Chapter 2
He stepped aside as another red clad figure stalked through the portal.
Yep, he was dead.
Peter tried to sink into the truck as he watched Daredevil stalk through the portal. As the portal closed, his Dad (in full Daredevil gear) made his way across the airport to stand just ahead of Dr Strange.
Silence.
No one dared move or make a sound.
“Daredevil?”
Except for Hawkeye.
‘Oh wait.’
Peter remembered the teamup between Daredevil and Hawkeye when the archer had tracked down the remains of a Mafia that were hiding out in Hell’s Kitchen several months back.
The night of the teamup Peter had been made to stay at home (to stay off the Avengers radar) while his Dad went with the SHEILD spy to take down the last members of the Mafia. His Dad had also somehow convinced Frank to babysit Peter to make sure he didn’t leave the apartment.
The Mafia were taken down, Daredevil and Hawkeye become allies (sorta) and Peter learned that pranking the Punisher is NEVER a good idea no matter how bored you get.
Daredevil didn’t even acknowledge the questioning tone, Peter could tell that all of his Dad’s senses were focused on him.
“Spider-man!”, Peter visibly flinched, his dad sounded really mad.
Peter didn’t notice the looks he was receiving from the heroes on both sides who had noticed the flinch.
Peter swallowed and opened his mouth to speak.
“Heh……..h-hey, I can….. I can explain.”
And yep, that was a growl.
“Oh you better and you’re going to have a long time too because you are grounded until college!” Peter shrunk under Matt’s ‘Dad’ voice.
The other heroes present were all staring at the due in shock now, no one seemed to know what to do.
“We’re leaving. Now!”
Hanging his head in shame, Peter stood.
Peter knew he’d screwed up, he hadn’t seen his dad this mad since the time Johnny had come back from a trip to space with several bottles of a glowing blue liquid that Johnny had convinced Peter to try.
Turned out the glowing blue liquid was a type of alcohol that was designed for alien species with high metabolisms. Even after learning this, Peter had ended up drinking half a bottle of the stuff, which was later dubbed ‘Super alcohol’, and well, Peter couldn’t remember most of the night. What he did remember was Sue finding them laughing their assess off (Johnny had only had a shot but was still as drunk as Peter) and her calling Matt.
Peter also remembered the super hangover he had the next morning while he received several lectures about how dangerous and irresponsible and stupid he’d been and………huh, come to think of it, Peter had been grounded until college back then to.
So there was hope.
As Peter prepared to leap off of the truck, the other heroes finally seemed to find their voices.
Mr Stark took a step forward with his arm up, “Whoa, hold up. One, Strange, long time no see, heard you joined a Magic Circle. Two.” Mr Stark was now pointing at Daredevil, “Who the hell are you and why is Spider-man leaving with you?”
Daredevils focus finally leaves Peter to address Mr Stark, his ‘Devil glare’ boring holes in Stark’s skull, “Daredevil, I’m taking Spider-man because he shouldn’t be here.” Daredevil stalked forward several steps towards Stark, “You dragged him into to this idiotic fight and it is taking a lot of restraint to stop myself from teaching you just why they call me the Devil.”
Matt was now in full angry protective DadDevil mode.
This was not good.
With a final resigned sigh, Peter leapt of off his perch.
And no he didn’t do a triple flip to impress anyone, he was just…..stretching his muscles.
Landing softly on the tarmac, Peter made his way towards his dad and Dr Strange, shield still attached to his arm.
Taking a quick inventory of where all the Avengers were, Peter caught the face of Mr Stark looking very confused with a bit of worry mixed in.
This time Mr Stark’s question was aimed at him, “Kid? You know this guy?”
Peter paused in his ‘Walk of Shame’ to answer, but before Peter could utter a word he was interrupted.
“Wait.”
Peter turned his head toward Captain America, a look of realisation crossing his face.
“You’re a kid!”
That seemed to gain everyone’s attention.
“KID?!”
“Shit.”
“He just said kid.”
“Oh my God.”
“Tony you brought a kid into this?!”
Everyone was shouting at each other now.
Peter was a little offended, so what if he was a kid? Spider-man had taken down tones of supervillains by himself – Peter had even punched Dr Doom in the face once, much to Matt’s displeasure and Johnny’s amusement.
Peter noticed his dad start to fidget, he was probably trying to keep up with what was being said and by who. Dr Strange seemed to be taking in the scene with an air of indifference.
Finally reaching his dad, Peter spoke.
“Soooo, how much trouble am I in?” Peter tilted his head up and rocked back and forth on his heels, trying to dissipate his nervous energy.
Matt’s attention snapped back to Peter.
“What the hell did you think you were doing!?”
Peter slumped, ok that grounding until college might actually be a real possibility judging from Matt’s angry tone.
Peter shifted on his feet, bringing his hand to rub the back of his neck, “I….thought I could help.” Came the mumbled reply.
“With what?” Matt was still shouting, the duo ignoring the shouting match raging on.” You have no business being dragged into this mess, just because the Avengers can’t act like adults and talk doesn’t mean you should help them fight! You know better than this!”
Okay, Peter felt terrible. He’d kinda got caught up in the whole ‘Iron Man was asking for His help’ thing, to think everything through.
Matt was calming slightly, “Your lucky Strange has a tracking spell on you and told me when you left New York.”
That explained how his Dad found him and why Dr Strange was here.
Matt sighed, “We are going home, and you are grounded until I tell you otherwise. No sleepovers, no having friends round, no going to Reed’s lab, you will have someone with you on patrol, no disappearing off with Deadpool, and you will be having training sessions with Logan and Danny.”
Peter gawked under his mask as dread started running through him.
Don’t get him wrong, Logan and Danny were cool and Peter liked hanging out with them, but when it came to training!? No, no way.
Logan’s training sessions (and Peter was sure the rest of the X-Men would agree with him here) was a new form of torture, while Danny’s sessions would consists of being quiet and sitting completely still for hours on end meditating.
“Come on Dad. Are the training sessions really necessary? I mean, technically I didn’t even fight anyone yet.” Peter was not ashamed of the fact his sentence came out as a whine.
Matt looked like he was ready to start a lecture, probably one Peter had heard before, when Dr Strange decided to enter the conversation.
“As much as I understand the need to lecture Spider-man, again, seeing as he never seems to remember. I believe it is better you do it back in New York, where you don’t have an audience.” Strange finished off by sweeping a hand at said ‘audience’.
Right, how could Peter forget the fact that he was being grounded in front of the Avengers.
Who were still arguing about him being a kid.
Yay.
After sliding the shield off of his shoulder, Peter let out a loud whistle in Mr Stark’s direction to try and catch his attention.
The arguing abruptly stooped and all eyes were on him….again.
“Errrrr….so I gotta go…..sooooo...here…” Peter threw the shield to Mr Stark who caught it, a frown appearing on his face.
And nope, in no way was Peter thinking of how cool it would be to use Captain America’s shield in ultimate frizzbe.
Peter turned around to leave, only to be stopped again by Captain Rogers calling out.
“Hold on.” Captain America took several steps forward, with the rest of his team not far behind.
“I don’t know any of you very well, but I have heard of you. We could use your help.”
Captain America was asking for his help thi…..’NO, no, remember this is how this whole thing started and the reason you are grounded and have to focus on not fidgeting or falling asleep when meditating with Danny.’
“Sorry, this is not my fight. Besides I’ve already started writing up my contract with the UN Accords counsel.” Dr Strange drawled, seeming to be bored with the situation now.
Daredevil tilted his head at the Captain, “The Accords don’t affect me or Spider-man. They have nothing to do with us.” The last part, Peter knew, was aimed at him.
This was when Peter started losing track of what was going on.
Hawkeye piped up then, his face scrunched up in confusion, “This isn’t about the Accords.”
That earned him several looks from Iron Man’s side.
Vision was the one who spoke next, “The Accords are why we are here, Captain Roger’s, Mr Wilson and Miss Maximoff have refused to sign. There is also the reason that Sargent Barns is wanted for suspicion of his involvement with the bombing on the UN building.”
Black Panther tensed as Captain Rogers exclaimed, “It wasn’t him!”
“He still needs to be taken back to the compound Rogers. We don’t know what his mental state is like.” That was Colonel Rhodey.
The shrinking guy, ‘Ant Man?’, stepped forward then, hands up as a way to get everyone’s attention, “Hey, hey, hold up. Hold on a minute, I was asked here because Captain America needed help stopping this Zemo guy from waking up a load of Winter Soldiers.” He finished, a confused look crossing his face.
‘Wait…..what?’
Now Mr Stark looked a mix of confused and shocked, “What are you talking about? Zemo has his hands on more Winter Soldiers?”
Hawkeye turned to Captain Rogers “Steve what’s going on? You said Tony wouldn’t help you.” He narrowed his eyes. “Do they even know what’s going on?”
Mr Stark then stepped forward, “No. No, I do not know what’s going on now..” he pointed a finger at Captain Rogers, “..what’s going on Rogers.”
Wanda let out more swirls of energy as she spoke, “He doesn’t have to tell you anything Stark! You arrested him, you locked me up!”
“HEY. One, the police arrested Captain Spangles for bringing down a tunnel. Second, I didn’t lock you up, I was trying to protect you since you don’t have a visa anymore.”
“Yeah right…”
“Can we get back to the Winter….”
“I’m really confused…..”
“Alright, calm down…”
“Can we move on now….”
“Who’s….”
And so the arguing started again.
Peter turned to his Dad for answers as to what was going on, only to see him stepping forward, towards the heroes with determined strides.
Peter decided to leave his Dad to it, Clair always complains about how Peter and Matt were as stubborn as each other.
Instead, Peter stepped back next to Dr Strange. Cloak giving him a pat on the head once he was close enough.
Batting away his odd friend, Peter leaned forward asking, “Do you know what’s up Dock.” Peter bit his lip to stop from grinning, Strange hated it every time he used that line, but Peter couldn’t resist.
Giving an exasperated sigh along with a fond eyeroll, “I have a few ideas….” He mused, “But I wouldn’t worry, I think your Dad’s about to sort everything out…” He tilted his head at the scene that was about to unfold, “This should be rather entertaining.”
Peter turned his attention away from his magic friend, towards the sight of his Dad approaching the shouting hero’s.
Peter briefly wondered if his Dad was going to punch one….or several of the Avengers.
Once Matt reached what he thought would be an appropriate place, he straightened his stance and squared his shoulders, taking a deep breath.
“QUIET!”
Several of the hero’s jumped at the sudden outburst that interrupted their arguing, but it had the effect Matt was after. All of the Avengers attention was now on him.
“Now that I have all your attentions, you are all going to stay silentand listen, and we are going to sort this out like adults.” Peter knew that voice, that was the voice his Dad used in court when stupid people weren’t listening, it always seemed to have the underlying tone of his Devil voice but Peter supposed that was how he could hold an entire courtrooms (and apparently the World’s Mightiest Heroes) attention.
“Now. Seeing as all of you are acting like children who can’t talk without fighting, I’m going to be the adjudicator and sort this shit out.”
Matt looked to all of the hero’s, silencing any protest with his ‘Devil glare’.
“One person talks at a time. No interruptions. No fighting. No powers. You are all adults, so start acting like it. If anyone starts something, Dr Strange will teleport you to Everest to cool off”
Matt took a deep breath, he was supposed to be going over a court case with Foggy before Strange called about Peter leaving New York. He’d thought he’d just run into Deadpool again and got sucked into one of the Merc’s ‘ideas’.
He’d been planning to berate Peter for lying and running of. Of course nothing involving him or Peter ever seemed to go to plan, like the time Peter ended up befriending the King of the Inhumans after rescuing his weird ‘dog’……and now he was trying to stop a potential disaster the Avengers had somehow created.
“Alright, let’s begin.” He tilted his head in Roger’s direction, “Captain Roger’s, what’s going on with the other Winter Soldiers?”
Rogers looked at Barns before answering, “Zemo, he found about other Winter Soldiers that HYDRA created. He’s going to wake them up.”
Stark was about to yell out before Matt raised a hand.
“And you didn’t think to tell your whole team about this.” Matt had to resist the urge to pinch the bridge of his nose.
“They’d already signed the Accords, their hands would have been tied.”
…….
…….
“….Your an idiot.” Matt deadpanned.
Captain America, Peter noted, looked like he’d just been slapped.
“Have you even read the Accords?” Peter briefly wondered if the answer to that would earn Captain Rogers a punch in the face or not.
Cap fidgeted where he stood, Peter could sympathise with that, Daredevil and lawyer Matt Murdock had that effect on people.
“…Not…not the whole thing.”
Silence.
Matt sighed, making a plan in his head, he spoke up again, “Right, here’s what’s going to happen. Stark, call the Accords Counsel, let them know what’s going on. Rogers, give the coordinates of wherever these Winter Soldiers are to Dr Strange. Strange, if you could open a portal to those coordinates please.” Matt paused, checking for any signs that someone wasn’t listening. “Once this is over you are all going to read the whole Accords and sign.”
Captain Rogers raised an arm, “Now hold on, we…”
Peter was more amused than he should be at the audible click that came with Captain America snapping his mouth shut once Daredevil pinned him with another glare.
“No arguments. Tell Strange the coordinates.”
The hero’s finally started moving.
Peter felt a small buzz at the back of his skull, turning to the side, he found that Hawkeye had appeared beside him.
Sneaky spy.
“Hi.” Peter figured he couldn’t get in to much more trouble with his Dad at this point, besides, his Dad and Hawkeye had a sort of friendship/alliance thing.
“Hey kid.” Hawkeye tilted his head at Peter, “Didn’t realise Red was your Dad, but it does explain a lot, especially the whole protective dad vibe he was giving of when he first showed up.”
He shifted his pose so he was facing Peter more, “You know, before SHIELD fell, when they were looking into you, they figure you two were a mentor protégé thing going on.”
Peter thought for a moment, “Well he did train me, along with some of our other Superhero friends.”
Before the conversation could go any further, another sparking ring had appeared with a snowy, mountain landscape on the other side where Captain Rogers and Dr Strange stood.
‘Time to go.’
Peter was cold.
Peter hated being cold.
A downside to his spider DNA that Hank, Jean, Clair, Sue and Reed had found out after the incident where Peter had been thrown into the Hudson River in the middle of winter which had caused Peters body to go into a state of hibernation, was that like other spiders, Peter didn’t cope well with the cold.
He was walking up a path with the other hero’s up the mountain, Cloak had abandoned Strange to wrap itself around Peter once it had notice his shivering.
The only ones who were talking was Clint, who was trying to catch up with his Dad, and Colonel Rhodey, who was updating the Accords Counsel of the situation.
Concentrating on the warmth from Cloak, Peter didn’t notice that Mr Stark had moved to his side until his Spidey-sense buzzed.
“So am I gonna have an angry Vigilantly, who there is still large speculation on if he is the actual Devil or not, coming after me?”
Peter mused on the question for a minute, eyes drawing to where there was an opening on the mountain-side, “Wellllll……maybe?”
Peter could feel eyes on him.
“What do you mean maybe?”
“Well, I kinda depends on how mad he is after this is over. Like....he’s mad now and I’m grounded for…for..I don’t know how long, but there was this one time I ran into this guy called Ghost Rider and….”
“We’re here.”
Peter looked up at Captain Rogers call.
This was when things went both up and down-hill.
The Winter Soldiers were all dead.
Zemo basically admitted everything, including bombing the UN building.
But then he showed the video of Mr Stark’s parents being killed by the Winter Soldier.
Then Captain Rogers admitted to knowing.
And then Mr Stark, Captain Rogers and the Winter Soldier were being restrained to stop them from attacking each other.
Zemo was arrested and Dr Strange opened a portal to the Avengers Compound.
Before anyone could stop them, and before anyone sent by Ross or the Accords Counsel could show up, Dr Strange opened a portal to the New York Sanctum for him, Peter and Matt to make a quick exit.
All in all….despite being grounded….Peter still thought the past two days had been awesome.
Now it was just a matter of getting out of training with Logan….
Epilogue
“Tony?”
“Hey Pep, what’s up.”
“Why are we being sued for child endangerment?”
“…….”
“….I….may have pissed of the Devil.”
END