Minutes later Natasha walks into the room to find her nephew curled up in a tight ball, his body shaking with silent sobs. The only evidence that he's crying are the huge heaves of his chest and the sniffles coming out of the small child.

Walking up to the bed Natasha reaches out and places a hand on Peter's shoulder. Softly and quietly, as if not to scare him, Natasha speaks. "Pete?" He doesn't respond at first, his eyes trained on the wall and his body statue still. It's a couple minutes later that Peter places a hand on top of Natasha's as some sort of response. Something to inform her that he's listening. Sitting on his bed, Natasha brushes back a couple of stray tears before continuing. "Peter, sweetie, what's wrong? Why aren't you out there with the others?" Peter doesn't respond, he only curls in more burying his face in his arms. Efficiently concealing his face from his Aunt's view. Natasha stares down curiously at Peter before sighing and trying a different approach. "Everyone's worried about you. They're confused as to why you ran off… but I'm not. Can you just tell me so I can help you? I want to make you feel better."

A scoff is heard from Peter before he picks his head up. "Sure they're worried." He says sarcastically. "If they were so worried then just tell them to continue loving James and acting as if I wasn't even in the same room.

"So this is about James isn't it?" Natasha says confirming her further thoughts. She has a suspicious, but she wasn't sure. Until now. Peter sheepishly nods his head after a moment, his eyes staying firmly planted on the floor. She stares down at him in confusion, "I thought you adored him. You were so excited to become a big brother that you wanted to be the first one to hold him. What happened?" Peter continues to stare at the ground in silence.

Natasha sighs reaching a hand out and patting his shoulder hoping it would give him some comfort. "Peter I'm trying to help you and I can't do that until you tell me what's wrong and what you want me to do to make you feel better. Don't you wanna feel better?" There is an immediate nod from the small curled up child. "Then you have to tell me." Natasha prompts giving Peter a soft smile.

Peter shakes his head stubbornly again, but instead of moving away from his aunt he crawls up and climbs into her lap.

Instinctively, Natasha wraps her arms around his small frame pulling him closer. Resting his head on her chest, Peter sighs sadly, and closes his eyes. His arms wrap tighter around his aunt before he speaks, "No one loves me anymore." He starts. "They all love James more. Everyone always wants to hang out with him rather then me." He whispers brokenheartedly.

"That's not true-" Natasha starts, but Peter interrupts her.

"Yes it is!" He exclaims pulling away from her. He looks straight into her eyes as tears continue to stream down his face. "P-Pepper would rather babysit James than hang out with me. Uncle Thor always loved to play hide and seek with me, but after James was born he doesn't want to anymore. Uncle Clint quit our Saturday archery sessions so he can play with James and be available for babysitting. Uncle Bruce doesn't want to do science anymore with me and daddy and papa cancelled on our trip that they promised to take me to. ALL OF BECAUSE OF JAMES!" He screams, his hands curling into fists as he begins to pound on his bed in anger.

Natasha is quick to catch both his arms in mid- punch before Peter can continue to do it and hurt himself. When she does, Peter doesn't make an attempt to free himself, he just continues to stammer on about nonsense as he cries. Bring his arms in to tuck them into his body, Natasha pulls Peter closer. Peter buries his face into her chest to muffles his loud screams/ sobs. Natasha just continues to hold him, even resulting to rocking, in order to calm him down. She had to calm him down before she spoke to him or else it'd be useless because he wouldn't listen.

It took several minutes before Peter can breath properly and even a couple more after to make sure he's listening. "Peter, love," Natasha grabs his chin and forces him to look at her. "I know it may seem like we value James more than you, but you've got to understand. We've already had you for 6 years and you've gotten all the love a child could ever need. James has only had us for a few months and we need to take advantage of the fact that James isn't as grown up as you are. You grew up way too fast for any of us and we missed when you were smaller. Your still growing up. James just got here, so it's a little understandable that we're putting all our attention on him."

Peter looks up at her sadly, his bottom lip jutting out, "I don't care about that aunt 'Tasha. I never did. I knew you guys would give James all your attention and I was fine with that… up until three days ago."

"What was three days ago?"

Peter begins to cry softly, "You don't even know. I knew you guys would forget me, but not my birthday."

Natasha's eyes widen in shock… oh my God.

She runs through the days in her mind and she lets out a gasp when she realizes that Peter was right. His birthday was three days ago and if she recalled, the Avengers did nothing, but watch as James crawled around the room in his little oneies. She also remembered Peter trying to get their attention, but they were blowing him off. "Shit." She whispered softly. "Peter I'm sorry, I forgot."

Peter nods, "Yeah… you all did." He sniffs and wipes a lone tear near his jaw. "I never cared about everyone forgetting me, I knew it was going to happen eventually. I'm not bratty and spoiled like you're thinking. I'm just so use to everyone telling me they love me, every once in a while, that when I don't hear it for months I get pretty upset. Only I was okay, up until my birthday. You forget me and you forgot my birthday. My birthday. 'Tasha… I'm not 6 years old anymore, I'm 7." Peter says holding 7 hands to emphasize what he's saying.

Collective gasps are heard from outside Peter's closed bedroom door. Peter stiffens when he knows exactly who's outside. Natasha just rolls her eyes. "Couldn't have given me 5 minutes." She muttered to herself as she stood to get the door. But Peter didn't want that.

He reached forward and grasp her wrist tightly in his small hands. "No! Please don't open the door, I don't want to see them now. I still haven't forgave them for what they did."

"Maybe now is the time that you do." Natasha says staring down at them.

Peter doesn't reply and doesn't make an attempt to grab her arm back when she pulls away. Natasha walks up to the door and cracks it open to find everyone standing outside Peter's door. Including Pepper. She gives them all knowing looks and they look down ashamed. Glancing back into the room, Natasha slips out closing the door behind her. "We forgot Peter's birthday." Pepper's the first to speak and she sounds very horrified.

"That's impossible!" Thor bellows. "I always remember Peter's day of birth, this cannot be true."

"It is." Natasha says sadly. "August 17th was 3 days ago."

Steve slapped the palm of his hand against his forehead. "How can we be so careless as to forget a day like that? We're such horrible fathers. Who forgets their own son's birthday!?"

"Apparently us." Tony says sadly.

Natasha holds out a hand to everyone, "Peter thinks that we love James more than him." Everyone opens their mouth to protest, but she cuts them off. "It's because of what you guys did to him the past couple of months, also added with what we all did to him on his birthday. We all ignored him. James said that instead of taking him to the art museum Pepper, you decided to babysit James on the same day."

"I told him I'd make it up to him." Pepper defended himself.

Natasha shakes her head, "That was months ago, two weeks after James was born and you still didn't make it up to him." Pepper looks down, clearly upset with herself. Natasha turns to Thor, "Peter said that you and him loved to play games with each other. Such as tag, hide and seek and other things. Is that true?"

Thor nods, "Tis true, he is a wonderful player. I always make it my goal to beat him."

"When was the last time you played with him? Just you two?"

Thor opens his mouth, but then closes it as his face concentrates hard in thinking. After a moment or two, he looks back at Natasha. "I do not know."

"Peter said that ever since James was born, you stopped wanting to play so you can watch James." Thor opens his mouth to protest, but has no reason too when he realizes that she's right. He frowns and closes his mouth opting to not saying anything. Natasha then whirls on Clint, "And apparently you stopped your Saturday archery lessons with Peter." Clint decides to stay silent and not say anything because he knows Natasha's right, so there'd be no point in arguing with her. He just settles for a sheepish nod. "Bruce, you stopped working with him in the lab?" Bruce looks down ashamed of himself, his lips clamping tight together. "Steve, Tony, you'd rather be home and stay with James when there's 5 of us that couldn't watch him while you two went to the museum he'd been dying to go to."

"He is sick." Steve says softly.

Natasha gestures to Bruce, "There's a doctor living in this Tower. A more better reason than to leave him with Bruce while you two take your son out to the museum like you promised yesterday. You see what I mean, we're all shutting him out. We're doing it intentionally which makes this worse."

"Wait a minute? What did you do to him?" Clint asks stepping in.

Natasha shrugs, "I forgot his birthday. Just like the rest of you. We need to make it up to him and show him that we still love him, no matter what. He hasn't heard that since James was born."

Everyone nods in agreement. Pepper smiles mischievously as a glint in her eyes spark. "I have an idea. You guys go in there and make up, I've got some planning to do."

"What about you? Arent you going to apologize?" Tony asks.

"Of course! But in my own special way. Go." Pepper walks away as she whips out her phone and begins to dial numbers without even looking.

"What is she up to?" Steve questions.

"Who knows, but that doesn't matter right now." Natasha turns to the door and opens it slightly. She sticks her head in, "Peter." Peter looks up at the sound of his name. "I have people that want to see you. Is that okay?" Peter frowns, but nods none of the less. Natasha ushers everyone inside.

Peter takes that time to crawl up to the top of his bed and under the covers. Now he gazes at his family, his eyes and hair the only thing that's showing. When Natasha appears again, Peter reaches out to her and gestures for her to come closer. Natasha sits on the edge of the bed, pulling Peter closer to her body as she looks out at everyone. "Peter, we have something that we want to say to you."

Peter doesn't reply, he just continues to stare. Tony sighs and walks up to the bed, "I'm sorry buddy. We didn't mean to make you feel unwanted or unloved. You do know we love you right?" Tony sighs when he gets no response.

"Well we do love you." Steve jumps in. "I'm so sorry that we've been too distracted to see how much your hurting. You're our son and nothing will change the way we feel about you."

"… James?"

Steve shakes his head, "Not even James. We love you both equally."

"You sure?"

Both Steve and Tony nod, "Positive." They reply.

"Peter we're really sorry that we forgot about you're birthday. It slipped past all of our minds." Bruce apologizes and the others nod in agreement. "We didn't do it intentionally, and we promise that we'll make it up to you."

"That's what you all said." Peter says doubtfully.

"But it's true." Tony says when his phone beeps and he reaches down to check it. A smile spreads across his face. "In fact, I think Pepper's almost done. That was extremely fast."

"Almost done with what?" Steve asks. Tony walks over and shows everyone the message he got, including Natasha. Peter was the only one who didn't get to see him. But smiles plaster the Avenger's faces immediately.

He peers up at them curiously, "What? What is it?"

Tony shrugs, "Why don't you come out of the covers and we'll show you."

Peter looks over at Natasha uncertainly, but she gives him a reassuring nod. Sighing, Peter reluctantly climbs out of the covers and over to Tony and Steve. "What is it daddy?"

"Come here squirt." Tony reaches down and picks Peter off the bed. "We got something really exciting to show you."

"Me?" Peter asks shocked and slightly excited.

"Yeah you. Let's go!" Tony runs out of the room with the others following.

They make it down to Avengers common room. Tony had placed Peter down on the ground so he could walk so he was walking hand in hand with Steve and Tony towards the room. The Avengers followed closely behind wanting to see the look on Peter's face.

As soon as everyone turned the corner they were blasted with spider webs immediately and a large shout of, "SURPRISE!"

Peter shouts excitedly the minute he gets the last of the web off of him. He looks around the room to find all his friends there, SHIELD agents and even Director Fury himself. But what really got his attention was his long time friend, Gwen Stacey, standing the closest to him. "Gwen?"

She smiles and walks up to him. "Happy late birthday Peter." She says wrapping her arms around his neck for a hug. Peter hugs back excitedly, but begins to blush furiously when Gwen gives him a kiss on the cheek. Everyone cheers around him. "You're aunt knows how to really put together a quick party."

"Pepper?" Peter asks.

"Who else?" Gwen gestures towards the corner where everyone finds Pepper in the corner of the room with a camera in hand.

"Smile Peter." She says before snapping a quick picture of him and Gwen standing next to each other. "Cute." She comments as she makes her way over. "Definitely going in your baby book."

"Auntie!" Peter complains while Gwen giggles.

Pepper smiles down at him and pulls him in a tight hug. "Happy birthday, birthday boy. Hopefully this party will make up for the months we put you through."

Peter looks around the room with a large smile before reaching over and grabbing Gwen's hand. "Definitely."

"Come on Peter, look at the cake. It's huge!" Gwen says excitedly pulling him towards the kitchen.

"wait, I have to go do something first!" Peter lets go of Gwen's hand before running over to Pepper and throwing himself at her. Pepper hugs him back instantly. "Thank you."

"I'm sorry Peter." She apologizes.

"I know." Peter leans in and gives her a kiss on the cheek. "I forgive you though." He jumps down from Pepper's arms and over to the others still standing in the hallway. "All of you." He gives his fathers a quick hug before running back over to Gwen. But halfway there, he abruptly stops and looks back at them. "Hey daddy," Steve looks up at his son when called. "Go get James. I want him to enjoy the party too."

Steve smiles and nods. Peter makes sure he sees Steve begin to walk down the hallway and into the elevator then he turns and runs over to Gwen. "Let's go!" He says excitedly as he runs into the crowd of people all wishing him happy birthday.

Even though the party was 3 days late, Peter enjoyed himself just as much as he would've on his actual birthday. He was surrounded by the people he loved and the people who loved him. Including James.