Spiderman/Peter Parker & Avengers Oneshots (Hiatus)

Tough Love (Chapter Lima)

Peter wished he could say that when he walked into the kitchen an hour later for dinner, he walked into an atmosphere of anger, or maybe even guilt. Instead he might as well have had a sign saying ‘ignore me’ on his forehead, for all they reacted. As he ventured bravely into the fray, he desperately hoped that Natasha or Sam hadn’t told the rest of them about their training session. He still believed his reputation was salvageable in the eyes of Mr. Stark and Banner who weren’t present in any of his daily torture sessions. And no, he was not being melodramatic about that.

Usually he just dumped whatever food was closest onto his plate and retreated as quickly as possible. Hastily exiting with his plate, he winced when he was stopped by Captain.

“That’s not enough” he said.

The gears visibly whirled in Peter’s head as he tried to figure out what he was referring to. Coming up with absolutely no viable options he decided the best course of action would be to not say a word. There was a tangible silence as he stared back at Steve waiting for him to elaborate on which of his actions were so unsatisfactory this time.

Steve pointed to his plate. “That’s not enough. For your metabolism and level of exercise, you need more”.

Peter still dumbstruck, promptly dumped two more slices of pizza on his plate.

Once again as he tried to make his retreat, he was stopped, this time by Tony’s voice. “You do know that you have to eat more to keep up with your weird metabolism right?”

“Er”.

“Aren’t you supposed to be a child genius or something like that. You do go to that fancy STEM school in Queens don’t you?” Tony continued. He said all this looking resolutely away from Peter but at the same time drawing up a chair right next to him rather carelessly.

“Uhhm yeah I do” muttered Peter, very confusedly. Why was he pulling out an extra chair? All of them were already seated. Did he want him to sit there? But that would be really unusual. What if he sat there and someone else walks in. He couldn’t bear it if they told him to leave. But what if they were expecting him to sit and they thought it was rude if he left? And what if he sat down and Tony was just planning to put his legs up on it?

“Don’t mumble” said Tony rolling his eyes and now patting the seat next to him, still with his back to Peter and now addressing the wall opposite him.

“Yeah I go to Midtown Science” said Peter raising his voice in a hurry. OK he was Spiderman, he could just go sit in the chair. It wasn’t that scary. Why else did Tony pat it like that. Or did he even? Yeah he did. Just sit in the chair and if it was for someone else he would just get up. He’d already been embarrassed as thoroughly as possible. There was nothing left for him to lose. He’d faced his foster parents every day hadn’t he? Okay deep breaths. Just walk over casually like this while situation isn’t curbing his ability to speak or think intelligibly. Oh! Maybe he should ask if anyone else is going to sit there! But what if they said yes? Should he leave, or pull up another chair then? Or what if they said no but they were just being polite and didn’t really want him there? Ready to have a stroke, Peter rushed out “Can I sit there?... Um wait I mean may I sit there? I mean only if no one else is I guess”.

“Yeah sure. Whatever”.

Before he even got the sentence out Peter collapsed gratefully into the seat and then looked around quickly to check that everyone was ok with it. All of them were completely engaged in conversation, having not even noticed his little social anxiety attack. Suspiciously, Peter stared at his pizza as if it was the one making this situation so awkward, and then warily lifted it to his mouth. He took the first bite and looked up again. By now even Mr. Stark had totally turned his chair away and was discussing the weather with Natasha. Wait, the weather? Odd but at least now Peter was contentedly shoving the pizza into his mouth.