@RealSpidey570360BC02C1a5664D7

ONE WEEK BEFORE THE ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY OF BEN'S DEATH

“Peter, I have been asked to wake you up so that you will be able to easily fall asleep tonight.” Fridays voice was as quiet as possible, but it woke Peter up in his otherwise silent room.

“How long was I asleep?” He mumbled. He opened his eyes to be reminded of the pitch black. “Lights to three percent.”

The lights barely turned on, but it was enough to start getting dressed. “You were asleep for three hours. Would you like me to slowly turn the lights to fifty percent? I can stop if it becomes painful.”

“Yeah,” Peter muttered. He pulled his shirt on over his head. The noise the fabric made was loud in the silent room. “Could you put on some white noise or something?’

“Of course Peter.” Friday said, followed by the sound of seagulls at the beach.

A minute later, May was calling and Peter answered quickly. Tony had likely texted her about his sensory overload.

“Hey May.”

“Hey Petey, how are you feeling? Tony sounded like it was pretty bad.”

Peter winced a bit at the description. It was accurate, but it was always weird to hear about how much others could tell. 

“It was I, I think between last night and then T’Challa’s at the tower, and they started talking about how old Spiderman was and I don’t know. It was just a lot.”

May was quiet for a little bit, “Do they not know you’re spiderman? Or could they just not talk about it because T’Challa was there?”

“Only Tony, Rhodey, Pepper, and Happy know it’s me.” Peter began walking up and down his room as his brain continued to wake up.

“I don’t think I knew that,” May didn’t sound mad, but Peter could tell she was thrown off. “You don’t think you can trust the Avengers with that?”

Peter shrugged. “I just don’t think anyone really gets anything out of them knowing. Tony gets bad press every time he works with me because I’m not signing all the paperwork they’re figuring out. Captain America’s thoughts on how little, uhm, how little Spiderman’s parents knew about the whole thing are what kind of pushed me over the edge at lunch. I don’t know, I just-”

“It’s okay Peter,” May’s voice was soft, “I’m not asking you to tell them. That’s your choice. As long as Tony knows, and knows that he answers to me if something happens to you, then that’s all I can ask.”

Peter smiled. He really did love her. “T’Challa’s younger sister told me not to let you or Pepper hang the tapestry on the wall. She said that it's something silly that Americans do.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, I might have had it over my shoulders when she first saw me, and I got all awkward about it so she told me to calm down. She’s really cool.”

“Yeah?” May had her you’re-talking-about-a-new-girl voice on.

“May stop. Please. She is not my girlfriend. She will not be my girlfriend. I cannot survive high school promising everyone that I’m dating an African Princess. And also I’m not into her like that. It’s more of a ‘I’ll tell you how to make carbon based webbing if you tell me how to make it better with vibranium’ type of relationship.”

“Alright, alright, I’ll back off. I’ve got Ned on my side anyways. He’ll tell me if you’ve got a crush on her later.” 

Mays lack of knowledge of his previous crush on MJ proved her wrong, but she didn’t need to know that. “Alright May, you do that. I think we’re doing dinner soon so I’m going to go find Tony.”

“Are you coming home tonight?” She asked before he could hang up.

“Uhm, can I get back to you on that? Tony’s going to be weird about my sleep schedule and might make up some excuse to keep me here where Friday can watch me. I do want to come home.”

“Sounds good, keep me posted. If you guys end up having a movie night or something let me know, maybe I’ll come meet this girl who can keep up with your science mumbo jumbo. Would that be okay?”

Peter felt his muscles relax. That was exactly what he needed. If May came then he could be with her but he wouldn’t have to miss out on any time learning from Shuri or hearing her call Tony’s engineering ‘pretty good for an American.’

“May that would actually be awesome. I think it would calm Tony down too.”

She smiled, “I bet it would. Alright, go back to dinner now.”

“Will do, I’ll talk to you later.”

“Alright, larb you.”

“Larb you too.”

A few minutes later, Peter left the room to go down to the labs before dinner.

Despite his protests that the nap had given him a second wind, Tony and T’Challa spent a majority of the hour acting as though Peter was about to break.

“Don’t try me kid,” Tony had called out when Peter tried to sit down and work again. 

They’d been touring Tony’s parts of the lab. Shuri was delighted by the new ideas around her but had ways which she knew Tony could benefit. She swore up and down that it wasn’t an intellect problem, but a need for a new set of eyes.

“You can’t expect one person to come up with the perfect solution to a problem this big all on their own.” Shur said when Tony had showed her the way the fuel line connected into the gauntlets. “Sure you’re solutions are brilliant. They work, and they’re efficient. But sometimes a second look from a new perspective is good. Also Vibranium could help stabilize a few elements to give you a bit more flight time between recharges.”

“Show me how,” Tony had answered. Peter, who was still not allowed to work despite his protests, resolved to texting Ned. 

After Ben had died, and Peter’s panic attacks started, Ned had started worrying. Ned wanted to know everything, but Peter couldn’t be expected to tell everything. After a few months of figuring out a balance they worked their way into a system. Ned wanted to know when it got bad. If Peter told him about sensory episodes, sleepless nights, and panic attacks then Ned would let him lead the discussion about everything else. The little things were up to Peter if he shared. 

Peter hadn’t felt like he’d needed to tell Ned when he’d barely slept the last night. The whole ‘King of Wakanda knew my parents’ thing would come up later, and Peter didn’t have the energy to explain why he was so drained by it. However a sensory episode that caused him to lose most human functions for a bit, Ned got a text as soon as Peter’s eyes readjusted to his phone screen.

Ned hadn’t responded right away, but by the time Peter was in the lab, he’d responded asking if something had happened. After that Peter had started updating him with everything from the last two nights. He walked Ned through his shock of the King of Wakanda knowing Peter’s parents before he told him about lunch with Captain Steve. Ned didn’t have any answers for Peter, but that worked fine. Peter could got to May or Tony if he needed help. Ned was really good at just listening. 

Peter was halfway through a message describing the blanket that he had over his shoulders when Tony called him away from just phone.

“Peter, if you want to quit texting your girlfriend I told Shuri you'd show her how the webbing works.”

"I was texting Ned, but he'd be flattered." Peter stood up and walked to the trip. "Am I showing her how it's made or how it works?" 

“How it works, and only how it works please. Can’t go giving her all our secrets.”

Shuri protested, “Scientific innovation thrives on the sharing of secrets.”

Tony gave her a look. “You do not have any room to talk Missy.”

“We are changing because of that! What do you call the last few hours Mr. Stark?”

“Alright, alright,” Tony smirked at her, “We can’t give you the information yet because it’s not ours to give, and because the military likes to try and grab everything that comes out of this building.” Tony gave her a bit of a solemn look, “We have to be careful with what we give them or they’ll start trying to get Spider Man's blood samples and I really wish I was exaggerating.”

“Blood Samples?” Peter asked terrified. “What the hell, uhm, what the hell do they want with uhm with his blood?”

Tony gave him a look. “The exact same thing they wanted with Captain America’s. They want to make an army out of him.”

Peter paled, “oh.”

Tony nodded, “Wanna put Spideys wrist things on and shoot out some webs for her to look at?”

Peter forced himself to smile and shoot a web at the table. He did this several times with several different settings before taking the shooters off and showing the webbing to Shuri. She asked hundreds of questions about strength testing and quality. He answered as much as Tony would allow him to. The two went on for a while, until T’Challa was called away on a phone call that Shuri was asked to come with.

“How you doing kid?” Tony asked after they’d left the room. “Wanna talk about earlier?”

Peter avoided the second question. “I’m doing okay. May told me that if we do a movie night tonight she’ll try to make it.”

“She’s gonna join us at the tower?” Tony asked surprised, “Your aunt?”

“Yeah, she’s been here-” He thought for a moment, “Has she never hung out here before?”

“It’s partly an appearances thing,” Tony explained, “You’re supposed to just be an intern so having your aunt over would be weird.”

“She’s more than an aunt though.” Peter didn’t know why he felt the need to explain this to Tony. The man knew what May meant to him.

Tony’s face went a little bit softer. “I know Peter, it would be the same either way. The problem is that it’s an intern having family over, not that it’s your aunt.” Tony gave him an odd look, “Having a movie night might be a good idea though, giving you and May some time together without having to pry you away from Shuri.”

Peter smiled. “That’s what I was thinking earlier. And she’s already met T’Challa.”

“That’s still weird to me.”

“You didn’t have the King of Wakanda randomly show up in your tiny Queens apartment. I thought it was like when you came over and wanted me to come fight or something!”

“I thought you knew it was a family friend thing.”

“All rational thoughts flew out the window when I saw him.”

“Well I’m a little impressed that you had rational thoughts to begin with.”

Peter rolled his eyes, “The King of Wakanda showed up at my house and cried with me in my kitchen. Give me a little bit of credit.”

Tony smiled. “Fine, I’ll give you that. Question, that blanket has vibranium in it yeah? That’s why they waited so long to give it to you.” 

Peter nodded. He grabbed the blanket off of his nearby workbench that he’d set it on. “Yeah, I think we have the old one they gave us in storage somewhere. It’s not quite as heavy as this one but I remember it was really soft. May and Ben wrapped me up in it on the way out of the funeral home because I was shivering so bad.”

“Was it cold out that they wrapped you in a tapestry?” Tony’s voice was soft, making Peter’s week voice sound better.

“No, I was just really tired and hadn’t been eating much. I didn’t take it well, I didn’t talk for a few days after that.” Peter swallowed harshly, trying not to start crying. The sadness washed over him quickly. He’d seen Ben’s body right after it happened. He held Ben’s hand as the blood drained out of him and the police slowly showed up. He hadn’t talked for a few days after that either.

Tony put a hand on Peters shoulder for a few moments before pulling him into a hug. They hadn’t done this before. Peter had mistook something for a hug in the car after Berlin, but they hadn’t done it for real yet. He tried not to think about Ben. He tried to focus on Tony giving him a hug, but he couldn’t stop seeing his cheeks lose color. He let out a small sob into Tony’s shoulder and felt Tony pull him in closer. 

Ben couldn’t hold him like this anymore. Ben gave the best hugs. May knew that, because her and Peter would fight to get to sit by Ben on movie nights because he was the best person to sit by at movie nights. Now May and Peter held each other tight.

Tony’s hugs were okay. Peter could tell he wasn't used to hugging people he didn’t want to flirt with. He’d seen him hug Pepper all the time, but right now Tony’s hands froze around Peters upper back. Peter squiremed underneath him just enough to hug him back, and see if he could teach Tony how to hug family. Peter let out another sob and Tony seemed to pick up on some of his tips, pulling him even tighter and allowing his hands to move a little bit around Peters back and shoulders. 

“I wish I could make this better for you kid. But this week is probably just going to suck.” Tony said.

Peter nodded, another small sob coming out.

“I wish I could have met him you know, I think about that sometimes. How much I would like to meet someone who your aunt thought fit to take care of you. She’s got crazy high standards you know. I’m a billionaire and I still worry that she thinks I’m not gonna be able to give you everything you deserve. Ben must have been a hell of a guy to keep up with you two.”

Peter just nodded into Tony, probably ruining his good shirt with the amount of crying he was doing.

“You wanna hear about my day at work yesterday?” Tony asked, loosening his grip a little bit. “It’s got nothing to do with this, but I think a distraction would help.”

Peter nodded, pulling away a bit and wrapping himself up in the Wakandan tapestry. He tried to fight through the grief and the memories. He focused on Tony’s words.

“It’s been a lot of little things lately. I’ve been getting some good data from my latest test runs so Fridays been working on storing that. We’ve got a second version of Veronica officially launched and ready for a disaster out in space.” Tony thought for a moment as he led the two to the couch to sit down as they talked. “Oh we had a PR problem today. I dealt with some of it while you napped. We ran some numbers and due to a problem with a guy in human resources we only had three employees at Stark industries who were not straight cis-gendered people. So we-”

“Four.” Peter mumbled, leaning deeper into Tony.

“What?”

“Four. I’m technically officially registered as an intern. You had four non-straight people hired through you.” Peter clarified.

Tony sat still for a second. “This is how you’re doing this?” He asked casually, “Not mad or weirded out or anything just, actually, you know what you impulsively saying this while emotionally exhausted is exactly how I’d expect you to come out to me. Whatever. Anyways, so we only had three non-straight employees that we knew of.” Tony paused leaning back.

“Wait so does that mean you and Ned are a thing?” He asked.

Peter laughed a bit, “No, Ned and I are not a thing. I haven’t really hardcore crushed on any guys. Guys my age are all awful.”

“Okay, okay, fair enough. Anyways, only three employees, and we had to fire two of them today because one of them is the others boss and someone walked in on them having sex in a closet during the day. So we’re already working on suggesting HR hires more not straight cis-gendered people, especially scientists. Stark Industries needs to be obviously pro-love. I hear the lead of research and development even made sure his intern wasn’t straight.”

“I hear he did a lousy job of checking,” Peter mumbled.

“Hey I didn’t rush you, and to be fair I didn't think bringing up your homecoming date was a good idea.”

Peter winced. “Fair enough.”

Tony smiled and kept going. “We had a goon from Research and development blow himself and a miniature arc reactor up. He’s okay but the room needs to be double checked for all sorts of radiation stuff and he’s in containment because of it. It should be fine though. Uhm, the board talked to me again about relooking at a weapons contract with the US government. I told them no. Wakandan King came over to talk Accords bullshit with Ross, but we actually started getting somewhere. Found out new stuff regarding a project that Shuri is helping Captain America with.”

Peter remembered the first part of the conversation at lunch all the sudden. “What does Ross want Spiderman to do?”

Tony sighed. “You know I was hoping you’d forget that.”

“I didn’t,” Peter said needlessly. When Tony didn’t respond he continued. “What does he want?”

“There’s some bills and international treaties that are coming up.” Tony sighed, falling back into the couch and away from Peter a bit. “We’re doing it slower this time, each country is kind of getting their own rules and we’re being treated like a quote ‘international but US based organization.’ which is angering some people and enjoyable to others. Ross wants you in on all the signing.”

“Does he know I’m not leaving Queens?” Peter asked, sitting up a bit straighter.

“I keep telling him that. He says you went to Berlin.”

“That was a one time thing!”

“Kid you don’t need to convince me I know. He’s just worried that there will be more of them. I also think he wants you to accidentally sign one of the treaties that won’t allow masked vigilantes. This was important before Banner was widely known as the Hulk, and before Natasha and Clint had SHIELDS secrets poured out. Now you’re the only real masked vigilante and Ross doesn’t like not knowing who you are.”

“Does everyone else want to know too?” Peter asked.

“They wouldn’t mind it, but Nat and Clint are both under the impression that if they know less there's less to give up. Wanda only wants to get to know Spiderman because you’re both younger. Sam and Cap want to know you because you fought them and I think they want to get a better feel for who you are.”

“Would they like me?” Peter asked quietly. “Captain America didn’t seem to like, uhm, he didn’t like that I still, well that I still hadn’t told my parents.”

“Woah kid, woah,” Tony pulled back. “Steve doesn’t know anything about you. He was mad at me. Not you. He didn’t like that I’d taken you. Do you know how many times he enlisted in the army before the Doctor and my dad found him? Don’t try to guess because it’s seventeen. It’s illegal to lie on your enlistment form. He did it anyways.

“He was only eighteen years old and he underwent a series of experiments by a good doctor and my self-obsessed father without any second thought. He has no right to be mad at you because you’re just like he was, okay? He’s mad at me because he wants you to be as safe as possible. He’s been mad at me for much dumber reasons before. None of us want you hurt, that’s all that was.”

Peter nodded into Tony, curling back into him and letting Tony relax a bit before he started talking. “I really don’t think I could handle Captain America hating me right now.” He said quietly. “He’s Captain America.”

Tony ruffled Peter’s hair, “He doesn’t hate you Peter, and he doesn’t hate Spiderman." 

After a few more minutes of Tony talking about his day, the two let Aunt May know she was good to come over for a movie night, and then went to the kitchen for dinner. Tony promised they’d stay away from all Spiderman related conversation in order to ensure no aggravation of mental health problems. The conversation flowed smoothly between the assortment of adults as they discussed the boring parts of international politics, as well as the movie selection for the night. The movie conversation ended quickly when Natasha said that it was a mystery and no one at the table was brave enough to ask what that meant.