AN I don't own Marvel or any of its characters! This is Peter Parker's chapter but no sexual or inappropriate relationship there because he is a pure child (and a minor) andI'm not creepy like that.
When Coulson brought her his next agent, she fully expected to have to sleep with a man. She'd been counting down, actually, and waiting for it because that was her skillset and she knew it would be expected of her someday. But she had to stop and hesitate when the agent who walked through the door was barely sixteen.
"Hi, I'm Peter." She stared at Coulson in disbelief. "Wait, no, I'm spiderman… fuck. I can't believe I've done this." She laughed in spite of herself, which seemed to put the kid at ease, though she didn't understand the sudden British accent or why he found it funny. Coulson gave her a little smile, as if to say this one is innocent, and dismissed himself. The kid was still just standing there, waiting, uncomfortable because he clearly knew who she was but didn't want to say anything or offend her. She just smiled and motioned for him to sit.
He plopped down on the rug rather than the chair, which she had to admit she was not expecting, and stared at it rather than meeting her eyes. It wasn't bad, necessarily, she just didn't really know what to do. He rambled about nothing of much importance-homework, and the school's basketball team-and played with the texture of the carpet, burrowing and tangling his fingers in it to avoid looking at her. She was going to ask why Coulson had brought him to her when she noticed the fresh scars on his wrists.
"Peter, why'd you try to die?" He stopped. In a flash, he pushed his sleeves back down over his wrists and went back to the carpet in silence but she felt the words bubbling up in his chest. So, she waited patiently for them to come out.
"Because I can't even get my Aunt May and I off food stamps! How the hell am I supposed to save the world?" He sounded… hopeless. It broke her heart that someone so fucking young could sound so burdened by just existing but he did.
"Peter, do you want to get a burger?" He stared at the carpet, clearly holding back tears, but she sensed him coming undone and she didn't want to break him. So she offered a distraction. Slowly, he nodded, as if finally comprehending what she'd said.
"Yeah.. I like burgers." So she drove-because was he even old enough to have a driver's license!? Jesus Christ-and they went to a burger place she knew about a half hour off base. She bought him a burger and fries, even though he tried to pay, and sipped on her strawberry milkshake while he picked at the food. Eventually, though, he filled the silence.
"Calculus is really hard." It was not what she was expecting but, gradually, she was getting the impression that this kid was never going to be what she expected him to be. She jolted back and nodded, agreeing, even though she'd never taken advanced math.
"I've heard that." He nodded too, floundering for what to say. "Do you want help?" The offer could have been a life preserver for how quickly he brightened and clung to it. She'd never taken calculus, or done anything remotely like it, but goddammit this kid was too precious to even have that much suffering in his face again and, if she had to learn math, then she was going to. They sat in that burger shop and went over the textbook for hours. They watched youtube tutorials and read explanations and did practice problems and, slowly-painstakingly slowly-they worked through his homework assignment.
"It can't take this long." He said it quietly, brokenly, and she was confused because as far as she was concerned they'd just accomplished the impossible. But he was upset by it.
"What do you mean?" He sighed, staring at the page like he was going to cry.
"Math. It can't take this long. I only have forty minutes for it a night if I want to get all my other classes' homework done too. It can't take this long…" He was going to cry. Fuck she could not handle this child crying right now because every fiber in her screamed to protect the small angel beside her. She put an arm around him, surprising herself.
"Hey, deep breaths. It's gonna be okay, listen. You have a list of what subjects or topics you're going to be learning?"
"You mean a syllabus?" Natasha had no fucking clue what a syllabus was but she nodded because Peter didn't look like he could answer any more questions right now.
"Yeah, a syllabus. Listen, get me a copy of that list as soon as you can, okay? We'll get this down to forty minutes and if you give me a heads up on any of the other homework assignments I'm sure we can speed through those too." He sniffed, like a dejected puppy. "Hey, we got this okay? Do you trust me?"
"Yes Miss Widow." He clapped a hand over his mouth and lurched for the door like she was going to kill him but she just laughed. This tiny, adorable child was afraid because he'd called her Miss Widow.
"Peter, sit down," she chuckled. "It's okay, breathe. You can call me whatever you want. But I have to tell you now that you're my spiderling and nothing is going to change my mind." He stopped, halfway out of the booth, and slowly his face broke into a grin. Then, he was laughing. It was loud, full laughs from his belly and other people in the burger place stared but she didn't care because he looked genuinely happy. Not completely stable, emotionally, but happy.
"Okay, spiderling, come here and tell me about Hamlet." So he did. And, by midnight, they'd completed all of his homework for the following day. But he didn't seem like he wanted to leave, as if she wouldn't be there again tomorrow even if she promised, and she wasn't going to force him to. So they kept talking, slowly. He told her about Aunt May and their shitty apartment. About school and how everyone hated his Chem teacher, even the other Chem teachers, and called him Mr. FatAss behind his back rather than Mr. Foster. At one in the morning, she sighed and told him to go home and go to bed. He complained, like a child begging his mom for five more minutes, but she shook her head and pointed towards the car.
They drove in silence, listening to the radio, until she stopped outside the apartment complex he'd directed her to. It was quite shitty, actually. He just sat quietly in the passenger seat, though, like he didn't want to get out or go up there and face reality again.
"Peter, it's time for bed." He chewed his lower lip.
"I know." More lip chewing, until she tapped his arm to get him to stop. "Promise you'll be back tomorrow?" It physically hurt her how little trust he had, even though he clearly wanted to. How many people had walked out on this kid and just never come back?
"Peter, do you have a phone?" He pulled out an old flip phone and handed it over, without her even asking for it, as if she was going to take it away in punishment or something. She created a new contact and added her private number.
"This is a very secure, private number. I don't give this to just anyone. I will always answer this number, no matter what, and if I don't, I'm dead. You can call or text me any time, for any reason, even if you just want to complain about Mr. FatAss, okay? I'm not just going to disappear." He took the phone back, gaping at the number she'd typed in and looking like he was close to tears. She honestly expected him to just break down from the roller coaster night they'd had going through his homework but he didn't. He threw his arms around her and hugged.
She jumped, even if she tried not to, but immediately hugged him back because jesus this was a fucking kid who was hugging her because she'd promised to help him with his homework and if that wasn't enough to break through her shell nothing was. She let him be the one to pull away.
"Thank you, Miss Widow." She laughed and pushed the calculus textbook into his hands with the phone, motioning to the apartment complex.
"Go to bed, spiderling. And get me that syllabus."
Gradually, as Peter got more and more of a handle on his schoolwork, they moved to more normal things like meeting over coffee or walking through the park because, she thought, he needed to be normal. She helped him apply for-and get-a job to help out his aunt. He told her about the girl he liked at school, even though she swore she was horrible and not at all the person to ask for advice with relationships. He just laughed, though, and repeated whatever you say Miss Widow.
The kid had a guilt complex the size of Russia, though, and she learned that very quickly. All it took was some TV in a restaurant displaying a mugging or a shooting and Peter went rigid at the table, suddenly refusing to focus on whatever homework was in front of them.
"I could have stopped that." She sighed, seeing that she couldn't argue with him, and went back to the calculus. Calculus was, in fact, really hard. She tried to get him to focus on it. Eventually, he caved because he seemed to actually be slightly scared of her still and when she called him Peter rather than spiderling he snapped back to the page of derivatives.
But it couldn't end there. Every single bad thing seemed to trigger that in the teen and she hated it but she realized there was nothing she could do to change it. So, whenever something bad happened on the news, she marched over and plopped a textbook in front of him. He complained the first few times.
"You are a fucking child Peter Parker let the adults fuck up the world while they still have all their hair." Peter didn't laugh but a bit of that weight disappeared from his face. She didn't leave that day until he'd finished his essay and two math assignments. From then on, that was their routine. He texted her a single message-HW-and she dropped everything to go distract him and force him to be a kid while he still had the chance. And she didn't leave, ever, until he gave her the signal that he was okay.
"Thank you, Miss Widow." That was her cue, and she stood with a smile as she handed back the textbook.
"Anytime, spiderling."
Thanks for reading! Please, as always, review! Honestly it means the world to me.