Peter moved the pan above the fire, swirling the eggs in it until they loosened and, in what might be the most controversial decision of his career, angled the opposite side downwards and flicked his wrist with just enough strength to send four separate eggs half a foot in the air and caught them gently in the pan. All flipped and no leaky yolk to be seen.

"I am the master chef," he whispered. Loki, brown-haired and brown-eyed for the day, placed a piled-high bowl of bread on the dining table with an amused quirk of his lips.

"You are quite the accomplished cook," he mused. "I must admit that Midgardian cuisine is much more diverse and palatable than I had previously come to believe."

"And there's still a whole world out there you have to try! Today, eggs and biscuits and homefries. Tomorrow, brunch and mimosas by the Pacific."

"Please," Loki said, a pained pinch in his brow. "Do not remind me."

"Aw, come on, Mom. Aren't you a little bit excited?"

"To be in poor company for the better of five days with those whose definition of 'fun' is to board a large wheel on a pier? Yes," he deadpanned as he adjusted the cuff of his sleeve. "I am. Ecstatic."

Peter slid the eggs onto the plate by the stove to total a healthy serving of a dozen eggs. Well if he was in his position, he'd be a thousand times more stoked. A work trip in California? He'd never been anywhere but the East Coast!

But a bunch of historical museums were descending upon Los Angeles for the weekend for some exclusive convention to talk shop and art preservation, and more than just Loki's museum were jumping in on the fun. If he could only convince his mom that it was actually fun.

"Neena might know some cool places for you to check out. I know she's at least been to LA if she's punching people in the face about it." The brawl had rolled all over the floor to raucous whoops and cheers and ended with two bloody noses and a round of shots for the whole bar. That was a better outcome than he could ever hope for even if he had to wrestle an empty tequila bottle out of Weasel's hands before he could throw it across the room. "And the flight's not too bad—it's only, like, six and a half hours non-stop, right?"

"Six and a half hours for a mere three thousand miles," Loki drawled, distaste on more than just the tip of his tongue. "Midgardians have made grand statements with their cuisine, yet their modes of travel are much to be desired. These aeroplanes operate in the exact manner as they did in the seventies. Should there not have been notable undertakings in their improvement?"

"You flew on a plane in the seventies?"

"Once."

Peter carried over the eggs and a mountain of homefries and they settled at the table. Two gold-gilded plates already laid on dark placemats held down with matching gold utensils. It was a lot more, well, more than he was used to, but the less he thought about it, the less it bothered him, and he immediately reached for a bottle of ketchup.

"I had lost a bet to my idiot of a brother," Loki continued with a roll of his eyes. "I can scarcely remember the reason for it now, but I boarded a plane in the city of Portland, Oregon, ransomed the airlines for, oh, two-hundred thousand American dollars? Then leapt out of the plane mid-air where Heimdall caught me in the Bifrost before I landed. Punitive things. I do not believe either of our parents found out."

He plucked a biscuit from the top of the pile and began to delicately saw it in half. Peter stared, open-mouthed, the ketchup bottle upturned over his plate and dribbling sad red droplets all over his eggs.

"... What."

"It barely took up a few hours of my time," Loki dismissed with an elegant flick of his hand.

"You're D.B. Cooper?!"

"Where could you have possibly heard that name?"

"People have been trying to solve that case for years!"

"Midgardians are quite persistent in doing nothing in their short time, aren't they? Why is it that they try to mold their heads around some trivial happenstance?"

"Well, people get kind of crazy about a dude who just magically disappeared out of thin air. Stuff like that did just happen in the seventies. I think." Peter shoved a couple heavy heapings of potatoes into his mouth, nearly swallowing them down whole like a snake. "But now that the whole world's collectively conscious about magic and that we're not alone in space, maybe we should look at all the weird cold cases and see if aliens did it." He raised a bite of eggs up to his lips, but paused to squint over his fork. "Did you—Are there other things you did on Earth that could maybe, possibly, have contributed to, I don't know, the rise of amateur super sleuths?"

"I may have mostly acclimatized to these modern ways, but it appears that the youth can still ask me questions that I am not quite sure I could form the answer to," Loki remarked dryly. "But I have only been to this realm a scant handful of times before I was with you. I doubt anything I have done would be interesting to the average passerby."

The news ran low on the flat screen, newscaster mouths moving, their voices barely a crackle in the afternoon. Peter didn't mind when everything else was just as loud; rolling tires on the street, phone calls on the corner, flutters of pigeon wings on block awnings. His mom didn't mind because he rarely found it in himself to care about the usual daily news unless a building was actively blowing up, and even then it probably had to be because of a magical wizard bomb.

"Have you any plans for the days of my absence?" Loki asked as he moved a scoop of homefries onto his plate. "Preferrably ones that will keep you out of your usual brand of daring?"

"Is it really my brand if I don't do anything usual?"

"Peter."

"Kidding! You know trouble finds me not the other way around—and nose-diving into active crime scenes doesn't count!" He tacked on quickly. Loki closed his mouth and gestured for him to continue, an amused twist already on his lips. "After my last final tomorrow I'll be at the bar most nights and on patrol most days, so New York'll tune into a healthy dose of daytime Spider-Man until school starts up again in September. I'll be plenty busy."

And between that and Gargan and Green, he had a lot of work to do.

"A very structured schedule for the teenaged vigilante."

"Hey, at least I don't snort coke on the weekends."

"The carbonated drink?"

"No, not the—uh. Well. They haven't been coked coke since 1903, but you'd hate to get that up your nose either way."

::

Loki hummed, idly watching his son put away his meal in the likes of which would make Volstagg proud. This work trip truly was a loathsome ordeal and he had exhausted every avenue to avoid the travel; Iolani was a great many things, and a stubborn old bat was certainly one of them. The only way out was either great sickness or death, and playing at either one would most likely not end in his favor.

Five days was a slow wink and perhaps half a deep breath.

In less than one, a metal beast rammed into Peter's side after he refused to fall from an envenomed stinger.

He hid a frown behind a bite of cubed potato. Well seasoned, a crisp outside, a warm fluffiness inside. It was no wonder Peter had already inhaled half of the serving bowl.

Wilson would watch him, he knew. Loki was not so sure about the sort of love that existed in the festering decay of his husk, but much of it was for this boy with a stomach as big as his heart.

"—other breaking news, Adrian Toomes, also known as The Vulture, has reportedly escaped a prisoner transport vehicle en route to Georgia alongside several other Ryker's inmates—"

Green eyes snapped to the television screen. Newscaster Wilma stared straight at the camera as a small square of camera footage played by her head. A bold red LIVE punctured a corner of the helicopter feed where a van is overturned and aflame, the back doors torn off and cast aside and most likely empty as a team of firefighters dealt with the blaze.

"The transport crossed into North Carolina at approximately 12:30 this afternoon before a call came in about a swerving vehicle past Fayetteville city limits at around 3:10. The cause of the accident is currently unknown. This is a pending investigation that law enforcement in both New York and North Carolina are working together to solve. If anyone has any information, please call the tip line at—"

And his gaze was back on Peter. Peter, who continued to eat his breakfast for 'linner' without concern for the man he himself put behind bars. Loki saw the videos: a crashed plane, a beach on fire.

Yet, nothing.

"Do you have a ride to the airport?" Peter asked. He looked up with big bright eyes, but not as bright as they used to be. "Wade's probably free and he's been talking non-stop about his Honda Odyssey and it'd be perfect for you."

"Why is that?"

"Because it's a mom van," he grinned. Loki resisted every urge to reach across the table to flick his son's nose even when he did not garner the full meaning of the jest.

"Dopinder's services will be adequate. You may ride in this mom van to your heart's content, but I refuse to take part in it," he sniffed. He tucked Adrian Toomes, The Vulture in a place for later thought. "Now finish your meal, my love. I believe you told the Weasel you would be in early to help organize new inventory?"

The news continued to roll in the background, near mute, nothing more than a light buzz in the apartment as it awaited for when the remote shut it off with a silent tap.

::

"Goooooood morning, New York!" Peter whooped in his best impression of Robin Williams—rest in peace—as he could somersaulting tens of feet in the air. "We're looking at a cloudless sky, pollen that'll sneeze you into a different zipcode, and a UV index of wear-that-sunscreen because you're not winning against a ball of hot plasma!"

"It's two in the afternoon!" Someone shouted up at him while they waited for their turn on the crosswalk.

He landed at an angle on a nearby streetlight, sticky, half dangling, full spider. His suit shone extra poison dart frog-y in the sunlight; that UV really wasn't a joke.

"Morning is a feeling, especially on a Thursday," he said.

"Yo, Spidey! How much you sweat in that thing?!"

"I'm a take-out container full of soup and there's nothing I can do about it."

"Do a handstand!"

Blue-clad legs swung over the arm of the streetlight and hovered high over his head, one hand holding him up while the other stuck out with a peace sign and let the crowd below him snap as many selfies as they wanted. He could keep this up for as long as those street performers could mimic metal statues, but his ears pricked up at the sound of a struggle and the click of a safety being taken off a gun about two blocks away.

"Stay cool, dudes!" Peter chirped as both of his feet re-met his thin platform. "Drink water, stay in the shade—"

"Bust a fire hydrant?" A kid piped up, a grin plastered on round cheeks as the gaggle of kids around them beam up mischievously at him too.

"If a fire hydrant spontaneously combusts I will take it so seriously that it might be a couple hours before I figure out a way to deal with it."

He wished his mask had the capacity to wink, but he figured his double finger guns did the trick when he webbed away to the sound of laughter in his wake.

He soared over traffic, falling and flying and falling again. He arced upwards and sideways, spinning string to spin himself to a tuneless ballet past the glare of high-rise windows. The world is always loud, New York at its busiest high up on that list, but there was something about... suspension. A few seconds without gravity before it took him again. And if he closed his eyes, just for a few seconds as he dipped down and down and down and downdowndown—

Peter flung himself around a sharp corner, heels just skating against asphalt, and darted into the narrow mouth of an alley like a colorful bullet to plant both feet against an arm poised to pull a trigger.

crack.

"AGH!"

Arms shouldn't bend the way that one did, but the arm would be the least of the shooter's worries as his body careened from the sudden impact and crashed against the side of a dumpster, carving a small dome in dark green metal.

"Hi," he greeted the woman pressed against the alley wall. Tangled hair, smeared lipstick, eyes glued to how he webbed the gun into his hands, dropped the mag, tossed the slide one direction and the barrel in another, and let the rest of the gun clatter at his feet. "Are you hurt anywhere?"

"... Just feel like shit. Didn't know the bastard had a gun." She swiped at her nose and slowly shuffled away from the wall, her stiletto heels dragging lightly along the concrete. "Shit. Shit, I almost..." She exhaled harshly through her nose and jut her chin out at the lump a few yards away from them. Passed out in a puddle of his own piss. "He dead?"

"Not really my wheelhouse. I'll web him up if you want to call the—"

"Nah, I'm no little miss sunshine neither. Cops'll be bad no matter what." She watched him from the corner of her smudged smokey eye. "That wasn't a confession, Boy Scout."

"I only have one Boy Scout badge and it's because I won it off a friend in an Uno gauntlet. Pioneering. Apparently it's, like, the closest thing to knot-tying," he added when she didn't ask. "No cops. He can stay tied up for a little while and think about what he did."

She huffed. "Most of the thinking he does with the wrong head, I'll tell you that." A long, weary sigh poured out her lungs as she raked her fingers through her hair and tried what she could to straighten out the mess. "Fucker didn't even pay."

thwip.

Her gaze flashed back to his hands where instead of a gun, a wallet sat between gloved fingers. Peter flipped it open; driver's license, credit cards, stamp cards, expired coupons—

"Three hundred forty dollars cash, in twenties." He held out the wad until she reached for it, carefully, then tossed it over his shoulder. He didn't have to look back to know it landed square on the would-be shooter's head. "I'm not sure if that covers everything, but if it does I hope it also includes a bonus for emotional distress."

The cash weighed in her hands like brick for a long few moments before her fingers effortlessly skimmed each bill, flick, flick, flick. Three hundred forty, all there. All real.

When her eyes snapped up to meet the whites of his mask, they narrowed into razor thin blades.

"So what? You gonna let me walk away with the money, call the cops, bring them over both our heads? Nah, I'm not fallin' for that."

"I wouldn't do that. I mean, you said he owes you."

"Yeah, and you know what I do for a living, Spandex?"

He could guess. Short skirt, revealing top, a full beat in the early summer heat in an alley with men who might not be any ounce of nice. Dark wasn't out to lengthen shadows and the people who bustled the streets were more aware and more curious with the sunlight at their backs, but rent didn't wait for the typical shift hours. Groceries weren't sympathetic to being a few bucks short. Medicine, kids, car payments, gas, utilities—

"Whatever it is, you don't deserve a gun in your face over it," he told her. She wavered as she frowned at the bills crumpled under long red fingernails. "You're making a living. You're not hurting anyone. Spider-Man's here for the neighborhood, all of it, and honestly? I don't know what Piss Pants was thinking when he decided not to pay. That's stealing, and that's a crime."

Peter stood there with an easy smile she couldn't see and his hands open, palms propped against either side of his hips. And after another long few moments she sighed, quietly, and rolled up the wad to shove into her bra.

"Thought you were all about truth and justice and all that other horseshit," she said.

"I mean, sure. If it's right." He glanced up towards the blue skies boxed in by the rigid lines of hundred year old buildings. "You ever been to Delmar's?"

She blinked. "The deli where that cat likes to get his hair all over people's clothes?"

"Yeah! Murph's great, I love that little guy. Ever since the heat started rolling in he started sleeping on the ice cream chest and the kids who come by love to pet him when they fish for popsicles. Delmar sells Spider-Man ones, fifty cents a pop. And in this economy? I make sure I give him at least a dollar for one and swing away way too fast for him to do anything about it." Just yesterday Delmar shook a fist out his door when Spider-Man swooped in, dropped a ten on the counter, and took off with four popsicles fit between his fingers like it was the greatest heist of the century. "All of that's important too, you know? That the neighborhood's happy and safe, and that's something I know I can help to do."

Without looking, he flung a glob of webs at Piss Pants' limbs to keep him one with the ground, tripling the dose on his broken arm so that it'd be a bitch and a half to deal with if he tried to pry himself out prematurely.

"Will you be alright out here? I can walk you to wherever you need; the Spider-Man Chaperone Experience comes with a full set of great puns to help accompany you to your next destination."

The lady snorted and bent down to pick up the purse knocked over at her feet. "I'm good. Gotta find a few more johns to make my week."

Peter saluted and hopped up the opposite wall. "No problem!" He started a leisurely crawl upwards, but paused and twisted back around like a twizzler. She wrinkled her nose at the inhuman motion. "Um, this isn't me trying to tell you how to do your job or anything, but it wouldn't hurt to have a buddy when you're out. Strength in numbers? Someone nearby to shove a mean taser straight to the neck? Not that I'm condoning violence! Just... promoting personal security?"

The corner of berry red lips twitched upward. "I'll keep that in mind. And, uh, Spider-Man?"

He turned around fully, planting the flats of his soles on worn down walls and setting his arms on bent knees. "What's up?"

"I think... I might've not made it home tonight if it weren't for you. Or at least I would've spent a night in holding, and I can't afford to do that either," she said. She hiked her purse higher on her shoulder. "So, thanks. You're pretty alright for a dude in a suit."

His smile softened, and he shot a string at a nearby building. "That's me, your friendly, webby, pretty alright Spider-Dude. Stay safe out there!"

And he fell out of the alleyway, back over traffic and civilians and the occasional confused bird. The next few hours came and went in his usual rhythm—he dropped onto a playground to help a kid through the middle of an asthma attack, hung upside down from a tree branch to watch a guy actively pickpocket an old woman—whose wallet was promptly returned after a quick smack to the back of the head, strung up some lower thugs from a mildly influential crime family that had him wiping splashes of red off his gloves, saved Booth from the trials and tribulations of a diarrhea attack in a public bathroom—

"Hey, man! They don't label those things right and it definitely has lactose in it! You should get in on the class action lawsuit they're filing about it!"

Booth paused, a tiny plastic spoon full of a healthy peach flavored yogurt halfway to his mouth, and squinted up at the blue blur that looped over his head.

"... What the fuck."

—and a couple hours before his shift, he touched down at the cemetery in jeans and an old t-shirt with flowers in one hand and his freshly laundered apron in the other. He'd already walked every path to her grave from every entrance and knew this wasn't the shortest, but took him past less visitors this time of day. His feet carried him on instinct, a double-knotted converse type of day, and plopped down in front of the headstone he made sure never got too dirty.

"Hi, May. Long day today."

Peter cleaned off the crisply withered tulips to make room for a bouquet of irises, their deep indigo petals quick to lighten up the space.

"Finals ended yesterday and that's my sophomore year, gone in a blip. Don't worry, I won't spend all summer break cooped up in my room trying to Frankenstein a bunch of broken laptops I found in the dumpster—actually, I kind of made a cool deal with this tech store I pass on my way to work. I get old parts and broken pieces whose fate is to sit at the bottom of the recycling bin, they get a ten percent cut of sales from the new comms we started pushing at work."

Sister Margaret's had never sold tech. They were the middle-man to forgeries and munitions and fielded mercenary assignments like dealing cards in a casino. But after Neena tested his comms she'd asked for a couple more for Inez and Diamondback and after Wade shattered his in a rain of gunfire for the fourth time, Weasel decided enough was enough.

"We're not fucking wasting your brain on charity anymore. Either we start charging or they can go back to hooking bluetooths over their ears."

"They made earbuds that hook over your ears? "

"... God, you make me geriatric."

"They're super popular now. Like, I'm pretty sure every one of our regulars has their own. Between me and Mr. Weasel, we can knock out minor repairs like nothing, but at some point I think we'll need to hire someone just to handle the tech stuff on its own. I recommended Ned. Mr. Weasel said he'd rather drown in a vat of acid before he hired another teenager, but I'll wear him down."

He dug out a small sewing kit from his backpack along with the patch Neena had gotten him. Bloom Where You're Planet-ed stared up at him in all their lopsided glory. It was so jank. He loved it.

The plan was to find a solid jean jacket at the thrift store, but it'd be months before it got cold enough to use it and he couldn't let a cool gift like this collect dust. He lifted up his work apron against the sun, the white permanently darkened from the stains he couldn't wash out. The bottom left-hand corner ran the darkest from the last time he dove into a fight to break it up and couldn't soak it fast enough to keep the blood from making its new home.

A perfect placement.

White thread poked through the eye of a needle, and Peter began to sew just like Neena taught him.

"I'm sorry I couldn't talk to you like this when you were still here."

Birds chirped cheery tunes above his head.

"I was going to tell you. Eventually. Probably. But, uh, but I think the real answer is that you would've found out anyway the same way you found out about everything else—an accident. You would've been so, so pissed this time, though."

Ten stitches in.

"I know you came to an understanding with Mom, but that's... it's complicated. It always is. Isn't everything? But you'd... you'd be so disappointed in me. I know you would. My real job, my friends, Blue. The gun. Gods, you would hate the gun. You'd hate how good I am at using them and you'd hate—"

Me.

Thirty stitches in.

"Sometimes I wonder what my life would've looked like if things were different. If I hadn't walked up to the Hellhouse, would everything be different? Would I still be in all my school clubs? Would I have met Mom?"

Thirty-six stitches in.

"Would I still lose you?"

Thirty-seven stitches in.

"But I... It's selfish. I'm selfish. Because if I turned back time and I saw that dish boy posting on one of the sketchiest online job boards known to man I would choose it over and over and over again. I don't know how Mr. Weasel keeps that place running without me."

Forty-four stitches in.

Forty-five.

Forty-six.

"I can still feel your blood on my face," Peter whispered. "No matter what I do, I can't scrub it off."

Stitch, stitch, stitch, stitch.

After pulling the needle through the anchor loop, he wrapped the thread around silver metal three times, pulled it, and settled the knot against the rough apron fabric. The extra white thread snapped without any effort, and he lifted it back up against the winding down sun.

Even and precise. Neena would be so proud.

He folded it up and shoved it into his backpack as he hoisted himself up to his feet.

"Well, it's time for me to go in. We actually won't open for a little while but the fans we ordered should be in today and it'd be nice to get them all mounted; up high and in enclosed cages of course. Bulletproof. Fingers-getting-hacked-off-proof. And I can feel it in my bones that the AC's going to crap out on us soon and those are going to be our last line of defense."

He slung his bag over his shoulders, fingers curling around the straps.

"Thanks for listening to me babble. And watching me sew on my cool new patch. I told you I'd learn some home skills someday, huh? I'll come back with more flowers when these ones get old. I know how much you like them," he told her. He pressed his lips to the tips of his fingers and set them on the crest of the headstone. "Bye, May. I lo—love you."

His feet hesitated for a second before they started to carry him out the north entrance, towards the bar.

—

prickle.

A crazy expensive car parked on the curb right outside Sister Margaret's graffitied door.

Oh.

Cool.

Okay.

Peter shouldn't be surprised. Parker Luck, at it again, dredging up things he thought he could escape by shearing his head and pretending all his problems went down the drain like the rest of his hair.

He cut around the back alley like he usually would if he came from the other direction. Head held high, he dropped his bag down his arm, reached for the apron he tied around his waist and the gun he tucked into the waistband of his pants, scrunching his shirt against the small of his back.

The back door opened with one of the trillion keys on his carabiner and he strode into the kitchen with dead silent steps. His sweaty palms slowly began to ice up, cold threads winding along his bag and molding sharp points around his keys and he stopped in front of the swinging doors. Breathed. Pulled it all back in. Wiped cold sheens off cold skin and wondered why everything always happened at this goddamn bar.

Peter set down his bag, rolled back his shoulders, tried not to lock his jaw.

And pushed past the swinging doors.

Happy's head jerked up first as he stood on the opposite side of the register in full suit-and-tie and wide-eyed at the sight of him. Weasel stood with a sort of nonchalance that Peter didn't think existed under all those nerves; he leaned on the back table behind the bar, shoulders slouched only slightly as he swirled a glass of dark liquor. By the smell of it—caramel, vanilla, oak, smoky—Booker's. High shelf.

And Tony Stark was sitting at the bar.

It'd been... Huh. Eight months since he saw him last—in person, of course. It was hard not to see a headline that didn't relate to Tony or his company every couple weeks with the type of power and reach he had but here he was in business casual with a plain white t-shirt that definitely cost more than all the tips he got from Road Reaper night. A pair of aviators tucked into his front collar, maybe tech-lined, maybe recording, and he looked up too.

"Oh, you weren't there before," he noted. Dark, weathered eyes glanced Peter top to bottom lingering on his stained apron and the patch on it stitched with clinical precision.

"Just came in," Peter answered. He crossed his arms. It was like he was supposed to feel like he'd been caught doing something he shouldn't have, like a little kid sneaking out for ice cream in the middle of the night. But he didn't. "What's the occasion? We don't open until later and the bar doesn't seem like your vibe."

Happy stared between two long blinks before his pale face turned to his boss.

"The occasion is the beauty of perfect timing. We," Tony cast a wide gesture encompassing himself and his head of security, "were in this part of town and realized you worked nearby, so we thought we'd stop by to say hi before the dinner rush."

He flashed a media-trained smile that didn't reach his eyes, and eight months ago it would have curled shame in the pit of Peter's gut. Now, somehow, the man was far closer to the ground than the pedestal Peter was so used to seeing him perched on.

"Bold haircut, kid," he continued when his calculating gaze trailed up to the top of his head. "That the new cool with the youth of today?"

Peter shrugged the question off his shoulders and came to stand by his boss.

"Heya, Mr. Weasel. Do you think I could have a few minutes with them?"

Two fingers of whiskey, gone in a blink.

"Thirty minutes. That's how long it'll take me to haul in all those delivery boxes. You saw 'em stacked outside," Weasel said as his now-empty glass thunked against the bar top. "Then you're on fan-installing duty before everyone starts to trickle in."

"Don't worry," Peter assured him with an easy smile. "It won't take that long."

Tony's eyes glinted under the low lighting.

Weasel clapped him on the shoulder, hot and clammy and his heartbeat thudding on the surface of his skin—he must've actually almost shit his pants this time—and disappeared past the swinging doors without a parting look at their uninvited guests.

The air immediately dropped a few degrees.

Regardless of whether it was from his own jitters or because of the alien ice that lived in his veins, he walked over the rubber mats laid out behind the counter and stood just to the left of the register and right between two damning stares.

"So what do you want to start with first?" Peter asked. He planted his palms along the edge of the bar, fingers curled on the underside like dying spider legs and rested his full weight forward. "A lecture? Except I'm not really sure why you'd come all the way here just for that because last time I checked, all the Staten Island ferries are completely whole and any damage done to them was out of the realm of being my fault again."

Tony's jaw twitched like he bit down on an unpopped corn kernel.

"I have a list. Let's work our way down it," Tony dismissed with a quick flick of his fingers, his wrists still pinned to the bartop. As much as they wiped it off and buffed it out every night, nothing fully hid the nicks and scratches it collected over the years. "And top of that is..." His brow scrunched, his mouth pulling down as his eyes softened for the first time. "We're sorry, kid. We really are."

Huh.

"For...?"

Happy cleared his throat. "For May," he said as he loosened the tie around his neck. "We, uh. We would've reached out sooner if we'd known."

Peter caught that questioning undercurrent, ignoring the pang that came every time someone else said her name. Happy was a pretty straightforward guy. Man of his word, or of the few he had, honest. And he knew this at least wasn't meant to bite.

"It was a small funeral. Mom put it together as quick as she could." Tony's chin raised slightly. Peter pretended to not clock the movement. "She didn't really hang out with May's friends, but she broke the news to the hospital and told them that anyone who wanted to attend, could. So it was them, my Aunt Jan, Ned and his family, us."

"We're surprised it didn't make it on the news. It was kind of..."

Brutal. Bloody.

"Mom made sure most of it wasn't public information." When the cops showed up at the door, their eyes flooded with green and Loki told them exactly what needed to be done: the report would be filed quietly, the attacker's body would be taken and identified, and May's body would be handled by a separate third party, and the pair followed the instructions in a sort of daze. Later, Peter asked if mind control was one of their powers. They said it was nothing that powerful. "So the only way anyone else would've known was if they looked up her death certificate specifically. Or looked into her if they realized something was wrong, I guess."

A beat passed.

"We're sorry. Again," Happy said. Peter didn't know what weighed heavier, the appreciation for the thought, or the anger for the pity slowly clouding in his eyes. "It—It couldn't have been easy."

It wasn't easy when she let go of her last breath in his arms, or when she was lowered into the ground. But even he could hold the thinnest silver lining close to his chest, and that was only when he had Kairo Green's throat in his hand.

"So your Mom," Tony mentioned after a beat, and Peter slowly tugged his head back to the present. The man never liked when silences stretched longer than that. "She's new."

"She's great."

Another beat. And when Peter stood there and stared with nothing else to say, Tony's jaw twitched again.

"Lora Olstad," he started. His pointer finger tapped the thin band around his wrist, summoning a holographic turquoise panel that projected right in front of his face. A mirrored version of Lora stared straight at Peter. "Stanford grad, history buff, speciality in ancient Nordic culture—Thor must've blown her socks off when he lightninged into New Mexico straight off a Fabio cover. If she was around to notice? Because she disappeared off the face of the planet for fourteen years, reappeared five months ago, and now works as a translator for ancient Eurasian texts." Dark eyes caught Peter's through the middling haze of electronic blue static. "Is she great enough to know what her son's doing in a place like this?"

"You can call it a dive," Peter said blandly. "But 'a place like this' still has its charms." Bullets tucked away in front of his knees, stains that wouldn't bleach out of the tile grout, names printed on metal cards like a prophecy. "Mom knows exactly what I do here."

"And the job title that'll simply glow on your future resumes?"

"Dish Boy," Peter replied. "The 'Extraordinaire' is at the end in parentheses."

Tony made a face. It wasn't the face Neena would make when she watched him scarf down a meal that could feed five Joey Chesnuts or the face Weasel made when he found out Peter wasn't kidding when he said he could push a parked RV out of their designated delivery drop off spot with a single finger. This face was a Tony Stark special: one brow raised higher than the other, jaw slightly dropped, caught right before a laugh that cycled through any expression but friendly.

"You're. The dish boy."

"Yeah, but if you say it like that—"

"You find a bar that's landed itself on a classified radar and you get hired to wash dishes."

Even Happy deepened the furrow in his brow.

"Hey, I do other things too like helping with inventory," Peter's thumb went up, "switching out the menus," pointer, "organizing the silverware," middle, "bussing tables," ring, "cracking jokes," pinky, "and the floor loves my jokes so much that when they come back they tell me to use different ones."

"Not that much of a dive that they've got kids mixing their drinks too?" Tony quipped, and the levity he tried for didn't quite take off. He was a couple years sober, good for him, and Peter wondered what he looked like, fifteen years old and finding a way to fit around more bottles the average adult would drink through in their lifetime.

"Mr. Weasel knows better than that, but I can get you a mixer or something if you're thirsty. Water? Cranberry juice? Orange juice? We've even got Sunny-D."

Happy's mouth pursed the same time Tony grimaced.

"Yeah, no thanks, kid." He waved his hand, dismissing both the notion and Lora's digital visage. "Help yourself."

Peter turned around, deliberately careless, and plucked a clean glass off a small stacked pyramid slotted against the side of the beer fridge and the back wall. He listened to how they sucked in their breaths while he tugged the Sunny-D out one of the mini-fridges and the skip in their heartbeats as he poured himself a serving. He turned around mid-sip to two brand new faces to witness: Happy's twisted into something more than sour, and Tony's color paling into a distinct stark-white.

"I guess all the liquor that ends up on the floor technically qualifies as a mixed drink," he continued. "But I don't think it counts as me handling it if I'm, like, attacking it with a mop—if you came on a deep clean day you'd be huffing Fabuloso like your nose was down a can of spray paint."

He paused for effect.

"Man, tough crowd."

"The full moon tonight might have something to do with that." Tony's piercing gaze lingered on his hip as if he could glare through flesh and meat and bone to see if that scratched, polished metal really did live in the waistband of his jeans. "You got silver bullets waiting for werewolves? What if you accidentally shoot your ass off with that thing?"

"Tony," Happy murmured warningly.

Peter reached behind him and pulled out the gun, its Hello Kitty sticker pink and glittery. Both of the men across from him tensed as they watched as he released the magazine, flicked it out, and caught it with the same hand. Practiced. Easy. He took another sip of his drink as he let the magazine drop on the wood beside him and tucked the gun back into its rightful place.

"Better?"

"Better? Better? Kid, this isn't a game!" Tony finally snapped as he slammed his hand down onto the bar. And when he did, another globe of holographic images bloomed around them.

Peter and a hooded man—Wade—getting hotdogs and, he knew, arguing about whether cars should have leather seats while waiting at the cart. Peter and Neena at a free park concert with take-out in their laps in the middle of what he remembered was a rundown of prime mid-20s punk pop. Peter walking Granny Sal home, her arm looped in his as he laughed at another story she was telling him about her infamous sister Al who he'd learned then was Wade's old roommate. Peter and Wade changing out a tire from the shit brown junker, when the shit brown junker was still alive and barely kicking and had run over a pile of nails.

And more and more and more, surrounding him in what was supposed to be some sort of coordinated attack.

But all he felt was the warmth in those moments.

Then the startling, stabbing cold that all these pictures had been taken and stored like they were evidence.

The temperature in the bar dropped a few more degrees, and Happy glanced around in confusion.

"These people that you're hanging out with that you could've only met here at this godforsaken bar—do you even know who they are? How dangerous they are?" Tony demanded. "Who they really are?"

It was like the image of Stephen Strange superimposed over him, then. Two people who thought they knew better, or at least, thought that Peter didn't know much of anything at all. But the thing that they forget or refuse to realize or just straight up don't understand was that he did know. He'd known for months that his friends were dangerous and his boss was dangerous and his mom was dangerous and what else? He could crush bones like they were made of cardboard and shoot non-vitals like he was flinging darts at a board. He knew guns and people, consequences and the things that led to them.

Eight months and counting from working at a mercenary bar, he had Sister Margaret's respect, a level of immunity on the East Coast, and both Deadpool and Domino publicly at his back.

Spider-Man, Blue, Ferret, Lokison.

"Yeah," Peter replied in an even tone. "How do you think I got the gun?"

The silence hit the room like he took aim and fired. Bang.

"I don't know why you're bringing this up to me now. I thought this was going to be about Spider-Man and the Scorpion and a second screwed pooch on some train tracks in Jersey—" Happy's eyes darted to the swinging doors— "which I'm working on. Hard to forget not to. But what does that have to do with all this? They aren't Spider-Man's friends, they're mine. And I won't let anything happen to them."

Peter threw back the rest of his Sunny-D like a shot and set the glass behind him when the outside started crawling with tendrils of ice.

"So that's worth more than say, I don't know, trying to figure out your other bug problem?"

"I'm w—"

"—orking on it, yeah, I heard. But did you hear me?" Tony's lips morphed into a hard line as veins popped up on the backs of his hands as he held them together. "The Scorpion wants you dead! The Vulture escaped from custody and no one's picked up the trail! If you can't deal with this alone, then you—!"

"Tony."

Tony's teeth clicked together as he shut his jaw, and blinked, bewildered at the sound of his own name out of a mouth he didn't think even knew it.

"I'm working on it," Peter repeated firmly. Unflinchingly. "It's going to take more than a train to kill me."

(Tony doesn't know what to say, what to think, and his brain is overloaded on how many gears are trying to turn at the same time. He's so sure he mapped out every outcome and scenario that could have lured a bright mind to a dark cesspool and there's a bitterness at the back of his tongue when the kid stands there like he owns every bit of this ugly world, and he might. And if he does, how could he? This isn't Spider-Man. This isn't Peter Parker.)

((... Is it?))

"If you've been having... trouble. With things," Tony ventured carefully. "You know you could have called us. Right?"

A single automated message echoed clearly in Peter's head.

The number you have called is currently unavailable. Please leave a message after the tone.

Beep.

His mouth moved on its own. "Would you have answered?"

That struck Tony more than a bullet ever could. "We would've—yes, kid. God, of course we would've." He scrubbed at his face and looked almost ten years older in that instant as Happy looked down at his hands poised in front of himself. Guilty. "Those voicemails you were leaving, they were cute. Listened to a couple before they got sent to the archive. Happy might've not answered much, but since the Vulture I programmed the phones to screen your messages so that if you ever had an actual emergency, we'd know about it."

... Oh.

Peter's vision tunneled, and it was through the same thing that kept him going the last month that kept him from slowly unraveling behind the bar.

So maybe there had been a way out of all of this. Maybe in another life, eight months ago, he would have picked up his phone and left a voicemail on a number he still had to say that he worked at a bar armed to the teeth with knives and bullets. He probably would have been whisked away not too long after that, before Weasel was saved by his new dish boy and Deadpool found out Spider-Man was only fifteen. Would Tony have taken him under his wing instead? Brought him to work in the labs? Given him that mission he used to ask for, one that was meant for the Avengers, one that was meant for him because there were no more Avengers to send out to save the world?

Would May still be here?

Tony looked at him, tired and worn. Iron Man without his helmet. "Does knowing that change anything? If I asked you to walk out the door with us, right now..."

The entry hallway glowed its usual deep red. Just like the entrance to hell was supposed to be, the regulars joked about every now and again and the newcomers commented on once they blinked the neon out of their eyes.

But the thing was... Peter wasn't sure. Was there ever a world where he didn't let her down?

"Then I'd tell you thanks, but no thanks," Peter admitted. "I wouldn't trade what I have here for anything."

Tony huffed a small laugh that he couldn't stop and slowly stood up from the bar stool.

"You're stubborn as hell, and that'll either take you to the moon or to a hole so deep you might not be fast enough to dig yourself out from. I hope you know what you're up against." He reached into his inner pocket for a small notepad and a sleek pen, quickly scribbling something on the top page before he ripped it off and slid it over. "I should've given it to you earlier. Use it whenever you need to." And then his glasses were on his face and his hands in his pockets as he began to saunter out the door. "Have fun at work, Ferret!"

Happy sighed and began to follow after, but not before pausing to look at Peter one last time. "Stay safe, kid." And then quieter, too quiet for Tony to hear. "And I'm sorry we made it seem like you couldn't trust us."

And he was gone too, cloaked in red, then not at all.

Peter stayed unmoving until he heard the engine rev to life on the curb, idling for a few moments before it took off down the street, and that was when he reached for the slip of paper and picked it up.

A number. Tony's.

He didn't realize his hands were shaking until one of the swinging doors slowly pushed open and the top of Weasel's head poked out, scanning the mostly empty bar with the anxiety levels of a high-strung cheetah.

He slowly pushed a thumbs up out into clear view. Peter snorted and waved him in.

"Jesus fucking shit, I thought I was gonna die. I knew it was gonna be in this bar one day, but by the richest motherfucker on the planet? Skip the funeral, just chuck my ashes down a fucking porta-potty and call it a day."

Weasel pushed back into the main space and ran his hands along the customer side of the bar both over and under the whole length of the wood, then came back running his hands over the tops and bottoms of the stool seats and the metal foot rests beneath them. When he looped back, he dropped three tiny audio trackers by the register.

Peter squished them between his fingers and brushed the broken pieces into a small pile to scavenge later.

"I'll comb the entry way and the outside for more. I've got transmitters running through here that interfere with shit like that, but it's Tony fucking Stark. Can't be too careful he didn't bug this place to hell and back," Weasel groaned. "He's not coming back, is he?"

"I hope not."

He eyed the teen and the crumpled up piece of paper in his grip.

"You okay? Did he say some shit to you? 'Cause if he did, we both know Wade would kick his ass for the high, high price of a single bottle of grenadine."

That pulled a small smile out of Peter, but not enough to keep it steady. "He said what I thought he'd say, like how it's 'dangerous' and I 'shouldn't be here' and that I could 'reach out' or whatever. I just..." He sighed as he rubbed his free hand over his head. "I just feel like a stupid fucking kid." He held his hand over the trash and let the ball of paper fall in. "It's fine. I'll be good by the time we open, promise."

Weasel gave him a sweeping scan before he pushed up smudged and murky glasses. "If you say so. But if you're feeling iffy later, take a nap in the break room or something."

"Aw, Mr. Weasel. You're making me blush."

"Actually, fuck you, you goddamn rug rat. Now go build those fucking fans and get them mounted because I swear to god if that dogwater AC unit fucks out on us tonight and we have zero airflow in this bar I'm putting a sauna charge on your next fucking paycheck—"

::

At the start of June when the weather was still mild and you couldn't yet call it humid, the tallest office of the main Stark Industries Headquarters received a package webbed on the window.

A squeaky clean Spider-Man Starksuit lay neatly folded in the box.