Avengers Family

The Avengers were quick to adapt to the information that the teenager who spent his weekends with them was Spiderman. They’d dealt with Steve and Bucky’s accidental bouts of super strength, Bruce’s random periods of relaxing isolation, Thor’s strange eating habits, Natasha’s constant analyzing, and Tony’s eccentricities; they could deal with a bit of Peter Parker walking up the walls.

As Peter Parker became more comfortable around the team, “a bit” of strange behavior became a lot more than any of the Avengers had expected. They would probably need a little more time than they thought to adjust.

—————

“Kiss my ass bird boy” Tony yelped triumphantly as he weaved behind a building to avoid one of Clint’s non-harmful arrows.

Clint groaned into the comms and turned his attention toward Sam, who was swooping in complicated patterns close to the sidewalk. Clint was currently “it” in a giant game of tag that might’ve spiraled out of hand.

It started with Bucky and Steve, who partook in childish games more often than one would think from their stoic appearances. The super soldiers had chased each other around the large picnic blanket where the others were seated.

Then, Sam stuck out a leg and tripped Bucky at the last second, allowing Steve to get him. Sam was dragged into the game.

Clint, Peter, and Natasha followed suit. Tony joined last, leaving Bruce, who didn’t enjoy competitive games. After being tagged multiple times, Tony complained about being at a disadvantaged compared to the enhanced and highly-trained individuals. He wanted to use his suit.

Soon, everyone was using their powers, the only rules being no injuring competitors and no flying out of reach of everyone.

Clint’s arrow whizzed right into Peter’s side. “Peter’s it!”

Peter closed his eyes and waited for the appropriate amount of time before planning his attack. That’s when he saw it. A flash of blonde super solider racing behind a wall.

Peter sprinted toward Steve, determined to get his prey. Surprisingly, Peter was easily able to catch Steve without swinging from his webs.

“You don’t need to go easy on me because I’m young.” Peter pouted.

“I wasn’t.”

Peter actually looked at Steve. The man was panting and covered in sweat. He didn’t have the appearance of a jogger running at a relaxed pace.

“Peter outran Steve?” Bruce asked from his spot on the blanket, having seen the whole thing.

“No way.” Sam’s incredulous voice came through.

“Race.” Bucky suggested.

“Let’s have a good old-fashion footrace.” Tony grinned as the team converged back at the blanket. “Steve, Bucky, and Peter are going to start at this line and run to that building three miles away.”

“Ready, Set, Go!”

The men were all finished within three minutes. Peter won by a few steps. Steve and Bucky tied.

“Jesus Christ kid. You can outrun Captain freaking America.”

Peter looked down at his feet, eyes wide in shock. Apparently he hadn’t realized his potential for speed until this moment. The rest of the team stared at him in awe.

—————

“Um, Peter?” Bruce nervously called out to the teenager standing on the roof of the Avengers Tower.

Peter barely heard Bruce’s voice. He grunted in acknowledgment, but didn’t tear his eyes away from his project. He was in a daze.

“Why are you building a sheet with your webs?”

Peter took a tiny step back to observe his work, seemingly for the first time. There were many strands of webbing outstretched from a common center before him on the ground. This wasn’t like his other lab projects, he seemed driven by pure instinct to create it.

Jump

Peter grabbed the webs and promptly fell from the edge of the roof. He heard Bruce yelling for Tony as he was lifted back over the edge by the webs. Bruce sighed in relief as the kid appeared safe.

Peter just stared at the streets down below, analyzing them in minute detail.

“Spidey?” Ironman was beside him. Tony had the faceplate off to reveal a confused expression. He didn’t seem to want to disturb the webs, so Peter let him be. He didn’t stop his search for a landing spot though.

Eventually, the wind placed him on a rooftop of a nearby building.

“What was that? Peter are you feeling okay?”

Peter spun around, taking in his surroundings. “I don’t know. I just had to do it.”

When they arrived back at the tower, Bruce explained “ballooning” to Peter. Bucky and Natasha glared at him to mask the fear they’d both felt when they saw him fall past their window.

—————

Natasha’s face shot up from her book with the crashing noise from the room above. She waited a moment, but after hearing a few more bangs and several curse words, she decided to investigate.

Apparently, she wasn’t the only one. Sam was just opening the door to Peter’s suite when she arrived.

They walked in as silently as possible, on high alert for intruders.

Natasha pushed open the bathroom door and gripped the gun in her waistband. Her hand relaxed as soon as she saw in.

Peter was glaring at the shower/bathtub combination across the room. At the sound of the door, he flushed red and grabbed a towel to cover himself.

“This is one for you.” She turned around and called out to Sam, completely unperturbed.

Sam curiously stepped into the bathroom. Peter had a towel wrapped around his waist now, but he was still beet red.

“Are you okay?”

“Yep. All good. Perfect actually. You can leave now.”

“JARVIS, can you show me a censored version of the last two minutes in this room.” Sam decided it would be best to err on the side of caution with all the Skrulls they’d encountered recently, especially if Peter was acting suspiciously.

“Wait! JARVIS don’t-“ Peter’s plea was too late, the AI pulled up a video of Peter repeatedly slipping as he attempted to exit the tub.

“Um, I need a new bath mat.”

“I can see that. That’s still a ridiculous amount of times to slip though. What did you do? Douse the tub in soap?” Video Peter had now failed to leave the tub five separate times. Sam was openly chuckling now.

“You know how I’m usually sticky?”

“Ew, but yeah.”

“It’s like the opposite of that when I’m on wet ceramic.”

Sam had tears in his eyes from laughing too hard. “HEY STEVE.”

“No, no, no, no...Hi Mr. Rogers”

“Dude look at this video. JARVIS replay.”

Peter was going to die of embarrassment. He was sure of it this time.

—————

Peter was sitting peacefully, reading his textbook on a bench outside the tower. He was completely unaware of Clint approaching him to ask about the upgrades on his bow.

“Hey Spidey!” Clint swung his weapon in front of the book.

Although Peter’s “Spidey Sense” usually made him impossible to scare, Clint hadn’t approached with intent so the teen’s premonition failed him.

His yelp was high pitched as he leapt into the air. Clint’s eyes went wide as Peter just barely reached the fifteenth story of Stark Tower before webbing himself to the side and climbing down.

“What the hell man? I was trying to study.” Peter sounded exasperated, but Clint didn’t care.

“What the hell yourself. You just jumped like two hundred feet and now I’m covered in...is this hair?”

Peter’s cheeks turned a faint pink. “You scared me.”

“What did I tell you about messing around near the bottom of the tower Peter? There are people trying to work and they don’t need to be distracted by kids flying past their window.” Tony began a lecture as soon as he emerged through the front door. “Did you get a dog Legolas?”

“I’ve had one for several years thanks, but this isn’t from him.” Clint picked at a short hair on his shirt.

“Where’s it from then? And Peter what were you thinking?”

Clint shrugged as Peter quickly pointed at him. “It was his fault. I was just being a good student and he snuck up on me.”

“I wasn’t sneaking. I want to know what this compartment is for.”

Tony sighed dramatically, but both men could see that he didn’t really care too much. He was probably grateful for the distraction from work.

Peter continued. “And the hair thing just happens sometimes when I get nervous.”

“What?”

“So it’s yours! That’s gross.”

“You deserve it for sneaking around.”

“I wasn’t sneaking!”

“Wait, wait, wait.” Tony put his hands in a timeout position. “Go back to the ‘It happens sometimes thing’.”

“Yeah, it’s one of the things that started after I got the bite.” Peter was nonplussed. He grabbed his book and waved it at Clint. “I’ll help you, but only for half an hour.”

Tony stood there with his mouth agape as Clint and Peter went into the tower together.

—————

“Aha, this is similar to a tradition of my youth! All the young warriors would be sent to...” Thor droned on to Steve with stories about his childhood as they went ahead on the path. Even though they were both loaded with most of the gear, they were still faster than a majority of the team.

Bruce’s trip to the forest to retrieve a certain plant for his experiments had quickly become a team camping trip once Steve and Bucky asked to tag along. Thor, always infatuated with human activities, invited himself and Natasha, who was feeling a bit nostalgic from the tiny bit of time she spent in nature years ago, slipped her bags in without complaints. Peter, who had never been camping before, tentatively asked to join which caused Clint to get caught up in the prospect of teaching the teenager all about wilderness survival. Tony put on a show about being unable to live without his electronics, but still wanted to tag along.

They arrived at the site and set up their tents before starting on a fire. When evening came, they were well on their way to finishing dinner.

With night, came the bugs. They were in the northern areas of New York, so they’d came prepared for the inevitable onslaught of mosquitos, flies, and ticks, but the insects seemed to be completely ignoring the repellant when it came to Peter.

*SMACK* Peter clapped his hands together and wrinkled his nose in disgust when they separated to reveal a splotch of blood. Clint to his left and Bucky to his right attempted to help him keep the bugs off by brushing them off whenever they noticed, but despite the two highly trained snipers, Peter was still being bitten constantly.

“Did you eat a lot of sugar? I heard insects are attracted to that kind of thing.” Natasha chimed in.

“Or maybe it’s just your DNA? There have been studies that show identical twins tend to get the same amount of bites when around mosquitos while fraternal twins don’t. That suggests-“

Peter shook his head, stopping Bruce’s detailed description of another study. “May hasn’t gotten anything sugary lately and when we went on that school field trip to a bog a few years ago everyone else got bitten the same amount or more than me. It’s not like my DNA has...” Peter face palmed.

“So it’s a spider power?”

“That would make sense. Spiders could use some chemicals to mimic insect’s scents to lure their prey into their webs.” Bruce nodded thoughtfully at Steve’s question.

Peter groaned. “I don’t want to eat bugs though.”

“Thank god. That’d be creepy.”

—————

“Tony, I need you to go get the poles from off that roof to your left.” Steve directed clean up procedures into the comms. “Bucky, I’m going to need your help moving this shipping container on the west end. I tried, but it’s completely full of something heavy.”

“On it. I just have to finish moving these large debris chunks on the west side. Give me fifteen.”

The Avengers had gotten into the routine of helping with fixing all the damage from their battles. Months ago, Natasha felt guilty after an alien she threw smashed into an empty school yard, squishing one of the only playgrounds around the area. She personally assisted them in rebuilding and even paid for some new fixtures. It wasn’t long before every Avenger was following her example.

In the meantime, Steve arranged some cement bags back into the pile they had been in.

“Mr. Rogers?”

“Yes Peter”

“Is this the shipping container you needed moved? Where does it go?”

Steve spun around at the question, expecting Peter to be pointing at the green metal or offering to help him move the thing. It was well known that Peter was at least as strong as the super soliders, but since he was still a child, his strength wasn’t utilized as much.

Steve was shocked speechless when he saw Peter holding up the container all on his own.

“Kid, isn’t that heavy?”

“Um, I guess a little bit? It’s not too bad though, I feel like I could do more.”

Bucky approached at just that moment. “Put it down. I want to try.”

Peter obeyed and Bucky attempted to lift the item in question. He strained, but he was only able to push it sideways.

While Peter moved the container into the correct placement, the rest of the team realized it might be time to actually test his abilities. They should probably stop assuming he’s about equal to the super soliders plus the swinging thing and get the actual data.

—————

“Want to join us?” Tony invited a tired looking Peter to the couch. Him and Natasha noticed how neat the teen seemed after today’s patrol and decided to set up a movie night with plenty of snacks and blankets to make him feel better.

Peter immediately smiled and sat himself down beside Tony. When he moved, his shirt lifted slightly to reveal a mass of white on his stomach.

“Didn’t you just shower? Why are you covered in webbing? Better yet - did you web yourself?” Tony interrogated him about his spider power while Natasha looked on curiously.

“I left it on because I cut myself on patrol.”

“And you webbed it?”

“Yeah.”

“You know we have bandages, right?”

“I like the webs.”

“JARVIS, show me how Underoos got injured.” Tony called out, concerned that the reason Peter had forgone bandages was because he had a worse injury than he let on. When he saw it wasn’t that bad, like Peter has assured him, he was just confused.

“Sir, if I may, some spiders’ silk is known to have vitamins that are useful in blood clotting. The pressure exerted by Peter’s web slingers would also contribute to stopping the bleeding.”

“Did you know that?” Natasha turned to the boy in amazement.

“Not really.” Peter admitted sheepishly. “I actually did get hurt without first aid stuff on an earlier mission so I just impulsively used my webs. And it worked well enough.”

Tony resisted the urge to lecture Peter over past misjudgments and let him lay down with his head in his lap. Tony began rubbing his fingers through Peter’s hair when a strange noise came from the teen.

“Peter?”

“Hmm? Peter blinked his eyes a few times to focus on his mentor.”

“What was that?”

“Oh, I can’t help that. I can move away if it’s disrupting the movie.”

“It’s not.” Tony quickly added. “So you just purr?”

Peter nodded, only providing the explanation “spider thing”.

—————

“Woah.” Peter shielded his eyes. “Dr. Banner, you’re glowing.”

“That’s kinda a weird compliment kid.” Tony rose one eyebrow.

“First of all, I wasn’t talking to you, but you’re doing it too. Second, it wasn’t a compliment.”

Bruce looked down at his body. It looked the same as it always did when he wasn’t the Hulk. “Are you feeling alright Peter?”

“Yeah. It’s not a new glow, but this time it’s really bright.”

Clint walked in and Tony jutted his thumb at the archer. “What about birdbrain?”

“No, Clint isn’t glowing.”

“Do you think it’s something we touched in the lab? Did Peter conk his head?” Bruce muttered nervously.

“No. Like I told you, this isn’t new. You’re probably just going to be badly sunburnt. We are in Australia.”

“What does that have to with anything?” Tony asked, still examining his arm for any glowing.

“Sometimes I can see UV rays. You both must’ve absorbed some so I’m guessing you’ll have killer sunburns later.” Peter shrugged and continued snacking. “Should’ve worn sunscreen.”

Tony and Bruce were reeling from that casual admittance. Peter could see more than the visible light spectrum?

“So you have the super power to predict sunburns?” Clint laughed.

“If that’s a super power, than I guess I’m super too.” Natasha added from the corner no one had seen her go into. “Only idiot geniuses wouldn’t think to put on sunscreen before going out into direct sunlight to collect plants.”

Sure enough, Tony and Bruce woke up beet red and in pain.

—————

Christmas music drifted through the top floors of the Avenger’s tower. Steve and Peter loved Christmas so even though it was still November, the team wasn’t shocked with the song choice or the fact that Steve was wearing a Santa Hat.

Bucky walked in on his best friend and the teen earlier that morning. They were working together to untangle and test all the strands of lights. Bucky eagerly joined in the festivities, albeit getting a bit more frustrated than he would like over a strand of icicle lights.

“Did Santa come early?” Clint joked as he entered the living room, which was decked out with fake snow and garland, but still had boxes of other decorations all over the floor. “I like it.” Natasha commented, diving into the bin with all the stockings and stocking holders.

The window opened and Steve shivered. Clint yelped in surprise when he saw Peter crawl upside down through the top of the window and then kicking it shut.

“The outside looks great!! Thor even stopped over to help me arrange all the reindeer on the roof!!” He excitedly reported to Steve.

Natasha grinned at his enthusiasm, but Clint shuddered a bit before giving into the Christmas cheer. “It still looks creepy as hell when you do that without the suit.”

Bruce cautiously approached the kitchen, searching for the source behind the giant thump. He’d been in his lab all day, and just when he was about to get food, there was a loud noise in the kitchen. His nerves settled when he saw Bucky and Clint laughing hysterically at Steve and Sam, who were covered in flour. Thor was apologizing for squeezing the sack so much while Natasha and Peter continued decorating the gingerbread men, undisturbed by the latest, in what was probably a chain of, kitchen disasters.

Natasha held one out for Bruce to sample, letting a bit of her pride in the excellent decorations show through. Bruce smiled fondly at the tray of cookies.

He could easily tell who had frosted each group. The cookies wielding swords were clearly from Thor, who had been enamored with the story of the Nutcracker, “a valiant and noble warrior.” Natasha’s and Steve’s were all meticulously decorated and very traditional, the only difference being that Natasha had chosen to include some in festive Russian wear. Peter’s were sloppier, but he had crafted a gingerbread version of each Avenger and was currently hard at work writing ‘Karen’ on one. Sam’s and Clint’s has apparently gone to war because the majority of theirs were missing or broken. Bruce could see the arm of one, that said ‘Birds Rule’, drooping because of the copious amount of frosting used to make a bow. Bucky’s were all red or all green. He refused to try and do the little details because he “wasn’t made for that and they taste good either way.”

Later in the night, Tony came back from his business trip to see Peter repelling down from the ceiling toward a gigantic Christmas tree with a Santa ornament that was made of legos. Thor was merrily refilling Steve’s and Bucky’s mugs with eggnog that was probably spiked with Asgardian liquor. Sam and Natasha were laughing and chatting as they picked bits of tinsel off the floor. Bruce and Clint were helping hang ornaments on the lower part of the tree. They were all in ugly Christmas sweaters.

Tony rubbed his eyes. “Thanksgiving was only a week ago.”

“Which means it’s nearly Christmas!” Peter jumped from the ceiling, landing next to and startling Sam.

Tony shook his head.

“We saved you the star.” Steve stretched his arm out to hand Tony the topper for the tree. “You might have to use the suit to get it up there though.” Tony couldn’t stop the smile from stretching across his lips.

And as they settled into the mountain of fluffy blankets covering the couch to watch ‘The Polar Express’, each one of them thought about how grateful they were to be there. None of them cared that Thor’s face was taped over Baby Jesus in the nativity set or that Bucky would steal all the baked good not 24hrs after they were done. They didn’t mind that Clint would be hanging mistletoe everywhere, only to declare a holiday themed prank war when no one would participate. They would go to mass with Steve on Christmas Eve and sing along when Thor sang “new” Christmas carols loudly and off-key.

They were just happy to have found a home and a family in the Avengers. Despite all the quirks, they couldn’t love their family more.

“What the hell is that?” Peter clamored away from Tony.

“Oh, sorry kid, forgot I put peppermint extract in my hot chocolate. You should probably go sit next to Steve.”

“Buck and I were handling the candy canes earlier so that’s probably not a great idea.”

“You can sit with me!” Clint shifted to make space next to him, but as soon as Peter sat down, there was a mini explosion of green and red glitter. Bruce nearly hulked out and Sam ended up next to Thor under the mistletoe when he backed away.

There were a lot of quirks.