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1.
Peter was pretty used to his ability to stick to things. He’d had his powers for more than two years now, and it just seemed to come naturally. Sometimes a little too naturally. Ned was always a bit surprised by his casual use of his stick-factor (as Ned liked to call it). This led them to where they were now, Peter sitting criss-cross applesauce on the ceiling of his room with Ned at his desk doing homework. “Hey Peter,” Ned spun the chair he was sitting in around, eyes still glued to the paper in his hands, “Do you know the answer to-” Ned yelped, taking in his friend hanging from the ceiling.
“Everything okay in there?” called Aunt May from the kitchen down the hall.
“Everything’s fine Mrs. Parker!” Ned hurriedly shouted back. Then he turned on his friend. “Peter!” he whisper-yelled, “What are you doing?!”
Peter shrugged. “My calculus homework, why?”
Ned glanced at the ceiling in front of Peter. Sure enough, a couple pages of his calculus assignment were webbed to the ceiling, and Peter was sucking on the eraser of his pencil. “Dude, what?” Peter gave Ned a quizzical and Ned gestured to the ceiling. “What are you even doing?”
Peter's eyes lit up with understanding and he chuckled a bit embarrassedly. “Oh. I just think better upside down, blood stimulating my brain or something.” He waved his hand in a noncommittal gesture.
Ned looked over at him dubiously. “Sure.” He rolled his eyes at his friend’s antics. “So do you know the answer to number seven?”
They went on like that, each doing their homework, Peter still glued to the ceiling. The door opened suddenly. “Would you boys like some sandwiches? Ned quickly moved to block May’s view.
“Ummmm-” there was a loud thunk behind Ned, and a red-faced Peter appeared next to him.
May peeked into the room concernedly, luckily not noticing Peter’s homework, still webbed to the ceiling. “Peter, what was that?”
“I-”
Ned interjected, “Peter fell from the top bunk.”
Peter shot Ned a death glare from behind May’s turned head. He sighed, “Yes, I did.”
May chuckled and ruffled Peter’s hair, much to Peter’s dismay. “Well try to be more careful, sweetie. Maybe let Ned have the top bunk tonight?”
Peter nodded, face red. “It’s probably for the best,” Ned said solemnly, “Peter is awfully clumsy.” The look on Peter’s face was worth it.
2.
Peter spent a lot of time swinging through the city. He took his job as a vigilante/friendly neighborhood spiderman very seriously, and went out on patrol as often as possible. Between that and all of the homework that came along with being a student at Midtown, Peter probably didn’t get as much sleep as he should. (He definitely didn’t get as much sleep as he should.) It was a Tuesday and Peter was swinging around, starting to feel fatigue plague his body to the point where his swinging was getting sloppy. Still, he kept his eyes open and mind sharp, spotting an old lady, whose groceries he helped lift into her car, and even managed to stop a mugger with a knife from robbing a rich-looking woman with a Gucci coat. Peter zoned out and nearly ran into a stoplight. He should take a break. Swinging over to a three-story brick deli he landed on a small ledge, his back sticking to the cool surface behind him.
Peter looked out over at the street he was on. It didn’t have a lot of traffic, so he wasn’t too worried about paparazzi. Relaxing just a tad more, Peter opened himself up to the smell of warm bread baking in the deli below, the scent calming him and reminding him of his Aunt May’s baking.
With his legs curled up and his feet flat against the wall, Peter leaned forward a bit, just resting his head against his knees. The honking of traffic blurred into the background and Peter’s eyes had slid shut before he even knew what had happened.
When Peter finally came to it was to the feeling of someone poking his foot. Peter looked down to see a girl in a deli uniform wielding a broom.
“Hey!” she shouted, “Are you good, dude?” Whoops. Peter looked around to get his bearings and almost choked. It was definitely not supposed to be light out. Abruptly, Peter stood up and walked up the wall, ignoring the calls of “Where are you going?” behind him.
Shit. “What time is it, Karen?”
“It is currently 9:03 am,” Karen replied in her naturally serene tone. Shit, shit, shit!
“Why didn’t you wake me up?!”
Peter could’ve sworn Karen had just sighed. “You have not been sleeping adequately. Did you know that not sleeping for twenty-four hours is the equivalent of having a BAC of 0.1 percent? You have not slept in two days.”
“Fuck,” Peter swore, cursing himself for not reviewing Mr. Stark’s medical protocols. “Is there anything that I missed?”
“Well, according to your schedule you have a math test in about twenty minutes. You also have six missed calls from May and a text from Mr. Stark wondering why the “Go to bed you little shit” protocol was activated.”
Groaning, Peter leaped off the building. He was going to be late for his test.
3.
“Dude, the pap got photos and everything!” Ned exclaimed, pulling out his phone to show a picture of Peter in his suit, slumped over on the side of the deli building, clearly fast asleep. Above the photo the article title stated: Spiderman or Sleepyman? “I know,” Ned sympathized, “it’s not even a good joke.”
Peter’s face burned red, but right as he was about to reply, Coach Neeson blew his whistle. Most of the class quickly covered their ears- who the fuck blows their whistle that loud at point blank range? Peter noticed MJ standing impassively, totally unaffected. “Okay folks, today we’re going to be playing dodgeball.” Peter immediately suppressed an eye-roll as Flash turned to smirk at him and mimed slitting his throat.
Next to him, MJ huffed, “This game literally never ends well. I’m going to sit on the bleachers.” Neeson didn’t say anything as MJ walked past him giving him the death stare.
As Neeson started numbering them off by ones and twos, Flash shoved himself in between the two boys to insure that he would be on the opposite team. “I’m going to destroy you two. You’re going to wish you were never born, Penis.” He chuckled as Ned and Peter were put on team two and he on team one. “Get ready to get your asses kicked.”
Peter and Ned broke off to go stand on their half of the gym, over by where MJ was sitting. As the whistle was blown yet again (ow), Peter crouched down with Ned behind the bleachers to wait for a stray ball to hit them or the class to be over. “I couldn’t help it,” Peter complained, “You know how busy I am, and between patrols and school and everything. And Karen didn’t even stop me! Apparently one of Mr. Stark’s protocols is that-”
A ball bounced past and both Ned and Peter scooted farther back under the bleachers. As they did so a head swung down, causing both boys to jump with a yelp. “What do you guys even talk about down here?”
“Jesus.” Why did his spidey sense never work for her? “Um,” Peter floundered, looking to Ned for support. “Regular, totally normal stuff. Like… dogs,” he finished lamely. Ned gave him a double thumbs up.
“Uh huh.” MJ cocked her head. “Y’know, most of your team is out. You should probably go help them.”
“Right,” agreed Ned, clearly wanting to get away from the situation as much as Peter did. They both ducked out from under the bleach and before Peter could even think, his hand shot up to grab the squishy foam dodgeball flying straight for his face. “Dude…” Ned said with a muted sort of awe. In the next second, without looking, Peter’s other hand flew to snag the brutally fast dodgeball heading for Ned’s chest.
From there it was a flurry of ducking and dodging and catching as Flash’s firing squad rained the foam dodgeballs down on Peter and Ned. At some point Peter missed a ball and Ned got out, but as another volley of balls was launched at him, Peter felt his instincts kick into overdrive. What was it the Mr. Stark had said? Every superhero has a little bit of PTSD? Peter was pretty sure that’s not how it worked, but something came to life and suddenly any ball that hit him just stuck. It came to a head when Peter kicked out his foot to catch a ball thrown his way and realized what was going on. All the balls stuck to him dropped at once, a few bouncing anticlimactically.
Peter looked around with wide eyes, but most everyone hadn’t seemed to notice what had happened, even Ned. Flash stood triumphantly on the other side of the gym, pulling all the attention away from Peter, even Peter’s own attention. He didn’t notice MJ scrutinizing him from behind.
4.
Peter and MJ were up late studying for their regional decathlon tournament. If all went well, they would be heading to State this time next month to try their hand at finally securing Midtown a place at Nationals. Ned had ducked out over an hour ago citing his mom’s angry text rants about school-night curfew, so it was just Peter and MJ sleepily reading off notecards back and forth as they quizzed each other.
Between them MJ could see the strewn remains of their snacks, but she couldn’t really bring herself to care when her eyelids were drooping as much as they were. Across from her she could see that Peter was faring no better, so, with a sigh, she set her half of the flashcards down. Peter picked his head up a little at that. “Oh, do you want to switch?” he asked. “Here, pass me-”
“No,” MJ interrupted, “We’re both exhausted, how about we take a break, maybe a short nap, and then we can pick this back up.” MJ had been up longer, but she knew from experience how unproductive study usually was for her after this point.
Peter nodded in assent, “Yeah. Yeah, that’s probably a good idea.” He looked around the trash-covered floor. “You, um, can take my bed. I’ll sleep on the floor.” Oh how cute, he was blushing.
“Sure,” she acquiesced, moving to the soft mattress. She hadn’t really realized how tired she was until her head hit the pillow.
A thumping sound brought MJ back to awareness. After a couple seconds her brain reoriented and she realized where she was. She checked her watch- 12:14. “Peter?” she called, trying to get her eyes to adjust by holding them wide open. Suddenly a dark shape fell from the desk with a screech and thump, followed by the muffled sound of Peter groaning.
MJ quickly got out of bed and made her way over to the lightswitch, flipping it on to see a wincing Peter lying face down in a pile of dirty (?) laundry; At least, it didn’t smell amazing. Peter pushed himself up, squinting at the light. “Uh, hi.”
“Dude what the fuck?” MJ was pretty sure she had just seen Peter fall off his desk. “Why were you standing up there?”
“Um.” Peter turned to where she was looking at the desk in question, wondering how he had even gotten up there what with all the legos and junk. “Right. I was standing. On my desk.” He finally sat up, rubbing his head. “I, uh, I sleepwalk sometimes.”
MJ narrowed her eyes at him suspiciously, trying to get him to break. Peter curled in on himself a bit but he held her gaze. Hm. “Well, monkey-man, we do need to finish our study session.”
5.
“No Mr. Stark, you don’t understand. The last time I had a sleepover I almost got caught by-”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Mr. Stark moved away, taking the cup of coffee proffered by DUM-E. “I get that your little girlfriend almost caught you walking on walls, but it’s gonna be fine. The Avengers probably wouldn’t even notice if you started swinging from the ceiling. They all either get drunk or super invested in the movie. Usually both.”
Peter shook his head, ignoring the girlfriend comment. “But I was sleepwalking! I was sleepwalking on the wall and I couldn’t even control it! Thank God she just thought I was on the desk- it could’ve been way worse.”
Mr. Stark spun back around, his ‘I want to get back to work, why are you distracting me?’ face on. “Look, kid. You don’t have to come. It’s just an Avengers movie night, okay? They want to meet you but I can easily tell them that you’re sick or something, yeah? Take a load off.”
Peter took a deep breath. Right, there was no pressure. Besides, it wouldn’t even be an issue so long as he didn’t fall asleep- it was just a movie night and he would go home afterward.
---
Peter was the first one to fall asleep. Tony couldn’t help that little warm feeling in his chest at seeing the kid all curled up and drooling on a relaxed Capsicle. He shook himself out of his reverie as he noticed Clint and Natasha whispering suspiciously followed by them both getting up. Whatever, he thought, not his problem.
When they returned (walking in front of Titanic, annoyingly enough), Clint made a beeline for Peter. Tony tensed before he saw the archer had just pulled out a harmless washable marker. Natasha was there in a flash, anyway, scolding him for trying to draw on Peter's face like they were at a sleepover or something. Clint pouted but agreed, sneakily slipping the marker to a stoic Cap.
As soon Natasha and Clint were resettled and Natasha’s eyes were refixed on the scene, Steve got to work with a grin, doodling a mustache and goatee, much like Tony’s. Tony pulled out his phone and leaned over to snap a picture before sinking back into the couch. The very, very comfy couch.
Shit. He had dozed off for just a minute and now a panicked clint was shaking Tony awake. “What do you want?” he grumbled, blinking open his bleary eyes.
Clint pointed at Peter. “We can’t get it off,” he whispered, eyes wide.
That jerked Tony awake. “What?!”
“The fake mustache,” said Steve, “We can’t get it off!” The Cap looked almost comically stressed out.
Tony looked over at Peter to see a fake mustache pasted on his upper lip, as well as a clown nose. For some reason, the kid also had some sort of green hairspray in. Tony relaxed. Then he reached over to take off the mustache and frowned. “What sort of glue did you put on this thing?”
“Just the stuff that came with it,” Clint replied.
Tony tried again, but it wouldn’t come off, it was so damn sticky! …Wait. He grabbed Peter’s shoulder. “Hey, hey Peter. Wake up, kid.”
“Huh?” Peter sat up and Tony reached out, pulling the mustache off.
“Tadaaa!”
+1.
Peter and his class were on a “field trip.” As if the kids at Midtown couldn’t just go to the museum whenever they felt like it. Whatever. After the mustache fiasco last Friday and all the questions from the Avengers that had come with it, Peter had been lying low and keeping a close eye on his sleep schedule, and he was feeling pretty alert. So alert that he noticed the tiny niggling in the back of his brain. A niggling that sort of felt like… his spider sense? Peter scanned the area, not seeing any obvious threats or dangers.
Not, at least, until he saw the kid. Across the street on the top of a skyscraper, hair whipping in the wind- Peter locked eyes on the figure and his stomach dropped. Something in his chest tightened at the sight of that silhouette. Peter looked around him but no one else seemed to have noticed. “Ned,” he prodded his friend urgently. “Ned!” Ned turned to protest but Peter just pointed to the building where the kid seemed to be swaying.
Ned’s eyes widened. “I’m calling 911.” He whipped his phone out of his pocket and immediately began describing the situation to the dispatcher.
Peter stared up at the kid, wishing that they would stare back, and would see that right here, right now, someone cared about them and wanted them to be okay. He stood, paralyzed. He was so stupid! He should have brought his suit, or at least his web shooters! What had he been thinking? Hell, at this point he probably should’ve had a 'superhero field trip to-go kit’.
Peter reached up to rub his face but the stress and adrenaline coursing through his veins caused his hand to stick. Shit. Slowly, Peter took a deep breath in and a deep breath out, peeling his hand off his face. Wait a minute…
Peter took off at a sprint, vaulting cars and shucking his shoes as he went. Eyes on the building, he took a leap and suddenly he was horizontal. From this position, it took a lot of abdominal strength to stay upright, much less run. Peter pushed through it, feeling his muscles burn as he worked against gravity to push himself up up up. His breaths came out in pants and he was pretty sure that the brief pain in his foot was something he stepped on in the road, but the adrenaline soon washed it far away from Peter and the slapping of his feet on concrete glass concrete glass.
Nearing the top, calves and lungs burning alike, Peter knew the moment he and the kid finally locked eyes- the kid too shocked to do anything as Peter climbed up onto the ledge with them and wrapped them in a secure hug, holding them until emergency services arrived.