Looks Can Be Deceiving

➳ epilogue

It was a long road to recovery for Peter and Wanda, Spider-Man had even disappeared for a little while, but the path was even longer for the people who witnessed Riley's confession and death. They had been played and they needed to come to terms with it.

The official excuse for the sudden disappearance of Alex Stark was given by Pepper and Tony at a press conference. They claimed that 'over the past several weeks Alex had become fatally ill and there was no cure. She had asked for it to be kept a secret and only the people closest to her knew, so she kept going to school and living her life up until her passing.'

For school, the media and the world it was as though Alex Stark had gone as quickly as she came. Support and love was received from all over the world.

For Morgan, Cassie, Lila, Cooper and Nathaniel, they had been told that Alex wasn't who she said she was and that they would be told why when they were older. For most of the Avengers themselves, they didn't fully know what had happened, from what they could gather, Riley had cracked a pill like the other agents and prevented herself from an interrogation.

Tony hadn't let anyone except Pepper and Fury look at the body before it was put into a coffin. A funeral was held for 'Alex Stark' at the cabin Tony owned in Georgia, Atlanta. Only the Avengers, T'Challa, Shuri and the kids were allowed to attend, not even Carol, Valkyrie or the Guardians had been invited, only the people who had known her longest.

For them the story was a bit muddled up, but they didn't care.

Peter and Harley had been taken out of school for a month before returning to Midtown Tech, by then the funeral had already passed.

Whenever the twins were at home they were barely let out of Nat or Pepper's sight and when May had heard about what happened she had taken the first flight back to New York and was living in the Tower for the foreseeable future.

Harley and Erin had broken up and Peter and MJ decided that they worked better as friends. Harley made the most of everyday he had with Peter; he wasn't going to take it for granted ever again.

Spider-Man and Agent Keener returned to the city when the Parker twins did, but not many people noticed that.

Eventually everything went back to normal, or at least as normal as it could be for a bunch of superheroes.

Clint spent every passing moment with either the team or his own family. Bucky and Wanda's relationship was building stronger each day, and so was Wanda's with Peter and Harley. Loki and Thor had returned to New Asgard some time ago, Scott and Hope decided to move back to San Francisco with Cassie to be closer to their families. Sam, Bruce and Steve hadn't been affected by the events that much, and Vision spent more time with Wanda.

Natasha was still mostly herself apart from the fact that she watched over the twins, Morgan and the Barton kids like a hawk, but hey, what's new?

Riley's death had really affected Tony, he trusted too easily, but was that a bad thing? Tony spent as much time as he could with his daughter, wife and two 'sons'. He was going to protect them at all costs, no matter what he wasn't going to let anything like this happen ever again, that was a promise.

In Peter's mind three words kept repeating themselves over and over again, it was something the Doctor had said to him. "You're a monster." Peter knew it wasn't true, but he couldn't help thinking it was. He wasn't normal, he had radioactive blood and spider powers for goodness sake! But every time this happened, Wanda's words repeated in his head "Our emotions show that we're human." Maybe he was more human than he knew.

➳

One late sunny afternoon three months after the 'incident', Tony approached Peter and Harley on the roof of the 93-level building, they were sitting on the edge with their legs dangling through the fence bars. Tony sat down beside Peter so that the latter was in the middle.

After a few moments of silence, Tony looked to the twins, "Are you okay?"

Tony didn't have to specify what he was talking about, they already knew.

Peter was looking at his hands that were cupped in his lap and he took a moment to think.

"No..." He paused and looked up to Tony with doe like eyes, "But were we ever?"

Tony looked from Peter back out to the Manhattan horizon and smiled, "No, I don't think we were."

This is literally my favourite part of the whole story 😭

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