While There's Still Something Left

Popcorn Wars: A New Friendship

Mr. Stark was acting weird. It took Peter an almost embarrassing amount of time to realize it, but once he did, it was impossible to not notice. It wasn't that he was acting super obvious or anything, but it was more like a combination of a lot of little things that joined together to make a big blob of suspicious. At first he thought it was because of his obvious (and totally reciprocated if Peter was reading this right) feelings for Nat, but even that didn't make sense.

The first time Peter noticed something weird was going on was when he saw Mr. Stark pulled Steve aside the night before the group left on Saturday. He didn't put much thought into it then, but in retrospect he should've suspected something was up immediately. That was the first time since he'd been at the tower that they'd talked one on one like that, as far as Peter knew. Next, there was the random, secretive phone calls peppered through the next few days, which he assumed were from Natasha or at the very least Steve calling to update them on the mission.

That theory got trashed on Thursday, after the arrival of the first wave of weird packages. They must have contained something important, because that night and every night after, Mr. Stark and Bruce would take turns with him in the lab, excusing themselves for hours at a time, coming back looking thoroughly worn. The worst part was that no matter how many times he asked, he never got a straight answer about what they were doing.

It was irritating, but he understood their reluctance to share to an extent. He wasn't technically an Avenger, partially because of the Accords and partially because of Hydra, but he didn't like to think about that little detail. He wanted to be an Avenger. He felt like an Avenger, despite being currently benched. Even though he didn't like their decision to keep him out, he respected it, because he respected Mr. Stark.

After the briefing Saturday morning, Peter hoped that he'd learned everything he needed to know, but the possibility that they were keeping something still itched at the back of his mind. Unfortunately for him, he couldn't even distract himself from his thoughts with building the new badass tech from the mission because Mr. Stark said the file would take who knew how many hours to decrypt.

The rest of Saturday was spent monotonously going over Peter's more mundane skills. How far he could jump, how fast he could run, how much he could bench. Mr. Stark was super impressed with that one. Peter thought it was only because he managed to surpass Steve, but it was funny and endearing anyway to hear him brag to the others. Peter wished he could have at least had some kind of training to look forward to today, but no such luck.

Instead, Peter found himself pacing through his bedroom, muttering quietly to himself. It was still almost three hours until lunch time, but he figured if everyone was sticking to their usual routines from before their mission, he should be able to catch the Captain on the communal floor at around 12.

"So, Captain. Mr. Rogers. Sir. I was hoping that I could get your help on something."

Peter growled for what felt like the fiftieth time that morning. Crap. It seemed Mr. Stark was right about his honorifics problem. Not that he'd tell him that, especially after Mr. Stark had the audacity to call it a fetish. Hearing him say the word at all was as disturbing as when May talked about how she wanted to lick Thor's abs. Talk about internal shudder.

Peter caught his reflection in the bathroom mirror, stopping beside his dresser and staring blankly at the reflection in front of him. He looked different. He couldn't quite put his finger on it, but he looked lighter somehow. Less bothered, which should have been impossible. Maybe it was how his body was beginning to fill out with the extra food, or the extra workouts with Natasha. Whatever it was, it was different, and Peter hated himself for it.

How long had it been now? 3 weeks on Wednesday since May disappeared? And what had Peter done since then? He almost got everyone killed by a bomb for one, which was helpful to no one. He built a spider for missions he wasn't going on and played pretend family with the Avengers.