In Which Spider-Man Is In Time Out

Peter looked doubtful as he came across Stark Industries' Lobby.

It took some strength to keep the smile off of her face as she waited for him. It was the afternoon after he had slept over and she had insisted that him come by after school. He looked like he had been roughed up and all his allowance stolen. Little things were off. His shoe was untied. His shirt hung half tucked in. Just like her, he looked like he hadn't slept.

The kid needed a break.

That was what she decided last night.

"Come on Peter." She waved him over as she called the elevator up. The usual enthusiasm was missing as he took his place by her side. He looked edgy, teen angst fully taking over. The feeling was a black hole, trying to suck her in as well.

"I thought that I was all caught up on my shots." He asked quietly as they entered the elevator.

She smiled then giving up. That had been her ruse to get him to come.

"You are in need of one more. Distraction."

He crumpled his face. "Distraction?"

The tone was close to mistrust. She ignored it. On this one, she was sure that she was right.

"I've arranged it." She nodded. "It's my prescription."

"What am I doing here?"

Now that was the question that she wanted him to ask. "I've got a key to Tony's lab and his permission for you to play with his toys all afternoon."

It hadn't taken much to twist Tony's arm. A simple and censored description of last night with a glare made him give in. He had said yes quickly and with barely any sarcasm. Catherine didn't say anything in reason. She didn't want to jinx it.

"What?" Peter's face broke out in excitement. There it was. There was the Peter that she knew. Straightening, he leaned closer to her. The funk was gone. He caught himself. "I thought he was mad at me?"

"No. A little grumpy and disturbed but that's normal." She paused and then she started to tease him. "Actually maybe I should just send you home. You don't seem excited about this."

The elevator arrived. The doors opened to a lobby with several branching hallways. It was a clinical floor, steel walls with signs going this way and that.

"Nononono…I'm good with this." He said and got out waving his hands.

She hung back and shrugged. "I don't know. My mind might be made up."

He looked worried for a moment before he saw through it. The smile doubled.

"Come on." He jogged down the hall without her and she stayed on the landing watching him. He almost had a skip in his step. Like an eager kid, he was miles ahead.

"Peter?"

He turned. "Yeah?"

She pointed down the hallway to her left. "It's this way."

They talked about the inventions that he was thinking of as she navigated them through the various labs. Peter was already dreaming up various ways to improve his suit. She shrugged and nodded as if "a dampened semi-compensator" meant something to her.

She waved her badge at the lab. "He's left you all his supplies. FRIDAY will watch over you to make sure that you don't do anything too ambitious."

The door opened to what should have been a perfect reenactment of Peter opening presents on Christmas Day. Peter was still instead, the happiness wiped away, replaced with something very close to fear. That was not what she was going for.

The lab was full of machines and robots scattered around in clumps. One wall was covered in Iron Man suits, standing still in glass cases. The opposite wall was a bank of computers, wires coming off and snaking to the various work tables in the middle of the room. Holograms hovered over the surfaces, abandoned and misplaced files everywhere.

It was supposed to be empty.

It was supposed to be ready for Peter to play away the hours.

It wasn't.

Tony had such a habit of ruining all her plans.

The man was sitting on a table in the lab clearly working on some new webshooter cuffs. The exact opposite of what he was supposed to be doing. He had the equipment in one hand, a screwdriver in his mouth and soldering iron in the other. The smell of burning metal filled the air.

He looked up casually and without any reservation to her anger or his fear started talking, "Hey kid. Spider-Man needs a new spinneret. The web density is going to be off in the winter and tensile strength could be amped."

Peter was completely astounded.

Tony continued to yammer. "I could completely do it myself but I thought we could do some testing. What do you say?"

The silence between the three of them stretched thin.

"Mr. Stark…?" It came out of Peter in a waiver finally.

Tony rolled his eyes, pushed off the table and came over.

"Hey, you know, I can just go." Peter started the strange shuffle backwards but the door was already closed behind him. "I've got a homework quiz due tomorrow night and Mr. Roberts is threatening to be really mean on the Spanish midterm next week and-"

Tony put out his hand. Peter's chatter stopped. He stared at it like a rat. Catherine raised her eyebrow. This was the way that Tony was going to solve this?

"Okay, let's try that again." Tony withdrew and then offered the handshake again. "You shake it."

Some part of her barely kept the laughter away at how he was failing spectacularly.

He took the handshake. It wasn't a big shake but an awkward smile came over his face as he looked up.

"So how about that spinneret?"

"Yeah. Let's do that."

Catherine came back to get him a couple hours later in the evening. The music was roaring, a hard metal sound shook the walls outside the closed lab. Tony had turned the glass walls black, probably so Peter could try the new webshooters in peace.

The door let her in.

It was still the mess that she had seen when she had gotten her arm trapped in the Iron Man suit, Catherine realized annoyed.

In the center of the mess were Tony and Peter. They were working on a hologram of a blown up web, the string brought down into its component parts. The billionaire was chomping on nuts as he braided and rebraided the main section of web as he stood next to the table. If these were two normal people, they would be standing next to each other.

Instead, they were not normal. Peter stood on the table, half dancing to the beat, half working as he coiled another smaller strand around the larger one digitally.

As they were worked, a scientific and almost indistinguishable blabber spewed between the two of them. All the stress was off their faces in the blue light. A goofy smile was on Peter as he designed and redesigned his portion. Tony's face was verging on irritability but the looseness in his shoulder told her otherwise.

"Naw kid, it'll be stronger if you line it up more with the y-axis." He snapped through his snack. "Don't they teach you anything in school?"

"Oh man! You're right." Peter unspun his part with a twist of his wrist.

Catherine leaned against the wall, watching the pleasant sight. Yes, this is what she hoped for. Spider-Man was gone for a moment. The kid wasn't listening for sirens on her roof. He wasn't sitting at a desk stressing out about his aunt. Getting Tony to loosen up was a lovely little side effect.

"I assume it's because of you that Tony has missed all of his meetings today." Pepper's voice was behind her. Catherine twisted to see the to-be Mrs. Stark holding an ice tea out to her as she came through the door.

"That was all on him." She took the drink.

Pepper smiled sweetly as she took up a spot next to her. "You know Tony. He can't help it."

"Things have been stressful. It's good for both of them."

"Hmmm." Pepper's face grew more serious. "Just so you know, the lab that Peter broke into? The Intervention of Ecology? They've has been trying to contact with you for the past week. We don't know what they want."

Peter's strained face in her mind caused the glass to dip in her hands. The tea's tang stung the back of her throat.

"That's not good."

"It's handled but I thought you might know."

Now Tony was on the table too. He shook his head and pushed the teen aside as he rewound the strand fully. Their heads almost brushed the ceiling. Peter crouched under it as he watched the man work, mouth half open.

"Did they say what Peter came down with?"

Pepper shook her head, leaning the glass against her lip. "They didn't seem to know anything about that."

"Good."

The hologram string shrunk to normal size and FRIDAY congratulated them on creating the most durable web yet. Peter backflipped off the table.

"Thanks for the drink." Catherine pushed off the wall. "Come on Peter. We've got to go."

"I did you see?" He pointed at the line. "I can carry like twenty elephants with that."

"That's nice now let's go. You're going to make me late."

The final step of the distraction plan was maybe the easiest but hardest part. She had added it only because she knew that Peter had interest in her art. Now she was doubting it.

Peter sat awkwardly on the stool, looking completely confused at the sketchbook, still life in front of him and the charcoal in his hands. The best part was the kitchen apron that he had put on because he didn't bring art clothes.

"Everyone here is an expert. How do I draw with this thing again?" He asked as he looked at the stick to the white paper in front of him. Just a half an hour ago, he was talking in equations that she would never understand. Now he was looked like he was trying to solve the world's problems.

She didn't have a chance to respond.

"Catherine." The instructor swept over and both of their heads turned. Something close to nerves stirred in her stomach. She smiled warmly at the kid. "You must be Peter, Catherine's Little. I'm so glad that you could come today. I've heard so much about you."

"You have?" Peter was surprised and then he twisted to her. Catherine's smile was gone. The instructor didn't miss a step.

Her hand rested against his sketchbook paper and her smile widened. "Don't worry. I don't know any dark secrets."

Catherine wanted to quietly strangle her. It had only been a few occasions when she had said something. Two of those times were because Peter had limped into her life and she had been late for class. The instructor had the memory of an elephant.

"She's exaggerating," Catherine said. By Peter's remaining smile, he clearly didn't believe her.

"A little afraid of the blank page, are we?" Sometimes the instructor was so friendly that Catherine wondered what the hell happened to her head. "We're working on this still life today but why don't you pick one element, maybe the teddy bear? Catherine can get you started."

Then she was gone, disappearing in a way that only teachers could.

Peter eyed the bear like it might kill him.

Catherine pulled her chair a bit closer. "Okay. Look for big shapes first. Teddy here is made up of circles. Can I?" Her hand hovered over his. He nodded and she gently placed her hand with his and they drew a circle on the paper.

"Agh." Peter pulled back as charcoal dust ran down the paper. "I broke it."

"You didn't. It's just messy. See? Now you have a teddy bear head."

"Do you really talk about me?" He whispered.

She took a firm look at the bear and used his hand to add two sweeps for ears. "I'd never break patient confidentially if you are worried about that."

"But do you-"

Before she could answer, Doofus not only sat down in his chair next to her but leaned over and bowled over their conversation.

"Hey, hey, hey, who is this?"

"This is Peter, he's tagging along with me today." She gritted her teeth and her hand fell away from his. All privacy was gone, smashed by Doofus and his big nose. She put herself between the two of them. He leaned even more forward, all muscle and interest.

"Oh really? Tell me everything."

And so it went for the rest of the class, Doofus learning everything that he could about Peter and Catherine sitting in the middle, trying to ignore how this had turned into a Social Hour and not art class.

By some strange miracle, Peter seemed to enjoy himself. The teddy bear didn't even look half bad by the time the class was over.

They got milkshakes to end off the day and Peter waved as he headed off home. He didn't even hear the ambulance that disappeared off in the distance.

Catherine took a drink and smiled to herself. Mission accomplished.

One last piece of lightness. Tony will never do what Catherine asks. This should be known by this point.

Thank you for all the support over the last month or so. I really do appreciate every notification, favorite or comment. It means a lot to me. Thank you for that. I hope you enjoy the little twist next week. :)

Any guesses?

Thank you for reading as always. - Quin