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“Alright...” Rhodey shook his head, crossing both arms over his chest with a sigh deep enough to rattle his shoulders. “This is low. Even for you.”

Tony didn’t bother looking his way. Sitting at his computer console, he took a large sip of coffee from his mug, his other hand clicking wildly at the mouse in his grip.

“I have doubts about that,” he muttered, the screen of the monitor reflecting on his face. “Forget spring break ‘87 already? You swore you’d never let me live it down.”

Leg braces whirred with a mechanical hum as Rhodey took a step forward, hovering over where Tony sat, practically hunched over the keyboard in front of him. The persistent clicking of the computer mouse was borderline maddening, gaining such speed that the monitor almost couldn’t keep up. The images kept freezing with lag.

Tony’s frustration was palpable at the lack of efficiency.

“You stole the kid’s property, Tony,” Rhodey admonished.

Tony set his coffee mug down on the desk, resisting the urge to roll his eyes. “Not stealing if I gave it to him in the first place.”

More clicking followed suit. Pictures of different tourist locations flew across the screen — Grand Canyon, Yellow Stone Park, the Golden Gate Bridge — followed by a slew of much more odd photos, like six empty bags of gummy worms and three cans of cola with the place tag for some hotel Rhodey didn’t recognize.

It was photos from their road trip, the one he knew Tony took Peter on last month. The SD card belonging to the camera glowed a dim blue as it stayed slotted in the computer console ahead.

Rhodey huffed. “Remind me never to give you a gift.”

The sound of his disapproval was drowned out by the glass doors of the workshop sliding open, though not loud enough to overtake the continuous clicking of Tony’s mouse. While Rhodey turned his head to greet the newcomers, Tony didn’t budge an inch. His attention on the screen was laser-sharp, problematically hysteric.

Not even the stomping footsteps from behind could break his focus.

“Didn’t you say you were going to back off Peter for a bit?” Clint’s accusation tore through the room, a frustrated edge to his voice bouncing off the walls.

“Yeah, about that,” Tony dryly cut in, eyes unwavering from the monitor, “that’s not a thing anymore.”

Steve was less than two feet behind him, heavy exhaustion wearing on his face. “Clint, we went over this —”

“That’s Peter’s camera.” Clint froze in place, jaw unhinged. His eyes bounced from the computer monitor to the camera sitting on the desk where Tony sat, the plastic of the expensive model reflecting under the workshops overhead lights. “You get permission to take that?”

Rhodey gave a slight shake of his head. “Clint, man, don’t —”

“Yeah, about that,” Tony stressed again, his clicks becoming faster. “Don’t you know me by now? I don’t do well with needing permission.”

Rhodey rubbed aggressively at his temple, and Steve leveled Clint a look, practically imploring the man not to start a fight.

Clint didn’t back down. “What, you don’t know how to handle some off-the-wall behavior from a teenager — so now you’re just going to spy on him?”

“He already thinks I’m spying on him!” Tony spun his chair around, arms thrown in the air as he faced the group for the first time. 

Clint stomped ahead. “So you’re going to prove him right?”

Steve turned away, looking up to the ceiling as he mentally forced himself the patience needed to approach the situation. Meanwhile, Rhodey hadn’t let go of his forehead, close to scrubbing the skin away with the pressure of his fingertips.

Tony eyed Clint intently, staring him down for a second that felt too long. Finally, he spun back around in his chair back, the glow of the computer screen highlighting the stress lines on his face.

“No,” he curtly threw back. “I’m going to figure out what the hell is going on with him.”

Rhodey sighed. “Devils advocate here —”

“The devil can’t help you now.”

Natasha’s voice was an unexpected sound that caught them all off guard, though Tony had little interest in her sudden presence. The remaining three turned around, watching as the glass doors slid shut on their own accord —the noise of them opening over was never heard over their bickering.

Though knowing Natasha, she’d find a way to sneak in even if they’d been dead silent.

Clint turned to face her, hand outstretched with frustration. “Nat, this is ridiculous! You can’t seriously believe —”

“I meant what I told you,” she insisted, her voice low, edged with coldness. “I meant every word of it. Regardless of who believes me.”

As quickly as she turned to face him, Natasha turned to Steve, who leaned his backside against the nearest desk. His khakis wrinkled against the metal table, and the button-down shirt he wore ruffled when his arms crossed over his chest. His exhaustion didn’t deter him from the situation at hand. He locked eyes with Natasha as she stared him down.

“I know when to trust my instincts.” Natasha took a deep breath in, eyes flickering back to Clint only for a brief second. “And I know better than not to.”

The unspoken didn’t need vocalized. Steve nodded back to her, his belief and support steadfast and solid.

Clint, however, shook his head, aggressively fast. “You guys are full of shit!”

Rhodey dropped his hand down to his side. “Clint, man —!”

“You train this kid to fight like, what, an assassin like you, Natasha? A soldier like you, Steve?” Clint grabbed the back of Tony’s computer chair, forcing him to spin and face them. The look he received in return was hot enough to burn. “You took a teenager and put him in a war-zone. You wanted him trained for combat, trained like SHIELD operatives, and the moment he starts behaving like us, you lose your shit on him. You’re a hypocrite.”

Tony looked up at him from where he sat, the shadowy bags underneath his eyes somehow darkening underneath the overhead lights.

“You done yet?” he dryly asked.

“I’m just getting started,” Clint sneered in return.

“Stop it.”

Steve’s command was far from robust, exhaustion sinking its teeth deep into his words. Slowly, and one by one, they turned to look at him. He didn’t meet their gaze, his head bowed low to his chest, his eyes locked intently on the floor.

He chewed on his thoughts before speaking again.

“This isn’t the time for disagreements. Whether we all believe it or not, one of our own may be in trouble. If there’s even a one percent chance that something could be wrong with Peter, it’s in our best interest — and his — that we act on it.” Steve straightened his back, lifting his head while managing to lock eyes with everyone at once. The determination behind the blue irises was prominent. “Though I don’t agree with Tony’s methods, I think he’s right to take action. Especially after what happened last night.”

A soft sheet of confusion seemed to wash over Clint, one that visibly took him aback. He released his grip on Tony’s chair, his head bouncing between the group slowly but surely.

“No one told me anything about last night.” A beat passed as Clint unknitted the tight crease to his brow. “Is that why we left D.C in a rush? What happened?”

Natasha pulled her jacket closer around her waist, barely looking Clint in the eye when she turned towards him. “We felt it was only right if Tony told you himself.”

Clint narrowed his eyes as Tony rolled his.

“Of course,” Tony drawled out, immediately turning back to his computer screen. “Because I haven’t dealt with enough in the past forty-eight hours.”

The clicking of a mouse resumed, though not nearly at the same pace as before. Tony fiddled on the computer, the flat-screen monitor pulling up a different array of screens, some minimized, some enlarged — all keeping him intently focused on the task at hand.

Clint’s impatience grew by the second. “Are you going to tell me or —?”

“Hold your horses, Barton.” The lack of any snark or humor in Tony’s tone was enough to create a thick, suffocating course of tension.

Even Rhodey seemed concerned, his head cocking slightly to the side as he examined Tony.

A few moments later, and Tony pushed his chair away from the screen, giving full access to the others for viewing.

“Five months ago, I designed this device specifically for Peter. It’s an emergency signal — a panic button. It’s tied directly to the one I wear. If he’s ever in trouble, he knows to activate it. I get the alert, and I respond.” Tony showcased the black bracelet strapped around his wrist, eyeing it himself before dropping his hand back into his lap. “It’s a no questions asked kind of deal. I don’t care what trouble he’s in. Burning building, hostage under the sea, or upset that he bombed a math quiz. He’s got a way to seek help. At all times.”

The raw, almost breakable crack in Tony’s voice was enough to shake the room. The confidence he usually carried on his back had been rattled, and it was obvious.

Clint noticed. His demeanor took on a change, softening around the corners as he stuffed his hands into his jean pockets.

“Didn’t know that,” he settled on saying, briefly clearing his throat. “No questions asked...that’s a good way to go about things with teenagers. Smart thinkin’.”

Tony gave him a look, though the heat behind it was halfhearted at best. “I may not be Farmer Joe raising six kids on the prairie, but I was a teenager once. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know how they act.”

Clint made a face. “I don’t have six kids —”

“He activated the panic alarm last night.”

Clint’s eyes grew wide, and he did a double-take to the others to make sure he had heard things correctly. Their lack of surprise was instead filled with a distressed confirmation. Clint turned back to Tony, who seemed equally as upset.

“Oh shit,” he mumbled. “Is...you know, is he okay?”

Tony didn’t hesitate to shake of his head. “No.”

Clint arched an eyebrow high.

“He told you he wasn’t okay?”

Tony stopped shaking his head, opting to turn back to the computer instead.

“No.”

“For the love of —” Clint made a noise that stayed locked in his mouth. “Tony, is there any possibility Peter activated the alarm by accident?”

Craning his head over his shoulder, Tony bluntly — and curtly — stressed, “No.”

The blueprints of the design began to flicker away, one by one, as Tony closed them out and resumed his search through the SD card slotted in the console. 3D outlines of the device were instead replaced with candid pictures, each scrolling along faster than anyone could keep track of.

Clint waved a hand at the computer ahead.

“I’m not even going to question how any of that even works,” he mentioned, holding back a sigh before continuing. “I’m also not going to question anyone’s instincts here. Nat, Steve... Tony. If you feel something’s up — okay, I can play with that. But why? Why are we kicking the kid off the team and the premises, and why the hell are we stealing his stuff?”

Tony leaned back in his chair, eyes still locked ahead on the monitor. “Remember how Linda Blair looked in The Exorcist?”

Rhodey huffed. “Before or after the head-spinning act?”

Tony didn’t entertain the question with an answer. The computer monitor on his face highlighted the red spider-cracks in his eyes.

Clint balked. “You are not comparing Peter to some demon possessed character from a 1970’s horror movie. Even you’re better than that.”

“No, that’d be crazy,” Tony agreed, making a vague motion with his hands. “Give it a few days. Then I’ll be comparing.”

This time, Clint didn’t hold back the sound of aggravation that came from his mouth. He turned away, muttering something under his breath that only he could hear. A brief look towards Natasha, and he realized that his feelings of disbelief weren’t shared — with that, he walked away a bit further, working to calm himself down in the corner of the workshop.

In his place, Steve stepped forward; arms still folded tightly over his chest.

“Did he really look that bad, Tony?” he asked, soft-spoken with concern.

Tony didn’t look his way. “Would I say it otherwise?”

There was a heavy pause between them, filled only by the computer’s working meticulously as Tony tore through the files embedded to the camera’s memory card.

Steve managed to take a few more steps closer, his footsteps barely heard against the ground.

“So you believe us now?”

Tony pursed his lips tightly, forcing himself to count to ten — and possibly over that — in an attempt to remain mollified. A part of him knew Steve was just trying to gain confirmation, an evil necessity in a circumstance like this.

But last night was hard enough for him as it was. In more ways than one. He admitted Rogers was right — he didn’t care to do it all over again.

Quite frankly, he didn’t care to think about any of this more than he had to. It made him sick to his stomach just remembering how piss-poor the kid looked a few hours ago.

“What, you want to toot your horn?” Tony tossed back, sarcasm dripping on his tongue. “Gloat? Give me a good I told you so?”

Steve sighed, shaking his head. “I just want to know that you’ve come around to the possibility.”

Tony clicked a few more times on his mouse, but his eyes weren’t paying much attention to the photos ahead. They were of happier times, just a month ago. For the life of him, he didn’t understand how things went wrong so quickly.

“Yeah, well...I’m there,” he admitted, his voice low in his throat. “Possibility acknowledged. Denial out the window. Something’s definitely up with the kid.”

Steve was close enough to Tony now that the man could smell his cologne, the travel kind he used when out of state. He did just rush back to the compound at Tony’s request, after all. No wonder he looked exhausted.

Hell, Tony needed a week off anytime he had to deal with SHIELD meetings. It was an impressive feat that Steve could bounce back so quickly.

“Tony...it’s okay.” Steve laid a hand on his shoulder, firm, and present. Tony tried not to flinch away. “Sometimes it’s difficult for us to see the things we don’t want to accept.”

There was something heavy in his chest, and Tony forced himself to swallow a swig of coffee to bury it away. He returned to the monitor almost immediately, not wasting a second between breaths.

Nothing had made sense so far. Every time he tried to solve the problem, more variables popped up. He had barely conjured up three possibilities to explain what could have occurred last night. He didn't care to think about any of them.

Either Peter really did activate his panic watch by mistake, which held the least chance of probability when all details were taken into consideration. And Tony had meant it — he didn’t design the watch that way. If anyone could just hit the damn thing and send the alarm off, than he would have been dealing with butt dials all summer long.

There was also the possibility that he activated the watch only to regret it. Lied about doing it. The likelihood was real. After all, he wasn’t exactly making the kid feel comfortable around him these days. Maybe he really felt in danger, but decided to handle the situation himself.

Tony didn’t like to think about that possibility.

So he didn’t.

Or, third and final one — he meant to hit it. Peter meant to activate it, but something was keeping him from remembering. He was in danger, or felt he was in danger, and knew he needed to seek help.

As much as Tony hated to dwell on that, hated to think about Peter being trapped voiceless to whatever was causing him distress, something in his gut told him it was the most likely of all three.

It lit a fire under his ass to figure things out. Asap.

“Kid had a bunch of drug store medication in his waste bin,” Tony recalled, almost speaking to himself. “Whatever’s going on with him...think he’s sick from it.”

“Then that settles it.” Rhodey’s no-nonsense, unyielding tone ripped right through the quiet that had fallen through the room. “Bring him back here. Get Cho to look him over. We don’t mess around with sick kids.”

Tony tiredly shook his head. “Not gunna be that easy.”

“You’re the adult, Tony,” Rhodey tossed back. “Don’t ask, tell.”

“It’s not going to be that easy,” Tony stressed again, barely craning his neck to look up at Rhodey. “You don’t understand. Peter has no trust in me right now. Zip. Zilch. Negative five point zero.”

“I can’t imagine why, what with the stealing and all that,” Clint wryly drawled.

Tony opted to ignore that statement, despite glaring a heated glance in Clint’s direction. The archer shrugged in response.

“If I force him here, things could turn ugly real fast.” Tony tapped his index finger on desk surface, eyes wide as he stared Rhodey down. “Do we really want to be fighting the kid down? Literally?”

Steve furrowed his brows. “You’d think Peter would resort to violence?”

Tony’s mouth set in a thin line.

“I don’t know,” he cautiously said, turning Natasha across the way. “You tell me, Romanoff.”

Natasha looked up, having been otherwise hushed through most of the conversation. Her exhaustion seemed to be shared with Steve, her eyes slightly puffy and skin appearing tired, lacking the usual color that brightened her cheeks.

Though Tony hadn’t seen her since the incident — the three having taken flight to D.C not long after on the same day — he could tell without a doubt that she hadn’t been the same since.

In a way, he couldn’t blame her. If anything, he regretted not coming to her side right away.

He shouldn’t have had to see things for himself to know something was wrong. Once again, his stubbornness got in the way of the gravity of the situation. He could only hope it wasn’t too late to repair the damage.

“I think Tony’s got a point,” Natasha quietly mentioned, unfolding her arms from across her chest. Slowly, she stuffed them deep into her jacket pockets. “If we can figure out what could be wrong with Peter before approaching him...it might make our case stronger. Prevent any permanent fall out from occurring.”

Clint spun around from where he stood in the corner of the workshop, one hand gestured high in the air.

“And if we can’t?” he asked, his frustration evident. “If we need Peter to figure out what’s wrong with Peter?”

Tony had to refrain from letting his shoulders slump down to his toes, unable to look Clint head-on with a response.

“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” he gruffly managed, turning his focus back to the multitude of camera pictures displayed on the screen.

Clint’s sigh was heard from the other side of the workshop. He moved slowly as he approached the group, hesitant to walk at all. While Tony, Rhodey and Steve all remained huddled towards the computer consoles, Natasha had stayed a good handful of feet away from them.

Clint walked up towards her, making sure to keep a distance and protect her personal space.

“Black eyes, Nat?”

His question didn’t need further explanation. She looked at him, expression solemn as ever as she nodded.

“Black eyes.”

Clint hadn’t been there. He received the details, of course, and even those were hard to swallow. But at the time, it seemed blown out of the water. It didn’t make sense to be mad at the kid when they were training him to fight for life and death situations.

Now, though, the whole situation seemed to take on a different perspective. It was hard to stay in denial, what with the world they lived in. Clint couldn’t reject the possibility of something out of the ordinary happening, not when he himself had been brainwashed and mind-controlled by someone who didn’t even reside on this planet.

He looked towards the other men, his chin bobbing with thought.

“You think he contracted something while held hostage in that clandestine lab down in the ocean?” Clint asked.

All Tony did was shake his head. It was Rhodey who turned to look at him inquisitively.

“That was almost six months ago,” he gave the words time to settle, briefly thinking it over himself. “There’s no way, he’d be showing signs a lot sooner.”

Clint shrugged. “Not necessarily.”

Steve shook his head, his eyes as focused on the screen as Tony’s were. “It’s too far stretched.”

Clint couldn’t argue. A hand rubbed at the nape of his neck, and he walked to the desk ahead, standing directly behind Tony’s computer chair.

The mouse clicked continuously as the billionaire searched through the hordes of digital photos that never seemed to end. Clint had seen some of these before. Most of the group had, in fact. Peter was eager to show off his photography when he first got to the compound after their road trip. No one had put much, if any thought, into the thirty days the two spent on the road.

Now, Clint was re-evaluating his perspective from a strategic point of view.

“Where else could he have come in contact with something?” Clint pointed to the screen. “Tony, you guys come across anything while on your trip?”

Tony craned his neck around and tossed an aggravated hand ahead.

“Does it look like it?”

There were a lot of photos — a lot of them. More than Clint took on his family vacations; and his wife always nagged him about not living in the moment. The kid was a bonafide photographer in the making, snapping any opportunity that landed at his feet. Clint knew he had a passion for the camera, but he had to admit, he never knew it existed to this extent.

Unfortunately, pictures of diner food, hotel rooms, and Tony and Peter shaving their faces together didn’t lead to any clues that helped their problem.

“Jesus Christ,” Tony muttered, clicking through the next bunch of photos. They appeared to be more relevant, no longer from the month-long trip they had been looking at for what felt like hours now. “Does this kid take enough selfies?”

Clint snorted a laugh, amused as picture after picture of Spider-Man came flashing on the screen. Even Rhodey smirked a grin, and if they didn’t know better, they could hear a mumble of ‘just like you, Tones’ said discreetly under his breath.

“What’s a selfie?” Steve asked, looking around for an answer.

Rhodey pointed a limp finger to the screen while Clint shook his head.

It didn’t take long for Steve to catch on. Especially as one after another, Spider-Man photos swarmed the memory card. Pictures taken on a bridge, on a roof, mid-swing —

“You know,” Steve started, folding his arms over his chest. “If Peter wants to keep his identity secret, it might not be wise to have him take photos like these. Especially leaving them wherever anyone can get access.”

Tony snorted a laugh so hard, it surprised all occupants in the room.

“That’s nothing,” he said. “I had to hack access into his school’s security system last fall and put alerts on the cameras. Tells me when the twerp decides to crawl out a ninth story window with his suit hanging out of his backpack. At least this way, I can delete the footage before any suspicion arises.”

Steve arched an eyebrow high into his blond hairline. “If that’s the case, we should probably be training him for more than just combat.”

Stating the obvious wasn’t nearly close to the right sentiment that Tony felt. He blew a sigh through his cheeks, barely offering the soldier a glance.

“One thing at a time, Capsicle.”

Some days — most days — it felt like an accomplishment just to get Peter to return from patrol before curfew. It was an uphill battle with the kid, and he never made it easy.

Tony figured it was only fair, seeing all the trouble he put everyone through in his lifetime.

A thought struck him hard enough to make his head hurt. May was still waiting for him to explain how he discovered the fight Peter had with Flash. Tony rubbed at his temple, taking a quick break from the glow of the computer screen. Something about how she told Pepper that Peter suspected her of ratting him out to Tony and — shit, he was not looking forward to explaining this one.

Kid felt like he was being spied on twenty-four seven. Knowing about his access to the school’s security cameras wasn’t going to go over well.

At all.

In Tony’s defense, he had saved Peter’s butt on more than one occasion with deleting some footage that came his way. There was no way in hell some underpaid school security officer wouldn’t have handed it over to some trashy tabloid, outing Peter and his Spider-Man identity.

One of these days the boy was going to need to learn how not to crawl out of windows where he was being watched.

Tony hadn’t realized he was still clicking through photos, so lost in his thoughts he wasn’t even paying attention to the screen. It wasn’t until Rhodey’s hand suddenly gripped his forearm that he jerked back to reality.

“Hey, hold on.”

Tony shot his head up with lightning reflexes. Blood-shot eyes stared at the monitor, growing wider by the second.

“Whoa.” He immediately sat up straighter in his chair, practically inches from the screen.

The feel of Rhodey, Clint, and Steve coming closer behind him would otherwise be a threat to his personal space, but Tony was too distracted to care. He could even see Natasha’s red hair in the peripheral of his vision, which was a surprise considering how close his eyes were to the monitor ahead.

There was no making out what the photo was, not at first. It looked foreign, completely out of place from the rest.

It nearly startled the skin right off Tony’s back.

“That is... not from your trip, is it?” Clint needlessly asked.

It took Tony every ounce of strength he had to click onto the next photo. There were more like it, picture after picture, from all different types of angles. Apparatus cases, oxygen tanks, tube stations, glass-door refrigerators, automated analyzer machines —

It was a lab.

It was a goddamn lab.

“The pictures before this were of Wisconsin’s largest ball of twine.” Tony tried to ignore how his pulse thumped erratically under his skin. “Does this look like it was on our trip?”

Once he had clicked through them all, Tony was quick to click backward, reviewing the handful of images taken. He began to zoom in and zoom around, studious to the equipment that was in plain view. It almost looked like a growing house, like each incubator tank was breeding something.

“Where the hell is this?” Tony gnawed painfully on his bottom lip, his brain working in overtime as he struggled to piece together the information.

“Tony,” Steve stated, his voice taking on the edge of authority. “That’s a lab.”

Tony wanted to do nothing more than roll his eyes out of his skull.

“FRIDAY, enhance,” he said instead, letting his AI take over the computer.

The images on the monitor flickered in fast motion, a sharp stream of computer code running across every pixel that could be seen. Tony couldn’t blame the group for huddling close to the console at this point, despite how uncomfortable it felt to have multiple bodies pressed up against his chair.

He stared at the screen intently; they all did.

Then, FRIDAY finally managed to find the smallest possible detail in one of the multiple photos taken. It was a label, a small sticker slapped onto one of the glass panels of an incubator tank.

Tony hissed out a curse.

“Son of a bitch. ”

The word OsCorp filled up the screen, enlarged and taunting in view.

“OsCorp?” Steve looked to Tony, his expression a harsh mix of shock and anger. “When was Peter in OsCorp?”

It was a good thing Tony didn’t have his gauntlets nearby. As it was, it took every bit of restraint not to call on them from his other workshop across the compound. He wanted nothing more than to blow to smithereens the image in front of him, shatter the computer monitor into tiny bits of glass. It was a vile sight, creating a pit in the depths of his stomach that ached and screamed.

Screamed like his skin against the freezing ice waters of the sea, the bloody cries of a boy taken hostage where he couldn’t escape.

All because of OsCorp.

“Three weeks ago,” Tony coldly stated, a dangerously cruel edge exuding off his lips.

Natasha gripped the back of his chair and roughly spun him around to face her.

“You knew he went to OsCorp?” She didn’t ask. She demanded an answer.

“I didn’t exactly give my blessing!” Tony snapped. “Osborn’s son invited him there for a tutoring session. Peter said they went straight to some kind of loft area — he didn’t say a damn thing about any of this, he didn’t — goddamn it!”

Tony shot up from the chair, nearly pummeling Natasha to the ground in his haste to get up. She barely managed to avoid getting shoulder-bumped as he forced his way through the group, his hands clenching painfully at the roots of his hair.

He should have known better. He knew weeks ago that something was up, when he got the alert that Peter’s panic watch had been removed — when the location was OsCorp, of all places. He thought he could trust the kid, he thought he’d tell the truth —

When did things get so bad?

Tony fought through the wave of panic that began to send goosebumps along his arms. Now wasn’t the time for anxiety — he needed to think straight. He needed clarity.

He needed answers.

“FRIDAY, analyze the substance in these images. I want to know what these incubator tanks are breeding.”

The Irish accent from overhead echoed through the workshop, briefly taking the room by hold. Steve was still busy staring at the screen, even as FRIDAY did her magic on the photos. Clint was splitting his time from the monitor to Tony, and Natasha was flat out eyeing Tony down with a look that could kill.

If Rhodey didn’t know better, he’d say she was a few seconds from launching an attack.

He stepped forward, slow in approaching Tony, careful to avoid stepping on anyone’s toes.

“How long since Peter’s been behaving strangely?” he asked, an arm gesturing behind him to the screens image. It continued to flicker and fritz out as FRIDAY dissected its smallest pixels. “Since this? Since he...went somewhere he clearly wasn’t supposed to go?”

Clint scoffed, and Natasha shot him a hard glare. The humor in teenage irresponsibility obviously wasn’t shared.

Tony kept his back to the group, his hands noticeably scrubbing down the length of his face.

“I don’t know…I….” he blew a huff of air out of his cheeks, rubbing harshly at the bridge of his nose. “I don’t know! We got into a fight a few days after, he… but that was different. That was…”

Stammering words died off on the tip of his tongue. The lack of clear certainty in his voice gained everyone’s attention — Steve included — who turned away from the monitor with an arched eyebrow.

“That was what?”

Tony shook his head, muttering something no one could hear.

Steve glanced back at the monitor, and then turned to face Tony with a hard-pressed look.

“Tony, if we’re going to help Peter, you need to be honest with us.”

Wrapping both his arms tightly around his chest, Tony bowed his head low to the floor, somehow making himself seem smaller as he turned to face them. His choice not to meet their gaze was noticed, his shoulders hunching high as he swallowed his next sigh.

“Kid had an anxiety attack,” Tony explained. His tongue ran sharply over his teeth, and he worked his jaw as he forced himself to continue. “It was my fault, I brought it on. I mentioned too much about that goddamn incident with Klum and Dmitri and...it got him worked up. That wasn’t anything to do with...whatever this is. That was something that’s been there for months now.”

Natasha lifted her chin high. “You think Peter’s developing PTSD?”

Locking eyes with Natasha was like fighting the opposite end of magnets. Tony managed to look her on directly, the sheen in his eyes a bone-chilling reflection under the workshop lights.

“Kinda hard not to, after all he’s been through.”

Tony’s voice was on the threshold of breaking, barely audible through the hoarse crackle in his throat. He looked away, the rising feeling of embarrassment pulling tightly on his skin.

Natasha relaxed her pose with a tiny nod, her stance easing with the heavy weight that had laid on her shoulders.

She said nothing more in response. No one did.

FRIDAY was the next person to break the silence.

Rhodey laid a hand on the back of the empty computer chair, eyeing the screen with growing frustration. “That’s not concerning in the least bit.”

Unfolding his arms, Tony moved quickly to the monitor ahead, shoving the chair aside to get closer access. The image remained the same; zoomed in, enhanced, lacking any detail from his AI. The only thing they could go off of was the obvious — incubator tanks upon tanks filled with sludge. Slime.

Black goo breeding god-knows-what.

Tony clicked the mouse from where he stood, reviewing the images again and again. Each tank took on a different appearance. Some of the goo was dried up, withered, dead like a raisin. Others seemed more fresh, more lively.

The last image taken was the most peculiar. The chemicals inside — whatever it was — it looked the most alive of them all. Almost moving, like each corner of its blob-less body was spasming.

Tony pointed a sharp finger to the screen. “You think that’s it?”

Standing behind him, Steve examined the image with the same gravity as Tony, if not more. He gave a small shake of his head, a shrug that matched the act.

“OsCorp has been keeping the files under lock and key.” Steve turned his head to the side, eyeing Tony. “It would make sense that FRIDAY can’t determine what it is if there’s no documentation on it.”

Natasha stepped next to the two, her interest vibrating off her skin. “Are you talking about the Oz Formula?”

Tony nodded stiffly, but didn’t look her way. “It’s a possibility.”

His hand moved away from the mouse, leaving the screen to reflect the last image taken on the camera. The picture stayed frozen, unmoving — the shiny black matter in the cage taking on an almost ominous appearance.

Rhodey’s leg braces made a hum of noise as he moved closer to the desk, pushing the chair off to the side so he could stand closer to the three.

“Yeah, but of what likelihood?” he asked. “It took me months to get the smallest details on the Oz Project. With military clearance, nonetheless. You really think Peter just so happened to waltz into a room where they were keeping samples of the formula?”

“And was infected by it?” Clint added in.

Rhodey gestured a hand in his direction, physically agreeing with the objection.

Tony didn’t seem to be put off by the odds. Perhaps he knew just how bad so-called Parker Luck was. Perhaps he knew just how bad his own luck was.

The two combined...it called for a shit-show that couldn’t be stopped.

This was why he wanted Peter to steer clear of OsCorp. Of the atrocity that was the Osborn’s. He knew in the pit of his gut that they would be nothing but trouble for the kid since he was held hostage in one of their abandoned labs under the ocean.

It wasn’t right. Tony wanted to do everything in his power to keep Peter far, far away from this case — from their investigation of the Oz Formula and whatever dirty deeds Norman Osborn was up to. For the life of him, he didn’t understand how he failed at that.

It was his responsibility — and he had failed.

The photo ahead of him was proof enough of that.

“I don’t know,” Tony dry swallowed to regain his voice, forcing down the oscillations that leaked into his every word. “It’s a long shot. But it’s possible. And that,” he pointed to the picture ahead, his callous fingers shaking hard for a long second. “That has got to be our first clue as to what’s wrong with him. We figure out what that is...and we go from there.”

A tense, brittle feeling washed over the workshop. Though footsteps and restrained sighs kept the space between them from growing too quiet, the thick, sifting stress was strong enough to creep tremors up the length of their bodies.

The weight of the situation was felt deep in their lungs. No exchanges were needed to acknowledge the obvious. Eyes stayed locked on the photo ahead.

“Tony’s right.” Steve was the first to look away, addressing the group as a whole. “Whether Oz or not, if Peter had any contact with this, then there’s a very good chance it’s what’s affecting him. We need to figure out what it is before we approach him with the facts.”

Clint knitted his eyebrows tightly together. “And how exactly do we figure out what this black gunk crud is? FRIDAY’s got no answers, and Wikipedia isn’t going to have much else.”

Tony tore his eyes away from the computer, a glimmer of emotion shinning through the stress in his eyes.

“We ask OsCorp themselves,” he answered, spinning on his heels so quickly it pushed a waft of air through his hair. For a brief and fleeting moment, it almost looked like he was smiling.

With two wide steps, Tony approached Natasha head-on. “How do you feel about attending a personal appointment with me, Miss Natalie Rushman?”

For the first time since she arrived, Natasha smirked.

 

 

“...and you didn’t even touch anything about the Japanese surface fleet, which is absolutely absurd — here in your notes you even wrote down ‘Don’t forget the Japanese surface fleet’ and underlined it like...five times. It’s no wonder Mr. Harrington flunked this. I’ve seen cliff notes that detail the Battle of Leyte Gulf better than you did, and don’t even get me started on the flow and format of — are you even listening, Parker?”

Peter shot his head up from the table. His eyes momentarily danced wildly, floating like rubber balls with no connection to his skull. The entire library was spinning in circles, a crappy roller-coaster ride that he couldn’t seem to get off of.

In front of him, MJ’s face was nothing but a blur of brown and black colors, swirling like water down a drain. He couldn’t make out what was what, dismorphed blobs violently stealing his vision.

He nodded anyway, swallowing hard. “Y-yeah, I’m listening. I’m...I’m paying attention, I swear.”

It was probably his sixth lie of the day — Peter had lost count sometime around third period, when he told his shop-class teacher that he was late because of an emergency phone call from his aunt. The truth was much less pretty, what with him dry-heaving what felt like the entire catalog of his inner organs into the boy’s locker room toilets.

Shakily, Peter used the back of his hand to wipe trickles of sweat away from his forehead before they could drip down into his eyes. The sleeve to his blue hoodie caught most of the moisture, the skin of his hand catching the rest.

“Uh-huh…” MJ quirked an eyebrow high, barely seen over the long, curly hair covering the left side of her face. “You look warm. Like...you’re making me uncomfortable kinda warm. Take that off, already.”

Peter forced a grin, tight-lipped with no teeth. Forcing his hands to stay steady, he used both sleeves of his hoodie to dry his face before shaking his head.

“I’m good. Just got chills...is all. Just chilly. Where were we? With, uh, with the essay.” Peter leaned over the table, eyeing the pieces of paper MJ had laid out in front of them. They were already tainted with red ink, circling multiple paragraphs and striking through sentences at every corner. “How fast you think we can fix it? Today?”

MJ scoffed, shooting him a look of disbelief. “No way. This catastrophe needs an entire overhaul if you want a passing grade. Maybe we can get it done if by the end of the week if you start paying attention to me —”

“I am paying attention!” Peter pulled a few sheets of paper over to his side of the table, bringing them close to his face to better read the print. The text was hazy, out of focus in a way that made him remember the days of when he desperately needed glasses. He kind of wished he hadn’t tossed his only pair back when The Bite changed his eyes for the better. He could seriously use them right about now.

“You were talking about, uhm...you – you were going on about the...the thing with —”

“If that’s how you’re going to fumble for an answer,” MJ snatched the papers back from him, “maybe it is best Flash takes your spot on decathlon.”

Peter stared at his empty hands, the papers he’d been holding no longer in his grip. MJ had already returned to reviewing the essay with a fine-tooth comb, so intently that her back hunched over the table while her red pen made additional marks.

He sighed, scrubbing two hands down the length of his face with more force than what was necessary.

“I’m sorry, MJ.” The sleeves of his hoodie muffled most of his voice. “It’s just...it’s been a long week.”

“It’s Monday,” she tossed back, not once looking up from the papers.

Peter paused. Mentally bringing up a calendar in his head, he went over the days, his brows furrowing deeply — sheesh, she was right. It hadn’t even been a full three days since his incident at the compound.

Why did it feel like an eternity?

“A long couple of weeks,” he corrected, mumbled in the fabric of his Midtown Science and Technology hoodie.

With resigned frustration, Peter dropped his head down onto the table, covering himself with his arms and hiding himself away. A deep, low groan came from his chest, one not completely suppressed by his hoodie this time around.

MJ noticed, peering up from the paperwork to eye him cautiously.

“You look like shit, Peter.”

Her comment hit like a ton of bricks, said so casually it almost didn’t take immediate effect. Peter didn’t even bother to move his hair out of the way when he barely lifted his head, his eyes looking at her over the barricade of his forearms.

“Huh?”

It was the best he could manage, though Peter wasn’t sure if he could call his croaky, hoarse response ‘managing’ much of anything. His head hadn’t let up on the aggressive tilt-a-whirl ride it started when he first entered the library, and quite honestly, he’d just be happy if he could make it through the next hour without puking. Especially not in front of MJ.

He’d suffered enough embarrassment recently to last a lifetime. The last thing he wanted was to hurl his lunch — did he have lunch? Breakfast? Meal aside, ho hurling in front of MJ. It was his only priority at the moment.

“You’re doing too much, you know,” MJ’s voice dropped in pitch, quiet as she drew a scribble or two on the bottom of his essay papers. She was doodling now, Peter noticed, drawing something that hadn’t taken form yet. “Should probably clean off your plate a little bit.”

“I’m not.” Peter shook his head, stopping the moment it made his stomach cramp into miserable knots. “Doing too much. I’m not. If Harry can handle all his workload, I can handle mine.”

“Can he?” MJ warily asked, a coldness to her tone making Peter even more chilly than he was a second before. He leaned back in his chair, wrapping two arms tightly around his chest. “Dude spent all that time tutoring you and this was his result?”

With one hand, MJ held up the first page to his essay, waving it slightly in the air. The big, red F on the corner practically mocked Peter. Of all the blurry text, it seemed to be the only one he could read — loud and clear.

“That wasn’t his fault,” Peter insisted. He opted not to shake his head this time, swallowing past a hard lump as vomit’s bitter taste of acid began to creep up his throat. “I rushed through the essay, I didn’t give myself enough time for it.”

MJ hummed.

“Because you’re spending your time elsewhere.” She continued to scribble her drawing, only offering him a brief glance every few pen strokes.

Peter fumbled for a response. Ultimately, the disgruntled sounds of nonsense that came from his mouth was the only reply she got in return. MJ looked away, wordlessly content with the upper hand.

It was a hard fact to dispute.

The thoughts raced through his head faster than he could keep up with. His mind was muddled, a mess of fog and clouds that he couldn’t fight through. Peter just wanted to sleep — God, he was tired. There hadn’t been a time in his entire young life that he felt this exhausted, bone deep, like someone was possessing him to try and fall into a deep, long coma.

The essay papers still littered the library table below him, and a shiver wracked his body hard.

“I’m not telling you what to do or anything,” MJ spoke up, turning the paper slightly to the side as she worked the pen faster in her sketch. “That’s not my place. You do you. But...you do look burned out. You gotta take care of yourself too, you know.”

Though she didn’t dare lift her head to look at him, there was a noticeable difference in MJ’s face. Something that softened, relaxed underneath the afternoon sun that poured in through the library windows.

It was a good look on her. She didn’t look so defensive, so protective of herself. Like for a split moment, she was able to let her guard down. Peter wasn’t too sure he ever saw her like that.

It was nice.

A smile managed to creep on the corner of his lip. Slowly, he pushed back his hair, damp and gritty from the sweat that poured from his hairline.

“Are you worried about me?”

MJ’s pen stopped moving. She looked up at him with a hard pause.

“Psh, yeah,” she derisively drawled. Almost immediately, she looked away, purposefully hiding her face behind thick, long strands of hair. “I also worry about Ned’s candy habit giving him onset diabetes. Don’t consider yourself special.”

Though the colors of the library had blurred together into one, and Peter still couldn’t make out most of the text to the pieces of paper below him, he’d swear that he saw a slight blush to MJ’s cheeks. And if he didn’t know better, a tug of a grin pulled at her lips.

Deep down inside, he knew that a part of him should be annoyed by her concern. He was frustrated with everyone else’s — Mr. Stark, May, Ned — what made her so different? Why did the idea of MJ being worried about him make him feel...good?

She continued to doodle, though the pen had significantly decreased in movement. Peter smiled, unwrapping his arms from around his chest as he leaned forward and over the table. The papers crinkled underneath his forearms, but he didn’t care.

He liked the way she looked.

Unkempt, hair a mess, no gaudy make-up to hide her natural features. She looked genuine, real.

Nothing had been feeling real lately. Everything had been one mess after another, a crazy string of events that stacked on-top each other. Some days he woke up and wondered what really happened and what was a figment of his imagination. Some days he couldn’t tell reality from his nightmares.

But MJ? She was real.

And she cared.

Peter smiled. It felt good to smile, the stretch along his cheeks taunt, almost aching. It distracted him from the scorched tundra of hammering pain that pounded in his skull, the simmering acid that boiled in his stomach.

For a split moment, and for the first time in days, Peter felt okay.

MJ flitted her eyes up, cocking an eyebrow into her hairline. “What are you looking at?”

Peter swallowed, managing a small shrug.

“You.”

Her face froze, eyebrow locked high as she stared at him straight-on. With much hesitance, MJ released the pen from between her fingers, letting it drop on the table below them.

“Okay...why?”

Peter’s smile widened. The blush that spread across his cheeks formed not just from the heat of his hoodie, but something more.

“You look really pretty.”

His voice was so quiet, MJ almost didn’t hear him. It took a beat before the words registered, where her eyes grew wide and she quickly found herself looking away. She made a few glances left and right, and even behind her — as if double-checking that of all people in the library, it was her that he was talking to.

There was no one else around. Even the librarian wasn’t to be found at the check-out station.

“Thanks.” MJ turned back to Peter, her open palm rubbing nervously against the jacket that covered her arm. “I think.”

Looking quickly to the clock that hung on the nearest wall, Peter squinted his eyes harshly to make out the time. It was only a few more minutes until they’d need to leave, give or take what blur of numbers he could make out. Was that a four or an eight? He shook his head — it didn’t matter. If he wanted to say something, he’d need to say it now.

“I, uh, I don’t know if I’ve said it yet, but, uh…” Peter found himself tapping his fingers erratically on the surface of the table, barely able to hold eye contact with MJ despite being inches apart. “Thanks. For helping me with all this. You’re busy and everything and I know you didn’t have to so...thanks. Means a lot.”

MJ nodded, a little too forcefully to look natural. “Yep. No problem. Least I could do...considering all you do.”

The mention of the unspoken was enough to make Peter’s stomach drop to his knees. He was ninety-nine percent sure that was the feeling overwhelming him, anyhow. It was different from the aching, cramping sensations he’d been battling all day long.

If he had to name it, he’d say it was disappointment.

“That’s not why you hang around me, is it?” The question came out of his mouth before he could think it over. “Because of…?”

It was Peter’s turn to look around the library, the empty chairs around them giving false sense of security. There was no telling who was hiding in the walls of bookcases that surrounded them. The last thing he wanted to do was out himself by mistake.

Luckily, MJ didn’t need candor to understand. She gave her head one shake.

“I hung around you before I knew.”

Peter knitted his brows tightly together, his head cocking slightly to the side. “I thought you said you always knew.”

MJ shrugged. “That, too.”

A bead of sweat dripped down from the corner of his temple. Peter quickly brushed it away, clearing his throat to rid the itchy, dry sensation that made him want to cough. It was getting hard to breathe, suddenly too warm when not even a minute ago he’d been freezing. The temptation to remove his hoodie was overruled in the desperate attempt to not look like a creep in front of MJ.

He didn’t want to mess this up. He’d do anything he needed to not to mess this up.

“You know...I can like you,” MJ added, noticeably keeping her chin low where he couldn’t see her eyes. “Maybe that’s why I hang around you. Just ‘cause...I like you. Don’t gotta be so hard on yourself.”

The heat was getting to be unbearable. Peter had to brush away more sweat from his hair, the feel of liquid soaking in his roots making him cringe. There was no way he didn’t look like a complete mess. He didn’t even sweat this much during gym class.

It took every ounce of effort he could manage not to heave in air. Suddenly, breathing wasn’t coming naturally. It forced his shoulders high and wheezed every time he exhaled.

Denial wasn’t possible anymore. Peter felt bad.

Really, really, really bad.

And he really, really, really didn’t want to mess this up.

The image of Harry’s text message flashed across his eyes, vivid in memory. This was his chance — whatever was wrong with him could wait. This was his opportunity.