When Peter got home, he called Ned and told him everything, rambling on and on about Grace and how amazing she is. Ned said it seemed like she liked him too, and Peter had to admit that it really did. Though, he didn't want to get his hopes up in case he was wrong.

But then Ned said there was no way he could be wrong, especially once he heard what her answer was to, "What makes a good face for drawing?" But, still, better safe than sorry.

Peter texted her throughout the day — starting with a good morning text. She told him about the book she was reading, and Peter thought it was cute how she started to text him all about it, basically describing the plot to him, making it pointless for him to actually read it himself — though, it wouldn't be as good as Grace's version anyway, he knew.

He later told her he would call her after the party to tell her how it went, as he's forgoing Spider-Man duties this evening.

And, when May pulls up to Liz's loud, crowded house, he starts to wish that he was out fighting some mugger in a dirty alley somewhere instead.

"House party in the suburbs," May says. "Oh, I remember these. Kind of jealous."

Ned smiles from his spot in the backseat. "It'll be a night to remember."

May laughs and looks back at him. "Ned, some hats wear men. You wear that hat."

Ned smiles wider. "Yeah, it gives me confidence."

Peter's looking out the window, barely listening. His stomach is a bundle of nerves. He wishes Grace were here. It would give him a reason to actually want to go in, for starters. He sighs. "This is a mistake. Let's just go home."

May frowns, reaching over to put a hand on a his shoulder and causing him to look at her. "Oh, Peter. I know. I know it's really hard trying to fit in with all the changes your body's going through. It's flowering now."

At first, he was confused, but the last sentence made him realize that May was joking. He laughs a little, though it's more sarcastic than anything. "Uh-huh."

May looks back at Ned, shaking her head. "He's so stressed out lately."

"What helps with stress is going to a party," Ned says. "Ergo, we should go to the party."

Peter sighs. He has to do this for Ned. What kind of friend would he be if he didn't? He opens the door. "Yeah, let's do it. Yeah. I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go."

"Peter," May says, stopping him when he's halfway out of the car. He turns, waiting for her to speak. "Have fun, okay?"

Peter nods. "I will."

"Okay."

Ned, from the sidewalk, waves. "Bye, May!"

She waves back, and he and Peter start making their way up the lit-up walk to the front door. Probably about fifty kids are milling about on the lawn outside. Peter hates to think of crowd inside.

"Dude, you have the suit, right?" Ned asks. In response, Peter pulls up his sleeve, showing Ned that the suit is on under his clothes. Ned smiles. "This is gonna change our lives."

They open the door and step inside to loud music and a large crowd. From the DJ station, the DJ shouts, "Check it!"

An automated, deepened voice emanates from the speakers. "D-D-D-D-DJ Flash!"

Ned turns to Peter as they walk deeper into the house. "Okay. We're gonna have Spider-Man swing in, say hi to me and give me a fist bump or one of those half bro-hugs, and then ask where you are to show you guys are tight."

Before Peter can reply, MJ walks by, spreading peanut butter on a piece of toast. "Can't believe you guys are at this lame party."

"But you're here, too," Ned points out, confused.

MJ squints. "Am I?" She takes a bite of toast and walks away, and Peter absently thinks that she and Grace would probably be good friends.

Then, Liz walks over. "Oh, my gosh, hey, guys," she says, sounding surprised to see them. She smiles at Ned. "Cool hat, Ned."

Ned blushes, his voice raising half an octave — or more. "Hi, Liz."

"Hey, Liz," Peter says.

"I'm so happy you guys came," Liz replies, though Peter notices she's looking more at Ned than at him. "There's pizza and drinks. Help yourself."

"You-You look really... nice," Ned suddenly says.

She brightens. "Thanks. You do, too." And, then, in the distance, there's a sound of glass breaking. Liz sighs. "Oh, I... My parents will kill me if anything's broken. I gotta-"

Ned nods. "Yeah."

"Have fun," she says, turning to go.

Ned awkwardly raises his hand in a wave. "Bye."

She looks back at him and smiles again. "Bye."

Peter laughs to himself, but then Ned whispers, "Dude, what are you doing? She's here. Spider it up."

Peter shakes his head a little. "Ned... Spider-Man is not a party trick, okay? And, based on the third-wheeling I just did to your awkward flirt-fest there, I don't think you need her to know that you're friends with Spider-Man."

"Are you insane?" Ned replies. "She doesn't like me. She's a senior, dude. And look at me. Do I look like the kind of guy that girls like?"

"You definitely look like the kind of the guy that Liz likes," Peter insists. "And, anyway, any girl would be lucky to be with you. You're a cool guy, Ned. Liz already knows that."

Ned sighs. "Thanks, Peter. But... just to be safe? And this'll benefit you too, you know. You can prove that you know Spider-Man."

Before Peter can respond, Flash sees him and begins taunting him through his mic. "Hey, Parker! So, where's your pal Spider-Man? Oh, let me guess: in Canada with your imaginary girlfriend Grace Stark?"

He plays air horn sounds through the speakers, drowning out Peter's voice as he says, "Don't talk about her!"

Flash, of course, doesn't hear. He gestures to Ned. "That's not Spider-Man. That's just Ned in a red shirt."

The crowd boos and laughs. Peter looks back at Ned, then heads to a high balcony to get ready to swing in and reinstate his dignity.

He puts the mask and everything on, his clothes sitting in a pile on the ground. He paces, looking in through a window at the party, rehearsing his "lines."

"Hey, what's up? I'm Spider-Man. Just thought I'd swing by and say hello to my buddy Ned. Hey, what's up, man? So where's Peter? He must be around..." He sighs. "This is stupid; what am I doing?"

He considers calling Grace, but for what, he doesn't know. Advice? Just to hear her voice, try to calm himself down? He almost wants to forget the whole party and just swing over to the tower, drop down on her balcony. He knows she's home. He sighs, looking up from the window.

And then he sees a blue explosion in the distance.

~~~~

The first thing Harley heard after Grace called him that night was, "You are not going to believe what just happened."

She told him everything, gushing about Peter so much that he made puking noises into the phone. But, really, he was happy everything was going so well between them. She doesn't have a lot of opportunities to make friends, much less have a potential boyfriend.

The next morning, Grace goes through her day as usual, but looks forward to Peter's call.

She paints to pass the time, also wondering at the fact that it's always her waiting for a call from him, not the other way around. But, he's busy. He's got school and meetings to attend. Friends. Parties to go to.

Grace, meanwhile, has online school and basically nothing else. Talking to Harley when he's not busy, though he usually is too. Tinkering with things in her father's lab, though that can be like playing Russian roulette if she messes up something important. Hobbies, but they take up too much of her time to be labeled as just hobbies.

Anyway, she does get a call, though it's not from Peter.

It's from her father.

"Friday, answer my phone. Put it on speaker," she says. Then, when the call connects, "Hey, Dad."

"Hey, sweetheart," he replies. He sounds stressed. "What's up?"

"Nothing much," Grace sighs. "Painting."

"Is it me again?" he asks, the cockily raised brow very evident in his voice.

Grace rolls her eyes, chuckling. "No, actually. It's..." she stops, looking at the beginnings of her very red and blue painting, then clears her throat a little "... Spider-Man."

Her father sighs heavily at this. "Spider-Man..."

Grace stops, brows furrowing. "What do you mean? What's wrong with Peter?"

"I don't know if you noticed a suit flying out of there earlier, but I had to remotely send one to save him from drowning."

Grace's heart drops. "What?"

"He fought this flying vulture guy — he had some sort of mechanical wings — and got dropped a river, tangled up in his suit's automatic parachute. He's fine now. I sent him on his way, told him to leave the vulture guy and his illegal weapons alone." He sighs again. "He's going to get himself hurt one day, I just know it."

"He said he wasn't going to do spider stuff today," Grace says quietly, mostly to herself.

"He what?" Tony asks. "He said what? Have you two been talking?"

Grace's heart stops in panic for a moment, but she quickly calms by reminding herself that them just talking shouldn't be a problem — not even to her father. It's not like they've kissed or anything. Or even said anything remotely suggesting that they ever would...

Probably.

"I-I mean, after Berlin, we've, uh, texted and stuff," Grace replies. "He's called me about Spidey stuff, since Happy never actually answers his calls."

"Has he mentioned this vulture guy before?"

"No. He mentioned his run-in with the weird weapons at the bank, but nothing about the vulture guy. He was supposed to be at a party tonight."

"A party?" Tony asks. "Like a house party?"

Grace shrugs. "I guess. He mentioned that May was driving him and Ned."

"Who's Ned?"

"His best friend."

The amount of things she knows about Peter's life — things not in the file they read, things she shouldn't know without talking to him as much as she seems to be — starts to concern Tony, but he says nothing and shoves it out of his mind. There's nothing wrong with them just talking. It's exactly like her talking to Harley. Harmless. Completely, totally harmless.

He sighs. "Look, I'm gonna have to call you again later, okay, sweetheart? Try to keep Spidey out of trouble, if you can."

"Yeah, sure," Grace replies, already cleaning off her hands.

"Alright. Love you."

"Love you too."

"Bye."

"Bye."

Immediately after he hangs up, she grabs her phone and calls Peter, nervously chewing her lip as he takes his sweet time in answering.

Finally, though, he picks up. "Hey, Grace."

"What did you do?" she says.

Peter stops. "What do you mean?"

She almost rolls her eyes at this, impatient to hear his side of the story. "My dad just called and told me he saved you from almost drowning because some vulture guy with weapons dropped you into a lake. So, spill. What happened?"

Peter, finally, sighs. "It's sort of a long story, but here goes: So, I was up on this balcony at Liz's right? And I had on my suit 'cause I was about to swoop in to get Flash off my back and make Ned look cool for Liz — though, honestly, I think she already likes him- oh, and he just called and told me that he and Liz talked a lot while I was gone, so-"

"Peter."

"Right, sorry," he says. "Anyway, I was up there, and I saw this blue explosion in the distance, so I half-swung, half-ran over because I ran out of buildings, and I found two guys with these crazy weapons trying to get a third guy to buy them — it's definitely where the ATM robbers got their stuff, by the way — and then Ned called me, and they heard my ringtone, so I jumped down, and the next thing I know, I'm fighting these guys with their insane weapons. Then, they take off in their van, so I web onto it to follow them, and they drag me through this neighborhood, shooting at me out of the back of the van. It was crazy. I mean, the doors came off this thing.

"And then my web got broken, so I had to catch up to them by running through the neighborhoods, and that was a mess — like, a huge mess. And, then, I was finally going for the van again, and the vulture guy just, like, swooped down like a monster and picked me up and took me up, like, a thousand feet and just dropped me. And then, the parachute came out, and I fell in the water and blacked out for a bit, but when I woke up, Mr. Stark had me, so... everything's fine now. Oh, also, I found out my suit has a heater-"

"Peter," Grace says again, her voice a mixture of exasperation and relief.

She doesn't say anything else for some time, so he says, "Yeah?"

She sighs. "Listen... Peter, what you're dealing with sounds really dangerous. I think... I think you should listen to my dad. Leave it alone."

Peter's face falls. "You don't think I can handle it." It's a statement, not a question.

A hint of anger makes its way into her voice. "I never said that-"

"But you meant it," Peter interrupts, hurt. He's crestfallen, in utter disbelief. She thought he could handle the plan in Berlin — and that was before they really knew each other. So what changed?

"No, I didn't," Grace argues, the force in her voice giving Peter pause. She thinks of her family, how they run off to save the world seemingly every other month, putting themselves in danger for the sake of everyone else. Then, of course, her father, going off to Afghanistan and almost not coming home...

But there's something else — someone else that comes to mind too. It wasn't the same thing, but it was the first time she'd ever felt anything even remotely like this. Nothing happened of course, but it all ended... horribly. She lost him before she even had a chance to get to know him as a friend...

She sighs. "Peter, I just... I just don't want you to get hurt... O-Okay?"

Peter hears the sincerity and pleading in her voice. "Okay," he says. He nods. "Okay. I'll be careful."

"Peter, sometimes careful isn't enough-"

"I'll be okay," he insists. Gosh, he really wants to hug her, just somehow comfort her right now; she sounds like she's crying. But he has to do the best he can over the phone. "I'll be okay, Grace. It's okay."

"Peter..." she trails off. His words comfort her, but only a little. No matter what he says, he has no idea what will happen. He can't. "Peter, I need you to promise me that you'll leave this alone. Please..."

And the tears and pleading in her voice just get worse with every word. They haven't talked all that much about her dad — or even the other Avengers, save what was said in Berlin — but Peter knows the story of how Mr. Stark became Iron Man. He knows that having heroes as family, friends — maybe even, one day, a significant other — would take a toll on anybody. Make them worried and scared every time someone they love goes off somewhere to fight the good fight.

So, he says it. "I'll leave it alone. I promise."

And, just like he hoped, it worked. She sounds relieved again. Happier. More like herself. "Okay. Thanks, Parker."

"Yeah, sure," Peter replies, smiling a little. He clears his throat. "Um, you know, I know it's late, but May isn't expecting me back for a while. I could-"

"Not tonight," Grace says, though she's regretting it. "I mean, after what happened — plus the fact that I mentioned we were talking to my dad — now's probably not the best time. If he finds out, I really don't wanna know how he'll react."

Peter's disappointed, but he understands. "Alright. Yeah. I'll talk to you tomorrow, then."

"Yeah." She smiles. "Definitely."

Words sit on the edge of his tongue, almost natural to say, but he's not sure if he really feels them yet — if it's even possible for him to. Words not meant to be to said for the first time over the phone. So, instead, he says, "Bye, Grace."

And the same words balance between her lips, the same doubts, the same reasonings coming into her head. She replies, "Bye, Peter."

And then she hangs up. And he walks home, his mind clouded with thoughts — not just of her, but of everything. Spider-Man, Ned and Liz, the vulture guy and his weapons.

It's a wonder he spotted that piece of the tech in the grass. But it's not a wonder that he picked it up and took it with him. People could get hurt — or even killed.

He couldn't let that happen. Not when he could do something about it.