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It was just easier to tell people that May was his aunt. It also helped that no one really had the resources to fact-check him. But then Spiderman happened and now he was spending afternoons and weekends with the Avengers, who had the resources to find out about his past, and that scared him well at least at the beginning.
He hadn’t lied from the start. When they asked why he lived with his aunt he just told the story in a way to avoid the short stint in other foster homes and especially the part that May wasn’t his real aunt but it was actually just an easier title than foster mom. When he first met the team he had been worried that they would background check him and find out the truth but they hadn’t so he hadn’t worried about the lying. Sometimes they would ask questions that caused his brain to spin and today was just one of those days.
After working in the lab with Tony, he stayed for dinner with the team. The nights he spent laughing, eating pizza, and ribbing each other were the closest thing Peter had ever felt to family. Everyone was discussing Tony and Pepper’s recent engagement when Steve caught sight of Peter messaging MJ.
“Would you marry that girl of yours?”
“First off, she would be very offended that you called her ‘my girl’. She’s her own person and doesn’t belong to anyone. Secondly, I don’t really believe in marriage. Why legalize something that’s supposed to be personal?”
“What about May and Ben?”
“What about them?”
The conversation had drawn in the rest of the team. Peter didn’t often disagree with anything; whether it be food choices, moral viewpoints, or fighting strategies. He also rarely talked about his family and he knew they had questions.
“Don’t you want what they had?”
Peter laughed, “They weren’t married, as far as I know, they never met.”
“Wait,” Nat interrupted, “They weren’t? How did you end up with your aunt then?”
“I’m sorry, everyone thought they were married?”
“Well yeah, I guess we just all assumed it. But you never mentioned moving houses after your uncle died,” while Peter appreciated her honesty his brain was screaming at him to abort this whole conversation.
“Well I was six so I don’t remember much about that but yeah nope. They never met and besides they’re probably twenty years apart, kind of gross if they were together.”
It was Tony’s turn to ask for an explanation, “Wait you were six?”
“Last I checked,” he responded with a laugh.
“But when we met you said that you had been living with May since you were ten.”
“Well this conversation was a mistake, I’m gonna go.” He was trying to scramble from the table when Nat grabbed his arm but with a smile.
“Wait, you’ve gotten away with lying to a bunch of spies, for a year,” she sounded almost in awe, and on reflection, this comment would make Peter feel particularly proud but at the moment his panic had taken over his brain.
“Yeah, hold on a minute. You’re a notoriously bad liar,” Sam said in a way that seemed almost joking.
“Sorry, I’m still trying to find a way out of this conversation,” at least that was truthful.
“Not happening, kid. Either you tell us what’s going on or we’re pulling up your background check and going over it together.” Tony sounded almost fatherly.
“Hey, I’m not a complete liar. I gave you truth-lite.”
“Opposed to?”
“Look I never directly lied to any of you. I just gave you implications that weren’t true, so I would consider that pretty honest of me.”
“I think we have different definitions of truth. So maybe start from the beginning.”
“Well my name really is Peter Parker and my parents did die when I was two. I was then placed in the care of my uncle Ben who raised me until he died when I was six. Then I ended up with May when I was ten. Great, I’m going to go now.”
“I don’t know what part of you thought that, well whatever that was, was going to cut it. Where were you between six and ten?”
“Seriously Tony, can you not connect the dots?”
“Connect what dots?”
“Yeah, where do people go when all their family dies?”
“Wait, do you mean foster care? Then who’s May?”
“Yeah, I’ve been in foster care since Ben died. May’s the best foster parent I’ve ever had and it’s just easier to say she’s my aunt. I really thought that when you found out my identity you would have run a background check but then you never brought any of it up. You let me lie that May was my aunt and I realized you never looked that close. You know, I really thought I would let this secret go to my grave.”
“But why?” Bucky was notoriously quiet so something about him asking that question was surprising, “Why did you care if we found out?”
“It wasn’t you guys in particular, I didn’t really want anyone to know. Ned and MJ don’t even know.”
“So why?” Steve asked.
“It’s easier and there’s less sympathy and assumptions. I get to be Peter who lives with his aunt and not Peter whose entire family is dead and who has spent the majority of his life in foster care. I’m not told that I must have a juvie record and that I must have been a bad kid whose family never wanted them anyway.”
“You do know that none of us care, right?” Steve’s insistence was sweet.
“Yeah well, you guys would be the first.”
“That’s a really pessimistic view of the world for a superhero,” Sam replied.
“Or does it make me a better Spiderman? By the time I became a superhero, I was already an expert at lying so it wasn’t even a stretch to keep a secret identity. I also already knew the bad side of the world, I hadn’t had a parent that protected me from all that.”
“I don’t think you realize how sad that is,” Sam said in a way that reminded Peter that he led support groups.
“Well on that note, I’m going to go.”
“Wait, I still want to know how you lied to Clint and me for a year without us knowing,” Nat insisted.
Peter barely held in a laugh, “Well it was easy, It was mostly true so I knew I wasn’t making grandiose lies and everything was based on truth. I also let you think that I was a bad liar. No one tries to catch you in lies when they think you’re a terrible liar, especially when they think you have a tell you don’t know about but really you make yourself have that tell. For example, my blink rate doesn’t increase when I lie and I don’t blush either, but people will pick up on at least one and begin to think I have an obvious tell that I have no clue about. If I’m around people that aren’t good at catching liars I’ll bite my lip or sometimes shrink into my chair. Besides I’ve been practicing since I was six.”
“Nat, I don’t think that I like him saying it was easy to lie to us,” Clint said with a smirk.
“Yeah, you do know that means we have to find his actual tell right? Poker, Parker?” Nat said with a wider smile.
“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” he got up from his chair and started the walk to the elevator, “I do have to go, I haven’t decided if I’m going to school tomorrow or if I should keep my appointment with the governor or maybe I shouldn’t skip my appointment with my therapist. Anyway, see you guys later.”
“Wait, you don’t have a juvie record do you?” Tony called out in an almost sarcastic way.
“I don’t know do I have a court-mandated therapist because I have a juvie record or because I’m in foster care?”
“Wait what?” and Peter dissolved into laughter as the elevator doors closed in front of him.