Chapter Three: In Which Peter Discovers More About Himself and Learns To Cook

It was one of the rare normal days in the Stark-Rogers household. Steve came home earlier than usual, leaving the patrolling up to the younger Avengers for the night. "It's an assessment of their abilities," he said. "They'll call if they need help. What's for dinner?"

"What's for dinner?" Tony stared at his husband incredulously. "What do you mean, what's for dinner? You tell us what's for dinner."

"I'm the only one with a full-time job. You make dinner," Steve argued as he unbuckled his belt and pulled off his boots.

"Right, but let's be honest here. I'm the real breadwinner," Tony pointed out. Peter felt his heart sink as he saw where this was going.

"Fine. Peter, you make dinner," said Steve, hanging up his shield. His son pursed his lips and stood up.

"All right, you guys asked for it. Peanut butter and jelly for dinner it is." As he walked around the kitchen island towards the fridge, he sang out, "It's not my fault my parents are too busy avenging the earth to teach me how to cook. I have no real life skills, but luckily I know how to spot Kree technology. Welcome to life in Stark Tower."

Behind him, he could feel his dads exchanging glances. In his triumph, he nearly ripped the refrigerator door off, but he caught himself halfway and quickly closed it before it could come off completely. Neither of the two had seen it, so he quickly moved to the condiment cabinets. They were located above the stove on the very top shelf, and the tips of his fingers scraped maddeningly on the bottom of the peanut butter jar. Frustrated, he jumped onto the counter and-

-found that Steve had pulled the jar off of the shelf for him. "You can get down now," he said, handing it over. "For future reference, the kitchen counter is not a gymnasium. You can always ask me to get something down for you."

"Yeah... Thanks, haha." He rubbed the back of neck uneasily and glanced at the fridge. "Or maybe you guys could teach me how to cook. Or something. You know."

Again with the exchanging glances. Steve cocked his head slightly, some strange emotion growing in his eyes as he looked at Peter. It was the same look he had given him when Tony had told him about their earlier outing to the playground. Peter could write HTML and derive algorithms and read binary, but he couldn't for the life of him figure out what was going on in his own father's head.

"Sure." Steve smiled. "We can make burgers. Everyone loves burgers."

"It's the all-American food," said Tony with a click of the tongue. "Did your Pops ever tell you about the time he was almost in a hamburger commercial? They brought back the Rockettes for him and everything. It was going to be spectacular, but for whatever reason he decided not to do it."

"We don't talk about that," Steve said, cheeks reddening. He opened the fridge, and the door fell clean off.

For a couple of heartbeats, the three of them simply gaped.

Then Peter snickered, and Tony snorted, and then they burst into laughter. Steve looked helplessly from one to the other, then down at the fridge door still in his hand, his face comic in its consternation.

"He looks so confused," Tony gasped, wiping at streaming eyes.

"Is this a prank?" Steve demanded.

"Yeah, Pops, we removed the fridge door as a prank," Peter answered, taking the door from his father's hands and propping it up against a counter. "A bit wound-up, huh?"

"This has never happened to me before," said Steve, sending the other two into gales of laughter once again.

"I can fix it," Tony said confidently. "You two get on those burgers. I'll be hungry by the time I'm done with this."

Tony took to the fridge with his toolbox and a welder, and Steve carried the frozen burgers to the grill they kept outside on the roof. For a moment, the two of them stood there, looking out over the warm, steady lamplight of apartment buildings, the fluorescent uniformity of nearby office blocks, and the somehow sinister blinking red lights at the end of the rods that topped the skyscrapers. "Are you cold?" Steve asked as he turned on the grill.

"Nah, I'm good." Peter tore open the package of hamburgers, and then something very strange happened.

He found it stuck to his hands.

It was as though someone had put superglue on the hamburger package, but Peter knew better than that. Tony hadn't had nearly enough time or warning. Besides, there was no sign of the adhesive. No, the plastic was simply stuck to Peter's skin.

He struggled mutely with it as Steve doddered obliviously over the grill. "Pay attention, Peter," he said without turning around. "Hand me the burgers, will you?"

Panic mode kicked in, and Peter flailed frantically until the package dropped to the deck and Steve turned around. "What the hell are you doing?" he demanded.

"Uh, sorry, Pops," Peter grinned sheepishly and picked up the hamburgers. "Here you go." One by one, Steve took the spatula and flipped them onto the grill, and the way they sizzled practically made Peter salivate. He didn't think he'd ever been so hungry in his life.

"Right, that's that," said Tony, ambling out onto the roof. "Tony Stark, saving the day as per usual. What've we got here, then?" He came up behind Steve and wrapped his arms around his waist, standing on his tiptoes to try and see over the taller man's shoulder. Peter escaped unnoticed and ran into his room. He was back in a few seconds, a camera in his hands, and he made sure to capture the moment on film. Steve caught sight of him and blushed, but Tony distracted him with a kiss, and the flash went off once again.

It wasn't until later that night, when Peter was sure that both of his parents were asleep, that he made his way down the stairs towards the training center on the floor below. Here was a room without the signature panoramic windows of Stark Tower. It was large and wood paneled, and in its center was a boxing ring. A row of punching bags hung at the other end of the room, and racks of weights lined the walls.

This was where Steve went when he couldn't fall asleep at night. This was where Tony went when he needed to blow off steam. And on a few rare occasions, this was where Peter went when he needed to hide the bruises from his dads. It was completely soundproof. He could scream until his throat was sandpaper and no one would hear him.

In short, it was a sanctuary.

They had a collection of punching bags, because of Steve's tendency to go through them like disposable napkins. Peter looked down at his hands, and then at the thick leather. Cocking his fist back, he laid into the punching bag with a kind of ferocity his body had never been able to express before. Every trip in the hallway- every stolen dollar bill- every cruel taunt- every blow to the back, kick to the chest, strike to the jaw, punch to the face- ! It only took a couple dozen hits to knock the punching bag right off its chain. Without pause, Peter moved to the next one. And the next one. And the next one.

Then he righted them all again, because really, who needed their parents asking questions? Not him. Then he'd have to explain how he was suddenly the teenage equivalent of Captain America.

It came instinctively to him. He could feel his acrobatic repertoire in his muscles. Matrix-style backbends and flips, faster-than-a-speeding-bullet reflexes and sticky finger to boot- it was exhilarating.

It was a secret.

There was no telling how his parents would react. Here was his greatest dream coming true, and he couldn't tell the two people he cared about most.

Now all he needed was to learn how to fly, and he had a feeling that he knew just how to do it.