Peter was walking down the hall keeping his head down and hood up. School had gotten better; Flash Thompson stopped trying to beat him up and most everyone else just left him alone. Which was good because his home life was a mess. Peter had taken any opportunity to avoid everyone in the tower like the plague. He just didn't want the lecture and really what could he tell them? Peter would rather not talk at all then lie.

Gwen brushed up against his side and Peter pulled down his hood and ruffled his hair looking down at his pretty blonde classmate. "Hey."

"Hi."

"How's it going?"

"Where're you headed?" Peter thought about it for a moment.

"Monday B track."

"It's Thursday."

"It's Thursday?" And peter had to do a slight double take. Had it really been four days? He blushed a bit.

"What happened to your eye?"

"What?"

"You're eye it's pretty bruised."

"Oh, oh yeah... no, I don't know." His lying skills were still at less than 0% and well into the negatives.

"It's pretty bad, have you gone to the nurse?"

"Mhmm," Peter nodded Gwen gave him a disbelieving look but decided to drop it something for which Peter was grateful.

"Do you like branzino?" Peter looked a little lost "The fish?"

"Mmmm no, I know." He lied trying to sound not stupid.

"Well if you want" She wrote down her address on a scrap piece of paper. "You can come to this address at uh... at 8:00 tonight, my mom's making branzino." She smiled at him handing over the paper. Peter looked down at it his day brightening "Oh it's apartment 2016 I didn't- I didn't write that part down. I don't know why I didn't" She seemed embarrassed but Peter just smiled.

"I can remember it"

"2016" She reminded him once more nodding and Peter nodded back. He sent a quick text to his dad letting him know he wouldn't be home for dinner tonight. Not that that was anything new.

Steve heard his phone buzz and gave one last powerful punch knocking the bag off it's hanger and into the wall before turning around and picking up his phone. He still wasn't the best with technology so Tony had designed him a what he liked to call 'old person phone' with very basic and easy to understand functions.

Hey, Pops I'm going to a friends house for dinner. Don't wait up.

Steve sighed and sent a quick;

Be careful, have fun.

Natasha thought he and Tony were being too lax with their parenting and she was probably right but he couldn't forget the words the teen had yelled at him 'No you're not.' Peter didn't think of them as his parents and wasn't that cutting. It had hurt Steve to his very core. Maybe Peter had just been angry sure but after that he'd been so distant and Steve was afraid to push anymore for fear of further damaging their relationship with him.

He knew Tony felt much the same. His husband had always assumed he'd be a terrible father and this was especially stressful on the genius billionaire philanthropist.

Despite that fear Steve knew he needed to talk to Peter. To do something… anything… he'd never been good at just sitting around. Perhaps tonight after Peter got home.

One good thing about being Spider-Man was that it was now so much easier to maneuver around the city. He didn't have to worry about taxis or subways and he loved it! Peter dropped onto the fire escape outside Gwen's window and for a moment he just watched her that is until his brain caught up and told him this was kind of creepy and he should probably knock.

She looked up and smiled coming over and opening her window for him. Peter grinned back at her. " Hi. How did you get out there?"

"The fire escape, you're doorman's intimidating." He explained crawling through the window and into her room feeling a little nervous.

"It's 20 stories!"

"Yeah," Peter shrugged as if it was no big deal and for a teen with spider powers it really wasn't.

"Is this your room?"

"Yes, this is my room."

"Whoops?" He shrugged and Gwen laughed so he figured she didn't think he was too much of a freak. "Oh" He remembered something. "Hey I got your mom these…" He pulled of his backpack and pulled out a broken bouquet of flowers.

"Lovely."

"Yeah, they're beautiful right?" He sighed at his failed gift.

"They're beautiful." she reiterated trying to cheer him up.

"They were nice," Peter said flushing and covering his face with what was left of the bouquet.

"No, they're beautiful."

"I'm sorry?"

"No, it's impressive they actually held together very well."

"I'm gonna keep these" He told her throwing the flowers back in his bag.

"Do you have your suit in there?"

"My suit," Peter asked very confusedly. Oh no was he supposed to dress up?! God, he was so bad at this; he should have asked his pops.

"For dinner? Are you gonna wear that? That's umm not-"

"Hey Hon-" Her dad walked in and Gwen turned to look at him and Peter just shuffled awkwardly wincing. This evening was already a disaster. Damn it Parker you are hopeless. "You must be Peter."

"Dad this is Peter." Gwen introduced and Peter was frozen in place for a moment before realizing that he should probably say something. He stepped forward holding out his hand

"Hey, nice to meet you, sir."

"Nice to meet you." He nodded though his face spoke of quite the opposite. "Dinner's ready" He announced to both of them. "I hope you like Branzino."

"Who doesn't?" Peter smiled. Oh, why did Peter do this to himself? He poked at the fish with his knife.

"Oh, you're having trouble there aren't you." Gwen's mom looked slightly amused. "Simon help Gwen's friend with his fish." And dang it this was embarrassing Peter though as the youngest little blond boy helped him cut up the food on his plate with a smile.

"First time?" the little boy asked. Peter looked over the top of his blonde head toward Gwen who smiled at him and mouthing 'Branzino.' making Peter blush in embarrassment.

"George, why don't you tell us about your day?" Mrs. Stacey said to her husband trying to steer the conversation away from a very red faced Peter.

"Oh yeah dad, catch that spider guy yet?"

Peter froze.

"No we didn't catch him yet, but we will." Peter officially had the worst luck. He had to be in love with the one girl in school who's the daughter of the Police captain. "He's an ammature who's assulting civilians in the dead of night. He's clumsy, he leaves clues…" Wait what clues? Peter's mind was in overdrive. "But he's still dangerous." And hey he was not dangerous!

"He's assaulting people?" Peter half stammered he should just keep his mouth shut but come one he couldn't just not defend himself. Captain Stacey was making it out like he was the criminal. "I'm not sure, I mean, I saw that video of him and the car thief and I think that most people would say that he was… providing a public service."

Gwen grimaced looking down at her plate and shaking her head. Crap! Yup Peter definitely should have kept his mouth shut.

"Most people would be wrong." Captain Stacey corrected "If I wanted the car thief off the street he'd already be off the street."

"So why wasn't he then." No, bad Peter, shut up! Why did his mouth refuse to listen to his brain? Captain Stacey leveled a look at Peter that reminded him very much of his dad when he went all Captain America. Gwen laughed awkwardly

"Let me illuminate you, see the car thief was leading us to the people who run the entire operation. It's been a six month long sting, it's called strategy. I'm sure you're aware of the term strategy, you've probably heard about that in school." And ok Peter was starting to get a bit irritated he hated when people talked down to him. His only saving grace was the fact that he felt a bit guilty. So he still needed some practice on this whole crime hunting thing but come on give him some credit for trying to do some good.

"Well, obviously he didn't know you had a plan." Welp, since this dinner was already going horribly, might as well go for the trifecta. His dad always said 'go big or go home'.

"You seem to know an awful lot about this case; you know something that we don;t know I mean who's side are you on here?'

"I'm not anyone's side. I saw a video on the internet-"

"Oh, you saw a video on the internet. Well, then the case is closed."

"Well no, I'm just saying if you watch the video- I can send you a link- it looks like he's really trying to help."

"No don't stop. Yeah sure on the internet he's being made out to look like a masked hero or something"

"No, No I'm not saying he's a hero; I don't think he's a hero at all." Peter would never refer to himself as a Hero. "Captain America, the Hulk, Black Widow. They're all heroes; That's not what Spider-Man is."

"What are you trying to say?"

"I'm saying he's trying to help and he looks like he's trying to do something that maybe the police can't"

"Something the police can't"

"I don't know"

"What do you think we do all day? Do you think we sit around eating donuts with our thumbs planted firmly up our asses."

"No no"

"Dad"

"George."

"Up you're what dad?"

"I think he stands for what you stand for sir. Protecting innocent people from bad guys."

"I stand for law and order son that's what I stand for. Ok, I wear a badge. This guy wears a mask like a.. You know.. Like an outlaw. He's hunting down a bunch of criminals that all look the same like he's got some sort of personal vendetta. But he's not protecting innocent people Mr. Parker."

"The Avenger's wear masks." Peter pointed out.

"The avengers" Captain Stacey scoffed and Peter seethed a bit. "A lot of good they've done. We'd all be better off without any heroes."

"They saved New York."

"And killed a lot of people doing it."

"More would have died without them! The police were out of their depth and New York is licky to have them."

"Let's get some air, Peter." Gwen stood up hoping to alleviate the tension in the room. "Dad we need to talk."

"Yes, we do."

Peter took a deep breath. He looked at Captain Stacey. "Thank you for having me. I'm sorry if I insulted you that was not my intention."

"You're welcome." Captain Stacey replied stiffly.

Peter stood up "The Branzino was real good Mrs. Stacey. Thank you." his dad's had raised him right. He followed Gwen down the hall and out onto the roof.

Gwen sighed. "Well, that was something."

Peter let out a breathy chuckle "I'm sorry, but you know I thought he was going to arrest me at one point."

"Nah. I wouldn't have let him arrest you." Peter leaned over the ledge of the building looking out at the city. "What happened to your face?"

"I want to tell you something" Peter decided to ignore her question and Gwen tilted her head.

"Oh. ok" She waited

Peter opened his mouth then closed it then opened it again and well it didn't exactly come out right. "I've been bitten." He scrunched his face up after the words left his mouth.

Gwen seemed to think it was the right thing to say though because she looked at Peter in a way he'd never imagined that she'd ever look at him and whispered: "So have I."

Not where he was going with that but... "Ok" He said dumbly. No Peter don't get distracted remember the important part of this conversation. "Ok ok ok ok I've gotta tell you this one thing, I've got to tell you this one thing." He repeated more to himself than to her. "And it's about the vigilante and the car thief." Peter rambled knowing this probably wasn't the best way to tell her but he already established that Gwen Stacey made him an idiot just by being near him. "Alright?"

Gwen stepped back. "Oh Ok." And wow Peter felt like an ass.

"No no no- don't- no no! Ok forget about that, I'm not gonna talk about it. I'm gonna talk about me, Ok."

"What about you?"

Peter stuttered more before he was able to form a semi-understandable sentence. "I wish I could just tell you, but I can't" He made a motion as if trying to speak and stopped. "It's hard to say."

"Just say it."

"I don't know."

"Say it," Gwen said again and Peter turned away from her and the blonde got really confused "What?" Peter looked at her and shook his head and Gwen rolled her eyes "Oh forget it." She walked away from him and Peter closed his eyes making a split second decision. He used his webbing to spin her back to him and it was probably the smoothest move he'd ever pulled.

Gwen gaped at him trying to form words she looked up at him in shock but Peter didn't let her speak instead he kissed her and she kissed him back. So maybe this night wasn't a total loss! "You're spider-"

"Shut up." He whispered before kissing her again.

"Gwen." Peter vaguely heard her mother call her but he was too distracted to care until "Gwen!"

Gwen pulled away turning toward her mother and Peter probably had a dumb lovestruck look on his face. "You're father want's you to come inside right away. Ok?"

"Ok yeah," Gwen whispered and Peter turned back to look at the city.

"Gwen?" Her mother urged her along.

"I'm coming." Gwen and Peter looked at each other for a minute and Gwen laughed. Peter made to follow her back in- his Spider sense tingled but not in the normal way. He could feel the difference like it wasn't him in danger but someone else was. And then his hearing picked up the sirens and he turned to look. Gwen looked back at him and Peter moved toward the ledge of the roof looking toward the sound of panic. He didn't even look back before jumping over the edge.