Chapter 5
They picked the movie Pretty woman.
Because of course they would. It was the one movie he couldn’t watch.
He curled up further into the sofa hoping it would drown him as he felt his heart being crushed down.
Every single Friday he, Gwen and sometimes Harry would have a movie night, curled up into the sofa with so much junk food it was revolting.
Every single week We would have one of us to pick some old movie.
Gwen always picked Pretty woman.
And now he was watching it again, but Gwen isn’t here.
He can’t watch it again because that’s Gwen’s movie. That was their movie together.
Crap.
The movie played into the background as he tried to focus on anything other than it.
His eyes blurred slightly as the screen plays and the talking mutes down slightly and he tries to block out the thought of Gwen talking about how she always wanted to be able to fly to LA and see where the film was set and stay in the hotel they did.
He wanted to surprise her with the tickets he brought from saving up in the summer.
She had died a week before he was planning on surprising her with them.
Crap. Tears spilled down his face, he urgently brushed his hands across his face but the tears kept spilling out.
He stood up abruptly as a broken sound from the back of his throat spilled out and he attempted to spin around to get the hell out of there only to be stopped by the ringing in his ears.
He walks past the couch and he starts to walk past everyone but his knees buckle and give out, he falls onto the floor and curls his arms around himself trying to block out the noises and Gwen’s lifeless body in his arms.
Why was it so loud?
Everyone was standing around him speaking but he couldn’t hear them.
Turn it off.
Only the ringing and the faint sound of Gwen’s screams as she fell.
He could’ve saved her.
He was so close.
SHUT UP!
And hand planted on his shoulder and all he sees is red.
They’re going to take me.
They are going to hurt me.
You will only be a pawn to their game of chess.
He slapped and pushed the body away with force until he heard a loud thud on the other side of the room.
The ringing suddenly stopped and he looked up from his hands and wiped the cascade of tears swarming in his eyes and saw Tony across the room surrounded by cracked concrete, blood bleeding from his shoulder.
You did that.
You hurt him.
You are the same as them.
He jumped up and ran over to him
“Oh- oh my god Mr.Stark, I’m so sorry I didn’t mean to hurt you I thought you were…”
Tony looks up at him and smiles
“It’s fine kid, I’ve had worse.”
The horror of the situation doesn’t leave Peter and he crumples next to Tony and hugs him around his injuries, making sure to not touch them.
“I’m so so sorry, I promise you it was an accident, I can leave if you want me to. I’m such a horrible person, how could I do this to you!”
“Peter, it’s fine, I understand. I shouldn’t have touched you, you were clearly in another mindset” Tony says calmly and rests his hands back around Peter.
You hurt him. He’s going to leave you, discard you.
The rest of the avengers stand around and start talking in concerned tones towards each other before Steve walks up to them and kneeled down beside them.
“Hey, let’s get Tony to the medical centre first and then we can have a little chat, alright?” Steve says to him and he slowly untangled himself from Tony and watched as Mr.Stark got lifted up carefully by Steve.
You hurt him.
He watched as they left and went to the elevator and he watched as Wanda, Thor, Clint, Natasha, Bruce and Harley stare at him with uncertainty.
He couldn’t even imagine what he looked like right now. He was a monster. Now they all saw what he really was.
They’ll leave you as well.
He curled further into himself and shut his eyes praying that when he opens them again it would all be just some messed up nightmare.
Why was he such a mess? Everything he loves turns to dust.
The images of Gwen pulling through his vision were now joined with Tony sprawled across the floor, blood dripping down his face he felt the look of May’s torn torso and dead eyes staring at him with disappointment.
He had done that.
His stomach lurched forward violently and a bile reached up his throat before he retched and threw up over the floors.
It was an ugly red and brown that stood out against the white.
He shudders as he looks at it and when the taste of salt from his tears reaches into his mouth he throws up again.
He hears footsteps walking towards him and he flinches back.
They’ll hate you now. He’s hurt their team. Their family.
“Peter” A voice echos from behind the dark
“Peter?” They say again as he feels fingers glide down to the pulse of his wrist, he tries to move away but the fingers are gone before he could do so.
“Peter, can you hear me?”
He looks up and nods his head slightly trying to lift it up to see who was talking to him but miserably failing instead and collapses into himself, letting out a little whimper of pain as he does.
“M’sorry I didn’t mean it” he slurs out in a whisper, wincing from his sore throat and throbbing head.
“Oh- sweetie, no it’s okay. Let's get you on the couch.” The voice spoke clearly and softly.
He feels arms wrap around his legs and torso as he gets lifted from the spot on the ground to the sofa.
He cracks open his eyes a bit letting the light flutter through his damp lashes, he sees red.
No, wait. Not Red.
Orange? No, not orange, this was a dark amber, the colour of sap from trees.
It was Natasha, the black widow, an avenger.
“Do you mind if I wipe your face?” She asks
“I promise I won’t hurt you.” She adds in a whisper
But that’s what they always say.
But this is Natasha Romanoff, she wouldn’t lie to him.
He closes his eyes and lets a brief smile filter through his lips for a second before signalling a weak thumbs up.
He feels the cloth on his face and urges to flinch away from it as it drags across his cheek.
He doesn’t though.
Spidermanspidermandoeswhateveraspidercan
Natasha Romanoff POV:
There were a lot of things that the Avengers don’t know about her, and one of those things is that she absolutely adores kids and always has, they’ve always been her soft spot and that’s saying a lot. She would’ve tried to adopt one if it weren’t for the problems it would cause with her job.
But Peter was different from any other kid, he was scared and traumatised with a whole ass line of mutant DNA running right through his bloodstream.
So to her that made her want to wrap him up in a blanket and keep him locked up in a hug even more than she usually would.
Throughout the day she was watching him and trying to get a grip on how he acted and reacted towards different things.
That was the only way to gain information about him, there were no papers, articles or files of the kid anywhere. It was like he was never here, it made her slightly cautious of the kid, she didn’t know anything about him.
But that all changed pretty quickly after.
First of all the kid is a genius, way too smart for his own good.
Secondly she’s pretty sure that Tony would do anything for Peter, last night with Peter curled up next to Tony and she realized just how much he would do for the boy. Keeping in mind the only other time she’s seen Tony fall asleep was when he was so drunk he passed out, so it came to a surprise when she saw him practically snoring and drooling all over the loveseat in front of them all.
Lastly this kid was in HYDRA, the fucking physyopaths that liked to fuck around with world domination and mutants. So she doesn’t want to imagine the things that Peter went through there.
And now she felt even more horrible about the whole situation because she’d just watched him have a panic attack, shove Tony 15 metres with a small shove, have another panic attack and then proceed to start throwing up blood all over himself whilst sobbing.
As soon as she signalled for the rest of the Avengers (and Harley) out of the room she immediately crouched down next to Peter.
She asked if he could hear her and checked his pulse which was abnormally fast, but she can check that out later.
And then the kid apologises and her heart simply shatters because there was no way this child should be apologising for what just went down.
She pulls him close into her arms, his tiny frame feels too fragile in her arms.
She reminds herself to make sure this kid gets more than enough food in him the next time they eat.
She lays him down on the sofa and pulls a blanket over him as a weak effort to stop some of the shivers that are racking through his body.
Then she grabs a cloth and wipes up some of the red streaked vomit from his face.
All of this seems way too domestic for someone she’s only known for a day but the thought of leaving him by himself leaves a strange ache in her heart.
She runs her fingers through his hair until he stops quivering and passes out into the cushions.
She moves away from her position on the floor next to the boy and makes herself a space near to Peter but not any closer than necessary and flicks the movie back on the TV.
A chorus of groans and whines come from next to her and she turns to Peter,
“T-tu- turn It off, please just turn it o-off. I Can’t, t-turn it off” the boy whimpers as a fresh round of tears puddle around his face.
She turns the TV off instantly with the remote and watches as the screen turns black before wiping the tears on his face with her hand. A pang of confusion and guilt courses through her as she looks at Peter's shaken face.
“Are you alright, do you need anything?” She asks softly
Peter shakes his head as he pulls his hand to his face to try and conceal the tears.
She slowly takes his hands away from his face, putting them to the side but still keeping eye contact with Peter as his face etches in an expression on pain.
She pulls herself away from Peter who would probably be confused if he wasn’t so muddled up in the first place. As she stands up she runs a hand along Peter's hair before heading to the kitchen and turning the kettle on and looking beneath the plates to find her stash of hot chocolate that would’ve been long gone if she didn’t hide it well enough.
She pours the sachet of cocoa into two mugs and grabs the milk and boiling water over the counter.
When she’s done she adds a heavy serving of whipped cream, marshmallows and some of Steve’s famous choc chip cookies because she doubts Peter would be the sort of person to tell you if they were starving or not.
When she walks back to the sofa she places the mug next to him as well as the cookies before enveloping him with a hug.
“I’m sorry that they hurt you, you ldeserved better than that.” She muffles into his hair
She doesn’t get a response from that one but his arms tightening round her is enough of a response.
Spidermanspidermandoeswhateveraspidercan
Tony Stark POV:
The rough pads of Steve’s fingers grazed the cuts on his back as the cold gauze was layered over them.
He softened at the soft touches only wincing slightly at the contact of the cuts.
“Are you okay?” Steve asks, his voice dipped in concern as he started to grab the assortment of bandages and plasters from one of the drawers.
“Yeah, it was nothing, I’m more worried about Peter than I am me.” He replied.
“Yeah he seems like a nice kid, I’m glad he’s finally out of there.” Steve agrees
“He’s the best, he didn’t deserve any of that shit.”
He can feel Steve’s head bobbing up and down in a nod.
“Nobody ever does.”
“Were you ever going to tell us about him?” Steve finally adds quietly after a few minutes of silence
He thinks for a moment, he never really imagined introducing them, especially after everything with the Sokovia Accords, Bucky and his parents but even after they patched things up together he never genuinely imagined them meeting.
“I don’t know, we weren’t in the best place before he went radio silent on me. I didn’t know how to bring up our friendly neighbourhood spider-child and there was never a reason to either” He tells Steve and watches as his blue eyes glow with shame.
“Is that why you were always so down all those months ago? Why would you never leave the lab unless it was a mission?” Steve asks as he finishes wrapping him up in bandages and starts carding his hands through Tony’s hair “I just assumed it was because of Bucky and me…”
He struggles now to be too obvious about loving the way Steve’s fingers run through his roots of his hair, realising his headache and tries to focus on Steve’s words instead.
He speaks slowly and carefully “yeah it was kinda a mixture of both, but I’m not mad about that anymore.”
Steve nods and pulls Tony closer towards him before putting his head on his shoulder and his arms loosely around his waist, his vision starts clouding to black and the last thing he hears is Steve’s voice.
“I’m so sorry Tony, I’m sorry about Bucky and I’m sorry if you felt like you couldn’t tell us important stuff, or even unimportant stuff and I’m sorry that we weren’t here when you needed us.” The regret in his tone makes Tony wince before his eyes blacked out the light and his mind went blank. The next thing he knew he was falling asleep deeply in Steve’s comfortable grasp.
Spidermanspidermandoeswhateveraspidercan
Tony woke up before Steve did and numbing pain through his back has practically faded away to a little stinging.
He stares up into Steve's closed eyes and slightly parted mouth and pulls his arms closer to his chest.
“Steve, i don't know how i'm supposed to do this” Tony admits “i don't know how to even be a father figure, I can't mess this up this time.
He hates the way his voice cracks and trembles as he speaks.
“Please don't make me mess this up” he whispers to Steve.
The only response is the slight breeze from the aircon and Steve’s humming breath as he sleeps.
“We need to check up on the kid.” Was the first thing Tony said to Steve as he woke up.
“Huh?” Steve murmurs, rubbing the sleep from the corners of his eye and looking at Tony sleepily.
“Peter, we need to check on him” tony repeated
“Sure?” Steve replied still half asleep
“Can you pretty please carry me there?” Tony whimpers, pulling the face of a disgruntled puppy
Steve raises and unimpressed eyebrow at him
“Steveee~” Tony whines into Steves ear
The other man doesn't even flinch.
“But Cap, I'm injured!”
He could see Steve soften at the words and give a loud sigh before finally giving in “alright let me get up.”
As soon as Steve gets up he hauls Tony up into his arms before throwing him over his shoulder into a fireman's lift.
“Holy shit!” He screeches as he gets toppled and balanced over their shoulder without a sense of recognition other than a stifled chuckle that Steve was trying to hide.
“Hold on tight doll.” Steve told him sarcastically as he dangled off his shoulder, Steve's hand just a few inches of his ass in a teasing manner.
The whole way to the main lounge was filled with Tony's grumbles and Steve’s fucking school girl giggles.
But hey look on the brightside, at least he has a nice view!
When they arrive at the lounge, Steve finally lets Tony down and everyone simultaneously shushes them and points towards the sofa.
Well fuck me hard and call me daddy.
Fucking Natasha Romanoff, the black widow, secret spy agent, one of the best avengers (after himself of course) and a straight up hardcore badass was cuddling with his kid.
Everyone (apart from Wanda who had a small smile on her face) had a slightly different ‘what-in-all-of-asgard’ face.
Honestly though, Clint’s jaw had dropped (literally), Bruce looked to be in a mixture of confusion and even more confused, Thor looked like he was questioning everything that's ever happened to him and he and Cap both looked like they walked in on something they shouldn't have seen.
After getting over his initial stage of shock he grabbed his Phone and took over a dozen photos (which may or may not have been for black mail).
When they all got over the initial shock Clint started complaining about Natasha’s secret hot chocolate stash and Tony was complaining about how his baby spiderling had been adopted by another spider without his consent.
He didn't even realize when Harley had walked in before assessing the situation, getting traumatised and then attempting to leave again only to be stopped by Clint begging him to share the hot chocolate stash hideout by quoting ‘one direction’ song lyrics to him until he eventually got Steve to man handel Clint somewhere else so that Harley could escape and be free from Clint’s horrible Louis Impression.
He's pretty surprised on how Natahsa and Peter haven't woken up yet, they’re still in the same curled up position with half cold mugs of hot chocolate that he knows will leave a stain and cookie crumbs that are littered all over the floor.
Plus it's not like he found the whole situation absolutely adorable and heart warming. Nope, not at all.
Spidermanspidermandoeswhateveraspidercan
Peter Parked POV:
For the first in months, he didn't wake up from a nightmare or a haunting memory, no today he woke up with arms curled around him protectively and the rest of the Avengers losing their absolute shit in the background.
OH MY GOD!!!!!!
PANIC MODE IS ON.
HE IS CURRENTLY BEING HUGGED BY NATASHA ROMANOFF A.K.A THE BLACK WIDOW!
Trying to regain his composure he looks around as everyone is chatting, or rather yelling at each other.
“What's going on?” He questioned whilst debating on how to get out of the black widow's grib without also waking her up.
Everyone stilled and looked at him.
Tony was the first one to break the silence with a “you alright kid?”
Which he responded with a scrunched up frown before throwing a weak thumbs up because although being hugged by Natasha may seem like it would solve all your problems (he's not saying it doesn't) he still feels like a garbage can that's been flung around the city a few hundred times.
He should probably explain it to them, they'd find out one day and he knows that Mr. Stark would just carry on worrying unless he was reassured that it was nothing.
“You guys can sit and i’ll try and explain what happened, also i'm super sorry about everyth-“
His apology got dismissed with a wave of Tony’s hand as they all sat around the couches (even Harley who had come out from nowhere) and leaned in to listen.
And Natasha who had been glaring at Tony and Clint as soon as she had woken up, had her hand planted firmly against his arm in a comforting way.
How on earth was he supposed to explain his shit show of a life?
He sucked in a large breath full of oxygen.
Here goes nothing.
“Before I moved to where I was in Queens before HYDRA and everything went down, I lived a little further away. I had lived there since I was six with my aunt and uncle and I was neighbours with two kids from my school, Gwen and Harry. We instantly clicked and became friends with each other.” He chuckled slightly at the memory of him, Gwen and Harry running around each other, playing games and other kiddy stuff.
“We practically lived at each other's houses as Harry’s father wasn’t around much and I’m pretty sure we only ever talked to each other.
Well as soon as we were twelve Harry got sent to a boarding school, but we still kept in touch almost every day and we visited on holidays and stuff.”
He squeezed his eyes shut trying to savour the memories
“Well me and Gwen got a lot closer and we both got together when we were both 14, a little after my uncle had died, she was there for me and when her dad had passed I did the same.”
A wave of sadness overwashed the group as he spoke about them.
“It got a tiny bit rocky but we both were always there and we swore we would never leave each other's side. Especially when she found out I was Spider-man, She had always encouraged me and patched me up.
But um- more on topic, me, Gwen and Harry had always had movie nights on fridays when he returned for the holidays and we had to pick older shows and Gwen always picked Pretty woman, it was her favourite movie and she’d always talk about it. I could probably recite the whole show word for word by now.
But yeah I guess it just brought up memories…” he whispers, his voice cracking embarrassingly loud as he avoiding the glazes of the Avengers (+ Harley)
“If you're missing them, you could visit them if you want.” Wanda had suggested to him in a sympathetic tone.
Peter slumped into the sofa cushions “Gwen and Harry both died a year and a half ago.”
The air had been sucked out of the room and everyone looked horrified to the least.
The silence was deafening until Dr. Banner finally spoke up “can I ask how? If you don’t mind.”
He slowly nodded his head before getting into it.
“Well one thing about Harry that I didn’t tell you is that he had a disease. A horrible one. It wasn’t contagious, it was genetic and you couldn’t get rid of it. It’s a slow and painful process that leads to a ugly death, it drives you insane and manic for something to relive or stop it.”
He remembers the blood curdling screams and whimpers that came from Harry towards the end of his death, he had stayed every night with a bottle of painkillers and ibuprofen.
“He watched as his dad died from it. Norman Osborn, Harry’s father was a horrible, terrible and overall cruel man and Harry knew that if he didn’t stop it he would end up the same, driven by his own pain.
So he thought he had found a solution: Spider-man, his blood that is, or rather my blood. It has incredible healing factors that he thought he could merge with his own blood.”
“Wait so why didn’t it work?” Harley interrupted curiously.
“My blood is radioactive, it would've just made his condition worsen.”
“Sick!” Harley said under his breath as Tony clipped him round the head with a firm grim expression on his face
“So yeah, I obviously said no and that I’d try and help find another solution when I met him as Spider-man and he went insane, his maniacal side took over and he injected himself with some weird mutant substance that made him lose his sanity, so he jumped in during a fight with another villain that I was fighting and thought to fight me as well so he could get my blood because he didn’t believe me. Gwen was also there and we were both working together as the brains and brawn, but she got caught in cross fire since Harry wanted to use something I loved to hurt me so I would give up. And when she got thrown I couldn’t catch her in time…”
“Oh god.” Natasha breathed out
“Harry ended up coming back to his senses and when he saw what he had done, he sacrificed himself so he wouldn’t hurt anyone ever again.”
But he hurt me! A voice in his head shouted.
He pushed it down and looked up at the Avengers, Thor, Wanda and Clint were crying and Natasha, Bruce and Harley all had slight watery eyes.
Suddenly arms were slung round his back and the body was curled around him.
“You deserved so much better kid.” Tony mumbled into his hair and Peter finally returned the rib crushing hug.
“You’ll never have to deal with any of that shit ever again. I promise you.” Tony whispers again.
And Peter almost believes him.