It was no mystery to anyone that Peter spent a lot of his spare time in the lab tinkering with things. Most of the time he was writing up new formulas for his webbing or helping Tony with upgrades to their suits. Sometimes he would be down there doing homework or projects, or just keeping Tony and Bruce company.

Currently Peter was sitting at a table with a blender, an old toaster, and several pieces of junk from an electronics store that were going to be trashed because they didn't work. He figured he could savage whatever was in them even if they were pretty much dust.

He started with the toaster; unscrewing what could be unscrewed, taking out the wires and bits of metal, writing down every little detail about everything- wire length, screw size, how much of everything there was, and the date of when he got it. After the toaster, he moved on to the blender, then the scrap electronics. He was down there for a few hours before anyone checked on him.

"School project?" Tony asked from over the boy's shoulder.

"No." Peter replied. "Just a… to be honest I don't really know what I'm doing but I figured I could use the parts for something."

"You do know that I can supply you with anything you need right?"

"Yeah but that's no fun. The point of doing this is I don't know what the outcome's gonna be. I have no expectations so I can't be disappointed if whatever I'm doing doesn't turn out right."

Tony snorted. "Can't say that's a good mindset to have but I think I understand where you're coming from. But anyways, you've been down here for hours and I'm pretty sure you haven't eaten in that time and I know your hot aunt will kill me if she finds out I'm not feeding you."

Peter set down the electronic device he was fiddling with and looked at his watch. He didn't realize how many hours had actually passed while he was working and only started to realize how hungry he actually was. He then looked to the table in front of him and was surprised at how many little piles of things he had.

"Huh, I didn't know I got this much done. But you're totally right about food right now."

"Yeah I'm right about a lot of things." Peter rolled his eyes at the comment. "Let's go get something. I think Tweety said he was gonna make chili dogs."

It was like that for the next few days. Peter would enter the tower with his arms full of, what Tony described as junk, and headed straight for the lab. It concerned Bruce when he saw Peter enter and not come out for the whole day. He was a workaholic like Tony was when he got an idea in his head and that often meant skipping meals. While it was concerning when Tony did it, it was outright dangerous for Peter because of his metabolism, though when asked to see footage of what he was doing FRIDAY pulled up the video feed to show empty soda cans and snack bags littering the floor around him. Not exactly what he should've been eating but it was better than nothing.

One thing they figured out when they'd gone to check on him was that he got very snappy.

Clint had ventured down out of pure boredom in hopes of maybe going out for a little while. When he questioned Peter about it, he declined.

"Thanks but no thanks Mr. Barton."

"Come on kid. We could go for a drive, maybe stop at an arcade, all you can eat buffet-"

"Yeah, sure because I totally want to drop everything I'm doing to go do stuff with you."

Tony, Bruce, Steve, and Bucky- who had all been watching the exchange on one of the monitors in the living room- let out some form of laughter. Bucky outright cackled at the look of surprise and alarm on Clint's face as he made no attempt to say anything else and left the room.

Natasha was the next one to attempt to make contact with the boy. After she had discovered the five men watching a feed of him in the lab and making bets on what he was making, she decided she wanted in and seeing as she was determined to win, she merely walked in to get an answer.

"Whatcha up to kid?"

"Something." He answered as he soldered two wires together.

"Yeah I can see that." She replied bluntly. "Do you want to maybe elaborate a little bit?"

"Nope."

Natasha crossed her arms and was about to ask another question but Peter cut her off.

"No offense Ms. Romanoff but I'm busy. Can I ignore you at another time?"

Natasha's eyes widened and her mouth opened slightly. No one talked to her that way, least of all Peter. Nonetheless, she gave him props for actually saying it rather than being intimidated and left the lab.

When she arrived back in the living room she heard Clint roaring with laughter and watched as Steve took a twenty out of his wallet and handed it to Tony.

"I thought we made bets on what he was making." She raised an eyebrow at the scene.

"Yeah but seeing as he snapped at Tweety, we wanted to see if it was just a one time thing. Apparently not." Tony answered as he shoved the money into his wallet.

They had all taken turns checking on him throughout the day and all had similar experiences. Steve barely got five feet into the room before Peter gave him anything.

"Good to see you Cap, really liked the approach. I'm sure the departure is just as good."

Bucky's was lackluster, a simple No before the door had a chance to close behind him.

Bruce had opted out of the whole thing. If Peter didn't want to be disturbed while he was working then he would leave him be. Tony was expecting him to break when he went to see him though.

"Okay kid. Out with it, what are you doing? You've all but locked yourself down here for the past few days. We're kinda worried."

"Nothing's exploded so I don't think you need to worry." Peter didn't even look up from what he was doing.

"Come on Pete. Seriously, what's up?"

"You're a genius, figure it out."

A frown crossed Tony's face. "Kid either you tell me what you're making or I'm taking your suit."

That got Peter to look at him. It was Peter's turn to frown, not a hard one but a frown nonetheless. He placed the googles that were on his eyes on his forehead and got up, walking towards Tony before actually walking past him to a chair with his backpack on it. He opened it up, pulled his suit out and all but shoved it into Tony's grasp before returning to his work station.

"Just so you know, I need another parachute."

Tony was lost. He stared at the suit in his hands then at the boy who had just willingly given up said suit. It was all very- not Peter like. He huffed knowing that his plan had backfired and turned to leave, dropping the suit back on Peter's bag before he left.

"FRIDAY do you have any idea what he's doing in there?" He asked the AI as he went from the lab to the elevator. "Has he said anything or asked you about what to do?"

"No sir. He has been quiet besides the occasional music in the background. If I may add, he also asked me to be completely silent and not try to interact with him unless he had addressed me first."

He let out a sigh as he exited the elevator and joined the others in the living room, paying no attention to the smirks they had on their faces. There had to be something they could do to figure out what Peter had been working on the past few days, maybe someone they could call…

Tony pulled out his phone, dialed a number, and put it on speaker for the others to listen. It was only a few seconds before they picked up.

"Hello?"

"Ned! How you doing kid?"

"M-Mr. Stark?!" Ned practically yelled. "How do you know my number?!"

"Hey I keep tabs on everyone of value and seeing as you hacked into my tech, you got your name on the list." Tony rubbed his eyes. "Listen, has the kid said anything to you about a project or something?"

"Peter? Uh, yeah actually. He said he found some cool retro things and was gonna try to make something out of them. Is something wrong?"

"Yeah, the kid's been snapping at us whenever we ask him about what he's doing." Clint called in a somewhat annoyed tone.

"That was- wait, am I on speaker?"

"You are son." Steve answered. "You got everyone here except Thor."

The line was silent for a few seconds. "Whoa. I'm actually talking to the Avengers. This. Is. Amazing."

"Ned please, we need answers." Tony said. "Do you have any idea on what he's making? He's spending all of his time shut up in the lab whenever he's here."

"Sorry Mr. Stark but your guess would be as good as mine. You just kinda need to wait for him to be done with it. And try not to mind him snapping, he kinda goes into a sort of trance when he's working on something super important and gets pissed at anyone who bugs him; his brain goes to autopilot and just kinda goes off. He'll apologize for it when he finishes."

"So you're saying there's no real thing to do except wait." Natasha confirmed.

"I mean he should be almost done right? He told me he was working on something on Tuesday and it's already Saturday. Whenever he starts something like this, it never goes past a week at most. He'll either finish it or give up because the idea didn't plan out. But yeah, you can really only wait."

"All right, thanks kid." Tony said before quickly hanging up, knowing that Ned would definitely try something to make the call longer. "You guys think we should lure him out with food?"

"Didn't his friend just say we have to wait?" Bucky raised an eyebrow. "Let the kid be; three more days sitting down there should be fine."

Tony rolled his eyes but left it at that. Peter was stubborn and everyone knew they wouldn't get anything until he was done with whatever he was working on. So they did what Ned told them to and left him be.

Well, almost all of them, though it wasn't Bruce's intention to disturb Peter at all. He just needed a few papers for his own project.

When he entered the lab, he barely gave the boy a glance. He was still sitting at the table and fiddling with things like he had been the first day and every other time he saw him from the living room. He had no intention to interact with him and merely went to the other end of the lab to collect his papers.

He was doing his best to be quick and fast about the whole thing because frankly he didn't want to see how Peter would snap at him. He gathered the papers he needed and was going to head back out when a few loose ones fell to the floor. It sounded almost deafening with how quiet the lab was.

Bruce knelt down to collect the papers and when he looked up Peter had turned in his chair and was staring at him.

"Ah, sorry Pete. I didn't mean to disturb you. I just needed some research."

"Oh, no Dr. Banner. You just startled me. I didn't hear you- come... in?" A confused look appeared on Peter's face. Did he really just say that?

"Uh huh… I'm sure; boy with super hearing didn't hear me enter." Bruce rolled his eyes. "I'll leave you to your project."

"Actually I'm pretty much done with it; just need to make it look good now." He took off his goggles and set them on the table.

Bruce walked to the table and had no idea what he was looking at. The base of it was most likely a toaster oven and he was pretty sure he saw old gaming cartridges but other than that, it just sort of looked like junk.

"Is it- is it okay to ask what it is exactly or-?"

Peter smirked at his confusion and asked a question "Dr. Banner, have you ever seen Back to the Future?"

Bruce blinked in surprise. "Not recently but yeah. I know it."

"But you know the whole premise of it?" Bruce nodded. "Okay so I was thinking, why not try it?"

"Try it?" Bruce gave him a questioning look before frowning slightly. "Pete are you trying to tell me you've been working on making a time machine out of a toaster?"

Peter blinked at him. "Well when you say it like that it sounds stupid."

"I mean- come on Pete. Really? Do you expect this thing to actually work in some way? It really just seems a bit impossible."

"Have a little faith Dr. Banner. I know it doesn't look pretty but once I finish finish it, something is bound to happen. Besides it's not like time travel is impossible; I'm sure Dr. Strange has done it a few times."

"The only thing I can see happening when you're done with this is some sort of explosion." Bruce huffed. "And Strange has a magic time rock. Pretty sure that's not the same thing as a microwave and a toaster welded together."

Peter crossed his arms and frowned slightly. "Doc Brown made a time machine out of a car…"

"Time travel is nigh impossible and I hate to tell you but it's a fictional movie that took place in like the eighties. The second movie took place in 2015 and were way past that."

"Maybe I just need some uranium…"

"No." Bruce stated. "You even think about getting any sort of radioactive isotopes and I swear I'll be worse than your aunt finding out you were Spider-Man."

Peter held his hands up in defeat. "Fine, no radioactive isotopes but I will get this working somehow."

"Course you will; maybe it'll send the bread back in time to become dough, or unpop popcorn." Bruce teased and smirked at the frown on Peter's face. "Sorry Pete but I won't believe it until I see it with my own eyes."

"Guess I just need to make you a believer then."

Bruce rolled his eyes. "I'm sure you will. Now what do you say to seeing the light of day for more than ten minutes?"

AVENGERS

"Come on Bruce. Spill. What's the kid making?" Tony asked. "You're the only one that's talked to him about it. I can't even get FRIDAY to tell me. She only says he working on Project Delorean and I have no goddamn clue what that means."

Bruce resisted the urge to outright laugh in Tony's face. It had been two days since he'd talked to Peter about his project and everyone had been hounding him to tell them what he found out. He wasn't going to tell them of course. That was all Peter, and quite frankly it was very funny and entertaining to see all the different was Peter came up with to tell them to leave him alone.

"Sorry Tony, it's not my call to make. Peter will tell you what he's working on when he's finished. Maybe if you guys wouldn't pester him then he'd tell you."

"He's been down there for day, way longer than his friend said he would take. I don't even think he's gone out on patrol for a week."

Bruce just shrugged. "Projects like that takes time."

"Project like what?" Tony huffed. "No, you know what? I don't care anymore. Kid wants to do his own thing and keep it a secret? That's fine. We're all entitled to our secrets. So let's not be nosy and respect his privacy. He'll tell us when he's ready."

An audible laugh was heard from another room.

It was a few minutes later that Peter actually appeared, coming as a surprise to everyone. The sun hasn't even set and no one had gotten him.

"Well look who decided to show his face." Clint teased. "I was starting to think you might have made your own spider nest in that lab."

"I considered it but May would get lonely." Peter said. "Um, sorry about what I said whenever you came in. It's a really bad force of habit that I can't seem to ever break from."

Clint snorted a laugh. "Don't sweat it kid. We had our share of laughs about it. Does this mean you're done with it?"

"Yeah actually. I haven't tested it yet but it's all done." Peter heard footsteps and suddenly all the others were in the room. "Um…?"

"We forgive you." Natasha said. "Now spill."

Peter raised a brow, looking to Bruce who hadn't moved from his spot. "Dr. Banner didn't tell you?"

"He didn't, no matter how much he was pestered."

"Uh, okay- um, to be honest I thought he would've told to at least lessen the whole shock value thing. Sorry Dr. Banner."

"Don't worry about it. I almost did because of Tony's constant whining." Bruce said.

"I was not whining." Tony defended.

"You were, like a dog." Bucky chimed in.

"It's all okay though." Steve said. "Pete, were all curious about what's had your attention for the past week and a half, so do us a favor and please just tell us."

Peter blinked at them. "Can you wait like five more minutes? I had a whole demonstration set up and now I need to change it slightly because Dr. Banner is a good secret keeper." They all groaned as Peter went back towards the elevator. "Six minutes tops. I'll have FRIDAY tell you when to come down."

They were all silent for a moment before Clint spoke. "You guys know how when you haven't eaten for a while and you get dressed up and go to a fancy restaurant and you see a waiter coming with food and completely bypass your table? That's what this moment just felt like."

AVENGERS

Peter hurried into the lab. There was no set up or demonstration. He had just thought Bruce would've told them and it would help with the weird embarrassment he was feeling. It did seem rather silly if he really thought about it. Even with all the technology they had, they couldn't travel through time. Strange of course was an exception because he used a magic rock.

He picked up his device, checking it one more time to see if he missed anything. It did honestly just look like a really bad toaster oven. He was sure everyone would be able to identify everything that was used to make it, mainly the toaster, microwave, and blender parts. There was nothing he could do about it now.

He did feel like he should test it though. Even though he had the plan of testing it with everyone else, he felt like he would get teased less if it worked at least once even if no one was watching.

So he set the dial forward ten minutes, pressed a few buttons and waited. He didn't know what he was expecting to happen but knew it wasn't good when the thing started to smoke. When he attempted to stop it, it caught fire and sort of exploded, leaving a scorch mark in the middle of the table. So much for a trial run.

"Uh FRIDAY, you can tell everyone they can come down now." Peter sighed, slightly defeated. The pieces were everywhere, scattered among the surprisingly clean floor. Had Tony cleaned the prior day and he just didn't notice?

"The boss will be down momentarily."

And since when had FRIDAY's voice sounded like that? Is that what happens when he ignores people for extended periods of time?

He went around picking up the scraps of the machine. He would make it work somehow. He knew the concept, or at least a very, very broad version of the concept. One day he would make it work.

It wasn't long before the lab door opened.

"Okay, before you ask what happened, let me say that I-" The words caught in Peter's throat as he saw the man in front of him.

It was Tony, out of breath in a pair of faded jeans and AC/DC T-shirt, but he was aged. His hair was all gray and there were very fine wrinkles on his face.

"Peter?"

His voice was a bit husky and worn but the single word was barely above a whisper.

Peter took a moment to process what he was seeing before piecing it together. "Oh no."

Weeeeee hello. I'm not dead. Lots of things have been going on but here I am.

I've had this idea for a while; based on the comics where Peter was sassy and actually built a time machine. Hopefully it works out all nice.

Please point out any spelling or grammatical errors I might have missed so I can fix them in the future. Leave a review! It gives me those warm fuzzy feelings inside and i love it.

Hope ya liked it. See ya later!