The Spider and The Wolf

Troubles up Here

Peter tried to ignore the lady down the street from the Bartons, but she was often on his mind. He'd close his eyes and see her long fingernails tapping impatiently on the orange candy bowl. Tap. Tap. Tap. The sound repeated through Peter's consciousness like a distant echo ricocheting endlessly throughout a dark abyss.

The thing that Peter hated most about this was that he wasn't sure how to tell the Avengers. Things were finally beginning to be normal for him. He was getting more and more independence, which was good for him. Peter so badly wanted to be a normal kid, and he feared he never would be.

At school, Peter was a sympathy case. He was smart, very smart in fact, but his lack of social skills and "real-world" knowledge made it hard. Kids picked on him a lot. Peter tried to be the bigger person metaphorically about those matters when the small boy could not physically be.

Back at the Tower, Peter was a fragile little boy with a troubled past. He was a glass vase that people were delicate around. It made Peter feel less important. People had good intentions, sure, but good intentions aren't always in good interest.

At least there was Ned Leeds. Ned made Peter feel like a normal kid. Peter would have sleepovers at his house. Ned would talk and talk for hours about every minute detail of his life, and Peter was more than content to simply listen.

Peter hadn't had any "friends" before Ned. How could he in the facility? Ned assured Peter he was not used to the concept much either. Ned said his only friend was his cousin Michelle, and while Peter was not completely familiar with the concept of cousins, Ned told Peter kids found it weird when you were relatives to your only friends.

Ned had a large family, even for Peter's warped perspective of one. Ned's mom was one of 13 children, a concept that completely baffled Peter, and she was the oldest. Ned explained that his youngest Uncle, his mom's brother Eddie, was 14. Peter wasn't sure how that worked, but he shrugged it off. He liked it when Ned talked about his family because he knew how happy it made Ned, but it made Peter feel off. He couldn't describe it, but it was like he knew he would never have something quite like that.

Ned only once tried to ask about Peter's family. Peter got tense. It was a hard subject to say the least, and he wasn't quite sure how to phrase it. Bucky was the closest thing he had to a "real" family per se. Peter never had a traditional mother or father, though. He didn't have 13 aunts and uncles and a plethora of cousins to befriend. Peter got that feeling of longing again; he knew how unattainable that was for him. Peter missed out on so much because of his first 8 years in the laboratory. They were eight years he could never regain.

So Peter told Ned he had a family like no other, and that he was happy. Ned took that and said nothing more, to Peter's content.

Bullies liked to flock toward Peter. He was significantly smaller than the other fourth graders both in height and body structure. This being coupled with his social ineptness made him a hot target for the typical elementary taunts. Those aren't what Peter minded. What Peter minded was Flash Thompson.

Flash was your run of the mill sports kid who enjoyed little league football and aspired to be like his older brothers. He wanted the power and status they had over him and turned it to control over Peter.

He asked "Puny Parker" to give him the sandwiches that Thor would make for him every day. Thor was apparently a very good sandwich-maker, but Peter didn't outrightly know that because Flash would always take the sandwich and eat it himself. Flash would even "brag" to Peter by eating with his mouth open; he would display the "trophy sandwich" to all brave enough.

Tony would ask how school was every day, and Peter would make sure he told the awaiting Avengers only about Ned and his new pigeon friend they made at recess or the new high mark on his test and at all costs avoided talking about people like Flash.

The Avengers dedicated their lives to protecting people. Peter was sure that they would feel betrayed if one of their own couldn't even protect himself.

Peter wished he were stronger. He wanted to be something he was not: brave. Peter was still in fear over HYDRA, over the lady from Halloween with the inexplicably long nails, of admitting his fears, and quite frankly of other people. There were tiny things that would freak him out, and that made him feel guilty.

Peter couldn't develop a close bond to Dr. Banner, especially with the lab coat, because it was too reminiscent of the lab doctors and all the awful things they did to him. Peter felt anxious leaving Bucky every morning when he would go to school because he remembered the near year of his life where that would be a death sentence.

He hated shots. Steve tried to coax him to get a flu shot, being fall and early flu season and all, but it took hours of Peter crying even seeing the thing. Steve didn't know the extent, but there used to be things that weren't vaccines in those needles. They weren't there to help Peter, they were there to hurt. Nobody could ever understand that.

Peter went to bed the night of December 4th completely normal. He finished up his math homework early and ate the dinner Vision made (which wasn't the best he had ever eaten but the Avengers liked to switch up the cooks every night, so robot lasagna was going to have to do.) Bucky shut off the light for him and tousled his hair. That made Peter laugh. Peter sighed and shut his eyes. He opened them to a blinding light.

The lab.

His hands were bruised. His mouth felt dry. Had he not been scared out of his mind, he would have laughed remembering Natasha telling him she felt like a raisin because her mouth was dry. It was an attempt at making Peter laugh, and while it worked at the time it wasn't going to at this moment.

Peter called out for anyone, but he didn't recognize his own voice. He tried to stand up, but his legs were too long. His hair was too short, too. This wasn't real, he concluded.

A buzz came from above him: the intercom. He remembered that awful noise too well. It growled in a low voice with poor quality at him.

"Hello, 0017. We're expecting you."