Marvel's The Avengers: Hydra's Little Spider

Chapter 10: Time Goes By

Time moved fast at the Compound. Pietro finally accepted Peter’s and Wanda’s relationship after two full weeks of ignoring Peter as well as he could. Natasha told Peter later that Rhodey of all people helped Pietro understand their reasoning. However, once he got used to seeing his sister and friend together, he quickly became very supportive about their relationship, which was obviously something both Peter and Wanda were glad about.

Summer had long begun already and Peter still hadn’t found time to introduce May to Wanda. Right now, his current plan was to join May for lunch on his birthday in August and to bring Wanda with him then, before they would travel back to the Compound where the Avengers will celebrate his birthday as well. If Steve’s birthday party in the beginning of July was anything to go by, then birthdays were kind of a big dead with the Avengers. But then again, that might just have been a coincidence since Steve’s birthday is on the 4th of July.

Peter’s relationship with Ned also took a big hit about a month ago. The college student was struggling with the AI and when Peter finally proposed to ask Tony for help, Ned snapped. He apparently wanted to finish this project without any outside help by any means necessary, so Peter’s suggestion was exactly the wrong thing to say. They haven’t talked in four weeks now and Peter learned that Ned even cancelled his internship out of spite. Now Peter was left with a halfway finished AI and no idea on how to complete it himself. He already thought about going to Tony to ask him for help, as he planned anyway before his argument with Ned, but held off so far. He still hoped that Ned would come to his senses and complete the AI, but Peter had little hope left for that. After all, Ned was starting to become a good friend to Peter and he didn’t want to simply throw that away.

It was a hot day and Peter and Wanda were swimming in the nearby lake since noon. Wanda and Pietro made a classic Sokovian dish for lunch and despite Peter liking it; it sat very heavy in his stomach. That was one of the big disadvantages of his enhanced metabolism. He needed more food to function, but that food still took its time to digest, which led to Peter’s current full stomach. Pietro initially wanted to join them, but Rhodey took him to weapons training instead. He was the only member of the team who had no ranged attack and they all agreed that he really can’t rely on his enhancements all the time. The escape from Hydra proved as much.

Right now Peter was underwater, trying to beat his own record on how long he can hold his breath. His current record was just under ten minutes and, since his enhancements should help him, he was fully committed to breaking the current world record of 11 minutes and 35 seconds. Wanda swam nearby and regularly looked at her watch to check how Peter was doing. She thought Peter’s enthusiasm about breaking that record was a bit over the top, especially since he had an unfair advantage to practically all other humans, but she still supported him fully.

Peter finally broke the water surface just after he passed the ten and a half minute mark and breathed heavily to regain his breath.

“How was I this time?” he asked, still a bit out of breath.

“You broke your own record by 44 seconds, so it’s now at 10 minutes and 37 seconds”, Wanda said proudly and swam to Peter. “We should probably get out now, if we want to have a comfortable shower before Steve starts his barbeque.”

Peter nodded and together they raced to the shore. Peter still hasn’t regained his full composure, so the race was closer than it should have been. In the end, Wanda won barely, and that only because she used her powers to hold Peter back just enough. Peter wasn’t even mad at her when he saw how happy the win made her, even though she knew as well that she technically cheated. They quickly dried themselves up, put on some clothes and slowly walked back to Compound.

Suddenly, Peter heard obvious fighting noises in the distance and he was pretty sure that those were not because of some team members sparring with each other.