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“Doesn’t look so tough now, does it?”

Tony regretted those words immediately when a tendril of symbiote lurched for him, colliding with the pulse cage and spasming at contact. The little black blob convulsed with silent screams, trapped in the tiny box that held it captive.

If Tony took a step back from the display case — well, he liked to think that sort of response was warranted after all he’d gone through.

“It will be safe here,” T’Challa remained undeterred, folding his arms across his chest as his head tilted to the side. His eyes caught a gleam of purple radiating from the pulse cage, sealed within the air tight cabinet in front of them. “Our scientists will study it, learn from it. Perhaps...they will be able to achieve its main purpose after all.”

Tony pocketed his hand away, looking up the length of the laboratory cabinet with dissatisfaction. Maybe it was his paranoia talking, but if it were up to him, the damn thing would’ve been locked up in twenty different pulse cages and buried half way into the earth.

But he had to admit, it really didn’t look that dangerous behind the glass. No wonder Peter had taken a dozen photos of these things. Without knowing all it could do, they were no more of a threat than a piece of gum stuck to the bottom of his shoe.

“An internal, genetic body suit that could fight off any illness or disease…find cancer, diagnose it, and kill it,” Tony quoted the documents like they were seared in his mind — and they were, rightfully so. God knows he lost count of how many times he read and re-read those damn reports, ever since Peter got infected. “Not to sound disrespectful...but given that this thing tore through your country like Hulk on a bad acid trip, you might just want to stick with your Vibranium for the sniffles and sneezes.”

Tony looked down at his arm, watching as a procession of white lights followed his words.

“Gotta say,” he quirked a smile. “It does a hell of a job.”

T’Challa matched Tony’s smile with his own, clasping both hands in front of him and letting them rest right below his chest.

“Yes...but not even our greatest scientists have trudged the line which leads to the cure for cancer.” T’Challa kept his gaze on the glass cabinet, where his reflection and Tony’s stared back at him. If he looked close enough, both their faces were more visible than the lone box sitting on a shelf. “If there is any good that may come from this symbiote, my people will do its best to obtain it.”

Tony worked his jaw, his lips pursing tightly to the side as he heard the unspoken linger between them. For all the devastation Wakanda had endured, T’Challa was determined to make sure something worth while came out of it. For those they couldn’t save.

For the lives lost.

Tony couldn’t even dampen that sort of hopeful grit — Pepper already had a large donation cheque ready to go, and knowing her she wouldn’t take no for an answer once the King received it. While money certainly didn’t solve all the problems in the world, he would be sure to give back in any and all ways possible.

Money would never bring back the loss of family, of friends. Sisters and mothers, fathers and sons. But it could at least ease their struggles and allow them the time they needed to grieve.

And knowing just how hard that grief felt — Tony would never deny anyone that sort of time.

“By all means, it’s yours to play with,” Tony mentioned, gesturing a lax hand to the glass cabinet. Seriously, if it were him — thirty eight pulse cages, minimum, and buried in the earth until it reached the depths of China. “So long as you don’t put the kids DNA back in the mix, that is.”

T’Challa chuckled. “No such thing will occur again. For that, you have my promise.”

Looking at the pulse cage — still no bigger than the size of his palm — and Tony couldn’t help but think about how such a tiny thing could cause them such big problems. It was hard to believe that only one week ago it birthed a monster so treacherous, his nightmares would be occupied for years to come.

But it was true — the thing was entirely useless without Parker’s DNA. Nothing more than a cranky, shivering glob of oil; throwing a temper tantrum in a Vibranium lined box as it slowly died without the fuel to keep it alive.

He almost laughed as a small tendril smacked into the cage again.

Aggressive little bastard.

T’Challa turned at the hips and began to walk away, with Tony following not long after. They departed the laboratory together, turning away from the cabinet and the contents it held inside — symbiote and all.

With Tony’s dying breath, he’d never let Peter come near the damn thing again. He’d risk losing every limb on his body to ensure that.

“You know,” T’Challa nodded to the guard who stood at the doors, the man stepping aside to allow them an exit. “It was not just my scientists who read through the documents that the Captain sent us.”

The lab doors whooshed as they shut behind them. T’Challa and Tony were already halfway down the hallway when they sounded.

“I reviewed quite a bit of them myself,” T’Challa went on to say, each step he took through the hospital nothing more than a casual amble. “Including what makes this Oz formula so precarious.”

Tony walked side-by-side with the King as they made their way through the corridors, the activity in the halls becoming busier the further they proceeded away from the labs. Distant chatter from staff members began to overlap their conversation, voices that didn’t matter to them beginning to interlace with their own.

“Mhm…” Tony made a sound from his throat, noticeably turning his head to eye T’Challa. “What gave it away? Was it disease immunity, or the life long immortality they're trying to achieve?”

T’Challa met that gaze, briefly. Neither let up in their lazy speed — slow and casual, with no rush in their purposeful steps.

“Not even Wakanda’s technology has ceased the plague of cancer. Even when put up against Vibranium,” T’Challa said, placing his hands deep inside his pockets. They turned a corner together. “It is a vicious thing, following us humans — no matter where we go. And yet from the days of man creating fire to the advancement we have made since...we still cannot shake it.”

Tony’s face pinched into something indescribable, and he barely squeezed by a rush of doctors as they quickly walked down the hall. He waited until T’Challa could see his face again before speaking.

“You trying to say they won’t succeed?”

Another corner took their conversation, just for a moment. When the wall was gone, Tony wasn’t thrilled with what he saw in T’Challa’s expression.

“I must admit,” T’Challa began, turning his head towards the multitude of rooms they passed by. Each contained a window, and his reflection showed on most. “I’m afraid of what would happen if they did.”

Tony made a sound from his throat again, this time not following through with any words.

It was one thing to have a fire lit under his ass when it came to OsCorp. Knowing that someone else felt the same way — someone with technology decades more advanced than their own...that left a more sour taste on Tony’s tongue than the salty, acrid ocean waters of the Bermuda Triangle.

“Even the great Black Panther must reach an end to their journey, one day or another.” T’Challa lowered his head to the ground, as if his shoes were the ones he spoke to. “Death is a part of life, no different than birth. But to create the existence of immortality…”

Logically, Tony knew the pause that followed couldn’t have been more than a few seconds. Yet somehow, it felt like an eternity.

“It could create a monster,” T’Challa finally concluded, turning to face Tony head on when he did. “No different than the one you and I have seen.”

One more corner took their conversation — Tony had walked the halls enough in the last two weeks that he could do it with his eyes closed. So when the turn came up, he took it without even looking straight ahead.

“The Symbiote Project was always their sister conception to Oz,” Tony relaid, no ounce of severity spared from his voice. “A generic version, almost as if they gave up on the real deal.”

A couple of kids came running down the hallway, nearly ramming straight into both Tony and T’Challa had they not stepped aside to let them through. The sound of an adult yelling for them could be heard further away, but the children's laughter easily overtook it.

Tony craned his head around to watch the kids run off when T’Challa spoke again.

“You do not believe they have done such a thing.”

Tony shot his head back around, his eyebrows high to his hairline.

“Given up?” He shook his head. “No, they took a break — at best.”

They kept walking, the halls growing a tad bit more quiet the further they descended. The rooms they passed by were becoming empty, and the windows began to display clean hospital beds empty of patients, with the sheets tucked tightly underneath.

It didn’t stop either of them from walking onward, even as they started to enter an area of the hospital that was barely occupied.

“Norman Osborn is a hell of a persona non grata,” Tony mentioned, his lips pressed thin as he kept his eyes straight ahead. “He’s up to something. And it’s up to us to put a stop to it.”

The quiet didn’t last for long. It took one more corner before the sound of music could faintly be heard, growing stronger with each step they took. The bass pumped into the hallway with a high energy that didn’t jell with the hospital setting — but they were far enough away, in an unoccupied ward, that neither T’Challa or Tony made any complaints about it.

“In whichever way you may need help, we will be here.” T’Challa turned his head towards Tony, and waited until the man looked his way before continuing to speak. “Any enemy of yours, is an enemy of Wakanda.”

The hallway came to an end, and so did their walk. Both men stopped outside the last room in the corridor, turning to face the large window ahead; with no curtain or veil to hide the activity inside.

“And any family of yours…” T’Challa said, a single nod bobbing his head forward. “Is family of ours.”

The smirk that pulled at T’Challa’s mouth was the same smile Tony found on his.

Only three young adults occupied the hospital room on display in front of them; a room used for everything but its intended purpose. There were no machines, there were no sick patients — Tony couldn’t help as his grin grew larger.

The bass of the music that played from inside was just loud enough to overtake the laughter they couldn’t quite hear, but could distinguish from the way heads were thrown back and knees were slapped. School books laid discarded and untouched on the bed, lost in the abundance of sheets and blankets that were in a tangled bunch.

Tony almost wanted to barge in and make a scene about how the kid should be studying — it’s why the books were there, after all.

The next roar of laughter easily overtook the music, and Tony decided against that.

“What do you plan to do now that your herb is gone for good?” he asked, somewhat absentmindedly — and not alone, as T’Challa found his own attention was kept on the window ahead.

“That is not a worry within our control,” T’Challa had no hesitation to his answer, and no waver to the words that followed.

Sitting cross-legged on the bed, Shuri all but bounced off the mattress when she twisted around to grab something from the tangles of blankets. It gave Tony a better picture of Wanda — sitting in the chair beside them both, with a phone in her hand that didn’t belong to her.

The six cracks on the screen told him it was Peter’s. The display was just visible enough that he could make out a streaming playlist, one he often saw the kid listening to.

As Wanda tapped the screen, the music changed out.

“Fate will guide us where we need to be.” T’Challa folded both arms loosely over his chest, nodding in a way that gestured his head towards the window in front of them. “Just as it has done for you.”

T’Challa’s words rang in Tony’s head, even as the music blared from ahead. Fate was a tricky word for him. Religion and faith and everything that fell into that pot — even after all the trials life had put him through, he still couldn’t find the straight answer that suited him. The universe was simply far too vast for that.

As the song started up, he watched while Wanda grabbed Peter’s arm with both her hands and pulled him off the bed. The bass was too loud to hear their laughter, but the way their eyes crinkled and their mouths fell open was more than enough.

Shuri fell into hysterics as Wanda tried — tried — to dance with Peter.

The kid was doomed with two left feet.

A chuckle rattled his shoulders, enough that Tony lowered his chin to his chest until the moment passed.

If this is what believing in fate got him...maybe it wasn’t so bad after all.

The procession of lights reflected in his peripheral, and Tony turned to his arm — half the length of the kinetic skeleton visible through the short-sleeved Black Sabbath shirt he wore.

He cleared his throat, side-eyeing T’Challa even with his head bowed low.

“You’re not going to let me leave with this thing on, are you?” Tony asked, but it wasn’t really a question.

The smile that T’Challa wore answered him long before his words ever did.

“No.” T’Challa didn’t bother looking at Tony, not even as a single finger pointed down the way they came from. “The doctors will be waiting for you down the hall to remove it.”

Tony snapped his fingers and clucked his tongue, feigned disappointment mixing with real, albeit hidden, disappointment. He only took a few steps away from T’Challa before spinning back around on his heels.

“What if I promise not to market and sell it?” he asked — again, not really a question. Not when he already knew the answer. “Pinky promise? Kid says those are law binding.”

Tony tried offering T’Challa his pinky finger — from his once-injured arm, still gloved and wrapped in kinetic mesh.

T’Challa turned slightly to face him, his expression holding every word in the English dictionary. And some in Xhosa that Tony was slowly starting to learn.

“Yeah, you’re right, fair enough,” he concluded, giving T’Challa a few firm pats on his shoulder before walking away. “You’re a good judge of character, T’Challa...a little too good.”

Tony didn’t overlook the smile T’Challa gave as he departed down the hall, still snapping his fingers with disappointment. It looked like he may have to get a summer home in the golden city after all.

 

“Knock knock.”

Peter looked up from his cell phone at the sound of the voice. The only actual ‘knocking’ heard came from Steve’s crutches, the man clumsily maneuvering his way inside.

“Hey!” Peter grinned, immediately tossing his phone onto the bed where it bounced off his Computer Simulations for Integrated STEM textbook. The device landed screen up, covering half of the black sharpie that wrote Property of Peter Parker on the back of his book.

He didn’t know why he bothered labeling it — the book had already been stolen four times since last year.

“Getting all packed up?” With two crutches under his arm, Steve took a pause at the doorway, his head pointing forward toward the dufflebag on the bed.

Peter turned back around, looking down at the bag Steve motioned to. He nodded as he stuffed a few dirty shirts and socks inside, slowly but surely clearing his mess out of the small hospital room.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m just —”

Sudden, Peter frowned, whipping his head back around to the entrance. His brows furrowed as he gave Steve a long once over — socks still in his hand.

“I thought...that you guys were…?”

Steve arched an eyebrow as Peter trailed off into confused silence, and Peter twizzled his finger in the direction of Steve’s leg — stiff as a metal rod, and still wrapped snug in the kinetic skeleton.

“Mr. Stark got his taken off,” Peter mentioned, almost as if he were stating the obvious. “You’re...you’re not having yours removed before we leave?”

It was both a question of concern and curiosity. King T’Challa and Mr. Stark insisted that they all hang around a couple days after Peter woke up, despite Peter having no physical reason to keep bothering the Wakandian hospital staff — granted, he wouldn’t argue the fact that they were some of the nicest people he’d ever met, and fed him to the point where even his appetite had been satisfied.

No, the additional time was mostly for the other Avengers, to ensure their injuries were fully healed before returning to New York, where Wakanda’s technology could no longer help them.

Peter looked down at his phone, his face growing more confused. They were leaving in less than an hour.

“Ah, no...not yet, no. They were — they were going to,” Steve answered with a stammer unfamiliar to his voice, taking a beat as he leaned slightly against the door-frame — noticeably taking pressure off his good foot. “Turns out, even with accelerated healing, I’m not quite as patched up as everyone else yet.”

Craning his head to the side, Peter felt a furrow deepen his brow at the sight of Steve still on crutches — still injured. Hurt. All stemming from a battle Peter had no partaking in, and yet no matter how hard he tried not to let it bother him — it did.

Their injuries were nearly all gone. Hell, Mr. Stark’s arm didn’t look any different than what Peter remembered — the few scars etched along his skin had to be pointed out by a doctor. It was as if his wounds were erased with the kind of magic eraser May would use on the bathtub.

But with Steve still in a cast, it reminded Peter all too much of the damage that had occurred. The damage he inadvertently caused.

Mr. Stark had told him, in as little detail as possible, what happened to Steve’s leg. Actually, he told him no details at first, but Peter wouldn’t let up. Afterward, he lowkey wished he had.

The words ‘partially severed’ and ‘gutted like a fish’ weren’t going to leave his head anytime soon.

Steve must have seen the contrition in his face, because he immediately waved him off.

“Doc says about another week,” he reassured Peter, the grin that followed showing the whites of his teeth. “From there I should be good to switch into Tony’s new skin to finish up healing the femur fracture. Couple weeks after that, won’t be like anything ever happened.”

Peter tried to match Steve’s smile, but it was halfhearted at best. It didn't mater if everyone left Wakanda as brand new as he was; he knew the marks of what happened would stay in places they wouldn’t let others see.

The way Steve was smiling at him said that without uttering a single word.

Sometimes Peter hated being observant.

He grabbed a shirt from the bed and started folding it, despite half the dufflebag containing clothes that were balled into a pile and stuffed inside. It kept his hands busy. And his nerves staved off.

“I’m surprised they’re actually letting you leave with it,” Peter chuckled as he lowered his chin, using it to hold the shirt in place across his chest. “Mr. Stark is so desperate to copy its design.”

The crutches clomb-clombed on the floor as Steve made his way across the room.

“Oh trust me, they know,” he hid the laugh in his words, his lame leg bouncing with each crutch-assisted-hop he took inside.

The chair he started walking towards was right in front of Peter, across from the bed that had sheets and blankets thrown about, with earbuds tangled up somewhere in the mix. Even with his chin low to his chest and a dirty ‘I make science puns periodically’ t-shirt in his face, Peter could see the man clear as day.

“Bucky and I will make a trip up next weekend to drop it off. But even if we can’t, Tony promised to leave it alone. And after everything that’s happened…” Slowly, Steve sat down in the chair, moving both crutches until they were clamped together in front of him. “Well, I think we could all learn to have some faith in one another.”

It wasn’t until Steve moved those crutches aside that Peter got a good look of his face. For what it was worth, he had to admit — the man looked well rested. Tired, still, sure. But not in the way Peter was used to seeing him.

The longer he looked — which was an awkwardly long time, Peter realized, and if one of them didn’t speak up things were going to get really uncomfortable — maybe it wasn’t well rested that he was seeing.

Maybe he just looked...less burdened.

The t-shirt was barely folded when Peter decided to toss it uncaringly into the dufflebag. It joined the piles of other balled up clothes.

“Thanks — uh, for the school books, by the way,” Peter stammered, one hand gesturing to his textbooks on the bed while the other went for a pair of dirty sweatpants. “Mr. Stark said it was your idea to bring my backpack here along with some of my clothes.”

Apparently, May had found a way to include her home baked iced cinnamon rolls, but Clint insisted they got ‘lost’ on the way over.

“It was?” Steve asked, his face nothing short of dumbstruck as he set his crutches against the wall behind him.

Peter nodded, fast at first only to slow pace when he saw Steve’s expression.

“Yeah...” he drawled on, tossing the sweatpants into his bag. His eyebrows knitted together into one long piece. “That way I could...you know. Study, and stuff.”

Steve matched his nod — slow from the get-go, slower as the seconds passed.

“That…” Steve’s eyes flittered somewhere to the doorway, and stayed there long after. “That sounds like an idea I’d have.”

A beat passed. Enough time for Peter to find his earbuds amidst two pairs of dirty boxers and start untangling them — starting with the end of the aux cord and unlooping the knots that had formed.

“You were doped up, weren’t you?”

In his defense, Peter kept his shit-eating-grin to a bare minimum.

Steve still saw it.

And still gave him that look, before his expression eased up and he lifted one lackadaisical palm in the air.

“I plead the fifth.” Steve’s chuckle bled away any bite from the room, followed by Peter’s, all while he worked his fingers through the knotted wires of his headphones.

The dufflebag next to him was still only half empty, but going by the contents spread out across the bed, Peter figured it wouldn’t take much longer to pack up. Mr. Stark had only gathered the bare essentials for him — what ended up being nearly an extra week spent in Wakanda after a miracle they all couldn’t wrap their heads around.

Peter honestly didn’t think he’d ever wrap his head around it. It felt as tangled as his earbuds, his thoughts as knotted and bunched up every time he dared to think too hard on the whole ordeal.

They were long overdue to get home. To get back to normal. Looking at the textbooks on the bed only reminded Peter of that much.

Steve seemed to be thinking the same thing.

“You keeping your grades up?” Steve asked, one hand gesturing to the Computer Simulations for Integrated STEM textbook. It had gained a couple extra sticky notes in the last few days, bookmarking the papers and chapters inside.

Peter grabbed the book and tossed it into the dufflebag no different than his shirts and underwear, his earbuds getting lost along the way.

“Having some trouble in world history,” he admitted, casually, a shrug only furthering the indifference. “But I’ll manage.”

Peter could see Steve watching in half horror, half with a smirk as he jammed a couple other books into the furthest corner of the dufflebag. He made sure to pick up the next stack with a little more care, least it end up like the broken strap on his backpack — Tony had promptly tossed it on the bed upon retrieval from New York and told him, in his words, “Keeping ripping these things apart and I’ll have to source some Vibranium for the next one.”

Peter frowned, looking down at the bed with the same confusion he had back then.

Where’d his earbuds go?

“If you ever need help, just ask,” Steve said, the smirk on his face growing — and with the way he folded his arms across his chest, he had no plans to hide it.

Peter turned to look at him, half his hand inside his dufflebag while the other rummaged through a side pocket, already looking for the earbuds that he’d just found.

“Yeah, I’m…” he cleared his throat, not once but twice. The corners of his lip pulled up, and Peter allowed himself a nod. “I’m learning how to do that.”

Steve smiled in response.

The procession of lights cascading up his leg briefly caught Peter’s attention — even beneath Steve’s loose khakis, they could be seen. It was a weird thing to see — it was just as weird seeing it on Mr. Stark, equally as weird to hear about Clint being in a sling and Sam being in a coma, and Natasha had been wearing her hair down for days in a way that purposefully covered her one eye.

This was all a week after everything had taken place — Peter didn’t want to think about how gruesome their injuries looked when fresh.

A hard swallow briefly shook his throat. He didn’t like to think about any of the gruesome events that took place.

Venom. Peter shuddered. The name still rung in his head no different than the voice that birthed itself a body.

It called itself Venom.

It was strange, having a name for the thing that took over his mind — took over his body, took his life.

Peter briefly looked out the window, where the afternoon sun shined too bright to see past the city buildings. The smoke had cleared away a couple days ago. And now that they were finally going home, it felt like he could put the nightmare behind him.

“Have I said thanks yet?” Peter abruptly asked, disregarding the dufflebag in favor of rubbing the nape of his neck. “I feel like I need to say thanks again. I mean, I’m not sure thanks will ever sum up saving me from a —”

“Peter,” Steve laughed gently, an open palm pressing into the air as if it could stop the onslaught of Peter’s rambles. It did, along with the soft look that fell across his face — every bit not Captain America in those detention PSA’s. “It’s okay. It’s what we do.”

A heat started to irritate the back of Peter’s neck, and it didn’t stem from his hand rubbing the skin until it went red. He looked away, sucking in his lips until they were nonexistent on his face.

“...it’s what you do,” Peter mumbled, only removing the hand from his neck when he caught sight of his tangled earbuds between the pages of his chem textbook. He reached down for them, his chin low to his chest when he spoke again. “I, apparently, get into nothing but trouble.”

Peter had hoped he was too quiet to be heard. Unfortunately, he didn’t even need to look at Steve to see two blue orbs burning a hole through his ‘Believe in Telekinesis’ t-shirt.

“Forget it.” Peter waved him off with the hand that held his earbuds, the wires flapping in the air as his hand did the same thing. “I’ve already put you through like, five lifetimes of prob—”

“You know what a great man once told me?”

The question could’ve been a bullet and it would’ve pierced through the air no different.

Peter frowned, his head whipping over to Steve at record breaking speed. His head twitched to the side, his curiosity getting the better of him — it always did. And usually never for the best.

Okay, like — almost always never for the best.

“Whatever happens tomorrow…promise me one thing.” Steve leaned forward a bit in the chair, as much as he could with one leg stretched out in front of him. When he found Peter’s eyes, he didn’t let go. “Promise me that you’ll stay who you are — not a perfect soldier...but a good man.”

Peter diverted his attention as quickly as he’d given it to Steve. His head shot back down to his hands, watching as his fingers worked inattentively to rid the earbuds of their tangles.

He was pretty sure he was only further knotting them up.

“Not everyone is cut out for this line of work, Peter,” Steve’s voice cut through his forced distraction, using a strength only Captain America could have. And yet as Peter turned back around towards him, he didn’t see an inkling of that man in sight. “Not everyone with a power has the necessary sense of responsibility to go out there and do the right thing, even when the right thing hurts.”

It was always hard for Peter to see the difference between the two — between Captain America, the personification of the American militarily turned modern day superhero. And Steve Rogers, a man he was still trying to figure out, all these months later.

Captain America was easy. He was somebody to listen to when given orders, he was somebody who led with assurance and without hesitation. Captain America had confidence and Captain America got the job done, at whatever cost.

Steve had always been so similar in his eyes. A leader, like Captain America. Peter’s bosses boss, in a way. Steve and Tony were leaders, sure, but Steve always stood over Tony — in an obvious way, in the right way. It was just their dynamic.

The way Steve looked at him now, with the things he was saying — Peter didn’t see any of that in him.

It was the first time, Peter realized, he looked at Steve and saw somebody completely different.

“I meant what I said to you, you know,” Steve broke through his thoughts like a runaway train with broken brakes.

“Hm?” Peter squeaked, shaking his head to get out of his head. His hands worked on his earbuds, but he didn’t look at what he was doing. He kept his eyes on Steve, and nowhere else.

Steve met that gaze, head on, with a smile that grew at the edges.

“That you’re going to be the best of all of us?” Steve tilted his chin low, a sincerity warming the cool blue to his eyes. “I meant that.”

Peter swallowed, a bit too hard for a mouth that had run dry. It was impossible not to look away; his eyes found his hands and his fingers sorted through the knots one tangle at a time.

He remembered that conversation with Steve, back in spring — half a year ago, now. It shook him then as much as it shook him now. When he talked about bravery with the Captain America, opening himself up to the man like they hadn't just personally meet a few weeks ago.

But that was something he always noticed with Steve — not Captain America, not ‘on the clock’ Rogers. No, when it came to Steve — a moment like this, Peter noted — it was easy to talk with him.

Like there was something between them that just...clicked.

“Jeeze, no pressure or anything...” Peter trailed off, his frustration with both the conversation and his earbuds causing him to throw the latter into his dufflebag. “Aren’t you, like...I don’t know, don’t you think you’re expecting a bit much?”

He stopped a plane from taking off with Mr. Stark’s stuff, sure. He helped with Awesome Android, yeah, and he’d always be there for any problem New York City had — no matter how small.

But the best of them all?

Peter couldn’t even ace his history essay.

He looked to the window next to him, the towering buildings of the city keeping him from seeing the Wakanda skyline. But he still knew the Citadel stood at half its height, and though the smoke had cleared away, it didn’t take with it the reality of what occurred.

Peter wasn’t the best of all of them; he was the one causing the problems. He was tempted to make a quip at Steve’s expense — ‘Are we sure you aren’t high as the statue of liberty right now?’ — but when he turned away from the window, the look on Steve’s face kept the poorly tasted joke at bay.

“If it were anyone else…” Steve began, a small shrug pulling at his one shoulder. “Maybe. But you?”

A pause made its way between them, where Peter idly picked at the strap to his dufflebag and Steve adjusted himself in the chair, leaning so casually to the side it was as if they were talking shop.

“Trusting you, Peter, has been one of the easiest decisions I’ve ever had to make.”

The noise from outside the hallway was suddenly too loud and too quiet all at the same time. Peter wasn’t sure which one he preferred — a hard swallow shook his throat again, and he looked away in hopes that it couldn’t be seen.

If Steve saw it, he made no comment about it.

“You remind me a lot of myself, son. But a better version,” he went on to say, the easy grin that pulled at each corner of his lips only tugging harder. “The world is going to need that.”

Peter couldn’t resist the self-deprecating chuckle that rattled his back. He dug deep into his dufflebag, rummaging blindly for his earbuds.

“Yeah, okay, sure.” Peter rolled his eyes, pulling out the tangled wires along with a few pairs of dirty socks that got caught up along the way — jeeze, if the hole in that one sock got any bigger it wouldn’t cover his foot anymore. “It’s not like you had to save my butt twice...in a year. No offense, but with the way I’m screwing up...I don’t think the world needs anything more than a friendly neighborhood Spider-Man.”

Peter looked down at his earbuds and pouted. How was it possible every time he touched them, they got more tangled up?

Steve let out a chuckle softer than his face, and Peter briefly noted how that it didn’t feel like that should be possible. He wondered if Captain America’s enemies knew the man could grow softer than a marshmallow melting over a campfire, because it sure as hell felt like that now.

The unfamiliar look straight up made Peter want Training Captain America back. Sure, that man scared the deodorant straight off his body, but —

“I’m flattered that you look up to us, champ,” Steve interrupted his thoughts for a second time that day. Peter didn’t complain, he needed the disruption. “But we’ve all leaned on each other for help when the time called for it. We’ve all needed saving at one point or another. Even Tony.”

When Steve leaned further forward in the chair, Peter couldn’t help but look his way. It was like all of gravity had given him full control, and he used it strictly to keep Peter’s attention.

"You gotta stop thinking about what you can’t do, and start focusing on what you can,” Steve told him, sparing no ounce of sincerity from his voice. “Even a ship needs a lifeboat, Peter. We’ll be here for what you can’t do, okay?”

Peter's nails were too busy digging into the wires of his earbuds to answer.

It was strange. Maybe it was just the way Steve plucked his thoughts right out of his head, but there was something about the way he looked that threw Peter off.

It reminded him a lot of Mr. Stark — that is, how he saw Mr. Stark in the beginning, verses the change that time slowly but surely brought on. Mr. Stark was such a different person when he first saw him — he was Mr. Stark, the one and only Tony Stark, the Iron Man.

Yet Peter remembered his feelings as that changed — as Mr. Stark changed. Becoming something more of a mentor, of a friend. No longer someone to be shy around; rather somebody he could throw jokes with, and snatch the last slice of pizza from during late nights in the workshop.

And now, he wasn’t even that. He was different, somehow. More of...of da—

Peter purposefully shook the thought away. It wasn’t that he saw Steve the same way — this was Steve Rogers, Captain America — his bosses boss. An adult he always felt safe around, because being Captain America didn’t need repeating.

Steve smiled at him, and Peter finally realized why the man looked so different.

It was just Steve.

The Steve he never got to see before — the Steve that Peter imagined Bucky talked about, the Steve that Peter always heard Mr. Stark droning on and on about, or even the Steve that Clint and Natasha would tease relentlessly.

Just Steve. A kid from Brooklyn, a veteran to a never-ending war. A person, a man — no different than the others, even with the super-soldier serum flowing through his veins.

A friend.

Peter realized it was the first time he ever saw Steve as a friend.

His fingers worked a knot loose and he pulled the two wires apart.

God, detention was going to suck after this.

“And when you’re not?” Peter looked down at his hands, unlooping a loose knot as he worked to clear his throat. “When you’re not...able to be around?”

The insecurity held firm to every word, no matter how desperately Peter tried to sound confident. After all, it wasn’t his fault that the last six months had done everything short of putting him through the ringer.

Peter at the beginning of this year? He’d tell everyone that he had it managed, that he needed no ones help, that he was ready for it all. Yet between a bunker under the ocean and a sentient thing that quite literally killed him, there was no doubting his shake in confidence.

His lack of fortitude had no effect on Steve.

“What do you think we’re training you for?” Steve kept his smile in place, reaching over to grab both crutches pressed flushed against the wall. He leaned on them both to stand up from the chair. “Even the best people need good hands guiding them the right way. Stick with us, Parker, and we’ll get you there. You can count on that.”

Even hunched on crutches, Steve towered over Peter — tall in a way that would always make Peter feel small. He was a kid, sure, but when in the presence of Captain America, he felt like a kid. Like he was six and not sixteen.

For once, even as he had to lift his gaze up to meet Steve’s, Peter found that he didn’t feel that way.

He didn’t feel small, no.

He felt protected.

"Thanks, Steve.” Peter smiled, finally getting the last knot worked loose on his earbuds. He began wrapping them around his hand to ensure they didn’t get tangled up again.

Steve adjusted a crutch under each arm, working to get his balance underneath him, all while shooting Peter a wink from one eye.

“It’s what we do.”

 

 

Mid-walk to the landing pad that stationed the Quinjet and Tony swiped quickly against the screen of his cell phone, not daring to let it ring more than once.

“Yes, sweetie-pie?”

“ANTHONY EDWARD STARK!” Pepper’s voice blew through the speaker in a way that put the Quinjet engines to shame. “YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME—!”

Tony hissed as he jerked the phone away from his ear, physically wincing as he eyed the speaker that all but vibrated with Pepper’s shouts. His grimace went so far as to show his back molars.

“IF YOU THINK FOR ONE SINGLE SECOND THAT THIS IS OKAY, IF YOU EVEN DARE TELL ME THAT YOU THOUGHT THIS THROUGH! DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA—!?”

Walking past the cargo bay of the Quinjet, Tony didn’t even hesitate once catching sight of Peter helping Clint load luggage into the back.

“Here you go, kid.” Tony tossed him the phone, all the while never stopping pace as he continued walking straight ahead.

Strictly spider-sense assisted, Peter caught the phone with one hand while the other tossed Clint a dufflebag. At the same time Clint caught the bag thrown his way, Peter stared at the phone with a growing sense of bewilderment.

Slowly — slowly — he brought it to his ear.

“Hello —?”

“DID YOU EVEN THINK ABOUT THIS, TONY!? THE LAST CATERER I BOOKED ALMOST GOT US A STRAWBERRY WEDDING CAKE—DO YOU UNDERSTAND WHAT—!?”

“Ahhhh—ahh!” Peter slammed the phone down, sandwiching it somewhere between Natasha’s bags and Bruce’s suitcases inside the baggage compartment. Immediately, he pointed a stern finger its way. “Stay there.”

Even crammed between Bruce’s lab equipment and Natasha’s weapons case, the sounds it made were still frighteningly loud. It was being caught in his bedroom with his Spider-Man suit for the first time all over again.

“Angry woman?” Clint twisted around from the back compartment, smacking his hands together to rid them of dirt.

Peter frantically nodded, his finger still pointing at the phone. “Very angry woman.”

Clint eyed the phone in question, his index finger rummaging inside his ear for a moment, and his one eye squinting shut as he adjusted his hearing aid — before the same hand motioned to Peter in a ‘gimme’ gesture. No later did Peter toss him another dufflebag — Sam’s, judging from the camouflage.

“Yeah, don’t mess with an angry woman,” Clint absentmindedly advised, his back facing Peter as he played Tetris with the teams luggage bags. “Especially the ones around here.”

Tony didn’t slow down until he approached the front of the Quinjet, where through the glass window of the cockpit he saw Natasha doing control checks from inside. He made it there just in time — T’Challa met him right in the middle, both their hands outstretched, and both latching on simultaneously.

“Thank you won’t ever be enough, you know.” Tony tilted his chin low enough that the high-tech glasses slipped down from his eyes. The afternoon sun was bright enough to highlight the sincerity in the browns there, just scarcely visible underneath the frames covering his face.

T’Challa shook his hand firmly, and latched on with his other, covering Tony’s hand with both of his.

“Words are not needed in a time like this,” T’Challa insisted, a smile growing on his face. “It is your heart that has been heard.”

For T’Challa’s sake, Tony hoped the man was right. It was bizarre to remember how he felt just a few weeks ago; standing on the same landing pad he stood at now, shaking the same hand that he held so tightly in his grasp. It was despair bordering on hopelessness, a feeling of dread he never wanted to experience again.

Wakanda had done more than just offer his team refuge. They did far more than help Peter when no one else could.

The squeeze Tony had on T’Challa’s hand held every ounce of appreciation his body could ever contain, and if it caused his once-injured arm any pain, he paid it no attention. It was whatever he could do to show his gratitude, an overwhelming amount that Tony wasn’t sure would ever fade away.

“Hey! Bruce!”

A shout broke from the back of the Quinjet. T’Challa looked over Tony’s shoulder as Tony turned around, just in in time to see Clint pop his head around from inside of the luggage bay.

“I found the button of your pants in the cargo door!” Clint hollered, his arm out for display with something pinched between his fingers — to small to see at a distance. “You want it back!?”

Tony rolled his eyes and turned back around. Right as Bruce came walking forward towards them both, approaching from behind T’Challa.

“Sorry, uhm...again.” Bruce waved sheepishly at T’Challa as he passed them by, turning to walk backwards towards the jet — as if he was unsure about not giving the King direct eye contact while he spoke. “About...you know. Everything. With...yeah.”

Tony was glad to hear T’Challa chuckle in response to Banner’s spectacular failure at his sixty-eighth apology so far — because he sure as hell couldn’t keep his own laughter to himself. Not at the sight of an awkward Bruce shuffling his way inside the Quinjet, reluctantly taking the button from Clint — and not hiding his annoyance along the way.

As Clint handed off the button, Peter tossed another dufflebag from the ground up. And, seeing as Clint had his back turned, it smacked right into him — nearly sending him tumbling out of the jet.

“AchHkKK!”

“Sorry! Sorry!”

“What the hell, webs!”

“I thought you were — I’m sorry, I’m sorry!”

“You are very lucky, you know,” T’Challa spoke up, causing Tony to look away from the scene ahead. He almost didn’t hear the King over the laughter that followed, his own included. “To have something that makes saying goodbye so hard.”

Tony arched an eyebrow, curious.

T’Challa simply smiled. "Treasure that, my friend.”

With his glasses slipped past his nose, completely defeating their entire purpose of concealing his eyes from more than just the afternoon sun, Tony returned the smile given his way — teeth and all.

“Wait, wait!”

As quickly as they heard the voice, Shuri came running by, moving so fast that Tony almost didn’t catch sight of her. It wasn’t until she slowed down towards the back of the Quinjet that he realized who it was.

Her feet could’ve smoked with how quickly she slid to a stop, grabbing the hinges of the Quinjet door to slow her pace.

Peter was about to throw a dufflebag when he saw her, his arms freezing mid-swing

“I need at least four more web cartridges,” Shuri started to say, her hand flopping in every which direction. “And however much shell casing you can spare!”

“Oh!” Peter broke into a grin, dropping the bag in his hands and immediately launching himself up into the cargo bay. He was pulling at the wall of suitcases and dufflebags before his feet even landed. “Oh, yeah, sure, totally!”

Bag by bag went flying as Peter quickly rummaged for his stuff.

Off to the side, Clint threw both his arms into the air as he watched all his hard work go flying out the luggage compartment.

“Oh, come on, Parker!”

“Uh-uh, kids!” Tony clapped his hands loudly, walking to the back of the jet and feeling more like a chaperon than he ever had in his entire life. “You had plenty of time to exchange your souvenirs. Pack it up, let’s go!”

Peter looked down at Shuri, a bag in both hands and a sheepish smile matching the shrug that followed.

“I’ll see you around?” he asked.

Shuri stood on her toes to reach higher into the baggage compartment where Peter stood, offering him a closed fist that barely met his height.

Peter bumped that fist with a bag still held in his grasp.

“See you around, white boy.” Shuri smiled as she ran off, a wave directed at Peter — and what they all hoped was part of a healthy sibling rivalry gestured at T’Challa.

The way Shuri stuck out her tongue along with her middle finger eased Tony’s concern at any tension between the two.

“Oh, hey!” Peter practically fell out of the cargo bay as he reached around to yell for Shuri. “What cell plan do you have? Is it gunna cost me extra money to text out of the country?”

Tony smacked his hand on the inside controls of the jet, watching as the back door began to slowly descend down.

“I’ll pay for the phone upgrade,” Tony told him, once again clapping his hands together. “Let’s move, spiderling, chop chop.”

By the time the door closed, Peter had managed to get everyone’s luggage loaded and stacked once again — with no help from Clint, this time around. He was already in the cockpit by the time Tony got inside himself, the sound of his fingers flipping on switches a distinct noise even from the loading door of the jet.

Tony waited at that door until everyone got onboard. Specifically watching as two men, quite old in literal terms, came walking up the loading ramp.

The sound of Clint hollering from the Quinjet made it impossible to hear their conversation until they neared closer.

“Alright, ladies and gentlemen, this is your pilot speaking,” Clint spoke loudly from the cockpit, his fingers flipping on switches like muscle memory, turning nobs and adjusting his wheel like second nature. “Please take your seat and fasten your seat belt, and make sure your seat back and folding trays are in their full upright position.”

“Easy, Steve, Jesus —” Bucky’s voice tore through any other noise like a scolding knife to butter. His frustration was palpable all the way from inside the Quinjet. “You broke your leg in the third grade and had to use crutches for five months — why do you keep trying to fall flat on your face with these things?”

Tony folded his arms over his chest and quirked an eyebrow high as he watched Steve clumsily make his way up the ramp, with Bucky hovering so close behind he managed to prevent six falls in just thirty seconds. Even with one arm.

Steve craned his head around to look at Bucky. “Third grade was a century ago, you know.”

“With the way you’re walking,” Bucky gave him an easy push forward, “you might as well be a century old. Go gramps, get a move on.”

Steve was too busy shaking his head at Bucky to notice Tony as they made their way inside, too busy laughing off Bucky’s mockery to notice the way Tony was looking at him — his eyes lingering long after he took a seat in the co-pilot chair.

Tony gave a delicate huff and a small shake of his head. There wasn’t so much a second thought from Steve as he hobbled his way into the cockpit — still injured, and still doing the work of a leader. Never letting himself take a break, even when he deserved it.

A quick glance to Barnes, and Tony swore he saw that same thought rummaging through the man’s head.

"Our flight time is looking to be a whooping one hour and thirty eight minutes, with the exception of any unexpected turbulence across the ocean.” Clint’s voice was quickly drowned out by the roar of the Quinjet engines, each getting louder as he kept switching on controls. “The weather in our route is good, the skies are clear, and if you want to adjust your watch it is eleven am in upstate New York.”

If Tony hadn’t been looking at Barnes, he never would’ve seen Peter approach from behind. His hand had just pressed down on the button that closed the loading door when Peter tapped on Bucky’s shoulder — earning a hard look from the man.

“Uhm, sorry...again,” Peter stammered, his lips disappearing completely into his face. “About your arm...and all.”

Bucky arched an eyebrow, looking Peter up and down before landing on the face that practically ate his own lips.

“You say sorry a lot,” he deadpanned.

Peter went through three different expressions all in one second — a grimace, a tight pinch of confusion, and finally landing on what only Tony knew to be Parker Sass.

“I broke your arm. Literally," Peter finally said, with enough cheekiness in his voice that Tony couldn’t stand by and listen — he had to walk away. For his sanity above all else.

If Barnes wanted to deal with that, by all means. The kid could talk his ear off, for all Tony cared.

“You did me a favor,” Bucky insisted, a slap on Peter’s shoulder accompanying his words. “Besides...wasn't you, punk.”

Tony was still mid-walk to the cockpit when he overheard Barnes’ answer.

He didn’t stop walking. But he heard it.

"I don’t know about the rest of you all,” Sam all but collapsed into one of the many surrounding chairs, reaching for his buckle once there. “But I’m coming back here for my doctors visits. Ain’t nothing going to look the same back home now that I’ve seen what these people have up their sleeve.”

Wanda reached for her own seat-belt as she looked out the nearest window, the afternoon sun of Wakanda reflecting brightly against her face.

“It is...incredible,” she said, her voice barely heard of the engines of the jet.

Clint peered his head around from the cockpit, swiveling it left and right to get a good look at everyone.

“You guys want me to take the scenic route, or —?”

“I think I speak for all of us when I say we've seen enough,” Steve answered, leaning over in his chair and patting Clint on the shoulder.

Standing between the two with his hand on the headrest of the copilot chair, Tony nodded in concurrence.

“Take us home, Barton,” he said, watching through the large window ahead as the jet lifted higher and higher into the air. Eventually, the landing pad became nothing but a small dot, and even that was consumed by the clouds in the sky.

Clint smiled easily, one hand resting comfortably on the wheel as he nodded.

“Happy to oblige.”

The ride home was a bit more noisy than their ride over, what with idle chit-chat between a larger amount of people bouncing off the steel walls. Despite how large the Quinjet was, having a person occupying every chair and every corner made things feel a little bit cramped.

Peter didn’t mind; it also felt normal. He’d be more worried if everyone wasn’t talking — the memory of how tense the flight to Wakanda had been sent a shiver up his spine. He’d take cramped and noisy any day of the week.

The screen of his cell phone was bright, but it failed to match the vibrancy of each passing cloud in the sky, displayed in high definition through the window behind his head. A steady stream of them coursed along the glass, with the Quinjet cutting through the air at stealth-like speeds.

Peter pressed the back of his head against that same window as he finally looked up from his cell phone. His text messages were open, but nothing he thought of sounded good enough.

So he typed, deleted, and typed again.

The conversations around him continued on, but Peter just listened — the thoughts he couldn’t get into a text message playing on repeat in his head.

It wasn’t until somebody grabbed his backpack from beside him and tossed it to the side that Peter finally looked up. He watched as Tony came sitting down next to him — backpack now on the floor, and the cushion of the bench sinking with his weight.

The bench was barely wide enough for two, but Tony wasn’t shy abut squeezing in.

“You okay?” he asked, one hand pocketing his high-tech frames inside his jacket, the other slapping a hand down on Peter’s thigh and leaving it there with a firm squeeze.

Peter nodded, the glow of his cell phone reflecting against his face, all while his lips pressed thin and his cheeks puffed outward.

“Yeah, I’m okay.”

No sooner than he spoke, Peter turned back to the screen of his phone, his grip subconsciously growing tight. The sun was starting to set through the window — when they’d arrive upstate, it would be Friday afternoon again. And despite being away from May’s for nearly two weeks now, Tony insisted Peter stay the weekend at the compound ‘just to be sure.’

Honestly, Peter couldn’t deny him that much. After all that happened, he’d wait a whole year if it meant May’s safety.

Speaking of the — Peter bit his tongue as he looked back down at the cell. Right as the pressure on his thigh squeezed again.

“You know it’s okay not to be okay, right?” Tony tilted his chin low, forcing his face into Peter’s line of vision. The small tug at his lips kept the air between them light, even when the words weren’t.

Peter managed a small smile in return, and an even smaller nod.

“Yeah, I know,” he said. A pause briefly fell between them. “But I’m okay, really.”

Tony gave him a look.

Peter gave him a bigger smile in return.

It was true; he was okay. He wasn’t one-hundred-percent, he definitely wasn’t the same Peter Parker that left Queens a few weeks ago.

But he was okay.

Or at least — looking around him, seeing everyone loaded up on the Quinjet, making things a bit more cramped — Peter knew that he’d eventually be okay. He’d get there.

And he’d have plenty of help along the way.

“Okay then,” Tony quietly conceded, crossing one leg over the other as he leaned back into the barely-meant-for-two bench that occupied the furthest corner of the Quinjet. If his knee pressed up any harder on Peter’s, than their jeans would blend together in a new hybrid form of denim.

Peter didn’t mind that, either.

“So…” Tony drawled on, never looking as he gestured wordlessly to Peter’s cell phone. “Whacha plan to tell her?”

Peter shot his head down to his cell, so fast he almost saw double. The screen hadn’t gone to sleep since his last type-delete-type-delete endeavor. And May’s contact photo stared back at him, not bright enough to overtake the clouds but still bright enough to see.

The phone in his hands suddenly felt eight times heavier than before.

“I have no clue.” Peter groaned as he threw his head back, the crown of his hair plastering against the glass of the window. “What all does she even know?”

Tony ran his tongue across his top teeth, and Peter could see that his unasked and unspoken ‘what all did YOU tell her?’ was heard loud and clear. They didn’t even need to be looking at each other for that to be communicated.

There was a long pause — long enough that Peter could hear Bruce and Sam talking health insurance polices across the jet.

“She knows enough,” Tony finally said, his jaw making a pop as he worked through his words. “She knows that you were sick — she figured it out long before I told her. Smart woman, catches on quick, sees through my bullshit like sheer lace.” Tony took another pause, this time for air. He clucked his tongue before starting up again. “She knows you weren’t in your right mind, and that you were dangerous. She knows about Principal Morita—”

“Oh, no—!” Peter’s head immediately dropped, falling straight into the center of his hands.

"I had to come clean about that one bud, I’m sorry,” Tony quickly trampled over him. “She knows it wasn’t your fault — we all know it wasn’t your fault.”

When Peter kept muttering unknown gibberish into his palms, Tony grabbed those arms and pulled them away, forcing Peter — again — into his line of vision.

“It wasn’t, Pete,” he insisted. For what his words didn’t do justice, the look in his eyes did. “It wasn’t your doing. Your principal is okay — he doesn’t remember anything that happened. And Stacey’s off your back with the case closed — Stark Industries led them to a dead end. And most importantly of all, it wasn’t your fault.”

Despite Tony’s face being close enough that Peter could count each gray hair on his neatly trimmed beard — pretty sure he was up to eight by now — Peter’s eyes flittered back and forth and up and down, not once landing on Mr. Stark.

Not even when the man let go of his arms and squeezed his shoulder, a touch so grounding that sometimes Peter wondered how it didn’t land the Quinjet then and there.

Forcing a shaky nod — as pathetic as it was — Peter ploughed through.

“What else?” he managed, a hard swallow barely riding the stiffness in his throat.

Tony leaned back a bit, losing the touch on Peter in favor of returning what little space sat between them. It was just enough of a gap to give clearance to the window, with the stream of clouds and sprinkles of sunlight centered between them both.

“I told her you were infected with something,” Tony went on to say. He looked out the window, briefly, before turning his gaze straight ahead. “And we took you to Wakanda, and we...uninfected you.”

Only silence followed his confession — minus Bruce discussing pre-existing health conditions and the coverage details of his insurance policy.

Peter turned his head to Tony, his confusion evident in the way his eyebrows practically became one.

“That’s it?” Peter pursed his lips slightly to the side. “That’s all you told her?”

Tony gave a curt nod, as if that was the missing piece that kept Peter from believing him.

It wasn’t. And the confusion on Peter’s face only got a second coat of paint as Tony’s answer remained unchanged.

“I’ve been here two weeks,” Peter slowly started tot say, adjusting slightly on the bench to better face Tony. “And she doesn’t know that I…”

Suddenly, Peter looked all around the jet — twice — before finally whispering,

“I died?”

The look on Tony’s face pulled at every single one of his working muscles, and then some.

“No, kid, she doesn’t know that you died,” he finally said, with an eye-roll to follow. “I’m leaving that at your discretion.”

Tony gave a hard sniff and a swipe of his nose, setting his eyes somewhere off in the jet where Natasha and Bucky reviewed control charts together. The space could’ve been empty and it would have held his attention all the same.

“You wanna tell her all the details...it’s your details to give. Not mine.” Tony let the beat that followed bring his gaze back to Peter. “Besides, we both could afford to give you some space. Let those web-wings fly, you know?”

Tony looked back ahead the moment he finished speaking, and Peter let himself have a brief glimpse at whatever captivated his attention — before realizing it was nothing of importance.

So he settled his sights on Tony, instead. Realizing that it was just Mr. Stark — being the way he was during conversations. Not lingering on something touchy for too long, not hyper focusing on an issue that could be easily resolved.

After, and slowly, Peter looked down at his cell phone. The blank text message box lit up his face.

It didn’t matter what he sent, or when he sent it. Today, yesterday, tomorrow — he had the time to figure it out. And Tony was giving that to him, in more ways than one.

“Thanks, Mr, Stark,” he said, before closing out the text message and turning off his screen. 

It was nice — having that little bit of trust back, having the ability to talk for himself again. He didn't have to worry about Tony telling May everything before he could, or vice versa. Whether or not he wanted to tell May about everything that happened, Mr. Stark was allowing him to do it.

Peter allowed the tug of a grin at his lips.

Maybe they were listening to him after all.

“So,” Tony began, still keeping his gaze straight ahead. Yet his head cocked slightly to the side, as if his mouth needed to get closer to Peter’s ear. “You gunna tell her?”

Peter scratched at his eyebrow, nearly knocking into the side of Tony’s head as he did.

“Not...uh…” he trailed off, clearing his throat before talking again. “Not right now, no.”

The sun was starting to get brighter again outside, when just a half and hour ago it was setting. They were switching time-zones over the coast, Peter could tell. He turned his head and faced the window, squinting at the rays of sun that bounced off the steel of the Quinjet.

They were switching time-zones, in a crazy superhero jet, after visiting Wakanda, where he died and was brought back to life.

Yeah, Peter decided — scratching even harder at his eye. All that needed to be processed before he involved May.

“She’s already got so much on her plate,” Peter wasn’t sure how well he sold his half-baked excuse. He always was a terrible lair. “Maybe I’ll tell her one day, but right now…”

His words trailed off into nothing, absorbed only by the casual chit-chat that floated about the Quinjet. At some point Sam clapped and Clint laughed, and something from Bruce got caught up in those sounds, but Peter paid it no attention.

The thoughts he couldn’t get into text message played up in his head once again.

“I know.” Tony threw his arm over Peter’s shoulder before that soundtrack had time to play, pulling him in closer and squeezing firm on his bicep. “You’re a good kid. You worry too much about others.”

Peter decided not to respond to that. He let the moment be, leaning against Tony, shoulder-to-shoulder. If his head fell a little bit into the crook of Tony’s neck, it was because the bench was small and not meant for two men of their size.

Clint’s laugh got louder and so did Bruce’s voice, sounding false indignant this time around, and Peter let himself relish in the normal.

As normal as his life would ever get, anyway.

“Hey,” Peter suddenly spoke, looking up and over at Tony. “You said that my suit like, burned up or whatever, right?”

Tony simply nodded.

Peter didn’t resist the hopeful smirk that grew on his face.

“Does that mean I finally get the new suit?”

Tony shot his head down no later than Peter finished speaking, his chin so close to his chest that half of Peter’s hair got caught up in his mouth.

He used the hand not wrapped around Peter's shoulder to smother down the mane.

“You full time now?” he asked, and not a single ounce of ‘Tony Stark Snark’ missing from his tone.

“Oh c’mon!” Peter threw his head back, colliding into Tony’s chest in a way that had the man going ‘oof!’ The hair that Tony smothered away promptly fell back in place. “What am I going to do without a suit, Mr. Stark?”

Tony was still trying to catch his breath when Peter started whining. With the one hand wrapped around his shoulder, Tony patted Peter’s bicep — once, twice, three times in total before his lungs got a good reboot.

“Been thinking about that, believe it or not,” he distantly mentioned, absentmindedly rubbing at his sternum. He nearly forgot how strong the kid could be on a good day — and hell, good days they were having. “The whole Back in Black ensemble? Gotta say, you pulled it off well.”

Peter made a face of pure, unadulterated confusion — one that Tony just chuckled away.

“Let’s make you a new suit. Change it up a bit, go red and black this time around. Whacha think?” Tony suggested, squeezing Peter’s arm until his knuckles cracked and his fingers went numb. And he held that grip for a long time after. “We’ll do it together.”

Tony craned his head over to look at Peter — he didn’t know what it was exactly; the way his mouth touched the floor, or how his eyebrows reached the ceiling. He couldn’t say if it was the astonishment that colored his face with joy, or if it was the gratitude that poured from the light in his eyes.

Without any say, his mouth broke into a full fledged grin.

All Tony knew was that…

“Cool,” Peter drawled on, a chuckle bouncing his voice at the end.

It was Peter.

“I’m just saying!” Sam shouted from the front of the jet, accompanying a loud sound of something smacking against something else. “If we can’t even get the most basic, mundane things covered under pre-exisiting conditions —!”

"Sam, you are going way off the deep end with this one,” Bruce warned.

Bucky snorted, hard. “Oh, he’s far off the deep end already.”

“The VA’s insurance is shit!” Sam argued, and loudly at that. “Right, Steve? The VA is dogshit, right? I’ve talked to you about this, you agree with me on this!”

Tony straightened his back in the cramped spot on the bench, leaning more towards the side and creating a bit of distance between himself and Peter. Though his arm still wrapped around Peter’s shoulder, it moved slightly higher; resting between the crevice of Peter’s neck and the top of his shoulder bone.

“Steve!” Sam slapped the wall of the Quinjet six times in total. “Right!?”

“Hm?” Steve’s voice barely made its way towards the back of the jet. “What are we talking about?”

“Oh for the love of —!”

“Hey, kid?”

Peter snapped his head away from the scene ahead, looking at Tony even as the man kept watching.

“Mhm?” It wasn’t a vocal response, but it was heard nonetheless.

Tony waited a good minute before he spoke again. He didn’t turn back to Peter until his voice broke the silence.

“Why didn’t you tell me about going to Norman’s house?”

Almost immediately, Peter pulled away — Tony’s entire body could’ve caught fire and he would’ve reacted no different.

“How’d you —?”

“It wasn’t spying,” Tony firmly defended, no sooner than Peter backed off — and with an open palm in the air for good measure. “Barnes mentioned that you mentioned it to him, and Maximoff, your chauffeur that night, confirmed it. No trackers, no cameras — I heard it all through the grapevine. Cross my heart.”

Peter couldn’t deny the sincerity in Tony’s voice. And even if he did, there was no denying the truth — and all those things were painfully true. Not only had Wanda driven him to Harry’s place, but she picked him up as well. And that night, when he found that once again he couldn’t sleep, the kitchen occupied his time — where Bucky already happened to be.

Oddly enough, he didn’t remember mentioning it to Bucky.

But yet again, he did talk a lot.

“You weren’t just in OsCorp, Peter,” Tony pulled him out of his own thoughts, and not a second too soon. “You were in Norman’s house.”

Peter made the mistake of meeting Tony’s gaze.

He was expecting disappointment. That was a look he was familiar with, one he’d come to recognize like the back of his own hand. He could see it hundreds of feet in the distance, could hear it in the voicemails that played in his bedroom as he chugged chalky pink liquid like it was water on a dry tongue.

He saw it while held in an isolation room at the Avengers facility, right before they swept him up and bolted for the Quinjet — escaping to a whole other continent for help.

But this wasn’t disappointment.

Peter realized, with no question to the anchor that dropped in his stomach...that it was fear.

Well.

That royally sucked.

“I know,” Peter admitted, all in one breath. Both his hands combed through his hair before his back hunched over and his elbows planted firmly on his knees. “I know, I shouldn’t have, I just —”

He knew better.

It all came to that. He knew better.

Despite the obvious hanging over both their hands, Tony didn’t scold or judge, and to Peter’s surprise he didn’t lecture. A moment of silence passed — what little silence there was with the commotion happening up front — and Tony stayed silent through it all, letting Peter find his words without any push.

Peter appreciated that. Because for someone who could talk a mile a minute, words suddenly weren’t coming to him.

“I was having a bad day.” It was a start. Peter briefly looked to the ceiling of the Quinjet before giving out a sigh that practically dropped his head to the floor. “I needed to get out, and Harry texted me offering to study at his place and I just...I didn’t think, I—” He sighed. “I didn’t think, that’s all.”

Mr. Stark always said that about him. “You didn’t think!” It rang in his head no different than that afternoon on Staten Island, no different than that night in Tony’s lab — the night Peter decided not to reach out for help, decided to keep his problems to himself and handle everything on his own.

And look at where that got him.

Peter placed his head into the palm of his hands and scrubbed his eyes until he saw a few explosive rainbows. No, it wasn’t just him that ended up with problems — it was everyone. So many people, and all because of him.

An arm wrapped back around his shoulder, patting twice before squeezing him in. Pulling him back towards Tony with a tug that could’ve been mistaken for rough-handling if he didn’t know the source.

Peter didn’t resist. It was the grounding hold that he needed.

“Let’s not keep things from each other anymore,” Tony’s voice was only loud enough for them both to hear, even with the heap of chatter happening up front. “Sound good?”

Peter nodded. That was the least he could do after all the trouble he caused, all the problems he created. As much as he wanted to be treated like an adult — grow into being an adult — it didn’t mean throwing every responsibility on his shoulders.

It was a hard lesson to learn, but sharing the burden was something he needed to slowly start letting himself do.

Looking towards the cockpit, Peter failed at holding back a heavy sigh. The chatter was dying down, but the faces remained present. The people remained present, in his life one way or another.

Not even the Avengers could do everything on their own. It was why they were a team, why the Quinjet was packed to the brim when they originally flew to Wakanda with only a few. They leaned on each other when the time called for it. Just like Steve said.

And just like being okay, Peter knew he'd get there. So long as he had them around to remind him what it really meant to be a hero.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Stark,” Peter quietly said, his mouth twisting to the side. “I wanted to keep seeing Harry—I know you didn’t want me to, but I felt like…”

Though Peter trailed off, the words weren’t lost on him. In fact, they sat so close to the tip of his tongue that he had to clear his throat to push them away.

This wasn’t the place for that conversation — Peter didn’t want to talk about that now.

Didn’t want to talk about how he was conflicted with Tony telling him what he could and couldn’t do. Who he could and couldn’t see. Why he was acting so much like May, like Ben...like his parents. Like his —

When the thoughts didn’t clear with his throat, Peter shook his head to get rid of them.

Another time.

“Even the whole time I was at Mr. Osborn’s place, something felt...off,” he said instead, turning his eyes down to the metal floor of the jet. His tennis shoes squeaked as he readjusted himself on the bench. “It was weird.”

“How so?”

The voice didn’t come from Tony.

Peter looked up, straightening his back the moment he saw Natasha walking towards them both. The rest of the conversations taking place in the jet must’ve not been interesting enough for her, because she approached the two quietly, her feet making no sounds as she stepped forward.

Peter was caught between being surprised that she was suddenly in his face, and learning how not to be surprised when she was suddenly in his face.

Spies. What a weird thing.

“I dunno,” he answered, honestly, sitting up until his back pressed against Tony’s arm. “It wasn't weird at first. At least not until Mr. Osborn came home.”

It was Tony’s turn to pull away from Peter, and he didn’t waste an ounce of strength doing it.

“You saw him?” Tony’s eyes were wide enough to replace the turbofan’s of the Quinjet. “Norman? You saw him — again?”

Peter made a very distinct sound that contained absolutely no words and all sass.

Tony threw him a look that said no words and was all exasperation.

“Well, yeah, Mr. Stark,” Peter started to say, that sass leaking right into his defense. “It was his place, why wouldn’t —”

Tony rolled his eyes. “That doesn’t mean I assumed you —”

“It was only for like, a minute. Two, maybe. Three! Tops!” Peter adjusted himself on the bench, turning to better face Tony. “I was about to leave — seriously, I left right after he came home. We said a few things —”

“What things?” Natasha’s words came with a few steps forward, hard pressed against the floor. Peter didn’t like how he could hear them this time around. “What things were said?”

Both set of eyes from both adults bored into him like a hot laser beam — it could’ve been Iron Man’s repulsors and Peter wouldn’t have questioned it. He almost shied away, because — ‘damn, third-degree much?’

As it was, Peter was too busy trying to remember the encounter for any tongue-in-cheek remark. It wasn’t his fault that the last few weeks — months — felt like years. Decades. Many, many eventful decades.

Through it all, talking to Harry’s dad felt like a blip on his radar.

“He wanted to...go eat steak,” Peter remembered, slowly. His forehead creased in the middle as he tried to recall the night. “He talked about our grades and — and studying. That’s it. We shook hands and I left.”

Natasha cocked her head to the side, her forehead equally as creased as Peter, yet obviously for a very different reason.

“But it felt strange?” she repeated, and slowly at that.

Peter nodded.

“Really strange,” he reaffirmed.

The sound from Tony’s throat was deep enough to catch both their attention. He ran his thumb across his chin, looking somewhere with no interest as his mind processed the information.

"Maybe the symbiote was having its effect on you by then,” Tony pondered. The expression that fell across his face seemed conflicted at his own speculation. “This would’ve been...almost six days since you snuck into that lab.”

Peter shook his head hard enough for his hair to fall into his eyes.

“Yeah, but I’m telling you Mr. Stark, I didn’t touch anything in that lab —”

Just like that, Peter shot his one arm out, sitting up so tall on the bench that his head could’ve hit the Quinjet’s roof.

“Oh, my god.”

“Oh my god what?” Tony watched, with high-arched eyebrows, as Peter immediately reached down for his backpack with haste. He was positive at this point his heart wouldn’t survive anymore shock. “Oh my god what?”

Peter didn’t answer him. Rather, he clutched his backpack against his chest, immediately emptying its contents as he flipped it around in all directions. Books fell to his feet and papers flew Natasha’s way as he frantically looked at it — examined it, running his fingers all across it.

“It’s gone,” he breathed out, his eyes growing wide with realization. “That means—”

"What, Parker?” Tony stressed, his hands hovering over the backpack as if he wanted to snatch it right out of Peter’s grasp. “That means what?”

Peter immediately shot his head over towards him.

"I didn’t get the symbiote from that lab,” he insisted, shaking his head the whole time. "I'm telling you, I didn't touch anything in that lab, nothing touched me."

Of everything he had said in the last few weeks, of all the lies stacked ontop of more lies and half truths and hidden secrets, Peter spoke with the most certainty he’d ever felt before.

Still, Tony furrowed his brow. “Then where else could you have gotten it from, Pete?”

The answer felt heavy leaving his mouth.

"Mr. Osborn.”

Natasha was immediately closer — practically hovering over Peter now, and Tony looked at him in a way that made Peter worried he might have a stroke.

Or two.

“I — I shook his hand. Right before I left.” Peter swallowed, hard, exchanging quick glances between both Natasha and Tony. “It felt...it felt wrong. It felt...it felt bad. And – and I went to the bathroom to fix my strap,” he lifted the broken strap for display. “And there was this grease or something right here, right on my backpack.”

The spot Peter pointed to was clean as a whistle. So the look of confusion from both adults was justified.

“It’s gone,” Peter repeated, clearly still trying to comprehend the revelation as much as the others. “It was the symbiote, the grease — it was the symbiote. It – it came from Mr. Osborn. And that night — that night in the workshop,” Peter immediately turned to Tony. “That wasn’t an anxiety attack, Mr. Stark. That was my spider-sense. That had to be the night the symbiote infected me!”

Peter looked at Tony and realized that stroke was right around the corner.

“Why would Norman have it?” Natasha quickly asked, though it sounded more like pondering than anything else.

Quiet footsteps came from nearby — silent type like hers, just enough force that the presence wanted to be known.

“He created it, right?” Bucky’s voice was hoarse at the edges, somewhat unsure in the center. Though he felt uncertain about joining the conversation, his mouth got the better of him. “Why wouldn’t he have it?”

Natasha craned her head around to look at him.

“But why would he have it?” she stressed, folding both arms tightly over her chest. “At his home?”

Bucky made a face, something between deep consideration and obliviousness. He stood next to Natasha, and though Tony was too occupied warding off a heart attack to do anything other than stare at Peter, Bucky ensured he rooted his feet on the opposite side of the man.

“Didn’t you say this guy does mad scientist experiments?” he asked, toneless, leaning firmly against the nearest wall. “Those type of men don’t typically make a lot of sense.”

Silence took the place of any answers.

Natasha turned to Tony, noting that his silence was far different than theirs.

“What is it, Tony?” she asked, slowly, with her head cocked to the side.

Tony blinked, craning his head up to look at her.

“You’re right,” he easily said.

Natasha quirked an eyebrow high. “Don’t hear that often.”

“Why would Norman have the symbiote on him?” Tony ignored her remark in favor of his own question. “This man built a bunker under the ocean in the Bermuda Triangle just to avoid anyone discovering his experiments. Now he’s taking his work home with him?”

Bucky made a face of apperception, looking somewhat taken aback along the way. Peter noted that all the adults had different expressions on their face — Natasha confused, and Tony...well, that would simply take too long to figure out.

“It doesn’t add up,” Tony concluded, too quietly for Peter’s liking.

From across the way, Bruce cleared his throat, his one finger gestured aimlessly ahead.

“If Oz is a...cure for cancer, or – or disease immunity, something that would help the sick...” he started to say, his finger wagging with his words as his footsteps led him forward. “And the symbiote was a way to protect cell destruction…and Norman’s behind all of that…”

Tony snapped his fingers.

Just once.

“He’s sick.” The two words were forceful enough to stop time. “Performing the test trials on himself. He didn’t bring his work home, the work tried to come home with him.”

Bruce’s scoff only got louder as he approached the group.

“No, that’s – that’s insanity,” Bruce insisted, a firm shake of his head rattling his voice. “Only a somebody truly desperate would test something on themse—oh.”

Tony’s face fell flat as he gestured his hand forward.

“Pot. Kettle.” His head tilted to the side. “Black.”

Bruce had the grace to look embarrassed.

“So the man might be dying,” Bucky interjected, a hard shrug shaking his shoulders. “Let him die.”

Natasha shook her head, a grim expression casting over her face. “Nature might not happen soon enough.”

Looking back down at his backpack, Peter settled his hand over the spot he knew was once stained. His fingers grazed the fabric as those around him exchanged fierce glances, the tension he didn’t want existing quickly finding its way inside.

Peter could’ve been miles away from that tension and he still would’ve felt it — would’ve felt his own tension, wrapping tight around his core.

That night in Tony’s lab — the panic attack he had in his bedroom. It was when he grabbed his backpack.

It was his spider-sense, it had to be.

“Venom was just one of the symbiote’s they bred,” Bruce’s quiet voice was dangerously loud breaking the silence. “With all we saw in those pictures Peter took...there’s no telling what the next trial will do. And if the symbiote is derived from Oz...I don’t wanna know what kind of monster the Oz Formula would breed.”

Peter looked up from his backpack, his head rocketing up like someone controlled his puppet strings. The fact that everyone looked as unsettled as he felt didn’t leave him feeling too optimistic about the situation.

He’d quickly learned that when they looked worried, shit had already hit the fans.

“But it can’t come to life without me, right?” Peter tried to find a silver lining. It was like trying to find a needle in a haystack. “It needs my DNA to even...you know...stick.”

Natasha quirked an eyebrow. “Was that a pun?”

“Parker’s right,” Tony said, almost automatically. His fingers had already begun tapping across his knee. “They’ll give up. Without the spider DNA, the symbiote’s won’t ever work. Norman won’t keep focusing on the Symbiote Project, not with knowing what it’ll take to get it started — and not having it.”

Tony absolutely, positively, without a certain of a doubt hated that ‘it’ was sitting right next to him.

From the way Peter had noticeably clenched up — it was impossible not to notice, they were pressed against one another — Tony figured the kid felt the same way.

“Then we’re in the clear,” Bucky unwittingly concluded, his one and only hand gesturing in a floppy manner towards Peter. “Punk hides under a mask. No one knows who he is.”

“He’s got a point.” Sam let himself approach the group, already standing halfway to the back of the jet and listening in on the conversation. It was only a few steps to get him to the others. “Norman’s got no idea who Pete is, outside of some...old friend of his kid, right? Just don’t make anymore trips to his house and it’s all said and done.”

The resolution seemed as clear and bright as the sun that swelled through the clouds outside the jet. A simple answer, an easy conclusion to a growing problem.

“Uh-oh,” Peter felt the words tumble right out of his mouth.

Sam immediately arched an eyebrow. “Uh-oh?”

Peter nodded, stiffly. “Uh-oh.”

Slowly, with the speed that even a turtle would’ve laughed at, Peter turned his head around to Tony. Their expressions were eerily similar now — not a single person failed to notice it.

“Mr. Stark…” Peter trailed off, drawing out the two words with a stress that lined each additional syllable.

Tony’s response was to shake his head — fervently.

“We don’t know for sure that he knows —” he tried to say.

Peter kept going right over him. “But you said —”

“I know what I said.”

“And if he does —”

“We don’t know that he does, kid —”

“But if he does —”

Tony grabbed Peter’s arm, holding it firmly.

“We protect you.”

Peter looked down at Tony’s grip, shocked at how white the mans knuckles were, his fingers pressing so hard into his bicep that an average person would be in pain. When he looked back up at Tony, the fierce determination in his grasp reflected back in his eyes.

“Osborn’s not coming near you, Peter,” Tony said — swore. His voice firm throughout. “Not so long as we’re around.”

As shaky as Peter’s nod was, there was no hesitation to give it. There was no doubt, no question about it — he nodded, firmly believing in Tony’s words, along with the unspoken of those around him.

They had proven themselves way too many times to Peter for him to have anything but full confidence and trust in them. In all of them.

“Okay, but…” Sam shifted on his feet, one finger rubbing at his temple. “For the rest of us participating — exactly how much do you think Norman knows about Peter?”

Tony shot his head away from Peter and to the group. “If Norman knew, he would’ve done something by now.”

Bruce noticeably winced, baring his teeth and all.

“Look at where we are,” he reminded him, not shy in gesturing around the Quinjet. “Peter hasn’t exactly been stateside to give him any opportunities.”

Still, Tony shook his head.

“He doesn’t know,” he insisted, before turning back to Peter — squeezing the hold on his bicep to get Peter’s gaze back. “And if he thinks he knows, he doesn’t have any proof.”

That much, Peter could at least say was true. Of all the screw-ups he’d managed to make recently, there was no doubt Mr. Osborn didn’t have any proof of his secret identity.

He was unlucky, sure, but not that unlucky.

The man’s speculation, of course, remained undeterred. That part was concerning.

“So...what now?” Peter found that his thoughts were leaking out of his mouth before he could stop them. He looked away from Tony, gaze bouncing between the team huddled around them. “I mean, Mr. Osborn didn’t exactly seem like he was going to chase after whoever took his spider. And — and it doesn’t seem like he noticed I took his symbiote from him. Is he...is he even going to do anything?”

The silence surprised Peter.

The soft sound of spoken Russian surprised him even more.

“V tihom omute cherti vodyatsa.” The words rolled off Natasha’s tongue with ease, smooth like silk right until the end.

Not a single person didn’t turn their heads towards her.

Peter realized a second too late that was a lie — Bucky was looking straight ahead, a smirk pulling at the corner of his mouth.

“Mhm,” he sounded from his throat, a curt nod following behind it. “Under calm waters...”

Bruce furrowed his brows and Sam made a face, all while Natasha turned to Bucky, looking him up and down with a single nod bouncing her head.

No sooner than her gaze fell there, she turned to Peter, her chin lowering with the sincerity of her words.

“In a quiet lagoon,” she reminded him, "devils dwell.”

The fact that Peter could feel Tony’s grip grow stronger on his bicep didn’t bode well for him. When he turned back to the man, the expression on his face said it all.

“He may seem calm and unprovoked on the outside, kid…” Tony clenched his jaw, noticeably so. He looked over at Peter, the stress lines that sank deep in his face making a re-appearance. “But what’s beneath the surface is a whole other story. And if he’s growing desperate….we don’t want to give him a chance to unleash that side.”

It was an unspoken warning, heard loud and clear. Peter didn’t need to be told directly; he could see it in Tony’s eyes, could make it out in his voice. He knew. Peter knew way back when he was told what he’d been infected with — who infected him, long before realizing it was Norman himself.

There had been a reason Mr. Stark was keeping him away from whatever was going on with OsCorp.

Peter saw that now.

“I can’t believe the symbiote came from him — like, directly from him...” Peter practically mumbled, the shake of his head knocking his bangs into his eyes. “If I had just told you then that I felt something was off about Mr. Osborn —”

“It just doesn’t have to be Tony, Peter!”

The way Steve approached them all nearly scared the skin right out off each individual — Sam audibly cursed and Peter jolted on the bench, knocking straight into Tony along the way.

Steve failed to notice their startlement, using his crutches to get him closer to the group.

“We’re all here for you!” he said, earnestly, using the chair next to him for support when he wavered on his crutches. “If you ever feel like you can’t go to him for something, don’t be shy about turning to one of us! That’s what we’re here for!"

Natasha quirked an eyebrow — high, watching with an amused smirk as the man walked past her.

“Uh, Steve…” she tried to say, but made no moves to stop him.

“We’d rather you play it safe, okay!?” Steve reached over, laying a firm hand on Peter’s shoulder — partially to keep balance. “You’re young, and you’re still leaning to trust your instincts!”

“Steve…” Peter stifled a laugh until his face went red.

“It’s okay not to be able to judge a situation right away — not everything is black and white!” Steve lowered his head until he was closer to Peter, even as the kid tried to hide his face in Tony’s shoulder. “But that’s what we’re here for!”

Tony rolled his eyes. “Oh, for the love of — Rogers!”

Peter was definitely laughing now, right alongside Sam — no one could hear them over the shouting from Steve.

“We’re here to help you with what you can’t figure out, and I don’t want you to ever feel like you can’t come to one of us with a problem!”

Tony was about to take one of Steve’s crutches from underneath him when Clint approached from behind, a firm hand planting on Steve’s shoulder and physically pulling him away.

“Steve, Steve — Steve!” Clint pushed his hands down repeatedly in a ‘hush’ motion. “You’re yelling.”

Steve pulled a face. “I’m what!?”

“You’re yelling,” Clint raised his voice and exaggerated his lips with each word, moving his hands slowly towards the side of Steve’s head — careful not to move too quick and startle him. “You turned them down for takeoff. You gotta adjust them again.”

A few taps against the back of both Steve’s ears and Clint pulled away, waiting a couple seconds before arching his eyebrow.

"Better?” he asked.

Steve sheepishly nodded.

“Yeah, that, uh...thanks,” he muttered, hiding the pink in his cheeks by looking to the bottom of his crutches, maneuvering his leg in front of him as he walked away. “Sorry ‘bout that, fellas.”

Peter laughed as he turned back to the window, the smile on his face nearly overtaken by the white clouds that passed by the glass. Normal was just around the corner, he could feel it no different than the way the sun grew brighter over the coast.

As the clouds parted ways and they flew with the sun behind them, Peter could begin to see the outline of the city down below. A charge of electricity lit his nerves to life at the sight, bringing a rush of excitement he hadn’t felt in forever.

He couldn’t wait to get home.