webhead.

Cassie folded her arms over her chest and snorted as the kid sputtered into infinity, debating internally for a moment if she should interrupt his speech and tell him that the vase was a replica and practically worthless. About halfway through his rapid-fire uestionaire, she decided that an alternative solution would be more fun. Things had been far more entertaining with Kon and Tim around, but the desire to make trouble was far too engrained in Cassie’s soul to disappear after a few weeks of company. “Dude, Diana’s gonna be so pissed. Do you know how old that is? It’s an original Sophilos. You’re just lucky it wasn’t one filled with Patroclus and Achilles’ ashes. Imagine the cleanup.” 

She managed to keep her face blank for a few seconds of slow-motion panic before the grin won out and seeped across her lips. “Kidding. You’re not the first person to break something here, and you definitely won’t be the last.” Tilting her head to side, Cassie hummed and tapped her finger to her lips, “But you might be the only one to do it on your first day. Color me impressed.” She sat down in one of the stupidly expensive, ergonomic swivel chair and leaned back so that she could prop her feet on top of the table because there weren’t any adults around to glare at her. “You can’t find any of that on your little doohicky, Inspector Gadget? If that’s from the tech wizards here, there’s more on it than YouTube.” 

—

Oh my god Achilles and Patroclus? Those dudes were old as hell. Were the ashes mixed together? That was weird, but at least it was romantic. Was that a conversation they’d had? Like, hey, when we die, lets eternally mix ashes? He almost wanted to ask but he was too busy having a full brain meltdown over having destroyed an original Sophilos. That sounded important. Anything that had a name that included the phrase ‘original’ was definitely important. “Oh shit, alright, look, here’s what I can do I can...like, color in the crack, or 3-D print a mold that will meld the crack—which is kind of funny phrasing if you think abou—nope, no! Now is not the time for jokes now is the time for strategic problem solving and—” 

Tch. Wow. “You know what? You could have given me an honest-to-God heart attack Cassie and what then? Are you CPR certified?” He was sure she was, but the point needed to be made. His adrenaline had gone from a solid 20 to an 80 and was now slowly dropping back down as he casually set the vase back on the table. He didn’t even remember picking it up again, but he must have in his swirl of Sophilos-panic. He took a breath and pretended to wipe his brow before he leaned against the doorframe. “Well, you know what I always say, when you get Spider-Man you get the very best. I’m just trying to keep up with my expectations and hit a home run on the firsts. I’m planning to be the first to accidentally set off the fire alarm on day one too, so be prepared for that.” 

“You didn’t,” Helena agreed, though her tone was maybe—maybe—less cutting than it had been. She’d watched the way Peter’s eyes lingered on the stained glass, the way he hadn’t wanted to look at her when he admitted he’d made a mistake. Pride wasn’t a sin she was unfamiliar with. It was pretty damn up there in her life, actually, tucked snugly right under wrath. “It was beyond stupid to sign. But,” Helena allowed, before Peter could interject the way he probably wanted to. The way she would have wanted to if someone decided to lecture her on her past mistakes, of which she’d had many, in a church. “Maybe it wasn’t as stupid of you as someone else.”

Damn her stupid bleeding heart. Dinah and Babs were always telling her she should be more forgiving. So. 

Helena sighed, leaning her arm on the back of her pew. “Not saying you weren’t an adult capable of making your own decisions, but. You were still pretty young. And it was a lot. So.” She shook her head, mouth twisting. “I’m not good at this. Obviously. Sorry.”

—

What a get-out-of-jail-free card that ended up being, eh? If Peter knew how much people would let him get away with just by revealing his age, he would have years ago (or maybe not, because right along with that came a distrust in ability. If people knew Spider-Man was 15 and swinging around NYC sky scrapers he might have lost some credibility). He wasn’t sure how he felt about it. Everyone was right, he had been young. But he’d never felt young. Peter wasn’t even 25 but he felt like he had the same years of experience as some of the older heroes. Besides, all things said and done, Peter was always one of the smarter people in the room despite his age. Was it fair to accept that card? He didn’t know. 

What he did know was that Helena didn’t need to apologize to him. He was about to correct her but hey, who was he to shut down a sorry. “It’s all good,” he said instead. After a moments hesitation he sat down next to her on the bench, far enough away for a bubble of space but close enough to carry on their conversation. Pews were always so uncomfortable. He figured that was an intentional design to keep people from falling asleep. Why wouldn’t they be upgraded otherwise? Years and years of seating was only maintained for one reason. “I’m sorry I made your life harder for a while.”

Oh. Well. See, in all his Petfinder scrolling, it actually hadn’t occurred to Kon that maybe, just maybe, someone did already have a dog. He’d only been here for a couple days, and he had assumed that in that time he would’ve seen any dogs that were running around, but what did he know? It was a goddamn castle. For all he knew, he’d only been in the East Wing and the dog lived in a tower somewhere, or something. No—he had superhearing; he definitely would’ve heard a dog. In fact, he closed his eyes and perked his ears for a moment now, just to make sure—yeah, no, no dogs. “I just checked, and man, I really don’t think there’s a dog here. Which is a huge bummer, now that you mention how weird it is that somebody didn’t just bring their dog over. I guess I dunno how many of us actually had dogs.” Kon did, for what it was worth. Maybe that was why he was so homesick for one now—little taste of normalcy after everything had been uprooted.

“Wait, what the fuck is an Ibizan hound?” Sorry, Lady Sybil; for now, her ladyship would be relegated to the second tab as Kon Googled ‘Ibizan hound.’ Oh, yeah. Those were some funky little dudes. Peter would be really into this kind of dog, based on everything Kon knew about him from their days together in the ISATF. “Man, they’re like greyhounds with bat ears. Oh shit. What if we get one for Batman? He’d have to accept it, right. Like, homie’s not totally heartless. We’d be all, ‘look, it’s your kin, it’s Batdog,’ and then he’d grumble all pissy and say something about how he doesn’t have time for this, which is his taciturn approval. Because, c’mon, I practically invented ‘it’s easier to ask for forgiveness than permission.’”

And so he nodded along to Peter’s suggestion, tapping notes into a separate doc on his phone. Farm vibe, sure, sure. They had farms around here. Kon knew because he’d already been pressured to till the land or whatever the fuck, ugh. “Yeah, yeah, that’s a good point. Tons of private land. The rescue says they gotta do a home inspection… I mean, I think that’s fine. I’m gonna check off ‘yes.’ And say that I can fly the dog over myself; let them think I’m just some super rich benefactor who wants one very specific rescue dog. That’ll earn me points, right? Everybody loves a rich, eccentric benefactor.” He gestured broadly to the castle, as evidence.

—

He was about to ask how Kon just checked, but then immediately realized what a ridiculous question that would have been. Duh. Super hearing. Man, talk about a blessing and a curse. Peter wasn’t sure he wanted to ability to hear that well (though he didn’t have to have super hearing to know that Cameron Kermani had been mocking him the entire time his powerpoint on mass spectrometry glitched on the transitions). No dogs though? Definitely a shame, even if he knew why. Keeping an animal wasn’t exactly an easy task when you were hiding out on a secret base with the potential of an attack. It wouldn’t be the best look if Peter were more concerned with evac’ing Lady Sybil than he was with helping his fellow teammates. Which he certainly would be. Did you see her face?

“It’s a fantastic dog, is what it is. Look at that thing it’s like a walking meme. Like it just got stretched a tiny bit all over the place on it’s way into the world. I want one.” Peter tilted his head at the picture and frowned in the globally understood ‘not bad’ fashion. Here, said expression roughly translated to I guess you’re right. “It kind of does look like a bat dog. See, what I can do for you is verify the probability of this plan succeeding, but I’m gonna need my name redacted on the official proposal because I’m not trying to get on the bat radar. Batdar.” 

.

Well, the first statement wasn’t wrong. Though Diana did worry, sometimes, that she was getting fairly close to going mad from trying to balance the Nomads’ personalities and interests. She missed the League often. Why was defusing apocalyptic events in other worlds and dimensions so much less stressful than playing leader to a castle full of professional heroes? “Thank you, Peter. I have full faith in our abilities if anything goes wrong,” she replied with a smile, leaning her hip against the edge of the balcony as Peter settled down to sit. No reason to be nervous of heights when one of them could fly and the other regularly swung across the skyscrapers that shaped New York’s skyline. 

Peter’s easy jokes had Diana chuckling, the tension easing from her stance a bit more. But then he nudged the conversation along, and her smile softened into something softer. More thoughtful. “I know you are, Peter. I was happy when you arrived, you know.” Diana watched the boy’s—man’s, really, now—expression, her eyes gentle. “And I don’t think you need to feel so guilty. We all make mistakes, and you truly thought you were doing the right thing for everyone. How could you not, when your own heroes convinced you of as much?” 

Peter had barely been an adult, really, when the Accords had been passed. Diana couldn’t fault him for that, not truly. He hadn’t been the one who’d broken her heart. He hadn’t been Clark. Diana shook the thought away. Grudges were pointless. “But if you really do want to help,” she said, tone lightening further, “you can distract me for a while longer. How is your aunt?” 

Diana had, of course, read the reports on everyone’s identities when they had signed the Accords. Both the ones written by the media, and those written by Bruce. She’d never met Peter’s Aunt May properly, but she knew enough to know it was a question worth asking.

—

He wasn’t sure what it was about Diana that made him lower his guard. He came to the conclusion that some people just had that air around them—a neutralizing zone that sucked the attitude right out of you (which was great because Peter was pretty sure attitude was already giving him oily skin). Whatever it was, whatever the reason, he didn’t feel like he had to lie to her about anything. He didn’t plan on starting now. “Honestly, on paper? It still seemed like a good idea. I kind of get it, you know? Everyone wants transparency. That’s what free and open societies are supposed to have.” Peter scratched the back of his neck and shrugged one shoulder. “But it didn’t turn out that way. If I should have known anything, it’s that people in power always mess things up in the end. Or the middle. I guess in this case even the beginning.” 

That was a viewpoint he hadn’t been willing to share with many others. He knew that kind of reasoning would fall on deaf ears—it was too early to do that level of ‘what went wrong’ analysis. People were still suffering from the backlash. But he trusted Diana to take in his position and maybe help him find a way to rectify it all. After all, she’d been against it from the start. “I know it’s not the time. And I never thought anyone would get hurt. I guess I trusted people to be better...which is really insane because I’ve witnessed someone put anchovies on a peanut butter sandwich so obviously everyone has the potential to be a monster.” 

Diana mentioning Aunt May brought a very quick and genuine smile on his face. She both remembered and cared, which was more than he expected from anyone dealing with the amount of things that Diana had been dealing with. “Oh she’s—” 

Kurt had remained seated during this entire exchange, not making much of a move to help. Peter was a capable enough hero on is own, and even if Kurt hadn’t spent most of his hero life operating within the same few blocks, he looked like he had it under control. It was a rather odd place to put a vase, but many years of living in a mansion, one that was usually nicely decorated, had taught Kurt to be careful around corners. Especially with Kurt’s habit of sticking to walls and ceilings, and sometimes falling, he had perhaps done similar things.

He was also well aware that many people here did not like Peter Parker. Becoming the mascot for masked heroes outing themselves didn’t mesh well with many people’s opinions. A lot of Kurt’s fellow X-men didn’t like Spiderman before all of this went down, and this certainly did not help in any way. Nut Kurt never wanted to hate someone, especially someone so young. In Kurt’s eyes, redemption was always possible for everyone. 

The book that Kurt was absentmindedly thumbing through was set down once Peter had righted the vase, and was starting to question Kurt directly.

“Slow down, meine freund. You are asking a lot of questions.” Kurt said, pushing the hood on his sweatshirt back. “I have only been here a few days longer than you have. We are both newbies, ja? I think the entire point of the team is to not be noticed. And I am simply here for the same reasons as everyone else, to help.”

—

Ah, Nightcrawler. Peter actually like him. Not at first, because if history had anything to show for it would be that Spider-Man sometimes had a habit of jumping to conclusions. Was that really his fault? Sometimes those conclusions made themselves so easy to jump to! But the important thing was that he always re-evaluated, and Kurt was a great person to work with at the end of the day. He didn’t always have the best track record with the X-Men. After all, who amongst them did. He’d argue as far as terms go, he was better than the bulk of the Avengers. He trusts them, they sort of trust him. Or...trusted. Where they stood now, he had no idea.

Her lips twitched into a smile. Without her signature stiletto boots, they’d probably be about the same height, but it wasn’t exactly his stature that gave off such strong baby energy. It had a little more to do with being the kind of person who used bedtime stories for rhetoric. “I believe it was baby bear who was just right, darling. If there’s anything to be learned from Goldilocks, it’s that there’s nothing wrong with being the smallest.” Zatanna blinked at his question and then laughed. She wouldn’t say that she was unstable by any means, but she dealt with her issues in ways that weren’t exactly approved by the Board of Psychiatry. “Hardly,” she grinned and shook her head, “but I’d be happy to introduce you to retail therapy next time you’re in Vegas.” 

Zee waved her hand in the air, spell-less this time, and smiled, “The castle is in desperate need of redecorating anyway if you ask me. I don’t know how anyone can work in such…monochromatic conditions.” Her face remained the same, coy grin and sparkling eyes, but she wondered if she would ever get used to people calling her Zatara––and to think, she used to worry about escaping the mantle of Zatara’s little Princess of Prestidigitation. “Please, call me Zatanna,” she shook his hand and brushed her hair behind her ear, “Zatara was my dad, and I refuse to age into the Ms. category.”  

“I suppose with Black Widow taken, it’s probably the best you can do,” Zatanna hummed, biting the tip of her tongue to keep from laughing at his overall inexperience. She supposed that she had an unfair advantage after being groomed for the stage her entire childhood, but babbling had its own charm. If that didn’t work for him, his baby-face certainly would. “I happen to love catchy theme songs. I am from New York, you know.”

—

Oh my god. She was right. He’d somehow messed up the most iconic and simple fairytale known on Earth. This was how it started. One day you start growing up and you forget that it was the baby bear that was just right, or how many mattresses the princess could still feel the pea under, or why that lady kidnapped Rapunzel and locked her in a tower in the first place. “Wow, it was baby bear, you’re right. I feel like I just lost some credibility there. And that’s a way better lesson to learn from Goldilocks. My lesson was don’t go into people’s houses and eat their porridge because that’s a weird, weird thing to do. But that’s probably not the lesson I was supposed to learn.” 

Okay, you know what? It was fine. He would have plenty of time to google old fairytales later when everyone was out on a mission and he was sitting on the rooftop humming Beyonce’s ‘Single Ladies’ and waiting for a tag-in. Instead, he refocused on Zatanna. He liked her vibe. It was pretty rare, in his experience, that someone could balance being friendly and approachable with alluring and playful. In fact he had a terrible track record of falling for people like that. “You’re telling me. A fresh coat of paint would do this place some wonders but I’m not sure I trust myself to be on the interior design team. Or the exterior design. Really, any kind of home decor should be left to someone other than me. But I’m saying, like, those geometric pattern walls that you see online? All those overlapping triangles? That would be nice.” Not like there were more important things to be doing right now, considering there was a fair amount of chaos loose in their lives. But it’s like she said: retail therapy. Or, you know, HGTV therapy. 

Shit. This would be easier in Hub. He’d know how, in Hub, or, at least, it’d come to him, easy as an accident. But here, here - Vic needed a blender. Clacking a Magic Bullet - funny - onto the counter, he unzipped the baggie between his teeth and weighed out a decent handful of twisted, curled-dry mushrooms. Just by feel. Experience. Hell of a teacher. The lid snapped together, and Vic gave his evening plans a pulse, testing out the settings, watching from the kitchen windows as the field team’s headlights swung away, far, far below, across the sheer, dark walls of the valley. Into the trees. Gone. 

Off to the ball. And the UN Tower. Not sure who had the harder job, there. But the Question had his own entirely self-directed mission, tonight. Unlike whoever was roaming around in the halls, the faint, static-flicker sensation of living nearness snapping his head around to squint at the still-shut door. Who was even left in the castle? Diana. And? 

Spider-man. Traitor. But. Parker was twenty-four. (He’d read the intake file. Of course he had.) Was Vic doing stupider things than joining the ISA, at his hero’s behest, around that age? Debatable. The losing kind of debatable, probably, by most standards. Still. Vic straightened up with a long drag on his cigarette, knowing the illusion hanging over him wouldn’t be enough to avoid… doing the nice thing. For Wonder Woman. “Hi,” he bothered, flatly, over the crackle and whir of the blender. “Ah - welcome to the team. And the… kitchen. Help yourself? To anything but the lemons. Need those.” 

@spiiderpan​

—

Was Peter a stress eater? That was a question for his therapist. But if he were to give himself that minor self-diagnosis, it would be a no brainer. Sometimes when shit when down and you couldn’t do much about it, the body needed a sandwich. That was just a biological fact, as far as he was concerned. He’d write a dissertation on it if he ha the chance. Right now, all he wanted to do was make one big sub then stuff his face while he waited at the top of the towers in case anything went wrong. string b, string blt. 

So he wasn’t super expecting to run into this scene, even if he wasn’t even sure what he was looking at. A mushroom smoothie? Was this one of those ‘mind-expansion’ things? It was The Question, so he felt like that was a fair ‘question’ to have. The amount he understood about what was going on in that guy’s world was next to nothing. “Oh, no, yeah. Don’t worry I get it I also usually put lemons in my mushrooms and my—yeah, I don’t know enough about what’s going on here to make a confident quip so I’m just gonna end it there we can call that one a work in progress.” He smiled a little and settled on the other end of the kitchen island, both arms braced against the cool tile. “Thank you, though. For welcoming me to both the team and the kitchen.” 

The familiar voice rang out, light and playful, and Diana’s stony expression faded into a smile. 

“Something like that,” she replied as Peter lowered himself into her line of vision, spider-suit firmly in place. The smile on Diana’s lips spread wider. “Mostly trying not to drive myself mad pondering what ifs.” 

It was difficult not to be amused, at least for a moment, at his youthful levity. It cut through the thoughts swirling around and around her mind in a stormy loop, worry and foreboding twisting together until she felt about ready to shake out of her skin. Diana had never been the most patient of people to start with, and she had especially never been good at sitting out missions—but she knew where her strengths were, and neither infiltration nor undercover flirtation were among them. Still, she lingered at the ready. Just in case. 

Though if things went how they were supposed to—and they seemed to be—all she had to do was sit at the Mousehole, flicking through the comms channels every few seconds. Which was maddening.

So, Peter’s presence was very welcome. “It’s good to see you as well, and in such good spirits,” Diana replied, turning to face Peter fully. “The castle feels terribly quiet today, doesn’t it?” 

—

“I don’t think anything could drive you mad at this point, if leading this team hasn’t already done that for you.” He smiled a little at the joke, though she couldn’t see that yet. After a moment of hesitation, he pulled off his mask. He had never done that before this moment, not with many people at all. His identity had been so important to him that even the heroes he worked with semi-regularly hadn’t seen his face if he could help it. But the proverbial cat was out of the bag, and so was his face. It felt strange, and almost like he was doing something wrong, but he pulled it off and kept it clenched in his hand. “What-Ifs are a pain in the ass, but trust me—anything goes down, we’ve got it, right? I think you and I make up one hell of a B-String.”

To be clear, he didn’t want that to happen. He wanted the mission to go smoothly. But he was wanting to do something. He could understand her frustration. Maybe they both needed an outlet. “It does feel quiet, but give it the night. Everyone will be back and you’ll be planning the next phase. You deserve this time to know you’ve done good, and the team is prepared.” Peter hopped up on the edge of the balcony and sat down so his legs could swing over the edge. He smiled a bit again and nudged her arm with his elbow. “Yeah, good spirits. I exorcised my bad spirits but I let the good ones stay. I have a guy roaming around in here that’s from the 17th century and he keeps talking about sheep.” He grinned through the silly joke and then tilted his head. “I figured being as positive as I can be would be the better approach.”

Tony didn’t have favourites, obviously, he appreciated all of his coworkers and employees equally (except Pepper, and Happy, and … never mind), but Peter was special. His little … was protege the right word? He wasn’t exactly training Peter to be a billionaire tech guru. He mostly just wanted Peter to be alive and well and making good choices. That was honestly asking a lot most days. “The fact that you didn’t mention either mead or wenches tells me you need to get out of the lab more.” Peter couldn’t even nerd properly. Shameful!

Tony listened to Peter jabber and it shouldn’t have been heart warming, in fact he kept a somewhat blank but assessing look on his face the whole time, because … well, because otherwise Peter would never stop, and Tony had to sleep sometimes, but still. “I have, in fact, been to a Ren Faire. I once purchased the entire contents of a stall so I could joust. I blame the mead.” Good times. He’d lost those jousts, but he’d been 22 and anyway, Peter didn’t need to know that part. “Have you considered that the horse was a supervillain? That horse is probably building a freeze ray right now.” Handing Peter sections of cooled steel, Tony slammed his hammer down, beating the metal into shape. “I don’t have a mold, so I’m making carving tools so we can carve a mold so I can make steel bars. And then we get to make glass. Science! So what’ve you been up to, Underoos?”

—

“I spend the exact appropriate amount of time in the lab. Or did. Besides, who are you to be lecturing me on lab-to-life time expenditure? I at least made time to see some of the greatest movies known to mankind, including Angry Birds 2.” You know what, he had seen Angry Birds 2, and it was not good, but it was funny that he’d spent the time and effort to go and see it. “Do we have a proper lab here or are we planning on building it from the steel we make with our hands because i’m only mildly opposed to that, I could be brought on board.” 

A puff of air escaped out of his nose, a laugh that seemed a little traitorous in light of everything. Sometimes he felt like he’d lost his right to enjoy things. Not forever, of course. Just for a few months or something—whatever the appropriate amount of time was for this kind of self-punishment. But whenever he had that thought, it was immediately followed by the feeling of being incredibly dramatic and silly. As if his forced penance would actually help anything. As if he’d actually gone and messed the task force up himself. He hadn’t. In fact, he’d done his best to make it work and he knew Tony had too. “You jousted? Like, on a horse? With a pole? You’re kidding.” What a sight that would have been. “I’m assuming this was before you met me because if it was during I’m gonna be a little hurt that you didn’t invite me. The sight of you being jousted off a horse might have been enough joy to sustain me for a millennium.”

The boy’s tone sharpened, and Helena was turning in her seat to fully face him before she realized she was moving. Not that she was going to stand up and get in a meta’s face (though she’d done it before, so maybe… no, she probably shouldn’t, she really shouldn’t) but the anger surged hot through her for a moment—

… And then he backed off, apologetic. A muscle in Helena’s jaw twitched.

Because the part that she hated the most was that he seemed like a sweet kid. A smart guy, as far as she knew. Maybe just a little too trusting, a little misguided. Reminded her a bit of Steph, actually, with all his chattering and easy smiles, the way he tried to pierce the tension. A lot of Steph. With that whole… bright-eyed, laugh-off-your-misery Gen Z thing about him. They’d probably make great friends.

Of course, the ISA had almost killed Steph, too. 

“Only when the words are related to murder,” Helena replied, deadpan. But she forced herself to relax a bit, crossing her legs and resting an arm over the back of the pew. Like she wasn’t about to spring up and get in the kid’s face. Because she wasn’t. Probably. “What did change your mind and bring you here, Peter?” she asked. “Because I’m guessing it’s not actually the birdwatching.”

—

Thank all the gods represented in this room that he had adjusted his tone. Throwing down with Helena wasn’t really on his list and it probably wouldn’t leave the greatest impression on someone he was trying to mend a bridge with. Not that he’d ever had much of a bridge with Helena. It was more like a...dilapidated creek overpass. Still, it was worth reaching an understanding. Peter didn’t know too much about this new team, other than the fact that it was a team and therefor its members should probably have some aspect of teamly behavior. He could be teamly. “Well, then here’s to hoping we get things related to murder. I’m thinking uh...Knives Out, Memories of a Murder, or Happy Death Day. I’ll stack the deck with really bad murder movie puns.” 

He knew charades wasn’t what she actually wanted to talk about (considering she likely didn’t want to talk to him at all), but he was almost at a loss of words here. Peter had a lot of pride, surprising to those who only knew him based on his quip n’ flip fight style. If she wanted to know what really changed his mind, she’d have to wait. He didn’t think it was a good look to reveal that he’d come here because he’d fucked up enough that he put his family at risk, and that, selfishly, he was here because he needed help too. Maybe it was unfair of him to judge her, but he felt like he knew what her response would be: should have thought of that before you joined. Face the music. 

location: fourth floor terraces

“—and if you look to your left, you’ll see some forest! Legend has it that just two hours earlier I tried to sap a tree and died out there. Sometimes, if you’re lucky, you’ll still see my ghost on this very terrace.” Peter hung down from the (very nice) pergola on the terrace, fully suited up for no other reason than the fact that he wanted to be ready to move if something went down at the ball or whatever the heck was happening. It involved fancy dressings, and that was a step above Peter’s pay grade.

Man was a certainly generous descriptor for the person sputtering on like a wind-up toy in front of her. Zatanna managed to asses the situation in the midst of his monologue, not that it would take an exquisitely dressed telepath to connect point a: a cracked antique to point b: a nervous boy. “So many words for such a small person,” Zatanna hummed, folding her arms over her chest and leaning against the stone wall. “You must be exhausted,” she grinned, fondly despite not even knowing the boy. She had a similar reaction when walking past the pet store with puppies in the window display on her way from her favorite deli to her apartment in Vegas. “In my professional opinion, you should take a breath every once in a while.”

Zatanna studied his face, no longer distracted by the broken–excuse her, cracked–vase. He wasn’t one of the baby Titans, but they seemed to replicate like bacteria, so he could’ve popped up during her world tour. “Have you ever had a team theme song? I’d love to hear a rendition.” She took pity on him and finally fixed the vase, “Erotser esav.” Zatanna turned back to him and held out her hand, “Let’s start with names. Zatanna Zatara, Mistress of Magic and very few answers.”

Well, she wasn’t wrong. It was a lot of words. Quite frankly, Peter wasn’t even sure what he’d just said to her. She came around the corner mid-chaos and his brain had shorted out so his body just carried on in some sort of tragic auto pilot. “Yeah, I do that. And c’mon, I’m like...at least medium-sized, right? Like I’m the mama bear.” Did that require more explanation? Probably. Not everyone was as familiar with Goldilocks and the Three Bears as he was. “Because I’m juuuuuust right,” he said, voice lilting up on the just as he brought up his hand level with his head—proof that he was indeed just right. In Peter’s opinion everyone else was simply enormous. “Your professional opinion? Are you a therapist because, and I mean this sincerely, I suspect I could highly benefit from one. For a lot of reasons but specifically on an organizational level.” 

But she was not the team therapist (note to self: check that out). She was Zatanna Zatara, because of course she was. He blinked and craned back to check out the crack that he’d been trying to hide only to see that it was no longer cracked! Problem solved! Score one for team work. If he could call it team work. Technically there was a team element. He broke it, she fixed it. That’s the dynamic. “Ah, thank you. I was worried that was important and—yeah, yes, of course, Zatara. Or Ms. Zatanna. I mean, you know, flip that. Verbally.” Peter took her hand to shake, smiling calmly and standing straight despite his jumbled words. 

It took a half-second for Helena to place who, exactly, the young man chattering at her like a nervous puppy was. But when she did, her brows raised sharply. She wouldn’t have expected to see Parker anywhere in the castle, actually, if she hadn’t been told the day after he’d arrived. By Barbara, who wanted to make sure that Helena wasn’t going to cause any trouble with former ISA members, and Vic, for the virtual opposite reason. It was nice, to not be caught too wrong-footed. 

“Seen anything worth seeing?” Helena asked, tone still dry. But somewhat amused, still. Until it wasn’t. “Heard the other day that you’d landed in Sokovia. Our very own friendly, government-operated Spider-man. How lucky for us.” Stark had had the luck of meeting her at Ted’s party when she’d had to behave, but his little ISA shill of a protégé had no such luck. 

Even if he did look kind of… twelve. Helena probably would’ve felt guiltier if it hadn’t been for her last ISA run-in.

“I guess that would depend on what falls under your tree of ‘worth seeing,’ because I did see a pretty fascinating bird earlier that looked like it should have been on someone’s bird watch bingo.” It had been a glorious looking bird. Look, he didn’t see many cool birds in New York. He saw, you know, pigeons. And sometimes he saw some really odd pigeons. Sokovia was really elevating his bird game. 

But here’s the thing, he didn’t really care about birds. He knew she also didn’t care about birds (so to speak, as to his knowledge she cared about plenty bird-themed things). If her tone wasn’t clear, her words certainly were. “That would be formerly—although depending on who you ask that might still be current. There wasn’t exactly an exit interview and you know how slow governments are with updating the rosters,” he said, with a bit of an edge to his voice. He didn’t mean it, really. He knew he made a...poor call. Maybe that was why his feathers ruffled when others pointed it out. He wanted to throw his hands up and shout to the sky under heavy rainfall: I KNOW, OKAY? I KNOW! But he didn’t. Because this wasn’t the time or place for his own pity party. So after a minute of analysis, he held up his hands and corrected his tone. “Hey, my bad. I didn’t mean to raise your sodium intake to dangerous levels. I uh—” 

Location: Third floor (Auditorium/Meeting room)

If you walked into the meeting room now, you’d be treated to the curious sight of a man who had just narrowly avoided a complete disaster. In the right hand: a half-eaten sandwich, squeezed tightly and mere inches above the ground. In the left hand: a sleek, silver tablet, looking relatively unharmed. And, of course, delicately balanced between the leg and foot itself, resting on the right ankle: an old-looking vase. It would take the practiced eye nearly a second to see that Peter had come into the room and bumped the small side table, sending everything on a one-way-ticket to ground town. It would also take that same eye moments to understand that Peter had valued his sandwich above the vase. In his defense, it looked like a pretty good sandwich. And had that vase always had that crack in it? Hard to tell. 

“Okay, I think what we need to agree on first and foremost is that this was a really bad place for a vase. It’s right in the designate turn radius for a solid hip-check. I think the other thing we can discuss is whether or not cracks actually accentuate the beauty of an antique. In my opinion, it really brings out that flavoring of something that’s been around the block, ya know?” Peter placed the tablet back on the side table and popped his leg up a bit so he could easily grab the vase. How embarrassing. Look, it wasn’t his fault that the vase was more fragile than it looked. He thought it could withstand the slight kick-up from his leg. At least he hadn’t let the thing shatter on the ground like some basic punk. God, you’d think he hadn’t been a top-tier super for nearly 10 years with this kind of malarky. 

Open Starter

Tony was kind of lowkey loving the whole Mousehole experience these days. Sure, there was the odd dead Nazi drone incident, but overall, he was back with people he liked, he got to live in a castle, and instead of having to deal with corporate things, he could to try and figure out engineering problems and bake artisanal bread. It didn’t erase everything that had happened over the last three years, but he felt … free. Someone put a weight on him and now it was lifted away. He realized he was sleeping better than he had been in ages. 

And he’d invested in a smithy! Getting to hammer sparking metal and coax flames to a consistent heat, trying to make better steel, it just made him feel useful. 

Right now he was making struts for the new greenhouse. He was going to explore pouring his own glass next, but for now, it needed a frame. 

“You wanna help me quaff some water while I temper this steel? It’s super Ren Faire.”

—

This wasn’t as surprising a place to find Tony, all things considered. Peter knew him long enough to know sometimes doing some manual work helped clear his mind. At least, that was what Peter guessed was going on. “Oh yeah, sure, you know me, I’m all about...quaffing water. Quaff all day, party all night.” That was a little play on words there, you see. Get it? Cause quaff was also to drink, right? Damn, Peter was so funny. People really needed to recognize his comedic timing more often. 

“You know what this place needs? A dog. Specifically, I need a dog.” 

Kon had a habit of speaking into a room and assuming that someone would answer—and if they didn’t, well, it made no real difference to him. This was how it went now, leaning back in his seat, ankle over knee, tongue pressed into his cheek while he scrolled through the listings of petfinder dot com, a tragically US-limited operation. “Wouldn’t that be tight? I’m not asking for a fancy retriever or anything, just some li’l dude that’ll come running to the door every time I touchdown to greet the day. I mean, I know Tim lives here, but he loses against a pit bull in the cuteness factor every time. Oh, shit.”

He held out his phone and pouted for maximum effect. Pictured on the screen: one perfect, elegant, teddy bear of a dog; black with a white patch on her chest; wise brown eyes. “Lady Sybil is perfect. C’mon, look at that widdle face. And she only has three legs! You love a three-legged dog. What kinda people would we be if we didn’t adopt the trifecta of least-likely-to-get-adopted, right? I can fly over to the ol’ Metropolis in a jiff.”

Did he know that the Mousehole in Wartorn Europe Central was not the place for a dog? Of course he did. But Kon would make himself a pain in the ass for it anyway, if only because he liked to be difficult. Quickest way to get a load of entertainment around here. “Okay, I’m pulling up the app. Hey, what should I put for whether we have a fenced-in yard?”

—

Was Kon talking to him? It was impossible to tell. Peter lived in constant awareness that some day he might answer one of Kon’s ambiguous room-facing inquiries and be met with a blank stare and the dreaded ‘I wasn’t talking to you’ clause. And then, obviously, Peter would have to pretend he also wasn’t talking to him. It’s like when someone waves at you on the street and you think it’s for you, despite the fact that you’ve never seen this person in your life. Then you have to act like you were stretching, or shaking out an ache in your wrist. What an embarrassment. 

“I’m actually surprised this place doesn’t already have a dog. I thought for sure someone would have had a dog and brought it with them. Or maybe superheroes don’t really have time for dogs. I tried to have a fish once—anyway, what do we have here? What are we looking for? Are we going big or small?” Peter came up behind Kon and rested his hands on the back of the chair so he could look over his shoulder as he scrolled. “I have a weird thing for Ibizian hounds. They’re just so odd-looking and long and I think that’s neat.” 

ah, Lady Sybil. What a lady. What a dog. Peter reached forward to pull Kon’s phone closer to him so he could see the impeccable creature before them. “I do love a three-legged dog, oh man, how’d she lose her fourth leg?” Could they even really have a dog here? It was probably too dangerous for a dog. But far be it for Peter to be Kon’s voice of reason, that wasn’t his job. Sometimes he had a hard enough time being his own voice of reason. Even though he knew it was highly improbable that any of the big cheeses would allow Lady Sybil, it was harder to make that argument starting at her profile on the phone. “I mean, is there really anyone in charge here in terms of dog ownership? I don’t know. I don’t know a thing. So technically...it’s easier to ask for forgiveness than permission? But you didn’t hear that from me.”

The Mousehole’s chapel was beautiful. 

It was small, but full-to-bursting with polished wood and goldleaf and paintings of saints all over the walls. The waxy smell of memorial candles and holy oils sat heavy and comforting in the air. Even though it was meant to be Eastern Orthodox, it’d been hastily outfitted to suit other faiths as well. And given that Helena had no idea where the nearest Catholic church in Matchak was, it was worth a visit. Especially when she couldn’t remember the last time she’d spent a Sunday morning praying, and not sleeping in, enjoying a boozy brunch, or generally doing things that would’ve made a priest frown.

It was soothing, though, really. The way the light hit the stained glass, scattering color across the walls…

Helena started slightly, turning at the sound of someone in the doorway. “I didn’t know anyone else came here,” she remarked, halfway-dry, but didn’t move to leave. 

—

Those who knew Peter knew that he was, without a doubt, one of the poorest organizers out there. But you know what? New place, new life, new leaf, right? He was going to organize himself if it killed him. And how does one organize? With lists, of course. So he started making lists, many of which were highly ineffective and included things like find poptarts and ask about soda options. They were mostly food-related, sue him. But today? Today Peter was all about solid, sensible tasks. 

Number one on today’s list of tasks? Know your surroundings. If he was going to be useful here (and useful he planned to be, thank you), then he’d have to know the layout of the space, and what was needed, and how to assist in what was needed, and so on and so forth until the needs were...thusly met. Running into people here and there was no problem, but waltzing into the middle of someone’s possible prayer session wasn’t on his list, and felt rude. So for a moment, he considered ducking back out with both hands still on the wooden doors to the chapel space—but then she spoke and Peter took a step forward. “Oh, yeah, technically I don’t come here. Not because I wouldn’t come here! No, like, because I just got here so it’s not really correct to say that i come here...often. Again, not that I wouldn’t! Religion is great, sometimes. Like, wow, man...that Jesus. What a guy, right? Or like—I mean, I don’t know why I defaulted to Jesus there. That’s lame, it’s not like there aren’t hundreds of other religious icons out there. Or not lame I’m not calling Jesus lame. Or anyone else lame! I’m basically thinking that I should just stop, now, if that’s cool with you. I’m just going to stop.”