There was something about New York when it was upside-down. Something that, no matter how many times Peter hung head first from the ledge of a building, he couldn't quite wrap his head around. The buildings always looked as if they broken out from the ground for the sole purpose of clawing at the sky below. Occasionally scratching a silver peak against the horizon but never really touching the infinite black chasm.

The people, too, were different. There were no motives when the world was upside-down. No meaning at all. Only the desperate need to keep from falling.

A soft crackle sounded in Peter's left ear.

"Guy-in-the-chair to Spider-man." A rushed voice cut across the comm. "You copy Spider-man?"

With a small huff Peter began to untangle himself from the web he had strung up from the tallest ledge he could find on 47st.

"Spider-man!?"

"Yeah – I copy, Ned."

Ned's choked voice crackled across the comm.

"Dude," He hissed. "Code name! Come on."

"You know it's only Mr. Stark who actually listens to this channel, yeah?" Peter said, a yawn butchering the last few words. "And he knows who you are."

"Okay, gonna to skip right past Tony Stark actually knowing who I am – because that's just too awesome to even compute right now–" Ned babbled, furious typing cutting across the comm. every now and again. Ned had set up his own microphone, which they'd found at a thrift store on 29th, but it was scratchy at best. Peter had to admit it was kind of soothing, though. Having Ned in his ear these last few weeks had eased the anxious pit that had taken up residence his chest since the attack on the Compound. Or, at least, eased a little. Peter couldn't deny that the pit was still there. And growing. "But the code names are cool!" Ned's voice cut across the comm. again. "And what if, like, some dude hacks into your server and starts listening?"

Peter laughed outright – surprising himself for a second. "What, like you are?"

"Exactly!" Ned shouted – and then the word sunk in. "Wait – no." His voice crackled over the comm. Peter pulled himself up onto the roof, and shot a glance over the city.

It was quiet tonight. Or as quiet as Queens ever got. He'd already broken up a fight in the Subway, caught a pick-pocket-er and helped a girl find her phone – which she'd left in Chinese restaurant in Middle Village. That had been kind of cool. She'd bought him dumplings after.

Ned's voice crackled back through the mask. "What's up with you?" He asked. "You haven't moved in like the last half-hour."

"I know. I'm just tired." Peter said, stretching up on his toes and winding his arms behind his back until his shoulders cracked. "Mr. Prichard had me in school at six to make up for the calculus quiz I missed last week." He shooks his arms and legs out gingerly.

"Eww."

"Yeah."

Peter moved up to perch on the ledge of the building, scanning over what he could make out of Sunnyside – and finding not very much. It was inching towards midnight on a Tuesday, and even in the city (and boroughs) that never slept, people tended to keep to themselves and wander home at a semi-reasonable hour on Tuesdays. A couple of people were spilling out of a bar down the street, on the corner of Greenpoint and 45th, and he could hear the distinctive thump of a dribbled basket ball, the tell-tale excited shouts of a game, at a small park a block over – but other than that the streets were pretty deserted.

"Well nothing particularly exciting is coming over the scanner," Ned's voice echoed through the mask. "You wanna call it a night?"

"Ugh," Peter huffed, tilting his head from side to side to ease the stiffness in his neck. Oww. He really needed to stop sleeping in the webbing. "I'll give it twenty more minutes then head home."

With that he pulled himself back to his head, stretched his arms out to the side as far as they would reach in one last attempt to loosen the muscles in his back, and leapt from the building.

Cool air, and the all-consuming sensation of freedom, met him.

He shot a web out at the building across from him and rode it up and over the block onto 46th. He continued along the dark streets. Skipping between launching himself cleanly over blocks at a time, and stopping to swing down onto the sides of the buildings he passed – surveying the peopled still peppered along the sidewalks. No one seemed in need of him, so he kept moving. Bounding towards 48th street, and the cemetery just beyond it.

Ned's voice crackled across the comm. again. "Does Mr. Stark really listen to these?"

Peter shot a web onto a particularly tall brownstone, and launched himself up and over it, onto 49th street. "I don't know." He said, coming to a running stop atop one of the buildings overlooking the cemetery. "He says he doesn't – but sometimes he says stuff that I swear he could only know about if he did, and–"

Peter cut off.

Below him a black sedan had just pulled up by the cemetery gates – which on its own wasn't overly suspicious – but Peter fell silent as he watched a man climb out of the driver's side and step up onto the sidewalk. It was dark, and the man wore a scarf high up on his neck, covering a good portion of his lower face, but Peter could still make him out – even from across the street. He had a buzzed hair cut, military looking on one side, but the other looked as if it had been shaved clean by medical professions in a hurry, and never really grown back. The entire left side of his head was a mess of scars. They twisted wildly along the bare skin there – some disappearing into tuffs of hair that had grown back, and others snaking down onto the man's face. One in particular ran all the way down, and across, the man's cheek.

The sight of him was a little startling – but not what gave Peter pause.

No. Peter knew this man.

He just wasn't sure how.

He'd seen that face before – he was sure of it. It wasn't one he was likely to forget. He just couldn't place him.

What he could place the tingling on the back of his neck as he stared down at the man. That was no muscle stiffness. Anxiety swelled up in Peter's chest.

"-what?!" Ned's voice cut back over the comm. "What's happening?!"

"Not sure." Peter murmured. As he watched the man threw a look over both shoulders and then moved up towards the cemetery gates. Disappearing inside.

Peter followed without a second's hesitation.

"-what have you found?!"

"I don't know-shh-" Peter hissed over the comm. as he leapt over the cemetery fence, landing behind a large tomb-stone and pausing there to watch the man stride down the path – deeper into the forest of graves.

Peter followed him a fair way into the cemetery, ducking behind trees and large gravestones whenever the man cast a glance behind him. Which was often. He was nervous about something – that much was clear – but Peter, no matter how many times he risked a glance over at the man, just could place him.

"Who are you?" Peter murmured, mainly to himself, but Ned's voice crackled across the comm. instantly.

"Who?!" He asked, furious typing sounding in the background. "If you've seen him I can hack the feed and search-"

Between one minute and the next everything clicked into place.

"Ross."

The word slipped out of Peter's mouth like a prayer – caught somewhere between horror and realization.

"What!?" Ned's voice thundered across the comm. The sheer volume of it making the crackling a hundred times worse.

"That's where I've seen him before." Peter murmured, sliding closer as the man continued through the cemetery. "He's been at the trial."

Peter – despite how much he'd been trying to seem indifferent – had watched every day of the trial so far. Every minute. And the interviews before it. And both Ross and Tony's every appearance since the attack on the Compound – coffee runs and all.

It was as close as he'd gotten to speaking to Tony in the last couple of months.

At first, in the few days after the attack, Tony hadn't left his side. Literally. Every time Peter woke – and he'd slept a lot in those few days, every inch of him aching and exhausted – the man had been there, either working, sleeping himself, or staring at Peter as if he might disappear any minute. It had been a little disconcerting.

Then the whole 'death' thing came out – and that had been a little more disconcerting.

As far as the details went, Peter really didn't know a whole lot about that night. He didn't remember anything past when the Compound was originally breached, and Tony had been reluctant to tell him any more.

You took a nosedive in the lake – drowned for a quick second – then Rhodey and I pulled you out and fixed you up.

The words hadn't exactly cleared everything up, but no matter how much he prodded neither Tony or Rhodey would give him anything else.

Two days after he was given the 'all-clear' by medical – two days in which Tony kept him in Stark Tower still under medical supervision until they were definitely sure he was fine – Peter had been allowed to return home with May, who had reached a whole new level of anxiety when it came to the Spiderman thing, and Tony seemed to drop of the earth altogether.

Peter hadn't worried the first couple of days. It was actually kind of nice to be home. May had hovered, but compared to Tony's anxious need to always be moving, being home with May allowed him to really relax for the first time. And when he had, everything had come crashing down.

He'd died.

He didn't know a lot – but he knew that much. He'd died. The doctors had shown him the x-rays of his chest, pointing out where the fluid that had settled in his lungs as he drowned was quickly disappearing, and which ribs to be mindful of – as some had been broken as he was revived.

Peter wasn't sure exactly how to deal with that – so he'd locked the entire experience up in a box that he hadn't dared to touch yet. A box that was only getting fuller – and harder to keep closed – the longer that Tony avoided him.

He just wanted answers. He needed to know what had happened? Why!?

He needed to know why Tony was dodging his calls – what Peter had done wrong.

"Oh my god!" Ned's voice screeched. "Was he one of the men that attacked you?!"

Peter risked another glance at the man. "No." He said, vaulting over a large headstone and taking cover behind another. "No, I don't think so." The man had left the path now, winding instead through the maze of headstones. "I think he's like Ross's assistant." The man came to a stop beside an older looking headstone. Peter paused behind him, ducking behind a large stone angel. "Or whatever the military version of an assistant is."

"A hit-man." Ned hissed, not missing a beat. They both fell silent for a moment. "What's he doing?"
Peter shot a quick look over at the man. "...Waiting."

"Waiting for wha-"

A sudden movement just to Peter's right had him diving further behind the stone angel.

"Oh, shit-"

Another man was making his way towards the first. This man was different though. Where the first had pushed through the cemetery with long, thunderous, strides, this man meandered down through the graves. If he had been any more relaxed Peter imaged he would have been whistling.

"What!?" Ned's strained voice shouted into his ear. "What is it? What's happening!? I can't see anything." There was a loud bang – and the distinctive sound of an error message. "Shitty computer-"

"Shhhhh." Peter hissed as the new man passed right by the angel he was crouched behind. He needn't have bothered. The man passed him by without even a glance.

"You're early." He called down to the first man, coming to a stop a few feet away from him and leaning casually against a headstone. "We're just unloading the package." He threw a nod in the direction he'd come. Peter threw a look behind him.

Four men were making their way through the dark graveyard – a coffin resting on their shoulders.

Ned's voice crackled over the comm. "If they tip a corpse out of there I am one hundred percent going to spew-"

Peter didn't bother to shush him. His attention had already turned back to the two men ahead of him.

"No problems getting it into the city." Ross's man asked. His voice was scratchy, and painful sounding. As if someone had torn out his vocal cords, dragged them along the road behind a car for a few miles, and then shoved them back in.

"Oh, no." The second man chuckled. Now that he was in front of Peter, Peter could make out his face. He was the other man's complete opposite. While Ross's assistant was scarred and hunched, the second man was handsome and tall. From his crisp collar to his thousand dollar shoes, the man looked like he oozed money and charisma – in equal amounts. "With what we gave her – she slept like the dead."

The second man's lips twisted into a twisted grin.

Peter's eyes snapped back to the coffin that was making its way past where he was crouched.

"I think there's someone alive in there, Ned," Peter whispered, no small amount of horror dripping into the words.

"Oh," Ned murmured, apparently trying to wrap his head around everything that was happening. "Yeah – that's a lot worse." Both of them said nothing as the coffin made its way past Peter. The men baring it carried expensive looking box down to the two men waiting below. When they reached them they placed the coffin on the grass, just in front of the second man's expensive shoes.

Ned's voice finally came back to him. "This is taking a turn from creepy to downright terrifying." He said. "Should I call Mr. Stark?"

"What – no." Peter hissed, more forcefully than he really needed to if Ned's sudden silence was anything to go by. "No, Ned. We don't even know what's going on." Peter backtracked, craning his head to see through the stone angel's arms in an attempt to stay out of sight.

"We know they have someone locked in a coffin – that's something-" Ned argued.

"Just-" Peter sighed. "Just wait."

Before Ned could argue any more the men had started speaking again.

"-Money." The second one said – casting a blindly white grin at the other man.

"Not a chance." Ross's man growled. He nodded at the coffin. "Show me the merchandise first."

Peter's heart thudded painfully. Oh god.

The second man threw a glance at the men who had carried the coffin down, giving them a short nod. All at once they moved back to the coffin – running their fingers along the lid and sliding open several seals that were embedded in it.

"What's the matter Knox?" The second man said – his grin growing. "Don't trust me?"

Without any more warning the four men closest to the coffin swung open the lid. Together they reached inside and seized a hold of the small body curled up against the white satin lining. With rough hands they pulled the quivering body free and hurled it at the first man's feat.

For a moment the girl – and it was definitely a girl, she'd been stripped down to her underwear, leaving her almost naked on the frost ridden grass – did nothing. Then she moved. Slowly. Her curtain of long, dark, hair fell away from her face.

And the Scarlet Witch looked up to meet to eyes of Ross's deputy.

"Holy shit." Ned's strangled voice echoed through Peter's mask. "Holy shi-" Peter's heart kicked into overdrive as Ross's assistant reached down and seized a handful of the Witch's hair, pulling her face up so to meet him. Ned was still panicking, his voice shooting to higher and higher pitches. "Holy shit!?"

Peter barely heard him. Ross's man was speaking again – and his words rung like bells in Peter's spinning head.

"-where did you pick her up?" Ross's man asked, casting a look over the girl at his feet before shoving her back to the ground. She let out a small groan. Peter's teeth clenched together painfully as he kept himself from calling out.

"Florence." The second man said, taking a seat on a headstone near him, crossing his legs daintily and grinning down at the Witch. "Put up a good fight." He shrugged, casting a pointed look at Ross's man. "Satisfied?"

"Very."

So was Peter. He'd heard more than enough.

He pushed himself up and over the stone angel he was crouched behind and shot a web directly into Ross's man's face. It hit home with a satisfying whack – and then all hell broke loose.

The second man jerked away from the headstone he'd been sprawled across, spilling onto the ground and scrambling away from where Peter at landed just across from him. The second man's four henchmen reacted a lot more quickly.

One was on Peter before he'd even hit the ground – throwing himself across a headstone to catch Peter around the middle before he could plant his feet. The two of them hit the ground, hard, and skidded into a nearby headstone – cracking it in two.

"Shit!" Ned's voice screamed in Peter's ear as he threw the henchmen of – and into another headstone. "Oh my god, what's happening? Peter!?"

Peter didn't have time to answer before another man was on him. Peter ducked to his knees, and quick flick of his wrist the man was trapped in a coating of web. Already being spun into the next man – knocking him over like a bowling pin.

Ned's hoots echoed through the mask.

Peter spun wildly, still on his knees. The Scarlet Witch. He'd lost sight of her as soon as he'd hit the ground, and panic soundly pounded in his chest. Christ. He couldn't see her – he couldn't –

A gun cocked and fired just to the left of him.

Peter clenched.

Oh god. He was going to die. Again. He was going to fail. Again –

The bullet never hit home – or at least, not in him.

Before Peter could so much as shrink away from the roar of the gun there was a figure in front of him. Bare skin, almost glowing under the moon's heavy light, was crouching over him. A flick of dark.

And then blood.

A spray of scarlet hit Peter right in the mask – misting over his eyes and casting a red hue over the cemetery.

Peter fell back onto the grass, fighting the sudden urge to vomit as he blinked through his blood-splattered lenses. Oh god. Oh god.

The gun fired again. This time the bullet hit something else – something red and glimmering that hung in the air.

Peter scrambled up onto his knees. The Scarlet Witch was kneeling just a few inches in front of him – her hands outstretched and glowing. In front of her was the last henchman, looming down at the two of them with a gun clenched in his hands.

The hairs on the back of Peter's neck shot up.

"Look out!" The words ripped out of his chest, strangled and broken.

The man emptied the rest of his clip at the two of them, and for a moment bullets rained down on them – but each and every one, like the second, hit the red mass that was pulsing, and growing, in the air between them and the man.

Once the last shot had been fired the gun clicked empty, and a silence fell over the cemetery. The man took a shaking step back.

"What the fuck are you?" He whispered. The red glow still shimmering between them reflected in his eyes. Mixing with the terror already settled deep within them.

The Witch barely spared him another glance before twitching her fingers, just slightly, and sending him crashing into the side of a nearby mausoleum. He hit he wall with a dull thud and fell to the grass below – not even twitching.

As quickly as it had appeared, the glowing red right disappeared, and the Witch rounded on Peter – one hand clasped against her side. Blood was oozing out between her bone-white fingers.

Her eyes flashed a vivid red.

"What the hell are you doing here?"

Tony threw his keys into the sleek silver bowl sitting atop the table beside the front door of the Compound. They slid around the side of the bowl before skidding over the top and cascading to the floor.

Tony watched as they fell. Not moving a muscle.

God, that summed up his day.

He left the keys on the floor – too drained to even bend to the ground and collect them – and started stripping of his suit jacket, slipping his arms out of the silk lined sleeves and pulling the whole thing off of his back. He dumped that on the floor on top of the keys.

He'd been stuck in the courtroom for another nine hours today – majority of which he'd spent listening to Ross scream that yesterday's impromptu speech from be removed from testimony. Then scream a little more about Tony's breach of contract, and even the Accords themselves. His leniency. How he'd compromised.

God Tony needed a drink. And a hatchet.

Not in that order.

He wandered into the open kitchen, not bothering to flip on the light, and pulled open the fridge. He'd reached the point of hunger where you really weren't hungry anymore – and the food inside just made him queasy. A small movement in the darkness to his right had him letting out yelp and staggering away from the open fridge.

"Jesus, Cap." Tony breathed, his eyes falling on Rogers as the taller man stepped into the small light cast by the still open fridge door. "You been waiting in the dark to scare the shit out of me, or something?" Tony sighed, stepping back to the fridge mainly so he'd have something to look at that wasn't Rogers.

"No," Steve said quickly, throwing an arm out to the open glass door behind him – which led out to what was left of the deck. "I was out the back. Just heard you pull in."

"Lights, Fri," Tony said, slamming the fridge door closed and opting to open the nearest cupboard instead in the hope of finding something eatable that didn't make his stomach churn. Soft light spread across the kitchen.

"A bit past your bedtime, isn't it Cap? Tony grumbled. In all honesty he'd stayed in the city longer than he'd needed to, setting himself up with a hoodie and a back cap in a dilapidated diner just inside Hell's Kitchen, hoping to avoid this very conversation.

"I wanted to hear how it went." Steve said, leaning up against the only counter left in the spacious kitchen. The rest had been too damaged to be salvaged. Renovations after the attack had been moving steadily – but vast majority of the Compound was still under construction, meaning that Tony and the other inhabitants were far closer on a daily basis than he would have liked.

"Then turn on the TV." Tony murmured, pulling a loaf of bread from on top of the microwave and moving towards the opposite end of the counter, as far as he could get from Steve. "I'm sure it's on every channel by now."

Steve hesitated a moment. "It is." He finally nodded. Throwing a glance at the TV behind him. His eyes were back to Tony a second later. He paused again. "I wanted to see how you were doing."

Things with the Cap had been...strained. He was trying. Tony could see he was trying. He'd sided with Tony the night of the attacked, and after everything went down he'd stayed by Tony's side as he'd rushed Peter to a hospital and set up in the waiting room for the longest night of his life. He'd called May when Tony's hadn't been able to quell the shaking in his fingers long enough for him to pick up his phone. And after he'd picked up the pieces. The renovations were sailing largely due to him. He'd taken point on the whole re-build, everything from the construction workers to the design. Tony had video proof that he spent majority of his day outside with the builders – literally lending a hand in helping get some of the more damaged buildings off the ground, which Tony couldn't deny he was eternally thankful for. God knows he barely had enough time to catch a couple of hours of sleep these days before he was being summoned to somewhere or someone. He knew Cap wanted to do more too – but with the team on lockdown at the Compound there wasn't a lot more to be done. They really were getting along. Really.

But the unspoken elephant in the room sometimes felt like it was sitting on Tony's chest when the two of them were alone.

Barnes.

Neither of them had brought him up – and Tony was beginning to think neither ever would. It was an odd balance that they'd formed, but it was working. Neither of them were falling.

"Me?" Tony shrugged, twisting the plastic bread bag open and reaching in for two slices. "Chipper. Tip-top-"

"-Tony."

The word wasn't loud. Not even really loud enough to cut Tony off – but he stopped speaking none the less.

Tony threw his two slices on bread down on the bench.

"What do you want, Steve?"

Steve intertwined his arms across his chest, his eyes never leaving Tony. "I want to make sure that you're okay." He said, heaving out a breath. "God knows I'd be inching to hit something if I had to spend a few minutes with the man – let alone hours."

"Hey – I was all for violence when he turned up here." Tony said, pulling open the cutlery draw beneath the cool bench top and pulling out a butter knife. "You're the one who couldn't let me kick the crap out of him."

"We can't stoop to his level, Tony." Steve moved to the fridge Tony had abandoned, swung it open and pulled out the large jar of raspberry jam resting in the door. He set in down in front of Tony. "That's not how we win this."

Tony stared at the jar for just a second before he scooped it up and yanked off the lid. "How do we win this?"

Steve's eyes fell for the first time. "I don't know."

Footsteps coming down the hall saved Tony from having to reply.

Rhodey stepped into the kitchen a moment later – his eyes widening just slightly at the sight of Steve and Tony at the bench. Tony dropped his eyes before Rhodey could shoot him a look. He was far too tired to deal with any of this.

No sooner had Rhodey stepped further into what was left of the kitchen then more footsteps could be heard echoing down the hall. Sam and Clint clambered into the room a second later.

Christ. He was definitely too tired for this.

Tony ignored Clint and Sam, who had respectively situated atop the counter and on the only other free stool, for the moment, turning his attention to Rhodey instead.

"You shipping out, Pooh-bear?" Tony asked, scooping out no small amount of jam and spreading it across the two slices of bread.

"Not tonight." Rhodey said, leaning over to steal a slice of bread out of the still open bag and biting into it as it was.
His words caught Tony off guard, his knife pausing above the jam soaked slices. "I thought you had a summit thing-y in DC in the morning?"

"Yeah – I pulled out a few days ago." Rhodey shrugged, still gnawing on the bread. "They'll survive without me."

Tony barely held in a huff. Barely. "So can I." He said, shooting a look over at Rhodey. "Just for the record."

Rhodey glanced up at him, raised his brows, and proceeded to shove the rest of his slice of bread into his mouth. "Hmm." He murmured.

"I don't need to be baby-sat." Tony scowled, letting the hand that was holding the butter knife rest against the table as he used the other to gather up a jam soaked slice and bring it to his lips. "I am an adult. Quite a capable one too." He chomped down on his own piece of bread. Careful to enunciate every word so that Rhodey got a clear view of the red, gooey mess that his bite was being reduced to. "Genius. Millionaire. Can conjure a pretty sweet suit of armour, with some pretty sweet firing power, at the flick of a wrist. Perhaps you've heard of it-"

"The man tried to kill us, Tony." Clint cut in from where he was perched on the bench just beside Steve. "We all need to have someone watching our backs right now."

"Speaking of babies," Sam stared before Tony could snap at Clint to get off the bench. Or push him himself. "I haven't seen the kid about for a while. What's with that?" Everyone's eyes found their way to Tony again. "Everything alright?"

"Yeah, Tony," Rhodey's firm voice echoed in the otherwise silent room. "What's with that?"

Tony shot him a cool stare.

"The kid is fine." He said sternly. Taking a vicious bite out of his slice of bread.

"Really? You know that? You've checked on him-" Rhodey went on, completely ignoring Tony's stony looks. Tony went cut him off, but Rhodey ploughed on over him. "-Personally."

That cut Tony's reply short.

Tense silence fell over the room.

As per usual Clint broke it – with a sledgehammer. "I'm sensing a little bit of tension." He drawled, casting looks between Rhodey and Tony. The others were cautiously doing the same.

Tony threw his half eaten slice of bread back on the bench.

"No, you're right." He said, flippantly. "I should definitely invite him over – because that ended so well last time."

Steve's confusion expression softened. "That wasn't your fault Tony-"

"I asked him to come out here, and he got hurt." Tony said. "He got-"

"Yeah, he did get hurt." Rhodey cut in. His stern tone so much better than Tony's. Damn him. "But cutting him out now isn't going to fix that."

"I'm not cutting him out." Tony finally snapped, slamming the hand still holding the butter knife down onto the bench with a satisfying thwack. "Happy checks in with May every few days, and the school every week. I've got an alert on him, on my server, so that any street cameras that catch a glimpse of him get sent through to me – and his suit sends every bit of data it collects to my personal server. Everything." Tony thundered in a single breath, leaving him panting. "What time he goes out, what time he gets home. Where he goes. Who he meets. What he does. What he and his little friend talk about when he hacks into my comms. Everything."

Another silence fell over the room.

Again Clint broke it. "So essentially you're stalking him."

Tony growled in Clint's direction, but didn't reply. He really had no comeback for that.

Rhodey saved him from having to find one.

"What about him, Tony?" Rhodey asked. "You can't just leave the kid out in the dark."

"It's not like I can just call him. Or turn up at his place." Tony said, meeting Rhodey's searching gaze head on. "Ross has subpoenaed my phone records – and not just mine, all Stark Industrial personal – you know that." He scooped the sopping mess that was left of his slice of bread and hurled it into the trash. "And I can barely leave this glorified crater without the paparazzi all over my ass – none of us can." H cast a look around the kitchen. "Pretty sure the press would have field day if I got caught chatting with some random fourteen-year-old."

"He's fifteen."

Tony's hand, which was still clutching the butter knife, snapped back up – pointing the steel threateningly in Clint's direction.

He threw in down on the counter a moment later.

"He still has a life. School. Family. Friends." Tony hissed. "A future." His voice went hollow. The anger that had seized him a moment before suddenly fled, and he was left even more exhausted then before. "All of that goes away if Ross finds him."

Another silence fell – this one stretching long enough for Tony to shove the jar of jam back inside the fridge and throw what remained of the loaf of bread back on top of the microwave.

"Fine." Sam finally spoke up, pointing a finger over at Tony. "But once we've sorted all this shit out, he's coming over. He beat me two out of three in our last spar, and that just can't stand. I have a reputation uphold. Can't be loosing to little punks in my own goddamn house-"

"Sir," F.R.I.D.A.Y. cut Sam of mid-rant. "One of the pre-prescribed search-alerts have been tripped on Mr. Parker's mobile."

"Christ." Clint barked out a laugh, "You're monitoring the kid's phone as well."

"Shut-up." Tony snapped. "Which one, Fri?" He asked, running a hand over his stinging eyes. God he needed to get some sleep. "I swear to god, if he's googling how to hack his suit again I am going to blast 80's pop through the internal speakers for a week."

"He is not, Sir."

Tony threw his head back and smacked his hands down onto the bench.

"Then what's he googling?"

F.R.I.D.A.Y.'s response was instant – and stripped Tony of every last vestige of exhaustion.

"How to sow up a bullet wound, sir."

Tony's chest hollowed. "Call him." The words tore out of his throat before he'd really thought them through. Before he'd thought anything beyond no. No. "Call him right now."

"Sorry-" Peter breathed, the word spilling out of his mouth as he pushed through the front door of the apartment – kicking it open with his foot and helping the Scarlet Witch in ahead of him, accidently brushing against her still bleeding side in the process. "So sorry."

Ned was in the lounge-room waiting for them. He shot up as they stumbled inside. His eyes widened, and then zeroed in on the still dripping wound on the Witch's side.

"Oh my god," Ned screeched, "Oh my god-"

Peter cut him off before he could spiral into full hysteria. "Ned – the first aid kit." Ned eyes moved from staring blankly at the growing red stain beneath the Witch's fingers, to staring blankly at Peter. "Get the first aid kit – in the cupboard-" Peter said again, pulling the Witch through the kitchen and lounge and into his bedroom. May wasn't due home from her shift at the hospital for another few hours – but Peter wasn't ready to risk her having a quiet night and getting off early only to find an Avenger bleeding out in her living room. She was no not okay with the Spiderman thing as it was, and Peter wasn't ready to add any more fuel to that particular argument.

Ned was nodding at dizzying speed. "-above the mirror in the bathroom, right." He stumbled from the living room in the direction of the bathroom "On it."

Peter maneuvered himself and the Witch the rest of the way through his bedroom door, coming to a stop on the floor by his bed and lowering her the rest of the way to the floor. She'd managed to stay on her feet – technically – their entire trek home, but as the blocks slid by, and her wound continued to bleed steadily, she'd become more and more unsteady. She let out a low hiss as she sank onto her knees, her hands clenching into fist.

Peter's hands flapped about in the air around her – not quite sure what to do. "I'm sorry-" He murmured again. He'd been saying the words over and over as they made their way to the apartment – so much that he really wasn't sure what he was sorry for anymore. Sorry he'd gotten her shot. Yeah – he was definitely sorry about that. Sorry he wasn't sure exactly what to do now he had. Yeah. He was sorry about that, too. Sorry he'd messed up and nearly got himself, and her, killed.

Yeah. He was sorry for that a lot these days.

Ned stumbled back into the room – his hands empty.

"Peter-"

Peter was on his feet already, moving to the door.

"What – what is it?"

Ned turned and hightailed it back into the bathroom, and Peter followed. Spilled across the bench was every single piece of first aid equipment that he and May owned. It really wasn't a lot. Ned snatched up a packet of jumbo band aides.

"Ugh, I don't really – I mean – I don't think that these are going to work." He held them out to Peter, who took them only to throw them back down on the bench. Ned was right. He scanned over the rest of the bench but there was nothing even remotely close to what he assumed they needed.

"Right." Peter breathed, suddenly feeling very lightheaded. He yanked off the mask and ran a hand through his hair – only to realize that his hand was soaked in blood, and leaving scarlet streaks across his face and hair. Oh god. "What else do we have?"

"Uh," Ned glanced around, clearly panicking. He jumped at something sitting on the sink and held it out to Peter. "Floss?"

Peter gaped at the small container. "Floss?" He repeated – his voice hitting a pitch that he did not know his voice could hit.

"Yeah, floss," Ned said, his words spilling out of his mouth so quickly that even Peter was having trouble catching them. "They use it in movies all the time-"

"What movies?!"

"I don't know!" Ned yelped, dropping the floss to the floor and bringing his hands up to rest against either side of his head, as trying to keep it from exploding. "Don't yell at me, I'm very stressed-"

Peter held out a steadying hand. Or at least he hoped it looked steady. He could feel it quivering like a leaf – but god he hoped Ned couldn't notice. "I'm sorry-" He said, sucking in a large breath. "I'm sorry."

Ned did not take a breath of his own. He continued on the upwards spiral to hysteria, "-this situation is very stressful! I think it's time to call Mr. Stark-"

That suggestion helped Peter find his voice. "No–" He said, voice hard. "I can handle this – we can handle this-"

"We cannot handle this-" Ned stressed, watching as Peter pulled out his phone from the special pocket in the suit and started typing. "What are you doing!? Are Googling this!?"

Peter looked up from the screen as it loaded.

"Do you have a better idea?"

Ned's eyes had widened to the point that Peter was a little worried they might pop out of their sockets altogether.

"No!" Ned cried, sinking down to sit on lid of the toilet seat.

"Okay – apparently the dentil floss thing is a thing." Peter said, scrolling through the sites breathlessly. Oh god. Oh god. "Or just normal thread – I think we have that. May has a sowing kit – somewhere – if I – shit!"

Before Peter could do anything more than begin to wrap his head around their shit storm of a situation the phone began to ring. Peter let go of it as the vibration startled him, and it clattered across the bathroom tiles.

Tony's name flashing up in bold letters.

Peter and Ned glanced at each other.

"I think we should answer it-" Ned started, his eyes still at risk of jumping out of his skull, but before Peter could make a decision the phone shorted – a long stream of code flashing over the screen – and then answered itself.

Tony's voice flooded across the line before Peter had really grasped what was going on.

"Peter?" He demanded, booming from the phone on loud-speaker. "Peter-"

Peter's brain short-circuited.

"Mr. Stark?" He said slowly, his brain having more trouble that it really should have keeping up with what was happening. Though considering what had happened tonight – finding the Scarlet Witch, nearly being shot, the Scarlet Witch being shot and now Tony calling him – he really should have expected that his brain would just cut out at some point.

"Hi." Tony's voice echoed, even through a phone Peter could make out the fury dripping from it. "What are you to?"

Peter's brain was still not up to computing words. It had gotten as far as Tony was calling him – Tony was actually calling him – and no further.

"What?" Peter breathed down at the phone, his eyes meeting Ned's again. He looked no closer to understanding any of this – and inches away from puking.

"Doing anything fun?" Tony's voice rang out again – not even leaving a second for Peter to answer. "Googling anything interesting?"

Quite suddenly, and jarringly, everything snapped into place.

"Oh." Was Peter's genius reply. Yeah. Ned definitely looked like he was going to puke now.

"Oh." Tony thundered over the phone. "We have been over this kid, if you are hurt you go to a hospital, or me-"

Ned was rapidly turning paler. "-no, this isn't what it looks like – sounds like – I dunno-" He stammered, eyes wide as they stared at Peter.

Peter barely noticed. An all-consuming rage had come over him at the sound of that voice – that voice he'd been practically begging to hear for months now –

"You!?" Peter roared into the phone. Ned jumped to far backwards that he slammed into the bathroom counter. Scattering items from the first aid kit across the floor as he stared, dumbfounded at Peter. Tony must have been doing to same from across the phone because, for the first time since Peter had met the man, he didn't have a come back. "Come to you?" Peter screamed, his fury only growing with each word. "Care to share the secret of how to do that?" Peter was sure the neighbours could hear him. Hell the building next door. "Or is that another one of your stupid tests?!"

Black spots were definitely encroaching on his vision now – threatening to swallow him whole. His breaths were coming in short pants that were never quite enough to satisfy. He needed – he needed –

It took Tony a full minute to respond, his voice barely above a whisper when in finally floated through the phone. "Kid-"

"No. No." Peter cut him off, screaming right over the top of him. "You don't get to exist when it's convenient for you." There was something wet spilling over Peter's cheeks. Tears. They welled in his eyes, the crop of his months of waiting – months of worrying – all born from his moment of failing. "I did call! I called-"

"Peter-"

Peter never heard what Tony had to say. Before the older man could get more than the one word out Peter had seized up the phone and hurtled it so forcefully at the wall that it splintered on impact. And so did majority of the wall. The plaster crumbled in on itself – a perfect phone sized hole in the centre.

For a moment neither Peter nor Ned said a word. All they did was breath, stare, and wrap their heads around what the hell just happened. Neither seemed to be having much luck with that last part.

They were saved from having to try for too long when the scrapping of a window nearby, and a rough tumble, broke the silence. Their eyes met – and both of them sprinted from the room.

Peter was ahead, he careened around the corner, back to his bedroom, and threw the door open.

The Scarlet Witch was gone – a bloody hand print across Peter's windowsill the only proof that she'd been there at all.

"Shit."

Peter really wasn't sure which of them said it – but it summed up the night pretty nicely.