One week.
One week.
One week since Peter had saved the planet and lost his entire world.
One week, seven hours, and thirty-six minutes.
He was counting. Every damn second was a second more likely that he wouldn't find her.
He couldn't lose her.
Or he would find her, but it would be too late.
Peter had power. Through SUSANNA, he had access to more technology, resources, databases, people, than anyone else on the planet.
So why couldn't he find her?
Why hadn't they found anything?
Thwick.
The web attached. Gravity pulled him down, then the line jolted him back up into the air.
Thwick.
Why couldn't he find anything?
He had one job.
Thwick.
He'd failed.
No.
No.
Peter didn't know that yet.
He couldn't fail.
He wouldn't.
The next web missed its intended skyscraper.
"Peter, be careful! You're falli-" SUSANNA demanded from inside the suit. The new display he and Tony had developed blared red.
"Mute."
Because failing her?
The ground rushed closer and closer, until instinct was screaming move.
He wasn't sure he'd survive it.
At the last possible second, he launched a web. His feet skimmed the pavement, before he slid to a rocky stop.
"Spider-Man."
Peter whipped his head around.
Daredevil was standing in an alleyway entrance. The streetlight illuminated his masked face. His jaw was clenched, his shoulders were tense.
This wasn't Hell's Kitchen.
What was Daredevil doing here?
"Can we talk?"
No, he didn't really want to.
Peter held no anger toward Daredevil. He really didn't.
But talking to the person who- involuntarily -had put his aunt in the hospital in the first place seemed like a big chore at that moment.
He was about to turn him down. Opened his mouth to make excuses, get out of there.
"Please."
Daredevil's voice had cracked a bit. Gone was the gravelly, rough tone that Peter associated with Hell's Kitchen's vigilante. It was replaced with something smaller, more vulnerable and desperate. The words froze on Peter's tongue.
Daredevil had probably remembered, just like everyone else had within the first twenty-four hours of GWEN being launched.
He wanted to apologize.
Peter was tired of apologies. He got apologies all the time from Stark. Peter wasn't oblivious. The way the man threw money at him, let him use his lab, helped him develop the new suit was nothing but guilt coercing the billionaire into doing nice things for Peter.
Peter didn't need apologies and guilt. They didn't reverse what had happened, didn't make everything better. Didn't bring his aunt back.
But if it would relieve Daredevil's guilt, he'd let him.
He sighed, defeated.
"Yeah, sure. What's up?"
"Can we go someplace a little more private?"
"Sure, I'll follow you. Lead the way."
Someplace a little more private ended up being the rooftop of a two story building in Hell's Kitchen, fifteen minutes from the alleyway where'd they met. It wasn't a horrible neighborhood for Hell's Kitchen, wasn't the best, either. The apartment buildings, including the one they were standing on, were old, but in relatively decent condition. The street below was empty of people. There was an obnoxiously bright electronic billboard across the street that illuminated everything in fluorescent lights.
They stood awkwardly, concealed behind a big ventilation unit protruding from the roof. Peter absentmindedly watched advertisements flash across the billboard, waited for Daredevil to say what he wanted to say.
"This is my apartment."
Peter turned his head towards Daredevil. His eyebrows rose in surprise.
"I wouldn't have been able to afford it, but the billboard brought the price down. It apparently makes the apartment unlivable for everyone else, but I-I." He stopped. Took a breath. "I'm blind, so it doesn't really matter."
Then the words were spewing out, like Daredevil couldn't get them out fast enough.
"My name is Matt Murdock, I'm a lawyer. My-my." His breath hitched. "My best friend's name is Foggy, I was in a chemical accident when I was a kid and it gave me enhanced-"
Peter realized what he was doing.
"Dude, just stop!"
Daredevil shut his mouth. Never had the man looked more uncertain, more tormented.
"Listen, it's not your fault. I don't blame you. It's not your fault that she was hospitalized, it's not your fault that your hands were the ones that put her there. You don't have to tell me all of this. I don't want revenge, because I don't blame you. I would never want to hurt you, or your best friend, as some twisted way of getting even. It's not your fault. You couldn't do anything about it."
"But I could have fought it, could have had-"
Peter snorted.
"Are you kidding me? Captain America couldn't fight it. Stop blaming yourself for things outside of your control. Yeah, it hurts. Yeah, I wish more than anything it hadn't happened. But it's in the past, and there's nothing we can do about it. You have to move on. I'm the one who should be sorry. I-I-"
Had almost killed him.
"-Hurt you, and I wasn't the one under kvilla's influence. "
"I would have done the exact same thing if I was in your position. I… I don't deserve your forgiveness. I hurt her. Beat her within an inch of her life. Yeah, maybe I was mind-controlled, but it was me who did it."
Peter couldn't get mad at him for not just letting it go. He knew he was worse, beating himself up for things he couldn't control, things that weren't his fault.
"Look. I know nothing I say can make you believe it's not your fault, prevent you from torturing yourself with it, maybe not right now, at least. Just… work towards forgiving yourself. Please."
Peter could almost hear the argument going on in Daredevil's head. He was visibly conflicted, completely still.
What Peter did next was completely unexpected, even to him.
It was an awkward side hug, the kind normally given to family friends he didn't really know. Daredevil tensed, and Peter inwardly berated himself, because he'd been through this exact same scenario twice this past week and had hated as much as the poor guy was probably hating it right now.
But it got his message across.
It's okay.
Later that night, as Peter stared at the ceiling and fruitlessly waited for sleep to come, Daredevil wouldn't leave his mind.
He was such a hypocrite.
You couldn't do anything about it.
He could have, couldn't he? Could have gone to the hospital earlier, could have fought harder, worked more, had the foresight to plan ahead.
Stop blaming yourself for things outside of your control.
But if he'd just...
It's not your fault.
That's what she would have said, if she had been there, known what thoughts were going through his head.
Peter, it's not your fault.
At some point, she'd become another ghost in his head, right next to Captain Stacey, his parents, Uncle Ben, Gwen.
He hated that. If she was a ghost, it meant she wasn't coming back. When had he allowed the idea to form that she wasn't coming back?
I forgive you.
He couldn't forgive himself for not protecting her.
Work towards forgiving yourself.
He clenched his eyes shut and turned onto his side.
Maybe.
"Sir, Director Fury has a message for you regarding the Avengers Initiative."
Tony pinched the bridge of his nose.
"Read it to me, JARV."
He did.
By the end of the message, Tony had sat down in shock. He stared blankly at the ceiling.
Damn.
He had to talk to Bruce.
Ten minutes later, he was sitting on the couch in Bruce's living room, Bruce in the armchair across from him.
"What's up?" Bruce asked. You're kind of…" He waved his hands around in random motions. "-Not here."
"Fury wants the kid to join the Avengers."
Bruce's eyebrows went up.
"Really? Fury considers him Avengers material?"
"You don't?"
"Well, I do, but Fury's a different ballpark entirely. A bit of a skeptic, too untrusting. I didn't think he'd be willing to let a wild card on the team."
"Unless getting him on the team is a way of making him less of a wild card. Keep your friends close, enemies closer, and all that."
"Or if Fury already knows his identity," Bruce suggested. "You remembered, someone else could have too."
Tony rubbed at his temples.
"I sure hope not. Kid's got enough on his plate."
"So why'd you come and tell me about it?" Bruce asked.
"So you can invite him. Fury wants to meet with him tomorrow, in the Avengers common area, just us, the kid, and Fury."
Bruce studied Tony for a moment. There was an impish gleam of green in his eye.
Uh oh.
"Peter, Tony's got something to tell you!" Bruce called.
Tony threw his hands in the air.
"Hey, hey, this is not what I signed up for."
"Stop being a guilty coward, interact with him a bit. You two are a lot alike."
The door opened. Tony glared at Bruce, then schooled his face into a more neutral expression.
"Hey Kid, how's-"
Peter held up a hand.
"Don't bother, I heard the entire conversation. I'll think about it."
The kid turned around, went back into his room, and shut the door.
'We're screw-ups,' Tony mouthed at Bruce.
Bruce sighed.
"Tell me about it."
Did he like the idea of having to see all the Avengers again?
Not in the slightest.
Did he see any way around it?
None.
He grudgingly knocked on the window to the Avengers Commons area. He and Bruce had decided the best way to handle this would be for him to take the subway to Queens. SUSANNA had turned off cameras around Peter's house. He'd shed the plain clothes, donned the suit, then he'd swung back into Manhattan. All of them had decided it would raise too much suspicion for Spider-Man to already be in the Tower when Fury had arrived.
JARVIS slid the window open and Peter climbed through.
Everyone's eyes were on him, except for Tony and Thor's, who weren't there. They were all seated on the couches and armchairs around a coffee table, poker faces on. Even Bruce did a good job of masking any recognition or feelings of empathy, though the green suddenly became more pronounced in his eyes when Peter stepped into the room. There were only two seats left, on a couch.
He supposed Tony wasn't the worst person to sit next to, even if he wouldn't have been his first choice.
"Hey everyone."
The cheerfulness came naturally with the mask, like he wasn't standing in a room full of people who had been trying to kill him weeks ago. The relaxed posture was only a little bit harder to fake.
"Spider-Man," Nick Fury greeted. "I don't believe we've met."
He held out his hand to shake.
Peter's spider-sense twinged.
He forced himself not to take a step back. He refused the extended hand, waved instead.
"I'd say nice to meet you, but I'd be lying," Fury continued. "People like you cause a lot of problems for people like me."
"Same here," Peter responded. "Are you here to berate me for keeping my identity or a secret, or is there another purpose for this meeting?"
"I'm here to talk about a little something called the Avengers Initiative."
And Peter knew that, of course, but the words still sent a little shiver of anticipation down his spine.
The Avengers. Nine months ago, they'd been heroes to the planet, six months ago, they'd become something like villains to Peter. Now, he wasn't sure how he felt.
He wasn't sure how he felt about being part of them, part of a team. Spider-Man was a friendly neighborhood Spider-Man, he worked alone. He saved who he could where he could.
Being part of the Avengers meant a farther reach. It meant he could save more lives.
It also would restrict him. Being part of a team meant he was depended on, needed to be there when they want him. It limited where he could go, later on.
"What about it?" Peter asked.
"I want you-"
The door swung open and Tony strode in. He had sunglasses on, despite that they were indoors. It masked the shadows under his eyes, any expression that might have been in his face.
"Sorry I'm late. What did I miss?"
He glanced at Peter, then at everyone else.
"Stark, we were just-"
"Oh good, nothing important," Tony interrupted. "Who wants a drink? Spider-Man? Oh, you're wearing a mask. Don't worry, you can have a straw."
Nobody spoke up, but Tony seemed to take that as a yes.
"JARVIS, seven drinks, one with a straw."
Bruce's face paled half a shade. Peter almost laughed out loud. He had fought Avengers, dealt with so much, and Bruce was worried about Peter having a little drink? He was pretty sure he couldn't get drunk with his metabolism anyways.
Tony wasn't doing all of this for no reason. Peter was sure he had some ulterior motive, maybe was trying to throw Fury off.
He was layering on extra levels of irritation and arrogance. Peter was appreciative, that Bruce and Tony were such excellent actors. That they were willing to defend him.
It was funny to think of Tony Stark defending him. Yet the rich billionaire had gone above and beyond to practically spoil Peter- the money he was investing into Peter's suit, taking care of his home in Queens, finding his aunt. Protecting him from the world's most formidable intelligence organization.
Peter didn't like it, especially since it was guilt-motivated, just like Bruce's actions, just like everybody else's actions had been the past week. But what other option did he have? He had to survive somehow. He had to find her. He'd be a fool to turn the help down, when Tony was his best shot.
Tony, who had started JARVIS with the drinks, took a seat on the couch and patted the spot next to him.
"Don't just stand there, sit down."
Peter sat.
Then JARVIS brought the drinks over, and Peter turned his drink down, along with everyone else in the room excluding Tony and the Black Widow.
Fury had watched Tony's interruption with increasing levels of irritation. Once Tony had finally settled, he began again.
"Are you finished?"
Tony sipped at his drink.
"Sure am. Go ahead."
"As I was saying, the Avengers Initiative. Captain America over here seems to think you, Spider-Man, would be a good addition to the team, and the rest of the Avengers seem to agree with him. Personally, I dislike the idea of having an unknown on the team I need to be able to trust the most. Unknowns cause trouble. But your work with kvilla speaks for itself, and the fact that the Avengers root for you says something."
He waited for Peter to say something. When Peter didn't speak up, he continued.
"Would you consider, Spider-Man, becoming a part of the Avengers Initiative, under the agreement that your identity remains your secret unless you break any federal or state laws?"
He'd been waiting for him to say it, but he was still unprepared with an answer.
He could sense Tony next to him. He was the only person in the room not looking at him. His eyes were fixed on his phone screen, instead, like he didn't care about the conversation.
He was texting SUSANNA, Peter realized with no small amount of shock. She seemed to be scolding Tony for offering him a drink.
Would the overprotective figures in his life get over it? He hadn't even touched it.
Fury cleared his throat.
"Do you need some time to think about this?"
Peter turned his head away from Tony's phone and back towards Fury's one eye.
"Yeah, that would be great."
Rogers spoke up.
"It would be great to have you on the team. And-" He hesitated. "We all want to apologize for what we did to you the past several months."
Like apologizing made it better.
It was sweet of him to try.
Peter waved his hand carelessly.
"It wasn't your fault, and I didn't come here for the pity party. You've delivered your message. I'm gonna think about it."
He sprung off the chair. It took all of his self control not to give Bruce a second glance.
The window slid open, and he was gone, before Fury or anyone else in the room could say another word.
Join the Avengers.
Become an Avenger.
He wasn't sure what he should do.
Yes?
He could save more lives.
No?
He could put time and energy into saving Aunt May.
Yes?
He'd have a team behind him, people to watch his back. He wouldn't feel so lonely.
No?
Teams hurt, teams betrayed. Peter knew it wasn't their fault, but how was he supposed to work with people he was physically, uncontrollably afraid of?
Yes?
He didn't want to feel lonely anymore. If he didn't find Aunt May, who else would there be?
A word caught his ear.
Peter.
It was the floor above, in Bruce's lab. Bruce had said it.
"-Peter, and I know you do too. Would you do all of it for him, if he wasn't who he was?"
"You know me, Brucey. If it weren't for kvilla, I wouldn't give a shit for the kid, beyond him being Spider-Man. I mean, the science part is great, but just because he's smart doesn't mean he gets special treatment from Tony Stark. Kvilla… it changed things."
If he was honest, it stung a little, but really, had he expected any different?
There was a silent pause, then Tony spoke again.
"Don't give me that look. Would you have, if he wasn't Spider-Man?"
Would Bruce have? It was a good question, one that had Peter curious, the kind of curious that is accompanied by a sense of nervousness, a sense of dread.
"...I wouldn't have met him if he wasn't Spider-Man."
"Yeah, but if you had? And he'd just been some smart kid with a tragic story?"
Peter held his breath.
"...There's a lot of smart kids with tragic backstories, Tony. It's not a fair question to ask. It's the fact that he's Spider-Man that makes him stand out. I mean, sure, I'd want to help him, but not necessarily to the extent I have. I feel bad, Tony. Dealing with all that stuff is hard enough, genetic enhancements, then saving the world to top it off? "
"Yeah, yeah. It makes me feel guilty too. Wish we'd do our job better so the kid wouldn't have to."
The breath leaves Peter like a slowly deflating balloon. It was slow and painful.
Guilt.
Arguably, the most powerful motivator. Of course nobody cares about Peter Parker. He's just the same kind of little guy big people forget about, the little guy Spider-Man had sworn to protect.
He's tired of being a burden. Tired of people helping him because they pity him.
Should he join the Avengers?
He's not so sure.
SUSANNA finds Peter's aunt.
It's so shocking, so unexpected, that she stumbles in her conversation with Peter. They've been looking for days. Three weeks, now, with not even the slightest hint that May Parker existed. Maybe, perhaps just a little, the search had begun to wane. The original intensity and urgency in everything they did had begun to wear down as it became apparent that discovering the whereabouts- or remains - of May Parker wasn't happening overnight.
This slight glimmer of hope, as thin as it was, would relight within Peter the same devouring devotion that had been consuming her mijo ever since he'd first heard word of what had happened to his aunt. The blurry camera footage wasn't even a complete match. There was only a 78% chance that this was her.
If it wasn't?
SUSANNA would hate to see what it would do to Peter.
She almost contemplated not telling him. For a fraction of a millisecond, she considered keeping silent until she was more certain that this was May Parker.
Then she dismissed the idea, because to keep Peter safe, she needed him to trust her. If he didn't trust her, he might change her programming, and then her first priority wouldn't be keeping Peter safe.
"What?" He'd asked, when she'd faltered.
"Stop swinging through the air and come back to the Tower. I think I caught a glimpse of her."
The spark in heartbeat, how he straightened up, how his next words were spoken with polar emotions- relief and dread, worried her immensely.
What if it didn't pan out?
What if she wasn't alive?
What if it wasn't her?
Once Peter had returned to the Tower, they reviewed the footage together.
A short glimpse of only half her face. She was in a wheelchair in front of a hospital in Bern, before the orderlies blocked the view of the camera, and wheeled her out of sight. Further scans of cameras in the area revealed the same orderlies, before they climbed into a van, but not another look at her face.
The van had a plate number. The number could be traced.
Just like before, SUSANNA expected the faces of the orderlies, the plate number, to reveal nothing suspicious, nothing that would hint at who had taken Peter's aunt, and why.
But this time there was something.
JARVIS found it.
"One of the orderlies is an active SHIELD agent," she told Peter.
Her mijo put his head in his hands and hunched over. Popular culture, media, all suggested this was a posture for people over the age of thirty. She hated seeing it on her boy before he'd even hit eighteen.
"That complicates everything," he mumbled into his hands.
It really did, didn't it.
JARVIS poked further into the SHIELD agent's history, files, reports. He was on a top secret mission for a department in SHIELD called 'Biological Assets'. That name didn't make her feel warm, comfy, happy, safe things.
The majority of the agent's current mission file had been redacted. The redacted information was only available as a hard copy, in the American embassy in Switzerland.
Coincidence?
She thought not.
What the file did tell her was that the retrieval mission wasn't for a woman named May Parker. It was for a Margaret Romerez.
The file described her.
Margaret Romerez was almost identical to May Parker.
Too much of a coincidence? SUSANNA was only sixty-three percent sure. There were things in the file that did not fit May Parker's description. The photo was blurry, so far they'd had no reason to believe SHIELD the bad guys.
But SHIELD had been involved in something sketchy, whether it was May Parker or not.
Had a sketchy 'Biological Assets' (and what fit 'biological asset' description better than an enhanced individual with a spider bite?) department within SHIELD gone corrupt? Figured out, somehow, probably through Kvilla, that Spider-Man and Peter Parker were the same person, and the best way to Peter Parker was through his aunt?
They wouldn't know unless someone could get access to the physical files in the American embassy in Switzerland.
Which was simple, right? Especially when you had a genius billionaire on your side with a magic flying suit, who could probably retrieve and copy the documents in less than twenty-four hours.
"We're not telling Tony or Bruce."
"What?" SUSANNA spluttered. "What do you mean we're not telling Tony or Bruce? Why?"
Her mijo had officially lost it.
"I don't want them to know yet," Peter insisted.
"Well how else are you going to retrieve the files? How else are you going to get to Switzerland? Hate to break it to you, but you're penniless and I'm not robbing banks for you."
"...I just said we're not telling them yet, not that we're not going to tell them."
"Peter, time is imperative! If we don't pursue this now, who knows when we're going to get another lead?"
"I… just give me a day. Please. Now that we know SHIELD has her, how hard can she be to track?"
It was so opposite from how he'd been acting these few weeks that SUSANNA almost had JARVIS scan for physical abnormalities and health concerns. He'd been willing to do anything to get her back, and now he wanted to wait?
Wait for what?
Better yet, why wait?
She asked him both questions.
"I want to be sure," he said.
He was hesitating because he didn't want to be disappointed, just like SUSANNA had hesitated in telling him because she didn't want to disappoint him.
That probably wasn't all there was to it, but she supposed it made sense.
"Okay, JARVIS will track the van, then, though I don't know if we'll have more luck with this one than we did with the last."
Peter climbed back into his suit and approached the window. SUSANNA was so glad Stark had worked with him to make something a little more high tech than spandex. Something she could use to monitor vitals and location, especially. If he wanted to go out as Spider-Man, she came along, and that made her feel a little bit better about his excursions.
"Good."
He paused, one foot out the window, the other in.
"Hey SUSANNA?"
"Yeah Peter?"
"You're the best."
If she had been physically capable of smiling, every single bone in her body would have been doing it.
"And don't you forget it, mijo."
"Tony," Peter began.
He hadn't gone back out as Spider-Man after SUSANNA had possibly found Aunt May. He'd wandered into Stark's lab instead and had begun tinkering with his suit.
If Peter wasn't out as Spider-Man or using Dr. Banner's lab to look for his aunt, he was in Stark's lab tinkering with his suit. It had become the new shaky normal.
Tony didn't look up from the delicate circuit board he was bent over.
"Yeah?"
"Do you only give me all this attention because I'm Spider-Man and you feel guilty that I was the one that had to deal with kvilla?"
Tony dropped the tool in his hands.
"Shit kid, give me more of a warning if you're gonna ask questions like that."
Peter didn't apologize. Just waited.
He needed to know.
Tony turned then, studied Peter. Peter bared his scrutiny patiently.
"...You overhead our conversation the other night," he said finally.
"Yeah."
"Through SUSANNA?"
"No."
Tony's eyes narrowed.
"Because you're enhanced."
"Yeah."
Tony turned back to the mess of wires on the table.
"Then why are you asking?"
"Because I wanna know who I can trust."
He snorted.
"Well I'm not that. What you heard is the truth, kid. I'm not going to soften it. You never would have even turned our heads, even with all those brains of yours, if it weren't for Spider-Man and what kvilla did to me. What kvilla told me about you. And yeah, I give you special attention because I feel bad that I didn't do my job earlier. I'm not doing this out of the innate goodness of my heart and I won't pretend to, either."
Peter was grateful for the honesty. It might have stung, but lying would have been worse.
He asked Bruce almost the exact same question later that night.
Bruce did what was predictable.
Stuttered. Fumbled. Quickly dismissed it, insisted he cared about Peter for more than just Spider-Man, not just because he was a hero.
Peter could hear his heartbeat speed up, saw his eyes flicker away from Peter's face, even as the words haltingly stumbled out of his mouth.
And it was for that reason he decided to trust Tony with what he was about to do and not Bruce.
Should he join the Avengers?
The split-second, grainy image of his aunt was ingrained in his head. He could see it whenever he shut his eyes, still managed to visualize it when he opened them.
Yes?
He wouldn't have to work alone, wouldn't have to fight alone.
No?
Guilt. The only reason they did what they did, offered what they did was because he was Spider-Man and they felt guilty. There would be no relief to the loneliness if Peter Parker wasn't included.
Yes?
Access to resources, he could reach more people.
No?
He had responsibility, above all, to protect his aunt.
No?
Peter didn't want to grow close to another mentor, another Uncle Ben, another Dad, only for Parker luck to rear its ugly head and he lose him too.
No?
Peter Parker was Spider-Man. Peter Parker was just another kid with a tragic backstory. Spider-Man could never fit in as an Avenger.
Should he join the Avengers?
Yes?
No?
No.
"SUSANNA," Peter said.
"Yeah, what's up?"
He stood up from his perch on the edge of an Uptown Manhattan skyscraper, and stretched. The sky glowed an unusually brilliant gold as the sun descended behind the landscape.
"Tell the Avengers and Fury I decline their offer."
Happy holidays! Just the epilogue after this, and Infiltration is finished! Be on the lookout for the followup story, Manipulation.
Tumblr: (a t)gammathetaalpha