Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Now, Steve didn't want to say he disliked Spider-man, but he really didn't see why he had to be so stubborn about patrol and taking on more than he could chew, especially as a newer vigilante. Case in point, right now:

Peter wasn't supposed to be in any action, in fact, Steve was pretty sure he explicitly told him not to be when he showed up to help the avengers with the villain of the week. Instead, Steve spots him not ten feet away from Stark in the heat of the battle.

Steve wouldn't say the sea devil-monkey things (empusa?) were particularly hard to fight but for someone inexperienced, the sheer number could be overwhelming. Steve decided to radio on the comms to the man out of there.

"Spider-man why are you in the fight? You were told to stay out of it."

"Sorry Mr. Captain America, no can do. The civilians are all evacuated and Mr. Stark looked like he could use some help."

Nat chimed in for Clint and herself. "Our sector is cleared."

"I think we've almost got all of them, aside from where Stark is. The roads are clear again," Sam spoke this time, from his high-flying vantage point.

Steve kicks the last of his group of creatures to dust before responding, "My sector is clear as well." and starting to jog over to where Spidey and Iron Man are. He doesn't make it five feet before he hears "Mr. Stark!" and suddenly, they don't need help anymore.

Spider-man immediately makes his way to Iron Man and it's like a switch is flipped. Spidey is now yanking one creature into the next with webs before practically flying to the nearest devil thing and punching it into the next three, all of them disintegrating into dust as he goes. Within seconds, the horde had dwindled, and with one final yank and a flip, all the enemies had been defeated.

Spider-man stood in the middle of the carnage, breathing heavily for a moment before making his way back to Stark's side, oblivious to Steve's inner turmoil. He had always assumed that the vigilante couldn't fight, not that he wouldn't. The way he avoided direct contact with his webs and mostly dodged any incoming attacks with defections, but no counter had led Steve to believe he didn't know how to properly throw a punch, but now Steve knew that wasn't the case.

Chapter Text

Natasha didn't get attached easily, and shared information even less of the time. Spider-man was a relatively unknown variable that she, as much as it pained her to admit, had yet to completely figure out. She knew why he did what he did, every night ("With great power, comes great responsibility"), she knew he had a guilt complex the side of a small country and a somehow even bigger savior complex. She knew that he liked to eat cereal on the ceiling at 3 am ("it just tastes better this way Ms. Black Widow. You'll just have to trust me"), she even knew of his abilities ("I'm strong") she remembered him saying when the rogue avengers had moved back into the tower and had interrogated their newest sort of member, though she knew the others didn't see it that way.

But "I'm strong" didn't cover what she was seeing right now.

She was currently watching Spider-man, the person she was fairly sure was a child, lift a 30 story building. And the only thing stopping herself, 3 citizens, and Spider-man himself from being crushed was the man currently in a half kneel as he physically held the 100,000 tons of building trying to collapse in on them all when a stray laser beam from the latest villian of the weak hit it.

The dust finally settled around them and Natasha could hear the sounds of the fight outside, slowly quieting as it came to a close, but more importantly she could hear Spidey's heavy breathing and strained inhales as he struggled under the weight by himself.

"Is everyone alright?" God, this kid was something else. Struggling under the weight of a small skyscraper, and he's using his precious oxygen to ask if everyone else is alright.

"We're all fine, thanks to you Spider-man," one of the civilians piped up.

"Alright, that's good, at least. Back under a building but at least there's that." Spidey muttered, then louder "My comms are all static right now. Anyone got any service? We just need to let the other avengers know that we're all ok and to be extra careful during the extraction." What he didn't say was that they also needed to tell them they were alive so they would try to fish them out with some urgency, because Natasha knew she'd assume them dead if she was on the other side of this.

She tried tapping her earpiece but all she got was static. The civilians tried their phones but by the looks on their illuminated faces, they had no luck either.

Spider-man hung his head before he asked out loud, "Karen? You there?"

Natasha wasn't the only one to give him weird looks at that, but before she could say anything else he muttered, "nope."

"My AI is offline and I can't contact Mr. Stark. We'll just have to wait it out." Was Spidey's deduction. It was only then that Natasha noticed how heavy the vigilante's breathing had gotten at all the talking, and she was sure the mask wasn't helping.

"Take off the mask. You need the extra oxygen, and everybody can hardly see anything anyway with the light level." Natasha told him, hoping he'd actually do it. Spider-man wasn't exactly known for following orders to a T after all.

He huffed before thinking it over, "Fine. Can you get it off? Tap the spider symbol on my chest once."

Natasha did as asked and the mask faded away. And in the poor lighting all Natasha could think was that there was no way this kid was over 18.

Which all things considered, shouldn’t be her first problem in this situation, especially since she had suspected he was underaged. No legal adult calls everyone they meet Sir or Ma’am, and they definitely don’t rave about Star Wars as much.

But suspecting it and seeing it were two different things, even if she wasn't lying when she said that visibility was low. That didn't stop her from seeing the lack of lines and baby fat still on his face.

She put that out of her mind at the moment. Survive first, then she can scold Tony for letting a child into this life.

And survive they did, even if she was worried for a while. The fight itself was winding down when they got stuck so it wasn't too long for them to begin digging them out. Luckily, with Spidey on evacuation, any civillians left in the building had been on the bottom floor when it all came down on top of then.

Shortly after she could hear shouting and saw the traces of Wanda's magic start to encircle the rubble around them.

It felt like hours, but eventually they all made it out, Natasha directing the civillians out through the small hole they had managed to secure as an exit. Once the civillians were clear the main problem was extracting the spider currently holding up the remaining rubble. Stark's shouts to get Spider-Man out really didn't help either.

Finally, Wanda got her magic around the magic piece of debris he was holding up, and so the spider was free, even if he was exhausted and dirty.

She pretended not to notice Stark immediately wrapping the kid in a hug and flying off to the tower to get him checked out from the medical staff there. She couldn't say she blamed him either. The streets were a mess with remians of skyscrapers, cars, ambulances were everywhere and people were still running around, both civillian and heros, super and police, medics, and firefighters.

Maybe she could wait to grill him about how young the spider is, he's certainly proved he can hold his own.

Chapter Text

Hawkeye was not having a good time, let that be said now.

It was only supposed to be a recon mission! Just recon!

Except now the stupid train that he was in for said mission is now hurtling toward a break in the tracks because the stupid brakes malfunctioned and this is so NOT how he wanted to go out. Death by train, Natasha would laugh her ass off. Even if he survives this, she'll still probably laugh at him, the meanie.

Regardless, Clint watched as the landscape blurred by way too fast, listened as the noise grew even higher with panicked screams and shouts.

"Lades and gentlemen! This is the conductor speaking and I am sorry to inform you that this train is out of control. I advise you to find a secure spot, hold on tightly and pray to God we make it out of this," a voice over the intercom said grimly.

Great, just what they needed, more panic.

Clint slumped in his seat. He couldn't exactly blame them. He was just to used to life or death scenarios that this seemed like a pitiful way to go, after everything.

He had tried his communicator but the rest of the team was off taking out a HYDRA base. He was the backup to be in case of emergency so he decided taking up a quick recon case would be fine. Anything happens he can still hear if they need backup or if something happens in New York, he can help.

Yea, what could possibly go wrong? He thought sarcasticly.

But he had forgotten one thing. The local vigilante.

The train car jolted, and Clint could hear the screeching of metal on metal, imagining sparks flying by the wheels.

A white web stuck itself to the window by his seat and Clint saw it attached to one of the nearby rock faces. At least the train was going through a forest at the moment so no one outside the train car could be hurt.

Except the idiot in a red spider suit who was currently pushing on the front of the train. It was official, Stark's protege was absolutely mental. He could applaud the effort though.

Hawkeye had no hope he could do it. He'd videos of this guy getting cats out of trees and not much more.

Except the train car started to lose speed until it was hanging right on the edge of the broken track, stopped. At least until something hit the back carriage and sent the whole thing hurtling over the edge.

Apparently, Spider-Man was able to make an actual web though because instead of plummeting straight off the edge, they only fell directly into the net make of webs.

Clint turned away from the window and slumped down the wall, taking a breath.

Seems like he wasn't dying today after all, take that Natasha.

...

Later, Clint looked up the incident.

He was in luck because it was recorded by a news crew doing a piece on the depleting forests around New York by helicopter and caught the whole thing on video.

He watched with eyebrows raised as the train kept speeding up, heading straight toward the break in the tracks when Spider-Man was spotted on one of the trees. The arachnid themed vigilante quickly attached support webs to the surrounding obstacles, one to a thick tree, one to a boulder, another a cliff face, before quickly making a web at the gap. Most of the support webs snapped but Clint could appreciate the effort.

Then, this guy stood in front of the train, and when it got to him, he pushed back. At first it didn't seem like it was doing anything, but slowly it started to lose speed. When it stopped at the edge, Spidey stepped back and you could tell he relaxed slightly with the drop of his shoulders, even from the helicopter footage.

Until his head snapped up right before the boulder came loose and slammed into the back train car, sending the front over the edge, being caught by the spider web he made beforehand.

The video ended with the reporter screeching about the situation, but Clint just tuned her out and laid his head back.

Right. Ok. Maybe the guy could do more than just get cats out of tress.