Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Peter has never had much to call family. Sure, there was May, there had always been May, but for some random fifteen-year-old kid from Queens, he’d been through more than most.

He’d lost his parents in a tragic accident when he was too young to remember their faces, and then, when he was fourteen, he’d lost the only other father figure he’d ever really known.

After that, it had been just him and May, doing the best they could with what little they had. A cramped apartment, cheap takeout dinners, and love that stretched itself thin over bills and responsibilities.

Even before the spider bite, Peter knew he had grown up faster than most should have. He’d learned how to read May’s expressions before she even opened her mouth to put them into words, learned which lies were easiest for her to believe, learned how to keep things off her plate so that she didn’t break under the weight.

Becoming Spider-Man only complicated things further. Suddenly, the weight he carried wasn’t just emotional, it was physical, too. He swung from rooftop to rooftop fighting people twice his size, then rushed home to finish homework like nothing had happened.

It was isolating. He couldn’t tell May. He couldn’t tell Ned. He couldn’t tell anyone, really. And for a while, he was okay with that. He told himself he had to be; he didn’t want to drag anyone else into the mess he lived in. He didn’t want to be a burden. But that didn’t make the loneliness any easier to carry.

That all changed after the Vulture incident.

Tony Stark, freaking Iron Man , had offered Peter a real internship. Not just the public cover story that he’d been using for months before, but something that actually held meaning. Training. Support. Someone in his corner who actually knew what Peter was going through.

Tony had seen right through him, all the fear and guilt and stubborn independence. But instead of brushing him off like he had before, he’d made a choice. He didn’t try to take the suit away again. He didn’t try to scare Peter out of being Spider-Man. He just… offered to help.

Peter didn’t know how badly he’d needed that until he got it.

He started working in the lab after school, bouncing ideas off of Tony and Bruce, learning more in a single afternoon than he had in an entire semester of science class But it wasn’t always serious, either.

There were nights when Peter would show up exhausted, and Tony would just toss him a soda and turn on a movie in the background while they fiddled with circuits or talked through web fluid formulas. They’d talk about anything; girls, last night’s patrol, whatever book he’d just finished reading. Peter hadn’t realized how good it felt to have someone listen to him, someone who genuinely wanted to hear what he had to say.

The others were welcoming, too. Some more than he’d expected.

Natasha didn’t say much at first, but she never treated Peter like a liability, like someone who needed to be stopped and contained. She never treated him like a threat. She made small comments that stuck with him;, quiet things, like “keep it up, kid” or “eyes up next time, but that was good posture.” It was always practical, but never unkind.

Steve treated Peter like a little brother, with patient nods and calm advice, and was the kind of presence that made Peter feel safe even when everything else around him was stressing him out. 

Sam teased him relentlessly, but was always there when it mattered.

Bruce was probably the easiest to talk to, because he reminded Peter of a favorite teacher, someone who never made him feel dumb for asking questions, or unsure of himself when he messed up.

Slowly, Peter stopped feeling like a guest.

He started staying for dinner. Started showing up early, even when he didn’t have a reason to.

Friday nights turned into movie nights where everyone would pile into the common room with snacks and mismatched blankets. Tony never made it through an entire movie without getting up to tweak something in the lab, but he always came back before the credits rolled. Unless, of course, Peter fell asleep on his shoulder, which happened more than he’d really like to admit.

In the past, Peter would sit at the edge of the group, shoulders tense, unsure if he really belonged. But over time, his spot shifted closer to the middle. 

And, unbeknownst to the teenager, he became the heart of the team; the metaphorical glue that kept the group of mismatched heroes together, though with how often he left sticky fingerprints everywhere, some of them suspected it might’ve been literal too.

Someone would toss him popcorn. Someone else would fall asleep on his shoulder, or he on theirs. And suddenly, it didn’t feel like a temporary thing anymore.

He hadn’t meant to find family here, He really hadn’t. But it happened in the quiet ways; when he passed the salt at dinner, or got partnered with Natasha during training, or left doodles on the whiteboard in the lab. Or, even more surprisingly,when he came back and saw Tony had added to them.

It happened in the way Steve handed him a water bottle after a mission and asked, “You alright, kid?” and meant it.

It happened in the way Bruce looked at his suit schematics like they were genuinely the most important thing to him, even though he could probably be doing fifty other objectively more important things.

It happened when Clint offered to teach him how to play poker and lost every single round, then blamed it on “rookie luck.”

It happened in the little things that made him feel like he truly mattered.

Even through all that, Peter never forgot where he came from. He still shared that tiny apartment with May, still studied until midnight for Spanish exams, still took the subway like everyone else. But now he had something extra, something that had become his.

Now he had a place to go when everything felt too heavy, where he had people who noticed when he was quiet. A team who had his back, no matter how badly he thought he’d messed up.

It felt… safe.

For once, Parker luck wasn’t dragging him under. It felt like just maybe, he might be managing to outrun it. Like the universe had finally decided to cut him a break.

He still had bad days, the kind where he missed Uncle Ben so much it hurt to breathe, or the kind where he came home with bruises he couldn’t explain and a heart that felt too full of everything. But now, he had somewhere to go on those days. People who wouldn’t ask him to pretend. People who didn’t need him to smile if he wasn’t ready.

They were the family he didn’t expect to find, but the one he chose to keep.

-

Peter loathed and loved the bell in equal measure. It was a loud, scratchy, and downright painful noise for Peter’s enhanced hearing, but it also marked the completion of the school day, which meant freedom. Today in particular, the feelings were of the more favorable variety, since it was Friday, which meant  they had the whole weekend; at least until they had to return the dreaded Monday morning for their even more dreaded finals.

As he started packing his belongings, he could hear the chatter of his classmates, along with backpacks zipping and sneakers squeaked on the linoleum floors. 

Peter, for his part, was already halfway out of his seat, his fingers drumming restlessly against the edge of his desk while the teacher called out a last minute reminder about next week’s finals. After all, they were just the tests that would affect the rest of their academic years. No biggie. Definitely forgettable.

He didn’t hear much of it anyway, his brain was already a few steps ahead, thinking about clean lab counters, humming tech, and the warm smell of solder and steel in the Tower. He was pretty confident he would score well on his exams, so he wasn’t too worried about it. He was more advanced than most of his grade, at least academically, but he still wanted to finish his high school years like any other kid. He was glad to have Mr. Stark and Dr. Banner for lab days, though, because the material was too easy for him, even taking AP classes in a school for nerds.

Mostly, though, he was thinking about not saving the city this weekend for once. Just a movie night with MJ and Ned. Just something… normal.

He’d barely made it to his locker when Ned caught up, slightly out of breath and way too energized for someone who’d spent the last hour pretending to take notes on physics.

“Dude,” Ned said, immediately launching into conversation as though they hadn’t just been in the same class for 45 minutes totally ignoring each other so as not to get yelled at for talking by their grouchy teacher. “Tell me you’re free tomorrow. Please. I need one day where you’re not zipping off to another dimension or whatever.”

Peter laughed, spinning his locker dial and yanking the door open. “Relax, Ned. I cleared tomorrow. Mr. Stark even said I could skip debrief as long as I don’t ‘blow anything up in the meantime.’ So unless Manhattan spontaneously combusts, It’s definitely happening.”

Ned lit up like a Christmas tree. “You swear?”

“I swear.” Peter slung his hoodie over his shoulder. “No distractions. You, me, MJ, and pizza. Maybe a movie. Who knows, maybe I’ll even let you pick.” Peter teased.

MJ’s voice drifted over just as Ned opened his mouth. “He’s lying. He always picks.”

Peter turned, and there she was, MJ, leaning against the locker next to his. Her arms were crossed loosely over her chest, curls half-frizzed from the wind that had blown in through the open windows all afternoon. Peter smiled derpily at her, but it wasn’t as though he could help it; she looks beautiful.

He realized suddenly that he was staring kind of creepily, and did his best to shake the expression off into some semblance of a normal smile. “Okay, I pick sometimes,” Peter admitted as he reached for his backpack. “But you guys always like my picks.”

MJ raised an eyebrow. “You made us sit through that weird sci-fi movie where everyone spoke in math.”

“It was art,” Peter said, mock offended.

“You fell asleep halfway through your own movie,” Ned pointed out.

MJ shot him a look. “On me, by the way.”

Peter flushed slightly and shot her a sheepish glance. “I was comfortable. And, y’know, since you’re like my girlfriend- er, whatever, that kind of gives me blanket privileges.” He flushed even redder when he realized all he’d done was further embarrass himself.

MJ rolled her eyes, but the way her lips twitched into a smile made Peter’s heart warm just a little. 

They walked toward the school exit together, weaving through the flood of students making weekend plans just like them. There was a certain buzz in the air; Peter heard conversations echoing off lockers, the scuff of sneakers, and someone blasting music from their phone so obnoxiously that a group of girls rolled their eyes and leaned over to complain among each other. It was loud, chaotic, and entirely typical of high school.

“So what’s the plan?” Peter asked as they stepped into the afternoon sun.

MJ tied her jacket tightly around her waist. “I was thinking we hit that little pizza place near the subway, the one with the garlic knots you eat like an animal.” She stared directly at Ned as she added the last part.

“Those garlic knots are magical,” Ned defended himself. “And I resent that. I eat them passionately .”

“Messily,” MJ corrected, dry as ever.

Peter just laughed and stuffed his hands into his pockets as they made their way down the sidewalk. The spring air was light and warm, and it carried that hint of incoming summer that always made Queens feel a little more alive as the days got warmer.

For a moment, he let himself just be. No suits, no scanners, no alerts buzzing in his pocket. Just the quiet rhythm of their sneakers on pavement, the noises of the city, and MJ’s hand in his as she walked beside him.

“So. Tomorrow’s official then?” he asked, glancing between his two best friends. Well, one best friend, one girlfriend. Really, they were both his best friends; he just happened to be dating one of them. “Movie, pizza, hanging out?”

“Yup.” Ned had already pulled out his phone. “You’re on snack duty though. And not your weird tower snacks. I’m still recovering from the time you brought those protein bars that tasted like cardboard.”

Peter blinked. “I thought you liked those!”

“I was being polite.”

MJ smirked and leaned into Peter slightly. “Just you, Parker. You’ve been all Iron Man-mode lately. Suit upgrades, tech talk, skipping out on lunch. Honestly, I was starting to think you forgot what normal people eat.”

Peter winced, guilt twinging in his stomach. “I didn’t mean to be distant.”

“We know,” she said, gently, reaching over to tug at the sleeve of his hoodie. “We’re just glad when we get time with you. That’s all.”

Peter nodded and swallowed past the tightness in his throat. It was always like this. Balancing the weight of who he is now, and who he used to be. The truth was, even when he’s with the Avengers or saving the city, part of him always missed this. Walking home with his best friend and his girlfriend, laughing about stupid high school stuff, knowing they were there for him, no matter what. Well, that last part was pretty clear, because there had been plenty of times where  it would have been entirely reasonable for the two of them to abandon him, yet they stuck with him anyway. That’s what it meant to be friends, though, he supposed. He just felt bad that he wasn’t really doing the same for them.

They turned the corner near the bus stop where Ned would split off;. MJ lived a few blocks further in the other direction. Peter would head toward the Tower in the opposite direction, taking the long route, letting the city walk him back to the other half of his life.

“Tomorrow, seven?” Ned confirmed, pausing at the curb.

“I’ll be there,” Peter said, looking at the other teenager earnestly. “Promise.”

“No bleeding this time,.” MJ added with a smirk, but he could tell she meant it.

“No promises,.” Peter shot back, but he was smiling. She knew he got the message.

Ned waved as his bus pulled up, and MJ gave Peter’s hand a quick squeeze before heading off toward her street. Peter stood there for a second, watching them both go, the late spring breeze tugging at his hair and his hoodie and the loose threads of a life he was always trying to keep from unraveling.

Tomorrow would be for them. He’d make sure of it.

  -

By the time Peter reached the lobby of the Tower, the late afternoon sun had dipped low enough to cast warm golden stripes across the marble floor. He stepped through the doors and into cool, conditioned air, tugging his backpack higher up onto his shoulder.

People were leaving for the evening already, heading home to their own apartments and families, so the place was slowing down. The security was stationed so casually that Pete half-forgot that they could take down a potential threat within seconds if they had to.

Peter recognized the woman at the front desk as one of the lower clearance interns, Lillian. She glanced up, and her smile had already partially formed by the time she actuallysaw him. She was in her usual professional blazer and heels, but the way she leaned forward on the counter was anything but formal.

“Well, look who it is!” she greeted, her blue eyes sparkling. “Back from another exciting day in geometry?”

Peter laughed softly and rubbed the back of his neck. “Something like that.”

She tilted her head and pretended to look thoughtful. “What’s on the schedule today?”

“I’m not sure yet.” He grinned, edging toward the elevators. “Just lab stuff. Quiet afternoon.”

She gave a mock sigh. “Boring. Be safe, sweetie.”

Peter offered a grateful wave as the elevator doors closed, cheeks just a little warmer than before. She was always like that, breezy, bright, almost too interested in the weather or his weekend plans. She made him a bit uncomfortable, but he didn’t mind too much. Honestly, it was kind of nice having someone at the front desk who remembered his name and didn’t treat him like a walking liability. Unfortunately for him, most SI employees did not feel the same way, however.

He mainly worked with Tony or Bruce, but sometimes he worked in the R&D labs when they were busy. The interns in those labs were fine with him being around after Mr. Stark had introduced him as his personal intern, but the rest of the people working in the tower gave him weird looks or gave him a hard time for being a teenager, working in the position of a college graduate.  

The elevator rose through the tower, smooth and stable beneath his feet, floor numbers lighting up one by one. When it finally dinged and opened to the Avengers’ floor, Peter stepped out into the familiar warmth of his second home. He’d been here countless times, but he still marveled in the massive floor-to-ceiling windows and the high, arched space. The effect was somewhat undercut by the fact that someone had left their boots in the hallway. Again. Clint, probably.

He made a beeline for the kitchen, following the soft murmur of voices and the unmistakable scent of something buttery. Maybe popcorn, or garlic bread. His stomach grumbled right on cue.

Wanda and Natasha were already there when he shuffled inside, leaning on opposite sides of the kitchen island, mugs in hand. They looked up as he entered, and Wanda smiled immediately.

“Well, if it isn’t the teenage tornado.” The soft lilt of her Sokovian accent wrapped around the syllables, and she folded her arms in mock seriousness. “How was school?”

Peter dropped his bag by a chair and went straight for the cabinets. “Not bad. I only almost failed one quiz this time, so, you know, normal teenagery stuff.”

Wanda rolled her eyes, knowing full well he has perfect grades. “Did you see Michelle after class?” Her voice was suspiciously saccharine sweet and knowing.

Peter froze mid-reach, halfway to the bowl of popcorn Nat had probably just set out. “Whaa- I mean, um, why… why would you assume that?”

Wanda smirked at his embarrassed squirming. “Because you’re glowing like a lightbulb, and you have glitter on your collar. Very subtle.”

Peter glanced down at his hoodie like it had personally betrayed him. “It’s not glitter. It’s... classroom dust,” he deflected, knowing full well that it was from MJ’s shimmery hand sanitizer.

“Sure…” Natasha sipped her coffee. “That happens when you're studying really closely.”

Peter turned bright red and opened the fridge just to give his face some time to cool off. “Okay, wow. I’m suddenly regretting every decision I’ve made today.”

“We’re just glad you’re smiling. You’ve been pretty stressed lately,” Wanda said, tone more gentle now, teasing giving way to something warmer.

Peter glanced over, and despite the embarrassment still warming the tips of his ears, he smiled back. “Yeah. I’m just happy to have a break. Hang out with my friends, spend some time in the lab.”

He turned to grab a protein drink, twisting the cap as he leaned against the counter. The seal disconnected with a tiny clicking sound.“You guys excited for movie night?” he asked, deciding to change the subject. That’s when something shifted in the air, too subtle for a regular person, but Peter wasn’t a regular person.

His spidey sense flared, sharp and sudden, causing him to duck, twisting to the left out of instinct, just as something moved towards him quickly. Unfortunately, he wasn’t fast enough.

Nat’s foot clipped his ribs as he dodged, knocking the bottle from his hand and sending him stumbling back into the counter with a thud. He groaned, the wind knocked out of him, and stabilized himself on the edge of the island.

“What the- ow! Was that for?!”

Nat smiled like it was just another Tuesday. (It was Friday.) “Better be prepared next time. I thought you were supposed to sense those kinds of things.”

“I did!” he protested, wincing as he rubbed his side. “I just didn’t think you’d actually kick me in the kitchen! That’s for the training rooms… You’re supposed to be one of the nice ones!”

Wanda raised a brow. “That was her being nice.”

Peter groaned again, this time mostly for dramatic effect, and flopped onto the barstool like his bones had been betrayed. “Can I just have one peaceful snack without being attacked by an assassin?”

“Nope,.” Nat deadpanned. “It’s my job to bother you.”

Despite the sore ribs and the tiny puddle of protein shake now dripping off the edge of the island, Peter couldn’t help but laugh. This was his weird, dysfunctional, overprotective second family, and he wouldn’t trade it for anything.

Peter wiped his hands on a paper towel and tossed it toward the trash can as he headed for the elevator,scooping his backpack back up along the way. Wanda gave him a little wave, and Natasha just gave him one of those unreadable looks that might’ve meant good luck or don’t die . Probably both. He nodded to them with a quick, “See you later,” already wondering what they would be doing in the lab, even before he stepped inside and pressed the button for the aforementioned level.

The elevator doors slid shut, and for a few seconds, it was just Peter and the low hum of motion. He sighed slowly, shoulders dropping now that he was away from the kitchen chaos. That was one thing he liked about being here, how the Tower could hold every kind of energy at once. The warmth and teasing from Wanda, the surprise attack from Nat, and now the quieter, focused space of the lab. He liked the shift. It helped him reset.

As the elevator rose, Peter fidgeted with the worn strap of his backpack, already mentally running through a few ideas he wanted to try in the lab. Maybe he could finally test that new web cartridge design, the one with the faster adhesive time. Or maybe Tony would let him help with the gauntlet calibration he’d mentioned last week. Something good. After the week he’d had, all he wanted was a little peace and a lot of science.

But the moment the doors opened,; Peter could tell peace was nowhere in sight.

The lighting was… off. Wrong. Too harsh, too clinical. FRIDAY usually kept the lab warm and soft in the afternoons, adjusting to the time of day, but this felt like someone had overridden her settings manually. Tools littered the countertops in uncharacteristic disarray. Empty mugs, old parts, and one of Tony’s tablets, blinking with a half-finished schematic.

Peter stepped out slowly, voice cautious but light. “Hey, Mr. Stark. You need a second set of hands?”

Tony didn’t respond right away. He was standing at one of the far workbenches, his back to the door, hunched over some open piece of tech with both hands braced on the table. His posture looked more like someone trying to hold themselves together than someone focused on their work. After a beat, he spoke, tone flat, tired, and clipped.

“You’re late.”

Peter blinked. “Huh? I didn’t know there was a time I had to-”

“You were supposed to be here thirty minutes ago.” Tony finally straightened up, but didn’t turn around. His voice was low and pointed, like a knife dull from use but still dangerous. “You know that, right?”

“I was downstairs,” Peter said carefully. “Wanda and Nat were-”

“I’m really not in the mood to hear excuses, kid.” Tony turned then, and the moment Peter saw his face, tight jaw, red eyes, the kind of tension that came from hours of stewing in frustration, he stopped mid-step. “If you want to be in this lab, then be in the lab. Otherwise, don’t waste my time.”

Peter’s chest tightened. He hadn’t seen Tony like this since- well, since the ferry incident. “Okay,” he said, trying to keep things level. “Sorry. I didn’t know this was a strict schedule.”

Tony didn’t even blink. “It’s not about the schedule, kid. It’s about you thinking the rules don’t apply when you’re swinging around in a mask.”

At this point Peter was just confused. Confused with his mentor’s bad mood, confused as to what could be the matter, and confused with the sudden subject change. “What are you talking about?”

Tony strode across the room and tapped a key on the nearest console. Instantly, a hologram of Peter’s Spider-Man suit appeared, his most recent model. The image zoomed in on the tear in the side, right above the ribs, where blood had soaked into the fabric.

“You didn’t report this,.” Tony said tightly. “You didn’t tell me. You didn’t tell anyone. You stitched yourself up in secret, like this is some kind of back-alley operation.”

“I-” Peter started, but Tony interrupted. “Don’t lie to me Parker, I have confirmation from Karen. You stitched yourself up, and then you stitched the suit up. Why didn’t you think that I have a protocol that notifies me when you get injured? Obviously, I was going to find out.”

Peter’s mouth went dry. He looked away. “It wasn’t that deep. I’ve had worse.”

“That’s not the point!” Tony’s voice cracked through the room, bouncing off the steel and glass. “You think being Spider-Man means hiding an injury? Power through it and hope no one notices? Is this what you would do if you got injured on a mission? You could’ve hit something vital, bled out, passed out mid-swing, God knows what. And no one would’ve known where you were.”

“I handled it,” Peter snapped, frustration bubbling up like a reflex, anger rising to match his mentor’s.. “I’m not just some little kid.”

Tony took a slow, dangerous step closer. “Then stop acting like one.”

Peter’s pulse spiked. “I didn’t want you to freak out, okay? Every time I tell you something’s wrong, you act like the world’s ending. I was just trying to keep things normal.”

Tony’s eyes burned. “You don’t get to define normal when you’re still bleeding.”

Peter matched his glare now. “It’s healed now. No infection, clean wound, and the stitches are out. Hardly more than a scar anymore. What’s done is done. I don’t understand why you’re making this such a big deal.”

He spoke again before Tony could interject. “You think I want to keep secrets? You think I like hiding things? I did it because if I told you, you’d just clamp down harder. More protocols, more lockdowns, more rules. You already track me like I’m one of your suits.”

Tony didn’t deny it. “Maybe that’s what you need.”

Peter’s hands curled into frustrated fists. “So what, you’re reinstating the Training Wheels Protocol?”

“If that’s what it takes to keep you alive,” Tony said coldly, “then yeah. I am.”

Peter’s jaw locked. “That’s not training. That’s punishment.”

“You call it whatever you want,.” Tony dismissed. “But until you start acting like someone who gives a damn about consequences, I’m pulling you from the lab. From patrol. From everything.”

Peter let out a dry, bitter laugh. “Wow. That’s rich. You know, I only found out that protocol even existed because Ned hacked my suit, right? There was no grand reveal, no explanation. Just some best friend poking around because I was confused, and you hadn’t bothered to tell me a damn thing.”

Tony’s expression faltered for just a second, but Peter wasn’t finished.

“And you weren’t even there.” Peter said, voice rising. “When the Vulture dropped a building on me? When I almost drowned? That was the suit. And for the whole building collapsing on my back situation, I called Happy. Because I didn’t even have your number. And he didn’t even believe me. You know what he did? He hung up on me when I called for help. You gave me a suit and vanished. No check-ins, no training, no follow-through. You just handed a kid a multi-million dollar suit, and left.”

“That’s not fair,.” Tony said, his voice a little softer now.

Peter shook his head, hurt simmering underneath his angry words. “No, what’s not fair is you pretending like you’ve always been here. You weren’t. I pushed my way into your life, remember? None of this-” he waved a hand around the lab, the Tower, “none of this would’ve happened if I hadn’t practically begged for it. You didn’t come to me after you recruited me to fight in a battle I didn’t understand. I came to you .”

Tony opened his mouth, but Peter kept going.

“I told myself you cared,” he said, quieter now, the anger hollowed out into something sadder. “That all of this, the training, the tech, the lab time- it meant something. But I don’t think you ever did. Not really. Because Tony Stark doesn’t do anything he doesn’t want to. So maybe I just fooled myself into thinking I mattered to you.”

Silence.

Heavy and awful.

Tony didn’t speak. Maybe he couldn’t.

Peter stood there, chest heaving, but more than anything, hurting. His own words echoed back at him louder than he meant them to.

Tony’s face hardened again. Not anger, just retreat. “You’re hurt, and you’re being a brat.”

Peter flinched like he’d been struck. “Right. Of course.”

Tony’s jaw worked like he was holding back a dozen things at once, and in the end, he only said one. “Go home.”

The words hit like a punch to the ribs. Not the kind he could dodge, not like Nat’s playful training practice jab from earlier. This one went straight through his heart, more akin to a stab.

Peter stood there, stunned, the floor suddenly feeling miles away from his feet, sending him straight into freefall.“So that’s it? I mess up once, and I’m out?”

“This isn’t about once.” Tony said, quiet. “It’s about a pattern. You say you’re fine, you pretend nothing’s wrong, and then you bleed behind everyone’s back. You’re done, kid.”

Peter’s mouth opened, but the words tangled in his throat.

 It was like something cracked inside him, deep and old and way too familiar. That feeling again, the one that told him he’d broken something without knowing how, that someone was walking away, and that it was his fault for needing too much. Something must have shown on his face, because Tony’s gaze slid from his and fixed somewhere on the far wall, pointedly not meeting his gaze.

Peter looked straight at the man he has come to see as a father. When he spoke, there was no more anger in his voice; just a child’s desperation. “Wh- what are you saying?”

Tony still wouldn’t look at him. “I’m saying I can’t do this if you won’t let me. If you don’t trust me enough to tell me when you’re hurt or listen when I set boundaries. Then I’m done. Go home. Don’t come back until you’re ready to act like part of a team. Or - how about you just don’t come back at all.”

Peter stood frozen, heart pounding so loud it felt like it echoed in his ears. The sharp edges of Tony’s voice cut deeper than the stab wound ever had.

He didn’t wait for a reply. He just turned, grabbed his bag, and left..

The elevator doors closed behind him with a soft ding,and he stumbled out of the tower in a daze. The silence on the subway was suffocating. Not because it wasn’t loud, but because his ears drowned out everything except the echo of Tony’s voice, telling him to leave. For good .

Chapter Text

In retrospect, Peter didn’t remember leaving the lab. One moment he’d been standing there, barely holding it together as Tony turned his back on him, and the next, he was stepping out into the cold Manhattan air. The sun was still up, hanging low in the sky, and everything around him was moving too fast and too slow all at once. People made their way down the sidewalks, horns blaring in the distance, but all of it blurred into meaningless noise. His limbs felt numb. His stomach ached in a way that had nothing to do with the still-healing stab wound Tony had yelled at him about.

It wasn’t the stabbing pain in his heart and chest that bothered him. It was the finality. The way Tony had said it, so quietly, so certain. "Go home. Don’t come back until you’re ready to act like part of a team. Or - how about you just don’t come back at all." No anger. No hesitation. Just - done.

He took the subway out of habit, swiping his card and sinking into the hard plastic seat by the window. His reflection in the glass looked like someone else;, a stranger wearing his clothes, his too- big hoodie, his backpack that felt heavier than it should. He pulled his knees up to his chest and pressed his forehead to them, hoping that maybe , if he made himself small enough, he wouldn’t feel so exposed.

Across from him, a woman wearing a blazer laughed into her phone, her voice distant and irrelevant. A few seats down, an older man snored quietly, his head drooping forward with each jolt of the train. No one looked at him. No one saw him fall apart. He was glad there was hardly anyone here. He didn’t want people to see him looking so pathetic.

Tears came without warning. Hot, humiliated, unstoppable. He kept his head down, arms locked around his legs, trying to breathe through it, but the sobs pushed through anyway, silent. It wasn’t the fight itself that broke him. Not entirely. It was the feeling of being discarded. Like he didn’t matter. Like everything he thought they’d built, every mission, every late-night lab session, every movie night and inside joke, had meant nothing. He had trusted Tony. Looked up to him. He’d wanted so badly to be good enough, to make the man he'd come to see as a father proud. But maybe that had always been one sided. Maybe he’d just imagined the progress. Maybe he was just a dumb kid.

He thought of Toomes. Of that night in the warehouse, bleeding and terrified. Of having Ned call Happy, because he didn’t have Tony’s number yet. Of being hung up on. He remembered being crushed under rubble, gasping for air, whispering, "Come on, Spider-Man…" because no one else was coming. Tony hadn’t trained him. Not really. The Training Wheels Protocol had been a cage, not a safety net. And when Ned had hacked it, when Peter had finally had a taste of what it could mean to be a real hero, Tony had shown up just in time to take the suit away.

"If you’re nothing without the suit, then you shouldn’t have it." That phrase still lived in his head, echoing louder than it should. More often than it should, too. But hadn’t he proved himself? Hadn’t he defeated the Vulture? Saved Mr. Stark’s plane? The Washington Monument? Didn’t that count for something ?

The train rocked beneath him. Outside, Queens blurred past in streaks of brick and glass. Peter sat back up, swiping at his face with his sleeve. His hoodie was damp now, clinging to his cheeks. He forced himself to stand up and get off at his stop, his legs stiff and uncooperative. The streets were familiar but strange, like everything had shifted a few degrees since this morning. He walked the few blocks to his building with his hands in his pockets, head low, eyes fixed on the concrete.

The apartment was dark when he opened the door. "May?" he called, voice cracking in the middle. No answer. He tried again, louder this time, as he kicked off his shoes and dropped his bag by the door. Still nothing. The silence settled around him like a blanket, suffocating and cold. Maybe she was working late again. Maybe she’d picked up an extra shift at the hospital. She usually texted him, but maybe it had just slipped her mind. Or maybe she didn’t even think of letting him know, because he was supposed to be spending the night at the tower. Still, the ache in his chest deepened.

Peter wandered into the kitchen and opened the fridge, where leftovers from last night sat on the second shelf - mac and cheese in a plastic tupperware container. He grabbed it and stuck it in the microwave, punching in two minutes without thinking. He wasn’t hungry, and the thought of food turned his stomach. But eating gave him something to do; plus, he’d just end up waking up in the middle of the night hungry because of his enhanced metabolism. It was something to focus on, something that wasn’t the echo of Tony’s voice telling him he didn’t belong.

He sat at the table, staring at the microwave as it hummed. His thoughts wouldn’t stop racing. Had he pushed too hard? Said too much? Maybe he should’ve handled it differently. He had been emotional. But then again, how else was he supposed to react when Tony had acted like his stab wound was a betrayal? When he’d tried to explain that he hadn’t meant to keep secrets, that he hadn’t wanted to get hurt, but Tony had already made up his mind. He just hadn’t wanted to make a big deal of it. He laughed humorlessly at the irony of the thought.

The microwave beeped. Peter didn’t move for a few moments, glaring at the mac and cheese as if this was all it’s fault. Eventually, he dragged himself over, pulled the container out, and sat back down. The first bite was rubbery. The second made his throat tighten. He set the fork down and pushed the food away. His appetite was gone. All that remained was the weight in his chest and the sting in his eyes.

He walked into the living room and collapsed onto the couch, pulling the throw blanket down and curling up beneath it. The cushions smelled like home, like May’s perfume and laundry detergent. He burrowed into them, wishing the ground could just open up and swallow him whole. He’d thought he’d be spending tonight at the Tower, surrounded by the team. His second family. Watching some dumb action movie, wedged between Nat and Tony, pretending he wasn’t falling asleep halfway through. That had been the plan.

Now he was here. Alone.

He let the tears flow again. Slower this time. Softer. They slid down his cheeks and soaked into the pillow, and he didn’t bother wiping them away. He cried because everything hurt. Because he missed something he might’ve only imagined having. Because the Avengers had felt like home, and now it felt like a door slammed in his face. Because Tony had looked at him like he was a mistake. Because he didn’t know who he was without Spider-Man, and tonight, he was neither a hero nor teammate. Just a kid in a hoodie with no one waiting for him.

Just Peter.

And he didn’t think that was enough.

  -

Peter had only meant to close his eyes for a second. Just a second.

The couch was still warm beneath him when the knock came, sharp and heavy. It echoed through the quiet apartment, so out of place that it took him a moment to realize it wasn’t part of a dream. He sat up slowly, blanket slipping off his shoulders and pooling around his waist. The room was dark now. The microwave clock blinked 9:42 p.m. He rubbed at his eyes, disoriented, heart already starting to race. It wasn’t Ned or MJ, they would’ve texted first. Not May either, she had a key. Why would she knock? Maybe she’d forgotten it?

His bare feet hit the floor with a soft thud as he crossed the room, over to the door. He hesitated, just for a second, before looking through the peephole. A man stood on the other side. Bald, dressed in a dark blue NYPD uniform. Middle-aged. Serious expression. The sight made Peter’s stomach flip with anxiety.

He opened the door slowly, blinking against the hall light.

"Are you Peter Benjamin Parker?" the officer asked. His voice was low, steady, like he had done this before.

Peter nodded, throat suddenly dry. "Yes sir, that’s me."

"I’m Officer Rylan Hinken," he said. "I’m really sorry to bother you at this hour, but I need to speak with you for a moment. May I come in?"

Peter didn’t move, just furrowed his eyebrows. The words weren’t sitting right. Something about the way the officer was standing, the way his hands were folded in front of him, made everything inside Peter go still. He stepped aside wordlessly, leaving the door open as he turned back toward the living room.

The officer followed, quietly shutting the door behind him. His footsteps were soft but deliberate. When Peter dropped back onto the couch, it was like his body had just decided his brain wasn’t worth listening to, and just reverted to muscle memory. It didn’t feel like him sitting there. He was scared of what was to come.

Officer Hinken cleared his throat gently. "Mr. Parker, I’m afraid I have some difficult news. Your aunt, Maybelle Parker, was in a car accident earlier this evening."

That was it. That was the moment the world stopped turning.

Peter stared at him, heart thudding dully in his ears. He didn’t say anything. Didn’t blink. He wasn’t sure he was even breathing.

"She was transported to Mount Sinai," the officer continued, his voice soft and respectful. "They did everything they could, but... she didn’t make it. I’m so sorry. She passed away earlier this evening."

Silence.

It wasn’t that Peter didn’t understand the words. He did. He just couldn’t connect them to reality. Not May. Not his May. There had to be a mistake. She’d texted him this morning. She’d kissed the top of his head and told him to eat something that held more nutrients than just a banana.

He waited for the smile. For someone to laugh and say it was all a horrible misunderstanding or a joke or something . But Officer Hinken just stood there, watching him gently, as if waiting for the pieces to fall apart.

Peter’s lips parted. Nothing came out.

A breath shuddered through him. His hands gripped the edge of the couch like it could anchor him.

"Are you sure?" he whispered.

The officer nodded slowly. "I’m afraid so."

Peter looked past him, toward the blank TV screen. He could see his reflection in it. Pale. Wide-eyed. He still didn’t recognize himself.

"Do you have someone we can call?" Hinken asked quietly. "A guardian, maybe? Another relative?"

Peter turned toward him slowly, blinking. His brain felt like it was underwater. He opened his mouth. Closed it. Thought of Ned or MJ, their parents. Adults with lives and jobs and expectations. People who were kind enough to offer help for a little while, but how long until it became a burden?

Yesterday, he’d call Tony in a heartbeat. Show up at the Tower. But that was gone now. Tony had made that perfectly clear. He didn’t want Peter back. Not there. Not anywhere near the team.

Peter swallowed hard. His voice was barely audible. "She’s all I’ve got."

There was a pause. Something in Officer Hinken’s expression shifted, something gentler, more cautious. He nodded.

"I understand. I’m sorry to have to be the one to tell you."

Peter didn’t answer. He couldn’t. His brain had gone completely silent. The silence wasn’t peaceful, though. It was sharp. Hollow. He didn’t even know what to do with himself.

"May I sit?" the officer asked.

Peter just nodded, not really seeing him. Not really seeing anything.

Officer Hinken lowered himself onto the chair across from the couch and said nothing more. He didn’t try to fill the silence, didn’t offer any more words. Peter was grateful, because he knew if he did, that just would’ve made it worse. Yet the teen barely noticed the officer was still there.

He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, pressing his palms to his eyes. His whole body felt wrong. Like his bones didn’t quite fit under his skin. Like the air had changed density.

This couldn’t be real.

He’d never get to tell her he loved her again. Never tease her about how she pronounced pho or ‘sneak’ leftover dessert from the fridge together after midnight, even though they had no one to hide from. Never hear her footsteps coming down the hall to make sure he was home from patrol. Never hear her laugh at something dumb he said. Never argue about his curfew or whether or not Spider-Man needed stitches.

He didn’t even get to say goodbye.

His throat tightened. Still no tears, just that awful pressure behind his eyes.

It had been May who held him when Ben died. When everything fell apart after that. When Peter got sick with grief and guilt and the feeling of having the weight of the world on his back. It had been May who stayed up through the night, waiting for him to come home. Who covered for him with the school. Who patched him up when he came in limping. Who tried her hardest not to cry when she saw what being Spider-Man had done to him.

She was the one who stayed.

Even when he disappeared for hours. Even when he skipped Homecoming. Even when he chose the internship, the tower, the missions, he always came home, and she always welcomed him back with open arms.

And now she was just... gone .

Peter’s jaw clenched. Something inside him cracked, but not loudly. Just… deep. Like the quiet snap of a frozen branch. A fracture you couldn’t quite see but would never forget the sound of.

There was no one else. No backup plan. No safety net. He was fifteen and already out of places to land.

And suddenly, he understood what true loneliness felt like. Everything and everyone he knew, loved, or cared about, had just gone flying out the window in the past twenty-four hours.

He sat there on the couch with the weight of everything pressing down on his shoulders, and for the first time since Uncle Ben, he felt truly, devastatingly small. But even then, he had a safe place to be. Warm, kind arms to run into whenever things got too hard.

The apartment was physically painful to be in with how quiet it was.

And Peter, wrapped in a throw blanket and grief, couldn’t even remember the last thing he had said to her. Maybe it was about laundry. Maybe it was just "Bye." Whatever it was, it wasn’t enough, and it never would be.

Peter didn’t ask if the officer wanted water. He wasn’t thinking about all those manners drilled into him by his aunt and uncle. He was thinking about May.

About how she'd never again kiss his forehead goodnight, or tell him to have a good day at school. About how he'd never get to tease her about what she always ordered when they went out to Thai food. About all the times she’d held him when Uncle Ben died. When he got sick afterward and never quite recovered when bitten by the spider who gave him his powers. All the skipped classes, the suspensions, the half lies and whole ones that he told when nobody knew about Spider-Man. And she stayed. Through it all. She stayed.

But now she was gone, and Peter didn’t know how to be in a world where May didn’t exist.

The weight of everything that had happened today was just crushing him slowly. Everything from this morning until now unraveled in jagged, suffocating layers. Just hours ago, he had everything; a future, friends, love, a found family of heroes who called him one of them, their teammate. And Tony, who he never said aloud, but who felt like a father to him. He had May. Warm, soft May with her unconditional love, who cared about him whether he succeeded or failed in things. He had been standing at the very top of his world, heart full and plans made.

And now... nothing. It had all collapsed beneath him like a trapdoor. The tower, his suit, his role on the Avengers team, Tony’s trust, gone. All of it, stripped away in the span of three hours. Now he didn’t even have May. There was no coming back from this. Nothing to cling to. He sat on the couch, blank and hollow, letting the silence swallow him. He couldn’t even remember the last thing he’d said to her. Didn’t know what she was wearing when she - 

"Mr. Parker," Officer Hinken said softly, voice cutting through Peter’s thoughts. "Child Protective Services is on their way. They’ll speak with you about what comes next. I know it’s a lot, but we need to make sure you have a safe place to go."

Peter nodded without really processing it. The word CPS echoed in his head like a foreign language. He wasn’t a kid who needed protecting. He was Spider-Man. Or he had been.

"Can I..." His voice cracked, and he swallowed hard, forcing the rest out. "Can I just have a little time? In my room? Just to think?"

The officer hesitated, then nodded. "Alright. But keep your door cracked open, okay? I’ll check on you in a couple of minutes."

Peter mumbled his thanks and turned toward his room, each step heavier than the last. He didn’t know what he’d do once he got in there. Cry. Scream. Collapse. Or maybe just stare at the wall and pretend this wasn’t happening.

But at least, for a little while, he’d be alone.

Peter’s bedroom door creaked as he nudged it open. The dim hallway light spilled inside, casting a dull stripe across the floor. He didn’t bother turning on the lamp. He didn’t want to see the room. Not really. He just stepped over the mess of clothes and past his half-finished homework assignments, kicked his door closed until it rested slightly open, and collapsed onto the bed. Face down, breath shallow.

The blanket still smelled like May’s detergent, lavender and vanilla. A soft, safe smell. But now it made his stomach twist. The scent clung to everything in here. Her memory lingered in every corner of the room. That half-finished laundry basket in the corner? She’d folded that. The sweater draped over the back of his desk chair? She’d bought it for him last Christmas. She was everywhere, and yet, now she was just nowhere. Gone.

He wanted to scream. To cry, to kick something, but his throat wouldn't open enough for him to even breathe, let alone wreck his room. His body wouldn’t move. The shock and grief was too heavy. Too thick. It sat on his chest like the fallen building Toomes had dropped on him, inescapable and suffocating. It didn’t feel real. It couldn’t be real. Just this morning she’d smiled at him, told him to eat lunch, not just a granola bar again, threatening that she’d find out. Ask Ned or MJ or something. He had nodded, distracted, already thinking about meeting up with said friends later. How he had homework to do, and studying for finals. Thinking about the mission report he needed to finish. Thinking about anything but how fragile life could be.

His whole life had changed in less than five hours.

Just a few hours ago, he’d had everything. May. The internship. Tony. The team. His suit. The strange and messy balance of normal teenage life and superhero life. He’d complained about homework, worried about Mr. Stark’s opinion, and had a plan for the weekend that involved pizza and a movie night. He was tired, sure. But he was happy. He had the world. Everything he needs and more.

And now, it was just ashes.

Peter turned over onto his side, curling in on himself. The weight in his chest pressed deeper. He felt like he was suffocating. He couldn’t lose her. Not her. Not May. She was all he had left. She was the reason he hadn’t fallen completely apart after Ben. The reason he still smiled. She’d held their tiny family together with warmth and stubborn love, even when Peter didn’t deserve it. Even when he came home late, covered in cuts and lies. Even when he missed dinner, skipped school, forgot her birthday. She had always been there.

And now there was no one left to be there.

He wanted to pick up his phone. Wanted to text Ned. To call MJ. But what would he even say? How could he put this into words? Hey, guys. I lost everything today. Tony doesn’t want me. May’s dead. I’m alone now. How do you send that in a text?

His fingers trembled as he reached for his pillow, clutching it to his chest. It didn’t help. Nothing helped. Grief clawed at his insides, sharp and endless. It didn’t care that he was only fifteen. That he was just a kid who wanted his aunt back. That he’d already lost more than most adults ever would. It came anyway. Loud and cruel.

Tony’s words came back to him, uninvited. “How about you just don’t come back at all.”

Peter squeezed his eyes shut and pulled the blanket tighter around himself. He had hoped desperately that Tony cared. That maybe he had a place on the team. That maybe Tony saw something in him worth keeping around. But no. Not really. Not when Peter was constantly messing up. He was just a stupid kid who forced himself into the man’s life. Into the whole team’s lives.

Had everything he thought he’d built with Tony just been in his own childish imagination? Had he fooled himself into believing the man cared? Most likely. Because if Tony Stark wanted someone gone, they were gone. He didn’t do things out of obligation. He didn’t offer second chances unless it served a purpose. That was the truth, right? Peter had just been a project. A kid in a suit that got too close. And the second it stopped being convenient, he got kicked to the curb. He was just fooling himself. After all, Tony never did tell him he felt the same way Peter felt about him. Then again, Peter had never told Tony either.

And now he couldn’t even go home to May and tell her about it. She’d always known what to say. When to hold him. When to scold him gently and kiss the top of his head. He needed that now more than ever. Love. And it was gone. She was gone.

He started crying again. He didn’t want to. Didn’t mean to. But the tears came anyway, soaking the pillow and curling his body tighter into itself. He let out a low, shaking noise, somewhere between a gasp and a sob, and tried to breathe through it. His chest ached. His hands clenched in the blankets like they could anchor him to the present, like they could keep him from unraveling completely.

He was Spider-Man, but he couldn’t save her. He hadn’t been able to save Ben either. Hadn’t even been able to save his relationship with Mr. Stark.

He could survive explosions and stab wounds and buildings collapsing on top of him. But this? This was the day that might finally break him.

A soft knock tapped against the door. "Peter?" Officer Hinken’s voice, quiet. Careful. "I just wanted to check in."

Peter didn’t answer. He couldn’t. He just sniffled, and the officer must’ve taken that as a response.

"I’ll be out here if you need anything," the man added gently. "Take your time."

The footsteps faded back to the living room. The door stayed cracked.

Peter didn’t move. He let the silence wash back over him, suffocating and painful. In that stillness, the future loomed like a storm cloud. CPS was on their way. To talk about what happened next. Where he’d go. Who would take him. Like he was some piece of furniture, or someone’s pet that they had to rehome.

He hated it.

He hated the idea of being passed around like a problem. Like a box to check. He didn’t want to stay with strangers. He didn’t want to be someone’s responsibility. He just wanted May. He just wanted Tony to change his mind. He just wanted to rewind the day and do it all over.

But life didn’t give do-overs.

Peter curled deeper into his bed, trembling under the weight of everything he’d lost. A single day. That’s all it took to lose everything.

The boy sat there for a little while, thinking about everything and replaying scenarios and plans for the future in his head, but the moment it clicked, he let his feet drop to the floor. His breathing was shaky and uneven, but he knew, somewhere in the back of his mind, that he didn’t have long. He couldn’t stay. He couldn’t wait around to find out what would happen to him next, to be carted off by strangers, placed with another family. He’d already had two. That was enough. Plus, he was fifteen. He could take care of himself.

He rose slowly and pulled his old school backpack from under his bed. His regular one was beside the door in the kitchen. The bag he’d just pulled out from under his bed was dusty, mostly unused since he’d started using his Stark-issued gear. The irony stung.

He started with the basics. A couple of changes of clothes, his toothbrush, deodorant. Socks, boxers. His hoodie. The last four granola bars that Bruce had made for his metabolism from the drawer of his nightstand. In an empty shoe box, he grabbed an empty shoe box that he’d been using to save cash to buy a professional camera that cost $1,700. So far, he’d saved $976.75. He grabbed the roll of bills and three quarters. May had insisted he set aside the money he earned for himself, to buy something he would enjoy. She refused any sort of help with bills or rent.

He crossed the room to crouch beside his nightstand and opened the drawer slowly, like even that might wake something that should stay sleeping. Inside was Uncle Ben’s watch. Scratched, the strap worn soft at the edges. He hadn’t touched it in years, not since the funeral, not since he found it tucked inside the drawer with the old baseball ticket stub and a photo of May and Ben at their wedding. The second hand still ticked faintly. He pressed it to his chest for a second, eyes squeezed shut, then wrapped it gently in a pair of socks and placed it into the backpack.

He stood, unsure what else mattered. What else was his to take.

Then he crossed the hall.

May’s room was dark, still. The door creaked softly, and he winced. He didn’t want to alert the officer just down the hall.

The room smelled like her - lavender, vanilla, peppermint and clean laundry. The air was stale, undisturbed. He moved carefully, hands in his pockets like he didn’t belong in here, like he was trespassing on something sacred. Her notebook sat on the nightstand, the worn green one with the floral print that she always carried around in her purse. Grocery lists, hospital notes, scribbled reminders, pressed flowers, post-it affirmations that sometimes wound up on the fridge. There was also the occasional sketch, whenever she had time. She was an incredible artist. It had always mattered to her. He picked it up and held it in both hands, thumbing the cover. It smelled like her perfume. He didn’t open it. He just slid it carefully between his hoodie and a t-shirt in the backpack.

Back in his room, he pulled open the bottom drawer of his desk. Inside were a few photos May had printed for him last Christmas. One was framed; him, May, and Ben, outside their favorite diner. Peter was in a beanie that was too big for his head, Ben held him close, and May laughed  at something just out of frame. That one he wrapped in an old shirt and tucked in carefully. Then came one of just him and May, sitting on the fire escape with their feet dangling over the edge, ice cream in their hands, the summer sun behind them. It was blurry but warm, the edges curled slightly from being handled so often.

The last was a printout from MJ’s phone; a picture from their Academic Decathlon meet, Peter with his gold medal around his neck, MJ making her usual unimpressed face, and Ned throwing up a victory sign behind them. It was so stupid, and so perfect. That one went in the bag too.

His fingers hovered over one last photo, the one he always told himself didn’t matter, but that he could never quite put away. A candid from the Tower, him in the suit, mask halfway up, grinning so wide it made his cheeks hurt just to look at it. Tony’s arm around his shoulders, holding him close. They both looked… happy. Real. Like a father and son.

Peter stared at it for a long time.

Then he placed it face down on the desk.

He just couldn’t. He couldn’t bring Tony’s face with him, not after the words that still rung so loudly in his head. He couldn’t carry the weight of that moment with him into whatever came next. He just couldn’t let himself hope that maybe Tony would change his mind, would come looking for him, would say he was sorry.

Because that would mean staying. Waiting. And Peter didn’t have faith that his mentor would come after him. He was better off on his own.

He zipped the backpack slowly. His chest was tight, like something had cracked open inside him and was bleeding out. He slid on his sneakers and quietly opened the window. Yesterday, this would have felt like a normal thing to do. Like he was just about to pull his mask down and cast a web to go patrolling though Queens. Today though, it couldn’t feel any farther away from a regular Friday night. The suit was in what he used to call his bedroom at the tower. Tonight, he wasn’t Spider-Man. He wasn’t sure if he ever would be again.

The fire escape was cold under his hands as he climbed out, the city air biting against his skin.

He turned, just once, to look back into the apartment.

Everything he knew was in there. Every good memory, every loss, every scrap of warmth he’d tried to hold onto. May’s laughter in the kitchen. Uncle Ben’s voice humming old songs. Nights on the couch watching movies. Homework on the coffee table. All of it.

Peter swung his bag over his shoulder, slipped into the shadows, and disappeared into the night.

Chapter Text

[Earlier that day]

The day was, for all intents and purposes, going well. 

(In retrospect, that was the moment he should have seen it all going downhill.)

His usual AC/DC blasted through the lab speakers, the volume probably too loud to be good for his ears, as per usual. Tools were scattered across the benches in patterns that made sense only to Tony himself, scraps of metal and forgotten circuit boards littered the floor, and at least three empty coffee cups sat in a pile on the edge of the table. The world outside the tower might as well have been on fire for all Tony noticed. In this state, he was locked in, laser-focused, hunched over a glowing schematic and humming under his breath with the music, muttering the occasional string of curse words at a finicky wire cluster.

He didn’t hear the elevator, or the door. He did , however, hear the accompanying sharp rhythm of heels crossing tile, measured, controlled, and matched with an equally unimpressed look from his fianceé when he dared glance up for half a second to look.Then came her voice, clear and dry, with just a hint of amusement.

“I swear, if I find out you’ve survived only on caffeine when I get back from this trip, I’m cutting the power to your espresso machine.”

Tony kept his eyes on his work as he responded. “You wound me, Miss Potts. I’ll have you know I also had half a protein bar. Well, it was mostly a protein bar. Technically it was a granola bar.”

Pepper didn’t slow down as she moved through the lab, and when he glanced up again, she was looking around the space like someone inspecting damage after a mild hurricane. She was dressed in a charcoal-colored blazer, her long strawberry blonde hair pulled back into a tight ponytail, standing in her heels with all the confidence of someone who could run an entire tech empire and deal with all her soon-to-be husband’s PR disasters in a mere afternoon. She stopped in front of him and set a file folder down over top of the piece of tech he’d been working on; he gave a half-hearted protest.

“You’re impossible.” Her eyes swept over the table once more, before landing on him with amusement. “Now, I’m leaving for a two-day trip with a board that thinks Zoom calls are witchcraft, so I don’t want to come home to another lab fire. Or you talking to the coffee machine like it’s your therapist. Again.”

Tony’s lips quirked. “Hey, maybe the espresso machine listens. Unlike some people.”

Pepper raised a brow. “Does it also tell you to shower and eat something with nutritional value?”

He leaned back in his chair, arms out. “Only if I ask it nicely.” He paused. “But that’s why I built FRI. She fills in the gaps.”

There was a pause before Pepper exhaled, exasperation folding into fondness. She stepped forward, threading her fingers gently through his hair, brushing a grease smudge from his temple with a thumb.

“You really don’t take care of yourself when I’m not here,” she said, voice softer now.

Tony tilted his head into her touch like a cat. “That’s because when you’re not here, the odds of me doing something stupid goes up 80%. You’re the Stark Industries-issued fire extinguisher.”

She smiled faintly, fingers resting briefly on his jaw. “I’m the CEO, Tony. Not your babysitter.”

He knew that. He still obviously had to make a quippy comment in response, though. “And yet, here you are. Multi-tasking like a pro.”

He kissed her before she could say anything else, soft and sure, as if trying to leave something behind she could carry with her. It said everything he didn’t say aloud, like remember to take care of yourself, or you’re the reason I keep trying, come back in one piece please. When they separated, Pepper looked at him the way she always did, like she saw right through him. With a mix of fondness, concern, and that quiet steadiness that never asked him to be anyone else.

“Try to remember you’re a person, not a walking ball of wires and armor with a massive guilt complex.” She tapped his chest with two fingers.

“Only if you remember to yell at fewer board members than usual?”

“No promises,” he replied with another smile.

She turned to leave, heels echoing again through the lab, though this time in retreat. “And clean up in here. It smells like stress and solder.”

“Love you too,” Tony called after her.

She turned back and gave him a smile before the door slid shut behind her. Tony sighed, dragging a hand through his hair as he finally took a proper look around. The lab was a wreck. Honestly, Pepper had shown restraint. He’d been worse.

“FRIDAY.” He stood. “Play some tunes. And give me a list of every caffeine product I’ve ingested in the last 48 hours.”

“That would require scrolling, boss.”

He groaned and rolled his eyes. “Fine. Don’t sass me. Let’s restore a little order to this madness.”

He started by tackling his own workstation, wiping down tools and sweeping scraps into a bin. There was a comfort in the repetition, an odd kind of therapy in organizing the mess that he’d made. Once his area was clean, he drifted toward Bruce’s, which was mostly in order aside from a few unsealed containers and scribbled notes. He handled them quickly, before turning toward Peter’s station.

The kid had a system, one only Peter seemed to understand, much like Tony himself. The bench was scattered with half-built pieces of web shooter prototypes, a coil of wire, and a notebook filled with rough sketches and formula corrections. The tablet still blinked with an unfinished code loop.

Tony smiled without meaning to; The kid was getting better. There was raw talent there, real ingenuity, not just mimicking what he’d seen. He knew that because Peter had been doing this kind of thing since well before Tony had come into the picture. He was building his own things now. Becoming his own inventor. Tony reached out to pull Peter’s chair forward and nearly fell backward, off-balance, when it didn’t budge as he’d expected.

“What in the -  ”

He yanked again, this time with more force, and something soft and tangled fell from underneath. It was… a hoodie, balled up and shoved beneath the seat as though it’d been an afterthought. Tony picked it up, intending to merely toss it over the chair, until he saw the dark stain across the front - reddish-brown. Thick, old, and unmistakably blood.

His stomach dropped.

“Friday,” he said tightly. “Scan this hoodie.”

“ . . . The stain is human blood, boss. Type matches Peter Parker.”

Tony stared at the hoodie, throat tightening. “When?”

“Based on suit telemetry and AI logs, the wound would have occurred two nights ago during a mugging in Yorkville. A stab wound - three and a half inches deep, near the lower abdomen.”

The hoodie slipped a little in his grasp, fingers suddenly weak. “Why didn’t any protocols trigger?”

“Peter issued a reclassification through Karen. He coded the report to read that the injury was treated by May Parker.”

Tony’s voice was sharp now. “He bypassed protocol?”

“It appears so, boss. He used your 2012 override algorithm, one you used to block alert spam during your Mark 42 testing.”

Tony dropped into Peter’s chair with a sharp exhale, hoodie far too heavy in his hands. “That’s not supposed to be accessible anymore.”

“He replicated the exploit exactly. Though he failed to mask the deeper logs; Karen’s unfiltered entries still recorded the self-treatment.”

“Self-treatment?” Tony’s voice spiked. He hadn’t thought it could have gotten worse than the injury itself, but - “You’re telling me he stitched himself up? Alone ?”

“Three times,” Friday confirmed. “Four months ago, a deep thigh laceration. Three weeks ago, a dislocated shoulder, and two nights ago, an abdominal stab wound. All treated in his bedroom. No assistance. Karen guided him, but he didn’t seek external help.”

Tony slammed a hand against the table, sending a screwdriver clattering to the floor.

He felt sick. Sick with fury. With guilt. With the realization that Peter had been hurting - bleeding - under his nose, and Tony hadn’t seen it.

The blood. The lies. The silence.

Tony dropped the hoodie on the desk like it might explode, before pulling up the footage - the unedited files that Karen had logged quietly in the background. Peter, hunched and pale, stitching his own skin with trembling hands. Breathing hard. Trying not to cry.

The kid had been hiding this. Had to hide it, or so he thought. Like he’d be in trouble. Like telling Tony meant disappointment instead of help.

How the hell had they gotten here?

He’d promised May. Promised himself . He was supposed to protect this kid. And somewhere along the line, Peter had stopped thinking of him as someone who could help.

Tony sat there in silence, hands clenched tight in his lap, recordings still playing, staring at the hoodie splayed on the desk, with its damning smear on full display. He wasn’t angry anymore.

He was just terrified.

  -

[Present time]

Peter left the lab after their argument, angry and emotional. Not that Tony could blame him (not for that, at least); both of them were. 

In his absence, the lab was almost deathly quiet; all that remained was the faint hum of the arc reactor systems and the electrical buzz of the cooling fans above him. The heavy weight of silence pressed down on Tony’s shoulders, collapsed his lungs in on themselves.

He stood exactly where Peter had left him, staring at the door like it might swing back open, like Peter might come back in and give him a chance to fix his huge screw up. But the door stayed shut. The kid was gone. And Tony had been the one who told him to go. He could still hear his own cold voice echoing in his head. "Go home. Don’t come back until you’re ready to act like part of a team. Or - how about you just don’t come back at all."  He winced at the all too recent memory. It hadn't felt righteven as he’d said it, and now, it just felt like a punch to the gut.

He ran a hand down his face, exhaling through his nose, sharp and tired. The words he’d said hung in the air like choking, deadly smoke, impossible to wave away. He hadn’t meant it. Not really - hell, not at all. God, he hadn’t meant for it to go that far. But he’d been tired, overwhelmed, worried out of his mind when he saw the blood soaked through Peter’s hoodie and the accompanying footage from Karen’s system. 

He was angry at Peter for hiding it, and even more angry at himself for not noticing until he’d found the damn hoodie. That stab wound, barely patched, hidden like it was nothing. And Peter had tried to lie. Again . Tony didn’t even know what he’d been trying to prove. That he was fine? That he didn’t need help? That he could handle it on his own? He wanted to believe Peter was more than just the reckless kid who kept getting hurt and then lying about it to the people who cared about him, but at that moment, all Tony could feel was fear and guilt. He still felt that, now, but the guilt was more potent, choking any words he might have said.

He reached for his phone, hands slower than usual. Two taps, and Peter’s contact started ringing. Once, twice, five times, no answer. The sound of each ring made his stomach twist a little tighter. He tried again, this time pacing across the lab with growing unease. Still no answer. That quiet ache in his chest twisted deeper. "FRIDAY," he said, pausing near the bench. "Where is Peter’s phone?"

There was a beat of silence. Then, Friday’s voice came through, soft and almost reluctant. "Peter’s phone is currently located upstairs in the common room, boss."

Tony closed his eyes, the sting behind them sharp. The kid hadn’t even taken his phone. Of course he hadn’t. He’d walked out in a storm of hurt and pride and anger and hadn’t looked back. And now Tony didn’t even know where he was. Peter had left without a way to call for help. Without backup. Alone.

As if on cue, his screen lit up with an incoming call from Peter. Tony answered quickly, more desperate than he’d like to admit, despite the fact that he already knew, rationally, that it wasn’t Peter; couldn’t be.

"Hello?"

"This is your captain speaking," came Sam’s voice, mock formal in a playful attempt to sound like Steve. "We’ve commandeered a small teenage device left suspiciously unattended in the wild. Say hello to your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man." He started making noises to imitate the webs and swinging Peter did out on patrol.

Tony sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Give me a break, Wilson."

From the background, Steve chuckled. "Tell Peter he really needs to stop leaving his stuff lying around up here. It’s too tempting. We’re one step away from setting his ringtone to something ridiculous to go off in class."

Tony barely managed a smile, but it failed. Either way, it felt wrong. "Is Peter up there?"

There was a pause, then Wanda's voice floated through the background, sounding a bit surprised. "He said he was going downstairs to the lab, like, half an hour ago."

Tony winced, his throat going tight. That lined up too well.

In the brief moment of silence, Natasha cut in, her voice sharp, all business, as though she could sense his guilt with no cue at all. She probably could. "Where is he, Tony?"

Tony opened his mouth, but nothing came out.

FRIDAY answered instead; he couldn’t decide whether to be angry or grateful. "Peter exited the Tower approximately ten minutes ago."

The line went quiet. Tony could practically hear the team processing that.

"Why did he leave?" Natasha asked again, more pointed this time.

Still, Tony didn’t- couldn’t answer. His mouth was dry, and the guilt had wrapped itself tight around his chest like a snare, pulling tighter with every breath. He’d screwed up bad. He’d said things he hadn’t meant, and pushed too hard when the kid had clearly already been struggling. It hadn’t even been about the stab wound, not really. It was about everything Tony didn’t tell people. That he was scared, that he cared too much, that every time Peter walked out that door with the suit, Tony saw a million different ways it could all go wrong, and he didn’t know how to stop it.

Peter was just a kid. A kid who had been handed the weight of the world and tried to carry it without complaint. A kid who didn’t ask for help because he didn’t think he deserved it, or thought he was acting a burden on the person trying to offer support. Who flinched when someone raised their voice because of the enhancements that he constantly struggled to bear, but never mentioned because he thought it didn’t matter. Who smiled even when he was hurt. Who fought through pain and loss and fear because that was what heroes did. He had been struggling, and Tony had only made it worse. Exponentially so.

"Tony," Steve’s voice was quieter now, and the playfulness in his tone grew stern. He spoke slowly, as if sorting through his words. "Why did he leave?"

He hung up before Steve could ask again, or before he blurted out an answer.

He stood in the middle of his lab, staring at the empty space where Peter had been just minutes ago. (It had been minutes, hadn’t it?) The apology he hadn’t said sat, leaden, on his tongue. He didn’t know what to do next, and he didn’t know how to fix this.

Tony Stark was many things. Iron Man. Billionaire. Genius. Hero. 

But none of that helped him right now.

Because the one person he had sworn to protect had just walked out the door, and Tony had let him go.

  -

Tony sat at his workbench, pretending (even to himself) that he was concentrating on something, but really it was just to keep his hands busy. The tools sat,untouched, still right where they’d been when he’d cleaned. The monitor above him flickered idly, blueprints dimmed. He wasn’t looking at them, anyways. He was staring through them, the silence crawling in his skin. Behind him, the lab door shuddered faintly as someone pounded on it.

“Stark,” Steve’s voice called, muffled through the reinforced glass. “Open the door.”

“Come on, man,” Sam added, more impatient. “You can’t just lock us out.”

Wanda’s voice followed, sharper. “We care about him too, you know. If something’s happened, we deserve to know.”

Tony didn’t answer. He’d told FRIDAY to lock the lab down ten minutes ago, full security protocols, just like he always did when he needed time to think or didn’t want anyone bothering him. Only three people had access when the override was engaged, and that was Tony, Bruce, and Peter. The irony of the thought didn’t escape him in the slightest.

Outside, the voices didn’t stop. Natasha’s came through this time; “Tony, let us in. Peter is part of this team. If he’s in danger -  ”

“I know,” he muttered under his breath, eyes still focused on nothing in particular. “I know.”

“You don’t get to push everyone out just because you’re spiraling.” came Clint’s voice, uncharacteristically serious.

Tony said nothing to that. He leaned back on the stool, elbows on his knees, fingers pressing into his temples like he could hold everything in place if he just pressed hard enough.

Then… silence.

At first, it was almost a relief. The quiet was nice at first, finally giving him room to think. But then it stretched. Ten minutes passed. Then fifteen. And the silence didn’t feel like a gift anymore; instead; it felt like the kind of silence that set off alarms. Like, when a mother suddenly realized her kids were too quiet, and that quiet felt all too suspicious. (Not that Tony had first-hand experience with that feeling, but whatever.)

He looked up from his hands. They’d stopped trying. That wasn’t like them, not his team.

A spark of suspicion flared in his chest, and he stood slowly, turning toward the lab entrance.

Just as he took a wary step forward, the door hissed open.

Bruce stepped in first, moving slowly, his face unusually serious. Behind him came Steve and Nat, the others nowhere in sight. They must’ve stayed behind, either to give Tony space or because they didn’t want to watch what might happen next.

Tony didn’t say anything. Neither did they. The silence dragged, heavier this time.

Bruce was the one to finally break it. “Where’s Peter?”

Tony didn’t meet his eyes, focusing on a far wall. “He went home.”

He saw Nat cross her arms in his periphery. “Why? He was supposed to stay the night, wasn’t he?”

Tony rolled his eyes and stood from the stool. His movements felt sharp, a little too fast and defensive. “We got in a fight, and it got out of hand. I told him to leave.” He glanced down. “Told him not to come back.”

The silence that followed felt like stepping into a vacuum. Suddenly, though, he couldn’t keep his gaze away from them, desperate to gauge their reactions.

Bruce’s eyes widened slightly. “You told him… what?”

Steve looked like he’d been punched, not too dissimilar to how Peter had looked. It didn’t make him feel any better; not that he deserved it. “Tony - ”

“Don’t,” Tony snapped, voice sharp and tired. “I know. I know I screwed up.”

Nat didn’t move. Her face, as always, was unreadable. Thoughtful. Dangerous. But her voice was calm when she spoke. “So what are we going to do about it?”

Tony blinked. “Excuse me?”

She looked at him, her eyes steady and defiant. “Because I’m not letting my baby spider sit alone in some sad apartment in Queens thinking nobody wants him. I don’t care how mad you are. I care that he’s a fifteen-year-old kid who thinks that this Tower isn’t home anymore.”

Steve stepped forward, tone already shifting into lecture mode. “This isn’t about protocols or boundaries, Tony. This is about trust. You shattered that. He trusted you .”

“I know! ” Tony exploded, hands flying up in frustration. “God, I know! I know I screwed this up! I’ve been sitting here replaying it over and over and - ”

“Boss,” Friday interrupted gently.

Tony ignored her. “I didn’t mean to say it, I didn’t intend on yelling, but I was angry. I was scared. I saw the stab wound and all I could think about was how he could’ve - he could’ve died, and he just hid it - ”

“Boss,” Friday said again, more firmly this time.

He kept going. “I didn’t know how else to get through to him, okay? I didn’t know how to make him listen. So yeah, I pushed. I yelled. I said the wrong thing, and - ”

“Boss,” Friday tried again, a third time, even louder.

“ What?!” Tony barked, eyes flashing toward the ceiling.

There was a pause. Then Friday spoke again, more carefully now. “There’s an incoming call from the NYPD.”

Everything in Tony’s body stilled. His breath hitched in his throat. There was only one person, really, who would be on the NYPD’s map. Pepper wasn’t in New York; the Avengers were all here. That left…

“Put it through,” he said, his voice suddenly low and rough.

A moment later, the lab's speakers crackled, and a new voice filled the room.

“This is Officer Hanson, NYPD. Am I speaking with - uh, Tony… Stark?”

Tony swallowed hard, dread building in his stomach. “Yeah. That’s me.”

A brief pause, and then the voice returned to the speakers. “I’m calling in regard to a minor boy named Peter Benjamin Parker.”

The words landed like a blow to the chest.

Tony didn’t respond. His mind had already started racing ahead, heart hammering. Steve stepped forward, face drained of color. Bruce froze, and Natasha’s expression flickered just slightly, something sharp and unfamiliar behind her eyes.

But Tony didn’t move; his heart had already stopped.

He stared at the speaker in anticipation. Behind him, the room shifted. Steve’s eyebrows drew together, his arms folding tightly across his chest. Bruce tilted his head slightly, face creased in concern, and Natasha took a single half-step back, emotions flitting across her face so rapidly that it looked almost as if she wasn’t even attempting to hide them.

The officer’s voice continued, even and respectful but heavy. “Earlier this evening, May Parker, Peter’s aunt, was involved in a motor vehicle accident. She was transported to the hospital in critical condition… and unfortunately, she didn’t survive.”

Tony’s ears rang. He blinked, not sure he heard that right. His brain tried to catch up, tried to translate those words into something that made more sense. May couldn’t be dead. He’d had the Parkers over just two nights ago for dinner, and she’d been just as proud and kind, as fiercely protective of Peter as she always has been.

May had always been there - sarcastic, stubborn, fiercely loyal to her nephew. She was the kind of woman who'd give someone the shirt off her back, but only after yelling at them for not bringing their own damn coat. She always packed Peter snacks, even though Peter insisted he didn’t need them, always working herself to the bone making ends meet to keep her and Peter together and comfortable. Even after all that, she would still make time to spend with the kid, always fussing over him and making sure he was safe and happy, and she was always willing to fight for what was right. How could she be gone?

Tony’s breath felt like it had been caught in his throat, his chest suddenly too tight. He opened his mouth to speak, but it took a second for his voice to work. 

“And Peter?” he managed, barely above a whisper. He had a million and one questions, but his top question was:, had Peter beenin the car with May? The thought made his stomach clench painfully.

“That’s why I’m calling,” the officer said, voice quieter now. “May Parker was listed as Peter’s primary guardian. But she named a legal secondary guardian on file. You.”

Tony’s stomach dropped, all the way down into his feet. His hands felt cold, circulation cut off from his fingertips.

“What?” he echoed, stunned and feelin light-headed.

“You, Mr. Stark,” the officer repeated. “You're listed as Mr. Parker’s emergency guardian. In the event of May’s passing, he was to be placed in your care.”

Tony’s eyes stung. Behind him, Steve let out a slow breath. Bruce looked shocked. Natasha was staring straight at Tony now, her expression unreadable but intense, like she was waiting for him to do something .

But all Tony could think was: she trusted me. May, sweet, stubborn, loyal May, had trusted him to take care of her kid.

And he’d kicked said kid out of his tower not even an hour ago. Told him to go, and not to come back.

The officer’s voice pulled him back in. “Right now, Peter is with one of our officers at the Parker’s’ apartment. CPS has been notified, and they’ll be arriving shortly. We’re asking you to meet them there as soon as possible.”

“Right - yeah,” Tony croaked, already moving. “I’ll - I’m - I’m on my way.”

The line disconnected with a soft click. For one second, the room was frozen.

Then Tony was grabbing his jacket off the back of the chair, muttering,“FRIDAY, call Happy. I need a car at the front entrance, stat.”

“Yes, Boss,” came Friday’s voice, subdued.

“Tony,” Bruce said, gently, but Tony didn’t stop moving.

“I have to go,” Tony blurted, shoving a portable interface into his pocket, grabbing keys that May had given him that he didn’t remember putting on the lab counter next to the sink. His hands were shaking, but he didn’t care.

“Wait.” Natasha stepped forward. “I’m coming with you.”

Their eyes met. No argument passed between them, just understanding.

“Okay.” Tony’s voice sounded thick and unfamiliar to his own ears.

Steve moved to follow, but Tony shook his head. “Just me and Nat. I’ll call when I know more.”

Steve looked like he wanted to argue, but something in Tony’s face must have convinced him that it was better to just stay still. Bruce gave Tony a look that felt like support and worry and a million other things he didn’t have time to process.

In retrospect, Tony barely remembered walking through the halls, only - the way the lights overhead blurred, how everything echoed too loudly; his footsteps, Nat’s quieter ones behind him, and the pounding of his heart in his ears. The elevator felt too slow, the ride down suffocating in a manner that had nothing to do with the changing air pressure.

Outside, Happy’s car was already waiting; Tony climbed in without a word, and Nat slipped into the seat beside him.

Neither of them spoke on the ride to Queens. After all, what was there to say?

Tony stared out the window, hands fidgeting in his lap. His mind raced, cycling between images like a broken record; May’s face, Peter’s smile, the way he got so excited at the smallest things. The look on his face when Tony had said those words to him.

"How about you just don’t come back at all."

He hadn’t meant it. He hadn’t meant any of it. He’d just been angry. Afraid. Seeing Peter with that stab wound, hiding it, sitting there alone in his bedroom stitching himself up, it triggered something in him, something ugly and ancient and raw and primal. Fear disguised as control and anger. He didn’t know why he’d lashed out; all he knew was that he regretted it with all of his being.

Now May was dead, and Peter was alone. And it was his fault.

Natasha broke the silence, voice quiet but certain. “You’re going to make this right.”

Tony didn’t look at her, just stared out at the city, the blur of lights rushing past. “I don’t know if I can.”

“You can,” she said. “Because you have to.”

Tony didn’t reply. His throat was far too tight to do anything but try not to outwardly gasp; full breaths were near-impossible, much less outright speech.

He didn’t know what he’d find when he got there. What state Peter would be in. He just knew one thing, echoing louder than anything else, and it was that May had trusted him.

And he’d already let her down, before her body even had a chance to cool.

  -

The elevator creaked as it climbed up the Parker’s’ apartment building, groaning with age and exhaustion. Tony’s leg bounced restlessly, heart hammering against his ribs. Natasha stood beside him, perfectly still, but her hands were clenched at her sides. Neither of them had said much since the call with the NYPD at the tower had ended. What was there to say? May was dead. Peter was alone. And somehow, it was Tony’s job to fix this whole mess. He just didn’t know if that was possible.

The doors slid open on the thirteenth floor with a soft chime that felt too cheerful for the moment. Tony didn’t even wait until it was fully open before he stepped into the dim hallway, the fluorescent lights overhead flickering and buzzing faintly, in tune with the low ringing in his ears. Apartment 1302 loomed at the end of the hall; the door slightly ajar. His stomach twisted at the sight.

When he pushed the door fully open, Natasha a half-step behind him, they were greeted by three faces. A bald NYPD officer with deep frown lines and tired, blue eyes, a woman in a pale blue button-down with mousy brown hair pulled back in a severe ponytail, and a man with warm brown skin and close-cropped curls, dressed similarly, sleeves rolled up and jaw tight. All three of them looked up at once, and all three of them looked… worried. More than they should be, for what was considered routine for them, even if it was anything but for Tony or Peter.

Tony’s heart dropped again for what felt like the millionth time that evening. “What?” he asked, voice hoarse, scraped rough by the sandpaper dryness of his throat. “What happened?”

The officer stepped forward, eyes flicking between Tony and Natasha. “Mr. Stark?” he asked, though he must already know who he was. Tony nodded once.

“I’m Officer Rylan Hinken,” he said, then hesitated. His tongue darted out to wet his lips. “We- we had Peter here. He was… he was in his room. Said he needed a minute alone.”

Tony’s chest clenched. “Okay…?” he trailed off, not caring that he might’ve sounded rude.

The woman beside him, likely CPS, wrung her hands. The man beside her didn’t speak at all, just shifted uncomfortably, staring at the floor.

“I checked on him after a few minutes,” Officer Hinken continued, voice now trembling with something dangerously close to panic. “The door was cracked, just like I told him. But when I looked in… he was gone. Window’s still locked. Front door never opened. We searched the whole apartment.”

Tony blinked. “I - what do you mean gone ?”

Hinken swallowed hard. “I mean, he’s not here.”

For a second, Tony couldn’t breathe. His lungs just… stopped working. “No,” he denied, shaking his head. “No, no, that’s not - he can’t be - ”

“We don’t know how he slipped past us,” the woman from CPS interjected, guilt thick in her voice. “We were just in the kitchen, going over the intake paperwork, trying to prepare… I only looked away for ten minutes. I swear- ”

“Ten minutes?” Tony’s voice rose, brittle with disbelief. “You lost him in ten minutes?”

The CPS worker flinched. “We didn’t - he asked to be alone. He just… vanished. I swear I would’ve - ”

Tony turned away from them, raking his hand through his hair, breath short. The apartment suddenly felt too small, and way too quiet, devoid of the presence of the only two people who should have been here. He took a step toward the hallway, searching, like maybe Peter was just hiding behind a door. Like he’d materialize if Tony just looked or wished hard enough.

But he wouldn’t. He was gone. And Tony knew better than anyone else how it was possible for Peter to disappear like that, with his powers - normal barriers nothing but a suggestion to him.

May had trusted him. Entrusted Peter to him . She’d signed a paper with his name on it, probably months ago, saying, If something happens to me, let Tony Stark take care of my kid, who means the absolute world to me. And what had he done?

Kicked the kid out. Told him to leave. Not just the lab, but the Tower. Their home. And now he didn’t even know where Peter was.

He felt like he was being crushed from the inside, ribs curling in on themselves, throat caving under the pressure, knees buckling from the pain of it all. It wasn’t supposed to happen like this. He was supposed to protect the kid. Not be the reason he ran.

“I can’t - ” he whispered, backing away from the living room. “I can’t believe I let this happen.”

Natasha grabbed his wrist. “Tony.”

He looked at her, eyes wide, unblinking. He could clearly feel the beginning of an anxiety attack coming on. “He’s alone out there, Nat - he thinks - thinks I - thinks I abandoned him - he lost May - he lost everything and - and I just made it worse. I made him feel like he had nobody. I was supposed to be his somebody. I - ”

“Then be that now,” she said firmly, eyes burning with a startling pool of emotion he hadn’t seen from her in years. Maybe ever, he didn’t know. “Get it together. You don’t get to fall apart. Not right now. Not when he’s out there hurting, probably scared, definitely thinking the whole world has up and turned its back on him.”

Tony’s lips trembled. “What if something happens to him? What if he’s hurt? Or - what if he doesn’t want to come back?”

“Then we go find him,” she said. “And we show him that he’s not alone. That he never was. And if he doesn’t want to come back, we’ll figure out something. We just need to make sure he’s safe.”

Tony closed his eyes for a long moment. Behind his lids, he could see Peter’s face. That dumb hopeful smile he always had when he talked about some nerdy science thing. The way his eyes lit up when the team laughed at one of his jokes. The sound of him laughing during movie nights, and everyone shushing him when he made comments on how things in movies didn’t logically make sense, all while he had his head tilted against Tony’s shoulder.

And now… nothing. Just a ghost in this apartment. Just a Peter sized hole in Tony’s heart, and in the team’s..

When he opened his eyes, they were wet and stinging, but resolute. “Okay,” he said, voice hoarse. “Let’s bring him home.”

Natasha nodded, already pulling her phone from her jacket. Officer Hinken moved out of the way, still stammering apologies. The CPS workers stepped aside, unsure what to say.

Tony stood in the center of Peter’s living room, surrounded by too-familiar things; the couch with its worn cushions, the slightly tilted family photo on the wall that never sat on its hook quite right, the faint scent of May’s lavender perfume and laundry detergent lingering in the air.

He didn’t know where Peter had gone, but wherever he was, Tony was going to find him, no matter what it took.

Chapter Text

When Peter had hatched the brilliant plan of running away, it had been less of a ‘plan’ and more base instinct, because it turned out that he honestly had no idea where he was going. His feet moved aimlessly, sneakers pattering against the cracked sidewalks of Queens as he weaved through late night foot traffic, directed only by the scattered glow of flickering streetlamps. The air was heavy and sticky with summer heat, clinging to his skin like guilt to his chest. Every step away from the apartment felt wrong, but staying would’ve felt worse. He hadn’t even grabbed much, just enough to get by for a while, if he could even figure out how.

Logically, he really didn’t know why he ran.

Maybe it was instinct, maybe it was the same thing that constantly made him throw himself headfirst into crime- fighting at fourteen or pick fights with guys twice his size to protect others. But this didn’t feel like anything. It was the absence of all feeling, like he was floating somewhere above his body while it walked block after block on the sidewalks, trying to pretend there was some kind of plan forming in his head.

There wasn’t. He wasn’t stupid. He knew how this worked. No landlord was going to rent to a kid without a guardian or a credit history. No one was hiring a fifteen-year-old for anything beyond dishwashing or stocking shelves, assuming he even had the right paperwork, which he didn’t. And even if he’d managed to scrape together a job, there was no way he could afford to live alone in New York. Rent alone would eat him alive. Hell, even just a subway sandwich would.

Maybe he should leave the city.

That thought made his stomach twist. Because as much as it hurt now, without May’s presence where it had always been, New York was home. Queens was home. The towering buildings, the people, the alleys he'd swung through and the rooftops he’d landed on. The hospital May used to work at, Midtown, Ned and MJ. Every memory he had left that wasn’t rubble or blood lived in these streets. But now they just felt wrong, like ghosts of a life that didn’t belong to him anymore.

He’d left the suit behind, too. It was still in the lab, folded neatly on his worktop table in the lab, where he kept it when he wasn’t swinging. He hadn’t even thought about grabbing it when he ran. That fact alone should’ve scared him, but it didn’t. Because deep down, Peter didn’t think it was his suit. Maybe it never had been.

It was something Tony built. Something Peter had borrowed. He wore it. Used it. Tried to live up to it. But it wasn’t his . Not like the red, black, and blue hoodie he'd sewn himself when he was fourteen. Not like the web-shooters he'd tinkered with until the design was perfect, and the formula could hold his weight and momentum. The suit Tony had made for him was a symbol of something bigger. Trust, mentorship, family . And now all of that was gone. Just like May.

The thought hit him sharply, like a punch, except this one was a blow he had no chance at stopping. His breath caught in his throat, and he blinked hard, trying to push the tears back. He couldn’t afford this, not now. Not in the middle of a sidewalk on 45th and God-knows-where. Not when the city kept moving around him like nothing had changed.

He felt like he was drowning in his thoughts when he heard the low rumble of tires pull in beside him. A sleek, black SUV had pulled up to the curb, its windows tinted and headlights soft against the dusky haze. Peter slowed his pace, his spider sense filling him with unease. He knew cars like that. Tony Stark cars . High-end, quiet engines, the kind of expensive and pristine that didn’t belong on random dingy side streets in Queens.

The passenger door opened, and a woman stepped out.

She was tall, maybe in her mid to late thirties, with short dark brown hair twisted into a tight bun, her bangs hovering just above her well-trimmed, darkly colored brows. She wore a tailored black coat over dark jeans, and her sharp blue eyes scanned him as though she could read any answer to any potential question in his body language alone. Government. She had government written all over her.

“Peter Parker?” she asked, tone neutral, yet practiced and calm. “I need a word.”

Peter froze.

His brain screamed no . His instincts lit up like fireworks behind his eyes. She wasn’t a cop. She wasn’t from CPS, he was sure of it. Her stance, her voice, the SUV, the eyes , he couldn’t tell what it was,, but this didn’t seem like someone here to help him.

So, he ran.

He didn’t even hesitate. One second, he was standing there, heart pounding, and the next he had bolted down the sidewalk, backpack bouncing against his spine, lungs burning as the pavement blurred beneath him. He didn’t know what agency she worked for, didn’t know what she wanted, but he knew enough to run first and figure out the rest later.

Because Peter Parker didn’t have anyone left to protect him, and the last time he stood still, he lost everything.

He barely made it fifteen feet before another voice rang out, sharper, deeper, and colder than the first.

"Spider-Man."

He froze, like someone had hit a switch, bringing his feet to an immediate halt, even as his brain still screamed at him to run. It seemed as though his feet were calling the shots today, not his frontal lobe. The name settled deep in his stomach like a weight, or perhaps an accusation. He turned, his breath caught somewhere in his throat, and saw the second figure as he stepped out of the SUV. Tall, dark-skinned, wearing a long black coat despite the heat, and a black eyepatch over one eye. Peter recognized him immediately; Nick Fury, director of S.H.I.E.L.D. The sight caused something inside him to tighten, whether from fear, anxiety, or something a shade away from anger, he couldn’t tell.

Fury's eye locked on him, unreadable, cold, and calculating. The kind of stare that made Peter feel like he was already in checkmate, and Fury was just letting him play out the final move. Peter had only heard stories, snippets from Tony, muttered complaints from Sam, vague warnings from Natasha. And now here he was, face to face with the spymaster of the modern world.

Peter’s stomach twisted. What did Fury want? Why now, of all times? Was this because of Tony? Had he told S.H.I.E.L.D. about him? That didn’t track. Even angry, Tony wouldn’t just throw him to the wolves, would he? Maybe Peter had misjudged that too? What if everything he believed about his place in that tower, in that family, was just a fantasy?

Fury raised both hands in a calming gesture. “Relax, kid. I just want to talk.”

Peter didn’t move. He didn’t trust it.

“We’re just going for a walk,” Fury added. “Down the street to a diner. You can eat. I’ll talk, you’ll listen, and if you don’t like what I have to say, you leave. It’s simple, and you get a free meal out of it.”

It was the lack of pressure that finally made Peter nod. Not because he trusted him, he certainly didn’t, but because this was probably the closest thing to a choice he’d had all day. Plus, he was hungry, and smart and broke enough to take a free meal. He fell into step beside Fury, and the woman, who he assumed to be Maria Hill, based on Nat’s description of her, fell in behind them.

They walked in silence, the streets around them quiet except for the distant drone of traffic and the occasional honk. It wasn’t a neighborhood Peter recognized, somewhere just outside of Manhattan, judging by the skyline behind them. He must have walked further than he’d expected in his haze, because he hadn’t even realized that he’d left Queens. The buildings were older, made of brick and weathered paint, and they passed a few shuttered storefronts on a cracked sidewalk. Overall, it was the kind of area you didn’t notice unless you lived there, or at least knew the area well.

The diner was a squat building tucked between a shuttered pharmacy and a laundromat. Faded red letters read Rosie’s above the door, and the smell of grease and grilled onions hit Peter head-on as soon as they stepped inside. It was nearly empty, save for an old couple in the corner, a waitress leaning against the counter, a guy asleep in a booth near the back.

Fury led the way to an isolated booth by the window. Peter slid in, but made sure to keephis back against the wall, facing the door, scanning the room automatically. The gesture was second nature, after everything he'd been through.

“So,” he said, picking at the edge of the napkin dispenser. “Why did you want to talk to me?”

Fury sat across from him, unbothered by his wary demeanor; he probably got a lot of that. “Because you’ve got something most people don’t.”

“Poor decision making?” Peter offered dryly.

Fury smirked. “Potential.”

Peter raised an eyebrow.

“I’ve been watching you,” Fury said. Well, that wasn’t creepy at all. “Longer than you think. You’ve been swinging through this city under the radar for years. Stealth, adaptability, reflexes. You’ve got raw talent most people would kill for. And I don’t mean that as a metaphor.”

Peter swallowed hard at the reminder of killing and death and everything else that seemed to haunt his life, just around every corner. Luckily, he didn’t have to come up with a response right away, because the waitress came over, stalling their conversation. They both ordered; Peter got the biggest burger he could find, mostly out of habit, while Fury just got a glass of water. As soon as she walked away, the weight of the conversation dropped back in, a pressure against Peter’s ribcage.

“You’ve also got problems,” Fury continued, not sugar coating the words. “You’re reckless. You take too many risks. Your face is an open book, and you wear every emotion like it’s a name tag. I’ve seen the footage; Midtown, the ferry, the bridge. You survive by sheer instinct and a little luck. That won’t last forever.”

Peter looked away. He didn’t disagree.

“And yet,” Fury continued, “you keep getting back up. You keep showing up. You get hurt, and you come back. That’s rare. That’s valuable.”

Peter was quiet for a moment. Then, softly, “So what, you want me to be Spider-Man for you?”

Fury leaned forward. “No. I want you to be more than that. I want you as a covert asset. No suit. No press. Just missions. Real work. Stealth, infiltration, sabotage. You’d train, learn control, discipline. You’d stop being a kid in a mask and start being a real agent.”

Peter let out a sharp breath, rubbing his hands down his face. “This morning, I had a home. I had May. I had the team. I had plans with my friends for tomorrow night.” His throat tightened, but he pushed it down firmly; he didn’t want to embarrass himself in front of Fury. “Now, I don’t even have a place to sleep.”

Fury didn’t offer pity. He didn’t reach across the table as May would have, or soften his tone like Tony would have. “You’re not the first kid I’ve seen lose everything,.” Fury said, after a moment, clearly weighing his words. “You won’t be the last. But I won’t let you disappear when you still have so much to live for. You’ve got a choice, Peter. You can keep walking, keep hiding, keep bleeding, or you can train, learn, patch up those wounds, and do your damn best to make sure no one else has to feel the way you do right now.”

Peter looked up at that. His chest was a mess of everything - grief, confusion, guilt, and something small and fierce that felt like hope . He’d always known he wanted to help people; that hadn’t changed. But the way forward had collapsed under him, as unstable as a rickety bridge, and Fury was offering him a rope. Maybe it was a sharp, tangled rope. But it was something to keep him from plummeting, something to delay his demise for just a little while longer.

“You really think I could be something… good?” he asked.

Fury’s eye narrowed, not unkindly. “I think you already are. But you need discipline. Strategy. Control. I’m not offering you a cape and a pep talk. I’m offering you training. And a roof. And the space to be more than just what Stark built.”

Peter flinched slightly at the name, but he nodded. The pain was still raw, and part of him still wanted to screamat the aching unfairness of it all. But another part knew that he couldn’t stay frozen in that pain forever. He had to move. To do something .

“We’ve got a place upstate. Training facility. Quiet and secure. Currently, we only have six other operatives in training. Hill and I overlook it, but you’ll be getting special treatment. One-on-one sessions with either Hill or I for most of the day, and you’d have your own apartment, your own space. It’d be yours, if you want it.”

Peter blinked hard. “Why would you do that?”

“Because I believe in potential,” Fury said. “And because you’ve been through hell and still want to help people. That’s rare. Most people break. You bent, but you didn’t snap. That’s what I’m looking for.”

“Okay,” he said softly, coming to a decision. “I’ll do it. I’ll come with you.”

He thought Fury might have smiled a little at that, but he was too tired to try and decipher the brief flicker of emotion.

Peter ate in silence after that. His burger was good, but he only ate half. His mind wouldn’t stop spinning. This wasn’t what he wanted, this wasn’t normal . But nothing about his life had been normal for years. And maybe… maybe this was something close enough to safety. Better than living on the streets or in a foster home, at the very least. What other options did he have?

They left the diner, walking quietly back toward the car. The night was cool, and a breeze tugged at Peter’s sleeves, warm and chilly in equal measures. The streets were somehow quieter now than before, and he felt oddly calm.

As they reached the SUV, Peter turned toward Maria. “Sorry. For running earlier when you tried to call me over.”

Hill shrugged. “Better than most agents we’ve tried to recruit. You’ve got instincts.”

Fury opened the door and gestured him inside, eyeing his bag. “That’s all you’ve got?”

Peter nodded, glancing at his backpack and wishing, not for the first time, that he’d thought to bring more.

“Alright,” Fury said. “Let’s get moving.”

Peter climbed in, and for the first time since he was let out of school that evening, he felt like he wasn’t floating anymore. He didn’t know what this next chapter held, but at least he wasn’t standing still.

  -

The car ride was quiet.

Peter sat slumped in the back seat, forehead resting lightly against the cool glass of the window. The SUV was sleek, the expensive kind with seats so smooth they didn’t even creak when he shifted his weight; the kind that smelled like clean leather and cold air. Outside, the city lights sped past in streaks of gold and red, and he tried to catch it all in his tired eyes as they drove further away from everything he’d ever known. The sun was gone by now, and the moonlight cast long shadows across the city. He watched everything blur by in silence, letting the near silent hum of the engine and the faint sound of Maria’s fingernails tapping against the center console fill the space where words might’ve been.

His backpack sat on the seat beside him, half-zipped, overstuffed with only what he could carry. Essentials and sentimental items; not nearly enough, just whatever he could gra; not nearly enough, just whatever he could grab. His sneakers were still damp from walking, his hoodie pulled tight over his chest like armor, sleeves stretched over his clenched fists. Somewhere between Midtown and wherever they were going, the weight of the entire situation began to settle heavier in his stomach like a rock. It hadn’t even been a full 48 hours since he’d last sat in the Tower lab, laughing with Bruce and annoying Tony with his rambling thoughts. That morning, he had everything. He had May, Ned, MJ, the team. A family - flawed, complicated, but his.

And now he wasn’t even sure what he had left.

He blinked slowly, eyes burning, and slouched further into the seat. He didn’t want to talk. Not to Fury, who sat like a statue in the drivers’ seat with his eye fixed ahead, nor to Hill, who was sitting in the passenger seat looking at him in the rearview mirror with a kind of practiced calm that made Peter feel even more out of place. How many times must they have done this, for her to look as relaxed as she was? He shifted, closing his eyes. He wasn’t tired, not really, but he let his head lull further against the window like he was. Maybe if he looked asleep, they’d leave him alone. Maybe if he looked asleep, he wouldn’t have to think about what came next.

He could hear Maria and Fury murmuring up front. Names and locations, conversations of things Peter couldn’t even begin to understand. None of it felt real. It was like he’d been dropped into a spy movie with no script, no costume, no idea what the plot was. He thought about his phone, left in the common room. Probably still buzzing with unanswered texts from Ned and MJ. They’d wonder where he went. Maybe not right away, maybe not until tomorrow. He felt a surge of guilt that he wasn’t there to explain it, that he’d just vanished into thin air.

But what could he even say?

He was fifteen. And his life had been dumped upside down in less than 24 hours.

Buildings gave way to highways, then trees. The streetlights thinned out and the sky darkened, stars emerging faintly through the light-polluted haze. He used to love looking at the stars with May and Ben. May would point out constellations wrong on purpose just to make them laugh. Now they looked distant, cold, and foreign. Just like everything else.

He pressed his sleeve to his face to wipe at his eyes without making it obvious. No one said anything, but he felt Fury’s gaze flicker to the rearview mirror. Peter kept his eyes closed. He couldn’t cry now. He couldn’t unravel in front of them. He had to hold it together. At least until he was alone whenever that would be.

He was going to a training facility. A secret one, with six mystery people he’d never met, to become… what? A weapon? A spy? Some kind of living shield against whatever came next in this messed up world?

He didn’t even have his suit. That had stayed in the lab. A quiet part of him wondered if Tony had even noticed. If he’d noticed the phone, the backpack gone. If he even cared. He told himself it didn’t matter.

Everything felt too big. Enormous and moving way too fast. The grief in his chest hadn’t even started to settle before it was being compressed, stacked under fear and confusion. He felt hollow, like he was floating just above his own body, watching a stranger’s life spiral into something unrecognizable. Just yesterday, he was planning to eat pizza and watch a movie with his team. Just yesterday, May had kissed his forehead and told him to stay safe on patrol. Just earlier today, he’d made plans with Ned and MJ.

Now the only thing keeping him tethered to the ground was the weight of May’s notebook in his backpack, her handwriting scribbled into it comforting, almost as if she was with him. The photos too; the one of him and his best friends, him with May and Ben. His family.

A sharp turn jolted him out of his thoughts, and he sat up straighter, pretending he’d just stirred from sleep. Outside, the trees were thicker now, the world dimmer. They were getting close, and he wasn’t ready yet. He wasn’t sure if he ever would be.

But it didn’t matter. Because the road kept going, and he had to follow it.

Fury glanced at him through the rearview mirror as the SUV slowed and turned onto a long gravel driveway, flanked on either side by trees heavy with summer leaves. “We’re here,” he said, his voice low. “It’s late. Everyone’s probably asleep or in their rooms by now, so you likely won’t have to do any introductions until morning.”

Peter gave a slight nod but didn’t speak. His voice didn’t feel like it worked right now anyway. The car came to a stop in front of a large modern building with wide narrow windows and a wraparound porch three floors high, dimly lit by recessed lights along the ceiling.

He opened the door slowly, and the night air flooded in, cool on his face. The gravel crunched under his sneakers as he stepped out and leaned back into the car to zip up his backpack, tugging the frayed strap over his shoulder. His fingers lingered for a second too long on the zipper, like maybe if he just stayed still, none of this would have to continue. But his powers didn’t include time manipulation, so he turned and followed Fury up the stairs and through the front doors.

The building was silent, but not in a cold way. Just the quiet that always came with nighttime; even in the city, the noise quieted down in a similar manner, though never completely. The walls were a soft grey-blue, the floors polished and warm under the ambient lighting. Their footsteps echoed gently as they walked down a central hallway toward a staircase, and then up to the second floor. Fury didn’t speak, and Peter didn’t ask questions. Every sound felt too loud, like they’d wake everyone up. Though that might’ve just been his enhanced senses speaking.

They reached the second apartment on the floor. Fury tapped a keycode into the door panel, and it clicked open. “This one’s yours.” He stepped aside and gestured with his arm.

Peter entered first, and the door shut with a quiet click behind Fury, who followed closely behind before reaching for the light switch.

A soft lamp in the far corner of the living room flickered to life, casting long shadows across the minimalist but cozy space. Three small lights above the kitchen sink warmed the granite counters in a golden hue. Another light over a narrow hallway lit the path toward what looked like a bathroom and a bedroom. The lighting was a warm, deep yellow, like candlelight. Not sterile or cold like the Tower’s commercial levels’ fluorescent glow. It felt like someone had tried to make it feel like a home.

Peter stood there for a second, just letting himself breathe. The living room had a grey couch, a navy blue throw tossed over the side, and a coffee table already stacked with a few novels and a coaster. It wasn’t decorated to look fancy or staged, it looked lived in, waiting for someone to fill it.

He wandered toward the bedroom and stepped in.

The bed sat against the wall beneath a wide, high window, with a soft blue comforter and crisp white pillows. A single deep yellow pillow sat propped up in front, decorative, but not obnoxious. Above the window sat a hanging plant that dipped just slightly past the bed frame, swaying gently in the movement of air from the hallway. It was a simple touch, but it made it homey.

It felt like someone had thought about this space and had tried to make it feel safe.

Peter turned around and saw Fury standing in the doorway, hands in his pockets. The man looked tired, but that wasn’t new. His eye studied Peter carefully, and when he spoke, his voice was quieter than Peter expected.

“I’ll be back in the morning,” Fury said. “We’ll get you situated. Show you the grounds and do introductions. You’ll be alright.”

Peter hesitated, then gave a small nod. “Thank you, sir,” he said, the word scratchy and dry on his tongue. It didn’t feel big enough for what he wanted to say, but it was all he had to offer. That, and himself, he supposed.

Fury gave a short nod in return, but he didn’t move right away.

He stepped back into the hallway, then paused, shoulders shifting like he was unsure whether or not to say what came next. And then, without looking Peter in the eye, he said it anyway.

“And Peter?” he said, voice lower now, almost gruff. “I’m sorry about your aunt.”

The words hit like a fist to the chest, and Peter didn’t respond. He couldn’t. In any case, Fury didn’t wait for him to.

The door clicked shut behind him, and the silence returned, thick and echoing around the room, the undisturbed quiet causing his ears to ring.

Peter stood in the middle of the room, his backpack slipping from his shoulder and landing on the floor with a quiet thud. He sank down onto the edge of the bed, fingers still curled into the hem of his hoodie. The sheets smelled new. The air was warm.

But nothing felt real, and nothing in this apartment felt like his home, despite the clear effort in it. No vanilla perfume, or lavender detergent. Just the dull scent of cleaning supplies and fresh sheets.

He stared at the plant on the windowsill, at the gentle, wavering shadows it cast against the wall.

There was nothing to do, or say, or try - so he just sat there, unmoving, in a place he didn’t know, in a world that felt like it had ended and kept spinning anyway.

Chapter Text

The lab was quiet.

Not the usual kind, the one that arose when Peter was just running late, sneakers squeaking as he skidded around the corner five minutes behind schedule, breathless and full of excuses. The overhead lights buzzed faintly, but even that sound felt muffled, like the room itself was holding its breath. The very absence of sound was what made it so loud; a blanket of loneliness that he couldn’t push away.

He didn’t realize he’d sat down until the chair creaked beneath him, Peter’s chair, still drawn slightly askew like the kid might burst in and reclaim it any second. Tony’s hand hovered over the desk, hesitating before closing around the bundle of fabric left behind. That same stain was still visible, that dark red reminder that he hadn’t been paying attention when Peter needed him the most.

He’d looked everywhere.

The apartment had been empty; just a scribbled note from May stuck to the fridge, curling at the corners, now meaningless when both the writer and recipient were gone. CPS had asked too many questions, and the police had offered too few answers.

Tony had driven straight back to the tower, saying nothing on the way back. Natasha tried, twice, soft words, careful tone, but they bounced off the silence like stones skipping over water. What could anyone say? He'd been the one to send Peter away. His own words echo cruelly in his ears. 

Go home, don’t come back .

Brat . 

Those same words were probably ringing in Peter’s. Tony only wished he could hug him and tell his kid that he hadn’t meant any of it, even though he knew he barely had the right to do so anymore.

He could still see Peter's flinch in his mind's eye. That first flash of heat in his expression, anger, confusion, followed by something colder. That blank, distant, hollow look Tony had seen too many times in the mirror; an expression he never should have seen on the kid. It was as though Peter had already started packing up the parts of himself Tony had once promised to protect.

FRIDAY’s voice, quiet and hesitant, broke the silence.

"Boss… I’ve run the city-wide surveillance grids using facial recognition. I found him, briefly, on a street camera in Midtown. But by the time the feed refreshed, it was gone."

Tony closed his eyes. Midtown. That was hours ago.

"Can you trace where he went? Any subway traffic? Metro cams?"

"He’s avoiding cameras. Very effectively. I suspect he’s either using side streets or underground routes without city monitoring. However, even if he is taking extra precautions and going out of his way to avoid being seen, it’s quite likely that certain feeds are being tampered with."

Of course he was avoiding surveillance; the kid was smart. Smarter than he let anyone know. And now he was somewhere out there, hurt, alone, grieving, and completely unreachable. And the worst part was that he didn’t want Tony to find him, not if he was intentionally making himself scarce.

Tony rose to his feet and rubbed his face with both hands. His fingers came away damp, and he blinked down at them in surprise; he hadn’t even remembered shedding the first tears.

He didn’t know what to do with himself, so he paced. It wasn’t like he could sit still anyway.

The guilt sat heavier than the arc reactor ever had, compressing his ribs, halting his breathing. Every step felt like a march back through time, replaying the fight over and over. The raised voices, the accusations. Peter’s words, raw and brutal; You were never there. You never trained me. You don’t care.

He didn’t know what else to do, not when every official and unofficial channel had turned up nothing, so effectively it was as though his footprints had been covered up. He had one option left, a last resort, the one thing he hoped wouldn’t break him entirely.

He opened his phone and pulled up a contact.

The line rang twice before Ned picked up. "Hello? Mr. Stark?" He sounded surprised and nervous.

"Hey, Ned. Sorry for calling so late." His voice cracked, and he swallowed down the sensation; he could not and would not break down on a phone call to Peter’s best friend.

"Hey, is everything okay? Peter hasn’t been responding to my messages or calls. Is he with you?"

Tony hesitated. "No. That’s... actually why I’m calling. I was hoping he might be with you. Or that you’ve heard from him."

There was a pause; silent, save for Ned’s breath hitching through the line. Then came the quiet, “No. No, he’s not here. Is he okay? What happened?”

Tony sank into a chair, legs refusing to hold him up any longer, shoulders slumping with the strain. "We had a fight. It got bad. I said some things I shouldn’t have. He left. Then... May’s accident happened."

“What happened to May?” Ned asked, voice so quiet now that it was almost a whisper.

“She died in a car accident. I - she’s - she’s gone, and I don’t know where Peter is.”

Ned made a choked sound. "Oh God. I - May’s... gone ?"

Tony nodded, forgetting halfway through that Ned couldn’t see him. "Yeah," he confirmed, uselessly, his tongue a dead weight in his mouth.

"You have to find him, Mr. Stark. Please. He’s my best friend. He’s probably out there thinking no one wants him. Please -  just find him."

Tony’s throat closed up at that reminder, at the constant litany that had been running through his own head, put into words by Peter’s best friend. "I’m trying. I swear, I’m trying."

He hung up after a few more words of reassurance, though there was little to offer. Then he dialed another contact, this time MJ.

She picked up after the fourth ring. "Tony Stark. Wow. Didn’t think I’d ever see that name on my phone."

He sighed. "MJ. I know it’s late. I wouldn’t call unless I had to. Is Peter with you?"

"Peter’s not here, and he hasn’t called. What did you do?" 

Her voice was sharp and suspicious. He wished he could have felt offended by the tone, except… she wasn’t wrong, was she? That didn’t make it sting any less.

He gritted his teeth, sitting on his clean workbench and rubbing his temples with the fingers of his opposite hand. "We argued, and I told him to go home. I didn’t mean - "

"But you did it anyway." she snapped. " God , you’re supposed to be his mentor. You don’t get to be surprised when he believes the crap you say in a moment of anger."

He had no defense. She was right. He didn’t ask how she knew that he’d said something hurtful.

"You’d better find him, Stark," she continued, tone cold. "You find him, and you make it right. Because if something happens to him, it’ll be on you." With that, the line went dead.

Tony lowered the phone slowly, his head feeling like it was underwater. Everything did. The tower felt too big now. Too hollow. He thought of Peter’s hoodie, the half-finished webshooters still sitting on his desk. The way the kid would ramble when he got excited, and the way his whole face would light up when he made Tony laugh.

And now he was gone, and it was completely his own fault.

Tony leaned forward, elbows on his knees, hands over his face. He didn’t know how long he sat like that, but the guilt didn’t leave. It settled into his bones. And the worst part was, he knew he deserved every bit of it.

  -

The common room had gone quiet and tense with unease. Not the kind of quiet that hung over them after a bad mission or an awkward disagreement, but something worse. It felt like something, some key part of what it meant to be a team was rotting - getting worse with each ticking moment. 

Steve stood with his arms crossed at the far end of the space, facing the wall of floor-to-ceiling windows, backlit by the low golden light. Outside, the city moved on as always, oblivious to the storm brewing inside the tower, oblivious to just how shattered their heroes had become. The silence was thick, stretched like a rubber band ready to snap. Steve only knew it was a matter of time before someone would.

"He had no damn right," Sam's loud voice broke through like a knife. Ah. There it was.

Steve turned, jaw already tight, pulling at the muscles in his temples. When his eyes focused on Sam, he found the man pacing again -  this time near the coffee table, boots tapping furiously across the floor. Wanda sat curled in the armchair, arms wrapped around her knees, and Bruce stood stiffly by the kitchen island, eyes firmly affixed to the floor like it held all the answers. He never was a fan of confrontation.

"Sam," Steve said quietly. It was a warning, one he wasn’t sure he even believed in.

"No, don't 'Sam' me," Wilson snapped, turning to face him fully now. "I’m not gonna sit here and pretend this isn’t Stark’s fault. You heard what Peter said with your own ears on those surveillance videos. You heard the way Tony dismissed him. What did he think was gonna happen when he kicked him out, huh? The kid would shrug and walk off like he didn’t just get gutted by the one person he looked up to most?"

Steve exhaled slowly through his nose. He was trying to be the voice of reason, but it was hard when everything Sam said already echoed what was screaming inside his own head.

"We all know it was wrong," Steve said finally. "But standing around screaming at each other isn’t going to solve anything."

Sam’s laugh was bitter. "No, you’d rather we bottle it up. Pretend everything’s fine until someone else snaps."

"That’s not what I’m saying."

"Could’ve fooled me."

Bruce stepped forward, palms raised. "Guys, come on -  "

"No," Sam’s voice rose, and Bruce shrunk back, curling in on himself. "We’re not just going to talk in circles again. He’s gone, Steve. Peter is gone . And why? Because Tony Stark can’t handle someone not being as perfect as him. Because he doesn’t know how to deal with emotions without blowing everything up."

"Tony’s not the only one who failed him," Bruce murmured, shaking his head.

Wanda looked up, then, and when she spoke, her voice was like broken glass. "We should’ve known something was wrong. I felt it for weeks, but I didn’t look hard enough."

"Yeah, well, maybe if someone had actually tried talking to him -  "

"Like you did, Sam?" Clint snapped from where he was leaning against the wall, arms folded. "You were just as busy as the rest of us. Don’t stand there acting like you were some guardian angel."

Sam rounded on him. "At least I didn’t tell him to leave ."

Clint pushed off the wall at that and stepped closer, his voice low and dangerous. "And what would you have done differently? Taken him in? Given him a hug and said ‘ there, there’ ? You think that would've fixed him?"

"Maybe it would've been better than throwing him to the damn wolves!"

"Enough!" Steve shouted over the other voices, finally losing it. The muscle in his temple jumped in time with his pulse, and he could feel the headache already forming.

The room fell silent, and he took the opportunity to look around at each of them. Wanda’s eyes were glassy, Bruce was exhausted, Clint defiant, Sam clearly seething.

"We all failed him," Steve said, quieter now. "But tearing each other apart doesn’t help him. Not then, and not now."

"Maybe some of us failed more than others," Sam muttered, scowling pointedly at the doors leading out of the room.

"And some of us are just using this as an excuse to unload pent-up resentment," Clint shot back.

"You got something to say to me, Barton? Say it."

"I am saying it. Maybe you’re not as guiltless as you like to pretend."

Wanda stood now too, voice tremulous. "Stop it. You’re making it worse. He’s scared . I -  I can feel him. But every time I try to reach out, he’s just... shutting down. Like he's already halfway gone. I can’t find him."

The weight of her words hit like ice water, sending shocks of cold down Steve’s back and arms. And he, of all people, knew what it felt like to freeze from within.

Bruce stepped in again, voice tight. "This isn’t productive. We’re all hurting. But blaming Tony -  "

"Isn’t the problem?" Sam interrupted. "Because he is the problem, Bruce. He set this in motion."

"And he knows it ," Natasha’s voice cut clean through the tension.

They all turned, eyes locking on where she stood, arms crossed, face unreadable.

"He knows," she repeated. "And he’s punishing himself harder than any of us ever could. So if your goal was to break him further, congrats. You’ve done it."

Sam looked away, jaw clenched.

Nat shook her head slowly, and Steve could see that vein jumping in her neck, that one tell that he knew meant she was angry. "I can’t do this. Not when we’re more focused on yelling than on finding him ."

She turned and left, the door hissing shut behind her.

Clint watched her go, sighed, and looked back at the team. "Nice job, everyone," he muttered. "Real stellar teamwork. I’ll be down the hall if anyone decides to grow up."

He followed her, hands shoved deep in his pockets.

Steve stood in the middle of the wreckage with nothing more than broken words, frayed nerves, and the ghost of a kid they all missed more than they could admit. He didn’t know how to fix this, but God, he wanted to.

  -

The bedroom was dim and quiet, save for the distant hum of city life far below. She didn’t know what time it was, but the glow of the skyline filtered through the translucent curtains, sending soft amber light dancing faintly across the ceiling. Natasha lay on her side, her back to the door, blankets pulled loosely over her clothed legs, arm tucked under her head. She hadn’t been able to sleep since yesterday night; every time she closed her eyes, she saw Peter’s face.

He was always doing something stupidly dangerous, something reckless, but she never worried too much. Not like this. He always came back before. Bloody, limping, sometimes practically dragging himself, but he came back. She’d been the one to train him. She trusted that, and

more importantly, she trusted him .

Now he was just… gone.

She’d done everything she could think of in the hours after Peter’s and Tony’s argument. As soon as she and Tony had returned to the Tower after leaving the Parker’s’ empty apartment, she’d gotten straight to work, tearing through every camera network the city had. Public, private, low-level S.H.I.E.L.D. feeds. She even pulled favors with contacts she hadn’t spoken to in years. Nothing. Not a single trace.

Peter had vanished off the streets of New York like a ghost.

And the worst part was that she knew how hard that was to do. She knew what kind of mindset it took to disappear like that, and it terrified her because she’d been there herself.

She’d scoured what remained of his files, checked for relatives, extended family, anything, anyone he might have run to. She came up empty. All dead or had no clue Peter even existed. The truth was brutal in its simplicity:; Peter Parker had no one left.

She pressed her fingers into her eyes, willing the tears back. She wouldn’t cry again, not until she had something useful to offer. But the silence and helplessness on top of all of the tension from the argument she’d just walked away from gnawed at her. She’d never be able to have children, the Red Room had made damn sure of that, but Peter had become… something to her. Something close. Something precious, and she would have killed to keep him safe. She might still.

A knock came at the door, startling her out of those thoughts. It had to have been Clint or Bucky; nobody else would have been able to sneak up on her like that. Three soft taps, a sharp breath of preparation for a hard conversation, and two steps back. She could tell by the familiar cadence that it was Clint on the other side of the door.

She didn’t move at first, just whispered, "You can come in."

The door creaked open, allowing light to spill into the room. Artificial hallway glow overtook the dim, pre-dawn light, and Clint stepped inside, already dressed in jeans and a jacket. His hair was messy as though he’d just rolled out of bed, but his under eyes were dark, as though he hadn’t slept in a while either. He didn’t speak right away, shutting the door slowly behind him to keep any unwanted listeners out.

"You okay?" he asked finally, voice quiet.

Natasha turned her head but didn’t sit up. The rest of her body followed before she spoke, laying flat on her back. "No."

He nodded, like he’d expected that answer, stepping further into the room and leaning against the wall near her dresser.

"I’m going to S.H.I.E.L.D." He sniffed. "Gonna talk to Fury. See what we can do."

Natasha sat up instantly. Her red hair fell around her shoulders, tickling her collarbone, and she was certain her face was still pale in the low light. "You're serious?"

Clint’s piercing blue eyes trailed up to meet hers. "I don't think he's in their system, but Fury might know what back doors to check."

She was on her feet before he finished. "I'm going with you."

"I figured."

There was a long pause, allowing her to walk toward her dresser and pull on a black hoodie over her tank top. Her hands moved with purpose, but she was still exhausted, movements slower than usual, senses refusing to cooperate.

"He wouldn’t have just left," she said finally. "Not unless he thought he had to. Not unless he thought he didn’t have a choice."

"You think he blames himself?"

"I think he blames all of us. Mostly Tony. But yeah, I do think he blames himself."

Clint exhaled through his nose. "Yeah. It was a shitty fight."

"It wasn't just a fight. It was a breaking point. You saw Peter last week, Clint. He looked exhausted. He's been carrying more than any kid should. And now May..."

She swallowed hard.

Clint reached out to touch her shoulder, and his voice softened. "We’ll find him."

She nodded, trying to believe it, trying so hard to believe her best friend’s words.

A new voice came from the doorway. "You two going somewhere?"

They both turned in tandem, already knowing it was Steve before they had to look. To no one’s surprise, he seemed just as sleep-deprived and emotionally exhausted as the rest of them, eyes shadowed, arms crossed. Natasha didn’t bother with a long explanation.

"S.H.I.E.L.D. HQ. We’re going to talk to Fury."

"I’m coming too," Steve said without missing a beat.

Clint raised a brow. "Don’t you have some captaining to do?"

"This is captaining," Steve said, simply. "Peter’s one of us. We don’t abandon our own."

Natasha looked between the two of them. Something settled in her chest -  guilt, yes, but there was a flicker of something else, too.

Something like hope.

They moved in near-silence, walking through the empty hallway toward the hangar. The Tower was still asleep, or perhaps just pretending to be. No one else stirred, just the three of them, bound together by grief and guilt and the faintest spark of determination to find their kid.

They weren’t going to let him slip through their fingers.

  -

Natasha didn’t say much on the drive.

She sat in the front passenger seat, arms crossed and eyes fixed on the city rolling past her window. The skyline glittered faintly under the early morning haze, fog clinging to the tops of the taller buildings, almost as if it were the ghosts of everything that had already gone wrong in the past two days. Clint drove, jaw tight and silent except for the occasional sigh that escaped -  high and reedy, like steam from a cracked pipe. Steve rode in the backseat, his posture stiff and upright like he wasn’t quite sure how to shrink himself in a car not built for someone with a super- soldier frame.

None of them had been able to sleep that night. The tower had been too loud and too tense, too empty. It felt like Peter had taken all the light with him when he left, and what was left behind was sharp-edged and aching. Now, the closer they got to the S.H.I.E.L.D. facility in downtown Manhattan, the tighter that feeling pulled behind her ribs.

“You think he’s alive?” Steve asked suddenly, voice low and rough.

Clint answered before she could, mind uncharacteristically reeling from the question. “He’s alive. He has to be.”

Steve let out a small, mirthless laugh. “That’s not an answer.”

“He’s too smart,” Clint said, like he was reassuring himself. “Too strong.”

Natasha didn’t say anything, because none of that mattered, not when Peter had no one. Not when the last words Tony had said to him were ‘get out.’ Not when she’d looked through every damn street cam in New York last night and found nothing, like he’d just vanished into the pavement.

The building came into view -  cold gray stone, tall and looming, with mirrored glass and a discreet S.H.I.E.L.D. crest over the entry. It was familiar, and that had been comforting, once -  but not today.

Clint parked roughly, the tires squealing against the curb, and they all got out without saying a word.

The lobby was bright and clean, the feeling of warmth feeling grossly misplaced under the circumstances. A blonde receptionist looked up from her tablet and blinked in surprise as three of the six most recognizable Avengers marched through the doors with zero subtlety.

"Can I help you?" she asked, tone professional, if a little strained.

"We need to speak with Director Fury," Steve said, calm and not unkind, but firm.

The receptionist, whose nameplate read Carla , blinked. “He’s -  not here, Capt  - Mr. Rogers. He’s currently at the upstate facility. He’s... not available for meetings unless pre-scheduled well in advance.”

"Then un-schedule him for whatever he’s doing," Clint snapped, crossing his arms. “We’re not leaving until he talks to us.”

Carla looked nervous now. Natasha stepped forward, softening her tone but keeping her stance firm.“We wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t important.”

“He doesn’t respond well to being pestered,” Carla warned. “And I really don’t want to call him while he’s -  ”

“Call him,” Steve said, giving her a strained smile as he added, “Please.”

Carla sighed. She pressed her earpiece, muttering something under her breath that sounded suspiciously like, they’re going to break something if I don’t. Then, after a beat, she spoke clearly into the mic. “Sir? I’ve got Romanoff, Rogers, and Barton here. They’re requesting to speak with you... urgently.”

There was a long pause. Natasha felt her pulse climbing in the stillness.

Then Carla winced. “Understood. They can wait in Conference Room B. He’ll be in contact shortly.”

Natasha nodded in thanks, but Carla was already typing again, clearly pretending she wasn’t incredibly stressed out.

They walked in silence toward the conference room; a quiet, windowless space with a sleek black table and far too many chairs. Natasha sat down and tried to settle, but her leg wouldn’t stop bouncing, and she kept subconsciously biting the inside of her cheek.

Clint sat beside her, rubbing a hand over his face. Steve stood for a long moment before sitting across from them, arms folded, blue eyes haunted.

For the first time that morning, Natasha let herself lean back in her chair and breathe.

This was her family. Disjointed, flawed, loud and broken and overwhelmed, but hers. And one of them was missing.

She just hoped Fury would walk through that door soon. Because if anyone could track a ghost in New York, it was him.

  -

The conference rooms at the SHIELD headquarters had never felt comfortable , per se, but today just felt like it felt like it had claws. Clint shifted in his chair for what felt like the twentieth time this hour, arms crossed tight, foot tapping against the sleek shining floor in a steady rhythm. He could feel the tension radiating off Steve, who stood silently by the window, arms folded and jaw clenched. Nat was still as stone beside him, looking calm on the surface, but Clint knew better, he’d fought beside her long enough to recognize the weight she carried behind her eyes. They were all wound tight, the weight of helplessness pressing in from every direction.

Finally, the elevator dinged, and the room tensed as one.

Fury stepped out in his usual long coat, dark sunglasses perched on his face despite the fluorescent overheads. His stride was brisk, deliberate, and full of irritation, like he’d just been pulled out of something far more important. Clint didn’t need to see the look in his eye to know that the man was ticked; he barely glanced at the group before speaking.

“I hope this is worth dragging me all the way from an active facility,” Fury said, coming to a stop in front of them. “This better not be about Stark's latest temper tantrum or some intern that got locked in a weapons locker.”

Nat raised a brow. “And what exactly were you doing upstate that was so important?”

Fury tilted his head, clearly not in the mood. “You know I can’t just hand out mission details like candy, Romanoff. You want to read my calendar, ask Hill.”

Steve stood and stepped forward, direct as always. “Parker’s missing,” he said, voice like steel. “May Parker, his aunt, is dead. He’s out there alone.”

There was a beat of silence, the words settling in. Fury’s face didn’t change much at first, but the flicker of confusion turned quickly into something colder.

“That’s why you called me back? For a runaway angsty teenager?”

Clint stood, eyes narrowing in disgust. “He’s not just some teenager. You of all people know who he is.”

Fury sighed. “Yes, Barton, I’m well aware. He’s Spider-Man. But unless the world is ending, that information doesn’t change much.”

Clint stared at him, barely believing what he was hearing. “He’s a kid who’s saved lives, taken bullets for strangers, and stood toe to toe with actual gods. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”

“It means he’s reckless.” Fury replied, calm but edged. “And not officially a SHIELD agent. Or an Avenger, for that matter.”

Steve’s voice was quiet, but it burned. “So that’s it? He doesn’t matter unless he’s on a mission?”

Fury crossed his arms. “That’s not what I said. I said I have no control over his status or whereabouts. He hasn’t signed the accords. I don’t even know where he is on paper.”

“And if one of us had disappeared?” Steve shot back, stepping closer. “Would it be the same story? If Bucky went missing, or Nat, or Clint, hell, even Tony, would you sit back and shrug because they weren’t active on the books?”

Fury’s expression hardened. “You, of all people, should understand what it means to go off the grid. You wrote the book on it, Rogers.”

The words hit the air like a slap. Clint winced, watching Steve’s jaw tighten and his fists clench at his sides. It was too far and too personal, and it had crossed a line.

Steve, though, didn’t yell. He just turned, shoulders squared, and walked straight for the door.

Natasha followed without a word, her face still unreadable, but her stride was sharp, angry, and focused. The only sign of how deeply this had cut her was the fact that she didn’t look back. Clint watched them go, something tightening in his chest.

He turned back to Fury, whose arms were still folded like this was a normal Saturday, the fluorescent lights buzzing faintly above. He could hear the echoes of Steve and Nat’s footsteps down the almost empty hall, fading into silence. Fury still hadn’t moved.

He stood there with his arms folded; face unreadable behind the dark lenses of his glasses. But Clint could see a flicker; a waver in that hard gaze. It was brief, subtle, but it was there. Guilt. Whether it was guilt for brushing off the situation or for letting them walk out without resolution, Clint didn’t care. It wasn’t enough.

“You know,” Clint said, voice coming out flat and edged with disappointment, “you’re the one who started this whole thing. The Avengers. This family. You created us. Or did you forget that already?”

Fury’s lips pursed slightly, but he didn’t speak.

Clint took a few steps forward. “Do you remember what you said? Back in New York, during the Chitauri invasion? We were scattered, a mess. You came on the comms and told us, word for word. ‘There was an idea, Stark knows this, called the Avengers Initiative. The idea was to bring together a group of remarkable people, see if they could become something more. See if they could work together when we needed them to… to fight the battles that we never could.’”

Clint paused, letting it settle in the air. “I remember that line because I’ve repeated it in my head a hundred times. When I’m watching Steve and Tony go at it and I’m trying not to punch the star-spangled banner off Cap’s chest. When Tony’s being an arrogant pain in the ass and I’m this close to launching a sonic arrow into his suit. I use that line to remind myself why we do this. Why we stay.”

He gestured around them. “Because we’re supposed to be more. Better. And right now, we’re failing one of our own. Peter is out there, fifteen years old, grieving, and alone. No backup. No plan. His aunt, the only legal family he had left in this world, is gone. And Stark made a mistake. A huge one. He knows it, but now we’re all paying for it. Especially that kid.”

Fury’s jaw flexed, but he still didn’t respond.

Clint’s voice cracked, but he pushed forward. “Peter isn’t just some random teenager with a mask and a hero complex. He’s family. That kid… he changed this team. You remember what we were before Stark recruited him? A mess. A ticking bomb. We were still licking wounds from a war that tore us in half. Some of us were ready to kill each other. And then Peter came along with that bright-eyed eagerness to prove himself and to help people no matter what. And somehow, he glued us back together without even realizing it.”

He stepped closer, voice dropping. “So no. He didn’t sign your damn accords. Doesn’t matter. He’s still one of us. He’s an Avenger whether you wrote it on paper or not. And he needs us now more than ever. So I’m asking you, Director Fury, the man who saw potential in a bunch of broken soldiers and assassins and a lost cause of a billionaire, help us get him back.”

Clint let out a breath, his shoulders sagging slightly. “Help us bring our kid home. Please.”

The silence that followed was thick.

Fury turned his head slightly, as if considering something deeply. His lips parted, then closed again. He didn’t take off his glasses, didn’t show his eyes, but Clint saw the way his throat moved when he swallowed.

Then, quietly, almost grudgingly, Fury nodded. “Alright,” he said, voice lower than usual. “I’ll help.”

Clint didn’t smile or thank him, just nodded back once, the tension in his chest easing by a fraction.

“Good.”