Black Light

Peter showed you around the neighborhood, the two of you bundled up against the cold of the snow. He showed you where M.J. his high-school sweetheart had lived, just down the street. The house of his high-school bully, a guy named 'Flash,' who lived halfway between his house and the school. Various other neighborhood landmarks were shown to you with appropriate levels of ironic dramaticism, including his old school, a multiple storied building with a football field next to it, and a library on the other side.

The rest of Christmas Eve was spent in the living room, board games and TV and eggnog and candycanes keeping the three of you busy, until dinner, and then bed, where you and Peter spent the night completely occupied by each other under the lazy prompting of spiked eggnog.

The next morning was spent, finally, exchanging gifts.

Peter gave his aunt a Christmas-y sweater that said World's Most Badass Aunt across the front. You got her a book of adventurous recipes that Peter had helped pick out. May gave Peter a handmade scarf and a pair of Uncle Ben's cufflinks, and a matching scarf for you.

For Peter you had gotten him an autographed book by one of his favorite scientists, tickets to a planetarium show hidden inside the cover, and a watch. Classic, of course, and not too showy, but also with a few neat gadgets hidden inside that you'd built and added yourself, and an engraving on the back that said To Peter, with love, from Y/n. When you bought the watch you'd worried it was a bit too much for first holiday gifts together, and you weren't really in the habit of buying things for people even semi-anually unless it was birthday presents for Stacy.

Peter gave you almost comically similar presents. A newly released book you'd been dying to get your hands on, tickets to a big science fair, and last but certainly not least, a small moonstone necklace with a delicate white-gold chain. He put it on you himself while Aunt May was in the other room refilling eggnog. You decided you were never going to take it off, no matter what.

That night Aunt May insisted the two of you stay over once more in Peter's old room.

The next morning you both spent a ridiculous amount of time just sharing lazy kisses in bed, before finally wandering downstairs for coffee.

“Peter, do you have time to stay for breakfast before you go?” Aunt May asked, sitting with the two of you in the living room sipping her coffee in Uncle Ben's old armchair.
Peter nodded. “I think so. I fixed that leak in the basement you called me about a while ago, and I fixed that thing in the washer that was making the loud banging sound and-”
Aunt May grabbed his face tightly like one would a cute dog or cat. “Oh, Peter, you do so much for this old little lady,” and then she kissed the top of his head, Peter grinning sheepishly. He glanced at you out of the corner of his eye, and then she let go and made her way into the kitchen. “I'm getting started on pancakes! Why don't you two make sure you have all your stuff packed so you don't have to do it after eating?”

Peter stood, pulling you to your feet, calling into the next room; “Okay Aunt May, we'll be upstairs!”

Peter kept hold of your hand on the way up the stairs, pausing at the top for a moment so you could walk next to him down the hallway.

“Hey, Pete?”

“Hm?” He looked at you, stopping so you could enter his room first, but you stopped in the doorway to his old bedroom and turned to face him, brushing a thumb over the back of his hand.

“Thank you for taking me here, to meet your Aunt May and do this whole family holiday with the two of you. I know Aunt May means a lot to you.” You leaned against the door frame.

Peter brushed back a small flyaway hair from your ear. “I wanted you two to meet, I figured the two of you would get along.”

You smiled.

“And you never talked about any other holiday plans, or family stuff, so-”

You looked away. Peter caught on and quickly changed the subject.

“Anyway, let's pack up real quick and go eat Aunt May's pancakes. She likes to put a lot of fruit in them, so they're best when they're hot.”

Packing was quick, the two of you making short work of your small suitcases, carefully tucking each of your gifts inside, leaving out your matching scarves from Aunt May to wear when you left.

Aunt May's pancakes were delicious, verging on euphoria inducing. Peter groaned loudly with his first bite, leaning his head back.

“Oh my god, Aunt May, I can't believe I've been living without these for so long!”

“Don't talk with your mouth full, Peter,” she scolded. “No matter how good the food is.”

You laughed at the exchange, melting a little bit more with each bite of pancake you took.

After breakfast, you and Peter helped with clean up, washing all the dishes so Aunt May wouldn't have to do it herself after you both left. You stayed downstairs with Aunt May while Peter went and collected your suitcases, loading them into the car.

“I'm so glad Peter brought you home, Y/n. I haven't seen him this happy with someone since-” She cut herself off.

You nodded. “Thank you so much for having me. Peter cares about you a lot, May.”

“I care about him a lot, too. We're all we have left, now. Family is important.”

You nodded, quiet.

“I can tell he really loves you, you know.”

You grinned. “I hope so, otherwise I'd just be some lovestruck idiot following him around.”

Peter came back in through the front door. “We're all packed up,” he announced, and he swooped in to hug Aunt May tightly. “Take care, Aunt May.”

You looked away, feeling like an intruder, fidgeting with your new scarf.

“You too, Peter. Stay out of trouble.”

“What, me? In trouble? Psssshhhhht, no way!” Peter let go of Aunt May.

She fixed him with a serious look. “I mean it, Peter.” She turned towards you, and grabbed you into a big hug. “Take care of Peter for me.”

“I promise,” you hugged her back, and then let go. “I'll do my best.”

“And Peter, take care of her too.”

“I promise, Aunt May.”

“Alright, kids, have a safe drive back! Bye, Y/n! I love you, Peter!”

“Bye Aunt May! I love you too!”

“Bye!” You waved, and then you were both in the car driving away.

You pulled off your goggles, dropping them onto the work station laden with scattered half assembled bits of tech, beaming, turning over the small device in your hands. It was no bigger than your thumb, the shining silver oval smooth like a worry stone. In the center, a black button.

“Professor, I finished it,” you announced, and she appeared on the opposite side of your work table.

“It's beautiful,” she breathed. “The pieces from the repurposed Stark tech, I assume?”

You nodded. “Turns out that thing I stole at the fundraiser after-party was useless on it's own, but I figured out how to turn it into this. Should pack a big enough punch to temporarily disable an Iron Man suit, if I did it right, and everything around it for at least thirty feet.” You placed it down in the center of an empty spot among the chaos of your station. “I don't know where to test it that's safe.”

“Well. Let's hope it works when you need it.”

If you'd thought Harry's place was wild at the last party, the only way to describe the New Year's party was just flat out Gatsby levels of extravagance.
“Peter! Y/n! And this must be the famous Stacy, what an honor,” Harry led you to the drinks. “An hour and a half until countdown, I hope you're ready.” He punctuated his sentence by blowing into his party horn, the paper coil unrolling into your face with a loud honk. You batted it out of your face, laughing, and Harry threw it over his shoulder, laughing, as Peter handed you and Stacy your drinks.

Things had recently ended badly with Stacy's now ex, and you didn't miss the way she was eyeing Harry over her drink.

“Uh-uh, missy,” you pulled her away while Harry and Peter got their own drinks and started talking, loudly, about who knows what. “Don't even think about it.”

“Why, what's wrong with him?”

“His dad just died last summer, and he's still really raw about it,” you said. “Don't fuck around with that, he's a mess.”

Stacy looked back over at him. “He's pretty cute, though- Jeez, Y/n, don't give me that look!”

“Promise to be good,” you stuck out your pinky finger, and she hooked hers around yours with an eyeroll.

“Promise.”

Midnight came when you were dancing with Peter on the terrace among a crowd of strangers. Stacy was nearby with someone who thankfully was not Harry, and Harry was nowhere to be seen. Fireworks went off, filling the whole sky, as you and Peter kissed. It was romantic, you thought, as you grinned at each other and started dancing again. It was good.

“Why do you always try to ruin the fun?” You narrowly dodged a web, preforming an almost unnecessarily showy backflip.

“You call breaking into a charity function to kidnap a senator fun?!”

“Don't get your spandex in a twist, Bug Boy, I've always wanted to come to one of these, so what if I happen to be running an errand for work at the same time!”

You were standing on a long table, boots dirtying a yellow satin tablecloth. You were in the center, behind you was a pyramid of champagne glasses, and under your feet silver platters of appetizers. At the end of the table, standing on the floor like a civilized human being, was Spider-Man, knees bent as if ready to jump at you. Fat-cats and politicians with their wives ran, yelling and screaming like chickens, from the ballroom around you.

“Well, looks like you're going to be leaving the event empty handed.”

You looked back—the senator was gone from the stage. Dread filled your stomach. Mr. Adams had specifically asked for you to capture the senator at the event. To send a message, he'd said. How were you to know that Spider-Man would appear within seconds of your grabbing the senator and royally fuck it all up for you?

“You have... You have no idea what-” You were cut off by a web landing on your leg. Spider-Man yanked, pulling your feet out from under you and you landed on your back with a heavy thud and a gasp on a plate of cheese. Suddenly Spider-Man was standing over you, webbing up your hands and yanking you up.

“I think your shenanigans have come to an end, young lady-”

“Oh my-- please be gentle, it's my first time-” you said, voice dripping with sarcasm, and then you kicked him in the gut with a glowing foot, launching him across the room. Your balance was off with your hands webbed together, and you fell backwards into the tower of full champagne glasses with a thunderous crash, topped off with a handful of screams as people jumped out of the way. Fists glowing you ripped them free from the web, clambering to your feet and looking around to find Spider-Man rising from a pile of broken chair. You turned, spotting the senator's face glancing back at you in the crowd. It wasn't too late, you could still fix this and avoid the wrath of Mr. Adams.

You jumped off the table, and focused your energy into your legs upon landing on the marble floor. You ran into the crowd, which scrambled to get out of your way. You shoved a few stragglers out of the way, and successfully grabbed the senator by the back of his jacket.

“Hello Senator, how's your evening?” You began dragging him back as he struggled. “Careful, don't want me to zap you now do you?”

“Stop!” Spider-Man yelled. “You don't need to-!”

But you were already zooming up and out through the broken glass ceiling the way you'd came on your newly upgraded grappling hook, Senator in your grasp. You were long gone by the time Spider-Man followed you out.

You never did find out what A.I.M. did with him.

“How are those arrows coming, Miss Ariana Grande?” Tony Stark's teasing voice announced his arrival into your office.

“Come on Tony, let me live. I didn't know you had surveillance in here,” you groaned, looking up. “I like a little music while I work, so what if I get a little into singing along?”

“Just don't quit your day job, sweetheart.” He picked up an arrow and examined the head.

“Here for anything specific, pops? Or just dropping by to say hi?”

“Don't call me that,” he pointed the arrow at you like a scolding finger. “And no, I'm just avoiding responsibilities.”

“Tony, you can't just hide from me when I'm trying to-”

“Let's not fight in front of the kid, Pepper,” Tony winked at you.

Pepper huffed, coming up next to Tony. “Hi, Y/n. Tony has you working on Clint's arrows again?”

“He wanted me to experiment with some new gadgets I had and see how I could incorporate them.”

“Well, keep up the good work.”

“Thanks. Good luck with Tony.”

“What's that supposed to mean?”

You laughed. “Tony, from what Pepper's told me, trying to get business taken care of with you is like herding cats.”

“Rude. I'm a pleasure and a delight to work with-”

“Tony, I really just need to talk to you about-”

Tony strolled quickly out of the office, a frustrated Pepper Potts chasing after him.

Working at the Stark—or was it the Avengers Tower now? In any case, you had been working at Tony Stark's tower for about two months now, and this was becoming a semi-regular occurrence. You'd be getting deep into working on whatever personal project or assignment you'd been given, and Tony would often just pop by to see what you were doing. Eventually, as he saw the quality and ingenuity of your work, he started to entrust you with relatively small Avengers-related projects. Working on Hawkeye's more complicated arrows was your new task, as Tony trusted you to get the more complicated mechanisms right without fail, and now was even asking you to come up with new gadgets.

You'd gotten on his good side quickly, apparently.

Work as Black Light had all but stopped, since the night you'd kidnapped a senator from a fundraiser, though training with A.I.M. had not eased up in any way, and only seemed to be getting more demanding. You hadn't engaged in sparring since the slightly upsetting experience with Venom, though you kept your skills sharp with Harry. Instead your team was focusing on your strength and agility via complicated workout routines and machinery. You could almost forget that everything was leading up to a showdown with Spider-Man, and likely Iron Man too, if you stuck to your plan. But, of course, you couldn't. How could anyone forget that they were getting ready to help kill a hero?

“Y/n? Hellooooo, earth to Y/n,” a voice pulled you from your thoughts.

“Huh?” You blinked, snapping out of it and looking towards the source of the interruption.

“Are you okay? Lately you've been... I dunno,” Stacy said, sitting down on the couch with you, pausing the movie on the TV. “You seem like you're dealing with something. Do you wanna talk about it?”

You shook your head. “No, no, it's fine. I'm just in a weird head space is all, it's not a big deal.”

“Everything good with Peter?”

You reached up to fidget with the necklace at your throat, the one from Peter. “Yeah, it's great,” you said, smiling. “Honestly, it's perfect.”

“Good, I'm glad to hear that. He really does seem like a great guy, Y/n.”

Bzzt.

“He really is,” you said, picking up your phone off the coffee table.

Be at A.I.M. HQ in an hour

“What's up?” Stacy asked, nodding her chin at your phone.

You sighed. “I have to go into work. It's probably going to go late,” you said, rising from your spot on the couch and then making your way to your room.

“Is this Stark or the other one?”

“Other one. Surprisingly Stark seems to have some respect for my time off,” you called into the other room, pulling on your Black Light disguise under your regular clothes.
“Make sure you bring a scarf, it just started snowing again,” came Stacy's reply accompanied by the movie starting up again on the TV. You waved her a distracted goodbye as you left out through the front door.

“We need you to accompany Mr. Adams on a business meeting as a body guard.”

“A business meeting? Don't you guys have actual professional trained body guards?” You asked, putting heavy emphasis on the word 'trained.'

“Yes, Mr. Adams has professional body guards, who will be accompanying, but having you there is going to send the message we need,” replied the tall, thin blonde woman walking in front of you, tapping away on her tablet. You strode along behind her, boots silent while her impossibly high heels clicked on the tile with a pointed no-nonsense authority. “The clients he is meeting have no idea, as far as we know, that you work for us. Having you there makes the point that we are good at what we do, we know how to keep things confidential.”

“And I'm guessing also that A.I.M. isn't one to screw around.”

Sharp gray eyes cut into yours. “Yes. We don't 'screw around.'” She stopped to swipe her key-card across a reader, and the elevator doors slid open in front of you. Stepping inside after the woman, the doors slid shut with a calm hiss of air, and the elevator took you up to the roof where a gaggle of men in suits were waiting beside a helicopter, propeller spinning. They all stepped aside without question for the tall woman leading you, and only half of them stared at you.

“Right on time!” A cheerful Mr. Adams called out. “We're about to take off, please, hop on board.”

The blonde woman waited behind as one of the suits walked you and Mr. Adams to the helicopter, the wind threatening to knock all three of you over. You all three climbed on board, buckling up, and then the helicopter lifted off the ground. You closed your eyes under the lenses of your mask, not exactly eager to see where you were going.