| sparks + butterflies | a peter parker fanfiction |

-12-

952 words :)

____

SPIDERMAN STUDIED THE UNEXPECTED VISITORS, NOT EXACTLY PLEASED THAT THEY WERE HERE.

'Um-hi, General Ross, what can I do for you?' Peter said, his mask once again concealing his identity.

'Spiderman,' Ross nodded in acknowledgement. ' I have some questions for you,'

Peter glanced to the side, silently asking Sam what he should do. Sam nodded begrudgingly. It would cause more problems to deny him entry.

'Of course,' Peter said, thankful for his voice scrambler. 'Do you want to come in?'

'Obviously,' Ross pushed past the hero, followed by a SWAT team who instantly trained their weapons on Bucky.

'Hey!' Sam called. 'Chill out, dudes.' He stepped in front of Bucky, who was shaking his head.

The SWAT men lowered their weapons, but stayed on high alert. 'Right, so.' Ross cleared his throat. 'You were seen on multiple cameras conversing with a wanted fugitive, who we have basically zero intel on, and any information you gained is vital to the investigation,'

'I see,' Peter stated. Silence followed. He wasn't planning on saying anything more than he had to, and Peter also had to be incredibly cautious that he didn't put his identity on the line; Ross was a sniffer dog, and any info Peter let slip could be the end of him.

'Who is she?' Ross asked.

'I don't know,' Spiderman responded.

'Where was she going?'

'I don't know, she was running back Uptown, but it's not like she's just going to tell her entire life story and plans to Spiderman, is it?'

'Did she mention HYDRA, or what she was doing in New York or Queens, or anything useful?'

'No,'

Ross looked like he was about to combust. Sam was struggling to hide a grin.

Changing tactics, Ross spun to the other men. 'Did you have anything to do with this?' he spat at Bucky's feet. 'You were HYDRA's little servant, did you know anything about these girls?'

Bucky's face hardened. 'I wouldn't know,'

'Oh, that's right. You were brainwashed.'

Peter tensed, unsure of where the situation would go and if he should defend Bucky from Ross, or the government dudes from Bucky.

'Yes.' Bucky stood up. 'I was.' He stared Ross in the face, his muscular frame making the ageing Ross look tiny.

Tense silence prickled the back of Peter's neck. The two men stared each other down, Sam with his hand resting on Bucky's shoulder, the SWAT men with their guns once again trained on the Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Peter standing awkwardly to the side.

He stepped forward, someone needing to break the tension. 'Look, General Ross, I wish I could be of more assistance, but I have no more intel than you do,' The attention spun to Peter, and he prayed Ross wouldn't turn the corner into the room with Thea's records still on display.

Ross stepped back from Bucky, and Peter exhaled. 'Fine. I will keep you updated, and I expect you to do the same. You can't hide from justice forever,' Ross stated pointedly, before walking out the door, followed by the timid Governor and rigid SWAT dudes.

The doors of the compound slid shut with a hiss, and Peter turned to the others.

'Well,' Sam said. 'That could have gone worse?'

Bucky just grunted in response, turning to walk back down the hallway. On the other side of the lobby, a door slid open to reveal a woman in her early twenties, her long auburn hair twisted into a low bun.

Wanda Maximoff. The woman was older than Peter, but she was still much younger than most of the other Avengers. Peter had met her a few times when he was working on his suit with Tony, and he fought alongside her in the battle against Thanos, but other than that, he didn't really know her that well.

'Was that Ross?' She asked, her accented voice croaky, as if she'd just been crying or perhaps asleep.

Sam nodded. 'There's a situation, with the kid, and HYDRA. Ross was poking his nose in where it didn't belong, like normal.'

Peter rolled his eyes at being called a kid. He should be used to it by now, being the youngest avenger, but it still bothered him.

Wanda looked like she was considering something. 'Would you like me to help?'

'If you don't mind. Or have anything better to do,' Peter responded. Wanda was incredibly powerful, and he could use all the help he could get, but at this point he didn't even know who he was fighting entirely, he just had to find Thea and get Ross off his back.

Wanda laughed, but her heart didn't seem in it. 'I haven't left the compound in almost three weeks. I'd like to help,'

'Cool. Sam?' Peter decided to ignore the implicated trauma in her words, knowing from experience that joking about it was a coping mechanism, and Wanda had been through a lot.

'I'm with you, man. Bucky too. Not like there's anything better to do around here,'

'Thank you,'

'So, what's the situation?'

'Well, there's this girl, from school, and we were friends, I think, but now she has powers and there's this new villain dude in Queens who keeps kicking my ass and then this one time she was there and the villain dropped everything and chased her, and then HYDRA was there, and then it turns out that her sister has powers too, and then they disappeared, and Bucky knows them from HYDRA but he doesn't remember it properly, and also apparently she's been dead for the last ten years and she doesn't like exist at all, and she's like also the daughter of this Zola guy, who's dad was that scientist that Mr Rogers fought in the 40's' Peter exhaled, taking a deep breath.

Wanda blinked. 'Okay,'

Sam chuckled. 'We got you, kid,'

___