Peter was completely quiet on the drive over to the Facility, which he could tell was freaking Happy out. Peter always had something to say in the past. It had once driven Happy insane, but he preferred it to the anxious aura emanating from the teenager now. Happy could see that Peter's leg was bouncing from the mirror and noticed that he had his headphones on. That was definitely a deviation from Peter's typical behavior.

Unable to stand the silence, Happy raised his hand to get Peter's attention. Peter slipped off the headphones.

"How are you holding up? I saw what you did today on the news," Happy said, making eye contact with Peter through the rear view mirror.

"I'm just glad that none of my friends were hurt," Peter said simply, but his leg was still bouncing.

"You're about to meet up with a bunch of soldiers, spies, and geniuses. You're going to need to lie more convincingly than that," Happy said as he pulled up in front of the Facility.

"I know. Thanks, Happy," Peter said softly. He quickly got out of the car so the man wouldn't have a chance to ask any more questions.

"Hello, Mr. Parker. It's nice to see you again," F.R.I.D.A.Y. said as soon as he stepped through the door.

"Hey, F.R.I.D.A.Y. Where's everyone at?" Peter asked, his footsteps echoing in the empty room. The only illumination came from the moonlight streaming in through the floor to ceiling windows.

"All of the Avengers are gathered in the common room. Would you like to go there?"

"Yes, please," he said, stepping into the elevator.

This was a bad idea. He had stayed away for a reason, but after one phone call, he had thrown all caution to the wind. Just this morning he was determined that he needed more time to recover yet he was seconds away from seeing them again. He missed Tony, though. He wanted to see the man that was practically his father even if they'd all be too worried about him to remember that he came for his suit. They'd notice everything right away, assuming Natasha and Clint hadn't already told them. They had ample time to notice everything wrong with him on the rooftop and on the car ride back to his apartment.

"Your heart rate is spiking. Are you alright?" F.R.I.D.A.Y. asked, pulling him back into reality.

"No, I'm not," he sighed as the doors slid open.

In an impressive show of self-restraint, they didn't all jump him at once. Tony, Steve, and Natasha came over to him, but everyone else stayed seated and watched them with careful gazes.

"Pauk," Natasha said as she gave him a brief hug. "May didn't bite your head off, did she?"

"No, she was very reasonable for once," he assured her. "She did ask that you don't drive me home in one of Tony's cars in the future since we're already getting pestered by reporters. You practically led them to my front door."

She smirked. "You're the one who wanted the ride home."

Tony rolled his eyes. "Move aside, Romanoff. Some of us haven't seen him yet."

"He's not much to look at right now," Natasha remarked before sauntering off. Peter winced. Of course she had noticed. It was impossible to trick the Black Widow.

Tony eyed him up as Peter shifted uncomfortably. He knew that the dark circles under his eyes were more pronounced than ever, that he hadn't even bothered to brush his hair that morning, that he was pale, and had clearly lost weight. He knew that he was a wreck. He just hoped that it wouldn't upset Tony too much.

"You look like crap," Tony said flatly.

Peter let out a soft, choked laugh. "I feel like crap."

"May said that you were doing okay," Steve said, obviously dismayed.

"May is easy to trick. I don't want to worry her," Peter said, looking up at Tony with pleading eyes.

"You know I won't tell her if you don't want me to," Tony said, running a hand through his short hair in frustration. "God, kid. Are you even sleeping?"

"Not nearly as much as I should be," Peter said honestly.

"Shit. F.R.I.D.A.Y., wake up the kitchen. You get to see everyone after you get food," Tony said, guiding Peter back into the elevator.

"Do I at least get my suit back?"

"Smartass."

"How have you been functioning?" Tony demanded as he watched Peter pull on the suit. With his shirt off, it was even more evident that he had lost weight.

"May wrote me an excuse for P.E. so I haven't done anything physical since the mission. I've been getting two to four hours of sleep every night. The rest has been coffee and determination," he explained. "I have to admit, I did miss Karen."

"Getting attached to AIs is dangerous," Tony warned.

"You're not turning Karen into an android with an infinity stone in its forehead, are you?" Peter asked jokingly.

"Watch the attitude. You're lucky that I'm protecting you from all of the mother hens upstairs."

"Why are you? You're normally more frantic, but you're taking all of this really well," Peter said as he tested out the Web-Shooters.

"Kid, I've been in worse shape than you, and no matter how much Rhodey and Pepper tried to help me, I didn't get better. I had to go at my own pace, and so do you. No one expects you to suddenly perk up one day and be totally fine."

Peter smiled wistfully. "That'd be nice."

"Yeah, it would, but it's impossible. It's the little things that tell you that you're getting better."

"Like what?"

Tony sighed. "Hell, I don't know. Eating three meals a day, showering consistently, sleeping through the night, going out of the house voluntarily. Once you start doing the things you did easily before, you know you're getting better."

Definitely not there yet, Peter thought as he pulled off the suit. They fell into a companionable silence.

"Tony," Peter began to say. Tony looked over at the kid. Peter swallowed before saying, "About today-"

Tony held up a hand, stopping the kid. "I know you're not ready yet. Taking the suit doesn't mean that you'll have to go on missions with us again."

Peter nodded, relieved. He had really missed Tony. Despite his appalling social skills, Tony always knew exactly what to say to make Peter feel better.

"So how are you holding up? I mean, did fighting earlier trigger anything?" Tony asked awkwardly.

Peter shrugged. "I was freaked out at first, but I'm fine now. It's hand to hand that worries me, not the Web-Shooters. These were specifically designed to be nonlethal."

"That's good. Romanoff and Barton were really worried about you. They know what fighting as a teenager can do to people."

Peter heard an edge to Tony's voice that he didn't entirely understand. Was he mad at Clint and Natasha or was he mad at Peter for fighting?

"You shouldn't of had to fight today. Romanoff should have evacuated you alongside everyone else," Tony sad, not looking at Peter as he spoke. Instead, he focused on pulling up holograms of the nanotechnology he was developing.

"Tasha didn't make me fight. I could have left if I wanted to," Peter protested.

"Let me rephrase. They shouldn't have given you an option. Aside from the Web-Shooters, you were defenseless. I know that you don't regret fighting today, but that was reckless."

"I know," Peter said quietly.

"I'm not trying to scold you, it's them who I blame. Do you know how many press conferences Pepper wants me to do to gush about my heroic intern? I'm tempted to reveal your identity just so that they'll all go to you instead of me," Tony grumbled.

"I won't have to do any, right?" Peter asked.

"Hell no. I'm upset, but not upset enough to feed you to the wolves. In fact, keep your head down around school. Your classmates are going to be asking you a lot of questions for the next few weeks that you can't answer. Lie your ass off, make stuff up, just ignore them entirely if you can."

Peter shifted uneasily. "They saw me talking to Tasha. That's going to be hard to dismiss."

"How do you even get in these kinds of situations?" Tony exclaimed.

"Like you're one to talk," Peter retorted.

Tony had no comeback for that. He deserved an award for how many crappy and downright absurd situations he'd gotten himself into.

"Just tell them that you met her while you were fixing her Widow Stings or something like that. They already know that you know me, so knowing Black Widow isn't that much of a stretch," Tony said airily. "Just try to lie convincingly. You suck at it."

"Thanks," Peter said sarcastically with an impressive eye roll, followed by an equally impressive yawn.

"You know that you're welcome to spend the night," Tony said gently. "I can call May."

"What does it matter? I'm barely going to sleep either way," Peter said in resignation.

Tony scrutinized Peter for a minute before pulling out his phone.

"Hi, May. No, he's fine. Yes, I swear this isn't an emergency. Yes, he has the suit," Tony said patiently as Peter looked on incredulously. "I understand that Peter has school tomorrow, but I think that he should stay the night. It's getting late and he really should get some sleep. Of course he'll have a ride to school in the morning, I have a flock of bored superheroes just sitting around all day and leeching off my generosity. This will help them feel like they have a purpose in life. Excellent, thank you." Tony tossed his phone on the table and smirked at Peter. "I think she's warming up to me."

"I think that becoming numb to your craziness would be more accurate," Peter mumbled.

"Okay, Spiderling, off to bed," Tony said, making a shooing motion. "You need rest, and I need to tinker with my nanobots."

Peter stood up and headed over to the elevator, patting Dum-E on his way out. Just before the doors shut, Tony called out to him.

"If things get bad, tell F.R.I.D.A.Y. to send me up. No excuses about not wanting to bother me, you and I both know that I rarely sleep at night."

Peter nodded as the doors shut.

Peter had once thought that his powers were a miracle, but he was quickly discovering that was as far from the truth as possible. His near perfect memory meant that his dreams were disturbingly accurate. That night was no exception.

The cement building shuddered with every single step he took as a light rain of dust wafted down from the ceiling. He was short of breath from running down the seemingly endless hallway for so long, but he knew that he couldn't stop or else something terrible would happen. The harsh yellow lights flickered on one after another as he passed them, only a looming darkness ahead of him.

He could hear distant sounds of fighting, gunfire, screams, and Tony's repulsors, but couldn't place where it was coming from. Maybe it was all around him. Either way, it didn't reach him. He just kept running into the dark.

And then everything changed. Tony was next to him, out of his Iron Man suit, just like he had been in reality. The hairs on the back of his neck rose as the HYDRA agent barreled around the corner, his gun raised and his finger curling around the trigger.

Peter didn't hesitate. He threw himself in front of the gun and sighed in relief as the bullet pierced his forehead.

Peter stumbled out of bed, the feeling of the bullet and the blood still haunting him. He barely made it to the toilet before he emptied the contents of his stomach out, just like he did after every nightmare.

It didn't take long to clean himself up again (he'd been getting plenty of practice), and thankfully F.R.I.D.A.Y. seemed to realize the best thing that she could do was leave him alone. He frowned as he realized how prominent his rib cage was getting and decided to go down to the living room to get some snacks or maybe watch some TV. That always helped to tire him out.

Peter liked how quiet the Facility was at night. Even if he knew Tony was still awake in the labs and that there had to be at least one other Avenger awake due to PTSD and paranoia, the quietness of the Facility made it seem less like an impersonal building and more like a home. It also helped that the reduced stimuli meant that he didn't need his headphones.

As Peter headed into the living room, he realized he wasn't alone. The TV's volume was on so low that a normal human wouldn't be able to hear it, and the brightness setting was on as dim as possible. From that alone, he could tell that it was either Steve or Bucky. They were the only ones that could hear and see at that level.

"Hey, Peter," Bucky said, sitting up from his spot on the couch. Bucky was careful to keep his voice low.

"Hi," he said a bit hoarsely. He had just woken up, to be fair. "Couldn't sleep either?"

"Actually, I got shot in the leg today," Bucky said way too casually. "Painkillers wear off too fast to be effective so I decided to stay up while my healing factor finishes its work."

Peter blinked. He had been so messed up earlier that he hadn't bother to check if anyone had been hurt. He had assumed that Natasha and Clint would have told him when they took him home.

"So why couldn't you sleep? Nightmares about death?" Bucky asked, laughing a bit darkly. "You know F.R.I.D.A.Y. told Stark the second you woke up, right?"

"I know," Peter said quietly.

"They get better over time. The nightmares," Bucky said. Peter noticed that he was fiddling with a small pocket knife. Bucky was unparalleled in paranoia among the Avengers, which no one could blame him for. "It might not seem like it now, but they do."

"Does anything help?"

"People help. Talking to Stark is a good start. I'm not sure if he told you, but he programmed F.R.I.D.A.Y. to tell Steve and I if either of us have a bad night. It helps."

"I'm not ready to talk about it anymore than I already have," Peter said decisively. "Do you mind if I join you?"

"Sure, but grab a snack first. You look like you need it," Bucky said, grinning faintly.

Almost without realizing it, Peter grinned back.