Disclaimers: See Chapter 1.

Peter Parker aka Spider-Man

Peter didn't always get a chance to go along with the group when something big came up; that was the reality when one was a co-ed superhero and had classes to attend and exams to take. This time around he got to play with the big kids (as Loki tended to phrase it, even if Steve played "mom" and told him to knock it off), and they'd headed back to Tony's place in Malibu to sleep it off.

Although he was pretty sure Tony had hit the bars, unless he always grabbed one of his cars and headed out the second the Avengers got back from going toe-to-toe with Dr. Doom. (And he hoped he wasn't the only one weirded out by how... obsessed the dude seemed to be with their resident spell-slinger. Loki certainly hadn't looked too thrilled at the thought, and Thor did fling Mjolnir a bit harder than necessary when Doomface started talking about wedding invitations...)

At any rate, Peter was just planning to hang around until his flight left that afternoon to take him back to New York in time to study for his chem test the next morning. Tony'd offered up use of his private plane for that, and Peter wasn't about to argue.

Still, he would have liked a bit of warning before he walked into the living room to watch the news - they were superheros, of course the news would have coverage - and found a spider the size of a German Shepard crouched on the coffee table watching The Price is Right.

Peter blinked and rubbed at his eyes, thinking he might still be half-asleep, but nope. The big ass spider was still there, and this time he noticed that Natasha was sitting on the couch with her feet propped on its back. The hottie tilted her head back and smiled brightly at the nineteen-year-old and gave him a small wave.

"Pete, hi," she greeted. "Want to join us?" She patted the couch next to her, and Dog-Spider turned a bit to wave a leg at him.

"Um, yeah," Peter managed to get out, still staring and wondering when he was going to wake up. "Where'd Fido the Wonder Spider come from?"

It wasn't until Natasha started laughing and Shelob wriggled in amusement that he realized he'd actually said that out loud.

"Loki seems to be in an arachnid mood this week," the apparently aptly-named Black Widow said cheerfully, shifting one foot to scratch the spider's back fondly. "The other day he was a scorpion for about five hours til he got bored with that and changed into a hermit crab."

Peter just smiled weakly and nodded. Maybe he could talk to Agent Coulson and get a flight out sooner rather than later. Loki was awesome when it came to spell-casting, but this shape-shifting was just a bit too weird for the Amazing Spider-Man.

Notes: I... couldn't resist. Giant spider for Spider-Man was just too funny to me XD