{ Julia }

Julia adjusts the grip on her backpack strap as she maneuvers her way through the library, heading to the back where the computers are, as is Peter. She spots him sitting alone and ignores the way her heart skips a beat when he sees her and smiles.

"Hey!" He excitedly says, pulling out the seat next to him. "How was art club?"

"Uh, it was okay," she whispers, slipping off her backpack. "Not the same without Liz, you know?"

"Yeah," he softly replies, tapping away on the computer keyboard.

Julia looks around the empty library, a little confused, and sits beside him. "Why aren't we doing this with Ned?" She asks. "He's best with computers."

Peter looks up from the keypad to the monitor. "He's, uh, he's busy right now."

Julia stares at him. "He's not coming, is he?" Peter doesn't look up from the screen, and that's all Julia needs to know something went down between them. "What happened?" She asks, and Peter finally looks over at her.

"We — It's — It's not important. Look." He turns the monitor towards her, and Julia rolls her eyes to the screen. "This is one of the articles Karen showed me when we were at Tallman Island," he explains. "Simon was a chemical engineer when his wife was diagnosed with cancer. He tried everything he could to save her, but she died anyway. Now he's got a weapon that takes and gives life and he can cure any illness even death."

It takes Julia a moment but she says, "Simon wants to bring his wife back."

Peter drums his fingers on the desk and snaps finger guns at her like she's right on the money and says, "And I'm willing to bet he puts the cure into the weapon to do it."

Julia bobs her head back and forth in contemplation. "He may use the cure to enact the exchange process but the cure isn't what powers it."

"What do you mean?" He asks.

Julia sighs, dreading this next part. "I… told Marshall's informant that he needed a power cell large enough to make the device work and, well, I may or may not have suggested an Arc Reactor."

Peter gapes at her. "I knew I heard Mr. Stark's suit on that platform! I knew it!"

Julia grins a little at him. He's pretty cute when he's excited.

But then he worriedly brings his hands to his head, whispering, "Oh, Mr. Stark's gonna kill me. Yup. This is — This is it. This is how I die. I stopped Mr. Toomes but I couldn't stop Mr. Marshall and now Mr. Stark's gonna bury me alive and dance on my grave."

Julia frowns. "Not necessarily."

Peter glares at her. "A guy with a biological weapon stole a multimillion dollar piece of tech from the most powerful man in the world and you don't think Mr. Stark would personally hand me my own ass?"

Julia shrugs. "I know someone that can help us get it back. Or at least give us some answers."

"Who?" Peter asks, and Julia just smiles.


{ Peter }

"177A Bleecker Street."

"Thanks again," Julia says to the cab driver, and Peter follows her out of the car. He looks up at the brick and stone building, which is kind of weird in the middle of Greenwich Village. Not that the building is weird but the circle near the top with lines curving through it is.

Julia walks up the few steps and pushes open the massive doors to a room larger than possible for the size of the building. "What the…" Peter exhales, and closes the door behind them, peeking his out to make sure what he's seeing is real. He turns back around and with the door shut, it's pretty cozy inside with the dim lights overhead and the dark wood floor and long brown staircase straight ahead.

"C'mon," Julia says, ascending the stairs. "They're this way."

Peter stops short. He is not walking up all those stairs. He rolls up his sleeves, shoots a web from either hands, and pulls himself up to the second level. Julia makes it to the landing and moves past him, muttering, "Show off."

He smiles, and follows her down the hall to a study. A woman stands with her arms folded, quietly talking to someone in an armchair facing away from them. The woman's face lights up when they step into the room and Peter knows it's for Julia because he has that same look whenever he sees her.

"Jules!" She sighs, approaching Julia and wrapping her in a hug. "You gotta stop growing, kid! You're taller than me."

"Everyone's taller than you, auntie Chris."

The woman pulls back, taking Julia by her shoulders. "What did I say about calling me Chris?"

"What did I say about calling me Jules?"

"Oh, whatever," she says, playfully scrunching her nose. "Your dad gets to call you that so I get to call you that. How is he?"

"Busy," Julia quietly says.

"He's not busy, he's working hard. And looking after your mom."

Peter's chest gets all tight and he looks at Julia, knowing how sensitive the subject of her mom is, but Julia just looks at the floor and the woman lightly squeezes her shoulder and walks over to Peter.

"You must be Peter," she says, extending him her hand. "Hi, Christine Palmer, nice to meet you."

"Nice to meet you too," he replies, shaking her hand. "Um, so, listen, what am I doing here exactly?"

"Peter," she says, taking his arm and leading him further into the room, "I'd like to introduce you to Doctor Stephen Strange. Stephen, this is — "

"Peter Parker, the Spider-man." The man rises from his chair, literally rises, his red cloak billowing behind him, and softly lands in front of Peter who glances at Julia looking pretty at ease with this whole thing.

"You — You know who I am?" Peter asks him.

"I've had the unfortunate pleasure of looking into my future and saw that our paths were destined to cross." Peter raises a confused brow and Stephen adds, "Julia called."

Peter looks over at her asking, "And h-how do you two know each other?"

Stephen rolls his eyes as if the answer wasn't obvious. "She's fifteen with the mind of a seasoned epidemiologist, living with a trained intensivist; I keep close tabs on those entering my previous field."

"Ignoring the fact I don't know what half those words mean, what's your current field?"

Stephen breathes in deeply and raises his left hand while making circular motions with his right. An orange circle appears and within it, lies the view of another room in the townhouse.

"Woah," Peter draws out, leaning forward and inspecting the flat doorway. "You can open portals to other rooms?"

"Worlds, too."

"Cool," he breathes, but then his curiosity gets the better of him and he asks, "How does that work? Do you, like, vibrate the particles in the air at a certain frequency that allows you to see through the human spectrum?"

"Magic," Stephen says, raising his eyebrows.

Peter smiles. "That's a way better answer."

"Stephen, what can you tell us about this?" Julia asks, producing the small vial of the cure from her pocket and handing it to him. Peter didn't realize she still had it.

"Ah, ISO-36," he says, looking it over. "A powerful narcotic. How did you come by this?" He asks, taking a seat in his chair again. He gestures for them to sit with him and Peter shares a look with Julia. She nods her head, letting him know that they can trust him, and they sit in the chairs across from him and Christine. They tell them of the explosion at the water treatment plant, how Simon Marshall poisoned the water supply because he wanted to test the cure, how he bombed the hospital after curing everyone in it, and even fighting off his deadly weapon just last night.

"He tried to what?!" Christine shouts.

"Please don't tell my dad," Julia begs. Christine runs her hands down her face and turns to Stephen, talking with him in a low voice.

"So he's done it," Stephen says in awe. "I didn't think he'd be able to pull it off," he adds, and Christine smacks him on the shoulder for it. Peter stifles a laugh.

"Pull what off?" Julia asks.

"The device you speak of," Stephen says. "It's called the Juvenator. It's designed to siphon one's life force and place it in another."

Julia's forehead creases with skepticism. "I didn't think people had a life force. I thought we all just ran on the blood flowing through our veins."

"I once thought the same," he replies, and there's a heaviness in his voice that Peter recognizes as humility. "Simon Marshall was a consultant for the hospital back in 98'," he continues, "and when his wife got sick, he started developing a serum that could cure any illness, ISO-36. It adapts to its host, changing its chemical makeup to bridge the gap of the illness between the body itself. However, without a vessel to contain it, taking and giving that life force was just a fantasy. He came up with prototypes for the machine, designs, schematics, but the technology just couldn't permit it."

"Until Stark Enterprises existed," Peter says. Stephen cocks an eyebrow at them and Peter laughs nervously. "They, uh, they stole an Arc Reactor from Mr. Stark and we, uh, we kind of — Well, not kind of — We need your help to get it back."

Stephen gives a dry laugh. "It's already in the Juvenator, he's already used it. I'm afraid there's no way to get it back that doesn't involve taking down Marshall's entire operation. You stop Marshall, you get the Reactor back."

"How do we do that?"

"How did you take down Adrian Toomes?"

Peter is taken back a little. "You know about that?" He asks.

"I know everything."

"Well, at least you're humble about it," Christine mutters. Stephen smiles at her teasing and Peter does too, their relationship reminding him of his and Julia's except, they don't have a relationship. They have a friendship. And that's starting to feel like a real kick to the shins.

"I just have one question," Peter says, drawing the others from their conversation. "When Simon poisoned the water supply, it spread like a virus. And I was there the night the it exploded, I was already exposed, so why didn't I get sick?"

Stephen hums in thought and leans forward in his chair. "I'm going out on a limb here," he says, "but I'm assuming the radioactive nuclear instability found on the protein coating of your cells transformed your lymphatic system and renders the infection metabolically inert."

Peter blinks a few times. He looks at Julia for a translation and she leans over whispering, "Because you were bit by that spider, you're immune."

"Oh," he breathes, nodding in understanding.

"Now," Stephen says, standing from the plush armchair. "Let's get you home." Stephen creates another portal, crackling with magical energy, while Julia hugs her aunt goodbye. Peter peers through the orange circle to see his apartment waiting for him on the other side. "They're waiting for you," Stephen says, gesturing for them to step inside.

"Wait," Peter says, "they?"

"Bye-bye."

"Hey, wait!" Julia shouts, but Stephen waves his hand and the glowing portal swings toward them, sweeping them up and fizzling out once they land safely back in Queens.

Julia frustratedly groans at where the portal stood. "Stephen, you son of a bitch!"

"Uh, oh," a male voice says. "Steve, she said a bad word."

"You're still making that joke?"

Peter turns to see Mr. Stark chewing something in the kitchen and Captain Rogers leaning against the living room wall with his arms folded over his broad chest. "Again?" Peter flatly says. "Really?"

"Again?" Julia asks, looking between Peter and one third of the Avengers. "Freaking again?!" She shouts, bewildered, but Peter's too annoyed with their sudden breaking and entering to answer her.

"Where's May?" He asks, peaking into her room which, thankfully, is empty.

"Don't worry," Mr. Stark says. "She's out shopping with Pepper and Happy, hopefully buying that skimpy outfit."

"You've seriously got to stop with that."

"I have to stop?" He asks, except he's not really asking. "I was the one who just robbed of a multi-million dollar piece of tech and I have to stop? Want to tell me what the hell that's all about?"

Peter and Julia share a look before turning to the adults, and a slew of words come spilling out of their mouths, explaining the events over the past two weeks.

" — We had everything under control until I got sick — "

" — I couldn't just leave her there but then the hospital was collapsing — "

" — and then he had this death ray — "

"Okay," Captain Rogers interrupts, and Peter and Julia fall silent. "Give us a minute." He steps into the hallway with Mr. Stark and Peter's heart races in his chest as Tony looks at him with what Peter knows is disappointment. He knows that look better than anyone…

"Hey," Julia softly says. He looks up at her and tries to ignore the lightning in his veins from where she's gently touching his arm. "You okay?" She asks.

"Y-yeah," he replies. "Just, you know, wasn't expecting them to show up."

"And you think I was?" Julia says making Peter chuckle. "Sorry about that, by the way."

"Don't," he says, cutting her off as politely as possible. "You don't have to apologize. Especially after everything I've kept from you." She smiles. "So," he continues, "you've met four Avengers."

"Who's the fourth?" She asks, furrowing her brow.

Peter props his head in his hands, bats his eyelashes, and gives her the cheesiest smile.

"No," she says. "No, I — I don't get it."

"Oh, come on," he says, defeatedly lowering his hands. She laughs.

"Hey, feisty pants," Mr. Stark says, emerging from the hallway. "Get over here." He nods his head for Julia to join him and she looks to Peter.

"Maybe I'm being recruited," she says with an upbeat frown and Peter chuckles as she walks over to him. And while she's over there talking with Mr. Stark in the hallway, Captain Rogers makes his way over to Peter in the living room.

"Hey, Peter," he says, shaking his hand.

"H-hi — Hello, sir. Cap."

"Steve," he insists. "Last time we met, you stole my shield. I'm glad to see we're meeting under better circumstances."

"A guy is planning on using a death ray on half of Queens until he gets what he wants, I don't see how that's much better."

Steve sighs. "Peter, you know I'd never put you in danger, right? Your safety is my number one priority."

"You do realize you dropped a metal platform on me like two months ago, right?"

"'First priority' my ass!" Mr. Stark calls out.

Steve hangs his head almost in embarrassment and ushers Peter into his bedroom where it's more private. "I did that because I knew you could handle it," he says. "Now, you tell me everything you know and I'll stop this guy."

Peter's heart falters.

Steve doesn't think he can handle this.

Maybe Mr. Stark doesn't think so either.

And that —

That alone is enough to want to prove them wrong.

"Sir, I can't let you clean up my mess," Peter says.

And Steve gives him one of those half smiles. "You're a brave kid, Peter. But you don't have to do this alone."

"I'm not alone," he shoots back, his immediate thought of Julia. "Look, these guys, they've come after people I care about. I can't let anything else happen to them. And I will stop this. I've done it before and I can do it again."

Steve reaches out and grips Peter's shoulder, not in an painful way. More of like a brotherly sort of way. Like, maybe… Maybe he and Mr. Stark know he can do this after all.


{ Julia }

"Mr. Stark," Julia says, trying to keep the annoyance out of her voice as she approaches him.

"Have we met before?" He asks, shaking her hand. "I feel like we've met before."

"You've probably read about me in the New York Times." Tony's eyes narrow behind his colored glasses and Julia sighs. "Does Julia Carpenter, 15, full ride to NYU in bioengineering ring any bells?"

"Oooh," he sings. "Kid genius. That's why you like Peter."

"What?" Julia laughs. "No," she says, folding her arms over her chest. "No, we're friends."

Tony hums. "I told myself that for 8 years and now I'm engaged. So you just keep telling yourself that. Denial is the first stage of grief."

"What?"

"What?" He repeats. Julia shakes her head a little. She feels like she's gonna get whiplash from talking with him.

"'First priority' my ass!" He shouts toward the living room, and Julia looks over to see Steve shaking his head and Peter standing there, looking over at her.

"Seriously, though. You know?" Tony asks, and Julia instantly understands what he's referring to.

"He told me a while ago," she quietly says.

"And you'll keep an eye on him?"

"I keep a real close eye on him," she says, extending her wrist and pulling back her jacket sleeve to show Peter's old web-shooter. Tony opens his mouth, already fuming, but Julia is quick to stop him. "And before you go popping that vein in your forehead, it was my decision. So don't blame him."

"You are fifteen years old," he seethes. "What are you thinking?"

"I'm thinking this city needs protection from someone who understands it. Someone who's not too busy or self-important to even notice us." The words come flying out of Julia's mouth before she realizes she's even saying them and with the look on Tony's face, she wishes she could take them back. "Mr. Stark, I apologize, I didn't mean — "

"Yes, you did," he spits. "If you're gonna make accusations like that, at least don't apologize for them. Say what you mean, and mean what you say." Julia nods and keeps her mouth shut in an attempt to salvage whatever bond was or could have formed between them. "Keep an eye out on your boyfriend, will you?"

"He's not my — Okay," she huffs, just accepting whatever he says at this point.

"And get my tech back," he shouts over his shoulder on his way out of the apartment. A moment later, Peter walks out of his room with Steve who smiles a goodbye at Julia. She salutes him as he leaves and Peter closes the door behind them.

He walks over to her at the couch and they look at each other, turn, and collapse onto the soft cushions after their whirlwind of an afternoon.

"We gotta get that Reactor back," Peter says.

Julia glares at him. "Ya think?"