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thiswasinevitableid · 3 years

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54. I’m not sure what you think I said, but you start calling me an asshole and whip a ruler at me and somehow, we both end up in detention

Indruck, sfw, please?

Here you go! Content note: spiders appear at one point.

I based some of this AU--namely the concept of the Crucible and how magic is channeled--on the Carry On series by Rainbow Rowell. And Duck is trans in this, because any good wizarding school is inclusive.

After three years at Amnesty Academy, Duck is used to the objects being magically propelled through the air. But a ruler zipping through the air and smacking the back of his head is a new, unpleasant experience.

He tracks it to two chairs to his left, the new third year with the silver hair. He hasn’t even been here a day, what the fuck the is his problem?

“Hey, what the hell man?”

“You know very well what.”

“Uh, no I don’t, and I don’t appreciate bein hit with a fuckin ruler!”

“The maybe think before you insult someone next time!”

“I didn’t fuckin insult you! I don’t even know your name!”

“Ahem.” Ned, their Charms professor, looks down at them reproachfully, “gentlemen, while I know the review of Zone of Truth is rather dull, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t entertain yourselves with mindless conflict.”

“Sorry, Ned.” Duck mumbles, sending his pencil shooting below desk level to whack the other guy in the leg at the exact same moment he whips his pen at Duck’s hand.

“OW!”

Ned sighs, “I hate to do this, but-”

------------------------------------------------

“Detention! Lovely, my first day here and I’m in trouble. Thank you so much, Duck Newton, for landing us here.”

“You started it!” He growls as they take their seats. God, he hopes this isn’t one of Woodbridge’s days.

“Huh, only two.” Mama wipes her boots on the mat, closes the door behind her, “Afternoon, Duck. And…”

“Indrid.” Says his nemesis, “It is nice to meet you Professor C-” he cocks his head, “you really prefer I call you ‘Mama?’”

“Yep. Never could get behind that more formal stuff. Let some of the first years call me ‘Ms. Mama’ if they really need to feel like they’re showin some deference.”

Mama is deputy Headmistress of Amnesty. The only reason she’s not fully in charge is that she’s not a witch and some families object to that. So The Quell technically runs the school while Mama does most of the actual day to day work. She also teaches a course of non-magic practical skills because, “some things you can’t magic your way out of. Like taxes.”

Duck loves her class and, while he doesn’t understand why someone would opt into this weirdness, he admires the guts it takes as a fifteen year old human to walk into a wizarding school and declare that there was plenty you could learn there even though you couldn’t so much as send a spark from your fingers.

As he and Indrid watch the clock tick down, Mama pulls a bag from her satchel. The contents are cookies, which she offers to each of them.

“Barclay tryin’ out new recipes?”

“Course he is. Kid is gonna be the best damn kitchen witch in the country by the time he graduates. Guess he’s plannin to spend the summer drivin around and learnin the food magic of different regions.” She smiles, “bet you’ll never guess who’s goin’ with him.”

“Joe?”

“Bingo. Apparently he wants to study niche cultural magic.”

Duck’s pretty sure there’s another motive; sharing a van bed with Barclay. It sounds fun, roving the country, discovering new places with someone handsome by your side.

All that’s by his side is a glower hiding behind red glasses.

“Mama? I, ah, would it be possible for me to leave five minutes early? I’m supposed to get my pairing from the Crucible tonight.”

The older woman looks between the two of them, “Better tell me how you landed here first. Ned just said it was an argument.”

“He threw a ruler at me outta nowhere.”

“It was not, you know what you said.”

“The last thing I said before you hit me was ‘“nah, man’ when Billy offered me a pizza roll from his lunch.”

Indrid goes still, “Oh. I, ah, I misheard you. I thought you said 'mothman.' I apologize. I ought to have given you the benefit of the doubt.”

He seems so suddenly downtrodden that Duck shrugs, “Yeah, you should have. But it ain’t the worst thing that’s happened to me here. Not by a long shot.”

“No kiddin” Mama leans back on the desk, “Two of you can go at five til.”

His evening turns uneventful after that; dinner, hanging out with Juno and Aubrey, half doing homework and half fucking around on his phone in his room (the agreement between the school and the government is that a long as the students don’t post vidoes of themselves doing sick stunts with magic, the government will ignore any explosions and/monsters in the vicinity of the school).

He’s never had a roommate; when the Crucible spat out his name in fire on his first day, there was no other name with it. Almost everyone else rooms in pairs or trios. So his belongings are strewn about the tiny cabin that makes up his home away from home. Which is why, when the door creaks open at ten p.m, he sits up and prepares to fire off a spell.

Indrid stands in the doorway, one bag over his shoulder and another in his hand. He looks tired.

“Hello, Duck. Ah, I guess that one is my bed, then.”

----------------------------------------------------------------

The class schedules for Amnesty are generated by the heart of the school itself. Indrid isn’t entirely sure what that means, but the heart must not be terribly creative. It stuck him in divination class. He’s been seeing the future since he was five, managing it with his drawings since he was eight. Even the professor has no idea what to do with him, since the images come in like a garbled T.V signal when he uses a crystal ball and the cup shattered when he tried to read tea leaves.

At least Barclay gave him a conciliatory caramel while they swept up the shards. It made him feel a bit better, though whether that’s due to enchantment or Barclay being exceedingly good at cooking is hard to say.

And now he has to go to “Magical Weaponry.” Magical Defense he understands; there are still lots of malicious forces out there, or even just everyday evils that it’s good to be able to ward against. Plus, Vincent is a good professor, enthusiastic and understanding.

Professor Minerva is just as enthusiastic but twice as loud. This is their first day in the actual gym, as opposed to at a blackboard, and his visions suggest it’s going to go poorly for him. As it should; he’s not a fighter, he’s a disaster.

At Amnesty, magic is channeled through objects. Most people use wands or their hands but some, like Aubrey, use jewelry (a necklace from her mother) or another accessory.

Duck Newton uses a sword. Or he’s trying to. The sword seems to be winning.

“Exert your will on him, Duck Newton, he answers to you!”

“I answeeer to only the capable.”

“Shut up, Beacon.” Duck adjusts his grasp, but nothing happens until he drops the sword and sends a spell through his fingers. The target explodes. Indrid suddenly feels a bit better about his own probable performance.

Duck notices him, indicates the practice area next to him is clear. While they started off poorly, his roommate is doing his best to demonstrate southern hospitality. He invites Indrid to eat with him, helps him when his visions offer no help in navigating the grounds, and even lent him a blue and green shirt (Amnesty's colors) for his first Spirit Day. Duck is the best thing to happen to him in his first month here.

By the time class is over, they have six broken targets, a shredded mat, and a knife that is now a very confused frog between them. They manage to laugh about it, even as Duck scoops up the amphibian and tucks him into his shirt pocket.

It’s then that Indrid realizes he has a crush.

--------------------------------------------------

“You comin to the game tonight?” Juno measures her sapling.

“Assumin nothin comes up and nobody’s tryin to kill me, you know I’ll be there.” He loves cheering Juno on during her soccer games (hey, not everything has to be magic based, even at a wizarding school).

“Drat.”

The hissed frustration draws his attention to the far end of the work table. Indrid is trying to coax his Venus Flytraps to perk up, but they remain brown and limp.

“Need some help?”

“Please, as you clearly know what you’re doing.” Indrid tilts his head towards the sapling pine tree Duck is working on. If he does his growing spells right, he’ll be able to take it home as a Christmas Tree during winter break.

“You tend to picture words or, uh,pictures when you do your spells?”

“Images work best. The trouble is that the futures sometimes make it difficult for me to picture a spell clearly.”

“What if I try describing how I’d see it and you picture what I say?”

“It’s worth a try.” Indrid closes his eyes.

“Okay. Think about the roots drawin water up from the soil, about the traps absorbin nutrients from prey. That brown is goin green as they do, they’re stems are growin stronger…” he grins as the plant turns bright green, it’s mouths open, “hey, ‘Drid, look”

“Oh!” Indrid flaps his hands, “it worked! Now I can keep them healthy and big andohno, nono not again.”

The table cracks and collapses as the plant turns gigantic, blocking out the light from the greenhouse roof.

“Holy fuck, that’s great!”

“Language, sport, but I agree.” Thacker, the head of the magical Horticulture classes, whistles as he looks the plant up and down, “this is mighty impressive Indrid. Wonder if we could use it on some pumpkins come fall…”

“I don’t recommend it, unless you want them to chase people.” Indrid points to one of the heads, which is swaying in the air and lowering closer to him. It snaps and he leaps back, falling to a pile of potting soil. Thacker raises his walking stick and the flytrap returns to its proper size.

Duck helps Indrid up, but his friend stays quiet through the end of class and on the walk back to their room.

“You know it ain’t anythin to be ashamed of, right?” Duck flips on the light, “we all fuck up spells now and then. Hell, Aubrey is on track to be the best spellcaster this school’s ever seen and she still has trouble.”

“But mine go haywire constantly” Indrid flops, dejected, onto his bed, “forget mastering my powers, I’ll be lucky if I graduate able to keep them in check. If I graduate at all.” His hand searches the bed blindly; Duck sets the weighted, plush bat into so Indrid can set it on his chest.

“What do you mean?”

“I’ve never lasted more than a year at a magical school. Or a non-magical one. I started at Mt Vernon when I was fifteen. Tried Deep Hollow and Shasta the year after that. I’m powerful but I can’t seem to channel it well, and three different schools decided I was more trouble than I was worth.”

“Bullshit.” Duck rests a hand on Indrid’s knee, “you’re strugglin with somethin; that means you need more help, not less. And if anyone gets it into their heads to kick you outta Amnesty, I’ll raise a goddamn ruckus.”

Indrid chuckles, quiet and disbelieving.

“I’m serious. You know Aubrey and them would side with me, and Joe knows school policy well enough he could probably find a reason why them tryin to get rid of you was against the rule.”

“Thank you.” Indrid’s smile is a rare flower, fragile and stunning.

“You want one of those calm-down caramels Barclay made?”

“Please.”

Duck grabs the box from the cabinet of their little kitchenette, then snags a Coke and a pineapple soda from the fridge. Indrid is no longer horizontal, is instead sitting with his back to the wall so Duck has space to join him.

Under the fizz of fresh bubbles, his friend murmurs, ‘“Have people really tried to kill you?”

“Yep. Someone sent an assassin after me my first year, and there was a Dire wolf on the grounds last winter that was clearly locked on to my scent. Perk of bein a Chosen One.” He grumbles as he swigs his drink.

“...Who on earth sends an assassin after a fifteen year old?”

“Right?! Fuck if I know, they never got any information out of the guy. Fuckin prophecy I swear, I didn’t even want these powers, let alone to be some kind of hero.”

“I sympathize.” Indrid rests his head on Duck’s shoulder, “there are prophecies around my birth as well.”

Duck clunks their bottles together, “To bein’ fucked over by stuff we can’t control.”

Indrid drains his soda, then perks up, “Oh! Oh dear, you should go if you want to be there for Juno’s match.”

“Come with me?” Duck can’t get the image of the two of them sharing a giant pretzel while smushed thigh to thigh on the bleachers out of his head.

His friend grins, “Of course.”

-----------------------------------------------------

Duck hoped, after his not-great time in middle school, that a magic academy would be asshole free. But no, there are assholes everywhere, and these ones have even more tools for tormenting their targets. He’s never been one, nor have any of his friends. The one time someone tried to bully Barclay, Dani sicked three spectral hummingbirds on them until they apologized.

Indrid, odd and new, is an easy target, though he seems to hold his own just fine (and his proximity to the most powerful witch in school does scare off many potential antagonists). But three guys in their Magical Defense class have zeroed in on him.

They’re standing in line to practice against an evil eye when Indrid’s glasses, the ones he doesn’t take off even when he sleeps, hit the floor by Duck’s feet. Duck scrambles to grab them before they get stepped on, wondering why everyone is making such a fuss. Then he turns and backs up in alarm.

An eight foot tall moth creature is where Indrid should be, red eyes wide and claws clicking together anxious.

“Who let that thing in here?” Someone yells from behind him.

Indrid’s antenna flatten.

“Fuck, wasn’t expecting him to be that big a freak” one of the bullies scoffs.

Black wings twitch.

“Newton, give him the glasses back so we don’t have to look at him!”

Indrid trills, upset, and leaps into the air at the same moment Aubrey yells, “that’s enough” and Vincent shouts a reminder about no flames in enclosed spaces and also detention for you three. Duck is to busy climbing out the window Indrid flew through to pick up the details.

One two-story fall later, he’s chasing a dark shape into the Monongahela forest. While the parts of the woods near his hometown of Kepler are non-enchanted, this chunk is magic down to the moss (he plans to write his final year project on how those halves of forest mesh on an ecological level). One of the worst aspects of the enchanted portions is their tendency to re-shape around travelers. His usual way around this is to have an unwavering sense of where he’s going and pretend the woods are giving him an unchanging path to get there. But that trick does fuck-all when he doesn’t know his destination.

After two hours of searching he’s no closer to finding Indrid, it’s getting dark, and he’s debating heading back to the school for help. He hasn’t been this deep in the woods since he fled the Dire Wolf, and he knows the deeper you go into the trees, the wilder the magic becomes. Bad news for him, even worse for his friend who's out there somewhere, upset and alone.

Eight gigantic eyes glitter at him from the dirt, and he quickly rearranges who has it worse right now.

Throwing a burst of light into the trapdoor spiders eyes buys him enough time to bolt to a tree and climb. As soon as it crawls free of its burrow he freezes; if he’s remembering right, they use vibrations to locate prey.

Fuck, that thing is the size of a VW Beatle. Why is that even a thing? No spider needs to be this big!

In spite of his stillness, it spies him and sets its forelimbs on the tree-trunk. There’s nothing else for it; he draws Beacon, pictures the spider shrinking, and casts his spell.

A soft crunch of leaves signals it hitting the ground, now an unremarkable size for an arachnid. Just as he steps down a branch, a second trap door opens and an enraged spider bursts out, looking for it’s friend. When it can’t find it, it turns and snaps its mandibles at Duck. This time, Beacon does nothing, no matter how Duck commands and curses as his eight-legged doom gets closer.

A crackle of electricity and then this spider disappears as well. On the other side of the trunk, red eyes regard him with worry, “are you hurt?”

“Nah, all in one piece thanks to you.” He holds out his hand, “you wanna head back?”

“Yes, please.” Indrid flaps to the ground, Duck following him on foot and then turning them towards campus, “you did not need to come look for me.”

“Course I did, not gonna let my friend get swallowed up by the forest. Oh, here” he holds out the red glasses, “you want these back?”

“Not just yet. That is, if this form is not too alarming to you.”

Duck takes in the glossy feathers, the charming ruff, the way the face is still obviously Indrid yet excitingly new, “I’m good.”

Light flickers from black claws, stars and flowers spinning out with ease, “It’s so much easier when I’m like this. I never foresaw my disguise charm being an issue, but the older I’ve gotten the more it seems to influence my ability to control my spells. But, well, you saw how people reacted. Even you were startled.”

“In my defense, I thought you’d been eaten by, well, you.” Duck casts the same spell, vines of light chasing the red flowers, “I’m still sorry, though. You ain’t horrible like this, ‘Drid; you’re fuckin stunnin. Never seen anyone as incredible as you.”

Indrid stops, looking down at him, “Do you truly mean that?”

Duck rises on his toes, pecking his cheek, “Yeah, I do.”

-------------------------------------------------------------------

The Halloween Formal is the most elaborate event at Amnesty. Indrid feels that if there’s any day he’s within his rights to be in his true form, it’s when everyone else is dressed as monsters.

He doesn’t have a date. He thought Duck was in the same predicament. Then his friend left before he was half-done grooming his feathers, saying he needed to get flowers for his hot date.

Ah well. At least Indrid will get to see him there and spend some time with his friends.

He checks his reflection in the gleaming black walls, orange and purple lights glowing and jack’o lanterns floating above his head. He adjusts his robes, the nice red ones his father sent him, and prepares to enter the ballroom.

“Hold up.”

When he turns, Duck is standing there in his black dress shirt and green tie, looking for all the world like he’s alone.

“You got one more thing to put on” He holds out a bracelet of flowers, sized to slip perfectly over Indrid’s hand. There are matching flowers pinned to one side of Duck’s hair.

“Oh. Oh my. You really-”

Duck uses a small spell to bend Indrid into a kiss; it’s a bit messy, since their mouths aren’t meant to fit together, but Indrid would not trade it for all the magic in the world.

“Yeah, ‘Drid, I really do.” With that, Duck offers his elbow and they walk arm in arm into the great hall.

#indruck #indrid cold/ duck newton #meet ugly #wizard au

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thelesseroftwoweevils · 2 years

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No Way Home (spoilers)

So Spider-Man: No Way Home was a very enjoyable movie. I was sceptical of the concept but they pulled it off well enough, it was enjoyable and watchable and kept moving at good clip it didn’t feel like a 2 and half hour movie. (in the same way Black Widow didn’t. We got to what had to be the final fight way and it felt well too early.)

-spoilers start here-

All that said I still think it’s a very stupid concept and very stupid set up. Doctor Strange does a spell of that magnitude on a whim and he doesn’t explain it fully before hand so Pete can screw up by talking to him while he’s doing it?

That wasn’t informed consent, man. And that’s before getting into the murky morals of mass memory mortification.

That lawyer could have been anyone, it’s only Matt for fanservice. It’d have much preferred them to go for a Spider-man/Daredevil movie but whatever. (I mean I’d expected Pepper and the massive Stark Legal team to handle it.) They basically handwave the immediate legal problems set up aside and just get on with the social impact and multiverse plot.

The new Statue Of Liberty (reference in hawkeye. You should be watching) with the Captain America shield is hilarious. I wonder how Sam feels about it.

But the meat of it: the mutliverse villain invasion plot. MCU Pete hitting his lowest point. Then the other spideys appearing to help and how that was managed with Ned was great.

They hit all of the multiverse jokes and references you could expect. Plus the ‘something of a scientist myself’ meme.

I was surprised how well having Maguire and Garfield back worked especially the former, I didn’t consciously know how nostalgic I was towards the Maguire/Raimi films. To be honest the only problem was I wish their interactions could be even more and have more fight scene banter and eerie coordinated teamwork and beat downs.

What we got was good though an I’m so glad they gave Garfield the successful falling save of MJ, a really nice ASM2 redemption moment for him.

The end is like a slightly less horrendous one more day, but how the heck is Peter going to survive now that’s everyone’s forgotten him. Was all his documentation wiped out as well? How’s that working?

It feels like they’ve pulled a soft reboot so they could do a second trilogy or a new spidey without the connection to the MCU so they can break up with Marvel Studios or threaten to which is a total load.

The stinger was a funny follow on/anti-climax from the Venom: Let there be Carnage one but by the film’s logic. Eddie doesn’t know Spider-man = Peter Parker, so why was he summoned?

The other stinger was just a Mutliverse Of Madness trailer, which was cool enough but unremarkable. Though I always like seeing Wanda so it’ll be nice to catch up with her.

#spider-man #spider-man: no way home #Spider-man: no way home spoilers #no way home #no way home spoilers #spoilers #mcu #mcu spoilers #marvel

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jelly-pies · 4 years

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Places and Embraces (that you thought you left behind)

By @jelly-pies for @jaybaybay-01, for the @friendly-neighborhood-exchange

Rating: Teen (mentions of torture, electrocution, near drowning)

Relationships: Peter Parker & Tony Stark, Peter Parker & May Parker, Peter & Tony & Avengers Team

Characters: Peter Parker, Tony Stark, May Parker, James Rhodes, Bucky Barnes, Sam Wilson, Bruce Banner, Pepper Potts

Summary:

"So now we know what we’re up against: a Hydra cell just launched a cyber attack on the Avengers,” Tony said, slowly drawing out each bitter word. He took a deep breath. “And they used Peter Parker to do it.”

Hydra brainwashes Peter and turns him against the Avengers. Tony jumps out of semi-retirement to get his kid back.

Word count: 12.2k (read on AO3 or click below!)

----- Chapter 1: The Compound -----

It was supposed to be a simple patrol.

“I just sent the address to Karen. Track their activity. Eyes open. Update me or Sam the second things get fishy…”

“Mr. Stark,” Peter’s voice groaned through the speakers, “I think I know what ‘reconnaissance’ means.”

“Might as well spell it out for you, because sometimes I think you don’t know what ‘stay back and wait for backup’ means.”

Peter huffed, and Tony imagined the twenty-year-old rolling his eyes in accompaniment. “That was one time,” he complained. “I mean, two." Another pause. “Wait. I mean…”

“Yeah, yeah.” Tony pressed a button to bring Peter’s view up on his computer. The kid was swinging through the city, crisscrossing between buildings at breakneck speed. Tony swept the footage to the side of his holo-screens before all the movement made his head spin. Damn, he was getting old.

“Hey, you wanna hear a thought I just had?” Peter said, swinging up and landing on an empty rooftop. “Iron Man’s retired, right? And Spider-Man’s official Avenger-Guardian of New York City.”

“Not a thing.”

“Totally a thing. So—listen, Mr. Stark—in the Avengers, do I rank higher than you now? ” Peter teased.

Tony rolled his eyes. “First off, I’m voluntarily relegated to tech support, I’m not retired.”

“You make a pretty decent Guy in the Chair, by the way. I mean, I still prefer Ned, but with summer break and all…”

“And second,” Tony interrupted, “Peter, this is serious. This is Hydra. I don’t want to hear about some solo-act hero found dead in the news tonight, you hear me?”

Peter chuckled softly. “You’re always gonna worry about me.”

Tony didn’t answer. But he caught his onscreen notification that Karen’s secondary tracker, connecting directly to the Avengers Compound, had been turned on. So the kid was taking precautions; Tony took that as a win.

“What we discussed,” Tony said softly. “Keep your distance. Web ‘em up.”

“Callback! That was a callback.” Finishing whatever tweaks he’d apparently made to the suit’s settings, Peter leapt off the building and continued swinging. “Talk to you later, old man.”

Tony smiled fondly. “Later, disaster child.”

He kept FRIDAY running the screens, ready to alert him to any trouble, but everything seemed normal on Peter’s patrol. And why wouldn’t it? It was supposed to be normal.

In a few minutes Morgan was banging on the garage door, calling her father for dinner. Tony left for the night.

It was hours later when Pepper shook him awake. Wide-eyed, with a deceptively calm voice, she relayed the emergency alert from FRIDAY. But by then it was too late.

It was supposed to be a quiet night. Instead, Peter Parker was missing.

-----

“Hydra,” May repeated in a hollow voice. “Hydra?”

“They had a suspected cell in NYC—sketchy, black market type medical lab.” Tony removed his sunglasses as he sank into May’s couch. His joints ached from the fatigue of the last few hours; the sunlight from the windows assaulted his baggy eyes. “It was supposed to be a routine check,” he exhaled, the same words he had been telling himself over and over and over. “Peter was just… keeping an eye out, waiting to confirm illegal activity.”

“Well, you got your confirmation.”

Tony looked up at that, an apology ready on his lips, but when he met May’s eyes they only looked sad.

“Is he—did they—Tony, do you think Peter’s—”

“No,” he replied strongly. “That’s one thing I can say for sure.” It’s the only thing he could say for sure. “They wouldn’t take the trouble, disabling his suit so expertly, if they were just going to…” He let the rest trail off unspoken. May dropped beside him on the couch.

Tony grit his teeth, pinched his eyes shut. He’d been up all night, and his chest ached even more than his head did. “Callback! That was a callback,” Peter’s blithe voice from yesterday echoed in his ears. This was another one, Tony supposed. A callback to Titan… to Beck… to, well, a couple more times after that, to be honest. The supposedly quiet semi-retirement years weren’t so quiet with another superhero in the family.

“So, we just… search,” May whispered beside him, the same pain, the same haunting memories evident on her frown lines. “And wait?”

Tony felt the full weight of his years pressing down on him, pushing as he fought to lift his head, and he gave a simple, helpless nod.

-----

It was supposedly a standard security update.

That’s what Tony told the guards, and anyone else with dropped jaws and shining eyes who wondered what Tony Stark, retired hero, was doing at the Avengers Compound on an ordinary Thursday. He indulged the gaping staff members with a signature Tony Stark grin as he made his way into the main building. But his tinted sunglasses stayed on his face the whole time.

“Alright, show me,” he greeted Sam shortly when he reached the entrance to the main control room. Sam nodded silently and led him inside.

The control room was the heart of Compound security; as spacious as the lab, only with more computers and holo-displays over the walls. With such an important building to protect, it was usually bustling with activity, but now there were only three people sitting around the main panel in the center of the room. All three—Bruce, Barnes, and Rhodey—were peering into holo-screens, surveying the damage from last night’s cyber attack.

Because the Compound had been attacked.

It was a quiet affair; the culprit had been in and out of the control room in a matter of minutes. They had dealt considerable damage—taken down servers, stolen terabytes of the Avengers’ encrypted files—but in terms of casualties, not a single guard had even been knocked out.

Like a ghost, Sam had told Tony that morning. A ghost who knew his way around the Compound. Who had the skills to hack into their system. Who was able to disable the Compound’s AI before it could sound the alarm.

A ghost who could crawl on walls.

Not a lot of people fit that description. And so Tony came, looked over the details of the attack, watched the security footage that Bruce brought up on his screen—the man in a black stealth suit, sticking up on a wall to avoid a roving guard. FRIDAY analyzed the footage too, but Tony didn’t need her verification that the masked attacker’s physique matched the known measurements of one Peter Parker. None of them really did.

“Shit,” was all Tony could mutter under his breath as the video ended. “Shit.”

“That’s all we caught; others cameras were disabled,” Bruce said. “As far as we know there was only one perpetrator. Don’t know where he headed after exiting the building, or his intentions with that data. But as to who that perpetrator was… Tony, I’m sorry. All the clues point in the same direction.”

Tony clenched his jaw. Of all the possible outcomes to his weeks-long search, all the scenarios both his dreams and his nightmares presented—he would have preferred almost anything but this. Anything but that dark figure that could only be one person, stealing around the very corridors Tony had just passed minutes ago. Anything but Peter Parker, so lost, and yet caught on camera so close to home: insult to injury waved right in their faces.

It was supposed to be a straightforward operation. Search for his kid, raid all the hideouts, wait for a ransom note as a very last resort. Instead, things had just turned much, much more complicated.

“Tones… at least he’s alive,” Rhodey said softly, when Tony remained silent.

“How?” Tony said through gritted teeth. “It’s barely been three weeks. How?”

Rhodey frowned. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, look at him!” Tony waved at the screens where the security footage was still displayed. “Moves quickly, not under duress, they didn’t force him to do this. If they did, he would have done something, I know him, he—he would have left us some sort of clue.”

“And he came alone,” Rhodey said in realization. “They wouldn’t have sent him in alone.”

Tony nodded. “So how?”

As the meaning of Tony’s question sank in, everyone slowly turned to the one person in the room who had so far remained quiet.

“How?” Tony repeated to Bucky Barnes, his voice cracking at the single syllable.

The supersoldier met his gaze evenly. “There are ways. It's been less than a month, but… it’s possible.” Barnes shifted his feet and clenched the arms of his chair—not from any discomfort with him, Tony knew; he and Barnes had laboriously buried that hatchet years ago. But Bucky had always taken on a haunted demeanor lately whenever Peter was mentioned. The kid Wilson and Barnes had grown to train, to work with on missions, now captured by the very organization where the Winter Soldier had spent the majority of his life.

“There is some good news,” Bucky added after a pause. “The more they rushed the… process… the easier it will be to undo. If it’s really mind control… a good shock to his system, a strong reminder… there's hope, Tony. But the hard part is finding him.”

“Then let’s find him,” Sam declared simply, crossing his arms, and the room took a collective breath as if at a rallying cry. “At least this attack gives us a new lead. Tony? Rhodes mentioned something about a tracker in the stolen data’s encryption?”

“Yeah. It was, um.” Tony leaned back slowly in his chair. One of his frequent headaches started blooming, and he brought a thumb and middle finger up against his temples, using the same hand to push his sunglasses further up. “It’s embedded in all the encrypted folders. Dormant until they try to decrypt the files, then we’ll be able to trace it. Rhodey and I put it there; not even Peter knows.”

“So at least our top secret data’s safe for a while.”

“Already started a trace on the signal,” Rhodey said. “We get a hit, I’m there.”

“Good. Yeah, but look. We can’t keep this quiet much longer.” Sam glanced apologetically at Tony. “The sheer scale of this security breach… I’ll have to bring the rest of our people in on this.”

Tony sighed. “That’s fine, Cap. Appreciate the initial discretion. But there’s no point hiding it now that we know what we’re up against.” He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, linked his fingers together and unlinked them again. Fidgeting as his mind was fidgeting to string the sentence together. “A Hydra cell just launched a cyber attack on the Avengers,” Tony finally said, slowly drawing out each bitter word. “And they used Peter Parker to do it.”

-----

“Looks like I missed the party.” Rhodey looked over the setup in the otherwise abandoned warehouse—where computers, panels, and communication equipment had once stood, there was now nothing but a pile of smashed hardware. His AI sent a quick notification on his suit’s HUD: no one in the building but him. And yet from the trace they’d left behind, it was obvious this had been an important Hydra outpost until only minutes ago. Rhodey sighed. “We’ll be lucky to salvage any info from this scrap heap.”

He heard Tony curse over the comms. “FRIDAY lost the tracking signal. God. We were so close.”

Rhodey noticed one panel still blinking under a pile of scrap, and he walked over to inspect it. “Something must have tipped them off,” he continued as he shuffled through the scattered equipment. “A certain… Peter tingle, maybe?”

“Spider sense,” Tony mumbled. “He prefers to call it spider sense. And it doesn't work like—never mind. Point is, they're gone.”

“Stay there, Rhodey,” Sam’s voice instructed. “Buck and I are en route, we’ll handle the perimeter. They can’t have gotten too far.”

“Hydra? Yeah, yeah they could have,” Tony replied despondently.

“Tony…”

“Let him be, Sam,” Bucky interrupted understandingly.

“Well, since I got here first, this proves one thing, at least.” Rhodey decided to keep up the conversation and, hopefully, the team’s long-fragile morale as he leaned over the blinking panel. He paused for dramatic effect. “War Machine flies faster than Captain America.”

Even through the earpiece he could hear Tony’s snort. Rhodey smiled. “It’s conclusive, Wilson.”

“Nah, man, don’t do that to me,” Sam protested. “We came from the Compound. You were already downtown.”

“I keep suggesting a race.” Bucky’s voice. “And you two never race. Just get it over with…”

“I have wings, it’s not the same! Wind conditions are never…”

“Oh, wind conditions are the problem—”

As his team continued the good-natured bickering, something on the panel suddenly caught Rhodey’s eye. Pushing away a broken computer screen that covered half the panel’s surface, Rhodey saw that beside the blinking indicator LED, the panel contained a small glass case with multiple wires branching out.

And inside the case was a shining piece of black metal. A spider emblem.

“Falcon—” Rhodey didn’t get to finish.

The warning on his HUD registered at the same time as the kick. Rhodey keeled over in his heavy armor; when he turned around, his attacker was already crouched over the panel and removing the spider emblem from its case.

He wore a black stealth suit and mask. He was lanky, but apparently strong enough to knock the War Machine to his knees. He moved swiftly, too, tearing the spider emblem off, storing it somewhere in his suit, and aiming his wrists towards Rhodey all in a matter of seconds. Rhodey put an arm up in defense; the webs shot out and wrapped around it.

“Shit.” Rhodey scrambled up. “Peter!”

He barely registered his teammates’ voices through the comms, echoing the name in relief, in shock, in fear. Rhodey shot an electroshock bullet but the masked man dodged expertly, leaping up and latching onto the rafters.

“Hey, gray Iron Man!” the unmistakable voice of Peter Parker called down. “Don’t have any glasses in that fancy suit?”

“Peter Parker! Peter, stop!” Rhodey tore the webs off his armor and took off, flying after Peter, shooting three more shock bullets in succession. All three bounced off the metal rafters harmlessly. Peter darted around pillars, bounced off the walls, evaded Rhodey at every turn until he was mere feet away from the exit. “Spider-Man!” Rhodey yelled in frustration.

Peter turned. That split second was all Rhodey needed; he crashed into the kid and both of them tumbled to the floor. Rhodey used his armor to break the fall, and then he rolled Peter off of him until they were lying side by side, coughing and groaning. “Spider-Man?” Rhodey tried, getting up on his elbows. “Kid?”

Peter only moaned weakly.

“Sorry I have to do this.” Rhodey loaded another electroshock bullet. “But we have to get you back to May. And Tony—”

For the second time that day, Rhodey saw the hit coming too late. Peter flipped upward, connecting his knee with Rhodey’s chin, and kicked the older man away with his other foot. As Rhodey fell backwards, Peter landed squarely on his feet and shot a web towards the door.

By the time Rhodey recovered, Peter was gone.

----- Chapter 2: The Lake House -----

The lake house looked beautiful in the late afternoon light. Golden rays danced off the surface of the water, painting its green surroundings with a warm glow. Calm, idyllic.

None of that mood was reflected in its inhabitants, however. The woman’s shoulders sagged as she loaded a bag in the trunk of their car. Then a little girl, maybe eight or nine years old, followed the woman out of the house, holding a red and blue stuffed toy tightly to her chest as she got in the back seat.

Worst of all was the man. He limped slightly as he walked, shuffling forward like he wasn’t even trying to keep his head up. The sunlight glinted on his prosthetic arm and on the glasses hanging on the front of his shirt, but it seemed only shadows reached his face. He stopped by the trunk where the woman was still standing and she said something to him. After a few moments he kissed her cheek, then got in the front seat. The woman went around the driver’s side. And they were off.

Just in time, Peter Parker thought, lowering the binoculars. Now he could proceed with the mission.

-----

"Peter Parker. Peter Parker.” He clung to the words like a lifeline.

"Still repeating that shit?” A kick to the back.

Peter curled tighter around himself. “P-Peter… my name—Peter Par… Parker…”

“Ah, let him,” another voice replied. “He can keep the damn name. He’ll forget everything else, anyway.”

“We can’t risk a trigger!”

“Peter Par—” A sharper kick. He whimpered.

“We can’t lose time!” the second voice hissed. “Now get that miserable piece of shit back on the table.”

Arms reached out. Hands grabbed at him.

And Peter woke up. Everything rushed in at the same time, like it always did—the sound of crickets—the sliver of moonlight through the trees—the sweat that stuck his stealth suit to his back—and Peter took off his mask and buried his head in his hands. After several seconds, when he could look up again without feeling like the entire world was charging at his senses, Peter put the mask back on and began to take stock of his surroundings.

He must have overdone the nap. Damn nightmares. He’d only started getting them that day at the warehouse, and now they were growing worse.

No matter—it was still early evening. He couldn’t strike until the family was at least several hours away, in case he accidentally tripped their alarm, so he’d decided on the nap. But now he really needed to move.

Peter crept around the edges of the lake, always keeping behind the treeline. He couldn’t screw this up, too, not after his last mistake, forgetting the spider-shaped core in the rush to evacuate the old base. This was Peter’s chance to make it up to his team.

Besides—he didn’t think he could take another round of punishment.

He reached the edge of the paved driveway without incident. On this side he was closest to his target, the lake house’s garage; he could see it about a hundred yards away. But the trees ended here, so Peter moved more carefully, keeping in mind his team’s stern warnings about the AI that guarded this property.

It was lucky, though, that the AI was all Peter had to deal with tonight. Unlike his first job at the Compound, there would be no humans for him to have to sneak around. It had been a point of contention back when he first received this assignment; Peter’s team had insisted he simply take out the lake house’s residents, but Peter pushed back, suggesting he attacked when no one was home. He didn’t know why he felt so strongly about it—strongly enough to risk punishment by challenging orders. Satellite scans had shown there was no time in the family’s regular schedule when the house would be empty for several hours, so at first it had looked like Peter had no way to make his plan work.

Until today’s date had fallen from his lips. Peter had been so confident: the family would not be here tonight. They would be driving to the city, to Queens. Peter had no idea how he’d known any of that. He still didn't. But something about this date had just felt right, and after a quick check, his commander had allowed the slight change in schedule. And now here Peter was, sneaking up on an empty house. On the night of August tenth.

Peter reached the garage at last. He flattened himself against the wall, waiting, and when he heard nothing except the chirping crickets, he broke the lock on the door with his bare hands and stepped inside.

Hacking into the computers was easy. Soon Peter had started the transfer to a hard drive concealed in his suit, and he chanced a closer look around the room while the files loaded.

The place smelled like motor oil. There were a couple of sleek metal cylinders against the wall that could hold a grown human each, but besides that it was all worn benches, scattered electronic components, and half-finished projects. Well lived in, comfortable, familiar.

Peter startled. Familiar? He’d never been here before.

A small robot like a claw—no, two of them—three—stirred to life in a corner, whirring and snapping their claws at Peter. His senses gave him no trouble over the little guys, though, and Peter dismissed them as harmless. Besides, he doubted they could set off any kind of alarm at him. Then looking up from the robots, Peter’s eye caught on a plushie lying on a shelf—probably another of the girl’s. This one was red and gold, and Peter immediately recognized it as an Iron Man toy.

Huh. Iron Man. Peter’s team had told him this garage was another Avengers-related target, like the Compound, but they hadn’t specified much beyond that. Was Peter hacking into Iron Man’s systems right now? He smirked. That was pretty cool.

Hey, you wanna hear a thought I just had? Iron Man’s retired, right?

Peter blinked, and involuntarily took a step back. What was that? He couldn’t be having nightmares while he’s awake… could he? Crap, this place was messing with his senses. Peter disconnected his hard drive the second the transfer was complete, and turned to go.

Peter froze at the door. He could have sworn he’d taken out that lock just minutes ago. But now, even applying his full strength at the handle, the door wouldn’t budge.

Then a hissing sound came from the other side of the room. Peter spun back around, fists clenched in preparation for a fight. One of the metal cylinders slid open, an Iron Man suit glided out—but it was a female voice that spoke from it.

“Good evening, Peter,” it—she—said softly. “Leaving so soon?”

Peter’s breath caught in his throat. His eyes darted around the room—no escape except the door—he could rip it from its hinges if that’s what it came to, but he needed a distraction. Peter decided to entertain the suit for a while. “You’re the AI security guard,” he deduced. “Though not the same one I disabled back at the Compound. Driving this suit—you’re much more complex, aren’t you?”

“That’s correct,” the suit replied. “Compound security tried to keep you out. But that’s not my objective tonight… Spider-Man."

Spider-Man. Peter clenched his fists a little tighter and backed up against the wall. Spider-Man. War Machine had called him that, too, back at the warehouse. But it didn’t make sense.

Peter knew Spider-Man. He knew the Avengers, Spider-Man was one of them, and they were the target, they were his team’s—they were his target. What kind of game was this robot lady playing?

Robot lady powered down the suit and landed a few feet away from Peter. “Boss was right about the reaction that might elicit.”

"Boss," Peter muttered. He found a headache starting to grow at the AI's words, and his heart pumped faster, but curiosity won out. "Your boss, you mean Iron Man?"

"Tony Stark, yes. You could call us a team." The suit stepped closer, one arm outstretched. "You were part of that team, Peter."

Team. His team— "Stop right there," Peter hissed, thrusting a hand out. "Alright, look. You—you can unlock the door, right now, or I can bust it open. I bet your boss wouldn’t like that, huh? Your call, FRIDAY."

The suit lowered its arms. "You remember my name."

Remember my—

"No!" Peter growled. His headache was raging now. The ambient cricket noises from outside pounded like drums in his ears. "No—"

Remember my name.

"Peter Parker. Peter Parker.” He clung to the words like a lifeline.

They tried to wring it from him, they really did. Tried to beat, shock, drown it out. But Peter held tight.

He remembered his name.

“—member your name. What else do you remember, Peter?” the AI prompted in that same gentle voice that didn’t make sense.

Peter brought fists up to press against his temples. Not another nightmare, not a waking one, not now. He took a breath. “Okay.” Peter swallowed. “Okay, this was your call.” He leapt up. And tackled the suit to the ground.

“Word to the wise, Pete: when fighting a super-powered robot, go for the core.”

Arc reactor technology, in the center of the chest, powered all Iron Man suits. Peter went for it.

He smashed the metal inward—surely that would cause some kind of damage—and FRIDAY grabbed at his arm. Peter felt the sting of the needle that penetrated even his stealth suit.

“That’s only to get you to sleep. Peter, calm—”

Peter struck the head. Arm. Chest again, in quick succession. Then the original hit to the reactor must have taken its effect, because the suit loosened its grip, and Peter broke free.

“Use your strengths, kid. The bot’s intuition is artificial, yours isn’t.”

We webbed FRIDAY down before she could recover. Then Peter lunged at the door. It took a few good kicks for it to fly free of its hinges, but then Peter was free, leaping out into the night air.

FRIDAY caught him mid-jump.

“We stocked your web-removing formula—”

Another punch to the chestpiece. As FRIDAY carried him upwards, Peter curled into a ball and fell, rolling on the grass. FRIDAY turned back and hovered over him.

“Peter,” she pleaded. “The drug will take full effect in seconds. Please. Don’t get yourself hurt.”

Peter shot another web. Whatever FRIDAY said about web removers, it would surely take some time with all that sticky material criss crossing its arms and legs. He sprinted toward the lake.

“Water. Last resort. It’s all electronics, after all—”

“Didn’t you make your own suits waterproof?” Peter said.

Peter halted.

He was at the edge of the pier, staring at the dark waters below. A wide-eyed, panting, shaking reflection stared back.

“Yeah, well, nothing’s indestructible, so listen up. If you’re going on this mission, I need you going prepared—”

That voice. His voice. His own heartbeat, drumming in his ears. That voice. Repulsors starting up behind him. That voice.

For the first time that night, Peter closed his eyes, and he didn’t run from the nightmares, from his thoughts.

He listened.

“I’m listening! I’m listening.” Peter grinned, perched on the edge of the table. “Need the good robot’s expertise if I’m gonna go fight evil robots.”

An orange hit his head. Peter laughed.

“Don’t call me a robot.” That voice.

“Peter?” That voice.

Peter turned. The suit stood at the other end of the pier, webs hanging from its arms and legs like white strings waving in the breeze. The suit’s glowing eyes stared at him intently, but when it spoke it wasn’t with the AI’s female voice anymore. It was with the voice from Peter’s head.

“Pete—” a man’s voice choked out. “I’m sorry, I should have—seen FRIDAY’s call sooner, I—damn it.” The suit began to walk toward him. Peter tensed as it got closer, and the man must have noticed, because he stopped a few feet away and put his hands up. “Peter.” He sounded tired. He sounded gentle. “You—when you were fighting, FRIDAY injected you with something, it’s just to get you to sleep, but your metabolism’s fighting it. I—I know you don’t remember me. You don’t know me, but—I’m not going to let you go. So, could you stop fighting, ‘cause you’re only going to get hurt.” The suit lowered its arms. “Please.”

Peter didn’t move. He just stood and stared. For a long, long time.

Then he stepped forward. Another step, and—

“Stop fighting. You’re only going to get hurt.”

They wrestled him onto the table. Peter fought. Peter screamed.

He fell into the suit’s arms.

“Peter?” a metal hand patted his back tentatively. “Buddy?”

Peter screamed, and the current only coursed more painfully through his brain. Peter screamed, and no one answered.

“T-Tony?”

“Peter,” the man answered. Even through the suit’s speakers Peter heard the man’s breath catch in his throat. “God, are you—”

“Tony Stark?” Peter frowned. He pulled himself back on his feet, the suit’s arms still around his. “Tony Stark. Iron Man?”

“I—yes,” Tony said haltingly. “Do you re—”

Peter rushed forward and caught the suit in an embrace.

Iron Man.

Iron Man, the voice in his head. The metal arms wrapped loosely, hesitantly around him. Peter, on the other hand, gripped the back of the suit with all his might.

The voice in his head, nightmares. Nightmares, pain. Peter swayed towards the edge of the pier, taking the suit with him.

Pain, punishment. Complete missions, avoid punishment. Peter’s thoughts clicked together, not neatly, like a solved puzzle, but harshly, like a lock on a cell door.

Iron Man, Avenger.

The Avengers, his mission.

Iron Man, his target.

Peter leapt off the side of the pier, taking the suit with him.

“Water. Last resort—”

The suit was already damaged. The arc reactor caved inwards. The suit let go of Peter in the water.

And Peter sank, down, down. It was so cold.

“FRIDAY injected you with something, it’s just to get you to sleep—”

The suit sank with him, its lights flickering out. Then Peter saw other lights shine above the water. He smiled. Lights were pretty.

“You don’t know me, but—I’m not going to let you go.”

Peter felt the splash rather than heard it. A metal hand found his, and Peter was pulled up.

Peter gasped as he broke the surface, sucking in air. A suit was carrying him, and it landed on the shore and lay him on the ground. Another suit, a purple suit. He’d barely registered that fact when Peter’s eyelids closed of their own accord. He sank into the darkness.

“Peter?” came a woman’s voice.

Zap, came the electricity.

And Peter slept.

-----

Peter woke up in the dark. He was lying on his back on a hard surface. The remains of a headache was still throbbing between his ears, when the lights suddenly came on, and Peter recoiled painfully.

“So you’re finally awake.” Peter turned his head slowly towards the source of the voice. He forced his eyes to pry open.

His commander stood over him, glowering. Another two members of Hydra—of Peter’s team—stood behind the man.

Peter couldn’t explain the sinking despair in his stomach at the sight of them, where there should have been relief instead.

“Welcome back, Peter Parker.” The commander leaned over the table, over Peter. “Mission report."

-----

It was cold, so cold.

Peter lay stripped to his shirt and boxers, but the cold of the lake still seeped into his skin. And he had to give his report that way, arms stiff at his sides inside their metal restraints, his voice still shivering.

He told them about the operation. He told them about the hard drive, and the data, and the mission’s success—

The commander scowled at that word. Peter shuddered and moved on.

He told them about the AI. And about the suit, and Tony Stark remotely taking control. He told them how he wrecked one Iron Man suit and got rescued by another. And then he stopped, shut his mouth like a good soldier, shivering.

It was so cold.

“Both suits were remotely operated,” the commander spoke after a long silence. “We had to destroy the second by electrocution. When we rescued you. By jet.”

Peter braced himself before asking, “What about the house?”

“And why is that your primary concern?” the man snarled. “Good old Captain America arrived just as we loaded you on the jet, so the damn house is safe, soldier. We are not!”

Peter swallowed. “I’m sorry, sir.”

A fist slammed on the table. “Do you have any idea! Any… your missions call for stealth.” A hand grabbed Peter’s chin, forcing his face to the side. “I thought that was made clear. Ten times. A hundred times. That is why we send you.”

Peter swallowed again, but this time it caught in his throat. “Yes, sir,” he croaked meekly.

“You have one assignment left. Until then, think on how to avoid your ever-increasing mistakes.”

The hand released him, and Peter stretched his jaw. The men had just reached the door when Peter remembered to call out, “Wait!”

His commander walked straight out. The other two soldiers turned back instead. “What?” one asked sharply.

“I—I can’t…” Peter struggled to get out the words. “I can’t thermoregulate.”

“What?”

“Thermoregulate,” Peter rasped. “I—I don’t know why. But I’m still so… cold… please can I—” Peter tried to lift his arms. The restraints didn’t budge.

“What—what the hell? You think this was just another mistake? Like leaving the spider core microchip behind at the last base?” His teammate reached for the door. “You fucked up, kid, so you stay where you are. And be thankful we aren’t sending your brain back through the fryer. Yet.” And the door slammed shut.

-----

Peter lay shivering on the table, hour after hour. No amount of shaking made the heat flow through his body, but the room was significantly less cold than the lake, and Peter knew he wouldn’t die. Just lie shivering, hour after hour.

He knew he couldn’t bring his own temperature up, except ever so slowly. He knew that. He couldn’t explain how he knew that, though.

He couldn’t explain how he knew about a lot of things.

Like Spider-Man. And FRIDAY. And Tony Stark.

And the fact that, as he shivered in the cold, Peter’s thoughts drifted to an image of a couch in front of a fireplace. Of a thick blanket, and a woman with gentle hands and a cheeky smile that draped it over his shoulders. And the warmth of her arms when he sunk into them.

Peter held on to that thought even if he didn’t understand it; he needed all the warmth he could get. It was going to be a long night.

-----

Many miles away, another group of people were having a long night of their own.

May Parker sat glued to the holo-screens of the Compound control room. The others had drifted in and out throughout the night, sometimes keeping her company, sometimes taking care of other important matters. Sam and Rhodes had just returned from the lake house a couple of hours ago. After a while, Tony and Pepper excused themselves to the Compound living quarters, to tuck Morgan in for the night. Dr. Banner, May knew, was still awake in the lab, with Barnes working closely beside him.

It was nice knowing how the team pulled together after the night’s distressing events. But that comfort was dampened in May’s mind, knowing the contrast to Peter’s current situation. Her kid was alone, he was cold, and his spider DNA meant he couldn’t thermoregulate as well as other humans. May knew every shaky breath that her nephew took.

Because displayed on the screens in front of her, were Peter’s vitals.

“Hey,” a voice greeted, and Tony walked in, two mugs and a plate in hand. “Care for company?”

May nodded at him. “Only if you brought coffee.”

Tony handed her one of the mugs, and they sat in silence for a while, monitoring the screens.

After a few minutes Tony offered, “You can turn in, you know. I’ll take a shift.”

May clenched his jaw. “Not tonight.”

Tony nodded understandingly and took a sip from his own mug. “Pep and Morgan are sleeping, but I couldn’t. I kept thinking… anything else we could have done tonight…”

May shook her head. “You and Pepper piloted the suits as soon as you could, Tony. And this microchip, I'm thankful you had the foresight pre-programming FRIDAY to inject it in Peter’s arm along with the sedative.”

“It could be giving us more than this. I’ve been trying the whole night, May, but the tracking signal’s still being deflected. These vitals are all we can get for now.”

“More than we had yesterday. Tonight’s not a night for beating yourself up.”

Tony sighed. “I just need to clear my head.” He traced the line on the screen, tracking the slow rise and fall of Peter's heart rate. “And I don’t want him to be alone.”

May didn’t answer, only gazed at the monitored vitals—such impersonal graphs, and yet the only connection they had to Peter now.

After another long pause, Tony held out the plate he’d brought in, and May noticed for the first time what it contained: a few slices of cake, the remains of their interrupted party in May’s apartment earlier this evening.

Tony handed her a fork. “Happy birthday, Peter,” he said sadly.

May sighed as she reached for the plate. “Happy birthday, Peter.”

----- Chapter 3: The Tower -----

There are moments in life that change a person, even if they don’t realize it until later. That night at the lake house changed Peter Parker. He knew, even before they marched him into the debriefing room for further questioning, he was no longer fit for his team.

Peter had slept fitfully that cold night, but in what snatches of sleep he had been able to grab, he dreamt of that woman by the fireplace. Peter woke up fully convinced he had been dreaming of his mother.

And when he couldn’t sleep, he thought of the man from his flashbacks—nightmares—whatever they were. The man who gave him advice on how to fight killer robots. Who sent a suit to save him from drowning. Tony Stark, the Avenger, the enemy.

That was all Peter knew for sure: the enemy, the mission, the team, Hydra. Nothing beyond that. For the first time, Peter asked himself why.

Why he had nightmares of being held down on a table, electricity coursing through his body, screaming. Why those thoughts always left him shaking, when the echoes of Tony Stark’s voice in his head did not. Why the War Machine at the warehouse, and the suits at the lake, took more care with him than his team ever did.

Peter must have had a life before this. Before missions. Before electrocution sessions and cold nights lying alone. Before Hydra.

And that night, Peter knew he had to leave.

-----

He held on to that resolve all throughout the questioning.

"Last night you said the suit stopped you at the pier. But you had a considerable head start. Why were you not able to get away?"

"The sedative had kicked in by then, sir," Peter lied.

"But you told us the drug's effects only started to take hold as you were drowning."

"I misremembered, sir," Peter lied.

On and on it went. Peter dodged, and maneuvered, and hoped it was enough to keep him from punishment. Or worse, from being reprogrammed, and having to start clawing his way back up all over again.

Just when he thought the interview was over, Peter's commander took a small black spider emblem out of his pocket. "Do you know what this is, Parker?"

"A hidden microchip, sir." Peter gulped. "I made the mistake of forgetting it at the old base. I was punished."

"This microchip came from a suit," the other man continued, circling around Peter. "A very expensive piece of Stark tech. With very impressive capabilities. You are helping us rebuild the software to control it, and many others like it. That was your mission."

"Yes, sir."

Peter caught the exact moment when his commander's eyes darkened. "You lost sight of your mission, soldier."

Without warning, the man slapped the metal spider on the back of Peter's head. The legs extended, wrapping around the sides of Peter's face, and he shouted in pain as a burst of electricity shot out of them. Peter fell to his knees.

His commander continued circling him like a hawk, unbothered. "You need to be reminded."

-----

Bucky and Bruce ran into the control room where Tony was waiting. The holo-screens with Peter's vitals displayed irregular peaks in his brain activity, the implications of which the three men knew very well.

"How long has this—"

"Ten minutes," Tony answered quickly. "Not stopping."

Bucky stared closely at the graphs. "Doesn't seem to be a high voltage."

"Bursts of current, too, not steady," Bruce added.

Tony braced himself to ask. "So this isn't reprogramming?"

"It looks closer to—to torture, Tony," Bruce replied.

Suddenly Bucky turned to the other two men. "That's good," he realized. Tony stared daggers at him, and Bucky put up a hand. "Hydra doesn't double back. They wouldn't be doing this if they could simply wipe Peter's memories instead."

"So they torture him for what? For punishment?"

"It's severely affecting his brain, Tony," Bruce said in a neutral voice, eyes still locked on the screens. "There are other ways to punish a guy. No, this is a calculated move."

"When brainwashing doesn't work… There are other ways to make people do what you want," Bucky said darkly.

"That's the second time you said—brainwashing not working, not wiping Peter's memories," Tony said, deep in thought. His head snapped up when he realized the answer to his own question. "Because it takes too long."

"I think so, too. This—this is a desperate move," Bruce said. "They still need Peter, but they also need to strike soon. I mean, we're closing in on them from all angles, Rhodey's still hounding their decryption signal, Sam got some good shots at their jet last night."

"My best guess?" Bucky pointed at the screens. "Mind control. The brute kind."

Tony clenched his shaking fists. “How do we combat the brute kind?”

Bucky took a breath before responding, “Head-on.”

The three men fell quiet, watching each other, watching the screens. Tony could almost imagine Peter’s screams with every peak of the tracker. And yet in this room it was eerily, almost completely silent.

Finally it ended. Peter’s neural readings returned to normal. Everyone took a collective breath.

Bruce cleared his throat. “Where do we start? We have a good guess where they’re hitting next.”

Tony exhaled as he stood up. His mind was in a whirlwind, save one grounding point, one last hope, and he let that thought steady his feet. “Keep an eye on the kid for me. There’s something I need to do.” And he strode out of the room.

-----

“Keep an eye on the kid.” The quinjet door shut, and they were off.

Peter sat clad in his usual black suit and mask. Beside him, three of his teammates checked and double-checked everyone’s parachutes. For the first time on a mission, Peter was not going alone. Because for the first time on a mission, Hydra no longer trusted him.

They had good reason not to.

The metal spider was still attached to the back of Peter’s head, under his mask. How his teammates reacted to the new implement was fairly revealing. Gone were the intimidation tactics, the threats, the constant reminders of his past mistakes. Now the Hydra agents ordered him about without even pretending he was anything more than an expendable asset, with no choice but to obey.

They had good reason to.

“Two minutes from the drop zone. Get up, kid.”

And it was “kid” now, not “soldier.” Peter delayed one second before standing up.

Zap.

The electrocution from the spider emblem wasn’t strong enough to incapacitate him, but hell did it hurt. Peter stumbled and barely caught himself from falling to his knees.

“Fuck, commander,” the agent spoke into his comms. “It was only a second.”

“Just a little reminder.” Peter heard the voice in his earpiece, too. “But he won’t be needing much reminders once the mission starts. Will you, Parker?”

“No, sir.” Peter grit his teeth.

Zap, came a second shock. Then a third, fourth, fifth, in quick succession.

“A primitive solution. But fast. And effective.”

Peter was on his hands and knees in the interrogation room, the commander circling him like he was prey.

“You will not disobey. You will not even think of disobeying.”

Another wave, stronger this time, and Peter screamed on the floor.

“What is best is you comply.”

Peter shut his eyes at the memory, at the pain. “I’m fully compliant, sir.”

Ten seconds into the drop zone, they jumped. Peter gaped at the twinkling lights of New York City only for a moment, then focused his mind on the task at hand. Namely, not dying. Using his senses, Peter adjusted his course and that of the three Hydra agents with him, avoiding the overhead sensors that only he could detect. Soon they all landed smoothly on the rooftop of their target skyscraper.

“First phase, good,” his teamma— one of the Hydra agents, said. “Now the security, kid.”

Peter had a hunch for this, knowing just where to strike, what codes to input into his tablet to disable security. Almost as if he were intimately acquainted with the source program itself. It was how he had snuck into the Compound on that first mission. However—Peter stared at the red alert on the tablet screen—this wasn’t the same as the Compound.

“What the hell?” another agent looked at the error message on the tablet over Peter’s shoulder.

“It—I—this must be the other program,” Peter stammered. “The one from the lake house. I can’t get in.” Peter braced himself, but no electric shock came from the spider-metal on the back of his head. So the commander knew he wasn’t lying.

Then, as suddenly as it had come, the on-screen alert disappeared. “Security disabled” flashed on Peter’s tablet.

“There you go. What did you do?”

“I—nothing,” Peter answered truthfully. Something pricked at his senses. A feeling of being watched, and not just by the man controlling an electrocution machine on Peter’s head. Strangely enough, that feeling of someone else watching him gave Peter a sense of assurance more than danger. But he fought those thoughts down and took a deep breath. “Alright, we’re clear. Let’s go.”

The cold night air blew around them as they made their way across the rooftop. Peter typed in some more commands, unlocked a door, and in no time at all, the four Hydra agents had breached the Avengers Tower.

-----

Something was wrong.

Peter led the team through dark halls, weapons at the ready, but they encountered no one in the whole building. Just like they’d encountered no one on the ride down the elevator. And saw no one in any of the multiple rooms they passed.

Something was wrong.

“I see your heart rate picking up,” the commander’s voice said in Peter’s ear. “Even from my comfortable seat, this is all starting to look uncomfortably like a trap. If you had any part in this…”

Peter didn’t. He could swear he didn’t, but he kept silent, continuing to lead the agents down the hall, and bracing for another burst of pain to his skull. The commander never set off the device, though, and Peter breathed a quiet sigh of relief.

Until they reached the building’s main control room. Peter unlocked the door. One man stayed posted outside as a lookout, and Peter and the two other agents entered.

At first the room seemed like the rest of the Tower, empty, dark. But that was just the problem. Too empty. Too dark.

“Something’s wrong,” barely registered in Peter’s mind, when the attack began.

The bullets came from out of nowhere, shooting straight for the three other Hydra agents, and electro-shocking them to unconsciousness. The lookout recovered quickly and made to enter the room, when the door automatically shut in his face. Then, for good measure, another round of shocking bullets was fired at the two agents lying on the ground. And Peter was left alone with their attacker.

At first, not knowing where the firing came from, Peter merely braced himself in the middle of the room, ready to dodge the bullets when they came. But nothing ever shot at him. Now with the other agents knocked out in the dark, Peter faced the unknown enemy, relying only on his senses. He had just located the new figure in the room, and readied his web shooters to strike back, when the lights suddenly turned on.

A high-pitched tone came on with the lights. Peter crouched on the ground, arms up to protect both his eyes and ears against the sudden onslaught. He felt all his senses torn apart, compromised. And then the unknown figure stepped in front of him.

The high-pitched sound stopped. A faint whine remained in Peter’s ears, but through it he could just make out a man’s voice speaking to him. That man’s voice. The one from the lake house, from his dreams.

“Peter?” Tony Stark repeated, holding out a metal hand.

Peter shoved it away and leapt back, getting shakily to his feet. Holding out both arms in a defensive position, Peter caught his breath, and for the first time took a good look at his assailant.

It looked like the first red suit, the one from the garage. The one Peter had destroyed in the lake. But this one was undamaged, and still holding out a hand to Peter in what was probably supposed to be a calming gesture.

“Hey, FRIDAY,” Peter panted, his chest still pounding. “New suit?”

“I have a lot of suits. One of them saved you, if you recall, right after you ditched the first one in the lake.”

Peter grit his teeth. Of course he knew one of the suits—of course he knew Tony Stark, and the woman driving the purple suit, had saved his life that night. But things had changed. He couldn’t afford to think about it, to think about that fateful night at all, not with an electric killing machine stuck to the back of his brain.

“Look, man. I’m getting what I came for, and you can’t stop me any more than you could last time. Just throw in the towel and walk away now.” Peter’s voice shook.

“Tonight’s not gonna be like last time,” Tony replied determinedly.

“Walk. Away. Or I’ll wreck this suit, too, just like last time—”

“Tonight’s not gonna be like last time,” Tony repeated louder. And then he did something Peter never expected.

The suit retracted. Nano-tech particles moved in waves, draining like water in a sink towards the reactor casing in the middle of the suit. Until the only thing left standing in front of Peter, was not a metal suit, but a person.

“Peter Parker,” Tony said, taking a step forward, “tonight we’re taking you home.”

-----

Peter froze. The night he spent dreaming of the woman by the fireplace raced through his mind. Yet now, being offered the exact thing he had wanted then, Peter had no idea how to respond.

“Take me home? I want to, but there’s a killing machine on my head.”

“I want to, but there’s a Hydra jet nearby that could attack any second.”

“I want to, if I knew where home was.”

“I want to.”

“I want to, but...”

Peter’s lips seemed to move of their own accord. “I can’t,” he said in a small voice.

Tony’s eyes widened at Peter’s change in demeanor. He took another step closer. “You… okay. Okay, you know that high tone earlier? Messed up your comms. Hydra can’t hear us, at least for the moment. Peter… let me help.”

Peter ripped off his mask, and threw it to the floor between him and Tony. His hands shook, his lips shook. “He’ll kill me!” He turned his head, showing off the metal device stuck to the back. “If either of us tries anything, he’ll kill me.”

Tony took one good look at it and cursed. Then he stopped, as if listening to something on his own comms.

“I’m supposed to kill you,” Peter said. Tony’s head snapped up. “Those were my orders, if—if anyone interfered. And he can make me do it, too—”

“Kid—”

“He can make me do anything, I know, he tested it out—”

“Calm down, we’ll think of something—”

“I take you down, or my damn brain is toast!”

“You’re not dying!” Tony clenched his jaw, hand still outstretched towards Peter. “Not tonight, not on my watch.”

Peter shook his head. The familiar ache was starting to build again, the humming between his ears. “I don’t feel so good,” he choked out.

Tony froze. And then the older man must have said something in response—his lips were moving—but suddenly all Peter could hear, all he could focus on, was the commander’s voice in his ear.

“You know what to do, soldier.” The threat in his tone was clear.

“I’m sorry,” Peter rasped. And then he lunged forward.

-----

It was never a fair fight.

Tony summoned his suit back, but not before Peter got a couple of good hits in him. Knocked down on the floor, he saw his own electroshock bullets hurtling towards him from Peter’s gun, and Tony rolled away with milliseconds to spare. God, retirement had taken its toll.

“Peter…” Tony groaned, getting up on his knees. He was met with a kick to the chest.

“Tony?” Bruce’s voice echoed in his helmet. “Tony, you need to get close enough to—”

“Yeah, I know, I’m trying!” He rolled again, and the chair Peter swung crashed into the floor where Tony had just been.

It was never a fair fight.

Tony flew up and around Peter. “FRIDAY, lights out!” As darkness fell, Tony approached from behind, his targeting locked on to the device behind Peter’s head, it was within his sight—

Peter turned and fired a shocking bullet straight at him.

As Tony fell to the floor, shaking with the electricity, he realized just how close Peter had come to killing him, if he had really tried. But the electroshock bullets—a few kicks—a damn chair—Peter wasn’t really trying, was he?

It was never a fair fight.

“No,” Tony heard Peter say, as the kid stepped closer to his prone form. “No, look, Stark’s out, I swear that shock was strong enough, I—”

And then it happened. Through his HUD, Tony saw the sudden heat signature that exploded behind Peter’s head, the electronic signal, the way the kid’s body convulsed. Peter fell to his knees.

“No!” Tony screamed. Peter turned, his eyes met Tony’s—and for the first time Tony saw all the fear behind them.

It was never a fair fight. Tony was battling Peter. But Peter had to fight both the Avenger and Hydra.

Slowly, Tony got up. And he did the only thing he could think of to help his kid. He leaped forward and tackled Peter to the ground.

Peter rolled with the hit, pinning Tony under him—he’d really forgotten how strong the kid was—and Peter sent punch after punch flying. Never to the head, though—even Tony realized that. But as their fight continued, as Tony got pummeled, the shocks to Peter’s brain stopped. And for now that was all Tony wanted.

“Sam, how’s it going on your end?” Tony hissed.

“Almost there, keep him busy!” Sam replied through the comms.

Another solid hit to his suit. “Sure as hell trying to!” Needing a break, Tony turned his thrusters on and slid off from under Peter, hovering some way above the floor. Tony heard the whoosh of web shooters and he narrowly dodged Peter slamming into him mid-air.

“Hey! Flying is cheating!” Peter hollered as he passed. Tony recognized it for what it was, though—a call to keep Tony aware of Peter’s location in the darkness.

Tony wondered, not for the first time since that night at the lake house, how much of the old Peter was starting to come back. And whether it would take sooner than anticipated to restore the rest of him.

Assuming they could Peter through the night at all.

Keep the kid safe now, worry about the memories later, Tony chided himself. He turned the lights of his suit on, a beacon for Peter to spot. “Just trying to keep the fight fair!” Tony called out, and he braced himself for impact.

-----

“Rhodey! Your 3 o’clock—”

“I see him,” Rhodey said through the comms. “Coming in hot.”

Sam locked the quinjet on his targeting system and increased speed. “Approaching from the back end.”

“Good. Let’s get this son of a bitch, Cap.”

Sam smiled. “I’ll race ya.”

-----

Tony dodged yet another of Peter’s swinging kicks. “Sam! Update?”

“They’re almost at the jet, Tony!” Bucky answered for him. “The rest of us are preparing to storm the base. When we get the commander, and Sam and Rhodey get the quinjet, it’s over. Just you and the kid now, Stark, hang on.”

Peter swung again; Tony decided to let this one hit. They’d been playing this cat-and-mouse game for a while now, with fewer and fewer shocks coming to the device on Peter’s head. Tony could only hope Hydra would buy the facade to the end.

“You hear that, Pete?” Tony whispered to himself. “Just hang on.”

-----

Hydra held out to the end. But the Winter Soldier, and the team of Avengers he led, captured the base eventually. Bucky stormed into their control room and pinned the commander to the wall without slowing a step.

“Kill switch!” he demanded. Too late; the commander popped a pill, and died foaming from the mouth.

“It’s gotta be here…” Bruce scoured the panels and screens. “Tony said he had a finger on Peter’s button the whole time, it’s gotta be here!”

Then the screens blazed red. An alarm blared throughout the captured base.

And up on the main screen, the countdown started.

-----

“Wilson! Rhodey!” the urgent call came through their earpieces.

“Bruce, we got the jet!” Rhodey replied. “Crew’s secure, we’re flying back—”

“No, abort!” Bruce shouted. “They tripped self-destruct on all assets! We’re evacuating the base, crash the plane in the water and get out of there!”

Rhodey and Sam made to clear the plane they’d just taken over, when Rhodey suddenly realized something. “Wait, all assets?” he said into the comms. “Self-destructing all assets?”

“Everything’s set to blow!”

Rhodey stopped dead in his tracks. “What about Peter?”

-----

“Peter!” Tony yelled.

They had just been exchanging half-hearted blows, when the kid suddenly crumpled to the floor, clutching his head. FRIDAY immediately turned the lights back on and Tony rushed to Peter’s side.

“FRIDAY, talk to me!”

“It’s a different signal, Boss,” FRIDAY replied quickly. “Current’s going steady!”

Peter curled into a fetal position, a scream ripped from his throat.

“Cap!” Tony shouted.

“Tony! Barnes deactivated Peter’s manual kill switch. But we got another problem, the device has a self-destruct too, and it’s been tripped! You’ve got three minutes to—”

Tony tuned the rest out. As Peter continued writhing on the floor, Tony knelt and placed one suited hand behind the device on Peter’s head.

“It’s locked tight!” FRIDAY reported. “You can’t get it off in time without damaging the neural links.”

“Or setting the bomb off early,” Tony bit out. Below him, Peter screamed.

Tony stared at the electrocution device. That black metal torturing his kid, cruelly and ironically shaped like a spider itself. Tony stared. Shaped like a spider.

“FRIDAY…?”

“Yes,” FRIDAY answered like she’d read his mind. “It’s from the suit he was wearing when he was captured, modified, of course.”

The answer fell neatly in place in Tony’s mind. “Then it’s a good thing I brought backup.” He held his hand out, and a smooth metal disk flew at him from where Tony had stashed it in the room.

“Tones!” Rhodey’s voice. “Two minutes!”

Tony leaned over Peter’s still twitching body. “Peter, look at me. Look at me, kid. I need you to trust me.” Peter looked up, fear and tears and pain in his eyes. “Trust me,” Tony repeated, laying the metal disk on Peter’s chest. The kid didn’t fight him, and almost imperceptibly, Peter nodded.

Tony activated the disk.

-----

Peter’s head felt on fire. Peter’s chest felt cold.

In his head, the current ripped through everything, memories and feelings and pain. On his chest, the metal disk spread out, crawling like ants but cool on his burning skin.

His head felt like it would burst. The spreading metal on his chest held him together.

Until the cool metal wasn’t only on Peter’s chest anymore—until it was all over him, covering his body. Covering the electrocutor on his head.

Fire fought cold, and Peter screamed.

He heard Tony shouting. He heard the ticking of a countdown clock on the back of his head.

He heard the click.

And Peter passed out.

-----

Peter passed out in Tony’s arms. Tony cradled the body close to his chest, listening for his breathing, feeling for the pulse that would tell him whether his world had just fallen apart in his arms.

“Boss,” FRIDAY’s voice came an eternity later, “vitals holding steady.”

Tony exhaled the weight of a planet off his lungs, and lay his head down on top of Peter’s. “I got you, kid.” Breathing in, out. The nanotech Spider-Man suit deactivated, and as the helmet retracted, the electrocution device dropped cleanly from Peter’s head. Tony held his kid closer. “I got you.”

----- Chapter 4: Home -----

The Compound was peaceful in the mornings.

Early sunlight filtered in through the windows, the gold just hitting the green of the treetops. And it was quiet. Where the screens and beeping vitals monitors had felt like intruders in the night, in the morning their presence was subdued, making it easier to hear the bedridden person being monitored when he began to stir.

The moment her nephew opened his eyes, May was right by his side.

He struggled for words, she couldn’t come up with anything to say, so between the two of them it was silent for a while. Finally Peter spoke. “You’re… you’re the woman from my dreams.” Peter furrowed his brow. “I want to say… Mom… but somehow it doesn’t fit.”

May took his hand. “I’m your Aunt May, Peter. It’s… it’s good to have you back.”

“I don’t know—I don’t know if I’m back. I still…” Peter shut his eyes. “The dreams and nightmares… and the memories… they come in pieces. I—I don’t know my whole life yet. Or even… who I am.”

“We’ll help you. The whole team will help you.” May smiled softly, brushing a strand of hair from Peter’s forehead. “To start—your name is Peter Parker. And you’re my kid.”

The two of them spent the whole morning together. The Compound was peaceful in the mornings.

-----

Peter pieced it together, slowly.

His aunt was named May Parker. The man monitoring his recovery from the incident at the Tower, was Bruce. And the other frequent visitor to Peter’s room was already familiar. The person who saved his life, who his aunt bantered easily with, and who always brought them both some kind of hot beverage, that was Tony Stark.

It was Tony who sat with May at Peter’s bedside, filling in the gaps. Tony who explained the kidnapping, the brainwashing, their search. Tony who always reminded Peter to take his recovery easy, and always looked at him with such warmth.

There were others on the team, too. The first time Peter was able to leave the medbay, a man introducing himself as Sam led him to the shared living quarters. Another guy, Rhodey, dropped beside him on the couch and passed him some pizza, and Peter recognized his voice from the fight at the warehouse. They ended up having a good laugh about it.

He met Pepper. And Morgan. Even got reacquainted with FRIDAY.

And Bucky Barnes. Though usually quiet, the man turned out to be among the most outspokenly encouraging about Peter’s recuperation. “It gets better, kid. I know the memories come back in pieces, and it can be frustrating.” He had a faraway look in his eyes, and Peter could tell the man made an effort to make his tone light. “It’s a long road. But… believe me, it gets better.”

-----

It did get better. But not all at once.

Along with memories of tinkering in the lab, came memories of being strapped to a table. Along with dreams of warm fireplaces in a cozy apartment, came nightmares of the burning electricity in Peter’s head.

But that wasn’t even the worst part. The worst part was when Peter dreamed about the Tower, about beating the enemy up, except this time Peter didn’t pull his punches. And when he drew back he would be staring at Tony’s bloodied face. Or Bucky’s. Or Sam’s. Or May’s.

One night, suffocated by his own mind, Peter escaped to the Compound rooftop. A lone metal bench sat under the stars; Peter drifted towards it. He hadn’t been sitting there long when he sensed footsteps behind him, and turned to see Tony in the doorway.

“Just checking in,” the older man said. “Your aunt woke up and you weren’t there, she thought maybe you were with me in the workshop…”

Peter shuffled his feet. “Sorry. I sneaked away and didn’t want to disturb her.”

“Okay.” Tony lingered awkwardly. “It’s fine. Um. I’ll go. Do you want me to call May, or…”

Peter paused. He found he didn’t really want to call May, not right now. But he didn’t want to be alone, either.

“You always up this late?” Peter found himself asking instead.

“I guess so.” Tony shrugged. “Old habit.”

“Me too,” Peter replied. As he said it, he wondered if it was true about himself. Really, he was just saying what he thought might get Tony to stay.

Tony looked at him for a moment, tilting his head. Then, as if he’d read his mind, Tony sat down on the bench beside Peter. And for the next few hours, Tony stayed.

They sat quietly for a while, lost in their own thoughts, but it was a familiar kind of silence. One that made Peter feel safe. He plucked up the courage to speak several minutes later. “Mr. Stark?” Peter said. He didn’t know why the more formal address somehow felt more comfortable than ‘Tony,’ which was what Peter had been calling him lately. For some reason it just did. Tony turned his head, but if he noticed the change, he didn’t comment on it. “Mr. Stark,” Peter continued, “what happened back at the Tower? Really?”

Tony furrowed his brows. “We, uh, we fought, Pete. And then Hydra tripped the self-destruct on the device around your head, and…”

“Yeah, and you got it off, and then I passed out.” Peter fiddled with the zipper on his hoodie. “You told me. But how did you get it off, exactly?”

“Oh.” Tony leaned back against the bench. “I missed that part, huh.”

“Oh, I thought of another—why, why was that device shaped like a spider?”

Peter could tell Tony weighed his words carefully before answering. “It came from a suit. A specific, uh. Spider-Man’s suit.”

“Spider-Man?”

“Yeah.”

“So the thing you used to get it off…”

Tony nodded. “That was Spider-Man’s slightly older suit. Same signature, so the override worked.”

“He seems to have a lot of suits.”

“Yeah,” Tony chuckled. “Yeah, real tinkerer, that one.”

“It spread from my chest, felt like ants crawling on me.”

“That would be the nano-particles. I helped with that part, but the rest of it, all his handiwork. He’s very capable that way. Skilled guy.”

“Yeah.” Peter looked down. “Yeah, I bet. No wonder Hydra wanted him.”

Tony stiffened beside Peter. After a moment Peter felt a hand on his shoulder. “We were gonna tell you, Pete. Eventually. But doctors said to go slow on the whole memory thing and… I, I wasn’t quite sure how to break that gently, to be honest.”

Peter shrugged. “It’s okay. Not that hard to figure out. My senses, plus the memories that name brought up…” He took a breath. “And, I mean, the Avengers. You guys are, you’re Earth’s mightiest heroes or whatever. Why… why else would you all be so hell-bent on saving me?”

“What do you—because you’re one of us,” Tony said firmly. “Not because of what you can do.”

Peter didn’t answer. After several weeks fighting for a team that only seemed to care about what Peter could do, he didn’t seem to know how to answer.

“Is—is this what this is about? What keeps you up at night?” Tony pushed. “You’re wondering why you were worthy?”

Peter fiddled with his zipper, with the hem of his hoodie, anything to keep his fingers moving. “I hacked into your databases,” Peter said in a small voice.

“We dealt with that damage, Peter.”

“I wrecked your garage, your suit—”

“Things can be replaced.”

“And I beat you up pretty good.”

“Oh, yeah.” Tony laughed. “Yeah, okay, I’ll give you that one.”

The laugh disarmed Peter. He turned to meet Tony’s eyes, but he found no unkindness or mockery there—only sincerity behind the outer humor. Peter couldn’t help but smile too.

“Hey, I should thank you. I don’t get much exercise in retirement,” Tony quipped.

“Semi-retirement,” Peter blurted. That made both him and Tony stop. “You’re… only semi-retired,” Peter continued uncertainly. “You, um. You’re my…” But Peter's burst of memory failed; it only ever reached so far.

“Mentor,” Tony supplied when Peter trailed off. “Occasional tech support. Substitute Guy in the Chair…”

“Old man?” Peter joked.

Tony snorted. “Disaster child. Never change.” Then Tony’s eyes softened, and he lowered his voice. “You are a part of this team, Peter. Everything we put on the line was worth it. Everything. Because it got you home.”

Peter breathed deeply, and let it out in a long sigh. Slowly, he leaned against Tony’s side, and Tony put an arm around his shoulders. Peter found he fit in Tony’s arms like a puzzle piece. Like he belonged there. Like he’d always belonged there.

“I wish I could remember more,” Peter admitted quietly, when he was good and settled in Tony’s embrace. “I wish I could remember faster. Or I wish… I’d never forgotten in the first place.”

Tony hugged him a little tighter. “We’ll be here to remind you.”

-----

They reminded him. And slowly, Peter recovered. Slowly, Peter remembered.

-----

They held a second birthday party at May’s apartment a few days later. Complete with streamers, red and blue balloons, and—

“Chocolate cake. Always chocolate cake, and you always bake it yourself,” Peter remembered.

May smiled as she kissed Peter’s temple, and handed him a slice.

-----

Peter eased slowly back into training, too.

“You wanna deflect the knife like this, and remember to—”

Peter broke Bucky off when he executed the move perfectly, ending with him pinning his sparring partner to the ground. Sam laughed and flashed a thumbs-up from the sidelines.

“I remember,” Peter realized, grinning.

-----

“Every other weekend? I used to hang out with the Tony Stark every other weekend?”

“Until stupid college got in the way,” Tony groused playfully. He handed Peter a wrench for the reinforced garage door they were installing.

“Still can’t believe I go to MIT,” Peter said as he tightened the screws.

“Yeah. When you’re ready to go back, treat Ned and Michelle to a big movie night or something, whatever you kids do for fun. They can't wait to see you again.” Tony looked up from his toolbox. “Do you remember…?” he said tentatively.

Peter nodded. He did remember, bits and pieces—laughter with a childhood friend, stolen moments with a girl he admired. All on their own, Peter’s cheeks began to blush.

Tony grinned. “Yeah. Thought you did.”

-----

There were some things, though, that were Peter’s very own. And that he had to rediscover on his own.

“How’s it feel?” Tony asked, as Peter donned the Spider-Man suit for the first time in months.

Peter tested it out: stretched his arms, fiddled with the web shooters, said hi to Karen. “It—it’s perfect, Mr. Stark,” he said when he was finished. “Thank you.”

Tony slung an arm around Peter’s shoulders and walked with him across the Tower rooftop. “Alright. This one you’ll have to figure back out on your own. But you did it before, and you’ll do it again.” Tony smiled. “Spider-Man.”

Peter perched on the edge of the roof, feeling the wind on his suit, the rush of his senses. The feeling of being back where he belonged.

Peter Parker was Spider-Man. This was his to remember. This was his to reclaim.

“Stay safe,” he heard Tony whisper, as the older man backed off from the edge.

Peter turned to him. “Tony?”

Tony looked up at him, and Peter paused to relish that short moment. For all the time they’d spent together lately, this was different. This was special. This was them, back in their old mentor-mentee groove. And it felt good.

“I, I just wanted to say—” Peter started, and he grinned. “I still think ‘official Avenger-Guardian of NYC’ should be a thing. And it definitely ranks higher than Iron Man.”

Tony’s dropped jaw, and his mock-offended face, was the last thing Peter saw as he shot a web and swung down over his city.

Spider-Man had returned.

#the friendly neighborhood exchange #friendly neighborhood exchange #irondad #peter parker #tony stark #fanfic #jelly's

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elizabeth-234 · 3 years

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The Supplejack

Previous Chapter Sixteen: Civil War

Summary so far from previous chapter: Here's a summary of the previous chapter: Peter goes to upstate New York with his team plus Flash and Ned. They all have fun with some heart to heart conversations about the disaster that was the end of their project because of the trip to Oscorp. It's summer with two weeks back to school. Peter reflects on what happened with Mr. Stark with much angst and sadness. He's also working himself too hard with two jobs, one at a coffee shop and the other at a radio supply store called Barry's. It is there that Peter finds himself watching the news as Civil War happens. Close footage of the event is released and the world watches as two superheroes battle it out. Peter stumbles home and calls Mr. Stark to make sure he's okay only to get a voicemail. He doesn't leave a message.

Chapter Seventeen: Reflection and Realizations

Peter always felt at odds with the world. From his youth – the time waking up alone in the hospital and going through middle school with laughter following at his back – left the impression of permanent displacement. The uncomfortable foreignness he sometimes felt inside his own skin was nothing new. Peter’s preference for a quiet room over something loud was strange to people. Sam Carlson called him a freak and at the time Peter cried. When no one stood up for him he believed it was true. What else would explain the differences between him and everyone else?

At home, his family knew and loved his differences. Ben wore his varsity jacket with pride. Peter would run up to him and beg to wear it, loving how the plush leather draped around his shoulders. Hoping one day he could wear his own like Ben. Peter could remember Ben’s excited ramblings. All the plans he made for Peter - with Peter. When he fell short of those dreams, Ben still loved him.

Ben took him to ice cream outings after spelling bees and pushing Peter to believe in himself no matter what. He showed Peter that sometimes, with special people, those differences weren’t considered bad but unique. Like his quirks were interesting instead of outlandish.

With the anniversary of Ben’s death approaching at the end of the week and now Germany, the differences felt like too much. His skin itched. He wanted to destroy his phone and hide under the blankets in his room. He also wanted to plop himself down in front of five monitors and make sure he didn’t miss anything.

It was a week since Germany. Seven days of news stations repeating words and phrases over and over again. Their pantomime words were pointless and flat but Peter couldn’t do anything but watch them. He had to make sure there wasn’t a speck of information missed. What if new injuries came to light? What if, after the bloody fight there was more violence and fear? The smallest word could incite the people of New York and the world to shift to a strange unease. To look at their heroes as lesser because of an in-house fight. Would they be wrong do so? So, hours of the tv he watched.

Today, though was different. He climbed out of bed to drag himself to the couch in their living room. It was still pushed to the side of the wall so May could roll her yoga mat out in the middle of the room so he had to sit at the end and crane his neck to see.

Peter yawned and stretched his back before turning on the tv. Both hope and dread tangled in his stomach as he waited to see if anything new happened while he was asleep. The first thing he noticed was the absence of colors. There was no red and gold; no red, white, and blue either. Instead a story played about a new workout fad on the morning show. Both hosts tried to squat in heels and a tight suit and all Peter could do was watch in disbelief.

He moved to the edge of the couch, digging his hands into the sides of the cushions. Peter switched the channels back and forth but … there was nothing. Not a single story on the Avengers.

The day passed in a blur after that. Peter sat in the back of Barry’s listening to the radio as he worked. The Yaesu FT – 891 sat exposed in front of him on the table. Gears and widgets crowded the small paneling of the front.

Still no word about it on the radio. Iron Man, Captain America, The Avengers. Nothing.

It was incomprehensible. How had the world already moved on? The arguably largest powers of the world clashed in epic proportions and a week later no one cared. Everyone else was getting back to normal.

Peter’s whole world had changed. Maybe in minuscule terms but at a fundamental level. If this was what it meant to be at odds with the world then maybe it was a good thing. If he could remember, keep those relentless attacks and trembling fists in mind, then maybe it was worth it.

Before their upstate getaway. Peter scowled at the news. He hated how these strangers gossiped and mongered any information they had about Mr. Stark. Chest heaving from running. Peter watched from the side of the street as Iron Man was on the tv. Mr. Stark wearing his superhero persona complete with the large glasses and faux smile. When the woman who walked up beside him asked him who the man really was he was blindsided. Who else would he be besides Iron Man?

Peter didn’t understand at the time.

It was when he saw Mr. Stark, when Iron Man had fallen to the ground. Blood stained the red metal dripping onto the concrete underneath him. Peter realized he was as bad as the people in the hallway of the Tower like the man who spilled coffee on himself as their boss walked by all those months ago. He was the one staring at the man from behind glass – through a pair of Mr. Stark’s rose tinted glasses.

All those months he’d spent in knots because “it was Iron Man, after all.” Isn’t that what he thought before his presentation? All those dinners and movie nights with the man and Peter never viewed him as a person.

He was Iron Man.

But he was also Tony Stark.

Peter had never crossed that bridge or made the connection until now. His stomach churned at how long he’d willfully been ignorant.

Mr. Stark was a real human being made of flesh and blood. Not someone who didn’t care if their ‘past indiscretions’ were picked apart on the regular. Not a figurehead of a huge company or a symbol to the people. He was arrogant and flawed and … a kind person.

He was someone who fed Peter his favorite orders and watched boring school movies with him. He worried that Peter would get home safely ever time. He reached out to Peter, lifted him up, and all those months he worked with Peter. Mentored him as softly as he could when Peter was in no state to receive help.

It was like his eyes were opening after a long sleep.

When Ben passed it tore something out of Peter. He closed himself off from people. The hurt of him leaving left a bitter knot in Peter. One he never wanted to feel again. A hurt he would do anything to make sure he didn’t feel it again. The pain in his chest, squeezing and weighing heavy until he couldn’t breathe followed him for months

In the anguish, the solution became about connection. It was his connection that hurt, their love that was leaving this pain in Peter long after Ben was gone. If it wasn’t for that, maybe he wouldn’t be hurting as much. If, Peter had kept a distance, maybe Ben would still be alive. So, he turned his life was on autopilot. Didn’t allow himself to get attached to anyone and he was alone. He was getting by. It was all the better for it, he told himself.

Then the S.T.A.R.K. posters took over Midtown and something changed. A small spark ignited, just barely smoldering, but aflame all the same. Peter wanted to participate. He wanted to win. For the first time in a long time, he battled his insecurities and wrote his name on the paper outside the school office. Fingers trembled against the concrete wall but looking back on it now, it was the first step to reaching out and making a new connection, though at the time he didn’t see it that way.

His back still hurt from the hours spent hunched over at his desk scribbling in notebooks and testing materials. The knot in his stomach urged him to find a better solution. The recipe needed tweaking and the equation needed changing to make it the best. If he could find the right formula then maybe he could help someone. Maybe, the words taunted him, he could’ve saved Ben.

It was a lifeline just out of his reach. Peter struggled and grappled to grab hold and pull himself up even after hearing Ms. Potts and Mr. Stark spoke about him as he hid behind the plants. Not after the tour and the internship began could he breath again.

Not until the lab. The quiet moments in lab two were like the first relief of that pressure. The first quiet after the storm. Working next to Mr. Stark he found the ability to breathe again. Just for a few hours he could be present in himself, not feel the uncomfortable itch of being in his own skin, and just be. Only now did he realize he was sitting in the eye of the storm while the winds raged around him, waiting to move away and sink him into their tempest clouds.

Mr. Stark made effort after effort to reach him. He asked about May and with genuine interest asked about school and life. Peter’s face turned hot as he remembered the glass of water and medicine waiting for him on the nightstand when he insisted on going to the tower when he was ill.

Why hadn’t he realized before?

Maybe it was because of Ben and his parents. Maybe Peter was scared to lose someone again. He didn’t want to ever put on a black, ill-fitting suit and hear the flat, kind words that never really captured what was special about a person again.

The man tried to show him but Peter wasn’t in a place to receive.

And that made the ache in his chest throb all the more.

There was nothing more he wished than to be thrown that rope again but it was gone now, pulled back to the safety of the boat while Peter was just now realizing he was lost at sea.

The why wasn’t important. It didn’t matter what Mr. Stark was getting out of it. It didn’t matter why he picked Peter or that he used him in whatever was happening with Oscorp. All of that stung but it didn’t negate the real moments when Mr. Stark became someone he could look up to. Someone he could look to for help.

What mattered was he showed Peter who he was underneath the larger than life image. Mr. Stark was a man who hadn’t noticed the view from his obnoxiously large tower until Peter pointed it out. He was the one who burned frozen pizza but new how to build rockets and whatever else his imagination dreamed up.

He had faults but he was trying.

Mr. Stark was a man Peter would never know further.

Again, his world changed without really changing at all. The subtle self-awareness became sharper and he could see, could finally admit what he wanted.

He wanted to visit with Julia and collaborate again, study together like friends. He wanted to hang out with Ned and Flash and just laugh without feeling so damn guilty. Peter wanted to go back to the Tower and spend his afternoons working on projects. Watch movies and make frozen pizza, not burned preferably. He thought of his promise to May, the feel of her arms impossibly strong around him and their words whispered together. He had thought he’d meant it when he said he would try for himself and her.

Now, though, he knew it was more of a child’s promise. Something said without much thought to how to progress.

“I want you to start taking care of yourself and loving yourself. I know it’s not easy and it downright sucks most of the time but can you try to do that?” May had said.

Had he tried? Did he make any progress this summer?

At first, he worked himself to the bone. Tired from waking up and going to bed from school, Barry’s, and The Bitter End. There was purposefully no room to think and reflect, which was how Peter wanted it. While self-reflection was one of his strong suits, it was also a downfall. He would get trapped in these endless cycles of overthinking and doubting himself.

But it wasn’t sustainable. He was only one, arguably asocial, individual. It was too much at all hours of the day. His time at The Bitter End came to just that with loud shouting from Cindy and a year ban from the store. Peter wasn’t sure if the latter was a joke or not.

Working one job with school so far was working. Barry was a low maintenance boss and if he stayed on top of homework, school wasn’t too bad. Still, he missed going to the Tower after school. Working collaboratively with his team and spending time there after.

Peter sighed, rubbing his chest absentmindedly before shutting the radio off and leaning back in his chair.

How could the world move on so quick? How, after everything the Avengers did for them, could they just talk about workouts and other mundane things?

He took his cell phone out of his pocket and flipped it open. His thumb hovered over the enter button as he watched the blinking light highlight Mr. Stark’s number.

“Damn.” He said under his breath and closed the phone again. After that last time, he didn’t have the courage to call the number again or leave a voicemail.

Peter sank forward. His head rested into the curve of his elbows on the desk as he thought of what he should do next.

Despite his adversity to it, change came into his life whether he wanted it or not. Uncaring at the best of times and brutal at the worst.

Ned stood beside him and a glazed over Flash to the other side. The former was rambling on about a last-minute vacation he took with his parents to Toronto, while the latter didn’t even attempt to be impressed.

“- and there’s this little town where they perform all these plays every year. We saw A Midsummer Night's Dream and boy was that way hornier than I thought.”  

“Well, if that isn’t fascinating but some of us have to get to class.” 

“Don’t act all high and mighty, Flash. We’re in the same first period as you, dude.” Ned winked at Peter.

Flash was still Flash but he’d become less rough as time wore on. Ned seemed to have that effect on people, Julia too. Flash would gripe and grumble but to Peter, he seemed happier now than their freshman year. He wondered if maybe Flash had wanted a fresh start in high school as much as him. Peter grinned at him and rolled his eyes in good nature with Flash as Ned continued giving them a rundown of the play.

He looked around at the other students comparing schedules and groaning over their new teachers. A group of short students walked by them. Peter froze at their height difference. Was he that short last year? It felt weird but good to see how much he’d grown. They were no longer the small fish on campus. He grinned.

Peter followed Flash and Ned to their English first period. As luck, or not, would have it Mrs. Brzozowski was teaching their class again. Her scowl spoke volumes for how she felt about her schedule change.

He groaned along with the rest of the class when they received their assigned seating. Setting his backpack under his seat, Peter took a seat by the window and managed not to gloat at the good spot. Middle back and next to the window. Plenty of fodder for daydreams, though he suspects their novels will keep him engaged through the year. He missed Austen but was excited to read some American Literature this year.

By the time he made it home, Peter’s head was pounding. Lunch was thankfully quiet because he managed to find a spot in the library. Ned visited him before he was off to greet Midge and everyone. Peter sat in relative silence thinking over his peanut butter and jelly made from the heels of the bread (he’d have to get some more after work) about the school year ahead and the one he left behind last June. All the while he resisted the urge to look at his phone notifications.

Peter knew that he wouldn’t find anything there.

Tomorrow he could go and eat with everyone, Peter decided. By then the first day jitters would subside, at least a bit, and it would be nice to see Midge and Jaimik again. Not so much to hear about Mike’s latest antics.

As was his routine after work and homework, Peter climbed into bed adjusting his t-shirt from clinging to his back and curled up under the covers. After much tossing and turning and entirely too much thinking, he fell asleep.

Peter woke in a sweat clawing at his chest. The sweat soaked his shirt making it damp to the touch. His chest heaved from the great pressure threatening to explode out. His hands trembled and he threw them in front of him. There was no blood. He wasn’t bleeding. He wasn’t the rabbit or being torn apart as his subconscious wanted him to believe.

Peter couldn’t stop the ragged breathes. He tried to concentrate on his heart but it burned in his chest, the raging rhythm seemed to take over his body, pulsing in his head and stomach. Blindly, Peter reached out and pulled the notebook from the crevice of his bed and wall.

Sometimes he would read through them but today he hugged them close to his chest. His fingers traced the indents and now fraying page ends until he could finally breath deep and steady.

It was only then in the still and dusk of not quite morning that Peter realized he was crying.

Thank you for reading.

Next Chapter Eighteen: Existing

#spiderman #peter parker #iron man #tony stark #supplejack #avengers fic #fanfiction #irondad #iron dad #spiderson #pre powers #angst

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ladycatofwinterfell · 4 years

Text

A new marriage and an old one, pt3

Summary: Robb is getting married and Catelyn have been married for many years. This is a happy story about the Starks (mostly Ned and Cat, but also the others) that takes place in a world where AGoT never happened and they’re all living happily in Winterfell.

Rating: I’d say mature, but message me if it should be changed.

English is not my first language, so I apologize if there’s any spelling or grammar mistakes. I hope you enjoy it :)

~*~

How was Catelyn going to ever pray in her sept again without thinking of that? Thanks to Ned, she didn’t believe it was possible. But it had felt good, so so good. And it still occupied her mind hours later even though they had only been there for a couple of minutes. She didn't have time to be distracted but she found herself thinking back on her moment with Ned in the sept over and over again. Tonight was so far away, she just wanted to get to it immediately. She was a patient woman usually, but with all that was going on it was so nice to just relax into Ned’s touch every once in a while. It was such a sweet feeling to let him take care of her in every way imaginable and just forget about all the things that screamed to be done.

She was currently trying to get the seating to go together. And it was giving her a headache straight from the deepest of the seven hells. The Boltons didn’t go very well with any of the houses with lands next to them, there had been conflict there, to say the least. It had involved a few angry letters and meetings about the fact that Roose Bolton had a very hard time with keeping his hunting on his lands. But maybe she could place them close to the Dustins. There had been no conflict there that Catelyn was aware of. But maybe she was wrong and the whole feast would fall because of it. All she knew was that she didn’t want the Dustins close to herself. Barbrey Dustin seemed to dislike Catelyn fiercely for some unknown reason, and she wasn’t very fond of Ned either. And the Reeds of the Neck rarely showed up at Winterfell, but now they were coming for the wedding of their liege lord’s eldest son. They went well with everyone, didn't they? Or had there been some conflicts with the Flints of Flint’s Finger about men disappearing in the swamp? She had a feeling of that Ned had mentioned it to her some time ago while they were getting ready for bed. Had they solved that with good tones or had it ended badly? Well, it was wiser to not place them next to each other, she didn't want to risk anything. Fights could end with injured and dead men and she wanted no such things to happen in her hall, she wanted no further conflict between any houses in the north.

She sat like that for what at least felt like hours. With the list of everyone who had said that they would attend and a drawing of all the tables in the Great Hall in front of her. Slowly she crossed names off the list and filled the tables with them and every once in a while she had to start over with a table because she had forgotten something or someone, or because she had placed someone too close or too far away from the high table. And when she finally looked down at the finished seating plan she realized that she had forgotten herself, Ned, and the Tyrells, because she had forgotten that Robb and Margaery would have the high table all to themselves, as was tradition. Gods, her little Robb was getting married. He would have a wife soon, would become a father and have a little family of his own. Time went too fast, they were all slipping from her fingers before her eyes. Maybe it was greedy to ask the gods, Ned’s or hers, for another child, but she wanted one last child that was hers before her children started having children. She would be a grandmother soon if the gods blessed Robb and Margaery with a child. She had thought of it often since Margaery and her family arrived at. Winterfell. That there would be children running around around the castle that would call her “Grandmother” instead of “Mother”. The thought made her both very happy and sad. She was getting old.

And that was not what she was supposed to be thinking about.

She sighed deeply and rested her head in her hands, closing her eyes. Her head was pounding. How could seating be so hard when she had done it a hundred times before? And why did she even bother? Everyone would start moving around and changing seats the moment all the courses had been served. As soon as the dancing started all she had planned would fall apart anyway. But it had to be done, because her eldest son was getting married and it had to be perfect. And she had to make sure all of the more important guests fit inside the Great Hall. There would be fires and food outside for the free riders and men that had came with their lords, but the more important men had to be inside the hall.

“My lady, is everything alright?”

She raised her head from her hands and saw that Maester Luwin had entered the room. She had been too deep in her thoughts and feelings to notice. Her immediate answer to his question was “No, everything is not okay. I have a headache, I can’t get the seating together and my children are growing up too fast”, but that was not what she said.

“Yes, Maester. Everything is alright, I’m just trying to get the seating together” Catelyn said and looked down at the papers before her. “It’s harder than one would think it is.”

She, Ned and the Tyrells had to be closest to the high table, so she would have to move everyone back a little. But then the people at the end of the hall wouldn’t fit inside. Maybe if she squeezed them together a little everyone would fit inside. But then they would practically sit in each other’s laps. She decided that maybe they would think that it was worth it to attend the wedding feast of the eldest son of Eddard and Catelyn Stark. Or they could always go outside, she had no doubts about that the celebrations wouldn’t be big outside the Great Hall too.

“Do you need my help, my lady?” Luwin asked. “Or do you want me to send for anyone?”

“There’s no need” she said and frowned. “Or wait. Send for Sansa, Arya, and Lady Margaery. I will have need of them.”

The Maester bowed before he left her with her struggles again. She tried to get it together, tried to make it work. And every now and then she suddenly remembered something that forced her to make a drastic changing to the seating. Wedding planning really was a lot, she would be exhausted by the time it was all over. She almost longed for it. It would be good to have the amount of work go back to normal.

“Mother.”

Arya poked her head into the room.

“Maester Luwin said you wanted to see me.”

“Yes” Catelyn said. “Have a seat, sweetling.”

She smiled at the thought of getting company in her misery. Company that would help her put an end to it. So that she could bury herself in the next one by getting started on other things that really needed to be done.

“You’re doing seating, aren’t you?” Arya said as she sat down in a chair on the other side of the desk. “Robb said you would be doing that today.”

“I’m tempted to let him do the seating himself” Catelyn said with another sigh. “It’s his wedding, not mine.”

“Nah, it’s been some time since you married.”

“Twenty years today.”

Sansa also came in through the open door, immediately joining the conversation.

“Did you like Father’s gift?” she asked. “I helped him with it.”

“It was lovely” Catelyn assured her.

It had been a wonderful gift. She had nothing for Ned, which made her feel pretty bad. She had not even remembered that it was their wedding day. Maybe it was actually her who had to make something up to him that night.

“It was, wasn’t it? The colors were so pretty!”

“They really were. But that was not why I called you here, I need help with the seating. It has to be done today, preferably before supper.”

The fact that there was a possibility of that they would have to keep on with the seating after supper made Catelyn extremely tired. She just wanted to eat in peace and then retire to her chambers with Ned. But that wouldn’t happen, since she just couldn’t get the damn seating to work out. When Jon married his Alys she would not volunteer to do more than she absolutely had to. Haha, who was she trying to fool? She would absolutely take on more work than she could actually handle and then she would curse herself for not remembering how stressed she had been when she was planning Robb’s wedding.

“Mother, I can see in your eyes that you really want this to be done before supper. So could you please hand me the paper so that we can have a look?” Arya said and stretched out a hand.

Catelyn gave her daughter the paper and leaned back in her chair while Sansa and Arya looked at it. She sat quiet and just listened to them talk with low voices about what you could do with the damn seating. All her daughters were absolutely brilliant girls and she fully trusted that they would do a good job with whatever task she gave them.

“You wanted to see me, Lady Stark?”

Margaery looked into the room.

“Oh yes, come inside” Catelyn said and smiled. “We are trying to fix the seating, would you mind giving us a hand?”

“Not at all, I would love to help!”

Thank the gods. For a moment Catelyn considered to leave the girls to it and take a short break. But did she have time for that? Absolutely not, she needed to look over all the resources and shippings to Winterfell so that the kitchens had everything they needed for all the courses that would be served. But she would rather discuss with Sansa, Arya and Margaery than sit in silence and just read through page upon page of documentations of the latest wagons that had arrived to the castle.

And so the four women sat huddled around the desk and tried again and again to get everything together. The sun started to sink down underneath the horizon outside the windows and Catelyn was forced to light candles and get a fire burning in the hearth so that they would be able to see anything.

“Almost all these people are new to me” Margaery said. “It’s hard.”

“None of them are new to me and I’ve been here for hours. It doesn’t make it any easier” Catelyn said.

Maybe it actually would have been easier if she hadn’t been married to the liege lord of all those people. She would’t have had to take so much into consideration because she would have known nothing. What wouldn’t she have given to just know nothing of all the squabbles among the northern lords?

“But if we do it this way” Sansa said.

“Nope, that won’t work” Arya said immediately. “Where are the Umbers? How could you even forget them? You are betrothed to the Smalljon!”

“You know, Mother, now I understand why you look like you are thrice widowed” Sansa sighed.

Catelyn had been aware of that she probably looked as tired as she felt, but honestly, was it really that bad? Maybe it was. And on top of looking like hew was thrice widowed, she was getting really hungry. She had not eaten anything since she broke her fast and there had been many hours since that.

“I’m glad you get it, sweetling” she said.

All four of them looked up at the same time when it knocked on the door and Ned came in.

“Could you come outside with me, Cat? I need a word.”

She wondered what he had to say. Had anything happened? He didn’t look worried. But he didn’t look very happy either. He just seemed tired. How lovely that they were in the same mood.

“Of course” she said and rose form her chair. “You can continue, girls, I’ll be right back.”

They walked out of the solar together and Ned closed the door behind her. And without saying a word he pulled her into an embrace. She laid her arms around his waist and leaned against him as he buried his face in her hair.

“I’m tired” he said.

“Me too. This really is a lot.”

“Jon will have to wait.”

“Preferably until I’m dead and buried” she said and smiled. “That way I won’t have to do anything.”

He chuckled softly at that. Then they were quiet again. She closed her eyes and just took in the feeling of his arms around her. His heat and the smell of him, it was so calming. She had really needed that.

“Was that what you wanted to say?” she asked after a few minutes.

“No, but I needed to have you close for just a moment” Ned said. “What I actually came to say is that supper is being served now. You should come down to the Great Hall to eat.”

That meant that they were not going to be done before supper. How absolutely terrific. Catelyn was ready to cry at that point.

“We’ll be down soon” she said. “So keep my chair empty.”

“No, you should come now. You need a break” Ned said softly.

“I have already had a break today. And it was an excellent break, but I don’t have time for one more. And if I finish it now I will be free after supper.”

She looked up at him.

“I seem to recall that we had plans for tonight. We won’t be able to carry out with those if I have to sit up with that half the night because I took too many breaks.”

He sighed and kissed her forehead.

“Okay” he said. “But promise that if it takes too long you will take a break and come down and get some food. You need to eat, my love.”

“I won’t be long” she said. “I promise.”

She gave him a quick kiss before she turned to go back inside. But just as she was about to lay her hand on the door handle the door flew open and Arya almost danced out.

“We did it, Mother!” she shouted. “We solved the seating!”

Oh thank the gods, old and new. Finally it was over. Catelyn could go down and have supper! She was free from the seating.

Sansa and Margaery also appeared in the doorway behind Arya, both of them were shining. And an overwhelming feeling of pride took over Catelyn. Those were her girls, in one way or another. And they had actually thought out a way to make it all work. Oh how she loved them for it.

“You’re brilliant, all three of you” Catelyn smiled. “I knew you would do it!”

Well, if she was going to be completely honest, she had had her moments of doubt about that they would actually managed to finish the task. But those were all washed away, now she was purely happy and proud of them.

“Ned” she said and turned to him once more. “Please take me down to have some supper. I’m starving.”

~*~

”To twenty more years” Ned said and raised his cup to her.

”I’m a greedy woman, I want at least thirty” Catelyn replied and raised her own cup.

”To thirty more years then.”

”To thirty more years” she smiled and drank.

The Great Hall was so filled with people that you could almost believe that it was the day of the wedding. It wasn’t, so many people had arrived with the Tyrells. And northern lords and their parties also started to arrive, it was just a little more than two weeks left after all. Winterfell and the winter town were both filled with more people than ever. Catelyn, who was in her usual chair next to Ned’s high seat, could see each and every person in the hall. She had some of the Tyrell family to her right, the rest was on Ned’s left.

”I didn’t mean to listen, but I overheard your conversation” Olenna Tyrell said. ”I want to congratulate you on your twenty years.”

”Thank you, my lady” Catelyn said and smiled again.

”Standing out with a man for that long is an accomplishment” Olenna continued.

Catelyn glanced at Ned for a second. He was in conversation with Mace Tyrell, Olenna’s son.

“It’s hard sometimes, but worth it in the end.”

Ned could absolutely drive her to madness every now and then, but she loved him. He was a loving and good husband to her, and a loving and good father to their children. He was a good, but just lord to his people. She couldn't have asked for a better person to share her life with. He had helped her into her second home and loved her even when she felt like she was unlovable.

Olenna was just about to reply when someone grabbed Catelyn’s arm. She looked down and saw little Hoster. He was a copy of Ned, but with her own eyes and her nose. The Stark face and hair with the Tully blue eyes. He and Lyanna were the only one of their children who had taken after something from both her and Ned.

”What is it, Hoster?” she asked.

”Lyanna hit me” the little boy whined. ”With a stick.”

”How did she get a stick in here?” Catelyn mumbled to herself and looked out over the hall in order to find Lyanna.

Her handmaiden should have been watching her. And prevented her from bringing a stick to supper. It was hard to find such a small girl in such a large crowd, but Catelyn managed to catch sight of her youngest daughter’s fiery red hair between two tables.

”Excuse me for a moment, Lady Olenna” Catelyn said.

She took Hoster’s little hand in hers and walked around the high table to go down and get Lyanna. It was clearly bedtime for her and her twin brother.

”Lyanna!” she said sharply. ”What are you doing with that stick?”

The little girl smiled up at her. She too had Ned’s long face, but she had Catelyn’s red hair and blue eyes. She was an extremely charming girl at the age of six, she knew exactly how to get what she wanted and how to get out of anything. She owned the heart of every person in Winterfell. Especially Ned’s, she could just smile and he would immediately forget everything about how she had misbehaved. It was as though her little face smiling at him made the Lord of Winterfell completely blind.

The thing was that she was not always like that, she did everything she was told when she wanted. She could behave like a perfect little lady when she wanted to. Some days she was impeccable and some days she was a nightmare. It depended solely on what she felt that day. But no matter which, she was always the most charming little thing to have ever walked around in the world. Catelyn couldn’t deny that.

”It’s a sword, Mother!” she explained cheerfully. ”I’m protecting people from evil dragons!”

”And why did you hit your brother?” Catelyn asked.

”He said I’ll never be a real dragonslayer. So I hit him, because he is an evil dragon.”

”Dragons doesn’t exist anymore. Maester Luwin says so” Hoster sneered from Catelyn’s side. ”You’re stupid for thinking they’re still real.”

Her little twin pair was usually very tight, they were together at all times. When they started getting cranky with each other she knew it was bedtime, and by the morning they would be partners in mischief again.

”Well, you look like a dragon!” Lyanna pouted. ”Ugly!”

”Hush, both of you” she told them. ”It appears you’ve both done something bad, I want you to apologize to each other.”

Lyanna and Hoster remained silent. They could be stubborn as ox, it was very hard to get them to do something they absolutely didn’t want to do.

”I want you to apologize to each other” she repeated, a little more strictly the second time. ”And I want you to mean it.”

”I’m sorry” Lyanna mumbled and looked down at the ground. ”I shouldn’t have hit you.”

”And I’m sorry for saying that you’re stupid” Hoster almost whispered.

”Will you go to bed as friends?” Catelyn asked.

”Yes” Lyanna said and smiled at Hoster.

Hoster smiled back at her. It never took long for them to make up, fortunately.

Catelyn waved for their handmaidens to come and put them to bed. Then she returned to the high table.

”Your youngest daughter was slaying dragons instead of eating her supper” she informed Ned when she sat down again.

As she had suspected, Ned only laughed. Lyanna could have killed someone and Ned still would have waved it off.

”She has a wild imagination, our daughter” he chuckled.

”She’s your daughter for as long as she pretends her brother is a dragon and hits him with sticks.”

”She’s more like you.”

”When have you ever seen me hit my brother with a stick?” Catelyn asked, slightly offended.

You wouldn’t have found her in the Great Hall of Riverrun with a stick. If she had been to hit her brother with a stick, she would have done it where no one would be able to see her so that there were no witnesses. You had to do it with finesse, you didn’t want to get caught.

Ned took her hand and looked her in the eye.

”I mean she has the charm that I lack. You know your way with speech, my love.”

Ned was excellent with speech when he had to. He could have seduced the queen if he set his mind on it. Catelyn knew that better than anyone.

”You two could stab me in my sleep and I would forgive you as I bled out and died” Ned continued.

Catelyn laughed.

”Your northerners wouldn’t forgive us though. I suspect that my head would be separated from my body before you had time to die.”

”I don’t want to find out if you’re right” Ned said.

”Well, I’m not about to stab you. And I don’t think Lyanna will stab you” she told him.

”So I have no reason to worry when I go to bed tonight?”

Catelyn smiled as she leaned over towards Ned so that no one would hear what she said.

”Not if you make up for leaving me yesterday” she whispered.

”You won’t even remember it when I’m done with you.”

”Is that a promise?” she asked teasingly.

He kissed her on the lips then. There, in full view of everyone in the hall. She was almost ashamed of how much she liked that. She belonged to him, and he would have everyone know that.

”It is.”

~*~

#catelyn tully #catelyn stark #ned stark #eddard stark #ned x cat #cat x ned #eddard x catelyn #sansa stark #arya stark #margaery tyrell #robb x margaery #house stark #asoiaf #game of thrones #house tyrell #olenna tyrell #lady olenna #mace tyrell #a new marriage and an old one

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virareve · 4 years

Link

Summary:

“Didn’t you hear? Kit Tarth’s a Lannister!”

Twenty-five years after Brienne and Jaime went their separate ways, they reunite for their daughter Catelyn’s wedding.

Chapter posted at link and below (for those who prefer reading on Tumblr):

When was the last time Brienne had allowed herself to dream about love?

When she was a girl, still blessed with naivete and optimism of the young, she dreamed of marrying her fairytale prince on the shores of Morne. She would join herself to her husband in the shadows of the castle that Ser Galladon had once resided. Her parents would stand in witness, eyes filled with tears. Alysanne and Arianne would be grown women with loves of their own by then, excited for the day they too would marry. Galladon, her beloved brother, would be the one to walk her before the septon. The sun would shine its familiar, gentle warmth, and the sea would shine its brilliant blue that her father claimed was matched by no other blue but her eyes. The wind would make her hair flutter around her like a halo, and as she promised herself to the man she would stand by forever, he’d see her at that moment, sunlit and wild. He would think her the sun and moon made flesh.

For reasons tragic and practical, that dream would never be. The cliffs in Morne had become unstable from years of tourist use. Her mother and siblings had all died before her tenth year, and her father had passed just the last year. She had no prince.

But The Seven had given her a different gift. Her daughter, Catelyn, Kit as she was called early on, was Brienne’s greatest accomplishment. Brienne had once wanted to be the fairytale princess, but raising one, gave a different sort of pleasure from what that fantasy prince would have.

Fortunately, Kit would never know the same heartbreak Brienne had when it came to love. Love came to Kit early on in life in the form of Sansa’s oldest boy Ned. It took over two decades for the best friends to articulate the deep-seated feelings, but they were past that now. And had reached the stage few made where fantasy turned reality. Oftentimes as she contemplated Kit and Ned over the last few years, Brienne wondered if she had ever worn the same look of love.

“Champagne?”

Brienne startled as someone slid into the chair beside her and held out a glass of chilled bubbly.

“Jaime,” she greeted, surprised to see him. They had not spoken in two days. She glanced speculatively at the glasses in his hand, raising a brow. “A bit past the point for champagne isn’t it?” Speeches and toasts had all well been hours ago and if what she remembered about Jaime still rang true, bubbly was not his preferred choice of drink.

“Tyrion is going around trying to convince people to drink more of that godsawful Northern shit he gifted Kit and Ned,“ Kit’s father smirked. “Arm yourself before he tries to convince you to take a horn.” He passed a glass over to her. His fingers were dry and warm.

If she were a lesser person, Brienne thought her breath might have hitched, shocked to press even the slightest skin against his. “I can’t believe he bought 800 horns of fermented goat's milk. We’ll be lucky if the Giantsbanes can finish one.”

Jamie snorted. “He just found out I was once with someone who wasn’t Cersei. And had a kid at that. To him, it’s like Sevenmas came early.”

Brienne nodded, giving him a stiff smile and looked at the dance floor...only to end up cringing with motherly embarrassment. A horn toting Kit looked like she was about to perform a very public lap dance for a delighted and equally sloshed (and horn holding) Ned to the tune of the wedding party hit “The Bear and the Maiden Fair” by the Brave Companions. Several guests had their phones out, hooting the bride and groom on, and Brienen resigned herself to a 4K replay on Ravenbook tomorrow.

Her eyes slid over to Jaime, curious to see what he would think. He looked amused and directed her to check out Tommen on the opposite side of the dance floor.

“Ree’s going to eat him alive,” she commented as Tommen looked equally terrified and aroused as Sansa’s oldest girl plastered herself all over him.

“If she wasn’t the spitting image of her mother, I’d be certain she was Margaery’s,” Jaime laughed.

Brienne missed that sound. It was genuine, light, and carefree. It tugged and plucked at her wound up heartstrings. She’d worked so hard to prepare herself for seeing him again, but their twenty-four years of separation had done little. Maybe if he’d been angry at how long he’d had to go before Kit would reach out to him to meet on Tarth for her wedding week, it might have been easier to brush off any residual feelings. Jaime was not. He’d been genial from the beginning. The only friction, if it could be called that, was his continued insistence that he help pay for the wedding but even that was a pleasant insistence to help out.

From his first interaction with Kit at the Sunday family clambake to the ceremony and reception, he’d been nothing but pleasant and civil with her. And he was absolutely enamored with his youngest child. He hadn’t tried to bring up either time in Winterfell and only brought up Kit, his children, and his work when they were near each other for placid small talk. It was all going along extremely well and yet Brienne could not relax, she couldn’t stop waiting for something to go wrong now that he was here.

“I was hoping we could talk,” Jaime said, breaking the quiet spell between the two. There was a rhythmic thud starting on the ground near their feet. Brienne looked down instead of looking at him and noticed the heel of his shoe sole was tapping against the ground in a discordant beat.

“What’s it now?” she sighed, “The DJ? The videographer? Sansa and I already settled it.”

Jaime gave her a measured look.

“Wench, you know I’m not here to talk about the bill.”

She shook her head. “Don’t call me that,” she said, severely. She got up from her chair. “Thanks for the drink. That reminds me that I should check in with the bartender.”

Jaime jumped up. “Brienne,” he huffed, “I’ve been treating you with kid gloves all week. I gave you space at the rehearsal last night and then today because I understood how important Kit’s wedding is, but you can’t seriously expect us not to talk about this.”

Brienne pursed her lips. “It would be easier for us if you didn’t.”

“Easier for who?” he asked, waving a hand between them. “It doesn’t make it easy if we don’t talk.”

Brienne stepped past him. “I’m not doing this with you again.”

Jaime released a deep exhale.

“It’s a little late for that,” he called after her. “I was hoping we’d get to talk yesterday morning but we never got to have a proper conversation because someone decided to leave before I woke up.”

Brienne was thankful everyone had vacated this area of tables for the dance floor so that there were no witnesses when she blushed. But not too far off some of Kit’s friends watched them curiously. Everyone was clearly interested in whatever her shared history with Jaime was. After it became known among the guests that small town, island rose Kit Tarth was actually the child of one of the wealthiest men in the Six Kingdoms, friends and distant family were eager for further details. But no one outside Sansa, not Kit, not Margaery, not the rest of the Starks, knew. And Sansa and Brienne were not willing to divulge details.

Brienne released an annoyed exhale and looked back at him. “Fine, follow me.” She hurried them out of the view of the celebrating couple, out of the sight of nosy guests, and past the observing eye of the knowing few who looked at them with some sort of expectation. She brought him to the unlit, cordoned off gardens of Evenfall, and he followed her, hovering like an impatient puppy at her heels. She stopped abruptly when they reached her mother’s old hibiscus garden. She whipped around to face him. Jaime stumbled back. A nighttime breeze caught in his shirt, rippling under his shirt and exaggerating his step back.

“Why won’t you leave this alone?” she hissed, trying to make herself look looming and menacing.

Jamie made a grumbled complaint under his breath. “I love you,” he declared, deadpan and apropos of nothing.

Brienne’s jaw dropped. “ Excuse me? ”

“I love you,” Jaime repeated, briefly looking as if he might enjoy seeing how much he’d shocked her. “I never stopped.”

“You can’t mean that! You don’t know me,” Brienne countered, feeling half dizzy and half breathless from the whiplash of Jaime’s declaration. “It’s been too long. I’ve changed! You’ve changed!”

“I’ve had a week to see you’re still everything I fell in love with,” he argued, “I know I’ll fall in love with all the new things about you that I haven’t learned yet.”

“You’re insane,” she declared, backing away.

“Wait.” He stepped toward her, holding a hand up like he was approaching a skittish animal. “Please listen to me.”

“Jaime,” she warned. She warily watched him. The breeze continued to dance around them, picking strands of her hair up and causing them to glint as they refracted moonlight.

He stopped, mesmerized by the vision of her cast in luminescence. “Did you know I dream of you?” he confessed in earnest. “Even after all these years, you still visit me from time to time when I sleep. And when I wake, I hate myself for breaking your heart.”

Brienne pressed her lips together. She didn’t want to revisit Winterfell and revisit those experiences in the frozen North. But her mind disregarded her and she flashed into those dark memories. And despite the warm summer air, Brienne turned cold as if she was back in Winterfell, and the chill was seeping into her bones.

“I let you disappear from my life to make up for how I wronged you,” Jaime continued. “And I know it was the right thing to do, but every time I think about it, it feels like I made a mistake.” She watched his hand ball into a fist at his side. “Brienne, there’s never been anyone else for me.”

Once upon a time, Brienne had hoped to hear such ardent words from Jaime but he’d firmly shown her she wasn’t enough. “Why are you talking to me like a Hallmark card?” she asked, “Is this about Kit?”

“Kit?” Jaime looked at her, incredulously. “Why the Seven would it be about Kit?” he grumbled. “This is about you..”

“Why?” Brienne pressed him.

Jaime rubbed a hand down his face, “Because you’re worth going head-to-head with your willful bullheadedness until you hear what I’m literally spelling out for you.”

“What about Cersei?” she reminded him, invoking the specter.

“There is no Cersei. There hasn’t been for years.”

Brienne’s mouth dropped open into a wide “O” of surprise. “Why? When?”

“I was different after the second time in Winterfell,” Jaime admitted. “Realizing what I lost with you and Kit...it forced me to confront everything that led me to that point and I couldn’t be what Cersei wanted anymore once I was back. Eventually, she ran off with Osmund Kettleback and I got custody of the kids. I’ve tried to reach out to her, but she’s virtually gone. I’ve heard of her appearing on the arm of some billionaire or another at society events but she’s never contacted us and the children gave up on her years ago.

“I’m sorry,” Brienne said, relieved to know she might never see Cersei again. “I don’t know what to say.”

“Good riddance works.”

“Oh.” Brienne was surprised by his vehemence.

Jaime looked at her, and stepped closer, pulling one of her hands into his. “I know I have no right to ask it of you, but I can’t have you not understand. I didn’t bring you back to my room for a drunk romp, I brought you back because I’ve wanted you for so long. And I thought you understood my intentions until I woke up and you were gone. I’ve missed you all this time. I just need you to understand and I want to know what it will take. If I have to climb the Eyrie barehand, backpack the furthest edge of the True North, walk the Wall coast-to-coast, I will. Let me prove to you how serious I am.”

Brienne swallowed. She rarely thought of it these days, but every time she turned to those days in Winterfell, she felt herself sink under it’s emotional weight. But this man before he wasn’t him and that had to be worth exploring at the very least. So very softly, she whispered, “Okay.” She squeezed the hand that held hers right back.

Jaime grinned and tugged her closer to him, asking her a question that went in one ear and out the other.

She searched his face, dazed to be this close. “What did you say?”

Jaime chuckled, “Don’t play coy with me, wench. How about it? One dance. I’ll go easy on you tonight but tomorrow I’m turning up the Lannister charm.”

Brienne sputtered. Her mouth opening and closing in a pantomime of a beached fish.

Jaime waved a hand, “Okay, got it. So no Lannister charm tomorrow. Monday then. So how about it. One ‘no-stakes’ dance?”

“I suppose there’s no harm in that,” she agreed.

“Of course there isn’t,” Jaime beamed, but his face wavered, seeming to jump back and forth with the earnest and passionate soft underbelly he had exposed to her and the charismatic front he was choosing to fall back on in the hopes it would make her more comfortable, “but there’s no harm in dancing all night with me if you feel so inclined. With the exception of our daughter, Myrcella, and Tommen, if Ree Stark ever lets him go, my dance card is reserved exclusively for you.”

Brienne blushed. “One dance,” she reiterated, “and then we’ll see where we go from there.”

Jaime’s face lit up and she remembered how good it had actually felt to fall in love with him in the ruins of the Stark’s ancient castle. Perhaps it could be easier now. He held up their hands, fixing their hold so that her hand was being held delicately in it like a princess’. He leaned forward and kissed it. “I can work with that.”

#braime #jaime x brienne #brienne and jaime #brienne x jaime #jaime and brienne

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yeniayofnymeria · 4 years

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Euron Greyjoy "Ice or Fire"

Selam, hello! :)

Today I want to discuss Euron Greyjoy's side with you. Usually peope thinks Euron works with ice side. Because ice side is bad guys and Euron is bad guy too... But first... I need explain something.

I wanted open another topic about it but for now a brief summary is more appropriate.

Who bad who good?

As readers, we tend to see the ice side as bad and the fire side as good. We think this story is a classic good and bad story. That's how it was done on TV Show. But the show is the world of D&D. ASOIAF is the world of GRRM. And GRRM's perspective is very different from D&D.

GRRM believes everyone can do bad and good thing at the same time. We can be heroes and also bad guys. We can be racist but also we can be anti-war. In stories, we do not need dark lords anymore.

Men are still capable of great heroism. But I don’t necessarily think there are heroes. That’s something that’s very much in my books: I believe in great characters. We’re all capable of doing great things, and of doing bad things. We have the angels and the demons inside of us, and our lives are a succession of choices…[Woodrow Wilson] was a racist who tried to end war. Now, does one cancel out the other? Well, they don’t cancel out the other. You can’t make him a hero or a villain. He was both. And we’re all both.

Much as I admire Tolkien, and I do admire Tolkien — he’s been a huge influence on me, and his Lord of the Rings is the mountain that leans over every other fantasy written since and shaped all of modern fantasy — there are things about it, the whole concept of the Dark Lord, and good guys battling bad guys, Good versus Evil, while brilliantly handled in Tolkien, in the hands of many Tolkien successors, it has become kind of a cartoon. We don’t need any more Dark Lords, we don’t need any more, “Here are the good guys, they’re in white, there are the bad guys, they’re in black. And also, they’re really ugly, the bad guys.”

Ruling is hard. This was maybe my answer to Tolkien, whom, as much as I admire him, I do quibble with. Lord of the Rings had a very medieval philosophy: that if the king was a good man, the land would prosper. We look at real history and it’s not that simple. Tolkien can say that Aragorn became king and reigned for a hundred years, and he was wise and good. But Tolkien doesn’t ask the question: What was Aragorn’s tax policy? Did he maintain a standing army? What did he do in times of flood and famine? And what about all these orcs? By the end of the war, Sauron is gone but all of the orcs aren’t gone – they’re in the mountains. Did Aragorn pursue a policy of systematic genocide and kill them? Even the little baby orcs, in their little orc cradles? The war that Tolkien wrote about was a war for the fate of civilization and the future of humanity, and that’s become the template. I’m not sure that it’s a good template, though. The Tolkien model led generations of fantasy writers to produce these endless series of dark lords and their evil minions who are all very ugly and wear black clothes. But the vast majority of wars throughout history are not like that.

You can also see traces of these words in books. For example Aemon said these words.

"Many good men have been bad kings, Maester Aemon used to say, and some bad men have been good kings." "Better men than Stannis have done worse things than this."

So we can say ice or fire side are not pure evil or good. They are both; like a Stark and like a Lannister. I'm a Stark but i can say Stark side ise not pure good and sinless. We saw all. We read it.

This reason do not think fire is good and ice is bad. Probably both sides have their own justification for fighting. There will be people and houses fighting and dying for both sides.

The question is which side will Euron be on?

For the above reasons the majority said ice. I think the opposite. Actually, my main idea is that Euron is on its side. In alliance with the side that he thinks is strong for personal ambition and interests. And I think this side is "fire"

Euron is a sociopath narcissist. Someone who sees himself as a god, worships himself. He wants power, he wants to rule. If you are such a narcissist, you will go wherever you find power. I don't think such a person would want to die.

Euron says he went to Asshai and Valyria. The Valyria part may be a lie, but not the Asshai part. Even if we take it all right, these two cities are on the fire side. The magic of these two cities is based on fire and blood. Most of the wizards of Euron use these spells. So Euron is close by weight with these spells.

I believe the R'hllor faith comes from Asshai. AA legend and prophecy comes from that city anyway. I have no doubt that Euron has learned all this and more. If this ( https://clankingdragon.wordpress.com/2017/09/26/might-makes-wight-qarth-and-asshai/) theory is true which i belive it is, then Euron saw fire wights in Asshai. Then he knows now that there is a way not to die and he wants it.

Do not forget the word in their (iron born) faith. It also points to a wight incident. "What is dead may never die, but rises again, harder and stronger."

HINTS

1- When Euron came back, he went after Dany and his dragons. If he was working with the ice, he would have wanted to kill Dany and Dany's dragons. He didn't have to go back to Westeros for that. Somehow he could have gone to Meereen to kill Dany. And if Daario = Euron theory is true, he has had the opportunity many times. As a result, if he wants to have it instead of killing her ... It makes more sense to return home if he wants to be there for her. He even captured wizards who wanted to kill Dany.

Moqorro*: Others seek* Daenerys too. Tyrion*: Have you seen these others in your fires?* Moqorro*: Only their shadows. One most of all. A tall and twisted thing with one black eye and ten long arms, sailing on a sea of blood.* “So are the contents of my chamber pot. None is fit to sit the Seastone Chair, much less the Iron Throne. No, to make an heir that’s worthy of him , I need a different woman. When the kraken weds the dragon, brother, let all the world beware.”

2- Euron is now attacking Reach. Why is that? He is not interested in the North or Dorne or Lannister lands, or Storm land, or even the river lands. Reach is very rich right but Euron is not one who loves money. He doesn't care. Places like the old town are under serious threat. Reach's army was very vigorous, they did not see war properly. Rich and powerful. Now, because of the Lannister-Tyrell alliance, Reach will fight against Dany. Euron can weaken them. Also, according to Sam, if the old city falls, the realm is torn to pieces. This is definitely beneficial for Dany. At first, even Varys was trying to do something similar. We all know that Euron can't sit in the Iron Throne because he killed the Lannisters. He needs Dany.

3- Aeron's dreams...

There are very important signs.

He showed the world his blood eye now, dark and terrible. Clad head to heel in scale as dark as onyx, he sat upon a mound of blackened skulls as dwarfs capered round his feet and a forest burned behind him.

A dark onyx reminded me of black stones

. (Also could be Euron's Valyria armor) "blood eye" interesting, like fire and blood? Or Bloodstone Emperor? Euron's personel sigil is a red/blood eye... And the Emperor was worshiped those black stones. He killed her sister and took her throne, like Euron did.

Impaled upon the longer spikes were the bodies of the gods. The Maiden was there and the Father and the Mother, the Warrior and Crone and Smith … even the Stranger. They hung side by side with all manner of queer foreign gods: the Great Shepherd and the Black Goat, three-headed Trios and the Pale Child Bakkalon, the Lord of Light and the butterfly god of Naath.

The Emperor took down all his gods. Euron did same thing (Black Goat, The Stranger are God of death of FM, the great other). Remeber Euron clad head to heel in scale as dark as onyx, he looks like black stone. Euron worships himself.

Beside him stood a shadow in woman’s form, long and tall and terrible, her hands alive with pale white fire.

Whoever this woman is must belong to the fire side. Northern gods and others hate fire. They prefer cold and snow. If the Euron was on the ice side, this woman would have ice instead of fire.

And most important to me. This...

“The bleeding star bespoke the end,” he said to Aeron. “These are the last days, when the world shall be broken and remade. A new god shall be born from the graves and charnel pits.” Then Euron lifted a great horn to his lips and blew, and dragons and krakens and sphinxes came at his command and bowed before him. “Kneel, brother,” the Crow’s Eye commanded. “I am your king, I am your god. Worship me, and I will raise you up to be my priest.”

Dragons, krakens and shpinxes(we saw Valyrian ones, half human half dragon but this could be half dragon half kraken like he wanted) bowed him with horn. He uses those powers.

The bleeding stars(dragons, fire...)... last days (the war is coming)... the world shall be broken and remade (after war someone will do this)... a ned god (he thinks himself) will born from the draves and charnel pits(from dead, he means).

"Her. Daenerys?" Haldon nodded. "Benerro has sent forth the word from Volantis. Her coming is the fulfillment of an ancient prophecy. From smoke and salt was she born to make the world anew. She is Azor Ahai returned … and her triumph over darkness will bring a summer that will never end … death itself will bend its knee, and all those who die fighting in her cause shall be reborn …" "Do I have to be reborn in this same body?" asked Tyrion

R'hllor side (except Melisandre) thinks Dany is AA. She will make the world anew (world shall be broken and remade.) and death itself will bend its knee(ice side will lost) and her men will rise again from dead ( born from the graves and charnel pits)

So Euron believes fire side will win, Dany is AA and if he would be with her, he will be reborn and became immortal. Even he became a god and king... So yes, Euron chose fire side because he thinks fire side will win.

So, what do you think?

#euron greyjoy #daenerys targeryan

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thenonbinarydetective · 4 years

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MID Overview/Review

Ok so I redid it because tumblr broke the first one. Luckily, it gave me the oppurtunity to fix some of my grammar/spelling mistakes.

It’s actually even longer than before.

I’m thorough what can I say?

besides please read this it took a while.

· On the menu’s Extra Section there’s a trailer for Nancy Drew and the Hidden Staircase (2019). A movie that came out way before this game which is kinda funny

· The movement is a little janky, to put it in professional terms, it’s a little fast and jumpy. It took a bit to get used to the navigation.

· The problem with the movement really jumps out in the end in the tunnels. I could barely get my cursor around the Hardy Boys or even Mei.

· Also in the tunnels, if I went slightly off trail the game would FREAK out. I wanted to look around the tunnels and maybe get a bad end but our Sleuths but I couldn’t look around without being yelled at.

· This happens in other mini games and puzzles, whenever you mess up the characters make a snarky remark in your direction. Every. Single. Time. It would be funnier if it was only on a few occasions but it was every time I “messed up”.

· The graphics were obviously terrible. They also were variable…Somethings looked kinda okay and somethings looked awful. Like the quality changed from time to time. Sometimes even in the same frames. Frank, graphically, looks better than some of the other characters. When he and Joe stood next to each other, they almost looked like they didn’t belong in the same game. This goes for some of the other characters too.

· I don’t get why Frank was always in that pose? Everyone else stood awkwardly but admittedly it was a bit more normal. They stood with their hands towards their hips like how people typically do. Although there was a few times where people just grabbed their wrists for no reason.

· As someone who loves mythology and folklore (and pretty much anything that can be tied to into those) it was really cool to see the Malleus Maleficarum or The Hammer of Witches in the game. I wish it actually had more use in the game and maybe helped in some way. I know the book did some terrible things but it is an interesting read. As I do own a copy of it.

· Also my birthdate was used on the puzzle. Which was cool. It’s fun to be born on special dates. Except my birthday isn’t part of the solution but that’s okay.

· There’s a couple times where Nancy(and Frank) starts talking about clues or reading things out loud before I got the chance to look at them which was super annoying.

· The game crashed multiple times while playing

· The closer look at the clues was nice but was only okayish for me. It didn’t always work that well. Besides I’ve seen other games with the same function that worked smoother.

· I’m not a big fan of the new chat format. I prefer the old way. In this new format a lot of the dialogue options were getting cut off or the option didn’t fully describe what Nancy was going to say so I didn’t know what I was choosing.

· The text boxes were a bit buggy and there were times I couldn’t click on some of the dialogue options.

· The cutscenes were slow and the game had WAY too much talking. There was more talking than gameplay. The game was honestly just walking and talking

· I liked the text messages, they were fun and cute but they didn’t add much to the gameplay

· Lots of objects were clipping into each other

· Loading screens were always glitch

· The audio was off a lot of times. There were times when I could barely hear the characters over the background music or ambience sound. In Austria, I called Ned and Carson and I wouldn’t have even known they were speaking if not for the subtitles. Even after lowering the music and ambience sounds specifically and I still had this issue.

· Also Ned’s voicemail has changed. Did he make up with his sister?

· There were a lot of spelling and grammar mistakes. Almost every other written thing (books, pamphlets, and notes) had some kind of mistake. Hotchkiss’ book is one example.

· There were times when the pop-up text box was harder to read than the written thing. Not all the paragraphs were spaced out far enough in the boxes but were fine on the written thing.

· No “Can’t check that off yet.” The Checklist was unusable by the player. Unlike every other game. It did it automatically which wasn’t fun. I liked using the checklist.

· The game was so linear that I couldn’t really look around or do my own thing. When one thing was down you were immediately shuffled to the next thing. It basically made the checklist unnecessary.

· Terrible Animation. People moved for no reason. Just stuck in the same cyclical animation over and over and over again. They were pretty janky and awkward. Joe was the worst for me, he was constantly twitching on the screen. Frank was stock-still in comparison. No one else was that bad.

· Many of the mouth movements did not remotely match what the characters were saying. Sometimes nonexistent.

· Everyone’s EYES ARE SO WIDE. IT’S LIKE THEY DON’T HAVE EYELIDS. THEY’RE SO OPEN.

· The Parry’s curtains glitch in the sink. There’s a few plants that look weird, they had a neon glow on them. Olivia’s hands are always clipping through her robe and hair. In Moosham Castle there is a thing that’s inside a table. Both the Hardy Boys’ feet (and maybe other characters) were entirely in the ground at times. There were plenty of other problems like that.

· If I looked around a certain way while everyone’s talking at the Parry kitchen table Frank’s entire body disappears with the exception of his neck and watch.

· Some of the windows had a view of the town outside but other windows have this shine that you can’t see through.

· I’m not thrilled about the bystanders. Only the protest guy really helped. Over all they didn’t add to the game or help me at all.

· Dr. Hirst’s silhouette was kinda weird

· Also why did the game start in Austria??? That’s just weird? I thought we were just gonna start with Deirdre calling us but whatever

· I really hate the needless and honestly misplaced drama. Why couldn’t we talk to Ned and why haven’t we talked to Ned. It really pissed me off. Why would you put this directly after Ned’s whole “I Love and Support- This Could Basically Be a Proposal” Speech in Sea of Darkness? It’s just super off

· Not to mention the fact that the “Francy” moments in this game felt super forced. I don’t like what it does to their characters too. It feels like Ned isn’t trusting Nancy, which is crazy because he trusts her with his life. Frank is the more awkward Hardy Brother but that was ramped all the way up. Also Nancy completely ignoring Ned? What? They don’t feel like themselves here. It’s just off. This tone should’ve been brought in so soon, chronologically, after SEA. It’s out of place.

· Who was the female voice that was in the phone call with Ned? That was never answered. Was that a drama plot that was unfinished? Why not take it out of the game if you’re never going to resolve it? Why start an unnecessary relationship drama that’s both half-assed and unfinished?

· It’s kinda weird how in the end Nancy leaves the Parry house and calls Ned and we can hear her side of the conversation but not his. She’s just talking to herself.

· The phone friends were basically useless. If it wasn’t for the flashlight and the checklist I would say that Nancy didn’t even need her phone. And I guess talking to Damian Faulkner. 95% of the calls I made just went to voicemail. I want to chat about the case, talk to my friends, and get hints like we used to. I didn’t even know we could call Dr.Hirst about the ergot poisoning. I only found out on accident. I don’t know how many conversations I missed. Calling people used to feel important but here it doesn’t even need to be in the game it’s so useless.

· Just because this bugs me I don’t like the Hardy Boys starting their own detective agency. They began their work by working for their Dad. Who is a private investigator/private detective. Who runs a Detective Agency. Why would they start their own?? If you’re gonna make this a family business why not make it a family business? Right?

· May February, 1692 was an actual date they used. I think it was supposed to be February and they changed it to May. Earlier in the same note they used May so I’m guessing they didn’t properly finish the rest of the note.

· The lockpick game was visually glitch for me and the game itself didn’t work that great for me

· Joe’s hair makes him look like a fake blond lol. There are parts of his head (by the nape of his neck for example) that have brown hairs. Also some parts of his hair didn’t load properly on occasion and underneath was brown. Did he dye it?

· Which brings me to my next point. The hair was animated horribly. Frank and any of the other short and simple haired characters were okay. But probably only because they had short and simple hair. The longer haired characters were not as well animated.

· I randomly got double the Johnny Cakes when I made them. So Teegan and Olivia got extra.

· I will admit that making the Johnny cakes wasn’t the worst cooking minigame we’ve had in the games before.

· Frank getting the Frankenstein ones were a little obvious. It also didn’t feel as personal as the other ones oddly enough. We had a fun little dialogue about the design with everyone but Frank. He just got some cringey “I’ll eat these right away” kind of dialogue.

· I wish the truth serum was actually useful. Solving Tituba’s poem and going a bit out of the way to get the ingredients led me to believe it would be used for more than some “fun” dialogue choices. Joe and Deirdre are the only ones to use it. Which leads to some cute moments in which Deirdre admits she actually kinda likes and admires Nancy. I love her. Joe says he always tells the truth (no) so he doesn’t know how to tell if it works. I love him.

· Maybe it’s just me or the audio was off but Carson sounded different in Austria than he did in Salem.

· The use of the ergot poisoning was kinda of awesome. It’s one of the most popular theories on why Salem went bonkers and it was interesting to see it used to trick our favorite sleuths.

· The note to save Deirdre didn’t appear when I clicked on it. Frank (and I think Joe) reacted to it but it didn’t let me examine it. The bug fixed itself by closing the examination and clicking on it again.

· I love how the “ghosts” were handled. Especially them being hallucinations. My favorite was in the cemetery with the Hardy Boys and Olivia. The screen got kinda weird and everyone started to get worked up and really tense. They started fighting and you could see Abigail before they did. The build up to it was fantastic. The other scenes were cool too.

· The tunnels where the “ghosts” jumped out at every wrong (and sometimes right) turns while you’re desperately trying to escape the tunnels with Mei was pretty awesome. One of the jumpscares even got me.

· THERE WAS NO ENDING LETTER. She wrote a letter to Ned in the beginning but she never wrote a second one. Sure we sorta got to see how everything turned out at the party but it’s not the same. It doesn’t feel properly ended.

· I lowkey ship Jason and Mei. I could totally picture the two of them making out in those hidden tunnel rooms beneath Salem. Not just because I would too. This easily could’ve been another unfulfilled romance sideplot.

· Some of the books/notes really didn’t feel that helpful. I did learn some new things about Salem but I don’t feel we used the knowledge we gained properly in the game.

· The Jack O Lanterns were fun.

· The parallels between the Judges of the Witch Trials and Judge Danforth was a pretty interesting plot point. There definitely is a difference between accusing witches and accusing someone of arson when they were 9.

· Teegan’s guilt for both the shed and Hathorne house was something I didn’t really expect. It was a good plot twist. I can see how it was hinted earlier on by Lauren who says “Teegan likes to protect what’s important to her, sometimes that’s Mei.” Sometimes being the key word.

· The Hardy Boys being home-made ghost hunters was hysterical and adorable. I want them to have their own games soooo badly.

· I am completely on Joe’s side that we can’t prove that ghosts don’t exists, even if we can’t prove they do exist.

· I knew Alicia was the bad guy the second she started shit-talking Ned without knowing him. Only bad people don’t like Ned. He would never force Nancy to become a housewife, that’s not who she is and he loves her for who she is.

· I did “OK Boomer” Judge Danforth. He deserved it.

· I loved the little tidbits that we got of Frances’ and Lauren’s relationship we got to hear about. It’s really sweet.

· The comparison of Jason being a fast food cheeseburger with extra extra extra cheese and Ned being a home-cooked meal is perfect. Home-cooked meal is a great way to describe Ned.

· Either way they’re both snacks.

· Ok Jason’s ugly in these graphics but it was implied he was supposed to be hot.

· Jason could’ve been a true himbo but unfortunately he wasn’t

· TBH Ned, Carson, and Damian were the most attractive characters in the game. Only because they weren’t subjected to these graphics.

· I loved the Ghost Wavelength Spectral Analyzer 2.5 the Joe Hardy Guide to Amazing Finds but I hate the spectral analyzer itself. That mini-game was the WORST. It took forever!

· Alicia was straight up just gonna kill everyone. I’m doubting her biology knowledge.

· Also if you wanna raise kids in a more “modern” environment just freaking move. I know there was money in that real estate deal but there’s real estate in other towns.

· I love Deirdre. She’s really funny and kinda sweet. Even though she likes Ned (and maybe Nancy too lol) she doesn’t try to break them up or get between them. At least not anymore. She knows how much Ned loves Nancy. She even gave Nancy relationship advice. Which Nancy desperately needs because she terrible at this.

· This is just me but I kinda wish Nancy had an original idea for their vacation instead of just going back to Austria. Maybe let Ned pick this time because he’s the one who has to play catch up all the time and it’s only fair.

· Carson’s an adorable dorky dad and the only rich white man I trust. I’ve said it in my tweets and I will say it until I die. No one can take that away from me.

· This may be repetitive but I don’t like what this game did to Ned, Frank, and I guess even Nancy too. Ned knows about Frank’s feelings for Nancy. And now needless, useless, meaningless drama is gonna happen. I hate it I hate it I HATE IT!

· Just the relationship drama didn’t add a thing to this game. It was stupid. Especially because it was unfinished. It should’ve just been taken out.

· Joe looks 13 and way to skinny. He’s the brawn to Frank’s brain. Yes, he’s smart too and Frank isn’t weak. However, Joe is way stronger than him. If there has to be a scrawnier Hardy Boy, it’s Frank and we all know it.

· To quote Joe he’s got Man Strength™.

· Cause “Boy” is only part of the title, but Hardy Men doesn’t have quite the same ring to it.

· At times it feels like that the creators forget that Joe’s supposed to be smart too. There were times where it felt like they made him a total idiot. Though that could be personal too.

· Frank being a total Captain Obvious, perfect.

· They’re both puppies that got turned into human boys. Frank is just a calmer puppy

· Love that Mei’s going to Waverly but some of the other references fell flat. The Cat thing and the “I only smoke when I’m on fire” thing. It’s just not the same.

· Jason deserves the Not-As-Much-of-a-Jerk-as-You-Could-Have-Been Award.

· Mei’s a sweetie when she finally lets you in.

· The multiple endings seemed to have changed from different culprits to just what happens to Hathorne House and/or Teegan (I think). They seem to be pretty much the same. I did expect that as that has often been my experience with “multiple endings” games.

· I’m glad that both the Accused Witches and Lauren can get the house. It seems right for that to happen.

· Olivia’s pretty funny. I have a thing for eccentric characters. And it was funny how she tried to induct us into the coven at the end.

· The red/ginger hair superstition is a real superstition and I’m glad it was used. It’s for witches, werewolves, and vampires. Not just that gingers have no souls. (from the Malleus Maleficarum)

· If there is another game, I hope it’s the Nedcy vacation. And that we actually get to see Ned lol. I don’t get why he has never made an in-game appearance. It’s a little unfair at this point.

· Considering Emerson College is 39 minutes away from Salem and we still didn’t get him, I doubt it. Even though they mentioned both Salem and kidnapping Ned in Labyrinth of Lies.

· Also that the next one feels more like a Nancy Drew game.

· There’s no puzzles and there’s so much changed that it doesn’t have the same feel to it.

· This doesn’t feel like it took 4 ½ years to make. It feels like it took less than ½ a year. I can tell that things have changed because pretty much all the people who worked on it originally got fired. And that the Austrian game development company that took over everything (besides licensing) struggled to match the quality of the previous games.

· It definitely wasn’t beta-tested or was barely beta-tested. Quite a few beta-testers have come forward to say they didn’t get the offer to beta-test until September of this year. A month before preorder. Yikes.

· I know I got a little mean for some of the points but coddling the company by just saying positive things doesn’t help. They’ll get comfortable and give the fans worse things than this. I’m not an expert but I’ve played and learned enough games that I know some basics about how they’re made. It’s not easy but that doesn’t mean we should excuse things because of it.

· There’s been a lot of controversy with HER and Penny and this game and probably more. I’m not gonna get more into that besides mentioning that things changed because of this and not for the better.

· I probably missed somethings but whatever this is over 3000 words. I covered the basics and then some.

· This game is just a 2.5/5 for me

#nancy drew #mid spoilers #midnight in salem #ned nickerson #nancy drew games #herinteractive #frank hardy #joe hardy #the hardy boys #the hardy brothers #mei parry #teegan parry #olivia ravencroft #lauren holt #judge danforth #jason danforth #alicia cole #deirdre shannon #carson drew

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imyourliquor-youremypoison · 5 years

Text

A Girl’s Best Friend (Peter Parker x OC) - Part 10

Synopsis: Diamonds are man’s best friend- or dogs are girls’ best friends, wait… how does the saying go again?

Warnings: Family issues; Peter has a crush and it’s complicated; mention of assault; good dogs; College AU; aged up! characters; TONY STARK IS ALIVE AND WE ALL LIVE IN A HAPPY PLACE CALLED DENIAL

A/N: This is a BIG STEP for Peter and Em, but ooooh boy you guys are in for a long ride. I just finished writing chapter 18 and let me tell you, this slow burn is getting out of hand. Leave feedback for quicker updates!

Word count: 3.2k

Part 9 <<< >>> Part 11

MASTERLIST

Last time he had such a bad case of nerves, he was on another planet, fighting for humanity and the fate of all living things. Well, that and the time he overslept and nearly missed the final exam of this first semester, almost not passing.

What was it with this girl that made him want to do good all the time? The crushing need to impress her made him lose his cool and overdo everything. He had caught himself considering truly unreasonable plans for tonight’s date as she hadn’t told him she wanted to do anything specific. It ranged from a classic dinner at a high-end restaurant to a full-blown private helicopter tour of the city (made possible by one supportive Tony Stark who was definitely trying to hitch Peter up).

He came twenty minutes early for no other reason than he was pumped to see her, and he was making Tessa nervous with his constant pacing around his room. It didn’t matter, he didn’t mind waiting for her, besides, she was freakishly punctual. One second she was nowhere in sight, the next she stood next to him.

A bit like right now.

“You look a bit lost, have you never been to Central Park at all?” she chuckled from behind him, making Peter spin on his heels to face her.

He opened his mouth to answer, but he got distracted as soon as he saw her. It happened more often than he would care to admit, but luckily for him, he pulled himself together quickly.

“I was looking for you, but I never see you coming,” he told her. “You’re very sneaky for someone who wears heels all the time.”

As if to illustrate what he said, Emmeline clicked her heels together, Dorothy style.

“Is it too late to become a ninja or a spy?” she wondered out loud, already reaching for his arm, gesturing him to go ahead and lead the way.

“A ninja with a master’s in biophysics then. I don’t know, you’d have to ask the guidance counselor what kind of degree you need for that. Do you think it pays well?”

She tilted her head a little, eyes drifting upwards: a sure sign that she was actually, seriously thinking about the answer.

“I don’t know. But if being sneaky was my superpower, I suppose I could send my resume to the Avengers, what do you think? We’d work at the same place then. I’m sure it pays well there at least.”

Peter’s tense laugh didn’t fool her, but she didn’t call him out on it. Mentioning his Stark internship unfailingly turned him into a blubbering mess. It reached the point where she considered he might not actually have an internship there; maybe he was Tony Stark’s secret love child? This theory would have worked if he didn’t confide in her that his parents had both died when he was still a kid.

“You would get so sick of me if you saw me all day long,” Peter finally told her, having recovered his good mood.

They were walking down 5th avenue, linked at the arm, walking slightly closer than they normally would, and Emmeline never really looked away from Peter, despite wearing heels and having to navigate between people. Once again, it made him wonder if she wasn’t secretly a classically trained dancer to whom grace was second nature and who could read his own movements to follow his steps.

This girl truly prompted the most ridiculous wonderings, but it was what made it all so thrilling, so very enticing. She let him closer than anyone else in years, yet he still felt he discovered a new Emmeline every day. And despite all of the mystery surrounding her, he thought he really did know her, who she was deep down – a brilliant, lively young woman who was frustrated not to be able to shine as bright as she wanted to.

Behind every sentence, every glance, he saw the looming shadow of the pressure she endured from her family, it weighted her down like a chain around the ankle. If they were in a movie, he would ask her to elope with him, start a new life elsewhere.

A small, timid part of him wanted that too, but it was a parasite thought. Being Spider-Man fulfilled him in a way nothing else could, and it was a pleasure as much as a duty and a responsibility to save people. The part of him that wished for someone else to have gained those powers was immature and impulsive.

“Is it a challenge?” she asked, cocking an eyebrow at him.

Peter had already forgotten what he had said, but it came back when she gave him a pointed look.

“Uh, it was not, but feel free to take it as such,” he replied before making a fool of himself and staying silent as she watched on. “Sorry, I’m a bit distracted, I can’t get over the fact you agreed to go out.”

There, better. Not the smoothest approach, but honesty was always preferable to whatever he had been doing up until now. She probably thinks I’m a dimwit at this point.

Emmeline seemed a bit taken aback by his last comment; her smile was replaced by a thin line, lips pinched together.

“Why?”

He could tell she wasn’t playing oblivious and was genuinely surprised that he would think she would refuse.

Hadn’t she been flirting enough with him? Last time she ate lunch with Peter and Ned, the latter had given her a thumbs up when she put a hand a Peter’s arm to get his attention and show him something.

“I just- I thought- Maybe-“ Great. Back to stuttering and blushing. If she hadn’t been holding his arm, he might have fled.

“Let me make this easy for you,” she cut him off before he could further embarrass himself. Emmeline had magical timing. “Whatever nonsense you were about to say, forget it. I like you a lot, and that’s why I’m here. If you hadn’t asked me to go out, I would have asked you, sooner than later.”

“Well that’s hard to believe. But it does help to hear it,” Peter said, unable to hold back the goofy smile on his face, nor the stuttering of his heart and the heat in his cheeks. “It’s a relief actually, I was on the verge of a breakdown when I didn’t get an answer after I sent that risky text. Ned can tell you.”

“I don’t need to ask Ned, I know it’s true, you’re the most anxious person I know, and I know me.”

“What?” Peter’s voice came out as more of a squeal than a question. “You’re not anxious, you’re the most confident person I know!”

“More like I’m the best actress you know then, I have to dye my hair because it started growing white in same places in high school, around the time I had to start thinking about my future.”

“I don’t believe a word of it,” Peter said, shaking his head. “How can-“ he paused. “I can’t imagine you as a teenager, I don’t have enough imagination to picture you as anything else than the woman I see right now.”

Emmeline’s heart did a summersault in her chest, but she tried to not let it show that his words affected her so much. She tightened her grip on his arm and stepped even closer when someone bumped into her shoulder.

“I’ll show you a picture if you prove yourself worthy,” she vowed, her free hand placed over her heart. “I burned all but one, for old time’s sake, and it’s horrendous, but I trust you will not run away after seeing me with bangs and braces.”

“Bangs and braces?” Peter winced, hissing under his breath and pretending to shake off her hand. “The date was nice, I’m gonna go now…”

“Hey!” Emmeline called after him when he tried to power-walk away from her, grabbing him by the shirt to make him stay. “You’re not getting out of this, Parker! I came here for a proper date and I shall have it!”

Peter quit his teasing and returned next to her, assuring her that he was kidding and would make tonight worth her while. Emmeline slipped her hand into his instead of holding his arm. His smile disappeared a little and he gulped down. Hopefully his hands wouldn’t become too clammy.

“Now tell me where we’re going,” she demanded. “Are we still going for coffee?”

“We’re going to this rooftop bar I know. Local bands come and play there, and it has a nice view of the city at night. They serve food too, and I intend to take full advantage of you once you start getting cold and need someone to keep you warm,” Peter shamelessly admitted, having finally recovered some of his self-confidence.

Part of him wondered if he would ever stop being nervous around her, but she had a way of making his worries disappear and putting him at ease. He couldn’t fathom what it was about her, but he was under a spell.

“Who says I won’t take advantage of you and say I’m cold just to snuggle?” She smirked when Peter scoffed a little, rolling his eyes. “Two of us can play this game.”

“You know, come to think of it, you’d do great at Stark Tower, you’d fit in beautifully,” he changed the subject, feeling like the previous one was too much of a slippery slope.

She answered him with the brightest of smiles, strands of her black hair falling out of her bun as she laughed and shook her head slightly.

“And to what do I owe the change of mind?”

“You speak a little bit like him.” Peter looked at his feet than up again. Tony. “You’re both blunt to the point of rashness, not to mention that you both talk like nothing’s out of your reach.”

Emmeline made a funny face that was somewhere between amusement and shame. She knew she tended to consider her own circumstances as a given for everyone, forgetting that some people’s perspectives were limited by money, connections, opportunities.

“I’m working on getting rid of that ugly trait of personality,” she promised. “Though you probably didn’t mean it as a reproach,” she added quickly when Peter opened his mouth to protest. “You speak very highly of him.”

“I’m actually contractually obligated to, so…”

The flicker of doubt in Emmeline’s eyes told him that she believed him, if only for a split second, and it sent him in a fit of laughter.

“Don’t make fun of me!” she chastised him. “It’s not that far-fetched when you consider who he is.”

“Oh, you don’t know the half of it…”

“Alright,” Ned said, slamming a hand on the table he was sitting at to get Peter’s attention. “Enough is enough.”

He startled and his elbow slipped off the table, which then caused his desk chair to roll away and Peter fell heavily on the ground, with about as much grace as a beached whale.

He gave frantic looks about him, finally remembering where he was. Peter shook his head and scrambled back to his feet to save what was left of his dignity if he ever possessed any.

“Earth to Peter Parker,” Ned teased him. “This is ridiculous, you know? Just spit it out so we can actually start to study for our exams.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Peter shrugged and placed his hands on his hips, somehow achieving the least convincing acting of his life.

“Are you kidding me? I can see you vibrating from where I’m sitting,” Ned accused, throwing him his eraser from across their desks. They sat at the library, on desks facing each other. It was nice to be able to talk here now that it was completely empty. “Tell me how your date went. Give me all the juicy details!”

“It went… it went well.” Peter shrugged again and he cursed himself for doing it. This habit of Emmeline’s really rubbed off on him, and Ned hadn’t missed it.

“Is that all? You’ve been daydreaming for over an hour because your date went well?”

“What else do you want to hear? It’s the truth!” Peter sighed.

He would usually have told Ned right away, but not this time. It felt… a little wrong. Whatever relationship he had with Emmeline, it was too fragile to be exposed to the world just yet, therefore he kept their moments together to himself, like treasured secrets.

“I don’t know, that you had fun, that you took her somewhere classy, that she was so impressed that she invited you to her penthouse and you took the lord’s name in vain all night long?”

“You’ve been watching too much Netflix again, that’s not real life, that’s a TV show. I don’t know what more to tell you other than it went well!” Okay, maybe that was a lie, but he didn’t feel like sharing.

Ned dropped the smile and squinted his eyes at Peter, who braced himself for the worst.

“Did your shoot your web too soon?” Ned asked in all seriousness, leaning back in his chair and interlacing his fingers on his stomach. “Happens to all of us.”

Peter furrowed his brows, then stared at his best friend with a questioning frown, then made a face of disgust and incomprehension.

“No, oh, my God, no!” he denied, sitting back on his chair and rolling towards the desk again. He put his elbows on the table and buried his face in his open palms. “We just went on a date, nothing more.”

“Oh.” There was a pause that lasted too long for Peter’s taste. “Is that the problem then? Didn’t get the booty?” Now he was using his sympathetic voice. Peter glared at him from between his fingers.

“It’s not about that,” he groaned, finally looking us.

“You can’t even say it,” Ned told him with a self-satisfied smirk. “Just say it, man. It’ll free you.”

“No.”

“Why can’t you say it? It’s simple really, it’s S-E-X. Repeat after me: s-“

“Yes, okay, okay, sex! I’m not doing this just for sex, Ned! And you know that; you know I’ve been waiting for a good occasion to talk to her since day one,” Peter finally shouted in the middle of the library, before remembering it was a public space and lowering his voice, praying that no one had heard that. “I like her. A lot.”

He half expected Ned to make fun of him for his outburst and the inevitable blush that came with it, but his friend became serious.

“Does she like you back?”

The pen right in front of him became the most fascinating object all of a sudden, and his eyes were glued to it, noticing for the first time that it was a Metropolitan Museum pencil – he must have snatched it during a school trip one day, he couldn’t remember. Crazy that he still had it.

Peter didn’t like to speculate on such changing things as were feelings, and he particularly disliked thinking about the possibility of them not being reciprocated. He had been wrong before, and maybe that was why Ned pushed his buttons like that: to make sure he wasn’t running after a mirage once again. Even Spider-Man wasn’t immune to heartbreak.

Emmeline Gerard was a great many things: she was fluky, secretive, opinionated, strong-willed, demanding, brilliant, lively, dazzling, and so very elusive. It would be wrong to assume he knew how she felt. But still, he could hold on to hope. He could hold onto the memory of her lingering gaze, of the tips of her fingers brushing against his hand, of the way she bid him goodnight.

“I guess we’ll find out soon,” Peter simply said, not telling Ned about the kiss she placed on his cheek when they parted, and whose memory had rendered him completely unable to think about anything else.

“You should have seen this, Bella,” Emmeline groaned, throwing herself on the couch next to her dog. Bella raised her head to check on her and pawed her a little. “It was so cringy. I’m still cringing about the cringe of it all. When was the last time I felt so shy and awkward during a date?”

Bella placed her head back onto the couch and seemed highly disinterested from the conversation but Emmeline continued nonetheless.

“Have I ever been on a proper date? I can’t even remember. I feel so stupid for letting it get to my head, I acted like a total fool. But then again, so did he.” The sheer thought of that evening brought color to her cheeks, which she promptly covered with her hands, even though there was no one around. “All the cringe,” she muttered to herself, rolling to the side and hiding her face into a cushion.

It had been two days since their date. Emmeline hadn’t had a minute to herself between their assignment and the whole getting ready for her father’s annual speech on Christmas Eve. Her mother had sent several outfit options for her to choose from, right down to the shoes and accessories.

Emmeline had thrown them all on her balcony out of rage. Two hours later, when she had calmed down, she went out to grab them again and take a look at what her dear mother thought appropriate to wear for a public speech that would be broadcasted live on television.

There was too much cream and pearl color for her taste. All of these dresses made her look like a conservative babysitter; no heel exceeded two inches; no neckline was below the collarbone; no hemline higher than her knees.

She threw them out again, to be given to Goodwill. Her parents be damned, she wouldn’t let them dress her up like they did a porcelain doll to appeal to the public eye.

There was something she meant to do but hadn’t worked the courage yet. It would have been much easier to do it before Peter asked her out on a date – however marvelously cringy it had been – but she wasn’t going to back out. She needed the emotional support, she wanted to see the look on her parents’ face, and she wanted to see Peter again.

What was he up to these days? He hadn’t given a single sign of being alive since he left her on her doorstep. She could still see the goofy smile on his face when she had kissed him goodnight, and it made her blush and smile to herself.

“Aaarrgh!” she screamed into her pillow, hiding the embarrassment on her face and startling Bella to the point where she jumped off the couch and walked away from her crazy human.

It all made her dizzy. It made her a little sick too, a good kind of sick, the kind you get when you’re fifteen and your crush looks at you in the hallway. She had never experienced this firsthand, and it was good and refreshing. It made her feel younger and sillier than she was, a bit giddy too.

Peter Parker had her wrapped around his finger, and not only was he oblivious to that, but Emmeline also knew for a fact that he would never use it against her if he ever realized.

Reblog to save a writer

Taglist: @of-virtuoso @the-freefeather @justanothercynicalgenzkid

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agentbarton12 · 5 years

Text

Remember Me (In the Morning Light)

A/N: here is my fantasy!spideychelle contribution for day two :). this was supposed to continue, but this was already so long. let me know if i should do a part 2!

WARNINGS: none.

—

Honestly, wizards suck.

Like, they think that just because they can cast spells, and make random stuff apear out of thin air that they’re “superior” or something, and Michelle was having none of it.

No one asked them to be gifted and whatnot, so why did they have to shove it down everyone else’s throats?

It didn’t help that almost Michelle’s entire family was made up of magical beings. Her father, the king, was a mage. Her mother, a witch. All her siblings were younger than her and had yet to find out what they were.

As Princess of Queensland, Michelle got a lot of perks. Free anything in the markets (although she insisted she pay), all the food in the nine realms, spells and potions—it was all pretty neat.

The only downside of all this was the fact that she was a princess. And somebody somewhere decided that princesses by nature have to have a hard time.

Which is why she’s cursed.

That and the stupid wizard that cast the spell.

According to old laws, every princess of every kingdom in all the realms had to be cursed, locked in a tower, half-dead or, put simply, in a position for princes to “save them”. Apparently it builds their courage and bravery, performing an act of heroism like that.

But, the thing is, Michelle curse is just the worst.

Like, she would have prefered to be asleep for the rest of her life until her ‘true love’ came and saved her like her friend, Princess Elizabeth of Brant House. (Lucky for her, her prince was her best friend and she was only asleep for a week before Prince Ned kissed her. Michelle wishes she could be so lucky.)

The worst part about Michelle’s curse, is that she has no idea what it is.

All she does know, is that on her twelfth brithday, every sunset (very original), she falls asleep and wakes up somewhere else and stays there until the next sunrise. The only way to end this cycle is to have her true love present himself when she’s a princess and when she’s a...whatever she is during at night, and for her to recognise him.

And to make things even more interesting, she never remembers what happened during the evening when she’s back to herself.

Also add to the fact that she has no true love and you get yourself the worst. Curse. Ever.

So, Princess Michelle tries her hardest to do everything in the short space of time before she falls asleep.

This tends to be difficult, because the curse does not care what she is doing before kicking in.

(Once, she was swimming in the Enchanted Lake with one of her ladies-in-waiting, and as the last hue of orange was cast, she promptly fell asleep in the middle of the water. It gave her father quite the scare.)

Today, Michelle went out to spend time with Betty and Princess Liz of Allen House in the villages. They didn’t spend much time out because they were aware of Michelle’s curse. Hell, the whole kingdom knew about it.

After a fun afternoon with her friends, Princess Michelle retreated to her chambers where she got comfortable and and awaited the inevitable sleep that would wash over her.

In that moment, Michelle learned that just because you know something is coming, does not make you any more ready for it.

••

The first time the princess woke—or as she prefers to be called around him, MJ—up in his workplace, Peter was not the least bit decent.

He had stripped his shirt since it was dripping with sweat and making it very uncomfortable to work. His back was to her, so he did not notice her until she let out a slight shriek of surprise.

“What are you doing here? Who are you?” a younger, smaller Peter asked as he reached for his shirt and held it up in front of him. Her cry had caused him to jump in surprise and knock over the cauldron he was working on.

She sputtered, eyes wide, looking almost as lost and confused as Peter felt, and he softened. He offered her food and water, to which she accepted gratefully and it was then that realisation struck Peter. This was the princess. The princess of Peter’s home was in his workplace. But, if you had looked from far, you would never have noticed. She was dressed in commoners clothes; a simple dress, and workers boots.

“Where am I?” the princess asked. Peter knew about the curse. The whole kingdom knew about the curse and Peter figures that Princess Michelle’s must have started now.

Peter shrugged. “My workshop. My uncle gave it to me,” Peter admitted with a swell of pride. He was missing a tooth. The princess smiled.

He realised that, technically, she was not a princess at the moment and be needed to know what to call her. “I’m Peter,” he greeted, sticking his hand out.

She just stared at his hand and for a second, Peter thought he had just broken some royal rule, before she shook it and said, “MJ. I want to be called MJ.”

Now, when MJ wakes up, Peter is not the least bit surprised. He set up a little corner with a mattress and a few blankets so that when she arrives, she’s comfortable.

He stood over his workbench welding a piece of armour for his mentor, Tony Stark—the best blacksmith in the realm. MJ does not announce her presence, instead opting to watch Peter work.

It was a fascinating thing to watch.

Although Peter was a warlock—not a wizard, there’s a difference. At least according to Peter—he prefered building things with his hands. And MJ wasn’t complaining.

When she approached creepy level staring, MJ stood up and stretched, alerting Peter of her presence.

He turned around and a large smile spread across his face. “You’re here.”

MJ grinned. “When am I not?”

Every day, Peter wanted to say, but he couldn’t. Because to her, it wasn’t true. MJ wasn’t a princess. MJ was not cursed. MJ believed she was Peter’s best friend and spent every waking moment with him and Peter wasn’t going to be the one to tell her otherwise.

So, Peter jokingly says, “Oh, right, you never leave.”

MJ rolled her eyes. “Shut up, Parker, you love it when I’m here. I add value to your life.”

“Nuh-uh,” Peter shakes his head, “my job adds value to my life.”

“Right,” MJ drawled. “What’s it like being a wizard? You must be really popular with the children.” She moved to the table and leaned on her elbows on it.

“Funny, really funny. Have you ever considered being a jester?” She snorted. “And I’m a warlock, not a wizard. And it’s not my job.”

“What’s the difference?” MJ shrugged.

“Warlocks are cooler and far more superior to wizrads. They have better powers and get cool outfits. Have I mentioned that warlocks are cooler?”

“You have, it just confuses me how you’re one.” Peter glared at her and splashed water at her that he conjured from thin air. MJ laughed.

MJ hovered around Peter as he worked on the armour, handing him things he needed. Her work was not that important as she was completely out of her depth when it came to building.

When she gave Peter a tool, she accidentally lowered her onto a scolding hot piece of metal. MJ jerked her hand away immediately and cried out in pain.

Peter dropped what he was doing and hurriedly grabbed her hand and conjured water and poured it over her palm where she was burnt.

MJ squirmed in his hold, but he made sure to keep it firm, all while not hurting her too much. After cooling it, he dried it and began to wrap it. “Does it still hurt?”

She retracted her hand slightly as he added pressure and winced. “No,” she lied. Peter looked up at her with an unimpressed look and his eyebrows creased together. MJ stared back at him. Something fluttered around in his chest and Peter looked away quickly, returning back to the task.

MJ’s eyes never left his face.

When he finished and looked up, he noticed how close they were to each other. She was almost practically sitting in his lap. Peter’s heart pounded against his chest and he worried MJ could hear it.

Peter was in love with MJ.

He knew this. He really did.

But there was nothing he could do about it. Would actually.

Princess Michelle was destined to fall in love with a prince who could and would save her from her curse. And even though MJ wasn’t technically the princess, technically, she was. And pursuing anything wouldn’t be fair. On the faceless prince that would one day marry her, on her herself, and on Peter. When MJ would leave again. For good.

It is because of this that Peter clears his throat and moves back a little. “All better now.”

Numbly, MJ nods. “Thanks.”

The rest of evening passes with Aunt May coming to call them into the house for dinner. MJ shot Peter looks all throughout the meal and Peter ignored them.

When it was nearing the time MJ had to leave, she went back to her spot and curled herself on the mattress facing the wall, her back to Peter.

The action broke his heart a little. They always talked to each other until sunrise.

“Hey, Em. Can I draw on your hand? The bandaged one?”

Peter expected her to ignore him and pull the blankets over her head, so when she held out her arm for him, he was surprised. She kept her back to him, though.

Peter was no artist. He left that to MJ. She drew littles images of him on pieces of partchment she found lying around. His finished product is nothing to celebrate, but Peter is very proud of it.

He gives MJ her arm back and pulls the blankets up to her shoulders.

“See you tomorrow.”

••

When Michelle awoke, her left arm instinctively reached for her right. It was covered in cloth; a bandage.

She sat up and held her hand up in front of her face. There were drawings covering the bandage. Hearts and circles, little lines and arrows adorned the cloth with bright colours. On the palm of her hand, was what caught her attention.

She didn’t know an MJ. She wasn’t an MJ. So, what was it and who put it there?

After getting up, Michelle decided that it was far to early to ponder anything and took a nap.

During the day, she went out with her younger brother Miles to have lunch with a dutchess or countess about betrothal or something dull like that.

It was not Lady Gwen’s for her complete disinterest in the conversation. No, no, the princess blamed her bandaged hand (and the old men that thought having their daughters strive to be married off to continue their bloodline purely for monarchy sake instead of achieving something worthwhile was a good idea). Her mind was simply elsewhere.

Where did I get this? How was I injured? Who drew on me? Who is MJ? Am I MJ? These thoughts elicited an unwarranted gasp from the princess. She apologised profusely before excusing herself.

She wandered around the streets aimlessly, trying to calm her racing mind to no avail. She passed street vendors and purchased some candy for Miles as an apology for abandoning him.

While walking, a young man around her age yet significantly shorter, bumped into her.

“I am so...sorry.” He stopped moving all together as his eyes found hers and they looked strikingly familiar.

“It is perfectly alright. I didn’t see you either.”

The man merely nodded, shock evident on his face and said nothing. His eyes trailed down to her bandaged hand and widened. Then, he turned on his heel and walked away abruptly.

Michelle tried not to think too much about the interaction. Lots of people get flustered around her, it was normal.

But this turned out to be a fairly difficult task when Michelle laid down, ready to fall asleep, at sunset and nothing happened.

She stayed in her room and the sun went down and Michelle was awake to see it for the first time in nine years.

#spideychelle #spideychelle month #spideychellemonth #spiderman #fantasy!au #princess michelle #michelle jones #mj #peter parker #peter x mj #betty brant #ned leeds #marvel #avengers #spiderman: homecoming #spiderman: far from home #spiderman: hoco

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sleepinelysium · 5 years

Text

Sticks and Stones

This has been sitting in my files for months now, and I think it’s time it saw the light of day. A new fanfic!

Tags: @skeleton-richard, @princess-of-france, @harry-leroy, @ardenrosegarden, @stripedroseandsketchpads, @shredsandpatches

Hal laid on the stone floor of the church, trying to absorb every ounce of coolness out of it. He stared up at the vaulted ceilings, dreading the return of Bradmore. He knew Bradmore was just trying to save his life, but damn, it hurt.

Though, he supposed it hurt regardless.

Lying flat did not let him gaze on the corpus, so his eyes traced the cross in the ceiling. He swore he could feel the eyes of the corpus on him, and it did not feel particularly soothing, but, the thought of Christ’s broken body was. The thought that he was not alone in his suffering as he tried to will ever ounce of heat from his skin and every iota of pain from his head. He fingers reached for his beads and deftly, he ran them through his fingertips. His thoughts turned to his mother. Thank God she wasn’t alive to see this.

He heard the door open and close and all he wanted to do was roll over and sob. Had Bradmore really returned so soon? But he didn’t. He bit his lip, squared his shoulders as best he could, and waited for the physicians to come and help him up.

But, the footsteps sounded different. They were uncertain as they came closer. “Hal?” the voice asked tentatively.

Hal wanted to sit up and look, be sure he heard right, but he knew better. It would just wind up hurting in the end. “John, is that you?”

The footsteps came closer and the person knelt next to him on the floor. “I came to visit, Hal,” his younger brother said, looking worried and perhaps a little frightened, his eyes darting back to the door.

Hal managed a weak smile. “You’re the first person to visit me, John.”

He looked perplexed. “No one else has come?”

Hal gently shook his head, trying not to upset the tent in his face. “No one.”

He tried to tell himself that he didn’t mind that Falstaff hadn’t come; he would have gotten in the way and talked too much and worn him out, he was sure of it. No, it was good that Falstaff hadn’t come. But Ned? Ned not coming hurt more than he cared to think about.

What Hal didn’t know, of course, was that they had come. Falstaff had come with Bardolph, and the old man, with sack in hand, was ready to break the pates of any man who stood in his way. But Falstaff was always all talk, and after a few tries, he gave up. Ned Poins had come by himself and had pleaded his case calmly as he could manage, but was denied all the same. The physicians almost changed their minds as he walked away, dejected.

But they did not change their minds, and Hal knew none of this.

John didn’t know what to say, so he just sat on the floor. “You look like shit, Hal.”

Hal almost laughed, but he choked it back. “Don’t make me laugh, John, it hurts too much.”

John was alarmed. If his brother didn’t want to laugh, then he really was in a lot of pain. “It certainly wasn’t my intention.”

Hal gave a small smirk. “I know.” He gave a deep sigh. “How is everyone?”

“They miss you awfully. Humphrey is going mad, not being able to see you.”

“He can’t come,” Hal said firmly. “He can’t see me like this.”

John nodded. “I know, Hal. Which is why I came instead.”

Hal nodded carefully. “Thank you, John.”

John sat crosslegged on the floor next to him and took his older brother’s hand. “I should have come sooner.”

“Has father made Thomas ready in case of my early demise?”

John’s brow crumpled. “Father is beside himself with worry and grief over you, I don’t know if he’s said two words together to any of us since Shrewsbury. At least, no more than he must.”

Hal was surprised. “Really? I would have thought he would have preferred that Tom take the throne.”

Color rose in John’s cheeks. “If you weren’t wounded I would slap you, Henry. You know Tom doesn’t want it.”

“Then you can have it.”

“I don’t want it,” John said vehemently. “I’ve never wanted it.”

“You would be a good King.”

“You’re not listening, Henry. We don’t want it. Thomas is too hot-headed and rash, I’m not as good with people, and Humphrey is a scholar, not a soldier or a warrior.”

“You could learn.”

“You’re not fucking hearing me, Hal. We don’t want the crown, we just want you to get better. You’re our brother, Hal. We love you.”

John’s words were finally seeping into his head. He blinked. “Really?”

John nodded. “Really. I swear on Mother’s grave, it’s all true.”

Hal gave his brother’s hand a quick squeeze. “Thank you, John.”

John shook his head. “You need to stop being such an idiot and so bull-headed.”

A tired look came into his older brother’s eyes. “I’ve been left to my own thoughts for too long, John. You’ll forgive me if I’ve started to believe my own lies.”

John put a hand on his shoulder. “You know Thomas and I would follow you to the gates of Hell itself, right? Humphrey is yet young, but he would try. We trust you.”

“I’ve given you no reason to trust me so.”

“You’ve always given us innumerable reasons our whole lives.”

Before Hal could disagree, he heard familiar boot-steps coming down the nave. He screwed his eyes shut, whispering “Shit,” under his breath. “Is that you, Bradmore?” He called.

The man nodded as he came closer. “‘Tis I, My Prince.”

“I could set a clock to you, Bradmore,” Hal said, trying not to show how his heart sunk in his chest at the physician’s arrival.

Bradmore gave the prince a surprisingly soft smile. “I’m afraid your clock would do you no good; I’m late.”

“You can be late more often, Bradmore.”

“I don’t believe that would be good for your health, sir,” Bradmore said as he knelt down next to the wounded prince, pressing the back of his hand against the boy’s forehead. “Keeping cool, Your Highness?”

“Trying,” Hal answered.

Bradmore made a face as he pulled his hand away. “It doesn’t seem you’re doing as well as I’d like.”

Hal groaned.

“We’ll keep an eye on that,” he said as he stood up. “Would you like a little more time?”

“I would like to not do it at all, but that’s not really a choice, is it?”

“I’m afraid not.”

Hal groaned again. “John, help me up.”

John dragged his brother into a sitting position as Bradmore waved the other physicians over. John pulled Hal’s arm across his shoulders and wrapped his own arm behind him. One of the other physicians moved to take the prince’s other side, but Hal waved him off. “I’m fine.” But, he left his arm around his brother’s shoulders.

“Right through here, Prince John,” Bradmore said as he led the odd procession down the nave and through the doors to the room they were using. Bradmore pointed to a chair sitting in the room that had restraints.

John hesitated to set his brother in it, but Bradmore gave him that soft smile. “The Prince requires attention, and it is easier to work on him if he can’t thrash.”

John nodded as he carefully set his brother down in the chair. Bradmore belted on the leather restraints himself and placed a bundle of cloth in Hal’s mouth. “You said you preferred the cloth to a stick or a strap of leather, will this do?”

Hal gave a slow nod.

“Good.” Bradmore turned, poured wine over his hands, then prepared the new tent and handed it to one of the assisting physicians. “We ready, my Prince?”

Henry tried not to contort his face except to screw his eyes shut as he nodded. John quickly slipped his hand into his brother’s, giving it a squeeze.

Bradmore nodded. “I’ll be quick as I can, Henry.”

John thought it had been bad enough, seeing his brother get wounded in the first place, but this was worse. Bradmore pulled the tent out while Hal seemed to try to pull away, pushing back into the chair. He passed the used tent to his assistant and took the new one, lining it up with the wound. “Nearly done, Henry.”

A whimper escaped him as he blinked, and after a nod, closed his eyes again. Bradmore pushed the new tent in quick as he dared then pulled his hands back holding them up. “Alright, Henry, we’re done with this one.”

John helped undo the restraints and pulled the cloth out of Henry’s mouth.

Tears poured from his eyes as he tried to bite back his cries. He covered his face as best he could, his hand shaking uncontrollably. Bradmore rinsed his hands again and gently wiped the blood trickling down Henry’s cheek. “Just breath; the pain will dull as it always does.”

“Easy for you to say,” Henry responded, his voice uneven.

Bradmore happened to turn towards the door. His eyes grew wide as he bowed. “Your Majesty, we weren’t expecting you.”

John snapped his head around and Henry looked up slowly.

The King had a hand on the doorway, his face pale as a ghost, shock on his face.

Silence hung in the air longer than any of them knew.

“Father?” Hal croaked, a pained moan choking in his throat.

The spell was broken and the elder Henry rushed to his son’s side, pulling his boy into his arms, trying to avoid the tent in his face. “Oh, Hal, I’m so sorry. I should have come sooner, I shouldn’t have left you here by yourself.”

Hal just cried leaning against his father’s shoulder, trying to hide his face from his father’s eyes as best he could.

Henry held him, whispering in his boy’s ear so no one else could hear. Bradmore gave another surprisingly soft smile as he finished cleaning up and him and the other physicians left.

John, on the other hand, didn’t know what to do. He felt like he should leave, but he didn’t know where to go, and he didn’t want to break the moment by making any kind of noise. He was also his father’s son; he knew how few and far between moments like these were and how precious they were.

John decided to pull up a seat and put a hand on his brother’s shoulder. Between the sobs and his tears, John could feel the strength seeping from Hal’s frame. As his tears and groans slowed, Henry adjusted his hold on his son. “Better, son?” he asked.

Hal nodded slowly as he forced himself to sit up on his own. “Yes, my dread Father.”

Henry’s eyes were watery but surprisingly clear. He opened his mouth, but at that moment, Bradmore walked back in.

“My Liege, you’ll forgive me, but the Prince must rest,” he said.

Henry nodded, kissed his son’s head, and stood up. “Quite right, Bradmore.” He looked down at his son, “I’ll be back, Hal, I won’t leave you alone here again.”

Hal nodded slowly. “Thank you, Father.”

“I love you, my son.”

“I love you too, Father.”

Henry clapped John on the shoulder. “Watch over him, son. I’ll be back in the morning.”

John nodded. “You know I will, Father.”

Henry gripped the back of his son’s neck giving it a squeeze and nodded at him, some affection or approval shining in his eyes before the King turned and left.

When the door closed behind him, Hal sniffed. “He loves to keep me off balance.”

John shook his head. “Father is…something.”

John couldn’t tell if Hal chuckled or choked back a sob. Maybe both.

Bradmore reached down for the wounded prince and pulled him to his feet. Hal’s knees collapsed beneath him and he stumbled a moment before Bradmore caught him; “Oh, no you don’t.” Once Bradmore had Hal set up on his feet, he helped the prince to his cot against the wall. Bradmore pressed his hand to the prince’s forehead again, making that sour face again. “I don’t like your temperature, Henry. Not one bit.”

Hal slipped his shirt off as best he could. “If I could control that, I would, Bradmore.”

Bradmore pursed his lips. “I’ll get a bowl with some cool water, see if that doesn’t help.”

John pulled a couple of chairs together and sat down, putting his feet up.

Henry gave him a confused look. “What are you doing?”

John shrugged. “I’m staying here.”

“You don’t have to do that—“

“Perhaps, but I’m doing it anyways, so there’s no point saying anything more about it.”

Hal shook his head, then winced.

John smirked. “You need to quit doing that.”

Hal sighed. “It’s not from lack of trying.”

“You should rest, you’ve had a long day.”

“They’re all long, and it feels like it’s never going to end.”

John gave a curt nod. “Well, you’re going to get better, and I’ll hear no arguments on that.”

Hal gave a slow nod, his eyes screwed shut. “As you wish, John.”

John crossed his arms over his chest. “Good. Now, get some rest. If you need anything, I’ll be here.”

“Thank you, John.”

John shrugged. “You’d have done the same.”

But Hal didn’t hear John’s pronouncement, having fallen asleep, instead. John shook his head and as Bradmore walked in with the towels and the bowl, John took it from him and pressed the cool clothes to his brother’s forehead.

#this is kinda long #but I really like it #lancaster bros #prince hal #henry iv #henry v #shakespeare fanfic #fanfic #shakespeare fandom #the histories #my writing

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writehardwhumpharder · 5 years

Text

First Fic!!

Hey everyone, I finally finished my first fanfic! It took a while to get over the writer's block and stop trying to make everything perfect. I decided to start with my fav whumpee, Peter Parker, right after the bite when he goes through the transformation and he's still vulnerable and clueless to what is happening to him. So here it is, I think I'll just keep writing and posting fics and hope that the blog makes itself from there.

Ned jogged up to Peter on their way to the bus. The field trip was only an hour and a half long but his friend already had so much to say to him.

"Peter! Pete, did you see that exhibit on DNA mutation? It was amazing wasn't it? Too bad all the girls wouldn't stop screaming at the spiders, I could barely hear our guide."

"Oh I got you, you can look over my notes. The assignment is due tomorrow." Peter offered.

"Thanks, man." Ned smiled. Usually that was enough to put Peter in a better mood but today he was dragging his feet.

"Mmhmm." He mumbled as they found their seat on the bus. Ned kept going on about some new sci-fi show but Peter couldn't pay attention. He rubbed his neck absentmindedly. At some point at the end of the tour it started to itch, maybe even sting a little. He debated whether or not to mention it but decided it wasn't important. He pulled out his notes for his friend and went to immediately lean his head against the window. The cold glass soothed an ache he didn't know he had. The bus ride back to Midtown High was only 20 minutes, so they'll probably get back during third period. He groaned, it's not even lunch yet.

"Did you.. want to take a nap? I can wake you up when we get back." Ned said cautiously, seeing how tired Peter looked. Peter was never very good at telling people when something was wrong with him.

"Huh? No, I'm good. What were you saying?" He said, straightening up in his seat. Immediately regretting the sudden movement when a sharp pain started behind his temples. He grimaced before he could stop himself. Ned was definitely worried now, but for his sake pretended not to notice.

The next few minutes passed by in a blur and the headache only seemed to get worse. Peter resolved to wait until lunch then get some caffeine and aspirin. He just had to get through AP History first.

The bus came to a stop just outside the school. The slight jolt sent an unexpected wave of nausea through him. He blinked slowly to get his bearings then followed Ned off the bus to head to third period.

"Dude, aren't you going to grab your backpack?" Ned asked.

"Hmm?" Peter questioned, completely unaware. Ned sighed and grabbed both bags like the dutiful friend he is.

"Nevermind..." Ned went as far as to carry his bag until they got to Peter's next class. Ned would be in a different class but MJ would be there and he knew she'd keep an eye on him. Peter dazedly accepted his backpack when Ned held if out to him and walked into the classroom. Ned was still a little concerned but he was probably just tired like usual.

Peter quietly made his way to his seat, so not to disturb to teacher's lecture. MJ sat a few seats behind him, pretending to be absorbed in a book. He got out his notebook to make it at least look like he was paying attention. He needed some coffee and he needed it now. May didn't exactly approve of this but the school sold it at lunch so it couldn't be that bad, right? He rested his head on his arm, the teacher droned on and on and soon he felt his eyes closing. The light was starting to hurt his eyes but he forced them back open again when something hit his arm. A wadded up ball of paper landed by his feet. Leaning over to pick it up he felt that pang of nausea again. Maybe it was time to consider that he might actually be sick. He took a deep breath and it waited a moment for it to subside then flattened the paper.

"Are you okay?" - MJ

He wasn't feeling great but he didn't feel any worse than when he pulled an all nighter finishing a paper. He offered her a weak thumbs up without turning around. Class was almost over, he just had to make it through lunch then take his Calc. test, if he still felt bad then he'd go home.

He must have been dozing off when the bell rang. He lifted his head off his desk quickly, rubbing his eyes a little. His neck didn't itch anymore, that's progress. Peter tried to get out of the room before MJ could question him but she caught up with him easily. She fell into step beside him and gave a piercing glare.

"You didn't answer my question." She said pointedly. He sighed as they turned the corner toward the cafeteria.

"I'm just tired, and what's your deal today? I'm literally always sleep deprived." Peter said defensively.

"Have you looked at yourself? You're paler than that one day when you-"

"Alright, point made. But I swear I'm not sick."

"Fine, I don't really care anyway. But I don't believe you for a second." MJ turned and walked away toward her locker, masking her concern with annoyance.

Ned waved to him when he stepped into the cafeteria and Peter headed toward their usual table near the corner. Ned's smile faded when he saw him, despite Peter's attempts to seem normal and happy. Or at least not as lethargic as he really feels.

"Heyyy... Peter.. you okay, bro?" Ned asked when he sat down, sliding a styrofoam cup towards him. Coffee, thank god.

"I'm fine, really. I just have to get through my Calc. test then if I'm still tired I'll text May, okay?" Peter said, sipping the hot coffee graciously. He didn't notice at first but holding that hot coffee made him realize how cold he was. He shivered slightly.

MJ sat down at the table a few feet away, scribbling away at something by herself. Some days she sat with them, but most of the time she preferred to be alone. Peter pulled out his notebook and pathetic sandwich, intending on studying a bit more before his next class. Ned started talking about some robotics thing and Peter tried to listen. He even gave some suggestions on the design. But suddenly Ned stopped talking. Peter didn't look up until a red drop fell on the paper he was working on.

"Peter, your-" Ned pointed at his own nose. Peter quickly brought a hand up to it to see that it was in fact, starting to bleed.

"This dry winter air, man..." He said with nastily voice, trying to play it off. The napkin he held up to it wasn't doing a very good job containing the mess. Ned was visibly worried now. No way was this a coincidence. MJ looked up then and raised her eyebrows when she saw the blood. Her book snapped closed and for a second she just stared at them. Feeling their eyes on him he got up and started heading towards the bathroom. Other students gave him strange looks as he staggered through the cafeteria trying to keep the blood from getting on his sweatshirt. Ned scrambled to keep up with him and he barely had time to lock himself in a stall before Ned followed him into the bathroom. He grabbed some fresh toilet paper to staunch the flow and took a deep breath as panic began to set in.

"I'm fine, Ned. This happens all the time, leave me alone." He said, trying not to snap at his friend.

"I've known you since we were six and this is not normal. Really, just come out and we'll go to the nurse okay?" Ned pleaded. Peter just leaned against the wall and put a hand on his knee. He was starting to feel a bit lightheaded to tell the truth. He felt himself drifting away from reality just a little bit. He was just panicking, everything is okay. Knowing Ned was just outside the stall was comforting and he let himself close his eyes for a moment. The bleeding had mostly stopped but he wasn't feeling any better. The fatigue was starting to get to him, and he was hesitant to leave his spot by the toilet, just in case the nausea came back, but he reluctantly agreed to let Ned take him to the nurse.

He was running out of excuses and each second left him feeling more detached. Ned hovered anxiously around his friend. Peter caught a look at himself in the mirror and understood what everyone was talking about. His skin was deathly pale and a thin layer of sweat was forming on his neck. His skin was red and flushed on his cheeks and neck where he had that bump earlier. He found himself leaning heavily on the sink as a dizzy spell washed over him. Ned was trying to get his attention and despite how much he wanted to sink down to the floor right there he figured he should get to the nurse before this got any worse. Maybe this was some kind of allergic reaction.

"Wait... what about our bags, my phone, I need to text..." he trailed off before his words could start slurring together. Ned grabbed his shoulder and steered him towards the door.

"Don't worry about it." To his surprise, MJ was already standing out in the hallway with a small pile of backpacks at her feet.

"Peter, what's going on?" She asked as Ned grabbed their things. They both looked at him like he might fall over at any second. He crossed his arms and shrunk into himself with discomfort.

"Uh... he doesn't feel very good." Ned added before turning back to his friend. Peter screwed his eyes shut, the florescent lights suddenly too much for him. "Come on." He urged.

Peter tried to take a step and faltered. "I don't... I think I should..." he threw a hand out to the wall and tried to sit down. Ned caught his elbow and helped lower him to the floor.

At that moment, students starting filtering out into the hallway. Flash turned the corner toward them.

"What's wrong Parker?" He sneered, "you gonna hurl?"

Peter made no attempt to answer him, only vaguely aware of his surroundings.

"We don't have time for this." Ned said, hauling his friend to his feet, determined to get him to the office before the hallway filled with any more people. Peter managed to stay on his feet but his head lolled forward onto his chest. Things had really taken a turn for the worse and any hope that this was some minor illness was long abandoned. Flash stopped laughing when he saw how serious it really was. Peter's feet dragged, lazily trying to keep up.

"Are you just gonna stand there?" MJ barked, "help them." Her tone left no room to argue. Flash groaned but ran ahead to get the nurse.

Peter was pretty sure that he was about to die of embarrassment. Ned helped him walk slowly towards to the office but it was becoming clear that they weren't going to get there. It was getting harder to see and hear let alone put one foot in front of the other. Darkness clouded his vision and for a brief second he felt like he was going to throw up before the darkness claimed him completely.

Peter went slack in Ned's arms, and he did his best lower his friend to the ground gently. Seconds later he stiffened again and started to shake.

Ned felt tears running down his face before he was really aware of them. MJ shrieked, as did a few other people at the sight before them. Flash finally returned with the nurse just as Peter started seizing. The rest was chaos as they waited for the paramedics to arrive.

---

His hands closed around the soft blanket. It took him a moment to realize he wasn't in his own bed. Something was different. He blinked his eyes open, only to be assaulted by blinding bright lights. His head hurt, actually, everything hurt. He moaned quietly. Aunt May rushed to Peter's side.

"Ben, turn the lights off, they're bothering him." May said as Peter started to stir. With the lights off it was a lot easier to open his eyes, his Aunt hovered in his vision. "That's great Peter, open your eyes for me." She said soothingly.

"What happened?" His voice croaked. May's fingers combed through his hair gently and uncle Ben stood just to the right of her, resting a hand on his calf.

"You've been in the hospital for a few days so take it slow. The doctors still aren't sure what happened. Do you remember collapsing at school, sweetie?" Peter's eyes widened.

"No.." he whispered, "oh god, what did they see?"

"Well the nurse said that you basically passed out in the hallway and had a seizure, then an ambulance brought you here. Ned told us you weren't feeling well before that." May said. He remembered the field trip and feeling crummy but that's about it. "Ned really wants to see you, if you're up for it."

"Sure." Peter was dead tired but he felt he owed it to him after doing so much to help. Ben slipped out into the hallway to fetch him and Peter fought to keep his eyes open.

Ned beamed when he walked in, May left to give them a minute to talk. " I can't tell you how happy I am to see you awake, bro, you really scared us. How do you feel?" Ned asked.

"I don't know, fine but... somehow different." said Peter.

#whump #sickfic #peterparker #collapse #seizure #fanfic #IhopeIpostedthisright

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visionsofus · 5 years

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MIT, Time Travel and oh mY GOD IT’S PETER PARKER!

This is the beginning of the sequel, start with the first story here or read on AO3 here (1) and here (2)

|CHAPTER 1|

If you would like to be tagged in updates please let me know!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Things are definitely looking up for Peter Parker. Months have passed since the Snap and his life is finally beginning to get back on track. He has an amazing job at Stark Industries, he's almost finished his first semester at MIT with Ned, he gets to swing around New York on the weekends and things are looking like they might actually be going somewhere with MJ.

It’s almost like Peter is starting to get part of his normal life back. It's a naive concept. Peter knows what he has committed his life to, what expectations everyone has for the hero they know as Spider-Man.

Things quickly begin to heat up and Peter feels the growing pressure of his secret identity beginning to weigh on his decisions, not to mention the mysterious ‘Project Chronos’ which is weighing on him physically and has catastrophic effects on his mental state.

Peter's survived the impossible - death - but could more deadly things be yet to come?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Tap, tap… tap

2…1

Peter tried not to grow frustrated as his eyes darted from his worn, silver wristwatch to the front of the lecture hall where the professor was finally beginning to wrap his presentation up. Said professor seemed to have sensed the weariness of his students and was rushing through his final slides.

Tap, tap, tap, tap…. Tap, tap, tap

Peter’s pen tapped distractedly against the black keys of his laptop, which he had been taking notes on until the lecture had taken an unfortunate turn, becoming even more boring than this subject normally was. Unfortunately, that turn had taken place only twenty minutes into the lecture so for the last 30 Peter had been itching to leave the hall.

4…. 3

Peter counted the numbers off in his head as he continued tapping, each tap taking him one second closer to when he could jump up from the cramped seat, slide out from behind the small desk and beeline for the door.

2…4 5…1 4….1

"Excuse me." Someone said quietly from two seats to Peter's right. Peter turned to see a lanky blond boy looking in amusement at Peter’s hand which was still tapping absentmindedly against the keys. "As boring as this subject is, could you please not tap like that?"

"Oh sorry," Peter said his hand stilling before he could begin the sequence of taps again. The boy turned his attention back to the front of the lecture and Peter followed his gaze.

2,1 4,3 2,4 5,1 4,1

When tapped out in Binary Tap Code it spelled b.o.r.e.d, MJ had taught it to him over the Summer and like Morse code and other tap codes Peter had taken a liking to it, as he so often did with such things. He shouldn't have been surprised that someone else in the lecture hall would pick up on such a common code. There were any number of geniuses in this very room, and any number of them might be familiar with the tap code. That was just something he would have to get used to, now that he was at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

"Alright, I’m beginning to see a few too many glazed eyes out there and I know how excited all of you are to have a few days off this week, so I'll wrap it up here." Said the middle-aged man at the front, shutting his presentation down. Peter shifted in the cramped chair, closing his laptop and reaching slowly for the satchel by his feet.

"Happy Thanksgiving." The lecturer said excusing the students who all made a grab for their things in a hurry to leave. Peter practically launched himself out of his seat, wincing as knocked his knee painfully on the top of the desk. Despite that, he was still one of the first to duck out of the lecture hall, eager to begin the four-day weekend that students had been given for Thanksgiving break.

Peter walked swiftly down the hall and out of the building. In his hurry to get away he was still carrying his computer science and coding textbook and busied himself with trying to shove it into his satchel. He found it slightly ironic that MIT still used physical textbooks where they could, but nevertheless enjoyed the bulky presence of it. If anything, it made him feel like he was actually doing something in the course instead of throwing money at a unit he technically should have been able to bypass.

Peter felt confident in what he had chosen to study, particularly considering the hours of deliberation that had gone into making that choice. He knew that he wanted to study computing and knew that such knowledge would be incredibly useful if he wished to progress in the temporary position at Stark Industries that he had taken up in June. Electrical engineering and computer science had been a sensible choice considering what Peter wanted to do and what he was interested in. Chemical engineering and civil and environmental engineering had also caught his eye and Peter hoped he might get to take on a few subjects from those areas if he got the chance. For now, he was more than happy with the subjects he had selected…all except one.

Peter really enjoyed coding, but the Introduction to Computer Science subject, the lecture of which he had just hastily departed, was a foundation subject for beginnersand used Python programming which Peter had been using for years.

Back when he had been taken on as a sort of technical intern/ superhero intern at Stark Industries under the guidance of Tony Stark, Peter had been introduced to Python and a multitude of other programming languages. He still had a lot to learn for sure, but this class was designed for novices and so Peter found himself growing more and more frustrated with the compulsory subject. It didn't help that the course was structured to move at snail’s pace despite the fact that there were likely numerous students in the class, like Peter, who had previous coding experience.

For now, Peter just had to grit his teeth and get on with things. He still did all the work but couldn’t help cutting corners here and there where he already knew what to do. It was just immensely frustrating having to sit through the lectures and classes when there were a million and one other things that he had to take care of.

(This is quite a long chapter, if you would prefer to read on AO3 click here )

Peter pushed open the door and exited the lecture hall's building, walking as quickly as he could without running, in the direction of his dorm. He darted in and out of crowds of students heading to or from lectures and within minutes he had reached his building. He swiped his key card and ducked inside, eager to get out of the chill that had set in across campus, winter was definitely approaching.

Peter paused at the small mail room on the ground floor of his building to check and see if anything had arrived for him. Sure enough, a package was sitting in the P section of the pigeon holes, it was small, and he knew the part inside of it was even smaller. Peter snatched it and quickly checked its address to ensure that it was the one intended for him.

His name was printed on the top in the neat writing of none other than Happy Hogan. The package was wrapped in a ring of red confidential tape just in case whoever was delivering it hadn't garnered that information from the confidential sticker on one of the box's corners. Being head of security at SI, Happy always got a little paranoid about sending Peter such expensive and (potentially) dangerous parts. Peter assured Happy that the postal system was reliable and promised to only ask for parts when he was desperate and needed them sooner than whenever his next trip to New York might be. Peter was honestly surprised that Happy didn't deliver the package himself, or at least send an SI drone to do so for him.

Peter left the mail room and, walking past the elevator, took the stairs two at a time until he had reached the fourth floor.

Scanning his student key card again Peter walked into the 6-bedroom west wing of floor 4, outfitted with a small kitchen, two bathrooms and a reasonably sized common space. It was quiet inside the flat and Peter suspected it was empty, he couldn't hear anything beyond the closed doors he walked past and assumed that everyone who wasn't in class had already gone home for Thanksgiving weekend.

Peter's room itself was small, split down the middle with a bed, desk and wardrobe on either side. He shared it with a guy from Boston called Nic Spencer. He was short with a mop of dark hair and a walk that made most people avoid him, but in the short two months they had been living together Peter had discovered that Nic was actually a huge softie and loved rom coms and Ed Sheeran. He was an easy enough guy to get along with and had the perfect boy next door personality, even if his appearance didn't quite match up with it. Thankfully, Nic was good at knowing when to respect Peter's space. Living together definitely made you more intuitive to the other persons needs and Peter knew when to stay out of Nic's way when he was in a funk, whether that be over college work or a malfunction in the small but fully operational hydroponic system that he had set up on their windowsill.

At present, their room was empty and quiet, save for the goldfish sat on Nic's desk and the quiet whir of the pump for the hydroponic. Peter's side of the room was unusually organised as he had done a quick clean that morning, not wanting to leave it in a state that he'd have to deal with once he came back next Tuesday. Normally, his side tended to get a little bit messy, particularly when his Stark Industries work or his Avengers work or even just plain college work started getting a little too much. The last few weeks had Peter stretched thin, trying to balance endless responsibilities while ensuring that each of his assignments was handed in on time, naturally his room had gotten pretty bad pretty quickly as he started getting home from the library later and later, pausing only to change and leave his clothes on the ground before getting to bed. For the most part, Nic didn’t seem to mind and often times his side of the room was no better.

Peter dropped his satchel onto his desk chair and rolled his shoulder. May had insisted on buying it for him before he left New York, saying that a backpack made him look even more like a high schooler. Not exactly what Peter had needed to hear before moving states to a completely new life, with new friends and new experiences.

It wasn't completely new though. Peter received his scholarship at MIT pretty late (he suspected that taking up his position at Stark Industries had some part to play) but his best friend Ned Leeds had known about his place for weeks before Peter had even been accepted, let alone awarded the scholarship. They'd both been incredibly excited to move together and had applied to the same preference of residential halls only to find they were placed in completely different dorms, likely due to the College's stressing of making ‘new connections’. Nevertheless, Peter was grateful to have Ned there and even if they didn't live in the same halls of residence, they still saw each other every day and texted when they didn't.

Swapping out his satchel for his trusty backpack Peter added his phone, wallet and newly acquired package to the bag and zipped it up tightly. Happy would literally kill Peter if that part got lost.

Doing a quick scan to ensure that he hadn't left anything behind, as Peter was always careful to do following an unfortunate incident at the beginning of the semester when he had left out his Stark Industries tablet on his bed before going to class. Nic's eyes had been full of questions when Peter had returned to their room later that day. Peter could have sworn that the tablet was in a slightly different position to where it had been when he left and though he was certain that Karen would have alerted him if anyone besides him was using the tablet, it still made Peter antsy. After that he was even more sure that he had made the right decision in choosing not to keep anyof his Spidey tech, including the suit, in his room. It was too much of a risk. So was not having his suit with him 24/7, a thought which had kept Peter awake endlessly for the first few weeks until he had finally decided on keeping a pair of web shooters with him at all times.

Deciding that everything was in its right place, Peter shut the door firmly behind him and headed straight back down the corridor he had been in moments earlier. Now there was the faint trilling of music coming from Sam and Lily's room. Peter considered knocking on the slightly ajar door to say goodbye before the short Thanksgiving break but decided he was too awkward and ducked out the front door of their flat.

Even before moving, Peter knew that he was going to need a place to work outside of his room. After receiving his work contract from Stark Industries' CEO in May and after many discussions with his aunt and a few amendments to the conditions, he had started working in June. Peter had loved that summer break spent at Stark Industries and for the first time since the Snap he had found himself feeling like he had before disappearing along with half of the population five years earlier. The job had given him the instant gratification of putting his brain to work after so many weeks of hardcore studying for finals. In the few months he spent working part time at SI before moving away from New York Peter felt like his brain shifted and it had been strange to begin studying again, regardless of how useful the knowledge he was gaining was to his part time work.

Before moving at the very end of August Peter had done a quick property search for the cheapest places nearby to rent some sort of workspace. Pepper had offered to help him with the money given that Peter would be doing work for SI there, but peter had insisted on covering it himself.

Peter had reached the ground floor of his building again and burst out the doors, darting around the corner and unlocking his bike from where it was chained with a dozen or so others. Swinging a leg haphazardly over the seat Peter kicked off and started peddling hard past the other residential halls and out into the suburban streets.

He had happened upon the warehouse by surprise and at first it had seemed ludicrous to rent such a large space. All Peter really needed was a secure place to keep his suits and tech while he was working on them. Most of his equipment was remaining at his private SI lab, or the 'Spidey Cave' as May so often called it.

Once Peter had seen the photos of the space’s open plan, the exposed brick wall that bordered one side and the towering windows of the second floor of the old factory warehouse he felt like the decision had been made automatically. It was priced decently, and the deposit wasn’t too crippling, plus the electrical advantages of it being located so close to a power grid was undeniable. Within the day Peter had placed an offer and within a few days the paperwork was signed, and the deposit money gone from his account. Thankfully he had been working at SI otherwise there was no way he could have even dreamed of having a space like the warehouse.

The one disadvantage was that it was a twenty-minute bike ride away from where he lived. Compared to the exertion Peter was used to, it wasn’t much of a hassle and if anything, it was actually a good opportunity to get some exercise now that Peter wasn’t swinging around the city every night. He tried to go out as often as he could but being seen as Spider-Man near MIT and not in New York made him uncomfortable, surely the people he knew could put two and two together if they heard about it? Not to mention the press, who were getting more and more antsy about his identity, he had already been photographed twice while out at night in Massachusetts, resulting in the Avengers releasing a statement that claimed the blurry photos were of copycats and the real Spider-Man was still residing in New York. Luckily, Peter went back home every other weekend which made the tale as believable as it needed to be.

Peter rounded the last corner and pulled up to the warehouse, breaking as he arrived at the front door and pulling out his keys. He slotted the small key, one of the few physical keys he actually owned given that so many things were key card operated at the college and Stark Industries and turned it. The door opened stiffly outwards and Peter walked down the entry way past the windows that looked into the space of one of the other tenants. Peter had never seen or heard from whoever occupied the ground floor space, but the pealing sign stuck to one of the frosted glass windows read Simple Phone Plans Call Centre which was pretty self-explanatory. Peter walked his bike past the glass and to the stairs leading to the second floor. He took them slowly as he navigated the awkward frame of his bike up and round the flight of dank stairs.

The whole bottom half of the warehouse and the entrance made it a rather unappealing place. Whatever paint was left on the walls was peeling and stained and the air in the stairwell had the uncomfortably pungent tang of urine and sulphur.

The warehouse's grimy interior (and indeed, exterior) had deterred Peter initially and he had worried that his work at Stark Industries and the first-class facilities he was used to had made him snobby. That still didn't make up for the state that the warehouse was in… but it was cheap and relatively close, and his floor was actually quite pleasant compared to the rest of the building… plus who would expect such a place to house information worth thousands of dollars?

Peter reached the top of the stairwell and set his bike on the two hooks he had installed on the wall, suspending it next to the door. Once they felt the weight the mechanised black hooks locked the bike frame in place. The door was another one of Peter's alteration. Even if no one would think to rob the warehouse, Peter wasn't about to leave expensive equipment unguarded. As a result, he had ordered one of the special scanners that was used throughout SI and programmed it to accept his clearance card that he used at his lab back in New York.

Peter pulled out a little black box from his backpack, something he had made right after he'd had the distinct suspicion that Nic had looked through some of his things. Holding the thin device up to his face Peter stopped blinking and allowed the machine to take a scan of his eye.

"Retina scan complete." A small voice said, and the black box emitted a soft click as it released its bottom panel. Peter slid it open further and retrieved his SI clearance card, embossed on both sides with the Spider-Man and Avengers logos.

At first, he had wondered whether it was a better idea to just keep his Avengers/Spider-Man clearance card back in New York but after the first week of waking up at 4 in the morning and getting nervous about it being stolen, he had decided to bring it to college with him. The black box had been a natural addition to security and if anyone except Peter's eye was scanned it was programmed to self-destruct, card and all. What Peter might do if that ever happened and how he would get into his lab was a sort of ‘cross that bridge when we come to’ it kinda thing.

Removing the SI card fully Peter pressed it up to the scanner on the door and heard several clicks as the door recognised him and unlocked, disabling the numerous alarms Peter had set on the doors and windows and roof…. And pretty much any other entrance into the top floor of the warehouse.

Peter sometimes wondered if he was paranoid.

As the door swung open Peter took a relieved look out at his work space. The floors creaked as he stepped forward, swinging the door firmly closed behind him. Back when Peter had first leased the top floor he had been concerned about the structure of the building and the parts of the floor that felt far too weak for comfort. A quick trip down to Simple Phone Plans and a few swings around the rafters reinforcing their ceiling with translucent webs had set his mind to rest.

Peter dumped his backpack on the workbench, taking out the small package and tore the side off to get at the bubble wrapped part beneath. He unwrapped it fully and set it on top of his holo-table, one of the few pieces of equipment that he had brought with him from SI.

"Karen, Happy sent me that part, can you make sure everything is in order?"

"Sure thing, Peter." Karen said back to him from the cheap speakers Peter had placed in each corner of the room.

Peter was sure that everything was in order with the part but there wasn't really much he could do until next week. The part had been scheduled to arrive on Monday after he’d asked Happy to send it out on Sunday for next day delivery. Peter had been working feverishly all weekend on his current project and had been desperate for the part to accelerate his experimentation and get one step closer to-- Well regardless, it hadn’t arrived in time so there wasn’t much point doing anything about it now.

Peter walked over to his mini fridge in the corner of the room and retrieved a soda, popping the cap off and ditching it into the bin in the opposite side of the lab, listening to the satisfying sound of it hitting tin.

The lab was open plan, just as Peter liked it, allowing for plenty of space for him to move around (and swing from the rafters when testing out his webs - or just for fun). A long mismatched combination of tables of different heights and shapes made up a long work top, scattered with tech and tools that Peter had left out the night before. Peter thought it was endearing in its unevenness even if most of it was from second hand shops or dumpsters. In fact, he had grown so proud of the finished product and the fact that most of the tables were pretty sturdy that he had sent a photo to Happy. Naturally, Happy had shown Pepper the photo who was apparently mildly horrified and had asked Peter if she could share the lease or at least buy him a proper workspace. Peter had declined, he liked the responsibility. Pepper had let it go… but not before she had an incredibly comfortable couch delivered to the lab. He had almost returned it, but it proved so useful for nights when Peter didn't feel like going back to his halls of residence and could just collapse on the couch instead that he had agreed to keep it.

The couch was currently pressed up against the exposed brick wall that bordered one side of the workspace. Down from the couch was a lone glass case with his Spidey suit standing upright and ready for Peter to wear, not that he really had the chance these days. Between his college work, Stark Industries and his own personal projects Peter was flat out… and that wasn't taking into consideration the obligations he had back in New York as Spider-Man and to the Avengers.

"Peter, just a reminder than Happy will be picking you up in an hour." A voice crackled over Peter's makeshift speakers.

"Thanks George." Peter said sipping at his soda as he walked back over to his worktop. George was his new AI. Peter had always wanted to develop his own artificial intelligence and as such had spent most of his spare time over the Summer developing George. He was a simple piece of organising software that was programmed to basically run Peter's life and take care of the smaller things that Peter felt a little bad giving to such a high line computer like Karen. Though he used George as a sort of daily planner and time manager at the moment, his abilities could be developed to manage organisations as big as Stark Industries. George's framework had been buried deep in one of the files that Tony had left on the hard drive for Peter. Back then the AI had been incomplete with only a basic scaffold and it had taken Peter weeks to get the hang of the programming and design.

"If you get the 12:14 bus you should arrive just in time to meet him." George replied.

"Sure thing!" Peter said setting his can down on the bench and walking over to the window to look outside.

Despite the convenience of the lab’s proximity to a power grid and his college, and its run-down appearance that made it a wolf in sheep's clothing, what had really won Peter over had been the windows.

Just like the Lab back at SI, one side of the warehouse was made up of floor to ceiling windows - an odd feature Peter thought, though he didn't really know what the space was used for before it was put out to let. The windows meant that during the day Peter didn't even bother turning the lights on, allowing him to redirect the remaining power to his other tech and significantly decreasing the risk of migraines and sensory overload. It was incredibly freeing to have such an open space compared with his shared room and the cramped lecture halls at MIT. Naturally, since moving away from home the new lab had become a sort of escape for Peter.

"The new addition to project Chronos has cleared all my checks but will take a while to assemble with the current model." Karen said. "Shall we store it securely until you get back from your trip?"

"Yeah we might as well." Peter said in dismay turning away from the window and sighing. It had become frustrating with all of the equipment he needed back at his SI lab and only the bare minimum here at his Massachusetts lab. He tried to work on his SI projects as much as he could, but a lot of the physical things had to be done in person, hence part of his reasons for returning to New York every other week. He had tried putting robots to work to assemble some of his projects but always relished the satisfaction of putting the prototypes together himself when he had the time.

"Your bus will arrive in approximately eight minutes sir; shall I purchase a pass for you?" George asked as Peter started locking the place up.

"That'd be great thank you George." Peter replied, walking past the windows and checking the scanner at the base of each which was constantly on, ready to detect any intruder and alert Peter and Karen immediately.

"Also, sir, a reminder that you have three unread messages from MJ, an Instagram message from Ned and as requested, I have compiled today’s news according to anything you may find interesting as well as any articles mentioning Spider-Man."

"That’s awesome!" Peter said beaming, he'd only managed to get George to run expansive media searches recently and even then, he usually malfunctioned because something in Peter's coding wasn't correct. "Great job George!"

"I try my best, sir."

"I've told you before, you don't need to call me sir, at least not until I'm like 25 or something." Peter said smiling still as he strode over to the Spidey suit stored securely in its case. Spider-Man hadn't been in New York for two weeks and the press would start getting suspicious if he didn't show up soon.

"Of course, sir." George said before hastily correcting himself "I mean, of course."

Peter hummed tunelessly as the lock on the suit scanned his eye and recognised him. The glass hissed slightly as it slowly slid back to reveal his suit in all its glory.

To tell the truth, Peter felt kind of deprived of it when he wasn't using it. Compared to months ago when he couldn't get in the suit without crippling panic attacks, he now relished his time wearing it, as rare as it was becoming these days.

Peter picked the suit up by the shoulders and felt it being released by the stand that held it upright within the case. Peter held it before him to admire it. He had created a third suit since working at Stark Industries, one that was personal to him and had his own design and embellishments, it was an excellent suit. That didn't stop Peter from coming back to his original suit every time. It may not have been strong or intuitive as the Iron Spider suit or have as many capabilities as his new Spider-Man suit, but it was still important to him. Tony Stark had given Peter many things, a place of work where he could actually do something with his brain, incredible tech to experiment with, a hard drive containing terabytes of knowledge that most of the world would kill for, among other things. But the most important thing that Tony had given Peter was the ability to be a real Super Hero, he had taken Peter under his wing and brought him into the world of the Avengers where Peter felt he could really make a difference. So, Peter held onto the Mark 1.

Heading over to the grey blue couch that Pepper had bought him, Peter carefully folded the suit up and put it in the duffle bag he was taking back to New York for Thanksgiving.

College had been crazy recently and it would be nice to get away from all his school work, even if that just meant turning to his work at Stark Industries or Spider-Man or the number of other commitments he had to the Avengers. Peter's brain seemed to strain and throb just thinking about the number of things he had to get done. He took a deep breath in through his nose and held for a moment, focusing on his heartbeat and then expanding his senses to the space around him, the fly buzzing up near the top of one of the windows, the soft thrumming of the electricity that powered his security system from the surprisingly unassuming box fixed to the far wall, to the feeling of his fingers brushing against the fibres of his duffle bag. He breathed out slowly.

"Your bus is due in four minutes, Peter." George said over the speakers and Peter darted his head up to glance at the clock sitting on one end of his workbench.

"Right." Peter said nodding and zipping up the duffle bag and slinging it over a shoulder. "Karen?"

"All systems locked down for your departure, Peter." Karen said as Peter grabbed his keys, phone and the black notebook with most of his Stark Industries research notes.

"Alright then." Peter turned, hefting his duffle bag and giving his lab a once over, walking backwards a few paces before deciding that everything was as it should be and heading for the door. "You're in charge while we are away George, anything happens you let me know."

"Yes sir." George crackled over the speakers as Peter shut the door behind him and waited patiently as it locked behind him. Unlike Karen, George's system was still so new and at times unstable, that Peter didn't really want to mobilise the AI quite yet, as useful as that might be. Peter had to admit that leaving a set of eyes… or rather a computer brain capable of keeping an 'eye' on things, made him feel a good deal more comfortable about leaving his equipment in the warehouse lab. Karen on the other hand, accompanied Peter everywhere these days, whether it was in his SI tablet, his SI earpieces, the Spidey suit or occasionally his phone

Peter dashed down the stairs, taking them two at a time and jumping from the fourth stair to the ground floor once he reached the end. A quick glance at his watch told him that four minutes had become two and that if he didn't hurry, he wouldn't make it to the bus.

After a quick glance to make sure no one was watching, Peter jumped up onto the rooftop of the small block of apartments next to the warehouse and began hopping his way from building to building. Peter reached the bus stop with thirty seconds to spare, his research notebook clasped tightly to his chest and his head full of thoughts of home. This weekend was hopefully going to be an escape from his work and responsibilities, hopefully he'd get to spend some time with MJ and his family and come back to college rested and rejuvenated. It was a naïve thought, Peter knew it, but despite that he still had hope that this weekend would serve more than four days of more work. Little did he know, fate had other plans.

#spiderman #Peter parker #spiderman fanfiction #visionsofusfics #irondad #spiderson #Peter post snap #doesn't correlate with ffh #post endgame #avengers #Tony stark #Morgan stark #pepper potts #Michelle jones #may parker #ned leeds #Carol Danvers at some point

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