Athena || Peter Parker

Superhero shit is hard

"And then the glowy eyes guy just swooped in and picked Thea up" Peter wrung the water from his spider-man mask. 

Athena had discarded her mask somewhere in the water because it made breathing difficult. 

"I think his talons or whatever pierced my skin, cause I'm like 80% sure I felt blood" Athena groaned and slid off the jungle gym. Iron man was floating in front of the two and was yet to talk, somehow even through the closed mask he seemed to radiate a I am disappointed  energy. 

"He took us up like a thousand feet and then my parachute dragged us back down. How'd you find us? Did you put a tracker in my suit or something?" Peter asked.

" I put everything in your suit. Including this heater." Tony finally spoke. Athena's suit suddenly warmed enough to get rid of all the water, leaving her dry and warm- a welcome change.

"Whew, that's better. Thanks." Peter smiled. But Athena had other things on her mind. 

"What were you thinking?" Tony asked glaring at both Athena and Peter. Athena stayed quite and let Peter explain. 

"The guy with the wings is obviously the source of the weapons. We gotta take him down."

"Take him down now, huh? Steady, Crockett, there are people who handle this sort of thing." Tony held up his hands.

"The Avengers?" Peter asked such an excited and cute voice that Athena had to chuckle. 

"No, no, no. This is a little below their pay grade." Tony explained. 

"What did you mean you put a tracker in our suits?" Athena said quietly. 

"Thena... I know you, you're always doing stupid things and-" 

"You mean you don't trust us? Don't trust me? I think you've never quite fully trusted me. I'm a full time Avenger Tony- I could've taken down that guy" Athena groaned in frustration, her failure and panic haunting her.

"You know what your problem is Athena?- Pride, you think you can do everything, save everyone. But sometimes you can't. You don't unde-" Athena cut Tony off again. 

"Don't give me that- teenagers don't understand bullshit Tony. I do, and so does Peter. We know the risks and I've fought against Ultron and my dad if you forgot. We knew what we were doing." Athena sat down in the dirt. 

"Do you? Do you understand Thena? Look I know you're strong and trained, but that doesn't make you invincible. Also where was your staff through the entire fight anyways?"

"I- I didn't think about it" Athena mumbled, she didn't want to tell him she was busy panicking. 

"I don't want to lose you, neither does Bucky nor any other Avenger." 

Athena had to admit that Tony was making sense. 

"Anyway, Mr. Stark, you didn't have to come all the way out here." Peter spoke up.

"Oh, I'm not here." The suit's helmet opened up to reveal an empty space. 

"Thank God this place has Wi-Fi or you would be toast right now. Thank Ganesh while you're at it. Cheers" Tony spoke the last part to someone near him obviously. 

"Look, forget the flying vulture guy, please." Tony told them. 

"Why?" Peter and Athena asked at the same time. 

"Why? Because I said so!" Tony exclaimed. 

 Athena had had enough and stood up, then started walking away. Soon Peter joined her and she wordlessly slipped her hand into his. He squeezed her hand as reassurance and smiled at her. Clearly the whole ordeal hadn't affected him too much. 

"I was so scared" Athena admitted. "The talons or whatever really hurt too, and every second I though I was going to fall and splat- dead" 

Athena breathed out shakily trying to calm her nerves, but it didn't work. She closed her eyes but all she saw was the green eyes, the terrifying wings and she remembered the height. She started sobbing. 

"I- I don.. don't know... why, why I'm crying" Athena's voice shook.

"It's okay, there's nothing wrong about crying" Peter walked closer to her and wrapped his arms around her.

"I'm n...not w-weak" Athena swallowed, "I've ha-had ... had worse"

"I know that Thea, crying doesn't make you weak" Peter comforted her, it almost seemed to be working. "Don't worry about it, I'm not judging you"  

"Thanks Spidey" Athena's face was red and had tears falling down, she sniffed and tried to stop, tried to lose herself in the hug.

They stayed that way with her arms around his neck and his around her waist. Then a honking car made them break apart. 

"NINA?" Bucky's voice made Athena look to the road where a single car stood. 

"Dad!" Athena smiled shakily. 

"What happened doll? Tony called me and said something about a vulture and you falling" Bucky got out of the car, "I was scared, are you crying? What happened?" 

Athena wrapped her arms around him and tried not to cry again. 

"I'm fine, I'm fine" She lied. She was not fine. 

"I'll tell you later, but first can we go home?" She failed at the not crying part and sniffled when she drew away from Bucky. 

"of course, I assume Peter needs a ride too?" Bucky glanced at him and Peter nodded. 

"Thank you Mr. Barnes" He smiled. "I'll tell you, Thea probably doesn't want to talk about it" 

Bucky got into the car but Athena stopped at looked at her feet where a piece of what looked like the technology beanie and baldie were using was lying. 

She picked up carefully and showed it to Peter who swallowed thickly and whispered- "Whoa, do you think it's a piece of whatever guns the two were using?" Athena nodded. 

"Hide it before Bucky finds it, I don't want him to worry" Athena whispered back and passed it to Peter. The two sat in the back and tried not to look like they were hiding something, because Bucky was trained at finding liars and secrets. 

Peter's phone rang again and this time he picked it up. He put it on speaker and Athena saw that it was Ned. 

"Hey man, what's up? Listen Thea and I won't be coming back to the party" Peter told him. 

"Oh that's good, that's actually what I was calling to tell you. Listen to this" Ned said and in the background Athena could hear Flash-

"When I say "penis," you say "Parker." Penis!" 

"PARKER!" The crowd chanted. 

Peter groaned and turned a bit red. Bucky even looked behind with pity. 

"Sorry, Peter. I guess we're still losers. I'll see you tomorrow, hope you and Thena didn't get hurt"

"I'll see you tomorrow in school." Peter then ended the call and buried his face in his hands. 

"Guess he recovered way to early" Athena grumbled, staring out the window at the scenery. 

"Nina what?" Bucky asked. 

"Flash trouble Mr. Barnes, just this time the douche turned his attention to Thea" Peter said vaguely. 

"Let's just say a disturbingly short time ago in a land uncomfortably close by, I tackled Flash because he called you a criminal and thought gay was an insult" Athena huffed because she knew Bucky wouldn't stop asking until he got answers. 

"Why would you do that?" Bucky groaned. 

"Because, did you not hear me? He called you a criminal dad. He doesn't even know the entire story. He doesn't know about HYDRA or the chair or the words or... or anything really, he just wanted to open his big fat stupid mouth" Athena bit the inside of her cheek in frustration. 

"Nina..." Bucky sighed. 

"I don't wanna talk about it" Athena faced Peter and buried her face in his chest. She felt her face heating up and was sure Peter's was too, but he was a good friend and hoped he wouldn't be weird about it.