that you want to tell me?”

“Are you interrogating my intern?” The elevator doors slid open.

“Nope,” Natasha replied.

Mr. Stark narrowed his eyes at her.

“We were just talking.”

“Okay…” It didn't look like he believed her. “Anyway, kid, what did you want to do today? I've got a couple workers who are out sick on floor 48, so I'm going to join them. Do you want to come with me?”

“Sure!” Peter replied. That was the floor that they were working on the Stark Phone on. The levels of the tower were set up so that smaller level projects and larger, more top secret projects were randomly placed, in case somebody tried to break in.

Top secret stuff being on the top floor was only to be expected (Tony still lived at the top, though, so that he could safely land his suits and because he could protect himself, unlike the rest of the people in the tower).

On top of this, everybody's badges looked identical in relation to their access (guest badges were all white, but every other badgewas navy blue. Names were written in either navy or white ink, and a picture was included. There was a no reprint policy unless a person’s name changed or if they upgraded from a guest badge, in which case the badges were stripped and the chip was reprogrammed, and the plastic part was reprinted from the same plastic).

They worked until six, when they took a break for dinner. Tony had ordered shawarma—Peter had no idea what it was, exactly, but it tasted good .

Pepper joined them, barely batting an eye at Peter's presence. She'd gotten used to him being there, and had warmed up to him (he called her Pepper, mostly to get on Mr. Stark's nerves. He was still annoyed that he hadn't gotten Peter to call him Tony yet. It was, of course, also due to the fact that he was mildly terrified of what MJ would do if she found out that he had the ability to call her something so familiar and he kept calling her Ms. Potts).

After dinner, they went back to work on the Stark Phones until eight, which was when most of the employees went home (some stayed late, and some stayed the night in the lounges on their floor. There were several daybeds in each lounge. Even though they had generous paychecks, it was easier to just stay there. Those that had houses before getting a job there mostly rented them out to make some money on the side. Others just had a ton of work piling up).

After eight, they went down to Mr. Stark's personal lab, which was built underground so that trespassers couldn't steal the dangerous technology. They worked on their respective gear until nine, when Peter stopped working on his suit for a minute to lay his head down, and ended up passing out from exhaustion (Mr. Stark carried him up to his bed, and would have gone back downstairs if Pepper hadn't caught him. He sighed and went to sleep around eleven, after talking to Pepper about her day).

(Peter woke up very disoriented the next morning, having no idea how he got up to bed).

“Hi Ms. Romanoff-Black Widow!” Peter said as soon as she walked into the room. She was wearing a black catsuit, and was barefoot.

“Hi, Peter.”

“Do you want some cereal?” He offered her the box of corn flakes.

“No, thanks. I'm about to go train and it's a better idea to do it on an empty stomach.”

“Okay! Have fun!”

“Thanks,” she smiled wryly. “Have a great day at school.”

“Thanks! You too—I mean, um—”

“Thanks.” She said, a tiny smile flashing across her face before she composed her features, then walked out of the room.

“Morning, Peter.” Mr. Stark said around ten minutes later.

“Hi, Mr. Stark! How did you sleep?”

“Pretty well. Pepper made me go to bed by 11, so I actually got some sleep for once. I've been up for a couple hours, though.”

“That's good! Do you by any chance know what happened last night? I can't really remember anything after 8.”

“You fell asleep,” Mr. Stark replied, a small smile on his face. “I carried you upstairs because it looked like you needed sleep and I didn't want to wake you up.”

“Oh!” Peter said, turning bright red. “Thank you, Mr. Stark. You could have woken me up, though, honestly. It's fine. Um, I'm really sorry for falling asleep on you.”

“It's fine, kid. Did you get all of your homework done?”

“Yeah, I didn't get too much yesterday. I woke up kind of early so I just did it then.”

“That's good. Can't have your aunt yelling at me,” he joked.

They ate in silence until Peter had to leave. Tony smiled in response to his goodbye, his mouth full with cereal.

“Hey, Ned!” Peter said, walking into Algebra. “Did you get that new Lego kit yesterday?”

“I did!!” Ned exclaimed. “I'm so excited!! Do you want to come over tonight to build it with me?”

“Sure, I can't wait!”

 “What, you're that excited about Legos? ” Flash snorted. “You aren't kindergartners, anymore.”

"What, you're still that into bullying people?" Michelle echoed. "You aren't a kindergartner, anymore."

Ned and Peter looked at her gratefully and she rolled her eyes.

“Okay, class. We have a ton to do today, so please sit down and get your notebooks out. I know that we just learned something new last class, but we have to learn about exponent rules before Monday.”

By second period, Peter's hyperness had worn off. Getting a lot more sleep than usual was just as bad as getting not enough, it seemed.

“I want… to go home…” Peter sighed.

“I feel you, man.” Ned replied. 

“So…tired…” 

“Same.” 

Peter huffed out a sigh, then stared blankly at his paper.

At lunch, he picked at his weird not-quite-a-taco with a fork, then eventually decided that he should probably eat it. MJ greeted them with a “Hey, losers,” then sat down and buried her face in a book.

Peter pulled out his phone and texted May,

Can I go to Ned's after school?

Not today.

Can you go tmrw?

But he got that new lego thing!!!

Please May???

I need your help grocery shopping.

And cooking.

Sorry, Peter.

read 12:01 pm

“Aunt May won't let me come over tonight,” Peter sighed. “I'm sorry, Ned. You can build it without me.”

“No way, man!” Ned argued. “We always build them together!”

“I know, but you've been looking forward to this for ages. It's fine, honestly.”

“If you're certain…” Ned caved.

“I am.” Peter confirmed. “You should build it today.”

“Okay…” Ned said, and they finished lunch in silence.

Peter trudged home, only perking back up when he ran into a REALLY fluffy golden retriever, who practically tackled him to the ground to lick his face.

“I'm home,” Peter announced, throwing his backpack on the floor next to the couch.

When he didn't get a response, he repeated himself. “May?”

He wandered into her room, and saw the light on.

“May? Where are—” he cut himself off when he noticed that she was laying on the bed.

“May, come on,” he said, shaking her gently. “We have to go to the store, remember?”

“Huh? Peter? Oh my, is it 3 already?” May blinked sleep out of her eyes, then yawned. “I didn't mean to fall asleep, sorry.”

“It's fine.” Peter said.

They made their way to the grocery store in silence, Peter staring at the ground and wishing he was with Ned. He was more of a Star Trek fan than a Star Wars fan, but he still enjoyed seeing the joy in his friend's eyes when he was geeking out, and he still enjoyed building the sets.

Despite being dragged along to every movie, he only knew half of the characters’ names and could barely recite the plot. Somehow, Ned had no idea that he wasn't that big of a Star Wars fan. He just nodded along in conversations, chiming in with purposefully vague comments when it felt appropriate.

When they got into the store, May and Peter separated to get what they needed. Peter headed to the back of the store to grab his half of the list, while May stayed in the front.

The door jangled to announce somebody's presence, and Peter glanced down at his list. He stared at it for a minute before he was able to read the first item, and scratched his nose before he started to collect the items.

Once he had grabbed the items that he needed, he walked up to May and put them in her basket.

“Oh! I forgot to put broccoli on the list,” May exclaimed. “Can you go grab it?”

“Sure,” Peter said, dashing back to the vegetable section. He scratched at the back of his neck then started walking back up to the front. Suddenly he realized why his neck was so itchy—the hairs on the back of his neck were standing up—and he glanced up.

But it was too late, much too late.

A gunshot cracked through the air and Peter felt his ears pop.  

Peter froze.

His mind was going a hundred miles an hour in circles, going from maybe it was my imagination to May's dead she's dead she’s dead to it's my fault I'm supposed to protect people I'm literally the superhero here.

Then he saw the burglar.

The man was pointing the gun at the cashier's face. “When I say, ‘Give me the money,’ I want you to give me the money. I won't ask again. Give it to me now, or I'll shoot everybody else in here.”

Everybody else. Everybody else. Everybody else. He’d already shot somebody. Somebody had been shot.

He couldn't see Aunt May from where he was standing, and he hoped that she was safe. Hiding, or something. She probably hadn’t been too close to the counter. The line had been long. She’d probably meet him in the middle of the store any second now, and then they’d both be okay. It was fine. She was fine.

The cashier opened the cash register with unsteady hands, and pulled out the bills. When he tried to grab the coins, he dropped them and they scattered over the floor.

“Pick them up!” The robber snapped. The cashier dropped onto the tile and started collecting them.

“I'm sorry,” he mumbled, shaking as he grabbed the last coin and tried to stand up.

“And don't even think about pressing the silent alarm.” The man growled, grabbing the money and shooting the camera. He shoved his gun into his waistband and walked out of the store.

Peter suddenly unfroze and ran to the front, where Aunt May had been. He almost slipped in a pile of blood he hadn't noticed, and bit back bile.

He almost felt bad for praying that it wasn't May's. Almost.

“May?” He crept around the puddle and into the next aisle, where a streak of blood had led.

He almost fell to his knees when he saw her.

She was leaning up against cans of peas, and her hand was laying loosely on her stomach.

Her clothes were soaked with blood, and her eyes were shut.

“May!”

He pressed his fingers against her jugular, but couldn't feel a pulse.

“No, no, no, no.” He whispered, voice hoarse. This wasn't happening. This was just a dream. He would wake up in a few minutes and have to go to school.

“Is anybody—is anybody a doctor?” Peter's voice cracked. “Please?”

“No, but I'll call one,” said a man standing on their left. His hand was wrapped around his forearm, and blood was dripping onto the floor.

“Thank you,” Peter whispered, tears clouding his eyes. She would be okay. He would wake up in a couple seconds, and May would be in the kitchen, eating breakfast. It was just a nightmare. There was a thing about how technology couldn’t be present in dreams, right? His phone wasn’t in his pocket, and nobody seemed to have a watch on.

“She saved me,” the man told him after ending the call.

“What do you mean?”

“He was going to shoot me,” He confessed. “She pushed me out of the way, saved my life. He’d been aiming for my heart, and since I’d been kneeling, it only hit her here.”

“...It's your fault she got shot?”

Alarm crossed over the man's face. “No, of course not! I was just saying that—”

“You're saying that if you hadn't been in the way, she would be okay right now. I heard you. You just said that she got shot because of you. It's your fault.”

The man paled. “No, that's not what I meant—”

“How could—”

“Kid,” A hand grabbed Peter's arm and pulled him back. Peter almost fought out of the grasp until he realized whose hand it was.

“Mr. Stark, what are you—what are you doing here?” Peter blinked tears out of his eyes, looking up at him in confusion.

“I saw the news. I needed to make sure that you were okay.” He replied simply.

“I don't—” Peter began. All he wanted was to throw his arms around Mr. Stark and make the world disappear. It had to go, it had to end, it needed to be over—but no, he had to be strong. He was Spider-Man. He’d done this before, he could do it again. “You didn't have to.”

“No,” Mr. Stark said. “But you need me right now.”

Peter’s breath caught, and he collapsed into Mr. Stark’s arms.

“I know, kid.”

Peter hovered anxiously as the paramedics arrived, dizzy from the bright lights and sounds and reporters asking what had happened. She had a pulse, they told him as she was bundled into the ambulance. It was weak, but present.

Everything was fine. He’d just overreacted. It was fine.

He rode with them in the ambulance, and told Mr. Stark that he was fine on his own (Mr. Stark only left after Peter had promised to call him. Peter was surprised that Mr. Stark hadn't insisted on staying longer, considering the fact that Peter could barely form a sentence).

The waiting room had stark white walls, and the bright fluorescent lights hurt his eyes. People spoke in hushed whispers all around him, suffocating him. Why was the room so crowded? Why were they whispering? Why weren’t they just talking? Unless… unless they were talking about him? How he was an awful, ungrateful brat, who’d been mad at his aunt and had probably caused her to forget that they needed broccoli, and he would have been with her if he hadn’t gone back to get it why hadn’t he grabbed it in the first place? He’d known that she wanted to grab it.

He felt nauseous, and sank into one of the old chairs that was lumpy in all of the wrong places.. He gripped the wooden armrest so tightly that it splintered slightly in his hands.

God, the food was probably sitting on the floor of the grocery store, damaged, going to waste, bruised, soaked with blood—

The next couple hours passed in a blur.

The doctors came out and told him that she wouldn't wake up, but there was still some brain activity. She'd lost a lot of blood.

They asked him if he had anybody to stay with until (if) she woke up, and he nodded numbly. When he finished giving them legal information, they told him to go home and that they would call him if anything changed.

The next thing Peter knew, he was at the doors to SI. He pushed them open and walked through the metal detectors, then over to the elevator.

His security badge was at the apartment, but FRIDAY let him in, anyway. She recognized him and the badge was just to appease Happy, anyway.

“Hey, kid, what are you doing here? You can’t just walk in here like that.” A man in a suit walked over to him, and Peter took an unsteady step backwards.

“He’s with me,” Tony said, stepping up behind the man.

“Stark,” the man said, freezing in shock.

Tony glared at him, then gestured to the elevator with his head. Peter drifted after him.

Once they were safely inside, Peter let out a shaky breath.

“I'm scared, Tony.” He mumbled. “She hasn't woken up and—I'm scared.”

“It'll be okay, kid.”

The elevator doors opened to Natasha standing in the penthouse, waiting outside the elevator. “What’s wrong?”

Peter stiffened. It wasn’t that he didn’t like Natasha, or trust her—she’d been nice and, while curious, hadn’t invaded his privacy, and Tony trusted her enough to let her into the penthouse—but he was so, so not ready to face the reality of what had just happened, especially with somebody he barely knew.

He wasn't really in the mood to be around people, either, despite the fact that he desperately needed a hug, or some sort of physical reassurance.

He gently pulled himself out of Tony's grasp and stumbled over to his room, not even acknowledging her. His mouth tasted like metal, and it took him a second to realize why. He'd bit his tongue.

Once his door was shut, Peter let himself sink to the floor, unable to walk any further.

He heard Tony explaining in the vaguest way possible what had happened to May, then turned to face his bed. It wasn’t even that far away, so why couldn’t he bring himself to move the few feet towards it?

He managed to crawl from his place by the door when the clock blinked at him, 9:47 staining cyan afterimages across his vision.

The blankets felt non-existent, too lightweight to be present. He could still feel the normally-soft fabric catch on every dry patch of skin on his body, irritating and constant. He made no move to take them off.

The next morning, he woke up at 4:37 AM. The next thing he knew, he was standing outside of the hospital in the pouring rain, sneakers and yesterday’s clothes on.

They didn't have an update on May's condition.

He sat down in a chair next to her, dripping water onto the floor.

There were stories about people knowing what was going on around them while in comas, right? He could give her company, or read her funny news articles.

WHERE WAS SPIDER-MAN?

WOMAN SHOT IN ROBBERY, IN CRITICAL CONDITION.

QUEENS’ HERO HAS FAILED.

Peter’s phone fell to the ground, and he leaned over to get it.

It was his fault.

He'd been right there.

He could have stopped it.

He could have saved her.

He's been too angry at her to notice that his spidey-sense was going off.

He'd known that she wanted to get broccoli. Why hadn't he grabbed it? Just because it wasn't on the list?

It was all his fault.

Not the man that she'd pushed out of the way's.

Not, heaven forbid, hers.

It was his.

It was his fault that he hadn't been able to fight him.

Peter's.

He couldn't breathe.

It wasn't like he deserved to, though.

It was his fault that May was hurt.

It was his fault that May was dying.

His hand missed his phone as he stood up from the chair, blinking back tears. He pushed past people to get out of the hospital, and everybody glared at him.

“Look where you're going,” one person snapped.

He couldn't even think straight enough to apologize. He just had to get away. He didn't deserve to be near May. She probably blamed him, anyway. She'd be so much happier without him there.

She wouldn't admit it, she was too good to do that, but she would be secretly ecstatic that he'd left. He knew it.

He’d only been a burden since he’d moved in with her—she’d had to take up longer shifts at work, especially after he’d gotten Ben—work. She was missing work, and wouldn’t be able to pay the bills, and everybody else would have to work longer shifts and they wouldn’t be able to be with their friends and families or get a break and it was his fault.

He managed to get out of the hospital without too many people yelling at him, but couldn't remember how to get back home. He stumbled around the city, trying to find familiar streets.

He suddenly felt the urge to throw up, so he ducked into an alleyway. When he finished heaving up what remained of yesterday's lunch, he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and stood up, unsteady.

A man was staring at him, a knife in his hand. Peter stumbled back several steps, holding his hands out in front of him, and the man followed him. “Get—get back,” Peter warned.

“Give me your money, kid. I don't want to hurt you, but I will.”

“I don't have any.” Peter tripped over an empty cardboard box and fell to the ground.

“Sure you do,” the man said, pointing his blade at Peter's throat. “Every kid at least has a phone. You’re in high school, probably go on your social medias all the time.”

“I don't, I swear—” Peter clumsily pushed himself backwards.

“Kid, stop lying. Just give me your money and you'll be on your way.”

“I don't have any,” Peter screamed, and pushed the man's hand away. He climbed to his feet and held his arms out in a sloppy defensive position. "Get away from me.”

“Make me.” Was the man's response.

Peter glanced backwards, stumbling over another empty box. There was nowhere to go—he was cornered—he was going to die here and then this person would realize that he hadn’t been lying and then he wouldn’t be able to protect people because he’d be bleeding out in an alleyway or dead because he’d gotten his aunt killed and then couldn’t even deal with the reality of it because he was so weak and selfish that he was making it about himself when May was dying.

There was a windowsill a couple feet above his head. The man saw his gaze settle on it, and charged forwards. Peter jumped.

He gripped the edge of it, and managed to pull himself up despite his shaky arms. The man reached for his ankle just as he pulled it out of reach. Peter kicked at him and heard swearing as his foot made contact with what Peter could only assume was the side of the guy’s face.

He climbed up the building, then disappeared onto the rooftops.

He knew where he was now, just around the corner from the deli.

He made his way back to his apartment and grabbed his backpack, changing into a cleanish T and jeans. Then he headed to school, praying that nobody had seen the news.

Maybe if he did everything that he was supposed to, May would be okay.

“Dude, are you okay?” Ned asked him. “You look like crap. Did you get any sleep last night?”

“Yeah, I got… I got sleep.” Peter threw his backpack on the ground and got his pen out. He would have gotten more if he hadn’t been selfish and forgotten that people worried for some reason about how much sleep he got, so hopefully making Ned think that he’d gotten a decent amount of sleep would make him not worry and it was a good thing—but what if it was a bad thing? Lying by omission was still lying, so it was something bad and if he didn’t help people then why would they help him and, by extension, May? But what if doing something good for something in return canceled out its goodness and he was killing May by even trying?

He filled his name in on his warm up, hand shaking. He closed his eyes and let out a slow breath. He needed to calm down. He was fine. May was fine. He was just trying to attract attention because he was selfish and—

In. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.

Out. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.

In. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.

Out. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.

He was the first one to finish the problems, so he started doodling on the margins of his notebook.

There were knives, guns, and broccoli.

The pen nearly ripped the paper.

“Dude!” Ned moved his chair closer to Peter. “Are you excited to go to your internship tonight?”

“I… I'm not doing it tonight.”

“What?” Ned's response was immediate, and Peter could hear the shock evident in his voice. “Why not? Did he get mad at you?”

“No,” Peter replied. He grabbed a stack of papers from the kid in front of him, took one for himself and one for Ned, then passed it behind them. “I'm just not feeling that great.”

“Are you…sick?” Ned started working on the class work. “I thought that couldn't happen anymore, after… you know.”

“I don't know,” Peter said. He wasn't exactly lying. He didn't know if he could get sick anymore. He hadn't been at all since the spider bite.

He didn't want to worry Ned. He'd figure something out. May would be okay. It would be pointless to worry Ned over nothing, right?

“Parker can't get sick? Ha! He misses school half the time.” Flash leaned over to their desks. “What else would he be doing? It's not like either of you have lives.”

“Leave Ned alone,” Peter glared at Flash.

Flash opened his mouth to reply, and Mr. Lanh snapped at him. “Mr. Thompson, this is an individual activity.”

“Sorry.”

Peter barely made it through second period. He couldn't stop thinking about May, and the robber, and May, and what he could have done to save her—

Peter spent lunch in the bathroom.

As soon as the final bell of the day rang, Peter bolted home.

It wasn't fair. He'd done all of his work. He'd done what he was supposed to. Why didn't that make up for one minute of error yesterday? Why wasn't May okay?

He pulled himself up onto his bed and wrapped the blankets around himself.

He blinked when he heard knocking on the door. He slowly untangled himself from the bedsheets and opened it.

Mr. Stark was standing there.

“Hi.” Peter’s voice cracked from lack of use.

“Why aren't you at the tower, kid? I've been calling you.”

Peter shrugged and felt his pockets for his phone, but came up empty. “Lost my phone.”

There was another reason May didn’t deserve him.

“But why didn't you come over? You shouldn’t have to be alone right now.”

Peter shrugged. “Didn’t want to bother you, or whatever.”

“Bother me? Kid, I want to help you. Your aunt just got shot.” Peter flinched at the mention of May. “Sorry,” Mr. Stark added.

“It’s fine.”

“When's the last time that you ate?”

Peter shrugged.

“Yesterday? You didn't have dinner. And you didn't eat breakfast today. That's at least three meals if you didn't have lunch.”

“It’s not like I’d be able to keep it down. It’s just a waste of food at this point.”

“Peter, it is not a waste. You need to eat at least something—a tiny bit of soup? Crackers?”

“Fine.”

Pepper made some soup for dinner. He was pretty sure that it wasn't what they were planning to eat, but he couldn’t even manage to feel guilty for that. He was sure it would hit him later, once he was alone in his room at SI, and it would just add onto the list as to why he was unworthy of… pretty much everything.

He managed to eat it all, but when they went into their separate rooms for the night, Peter threw most of it back up.

“Why is everybody looking at you like that?”

“Like what?” Peter kept his eyes on his algebra warm up, not looking at Ned. If he pretended nothing was wrong, maybe nothing would be wrong. Wasn’t that some psychological thing? Smiling made you happy?

He'd ran out of the tower before Tony had woken up, and had needed to skip breakfast in order to get out in time. He couldn’t deal with Tony pretending to care right now.

“I don't know… it's like they're sorry for you? Even Flash isn't bothering you.” Ned pointed out.

“Huh.” Peter continued graphing his polynomial equation, considering the conversation over.

“Seriously, dude, are you okay?”

“Yeah, why wouldn’t I be?”

“I don’t know,” Ned said, “But you were like this yesterday, too. I barely saw you all day, and when I did, it was like you weren’t even there.”

“Your warm up should be completed alone, in silence.” The teacher hinted. Saved by the bell—well, sort of.

Ned kept trying to get his attention for the rest of the class, but Peter did his best to tune it out. Nothing’s wrong, nothing’s wrong, nothing’s wrong.

By second period, it seemed like Ned had forgotten all about it.

At lunch, it became evident that he hadn't. “Seriously, Peter, what's wrong? You aren't eating, and you always eat. Especially because… you know.”

“You don’t know?” MJ asked.

Peter froze. Everything’s fine, everything’s fine, everything’s fine.

“Huh.”

“Um, I’ll be right back,” Peter said, grabbing his books off of the cafeteria table. 

He hid in the bathroom for the rest of lunch. He splashed water on his face and reassured himself that he was fine like it was a mantra.

His phone buzzed several times—since when had he had his phone again?—and when he looked at it, it was a series of texts from Ned and MJ.

Ned

???

Why didn't you tell me???

Peter???

Where are you???

Are you okay??? 

I didn't want to worry you.

She'll probably be fine, anyway.

MJ

Why didn't you tell Ned?

You know that he doesn't read the news.

You're the one who doesn't let him.

have you seen what theyre saying

He knows that it isn't your fault, Peter.

I could have done smth

this is the same thing that happened to ben

i was right there

i didnt do anything

You were you supposed to know?

Newspapers are just looking for more readers.

It isn't your fault.

isnt it tho?

I could have stopped it

I didnt

+ now shes dying

Peter… 

Peter shut off his phone and wiped the water off of his face. His vision blurred a little bit as he stood up, so he grabbed onto the sink for support.

When he felt balanced, he grabbed his backpack and headed to class. He beat the rest of his classmates there, so he managed to finish his warm up early.

Ned ignored him.

MJ looked like she was drawing both of them until he sent a glare at her. She sighed and put her sketchbook away.

MJ

Look…

I'm sorry for telling him.

But he needed to know.

He's your best friend.

You can't keep something like that from him.

it wasnt up to you

Wasn't it?

The whole school knew.

Except him.

It's better that he knows from earlier on.

He'll forgive you sooner.

Especially if you apologize.

And you know he won't judge you for not being able to help.

I don't feel like talking about it

“Phones away, please.” The teacher, Mrs. Kulmu, glared at Peter.

His phone buzzed as soon as he put it in his pocket. There was a series of alerts, around 5 or 6.

Mrs. Kulmu narrowed her eyes at him then returned to the lesson. The rest of the class—the rest of the day, really—passed in a blur. He collected class work, completed it, and turned it back in without paying any attention.

He didn't even notice when his teacher handed him a paper he had to give back on Monday. He just placed it in his backpack and turned back to his work.

MJ

You have to get that permission slip signed.

read 3:17 pm

• ••

The weekend passed in a blur. He had Pepper sign his permission slip without him even reading what it was. She was his third guardian, after Tony, and her name was less recognized—she may have been the CEO of Stark Industries, but it wasn’t called Pott Industries.

MJ

it's signed

Good.

Don't miss school on Monday or next Thursday.

thursday?

wdym

Did you even read the paper?

I think so

maybe

probably not

Peter spent the majority of Saturday in the training room, hitting the punching bags until his fists were covered in blood.

It was good to feel something, even if he was only feeling pain.

He didn't notice a woman's figure watching him use punching bags that were too heavy for even Captain America.

He didn't even notice how hard he was pushing himself.

It took him a good five minutes to realize that his fists were bloody, and at that point he was too tired to continue, anyway.

He ate dinner that night without anybody reminding him he needed to eat—it was only about a fifth of what he’d normally eat, but at least it was something. 

In the morning, he had plain cereal for breakfast, and was out of the door before anybody else woke up.

He fell asleep when he got back to the tower after school, and pretended to ignore the concerned glances that Tony and Pepper kept sending him.

On Monday night, the hospital called. May had woken up for a minute, then fallen asleep permanently. He hardly even noticed that Tony’s phone fractured in his hand, then crumpled when they hung up.

The past few days were a blur, but a few random details decided to return to him—answers he’d put on papers that weren’t even relevant to the question, MJ glancing over at him every now and then, Ned, ignoring him, the paper he’d had signed—

The paper had been a permission slip for a field trip. To Stark Industries.

 Because where else could it possibly be?

Pepper

Did you tell Tony about the field trip?

No.

Okay.

Ned

sorry

???

For what?

not telling you

I guess it’s just

I wanted there to be one person who didnt know what the news was saying about me

I'm assuming that youve seen it all by now tho

MJ told me what happened

I still haven’t seen the news though

you havent?

No

You asked me not to

And I figured if you didn’t want me to know for whatever reason, I could at least give you some space

I’m here if you need me

thanks

I dont rly remember the past whatever

but i still should have told you

so i’m sorry about that

Peter, your aunt is in the hospital

Of course you didn’t want to talk about it

shes not anymore

the hospital called me this morning

ig i’ve already mourned for her

so like

it doesnt rly feel different

yk? 

Dude I’m so sorry

Is there anything I can do to help?

no

i'm sort of numb?

not as much as i have been

i miss her but

in a way i knew this was coming

Oh

Do you have a funeral planned or anything?

oh yeah

that exists

not yet

Do you need a place to stay?

You can stay at my house

no

im with tony

since i have a bedroom there anyway

You are?

It’s good that you can stay with him

yeah

pepper's really nice too

and i think nat sort of likes me?

she keeps “running into me”

Nat?

Wait

Oh my God

Natasha Romanoff?

The Black Widow???

yeah

im worried that she'll find out abt the thing tho

she is a spy

and she can sneak up on me

It’s probably fine

Mr. Stark trusts her enough to let her stay at the tower

And if she likes you then she probably wouldn’t betray you

ig

im just worried

bc she did team up with cap in berlin :///

They are friends

But if you’re her friend then she’ll side with you

Or, at least, not against you

Ig

They held her funeral on Saturday. Tony offered to pay for it, but Peter declined. She’d had money set aside for emergencies, and it was just enough money to cover the funeral and hospital bills (because wasn't this an emergency? And besides, Tony would be paying for him for a while. He lived with him now, after all).

Tony didn't come, though. He knew that May hadn't liked him that much—at least outwardly—and he didn't want to draw attention away from her (he gathered a crowd wherever he went: the grocery store, the street, fancy restaurants that were designed to keep out fans).

A few of her coworkers had shown up, as well as the old lady that lived downstairs (below his old apartment) (it was weird that he didn't live there anymore; the lawyer Tony had hired had separated the belongings according to her will, and once they cleared out the apartment it was put on the market. Peter got the money for it, and it was sitting in some bank account under his name that he’d probably never touch).

Ned and MJ had come, too. It was nice seeing them there. It wasn't nice seeing their tear-stained faces (MJ’s face wasn’t tear-stained, but her eyes were red).

Peter stood awkwardly to the side, then ran into Ned's arms. It was a hug long overdue. All three of them started to cry again.

He hugged MJ, too, and she started crying. Their tears soaked each other's clothes.

People came up to him and kept apologizing until he was practically num, tears all dried up and brain sluggish and foggy. By the time the last person came up to him, he could barely keep his eyes open.

After the funeral, Ned had to go home to help cook dinner, and MJ had to help with her neighbor's kids (she always watched them when her neighbors went out for a date. They hardly ever had free time, so they were eternally grateful. Besides, MJ was great with kids, no matter how she acted when she wasn't near them).

Happy picked Peter up after everybody had left, and the ride back to Stark Industries was silent. The city passed by in a blur, the color drained out of everything.

Dinner was eaten in silence, and the lights were low. The bustle of the tower had been missing that day, too. It was as if everybody at Stark Industries was in mourning.

Sunday morning, Peter had a small bowl of Cheerios with banana slices on it for breakfast.

He didn't really like bananas unless they were with Cheerios. He wasn't entirely sure why, but it didn’t have the weird aftertaste if it was eaten with honey and milk.

Tony didn't show up within half an hour, so Peter took that to mean that he was in his personal lab. Most of the time, employees didn’t come in on weekends until it was at least 10. 

Peter was pretty sure that Tony was working on making mini arc reactors for his Stark phones so that they didn’t need to be plugged in, but he could have been fooling around with a side project to procrastinate. He hadn't managed to find out how to create it on such a tiny scale yet.

Peter would have gone to help him out, but he felt twitchy, so he decided to go down to the training room instead. His fists were unmarked other than the faintest of scars from last time he’d been down here.

He only managed to get his energy out for about five minutes before he had to stop because, of course, Peter was the luckiest soul in the universe.

Nat walked into the training room. He almost hadn't noticed her at first—she could be quiet when she wanted to be (although he wasn't sure why she wanted to be quiet. It wasn't like there was anybody worth spying on in the room, unless you counted him, which he didn't).

He immediately started pulling his punches and moving slower. He stopped to get water a little bit later, and pretended that he hadn't noticed her yet.

Peter watched Nat out of the corner of his eye, and saw her stretching. She glanced in his direction, so he turned and waved at her.

“Hey, Nat!”

“Do you want to practice with me?” Her voice carried through the gym and into the locker area, where anybody who needed to take a break from working could store their stuff.

“Sure!” Peter set his water bottle down, then jogged into the gym. “What do you want to do?”

“Do you want to spar? Knowing self-defense is always a good thing.” He hesitated upon hearing her offer, then agreed. He was going to be bored to death with her in there, and it was a shame he couldn’t actually practice with her, because that would be fun.

He got into a fighting position, trying to mirror Nat's. She stood up straighter for a second and corrected his pose slightly, then went back to how she had been seconds before.

“Ready?”

“Sure.” Peter was going to have to go easy on her. He wasn't sure if he would win if he used his abilities to the fullest or not, as she had been fighting for years, but she would definitely notice if he was a lot stronger than an average teenager, however strong that even was.

At least he could get the technique down, even if he would have to somehow try to adapt it to his actual skill level later.

She had him pinned to the ground within seconds.

“Stop pulling your punches.”

“I—what do you mean?” There was definitely some fear that leaked into his voice, and he wasn’t sure whether she heard it or not. She didn’t show any acknowledgement of it, but that meant next to nothing.

“Stop going easy. You need to practice, and being soft during training won't help you in the real world, even if you have super strength and inhuman reflexes.”

Peter felt the blood drain from his face and scooted backwards. “I don't—” He cut himself off when he saw the look on her face. 

She seemed entirely unimpressed, but maybe he could play dumb a little longer? There was no way she could have proof, so if he kept up the act, she’d eventually give up, right? He didn’t know for sure, but it wasn't like he normally had to lie to spies, anyway. Just teenagers who hardly paid attention to him in the first place.

“I saw you when you were training the other day. It's fine, I won't tell anybody else. I'm assuming that Tony knows, considering Berlin?”

“Uh—you're not mad?”

“No, why would I be? I'm not mad at Tony, and his brain is fully developed. You're still a teenager.”

Peter opened his mouth to argue, then nodded mutely. After a second, he added, “So does Pepper. And Happy, and my au—and my friend Ned. I think this girl from school knows but I'm not sure because she hasn't said anything about it.”

“Okay. Anyway, get back into the position I showed you.” She cracked a smile. “And actually try this time.”

“So, Parker,” Flash said, moving his chair so that it was next to Peter. He guessed that now that his aunt was actually buried, Flash considered it okay to bully him again. At least he’ returned to normal, and wasn’t treating Peter like he was broken like most of the kids were. “Are you nervous for when I’ll finally prove to everybody that you're lying?”

“Not really.” Peter didn't even bother to look up at him.

He snorted. “Yeah, right. I could hear you talking to Ned about how you're not at all looking forward to this field trip.”

Peter rolled his eyes. “I'm more worried about how you'll react when you figure out that I'm actually telling the truth, believe it or not.”

“You? Telling the truth?” Flash laughed. “In your dreams, Parker.”

He leaned forward and whispered into Peter's ear, “And even if, somehow, you're telling the truth…it's a charity case. We all know how poor your grades are right now.”

He hadn’t expected Flash to actually stoop that low, hadn’t been prepared to face… all of that right now. His pen snapped in half.

The worst part was that Flash was right. His grades had dropped significantly over the past two weeks, and while he normally wouldn't care because he could do all of the work in his sleep… it hurt. A lot.

Even though he'd redone as much as he could, there wasn't a lot he could do to fix his grades. He'd known all of the information, but he hadn't paid enough attention to actually answer the questions. He hadn't tried hard enough to actually write the essays to his fullest ability.

He couldn't redo everything—there were no exceptions to the three redos per quarter rule, and it wouldn’t be fair to the other students if he got extra credit and they didn’t.

“What did he say?” Ned asked, frowning.

Peter just shook his head and got out a different pen.

It wasn't worth it.

On Thursday, Peter was almost late to school. He'd been worrying about the trip until nearly 4AM, and he had to wake up at 5 in order to get to school on time.

Long story short, he's overslept (Tony had realized that he wasn't in the kitchen like normal and woken him up. He only had 5 minutes to get ready, and ended up taking ten, then ran all the way to school).

Ned looked relieved upon seeing Peter, but Flash just sneered.

“I thought you'd chickened out, but I guess you're not too worried about how everybody will know that you're lying.”

“I'm not lying, Flash.” Peter walked onto the bus and headed to the back.

Flash was exhausting. It wasn’t even that his words hurt Peter (most of the time), it was that the fact that somebody hated him enough to make fun of him at every possible opportunity hurt, even if the rational part of his brain told him that that probably wasn’t why Flash was unrelenting.

But seriously—if you thought somebody was lying to get attention, why would you give it to them?

Ned tried to get on after him, but Flash pushed past him.

“Sure you're not,” Flash continued. “I can't wait to see how Tony Stark reacts when he figures out that you of all people have been lying about having an internship there. They only have qualified interns. I checked. That means not teenagers, especially people like you.”

“'People like me?'” Peter snorted. “What on Earth is that supposed to mean?”

“Idiots.” Flash's arrogance leaks into his voice. “Your weighted GPA is barely a 3.9 right now, AND you're in all AP classes. That's the equivalent of a 2.9 if you were in standard classes.”

Peter froze, then retorted, “Well if my GPA is that low right now, after… everything that's happened, yours must barely be a 3.0 considering that you're only a backup on the Decathlon team and I'm a full member.”

“Please take a seat, we have to leave…” Mrs. Kulmu looked at her watch. “Three minutes ago to get there on time.”

Flash sat down in the closest empty seat and Ned moved to sit near Peter. “You okay?” he whispered.

Peter nodded, then realized that he had crescent shaped marks in the palms of his hands. He forced himself to relax and changed the topic to Star Wars.

They played a guessing game where you had to find out which character the other person was talking about. Ned won. Peter only knew the names of about five characters, but somehow Ned had no clue.

When the bus pulled to a stop twenty minutes later, Flash sent a wicked grin in Peter's direction.

He tried to ignore the tangle of anxiety in his chest as his class poured out of the bus and ogled the skyscraper.

He tried to ignore the dread pooling in his stomach as they followed Mrs. Kulmu through the glass doors and up to the reception desk.

(He failed.)

Peter clung closely to Ned as Mrs. Kulmu spoke to the receptionist. Flash kept sending smirks at him. The class was chattering excitedly.

“You're with Midtown?” The receptionist asked, skimming over the crowd of children.

“Yes, we're Mrs. Kulmu's class.”

“Okay, can you just sign these papers while I grab your badges and get a tour guide?”

“Of course,” Mrs. Kulmu grabbed a pen out of the jar on the desk, then started flipping through the small stack of papers.

Ned was abnormally quiet, and it took Peter a second to realize why. He was staring at two people who had just walked into the lobby.

“Hey, Peter.” Pepper and Nat said, almost simultaneously.

“Um, hi, what are you guys doing down here?” Peter whispered, just loud enough for them to hear.

“Oh, we were just going to go get a coffee and wish you luck.”

“Luck? What do you—oh no. I thought you said you didn’t tell him?” If Tony had figured out about the trip, Peter was screwed. If FRIDAY let Tony know he had arrived, he was screwed.

Pepper smiled sympathetically, then followed Nat out of the glass doors. Peter stared helplessly after her as his class whispered to each other.

“How'd you get her to pretend to know you?” Flash grabbed Peter's arm in a bruising grip. “There's no way you paid her, so what did you do? Give… favors to certain people?”

It took Peter a couple seconds to realize what Flash was insinuating, and when he did, he flinched. “Ew, no. She wasn't pretending, anyway.”

“Sure, Parker. I'm watching you.”

Peter rolled his eyes and stepped away from Flash. Who would even go to such great lengths to lie to somebody? And for what? Attention? He wasn't even the person who advertised his internship—he only mentioned it when he had to because he was missing school. Flash brought more attention to it than Peter did.

“Midtown?” a young adult with a navy badge asked.

Mrs. Kulmu nodded and moved forward to shake hands.

“My name is Kithri, and my pronouns are she/her. I’m going to be your guide today,” she said, reaching out to Mrs. Kulmu. “The first thing we’re going to be doing today is getting your badges; they must be visible at all times or you risk being escorted from the building due to security measures. When I call your name, step forward to take your badge.”

She cleared her throat and looked down at a clipboard in her hands, calling out names as she went down the list. When she got to the last names that start with P, she froze, then continued as normal.

Flash noticed, and narrowed his eyes at Peter, a slight smirk growing on his face. “Miss Kithri?” he asked. “Peter didn't get a badge. Does that mean he can't come on the tour?”

“It says that Mr. Parker an intern here—is that right?” The last part was directed at Peter. “You're a lot younger than most of the interns.”

Peter nodded his head quickly, looking away.

“Okay…” Kithri said, skimming over the clipboard to make sure she didn’t miss anybody. “You have your badge, right?”

She didn't wait for him to reply, just moved on. Peter thanked every god he could think of; he’d left his badge upstairs earlier that morning, and didn’t have it on him.

“There are two different types of passes—workers and guests. Worker badges are darker, like this.” Kithri shoved the class her navy badge. “Guest badges look like yours—white. This is a security measure, so that nobody knows how much access a certain badge has, and it's harder to know which badge to take to break in. If somebody took my badge, they wouldn’t be able to sneak into any labs unless there were already people working there, and each person that works in a lab is limited to one or two, typically.”

Kithri paused and led them over to the metal detectors. “Every badge is personalized for each worker, so no two badges have the same coding other than Mr. Stark and Ms. Potts’, besides their names. Scan your badge here and then walk through the metal detectors, please. If you have a bag, place it here.”

Peter stood awkwardly to the side as his class went through the metal detectors. He could hear FRIDAY calling their names and saying “Guest” after each of them.

He rushed through after Ned, hoping nobody would notice that he didn't scan a badge before FRIDAY announced his name— Peter Parker, intern. At least she wasn’t betraying him today.

"Your badges are coded to only be accepted if it is with my badge, so they won't work after this tour. If you ever wish to come again, you need to bring this badge—unless your legal name has changed—and it will be recoded to whichever tour guide you have and the time slot for your tour. If your legal name has changed—or if you do not have a chance to change it legally, but it has changed—then you must bring it to be specially recycled, and we will print you a new one. This, along with status change from guest to worker, is the only reason a badge may be reprinted other than in extraneous circumstances.”

Kithri led them to an elevator, scanning her badge before the doors could open.

“We're going to tour a few lower level labs before lunch. The first lab is developing a ring that can transform into a phone. Since it's so tiny, it's a very delicate process, so please, don't touch anything.”

After lunch, which they ate in the cafeteria on the ground level, they headed towards one of the training rooms. Peter hadn't been in this one before; it was open to workers of all levels and he couldn't risk somebody finding out who he really was, and there wasn’t much he could do that was actually training while holding himself back. He could only train in the Avengers’ gym while they weren’t in the tower—or, he guessed, while those who weren’t Tony or Natasha, now that she knew.

It was identical to the one he normally went to other than the door, which had a keypad; the other gym’s entire floor was regulated by FRIDAY, so nobody that wasn’t allowed in the gym could even go near it.

“So,” Kithri said, typing in the password then opening the door. “This is the gym. All employees and workers can access this one, and it's identical to all of the others. There are gyms spread out every 20 floors so that while on break, workers can come exercise. It is by no means necessary, but when you’re standing over a lab table or squinting at a computer all day, you can get more than a little antsy.”

Kithri opened the door and gestured to the group to follow her, then took a step backwards.

Natasha Romanoff was in the room.

Kithri squeaked and backpedaled. “Ms. Romanoff—I didn't expect to see you here—I'm so sorry for interrupting you.”

“You aren’t interrupting me,” Natasha promised. “I was just waiting for Steve. We were going to demonstrate a few moves for your tour.”

“Oh!” Kithri cleared her throat, clearly unsure as to what she should do in this scenario. She chose the diplomatic option and stepped aside so that the class could file into the gym. “We have a schedule, but there's enough free time that we can wait a little bit for Mr. Rogers.”

“Does anybody want to test out the equipment while we wait for him?” Nat offered. “As long as you don't touch the weapons you should be fine, and even those are nearly harmless down here unless in the right hands—nunchucks, staffs.

Peter reached up to itch his neck, then got shoved out of the way by Flash as he moved to the front of their group. “I’d like to try something.”

Nat narrowed her eyes at him when Peter stumbled, but spread her arms in a gesture of good faith. “We can have a mini contest as to who can lift the most weight.” Nat suggested, pointing toward the five identical machines lined against the wall. “You'll have to take turns, though. And remember that lifting too much weight can hurt your muscles.”

“Oh my God, Peter, this is so cool!!!” Ned whisper-screamed into his ear. “The Black Widow was waiting to show us stuff and Captain America is going to show us stuff and oh my God.”

“Haha, yeah.” Peter replied, staring at Nat in confusion. What was she doing?

Their class separated into 5 lines—one at each weight machine. Peter and Ned hung to the back of the line—Peter was too nervous to lift more than he should be able to, and Ned wanted to be next to him to talk.

“The highest amount is 60 lbs, so far.” Natasha announced once the first group had finished.

“Ha! Take that, Parker.” Flash stood up proudly.

Two more students beat him, getting 70 lbs each.

Soon enough, it was Peter's turn to lift. Natasha caught his eye, but he couldn't tell what she was trying to say. Out of the two options, he elected to go for “Please put this kid into place by lifting 500 lbs” and set the weight on the bar to 80 lbs.

He lifted it effortlessly, and Flash made up some BS excuse that the weights were marked differently at each machine, and that he was going easy on him anyway. As if.

Steve Rogers interrupted his attempt at seeming tough by walking in and asking Nat, “Is this the tour group that you were talking about?”

She nodded, then asked the class to sit down on the benches along the far wall.

Peter met Nat’s eyes, praying that she understood him.

Does he know who I am?

No, don't worry.

Okay. Thanks.

They spent 5 minutes showing the class different self-defense techniques that took next to no training before Kithri announced that they had to leave in order to stay on schedule. She said it very quietly, as though the two Avengers would get upset with her for interrupting them. Nat just smiled and told them to have a great rest of their tour, while Captain America waved at them.

The teacher reminded them to say thank you, so they chorused their gratitude. Peter waved at Nat, who winked at him.

She had a smile on her face, and although he couldn't be certain what she was smiling about, she looked proud.

(Later she told him that she'd been proud of the fact that he hadn't really used his powers to put Flash in his place, and had only gone a couple pounds above what he'd been able to lift. She said that she would have put the most weight she could onto the bar just to rub it into his face, but he’d definitely chosen the best course of action).

He didn't notice Steve asking her about him, but it wouldn't have mattered if he had. He wasn't upset about the fight at the airport, but Nat had grown attached to Peter and wouldn't betray him no matter what.

The group went to a higher-level lab after leaving the training room, and Peter felt truly worried for the first time that day. He hung out in Tony’s lab primarily, but he also trailed behind him as they went through the other labs.

It was inevitable that somebody would recognize him here. While he wanted to prove to Flash that he wasn't lying, he didn't want his classmates to start wondering how he became Tony Stark's personal intern.

If they found that out, they would push, and his secret identity might be revealed. He’d rather have the entire school think he was a liar than his class know about his other extracurricular activities.

Kithri scanned her badge on the door to the lab, then had the class scan their badges. She had to override their badges individually due to the higher security here. She got ready to scan her badge again after Peter let FRIDAY recognize him, as most interns stuck to the less secure labs, then frowned when she didn't have to. He was the last one to go into the lab, so she pulled him aside once they had both entered.

“I thought you were an intern?”

“I am,” Peter replied.

“No interns are allowed on this floor—how come I didn't have to override your badge?”

Peter shifted his weight to his other leg and cleared his throat. “Uh, I have special permission to come into this lab.”

Kithri looked at him for a second, then shrugged and opened the door, entering the lab. If FRIDAY trusted him, who was she to question her?

One of the engineers in the room was explaining how they designed the Stark electronics so thin. The difference between Stark phones and other cell phones on the market was no different than the difference between Alexander Graham Bell and Steve Jobs.Most of the class was absorbed in what they were being told by Kithri about the technology here.

Flash, however, made his way over to Peter and snorted. “What, you get in trouble because your pass is fake?”

Peter ignored him and scooted closer to Ned. Mrs. Kulmu sent a warning look in Flash's direction for talking over their guide.

He scowled and turned away from Peter, but clearly wasn’t ready to drop it.

One of the workers—Stuart, or something—saw Peter and waved. He smiled back, and at Stuart's look of confusion as to why he was there, mouthed ‘Field trip.’ Stuart nodded in understanding after a brief second of trying to decode what he’d said.

After a few minutes of questions, Peter noticed Kithri stiffen and skim over something on her phone in alarm. “It seems that we have a change in schedule, so we have to cut this part of the tour short.”

At Abraham's groan, she added on, “You'll enjoy what's taking place of this, don't worry.”

She led them back to the elevator, practically vibrating with nervous energy. It was empty, which was lucky considering the size of their class, but it didn’t stay that way for long—after a few seconds of the doors being closed, they reopened, and Pepper walked in.

Peter sent her a ‘Save me’ look, and she smiled.

‘Sorry, Peter.’ She mouthed, then turned her attention back to her phone.

Pepper

I did wish you luck.

You know how he is, though.

He's proud of you.

Don't forget that FRIDAY tells him about everything that happens in the tower.

oh no

please tell me he's not going to try to embarrass flash

he really doesn't bother me i swear

I’ll talk to him.

thank you so much i love you

“Peter, can you please get off of your phone?” Mrs. Kulmu asked, but her tone made it evident that it wasn't a request.

“Oh! Yeah, sorry. My—uh, my guardian was texting me.”

Pepper bit her lip to contain her laughter, then exited the elevator.

As soon as Peter entered the next room, he knew that Ned was going to freak out. Standing in the center of the room was Tony Stark.

He met Peter's eye and winked. Peter hid behind his best friend, who hadn't noticed Tony yet, miraculously.

“Okay,” Kithri said. “You guys have a special meet and greet with Tony Stark! Please sit down in these chairs and then we can get started.”

The kids filed into their seats in record time, and Tony smiled diplomatically. “Hello, Midtown.”

Ned was staring at Tony in a state of shock, and so were a few other kids.

“You have…” Tony checked his watch. “Twenty more minutes on your tour, so I'll be answering your questions for that long. Who's first?”

Cindy raised her hand, so he picked on her. She asked something about the company’s social media pages and how they were so well-maintained, and he shrugged. Pepper was the one who dealt with that stuff, not him. After a few questions, Flash raised his hand, smirking at Peter.

“Yes?” There was a hard edge in Tony's voice, but it was surprisingly well-hidden under layers of faux politeness.

“Do you hire high schoolers as interns?”

“Not really,” Tony said. Flash threw a victorious smile in Peter's direction. “But if you are referring to Peter Parker, who’s right over there, then yes.”

A series of emotions crossed Flash's face, and Tony moved on to the next one. Peter sighed in relief that Tony wasn't trying to embarrass him—he’d barely even glanced at Peter, and had decidedly ignored how Peter was cowering behind Ned.

Flash glared at Peter for the rest of the trip and the bus ride back to the school, but Peter didn't really care. It wasn't like Flash could say anything about it, anymore, when it'd been proved to be true by Tony Stark himself.

All in all, the field trip was a lot better than it could have been, better than he’d expected it to be, better than he’d hoped.