Peter was pulled out of his dream but the incessant beeping of his alarm. I let out a small groan, putting an arm over his face. It was way too early. He felt as if he'd only slept a few hours.

He had been at the Avengers Tower for almost one week, now. So far, everything seemed to be going well, but Bruce had been dropping hints that he was going to need to be careful around Clint. Peter wasn't sure what he was talking about.

Except, as he opened his eyes, he understood completely.

There was dozens of dead flies scattered all over his bed.

He let out a high-pitched screech that he would definitely deny ever doing and leaped off the bed, sticking to the ceiling. He stared down at his bed in horror and started wiping at his skin as if there was some clinging to him.

Once he was sure that he was fine and didn't have any flies on him, he dropped down the floor.

He didn't know why or how the flies were there at first. It wasn't until he spotted a piece of paper on the floor next to his bed that it clicked in his mind.

The paper read, "Hope you have a nice, early breakfast."

Gross.

He shuddered lightly. He may be part spider, but he wasn't about to eat flies. That was just disgusting.

He crumpled the paper in his hand, growling lightly and cursing the Archer under his breath. This had to be what Bruce had been warning him about. Clint seemed to have an affinity for pranks. Sam, after all, was still refusing to cook for everyone until Clint apologized (and he seemed to be in no way about to do that).

For a moment, he simply stood there and thought, briefly wondering how he could get revenge on him. Sam seemed to have his own way of revenge, but Peter honestly couldn't think of anything that he could do. He didn't know Clint enough.

Besides, he'd never been good with revenge. He'd never been good with fighting back, even with his powers. At school, he still let bullies push him around. After all, if he used his powers, he could seriously hurt them and he would expose his identity. Neither of which was something he wanted to do.

It was just flies. He could deal with flies. He didn't have to make it into anything big. Maybe if he acted like it didn't bother him, Clint wouldn't do it again? That had always been what his Aunt May would tell him about bullies when he was younger. They're looking for a reaction, so don't give them one. Maybe it was the same with Clint.

With that in mind, he turned from the bed and headed to take a shower.


It wasn't until Peter got out of the shower did he realize the reason why he was so exhausted. It was only two in the morning. Someone had changed the time on his phone, and he knew who.

Okay, he could handle dead bugs in his bed. He could handle being a little tired. It was already three, and after the whole fiasco that morning, he knew that there was no way he was going back to sleep. He needed a way to entertain himself quietly until the rest of the Avengers woke up.

After disposing of the dead flies, putting his sheets in the laundry basket, and remaking his bed with some sheets he found in his closet, Peter headed down to the kitchen. He was getting a bit hungry and figured that a snack couldn't hurt. They had told him that he was free to raid the kitchen, after all.

As it turned out, he wasn't the only one who had the idea to get a snack. Tony was already in the kitchen, sitting at the table with a tablet in front of him and sipping at a cup of coffee. Peter had only been at the tower for a week, but even he could tell that the genius was addicted to the caffeinated drink. He knew that the man went to bed much later than everyone else and he was up at the crack of dawn. It was obvious to Peter that he was definitely sleep-deprived.

"You're still up?" Tony asked in slight surprise as Peter walked in and headed towards the pantry.

"Uh, not really," Peter responded, "Someone changed the time on my phone and put dead flies in my bed."

Tony smirked at that, shaking his head, "Clint's hit you. That means you're officially an Avenger."

Peter would never admit that those words almost made up for the entire morning. Of course, he technically was an Avenger. He'd signed all of those contracts that Coulson had given him. Still, after only a week, he still kind of felt a bit like an outside looking in. He could see the goofy mess that was the team, but he wasn't yet an actual part of it.

Maybe it was a good thing that Clint had decided to prank him?

Instead of voicing his thoughts, Peter simply shrugged and sat down beside Tony with some chips, "You do know that it's three in the morning, don't you?"

Tony glanced up at him, then back at the tablet, and raised his eyebrows, "Well, I do now. If I go to sleep now, I'll have four hours to sleep… I can stay up another hour and be fine."

Peter rolled his eyes, "I'm pretty sure you should be sleeping at least four more hours than that to be healthy."

The man simply waved him off. His eyes were glued to the screen as he tapped it several times, "I'll be fine. I've lived on three hours of sleep a night for the past few years."

Yep, Tony Stark, genius playboy philanthropist, was definitely sleep-deprived. Maybe he could work with Bruce to try and drug his coffee soon and make him sleep? After all, a sleep-deprived hero could not make the best choices.


Peter ended up watching television in his room for the next three hours. He flipped through the channels, never really finding something to actually focus on, until seven o'clock hit.

He ended up being the second one in the kitchen. The first was Steve, as he was a morning person.

"Good morning," he greeted politely as he took a seat at the table.

Steve glanced up at him. He was reading a book and Peter caught the title "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix".

"Morning, Peter. Sleep well?"

Peter gave a small huff and shook his head, "My alarm went off at two in the morning and there was a bunch of dead flies in my bed."

It was at that moment that Clint made his appearance, "Did you have a good breakfast, Petey?"

"Clint…" Steve said in a voice that clearly said that he was disappointed in him.

Clint sat down with his hands up in surrender, "Hey, he's a spider, isn't he?"

"I have some spider DNA," Peter corrected, "I'm mostly human… and I definitely do not like to eat flies."

The Archer simply rolled his eyes, as if that was a preposterous thing to claim, and changed the subject, "Is Sam cooking?"

"Have you apologized?"

Wow, The Avengers really had a way of walking in at the perfect opportunities.

"Come on, Sam. It was a week ago," Clint whined as he looked at him, "Can't you just give up? I know you miss cooking."

"I miss not being scared that I'll be attacked by a bird in my own room," Sam countered.

Clint huffed, but he didn't respond. Instead, he picked up the newspaper and glanced at the front page, "Ooh, Petey, you got an article."

"Really?" Steve asked, leaning over to try and read it.

Clint nodded, looking all too happy to read it out loud, "Spiderman: Friend or Foe? Spiderman has been seen swinging up over the sky and stopping crime. However, many people are starting to wonder whether or not he is just doing more harm than good? Why can't he let the police do the job? Is he going to turn on us soon and start to kill ordinary citizens?"

Peter peaked over at the paper in Clint's hands. Wow, Jameson was definitely grasping at straws here.

"Wow, they picked that photo?" Peter wondered out loud as he glanced at the one that was chosen. The other night, he'd sat the camera on a ledge, put a timer on it, and taken several photos of himself swinging down the street. There had been one rather good one that showed him in a free fall that he'd been sure that Jameson would choose, but it looked like a simple average one of him sitting on a ledge had been chosen.

Clint sent him an odd look, then paused and said, "Wait? This says 'Photo taken by Peter Parker'."

"Yeah," Peter shrugged lightly, "It pays well. I just take a few pictures while I'm out patrolling, send them in, and I have money to repair my suit or replace my webs."

Sam was smirking, having already known it, but Clint and Steve were staring at him in bafflement. A few minutes later, Bruce walked in and paused, "What happened?"


There was glitter covering his room.

That was the only thought that could flood through Peter's mind when he opened the door after training had finished. He stared at the room in surprise, unable to even move.

How had Clint found the time to even do this?

He huffed, glancing around the room in annoyance. There was glitter on his bed, glitter on his desk, glitter in the carpet, and glitter covering the walls. It was as if someone had thrown glitter onto the ceiling fan… which was probably exactly what happened.

Deciding that he was so not cleaning it up, he turned on his feet and headed back to the living room. Clint was already there, sprawled out on the couch and smirking at Peter as he entered.

"I'm not cleaning it up," Peter said, narrowing his eyes at the man.

Clint grinned, "Clean what up?"

"The glitter!"

"Oh, that," He responded, smirking widely, "Thought you might want to decorate your room a bit. You're welcome."

Peter threw his hands up into the air in frustration, "Do you know how hard it is to get glitter out of things?"

"Yeah, that's why I chose it," Clint said cheerfully as he hopped to his feet. He looked rather proud of himself.

Bruce walked in and, upon hearing that, sighed, "Clint, did you prank Peter again?"

"Of course. It's National Prank Peter day. Didn't you hear? I marked it on your calendar."

Bruce shook his head, sat in a chair, and started reading a book. Peter turned to Clint, exasperated, "Really? Couldn't you have at least told me that you were going to cover my room in glitter so I wouldn't have just changed my sheets after the fly incident?"

"How would that be fun?" Clint asked with a smirk. He walked around to Peter and put a hand over his shoulders, "Come on. I've pranked everyone on this team but you. It was your turn."

Something was suddenly crawling on his neck. Peter froze, shivering at the feeling.

"Did you just put a spider on his neck?" Bruce asked in disbelief.

Nope. Nope. Nope. Peter had enough of spiders crawling on his neck to last a lifetime. His mind didn't even process the thought that this probably wasn't a radioactive spider before he shot up to the ceiling, batting at the spider until it fell to the ground and crawled under the couch.

"Clint!" Bruce groaned.

Peter stayed glued to the ceiling, watching them while he was upside down. He glared at the Archer, "Not cool, man."

"Come on, I thought you wanted a friend."

"Maybe a human friend. Not a spider friend. I don't speak spider," Peter huffed, crossing his arms.

Clint just shook his head, laughing to himself, "Whatever. Just come down."

"No," Peter said stubbornly. He was not coming down, at least when Clint was in the room. He was not about to pranked yet again. He was tired of it.

The Archer started to look a bit nervous, "Come on, Peter. Steve will kill me if he finds out that I pranked you again… and let a spider loose in the tower. Just come on down and pretend it never happened."

Peter shook his head, arms crossed in defiance.

"Come on, Peter. I promise I won't do anything else," Clint begged, and Peter had to admit that seeing one of the most dangerous people alive beg was hilarious.

There was a pause as the door opened. Tony walked in, caught sight of the scene, smirked, and turned around, "Capsicle! I want to show you something!"

Moments later, Steve walked in. Clint was glaring at Tony, who looked smug.

"What is it? Why… Why is Peter on the ceiling?" Steve asked, looking confused.

Peter pointed at Clint, "He put a spider on my neck."

"Tattle tale."

Steve sighed, arms crossed and giving Clint his "Captain America is disappointed in you" face. It only took a few minutes for Clint to groan and turn to Peter, "I'm sorry."

"Now, was that so hard?" Steve smiled triumphantly and Peter grinned as he hopped back down to the floor.

"Apology accepted," Peter said happily, because he now knew how to get back at Clint. Sam might be able to get back at him by refusing to cook, but Peter had found a much more effective way. Steve.

And it probably had to do with the fact that he was the youngest and Steve had taken up an odd, protective manner with him.

As the group settled back down, Peter smiled to himself. He had to admit that it was nice to have people who seemed to care about him. He was starting to think that the only person he had in his life like that was his Aunt May. He was really starting to feel like he belonged, and that he really wasn't just an outsider looking in. Maybe-

His thoughts were cut off by a shriek from Tony as the spider crawled out from under the couch.

Maybe he had a family here?


Author's Note: Hope you guys like chapter four! I really wanted to dedicate a chapter to Clint and his pranks. In the next chapter, we're going to start to get more actual drama. The whole chapter will be centered around Peter and Bucky after the Avengers are called off on a mission, so keep an eye out for it!

I am going to say that this story is really setting up for the actual plot. The last chapter will involve a huge shift in the tone for the rest of the series, but I needed to establish the setting and the character relationships and things. The next story, which will be called A Different Kind of Rescue, will involve much more action and drama.

Thanks for reading!