The Trials and Tribulations of Spider-Man, the People's Hero

It was a new day. On Peter’s desk, Peter’s phone lit up, buzzing obnoxiously as an unknown number popped up on his cracked phone screen. Crouching in the middle of the room as he packed his suitcase, Peter lifted his head and turned around. He tipped the phone to look at the screen, but dropped it immediately after with a frustrated sigh. 

The buzzing faded.

Stubborn, I’ll give him that. Fury was begrudgingly impressed. Persistence was an important trait for all heroes to possess—an old friend had shown him as much—and he supposed it was a good thing that Peter seemed to have that in spades. 

If only we found out a different way, he sighed, only a little irked by Peter’s continued dodging of his calls. He had to admit that, at first, he hadn’t understood why his future self seemed insistent on bringing Peter Parker into the fold; surely, there were better options than a literal child. Truthfully, he still didn’t quite understand.

And yet it seemed that in the future, he was fated to doggedly seek the help of a reckless teenager bestowed with powers but little experience. Happy Hogan, at the very least, seemed to have faith in Peter’s abilities. Fury certainly hadn’t expected the ornery bodyguard to go out of his way to defend a kid so often.

He figured that was a point in Peter’s favor, if he’d managed to sway a hardheaded man like Hogan to his side.

Still, he hadn’t become Director of SHIELD by blindly trusting any hero who fell into his lap. (Well, there was one exception, he supposed, but Carol Danvers was different. She was special in every possible way. He wondered, faintly, what she would think of Peter Parker. Did she know him, in his future?)

(Oh, if only Fury knew.)

Until he knew more, until he could see for himself what distinguished Peter Parker, he’d maintain his doubts. He’d wait to make his own judgements—wait to find his own answers to the questions: why Spider-Man? Why Peter?

Peter resumed packing for a moment before standing up, lost in the middle of his own room; he looked as if the weight of the world might as well rest on his shoulders.

“Okay,” he exhaled a heavy breath, though the tension never left him. For a long, silent moment, he didn’t move, looking uncertain. At last, he turned his head to peer contemplatively at his old Spider-Man suit (a different suit, lacking the sleek metallic nanoparticles of the Iron Spider suit he’d worn to the charity event) hanging in his closet.

“Peter…” MJ muttered, flinching at the world-weary look on her boyfriend’s face. She’d never deluded herself as to the harsh realities of the superhero life; she’d known, even before she’d discovered Peter’s identity, that most superheroes did not have the luxury of a peaceful life.

She recalled, briefly, a quote she’d heard a long time ago, before Peter had walked into her life and stolen himself a permanent place in it: Show me a hero, and I’ll write you a tragedy. Those words had spoken to her all those years ago, turning her bitter and mournful for reasons she couldn’t yet understand. It was only when Peter had stood before her on Tower Bridge, bloodied and bruised at the hands of Quentin Beck but still blazing with valor, that she’d realized, with aching clarity: this is what they meant. This is what tragedy looks like. 

That belief had only been reaffirmed after she’d become more and more involved in Peter’s life—both his civilian persona and his superhero one. She knew he struggled. She knew he’d faced unspeakable hardships. It was evident in every worry line on his face, in every tense are you safe? he murmured to her in the dead of night, in every curled fist and every anxious frown that met her whenever she video-called him lately. It was there in the tension in his voice, in the raised hunch of his shoulders, in the haunted look in his eyes.

Being Spider-Man had never been easy for him. Rather, choosing Spider-Man had never been easy; it had been the right decision, not the simple one.

But he’d never taken it back. He’d never given up on Spider-Man, given up on Queens. Even now, as the media besmirched his good name and the public rallied against him and the government hunted him down, Peter still refused to give up on them. Even if it meant he had to live the rest of his life looking over his shoulder, MJ knew Peter would cling on to Spider-Man, to saving people.

It was simply the way he was.

She inhaled sharply. “Peter,” she repeated, wishing she was close enough to reach out and press her shoulder to his, to offer him a tiny slip of comfort amidst the weariness.

He turned to look at her, a curious look in his eyes and a smile on his lips.

MJ bit her lip. She fought back the urge to abandon all tact and ask, outright: are you sure you’re okay? Another part of her wanted to turn him away from the Spider-Man suit and insist: you don’t have to be a hero all the time. Instead, she swallowed her pride and tried to give him her most comforting smile—all too aware how out of her depth she was—as she said, “You’re not alone in this.”

MJ had never been the comforting type. All her life, she’d had only herself to rely on. Even as her child, her unsociable behavior had been apparent; her grandmother used to shake her head and chide, disapproval loud in her tone of voice, you need to let people in, Michelle, and stop driving everyone away. That’s no way for a lady to behave.

The thing was, MJ had never wanted to let people in—before. She had never cared enough to want someone to stay before; had never wanted to hold on to anyone.

This was different. Peter was different.

Peter and Ned—they were the first people she’d ever wanted to keep in her life. 

Perhaps a hint of her longing slipped through her otherwise neutral demeanor, because Peter’s smile gentled at the edges, warm in a way Peter always was. No matter what, no matter how hard life kicked him down, Peter always had a smile for them. MJ hoped he never lost his optimism, his faith in the world.

“I know,” he said. “I’m fine, MJ. Promise.”

MJ shot him a look that properly conveyed exactly how much she believed his promise. (Which is to say: not at all.) He flushed, chagrined, but refused to change his answer, smile stubbornly plastered across his face. MJ rolled her eyes—stubborn might as well be Peter’s middle name, for all the time he refused to accept their help whenever he was injured—but couldn’t help a smile of her own.

His response, vague as it had been, only further proved what she already knew: Peter Parker was just as heroic as, if not more heroic than, Spider-Man.

Suddenly, his Aunt May interrupted him, stopping at the doorway of his room. “Hungry?” she asked cheerily, tossing a banana at him in offering. 

Caught off-guard, the banana smacked Peter in the face, who jerked backwards in surprise. He spun around in a fright, jaw gaping, only to find May. 

Shuri burst out laughing. “The great Spider-Man,” she teased, “felled by a common fruit. If only your enemies could see you now.”

Peter closed his eyes in defeat and groaned, muttering under his breath, “Is this Embarrass Peter Day or something?” He shot the TV, and by extension EDITH, a halfhearted glare.

T’Challa huffed a quiet laugh, his regal facade having long faded, chipped away by the intense revelations of the day. And it hasn’t even been thirty minutes of this footage, he thought with a hint of trepidation. He dreaded to think what else EDITH—and their future—had in store for them.

For the moment, though, he buried the apprehension beneath an amused smile as he remarked, “Just be glad you don’t have a tech-savvy sister looking to document your humiliation for posterity.”

He was gratified to see his sister grin. “He has worse: an all-seeing AI,” Shuri pointed out, eyes twinkling with mischief. “Now there’s a thought. An AI would definitely be helpful in helping me record any future embarrassing situations involving you. Imagine that: all of your blunders, recorded in HD, from multiple angles.”

T’Challa stared at her in growing horror. “I’ve created a monster,” he whispered, and she cackled remorselessly.

Despite his outward annoyance, though, T’Challa could only feel relief when he saw Shuri revert to a semblance of her usual happy-go-lucky self. He didn’t think he could ever forget the way she’d shrunk into herself in raw terror, tears pooling at the corners of her eyes, when Peter had first introduced them to their potential doom. After that, he was just glad to see her smile again.

This is what I fight for, he thought to himself, remembering Shuri’s terror-struck screams as he’d faltered beneath Erik Killmonger’s blade at the falls, in a ritualistic fight that had occurred only recently but felt so faraway. I fight so that I may see the smile on my sister’s face. 

So long as he remembered that, he’d never stop fighting. He’d never stop trying.

May clapped her hands over her mouth. “So sorry,” she apologized through a bout of laughter. “I thought that you could sense that – with your”—she paused briefly, as if trying to remember the name, before settling on—“Peter Tingle.”

Peter clearly disapproved. “Please do not start calling it my Peter Tingle,” he entreated with a visible cringe.

May said nothing to that. “So, what’s up?” she prompted, nodding in reference to the way she’d taken him by surprise. “You can dodge bullets but not bananas?” she added skeptically.

Tony coughed and spluttered, disbelief and horror warring for dominance on his face. “You should not be dodging bullets!” he objected with an indignant cluck of his tongue. “You’re a kid!”

“A kid with super strength,” Peter countered, a trace of fondness sweeping through him without his permission as he and Tony fell back into the familiar argument. “I can take care of myself!” Normally, this particular disagreement would annoy him more, but this time, he was too struck by the fact that even here—even with a past version of Tony Stark, one who didn’t have his memories of their time together—Tony still worried about him.

“Powers or not, you shouldn’t be facing bullets,” Tony insisted, adamant in his opinion. 

Peter rolled his eyes, vacillating between frowning and grinning fondly. The end result was an expression that somehow resembled both a sullen scowl and an amused smile at the same time. “You sound a lot like my aunt,” he said, a touch too vulnerably. What he meant was: you sound a lot like yourself. You sound a lot like you care. “She’s always fussing about my run-ins with gunmen.”

“Well, of course she is,” Tony said, unsurprised. “I find it hard to believe that any parent or guardian would just be perfectly fine with their kid staring down a gun.” He couldn’t deny the panic that ran through him at the thought of it: Peter, wide-eyed and innocent, selfless and compassionate beyond measure, trembling under the barrel of a gun. The image made him sick to his stomach.

He swallowed down the bile rising up in his throat, forcefully reminding himself that you barely know the kid, Stark. He said he can take care of himself. 

(If that was the case, then why did he care so much? Why did the thought of Peter bleeding out on some sidewalk in Queens make him want to hurl?) 

Stop. Stop it, Stark. Don’t get attached. He shook his head and, in an effort to distract himself, latched onto a new realization: “Now that I think about it, how did May find out about Spider-Man, anyway? I would have assumed that you’d try to keep her in the dark.” Tony might not know Peter personally—not yet, anyway—but he knew his type. He knew that look Peter's face took on whenever he stared at his aunt, recognized it as the same look he’d see in the mirror whenever he thought of the few people he cherished. Peter seemed to be exactly the type of kid to keep his two lives separate in an attempt to protect those he cared about.

(Tony should have known that no matter how hard he tried to keep Peter at arm’s length, Peter had a certain way of sneaking past even the best defenses. When it came to Peter, it was hopeless to try to stay detached.)

“Ah…” Peter grimaced visibly, his cheeks reddening with shame. “I did try, at first. Long story short: she found out by accident. I… Let’s just say she did not react well. My ears are still ringing.”

The look on Peter’s face perfectly conveyed the pain May had inflicted on him (read: his ears) for risking his life in secret. At the thought of Peter’s misfortune, Tony was not the only one who laughed boisterously.

“Well, at least she knows now, right?” Steve reasoned. “No good can come out of keeping secrets from family.” When Peter winced at that, Steve coughed nervously and tried to soften the judgmental comment: “And it looks like she’s accepted your alter-ego.”

Peter nodded with a noncommittal hum. “She understands,” he said, subconsciously offering the video-version of his aunt a grateful smile, even though he knew she couldn’t see it. Sometimes, he thought she was far more supportive than he deserved. Other times, he knew she was. And all the time, regardless of what he felt, he knew he could count on her to always have his back. 

“She knows Spider-Man is, and always will be, a part of who I am.”

Peter tipped his head back with a heavy sigh. “No. I just really need this vacation,” he said, half-pleading though it wasn’t clear who, exactly, he was pleading to. He shook his head, and even that one gesture was laced with exhaustion. “I need a break,” he admitted earnestly.

Pepper swore her heart broke, aching for this kid who’d endeared himself to so many people already. Peter looked so tired.

Not for the first time, Pepper was painfully reminded of the fact that the Peter she was watching was, beneath it all, still just a kid. A kid with a heart of gold, who’d donned a pair of sweats and goggles one night and climbed out his window, determined to make a difference. Armed with nothing but a homemade batch of webbing and his own will, Peter had become a hero all on his own, trying to save the world one person at a time. 

Through the haze of her thoughts and the memories of her fiancé staying up late and analyzing videos of a fifteen-year-old Peter Parker in bed with a worried furrow in his brow, Pepper heard a different Tony’s voice.

She glanced to the side and found Tony scowling, muttering under his breath something that sounded suspiciously like, “If Fury takes Peter away from his vacation, I’m going to—”

He didn’t finish the threat, but he didn’t need to. Everyone who heard him recoiled nonetheless; they all had overactive imaginations.

May’s gaze softened, and she didn’t hesitate to step forward and wrap Peter up in a hug. “You deserve it,” she assured him, rubbing his shoulders comfortingly as she pulled away. “Yeah.” 

She turned around and started to walk away, before pausing as a thought occurred to her. ”You know what?” May turned back to him, pointing. “You should pack your suit, just in case.” She waited a beat for dramatic effect, and then added with a smirk, “I have a tingle about it.”

Peter scrunched his eyes closed in obvious distaste. “Please stop saying ‘tingle’, May,” he called out after her, but she was already gone.

MJ snickered. “I think it’s perfect. The Peter Tingle. You should get it trademarked.”

“Oh, come on!” Peter protested, sticking his tongue out at her in a childish outburst. “Not you, too!”

MJ’s lips tucked into a smirk. “It’s fitting,” she countered. “Think of all the opportunities. Next time you go up against a criminal,”—she resisted the urge to wince at the thought, comforting herself with the knowledge that Peter was too experienced to allow himself to get seriously injured by small-time criminals—“you get to say my Peter Tingle is tingling. Come on, Peter, I know you love your wordplay.”

“Calling it a ‘tingle’ is embarrassing,” he insisted, burying his head in his hands. “You have to admit it’s so much cooler than a tingle.”

MJ snorted. “Except, you know, when it isn’t working.”

Peter groaned. “You’re never going to let me live that down, are you?” he whined.

“Nope,” she replied with an unapologetic smirk.

Peter scrunched his nose at her, to which she only laughed. Staring at them with mild amusement—though he would never admit it—Loki inquired, “What even is the Peter Tingle?”

Peter’s face twisted as if he’d tasted something sour. “It’s not the Peter Tingle,” he asserted firmly, though the pout tugging at his lips undermined his attempt to sound authoritative. Ned and MJ both muffled a chuckle, and he promptly shot Ned a betrayed look. “Ned!”

“Sorry, Peter,” Ned said through a fit of quiet laughter. “I can’t help that it’s a funny name.”

Peter narrowed his eyes at Ned, but reluctantly let the comment go. He shook his head and turned back to Loki, only vaguely aware that the rest of the room had quieted and focused their attention on him. “It’s one of the benefits of the spider bite. It’s like a sixth sense,” he explained to the room at large. “It’s a precognitive ability that helps me detect impending dangers in my surrounding area. Definitely comes in handy whenever I’m up against more than one person.”

“Hold on—spider bite?” Sam echoed in disbelief.

“Oh! Right. I guess I forgot to mention that,” Peter exclaimed in realization, scratching the back of his neck sheepishly. He laughed, embarrassed by his own forgetfulness. “That’s how I got my powers,” he clarified. “A few years ago—for me, at least, so excluding the Blip—my class and I went on a field trip to Oscorp.”

Tony balked visibly. “Oscorp?” he repeated for confirmation, the name leaving his tongue with obvious scorn.

Peter hid a grin. He was well aware of Mr. Stark’s distaste for the rival company that had endowed Peter with his powers. “Yeah,” he agreed. “We were touring the biological labs when a genetically-modified spider escaped its containment cage and, well, bit me. I was really, really sick for, like, a week,”—understatement of the century, Peter thought, recalling the agony he’d undergone during that week from hell—“when all of a sudden I woke up with powers.”

Unsurprisingly, that particular revelation immediately set Tony off on a rant about safety hazards and dangers to society and I should sue that stupid Osborn. 

The others, on the other hand, focused on a different aspect of Peter’s story. “Powers, plural?” Thor asked, looking intrigued. Even from his position on the floor, twisting around so he could gaze up at Peter, he still looked every bit the God of Thunder. Somehow, he made Peter feel like he was the one on the floor, Thor towering above him. 

Peter nodded wordlessly.

“What other powers do you have, aside from your… ah, Peter Tingle?” Thor queried, lips curling into an anticipatory grin. There was genuine curiosity in his eyes, framed by excitement at the prospect of a challenge.

Peter didn’t have the heart to correct Thor as to the name of his sixth sense. Normally, his inner fanboy would have gone bonkers over the idea of the Thor of Asgard taking interest in him, but today, he was just pleased to see Thor take interest in anything at all. It was such a stark contrast from the Thor he remembered—the Thor who felt he had little reason left to smile, much less this genuinely—that he couldn’t do anything but let it slide.

“I’m pretty sure you’ll see most of my powers over the course of the footage,” he hedged, a smile of his own tickling at his lips when the curiosity in Thor’s eyes flared. “My main ones are the sixth sense, super strength, and enhanced healing.”

“Oh, yes,” Thor nodded, “you mentioned super strength earlier.” He paused, and the smile broadened on his face. “How strong are you?”

Peter stifled a laugh. It was a breath of fresh air, to see Thor like this. To see the exhilaration—the innocent, unburdened happiness—in his eyes. Well, I held up a warehouse building once, he thought of saying, but refrained, all too aware that it was a sore topic for Happy, who still averted his eyes guiltily whenever the subject came up. 

In the end, he settled on baiting Thor. “Maybe you’ll have the chance to find out,” was all he said in reply to Thor’s inquiry, half-teasing and half-serious. 

Thor laughed at that, booming and exuberant. It was a laugh that sent warmth spreading through Peter’s chest—the same warmth he felt every time he went out as Spider-Man, every time he made a difference. This is what Thanos took from you, Peter thought as he observed Thor’s unrestrained glee. Your brother, your family, your home. Your happiness. This is what I have been given the opportunity to save. 

“Sixth sense, super strength, enhanced healing… Wait a second, what about your, uh—” Sam broke off, folding his third and fourth finger into his palm and outstretching his arm in a crude imitation of Spider-Man’s signature hand gesture. He made a motion as if to shoot something from his wrist.

“My webs?” Peter surmised, suppressing a laugh at Sam’s effort.

Sam dropping the hand sign altogether and clicked his fingers together triumphantly. “Exactly!” he said with a nod. “Your webs. Are those from the spider bite, too?”

Peter’s mouth fell open. Speechless, he gawked at Sam in disbelief. On his sofa, his three companions from his timeline roared with laughter—both at Sam’s assumption, and at the horrified look on Peter’s face.

“No, no, no!” Peter blustered finally, waving his hands frantically until his companions’ laughter abated. “Oh, god. No. The webs don’t come from inside me—that’s gross. The webs are from my webshooters. I developed a chemical formula that produces the webs for me. It’s all science. The spider silk is synthetic,” he insisted. “Definitely not natural.” As if to emphasize his point, a shudder ran through his body.

Sam’s eyes widened. “Oh. Oh! Thank god,” he chuckled. “That’s a relief.”

“Science?” Bruce chimed in, Peter’s explanation having clearly caught his attention. Beside him, Tony inched forward until he was sitting at the edge of his seat, clearly just as invested in the new topic. “Synthetic spider silk? I didn’t think that was possible.”

“I… uh…” Peter stammered, flustered by the attention on him. Bruce Banner had always been one of his greatest heroes in science, second only to Tony Stark. He had no idea what to say in the face of both of them staring him down, wonder shining in their eyes. It was all he could do to squash the memory of his Tony Stark, hunched over a vial of his spider silk and marveling unabashedly. You’re a genius, kid, Mr. Stark had told him, fondness and pride thick in his voice as he’d squeezed Peter’s shoulder. This is incredible. 

“Peter’s a complete science geek,” MJ interjected, saving him—or possibly dooming him to more embarrassment, Peter couldn’t yet tell. “I’m not surprised to hear he manufactured the webbing all on his own.”

Bruce hummed. Tony tilted his head and stared at Peter as if truly seeing him for the first time. 

“Webbing, huh?” Natasha joined the conversation. “Well, you’re certainly dedicated to the spider theme. I’m curious to see how you’ll use that in a fight.”

Natasha smirked at him then, in a moment of almost-camaraderie, and Peter couldn’t breathe as he saw his Natasha, lips unsmiling but eyes crinkling at the corners with mirth, whispering conspiratorially, Us spiders have to stick together. 

And then, all too soon, the smirk faded into a mask of neutrality once more, and the memory dissipated along with it.

Even after May left the room, her words remained, a persistent and niggling thought at the back of Peter’s head. He hesitated, looking over at the suit, before shaking his head decisively. 

“No,” he said firmly to himself, pulling the closet closed. 

One suit out of sight, his eyes then cut to the corner of his room, where the Iron Spider suit was charging in its glass cage. The nanoparticles of the suit were clearly not solid at the moment, fluctuating in levitation and interacting with each other in a flow of lights and colors.

“It looks like something from out of a fairytale,” Scott remarked eagerly. “Like magic.” 

“Why a fairytale? Magic does exist in our world, you know. Technically, I’m magic,” Wanda pointed out.

As the two promptly devolved into a lighthearted debate as to whether or not Wanda’s telepathy actually counted as ‘magic’, Peter snorted in amusement and thought of sentient cloaks and glowing necklaces, mumbling to himself, “She’s right, magic does exist.” 

Although, he amended, Strange would be downright insulted to have his “Mystic Arts” degraded to simple “magic.” He’d always resented the title of magician.

Upon closer inspection, the audience could see that a sign with the warning “Iron Spider Charging, Do NOT Unplug” had been hastily stuck onto the wall behind the glass cage.

“Charging?” Shuri wondered aloud. “Weren’t you just using the suit for the charity event? How much battery life does the suit have?”

“Ah, I’m not sure—I haven’t really experimented with it,” Peter admitted. “But I went on patrol right after the charity event to, you know, clear my mind.”

“Going out on duty as Spider-Man clears your mind?” Pepper sounded distinctly amused. He really is like you, huh, Tony? That’s a page straight out of your personal guidebook: Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms 101.

Peter shrugged, a little embarrassed. “I try to patrol every night, if I can. Keep an ear and an eye out for any trouble. It’s part of my routine now,” he explained. “I don’t feel comfortable skipping it.” Not when I have no way of knowing how many people would suffer in silence without me there. Not when there’s a chance I could save someone who doesn’t even yet know they need saving. 

“You really do know what you’re doing, huh?” Steve asked rhetorically, almost as if speaking to himself. He couldn’t help but remember Peter’s introduction, and his friends’ defensive rant that followed it. Spider-Man—Peter—makes a difference where the Avengers can’t be bothered to, the girl had said, unwavering in her conviction. Happy, similarly firm, had echoed her sentiments: The people need Spider-Man, period. 

Maybe this was why.

“Can we… can we see it?” Steve asked, eventually. The 2024 travelers had a point, he realized. There were two types of heroes—the type that showed up only at major crises, and the type that showed up every day, whatever the crisis. From what he’d heard, the Avengers embodied the former type. 

And, well, he couldn’t help but ask himself: Is that really the kind of hero I want to be? 

Deep down, he knew the answer. He’d criticized Peter for his youth and inexperience, but he could see now that despite Peter’s relative immaturity, Peter knew what mattered. 

Maybe he needed to stop judging Peter for his age and start opening his eyes. Maybe he needed to start following Peter’s lead.

Peter blinked, taken aback by the suggestion. “You want to see the patrol?” he asked.

Steve nodded. “If you don’t mind. I know we’re in the middle of EDITH’s compilation footage, but maybe we can watch just a bit of your patrol?” he suggested. “And then we’ll get back to the main footage.” 

“That’s a great idea,” Clint enthused. “I’ve been wanting to see how you handle yourself in a fight. I’m sure Nat’s curious, too.”

Peter blinked again. “Uh, sure,” he agreed reluctantly, still a little surprise. He sucked in a breath and tried to expel the nerves gathering in his chest. You’ve been Spider-Man for years. You have nothing to be nervous about, he told himself firmly, drawing comfort from the memory of Tony’s unshakable faith in him. 

You have nothing to be nervous about, he repeated, his shaky smile straightening out. Tony’s familiar smile stared back at him, proud and encouraging. Nothing.

“EDITH,” Peter began, raising his volume so EDITH wouldn’t miss the voice command, “could you project a highlight from the previous night’s patrol on the screen?”

A pause, and then: “Certainly, Peter. Accessing Baby Monitor Protocol now.” 

More than one person startled at the title of the protocol, and then abruptly doubled over laughing. “Baby Monitor,” Sam managed to say in between fits of laughter, slapping his knee uproariously. “Baby Monitor. Oh, god, that’s priceless.”

Peter outright groaned. “Oh, my god, EDITH,” he made an embarrassed choking noise, wishing a hole could open up in the floor and swallow him whole. “I completely forgot about that.”

“I didn’t,” Ned added unhelpfully. 

Peter glared at his best friend balefully. “Why didn’t you remind me?” he complained.

Ned was wearing a shit-eating grin. “Because I wanted to see the look on your face,” he said, completely unrepentant. “So worth it.”

Before Peter could accuse Ned of treason, or something just as dramatic, Tony piped up, amused, “Baby Monitor, huh? Did I name the protocol that?”

Peter turned his glare on Tony. “You did,” he told Tony, sulking. “This is all your fault.”

Tony snickered. “Well, you do have a baby face,” he said thoughtfully, sending Peter a smirk. “I see where my future self is coming from. It fits.”

“Don’t get any ideas,” Peter warned, half-joking and half-pleading. “At least one version of me should have the blessing of not having that name follow him around.”

Tony just laughed even louder, clearly not bothering to heed Peter’s expectant suggestion. He only cut himself off when a new video appeared on top of the paused still of Peter’s charging Iron Spider suit. Taking advantage of the silence, EDITH immediately began playing the short video.

As the new footage started up, the audience immediately became privy to Spider-Man in action. Peter, hanging from two pillars on either side of him by his webs, quickly launched himself towards a man dressed in black, dropkicking him hard in the ribs. Recoiling, the man dropped what appeared to be a gun as Spider-Man flipped in the air, releasing his hold on his webs, and landed in his signature crouch on the floor. On his mask, his eyeholes glowed a bright blue-white.

Upon closer observation, the fight seemed to be taking place inside a fancy dining establishment, as cloth-lined round tables filled the background. 

The man, clad in a black vest, swung around to strike at Peter with a knife. Peter swiftly and expertly evaded, only for the man to follow up with another strike. Peter’s spider-legs assisted him at once, folding in front of him and blocking the blade. 

As Peter kept himself occupied with his knife-wielding assailant, multiple men appeared on the scene, automatic weapons in hand as they cornered Peter from multiple entrances. Round after round of gunfire filled the air, and the Peter on the screen reacted instantaneously, out of pure reflex; he was quick to fling himself into a backflip before beginning a series of back- and front-flips across the room, dodging the flood of bullets with an effortless ease that could only come from experience. At the same time, he shot multiple webs out of his webshooters, yanking the criminals around as he went.

“Oh, so that’s what you meant by webbing,” Clint remarked, eyes eagerly tracking Peter on the screen with no small amount of awe. Peter seemed to possess a natural grace Clint had rarely seen before, even in the circus and on the trapeze. Frankly, it was mesmerizing. After a particularly impressive somersault, Clint whistled and complimented, “Damn. Nice moves, kid.”

“Forget the webs, I’m more concerned about the literal gunmen actively shooting at you. I reiterate: you should not be dodging bullets,” Tony groaned, his fist curling and spasming. 

“I wasn’t in any real danger—not from them, anyway,” Peter defended. “Like I said, in my timeline, you coded dozens of safety protocols into my new suit. Beyond that, the new suit is pretty much bulletproof—one of the perks of the nanotech.”

Tony blinked, searching eyes returning to the screen. “Oh. Right,” he muttered dumbly, reevaluating the scene on the TV now that he was relatively assured of Peter’s well-being. On the screen, Peter carried himself with practiced ease, skill showing through his every movement. Peter’s every dodge was fluid and elegant as he twisted and danced out of the way of a hail of bullets. 

Despite Peter’s obvious competence, Tony frowned. Whether or not his brain knew the suit was bulletproof—whether or not logic told him Peter was well protected—his heart refused to listen to reason. He swore his pulse raced every time a bullet came close to nicking the kid. He shook his head and groused under his breath, “You’re gonna give me a heart attack, kid.” 

“I don’t know, Tones,” Rhodey hummed. “He seems pretty used to it.”

Tony glared at his friend, logic giving way in the heat of the moment. “That’s not the point! He shouldn’t be used to it in the first place,” he snapped, aghast. “He’s a goddamn child. He should be – I don’t know – swinging on monkey bars instead of swinging in the midst of a gunfight. He should be playing with other kids instead of criminals!”

Rhodey’s lips twitched the slightest bit as he fought the temptation to smile at Tony. This version of his friend had barely met Peter—this Tony barely even knew Peter—but already his infamous overprotectiveness was rearing its head. 

In every timeline, Rhodey mused, in every universe, Tony inevitably finds himself wrapped around Peter’s little finger. My Tones would have done anything to protect that kid.

How long will you be able to last before you’d do the same? he wondered to himself, eyeing this past manifestation of Tony Stark, right eye twitching every few seconds, fists clenched and white-knuckled, shoulders hunched and fraught with tension. Rhodey’s eyes followed Tony’s fretful stare back to the screen, where Peter Parker was handling himself with a grace that tended to flee him whenever he wasn’t in a life-or-death situation.

Not long, Rhodey concluded finally, eyes glimmering with mirth as the fight scene continued and Tony barely managed to catch himself before he could call out Peter’s name worriedly. Kid just has a way of sneaking into your heart.

Eventually, Peter came to a stop, landing in a sitting position on an overturned table as all of his attackers were hurled into the air.

The fighting ended, and the metaphorical dust settled, revealing the criminals all hanging from the ceiling in cocoons of webs. 

“You going to be the next Iron Man now?” a policeman asked Spider-Man teasingly. 

“Well, no, I don’t have time—I’m too busy doing your jobs,” Peter teased back. The policeman’s colleagues burst out into jeering laughter, and Peter amended himself, the grin still evident in his voice, “I’m kidding, I’m kidding! Look, keep up the good work because I”—he backed away, pointing at them as if to say ‘I’m counting on you’—“am going on vacation!”

“He looks so excited,” Wanda marveled, finishing the thought silently in her head: like a little kid. Hearing Peter’s untempered enthusiasm, she couldn’t help but think of another Peter, hers. It wasn’t the first time she’d realized their similarities since meeting Peter, but it was the first time she allowed herself to dwell on it: Peter really did remind her of her brother—Pietro—young and eager, lively. 

Fueled by Peter’s resemblance to her brother, Wanda leveled a glare at Fury. “Nick Fury, if you ruin this for him…”

“You’d better not,” Rhodey added with his own glare. “He deserves this vacation, goddamnit. He’s given so much already.”

Peter flushed, embarrassed at the attention. With a shake of his head, he watched as the short clip from his patrol disappeared from the screen and the Baby Monitor Protocol was disabled. Everyone instinctively refocused on the TV as EDITH carried on with Project Freedom where they left off.

Back in the main footage, Peter was staring down at his Iron Spider suit. He looked to be in deep thought, his fingers tapping contemplatively on the closet door. 

Rhodey groaned. “Don’t do it, kid. Let yourself take a break,” he pleaded aloud, although he knew this had already happened and Peter couldn’t hear him. Still, he twitched anxiously as he chanced a glance at the Peter in the room. “Tell me you didn’t do it.”

Peter shrugged, a tight-lipped smile on his face. “You’ll see soon enough,” he said tersely.

Rhodey squinted. 

Peter’s strained smile eased when he noticed Rhodey’s narrow-eyed glance. “Just watch, Rhodey,” he suggested with a chuckle, tamping down the tension vibrating in his chest. You’ll be glad to see I was about to ‘let myself take a break.’ Not that it helped, in the end.

Rhodey harrumphed and turned back around in his seat. 

He jerked away with finality. “No,” he decided. “No, I’m not.” He turned back to his bed and slammed his suitcase shut.

“Oh, thank god,” Rhodey sighed in relief. Back in his timeline, he’d often been privy to Tony’s worries that Peter wasn’t allowing himself to enjoy his childhood and teenage years nearly enough. Once he’d realized how often Peter took to the streets, carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders, he’d privately agreed.

“Good,” Tony said decisively, echoing Rhodey’s sentiments. He seemed inordinately pleased with Peter’s decision. “You told us you patrol nearly every night, even though you don’t owe that to anyone. You more than deserve to take a break every once in a while, to enjoy yourself.” You deserve to have a childhood, he added silently. 

Peter mustered a smile. “Thanks, Mr. Stark,” he said, but his heart wasn’t in it. Internally, he couldn’t help but wonder if Tony would still believe he deserved that after he saw what else EDITH had to offer. After he saw Peter shirk his responsibility. After he saw Peter fail.

He was scared, he realized. Scared to see how Tony would react; scared that Tony would condemn him for his inadequacy—his shortcomings, his desire to delegate his superhero duties and his gullibility. 

What will you think of me, he asked himself, heart hammering in his chest, palms clammy with nerves, when you finally see how much of a fraud I am? What will you think, when you realize I don’t deserve any of that?

In the next scene, as EDITH returned to the main footage, Peter slid open the panel covering his airplane window. He peered out of the window with a blissful grin on his face, looking for all the world like a giddy kid on Christmas Eve.

Ned, seated beside Peter, tapped his friend’s shoulder excitedly, laughing. “Vacation, yeah!” he chirped. His head was decorated by a grayish blue fedora, lines of red, white, light blue and yellow circling the bottom. 

The blonde from Midtown High’s news segment, Betty Brant, walked down the aisle past Ned and Peter’s seats, waving at someone beyond the camera’s view. 

An adult donning a pair of glasses and a beanie trailed after her, looking around the plane curiously. “Do you want the first shift or the second?” the man called over his shoulder. “I can take either.”

“Give me the third shift,” another man, this one dark-skinned, replied noncommittally from behind him. He waved his passport at the first teacher in a dismissive gesture. “I took an Ambien.”

“How responsible,” Clint remarked sarcastically, eyes narrowing. He certainly hoped that the teachers in charge of his own children exhibited a greater sense of duty. “Who’s he?”

“That’d be Mr. Dell, one of the chaperones,” Peter replied, cringing. “The adult who walked in before him—the one with the glasses—is our other chaperone, Mr. Harrington.”

“Wait, I can't chaperone these kids alone,” Mr. Harrington protested, eyes widening at the prospect.

“Oh?” Natasha smirked. “Troublesome bunch, aren’t you?”

Peter immediately broke out into embarrassed spluttering as he tried to protest the (admittedly apt) descriptor. Ned hid a shame-faced grin behind his hand.

MJ merely smirked, completely remorseless.

The camera’s focus was drawn away from the teachers’ conversation by another voice. “Yo, Parker!” a boy with tanned bronze skin and slicked-back hair called out from across the aisle, clicking his fingers to draw Peter’s attention to him. In his other hand, he held a glass of alcohol. “This”—he waved vaguely at their surroundings—“is called an airplane. It's like the buses you're used to, except it flies over the poor neighborhoods instead of driving through them.” He finished his condescending explanation with elaborate hand signals to act out “flying” and “driving.”

“What the hell?” Tony frowned, immediately on guard. “Who’s that asshole?”

“Language, Tony,” Steve scolded, straightening in his seat as if finally remembering his usual stance on coarse language. Even then, the reprimand sounded halfhearted, as if he was only reciting from a script. His focus was elsewhere—his brows were furrowed as he stared at the newcomer on the screen, who carried himself with all the pomp of a spoiled rich kid.

Another bully, he thought to himself with disdain. Yet another thing that hasn’t changed in seventy years. If there was one thing Steve Rogers despised, it was bullies—whether those bullies chose to take advantage of an innocent child or terrorize people on a grander scale.

“Don’t language me,” Tony hissed, sounding just as resentful as Steve privately felt. And then, as if to spite Steve, he reiterated his question, using even more vulgar language, “Who the fuck is that?”

This time, Steve forwent the censure.

“That would be Eugene Thompson, though he goes by Flash,” MJ answered wryly, nodding at the tanned boy with an unreadable look on her face. She left it at that, refraining from adding any commentary about Flash’s character. As much as she wanted to condemn him, she also remembered being trapped with Flash (and Ned, Betty and Happy), facing certain death. She remembered the insecurity in Flash’s voice as he’d admitted to making videos only so people would like him; she remembered empathizing with Flash.

Flash was complicated. He probably always would be complicated. But, at the very least, he wasn’t the two-dimensional bully she used to see him as.

Tony, however, didn’t know that. “Flash?” he repeated, the name leaving him like acid on his tongue. 

“Well, if my parents named me Eugene, I’d choose to go by another name, too—although Flash isn’t exactly any better,” Clint joked tentatively, eyeing the twitching anger on Tony’s face with trepidation.

Clint was right to be worried, because Tony was quick to scowl, the expression deepening with every second they spent on the subject of Flash Thompson. “A pretentious name for a pretentious kid,” Tony sneered. He turned to Peter, the anger receding for a moment as worry outshone it. “Flash—does he bully you?” he demanded indignantly.

“No,” Peter lied. To be fair, it wasn’t a complete lie. Well, he doesn’t really bully me anymore, at least. We have… an understanding. Some sort of an understanding. He didn’t fully know why Flash had backed off, but he’d never forget the day Flash walked into one of their Academic Decathlon meetings early after the Blip was reversed. Peter had arrived early, too, eager to impress MJ with his dedication. He’d frozen cold when he’d spotted Flash entering, a paper cup in his hands. They had been the only two people in the room.

He’d expected Flash to sneer at him and make fun of his studiousness—which would be kind of hypocritical, given Flash had also shown up before the allotted meeting time, but then again, Flash had never made much sense. He’d been hoping Flash would avoid a confrontation so soon after the Blip and walk back out the door. But Flash hadn’t done either of those.

Instead, he’d marched up to Peter’s desk, a determined look in his eyes, and thrust the cup—which Peter later discovered was filled with coffee—into Peter’s hands. He hadn’t said a word, hadn’t bothered to explain himself, but Peter hadn’t needed words. It hadn’t been an apology—not quite—but it had been as close to one as Flash could get. A peace offering.

Since then, Flash had toned down his attacks on Peter. He hadn’t stopped completely, but his verbal abuse had stopped being genuinely hurtful and instead softened into something resembling friendly teasing.

Thinking of it now, Peter managed to smile. He missed his classmates—Flash included. “He doesn’t bully me,” he reiterated with a noncommittal shrug, hoping Mr. Stark would drop it. “Not cruel bullying, anyway. It’s not a big deal.”

Tony’s eyes narrowed. “Are you sure? If he’s hurting you…” he didn’t need to finish his sentence for Peter to know that there was a threat hanging from the end of it.

“I’m sure,” he reassured, resisting the urge to roll his eyes—though he wasn’t truly annoyed. Beyond the mild exasperation, he was surprised—and, admittedly, warmed—by Tony’s concern. Tony’s explosive reaction was one he would have expected from his Mr. Stark. This Tony had no reason to care, had no reason to be so invested in Peter’s well-being, but here they were.

Mr. Stark had always loved to defy everyone’s expectations, Peter thought, a little choked. This Tony seemed to be no different, his eyes hard with unyielding anger—with a promise to exact revenge—as he searched Peter’s face for any sign of a lie.

It only made him miss his Mr. Stark more.

It was with this feeling in mind that Peter forced himself to laugh, lightheartedly enough to reassure Tony, and insist, “I’m fine, Mr. Stark. Honest.”

MJ, who had stopped in the middle of the aisle in front of Peter and Ned’s row of seats, leaned forward slightly to call for a flight attendant. “Ma’am?”

A flight attendant promptly appeared beside Flash. “Hmm?” she hummed questioningly, angled towards MJ in return.

MJ pointed at Flash. “He Blipped, so technically he’s 16, not 21,” she clarified remorselessly.

The flight attendant sent Flash a patronizing smile, reaching over to take the drink away. “I’ll take that,” she said.

Laughter started up as Flash Thompson's eyes widened. He turned to the flight attendant desperately. “She's lying! I don't even know this girl,” he called out, turning to chase after the flight attendant when she disappeared without giving him the time of day.

“Oh, my god,” Shuri said gleefully, looking at MJ with praise, “that was great. You’re a genius.”

“High praise coming from my sister,” T’Challa commented sarcastically. “She’s right, though—that was certainly a clever way of shutting him up.”

MJ looked excessively pleased with herself. She was even more pleased when Peter leaned forward, peered at her past Ned and Loki, and flashed her an earnest smile. “Hey, MJ?” he called for her attention, quiet enough that only those on their sofa could hear him.

MJ hummed questioningly in response. They weren’t alone, not by any means, but when he looked at her like that—eye-to-eye, like there was no one else in the room and all he could see was her—she could almost imagine that they were.

His smile swelled. “Thanks.”

A ticklish warmth unfurled in her stomach. She didn’t say anything in response—she didn’t need to—and only gave him a private smile in return. If they were alone, maybe she would’ve taken his hand in hers and whispered, a little too honestly, Anything for you.

And maybe he would’ve squeezed her hand and brought it to his lips, gratitude and affection shining in equal measure in his eyes.

But for now, surrounded by an audience, MJ kept her silence and hoped her smile conveyed what her voice would not. For now, she pretended they were the only two people in the room and let it be enough.

Once Flash had left, MJ turned around to face Ned and Peter. She looked at them with a smug smirk and tilted her chin upwards in an acknowledging gesture as she strode away.

Another student, the same boy who’d featured in Midtown’s news program earlier in the footage—“Brad Davis,” if they recalled correctly—smiled at them as he passed by. “Classic MJ, right?” he chuckled, eyes sparkling as if he was in on an inside joke shared between the three of them.

Peter was staring after Brad with a strange, weirded-out expression even as Ned grinned beside him. “Did you know Brad was coming?” Peter asked, hushed.

Ned started to shake his head, the smile fading from his face. “It – it’s so weird,” he struggled to word his thoughts, voice a combination of uneasy and wonder-struck. The footage shifted to capture MJ and Brad as they hefted their luggage up into the cabin compartments. “Like, one day, he's that little kid who cried and got nosebleeds all the time, and suddenly, we Blip back, and he's totally ripped and super nice and all these girls are after him.”

Scott swallowed, disquieted by Ned’s conflicted musings. He couldn’t help but think back to their earlier discussion about the strangeness of suddenly waking up one day to a class full of strangers; couldn’t help but remember Peter’s words, soft but sure: It’s hard to stay objective. 

Those words, and Peter’s trembling voice, came back to him now, as he listened to Ned recount his experience in a class that was all at once familiar yet foreign.

And for the first time since Peter had sat before them all, weaving tales of a massacre the likes of which Scott had never imagined possible (even in his worst nightmares), Scott allowed himself to think of his own family. Until now, he’d tried to push away the thoughts of those he’d left behind to fight the Civil War, unable to imagine his family wrecked by a tragedy of this magnitude. He hadn’t wanted to imagine it; hadn’t wanted to think of what would become of his family, his life, in 2024.

But listening to Ned’s hushed words, listening to the confusion coloring his voice as he spoke of a jarring Before and After where he hadn’t been given the chance to live through the In Between, he couldn’t stop the thoughts of his daughter from flooding in.

Cassie. His heart squeezed with with longing. He missed her. He wanted nothing more than to be back home, tucking Cassie into bed with an I love you and a kiss to her forehead. When was the last time he’d told her he loved her?

Too long ago, Scott decided. 

He ached to see her again, to be able to hold her in his arms and hear her tinkling laughter. To see her smile and imprint it in his memory forever. 

Without his permission, one of his fondest memories of his daughter swam to the forefront of his mind. He couldn’t help but think of the grotesque stuffed rabbit he’d given her for her eighth birthday, and the way she’d lit up at the sight of it, immediately declaring it her “best friend” despite its visible flaws. She would cherish its imperfections, she’d told him firmly, so young yet so mature and compassionate.

Where would Cassie end up, in Peter’s future? Where would her story lead her?

Scott wondered, briefly, if Peter would tell him if he asked. If Peter would let him know if the Blip had taken her from a future version of him—or if the opposite had happened. If he begged to know, would Peter be honest with him? 

…He wasn’t sure he wanted to know.

The thought of either—of losing his daughter or his daughter losing him—brought him more pain than he’d ever imagined possible. He just wanted her to be safe. He wanted to shield her from the cruelties of the world, to protect her forever. 

And I will, he thought. I have to. I don’t know what I’ll do if she—

No. It hasn’t happened yet. I don’t need to ask Peter, because it won’t happen. (A part of him was still scared of the answer, of the possibilities—whether or not they would come true.) That’s why we’re going through this. To write a better ending.

Peter laughed nervously. “Not all the girls are after him,” he said, protesting Ned’s assertions that their female classmates were all interested in Brad.

Ned just shook his head again. “No, man, they’re all after him,” he countered matter-of-factly.

Peter turned frantically to watch as, a few rows down, MJ laughed at something Brad said as he helped her out. “Yeah. Here,” MJ said through a fit of giggles, relenting control over her luggage to him.

“Oh, Pete,” MJ sighed, shaking her head in amusement at her boyfriend’s keen scrutiny of her every interaction with Brad. Despite her outward appearance of mirth, however, a burst of affection burgeoned in her gut. 

Peter was pouting. “EDITH, you traitor,” he accused half-heartedly, too busy trying to hide behind his hands to endow his words with any real heat. “How could you expose me like this?”

MJ couldn’t help it as her lips twitched into a pleased grin, trying to ignore the way she melted at the image Peter made, shy and covering himself from view. “Aww, Parker, you’re jealous.”

Peter dropped his hands so he could properly scowl at her. “Can you blame me?” he asked rhetorically. “I had no idea you liked me, and Brad is, unfortunately, not unattractive. And Ned was not helping!”

Ned crowed with shameless delight. Ignoring him, MJ reached over—having to bend over slightly to bridge the gap between them—and patted his thigh comfortingly. “How hard was it to admit that Brad might have something going for him?” she asked amusedly. He pouted again and muttered a sullen very, and MJ honest-to-god guffawed. 

When he jerked his head away glumly as if to give her the cold shoulder, MJ’s laughter eased into a teasing but indulgent smile. “Oh, Peter, you had nothing to worry about,” she reassured, giving him another pat before straightening up again, retracting her hand. “I was too busy paying attention to you to give Brad anything but a mere fraction of my attention.”

She was a little embarrassed to say something so sentimental and downright cheesy, but she was rewarded with a radiant smile from Peter, so she figured the minor embarrassment was worth it.

“Anyway,” Ned moved on speedily, unaware of Peter’s alarm, “on to more important things.” He pulled out his laptop from his bag. “It’s a nine-hour flight. We can play Beast Slayers the whole time.”

“You two are adorable,” Shuri told them seriously. 

“I’m pretty sure nine hours straight of playing video games is not something to praise,” Bucky said, frankly unsure whether to be impressed or horrified. In the end, horror on out. “You need some sleep, at least.”

“Says the guy who claims he doesn’t sleep,” Sam snorted.

Bucky spluttered in protest. “That’s different!” he argued. “I’m different. They’re growing teenagers! They need the rest!”

“Whatever you say, mother hen,” Sam replied, singsong.

Bucky gaped at him, a red flush high on his cheeks. “Don’t be ridiculous. I’m just being a decent person,” he defended, but he knew it would fall on deaf ears. Sam loved to be stubborn, even knowing it grated on his nerves. Actually, it was probably because he knew it grated on Bucky’s nerves.

Sure enough, Sam just continued smirking at him, completely unfazed by Bucky’s attempts to redirect his line of thought. Bucky begrudgingly let the topic drop with one swat at Sam’s shoulder, but even he couldn’t deny the overwhelming concern that bubbled inside him every time he saw the two teenagers in the footage. He tried to tell himself that it was only because Peter reminded him of a younger Steve, lacking his enhanced strength but just as determined as ever, but he knew that that wasn’t the reason. It wasn’t entire reason, anyway.

Peter was just so pure and good in nuanced ways—in his simple desire to woo his crush, in his will to continue patrolling as Spider-Man despite the media breathing down his neck and looking for him to be someone else, in his carefree interactions with his best friend. 

Even before today—before Bucky had discovered Peter and Spider-Man were one in the same, when Bucky had only known Peter as the wall-crawling vigilante from Leipzig who’d had a tendency to run his mouth—he’d seen Spider-Man’s innocence and youth. Even back then, it had been painfully obvious in the way Spider-Man carried himself, practically bouncing with excitement to be standing amongst the Avengers. Bucky remembered, vividly, that Spider-Man had been the first to see his metal arm as just that—a metal arm, and an “awesome” one at that—when Bucky had only viewed his prosthetic limb as an inescapable symbol of his crimes.

Bucky couldn’t help fussing over Peter.

Peter was barely paying attention to Ned’s plans, instead staring at MJ, who was sitting directly behind Brad. He turned back around, leaned in closer to Ned, and whispered, “I need your help to sit next to MJ.”

Ned sighed. “Seriously?” he deadpanned.

“Yes, seriously,” Peter insisted.

“What about our plan!?” Ned exclaimed, audibly dismayed. “American bachelors—in Europe!”

“That’s your plan,” Peter pointed out, squinting. “That’s a solo plan.” Ned just stared back at him, exasperated, and Peter shifted in his seat. “Come on, this is my plan!” he implored desperately.

Ned turned to look behind him, presumably at MJ, and then turned back to Peter with an irritated sigh. 

“Please,” Peter beseeched.

Ned sagged back into his seat with an audible groan.

Tony couldn’t help but laugh at Ned’s reaction. He couldn’t recall how many times Rhodey had looked at him like that—with utter exasperation—over the years. Watching Peter and Ned together, comfortable even in disagreement, unwittingly filled him with nostalgia for his college days, Rhodey a constant presence at his side despite the inconstancy of everything else.

It was easy to see why Ned and Peter were best friends, why they fit together. Even though Tony had only seen them onscreen together a few times so far, there was no denying the ease with which they interacted. There was a visible dynamic energy in the way they moved around one another. An effortless push-and-pull, a fluid give-and-take—two counteractive forces, like balanced scales, perfectly in tune with one another. 

Their mutual devotion was obvious in the familiar way they conversed, seamless as they bantered back and forth; it was obvious even in the way they sat next to each other, bodies slightly tilted into one another like a pair of parentheses.

He snuck a subconscious glance at Rhodey, wishing it were his Rhodey with him, and found Rhodey already staring at him. Before he could get flustered and tear his gaze away, Rhodey’s face softened into a smile, and even though he knew better, Tony saw his Rhodey in that smile. It was the same smile he knew Rhodey reserved only for him.

He wondered if Rhodey saw the same thing he did, whenever Peter and Ned came up in the footage together. Wondered if Rhodey saw them in the two boys.

Something told him that Rhodey did. Tony clung on to that thought and tucked it into his pocket for safekeeping, reassured by the idea that even though they shared different memories, this was still Rhodey—Rhodey who’d stuck by his side through thick and thin, Rhodey who always backed him up even if he didn’t agree with Tony, Rhodey who supported him without fail…

Tony smiled back.

EDITH’s footage captured MJ and Betty, settling in for the plane ride next to each other. 

“Hey, guys,” Ned started stiltedly as he walked up to them, ever the supportive friend despite his own reservations. “Uh, there's an old lady in front of us wearing a crazy amount of perfume and… it's kind of setting off Peter's allergies?” He broke off into a nervous laugh, as if unsure of his own words.

“Perfume,” Natasha deadpanned. “That’s your story. Perfume?”

Ned went red with embarrassment at his own lack of finesse as everyone else had a good laugh at his expense. “I was thinking on my feet!” he defended himself.

They only laughed louder.

“I appreciated the effort,” Peter comforted, but it was undermined by his own visible amusement. “Even though it didn’t exactly work out.”

At the reminder of just how poorly the entire situation derailed and fell out of his hands, Ned found himself laughing as well. “Okay, I’ll admit, not my greatest plan,” he said begrudgingly.

On the other side of the room, Clint was nudging Natasha mischievously, “Aren’t you glad I’m your partner now? My excuses are flawless.”

Natasha arched an eyebrow at him, looking distinctly unimpressed. “I think you and I have very different definitions of ‘flawless’, Barton,” she drawled.

“At least they all worked!” he said defensively.

“Half the time, they only worked because the other party was too dumb to catch on, not because of any subtlety or craftiness on your part,” she retorted, enjoying his exaggerated gasp of betrayal a little too much. “And besides, he’s a high schooler, Barton. You were an agent. Are you really comparing your manipulative skills with his? Real mature.”

He waved away her criticism with nonchalance. “Oh, hush,” he dismissed. “Let me have my fun.”

Natasha snorted. “Classy as always, Barton,” she said sarcastically. And then, sidling closer to her longtime friend, she poked fun at him with a sly smirk, “At least he has all the time in the world to improve. You’re way past your prime already.”

His jaw hung open. “Nat!”

Natasha looked positively gleeful. “If nothing else, his enthusiasm is admirable. Genuine effort is an important part of any con, and for that, at least, he gets an A+,” she remarked thoughtfully.

Clint blinked, his mock offense dying down. “True,” he conceded. “His loyalty to Peter is commendable. Even though he clearly wants to be doing anything else,”—he grinned at that—“he’s still trying to help his friend out. Definite wingman material.”

Natasha snickered to herself.

On the screen, MJ and Betty seemed to share the audience’s sentiments regarding Ned’s conspicuous deception as they stared at Ned with varying degrees of incredulity. 

“Um,” Ned continued to fumble clumsily for words, “you know, Betty, if you could just switch seats with him, that would be—”

“He’s allergic to perfume?” Betty broke in, clearly dubious.

Betty’s obvious skepticism sparked another round of rowdy laughter from the audience.

Ned stared back for a dumbfounded second before he shook himself out of it. “Yeah, yeah,” he agreed quickly (a little too quickly), “because, um, it – it makes his eyes water, and he can’t really—”

In his seat in front of Betty, Mr. Harrington popped up and twisted around to pin Ned with a piercing stare. “Peter has a perfume allergy?” he demanded, evidently having eavesdropped on the conversation.

“Uh, oh. That’s not good. He sounds like he’s about to overreact and do something drastic,” Sam guessed. “I’m getting the feeling you don’t end up sitting next to MJ—sorry, sorry, I forgot, I meant Michelle—do you, kid?”

Peter gave a long-suffering sigh. “Not even close.”

Ned turned, caught off-guard as he stared back at Mr. Harrington like a deer caught in headlights. “Oh! Uh…” he started shaking his head in denial, before aborting the movement and tilting his head, uncertain about how to proceed.

“I’ll tell you from experience, perfume allergies are no joke,” Mr. Harrington said emphatically, yanking off his seatbelt and standing up. Beside him, Brad watched in confusion. “I can feel hives breaking out already,” he shuddered, clambering over Brad and into the aisle.

Behind him, Peter rose to his feet with a start, looking on in horror as his teacher took charge. 

“Oh, god,” Shuri whispered, fixated. “It’s like watching a train wreck in slow motion. I can’t look away.”

“MJ, stand up,” Harrington instructed, waving MJ over. She did so wordlessly. “Ned, take MJ’s spot.” Betty opened her mouth as if to protest, but Mr. Harrington carried on heedlessly, “MJ, you take my spot. Peter, come with me. Let’s get you out of there,” he prodded, urging Peter over. 

MJ offered Brad a halfhearted “sorry” as she slid past him and settled into the seat next to him, where Mr. Harrington had previously sat. Brad, for his part, was obviously unbothered, a satisfied smile on his face.

“Zach and Sebastian, you take Ned and Peter’s seats.” The last of his orders taken care of, Mr. Harrington turned to Ned somberly. “Ned, thanks for bringing this to my attention. Your safety is my responsibility—and Mr. Dell’s, but he’s…”

Over in his own seat, Mr. Dell had already nodded off, snoring away in peace.

Mr. Harrington shook his head in exasperation. “I got it for now,” he finished. “Let’s go, Peter!”

“I… I have no words.” Clint shook his head in disbelief, torn between amusement, pity for Peter who’d only wanted to sit next to his crush, secondhand embarrassment at how Ned’s attempt to ‘help’ had turned out, and begrudging respect for the chaperone who was just trying his best to protect his charges (despite being misinformed). “I did not see that coming. That’s even worse than your original seating plan. Your rival for your crush’s affections just ended up sitting even closer to her.”

“Don’t remind me,” Peter grumbled.

Ned reached over and patted his shoulder sympathetically. “There, there,” he soothed.

Peter just sighed audibly, unable to get mad at Ned when the unintentional mixup had brought Ned and Betty together. Even though their on-again, off-again relationship was a turbulent one (were they on or off right now? He couldn’t keep up), Peter knew they cared about each other. 

Despite everything else, Betty made his best friend happy. In light of that, it was impossible to complain, even if the mixup had left him with the misfortune of sitting beside a prattling Mr. Harrington while Brad was lucky enough to be reseated next to MJ.

Peter stared after Mr. Harrington in disbelief. Mr. Harrington called out another let’s go over his shoulder, and Peter bent over and slung his backpack onto one shoulder with a roll of his eyes. Reluctantly, dragging his feet, he headed down the aisle.

Meanwhile, Ned warily (read: awkwardly) sat down next to Betty, who had her arms crossed in visible annoyance.

“Yeah, I have a small bladder, so I took the aisle,” Mr. Harrington was explaining to Peter back in their row, plopping down onto the seat beside Peter’s.

Tony grimaced. “You are in for a long flight, kid,” he said pityingly.

“The longest in my life,” Peter confirmed, looking at MJ ruefully. She just rolled her eyes at his theatrics, completely unsympathetic towards his plight.

“So…” Ned started nervously, turning to Betty, “did you wanna play Beast Slayer?”

Betty didn’t even pause to consider it, already shaking her head before he was even finished asking. “Nope,” she replied, a hard popping edge to her ‘p’.

Ned nodded slowly, taking her rejection for what it was. Despite it, he still didn’t give up, oblivious to Betty’s impatience. “Have you.. have you ever, like, played any kind of PC games or—?” 

“No.”

Ned nodded again. “Got it,” he said, clearing his throat as if that would help clear the awkwardness. Finally seeming to notice the irritation radiating off of Betty in waves, he sulked back into his seat and kept his mouth shut. 

“Ned. Ned. That was physically painful to watch,” Shuri whimpered, fighting the urge to cover her eyes from the mortification of watching Ned flounder helplessly.

Ned just shrugged, hiding a secretive grin. He could admit that it had been agonizingly awkward at first, but he knew something Shuri didn’t. Now, as he looked back at the first time he and Betty properly interacted one-on-one, he could only shake his head, partly exasperated by his own clueless flailing and partly stunned as to how he’d managed to convince Betty to date him.

The footage focused back on Peter and Mr. Harrington. 

“Did I tell you how my wife pretended to Blip out?” Mr. Harrington struck up a conversation. 

“Wha— why would anyone—”

He spared Peter a glance, but much like Ned first did, he seemed to completely miss the annoyed, frustrated look on Peter’s face that practically screamed end me. “Turns out, she ran off with a guy in her hiking group. We had a fake funeral for her and everything—well, the funeral was real because I thought she was really dead. Do you wanna see the video?”

Peter just stared off into thin air, brooding.

“No,” Clint gasped, “she didn’t.”

“She did,” Peter confirmed with a grimace. “It… was not pretty.”

“Damn, that’s just cruel,” Clint said, his brows furrowing. He couldn’t imagine losing his wife like that—mourning her for five years, only to find out that she’d been alive and with another man the entire time. 

“I agree,” Steve added with a frown. “Relationships end all the time, but faking your death to get out of one? Taking advantage of a worldwide tragedy?” He shook his head in disbelief. “A lie like that… there’s no excuse for that. She should have just communicated with him if she was unhappy.”

“People rarely do what they should, Cap,” Tony said knowingly. 

Steve’s frown deepened as he drummed his fingers on his thigh contemplatively. Deep down, he knew Tony was right, though he wished things could be different. 

A few rows ahead, Brad and MJ seemed to be settling into their new seats far more easily.

“Oh, I got a dual headphone adapter if you wanna watch a movie,” Brad offered to MJ, pulling out the aforementioned adapter. He waggled it in front of her like an offering.

MJ considered it for a moment. “Only if it’s depressing,” she conceded, giving him a smile. “Or hilarious.” 

MJ quirked her lips upwards into a smile that was both disdainful and regretful. Peter wouldn’t have needed me to tell him that, she mused. 

She shook her head. Too late for regrets, MJ, she told herself sternly. At the time, she’d been satisfied with the plane ride to Venice as it was; Brad hadn’t gotten on her nerves, at least, though she felt uncomfortable now to watch his overt attempts at flirting.

But now, with the newfound knowledge that Peter had prepared ahead for their flight together, MJ couldn’t help but regret. Hearing all of Peter’s plans—hearing his excitement—made her long for that flight that would never be. Sharing a dual headphone adapter with Peter would have been far more agreeable than it had been with Brad. Maybe with Peter, she would have actually enjoyed having to lean in close enough to feel his warmth, their tangled headphones tugging them ever nearer.

Maybe next time, she let herself dream. After they were done here, after EDITH executed Project Freedom and cleared Peter’s name, maybe they could have another chance. Their chance.

“Oh, you have a dual headphone adapter,” Mr. Harrington noted at the same time. “We can watch together!”

“Jesus, kid, what is your luck?”

“Parker Luck, Mr. Barton. Parker Luck,” Peter succinctly elucidated with a heavy sigh, as if that explained everything. To him, at least, it did—his Parker Luck was the root of everything: his fateful spider bite and the week of sheer agony that followed, his disastrous confrontation with his Homecoming date’s father that left him bedridden and hospitalized for weeks, his trip to Titan that ended in his demise. 

At this point, his life was so riddled with misfortune that Peter shouldn’t have even been surprised at the outcome of his so-called science trip. Quentin Beck—Mysterio—was just another affliction in a long, long line of trials and tribulations.

“Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. This is your Captain speaking,” a female voice sounded through the intercom. “Our flight time today will be eight hours and forty-nine minutes to Venice, Italy.”

As if on cue, the footage began to flash forward in time. 

In the next frame, the cabin was enshrouded in darkness, the overhead lights having been dimmed sometime during the flight. In the muted light, MJ and Brad were laughing together over the movie they were watching, colors illuminating their faces. From his seat behind them, Peter’s head shot up and he watched with obvious dismay as MJ tilted her head towards Brad to see the movie better. 

Noticing the Peter in the footage observing her and Brad with jealousy, MJ silently extended a hand towards her Peter, even as her eyes never left the screen. 

Peter blinked in surprise, catching the movement in his peripheral vision. When he saw her holding out her hand to him, palm upturned in a silent invitation, he hid a smile and reached out as well, pressing his palm to hers and interlacing their fingers. 

MJ might not be as verbal as he was in terms of her feelings for him, but she’d never given him reason to doubt her sincerity or her affection. He didn’t need words to know she cared; he could see it in the way she looked out for him, in the way she blindly reached out for him in the face of adversity, in the way she smiled at him—soft and sweet—when she didn’t think he was looking. 

He could see it in her every action.

Peter wasn’t the only one who noticed MJ’s wordless action. Between the couple, Ned and Loki stared, dumbfounded, at the two’s clasped hands hovering above their laps. Without prompting, they exchanged a commiserative glance, Ned’s uncertainty about Loki fading in the wake of their shared experience.

Ned rolled his eyes at Loki, as if to say can you believe them? 

Loki’s lips twitched.

Peter and MJ, for their part, seemed completely oblivious to their neighbors’ mild exasperation. As if in their own world, they ignored Ned and Loki both and stayed like that: holding hands in complete silence.

Peter sighed silently, looking around dejectedly. Mr. Harrington was already asleep beside him, his head lolling to the side. Peter’s face settled into a frown, resolutely ignoring the slumbering man, as he turned to his own TV, shuffling through the movie options. On the first page, a movie with the title 'FINDING WAKANDA' immediately stood out to the viewers.

“Wakanda?” Bruce read aloud. “T’Challa, Shuri—didn’t you two say you were from Wakanda?”

“That’s right,” T’Challa confirmed, eyeing the movie title in surprise. “‘Finding Wakanda’, huh? I have to admit, I didn’t expect that.”

“Neither did I,” Shuri remarked. She was grinning, excitement almost palpable in the air around her. “We probably should have expected it, honestly. We did just reveal the truth about our resources to the outside world for the first time, after all—after keeping our wealth of Vibranium a secret for as long as Wakanda has existed. Still, it’s nice to see we’ll one day warrant a movie. Hopefully, the movie does our nation justice.”

T’Challa hummed in agreement. “We certainly have a... complicated history,” he murmured, bowing his head as he thought of N’Jadaka, his own kinsman whom his country had failed. His own father had played a hand in turning N’Jadaka to darkness, giving birth to the vengeful wrath of Erik Killmonger.

Shuri watched her brother worriedly, deducing his train of thought with a practiced ease borne of years of familial history. He lifted his gaze and caught hers, giving her a reassuring smile. 

She made herself smile at him in return, but inwardly, she worried still. She knew that the flaws of their ancestors continued to weigh heavy on his heart to this day. Everything he did now, he did for the purpose of righting their wrongs.

If only he could see that he was better than them already. The moment he’d discovered the truth, he’d fought to make it right. He’d refused to turn his back on the outside world as so many before him had done.

And for that, Shuri would never stop being proud of him.

Peter clicked through to the next page. The movie ‘Heart of Iron: The Tony Stark Story’ popped up, along with a brief description: 'A feature-length documentary that chronicles the life and legacy left behind by the world’s greatest hero, Tony Stark.'

Peter gazed at the screen with bated breath, eyes unblinking as though in an effort to stay dry-eyed. From the movie poster, Tony Stark stared back at Peter, looking solemn and grave, as if aware of the state of Peter’s world—resembling, more than ever, the futurist he liked to be.

Peter shut off the TV without a word, finally blinking once in an attempt to pass through the sudden onslaught of grief. Giving into exhaustion—mental or physical, the audience couldn’t tell—he leaned back against his seat and crossed his arms over his chest.

From his seat in the audience, Peter blinked back tears as the phantom pain of stumbling across Tony Stark’s biographical film washed over him all over again.

Before he could succumb to the sorrow, he felt a sudden physical pressure keep him grounded. He looked down to find MJ’s hand squeezing his, changing her loose grip to a tight one that reminded him he wasn’t alone.

He inhaled shakily. Exhaled. Without a word, he squeezed back, silently conveying his gratitude. Steeling his nerves, Peter drew strength from MJ’s presence and tilted his head to stare at the next sofa over, where Rhodey had one arm around Pepper’s shoulders, providing quiet comfort as Pepper sat staring up at the screen, wide-eyed and trembling. She had one hand clasped over her mouth as she leaned her weight against Rhodey, looking like she might topple over without his support. 

“Rhodey,” Pepper gasped, Rhodey's name interrupted by a fragmented mewl. “He... oh, god, Tony. He’s so loved.” The audience reeled in the ensuing silence, and then: “I wish he could believe that.”

Rhodey, too, looked like he was barely holding himself up, the expression on his face broken and wounded.

Peter was almost too terrified to see how Tony himself had reacted to the prospect of a movie centering around his life. But the reminder that this was likely worse for Tony, who was no doubt caught off-guard, solidified his resolve. He took another deep breath, nerves settling for a moment, and dared to look.

Tony was staring dumbly up at the screen, looking like his entire world had been shaken to its core. Disbelief and incomprehension ran rampant in his unblinking gaze. He shook his head out of sheer denial. “N-No, that’s...” he stammered, heart in his throat. “Why would they...?” A forced, uncomfortable laugh made its way out of his throat, so jarring in its insincerity that Peter had to wince. 

“That makes no sense,” Tony insisted, full of self-deprecation and self-loathing. For almost his entire life, he’d believed his existence to be a burden, a belief that had been reinforced by his father’s constant disapproval of him, his unintentional perpetuation of the cycle of violence through the weapons he’d built with his own hands, the ease with which his first mentor had sold him out to the Ten Rings—the ease with which everyone in his life betrayed him. Stane had only been the first. 

His face twisted into a scowl. “What part of my life could possibly be worth seeing? The drinking, the women, the partying?” He scoffed derisively at himself, deaf to Pepper’s wounded protestations. He had always been the first to condemn himself; in so many ways, he was his own worst critic. “That’s hardly role model material.”

“That’s bullshit.”

Tony’s eyes widened. He looked sideways, tracing the voice back to its source, only to find that Peter had rocketed to his feet. The boy was glaring at him fiercely, eyes wild with hurt and chest heaving with it. 

Tony stared. He didn’t understand.

Peter snorted, the air blowing out of him with force. His anger was palpable. “I’m sorry, Mr. Stark, but that’s bullshit,” he repeated, trying to express his opinions more calmly the second time around. It didn’t work, his voice still practically vibrating with offense. “I won’t let anyone, not even you yourself, insult you. Because you’re wrong. You are role model material, and I know that because you were my role model, and you were a good one. No one can tell me any different.”

Tony floundered for words. He didn’t know how the hell to respond to that, to this kid who seemed to look up to him despite knowing him personally. He didn’t even look up to himself.

Peter shook his head, frustrated at Tony’s refusal to see himself as Peter saw him. As so many others did. He clenched his fists, feeling alone and unsteady without MJ’s hand in his anymore. Still, he forced himself to soldier on, the image of his Mr. Stark, bruised and bloodied in their last stand against Thanos, in his mind. Mr. Stark had reinvented himself completely since his partying days, reforging himself into a hero of his own making. 

Mr. Stark had been his hero. Had saved him, time and time again.

“And I’m not the only one who thinks that way,” he carried on, bolstered by the memory of Mr. Stark’s awed, reverential gaze and the crushing feeling of his arms around him, a battle raging all around them. This is nice, he’d whispered then, Mr. Stark’s smile pressing against the side of his head. And he had meant it; he had felt inexplicably safe in the warm comfort of Mr. Stark’s arms, even though he’d known—categorically known—they were surrounded by danger on all sides.

Mr. Stark always made him feel safe. He would be damned before he let anyone put his hero down.

“What – what do you mean?” Tony whispered, forgetting for a moment that he was surrounded by the Avengers and SHIELD representatives, people he’d fought to present a cocky persona around. A fragment of the truth broke free of his carefully controlled facade as he lost himself in his own thoughts, the uncertainty in his voice threatening to shatter Peter to pieces. It was barely audible, barely even noticeable, but Peter had watched as Tony lay dying at the hands of a cosmic force. It was hard to ignore any sign of vulnerability from Tony, after that.

Peter’s gaze softened. “I mean, you are a hero to so many people, Mr. Stark,” he said, hoping Tony could hear beyond the words to the conviction Peter carried inside him. “If you won’t take my word for it, then trust your own creation.” He gestured, movements sharp and precise, to the television screen. Conveniently, as if prompted, EDITH rewound the footage a few seconds, freezing the frame on a clear shot of the movie description.

Aloud, for all to hear, Peter recited: “‘A feature-length documentary that chronicles the life and legacy left behind by the world’s greatest hero, Tony Stark.’” He paused long enough to let the words sink into the thick, stifling silence. “The world’s greatest hero,” he reiterated. “That’s you.”

Tony made an incoherent noise.

Peter sighed, the indignation draining out of him in seconds at the persistent look of denial on Tony’s face. He fell back onto his seat, heavy with sorrow at Tony’s refusal to believe in himself. To believe there was good in him.

“Just...” Peter scrubbed a hand over his face, incomprehensibly exhausted all of a sudden. “Look, I know you don’t really know me, but I know you, and I know what I’m saying when I tell you to please stop being so harsh on yourself. Stop doubting yourself.”

Tony worried his bottom lip. “You... you look up to me?” he asked, so quietly Peter barely caught it. 

“I do.” There wasn’t so much as a shadow of a lie in his statement, so forceful and earnest that Tony staggered under the weight of it.

He had no words to say to that.

(He wasn’t sure what he’d done to earn Peter’s admiration. Peter’s, a hero so selfless and compassionate that he took to keeping the streets safe every night, without looking for any reward. To Peter, helping people was the reward.

If anyone was a role model, it was Peter.)

A few rows ahead, Betty was silently reading a book as Ned played his video game next to her. “Oh!” he exclaimed incoherently, adrenaline spiking as his fingers flew across the keyboard. “Oh!”

Betty turned to give him a slightly irritated look. When she redirected her focus to her book, looking away from him, Ned shifted to stare at her in turn. 

“That could have been us playing together,” Ned lamented dramatically, giving a sigh that sounded so mournful it should earn him an Oscar. “I can’t believe you left me on my own, Peter. Me, your best friend, your Guy in the Chair!”

Peter just rolled his eyes, not bothering to respond to Ned’s theatrics. He knew that Ned didn’t really mean anything by it—if anything, Ned was glad things had turned out that way, as his and Betty’s proximity during the flight had sparked their relationship.

More likely, Ned was simply putting on a performance to try to alleviate the somber mood after Peter and Tony’s heavy conversation mere seconds earlier. Indeed, when Peter shot Ned a questioning glance, Ned only winked at him knowingly. 

Ned’s plan seemed to be working, too. At the very least, it appeared to have its desired effects on Tony, who relaxed minutely in his seat as Ned’s outburst diverted any lingering attention from him. Even Pepper and Rhodey lightened, the tension finally seeping out of them as Rhodey chuckled at Ned’s exaggerated imitation of a wounded puppy.

Peter let himself loosen up, too, giving Ned a small smile that he could only hope conveyed every ounce of his gratitude.

Peter wasn’t the only one who noticed Ned’s true intentions. “Nice work, loser,” MJ whispered, quietly enough that only those on their sofa could hear her, as she afforded Ned an approving nod and one of her rare real smiles, void of sarcasm.

Ned beamed back at the both of them.

The seatbelt light clicked off. Peter, one hand holding onto the hatch of one of the overhead compartments, slowly and carefully lifted himself into the air so he could avoid bumping into Mr. Harrington on his way to the aisle.

“Damn,” Shuri whistled, “that’s impressive.”

“You don’t even look like you’re struggling,” Scott said in awe. “How are you even holding on to that? There aren’t any latches.”

“Oh, right. Just like spiders, I can, uh, stick to any surface,” Peter said, realizing he’d forgotten to mention that tidbit when he’d listed his main powers. He couldn’t believe it had skipped his notice. “I’m not sure how to explain it, but basically, the spider bite gave me thousands of new microscopic hairs that can easily grip surfaces with the help of friction forces.”

Bruce made an awed sound, gazing at Peter with eager interest in his eyes. The scientist in him was clearly fascinated. 

The scientist beside Bruce, however, just facepalmed, barely taking note of Peter’s effortless show of strength as he was too busy focusing on Peter’s recklessness. “Jesus Christ, kid, you used your powers in an airplane full of countless witnesses? What a way to expose yourself,” Tony scolded with a groan and a shake his head. He couldn’t deny that his heart had lurched to his throat in an outburst of worry when he’d seen Peter carelessly risk outing himself. "How the hell is your identity still a secret?”

It isn’t, Peter thought, grimacing. Aside from his own time-traveling companions, however, the others were still unaware of that—of the extent to which he’d screwed up—so he ignored that for the moment and focused on the rest of Tony’s reprimand. 

“There was no chance of me exposing myself there. I knew everyone around me was already asleep,” he defended himself. “The sixth sense I told you about—it warns me about even the most minute of dangers. I would have felt it if there were any unwelcome eyes on me.”

“Huh,” Tony said eloquently, blinking dumbly to himself. “That’s helpful.” Despite his embarrassment at mistakenly accusing Peter of carelessness, he couldn’t help the unmitigated relief that saturated him.

Catching himself, Tony shook his head and frowned. Why am I so worried? Why do I care? he asked himself, confused and more than a little surprised by his reactions to Peter’s actions in the footage—or, more specifically, by the intensity of his reactions. 

He’s just a kid, Tony reminded himself, lips pursed. He usually tried to avoid anyone below the age of twenty—maybe even twenty-five—at all costs. And yet, for some unfathomable reason, he found himself feeling for Peter, this boy who was both practically a stranger to him and not a stranger at all.

He didn’t know Peter, but somehow, some way, he felt like he did. He didn’t have any memories of Peter, but the thought of Peter was accompanied by warmth and familiarity nonetheless. It was a feeling Tony recognized, impossibly. It was a feeling of safety, of security. (Of home.) 

It brought him back to mere moments ago, when Peter had stood up to him and for him, insisting that he was a hero. Tony had been so stunned that he hadn’t known what to say. It was rare that people defended him rather than attacked him, and yet Peter hadn’t even seemed to realize the magnitude of what he did. Peter defied every single one of his rules, his expectations.

Whenever he so much as looked at Peter—whether on the screen or a sofa away—his heart hammered in time to an eerily familiar beat, as if to tell him, you know this kid. You care about this kid. You love—

Tony froze.

What… what am I saying? He swallowed, curling his hands into fists. What am I thinking? I must be going crazy. 

He expelled a shaky sigh. Yeah, that’s it. That’s all it is. I’m just tired, I’m thinking nonsense.

He didn’t know Peter. He couldn’t know Peter. There was no way. Peter was just a foreigner to him.

He tried to believe it. And a part of him did.

(But no matter how hard he fought to convince himself of that, another part of him knew he was only lying to himself. That part of him knew Peter would always be more than a stranger, in his eyes.)

Peter was still in the bathroom, washing his hands, when the seatbelt notice flashed back on with another ding. 

Like clockwork, turbulence rumbled through the plan. In his seat, Ned jerked slightly, instinctively reaching out to hold on to Betty’s hand. Belatedly, he realized what he’d done and turned to stare at her, mouth agape. He found Betty staring back at him, eyes slightly wide. 

Sheepishly, Ned looked away. 

“Damn, kid, you move fast,” Clint teased, a shot of laughter lancing through him at Ned’s visible embarrassment. “I thought you were all for being a bachelor.”

“Come on, Clint, don’t be a spoilsport,” Natasha jumped in on the fun, her tone steely but her eyes warm with mirth. “Let him have his fun. He can be a bachelor when he’s back on solid ground. You know what they say—what happens on the plane, stays on the plane.”

“Thanks for completely butchering that saying,” Clint snorted. 

Ned buried his head in his hands and bemoaned his luck, pointedly avoiding the spy duo’s joking glances. Two seats away from him, Peter dissolved into hysterical laughter, reminded of his own reaction to Ned’s unexpected relationship with Betty.

Clint raised his eyebrows, a silent question on the tip of his tongue.

Peter waved Clint’s curiosity away. “You’ll see,” he said cryptically, grinning all the while. It definitely did not stay on the plane, he thought to himself, snickers gradually tapering off. 

Peter waltzed out of the bathroom only to find MJ waiting outside. He choked, shocked by her presence, and abruptly ducked back into the bathroom, pulling the door closed as he went. 

MJ looked confused.

Inside, Peter was frantically pulling out toilet paper and wiping down the sink counter and toilet seat. Unbeknownst to him, MJ had leaned in closer so that she could press her ear against the bathroom door, eyebrows knitted in question. Peter worked hurriedly inside, drying the surfaces and flushing the toilet a second time.

“Oh, my god, you dork,” MJ snorted. “That’s what that was all about?”

Peter muttered incoherently to himself, averting his gaze with an embarrassed sheen to his cheeks. “You’re going to hold this over my head forever, aren’t you?”

“Oh, yeah,” MJ said unapologetically, an almost gleeful sound accompanying the word. When he mustered up the courage to peek at his girlfriend, he found her smirking at him, completely ruthless as she took pleasure in his mortification. “Absolutely.”

After making the bathroom ‘presentable’, Peter stood in front of the mirror, quickly combing his hair back with his fingers. He curled back his lips to scrutinize his teeth, checking to make sure he had no food caught between his teeth. After a second, he cocked his head sidewards and flashed his reflection a satisfied smile.

The “occupied” sign on the restroom door switched to “vacant.” A second later, Peter opened the door and peeked his head outside.

Except it wasn’t MJ that met his expectant gaze.

He stared, dumbfounded, when he came face-to-face with a grinning Brad Davis, who flashed him the peace sign. Brad slid past Peter into the bathroom as Peter stood unmoving, expression shell-shocked. 

“Oh, my god. Your face!” Shuri laughed freely, doubling over. She wrapped her arms around herself, her stomach aching with the intensity of her laughter. “You cleaned up for Brad!”

Eventually, Peter returned to his seat with a sigh. He closed his eyes, determined to get some rest, but a second later, Mr. Harrington’s head dropped onto his shoulder with a rumbling snore. 

Peter cracked his eyes open in annoyance.

“Oh, Peter, you precious, precious child,” Shuri sighed to herself, the corner of her lip quirking upwards to shoot the trio of teenagers an amused, barely-there grin. “Your luck just keeps on getting worse, doesn’t it?”

“You could say that,” Peter agreed, sounding just as morose, smiling through the spike of dread. As awkward as this already was—watching himself fool around on the screen—he was dreading the rest of the trip even more.

What would the Avengers—his childhood heroes—think when they finally saw just how badly he’d messed up? When they finally realized that, no, Peter didn’t deserve to be called a hero, much less considered a part of the Avengers? As disillusioned with them as he’d become over the recent months, they’d still once been his heroes. His idols. He’d looked up to them from the very beginning; they were a very big reason he’d become the hero—no, vigilante (he was a failure as a hero, no matter what Happy thought)—he was today. 

And he’d let them down. He was a disgrace to the superhero community. He’d let himself be played by Beck time and time again, failing to learn his lesson even after Beck’s death.

How would the Avengers have handled the issue, in his place? Peter doubted they would have been as gullible as he had. Mr. Stark would have probably seen through Beck in an instant. Natasha, too. Even Clint would have probably dealt with Mysterio’s deceptions with ease.

Peter sighed. I just can’t seem to get it right, can I? He’d been at this for years by now, but he kept on making mistakes. No matter what, he seemed incapable of getting it right the first time. 

He had never been worthy of Mr. Stark’s trust, of Mr. Stark’s faith. 

Peter bit his lip. “It’s all downhill from here.”

The scene changed to the interior of an airport. 'VENICE, ITALY' flashed onto the bottom, right-hand corner of the screen, signifying that their plane had finally arrived at its intended destination.

MJ and Brad were lining up together, and as MJ showed Brad something on her passport, Peter walked by, eyes fixated on them. He hurried his pace until he rolled to a stop in front of Ned.

“Hey man,” he began urgently, “did you see Brad and MJ on the plane? They were watching movies and laughing the entire time.”

“I think he was a little too preoccupied with a different girl to pay attention to Michelle,” Sam said, waggling his eyebrows suggestively.

Ned’s face instantly flared bright red.

“Dude, don’t worry, okay?” Ned reassured, calm as ever. He was clearly used to being Peter’s voice of reason—although it had also become exceedingly clear that he could be just as unreasonable. He smiled comfortingly at Peter. “I’m sure it’s nothing.”

“Hey, babe.” Betty Brant sidled up to Ned. She was smiling openly at him, none of her previous annoyance apparent. “Can you hold this for me, please?” 

“Wait, what—?”

“‘Babe’?”

“Holy shit, you two actually—”

Peter jerked backwards in visible surprise as his best friend smiled and replied Betty with a quick, “Yeah, of course.”

“Thanks,” Betty’s smile widened and she leaned in to press a chaste kiss to Ned’s cheek. She pulled away from him, but didn’t move any further, staring starry-eyed at Ned. 

Ned stared back, entranced. Finally, a few seconds later, Ned playfully bopped her nose with a finger. They both broke out into a shared giggle before Betty finally left.

Ned turned back to Peter, who was staring in complete bemusement. “What was that?” Peter asked, taken aback.

“Uh, I second that,” Scott added. “I was not expecting that to be the outcome of that plane ride.”

Instead of answering, Ned simply pointed at the screen, wordlessly telling him to just wait and see.

“Uh, well, we actually got to talking on the plane, and it turns out we have a lot in common,” Ned explained excitedly. “So, uh, we’re boyfriend-girlfriend now.”

“Whatever happened to being an American bachelor in Europe?” Peter deadpanned, eyes squinting in disbelief.

“Peter,” Ned started patiently, as if the answer should be obvious, “those were the words of a boy. And that boy met a woman. A very strong and powerful woman.” Ned nodded emphatically, awed, as he described Betty. “And now? That boy’s a man.”

Scott blinked. “That’s... that’s very—”

“Wow,” Sam finished, deadpan.

Thor was nodding solemnly. “Wise words, indeed,” he supported, genuine where Sam had been sarcastic. “That is certainly the attitude of a man.”

Ned squeaked, wide-eyed. “Peter! Peter Peter Peter,” he hissed, bouncing in his seat, “did you hear that? Thor called me wise! Thor! Prince of Asgard Thor! God of Thunder Thor!””

“I think he gets it,” Loki drawled, unamused as he very deliberately raised an eyebrow at Ned, effectively conveying his disapproval of Ned’s flagrant admiration for his brother. He was tired of hearing people fawn over ‘Perfect Thor’.

Ned wilted, embarrassed.

“Don’t worry, Loki, I’m sure Ned will fanboy over you, too, if you compliment him,” Peter teased. “You’re a god, too.”

Loki inhaled sharply, speechless as he stared at Peter. He hadn’t expected Peter to see right through him.

Ned’s eyes went wide as realization and understanding filled him. Oh. Peter had always been remarkably perceptive, he mused, feeling a little guilty for his overexcited reaction to Thor’s offhanded comment when he was sitting right next to Thor’s oft-overshadowed brother.

Peter nudged Loki gently. “And you know what? You have something Thor doesn’t—you can do magic. That’s so cool. I wish I could do magic. I mean, all I have is super strength. And stickiness, I guess, but I bet magic would be way more useful. Can you just imagine how many more criminals I could put away, if I could take them down with magic?” he gushed. “I bet it would be so much fun.”

No one had ever called Loki’s magic cool before. At best, Loki’s magic made him ‘intimidating’. At worst, his magic was seen as ‘terrifying’ and ‘threatening’. But here was Peter, completely unafraid and unashamed as he enthused about Loki’s seidr.

It was... nice, Loki thought. He felt appreciated, for once.

“Thanks, little spider,” the Prince of Lies whispered, choked by Peter’s overwhelming sincerity. He pressed his thigh against Peter’s in an unspoken gesture of appreciation, mirroring what Peter had done after Loki had first relocated himself to their sofa. He found himself glad that he’d taken the chance.

“Babe?” Betty’s expectant voice reached them from off-screen.

“Coming, babe,” Ned replied instinctively, hurrying off to join her with only a backwards glance at Peter. 

Another scene change later, Peter was walking towards a security checkpoint when one of the TSA’s detection dogs trotted up to him, sniffing at his suitcase. 

Peter was immediately escorted to a station off to the side. The TSA agent hefted his suitcase up onto the metal table with ease.

“There’s nothing in there,” Peter explained hurriedly as the security officer unzipped his suitcase. “I swear,” he added innocently. 

The female officer only raised her gaze to fix him with an unimpressed, unyielding stare. 

Peter snapped his mouth shut, lips pressing into a thin line as she pulled open the suitcase. Peter’s Spider-Man suit (the cloth one, not the Iron Spider one) glared back up at them both like an accusation, having been miraculously shoved in, lying messily at the very top of his pile of clothes. A Post-It note was stuck onto the suit, reading:

You almost forgot this!! <3 May

Peter stared down at the suit in horror, his jaw falling open.

Everyone in the audience seemed to be mirroring Peter’s gobsmacked expression as they took in the sight of Peter’s Spider-Man suit, sprawled on top of Peter’s clothes.

“I see what you mean by ‘Parker Luck’,” Clint whispered finally, transfixed. “I can’t believe your aunt put your suit in.”

Peter just shrugged helplessly. “She meant well,” he defended. And in the end, it’s a good thing she put it in. I… she was right. Better safe than sorry. “She wanted me to have a way to defend myself—just in case. Besides, it’s her way of saying she supports my identity as Spider-Man. Which is… more than I could have hoped for.”

Slowly, Peter lifted his head, opening and closing his mouth as he tried to find an explanation for why he had the super-suit.

The woman stared back.

Eventually, when no words left Peter, the woman shook her head and reached into the suitcase. “This, no,” she articulated, pulling out a banana and holding it out in front of Peter.

The scene cut to an immense landscape painting of Tony Stark in his Iron Man suit sans the mask. In the painting, Tony was staring up into the sky, the sun shining behind him and casting a heroic—almost angelic—light on him. In the background, taking up almost half of the painting, the Iron Man mask had been shaded in, melting into Tony’s body.

Tony shifted, uncomfortable as he remembered Peter’s adamant defense of him. For some reason, Peter had believed that Tony was a hero—an inspiration—to many.

...the existence of a large painting of him in an airport in Venice seemed to back up Peter’s claims.

But that was Peter’s Tony Stark. What about him? Would he ever deserve this? Would he ever be good enough?

Staring at the painting of him, Tony couldn’t help but feel suffocated under the weight of everyone’s expectations. Peter’s. He wanted the answer to be yes; he wanted to be good enough, to be worthy of the world’s—Peter’s—admiration.

He didn’t think he ever would be, not when all he could see when he looked down at his own hands was the incriminating red of innocent blood.

What will it take? he wondered, desperately. How could he ever make up for his wrongs? How could he ever redeem himself?

It seemed an impossible goal, but... He snuck another glance at the screen, at his own face staring back at him, regal and proud. 

Was it really so impossible? 

The camera frame panned down to capture the sight of Peter hurrying through the crowds, occasionally mumbling a hurried “sorry” to people as he slid past them. He hastened his pace and finally managed to catch up to his group, panting, “I’m here. Mr. Harrington! I’m here!”

“Wait, wait, wait, Peter’s here,” Mr. Harrington waved Peter over frantically, sighing in relief. “Thank goodness.”

“What’s up with that?” Bucky asked quietly. “He seems excessively concerned—you guys haven't even left the airport yet, after all.” 

Peter fidgeted uneasily, feeling a little guilty as he remembered the worry he’d seen on his teacher’s face. “We were on a field trip when the Blip happened,” he answered, his disquiet obvious in the hushed tone of his voice. “Ever since, field trips have been… a sore point for us all. Mr. Harrington just doesn’t want to lose another student during a school trip.”

Bucky recoiled physically at Peter’s transparent distress, dropping his gaze with a murmured apology. 

After leaving the airport, the school group took a boat through the Grand Canal in Venice. As the boat drifted down the canal, the group truly fit the definition of tourists to a T, resembling overexcited kids more than ever as they snapped seemingly endless photos and videos of Venice.

Rhodey watched all of this in astonished wonder, starting to feel a little choked up. It was… refreshing to see Peter in his element: smiling and genuinely happy. (It was refreshing to see a teenager happy, period.)

He hadn’t realized until now that he hadn’t imagined he’d get to see a group of kids this unburdened again at all, not since the Blip.

All the while, Peter gazed longingly at MJ. He only averted his eyes, embarrassed, when MJ looked in his general direction and caught him staring. Having dropped his gaze in embarrassment, Peter never noticed that the smallest of smiles slid onto MJ’s face as she considered him for a moment before looking away.

Finally, their boat pulled up to the most dingy-looking hotel in the area. With scaffolding covering the front, the ‘hotel’ sign hanging unsteadily from a canopy, the letters already stained and faded.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Tony deadpanned. “That’s where you’re staying? Unacceptable.”

Peter startled. It was a reaction so similar to how he imagined his Tony would react that he couldn’t help but laugh. “Well, we can’t all be billionaires,” he joked. The statement was plainly blunt, and Tony had heard far too many people take offense to his excessive wealth, but somehow, Peter made it sound fond.

Fond or not, Tony scrunched his nose in shame. He’d have to send a hefty donation to Midtown High when this was all over, he decided. Whatever he thought he himself deserved, he knew Peter deserved better—definitely better than having to stay at a decrepit hotel on its last legs for accommodation, at least.

“Looks like we’re here,” Mr. Harrington announced. “They’re… doing some renovations to the place,” he noted as two construction workers made modifications to one side of the building. “Getting some upgrades.” 

“I don’t think anything short of a complete makeover could make that hotel look even remotely decent,” Tony huffed.

“Oh, this is trash,” one student mumbled, voice muffled.

“That must be the concierge,” Mr. Harrington said, valiantly ignoring the insult as he disembarked the boat. The rest of the group reluctantly followed suit. 

With a grunt, Mr. Harrington pushed open the door and walked into the hotel. “Everyone, here we are!” Taking in a deep breath, he looked around himself and absorbed the desolate interior of the hotel—which looked just as bad as, or even worse than, the outside.

On top of a table, a cat meowed, as if to agree with Mr. Harrington’s unspoken thoughts: yeah, it’s not pretty, amirite.

Mr. Harrington grimaced and took a tentative step forward, only to accidentally step into a puddle of water. He yelped and drew back as if slapped.

“Whoa!” Mr. Dell immediately blurted out in response, stopping in his tracks. “Whoa, whoa, whoa.”

“Tell me we’re not staying here,” MJ’s voice drifted through as another student muttered wow in a mixture of horror and dread.

“Come on in.” Mr. Dell shot the students a reproachful look as he herded them through, shaking off his own disgust.

“This place is sinking,” Flash noticed, his voice thick with dismay as he looked around himself.

“I think you mean: charming,” Mr. Harrington corrected hastily, feigning enthusiasm despite the bleak expression on his face.

No one bought the act.

“Sure,” Tony said skeptically. “If by ‘charming’, you mean that it should absolutely be shut down for failing to meet any reasonable hygiene standard.”

“We get it, you hate it,” Rhodey chuckled. 

“It was disgusting, true,” Ned chimed in, “but also...”

“Memorable?” Peter suggested. 

“Oh, yeah,” MJ snorted. “I won’t be forgetting that stay any time soon.” For so many reasons.

“It stinks,” Betty complained.

“Okay, everybody, drop your bags off,” Mr. Dell announced as if he’d never heard the students’ grumbles, turning to address the entire group with a forcefully cheerful countenance. “We’re gonna meet at the Da Vinci museum at 3! Let’s go!” He made a circling motion with one hand, as if to convey, get a move on, guys, roll with it.

“Vámanos!” Mr. Harrington chimed in. 

“It’s ‘andiamo’,” MJ corrected.

“Andiamo!” Mr. Harrington repeated after her, not even questioning it.

“When you’re in Rome, you do as the Romans do. When you’re in Venice, your socks get wet!” Mr. Dell chirped. 

“Sounds delightful,” Loki said sarcastically, looking appropriately horrified.

The scene changed to Saint Marco Polo’s Square, birds fluttering through the air. As the students were given some time to relax and enjoy themselves before the first item on that day’s agenda, the next few moments passed by in a flash. 

“What’s up, Flash Mob, how’re you guys doing?” Flash cheered into his phone, holding up the device in front of him using a selfie stick. On either side of him, a woman in an elaborate gown posed for the camera. “I’m in Saint Marco Polo’s—”

Someone zoomed past, a fist shooting out and hitting Flash in the groin as they did so. Flash doubled over with a pained groan as the ladies tittered beside him.

“Ouch,” Rhodey winced.

Tony crossed his arms over his chest, looking completely unsympathetic. “Serves him right,” he scoffed, Flash’s downright snobbish words to Peter still fresh in his mind.

“Tony.” Steve gave him a stern look that reeked of disapproval. “Please tell me you’re not picking a fight with Peter’s classmate. He’s a kid.”

“A kid who deserved that and more,” Tony said adamantly. “Besides, I thought you hate bullies.”

“I do,” Steve allowed, “but Peter said it wasn’t a big deal, and I’m inclined to trust him.”

Tony scowled. “Something tells me Peter wouldn’t tell us even if it was a big deal. For some reason, Peter strikes me as the self-sacrificial type who wants to deal with everything himself so he isn’t a burden—not that he would be one either way.”

“Like you, you mean?” Rhodey couldn’t resist chiming in, his words pointed and laden with meaning. 

Tony opened his mouth to argue, but the only thing that left him was air. Speechless, he could do nothing but sit back as Rhodey added astutely, “How many times do I have to say it? He’s like a mini-you. Practically a mirror image.”

“He’s better,” Tony countered, finally finding his voice again.

Rhodey’s smile was wry. “My Tony said the same thing,” he said quietly.

Tony sucked in a sharp breath, once more at a loss for words.

In another corner, Ned and Betty were sitting shoulder-to-shoulder, getting their caricatures drawn. “This is so much fun!” Betty gushed, patting her new boyfriend on the arm.

“Yeah?” Ned beamed back. 

The two shared an adoring, sickly-sweet look and chuckled together.

“You two are too cute for words,” Shuri laughed. “What about you two?” she grinned suggestively at Peter and MJ. “Did you two get a portrait of yourselves done, too?”

MJ rolled her eyes. “As if Peter would be able to sit still long enough for that,” she said knowingly. “He’d get distracted by food or something ten minutes in.”

“I would not!” Peter protested, mock offended.

“Don’t exaggerate, MJ,” Ned chimed in. Peter threw Ned a grateful look, until Ned grinned widely and finished, “It’d be five minutes, tops.”

Peter’s jaw dropped open. “Ned!”

Ned just laughed, unbothered by Peter’s exaggeratedly hurt expression. “You would,” he insisted.

Peter sniffed. “Nice to know you’ve got my back, Ned,” he said, making a show of scooting away from Ned and MJ’s side of the sofa. He was stymied when Happy, unamused, shoved him back to his original position and told him, in no uncertain terms, to “quit screwing around.” 

Peter sighed dramatically. “Everyone’s against me,” he lamented mournfully. When Ned continued to snicker away unapologetically, Peter huffed and said, “Well, it’s not as if you’d be able to sit still, either, MJ.”

MJ raised her eyebrows skeptically. Peter gulped, immediately knowing he’d made a grave mistake, even before she pointed out, “I spend half my time reading and sitting still.” 

Peter groaned, inwardly chiding himself for his own lack of forethought before speaking.

MJ shook her head, an amused smile on her lips, and said comfortingly, “Don’t worry. It’s not as if I’d ever want to get a cartoon of myself drawn.”

“Right,” Peter said with a sage nod, as if that made perfect sense. “Because god forbid you ever succumb to clichés.”

MJ grinned. “Exactly. I knew you get me.”

“Well, of course I get you,” Peter beamed and winked at her, cheesy enough that it startled a laugh out of her. He gave himself a pat on the back for that—he always loved making her laugh. “You're my person.”

MJ’s eyes widened. She found herself suddenly and inexplicably grateful for the low lighting in the room, allowing her fervid blush to go unnoticed. God, get yourself together, MJ, she scolded herself. You’re Michelle fucking Jones. You don’t get affected by anyone, and certainly not by any boy. 

It turned out Peter was the exception to that, as he seemed to be the exception to so many more of her rules.

MJ hid a smile, touched her broken black dahlia necklace through the thin fabric of her shirt, and affirmed, “I'm your person.”

When she glanced back at Peter, she found him gazing at her with open affection, his cheesy grin melting into a more genuine smile as if he could see the delicate glass petals of the flower pendant he’d given her. As if he could see her drawing comfort from it.

You're my person, too, she thought.

Mr. Harrington, meanwhile, was trying to take a photo of himself. He set his camera down on the railing of a bridge, balancing it carefully, and took a few steps backwards before posing awkwardly. The camera beeped incessantly for a few seconds before taking the picture. 

Victoriously, Mr. Harrington reached forward and grabbed the camera, nearly dropping it as he fumbled clumsily. He sighed in relief when it settled safely in his hands. He scrutinized the picture, using one hand to shield his eyes from the sun’s glare, only to lose his grip at the last second. 

The camera slipped from his hands, falling into the water with a fateful splash.

“Wow. That’s just really, really bad luck,” Bucky said. 

“I think you might have some competition for the title of ‘unluckiest person on the trip’, Peter,” Sam added.

The footage moved on to a group of students who stood clustered together, all donning masquerade masks borrowed from a nearby stall. “Three, two, one… Say pizza!” 

“Pizza!” the students all echoed in sync as the teenager at the head took their selfie. 

Elsewhere in the square, MJ was standing with her arms splayed out, pigeons perched precariously on her arm and shoulder while Brad snapped her picture.

Surrounded by pigeons, MJ was smiling, looking utterly carefree and unafraid.

“My, my. You have no fear, Michelle,” Natasha said with a smile that seemed almost impressed. “I approve.” 

MJ stared. Unlike Peter, she’d never been the type to outwardly fanboy—or, in her case, fangirl—over anyone, Avengers included. She’d certainly never succumbed to Peter’s hero-worship of Tony Stark. But this was Natasha Romanoff. The Black Widow. Growing up, Natasha had been her role model. She’d been in awe of Natasha, who’d proven herself time and time again despite being constantly surrounded by male heroes.

Natasha Romanoff had allowed her to dream and have hope in a patriarchal world. Natasha Romanoff had shown her that she didn’t have to restrict herself to the conventional roles assigned to women by society, she could be anything and anyone she wanted to be. Natasha Romanoff approved of her.

Too late, she spotted Peter grinning knowingly to himself, all too aware of the respect she held for the female hero. Scrunching her nose and twisting her mouth into a scowl, wordlessly daring him to spill her secret, she turned back to Natasha and declared, “You. You can call me MJ.”

Natasha laughed at that, eyes dancing with something resembling triumph. 

(MJ had made Natasha laugh, she thought to herself, a little in awe. Natasha was pleased because she’d been given the honor of calling MJ by a nickname.)

The rest of the audience did not seem nearly as pleased. An audible groan rippled through them all. Clint, egged on by Natasha’s smug gibes, voiced his complaints aloud: “Oh, come on. What about the rest of us?”

MJ wiped the slightly—slightly—thrilled look from her face, whipping around to give Clint a completely blank expression that, despite its absence of a glare, made Clint shiver physically. “No,” she said ruthlessly, “you’re all not worthy.”

Clint promptly proceeded to sulk.

Away from the crowd, Peter gazed on with a dejected look on his face, sulking over MJ’s interactions with Brad Davis.

“Aww, Peter.”

As the others cooed over Peter’s obvious dejection at the sight of MJ and Brad together, Peter’s breath hitched as he zeroed in on a man standing in the background, a hat pulled low over his forehead and a phone cradled in the crook of his neck. Despite the hat, Peter recognized him instantly: Quentin Beck.

Horror settled low in his gut. He’d known, of course, that Beck had targeted him for a reason—his connection to Stark Industries and, ultimately, Tony Stark. He’d known that he hadn’t been a random target, that Beck had chosen him. Eventually, he’d even come to realize that that could only mean that Beck would have had to watch him to make sure everything was in place for his plan. 

But there was a difference between knowing subconsciously and seeing the evidence of it with his own two eyes. It was deeply unsettling to see that Beck had been stalking him long before their first meeting. 

How long? he had to wonder. How long had Beck been planning his attack for?

“…ter. Peter?” MJ’s voice drew him out of his thoughts with a jarring jolt. 

Peter blinked, trying to calm his nerves and wipe his thoughts from his face as he turned to face MJ. “Sorry, I was just thinking,” he excused, giving her his best reassuring smile.

MJ frowned. “You know I’m not actually interested in Brad, right?” she said. “I never have been.”

Peter scrunched his face in confusion. Brad…? He glanced back at the screen and immediately realized what she was talking about. Oh! Right, Brad. He mustered another smile and said, “I know. I mean, I didn’t back then, but I do now.”

MJ narrowed her eyes.

“It’s fine,” he lied, doing his best to hide his fear over Beck. He didn’t want her to worry about Beck before she absolutely had to. He knew that he wasn’t the only one still haunted by Beck’s actions—he knew she still felt his impact, too. Even though Beck was gone, even though he couldn’t touch them anymore, his death hadn’t erased the fear, the worry, the uncertainty. They’d both nearly died, after all. It was rare that either of them had the chance to truly relax nowadays, chased by Beck’s mark even from beyond the grave.

He’d seen MJ smile and laugh more today than he had in weeks. If reliving their trip, if basking in the memories they’d made with their classmates, could make her forget the tension even for a little while, then he wouldn’t be the one to remind her. (If he had any say in the matter, she'd never stop smiling at all.)

The Peter on the screen, however, was unaware that he was being watched. Missing Beck completely, Peter walked away, heading towards a small shop sequestered away from the rest of the square. He entered the shop with a customary “Buongiorno!”

“Buongiorno,” the shopkeeper greeted back.

“Hi, uh… I’m looking for a, uh…”

Peter’s voice faded as the footage skipped forward in time, focusing back on a necklace. “Fiore Nero,” the shopkeeper murmured in thick Italian, holding the necklace up to the light. Hanging from a delicate chain was a black dahlia flower made of glass. The pendant seemed almost weightless as it twirled slightly in the air.

Peter took the necklace from the shopkeeper, lifting it reverently so the pendant rested at eye-level. The black dahlia flower was gorgeous, with a cluster of pearly beads nestled in the very center of a wreath of dainty obsidian petals. “It’s perfect,” Peter breathed in dreamy wonder, a shameless grin overtaking his face.

“Damn,” Shuri breathed. She’d never been one for jewelry—never been the type to fuss over her appearance—but even she could admit that the necklace was truly a sight to behold. “Nice going, Peter. It really is perfect. Especially because you’re choosing the black dahlia for its symbolism and its significance to Michelle. Meaning matters far more than appearances.”

“You can say that again,” Wanda seconded. Unlike Shuri, she’d never even been afforded the chance to care about dressing up, much less accessorizing. As an orphan in a war zone, and then as an asset living under HYDRA’s thumb, she hadn’t had much freedom in terms of her looks. For a second, she felt inordinately jealous of the Midtown High students, who were free to be kids, to enjoy an overseas trip to Europe with their friends at their side.

(She, on the other hand, had never been allowed to be just a girl. To be nothing but herself—no rules, no expectations, no nothing.) 

And then, all too suddenly, the realization that they weren’t free, that they were all imprisoned by their own demons—different from hers, but demons nonetheless—crashed into her. Wanda’s eyelids fluttered rapidly, a hazy red mist bedimming the sight of the necklace on the screen.

Wanda blinked the red fog away. “It’s beautiful,” she added in a hushed, breathless whisper. She didn’t just mean the necklace.

Their compliments faint in her ears, MJ touched her necklace again, the misshapen flower distinct through her shirt. This was the first time she’d seen the necklace as Peter had bought it: whole and flawless, no signs of imperfection chipping away at it. ‘Beautiful’ was an understatement.

But as ‘perfect’ as the original flower seemed, MJ much preferred her version. Her flower, damaged as it was, was a reflection of herself. Her life wasn’t perfect either, after all. Had never been perfect.

Perfection was an illusion. Perfection wasn’t real, and MJ wanted real—with Peter especially. She thought of Peter standing before her on the bridge, smoke billowing all around them, the remnants of a violent battle itching at her peripheral vision. She thought of his hesitant smile and his stuttered I’m sorry it’s broken, of his lips on hers and her confession of I actually like it better broken.

“I still like it better broken,” she whispered now under her breath, knowing Peter’s enhanced hearing would catch it. When she hazarded a glance at him and glimpsed the shy smile on his face, she knew he had.

The footage skipped forward again. Moments later, Peter exited the shop and walked down narrow alleyways as he headed back to his classmates, holding a small golden gift bag in his hands. He was smiling giddily to himself, visibly pleased, when MJ unexpectedly came up behind him.

“Boh!”

Peter jerked around in surprise, automatically holding the bag behind his back. “What?” 

“Boh,” MJ repeated, jogging up so she was walking in pace with Peter. “It’s the most perfect word in the world. Italians created it, and I just discovered it.”

“What does it mean?” Peter indulged.

“That’s the thing—it can mean a million things,” she explained, thrilled. “It can mean ‘I don’t know’, ‘get out of my face’, ‘I don’t know and get out of my face’. It’s the best thing Italy ever created,”—she paused, and then conceded with a laugh, “except for maybe espresso.”

“Oh, so you’ve been drinking espresso?”

“Christ, this is almost as bad as watching Happy flirt,” Rhodey whispered to himself.

Unfortunately for him, Peter had enhanced hearing, allowing him to easily catch the hushed remark. “Hey!” the teenager in question whined. “I am not as bad as Happy!”

Happy lurched upright and immediately retorted, “I was not this bad!”

“Peter, kid, your only redeeming quality is coming up with a thoughtful gift, and you haven’t even given it yet,” Rhodey deadpanned. “And Happy—really? Need I bring up your Blip beard?”

Happy cursed Rhodey’s name under his breath. Peter just huffed and muttered sullenly, “My only redeeming quality? I’ll have you know some people happen to think I’m cute.”

A man came up to them, holding a bunch of roses in one hand. Each rose had been wrapped individually, and he plucked one out of the group with his other hand and held it out to them in offering. “German? American?” he guessed. “A rose for you.”

MJ stared at him. “Boh.” 

The man looked between them for a moment, a deep frown on his face, before he wordlessly walked off. 

“Whoa,” Peter mumbled, staring in awe.

“‘Whoa’, indeed,” Sam echoed. “Damn, Michelle, you are terrifying.”

“Thank you,” MJ said.

Sam blinked. “Not sure I meant that as a compliment—”

“It’s a compliment,” MJ interrupted decisively.

Sam gaped dumbly. She refused to back down, eyes unblinking as she stared him down and practically dared him to challenge her. 

Sam wisely did not. 

MJ smirked, triumphant, and finally released him from her gaze. 

Sam shivered. “Terrifying,” he reaffirmed to himself once he was sure her attention had left him.

MJ sighed blissfully. “Boh is my new superpower,” she announced to Peter with all the satisfaction in the world. “It’s like the anti-aloha. I was born to say this word.” She looked off for a second, mind wandering, before turning back to Peter and inquiring, “So, what’s in the bag?”

“Oh, uh…” Peter looked down at the incriminating gift bag he was holding. After an extended moment, he shrugged and tilted his head sideways, giving up on an excuse. “Boh,” was all he offered MJ.

MJ raised her eyebrows, looking at him as if she’d never seen him before. “Nice,” she complimented, impressed.

They walked off together.

“Guess you two really do belong together, huh?” Tony teased.

Peter looked down and bit back a smile, wondering what his Mr. Stark would say to his and MJ’s relationship. Wondering if Mr. Stark would approve, if Mr. Stark would be proud of him.

He hoped he would be.

Unfortunately, not everyone was as pleased as Tony seemed to be about the recent developments showcased in the footage. “Why is this a part of the footage? What is the point of watching a literal bunch of kids on their school trip?” Fury grumbled. “Not that this isn’t the sweetest thing I’ve ever seen”—pure sarcasm dripped from his voice, audible enough that his neighboring agent muttered laying it on a little thick there, aren’t you?—“but don’t we have more important things to focus on? Like, say, that man in the cape and the honest-to-god rock creature he apparently fought?”

“Oh, don’t be such a killjoy, Fury,” Maria dismissed, unfazed by his ensuing glare. 

“I’m sorry, I was under the impression that we were all brought here to learn about a future threat so we can better prepare ourselves,” Fury said cuttingly, the thought of Carol Danvers fueling his rant. The memory of her sudden arrival on Earth, and the revelations that followed, had never left him. If Carol hadn’t turned out to be a force of good, SHIELD would have been woefully unprepared to face the might of the Kree Empire. 

Better than anyone, Fury knew the importance of being well-prepared and well-armed. 

“So far,” Fury continued, “I haven’t seen anything to indicate this threat except for a short five-second clip at the very beginning. How can we be expected to ‘prepare’ if we aren’t given any information?”

Maria sighed. “I’m sure we’ll be given information in time,” she said. For as long as she’d known him, Fury had always taken the protection of their planet seriously. Even before Loki had arrived, he’d seemed to believe imminent danger was heading for them from the stars. It was what had led him to designing the Avengers Initiative—which, admittedly, had indeed become necessary in the face of an Asgardian God intent on world domination. 

So yes, on one hand, Fury had a point. They needed to learn as much as they could about any future threats, Thanos especially. But on the other hand, Maria figured that if there was one thing they had now, it was time. Right now, in this safe haven EDITH had created for them, they could afford to relax. With that in mind, she pointed out, “I have no doubt we’ll learn more as the footage progresses. And even if we are still lacking information by the end of this, we can always ask the experts for advice. For now, there’s no harm in letting the kids have their fun.”

“She’s right,” Clint agreed. “Maybe this is a sign,” he mused. “Maybe we should take a page out of their book. Everyone needs to enjoy moments of peace while it lasts.” Especially because peace is often in short supply in our world, he added silently.

“There’s no point in fighting for our lives and our futures if we don’t take the time to actually live it,” Clint finished. He thought of his family, safe at home. Imagined a future where he would have the time to be nothing more than a father. No war, just peace.

Peace with his kids and his wife. There was nothing he wanted more, and he’d do anything to arrive at that future. So every time he fought, it wasn’t just for his own life—it was for theirs, too, and their home together.

Home. It would be a beautiful future. He’d help make sure of it.

It was the only option.

The camera captured the canals of Venice, frame traveling along the water. From down beneath the water’s surface, a deep growling sound emerged as surfs started to form on the surface, white and turbulent with foam. 

MJ and Peter were walking along the side of the canals together, when MJ suddenly broke away and approached the edge of the sidewalk. “Whoa, cool,” she murmured appreciatively, crouching down and peering at a large cast of crabs as they crawled out from the water. She turned to Peter with an awestruck grin for a moment, before turning back to take pictures with her phone.  

Peter watched her with a grin of his own. Suddenly, his attention was drawn away as he noticed something out of the corner of his eye; he turned, grin falling away into a confused frown, to stare at a nearby manhole cover. He inspected the grate through narrowed eyes as water started to gurgle under the cover, before abruptly being sucked underground.

Bruce’s mouth fell open. “What the…”

Steve straightened in his seat, narrowed eyes carefully taking in the scene. “Something tells me things are going to go sour, fast,” he muttered. It was unlike anything he’d ever seen before, and he had a feeling that wasn’t because of his seventy years in the ice.

Trouble was festering in those waters, and Steve dreaded the possibilities. He remembered the rock creature from the beginning of the footage with a sharp inhale. He was almost certain the two events were connected. 

The footage cut to a view of the water’s surface again, which was still rippling in torrents of rushing water. 

Sitting together on a gondola, Ned and Betty were leaning towards each other, hands pressed tightly in front of their faces, when the strong, unsteady water currents rocked their boat in a jerky motion. “What was that?” Betty asked breathlessly, filled with dread. 

As the boat continued to sway, she tried to find her own answer as she and Ned both leaned carefully over the sides of the gondola to observe the water.  

“Okay, something is definitely up,” Sam said, wide-eyed. “I’ve never been to Venice, but I’m pretty sure that isn’t the norm there. That’s goddamn unnatural.”

“No shit, Sherlock,” Bucky snorted, jabbing Sam in the ribs with his elbow. Sam scowled at him, and Bucky couldn’t resist poking fun at him, snarking, “What gave it away?”

Sam grunted in annoyance and shoved Bucky away—or, at least, he tried to. Unfortunately for him, Bucky had the advantage of being a supersoldier with biceps of steel—literally, in the case of his left arm. Sam’s glower only darkened further when Bucky refused to budge, a smug smirk on his face.

“Nice try, Birdman,” Bucky said, patting his shoulder condescendingly.

Sam grumbled under his breath but refused to take the bait, knowing better than to try his luck against the enhanced soldier a second time.

The torrents looked to be heading in a certain direction, some ways away from Ned and Betty’s gondola. Gradually, the torrents came to a halt, foam fading into the water, and the audience breathed a collective sigh of relief. 

“Wait, is that it?” Scott blinked. “Is... is it over? Whatever it was?”

“No,” Natasha answered with a hard, knowing edge to her tone. “I doubt it. Don’t let appearances fool you. Something’s coming.” Her words carried with them a foreboding undercurrent, a harbinger of worse to come.

Indeed, her premonition was proven true mere moments later—

Just as the two teenagers started to relax, a section of the canal exploded outwards in a forceful upsurge, frothing water erupting upwards like a geyser. 

“Holy shit!” Scott yelped as he jolted violently, nearly toppling over onto Sam, taken by complete surprise even despite Natasha’s forewarning. “What the frick?”

“Crap,” Sam breathed. “That does not look good.”

And then, practically sensing yet another sarcastic taunt about to burst forth from Bucky’s lips, he scowled and reached past Wanda, clapping a firm hand over the sergeant’s mouth before the man could speak. “Not a word out of you,” he warned.

The crowds instinctively burst out into shrieks, accompanied by a stampeding noise as people began to flee the square in a panic, trying to outrun rushing water as the nearby areas were flooded and boats capsized. Peter jerked in shock, eyes blowing wide open with alarm, as he watched the water shoot up higher than any of the surrounding buildings.

“Motherfucker,” Fury bit out.

Natasha’s eyes narrowed shrewdly. “I bet you’re regretting your impatience now,” she said.

Fury refused to dignify that with a reply, but inwardly, he admitted she was right. Maybe he’d been too hasty to bewail the lack of action. Maybe—maybe—he needed to take the time to appreciate moments of peace.

Ned and Betty screamed as their gondola rode on a strong surge of water and was carried all the way to the sidewalk, knocking them into the front doors of a nearby building.

Ned shivered as he rewatched the moment of his unexpected ejection from the canal. 

He’d known, at the time, that he was ultimately safe; he’d known that Peter was there, that if it came between keeping his secret and saving his friends’ lives, Peter would do the right thing in a heartbeat. But that knowledge, that reassurance, hadn’t stopped him from freezing up, paralyzed as he watched the water gush towards him in a violent and massive wave and wondered is this it? 

Fear rarely listened to reason.

“Betty!” Peter called out, rushing towards the side of the boat closest to him, where the blonde had been sitting. “You okay?” He helped her hop out of the boat hurriedly, before ushering Ned out as well. MJ, on the other side of the gondola, quickly crossed over so she stood beside them. 

“Come on!” Peter urged, hand on Ned’s arm, tugging him over insistently.

“Oh, my god!” someone in the background exclaimed, and Peter reflexively turned back to the water.

“Guys, we gotta go!” Betty yelped. Peter didn’t seem to hear her, too preoccupied with scanning for danger in the canals, where water was still swirling violently in the air. Peter paled as the water finally became more compact, consolidating into the shape of a large man-monster. 

The colossal water monster roared.

“Oh, fucking hell,” Tony rasped, face paling considerably. “Fuck. You have got to be kidding me. Not another one of these. First a creature made of rocks, and now one made of water? Shit.”

“Jesus, what is up with the threats nowadays?” Rhodey bemoaned. “First Thanos—who is on a league of his own—and now these guys – uh, creatures? What happened to good old-fashioned terrorists?”

“Our idea of ‘normal’ went to hell a long time ago,” Pepper said pointedly, trying to ignore the reminder of how her relationship with Tony had momentarily suffered as a result of it. She swallowed. “Ever since Loki arrived with an entire army of aliens, our enemies have only gotten more and more otherworldly.”

Rhodey slumped back against the cushioning of his seat, centuries’ worth of exhaustion lining his face. “Why is this our lives?”

“What is that?” Ned hissed at Peter, turning to his best friend and grabbing onto his arms in a panic.

But Peter had no answer for him. “I don’t know!” he snapped back, equally frantic.

“Great,” Peter grumbled. He sat up straighter in his seat and steeled himself, now knowing exactly what came next. This was it: the beginning of the deterioration of his trip. It hadn’t even been a day.

But Quentin Beck had never cared about Peter’s peace of mind. He certainly hadn’t cared about whether or not Peter had at least one satisfactory school trip.

He exchanged a grave look with his companions, Ned’s and MJ’s faces both growing ashen with dread as they, too, remembered what was coming. On his other side, Happy’s expression darkened noticeably, a storm brewing in his eyes. Their contented, relaxed demeanors dissipated at once, and Peter took a moment to mourn their previous bliss and wish they could have even a moment longer. Just one moment where they could forget what Beck had done to them. Forget how, even in death, his influence continued to suffocate their lives, keeping them separated until today. 

The moment passed, and as the reality of Quentin Beck sank into them with redoubled force, his reach inescapable, Peter took in a deep breath and murmured, “Here we go.”