Chapter Text
Sunday evenings in the Tower were usually quiet.
That did not mean the place was silent.
Something was always humming inside the walls, the elevators were constantly moving between floors, FRIDAY occasionally announced some completely unnecessary update about current events, and Tony had a habit of arguing with whichever piece of technology had, in his words, “personally betrayed him.”
Still, compared with the rest of the week, Sunday evenings usually settled into something that resembled normal. Which was why Natasha found herself sitting on the couch with everyone else, the room feeling perfectly normal.
Steve was reading at one end of the couch, or at least he had been reading when Natasha first sat down. He had not turned a page in nearly fifteen minutes, but she was sure he had simply reached a particularly interesting section.
Clint was sprawled at the other end with one foot on the coffee table, supposedly focused on a racing game against Thor, although he had driven into the same wall three times in the last five minutes. Thor, meanwhile, was leaning forward with both hands locked around the controller as though the outcome of the race might determine the fate of Asgard.
Bruce was working from the kitchen island, typing occasionally and then staring at his laptop with the distant expression of someone who had stopped reading whatever was on the screen several sentences ago.
Tony had claimed one of the armchairs and was watching television with the sort of concentration that suggested he was actually watching the room instead.
It was a perfectly normal Sunday evening.
There was nothing particularly strange about Steve remaining on the same page for nearly fifteen minutes. He had probably found something interesting. Clint driving into the same wall three times was less impressive, but he was also playing against Thor, which meant the distraction was understandable. Thor had paused the game without seeming to notice, but perhaps he was simply considering his next move.
Natasha noticed all of it, naturally.
Noticing things was part of her job. It did not mean any of them mattered.
Steve turned another page...The book was upside down. Natasha watched him for a second before looking away.
Yes, he had simply found the book very interesting.
Tony suddenly leaned forward. “Has anyone seen my screwdriver?”
Clint did not look away from the television. “Which one?”
“The good one.”
“You have at least fifty good screwdrivers.”
“I have fifty excellent screwdrivers. There is one good screwdriver.” Tony got to his feet, and Natasha watched him glance toward the kitchen before his attention drifted toward the hallway and, almost inevitably, the elevator.
He caught himself and turned around so quickly that it would have been convincing if everyone in the room had not watched the entire sequence happen.
“What?” he asked when he noticed Natasha looking at him.
“Nothing.”
“You're staring.” She lifted one eyebrow, and Tony pointed toward the kitchen as though that settled the matter. “I’m just getting the screwdriver.”
“Sure you are.”
He made it three steps before stopping, turning around, and returning to the armchair. “I found it.”
Clint finally looked away from the screen. “You didn't leave the room.”
“I remembered where it was.”
“Where?”
Tony hesitated. “…The workshop.”
That did not necessarily mean anything.
They were Avengers. Strange behavior was hardly unusual for them, and Natasha had long ago stopped trying to determine which strange behaviors required concern and which were simply Tony being Tony.
She was certainly not concerned, there was no reason to be.
Everything was perfectly normal.
The elevator chimed.
Every person in the room looked up. Natasha quickly followed, only because everyone else had, of course.
Pepper stepped out carrying a mug, took approximately three seconds to survey the room, and stopped.
Her eyes bounced around to every Avenger, taking in their current states the same way she did in a boardroom meeting.
She took a slow sip of coffee. “Wow.”
Tony frowned. “What?”
“You’re all terrible at this.”
“At what?”
“Pretending you aren’t waiting for Peter.”
The room went quiet enough that Natasha could hear the faint hum of the refrigerator behind Bruce.
Clint suddenly found the television fascinating again. Steve closed his book, this time making sure it was right side up before setting it on his knee. Thor looked around at everyone with open confusion, apparently still trying to determine what exactly they had been caught doing.
“We are not waiting,” Tony said.
Pepper simply looked at him.
Tony lasted perhaps two seconds before sighing. “Fine. We’re waiting a little.”
“We are not waiting,” Steve said, apparently deciding that precision mattered. “We're simply here.”
“Together,” Clint added.
“On a Sunday,” Bruce said without looking up.
“At the time Peter said he'd be back,” Natasha finished.
The moment the words left her mouth, she realized she had made Pepper’s point for her.
Pepper’s mouth twitched.
“That proves nothing,” Natasha said.
“You're actively checking the clock right now.”
“I was checking the time.”
“You checked it thirty seconds ago.”
“That doesn't make it abnormal.”
Pepper smiled over the rim of her mug. “It does when everyone else is doing the same thing.”
Natasha considered pointing out that the others were not her responsibility, but that would have been a poor argument considering she had spent the last several minutes noticing exactly what everyone else was doing.
Besides, there was a perfectly normal reason for the atmosphere in the room, and it had nothing to do with anyone being unable to relax.
Peter had been cleared for independent patrol.
That was all.
The decision had taken days of discussion, team training, and several more medical evaluations, but Natasha had never seriously doubted that he would eventually be allowed to go.
Peter had been patrolling New York on his own for two years before the Avengers ever found him, and whatever else had changed since then, that part of his life had not suddenly become theirs to control.
They had been careful about that. He had asked for the chance to go out alone again, and they had agreed.
They had simply given him better equipment this time.
His new suit carried an emergency beacon and a direct help function, Karen could stay in his ear, and FRIDAY could connect to the suit if he needed assistance. Peter had been given clear rules about checking in before leaving and when he returned; about not deliberately taking on situations he knew were beyond him, and, most importantly, about calling for help if something actually went wrong.
That last part had taken the longest.
Peter had listened to the rules with an expression of intense concentration, asked several practical questions, and then gotten noticeably quieter when Natasha explained that none of them would be angry if he needed help.
He had seemed genuinely unable to understand why they would not be. It had taken her a while to realize that, to Peter, needing someone had never been a neutral thing.
It meant being inconvenient. It meant being a burden. It meant someone eventually deciding that taking care of him was too much trouble.
They had not managed to change that belief, and Natasha had not expected them to. Beliefs built over years did not disappear because someone told you they should. For now, they had settled on something simpler: Peter could have his independence, and they would be there if he needed them.
He had agreed, and Natasha couldn't see any indication that he was lying.
So there was no reason to be concerned.
“He’s fine,” Natasha said.
Pepper raised an eyebrow. “I didn't say he wasn't.”
Clint shifted in his seat, glancing toward the elevator again before catching himself. “He’s been gone a while.”
“He's on patrol.”
“I know but he said he'd take it easy.”
“You've been on patrol.”
“I know.”
“Then you know how long it can take.”
Clint gave her a look that said he was perfectly aware she was using logic to avoid the actual point, but he did not argue.
Steve was the one who eventually spoke.
“It’s his first time going out alone since he moved in.”
Natasha's attention moved toward him.
That was true, although “going out” was not quite as simple as it sounded. Peter had been outside the Tower multiple times since getting cleared.
He had gone on walks, sat on the roof, disappeared into the city for an hour because Tony had apparently underestimated how long an ex-homeless fifteen-year-old would need with a credit card and a vague instruction to “buy something normal,” and even spent an afternoon at a bookstore without anyone hovering over him.
This was different because this was the first time he had left wearing the Spider-Man suit with the intention of doing what he had always done before they found him.
He had been excited about it.
Natasha knew because Peter was terrible at hiding excitement.
For days, he had been asking Helen whether she was absolutely certain he was medically cleared, asking to do more endurance training with the team, checking the suit's systems whenever he thought no one was paying attention, and finding increasingly ridiculous excuses to wander into the lab while Tony was working.
The first time he had stood in the elevator in the new suit, ready to leave without anyone stopping him, there had been a brief hesitation before the doors opened.
Natasha had recognized it immediately because she had seen the same hesitation in him before, usually whenever basic needs were involved and Peter was expecting someone to take them away from him.
She had only reminded him of the rules, made sure he had eaten enough, and told him she would see him when he got back.
Peter had nodded, looked at her for a moment and said, “Okay.”
It had sounded almost like disbelief.
Natasha had let him go without pushing any further because that was what trust was supposed to look like, apparently.
Not following him. Not tracking him. Not finding reasons to check where he was every few minutes just because they could.
Letting him leave.
Letting him come back.
The elevator remained closed. Natasha realized she was looking at it again and deliberately shifted her attention back to the room.
Pepper was watching her.
“Don't.”
“I was just going to ask if you wanted coffee.”
Natasha narrowed her eyes.
Pepper gave an exaggerated smiled.
Tony leaned back in his chair with a sigh. “Now, can everyone stop looking at me like I'm the only one who's concerned?”
“You're the one who built the emergency beacon,” Clint pointed out.
“Because I'm responsible.”
“You asked him to text when he got to Queens.”
“That happened once.”
“It happened 2 hours ago.”
Thor finally lowered his controller. “I do not understand why everyone is pretending not to be concerned when we are clearly concerned.”
Silence.
Bruce slowly closed his laptop as Steve rubbed a hand over his face.
Pepper laughed into her coffee.
Natasha looked around the room and decided that Thor, as usual, had managed to make everything emotionally complicated by simply saying the obvious.
Peter was fine.
He had been doing this for two years.
He had his suit, his equipment, his rules, and people waiting for him at home whether he understood what that meant yet or not. He had asked them to trust him, and they had.
That meant they had to actually trust him.
Natasha settled back against the couch, resisting the urge to check the clock again.
She had no reason to be worried, and she certainly wasn't going to start treating Peter like he was made of glass simply because the last time he had gone out alone, he had not had an entire team of Avengers waiting for him to come home.
She was simply sitting in the common room on a Sunday evening.
Everyone else just happened to be doing the same thing.
And if the elevator happened to open soon, that would be perfectly normal too.
A sound blasted through the room.
It was not loud. It didn't need to be, the emergency signal built into Peter’s suit was designed to cut through whatever else was happening around him, and the moment it activated, FRIDAY’s usual ambient presence was replaced by a sharp tone that Natasha had heard exactly once before, during one of the trainings that Tony had insisted on running after Peter’s suit had been finished.
The sound lasted only a few seconds before Karen’s voice followed, artificial but less calm than designed. “Natasha?”
Everything stoped.
Natasha was already on her feet before she consciously registered that she had moved. “What happened?”
There was a brief pause, just long enough for something cold to settle in her stomach.
“Peter has activated his emergency beacon.”
The room changed instantly.
Tony was out of his chair before Karen had finished speaking, the television forgotten behind him.
Steve was already moving toward the elevator, Clint abandoning the controller on the couch without bothering to pause the game, and Thor was halfway to the door before Bruce had even closed his laptop.
Natasha barely noticed any of it. Her attention had narrowed to the voice coming through her comm and the fact that they had told him to use it, Peter nodded like he would, but Natasha knew that there was no way that Peter would actually activate it unless he had no other choice.
“Where is he?” Steve asked.
Karen answered immediately. “I am attempting to establish a precise location. The suit's primary navigation system is damaged, but I have a partial signal.”
“Give me what you've got,” Tony said.
A display appeared on the wall before anyone had to ask, a map of Queens filling the screen with a single pulsing marker several blocks east of where they were.
“That's not far,” Clint said.
“It is if something has gone wrong,” Bruce replied.
Natasha was already moving toward the elevator but Pepper caught her arm as she passed. “Bring him home.”
Natasha stopped for half a second. It was such a simple thing to say.
Bring him home.
Not find him. Not secure the area. Not neutralize whatever had happened.
Bring him home.
Natasha nodded once. “I will.”
The elevator doors opened.
They crowded inside, and Tony immediately hit the button for the top level. “FRIDAY, prep the Quinjet.”
“Already done. It's ready for the maximum speed.”
“That's my girl.”
The doors closed.
Natasha realized that nothing was perfectly normal anymore.
—
The Quinjet was moving before Natasha had fully sat down.
Tony had apparently decided that the laws of physics were suggestions, because the aircraft shot out of the Tower’s launch bay with enough force to press everyone into their seats.
Clint swore under his breath, Thor laughed like this was the most entertaining part of his evening, and Steve grabbed the nearest handle with the resigned expression of a man who had been through this exact experience too many times to bother complaining.
“Tony, you’re flying way too fast.”
“I know, Legolas.”
Natasha ignored them.
She was strapped into one of the seats beside Steve, her eyes fixed on the tactical display as Karen fed them updates from Peter’s suit. The signal was unstable, flickering in and out every few seconds, and that bothered her more than she wanted to admit.
Peter had been supposed to check in when he reached Queens, and he had. He had been supposed to keep the beacon available if something went wrong, and he had done that too.
Whatever had happened, at least he had followed the rules.
At least he had trusted them.
She held onto that thought as the map shifted again.
“Signal’s moving,” Bruce said from across the cabin.
Natasha looked up. “He’s moving?”
“Not necessarily.” Bruce frowned at the display, one hand braced against the edge of the console as the Quinjet banked. “The signal is moving.”
Clint leaned forward between the seats. “Can we get eyes on him?”
“Not yet,” Tony said. “Karen’s only getting fragments from the suit.”
Thor frowned at the screen. “Could he be hiding from us?”
“No,” Steve said immediately.
There was something in his voice that made Natasha look at him. Steve was staring at the display with the same concentration he usually reserved for battle plans, his jaw set as though he could somehow force the signal to become clearer through sheer determination.
“He wouldn’t use the beacon and then hide,” he added.
Natasha agreed.
Peter had spent weeks learning that he did not have to run from them anymore. He had spent days learning that asking for help did not make him weak, that the suit’s emergency system existed because people expected emergencies to happen, and that using it would not somehow mean he had failed.
They had trusted him enough to leave the Tower alone.
He had trusted them enough to call.
Natasha watched the pulsing signal jump again, her fingers tightening slightly against the edge of her seat. “ETA?”
“Two minutes,” FRIDAY answered.
Tony looked at the screen. “Make it one.”
FRIDAY was silent for half a second. “I will remind you that aircraft speed is limited by several factors.”
“FRIDAY.”
“I am already operating at maximum safe speed.”
Clint leaned further back into his seat with a small shake of his head. “I like how she says safe like we’re not all about to be thrown through the windshield.”
Thor looked delighted rather than concerned. “I have never understood why humans put windows in aircraft.”
Steve closed his eyes for a moment, apparently deciding that there were some conversations he was not equipped to have right now, while Bruce let out a quiet sigh from across the cabin.
Natasha almost smiled despite herself.
It was familiar, ridiculous, and strangely comforting, the kind of argument they could have had on a real normal Sunday evening when nobody was waiting for an emergency signal from a fifteen-year-old who had only just started going out alone again.
Then Karen spoke. “Natasha?”
Her attention snapped back immediately. “Yes?”
“I believe I have located Peter.”
The display changed, the map shifting until a single point appeared several blocks ahead. Tony straightened in his seat, his attention narrowing on the pulsing marker.
“What’s his status?”
Karen paused. It was only a fraction of a second, but Natasha noticed it anyway.
“I am unable to determine.”
The cabin went quiet.
Natasha stared at the screen, watching the small point pulse against the map as though looking at it long enough might somehow tell her what Karen could not. Around her, everyone had gone still in that particular way people did when they were trying very hard not to react before they knew what they were reacting to.
For the first time since the alarm had sounded, Natasha allowed herself to think the one thing she had refused to think all evening.
Something bad had happened to Peter.
—
The Quinjet touched down hard enough to rattle the windows of the abandoned warehouse where the becon was showing, and Natasha was out of her seat before the landing gear had fully locked into place.
The doors opened almost immediately, letting a rush of cold February air into the cabin, damp and sharp against her face, and she stepped onto the pavement with one of her pistols already in hand.
There was no snow on the ground anymore, only patches of dirty ice along the edges of the parking lot and the kind of gray winter darkness that made Queens look even more abandoned than it actually was.
The warehouse in front of them was three stories of cracked brick and boarded windows, one side of the roof partially collapsed, with enough broken machinery and scattered debris around the lot to suggest that whoever had been inside had not been particularly concerned about keeping their activities subtle.
Tony stepped down beside her, his helmet already closing over his face as the armor sealed around him. “Okay,” he said through the suit's speakers. “Nobody panic.”
Clint looked at him as he climbed out behind Natasha, bow already in his hands. “You're the one wearing a weaponized suit.”
“Exactly. I have enough armor for all of us.”
“That is not how armor works, genius.”
Steve was already moving toward the warehouse entrance, shield raised as he glanced toward the upper windows. “Focus.”
Thor followed him with Mjolnir in hand, looking almost insultingly pleased to have something to hit, while Bruce remained near the Quinjet for another moment, pulling up the building's schematics on his tablet.
Natasha scanned the windows carefully, looking for movement, muzzle flashes, anything that might tell her what they were walking into, but there was nothing.
That bothered her more than the obvious damage did.
Karen had been struggling to maintain a connection to the suit for several minutes, the emergency beacon had led them directly here, and yet the building was almost completely silent.
No alarms. No guards. No vehicles fleeing the area. Nothing that suggested a fight was happening inside at all.
“Tony,” Steve said, and Natasha followed his gaze upward just in time to see a faint red glow spreading across the roof.
“I see it, Capsicle.”
“Everybody move!”
The explosion wasn't large enough to bring down the warehouse, but it was more than enough to send a wave of heat and debris across the lot.
Natasha ducked behind a concrete barrier as chunks of brick and glass rained down around them, then looked up through the smoke as Iron Man shot into the air and disappeared through the upper level.
A second later, something large and mechanical crashed through the windows above them and dropped toward the pavement.
Clint fired before anyone else could react.
The arrow struck the machine directly in the center of its chest, releasing an electromagnetic pulse that shut the thing down so completely that it simply stopped moving in midair before crashing onto the pavement with a metallic groan.
Clint lowered his bow and looked around at the others, apparently waiting for someone to acknowledge what he'd just done.
“Yeah,” he said when nobody did. “I'm pretty good.”
Tony landed beside the wreckage. “Nobody encourage him.”
Steve ignored them both and motioned toward the entrance. “Inside.”
They moved as one, sweeping the first floor before pushing deeper into the building.
Natasha immediately noticed that the place was less like a supervillan hideout and more like the aftermath of someone who had spent months collecting anything they could get their hands on.
Tables were covered in half-disassembled computers, wires hung from the ceiling, monitors flickered against the walls, and there were enough stolen electronics stacked in crates to suggest that their target had been building something substantial.
A monitor in the corner flickered weakly as they passed, displaying a paused image of Spider-Man swinging through Queens.
Natasha stopped. Not because of the image itself, but because of what surrounded it.
Photographs covered the wall behind the monitor, dozens of them, perhaps hundreds if she counted the smaller prints layered beneath the larger ones.
Spider-Man on rooftops. Spider-Man stopping a robbery. Spider-Man carrying a child away from a burning building. Spider-Man in the middle of fights. Spider-Man standing on street corners. Spider-Man swinging through the city.
Some were blurry photographs taken from a distance, but others had clearly been captured from cameras mounted on buildings or vehicles, and Natasha could tell immediately that whoever had assembled them had spent an unreasonable amount of time on the placement.
Tony came up beside her and stared. “Okay,” he said slowly. “That's... deeply uncomfortable.”
Clint looked over his shoulder. “Fan?”
“No,” Natasha said. She stepped closer to the wall, studying the photographs instead of merely looking at them. “This one was taken from inside a police vehicle. That one is from a hospital entrance, and this one is a private security camera. Whoever took these didn't just follow him online.”
Steve's expression hardened as he looked over the collection. “Someone has been tracking him.”
“Looks like it,” Natasha said.
Tony's helmet tilted toward the photographs. “I officially withdraw my previous statement. This guy isn't a fan. He's a supervillain of scrapbooking.”
A voice echoed from somewhere above them.
“You don't understand!”
Tony looked up. “Oh, good,” he said. “Scrapbook has a voice. Maybe it’s time to stop with the hobby though”
A man appeared on the second-floor balcony, wearing a homemade mask with two enormous white eyes painted across it.
The rest of his outfit appeared to be an attempt at recreating Spider-Man's costume from memory, although Natasha wasn't entirely sure what memory he had been working from because the colors were wrong, the web pattern was painted on crooked, and one of the gloves was visibly a different size from the other.
“You've ruined everything!” the man shouted.
Steve raised his shield. “Where is Spider-Man?”
The man's eyes widened behind the mask. “The Avengers are working with Spider-Man?”
Tony slowly turned his helmet toward Steve. “Very subtle, Rogers.”
Steve didn't even look at him. “Where is he?”
The man laughed, and Natasha immediately noticed the difference between that sound and the nervous laughter of someone who had just been cornered.
There was no fear in it. No genuine anger, either. He sounded excited, almost delighted that they were asking about Spider-Man at all.
“Of course I know him,” he said. “I've studied him for years.”
Natasha's attention sharpened.
“You've studied him?” Bruce asked, stepping farther into the room.
“Everything,” the man said proudly. “His patrol routes. His fighting style. His reaction times. The places he goes when he's injured. The places he goes when he thinks nobody is watching. Every appearance, every photograph, every video. I know more about him than anyone.”
Tony stared up at him. “Buddy, I think the word you're looking for is stalking.”
“You don't understand what he is!”
“Spider-Man?” Tony asked. “Generally believed to be a guy in a spider costume. You're welcome.”
The man ignored him completely. “He's perfect.”
Something cold settled beneath Natasha's ribs.
She had seen obsession before. In people who believed devotion gave them ownership, in people who spent months learning another person's habits because they wanted to understand them and then quietly crossed the line into believing that understanding entitled them to control.
She knew what obsession looked like when it stopped being admiration and became possession, and there was something about the way this man spoke about Spider-Man that made the distinction painfully clear.
“Where is he?” Steve asked again.
The man's smile widened. “You're too late.”
Every member of the team went still.
Tony's repulsors came up, and Natasha saw Steve's stance change at the same time, his shield lifting as his attention narrowed entirely onto the man above them.
“What did you do?” Tony asked.
The man simply laughed and Natasha moved before he finished the sound.
Not just her.
Tony blasted the balcony railing, forcing the man backward, while Steve threw his shield through the opening. It struck the man squarely in the chest and sent him crashing into a stack of equipment. Thor crossed the distance in three strides and caught the man by the back of his jacket before anyone could blink, lifting him clean off the ground as though gravity had simply stopped applying to him.
He tossed the unconscious man to Steve, who caught him with a grunt and immediately restrained his hands.
Clint stared for a second before shaking his head. “Honestly, I think that was my favorite part.”
Steve sighed. “Clint.”
Tony landed beside them and looked down at their prisoner. “FRIDAY?”
“Police and SHIELD containment teams are en route,” she answered.
“Good.”
Natasha looked back toward the wall of photographs, her eyes settling on the man's collection again. Something about the words You're too late bothered her more now that he was unconscious and couldn't elaborate on them.
She didn't know what he'd done, and none of them had been able to get an answer before taking him down. But the confidence in his voice suggested that whatever he wanted to happen had already happened.
That meant there was no reason to waste time standing around waiting for him to wake up and explain it.
“Bruce,” she said, turning toward him, “can you determine what all this equipment was being used for?”
“I'm trying,” he said, already moving toward one of the workstations. “A lot of this is homemade, but there's enough specialized equipment here that I'm going to need a few minutes.”
Steve looked toward the upper floors. “Then we search the building.”
They split up, but not so far that they couldn't hear one another if something went wrong.
Steve and Clint took the eastern side while Tony went through the center, Bruce stayed downstairs with the equipment, and Natasha moved toward the western corridor, following the faint electrical hum that seemed to disappear behind the walls every few feet.
The deeper she went, the stranger the building became, because the photographs weren't limited to the first floor. There were more of them tucked into hallways and pinned beside doors, newspaper clippings layered over older ones, screens displaying frozen images, maps with patrol routes marked in red, and a calendar covered in circles around certain nights.
Eventually Natasha found a large board covered in names.
Dozens of them.
Some had been crossed out, some had question marks beside them, and some had photographs attached, all apparently representing different theories about Spider-Man's identity.
None of the names meant anything to her, but the sheer amount of work that had gone into the investigation told her more than any one theory could have. This man hadn't simply become interested in Spider-Man recently. He had been building an entire private mythology around him.
At the center of the board was a photograph that made Natasha pause.
It wasn't dramatic.
There was no fight happening, no building collapsing in the background, no impossible swing through the city. Spider-Man was simply sitting on the edge of a rooftop with his shoulders slumped and his head bowed, looking exhausted.
Natasha stared at the photograph for a long moment.
She knew that posture.
From agents after missions who had pushed themselves past exhaustion and didn't know how to admit they needed to stop. From young operatives who had been trained to keep standing long after their bodies had begun telling them they couldn't.
From herself, years ago, although she had learned very early that exhaustion was something you hid if you wanted to survive.
“Nat.”
She turned.
Steve stood at the end of the corridor, his shield lowered slightly now that they had secured the building. “Found something?”
“Not yet,” Natasha said, though she glanced once more at the photographs before stepping away.
“Neither have we.”
Tony's voice echoed from somewhere downstairs before Natasha could respond. “Guys?”
She and Steve exchanged a look. They followed the voice back toward the center of the warehouse, where Tony was standing beside Bruce in front of a reinforced metal door that had been hidden behind a shelving unit.
“Found the creepy basement,” Tony said.
“It's not a basement,” Bruce replied.
Tony looked at him. “Bruce, there are concrete stairs going down into the creepy room. That's a basement.”
Bruce sighed. “Just open the door.”
Tony pressed his armored hand against the lock. There was a brief electronic chirp, followed by a click, and the door swung inward.
The room beyond it made Natasha stop.
The walls were covered in Spider-Man.
Not just photographs this time, but posters, newspaper clippings, screenshots, headlines, pieces of fabric that appeared to have been taken from damaged portions of Spider-Man's suit, hand-drawn sketches, handwritten notes, and a mannequin wearing a crude replica of his costume.
There were even little plastic containers filled with objects that Natasha couldn't immediately identify, all of them labeled in the same meticulous handwriting.
A shrine.
There was no other word for it.
Clint came down the stairs behind them and stopped halfway. “Oh.”
Tony looked around. “I take back everything I said upstairs.”
Steve frowned. “What?”
“This guy needs a hobby.”
Clint pointed toward a shelf. “Huh.”
Tony followed his finger and stared at a framed photograph of Spider-Man sitting on a rooftop. Beside it was a small plastic trophy with bright gold lettering.
#1 SPIDER-MAN FAN
Tony stared at it for several seconds.
“Okay, no,” he said finally. “I'm 100% burning that.”
Despite everything, Natasha felt the urge to smile.
Then Karen spoke through her comm. “Natasha?”
The urge disappeared immediately. “Yes?”
“I have detected the Spider-Man suit.”
Natasha straightened. “Where?”
“Approximately thirty meters below your current position.”
Bruce frowned at the floor. “There shouldn't be another level.”
Tony was already scanning the room, his helmet turning slowly from wall to wall.
“Found something.”
He pointed toward the far side of the room, where one section of the wall looked slightly different from the others.
Steve helped move a heavy cabinet aside, revealing a second metal door hidden behind it.
They opened it. A narrow staircase descended into darkness, and Natasha, despite all her years of training, immediately went down it.
The room below was much smaller than the others, almost disappointingly ordinary after the shrine upstairs. There were no photographs, no posters, no screens, no collection of Spider-Man memorabilia.
There was only a chair, a workbench, several strange pieces of machinery, and a pile of clothing lying on the floor.
Spider-Man's suit.
Natasha stared at it. The red and blue fabric was unmistakable, crumpled beside the workbench with the mask lying several feet away.
But there was nobody inside it.
For one brief second, her mind refused to make sense of what she was seeing.
“Where is Spider-Man?”
No one answered.
Tony scanned the room. “Karen?”
“Spider-Man's suit is approximately two meters from your current position.”
“We can see that,” Tony said. “Where's the person wearing it?”
Karen paused.
“I am unable to determine.”
Natasha's eyes moved slowly across the room, taking in the chair, the machinery, the empty suit, the mask.
Nothing.
Then something shifted behind the workbench.
It was barely noticeable, just a small movement in the shadows, but Natasha raised her weapon immediately. “Hold.”
Everyone froze.
The movement happened again.
Tony's helmet turned toward the workbench. Clint lifted his bow. Steve stepped forward cautiously, but Natasha moved first, rounding the edge of the workbench with her weapon trained low.
She stopped.
There was a child sitting on the floor.
He was tiny, perhaps two years old at most, and almost completely swallowed by the Spider-Man suit.
The fabric had been pulled around his little body in what appeared to be an attempt to hide, the oversized sleeves pooling around his hands while the mask sat abandoned beside him.
One small hand was gripping the edge of the fabric, while the other pressed against the floor as though he needed the extra support simply to remain upright.
Natasha lowered her weapon immediately.
The child stared at her.
He didn't cry, and that was the first thing she noticed.
A child that young, alone in a strange room after whatever had happened here, should have been screaming.
Instead, he watched them with an unsettling amount of awareness, his eyes moving from Natasha to Steve, then Tony, then Clint, as though he were trying to determine which of them represented the greatest threat.
He shifted his weight and attempted to stand.
His legs wobbled almost immediately.
He caught himself against the workbench with one hand, his face twisting with obvious frustration as he tried again. Natasha watched the movement carefully.
There was something strange about the way he approached the problem. The body was clumsy and uncoordinated, like it was not accustomed to being this small, but the intention behind the movement was what interested her.
He wasn't exploring his surroundings the way a toddler normally would. He was trying to compensate for a limitation he clearly understood but couldn't overcome.
Tony's voice softened despite himself. “Okay.”
Clint lowered his bow. “Whose kid is that?”
“I don't know,” Steve said quietly.
Natasha didn't answer.
Something about the child bothered her, although she couldn't immediately identify why.
She had seen toddlers before, both on missions and outside of them, and she knew how quickly small bodies could become liabilities, how easily they became overwhelmed, how readily they trusted someone simply because that person had offered them a hand.
But he watched Natasha the way an adult watched a room before entering it, shoulders tense and body held unnaturally still. And when Tony took one careful step forward, the child immediately shifted backward with a deliberate retreat.
A choice.
“Hey,” Natasha said quietly.
The child's eyes snapped back to her.
Natasha crouched slowly, making herself smaller without moving any closer.
She didn't reach for him and she didn't offer her hand because she had learned long ago that sometimes the most important thing you could give someone was the space to decide whether they wanted you near them.
“It's okay.”
Natasha studied him.
The eyes first.
They were large and expressive, far too aware for a child that small, and they tracked every movement in the room with a focus she would have expected from someone much older. Then there was the way his fingers tightened around the fabric of the suit, the slight tilt of his head, and the irritated crease between his eyebrows as though he were personally offended by the entire situation.
There was something about that expression.
She had spent years learning faces because faces lied less than words. A person's mouth could smile while their shoulders tightened, their voice could remain calm while their pulse accelerated, and their eyes could reveal exactly what they were trying desperately not to say.
This child was afraid, that much was obvious, but beneath the fear was something else that didn't fit.
Frustration.
Embarrassment.
And, somehow, indignation.
It was the expression of someone who knew exactly how ridiculous the situation was and deeply resented the fact that nobody else seemed to understand it.
Natasha's gaze dropped briefly to the Spider-Man suit before returning to the child.
He was looking at her again and something clicked so hard Natasha’s breath hitched.
Not the fact that he was in the suit.
Not the room they found him in.
Not the circumstances of the mission.
Him.
The way he looked at her.
She had seen that look on the rooftop, although she hadn't understood it then. She had seen it across dinner tables, when someone had said something he didn't like and he was trying to decide whether making a joke was worth the risk. She had seen it when he thought someone was about to take away his choices, and she had seen it when he was frightened but determined to pretend he wasn't.
The child made a small, frustrated sound beore his hand lifted.
Toward her.
Natasha stopped breathing althogether.
“Peter?”
The room went completely silent.
Tony's helmet turned sharply toward her.
Steve looked from Natasha to the child and back again.
The little boy stared at her for one long second, and then something in his face changed. His expression crumpled, not into tears but into something Natasha hadn't expected to see at all.
Relief.
Natasha didn't think before she crossed the space between them and picked him up.
He was almost weightless.
His little hands immediately grabbed fistfuls of the front of her suit and pulled himself against her chest with desperate strength. Burying his face against her shoulder as though he had been holding himself together until the exact moment someone familiar appeared.
Natasha's arms tightened around him automatically.
For one strange second, she simply held him.
The Red Room had taught her how to carry weapons, how to carry wounded operatives, how to carry a body without slowing down.
It had taught her how to move through a room without making noise, how to recognize a threat before it became one, how to use another person's attachment against them if the mission required it.
Emotions are not necessary.
Natasha looked down at the tiny face tucked against her shoulder and felt the thought become almost absurd.
“Okay,” Tony said quietly.
Natasha looked up.
He had removed his helmet, and his expression was caught somewhere between shock and concern as he stared at the child in her arms.
Clint looked at Peter, then at Natasha, then back at Peter. “So,” he said slowly, “that's Peter.”
Natasha gave him a look.
“I was going to say he looks exactly like he feels about all of us right now.”
Peter lifted his head. His tiny face was scrunched into what Natasha could only describe as murderous offense.
Tony looked at him for a second, then at Natasha. “Oh, yeah,” he said. “That's definitely him.”
Steve stepped closer, his expression softening in a way she’d never seen before as he looked at Peter. “Is he hurt?”
Natasha looked down, carefully examining him now that the initial shock had passed.
There were a few small scrapes, but nothing immediately obvious beyond the shaking in his hands and the way he kept his body tucked tightly against hers. “I don't know.”
Bruce was already moving closer. “Let me check him.”
Peter immediately tightened his grip on Natasha. Bruce stopped, “Okay,” he said gently. “We'll do that later.”
Tony's mouth twitched. “Apparently we've established the pecking order.”
Natasha ignored him, although she could feel the faintest warmth of amusement beneath the tension in her chest.
Peter looked up at her again, and she could almost see the argument happening behind his eyes. He was trying to tell her something, trying desperately to make himself understood despite the fact that his body apparently no longer gave him the tools to do it.
He opened his mouth.
“Na...” The sound came out small and distorted.
Natasha's chest tightened. “I'm here.” His small fingers curled tighter into her suit.“I know, паучок.”
Tony glanced toward the doorway. “We should get him back to the Tower.”
Steve nodded. “Agreed.”
Clint looked toward the stairs. “Someone want to explain what we're doing with Captain Creepy?”
“The police can handle him,” Steve said.
Thor's voice came through the comm. “I have already placed the prisoner in the care of SHIELD.”
Clint smiled. “See? Thor handles everything.”
Thor sounded pleased with himself. “I am excellent at handling things.”
Tony looked at Natasha, then at the small boy clinging to her, and there was just enough amusement in his expression to make it clear that he was enjoying something about this situation far more than he should have been.
“You're not putting him down, are you?”
Natasha looked down at Peter.
He had tucked his face beneath her chin again, one small hand still fisted in the front of her suit, holding onto her with the absolute certainty of someone who had apparently decided that she was the safest place in the building. “No.”
Tony nodded solemnly. “Yeah. I didn't think so.”
Natasha stood carefully, adjusting Peter against her so his head rested comfortably against her shoulder.
He was warm and small and completely out of place in her arms, and yet the strange part was that it didn't feel as unfamiliar as it should have. They had hugged once before, although he had been much taller than he was now, and that moment in the elevator a week ago seemed like it was much longer ago now.
She had spent most of her life believing that needing someone made you vulnerable, that caring about someone gave them a weapon they could use against you, and that the safest way to survive was to make sure there was nothing inside you that anyone else could reach.
Somehow, without asking permission, Peter had become something she couldn't fit into that equation.
“Let's go home,” she said quietly. Peter's head lifted.
He looked at her for a long moment, and Natasha could see the hesitation in his eyes as he processed the word.
Home had become complicated for him long before she met him, a word that carried too much history and too many things that no longer existed, and she knew better than to pretend the Tower had suddenly erased any of that.
But after a moment, his small shoulders relaxed.
He settled against her again.
Natasha carried him toward the stairs, keeping one hand securely against his back as the others followed behind them, and she didn't think about how naturally he fit there.
She didn't think about the fact that he had called for them, or how quickly they had come, or about how easily he had reached for her.
And she definitely didn't think about the fact that, somewhere along the way, the word home had stopped feeling like a place.
—
The moment the Quinjet's doors opened, the familiar lights of the Tower spilled across the landing platform, and Natasha carried Peter inside without waiting for anyone to suggest it.
They moved through the security doors and down the hallway, the elevators opening onto the same common room that Peter had spent the month learning to navigate as himself. Except now his feet didn't reach the floor when Natasha held him against her and his tiny hands were still curled into the front of her jacket.
The contrast was almost absurd.
This was the same building where Peter had argued with Tony over web fluid designs, complained about Clint stealing the last slice of pizza, and quietly started leaving his shoes by the door without anyone asking him to.
Now there was a two-year-old clinging to Natasha's shoulder in the middle of it, and the fact that everyone knew exactly who was underneath that tiny body somehow made the situation stranger rather than less strange.
Tony stepped back further into the elevator and immediately looked toward Bruce. “Lab.”
Bruce nodded, already pulling up the readings on his tablet. “We need the residual energy from the suit isolated before it dissipates.”
“Got it,” Tony said. He looked at Natasha for a moment, then at Peter, whose face was currently buried against Natasha's shoulder as if he had decided the entire situation was beneath his dignity. “We'll figure out what's happening.”
Peter lifted his head at that, eyes narrowing suspiciously at Tony.
Tony pointed at him. “And yes, that includes whatever you're thinking right now.”
Peter made an indignant little noise.
Clint snorted. “I think he just told you to go away.”
“I understood that part.”
Peter looked between them, clearly following the conversation despite having absolutely no ability to participate in it, and then he turned to hide his face in Natasha’s shoulder.
She didn't comment on it. She simply shifted Peter higher against her chest and followed Steve, Clint, and Thor toward the common area, while Tony from behind her that they would be back as soon as they knew something useful.
The common room was quiet when they entered, which lasted approximately three seconds.
Pepper had apparently been waiting for them.
She came around the corner holding two shopping bags and stopped so abruptly that one of them swung forward and nearly hit her knee.
Her eyes went to Natasha.
Then to Peter.
Then back to Natasha.
There was a long, almost painful silence.
“I’m sorry,” Pepper said finally. “Who is that?”
Clint immediately looked at Natasha. “He didn't tell you?”
Pepper stared at her. “Tony told me to get clothes for a toddler.”
“Yes.”
“I assumed you meant a toddler.”
Thor tilted his head. “He is technically a toddler.”
Pepper slowly looked at the tiny child in Natasha's arms, then at the bags in her hands, and then back at Natasha. “So when you called me and said, and I quote, ‘We need clothes for a very small person,’ you meant Peter?”
Natasha tilted her head, "You can already tell that’s Peter?"
“One – he’s in his Spider-Man costume, and two – you are hugging him.”
Clint chuckled, “Fair.”
Peter made another irritated sound and Pepper's expression immediately softened. “Oh, sweetheart.” She took a step closer.
Peter stared up at her.
“Don't,” Peter warned, except what came out was a tiny, garbled sound that sounded much more like “Da.”
Pepper laughed. “Oh, this is going to be a long day.”
She set the bags down on the couch and began pulling things out, explaining as she went that she had called a nearby store, and then bought several options because she had no idea what two-year-old she would be dealing with.
There were soft shirts, little sweatpants, socks, a tiny winter coat, and several pairs of shoes that Peter immediately ignored in favor of trying to climb out of Natasha's arms.
Then Pepper pulled out the final item.
It was a tiny one-piece pajama outfit covered in little unicorns and rainbows.
Peter went completely still.
Then he looked slowly back at Natasha with an expression of such profound betrayal that Natasha couldn’t hold back her laugh.
“No,” Peter said. Or tried to. It came out as, ‘Nuh.’
Pepper held the pajamas up. “I thought it was cute.” She frowned.
Thor nodded solemnly. “The clothing seems appropriate.”
Peter turned toward him with what might have been the most offended expression a two-year-old had ever managed to produce.
Clint finally lost the battle and barked out a loud laugh.
Peter glared at him.
“Oh, don't look at me like that,” Clint said. “You're wearing the pajamas.”
Peter immediately buried his face back against Natasha's shoulder.
Natasha willed herself to stop laughing. .
Pepper smiled. “I'll take that as agreement.”
It took several minutes to convince Peter that the pajamas were, in fact, happening.
Natasha carried him into one of the bedrooms while Pepper sorted through the clothes. The entire time Peter made his displeasure known through a series of increasingly dramatic noises that would have been much more effective if he hadn't been approximately the size of a throw pillow.
Natasha was careful throughout, keeping her movements slow and giving him as much control as possible.
She knew he understood exactly what was happening and she could only imagine how humiliating it was to suddenly need help with things he'd been doing independently for years.
When she finally brought him back into the common room, Peter was wearing the tiny pajamas, socks that were slightly too big, and an expression that suggested he intended to remember every single person responsible for this indignity.
Pepper took one look at him and pressed her lips together.
“Don't,” Natasha warned.
“I was going to say he looks adorable.”
Peter's head snapped toward her. Pepper’s smile grew as Peter looked genuinely horrified.
Steve coughed into his fist, unsuccessfully hiding a laugh.
Peter babbled. Nobody could make out the words, but the tone was unmistakable.
Thor leaned forward, studying him with genuine fascination. “I believe he has expressed displeasure.”
“He has,” Natasha said.
“Then perhaps this will improve his spirits.”
Thor reached behind the couch and produced the Spider-Man plushie.
The room went quiet.
Clint's eyebrows rose. “Oh my God.”
Steve smiled. “You kept that in your room?”
“Of course not,” Thor said, as if the answer were obvious. “It was in the little spider's room.”
Peter's face tightened.
Natasha remembered Thor putting that in Peter's room after The Arrow™ and before he had first woken up, but she had no idea he kept it.
Thor held it out now. “You may have it, young spider.”
Peter looked at the plush and his little hand reached out.
However, he suddenly stopped and pulled it back before he made contact.
Clint grinned. “He's pretending he doesn't want it.” Peter whipped his head around. “I didn't say anything!”
Peter glared at him.
Clint raised both hands. “Okay, okay.”
After another few seconds, Peter finally reached for the plush, grabbed it against his chest, and immediately turned his face away as though accepting it had been a regrettable lapse in judgment that nobody was allowed to discuss.
Thor looked delighted. “I knew it would comfort you.”
Peter squeezed the plush a little tighter.
Natasha didn't say anything. Neither did anyone else, although Clint's smile suggested he was filing the moment away for future teasing.
The next few minutes settled into something none of them had expected and none of them were particularly prepared for: a strange, improvised afternoon in which five Avengers and Pepper Potts attempted to keep one extremely stubborn, super-powered toddler from destroying the common room while he remained fully aware that all of them were treating him like he was adorable.
Steve was the first to discover that Peter's powers had not disappeared when he got smaller.
He had been sitting on the floor a few feet away, letting Peter investigate the room at his own pace, when Peter placed one hand against the side of the coffee table and promptly climbed lifted it up without realizing that his center of gravity was much different than he rememberd.
Steve caught the table before it could land on the toddler, who had stumbled to the floor.
Then he carefully set him down and held out one hand, letting Peter decide whether to take it.
After a moment, Peter grabbed two of Steve's fingers and used them to steady himself as he attempted to walk across the carpet.
His steps were awkward and uneven, and every few seconds one of his feet stuck slightly to the floor before he figured out how to lift it again.
Steve watched with quiet amusement. “You're going to have to learn how to control that.”
Peter looked at the carpet, then at Steve, and then deliberately stuck both feet to it.
Steve laughed. “I suppose that works too.”
Peter gave him a tiny, smug smile.
Clint saw it from the couch. “Oh, he's absolutely doing that on purpose.”
A few minutes later, Clint discovered the other problem.
He had held out one finger for Peter to grab, mostly because he thought it would be funny.
Peter grabbed it.
Clint's expression changed once he realized that his hand was stuck, “Uh.”
Steve looked over. “Clint?”
“I've made a tactical error.”
Peter, apparently pleased with himself, pulled.
Clint's entire body moved jerked several inches forward.
Thor laughed loudly enough to startle Peter, who immediately let go and turned toward him.
“My young friend,” Thor said, grinning, “you possess impressive strength.”
Peter stared at him.
Thor held out both hands. “Come.”
Eventually Peter toddled over, still clutching the Spider-Man plush in one hand, and Thor carefully lifted him beneath the arms.
Peter immediately stiffened, clearly offended by being handled like an actual toddler, but Thor simply settled him against one arm as though he were carrying something precious.
Clint laughed again.
Natasha watched from the couch, arms folded loosely across her chest, and found herself smiling before she realized she'd done it.
The Red Room had never taught her how to sit in a Tower common room and watch a child who trusted her being passed carefully between people who had once been strangers to him.
Peter glanced over at her and his expression changed immediately.
He wriggled out of Thor's arms with enough force that Thor had to catch him before he fell, then reached toward Natasha.
“Nat.” The word was barely more than a sound.
Natasha stood before she could think about it.
Thor handed him over without comment, and Peter immediately curled against her chest, one hand gripping the front of her shirt while the other still held the Spider-Man plush.
Clint looked at Steve. Steve looked at Pepper. Pepper smiled knowingly.
And Natasha ignored all of them.
“You’re doing good,” she murmured to Peter.
Peter shook his head against her shoulder.
“No?”
Another shake.
Natasha rubbed a hand gently over his back. “Okay.”
Peter settled.
Pepper sat down beside them, watching with an expression that had gone softer than her earlier amusement. “You know, for someone who spent the last month insisting he doesn't need anyone, he seems pretty comfortable with you.”
Natasha glanced at her, “I think,” she said quietly, “he's had enough of doing things alone.”
Nobody joked about that.
For a moment, the room was quiet in a way that felt different from before, and Natasha looked around at the people gathered there.
Steve sitting on the floor, Clint sprawled across the couch, Thor still holding one of Peter's discarded socks because he'd apparently forgotten to put it down, Pepper sorting the remaining clothes into neat piles, and realized that none of them had asked whether Peter deserved this kind of care.
They had simply started caring for him.
The thought was more comforting than Natasha was willing to admit.
Her entire life had been built around the idea that people had to be useful to one another, that loyalty was something earned and attachment was something dangerous. Yet here was Peter, small enough to fit against her chest, unable to contribute anything at all, and every person in the room was making space for him anyway.
Maybe that was what family was supposed to look like.
Natasha didn't know. She knew that she never would.
But she also knew that when Peter's head dropped against her shoulder and his tiny fingers loosened around the plush, she had never felt emotions so fiercy before.
The elevator doors suddenly opened and everyone looked up.
Tony stepped out first, Bruce behind him, and Helen following with a tablet in one hand.
Tony glanced around the room, took in the pajamas, the plushie, Peter asleep against Natasha, and Clint sitting on the floor with a toddler-sized sock stuck to his sleeve.
He stopped. “I leave you people alone for forty-five minutes.”
Clint pointed at Peter. “He started it.”
Peter, without opening his eyes, made a tiny annoyed noise.
Helen's eyebrows rose. “Yeah. That's definitely Peter.”
Bruce smiled faintly as he came farther into the room. “We figured out what's happening.” He held up the tablet. “The transformation is temporary. The energy pattern is already beginning to destabilize on its own, and Peter's body is slowly returning to its original state.”
Tony nodded. “No magic cure required. No risky experiment. No sticking him in a machine.”
Peter opened one eye.
Tony crouched down at him. “You're welcome.”
Bruce continued, “Based on the rate of change, we're estimating roughly twenty-four hours from the initial exposure. Give or take a little.”
There was a collective pause.
Steve sighed, but there was amusement in it.
Pepper glanced down at the tiny Spider-Man pajamas and then at the pile of toddler supplies she'd bought.
“So,” she said, “we're running a daycare for one day.”
Tony looked around the room. “We’ve fought aliens.”
Clint nodded. “And somehow this is worse.”
Peter shifted against Natasha, apparently deciding that he had heard enough.
Natasha looked down at him and smiled despite herself. “Only one day,” she said to no one in particular.
How hard could it be?