Upside-Down

Chapter 15

Peter rabidly bites into his burger, the Avengers around him laughing and talking. Peter hadn't wanted to leave the lab or Mr. Stark, but eventually Steve had picked him up and carried him to the dining room, saying he really needed to eat.

Pietro had snagged a seat next to him before Mr. Stark even got into the room, and Wanda stole the other one. Although Peter had been disappointed about not getting to continue to get to know his hero, Mr. Stark didn't even glance at Pietro before sitting down next to Bruce, who begun to chatter to him about biotechnology.

Peter hadn't noticed, however, when Pietro stuck out his tongue at Tony, who rolled his eyes in return.

"Peter," Wanda asks, dipping a French fry into some ketchup, "How was school?"

"Yeah," Pietro drums his fingers on the table, "Was everyone surprised you weren't dead? I mean, I bet there were some pretty crazy theories running around. How long where you missing? A semester?"

"Around there," Peter tries to slow down his food consumption. "My friends are still friends with me, so that's good. I did miss a lot of school, but it wasn't to hard to understand what was going on."

"I would've died of the stress," Wanda says, "I was an ok student, but whenever I missed school I had to get Pietro to teach me everything."

"I aced my classes," her twin said, grinning.

"Yeah it wasn't too hard, the worst one was PE, mostly because that's always the worst one."

"Why? Bruce said you have the proportionate strength of a spider." Wanda drowns another fry.

"I have to hide my powers at school. Otherwise... well, things wouldn't go to well if any of the guys I got arrested caught wind of my identity, but the physical part isn't the hard part. Its this one kid."

"Who..." Both the twins look away from their food and to Peter.

"It's not that bad anymore, I kind of broke his nose, but last year he wouldn't stop pestering me and my friend Ned."

"If you ever need him taken care of," Pietro says solemnly, "we'll give him a good scare for you."

"Good to know," Peter takes a sip of his soda, glancing up at a TV screen positioned above the table, like you'd see in a restaurant. Then he pales.

He's on the screen.

Well, not him. Spiderman.

Taking down a huge Lizard, standing on its hind legs.

The TV is muted, but the close captions are on. The Avengers have taken this young hero under their wing. This footage shows his battle with The Lizard, the mysterious creature who hasn't been seen since the two disappeared into the sewers two weeks ago...

"Peter?" Pietro shakes his shoulder, "You good?"

"Huh? Yeah."

The twins look where he had been staring a few seconds earlier, but it had switched to an advertisement.

"I guess he really likes cat food," Wanda teases.

"Oh! Guys! I found my cat."

"You had a cat?"

"Yeah, named Fish. I brought him here, he's in my room right now."

"Ooh, can we see him after dinner?" Pietro asks.

"Yeah, you're going to love him." Peter is just glad the conversation has been directed away from the television.

Peter flops into bed as soon as Pietro and Wanda leave his room. Fish curls up next to him. He's extremely tired, but he can't help but dwell on that video. The Lizard. Pieces of his past fights that didn't line up, that offered connections he had missed when he had been deprived of sleep and malnourished.