Percy works with Tony Stark

10. Peter Parker picked a Pepper

The next few weeks were filled with Maria and Fury's constant requests for me drop off things to Tony. I was reduced to a messenger boy and the agents even started whispering about how I was seriously injured so I didn't get sent on missions anymore. There was another rumor about how I was in deep waters with Fury so I was being demoted. Even if that one wasn't too far off, where did the other rumor even come from?

I never interacted with the Avengers as much as the first day after that though. I just dropped something off and went on my merry way. They weren't concerned with me either.

So nothing memorable happened until today. I just came down the elevator and entered the lobby when I saw Peter, the mousy haired boy. He was pacing the lobby but didn't look as anxious as the first time. Something overcame me as I walked over to help him.

"What's wrong?" I asked. At first he looked confused but then he remembered me and his face lit up.

"Oh! You're that SHIELD agent who always comes to drop off things!"

"Yep that's me, why aren't you going up?" I asked.

"Well... I'm just nervous and I need to ask Tony for help but I'm worried he'll just ignore me." He rambled.

"Ok first relax, I'm a SHIELD agent, I can help too," I offered.

"Ohh uh... thanks but I might just ask Tony." He said. No doubt Tony had it trained in this kid to be wary of SHIELD, which is honestly a smart decision.

"Ok, no worries, I'll probably be sent here again later," I said bitterly. Peter looked confused at my sudden anger but shrugged it off. "Feel free to ask for help if you need it later," I added, the bitterness in my tone completely disappearing.

"Ok, I will, thanks." He probably said out of politeness. I was honestly fine with that. I said what I needed to say and it was up to him if he would seek me out for help.

It was only 3 days later when I was sent to the tower again. I didn't know if I should have been surprised that Peter sought me out.

"Uhh... hey excuse me?" He asked as I passed.

"Oh it's you. What do you want?" I said.

"Well... is your offer still standing?" He asked nervously.

"What? Oh sure. What do you need?" I said. He looked around the lobby and the people surrounding us.

"Let's go somewhere more private then," I said.

We walked to a nearby bookstore and found a secluded corner to talk in away from prying ears. He took a deep breath and explained, "So I'm uh-"

"Spiderman," I filled in for him. 

Once he got over his shock he continued; "Ok so- maybe a few weeks ago I was on my daily check of the neighborhood and I saw some bad guys so I went after them. They were kidnapping someone so I was going to save them but then more people came so I waited to see if they would go to a base or something. But the boy wasn't being hurt!" He added.

"Yes, it's fine, go on," I reassured him.

"Yea so then I followed them, it was like 5 guys, they were really buff too, and they went into a warehouse south of the city. I didn't want to wait for them to enter with the kid so I decided it was time to act, but when I revealed myself instead of fighting, the 4 guys immediately ran and only left one person to defend the kid. It thought it was kind of suspicious but I still had to save the kid so I stayed instead of chasing the guys. Turns out the person who stayed had a bomb on him and well he blew up. Thankfully I launched myself between him and the kid though!" 

Geez this kid was too nice for his own good. "And why were you so nervous to tell Stark?"

"Well I thought he should know because of those 4 people who got away, but if he realized I got so hurt I knew he would ground me from patrolling and think I was exaggerating about everything." He said.

"I'm guessing that happened?" I sighed.

"Yes," he hung his head in defeat.

"And you want me to help you search for those 4 guys?" I said.

"Yea, I thought you could look on SHIELD database or something- I wasn't really sure but"

I cut him off, "Yea I can help but you'll have to give me more to work on than that."

"Oh I got my friend MJ to draw my descriptions of the guys," he said as he fumbled in his backpack to pull out 4 rumpled sheets of paper.

"I'll go run them through the database and then we can go hunt them down." I said as I took the papers.

"We?" He asked confused.

"Well of course, what else did you expect?" I said.

"Oh nothing! I just thought you'd get SHIELD agents to do it or something." He said.

He obviously wasn't listening when the rest of the team was gossiping about me, but I don't blame his perception of me since I was running around like an errand boy the past few weeks.

"I am the SHIELD agent," I said.