#peter threads

Peter walked through the lobby of Stark Industries with his hands in his pockets, the nerves written all over his face. For almost a year back in high school--before the blip--he’d told everyone he knew that he was working an internship in this very building, but he’d never really set foot in it for any reason other than to be led off in a rush by Happy to the Avenger’s floor. That was before the move, before the compound, when Peter would have gone anywhere and everywhere Mr. Stark asked him to just for a single chance to prove himself a hero. He still would. Not that it mattered any more. 

He sucked in a deep breath. This was a bad idea. He shouldn’t have come. He wasn’t ready. His trip to Europe had helped some, made him realize he didn’t need to be the new Iron Man to matter. But that didn’t make him miss Mr. Stark any less. And he had no right being upset, no right to throw a pity party when Mr. Stark’s real actual daughter was here. Peter turned back to the door. Maybe in a few years he’d be ready to face her and meet her properly, maybe-- 

“You, are very wrong.” He was young, a child. A hero. He had the weight of the world placed on his shoulders and no one should have done that to him, it wasn’t fair.

But who ever said that life was fair?

“Do you honestly think I wouldn’t kill you in a heartbeat if I had to?” Cersei asked as she stared Peter straight in the eye, her arms crossed over her chest. “That I wouldn’t do that and then head straight home and not lose a wink of sleep?”

“Because I would.”

“No.” He shook his head rapidly, not sure if he was trying to convince her or himself. “No, you wouldn’t.” He didn’t believe her, couldn’t believe her. He had known Ms. Lannister for years, had dinner at her house, waved to her in the mornings when he met up with Tommen to head off for school. He’d brought her leftovers from Aunt May’s disastrous attempts at baking. They were friends. Right? And friends didn’t try to kill friends. Usually. 

He couldn’t believe this was happening again. He’d thought Liz and her dad were a fluke, a one time, horrible mistake. Now, he was starting to think he was cursed. Or had the world’s worst taste in friends. 

“What about Tommen?” he asked. He hated how much his voice was shaking. God, what kind fo superhero couldn’t handle the ‘interrogate the bad guys’ part of the job? That guy he’d webbed to his car last year had been right: he needed to get better at this part of the job. Toughen up. Care less. He gulped. “He wouldn’t--he wouldn’t want you to do this.” Please don’t do this.

Ever since Mr. Stark had come by Aunt May’s and revealed that he knew Peter’s secret identity--ever since he’d upgraded the Spiderman suit by about 3,000 cool points, that is--Peter had been coming by Avenger’s Tower more and more. Well, he was swinging by Avenger’s Tower. If he had thought the the lobby was cool (and it was definitely the most high tech lobby he’d ever seen, the secretary, a guy named JARVIS, was just a voice over a holographic security system!) it was nothing to the R&D labs Mr. Stark had shown him, and even cooler than that (which he hadn’t thought was possible until he saw it with his own eyes--or at least with the cool computer, zoom-in spider eyes of the super mask) was the floors where the actual Avengers lived. 

Peter didn’t technically have a meeting with Mr. Stark that day, and technically, as he wasn’t an Avenger, he wasn’t supposed to come by the tower unannounced, because technically, no one else knew his identity, and he really wanted to keep it that way. For Aunt May’s sake. And Ned’s. And M.J.’s. And because he wasn’t sure he wanted Thor calling him while he was in Calculus class. Though now that he thought about it, that would be really, really cool. 

Peter gulped as he took his seat at the wide table, glancing from one end to the other. All these super heroes in one place--Scarlet Witch, Valkyrie, Falcon (wait, no, he was Captain America now, right? And original Captain America was really really old now?), Captain Marvel, and the Winter Soldier. He wasn’t sure what he was more excited about: meeting someone from his history books, or meeting an actual alien super goddess woman. Well, re-meeting. He’d fought along side all of them after he’d been snapped back into reality, which had been really really cool--until it wasn’t. Until Mr. Stark snapped his fingers and didn’t get up again. Until they’d won, and still, they didn’t all go home. 

This room felt really small without everyone in it, everyone who’d been on that battlefield. And it felt wrong to be in Avenger’s Headquarters without Mr. Stark there to greet them. But if Peter thought about that too much, he was going to cry again, and he really, really didn’t want to cry in front of all his heroes. He’d promised Ned he’d report back everything there was to know about Bucky Barnes, and if he started blubbering, there was no way someone that cool was going to talk to him. 

“Woah, woah, coming through!” Peter yelped and shot a web at the nearest light pole, swinging out of the way just in time for a blast of some sort of elemental fire power to shoot past his feet, singing at the edges of his Spiderman suit. If it hadn’t been such a close call, it would have been awesome. But this fight had been going on for way too long, and he was late for the Match Club meeting he had swore to MJ and Ned he wouldn’t miss. Again. 

But how many teenagers got to say they participated in an epic X-Men versus Brotherhood mutant showdown before they even got their driver’s permit? 

Peter jumped to his feet the moment the clapping of her heels on the hard stone floor announced the Queen Mother’s presence. He’d learned to recognize them, to pick up on the individual sound of her footsteps amongst the dozens of others in the castle--though, of course, the armed guards escorting her always made that process easier. The teenager had been crouching on the floor, playing a game of dice with Tommen and petting the cat the two had lured into a small corner of the castle, but the stable boy wasn’t supposed to be talking to the prince--no, the new king, he reminded himself; Tommen was king now that Joffrey had, well, not the best wedding experience. Peter certainly wasn’t supposed to be touching a king’s things, even if Tommen had invited him to play. How often had his aunt reminded him of that? She worked far too hard in the kitchens for him to get their family in trouble now. Again. 

Plus, Peter was dead terrified of the queen. 

“No offense, Dude, but if you don’t have any super powers, you should probably get out of the waaaaaay!” The last word became a yell as Peter webbed off across the street, chasing a guy chased like a bear. He really wished he was joking, almost wished it was some sort of innuendo (he’d learned recently what a bear, otter, and twink were, and he’d never be the same again), but there was just no getting around the fact that today’s big bad was a six foot seven ex-wrestler in a giant bear costume with very sharp claws and a vendetta against the Daily Bugle and, apparently, Spiderman by association. 

Peter had absolutely no idea who the other hero was, though they had seemed genuine in their desire to help. Only, they hadn’t said anything yet, and they hadn’t shown any cool lazer-beam powers or weather control or really anything that seemed capable of taking down a super powered bear-man, so Peter sort of figured he was still on his own. He webbed down, kicked the bear straight in the chest to sendhim flying, then landed and turned back to Candon, speaking through the Spiderman mask. “Are you X-Men? Avenger? Revenger? A-Force? Super cool independent street hero?” 

“Coming through--’scuse me--whoops, yeah, hi, how you’re doing--oh crap.” 

Mask and suit on--a couple of years ago, he’d have said courtesy of Mr. Stark, and the designs were still his, but Peter had made a few upgrades since he’d gone to college and since Mr. Stark had well, anyway--Peter swung from building to building, shooting a web here and there to deter a car thief, and that one guy who always took the hotdogs from Mr. Gomez’ cart without paying. At least until he slipped off the edge of the building and only shot a web just in time to keep from face planting on the cold concrete below.

He stumbled back to his feet, a hand on his hip as he tried to play it off cool in case anyone was watching. New York was not exactly a very forgiving place, and he had a reputation to keep up--a cool, web-slinging reputation that did not at all match the ‘nerd, big goggles during experiments, spilled toxic goo all over the table and his backpack’ reputation he had in college. 

He was just about to swing on up back to the roof, see if he couldn’t stop at least one more crime before he went to do his homework, when he spotted someone walking across the alleyway who looked, frankly, like a polar bear in the middle of the desert. Everyone new to Brooklyn tended to look that way at first.