After getting permission to go to the Facility and spend the night if the need arose from May, Peter called Happy. The man arrived suspiciously fast, but Peter was too lost in his own mind to dwell on that. As much as he longed to put on his suit and forget why he'd taken it off in the first place, he couldn't. Every single night he dreamt of being in that base again. The agent always rounded that corner, gun raised. Who died varied. Sometimes the agent succeeded in killing Tony, or Peter put himself in the path of the bullet. More often than not, it ended with Peter slamming the agent into the ground and blood pooling around his broken body. He couldn't decide which version was worse.

F.R.I.D.A.Y. told him that all of the Avengers were already in the training room when he arrived, including Wanda, Vision, and Bruce. Apparently Wanda and Vision had returned from their trip to who knows where. As for why Bruce was in the training room, he had no idea. It's not like the Hulk needed to train. With the exception of Tony and Thor, no one stood a chance at stopping the Hulk.

Peter made his way down to his personal "locker" room. It had showers, water bottles, protein bars, towels, deodorant, changes of clothes, spare Web-Shooters, and whatever else he might need before and after training. It was like his high school locker room on steroids. Every Avenger had one and Tony made sure it was stocked appropriately for their needs.

Peter shrugged off his clothes and stepped into his suit, only keeping the mask off. Tony and Rhodey were the only ones who wore protective headgear when training (although one could argue that Clint and Natasha should wear more protective gear considering that they were only ordinary humans). After taking a deep, steadying breath to slow down his racing heartbeat, Peter entered the training room.

Peter never knew what to expect to see in the training room. Depending on who was training and whatever contraptions Tony had rigged up to help them, the room could be dead quiet or obscenely loud. When Wanda trained, he knew he needed to focus extra hard to not grow distracted by the light of her magic. If anyone was working on their aim, he had to tune out gunfire. In short, he was expecting a lot of things to happen when he came in, but finding everyone huddled around the window as Sam and Rhodey raced in the sky was not one of them.

"Whose winning?" Peter asked as he made his way over to Tony's side.

"Rhodey. I just amped up his thrusters so I'd be pissed if he wasn't," Tony said, tearing his eyes away from the race. "How have things been at school?"

Peter grinned sheepishly and rubbed the back of his neck. "I didn't go to school yesterday. I knew everyone would be bothering me about Flash's video, so May and I just stayed home. Ned brought me my homework."

"Not the best way you could have dealt with that, but nothing Pepper can't cover up. She's a miracle. I'm horrible at dealing with the press," Tony said.

"Have you talked to her about taking me to a Stark Industries event?" Peter asked, half hoping that he'd say no. He wasn't sure how much more he could handle.

"Yeah. I was on top of things for once. There's a big charity gala we're hosting in a week. It'd make sense for my intern to be there. Sound good?"

"I guess. What would I have to do?"

"Not a clue. You know I only do what Pepper tells me to. You can ask her yourself after we're done training," Tony said as Sam and Rhodey flew back into the room.

"Pepper's here?"

All of the other Avengers drifted away from the window to either resume training or talk to Sam and Rhodey. Only Tony and Peter stayed where they were, still looking out at the Facility's grounds.

"Pepper practically runs this joint. She had to come back sometime," Tony teased.

"She's been here a few times in the last few weeks and I've missed her every time. How mad is she going to be?" Peter asked, staring out at the perfectly manicured lawns.

"Pepper will only yell at you until she notices how skinny you are. Then she'll turn all sweet and insist on getting you food while asking about everything that's happened in your life since she last saw you. Have fun," Tony said.

"You're not helping," Peter complained.

Tony gave him an exasperated look. "You don't fear Pepper enough."

"Of course I don't. She loves me," Peter said smugly.

"Enough about my wife. You're here for a reason. What did you want to train with? I can set up the cityscape if you want to start easy," Tony offered.

Peter shook his head. "If I wanted to swing around, I would have gone on patrol."

"So what do you want to do?" Tony asked.

"I want to learn to control my strength," Peter said softly.

"Peter, if this is about what happened, I'm not sure you're ready. Normally I'd be fine with you learning that, but you're not in a good state of mind."

"Maybe I'm not, but I need to learn this." Seeing that Tony was still uncertain, Peter begged, "Please, Tony."

Tony groaned. "Give me a minute to talk to the others. I'm not good at adulting."

Peter nodded gratefully. Tony let out a loud sigh and walked over to where the others were still chatting with Rhodey and Sam. Tony was careful to talk quietly, as were the others, but Peter was able to make out most of what they were saying. They all seemed concerned about Peter jumping right back into training, but Tony had agreed to it, so they had no choice but to follow his lead. Everyone had unanimously decided upon first meeting Peter that he was the equivalent of Tony's son. As such, they usually let Tony make the calls about their youngest team member.

After a few minutes, the Avengers dispersed. Most spread out throughout the room to begin training, but Natasha and Tony headed back towards Peter. He tried not to fidget as they drew closer. Not that it mattered much because both of them could read his body language and face like an open book. Everyone frequently told him that he'd be the world's worst spy.

"The jury reached a verdict," Tony said. "Romanoff is going to help you out. Are you still experiencing that sensitivity?"

Peter nodded. It hadn't faded at all.

"Do you mind training in a different room with less distractions?" Tony continued.

"Not at all," Peter said, relieved. Just listening to Tony was hard when the other Avengers were making such a racket.

"Great. Romanoff, he's all yours," Tony said, heading over to Rhodey.

Natasha smirked at him. "Hey, pauk. You're looking better.

"Thanks," Peter said softly. She had a glint in her eyes that reminded him of a spider watching a fly struggle to escape its web. It was unnerving, to say the least.

"This way," she said sharply, heading towards the north hallway.

Peter followed her silently, the weight of the Avengers gazes resting on his back. Natasha walked quickly, her scarlet locks bouncing with every step. She led him down a long hallway that he hadn't seen before and stopped in front of a plain door.

"Not a word about this room to the others," Natasha warned.

Once Peter nodded in agreement, Natasha opened the door and let him in. It was a wide room with pale blue walls mostly covered by mirrors, and the floor was covered in a black mat designed for dancing. Ballet bars were lined up against the walls.

"I didn't know you danced," Peter said carefully, fully aware that she kept her secrets for very good reasons. He had glanced over her file that she released when S.H.I.E.L.D. fell and shut it only after reading a few paragraphs. The things they had done to Natasha as a child were the very definition of cruel and unusual punishments. Whatever background she had with dancing was undoubtedly entangled with the bloody history of the Red Room.

"Only Stark and Clint know about this room. I don't like to advertise this side of me," Natasha said.

"I won't tell anyone," he promised.

She shrugged. "Ask away, pauk. I can tell that you have questions."

Peter hesitated before saying, "If you're supposed to help me control my strength, why are we in your dance studio? And why are you the one training me if you aren't enhanced?"

"Because learning to control your strength is a purely mental exercise. Rogers and Barnes may have super strength like you, but they never needed to control it and therefore are of no use to you. Ever since they gained it, they've been at war or on missions," Natasha explained.

Peter nodded, but remained worried. Natasha was remarkably resilient for a regular human, but she was still as fragile as an eggshell compared to his strength. Weren't they worried that he'd hurt her?

"Pauk, I swear to God, you're the most stressed out tiny human that I've ever met," Natasha complained. "You don't have to worry about hurting me. I'm not going to do hand to hand combat with you at any point during this. That would just give you a panic attack. Sit down. We need to talk before we start."

Natasha sat down with her legs crossed. Peter sat down across from her, trying to keep his face blank. She was already reading into him too much for his liking.

"I'm assuming you want to do this because you killed a man. Is that correct?" Natasha asked bluntly.

With anyone else, that sort of question would set him on edge, but it was actually a reassurance from Natasha. When she was trying to manipulate people into revealing more than they intend to, she emulates different personas to gain their trust and get them talking. He'd seen her at work and she never addressed her prey in such a straightforward way because that would show her hand. Her bluntness with her teammates showed her good intentions.

"Yeah, but it's not just that. I can barely keep my enhancements hidden from my friends, and I'm really not ready for anyone else to know my secret identity. I want to be in control to stop either of those from happening again," Peter explained, tapping his finger against the floor nervously.

"Valid reasons," she said. "So when you say you want to be able to control your strength, do you mean hide it from others or control it in a fight?"

"Control it in a fight," he said quickly. "That man wouldn't of died if I hadn't slammed into him so hard. I need to be able to reign in my strength."

"You have a lot of guilt for an accidental kill." Seeing how stupefied he looked, she clarified, "That's a good thing. You still have a conscious. Not everyone does after a kill."

"Did you?" He wanted to take the words back the second he said them. No one talked about Natasha's past.

She didn't seem offended, though. Instead of lashing out or retreating into herself, she said, "I didn't have a conscious until I met Clint. It wasn't an acceptable size until I became an Avenger."

"So how are you going to help me if we're not going to fight?" Peter asked after a brief silence.

"I have ideas, though I'm going to need Stark's help to rig it up. We can't start anything today. I want to teach you something else that you'll need as long as your sensitivity continues."

"What's that?"

"Sign language."

An hour later, F.R.I.D.A.Y. interrupted their session to say that the rest of the Avengers had headed upstairs to get lunch. Simce Natasha had burned off a lot of calories training earlier and Peter was still barely eating, Natasha decided that they should join their team.

None of the other Avengers knew what Natasha had planned for her time with Peter, so they didn't know what to expect for when the two arrived. Most pictured them sweaty and frustrated from fighting, maybe a dimness in Peter's eyes. That's why they were all pleasantly surprised when the elevator doors slid open, revealing the two laughing as Natasha clumsily corrected Peter's finger positioning.

"No, it needs to point up more," Natasha said, trying to stop laughing long enough to help him.

"What, like this?" Peter asked, trying to copy what she was doing.

"Only do that if you want to get punched, kid," Clint called out. "Tasha, you're an appalling teacher."

Natasha merely flipped him off on her way over to the boxes of pizza stacked on the dining room table that Peter had never seen them actually sit down and eat at. He began to follow her until he noticed a certain blonde sitting next to Tony.

Peter slipped off his headphones and all but ran over to Pepper. She set her wine down and stood up just in time for Peter to nearly topple her with the force of his hug.

"How touching," Tony said with an eye roll as his wife and near-son hugged. "Why aren't either of you ever that excited to see me?"

"Peter's cuter than you," Pepper informed him.

"And Pepper's nicer than you," Peter quipped.

The two drew apart and Pepper ruffled his curls affectionately. She quickly looked him up and down to make sure that he was alright. Peter knew Tony kept her updated on his situation.

"It's good to see you again, sweetie," Pepper said, her gaze warm. "Though it looks like I'll be seeing more off you now that you'll actually have to act like an intern."

"Yeah. Have you chosen anything yet?" Peter asked, raking a hand through his hair.

"There's a charity ball in a week. You would just need to wear a suit, have your picture taken, maybe take an interview or two, and then follow Tony and I around for the rest of the night. Easy enough?" Pepper asked.

"Sounds perfect. I won't have to miss any school, will I?"

"None at all. I already talked to May about this and she's fine with it," she assured him. "Now go get some food. Don't think I didn't notice that you lost weight."

Peter nodded and went over to the pizza. He only wanted to grab two slices but since they'd seen him consume whole pizzas before, he settled for three. The scolding he would get if he didn't wasn't worth it. Peter nestled in between Pepper and Tony on the couch.

"So what's up with the sign language?" Tony asked.

"If he's going to wear his headphones everywhere, we need to be able to communicate with him," Natasha replied.

"How'd he do?" Steve asked, clearly worried about Peter's mental state.

Natasha smiled at her little spider. "He did good."