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To be clear, Peter didn’t know he was doing it. Frankly, he didn’t know what he was doing the majority of the time. But, this one, very specific thing, he was unaware that he was doing. And this thing was memorizing.
Peter Parker did not normally have a great memory, he never even had a good one. So, when he came to the realization that he was memorizing everyone in the tower’s schedules, he was really thrown for a loop.
It wasn’t like he was using flash cards like he did for those english vocab quizzes, or going through where everyone was in his head every moment. No, he was doing this on autopilot.
Currently, it was six thirty seven in the evening. He knew that Mister Rogers was in the gym with Miss Romanov and Mister Barton. He knew that Miss Potts and Mister Stark were either in some meeting or the former was berating the latter for missing said meeting.
He knew where everyone was, because that was where he was not. That was kinda his thing, hiding away from everyone.
Usually, Peter would find some obscure spot in the tower to do whatever it was that he planned to do. In the beginning of his time at the tower, he had planned on spending the time that wasn’t in the kitchen devouring every edible substance or in the lab with Mister Stark creating new things, he should be training himself.
Well, that didn’t work, because the first time he had walked in, he was met with a face full of America. Actually, he walked straight into America, who had just been walking out. So, for some reason, he decided he could no longer be there.
It wasn’t like he had anything against Mister Rogers–actually, there were quite literally no hard feelings. He wasn’t positive if Mister Rogers felt the same, but either way, he was cool with the guy. So really, he should be cool with being in the same room as the guy.
Same went for Mister Wilson and Miss Romanov. But, truthfully, that one had worked out. He wasn’t sure that he had the discipline to hit a bag for three hours every day.
The next place he had gone into was what he thought was an empty conference room. He had curled up under the conference room table, with his laptop and a hot chocolate, to do his Spanish homework. He had just been going over the difference on when to use ‘parecido’ and ‘parecido a’, when the door opened. Suddenly, the table was full.
No one had seen Peter, of course, because rich business men don’t normally predict a poor young boy with a horrible spanish accent to be doing the work under the table. Peter could tell by the one pair of heels at the head of the table that it was Miss Potts running the meeting. She often kicked the ankle that sat to her left, so Peter could only assume that was Mister Stark.
Nearly halfway through the meeting, Peter had moved to his physics homework. He’d been told to give ‘proof’ that Newton’s third law existed, which was a particularly peculiar question. He had written the question on a piece of paper and slid it into Mister Stark’s lap while some other man talked about stocks.
That day, Peter had earned an ‘A+’ on his homework, as well as a very confused look from Mister Stark. However, he was not kicked out, nor had anyone else in the room noticed he was there, so he counted that as a win.
And it had gone forth like that. There were certain days of the week where Peter had no information to rely on. Like Wednesdays, where school was never out, so Peter didn’t know what the team was doing unless he was told or he asked. But he knew, for the most part, he knew the schedules. Of everyone. Especially Mister Stark, actually.
And Mister Stark, in return, was catching on. He had given Friday some code, some rules, and Peter was not made aware. Now, anytime that Peter was headed anywhere deemed unusual by the average person, Friday quizzed him. Not something interesting like ‘who invented the electric guitar’.
It was boring, therapy-adjacent stuff, like ‘from a scale of one to seven, one being yes and seven being no, are you okay’. And Peter couldn’t even memorize the right answers, because they were different every time!
Of course, there were occasionally ‘bugs’ in the code. Just the other day, Peter was headed to the labs of the clean energy department. However, because he had a toaster and a chess piece–specifically the knight–in his hand, that made it weird enough to need clarification. The time being four in the morning probably didn’t help.
Friday had questioned him.
“Good morning, Peter. How much do you value your life right now?” She had asked, and oh gosh was that a way to start the day.
“I mean, I could trade my life for a Wendy’s four for four,” he had said, before proceeding to the Five Nights at Freddy’s rhythm, specifically saying ‘for’. Looking back on it, it made sense that Mister Barnes was sent to assist, though it was not as serious as Friday had made it sound.
When Mister Stark had set this protocol up, it was usually him who came to Peter whenever Peter was in his mood. He’d called it Peter’s ‘Hide-and-seek mode’, except no one knew that Peter was hiding, nor did Peter wish to be seeked.
However, now, Mister Stark hardly ever came. Not that he was tired of Peter, but he was tired of Peter’s shenanigans, and by extension, Peter. Speaking of extension, the last time that Mister Stark came to Peter at Friday’s call was ten at night, when Peter was attempting to melt an extension cord in the security’s staff microwave. He wanted to make coffee that would last longer. Extended coffee, if you will. Perchance. That might have been Mister Stark’s last straw.
Currently, Peter was headed to a crawlspace on the 95th floor. He was quite excited, actually. He wanted to sleep a little now, because soon, the team would be having a jolly good time watching a movie, and he was tired from getting minimal sleep last night. Peter could only hope that it wasn’t Miss Romanov who got to pick out the movie, because Peter could not handle another scary movie.
When he laid down in said crawlspace, he almost felt the question from Friday before it came.
“If you were a bird, would you be a happy parrot or a Tony-Shark?” She asked.
Now, though Peter knew that a Tony-Shark was not a bird, it was a very appealing option. Seeing as how the first option was ‘happy’, he knew he was supposed to pick that one. But how could he resist calling himself a Tony-Shark?
So yes, Steve Grant Rogers, in all of his patriotic, red-white-and-blue, need-sunscreen-to-look-at-glory, did show up.
“Hey there, pal,” Mister Rogers bowed his head slightly for a second as a nod, and Peter narrowed his eyes at him. He was only really able to think of the Captain-PSAs. “What, uh, what are you doing?”
“I’m just really sleepy, I just really wanna take a nap.” Peter rolled over onto his other side, specifically facing away from Mister Rogers.
“No, yeah, I understand that,” Mister Rogers said, gesturing to the blanket, pillow, and visually-appalling Hulk-Bear that Mister Stark got Peter a while ago. “Thing is, bud, you have a bedroom. Which has a bed. Where you are more than welcome to sleep in. And I know you can sleep in that very nice, very expensive 21st century bed, cause that’s where you slept last night.”
“I dunno, man, too many people can see me.” Peter looked back at Mister Rogers and shrugged. And it was true. Anyone could walk into Peter’s bedroom at any time and expect him to be there.
“I get that, I understand, but I don’t know if you know this: You can unlock all of the doors here. All of them. You can sleep anywhere that has a bed. Truly, anywhere, in anyone’s bed. And I really shouldn’t be telling you this, and I know that no one’s gonna appreciate me for telling you this, you can sleep in anyone’s bedroom, please just pick a bed,” Mister Rogers sighed, rubbing his temple.
“No, Mister Rogers, I know that cause I stole your shield last week, from your bedroom, so, like, duh.” At Mister Rogers’s face of confusion, Peter continued. “Because Mister Wilson needed it.”
“Why couldn’t Sam just come ask me for the shield?” Mister Rogers asked with a skeptical expression.
Peter sat up as much as he could in the crawlspace, and he spoke.
“He had hickeys,” Peter said, gesturing to his general neck area.
“So?”
“Oh, well they were from Mister Barnes.” Peter shrugged again for what felt like the millionth time that day. “Cause they’re sleeping together.”
“How do you know that?” Mister Rogers asked, and his face was almost incredulous, now.
“Doors, man.” Peter said, looking off to the distance with a shell-shocked expression. Mister Rogers grimaced.
“Yeah, that, uh, that sucks. Sorry. Wait, why were you trying to get in his room?”
“Arms, man,” he said with that same tone, giving no further explanation.
Mister Rogers put two and two together, and asked,
“Why did you need his arm?”
“I feel like that one’s easier to explain than the shield, I just kinda wanted it?” Peter laid back down. “Can I just sleep?”
Mister Rogers, having just had all of this new information thrown at him with no warning, just blinked.
“Hell, go for it. Just, if you can tell me where Bucky or Sam are–not together–I will let you sleep.” Mister Rogers sighed.
“What time is it?” Peter asked in response.
“About seven.”
“Fourth guest room, eighty third floor.” Peter said.
“Which one?”
“Yes.”
And then, Peter was left alone.
That night, after Mister Stark had collected Peter and fed him, the team all gathered on the couch, while Peter stood in the kitchen popping the popcorn. There were currently three bags in the microwave, all stacked on top of each other in a very obvious hazard, like the leaning tower of popcorn.
A hand landing on Peter’s shoulder, making him jump. He spun around, and came face to face with Miss Romanov. Peter, unthinking, raised to his tiptoes and raised his arms up high.
“What are you doing?” Miss ROmanov asked him, very unimpressed.
“Intimidating you,” Peter said. When he heard aloud how odd he was being, he slowly lowered back to his normal state. That was okay, though, he was still taller than Miss Romanov by an inch. He was still very intimidating, thank you.
“We picked the movie, just checking that it’s okay with you,” Miss Romanov said, completely disregarding Peter’s last statement. “Are you okay with Arachnaphobia?”
“A little on the nose, isn’t it?” Peter asked, narrowing his eyes.
“We have to keep the team on their toes, don’t we? Plus, I figured with all of your weird spiderness, you might get some insight on other weird habits you haven’t noticed you. Like… ‘intimidating’ me.” Miss Romanov said, turning to walk back out to the movie. “Oh, and get that popcorn out of there, it’s about to burn.”
Peter jumped to open the microwave, and when he looked back, the Widow was gone.
Grabbing several bowls out of the pantry–because for some reason, no one on the team was keen to share–Peter thought about what Miss Romanov said. Maybe he should look more into his odd habits. Though he wasn’t sure that a lot of the things he did were spider things, it would be helpful to get some ideas. Then again, Arachnaphobia wasn’t like a documentary, it was more of a ‘you should fear these’. Maybe the next movie night, he should request an actual documentary.
Peter glanced up at the ceiling, and his eyes were met with the sight of a spider. It wasn’t a large one, so he wasn’t quite sure what kind it was. He wasn’t very well versed in the forty two thousand different kinds of spiders. He probably should be. He probably could be.
But this particular spider was small, black, and hiding in a crevice. Peter now knew that there weren’t often people in the kitchen, because he saw the spider. You don’t see a spider if you’re in the ‘right’ place. No, spiders learn routines. And if this spider knew the routine, it would know if there were or weren’t people here at this time.
The spider moved quickly, specifically away from Peter, who turned his attention back to the nine bowls. He grabbed the bags of popcorn, and he distributed them evenly. One bowl was for Mister Stark, one for Mister Rogers, and Mister Banner. These three liked kettle corn, because it was sweeter than the regular popcorn.
Miss Romanov, Miss Maximoff, and Mister Wilson preferred the plain popcorn, with various reasoning of ‘superiority’.
The other three, Mister Barnes, Mister Barton, and Miss Potts, the heathens that they were, liked plain popcorn, however they made their own personal changes to it. Mister Barnes doused his in salt. Mister Barton mixed MnMs into his. Miss Potts used shake parmesan, which made Peter shudder every time that he thought about it.
Sadly, Peter was not allowed to have his own bag of popcorn. The last time that he was permitted to have his own popcorn, it was another horror moving. One from the Conjuring series, he was pretty sure. He was on the ceiling, as per usual, when there was a jumpscare that Peter had forgotten about. He had jumped, and his popcorn ended up all over Mister Stark.
So, yeah, he now had to sneak popcorn from other people’s bowls if he wanted popcorn. He did technically have the option to stay on the ground and have a bowl, but that was a horrible trade off. If he could be on the ceiling, you can likely find him on the ceiling.
Balancing all of the bowls on his arms and shoulders and temporarily sticking them so they won’t drop, Peter walked out of the kitchen and to the team. The movie was paused at the very beginning, showing that they had all been waiting on Peter. Mister Rogers usually sat right by Mister Barnes, but he was on the opposite side of the couch, now.
Peter distributed the bowls of popcorn, and stood behind the couch as the movie began. As the movie played–volume high, because Mister Barton was practically deaf–Peter prepared his web-shooters. While he enjoyed sitting on the ceiling without the webs, he couldn’t see the movie upright. He also didn’t want to stay in a pull-up position the whole movie, so he opted to sit in a sort of swing.
He had mastered the act of making the swing web in complete silence. The first night that he had done this without the team noticing, he had scared the crap out of Miss Maximoff. She’d gotten up to refill her cup, and was met with Peter, about six feet in the air, staring down at her. She jumped, and Peter jumped, and–yeah. Just not a great time.
There was one other time, when Mister Wilson was tossing popcorn up and catching it in his mouth. One of the pieces that he tossed landed on a string of the web–not that he noticed. Peter, however, noticed a lot. He had, embarrassingly, hissed. Luckily, someone in the movie screamed, so no one heard Peter. But Peter heard Peter. That night on, he made sure to build the swing much higher up.
Tonight, he made a sort of hammock instead of his usual swing. He wasn’t laying down, but he found it easier like this. He could go through an array of different comfortable positions with this hammock shape. Periodically throughout the movie, Mister Stark would glance up at Peter. Because he wasn’t one of the three people on the floor, he was able to raise the bowl up for Peter without obscuring anyone’s vision.
Because of this, Peter was usually the one to refill Mister Stark’s cup and bowl. He didn’t mind, really. It felt like him paying Mister Stark back for everything that he had given him and May. May wanted to come to this movie night, but she had to attend an incident that happened in an intern lab earlier. Peter knew she wouldn’t mind as much, though, because she and Miss Potts were in the same boat–they didn’t favor the ‘scary’ movies.
Miss Potts in particular didn’t mind critiquing these movies. It wasn’t often that she could join these movie nights. Not because she was working, Mister Stark made sure of that. She didn’t join often because she was painting. Being the CEO of Stark Industries came with some upsides. High paycheck, high respect. However, for Pepper Potts, it came with some downsides, too. Mostly, she didn’t have much time for herself. She could, if she wanted to. Peter knew that from the way that news articles talked about how Mister Stark used to run the business.
The woman kept the company in an exponential increase of income, so there was definitely no complaint. It wasn’t like she was working herself to the bone, either. She was a smart woman, she knew when and when not to be working. If she needed a break, she took one, and no one said a thing to her because they knew she deserved it.
But, before she was the CEO, or even the personal assistant, she was very good at painting. Not to say that she wasn’t good now, but that was one of her biggest hobbies, aside from research and sculpting. She was a beautiful painter. Some of her work was sold. Peter’s pretty sure that something of hers is somewhere in the Stark Industries exhibit, though he didn’t think Miss Potts knew it was there.
So, when she had free time, she painted. Occasionally, she didn’t have much inspiration, and she came out during the movie night. She would watch whatever movie for a bit to get a reference. If she couldn’t get inspired within ten minutes, she would usually grab Peter and talk to him in the studio, and something would come to her.
Whenever it was a horror movie that she came out to, she would just sigh and pluck Peter from his spot on the ceiling. As they walked down the hallway to the studio, she would talk about how boring horror movies were. There was ‘minimal character development’ and only interested in the bizarre. Peter agreed, because the movies did interest him, and he was pretty bizarre.
Mister Stark raised the bowl slightly for Peter, about halfway through the movie. Peter, feeling more spider-y and creepy due to the movie’s premise, crawled off of his hammock and onto the ceiling to grab a handful of the popcorn. He took a piece from Mister Stark’s bowl, dropping a Starburst into the man’s lap as payment.
“So weird,” Mister Stark muttered under his breath, which Peter could only make out due to his enhanced hearing. He grinned, and crawled his way back to the hammock. Munching on the bit of popcorn he retrieved while watching the movie, Peter also watched the people. It was interesting to see the team react to ‘spooky’ things.
Like seeing spiders suddenly crawl out of a sink. Predictably, this didn’t affect Mister Barnes or Miss Romanov in the slightest. Actually, the only people who really reacted to that scene were Mister Stark and Mister Wilson.
Mister Wilson had recoiled dramatically, while Mister Stark snickered and looked up at Peter, asking “Can you do that?”.
Peter ended up being whisked away just ten minutes before the end of the movie. Peter didn’t mind, because he could always ask Friday to show him the rest of the movie later. Miss Potts was walking him to the studio once more.
“I’ve been doing detail-centred things lately. Like candle holders. Chess pieces. Or those street lamps from last century that connect to walls.” She closed the door after Peter walked in, and she turned to look at him. “So what now?”
“That’s all, like, old people stuff. What about a cafe? But like a really old one that’s been there forever.” Peter said, thinking aloud. Miss Potts nodded, taking his thought into consideration.
The woman began to paint, while the boy roamed around on the ceiling. The room wasn’t very big, so he looked more like a goldfish confined to a little bowl.
“Why do you do that?” Miss Potts asked at one point. By now, she had gotten the sketch and base colors down.
“Do what?” Peter replied, looking at Miss Potts.
“You hide out. You stay out of sight. Why?” She set the paint brush she was using into her cup of water.
“It’s just a spider thing, I guess.” He shrugged.
“Well, yes, I know that. But your other spider things have reasons. Like when you put your hands up and try to make yourself all big, that’s you trying to be intimidating.” Peter hadn’t realized he did that often. “Or when you take those long naps in winter, you’re hibernating. Because you’re cold.”
Peter blinked. Miss Potts really was a genius, and Peter did not give her the credit that she deserved sometimes.
“I guess… I think it’s because of the spider-sense.” He said finally. Miss Potts stayed quiet, so he continued. “I can feel when people look at me. And it’s not as bad as if, like, I’m about to get decked or anything, but it’s still so weird. So I guess if I’m, like, not where people can see me, it’s better?”
Miss Potts, the angel she was, picked up her paintbrush and returned to her painting.
“I see. Does it hurt?” She asked.
“No, it usually doesn’t. If you were looking at me, it’s just like someone’s knocking on my head, y’know? But if you were about to stab me or something, then it’s like someone’s merging their knuckles with my skull.” Peter explained. It’s not the first time that he’s tried to explain this to people. Ned was, naturally, very curious about the whole spider thing. Peter, because of this, had very good metaphors for how his different spider things worked, in the scenario that he needed to explain.
Such as this one.
“Is it different when different people look at you?” She asked.
“Sometimes. I mean, I’d rather Mister Stark look at me than, like, Ultron.” Peter said, watching Miss Potts paint. “I can ignore it most of the time, though.”
At the beginning of that night, Peter slept like a baby. He knew that, likely, Miss Potts did something. Did he know what she did? Absolutely not. But did she do something? Obviously.
Because Peter did not feel eyes. He did not feel watched.
Granted, he was in Mister Barton’s room, because Mister Barton was beginning his drive home to his family tonight.
But still.
“Would you describe yourself as normal right now, Peter?” Friday asked after ten minutes, and Peter sighed.
“Fri, look at me. I’m literally never normal.” Peter sighed. The little ‘ping’ that came after his response let him know that someone would be sent to his location. He groaned, letting himself fall off of the web swing that he made and onto Mister Barton’s bed.
The door slid open, and in strolled the man of the hour, Tony Stark.
“Pete,” Mister Stark inclined his head in a nod. Peter, for a moment, thought back to how Mister Rogers greeted him the same way. Then, Mister Stark looked up to the ceiling and saw the webs.
“You know, we spend good money on those? I’m pretty sure you’ve spent about two thousand today, not considering patrol.” Mister Stark crossed his arms.
“One, you spend good money, I have no money.” Peter spoke as he sat up. “And two, you think a gallon of milk costs two thousand, so I don’t wanna hear a thing out of you.”
“Hey, if you can get to the point in life where you don’t need to shop, then you don’t need to worry about the cost of milk.” Mister Stark took a step back as Peter swung his legs out of the bed to stand up.
“Tell that to poor people. Actually, you just did. Me. How do you feel about oppressing me, Mister Stark?” Peter asked, looking up at the man.
“I pay your primary guardian nearly a million a year. I am your secondary guardian. You are, in fact, a nepo baby.” Mister Stark said, putting a hand on Peter’s shoulder to spin him out of Mister Barton’s room.
“This is news to me. Actually, can we get a public statement of that?” Peter looked up at Mister Stark with wide eyes. “I feel like the world should know of your generous charity.”
“Paying for your schooling isn’t charity. And, you need to quit breaking into these rooms, because one day you’re going to break into the wrong room, kid.” Mister Stark sighed. When they got to the break in the hallway where Peter was supposed to turn to get to his room, Mister Stark kept him walking straight.
“Where are we going?” Peter asked.
“There’s only so long that I can keep every camera off before it becomes a safety hazard like that popcorn of yours. I still don’t know what you insist on fitting as much popcorn as you can into that microwave. Anyway, there's no cameras in my room. So, until we get the cameras in your room changed, you’re unfortunately sleeping on my ceiling,” Mister Stark said as he opened the door to his and Miss Potts’s room.
“I think you mean my room, seeing as I’m the one signing off on all of the bills.” Miss Potts corrected from the vanity in the corner of the bedroom. She had a brush in one hand, the other smoothing her hair along the way.
“Technically, you’re forging my signature, so…” Mister Stark trailed off, leading Peter to one side of the room. “This, right here, is where you may construct your bed. Or, whatever you call your… residence.”
Peter nodded and thanked Mister Stark enthusiastically, and he immediately got to work. Mister Stark and Miss Potts’s room was much taller than all of the other rooms. Technically, it took up two floors in the corner of the building. It was, honestly, the perfect place to indulge in his hide-and-seek mode. The only reason that he hadn’t before is because if he came without asking or being invited, was because he hid too well at times, and he did not want to risk seeing things.
But now that Miss Potts and Mister Stark knew he would be there and knew how being seen felt, this really was the perfect spot.
He peeked down at the two, after he built his little pocket. Miss Potts was on her computers sitting in the bed, while Mister Stark was sketching a blueprint. Peter rolled back into his little pocket of webs.
Maybe, just maybe, he could forget some of the schedules he had memorized.