Chapter 50 - On the Road With a Spider

Peter had only ever experienced the Compound with Mr. Stark. Well, not just the Compound. The Tower, too. He'd seen other people around the buildings, sure, he had just never interacted with any of them. On purpose, of course. Talking to people could always lead to uncomfortable questions and Mr. Stark had told him more than once what a bad liar he really was. So he had kept his distance from people in the Tower and Compound alike. Just to be on the safe side.

It came as a bit of a relief though, not dodging people. He still tried to keep his secrets close to his chest of course, especially since he didn't exactly know who of them was privy to all the details. But people were nice. Incredible nice, actually. Helen Cho had been nothing but patient with him, explaining things, respecting Peter's... well, his special circumstances. Miss Potts had been warm and kind, but of course all that might just be because they thought he was Mr. Stark's son. Or was it "knew" that he was? They knew he was. If it was true. Which it had to be because Mr. Stark certainly believed it to be true. So did Miss Potts and... well, shit.

There was that one thought that prevailed above all others: Mr. Stark, Miss Potts, they had no reason to believe these tests, to believe all this if it wasn't true. With all his emotions and thoughts muddied from what had happened in those past days, that was the one truth that stuck out like a lonely post for Peter to cling to. The one truth he could measure all the other things against. And as outlandish as things had been ever since Mr. Stark had rescued him, ever since Peter had found out about that secret connection, still nothing could have prepared him for where that had left him now. Nothing could have prepared him for being in close proximity to the Black Widow. Not Spider-Man, but him. Peter Parker, the boy that he still was for all intents and purposes.

The expression on her face had been guarded ever since she had picked him up from the med wing. Or maybe that was just her face. He had always tried to avoid looking at her too closely, even when he had the extra protection of the Spider-Man mask. Didn't want to draw attention. Well, that ship had sailed. He could positively feel her eyes on his skin, but there was nothing he could do. He was supposed to go with her. That's what Mr. Stark had said was going to happen and short of breaking himself out of the Compound and catching the bus instead, there was very little Peter could do about it.

She headed for the car parked right in front of the main entrance and just dipped her head in its direction. "Get in!"

It wasn't that he was scared. The chance that she would try to do something that could hurt or harm him was slim, otherwise Mr. Stark would have never signed off on this. He was absolutely sure about that much. Not for Peter Parker and definitely not for—

He shook the thought from his head. This wasn't the time to mull that one over. Not again. He took a couple of deep breaths, centering himself, pushing the lingering throbbing in his skull further down before he pulled the door open and let himself fall into the backseat.

"What are you doing?" Her eyebrows were raised as she looked at him in the reflection of the review mirror.

Peter's mind was racing. What had he done wrong? She... she had said to get in the car and he was in the—

"Come and sit in the damn front seat. I'm not your chauffeur."

"I... Mr... Mr. Stark said that..." His own voice was pathetically thin. "He said that you would... you would drive me."

"That doesn't make me staff." She waved him to the front again. "Go on. Move."

He hesitated for a moment, sort of hoping that he might come up with a reason why he should stay in the back. It truly felt like every inch of distance he could keep between them would be of benefit, but he couldn't think of a single reason why he should stay where he was. Maybe the collision with the concrete floor had damaged his head after all. Even as he carefully slid into the passenger seat, his mind was blank.

"Jeeze. Don't show too much enthusiasm, please. Rein it back."

He shot a quick look at her from underneath his lashes. Was this her making a joke? Was he supposed to laugh? His heart rate was picking up even more as she started the car. Quickly, he reached for the seat belt, made sure it was buckled properly just in time before the Widow his the gas. He had expected to be pressed into the seat by his body's force of inertia as the car would speed down the road but her driving style was quite tame by comparison. He slowly peeled his fingers from the seat's edges feeling a little silly for being so reactive.

She had her eyes on the road, fingers tapping along to the radio but Peter knew that she was watching him.

"It's okay that you don't trust me." Her voice was soft, almost bordering on chipper but Peter twitched with surprise either way. "In fact, that's a good thing. Healthy suspicion."

He blinked a few times, desperate to jump-start his brain. Was he supposed to agree with her? Tell her outright that he wouldn't trust her or was that a little too rude? It wasn't that he didn't trust her. Well, he didn't but that was more of a background noise though certainly omnipresent in his very bones. No, the thing that he struggled with most, was his fear. He didn't just not trust her, he feared her. Natasha Romanoff, spy per excellence. What if he said something that he shouldn't? Something that might offend her and get him in trouble, or even worse, something that she wasn't supposed to know. A secret. Like he had done with Miss Potts, only worse because the Widow would jump on that. Something he had heard and wouldn't even know he knew. She was supposed to be that good.

"Tony trusts me enough to drive you. That's gotta be good for something."

"Right," he whispered.

"Wow." She did shoot a glance in his direction then. "Tough crowd."

He wasn't going to bite. She was testing him, trying to find his weak spots and Peter wouldn't fall for it.

"It doesn't have to be this awkward. We could just chat a bit. This and that. You know... the things that people talk about. Common interests."

A low snort that he couldn't quite control rang through the car. Peter's voice was far from steady and he wished he was tougher, able to stand up to her with some strength. "What makes you think that we have any common interests?"

"Well, I can think of at least one."

The Widow made a dramatic pause like he was supposed to guess what that one thing was. Like it was so obvious. Peter wasn't playing her game though. He didn't care what she expected, just wanted to never have her look at him again with those eyes that seemed capable of seeing right through his very soul. Maybe she sensed his hostility, maybe she was even trying to stoke it.

"I don't know, how about..." She blew out an exasperated breath. "How about things that happened Siberia? We both seem to share some common interests there."

Peter bit his lip to stop himself from cursing at her.

"Come on. From what I heard you were dying to talk about it last week and I'm still missing some of the finer details."

"Fuck you!" He regretted the words even as they still rolled off his tongue. Great job he was doing at not letting her get to him. Just great. But Romanoff just smirked and her reaction bothered him more than he was really willing to admit. It was like she was laughing at him and he didn't appreciate that one bit.

"Stark men and their loyalty..."

"Shut up." He didn't regret that one even if he hadn't meant for the words to ring as harsh as they did. There was no sense of surprise emanating from her at his outburst though. She wasn't fazed at all. Probably because she was getting the rise out of him she was aiming at, but Peter just couldn't help himself. "You know nothing about me. Or about Mr. Stark for that matter. You wouldn't have done what you did if you were a somewhat... decent person and knew anything about him."

"Somewhat decent, huh?" Her lips still held that smirk though it had lost some of its superior energy. "What makes you think I'm a decent person?"

"Yeah, you're right." He scoffed at her, his voice hardly louder than a whisper. "What was I thinking..."

What he was implying didn't seem to bother her at all at. Maybe she knew it to be true herself. Probably just a spy thing, that she didn't care what other people thought.

"Decency is not a winning feature in this line of work, Peter. You'd do well to remember that."

He turned his face away from her. Where did she come off, lecturing him? He didn't need a lecture on decency or on how to be a hero, not from her.

"You've seen first hand what benefit decency had for Tony, didn't you? His reluctance to share anything is earned." Her voice was low and sympathetic and not for the first time Peter wondered what kind of extensive training someone like her would have gone through to have that kind of control over herself. "It's annoying, isn't it? When people don't tell you stuff. People you're supposed to trust."

"Right." He had a hard time to imagine a scenario in which Natasha Romanoff would not be in the know.

"I get how much you hated it when he tried to keep what happened in Siberia to himself. That wasn't about you though, if that's any comfort at all. He'd not have told anyone if he could have helped it. He keeps these things very much bottled up. You must have figured that out by now." She paused then blew out a hiss. "Shit, I bet not even Pepper knows."

Peter froze. Miss Potts didn't know? Was that even possible? She had been right there at the Compound when Mr Stark was in the coma, but now that Peter thought about it... Yeah, the things he had overheard her talking about to Agent Maria didn't really align with what Peter knew to be true. He swallowed hard, forced himself not to look at the Widow. She knew how to captivate her audience, he'd give her that. Curiosity was chipping away at his resistance even though he was completely aware that he shouldn't let her trick him like that.

"I mean, I don't blame him. That whole thing, Lagos, the Accords, Berlin, Leipzig. All of it. It was such a ridiculous shit show, even for our standards." She wanted him to look over at her, to poke his interest. It was so obvious how she tried to lull him in and still so hard to ignore. "Tony really got lucky with you, didn't he? Sticking up for him like you have."

Peter shook his head, couldn't stop himself. Mr. Stark had seemed anything but happy when Peter had tried to do just that. When he had tried to have his back, the man wanted none of it.

"It must have been really humbling for Tony that you managed to break through his server's security just like that. Believe me, many have tried that and failed." She said it like she was one of them, which she probably was. "Makes a little more sense with everything we know now of course. Same natural instincts, huh? Still, it's really impressive."

Was she trying to flatter him to make him talk? That was so transparent, it was almost offensive. He had no natural instinct like that. He'd just been lucky that he remembered some details about the new encrypting Mr. Stark had used. Some details he might have never thought Peter could utilize. Or wouldn't dare to utilize. What the Widow was implying was off. There was no magical DNA connection that had helped Peter, only the betrayal of his mentor. She could try to flatter him all she wanted, he wouldn't fall for that. Still, to underline the point he turned his head even further away from her, eyes on the New York state landscape rushing past the window.

The Widow sighed. "You don't have to feel bad, you know. It's normal to be curious and it's understandable that you wanted to protect him after everything he did for you. I, too, would have tried to hack that server to at least get some sense of what was happening."

"That's... that's not how it happened, I didn't—" He bit his tongue. No. He wasn't going to spill. Not to her, not to anyone! He crossed his arms in front of himself, as if wrapping them tightly around his body would physically keep his secrets locked inside.

"It's fine, Peter. I don't blame you for what you did." The sympathy she was capable of lacing her voice with made his insides cramp up. "After all, I wouldn't even know what happened if you hadn't."

"What?" His eyes shot over to her at last. "What do you mean, you wouldn't know?"

"None of us knew. Not until last week." She didn't even look over at him, eyes on the road, like it was the most natural thing that they were just chatting in the car. Like they weren't talking about Mr. Stark almost dying. "I think not even Steve really knew in what condition he had left Tony there."

Her face was hard, no sign of insincerity detectable. Still though... He shook his head, eyes back on the little houses flying by outside. "That's no excuse."

"You're right. It isn't."

Her words hung in the silence between them, their implication so clear that it startled Peter. Did she... did she actually fault Rogers for what he did? Was that what was happening? She had been on Mr. Stark's side in Germany after all. At first. Or maybe that had been a ploy. Though she never told Rogers about the Spider-Man connection Mr. Stark had with him. That had to be worth something. In the end though, what did that matter? She had done something, something that had driven a wedge between herself and Mr. Stark.

"What did you do to him?" His voice was still low. He wasn't under any illusion about the possibility of her simply lying to indulge him, but he did want to know what she had. Peter stole another short glance at her. Her eyes were firmly on the road, lips pressed tightly closed. For a moment he was going to let it go, but how could he? "You were with him in Leipzig. You fought with him and then... and then you were just gone." Peter now made a point to keep his eyes at her, his curiosity feeding a part of his brain that seemed to undercut his self-preservation.

"Why? Did you not happen to find video files of our conversation?"

Peter bit his lip. She'd not get him riled up to avoid the question. He readied himself to inquire further but it turned out, that was unnecessary. After a short silence, she kept talking.

"I told him to watch his back." Her face was stoic, not really giving away much.

"You threatened him?"

"I didn't—" She pursed her lips and sucked in a deep breath. "Yes. Yes, I did."

Peter blinked a couple of times, trying to digest what she was saying and a little taken aback by her honesty.

"I was wrong. I didn't know all the facts." She narrowed her eyes not on the drivers in front of them for sure but at whatever was going through her head. "I guess I'm still missing a couple of pointers, but Tony is notoriously tight-lipped about anything that's important."

It was a challenge not to agree with her. Maybe that truly was her tactic. Common ground. Maybe that's how she speculated Peter would turn on Mr. Stark, spill some secrets. His face felt hot, his heart hammered away in his chest. "Is that just your MO? You just... you get people to trust you so you can... can use them when it's convenient? Stab them in the back as soon as they served their purpose? Aren't you... aren't you supposed to have some kind of loyalty for your teammates?"

"I made a mistake. I thought I was doing the right thing. I thought I was just shaking him up, making him focus on the team. Helping them." Her head dipped in a subtle shake. "I made a mistake."

Peter's eyes fluttered down, away from her, flustered by how genuine her words rang in the quiet car. "Me too," he whispered.

She did send a glance his way at that. He hadn't even meant to say it out loud, but he just couldn't help himself. It was true, after all. He had made a mistake. The way he had gone behind his mentor's back, the trust he broke... It didn't matter how good he had thought his intentions had been, it had still been a mistake. Peter had let him down.

"Tony doesn't give a shit about any of that, Peter. I'm sure he was angry at first, of course, he would be. But none of that matters now."

He looked down at his hands. "You know him even less than you think if you actually believe that."

"No." She shook her head, making a point to look at him. "You'd be right, with everyone else you'd be right. Not with you."

But Peter wasn't wrong. No matter what she said he knew what had happened. She hadn't seen Mr. Stark that day at the Tower. The look on his face as he had figured out just how much Peter had exploited his trust. The disapproval. The utter betrayal in his mentor's eyes. She hadn't seen how all that had disappeared behind the mask Mr. Stark would wear for everyone else. How with that one big mistake, Peter had become like everyone else. No secret DNA connection would heal that.

"You weren't there." His fingers picked at each other and he couldn't find the courage to look up at her. "You don't know, you didn't see him."

She blew out a deep breath, eyes back on the road. "You're so much like him it's infuriating."

"Shut up," he hissed at her.

"Tell me about the video. Tell me what happened."

Peter actually snorted out a laugh at that. "Yeah, right."

"I can't—" She blew out another deep breath. "I can't help them if I don't know what happened. I need to know."

"Help them? Help them do what? Who even is them?"

"Tony. Steve. The team. They need to find their way back."

His stomach turned at the thought and he gave his head one defiant shake. "That's not gonna happen. There's no way in hell I'm telling you. Plus, he doesn't even hate Rogers. He doesn't even want him in the Raft even when I—" He stopped himself, shook the memory from his head not wanting to dwell on how much Mr. Stark had defended the Avengers to Peter even after everything they had done. "He already called you in this weekend. I mean, it's not like he's not already on his way back to... to the team." The word burned on Peter's tongue. On his way back to the chopping block was more like it.

"Wait, no." She frowned. "He didn't. He didn't call us."

"But then..." Peter wrecked his brain for an answer before he stumbled out his thoughts like an idiot. "But then why were you even there? It... it doesn't make any sense!"

"Sallic." She kept looking back and forth between him and the road. "We were tracking Sallic. When reached out to Tony I intercepted the call. That's why we knew. Tony..." She shook her head. "Tony would have never asked for help, not then. He would have walked into the open blaze head first instead of risking another stab in the back."

His thoughts froze as she said that name, circling only around that one name she had just thrown out there like it was nothing. "Sa-Sallic?"

"Yeah, I—" She stopped herself after a glance at his face. "Right. I... Listen, I'm sorry, we weren't more effective. We should have at least kept a better tap on him after Brooklyn, gotten there faster."

Peter's voice was wavering uncomfortably strong. "After Brooklyn?" His head was throbbing again. "What... what are you talking about?"

"Didn't Tony—" Her eyebrows were knitted together closely as she was casting longer calculating looks at him. "Sallic was why we were scouting out that building in Brooklyn. It was one of his hide holes. We came up a... little short on input, but still we should have been able to track him."

"Little short on input." He mulled that one over. So that monster's crew had been the reason why the Rouges had risked the city. "Little short on input, because I showed up instead."

"That... okay, that's absolutely not what I was saying or what I meant."

The hair on his neck was standing up tall.

"Hey, Peter, don't okay?" She reached over to him and as her hand landed on his thigh he braced himself, he didn't even know what for, maybe at least for his senses to send a shockwave through him, a warning to stay alert. That feeling never came though. "Take a breath. You need to calm down."

She was right. His breathing only came in low short puffs. That throbbing of his head didn't even come from the bump on the back of his head but from a piercing panic.

"You didn't know. You couldn't have known. You wanted to protect Tony and that... and that was admirable, brave really."

"And stupid," he pressed out under his breath.

"It's a steep learning curve. You'll get the hang of this."

Peter shook his head, lips pressed tightly together. Not anytime soon, he wouldn't. She sighed and pulled her hand away when it didn't seem like he'd jump out of the car in a full-on panic attack.

"Tony's gonna come around."

"Right."

She fell quiet then, maybe cause she didn't really believe that herself. Did any of them really believe that? That Mr. Stark would change his mind? That he would come back for Peter? He gripped the sides of the seat a little tighter, hoping it would squash the impulse to hide his face behind his hands, to hid away from her, from all of them.

"He's a magnet, you know."

"What?"

"Tony. He draws the eye. Not just on himself, onto everything that moves around his orbit. Not just for the curious bystander, but for people like Ross and Sallic. People that would actively try to find anything to use against him. Something to hold over his head, to threaten him with. It's not an unfounded fear. He's offering you an out."

"I don't want an out."

"I know that, Peter."

"Stop. Stop pretending like you know me!" His own voice rang uncomfortably loud in his ears. "You don't know me!"

"You think I can't draw a line from the kid that tried to beat up Captain America for hurting Tony to your state of mind right now?" She turned her head over her shoulder to study the traffic around them. "Maybe my reputation really has suffered after Germany."

He looked away, out of the window again. She was still trying to manipulate him. Of course she was. She was a spy! But Peter wasn't having it. No matter if she happened to hit the bulls-eye on this, it was just luck. She didn't know him.

"He'd come for you in a heartbeat. You know that, right? He'll be back without hesitating for even a second as soon as you get yourself into trouble."

Peter bit the inside of his cheeks hard, holding out his reaction as long as he could manage. "That sounds more like advise than a warning."

"Advice? I trust by your reputation that you're smart enough to figure that one out yourself."

"So what?" He turned on her, eyes narrowed. "You're saying I just get myself in a bit of a tight spot whenever I want to have a chat with him?"

She shrugged. "Well, I don't know about that. There'll be consequences to luring out Tony Stark."

His eyes shifted back and forth, trying to decipher that. "What's that even supposed to mean?"

"It means that he probably told you to keep your head down. He'll have eyes on you. Probably not just me either. I'd suspect some semi-legal shit that FRIDAY would monitor. It means if there's a sign of trouble he'll be here. What he will do about it then, well, nobody but Tony knows that."

His jaw dropped. Driving him was one thing, but this. "He's having you watch me?"

She waved him off. "Watch you might be pushing it a bit."

"That's a yes then." Mr. Stark had actually picked her to monitor him? Peter huffed out a dry laugh. "Consequences to luring him out.. You mean like this weekend?"

"I'd say probably a little worse. Now that he knows who you really are."

It was one thing for Mr. Stark to pretend, but it was insulting of her to think that she could fool him like that. "If you heard that call from the... the guy. Sallic. Taunting Mr. Stark. If you really listened to that then you know that Mr. Stark knew. The guy... Sallic told him. He knew."

"Come on, kid..."

"Don't call me that," Peter hissed at her. His despair was slowly turning into anger. "You don't get to call me that."

She swallowed hard, eyes on the road. The traffic was getting thicker the closer they got to Queens. "You want to guess how man calls Tony has gotten over the year from people claiming they had his son?"

Peter's heart jumped at that. He hadn't even considered that.

"Sallic might have taunted him, but that doesn't mean Tony believed it." Their eyes met and it hit him that she was sincere. "He didn't believe it. He fought me on it even after we got you out."

"He... he did?"

The Widow gave a sharp nod. "Absolutely. He refused to even hear it, went on and on about how he'd know if you were Aiden. He was beside himself with guilt of what they had done to you because of him."

For the first time during their ride back to the city, Peter's eyes stung with unshed tears. Mr. Stark didn't believe it. Of course he wouldn't. Why would he want to believe that Peter was, well... that Peter could be his son? It was mental.

It also meant... it also meant that Mr. Stark really come to get him. That he had come for Peter Parker, not Aiden Stark. It meant he had been telling the truth. Unless the Widow was lying. Unless she was playing him like a fiddle.

"What changed?" There was a lump in his throat that just wouldn't go away. "Why did he change his mind?"

"Reproducible scientific evidence." She made a grimace. "He wanted to prove them wrong. Wanted to prove to me that they were wrong. He ran the test. Turned out they weren't."

Peter's eyes were back on the buildings rushing past outside. He hated that he even cared so much. None of this made a difference. Mr. Stark was going to leave and nothing Peter had said to him had been able to change that.

"Tony just needs some time. It's... it's a lot he and Pepper are dealing with right now. A decade of trauma and self-reproach. I know it doesn't change anything about how this sucks for you, but what they are supposed to cope with in just a couple of days is impossible. Things will get better with a bit of time."

Peter mulled her words over a couple of time tripping over one thing every time. "Miss Potts?"

She shot a glance at him. "You don't know."

"Know?"

"What actually happened."

"I... I thought..." His heart was in his throat. "Mr. Stark said that he didn't really know, that... that they never found out and—"

"No, of course, that's not—" She shook her head. "Not that. Not who's responsible that... yeah, that's still up in the air. No, I mean for them. What—" She stopped herself, lips pressed tightly together. "No, I guess they wouldn't tell you, would they. It'd be too much."

He stared at her for a moment. "Are you? Are you going to tell me or is this one of your games to get me to—"

"No." Her head turned to him, eyes intently on him. "This is not a game. This is..." Her eyes shifted back to the road. "That's not what this is."

He waited for her to continue, almost certain that it would be a ploy, that she didn't really know anything else about what had happened that day than what he'd already found online weeks ago when Mr. Stark had talked to him about his son for the first time. Not that there had been much information. His son had been kidnapped in LA from the private property of a golf club. They were looking for him. He was never found.

"Tony wasn't there. When it happened. He'd left you—" She shook her head. "He had left Aiden with Pepper. Birthday preparations. A couple nannies were involved, but it was under her watch that Aiden was taken."

His stomach flipped. He had never thought about how long they had been in each other's lives and what that could mean for him now. "Miss... Miss Potts was supposed to look after... after..."

"After you. Yes." She pressed her lips closed for a moment then took a deep breath. "The two of them have been searching everywhere. When the investigators stopped. They never did. For years. It's why I called her when we found the results of who you were in that basement."

Peter's eyes were wide, staring at her. "You called her?"

"I did."

"She..." Peter's head was spinning, his voice low and shaky. "She was in my room when I woke up. She came here because of me?"

"Yes. You." She shrugged. "Tony, too, of course. Definitely you."

I made all the sense in the world now. Why she held him after he woke up. The familiarity. Still, it left him with more questions than before. "If she... if she was with Mr. Stark back then does that mean..." His heart prickled with a sudden flutter. "Does that mean they... I mean, that she... Were they... together? Then?"

"Who knows. I mean with Tony's reputation anything is—" She stopped herself and shot a glance at him. "Sorry. I don't know. Tony has always kept his personal life very close to his chest. His real personal life. Especially when came to his family. His son."

His family. Peter's heart gave a painful thump in his chest. It brought Peter's thoughts back to circle around her original request. Back to what had happened in Siberia. It had been personal. Personal to Mr. Stark, not just because of what Rogers had done, not just because he had lied and fought him, that much was clear now. It was about Mr. Stark's family. What Rogers had lied about. Details that nobody had a right to keep from him. That nobody had a right to keep him from knowing.

No. Peter shook his head. "I can't tell you."

For a moment, she was quiet, her eyes studying the cars pulling in and out of traffic in front of them. "I don't expect you to trust me. This is not about sharing secrets with me. I already know that part. I know what Barnes did. It's simply about what happened that day."

"You know?" His eyes widened, his brain kicked into overdrive.

"I've known for 2 years."

"2... 2 years?" Heat shot into Peter's face. Hot, fierce anger twisted inside his gut. "Oh my god, how could you not—"

"I know. I thought Steve had told him a long time ago, I—" she shook her head and stopped herself. "It doesn't matter. It's done now. I can't do anything about that. I just need to know how to fix it."

He didn't even see the houses rushing by outside anymore, lost in his thoughts. 2 years. They had known for 2 years and never told him. That... he must be...

"Does he know?" Peter cleared his throat. He sounded so breathless. "Did you tell him? That you've known all this time?"

Her nod was curt. "I did."

It felt weirdly personal, even though Peter of course hadn't known them, would have never met them either way. It wasn't really that connection that stung. He hurt for Mr. Stark and it had nothing to do with genetics. He just hurt because of how hard that must have hit his mentor. Betrayed, again.

"What do you even want to know from me then? You already know what they were fighting about. What would you even be able to do with any of that?"

"I won't know till I hear it, will I?"

Peter turned away from her. They were getting closer to his block. There wasn't much time left now, he had almost made it without spilling the beans. The beans that Mr. Stark had very deliberately put behind the strongest firewall he had.

Her hands tabbed a short rhythm on the steering wheel before they stopped, gripping the leather tightly. "Alright, let me ask you this. Why do you think Tony is keeping this hidden? The video. What happened. With the injuries he suffered, why keep it hidden?"

It was a valid question. One that Peter had asked himself a hundred times, frustrated with every possible reasoning he could come up with. It was only now that he understood why.

"He keeps his personal life very close to his chest." Peter pursed his lips at the irony of how Mr. Stark had sent him away nonetheless. "That's what you just said."

"Help me fix this, Peter."

His gums hurt from how strongly he was pressing his teeth together to stop his anger of flowing out of him. Anger at Rogers and Mr. Stark, too. For very different reasons.

"What if I don't want to help?" He turned to her, his temper slipping. "What if I don't want Rogers anywhere near him?"

"What if you were to tell me and it turns out I'd agree?"

She looked straight ahead, didn't make eye contact with Peter, but he still felt like there was a possibility that she might not be lying. He looked away from her and found a spot on the dark dashboard in front of him that serves as a great projection surface for the images flickering in front of his inner eye. He didn't trust her. He couldn't. But if there was a shot that she could keep Rogers away from Mr. Stark if she knew what he had done...

"He went there to help." Peter cleared his throat. "Mr. Stark. He went in secret. Behind Ross' back, too. That's what he told them. Rogers." He gritted his teeth as the image of the Winter Soldier, rifle at the ready directed right at Mr. Stark, flashed in his mind. "Rogers and Barnes."

"Just them? What about Zemo?"

Peter frowned. "There was a guy. In the bunker. Rogers was talking to him and then he put on a tape. A tape from 1991. A security camera that showed that..." Peter took a deep breath.

She nodded, eyes pointedly staring forward onto the road. "The Winter Soldier?"

"Yes," Peter whispered. "He... he killed them. Both of them." Howard Stark and his wife. Mr. Stark's parents, which would mean they were– Peter swallowed hard and physically shook the thought from his head. "Then they were fighting. In the bunker."

"Who was? Tony and Barnes? What did Steve do?"

Peter pulled in a sharp breath. It was the scene he had rewatched more often than any of the others. Rogers lying right to Mr. Stark's face, the sound of his mentor's voice so unfiltered with pure pain. "He... he tried to stop him. Rogers did. It..." Peter bit his lip. "Mr. Stark he wanted to go for Barnes and then... then Rogers grabbed him, told him not to and when... when Mr. Stark asked him if he had known he said... Rogers said he didn't. That he hadn't known."

"For fuck's sake, Steve..." Her lips were a narrow line, eyes still straight ahead.

"Mr. Stark didn't believe him and then Rogers he... he said that he hadn't known it was him. That he hadn't known it was Barnes." Peter studied her for a moment, wondering how honest she'd be. "He did though, didn't he? He knew all this time."

The corners of Romanoff's mouth twitched. "Yes. He knew."

Peter nodded. It wasn't a surprise. He had seen the lie in Rogers' face just like Mr. Stark had.

"What happened then?" She still didn't look at him, her face hard as a stone. "What happened when Steve told him he knew."

"They fought. Mr. Stark shoved Rogers away and then... then he went for Barnes. Rogers he... he tried to pull Mr. Stark away from Barnes but he..." Peter's voice so low, so shaky. "He was so angry. So—" One deep breath.

"So hurt."

Peter stared at the dashboard in front of him, unseeing. The images from that video he had watched again and again were playing in front of his eyes as clear as they had on his laptop screen the first time he had seen that altercation.

"They fought him, two against one until Mr. Stark had beaten Barnes down but then Rogers got him on his back." Peter swallowed hard, suppressing the queasy feeling in his stomach. "Slammed the shield into his head until the faceplate gave way and then brought it down on his chest. That's when the video ends."

"He destroyed the arc."

Peter huffed out a breath, his voice hardly louder than the grumble of the engine. "Among other things."

His building complex was coming into view now. They were almost there. If the Compound had been just a couple of miles closer, he might have been able to hold out. He might have never told her. Now he felt dirty. It hadn't been his secret to share and no matter how much he'd hope it would make her help Mr. Stark, there was no telling what he had just done.

"How did he get back? Do you know? If the arc didn't work he'd have been stranded. Did Ross—"

"No." His voice was low but she still fell silent. "Miss Potts and... and an agent."

"Agent Hill."

Peter shrugged. "Maria."

"Good." The Widow nodded to herself. "Tony doesn't need any more strike against himself with Ross."

She pulled into a smaller side street, away from the main road. It sent a shiver down his spine, alarm bells suddenly ringing, but she cast a glance at him, eyebrows raised, as Peter tensed in his seat.

"He knows you're with me. He'd not hesitate to kill me for ruffling your hair too roughly, you know that."

"I... I didn't think... I—"

The car came to a stop, engine still running.

"You don't want to be seen with me. We're going for a low profile, yeah?"

He grimaced. "Like anyone would recognize you."

"Those who would, would be dangerous."

Peter shrugged, then reluctantly nodded. He wasn't sure what to do now. Just get out of the car? Get away from her? He'd have done so in a heartbeat back at the Compound but now there was a finality to leaving that car, like he was leaving that world behind for good. Including Mr. Stark.

"It'll be alright, Peter. Things will work themselves out."

"You don't know that." The words had rolled off his tongue before he could stop himself.

"He's gonna wake up one morning and won't be able to stop himself from seeing you. I promise you that this isn't the end. Far from it."

Peter rubbed a hand across his face, feeling stupidly emotional. Then she reached out to him but instead of touching him, her hand opened, revealing a phone. He stared at hit, frozen.

She just sighed. "It's fine, it's not from me."

His eyes flickered up at her then back down to the phone. "No?"

"From Tony."

Peter huffed out a humorless laugh. "So how many trackers are on there?"

The Widow shrugged. "I'd assume a couple obvious ones for you to pull out right away. Another one well hidden so you can feel like you've seen through him and then the proper one buried somewhere deep inside."

He raised his eyebrows at her suspiciously. Why would she even tell him that?

"Like the kid who cracked Tony's server wouldn't figure that out on his own."

Heat was creeping up his neck, bleeding into his face. He rubbed the blush away, tried to at least, then took the phone from her hand.

"If you ever feel like you're in danger—"

"I'll Morse code from my bedroom room window and you'll see?" His voice low, mumbling but without much bite. "Jeeze. That's a comforting thought."

Her lips pulled into a genuine smirk at that, but Peter still felt foolish for joking about being watched like that.

"I was going to say there is a number in there for you to call, that'll get a message to me."

His hand shot up scratching the side of his face. "Why are you doing this?" He looked up at her, convinced she won't even answer that but her eyes met him straight on.

"I have red on my ledger. I need to wipe that out."

He turned away, not wanting to ask how literal she was being.

"Thank you for telling me, Peter. I swear, I will never use it against him."

Cold goosebumps crept up along his spine all the way to his neck. "If you do... If you hurt him—"

"You'll come for me. Yeah, I think I got that."

His eyes shot over at her tone, not at all patronizing. More like she was actually talking to an equal. Like he could actually hurt her when he decided to. Maybe he really could.

"I will. I swear, I will."

She bowed her head in a slow nod. All of a sudden, he couldn't stand the idea of being that close to her for even another moment. He pushed open the door of the car, one hand on the backpack filled with his things from the Compound and jumped out onto the sidewalk. He didn't look back, just pocketed the phone and headed home.

###

[author's note: Welcome back, guys. This chapter got a little bit away with me. It was supposed to be a short transition, but then grew into this 7K beast. I thoroughly enjoyed Peter and Nat's little chat though and I hope you did too!

Thank you all for all the lovely comments on the last chapter and for sticking with me. The break was a little longer than I anticipated but moving during a pandemic sucks. I really can't recommend it ;) Updates will be a little quicker again from here on out. I think. We'll see ;) ]