Chapter 5
Now I'm a shooting star, can't catch me
Tried to pull me out of the sky, steal all my light
But look, it's not dimming
One month later
The adoption was finalized a few days prior. Peter still couldn’t believe his luck. Neither could Ned, who, when Peter told him the news, squealed so high pitched it felt as if dogs should be the only ones able to hear it.
A lot of things have changed since he moved in with Tony all those weeks ago. For one, he finally stopped referring to everyone formally. Mr. Stark was now Tony, Mr. Wilson was just Sam, Mr. Rogers was just Steve, and so on. He also called Clint Uncle Clint now (hey, the archer asked really nicely. Plus it annoys Tony).
He hung out with the Avengers way more often than before. They even started building their own rituals together.
Peter and Bruce would obviously do science together. When the man found out that Peter could keep up with him in chemistry, he was pleasantly surprised, and chemistry projects together became a frequent activity between the two of them.
Peter and Natasha danced together. He found her doing ballet one day and asked if she could teach her, to which he excitedly replied yes. He is naturally flexible and graceful because of the spider bite, so he picked up on her lessons quite easily. He loved it—especially turning, even if it did make him dizzy sometimes.
Peter and Bucky baked together. He was considerably surprised when he found out about the Winter Soldier’s hobby, but he like watching him mix the ingredients together and decorate. One day Bucky asked him if he wanted to help make cookies and Peter gave him an enthusiastic nod. Ever since then if you found Bucky in the kitchen baking, it was more often than not you’d find Peter right alongside him.
Peter, Clint, and Sam messed around together. They pulled practical jokes on the other Avengers as well as some lucky interns throughout the building. And on top of that, Sam was basically Peter’s unofficial therapist, and Clint and he had a hideout in a particularly large vent that they stashed Pop-Tarts and played Mario cart in.
Peter and Steve trained together. Peter will be the first to admit that he’s not the best fighter, technically speaking. He relies too much on his powers, and Steve decided that if he was going to be a superhero he was going to learn how to defend himself properly. In just the short amount of time that they’ve done this, Peter could already tell he was getting better during patrols.
He was also Steve’s go-to pop-culture guy, helping him get adjusted to the 21st century. He recommended movies, TV shows, and books, as well as teaching him about things like Vines, memes, and trends.
But his favorite would always be Tony.
It’s always been Tony.
Even before he was a kid and he raised that plastic gauntlet at the droid (though he doubts the man remembers that).
It wasn’t an exaggeration to say that he was basically Peter’s dad now… not that he’d ever tell him that… at least not yet.
They did everything together. Mostly building stuff in the lab, but they also did more domestic stuff like falling asleep on the couch while watching movies together, tossing goldfish in each other’s mouths, eating ice cream even though they were both lactose-intolerant.
And yeah, he still had his moments. He had nightmares about May’s death, but was now mostly convinced that it wasn’t his fault. He was finally starting to accept that he wasn’t a burden or a waste of space, but the word ‘selfish’ was still drilled deep into him. He was working on it, though.
For the first time since May died almost two years ago, he was truly happy. Not just happy sometimes, in some situations with certain people. Happy was his default now.
He’d forgotten how that felt.
And Tony and the rest of the Avengers reminded him.