Superfamily One Shots

Gifted

**Here's the one where Peter's awkward excuses become an integral part of his life. Enjoy!**

Peter didn't know how many more of these stupid, idiotic, off the cuff kind of excuses he could come up with, but he knew that he was starting to run out.

"I ran into a door."

"I fell down the stairs."

"I have homework."

"I have to take May to the doctor because she's a nurse but she hurt her nursing hand and can't help herself."

"I'm sick."

"I'm tired."

"I'm... sore. From sex. With a woman."

That last one was Peter's most recent excuse as to why he couldn't train with Natasha on the weekend. In all actuality, he was terrified of Natasha turning him inside-out.

The teen shuffled through the packed halls, his head low and his hair messy. He'd been out last night patrolling and didn't get home until 4 in the morning, but with injuries to take care of, he hadn't gone to sleep until 5:45. Just in time to get a good 45 minutes of sleep before school.

"Hey, Parker!"

Peter looked over at Flash, who was holding up his phone.

"What were you doing at 3:30 in the morning right after Spiderman saved some guy from a fight?"

Peter furrowed his brows ad squinted at Flash's phone. There was a short video, just a few seconds, of Spiderman helping the man down the street, then the superhero swung out of sight. A few seconds later, Peter snuck around a corner and ran off screen.

"Oh," Peter said, trying to buy himself more time to think of a lie. There was a small crowd of students around him now, all curious as to why Peter Parker was out so late and in such close proximity to the neighborhood hero. "I was out last night."

"No shit, I want to know why you were hanging around Spiderman."

"I'm a big fan," Peter blurted. It was the first thing he could think of that didn't have to do with his already highly doubted internship.

Flash scoffed. "You? A big fan of Spiderman?"

Peter nodded, now fully committed to his little lie. "Yeah. Me and Ned love him. We like to go out sometimes and wait around shady neighborhoods to get a glimpse."

"You're a fucking fanboy!" Flash laughed, causing the rest of the kids around them to start in laughing as well. Peter blushed. He decided that he'd already earned himself enough ridicule and ducked out of the crowd, leaving Flash and the rest of the kids behind as they rolled with laughter.

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"Hey, Peter!" Betty trotted over to where Ned and Peter were quizzing one another for an upcoming test. She wrapped her hands around Ned's neck and squeezed a little, giving him an affectionate hug. Her right hand was clasped around something Peter couldn't quite make out.

"What's up, Betty?"

"I saw this at the convenient store while I was picking up some groceries the other day. I thought about you." She handed over a package of pencils. They were the cheap BIC kind, all one piece and breakable plastic. Instead of being one color, they were covered in Spiderman designs. One was all red with a blue eraser, while the other 3 were plastered with shots of Spiderman flying through the air, him doing a flip, flinging webs from his wrists. Peter lit up in a blush.

"Oh, that's so cute! Are- are you sure? I really don't-"

"I insist!" Betty pushed the pencils forward again. "Its such a little gift, just take it!"

"Thank- Thank you," Peter stuttered a little as Ned hid his snickering. He took the pencils with a tentative hands. "This is really thoughtful."

Betty beamed. "No problem! I'm a big fan, too!"

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Peter was reading in the library, his head buried in a book. He didn't get a lot of time to himself these days in between patrolling, homework, and work at SI, so when he got a little bit, even just a half hour, he loved getting into a good read and relaxing.

"Parker."

Peter blinked slowly as he was pulled from his book. "Yes?"

Abe passed over a laptop case. "I got this for my laptop, but it was the wrong size. I can't return it because it was on clearance, do you want it?"

Peter looked down at the case. It was all blue, with white webs all over it. In the corner, a little chibi Spiderman was waving.

"I know you're a big fan," Abe explained. "I just thought-"

"Thanks, Abe," Peter said with a warm smile. He'd long since decided that it was more trouble to refuse the gifts than to just take them. "This will be perfect."

"No worries. I literally love Spiderman, I follow all of his social media accounts and stuff. Did you see what he posted last night about his long nights and early mornings."

"Something like 'I know it's time to stop patrolling when the sun starts to come back up', right?"

Abe laughed. "You've got that Tweet memorized!"

"You have no idea."

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"Peter, what the hell is all of this?"

Tony picked up Peter's school bag with a couple fingertips. He gestured to the key chain on the zipper (a spiderman and spiderweb charms), the laptop bag Abe had given Peter, and the pencils from Betty. Peter lifted up his phone to show off a Spiderman logo phone case, then unzipped his sweater to show Tony the tee shirt he was sporting, which was a black and white graphic tee of Spiderman clinging to the side of a building.

"Jeez, kid, you think this is a little overboard?"

Peter laughed. "They were all gifts! I got caught on camera near one of Spiderman's adventures and some kids at school asked about it, so I said I was a big fan. All my classmates and friends and stuff have been getting me Spiderman stuff ever since! Isn't it cool?"

"It's something, that's for sure," Tony said, pursing his lips a little. "At least no one would suspect you of being the actual Spiderman."

"What can I say?" Peter said with a smirk. "No one suspects a fanboy."

Tony didn't even crack a smile. "Alright, that's enough for me. Put all this Spiderman shit away, it's freaking me out."