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Chapter Text

Peter Parker was officially screwed.

His day had started out just fine, it was a Friday and even though Flash had been a prick all afternoon Peter was too relieved that the week was nearly over to care about that. He was even feeling kind of excited; ever since the incident with the Vulture, Mr. Stark had talked May into letting Peter stay over at the Stark Tower on the weekends which were always action packed, if not safe. He even mentioned taking Peter to the Avengers compound sometime, which was partly amazing but also mostly terrifying because like, all the Avengers lived there. Well, most of them anyway. But he wasn’t sure he’d ever get the chance to go, because the permission slips that Mr. Harrington had just put in front of them had just doubled his mortality rate and of all the stupid luck in the world-

‘Hey Penis!’

Peter slammed his head against his desk in utter defeat, causing Ned to glance at him in concern. Flash walked over, a smirk playing on his lips.

‘You heard Mr. Harrington, the Decathlon is going to Stark Industries. It’s almost a shame I have to wait two whole weeks to finally expose your pathetic lies. What company are you going to fake an internship with next once we’ve proven you don’t work there?’ he taunted.

‘Go away Flash,’ scowled Ned. Flash left, talking loudly about how he, Flash was going to get a “real” internship from Mr. Stark once he saw how talented Flash was, and that Peter would probably get expelled when the school found out he was lying. Peter sighed loudly, head still pressed against the desk. ‘I’m going to die,’ Peter mumbled.

‘Well, maybe it won’t be so bad,’ said Ned hopefully. Catching Peter’s look, he winced. ‘Okay, yeah, it’ll be pretty bad. But that’s only if Mr. Stark finds out.’

‘Mr. Stark will find out.’ Peter deadpanned. He could tell that Ned was excited for the trip and he smiled at his friends’ obvious effort to hold it in for Peter’s sake. Sometimes he wondered what he did to deserve a friend like Ned. ‘Y’know, maybe you’re right. Maybe I can just ask him not to do anything embarrassing.’ They left the classroom and walked towards the school entrance, Peter still trying to formulate a plan that will cause the least collateral damage for him. ‘What am I talking about? Of course he’ll try and embarrass me, and if I ask him not to he’ll just try harder. Well, at least you can see where I work right before this whole thing kills me.’ He chuckled at the awestruck look that came over Ned’s face.

‘Dude, I know that this has about a ninety percent chance of blowing up in your face and I’m super worried for you, I really am – but ohmygod this is gonna be amazing.’ Ned did a sort of small bounce, pumping a fist in the air. Peter grinned at his show of excitement.

‘Hey, it’ll be fun no matter what happens. Worst comes to worst, you can show the montage of selfies that we took that day at my funeral.’ Peter glanced up to see a familiar black car. ‘Crap, I gotta go.’

‘Oh yeah, you go over to Stark Tower on the weekends! Have fun, I’ll text you later!’ They performed their signature handshake and Peter raced over to the car, waving goodbye. As he slid into the backseat, Happy grumbled in annoyance. ‘Took you long enough.’

‘Well, considering I’m probably going to die in about two weeks, I think I deserve some slack.’ Peter slumped over in his seat.

Happy was used to the Kid’s dramatics, but even this was a bit over the top. ‘Would you care to explain?’ He would never admit it but seeing Peter’s exhausted face in the rearview mirror made him just a tiny bit worried.

‘We’re going on a field trip,’ Peter said, not wanting to finish the statement.

‘To?’ Happy asked.

‘Stark Tower.’ Peter whined, covering his face with his hands. ‘This is going to be a nightmare.’

Happy winced. ‘Yeah, if Boss finds out, you’re screwed.’

‘Ned said the same thing,’ Peter said miserably. ‘And you know as well as I do that he’s gonna find out.’

‘Mhm.’ Happy shot a sympathetic look over his shoulder at the dejected boy. After a moment of silence, Peter slowly pulled out the homework he hadn’t got around to finishing and started to work on it, rambling mindlessly about less stressful topics and in no time they were outside the entrance to Stark Industries. Peter thanked Happy for dropping him off and went inside, walking up to the front desk where he saw the girl at the front desk, Zoe. She worked as an intern most of the time, but on Fridays she manned the entrance with whoever was available. She glanced up and noticed him, smiling widely.

‘Hey Pete! Look guys, the Kid’s here!’

‘Hey,’ he greeted them happily, all thoughts of the field trip sliding from his mind as he rummaged around his bag, finally pulling out his badge. ‘I’m just going up to Mr. Stark’s lab.’

‘When are you not? She joked, motioning for Peter to scan his badge. ‘Go on, you know what to do. And don’t forget to visit the intern labs sometime!’

‘I won’t!’ he called, holding up his badge to the scanner until he heard the familiar voice of FRIDAY ring through the terminal.

‘Peter Parker, Level Alpha. Occupation: Underoos. Welcome back Peter, would you like me to alert Tony of your arrival?’

‘No that’s alright Fri, I’m coming up anyway.’ Peter replied. Getting into the lift, he pressed the button for the floor Mr. Stark’s labs were on and as soon as the doors were open again he raced through the hallway and burst into the labs, relief pumping through his veins. ‘Mr. Stark, I’m here!’ he called.

‘For the last time, it’s Tony!’ Mr. Stark called back. ‘Hey Kid, how was school?’ He asked, turning away from an intelligible jumble of wires and machinery to face Peter, who dumped his backpack near the door before tackling the older man in a hug. As Mr. Stark ruffled his hair affectionately, Peter felt as though a huge weight had been lifted from his shoulders. The way he interacted with Peter, it was almost like-

No. Mr. Stark wasn’t his father as much as he wished he was sometimes and pretending he was would just ruin the relationship he already had with his mentor, which would destroy the both of them. If he thought of Peter as a son he would say so, and since he hadn’t Peter would just have to settle with the title of mentee. Or Underoos, if he were to look at his ID badge, which he still wasn’t sure actually counted as an occupation, but Mr. Stark had insisted so…

Pushing away his internal conflict, Peter pulled away and looked over the thing Mr. Stark had been working on before he had arrived. ‘What were you working on?’

Mr. Stark shrugged ‘Doesn’t really matter, it’s kind of a lost cause by now and I’ve got a surprise for you.’ Seeing the look of wariness on the Kid’s face, he chuckled. ‘Don’t look at me like that! It’s a good surprise, I promise. We’re going to the compound for the weekend.’ He did a kind of jazz hands that Peter would have laughed at if he wasn’t suddenly excited and very, very nervous.

‘Really? When are we going? Are we going to be there the whole weekend – do you think they’ll like me? What if-’

‘Whoah, calm down there Underoos. As for your questions, yes we really are going, we’re leaving as soon as you’re ready, we’ll be there the whole weekend and drive back Sunday and of course they’ll like you, you win over everyone who meets you in under five minutes. Now come on, Rhodey said they’re having movie night tomorrow and I want to be there to make sure that Clint doesn’t eat our entire stock of popcorn before then, because he’s done it before and despite the fact that I own one of the richest companies in the world, if it happens again I might go broke.’

They left the labs and went down to the floor level Peter been at just minutes ago. As they walked out the door, Zoe gave Peter a thumbs up and mouthed good luck. He nodded his head and raised a hand in thanks. It’s nice to know that someone will have my back when the field trip inevitably goes wrong, he thought.

~oOo~

Okay, Peter was not ready for this. He was currently sitting in the empty Avengers common room, waiting for Mr. Stark to come back with the Avengers to say hi. The plan was to introduce him as Mr. Stark’s personal intern and the mind behind the Spider-Man suit, which would hopefully be close enough to the truth to divert suspicion and keep his secret identity, well, secret. And as boring as it was just sitting there for ages, Peter felt more worried than anything else. Despite Mr. Stark’s insistence that the Avengers would love him, he couldn’t help anxiety coil in his stomach at the thought of his heroes walking through the door at any second. What if they thought he was weird? He knew that he tended to ramble when he was nervous, and he definitely qualified as nervous right now, plus he had weird spider-powers – though they hopefully wouldn’t find out about that.

Despite Ned’s enthusiastic fanboying immediately after, he could still remember the look of shock and disbelief that had crossed his best friends face as their Lego death star tumbled to the floor. And May had sworn.

She never swore.

And although he knew that considering the circumstances that was actually a perfectly reasonable reaction, it had still hurt a bit. That maybe he was so inhuman that seeing him called for that kind of reaction. He wondered how MJ would react if she found out about his secret identity. Would she be creeped out? Disgusted? Would she turn away, the last thing he saw of her the look of faint disappointment before she left forever? Yet again, the rational part of his brain knew that MJ wasn’t like that, that he was making things up in his stressed state of mind, but the small voice in the back of his head kept a tight grip on those scenarios, leaving him to drown in a swirling pool of his own thoughts.

The Avengers would hate him, Mr. Stark would see that he was useless and then-

Suddenly the door opened and in came Mr. Stark himself, along with the one Avenger he was least excited to meet.

Captain America walked into the room.

Peter had thought that he wasn’t ready for this, and he was right. He was so right that he realized right at that moment that maybe he should have argued a bit more, tried to explain to Mr. Stark exactly why he was so nervous, because at that moment all of his previous fears about meeting the man who left his mentor to die not even two years ago suddenly dissipated and were replaced with something much worse; his fanboy mode.

‘O-oh hi Mr. Captain America sir, it’s so cool to meet you,’ Peter rambled nervously, jumping up from the couch. The man looked more taken aback than anything, while Mr. Stark seemed like he was trying not to piss himself laughing.

‘He’s a bit of a nerd,’ Mr. Stark choked out, eyes dancing with mirth as Peter flushed with embarrassment. Mr. Rogers however took pity on his suffering on offered a small smile.

‘Just call me Steve, son.’

Peter was about to reply when his spider sense pinged, a huge crash sounded from in the ceiling as someone fell through it and onto the floor right in front of Peter, causing him to jump a foot in the air. As he tried and failed to calm his racing heart Peter heard Mr. Stark yell exasperatedly;

‘For the last time Legolas, keep out of my goddamn vents!’

‘I was being stealthy!’ The man Peter now recognized as Hawkeye whined, standing up and dusting himself off. ‘Nice to meet you, kid-’

‘What’s going on?’ Another new voice said, coming from the door. Mr. Stark sighed as the Black Widow and Falcon walked through the door, arms crossed.

‘I walk around the entire frigging compound for twenty minutes looking for you guys, but the moment Clint falls through the ceiling oh no, THEN everyone comes to investigate. Am I not the one funding the whole team?’

‘What was that about Clint falling through the ceiling?’ Oh my god that’s the War Machine I think I’m going to die- Peter was frozen in pure shock, struggling to come to terms with the fact that so many of his childhood heroes were in the same room that he was currently occupying, because this was probably the coolest thing ever. Suddenly realizing that everyone was staring at him Peter tried to say something, but in his nervousness all prior knowledge of the English language left his head, to be replaced with static.

‘Uhm…’ he said eloquently. Thankfully at that point Mr. Stark decided to step in and save him from further embarrassment.

‘This is Peter, my intern, who I brought here to help some things here but I also wanted you to meet-’ he rolled his eyes ‘so that there wasn’t any drama. Anyways, if you see the others just make sure they don’t kill the kid because I prefer him alive, he can science with me better that way. Come on Underoos, let’s go.’

This was probably the weirdest thing that had ever happened to him, including all of his Spider-Man exploits. Okay, maybe not weirder than fighting your crush’s dad outside a private jet with billions of dollars’ worth of artefacts inside, but it was close. Peter followed Mr. Stark out of the common room into the hallway, trying not to make eye contact and ignoring the prickling from his spider sense that warned him that he was being watched. He wasn’t sure, but the look on Mr. Rhodes’ face when Mr. Stark addressed him was strange, almost as if he was solving a mystery. Peter didn’t know what he was thinking about, but as far as he could tell there had been nothing Mr. Stark had said that would have revealed him as Spider-Man, so whatever it was it should be harmless.

He hoped.

Chapter Text

As Peter slowly drifted into consciousness, he realized that he wasn’t in any place he recognized. Huh. That’s funny, he thought.

Suddenly his vision focused and he shot out of bed, stumbling as he took in his unfamiliar surroundings. He quickly realized he must be at the compound. That was right, Mr. Stark had showed him his room last night after they’d spent what was probably way too much time in the labs, tinkering with the different things there. Mr. Stark had showed him how to manipulate vibranium, and they’d started drawing up blueprints on how to incorporate it into the Spider-Man suit to make it tear proof. That would be a huge upgrade, seeing as most afternoons in the labs were spent patching his suit back up after getting lightly stabbed by a robber (or sometimes by very angry cats that he was trying to rescue from a tree). After that, they’d realized that it was probably much too late for Peter to be up and he’d stumbled into the room pointed out to him, too tired to fully notice his surroundings. As he glanced around the room, he couldn’t help but mumble;

‘Wait… it wasn’t a test?’

The whole room was decked floor-to-ceiling with everything he liked; various posters adorned the walls, boxes of Lego sets were stacked on a shelf in the corner among a few other things undoubtedly proved that it had been made with Peter in mind, but the thing that shocked him the most was how simple it was. Well, not simple for him, but for Mr. Stark it was practically bare. Had he known this room existed he would have definitely expected much worse. Knowing that Mr. Stark had thought about Peter’s discomfort with wealth and material made his heart warm with appreciation. But also… why would he have a room here? The only time Mr. Stark had mentioned that he had a room in the compound was when he offered Peter a place in the Avengers- but that had been a test, hadn’t it?

Hadn’t it?

Pushing it out of his mind in a vain attempt to avoid a migraine, he grabbed some clothes from the closet (Mr. Stark had thoughtfully stocked it with an impressive collection of science pun T-shirts) and took a shower in a bathroom he found to the side of the room. Once he was done, he grabbed his backpack stocked with homework and headed off to find the kitchen. It took a few minutes but he finally found it, unknowingly walking into quite the scene:

The first thing he noticed was that Mr. Barton was sitting on the kitchen table, eating a bowl of cheerios while Mr. Rogers (Steve, he reminded himself) was very loudly telling him to get off. Then he realized that Miss. Maximoff was using the distraction to float a bag of marshmallows over to her using her magic, plucking it out of the air once it was close enough. Opening the bag with skilled expertise, she threw one over to Peter who caught it easily and popped it into his mouth, giving her an appreciative thumbs up. It wasn't until her eyes widened in surprise that he realized that a normal fifteen-year-old probably wouldn't be able to catch such a small object thrown at him from across half a room, but he just had to hope she would chalk it up to luck. As he looked around, he noticed that Rhodey had seen the exchange and was also watching Peter suspiciously while Vision (he assumed it was Vision since there weren’t that many red androids walking around in his experience) was sitting on the couch reading a book next to Mr. Wilson, who was egging on both Mr. Barton and Steve by calling out things like yeah, get off the table! and then, stand up for yourself Clint! which only served in confusing both parties even more, though Mr. Barnes seemed to find it hilarious. Everyone else was either sitting on the other side of the table and trying to pretend nothing was happening or sitting on the couches set to the side.

At that moment Mr. Stark glanced up and noticed him, taking a sip of the coffee in his hand and beckoning him over. ‘We’ve got poptarts in the pantry,’ he greeted Peter. Nodding, Peter went over and quickly located them, taking out two from the box and absentmindedly putting them in the toaster. He watched in faint amusement as Mr. Barton eventually gave up trying to argue with the headstrong avenger, sliding off the table and going over to sulk in an armchair with his now-soggy cheerios.

Hearing the noise of the toaster going off, he grabbed the poptarts and put them on a plate when the reality of his situation set in. He was in the Avengers compound, in the Avengers kitchen, eating breakfast with the Avengers. Which shouldn’t be such a big deal, but it wasn’t like he was on their level and that made him feel like an imposter. He was just a sixteen-year-old kid and they were heroes. What did he do, rescue cats from trees? The only real hero work he had done by himself was on homecoming night, but it wasn’t like he talked about that. Ever.

Turning around, he noticed that pretty much every occupant in the room was watching him in some way, from glancing out of the corner of their eyes (Miss. Romanov) to straight-up staring (Vision). He made an awkward noise in the back of his throat and went over to sit next to Mr. Stark, who began to protest the moment he tried to sit down on the couch.

‘Nuh-uh, kid. You sit on the floor until you’ve finished that, I’m not letting you get crumbs all over the furniture.’

‘How old do you think I am, six?’ Peter said in indignation. ‘I know how to eat without spilling stuff everywhere.’

Mr. Stark rolled his eyes. ‘Sure you do, Underoos.’

‘Please?’ he pleaded, using the power of puppy-dog eyes. The older man grumbled to himself but gave in.

‘Fine, but if you make a mess, you’re cleaning it up.’

Sitting down triumphantly, Peter quickly got to work demolishing his food, completely missing the look Mr. Stark sent the curious Avengers: stop looking. When it was clear that they would not in fact, stop staring, he cleared his throat.

‘So,’ he said, causing Peter to look up in panic as Mr. Stark drew even more attention to him. ‘For the people who don’t know yet, this is my intern, Peter. Please do not break or damage him in any way because like I said before, he can intern better in one piece. And since yesterday was such a mess, we’re gonna try this again. Everyone, introduce yourselves.’

…

‘Really?’ Whined Mr. Barton.

‘You’re gonna make us go through introductions all over again like preschoolers?’

‘If you count falling out of the vents as an introduction, yes.’

Mr. Barton huffed. ‘Okay fine.’ He turned to Peter. ‘I’m Clint Barton, but just call me Clint. No Mr. Barton business, yeah?’

‘Oooh, I want to go next,’ Miss. Romanov said sarcastically. ‘I’m Natasha, but you can call me Nat.’

‘Wanda.’ Said Wanda, causing Mr. Stark to put his face in his hands.

‘Alright, I get it, nobody here can do anything normal,’ Mr. Stark exasperatedly. ‘Just, no “Mr’s” or “Ms’s” here, okay kid?’

‘But Mr. Stark,’ grumbled Peter, causing several people to snicker.

~oOo~

‘So, how did you meet Tony, Peter?’ Natasha asked him once everyone had cleaned up from breakfast and were sat around the couches in a semi-circle, almost like a weird initiation ritual. He was surprised that she even remembered his name.

‘Uhm, well, Mr. Stark-’

‘Tony,’ Mr. Stark corrected.

‘Mr. Stark,’ he repeated ‘found me on YouTube, saw a couple s-science videos that I’d made and somehow tracked me down. I still don’t really know how he found me, ‘cuz I didn’t even show my face or anything, but I guess he has to use FRIDAY for something.’ Peter was actually proud of that explanation despite his stumble, it was close enough to the truth that hopefully no-one would pick up his bluff-

‘Why are you lying?’ asked Bucky, sounding slightly suspicious.

Ah yes. He’d forgotten the people he was talking to.

Crap.

‘W-wh-what do you mean, I-I-’

‘I think I know,’ said Rhodey, causing everyone to look over at him. ‘I’ve had my suspicions ever since yesterday, but it was your voice that confirmed it. You’re that spider-kid, aren’t you? From Queens.’

There was a moment of silence that Peter would have liked to have thought was in remembrance of his no-longer secret identity.

‘Uhhhhhhhhh,’ he said. All of a sudden, everyone spoke at once.

‘So you’re the kid with the webs?’

‘How did Tony even find you?’

‘That suit was so cool, how does it work?’

‘So you’re the one who stole Cap’s shield?’

Peter looked to Mr. Stark for help. Sighing, the man stood. ‘I was hoping nobody would figure this out, but I guess the world’s mightiest heroes are actually good at something, so yes. Peter is my intern, but alongside that he is also Spider-Man, who also helped me in Germany. Obviously if you tell anyone this then I don’t care whether you are an Avenger or not because I will sue you into oblivion; the kid is keeping his identity secret to make sure his friends and family don’t get targeted. So yeah, great job kid, I think you just broke the world record for quickest secret exposed, but no biggie.’

Once again, there was silence that was only broken by Peter's sigh of resignation before Rhodey spoke again. ‘So, you’re telling us that you hired a what, twelve-year-old kid and gave him a multimillion dollar suit with weird spider powers?’

‘It’s not just the suit with the powers, most of it is me,’ interjected Peter.

‘So the web stuff actually comes out of you?’ asked Clint, sounding faintly grossed-out.

‘Ew! No way, I made the web formula in my chemistry class and put them into these devices on my wrists, they do not come out of me, ick. I was talking about my super strength and stuff,’ he said, showing them his web-shooters.

‘Wait, so what are your powers?’ asked Bucky, looking slightly interested.

Peter hummed in thought. ‘Well, as I said I’m really strong but I’ve never really tested it properly.’ He said, ignoring the voice in his head that reminded him about homecoming night, since I can lift a building in rubble is a pretty specific weight. ‘But I’m really sticky, like climbing-on-walls sticky when I want to be, I’ve got a super-fast metabolism and, like, all of my senses got dialed up to ten, along with this extra sixth sense I call my spider-sense.’

‘Spider-sense?’ Natasha inquired.

‘Yeah. It’s a bit finnicky but usually it’ll tell me if there’s danger just before it’s about to happen, but it’s not always the best at picking out what’s actually dangerous of not. Like, if someone was to throw a pen at me or something, it would pick it up.’ He watched as Ms. Maximoff’s eyes lit up with understanding.

Steve broke in, looking slightly upset. ‘Can we go back to the bit where you,’ he pointed at Mr. Stark ‘hired a kid to be a superhero?’

‘I was doing superhero stuff before I even met Mr. Stark!’ Peter snapped, heart sinking. This was exactly the reason he was worried about people finding out his secret identity. Where before he’d been trusted with the safety of Queens and wherever else he went, if the public knew that their hero was just a moody, inexperienced teenager, they would never look at him the same way. Nobody would let him do his work, and then he would be useless, a waste.

After all, nobody wants just Peter Parker.

‘I was working as Spider-Man for almost a year before Mr. Stark found me and gave me a proper suit!’ He said, standing up. ‘You can even look it up on YouTube and see what I was working with. A onesie and scrap metal webshooters. Is that what you would prefer me to fight armed robbers with? At least with Mr. Stark’s help I’m more protected and have someone to turn to when I come across something above my paygrade.’ He winced internally, not thinking about the ferry incident. ‘Would you feel comfortable with a 'kid’ he used air quotes, ‘fighting a villain with mechanized vulture wings on the outside of a plane that was transporting your stuff in that same onesie? Because that’s what happened last year and I’m fine now, so with all due respect sir, I think I have it handled.’

There was yet another silence that gave Peter enough time to fully register what he’d just said.

‘Um- I mean-’

‘No,’ said Steve in a tone that surprised even Peter. ‘You’re right son, we were being rude,’ he glared over his shoulder at Clint, who shrugged. ‘And I’m sorry for that.’

Peter, shocked into silence, mouthed a small oh.

‘Now that everyone’s woken up, I’d already planned on having a training session today. If you’d like, you could join us?’

His eyes widened in excitement, his previous anger forgotten in the face of Steve’s peace offer. ‘Wait, really?’ He asked. ‘Yes, ohmygod yes, that would be so cool.’ He raced out of the room, leaving a group of very confused Avengers behind. ‘I’ll go get my suit!’

~oOo~

‘So,’ said, Peter, bouncing on the balls of his feet in the huge training room. ‘Can we start now?’ He was in his suit for the first time in days and man did it feel nice to have his mask on again. Mr. Stark had designed it to filter out all excess light and sound, which was especially helpful when he had a sensory overload. Also it meant he could talk to Karen.

He fiddled with the vest he was wearing for the game, the itchiness slightly annoying.

‘Alright, said Natasha. ‘Time starts now.’

Immediately everyone started running and the chaos began, the sound of marker firing making his ears ring slightly. Scrambling to the nearest wall and climbing up, he surveyed the situation. Natasha had explained the activity before they started; each person was given a target vest, a marker and told to try and shoot the other people’s targets using any method they could think of.

So, like paintball with targets played among a group of superpowered warriors, plus Peter.

From his high vantage point, he could see Mr. Stark (in his Iron Man suit) firing shot after shot at where Rhodey was cowering behind one of the obstacles set up throughout the huge room.

‘Come on Honeybear, you can’t hide forever!’ He taunted, grinning like a hyena. Poor Rhodey.

Clint was in his element, hitting people left, right and center, hitting both Steve and Wanda in a matter of seconds. It was at that moment Peter realized that Hawkeye might actually be the biggest threat in this situation. Karma, he thought, thinking about all the times he and Ned theorized that the bird-themed hero was the weakest Avenger. Using the obstacles set up along the walls, he jumped from shaft to pole, trying to figure out how to get the others out. It seemed that most of them (read: Mr. Stark and Rhodey, who was actually putting up a pretty good fight) were pretty focused on each other, and he didn’t have to worry about Vision since he’d opted out to instead just watch the carnage from a distance. So, as long as he did his best to stay out of sight until the end-

A paintball bullet whizzed past his head, hitting the wall next to him. Cursing under his breath, he saw Clint smirking up at him, marker pointed right at Peter. Scrambling away as fast as he could, all he could focus on was the pinging sensation in the back of his neck that allowed him to weave among from the barrage of paintballs sent his way without getting hit. It was a tricky thing to do, since even with his spider-sense he was still trying to evade the Avenger whose literal superpower is having a good aim.

All of a sudden his spider-sense screamed at him, and out of nowhere the firepower directed at him doubled, and he looked down to see that Bucky had apparently teamed up with Clint, and that the three of them were the last ones standing. That was fast, he thought. Can’t believe Mr. Stark and Rhodey were bested by the Winter Soldier so quickly. Caught up in thought, he swung from one metal pole to another and reached up to grab hold of the second one. With a lurch, he realized that it was too far away as his hand flew through empty air and began to fall. His brain froze in panic before suddenly his side connected with the floor, leaving him winded.

He faintly heard the sound of voices calling out before a pair of hands grabbed him and roughly turned him over.

‘-eter? Peter! Come on bud, can you hear me?’ Mr. Stark said, sounding worried. Opening his eyes, the first thing he realized was that pretty much everyone was crowded around him in various states of worry. The second was that he was still somehow holding his marker. Faster than the others could react, he lifted up the marker and shot both Clint and Bucky right in the center of their targets.

‘I win.’

Chapter Text

Peter-Man:

So Mr. Stark may have brought me to the compound for the weekend

And I may have met the Avengers

Guyinthechair:

WHAT

PETER WTH WHY DID YOU NOT TELL ME THIS IMMEDIATELY???

Peter-Man:

I was busy!!!

Guyinthechair:

Smh

So how hard is it to keep your spider-identity secret?

Peter-Man:

Not too hard

Considering I don’t have to

Rhodey figured it out in like 0.8 seconds

Guyinthechair:

You’re kidding me

You blew it that fast??

And also YOU’RE ON FIRST NAME BASIS WITH THE WAR MACHINE???

Peter-Man:

Well idk how long he knew but he only asked me about it this morning

After I tried to lie to them

And yea?? Mr. Stark told me to call everyone by their first names

Guyinthechair:

DUUUDE

This is too much info to process

Peter-Man:

Trust me, ik

Guyinthechair:

So what about the field trip

Peter-Man:

…

Oh

Oh no

I forgot about that

The little thingy thing

That’s gonna ruin my life

Guyinthechair:

Yup

So what music do you want at your funeral?

Peter-Man:

Astronomia

Duh

Guyinthechair:

And I’m assuming you want me and MJ to dance with your coffin?

Peter-Man:

Read my mind

But anyways I gtg we’re having movie night

Guyinthechair: WHATTTTT

Why are you even talking to me???

Go watch a movie with the avengers!

Peter smiled at his phone, sending a quick goodbye before switching his phone off, grabbing his backpack and heading down to the living room, where everyone was getting ready to pick something to watch. Apparently this had been something of a tradition among the heroes and after all the trouble with the accords and the damage control necessary to patch things up, they hadn’t really had the time to continue it again. It had been surprising how easily the others had accepted him into their group after finding out his secret identity and though he was still kind of nervous about more people knowing who he was, he was almost proud of himself for the way he’d handled everything.

Dumping his backpack in the corner, he gathered as many blankets as he could carry from the cupboard and sat down on the floor in front of the couch. Looking up, he noticed Vision in an armchair reading a book.

‘D’you know what we’re going to watch?’ Peter asked him. The Avenger considered for a moment.

‘Well, if we are still using the same rotation schedule of who chooses the film, then it is Clint’s turn. Unfortunately, his choices are always the most unpredictable, so I would suggest you be prepared for whatever he picks.’

‘Oh well, I guess it can’t be that bad,’ Peter said nervously.

Oh how wrong he was.

‘Alright guys, let’s get this started!’ Crowed Mr. Stark, falling dramatically onto the couch next to Peter. ‘Kid, why are you on the floor? I bought this furniture to be sat on, y’know.’

‘That wasn’t what you said when I had a plate of poptarts in my hands,’ Peter grumbled.

‘Yeah, yeah, we all know you’re an angsty teen. Now sit on the couch like a normal person.’

Peter scoffed. ‘One; I don’t think anyone has ever described me as angsty, like, ever. And two; I also don’t think anyone in this group can be described as a normal person.’ Rhodey chuckled, earning a glare from Mr. Stark. ‘I think he got you there.’

It was easy to tell that most of the Avengers still weren’t entirely comfortable with Peter there, but Mr. Stark’s insistence had easily swayed them into letting him join. After all this was Tony Stark, famously known for his distain of children. If he was so invested by one that he would want said child around all the time, nobody would question it. Sure, they would question why, but they would let the kid in all the same.

Peter still wondered why to that day.

‘So what are we watching?’ asked Wanda.

‘Well, it would only be fair that we keep the same rotation that we had before, so that means it was… Clint?’

‘Ah sweet!’ Clint jumped up from his beanbag, positively cackling. ‘Okay, I know what we’re going to watch.’

‘And what, pray tell, would that be?’ Natasha said, sounding almost nervous. If this is enough to scare the Black Widow, maybe I should be worried. Clint opened his arms, as if declaring the greatest news the world had heard.

‘Twilight!’

Oh no.

~oOo~ It had taken a while to calm down those who recognized the film, as there had been many adamant protests and a few death threats thrown at Clint after that announcement, however he had stayed firm on his decision. Peter resigned himself to continuing his position of lying face-first on the couch, curled into a blanket cocoon and crying for the entire duration of the next two hours while also trying to dissolve into the floor. Mr. Stark had initially tried to half-heartedly comfort him, but as he hadn’t watched the movie he didn’t know exactly why Peter was reacting like this, though he would of course now use this chance to torture the poor kid as much as possible.

‘Mr. Stark,’ Peter said weakly. ‘I’ve changed my mind. I don’t want to hang out with the Avengers anymore if I have to watch that devastation of a film.’

‘Sorry kid, but you’re stuck with us.’ He gave a signature Stark smirk. ‘I still don’t see why everyone is so against a single movie.’

‘But Mr. Stark, it’s not just one movie. There are five. This is only the beginning.’ Peter had turned his head and mumbled into the couch. ‘Seeing it once was enough.’

He snorted as Wanda and Sam nodded vigorously, looking extremely apprehensive. ‘Alright, let’s just start. FRIDAY, play Twilight.’

He would soon come to regret this decision.

~oOo~

Tony was not picky with movies. Really, he wasn’t.

But he had no words to describe this film.

The introduction was a little strange, but the moment the protagonist was introduced he already disliked her. Who holds a cactus like that? That girl needed an emotional support animal, not a spiky death plant. Although, if this was a vampire movie, maybe the animal would be better off away from her, but the movie would probably have done better if there was a little poodle trotting after main character everywhere she went. Everyone likes pets.

‘Why is she so dramatic?’ He asked aloud.

‘It’s Bella, that’s her thing,’ supplied Wanda. They watched as the scene changed to Forks, where everything turned dark and misty. The blasted girl started her monologue once again.

‘Ooh, so mysterious,’ quipped Natasha.

‘But where are the vampires?’ asked Steve, confused.

They watched as the main character girl and her father made awkward small talk in the car ride and eventually made it to the father’s house, where the girl (Bella?) sat down in her room. They saw as Jacob and his father was introduced, and Bella went to school. At this point, Tony was pretty sure where the plot was going.

‘This is just a high school drama with extra steps, isn’t it?’ he asked Peter, who nodded miserably. Turning back to the TV, they watched the introduction of the Cullens when Natasha spoke up.

‘Honestly, this is ridiculous. Who’s next? Damon and Stephen? Elena and Caroline? Ugh, these stories are all the same.’ Peter gave a half strangle chuckle, but seeing as nobody else knew what she was talking about, they all focused back on the movie. Tony was slowly getting invested despite himself, although he couldn’t help but be weirded out by the vampire boy’s (because he was so obviously a vampire) strange reaction to main character girl’s entrance into the biology lab.

‘Is he okay?’ he said to nobody in particular. As Edward ran out of the classroom as fast as not-so-humanly possible, he turned to Clint. ‘What is this?’ he asked in near desperation. ‘I don’t know whether I like it or hate it.’

‘And here lies the dilemma of 2008,’ Peter said solemnly, peeking at the film from inside his blanket cocoon. They mostly kept quiet after that, save from the stray witty comment or sarcastic quip, usually from either Peter or Tony. That was, until Tony went and started a war by accident.

All he’d done was comment that, as they watched Jacob explain the Cullen story on the beach of La Push, that Jacob obviously had a crush on Bella and needed to back off since she was supposed to be with Edward anyway. Which, as he didn’t realize at the time, was a huge mistake.

‘What are you talking about?’ said Steve, sounding highly offended. ‘Jacob is obviously the better choice. What kind of creep just stares at a girl like that?’

‘He’s a vampire Capsicle. He has to have some weird vampire things going on. What does Jacob have, cool bedtime stories?’

‘Jacob seems like a nice kid, unlike that pale faced prick Edward-’

‘Language.’ Everyone in the room chorused simultaneously.

‘Well, let’s go for a vote. Everyone who thinks Jacob is better, raise your hand.’ Steve pointedly raised his hand, along with Bucky, Sam and…

Tony gasped at Peter and Rhodey in betrayal. ‘How could you?’

‘I’m sorry Mr. Stark,’ Peter whined. ‘Edward really is a creep.’ Rhodey simply smirked.

Tony stood up, pausing the film. ‘Alright, that’s it. Civil War round two, here we go.’

‘You seriously use the dumb name the media gave it?’ asked Sam.

‘Well duh, what else am I supposed to call it? The big shi-’ he glanced at Peter ‘crapshow where we all did dumb stuff and fought a lot? Nope, Civil War sounds better. Speaking of Civil War, part two just started. Just you and me Capsicle, fists only.’

‘Whoa, whoa guys, let’s just calm down,’ said Peter nervously.

‘Shut your mouth traitor,’ Tony hissed at the Spider-kid. ‘I thought you had my back, I thought you understood me! But I guess I was wrong.’ He collapsed back onto the couch, flinging an arm over his forehead dramatically. If he was honest, most of the things he did were done dramatically. ‘You know what? Fine. You win this time, but be warned; this isn’t over. FRIDAY, hit play.’

~oOo~

They watched the rest of the movie in near silence, all of them captured in the magical cliché that was the plot. Tony nearly jumped out of his skin when he felt something brush against his shoulder, only to realize that Peter had fallen asleep and was slowly drooping to one side, blanket cocoon and all. Carefully, he pulled his arm out from where it was trapped between Peter and himself, wrapping it around the kid’s shoulders.

Mumbling something intelligible, Peter pressed himself closer to Tony without even opening his eyes, almost as if he was seeking warmth despite that in trying to get closer to the man, he’d dislodged most of the blankets covering himself. Grabbing one, Tony laid it over the both of them, cautious as to not disturb the boy. Humming in content, Peter happily settled down and fell into a deeper sleep.

Relaxing slightly, Tony wondered about what to do. A quick glance at the film showed Bella dying out on a dance room floor; so everything was fine. As long as Edward was okay, nothing else mattered. Tearing his eyes away from the TV, he looked down at Peter. Should he do something? He wasn’t sure.

Would they both be embarrassed when they woke up? Probably. Did Tony have any incentive to move whatsoever? Not in the slightest.

Knowing that his back would hate him tomorrow, he drifted off to sleep for once, lulled by the slow breathing of the boy beside him.

Chapter Text

The first thing Peter noticed was that it was warm.

Shifting slightly, he tried to lift himself up from where he’d been sleeping only for something to pull him back down. That was when he realized that he was squished against someone else.

‘Wha…’ Peter said, trying to figure out who the other person was.

‘Go back to sleep,’ a familiar voice mumbled, and what Peter now realized was an arm tightened around his shoulders.

‘T’ny?’ he asked, sounding like there were cotton balls in his mouth.

‘D’you just call me Tony?’ the older man asked him.

‘Mhm.’

‘Good,’ Peter saw him smile tiredly. ‘but ‘m tired, so sleep.’

‘M’kay.’ Closing his eyes, he let his muscles relax as the warmth took over, his consciousness sliding into darkness.

~oOo~

Peter snapped awake suddenly, awareness filtering in where it had been absent before.

No, no, no, no. You’ve stuffed it up again, and now Mr. Stark is gonna be super awkward and it’s all your fault. How could I let this happen? The one time I try not to do anything weird, and I end up falling asleep on my da- mentor. Honestly, is there nothing I can’t ruin?

Quickly but carefully, he extracted himself from where he had been, face burning from embarrassment at the mere idea that he’d been lying there for hours. Once he was free, he looked around and noticed that thankfully nobody was awake yet except for Vision, who was once again reading a book in the same armchair as the day before, but seeing as he hadn’t so much as looked up at the small commotion Peter hoped he wouldn’t say anything. Grabbing his backpack from the corner where he’d put it, he pulled out his history assignment. It was due next week and he was nearly finished, so he would probably be able to finish it off before everyone else got up. Taking out a pencil and rubber, he got to work writing.

~oOo~

‘Thanks Happy!’ Peter called as he walked along the sidewalk to his apartment, watching the car that had dropped him off drive away. They had left around ten o’clock after Mr. Stark and the others had woken up and his mentor had drank enough coffee to not verbally annihilate anyone who dared try and talk to him. After calling Happy, he let Peter know that he was needed on both Tuesday and Thursday afternoons that week, as they were getting ready for Visitors’ Week (that the interns and most of the other staff had alternatively dubbed “Hell Week”). Unlocking the door to their apartment, he slung his backpack over an armchair and called out. ‘May, I’m home!’

He heard the sound of movement coming from another room, and suddenly his Aunt May walked into the room. ‘Pete! How was your weekend? Did you have fun?’

‘Oh my god, you’ll never believe this,’ he gushed excitedly, the both of them sitting down on the couch. ‘So, I went to the Tower like normal, right? But when I got to Mr. Stark’s lab he told me we were going to the Avengers compound instead, and it was so cool! Well, apart from the fact that everyone found out my secret identity, but it was fine because then we all played paintball, and after we watched Twilight which kinda sucked, but I was watching it with the Avengers, and everyone made fun of it the whole time, so it wasn’t too bad-’

‘Whoa, slow down there,’ she said. ‘And what’s this about you going to the compound?’

It was at that moment that Peter realized he probably should have asked permission before he went off to meet all the Avengers.

‘Oh, I should have asked you first. Um, at least I’m not dead? I mean, they found out I was Spider-Man pretty quick but Mr. Stark made this really intimidating speech about how he would sue anyone who exposed me, so I think it’s fine?’ He shot May a hopeful smile, praying he wasn’t about to get grounded for eternity.

His aunt sighed, rolling her eyes. ‘I would have appreciated a little heads up, but as long as nothing bad happened, I suppose you’re not in trouble. Although, if you go over again I want you to text me first. I’m not going to say you can’t go or anything, I just want to know where you are and who I’m supposed to yell at if you get hurt, alright?’

‘Sure,’ he agreed.

Suddenly dropping the responsible adult guise as quickly as it had appeared, Aunt May smiled. ‘So, tell me exactly how the Avengers found out your identity.’

~oOo~

Peter let out a sigh of relief as he stood at the top of his apartment building, surveying what he could see of the city from his high vantage. It felt so nice to wear his suit again; he hadn’t gone out as Spider-Man since Thursday, meaning that there was probably more crime to stop than normal. Well, at least it wouldn’t be a normal night. Jumping of the edge of the building, he began his patrol. ‘Hey Karen,’ he said  cheerfully. ‘How are you?’

‘Hello Peter. I am happy to work with you as always. Do you wish to update me on anything that has happened recently?’

He thought for a second. ‘Well, I spent the weekend at the Avengers’ compound which I’ll tell you more about later because it was crazy, but so, this afternoon me and Aunt May were talking and I remember this field trip permission slip that we got on Friday - it’s to Stark Tower but anyway – I take it out, and there’s this little sticky note on it that looked like it costed more than Officeworks that read: You thought I wouldn’t notice? And it was addressed TS! As in Mr. Stark! And the scariest thing is that I don’t even know how he found it, since the note was at the very bottom of my bag, and I never so much as mentioned it. The only way that he could know is if he had FRIDAY read my texts to Ned, which would be super weird, or he knew about it beforehand which is more likely and also pretty scary, since that means he probably had more time to plan exactly how to ruin my social life. Oh, and then Aunt May spent the next ten minutes pissing herself laughing at my crappy luck. But anyway, enough about me. Could you do a scan for crime?’ he said while thwipping amongst buildings. There was a pause before Karen replied.

‘I have picked up an alert from a local café. It seems they are being robbed by an unidentified group of three people.’

He gave a dry chuckle. ‘You’d think people would stop trying to do crime when they know Spider-Man is around. Alright, let’s go!

A map with a little icon of the café’s location appeared in the corner of his visor and he was off, swinging as fast as he could. He found the place soon enough, and it seemed the robbery was still in progress. Good. That meant he could still get the bad guys.

Jumping down from the roof of the building, he walked into the store and immediately webbed the guns out of the robbers’ hands to the wall. ‘Hey, guys! Heard there was a little something going on, sorry I didn’t get here sooner!’

Grabbing bad guy number one, he pulled the man’s hands behind his back and webbed them together, sticking him to the wall opposite the one with the guns. Ducking a punch from bad guy number two, Peter put him with the other one and took the cash register from the man’s bag, giving it back to a rattled looking cashier.

Suddenly his spider-sense screamed, and before he could do anything other than begin to turn around, a piercing pain erupted in his thigh and he looked down to see a knife hilt-deep in his right thigh. Pulling it out and ignoring the flash of pain that it caused, he saw the last guy who must have thrown the knife trying to run out of the building, but one quick hit to the head and the man crumpled to the floor, unconscious. Job done, he thanked the cashier for their patience before escaping to the rooftops once again.

By the time he got to the top of the nearest building he collapsed, head spinning with light-headedness. As he tried to staunch the bleeding with his hands, Peter heard Karen’s voice through his suit. ‘Peter, would you like me to send a message to Boss?’

‘No! No, nope, it’s fine Karen, ‘m all good.’

‘I have to send a message to Boss if you sustain an injury bad enough to send a normal person to hospital, Peter. I can send an automatic alert, or I can relay a message from you. I thought you would prefer the latter, but what would you like to do?’

‘Oh, uh, j-just tell Mr Stark that I got stabbed very lightly, and that I m-might need some help.’ Peter said, hands beginning to tremble as he wrapped them around the wound. Why was he being affected this way? He’d been through so much worse; a simple knife shouldn’t reduce him to this. He vaguely heard Karen confirm that the message had been sent, but his head was swimming too much to make sense of anything. The last thing he heard was the sound of repulsors (and… yelling? Someone was calling his name) before slipping into unconsciousness.

~oOo~

Tony had been working in his lab when he got the message from FRIDAY about Peter.

‘Boss, I just got an alert from the Spider-Man suit, it seems the Kid has been stabbed with a knife. From his reactions afterwards, it is highly probable that the knife had been coated in poison.’

Swearing loudly, Tony immediately ran down to the garage and suited up, calling out to FRIDAY as he did so. ‘Where is he?’ he asked, repulsors firing up and shooting him into the sky. As FRIDAY listed out directions he took off, trying to swallow his worry but failing miserably. What if Peter had been really, really hurt? What if Tony couldn’t get there in time? ‘What type of poison was on the knife?’ he asked the AI.

‘From what Karen can determine, the poison is nonlethal and we already have the antidote in our medical stores. There are however some side effects that linger even after the antidote has been taken. Would you like me to list the side effects?’

‘Yeah.’ He knew what FRIDAY was doing; somewhere along the line she had picked up that he was more likely to calm down if she swamped him with data and information, and he would be lying if he said it didn’t help immensely.

‘With the amount of poison in his blood right now, partnered with the amount of time it will administer the antidote, the side effects would likely include lethargy, tiredness and nausea. These symptoms will probably last from one to two days, and the person stabbed should be in company at all times since if they need help or assistance, they may not be able to go get it.’

‘Right. How far away am I from the Kid?’

‘He’s about a block away on the top of the of the second lowest building.’

A few seconds later he caught sight of red and blue spandex and quickly landed beside Peter, calling his name. ‘Peter? Peter!’ He cursed, lifting the unconscious boy into his arms and heading back to the compound. The Tower was so much closer, but it wasn’t equipped to deal with an injured enhanced and besides, Tony would be able to look after him better at the compound. He watched worriedly as Peter shifted slightly, fingers tightening around the Iron Man armour. ‘Hold on buddy,’ he murmured softly, turning the speed on his suit to maximum.

Landing on the rooftop of the compound, he strode inside the building, suit separating from his body seamlessly. Calling out to FRIDAY he asked sharply, ‘Where’s Bruce?’

‘Bruce Banner arrived back from his two-week break about five hours ago, and has been in his lab ever since-’

‘Just get him to med bay now. It’s urgent.’

‘Copy that, Boss.’

Looking down at the boy in his arms, he whispered to Peter, though it was really to himself:

‘Hang in there, bud. I’ll be there for you, always.’

Chapter Text

 ‘Peter? Hey buddy, I’m gonna need you to wake up now.’

‘Mr. Stark?’ He slurred, confused. What had happened? He’d gone out patrolling as Spider-Man and then… oh.

Oh.

After he passed out, Mr. Stark must have found Peter and taken him… where? Surely not his apartment, Aunt May would’ve had a stroke. Then the only place he could be was-

Opening his eyes blearily, he saw someone talking to Mr. Stark. Straining his ears he could just make out what they were saying, even though they were talking in just above a whisper. Thank god for enhanced hearing.

‘He should be fine now, although he probably shouldn’t go to school for the next two or three days, and he needs rest. I know that if he’s anything like you that’ll be near impossible though, so just keep the excitement to a minimum. Play a board game or something, I don’t know.’ The other man said, sounding strangely familiar. Had Peter hear him on TV? Wait no-

‘Ohmygod you’re Bruce Banner.’

Both men turned to Peter, and Mr. Banner gave a smile. ‘Uh, yeah. Sure am.’

Sitting up and ignoring the flash of dizziness that took over him for a split second, he began to ramble. ‘Oh, wow. It’s so cool to meet you Mr. Banner! I read all of your papers on gamma radiation and they were genius, I can’t believe-’

‘Wait, you understood them?’ The man asked, sounding shocked.

‘Of course! They were so cool-’

Tony interrupted then, looking amused. ‘Alright, you two can talk science when the Kid isn’t recovering from a poisoned stab wound.’

‘Mr. Stark,’ Peter whined.

‘No whining, Underoos.’

‘Fine.’

‘That sounded a lot like whining to me.’

Peter huffed. ‘Okay, okay.’ A thought suddenly hit him. ‘Wait, does May know? She was kinda annoyed that I didn’t tell her I was going to the compound on Friday, so-’

‘Already handled,’ said Pepper, entering the room with her usual calm composure. ‘I called your aunt to inform her of the situation, and she told me that she’d just been called in last-minute for a business trip and had been planning to let you stay by yourself, but obviously you can’t right now. So, welcome to the next three days. Or to be more precise, two days and three hours.’ Sure enough, he glanced at the nearest clock to see that it was just past ten ‘o clock.

‘So what am I gonna do?’ Peter asked. ‘We all know that asking me to sit still for longer than twenty seconds will end in catastrophe.’

‘Oh, I’ve got that handled,’ she said, smirking. ‘You, Tony and I are going to play a friendly game of Monopoly.’

Mr. Stark’s eyes widened in horror.

~oOo~

‘NO!’ Screamed Mr. Stark for the umpteenth time. ‘That utility was MINE! How do you do this? You have all the railroads too! This is WITCHCRAFT!’ He slammed a fist on the table, causing his coffee cup to very nearly spill all over the paper money. ‘Wanda, say hi to your evil twin, ‘cuz I just found her!’

Wanda dissolved into giggles and Pepper gave an almost predatory grin. All of the resident Avengers were crowded around the dining table, watching the chaos ensue as Pepper slowly dominated the board. Peter had already gone bankrupt and was now simply enjoying the chaos, and maybe-maybe-not recording the whole thing – for blackmail purposes.

The others were thoroughly enjoying the show as well, and he had been informed that similar events had occurred quite often. Pepper would challenge Mr. Stark to a game of Monopoly, Mr. Stark would be too proud to refuse and consequently destroyed. Peter glanced around, seeing Rhodey laugh-crying in the same spot on the floor he had occupied for the last half an hour, Clint, Sam, Natasha and Bucky were all staking bets on exactly how Mr. Stark would lose and Steve, Dr. Banner and Vision were simply watching in pity at their friend’s demise.

It wasn’t long before Mr. Stark finally went bankrupt after landing on the over-fortified Boardwalk, and after the obligatory six minutes of screaming and raging (Clint said the record screaming-and-raging time had been twenty four minutes and thirty seconds – it had been a close game) he collapsed onto the couch face-first and refused to respond to anyone. Pepper, satisfied with the undeniable win stood up, she and Mr. Ro – Steve went to go make breakfast since it was just past four AM (Seriously? They’d been playing for nearly five hours?). Walking over to Mr. Starks’ immobile figure, he sat next to the man on the couch, looking down at the back of his head.

‘Go away,’ Mr. Stark mumbled. ‘Let me mourn in peace.’

‘It wasn’t so bad, Mr. Stark. I think you did pretty good, it’s just that – well, you were playing against your CEO. It’s kind of her job to be good at that stuff. If you want, we can steal Clint’s switch and play Mario Kart later?’

‘Hey!’ complained Clint.

‘Really?’ Mr Stark turned his head to the side to look at Peter hopefully.

‘Um, yeah, if you want?’ Peter said.

‘Okay,’ the older man agreed. ‘Just let me die here for a bit longer, then we can eat and steal Clint’s switch.’

‘Come on!’ Clint whined.

~oOo~

Breakfast was an interesting event. It almost gave Peter whiplash with how quickly he had ended up back at the compound after thinking he wasn’t going to be there for a few weeks, but it wasn’t like he was complaining. In fact, he was almost excited that he would be able to spend the next day or so with the Avengers, and it seemed like they didn’t mind him. At least, he thought so.

‘So,’ said Natasha as they all sat down to eat. ‘Somebody told me a маленький паук got stabbed by a robber. You should know that by now pretty much every person in this room will die for you and that you will never escape us, so tell me. What happened?’

Okay, he was almost certain that they didn’t mind him.

‘The knife was coated in poison.’ Peter explained. ‘Nonlethal poison,’ he clarified, seeing the worried looks sent his way. ‘If it had been a normal knife, I would have been fine.’

‘Uh, nuh uh, kid. Any knife that you have been stabbed by is very, very not fine.’ Mr. Stark told him.

‘I’ve been stabbed loads of times, Mr. Stark! And see, I’m fine!’ He protested.

This apparently, was not the correct answer.

‘What do you mean, you’ve been stabbed loads of times?’ Mr. Stark said in a dangerous tone.

‘Um, well- before you found me- and May didn’t know, so I would just… patch myself up?’ he stuttered nervously. Realizing his audience was only becoming more horrified, he added, ‘But look! See, I’m fine! Look at how incredibly fine I am, you don’t need to-’

‘Peter-I-need-you-to-tell-me-immediately-if-you ever-get-hurt-again-please-promise-me.’ Mr. Stark said very quickly without pausing for breath.

‘Or me,’ Natasha said, writing something down on a piece of paper and passing it to him. Looking at it closer, he realized that it was a phone number. ‘If you ever give this to anyone I will make sure no-one can find your body, but you don’t seem the kind of person to do that.’

‘O-oh.’ He was shocked that the Black Widow, one of the Avengers, would care about him enough to give him her number. Well, it was probably just to appease Mr. Stark by showing him Peter had more than enough backup, but still. ‘Thank you. And I promise that if I get hurt again, I’ll tell someone who can help.’ Probably.

Sighing, Mr. Stark shoved a chunk of pancake into his mouth as Steve helpfully changed the topic to something lighter while everyone finished their breakfast. As Peter stood up and began to clear the plates, Wanda smiled.

‘Let me help.’

All of a sudden, red magic enveloped the dirty dishes, lifting and stacking them into the dishwasher, making Peter gasped in amazement.

‘Whoa. That is like, the coolest thing I’ve seen in at least a year and a half.’

Snickering, Wanda flicked her finger and a small burst of magic tapped Peter on the nose, and many of the others had to hide their amusement at his scandalized look.

‘Oh wow! Ohmygod, we should totally train sometime, it would be so cool to see if I could dodge your attacks; your power is wicked, how does it even work? Like wow, could we train like, right now? With your magic versus my webs, I wonder-’

‘Uh, kid? Did I suddenly lose my memory or did you get stabbed yesterday? There is no way in hell you are doing anything remotely physical right now.

‘But Mr. Stark,’ he drew out the word with every ounce of whiny teenager in his bones.

‘Do not Mr. Stark me, Underoos. Go draw or something, I saw your sketchbook weeks ago and it was incredible.’

Flushing, Peter hissed, ‘How did you find that? I can’t believe you would expose me like this.’

‘You draw?’ Steve asked, almost hopefully.

‘Mm.’ Peter hummed, wrapping his arms around his torso in embarrassment.

‘I mean, so do I, but nobody else really- would you like to draw with me?’ He said in a rush.

‘Oh, um. Okay?’ Peter said hesitantly.

And so that was how he ended up drawing with Captain America.

It wasn’t as awkward as he’d thought it would be, surprisingly enough. They worked in silence for the most part, Peter sketching the form of his alter-ego and glancing at the other man every few minutes. He’d noticed that Steve’s style was semi-(bordering on fully) realistic, and while he’d met many people who acted like realism was the only respectable form of art, Steve wasn’t anything like that. When he’d seen Peter’s comic-like illustrations, his whole face had lit up. ‘That’s really good, son.’ He’d said.

Outlining the words The Amazing Spider-Man underneath his sketch, he quickly got to work colouring it with brush pens, then outlining it with a fineliner. Finally finished, he sat back with a sigh of relief, careful not to jostle his mostly-healed leg, which still ached quite a bit.

‘Should put that on the wall, Underoos.’ Said Mr. Stark’s voice from behind him.

‘Oh! Hey, Mr. Stark!’ Peter exclaimed. ‘If you do that, I will post that video I recorded of you and Pepper playing Monopoly.’

Mr. Stark put hand over his heart- well, his arc reactor. ‘Cold, Kid. Cold. Anyway, it’s lunchtime for one Spiderling and Nat made me promise that she could steal you after; something about Russian lessons. Personally, I think that Spider-Man is cool enough without the secret Russian spy aesthetic, but it’ll keep you from playing Mario kart on the ceiling, so.’

‘That was one time!’ Peter complained.

‘But there was a time.’

‘I still won!’

‘Yeah, yeah. Go eat your lunch; I’ll help Capsicle pack this up.’ Mr. Stark rolled his eyes.

‘Okay, bye Mr. Stark, Mr. Steve sir!’ Peter said, unable to help slipping into the honorific as he slipped out of the room.

~oOo~

‘So, what do you think of the kid?’ Tony asked once Peter was out of earshot, even for his spider-hearing.

‘You sure he’s not your son?’ Steve asked, looking him directly in the eyes. Chuckling, Tony started to return all the pens and pencils to their designated cases.

‘I did check, funnily enough. Took a DNA sample after he was injured a few months ago. Wanted to make sure there wasn’t a little mini-me running around.’

‘He’s still a mini-you, biologically or not,’ Steve said, smiling in that I’m-proud-of-you way that never failed to piss him off. ‘He’s a good kid.’

Tony scoffed. ‘Of course he’s a good kid, he’s my intern. But I was talking more about what you thought of,’ he waved his hands around, nearly sending a dozen sheets of paper flying into the air; ‘the spider side of things.’

Steve was silent for a moment.

‘All I can think about is how I nearly crushed him under a jetway in Germany,’ he said in a low voice. ‘He’s just a kid, but I get it. Having the power to do something, to make a difference. It doesn’t mean that I’m not mad at you for bringing him into that fight in the first place, but I also know that it’s been nearly two years since then, and he’s okay for the most part. So…’

‘We get to skip the righteous speech this time?’ Tony asked.

‘Only this time.’

Putting the last of the art supplies away and tucking Peter’s Spider-Man drawing under his shoulder, he gave the other man a rare smile. ‘What d’you say we go join the kid for lunch?’

‘Let’s go make sure he doesn’t eat our whole supply of Lucky Charms.’

~oOo~

All in all, Peter’s day had been pretty good. After lunch he’d been sort-of kidnapped by Natasha, (he still wasn’t entirely comfortable calling the avengers by their first names, but he was trying – except for Mr. Stark) who had taught him the extreme basics of Russian, of which he learnt surprisingly quickly. That was, until he’d fallen asleep sitting up. After that, Mr. Stark had banned him from doing anything other than watching movies, which Peter had managed to rope him into joining. Which was how he ended up sitting next to Mr. Stark, eating Lucky Charms (which was later replaced with popcorn after they ran out) and occasionally commenting on what was happening on screen – they were watching the Empire Strikes Back, obviously.

Feeling his eyelids begin to droop, he tried to keep himself from falling asleep, but it was a losing battle. You’ve already made this mistake not even two days ago, are you really gonna do it again? He asked himself. But it was already too late to do anything as pure exhaustion set in, and he was out like a light.

Just before he completely passed out, he swore he heard someone whisper,

Goodnight, kid.

Chapter Text

It was safe to say that Peter was bombarded by questions from Ned when he arrived at school.

‘Dude! Where were you? You didn’t reply to any of my texts, I was worried!’

Dragging Ned away from where people could hear them, he told Ned what happened. ‘-and I left my phone back in the apartment ‘cuz I had Karen and I didn’t know I was gonna get stabbed-’ he let out a sigh. ‘I’m sorry, man.’

‘Hey.’ Ned laid a hand on Peter’s shoulder, looking him in the eyes. ‘I’m just glad you’re okay.’

‘I am too, I guess,’ he joked. ‘Could I copy your notes from yesterday?’

‘Of course, man. Us Gen Z-er’s gotta stick together.’

As Peter hastily began copying what Ned had written in his textbooks, his friend began catching him up on what had happened the day before. Apparently there had been a small food fight in the cafeteria, some freshmen got caught with vodka and was suspended,

‘-and Flash keeps saying that you’re gonna bail on the field trip, something about you getting caught in your lies. I’m just hoping it’ll be really funny when this all blows up in his face.’

Peter groaned. ‘Yeah. Unfortunately that also means that operation run away the night before is a no-go.’

‘Dude, Tony Stark would like, kill you. And then Flash would say it was because he found out about your lies,’ he said the last word in a deep, whispery voice that made Peter snort. Honestly, he couldn’t be less concerned about Flash; when you spend half your nights fighting crime on the streets of New York with only your wit to protect you, a school bully is the least of your worries.

‘Does he ever get tired of using the same insults?’ Peter sighed.

‘Would it be Flash if he did? Ned pointed out.

At that moment the first bell rang and they made their way to homeroom, still talking about the field trip as they walked inside the empty classroom.

‘-anyway, Mr. Stark-’

‘Really, Parker? You’re still lying about working for Tony Stark just one week before the trip? I can’t wait to see the look on your face as security drags you out of the building for impersonating an employee.

It took every cell in his body not to say ‘Who? Happy?’ but he resisted, despite the fact that his patience running low and he desperately wanted to wipe the smirk of his face.

So he decided to do it a different way.

Rolling his eyes, Peter began to unpack his bag without so much as responding to the taunt, setting down his textbooks and pencil case on his desk. Once he was done he finally looked up at Flash, who nearly did a double take at the uncharacteristic ice in his gaze.

‘Flash, you probably haven’t noticed but I’m not really in the mood to deal with you right now so I swear to all that is holy: shut up or I. Will. Make. You.’

There was silence as Peter realized that in the time everything had taken place, most of the class had entered the room and were staring at him with a mix of shock and awe. After a moment of staring, Flash stepped back and someone whistled.

‘Whatever, Penis.’ The other boy walked away, face burning.

‘Dude, that was wicked!’ Ned exclaimed as their classmates began to turn back to what they were doing before. ‘You should do that every time he appears, god knows we need a break.’

‘I’m just so done with his crap!’ Peter hissed quietly. ‘Like, does he have a phobia of me enjoying life? Did someone pay him to be a dick to us? I just- ugh, I hate him.’ He buried his head in his hands.

Thankfully, at that moment their teacher Mr. Harrington walked into the room. Standing at the front of the class, he went through the routine of trying to read out the notices while also keeping students quiet and by extension, chaos at bay. During this, he saw Ned take his phone out under his desk and felt his own phone vibrate in his pocket. Turning his phone on, he saw a message:

Guyinthechair:

So are you going to the Tower this afternon?

atfernoon

aftrneon

AFTERNOOM

AFTERNOON

Peter-Man:

Yeah, I have to help prepare for Hell Week^TM

Guyinthechair:

Hell week?

Peter-Man:

Not hell week

Hell Week

AKA tour week

Guyinthechair:

Ahhhhhhh

Okay

Welp, rip flash when he finally gets destroyed by Tony freaking Stark

Peter-Man:

You gave Mr. Stark capitals but not flash?

Guyinthechair:

Well so did you

And of course

Tony Stark definitely deserves capitals

While flash does not

Peter-Man:

Fair enough

~oOo~

School passed agonisingly slowly to Peters’ exceeding distaste. Classes were dull as usual despite the teachers’ best efforts – he’d either learnt it all already or it was a subject he disliked. Lunch was good; he sat with Ned and MJ like usual and they all simply existed in peaceful harmony for what seemed like only a second before being plunged back into lessons. At the moment it was only five minutes until the bell that signalled the end of the day rang, and as Mr. Harrington called for quiet Peter nearly groaned. Honestly, would it be too much to ask to be able to leave on time? He was itching to get to the Tower, there was always so much to do and it was almost always fun – way more fun than sitting in a classroom waiting for a teacher to finish talking while everyone else headed home.

‘Alright, everyone quiet down!’ Mr. Harrington called. ‘I need all the permission slips for the field trip in now as Stark Industries needs to print name badges for us, so can everyone pass them up please!’

There was a rustle as his classmates obliged, and Peter resignedly added his slip to the pile of papers making their way up front. After that his teacher started his usual afternoon debrief and finally he and Ned were making their way out of the school gates, saying their goodbyes once Peter spotted Happy’s sleek black car. Sliding into the backseat, Peter fastened his seatbelt as the man started driving.

‘Hey Happy!’ Peter chirped.

‘Hey, kid.’ Happy sighed, but they both knew he wasn’t really annoyed. Probably.

They talked (read: Peter talked) about the things that happened that day, and soon they were outside the Tower. As Peter went to close the door, the man suddenly spoke, turning around. ‘Kid,’ he said.

‘Yeah?’

‘Have fun.’

Grinning widely, Peter felt his spirits raise even higher. ‘Thanks Happy!’

He walked into Stark Tower feeling better than he had all day-

-only for him to freeze in shock at the sight that awaited him.

‘What happened.’ He asked a very distraught Zoe who ran his way the moment she saw him come through the door.

‘It’s been like this all day – nobody has a clue what happened to the Tower – and when I say the Tower, I mean every single floor. I just want to do my work, I was planning on finishing some assignments from college today-’ The poor girl looked near hysterics. As Peter did his best to console her, Ari joined them, laying a gentle hand on her shoulder.

‘I’m assuming you know something about this,’ they said.

‘Unfortunately.’

Across every single available space there were posters, plushies and life-sized cardboard cut-outs of Edward Cullen, and in much less quantity, Jacob Black. It looked like two fangirls had had a war, and Peter was almost certain who was responsible.

‘I have a feeling it may have been Mr. Stark and Mr. Steve – the team watched twilight over the weekend.’

‘Ah,’ Ari said, looking as though they had aged twenty years. ‘I did hear the avengers were supposed to come over today for a big meeting. They never were ones for responsibility, although I would have thought Captain America would have been the reasonable one in all this. Speaking of, what’s all this Mr. Steve business?’

‘Ah well,’ Peter flushed. ‘He asked me to call him Steve, but I seriously just can’t get my head around it; so I’ve just decided to call him Mr. Steve.’

‘Fair enough,’ they said. ‘Well, Zoe and I better keep trying to do our work in this chaos. Come on Zoe, let’s go – bye Peter!’

‘Bye guys!’ he called after the two. Moving to the elevators, he asked FRIDAY to take him to Mr. Stark’s labs, sighing in relief when the doors closed. Seriously, it had been a long day.

‘Peter, it would appear you are under the assumption that you are alone and so I would like to inform you that Miss Romanov is also in the elevator.’ Said FRIDAY. Whirling around, he realized that the AI was in fact, correct and the Black Widow was somehow hanging from the ceiling in the corner of the room, holding a bag of giant Smarties.

‘…Can I help you?’ Peter asked in a deadpan voice.

‘I have a deal for you,’ she began.

‘What even is this?’

‘Bribery.’

‘Does it include the giant Smarties?’ Peter said. ‘Because they’re my-’

‘Favourite candy, yes.’ She interrupted. ‘See, I’ve grown quite a liking to you and it pains me to see Stark hoard you all to himself, so here’s my deal: be my honorary child, and this bag of Smarties is yours.’

…

‘You’re serious about this, aren’t you?’ Peter said.

‘Deadly serious.’

He thought for a second. ‘Well, I don’t know why you want me to be your honorary child, but I can never refuse a bag of giant Smarties. So, sure.’ Natasha handed him the bag of candy as the elevator opened to his floor.

‘Oh, and I can hear you calling me Natasha in your thoughts, so for the last time it’s Nat!’ she called as the doors closed. As he stood in the empty hallway simply comprehending the last thirty seconds, he said:

‘I think everyone here needs a therapist.’

And then he went to the labs to go find Mr. Stark.

‘Hey Mr. Stark!’ Said Peter, yelling over the loud music playing and trying not to wince (his enhanced senses made everything ten times louder). Upon hearing Peter’s entrance, his mentor immediately told FRIDAY to turn the music down, turning around to grin at him.

‘Hey kiddo. And please, for god’s sake, it’s Tony.’ He sighed, though Peter could tell he was slightly amused.

‘No can do, Mr. Stark.’

‘Fine,’ he said in defeat. ‘Wait, why do you have a bag of giant Smarties?’

‘Funnily enough, I’m not exactly sure,’ said Peter conversationally. ‘Nat told me that if I agreed to be her honorary child I could have it, and you know how much I love Smarties.’

‘Wait, what?’ Nat asked you to be her kid, and you just accepted? What about me? And how come you call her Nat?’

Peter had to hold in a laugh as he saw the betrayed look on the man’s face. ‘Actually, she did mention something about you keeping me all to yourself and wanting to spite you, so really it’s your fault for antagonizing the Black Widow.’ He opened the pack of Smarties and popped one into his mouth.

‘Now listen here you little shi-’ Mr. Stark hissed, throwing a pencil at him which Peter dodged easily.

‘Language!’ he chirped. His mentor stood fuming at him for a moment before running one hand down his face, turning back to his work.

‘See, you’re the reason why I have grey hair,’ he muttered.

‘So, watcha working on?’ Peter asked, leaning over the man’s shoulder and peering at the laptop in front of them.

‘I’m just doing paperwork and the likes right now, although now you’ve graced me with your presence I have a perfectly good excuse as to why I can stop because honestly, they should know by now that if I don’t have to do it, I won’t. But I do have to record this voice over before we go do the fun stuff, something for the introduction video the interns are assembling. Then we can go prepare for Hell Week.’ He smirked at the fearful look on the kid’s face. ‘Out of interest, how long did you think you could keep the fact that you were taking a field trip to my company from me?’

‘Until it was over,’ Peter grumbled. Mr. Stark laughed.

‘Nice try, kid.’

Peter froze for a second before he burst out laughing. ‘You sounded exactly like you did at the expo!’ he wheezed, not noticing the look of confusion on the other man’s face.

‘What do you mean, the expo?’ Mr. Stark asked. ‘I didn’t think you were there, unless-’ his eyes widened.

‘I was the kid in the iron man mask, remember?’ Peter said, the smile sliding off his face at Mr. Starks’s shocked expression. ‘Ohmygodyoudidn’tknow.’

‘What?’ Mr. Stark exclaimed, looking mildly horrified. ‘Why did you never- why wasn’t anyone there with you- you could have died and then I-’ He seemed lost for words.

‘I didn’t mean to!’ Peter said almost desperately, trying to calm his mentor down. ‘I was little and all of a sudden everyone was running and I was all alone, and a robot was gonna shoot me. All I can remember thinking was that if I was gonna die, then I was gonna die like a hero.’

It was a moment before Mr. Stark spoke. ‘That is so freaking brave for a four-year-old, I can’t even imagine-’

‘I thought I told you,’ said Peter, accidentally cutting him off. ‘Or that someone else had; I thought that you knew. After all, why would you want to spend time with a random kid, even if they were Spider-Man? Why else would you..’ Why else would you care about me?

‘Oh, Kid.’ Mr. Stark sighed, pulling him into a crushing bear hug. ‘I don’t care about you because you’re Spider-Man, or because of some debt I owe you for nearly dying at my expo. I care about you because you’re sweet and funny and the only person who can keep up with me in the labs. I care about you because you’re you, kiddo.’

Peter sniffled. ‘That’s about the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me, Mr. Stark.’

‘Don’t count on it happening again, I’ve used up all my sappiness for today,’ he said gruffly, but the smile in his eyes said otherwise.

‘So, you were talking about a voice over the other interns are making you do? Oh, and I thought you should know whoever coated the tower with Edward and Jacob merch pretty much ruined Zoe’s day.’

‘Zoe…’ Said Mr. Stark, obviously trying to place the name. ‘That’s the senior intern that covers most of the reports. Addresses me as Mr. Iron Man in all her E-Mails for some reason, but overall a pretty good kid. You guys are friends?’

‘Yeah,’ Peter grinned. ‘I corrected the calculations on one of her projects in the intern labs while she was on break, and she hunted me down afterwards to get me to help her finish it. Said I was a genius.’

‘Of course you’re a genius, you’re my intern. As for the little debacle with the merchandising, let’s just say me and Rogers had a bit of a spat.’

‘Knew it,’ Peter muttered.

‘Yeah, yeah. Now, let’s get this thing recorded and you can introduce me to Zoe. Maybe that will improve her day.’

The audio they needed to record was mostly a brief history of Stark Industries with a few mandatory quips from them both that weren’t on the script, but they both were having so much fun it seemed natural and besides, the people reviewing it could edit out if they really wanted to.

‘So, kid.’ Said Mr. Stark at the end of the script, the recorder still going. ‘ Did this convince you to work here once you graduate?’ His mentor snarked.

‘Hmm.’ Peter pretended to consider for a moment. ‘Well, I did hear that Oscorp was open for new employees-’

‘You little-’ Mr. Stark said, mock outraged as Peter burst out laughing. Turning off the recorder, Mr. Stark grinned. ‘Let’s go give the other interns a visit, shall we?’

~oOo~

There was chaos in the intern labs. Most of this was simply because of the natural pandemonium that accompanied the presence of so many sleep deprived college students in one room, but the addition of not only one of the most powerful men but their boss who could sue them into oblivion if he so much as pleased walking around and socializing? Absolute anarchy. Most interns who saw the pair simply blinked dazedly and returned to their work; however those who were awake enough realized what was happening and began hastily trying to clean the disarray of their desks into something somewhat presentable.

‘Peter!’ A familiar voice called out and Zoe darted over to them, looking as though she was running purely on coffee (which was probably true). ‘I am so irrevocably screwed Peter, you’re got no idea. I left my project ‘till last minute because I was finalizing a ton of papers from the med department – I honestly don’t know where they all came from – and I just remembered it’s due tomorrow at nine tomorrow and it’s only half done – could you please help me? I don’t know how I’m going to finish it otherwise-’ she suddenly realized who was standing next to Peter. ‘Oh,’ she said in a small voice.

‘Hello,’ said Mr. Stark, throwing on all of his charismatic charm. ‘ I assume that you’re Zoe?’ He looked at Peter for clarification, who nodded. ‘Peter was just talking about you, good things of course – but Pete and I could help you on your project if you wanted.’

‘R-really?’ The girl asked, looking as though she couldn’t believe her ears.

Mr. Stark raised an eyebrow. ‘I don’t make offers I don’t mean.’

Her eyes widened. ‘Ohmygod yes, thank you so much Mr. Iron Man sir. Okay, so it’s over here…’ She ran off towards a cluttered table filled with scraps of machine and blueprints. ‘I’m trying to make a robot that aids children with anxiety, see? It’s supposed to look and act like a cat-’ she rambled on about its functions and designs as they got to work, trying to ignore the shocked stares from the other interns.

At first, Peter was unsure about what to work on first, but after being shown the blueprints for the outer shell design made quick work on finding and putting it together, making sure the face looked as cute and trustworthy as possible. ‘Aww, look at the pretty kitty,’ he cooed at the lifeless shell.

‘Hate to say it kid, but that’s kinda weird,’ said Mr. Stark, looking up from where he was connecting the wiring in the joints.

‘It’s Peter, I would be concerned if he wasn’t acting weird,’ said Zoe, her gaze still on the screen where she was editing the coding.

‘You make a good point,’ Mr. Stark nodded, turning back to his work.

‘Hey!’ Peter complained. ‘I’ll stop helping if you guys keep teasing me!’

‘No you won’t,’ said his mentor. ‘You have a heart of gold and besides, you’re already hopelessly attached to the cat.’

Peter sighed, not even trying to protest. ‘Sometimes I wish you didn’t know me so well, Mr. Stark. But speaking of, Zoe?’ He called to the girl.

‘Yeah?’ She asked.

‘Can we keep the kitty around the intern labs after your professors take a look at her? She could be our mascot.’ He looked at her expectantly, face forming a frown when she didn’t reply. ‘What?’

‘You just gendered my robot.’

He tilted his head to the side. ‘…Yes?’

‘Do you have a name for her too?’ She joked.

‘Well…’ Peter grinned.

‘Dear god, Tony muttered.

‘Have you ever read the book series Warrior Cats?’ He asked the two, carefully welding tiny, blunt claws to an already completed front leg. At the nonplussed look on both of the others faces, he went on. ‘Well, with the long furred design I was thinking we could spray paint her a sort of sandy yellow and partnered with the blue glass eyes Zoe picked out, she would look exactly like Daisy from warrior cats.’ He picked up a spare Starkpad lying on a table nearby and showed them some of the fanart done of the character. ‘She’s so cute, what do you think?’

‘Sure, why not,’ said Zoe, shrugging. ‘I’ll ask my professor if I can take it back afterwards; it’s not like they do anything with them afterwards.’ Peter grinned in delight and Mr. Stark snickered.

‘Alright, I think I’ve finished the endoskeleton so we just need to apply the paint to the shell and then we can put everything together.’

They spent the next hour spray painting the outer shell and adding the finer details with pens and paintbrushes, Peter making sure to get every detail right and his mentor simply making sure not to spill any coffee over his work.

‘I think we’re done!’ Zoe announced, sitting back in her chair with a sigh of relief. ‘Thank you so much, I don’t know how else I would have gotten it done.’ She pressed the cats’ nose, watching it whirr to life. It gave a short mechanical mew before rising to her feet. ‘She’s perfect! Thank you so much!’ Zoe gushed.

‘No problem,’ said Mr. Stark. ‘I should probably do more assisting the youth and all that, and Peter is always yapping on about all the fun he has down here.’ The older man huffed.

‘You’re just salty that I’m having fun without you.’

‘Hush, you.’ He ruffled Peter’s hair causing him to duck away, scowling. ‘Well, that’s all the time I have today; Pepper is going to come find and start yelling at me in approximately-’ he checked his watch, which was probably worth more than everything in the room combined. ‘Thirteen minutes. So, to save you all from that, I’ll take my leave. Remember it’s a school night Pete, so I want you to be out of the tower by nine.’

And then he left.

Immediately, Peter was swarmed. ‘Why didn’t you warn us?’ Zoe cried, grabbing his shoulders and shaking them slightly. ‘I had to pretend to be sane for nearly two hours! I can only do that on Fridays because I am prepared, Peter. Do I look prepared?’

‘Yeah,’ a lanky boy called Ethan piped up jokingly. ‘Bringing Tony Stark to the labs? Super cool. Not telling us? Less cool.’

‘He didn’t tell me until I went to his lab today!’ Peter tried to explain, keeping a grin off his face as best he could. ‘Y’know what, as an apology I’ll make sure you guys are warned if he comes down here again. FRIDAY?’

‘Yes Peter?’ FRIDAY asked politely.

‘Can I add a new protocol?’ He asked.

‘Of course, Peter.’

‘Okay, let’s call it the Stark Alert protocol. Whenever Mr. Stark intends to enter the intern labs, alert everyone inside of the protocol and tell them exactly how much time they have until Mr. Stark arrives. If he changes his mind, cancel the protocol. Is that good?’ The others nodded and a few sighed in relief.

‘Saving the new protocol, Stark Alert Protocol.’

‘Thanks, FRI!’

After that, he helped out the other interns shove as much of the twilight merchandise into the storage cupboards as possible for a few hours and then swung home in his Spider-Man suit, opening the window to his room and climbing under the covers of his bed without bothering to change. As he began to fall asleep, he wondered if the field trip would really be all that bad.

Chapter Text

The rest of the week had been so long, but finally it was the weekend. To his surprise, on Friday afternoon Peter had ended up at the Compound again instead of SI, since Thor was returning along with his brother Loki – which meant that Mr. Stark definitely needed to be there, though he’d thoughtfully asked Aunt May for permission this time (which she’d grudgingly given after being reassured Loki would not murder her nephew). But after a while of tinkering with the Spider-suit with Mr. Stark they’d received an alert from FRIDAY that both gods had arrived, causing Peter to jump up in barely contained excitement that was quickly dampened when his mentor told him to wait for the gods to settle down before introducing himself. This meant that he was supposed to sit around in the labs doing nothing (which wasn’t technically true; Mr. Stark said he was allowed to work on whatever he wanted as long as he didn’t blow anything up, but he was way too paranoid to use anything by himself) while everyone else got to see Mr. Thor and Mr. Loki when instead he was holed up in a room all by himself, bored out of his brain.

‘Come on,’ he whined after a while. ‘FRIDAY, how long has it been since Mr. Stark left?’

‘Twenty-seven minutes, Peter.’ Replied the AI, sounding almost amused.

‘What?’ Peter exclaimed in disbelief. ‘No way, that’s it! How mad do you think Mr. Stark will be if I go up now?’

‘Would you like the equation to include the forty-seven percent chance that Loki will stab you?’ Asked FRIDAY.

‘Nah, just… wait, why is there a forty-seven percent chance that Mr. Loki will stab me?’ Said Peter, slightly concerned.

‘There is always a chance that Loki will stab someone. Fortunately for you, your likelihood of being stabbed is actually quite low compared to others such as Mr. Rogers, who is at a sixty-four percent at this current moment.’

‘Oh no Mr. Steve!’ Said Peter. ‘Is Mr. Stark’s percentage higher or lower than that?’

‘Boss’s current likelihood of being stabbed by Loki is eight degrees less, at a fifty-six.’

‘Thank god,’ Peter sighed, then felt slightly guilty. ‘I mean, Mr. Steve is super nice and all, but Mr. Stark is definitely my favorite Avenger. After Spider-Man, of course.’

‘I’m sure Boss would appreciate the sentiment,’ said FRIDAY warmly. ‘As for your earlier question, excluding the possibility of being stabbed which would make Boss undoubtably upset, the chance of him being otherwise angry at you for making an appearance upstairs is quite low.’

‘Cool! Thanks, FRI!’ He flung the door of the lab open, barely catching a you’re welcome, Peter as he raced to the elevator, impatiently pressing the button for the lobby. Nearly tripping over in his hast to get out of the still-opening elevator, he unknowingly walked into a very interesting scene:

The entire Avengers had assembled, more or less in the one room, although they were all in varying states of formality – while most of the team seemed more or less put together, there were quite a few that seemed to have forgotten what was happening. Both Wanda and Bucky seemed to be in pajamas (Bucky got bonus points for his Captain America themed ones) and Nat was dressed from head-to-toe in all black, which everyone seemed too nervous to ask about, and Clint’s hair was slowly taking the form of a native Hawkeye birds nest. What was most concerning was the fact that Mr. Stark seemed to have found a portable coffee machine and was downing cup after cup like shots, and after a moment it was quite clear why. There stood Mr. Thor and Mr. Loki, who seemed to be in the process of surrendering all of their weapons, and while Mr. Thor simply put down Mjolnir down on the counter in front of him, Mr. Loki was holding a large plastic box filled with knives that he had seemingly been carrying. And he was still pulling knives off his person. Big, small, metal, plastic, Peter saw what was probably every kind of knife come out of seemingly nowhere as the god opened the soles of his shoes, a hollow pocket in his belt, inside the hems of his jeans, there was no stopping the flow of knives slowly filling the box.

‘Sorry, I apologise for the delay,’ said Mr. Loki awkwardly. ‘I always come prepared with a great variety of knives and I was not, ahem, aware that they were prohibited.’

Mr. Stark downed another cup of coffee. ‘No, no, take your time,’ he said, sounding as though he was on the verge of a mental breakdown. ‘We’ve got all night.’

‘Tones, maybe you should wait upstairs,’ said Rhodey carefully. Mr. Stark laughed slightly hysterically.

‘Whatever for? I’m simply watching one of our new guests remove dangerous weapons from nowhere!’

‘Once again, I sincerely apologise,’ Loki gave an awkward laugh. Peter decided that this moment was better than any to announce his presence.

‘Hey Mr. Thor and Mr. Loki!’ He said excitedly.

‘Peterwhatareyoudoinghere,’ his mentor said so quickly it was almost intelligible.

‘I was too nervous to touch anything in the labs by myself in case it broke,’ he explained. ‘And I wanted to say hi to Mr. Thor and Mr. Loki!’

‘Hello, small Midgardian, it is an honor to meet you too!’ Boomed Mr. Thor. ‘You can call me Thor if that would be easier.’

‘Okay M- Thor.’ He corrected himself, and the god gave a dazzling smile. Wow, I really can hear the screaming of a thousand fanfolk.

‘Aaaand there we go!’ Announced Mr. Loki, putting one last golden thumbtack into the box, which was now full to the brim. ‘Also, Mr. Loki is fine,’ he addressed Peter.

‘Finally,’ sighed Clint. ‘Can we all go upstairs now? I wanna play Mario Kart.’

~oOo~

Mr. Loki, Peter observed, seemed uncomfortable. As in, on scale from one to ten, one being slightly awkward and ten being sitting on a chair of needles in a bonfire, he looked about a twelve. Not that the god showed it – whenever someone spoke to him he was all polite smiles and careful joking, but that’s what it was: careful. So, Peter decided that he had the perfect plan.

He was going to try to be Mr. Loki’s friend.

And yes, he was well aware that it was in fact a terrible plan.

So as the majority of the Avengers were huddled around the TV playing Mario Kart using Clint’s Switch, (Bucky and Vision both decided that they had better things to do than lose their hearing from their friends enraged screaming). Peter sat down next to the god who was currently occupying a single cushion and looking as though he would rather be anywhere else. ‘Hey Mr. Loki,’ Peter said, taking a pair of his most recent webshooters from out of his pocket. Would it be okay if I showed you my webshooters? I’m still trying to think of ways to make them better and I’ve never talked to an actual god before so you probably have loads of cool ideas, so would you mind?’ He tried his best to use what Mr. Stark and Pepper called his puppy dog charm.

‘Of course not,’ said Mr. Loki dismissively, although he didn’t quite meet Peter’s eyes. ‘Your Midgard contraptions do not amuse me.’ Seeing the boy deflate, he seemed to quickly backtrack. ‘But I suppose that I have nothing better to do, so I’ll allow it.’

Peter definitely did not let out a small squeak of excitement at those words. ‘Okay, so first things first, the reason why I need these is because I’m actually a superhero called Spider-Man, but that’s super super secret so you can’t tell anyone, alright? Only the Avengers and a couple other people know about it, because then the bad guys would be able to hurt the people I care about. But what these things do is that they shoot out these synthetic spider webs like this,’ He demonstrated by sliding the device onto his wrist and bringing down his middle and ring fingers on the button that slid over his palm. Pressing down slightly harder, he heard the familiar thwip that meant his webs were dispensing, but nothing came out. ‘It’s supposed to come out of here,’ Peter pointed to the top of the canister just below the button. ‘But it’s empty right now so I don’t accidentally web up anyone.’ Loki, seemingly enraptured with what peter was showing him, asked,

‘So what do you use them for?’

‘Everything!’ said Peter enthusiastically. ‘Webbing up bad guys, saving civilians, even just getting around by swinging from building to building.’

‘And this is normal for a Midgard child such as yourself? I thought that you were quite young in human years.’

‘Well-’

‘Yes. Pathetically so.’ Mr. Stark spoke over Peter, making good use of his signature smirk. Looking Peter in the eyes he asked casually, ‘Hey, I’m gonna go get some snacks from the kitchen, wanna come?’ He knew what his mentor was really asking, even if he didn’t say it: Are you okay? And despite the fact that he felt quite at ease (his spider-sense had barely prickled the whole time) he appreciated the sentiment.

‘Nah, I’ll get some later. Thanks for the offer though, Mr. Stark.’ He smiled reassuringly at the man.

‘Okay. You want me to go get you the rest of that bag of Smarties you hid in the back of the pantry earlier?’

Peter jolted in surprise. ‘How did you know about that?’ His smirk became more pronounced.

‘I’m Tony Stark. I know everything.’ And then he sauntered off.

~oOo~

As they munched on Giant Smarties, both Peter and Mr. Loki tried thinking of what to do. He was ecstatic to see the god slowly beginning to relax, if his increasingly dry comments and witty comebacks were anything to go by. It wasn’t until Mr. Loki suggested scaring Thor with a mechanical spider that Peter had an idea.

‘Wait Mr. Loki, you can shapeshift like in Norse Mythology right?’ The god in question nodded. Quickly relaying his idea, he watched as Mr. Loki gave a hesitant grin.

‘And you’re sure this won’t end with me banned from the tower?’ He asked Peter.

‘No way! If we get in trouble I’ll tell them it was my fault.’

‘Alright then.’ The god gave him one last glance before closing his eyes, and suddenly a fluffy black cat was sitting in front of him.

‘Aww, your cat form is so cute! I’m not sure whether you’re cuter than Daisy though.’ Mr. Loki-cat rolled his eyes, electing to simply follow the plan they had made.

Arching his back, Peter watched as he trotted over to Bucky, who was pretending to read a newspaper but really watching Nat absolutely murder Clint at Mario Kart. Meowing and rubbing himself against the man’s leg. Starting in surprise, Bucky watched Mr. Loki in shock for several moments before gently picking the cat up and placing him on his lap. Peter watched with both hands over his mouth to stifle his giggles as the usually stone-faced man cooed at the ball of fluff sitting on him, petting the god’s head obliviously.

‘Hey Stark?’ Bucky called to Mr. Stark.

‘Yeah?’ The man in question tore his eyes away from Clint’s doomed character on-screen to glance across the room.

‘Since when has the Compound had a cat?’ Bucky asked.

‘It doesn’t,’ Mr. Stark replied, slightly confused.

At that moment, Mr. Loki-cat suddenly (and quite painfully by the looks of it) leapt off of Bucky’s knees, pelting over to where everyone was crowded around the TV and in one huge jump cleared the back of the couch. In another he flew at Clint, knocking the controller clean out of his hands just as Nat crossed the final finish line in first place. Swearing loudly, Clint violently threw a pillow at Mr. Loki that he dodged smoothly.

‘Where the hell did that damn creature even come from?’ Clint nearly shrieked.

‘Admit it, you would have lost even without the cat,’ said Nat. ‘And if it hates you that much, then I vote we keep it.’

Peter really wished that he wasn’t sitting behind the couches and was instead facing everyone, because it would have been the perfect time to snap some photos for blackmail purposes as Thor said:

‘Brother, we’ve talked about this; we’re guests here.’

He finally couldn’t take it anymore and burst into laughter as Mr. Loki streaked back to Peter and the rest of the room burst into chaos.

‘Seriously, kid?’ Mr. Stark sighed. ‘Can I not leave you to your own devices for two seconds?’

After that, things only got weirder.

Chapter Text

The first thing Peter realized when he woke up was that his phone was buzzing incessantly.

The second was that Mr. Loki was holding it.

‘Your puny mortal technology would not stop making noise and you didn’t seem to be in your room, so I’ve brought it to you in the hopes that you can shut it up.’

Looking around, he realized that he was in the Avengers’ living room. ‘Why…’ he asked.

‘The woman in the ceiling said you fell asleep. Apparently most Midgardians do this.’ Mr. Loki supplied helpfully.

‘You mean FRIDAY?’

‘I do believe he is referring to me.’ FRIDAY replied almost warily.

‘Hello again, ceiling woman!’ Mr. Loki said.

‘Please refrain from tearing open the ceiling next time you are surprised by my voice, as Mr. Barton was inside the vents approximately four meters away from you at the time and he is now refusing to move in fear of being stabbed from below.’

‘Oh, so that’s what all the screaming was about,’ Mr. Loki mused. Peter’s phone vibrated again and the god’s eye twitched. Taking his phone from the god before it ended up as his next stab victim, Peter unlocked it to see a slew of notifications from Ned.

Peter-Man:

Dude, you’re pissing off Mr. Loki

Guyinthechair:

WAIT WHAT

PETER WE TALKED ABOUT THIS

YOU HAVE TO TELL ME WHEN YOU MEET COOL PEOPLE

Peter-Man:

I did

Right then

Anyway, so why are you nuking my phone with messages?

Guyinthechair:

Just-

*sigh*

I’ll re-send you the link

Clicking on the link Ned sent him, Peter was immediately glad that the whole thing wasn’t just an elaborate rickroll – until he actually saw what it was.

‘You’re kidding me,’ he whispered.

Mr. Loki, who was watching over Peter’s shoulder looked horrified. ‘Nobody will ever take me serious again.’

It was a video set about midnight last night, when while everyone was supposed to be asleep, he and Mr. Loki had snuck back into the living room to play Just Dance on Clint’s Switch (it seemed like a fun idea at the time and Peter was way more sleep deprived than normal). The video seemed to be recorded from someone’s phone viewing a holographic display of the security footage live and showed the whole thing, from the two of them sneaking onto the room and booting up the game to Thor accidentally walking in on the scene and joining them and finally, Peter falling asleep standing up and being caught by two very surprised gods. The entire thing was uploaded to YouTube with the distinct background noise of someone absolutely losing it laughing – and there was the kicker:

The person who posted it was Mr. Stark himself.

The video was titled “Nothing like Just Dance at 12:05AM”.

‘That’s it,’ Peter hissed. ‘That’s IT. I’ve held my cards for too long. Mr. Loki, it’s time we got some payback.’

‘Thank myself,’ Mr. Loki sighed. ‘I was worried that you wouldn’t have any blackmail, but I’m thankful I was wrong.’

They were both silent for a minute as Peter posted the fully edited and ready-to-go video clip of Mr. Stark and Pepper, which he titled “The reason why Pepper Pots is the CEO of SI” on his anonymous account (he usually just put up videos of obscure science formulas and how to use them for the people who couldn’t find anything else to help them, but this would probably make him more famous)

‘And done,’ He announced.

Now all they needed to do was wait.

~oOo~

‘PETER!’ Mr. Stark yelled nearly fifteen minutes later. ‘WHAT IN THE FRIGGING HECK DID YOU DO?’

‘Oh no,’ said Peter. ‘Mr. Loki, prepare for trouble.’

‘And make it double.’ Said Mr. Loki solemnly, completely missing the look of surprise and respect that Peter gave him.

‘Peter, I love you kid but you are a PR disaster.’ Mr. Stark said, sweeping into the room.

‘Ex-squeeze-me?’ Peter scoffed. ‘You’re the one who posted the video of me playing Just Dance with two gods on the INTERNET for everyone to see!’

Mr. Stark paused. ‘Oh yeah, I did.’ He realised. ‘Pepper is gonna kill us both.’

‘Well, good thing she hasn’t yet because-’ he checked his phone. ‘Twenty-four thousand people have already seen visual proof of why Pepper is a better CEO than you, and hopefully that number will only increase before she finds it and makes me take it down.’ He thought for a second. ‘The Just Dance video on the other hand, can be taken down as soon as possible.’

‘I agree with Peter.’ Said Mr. Loki.

Well, if that’s all-’

‘Ohmygod,’ Peter said in shock, looking at his phone. ‘Look at the comments.’ Under the Monopoly video, there were already hundreds of comments, such as:

Spoopy_Ghost

LMAO I always knew Miss Pots had her crap together

TheBiDisaster

Just set Tony Stark screaming at a board game as my ringtone, will update if anything funny happens lol

~ScrewTuesdays~

Who videoed this??? Like ik it’s the Just Dance kid, but WHO IS THE JUST DANCE KID??? Does Stark have a secret child or something????????

Shuri_of_Wakanda

OMG THIS IS GOLD

‘Do you think that’s actually Princess Shuri?’ Peter asked excitedly. Clicking on the username, he checked the videos posted on the channel and was greeted with what was definitely Princess Shuri. ‘Omg it is, an actual princess commented on my crappy video.’

Mr. Stark looked up from Peter’s phone, looking as though he’d remembered something. ‘Oh, did I mention that Shuri and T’Challa are going to be at the compound next week? They’re coming to Stark Tower on Thursday and will be staying for a bit, so you can say hi that afternoon.’

‘I’msorrywhat.’ Said Peter. ‘Why are so many superheroes coming here all of a sudden? Is there like, a festival I’m not invited to or something because I’m not an Avenger?’

His mentor froze. ‘Well,’ he said slowly. ‘I’ve just realized that I forgot to tell you this really important thing.’

‘Yeah?’

‘The Accords got finalised last week.’

‘WHAT! No way!’ Peter gushed. Did they amend it like you wanted?’

‘To the T,’ said Mr. Stark smugly. ‘Ross was livid, but in the end he had no choice – I have good lawyers for a reason.’

‘So… do I have to tell the government my identity?’ Peter asked nervously.

‘Not until you’re eighteen,’ said Mr. Stark. ‘That was as far as I could stretch it, but I can try negotiate further if you’d like.’

‘No, no- that’s okay.’ It was a shock to say the least, but he was glad that Mr. Stark had fought to give him his anonymity until he turned of age.

‘You sure? I bet if I dig up all the dirt I found on that one head scientist they’ll be more lenient-’

‘It’s fine.’ Peter interrupted. ‘Really, it is. At least I have time to prepare and figure out how I want to reveal my identity to the world, and I have to at some point either way. But thank you for giving me until then,’ Peter said honestly.

‘So your identity as the Spider-Child is unknown to most people?’ Mr. Loki asked.

‘Yes, and or now we’d like to keep it that way.’ Mr. Stark looked the god dead in the eyes. ‘Understand?’

Mr. Loki nodded. ‘Of course.’

His mentor simply stared at Mr. Loki for a moment before giving a nod. ‘Alright, I’m going to go do some paperwork so when Pepper eventually comes to yell at me I have at least one defence.’ And then he left.

‘Wow, that was one of the craziest twenty minutes of my life, and that’s including the time when I fought my ex-girlfriend’s dad on the outside of a plane shipping all the Avenger’s stuff to the compound,’ said Peter.

Mr. Loki looked like he wanted to ask, but decided he didn’t want to know.

~oOo~

After seeing everything that went down that morning regarding the website YouTube, Loki wanted to try it.

He spent almost half an hour figuring out what it was, and soon after he was quickly setting up his own account, planning exactly what he was going to do. It had to involve Mjolnir, since he’d only recently been able to lift the hammer (in secret, of course) and he was yet to make the grand reveal.

And as he got a flash of inspiration, he decided this would be an excellent way to go about it. Smiling to himself, he picked the hammer up from the coffee table – which was seriously inconsiderate of his brother in the first place – and hit record.

~oOo~

The video began with a shaky view of a huge hallway as someone walked while holding the camera.

‘Hello Midgardians,’ said Loki’s voice. ‘I hear you enjoy trivial things such as funny videos for entertainment, so I decided to try my hand.’

The camera enters a living room, and it’s possible to see the person holding the camera is also holding Thor’s hammer Mjolnir in their other hand. As the person recording walks closer to the couch, the figure of Steve Rogers is slowly visible. The man is drawing in a sketchbook.

‘Hey Cap, can you hold this for me?’ Asks Loki innocently, handing Steve the hammer. Not realising what he was being handed, the man reaches out to grab it distractedly only to grunt in surprise. He holds it for a second before it crashes to the floor. Steve looks past the camera at Loki, furious. ‘What the actual fu-’

The screen cuts to black.

‘Language, Rogers,’ says Loki, the screen again showing a hallway as Loki walks through it. ‘I had to run after that since Barnes decided to show up and ruin the fun, which means he’s out.’ The camera turns into another room, and this time it’s Clint Barton who is inside, playing what looks like Minecraft on a Nintendo Switch hooked up to the TV. Clint is concentrating very hard on the game, so much so that he hasn’t realized that Loki walked in.

‘Here, hold this for a sec,’ said Loki, holding out Mjolnir to Clint, who quickly grabbed it while still looking at the screen, only for it to slam to the floor. Letting out a string of (censored) curses, he glances up at the offending god and his cursing gets louder. ‘You stupid @*%$&# snake @#% magic pants *&$#%@!'

The camera cut to black again, before showing yet another hallway.

‘Now it’s…’ the camera peeked into an office, where Tony Stark could be seen almost buried in paperwork at a desk, surrounded by empty coffee cups. ‘Stark’s turn. Seriously, you would have thought the man should have died by caffeine poisoning at this point,’ Loki whispered.

‘Hey Stark, could you hold this?’ he asked Tony, holding out the hammer. Not even pausing in his writing, he attempted to snatch Mjolnir out of Loki’s grasp only for it to hit the floor, bringing Tony with it and half a dozen stacks of paper.

‘YOU IMBECILLIC, HALF-WITTED SON OF A $*@%!-’ the billionaire screeched, rising unsteadily to his feet. ‘THAT TOOK ME HOURS, YOU-’

Taking back Mjolnir, Loki left the room very quickly.

Lastly, the video was shown entering a gym of sorts, except it was very clear it had been altered for enhanced beings. As the camera began to focus, the figure of Spider-Man also came into view, swinging and flipping from each obstacle at a speed almost too fast to see.

‘Hey, Spidey!’ Loki called to the vigilante. ‘Catch!’ and then he threw it at him. ‘Don’t worry, he has a sixth sense,’ he addressed the camera, and sure enough the hero held out one arm just in time to catch it.

And catch it he did.

‘Wha- Mr. Loki? Am I- am I holding Thor’s hammer? What- what-’ he flipped over to the camera, eyes undeniably wide with shock even though the mask. The camera flipped to show Loki’s equally stunned expression.

The rest of the video was just the both of their shocked faces before the video ended abruptly.

Miss_Chevious

OMFG IS THAT LOKI???? HAS MY HUSBANDO RETURNED??????

Maiaaaaaa reply: @Miss_Chevious

Okay let’s just tone that down a bit *sweats*

PepperP4President

Wait so Spider-Man is worthy? Does that mean he’s a god? I mean of course Pepper is way cooler but that’s kinda hot-

FanfictionAddiction

Alright, that’s it. Who gave the Avengers YouTube??

Spidey_Fan

SPIDER-MAN IS WORTHY I KNEW IT!!!!!!!!

Chapter Text

The field trip was tomorrow.

And Peter was terrified.

He sat at his desk in the last lesson of the day, listening with dread as Mr. Harrington went over the expectations for the field trip. All of the permission slips had already been handed in on Monday, as the people at SI (probably the interns) had to print badges for everyone ahead of time. Peter was going to pretend he’d lost his slip, but apparently May had informed MJ that he would probably try something like that, and so he’d resignedly handed it in under the hawk-like eyes of his friend (she was so similar to Pepper that it was honestly scary sometimes – they should not under any circumstances meet, ever).

‘And don’t forget we’re meeting in front of the school at seven to get on the buses, so don’t be late!’ said Mr. Harrington as the bell went, causing every student to race out of the room as though their desks had caught fire.

Seeing that Flash was trying to make his way over to Peter and Ned through the crowd, Peter quickly weaved further among the students, pulling Ned with him. He wasn’t quick enough however, to miss how the bully yelled over the crowd:

‘Enjoy your lies while people still believe them, Parker!’

‘Ignore him,’ said Ned. ‘He’s the one who’ll see tomorrow when he finds out all the Avengers know you.’

‘Oh my god no,’ Peter whined. ‘They better not come to see me, that would be so embarrassing.’

‘But Peter,’ said Ned earnestly. ‘I could say that I met the Avengers!’

‘I can bring you over to say hi any time.’ Peter said. ‘Seriously, Mr. Stark would be fine with it.’

‘Really?’ asked Ned, suddenly excited, but frowned as he thought of something. ‘Hey why do you still call Tony Stark Mr. Stark? You don’t call Pepper Potts Miss. Pots.’

Peter shrugged. ‘Originally it was because I didn’t know him very well and he’s, well, you know. But now it’s just because it annoys him. It’s funny.’

Ned looked at him, surprised. ‘You’re intentionally annoying the Tony Stark because it’s funny?’

‘Yup.’

‘Dude, what even is your life?’ said his friend in amazement.

‘I don’t know, man.’ Peter laughed.

Ned waved goodbye, and Peter returned the gesture. ‘Remember, if any Avengers start making viral YouTube videos about you, this time I want to know ASAP!’

~oOo~

Peter had been working by himself in Mr. Stark’s lab for about an hour before he finally heard the sound of the door opening behind him. Without even looking up, he called out to who he assumed was Mr. Stark.

‘Hey Mr. Stark! I was gonna go find you when I got here, but FRIDAY said you were in a meeting and I didn’t want to disturb you, so I just decided to work on my suit for a bit. I did the calculations, and if we were to weave vibranium into the fabric then the chance of me getting stabbed during patrol would go from problematically high to  quite low, which is great ‘cuz being stabbed is never fun, but after that I got bored so I showed Karen some Vines and now she understands my humour-’

‘Hey kid, remember how I said we were having guests today? Well, they’re here.’ Mr. Stark pointedly interrupted his rambling.

‘What?’ Peter asked, turning around. Upon seeing the people standing next to his mentor, his mouth slowly fell open. ‘Ohhhhhhhhhhhh,’ he said eloquently. ‘Um, hi.’

Mr. Stark shook his head, exasperated. ‘This is my intern, Peter Parker. Smartest kid in all of New York.’

Peter flushed. ‘I’m not that smart.’

The man rolled his eyes. ‘Sure you’re not, kid. Anyways, this is my lab, I can show you what I’m working on right now if you want.’

And that was how Peter ended up in the same room as Princess Shuri and King T’Challa.

He tried to busy himself by working on a new model for Droney, but couldn’t stop himself from sneaking glances over to where the other three people were gathered around Mr. Stark’s desk, looking over the blueprints for the latest Iron Man suit. Eventually he managed to absorb himself in what he was working on, but that only lasted a mere ten minutes before a voice behind him spoke.

‘So, I heard you mention Vine?’ Asked Shuri. Turning around quickly in his chair, Peter’s brain shut down, only managing to stutter, ‘Uh, yeah. I just taught Karen – the AI in the Spider-Man suit – what they are.’

‘The Spider-Man…’ She trailed off, looking at the suit on the table. ‘You work on his suit? That’s so cool!’ she said eagerly.

‘Yeah, I-’ He paused. ‘You know what? The rest of the Avengers already know, so there’s no point hiding it. I’m Spider-Man.’

‘No way,’ Shuri breathed. ‘That. Is. SO COOL. Oh my god, I can’t believe I’m meeting Spider-Man! You’re amazing with those webs, all like psst, psst, psst,’ she made web-shooting motions with her hands.

‘I’m not that cool,’ he said, embarrassed. ‘I’m just a kid who saves cats from trees. But you live in Wakanda! It must be so much better than New York.’

Shuri  thought for a moment. ‘I will admit the tech is better, but so much stuff happens here that it makes up for it.’

Peter nodded. ‘Fair enough. Hey, wanna make a cursed Roomba with me?’ He asked.

‘Sure.’ They shared evil grins.

~oOo~

They quickly realized that it would be easier to make a cursed Roomba if they got a normal one and then changed it, opposed to making one from scratch, so they quickly said goodbye to T’Challa (who looked slightly nervous, almost as if he knew about the chaos they had planned) and Mr. Stark (who looked so exhausted that he wasn’t going to bother trying to stop whatever they were going to do) and made their journey over to the storage cupboard near the marketing sector. Well, that was before Shuri realized halfway up the elevator that her phone was almost dead and after figuring out that it used the same charger as his phone, changed direction to the Avenger’s common room to grab his portable charger.

‘So, do the Avengers stay here often?’ Shuri asked curiously as they walked through the Avengers communal living room.

‘Only when there’s trouble closer to SI, or if there’s a meeting – usually about the Accords. I always used to hate it when they came over because I was kind of a secret then, which meant I had to avoid this place and look at the view!’ He pointed out the huge glass window that took up the entire wall and showed a dazzling perspective of New York. ‘But I guess I don’t have to avoid it anymore, cuz they know about me now. Oh, wow. That’ll be a relief.’ He grabbed his charger and portable battery off the couch and checked it. ‘Eighty-seven percent charged, that should be good enough-’

‘Um, Peter?’ Said Shuri slightly nervously. He looked up to see that she was watching someone that he hadn’t seen in his haste to grab what they needed.

‘Hey, Peter.’ Said Loki, who seemed to look slightly different but Peter was unable to tell why. ‘I regret to inform you that the gender goblin has stolen mine today, so I would be quite grateful if you used gender-neutral references for me whenever possible.’

‘Oh, sure.’ Said Peter. So why are you here? And – oh! What should I use for your honorific?’

‘Considering that we seem to be friends,’ he savoured the word, face twisting into a strange expression, ‘you don’t need to bother with that anymore - just call me Loki. As for why I’m here, Stark told everyone that you had a field trip here tomorrow and that we were going to stay over for the night in order to work out how to embarrass you the most. So I would suggest running away if I were you. Right now. Because that Iron Man suit can fly fast, and if Stark finds out that my brother still doesn’t know how to use YouTube and subsequently is unaware that you’re worthy, you’ll bet that he’ll make a show of telling him.’

‘Believe me, if I thought that would work I would already be in Iceland by now,’ said Peter. ‘But come to think of it, how does Thor not know how to use YouTube yet?’ Loki shrugged. ‘Anyway, me and Shuri are gonna go curse a Roomba if you need us.’ They nodded, eyes sliding back to the book in their hands. ‘Bye!’ Peter called, handing Shuri the charger.

And then they were in the elevator, back on course once again.

‘Did I hear Loki right?’ Shuri asked as soon as the doors closed. ‘You’re worthy? Holy- The YouTube clip that went viral- Spider-Man- Which was you-’ She looked as though tiny little puzzle pieces in her brain  were clicking together into a giant picture all at once. ‘Wow.’

‘We don’t really talk about it,’ Said Peter, slightly embarrassed. ‘Somehow Thor still doesn’t know how to use the internet so he doesn’t know, and we don’t exactly know what me being worthy means, so everyone is just pretending it didn’t happen-’

Peter suddenly trailed off. ‘I have an idea for the Roomba.’ He told Shuri his plan.

‘And you’re sure Loki will like it?’ She asked.

‘Absolutely. It’s going to cause so much chaos, and Loki is literally the god of mischief. They’ll love it.’

‘You’re right,’ Shuri mused. ‘From what I heard, they love causing disarray.’

‘So we’re on the same page.’ Peter grinned at the princess, earning one in return.

~oOo~

So, funnily enough, Peter learned a very important, quite hilarious and mildly concerning fact that day. Apparently, since he was only seen working in the intern labs and had a badge with way higher clearance than any normal high schooler should, most of SI was convinced he was some sort of cryptid.

Which honestly wasn’t the craziest thing that had happened that day, but it certainly was hilarious.

They found this out when they went over to the storage closet full of cleaning supplies to grab a Roomba (there were many coming out of the closet jokes involved) and one of the employees from the marketing sector walked out of one of the offices and into the hallway, a stack of folders in his arms. When he saw them, he paused.

‘Are you… Princess Shuri?’ the employee asked.

‘Yup,’ said Shuri as Peter finally emerged from the closet, holding a brand-new Roomba in a cardboard box. The employee stared at them for a moment before his eyes widened.

‘Oh my god, it’s the Cryptid!’ He gasped, dropping the folders in shock. Running back inside the room he called, ‘Guys! GUYS! I saw the Cryptid – he’s right outside!’

‘…What was that about?’ Said Shuri, slightly confused.

‘Not a clue,’ said Peter. ‘And we’re too busy to find out. Let’s go!’

And so they made a very tactical retreat into the elevator.

‘Okay, what do we need next?’ Asked Shuri.

‘Well, we need a foghorn and a microphone, so probably the R ‘n D labs, it’s the only place I can think of that would have any,’ Peter explained, pressing the button for the floor they needed. ‘Unfortunately I don’t really know anyone down there since Mr. Stark usually just orders whatever we need, so we’ll just have to ask someone.’

As they entered the first lab on the floor, a few of the people raised their heads, probably confused as to why two teenagers were walking around like they owned the place.

‘Can I help you?’ asked a woman with her hair in a tight bun and whose name tag read Harriet.

‘Uh, do you guys have any foghorns or small microphones that we could like, permanently borrow?’ asked Peter.

‘What for? Do you have clearance from-’ her eyes landed on Peter’s badge, which with its red colouring and gold border was distinctly the highest Alpha level. ‘Hey, how did you get that badge? Did you steal-’ Her eyes widened, much like the marketing employees’. ‘The interns were telling the truth,’ she whispered. ‘You’re the Cryptid.’

‘What?’ said Peter, thoroughly confused now.

‘Okay, that’s great, but do you have any foghorns or tiny microphones?’ Repeated Shuri impatiently.

‘Uh, y-yes.’ Harriet seemed quite nervous all of a sudden. ‘Here.’ She handed him two boxes, which on closer inspection held a kind of foghorn and a microphone that was designed to be attached to a headpiece. ‘That’s all we have, I hope it’s okay.’

‘It’s great, thanks!’ Peter smiled at the woman, who seemed to be almost dizzy with relief. Turning around, he realized that almost every person in the room was staring at him with something close to awe. ‘Oh-kay, we’re gonna go now,’ Peter said awkwardly as both Shuri and himself began walking to the door very quickly. ‘Bye!’

‘Okay, that was weird,’ Shuri announced.

‘Yup,’ Peter agreed. ‘But why? I hardly ever go anywhere other than the intern labs, Mr. Stark’s lab and the Avenger’s common room. Although she did mention something about-’

‘The interns.’ Shuri finished his thought.

‘Let’s go pay them a visit,’ Peter decided.

~oOo~

‘Peter!’ Zoe called out happily as they opened the door to the intern Labs. ‘I would have thought you’d be hanging out with Stark for at least another three hours before you came over to help us. Oh, and who’s your friend?’

‘This is Shuri, my science bro – Shuri, this is Zoe. But more importantly, do you have any idea why people are calling me a Cryptid?’

Zoe froze, and a guilty expression creeping over her face. ‘Well…’

‘So you do know!’ Peter accused.

‘It wasn’t my idea! The girl pleaded, guilt now etched on her face. ‘Ari started it!’

‘What did I start?’ Asked Ari, walking over.

‘All the stuff about Peter being the Cryptid,’ Shuri explained.

‘Oh, hi Peter’s new friend! And yeah, I started all the Cryptid stuff.’

‘But what exactly is all the Cryptid stuff?’ Peter cried.

‘Well, it’s quite a story, so let me help you make whatever it is you’re making and I’ll tell you.’ They suggested.

As the three of them went over to begin work on the Roomba (Zoe couldn’t help as she had to work on a college assignment), Ari began to tell them the story.

‘Well, it all began when you walked into Stark Tower a couple of months ago and one of the press sitting in the lobby heard FRIDAY announce you as level Alpha, although thankfully they didn’t catch your name. Anyway, the woman started jabbering on about how nobody had ever heard of a kid close enough to Tony Stark to warrant such high clearance. Of course, people had seen you before, but I suppose most of us here are so pumped on caffeine that nobody really bothered to question it. Thankfully I was nearby, but in order to shut everyone up, I had to sprinkle in some lies in with the truth.’

‘So you told them I was a mythical being,’ Peter said dryly.

‘Kind of?’ They said. ‘I mean, I was more focused on making sure you weren’t on the front page of every newspaper to really think about the other problems.’

‘But what did you tell them?’ Pressed Shuri.

‘I said that you were some sort of genius, that every wrong formula you touched fixed itself and that Stark was so fiercely protective of you that if he found out someone leaked you to the media he would make sure they were blacklisted from every news company in the world for the rest of their lives. So really, I was telling them the truth.’

Peter sighed in relief. ‘Well, as much as it’s overdramatic, that’s not that bad.’

‘And then I added that I wasn’t certain you were human and that if the  employees wanted, they could leave out offerings of candy and maybe you would appear to correct their formulas.’

‘What!’ Peter screeched as Shuri burst into giggles, trying in vain to focus on the barely-started coding in front of her. ‘You’re telling me that people have been leaving candy out for me and you didn’t say anything?’ Peter thought for a moment before understanding lit his face, followed by horror. ‘Hold on a second. All those times you made me go down to R’n D to fix their problems-’

‘Yup,’ Ari smirked. ‘Zoe reviews all their reports, so all she needed to do was tell me the math formulas that nobody could solve and send you down there, saying that it was urgent and for you not to talk to anyone – just go in there, solve the problem on the big whiteboard and leave. They all think you’re a god.’

Peter buried his face in his hands. ‘I have a field trip here tomorrow – my class can’t know that I intern here, let alone that most of the company sees me as some sort of mythical deity that magically solves science formulas.’

Shuri wheezed she was laughing so hard and Ari chuckled. ‘You’re forgetting all the things Stark is probably planning – I’m sure the Cryptid stuff is the least of your problems.’

Peter groaned, burying his face further in his hands. ‘I should have taken Loki’s advice and just started running.’

~oOo~

Loki was in the exact same spot that they had been before, reading their book on a small armchair in the corner. ‘Did you two make an unholy vacuum like you wanted?’ They asked.

‘Yup, but that’s not all!’ He set it down in front of the god.

‘We call it the Misgender Corrector,’ said Shuri with pride. Loki looked somewhere between shock and confusion. ‘It’s for you, but we also encrypted the pronouns of every trans and gender-diverse person in the SI database so that if you or any of them are misgendered within three metres of the Roomba, it will activate the foghorn.’

Loki’s face softened slightly as they looked at the Roomba, then widened into an evil grin. ‘How loud is the foghorn?’ They asked.

~oOo~

After leaving Loki to cause inevitable chaos on the lower floors, Shuri turned to Peter.

‘So, I have an idea.’

‘Oh?’ Said Peter.

‘How much does Stark hate Vine?’

Peter smirked. ‘Oh my god, it infuriates him. He doesn’t understand why they’re funny, and anything he doesn’t understand he wants to throw out a window.’

Shuri clapped her hands together. ‘Okay, good. Next: can you hack into FRIDAY’s database?’

‘I would not recommend that,’ said FRIDAY.

‘Probably,’ Peter hummed thoughtfully, tapping his chin. ‘Why?’

Shuri leaned over, whispering the plan to Peter (knowing full well that FRIDAY could probably still hear them) and they both burst into giggles.

Peter grabbed his nearly falling apart laptop and handed it to her after a moment of furious tapping. ‘Okay, we’re in. Turns out Mr. Stark gave me the highest clearance, which to be fair is a mistake he only himself to blame for.’

‘I would highly discourage anyone from editing my coding other than Boss himself,’ FRIDAY said, sounding almost nervous.

‘’It’s fine FRI, we’re not doing anything major – we’re just giving you a sense of humour, so please don’t tell Stark.’ Shuri soothed.

‘As long as you don’t intend to alter any major coding, I suppose it should be fine.’ FRIDAY allowed hesitantly.

‘Thanks, FRI!’

‘Okay, so what protocols should we add?’ Shuri asked.

‘Ooh, let’s change Mr. Stark’s alarm to It is Wednesday my dudes.’

‘Every day?’

‘Yup!’ Peter grinned. ‘It’ll be even more confusing.’

Shuri started typing on the laptop. ‘Done. What next?’

Peter thought for a moment. ‘Ooh! What about if every time someone turns a light off, FRIDAY says when your lights don’t work like they used to before.’

Shuri nodded enthusiastically. ‘But what if there was only a twenty-five percent chance that the protocol activates? Then there’s the irrational fear of it being so unpredictable.’

‘You are a genius!’ Peter exclaimed.

‘I try my best.’ Shuri said, grinning.

‘Okay, so next…’

~oOo~

Unfortunately, Peter had to go home not a half hour later, as it took a while to swing home and he needed to not be dead inside in order to survive the next day.

And if he happened to witness Loki form an alliance with a swarm of transgender employees in the lobby before he left, well, that was none of his business.

Chapter Text

Peter was falling.

He was falling through the air as the Vulture dropped him, crashing into frigid water only to sink into its icy depths, down, down, down…

He was holding the ferry together with every ounce of his strength, yet it wasn’t enough.

He was trying not to cry as Mr. Stark scolded him like a misbehaving child, while all he could think of was what could have happened if someone had died.

He was being crushed under a building, his breaths in short ragged gasps, tears sliding down his face in fear.

He was clinging to the outside of a plane, terrified that at any moment he would lose his grip.

Mr. Stark appeared in front of him, and suddenly their surroundings disappeared. He looked at Peter with obvious distaste. ‘I wanted you to be better,’ he hissed. ‘You ruin everything you touch. Do you really think I would care about some kid from Queens?’

‘I-’ Peter was almost immediately cut off.

‘Save it,’ Mr. Stark snarled.

 And Peter woke with a gasp.

Chest heaving, he felt tears burning behind his eyes as he buried his face in his hands.  He sat there for what felt like ages before awareness finally forced him out of bed. Looking over at his alarm clock, he saw that it was about 6AM  and sighed, disabling the alarm so it didn’t go off in a few hours when he was already up. He showered quickly, shoving the last remnants of the dream from his mind in a well-rehearsed ritual until he had forcefully forgotten everything that had just happened (he hadn’t really forgotten per say, just pushed everything into the corners of his mind and left it there).

Pulling on a faded hoodie that he wasn’t sure the origins of over his other clothes (Peter suspected that it was one of Mr. Starks, but since it’s only features were that it was grey and slightly too big on him, there wasn’t any way for him to test his theory) he decided to wait in the living room for May to wake up. Lying on the couch, he unlocked his phone and after a moment’s hesitation tapped on Loki’s icon.

Peter-Man:

Heyy

Loki:

What are you doing up this early?

Peter-Man:

Um

I was thirsty?

That night water tho

So sweet

Loki:

As much as I agree that drinking water in the middle of the night is surprisingly nice, I don’t think that’s why you’re awake

Peter-Man:

…

You’re right

I kinda had a nightmare?

Loki:

Ah

Would you like to talk about it?

Peter-Man:

Nah it’s okay, it was mostly just pre-homecoming^TM stuff

Loki:

?

Peter-Man:

Um

How to explain

It was before Mr. Stark and me really knew each other

And there was this villain that kept popping up

Mr. Stark told me not to go after him but I did and that caused a bunch of problems

Most of my dreams are about then

Loki:

If it makes you feel better, I’m also up because of a nightmare.

Peter-Man:

Rlly?

Loki:

Yup

Although if you tell anyone about this I will deny it and if I find screenshots of these messages I will burn every phone they appear on

Burning things is my favourite thing to do and I

Will

Not

Hesitate

Peter-Man:

Mood

I won’t tell anyone I promise

Loki:

Good

It was about my mother

Peter-Man:

…

Would this be a bad time to make an orphan joke?

Loki:

No no go ahead

Peter-Man:

Well at least nobody can yell at you to go to bed?

Loki:

Trust me, Thor makes up for both Odin’s lack of care and my Mother’s… absence

Peter-Man:

I don’t know if this conversation is funny or sad

Loki:

Well, I’m never acknowledging this chat after this so feel free to do whatever, it won’t matter

Peter-Man:

Okay well you can laugh at me all you want after I die today

Loki:

What

Oh

You have that field trip

Rest assured I will honour your soul for as long as mine stays living

Peter-Man:

Thx

I gtg now, Aunt May is awake

Loki:

See you in a few hours

Peter-Man:

W h a t

Please don’t tell me you’re on the field trip

Loki:

…

Peter-Man:

Nvm I’ll deal with it later

Byee

Peter looked up from his phone as May walked into the room.

‘Morning, Pete,’ May smiled, rubbing her eyes. ‘Are you ready for the field trip?’

‘No,’ Peter whined.

‘Well, you’d better get ready, you need to leave in just over an hour,’ she said cheerfully.

~oOo~

Sitting inside the school bus, Peter wondered how much trouble he’d be in if he smashed the window he was looking out of and made a run for it.

‘Hey Penis, which billion-dollar company are you going to pretend to intern for once your lies about Stark Industries are exposed?’ Flash taunted. Peter sighed, trying to ignore him, but the bully wouldn’t back down. ‘Seriously, what’s next? Hammer Industries? Oscorp? Or will you just go off and cry to your parents? Oh that’s right, you don’t-’

‘Eugene sit down, that is quite enough,’ said Mr. Harrington, coming to Peter’s rescue. Mumbling an apology, Flash scurried back to his friends as his teacher turned back to Peter, Ned and MJ. ‘You three alright?’ he asked.

‘We’re fine, I’m drawing Peter in my Crisis Notebook,’ said MJ calmly. Peter nodded absently.

Mr. Harrington looked like he wasn’t sure how to reply to that. ‘Alright, well. If you have any problems, just call up the front of the bus.’ MJ hummed and Ned nodded (Peter seemed not to hear him) and so their teacher left.

‘Cheer up man, even if it’s not the best thing that’s happened at least today won’t be boring!’ Ned said to Peter.

‘I suppose,’ Peter said mournfully. MJ snorted.

‘I’ve finished the rough sketch of your face, so you can go do that dumb nerd thing where you lean on Ned’s shoulder if you want.’ She said dismissively.

‘Dumb nerd thing?’ Peter asks.

‘Yeah. You two are like the dumb nerd siblings you never knew you had.’ Said MJ, and Ned gave Peter a look that looked like a bunch of question marks smashed together. Peter sighed again and adjusted himself so that instead of leaning against the windowsill of the bus, he was instead leaning on Ned’s shoulder. ‘Aww, so cute,’ said MJ.

‘I can’t tell if she’s being sarcastic or not,’ Ned whispered to Peter.

‘I think it’s part of her aesthetic,’ Peter whispered back, closing his eyes. Despite the fact that his nightmare hadn’t woken him too much earlier than his alarm would’ve, his sleep had been restless and disrupted the whole night, as he tossed and turned over thoughts of the day to come. He suspected that MJ was looking out for him in her own way, as everyone had been exposed to Peter’s sleep-deprived sass and despite the fact that shutting down Flash was always fun, Peter suspected that today would be the day that, if anything happened, he would never live it down. So with that thought, he drifted into a light sleep.

~oOo~

‘Peter. Peter, wake up.’

‘Wake up loser.’

Something poked him painfully in the side. ‘Mmfh,’ he mumbled, eyes squinting.

‘We’re here! We’re at Stark Industries Peter ohmygod this is the best day in my entire life!’

‘Calm down, you’ll give yourself cardiac arrest,’ MJ (who Peter suspected had been the one who poked him) said, not even glancing up from her copy of The Midnight Library.

‘But it’s Stark Industries!’ Ned squealed, and he was not the only one. All around them students were jumping up and down, yelling and calling out to one another in excitement as they looked up at the iconic building just outside the windows.

‘Students! STUDENTS! Alright, everyone sit down for just a moment!’ Mr. Harrington called over the noise. Once most of the teens had settled down, he began to speak. ‘Now, before we get out of this bus I want you all to remember that this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and that we worked very hard to be able to give you this chance, so please, please be respectful and no fooling around – we’re representing our school today. I know that some of you were asking if you’d be able to see your friends from other classes today, but unfortunately since we’re going to tour as a class for most of the time, unless you and your friends are in the same sub-category, that won’t be possible.’ There were a few groans at that statement. ‘However, this doesn’t change the fact that today will be extremely enlightening,’ he droned on, but Peter couldn’t sum up the energy to listen to the rest as the only friends he had were Ned and MJ, and thankfully they were in his class anyway.

‘Did I miss anything while I was asleep?’ Peter asked Ned quietly.

‘Other than kids watching the Avenger videos again and Flash starting a livestream? Not really. Seriously man, I can’t believe you and Tony Stark had a blackmail war that resulted in Loki figuring out how to use YouTube – You gotta let me be in your videos if they’re gonna go viral.’

Peter grinned. ‘I’ll introduce you to Shuri sometime, maybe we can make conspiracy videos about the Avengers or something.’

Ned’s eyes widened. ‘That would be wicked.’

‘- so let’s go out and get started!’ Mr. Harrington concluded his speech.

Students cheered as everyone poured out of the bus, Peter, Ned and MJ hanging back to avoid getting crushed in the stampede. As they all stood outside the tower, Peter realized that this was how everyone else saw SI. A huge corporation, cold and unyielding – completely opposite to the second home it was to him. They all filed into the lobby, everyone talking to one another excitedly as they glanced around the most tasteful room the majority of them had ever had the pleasure to enter. Mr. Harrington walked over to the front desk, students in tow, and politely caught the attention of the woman sitting there. ‘Hello,’ he said. ‘We’re here for the eight-thirty tour?’

The woman looked up and with a rush of dread, Peter suddenly realized it was Zoe. ‘Of course! Just give me a sec.’ she tapped on her computer for a moment. ‘Alright!’ Zoe said. ‘Your tour guide will be here in just a moment, but in the meantime here is everyone’s badges if you want to get that sorted.’ She handed Mr. Harrington a small cardboard box filled with white-and-bronze badges. As Mr. Harrington began to call up students to collect their badges, Zoe discretely waved at Peter, a shit-eating grin on her face.

‘Peter, look!’ Ned hurried over to Peter (who hadn’t noticed his friend had been called up), showing the badge he’d been given. A pristine white rectangle with bronze borders and lettering spelling out Edward Leeds, it was clear to anyone that Pepper Pots was not cutting any corners.

‘Does everyone have their badge?’ Their teacher asked, causing Peter to notice that his own name hadn’t been called out – and unfortunately, so did someone else.

‘Sir, Parker doesn’t have a badge!’ Flash called out, smirking triumphantly. Mr. Harrington looked unsure as to what to do.

‘Erm, well, Peter does work here. Do you already have a badge?’ he asked Peter.

‘He does, actually!’ Zoe called out helpfully from behind the front desk, causing a few students to glance over to her, before looking back at Peter. Wanting to sink through the floor and into the molten core of the earth, Peter reluctantly retrieved his red-and-gold badge from his bag and pinned it to his shirt. Most of the class stared at him in disbelief, bar Flash (who looked as though he was trying to shoot lasers with his eyes) and both Ned and MJ. Before anything else could happen though, a voice called out from behind them.

‘Hey, you must be my tour group – eight thirty, right?’ said a distinctly southern accent. Turning around, they saw a tall, dark haired boy about their age with a red-and-gold badge grinning at them.

Wait.

Why did this kid have an Alpha badge?

‘My name is Harley Keener, and I’ll be your tour guide for today!’ he said confidently.

Harley Keener? That name seemed familiar… Mr. Stark had mentioned him once or twice, but certainly hadn’t told Peter anything about him visiting. But then- did his mentor not want him to know? No, that wouldn’t make sense; if he didn’t want Peter to know about Harley visiting, he definitely wouldn’t assign him as a tour guide for Peter’s class.

‘Hi, my name is Chelsea, what’s your favourite type of dinner food?’ FRIDAY crowed to everyone’s confusion.

 ‘Just ignore that,’ said Harley as students snickered. ‘Apparently someone introduced our AI to vines; she’s been doing this all day. Everyone have their badges? Alright! Does anyone have any questions?’ Harley asked.

Cindy (who had a notebook out for some reason) put her hand up. ‘Both you and Peter have different coloured badges, implying that they’re colour coded, so could you explain how the levels work?’

He looked at her, surprised. ‘Peter? Peter Parker?’ His classmates all glanced at him, and Peter felt his face burn.

Harley seemed to notice his mistake, and cleared his throat. ‘Anyway, you’re right – there are in fact different badges linked to different clearance levels and I can explain them to you guys before we start.’ Finally, everyone turned back to the other boy, to Peter’s relief. ‘Well, for starters, each badge has a border of either bronze, silver or gold, which is also the colour of the person’s name, as you can see. Alpha has gold, Beta has silver and Gamma, Delta and Epsilon have bronze. However, each badge also has their signature colour that states what kind of access you have, although the specifics are monitored by the Tower’s AI, FRIDAY. You all have Epsilon, which is the lowest level of access and requires permission from someone level Gamma or higher to go anywhere. Epsilon is for cleaners, press, tours and other low-level visitors. As you can see, that level’s colour is white.

‘Next is Delta, which is blue. Delta is the level that most people have, so you’ll most likely see it a lot today. People with this badge are most employees and the interns, and they have access to the main labs, intern floors and other areas like staff common rooms and the lunchroom floor.’

Upon hearing that, Flash’s hand shot into the air. ‘If the intern’s badge is blue, then why is Parker’s red?’

Oh my god, he heard nothing about the badge borders, did he? Peter thought. Glancing around, he noticed that nobody else had put the puzzle pieces together either.

‘Hold for the text please,’ Harley smirked. ‘Gamma is green, and is reserved for higher employees such as top scientists, heads of sectors and security. They can go pretty much everywhere apart from the Avenger’s private floors, and need to have worked here for a minimum of ten years and had the most thorough background check humanly possible.

‘Beta is the second highest badge, and the people with it are the Avengers and their immediate family plus our head of security, Happy. Beta is the only badge that doesn’t have a specific badge colour, meaning that Beta badges come in a variety of colours - though they can’t be the same colour as the other badges. For example, Bruce Banner has a dark green Beta badge, and although it’s still the same colour as Gamma, the difference in borders and the shade of green are extreme enough for it to be okay. Another example is King T’Challa and Princess Shuri, whose Beta badges are a dark purple, which I assume is because of both Black Panther and their royalty. You may ask, but why are they all different colours? Excellent question. The answer is, and I quote Tony Stark himself, “I was drunk when I colour-coded them, and after that it was too difficult to change so now we’re stuck with it.”’ Harley rolled his eyes, and the class burst into quiet giggles. ‘And the media all think that he’s some sort of all-knowing mystical being.’ He waited for everyone to settle down.

‘The last badge is level Alpha, and it’s colour is red - after the Iron Man suit, of course. People with this badge can go pretty much anywhere, and the only people who have it is Tony Stark, Pepper Potts, Tony’s intern and myself.’

And of course he had to stare right into Peter’s fricking soul while saying it.

‘Alright, let’s get started!’ Harley clapped his hands together as though he hadn’t dropped the biggest bombshell and completely blown away all hope Peter had of staying low on this trip. ‘Everyone walk single file though the scanner please.’

Oh yeah, the scanner, Peter realized. I never would have been able to get through the tour undetected in the first place. He sighed quietly.

Harley walked through the scanners and FRIDAY announced him. ‘Harley Keener, Level Alpha. Occupation: Potato Gun Child. The field trip is slightly behind schedule, so I would recommend your tour group makes it’s way to the first stop as quickly as possible.’

‘Sure thing, FRI!’ Said Harley. ‘That’s the tower’s AI, FRIDAY and you heard her so let’s move!’

As students began to file through the scanner, FRIDAY began to announce their names

‘Cindy Moon, Level Epsilon. Occupation: Visitor.’

‘Charlie Murphy, Level Epsilon. Occupation: Visitor.’

‘Ned Leeds, Level Epsilon. Occupation: Visitor.’

‘Sally Avril, Level Epsilon. Occupation: Visitor.’

Peter wanted to scream. This was it; FRIDAY was going to reveal his status to his whole class, and then everything he’d tried so hard to hide would be uncovered-

Suddenly noticing that he was the only one who hadn’t walked through the scanners yet, he did so.

‘Hello Peter,’ said FRIDAY.

‘Er, hey FRI,’ Peter said.

‘Princess Shuri wanted me to inform you that she hacked me, and that I am no longer required to state your status. She also said (and I quote), “You owe me one.”

‘Oh okay.’ He sidled over to Ned, trying to ignore the disbelieving stares of his classmates, and that was that.

‘Oh-kay, let’s keep going!’ Said Harley, obviously wanting to question Peter just as much as everyone else, but thankfully much more time-conscious. ‘Everyone get into the elevator, yes you will all be able to fit, it’s a group elevator, alright go, go, go, we have half an hour until we have to move on from our first stop and we’re not even there yet!’ He said in one breath. Once they were all inside said elevator, he relaxed. ‘Okay, first stop is the Avenger’s Museum!’

~oOo~

The Avenger’s Museum was, for want of a better word, amazing. There were stations for every Avenger (and other heroes that weren’t quite Avengers), as well as murals for each major battle fought. As his classmates all raced over to different parts of the room, Peter made his way over to a small statue of a vaguely familiar man. Looking at the foot of the statue, his theory was confirmed.

Pietro Maximoff – gone but not forgotten.

‘Amazing what they did, isn’t it?’ said the voice of Harley as he stepped beside him.

‘Yeah,’ Peter murmured. ‘I can’t believe I never knew this place existed.’

Harley glanced at him. ‘Yeah, about that – you’re Tony’s intern, aren’t you?’

‘Is that important?’ Peter asked hesitantly.

‘Yes.’

‘Okay,’ Peter sighed. ‘I’m Mr. Stark’s intern.’

‘Alright, that’s great because now I know I’m talking to the right person,’ grinned the other boy. ‘I was almost certain but hey, you can never be too careful. I should probably introduce myself properly now.’ He snickered. ‘Hi, I’m the kid whose house got broken into by Tony Stark so he could fix his suit and threatened said man with a potato gun but later helped him fix his suit as a twelve-year-old.’

Peter simply stared at him for a moment. ‘You’re kidding me,’ he said.

‘Nope!’ said Harley cheerfully.

‘Does Mr. Stark have a thing with breaking into people’s houses?’ Peter said. ‘That was how I met him too! I came home one day and boom – he was sitting with my aunt in the lounge.’

The other boy wrinkled his nose. ‘Yeah, the old man really needs to learn to respect people’s privacy. Well, I think those kids over there are going to set off the fire extinguisher if they keep running around like that, so I should probably go stop them. We’ve got fifteen minutes, so go check out a few of the other exhibits – I’d recommend the Spider-Man one.’ And then he left to go supervise some teens.

Wait. What did he say? Spider-Man doesn’t have an exhibit does…

He walked over to where the majority of his classmates were gathered, and he felt his breath catch.

Spider-Man had an exhibit, an this was the best day of Peter’s life.

There was his old suit (which Mr. Stark had asked if he could take for safekeeping), a pair of old webshooters and an information panel that talked about everything from his origin to his likes and dislikes. Taken completely by surprise, he almost didn’t notice when Ned walked over to him. ‘Is it true you hate peppermint?’ he asked.

‘Yeah,’ Peter said, surprised. ‘They smell way too strong to me, it make me sick. How did you know?’

‘It said on the exhibit.’ Said Ned. ‘Don’t loads of people give you candy canes for Christmas?’

‘I just give them to Aunt May.’ Peter replied. ‘So, what else does it say?’

Ned fell silent so Peter could read what the sign said, but they were quickly interrupted yet again.

‘See?’ Flash crowed to the group. ‘I told you guys – Spider-Man is practically an Avenger, and by far the coolest.’

‘I’m not disagreeing, but aren’t we literally in Tony Stark’s tower?’ Cindy pointed out. ‘You probably shouldn’t be saying that.’

Flash shrugged as Peter and Ned tried their hardest to keep neutral faces. ‘Well, it’s the truth.’

He was about to say something else when the elevator dinged behind them, and none other than Shuri ran out, a black-and-green dappled snake curled around her arm. Peter watched in horror as she made a beeline towards him. ‘Peter, they found us out,’ she said, panicked. ‘They found out about the Roomba and the Vines and ohmygod Stark is gonna kill us we’re gonna die-’ she shook his shoulders for emphasis.

‘Oh my god this is so sad, Alexa play Despacito,’ FRIDAY said, which everyone decided to ignore.

‘Shuri this isn’t a great time,’ Peter whispered urgently, very aware of how everyone was listening in on their conversation with shock and disbelief.

‘Do I look like I care?’ Shuri asked. ‘I’m gonna hide with your class for a bit, okay?’

‘No. Not okay.’

‘Great!’ Shuri said. ‘Hey, Potato Boy! I’m hiding from the Avengers, so can I join your tour for a bit?’

Harley looked over from where he was trying to gather the rest of the students. ‘Meh, why not. Sure.’

She grinned. ‘Thanks!’

‘Alright, everyone listen up!’ Harley called, gathering the attention of everyone in the room. ‘We gotta move on now, so everyone back in the elevators! And from now on we’re gonna see some more confidential stuff so if I see a phone I’m taking it, capishe?’

As they slowly filed back into the elevator, Peter turned back to Shuri. ‘By the way, is that Loki?’

‘Yup,’ answered Shuri. ‘When we realized that the Avengers knew about the Roomba, we hid it and ran. ‘By the way, she uses she/her pronouns today.’

‘Noted,’ said Peter.

As the elevator doors closed, Peter wondered how he was going to survive the day.

Chapter Text

The next stop was, unfortunately, the Intern Labs.

And unfortunately, the first person to greet them was Ari.

‘Hey guys!’ They said in greeting, strutting over. ‘You must be the tour. We’ve got an activity all set up, but first you’ve gotta watch an introduction video. It’s only five minutes long and it covers all the safety aspects, and then we’ll get started.’

Peter felt unease curl in his gut. Didn’t Mr. Stark record an introduction video about a week ago? He really hoped it wasn’t the same thing, because Mr. Stark had definitely addressed him in the voiceover multiple times.

But of course it was.

As they all filed into a room to the side, Ari waited for everyone to sit down before playing a video from a projector. As the audio began everyone visibly inhaled in shock – the voice was undeniably Mr. Stark’s

‘Okay, uh- are we recording?’ said the voice of Tony Stark.

‘Yes, Mr. Stark,’ Peter’s voice sighed. Glancing around in panic, he saw that most of his classmates were watching the screen (which displayed the title “The Intern Labs” in what was almost definitely an iMovie title card) with some form of confusion. Do they not recognize my voice? This is ridiculous. They hear my voice every day for years, how do they not recognize my voice. He checked himself. Which is good, of course. Just slightly annoying.

‘Okay, let’s start.’ Mr. Stark said, and then the video began. It was exactly as Peter remembered, covering everything (albeit very snarkily) from the safety rules to where the closest mini-fridge was. He began to relax slightly in his seat, sure that he was out of the woods until-

‘So, kid.’ Said Mr. Stark’s voice. ‘Did this convince you to work here once you graduate?’

‘Hmm.’ Peter’s voice (that was still a mystery to the entire tour bar Ned, Shuri and Harley, who were all trying to look as though they weren’t silently pissing themselves laughing and MJ who was attempting to set him on fire with her eyes) pretended to think for a moment. ‘Well, I did hear that Oscorp was open for new employees-’

‘You little-’ Mr. Stark said as Peter burst out laughing, and the video cut off, and a message of Thank You was slowly erased by pink sparkles.

‘Alright, does anyone have any questions?’ Ari asked, and hands shot in the air.

‘Who was the person talking with Tony Stark?’ asked Abe.

‘Is that his intern?’ said Cindy.

‘Why did you use iMovie for a SI video?’ Asked Shuri, who once again asked the most important question.

‘Yes that was Mr. Stark’s intern, no I can’t tell you who he is – although you may find out pretty soon – and yes that was iMovie, what Mr. Stark doesn’t know won’t hurt him.’

Students kept trying to ask questions, until eventually Ari took out a whistle from their pocket and blew it as loud as they could, which made everyone jump. ‘Finally. So, you guys can walk around and have a look at what we’re working on for about half an hour, though please try to be respectful and if someone looks too busy to talk, don’t try ant talk to them. We had an incident a while ago involving a very pushy student and a very tired intern, and it didn’t work out very well for the student, so.’ He gestured for them to explore, and his classmates began (albeit carefully) walking around, still whispering to one another. Peter watched as Harley almost ran to the coffee machine and wished he could do the same.

‘Do you wanna know what I think?’ said Flash, just within earshot of Peter. ‘I think it wasn’t Stark’s intern at all, but Spider-Man instead.’

If Peter had had a drink, he would have spat it out. He looked over at Ned, who looked back at him with wide eyes, confirming that he’d heard it too.

‘How can he be so right, but so wrong at the same time?’ whispered Ned, almost in awe.

At that moment, MJ walked over, Shuri trailing guiltily behind her. ‘It would probably be a good time to tell you that you both are idiots, and I know your spider-secret.’

Wow, Peter was really glad he didn’t have a drink, because if he did he wouldn’t have actually drank any of it – it would have all been spat out in surprise. ‘What?’

‘I suspected for a while, but this field trip confirms it,’ she said, and after a moment added, ‘And Miss Princess accidentally told me.’

‘I’m so sorry Peter!’ said Shuri. ‘I thought she knew!’

‘I did,’ said MJ. ‘And now I want to be in on your secret nerd conversations, so spill.’

While Peter’s brain was in the process of rebooting, Ned filled the girls in (Loki also counted as she was still clinging to Shuri’s arm as a snake). ‘We just heard Flash theorizing that it was actually Spider-Man in the video.’ MJ snorted and even Snake-Loki looked amused.

‘It’s kinda insulting that they’ve heard my voice for almost three years, and yet they still don’t recognize it when it’s played at max volume next to a giant projector,’ Peter said, still not quite sure what just happened, but trying to play it cool. He began to say something else, but cut himself off when he saw something out of the corner of his eye. ‘Look, it’s Daisy!’

‘Wait, that’s her?’ asked Ned excitedly as Peter ran over to where the robotic cat was stationed.

‘Yup!’ said Peter. ‘She’s a robot designed to help kids with anxiety,’ he explained. ‘Mr. Stark, Zoe and me worked on it for Zoe’s project, and we designed her after Daisy from the Warriors series. Look!’ He used her activation command. ‘Daisy, wake up!’ At once, the cat’s electronic eyes appeared, and she stretched, rising to her metal feet.

‘Impressive,’ said MJ neutrally. ‘She moves almost like a real cat.’

‘Right?’ said Ned.

While Ned and MJ got a closer look at Daisy, Peter opened a laptop nearby and waved Shuri over. ‘I assume you’d appreciate a look at the coding?’

‘Um, yes please,’ said Shuri. ‘Whoever coded her must be quite smart – the code must be almost as good as some of the stuff children make in Wakanda.’

Peter snickered. ‘Weird flex, but okay. I’ll tell Zoe that.’ He pulled up Daisy’s coding. ‘Here you go.’

He watched Shuri read the code for a moment before going to make his way back to Daisy’s table, but before he got remotely close, he was stopped by none other than Flash.

‘How did you hack the AI?’ He asked angrily.

‘I’m sorry?’ Peter asked.

‘You heard me. That badge you’ve got is as high as that tour guide kid, isn’t it? And the only other person that has that badge is Stark’s supposed personal intern and there’s no way in hell it’s you, so how did you hack the AI? Did Leeds help you? you’re gonna be in so much trouble once-’

‘Did it seriously just hit you that Peter is a Level Alpha intern?’ Said Shuri, materializing next to Peter with the laptop slung under one arm. ‘He has a red-and-gold badge, FRIDAY knows him personally, I know him personally, and the moment Harley finds out that he’s one of the kids on the trip he looks like he either saw a ghost or won the lottery. Honestly, all that happened under your nose and only now does it click? How any of you made it into a STEM school, I’ll never know.’ She stormed over to the rest of their friends, pulling Peter along by the arm and leaving a flabbergasted Flash behind them.

‘That was epic,’ Peter said to Shuri, slightly awed.

‘I do try,’ she said sarcastically, although it didn’t quite reach her eyes. ‘What the hell was that kid doing, talking to you like that?’

They sat down at Daisy’s table, and Ned and MJ turned to them.

‘I hope you roasted that asshat to hell,’ MJ addressed Shuri.

‘Of course,’ Shuri replied, opening the laptop back up. ‘Hey Peter, do think it would be alright if I altered the coding on Daisy a little bit? I just want to add something.’

Peter looked at her suspiciously. ‘Okay, I trust you. Just don’t give her an instant-kill mode or anything, ‘kay?’

Shuri gave an evil grin, which made Ned mutter a quiet Oh, no. ‘I promise.’

~oOo~

It hadn’t even been ten minutes before Flash decided to grace them with his presence again. ‘So Penis, have you decided to finally come clean? We all know that there’s no way you intern here. Peter glanced at Shuri from the corner of his eye, but she hadn’t moved – although Loki was baring her tiny snake teeth quite adorably, though Flash didn’t notice her. Shuri looked almost… smug? Unfortunately for Flash, it didn’t take much longer to find out why.

The moment Flash stepped closer to Peter, Daisy sprung to life. Flash paused, mouth curling into a sneer.

‘What the hell is that- AARGH!’

Suddenly, Daisy’s digital eyes turned a deep, crimson red. Arching her back, she began to hiss at Flash, leaping forward to the edge of the table and aiming a (harmless) swipe at the boy.

‘Get that thing away from me!’ said a panicked Flash.

‘Best you leave Eugene, before your heart rate drops to the same number as your IQ,’ MJ said frostily.

It was safe to say that Flash left quite quickly after that.

‘From one woman to another, that was excellent,’ MJ said to Shuri. ‘What exactly did you code her to do?’

Shuri grinned, eyes sparkling. ‘I just added some anti-bullying protocols.’

Peter looked at Ned, but his best friend only shrugged. ‘Pretty sweet coding,’ Ned complimented.

‘Thank you,’ said Shuri. She held up the arm that Loki was wrapped around. ‘What did you think?’ She asked the god. Loki bared her tiny teeth, and even though the gesture would normally be menacing, Peter thought it looked uncannily like a smile.

‘Alright! Everyone in my group, you’ve got five minutes!’ Called Harley, holding what was most likely not his first cup of coffee since they’d entered the room (if he was anything like Mr. Stark, coffee would be the only thing keeping him functioning). With nothing else the group really wanted to do, they all took turns playing with Daisy until time was up, and everyone clustered around Ari and Harley for instructions.

‘Can everyone please thank Ari for having us here today,’ said Mr. Harrington, and everyone called out some form of thanks.

Harley took another sip of his maybe-not-first-coffee-of-the-morning. ‘Okay, does anyone have any more questions before we go?’

A couple students went to raise their hands, but they were suddenly interrupted by FRIDAY, causing every intern in the lab freeze.

‘Stark Alert Protocol initiated, time remaining: approximately four minutes.’

All of a sudden people were rushing everywhere all over the place, stacking and tidying papers, furiously typing on computers. It was like this for another few moments, before:

‘Stark Alert Protocol cancelled.’

It was like a switch had been flipped, or a marionette’s strings cut – everyone visibly relaxed at the announcement, some even going so far as to slump over their desks.

‘Stark Alert Protocol initiated, time remaining: approximately four minutes.’

Peter’s class looked at one another in utter confusion. This time around the interns seemed slightly calmer this time around, seeming to realize something that the tour group (plus Harley, Shuri and Loki) were clueless of. People kept cleaning up, but this time it was a lot more methodical.

‘Who has stopwatch duties today?’ Ari asked, surveying the others. A burly, tanned girl raised her hand. ‘Alright then, keep an eye on it.’ They turned back to the class. ‘This is what we call the Stark Paradox. Recently, a new protocol was added in an attempt to warn us in case Stark decided to pay us a visit so we all don’t get heart attacks when he walks through the door, but unfortunately he seems to intend to visit us a lot. And he tends to change his mind a lot. In the span of a few minutes. So we keep the timer in hand so that if it gets under a minute before the protocol gets cancelled, we know that we’re in trouble. On the upside though, it’s helped us clean up after ourselves a lot more frequently.’

‘Has Tony Stark ever actually come to check in on you?’ asked MJ, raising a single eyebrow.

‘Only twice, not including the first time,’ said Ari, shuddering. ‘Fortunately, we know that he’s less likely to actually turn up once he changes his mind for the first time, so he most likely won’t show.’ After one last glance around the lab, they looked at Harley. ‘Well, you guys should have lunch next, right?’

‘Yup,’ said Harley. ‘Alright, everyone back in the elevator.’

As anyone would know the one thing that could grab the attention of any teenager was food, so it was with many cheers that they left the Intern Labs and entered the elevator once again. Peter tried and failed to ignore the glare Flash was sending his way, but after a withering glance from MJ he no longer had to worry about that particular problem.

Peter sighed. At least he’d have a break at lunch.

Chapter Text

Peter did not get a break at lunch.

They arrived on a floor Peter had only seen a handful of times and was once again almost shocked by the bustle of it – it was clearly lunch break for most of the employees. Mr. Harrington told everyone that SI had kindly given them each fifteen dollars on their badges to spend on lunch, and once they were told to return there in half an hour they were dismissed. Peter and Co. quickly grabbed food from the closest stall and sat down at one of the tables in the corner near the huge windows, Loki shifting back into her human form (to the surprise of everyone except Shuri). She snagged one of Shuri’s chips.

‘I will fight you,’ said Shuri.

‘Try me,’ said Loki, amused.

‘Please, not in front of my salad,’ MJ complained.

‘So, who was that child?’ asked Loki. Loki as a woman didn’t look much different to any of her other genders – her hair was longer, face softer, clothes more feminine, but apart from that she was exactly the same. ‘Eugene was his name?’

‘Yes,’ said MJ.

‘No!’ said Peter. ‘Well yes- but it doesn’t matter because that information is irrelevant.’

‘Well, I think that it’s highly irrelevant, as I would hate to stab the wrong person,’ said Loki conversationally.

‘I’msorrywhatdidyousay,’ Peter choked.

‘I’ll help you hide the body,’ MJ offered. Ned burst out laughing, the traitor.

‘I hate you all,’ Peter grumbled.

~oOo~

Everyone mostly ate in silence until Ned suddenly straightened, turning towards Loki. ‘I’ve just realized – you know what Netflix is, right?’

‘I’m sorry?’ said Loki.

Shuri looked up from her food. ‘Please tell me someone showed you the media.’

‘I know what YouTube is?’ she said uncertainly. ‘And those news channels Stark always puts on.’

‘Oh my god,’ said Ned. ‘I had a suspicion nobody showed you the revolution of Netflix, but I can’t believe that you’ve actually never seen it. Do you have a phone?’ She handed him her StarkPhone and he quickly downloaded Netflix. ‘Here, use my password, I’ll pay for you - just make your own account.’

Loki looked curiously at her phone. ‘So what does this Netflix do?’

‘It’s like a story – y’know, like books and stuff – except people act it out and make it look real. Some of them are different, like there are a few that just video animals in the wild and stuff, but most of them are just fiction.’

‘Nice summary, Ned,’ said MJ, snatching Loki’s phone. ‘Here, we should have enough time to watch the start of Brooklyn Nine-Nine.’ She propped the phone up against a cup at the end of the table and pressed play before anyone could say anything (for example: MJ what the heck how could you not tell anyone you’ve seen Brooklyn Nine-Nine?).

~oOo~

‘Alright, we’ve got five minutes until we have to meet up with everyone else,’ said Shuri, pressing pause on the show. She turned to Loki. ‘So, what do you think?’

Loki pondered for a moment. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘It actually reminded me of a time where I helped some detectives on Midgard during the 19^th Century. Of course, they were actually hunting my kind-of girlfriend at the time which they didn’t know, but – you know, it’s probably too complicated to explain right now. Your… Netflix show is mildly entertaining, and I suppose I might watch it later.’

‘Can I watch it with you?’ asked Peter, eyes bright.

‘I’ll think about it.’

‘Thankyouthankyouthankyou.’

Loki frowned. ‘I didn’t say yes.’

‘But you will.’ Peter grinned.

‘Well, whether or not you get to watch Netflix with Thor’s emo brother can wait for another time, because you two,’ he pointed at Shuri and Loki, ‘Need to come with me.’ The group turned to see Sam Wilson.

‘What? But we’re having so much fun!’ Said Shuri indignantly.

Sam shrugged. ‘Sorry man. Stark’s orders.’

‘Ugh,’ Loki whined. ‘He pays me mortal money since nobody wants to hire the person who tried to destroy New York – I can’t say no.’ And then she promptly turned back into a snake, curling around Shuri’s arm.

‘Fine,’ Shuri said with every bit of teenage angst she could muster, glaring at Sam even while they walked of together.

‘I feel so sorry for him,’ Ned mused.

‘Poor guy was just doing what Mr. Stark said,’ Peter said sadly, shaking his head.

‘You guys are weird,’ said MJ.

‘We know,’ they replied.

As they got up to meet back with the rest of the class, MJ frowned. ‘I wonder what Tony Stark wanted with Loki and Shuri.’

‘Maybe-’ Ned began, but Peter cut him off.

‘First rule of working with Mr. Stark: never try and guess what he’s thinking, unless you’re presenting him with paperwork. Then he’s thinking about how he can get out of it. Any other situation? It’s impossible to guess, so don’t even try.’

‘Fair enough,’ said Ned.

‘Alright everyone!’ Called Harley. ‘Is everyone here? Yes? Good. Okay, Let’s go!’ and he began herding everyone back to the elevators (which they seemed to be spending a lot of time in – seriously, Peter had never noticed how much they relied on elevators). Mr. Harrington had seemed to finally be at peace with the fact that he was not the person in charge here, but instead a seventeen-year-old kid, which Peter found both funny and kind of sad. It wasn’t abnormal though, all of their field trips had been kind of strange, so he supposed the teachers were just used to it by now.

There was a bit of chatter among the students while the elevator ascended, until Harley spoke up again. ‘Okay, so for the last part of the trip I have a treat for y’all! I got us permission to take a look at the Avenger’s private gym, no there most likely won’t be any Avengers, no you can’t touch anything, but I can walk you through what everything is used for, and the high scores! It’s nowhere near as big as the one at the compound, but it’s still funded by Tony Stark, so please for god’s sake be careful - if you break anything I’ll be the one in trouble and you have no idea how much this stuff costs, so. Don’t touch anything.’

As everyone filed into the hall, they heard the unmistakable sound of many people yelling; one look at Harley showed that it wasn’t planned.

‘Uh, let me just check to see if we can go in,’ he said, slightly apprehensive. ‘I didn’t know people were going to be in there.’ He opened the door and looked inside, the yelling way louder once the door opened. Harley turned to the class looking as though he’d just had freezing water thrown in his face and shrugged. ‘Single file,’ he said simply.

~oOo~

Someone must have drugged his food, because Peter was sure that what he was seeing wasn’t real.

First thing: the entire room seemed to be divided (quite similar to troops before battle) into two sides – on the left was the majority of the Avengers and the right of which was Loki’s Trans Alliance^TM group, with Loki herself in the middle, standing at the top of a rock-climbing wall, clutching the cursed Roomba Peter and Shuri had created to her chest.

‘It’s ours!’ Loki screeched, waving what looked suspiciously like Thor’s hammer.

‘Everyone say Colorado! I’M A GIRAFFE!’ FRIDAY chimed in.

‘HAND OVER THE ROOMBA, SISTER!’ Thor bellowed. ‘AND ALSO My hammer, please.’ He said the last bit considerably quieter, looking not dissimilar to a golden retriever.

‘NEVER!’ Replied Loki with equal volume, the Trans Alliance^TM cheering in agreement. There was a scuffle from among the Avengers to reveal Natasha, who seemed to have Shuri held hostage, if her adamant struggling was anything to go by.

‘Release the Ally!’ Demanded Loki.

‘Hi, thanks for checking in. I’m still a piece of garbage!’ FRIDAY sang.

‘Then let go of Sam!’ Retorted Bucky, and sure enough, as Peter searched the crowd of employees on the right side of the gym he could just barely make out Sam, tied up against the wall with… Pride flags? He seemed more amused than scared.

‘Excuse me,’ said Harley, ‘Can someone tell me what the hell is going on?’

‘I brought you frankincense. Thank you. And I brought you myrrh. Thank you. Myrrh-der. Judas! No!’ Said FRIDAY, sounding very amused.

‘Great, Harley.’ Mr. Stark said, giving a small little insane laugh. ‘Where’s Peter? Maybe he can be useful and fix FRIDAY, hm? Hm?

At the sound of Peter’s name, Shuri looked up, immediately catching his gaze. ‘They’re going to destroy the Roomba!’

‘No,’ Peter whispered.

‘Don’t f*ck with me! I have the power of God and anime on my side!’ FRIDAY said, possibly in answer to Harley.

The rest of the class was slowly connecting the dots, and Peter felt his face flush as everyone slowly began to watch him. ‘Um,’ he said eloquently.

‘Don’t worry about them, this is why I have NDA’s!’ Mr. Stark called across the gym. When he still hesitated, Ned (the traitor yet again) gave him a little push.

‘Look, my minions!’ Loki cried. ‘The cryptid has arrived!’ The Trans Alliance^TM began to whisper excitedly, and Ari – how did they get here? – stepped forward. ‘All hail the cryptid!’

‘Hi, my name is Chelsea, what’s your favorite dinner food?’ Interjected FRIDAY.

‘Present the offerings!’ Loki declared, pointing Mjölnir (or Johnathan, depending on the kind of person you were) at Peter.

‘For the cryptid!’ The Trans Alliance^TM cheered, throwing candy – where did the candy come from?? – in Peter’s general direction.

‘OY!’ Said Mr. Stark, glaring at Loki. ‘That’s my intern! It’s bad enough you’ve turned not only FRIDAY but half my employees against me, but my own intern-’

‘That’s enough!’ Harley said loudly. ‘Y’all are the Avengers, not children – break it up!’

‘They’re trying to break our Roomba!’ Whined Loki.

‘They won’t break your Roomba,’ Harley reassured. ‘Now give Thor his hammer.’

‘Fine.’ She pouted, throwing Mjölnir across the room, which Thor caught easily.

‘THANK YOU, SISTER!’ Thor shouted.

‘Okay, now everyone – out! Come on, I know everyone has stuff to do, so don’t say otherwise!’

~oOo~

Within ten minutes, Harley had everything under control and the Avengers and the Trans Alliance^TM had all left. The tour group was stood in the corner of the gym, whispering quietly among one another, eating the candy that had been scattered on the floor and sending glances Peter, Ned and Shuri’s way. Shuri stoked Snake-Loki’s glossy head. ‘I’m gonna miss Vine-savvy FRIDAY,’ mused Shuri. She grinned. ‘I am the sand guardian, guardian of the sand!’

‘Poseidon Quiver’s before me!’ Ned said, catching on.

‘F*ck off!’ FRIDAY exclaimed.

Peter and Shuri burst into quiet giggles.

Unfortunately, Flash decided that this was the right time to say something. As most of their classmates, watched (Betty was the only outlier, scribbling into her notepad with furious intensity) Flash walked over, fuming.

‘That’s it Parker, what the hell is going on?’ He snapped.

‘What?’ Peter asked, nonplussed.

‘That thing with the badges, there was that stupid video that sounded like your voice was in it and now this-’ he waved his hands around, gesturing to the gym. ‘Spill, Penis, or I swear to god-’

‘Excuse me?’ said Loki, seemingly appearing out of thin air. Flash mouthed wordlessly, too shocked to say anything. Loki took a step forward. ‘What did you call Peter?’

‘I- uh-’ Flash said, terrified.

‘That’s what I thought. So go and scurry back to your little friends, or I will take you to hell myself.’ Loki turned to the rest of the group. ‘That goes for all you Midgardians. Leave these mortals alone, or you’ll have me to deal with - understand?’ The class nodded fervently. Loki smiled. ‘Good.’

‘Alright!’ announced Mr. Stark, walking back into the gym with a stack of papers in his hands. ‘These are Non-Disclosure Agreements, I’m going to need everyone except those three-’ He nodded to Peter, Shuri and Loki, ‘to sign them.’

Obviously, if Tony Stark tells you to do something, you do it – so everyone signed.

‘Thank you,’ said Mr. Stark said, business-like. He checked his watch. Well, time is up for you guys, so if Harley could lead everyone out- yes? Great.’ He grinned, not unlike a predator closing in on its prey. ‘Oh, and Teach?’ He looked at Mr. Harrington. ‘Peter’s gonna stay with me.’

‘Oh- I’m terribly sorry Dr. Stark, sir – but Peter has to be collected by a guardian-’

‘Hm, I’m surprised you remembered my doctorate; most people don’t. but for the whole guardian thing? Take a look at the records, I’m listed as one of his emergency contacts.’

Mr. Harrington seemed to lose all willingness to stand his ground after another raised brow from one of the most powerful figures in the world and nodded his assent somewhat frantically. ‘Of course, sir.’ Poor Mr. Harrington was getting way more that what he’d bargained for with this trip and it wasn’t even his fault. Peter felt somewhat guilty about that.

‘Okay well, Harley can take it from here. You three, let’s go.’

Peter and Shuri waved goodbye to Ned and MJ (Loki simply nodded) and followed Mr. Stark out of the room.

~oOo~

‘Why would you do this to me,’ Peter whined, sitting on the ceiling upside-down in the corner of his mentor’s lab. He purposefully dragged out the last word, even though he knew he was whining. ‘The whole field trip was a disaster; my whole life has ended.’

‘Come on, it wasn’t that bad,’ Shuri tried, looking amused.

‘No, no, no,’ Loki said. ‘If you want him to do something, you gotta use bribery. Stark, you got anything?’

 Mr. Stark walked over to the minifridge. ‘Crap, we don’t have any candy. Why don’t we have any candy? FRIDAY, remind me to restock this.’

‘On it, boss.’ FRIDAY intoned.

His mentor walked back to his work bench. ‘Er… oh, I know!’ He began typing on his Stark Laptop, pulling up a set of blueprints. ‘Look, here’s the new update I was planning to give the Spider suit. Wanna take a look?’ He jumped a little as not a moment later, Peter appeared at his side.

‘Gimme.’ Peter said.

As everyone burst into hysterical laughter, Peter thought to himself that maybe the field trip hadn’t been quitter so bad after all.

END.

Chapter Text

There was a reason why Pepper Potts was the CEO of Stark Industries. She was smart, organized and most of all, knew how to clean up any PR disaster.

Loki just hoped she wouldn’t be too mad at her.

~oOo~

It had been almost two weeks since Peter’s field trip, and Loki was bored. Absolutely no drama had happened! So, of course she’d bugged Thor first. Then once he had finally kicked her out of the gym, she’d gone down to annoy Stark, but after having a half-empty cup of coffee thrown at her, she decided to go back to the compound’s living room – which was where she was currently. Lying on the floor, she looked up at the ceiling. ‘Hey Siri?’ she called.

‘As I’ve told you before, my name is FRIDAY,’ responded the AI grumpily.

‘Yeah, yeah,’ Loki said, waving her hand. ‘Anyway, do you know when Peter will be here next?’

If an AI could sigh, FRIDAY probably would have. ‘I believe Peter is supposed to be at the compound this afternoon, which means he should be here in approximately two hours.’

‘Ugh,’ Loki whined. ‘That’s too long. I’m bored.’

‘Might I suggest you go make some friends? You don’t seem to interact with anyone outside of those at the compound and Stark Industries,’ FRIDAY snarked.

Loki sat up, eyes glittering with new purpose. ‘I know you mean to insult me; however, you have just given me an excellent idea.’

And that was how Loki found herself starting a YouTube livestream, sitting on the floor with her StarkPhone on the couch, balanced by a stray shoe.

As she waited for more people to join, Loki thought about the last time she’d uploaded. Since then her channel had exploded, despite only having one video. According to Peter, twenty million subscribers was a considerable amount, but since she had nothing to scale it to, she wasn’t entirely sure.

Loki looked back at the screen. There were over two million people watching already.

‘Okay let’s get this started!’ she announced. ‘You must be wondering by now – what wisdom to I have to bestow upon you today? The answer is, surprisingly; nothing.’

Loki noticed the little chat bar seemed to be under a lot of stress currently – so many people were typing that it was impossible to read any at all.

‘I am here on a diplomatic mission,’ she continued. ‘To recruit for my alliance. It is called the Trans Alliance^TM, and anyone who identifies as transgender or gender-divergent can join. I also accept trans allies as a part of the alliance.’ Loki paused to check the comment bar, which was mostly divided between support and confusion. She then spent the next hour or so answering questions, alliance and non-alliance related.

After a while, she heard the elevator doors open. ‘Hey, I’m back – Lokiwhatareyoudoing.’

‘Hey Peter!’ Loki chirped. ‘I’m recruiting Midgardians for the Trans Alliance^TM!’

‘Does Mr. Stark know?’ He asked carefully.

‘Nope!’ said Loki.

‘I decided that the less Boss knows about this event, the better.’ FRIDAY replied.

‘Come say hello to my new friends!’ Loki exclaimed, and Peter reluctantly sat down next to her.

‘Miss Potts is going to murder you. You know that, right?’

Loki grinned. ‘I’m a fast runner.’

~oOo~

Everything went downhill (or uphill, depending on how you saw it) once the other Avengers decided to enter the common room. Peter and Loki had migrated into the corner by then, and once they saw everyone, both fell silent and Peter wordlessly flipped the camera to show what was happening.

‘Hey Peter,’ Stark said casually as everyone filed in. ‘Where were you? FRIDAY said you arrived half an hour ago.’

Loki knew from experience that Peter couldn’t lie to save his life, so she cut in. ‘I just wanted to show him something on the Midgard magic square, and we got distracted.’

‘Well, as long as you’re not stealing my intern. Hey Pete, we’ve got leftover pizza in the fridge, do you want a- hey!’

Stark made a noise of surprise as Bucky accidentally walked into him, spilling his iced coffee all over the floor.

‘No!’ Bucky cried. ‘My Starbucks!’ He sank to his knees, palms upward in despair.

‘Dude, just go back and get another Starbucks,’ said Wilson, looking somehow amused and disinterested at the same time.

‘But I wanted this Starbucks,’ wailed Bucky.

Wanda sighed. ‘Here, let me help you.’ Red magic enveloped the spilt drink and moments later the coffee looked brand new.

Bucky looked up at her with the gratitude of a dying man given immortality. ‘Thank you,’ he said fervently.

At that point neither Peter nor Loki could stay quiet, and they both burst into laughter.

‘We – we were doing a livestream,’ Peter choked out, tears of laughter in his eyes. ‘It’s still going – it got all of that.’

Stark looked speechless. Thor crossed his arms in his signature sister-why-did-you-do-that look, and Loki grinned slyly. ‘Bye, mortals!’ she said cheerfully, ending the stream.

Stark looked as though he was going through all five stages of grief at once.

‘The PR is going to have a field day.’

~oOo~

The PR did indeed have a field day.

As it turned out, several people had recorded the entire livestream, and countless headlines appeared almost immediately. Some of Loki’s favorites were:

Villain or Valid: Is Loki Truly Bad?

Tony Stark’s Intern Revealed – Everything We Know.

What is the Trans Alliance and Can We Join?

Bucky Barnes Reportedly Cries Over Starbucks.

Well, at least civilians were less likely to resist rescue by the White Wolf now. As for Peter, he had assured her that he didn’t mind the public knowing he was an intern for SI, it meant that he could post the monopoly video of Stark online now.

Currently, Loki was hiding in a closet (ironic, she knew) to escape the wrath of Miss Potts, who was currently on the warpath after discovering what Loki had done. As she heard the sounds of the woman shouting at the other Avenger’s downstairs, Loki smiled.

Finally, things were interesting.

Chapter Text

Peter had no idea what to do.

Today was parent-teacher conference day, and Aunt May was working at the hospital all day, meaning he had nobody to go with him. She’d assured him that she’d figured something out, but that didn’t appease him in the slightest – he really didn’t want to walk around with a teacher’s assistant all day. But he didn’t want to act like a whiny child so he sucked it up and dealt with it. After all, May had enough to deal with without more of his problems.

‘You ready?’ Aunt May called. ‘If you don’t leave in five you’ll miss the bus!’

‘Coming!’ Peter called. Slinging his backpack over one shoulder, he gave May a quick hug before running out the door.

He would be glad to get this over with.

~oOo~

Peter waited in the hallway, wishing he was anywhere else. His first meeting was in five minutes, and so far nobody had approached him. By now he was so desperate he would have been grateful for even a teacher’s assistant to go with him, because he really didn’t want to be the kid who had to go home because an adult didn’t turn up to go to the conference with him.

Mr. Harrington exited the nearest classroom with a student and their family, waving goodbye cheerfully. The teacher turned in his direction. ‘Are you ready, Peter?’ He frowned slightly as he realized that Peter was alone.

‘I’m so sorry Mr. Harrington, May couldn’t make it and she said that someone would be here, but nobody is,’ he explained, trying not to show his distress and clearly failing.

‘Okay,’ Mr. Harrington said. ‘Well, the whole point of a conference is for a parent to be here, so-’

A familiar voice sounded behind Peter. ‘Hey, teach. So sorry for being late – but you know how it is.’

Peter whirled around. ‘Mr. Stark?’

Mr. Stark grinned. ‘What, am I not parent-y enough for you?’

‘N-no, that wasn’t- thank you for coming-’

Mr. Stark laid a gentle hand on his shoulder. ‘I’m joking, kid.’

‘Oh.’ Peter replied.

‘Okay, well,’ said Mr. Harrington, who was doing quite well at pretending Peter’s mentor was just another parent and not in fact one of the most powerful people in the world. ‘If you two would come inside, we can start.’ He gestured to the classroom door., and a minute later they were all sitting at his teacher’s desk (which had been cleared of almost everything).

‘Alright.’ Said Mr. Harrington. ‘Overall, there’s not much I can really say. Peter always gets top marks, and apart from sleeping in class and a few unexplained absences – which I can overlook because of his outstanding grades – there’s really nothing to improve.’

Mr. Stark nodded, they talked for a few minutes longer, and that was that.

The same thing happened with each teacher, and although some teachers reacted to Mr. Stark’s presence differently than others, (Mrs. Warren for example simply stared at him in shock for a full ten seconds before seemingly snapping out of her trance and continuing like normal) but finally it was the end of the day.

‘Well kid, that wasn’t the worst thing I’ve done, was it?’ Mr. Stark said, teasing.

‘It’s up there,’ Peter joked. ‘But really… thank you.’

‘No problem kiddo,’ his mentor replied. ‘Hey, is that your friend Ted?’

‘Ned,’ Peter corrected him automatically. They were currently standing outside the school, and Ned was indeed running at them full-pelt with his parents behind him, albeit much slower.

‘Peter, peter, peter oh my god why did you not tell me Tony Stark was gonna be here!’ Ned gushed. ‘Hello Mr. Tony Stark sir.’

‘Hello, Ned.’ Mr. Stark smiled amusedly at the ecstatic boy. ‘It’s nice to meet you properly.’ His mentor thought for a moment. ‘Actually, you know what? Just being in a high school is making me feel ill, so out of pity let’s just go to Starbucks – my treat.’

And not even ten minutes later, Peter found himself standing in line at Starbucks with Mr. Stark and Ned (whose parents had decided that since Tony had been able to keep Peter intact so far, their son should be safe enough for one afternoon). Both Peter and Ned distracted themselves by discussing who would win if Florida Man fought every Australian animal (they eventually agreed that both would simply breed), and after what seemed like forever, they finally stood in front of the counter, waiting for someone to take their order.

But the person who stood before them was shockingly familiar.

‘Bucky?’ Peter asked.

‘Just don’t ask,’ Bucky sighed, both looking and sounding exhausted.

‘No, no, no, this is gold,’ Mr. Stark cackled. ‘How has the press not caught wind of this?’

‘Not a clue,’ replied Bucky. ‘I think my recognizability went down after I got a haircut, so…’ He trailed off. ‘So, what do you want to order?’

‘Three iced coffees, please – Grande.’ Peter supplied, causing Mr. Stark to look at him in betrayal.

‘What- no! Why would you order me anything that doesn’t give my tongue third-degree burns?’ Mr. Stark asked in horror.

‘Mr. Stark, that’s really homophobic,’ Peter said playfully.

His mentor only looked more confused. ‘What do you- how does that relate- what-’

‘Peter, you broke Iron Man,’ Ned scolded Peter.

‘Alright, three iced coffees coming right up,’ Bucky said in monotone. ‘Thank you for supporting the gay agenda.’

~oOo~

‘I still don’t understand how preferring normal coffee over this iced abomination is homophobic,’ Mr. Stark complained as they all sat down at a table.

Ned looked like he was wondering if he should reply, and eventually decided that he would. ‘With all due respect sir, if you keep slandering iced coffee like that I’ll tell Peter to order you decaf next time.’

‘You wouldn’t dare,’ gasped Mr. Stark.

The table was deadly silent for almost ten seconds before all three of them burst out laughing.

Chapter Text

Loki curled up tighter under the mountain of fluffy blankets surrounding them.

 They had no idea how long it had been since they had hidden from the others, but it had surely been a while – but it wasn’t as though anyone would look for them. While they desperately wanted to re-join the others below, Loki couldn’t bring themselves to actually go through with it.

~oOo~

It had started off as a small party celebrating a particularly victorious defeat of the week’s chosen villain. This was quite a common event – however this time they had needed to call for backup, and so many of the reserved Avengers along with a handful of SHEILD agents were also in attendance. Which was fine.

But then it got loud.

Eventually, someone (likely Stark) had broken out the Midgardian alcohol, and although it was immensely weaker than those offered on Asgard, it still served as an efficient means to get everyone quite drunk.

And by extension very, very loud.

The obnoxious laughing that poked holes in their ears, Stark and his brother exchanging tales with too much enthusiasm for any sane person, the sound of shattering glass as someone dropped their drink by mistake – eventually everything just became too much, and they had to flee to their room where they were currently hiding in the closet, buried in blankets (which there seemed to always be in ample supply, strangely).

This wasn’t exactly the first time Loki had done something like this. In fact, as a small child Loki had often hid under their bed on Asgard in the aftermath of the glamorous feasts they’d been forced to attend. It had always made them feel strange – on one hand, the silence and comfort of their own presence and nobody else was a welcome relief, but on the other Loki always knew that even though they may be missing for hours, nobody would ever bother to go find them.

Which was not exactly the most reassuring thought.

Just as Loki was about to drift off to sleep, they heard someone call their name softly from the door.

‘Loki?’ Peter whispered softly. ‘Are you in there?’

‘Mmm?’ Loki said.

They heard the closet door open quietly, but they remained buried under the pile of blankets.

‘Loki, can you come out of the closet?’ Peter asked.

‘I’m bisexual,’ Loki replied dryly, causing Peter to snort.

‘Mood,’ said Peter. ‘Well, if you’re not going to move, can I join you?’

They sat up slowly, extracting a few blankets from their blanket burrito and let the others wrap around them from their shoulders down, so Peter could see their face and vice versa.

‘Be my guest,’ Loki said, handing him the blankets.

Peter took the blankets with a small thank you and sat down beside them, closing the closet door halfway.

‘So, why are you in here?’ Peter asked.

‘You know, because of all the coming out of the closet jokes I can make.’ Loki replied.

‘I did that with Shuri once,’ Peter noted. ‘But I’m being serious right now.’ He tried to make what must have been a serious face but looked more similar to a pouting child.

‘Alright, alright. It was just too loud downstairs, and there were too many people everywhere. Does that answer satisfy you?’

He nodded. ‘Well, if it makes you feel better I’m up here for the same reason. Enhanced senses suck sometimes, and it was beginning to frazzle my spider sense.’

‘Won’t Stark be looking for you?’ Loki questioned.

‘Nah, I told him that I was going to bed. This happens sometimes, so he understood. But I hadn’t seen you for a while, so I figured that you’d be hiding like I wanted to.’

‘I’m not hiding.’

Peter giggled. ‘Ah, yes. So sorry, I must have been mistaken – sitting in a closet buried in blankets isn’t anything like hiding, I apologise sincerely for the mix-up.’

‘Brat,’ Loki teased.

They sat in silence for a moment before Peter spoke up again.

‘Hey, Loki?’

‘Yeah?’

‘Uhm,’ Peter said hesitantly. ‘Can… can I have a hug?’

‘Oh.’ Loki said, dumbfounded. That was the last thing they expected him to say. ‘Sure.’

Carefully, Loki put their arms around the child, and Peter wrapped his around their middle. Burying his head into Loki’s shoulder, he muttered a quiet thanks.

And with that, they both drifted into unconsciousness.

~oOo~

‘FRIDAY, take a photo of this and save it to my folder The Peter Effect.’ Said a voice loudly from somewhere above Loki’s head. They opened their eyes and groaned.

It was early morning, judging from the weak light filtering into the room and the closet doors had been fully opened, meaning that they had full view of Stark, Rhodes, Romanov, Wilson, Banner and Thor standing right outside the closet.

Peter shifted slightly, and Loki realised that at some point through the night he must have curled against the god’s side like some kind of octopus.

‘Wha…’ Peter mumbled, opening his eyes blearily. ‘Oh, hey Mr. Stark.’

‘Hey, kiddo,’ Stark replied, sounding highly amused.

‘While I do not object to you adopting Stark’s child,’ Thor said, causing Stark to snarl that the kid is MINE quite ferociously, ‘I would like to know exactly how this happened.’

Peter shrugged ‘There were blankets, and Loki is cool.’

‘Thanks,’ said Loki, giving a small smile.

Chapter Text

 Peter walked towards the Avengers common room in Stark Tower, relived beyond belief that it was finally the summer holidays. ‘Yeah, you didn’t really miss anything,’ Peter said to Ned. His best friend had left a day before the end of term to go on holiday but made Peter promise to fill him in on everything that had happened. ‘Although we were talking about World War One in History and sir – out of nowhere – calls Russia “big daddy Russia.”’ He opened the door to the common room. 

‘What?’ Ned exclaimed. 

‘What.’ Natasha made direct eye contact with him, face completely deadpan. 

Bucky turned to Steve (damn, it was still so difficult to not think of him as Mr. Rogers), face twitching in an effort not to laugh. ‘Look Stevie, this is what they’re teaching the kids nowadays,’ he wheezed.

Steve just looked confused. ‘But how… could Russia be a… father…?’

Bucky burst out laughing at the dumbfounded confusion on the other man’s face. ‘Don’t think about it too hard,’ he teased.

Natasha was still staring at Peter with a terrifying intensity. ‘How dare my own child dirty the name of my country,’ she said slowly.

‘I- uh,’ Peter stammered, feeling like a fly caught in a spider’s web (which was especially unfair since he was Spider-Man). What could he say, Nat was very scary.

She stared at him for another moment before her entire demeanor changed. She gave a small smile which bordered on a smirk. ‘I’m kidding, ребенок паук. But are you sure that Clint wasn’t teaching you?’ A quick look around saw Clint passed out on a bean bag next to one of the couches, seemingly oblivious to the world around him.

‘He took his hearing aids out,’ Rhodey said. ‘He’s been like that since Sam and Bucky started arguing about the best way to cook waffles.’

‘Man, I resent that you implied I had anything to do with this dumpster fire,’ Sam whined, gesturing to the whole group. Then he glared at Bucky, who was sitting on the same couch as him and Steve, his head on Steve’s lap and his feet across Sam’s. ‘And can you get your crusty-ass feet away from me, you defrosted popsicle.’

‘Rude,’ Bucky complained as he curled up like a cat over Steve’s lap, tucking his legs under his body.

‘Ohh-kay, uh – does anyone know where Mr. Stark is?’ Peter had noticed from the beginning that his mentor was strangely absent from the group.

‘He’s in the labs,’ Bruce supplied tiredly, looking as though he’d been up for more than two days. ‘Alright, I’m gonna go but Sam – don’t murder Bucky, nobody disturb Clint, Bruce please go to sleep and also hi Wanda!

'Ok, bye guys!’ Peter raced back to the elevator.

‘Don’t go into the kitchen, there’s a cockroach that we couldn’t catch, so we just closed the whole area off!’ Wanda called after him.

‘Noted!’ Peter shouted through the closing doors, throwing a thumbs up that he was mostly sure the Avenger saw.

~oOo~

‘Hey, Dad!’ Peter called out as he walked into the labs. There was suddenly a loud crash, followed by a lot of smoke.

His mentor emerged from the wreckage looking like a cartoon character scientist, minus the white lab coat and instead a very ratty AC/DC T-shirt. ‘What?’ he said, coughing through the black fog.

Peter’s eyes widened. Shit, shit, shit, shit, shi-

‘I said Hey, Mr. Stark!’ Peter’s voice went up almost two octaves.

‘Nope,’ Mr. Stark pointed a motor oil-stained finger at Peter, eyebrows raised. ‘No, you called me “Dad.”

‘What?’ Peter dragged out the word, his high-pitched tone making his nerves painfully obvious. ‘Noooo, I called you Mr. Stark like I always do!’ his voice cracked, making him wince.

‘Okay, okay, we can both forget about this – I can even get Friday to delete all footage from the last five minutes – but on one condition.’ He hesitated. ‘Actually, two conditions.’

‘Oh no,’ Peter said.

~oOo~

‘I’m so glad everyone could make it,’ Pepper smiled, looking at the guests gathered in the spare floor she’d set up for today. Although she hadn’t originally intended it, she’d somehow created a “girl’s day” event, and the thought made her smile on the inside. God knew they all needed a break from men.

‘Thank you so much for inviting us,’ said May Parker, looking positively exhausted from what was most likely her work.

‘I’m still not entirely sure how you convinced Fury to call me over for something that wasn’t utterly catastrophic, but I do appreciate it,’ The Carol Danvers gave her a warm smile.

‘Hey!’ Pepper turned to see Shuri cry out indignantly as Okoye snatched her phone out of her hands. ‘What was that for?’

‘You were texting a boy. This day is not supposed to include boys.’ Okoye raised a single eyebrow and Shuri immediately caught on to what she was implying.

‘Ew, no. Peter’s my friend but unfortunately I have much higher standards than him and besides – I’m pretty sure he’s in love with Percy Jackson.’

Wanda looked up from the book she was reading, which to Pepper’s surprise was titled Percy Jackson and The Battle of The Labyrinth. ‘No way – you guys read Percy Jackson?’

Shuri shrugged, although her eyes were glittering with excitement. ‘Who doesn’t? I’m more of an Annabeth fan myself though, she’s wicked smart.

Pepper had no idea what either of them were talking about, but as both of them were so clearly excited to find another person with the same interest, she realized that she didn’t really mind.

However, the wholesome interaction was suddenly cut off.

‘NO - SPY-D!’ A ginormous robotic spider scuttled into the room, Peter hot on its heels and her fiancé close behind.

‘Peter, webs!’ Tony shouted, sounding and looking appropriately panicked.

‘I’m trying!’ Peter said, shooting webs from a small contraption around his wrists, however the robot was too fast. ‘I don’t know-’

In less than a moment there was a loud crack, and Natasha had brought her foot down on the poor spider-thing, efficiently shutting it down for good. ‘There. Fixed.’ She smirked.

Peter looked absolutely crushed. ‘SPY-D, my poor baby,’ he whispered in a shaking voice as he gathered the shattered parts into a pile.

Tony however, had quickly realized the trouble that he was in. ‘Pepper – Peps, you know that I love you so, so much-’

‘Flattery isn’t going to get you anywhere, honey,’ she gave him an almost predatory grin and he visibly gulped.

‘Okay, so we can fix this,’ he said.

‘Yes,’ she said, voice sickeningly sweet. ‘We were simply going to go out somewhere and talk, but now I think that we should do something better. And you are going to organize it.’

Her fiancé turned pale. ‘Call Loki,’ he whispered to Peter.

~oOo~

And so that was how Peter ended up bunched in the back of a van next to Shuri, Wanda, Aunt May and Okoye in the middle row. Tony and Loki were in the front – Tony of course, was driving, and there was another van with everyone else following behind them. They were all still hesitant as to where they were going since all Loki had said was, I know a place; everyone get in the car, but neither Mr. St – Tony nor Peter had any better ideas, so they all got in the car.

Peter tried not to grin at the turn of events. As it turned out, agreeing to finally call his mentor Tony rather than Mr. Stark was actually the easier part of the agreement, since trying to replicate the spider DNA in his genes onto a robot had turned out so disastrously. Peter wasn’t 100% sure why Mr. – Tony had thought that he’d freak out at the idea, but it was evidently clear that the thought had been bugging him for a while. Well, at least now we know what would happen, Peter thought, grinning to himself.

‘Turn left,’ said Loki, pointing at an off-road.

‘I know how to turn left,’ Mr. – Tony grumbled.

‘Okay, just drive down this street and… here! Okay, pull over, this is the place!’ the god exclaimed, clapping her hands together.

Tony squinted at the store they had parked in front of, looking very apprehensive. ‘…Where did you take us?’

‘You’ll see!’ Was the only reply.

They all filed out of the van, shortly joined by the others as the other half of their group arrived.

‘I have to admit, this was not quite what I had in mind,’ said Pepper, surveying the shop before them. The banner read Opals Down Under. ‘What exactly is this place?’

Loki turned around to face them all with a flourish. ‘Rocks,’ she said, the manic light in her eyes slightly downplayed by the flower crown she had somehow acquired throughout the day and had never taken out of her hair. ‘Come inside, puny mortals.’

‘I take offence to that,’ Carol said, only mostly joking.

~oOo~

As it turned out, Loki did in fact have a reason to look at the tiny shop so reverently.

They all walked inside, Peter taking the time to look around carefully. The place was absolutely cluttered with crystals, tubs of different types filling most of the tables. Loki practically bounced up to the front desk. ‘Hello there,’ she said to the old man at the front desk. She then turned to Mr. S – Tony. ‘You’ll pay for us?’

Tony sighed. ‘How much?’

‘Ten large containers, please,’ said Loki, grinning at the old man, who looked slightly surprised.

‘That’ll be $150, miss.’ He said. ‘Cash or card?’

‘Cash,’ said Tony, handing the money over. He turned to Loki. ‘Not that I can’t spare the money, but this better be good.’

‘My store is the best of the best, Mr. Stark,’ said the man gruffly, handing over ten clear plastic containers roughly the size of a tall Starbucks cup. Damn, he didn’t even hesitate despite knowing full-well that he was talking to one of the most influential men in the world. Peter wished he had that kind of confidence.

‘So we can trust that the media won’t show up?’ Tony asked.

‘What do you take me for? I may be old but I’m not desperate, just walk right through the doors over there and don’t worry about nothing, young man.’

‘That’s the first and last time I’ve ever heard Stark called a young man,’ Shuri whispered to Peter, snickering.

Loki thanked him and they all did as they were told; the old man muttering about young people these days, waltzing in and disrespecting his shop.

‘Okay, come on guys!’ Loki said happily as they emerged into what looked like a fenced backyard to the right of the store. In front of them was a pit filled to the brim with tiny rocks and gemstones and down the pathway were pieces of boulder opal and petrified wood under different prices, as well as a tap and a sink and another pit.

Loki passed a container to each person. Okay, so each of you can keep as many rocks as you can fit in your container, provided that you can put a lid on it at the end. ‘Oh, and there’s a golden rock somewhere in one of the rock pits, and if you find it you get a prize!’

Everyone quickly started looking around, and Peter immediately began to bury himself in rocks.

‘What are you doing?’ Shuri asked him.

‘I must become one with the rocks,’ Peter said solemnly.

‘Fair enough,’ she said, using her cup as a bucket and pouring rocks over Peter’s head.

‘Hey!’ Peter exclaimed as Shuri cackled.

‘I’ll get you for that!’ Peter declared, and they dissolved into helpless laughter.

~oOo~

‘You know, this wasn’t such a bad idea,’ Pepper said to Loki, surveying how at ease everyone was.

Loki didn’t reply, consumed with something on her phone. ‘Hm?’ she said, looking up. Pepper realized that Loki had been looking at a photo she’d obviously taken a few days ago at their weekly movie night, Loki holding the phone in one hand and a peace sign in the other, angling the camera to show everyone. Bucky was fast asleep and sprawled over Steve, Clint and Natasha seemed to be fighting over something in the film and Peter was squished between Thor and Tony and seemed unsure how to react to his situation. Sam and Rhodey were sharing a pair of airpods and were watching something else on Sam’s phone, both T’Challa and Bruce were lying facedown on the floor surrounded by pillows and Pepper herself was sitting in the corner, looking both concerned and amused by the scene. It was quite a nice photo.

‘Sorry, I didn’t catch what you said,’ Loki said.

Pepper smiled and shook her head. ‘It doesn’t matter,’ she said as Peter ran over, Shuri close on his heels, yelling something about anarchy and help. ‘I’m just glad everyone got their happy ending.’

The End.