Peter looked down at the card in his hand, then up at the double doors of the brownstone townhouse in the middle of Greenwich Village. His spidey-sense was suspiciously low-key for Loki's weird disappearing act, all puns aside, and the only thing that could be considered out of place was the circular window on the roof whose metal muntins curved into some symbol he didn't recognize. All he had to do was knock, right? He would just explain to the kidnappers that he was just a high-schooler who didn't have the means to pay ransom for a literal alien god who just happened to be his mom and—that was probably too much info. Or they could already know. Oh my god, did they know he was Spider-Man too?!

"Breathe, Parker," he mumbled. In, out. "You could probably punch your way through this situation." In, out. "Maybe. Channel your inner Hulk. You got this. You got this."

He raised his hand.

His knuckles drew closer to the doors.

Spike.

He wasn't on the street anymore, but this time he braced himself for the nausea that came with the slowly rising familiarity of magic.

The inside of the building was gigantic. A dark ambiance clung to the air; the floors were a marbled pattern of deep reds and earthy browns and blue-greens like the tides on cloudy days. Some leather chairs and roundtables pushed up against the far side walls, kind of like the studies he'd seen in movies in scenes where some old professor type guy sat at a huge oak desk and quoted boring classical literature.

His eyes finally landed on the grand staircase that led up to a second floor.

And to the person standing up at the top.

"You're younger than I was expecting," the stranger said. He started his descent down the stairs and the weird red cape he wore didn't... didn't move the way it was supposed to. It should be creasing with every step and swishing with a twist of the shoulder or the torso, but it was unnaturally still and puffed out, like it was soft and starched at the same time. "How old are you? Fifteen? Sixteen?"

"That's—D-Does it matter?" Peter steadied his stance as the stranger slowed to a stop at the bottom of the staircase where the light hit him better. Blue outfit, black boots, a weird necklace on his chest. "Where's Mr. Loren?"

"Fifteen, I think. Did I guess right?"

"A portal opened up and took him," the teen bit. He rolled his wrists, his ever-present shooters cooling slightly against his skin before the activation pads stretched against his palms, undetected. "Bring him back. He wasn't doing anything to you!"

"Right, like he wasn't doing anything to anyone when he brought the Chitauri down on Manhattan in 2012," was the counter. Peter tensed, and the man simply raised a brow. "Come on, don't look so surprised. You went to an address written on a piece of paper after someone with you was transported through mystical means. You know exactly who you were with." He stepped forward and Peter stepped back, so the stranger stopped and held up his yellow-gloved hands. "Tell me, what's a fifteen year old kid hanging around Loki Odinson of Asgard, the Plague of the Realms?"

And that just didn't sit right with him.

Peter knew above all else that Loki didn't have the biggest fan club. All the people he hurt and everything he destroyed, sometimes things like that people can't forgive no matter how much they might try, if they ever. He was a little kid during the Invasion, in a car with Ben and May as they drove across the state line after the evacuation orders hit; it took him a while to understand what it meant when May said they wouldn't be seeing some of her friends again or why there were so many funerals Ben and his cop buddies had to be in uniform for in the following weeks.

Loki, for all intents and purposes, shouldn't be defended.

'But,' Peter thought wryly. 'There's always a 'but'.'

"He goes by Loki Friggason now," he said, thinking back to that day. "And he's not like that anymore."

The look the stranger gave him was almost confused. Almost, because he was still thinking and trying to piece together every word that'd been said to him.

Obviously he could dismiss those claims as those from a child manipulated, but what was the benefit of that? Loki could have whispered in the ear of anyone from supermax prisoner to mad scientist depending on the reason he touched down on Earth for, but instead he'd gone straight for some teenager with a shirt that spelled out Irony. The Complete Opposite of Wrinkly.

Right. Like this was going to be the kid that could help him take over the world.

"I don't even know you," Peter frowned. "If you're going to pull a whole hostage situation, can I at least know who's doing all the kidnapping?"

"I would hardly call trapping a god in a pocket dimension 'kidnapping,'" the man started dryly, "but I'm—"

"Stephen."

They both startled at the name, and Peter bit down on his inner cheek at the newest sight on top of the staircase. There was another man, a little bit older and shorter than the first stranger—Stephen—and dressed in similar robes just in a different color. But the real eyecatcher had to be the blade pressing against the junction of the end of his neck and the beginning of his jaw; his skin was close to breaking, right on the verge of leaking blood, and both his hands hung at his sides with ropes of gleaming mint green magic twined between his fingers.

Loki, still in Loren's suit and wearing Loren's hair and square-framed glasses, held down the man and dagger like it wasn't any effort at all.

The only indication that anything was truly amiss was the way his eyes were swirling with tumultuous seidr.

"There's always been sorcerers on Midgard, but there's never been one so bold." Loki tilted his head to the side. "Deirbhile is no longer your Sorcerer Supreme?"

"Dervi...?" Stephen stared at the space in front of him for the next few seconds, and even the hostage's jaw locked when the implication felt just like the blade about to puncture an artery. "No. No, she... That duty falls to me now."

(How did you know the Ancient One's name when no one else did?)

"Hm." Green eyes darted to the teen on the foyer and, as much as relief curled through their owner's chest like a cat's claws sinking through flesh, they wouldn't let it show. Peter was whole and unharmed—though that wasn't any indication the offenders would end up the same way. "Explain yourself briefly or your associate's head will be cleanly detached from the torso."

"M-Mr. Loki!"

"Give him nothing!" the hostage barked. He growled when the blade shifted and a drop of blood slipped down polished silver.

Stephen didn't panic, but only because there wasn't any room to. In the middle of his friend as a hostage and the dangerous war criminal in the sanctum, he was still trying to wrap his head around the typical-looking teenager demanding he hand over said dangerous war criminal.

Of course he walked right into an outcome he couldn't predict.

"Let Wong go, and we'll talk."

"Ah, so now he wants to talk. Your plan fails and you backtrack with your tail between your legs."

"It was a precaution because I know I'm dealing with someone like you. But, as evidenced by your lack of being in the pocket dimension I drew you into initially, it wasn't enough to hold you." The cloak waved some sign with one side of its collar, drawing a noise of surprise from Peter. "The Sorcerer Supreme's responsibility is to protect this reality from the threats of the multiverses, which is something you so clearly are Loki Friggason." Loki narrowed his eyes. "By the looks of things you've been here a while, and the only thing you've done is get a kid on your side. I think that merits an explanation."

Loki donned a look of consideration along with a long, drawn out hum that sent the temperature in the building dropping tick by tick. It would be so easy to kill the man at his mercy before so very slowly digging into the chest cavity of the one to challenge him in the first place, taking every organ his hands would fall on and ripping them free.

Peter would hardly approve, though, so he smiled. "The stairs are no place for this sort of discussion."

Stephen carefully inclined his head. "I agree."

Peter swore the only thing that kept him sane was his beautiful, loving spidey sense, because when he felt the spike he shut his eyes and tried to focus away from the sensation of the world twisting around him. And when that single second passed, he cracked one eye open.

He was in a chair. A red leather chair. To his right, Loki sat with the poise of every part of the prince he was raised to be, and directly across from them in the other red chairs on the other side of the coffee table, Stephen sat with one ankle resting on his knee and Wong rubbed the sore skin on his neck with a grimace.

The air was as thick as a fog machine running in a room that was 98% humidity.

"One would consider it rude that you have not introduced yourself fully as the new Sorcerer Supreme."

"Dr. Stephen Strange. Why are you back on Earth?" Strange questioned without preamble. Loki scoffed. Always with the power-containing Midgardians and their lack of pleasantries.

"If it is the Infinity Stones that are your worry, I am neither in possession of one or willing to seek them out. The reasons for my arrival on this planet are my own, and that should suffice enough for yourself."

"It doesn't work that way."

"Make it work that way."

Peter glanced around when he knew for sure that none of the attention was on him. He tried to keep his head from moving around too much, but he spotted old, old books on dusty shelves and artifacts mounted on stands or in glass cases. He didn't have a reference for what a sorcerer's secret lair was supposed to look like, but he guessed it was pretty legit. In like, a museum-y kind of way.

"The kid," Strange continued, and Peter unconsciously straightened and tuned back into conversation. Loki's expression kept its delicate mix of aloofness and warning, his bright green irises the eyes of their own storms. "What's his place in all of this?"

"He is none of your concern."

"You've been spending a lot of time with him."

"Astute observation. Would you like to tell me the current shade of my hair then, since you seem to do well with pointing out the very things right in front of you?"

"You're associating yourself with a random kid in the middle of New York, the city you once tried to destroy." Strange's eyes, pale and gray and assessing, flickered over to the teen who sat with his elbows tucked close to his torso and his knees almost knocking together. He was doing a hell of a job at making himself as small as possible, and he just couldn't get the image out of his head that this kid, this fifteen year old wearing a lopsided snowman scarf, had anything to do with Loki. "I'll ask again; who is he, and what are you holding over him?"

"Take care to plan your next choice of words," Loki drawled, his tone gaining an edge as he linked his fingers over his lap. "They may just be the ones you will choke on."

Peter's gaze darted to Strange's squared shoulders and pressed lips, then to Loki's lax posture and the shine of the blade peeking out one blazer sleeve, and quietly gulped.

He worked at the Hellhouse long enough to sniff out the prelude to a fight right away, and while Weasel only ever dealt with fights at the beginning to try and mediate and at the end to check if there were any dead bodies, Peter wasn't allowed to get involved in any unless he was personally offended. And besides the occasional drunk and the few wrists he had to bend when he was still considered fresh meat, he'd never really gotten into anything too big outside the suit.

But right here, right now, there were two sorcerers, an alien, and a Peter Parker. Peter's pretty sure Loki would never intentionally hurt him, but if Dr. Strange was telling the truth about defending this reality from multiversal threats—trippy—then they were the good guys. Not to say that Loki wasn't a good guy too but he... really wasn't, honestly. He just wasn't one of the bad guys anymore.

Oh man, this was going to give him the worst headache of all time.

"Um, guys..." he tried.

"It's obvious you're using him for something." Uh, wow, that was rude. "Playing his sympathies? He's not an adult, he'd be easier for you to manipulate."

Loki raised his chin. "Do continue. Let us all see how pushing down this line of questioning will lead you to your own demise."

"Guys," Peter tried again. More firmly, a little louder, but it still got drowned out by the growing hostility in the room. Wong cast him a brief look before turning back to the other two and bracing his toes against the floor, anticipating the spell he'd have to cast or a spell he'd have to dodge.

"Give me one good reason why you, of all people, should be trusted not to wreak havoc here or anywhere else in the world," Strange demanded. This shouldn't have caught him as off-guard as it did, but Loki's difficulty and venom stewed his nerves more than he liked. It was Asgardian blood to conquer, and even if it was Jotunn that pushed through those veins, it didn't change his upbringing. Thor may be a different story, but this one...

"Because the longer you dare look down your nose at me, the faster it will take for me to decide which part of you I plunge my blade through first!"

Spike.

'Maybe Mr. Loki was actually going somewhere when he joked about me looking innocent,' Peter thought as he threw both his wrists out. Webs glued Strange's hands together and stuck them against the arm rest, dissipating the orange light that began to spark at his fingertips, and Loki's dagger had been halfway past one hand when it came to paste against his palm.

Peter lunged forward to grab the stick that suddenly appeared in Wong's hands and disarmed it easily, twisting a wrist to loosen the grip and snatched the thing by one of the horned-head metal ends to send it skidding across the room as he pushed the man back into his chair.

"Guys!" he called out. Almost in unison three heads swiveled his direction, stunned, startled, bewildered.

"... Spider-Man," Strange returned slowly, his mouth moving before his brain could catch up. "You're Spider-Man?"

"Big fan," Wong commented from the side. Strange squinted.

"Seriously?"

A light shrug. "He does backflips on buildings, and he's cooler than you."

"I—"

"Look," Peter cut them off, and since the webs Loki had been giving him a quiet, appraising stare. Working and living in Queens these last few months there was no way he hadn't seen the news about his alter ego, and maybe he'd caught a glimpse or two of a red suit swinging over the streets like most of everyone in the neighborhood. But even with his mom's probably low opinion on heroes, Peter hoped Loki wouldn't be too disappointed in him. "You might not think Mr. Loki's telling the truth, but I do. He lives here, goes to work here, exists here, and he deserves a second chance. If he wanted to do something he would've done it already, and last time I checked there aren't any aliens loose on the streets." He tossed up his arms. "Hooray! Invasion 2.0's cancelled!" They fell back to his sides. "He might not be a superhero, but he's been better. Why can't you just give him that?"

Strange sighed as his hands engulfed in orange light to burn the webs away, and he stood. "Whether he's telling the truth or not doesn't change the facts of what he's already done. It's established, set in stone, and I'm not going to put my faith in a vigilante." He eyed that snowman scarf again. "Not you or any other one cropped up in the city."

Peter's fists clenched. "That's not fair!"

"It isn't? And what happens if I do take your word for it? If It won't happen tomorrow, it'll happen next week, next month, next year. There's too many possibilities, and I won't allow them to play out when I had the opportunity to end it before it began."

"It won't happen!"

"If it does?"

"It won't!"

"But if. It. Does," Strange repeated pointedly. "Who's going to stop him?"

"I—" Peter swallowed. "Me. I will."

He could. He just... just had to be ready for it. Not that it'd happen because he wouldn't let it, no way, and Loki would never... Would he? No, he wasn't just some stupid kid who believed everything anyone told him because this was different and... and...

"How? You'll turn him in? Let the proper authorities handle him? Kill him?" The man shook his head and pinched the bridge of his nose. "You're a teenager who probably balances homework, studying, extra-curriculars, and a secret identity the NYPD and tabloids hate, and you're attached to the very entity you think you stand a chance against. Loki overpowers you in every conceivable way; he's a god who's killed, and you're a kid who can shoot webs out of his wrists. Compared to him, what else can you do besides getting cats down from trees?"

"Stephen," Wong warned.

What else can you do besides getting cats down from trees?

Sometimes Peter forgot to do his homework, but he always remembered letting Ben die. Remembered how Tony doesn't talk to him. Remembered how Happy never answered the phone.

Remembered the weight of ten ton concrete.

What else can you do besides getting cats down from trees?

Peter felt like his hands were going numb.

Nothing.

Nothing that was ever going to be enough.

Strange sighed again. "Listen, kid, I'm not saying you don't do what you need to out there, but this is out of your paygrade. Your domains are Queens and the Eastern outskirts of Manhattan, mine is this reality, and I can't be satisfied with unknown variables. Not when the stakes are this high." He gestured vaguely with one hand. "You understand that, right?"

Peter pursed his lips and looked down. "Yeah," he muttered. "I got it."

He blinked when a hand fell onto his shoulder, Loki suddenly at his side. The god's face was the picture of annoyance with a hint of lurking resignation, but it cleared for the moment he looked down and offered the teen a small smile and clouded right back up when he faced the sorcerers.

"Should I tell you the reason why I will stay on Earth, will you resume keeping to your own business? Both out of our way and out of our lines of sight?"

Wong and Strange exchanged glances, the latter clearing his throat and regarding them warily. "If that reason doesn't jeopardize the universe or reign destruction, then yes."

Loki wrapped his hand around Peter's bicep, lightly tugging him closer and leveling a cool gaze. "Then allow me to make this simple—I have returned for my son."

Peter raised one hand in a subdued, half-hearted wave before he bent his knees and let his mom's magic whisk the both of them elsewhere.

But not before seeing Strange's brows shoot up to his hairline.

::

He stumbled a half-step on the iced sidewalk his Vans couldn't find purchase on, caught by the steady hand still clasped around his arm.

"Thanks," he mumbled, and twisted his head this way and that. They were in some part of Central Park, probably, and when he really looked he thought he could see the top of the Historical Society from the thicket of stripped trees. Right. Right, right, right. They'd been having lunch and he'd been worried that they were taking too long until Loki dismissed it because his boss Mrs. Iolani was always trying to bully him into taking more breaks anyway—

"I should be the one giving my thanks," Loki said, and Peter spun toward him with a heavy scrunch in his brow. All that glacial anger he'd been carrying at the sorcerer's lair had faded and now, well, the teen knew how his mom looked at him sometimes. Hesitant, every now and again. Wistful, when he didn't know he could be seen. Friendly, in all their conversations. "To you, for defending me."

But from all the looks Loki gave him, he'd never looked so humbled; touched.

Guilt. Peter could feel it starting to fill his stomach, but he shoved at it until it was down, away, a future problem for future him.

"Of course I defended you." A short laugh fell unbidden from the teen's lips, bitter and brittle as he scrubbed a hand through his hair and retracted the activation pads back into his shooters. "But I couldn't do anything else. They didn't believe me—they didn't even take me seriously." He slumped down onto an empty bench and leaned back, rubbing his hands on his face. "Sorcerers suck."

Loki couldn't stop the side of his mouth that quirked as he took a more elegant seat on the metal bench after wiping away all the dripping snow with his seidr. "Then it is their loss for losing out on you." He looked up at soft gray skies. "How unfortunate, too. It seems you may as well be the assistant's favorite superhero."

A red flush crept up Peter's neck to his cheeks as his shoulders hunched to his ears. "I—uh, I-I was going to tell you about it. Eventually. When I... had a better idea about what you'd think about it." He slid down his seat. "But, um, you're not happy about the whole thing, are you?"

"In light of this new information, not particularly."

Aaaaaand that was exactly what he didn't want to hear.

The Avengers were probably some of the most prominent heroes on the international scale despite the entire Civil War, and if the Avengers were his enemies, then every other suit in the vein like Daredevil or the X-Men were on the same list. Spider-Man would be no different.

"Who else knows?"

"May. Ned. Mr. Weasel. Wade." A pause, then quieter. "Mr. Stark and Happy."

"Stark?"

Peter flinched, still half-hidden by his scarf as he stared down at the scuffs on his shoes. He didn't think he could stomach whatever look Loki had on his face; he didn't sound angry, but... "My—The suit I use is StarkTech. He gave it to me maybe eight or nine months ago, I don't really remember the exact date—" March 12th— "and I go out in it to take care of the neighborhood. Like your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man? I don't know if you heard about that besides from Dr. Sorcerer Supreme but, uh, for the Mr. Stark thing I haven't talked to him since October? And—And I definitely didn't tell him about you, I swear—"

"Peter."

"—and even if I did, but I really didn't, I mean it, it would've just been a voicemail that went straight to Happy's inbox then trash and it would've gotten lost anyways because I know there's not a really a point in listening when I just say thing same thing all the time, but maybe they've got a system that puts the call through if there's certain buzzwords, or—"

"Peter."

He blinked and finally forced himself to peer to the side. Loki's legs were crossed, the elbow resting on the back of the bench had the hand that rested against the side of his face, and he was smiling? The same smile he made when Peter started rambling.

"I believe you misunderstand my displeasure," he started, adjusting his glasses. "You being Spider-Man is certainly a surprise, and though unorthodox, had you been raised on Asgard you would have been trained for battle and for noble cause. This is a mighty Midgardian equivalent. As for Stark," his distaste surfaced through an overly slimy emphasis, "distance kept and ignorance shouldered creates no issue. You said you have not spoken with him since October?"

Peter shook his head.

"Then there is no need to worry."

"But..." That didn't make any sense. "But you said you didn't like me being Spider-Man?"

"I do not."

"You just—"

"I have been on Earth since November, and I have learned much since then," Loki said as his smile dimmed and Peter's mouth shut with the quiet click of his teeth. "Your gas stoves are impudent. There are domiciles of unrelated units for unrelated persons. There are innumerable superheroes in New York City alone." His brows drew together, and he spied the skyline. "I have seen you swing building to building and listened to the passersby that speak of your power and your battles, yet there is not a single more publicly hated 'vigilante' than you."

Peter ducked his head.

"The prints from the Daily Bugle spill nothing but poison and controversy and the territory's law enforcement berate you for helping, turn you away, chase you off if you have not already taken your leave from the scene." Loki faced him again, perplexed. "I am not upset that you have become Spider-Man, Peter." A glint of green fire lit in his eyes. "I am upset as to why you continue to be him."

"... W-What?"

"You owe these people nothing," he hissed, the suddenness of this new anger like a cap popping off its bottle as he stood in one smooth movement. "They slander your name, drag it through the mud and gravel and yet you risk your life for those who have not the decency to appreciate what you have done for them! Why risk your life for them? Why risk your life for those who would never think twice about taking yours?"

What?

Peter's head spun. He was on one of those rides where they don't buckle you in and you're kept standing in place by centrifugal force, but in this situation specifically he didn't even remember getting on.

When May found out he was Spider-Man, he spent over an hour trying to convince her that going out wasn't him trying to kill himself. She didn't want him hurt or exhausted or dying, and he'd never felt more like a selfish piece of crap when he saw her crying over a picture of Ben just a few days after that. She didn't want him to go out but couldn't stop him, and it took her awhile to warm up to the idea because she saw that all he wanted to do was good.

Reputation had never been part of any argument he had about it, though.

"I don't care about what they think of me," he protested and scrambled up to his own feet. It might bug him from time to time, but it never got too bad, he promised. "Like yeah, there might be a ton of superheroes in New York, but superheroes deal with crazy supervillains that want to take over the world. Er, n-no offense." He coughed. "But me? I'm not built like them." No matter how much the suit tried to make him. "I look out for the little guy. Just because there isn't another alien invasion out there doesn't mean there are people that don't need help."

Loki searched his face, sifting for something, and Peter held his ground for as long as it would take. And once those long few seconds paused, it was Loki who sighed all his ire away in one breath. He looked a little older, a little more tired, but how else could he wear over a thousand years and over a thousand experiences on a face that barely aged?

"Why you?" he asked. Not accusingly, but that resigned sort of wondering; a need to know.

"Because when I can do all these, but I don't do anything with them... and then the bad things happen?" Peter tugged on his jacket sleeve. "That's on me. And if I can make the neighborhood feel a little bit safer, then it's all worth it."

A few hours from now he'll claim he didn't know what came over him, but when he saw that timeworn sadness parents got when they looked at their kids and wondered when they got so big, it pushed Peter to brave walking on that iced sidewalk and wrap his arms around a dark gray suit. Loki tensed at the contact, but he thawed like old snow on road sides and so very slowly brought his own arms around the boy, one hand against his shoulder blades and the other cradling his head, and brought him close.

Fourteen years was nothing to the Æsir, but it was everything in Loki's quiet realization that he hadn't remembered what it was like to hold his son.

"My moon and my stars," he murmured as he placed a kiss on soft brown hair. "I will never understand how I deserved to be blessed with a child as good as you."

What else can you do besides getting cats down from trees?

Peter's eyes watered as he buried his face into his mom's shoulder.

::

His phone buzzed as he laced up his brown work boots. Double knotted, because the absolute last thing he needed at work was to trip on the floor and give Jay-Ar a reason to antagonize Booth for the fifth time this week.

taco buddy: if pineapples r berries and i blend hwaiian pizza in a blender do it make it a smootie [3:28 pm]

Me: ew u like hawaiian pizza??? Blocked. [3:37 pm]

taco buddy: 1) ur missing the POINT
b) thsi is harrasment to me and all the other superior citizens of the earth
iii) DO it MAKE it A SMOOOTHIW [3:38 pm]

Me: no but i'm pretty sure it makes it a shake [3:38 pm]

Peter tossed his phone back onto his bed and rolled his jeans up to the top of his boots where some of his test tube patterned crew socks poked out. He was buttoning up his dark green flannel over a navy tee when his phone buzzed again, and he picked up his backpack to set it on his bed. Winter break reading assignment? Check. Extra web fluid? Check.

New Spidey suit? Check.

taco buddy: ph my fucking god its a SHAKE [3:40 pm]

Me: hey so do u like kno where i can get a good holster??? [3:42 pm]

He turned toward his desk and pulled open the top drawer. Pushing aside old graded worksheets and scrap paper, he reached for an old shirt and the crafted dagger wrapped inside it. It looked almost too pretty to be used, and as he grasped the handle and angled it better in the light, he traced the snakes on the blade with a cautious finger.

If he listened closely, it was almost like he could hear them hissing.

taco buddy: teenie weenie beanie baby, I have a entire trench coat collection of holsters. Y do u need it? What do u have????? [3:43 pm]

Why did he need it? Easy.

What else can you do besides getting cats down from trees?

Because he needed to be better.

Peter slipped the dagger into his backpack, zipped it up, and slung it on his shoulders over one of his thinner insulated jackets. His shooters were already on his wrists as he fastened his old battered watch and slipped his stone necklace under his shirt. Right before he stepped out of the apartment, he snatched his snowman scarf from the coat rack on the door before settling it on his neck and tucking his earbuds in his ears.

Me: A KNIFE [3:45 pm]

taco buddy: NOOOOOOOO!!!!! [3:45 pm]