Stranded

Bruce Banner liked to think himself a simple man.

He enjoyed the small things in life, like a cup of warm tea, a nostalgic novel to reread, quiet relaxation alone… 

Unfortunately for him, this ‘simple’ view of himself was blatantly distorted by the fact that he was also a semi-active Avenger that turned into a giant green rage monster if he lost control.

Bruce took another steadying breath, one of many from within just the past minute alone. It kept him teetering on the narrow border to the precipice he couldn’t seem to safely find his way from. 

Fury (the man, not the emotion, although the latter was definitely what was threatening to bubble up past Bruce’s limit like it had been since the message from Peter had first arrived) looked at him from the side of his eye, his expression taut and holding a sufficient amount of wariness.

“You still alright there, Banner?” the man checked gruffly, shifting his gaze away to take a glance at his watch. He sounded resigned to Bruce’s inevitable answer, but he asked the same question again, anyway.

Bruce couldn’t blame him, considering how his own skin was pulsing on and off with a tinge of green and rapid - if relatively minor - fluctuations in muscle mass, but it wasn’t helping him stick to his only partly satiric mantra of, ‘keep calm and carry on.’ He inhaled deeply, then exhaled with the same level of control, chest deflating with the force of it. “I’ll be fine, Fury,” he managed to grit out, trying for a terse smile and resigning himself to the fact that he missed by a mile. He let it contort into a grimace, rubbing a hand down his face. 

Fury eyed him for a few long (too long) seconds, then gave a brisk nod and rose to his feet to stride off towards the helm of the ship, likely in order to track their progress.

Truthfully, as much as a corner of Bruce’s mind wanted to let himself feel righteous indignation over the Director of SHIELD's blunt lack of full faith (especially after so many years with little to no incident in the most recent ones), it was more than understandable.

After all, they were currently aboard what amounted to a miniature version of the Helicarrier - which, if it wasn’t obvious, was currently a hunk of metal thousands of feet up in the air -  on their way to Bruce’s teammates who were high off an unknown gas and likely viciously attacking - if not at least attempting to do so - the youngest and most emotionally vulnerable member of their group, who happened to not even be of voting age.

The vein in Bruce’s temple pulsed, and he heard more than felt several seams in the sleeves of his t-shirt rip open before he managed to get himself back under control, inhaling sharply and working his jaw.

“Now’s not the time, Hulk,” he ground out lowly, pinching his forefinger and thumb against the bridge of his nose and releasing a terse exhale. His skull throbbed with tension, and he resisted the urge to check the small syringe vials that were safely stored in the medical station of the ship. He and practically all of the biological engineers available at the Ottowa SHIELD base had done as much as they could to make a working antidote without access to the original strain of gas. Fiddling with the syringes now wouldn’t help any. 

No, now, it was just a waiting game. In less than thirty minutes, they’d get to Avengers Tower. Then, Hulk could come out and play.

Bruce hoped he wouldn’t have to.

-

Maybe it wasn’t good how lost in his own head Peter was getting, but… well, it felt better. It made it easier for him to keep moving, when he could sort of just… half fade away into his mind and his memories as his body moved on its own. 

He found his thoughts drifting to better times, which, admittedly, wasn't something that was hard to do considering literally almost anything else would be better than his present. 

Really, it shouldn't have been a surprise that his thoughts eventually drifted back to the Avengers - this time to how he’d first met them - really met them, that was, outside of Tony. How Mr. Stark had decided to throw the meeting on him without forewarning, Peter walking out the elevator and into the common room floor only to stop short at the sight of every single one of the Avengers staring at him with varying levels of surprise. 

“Avengers, Peter. Peter, Avengers!” Tony announced with all the flair of a talk show host, gesturing grandly with his arms splayed wide. 

…Yeah, it’d been an awkward start, but it hadn’t stayed that way for long. It wasn’t like they all met him and then that was it, only stiff waves at each other in the halls from there - no. 

Peter had found himself being slowly, carefully, but no less all-encompassingly embraced into the fold.

Thor, unsurprisingly, had been the most welcoming. If anyone was a golden retriever in human (or alien, Peter guessed would be the right word) form, it was the God of Thunder. 

“Young Peter!” Thor exclaimed, throwing his arms out wide with his beard doing nothing to hide his beaming smile. “Welcome!” he boomed jovially as he strode his way over. His hand came down with a solid clap to land heavily on Peter’s shoulder, who had to lock his knees so they wouldn’t buckle under the enthusiastic force of it.

"Thanks!" Peter squeaked, and his knees really did give out with the second thump on his shoulder. He didn't mind.

Sam, who was more or less the most laid back of the bunch, hadn’t really been all that far behind.

“And here I thought we’d finally be getting another normal human on the team,” the man pretended to complain after Peter's dual identity as Spider-Man had come out, Sam squinting his eyes at Peter in mock accusation. The small quirk at the corner of his lips gave him away.

Peter played along anyways, blinking back innocently and tilting his head. “What about Mr. Barton?” he pointed out, glancing around surreptitiously to make sure the archer wasn’t around to hear him.

Sam rolled his eyes, waving him off. “Once you’ve got ‘superspy’ in your title, I vote that it negates your normal human-ness. And none of that ‘Mister’ stuff with me, alright? It’s Sam to you,” he commanded, jabbing a threatening finger in Peter’s direction. Peter only gave a impish smile back.

Bruce had been quieter than Peter had expected. Maybe that was wrong of the teen, some of his impressions of the Hulk bleeding through to the doctor that Banner really was, but it was what it was, and he figured out the truth of the older man’s character pretty quick, anyways.

It was way too early in the day when Peter walked into the kitchen, so he was surprised enough to stumble to a stop at the realization that someone was already there. He blinked blearily at the sight that greeted him.

Bruce smiled slightly, a cup of something steaming clutched gently between his palms. Peter could smell the faintest tinge of mint from where he stood. It made his nose feel itchy.

“Tea?” Bruce offered, gesturing to the kettle that was still on the stove. 

Peter blinked again, and his mouth moved before his complete conscious to say, “I’m allergic to peppermint.”

It earned a surprised almost-chuckle from Bruce, who shook his head and gestured at the array of different tea blends that'd been splayed out at his side. “Something different, then,” he offered kindly.

Peter didn’t miss that the man’s mug was still half full when he went to wash its remnants away down the sink.

Maybe some would’ve expected Steve to be further up on this impromptu list than he was, but Peter wasn’t saying that the supersoldier wasn’t welcoming or anything. Heck, he definitely wasn’t saying Steve hadn’t been polite. The man just had barriers. Ones that were less obtrusive or fortified than maybe Bucky’s or Natasha’s had been for sure, but there all the same. 

Still, he let Peter behind them - on a normal day that'd seemed like every other.

“How’s a morning run sound to you, Peter?” the blonde offered, his good-natured grin gaining an almost... sly edge as Sam snapped his head around and rapidly shook his head at Peter, mouthing ‘NO.’

Peter blinked bemusedly, looking between the two of them for a few slow seconds. Then he shot Steve a returning, beaming grin, his eyes curving into crescents of delight. “Sounds great!” he exclaimed with genuine enthusiasm and only the slightest tinge of his own brand of mischief tinging his words. He hid a laugh when Sam’s head thunked dully against the counter.

Clint fit in somewhere amongst them, though Peter couldn’t pinpoint where, exactly. The archer was a pretty affable dude - had been from the beginning - but Peter was willing to bet some hard earned monopoly money that the man hadn’t been as open to Peter from the beginning like he seemed he was. It happened eventually, though, Peter was sure of that.

“So~ a little birdie told me-”

Peter cut off Clint (unintentionally, though, since being high as a kite on pain meds while still strapped to the med bay cot made it pretty difficult to maintain accurate perceptions, let alone something so banal as social cues) with a loud gasp, then followed it up by slurring with  sufficient awe, “You c’n talk t’ birds?”

Clint blinked, his mouth still hanging open over his cut off word. Invested as Peter was, the teen struggled through his blurry vision to try and make out whether the archer was amused or offended by the accidental pun (which Peter still did not realize he’d made), but then someone guffawed loudly from the doorway - Tony, Peter saw mushily - and Clint’s face firmly settled into spluttering outrage as he threw his hands up and spun around to walk straight back out of the room, muttering something about “teenagers” and “no respect anymore.”

Even through the mixmash of supersoldier-level drugs, Peter swore he’d seen the edge of a smile on the blonde’s face.

…But that might’ve been the drugs talking.

Peter would say Natasha and Bucky were firmly tied for last. He'd argue Bucky was last for sure just ‘cause of how reclusive the guy could be, but Natasha kind of had the same thing as Clint where Peter couldn’t tell if she really liked him for a good long while even though she’d been nice to him for basically the whole time. 

Yeah, him finally getting closer to Natasha had been… mildly terrifying. Mildly. 

“Ms. Romanov?” Peter called, his head peeking around the corner and into the living area and his Spider suit firmly on except for his mask, which he fiddled with in his hands. Natasha looked up from where she was curled up comfortably against one of the sofa cushions, a book in hand. 

“Peter.” she acknowledged simply, tilting her head in a gesture for him to continue.

Peter dithered for a couple of seconds, licking his lips nervously and rubbing his gloved palm against the back of his neck. Finally, he bit the bullet. “Could you… help me with sparring?" he asked tentatively, shoulders hunching up a little and face starting to feel hot.  

She stared back at him unblinkingly, long enough for Peter to feel a bead of sweat trickle down his back as his short rush of courage started to wilt under the pressure, making him shift from foot to foot as he worked up the will to apologize for bothering her with asking such a thing in the first place. Before he could, though, her eyes curved ever so slightly despite the fact that her lips stayed flat, and she uncurled from her seat, smoothly shifting to a stand and stalking over to him in a gait that was nothing short of a prowl. Peter bit back a sound of equal parts distress and starry-eyed awe as she bared her teeth in a shark-toothed smile, cracked her neck, and purred, “Call me Nat.”

With Bucky, it’d been a lot more of a slow and steady, gradual sort of process than any of the others. All Peter knew was that one day, he and Bucky were just… there, together.

“Pete.” 

Peter blinked, tilting his head to look over at Bucky while he paused the T.V. with the remote in his hand. “Yeah, Bucky?”

“I don’t get it,” the man admitted, hunched forward on the sofa so that his elbows rested against his knees and his chin was propped up against his interlaced fingers. His thick brows were furrowed in the middle, lips pursed. 

“Don’t get what?” Peter questioned, knee bouncing.

Bucky heaved a heavy sigh, long locks of hair falling forwards to frame his jawline. One of his hands flung forwards from under his chin to gesture at the entirety of the screen paused in front of them. “None of it,” he admitted resignedly, letting himself fall back against the cushions. Peter opened his mouth to say something, but Bucky cut him off, his frown lines deepening as he picked up some steam. “I’m real sorry, pal, but just - the whole thing. It’s - first it’s him an’ his damn sister, then it’s that one goin’ after all the damn kids, and then I was havin’ a hard enough time with the two colors for those whatchamacallit’s - lightswords - but then that guy who could practically be Fury’s twin gets a purple one? What the fu- hell, Peter? None of this makes any goddamn sense!” he tossed his hands up in frustration, sinking further into the couch and letting out a way too exaggerated, world-weary groan.

Peter blinked again, wide-eyed. He narrowed them a second later in only partially mock offense. “They’re called lightsabers, Bucky, you uncultured old man,” he replied with his best snooty expression, definitely imbuing more Tony than necessary as his inspiration. 

Bucky tossed a throw pillow at him, and Peter smacked it to the side with a surprised laugh. The man waved his hand at him and let out a dramatically resigned sigh. “Just play the movie, kid,” he pretended to lament. Peter snickered, falling back onto the sofa to knock shoulders with him as he clicked play.

And… yeah, that really just about summed up Peter’s relationship with the crew - the true start to them, at least. 

All except for Tony Stark.

Mr. Stark… Tony… he was - he was everything. He was there from start to finish, from every point in between. He was there for far longer than even he knew - what, with having unknowingly saved Peter’s life when he was just a starry eyed, hero-obsessed eight year old wearing his hero's mask at his hero's expo. 

Tony was there for Peter for every success, but, more importantly, he was there for every failure. When Spider-Man failed to rescue everyone from the bombing in the city center (two deaths, from the dozens he’d webbed away from the blast zone), it’d been Tony who’d held his hand in a firm grip as Ms. Zhu patched him up and swore that those life’s losses weren’t on Peter’s hands. It’d been Tony that’d pulled Peter from the rubble after a building (bigger than the warehouse - more than he could lift on his own) after a fight gone wrong and hadn’t offered a single word of reprimand except to get it through his head that Iron Man would always answer his call, no matter the situation. It’d been Tony that helped Peter tweak his self-code so that even if Peter stubbornly stuck by his Uncle’s phrase of ‘with great power, comes great responsibility,’ it didn’t mean everything was Peter’s responsibility. It meant that Peter would do his best, and his best was enough.  

It took Peter a long time to realize just how much that change had saved him, even just from burning himself out and to the ground. How freeing that simple differentiation had been. It didn’t take him half as long to realize all the other ways Tony had saved him - both literally and metaphorically.

There were smaller things too, though. Like how the man had taken to picking Peter up from school on days that Peter would be heading to the Tower anyways. Like how the man never minded stopping his own work in the lab to give Peter a hand if he asked for it - and even when he didn't. Like how they'd somehow, someway stumbled upon a routine for biweekly dinners between the two of them and May at whatever down-low restaurant of choice had the food they were craving. 

Yeah, it’d been a long time since Tony had last shied away from stepping up in Peter’s life. Maybe neither of them had ever explicitly said what the man had become to the teen, but it just... wasn’t something that needed to be said. Actions spoke louder than words, after all, and nobody could deny that Tony Stark was the epitome of an action man.

It was why Tony was the one adult outside of May that Peter trusted with his everything. Oh, Peter trusted the rest of the Avengers- and yes, he one hundred percent trusted them with his life… but Tony and May were the only two he trusted with more than that. With his independence - and conversely with his dependence on them too. With all (or, well, with very close to all, Ned) of his secrets, his hidden worries, the faults in his defenses…

Peter knew they would never use those things against him. He knew Tony would never use those things against him, would never see or treat him differently no matter what Peter unveiled about himself to the man or how much of his own weight he had to prop up onto the hero to keep himself standing.

Which was why his brain really shouldn’t be struggling so hard now to dismiss the feelings of betrayal that kept stabbing mercilessly at his chest. Peter knew this wasn’t Tony’s fault. He knew the man wasn’t in control of his actions just like the rest of the Avengers weren’t either. 

And yet that didn’t stop Peter’s throbbing, pain-ridden, concussed head from the feelings it kept needling at like an open wound. 

He couldn’t help the way it burned to see every member of the team he’d come to trust so deeply to always have his back suddenly turn on him, and he couldn’t help the way it ached that it was like Tony’s hate for Peter - no matter the fact that it wasn’t self-instilled - went so deep that the man couldn’t even look at the vigilante in person even while trying to destroy his very existence.

That’d been more poetic than Peter’d been aiming for, but the point stood. He let out a weak, defeated chuckle, one that faded into a pained cough as he struggled not to double over. He found himself slipping somewhat free from his thoughts, his surroundings coming back into greater focus as his awareness partially recentered without his conscious say.

He frowned muzzily for a couple of seconds, his muddled brain trying to work out why he’d been kicked out of his idle contemplations, before his stomach gave a pleading gurgle, promptly remaking its presence known. It felt like it was throbbing in sync with the gash in his side and the burns all over. Maybe it was.

“Got it,” he croaked back at it, patting at his belly while being careful to avoid the injuries that’d flare up at the touch. He found it in himself to be half-heartedly surprised that he’d managed to forget about his hunger - let alone dull down his pain - for as long as he had (which, honestly, he had no idea how long that was since time felt like it was moving in a sluggish, distorted haze), considering the fact that - unlike his injuries, which were still strangely... dulled - his stomach currently felt like it was an entire black hole gnawing at his insides.

No wonder it’d woken him back up from his reverie-turned-pity party.

Or at least, that’s what Peter thought had brought him back to himself until he heard a quiet, innocuous little scuff against the linoleum floors behind him, just barely audible over the ringing in his ears.

His shoulders hitched, sending a bolt of pain lancing up from his left one. He didn't have it in him to react more than that.

Instead, a calm, almost... accepting sort of dread blanketed itself like a fresh layer of snow over the ever-present film of it that'd already settled into the marrow of his bones. It was a task to use one hand against the wall to support himself as he slowly turned on his good heel to face what - who - was coming.

Steve. 

Peter swallowed; his throat clicked. He licked his dry, cracked lips. The taste of copper settled heavy on his tongue. It was almost surprising, really, how smoothly his once sluggish thoughts settled into an almost calm, crystal-clear self-awareness. He knew, vaguely, that it shouldn’t have been so easy - so quick - for him to admit to himself that this time... this time, there wouldn't be a fight. He couldn’t get himself to bring forth strong enough emotions for it. Couldn’t will the strength for anything but soft, poignant resignation and gentle, rueful regret. 

He tried for a smile. It warped and trembled at the edges.

His voice shook too as he spoke, but it evened out by the end. “Hey there, Steve," he greeted benignly. He managed a huff, and he tipped his head to the side to let it gently rest against the wall. "You a bloodhound, or something?” he quipped hoarsely, like two friends in on a joke. Strange, how the echo of something done so recently could already feel so nostalgic. His eyes flickered down to stare at the man’s hands; it was too hard to look at his face. 

At least this time, Peter knew better than to hope. It made his glance at the savage, hatred-filled rage carved into the super-soldier’s face... just that little bit less jarring. 

He just wished knowing made it hurt less too, even if that pain had faded into something distant - something less... attached.

He didn’t get any response this time, either, not that he'd really expected one, and he slowly cataloged Steve’s features from where the man still remained motionless at the other end of the hall. 

The blonde looked a little worse for wear too, with his bloodshot eyes and his slightly off posture. It wasn't enough to take away from the violence seeping from his pores to saturate the air around him, of course. It didn’t make him look any less numbly, detachedly terrifying. 

Peter mustered up another smile, just the barest twitch at the corner of his lip, as he let himself slump further against the wall, not bothering to shift into a defensive stance. It wouldn’t do him any good. And maybe Steve would be be... nicer, if Peter didn't put up a fight.

The fog that’d receded from his brain had crept most of the way in again by now. His fingers twitched; he couldn’t feel it. “Looks like it’s just you an' me, buddy,” he sighed, His eyes fell shut with a slow, sticky blink. They reopened only half-lidded, heralding the single set of tears that cusped free over his clumped bottom lashes. The salty tracks itched dully against his skin. He swallowed thickly around the fading lump in his throat, and he falteringly opened his arms - welcoming. "Guess this's the end of the line, huh?" he rasped, his arms falling limply back to his sides. It was starting to get hard to think, let alone move, any longer. 

Steve’s first step forward like a finality.