Spidery Intervention

It was a rainy Saturday morning that saw both Peter and May Parker walking into the Avengers' compound. The woman's eyes roamed around I'm wonder while Peter barely contained his excitement. It wasn't his first time at the superheroes' HQ, having been there for lab work with Mr Stark a couple of times before, and the last time when they took the Quinjet to Europe, but he doubted the feeling would ever become old.

"Hello, Peter. Hello, Mrs Parker," FRIDAY called out.

Peter smiled up at the AI and held back a snigger when his aunt jumped up.

"Hello, FRIDAY!" Peter then turned May. "FRIDAY is Mr Stark's AI. She runs the building and helps him control the Iron Man suit."

"And she knows us by name?"

"That is correct," FRIDAY answered. "Your information was stored into my data bank when Peter was hired by Boss. I apologize if I startled you, Mrs Parker."

"It's… It's ok, Ms FRIDAY. I just… I never spoke with an AI before, unless you count Siri," May said sheepishly.

"Aunt May, FRIDAY is leagues above Siri!"

"Thank you for the compliment, Peter. Boss will surely appreciate the feedback. Now, if you could please proceed to conference room A, Boss and company are expecting you."

With their steps echoing on the otherwise empty halls, Peter guided May toward the conference room. It took them less than five minutes, and Peter smiled when he saw Mr Stark was waiting outside for them.

"May, Underoos, it's good to see you," Mr Stark said.

"Hello, Mr Stark!" Peter said back.

"Hello, Tony. You're looking a bit better," May commented, and she was right. The bags under his eyes looked a little less dark and his shoulders less slumped.

"I wanted to do my best since such a beautiful woman was going to grace me with her presence."

Peter mock-gagged at the flirting, realizing it wasn't serious.

"I'm sure you say that to every woman."

Mr Stark smirked and bowed mockingly. "Only those that truly deserve it. Now, shall we proceed? The members of the round table await us."

The three walked inside the meeting room, finding themselves as the last ones to arrive.

Peter had to stop himself from hyperventilating as he took in the rest of the superheroes sitting around the table. He waved shyly at Natasha and gave Colonel Rhodes a smile before he took his seat, May and Tony following right after.

"Alright, everyone is here, let's begin," Mr Stark announced.

—

"I think introductions are in order first. Avengers, meet mister Peter Parker, also known as Spider-Man, Spider-Boy or, and I affectionately call him, Underoos."

"Thank you, Mr Rusty Tin Man."

Wanda couldn't help but find the exchange a bit amusing. She could also feel the tension in the room recede a little, which was a big plus in her book. Both her and Vision had been receiving the feedback from too many mixed emotions.

She has tried to get answers from everyone about the things going on, but they either didn't know, as was the case with Vision, she didn't feel comfortable going up and asking, mainly Stark, or they were tight-lipped about it, as were Sam and Steve. Wanda had hoped the supersoldier would have opened up to her like she had done with him not even a full fortnight ago. Natasha had then informed her that they would be discussing everything in full during this meeting, but if anything was left out, the spy would make sure she would be caught up.

In the meantime, she observed Peter for a few seconds and tried to associate the image of the sweet looking boy in front of her with what she had seen on the internet about the vigilante. There definitely was something off about him –Wanda could feel something that wasn't quite magic around him, but it also wasn't not magic– but she was also intrigued by what her empathic abilities perceived.

He felt warm and bright. Wanda decided that he was a genuinely good person, someone who just tried to see the positive side of everything. But she also noticed the dark that clung to him, the weight of guilt and grief that shouldn't belong to someone so young.

Still, perhaps his positivity was something that could affect the team; heavens knew that was exactly what they needed.

Wanda could only hope.

—

"And this is Peter's lovely aunt, May Parker. As Peter is a minor, I preferred that his legal guardian be present for these situations. Does anyone have a question?" Tony really hoped they didn't, but his platypus always knew how to topple his dreams.

"I have two, yes. What do you mean Peter is Spider-Man? Wasn't he just your intern? And what does that have to do with this meeting? Is he going to be added to the Avengers' roster? Because I don't feel all that comfortable with child soldiers, Tones," Rhodey said, giving him a Look, adding that slight movement with his head that Rhodey would never admit came from his mom.

Tony answered with an overly dramatic sigh. "Alright, so… Peter is my intern. He's been working with me for the last three weeks. When we were summoned for the ratification of the Accords, I thought it would be an interesting experience for the kid."

"And it was, but politicians are… Kind of weird," Peter added with a shrug.

Tony snorted, and he wasn't the only one. "Yes, thank you, peanut gallery."

"Rude, if anything, I'm the topic of discussion. I should get my own say," Peter argued.

"Shit, not another one," Rhodey pleaded.

"Alright, cut it out," Tony said. "To make it a long story short, Zemo activated the Winter Soldier programming in Barnes, and we had an out of control supersoldier beating everyone's ass –how he didn't kill anyone is beyond me, I should add. Romanoff and I tried to stop him, we got our butts handed to us and then this one," he pointed at Peter, who did the finger guns and grinned. "Proceeded to show everyone up by wiping the floor with Elsa as if he did it every Tuesday."

To illustrate his point, Tony had FRIDAY show the footage that he had asked Natasha to retrieve (and erase) from the UN building.

The group watched the whole confrontation in silence, and even though he lived it, Tony still couldn't help being awed by the kid handling a supersoldier with such ease.

Did Peter count as a supersoldier himself? Or was he something else? Perhaps he was a mutant? Or a mutated? Would he have to be an official soldier to be considered a supersoldier?

The video finished and almost everyone was now looking at Peter with slightly different eyes. It was one thing to be told, but seeing proof was what really set the truth in.

"I feel the need to add that Peter is not the only topic of discussion at the moment," Tony said with finality, actually glaring when a couple of people looked about to protest. "Officially speaking, we cannot recruit Spider-Man into the Avengers because Peter is a minor, and that's without mentioning the whole child soldier thing as Platypus pointed out, but I feel that there's some support that we might be able to provide. I will also work with the pertinent authorities so that Spider-Man will be able to legally provide back-up in any situation that falls into the Good Samaritan law or that it is truly something only an enhanced person could handle."

"What about the Accords?" Wanda asked. "Wouldn't they stop him from doing that?"

Tony was about to answer but Natasha beat him to it. "Not in his case. The Sokovia Accords are an UN agreement and they come into effect for enhanced individuals from one country entering another country. Further regulations are to be resolved by the individual country members, but those regulations do have to follow the Universal Declaration of Human rights. This is actually a positive thing, as it recognizes not only those enhanced by science and technology are humans, but mutants, mutates and others that have abilities that are not inside the regular human scope are still, indeed, humans."

"Mr Parker still intervened in Romania, did he not?" Vision inquired.

"Peter acted in his capacity as a civilian, not as a vigilante. His presence was completely legal and, since he is not part of any group like SHIELD or the Avengers, legally he doesn't have to disclose his enhancements because, again, Peter is a civilian. His actions fall in the category of the Good Samaritan laws, which do exist in Romania, so there's no legal perspective in which Peter is in trouble, Accords or no Accords."

On the corner of his eye, Tony saw May deflate a little.

"I admit that's a relief to know," said May and she reached for one of the bottles of water conveniently placed in front of her. "I'm learning that I can trust Tony to have Peter's interest in mind, but being in the loop is reassuring."

"Ms Parker, were you not aware that Peter was Spider-Man?" Wilson asked.

"I'm afraid not. Peter decided that it would be safer for me not to know, but Tony convinced him to come clean."

"Wait, I'm sorry, I can't be the only one worried about letting an actual child go out and play hero," Rhodey answered, looking around in incredulity.

"If you think you can find a way to stop the kid that doesn't include inhumane measures after my, Natasha, and his Aunt's attempts failed, I will personally hand you a whole crate of Diamond Jubilee," Tony quipped.

"How about taking away his suit, for starters?" the Colonel pressed.

"My suit is only fabric and some kevlar I managed to get my hands on. The only important part is my web shooters, and I can make more," said Peter a bit testily. Evidently, he was getting tired of people telling him to give up being a superhero. "I'm not going to stop helping people. My powers are a responsibility and I'm going to honor it."

"Yeah, yeah, you tell him, kid. Now, if we could actually go to the first point of business," Tony pressed.

"And that would be?" Vision asked, speaking up for the first time.

"Why, Steve's continued presence on the team, of course."