WEB OF LIES [TRANS PETER PARKER]

fifteen

Chapter Fifteen

Peter's POV

The rest of the weekend passed without incident. I worked in the shop with Tony and Bruce, and Tony gave me some equipment to take home, as he had seen how ratty my current set up was. Both nights, I went out patrolling with Natasha. We didn't see any bad guys, and even if we did I'm sure Tony would've stopped me from having anything to do with it. There was a strange bond between us all, and my secrets were only getting in the way of it all. It was as if we all had found a sense of distrust in each other. It didn't help that I didn't even know why they had brought me there.

Just as much as I was trying to pick the Avengers apart, I felt Tony analyzing me up until the very last second. We were both sat in the back of the car as Happy drove back towards my apartment a few days later.

"Kid, you know you can talk to me about anything. Well not quite anything. Okay wait, that sounds bad, I take it back. You can talk to me about anything, I just meant more specifically, like, yknow, superhero stuff," Tony rambled awkwardly as we drove, sounding like an ill-prepared father.

I nodded encouragingly, trying to make this less uncomfortable. "Yes, Mr. Stark, thank you. If anything comes up, I'll be sure to let you know."

"Like, if anything comes up. I wanna hear about it." Tony eyed me as though suspiciously, and I felt caught in his gaze. "Sorry, I'm not really good at this type of stuff. My father never really was, so I'm not exactly role model material," he trailed off.

My mouth was dry. I was almost positive that Mr. Stark was alluding to something, but felt too awkward bringing it up. I knew that I should just come right out and say it, and stop lying, but that wasn't going to happen. Instead, I continued to nod curtly.

The car came to a halt suddenly, and a quick look out the window told me that we had arrived at my building. Tony signaled to Happy to give us a few more minutes, and then he turned to me.

"I know that you can't go to May about any of this stuff, so how about you come back to the tower and stay with us again once school gets out. You can just come for a few weeks, I'll take care of everything. You can train with some of the other guys and we'll do a full assessment of your abilities." At this point, I was staring up at him awestruck. It all sounded too good to be true. I thought that this had been a one and done, but here I was being told that I was going to train with the Avengers?

"Yes, Mr. Stark, I would love that!" I grinned.

"Great, I'll make arrangements. Oh, and if it's alright with you I would like to bring in a doctor to examine you. It's very important, and he'll be one of my own. All confidential, May doesn't need to know."

With that, my smile faltered slightly. I knew that refusing would seem suspicious, and it would only make Tony even more curious as to what the assessment revealed. And so, I agreed. "Of course, Mr. Stark, I understand."

We said our goodbyes, and I trudged upstairs, back into the tiny apartment where May was no doubt waiting to hear about every second of the weekend. She engulfed me in a tight hug, obviously not used to me being away for more than a night or two at a time, and even then it was almost always at Ned's. When she pulled away, there was worry thick in her eyes.

"How did it go? Was it alright? Was anybody mean to you?"

I shot down her questions like usual, assuring her that I was fine. "In fact," I added, "they've asked me to come back in the summer. It's this retreat thing, with some other kids. It'll just be for a few weeks, and it'll look great on my resume later on."

Of course, May was ecstatic. This was a huge deal for her, with who she thought was her ordinary little boy getting suddenly having such huge opportunities placed in front of him.

"Peter, I want you to be careful. I don't want you getting hurt over there." I winced at that, not wanting her to see that I feared the exact same.

"May, it's really not that bad. I'm sure everyone's cool with-"

"I really think that I should call Mr. Stark and talk to him directly. Yknow, since you're going to be spending so much time over there. I would feel better if he knew. Or someone, at the very least."

"I can handle that. I'll speak to him when I go, I'm sure it'll all be fine," I reassured her.

"I know, baby, it's just scary for me. I don't want you to enter this world any less capable than any other boy your age."

Little did she know how not normal I really was. Instead, I told her that I was exhausted and went straight to bed, but I didn't sleep for hours. The Avengers were never going to see me the same. There was really no reason to tell them. Sure, I could talk to that doctor who I was going to have to see, but that didn't mean Tony or the others had to know. If I could hide Spider-Man from May, then surely I could hide the first thirteen years of my existence from a billionaire techie whose best friends were spies, right? Or perhaps not. All I knew was that I had a few weeks to get myself in check before I faced my ultimate doom.

A/N:

Hey everyone, I'm sorry I haven't been updating! I've been sick lately, so I've just been really tired to write.

On another note, thank you all for 3k reads! I do have the next few chapters planned out so I'm not gonna worry about fillers, I'll just put out the good plot stuff.