Spider-man: Alone in New York

~ Chapter 13 ~

"Me? Oh um. I don't know, I think he's a really cool guy who just wants to help out people," I said, trying to keep my answer short. I added a shrug to finish off the sentence.

Mr. Stark asked, "You think I should try to reach out to him?"

I thought about it for a minute, thinking if I wanted Mr. Stark to try and recruit me. "I don't think so. I mean, he seems to be fine working along, and he's really protective of his identity. I doubt he would want you to figure out who he is." He hummed in agreement and returned his attention back to the TV where pictures of me were shown. Most of them except for a few were blurry, taken when I was swinging from buildings or fighting bad guys and bystanders had whipped out their phones and recorded what I was doing.

"I think there's one thing we can all agree on," Clint spoke up, "The dude definitely needs a suit upgrade." I narrowed my eyes at him and was about to go off on him about my budget and my access to resources but realized that would make them suspicious of me, being so protective of a guy I shouldn't even know. Also, he's Hawkeye and I'm me, so that's awkward as well. A kid picking a fight with a trained assassin... not a great idea.

I shook off my thoughts and picked up my plate but didn't know what to do with it. "Um, Mr. Stark? Where do I put this?"

"I got it." He took it out of my hands and carried both plates, mine and his, to the dishwasher, putting them in.

Friday spoke up, "Sir, the shipment has been delivered. Shall I send it up to you?"

"Yes please, Friday," Mr. Stark said, making his way to the elevator that was near the living room with me following behind him like a lost puppy. The elevator dinged, opening its doors to reveal two packages.

"Here." Mr. Stark lifted one of them, handing it to me and taking the other one. "Let's go back to the table."

"Are these parts for the lab?" I asked him, feeling the heavy weight of it.

"No. You'll see in a second." We placed it on the table, and I waited while he retrieved a pair of scissors.

Clint piqued up when he saw the packages. "Are those the Hawkeye-themed headphones I ordered off of Amazon?"

"No, Clint," Mr. Stark said, opening it to reveal a bunch of clothes and turning to me. "Since you got your shirt wet, I had to get you another one as an apology." My eyebrows sprang up as I looked at the large package. There were more clothes in there than in my whole closet.

"Where- when did you-"

"Order it? I have my ways. I also got you a couple of long-sleeved shirts, jeans, sweatpants, hoodies, and socks while I was at it. You know, got a little carried away when Friday asked me if I wanted to add some more clothes to the order. They should fit you perfectly since I asked Friday to scan..." He continued talking but I didn't listen anymore because I was so shocked by his actions. He bought those for me? Why would he do such a nice thing for me?

"Hey, Pete? Are you listening?" He asked, looking down at my surprised face.

"I- uh, oh um," I tried formulating words, "I just need a minute," I scrambled to the bathroom, locking the door to figure out why the hell tears were leaking out of my eyes. I looked at myself in the mirror and touched a tear that had slipped down my cheek. Why was I crying? I wasn't in emotional or physical pain; I had no reason to cry. In fact, I felt touched, almost happy. This made no sense.

I took a couple of deep breaths to calm down my racing heart beat.

"Peter, are you alright?" I heard Mr. Stark ask outside the bathroom.

Natasha demanded, "What happened?"

"I don't know... I just bought him some clothes because his got all wet from the sprinkler system and then he ran to the bathroom." Mr. Stark explained. Okay, I needed an excuse, something believable. I quickly wiped away any last traces of the wetness on my cheeks.

Opening the door, I saw Mr. Stark, Natasha, and Clint standing outside. "You okay, Pete?"

"Yeah, something went into my eye. I had to get to the bathroom quickly to get it out," I lied, completely dismissing the fact that I had run out of there as if I had seen a ghost.

Mr. Stark wore a worried expression, and Natasha seemed to look right through my lie, narrowing her eyes slightly at me. Luckily, she didn't mention it.

"Okay... well, here's a shirt and a pair of pants to change." He handed me the clothes. "We can then go back to the lab and figure out how to fix that gun we were working on."

Nodding, I shut the door again and changed, stripping off the shirt despite its attempt to continue sticking to my body. I double checked that there were no traces of me crying, splashing some more cold water on my face. As satisfied as I could be with my appearance in the mirror, I walked out. Clint and Natasha had already left to go off to who knows where, and Tony was waiting in the living room.

"This kid called Ned tried to call you," Tony said, holding up my broken phone. Sure enough, a ringtone blasted out of the phone's speakers once more with a picture of Ned appearing on the front screen. "He already called you three times."

"Oh, I should take that then." I took the phone out of his hand and pressed the green pick up button. "Ned, what's up?"

"Peter! I need your help, like, right now. There's a huge problem, and I'm scared." Ned's voice came out panicked, almost as if he had forgotten to breathe right before answering the phone. I could hear his panting, causing me to frown.

"Woah woah, slow down." I put out a hand despite him not being able to see it. "What happened?"

"So you know, right after the, er, situation happened, I decided to go to Delmar's cause stressful situations make me hungry and I went there and got a sandwich with extra cheese and then I did some homework there because I thought why not do something useful and I got carried away and-"

"The point, Ned," I reminded him gently. He rambled whenever he got anxious, but still I didn't want to stress him out anymore.

He took a deep breath. "I finished eating and doing my homework and started my way back home and then after a bit I noticed that there's a black car that's been following me wherever I walk. I tried to get him off my tail, but he kept following me."

"Maybe it's just a coincidence?" I suggested, my voice lowering so that Mr. Stark wouldn't be able to hear me.

He said, "I decided to go to a cafe store and sit inside by the window, and he stopped next to the store. We're both still here at Larry's coffee house."

"Maybe he's waiting to pick someone up from there?" I winced.

He hissed, "And looking into the cafe with binoculars?"

"Okay... you're right. That's suspicious. I'll be there soon." I hung up the phone after I heard a grunt of agreement. Turning around, Mr. Stark raised an eyebrow at me. How on earth am I going to explain that to him? Gosh, I was such a bad intern.

I didn't want to see his face, so I looked again at my shoes, gazing at them like they're the most interesting thing in the world. "So... my friend found out that there's a pop test tomorrow. A huge one. I kinda need to go and study with him... if that's all right? I know that I said I would eat dinner with you, and work at the lab. God, I'm such a horrible intern even though you do so much for me. I'm really sorry. You deserve a better intern. I totally understand if you fire me. I won't be mad," I rambled on, non-stop.

"Peter." I felt a hand on my shoulder. "It's okay. I know you have your own life. You can join us for dinner tomorrow."

My head snapped up. "Really? You mean you won't fire me?"

"No, of course not. You're my favorite intern. Now go study with your friend. And don't worry about the clothes, I'll ship them to your address." He withdrew his arm.

"Thank you!" I wanted to hug him, but I felt like he wouldn't want that, so I simply left to help Ned with his situation.